2896/Be More Afraid

Be More Afraid
Date of Scene:	19 December 2025
Location:	Cafe BAKE Neko
Synopsis:	CW: Heavy topics, mentions of torture and death. Amy, Usagi, and Mamoru talk about Obsidian, and why Amy should be really scared of them and be on her guard when being friends with Obsidian employees, and the three of them all share a lot about themselves. Takes place immediately after Lore with the Curator
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Amanda Faust, Usagi Tsukino

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
They're subdued on the way back, but it's easy to do when you're taking the rooftops. 'Let's go' apparently meant 'to the cat cafe' -- Mamoru texted Usagi to let her know Amy was having trouble and they were going to the cafe, and--

"I'm going to catch her up the fast way when she gets here, okay?" he says to Amy, where they are on line to order hot drinks on this cold night. "And I know that sucked, but you'll live. And things will be okay again tomorrow, even if you're going to carry the regret for a long time. The RSD is probably telling you Siddig-sensei hates you now, but like... no? That was not the face of an adult full of hate or anger."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Mamoru can see the problem and it's fixable. Amy is immediately relieved and hopeful at that, although there's still the badfeel of having disappointed people and damaged, possibly irreperably, her reputation and connection with Siddig-san.

    She tries to put troubles to the back of her mind and focus on the moment-to-moment of leaping through the cold night air and trying not to beef it onto the streets below.

    She de-henshins before they enter the cafe. Hot drinks sound nice.

    Mamoru's words bring her out of her head. Catch her up fast? Oh -- telepathy, with Usagi. The redhead nods.

    She winces a bit a 'carry the regret for a long time', she wasn't thinking of that and her brain screams to run away with it.

    She's surprised to hear Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria mentioned,, but it's not really unlikely for Mamoru to know of, come to think of it.

    She doesn't think Siddig hates her, but... Amy thinks she's expressionless but actually kind of has some resting bitchface going on as she says, "She's not mad, just disappointed." with the tone of someone for whom 'disappointing people' was a regular and inescapable state for a very long time.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi had been finishing a movie with Luna, Diana and anyone else in the apartment and interested - a romantic comedy full of grand gestures and silly moments, where nothing truly bad went wrong and everything and everyone ends happy - when the texts started coming from Mamoru. She looks up, apologetic, and explains, "Friendship emergency! I'll be back, but when we get back you'd better believe that I'm going to keep arguing that the secondary couple should have been the main couple, they had so much more chemistry -"

"You would think that, Usagi-chan," Luna dismisses, as she has for the last five minutes, huffing, "Go on, go solve your friendship problem -"

"I don't know if I like how you said that, Luna!" Usagi shoots over her shoulder, but she has, indeed, left the apartment. It's not quite five minutes later that she enters the Cat Cafe, places an order at the counter, and heads over, taking the third branch of the triangle and giving Mamoru her hand so he can catch her up.

"Disappointed is way better than mad, though, whatever it is. Mamochan's catching me up, hold on just a second - oh wow that was a lot."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
'A lot'-- slow-motion second-hand embarrassment social horror on Mamoru's part, watching, as Siddig-sensei said, belatedly, that they should keep the information to themselves and away from Obsidian, and Mamoru agreed with her and reassured her that they know better, and then Amy immediately exploded in a spotlight of misery and-- Siddig's expression, Amy's expressions, and Amy's concern that she didn't make a choice.

Mamoru squeezes Usagi's hand, then lets go so he can order and move to wait at the pickup counter. "Sometimes we fuck up, it happens. But I think I know what happened -- you're friends with Okana-san, so you're not afraid of her, you feel no reason to be cautious around her, right? You're not afraid of Obsidian, not enough."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    While they're waiting, it hits Amy that Usagi has been called away from whatever she was doing for her.

    Feeling bad for troubling Usagi-chan mixes with the warm feeling of knowing Usagi wants to help her because Amy's around people like that now, Amy has friends like that now... but she also can't help but worry that this is a bit of a bother, and so thoughts circle as she sips hot chocolate.

> You feel no need to be cautious around her, right?
    Amy opens her mouth to explain that's not quite it, but Mamoru continues with a worryingly chilling followup sentence.
    This does not go anywhere good. Well... Maybe good in the end, but any situation that follows 'you're not afraid enough' -- with the implication she's going to be shown something -- is surely unpleasant, and she tenses up at the mental alarm bells going off and says, a bit stilted and uncomfortable, "What... do you mean...?"

    She thinks of the last time she was shown something, and seeing Kriemhild Gretchen and the Silence Glaive...

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
A lot indeed - Mamoru gets a flash of Usagi's distaste for Siddig-sensei which is entirely based in her being magically connected and also pretty and also near her husband and which she does not think he would ever do anything about and it's not the POINT ANYWAY SO DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT MAMOCHAN AHAHA - but by the end, she's more focused on the problem at hand. The flashes of expression, the misery and worry, the locking up and fear of rejection, the concern of a not-choice and accidental slip that could happen again, and she sucks air in her teeth when Mamoru says that maybe Amy just isn't scared enough of Obsidian.

That... could certainly a thing, yeah, couldn't it? It's hard for Usagi to imagine, considering Obsidian has been behind almost every magical evil they've ever faced in this life, but... it is possible?

Especially because she's actually friends with Norie Okana, which is more than Usagi has ever been.

"Well... do you think you'd have said what you said to Okana-san to Riventon?" That's an easy place to start. "I mean, I believe you when you said you didn't make a choice, and not just because Mamochan showed me your feelings on the whole thing, I mean - you were probably just talking, right, and it came out? But would it just come out if you were talking to him? Or was it more like... you're comfy with her? Even though she's kind of more messed up than Riventon in some ways?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's a brush-by of startlement at the jealousy, and then an upwelling of amused heartbubbles over it, and it's glossed past, yes. And Mamoru has to fight to avoid touching Usagi more; they have work to do here. He picks up his drink, peppermint hot chocolate, and waits for the other two teenagers to get theirs before he heads for a table.

"I mean, we'll talk about why it's bad, and I'll show you the dusk zone, and Metalia, and explain how the feelings on Nemesis are what Okana-san is made of, and how that is inimical to life and goodness, no matter how nice to you she may be, and also, she works for and is loyal to Riventon she is his second in command. Like. You can be friends with her like I can be brothers with Riventon and still be rightfully existentially frightened of them."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy's also had some time while they waited to think back on the conversation with Norie while not panicking. She doesn't clearly remember the details, but the effect the Fade would have on her had been on her mind a lot. Norie might've asked how she was doing, and gotten an honest answer. Amy thinks she might have judged the information as safe by virtue of being plausibly obtainable other ways -- and so just not been ready for the direct question she had no poker face for and wasn't expecting -- but she's not sure.

    So when asked if she'd have told Riventon, Amy just looks confused as to how the two can even be compared. Usagi goes on while she's assembling a response in her head, and she nods at 'comfy with her' and then looks confused and then thoughtful at 'more messed up than Riventon'--

    "Uhhhh... Well yeah first of all no, I don't think I'd be having a conversation like that with Riventon, no. I'm not gonna be telling him what's on my mind or how my day went. I should expect any talk between us would be strictly pertaining to any mutual threat; like if we're caught in the same Labyrinth or something, or there's some kind of agreement to work together against some enemy, although I am guessing that sort of thing is less common now if he hurt you so badly in that fight." She looks to Mamoru.

    "...That or 'hey give me that grief seed back', fighting-- um, well, the wedding fight means I more than earned it, for sure. Although I question if he's reasonable enough to see it that way these days, if things have changed."

