deernet | 002 // text; username: grollschwert

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002 // text; username: grollschwert

cw: chronic illness, ruminations on death

Fun one for you tonight.

[this message comes in the middle of the night, when no one in their right mind should be awake. but that's never stopped anna. she can't sleep, and if flynn and ruby and everybody are right then she has to at least try not to keep this stuff inside her at all times. sorrow's silence we needn't bear, or whatever.]

You know a girl. Her body is breaking down and her meds are failing her.
She has years left. Maybe months, if it gets worse.
But something happens, and she gets access to amazing new technology. Things that prevent her body from attacking itself.
Things that stop her timer from ticking faster than everyone else's.
Great, right?
You get to know her better. You entertain her little crush on you. Maybe you like her back a little and maybe things aren't gonna be so bad.

But one day, you do something.
Something that sets off a chain of events that you couldn't have predicted. Not in a million years.
Small things collide into medium things collide into big huge massive things.
And after the butterfly version of you is done flapping its wings, she doesn't have access to that technology anymore.
She's back on the timer.

She doesn't know you did anything.
She never finds out.
You can't bring yourself to tell her, and she wouldn't believe it if you did.

She barely recognizes you anymore, by the end of it.
Her family finds your name on her phone and invites you to pay respects.

Do you still go to her funeral?

Did you kill her?

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[ Well, this is.. strange, Ange thinks. She immediately recognizes Anna's username, but then there's that whole story.. One that's very clearly not just hypothetical. The other doesn't seem like the type to just make up stories and throw them on here for everyone to read.

.. huh.

It's that fact that makes Ange think more than she has to think about her question. That's the easy part, really. ]

Of course you go. You cared for her. Regardless of blame, why wouldn't you want to pay your respects?

[mm. ange. smart, clever, perceptive ange. who probably saw things like this inside her already. why does it feel embarrassing to have gotten her attention?]

Guilt? Shame?
I don't know.
The feeling like you don't belong there no matter how much you want to pay your respects.

Why would you feel guilt?

You said it yourself. In that story, no one could have predicted the chain of events that would unfold from doing one little thing that might have seemed totally unrelated to what happened to her in the end.

If someone truly cared about me, I'd want them to be at my funeral, even if they might have had the faintest hand in my death.

[ Granted - that last sentiment may be tied up in Ange's (former?) messy feelings surrounding death, but she wouldn't type it now if she didn't mean it. It's not just meant to make Anna feel better, or tell her what she might want to hear, or anything - it's also just true in Ange's mind. ]

I don't know.
Because I cared about her and now she's dead, and maybe if I didn't do anything she'd still be alive.

[she sighs. she's debunked that herself, too, in this very post. she can't earnestly say she believes it. sure would be good if her brain stopped saying it to her, though.]

Or maybe the same thing still would've happened and I don't have any say in it.
I don't know.
I don't want to make it that easy. I really don't like the idea of destiny.

[no matter how much refuge she used to take in it.]

[ Anna is taking the words right out of.. well, Ange's fingers, in this case. Because the moment she read that message about how maybe she'd be alive if Anna hadn't done anything, and Ange's first thought is that maybe she would have died either way.

But it seems like Anna herself realises as much too. Maybe it's a little like her with her family, Ange thinks. Logically you know that maybe it isn't your fault, but it's hard for your brain to stop telling yourself that maybe it's your fault after all. ]

But you're going to blame yourself anyway.

[ The words aren't accusatory, though it's hard to tell so in a message without tone.

It's just an observation. ]

Don't know how else to be.

[if she were talking to freya, the flower of Katastrophe, then she'd be getting her ass kicked right now. for being the same sad, useless sack that she thought she was finished being. but it's hard to find something to keep the fire burning for right now, especially with the night cold and long as it is.]

Maybe this just has to run its way out of my system.
Maybe I'll be better when the sun comes back out.

I'd say cut yourself some slack. But I know it isn't that easy.

We can't control any of the dumb stuff our brains constantly spew out at us.

[ God, if only, right. Ange would love that, thanks. ]

But for what it's worth, I think it's more important to be a good person right now than whoever you might have been or whatever you might have done in the past.

Even if you can't tell yourself that, I guess I'll just do it instead.

Appreciate the trouble, Ange.
I'm not really worried about suddenly not being a good person, though.

I mean, I'm an okay one, I guess.
Not a role model or anything, but I'm good at what I do.

I just... I mean. It's like you said.
My brain won't shut up. It won't stop replaying all of it over and over again.
Used to drink and get high to get rid of that, but I don't want to be that person anymore.
But it might work again if I don't find anything else.

[ Ange's a little surprised to hear about the drinking and getting high part - can.. people with robot parts even do that? Or was Anna, once upon a time, not a robot and could do that? But then again, she's saying it as if she's implying she could do it again.

Cyborg biology is weird. But moreso than that.. ]

Having a crutch can help. I mean, you've already met mine.

