deercountry | the balance of complete and incomplete [open]

Entry tags:

the balance of complete and incomplete [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you!
What: January event catchall
When: January
Where: The Snake Den and around Trench

Content Warnings: Eye trauma, blood, swearing, artful robot nudity, will add as they come in

a. i will trust the artist molding me [the snake den]

Anna doesn't really need much help right now cutting loose at the Snake Den. Madam G has been on her list of Pthumerians to check out for a while, and even if there had been some kind of reluctance to begin with, now that she's here mingling in a borrowed suit she feels downright comfortable. It's like she's ten years younger, and though her voice is still smoky and she's still missing an eye as far as physical age goes, socially she's just. Free, right now. It's nice.

It's nice enough that, when she's not striking up conversation with other people, she decides to indulge herself in the open mic. Borrowing an electric bass from backstage, she walks up, sits down, plugs in, and grabs the mic. "This is one from back home," she says, "By a band called Silversun Pickups. It's about finding freedom and acceptance and love in the places and with the people that everyone else tells you to stay away from. They'll say that the only way to be who you are is to file yourself off. That you need to hold yourself back to make other people comfortable without ever worrying if you're comfortable." She's talking very passionately for someone who doesn't think of herself as a motivational speaker. With a confident look, she finally leads into the song. "Let's bury that lie, Trench. This is called 'The Pit'."

And she starts playing, and she starts singing. And when she doesn't need to be playing and her hands are free, even she's not really sure how she does it, but she finds a way to channel her androidinous self to modify her own voice—just for a little bit, just to test it out. Just to see what happens, before she snaps back into the final lines of the song. And regardless of how it's received, once she's done, she puts the bass down and gently thanks the crowd. Her heart-simulacrum is pulsing faster than it should be as she gets off the stage, and she waits there in the wings in case she happened to inspire anyone with that performance.

b. the echo of what is and what will be [the shedding ceremony]

This is... not a good month for Anna outside of that, so far. For her time at the Snake Den, yes, she's still resonating with A2, and she's still who she thinks she is. But it never really takes long for her to start shedding her own skin again, and damn her brain but she can't stop fucking picking at it long enough to avoid the transformation.

The first time it happens, Anna emerges in a pure white dress that she's wasting no time in staining red. Her hair is longer, cleaner, and in lieu of a katana she's brandishing a blood-red shortsword in her battles with these beasts at the edge of the city. Taking zero precautions against pollution or corruption, she swings her blade right at the neck and lets the blood spray wash over her. When it stops, she hunches forward and shrieks out a strangely melodic note while the beast falls over dead. Her back straightens, and it's clear even from whatever distance anyone may be watching at that she's no longer entirely who people might know. The flower blossoming from her right eye is a good early warning sign, but you'd better act fast, because her good eye is a blazing red and she's rushing towards her spectator with that bloodblade at the ready.

The second time is much less interesting by comparison, but it's not doing her much good. Because the second time, she's just... a normal 29 year old. Both her eyes are fine, she's fully organic, and she doesn't know how to use a sword. In fact, she's taking her time and walking slowly through the streets of a town that she's starting to get to know better, wondering what her life even is anymore. Her Omni helps her keep connected with back home, sure, but nobody can get in touch with her no matter how hard she tries. And she woke up, for lack of a better word, with this katana that she's got on her back, and the first friendly-looking person she sees, she just asks outright, "Hey, uh. You have any idea why I would have a sword if I don't remember ever actually owning a sword?"

c. i am creation both haunted and holy [wildcard]

((got anything else you want to do? hit me up here or at

roseward!! also: source for the suit image and lyrics for the cover.))

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"God, It'd be nice to walk away from this with some idea of how it's all connected in there, you know?" she says, walking over slowly to check out the tools he's brought with him. They all seem to make sense from what she can see; nothing's really taking her by surprise except that he's asking about what she wants out of this.

