bottlebay | [voice], within the first week of October

[voice], within the first week of October

[You feel something reaching out and touching your mind... Poking it, actually, like a prodding finger. It withdraws and tries a softer, finer touch. That withdraws too, and there's a pause. Looks like Need can't get around her powerloss and covertly use peoples' senses/look into their minds just by using the pearl network. Unfortunate.

After a moment, Need allows her presence to bloom into the connection and make itself known. If you can gauge this kind of thing at all two things are immediately evident. One is that she's very old. Not tired, not fragile, but distant and distorted to the point where her mind doesn't really feel human. The other is that she's female. There's nothing stereotypically feminine there but it's very clear. She's something crushed into a tiny space a very long time ago and also: she/her.]

Someone always figures out how to make a teleson. [Telepathy via technology.] How far does this reach? Does it work between people who haven't met?

[Need is far more accustomed to speaking mind-to-mind than using anything else, so her "voice" has a particular quality to it that I'm gonna keep rendering as italics.]

Where I'm from it's possible to visit other realities, where things might be very different, and be fully embodied in them but one's actual body remains behind. The more difficult part is getting back to it. I wonder if that's happened here.

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[Agnes keeps her commentary closer to the actual 'speech' that most on the grumpearl network will find more familiar, but from her there's also something that doesn't quite feel human. Those receiving from her may feel almost a prickly sort of heat coming from the orb when her attention focuses back on Need.]

And here I thought the Beholding's prying eyes weren't a feature of this world. Close enough, elder. Don't try digging into my head again.

Something's always prying.

[a sigh-that's-not-a-sigh.]

Very well, child. I won't. Seems like a stronger connection is not required for these, anyway.

[and honestly Need does have respect for stated boundaries, even if she doesn't like when people put them up. If she ever regains mind magic somehow... she'll think about it. She regards what's presented with interest.]

Anything else?

[There is a bristle that runs through Agnes and into the connection at being called a child. Righteous indignation flavors the tone of her mental voice. ~~She used to be a goddess, a messiah, an apocalypse.~~]

No, that is all, specter.

[There's something like a faint metallic taste that can be identified, if considered, as distant amusement.]

Of course. Who are you?

Agnes. My name is Agnes, and I'm one of the newer arrivals.

[Same batch as Need, in fact. She projects the mental image of her new nine-tailed form, with a clarity that doesn't quite come from experience with telepathy, but from a mind long open to that which isn't mundane.]

[Definitely interesting.]

A fox. You're one of the ones who isn't stuck with something tiny, I see. Congratulations, Agnes.

[Maybe a slight pause before the name. Need's not great with them. At some point she will probably refer to Agnes as the tall fox with all the tails.]

'Need' does well enough as a name for me. I'm swords.

[Self deprecating and the amusement is stronger and much easier to read. Need shares an image of a Doublade. A different Doublade that she's seen. She tends to feel disconnected from her new body and it would take longer to construct the kind of image Agnes has.]

And how do you find that suits you, being multiple swords?

[Her turn to leach amusement into the mental connection. It is one of the odder forms of life she's encountered here.]

It's absurd. If I don't keep a sword sheathed in that wall crest I have to pull it after me by hand. And why do I have to eat and sleep?

[Need shares a sketchy kind of image of a sword, a non-Pokemon one, laid on a bed with the hilt on the pillow. It's been tucked in.]

I'm not upset about it but it is fairly ridiculous. Could be worse, I suppose.

[She thinks she'd struggle more as something with facial expressions and breathing and a mouth, and legs. Doublade has far more sensory information and mobility going on than she's used to but not as much as more animal-like Pokemon.]

[This mind might not be what Need was expecting.

One thing is quickly apparent: this one was never human. It's just a sense, the shape of the mind. It was human enough; it's clear the owner has thoughts and feelings instead of just being an instinct-driven animal.

But there's one startling difference-- a complete lack of a soul. Whether or not Need figures out the exact nature of it may depend on her experience with souls and magic. But there's a hollowness there, like a pumpkin with the innards carved out but the rind left intact. Where others might have 'love' or 'empathy', there's nothing--

And then the mental sense of Flowey slamming the door on that before Need can look any further. He hates the Grumpearl. This crap always happens when he dares to let his guard down even for a second.]

