Log: Matt and Maya: Flick of the wrist
May. 31st, 2021 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsBackdated to Monday, May 31st, 2021. Sometime in the afternoon.
Maya goes looking for an outlet to drain off some of her anger and runs into Matt in the gym.
Maya without her cochlear didn't sound right. Matt always found her easy to identify using his hearing because the little cochlear transmitter hearing aid thing behind her ears made a little sort of electrical noise when they were working.
It wasn't something most people would be able to pick up on, but it was something distinctly Maya to his ears. That's why, when he heard a heartbeat he didn't recognize come into the gym as he was working out, he paused to check. Sometimes, it paid to be paranoid.
"Can I help you?" he called, tucking a boxing gloved hand under his armpit to tug it off and grab water.
Maya had been focused on getting to the fast bags and working off some of the aggression that still plagued her. Normally she’d ask Kyle to do some warm-ups with her as well, but he had his days full right now with clean-up. It was the subtle shift of her powers in reaction to stimuli that warned her someone else was nearby.
She wasn’t entirely surprised to see Matt, even though she’d mostly talked to him in the journals. She knew of his love for boxing though, having spoken with him about it during early morning coffee runs.
You couldn’t be a lover of coffee in the mansion without meeting pretty much everyone at one time or another in the galley kitchen.
“Um, hi. So, I can’t actually hear a word you’re going to say if you’re wanting to say anything. Do you know ASL?”
"Ah, no," Matt replied automatically without thinking then held up a finger as he tugged his other glove off. The only ASL he knew was the middle finger. Not super useful. His phone was on a nearby bench though and after finding it, he enabled the voice-to-text note-taking program he used.
"Maya?," he asked, the phone repeating his words and he assumed showing them on the screen as well. "Ever see the movie 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil?"
"Of course," Maya replied, reading the words on the screen rather than trying to translate what he was saying from his mouth. "My Dad, Willy? He loved old Hollywood movies. We'd get popcorn every Sunday when he was around and watch whatever was on cable. Richard Pryor was the best."
"I'm Richard Pryor in this one," he grinned, his uncle's had liked those movies too, and really, they were classics for reason. "You're probably sick of this question, but how're you handling losing your cochlear?"
"Well, you are really, really pale," Maya replied with an answering smile after reading his words from the screen. "And, I don't know? I mean, I got them when I was pretty young and so I've never had to learn how to be without them. Even when I took them out, it was by choice. I'm liking the quiet? Reading lips isn't too bad, I kinda have an advantage there since my brain is mutant weird. I'm kinda looking forward to being that bitch to everyone who doesn't actually face me when they're talking to me, and they can't even be all sad at me because they're the basic bitches who can't accommodate."
"You mean I'm not black?" he faux gasped, touching his face in mock horror, a reversal of the movie scene.
Laughing, Matt liked that. "Always be a bitch when people are intentionally unaccommodating. But also remember that people are also unintentionally forgetful or have habits from knowing you with your cochlear. But you absolutely get accommodations for what you need. Mutant brains don't change that," because mutant powers didn't magically invalidate disability, even if they changed what accommodation was required.
"Yeah, I know. You and Sooraya would make a good tag team, she was always reminding me to give people a chance too."
It was less that and more what Laurie had said to him on the journals but harder than he preferred about how his powers made him not really blind. She wasn't the first to think that, but he still couldn't see the sun or his own reflection or a computer screen or any number of mundane things that sighted people took for granted. Hearing a heartbeat or being able to navigate by sonar didn't change that. "Yeah well... most individuals are trying to be decent, even if they fail at it. It's people in groups that tend to suck. And unintentional bias is a thing."
“I wouldn’t know about most. A few maybe? I mean, I don’t want to be an ass but you’re a white guy. You’re not going to notice all the ways in which people are shitty, even if you do get the anti-mutant and ableist bullshit.”
Maya had changed since coming to the school, therapy and a purpose had given her a perspective that she had missed as a young teenager. She knew that a lot of people cared and wanted to be better. The idea that most people did? That felt like fantasy thinking to her.
