"If you're giving me licence to flirt then I will totally abuse that power." That kind of admission was not exactly a normal one for Alice but with Emily apparently being her blunt self actually seemed to be the best way forward. For once."But yeah, I get creeped out enough by guys when I don't feel them checking me out, can't imagine having to deal with that and their weird power games as well." For such simple creatures boys were annoyingly complex about some stuff. Especially when it came to proving how manly and tough they were.

Alice laughed with genuine warmth at the comment. "Emily. You are apologising for being a little nerdy with me. The person with actual video games as a power. Go with the flow girl, embrace the inner nerd." She'd always found it weird what was considered nerdy and not. Know interesting stuff about the human brain or can take apart a complex circuit and put it back together? Total Nerd. Rattle of footie stats or know the name of every player and manager in a league, you're totally cool. It was all nerdy to her.

She did have to wonder how Emily managed to work with her own abrasive qualities. "Well, as long as you can take compliments that's good. And as far as prickly I'll be honest, I lived with a woman who could make us both look like amateurs while she's taking part in the bitch Olympics."

"No, it's not like a can access other peoples powers but the interaction can be a bit strange. I guess mine is technically a psychic thingy but it's only strong when connected." So far the only weird reaction she'd had was in Mirror's weird dimension during training. Which had been capital W weird but with an empath she had no idea what would happen. "Worst I can think of happening is the map giving your radius, if it's not bigger than 25 metres."

It was frankly a nice hand to hold but Alice was concentrating too much to appreciate it. Her other hand quickly flicked through the menus in front of her, finding the right invite options before quickly warning Emily, "OK, that should be coming up.......now," as she sent the invite. She didn't even consider how weird her typing in mid air would look but she reckoned the sudden pop-up would be more than a little distracting that she also frankly didn't care.

CHESHIRE HAS INVITED YOU TO A PARTY

DO YOU ACCEPT : Y / N

She smiled at Alice and shook her head in amusement. "Flirt all you like, just don't expect to get anywhere." See the aformentioned hating people, and also Emily only really got into people that she had a real emotional connection with and that had happened like twice, ever. She wasn't likely to let that happen again anytime remotely soon. It would just be too annoying.

"Guys and girls can be equally creepy." She admitted honestly. "It depends on the person, but I think testosterone has an impact on some of it." She thought honestly. "To be fair, my experience leads me to believe that women can be nastier. Though that's less of a problem when I can just out-bitch them." She added with a playful smirk.

Okay that comment made Emily blush. "Well yeah, I know but most people don't take well to me going all psyche on them. Or they think I'm analysing them or something crazy." she muttered. "Like studying Psyche just naturally means that I'm a psychoanalyst, which is both stupid and dumb at the same time."

"Depends on the compliment I suppose. I can usually sift through bull- pretty well with my power, if there is genuine meaning behind it I'll-" actually come to think of it she was worse with real compliments than she was with fake ones. "Actually I'd probably deflect it." She admitted sheepishly. "Oh, you had a crazy bitch too? Was it your mother also?" She ventured.

"Er. I know that my radius isn't that big." She admitted. It was a little smaller, thank god. If it was any bigger It'd be a real nightmare.

Emily totally didn't shiver a little when their hands touched. She did not have a problem with physical interaction, nope nope. Alice's hand was just cold. That's why she hadn't been crazy about touching it. Yeah. That made sense.

Then something weird happened. She blinked. "Er. Do I just?" She reached out with the intent of accepting it.

"Eh, nasty I can deal with to be honest. Always find creepy worse. Just makes me feel......blegh." It wasn't really something she could describe in words so sounds of disgust would have to do. And Emily had a point, out bitching people was easy when you had the advantage of an accent that made you sound like a bond villain.

"Some people have weird f**king hang ups, screw 'em. If you want to talk about psyche stuff and it freaks them out, that says a lot about how insecure they are." Some people just needed to grow up, being uncomfortable about not knowing something was supremely stupid. "Still ironic that you'd be analysing them anyway without any of that stuff, so it's like doubling down on the stupid."

Ah the old deflect and distract method, a one Alice was intimately familiar with. It had been part of her own repertoire when she was still the awkward lesbian but a few girl friends later she'd decided being confident was just more fun. "Well that's good then dear because you can guarantee am I am taking the piss ninety percent of the time. Give or take a few points." But wait, what did she mean also? Unless Emily meant her own beef was with her mum, which was interesting. "No, fortunately mine is a grandparent. She is used to people saying yes to her so me saying know was apparently an issue."

Alice grinned at the shock reaction. It was always funny seeing how some reacted to it and Emily was no exception. "Yeah, click it. Should bring up a basic health bar and mini-map deal." She neglected some of the finer details, waiting for Emily to see them for herself. "But don't move your head too much to start with, could make you a little queasy since your not used to it." 

