Owner	Pose
Kitty Pryde	Kitty Pryde has a Demon Queen-shaped problem. To be clear: it's not one of those 'Claremontian mind-control devils are making me do an Inferno!' situations. She doesn't even know what Claremontian means! It's more of a... 'How to make sure your best friend who also happens to be a Demon Queen doesn't slip off the slope into ultraviolent supervillainy' problem. No mind control is involved. ... Probably. You can never be too sure, with mutants. Kitty trusts Illy. It's just a matter of course for someone who knows her, and who she knows, better than anyone else in their lives. If she says she has to do something, and approached Kitty honestly about it... she has no reason to doubt that the blonde teleporter knows what she's doing. But with what Illy is planning to do, Kitty knows - surprisingly better than most - how easy it would be to hit that tipping point. And so Kitty's taken upon herself the role of acting as the angel on the devil's shoulder. Or her Jiminy Cricket. Except without the top hat. Or the Donald Ducking it choice of going pantsless. And she's not -that short-. And... The point is, she's looking out for her friend!! And the first part of that? Semi-regular check-ins! For morale! This can also just be called 'getting some chill time with your favorite person in the world' but it's great like that because it fills dual purposes. So it is for this reason Kitty got in contact with Illyana, making the ubiquitous friend offer to her to 'come hang whenever because i'm doing like nothing right now i'm so bored illy save me <INSERT DIZZYING SEQUENCE OF EMOJI INDICATING THE TRANSCENDENT TRAGEDY OF ENNUI HERE>'; the curly-haired brunette is currently holed up in her room with nowhere to go thanks to the holiday malaise (she might be Jewish, but it's still fun to enjoy a Christmas celebration, and just as boring in the gap of nothing-to-do after it). Dressed in a mild yellow sweater of thick wool and a thicker, frumpled turtleneck and a pair of dark blue denim pants, to help ward against the cold her feet are adorned in a pair of adorable black and red socks decorated with a slew of white mathematical formulae like chalk on a board. The math doesn't help. She just likes math. Currently, she's huddled up in her bed, watching a terrible reality TV show; she's technically already watched this season. Twice. Things are dire for Kitty Pryde. She needs salvation...!
Illyana Rasputina	What's a little murder in the name of macro-level self-defense between friends? ... an anxiety trigger, apparently. And unsurprisingly: Illyana went to the same high school Kitty did; she has lived in the same house as Kitty for most of her life. She has a pretty good sense of the campus/house's stance on murders committed by individuals who can't play the feral card (or the ninja card, or the timecop card...) to explain away the odd indiscretion, and moreso when all that spilled blood is unabashedly in the service of what was always meant to be a pure, peaceful ideal. The stupidest thing a person looking to get away with murder could ever do is tell someone practically raised with Xavier's dream at the forefront of their thoughts that they're planning to commit it, and Illyana wasted little time indeed in doing just that. Illyana trusts Kitty utterly, a distinction few others could claim despite the Queen of Limbo's long, loving relationship with the Institute and its denizens; it's the difference between trusting someone to catch you from a fall, and trusting them to catch, shelter, and care for you throughout the fall and its aftermath, all without judgement-- or running to find someone to talk, bargain, or force you out of falling to begin with. So when Illyana's phone is assaulted by emoji strings and invitations, she not only sees through the casual sheen, she makes certain not to leave Kitty waiting - worrying - for ''too'' long. "Disgusting," softly grazes Kitty's ear a beat after her bed begins to creak-- after an arm clad in sheet black reaches around her midsection-- after warm, familiar weight settles against her side. "Johnny Bananas is going to win," Illyana murmurs as a stepping disk closes behind her, squinting as a pair of mud-caked women wrestle over a baton while a dozen more contestants scream and cheer, "''again''--" A slight, thoughtful pause. "-- probably," then follows, because Illyana isn't the one who has already watched this season twice; she's simply lounged around with/on Kitty while it and other seasons played over the years. "I do not like that man," she hisses, frowning at the screen.
