IC contact

[boughtabookstore]

 You've reached Chief Inspector Roslyn Small at [number here]. Leave your name, contact details, and intent. I will return your message soon.

Comments

[boughtabookstore]

[ being human and navigating the social matrix is hard too, tbh ]

What is it?

[speakveryclearly]

[TBF she thinks of humans as just swimming around in social soup

She pauses just a moment like somone trying to come up with the best phrasing and then barreling forward regardless.]

Both of my roommates are currently small children. I think... eight to ten of your years.

[boughtabookstore]

It's become increasingly common, yes. And?

[speakveryclearly]

I have no idea how they are expected to function. Actually I'm rather hazy on how children of your species even survive to adulthood given your planet's lack of lusus naturae.

[boughtabookstore]

Lusus naturae?

And they function much as adults do in terms of nutrition. They simply tend to have more energy and more emotional upset.

[speakveryclearly]

I don't think there's any equivalent at all on Earth. They're these creatures who care for young trolls until such an age that they can care for themselves.

[boughtabookstore]

You mean parents.

[speakveryclearly]

No no no no no, not biological pregenitors, I mean someone who actually acts as your custodian.

[boughtabookstore]

Parents, in most cases.

[speakveryclearly]

[She's sort of silent for a little while.]

I'm... sorry this is difficult for me to understand; you know that it's not "in most cases" among the transports here.

[boughtabookstore]

There are always the exceptions, but the majority of people are raised by their parents, or by relatives of their parents if their parents are dead.

[speakveryclearly]

OK...

I've only ever actually known one human here who neither was an orphan nor wanted to be, so that's kind of surprising information.

[boughtabookstore]

I think we're an - interesting assortment. As it stands, I am an orphan but I was raised by my parents until adulthood.

[speakveryclearly]

Adulthood. [Repeating and testing the word.]

So parents as in actually possessing the plural. [Wow is that unexpected.]

[boughtabookstore]

Two, generally, though there are single parent households as well, or ones in which multiple extended family members serve the function.

[speakveryclearly]

A matched pair of biological pregenitors. [Wow.]

This is the single most aberrant answer I have ever received about guardianship on your planet.

[boughtabookstore]

I think you've been talking to the wrong people about parenthood.

[speakveryclearly]

My closest human friends.

[boughtabookstore]

Perhaps they have been unlucky. I don't know.

[speakveryclearly]

I didn't get the impression it was abnormal luck. Although all of us trolls are the cultural equivalent of orphans and we do consider it unusual, but that's different.

[boughtabookstore]

How is it different?

[speakveryclearly]

There was an unusual incident - if Eridan's told you about the game, it's that; if he hasn't, don't worry - and all our custodians were killed as a consequence. Which was very unfortunate. I still dearly miss my lusus. But the whole affair was part of our planet's destruction. We weren't expected to actually go on alone. The government wouldn't have allowed for that, back home.

[boughtabookstore]

The government in my home would similarly not allow children to be left to their own care when young if parents died.

I'm sorry about your lusus.

[speakveryclearly]

That sounds like a very peculiar region of Earth.

...Thanks. I actually don't get that reaction a lot.

[boughtabookstore]

It's the same in most of the rest of the earth, actually.

The loss of a parent or parental figure that you care about is difficult.