"Yeah, that makes sense. You mentioned your own crazy bitch relative." She snorted. "You don't seem too bad to me, cynical, but generally alright. It helps that you're a nerd, and you're pretty upfront about your intentions." Pot, kettle, black.

"That's exactly how I feel. That's part of why I'm not open with my power, people get all upset when they realise you get a glimpse into their shame." Shaking her head in annoyance she added. "What's worse is these are the people that have the F***** gall to even imply that anybody with a psychic power should walk around wearing some kind of identifier." She felt a little surge of anger at that particular memory. "Some people just seem to gather more dead brain cells than everyone else in the room, like a ******* idiot magnet." She seethed.

The sarcasm kind of brought her back to reality. Sarcasm she could deal with. She smiled a little to herself. "Same. If I bite your head off or call you a string of curse words, it's either in jest or affection." She replied with some snark.

"Oh really? my grandparents are practically sane compared to the witch of the west that is my mother." She chirped. She wasn't even super mad anymore, it was mostly just venom in her words, not rage.

Emily nodded gently before pressing the Y and blinking slowly as her perspective shifted and changed. She blinked slowly, what the hell? "Okay. This is..." She sort of got lost in thought.

As a member of the psychic squad she did understand, to a lesser extent since her's was by far less invasive but some people got really weird about it. "Always seemed to me like being mad because someone is looking at them. It's literally just a sense like any other and plenty of people use them to gain advantages in conversations." Alice hadn't ever really subscribed to the idea that she could train herself to better pick up on body language and stuff but it worked for some people so she wasn't going to start judging it.

Grinning at the idea of an identifier, "I usually just make the comparison to yellow stars and they usually shut up real quick." No one liked being likened to a nazi and while she wasn't going to accuse everyone of being one if the shoe fit, they deserved it.

Emily had the whole perfectly straight-faced bitch voice down and Alice was a fan. Too many of her friends were just too nice at times, it felt good to be British for a while. "Yeah, most of my family is alright or completely absent so it's at least only the one to deal with."

Bitch of Beyond has joined your Party

"Well that's a name and a half. Clearly my power has you pegged," she added with a sly smirk. Alice didn't control the names, or really understand them but for once it had worked out sooooo much in her favour. And the reaction? Priceless, exactly the level she expecting.

"So you'll first want to get oriented. Just practice looking around slowly and for god's sake try not to bob your head. Easiest way to hurl." One incident with on of the younger kids had taught her to be very careful to start with.

Emily nodded in agreement. "Oh yeah, for sure. There is something to dissect with people behaving that way." She thought about it. "The whole repressed feelings and rejection thing. Like the whole old stereotype of the closeted homosexual acting homophobic." She had sometimes wondered how much of that was true with people. She suspected it was definitely more people than not the idiom held true for.

She felt like high fiving Alice. "That's exactly what I do! It works most of the time. My one of my lecturer's tried to deflect it, but I could tell it shut him down internally pretty hard." She wondered if he had a crush on a student or something and didn't want people to know about it... It seemed like it was all the people with hidden shame that behaved that way, or that were up to something nefarious. After all, why protest if you've nothing to hide?

"Well that's something at least. My dad is cool, he's the one that got me into games to begin with. We play a monster hunting thing together online every now and then." She admitted. They tried to anyway, they both kind of sucked. Progress was hard.

She blinked a few times, examining her hud? casually. "Ooooh. You're name is cute, and appealing to your personality. That's for sure." Alice seemed like a mischievous cat to Emily and there was the whole Carrol connection there, so it totally worked. Emily snorted at her own name when she examined it.

She slowly adjusted to it. "I think you'd be surprised, I'm used to having a literal whole extra sense, I don't disorient that easily." She had admittedly when she first got her power, but she'd gone through this before. "Whoa, you were not joking. This is crazy." She had a goofy grin plastered across her lips. "Colourful hair and cool powers." She shook her head in amusement.

"Hell yeah, more people need to be harsh about it. Especially when they get so uncomfortable with the idea it might be right." Alice had always found that when people realised exactly what they were suggesting and how it had played out in the past it made them shut up. Usually it didn't change anything but hey, at least there was less stupid being spouted.

She'd never considered the idea of playing games with a family member, except maybe Serena, but she did know her mum didn't really get games. Sure, she hadn't ever tried to stop Alice playing them but she always had a bit of a resign outlook to them being played. Like they were a kids toy or something. "I've tried that one but it never really gelled with me, tend to prefer something a bit quicker or with more story. And the grind, oh god the grind."

Grinning at the obvious recognition of her own handle's origin, "Yeah, always had the comparison's growing up and it kind of stuck. Helps that the books are also pretty good." Lewis Carol certainly wrote well but more importantly to her, it was weird. Just, so different to anything else she'd read from that time.

