Rinoa Heartilly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh2015-01-23 12:18 pm
angelo_wings) wrote in fandomhigh2015-01-23 12:18 pm
Entry tags:
Powers, Identity, and The World; Embracing the Real You - Friday, Period One
Today when students entered the classroom, they'd probably be hard-pressed to miss the fact that one of their teachers appeared to be… well… on fire. The other, meanwhile, had accessorized her usual casual look with a gigantic pair of white, fluffy wings, extending from the middle of her back.
Neither seemed to look particularly bothered by this state of affairs. In fact, Jono was leaning back against the desk at the front of the room with his arms crossed in front of himself, ignoring the way the flames flicked up around them, same as he always did but with bonus fire. Rinoa was slightly more keyed up than her usual, a low thrum of excitement hanging around her, but that was subtle enough that it could be easily missed.
//What do you see, looking at us right now?// Jono took a moment to look at his students through the flame, eyes a pure white, fire tousling his hair as it crackled around himself. //No doubt, you're all thinking something different, something that relates to your own biases and experiences. Some might have a knee-jerk reaction, looking at myself and Rinoa, perhaps they'd think me to be a monster, and her an angel. Others might see her as the Sorceress, something to be feared, and me as something hollowed out and burning, to be pitied. I imagine there are at least a few of you who are looking at us right now and wondering how in the world we can stand to be here, showing what sets us so blatantly apart from humanity, without any sort of concern, or even any shame. Or maybe we're role models right now, embracing what we are and showing it off without fear.// He shrugged his shoulders. //Of course, given the past two weeks of classes, you all already know that these aren't the faces we usually present. I can't hide my voice, but I can sure as hell hide the fire. And Rinoa doesn't generally go walking around with her wings in view, though she very easily could.//
“The wings are part of how my power manifests,” Rinoa explained, pleased that her voice was steady. It had taken her years to master letting the wings out without giving herself fully over; she had a touch more magic flowing through her than usual, but she could handle that easily. Old hat. “The fire is part of Jono’s. Jono’s fire is permanent, while my wings only appear when I’m channeling more of my magic than just background noise. That means it’s easier for me to blend in. He can’t skip bundling up, but I can hold the wings in and look just like anyone else.”
Rinoa waved a hand dismissively. “We’re going to talk about when and how to blend in in a later class, as well as when and how to truly stand out. Both of those have their advantages. But this week isn’t about us: it’s about you. Maybe you look exactly like everyone else, and whatever makes you different is only internal. Maybe it’s easy to cover your differences, with a coat or long sleeves. The point is, you choose every day how to display yourself to others around you -- what to let them see, or not see.”
//Bear in mind that there are those who don't have any choice in how they present to others,// Jono noted, //at least to a certain extent. I've had people spit in my face before and worse, doesn't matter if I kept my head down. I spent a decent bit of time with blue skin… also not exactly simple to hide, for most. But in spite of how I looked at a glance, it was still up to me to determine how I interacted with those around me. More importantly, it was up to me to determine how I saw myself, if I was going to let other people's reactions to my powers define me, as a person. For a while, it did. And I was bloody miserable because of it.//
Rinoa was going to reach over and put a sympathetic hand on Jono’s back. Those had not been the best of days, no.
“It’s a choice,” Rinoa said. “Life is all about choices. What you let people see, and what you hide. That isn’t even just about powers. Sometimes we don’t let people see some of our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our secret selves. We all have labels: daughter, brother, friend, student, teacher, artist, reader, soldier, athlete. People see us through that one lens, but that’s only one side of who we really are. The way they see us affects us, shapes who we are around them, but it can’t ever define us, not unless we let it.”
She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “So first off: if any of you feel like showing off, airing out a little bit of what you don’t let other classes see? Feel free. Then, second, let’s talk about perception -- how people see you, and what they don’t always see underneath.”
