Archive of Our Own

Perhaps unsurprisingly the separation west of the river actually drives up the anticipation for anything that manages to come west of the border, she’s not sure what they are expecting from the idea of minority rule but their works are almost bid on in excess because everyone wants this romanticized idea of struggle.

Of course nothing like what had actually happened to the minorities that lived in those lands under the old order but none of them can change biases, and the money is good even as she kind of lies on the initial release.

‘Life in Los Angeles’

Pretty innocuous in allowing one to come to their own conclusion before pulling the rug out from under the viewers. It is in both of their eyes rather poorly shot trash but the thing had been what the people desired at the time so the both of them had walked the streets of the rather boring city now that the fun was over.

Everyone was hungover but it wasn’t the fun kind of destruction that marred the city, living under the marxist regime was rather… tame. They did nothing beyond walking around the city rebuilding itself after the war with the state and now they have the opportunity to distribute such trash to the wider world.

Like a found film movie except about real life that would only become popularized by that movie about the forest.

A sort of mythos comes from that original trash project especially in comparison to the actual stuff they produce on a regular basis, a time capsule into the past that was worth its weight in gold. It is so nice to know you’ve peaked from some trash you had no heart in just because the sights in that film are so captivating.

You just can’t win with some people.

Furina acts as the mouthpiece for Focalors and she fears for her the health of the next individual to talk of that camcorder film and the ‘historical value’ of that film, which is another way of avoiding the discussion on the lack of merit as an actual piece of art worthy of critique.

The problem with doing everything together is the obvious assumption that she speaks for both of them, not so in this specific edge case but generally it is safe to do so. It drives her mad for some reason she can’t explain other than it being an unexpected bump in the road.

But if it makes her happy she will bite her tongue on the matter and continue to support her publicly in whatever she does with her life.

Very few times can she consider anything she does worthy of reprimand or her intervention to clear up some kind of mistake.

Beyond that time Furina had kicked that paparazzi out of their home, but they were in a whole other country protected by an even bigger country so they could take that issue up with their insurance.

She wasn’t aware she practiced how to actually use that antique in their home.

America eats up whatever they provide them, something ever so disappointing despite the golden touch, such that it becomes something of a joke in wider circles, contrarians are the only ones willing to provide some push back on the run of movies they provide like they have America under their spell.

As any actual mystic knows, being able to do such a thing over an entire population so fast is just not possible, they can have their private jokes as they avoid the mass produced garbage that somehow claims the seats of theaters.

It is her curse to bear as success continues to drown her thoughts in a deluge of apathy and a desire to get away from it all, even her praise loving sister is starting to see some of the problems from only ever having success that they knew to be coming from the lowest common denominator.

Like any good rich person they turn to real estate to hide the feelings they don’t want to deal with.

With half of the country suddenly being off limits the Chicanos have entirely broken the property market. Everyone is being screwed with because of their failures and the lost businesses that used to exist on American territory, as a benefit tons of businesses are suddenly up for sale without anyone to pay the rent.

Sure, America has almost certainly entered a recession teetering to a depression, but one can find cheap tickets to a theater in Indiana.

Indiana had gone almost rabid against the FOREIGN INFLUENCES that were now basically on their border, never mind that they already didn’t like minorities and the megastate on their border did not change that fact.

They were lucky Minnesota still existed otherwise their paranoia would shoot to shogunate levels before Europeans turned up on their shores. Already hated by the rest of the country for their odd practices, at least they weren’t Kansas, no one would be sad to see them go especially with all that important land.

Passing whatever arbitrary metrics count as Judeo Christian values, Focalors, perhaps the French helped, gets approved for that building in the heart of the economically depressed city from the moment it was established.

Looking upon the metrics of that fair city all she sees is a land held back by the rest of the state being the miserable pile of secrets that it was, this city should be many times bigger and wealthier with a well off cast to make that city move by their whims without the government to decide much of anything.

Instead the city grows in spite of the rest of the territory, basically the only bastion of what could be considered ‘progressive’ for the state of Indiana that only prided itself on being awake, and the vanguard against any outsiders that would look to do the country harm.

