Casey

Shocky, what's all this Dream Event business?

Basically, Casey is going to get into her roommate's stash of drugged up lollipops - green and yellow ones in particular. This means she'll fall asleep with a mouthful of candy and be having some pretty vivid dreams, and her already potent psychic powers will be increased tenfold.

Minutes after falling asleep, her mind will reach out and connect with others, weaving everyone's subconscious together. Shenanigans ensue.

How does that even work? What kind of dreams are we having?

Basically, your character goes about their normal dreams. But something's a little off. They might notice a door or a hallway or hole or something. If they choose to go through it, they'll end up in Casey's dream, which will be acting as a hub of sorts. There are plenty of doorways to everyone else's dreams in here, so feel free to pop in on other people!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

Skull Kid has been taking a few drugs of his own, and his own dreams are going to be pretty disturbing and powerful enough that some creepiness might find its way into everyone else's dreams, too. This is completely optional, and how much his dreams influence your character's is entirely up to you.

Can our characters dream about other characters?

Sure, why not. But the minute the 'real' character comes into the dream, the dream copy will disappear.

Is dream logic allowed?

YES. Maybe your character flies in their dreams, or just happen to know things (no metagaming the waking world, but say they know exactly what's in a mysterious box in their dream or something), or their hands suddenly turn to jello. Anything goes.

My character's a dark type/ghost type/robot/someone with a weird sleeping pattern! Can I still play?

Of course! We'll just say the yellow lollipops were enough to take Casey's psychic power to rule-breaking levels and things that are normally immune to it get sucked in too. She'll also be sleeping a full 24 hours (not much of a stretch), leaving plenty of time for people with any kind of sleeping pattern to join in.

Will my character remember their dream?

Totally up to you.

So what will be happening in the waking world during all of this?

Business as usual. People more attuned to psychic shenanigans might feel a little dizzy or have mild hallucinations here and there, but nothing debilitating. Casey will also be teleporting all over the place, upside down, on the ceiling, several times per hour. Weird.

Out-of-Character Information

Name: Shocky
Are you over 15?: Yes
Time Zone: Mountain
Personal Journal: tindercylinder
Reliable Method of Contact: shockrageous AT gmail DOT com
Tegaki: I haven't touched that in ages
Anything Else?: Nah

In-Character Information

Name: Casey
Game/Series: Pokemon
Teacher/Student/Other: Student
Canon Point: Present day?! WHO CARES
Age: She'll never tell! But if/when she tries out a human form it'll look about 15.
Grade Level/Class Taught/Job: Freshman/Professional Slacker
Dorm or Living Arrangement: Dorm

Personality: The Abra line is pretty bright, and Casey is no exception. Unfortunately, her high intelligence combined with her ability to read minds leaves little room for surprises in her life, so she gets bored really easily. The trouble with boredom is that she's the kind to go out looking for extra stimulation, and this leads to a lot of reckless behaviour and blatant disregard for others. Most often this comes out in the form of purposefully causing high-stress situations to see how other people react, because while she can read minds, she can't predict the future; the fact that humans can be so varied in how they act in certain situations makes it kind of fun to see if she can find patterns and whether or not she can judge who will do what in advance.

While people are fascinating in that regard, she doesn't care much for their rules of social conduct. Privacy and personal space? Probably a purely human concept, and as a Pokemon, it doesn't apply to her. She will read any mind and teleport onto any head she damn well pleases. She's not arrogant enough to think she's above the rules or anything, it's just that they don't connect with her. If someone actually does take the time to explain to her why she should or shouldn't do something, and the reason makes sense to her, she'll gladly adjust her behaviour accordingly around that person. If someone just says "CUT IT OUT" with no real reason, she's not going to be inclined to listen. They're not her trainer or anything, who cares.

While she might not connect emotionally with other people, that doesn't stop her from having emotions of her own. They might not be on the same level as humans, and maybe most things don't evoke much of an emotional response due to her lack of attachment to anything, but they're there. She gets angry when people talk down to her, or expect her to follow their stupid rules without giving her a good reason, or when she makes a mistake that makes her look dumb. Her "angry outbursts" usually consist of little more than throwing something at the person upsetting her and/or teleporting away, since she doesn't see a reason why she should stick around when things aren't fun for her. These are usually followed by a period of sullen sulking (or just more sleep), but after half an hour or so she's back to looking for entertainment. Angst is boring anyway.

