(app) MoM

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Berri
AGE: 29
JOURNAL: berriah
IM / EMAIL: Discord Berria #4911
PLURK: taiyakinonaku
RETURNING: N/A

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Lucy Maud Montgomery
CHARACTER AGE: 19
SERIES: Bungo Stray Dogs
CHRONOLOGY: Chapter 81 (Manga)
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Randomize, please!

BACKGROUND: Wiki

Lucy's past is vague, but tragic. We know that she grew up in an orphanage, where she spent her childhood in fear. Her conversations with Atsushi imply that Lucy learned to keep her head down, otherwise she would be punished for anything from poor quality work to saying the wrong thing. She even has scars on her arms that are the result of the horrible abuse she suffered.

Furthermore, Lucy was isolated and unwanted due to her Ability. She could create an imaginary space that she and her "imaginary friend" Anne would occupy in peace. Lucy has amassed a collection of cute toys and furniture in that space, indicating that she spends a lot of time there. Like Anne of Green Gables (from whom a lot of Lucy's traits seem to be derived,) Lucy implies that the other orphans hated her for her whimsy and Ability.

Then, one day, Lucy was discovered by an American organization called The Guild. They recognized her Ability was useful and took her away with them. This was the first time that Lucy was ever wanted, but her value was defined entirely by her Ability to create an imaginary space.
We see only a few glimpses of what her life might have been like at the Guild. We see Lucy trying to have fun and
enjoy herself, only to be shot down and insulted by other members. It if inferred for this application that Lucy was only surviving there. She had no where better to go and couldn't imagine anyone else wanting her, so stayed.

In the conflict with the Guild, Agency, and Port Magia, Lucy is the opening act that terrorizes the Agency. Unfortunately for her, Atsushi is able to outsmart her ability and defeat her. With her secret Ability revealed, the Guild no longer needed her. She was nearly thrown out, but begged to stay. Understanding that the Guild didn't want *Lucy,* but wanted her *Ability,* Lucy offered to become a maid. She was disrespected and treated as below her former colleagues.

When Atsushi is captured, Lucy initially goes to bully him. But he scolds her negative thinking and injects her with his optimism. Inspired and touched by their similar backgrounds, Lucy gives Atsushi a parachute and opens the way for him to escape. Her only request is that he comes back and saves her.

Which he does not do. In fact, Atsushi crashes Lucy's whaleship prison into the ocean. She escapes on her own, but is briefly angry that he broke his promise. Lucy gets a job as a cafe he visits often and tsuns around, finally confronting him about his betrayal of her trust. They do make up, with Lucy realizing Atsushi did actually look for her, and she becomes his ally. Though not officially associated with Agency, Lucy is later persuaded by Atsushi to use her ability to help them. She seems to be living alone and paying her own expenses, but stays close to Atsushi the Agency.

It's in the most recent manga arc (from which this Lucy is taken) that she takes an active role in the story. When the Agency is framed for terrorism, Lucy rushes to a police station to fight for Atsushi's innocence. A man named Ango sees her and asks her to help him protect the Agency. In this moment, Lucy decides to throw away her spotless record and peaceful life in order to help Atsushi. She uses her ability to hide Atsushi and Kyoka, then travels on foot in their place.

Lucy is dragged into a lot of danger as a result. Her primary job is to let Atsushi and Kyoka hide in Anne's Room, but she has jumped off a railing and been shot by a gun trying to help her friend. At her current canon point, the once scattered Agency has reunited in Anne's Room. She is still primarily loyal to Atsushi, but has begun opening her heart to the other Agency members.

PERSONALITY:

“I don't want to cheer up. It's nicer to be miserable!”

At the core of Lucy's character is the idea that she is unhappy and romantic. She has suffered horribly throughout her life and has tried to turn that suffering into a badge of honor. From the way she chatters carelessly to Atsushi, a stranger, about her suffering,to how she pulls up her sleeve to show her scars; Lucy is not shy about her suffering.

When she is first introduced, Lucy almost takes comfort in her misery. She uses it to excuse her behavior and lower her expectations. But as the story progresses, Lucy is forced to face her flawed coping mechanism: She learns that she does not have to be defined by misery and that she can, in fact, improve the quality of her life. And be a positive force to those around her.

“I don't really care what people think about me if they don't let me see it.”

At first glance, Lucy comes off as a fairly rude young lady. She is haughty and brash, trying to hold herself above others, and cruel with her words. Lucy uses wit and trickery to dominate others, because she does not have the physical strength to be dominating. When she fights Atsushi, Lucy turns the entire matter into a sadistic game with tricks and wordplay. When she is 'getting revenge' later on, she withholds information in order to inflict suffering. It's worth noting that she never uses physical violence and even forbids it, telling Atsushi that he isn't allowed to damage her room. Lucy doesn't have it in her to physically harm others.

