entranceway | [text] Adaptive Immunities: The blog of Shaun Mason. Entry 4: PSA

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[text] Adaptive Immunities: The blog of Shaun Mason. Entry 4: PSA

For the time being please direct all inquiries regarding The Shattered Mirror's newsie and fictional divisions to this blog. Georgia Mason and Georgette Meissonier have both disappeared from Wonderland.

And as a personal side note, with both of my co-editors MIA, I'm not going to be in any kind of mood to deal with bullshit, so if we could keep any "it'll be okay," and "they'll probably be back" or whatever to a minimum, that would be fantastic.

Thanks.

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[Cissie promised she wouldn't talk emotions, so she's going to do her best to keep that promise. So she holds up the crossbow and shrugs, smirking slightly.]

Well, it's still a crossbow. But a fairly impressive one, as far as crossbows go.

Better than mine, though I'm pretty happy with my space gun, so. [He smirks in return.] To each their own, right? I will say that crossbows definitely look cooler.

I feel like this argument about guns versus bows is going to be a recurring theme. You can keep trying to convince me, but I feel a bit vindicated that at least you've admitted I look cooler.

I just think that realistically if your superhero friends who definitely do not use guns for any reason whatsoever get into trouble, it might be nice if someone were around to save their asses. Wonderland doesn't play by their rules.

...Cool factor aside.

Maybe that's why I'm making friends with you, [she says, giving him a sweet smile.

The truth is more complicated. The truth is that she hates guns. They make her think of Marcy, and screaming and blood and hunting... And the fact that part of her doesn't really think Shaun is wrong. That part is where Arrowette lives, and why she gave up that part of herself.

It's not a line of thought she enjoys, so she takes aim and shoots, hitting a bullseye easily.]

[He makes a noise of disgust.]

Ugh. Fuck you. [His tone is light, despite his words.] You make that look so damned easy. I'm good, but I'm not that good.

[Cissie bites back a smile, shrugging and reloading.]

How much will you hate me if I say it is easy? I mean, this is a nice bow. It just takes a lot of the work out of the process.

[She pauses and shrugs again.] And to be fair, I have been shooting since before I could talk in full sentences, so.

Wow, your parents were even more psycho than mine. They at least waited until I could hold a gun without getting knocked over by the recoil.

[He pauses.]

Okay, maybe that was the difference.

[Cissie laughs.]

Apparently my mother let me play with darts when I was still in diapers, so. You know, safety was never her biggest priority. But she never did try to give me a gun. Just bows and arrows for us.

Because you're a superhero who uses arrows to fight crime and guns don't fit into that aesthetic, right? [He gives her a sidelong grin.]

[Cissie snorts, rolling her eyes. But she takes aim again and takes the moment to consider what Tim said a while ago, about secret identities not mattering here. After the arrow hits its target, she says casually,] No, they don't. Guns cross the 'helpful vigilante' line into 'scary vigilante who is more likely to be a villain' territory.

And anyway, I'm retired.

[He raises an eyebrow at her, surprised both by the admission, and the comment about her retirement.]

You're kind of young.

[Cissie shrugs, lowering her arrow because she's not going to shoot while they have this particular conversation.]

To be fair, I was kind of young when I started. Sixteen when I quit. That line between hero and villain? It's an even thinner line when you carry weapons. There's no real grey area where I'm from, between right and wrong, not when you wear a mask.

[She looks up at him with a wry, sharp quirk of a smile.]

It turns out I'm not good at being objective when bad things happen to people I care about.

[There's definitely a part of him that wants to be flip and say something like 'join the fucking club,' but even he's smart enough to keep his mouth shut sometimes. Cissie is obviously sharing something a little sensitive, and he can handle not being an asshole for a few minutes anyway.

He ignores the quiet laughter in the back of his mind.]

I'd like to meet the person that could be. What happened?

I guess you could say I had a minor psychotic break. [She says it conversationally, like it's no big deal. Like she just admitted to have grilled cheese for lunch. But she drops her gaze and looks out to the targets instead of up at Shaun while she speaks.]

I had a therapist, Marcy. She was more like a psuedo-mom than a therapist, really. I came back to school one day and her ex-fiance had tortured her, and murdered her. He videotaped it and I saw the whole thing. I took my bow and went after him. I hunted him and his partner through the woods and I... tried to do what he did to Marcy. Torture and kill them. The only reason I didn't kill him is because Superboy showed up and caught the arrow before it hit.

...Shit.

[That's all he can say for a moment while he takes all that in. He did shoot the asshole who killed George, but he's not a hero and he's never pretended to be. He's just a guy, and he's never thought he would be anything like rational if something happened to George. But Cissie was a hero. A comic book hero. He's read enough comics to know that there's a Line That You Do Not Cross, whether or not any reasonable person would have done it.]

...Sounds like he's a good friend.

[Cissie smiles, and lets out a small, relieved sigh. She's grateful, somehow, that this is his reaction. It would be easy to brush it off, especially since Kon did stop her.]

He is. I mean, if it wasn't for him, I'd have had to invest in a lot of black leather and plastic surgery.

[...You decide if she's joking, Shaun.]

I'm... not sure what that means, but I feel like that might not be the best look for you.

[He pauses.]

Unless you want it to be, in which case, go for it, because who am I to tell anyone how to dress?

[Cissie laughs, shaking her head.] It's not my look. But you tell me, since I'm fictional where you're from--the villains have to wear the skimpy costumes, right? With a totally different figure than I've got?

[She shrugs again, holding her hands out in a 'what can you do' sort of gesture.] And the bad guys never win, either, right? I'm way too competitive to be a villain professionally.

[He considers all the female bad guys he's seen in comics... yeah, that assessment is pretty accurate. Both in the commentary on the dress and physique, and in how they never win.]

Okay, you have a point there. Actually a few of them. So you think you would have taken a walk down the dark side of the street?

[Cissie blows out a long exhale, frowning.]

...If I didn't think I was still capable of making the wrong choice in the moment? Then I wouldn't have quit, or I would pick it back up in a second.

[That's more honest than she usually is even to herself, and definitely more honest than she is with her friends. But it's easier to tell Shaun the truth than it is to admit it to them. She looks up at him with a wry little smile and a quick shrug.]

I'm jealous, seriously overprotective, have an unfortunately short temper, and I'm way too good with the potentially deadly weapons. It's just not a good idea for me to run around in a mask anymore.

[He laughs quietly.] Sounds a lot like me. [Not as much the jealous part, but all of the rest of it was pretty spot on. I mean, I don't wear a mask either, but I don't think any of that makes me destined to wear a black hat either.

[Cissie smiles and shrugs.] Well, our worlds are pretty different. There's... less room for gray areas when you wear a mask and claim to be helping people.

You think so? [He shrugs.] I don't know. Like you said, we're from different worlds, and I am admittedly not the most clear-headed about this kind of thing. But from where I'm standing, getting mad and lashing out when someone hurts the people you love doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you human.

...Maybe. Maybe being human isn't quite enough, when you wear the mask. I mean... strictly speaking, there were only two of us without any kind of powers on my team. [She says it with a bit of a smile.]

[text] Adaptive Immunities: The blog of Shaun Mason. Entry 4: PSA

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