A laughable joke if people did not suffer.

But she has to let go of her ideals to work there, it is not up to them to change a people that refuse to be better. Focalors likes the challenge even if it wont come from those media empires that should be able to eat into their earnings if they tried.

She takes the warnings of the mob seriously, one would be stupid not to, by making her first foray into local politics and their ability to be bought by the mob and her much better offer to only be legally corrupt instead of criminally.

When taking over Vegas the whole rotten infrastructure had to go in the eyes of the Chicanos for their exploitation affected even their communities and the allure of mafia money had no use in the land of independent people who bled for all they had and would not give up that for some comfort only to end up as financial slaves.

Having broken the mob's main source of money it was rather difficult for them to stay in power, local areas would have to be pressed to make up the windfall and keep the good times rolling, always in the shadow of Vegas even after its death. Being out earned by minority hostile takeover had done no wonders for them all, with no one to send back any money of substantial value, why else would she move in now?

She likes to imagine what the scene would look like if it was transcribed into film, the faces of greedy pigs sent to the slaughter as part of a crack down on organized crime, a good bit of fun especially when she provides a public good even at the expense of subverting who exactly controls the city to a new master.

But from her ‘palatial’ ‘estate’ the most she does is allow them to govern themselves with a few breaks for who it was that gave them freedom in the first place, just one of those theaters that went under after the complete collapse of the properties and the industry that used to be in California.

Now if she could get her reach to the ones in charge or morality...

Together they’ll have to make the trip to find someone willing to run the thing for however long someone can work one of those service jobs, even with the higher pay she can’t expect any self respecting adult to stay for so long.

But she has been proven wrong before and she will stop doubting the whims of both people and fate.

FUCK MOVIES!

That verbiage continued to haunt the city and the dilapidated walls of the economically depressed buildings but more on the theaters that used to house those films that came from the mind of the censors, even with their security it was painfully clear it was somehow impossible to capture the vandal behind the messages.

At first the simple security guard, cheap and effective in security theatre, was thought to be enough for the vandals in the area because despite the classification the vandalization was almost harmless aside from the paint costs.

Maybe it had been the personal at first but even the highest rated guards could not catch someone in the act as the message always appeared the next day to the confusion of the local leaders and businessmen freed from their tappings by the Know Nothings. It was unknown what the real reason for such a thing was but to the city it could only ever be one thing.

A Challenge.

Not something worth much if any of their attention but it was probably better that they use that newfound camera technology to record what went on at night.

While there was a reasonable application in other sectors the initial rollout continued to fail at producing results of any kind for their little local legend, people even spoke of them with something approaching appreciation! Like they were jesters for continuing to chase after the lead laid out for them!

The longer this continues the worse this will continue to get, might as well take the ridicule if it leads to catching the vandal on the street.

Then the most brazen of all attempts occurs and actually ends up working causing all of their efforts to be for naught as the uptick in copycats triples at the very least even as the tags are all not the same.

Walking the streets once could find multiple youth walking around wearing that get up in that garish green that should sprout nothing but anger at the clear flouting of law and order, and she had even inspired others to do the same thing.

Now that their little joke is spreading out to the rest of the youth and their inner circles.

No matter where one goes it is not hard to find that tag wherever one is looking, especially around the time of those new releases for theaters, a recordable uptick in vandalism based crimes always occurs.

Criminals must be punished harder than before in the name of law and order, if nothing else to make sure no one gets any more ideas that make their glorious state look bad on the world stage.

Collei laughs at their attempts from her room decorating like the average nunnery as part of the cover she requires for her misadventures, no one would ever expect that she consumed anything other than her bible and the media approved by those with good christian eyes.

Deep in a corner behind almost everything else is the film she took from that heist on her own, she was almost a familiar in the theater making sure to observe every little route and door that had the film she considered offensive even to her conservative values.

It was the worst movie she had ever seen that had to be removed from the theater for the greater good of mankind. Something had to be done with that movie beyond where the eyes of the law could reasonably see.