Her manner of speech is also rude. Lucy uses violent vocabulary, speaks bluntly, and employs name calling when dealing with others. As someone who has been on the other end of verbal abuse, Lucy knows how effective it can be. She even uses it on herself, at one point bitterly calling herself "a wet rat," because name calling is to ingrained in her as a defense mechanism.
However, get her to drop her guard and Lucy will speak a lot less rudely. It's only brief, but we do see that she is happy and polite with her cafe customers. Her attitude seems to be connected with how comfortable she feels. Lucy is more tense and guarded when in uncomfortable situations. But once she feels secure, she'll ease up on the attitude.

“Even when I'm alone, I have real good company.”

A lot of this stems from how Lucy is lonely, and purposefully so. She feels like no one can understand her suffering and that she's on a different plane of existence. Everyone else is 'lucky' while Lucy is 'unlucky.' This logic allows her to excuse her flaws unapologetically, and fuels them in the same way. To Lucy, was okay for her to knock 'lucky people' down a few pegs. If she's mean to them, then it's only because she's leveling the playing grounds. Even as she grows, we see Lucy knock people down with mean nicknames and a brash attitude.

On a similar note, she self-isolates. Her Ability literally lets her hide away in her own reality. Lucy is not a
people pleaser. She craves human interaction, but she's already decided that no one will understand her anyway. She has bluntly told other characters that she does not care if they trust her, so won't go out of her way for their approval. She tries to put distance between herself and others by flaunting her misery, saying "I have it so much worse than you! You can't understand me!"
The only person that Lucy has a strong tie to is Atsushi, and she only created the opening because he suffered as much-- if not worse,-- than she did. If he had not shared his trauma with her, Lucy would never have let him get close to her. And while she seems close to the cafe owners, she abandoned them without hesitation for the "same suffering hat" Atsushi. Lucy feels closer to those who have hurt like she has.

“But was anything in life like one's imagination of it?”

In the place of human contact, Lucy has otherwise filled her heart with her imagination. Her profile says she likes to daydream and her Ability gives her a place to do so safely. And alone. Lucy feels close to Anne, who represents her own imagination. She is most at ease inside her own mind.

In her secret space, guarded from her cruel reality, Lucy is actually a romantic. She likes to dream of pleasant things and has somewhat 'girlish' ideals. Romanticism for Lucy is painting her suffering in a poetic light, but it is also dreaming of happier alternatives. But reality has been cruel to her fantasy. Lucy has to cover that part of her heart with nihilism or risk having her heart broken.

We see this strongly on display when she first helps Atsushi. Lucy had the means to selfishly save herself, but she gives Atsushi the parachute and escape route instead. All she asks in return is that he come back to rescue her. Not because she cannot save herself, but because she enjoys the idea of someone rescuing her. Then she quickly decides it would never happen, blames Atsushi for breaking the promise, and declares a need for revenge... When in reality, he had tried to keep the promise. But Lucy never gave him a chance to keep it.

Under the attitude, the angry name calling, and prickly surface personality, Lucy is actually a very sensitive girl. She is surprisingly empathetic, but afraid that empathy will hurt her. Even though she does not like Kyoka, it is Lucy and not Atsushi who notices when Kyoka is hurting. Lucy worries for her friends and her heart would bleed for them if she gave it the chance. She knows this about herself, too. Which is why she employs self isolation to protect her romantic heart.

She can only safely dream in Anne's Room. There, we see Lucy portray herself as a bright and cheerful (albeit sadistic,) girl. We see her try to put this persona on with the Guild too, but when they scold her she fails obediently into line. Lucy knows that she must follow the rules to be safe, which means submitting to authority. Whether she is struggling to please the Guild or working hard at the Orphanage, Lucy does her best to keep her head low.

At least... That's how she was. Then she met a cat.

“That's the worst…or the best… of real life. It won't let you be miserable.
It keeps on trying to make you comfortable even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic.”

Meeting Atsushi and letting him into her life has changed Lucy drastically. She is undeniably infatuated with him. To Lucy, Atsushi is a blend of her romanticism and her reality: He's suffered more than she has, but he's the righteous and kind daydream that reality beat out of her. Lucy would once hesitate to help anyone but herself, but recent manga chapters through her jumping off an airship so that she can maybe save him. In comparison, chapters earlier Atsushi nearly drowned and Lucy hesitated to help him. The contrasting scenes show her growth: She once looked around for someone else to do the rescuing. Now she's leaping into danger without a second thought.

The recent manga arc has also forced Lucy to quite literally let others into her space. Anne's Room was once her private Kingdom, but she has now allowed all of the Agency members to hide there. While Atsushi's safety was her initial motivation, she is showing signs of opening up to the others. She talks freely with others and expresses a more positive range of emotions, no longer guarding her ideal persona.