The kind of things Casey gets excited over are, as mentioned, scenarios that keep her guessing. She absolutely adores dark- and ghost-type Pokemon because she can't see outright what they're thinking, so she has to put their words and their actions together and compare them to see if she can tell just how honest they're being. It's like a big game to her, and that's awesome! Unfortunately, not being able to get into their heads means she has to expend actual physical energy on things like talking, and frankly that is just exhausting.

Yeah, Casey is incredibly lazy. Abras sleep most of the day to save all their energy for psychic powers, sure, but this one takes it to the next level. Why take even the smallest step when she can teleport? Why lift her hand when she can levitate the things she need? Why even form complete sentences when a few words can get the point across just as well? If she can get away without making any effort at all, then damn it, she is going to be the laziest thing in the world.

Backstory: Anyone who's ever tried to catch an Abra knows that it takes a lot of luck to throw a ball at it before it teleports away, and even more for it not to escape. Many people bypass this by just spending enough money on Game Corner tokens and/or gambling until they can afford to get one as a prize. Casey was one of these Abras, and so one day she went home with a man from Celadon, who immediately got to work training her.

Oh, no. Not for battles. He was teaching her to gamble.

This man had a plan: exploit the Abra's psychic powers to win at the card games every time. Casey agreed, because hey, this was her new trainer and Pokemon were supposed to obey them or something. That was just the way of things. So for a few weeks, she helped this guy cheat and get rich, positioned on the roof of the Game Corner so nobody could see her and get suspicious (people got suspicious anyway, but they couldn't prove anything). You'd think a gambling facility that gives away cheating devices would have some kind of psychic inhibitors in place, but I digress.

Anyway, this was all well and dandy for the first little while, but OH MY GOD SO BORING. Despite Casey's requests to learn some moves and maybe do some battles or something, she was only met with promises that "I'll quit tomorrow for sure" and a Rubik's Cube. More time went by, and Casey got increasingly frustrated with her predicament. So she decided to find her own entertainment. Instead of reading the minds of the gamblers in the building below, she extended her reach to other parts of the city instead. This kept her entertained for a few days, and pissed off her trainer.

Oh, good. If he was losing now, did that mean he'd quit and they could go do something else? NOPE. He had to go win back all the money that he lost, damn it, Casey had better not screw it up for him!

Listening to one's trainer might have been the way things were, but this was the point Casey started to think that technically he wasn't her trainer if he wasn't doing anything with her. Just an owner, and that was different. She sure wished she had a real trainer like the Gym Leader she'd read a few times. One of those times, she caught something about some kind of school in a far-off land. One full of chaos and mayhem.

That sounded like it could be fun, actually.

WELP

BYE, GAMBLING ADDICT

SHE WAS OUTTA THERE

And so one TELEPO'T later, Casey was on her way! ...Of course, she had no idea exactly where she was going. She'd never even really been outside of Celadon city before. It was scary enough to find that there were things like dense forests and caves and sparsely populated places around, and even worse to have trainers try to throw Pokeballs at her all the time! It didn't take long for her to learn to sleep in strategic hiding spots, or that if she kept following trainers from a distance they would lead her to another city.

She also found that it was kind of a lonely way to be. Things would definitely pick up once she reached this mythical school place, but until then... Casey eventually decided to reach out to a group of humans who didn't seem to have gotta-catch-em-all on the mind, but still keeping herself hidden from sight just in case. Apparently, psychic Pokemon communicating with people who aren't their strangers isn't a regular occurrence - or maybe people just aren't used to voices OUTTA FREAKING NOWHERE, because those guys freaked out, which was not a thing Casey could have predicted.

That was... kind of funny. And way better than just having them talk back to her. It didn't take long for them to run off and put up spirit cleansing tags (superstitious weirdos), but there were still plenty of people left to mess with. So she did! Sometimes causing bickering between two people, revealing secrets at inappropriate times, messing up poker games on purpose... She had no idea that humans were so interesting, or that there were so many different kinds of them all over the world! Even other Pokemon didn't seem to have this much variety among species.