    She takes a breath and looks back to Usagi. "I wouldn't say I'm comfy with her, but... off the battlefield, when not interfering with any mission objective? She's not going to just suddenly attack me."

    Once they're all together at the table she echoes, "The Dusk Zone?" with curiousity -- she never got to see it, but 'Metallia' gets the slightest twitch after she remembers that that's the demon who mind-controlled him.

    "'Existentially...?'" she echoes, with a bit of worry. That's a big, serious word and Mamoru wouldn't be using it here lightly, but she's having trouble imagining it applying to Norie.

    Which means maybe he knows something she doesn't, and she's about to learn what.

    Norie's situation sucks, though, and it's bad enough if Amy has to hate her, but she'd really feel like a heel if this leads to reneging on the friendship she's offered so far.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi winces when Mamoru says point blank that Norie is made up of the same as Nemesis and is inimical to life and goodness - because well, yeah, it's true but still, it's harsh! But even with that, she's listening closely as Amy offers her responses, and is glad for the thoughtful look on her face.

"Yeah, okay that's fair. I mean, if it was a more like... talk about your day conversation, it makes sense how you ended up slipping... But you should actually expect most talking between you to be about him demanding you hand over any magical gear you have on you, or to back off from his operation, or to go on about how you're like, too stupid to be doing anything that matters anyway so just let him take care of it."

Her voice is dry and matter of fact - she's not trying to get in digs on her brother-in-law right now, just being as honest as she can be about what she expects from him.

"And... I don't think you should really expect him to give over grief seeds, I don't think he likes you enough to keep that up? For the record."

She shrugs at Amy's confidence. "Are you sure? Because it doesn't exactly take a lot for her to snap - remember, she tried to give Hinoiri-chan her curse because Hinoiri made fun of her. She kidnapped Naru and kept her prisoner, as collateral, because all she wanted was to get back at Hinoiri-chan. She tried to eat Wako-chan's soul, once. I'm not saying you can't be friends with her, that's your business, Amy-chan, truly, and what happened to her is awful, it's just awful, but... sometimes I worry you forget that the people in Obsidian aren't just like, on opposite sides, but actually driving themselves crazier every time they get stronger."

Existentially, Amy echoed, worried, and Usagi grimaces.

"Riventon almost killed Mamochan without even really trying to, just because he lost his temper. And they're working for Obsidian. They like the Dusk Zone. And the Dusk Zone is worse than an Eclipse Zone, and we could barely fight in those. The places most comfortable to them would actively kill us, and everyone else not like them."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru takes a long sip of his peppermint hot chocolate, then sets his mug down and holds his hand out, palm up, resting on the table. "And when I was in Obsidian still toward the end, after meeting Usa and Kazuo and everybody, you remember how I kept telling you to be more careful about saying things in front of me? Even if I wouldn't willingly have used that information against you, I'm not psychic enough to withstand a full-bore attack from a dark energy demon from the sun, especially when tortured; information could have been extracted from me at any time against my will. Metalia wasn't the only one there who can do that sort of thing. And by then, my jackass guardians were hostages, and I was too full of dark energy to make good choices about it."

He sighs. "Riv's more dark energy than not, now; he's a Director. Do you know what that means? It means he is Beryl strength; it means he's met the terrifying guy at the top of Obsidian in person and is okay with answering to him--"

It's funny, it's funny you can see that Mamoru's skin's crawling by the expression on his face.

"Anyway. Um. Like I said, you can still be friends with her and look for a way to reverse it, but if you can't reverse it or get her a new body, she will always be made of Nemesis and Dusk Zone, and the ideal situation for denizens of the Dusk Zone is... well, you're American, you know what manifest destiny and eminent domain mean to the people who live in the way," he goes on, maybe a little relentlessly, but his face is so serious.

"And Norie-chan is Riv's Hematite, except that Hematite was not made of dark energy, and Hematite was in the process of trying to quit for the entire time you knew him. And even if she doesn't want to hurt you..." He takes a breath. "If she gets what makes her comfortable, it's at the expense of someone else. She may like you a lot. She may be a friend to you. But she did, in fact, almost eat Wako-chan's soul because she wanted emotions for herself. She was perfectly willing to kill someone to sate her own needs. So yeah: look for an alternate path for her. But don't trust her."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy looks at Usagi, trying to think of what to say.

    And then Mamoru speaks. Amy thinks back to Mamoru in Obsidian... it seems so long ago... was it really only two years?

    They chased the barrierless Witch, and they fought before Usagi and her friends recovered their past life memories. Did Amy even encounter Hematite any other times?

    Although, the mental image of Mamoru's body being controlled by Metallia is also kind of lumped in with that.

    His hand is out. She decides to take it.

    Dark energy. Choices. She remembers having it. The gross feeling that was relief from Nemesis, but even off of Nemesis, she was convinced there was a way to use it until they confronted her and--

    There's a flash of fear of... judgement? As she pulls her hand back, for a moment. Takes a breath. Listens. Eyes widen at the thought of a Riventon that's as strong as Beryl... and Mamoru fought him one-on-one?!

    "...The... guy at the top...? Worse than Beryl? Worse than Death Phantom?"

    He's going on with the explanation. She reaches to touch the hand lightly...

    The expression on her face shows she does know what it means, academically, although the look is more one of 'yeah, we sure did do that and it sucked', before she can even begin to imagine what being conquered by the Dusk Zone would be like.

    "...She attacked Hinoiri for ruining donuts... but yeah, Dark Energy drives them to respond with... ridiculous overkill."

    She hoped to replace what she'd lost with Wako. Wrong, but desperate. Would Amy do the same if she couldn't feel positive emotions anymore?

    There's a brief flash of how she mentally compared the situation at the time. If Norie can only replace what she lost by taking from somewhere else... It's like possession. Can the body be split somehow? Out of the metaphor, can a soul be split into two parts, that heal? ...A discussion for another time.

    Amy looks down from Mamoru at the table. "I..."

    Existential threat. Words that conjure visions of a corrupting alien virus spreading across the future solar system, or a self-improving AI -- as imagined before 'AI' became the everyday and so banal -- conquering the planet in service of some misaligned goal, like making paperclips or forcing everyone to smile.

    She imagines the dusk zone as an endless black plain, with a city skyline in the distance under a hazy sky. There's the mental image of Amy finding herself there, watching her soul gem tick down visibly fast, and then transforming as Melona did, though the thought stops before seeing into what.

    She looks up at Mamoru, "Is that really what he wants?" She looks to Usagi for confirmation as well. "To... terraform Earth into the Dusk Zone? Why not just go live there, if he likes it so much there?"

    Is Norie truly a creature of evil with a human face? Amy recoils at the thought of having to view anyone that way, because, yes, once upon a time she knew it was her moral duty to harden her heart to such things if they existed and do what needs to be done, but her heart recoils from that way of thinking, now.

    After her transformation, she decided that she would rather die offering friendship than live as someone who thought that way, but... does she still feel that way now?

    She holds her other hand to her head. "I don't know. ...Oh, uh, sorry, you can catch her up."

    "That's what they're fighting for? Why? Because they'll have power in that world? But power to do what, when they and darkness are all that is? Or were they hoping that that Pharoah's people would be with them? ...That they could still call them if they get strong enough...?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
They're a three person circuit, with Usagi doing her best to not transmit all her feelings across while they're working on solving this, conveying this, and as Mamoru speaks - as he shares what he knows, she prepares her own thoughts, Riventon unraveling as they gained pieces of the Crystal Heart and he lost again and again, coming after her like a rabid dog, but also -

"The guy who keeps all the rest of them together," Usagi confirms quietly, though she herself has heard only the barest about Father Obsidian. "Riventon helped us kill Wiseman. You think he'd listen to anyone he could even think he could take down?"