"'Cause I'm gonna be honest. It was funny at first, but I'm getting a little worried about how I can keep cutting through metal skin to get blood for my sword, and then it all heals like normal." Ultimately, even though she knows a little more about what's inside her and what's never really left her, the bigger question is just what she is. Is she an android with human parts, is she a wildly complicated cyborg, or was her dad right and she's just some kind of freak now?

She walks to the other side of the table with her back turned and slowly takes off her shirt. The skin underneath is covered in seams, clean where it exists but otherwise jet black and featureless. She'd joked in the past about parts of her being blown off in the war, but right now she's standing there with her shirt bundled against her chest wondering if Dirk really understood what he was complimenting when he called her hot.

Without turning around, she says, "There's a seam down my side up until my hips for my entire front. I think you can pry it open if you try hard enough. I don't think it'll hurt me, but I'll stop you if it does." Another bracing breath. She needs a moment here.

"We can do that. Figure out where the organic ends and the bio-mechanics begin." His hands were itching to investigate. There were few things in the universe that interested him more than this stuff. He had soul-deep respect for androids and robots and anything of that nature. They made sense to him.

"There may be a component in your blood that accelerates healing. Whether magical or nanite technology." In this place, he felt that answer might be more complicated. He doesn't react to her removing her shirt. Not only because she was a woman, but because he truly did respect this process enough to remain clinically detached and professional. This was a vulnerable spot for her and he had no interest in making some poorly timed joke to diffuse the tension. Some things just needed to breathe.

That itch gets deeper. He was eager to explore her body, to understand it, his mind already snapping together. He finally approaches her and rests a warm palm in the middle of her back. It's a silent gesture of comfort. He did understand what he was complimenting her with. She was beautiful.

"All right," he says, tilting his head to look down at the seam. He doesn't move to touch it. She clearly needed a moment. He idly rubs the spot between her shoulders like he used to with Roxy when she was feeling sick after drinking too much.

"I might examine your body for a less invasive way to open you if that is okay. Theoretically, most machines are designed to be fixed or adjusted when necessary. If you don't have one, I can install one so that this is an easier process for you in the future." But he pauses, frowning. "If you would rather I just stick to the prying method, that's cool too."

Human touch shouldn't still affect her the way it does, but this is more than a pat on the shoulder or a hug or anything that could be described as normal. The man who's about to open her up and look inside is treating her like a person instead of a project, at least for the moment, and it does let her relax. She's complicated. Not a freak. She should know that by now.

There's a slow breath out as her shoulders fall. She's listening to him describe the possibilities, but all of it is just technobabble as far as she's concerned until he gets in and sees it for himself. "I never found one," she admits, talking about the less invasive way to inspect her, "But I'm not... complete, you know? Maybe it was in the head for YoRHa units. You can look if you want, but prying me open might be easier. Just popping my hood like a car," she adds, trying very, very hard to add some levity here.

And with that, she thinks she kind of... has to be ready, whether she really is or not. She turns around, not looking at Dirk but still holding the shirt in front of her body, and walks to the table. In an unpracticed motion, she crawls forward onto it, then turns herself over so she can stretch out. At first, her head hangs off the edge, but she rethinks it and pulls herself downward by pressing her heels along the tabletop until she's as completely on top of it as she can get.

It's only then that she lets the shirt fall to the floor and she moves her hands to her sides. "All right, Herr Doktor. You're gonna find out in a second anyway, but my heart is a black box, and my whole vascular system should still be wires. Everything else, I don't know what to expect. Just be really, really careful with my heart." It is a fission bomb, after all, but she's almost certain it can't be set off on its own. Still.

Dirk waits silently. He was patient. He could wait for hours if she needed it, standing silent and still as a robot himself.

"Understood," he says softly. A rush job. He's examining her more closely now. It's unfamiliar tech, for sure, but that really didn't intimidate him in the slightest. He removes his hand from her when she turns around. He wonders if he should offer something for her chest, some form of privacy. It might not really matter to him, but it clearly mattered to her.

The shirt drops and he approaches.

