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Post by swapgo on Nov 3, 2023 22:28:58 GMT
"Raw is best now! For me, y'know", he spread a wing to dramatize. Jason liked eating good ol fashioned New York junk food, but when it came to more traditional meals, he no longer felt the need to bother with things such as it being 'seasoned' or 'heated'. The bat reached carefully with 3 fingers into the bowl and placed it into the countertop, spinning it a bit. Jason gently put a stop to it when Niels brought up having confidence in ourselves, ah, it brings memories, sometimes he wished he could cut them and paste them away from the rest of what immediately follows. "Well, can't say It was so subtle for me. I did one day wake up to having wings, fur, pointy teeth and...well I was already a night kid", Jason dismissed, caressing the orange with the tip of his first finger, it peeled the fruit seamlessly. "And I've gotten bigger, scarier, wilder, every year felt like there was something I could discover", he continued, his tail swinging gently from side to side, there was no sense of hesitation or sadness behind his words. "But I also, well, became good at hearing things overnight", he finished his handiwork, a perfectly peeled orange sitting atop its rind. He stabbed a slice of orange, apparently wanting it to last this time around, inspecting it with a sigh.
"I learned so much in so little time"
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Post by DornKoon on Nov 4, 2023 10:56:51 GMT
"I see," Niels was not sure what else he could say to that. Maybe something with his mutation caused his sense of taste to change? He did not remember much about what he learned about bats, apart from the fruit bats, and they generally looked like flying dogs. The clip of a fruit bat eating a banana flashed past his memories.
Yeah, no, Jason looked nothing like a fruit bat.
Niels listened as Jason talked; he had no way of knowing what that must have been like, but it did not seem to be that traumatic for Jason; he was not sad about it, which was more than could be said about a lot of other mutants. "Yeah, that seems to be a recurring theme for many mutants. One day, everything is as it was, and the next, you're not the same person, at least to much of the world." He folded his arms, glancing at the ceiling. "It's rather impressive- I mean, you're very accepting of your mutation. I admire that."
"True, so did I. Now I've got all these lessons with Professor Xavier and Miss Frost on how to control my Empathy, so I don't accidentally-" His voice died off before he shook his head. "Never mind."
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Post by swapgo on Nov 4, 2023 23:56:27 GMT
"Never thought about it", Jason pinched another slice of orange with a single finger and gobbled it up. "I don't get asked about it a lot. You think it's because they think I won't like the question?", he wondered out loud. Perhaps it made sense, at least, kinda, the idea that mutants with the wildest, most uncomfortable and unconcealable mutations would be the most taken aback by it, it's no coincidence that those are the ones that Jason is more eager to greet, and not exactly to ask anything. "Well, I was always different, in a way. Mom said that when people try to hurt you for being different, they're just jealous. I think that's still true", he said with optimism, though his emotion was awash with something more resolve rather than glee.
"Well, whatever it was, I'm sure is fine now". Jason waved off, assuming something awkward and innocent, as he has had happen. He held rest of the slices pinned in the scales of his fingers, walking back towards Niels. "You gonna prep anything or nah? I think I held you for a while now"
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Post by DornKoon on Nov 5, 2023 21:27:54 GMT
"Hmm, well, that would make sense," Niels replied. "I think it's fairly common to hesitate about asking someone things like that, maybe out of fear that it would be rude. I really don't have a problem asking things if I want to know them. Better I ask than to walk around wondering and making assumptions, y'know."
He shook his head. "I can do more than one thing at the same time," he said with a small smile before crouching down to open one of the lower cabinets in search of a cooking pan. "Or afraid," he commented, drawing back to Jason's words on what his mom said. "I think it was Lovecraft who said something about fear being the oldest emotion and the oldest fear being fear of the unknown. Could also go with the path to the dark side from Star Wars." Niels did his best to mimic the voice of Yoda as he continued. "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Niels paused before clearing his throat and giving Jason a small grin. "He also did say "do or do not, there is no try" which I never could understand what that means."
Niels had now pulled out a pan and was working to gather the things he needed to make himself some fried eggs on toast, which would require eggs, toast, and something to fry it in, like oil. "So, how's your relationship with your parents? I mean, how did they take you turning into a bat?"