In unrelated news she was spending more time in those youth clubs, swapping stories and money for those things from outside the realm. Because to try and have a total hold over what one watched akin to those medieval lords in Luxembourg.

She looms over the room like an ever present force against the scourge of movies that grace their movie theaters like the flies competing over what little space they have for the movies they have in this moral state

When one really wants to see that stuff that would kill the strongest pearl clutcher they have to avoid the sanctioned clubs and hangout in one of their houses that while not built for housing so many occupants was perfect for the riffing they do on the trash.

Wooden faces and ‘moral’ plots for the average citizen are more than enough but for them what is truly special comes from out of state.

The movie industry, with as many little kingdoms as they had, still revolved around the big players even if there was always the chance of one of the smaller studios stealing that number one spot.

Everyone knows about ‘Hollywood’ that was somehow both everything wrong with California and the entirety of that industry despite being on even footing with everyone else, facing a challenger in the little thing from the hills after that LA film.

(A good video…? And nowhere close to being worth releasing in theatres.)

Closer to home, separated by one Ohio, was the state of Pennsylvania. Despite collapsing, the winners found it worthwhile to continue the naming convention instead of some other kind of state like some of them would, what came out of that state was not really an industry but rather individuals.

Like history itself the great man theory made itself known as only one thing became entwined in Americana and especially with every single contrarian in comparison to the mass media being produced from California.

It was just supposed to be one more night of riffing on whatever they could get their hands on as HACK FRAUDS, but they had watched something so bizarre it was too weird to even make fun of in their normal manner.

Especially once Collei stayed silent instead of leading them through the night as she would normally.

Natlan

In the words of the public at the time “not worth the price of admission” only kept alive by the cultists that adored such a movie. Back then the rights for a game adaptation had been sold to some division of Infinite Entertainment, turning it into a text based role playing game.

Long since ripped to the wild wild west that was the internet she found it to be great yet held back by the adjustments made to the original story, adding a prequel from 500 years ago as an excuse to set it in the universe.

It was tough to say if she would’ve appreciated their interpretation of the very first notes she had been working on that idea of a prequel before she was cut down in the civil war, just another nameless face in the war only gaining popularity after her death and the recognition of how seminal her work was.

Living past her own death… she would’ve liked that if she could see anything from where the afterlife was.

Many a copycat came out of the woodworks, but it was easy to sniff out a bullshitter that had no idea why the people had come to appreciate the films of the dead. With their media trying to get in on the pie that was a dead woman’s world she had come to a realization and it became the first time her heart had become broken after being exposed to their methods.

It drove her mad and to do things she normally wouldn’t have otherwise all in the chase of what was justice to these leeches on the industry trying to take something real and mass produce it until it was nothing but plastic.

Was there anyone else out there who would push back against the commercialization of those films that deserve to be abused in such a manner? Not to say film was the realm of the gods not to be sullied by the hands of man but the trends were showing a dangerous situation for the new millennium.

The answer came from the mouth of the other half of those two sisters that had certainly inspired an industry of ‘substantially different’ names and places that continued in those books placed in the restricted section.

That woman moved to the beat of her own drum, always making sure the interviewer would leave with a headache and more questions than answers, the paper was no different when it had to publish her words that were a sort of liaison from the city of LA.

Much too avant garde for the average reader, and Collei but she was special, yet it was always in the paper because those secretive sisters moved the world in silence unlike some of the public faces that worked.

Focalors always seemed quick to come out with a statement over the whims of Furina yet none supporting or condemning arrived.

She would blame the future events that led to her leading the lakes in the war against movies on the passion of youth and what happened when you gave any group enough money to buy out a city, even as she looked at the pile it was painfully clear this was almost nothing in comparison.

The letter had told her to find willing participants in her scheme and send them to at the very least purchase some of their guns in state so the transactions weren’t a sudden thing appearing on someone’s books, Indiana had been going under some changes and her city had been oddly hands off with them.