"Aw shit. I like to think I'd be Swedish instead of German," he says, also hoping to add some levity. "Got that whole platinum thing going for me." Though what did he even know about human society or language or culture? He was a fucking rookie on that field. The edges of her body were more familiar. He nods, his fingers skimming over the seams, his body-switching into a completely different posture. There was something practiced and perfectly clinical. Fingers are light, professional, respectful. Not just of her, but the technology built into her.

"I will," he promises. "When I made myself into a robot, I gave myself one hell of a heart too. Uranium." Like this is a normal thing to do and talk about. Whatever. He finds the seam she had been talking about and gives a firm tug. It's easier for him to get this sort of thing open purely thanks to god mode bullshit. He just doesn't want to break anything.

It's a nice joke, but one she can't work up the courage to respond to once he gets his hands on her body. She is German, of course, and she doesn't know a damn thing about Swedish culture that she couldn't find upstate at a big blue and yellow furniture store. Sorry to disappoint, she thinks silently as her body... pops open.

Oh, christ.

Oh, that's a new sensation. She shouldn't... should this be happening? There's a rush of cool air coming inside her, and she can see the panel that is her chest angle upward in the bottom of her line of sight, but she's just. It doesn't feel any different. It feels normal. It's just. It feels fine. There was a little pinch when he popped her open, sure, but this is just not painful at all and that is unfathomable.

She tries to mutter out some words while she's straining not to look. "Should be designed like a human," she says, and true to that it more or less looks like a human body in there. Of course, the major organs are much more... metallic, mechanical, pulsing and silently working away. The only part of her that seems to be more than that is, well, her vascular system. Her veins, arteries, capillaries stretch through her body, beginning at a black box that's steadily humming. The wires coming out of it are seemingly molded against the blood vessels, providing power in multiple ways throughout her body. It's not a pretty sight, necessarily, but it's... how she works. And Dirk is the first person to find out about it.

"Everything look like it's working right?" she asks, not that she expects either of them would know. She hasn't had any weird pains or anything lately, and nothing seems obviously out of place or operating poorly, though the filters in her lung-analogues could probably use some cleaning. (That's nicotine gunk, baby. Turns out it still has an effect on mechanical parts.) She doesn't know what it feels like to have parts removed from her and isn't eager to find out, though.

Dirk was used to robots with impassive, blank faces. Brobot had been a near replica of himself, but it wasn't like the robot had been designed with emotions or the capacity for emotions in mind. It's a different playing field working on an android.

Yet it's familiar enough. For a few minutes, he just stares and comprehends everything that he is looking at. It actually makes sense. The flow of machinery mimicking that of the human body, doing essentially the same things but with different make-up. He feels an inappropriate burst of envy in his gut, his gut that was decidedly flesh and blood. When he was young, he used to imagine his insides looking something like this. Practical, neat, contained and designed with absolute intention.

It had been easier to picture some robot's arms putting his body together in an assembly line than it was to fabricate some bean-like creature growing arms and legs and an entire nervous system.

"It is," he says after a moment, "Except it's a lot better looking. Less wet." And it looked like everything really was working. He moves closer and lightly begins to touch one thing or another.

"Looks like our blood pumps the same for the most part," he says, realizing he should probably be talking about what he's seeing. He moves a finger over one of those arteries, curious, but careful.

Now that he's more comfortable with the surrealism, he starts to properly assess.

"There are some parts that look like they could be cleaned up. Maybe tightened up. It makes sense. Everything is well-contained and protected by external forces. Did you ever feel like anything got loose inside of you while fighting?" He doubts it, but it's worth asking.

God, it feels so strange to hear about the inside of her while she's conscious. It's a good diagnostic so far, she thinks! It's good to know! It means she's not secretly falling apart from the inside and ready to shatter from the stress at any minute. (Not mechanically, at least.) But he's answering the main question, too, and asking follow-ups that are also critical information for her to have—and things she wouldn't have thought of on her own.

"God, uh. Nothing yet, but I've been fighting like this for a few years without ever getting tuned up," she admits with, for a moment, the shame of having to tell your dentist that you haven't been flossing. "It might be worth doing some tightening up in there while you're, you know. Looking around." Hoo boy. That will never get easier to say.

