Trailers for Civil War made me revive him. No spoilers please!

[ohmygoat]

No.

No, I'm not doing this. I'm a mutant, I'm exempt from this mess and interacting with anyone in it. I thought there was a no crossing the streams agreement between other heroes and mutants? Furthermore, I don't care what your favorite spandex wearing symbols are bickering about, because you were terrible at playing me before and haven't done nearly enough research in the meantime to have improved. I'm not confident you know enough about any aspect of me to be throwing me around, so if you're serious: go read a book. And remember that no matter the outcome of their fighting I am on, primarily, the side of good and the side of my own self interest first, last and always.

Besides, I doubt the Avengers would want me on their team. [He holds up a hand flat, above his head.] You must be this straight and irreligious to ride that ride, and I'm neither. [Putting his hands in his pockets, he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.]

...alright, I admit I do worry about Spider-Kid out there. He sounds like one of my freshman students, honestly. I'm not alright with that.

Comments

[malesiren]

Yours too, huh? Dunno whether I should consider myself lucky or not that mine doesn't know jack about the original comic arc, except that it was enough to destroy real actual in-the-flesh friendships.

Not looking forward to getting dumped on pretty much any meme she can find just to see if anyone sticks.

[ohmygoat]

Don't count yourself lucky - I doubt it'll stop them from throwing you at memes. Mine's never let logic and whether they know enough about something to do it stop them.

[malesiren]

Oh hell no she's not going to let something like that stop her. Never has before.

And just when I was getting used to obscurity again, too.

/slightly ships these two already

[ohmygoat]

[Maurice is just going to avoid looking at the other man directly. That voice is doing things to him and no, mun, he does not want romance. He wants to go back to normalcy.]

Mine decided to do this in time for finals. I have so many papers to grade right now, and a Teacher's Union meeting on Monday - I don't have time for memes.

Yeah, Henry does that. Bastard that he is.

[malesiren]

[It's just at ambient right now, baseline charm. He's not going to turn it up just yet, maybe later.]

Ohh, so you're one of the ones with an actual legitimate job. Sorry to hear that, man.

It'd never work. I am so onboard for this.

[ohmygoat]

I like my legitimate job, actually. It gives me a chance to ramble about what I love for a living and lets me have the summer off to go forth and be lazy. [He's such a great role model for his students, clearly.]

Disaster waiting to happen. It'll be great!

[malesiren]

Well if it works for you, don't let me knock it. I mean, shit, what do I know? I'm just a frontman for a band.

[ohmygoat]

I'm big on people doing what works for them. I see too many of my students being shoved into things they hate by their parents to shit on anyone's career path. Frontman for a band is good work if it's what you're into. Just remember to keep the drugs and alcohol to a reasonable level. Indulgence is fine, it's over-indulgence that kills.

[malesiren]

[His laugh is a warm thing, very nearly tactile all on its own.]

Everything in moderation, including moderation, yeah?

[ohmygoat]

That's my line every time I binge on leftover Halloween candy, yes. But it never sounds as witty the next day when I have a candy hangover.

[That laugh is startlingly attractive. Maurice's instincts are to move closer, but instead he shifts awkwardly. He's never known how to handle attraction to anyone, always thinks he's being too pushy, so he bites his lip for a moment and looks off to the side.] Seriously though, never fuck over your life in a way where people can point at you and say 'I told you so'. If you decide to ignore moderation, do something so strange people's only response is '...what?'.

[malesiren]

Oh man, the day-after-holiday candy sales will be my undoing, I swear. I'm not going to go out in a fireball on the freeway because I was drinking, smoking, shooting up, shooting in general and fucking while operating a motor vehicle, no, it's going to be paydays and red vines.

[He shakes his head, biting back a smile and trying his hardest for solemn] Those crappy off-brand gummies, that's what'll do it.

[ohmygoat]

Almond Joys. If I'm ever found dead under shady circumstances, it's either a parent from a conservative group or Almond Joys. Just make sure my pet goat is taken care of either way.

Candied orange slices are also a likely culprit. No one ever expects the orange slices.

[malesiren]

Never was a fan of the orange slices, but the Sunkist brand 'fruit gems' [finger quotes and everything, lookit him go] I could eat my own weight in those.

Or that weird nougat with the naked jelly beans in it so it looks like bad stained glass, love that stuff.

[ohmygoat]

My family makes their own orange slices. They're worth going to war for.

I ate a two gallon tub of Skittles two years ago and decided not to call in for a substitute teacher the next day. My sugar rush crashed and I slept for the last two periods. But I corrected all the papers for the entire week over lunch break.

[malesiren]

[Both brows lift] Now that I would believe. Ma' makes her own praline and even she'd stab someone for it.

... which is more surprising when you understand that my ma's 5'2" and looks like she's just built on a 9/10 scale to everyone else, and she's the kind of person who stops the car to let ducks cross the street.

And I've never had a sugar crash that bad. Coffee crash, sure, but not sugar, doesn't hit me the same as it does most people, I guess.

[ohmygoat]

I get you on the 'tiny, unassuming mother' bit. My mother once stopped the car so we could make sure we hadn't hit a mouse. She also once hit a coyote with a frying pan, though, and it didn't get up for a minute and a half afterwards. She's also 4"9, freckled, and likes to make rag rugs and holiday wreaths as hobbies. I would sooner jump off a building than steal her orange slices.

That's because you've never had two gallons of Skittles then chased it with eight milkshakes and had dark chocolate for lunch afterwards. I think my body's immunity to sugar is shot now and it just affects me worse because of it.

...I'd probably do it again if given the chance, though.

[malesiren]

Man your pancreas must hate you.