With their wealth it was no wonder Collei could get these guns without someone snooping around her home and the place where they actually stocked the guns. Not that they would wait long enough for someone to start investigating.

It was an innocuous delivery to a company run in the name of the sisters for whatever movie plan they had for the state. Was it odd to her that she was essentially working against her own interests in order to see Collei on the stage?

Not if you asked for Furina's bank account.

Planning her coming of age gift for the ages she waited for the promised support to come from the rich and the HACK FRAUDS willing to sign up to her death wish. You could always find someone on the same wavelength to ride or die with you.

Collei went through the tons of information provided to her by Furina, making her wonder how exactly Focalors was taking this move of hers, all very personal about the upcoming dates when security would be lowest and the high priority members that needed to be dealt with first if she wanted to actually succeed in the war.

And here she was thinking she was a defender of individual rights while running a surveillance state.

‘Probably never should’ve trusted someone so rich’ she muses in the back of her mind as she goes through the new data and for the men she trusts to take care of such important figures when she cannot be the one to deal the blows.

Growing up meant she had to take on some personal responsibility despite it being almost impossible for her to do such a thing in a bed much less at the multiple checkpoints for response to her movements.

‘Delegation is important’ they would say during the few times someone could reasonably stand her long enough to teach her whatever the course for the week was.

Sadly her sickness was not an advantage in combat aside from maybe slowly poisoning a kidnapper.

She would give the job of commanding to those professionals she was sending over, no reason to have a child lead them like she was doing. Even as the pay was more than enough to fight in the conflict being led by an inferior could only serve to increase the chances of defection.

Furina might have some contingencies in that case but she did not and so concessions, not that this really was one, must be made to keep one on side.

Collei would give almost anything to try and understand what exactly went on in the mind of Furina as the worse half of the sisters.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

For all of her bullshit outside of this one quote that insufferable woman still had produced something akin to a revelation within her soul, after having all the money she could ever desire for what reason was she still on this earth when they had been chased from their homes into the city of Los Angeles?

To have fun using her money in massive displays of hedonism!

No one remaining from their attempt had anything close to Koch money but it was still enough to grease the wheels and keep the money flowing. Except for that hideous gash on the west of America, too untrustworthy of people like them to ever give them in an in beyond the transport of mail and trade between their countries.

Good for them. No one should ever trust a Libertarian.

Focalors thought she was being so smart by hiding the smiles that graced her face whenever she blew up whatever cause she decided for the day now that they essentially produced money with no spending plans, but Furina was smarter than any of them could’ve expected!

It was obvious she enjoyed trying to wiggle her way out of whatever caught her fancy for the moment that she had to keep their game going on.

What was she to be without her other half in her life to spice up the dreadful experience known as living after the war?

Pre war America was the greatest stage in the war where any actor could become the leader, now that things had settled and the stage was put away, what was the point of someone like Furina when the light would never shine again?

But then like an angel from the heavens she realized there was still a light shining on her and her alone.

Nothing would be able to stop her from keeping that beautiful bathing light on her instead of anyone else.

It was to be reciprocal whenever Focalors did anything worth mentioning.

But she would admit to… straying from the path set out for her.

She had no clue when they had dug up the remains of some dead woman to use in their own material considering the estate was essentially handing that thing out like candy but she could admit to being drawn in because of the discourse around the movie and choices made by the directors the industry thought were up to the task.

In simple terms… she did not enjoy much of anything about the film beyond seeing familiar sights.

These kinds of things happened all the time unfortunately, as they were well aware of what gave them their first break, but somehow this was the hill people were willing to die on for their beliefs on things that didn’t matter?

Like ringing a dinner bell the entire industry had to have a word on the scandal, a stupid one at that, and the opinion of the general decline of the industry. While it would be the easiest thing in the world to blame the Chicanos like some of her less bright colleagues were doing, something about film locations and the wider dangers of the world. She found her own angle that was for sure to blow up whatever discussion they thought to be having.

Hollywood’s slump was part of the reason California had exploded all those years ago. If one thought about it, wasn't it obvious what the people would do without their bread and circuses?

