IC Inbox

[asmywitness]

[[Tyler screens his calls - anyone who tries to actually call him, he'll text back in reply.]]

Comments

[uber_marionettist]

....nope. That was negative levels of useful, actually.

I'm going to need an extended cut.

[asmywitness]

Fair. Just keep in mind that I'm trying not to be biased but it's literally a fucking trauma thing.

I don't know how much Steven's told you, but the entire thing with Changelings is that we get kidnapped by Gentry - fair folks, lords and ladies, whatever the fuck you fancy calling them - and get tortured over time into turning into them as well. The lucky ones escape, but for obvious reasons we're fucking messes. Steven and I were only out of the Hedge for a couple of months each before we got sucked in here, we are neck-deep in unresolved trauma.

Solus's entire Deal is being a smug fucking bastard, and I told him to his face that I can't trust him because, surprise surprise, he reminds me of my Keeper. He seems to have taken it as a personal challenge to therefore upset me as much as humanly possible; current attempts include emotional and psychological manipulation, and physical interaction in a way that wasn't sexual but made me so fucking uncomfortable that Isis tried to drop him from literally over a thousand feet in the air. Which jacked up his leg hardcore.

He came and bothered me and Steven at the contest bullshit, he knows full well that he upsets us and actively seeks us out to talk to us. It's usually just mundane dumb shit so I at least entertain his fucking discomfort fetish, however reluctantly, but Steven doesn't.

I genuinely didn't know Steven pushed him down the stairs until Solus told me himself, and he was goddamn quick to cite how Steven did it because Solus got him all riled up over me. Solus and I almost had some weird fucking truce, I guess, until he got me so pissed off during that conversation that I just noped out.

It's just a lot of collective bullshit and incompatible people trying to one-up each other short of murder.

cw insensitive lines of inquiry wrt sexual harrassment?

[uber_marionettist]

[There's a lengthy pause--longer than Dirk needs to read the message two or even three times.]

That answers a lot, actually. Thanks.

One more question.

This one you don't have to answer. Not that I was exactly forcing you to answer the others, but I already got what I need. This is more like due diligence.

You said it wasn't sexual. Steven hasn't been able to shut up about this guy since day one, like he's been tuned into some godawful, unending episode of 'To Catch A Predator' I can't fucking turn off.

Care to explain that?

Cw vague sexual abuse?

[asmywitness]

Sometimes Keepers are handsy. Mine was, I don't know about Steven's. Solus grabbed my waist once and I panicked, but when I told Steven about it I just referred to it as "got physical", which he took for the worse.

I'm the one who told Steven about Solus reminding me of the Gentry, actually, until then Solus reminded Steven of like. A sexually predatory older gay or something. He was hoping Solus would be like, a cool old mentor instead and I think the disappointment hit different after I pointed it out.

[uber_marionettist]

....

Really.

That must have been recent, because last I heard from Steven, he was still in full dramatics about it. Either way, I'm not going to ask him for more.

Damnit.

This is definitely answering some of my questions, but now you're telling me those answers aren't as applicable as I'd thought.

[asmywitness]

Honestly, Steven's just a dramatic fuck. Dramatic and petty enough that mentioning something he's shitty about gets a tirade.

I told him about my thoughts on Solus on May 8. [And he sends a screencap of a two-comment exchange with Steven.] The handsing happened the 9th, I told Steven on the 17th, and some time between that and the 23rd Steven defenestaired Solus.

[uber_marionettist]

Holy shit. You kept actual dates.

I'm putting it on the record right now: I really do not fucking appreciate you enough.

[asmywitness]

[Dirk thought he was enough of an actually functional human being to tell him to his face. Should he be throwing confetti around for such a momentous occasion?]

Eidetic memory, I couldn't fucking forget them if I wanted to.

[Which is half true. The eidetic thing for sure, but time stamps certainly helped line things up better.]

Steven's a smart guy but he doesn't know how to let go of a grudge. Not that I'm much better, but I don't showboat how much I hate someone as a defining feature of conversation.

[uber_marionettist]

Yeah, he pretty much turns his grudge into the entire story and forgets the rest. Then he gets the same way about the shit he does like. Like he can't go three sentences without bringing up Jack.

[It's actually a little frustrating because he's a quick study, so I can tell he's fairly perceptive.]

[asmywitness]

Lydia commented on that too, actually.

I'm not saying Steven's in the right for sending everyone to annoyance with his rant habits, but he didn't have much of a chance to exercise it before he got sucked into this place. He'll probably chill out about it soon enough. Or at least realise everyone's sick of it and start filtering appropriately. I'm pretty sure both of us have spent longer here than we did in our home world actually as Changelings.