Kitty Pryde	Surprisingly, 'tragic Hell Lord' is not on the list of exception cards to play. The demonic bias at work in Xavier Institute is truly troubling...! Still, if nothing else, Illyana Rasputina can count on Kitty Pryde to let her play the Hell Queen Card with her. Having invited her Best Friend of Limbo over to begin with, she's not taken by surprise when she hears - and /feels/ - those soft words whisper into her ear this time. Really, she's grown so accustomed to phasing through whatever boundaries she feels like she's grown surprisingly comfortable with the similar boundary-cheating power that is teleportation. And she's not even doing anything embarrassing, this time! And so, her response is just a muted, instinctual shiver at feeling the tiny hairs in her ear being tickled, and a little, instinctive smile at the familiar voice -- that soon becomes a frown at that single word. "I swear I have a life--" she begins poutily and then realizes: "--oh you mean the show. Yeah. Ha ha! ... ha. Super disgusting!" Still, she settles in almost immediately to the abrupt, soft warmth pressing against her side; she slumps her weight into Illyana, shoulder bumping against shoulder until they've created a comfortable tentpole of supporting each other. Illyana's arm loops her midsection; Kitty's, her shoulders. ''I do not like that man,'' Illyana hisses. "Nobody likes that man," Kitty mutters darkly. "I think Lincoln is wrong. There's some people I would like even less getting to know them." Kitty gestures with the hand at Illyana's shoulders, pointing at the screen. "Like -that guy-. Do you know he screws over theeeeeeeuhhhhh" and realizing she's getting dangerously close to admitting she's watched this at LEAST once before, Kitty smartly pivots, "nobody, the nobody, I don't know what happens next." She lingers in silence for a few seconds longer, enjoying Illyana's warmth before adding: "He was even -worse- in House of Villains."
Illyana Rasputina	"A ''blindside''?" Illyana fills the space between realization and retreat with a wide-eyed gasp of utmost surprise. It's maybe 75% affected; loyalty is an important trait to Limbo Queens, and what's more disloyal than sending someone you met during a reality television competition into elimination? Without telling them?! (''Lots'' of things-- but just as osmosis has taught her to despise the Bananas dynasty, it's also imparted a healthy degree of disrespect for traitors and alliance-breakers.) ''He was even -worse-...'' just about passes the blonde woman by, busy as she is with resting her cheek against Kitty's shoulder and searching for the perfect viewing angle, if not for-- "He's awfully smarmy, and sneaky-- but an entire house? Of ''villains?''" she wonders, eyes widening a touch further and flicking up towards Kitty's. "On paro--" A beat passes as it begins to dawn that she's frolicking well beyond the limits of her Kitty-given knowledge of this world. Another follows as the tension her initial thoughts of a reality TV star being sent to participate in the Raft's very first such series inspired seeps away. "Yes," she then says, softly, "of course-- I can only imagine," and succinctly, hoping to simply skip past the misunderstanding. It's the sort of knee-jerk mistake she'd keep to herself on sheer instinct, anywhere else-- here, though? Soaking in the warmth of a friend too good to judge her worst impulses--? Things just have a way of slipping. "Anyway, let's look at the bright side:" she adds with a small, tight smile, "maybe he'll be made into a backpack again, instead." The smile doesn't last all that long, because it doesn't need to. Her head doesn't budge from its perch against Kitty, save for those brief moments when her cheek rubs against soft yellow fabric; the arm around Kitty's middle tightens, slowly but surely. Eventually, "Are you okay?" softly slips past ruby red lips.