No, she doesn't know a lot about Father Obsidian, but she's learned about her brother in law, through the years and through the impressions he's left on her husband.

"No, she attacked Hinoiri for making fun of her," Usagi corrects tiredly - not because of Amy, but because of the situation she's now detailing, "And then Hinoiri ruined donuts for her, and so she attacked Hinoiri a second, separate time."

Why are they like that... oh right, the Dark Energy.

"And yes, the dark energy drives them to respond with ridiculous overkill, because they are not reasonable. They're really good at seeming reasonable, sometimes, right up until you do anything that actually pushes their buttons, even if it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, and you're in the line of fire.

"Amy-chan, even if souls could be split... who should have to split their soul to feed Norie-chan what she lost?" It's a gentle question. "Especially when she'll take it by force. It doesn't matter that she's desperate. It matters that she's willing to eat and consume and victimize people to make herself feel better. Her situation is awful... but when youma do that, we kill them. I'm not saying we should kill her! She's... she's in so much pain. But what she does to people, just to live, hurts people."

She and Amy had discussed this at least once, briefly - argued about it, even, because Usagi is sympathetic to Norie and Taro, but also sees very clearly the ways that they are/were both monsters.

"I don't think it's what Riventon wants," she says, "Riventon thinks he's the one true hero born to save this world, the only one smart and capable enough to do it."

"But Okana-san? She'd probably love to make more of the world like the Dusk Zone, because it's more comfortable for her. It might even feel like home, after what happened to her, but it won't feel like home to any of us. The thing is - I don't think they're all fighting for the same thing. They're just fighting under the same umbrella, pooling their resources, some of them helping each other, some of them working against each other - like Okana-san and Hinoiri-chan going after each other - but the one thing they've got in common is the Dark Energy."

"And you can't trust anyone on Dark Energy to be reasonable for long. Even Dari-kun put Hannah-chan in the hospital. Even Taro-kun thought it was okay to hunt and drain adults because they were sorta older than him. Dark Energy stops you from being reasonable. It's all about you, you, you."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Amy encountered Hematite so many times, during the times that they searched for a body for Pyrite, during the times they waded through horrors; Hematite was unkind and selfish, rude, he was part of the Midnight Tokyo Project, despite hating it.

"Despite being like over half Dark Energy now, no, Riv's not about manifest destiny. Yet. But he hates being on campus where dark energy is suppressed, and he loves Eclipse zones..." Mamoru says, slouching into his seat but still holding Amy's hand on one side, Usagi's on the other. "Anyway if it gets to be too much or too upsetting, let go of my hand."

And then as he's talking, as Usagi is talking, mental images and feelings and associations bubble up and he doesn't squash them-- he lets Amy and Usagi see and feel and experience them from his perspective.

Mostly.

He doesn't let them feel the physical sensations for long, or he dims them, but he doesn't shy away from sharing the vast majority of the emotion involved, or from sharing the clinical facts about the physical pain.

What he remembers of when Beryl found him and turned him; the feeling of dark energy thick around his soul like a hard candy shell, and the feeling of it buzzing horribly under his skin like crawling stinging wasps, and that makes him remember being on Nemesis himself, broken and dying (but he also shares calling Demande an incel); the sound of Father Obsidian's voice and his presence even when not physically there, a voice like rotting honey over razorblades and eldritch crawling horror; the Dusk Zone itself--

--the Dusk Zone as experienced by someone deeply allergic to it and wearing a magical shield to keep him from being eaten slowly by the energies-- it's cold and dark and inimical to life and goodness, there are things there that are almost right but are actually extremely wrong and it feels like not-Life and the creatures there, the creatures that Hematite fought and tore and destroyed in his own helpless unending rage.

The feeling of watching other employees be tortured or youma be killed for fucking up, or for his fucking up since pain doesn't work on him, and the horrified numbness that settles in even if your heart's being suffocated by corruption; the feeling of kneeling before Beryl waiting for either creep-crawling honeyed praise or creep-crawling honeyed fury and the promise of someone else paying for his mistake...

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
...the look on Hinoiri's crazed face as Sunset of Sora when she stole his magic and life energy and burned him; the look on Riventon's face as he picked Mamoru up to throw him; the look on a much, much younger Riventon's face as he snuck Mamoru extra food, or as Mamoru healed or rescued him from the other children... the feeling of it being right and normal and justified to stab Sunbreaker in the hand for kidnapping Naru, and the feeling of being castigated for not being able to handle his dark energy.

The experience of being drowned in his own dorm room, and the view of a meeting room in Obsidian Tower when his boys, his boys, his guardians, his friends who betrayed him in their past life and helped cause the end of multiple worlds, introduced this horrifying plan to turn Tokyo into one big Dusk Zone door and spill it out into the rest of the world-- and he could see Metalia in their eyes as they explained it, as they looked at him. The bright red glow of control--

"It's all about you and yours and what you think should be yours," he agrees with Usagi. "And maybe you start out with great intentions, but literally nothing good can come of dark energy. And Obsidian runs on it. And Obsidian doesn't look at people as people, but as resources to use up, or inconveniences to be gotten rid of."

The prince takes a deep breath, fluffy hair shadowing his face a little, and continues, "And sure, Okana-san likes you, is attached to you. Riventon generally likes me, is attached to me. I'm one of the only good influences in his life and he wanted to kill me and gave it his best shot. Be afraid of Okana-san turning on you. Be afraid of Obsidian using you to get at your friends and the things that are important to our continued existence. Be afraid of Obsidian. Please. For everyone's sake."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Oh that's right! They helped Pyrite together. But Amy didn't really see the Midnight Tokyo Project until the very end, the last two battles. Did she even interact with 'Darien' in school? Hers is no doubt a lopsided picture because he lived being Hematite, but she saw bits and pieces, her own mind focused on other things.

Riventon.

Still You think he'd listen to
    No. But unless Riventon is absolutely sure their goals align, then he is also plotting to overthrow Father Obsidian.

    The thought is obvious and clear as day to Amy Faust, now that she thinks about it, sees their feelings on him. Someone like Riventon will seek a way to challenge God (if such exists) and rewrite reality.

    A decade ago she'd have felt a duty to do the same, had she power. Maybe even three years ago.

    Amy sighs at the clarification, because of the situation and people being like that, as well.

Who will--
    "I will." She's in so much pain. "Then she won't have to do that, anymore..."

    She says this with conviction, but the storm of thoughts start up. Easy to say when you didn't value your future, but just what would she be giving up? Would she regret it the rest of her life?

    But a world where Norie can't be helped is too cruel. Just thinking that, Amy feels a bit of that old drive, reality is wrong it must be fixed--

    --but a world where Norie can be helped and no one does, that is a human cruelty Amy cannot bear to help make.

    Man it'll suck if Norie is saved and turns out to be a jerk without the dark energy. But they can't assume that...

    "'Love to?' She can't feel... happy.'" Although, Amy considers: Were she trapped on Nemesis, she'd take being stuck with Dark Energy over that awful feeling eating away at her.

    (That's probably how the Black Moon Clan started, huh?)

    What would a place that feels Home to Amy seem like to everyone else? No doubt strange and scary. And some of it they might get over once they learn not to hate weirdness -- but if Amy's very nature is so different that she can't really fit into this world, then perhaps countless others' natures would be just as unable to fit into that world.

    This is a lot. How can such a structure work? Are they all planning to double-cross the others or just that shortsighted?