Lady-- [He doesn't know why he said that. This person seems like a woman? God, the Grumpearl is weird and he HAAATES it.] --if I ever find you, I'm going to teach you an important lesson about privacy. Ever heard of it?

It could always be worse. I've been bemoaning the loss of thumbs, but at least I still have most of the body parts that matter to me.

[Eyes, teeth, the ability to immolate her foes with little effort.]

[Upon contact, this mind—which at the first brush felt almost pliable, its natural defenses rendered weak by weariness and frayed nerves—turns prickly, like the raised hackles of a cat.]

Uh, can I help you?

[The words are spoken aloud rather than purely thought, but a vague impression of her is sent through the psychic connection still between them: young, stubborn, girl with a question mark at the end. Unlike Need, she seems tired beyond her years, but she still finds it in herself to listen to Need's theory and respond (however rudely).]

Maybe, maybe not. Lemme know if you ever figure it out, 'cause you'd be the first.

As for your questions: you tell me. Pretty sure I'd remember meeting some creepy old lady who gets her kicks from poking around in randos' heads.

[Never mind that everyone does some amount of poking around once they start using a Grumpearl; she gets the sense that Need has done this before and was trying to dig around on purpose.]

[There's an unusual shiver in response. A prickling, like feathers standing on end. The Grumpearls are always somewhat intrusive by their nature, but this sudden contact from someone he doesn't know is different. Like a tiny mouse trying to slip through a crack in a door.

When she speaks, the tension settles slightly. It must be one of the new arrivals.

Still, there's something odd about this.]

It's not unlike telephones or speaking on an online form, if those words hold any meaning to you. You can contact individuals, or you can make public messages. It's not quite the same as transporting one's consciousness to another plane of existence.

Edited 2025-10-12 16:36 (UTC)

[As a psychic-type, Anasui is well in tune with the Grumpearls and knows what they're about. However, it doesn't mean he likes them, and likes it even less when he feels what clearly is something needling at him. As soon as Need connects herself to the network properly, Anasui send the equivalent of a psychic nip to the fingers back to Need, almost like a bird pecking. Poke the ratite and you get the beak.

After the small shock, Anasui opens himself to the connection in the same way Need does. Anasui's an ordinary human his mid-twenties. He's male right now but has been back and forth with changing pronouns again. And more importantly, he's pretty annoyed that someone was trying to get into his mind.]

To answer your questions: Far. Yes. And highly unlikely.

...Having fun playing with the pearl?

[Ooooh. Fascinating! Need's no stranger to emotional blunting. A lot of her has worn away over time, and many emotions are only properly felt secondhand. This reminds her of the Sword that Sings, which no longer has a conscious mind at all. That doesn't mean it's dead or inactive, of course. Interesting comparison.]

Once or twice, I think. I take it you're in favor.

[Dry resignation, but no guilt. ...In all honesty, of the beings like her in her canon Need is the most concerned with psychic ethics. It gets bad in there.]

Give me a few decades to work on it and I'll get back to you.

[She says that with a faint, distorted confidence, like she really does believe she can figure it out eventually. She does think that, actually. There are people who learn faster than Need does, but she's thorough.]

Hah. That's fair. It wasn't my intention but, very well, I won't do it again.

[Establishing psychic contact with someone unfamiliar in Velgarth takes more effort and reaching past the surface than is required with the Grumpearls. Need considers saying this and decides against it. also, it wasn't her intention to be noticed. ]

It's for your own good. If you spent too long in there, you'd never sleep again. Hee hee hee.

[Oh, just as a little treat, Flowey will attempt to project the feeling of dying a slow, agonizing death into Need's mind-- and it is from experience.]

[Ah. He wouldn't know. Death, no matter how painful or slow or filled with despair, has no power to shock or horrify Need - it can make her angry, it can galvanize her into action, but this creature isn't part of her remit and anyway there's nothing for her to do. Instead, like turning a hand over to show her palm, she shows a flash of sympathy.]

Sorry that happened to you, kid.

[It's not even extravagant pity. Genuinely it's a yeah, that sucks, doesn't it? Need's job has involved sharing in such moments for a very long time.]

Wanna see mine, or would you feel insulted by the comparison?

[Need pauses.]

I was talking about two separate ideas, kid. People make different versions of telesons all the time. Cross-reality jaunts are a lot harder and more niche.

