#plaguetrolls

👃 - What do they smell like? What scents do they enjoy? Do they have a favourite aftershave/perfume?

Gonna answer these for Vide, who smells... largely just like growing things and whatever herb or flower she’s been handling most recently. She likes to tuck a sprig of mint behind her ear -- she loves the smell of mint, green tea, jasmine, or cayenne pepper. As far as perfume goes, she can’t handle strong artificial scents -- so she’s likely to use very much back-to-nature, herbal- or floral-scented perfume if she uses any at all.

👁 - What colour are their eyes? What do they enjoy looking at in nature or otherwise? How good is their eye sight?

Freakin’ huge Disney-Princess eyes, deep green and slightly tilted up, with ridiculously long eyelashes. She likes looking at the people she loves, at plants, at well-crafted stitching, at stars or the aurora borealis, at fireflies, at basically anything pretty. She has excellent eyesight.

🖊 - What is their handwriting like? Do they prefer to type or hand write things? Can they draw?

NANAKO BONJOU: two sweeps / six years old

The older grubs don’t put you on the camel often, which’s a shame: from all the way up here, you can see for miles and miles and miles, and you feel like a rani surveying her kingdom. The sand stretches as far as your eye can see. So do the camels, all shades of brown and tawny, and the children trailing them like hair ribbons, all greens and golds.

“Are you paying attention to me, cactus-face?” Toshio scolds, and when you jolt up in the seat from your half-slouch, eyes wide, she laughs. “Good! Because what we’re discussing is very important, lah, we don’t need you going in all shocked.”

“I won’t! I won’t, I won’t, I won’t --” Your voice pitches up, tilts into shrieking, and just like that, the world goes red. You have to clamp both hands over your mouth and breathe in through your nose in big, gulping breathes until the shine stops, and everything goes back to the proper blue, blue, blue, blue as the night is long.

Toshio laughs at you again, bright and warm, and pulls your hands free. “After this, you’re going to be a full member of the group, ‘kay? You and Papaya and Fatiya, You’ll be properly devoted to the moons, just like me!” Her grin is as crooked as her teeth. “And then we’ll get that glowing problem sorted out, moongrub,” she teases. “Wrap those up in glyphs and dedicate ‘em.”

Toshio’s got a hold of your hands. Hers are so much bigger! And broader, and rougher, so when you wrap your fingers between hers, they barely even fit, and it’s hard to swing ‘em. You try anyway, tugging them until she notices.

“Why can’t we do it now? Why we gotta go to town?” You’ve been to the town before, when you were little, little, little, but you don’t remember none of it: what you remember is what you’re told, ‘cause Toshio and Affron gather all of you pupas up, every time they find a new one and stick ‘em on the caravan, and they show you everything. This is the cavern you came from, hidden away in the mountains. This is the route you all travel. These are the oasises you need. And yesterday, when the big tent was up and everyone was around the fire, Toshio had pulled out the map, unfurled it right on top of your bedroll, and told you about the town again.

Your camel grunts. Toshio tugs on your hands, reprimanding, and you stop bouncing, but it’s hard. “I bet you could do it,” you wheedle. “You’ve got marks! Affie’s got marks!” All the older kids have the same red swirled across their faces like fingers gone astray, and none of the two are the same. It can’t be hard to get them, you don’t think. You and Papaya copy them in the dirt all the time, and in the soot of the fire on each other’s skin.

“You’re silly,” Toshio tells you. “Because they’re words, you little pricklebear! I can’t write words, not like that. They say who you are, and who you’ll be, and everything about you, so everyone knows, forever and ever. And the only one can pop you open and see’s the priest, which’s why we’re takin’ you.”

“Pop me open?”

plaguetrolls said: ✩ mirkstrolls

… I think the last time I did this, I said Weeds, but I think I honestly have to say at this point that my favorite troll of Mirk’s is Vide! I admittedly tend to be more invested in trolls I interact with more, but the more I learn about Vide’s backstory, the more I really, really, really love the way it links together with her current behaviors and attitudes.

2: Does your OC adapt easily to changes in life or do they have a hard time getting accustomed?

Mandra is very habit-oriented. He doesn’t like change, and he likes things a certain way--one of the best ways to actually get him upset is to throw him a curveball somehow. This is what’s happening in the thread with Vide right now--he’s throwing a shitfit and trying to kill her, when all she really did was break his bow. He actually has, like, five spares, but that was his favorite one and the best one that he owns currently. The fact that he would be using a slightly suboptimal bow until he could craft a new one was enough to throw him into a murderous rage.

4: How does your OC behave typically under severe stress?