[ She's not going to be that explicitly sappy about Ruby on the network, but she figures Anna can figure it out. She's smart. ]

I guess I mean to say that there's probably healthier things you can do to cope. Even though I know it's hard.

A2's coping mechanism was murder.

[it's more complicated than that. and she can't, at this point, remember if she's ever brought up A2 with ange in the first place. the words just come out of her fingers and into the phone. she lets it hang with a few dots the only herald that she's going to follow up.]

Obviously that's off the table.
My old one used to be Rose. But she's gone too.
Ha. Both of us using a rose. That's funny.

I don't really know what else there is. Hunting beasts won't make me feel better.
Might make me feel worse.

[ Murder.

Ange isn't too sure what the A2 thing is about - perhaps it was who Anna was before? That seems like the most logical conclusion to Ange, though she figures the other might also just be describing someone she knows well, maybe.

There's only a moment of thought about it though. It doesn't feel as important in the light of everything else Anna is saying - especially since it's not like Ange hasn't killed before. She isn't going to cause a fuss about that. ]

It doesn't have to be just one person. It isn't that for me either. Technically. [ Technically. Because Ange would still flip out seven ways into hell if anything happened to Ruby. ]

I know this is going to sound super dumb and cheesy, but try surrounding yourself with people here. Maybe it won't work for everyone, but it did so much for me. It distracted me from even allowing my brain to think the usual dumb stuff.

Maybe it can do the same for you.

[what the hell was she breaking down about last month. this is exactly what she said she needed—she told flynn outright that she couldn't do this alone, not if flynn died, not if yuri died. and there's still more people here, even just in the small time since she's arrived, that she would call friends.]

[nobody as strong as anyone from home yet. but that was always going to be impossible. she'd known them for years; for most of her adult life, in some cases.]

I'm trying.
It's just a lot of work. Never been much of a social butterfly.
All my friendships came built in. A lot of them from when I was a worse person than who I turned into.
~~Or maybe I just made people pity me enough to want to try.~~

[she deletes that last line before sending it, because it seems too maudlin even for her, right now. even at her worst she wouldn't let herself get away with that. feels a little like the flower of Katastrophe slapping her fingers away.]

I said this to one of the friends I actually do have.
That it feels like I have to rebuild my entire sense of who I even am, now that I'm not in Recolle anymore.
Did you run into that at all? In the dream?

Not really.

[ The answer comes fairly quickly, like Ange doesn't have to think about what the answer is - and whether to tell Anna it or not. ]

But I think that's more since I never really knew who I was in the first place. So it's not like there was a whole lot to lose.

[ This isn't about her though-- hence why she quickly tries to steer this car back around into talking about Anna. ]

But it seems like you've gone through a lot of changes. I can imagine that making it much harder. [ Considering that other place she's talking about, and then that brief mention and implications of having been someone else entirely before. It's a very different situation than her own. ]

[she isn't on her game enough right now to recognize when the conversation is being rapidly deflected. she just recedes into herself, going for the easy, practiced answer whenever someone talks about the changes that she seems to have gone through, filtered through the vocal lens of one mr. ross jennings.]

A2 is someone else who resonates inside me. I have her memories, her body.
But I got used to knowing who I am alongside her. Two of us together forever.
Our souls collide, a swarm of minds reborn, then we find euphoria.

[she could reveal her actual deepest fear right now. but she won't. she can't. there's too much going on and she doesn't know ange well enough yet. she doesn't know anyone well enough yet to reveal that.]

At least back home there were more people like me.
Right now it's just Oscar. And Oscar's great, but.

I don't know. It's not the same.
The only ex he knows is that massive bitch that tried to kill Remnant.
It's not enough that I left everyone behind after I was so sure I would be there for the rest of my life.
It's that there really just isn't anybody here I know. At all. I'm completely alone.

[ Oh god, Oscar. So that's why the two of them must have bonded so quickly - other than Oscar's relative friendliness towards anyone who enters his proximity, anyway. They could relate. So that was it, all along.

She understands it's not the important part here though, so when she moves to reply, it's other words that appear. ]

You sound like you're afraid of letting new people in.

[ Don't mind her going full armchair psychologist here. It's just what it sounds like to her, with Anna saying that even getting to know people here isn't the same, that she's still completely alone. ]

Yeah, no shit, Rose.

[and her fingers freeze as soon as she sends it. it comes out too fast and she can't take it back, and she just leans back in her bed and groans in exasperation, dragging her hand down her face.]

[fine.]

Why would I want to let anyone get close to someone who can't listen to what's staring her right in the face?

[ Awkward.

It's a message that's so momentarily awkward that Ange doesn't even reply, not in the gap she gets between Anna sending it and then sending more. But it only confirms things more in the end, doesn't it? It just makes it seem even more that Anna can't move on.