    Okana-san put Hannah in the hospital too. Tried to kill her. Said she wouldn't again. Amy believed her. But in light of all this... Perhaps it would be far easier than Amy thought, for Norie to start trying to kill again.

    Amy is not sure Taro understands what energy draining does to people. (Does Amy really understand? Mundanes often get right back up after a youma fight, and when she fed Norie it was just a little ding of corruption on her Soul Gem.) Especially whether he understood back then. There is the memory, of talking to Dory, when they were both the same size, under a picnic table; the mute doll writing in red ink in a notebook:

    --WE'RE RIPPERS. WE CUT WHEN WE PLAY. WE EAT WHEN WE CUT. Her face angles, and the light and shadow from the table fall over the Noh mask to emphasize the wide eyes. HUMANS HEAL AFTER.--
    --Dory's face dips; at this angle, the Noh mask looks like it's frowning. WE PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER AFTER.--
    --THE FLESH GOES BACK TOGETHER WITH MAGIC. SEALS UP. She makes a zipping motion. LIKE IT WAS NEVER THERE.--

    And of course he was okay with draining people he was being taught by the spirit of Jack the Ripper it's utterly amazing that he's so nice after decades of that!

Amanda Faust has posed:
Riventon.
    Not manifest destiny, no. Amanda remembers the kind of thoughts that lead to 'if I were just smart enough I could fix everything' and having a duty to fix the world. Words from a story she once loved come to mind:

    'Every time someone cries out in prayer and I can't answer, I feel guilty about not being God.'
    'That doesn't sound good.'
    'I understand that I have a problem, and I know what I need to do to solve it, all right? I'm working on it.' The solution, obviously, was to hurry up and become God.

    It's a way of thinking that simultaneously sacrifices who you are and could be -- why he was worried about Madoka when she first learned she might become a god -- but if you had power, it could easily justify any sacrifice if you've logically shown it's for the greater good.

    The Crystal Heart's ward vs Eclipse Zones... how hard would it be to come to the conclusion that life with Dark Energy is better, and that humans, clearly, just need to be turned into a form that can live in a planetwide Dusk Zone?

    The mental image of an AI uploading everyone into its virtual paradise and converting the Earth into a giant computer becomes that of a Wiseman-like Riventon turning people into monsters and spreading darkness.

    Heaven forbid he have an ally with the social manipulation skills to help convince people this is a good idea, gaslight them that holding onto humanity is only making them unhappy... Amy shakes her head a little.

    Amy's fingertips had just been resting on his palm -- she takes his hand properly when he announces the intent to share.

    Her hand tenses at learning how Dark Energy physically feels to him. He felt that the whole time he was Hematite?! And when he flew with Chibiusa? And then on Nemesis... she winces at his pain, although there's a slight satisfaction in telling Demande off.

    Astonishment at Father Obsidian, again trying to contrast this with her own memory of briefly using Dark Energy to survive, and then the Dusk Zone... (wait, such shields are a thing? Could one protect her soul gem, if necessary?)

    There is a bit of wonder, at exposure to another plane of existence, but... It's terrible. It would be terrifying to be there. She's metaphorically likened the situation of facing society vs safe communities to running between the bubbles of safe light in Dark Aether before you get the Dark Suit, but this is much more visceral. And clearly there is no powerup that makes it okay.

    That the Dusk Zone is like how wrong society is, why Earth cannot be Home, turned up far beyond 11 and made physical is a thought in the background and she's worried about what that means, but there is more to feel and react to--

    They were tortured? Of course they were, villains are like that aren't they... Youma being killed is a bit less horrifying but still messed up, they're the villains' own creations! (A branching thought briefly connects to how her problem with Authority, and what makes the Moon Princess and Hope Concept okay for lacking this, is that it is an excuse to inflict suffering for its own sake and claim it just punishment)

    Numbness like when news that people are dying far away from nonsensical cruelty becomes just another day and not a burning injustice, but to face that in front of you again and again... (wait, pain doesn't work? Nevermind not important right now because

    Holy fuck her skin crawls at the thought of having to be that close to Beryl and not just at her mercy but under her ostensible authority and her mind goes nonono get away get away and also there's a flash of what-if from an old conversation on the roof, so this is how it would feel had Wicked Lady and New Moon turned her, aaaaaaa

Amanda Faust has posed:
    She flinches at the sudden transition to Sunset burning him, how her words that Sunbreaker was 'the reasonable one' look so insane; 'oh fuck' terror at the flash of fight from Riventon, confusion at seeing the kindness and she cannot fully process what it means that one became the other because HANDSTABBING?!

    Being told off for not handling dark echoes the memories of adults saying why can't she do what everyone else can (this is how Riventon could gaslight people into accepting becoming monsters)

    Wait he was drowned WHAT oh right need air need air aaaaa--

    She yanked her hand away and blinks, and takes a breath. "I... need to see it." She lays her palm atop his.

    They were planning to turn the world into the Dusk Zone, and now she knows what that means, she imagines that glow in Usagi and Mamoru's eyes--

    She's shaking a bit. A bit of an acute stress reaction, although the stimulus is now gone, it wasn't happening but it did happen, to Mamoru, and to anyone else trapped by Dark Energy.

    He explains, and she kind of got what Dark Energy did academically, had felt a taste of it before, but to see the end result...

    She can't entirely process it yet. It is frightening, that Okana-san could become that at any moment, Amy imagines her turning into a darkness phantom in the middle of a conversation and stealing and draining the soul gem and at the same time feels how it will hurt Norie even more when Amy becomes colder to her and feels guilty

    She swore to herself she'd offer friendship and not let Riventon-thinking convince her to harden her heart and justify doing what felt wrong, but... she's scared.

    (A mindfulness meta-thoughtprocess starts up checking if values have changed and if she really feels it is Good and Right to hurt Norie, or even something that Must Be Done For The Greater Good, but no, it still feels wrong)

    ...but she's also scared. And if Okana-san runs around eating peoples' souls that is obviously wrong.

    Dissonance hangs in her mind. She needs to know there is a right course of action, to determine what it is. Right?

    And she's still stressed, feeling a subconscious need to be comforted, and the storm of thoughts starts up, this is what Darkness is really doing this is what Obsidian is really doing it is an existential threat but they're also people, a cursed girl and Mamoru's brother and a lost unicorn who thought her teacher threw her away and Adora's best friend and a lost boy from a struggling home in post-WW2 Japan (wait didn't Taro say he had sisters or cousins he grew up with? What happened are they old ladies now? did he watch them age and die?), geeky girl who just wanted to learn about magic and at times each of them has been that way too

    and it's wrong that this corrupting awful thing exists, it should not be, it's infinitely times worse than society already is...

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It doesn't surprise Usagi at all that Amy immediately volunteers that she'd be the one to give Norie half of her soul if it came to it. It does occur to her, immediately, if she even could - if her soul was able to be shared, given she had already sold it in a sense, for a Wish, to be a Puella Magi. Her soul was a gem, that would kill her if it ever broke.

She doesn't share the thought. It feels like something Kamiko would know more about, and which would send Amy down a spiral of thoughts and wonderings.

"If that was how it worked, that would be generous of you," Usagi says, gentle, because she, too, wants a world where there are better ways, is always seeking that world, made her own dimension to make it so. "But you're not the one she's feeding off now, not all the time. I'm not either, because she'd try to drain me dry. She already told me that. It's how I know she's not pure evil, but before you get too committed to that idea... you should really think about it."

(Did you ever donate one of your kidneys?) o . she thinks, but doesn't ask, because well - well.

