driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Billy Kaplan + OTA
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: The Blue Fish
When: Now!

( blue fish )

[...con... fetti? alright, that sure is a thing that just happened. Billy's used to teleporting, but it's never felt quite like this. so weird. everything about this is weird, weird, weird, and coming from him that's saying something.

Reaching around the back of his head, he pats awkwardly at where the augment rests, disturbed, and starts wandering through the halls of the ship. Might as well get acquainted, and maybe make sure he's not just super crazy right now. You never know, where he's from.]

( private; text to kate )

So are my powers busted or are you the only one here?

[Location spell went kinda haywire, whoops.]

( video; fleetwide )

Okay, so, ignoring that this is kind of awful and I hate that I apparently can't teleport myself home...

Any advice for first-timers? Can't say I've watched much reality TV back home. Um, barring that... what's some good places to visit off-ship if you've got like five cents to your name?

It's very, uh. Colourful here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah. Hank McCoy leaves some big shoes to fill. [ he was the ship's captain for a long long time. ] Both figuratively and literally.

Hank McCoy was your captain? I swear I missed all the fun.

...Guess who his First Mate was.

[ not to mention girlfriend. ]

There are way too many weird answers to that question for me to answer it. Who?

[Magneto? Doctor Octopus? Galactus?? the alternate reality shenanigans potential is endless.]

Mystique. [ ... ] Part of me wishes I was joking.

[ the rest of her actually came to like raven's company. ]

Whaaaat? That's a partnership I did not see coming.

[though it's not like they even know Mystique personally back home. she's always been like, an X-Men situation.]

Apparently she's considerably less ambiguous evil in their version of events. [ kate shrugs. it's not like she knew more than just the stories.

but... ]

-- We should probably talk about the fact that the Scarlet Witch used to be here.

[cue a sigh of exasperation that is equal parts "do we have to" and "yeah yeah I know". a very Billy sigh.]

Anything I should know?

Aside from not knowing us, she was young. [ so young. ] And not a mutant, as far as she was aware.

[ ... ] The Vision was here, too. But they weren't...

[ kate shakes her head. ] It's all pretty messed up. And a helluva lot easier to talk about the ones that aren't, y'know --

[ your family. ]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Hard to imagine Scarlet Witch with powers who isn't a mutant. It's... kind of integral to her identity? Considering her connection with Magneto, and where she and Quicksilver started.... he can't really parse it. But oh well, they went to alternate realities where he's a vampire and Teddy's a tentacle monster so okay, reality, you keep on being weird.]

I think... I think I'm okay, though. It's not as awkward as it used to be, I don't have that, like, rushing need to find her. It's enough to know that we've got each other back home.

You know, I actually called her Mom the last time I saw her? Just to find out how it felt.

[ hey. this is real top priority friends stuff. kate reaches out for billy's hand. ]

And? How did it feel?

[he offers up a wan smile and squeezes her hand. thanks.]

It was... fine. I didn't hate it, and she didn't hate it. She actually kinda smiled at me. And I didn't feel like I'd committed some horrible sin against my family, or... I dunno. I might keep doing it?

[he's still deciding, ugh. and bless kate, because he can't talk about this with anyone else. tommy would just brush it off and teddy... well, it's still too fresh for teddy. he lost his mom and billy's worrying about two.]

[ -- there's some heavy stuff going down back home. the likes of which she's not prepared to share, not until she has a more conclusive answer to her inquiries. what her father's up to, what he might have done in the past, who killed her mother...

well. it doesn't matter. what matters is that in this moment she can deeply empathize with billy's attempt to find an equilibrium between the surplus of parental figures with which he finds himself. that sticky wicket makes sense to her. ]

I think you should. [ keep doing it. ] It's bound to be a little weird at first. But let's be honest, the whole situation is a little weird to begin with.

Can't deny that.

[Weird, awkward, messy... it's all of that in droves. She's not wrong there. But it's... kind of nice, too.]

...Yeah, I think I'll try it again. See if she reacts differently in a less world-ending situation. We didn't really have time to talk about it at the time.

It's 2016, [ or it was when she was last home, ] we can all have as many moms as we want. Or as many moms as want us.

[ which sounds flippant, sure, but it's well meant. basically -- the rules, the nuclear families, those old traditions? they exist to be broken. ]

That's... that's true. I'm probably gonna talk it over with Mom, though. Mom-Mom. I don't want her to accidentally hear it one day and get upset.

[though that's assuming that at any given point she won't be upset about the whole magic-child thing, because yeah. wild.]