OOC: Bandwagon? What Bandwagon?

[icecoldfrost]

My other info dumps will go up later, but the new girl gets her own introductory post because of some particular quirks and OCD which other blonde telepaths might be familiar with...

Emma Frost. She's better than you. No. Really.

What is this 'Marvel' of which you speak?

Emma comes from the 'Marvel' canon of OMGWTF. Land of the retcon, home of the mutants, and a general migraine for anyone who believes in pesky things like 'continuity' and 'in character'. There are at least three million books and five million characters, so I'm going to narrow it down to the worldbuilding that directly impacts Emma.

Emma Frost comes from the same branch of the Marvel family as the X-Men/Generation X, which falls under the mutant umbrella. The important thing to know about this universe is that it is like ours in every way, except for one tiny little thing: there are people known as 'mutants', who are considered by some to be the next evolution of mankind.

A mutant is an individual who possesses a genetic twist called the X-gene that gives superhuman abilities. Mutants are members of the subspecies Homo sapiens superior, an evolutionary offshoot of homo sapiens. Powers cover a wide range of abilities: telepathy, telekinesis, flight, energy projection, healing (of self or others), super strength, enhanced senses, and enhanced agility are just a few of the various mutations we see in the Marvel Universe. Mutations can also sometimes entail a minor to major change in physical appearance from the human norm - wings, gills, a tail, fur, altered skin color, etc.

Mutants began to increase in population post-WWII, although they aren't quite in the public awareness yet. Unfortunately, this 'outing' usually brings with it the usual bigotry and xenophobia that minority groups tend to face, and there is a great deal of anti-mutant sentiments in the Marvel Universe. "Mutie" and "gene joke", are common insults used against mutants, and as a consequence, many mutants use the terms "baseline" and "flatscan" to refer to non-mutant humans. Both terms can be either neutral or highly insulting depending on context.

This is the world Emma Frost faces. Abandoned, hated, and feared for talents she doesn't understand and has yet to master, Emma has come to view money and power as her best means of survival, and the shadowy organization known as the Hellfire Club is a tempting option on her path to complete self-reliance.

For those of you familiar with the canon, you can ignore anything written since, oh, 1997. I'm taking Emma directly from Generation X -1, where she just had her first brush with the Dark Beast, the Hellfire Club and Leland. Oh, and that Emma Frost series? NEVER HAPPENED.

So Who Is Emma Frost?

Sweet sixteen, pretty, blonde, and never been kissed, Emma Grace Frost is the definition of beauty. A willowy girl at 5'6" and 120 lbs, she often comes across as spoiled, cold, cruel, and self-absorbed.

Emma's father disinherited her almost two years ago, once the voices in her head started up. She's been living on the streets ever since, using her fledgling telepathy to get by. A few weeks ago, she crashed a party to use her powers to steal company secrets and play the stock market with her ill-gotten gains, and things spiraled from there.

Now her new friend 'Hank' has suggested a school, a place he's heard whispers about. Somewhere that she can go to learn about her powers, and come back armed and ready to deal with the Hellfire Club. She's determined to regain what she sees as her rightful place among the privileged elite, and she's not about to let little things like telepathic ethics or being disinherited stop her. Emma's all about Keeping Up Appearances, and if you somehow find out about how she's spent the last year and half? She'll make you wish you were dead.

Telepath, huh? So, how powerful is she?

Emma is a burgeoning telepath of high ability, but her control is hit-and-miss, hence her enrollment at Fandom. Emma can read and project thoughts, change memories, plant illusions in the minds of others, and will eventually be able to release her astral form.

Emma's very good at projecting her thoughts to other people, and she's getting better at reading others deliberately, but she can't always shield herself from those with 'loud' minds or filter the input. Attempts to read an entire room or plant mass illusions will give her a massive migraine, and over-straining her powers leaves her with headaches, nosebleeds, and vertigo. Right now, the only astral-walking she's going to be doing is accidental. If anyone needs it for a plotty-reason, let me know, and I will be happy to oblige.

Now, Emma isn't actively trying to read people all the time. If she gets bored, she might scan for thoughts floating out in the psionic ether, or see if she can't pick up any juicy gossip, but for the most part she really isn't interested in the seething mass of hormonal daydreams common to the teenage demographic. She can block out most people unless she's under a lot of stress or extremely emotional, and then her control gets shot to hell. Sometimes she's just too distracted to bother with making the effort to screen you out, and then it's Your Fault if you're loud and she picks up your internal monologue.

