deercountry | fall for me from reality [open]

Entry tags:

fall for me from reality [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you
What: November catch-all!
When: Throughout November
Where: The Entertainment Feed; Anna's usual club; other locations TBD

Content Warnings: Manipulation, blood + oil, lacerations, restraints

a. hold shut the wounds of the past [for murderbot]

An android walks into the Entertainment Feed. Stop me if you've heard this one before. She's wrapped in a heavier coat than usual, black fur around the collar, and she's wearing a new-looking pair of black jeans with no holes in it except for the ones that the guy who made them put in there for her feet and torso. Her boots are the ones she used to sail with, and her jeans are tucked into them. And, because she's committed to her own brand, she's got a white t-shirt with a faded picture of yet another robot on it.

"Anna Amarande," she says to one of the drones, identifying herself like she'd been asked. "Fantasy Twitter user rin should be expecting me? We have some things to discuss."

b. to the rhythm of eternity [open]

Anna usually limits her performances at the bar she's taken to calling her home in Cellar Door to three nights a week, but lately, she's felt a little more inspired than usual. She's chalking that one up to the Tower's influence, and she'd feel a little ungrateful if she didn't bump it up to five nights a week for at least a little while. She's playing most of the songs in her repertoire over a given week, her voice and her bass on full display with any other instruments covered by backing tracks from the glowing projected screen of her Omni.

Of course, maybe you didn't walk into this bar to listen to Anna play music. Maybe you're here for a conversation—maybe something important, maybe just catching up with old friends. If that's the case, she's glad to wave you over to the booth that she's stolen for herself in the back, dimly lit but private. She's got a bottle of beer in her hand as she does it, and she tilts it towards the bartender as if to say "one more for my friend".

"Hey, glad you could make it. C'mon, let's take a load off for a bit. What's been up with you?"

c. there are burning cathedrals [for makima]

This is going to be interesting, she thinks. She'd met Makima online in a curious conversation about godliness, and she wonders very much whether it's going to play out the same way in person. Right now, she's dressed as normal; it's a little bit colder this morning, so she has her thick, fur-collared coat over those new black jeans and Hatsune Miku tee, and she's looking around the coffee shop for anyone who looks even remotely like a Makima.

"Hey," says the woman with more souls than eyes once she's pretty sure she's got the right person. "Sorry, usually the places I hang are a little... grungier than this. Hope I didn't keep you waiting long. You're Makima?"

d. turning the skies into glass [friend of mine]

"All right," Anna says, in the heavier coat she's been wearing this whole time. She shrugs her shoulders up to wrap the collar around her neck properly, and she adjusts the strap over her chest that secures her katana to her back. "We're here to find something to help the Tower. Thanks for coming along." She turns her head towards her companion and smiles appreciatively. "I'm not in the business of walking into danger alone anymore. So—"

She reaches into her pocket and slips the crescent necklace she'd gotten from the Reckoning over her head, around her neck. "This can make sure that at least someone already knows where we are, in case there's an emergency, but how are you with tracking? I don't think a lot of us have been out this deep in the woods before." She looks back out ahead of them; the trees might be starting to die off, but that doesn't make the thicket of branches before them any less intimidating. She rolls her neck until it cracks, then starts walking forward, because there's nothing else for it. "Let's save a god's life."

e. i cannot pretend that i never think of you [for ange]

She's lost track of time. The zealots didn't seem to enjoy what they found when they'd cut into her side very much, and she can still feel the blood and oil oozing out of her very slowly. If nothing else, she thinks, they know how to keep people alive enough to actually treat them like a farm. She would find it funny if there were anything to laugh about, that this is the second time this year she'd ended up strung up and in restraints waiting for something mysterious to return and do whatever it is that they want to do.

