infomodder | IC contact [Mask or Menace]

Seem to be caught up in quite a few lose/lose shitshows lately, to use your phrasing.

[ It's the better idea. Doubly so in person. Annie is much less good at diverting when confronted with her own bs face to face. Or asked for her honest opinions. Or statements and recitations of fact. ]

You're always welcome to use my phrasing.

[A joke in and of itself; Will's phrasing is what gets him in trouble more than just about anything else. At least with certain reporters.]

Your stuff's on the way, FYI. You think you'll be okay with that chick who did it?

Minako? Yes. I'm giving myself time to deal with her logically.

You think a lesson might be more easily made if someone contacted her and told her that some of those clothes were presents and if she doesn't, won't, or can't return them for whatever reason, then perhaps she should go ahead and pay the bills attached?

Careful. You're reminding me of Kanaya right now.

Those shirts might not look like much to her, but they're expensive. That was something like $350 worth, retail price. I don't mind it. Because they were for you. Not anybody else. And if you gave one to somebody, it was yours to give after that. You didn't give. They were taken. So if Little Miss wants to be a thief, she can learn a Goddamn lesson in keeping her hands off people's things the good old-fashioned way. You break it you buy it, you take it you buy it. Lucky not to get legal charges brought up.

Three hundred fifty dollars?!

Will I'm paying you back for that what the hell were you doing?

Back in my world, I own my own home on a nice stretch of property. It includes a barn. I have a car and 7 dogs that never want for food, shelter, and never go without proper medical treatment. I grew up dirt poor, Annie. I've known how to budget since before I understood what that really meant. And I kept that in adulthood, excelled enough to secure myself that much and never worry about debt. I run a business here. There's plenty of profit. I can absorb that amount. That's a drop in the bucket now. I was doing something I worked out monetarily and knew that I could afford. Something that did me exactly no harm. The point isn't the money, Annie. The point is the principle behind taking people's things and saying it's better for them, that someone knows you better than you know yourself. Like trying to pay me right now not understanding I knew what I was doing when I did it and that. That it was worked out beforehand. That I know what I'm doing with this. I did it because I could do so. I don't need or want your money.

Which isn't the point here, either, but I can accept what you're saying, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

[ More gifts from Will. Does he know he's the person here who has given her the most in what one might consider traditional gifts? Annie doesn't know what to make of that bounty. That he has offered her a place of sanctuary, too, all these small and big things.

Bubbly water in a fridge.

Glass bottom boats.

Gunther.

Small manipulations, too, but gifts nonetheless. People manipulate each other in soft ways all their life. It's very hard to resent him, murderous as the colors of his past have been painted, frightening as that association should be, if she found it true...

Well. ]

[EMPATHY MODE: ENGAGED

j/k it's always engaged. And this is impossible to miss.]

What would make you more comfortable? Other than monetary recompense.

[The murderous part isn't true. Other bits of his accusations that haven't been brought to public light, well.

They very much are.]

Any sort of equivalent give and take. More... being able to give back something in return that's useful. Where it feels earned.

[ Earned might be the important part. People may give freely elsewhere, but that's never been the case for her; the "charity" of the king to the refugees being the exception.

Charity necessary for survival. Annie will take what she needs. What she doesn't need, what's extra, needs some merit behind it. ]

[Well now, that's not a difficult one to handle at all.]

You know how to run a cash register? You ever feel like you gotta earn something, you can work a few hours at the shop. I'd be fine with that.

[The good old-fashioned way, like he said earlier.

With free bubbly waters and Gunther hanging out, of course.]

I can learn. For something like that, I should be able to, if I've learned how to operate things like laptops and hovercycles.

[ #modern technologies

This is easy to accept, too; direct labor exchange. Learn one more skill to handle taking the bait. Or something like that, anyway. ]

Works for me. Just give me a head's up of when you're free and want to, and we can go from there.

[When she's free. When she wants to.

Will doesn't need to be repaid, but if this makes her feel better, he's fine with it. More than fine. Maybe he'll even leave her alone, if she feels comfortable enough. Leave her alone and come back with something to eat, maybe. Something he paid for. Something he doesn't even think about until he sets it down in front of her and realizes.

Welp.]

[ It'll be a balancing act to get to that point of 'free' next to "willing." Want has both very little and very much to do with it. Wanting to give back because accepting without earning isn't how she works. It's why she avoids the "gifts" given to imPorts, why she turns them down or downplays involvement, simply to not have more to hold herself accountable to in the end.

Why what she does make hers matters, and why she's willing to let it go, too; Minako's theft is more troubling for what it says than for the loss of clothing. Annie doesn't care about clothing in the end. It's the message... that's the insult.

And Annie is able to be insulted, unfortunately. ]

I will.

[He gets the insult behind the theft, more than leaves him comfortable, and doesn't want to end up in those same waters. Granted, nothing he's done that could be taken as insulting was done on purpose, not like that. Bubbly waters, shirts, providing her a place or two to stop by if she ever felt like it, those were purposeful, but not with the purpose to change her. Not a demand, an invitation.

Just like how he'd reel in a fish.

There is a joke he's holding back on. You will? No, I'm Will. Maybe another day.]

I'll look forward to it.

[Free child slave labor? Not that. Not that at all.]

IC contact [Mask or Menace]

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