deernet | video; un: ushiromiya (cw: mentions of house fires, arson, murder)

video; un: ushiromiya (cw: mentions of house fires, arson, murder)

So for those not in the know, our house burned down last month.

[ What a way to open a post, right. And yet Ange manages to say it with something very close to a pokerface. Those who know her well may see something at its edges though. An annoyance that starts to bleed more and more into the girl's tone as she speaks on. ]

And not in the 'dumb accident' sense. No, it's because apparently it's socially acceptable in this place to come to someone's house and set it on fire, before bringing your friends inside to start murdering its inhabitants. [ Okay, yes. At this point it's not thiny veiled annoyance anymore. This is obvious annoyance that she doesn't bother to hide. ] And before anyone asks me if I'm alright— I'm fine. Totally fine. I mean, I half-turned into a beast back there, but it's clearly cool. It's fine.

[ It's clearly not fine. The sarcasm is thick.

Though Ange seems to realise that's not why she was supposed to make this message, and manages to snap herself out of passive-aggressive-ville for just long enough to sigh and sound a little bit more neutral as she speaks on. ]

Anyway, we want to rebuild the house, but that's obviously something we need help with. None of us are exactly architects.. I think. I've learned to not question weird Remnant hobbies. [ You never know what those Remnant people are capable of. ] Not to mention we'd need help with the actual physical rebuilding itself too.

We could use help from a lot of people, so if anyone would be willing to help, that'd be great.

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Probably. They're pretty smart.

... I'm also thinking about finding someone inclined to help make a magic barrier to keep people that don't like us out.

[Yes, he's aware this is public ... And that Chara can read it.

That's entirely the point. ]

[ She hums, actually seriously thinking along about this. Especially since Ange could also not give two craps that this is public - see: her ranting and complaining in this post in the first place. ]

Do you mean one that's targeted at specific invididuals, or just something more general that could stop anyone with ill intent?

I was thinking at first that it could be like what Willow tried to have done with Ozpin over the winter... But I don't even know half of the people that did what they did.

We're all of them actual personal enemies? Or was it a kinda mob thing?

So, the second one might be best. We don't always know whose going to be coming.

And, sometimes people change.

The second should probably be easier, anyway.

[ Every time Ange has tried to contribute to a similar project, it's usually been that kind.. ]

I'm not even sure what it'd take to ban a specific person from entering a place the way Willow did. You'd probably have to do something creepy, like getting a lock of their hair. And I definitely don't want to touch even a single part of those gross people.

I think Willow said it was a thing with vampires on her Earth.

[a shrug. Given how different vampires in Trench and vampires in her world seemed to be, he didn't even know if it would transfer. Still... ]

You're right, though. That would be a lot of hair brushes to get if we needed items from EVERYONE.

Going with intent might be easier... I don't know much about it, though.

[ It's not like Ange is a total magical expert either. Mostly since her magic didn't exactly come with a huge instruction manual, and there's been even more things she's had to figure out from scratch ever since being dumped in Trench. But even so.. ]

I don't think it should be impossible. There's other witches here I could ask about it. Like Willow, but Luna too.

[ Surely they'd be able to think something up as long as they put their heads together, especially with their varying kinds of magic. ]

.. speaking of witches, there's one here now from my world. I'm not saying she seems out to hurt any of us, especially at this point, but.. still, just be careful, Oscar. [ You know why she's calling you out specifically, boy.

You're like a trouble magnet. ]

[No offence was taken, Ange. He was well aware of his status as a trouble magnet.]

...You mean someone that isn't Sayo?

[He asked quietly, clicking their feed to private. He still kept eyes on Sayo, although not as closely as of late. A part of him still had a soft spot for Kanon, but he recognized where boundaries were and that sides needed to be ultimately taken.]

It's.. [ Her voice trails off for a moment, but then she adds: ] .. complicated.

[ It's mostly a preface that implies: please don't think it's ridiculous when this explanation makes zero sense. Ange is well aware of just how wild her world and her life got, only a little while before she ended up being dragged to Deerington instead.

Still, when she speaks on, she sounds very serious. Oscar is mature enough for his age to understand these sorts of things, and in turn Ange wants to make sure he is well-informed here. ]

She and that witch.. They're the same person, yet not. It's why they can both exist in this place. [ Even though it would have been easier if they couldn't. Dealing with one at a time is already a lot to Ange. ]

I told you before, right? That my consciousness kind of traveled through different versions of me. But those versions of me didn't really all exist on the same plane of reality.

[ You know. To make this extra complicated. ]

On a regular human level, Sayo is the person who killed my family. A human culprit. But since she sent message bottles out into the world with stories about how it was the golden witch Beatrice that killed them all, those stories took on a life of their own when no one could find the truth about what happened on the island and everyone started speculating. Those stories formed their own layer of reality where Beatrice was able to exist and kill my family.

[It was complicated... but in some ways, it wasn't much moreso than the concept of multiple different worlds, or how the Wizard in the back of Oscar's head was at once himself and the combination of a multitude. It was no wonder Ange fit in just fine amidst their band of warriors and those who wielded strange magics.

She was one of their own.]