"The closest thing to love she can feel, then," she says, because that wasn't the point, really. "She can feel enough to want things, and to like things and not like things. She'd like it, then."

Amy shares a memory, then, or Dory, explaining, and there's a flash of Usagi's memory, of helping Mamoru after he was attacked by the Slasher, of her terror at him being attacked and her upset, of arguing with the Slasher in her dorm room after Mamoru was kidnapped, of him bringing a treat because he understood that he had done wrong, that Sailor Moon had yelled at him that he owed Mamoru.

"Taro-kun tried to justify it to himself, and clearly Dory-chan's still trying to justify it to herself, but Amy-chan, you shouldn't be believing either of them about that. You get magically healed all the time. Does that mean you never hurt, were never scared? Or does it just mean you don't have a scar?"

Her face tightens.

"And we know magic is real. Those poor people... I feed Taro-kun a lot, since he hasn't told me not to. I know what I'm doing. They got stabbed in the dark by someone getting stronger off their fear, and afterwards they didn't even have a mark to prove to anyone it happened. Okana-san doesn't even leave marks. She just drains them of their energy, their life-force, and then they don't have the words to explain it, not with her, or youma, or any of it."

"And it's not her fault they can't remember - but it's her fault they suffered. It's her fault they were afraid. It's her fault they lost their energy. She didn't choose to be what she is, but, in being what she is, she makes other people suffer too, and they matter, and you probably know that but sometimes it feels like I have to keep reminding people that all the victims matter, that this is still happening to these innocent people who have nothing to do with this."

"Why are they having to suffer, because Norie is cursed? Why are they having to suffer, because Riventon wants to be the world's hero? Why are they having to suffer, because every villain with Dark Energy thinks that what they want matters more than someone else's life? You hate capitalism so much, I always thought you should hate Dark Energy just as much."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
When Mamoru begins to share, it's so much for Amy and Usagi to process, and even though Usagi knows that Mamoru hopes she lets go, at some point in his recollection, in his feeling, in the sickening walkthrough of his suffering and torment...

She doesn't.

She doesn't let go through any of it, and clenches her hands around both of theirs, a flash of anger at Hematite on his knees before Beryl, cringing near out of her skin at the memory of Father Obsidian's voice, and at the wasps under skin pain of Dark Energy -

There's an answering flash of memory given to Mamoru and Amy alike, and for Mamoru, at least, it's familiar. New Moon had been sick, not just mentally but physically, feverish and sore and rocked with nausea for the entirety of the experience, mind clamped in place by Wicked Lady's will, and she had clung to that sickness and misery as Dark Energy raced through her veins and ignited fire in her muscles and bones, in the lining of her stomach and throat, in the gaps between her joints, made everything hurt.

She had been so very sick.

That passes to Amy and Mamoru, and what she remembers of the experience - which isn't very much. It's a fog and a mist, mind control and rationality skewing Dark Energy making what's left feel distant, but there's parts of it there.

There's hedonistic urge to do whatever she wanted (so long as it pleased her Lady), there's the quickness to anger but not just a quickness, a relishing in the anger, in the pain dealt out because she was in pain, in wrath.

There's a double flash that might be dizzying for both of them, of how Usagi's mind works at social situations, not unwrapping a puzzle or knitting together a tapestry but logging and storing all the smallest details of a person. What they said and how they said it and when they said it and what they looked like as they said it and how they moved and when they moved and what they moved.

Microexpressions and subtle shifts in tones of voice and the ways that weight is slid from one leg to another, a hand grips an elbow, a throat bobs in a swallow, and all the emotion and intent each conveys, captured and noticed and observed, thought over in the back of her mind for weeks at a time, intuitive but also honed and practiced over years and years of loving people.

Not just making friends with people but keeping track of every connection she witnesses, sees, understands, knows of. Friends and family members and neighbors, people joined by clubs and organizations and memberships.

Who knows who and why and when and where and how strong is that bond, if this happens then that is most likely to occur based on this and that and how this person will react if that person is upset by that other person and how it can be resolved by looping in that person.

Usagi understands people. Usagi understands how people work, how she works, how other people work, and sometimes it takes time and quiet to put it all together but when it's put together it's far reaching. It's Usagi, who knows everyone and is known by just about everyone, who tries to use that to help people, nudging friendship problems, sharing viewpoints, finding gifts that make people smile and fit with their needs, gracefully turning a conversation around and shifting the energy of a room, standing at the front and encouraging, inciting, uniting.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
But this is a double flash because what they get is not just how Usagi's mind works at social situations but how New Moon's worked, because Amy and Mamoru can see with her sharing, now, with her putting it forth through Mamoru's power.

New Moon with that same gift and honed strength, who could understand how people felt, who was impatient with them for not seeing, understanding, and putting things forth.

Who had been verbally unkind to Catra because she knew her weak points and sore spots and the ways that she let her past control her while never breaking forward, who had needled her about being a stray cat because she wanted Catra to commit herself one way or the other and stop straddling the fence.

Who had gone from amused and enjoying a meal to homicidal in an instant -

The feeling of the weight lifting from her head, the muscles in her neck loosening as they stopped being strained, the shift of muscle and tissue in her scalp and head as the weight of her braid was removed, causing her entire expression to involuntarily soften as pressure vanished before understanding lit and fire ignited, the way she had wanted to kill Catra and the way that had morphed into cutting her hair in retaliation and breaking her knees to make her kneel for it.

The way it had simply made since, to force her to do it, because she was refusing and why wasn't she doing something so obvious, why did she have to always be so stubborn about everything when it was obvious she was only hurting herself -

Dark Energy, twisting everything, making it so what was plain and clear was incomprehensible.

Hematite had been callous and dismissive and a jerk. Hematite had stabbed Sunbreaker and made her suffer because he had been hurt because he had been worried because he was angry and protective and what made sense in his mind was to warn her off and make her suffer. New Moon had broken Catra's knees to make her kneel for a haircut.

Riventon had broken near every bone in Mamoru's body for being told he was not just wrong but that he lost.

Norie had tried to punish Hinoiri with a version of her own nightmarish curse, for the crime of making fun of her voice.

And Hinoiri - she gives Amy and Mamoru the memory of her throat bruised and sore, dark energy seeped into her wounds from being strangled by an author, encountering Sunbreaker, the fight they had had when Sunbreaker thought she had it under control when she kidnapped Naru and almost turned her into a youma, the anger and the burning rage, how Usagi had cut at Sunbreaker's insecurities with her words and in return been burned in hellfire until she couldn't move, until she collapsed, with Sunrbeaker preparing to destroy her compact.

She cuts the memory off before it shows the rest.

"And sure," she says, bringing all of those memories and feelings and insights to a close, using her words again. "Sometimes we pick the fights with people with Dark Energy. Hannah-chan went after Hematite. I started arguing with Sunbreaker. But the difference is the escalation. The difference is that they'll go from zero to a hundred and then a thousand, and you can't always predict why. Everyone in Obsidian is a person and if they want to leave they should be helped to leave and if they need help we should help them, but like I said earlier... we have to think about all the people they're hurting, and will keeping hurting, too. We have to be afraid of them, even when we're choosing to extend our hands."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Pain doesn't work-- Amy's confused; Mamoru fills in the context: he heals so it doesn't stick. If it sticks he gets used to it, like the dark energy. Externally applied pain can't change his mind. As long as there's enough structure left to heal, Mamoru just-- the signals his body sends are communicated to him, but he ignores them in order to force the compliance of his limbs, of his mouth, of his hands (Demande crushing his hands after breaking his face and other bones) because his human body is such a small part of his awareness (the memory of his awareness fracturing so that he was equally aware of the conversation he was having with Entrapta and of the rushing of an underground river beneath Tokyo).

