Thoughts on Quadrants
Concupiscent quadrants are about genetic contributions - improving the species and securing your partners’ genetic legacies by reintroducing the best genes you can find into the slurry.
Conciliatory quadrants are about social contributions - improving the species and securing your partners’ living legacies by ensuring their ability to do great things without getting killed first. Flushed is the only quadrant that is not at all about improving your partner. Red Pity is “oh dang that troll is unfortunate. they’re not going to make it long, and no one else would give them the time of day, but gosh there are a few real gems hiding in that genome. it would be beneficial to the species for that to make it to the next generation, and if some of my genes beat the odds and get glued to those good ones, all the better for my descendants. But the odds of the good genes rolling rather than the bad ones are low, so better to flood the gene pool with a ton of these suckers and let nature filter out the good ones. Helping your partner get better won’t make their genes better, and it’d be a waste of your time and resources anyway. Heck, if they improve too much they’re likely to be able to get those genes into the mother grub without your help, so it’d be time to move on if they did. And doesn’t matter too much if they die; so long as you’ve gotten something in the bucket you’ve fulfilled your drive and it’s time to look for another hidden gem.
Blackrom is about those good good genes. Dang, that troll has some fine genes. You definitely want to attach yours to that; they’ll make good strong babies likely to survive. Worth putting a lot of effort into. Worth keeping them around for a while so you can get as many shots at that gene combo as you can while putting as much investment into each as possible, since you’re sure they’ll do well. But putting that much time and effort and resources into someone is risky if it turns out down the line that they weren’t as strong as they seem. You need to keep fighting and testing their strength and looking for weak points. Bonus if it keeps them alive longer to keep up with you. But if they can’t keep up it’s time to drop them like a hot potato. This is an investment and you need the best around for it to be worthwhile.
Moirallegiance is about making your partner the best they can be. Wow, that guy is messed up, they have some serious problems, but you can also see that they could really do some good in the world. They could be really strong and useful, and troll society would benefit from their input, but they will absolutely fall apart without help. They’ll get chewed up and spit out and you would be sad. A hilaribad combo with your own genetics though, it’d just cancel out all your strengths. But alive, they are like the yin to your yang; you know exactly what they’re lacking because you’ve got it in spades, and you have the skills and desire to fix them. You can see where they’re going wrong and can break them down and put them back together, and for the bits you can’t fix outright you can at least help them compensate and shore them up behind the scenes. They’ll be at their very best, healthy and strong with no unseen pitfalls to trip them up, and fully able to give the very best in all the ways they shine. Ashen is about knocking the hard edges off of your partners, thus making them more fit for society. You’ve found someone who can add something to trollkind, if only you can get that focused enough to be useful and keep them in line enough they won’t get offed. "You are the most annoying person I have ever met. You are grating and terrible and you've got no posse to back it up. You are ruining the fabric of society and the worst thing about it is that deep down, you're not wrong. You have some good ideas, some good skills. You'd make a good troll if you weren't so terrible at other stuff. It's important that people like you are in the world, but whoah dang are you going to brush up against the wrong person and say the wrong thing and get yourself killed. Or get irritated enough to start a chain reaction that kills everyone else. You're an absolute moron, but I value your contributions and don't want you dead. Problem is, being around you makes me see red and make terrible decisions, and the same is true for you. We are a terrible explosive combo but I can't seem to walk away from you. If we had a buffer though to cut off our worst tendencies, we could work well together and get more done as a team. As a unit we'd be solid and dependable and able to focus, and once we settled into that dynamic enough we don't even need the third person present to know when they'd be telling us to knock it off. Bonus, you can get a lot more done in troll society if you've got a couple other trolls watching your back and helping you shove your way through. I can chip at your most annoying habits over time and instill some more patience for those of others, so you navigate society better even alone, but I'll also be there to intervene if things start escalating with random joes too. You'll never not be terrible, but we're the only ones allowed to be jerks to you about it."
I feel like ashmates are the most likely to spend most of their time together, and might also be the most inclined to live together non-disastrously. Black and pale are too intense, making everything into a contest or learning opportunity, a daily grind that would be exhausting if you had to live in close quarters all the time. Red meanwhile would be too indulgent of all your bad habits. All good in generous doses but not quite so functional or comfortable when sharing a room or apartment on a permanent basis.
Ashen you can at least nag eachother into doing household chores without it being a giant Issue or overstepping boundaries.