//Remember, respect and comfort are our two biggest rules, here. Respect anything that people might show you here in class today, and no treating your classmates as 'other.' We're all equals here. Respect your own selves, too. You might perceive yourselves as lesser because of what sets you apart, but I promise you, you all deserve to be appreciated for who you are, regardless of what's hiding underneath.//
Neither seemed to look particularly bothered by this state of affairs. In fact, Jono was leaning back against the desk at the front of the room with his arms crossed in front of himself, ignoring the way the flames flicked up around them, same as he always did but with bonus fire. Rinoa was slightly more keyed up than her usual, a low thrum of excitement hanging around her, but that was subtle enough that it could be easily missed.
//What do you see, looking at us right now?// Jono took a moment to look at his students through the flame, eyes a pure white, fire tousling his hair as it crackled around himself. //No doubt, you're all thinking something different, something that relates to your own biases and experiences. Some might have a knee-jerk reaction, looking at myself and Rinoa, perhaps they'd think me to be a monster, and her an angel. Others might see her as the Sorceress, something to be feared, and me as something hollowed out and burning, to be pitied. I imagine there are at least a few of you who are looking at us right now and wondering how in the world we can stand to be here, showing what sets us so blatantly apart from humanity, without any sort of concern, or even any shame. Or maybe we're role models right now, embracing what we are and showing it off without fear.// He shrugged his shoulders. //Of course, given the past two weeks of classes, you all already know that these aren't the faces we usually present. I can't hide my voice, but I can sure as hell hide the fire. And Rinoa doesn't generally go walking around with her wings in view, though she very easily could.//
“The wings are part of how my power manifests,” Rinoa explained, pleased that her voice was steady. It had taken her years to master letting the wings out without giving herself fully over; she had a touch more magic flowing through her than usual, but she could handle that easily. Old hat. “The fire is part of Jono’s. Jono’s fire is permanent, while my wings only appear when I’m channeling more of my magic than just background noise. That means it’s easier for me to blend in. He can’t skip bundling up, but I can hold the wings in and look just like anyone else.”
Rinoa waved a hand dismissively. “We’re going to talk about when and how to blend in in a later class, as well as when and how to truly stand out. Both of those have their advantages. But this week isn’t about us: it’s about you. Maybe you look exactly like everyone else, and whatever makes you different is only internal. Maybe it’s easy to cover your differences, with a coat or long sleeves. The point is, you choose every day how to display yourself to others around you -- what to let them see, or not see.”
//Bear in mind that there are those who don't have any choice in how they present to others,// Jono noted, //at least to a certain extent. I've had people spit in my face before and worse, doesn't matter if I kept my head down. I spent a decent bit of time with blue skin… also not exactly simple to hide, for most. But in spite of how I looked at a glance, it was still up to me to determine how I interacted with those around me. More importantly, it was up to me to determine how I saw myself, if I was going to let other people's reactions to my powers define me, as a person. For a while, it did. And I was bloody miserable because of it.//
Rinoa was going to reach over and put a sympathetic hand on Jono’s back. Those had not been the best of days, no.
“It’s a choice,” Rinoa said. “Life is all about choices. What you let people see, and what you hide. That isn’t even just about powers. Sometimes we don’t let people see some of our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our secret selves. We all have labels: daughter, brother, friend, student, teacher, artist, reader, soldier, athlete. People see us through that one lens, but that’s only one side of who we really are. The way they see us affects us, shapes who we are around them, but it can’t ever define us, not unless we let it.”
She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “So first off: if any of you feel like showing off, airing out a little bit of what you don’t let other classes see? Feel free. Then, second, let’s talk about perception -- how people see you, and what they don’t always see underneath.”
//Remember, respect and comfort are our two biggest rules, here. Respect anything that people might show you here in class today, and no treating your classmates as 'other.' We're all equals here. Respect your own selves, too. You might perceive yourselves as lesser because of what sets you apart, but I promise you, you all deserve to be appreciated for who you are, regardless of what's hiding underneath.//
Re: Talk to the Teachers [1-23]
Well, that at least had a question mark on it.