She was not wrong, "True," he agreed easily, "but I was also poor and my dad didn't finish high school. He was a professional boxer, albeit not a very successful one, trying to provide for his kid as best he could. And then he was murdered. I went into the system until I was taken in by my gay uncle's and my entire world turned upside down again for the third time in less than that many years. I'm not trying to compare, this isn't the tragedy Olympics. I got incredibly lucky in a lot of ways, and I am sure being white didn't hurt anything. But...yeah, most people are trying to be decent. How they define 'decency' might vary a lot. And they might suck at it. Trying to understand others and their differences is difficult for a lot of people. But very few are truly intentionally evil," the voice to text program had a difficult time keeping up as he spoke and he was forced to slow down. As a New Yorker, that annoyed him.
“You’re trying to relate to me, or get me to relate to you.”
Maya found that most times everyone was looking for something, whether that was a connection or power or just safety. She didn’t have a bead on Matt yet. Was he an idealist? Maybe.
“So, just a question. Would you like to learn ASL?”
Sure, the man was blind but ASL was physical, she could show him the movements easily enough through touch. It would certainly make conversations easier.
Head tilted to one side, Matt considered. He knew the answer, but could he learn it? There were deaf-blind people, so he assumed there was some way for them to communicate. "Sure," he agreed, "How? I mean...hand signals are one of those things my powers aren't...great at. Like facial expressions," he knew a middle finger, but then, that didn't usually take enhanced senses. Beyond that? It was often a crapshoot.
"It's called pro-tactile ASL, you'd need to be okay with us touching hands and arms but as long as you're good with that, it's not hard to learn."
It would also mean that Matt wouldn't have to carry around an annoying text-to-speech app on his phone just to talk to her, which she always found lacking at best. They were always only as good as the person programming them and a lot of time if you had an accent, or even just spoke too fast they would miss a lot of nuances.
Matt nodded, "Sure," he agreed, easily enough. He had doubts about how quickly he'd pick it up or how much he would understand, but they wouldn't know for sure until he tried. "After I shower though?"
"Of course, I'll be around whenever," Maya would have nodded toward the fast bags she'd been headed to when Matt started asking her questions but she paused at the last moment and explained it out loud, instead. "I was just headed to the fast bags to get my punch on, if you want to come grab me when you're done, I can help you out with some of the fingerspelling stuff to start with."
Maya goes looking for an outlet to drain off some of her anger and runs into Matt in the gym.
Maya without her cochlear didn't sound right. Matt always found her easy to identify using his hearing because the little cochlear transmitter hearing aid thing behind her ears made a little sort of electrical noise when they were working.
It wasn't something most people would be able to pick up on, but it was something distinctly Maya to his ears. That's why, when he heard a heartbeat he didn't recognize come into the gym as he was working out, he paused to check. Sometimes, it paid to be paranoid.
"Can I help you?" he called, tucking a boxing gloved hand under his armpit to tug it off and grab water.
Maya had been focused on getting to the fast bags and working off some of the aggression that still plagued her. Normally she’d ask Kyle to do some warm-ups with her as well, but he had his days full right now with clean-up. It was the subtle shift of her powers in reaction to stimuli that warned her someone else was nearby.
She wasn’t entirely surprised to see Matt, even though she’d mostly talked to him in the journals. She knew of his love for boxing though, having spoken with him about it during early morning coffee runs.
You couldn’t be a lover of coffee in the mansion without meeting pretty much everyone at one time or another in the galley kitchen.
“Um, hi. So, I can’t actually hear a word you’re going to say if you’re wanting to say anything. Do you know ASL?”
"Ah, no," Matt replied automatically without thinking then held up a finger as he tugged his other glove off. The only ASL he knew was the middle finger. Not super useful. His phone was on a nearby bench though and after finding it, he enabled the voice-to-text note-taking program he used.
"Maya?," he asked, the phone repeating his words and he assumed showing them on the screen as well. "Ever see the movie 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil?"
"Of course," Maya replied, reading the words on the screen rather than trying to translate what he was saying from his mouth. "My Dad, Willy? He loved old Hollywood movies. We'd get popcorn every Sunday when he was around and watch whatever was on cable. Richard Pryor was the best."
"I'm Richard Pryor in this one," he grinned, his uncle's had liked those movies too, and really, they were classics for reason. "You're probably sick of this question, but how're you handling losing your cochlear?"