...If you wish for something hard enough, then it becomes true-- is that right?

[He thought he was starting to understand. Oscar had, after all, seen Sayo's work in a few different ways.]

Is that also how Kanon exists? Another aspect of Sayo, but with a different role and different layer?

[ She hums. ]

Exactly. [ Honestly, Ange is kind of glad that Oscar catches on so quickly. Maybe it's due to the nature of his own strange circumstances, or maybe he's just smart enough for it. Ange has definitely tried to explain stuff similar to this before to people who were way less understanding or receptive. ]

Shannon and Kanon.. They were identities she took on while working as a servant on the island, switching between disguises. But when the truth of that was bured into that box of the unsolvable incident, they also became people of their own on that different layer of reality. So it'd be entirely possible for all of them to be here at once, even though they are all the same person in a sense.

[ Ange figures that her own luck is that she always swapped her own consciousness into the different versions of her - meaning that she couldn't have some weird double of herself in this place here, since it's always still her.

She considers this a very thankful thing. ]

They're one, yet many.

[He grew up on a diet of every single book he could get his hands on. The concepts of a story were familiar to him-- and the fact that at least a handful of the myriads of his forebears were storytellers only reinforced that familiarity.]

So what you're saying is that a part of Sayo wished for all of these 'characters' to be their own people in the same little... uh, reality bubble everything happened in. Right? And, without the Truth available for people to clarify the situation, there was no one to question her or nothing to stop her.

[It was extremely convoluted-- but, how is this not unlike petitioning to the gods to resurrect dead lovers? It is still another way of rewriting reality according to someone's wishes.]

We usually call it the catbox where I come from.

[ Granted, Ange realises that might sound kind of weird without context, so-- ]

Have you ever heard of it before? [ Probably not. Unless philosophical concepts are somehow just universal across the multiverse. ] Schrodinger's cat. It's about putting a cat in a box with a flask of poison and a radioactivity meter. If the meter goes off, it shatters the flask, releasing the poison and killing the cat. But that kind of set up means that you never know for sure whether the cat is alive or dead until you look inside of the box. So that means that while the box is still closed, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive.

[ A whole lot of philosophy babble, sure, but Ange has gotten used to it after all the discussions she's had in her world, and all the digging she's done into this. It's a long time ago now, years, but she still remembers it all very clearly with how often she had thought about it.

She figures Oscar can keep up with it, probably. ]

The island where my family died is like that catbox. Until someone uncovers the definite truth, all theories and realities can simultaneously exist inside of it. Scenarios, characters, events.. all of it. I spent my days back home doing nothing but trying to pry open that box somehow. [ Because she, of course, had wanted to know how her family died, or why they even had to die like that in the first place, or who did it to them. More than anything. ]

[It was a lot to keep up with, and Oscar usually tried to steer clear of in depth conversations about the multiverse, but so far Oscar could grasp the threads of the theory well enough to have a basic understanding. He wanted to-- for Ange.

He fought his first impulse to blurt out 'why would anyone want to kill a cat?' and instead listened. A world where all things were possible, including the worst possible outcome, felt oddly familiar...]

...That sounds kinda like a reverse of the situation we're in now. Anything could be happening with our other selves as our own worlds keep going on without the parts of us that are here. But, we're never going to know unless we go back to the sea and find out for ourselves.

[ Ange seems to consider it for a brief moment, but then says: ]

Yeah. [ She can see a point in that. ] I guess that means our own worlds are just like the catbox while we're stuck here. There could be an infinite number of our own worlds out there, with infinite possibilities as to what could happen.

[ The girl pauses, and then lets out a sigh. ]

We probably shouldn't think too hard about it. We'll just get headaches at this point. [ Because it's so overwhelming when you truly consider it. ] I guess the point is that whenever someone from my world shows up here, it feels like someone is opening up the catbox and just pouring it out all over this place. At this rate the next person from my world arriving here will be even weirder. I'm not exactly looking forward to that. [ And even that is.. a wild understatement, honestly.. ]

...I think I understand.

[because, as much as Oscar missed his team, he was afraid that they may be coming from a Remnant that he hadn't seen yet. The possibilities made him anxious about the state of the catbox he had left behind. ]

So far, it seems like you've gotten lucky, [He commented, mulling over the people from Ange's world that he had met. ]

Although if it weren't for the hair, I'd have a hard time believing that you and your brother are even related. He acts more like Ruby than he acts like you!

Edited 2022-09-09 16:45 (UTC)

[ There's a tiny huff, as if Ange wouldn't exactly agree with that 'lucky' statement, though she doesn't fight it otherwise.

Maybe because that last statement feels a lot more important to hop on. Yes, thanks, this is the image that she'd like to cultivate of herself, that she's nothing like her idiot big brother ~~who she loves to hell and back~~. ]

I mean, we were raised by different mothers.

[ Very careful and important wording there, no matter how casually Ange presents it. ]

I know we seem around the same age now, but he's twelve years older than me. And by the time I was born, he wasn't even living in our house anymore.

Ruby and Yang have different moms,

[Oscar said quickly, knowing full well that the math added up to the both of them being raised by the hands of Summer Rose. He was an only child, he didn't have much else to say on the matter.

