#path verse meta

[wildfaewhump]

How do recogs work?

recogs (re-cognition, as in redoing one's cognition/thinking) are mind wipes! one (or more) class-A paths is used to enter the victim's mind and destroy or bury whichever memories the class-A is directed to target. Recogs are most commonly used on other paths, though anyone can be recogged, and paths subjected to multiple recogs are known within the agencies to be less and less reliable the more recogs they undergo. recogs inflict immense mental and eventually physical damage on the brain, often permanent, and paths who suffer multiple recogs usually have a markedly shorter lifespan. Whether this is because unusable paths are euthanized to avoid draining agency resources or whether the brain damage would shorten their natural lifespan is not a subject that has been studied.

[wildfaewhump]

okay but i feel like the tasers would be so much worse for class-g paths. not only do they have to deal with the pain from the tasers themselves, but the echoes of hundreds of other paths' pain in different places. like YIKES but also 👀 👀

YEP

Ezra's lucky he's a class-J 😌 getting to keep his defiance really is a luxury that very few Paths are able to maintain. As terrible as what he went through was, he only had to experience it once,from one perspective, in one set of memories. Class-Gs are constantly assaulted by not only their own pain and exhaustion, but the manifold feelings of everyone who has broken before them.

[wildfaewhump]

Are class J paths able to use their telekinetic powers on liquid? If so, how does it work - is it more like applying force to shove the water somehow, or would they be capable of finer movements with it?

they can, as long as they can see the boundaries of the liquid! It gets harder, for instance, to scoop a portion of water out of a lake or other body of water, but taking water out of a glass is easier. it’s about conceptualizing the item as a whole, and water is more difficult to do that with but not impossible!

[wildfaewhump]

Does the Path gene also determine what class they are? Like, do the tests show what class they are at birth or do they have to wait to see what abilities show up as they age? Additionally, have there ever been people that were clocked as having the Path gene, but never seemed to develop the associated abilities despite this?

the tests just determine the presence or absence of the gene! Path abilities are present from birth; it’s often difficult to tell right away what a given Path child is reading, but once they’re old enough to talk figuring out their class is fairly quick.

presence of the gene means that the person carrying it is legally a Path; in the eyes of the law, there is no such thing as a person who carries the Path gene but does not present Path abilities; however each Path’s individual strength in their abilities varies. officially, the lowest recorded ability level is a barely-there reading.

[wildfaewhump]

hey i wanna make a Class A OC but is there any info u can give me to help me portray it correctly? spare some info about how Class A’s generally work in agencies? More specifically, what is mandatory/very important knowledge that a Class A OC would have to incorporate to make sense in the world?

hi! i'm super stoked to see what you create!!

all agency Paths are kept in 'cubbies' when not working under a handler's direct supervision; these cubbies are 7x7x7, with light grey padded walls, ceiling, and floor. there's no door handle on the inside of the cubbies, and no furniture; the padding is considered sufficient for the Paths to sleep. Paths don't leave their cubby without their handler, and are only allowed to have their blindfolds off when they're in their cubbies.

class-As are the agencies' most valuable assets. they can do everything a class-E and class-C can do, and more.

a class-A can be expected to participate in interrogations and 'retrieving' testimony from reluctant witnesses when working with law enforcement. with clients in the private sector, anything goes! perhaps a pair of overbearing parents want their child's mind changed on where they're going to college; or someone wants to take away someone else's memories of a certain event; or a business partner wants to engineer their their partner's sudden retirement - if you can think of a scenario where someone might need to know what was in another person's head, or change their minds or their memories, a class-A can be hired to do it!

handlers guide their Paths, seeing as they are blindfolded; they are often (but not always) the only ones who speak directly to the Path. the general public is afraid of Paths, and many believe that Paths have more powers than they truly do. a particularly common belief is that Paths can steal a person's soul via direct eye contact.

hit me up if you have any other questions!!

[wildfaewhump]

if a path is taken to an agency as a child, are they named by the agency, the parents, or not given a name?

if the parents get a birth certificate issued before the child is tested and found to be a Path, the agencies generally keep the name for convenience's sake; if not, the Path is given a random name from a big database and the birth certificate is issued to the agency.

[wildfaewhump]

are class-A paths often swapped around between handlers often? if they're in short supply and can't be assigned to a handler that's a licensed therapist, would they be sent around to various jobs with different handlers, or is having a well-trained handler assigned to them important because of how "dangerous" class-As are (similar to how Js have a single handler)? -drh

there is usually more demand than supply for class-As, yeah; they get used for far more than the """ therapy""" the agencies offer. getting to be a handler for a class-A (or more than one!) is regarded as the highest status within the handler's inner rankings; the big bucks and weight to throw around go to them. once handler's get their class-A, then, they're usually reluctant to part with them, and do their best to be thatPath's handler for as long as possible.

for the lost part, Paths stick with one handler in the long term; agencies have found that it leads to greater productivity in Paths due to the sense of security a steady handler gives them, so handlers generally work with more than one Path but each Path primarily works with only one handler.

[wildfaewhump]

what determines if someone is or isn't going to be born a path? are they just born like that?

it's a random genetic mutation! anyone in the world could be born with it; there's no way to predict it. there have been scandals when public figure-type families ended up with a Path in the family; usually they break when the family gets caught out trying to conceal the fact and the Path is eventually discovered.