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[othellovonryan]

"Yello yello, you're conversing with Donatello, inventor extraordinaire. Leave a message after the beep and I'll be with you soon enough."

Username: Bootyyyshaker9000

Comments

[othellovonryan]

You're welcome.

Just tell them I invited you. My presence is surprisingly effective at deterring any sort of arguments or demands.

[Its why every time he gets hit with compulsory obedience, he gets told what to do like...once.]

[bluediligence]

[ Peers questioningly over her book at him ]

It is? [ ... ] Still, I'll do my best to make a good impression when I introduce myself to them.

[othellovonryan]

It is. Domineering personality. They know if I decided something, its going to be a fight to change my mind and they have to decide if they want to deal with that.

Good impressions don't hurt though.

[bluediligence]

Ahh. So, you're stubborn.

[ Hummm. That tracks. ]

I'd wanna make a good impression anyways, but in places like this... it's even more important, I think. People have enough to deal with already.

[othellovonryan]

Yes.

[Also that, he'll own it.]

I would think you'd want to, to make your life easier.

[bluediligence]

That's part of it? A big part, mm. It feels nice to be nice, and for people to be nice back.

Another part, for me, is that ... oh, this is going to sound dramatic. It's about respect and safety, and it's just something I'm used to keeping in mind.

[othellovonryan]

There is a pause. "Wait, humans actually associate that with territories?" Donnie asked. "How do they stand being able to move so regularly in some cases?"

[bluediligence]

Mm? Well ...

There were some ... specific circumstances. I don't think it's necessarily something every human worries about in their day to day lives.

[ does that make it sound like she was in a gang? maybe. does korone realise this? not at all. ]

[othellovonryan]

You sound like you were in a gang.

[bluediligence]

... I was conscripted into a team of people who were intended to be peacekeepers but in practice turned out to be unwilling pawns when their already somewhat unpopular boss was overthrown by a supervillain.

[othellovonryan]

[....]

And you couldn't just rebel against the supervillain because....?

[bluediligence]

Oh, trust me, we did.

For around ... six months. Now she's dead. But the time in-between was A Time.

[othellovonryan]

I mean why did you do anything for her at all?

[bluediligence]

Magic bullshit. [ A single jazzhand ] And coercion. If she really wanted to make us do something, then... for a long time, we couldn't stop her no matter how hard we tried.

Luckily, we didn't stop trying. Even more luckily, there were people who did wanna help us. It could be, uhm, a bit fraught though. Politically.

[othellovonryan]

...of course its magic bullshit. SIGH. [Always the magic bullshit!!!]

How is it fraught politically, you were hostages.

[bluediligence]

SIGH is right.

[ A SINGLE FINGERGUN ]

We were seen as potentially dangerous even before the hostile takeover. Tools of the system, that kind of thing ... Some people were loud and proud about their feelings about us, some were more ... passive aggressive, intentionally or otherwise. Others were genuinely friendly. Then the takeover happened, and, uhm.

Some of my teammates were brainwashed into doing some ... really, really horrible things.

[othellovonryan]

Again.

Hostages.

[bluediligence]

We weren't the ones at fault, but people aren't always gonna be logical when they're angry or scared.

So if I'm a little cautious sometimes ... that's a big part of why.

[othellovonryan]

Then they're fools and idiots!

Just because someone gets their mind hijacked doesn't make them any less of a victim of the same circumstance! Worse even because a lot of people are dumb dumbs who want to blame themselves for their mind controlled actions because they'd rather feel bad then just accept they had no control of their actions.

But it wasn't their actions.

It was never their actions.

[He is]

[Quite fired up about this]

[bluediligence]

Ah ...

So you're speaking from experience.

[othellovonryan]

[He is glaring a hole into the book.]

It wasn't his fault.

[bluediligence]

... No, it wasn't.

I'm sorry I brought up something painful without realising.

[othellovonryan]

You should be angry is what you should be.

People were treating you poorly because people had their sense of self violated.

[bluediligence]

Uhmmmm ...

I got frustrated? Sometimes. When -

[ hmmm maybe let's not go there ]

Sometimes.

[othellovonryan]

Good! You should be frustrated!

When people decide to blame you for things that aren't your fault, just because they're having an emotional problem, you call out that bullshit because that's the only way they change and if they don't change, they don't deserve your consideration!