#brain level concept | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

adhd-merlin · 11 months

Note

unpopular opinion: arthur (as much as i like him as a character) was useless in terms of prophecy and liberation of the magic people. not just bc he never ended up lifting the magic ban but bc literally anyone sitting on the throne could have done that. i see no reason why it had to be arthur specifically. but the show liked to pretend like he was the only way to achieve a positive future bc the opprressed community cant simply help themselves that would be silly ig? no no they need to patiently wait that maybe one day their oppressor (whos literally continuing his fathers genocide even if less zealously) has a change of heart and they wont be hunted down like animals anymore. never mind the countless people that will have to die in the mean time. merlin can kill a bajillion people on screen and thats fine and for the greater good but if someone tries to kill One guy sitting on a fancy chair with a fancy hat suddenly thats too extreme. half the time it felt like the show was pointing to merlin as a poster child of how to act when oppressed. the fact that morgana growing bitter about uthers reign is framed as inherently bad and what directly lead to her becoming evil tm is particularly infuriating to me. the choice to create this very ya dystopian setting and then cast the oppressors as part of the main cast and the final solution is just very weird to me. i think it wouldve been objectively for the best if the magic community had overthrown arthur (or uther really but thats not really contested.. unless youre the bbc. this show is so british (derogatory))

in that vein: mordred has never done anything wrong in his entire life and that includes killing arthur

one more for the "arthur was a loser" folder

[ok but about the rest!! I have many thoughts about it. merlin as a member of an Oppressed Minority. his betrayal of his own kin. I'm putting it all under a cut bc you guys don't need to see me rambling about this and the disir again]

you make a good point — the way in which a story is framed, even the moment we choose as a "beginning", determines what characters we'll feel sympathy for, even when the facts at our disposal are the same.

I don't think the writers were trying to create any kind of deep social commentary btw. just so we're clear. merlin is the hero of the story and his mission is to keep arthur safe. we've got to root for them both.

to have a king with a hatred (fear) of magic gives us a convenient antagonist within the court. merlin having to defend the men that would have him killed for his magic is a great source of dramatic tension. it sort of follows that the people he has to fight against to defend the king/prince are other magic users, or magical threats. (it also keeps things interesting because there would be no challenge for merlin otherwise).

there isn't much of a point in exploring the motives and backstories of other characters with magic (with the exception of morgana, perhaps). They are only briefly touched upon — so these characters remain vaguely antagonistic for the most part. Neutrally aligned at best (see mordred).

We are shown that the druids are (mostly) aware of the prophecy that marks merlin/emrys as the saviour of their kind.

what I find fascinating are merlin's interactions with magic people who are either not aware of this prophecy (gilli) or have no faith in it (kara, possibly?) Because we're never given the chance or the time to see things from their perspective. To see merlin through their eyes.

When gilli says:

"It is time that someone struck a blow for the likes of you and me. And if you're too weak, then I will." (!!!)

It makes him sound like some kind of extremist, but really, when you think about it. isn't his anger kind of justified? I'm not condoning his violence, I'm just saying — it's understandable. uther has killed so many innocent people. literally drowned innocent children. and merlin's like "violence isn't the answer!" — and I can see his point!! but I can see gilli's just as well. and I find it so interesting that he's still addressing merlin as a brother ("the likes of you and me"), even when expressing disappointment in his actions and calling him weak. because they are the same. he's saying "you're deluded, and cozying up to the enemy won't save you"

this episode also contains what is (probably) my favourite dragon call. when merlin summons kilgharrah in other episodes, he's usually in the middle of some Urgent Situation. matters of life or death. there is nothing urgent here, really. yeah, it is arguably a matter of life or death, but nothing merlin couldn’t have stopped on his own. he really just called on kilgharrah to have a heart to heart with a friend — a member of his class.

("You are a creature of magic, and only a creature of magic could hope to understand.")

this episode is about merlin looking for kinship and still feeling isolated from his magic brethren. there's something tragic about the way the prophecy makes him unable to connect to some of the people who would be best placed to understand him.

and gilli plants a small seed of doubt in merlin's mind. "You've been pretending for so long now that you've actually forgotten who you are" (!!)

but kilgharrah reassures merlin that there's a golden age coming. so merlin does what he has to do — he saves uther once again. before gilli leaves, merlin reassures him that one day they will be free.

he tells mordred the same:

"It won't always be like this. One day we will live in freedom again."

and then, when he has the unique opportunity to use his influence on arthur to sway his opinion in the right direction. he fails.

he condemns himself, and the people he spoke to of freedom, to keep living in fear and in hiding — and what's even more upsetting, he does so while talking of a "just and fair kingdom"!

("You must protect the world you spent your life building, a just and fair kingdom for all." What an interesting choice of words. camelot isn't just and fair to all — as merlin knows well. he's lying to arthur, and possibly to himself.)

imagine being gilli or mordred and hearing him say that "there can be no place for magic in camelot." (!) What a slap in the face.

I've read meta suggesting that the disir were testing merlin just as much as arthur (or even more so than him). I'm inclined to believe it — I want to believe it. If anything because it makes the story all the more interesting and tragic. (I know what some are going to say — if mordred's destiny was to kill arthur, it would've happened anyway. but remember what else kilgharrah said — the future is never clear. there are many paths).

I understand why merlin did what he did, I really do. but for a moment, the fair and just kingdom he spoke of was within reach, and he failed to grasp it.

so was gilli wrong after all?