Re: Talk to the Teachers [1-23]
Jono shrugged, and then pulled out his phone, flicking through the camera roll through an ungodly amount of photos of Karla's baby and his cat before settling on a few from back when he was still running the Boards. Candid shots, mostly, of himself with a guitar or working on sets and the like. He at least had the good grace to not make faces at them before passing the phone over for Raven to peruse.
//It's been a little over a year by Fandom's reckoning since I looked like that, though.//
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"How did --" How was she going to phrase this? "How'd you get . . . not-blue?"
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And no, he had no idea why not.
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Not Jono personally, she supposed.
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//Apparently some people can.//
He... wasn't going to mention that the one who had broken it was her step-brother's son. That, for whatever reason, didn't strike him as need-to-know information.
//He'd created an entire self-contained universe, but the only ones who were really pulled into it were mutants. It wasn't a terribly pleasant place. I was glad to be out of it, even if there was a bit of an adjustment period to this again.//
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//I had thought I was depowered completely,// he shared, tentatively. //For a brief while, I was. But there was a lot of power at my disposal. I just never really knew of a proper outlet for it, before I became this again. I do know I was utterly headblind, though. That much was hell.//
The silence had gnawed at him in a way that his fire never could.
//I suspect... that is, I have decent reason to believe I might have been capable of some manner of shapeshifting, myself, if I had applied myself to learning how. But I never really had the chance.//
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As for the rest...
//It... it depends which people I was around, honestly,// he admitted. //Around here, it was easier. Once people were accustomed to my skin, there was really nothing else for them to come to terms with. Being on fire, having no mouth, not breathing, speaking with my mind... all of that was something that was a little out of most people's leagues. I never once had somebody tell me to stop being blue. I did have people tell me to get the hell out of their heads, though.//
He shifted his weight a little, uneasily, and then shrugged his shoulders.
//Back home, it didn't change much. Either way, I was obviously a mutant. But the face I was wearing... A few people were uncomfortable with that face. It bore a striking resemblance to somebody else. Somebody who had done terrible things to humans and mutants alike.//
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She was almost certainly not the same girl that would one day be Mystique in his reality, similar though they were. But he was worried for her sake all the same.
//Hell,// he said, //even I've had telepaths overstay their welcome in my mind. We're capable of great things, Raven. Great, beautiful, terrible things. There's something about that, something that commands respect and a little fear. We represent something they'll never really be able to understand. Some of us go through our entire lives never really understanding that, either.//
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Fandom, and its tendency to welcome just about anyone with open arms, couldn't help but bolster those qualities. Of course, it was also thanks to Fandom that she was already learning to fight -- and to kill.
"Yeah," she agreed softly. "It'd be nice if they tried a little harder to understand it, though." She'd likely regret saying that someday when all her friends had been abducted, experimented on, and killed by human scientists.
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//I'd settle for them just leaving us be,// he replied, not quite able to keep just how tired he felt from creeping into his words. //Understanding isn't always the same as acceptance, I'm afraid.//
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//Wouldn't that be wonderful?//
At least until the Sentinels came. At least until the slaughter began. At least until you realized that the whole nation was forged on a history of horrors against mutantkind.
//Maybe someday you will.//
At least until. There were a lot of 'At least until's that could be put to use, there.
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"Maybe someday I'll start one of my own."
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That didn't mean he had to like it.
//A worthy goal,// he replied, nodding faintly. He couldn't deny her that much. Hope could be damning, but it was important all the same. //Give our people a place to call home, keep them safe. Let them step out into the sunlight, out of hiding. That's one hell of a dream, Raven.//
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He hesitated, and then added, //But not understanding it doesn't excuse it. Not from humans, not from other mutants. Is he really so shallow, that he judges so much of your worth from the face you choose to wear?//
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And probably really liked ordering her around, to be honest.
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