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thisavrou2017-06-21 10:18 pm
welcomeprofessor) wrote in thisavrou2017-06-21 10:18 pm
[video+]
[The video feed here is set up very much like he's filming an orientation video; he knows little else other than strict formality here, but...when it comes to his school, he would say he finds the professionalism appropriate.]
The purpose for this is twofold, so I suppose I'll just get started.
Over the last few weeks of getting settled into this environment, learning its...well "intricacies" is a small word for it, perhaps eccentricities is better, I believe now more than ever that we need some tangible return to normalcy. I would like to have the school-- [and with the video feed he links something that looks very much like an old-school brochure, (which will very much omit the whole "subbasement" part of the post (and is not icly-literal).).] --up and running within the month. We have the faculties and facilities for a number of traditional subjects: literature, biology, philosophy, physical education [though it might sound like he means something very different by this] and a few other outliers, but we are still very much in need of some help in the history and mathematics departments. (Though I'll take more esoteric lessons under advisement).
[He pauses then, and his demeanor shifts entirely, shifting from cold to amiably warm like he's flipped a switch.]
As for the second point, and no less salient: it is my understanding that I am not the only one of my kind here, and that we are not, perhaps, the only ones particularly gifted. For those of you who may not identify as mutants, I would love the opportunity to speak with you about the nature of your powers.
[He pauses to consider that request for a moment, and follows up with an addendum:]
If any of you are comfortable doing so.
The purpose for this is twofold, so I suppose I'll just get started.
Over the last few weeks of getting settled into this environment, learning its...well "intricacies" is a small word for it, perhaps eccentricities is better, I believe now more than ever that we need some tangible return to normalcy. I would like to have the school-- [and with the video feed he links something that looks very much like an old-school brochure, (which will very much omit the whole "subbasement" part of the post (and is not icly-literal).).] --up and running within the month. We have the faculties and facilities for a number of traditional subjects: literature, biology, philosophy, physical education [though it might sound like he means something very different by this] and a few other outliers, but we are still very much in need of some help in the history and mathematics departments. (Though I'll take more esoteric lessons under advisement).
[He pauses then, and his demeanor shifts entirely, shifting from cold to amiably warm like he's flipped a switch.]
As for the second point, and no less salient: it is my understanding that I am not the only one of my kind here, and that we are not, perhaps, the only ones particularly gifted. For those of you who may not identify as mutants, I would love the opportunity to speak with you about the nature of your powers.
[He pauses to consider that request for a moment, and follows up with an addendum:]
If any of you are comfortable doing so.
video.
Am I going to get a job to do?
[PRIVATE]
[Though the change in permissions with his response speaks to more than some casually flippant non-answer, and he fixes the feed with a glance. He could do this in person--they probably should do this in person--but she's here, now.]
If I told you that maybe you had a point [and the deadpan look he gives the camera speaks volumes as to what "point" he means], how much am I going to keep hearing about it?
[PRIVATE]
[ Maybe, he says, and Raven does her very best not to grin. ]
I won't go on about it for too long. Maybe a few days, but it'd get boring after a week.
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I think, perhaps, you might have had a point.
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Right about what, exactly?
[ She's earned this. ]
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You were right about my trying to ignore the problem. Being shortsighted and too naive, and overprotective.
[ And all of that has been true for some time. He'd learned a long time ago that he'd been trying to push Raven, very particularly, into an idealized role that benefitted him, and not necessarily herself. (Though he knows he wasn't wholly wrong in that either: they're not killers.) But it extends to his students now too, doesn't it? He wants them to grow up, but he doesn't. To make their own choices, but to not all at once. ]
About training them. [ His expression screws up uncomfortably. ] You arrived at an interesting time. They all ran--as I should have fully expected them to do--headfirst into a situation with no training, no plan, and it didn't--
[ End well. He shakes his head. ]
So yes, Raven, you were right, and you have been for some time. [He pauses again, lets that settle and sink in, and only then adds:] But I have some caveats.
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It's just who you are, Charles. It's not as if I expected anything else from you.