Right now, Anna feels woozy. Half-awake, really, with her head lolling and her white hair streaked with red. The zealots, from what she can remember, had left her alone for the moment to try to figure out what exactly it is she has inside her. She remembers frenzied talk about how the Tower can't accept any of this because it's not flesh, it's not real, and she can only assume that they're waiting to commune with whoever, whatever to get a real answer. Her thoughts are going in circles right now. She misses her friends, her loved ones, her family. She wishes that she weren't here. Hell, she doesn't even have her katana with her, so even if she found some way to get out of these chains holding her upright, the ones on her wrists spreading her arms wide and the ones on her legs binding them together, she wouldn't be able to do anything but tap into the teachings of Sensei Lawrence.

She laughs dry into the darkened, empty room. Someone's going to save her. Right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anna smiles like she's been caught out on something. "Clever girl. That's when this stuff started coming into play, believe it or not." She flexes her metallic fingers, curling them into a fist and back into an open palm with way too natural of a motion for it to be a prosthetic.

"So it was a couple years into the tech job, in like 2018. The place I used to live got caught up in some really weird dimensional stuff. It was a little like Trench that way, you know? Except instead of me getting brought into the weirdness, the weirdness came to me. The city I called home started getting... a lot of new features. People getting new memories, new body parts, new phone apps that seemed like they were kind of dictating the way reality worked—you know, normal stuff." She says it so, so dryly. "Turns out my ex had ended up in that whole situation a few months before me, and we kind of rebuilt things from there. We had a lot of stuff in common—hell, we even bonded over losing our eyes." That's its own story all on its own, but it's just so much. She'll skip it for now. "By the end of things, we were in a really good place as friends again, honestly."

She's leaving more things out, to the tune of a year and a half and a lot of emotional issues. The smile as she thinks about Rose, about the way she and Rose left off, isn't as full as the others. But she's not here to give a complete history lesson on things.

Luz watched her with vested interest. If there was one thing that had not changed with the girl, it was her rapt attention when it came to delving into someone's story. This might have been her first time meeting this woman, but her first times had turned into some long relationships, like with Vira or Scorpia.

"Whoa," was all Luz could say for the moment, trying to imagine the reverse of the things that had happened to her, when she was brought from one new world to the next, and how she had come to love all of the people in them all. But here was someone telling her how the world she knew started itself to change, and that had somehow led to them losing their eye.

"I knew someone like that," Luz said quietly, thinking of Dipper. "Who'd lost his eye, I mean. His whole thing happened maybe a month or two before I arrived to that world. But it was rough. I'm glad you were able to be in a good place to be friends with your ex though. I'd do just about anything for my friends, if I'm honest."

"Yeah... yeah, seems like losing body parts is kind of part for the course lately," she says, her voice still retaining some of that dryness while silently hoping that she doesn't lose any more than what she's already had to sacrifice.

"But yeah, like. I'd definitely do anything for Rose, too," she says with the knowledge that she had, "And for anyone else who matters that much to me. And as it turns out, Trench is full of people like that." She's proud of it, almost. That she's in a place, literally and figuratively, where she's ready to fight for this city as strongly as she had fought for Recollé.

"Best way I've figured out how to give back is to give 'em entertainment. Second best way is to use my sword, but I left that at home tonight."

"I somehow managed to keep my body parts," Luz said, "but scars are a different story. Only thing that makes them invisible is that they're where no one else can see them."

And Luz planned to keep it that way: she didn't need people thinking she was a sad sack that needed pity for the plight she'd been through. She knew well enough that she couldn't keep everything inside, but still needed to be open, or else she'd risk corrupting herself.

Boy, Rose really WAS a popular name. She already cared a lot about two people with that name!

"Heh, you clearly didn't need it! Besides, you made this night worth coming in for!"

Anna rolls her shoulders a little and tries not to think about the scars that are going to be on her back for a while now. (She shouldn't have them, but here she is all the same.) It's for the best that she can't easily show them to others.

"That's all I want," she says, skipping over the parts about violence because dammit, she's gonna have a good time tonight and she's gonna make sure everyone else has one, too. "You have any requests while I'm up here, kid?" And she catches herself. "Oh, crap, right. Name's Anna. You have one, or should I just keep calling you kid?"

Luz similarly also had scars she ought not to have, but that was just the way things were sometimes. She was pretty happy no one could see them herself.

