Emotions are a Weapon.

RP is supposed to be fun. We’re all a bunch of nerds here. We could be doing homework or watching Doctor Who or really anything else but we are all choosing to RP fictional characters on Tumblr…because it’s fun!

Everyone has their pet peeves but there are ways of saying what you don’t like about a character/fandom/writing style/etc. without being an elitist douche. There are ways to disagree with someone without starting a fight or being too passive-aggressive.

Someone asking for critiques is not an invitation to vent your hate. People RP as a labor of love. Please keep that in mind.

Joe eyed the newcomer warily. Cracking good looker once you got past the blue skin and yellow eyes, but he was more distracted by the smirk she was wearing than the revealing outfit, and the fact that she was armed set him almost instantaneously on edge.

He knew Mystique by reputation only, but he’d heard a lot of things about her, and none of them good. Not for him, anyway. And that smile…it troubled him. Whatever reason she had to smile couldn’t be anything that he had to smile about. More than anything he desperately wanted to find out what she was doing in London - was it something to do with the Hellfire Club, he wondered?

"I think London is offended at suggestion that it's not good enough for a-- what were your words?-- 'nice girl like me', mm? Is that any way to treat such an old and pretty little city?"

     [ Even if she thinks it's actually the ass-end of the 'developed' world. ]

He's edgy. She can tell. Frankly, she's shocked he's not reaching for that antique pistol on his hip already. As she uncurls her smirk, she wags her finger side-to-side through the air, her free hand palming a little stick with a red button. 

"We have to keep them all together," she insists in between tiny grunts. "He’s fallin’ apart." 

A breeze picks up.

"Falling apart?", she repeats, brow raised, though she makes no effort to halt her clean-up effort of Anna's dress. "Who? Your little collection of flowers? I told you, you don't need th--..."

Before Val can finish and Anna can answer (and before she can attempt to squirm away again, and thus be resisted for the umpteenth time by Val's grasp), a light breeze carrying those tendrils of smoke from before wafts over the girl's lap. It carries the medley of purple and red petals into the wind, where they quickly appear to phase out of existence entirely.

Val can only blink, before looking down to the girl in her lap. Something seems wrong.

“Don’t,” she insists, tempting more grass stains than anything else as she tries to pluck them up at the stems.

With a sigh, she reaches forward and grabs hold of Anna's little wrist, giving it a light tug away from the grassy stems of the flowers she's playing with. Val's frowning visage looks down to the green-coloured stains in the white sections of Anna's dress, a wispy little sigh escaping her. 

"You know how upset your mother would be if you ruined your good dress. Here," she says after a forceful tug, pulling the little girl into her lap as she swipes her thumb across her lips to wet it, before rubbing it at the nascent grass stains.

There was a place next to the river, where sometimes Val would take Anna on Saturday afternoons after the gun range. Just for a little bit, she’d get to run around reeds and purple flowers, while Val made phone calls from a bench—always within sight of Anna.

It’s been a long time since then, though.

And even longer since Rogue had half her hair pulled back with a ribbon. She’d been barely eight when Mystique snatched her up, and she’s barely eight again, as she sits in the grass by that bench. She’s wearing the Easter dress Irene had insisted upon.

Naturally, when the haze remains about her, she scrunches up her nose with displeasure. Odd weather. Fog isn't terribly befitting April weather in the south, at least any place north of the Bayou. 

Her eyes narrow into slits as she looks down to the little girl perched so artlessly in the grass beside her, shortly before they roll and betray a momentary hint of featureless yellow. She spares a moment to smooth out the red skirt of her skirtsuit, palms flattening against it before one hand gives the girl's thigh a gentle little slap-- right next to where she'd been fidgeting with the flowers on her dress.

Show her… Prove that Selene wanted her. Was her response not enough? Did the possessive growls and hard press of her mouth against the other’s not adequately describe what exactly Selene wanted? By god, her lips still tingled with both the memory of their kiss and the desire for more, and her fangs burned to find solace in Mystique’s warm skin. And Mystique still could not see just how much Selene needed this. Needed her. 

The vampire’s expression contorted with a very real battle between desire and bloodlust, fangs visible between parted lips as she struggled for breaths she did not need. Selene realized what she longed for, what Mystique needed, possibly could be two different but equal parts to one means. What did it matter what she needed, if Mystique’s own desires were not met? What else could Mystique ask of Selene, if not to make her feel wanted, and not simply be used as the common blood whore? 