[ She had hoped, of course, but he had to bear witness to the reality of the world. She might have been able to see it because she was out there, but Charles was stuck in Westchester, behind safe walls and in a world where nothing too bad actually happened. It's only seeing the world, seeing Cairo, seeing what people thought and wanted to do with mutants that would open his eyes.
She was the one that saw it all. She was saving people, running across the world and freeing mutants, Charles was blind to that. ]
Then I should probably start knocking some sense into them, shouldn't I?
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[ He doesn't know what will happen. Not entirely, though he has a few guesses from the bits of context he's been given. Right now, none of that matters here. Here is where he's watched traumas and pain and injuries settle in no matter how much he'd like to shield from them. She has a point. He cannot continue to ignore them. ]
They could use some. Their hearts are in the right place [ and yours too, he thinks ], but the teamwork certainly isn't.
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[ Not that the way Raven learned was particularly easy. She's seen the absolute worst in humanity in her time away from the mansion - from Trask and his experiments to cage fights, rounding up, experimentation and simple murder. There's no going back on it, no scrubbing it from her memory, and she knows it has made her stronger. It made her more fierce.
It's why she wants to protect the children by teaching them. There isn't always going to be a school or a professor to keep them safe; she learned that, too. ]
Am I really the best choice for teamwork?
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[ Cuba had been because of Charles as their teacher and figurehead, before she'd left with Erik. Paris had been because they'd wanted to stop her, not because they'd wanted to be united with her - especially not Erik, who she thinks still regrets his actions. Cairo... They just wanted to save their professor. She wanted to save her brother. ]
I'm not sure I'm the person you think I am, whether you trust me or not.
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[ Charles shakes his head with a defeated sigh. ]
They're young and still idealistic. And they come to conclusions long before I could ever dream of making one for them. If I even wanted to. If anyone is going to set them straight, it needs to come from you.
[ He pauses then, and takes a breath to steady the nerves that always seem to alight with discomfort when they get into these arguments. (And no one digs into nerves deeper than a sibling). He doesn't want to fight about this. To his core, there is little he wants less. ]
I need you here. But I only want you here if it's what you want. The last thing I think I could bear hearing is you feeling like you're obligated.
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[ She shakes her head, closing her eyes. It's a little like an argument, but at the same time she thinks they're getting a little tangled, both wanting the same things but unable to say it clearly, age-old words and bitterness rising to the surface. They still have a long way to go before they're back into the easy nature of the relationship they once shared, and she has to steel herself for the hurt that might come before they're back there. ]
I don't want them to come to me because they think I'm a hero. I need them to understand, Charles, that I can teach them because I've been out there, I've been fighting and I know how to show them to defend themselves. We weren't X-Men for very long, but when we were at Cuba... It worked. That's what I want for them. To be with their friends, to want to fight for the right reasons, not because they've got a misguided sense of what they're doing, what their purpose is.
[ Pursing her lips, she gives herself a few moments to think before she speaks again. ]
They saw Cairo, but I need to talk to them. We have to make sure they know what they're signing up for this time. It's not going to be just one big fight, not for mutants, not anymore. There's not going to be another Trask or another Apocalypse. It's going to be the entire world and they need to be ready for it.
[ And then, quietly - ]
I'm talking in circles.
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And all of that is precisely why I think you're the right one for this.
[ He doesn't have this context. They've been over this, as well as Raven's staunch refusal to give it to him before he's ready for it (or before he's experienced it first hand).
And he may not believe that the future is an immutable thing, set in stone by Fate, but to discount it as a whole would be to discount her experience (and maybe others; it seems an easy assumption, even if no one else is talking about it either). ]
All I want, Raven, is for this to be as much their choice as it should be yours. That's the only caveat. How you want to impart that experience is up to you; it's not really my place, is it?
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I'm glad to see you have some confidence.
[ She's not going to give in or suggest that Charles could possibly understand what she has seen or experienced; they're from two very different worlds now. She's not the little girl that had been tucked under his wing anymore; she's grown up, she's stronger, she's a little bit better. ]
I'll do my best. I'll see what they want here, and if it's the same as they want back in Westchester then...
[ She shrugs. ]