Thundercrash

The Academy: A School for Metahumans [Closed]

Paulina Benson

”Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Paulina again enfolded Ashleigh in her embrace, drawing her head to her breast as she stroked the distressed empath’s hair. ”It isn’t your fault, Ash. You didn’t do anything wrong. We’ll figure out what happened, I promise you.” Cupping Ashleigh’s cheek with her hand, she gently forced the girl to look up at her. ”Look at me. None of this,” she gestured at the other students, ”None of this is your fault, okay? Come on, let’s get you out of here. You’re staying with me tonight, and no isn’t an answer this time.”@Caits

It took some effort, as Paulina was far from the physically strongest in the room, but she managed to lift Ashleigh into a bridal carry. She’d also have to actually walk for once, as the weight of both of them would be too much for the enchantments in her shoes. Nor did she care that Ashleigh would be able to feel the ropes crisscrossing her body. Those were all little details in comparison to the present situation. ”Jason, get Vedika. Go with Mr. Gregman, he’ll take you and Alister to the infirmary. Everybody else, get out of here. Class is over. Liam,” she looked over her shoulder at the boy, for once her eyes bearing no trace of humour, ”You can handle this.”
@Themerlinhawk@Hitman5455@Stern Algorithm@KiritoAsuna@Natsu@Dusksong@Rune_Alchemist@Thecrash20

As she headed out of the gym, Paulina bent and gently kissed Ashleigh’s head, murmuring ”It’s not your fault, you’re okay,” over and over.

The Academy: A School for Metahumans [Closed]

I have something in progress, just had a few other things I needed to do today.

☬ Pokemon Insurgence ☬ {{ Always Accepting }} ☬

@Dusksong@A Tattooed Girl How would it be obvious he's lying? Nobody here has ever met each other before, so they know nothing about one another. As far as I can tell (it's certainly the case with Shade and Razor) the only reason people think Jackson is part of the Regime is because he's currently wearing the uniform. Had he not been wearing the uniform in the first place, he'd have made a very different first impression. Unless a lie is particularly outrageous, whether or not it's obvious you're lying depends on good you are at looking and sounding sincere.

If, for example, Jackson claimed that he was never part of the Regime and just stole the uniform off a dead soldier to have something warm to wear, that would be quite believable to Shade. She's done similar things in the past, though she usually uses uniforms for kindling. Lying would come back to bite him in the future, but right now Jackson wouldn't be thinking about the future. He would be thinking about "how do I stop this Sneasel from tearing a big hole in my throat?"

It's Tattooed's decision of course, but trying to knock Razor off is a bad idea for two reasons: Razor has his claws right against Jackson's throat, and Shade currently has a gun. She's not trigger happy, but she wouldn't take kindly to somebody attacking Razor. Talking them down is the safest option.

The Academy: A School for Metahumans [Closed]

@Stern Algorithm Personally, I don't consider losing the sense of pain to be an example of "cursed with awesome". it's true that not feeling pain does allow one to fight longer in certain circumstances (because the body can be surprisingly difficult to kill), but the risks and costs outweigh the benefits. Pain tells you both the presence and severity of damage; without it, you could cause potentially serious or lethal damage to yourself and not be aware of it until it is probably too late.

I don't think you need to change much in your post, because it is true that the touch sense plays a significant role in allowing us to move. It's partially how we judge resistance to our muscles, telling us how much effort to actually use. This is more just constructive criticism on conveying what your idea is.

I used to have a character who had the power to completely control peoples senses, so I've thought about similar situations. I like to think of it like this: losing your sense of touch is like going to the dentist and being given Novacain. You have no sensation, so while you can still tell when you're touching something based on the physical impact and how difficult it is to move through it, you couldn't tell the difference between what one object feels like compared to another. Totally losing your proprioception would feel like you were having an out-of-body experience.

The Academy: A School for Metahumans [Closed]

@Themerlinhawk Losing both doesn't make sense though.

If Vedika's powers are essentially the metaphysical concepts of "self vs other" given physical consequences, then the touch sense would be the body's ability to physically perceive the "other", whereas proprioception is the ability to physically perceive the "self".

My understanding of what is going on is that Vedika's subconscious perceived an invasion by the "other" and attempted to fight it off, but because she has apparently never been "invaded" in this way before, it couldn't understand what was going on and overcompensated by turning off her sense of touch (along with a couple other senses like pain and probably temperature, if Stern's post is any indication). Kind of like when your body tries to fight off a virus that it has never been exposed to before by increasing your internal temperature to literally burn out the invader.

If proprioception is the physical ability to perceive the "self", then by turning it off Vedika's subconscious is literally rejecting her own "self".

@Stern Algorithm

The Academy: A School for Metahumans [Closed]

@Stern Algorithm Point of contention: the body's ability to feel its own movement and physical location is known as proprioception or kinesthetic sense, and is actually considered to be separate from the touch sense (though they are connected, just subtly). I'm not clear on how Vedika has managed to lose hers.

☬ Pokemon Insurgence ☬ {{ Always Accepting }} ☬

@A Tattooed Girl Jackson's best shot to live is to convince everybody that he was never part of the Regime in the first place, which means he's going to have to come up with an excuse as to why he's wearing their uniform (honestly, the reason that he's not dead already is because Razor got to him before Shade. Otherwise Shade would have just blown his head off without giving him a chance to talk). He could try telling the truth and explain that he was kicked out of the Regime, but Shade's not going to believe him. She'd assume that he was lying just to save his own skin.

The Academy: A School for Metahumans [Closed]

Paulina Benson

When Alister began screaming, Paulina jumped from excited to worried. When Ashleigh began screaming, her heart dropped like a stone. She’d barely had a chance to turn to see what was wrong when the telekinetic wave knocked her off her feet. Her head was pounding, but Paulina still got back up, rushing to her friend.

As she gently rolled Ash up into a sitting position and wrapped herself around the girl’s back, holding her to her chest and head resting on Ashleigh’s shoulder, all thoughts of sex or experiments were gone. A mixture of worry, kindness, and a protective, almost motherly love was all that remained; her friend was hurt and needed help, help that Paulina gave without hesitation or restraint.

”Shhh, it’s okay,” she murmured softly, pressing her cheek to Ashleigh’s. Gently prying the girl’s hand free from her wrist, she let her grip Paulina’s own arms as tightly as she wanted. ”You’re okay, baby, you’re okay. I’m here.” Her voice was low, tender and soothing, like that of a mother comforting her child after a bad dream. ”I’m gonna stay right here. Just let it out, it’s okay. Don’t hold it in.” Leaning over slightly, Paulina looked at her friend with nothing but sympathy and understanding. ”Do you want to leave? It’s okay if you want to. We can go up to your room and just sleep.”

@Caits

☬ Pokemon Insurgence ☬ {{ Always Accepting }} ☬

@A Tattooed Girl Since I'm assuming you don't want Jackson to die just yet, we should probably figure out how this gets resolved.

The Academy: A School for Metahumans [Closed]

oh dear, now Paulina's getting ideas XD