Work Text:
July 13th
Hi, diary. It’s been a hell of a day. Not that you’d have anything to compare that to, given that you’re brand new. I hope you don’t mind that I’m rambling? I’ve never had a diary before, so I kind of don’t know what to do? But the intake counselor gave you to me, and said you’d help me “organize my thoughts and adjust to the new environment,” which sounds nice? You’re already being nicer than he was, though. He was kinda… bootstrap-y? You know, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” Maybe I’m being too quick to judge, I don’t know. He gave me you, which was nice, so that’s a win. I’ve always wanted a diary.
I’m rambling again! This is harder than I thought. I should tell you about my day, I guess? Or, uh, day plus? It’s just after midnight here, which means it’s three in the morning back home for my parents back in Pennsylvania. I woke up at one in the morning to those words I’ve been aching to hear for years and years. Those magic words right in my ear: “Hello Annabelle. In 1963, the peoples of Earth…” I couldn’t believe it was happening. I thought it was a dream. I thought it would be the nightmare again. But I didn’t wake up; instead Earth kept talking, kept saying those magic words, the ones I pretended I hadn’t memorized hoping I’d hear them someday. Not that I could say them with her; I think my brain stopped working when she called me “Annabelle.” No one knew that name, I’d never dared speak it aloud, or even write it down. It was for me, kept safe in my head where no one could take it away. And Earth knew it, she called me by my name. The speech finished, and the golden words floated up in front of me, still with my name. It caught me a bit off guard, but in a good way, when no last name appeared after Annabelle. I’d never been able to pick one, and I guess the System knew it.
Right in front of my eyes sat the words Divergence Rank: B, Assigned Class: Shaper of Object. I watched the timer tick down, debating on whether I should click YES right away, get away as soon as possible. But I had to get to the Philadelphia consulate first anyway, right? So I figured I might as well take a moment to think. I realized that I honestly kind of didn’t care about my class, which felt so stupid. Like, I’d be stuck with it for the rest of my life, of course I should care, right? But I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it didn’t matter; anything would be better than staying here. It might as well have said “one-way ticket to Anesidora” for all it impacted me. I knew I could trade, even without the reminder from Earth, but that would take time, time I’d be stuck there, giving my pare them more time to figure out some way to trap me again, take away even this new sliver of hope. So, trading was out. Actually, could I have traded from here? I honestly don’t know… maybe I should have checked. Don’t judge me for that one, okay? I wasn’t really awake yet and kind of excited-panicking. Excanicking? No that’s dumb.
Anyway. I may have been, uh, in not the best frame of mind, but I at least wanted to pick my skills and spell impressions if nothing else. I didn’t really care about class, but I still wanted powers I thought were cool, or at least felt right, you know? But I couldn’t exactly look them up, and there’s no way they would let me use the computer. So, dear diary, I spent the hours until dawn scheming on how I could look up more info on all the skills for a B rank Object Shaper without getting caught. Luckily I kind of already had a plan in the works if I ever needed to use the library. They’ve been homeschooling me ever since I made the biggest mistake of my life, trying to keep me away from more “corrupting influences,” made sure I didn’t have a phone, anything like that. But they also, very occasionally, let me use the church PCs for their assigned homework if they couldn’t find the stuff I needed for the assignments their homeschool curriculum spat at me. Normally they wanted to supervise, but if I timed it right, and was just confusing enough that it tested their patience without pissing them off, they’d let me do my thing on my own. I couldn’t do it often, or they’d catch on, but this was worth the risk. I couldn’t sleep at all, I was just going through everything in my head over and over and over again. I could feel my skin crackling with all the stress, a buzzing in my brain from all the thoughts flicking through it. But I would do this. I had to.
So I tried it on m her in the morning, and with enough playing dumb, it worked. She dropped me off at the church’s communal computer room, and I picked one of the PCs in the corner, where snooping would be the hardest. Not impossible, which was so nerve-wracking, but harder than one in the front row or something. They had so many net nanny programs on those things, but thankfully they weren’t pre-sixters or anything, because Avowed stuff was more or less unblocked. So I could find a list of B-rank Object Shaper skills and scroll through their descriptions. One stuck out to me as I got a good way through the list, at first just because of the name: Rocket Shot.
Back when I was really really little, before The Incident, I wanted to be an astronaut. For NASA or UNOOSA or even the Artonans. I wanted to see the stars. I knew (well, “knew,” as it turned out) by then that I’d never be selected, because they were very keen on crushing that particular dream, so I wanted to do it another way. If I worked really really hard, I could make it happen, right? Of course they told me I wasn’t good enough, that I’d never be good enough. I wasn’t good enough to be their daugh- well, they didn’t know about that one yet. I wasn’t good enough to be their child, I wasn’t good enough for anything, so how could I be good enough for people that actually mattered? Dream crushed, another Tuesday. But I never quite let go of the fascination, so it stuck out to me, and I did a bit more digging. And the comments on the skill were… not kind.
