Room 504, Friday Afternoon

[intraspective]

It was probably a teensy bit rude how loud she had her music up—especially as Japanese pop was a bit of an acquired taste—in the morning, but Ino wasn’t really inclined to turn it down. (Unless asked. Or someone called her. Or... something.)

She’d left her door wide open and was sprawled on her stomach on her floor rug, going through her notebooks while absently practicing the mental shield work her father had set her to studying.

One page of notes and her shields were unraveling. Another page and she was pulling them back up. Down again, up again. Until it was like breathing. Ino frowned at her notes, having to stop and take a moment when her shields tangled over each other. Sigh. She smoothed them over and began again.

Okay, eventually it would be like breathing. Right now it was a bit too much of a stutter-stop sort of process than anything quick. She rubbed her eyes and rolled onto her back.

Maybe she’d take a break for a bit. Even if it was good training.

[Ooopen door, open post.]

Comments

[icecoldfrost]

"Telepathy is plenty of fun, so long as half the dorm isn't caught up in an emo-storm," she stated firmly. "Or that week where everyone's hormones were out of control. That was not-fun."

"If it's the mind-blind that thinks it's creepy, well, they can't understand. They don't see things like we do. Other people with powers? Have no room to judge either."

[intraspective]

"No room," she echoed, "but they still do. Invasion of privacy, you know? Creeps people out more than flying or healing or seeing things."

Ino shrugged a bit awkwardly--she wasn't used to straight out talk about her powers. This was... weird.

"It's no big deal if they don't know." A quick smile. "I'm pretty good at lying. And you've seen some of what else I can do--they like that better." Healing, for one.

[icecoldfrost]

"Privacy is an illusion best shattered before they find themselves dealing with the real world," Emma replied venomously. "There's squirrels that spread gossip about everything, and yet we're the ones invading privacy? Please."

"Besides, maybe if they bothered to learn to shield better, they wouldn't have to worry about 'people like us.'"

[intraspective]

Emma was kinda Ino's new favourite person ever for saying that out loud.

"Well, yeah," she said, "I agree--but it doesn't change the fact that that's not how it is here."

[icecoldfrost]

"Maybe it should be," she responded. "The next time anyone gives you any hassle, point out that only people with something to hide ought to fear a telepath. We're harmless to any fine, upstanding citizen."

Lies, Emma was never harmless, but her point was still (mostly) valid.

[intraspective]

"Upstanding citizens?" Ino was amused at that. "I don't know that I believe there are any fine, upstanding citizens. Especially not ones that have powers and look down on mine."

[icecoldfrost]

"Exactly. 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' and all that, so they can shut it," Emma retorted cheerily. "I can't stand hypocrites."

"These are my powers, this gift was given to me, not them. It's part of who I am. I don't tell them how to do whatever voodoo they do, so I tend to ignore any 'well-intentioned' 'advice.'" Or criticisms. Whatever.

[intraspective]

"Don't you know?" she asked archly. "Everyone's gotta be a hero. I just--I don't know. It's weird, here, people not dealing with powers like ours. Home doesn't even blink and there's more powers here than at home."

[icecoldfrost]

"I'd only ever met one other person at home with powers, and he's not a telepath," she sighed. "I didn't even know there were other people out there who could do what I could."

"Honestly, darling, don't let the peons bother you. I'm privately convinced they're just jealous," Emma continued. "They're doomed to plod along in their narrow, mundane little world, while our powers give us access to so much more that they'll never understand. We are the art of subtlety, of intricacies far beyond their imaginations, so they snarl and spit and judge."

"But you just can't judge an orange by the same rules as an apple. We're different, and we're not like them."

[intraspective]

"Jealousy and fear," she replied. "That's a potent combination for hate. And--I wouldn't say I'm particularly subtle if you can sense me so easy when all I'm doing is playing with my shielding."

[icecoldfrost]

"Well, you're blinking like a firefly or a flare," she responded. "On-off-on-off...and I do live just down the hall, so it's fairly hard to miss you."

[intraspective]

"I didn't think I was broadcasting," she said, frowning a bit. "At least, not more than a--how did you put it--mind-blind person?"

Ino made a face at that.

"Gonna be a pain if I do that every time I want to practice."

[icecoldfrost]

"No, you weren't broadcasting, I wasn't shielding," Emma said bluntly. "I listen and watch, because I don't like nasty surprises."

"Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice..." she shrugged eloquently. "I make sure there isn't a 'once' to start with."

[intraspective]

"Makes sense to me," she said, shrugging.

What? Invasion of her privacy wasn't really something that bugged Ino much. And she'd been the one fooling with her shields.

"I'd probably do the same if I knew how," Ino told her, matching blunt for blunt. "But I'm a beginner at this use for my powers."

[icecoldfrost]

Emma pursed her lips unhappily. "Well that won't do," she announced, uncurling her powers from 'passive' listening to an active reach across the island, pulling up her mental map of Fandom on the Astral Plane, bright starry lights representing the people around them.

<<Look,>> she offered silently. <<Can you see how I'm doing this?>>

[intraspective]

Er.

Well, then. Ino's absolute newness to using her powers like this? Was probably very very obvious as she fumbled to hold up her end of the contact clumsily. The sum of her experience with anything not to do with possession was... talking to Jono twice, mind-to-mind, and playing with her shields.

Baby steps here.

<<That's what everyone looks like?>> Curiouser and curiouser, she absently stabilized her speech--that much she'd figured out from talking with Jono and it just took a tiny twist of concentration. More struggling to let go of control to see how it was done.

When you'd spent your whole life learning one facet of your powers, it meant your control of them was of a very narrow sort. Ino was rapidly becoming aware of her own horrible shortcomings in that area.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma smoothly stepped in, using her power to help support Ino. <<It's what they look like to me,>> she amended. <<It might be different for you when you can do it under your own power.>>

[Sorry, got ate by work.]

[intraspective]

<<Is it different for everyone?>> Ino's attention was split between studying the 'map' and doing her level best to memorize how Emma was managing to bring it up and maintain it in the first place.

... Ino's memory was very very good. She suspected executing something like this would take practice though.

<<Can you touch the people while like this? Like, their minds? ... Are you going to get annoyed if I practice? I won't mean to be irritating.>>

[That's eviiil of work on a Friday!]

[icecoldfrost]

<<Don't know,>> Emma admitted. <<It's just always looked like this for me, and I've never seen another telepath show me their version.>>

<<And I can talk to people, yes, and link people to talk to each other, she continued silently. <<The other-me in that alternate Fandom was very good at the networking aspect, so I picked it up quickly out of necessity.>>

[intraspective]

<<We're less about networking and more about controlling others,>> she said, keeping it vague.

Possession was her specialty. Everything else was just a way to further it.

<<This is kinda neat, though. I think I'll have to work on it. You didn't have to show me, but I'm glad you did.>>

[icecoldfrost]

<<It's useful for knowing who and what is in your way, and keeping an eye on people,>> Emma admitted. <<I find it fun, watching the lights, and it can be soothing.>>

<<And if you want to practice, just ask. I gossip like this with Sookie and Karla for practice, but more work can never be bad.>>