Working Through Some Issues

[othellovonryan]

[The room is darker than normal rooms. Still plenty of light to see, but there is no large centralized source, instead coming largely from various displays around the room. Computer screens, holographic displays, boards with tools or parts on display. Allowing for easy location of various things. Many projects in some state of complete.]

[Its a laboratory. A little hard to track the full parameters of the room, as it does seem to shift at times, always compensating for something new.]

[Some things will be familiar to Tryse with a look around. She'll see the dagger given to Eggs when they arrive, with the basic hilt design in the center, but other configurations in half states around it.]

[There are charts that track the number of resources inside Egg House, from their food, to furniture, medical equipment, how many bottles of Tryse's concoctions and estimate of how many bottles are likely empty and an estimate of when to make more. What supplies are in the junk pile, and what's in the bunker, what he needs to finish up in rooms and what improvements he can make.]

[Displays with Egg names and the names of his friends and family.]

[Displays with words of caution.]

[And many more screens with various other prompting words like 'public' 'pr' 'community' 'cult' 'health' 'education,' and more besides.]

[A display with the Genius Built logo on it. Another with the Hamato symbol.]

[There other than moving text on the screen, there is a constant movement of a rolling chair.]

[In it, there is a young Donatello, looking around ten, with glasses taped to his head, in a grey hoody with rat ears, constantly kicking himself from one station, checking over something, maybe altering something, and then kicking himself to another to go over something else, and yet again.]

[And then there's the one warm light in this place, a young woman made of soft yellow light, sitting next to the Hamato monitor, kicking her feet in the air, watching as Donnie movies form place to place.]

Comments

[tryse]

A monarch inheriting the kingdom is not nepotism. It's simply an inheritance. If a father died and left his eldest son his farm, that wouldn't be nepotism. A baker passing down his bakery, with his son learning the lessons of both business and baking, and passing it down to his daughter, wouldn't the daughter be even more prepared to run things? Is that still nepotism? Of course not.

It's only nepotism if that's not the usual way of passing down positions and if those who take those positions are unqualified. But a prince or a princess has been training their entire lives to take the throne. Meanwhile, in a democracy, the Powers and Yuzus of the world have just as much say as the Donatellos.

[Why is she arguing with a figment?]

It is a matter of tone, yes. I don't mind listening to someone who's passionate about a subject, it's when I start feeling talked down to that I start to take issue. I've been brushing it off in his case, though, because he is young and it wouldn't do to shut him down.

[Well, at least until she bit his head off about it during their fight.]

I've tried stating outright when I didn't want a discussion and it just made him freeze up entirely and need reassurances. So that obviously wasn't the way to go about things.

[othellovonryan]

A baker who can't bake won't sell. A farmer who can't farm will starve. A bad king has to have a violent coup, which depends on not having enough corrupt guard to defend to succeed.

In a democracy, there's a lot more opportunity to get rid of people without a violent insurrection.

Yeah, that's also partially how he talks. He knows he'll come across as sarcastic sometimes when he doesn't mean to. He also struggles with figuring out if other people are sarcastic. It took like six months of asking me 'is that sarcasm' before he had my tone down. Most of the time. He tries to hear himself, but...well, its genuinely hard for him. Sometimes he gets it. A lot of the time, he's pretty sure he doesn't. Judging by what people say. He has to get the data second hand.

Actually, it was.

....do you know why he freaks out when he's pressured to be the one to figure out an emotional problem all on his own?

[tryse]

Unless they're entrenched and don't want to go. That's the problem with Democracy. Once people decide not to honor the rules, they're in like ticks. Especially if they have followers willing to help them. Why do you think so many democracies turn into dictatorships?

Hm.

[Doesn't have much to say there. Donatello's issues are such that she doesn't really have the tools or knowledge to fully appreciate them much. She's reading up on his claimed disorders, but that's not exactly a swift process, especially when you're having to teach yourself a new science.]

Likely because he's terrified of making a mistake in an arena where he has zero confidence and feels like a slip will have dramatic results he can't handle on his own?

[othellovonryan]

And how is that so different from a bad monarch?

That's right.

Donnie never takes changes when it comes to relationships well. He gets uncertain and nervous. He always does, until he gets comfortable with the change.

You introduced a change. He wasn't sure if it was just what it was, or if he was missing something deeper. If you kept it up, he'd get used to it, and he'd be a lot less nervous because he'd get used to it.

It was a good sign. If Donnie's vulnerable, he feels comfortable around you. If he's peacocking, then he's nervous.

[tryse]

Because democracies feed people the lie that they'll be better and that their checks and balances on power can make such a thing impossible. Instead, a man gathers an army, casts a die, and turns a republic into an empire. This isn't a bad thing, empires are often strong and can support and protect things on a grand scale. But it's a flaw in governments supposedly run by the many, rather than the few.

Democracy can work. On a small scale. But once you go beyond the size of a single village, you're setting things up for failure. The more you dilute things by adding steps, the less each individual person matters. Isn't it better to have one guiding force dictating things than to let everyone think that their vote matters, even if they get what they want less than half the time?

[Anyway. That's the less important half of this conversation.]

Whereas I saw that as a fear or discomfort reaction and decided the better thing would be to simply not repeat that to avoid harm.

[If he'd told her earlier, they might have avoided some of the pressure building.]

[othellovonryan]

Better than one guy getting to ruin the lives of people for a generation at minimum where a coup is the only way to oust them. In a monarchy, only one person matters and if they're bad, it's everyone's problem and pretty quickly too. It's why he doesn't want to be in charge himself. He knows he could go bad, even if his intentions remained good.

[She shrugs.]

All relationships involve hurt feelings. If you're afraid to ever say anything, it causes problems. Always does. It's why Donnie usually doesn't sit on his issues with people.

Sure, he's got some things he gets hang ups about, but it's usually cause he can't or doesn't think to articulate something. [She gestures over to the young Donnie, still working away.] Gets it into his head he's gotta do something and he doesn't really need to bother people with it.

But he'd rather have a fight the first time versus a fight at the fiftieth time where he didn't know the forty-nine before existed. Dee can keep track of all this data, facts and figures, for months. But give him three emotional things at once and he's lucky to follow the string of one of them.

Even when he's trying his best, because you guys needed him to.