Wasn't your intention, huh? I find that hard to believe. Seemed to me like you've done this before... Felt like it, too.

[A flicker of uncertainty. Unless she misread it...?]

[Well, that wasn't what he was expecting. He gives the mental sense of slumping over in disappointment.]

Whatever. [The only thing that stops him from getting mad is that she doesn't show overwhelming pity. Yeah, it did suck. But that was a while ago. He's over it. Mostly.] Sure. What type of messed up thing happened to you?

[ Being a psychic type often means being distinctively aware when the "network" buzzes even when not directly in contact with the pearl itself, she avoids a visual though there's something very displaced about what resonates back. For her part, she can tell, this sensation... it's nothing personal, exactly, but more of a curiosity, but that doesn't quite dampen the radiating annoyance she returns, at the fact that someone was trying to intentionally manipulate something they didn't quite have a grasp of.

Funny, how she'd relegated curious minds to children, but this felt very much the opposite. So much so that she's not certain how to deal with the concept, which in turn makes her curious to her own chagrin. Not "human", sure, but not anything else familiar, either. Granted, she's also something a bit different, as much as she's folded up into this Pokémon concept. ]

Tch... do you mind? Some of your more obvious questions should be answered by now.

[Kid.

Kid.

He is nineteen years old! Nearly an adult... but to his credit, he forces such thoughts to the back of his mind. This is an interesting topic, after all.]

That's sensible enough. I imagine it would be rather power or resource intensive to cross the seams of reality. The closest we ever got was traversing the world of the collective unconsciousness and individual pockets of distortion, and we still had our physical bodies there.

[Need allows a spark of annoyance to show, followed by a faint metallic taste of amusement, partly at herself for being annoyed. Those are surface feelings. Under them she is a watchful flatness, almost emptiness. She isn't missing home, grieving anyone's absence, worrying, frustrated, or dysphoric about being a strange creature, at least not in any of the usual ways. There's something in the depths, but it's way down there.]

I'm making do. You have a comment? About manners, is it?

[More shallow surface feelings: resignation, receptiveness. Need's canon has some pretty abysmal morals when it comes to psychic powers and she's part of that but she does respect boundaries and consent more than her fellows.]

[Need's emotions are faded and skewed, but she's experiencing a certain envy. In the normal course of things her Mind Gifts have been honed and stretched over centuries, to a frankly broken degree. Now? Doublade are two entities united by a telepathic bond, so she doesn't have nothing, but she's just not Psychic type.

She certainly is curious, in a detached, unhurried way, watching the displeasure and the interest.]

I also wanted to see how many people I can speak to independently at the same time. Looks like that's 'two'. Ah, well. At least I can still multitask a bit.

Different realities or worlds tend to have their own rules. Sometimes a collection of them will share some and it's relatively easy to move between them. Going beyond that is always harder.

The way we worked it out on Velgarth creates a body from matter in the other reality that acts as a traveler's body. It's some tricky business but with our rules and those we tried it with, it's more possible than physical relocation. You can see why it came to mind.

[Anasui's done lots of tests studying the pearls and, being a psychic type, he's pretty attuned to them. He can feel what lies beyond surface emotions quite easily. Which is why he's so surprised there's... not much to sense under surface feelings. If Anasui wasn't so sure of himself, he'd assume that Need was just masking her innermost feelings.

The emptiness is... curious.]

Hmph. Less about manners, more about decency. People don't like having their thoughts pried out, any more than they like having their fingers removed. Those aren't for sharing.

[Anasui can't fault her for being curious but he dislikes her reactions. Resignation? Receptiveness? It's almost like she's a child ready to hear the lecture from a parent because they know they've done something wrong. While the feelings aren't inherently bad (he can definitely relate), they do suggest she's been caught before. She's been digging in heads before.]

What are you? [Anasui, you can't just ask that-]

Normally I give people context first. Let's just say I knew it had to hurt and not be over too quickly.

[Need is way too casual about showing this to people. There is no malice in doing so, no expectation of sympathy; she can only think of it as a traumatic experience if she imagines it happening to someone else, and otherwise it's... just something of interest. The memory has a worn, weathered aspect, as if seen through transparent veils.

