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Who: Billy Kaplan / OTA
Broadcast: Yes
Action: On the Iskaulit
When: After all the chaos is settled!

So… all of that was horrible? I think that goes without saying. The less we have of that kind of thing going forward, the better.

Tangentially, but the personnel augment is kind of useless, isn't it? We get an office but not much in the way of marketable skills, we can't do anything with the ships in the middle of a crisis, we're not here for any big damn hero moments. It’s great if we’ve got other skills for that, but we can’t fix stuff, we can’t pilot people out of danger, we can’t arm those who don’t have powers...

...okay, sorry, I'm rambling. Getting to the point! Truth is, personnel - counselling - is meant for the aftermath. Therapy, in other words. If it doesn't exist where you're from, it pretty much means someone whose job it is to listen to you, no judgments, and offer advice if they can. Sometimes it's enough to just have somebody hear you out.

Anyway, I wanted to say that I'm tired of, like… not contributing much. So I'm gonna have an open door policy. Doesn't matter if you're not on my ship, doesn't matter if I don't even know you. You can even use the comm anonymously if you don't like the idea of coming in person. You make the rules.

If you're wondering about my qualifications… well, I've got ears. That's the most important part. But I did also grow up with this stuff- Mom’s a psychologist, I've seen her work, I’ve read some of her books. And I’ve gone to therapy. Kind of a lot. It's not a substitute for the real thing, but it's what I can offer.

Oh, and for the record, this isn't meant to call out anyone with the personnel augment, or steal your shipmates, or anything! This is more of a call to action. If you want in on this we can set up some kind of network.

I’m setting up shop on the Iskaulit and I’m gonna post active hours there. Stop by if you want to talk more one-on-one about it.

[True to his word, Billy’s in a spare room in the Iskaulit - sign on the door - and is decorating the place, though it’s kind of barebones for the moment. He can magic it pretty, but the last few months have been exhausting, so he’s taking it slow.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[PFFFFFFFT. oh geez, that's... that's weird to imagine. holy crap.]

Did the Billy you knew in that other world not tell you about the whole... Kaplan family thing?

I'm not completely sure I made it over with all my memories of the last place, [which alarms her, yes, but moving on] but no, I don't think so.

Geez. [thanks, AU self, for making life really difficult for him just now.] Okay then, um, my family is kind of... really, stupidly complicated. The short version is that Wanda's my mom... magically... but physically and biologically I've got another family, the Kaplans. I grew up with them, not her, and that's the psychologist mom.

Oh. [I mean what do you say to a magical mom? You just go with it. They are both on space ships in a reality show and she walks through walls.] That makes more sense. [Does it, Kitty? Does it?]

So...did Tommy grow up with you or Wanda? [Is she making this hard again?]

[R I P]

Neither. He grew up with a different family, the Shepherds. We didn't even meet until we were both 16.

[he knows, he knows. it's a mess.]

So, magically brothers?

[Hey, she's not judging. She knew a pony who baked without opposable thumbs. Nothing will ever be strange again.]

Literally "all but blood", yeah. Like- twins via soul transfer, or... like I said, that's the short version. I'd say the long version makes sense but, um. Not really.

It's okay, Billy. I'm an X-Man. I think in any universe we probably get complicated.

And finding family where you don't expect it too. If I didn't get that before I definitely do now. [But she got it before too. The team was her family after she lost hers.]

At least the Avengers and X-Men have that much in common.

[mutual weirdness ought to be a good reason for them to sit down and talk once in a while...]

Sounds like it. We didn't have Avengers in my world, but I've been meeting them and hearing about them here. I guess at least one version of Logan is on both teams. I think he was from your world though, so you probably already knew that.

[She's done it for less!]

Oh, Wolverine? Yeah, he's... he gets around.

[his tone has that awkward discomfort of "I'd rather avoid this one" if she's keen to recognize it.]

He doesn't go by that name where I'm from, but yeah, that's the guy. [And she feels like she's venturing into a weird place. Did he also turn evil and kill off the rest of his team there too?]

He hasn't been here for awhile.

Oh, he was here...

[well, glad he's not here now. kinda less about being evil and more about having terrible problem solving skills, mostly involving the attempted murder of magical people.]

I guess that's good.

[Let it go? Push? Let it go? Push? Let it go?] Okay, what did he do? Stab a friend of yours? He gets stabby sometimes. Mine does anyway.

[And, to be fair ,it was a complicated situation, but he did kind of gut Leia here when they tried to take out the augments. NEVER TRY TO TAKE OUT THE AUGMENTS!]

Good luck finding a universe where Wolverine isn't stabby.

[he's pretty sure it doesn't exist.]

He tried to kill me and Wanda. Too dangerous to live, problematic powers, etc etc.

[Any joke she might have made about a world where Wolverine isn't stabby stays unspoken as he hits her with that last part.]

He...

[She really knows how to pick mentors. Not that she actually picked. And not that this one is actually hers, but still.]

He tried to kill you because of what your powers are and not because of something you did? [If you could just tell her you massacred the younglings or something this would probably feel better. Okay, that wouldn't actually feel better.]

I mean, unless knocking out a bunch of terrorist Neo-Nazis counts as a murderable offense, then yeah.

[as far as he knows, he was a threat via potential more than anything else. he's too much of a kid to be much of a threat just yet.]

I can understand why he'd be more angry with Wanda... a lot of bad things happened, and she was an easy target to blame. But that doesn't make it right.

About the least murderable offense I can think of. But Wanda? Whatever she did she's still Erik's dau... [cutting herself off] and that wouldn't matter on worlds where he's not the leader of the X-Men or in good standing I guess. [Just not sure how to process it and would really like something happy and sweet to process for once.]

Yeah, that doesn't pull as much weight in my universe. He was... sort of a good guy at the time? They let him join the X-Men, anyway. But the whole mess with Wanda put him at odds with the Avengers, which meant the X-Men all got involved, and... it was just a bad time. So I don't really have good memories of Wolverine.

Gotcha. No fond reminiscing of him. Right off the table. At least we still have puppies? Puppies aren't evil in your world, right? I mean, I've met Lucky and he seems non-evil.

I have yet to meet an evil puppy.

[which doesn't guarantee that they don't exist, but... chances are high??]

Good. Much better note for this conversation. No evil puppies.

And this offer of yours is nice. Probably well needed.

Yeah, I think so too. At least based on what I've seen of the fleet- just about everyone's got that "dark traumatic past" vibe in one way or another.

The two usually go hand in hand.

You're not wrong, but also, means we're not alone with our dark, traumatic pasts, right? Or our dark, traumatic presents or futures. [The silveresst of all silver linings.]

....well, I mean...

[GESTURES VAGUELY. he's not sure if it showed up on camera very well.]

That's kinda why I'm doing this, so yeah.

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This was so much fun Mon-El wanted in on it

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