"That's fair, I've just dealt with this before and cleaning sick off my shoes get old fast." Once was more than enough to make precautions but Emily didn't seem to be having too hard a time adjusting, "It's a package deal, can't be this cool without having some rough spots, but the real challenge is playing a game with two HUD's. Now that takes practice, reckon you can beat that lad with a little handicap?"

Emily was glad that she was finding so much common ground with Alice. Her relationship with Skye wasn't really founded so much on shared hobbies or thoughts as personality interest and a little admitted altruism on Emily's part. Wanting Skye to learn to like herself and stop wallowing in sadness and all that. Somehow she didn't think Alice would be suffering from problems like that, which amused her.

She nodded, she could understand. It was probably part of the reason that it took her and dad so long to literally get anywhere. But that was kinda part of the fun, she always had it to look forwards to with him, and that made her want to smile. She didn't, of course. It wouldn't do to randomly smile around Alice. Firstly, she might work out some of Emily's internal dialogue, secondly she might get funny ideas about Emily being attracted to her. "Clearly not for everyone."

Emily hadn't read a good book in ages. She had started reading initially when her powers created her sleeping issues, but after meeting with a nice art teacher she'd been encouraged to start drawing and painting more and as a result Emily had began practicing that as a result. "I'm surprised you do much reading." She teased.

Okay, it was at the very least highly distracting. "Er... Alice, I only barely won last time, there are so many people in here it's hard enough for me to concentrate as it is." Her attention was even more divided than normal.

Alice could do grind. She played enough MMO's and online games that she was more than familiar with the idea of slamming agaisnt a single challenge for that one single unlock or upgrade material but something about hunting giant monsters never really appealed. The game play loop was fun enough but she'd never found that thing that kept her invested in the world. That and frankly she couldn't get the obsession with the weird pun that infested that game. They were just plain annoying to her and the idea of hunting with one for days on end while she played? Not a chance.

Why wouldn't she read? Being obsessed with games didn't mean she'd have no other hobbies and when it came to story telling books were pretty unmatched. "Well, I'm a girl with many layers. Sure games compose like......sixty percent of them but there are some other things mixed in there." She even occasional went for a run when she felt guilty enough for neglecting training with Gawain/Maya. Like once a month but i was still in there.

"That's kind of the point. Being able to ignore the extra input when needed is how this works." She wasn't suggesting this to see another kid beat Emily, at least not entirely. If she could ignore the extra information and only focus on the important bits on the screen it might actually improve her play.

"Just think of it as set dressing. But I can make it easy for you," nudging the younger boy in front of her with her leg to get his attention, "I'm sure he would love to play with someone new wouldn't you kid?" The boy was small for his age, looking closer to ten than the twelve he actually was, and didn't have any outward signs of being a mutant other than slightly too large eyes. Sweet kid though, grinning and nodding his head at the idea of playing the scary girl.

Emily used to not have the patience for games with heavy grind when she was younger. A certain Japanese goliath of a franchise being the only notable exception to that rule. But come on, how could it not be the exception? However she'd found in recent years that games like that were much more palatable. It probably had something to do with the being up so late so often, she found something relaxing in repetitive gameplay loops.

Layers. Hah. "Like an onion?" She ventured with a quirked eyebrow.

Emily found that since she'd been hanging out with Alice the mood in the room had shifted a little. People had stopped noticing her so much, and the ones that had weren't put on edge nearly as much as they had been previously by her. It was strangely irritating.

She rolled her eyes and moved forwards to sit down. "alright, fine. You win."

She sat back down, picked up the controller and dove in. Alice was right dammit, the extra visual information was highly distracting. It was even more distracting than she had been by her own power. She wasn't as awful as she expected, but did none the less receive a spectacular thrashing at the hands of the kid.

Breaking out in a big smile at the recognition of the reference, "Damn right, sharp, bitter and liable to make you cry. Sounds like me." Emily was actually a nerd, sure little bit less obvious than Alice about it and maybe a little lacking in skill compared to her but she could always help her improve that, the main thing is she got Alice.

It was good she didn't have to insist further but Emily appeared willing to take the thrashing and in fairness to her, put up a decent fight to start with before the boy got his eye in and started to punish her mistakes hard. Good teaching moment for them both and it gave the budding gamer some confidence which he'd been lacking for a while. Alice might be a bitch but she did look after her own and the kid had grown on her after a few sessions at the mansion. For Emily, well she wasn't going to lie to herself, it was fun to watch her suck a little.

"Well, as fun as that was I think I'll give you a chance from now on," she laughed bringing up her own menu and kicking Emily from the party, shivering a little at the sensation of the sudden disentanglement before shifting her focus back to the screen. "Now if you just hold on a second I'm sure we've got one of the smash games somewhere and enough controls for some chaos."