i wasn't looking for this

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to call me maybe and trade my soul for a wish, which were getting crowded.

with Emily (Maggie)

with Alex (ErinFlight)

with Destin (Rockeye)

with Nick (Rockeye)

Comments

[iamnotpolaris]

"I mean, if you wanted to actually do things, destroying the planet I was on seems...counterproductive."

[from_scratch]

"Yes. It's just one of the more dramatic available failure modes."

[iamnotpolaris]

"True enough. But then, I could probably destroy a planet if I worked at it hard enough, so maybe the possibility just seems a little less salient."

[from_scratch]

"How would you do it?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Find a way to amplify my power and rip the its core apart by its magnetic field."

[from_scratch]

"Well, that would certainly do the trick. Amplifying your power is a thing?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"I haven't seen any amplifiers in particular for magnetism, but we've got one for telepathy back home and with all this magic we're running into lately I'd be surprised if I couldn't find a way to do it if I really put my mind to it."

[from_scratch]

"Telepathy amplifier. Grand."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Well, if it had never been invented the world would probably be a radioactive wasteland, so..."

[from_scratch]

"Really."

[iamnotpolaris]

"It's a long, complicated story, but suffice to say that it's only recently that mutants have been a public thing, and almost thirty years ago it was necessary to use Cerebro--that's what it's called--to comb the country for mutants who would help my parents, one of whom is a telepath, thwart another group of mutants who were trying to turn the Cold War hot."

[from_scratch]

"...So the telepath used the amplifier to investigate an entire countryful of people deeply enough to find out if they had useful powers and helpful dispositions or not."

[iamnotpolaris]

Sigh. "No. Everyone has a unique mental signature that tells you almost nothing about how their brain works, but mutants have a distinct," she waves her hand, "thing. Languages not built around the existence of telepathy don't have a word for it. And the kind of telepathy my parent and sister have has a spatial aspect. So they wrote down where a bunch of mutants were and then my parents went on a road trip and asked them, 'will you please help us avert nuclear annihilation.'"

[from_scratch]

"Okay, 'so the telepath used the amplifier to track down members of a closeted minority they'd never met and assert that their wartime help was necessary to avoid armageddon'."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Closeted implies that they knew what they were, or that they were part of a minority instead of one-off anomalies. My parents were the only reason most of them had any idea what they were. And they put it quite a bit gentler than that, and they did get turned down plenty of times, and when someone told them to go away they went."

[from_scratch]

"...Apparently this is a sensitive topic."

[iamnotpolaris]

"When you're facing down nuclear holocaust being brought about by someone who was complicit in the actual Holocaust, prioritizing not accidentally upsetting anyone over saving the world is a pretty bad life choice."

[from_scratch]

[iamnotpolaris]

sigh "And most of the people who've been criticizing my parents for their actions at the time are doing so less because they actually believe they handled it badly and more because mutants, as a new minority, have had to deal with some of the things minorities in the United States typically have to deal with, and you were sounding kind of like some of the bigots we've got back home. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you, I just...kind of have a Pavlovian dislike of that kind of thing."

[from_scratch]

"I have no basis to be against mutants in general. And demons have a pretty bad reputation among mortals at home which I deal with all the time. But you might have better luck modeling my reactions to your family anecdotes if for 'any telepathic contact not consented to beforehand' you substituted 'sexual assault', say."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Okay, congratulations on accusing my sister of automatically raping everyone she's in the same room with, I don't think I've ever actually heard someone say something so terrible about her before."

[from_scratch]

"...Never mind, I guess."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I'm sorry, I get that you don't want your mind read, but is it really that terrible for her to observe that it exists? Not that I'm suggesting putting you in the same room as her."

[from_scratch]

"I really know nothing about the mechanics of her kind of telepathy. That's not something I normally have to worry about, whereas I do in fact accept a small risk of sexual assault every time I take a summons. Observing that my mind exists sounds fine. I could extend my analogy but I don't really have the sense here that you're actually interested in my perspective on the matter, so as long as you aren't proposing to introduce me to your telepathic sister I can let it drop."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Observing that it exists is the most she does without consent or a really good reason. And I am not, in fact, proposing to introduce you to my telepathic sister. At all.

"...I guess you had better give me a summoning circle with a good binding for some other daeva, so she can still not totally die."