"Does it all at least look like stuff you'd know how to work with? I mean, like, except for my heart. I don't think anyone around here really knows how that one works." But how else to describe a featureless black box that's also a fission bomb? "Unless you do. I still don't know how much to expect anyone to know about robots."

"Mm. Yeah. It would be worth it. Then you will know the difference in how it feels if it feels like anything at all, and then we can keep you updated moving forward." There was no need for her body to fall apart due to negligence when he was around and willing, after all. Plus she might become more comfortable with this the more times they did it which would mean if she ever did have something wrong, they could skip some hurdles.

"Yes," he responds confidently and honestly. "It's not tech I have personally worked with, but it all looks familiar enough. Technology isn't usually deceitful. It's straightforward." Tubes were tubes no matter what universe they came from. It's what he loved about technology.

"Not sure about the heart, admittedly, but it does seem well-protected. We can figure that one out later." He takes his hands out of her and grabs his bag to dig around for a screwdriver.

"I'm going to start from the bottom and make my way up. Figure we should start further away from the heart just to get a feeling of everything." It's easy from there to work. He moves a finger to the side of his glasses and there's a flicker of green light across the black surface before it vanishes. He doesn't look for loose things - he treats everything as if it was already loose.

"You cool with me taking out some stuff to clean it as I go? You might feel a bit weird when it's removed, but I don't believe removing anything outside of your heart would harm you." Theoretically speaking. He could be dead wrong, but he's about 95.6% sure he was correct.

"Just like me," she says, at least about the straightforwardness of it all. No reason to lie or sugarcoat things most of the time, least of all when someone is poking around inside of her.

"Yeah, uh. Go for it. Just, like, don't be offended if I can't look at it, you know?" She breathes a little and the filters of her lungs flutter. There's no real audible increase in pulse from the black box, but her toes curl anxiously at the idea all the same. "There's a difference between being awake for a diagnostic check and being awake for open heart surgery.

She will be fine if he removes things, she's pretty sure, as long as the actual organs themselves remain intact. Filters, belts, valves, the minor things that might need replacing should be fine to mess with. Given the circumstances, she's pretty okay with 95.6%. She's staked her life on worse odds. Honestly, this might be the best matchup she's had in years.

"My liver might, uh. Might not look so great." She might as well be honest about that. "I haven't gone crazy on it lately, but a couple months ago I was hitting it every night, you know?" The implication should be clear. She hopes. "But yeah, like, all yours. Go for it."

"Shit, girl, I wouldn't be able to look either if someone had me cracked open on a table. No offense taken. It's your body." It's arguably one of the cooler things he has ever seen when she takes a breath. He doesn't say that out loud mostly because he's aware enough to realize it could seem insensitive as hell.

"Get your booze on?" Yeah, no judgment. He somehow manages to keep a touch of sadness out of his voice too. He was all too familiar with that from Roxy. It makes him miss her something fierce. He puts that energy into Anna.

"Yeah, I get it." He didn't drink much, but he understood self-destructive behavior perfectly. He started to work through her body, falling into a relatively easy flow once he got going. He unloosens a few things just to get a feel for what it was supposed to feel like on her exact body and parameters. Tightens them back up, moves on. Anything dirty in his path, he takes out, even smaller screws and the like and starts to polish them off on a rag he takes from his bag.

Without thinking to ask, he takes out his omen and starts to play some music. It felt like an automatic process for him.

"You cool with the tunes?" At least he asks after? Who knows. Maybe it will help her ease up. Who wasn't soothed by Salt-N-Pepa? He fiddles with a valve, plucking it out and examining it before digging through his bag for a new one. He pops it inside, securing it. "That feel okay for a new part?"

More strange feelings, trying to figure out what's going on in there without seeing it directly. If she has a nervous system proper, it doesn't seem to be throwing any wild curveballs her way. She can feel that something is different inside her as he loosens things up, removes them, cleans them... but it's not really painful. Or maybe she's just telling herself it's not painful.

