permutates | 5th transformation . spam & open video

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[ She's been working herself hard. Maybe too hard: she spends hours a day in the gym, sometimes as many as eight when she's not sleeping. She's read books on how to get in shape quickly and safely - more or less - and she's pushing herself as far as she can go. Trying to find her limits.

Today, she can also be found coming out of the CTS with Kelsier, bruised and mussed and a little bloody, and grinning ear to ear. If you're trying to impress me, it's working, he tells her, and she kisses him on the cheek and flushes bluer and makes her way to the Infirmary to make sure she's got nothing worse than bruises.

She hasn't reached her physical limits yet, but emotional is a different story. Being a child again, with that faith in Charles, has shaken her. Her conversation with Charles before that shook her. And sometimes, even when she's feeling fine - maybe when she's feeling the most fine, paradoxically - she starts crying. And sometimes she can't stop. Tucking herself into a corner of the gardens and trying to muffle the sounds of it so no one catches her at it. It's embarrassing, and she can always eventually manage to pull herself together and make it back to her room. ]

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[ Raven is blue, with red hair, not hiding. ]

What's something you've done here, for the first time? Or thought or realized, for the first time.

[ She's not sure what she's looking for. Maybe a little hope. ]

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Made a friend. Ate a hamburger. Forgave someone.

...one of those three isn't like the other two.

There are a lot of Americans here. It was inevitable.

I was talking about making friends. What were you talking about?

[ With a little giggle. She knows it's lame. ]

You're a very friendly people. The overbearing puppies of the world.

All right. I'll accept that.

[She smiles, then ducks her head, quiets a little.]

I realized I had a chance to fix my mistakes. And that I didn't have to be afraid all the time. Maybe that sounds, I don't know, too trite, too party line. But it's real for me.

Does this barge help you...

[She makes a face.]

Figure out what your mistakes are?

[General 'you', not specific.]

Not in so many words. But I think it does, if you're paying attention.

It's sort of. It's like living in a pressure cooker, or a dice cup, or a terrible house of mirrors. You've got to make decisions all the time, and you can't just go along with your habits because nothing's normal. It's always shaking you up, pushing you one way or another, pulling out different sides of you.

So it makes you face that, all of what you are, some of what you could be. And the more people hurt each other, the more you start to see that the only thing that makes any of it better is kindness.

If you want to see it.

[A slow nod.]

I understand.

Or - I understand sort of. But I think I'll really understand after I spend some time here.

It's already changed my habits.

Like what?

I'm not afraid to show people what I really look like.

No, I am afraid. But not enough to stop me.

[She could talk about fear, maybe. But she doesn't want to, doesn't want to talk about making herself small and weak out of fear of mutants, to a mutant, to seem smaller and more fearful. She wants to play sweet with Raven, but - it's too much. So she asks what she actually wants to know, instead.]

What makes it real?

[ Her tongue trips over what to say. Not that she doesn't know the answer, immediately - it's ugly. It's ugly, and it's not what people want to see, and if they accept it, then it means they accept her. Really. She doesn't believe the people who say she's beautiful, not at heart.

And if she tells this girl the truth, then she's exposing a bare and weak part of herself. ]

It's what I am when I'm not trying to be something else. Something that's easier to look at and think about.

[ Ugly, then, is hidden between the words. She is pretty when she looks like a human. She is also easier to think about. ]

[She tries to think about who she is when she isn't trying to be someone else. The answer is, as far as she can tell, sobbing her heart out. There's always a purpose to what she shows and who she presents, even if it's a true part of her, unless she's mid-shatter. She knows the difference between that and full mask, certainly - but she doesn't know what would be left if she peeled every bit away instead of cracking the half-masks open, waited until the storms cleared. Quietly,]

It feels like it's easier, going along with people's assumptions. If you make it easy for them, then you'll have less trouble to deal with. And then you realize you're being so careful you can't breathe.

[ She nods, tightly, the look on her face agonized. ]

I was the girl who could be anyone except herself.

I want the trouble, now. It's worth it.

[I'd take that, she thinks immediately, fierce and bitter. How often had she dreamed about that? Walking away and becoming someone new, someone with no father and no past, someone who would roam the world and didn't need anyone else. Anyone would be better than the worthless, cringing obesiant thing she'd had to dwell inside of.

She doesn't show her anger.]

You won't get much. No one stays normal here for very long, one way or another. And people generally have enough problems of their own to worry about dictating to anyone else.

[We're all mad here, she thinks. That would be a fun part to play.]

[ In a lot of ways, Anya's response is a little bewildering. Raven doesn't expect people to be violent about it here. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't change things. ]

People still react. They still want you to be something, even if they aren't going to take the time and effort to tell you what they want.

[She shakes her head.]

I've been a green-finned aquatic mutant and a telepathic alien. My friends have been mermaids and rabits and machines and harpies. We had an alien with grey skin and fangs and horns and a robot arm for a while. And the most beautiful girl I ever met was the worst psychopath I've seen here.

Nobody cares, not about what people look like. It's too much energy for something that isn't useful.

Probably even Davy Jones wouldn't get more than a few jokers messing with him if he weren't so insufferable as a person.

[ She's listening, she really is, but there's still that doubt there. That disbelief.

Though she laughs a little at Davy Jones. ]

I can make tentacles like that.

...I've still frightened people, when I look... blue.

5th transformation . spam & open video

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damnit I meant to tag this orz

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