But he's otherwise 'listening', absorbing, mutedly reacting, to everything that Amy shares, and to everything Usagi shares (and oh, his visceral reactions to Usagi's pain, the memory of how badly he-as-Hematite had wanted to kill Hinoiri for what she'd done to Usagi, the memory of how incandescently jealous he'd been when Koji was able to heal Usagi's burns-- how fucked up all his reactions were--) and he reins his thoughts in, goes back to listening instead of reacting.

He's so in love with Usagi, it comes flooding out all over again when she shares with them how she sees and understands and interacts with people, he's so admiring; he studies faces, he's always been a people-watcher, but the level of detail and understanding, and without magical empathy to help? Usagi is magical even before the magic. (He's so in love! It gets all over everything, a warm bright feeling in all the darkness, and he loves the world a little more every time he loves Usagi a little more.)

The conversation, the thoughts, they're everywhere though. There's an awareness whenever Amy thinks of Riventon that they'll probably have to kill him. It's a frozen heartsick little thing made of grief--

--Mamoru cuts off the grief before the rest of it can wash out the happiness; Amy can see him deliberately making the effort to carefully put his grief to bed again, how familiar he is with it, how used to dealing with it. She can see him choosing to focus on what makes him happy, and choosing to focus on Usagi and the brightness of her life, her soul, his connection to her, the way they weave together.

He orients himself emotionally as well as, in other dimensions, physically-- in labyrinths, in Chanteur-- by way of knowing where Usagi, Chibiusa, Kazuo, the other Shitennou are. The way he orients on people he's connected to, orients himself via the planet itself, the way he sees himself? Everything for him is connections, correspondence-- and the ragged edges where grief has replaced connections. The connection he has to Riventon, and how painful it is now, is also on display.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
But he's Mamoru Chiba, and he's holding hands with his incredible love across lifetimes on one side and a really good friend on the other, and they're warm in the middle of the cold night and they have hot drinks and there are cats all around, and living people in the upcoming holiday's spirit fill the cafe, laughing and talking warmly, and he shares his awareness of the bright warm lights in the room that correspond to everyone there, all like little suns burning in space.

"There can be things that are fundamentally wrong at the same time as there are things that are fundamentally right. Individuals can be victims and monsters, humanity can be a victim and a monster, society has good rules as well as bad ones-- but even punchclock evil is still evil.

"Ted from Obsidian's accounting department works for an evil corporation, and gets his money from an evil corporation that gets the money by killing people and stealing things, and feeds his children with that money, and pays his mortgage with that money, and he sees what the corporation spends its other money on every damn day in his spreadsheets, but he needs that money, his children can't scholarship their way into private colleges, they don't have the grades. He's choosing his comfort and lifestyle over the actual lives of other people. That's a choice he's making. He can justify it all he wants, but in the end, working for Obsidian? People died to send his kids to a more expensive school and he knows it."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    No, Amy did not donate a kidney, but she did get the organ donor marker put on her driver's license, but that's not really the same thing yeah

    Amy winces at the explanation of pain, but it makes sense.

    She mentally flinches at the memory of the Slasher attacking. That he, that it's Taro, that he could be seen this way is as psychologically horrifying as the memory is viscerally so. There's a distant thought about scaring normies but she doesn't really want people to feel like this for no reason. This is what it means to be seen as a monster -- (but people do that all the time...)

    An echo of seeing that, Amy imagines the POV of such people of some hypothetical demonic-monstrous Amy -- blackened, clawed hands and feet, wings, fangs, slitted eyes, spaded tail and obligatory skimpy black Evil Outfit -- leaping out to claw them and drain their energy; the thought of being seen that way Feels Bad, though it's a bit numbed -- it is a shorter jump from how she thinks society sees her as troublesome, than how Usagi saw the Slasher is from how she sees Taro.

Don't have a scar? 'Only emotional ones, *self-aware gallows-humor chuckle*' is what almost comes out of her mouth but then doesn't because she senses they sensed the intent to say that and so there is no purpose in speaking.

    She generally tries not to think about being scared or hurt or powerless, once it's over. She doesn't like horror movies, except for certain kinds of psychological horror. Her thoughts spin a bit prodding why she doesn't dwell on being scared much. Is it a remnant of being raised as a guy who wasn't supposed to show weakness? Another thought-branch notes her desire to be comforted in a moment of weakness, but all this doesn't relly go in a specific direction before Usagi's continuing,

    No words to explain it. Amy thinks of how she could not explain to Siddig (or countless other adults and even peers, over both lives); and there's that frustration but isn't this a problem with society, also, to refuse to accept someone having a feeling or experience without a Normal, Expected explanation--

    Why do they have to suffer? It's all Wrong, the world is Wrong... but she didn't see Dark energy as a part of it, as stained in society as deeply as capitalism is, (but hasn't it been around longer?) She saw it as... part of this seperate world of mahoujin and villains, and as something temporary they were going to defeat one day--

    'Just like you thought we'd solved bigotry except for a few holdouts, or that we'd stop warring and come together and go to space and defeat death?' goes her internal critic. She had been optimistic about such things once and then the more she saw of how deep everything was--

    --in the background is a memory of when she noticed that her new peers do not imagine 'technology will get amazing and humanity will come together and go to space' as an obvious future anymore--

    --the more she despaired and frustrated at the banal, entrenched evils of the world that people worshipped...

    But Dark Energy has been around a long time. Hurting people. Unlike capitalism it truly is external -- actually, is it? Metallia existed even in the Silver Millenium. Queen Serenity's people fled to Sol from something. Are that Pharoah and the Daimons also that old?

    Perhaps it is an inextricable part of the nature of reality, just as are the parts of human nature that feed it, and the parts that feed capitalism and bigotry and everything else.

    And yes, the magic of light and hope and good and friendship and all that has been real for as long; just as have simple mundane acts of human kindness. But that is small comfort to all those crushed under humanity's darknesses, be they mundane or magical.

    It's a lot to process, will take time, and memories are being shared.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    New Moon felt that the whole time?! How did you live?!

    Everyone's had moments of anger and wrath, but this... and Amy recalls how unfathomable it sounded that New Moon broke Catra's legs just to cut her hair but with this context it is chillingly more understandable--

    And then Amy is shown an answer to a lifelong mystery, eyes wide, mouth agape at how social interaction looks to Usagi.

    THAT'S WHAT IT'S LIKE?! she almost screams out loud.

    Other people can see all of that at once? Even if Usagi is exceptional, there is a scale along a dimension Amy never realized existed and someone with even a fraction of this information makes Amy look blind and deaf.

    She used to wonder if people had some kind of psychic ability to read eachothers' minds that she lacked. (also brought up is a memory of 17-or-18-year-old Amy realizing consciously that one of the things she likes about animation is that if any detail of a character's expression is important, she can see it)

    She had eventually concluded that obviously that couldn't be the case; that they must be using brain circuits she barely has to imagine how everything being said would feel to other people, simultaneously while talking, to multiple people, a process that is exhausting for her to do with even one if she has to hold their differing mental state and knowledge in mind rather than modeling them as like herself.

    But this... Amy's aware of the basic principles, that a certain expression -- if she notices it -- indicates certain emotions, and why people might feel that way, of people's connections... but this, noticing all of that, all the time, and keeping all of it in mind while talking to someone?

    This isn't like finding out someone can do calculus in their head. This is like finding out that almost everyone else does calculus in their head all the time while Usagi casually runs complicated fluid dynamics simulations in her head and spits out the optimal design for a rocket engine under slightly different conditions every time she talks to people. And Mamoru's love adds appreciation to the awe.