But it's still a work in progress for Lucy. When she quit her job, Lucy said that she didn't care if her life was meaningless in the end. She still has a defeatist attitude towards herself. Her newfound bravery also comes from a disregard for her own future. Lucy allowed herself to be used, as she with the Guild, and she gave up her job and criminal free record in order to help Atsushi. And she didn't give it all up to be selfless, either. Lucy wants to be wanted. And Atsushi was the only person she thought might want her.

At her core, Lucy is still her own brand of selfish. She's still a lost girl who doesn't know anything about herself, except that her past was horrible. Lucy has no plans for her future. She tries to tame her daydreams with a dose of reality. And at her current canon point, she is too caught up in the fast paced action to realize it.

POWER:

▶ Anne's Room (canon) This is the first umbrella for her canon "Anne of Abyssal Red" ability. She can teleport others to another dimension called "Anne's Room." It is a limited space, made smaller for MoM (the size of an average bedroom,) that can only be accessed by those Lucy brings there.

While there is a lot to Anne's Room in canon, her MoM Umbrella will only have two of its benefits: Teleporting and The Doors. Lucy can teleport people into Anne's Room with the snap of her fingers. She can only teleport to and from Anne's Room. However, the Exit Door allows Lucy to create the illusion of regular teleportation. The Exit Door connects the spot Lucy WAS to Anne's Room. She can then connect the Exit Door to anywhere in her original radius. The most important example is when Lucy jumps off an airship to catch Atsushi, teleports him to Anne's Room, then brings them both back to the nearest solid ground later.

However, she would not be able to teleport somewhere outside of her original scope. If Lucy teleports while in McDonalds, she ends up in Anne's Room. She can then only attach the Exit Door to a part of McDonalds. She could let herself out in the bathroom, the ball pit, the roof, etc. But she couldn't teleport to Wendy's. What kind of example is this.

Lastly, the only way into Anne's Room is through Lucy's teleportation. However, her teleportation captures a spherical radius. Anything caught in the sphere comes with. In canon, Lucy is able to teleport an entire building into Anne's Room.
She also accidentally captures a crowd of people, because they were within the spherical radius of her intended target. Lucy has shown the potential to be more selective, but it's a work in progress. There's a point where she teleports Atsushi and herself into Anne's Room... but accidentally leaves their clothes behind. She had been trying to only leave the moisture behind, but she can't get *THAT* specific.

▶ Anne of Abyssal Red (canon) Anne is a doll-like creature that exists in Anne's Room. She is basically it's guardian. She only exists in the Anne's Room dimension. No one can hurt Anne when they are in Anne's Room. Anne has a Prison where she throws Lucy's unlucky enemies.

However, Anne cannot exist outside of Anne's Room. This is reflective of how Lucy guards her imaginative side from the real world. Even in MoM, Lucy will not be able to bring Anne into the real world.

▶ Anne of Abyssal Red Puppet (MoM Addition) I would like to experiment with the idea of Anne being an embodiment of Lucy's romantic personality. If she is able to open up to more people, I would like for her to learn to bring Anne into the real world. This version of Anne would operate like a puppet on strings. Lucy will be able to direct her to fight on her behalf. Puppet Anne would be connected to Lucy by a red string, with a radius of 15 meters (1 bus.) If someone grabs Anne, they can drag Lucy by the string.

Puppet Anne would not be invincible. She is connected to Lucy's imagination and will disappear when Lucy stops believing in her. She also cannot be summoned if Lucy is not willing to make her own heart vulnerable. Puppet Anne's size will reflect how confident and open Lucy is being. Lastly, Puppet Anne can only be summoned to protect other people. If Lucy is being selfish, she can only retreat to Anne's Room.

As such, Lucy will not be able to summon Puppet Anne immediately. She will require CR and in-game character development to use this ability.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

[Being on camera makes Lucy uncomfortable. She is more aware of her braces and the way her hair won't lay flat on her head. Lucy is not a fan of addressing a bunch of people that she doesn't know either... But she's going to try. Just once, she'll put her heart out on the Network. These jerks might prove she is right not to trust them, but at least she'll have tried.

She's too lonely not to try.]

Hey! I made coffee. [Her arms are crossed over her chest. Lucy scowls at the camera, with a pot of coffee in the foreground of the frame.] I want to get better at it. At brewing the stuff.

Someone come sample it. I have a whole pot and I can make more. It's free, so you'd be stupid not to take me up on this! [And with that, she shuts off the feed.

No one'll answer, she figures. That's why she didn't provide an address to meet her at. If someone really cares, they'll go the extra mile and find a way to contact her. Right? She's not wrong to want someone to meet her half-way, is she?]

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

heeeeck

FINAL NOTES: Thank you for taking the time to read this!