♻ 022 | audio

[tucky]

Hey, y'all. I been thinking about some stuff lately - about powers. I don't have any and I never did, except for Admiral powers and except for one time when I thought I had some of my own - but that's another story.

They're just kinda all over the place here, I noticed. Arthas had his, and he tried to kill the whole Barge. And I know wardens hurt people with their powers sometimes. I've seen it. And we got inmates who don't have any powers at all, but still hurt and kill people. It's like I was telling someone earlier - it ain't like the Barge is safe when inmates have powers, and dangerous when they don't. It's a lot more complicated than that.

I got two inmates I been talking to, Lourdes and Pietro - and they want their powers back 'cause they don't feel right and whole without 'em. And I don't blame 'em, if I'm gonna be real honest. I maybe would have, before I was a warden, but now I got a different perspective. We're letting parts of people be locked away, and how's anyone supposed to trust us if we do that and don't care?

But maybe it ain't right to just give 'em back without thinking about it, neither - 'cause some of the powers are dangerous, and all of us'd be affected if something happened. So we decided that since they don't got wardens of their own, we're gonna talk to the whole Barge about it and see if any of y'all got objections. Or-- or questions or concerns. Stuff like that.

Pietro's got super speed, and super senses so he can see things okay when he's using his super speed. Lourdes can control people's bodies, and their minds, and even the chemicals inside 'em. Now, that's a whole fucking lot - so she's mostly what I wanna talk about today, I guess. We got Iris and Jean and all those guys who can protect people from stuff like that, but it can still be dangerous. So we're asking you.

Everybody gets a say.

[filtered to Lourdes]

if you get em back i want to talk about how your gonna use em ok

[filtered to Barbara, Cain, Dillon, Eggsy, Iris, Jean, Letty, Lloyd, Lydia, Ricki, Roderick, Simon, Tig; dated to after the post has been up for a while]

I'm giving Lourdes her powers back - but only when she's in the Enclosure with me. Now, I don't think she's gonna hurt me - but if she does, I don't want any of y'all hurting her back, okay? I ain't saying no punishment, or no being mad. Just no torturing or murdering or nothing. Thanks.

Comments

[cantcatchme]

Oh.

Well then.

I guess everyone who's hated for being different should just stop being that thing and we'd have world peace.

[He's a little angry.]

I just want to be me again.

[not here]

[americasdirtiest]

[...He's not going to mention the irony. But the irony, it is there.]

[fridgetothefire]

[She sighs, glances down. It's almost a concession. Then back up. Quiet and very earnest, now.]

And who are you, Pietro? We are - every single person, all of us - both less and more than our raw capabilities. No one does everything they can. Everyone makes choices.

The thing about father's philosophy is. If you can't accept even the concept of limits on your behavior, then - that's just chaotic fascism, that's might makes right all over again.

Honestly, I want you to have your powers back. I'd have given them to you while I was channeling the admiral if you ever asked. But you wouldn't ask. You wouldn't promise to behave - you didn't even think to haggle over what behaving might mean. You're insulted by the very idea.

I used to think there would never, ever be mutants I could trust. There are, because they respect other people enough not to steamroll them, even when they could. If you honestly think it's wrong to declare anything you could do inappropriate or unacceptable, because the ability to do it is who you are? That's...I can't. I can't trust someone who bases their self on that.

[cantcatchme]

I've been told all my life how I can and can't use my powers. I'm done with it. I'm just fucking done. The wardens here can wipe the floor with me. A fair number of the inmates, too, I'd wager. Plenty of them without using powers at all.

[Getting his ass kicked on the regular has humbled him, just a tad. He still spits out the words like they're something bitter.]

You already have the advantage over me. But if it makes you feel better to keep the one thing I fucking care about from me, whatever.

[fridgetothefire]

[MASSIVE sigh, rubbing her temples. She has a lot to say to that, but none of it productive, not right now. He's such a child.]

Do you have any idea how many times I've been murdered? Uhg, I'm sorry, I know you don't care, nevermind.

It doesn't make me feel better.

[cantcatchme]

Could've fooled me.

[He cuts off the feed. If he talks to her any longer, he'll say something he'll regret.]

[fireincarnate]

You're not any less, right now.

[Her voice is soft, and her gaze is stern.]

I know it feels like that. Our abilities are a part of us - not just like our senses, but...because it's shaped us, being different this way. And it's scary, trying to live without it. [She takes a breath, slow and deep.] The first time I did - the first time the Barge took my telekinesis away from me - we were docked on another world, and I was caged and branded like an animal.

[It was so long ago, and she was so different, but there's still something raw and savage twisting her features.

It's one hell of a vulnerability, but she owes him that, doesn't she? They all do, to all of them. Everyone who didn't choose to be here.]

[tucky]

yall should look at what hes got to say to

[fireincarnate]

[Her brow furrows as she does just that.]

Powers aren't the same as weapons. They can just - they can be used that way. And I know it doesn't seem fair, giving people that advantage, but...

Imagine having to earn your sight back, or one of your limbs. [Except most people don't have sight that can kill, and that's why it's so complicated, so frustrating. The struggle is clear on her face.]

[tucky]

You and me feel the same way.

[fireincarnate]

[That draws a smile, deep and warm and a little surprised, despite everything Tiffany has already said.]

I figured, and - I appreciate it a lot.

[The smile fades, as she reaches up to rake a hand through her hair.] I just wish we could find a real compromise. Make everyone feel whole and safe.

[tucky]

Me too. This is hard. I got people who think I wanna gives Lourdes and Pietro their powers back no matter what and I got people who think I wanna keep their powers away, but neither of those things is true.

[fireincarnate]

It works that way a lot, I think. It can be hard to see...everything in between.

[tucky]

It's hard to feel everything in between, too.

[fireincarnate]

It really is. Especially when those feeling contradict each other.

[cantcatchme]

I am, though.

You can talk at me all you want about how my powers aren't me and how much I'm fucking worth as a person, but it's all bullshit. I'm not myself without them.

[He'd tried, sort of. It took a month before this shit got stirred up. But now that everyone's talking about it, he's more aware than ever of how much it's actually hurting him.]

[fireincarnate]

[She just looks at him, for a moment - and then, achingly quiet - ] Is that you talking, or him?

[She doesn't give him time to snap back.] There was a Magneto here, you know. An Erik Lehnsherr. As an Inmate, and he didn't have his abilities for a long time.

[cantcatchme]

Yeah, I know. Not that anyone went out of their way to tell me in the whole past fucking month.

[Iris had mentioned him first, he just hadn't realized she'd meant he'd known Erik from the Barge until Arthas also said something.]

Don't see what that has to do with shit.

[fireincarnate]

It means he had to learn the same damn thing.

That there's a difference between who we are and what we can do. That we don't need to feel helpless again, because we don't have the same power. That our right to be whole doesn't matter more than other peoples' right to be safe.

Did they tell you he graduated?

[cantcatchme]

Then when does our right to be whole matter? You want me to just roll over and take it until someone decides they're gonna kill me for it, one way or the other? Should I just keep denying who I am to make everyone else happy?

Poison Ivy must've been too busy telling me how they'd fucked to mention that part.