meta-human/mutant name : Pathos
Whoever said you could never have too much information didn’t have it shoved down their cerebral cortex by force. Kadence is a unique kind of telepath. her abilities have a narrow branch in which they function. She has dubbed herself an Empath for lack of proper term to describe her abilities. Emotions are a projection. They are loud and obtrusive and most of the time you don’t need to have a mutant ability to have a general idea of how someone is feeling. Kadence doesn’t have the ability to enter someone’s mind like a standard telepath instead it is like she has an added sense. a sixth sense but less sci-fi.
Science behind it: Hearing is that sense by which we distinguish sound. Sight is the sense in which we distinguish objects, our surroundings, and our relation to them. Feeling is the sense in which we distinguish the different qualities of various bodies, i.e. hot or cold. Smell is how we distinguish various odours. Taste enables us to make a proper distinction in the choice of our food.
Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others. The emotion itself is inaccurate and based off of our own sense of self and understanding. Kadence’s is beyond this. It is the ability to not only understand but to actually feel the same as those around her. Her brain has a unique formation of brain cells that controls the intake of this new sense. Much like your sight’s information is interrupted by your occipital lobe after traveling through the thalamus. The overload of information upon this new ability developing when kady is a young adult has caused insurmountable strain on her mind.
All information passes through the Thalamus but the intake of information from this new sense is too much for her under developed thalamus to organize. The brain is constantly bettering itself and after time, exposure, and controlled use of her abilities that part of her brain grows to accommodate the new information.
The part of her brain that formed/activated to control her new sense has also garnered her a few more perks. Emotions are pliable and if you add the right touch to it, then you can manipulate emotions.
~comic book science using real science words :)
She can’t see the tangible thoughts that go along with the emotions so she uses body language and the direction of the conversation to grasp more insight.
{in her early years} An infant trying to learn how to utilize and process the information of the five senses is often irritable and over stimulated. Kadence's early years are very reminiscent of that state of being. Her mood volatile, unpredictable and her sense of self easily manipulated by those around her. The proper neurone connections were not formed to process the new information flooding her brain so it often short circuited her reason, emotional stability, and caused her great discomfort.
{effect on non-mutants/metas} Kadence can project her emotions onto those around her. Causing mass hysteria or clam depending on her state of mind. With control this ability also garners her a manipulative form of control over whomever she uses it. Unproven but it is suspected the reason why this form of control doesn't work on those with any form of ability is due to their added mental facilities to accommodate the control over their gifts.
{advanced ability} Being susceptible to influence or falling victim to already present emotions are two very different things though. Kadence on any one she opposes can either heighten already existing emotions, causing insurmountable grief, or berserker worthy rage for example. She can also cause a state of zen or emotional numbness. Some say this lack of emotions is closer to being a zombie then zen but it has its uses. Both these abilities are very useful but they require an insane amount of focus and emotional stability on Kadence's side that she rarely has. Which makes these strong offensive hard to utilize without back up.