... I say as if I haven't lived off of frozen blended coffees and booze for a day and a half. Pretty sure I slept for like 48 hours after that and pretty sure the drummer thought I was dead.

[ohmygoat]

Pretty much. There's a reason why I eat super-healthy and vegan the rest of the time - it's like I'm trying to apologize to my own organs.

A horrible thing I learned from my mother is that you can tell if someone is truly unconscious and in need of medical assistance by pouring ice water on their crotch. If they don't come to, then it's time for medical treatment.

This is why I didn't fake sick when I was growing up.

[malesiren]

That's... actually pretty damn useful advice, probably going to keep it to myself for a while though, let the others learn by example. As I usually do anyway.

[He shrugs] Sometime it's on me to serve either as an example or as a warning to others.

[ohmygoat]

Depending on parent's religious views I'm either a dire warning of the lows one can reach or boring and tolerable. So hey, at least you're an example of something positive every once in a while. Maybe you'll save a life with the ice water thing, who knows? [Maurice shrugs too, mildly.]

[malesiren]

Yeah, we get some of that too, parents buying up our albums just to burn them, never did understand that myself.

[He shrugs] But my grandad would be doing the same thing, so it's not like I'm confused by it just because they're strangers. Ma' mostly figures as long as I'm not out killing anybody I'll probably be fine.

[ohmygoat]

My dad buys CDs because he likes the album art, gives me the music and puts up the artwork on the wall of his office. I think my parents would protest more if I became Christian because they associate that with abusive assholes.

My grandfather would tell me the fucks he doesn't give could fill the sky and then ask me to pour him some whiskey. Ah, fond family memories.

[malesiren]

Dingding, got it in one. [He's smiling crookedly again, he can't help it.] Grandad's definitely Christian, that deep-roots rand of deep-south Christian, turns 'Jesus' into a four syllable word. Totally certain that the world's going to hell in a hand basket. That kind of preacher.

[He shakes his head] So clearly there's no hope for me.

[ohmygoat]

My mother's parents are like that. We don't talk to that side of the family; vicious, hateful people, all of them. Some people aren't worth the aggravation. I'm just sorry you ended up related to that.

Hope is what make of it and what we define it as for ourselves. All that should matter is being a decent human being. The rest is scarcely worth the time it takes to acknowledge. [There's plenty of hope for Henry in the sense of him living a good life - so long as other people's definitions don't override his own as to what that means to him.]

[malesiren]

Can't choose who we're born to, but thanks. Always good to hear that other people have some sense. And he doesn't go out of his way to pile hate on me, so I can pretty much ignore him. [Another shrug, because really he's got better things to do than worry about the man and his opinions.]

Mostly I'm still trying to figure out how ma' ended up so well-rounded and I'm going to have to blame granma, but I never met her, so I can't be sure.

[ohmygoat]

He shouldn't be piling hate on anyone. That's just obnoxious. Life is complicated enough.

It could be that, or it could be mothers are somehow all mutants possessing low-level superpowers of undefined limitations and specs. I'm not prepared to rule that theory out yet.

[malesiren]

Ma's definitely a mutant. Not like I got it from nowhere, I got it from her.

[ohmygoat]

I actually did manage to obtain it from nowhere. Apparently that's a thing. Genetics is not my subject for a reason, that being that it stops making sense on a whim.

[malesiren]

[He waggles his fingers] Mmmmagic. Or as good as, genetics and biology, really not anything I'm good at.

[ohmygoat]

I think most of my Wiccan friends would be offended if I said the word magic like that. I need to try it as soon as possible. In any case, I'm the mortal enemy of biology and math teachers: an English Lit. teacher.

[malesiren]

[And there's that laugh again, somehow even warmer than the last one.] Good a reason to do anything. And see, that explains why I like you. Only teachers I ever got along with were my English teachers.

[ohmygoat]

[Damn, that laugh does something to him. Maurice steps closer, wishing he had more skills regarding people and romance, but it's not like anything will actually happen anyway - he knows that. It's just nice to pretend for a few minutes it might.]

English teachers are the only teachers that have fun in their classes. Everyone else is angry, dead inside and taking it out on their students. Or that might just be the school I teach at, but I like making blanket statements about large groups of people so what the hell.

[malesiren]

[And again with the laugh, shaking his head.] Those that can't do, teach and those that can't teach teach gym? Yeah, sounds about right.

[ohmygoat]

Pretty much. Those that can't teach gym teach Sex Ed. Which explains so much about how dysfunctional at worst, clueless at best some teenagers are on that topic, really.

[malesiren]

Didn't even have sex-ed when I was in school. [He shakes his head again, amused as much as anything.] Probably better off than if I'd had, though.

[ohmygoat]

I didn't either. My parents own a farm. I learned where baby goats came from and how they were created when I was... six? Seven? And then I asked my parents questions that they still find hilarious to this day. [He's never living it down that he wanted to know if those noises were like what humans made.]

[malesiren]

[That prompts a grin, one quick flash before dimming to a simple smile] Pretty sure we've all got questions like that, the ones that get brought up at holiday dinners, and probably will be brought up repeatedly for decades to come.

[ohmygoat]

I think the entire purpose of holiday dinners is mutual embarrassment and bringing out old baggage. Does the psyche good. Otherwise we'd start thinking there were classy people among us, which is a dangerous delusion if ever there were one.

[malesiren]

I know for a damn fact that we haven't got any of those in my family. And going by averages, that means nobody else does either.

[ohmygoat]

I don't know, my five year old niece is going through the princess phase of her life. She's pretty classy. [It's more argument for the hell of it than anything else, honestly.]

[malesiren]

Oh well that's fair, kids get a pass most of the time, she'll probably grow out of it soon enough.