Calling the Shots

284 - Talk about a time you were forced out of something.

The X-Men and I have parted ways on a few occasions. Only one of those times was the split something not my doing.

No, that's not true. Even then, it was my fault. At the very least, I take responsibility for what happened, and now that I have the advantage of hindsight, I can see how and why things turned out the way they did.

( Duel )

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OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

238 - Freudian Slip

"Jean."

I did it to Maddie a lot when we first got together. Given the facts of her origins as we know now, I guess it's not such a surprise that I'd sometimes call Madelyne Pryor by the name of the woman from whom she was cloned, right?

Trouble was that at the time, I had no idea of any of that. Maddie was a woman for whom I had developed feelings, eventually falling in love with her. And though she looked just like Jean Grey, she was a different person with her own life and her own history. She was alive. Jean was dead.

But then, there would be a moment where Maddie would just lean against a wall or brush back her hair that would make me forget all of that. Sometimes, it would happen when she called me into another part of the cabin, or when we were at the mansion and I would walk into the kitchen to the sound of her chatting with Ororo.

"Jean."

It's no wonder she came to hate me so much. Yes, Sinister created her for exactly this purpose, and clearly he outdid himself, but Maddie was still a person, and I knew her as a unique and individual person, and I should have been better.

Even Emma, who I think still sometimes thinks I compare her to Jean (I don't) and sometimes thinks I'm still in love with Jean (I love her, but not in the way she's worried about) has never had to deal with me mistaking her for Jean.

Just another thing I wish I could apologize for.

(270)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

212 - What event do you wish you could have been a "fly on the wall" for?

I could easily pick from a dozen major and history-making events throughout the last two or three thousand years: the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for example, or the Wright Brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk, the building of the pyramids or something during the great ages of exploration. But I don't think something that impersonal and objective is really the point of the question.

I've always been fascinated by the moments of transition. The point before which a person is one thing, and after which they are something else. In particular, the point when someone changes from a friend or teammate or loved one into someone untrustworthy and cold, even sometimes deadly dangerous. It's happened too many times to the X-Men to not be noticed, and there have been many times that I've wished I could have known when and where those turns happened.

( Remade )

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149 - What do your ancestors mean to you?

Most people pull out the family tree and add new entries and branches every few years as Cousin Whoever has her second kid or Uncle Whatshisname gets remarried. Me, I've been able to do a pretty good job of filling out the next few generations' worth of slots all in the last few years.

One of the great headaches of being an X-Man, and especially of being me: I think only mythological pantheons have more confusing family trees.

( I'm going to need a lot of paper )

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