Ask The Olden Trolls

An askblog for my quasi-medieval OC trolls. Please note that answers will probably be in text only, with maybe a rare picture or two. Warning: these guys do not have modern views. They are ridiculously far from being politically correct and at least one of them pushes triggers for shits and giggles. All of the PCs are available to ask things of, as are any named NPCs (such as Noontide or any of the myriad political figures that Glasseye and Snaplock complain about).

[thatsbelievable]

[thatwavephenomenon]

me: i sure hope the crows are not gonna be solely depicted in veilguard as a brave force who 'fight for all' when they are at their core a criminal organization who is known to buy children to indoctrinate them and turn them into assassins, by putting them in overcrowded warehouses and making them fight for scrapes in order not to starve, to later torture those who reach adulthood to finish their initiations and kill them anyways if they dare to try getting out

bioware: i cooka da pizza

[asktheoldentrolls]

To be fair, I think our favorite Crow might have had something to do with this cultural shift. Zevran had some very pointy goals in mind at the end of Origins, and conversation with Lucanis suggests there was a *bit* of a turnover of Crow leadership between games.

[egg-ify]

putting them in a blender together 💕💕💕

[wolfythewitch]

Doodles

[atomikats]

curiouser and curiouser

[twiggy-boy]

You know, every time I draw something stupid, I think to myself "surely I can't top this!" And then somehow I draw something even dumber

Edit: NOOO NOO WHY IS THIS GETTING NOTES??? STOP IT!! ONLY LIKE 10 PEOPLE WERE SUPPOSED TO SEE THIS AND THEN ID BURY IT UNDER MY REPOSTS NOOO

[ksoleil7]

Random thought: to further cause linguistic confusion between Eden and the COI, let’s give the Martian language the following phrases:

“May you die well and nourish the earth” -> “you die well” -> “die well” which when shortened further in casual conversation sounds an awful lot like just the imperative “Die!” It’s a compliment and general blessing, but reeeeally doesn’t sound like it.

And

“May you live in irrelevance” by the same shortening process becomes “live ‘r” which can sound a lot to just telling someone to live. It is very much intended as a curse.

Now imagine being on one of the (very rare) diplomatic trips to Eden and you *think* everything is going well, and then people just start telling you to go die? And the tone of voice doesn’t match it at all, and the absolute nicest interpretation you can think of is that they’ve got the “martyrdom” switch turned up to 11 and are wishing you to die for your organization. Which is still really fucking creepy!

HAHAHA i love this. the concept of Eden people very earnestly and politely telling you to die because they're trying to thank you for something. im writing a platonic bloodymary fic, so my first thought was:

Grace, handing Simon food: here you go :)

Simon, taking it gratefully: kys :)

Grace:

the miscommunication is what we're all here for, right?

"die well" is similiar in concept to "rot well", which i believe @merymeou coined and @ctrl-shift-alt-9 adopted as a translation of an Edenite "thank you", leading to interactions where Simon is telling people "May you rot." in the sweetest most unsuspecting attempt at being polite/on his best behaviour. i can only imagine how many other such things went down with the COI when he was captured on Filament Station and imprisoned, and how they wouldn't have taken kindly to a "psycho Eden fuck" seeming hostile/disrespectful (sorry, im unabashedly here for the angst)

also, i think "rare diplomatic trips" may be a little optimistic, but im here for it don't get me wrong!!! it seems like there could have been enough goodwill to resource trade at the beginning, since Earth and Mars probably did too, despite the tensions and prejudices between the two colonies. Mars was highly patriotic and independent, so i don't imagine they were fun to work with— and i think both the COI's hoarding of resources & secrets like the Blood Moons, and Eden's determination to kill as many people as possible outside of the cult before killing themselves, probably means there was very little polite communication between them. unless it all fell apart FAST, considering Filament Station happens 5 years after the Quiet Rapture.

however the comedic potential in being wished to die for your organisation, which is notably NOT a death-encouraging cult but rather the exact opposite, is just too good. the "martyrdom switch" also, is a term im putting into my vocabulary immediately

thanks for the ask! i love talking through this stuff with people :D

[autisticlittleguy]

"Grace Ryland is Rocky's dog" is such a funny fucking dynamic when you think about it

Eridians are further behind than humans technologically right? They dont have computers, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. In fact, Eridians probably dont even know about the Big Bang because their atmosphere would filter out most of the cosmic microwave background radiation we use to detect it. On a human timeline, theyre anywhere between like early-mid 20th century. Rocky's basically a cosmonaut.

So the human civilization is pretty advanced from Rocky's perspective. Rationally he understands this. On a conceptual level he knows this to be true.

