[luckily, ash doesn't expect sympathy, doesn't expect his pain to mean anything to anyone except kieran. he's still angry, but he's calm, visibly reining himself in from the yelling he'd really like to be doing to mere snappishness]

That is some ridiculous bullshit, Terezi. You don't even know what this Talent does here, do you? Let me tell you, it's not much. And if you're that afraid of yourself, or what's in other people's heads, or whatever it is you're afraid of, then maybe you need to talk to your mother. Who is right there, waiting and worried. Don't use it for anything else if it bothers you, but don't give me a line about how it's not right. It's a tool, and a lousy one, at that. It's not a gun or a sword or even a table knife, this is the dullest spoon of telepathy. I can barely even talk back to her.