Also, earlier today I was talking to someone about my kintypes on discord, and discussing my Eridan Leijon timeline - we ended up discussing otters in depth, and the other person joked maybe my Otter Dad dragged and dunked me in the water to teach me to swim the way otters did? I was gonna laugh it off but it occurred to me - that’s exactly what happened, and it left me traumatized of the water enough I never learned to swim.
I’d felt like something had happened with me and near drowning prior to this, that would’ve influenced my desire to swim, but I could never pin what exactly happened until this conversation.
But basically, when I was pretty young my well-intending Otter Lusus took me into the water, dragging me by whatever he considered my scruff of the neck I guess (probably my scarf tbh) through the water, and he did this for a little bit, before finally deciding to let me try on my own by releasing me, expecting me to float. Of course, I didn’t, and by the time he realized something was wrong I was already mentally scarred for life lmao.
I was never terribly hydrophobic, I remember I’d wade through shallower streams while hunting or exploring. But I never wandered into bodies of water where I’d get submerged past my waistline, if I could help it. I don’t think I held a grudge against my lusus, either- he always seemed to have good intentions, but just wasn’t always with the program on how to raise a troll, really.