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Post by swapgo on Nov 6, 2023 0:57:30 GMT
"Sure, anyone can, as long as they start"
Jason teased him back, walking around seemingly at random before procuring a bag of sandwich bread. There were a lot of things that he couldn't exactly tell apart from this kitchen, but this one he definitely could, Niels would probably have to be the one to tie it back shut though. Jason rolled his eyes at Niels rebuttal, there was seemingly a sigh, though it made no sound, a flash of disappointment. "Fear gives the boogeyman power, you know?", Jason argued, a lesson from a different movie, albeit from a more paranormal standpoint (though what is paranormal, at this point?). "Perhaps it's unhealthy, but I'd rather not think it's fear. Could be awe, could be shock, could be fright, even, but if I just think they're fearful, I'll end up giving them a reason". He dismissed with a chuckle, somehow saying all of that outloud seemed to relieve him rather than distress him.
Jason folded his wings and watched the food sizzle, humming a tune as he watched the food fry. He turned around towards the door and seemingly stopped humming, but rather hummed at a different frequency, just to keep an ear out to what was in the hallways, before Niels question dragged him back in. "Poorly", Jason did not hesitate, his tail seemingly shrunk behind him. "Then again, it's partly on me. I go too excited about it myself", he admitted. It takes a young teen to be excited at the concept of losing their hands because their new hands look tight. "It's gotten better, but so much has changed for me, I can only imagine how much it changed for them. Home's only ever getting more quiet", he looked upwards in contemplation. Yeah, noticing the quiet, that has been quite important throughout the years.
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Post by DornKoon on Nov 6, 2023 8:10:05 GMT
"Fear gives the boogeyman power, huh?" Niels repeated the words slowly, taking them in and examining them inside his mind. "Yeah, I can see the wisdom in that too, s'ppose that just makes it more important to find out more. I mean, if what Lovecraft said about the unknown being the greatest fear, the best way not to fear would be to make the unknown... known." He shrugged with a slightly sheepish smile.
"I don't think it's unhealthy, Jason." Niels shook his head, flipping the egg-in-a-hole.
There was a slight pause when Jason said poorly. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to ask, much less since his father was taking this whole mutant thing so well, better than well... honestly. He had gone out of his way to assist Professor Xavier whenever he needed help from a non-mutant, insisted on involvement as much as possible, and wanted to understand what his son was going through. "Change is not always bad. It might sound like fortune cookie nonsense, but I think it's true. If anything, it sounds more like your parents got shocked by it all, and you got excited. Those two feelings are closer than you think. In fact, if you combine the two, that is how you get awe."
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Post by swapgo on Nov 6, 2023 16:59:06 GMT
"Neither do I, so lets both stop thinking about it", Jason concluded, and would dramatically hush and throw his wings up at verbal attempts at continuing.
Jason watched the egg boil with interest, he never actually saw the whole 'cooking' thing, either being too young, or too big. Of course, he was most familiar with the sound of a sizzling egg, though he didn't exactly understand why cooking it did the things it did to it. In hindsight, he shouldn't tower over Niels to do this, so he scuttled aside to be less of a hindrance. "Change shouldn't be bad", he rebutted, "All in all, this is change. My parents deserve a break. They get to enjoy their normalcy for a spell, and I get to be me. It's best as such", he mentioned, then suddenly perked up and remembered he should finish eating that rind he left on a countertop, if only to not litter.
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Post by DornKoon on Nov 6, 2023 20:54:49 GMT
Niels nodded at the comment; he agreed that change shouldn't be bad, but as the world worked, that was often not the case. He carefully scooped the two finished egg-in-a-hole onto a plate. "Yeah, I agree." He replied, taking the simple approach. "I like change, and I like it here, and as you said, we get to be us. Playing with our powers and abilities gives a sense of freedom we would not have otherwise, even if this old building gives me the shivers, something awful sometimes." He visibly shivered at the words before shaking his head.
He decided to try and change the subject to something more fun, but what could be fun for Jason? Maybe... "I also think we have some small bats living on the grounds. I've been feeling them fly around and resting in the trees, did not want to disturb them while sleeping, or during hunts. But I'm sure you already noticed them, or at least you out of all of us might have heard them."
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Post by swapgo on Nov 12, 2023 0:01:48 GMT
"Really?", Jason wondered, having just swallowed the entire rind of the orange. "I love the look! Makes me feel I'm somewhere mysteeriouuuus", he unfulded his wings and held them up dramatically, swaying from side to side. "Surely there's some bookshelf where you pull a specific book and it opened up a super secret passageway...though I reckon I would've heard it", he pondered on the way back, moving some chairs in front of a table, keeping them low but not dragging them an inch through the floor, so that they had somewhere to sit while Niels finished his more elaborate meal.