"Well, you are really, really pale," Maya replied with an answering smile after reading his words from the screen. "And, I don't know? I mean, I got them when I was pretty young and so I've never had to learn how to be without them. Even when I took them out, it was by choice. I'm liking the quiet? Reading lips isn't too bad, I kinda have an advantage there since my brain is mutant weird. I'm kinda looking forward to being that bitch to everyone who doesn't actually face me when they're talking to me, and they can't even be all sad at me because they're the basic bitches who can't accommodate."
"You mean I'm not black?" he faux gasped, touching his face in mock horror, a reversal of the movie scene.
Laughing, Matt liked that. "Always be a bitch when people are intentionally unaccommodating. But also remember that people are also unintentionally forgetful or have habits from knowing you with your cochlear. But you absolutely get accommodations for what you need. Mutant brains don't change that," because mutant powers didn't magically invalidate disability, even if they changed what accommodation was required.
"Yeah, I know. You and Sooraya would make a good tag team, she was always reminding me to give people a chance too."
It was less that and more what Laurie had said to him on the journals but harder than he preferred about how his powers made him not really blind. She wasn't the first to think that, but he still couldn't see the sun or his own reflection or a computer screen or any number of mundane things that sighted people took for granted. Hearing a heartbeat or being able to navigate by sonar didn't change that. "Yeah well... most individuals are trying to be decent, even if they fail at it. It's people in groups that tend to suck. And unintentional bias is a thing."
“I wouldn’t know about most. A few maybe? I mean, I don’t want to be an ass but you’re a white guy. You’re not going to notice all the ways in which people are shitty, even if you do get the anti-mutant and ableist bullshit.”
Maya had changed since coming to the school, therapy and a purpose had given her a perspective that she had missed as a young teenager. She knew that a lot of people cared and wanted to be better. The idea that most people did? That felt like fantasy thinking to her.
She was not wrong, "True," he agreed easily, "but I was also poor and my dad didn't finish high school. He was a professional boxer, albeit not a very successful one, trying to provide for his kid as best he could. And then he was murdered. I went into the system until I was taken in by my gay uncle's and my entire world turned upside down again for the third time in less than that many years. I'm not trying to compare, this isn't the tragedy Olympics. I got incredibly lucky in a lot of ways, and I am sure being white didn't hurt anything. But...yeah, most people are trying to be decent. How they define 'decency' might vary a lot. And they might suck at it. Trying to understand others and their differences is difficult for a lot of people. But very few are truly intentionally evil," the voice to text program had a difficult time keeping up as he spoke and he was forced to slow down. As a New Yorker, that annoyed him.
“You’re trying to relate to me, or get me to relate to you.”
Maya found that most times everyone was looking for something, whether that was a connection or power or just safety. She didn’t have a bead on Matt yet. Was he an idealist? Maybe.
“So, just a question. Would you like to learn ASL?”
Sure, the man was blind but ASL was physical, she could show him the movements easily enough through touch. It would certainly make conversations easier.
Head tilted to one side, Matt considered. He knew the answer, but could he learn it? There were deaf-blind people, so he assumed there was some way for them to communicate. "Sure," he agreed, "How? I mean...hand signals are one of those things my powers aren't...great at. Like facial expressions," he knew a middle finger, but then, that didn't usually take enhanced senses. Beyond that? It was often a crapshoot.
"It's called pro-tactile ASL, you'd need to be okay with us touching hands and arms but as long as you're good with that, it's not hard to learn."
It would also mean that Matt wouldn't have to carry around an annoying text-to-speech app on his phone just to talk to her, which she always found lacking at best. They were always only as good as the person programming them and a lot of time if you had an accent, or even just spoke too fast they would miss a lot of nuances.
Matt nodded, "Sure," he agreed, easily enough. He had doubts about how quickly he'd pick it up or how much he would understand, but they wouldn't know for sure until he tried. "After I shower though?"
"Of course, I'll be around whenever," Maya would have nodded toward the fast bags she'd been headed to when Matt started asking her questions but she paused at the last moment and explained it out loud, instead. "I was just headed to the fast bags to get my punch on, if you want to come grab me when you're done, I can help you out with some of the fingerspelling stuff to start with."
