psychic permissions

[retethered]

WEIRD BRAIN STUFF

OR: an extended description of simran's psychic powers.

simran spent a decent chunk of her life in a cryo tube psychically projecting herself out into the world. although she's no longer in said tube, she's still disabled enough that she often relies on the psychic projection to conserve her body's energy and health. this projection, as well as the rest of her abilities, works by passively interfering with people's senses; her projection wouldn't appear on a normal video camera, for example. however, it's also relatively non-invasive: for sight, her powers intervene at the optic nerve, rather than within the brain, and at equivalent locations for other senses.

as a rule of thumb, though: her psychic illusions are not resilient. while she can evoke a fair amount of information in the mind of an observer, it's not difficult to notice that it's false, and once you pierce the illusion, there's little more she can accomplish.

PSYCHIC PROJECTION: it's simran, again, but less solid. this mostly works on bruce willis-style rules where she's not visibly ghostly, but it's noticeable that most people just don't interact with her. this effect is only semi-passive so if you catch her off guard you can get a solid object through the illusion, and anybody whose attention you draw will also notice. otherwise, though, her projection is, however, fairly complete, producing scent, the sound of her footfalls, her infrared emissions, etc.

PSYCHIC MIRAGES: anything that isn't a direct projection of her own body is exponentially more complicated to work with. these types of illusions have to occupy relatively little of an observer's senses to remain believable. the bigger they get and the longer they last, the less realistic they become, so simran must rely on small or quick illusions to pique an observer's curiosity, rather than elaborate or resilient constructs.

ILLUSORY PAIN: there is a real phenomenon called the body transfer illusion in which you can trick the human brain into believing that a rubber hand is a real part of their body by hiding the organic hand from their eyes and "priming" them by stimulating the organic and rubber hands simultaneously. after a few attempts the person will start reacting to stimulus to the rubber hand alone as if it were happening to their flesh hand; swing a hammer at it, and they'll feel a split second of true pain. simran's illusions are capable of exploiting a similar principle. an illusory weapon swing will hurt like it's the real thing for the brief instant before the actual pain receptors catch up with the brain and inform it there's no damage. once you're paying attention it's pretty easy to beat, though, and those who are attentive to their own bodies and senses may well shrug this off from the jump.

aside from all this, simran is a relatively weak telekinetic; it takes significant focus even to get her projection to fiddle with a thermostat.

if the main question in your mind is whether your character is smart or powerful enough to see through/ignore simran's illusions, the answer is yes. observant characters may not need to rely on supernatural abilities at all. if you'd like to work out the details of how your character's abilities & traits interact with simran's, you can leave a (screened) comment or hit me up @ itsyrgirl.

☆ code by kimmiserate ☆