The blade of a sword heated until it glowed white, thrust into a lung. Delicate tissues boil up the trachea, into the throat and mouth. The body, however worn and battered it is, collapses and chokes, struggles as it has so many times before, not understanding the futility of it. Conscious thought and awareness evaporates, aside from, ah, determination. Pain that accelerates into something else entirely and hovers, twisting like smoke, and then the fading, and then the drop.

Something's torn away. What's left lodges and sees nothing, hears nothing, smells and tastes nothing, feels nothing, has nothing to move with, nothing to breathe with, settles and is nothing nothing nothing but waiting. Need closes it there.]

And that just went on for a while. Not recommended, but I've seen worse deaths.

[Need is active, she thinks and observes quite a bit and even finds an odd beauty in people. But she's calm and patient in a way that suggests certain things that make calmness and patience difficult for many people either aren't there, or have been eroded severely.

Something she isn't is contrite. She doesn't feel she's attempted anything wrong. More like she's choosing longer-hemmed skirts to meet with someone scandalized by ankles. In Velgarth anything an "angel" does to someone's mind, including altering memories or making themselves too beloved to live without, is considered acceptable. When someone objects to just about any of the others, they always quickly end up okay with it, or forgetting entirely.

...the fact that Need sighs and goes fine, I won't and doesn't rewrite how people feel ironically means many people are suspicious of her and find her sketchy.]

I'm a spirit in a sword. Two swords, I suppose. [Amused] If you're asking about before, I was a spirit in one sword. The difference is these are mobile and have eyes.

So, in other words, it's a temporary vessel that lets you interact with that world...

[Fascinating. Very science fiction in a way, and yet...]

What becomes of the original body? Is it merely unconscious during that time?

[I always seem to make much of this crossover mechanic that happened once in canon lol.]

That's right. Though I think it might last a good while. The original body seems to be dreaming and if things take too long someone has to syringe broth into its throat and wipe its rump, or it'll waste away. And you need someone protecting their bodies or something else could slip in, but if they do too good a job, the original can't get back.

There was a kind of fad for this once, if you can imagine.

[The reaction might not be what Need expects. It's not quite empathy, more like... the shadow of it. The hole in his chest where it would have been if he still had his soul. Recognition, and a strange vague feeling of camaraderie.]

You too, huh?

[The feeling he showed Need before was a scrap of the whole. Flowey offers the whole memory with the casualness of handing someone a business card:

Blades shoved through him, his fur burned off with torches, bullets piercing through his body. It's a death by mob violence, a death by a thousand cuts but all of them would have and should have killed a lesser being. Within his fingertips is the power to kill them all, and someone else in his mind begs him to do so, to defend himself, to not let them both die.

But instead, he turns around and walks away. His body should be broken a thousand times over. The only thing that keeps him moving is that power, that determination. He makes it back past the barrier, back home, and everything goes white.

He closes it there. But the hollowness Need may have seen earlier remains. He died, that's for certain-- and he's still here. But much of him didn't make it.]

Handling more than that would just be annoying, anyway...

[ A way of acknowledging, though her own curiosity for further discussion wins out if only because 'Need' seems to have a calmer disposition than most. And distracts away from any other issues she is currently avoiding. ]

Were you able to do more than that before?

[It is an unusual reaction, but she wasn't expecting empathy. Need watches with interest. She wants to say Noble, but stupid and decides that that comment might be taken as antagonistic; she's not here to apologize, she's just also not out to make impressions worse. However this creature's mind works, armchair direction is rarely welcome.

Flowey and her are not, to her reckoning, that similar, but that's because in Velgarth there are several ways people can end up remaining attached to the world after they die, changing in the process, and hers was pretty distinct. Part of the reason Need's so distant and strange is how long she's been active. Emotions not related to her purpose have worn down. She's unwilling to talk about her emotions but internally would say she doesn't feel real love because grief has become a fleeting melancholy.

With a rueful, self-deprecating sympathy and no passion to speak of:]

Wretched, isn't it? I couldn't take it when someone I knew used my name, so I had to keep telling people to forget it and call me Need. Now I've forgotten it myself, and doesn't that just sound like senility.

I'd gotten pretty good at it over the years. Thought of it as 'splitting my focus'.

[She has a certain dull pride, but thinks it would be pointless boasting to say much more, especially if at the moment she can't. Need... doesn't really believe anything, being a Pokemon included, is permanent.]