"Of course I have, they uh, they like me", Jason seemed kind of embarassed at the idea, even if his voice didn't show it. "It's not like I speak chiropter or anything, and I can't exactly hunt insects for them, but if I sit still on the grounds for long enough they'll hang around me, uh, literally", he specified. Jason didn't sound like the kind of person that would willingly just stay put, but perhaps there is a reason.
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Post by DornKoon on Nov 18, 2023 17:32:30 GMT
Niels turned off the stove, setting the finished food aside before moving the pan over to the sink. "I suppose that is how many others see it," he said with a slight smile. " And I'm sure you're right about secrets hidden here. Of that, I'm pretty certain." He collected the plates with food and walked over to the kitchen table. "It's just that I can feel emotions, even from a long time ago, imprints if you will, things left behind when someone dies a violent death, for example, and sometimes when I touch something... I channel what happened to that object in the past, or sometimes even the future." He glanced at Jason before clearing his throat. "Let's just say I know for a fact that ghosts are real..." which came out a lot more ominous than he had intended, and it was like the universe wanted to aid him, because at that moment a bolt of lightning crossed the sky outside, instantly followed by a deep rumble.
"Anyways," Niels continued after a few moments. "Your relationship with the local bats is not a surprise, and I imagine they view you as a very big bat... so of course they would want to hang around you for protection, especially since our local bats are so small." Niels tilted his head to the side and smiled slightly, " And going from you, I get the impression you like them too."
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Post by swapgo on Nov 20, 2023 17:05:01 GMT
"We should go looking for them! Surely one of us could sniff it out!", Jason suggested as Niels caught on on his juvenile theory. "Thought I figure we're not the first students with similar talents. They must be soundproofed, and, uh, think-proofed", he pondered as he carried over a couple of chairs, putting them in front of each other for him to be able to sit down and hang his wings from the backrests. The faculty, of course, has chairs that accomodate him, but Niels was onto something interesting and demanded promptness, also a pinch of reminisence to stave off the homesickness.
The bat seemed morbidly mesmerized at Niels description of his empathy, he wouldn't even have thought that the lightning was diegetic. Niels would get the read that Jason was thrilled, but hesitant. The bat REALLY wanted to ask him if there were any in this kitchen, and if he could talk to them, and if they looked like in the movies, and a hopefully countable number of followup questions. He just didn't feel like intruding in what seemed like a delicate thing with this person he just met, at the crack of dawn, while he's eating not-breakfast, if any of those things weren't true, he might just have indulged. "Icouldgoforsome grapes", Jason excused himself for a moment just to try and shake the feeling.
Sitting down with a (human) handful of grapes delicately pinned across the scale of his wing, he took his double seat once more. "I did! I-I mean I do, but also did, like it's not a...consequence", he discarded the obvious conclusion. "I like bugs, and bats, and rodents, and spiders, and dinosaurs...Well, maybe it is a consequence, but in the other direction", he pondered. Jason had thought about it before, just never out loud and with someone.
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Post by DornKoon on Nov 21, 2023 19:37:57 GMT
"You would think so, but walls do not easily stop psionics," Niels replied with a weak smile. " At the same time, they do not help to find secret doors unless I accidentally touch it... and I don't feel like going around fondling everything in this house that might be a secret lever." He paused, looking at how enthusiastic Jason had gotten about this, which caused Niels to continue. "I still would not be surprised if there are all kinds of secrets hidden, but we'll have to think logically about where there would even fit a secret door."
Niels examined Jason; his emotions were all over the place, and he clearly wanted to ask something but seemed afraid to offend if he did. "You clearly want to ask me something more," He commented, taking a bite from his egg-in-a-hole. "I'm not a telepath, so I got no idea what you're thinking; I can only tell you're dying to ask me something... so... shot?"
"What are you talking about?" Niels asked, cocking one of his eyebrows. "What consequence?"
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Post by swapgo on Nov 23, 2023 16:10:23 GMT
Jason's ears perked up as he was given the open floor, "OK so how many do they what's the oldest like what do you is it like very cold and goosebumpy and", Jason's voice only became more acute as he kept speaking, until he could no longer be heard, only a faint, pitched noise came out from his still moving mouth, he didn't realize that only he was hearing himself. After taking back his seat and eagerly awaiting a response that wouldn't come, the rush of thrill was quickly subsummed by awkwardness. "Y'know I'll write it down at some point", he punctuated by putting a grape in his mouth.
