i need a knack for keepin' out of trouble:

[capemods]

WHO: ImPorts in Venezuela
WHERE: Mérida, Venezuela
WHEN: October 15th 2012 - October 18th 2012
WARNINGS: Strong language is likely. Potential violence.
SUMMARY: President Pisani throws a festival for imPorts one and all! While this is a catchall log for the first four days and set wholly in Merida, you are not limited to those parameters. If you want to pursue your own logs too, feel free!
FORMAT: Whatever you'd like.


It was a beautiful city, green and lush. Morning mist locked fingers with older stone and quiet brick. Much of the populace lulled in the valley between two solid growths of mountains, cushioned in an ancient palm and electrified by the lively pulse of the crisp, rain-courted air. The temperature is brisk, chilly, but that shouldn't discourage you from enjoying the lakes and rivers breathing through the land. The city itself is equally crisp and its usually pristine avenues are ablaze with color; banners and posters and warm hellos. There was warmth everywhere, in homes and faces and hands.

Welcome to Mérida, Hero.

Comments

[hellionated]

I don’t know what I signed up for. I wanted to be one of the X-Men.

[ Past tense. For now. Maybe. He’s not sure anymore. He doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t even know how to make himself okay with life again. There’s a lot he’d have to let go of and he doesn’t know if he can. ]

Too much went wrong. Our world’s messed up. I don’t know if this one can do better.

[professorlionface]

It certainly seemed easier to believe it could a year ago. But now that seems so long ago.

[hellionated]

Does it? It didn’t when Marvel Girl came back. Things aren’t getting better there. It’s worse.

[ Fewer people to trust. Avengers betraying them. Cyclops going insane. It’s a story that’s hard to forget. Their future is on the line, and he’s here not knowing how it ends. ]

[professorlionface]

Yes, well, I was referring to here.

[Rachel hasn't told him much about home since her return. She's been pretty weird about the whole thing around him, really.]

[hellionated]

I know.

Being here doesn't make it go away. [ A beat. ] But I wouldn't hate it, if it did.

[professorlionface]

Some things more than others. I don't know that I'd want to give it up entirely.

[hellionated]

What if you had the choice? If you had to make the choice?

[professorlionface]

I don't know. I don't think I'd like to be presented with that choice.

[hellionated]

I figure it'd be better to have control over our own lives, rather than give it to some machine.

[professorlionface]

There's always some machine, Me. Keller, just sometimes it isn't so literal. Most often it's the machinery of a society, but also the gearwork of the Sentinel that society produces.

Put that way, it's a matter of the devil we can't predict versus the devils we know...and some we don't yet.

[hellionated]

But ain’t that true in any world? If we could tell what was gonna happen, there wouldn’t be any number of different possible futures that people keep coming back in time from.

The Porter’s different, it throws us from one world to the other. Yeah, we can’t control society, but we should have some choice. Even if it’s between two crap choices.

[professorlionface]

I never said we shouldn't have that choice, either. Only that I wouldn't personally want it.

[hellionated]

I would. I'd stay.

[ He glances up. ]

Even if the longer I stay, it looks like there's less to choose between them.

[professorlionface]

I'm not saying this one is without its merits, but...there's too much to leave behind at home. I couldn't just turn my back on that.

[hellionated]

And you wouldn't be leaving things, and people, behind here too?

[professorlionface]

Like I said, it isn't an easy or straightforward decision. It would be easier if I could somehow have both.

[hellionated]

[ He could stick with the serious line here, but Julian can never deal with that for too long. ]

Guess it's time to perfect that whole cloning deal, Professor.

[professorlionface]

Mm. Have my cake and let someone else eat it.

[hellionated]

I never got that phrase. There ain't any point in having cake if you aren't gonna eat it.

[ Which is basically his attitude towards life in general, actually. ]

[professorlionface]

Well, I'm not quite using it in line with its original meaning, but in this case it means I have my cake, but aren't allowed the opportunity to eat it, as a clone I'll be sending to one or the other universe will do so instead.