Really. You people need to learn some basic restraint.

Who can/can't she read?

As far as FH goes, I'm going to say that it's a case-by-case basis. I'm going to venture a guess that she can't read the Jedi, although she'll give herself a migraine and/or nosebleed trying, and they'd probably be able to tell that she was trying to dig around, and the same goes for other advanced telepaths. Subtlety is not her strong suit. Yet. She can tell if another person is psychic, mostly because of the way their mind is set up, and the fact they'd probably have shields up. Which she'll poke. Repeatedly.

EMMA LACKS TELEPATHIC ETHICS. I really can't stress this enough. She's got no qualms about taking what she finds and using it to her advantage. She's not actively cruel, she's just very bitter over the fact that people often say one thing and think another, and she loves hanging such hypocrites out to dry. (I am not Emma, I swear. I = Mostly Harmless).

That said, once you're a friend, you're a friend for life, and you've got a damn scary little blonde that will do anything for you.

So, what I need from ya'll is for you to comment below and give me an idea of whether Emma would be able to read you. This doesn't mean she will, this is just giving me a good idea of what she'd pick up if she walked into a class or common room without her shields up.


[Wait for the OCD. Yes, I have OCD on an OOC post. Mock me at your peril]

Comments

Good Question...

[icecoldfrost]

There is magic/genetic/voodoo thing in my canon that makes it iffy...

Re: Good Question...

[brandyforapples.livejournal.com]

Abigail Irene is a trained thaumaturgist (she's even got a ThD!) so it would probably be harder to get in. As there are no specific locks mentioned, it would take effort, but yeah, she can get in.

Re: Good Question...

[icecoldfrost]

Fantastic! And if Abigail Irene ever catches her doing it in a class, either to her or to other students, feel free to throw her in detention. I'm a huge fan of ICA = ICC.

Re: Good Question...

[new-to-liirness.livejournal.com]

Liir's had some training specifically in mental shielding, so I'm going to say that she'd probably have some trouble. His shielding isn't perfect, however, and he tends to project when his emotions are high (he doesn't have very good control EITHER) so feel free to pick up on distinct thoughts (ie, in italics) and strong emotions.

Re: Good Question...

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah's a telepath (touch-based) too, and has canonically noticed when someone was doing that kind of stuff; she has shields up when she touches anyone, and she practices leaving them up in case of accidents, so may not be readable without a strong effort. And she would react badly to someone reading her without permission, since she does have drummed-in and instinctual ethics about this kind of thing. That said, she's more likely to notice someone's poking and try to pull them 'in' to a dreamscape she could control, or mentally swat at them hard than know exactly who's doing it. (We could have some fun with this...)[And sorry to keep editing, but I keep remembering in-game stuff: Ronan's commented that Dinah's telepathic voice is 'LOUD', and she could hear him easily when she was touching him, not just tell he was reading her. Dinah may shout Emma out of her brain as a last resort.]

Sophie has normal-human thoughts, she just thinks a bit twisty from being a professional con-artist. You'd have to go pretty deep to get anything juicy out of her, since she's always 'in-character', and the surface thoughts will match the outside persona through long practice.

Parker's rarely here, but practices shielding (learned from another, older Emma!) because she knows there are telepaths around. Russian dolls inside of Russian dolls. She's not on-island very often anyway.

Re: Good Question...

[livingasheth.livejournal.com]

Millie is an ex-goddess and a very powerful enchantress, though you'd never know it if you just bumped into her somewhere. I'm not sure Emma would be able to read her and I'm pretty sure if she tried Millie would know. That said, I'm happy to play with that if you want.

Re: Good Question...

[finding-x-dream.livejournal.com]

Agnes has a nascent split personality that tends to confuse psychics, and on top of that she's a powerful (although untrained) witch. Feel free to read her, but there's a chance she might notice, and if she does, she'll probably be able to shut Emma out -- at least, while she's concentrating on it.

Re: Good Question...

[multiplez]

Z (who is not on island much, but whee thorough) has a fun brain! She's used to processing multiple inputs at once and doesn't really think like normal people as a result, so she might trip up a telepath or give Emma a headache or something.

Re: Good Question...

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell's a vampire. Some canons say that means you can't read him, some say you can, but Being Human has yet to give us an answer. I'd opt towards no, though, just for clarity purposes.

Re: Good Question...