"I had a feeling," she said, smiling. "Those songs all seemed like they came from a private part of you, and you decided to show them to the people here. It was all really good stuff!"

Yup, they were pretty stupidly not mentioning their names, huh?

"Luz! And sure, I have a request! It's a funny one, since it's from my mom's time, but it's this one song I like by Sting, 'Shape of My Heart.' I think it might even fit the mood a little!"

"Oh, the dude from The Police," she says, nodding in recognition. She idly runs her hand up the fretboard, trying to guess at what the first notes of it could be, but she honestly has no idea. After that moment of trying to seem cool, she reaches for her Omni and starts typing it in on the hard light keyboard instead.

"Don't know a lot of Police, honestly." She finds some information about the song in question and grimaces. "Yeah, I was one year old when this song came out." Behind her words, she lets the song play through on fantasy YouTube and tries to passively pick up the chord progression, but the thing with the Police (as she understands them) is that they're good at complicated stuff and it'll probably take a couple listens. "It's not bad, though. Different sound from stuff like, what, 'Every Breath You Take'? But I guess he's a solo act here, so that makes sense." She goes back to something else Luz had said.

"So you're from like... what, the 2010s or something? One of those Earths that's shifted a little bit to the left, like mine?"

"And the Dune movie!" Luz added, remembering a recent date with Lexi. She didn't mind that Anna was reaching for her Omni to look for the song though: unless she was familiar with Gary Olman's 'EVERYONE' scene, chances were she wouldn't know that song. Luz's mom, on the other hand, knew the song from the end of the movie, and thanks to Lexi, so did Luz.

"Well luckily you don't have know the Police since he was solo then! This is just a really nice forlorn song with a wonderful guitar! But take your time, of course! It is your first time hearing it."

Personally, Luz liked most of "Ten Summoner's Tales," but that was likely because Luz was something of an old soul.

"That's right! I'm from the far off year of the twenty tens! Shifted? How do you mean?"

"Oh, I just mean, like." Man, so she's already sort of touched on this, but she might as well spell it out outright. Sting's still going on in the background, quietly, while she talks. She could get used to his solo stuff, she thinks, but she's a far cry from being able to play it.

"I mean, normal Earth, or at least my idea of normal, is basically the same as everyone else's Earth, except right on the east coast of America there's this city called Recollé where people transform into other people. Or there was, at least, but people don't do that anymore." She puts a hand behind her neck. It's another part of the metaphysicality of it all that she doesn't understand, but—at least so far—it hasn't been important for her to understand that part.

"There's a few people around here who come from Earths like that. Where it's all pretty normal, except there's one thing that makes it special. I assume there's one Earth out there that doesn't have any of that weird stuff, but I'm still coming to terms with my Earth being in that weird group, you know? Even if it never felt weird to me."

Luz was, of course, still absorbing, also listening to how she plays the song. It's nice, though obviously she knew it wasn't going to sound perfect since she put this poor woman on the spot with a song, she imagined she was just learning for the first time.

"Man, that's a lot! I'll admit that is something to wrap my head around, since I can't imagine changing into another person. I only did that once, and let's just say that it wasn't exactly the best experience. My Earth is actually pretty normal too. It just happens to have a dimension that's apart from itself that has witches and demons!"

She guessed that was easier than Earth having something funny going in with it, though she figured that was still pretty strange too.

"Right, why would you think your Earth is the odd one? All of them have some things going in with them! Some Eartha are actually MUCH worse off than ours! I've actually had a few people who's Earth is just as bad as Trench, just less magical."

"We had witches and demons one time, too. Hell of a Halloween," she says, thinking back to the handful of stories that she'd heard from Rose (by way of Lina) in the aftermath. "But yeah, transformation was the name of the game back home. And... I mean, only reason I think mine is the weird one is 'cause nobody who's from other Earths has ever heard of Recollé."

She shrugs, not thinking too hard about it. "But whatever. Everything's gonna be weird to someone. And, hell, I got a glimpse into what my Earth looks like ten thousand years from now and it ain't good. So if the worst thing that's happened to me is that I have a robot body now, I figure I'll take it, yeah?"