(Later, when she's not on the table, she'll worry about that. If it's a way to trick herself into not feeling pain and just vaguely feeling uncomfortable inside, then how will she really know if something is wrong inside of her? Is she so desensitized to pain? Is that why it was so easy to decide the best way to let her own blood for her powers?)

"I'm more a 'Push It' girl," she says dryly, but honestly the surprise of someone else actually knowing both Salt n Pepa is doing a lot to help bring her mind out of that bad pit. She takes a second to evaluate things, and there's... huh. That's interesting. The discomfort is actually, like, cleared up? Jesus, talk about desensitization. She'd gotten so used to feeling weird, uncomfortable feelings inside her body (in a purely physical sense, of course) that she'd just attributed it to getting older, but.

"Fuck me," she says in surprise like a mechanic doing his job wouldn't leave her feeling better. "Yeah, no, that actually worked. Are you saying that all the weird stuff my body's starting to do isn't just 'cause I'm pushing 30?"

"Nah. Shoop is superior in every single way," Dirk argues steadily. It was about the beat. He takes it as a good sign that she doesn't seem insulted by the music and keeps it going. It made enough sense. One time Jake had insisted on giving him a shoulder massage for the hell of it, and Dirk had reluctantly agreed. He still can't get over how much better he felt after. How was anyone supposed to know if they never got fixed just how bad their bodies had gotten?

"I'm good," he responds instantly, smoothly. "I know I'm literally inside of you, but this is as far as we're going, girlie." He's only ribbing her. He snorts at her question, popping out an especially dirty cog. "Though consider yourself lucky. This is the most thoroughly I've ever touched a chick before."

"Sweet," he says, pleased with himself. He liked to do things correctly. "Looks like it. You might be ancient, but I guess your body isn't."

He removes the first "organ" of sorts and gets to work on carefully cleaning it. This was actually soothing for him. It gave him something to do with his hands, his attention. He could get used to this. "We should try to do this at least once a month. Keep you polished up."

"Listen, I'm only agreeing with you on 'Shoop' 'cause you've got your hand on my spleen," she jokes. Girls, what's her weakness? Other girls. "And I think my body's outdated by the future's terms, but, like, even then it's still stupid futuristic." There's something about ten thousand years giving her such a crick in the neck or whatever, but she doesn't say it out loud. She's not in the mood to chew any scenery right now anyway.

"You that into this?" she asks instead, knowing full well that this is more than just a tune-up for her. "It's therapeutic, reaching around in someone else's guts?" Or maybe it's more than that. Maybe she's something that makes sense to him even if she barely makes sense to herself. Maybe that gets to be good enough for her right now, because she's being handled with care and caution and—dare she fucking says it, there might even be love in the way he's handling all this stuff.

(She's gonna stab something with the cool sword she has stashed away in her room if the answer to one more goddamn thing in her life turns out to be love.)

"Hey," she says, trying to be sincere despite the teasing. It might seem sudden. It almost takes her by surprise when the words come out of her, and it might also be stripping an air of mystique to things, but she doesn't really care much. "You think this is what healing feels like?"

"Wise choice," he comments, smirking just barely. Stupid futuristic was his MO practically. He's meticulous in his work, not leaving so much as a finger smudge behind. He carefully places the organ back inside and gets to work on the next.

The question is a fair one and he doesn't answer right away. It's not like fixing his old robots. They would watch him and all, but he could deactivate them and know that they wouldn't have any real opinion on the situation. Anna had some sort of sentience in her, maybe even a soul, and that changed the game. Yet...

"This stuff makes sense to me," Dirk says finally, "Machines make sense. No matter how advanced technology gets, machinery is reliable in any language, any year. It is made with the idea of being handled." Be more poetic about it, Dirk.

"When I work with machines, it's the one time I feel like I'm completely in control of a situation. Like I can handle any problem I run into one way or another." It's arrogant, probably, but it's true. He was a fucking genius with this shit and he was proud of it. So what? People should be proud of their talents. He puts back the next clean organ and continues on.

