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

Ok also just to rly clarify, the issues Arguus references are, in full:

He misses his lusus but considers it to be directly his fault that he lost him, so he feels he isn't allowed to feel anything but shame about it.

He is obviously stressed out and unnerved by his depth of feeling for Bel-- he's used to casual romps, so this unignorable, deadly serious intrest is new and weird and really scary. In his own unhealthy way he's rigidly self-disciplined.

The scrambled mess of bioware and flesh in his leg stump and hip has been deteriorating over the sweeps rather than healing, and the medical treatments so far have only been able to slow it. This is terrifying. Erskin is probably one good sneeze away from a raging hysterical freak-out about this at most times.

The new trolls coming aboard are another set of things to fret about. He's used to dealing with one or two new crewmembers at a time, plus one or two docked crews. The entertainment renters are a new gang of dangerous strangers and he doesnt know how to handle them yet, where they fit in to his responsibilities.

He is genuinely fucked up over the disgusting horrorshows they find in some helmsblocks and his ability to effect widespread change. I see this as kind of, hm, 19th century horses? They're hugely powerful but considered to be animals at best, living machines to more generally. Some are treated well, valued, and work with their masters as enthusiastic partners. Most are blindered and beaten. The sentiment of the times is that respect comes from violent control, no resistance for any reason is to be tolerated, and 'breaking' their 'spirits' is how best to safely control them. Some people still treat their horses like this today and I personally hope each of them gets kicked in the head.

Admiral Wavebane has sent a clear message that s/he is pissed. This is terrifying, but also he despises Wavebane so it's enraging, too.

He feels that all this is variously his fault, so he's got to deal with it on his own, or basically unsolvable, so there's no point in stressing anyone else about it. Sometimes both those at once!

In conclusion do not grab an isolated, uneducated 20 year old and make him be a warprince.

 

btw jesse, if you don't wanna do the bel+ murfey scene, maybe erskin could come by the next day for some kind of routine medical check-up on his leg, and be extremely stiff and bitchy because wow he doesn't want this to be happening in front of bel WOW.

i'm pretty sure 'observing one's black crush in a state of physical distress' is like, the troll trope equivalent of 'help i'm trapped somewhere in view of a hot girl having a bath'.

 

maybe you could have pancho tell him to shape up, or bel be on tranquilizers, or something? but yeah if you're not having fun, don't do the thing.

ETA: or we could have erskin and murfey pal around a bit more? he seems a cheerful kinda guy.

 

i really like that! let's do that. and then he gets on top of a cautiously optomistic mood to see erskin snarl and hiss and snap while his leg gets poked at, as well as squirm in sulky disgruntlement that bel is watching. good day 2x combo.

 

gotcha, i'll go

 

OOOOOOOHHHH

D:<

 

"Pancho had somehow wrangled permission to bring the whole fluffy circus on deployment as 'therapy animals' for her patients, many of whom had lost their lusii, or whose lusii were injured right alongside them and couldn't be cuddled."​

Ok so also I love this and I hope a lot of the fluffy circus gets rehomed when the babies find a troll to parent. Otherwise I think Pancho would be up to her ears in fluffs pretty quick! But the idea of sad orphan warriors getting adopted by tiny baby parents is incredibly cute.

 

i hope this happens too

ETA: anyone on the green-to-violet spectrum would be in danger of this happening to them.

 

aww jeez, sorry dude!

also yeah, i think i might have written us into an angst corner— should I back up?

erskin snapped there because own side consigned him to a stupid early death and then got irritated when it didn't take, and has been dicking him around for sweeps. so he heard this as bel being like 'you just do whatever the hell you want' when really his life is one long negotiation between what he wants and what's expected of him and what, as far as he can figure out, the trolls he's responsible for actually need from him.

anyway i'm starting to think i've made an impossible-to-understand-or-relate to character, especially for someone like bel. erskin's a jittery, stressed-out, vulnerable wreck on the inside, but fronting at being totally fine and chipper to the point of outright lying on the outside. i should dial this back in one direction or another but i'm not sure how.

what would be fun/interesting/constructive for you?

 

hmm, i think i'm gonna delete and repost so we can keep the snarking going.