Apparently back when it came out in the early aughts, a hero called Bulwark was the first big name to pick it up. His skills were all about reinforcing and fixing objects in space, and he apparently wanted some offensive options. The skill description certainly sounded like it would do, talking about rapidly accelerating objects and stuff. But in an interview a few years later, someone asked why he never used it, and he kinda tore it apart (in the way only someone trying to be polite and a lot of Appeal backing him could manage). According to the interview, he didn’t use it very often because it didn’t really offer any fine control; it was stronger than throwing, technically, but given that he put more than a few points in Strength, he just preferred to chuck things anyway. Then, not too long after that interview, he got in a fight with Shadebinder and… well, the footage of that particular fight got caught by the net nannies, but it didn’t end well for him. A few more picked up Rocket Shot in the years since: to see if he missed something, to remember him, or just because they were curious about it. And from what I saw online, the feedback was all the same, except a lot less nice. People were pissed that their Shaper skill didn’t let them, well, Shape.
Maybe that’s what did it for me. I started feeling… a little protective of it. It was probably the sleep deprivation talking… but still. This skill was neglected and maligned, deemed worthless by the people who should have appreciated it. Just because it was different didn’t mean it was bad or wrong. If someone treated it with love and respect, let it blossom, let it be what it was meant to be… I knew it would be something great. Rocket Shot needed someone who would appreciate it, and before I knew it, I knew it would be *my* skill. Is that embarrassing? Maybe I should tell people I had some secret knowledge, that a mysterious benefactor gave me a hint on its ~hidden powers!~ But that would be dumb, right? Everyone would know that’s a lie. No way that happens in real life.
Anyway, I decided Rocket Shot was mine, that I would give it the love it deserves. I knew I should look into spell impressions next, but I could feel a time pressure looming. I didn’t know how long I’d have before they decided I’d had enough time to finish my homework so they could drag me back, and then I wouldn’t be able enact the next phase of my master plan. God that sounded dumb, diary please don’t judge me. Anyway. There was something else I wanted to research, and I knew it would eat up a lot of time, both because it’s complicated and because I had to dodge the net nannies. So I dove in.
I already knew you could tweak stats in various ways, that they had substats and subsubstats that you could bump around. I knew Appeal in particular could be moved around in quite a few ways, and I knew some stuff under Stamina affected your body, too. From the interviews on TV from the channels I was allowed to watch, I didn’t know for sure if what I wanted to do was possible, and I couldn’t look it up because the church absolutely wouldn’t allow anything related to… anyway. Sorry, even when I’m alone it’s hard to talk about, hard to write it down. They’re so far away now, they can’t take you from me. Can’t take my selection or my affixation from me. But… habits die hard, I guess.
So I’ll just tell you what I did. What I did was sneak into the bathroom and say the magic words to Earth to agree to my selection, to become an Avowed and be free. I got my free Shaper points, my skill menu, my spell impression menu, and some bonus points to assign (naturally I turned my signing bonus into more points, because better safe than sorry when I was trying to do something dumb new). I was technically allowed to pick one B skill or two D skills, but, well, Rocket Shot. For spell impressions I got a D before I affixed and a C after, so I ran through the list. “Friction Zone” caught my eye. Basically, it lets me make a bubble of magic that, well, it’s in the name. Massively increases all friction, including air resistance, with a limit on how much matter it can have pass through it before it pops. I took it just in case I needed help stopping the things I shoot with Rocket Shot.
Then onto the fiddly bit: Foundation point allocation. Processing and perception sounded nice, but both Shaper and Rocket Shot already gave me some, and it felt safer at the time to use every point I had to make this work. I hope it was the right call; the intake advisor mentioned that some Foundation points take a while to kick in, especially the ones in stats I picked, so I just have to wait. Anyway. I took all of my points, dug into Appeal, Stamina, even a bit into Agility and Strength, and tweaked everything I could, practically begging Earth to understand what I was trying to do and let me have this, let me have my own body. Then I hit Finalize, and I blacked out.