Though asking Selene to outright verbalize her desire would have been too much, the request to prove her sentiments through actions would be met well enough. Her eyes transformed into that cerulean hue again and remained so as Selene’s head dipped, lips parted to press a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the other’s pulse. Slow, taking her time, the vampiress dragged her mouth downward until it found the rise of a delicate collarbone. Her tongue flickered out like rough silk to taste blue flesh, the salt and musk on Mystique’s skin enough to procure a soft but audible moan from Selene’s throat.  Strong hands relinquished their rough grasp on the other’s hair and instead took a path more gentle, pushing Mystique’s arms up and over her head, stroking the thin flesh of her wrists with either thumb. Though the mutant’s pulse remained strong there, it was not enough to sway the vampire from her path as her hands caressed lower, down built shoulders and a curved torso, kneading warm flesh with her fingers as every touch burned her fingertips with shaking flames.  Her hips slipped between those long, long legs, and for a moment, Selene thought she could stay like this forever, enveloped in Mystique’s warmth and desire and beauty. How could Mystique think herself anything but gorgeous? She was a specimen meant to be desired, to be tasted and appreciated every moment she was not in battle. A rough pull, and Selene hitched one blue thigh up and against her waist, even as her nose drew a line in the space between perfect breasts.  She pressed a kiss against Mystique’s sternum, breathing hard as her body visibly shook to maintain control and fulfill the other’s wishes. Before she could stop it, a single, harsh word slithered out between Selene’s lips, the sound pure instinct, pure rage. Pure desire. 

"Mmn... That's a very bold claim," she whispers, fingers tangling up with the leather encasement on Selene's torso before they trail downwards, to the zipper at the base of her upper-body suit. As she continues to speak, she yanks the zipper upward, slowly freeing the gorgeous vampire's torso from the hold of that constrictive leather suit.

"Yours?", she repeats, somewhat skeptically. "Well. You'll have to prove a claim like that, you know..."

Raven smiles then, yanking Selene's zipper down the rest of the way before one sapphire hand reaches into the pale flesh beneath, and snatches away the corset that once covered the vampiress' upper body. Within seconds, she's forced the other woman to be just as nude, from the waist up, as she is, a wide smile on her face. Slowly, she turns her head to one side, exposing her neck in excruciatingly close detail to those wonderful lips opposite her.

Why Mystique continued to make such advances toward her, even after their last meeting and its disastrous outcome, Selene found herself at a loss. 

But not only does Selene not retreat from her kiss... she, in fact, sinks deeper into it, and pushes the blue mutant against the creaky hotel mattress. The alcohol she consumed earlier has mostly faded from her physiology at this point (though the scent lingers on her breath), which makes her acutely aware of what's happening.

"Mmmn," she moans into the kiss, for the first time in nearly a century allowing herself to be pushed backwards and forced onto the bottom, her wrist and hair held captive by Selene's intimidatingly powerful hands. Her tongue darts out from her lips for a brief moment, swatting across Selene's before spearing past them and swirling in lively circles with the other woman's. A deep moan vibrates through her throat and into Selene's.

Suddenly, she presses her free hand into Selene's chest, forcing the vampiress back by just a few inches. The skin of her forehead has begun to glisten with a small layer of sweat, her chest heaving rapidly from excitement, as her featureless, bright amber eyes look up towards the blue ones above her. "Prove something to me."

So how willing was she to share her thoughts with Mystique? That was the question in her mind. The woman already knew enough about Regan’s general family history that she could probably guess if she really cared enough to, but to tell her how nostalgic she was to get those back meant she’d have that extra leverage to keep her in line, just like Maddie had. Then again, it didn’t much matter if she had leverage or not, she didn’t need it considering as far as Regan was concerned, she’d remain loyal to Raven until she has better reason not to be. Considering she stuck by her before, all the way up until she found a sharp set of claws tearing through her stomach, it was safe to say that her loyalty wouldn’t waver as easily as some may think.

"Well," she began, picking up her drink to toss back the last bit of it. "I’m sure you heard about how Daddy died, not to mention the crap hole his life turned in to between that time and his failure with Hellfire." Sinking back into her own chair, she turned her eyes away, staring unseeingly at a case full of books a few feet away. "I’ll admit, I wouldn’t mind finding a way to avoid all that drama."

Leaning forward again, her hand drifts back to the picture of Jean Grey, tracing over her face with that wistful expression once again, before turning it towards Raven, her own eyes never leaving the sheet. “As for my fondness….” She trailed off, her gaze finally moving up to Raven as her lips quirked back into her mischievous smirk, a small snort of laughter escaping her throat. “No, it definitely doesn’t have a thing to do with the baby revolutionary in the making.” Her finger tapped a few times on Jean’s forehead in her picture, her smile becoming more malevolent as she thought about the girl. “It’s too bad she’s still so young here, but I’m sure Daddy would be very happy to see her again, regardless of that fact. Without the Phoenix in her, or as her, as the case had been before, I imagine that her mind’s even easier to sway than it had been for him back in the day, especially when I don’t need a crap device from Frost to do so.”

"And he's hardly a 'revolutionary'. He's saying the same damn things I said eight decades ago. The only difference is more people listen to him, because, for a long time, he played straight-and-narrow golden boy for the mutant cause, and followed every single one of society's laws to the most rigid and perfectly-etched possible 'T'.' His story is only remarkable because he's changed his tune in the last few years," she scoffs, clearly bitter over the subject, "Though I'm just glad the idiot finally realizes what the correct path is. A bit too late, but still. Better late than never, mmn?"