"And I guess the idea of helping a friend in the process makes it better." Which maybe Anna wouldn't consider him a friend...But he certainly felt she had become one to him.

He looks up at her in mute surprise by the following question. He has no idea what healing looked like - having never really done much of it on his own. His entire soul was fragmented in a way nothing could heal. His body was littered with scars of past deaths and fights. Maybe he was taking the question too literally.

"I don't know," he admits, not a sensitive enough person to try and lie. "Maybe this is what the beginning of healing feels like. Vulnerable." That he could see.

No, she definitely considers him a friend by now. Would be a hell of a person who doesn't count someone she asked to shove his hands inside her among her friends. She would not if she weren't trying to stay still about this, so she just makes various noises of approval as he talks.

"This is about as vulnerable as I've ever been," she says. "You know you're the first person to ever see my whole body like this?" And she doesn't mean just on the inside, because she knows he knows that part already. She won't get into too many details or talk about things that aren't appropriate, no matter how heavy it may weigh on her tongue. "Finally letting somebody help, though... that seems like healing. Pretending that everything's fine and not letting anything get close... I don't know, dude. I'm tired of that."

Maybe she's found some new purpose or something. Maybe she's on an upswing. Maybe things will be okay for her after all. But she's like... she's just glad that Dirk agreed to help in the first place. Breathe out, girl. Feel that air. Time for another sudden question.

"You got anyone back home you can open up like that to?"

Dirk wonders if he had ever fully let himself be vulnerable with another before. Like this. Would he let one of his friends, would he let Anna, open his head up and carefully maneuver the matter inside if it were possible? He realizes he wouldn't, but more out of fear of hurting her or someone else than something else.

Maybe it was the same thing as being closed off though.

"Am I now," he says. He almost feels guilty at the privilege and trust she's giving him. Feels guilty that's he's not sure if he would allow her the same. It makes him respect her decision on this all the more intensely.

"I think...You might be onto something. I'm sitting here wondering if I'd let you do this to my brain and the idea freaks me the fuck out. I think you have reached a higher level of healing." If it's worth anything. He didn't want to lie to her. "Allowing yourself to be seen as something that can be taken apart. Dunno. There's something to be said for that."

He sets back in another organ and pauses physically at the question.

"No." It's quiet, maybe ashamed. "Maybe. I have tried to be better about that kind of thing with my brother. It can be difficult. I want to seem reliable and capable. I also am probably unhealthily obsessed with presenting myself as someone above emotional damage." ...Is he opening up to her now? Yeah. Maybe he did trust her a little bit more after all. It's certainly more than he's admitted so calmly before.

"I guess maybe this is a mutual experience here."

"Hey, brains are different. My brain is the only human thing I have left in me, you know?" She's not sure the distinction makes much difference. Being taken apart and pieced back together is... she'll let that stay where it is. Because she can talk like she's mature about it, but she doesn't have the words or thoughts to properly speak to it right now. Maybe she's better at pretending when she's not talking.

Maybe she needs a change of subject. She can sense that this is a big deal with him, his relationship with his brother. It's hard not to notice it. There's a pang in the thrumming black box that is her heart, and unbeknownst to her it seems to show in the form of a spiderweb glow, a pulse across the surface of it that vanishes as soon as it appears.

"I'm the same with my little sister. I haven't talked to her in, like, thirteen years, but I wanted to be there for her, you know? I wanted to make sure that she was safe from the world. I fought so many battles for her." She looks up at the ceiling and smiles a little, remembering the way she was always ready to throw hands. But it disappears just as soon as she starts talking again. "I was so afraid to let her see me break down that when my parents kicked me out, I just got on a bus and left her behind." There's more to it—so, so much more, but this is just the relatable part for now.

"It's a lot. Trying to pretend it's okay so the people who look up to you don't have to worry."

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the balance of complete and incomplete [open]

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cw: robot guts

cw: robot guts, human guts, body dysphoria

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