But at the same time... imagine youre one of the first ever cosmonauts to make it into space. Then you meet a 10 year old alien dog who cant do 2+2 without pulling out its calculator. It forgets everything constantly and has to keep notes everywhere, like it basically lives in Memento (2000). Also if it doesnt nap constantly it gets even stupider. And you somehow has to reconcile this with the fact that this dog has a better understanding of physics than your entire civilization does. Like the dog knows how the universe started.

[autisticlittleguy]

This isnt better from Grace's perspective btw. Eridians never developed computers, so all their ship systems are steered using basically the manual labor of 24 Eridians. Also theres no radiation shielding on their ship. Actually im pretty sure half the reason why Rocky is always busy fixing shit is because the radiation keeps frying all the onboard electronics, so hes always building and fixing and replacing components

Like imagine being a modern day sailor navigating the Pacific with GPS and strong hulls to protect against the raging ocean. And from portside you see like an honest to god viking ship. Except its made of some high tech carbon fiber material. But like, its still very definitely a viking ship. You can clearly see there's 24 oars along the hull where sailors are supposed to use to manually row their ship. Also the ship is leaking and theres like one little dude on board whos skittering around patching the holes constantly. Also this little dude is blind and doesnt know about water. Thats how insane Eridians look being an interstellar species without computers or radiation shielding.

Both of them thinks the other one is the completely ridiculous and absurd one and theyre both totally amazed at how far the other has come in spite of it

[melongifts]

Hey anyone notice how google translate is being pretty liberal with their translations as of late? Takin some real liberties to infer tone.

[melongifts]

ask and ye shall receive: When I write in Japanese I usually also throw it in google translate to double check that I'm not using the wrong kanji by mistake, and two years ago it gave me very dry and literal translations.

I was doing it today and noticed it had a pretty strong voice added to the output

For reference, to give a dry translation I would put: Lately I'm into in Hanafuda. Nobody seems to know anything about it here, so they probably wouldn't understand my brilliant jokes. I guess you guys will never be able to understand "Mister November and the Scary Cave".

I have a fluent friend who is able to check my work for me and give me tips on hitting the correct tone (I was going for a comically casual feeling), so I'm confident that I'm expressing the feeling I'm intending. While Google is also hitting the same emotion, I really don't like knowing that it's assigning tone in the first place.

To check if it was editorializing based on informal grammatical choices, I formal'd up the writing to be more polite and remove any non-standard vocabulary.

I'm just like... what is anyone who is translating what I'm thinking into their own language going to think when a translation app decides that it knows my intended tone? When online communication is already so complicated and nuanced? I'm a non-native so I'm spending ages agonizing over 117 characters, but when I'm chatting in English I'm not being so deliberate. How likely is it that tools that 'naturalize' are going to make choices that don't reflect reality and lead to insulting misunderstandings? I spoke with an English learner just yesterday who thought they were being bullied (they were not, the commenter in question was just excitedly infodumping about sociology) because something was lost in translation, and I wonder if it's because of tools making choices like this. I'm just a luddite I don't trust stuff like this. stinks of ai asking me if it can rerwrite my email in a more quirky style.

[melongifts]

What do you mean I'm just using the browser versi-

I AM SO SICK OF DEFAULT AI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[asktheoldentrolls]

Is the excited infodump on sociology available?

[foogriffy]

would you still love me if i was a worm?

[prokopetz]

Survival-themed cyberpunk RPG where instead of weapons having durability, you need to purchase subscriptions for each of your weapons, which deplete based on how much damage you inflict. Hit points exist in-universe as a value calculated by your weapons' built-in biometric scanners to meter subscription usage. You can top up a weapon's subscription credits at conveniently located kiosks, or "bank" extra credits beyond a given weapon's rated capacity by carrying gift cards.

[prokopetz]

If you hurt someone by hitting them with a rock or some other non-networked object, this is a serious felony – not because of the violence, but because due to a series of obscure legal precedents, using an object with no associated weapon subscription to cause measurable harm counts as circumventing copy protection.

[flying-butter]

What about beating someone to death with a firearm? Is that considered jailbreaking?

[prokopetz]

Assuming the gun has a linked weapon subscription, it just deducts from your credits in the usual fashion. Remember, you're being charged per hit point of damage inflicted, not per shot fired; the biometric monitors don't care how you inflicted them, as long as it was done using a weapon with an up-to-date subscription.

(Of course, the trick is, if you're firing the gun, it can helpfully prevent you from going over your credit limit by refusing to chamber the next round. If you're just pistol-whipping people senseless, you need to keep an eye on the readout manually!)