"Wow!" Luz said, shaking her head. "I wished we actually had that on our earth! Earth is just itself except for when some things leak from the Boiling Isles. No transformations, no magic, just, well, strange occurrences. And I don't think we had anything called a Recollé."

Was that French?

"A robot body? Really? Whoa. I have to stop saying that, I'm sorry, but I still get caught off guard how different things turn out for people who live on other versions of earth. Are you mostly robotic, or just, like parts, and are you comfortable with that question?"

Anna smiles slowly. Yeah, this is always what people ask when she mentions the robot thing, and by now she's cool with it. She rattles off some quick answers like she's lived it a thousand times before.

"Yep, for real. Neck down is all robotic, head's the last organic thing left of me. The body belongs to someone else and I'm keeping it safe for her. And yes, it means I can keep using myself as an amp as much as I want." She feels so smug that she figured that last part out. "I'd hope I'm comfortable with those questions, 'cause they're all anyone ever thinks to ask," she says, but she's good-natured about it with the smile on her face saying more than anything else.

Luz had never really met too many robot people (maybe none at all), so this was a first!

"Hey, if you're fine with it, that's cool! An amp, really?! That's so cool! I guess the next thing I'd ask is how that wound up happening in the first place, but if you don't want to dwell on that, we don't have to."

Luz was pretty much going to take this in stride. The closest thing she had to a sister was a mutated wolf that could talk, and she lived with someone that could turn into smoke, a duck and a sea monster. Normal was honestly the weird thing these days.

"I mean, that's all Recollé's doing, yeah? Remember I said that people were getting a bunch of new memories and body parts? I'm living proof of it," she says, and there's the undercurrent of the last living proof, but she suppresses that thought before her shitty brain can take it and run with it.

"Started with my legs, moved up to my chest, then my insides. If I'd stayed there much longer, I think I would've lost my head, too, but..." She shrugs, like she's not about to casually drop some dope shit. "You stop an out-of-control time-traveling eugenicist from taking over the city with giant eyeball monsters and maybe that puts a hold on the transformation."

"So it was already shifting you around? Wow. That is...not something I can even imagine, actually, and I've seen memories of people reliving literal blood baths."

She wished she was exaggerating. She was not.

Luz lifted an eyebrow. "Ok. You had me, and then you lost me with the Eugenicist guy. I need to know ALL about that now."

"Clarence Vanderweele," she says with drama and disgust warring for dominance in her voice. "One of the four founders of the city, and absolutely demented in the head."

This guy isn't fun to think about, but to the best of her knowledge, he's been neutralized, so she can at least talk about him in the past tense. Fortunately, she thinks, there's no reason to expect that he's still out there or that he's going to find her again.

"He tied up his own personal timeline into so many knots that he made himself inextricable from the history of the city. If anyone tried to figure out his origin story, he was already two steps ahead of them finding a way to make his legacy permanent." She might as well talk about his plan a little bit, too; it's where the eugenics enters into it, after all. "His legacy was pitting all the souls of all the worlds that had been destroyed to create Recollé against each other and making sure that only the strongest got the right to be reborn. He was the one who decided what strength meant, of course."

Luz wrinkled her nose at this. She knew exactly what that sounded like to her, and the idea that someone could come from a world like that was astonishing.

"That's like if one Nazi got a free pass to remake things," she said. "The strongest? Why? Doesn't he realize the kind of person that would attr-oh. I guess that is the point, right?"

That certainly didn't sit right by her. Imagine having to try and live against those kind of conditions!

"And you say he was one of four other founders?!"

"Oh, thank god." She exhales a laugh, like she's been dancing around something and hasn't had the guts to say it for a long time. "Nobody liked when I called him a Nazi, but that's what he was, you know? Like, my parents were alive when the wall was up and Opa and Oma lived through the war. Vanderweele was a fucking Nazi."