All that had been given to California was the circus that had long since declined and needed new blood instead of the same old that had played a role in the destruction.

Napkin math like that was never expected to grow outside of those papers coming in that would have her headlines in it until the theory reached those nerds in schools theorizing about the reasons for the explosion in retrospect.

Inundated with calls to discuss her theory as part of a wider collective she took the mature route of leaving Focalors to deal with the answering machine while making sure to take all the news about their venture in buying that city.

Nothing big in the grand scheme of things but a town small enough to take their money without much concern to what they wanted to do to that thing. Now her base desires could not be expressed in buying that town and making the people dance like puppets, she believed in something greater.

Lifting others up while reminding them exactly who had put them into that position, like the leader of her own miniature country.

Heaping nothing but praise on the one that saw something within them and were made to pay it back in this form.

Maybe if she was back in 1985 and took the reins of fate herself maybe she would be different but she hated thinking about the many counterfactuals in her life.

Furina has never liked Indiana from the moment she had learned about their protectionist nature against anything from the outside, such a self-defeating state should not be allowed to continue yet they did because of the army.

Never say bigger army diplomacy did not work, Minnesota would love nothing more than to adjust the border between itself and Indiana. Between the two of them there was enough land to form another state but she hoped one of them would surpass the other to at the very least fix the border.

She would’ve done it but alas leading a successful insurgency was more work than she expected, and she wasn’t an oppressed race of minorities rising up in a last gasp of freedom.

Back then she thought the weight of the system would lead to their overthrow by the Rainbow Coalition or Rising Up Angry but they had dangled that idea of reform and so those moderates, perpetual failures as they were, allowed themselves to be lied to about the idea of progress.

It was no wonder the minorities were much more passionate fighters than those of her race.

But if the original organizations were forced to the back it was time for the freaks to come out where hopefully she could find someone to rid them of the scourge that was Indiana on the map.

The thing about working with freaks and unlike the regular terrorists was that they had actual ideals and morals which would cause them to question the sender of the guns and who was acting as their benefactor in the waste of money.

Why wasn’t there anyone who had no need to question where the weapons kept coming from?

Turns out there was and it was so painfully obvious when spelled out for her, everyone she had been going for originally had been much too organized and entrenched to fear her influence but teenage dirtbags would never say no to guns.

Of course it would be easy to lump the moderate anarchists with the ones willing to go on an unprovoked killing spree but the ones that had answered her call had been teens looking for the next hit of excitement even if it came at the government’s expense.

More of a bonus than anything.

Furina had the men and she could provide some general assistance on the war front but she still needed someone who would be willing to lead them in the aftermath so that they could rally behind during the fighting.

One name stood above the rest on the scene of their town with an energy unfortunately held down by the circumstances of her birth.

That little medical mystery of theirs.

Collei.

In truth it was hard to imagine a kind of illness that was still unclassifiable in this day and age when almost everything had a name, even the bugs had names after everything and anything!

Somehow magnetic despite her personality of hating everything that the industry had become, they could agree on that at least, with enough draw to get others to see her beyond the teenage critic that was surely turning into an adult critic.

God help them when she became big enough for the newspaper.

A name none of them had any real concerns over from the locals and it was rather easy to keep her from the sights of the investigators for she still walked around with the folly of youth. They would make the first move to bring her on the correct side of history.

Really, she had proven her worth with the way her tags made their way entirely across the city.

Furina would need the rights to her life story after this whole thing had gone through.

Unless the woman was secretly the triple threat she can only work to secure her investment in the state as nothing more than the cost of doing business in a market that was begging to be open for the first time since its establishment.

Her sister would appreciate what she had done here if only for the new market that was to be freed from the chains of bigotry to the sweet sweet reality of money.

One city in that state would never be enough for them, now that she had proof, the rest of the state would come to be under their control!

Focalors loved Furnina, she truly did, but there were times when it would be so much easier to hate her for the actions she had taken.

