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

THESE KIIIIIDDS

also i do not mean to ask this in a rude way but just a curious way— how does bel's autism express itself? in his behavior, in the things he's good and bad at, in stuff he likes and doesn't. as opposed i guess to Ye Standard Neurotypictroll.

ETA: i am pretty damn sure erskin has troll adhd. in interesting news, it turns out i probably have adhd. life imitates art???

 

btw if bel ever brought erskin A Food he would be pretty pleased about it.



even if it was salad. probably especially if it was a salad delivered with a challenging look.

 

@ the autistic stuff, ok, good to know. i think you've talked about human bel's stuff before but i forgot most of that. and didn't know if the rest still applied. this is def going to help me interpret why he's doing what he's doing, and probably suggesting better better plots.

i've been assuming galley is autistic too, but... again, i don't quite know how, which really contributes to my hesitance to play him. i know i'm missing a lot of the nuance to his motivations.

i think my big problem here is that i'm very introverted, so a lot of 'autistic' behavior just pings me as 'yes, that makes perfect sense'. so then someone is like 'oh they're autistic' and i am like '????'. is there any research that studies the overlap between nt introverts and autistics? because the behavioral parallels seem pretty extensive.

 

gnight!

 

i think erskin is probably geared to notice threatening or unhappy looks, and the rest of what he can perceive has been coached by lainey. but lainey is one of nature's exasperatingly capable extroverts and has been working with him on Doing People Stuff for five or six years... anyway it probably goes back to how erskin wants validation and grew up as a vulnerable loner, he's really nervy about disapproval and threats.

poor dude! i think erskin would have been sympathetic to this and seen it as a parallel of his own miserable first sweep if bel hadn't been coming from such an opposite social context.

i wonder if erskin could provide bel with more structure and clearer rules? erskin does basically everything freeform, as needed, so his utter lack of a schedule or long-term to-do list is probably completely incomprehensible to bel. but if erskin starts trying to blackrom by piling more orders and responsibilities on bel, in a way erskin would consider hideously obnoxious, bel might actually feel better?

are the special interests books and history? erskin is not a big-picture dude so anything that exists farther than is obvious in the past or future is incomprehensibly pointless. he'd be interested in short self-contained six-sweeps level action-adventure stories. maybe mystery thrillers. but lainey would be interested in chattering about media, and memes, and trends and tropes and propaganda. she and arguus are all about manipulation through writing. if lainey found out bel made books she'd immediately pester him to make her some. arguus would also be interested in his take on data organization and hacking.

yeah erskin can be startled into a dramatic fight/flight reaction by SCARY TROLL THREATS, but aside from that will resiliently bounce from one thing to the next until he passes out on his face. switching tasks quickly or dealing with a lot of intense noise/smells/textures doesn't bug him; if anything, he really likes getting mucky and cycling through a lot of fast-paced novel environment.

i think his main source of pleasure is indulging in seeking behaviors. and so, a lot of the 'degrading' tasks he picks up are things like 'hunt the weeds', 'find the rattly vent' 'which filter is damaged' 'some rats are loose go get em', so bel would be like 'you are being a janitor what the hell how do you stand this' and he would just be joyfully like 'I'VE GOT A RIVET GUN LET'S GO SEE WHAT TO USE IT ON!!!' and go tearing off.

also why he's such a floater, a spare hand, he would absolutely rather do something different every day, no matter how unpleasant, than sit in the same place doing the same stuff, no matter how cushy. i think he and bel couldn't possibly understand each other's preferences, here. so when bel is like 'why don't you assign someone less valuable to do the scut work' erskin has a great explanation about personnel shortages and labor divisions, but the question he heard bel ask was 'why don't you let someone else do the interesting thing so you can have more time to do boring things'.

awww poor bel. i wonder if galley could prod him out of that, somehow? erskin isn't in a position to notice or understand any of this. also erskin is probably Mister Fidgets if you put him in a chair, even if he's exhausted, and has to sit in the chair because his leg crapped out. erskin would see bel's stillness as 'i am a boring rock', not 'i am sternly repressing myself'. meanwhile erskin would be fussing with his horns and hair, picking at his claws, tapping, chewing on a pen, picking at the plates of his prosthetic, chewing on the head of his cane, doodling on his papers, immediately dismantling all paperclips in arm's reach, doodling on his arm, stacking things in front of him into little shapes, digging through his sylladex for more interesting things to look at / chew on, wiggling his chair around, tearing something into small strips and then eating/weaving the strips, spotting a bug and attempting to catch it, making a cup stick to his face, hanging things on his horns, examining the nearest trash can, making weird sounds with his mouth, clonking his prosthetic toes against various materials to see what noise happens, examining the inside of any drawer or container nearby, picking at a loose thread in his / someone else's clothes, discovering that something can be unattached from some other thing and then unattaching it. then re-attaching it. then breaking it and trying to fix it. then stacking the broken pieces.

erskin is probably hellishly obnoxious to sit in a room with unless he is a) wasted or b) asleep. maybe one night erskin really does try to sit and do thing's bel's way, bel ends up exploding because erskin just will not fuckin chill out.

 

oh also re: bel bringing food, if he thinks his friends like him because he's generous with food and booze, maybe he could methodically start there? and then see how pleased erskin is.

now that i think about it, the minifridges he's scattered all over every recreational area and outfitted most offices with are pretty much just high-tech caches. dude spent too much time alone in the wild, hunting to survive, he's going to absolutely want to know where all the food is, all the time. he would come off as really childish in the way he's so immediately and intensely distracted by the presence of a snack. maybe bel eventually puts 2+2 together and realizes that nearly every drawer he opens in erskin's office having a food packet inside isn't just erskin being an absent-minded spaz. when he's paying attention, he caches properly packaged and preservable snacks, and when he's spacing out he will tuck a sandwich inside a book and put it back on the shelf.

possibly bel can witness the sandwich+book stashing and be completely horrified.

if bel wanted to dick with him he could probably just start putting out a trail of jellybeans or ham cubes or something around an office and watch erskin meander around after them like a spacy little robot.

 

naw erskin is, as ever, happy to not have to say anything sad about himself outright.

bel has figured out he's orphaned though, right? or has he managed to miss that still.

ETA: also what should we play next

 

erskin would absolutely not have informed bel, but just assumed bel figured it out / was told/ looked it up. erskin is one of those exasperating combos of someone who doesn't tell you anything that's bugging them, but also someone who gets real mad at personal digs. which you never know if you're gonna make. because they don't tell you. sigh!!!

also yes i like that, the cooking shift. that sounds good! maybe erskin is too busy with some dumb chore and bel goes and finds him? like 'goddamn it you are GOING to eat my lunch and you are GOING to like it'

 

i'm gonna say, randomly, a very thick and meaty stew. he gets to eat and enjoy plant food like a regular person, and it's hot, and it's pretty fancy (to him), and you can put it in a big cup and carry it around.

 

yeah i should probably snooze too.

should erskin and bel wrestle around until they are half naked and disgusting, then adjourn for shower makeouts? that could be really cute.

ETA: in an open space, covered in soap, bel could probably tie him in knots, but in a shower stall erskin would be able to straight-forwardly shove him around. possibilities!