When asked to specify, Jason mentally backtracked for a moment, trying to piece together exactly what words he used. "Well, I mean, I liked all of this stuff before this", Jason swayed his left wing for emphasis. "I don't know how all of this works yet. Maybe I always liked them because eventually this would happen? Maybe this happened because I liked those things? Like, I'm not a bat, or rather not just a bat, or rather not just anymore it used to be that. Feels like I've picked up the trait of other things along the way, and I happen to like all of those things", his tone of voice seemed to sway a bit in pitch as he let his train of thought loose, but it maintained itself in the audible spectrum. "I know for sure that's not how it works for everyone, but its a funny thing to think about at 3 in the morning. Perhaps I won't think about it so throughly in the morning, or perhaps I will...during class", he joked, and still spitballed the time of day.
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Post by DornKoon on Nov 23, 2023 17:54:17 GMT
"Uhm-" Niels did ask, so he would have to accept that Jason's more passionate series of questions pushed into one sentence was not a surprise. "OK, let's see if I got all those. It's not really that I've sensed ghosts here at the mansion; it's a big old building with grounds, so I'm sure there could be places I've not looked in. Also, there is a big difference between ghost and ghost, and most hauntings are..." He paused, trying to find the right words.
"I like to call them Imprint Ghosts. Many of the Imprint ghosts are those that re-enact tragic or violent deaths, such as suicides or horrible murders. They do not think, in essence, they are emotional imprints left behind; they basically repeat the same action over and over at the same time. Like- Like a video, but in reality instead of a screen. The rare ghosts are those you can interact with. They are- more there, I guess. They don't need to do the same thing over and over but are still stuck to a single location or object."
Niels examined Jason, his reaction and how he was taking all this. It was one of the first times he had mentioned this to anyone other than Professor Xavier and Miss Frost. He seemed to take it remarkably well.
" As for how it feels, I suppose it can get cold, and also largely depends on the emotion they felt when dying, because no matter the kind of ghosts, they feel a lot, a ghost is basically composed of strong emotions."
Niels also tried to wrap his head around what Jason meant with his traits and his relationship with bats... or the fact he was not just a bat. "Well, makes sense. You're not a bat; you're a mutant. From a DNA point of view, you're still more human than bat or other animals." He gestured with his fork as he talked, "I'm curious: did bats act differently around you before you changed? Since you mentioned always liking them, so maybe it could give you more of an answer from how they treated you before."
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Post by swapgo on Dec 2, 2023 1:51:40 GMT
Niels kept causing Jason's emotions to whiplash back to thrill, and he leaned in with almost predatory interest, The uncannyness of his visage broken by the odd chance he took to chew on a grape like it was popcorn.
Nothing about this felt odd at all, this is how it goes in the movies, kinda, some teenagers discussing extremely dreadful thing over, like, smores. There was no lightning this time, so at least it confirmed that it wasn't Niels' doing the first time around. Jason's mouth was moving, at an inaudible pitch, it's like one part of him wanted to spitball and hypothesize all about this weird postmortem phenomenoms through the rest of the morning, and the other was like "Heaven's sake he's eating toast". "Yeah I'll write the rest down, I think it'll be a while till I sleep tonight"[/b], Jason's voice slowly came back to something percetible. "But you can tell me! Alright, like, I'm going to listen to it. I might even listen to it when you least expect it, to be fair", he offered his very large ears for Niels to elaborate on the subject. He didn't know if Niels found some sort of relief or catharsis from the excercise, but he seemed to have put a lot of thought on his answers, so perhaps he enjoyed talking about it as much as Jason enjoyed listening in.
"Well, yes, but, uh...how do I explain this...I used to have...thumbs...like, here, like a bat would", Jason rose his left wing, extending it to full length, while it was way denser than the thin patagea of a bat, its shape was quite consistent with what one would expect. He leaned back and tilted it so that it faced Niels horizontally. "Now I do this", he demonstrated how the scales on top of his joint swiftly jabbed out, reaching forward to make a pinch. He pulled them back and did it again, then pulled them back unevenly to demonstrate its flexibility, rippling from left to right as they returned to their place. "So, yeah, rather un-bat-y thing, mutantness, yadda yadda, it just makes me curious about where this will take me, y'know? There's things I wouldn't want to lose along the way, I like to think that this stubborness is why I still have a soft patch", he did not elaborate, but the words seemed to bring him some sort of nostalgia.
"Wouldn't know, couldn't have one, something about rabies"
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