[weetuskenraider]

*logs in from phone, does not bother changing logins*

I'm gonna say Katchoo here -- less because she's got any practice or experience at anything that would block out thoughts, and more because of the problematic stuff that could get picked up . . . if that works?

Re: Good Question...

[intraspective]

Ino's got 'medium' strength shields up all the time these days, so Emma'd be able to get through with effort, though Ino would definitely notice.

But. Ino also has a section of her mind that Anakin put shields around and I don't think she'd be able to get through those specific ones.

Re: Good Question...

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

Firekeeper and Blind Seer don't have any sort of shielding since telepathy doesn't exist where they're from, but, being wolves, their thought processes are different from human ones. So she's welcome to pick up on whatever, but it's your call on whether she'd be able to make sense of wolfy thoughts.

Re: Good Question...

[icecoldfrost]

Hrm. She'd probably realize 'oh lord, the wolf is sentient', but not actually get much unless she's around him enough to start to understand how his brain works. Or Blysse's, for that matter.

Poor Em and her poor brain. Ya'll are gonna make her want to hide under her bed for a week at this rate.

Re: Good Question...

[saltandammo.livejournal.com]

Dean's past run-in with telepathic interrogators has led him to get some training in blocking people out of his mind from Anakin. So he has better shields than most non-telepaths, though if pushed, she could probably get in. (He'd probably know it though and his reaction would probably be physical, direct, and not pretty.)

Re: Good Question...

[noearsyet.livejournal.com]

TP (the insane-yet-we-love-her-anyway) says that the Gifted can't be read by others with a Gift.

On the other hand, George doesn't really have the type of extensive training (yet hopefully) that I'd associate with that so especially with someone of Emma's power, I'd tend to say possibly with a side of 'it'd be difficult but possible.'

Wow, I don't know if that made any sense at all.

Re: Good Question...

[icecoldfrost]

Makes sense, which means Emma being Emma, will go "YOU ARE SHINY AND YOUR BRAIN IS NEAT" and possibly try to poke at it until she gives herself a migraine.

We never said she was smart *pats her*

Re: Good Question...

[living_endless]

I think Emma would get vague impressions and a sense something's weird about Didi, but not specific thoughts.

Re: Good Question...

[bitchy_smurf]

*gives becoming-standard 'path answer*

Illyria's a demonic essence poured into the melted-out shell of a human body, so it's debatable if there's anything resembling brainwaves in there to read. Totally cool to get "Not Human" from that, though! And Emma could probably project to her without a problem.

However, if the Fred memories take over at some point (as they have, temporarily, in post-canon comics) I'm for making the Fred-persona totally an open book, because she thinks she's got a normal brain, and Illyria's body is somewhat re-shapable based on her thoughts.

Re: Good Question...

[oops-mbad.livejournal.com]

Diana's mind is ... I'm going to say not readable and she'll know that she's being prodded in. If that's okay?

Re: Good Question...

[justwantsquiet.livejournal.com]

Somehow I missed this, forever ago, but I think you know the deal with Sookiecakes anyway! Emma can't read her unless Sookie lets her in, which she usually does anyway so they can talk in each other's heads. :D

Re: Good Question...

[need-no-moon.livejournal.com]

I'm going to put Jacob here and assume that while he's not broadcasting, he's still readable once you do pay attention.

Re: Good Question...

[nothornlessrose.livejournal.com]

I think it will be dependent on how comfortable Cassidy is at any given time. She has power and works on shielding her thoughts and her emotions with her inner barriers and shields.

Re: Good Question...

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Scully would be an easy read as to what's actually on her mind (one telepath on the show had no problem reading her). I'm just hesitant about the adult/teen divide in her brain... I'm leaning toward, and hoping you agree, that there's no immediate way for Emma to tell that Scully's not an adult if she's not *thinking* about that at the moment she talks to Emma. I'm okay with Emma picking up on that eventually, and overhearing that particular secret; but I'd rather it be later, when Scully's had time to get used to the weirdness of Fandom. Make sense?

Re: Good Question...

[trigons_child]

Hmm, I just realized I never commented here.

Raven has learned to shield herself, but she's canonically prone to having her mind controlled, so put her in the sometimes category.

Leia should go here, too. She's a latent telepath but has no training.

Re: Good Question...

[ostianbelle.livejournal.com]

Asuna's an open book, except for the part where she has sealed memories, that's pretty much a blank area there.