Trollslum Discussion 2: And thats terrible

[Geminex]

Huh.
Sorry about that!

Still, though, the implication in the comic was sorta that imperial drones were different from normal trolls anyway (I mean, alone the name. 'Drone' is usually less a job, like 'legiscalator' and more a subclass of the species). It really didn't seem like it was just a job/rank. Wishing to be an imperial drone would be sort of like wishing to become a mother grub. Pretty illogical in the first place.
I actually thought that was supposed to be the point of AP's wish, that that was a character flaw. I didn't know you actually wanted it to be feasible, cause yeah. Doesn't really make sense.

Hell, I was actually planning to have the drone be a species all of its own, but I wasn't sure how to best write that. Making it a biologically enhanced, brought-up-from-birth troll was sort of a compromise, and I'm gonna make it seem more alien later.

Anyway, yeah. Sorry about that!
But come on, we can find a workaround. There's any number of romance-related offices your troll could be aspiring to. It's not like imperial drones are the be-all and end-all of troll romance. Come on, be creative!

[Loyal]

Are imperial drones really trolls? I figured they were specially bred creatures of another species. Otherwise, with trolls like Vriska and Sollux running around there'd be no chance that another troll-drone could reliably execute unromantic deviants.

[Bard The 5th LW]

When I read that Leraje wanted to be a Drone, I sort of assumed it was a sort of unreachable pipedream.

Like, I think the Drones are some sort of robot/manufactured being. Might be similar to trolls in someway, but they definitely exist to be drones. I've admittedly taken license with every detail of their existence on the whole so far.

But yeah, for all intents and purposes, they aren't normal trolls. Consider the drones a subset almost in the way fishtrolls are.

[Overcast]

Uh huh. Remove all essence of wanting to be a drone from my character. Remove my hate of Aldurin for the Drone execution, replace it with him being emotionally incapatable with anyone else in the whole of existence. Remove any sembelence of him looking up to them, replace it with hate because they put a time limit on love.

Change my character entirely.

Because IT IS FUCKING RUINED.

[Flarecobra]

I don't think they're trolls at all... especally looking at them.

Too many horns... plus with the insect theme going...

[Overcast]

Geh, all of the changes. I can't do it. There is too much based on that dream. I'm out.

[Geminex]

Argh. Please tell me you're joking. Because if you're serious, that's just... argh. Really?

First, like I said, we didn't do anything. Your character's goal was unreachable in the first place, and that was pretty clear to begin with.

Second, if you want your character to be ruined, it's most certainly ruined. But unless you're intent on being the victim, there's no reason your character can't go along the way it was with only a few minor alterations.

I mean, it's 2:30 PM and I can still think of a few good ways to make this work.

1:
Just change nothing. Your character is still aspiring to be an imperial drone. That was impossible in the first place. Just play it as a character flaw now. He just has utterly unrealistic expectations. There's worse flaws.

2:
Have your character continue idealizing troll romance, only instead of an Imperial drone he wants to be a... rominastrator. Or something along those lines!
Just because he can't be a drone doesn't mean that he can't still look up to the romance establishment, for god's sake.
You can replace 'Imperial drone' with 'romadministrator' and literally nothing will have changed about your character. He'd still have aspirations to work in troll romance, he'd still have respect for the romance establishment. Those were the two major aspects you were worried about, weren't you?
And unless that's impossible, this entire thing:

Remove my hate of Aldurin for the Drone execution, replace it with him being emotionally incapatable with anyone else in the whole of existence. Remove any sembelence of him looking up to them, replace it with hate because they put a time limit on love.

pretty much becomes irrelevant. And you seem like a good role-player normally. Are you honestly telling me you missed that?

Seriously. This is an extremely insignificant thing to get upset over. It's a future carreer. A carreer that would've been out of the question by the time the meteors started falling anyway. And one that really didn't seem integral to your character.

Maybe I'm missing something, maybe the drone thing was absolutely central to your character (though if it was, you really could have done a better job of letting us know), and if that's really the case, we can work around that. We can edit posts and retcon stuff it it's really necessary.

But right now, this really doesn't seem necessary.

Cause to say your character is fucking ruined because of a tiny thing like this? Come on. If that's really the case, then it just seems like you aren't trying.

Look, I don't have authority here, bard does, of course. I can't make promises. But this has barely started, I don't think we should star losing people yet, or having people rewrite their bios.

What aspects of your character depended on the drone thing? Gimme a list. I'll go through that. If there's any major aspect that we can't explain away with a minor edit to your character sheet, I'll recommend that we rethink the drone thing.

Edit:
And lemme just say, if you do go through with leaving because of this, of all things?
Weak, dude.
Motherfucking weak. You're not a victim here. There's nothing stopping you from staying.
I'll happily work through this with you, I'll try to fix it. But first you need to show me that there's something to fix, and that you're willing to make it work. So far, it really seems like you've done neither.
And hurting this RP by leaving it this early? Dammit, man. That's just a fucking dick move.

[Loyal]

Overcast, this is just a fan RP. Imperial Drones are a minor detail nobody will (or nobody should) bat an eye at for messing with.

[Overcast]

I'm sorry this shit hit me like a fucking brick and I lost it quite quickly. I couldn't play him as having an unreachable dream, I didn't build him to be that ignorant, so I have to rebuild him. When first confronted with this fact I just fucking lost it. Because while the Imperial Drone thing is a minor detail, the amount of characterization I had made for it was not. All of his combat orientation was based on him having to be good enough to take down super freaks like Vriska and Sollux in single combat given enough time. Which made me pick his lusus, which made me have him fight his lusus on a daily basis. Without the Imperial Drone thing that whole facet(which is rather big even if you can't tell) just disappear, and I stared at the barren remains with a dissapointed look that made me want to toss his lusus to make something that made sense. Delete my posts to make something that made sense. . Anything he had said about the Imperial Drones before this would be different, everything he thinks would be slightly colored by this change.

This all looked REALLY big to me just a second ago, and so I panicked. I'm going to have to make some alterations to him in either a big or small way, and this may take me a while, so blah.

In the end I just felt like the rug was pulled out from under me when apparently everyone was aware of how impossible this dream was except for me. It was one of those moments that I felt like could have been smoothed out a long time ago in the joining processes, but was not. And I was angry. Sorry.

[Geminex]

Okay. See, I didn't get the whole combat aspect. Yeah. I sorta get your point now.
We can work this through...
Yeah.

I can rewrite the drone post to make room for this stuff. Canon never stated that trolls can't grow up to be drones, and if it's important to your character (and now I see that it is), I don't think there'll be any objections against us declaring it to be so.
I might have to give up a running gag or two, but maybe not even that. I'll sleep on it.

Yeah, I don't think your character will need many alterations. We're still early in this, we can mould canon to our will. As long as we don't make it too contrived, it should be fine.

As long as you're still working with us, we can definitely make this work.
Tomorrow. It's 3:30 AM now.
See what I do for you, guys?
See what I do?

Edit:
And yeah, no problem. We all flip the fuck out once in a while.