    This must be how people who grew up before computers felt the first time they saw a bunch of electromechanical relays click-clack for seconds or minutes and solve an engineering problem that would have taken a team of engineers who had devoted their lives to their craft weeks or months of work.

    (No wonder non-technical people act like computers are goddamn magic, holy shit.)

    Although, with that realization, New Moon...

    Part of why New Moon was as scary as she was was that Amy did see social acumen as a damn-near magical power that did things beyond her understanding. Someone with that kind of charisma and social skills could talk to people you were getting along with and convince them to hate you, as easily as they breathe.

    And so there is a tiny bit of comfort, in all this, as she's confronted with how New Moon thinks:

    It's not magic, it is a field of expertise, with constraints. Just as laymen think computers can do anything when Amanda understands what they can and can't do and why, social skills, though beyond her at this level, are not magic and cannot do anything, even if she doesn't understand what the limits and constraints are. Some problems are NP-hard, and perhaps some trust, some friendship, can be too hard to break.

    Conversely, even an Usagi can't sway people away from dark energy or harmful ideologies. Amy had in recent years begun to suspect that just being Smart Enough really couldn't solve some problems, but now she has a better grasp on why.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy understands how to take a cheap shot and manipulate someone, in theory, but New Moon could hurt on another level. Amy winces in sympathy at the loss of hair, would understand rage but seeing how it becomes an urge to kill is something else.

    But she can recognize how, with an evil goal in mind, Usagi's same skills can be used to hurt, just like how Amy's problem-solving could coldly work out how to kill someone with any object in this room (heuristically, she knows that most of them are probably not practical and need ideal circumstances, though.)

    But it's a process, a skill, it's not magic...

    She's kind of reeling from all of this for a bit, though. The examples go by in a bit of a blur.

    Escalation. Amy nods. She understands the impulse to escalate well. If your foes will tear into any weakness, then you show such strength that you hope they will know not to mess with you. (But most people do not have magic powers. ...Dark Energy might not have to help here all that much.) How to lose and appear weak and escape escalation before it becomes deadly is no doubt an important lesson when people are slinging magic at eachother... but Dark Energy might push them to kill folks anyway.

    She does not know how to feel, knowing you must kill the same brother she saw in those early memories. He's pushing away from that thought, so she does too.

    Oh, and then there's this. Mamoru showed the spread-awareness thing briefly before, but this...

    There are familiar aspects. Being aware of your location in relation to other people is part of life and especially fights, and connections to people are part of orienting oneself socially and morally, but this...

    It's amazing to see in its own way. But she is a little worn out from earlier revelations.

    Mamoru gives her a softball in Ted's banal evil. Soft in that it is easy and familiar to think about, simple. She nods. "And there's no perfectly ethical consumption under capitalism, but people don't need dark energy to decide to work for a place that kills people." She sighs and looks down at the table. "Damn, these evils really are shot through the whole world this whole time, huh..."

    But how do we fix it? nags the question with no answer in the back of her mind. They both gotta be destroyed, somehow...

    She doesn't know how, but she does know she's been given an opportunity and she should take it. She takes a breath and focuses and--

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Usagi's social-vision makes Amy's look like a low-resolution video filmed through a smudgy car windshield -- only, it's all she ever knew. You don't see the windshield, or know things could be less blurry. Sometimes, the angle lines up with a less-smudgy part of the glass and she notices an expression or a shift in tone -- other times, she can tell something is off, and many times she doesn't notice, or can't tell how to file the information.

    (Amy is someone who frequently has some visualization in her mind's eye, and so this toy metaphor of a child-Amy (because she feels like a child in comparison to what she just saw) in a fogged-up car is sort of interspersed with vague memories of conversation, showing what parts she remembered or focused on) And everything she sees, let alone what Usagi sees... She can't hold all of that at once in her head at all. Something may be not noticed, or it may be noticed but not understood, and then forgotten as she rushes to understand what another blurry expression might mean before her awareness of that fades. But looking at that means not looking at something else; and trying to decipher all the blurs is really mostly fruitless anyway. Most of the time it's easier to focus on what she does happen to notice through a clearer spot, while assembling the conversation's information into a picture inside the metaphorical car.

    All of these facts and history... yes, with people she knows and spends time with closely, there are events, and memories. But even many of these are a vague still image or important moment or two and basically a brief narrative understanding of what occured/changed.

    Her database of people isn't like Usagi's. It's a bunch of TVTropes pages.

    When she was very young she could make far less sense of the blurs. (There's a memory of being... 7-8 or so, and an adult telling her to look at them to show she was listening. With her usual complete honesty she said that made no sense; if she's talking to them she's obviously listening. If they somehow are too dumb to realize this and need a visual indicator, shouldn't she turn an ear towards them to indicate listening instead? The adult, instead of explaining that body language or facial expressions were important, just insisted that looking at people was important until she agreed to try and do it more.)

    But then there were stories. Stories always told you all the relevant information needed to understand them. And though the specifics were fictional, the way people behaved were apparently based on real people, or perhaps, idealized versions of what people would like to be. Stories presented the scripts, the patterns in the blurs -- sometimes, it might recontextualize why people do things she didn't understand; but even if it didn't, simply knowing that people frequently get mad for X illogical reason or consider it a slight is good to know.

    Talking to people always went badly as a child. So she read voraciously. Learned the scripts peoples' behavior followed, learned the shapes that the blurs could indicate. Also, stories of adventures in fantastic situations in fantastic lands was more fun than being made fun of for unknown reasons.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Talking to people on the internet... should have been better but actually wasn't at first, in retrospect, save that if she annoyed someone they couldn't make fun of her at school. Something changed a little before puberty but she's not sure exactly what. Then, the self-selection of internet contact with only people who wanted to talk about something, and everyone being on the level playing field of only having words seemed to help. Until it didn't.

    Connections? Tracking? We've got TVTropes pages. Some notes of which scripts/tropes apply here, and maybe a picture or short video clip or two in the corner. Holding all of it in your head at once?! If a page has enough info on it, eventually it won't fit on one screen anymore!

    Still, over decades she gained skill at this, too. (the metaphorical-image Amy is a child still but with glasses and dressed like a professor and the inside of the car has shelves of reference books.) It was never enough but it did slightly better, over time.

    At Radiant Heart, she at last found a place where people weren't constantly mad at her, but she was already tired, and suspicious, and not able to connect with people.

    And then she was a teenager again. And this time a lot, but not all, feelings and experiences others had talked about she felt first-hand and now could understand, which helped in some situations but not most.

    What changed the most? School -- and mahou-ing -- forced constant social interaction, more than she'd ever had as staff, which showed again and again that people, here... aren't mad at her constantly, for doing the best she can with a blurry smeared windshield and TVTropes pages?

    The car had been place after place out in the darkness before, and then it found here and rested at her desk, but when she was forced to drive around inside this bubble she realized it was a spot of light.

    But that doesn't change what's outside. It can't. Even Usagi herself said, if you have to do this -- Amanda scrambling to keep up with things in the front seat of the car and her mess of notes, not seeing all the hazards approaching the car in the blurry darkness -- then you have to live off-grid.

    And she said-- err, thought, what she needed to get across, and then is aware of herself again, and the tightness of her throat and a sadness, now that she knows what the difference is.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
There's a lot in there. There's so much in there, for all of them to consider, and Usagi can feel Mamoru's brain getting tired helping them all translate, sharing their memory flashes and feelings and translating them through his own mind and she squeezes his hand. Her own love for him is warm and strong. Her own affection is bright and affirming, a hot drink after being in the cold, a warm blanket after the rain.