A dismissive wave of her hand is all it takes for Raven to rid herself of the unpleasant subject of Scott Summers, regardless of whatever age he's currently at, and sink back into her chair. She listens with considerable attention as Regan finishes, her thoughts drifting back to the woman's earlier words. 

The words about her father.

"Tch." Raven's lips curl upwards at the edges, into a wry little smirk as she forces herself to chuckle a bit. Nothing about the sound is genuine... in fact, it seems oddly compulsory. As though she's only laughing because she thinks she should. "Daddy issues. Nothing new to me."

Raven then pushes her (empty) vodka glass aside, fingers curling around the edge of the table to shove herself to her feet. Her clothes seem to melt off her body in one fluid gesture that looks almost like real-life special effects, but by the time they're all gone, her back is facing Regan.

"I don't have a past to change, Regan. Nor one to remember. The only things I know about my father are that he was a rotten person... And that he's most likely dead now. I'd prefer to keep it that way. Aside from that, I'll keep my reasons for wanting to get my hands on this technology," as she curls her fingers around the entrance to the nearest hallway, which leads to her master bathroom.

[[ I’m not sorry. ]]

"Rhinebeck," and it sounds like a confession. Sometimes it’s just too late for looking cool, and Rogue lets herself cry out in pain as she reaches for the door. The top of the convertible is down, but there is absolutely no way she can lift herself out of it. Rogue’s always been a bit of a baby about pain. Spending so much of her life invulnerable, and without that, piggybacking off of healing mutations, has left her with little experience with it. The most pain filled exposure she’d ever had was during her imprisonment in Old Genosha. When she’d be beaten for an hour a day,  twice a day, and then left to writhe in her cell. 

The word strikes an immediate chord of recognition in the blue-skinned mutant's mind, who immediately drops her field-stripped weapon onto the table, letting all the separated components clatter uselessly against the wooden surface as she presses her phone more tightly to her her head.

"That's a lovely place," she responds simply, trying (and suceeding) to keep her voice from cracking. Rogue sounds so weak... so injured.... so helpless. And while most of her is saddened to hear this, a small part of her is elated. It means Anna needs her. Needs her mother. Especially since she thought to call her, after whatever accident she found herself in.

"Hold tight. I'll be there in," as she casts a glance down to her watch, frowning at the early hour. Oh well... could be worse. By her estimate, she'll get there in the evening, by which point most of the police will have filed themselves off the road. It's a small enough town for that, after all. "... two shakes of a lambs' tail. Keep yourself off the road, don't interact with anybody, and don't ask for help. Local authorities will be very distrustful of someone like you... Best you stay hidden, to begin with. And Anna?"

She wants to say 'I love you.' Wants to say it badly. She doesn't, however, and merely ends up disconnecting the call after a few moments of silence. However, despite her lack of any real motherly gesture over the phone, it's not long before she arrives at 9-G in Rhinebeck, having donned the form of an obscure (to everyone but Anna) human woman.

‘I guess my biggest weakness is that I work too hard.’

Ever hear someone say that? Like they’re trying to paint themselves too greatly? Ever meet someone that actually works too hard? Works too long? Has too much of a good quality? 

Meet Rogue.

Having a moral fiber so strong it’s often proven self destructive has trickle down effects. Like being loyal to a fault. A fault. Exhibit A: despite Magneto taking out his rage on her over an (debatebly) unintentionally kept secret—breaking her wrist, her knee, and choking her out with powers, though not in that order—she still manages to haphazardly drive her car away from his home. After veering off road several times, because driving a manual with a broken knee is painful enough to black her out a few times, Rogue finally has a mild collision with a tree before calling anyone.

Just to keep the location a secret.

Was it mentioned that loyalty is a negative for her?

Getting out of the car isn’t an option. Both her arm and leg are swelling, locking up on her in protest of her extreme lack of care. The pitched sound inside her mind is increasing in frequency, and after breathing raggedly for a several minutes trying desperately to keep from crying—because she’s angry! No other reason!—she finds her phone unharmed in her pocket, and speed dials seven. It’s a number Rogue has been pretending she hasn’t kept for years. It’s answered on the third ring. Her voice breaks from the pain, physical and emotional.

Only by comparison, though.

A set of sapphire digits idly scrape across the cold-steel of the rail atop a Sig Sauer, which judging by the dirtied rag that rests atop the workbench in front of her, has been freshly cleaned. The gentle flicker of an overhanging lamp (which seems to need to be cleaned a lot more than the gun did) casts a sickly pallid light over her work space, providing barely enough illumination to dispel more than a few shadows.

No worries, though. Judging by the way she field-strips the pistol without even looking at it, she probably doesn't need the light at all.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

The sound of her phone attempting to get her attention vibrates its way into the table, and causes a set of bright yellow eyes to snap onto it. They immediately narrow, piercing the darkness with a sort of eerie gaze. Keeping a phone number for an extended period of time is very difficult for a wanted fugitive, and requires some serious technological ju-jitsu... Therefore, whoever is calling is in a very select group of individuals. Still, when she answers, she doesn't speak. She never does. Always let the other person identify themselves first, aft--...

Mama.