Man, running away was definitely the coolest thing she'd ever done. Even if she didn't find this Smash Academy, traveling the world and messing with people was a still a lot more fun than home.

Of course, she eventually came across the Academy anyway, after many months of traveling, stealing food, and generally being an invasive pain in the butt. Over this period of time she picked up on things like regional dialect (read: horribly outdated lingo), the fact that small colourful horses are worshiped as gods by some sects, and that tapping another person on the rear is a courtship display. All the kinds of things one should know to integrate seamlessly into society.

Things she has not realized: How to fit in and not be a creep, and how to stop invading the thoughts of others long enough to form her own identity. School might be a good place to learn these things. Or maybe the worst possible place to be. We'll see.

Anything Else?: -DR log
-Modest nature, often dozes off
-Being a psychic is hard sometimes. The more she hangs around a specific person, the more likely she is to start confusing their thoughts with her own and may start to mimic them in other ways, too. Distancing herself from them for a while usually helps.
-She's going to resist the whole human thing for a while, but will let curiosity get the better of her eventually. Seeing the world through human eyes means she is very likely to start to actually become more in tune with ~emotions~ over time, or at the very least have a better understanding of them in general.
-Help I'm apping characters smarter than I am again
-Casey makes trouble for fun, sure, but does not think things through at all. She also doesn't see the point in denying responsibility for whatever she causes. I EXPECT AND WELCOME REPERCUSSIONS.
-She in no way sets the standard for Abra behaviour. If anything, she's a bit of an oddball; spending her crucial developmental stages in a Pokeball in Game Corner storage kind of stunted her emotionally and socially.
-This little infomodding machine is going to need a permissions post for sure.

In-Character 1st person sample:

[So! THIS is one of those computers she's heard so much about! These are very important things, so she's heard. Although 20 seconds of interacting with one and she already thinks it's garbage. It has no mind for her to read, so she has to actually open her eyes to see the words? UUUGH... Good thing she's just so amazingly smart that she taught herself to read and write.]

hello

[Just... very slowly. She's not even typing, she's levitating a pencil to peck at the keys for her. What a lazy bum.]

casey from celadon
abra
lets have fun together

[That's a good introduction as far as she's concerned. What else is she even supposed to say? She's got all the bases covered, and staring at these letters while levitating things is just giving her a headache. As much as she'd rather just keep herself in the shadows, the Headmaster said she should make some friends so she's not lonely. Looking into the mind of the other one was like a journey into her own personal hell, though. GOOD GRIEF. But this is missing something... What is that one word humans always say?]

uh

[Perfect. She'll be welcomed with open arms. And hopefully not open Pokeballs. Now hopefully she doesn't have to bother with this computer thing ever again. BOOORING.]

In-Character 3rd person sample:

This school was the bomb diggety!

(She'd overheard somebody say that once, and kept the words in mind because she liked the sound. The concept of hipster irony was truly lost on her.)

But seriously-- the longer Casey looked for the place of legend, the more she started to wonder if it truly existed, or if she'd happen to look in on a weird dream the grass-type gym leader was having. She did sleep a lot, Casey had learned. Not that she could really judge her for it.

Yet just when things seemed grim and hopeless, she chanced upon the city, and with the help of a few easily read minds it wasn't long before the Abra was officially enrolled at Smash Academy.

She did not regret it! Humans who thought like Pokemon, Pokemon who thought like humans, and all kinds of creatures who didn't seem to fit into either category. It was unlike anything she'd seen in Celadon City, and she needed to know more about them. She wanted to meet them and talk to them, and see just what made them tick.

The problem was remembering to pace herself. She was so eager to find out everything she could about these new people, but if she got to know them all at once, she'd have nothing left to learn. Then what would she do? At the same time, she was the type to get antsy during any breaks she took. Oh, tragedy!

Then again, with the steady flow of people coming and going from the city and the unpredictable events that went on, Casey had the feeling that she would be well-entertained for a long time to come.

Bomb. Diggety.