runs_on_batteries: (Default)
Tony Stark ([personal profile] runs_on_batteries) wrote2022-02-14 12:37 am

IC Inbox/ Interactions 2.0



[For IC messages/ posts in suggestion box/ 'I don't want to flood the comms stuff'/ etc etc etc.]
unnecessaryflourishes: (did you expect congratulations?)

[personal profile] unnecessaryflourishes 2021-03-19 05:44 am (UTC)(link)
Do not dare to presume what I think of her.

[If there'd been any doubt, previously, as the the depths of his anger, there isn't no. And yet, for all that, he has yet to even really raise his voice. It is more forceful, perhaps, more pointed and sharp, shorn as it is of the softness afforded by courtesy and long years of diplomacy. But it is not loud.]

Do you have any idea how your words have affected her? How much pain you have caused, even just recently? [There's the barest flicker of a pause, not even long enough for Tony to so much as begin to defend himself.] Of course you don't. You, who cannot even seem to listen to what she has to say.
unnecessaryflourishes: (what of *our* dreams?  *Our* hopes?)

[personal profile] unnecessaryflourishes 2021-03-20 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
Do you think I would be here if I had not read it?  That I would be here on some imagined slight?

[Fortunately, perhaps, he chooses to not address the question about their respective levels of sanity. Frustrated and angry though he may be, he can still - on some level - recognize what frustration looks like in someone else.]

But by all means, let us use the conversation you have so kindly offered.

[He doesn't reach for Tony's phone, though. There's no need for him to - while he may not have anything like an eidetic memory (and just as well, perhaps - his memory is good enough to still recall the details of what he has just recently read even through the anger coursing in his veins.]

You claim she has placed a certain amount of blame and anger on another individual. You further imply that it is an undue amount. She explains - in some detail - her actions and reasoning.

[A flicker of a pause, and when he speaks again, it's clear he's quoting back fragments of the conversation in question. Not perfectly perhaps, but near enough.]

"I stopped being so open with her."

"She constantly oversteps boundaries."

"She shared the things I told her but not what prompted me to say them."

"I do not blame her."

"I wish her no ill will."

[Another brief pause, as he returns to speaking in his own voice.]

And yet you would have the gall to claim that she is channeling her anger at that individual? That she is vilifying them, even after she has offered clarification otherwise? Have you forgotten how much she cares to preserve what boundaries she can? Or had you simply not considered that hers might be worthy?
unnecessaryflourishes: (you are sorely mistaken)

[personal profile] unnecessaryflourishes 2021-03-20 09:11 pm (UTC)(link)
You ought not presume, yes.  But I have seen precious little to suggest that you have not.

[Still, he waits patiently enough while Tony works on calming himself down.  And if it gives him time to refocus a little as well, surely that's not the worst thing in the world.  It does little enough for the overall sharpness of his tone, nor the way that ever word of his seems all but poised to cut Tony to the quick, but he is - if nothing else - less visibly angry.]

Do you truly think that is how she lives?  That how she has reacted when she is angry and in pain is the whole of her?  That it is all she is capable of being, even now?
unnecessaryflourishes: (you have naught to gain by this)

[personal profile] unnecessaryflourishes 2021-03-22 05:44 am (UTC)(link)
You are aware you could have asked, yes?

[Asked him, or asked Era; he doesn't clarify and either would have likely worked in the end, although no doubt to varying degrees of success.

Tony's description of his first encounter with Era, on the other hand, has Emet-Selch deeply dubious. If only for the way it happens to be presented.]


Were it so simple as you have made it sound, yes. But allow me to offer the insights you may have missed, in your haste.

[His voice still twists sharp and halfway cruel, even with something as relatively innocuous as that, and he lets it do so.]

I assume she instructed you to not sit on the armchairs. Those would be nearer to the lower level of the house, where the birds prefer to nap. And even you would no doubt have found their displeasure deeply unenjoyable had they woken.

[Given that they're allowed somewhat free roam within the house itself.]

As to the conversation... I doubt her actions were without cause. Thus, I present a scenario that seems to have escaped your consideration: your words caused her a momentary flare of anger and frustration. Enough to cause her to lash out, if but briefly.

[A breath of pause.]

You have felt that sort of anger at some point in your life, have you not, Toto?

[By the tone of his voice, the nickname is not meant in a particularly charitable way, though neither is it a direct insult.]

She would not, however, wished to speak further of it with someone nearly a stranger. Thus a desire to return to that which she had offered. She was allowing a chance for matters to continue. A chance to offer whatever it was she had originally offered. An offer you would have snubbed by leaving as you did.
Edited 2021-03-22 05:44 (UTC)
unnecessaryflourishes: (this is all *your* fault)

[personal profile] unnecessaryflourishes 2021-03-23 07:13 am (UTC)(link)
She does know several people capable of healing magic. [Herself being one, but if that's not something Era has cared to share with Tony it's not his place to do so.] And it would more likely have been her hand.