[kingofinfinitespace]

[evonnagale]

[ruinedchildhood]

[cryptvokeeper]

if we stay very still maybe they wont notice

[thatwavephenomenon]

me: i sure hope the crows are not gonna be solely depicted in veilguard as a brave force who 'fight for all' when they are at their core a criminal organization who is known to buy children to indoctrinate them and turn them into assassins, by putting them in overcrowded warehouses and making them fight for scrapes in order not to starve, to later torture those who reach adulthood to finish their initiations and kill them anyways if they dare to try getting out

bioware: i cooka da pizza

[asktheoldentrolls]

To be fair, I think our favorite Crow might have had something to do with this cultural shift. Zevran had some very pointy goals in mind at the end of Origins, and conversation with Lucanis suggests there was a *bit* of a turnover of Crow leadership between games.

[quequeishere]

the you that was and the you that is walk into a bar

[oak-works]

More examples can be found on my art blog, if you’d like to see the current queue I have for my commissions you can view them here. (keep in mind that I may not always work exactly on a first come first serve basis, and if I’m feeling particularly inspired for a specific piece I may do it somewhat out of order! though I will attempt to get everyone’s art to them within a reasonable amount of time)

Payment is expected in advance through paypal

Please signal boost! I am trying to pay off my student loans and save up to get out of a less-than-desirable rental situation! 

Thank you for your time! <3

[ishtadaal-blog]

Oce is a wonderful person, and does beautiful art, and is enormously accomodating for corrections/revisions! <3

[asktheoldentrolls]

I commissioned a couple of Oce's chibis once, and loved them. You should totally buy some of your own!

[asktheoldentrolls]

Canon Trolls In An Uncanon World Part 7: Terezi

Terezi. Terezi Terezi Terezi. You are a great character but you are looking to be even harder to write for than Sollux.

Let's talk about lusus (I favor lusus/lusus instead of lusus/lusii). Lusus usually don't matter, culture-wise, unless you have one that's particularly dangerous or otherwise notable (I'm looking at you, Kanaya). Of the 12 original trolls, Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, and Feferi have lusus that fall under that (and let me tell you, handling Feferi's is gonna be interesting).

Terezi's lusus is a dragon, specifically an unhatched dragon that towers far over her even in egg form. Luckily, this time period doesn't come with giant doomsday scales. Still, dragons are a very big deal in that they're really, really annoying to raise. Something that big takes a /lot/ of livestock to feed, livestock that most villages won't be able to spare. Luckily, it'll be developing in its shell for long enough that Terezi will be able to get a good start in life before the grumbles start up.

Unluckily, a giant dragon hatching is usually cause for panic. Terezi will probably have to move somewhere else until she finds a stable food supply for it. Luckily, there's a big old war going on north-a-ways, and either of the sides would be delighted to have a dragon on their side. Not only would they be willing to foot the food bill, but the opposing soldiers would probably end up [i]being[/i] the food bill.

So, while I would really like to put Terezi in the justice system, it looks like she's going to be a soldier first. Maybe she works her way to the military justice system and handles internal matters while her lusus sets fire to the opposing side. Or, once the war ends, she could join many of the other newly-unemployed soldiers in becoming lawkeepers.

So to summarize: She does normal village life until her lusus hatches, and then she goes north to be a soldier for either Zastruga or the Jadeblood Empire so she can feed said lusus, and then she goes into law and becomes famous as the judge with the really, really creepy laugh that will hang you after just a moment's thought.

[asktheoldentrolls]

Canon Trolls In An Uncanon World Part 6: Kanaya

Oh boy.

Oooooh boy.

I didn't mention this way back in the introduction page, but in this timeline there's a land called the Holy Empire of the First Grub, Forever May She Live (and so on and so forth). Everyone else calls it the Jadeblood Empire. They're a theocracy based on Mother Grub worship. Jadebloods, who care for the Mother Grub, are the highest class of society.

Kanaya is not only a jadeblood, but she's a jadeblood with a Mother Grub lusus.

This would be kind of a big deal. The arm of the Jadeblood Empire is long, and reaches deep into the Greyfield Empire (though it's been shortened as of late because of the Very Nasty War they've started with another land). They would do everything in their power to bring Kanaya to the capital of the Jadeblood Empire.

And when she got there, she would immediately become Empress. The Jadeblood Emperor would step down, though he'd probably rule as regent until Kanaya was properly groomed into the role and chose a suitably grandiose name (upper-class names tend to be really over-the-top; ex: Glorious Crusader for the Jadeblood Emperor). Once that happened, absolutely no one would deny her word, and every order would be obeyed to the letter. The night of her ascension to the throne would become a national holiday. New coins would be minted with her image and sign. The calendar era would change to commemorate a new Golden Age. Kanaya would rule not just as an Empress, but as a god.

And she'd be a particularly fashionable one, at that.