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Bilgerat is kind of a terrible person and he’d like to work on it, but that doesn’t change anything he’s done or how he still acts sometimes. It’s not really a mistake if he knows it's wrong and does it anyway.
It doesn’t change that he looks for the best person to punch down, the group's acceptable target. Anything to avoid being the target. Know that he’s hurting people yet doing it anyway because it makes him feel like he’s strong and powerful for once.
And he’s gotta do it first, establish that pecking order first.
Not that the crew that Captain Whitty scraped together had had any good options at a glance. Vinny had seemed too level headed, he already knew Little Joe would shrug it right off, and the kid- Messo’s only five. That would be messed up.
In hindsight Vinny would have worked is the annoying thing. Quiet, anxious to please, compelled to follow authority. If Bilgerat had just seen it sooner, acted sooner… he still could, really. It’d be easy. She’d just… take it. But damn it all he likes her too much now, just to add insult to injury. That boat’s well sailed. All bark, little bite, that’s the Bilgerat.
He wouldn’t feel bad about grinding Little Joe’s face in the dirt, but the infuriating thing about Little Joe- probably the root cause of all things infuriating about him- is how immune he is. How much he doesn’t care, for real. He doesn’t stand for anything, least of all himself. You’d think that would be the perfect low self-esteem recipe to kick him to the bottom of the barrel, but he just… lacks any indignation. And he’s better, faster at turning it back around.
And so Bilgerat lowest of the low, again. Not an unfamiliar state of affairs by any means, just grating. And a whole new level of infuriatingly ironic. Sure, he’s captain now, but he’s not captain by vote or appointment or even competency- he’s captain because it’s funny. Were he to turn around tomorrow and appoint Messo in charge Vinny would switch allegiance accordingly. Kid seems to think he’s hung the damn moon, but he’s a child. Soft and inexperienced in ways Bilgerat was never afforded. This title is the only protection he’s got .
Still though. Still. For Little Joe’s amusement or not, laughing stock or not, he’s in charge and Bilgerat’s always had an annoying sense of damn duty. He’s better at breaking things than he is fixing them, but he can at least get these people back to the mainland. They’re not the worst.