Not when the next comment was more intriguing.]

Was it a time travel thing? I know about the different kinds of realities thing, but time travel exists too?

[ Thankfully it's something Ange already knew about, thanks to a talk long ago with Ruby about her mom. It was kind of nice though - and even now the reminder is kind of nice, knowing that she has something so specific in common with the girl she loves. An experience Ruby might be able to understand, if not a little bit.

It's the latter part that she reacts out loud to though, answering his question. ]

Partially. He was just taken to this place from a much earlier point in time than me.

[ That would be the easy, normal answer. But of course there's an Umineko spin to it. ]

Though I did travel back in time back home too, yeah. It's all magic in the end though, you know? [ Hence why she doesn't differentiate much between time travel and interdimensional travel. It kind of feels like the same thing to her at this point. ] There's very little magic can't do where I come from, to a point where it's honestly kind of ridiculous. I'm a really weak witch compared to the other ones in my world.

[Oscar nodded, believing he was understanding where Ange's explanation was leading.]

So. You're the time traveller?

[There were worse concepts.

Oscar thought over the assertion that Ange's magic could accomplish nearly anything, and realized that there was inherently not as much that he knew about what was left of Remnant's magic as he believed. For example, the upwards limits of it.]

Some Semblances are capable of some illusions, [he said, thoughtfully.] But I'm not sure how long lasting any of those states can last. Your catbox sounds way more intensive than anything that Emerald or Neo can do. How does that compare to here?

To here?

[ She pauses, seeming to consider it. She trusts Oscar on his comparison of the powers to the ones in his world, since he obviously knows more about it than her, but this part requires a slight moment of thought on her end. ]

I'd say the witches in my world are definitely on the same level as the Pthumerians here, especially when it comes to the levels of influence they have on us and the world around us. [ The difference is really just that the Pthumerians are a lot more visible here. Actual existences, rather than something hidden to most people, only shown through belief. ] The most powerful witches I knew could casually alter the reality around them as if it was nothing. Including the fates of other people.

[ That's very Pthumerian-like, right. ]

To your... catbox?

[He shrugged. There was a lot to unwravel about Ange's story, but he thought he was starting to get it. Magics were still a subject that he needed to learn more about, but this was also more like the logic in stories as well.

What else was the 'catbox' but a result of the stories that people tell?]

It does sound a lot like the Pthumerians. Being able to control fate and reality is beyond the scope of even my predecessors. It's hard to imagine.

[ Ange huffs. ]

It's less hard to imagine when you're stuck in the middle of it.

[ It's not a barb aimed at Oscar though. No, the disdain in her voice is entirely aimed at the dumb, dumb witches back home.

If there's anything Ange is glad to be far away from at this point, it's those beings. ]

After all, like I told you before about my consciousness moving between different versions of me.. I wasn't even the one doing that. It was them doing it to me. They like toying with me so much that they just throw me all over the place.

[That was-- rather horrifying to imagine. Oscar regarded her with renewed sympathy at her words, wanting to understand her trials but knowing that he couldn't.]

I'm sorry it was like that for you,

[He commented, wondering what sort of people these powerful witches in her family were. While he knew a little bit about Sayo, that was only one piece of the problem. She wouldn't have become so fragmented without other factors at play.]

It sounds like it was very lonely. I'm glad that you're here... so you don't have to be lonely anymore.

[ .. of course Oscar manages to hit the nail right on the head, huh.

Maybe Ange shouldn't be surprised by it. It's how Oscar has always seemed to be, after all. He always weirdly understands stuff like this, or easily sees through to the core of it. Even though dealing with those witches had been painful and annoying in a lot of ways, nothing ever really affected Ange the way the loneliness did. That's the part that drove her to extremes.

The fact Oscar sees through to it so easily leaves her quiet for a moment, but then she sucks in a breath and forces herself to speak. ]

Yeah. I haven't been lonely anymore since I got to know all of you guys.

[ She means it. It's why the decision to move on to Trench had been so easy in the first place. ]

It feels like I never really lived until that point. Ruby saved me from that loneliness, along with everyone else. [ But Ruby was one of the first and always one of the most consistent to reach out. It's why she fell in love so deeply with the other in the first place. ]

[The comment earned a small laugh from Oscar.]

Ruby.... she's special like that-- and I'm not even sure that she knows it.

[The world would be darker and lonelier without her presence and her smile, certainly-- but Oscar knew that this was yet another way that he and Ange were alike.]

...She was one of the first people to see me as a friend after I left home, [He explained, thinking of those days and weeks that passed with the intensity of a summer storm after Ozpin had entered his life and irrevocably changed it forever.]

Uncle Qrow was looking so hard for Oz that I'm not sure he fully knew how I fit into it. Jaune, Nora, and Ren probably didn't know what to make of me. I was just a country kid from a little farm that was a long train ride from the city. But, Ruby? She was having her own troubles and she still reached out to a total stranger.

...I'm not sure where I'd be if she wasn't there.

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-> private

private now!! also enjoy the weird umineko babble, you've thrown yourself into this

permaprivate-- and I was waiting for this to happen!

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