IC contact: Sirenspull

[paterelohim]

Uh, hi! This is Ca- I mean Chuck Shurley, just- Chuck, sorry. [Indistinct fumbling noises] Leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks?

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[magnetic_magpie]

[He laughs, a soft, fractured sound, nerves and emotion swamping, and a stubborn, dig heels in and HOLD need to not crack for the weight of the question. ]

Sometimes. It's not always what most would want me to learn. And holding onto any strides I make in a different direction...it's a constant fight. It feels wrong. It's not, I am aware of that. But it feels like I'm ignoring every instinct I have. It's not my nature.

[paterelohim]

[Chuck nods; it's a decent answer. Self-aware and honest, and he can respect that.]

Well... what exactly do you think your nature is?

[magnetic_magpie]

[It's an extremely rare thing, that self awareness. Normally he's blind to his own nature.]

Isn't that obvious? Chuck. It's not magnetism I play with, it's electromagnetism. One of the four fundimental forces that make everything be. Gravity sticks us to things - and I can use my powers to effect it. Weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force - at some point they and electromagnetism bleed into each other. Everything else? Guess what makes it be? Electromagnetism is the order to the choas in the universe.

This funidmental force of nature. And it's not a power I have. It's what I am.

[paterelohim]

[...And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why He didn't create humans with superpowers. It's even more why he taught the angels to control themselves so unhealthily. This kind of a-god-am-I from anybody, including Himself and other Gods, gives Chuck such screaming heebie-jeebies that He just sort of wants to hide in a blanket fort.]

Okay. [Trying not to use his talking-to-crazy voice, and succeeding very well at it, actually.] That's a superpower. It's a hell of a superpower, but it doesn't change what you are. You're still a person.

[magnetic_magpie]

I'm still a person, yes. I'm not still human. That is a really big difference and I don't mean in the way most who actually know who I am think of when they think of me. My granddaughter is human. I don't think any less of her than I did - do - Wanda's sons. She's my granddaughter, I love her, I will do anything for her. Anything. I don't mean it as an insult.

But does it change who I am? Chuck, if I lose my temper? I mean truly lose my temper? The least that would happen is an earthquake that would level this city completely. The worst? This island would blow apart. There wouldn't even be a crater left. I cannot ever completely let my guard fully down. I'm terrified to fall asleep with anyone laying in bed with me, because I might accidentally kill them if I have a bad dream. I've told you what it's like, to have to learn to not look through walls, to give people privacy. Yes, it very much changes who I am. Completely.

[paterelohim]

...At what point it is even responsible for you to still be this strong when you have the ability to cap it?

[magnetic_magpie]

The last person to have their baseline power capped, rather than learn to control it, was Jean.

You have heard of Dark Phoenix, yes?

[In the rare honest moments? He's even afraid of the power Omega level Mutants have.]

So I learn what I can do - so that I don't accidentally do it.

[paterelohim]

[He's heard of it, yeah. Not in too much depth, but enough to know that Erik really has a point.]

That sounds awful. Having to constantly live on the alert.

[magnetic_magpie]

Ororo and I used to discuss it, I'm old, muscle aches are to be expected. Ororo was not - and she was often just as tense as I was. It's. I'm older now, more powerful. And I have to be so very careful. The poles move naturally, did you know? The Earth wobbles a bit.

[He takes up a fork, morphing it into a small hollow black ball - the Earth's core - and a thin net bubbled over it made with the finest silver threads and the poles staked with needle-like spindles, a flexible red metal thread attached, showing how the Earth spins on it's axis, and the faint wobble - and why. The core spinning at a different speed than the mantle and crust.]

And the poles move as a result. I could speed it up or retard it. Neither are actually good for the planet. It's not just being on alert, it's being in control, all the time. Never being able to really let go. And I can't on the planet, or even inside the orbit of moon or I could knock that off too.

I wouldn't clip my DNA to change it - and I could, I know how to, in theory, although it might take a few tries to get it right - because I'm the one to teach others to accept themselves, and I can't do that if I'm reworking my own genetic code. And our DNA is...we're called Mutants for a reason - our DNA mutates. It probably wouldn't work and then I'm caught off guard.

No one can afford that.