A little more of his subjugglator side comes out. Typically he’s quite reserved, and happy to fuck with people. He looks at minor setbacks and even major heartache with kind of a long view--he’s got a long time to live, and he likes to revel in sadness anyway. In severe stress, however, all of that seems to go out the window. He becomes absolutely vicious, and instead of using his wit in a self-deprecating manner he will gladly round on anyone unlucky to be nearby and tear them to shreds, if he can. If his physical safety is threatened he isn’t afraid to dip into his chucklevoodoos or throw his not-inconsiderable weight around. Mandra is somebody whose bad side is very hard to get on, by dint of the fact that he really only has a bad side. There’s a worse side, though, and that’s not where you want to be. Thurin did that once and now he’s basically just a husk filled with ghosts screaming on an island somewhere.

6: Does your OC have an unrealistic view of some area of their life or worldview?

Absolutely. Where do I even start? First of all, he honestly believes that his whole sad sack routine is just an act that he can abandon at any time, when in reality his constant negative attitude has seeped into nearly every aspect of his life and probably replaced his personality completely. Or, rather, his personality has altered to suit the worldview that he puts on, ostensibly, as an act.

He also believes that his dedication to the “craft” has earned him some sort of clout, or some manner of respect from subjugglators everywhere. While this may be true, in-canon interactions have told a different story; most Mirthful trolls don’t seem to much care about the time, effort, and misery that he’s put into his ‘role,’ and Mandra doesn’t realize that the whole thing is probably a wash at this point.

@plaguetrolls

Thank god your sylladex is the type that can handle bigger stuff, or you’d be shit out of luck. You’re also thankful you can afford the best anti-fungals; you sure as hell hope Dahlia came prepared. You brought extras just in case. You don’t want her going all undead on you when you need her powers.

The zombie isn’t anything particularly impressive to look at - bog-standard golden suncup blooms, typical desert plant - but it’s mostly intact aside from the small holes in its chest where you nailed it with enough buckshot to disrupt the lung spores and then spray enough weedkiller (not actual weedkiller, that’s just the nickname for the spray that neutralizes floral revenants) to knock it out of action. It’s a damn good thing you wore a protective mask, for sun as well as scent - its perfume still nearly overwhelmed you, and even now a bit of the aroma lingers, the zombie’s siren song to draw people in.

It’s a bit chilly even for a blueblood when you step off the train your breath making clouds in the air - Dahlia wasn’t kidding when she said she lived way up north, and you’re not even technically that far into the actual winterlands. She said she’d meet you in a little rest stop, and then the two of you could go into the nearby forest to actually do your stuff so nobody tries to mess with you. It crosses your mind - as it has before - that it could be a trap, but you don’t think so. She’s probably just some weird goth hobbyist, like Pheres.

You walk into the little rustic cafe, and immediately spot the rustblood with an eyepatch, and skip over, grinning, to slide into the wooden booth as some twangy country music plays.

For every “⏳” I receive, my muse will openly talk about a bit of their backstory.

ASVITH: I Try Not to chΔnge which fΔrmers mΔrket i go to that often cuz its just eΔsier on me if i know the folks im Selling To, Right? Δnd Finding The one ive got now wΔs kindΔ Δ huge triΔl cuz looking for somewhere thats close enough to be worth it while big enough thΔt ill ΔctuΔlly get some sΔles isnt exΔctly the eΔsiest Thing To Do. ASVITH: Honestly, I Just went there and ΔwkwΔrdly lurked Δ couple times until Someone Looked Friendly. I Δsked How i wΔs supposed to sign up Δnd they told me so i did thΔt Δnd stΔrted Going Every Perigee. It HΔs Been Δ pretty good wΔy to mΔke friends ΔctuΔlly becΔuse everyone kindΔ hΔs the sΔme vibe Δs I Do.

VIDELE: I started L-Learning how to make tapestries the first dark season that I L-Lived in my pL-Lains-hive! My garden pL-Lants aLL-LL died and it was very drab inside and my embroidery hoops were too smaLL-LL to reaLL-LLy, um, make much difference to the waLL-LLs? So I went on CrueL-LTube to L-Look for bigger embroidery things, and I found someone weaving a tapestry! It didn’t L-Look that much harder than embroidering, so I tried to set up a L-Loom and do it, onL-Ly -- eehee, it’s not so easy to do as it L-Looks! EspeciaLL-LLy when you start on a L-Loom made out of a curtain rod and warp strands L-Longer than you are taLL-LL! So I said, okay, I’LL-LL start smaLL-LLer, and I saw a video of someone making a L-LittL-Le hand L-Loom and tried that myseL-Lf. And then I just kept at it untiL-L I got good! =:-)