I was in a train station, of all places. 30th Street Station, when I looked it up after. I had been there once before, when I was a little bo girl, before things got really bad at… in the house. I thought it was pretty at the time, the massive ceilings and dangling light fixtures, the big bright windows. It was busy when I was there previously, but this time it was empty. Except for me and a white mannequin, like those in shopfronts modeling all sorts of dresses. “Good,” she had said. “You are reacting within expected parameters.” That kind of snapped me out of my reverie, and then… we talked. I talked with Earth about me. She listened, and as we talked, I realized that when I first appeared in the station, I didn’t have a body, I was just a little speck of consciousness. But as we talked about what I was trying to do… I watched my reflection in the windows, and I watched me come into view. Exactly as I was too afraid to dream I could be someday. I woke up crying to someone knocking on the bathroom stall, asking if I was okay in there. I told him I was fine, I had just fallen asleep, and then I left. The bathroom, the church, and went straight to the bus station, following my interface’s directions. I refused to look down at my body. I didn’t want to see the wrong one, not after I just saw the right one for the first time.
People always complained it was hard to use the interfaces, but… maybe I’m missing something? It’s just like poking it with your mind, right? But Earth did comment about the fact that I apparently have synesthesia, so maybe that was making a difference? I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was mostly distracted by all the Objects around. It hurt my head, they all felt heavy in my hands, even when I was twenty feet away from them. Like I was holding every single thing all at once, and it was too much. Even now, in my room at Intake, I can still feel everything. I hope I can learn to tune it out, it’s so much.
Anyway, I was telling you about my daring escape. Which involved walking to a bus station, waiting until the one to Philly showed up, and then using some cash I swiped from my p their dresser to pay the fare. Criminal mastermind, I know. I poked around my interface on the ride, and went through my spell options; I had a C-rank impression to pick. I felt a little less rushed now, so I took my time looking through them. I still had, have, a lot of nervous energy bubbling around in me, like the other shoe is going to drop and drop hard soon. But… the hard part was over, the miracle already happened. I just had to hope and wait. With more time and internet access no one could ever take away from me again, I eventually settled on a spell called Unwind. It let me disassemble an Object in reverse order of its assembly. It took a material component, a braid of electrum and copper wire in a kind of wand, but it didn’t seem that expensive. I was sure I could get my hands on it pretty easily. The bigger, heavier Objects weighed more heavily on my mind, and smaller ones were easier to use my skill on, so I figured being able to break things down would be helpful in a few ways. I hope I can test it out soon, it sounds fun.
I’ve been nervous to use my skill and spell. That’s silly, right? I was so relieved to be selected, so sure when I picked them. But… I’m on Anesidora now. I know they won’t send me ho back if I’m bad at being Avowed, but… I’m being weird. I know I’m being weird and silly and paranoid. No one’s going to judge me for not “getting it,” for needing help, or for anything. The people here are nice, or at least nice enough. I’m just being stupid. Fuck it. I’m going to
DIARY I AM SO SORRY I DIDN’T MEAN TO SHOOT YOU SO HARD
HOW DO I GET DENTS OUT OF WALLS
Right, okay
That was… informative? I went down to the front desk, and they were really sweet. “Accidents happen, it’s okay Annie,” the woman at the front desk had said. I had forgotten I set my name tag up: “Annabelle, She/her, Object Shaper.” I don’t know if I like “Annie” as a name, but she was trying to calm me down, and it worked. Someone came back up to my room with me, a Rabbit, I think? And they patched the hole in the wall, and even fixed you up, diary! I felt really bad for my roommate, though. I woke her up (they let me stay in the girl’s dorms, and I almost cried), but she was nice about it. She’s a Water Shaper from Brazil, apparently, though I haven’t caught her name yet. She didn’t have a tag, and we only talked a few minutes before she went back to sleep. We’re apparently supposed to get two more roommates as they show up. Honestly, I kind of like that? I thought I’d want my space, but being around other people, people who won’t blame me for being a little weird and not knowing how to person… it’s nice.
Anyway, I was telling you about my trip to the Consulate. I was really really nervous when I got there. I was terrified they’d send me back, make me wait until the right time to bring me to Anesidora, make me stay with them more. But I think the guy at the desk put together my story pretty quick. Apparently I’m not the first to speed through my selection to get away, and he just needed approval from the manager. Though I did set a local record for fastest selection-to-affixation in my state. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Maybe I’ll regret it someday. But… for now… I’m so glad to be here. Fuck, I’m crying again. Too many waterworks today.
I’m really glad the intake guy gave me you, diary. This was really, really nice. To get all my thoughts down, to help me work through them. And in a way that felt more real than just typing them on my interface. So, thank you. And thank you, System, for choosing me. I’m going to do my best and make you proud. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to see the stars one day after all.
But first, sleep. I am so tiredddddddd. I’ll figure out the rest tomorrow, or start on it. Good night, diary. Thanks for being here.