Having an easy-to-use communication system makes that less useful, admittedly. Can you connect to people without using these pearls?

[In that way, they're similar. Anasui rarely feels remorse for anything he does, though he is trying to make an effort to try be more considerate to others. It's difficult when you don't understand though, whether it be the bubble of personal space or the privacy of ones' own thoughts. Anasui supposes it must be different where Need is from but he doesn't particularly like it.

Honestly, it seems like it must be a difficult way to live. How does anyone get anything done where she's from asides from amassing more power?

Thoughts for someone who actually knew what was going on in Velgarth, and not someone like Anasui who isn't thinking about it.]

I see... A spirit with the power to probe minds. You sound like a Stand. [This is a thought that Anasui absolutely doesn't elaborate on, but the connection to power is evident from Anasui's thoughts.]

What exactly are you looking for in people's brains at the moment?

Edited 2025-10-28 08:25 (UTC)

Ah. Possession.

[A ripple of discomfort cuts through his thoughts. The robbing of one's form and agency hits a bit close to home.]

It all seems rather complicated, both for the one traversing realities and those tasked with upkeep. The risk factor alone seems incredibly high, yet I suppose that hasn't stopped other fads from sweeping a nation.

Oh?

[ Her own curiosity again, she'd been so focused on trying to keep others 'out' that she hadn't considered more practical uses just yet. Even as she considers the words, she begins to think about how that might be accomplished. Intriguing... ]

Unfortunately, I don't need to be intentionally holding onto it for it to activate if that's what you mean... my interaction with it is from a side effect of being 'psychic'. That said, it might be possible to create a similar effect privately if needed. I simply hadn't considered the use of that before.

[ Ironically, this conversation might inspire her a little later on a quest where talking out loud would be better avoided... ]

You said it, not me! Hee hee.

[He hasn't forgotten his old name yet... but he doesn't think he could go back to using it any time soon, even if he had a small measure of reconciliation with it.]

'Flowey' for me. Sounded innocent, unassuming... [... and he's not good at names. And also, his old one was so steeped in meaning that he liked having a name that doesn't really mean anything at all.]

... you're REALLY old, aren't you? Some might say immortal, even.

I'm probably going to forget that a few times. It's the memory going, you see.

[not so much that as Need is also bad at names. She tends to refer to people with really uncreative nicknames instead. Including calling a catgirl "kitten". It has the additional effect of keeping them at a bit further of a remove.

Swords can't sigh, Need included, but there's a sense that she would have here.]

I hate that word. For one, I'm very much dead and for two, it's just so arrogant.

[Not that Need isn't arrogant herself. She's very sure and confident, it's just that the caution and her aversion to boasting make it less obvious.]

And have you got a better one? It doesn't seem like you're going to die again that easily. [And neither will he, even though he's far weaker than she is.] 'Dead' usually implies shutting up, and 'undead' makes it sound like you're going to be groaning and trying to eat brains.

Usually for you! Try 'spirit'. I was already ghost-type before I got here.

['guardian spirit' and 'angel' are more specific but she's definitely not using those. Also also: normally she'd cheerfully admit that while she's hard to put down it absolutely is possible. That seems like pointless bravado considering the circumstances and how much less power she has here.]

Or spirit-sword works, if you feel the need for precision. Lykeblade. Kalyke, even, if you want to say the same thing in a different language.

[the connotations there are also something like 'dead-sword'.]

Spirit, huh? [He knows someone kind of like that, now. They probably would've liked being in a sword... or maybe a particularly ornate dagger.] Sounds like you got the better of it. I was a stupid flower.

So you weren't 'psychic' before. Did you get any training in it when you came?

[Need is well aware of the trouble caused by uncontrolled Mind gifts and is immediately concerned. ...She is a teacher in it but isn't going to immediately volunteer.]

... No. [ It might be that she's too stubborn to ask for that, or too used to figuring things out her own way, but she continues. ]

Mostly because I had arrived here in a different form to begin with, so mostly it just seemed like something I should figure out to adapt to myself.

[ And there's probably just a lack of... trust toward most others that's not easy to shake. ]

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[voice], within the first week of October

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sorry, work ate me!

sorry, work ate me!

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all good! No need to worry!

cw bad death

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cw bad death as well

no worries, me too...

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why does capitalism etc

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