[He can but guess, of course. Least of all because he had hardly been the one to tend to her injuries, afterwards.]

Nor would you have been expected to know of the birds. But let me ask you this. Would it be so strange to assume that there were chairs one might not wish a guest to sit in? And that one might not think to explain why?

[Especially, as seems to have been the case, if there had been something else that had provoked a strong emotional reaction.]

As to your declaration of care... you have certainly not shown it, through either deeds or words.

[He holds up a hand as that, as if to say that he's aware Tony might have a response, but that he's not finished yet.]

You have insulted her, belittled her genuine reactions to being hurt and in distress, rescinded offers on what would seem to be little more than spite, overstepped the boundaries she has carefully explained, and utterly failed to provide any explanation as to where yours might lie. You have shown her anger and frustration, and no matter how reasonable they might have been, you have done naught to give her reason to trust you. Naught to expect that you are anything but that anger and frustration, and with no sense of boundaries to guide her you have left her all but blind as to how she might avoid either of those things.

[A pause, though it's more to allow him a brief moment to take a breath than anything else.]

Do you know what it is you have done, in the name of help? You have caused her to believe that her emotions, that her pain is less worthy than that of others. Both those you have naïvely championed and those she might have known otherwise. That is not care, it is a cruelty, and one she ill-deserves.

[Another pause, as he takes a moment to simply breathe, pulling his anger back in, and drawing away from it as best he can.]

But let us assume that you have been genuine in your explanations. That you genuinely wish for assistance.

[And to be honest... he's not entirely sure on that.]

If you wish to help, you must learn to see her as a person. To shed your preconceptions and begin anew. She will be overly polite, yes, and has a poor grasp of humor. But she invariably tells the truth, long-winded though it may seem.

As for your definitions... if you must define matters, begin there. And for the love of everything you consider sacred, tell her where your boundaries are first.

[For a moment, it looks almost like he might be done, and then he begins again.]

But first, you will give her space. Both that she might begin to regain the ground that you have caused her to lose and that she might be allowed time to heal from this recent spate of emotional upheaval.
Edited 2021-03-23 07:14 (UTC)
unnecessaryflourishes: (did you think I would find that amusing?)

[personal profile] unnecessaryflourishes 2021-04-12 06:28 am (UTC)(link)
I am not asking that you care about them. I am simply pointing out that there are reasons for her to have acted as you did. Reasons that one might even consider understandable, though I will not entirely fault you for not taking the time to see beyond that first impression.

[For other things, yes. But not, entirely, for having perhaps gotten off on something of a strange start. Still, if Tony expects him to be the least bit cowed by the sudden invasion of his space, he will be sorely disappointed. In fact, there's barely so much as a blink from Emet-Selch. Admittedly, by the way his scowl deepens the longer Tony continues on about what he has tried to do it's clear that he wants to continue on the topic that Tony has just told him not to, but to his credit he does listen. He's perhaps not the best pleased about the idea - not least of all because Tony's not the only person who has been having a difficult time dealing with the conversation - but he does at least refrain from mentioning that fact.]

But by all means, let us turn to this 'insult' she offered. [A pause, for effect and consideration rather than any direct attempt to modulate his own lingering irritation.] You are speaking of her insistence that her communicator is a device she values highly, yes? When you had previously shown a significant temper that resulted in at least one item having been thrown to the floor? A poor insult, by all counts, if indeed it can be called such.

[Too, he could say things about his assumptions about Tony's ego, if such a small thing had been enough to prick it to the point of it seeming like an insult. He does not. Irritated and angry though he might be, even he isn't much interested in needlessly winding Tony up, now that he is - at least nominally - trying to help Tony understand if nothing else.]

Nor should you assume that practices in your world will have an equivalent in ours. While it would have been simple enough to see that you had been offering your assistance, she would not have had the context to see it as more than that. Just what little she knew of you - from conversation and actions both.

[The good and the bad, and Emet can most certainly guess at which of the two has caused the two of them to end up at such odds. Though this, too, is not something he speaks of, although in this case it's because Tony's comments about truth have him scowling again.]

Then let me rephrase. She lies most often to herself. When she is speaking to or of other people, however, she is careful to present information neutrally; as much without bias as she can. To offer an account that is the truth of a situation. And if you cannot - will not - see that as anything but disingenuity than you will never come to so much as the barest hint of an accord with her.

[Another pause, and this time it is to rein his anger in again.]

She is polite because - I assume - it is how she was taught to be. She favors text because it is easier for her, and so she prefers it. Not as an attempt to mislead or hide the truth of how she feels. Surely neither is so unusual?

[A more considering pause, and then:]

As to the rest, I will grant that she may not have entirely thought her actions through. But the rest of your assumptions - and they are most certainly that - make it quite clear you have misjudged whatever she may have told you of the situation. And her, by extension.