Man. So freeing to be able to use that word. "He was kind of the outcast of the founders, though. The other three locked him up in a prison tower that he was never supposed to be able to escape from, but surprise surprise, he found a way." She shakes her head. "Like I said, he made himself a permanent part of the timeline, or as permanent as he thought he could do. But he tried to make his last attack for control of the city and wasn't expecting someone like me to meet him there. So he's not a problem anymore. And it turns out that his whole idea was bullshit anyway—we had more than enough resources to help everybody reincarnate instead of just his stupid 'survival of the fittest' BS."

"But he is!" Luz looked flabbergasted. "That whole stupid idea that 'only the strong' deserve certain things! It just means you get to kill off the people you don't consider worthy! Guess who was also fine with that idea? Nazis!"

Really, why didn't people just call a spade a spade? It was like the Emperor and his whole "chosen" coven again!

"Wow, thank goodness!" Luz was starting to worry for her future when Anna brought that up. "So you're kind of a hero in your world? I mean, you helped stop Vanderwheele, right?"

Oh, there's a lot of things to worry about for Anna's future, make no mistake. She just tries to avoid them however she can by talking about the past, like how healthy people do. Those who learn history are sometimes still doomed to repeat it, after all.

"I wouldn't call myself a hero," she says, bypassing all her other thoughts and waving her hand modestly. "I was just someone who had the ability to help people and enough motivation to protect the city that made me. I was just doing the right thing with what the world gave me."

It could be modesty, really, but it's more likely the idea of imagining herself as any sort of hero is too much responsibility. If she's never anyone's hero, she can never let them down.

Luz could understand that, although living in the past was, as Luz would learn, not exactly a great way of avoiding bad things in Trench. It tended to bubble back onto the surface, and at the worst possible time.

"Right, but some people can't even do that!" Luz pointed out. "You'd think 'hey, they see injustice, they'll help out!' The reality is that most people are really scared of looking different, or worse, being punished and made an example of! It's pretty admirable to try in spite of all of that!"

Luz honestly should have thought of that last part though, as Anna's thoughts on being a hero were very accurate for Luz's mental state there.

Anna nods along. Maybe it's admirable, or maybe there's something a little more bitter fueling her, but either way she can't argue with results.

"I mean, I guess I figured that my parents couldn't kick me out again for being weird and different, so I might as well have gone for it," she says like it's a joke. Like she hasn't been stewing over it on and off for the past decade. It's fine.

"But I guess there is more to it, too, you know? Like... I'm older, I've seen a lot more of the world, I've lived through more shit. I feel like I have to be the one to stop kids like you from being thrown into the fray." She looks off to the side, her expression not unreadable but certainly not simple. And she continues, "Maybe I've got it wrong. I don't know. But that's how I'm living my life."

Luz was always reminded that she could have lived a worst life than the one she had: there had been plenty of people she knew her age who were still struggling.

"You got kicked out? For being-"

Weird and different. Things Luz had come to appreciate about herself, even if she knew other people made fun of her for it. Besides, in a world like this, what exactly did those words mean?

But the last thing she said, Luz couldn't help but chuckle.

"I think you're a little too late for that. I've been here over a year, but the place before this one was worse, and some of that I know because of other people's memories. Then again, you've probably seen worse than I could probably imagine."

She shrugged. "If I were you, maybe all the new parts would take some time to get used to. Other than that, I'd say you seem like a pretty nice person."

"Gay," she says quickly. "I got kicked out for being gay." But it's not a huge deal. It's really not! It's fine.

"And yeah, I think maybe I missed the boat on keeping people safe or whatever. One of my other friends was telling me about how this place used to be super bad for a lot of people, and it already ain't great now, so I can't imagine what Deerington was really like in its prime." Still, despite it, she doesn't seem too torn up about it. She knows she can't be everywhere at once, and over a year ago, she was still dealing with her own stuff. Her own, slightly more normal but still no less agonizing stuff.

She says nothing about being a nice person. It's rude to accept compliments, probably. (It isn't. She's just being weird about it.)

fall for me from reality [open]

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Spoilers, Luz mom not only accepts Luz's sexuality, she wears a rainbow pin after that!

hell yeah good for owl house

Luz's mom is so much more amazing than people gave her credit for

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