Her love and her own awe, at what Mamoru can do, at how he functions, slots right up against his, and then there's her own worry over how Mamoru handles pain, because yes it meant he couldn't break under torture but it also meant he devalued his own pain tremendously - well, that she tries to keep to herself, because he's tired.

And so she shields, as Amy shares, taking in but not sending out, except for warm affection for her friend and her husband.

When Amy is done sharing, that quiet miserable sadness and worry at being alone in a car, Usagi does not sigh and does not shake her head, but gently lifts Mamoru's hand away from Amy's and puts it on his mug of hot chocolate. Then she puts his other hand on the mug, and takes both of her hands and reaches up to cup Amy's face, physically turning her head to make her look her in the eye.

"Amy-chan, you lean on your friends," she says very firmly, "If you don't have the ability to do something, you lean on your friends. I didn't say you seemed like you wanted to live off the grid because you can't do what I can do, socially, okay? I said that because you were talking about how there are all kinds of little things in the world that you find roadblocks to dealing with the world, like forms and test questions, and also because you kind of hate the world. That's the only reason. Not understanding people, or having trouble figuring it out, or not being able to remember things... that doesn't mean you have to go somewhere else, okay?"

With that said, she squishes Amy's cheeks a little, like she would a stuffed animal.

"Our good friend Amy just needs to remember that she can ask for help if she doesn't understand a social thing."

And then she leans back, into her chair.

"I can get how you see yourself in Okana-san and in Taro-kun, and I can understand why you see yourself in them when they worry about being monsters - when they're called monsters. But I worry that you don't see yourself in the people they hurt, too. And we have to see keep those people in mind, because no one in Obsidian is."

Unfortunately.

"Because yeah... Dark Energy has been around even longer than capitalism, hurting people, ruining them. Even when there aren't Dark Energy users, there's vending machines turning into monsters because people are mad at them for taking their dollars and jean kimonos trying to force everyone to wear denim and giant turtle youmas in the sewers attacking pizza guys... Dark Energy is kind of a plague on the Earth, and also outer space, and Obsidian... and everyone in Obsidian... is cool with that."

"That's why we can try to get them out, but we have to remember that even when we're hanging out... that's what they're okay with living with, and making everyone else live with. If Siddig-sensei is as smart as Mamochan says, then she gets that you made a mistake. You already figured out how it happened, and hopefully... just being on guard some, helps it not happen again?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
He is tired, his brain is tired, and yes -- partway through, as Usagi listens, Amy can 'see' Mamoru stop being able to track and translate, and just being a channel at the very end, eyes a little glazed over, furrow of concentration on his brow. It's a relief when Usagi takes his hands and puts them on his mug, breaking the connection with Amy first, and then with herself. His eyes close and he focuses on the physical sensations of now and here and this, the sides of his hands resting on the table, his feet on the floor, his glasses resting on his nose.

His eyes are still closed and his voice is quiet and his shoulders are still tense but slowly relaxing; he says, "Just do your best to make the parts of the world you can affect better. All anyone can do is their best. And some days you don't even need to do your best, you can do mid, it's ok. That's how you fix it. Not alone, and not all in one lifetime."

Then his eyes open and he looks at Usagi and the warm bright affection is on his face, even if it's a little tired and a little vague, and he nods and turns his gaze to Amy. "That's why I figured you should be more afraid of Obsidian. That you needed to understand it better. So you could be on guard on a gut level."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy is lost in... well not really in thought, the tank is a little low -- she does love how mental communication gets across things words struggle to, but processing that double-flash from Usagi took a lot of mental energy, and pressing on to try and explain drained her as well. So she's just sort of lost in feels until Usagi gets her attention.

    This sort of gesture might ordinarily have its own feels attached to it, but she's too caught up in her own feels to recognize that. She blinks.

    All kinds of things and roadblocks -- she nods repeatedly.

    The cheek-squishing is taken as an affirmation of cuteness and that makes her smile. What's said next is said in affection and endearment and not making fun of her.

    Still, there's something a bit unsatisfying nagging at the back of her head. Why couldn't she rely on friends before...?

    It's true that she more easily sees herself on the monster side of such a scenario, at least when the monsters aren't eldritch, utterly inhuman alien entities (like a Witch?) But she's been hurt too, both by dark energy and by society's mundane ills, both of which are the real monsters. They see her as a monster and try to make herself see herself as a monster so she'll fight herself, or crash out so they can say they were right all along.

    It's still a little hard to see, as readily. The size of the problem is scary. "I... remember when I told King Endymion, I was scared of the mundane problem... because I guess I assumed the magical one would work out; like this is a... like it's something we solve by the end of the story, even if I die during it."

    "But no, we've just got... multiple world-class problems no one has solved in human history."

    She smiles tiredly. "But you're right. I realized after I changed, that one-smart-powerful-person-fixes-the-world thinking doesn't work. We're together, and we have our friends."

    Which gets to what was bothering at the back of her head before. She takes a breath. "...And that's what's changed, too. Not my outside, or where I am-- well, where I am let me meet all of you. But now I have you. I guess I didn't really have friends before -- or at least, friends who didn't struggle in the same ways I did. As long as I've got you, maybe I can survive out there."

    She looks between them. "Thank you, so much, for showing me." She reaches out to pat their hands, then realizes and diverts one hand to pat Mamoru's sleeve, instead.

    Then she scratches the back of her head. "As for Obsidian... I, uh... I learned a lot. Of new information or new ways of looking at things today. I need a bit to process. But..."

    She considers for a moment. "...I think you're right? There will still be situations I'm not good at. If they ask me an unexpected direct question and my face can tell them the answer, I'm not saying I'll be perfect at that. But..." She looks down at the table. "There really is no reasonableness in Obsidian. Hinoiri happened to... expect a couple of things to be different the same way as I did, but that was a coincidence, and it didn't mean she wasn't as affected by the dark energy. She crashed out just the same when she became Sunset, and when Dianora was attacked."

    "And if... he is avoiding making witches, it's not a principle so much as that he finds it distasteful in the moment. If it furthered his plans... is there anything Dark Energy doesn't corrupt?"

    Amy considers this and sighs. "Like, I guess me being honest just means I'd get so mad other people aren't I make a youma that detects and attacks lies, huh... oh my god that seriously is the sort of thought process, huh..."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"That's right. All we can do is our best, and keep trying. It took generations and generations for the problem to get this bad, and it will probably take generations and generations to fix, but we can do our best, now. We can stand the line. We can protect the people that we see and try to expand how many we see. We can remember that Obsidian isn't what they say they are, and we can do our best to be a place people can escape from if they wake up from the lies..."

Usagi cracks a smile, even with all the heavy conversation - and there was so much heavier that Mamoru and Amy have already had, given everything they learned today.

"I'm glad to be your friend. I'm glad we have each other and that we keep making new friends. And as your friend - no one expects you to be a great liar, and if you get confronted head on and your face shows something, that's not something you can probably change. The best thing to do instead, I think, would be to think of something else to say. Like, you can blame a lot on Inai-sensei, like, so much can be blamed on her, and they already know about her, 'cause her best frienemy works for them."

Instead of fretting about ways she could falter or fail, why not just come up with pre-made excuses to help? If it throws her favorite teacher under the bus - which is exactly where she likes being anyway - then it just helps out, right?

Amy walks through the thought process of youma-ing, and Usagi nods solemnly. "It really, really is just like that."

A deep breath.

"Anybody want some more hot chocolate?"