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OOC: Description of powers
Jul. 26th, 2009 01:42 amToby is a telepath – born with the ability to read minds. This post is an attempt to clarify what exactly that entails.
( Basics. )
( Control. )
( What you need to know if you are RPing with Toby. )
( Basics. )
( Control. )
( What you need to know if you are RPing with Toby. )
Queen West, Spring, Early morning:
Jul. 5th, 2009 09:07 pmToby has only been a couple of months on the job but already he is learning a new map of the city, a cartography of injury, charting out the neighbourhoods in 9-1-1 calls. Summer at Harbourfront means heat exhaustion from Torontonians who've spent eight months forgetting how to live with the sun; Queen West at two in the morning is clubs letting out, a fight, maybe even a stabbing; Bay Street is heart attacks, strokes, business-minded people who wake too early and stay too late and fuel their lives on caffeine until their organs simply quit; College and Saint George could be anything, anytime, thanks to U of T kids who never seem to get tired of finding new and exciting ways to hurt themselves. And always, everywhere: traffic accidents, traffic accidents, traffic accidents. He's seen it all. It's a new face to Toronto, one he hadn't anticipated before his first day in the ambulance, but which he now appreciates and accepts, making it a part of his life as any other trade secret.
Here, early, he can see the skyline stretching in front of him from the roof of his apartment: the solid, sturdy blocks of the TD Centre, First Canadian Place and the rest slouching against the sun that rises across the lake. They're clumsy when contrasted with the CN Tower, which dwarfs them with a kind of elegance, like a finger reaching up to brush the sky. From here he can watch the lights blink at the very top of the Tower, for which – as a communications beacon, sending and receiving, standing quiet in a sea of noise – Toby feels a certain affinity.
In the honey-yellow light of dawn he lets his shoulders relax, unclenches his fingers, and lets the signal flow. Right now, it's not too bad, a quiet mutter of thought from around the neighbourhood, joy and wish and worry from anyone who has reason to be up at the same time as a paramedic with the early shift. Someone out there is very focused on their toast, and he catches a hint of sympathetic craving. It's times like this when he can truly appreciate his gift, enjoy it, embrace it, and not have to worry about being found out and taken away and picked apart like the freakish lab specimen he always suspects he was destined to be. But these moments are few and far between.
Now, enough of his neighbours are drowsy and slow that he can feel it creeping into his own mind, which won't do when he has to meet Oz in half an hour so they can check in at Saint Mike's. He looks to the Tower again, that light always blinking, never having need to stop. His fingers curl against his palms, a motion only necessary in that it concentrates his focus, and the voices begin to fade; they go weakest first, sleepy daydreams going silent, then the people trying to match ties to socks, ending at last with a single man who dreads an early board meeting for which he is not prepared. After a few seconds Toby is left alone in the quiet of morning birds and distant traffic. Time to get to work, and see what fresh cartography he can learn today.
Here, early, he can see the skyline stretching in front of him from the roof of his apartment: the solid, sturdy blocks of the TD Centre, First Canadian Place and the rest slouching against the sun that rises across the lake. They're clumsy when contrasted with the CN Tower, which dwarfs them with a kind of elegance, like a finger reaching up to brush the sky. From here he can watch the lights blink at the very top of the Tower, for which – as a communications beacon, sending and receiving, standing quiet in a sea of noise – Toby feels a certain affinity.
In the honey-yellow light of dawn he lets his shoulders relax, unclenches his fingers, and lets the signal flow. Right now, it's not too bad, a quiet mutter of thought from around the neighbourhood, joy and wish and worry from anyone who has reason to be up at the same time as a paramedic with the early shift. Someone out there is very focused on their toast, and he catches a hint of sympathetic craving. It's times like this when he can truly appreciate his gift, enjoy it, embrace it, and not have to worry about being found out and taken away and picked apart like the freakish lab specimen he always suspects he was destined to be. But these moments are few and far between.
Now, enough of his neighbours are drowsy and slow that he can feel it creeping into his own mind, which won't do when he has to meet Oz in half an hour so they can check in at Saint Mike's. He looks to the Tower again, that light always blinking, never having need to stop. His fingers curl against his palms, a motion only necessary in that it concentrates his focus, and the voices begin to fade; they go weakest first, sleepy daydreams going silent, then the people trying to match ties to socks, ending at last with a single man who dreads an early board meeting for which he is not prepared. After a few seconds Toby is left alone in the quiet of morning birds and distant traffic. Time to get to work, and see what fresh cartography he can learn today.
