I really need to start making inspiration collages for my troll. I’ve been talking about doing it for so many years. They’ve all got splashes of different stuff, but I think the troll that clearly has stuff lifted from specific source material is my albino, candy red mutant (groundbreaking, I know, but I have never made one), Vesper Stryha.
I was directly inspired by Snowpiercer and the Outer Worlds and the way they handle the conversation on class. She, along with the other trolls in her creche, were hatched on a small lunar colony, then dumped as extras into a labour ship as pupas for the sole person of getting into nooks and crannies around the ship. This has gone on for so long that trolls on the ship became accustomed to low light and developed amazing hearing. Vesper was only allowed to live because: 1. Wasn’t going to live on anyway. 2. Need as many grubby little hands as possible.
Sometimes if a youth does enough to impress, they might be lucky enough to get an apprenticeship somewhere. Usually, they just get stuck in helms positions upon adulthood. Vesper’s mutant status made her super expendable, so when a ship needed a quick, temporary helm, they strapped her into a column at around 7 sweeps old. She was (un)lucky enough to survive the sweeps she spent on that ship at the cost of her body deteriorating. Were it not for her creepy captain building a fondness and letting her leave the column, she might’ve died before hitting 9.
Eventually, her future moirail Rallis got assigned on the ship as a soldier. He’s a cerulean with the ability to telepathically make connections like a switchboard and they became fast friends. One night he asked her if she wanted out and she said yes. The ship was docked at a space port, so he swiped her, a star skimmer, and returned planetside. This is why they’re keeping quiet and scraping their caegars together. Being stolen Empire property isn’t great! Neither is being the AWOL soldier that did the stealing.
Their plan has a couple steps. The first is to get Vesper augmentations she needs to stabilize her body. She may never be able to be fully mobile on her own, but she could benefit greatly from having her spine reinforced. Next is finding passage to and a place to live on some far off space station.
Vesper being a Vtuber was a joke that became serious because it’s actually perfect. She can relax while keeping her identity and mutant status private. She doesn’t make too, too much money outside the occasional surprise white whale donation, but Rallis is fine with that. What she does get is a lot of gifts to her PO Box. Usually mecha kits and 3-D puzzles that she assembled with Ral when he’s awake enough to hang out without falling asleep on top of her.
I think their relationship is fun because if took them a minute to settle on pale. There was a short period of time that Vesper successfully came onto Ral, but neither of them liked how that felt. Pale made the most sense to them and didn’t leave any weird vibes. I would love to see more dynamics in which trolls take a minute to see what they are to each other.
Unfortunately, this means that Rallis is the last person she’s pailed in quite some time. It’s hard enough to find a little tail when you have problems with mobility. And it’s made even harder by the fact she’s quite visibly a mutant.
