Boat Trolls planning thread! (full of spoilers, non-players enter at your own risk)

oh also no one means to work bel to death, they just don't know how long he's been awake or working. it'd be expected that you'd pull very long and exhausting shifts on the sunslammer, just out of the necessity for everyone to work as much as they can, but they'd definitely assume that you'd fuck off when you needed to. if bel doesn't say he's worn-out and needs rest, he's just going to keep getting new tasks piled on.

 

he may not notice for a long ass time that's how things work. it's exactly the sort of thing he would not pick up on. fortunately, he's not afraid to just ask.

or get distracted by a broken roomba. that is also an option.

 

SO VERY WEIRD

 

chance is from the zero sum, and closer to a baseline normally socialized adult than the friendly long-term sunslammer guys, or the traumatized cathedral transfers. so she's a pushy, automatically belligerent lady who's currently getting a real kick out of throwing her weight around with her very own subordinate blueblood. finding out that the sunslammer mid and lowbloods not only vastly outnumber their superior blues, the captain is himself extremely suspicious of their shit, has made the last couple months a really good time for her.

she's not going to be any meaner than is normal for trolls, i think, she's just enjoying herself... and kind of hoping bel will push back, so she can really stomp on him.

 

adults are scary! bel will never ever admit that.

 

you know this is going to make bel even more of a stone cold badass when he gets back home. like if he's ever face to face with an adult, after a week of living with them, he's not gonna have any flinch instincts left.

 

he fully expects to get punched for that

 

haha i'm really happy about how that turned out. now i must go sleep! thank you for suggesting rp, it was a good idea.

 

in case you didn't know, space has been described as smelling like an extremely burnt barbecue, according to astronauts who have sniffed their suits and tools and stuff after they get back inside from space walks. it makes sense when you consider how much burnt metal and silicates there are up there.

right now, the hangar smells like even more burnt metal and silicates, because that is what they're doing. it is probably a rough sensory experience. as fun as asteroid mining is for me to write about, it's got to be a whole lot less fun to do for four or five hours, so i expect that poor bel is extremely overloaded. maybe in the same way battles are for him? he's not under attack, but it's super loud and busy and crowded and it IS a dangerous situation he could die in if he fucks up.

 

also i have decided that there's a tradition. whoever's around to chop the last bit of asteroid up to about fist-sized gets to keep the last fist-sized bit. it is their pet rock now that it's been properly 'sheared'. googly eyes are glued on and the pet rock is taken home to their hive to be displayed proudly somewhere. heinsz has a whole shelf. erskin has two and would very much like a third.

 

erskin is actually a really good boyfriend

i mean he's full of shenans but also just a really good guy

 

i bet it's going to be so weird for bel to be like— consistently taken care of. like he's not at the top of his social group/command structure here. erskin is, and a whole lot of other bosses and managers still outrank bel. to an extent bel is supposed to look out for himself, but erskin is going to be persistently checking in on him. maybe he'll manage to find something to enjoy about it by the end of the week.

though i guess an erskin who's extremely emotionally stable, mature, experienced, and confident is more bittersweet than anything, compared to the nervy wreck bel's going to have to go back to wrangling.

 

that being said, older erskin's anxieties about losing his friends and lovers are not going to play well with bel's pride and independence. he's really going to be missing HIS bel in a couple days...

 

so many emotions! it's probably good bel has a panic friend to look after. keeps him from focusing on his own troubles.

 

it is panic friends all the way down...

 

is bel ever going to enjoy being treated like he's small and cute? i don't know if it would be funnier if yes or no.

 

he completely doesn't comprehend it. he's sort of looking at it like a weird habit heinsz has, and doesn't grok that it's specific to him.

 

would you be up for playing pancho too? because i would LOVE to see pancho's reaction to small, disheveled, dimensionally-displaced bel who maybe needs a hug and a bath.

 

interesting thought for the night: the original universe bel and erskin met up in, as troll adolescents, is actually kind of the darkest universe for them. like it's the one their relationship is the most fragile and contentious? but they're still making it work. that's pretty cute.

edit: no, wait, the one where they're human teens sucks more, they actually break up disastrously and repeatedly for like a decade, don't they? that's pretty bad.

 

yeah, and human bel's not really poly at all, so the best they can hope for is to glue the remains of their relationship into some semblance of a friendship.

which would still be an appealing direction to take, imo; friendship is underrated in fiction.