Weeds’ full name would most likely be pronounced “WID (rhymes with bid) + sth (like you’re trying to get over a lisp),” since it’s yanked from Old English. But if you happen to speak a language where i is pronounced with an ee sound, it comes out WEEDS-th, so…

IC answer: Riccin and/or Weeds’ ex-moirail started calling him that to tease him. He permits Riccin to keep doing that because they’re ~best friends~, but anyone else using the name gets LOUDLY corrected. His name is Widsth, or Orpheo if you’d prefer, but it is not Weeds.

The Imperial Education Program, more frequently known as the IEP, is a government-sponsored project with the goal of producing work-ready conscripts upon Ascension. Rather than having to train up new recruits for high-skill and high turn-over jobs, the fresh members of the Fleet are able to be integrated immediately into the work-force, and thus of immediate use.

The program is headed by The Shepherd, and has various divisions, the three largest of which are the helmsmen, paingineering and legislacerative departments. Each department has its own head, its own hierarchy and its own funding. With the exception of the Department of Helming, which is led by the Shepherd and funded directly by the Church of the Mirthful, money is always tight for the IEP, and the wars for who will get what grant tend to be fierce.

Each department has its own rules and regulations, dictated by the head of department, and the proctors underneath them. Interaction and collaboration between the branches is fairly common: the Mudskip line is the result of a century of combined effort between the legislative and paingineering branches, to create a bloodline capable of enforcing the Empress’s law on both violet and indigo ships.

The Imperial Education Program is rarely heard of outside of the global south, but has a broad online presence and has an office in almost every metropolitan district’s capitol. Any troll can enter the offices and undergo testing for their preferred branch.

While the IEP primarily targets children seven and under for conscription, the better to encourage the preferred mentalities, they draw in a large number of older trolls each sweep due to their careful advertising. For a troll worried about being culled for a minor mutation, the IEP grants exemptions. For trolls worried about not having partners for drone day, the IEP will assign them quadrants. Students are granted hives, and given a bonus to their stipends, and enter the Fleet at a higher rank than their peers.

And they’ll find themselves exempt from many common laws, which draws in a great number of trolls keen on escaping imperial punishment.

What few realise until they join is that this all comes with a heavy toll. Trolls who enlist in the program gain these benefits at the loss of their freedom. Signing on with the IEP is signing over one’s freedom, and leaving - regardless of the reasons - is not tolerated.

NOTES:

The paingineering division of the IEP often works with the helmsmen division in the cultivation of psionic bloodlines. The HARLEY psionic line, known for its high output of energy and low rates of burnout, is the most well-known of these projects.

For most students, the issue of leaving never comes up. This appears mostly with the helmsmen, where the less complacent trolls can get tagged with identification tags to track them, and the less competent trolls can find themselves sold under the table to THE QUEENPIN’S SOCIETY to serve as ship engines and batteries for the member’s ships.

@activatingaggro​ tagged me! I’m tagging @welastrolls​, @yseone​, @chthoniansibyl​ and @losttrolls​, and I think everyone else I know has been tagged already! No obligation, obvy c:

You still weren’t quite sure what a mortician did aside from working with dead bodies, however, you were sure whatever this troll could tell you would be of use. You were self-trained after all and aside from what your lusus brought you, you weren’t sure how to obtain well-preserved bodies. It was certainly worth the trip just to meet someone who might understand your craft! It took some time to prepare everything, as well as make sure your sweet owlmom knew just where you were going. You had never been to the desert before, but you knew it was more dangerous than the forest and that you might have to travel by day as well.

It was nothing that would deter you, however! It took two days of near constant flight, a cloak and pair of goggles protecting you during the daytime and only resting at night when the daywalkers were not active, but you managed to make it to your destination safely. You found a nice place for your owlmom to rest safely for a bit before heading out to find Juelie’s hive. You had insisted that Harriette stay and rest, however, she insisted upon following you. Hopefully, your host wouldn’t mind the large bird camping outside her hive...

❊ I want to roleplay with you

✦ I like seeing you on my dash

✪ You seem like a cool person

Omg, my dude, we have a thread happening right this very moment. >:D

📕- What “Banned Books” could you see your muse reading?

The Empire makes it diddicult anything that isn’t approved by propaganda experts, no matter the caste. Though with their status, Ath isn’t as likely to get into trouble if caught (though they are smart enough to Not).Regarding the books themselves, anything pertaining to the Signless’ movement, or previous attempts at a revolution was erased from history to discourage similar attempts. But way in their youth, an archeological expedition got them and their friends some handwritten manuscripts.Said findinga first contained a contemporary diary describing the events of the Summoner’s rebellion, and then a recording of the Signless’ ideology, for which the remnants of the cult were responsible. Still, they are only so familiar with Alternia’s actual past.

✌️-How often did they get into trouble as a kid?Athena used to get up in arms about her friends’ safety a lot during the adolescence, and that warranted a lot of fights with higher castes throughout the ages.Even before that, when her embedded animosity towards lowbloods was yet to be dispelled (about age 4-5), she got in a few smaller skirmishes with the surrounding lower hues. With all this, what disciplinary measures even COULD be tHer lusus’ method of reprimanding Ath was giving them a good talking to.

🍳- What does your muse’s typical breakfast, lunch, and dinner look like after their larder has been fully replenished?Food is one of the parts of life where Athena forfeits managing. Instead, she goes to the cafeteria with all the other trolls in the complex, or goes out. The times when she hunts fish in the ocean, she might prepare it herself or eat it raw.Ath eats sporadicaly, in a “when I get to it” style, and tries to keep to the natural seadweller diet made up of fish, algae, and fewer land creatures thrown in.

Horn molds?