Something Ange doesn't blame her for. She knows how crap she is at that exact thing herself. Hence why she doesn't mention anything about it, instead focusing on the other thing she's written. ]

Why wouldn't you?

You've been around here. You've seen the sort of people here. [ If Anna already knows Oscar and Ruby, then Ange thinks she's met two perfect examples already. ] They're willing to get close to others, no matter what said others think about it.

Then why resist that? It doesn't sound like you actually want to be all alone.

[there's a lot of things anna could say to that. a lot of really grim, really dark, really inappropriate thoughts, the first of which is "maybe i hang out with kids so much because they won't die before i do". but, well. that's not right. which is why she doesn't type it. she also dodges responding with something like "why would i want more people to refer to in past tense?". in the end it takes her a few minutes to actually write an answer, and by the time it's been committed to text she's still not sure how happy she is with it. it's bare. it's raw.]

[it's the closest thing to the truth she thinks she can tell right now.]

I don't want to feel like this again when I lose them.

I thought I could do things like that too.

[ It almost feels weird to send a message to Anna like this, when the other is clearly quite a bit older than Ange is. But then again, considering all of Ange's own experiences so far - maybe she's experienced enough for someone twice her age at this point.

Or at the very least to tackle this specific topic. One that hits way too close to home, making her type a bit more slowly as she has to consider her words. ]

When I first arrived in Deerington, I kept away from people. I refused to let anyone in. I thought it was the only way to protect myself if I had to lose someone all over again. [ To protect her heart, specifically, but you can't catch her dead having written those words. ]

I was also totally and utterly miserable.

Because of my own actions that were supposed to keep me from feeling that way.

[ She doesn't have to make it more explicit than that, right? It's obvious what she wants to say.

It seems like an amazing solution - but it doesn't work. It never works that way. Never so conveniently. ]

[this feels like such a basic, obvious thing. she's been around the block before. she knows isolation doesn't work but she's never been isolated quite like this. anna would be mortified to need to hear this, if she weren't basically outright asking for help from one of the people here who she least expected to get along with.]

[she doesn't reply immediately. because she's busy sending a message out to ruby instead. because even if she's inside her own idiot head right now, she can understand what's going on between ange's lines.]

So it's proven to be a bullshit method of handling things. Got it.

Your girlfriend helps?

Yeah.

[ At least that's something she doesn't mind sharing. Because it's obvious, mostly. Ange wouldn't be Ruby's girlfriend if it didn't make her incredibly happy, and even aside from that, she's pretty sure Ruby objectively comes across as someone who is just.. way too friendly.

Anna could use a bit of that, Ange thinks. Probably. ]

It's not just her though. Please realise the huge sacrifice I'm making for you by saying something this embarrassing so publically. [ Please, Anna. Please understand.

This is so embarrassing. ]

But I have so many friends in this place. It's honestly kind of dumb just how many. It's not healthy for an introvert like me. But on the other hand, they also make me stupidly happy.

And yeah, it sucks when you let someone get close and then that someone leaves. It happened to me earlier this month, and it sucks. It hurts so much. I hate it.

But at least it means you have a lot to fall back on when that pain does start to hit you, rather than just letting it cast you into some abyss you have to endure all by yourself.

Because we all know where that abyss leads to.

You didn't have to say all that.

[she types it out there, but internally she's glad that ange did. because of how similar they are, down to their vulnerabilities. maybe it isn't such a surprise. people like them recognize people like them.]

Also it's the middle of the night and about 25 people replied to this. Doubt you're putting yourself at much risk getting open like this.

Already feeling like I've got one foot out of the abyss just talking to you.

Thanks for taking the risk in the first place.

[ Please, this could be an entirely private, screened conversation and Ange would still be paranoid that someone might accidentally see it after all.

But she tries to put the thought that someone might be reading this conversation along out of her head for now. As well as she can. Especially when she reads the last part of what Anna says - the words that make saying embarrassing stuff like that all worth it. As long as it can help the other.. ]

Just come over when you feel particularly bad. Even if it's in the middle of the night again or whatever. Take the opportunity to not be totally by yourself when you need it.

I can't promise Ruby won't say stuff that's sappy enough to make you cringe though.

[ But at least it'd mean Anna would have instant company from two people. ]

Can't make promises.
But I'll try.

I'm almost looking forward to the cringe.
I asked her to hang out sometime soon, so maybe I'll see it sooner rather than later.

[she is. not not looking forward to this. it could be fun. she's just not thinking about how much fun it might or might not be right now, immediately.]

Good job.

[ Ange is really hoping this isn't coming across as patronizing here - especially since it's so hard to control your tone through text, and when Ange's default tone even while not texting is so deadpan to begin with.

She means this, after all. Ange knows exactly how hard it can be to reach out when you're feeling your lowest. ]

Do you think you're going to be alright tonight? [ After having gotten all of this out, and after having spoken with so many people. ]

002 // text; username: grollschwert

text; un: ushiromiya

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