Indiana was also something she wanted to destroy like Furina but she would’ve gone very differently about the situation, radicalized as those movements were after the original betrayal they could still be useful.

Instead Focalors watched as Furina’s little rebellion moved across the state with speed and tactics from a professional army from that little town, capturing it before spreading out to the many mid sized towns dotting the state.

A lightning campaign out of the playbook.

Fighting like they had years of combat experience instead of the weeks needed for just the initial recruits before the rebellion happened, they moved towards any forms of communication they could have with the capital and the army.

It had been going so well with the mercenaries leading them in battle to be well worth the coin, a fun saying she found from one of those movies, keeping the troops inspired for the cause.

What the cause was beyond the desire to end the government was something that needed to be hashed out before this all happened instead of what happened to their mercenaries in reality.

They were perhaps the most informed about the rebellion unlike the media because they had been sent back with an illness and an outpouring of well wishes from the community that would have to break free and be independent from now on.

She can take the hint, better to reward the mercenaries for what they could control than what they cannot.

Focalors would be the mad one between the two of them for her sake, the money was truly irrelevant considering Furina made it very clear she had no expectations of seeing any of it come back after she sent it out

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Furina threw her arms into the air with a joyous laugh.

Furina sings her praises for days during the time she can find to start work on her next script about a woman that faces heartbreak and must fulfill her fathers last wish over the Australian continent.

The both of them loved a good story about personal freedom and the weight of expectations.

“What a good twist.” Furina has really pulled off a good one.

Usually betrayal was something neither of them could ever forgive for it ignited something within their hearts that must be avenged by any means necessary. Yet this one was different in the feelings it invoked in the both of them.

Furina took her passion and turned into the next story she wanted to produce about the adventures of the girl who overthrew Indiana at the head of a coalition of every single person to ever have a grievance with the state.

It was doubtful Collei had ever seen a lawyer in her lifetime, she wasn’t about to go and suggest she finds one.

Focalors has to look over the thing with her name after all and she finds her taking in the words of what has been told to them by that girl that might have moved against them without them finding out if the hospital reports are to be believed.

Everything they had on them was to be burned from the chance of their disease spreading further than just the people they had interacted with, something that bodes awfully for the two of them and their surroundings. She can see the idea that forms in Furina’s head into the page that discusses Collei’s nefarious plan.

Spreading that virus to the two of them as insurance that no one would be able to stop her moves towards total independence and the lack of need for generals now that they had moved onto greater things than fighting the army of Indiana.

Nation building.

If she was a statesman then she was sure Furina would never leave until her body collapsed on her for failing to sleep until the script was done and she would come back from the grave to continue working on the thing until release.

Like a revenant but only for that movie to be finished.

She prepares the bed and gets her favorite snacks as the pen has only increased in writing since receiving a response to that original letter of hers outlining her gratefulness for help in kick starting the rebellion but the desire to be free from any outside influence.

From a business perspective it is really no skin off their backs, Indiana was a special tinderbox where the first one to strike the match would have everyone else realize the urgency, they had no real assets in that land and destroying injustice was always a reward in and of itself.

But couldn’t they get something from the venture itself?

Over Furina’s shoulder she sees the letter and the newest scene she was planning for the journey of a girl that rises above her station to the leader of a nation on the verge of being born, in a movie theater with the leading girl running in the dark with a earned confidence about the layout and closest exits.

How can reality be stranger than fiction when it comes to their little superhero?

In front of those cameras leading a multi ethnic coalition with that garish flag of hers that looked to be made in an hour with their manifesto rather easily fitting on the provided canvas with the thoughts of a child haunting her motives.

A crime to everyone else who took the time to actually design a standard instead of throwing the next best thing on to a flag as a rallying cry.

If she ever had to see that thing officially be flown there would be no limit to the amount of words she would pen for a letter to their dear leader and fellow critic. For Collei’s sake she had better hope they could find a better flag real soon.

She found the image of Collei proudly smiling and saluting the new flag of the Great Lakes a declaration of war.

The two of them could play that game.