Kitty Pryde	"A whole damn -blindside-!" Illyana gets it. Illyana gets -her-. Kitty feels the smallest swell of pride at having infected Illy with her guilty pleasure of trash reality. (and then the tiniest bit of shame in her words and deeds) "An entire house!" Kitty exclaims, shaking her head with the bounce of brown ringlets. "And he was one of the worsts! Okay, okay, like, -maybe- there were some objectively worse ones there. Like that Shake dude. But still!! He--" Kitty's rant briefly distracts her. It briefly -blinds- her, to the truth of Illy's sudden wide-eyed alarm. But then she suddenly halts. Her own hazel eyes widen as she digests something. That wonder. That alarm. That ''On paro--'' which was very likely parole because 'parody' and 'parous' don't make any sense i mean really before Illyana suddenly tries to make a smooth recovery. Kitty considers. Illy was graceful enough to look over -her- flub. She should do her the same kindness, she thinks. She should be kind to her dear friend. She should-- "Heh heh, you thought it was supervillaaaaaaaaaains~" Or she could just singsong that out instead while pinching Illyana's cheek, she could also just do that. "That's so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute~~~~" She pauses, mid-cheek pinching. Blinks. Considers. "... is it wrong that I think that'd be a really great show and I'd probably watch it like three times? Not that I. Do that. Shaddup!" Thus is Illyana's cheek released as Kitty expertly defeats her own self, mumbling a "i bet the rhino would be a breakout star" to herself in thought -- at least, until Illyana asks that question. She feels that arm tighten around her like a protective coil. She blinks. And her own fingers gently squeeze around Illyana's shoulder as she "mm"s softly. "I'm kickin' ass!" she insists, at first. "I mean, it's like, I'm kinda floundering a little, y'know? Like sometimes I think, should I really be doing something superfluous like going for a Master's degree when I could be using all that time towards something better? And then I think, what better thing could I do, when I'm already part of the X-Men? And then I wonder if I'm just spinning wheels and if we're not actually accomplishing anything and... and... ugh!" Abruptly, she sets her laptop on her knees and uses her freed hand to grab the blanket beneath them. The material phases as she yanks the whole, fluffy material through and then -over- them until the blanket is high in the air over their heads. She releases it; and that warm, large swath of cloth drapes over their heads, creating an impromptu blanket fort for just the two of them, like when they were so much younger. Only the glow of MTV's The Challenge on the laptop screen lights up the dark of their new fort as Kitty speaks again. "... And then I start worrying about you, too, and everything going on with you now, so I text you a billion times to come over because I miss you and you can squeeze your arm around me and tell me everything's gonna be okay and it makes my whole day better," she confesses in the confidential enclosure of their fort. "Or, like, make a really mean but really witty deadpan snipe about it. That'd work. I like you mean just fine too." A second's dash. "But don't tell anyone."
Illyana Rasputina	Kitty goes right for Illyana's weak point. Not the cheeks: pale and precision-sculpted, they're no more or less susceptible to aggression than the rest of her. Nor the pinching: without putting too fine a point on it, Illyana's pain threshold is distressingly high, even for a career superheroine. No, Kitty reaches through layered trauma and lost time, beyond boundaries and barriers designed to keep 99% of the world at bay and seizes the same soft, vulnerable piece of Illyana that compels her to offer up her future sins for consideration or commit the principles of competitive reality TV (non-crafting, non-musical, personality-based) to memory and seizes it in her fingers. She prompts a flurry of head-turning, squint-eyed, mindfully pulled flailing, the Demon Queen smacking ineffectually at Kitty's forearms several times before she tucks her hands between them and bears the rest of her punishment with pursed lips and arctic blue stoicism. Soon after, the pressure begins to relent-- ''... is it wrong that...'' "... obviously, I would watch it," she replies, low and resigned-- and settling back into place, upon being released from friendly torment. Settling begets silence, which leaves space for quiet questions-- which lead to updates-- "Just think: with a Master's degree, you could teach loud, difficult children ''anywhere'', not just here," is all the guidance she has to offer, paired with a firm squeeze and a soft cheek-peck to smooth some of the frustration bound in that final exclamation. -- and then the fort, with nothing but TJ Lavin's freak parade for light. "You have enough to worry about," she murmurs, gradually lowering her upraised arm and the part of the blanket that's draped over it until the latter's settled overhead, "without me-- everything ''is'' okay. It ''will'' be-- enough so that you may dither guiltlessly, at least," she softly offers.