[and kara. I feel quite sympathetic towards her. we know arthur. she can't see him from our (merlin's) perspective. for her, he might as well be uther. magic people are still persecuted under camelot's law. she has spent her life on the run, she has seen people she loved be killed. and from our (arthur's) perspective, she looks like some kind of fanatic. but in reality. put yourself in her shoes. when arthur offers her a chance to save herself by "repenting" for her crime, she says she has nothing to repent for. "it is not a crime to fight for your freedom". that's the belief she's willing to die for. did she deserve to die for it?

(I also think there's an interesting parallel in merlin failing his kin in the disir, and arthur failing mordred in ep 5x11 by condemning kara to death. something about pinning all your hopes on someone who's going to fail you, and doom you both. idk idk.)]

sorry anon. you were saying

#merlin meta #more like brain vomit really #there is nothing particularly insightful in here #do you have an episode or a scene that makes you lose it #for me its that scene in the disir probably #I just [insert stick figure violence meme] when I think about it #many thoughts about merlin and the druids and those who knew him as 'emrys'#you have people like alator and finna - with an almost fanatic level of faith #but surely there must have been skeptics #druids who were like “what is he even doing. he's been in camelot for years”#“are we sure he's the right one”#it's just... from an outsider & skeptic perspective. merlin is a race traitor #defending uther and arthur like that #merlin iscariot #betrayal is such an interesting concept #but yeah I love it when he talks of freedom to his fellow oppressed sorcerers #bc it's easy to forget how much he suffers because of camelot's stance on magic #even merlin is so busy looking after arthur that he doesn't seem to have much time to dwell on his own oppression. if that makes sense #and meeting other sorcerers. it brings it back to the forefront #these are the people he's fighting for. brothers and sisters.#asks

26 notes · View notes

orchideae · 5 months

Text

In today's episode of 'Sae, do you (...)': the topic of Ningguang and Yelan, and I thought that I should note my opinion more clearly outside of my rules as it's very important information for my portrayal: I do not ship Ningguang and Yelan romantically.

Honestly, while this is of course my own opinion, I don't find that there's anything to really substantiate a romantic interest between the two. For starters, I don't think that Ning, as interesting of a character as she is with a past that might just be similar in its 'rise' to Yelan's (we're left with very little information on the latter's childhood), ticks the right kind of boxes for her, though to be fair: not many do. Yelan craves a specific sort of thrill in her life, I mean she lives it at the roll of a dice because she is, on some level, bored, and craves the unexpected, the unusual, the 'surprise', and Ningguang's life nor personality seem to play into that. Beyond it, Yelan would need a kinship within this very specific 'loneliness' that I talk about too often and I think that Ning is not one who quite meshes into that in the right way.

Second, despite their long-standing history that even predates their mutual involvement with the Qixing, there seems to be a certain professional distance between the two that I'm quite fond of that is shown in brief event cutscenes, and also Yelan's vision story, that I find inherently intriguing. Perhaps this distance plays more into Yelan's character of not investing too heavily, or rather not too easily, into social dynamics than it does Ning's (I'm not one to weigh in on her character), but it seems evident to me that there's also that semblance of professionalism that creates a line that takes away the possibility of growing closer on an emotional level. And whether that's a mutual decision or not is not up to me to judge, but I think it's one that's made rather clearly from Yelan's side. On top of that, Yelan is Yelan and it's my personal belief that shipping her is rather difficult.

Now I'm also inherently of the opinion (unpopular, I know, I apologize) that dynamics aren't always more interesting when written in romantic settings, and I don't think it's a benefit for all of them to veer into a romantic nature. And in my opinion (and most importantly: in my depiction and understanding of Yelan's character), I think that having Ning and Yelan cross the line from professionalism into something inherently more rooted in romanticism, would be a detriment to their dynamic. Because honestly, I think the fact that Ningguang being one of two people (other being Uncle Tian) to know Yelan best, without ever crossing that line, is too good. I would simply, well, just prefer to keep that not only platonic, but professional, but of course not excluding it of Yelan's quips, and the occasional 'confidant' element.

/rambles in tags because I feel like I have more to say that I shouldn't flood the post with.

#[ psa. ] seeing isn't always believing. and if you can't trust your eyes; you certainly can't trust rumors.#[ also; and this is where you'll learn more about my 'single-ship' self-- i love the concept of ningguang and beidou. ]#[ and i wouldn't want to take away from that dynamic /in my own head/. it's not about what others do/see/view. but about my own head. ]#[ if i did ship it-- it'd counter that dynamic and i don't like that (again: in my own brain). ]#[ i'm an odd rper in that sense; but i almost have difficulty straying from this... single verse concept. ]#[ in my head i tie specific characters to other specific characters after a lot of thought and i don't commit to those thoughts easily. ]#[ but then i construct this entire huge narrative in my head that's almost like its own book. ]#[ and so i can't easily 'copy' that multiple times for multiple ships. does that make sense? ]#[ but /because/ i do that-- i heavily scrutinize dynamics across the board and it's where a lot of my enjoyment as a writer comes from. ]#[ these analyses of specific characters and dynamics. why are they the way that they are? ]#[ it's psychology. i love it. it's not just saying 'i love finding out what makes characters tick' but it's actively really going... ]#[ 'yeah okay i could ship these-- but is there basis for it and /why/ and /in what capacity/ and specifically: /would they decide to/? ]#[ sometimes i tell myself that i'm not made for rp'ing because i'm too analytical meshed in with too much emotion. ]#[ because i get too invested. ]#[ but i just-- i don't know. i wanted to kind of explain why pointing stuff like this out is important to me and my portrayal. ]#[ especially for yelan who has such a... god; it's almost an unhealthy headspace. you can't mesh that with just anyone. ]#[ the person has to /really get it/ and understand it almost on this level that isn't logical for most humans. because it's unusual. ]#[ but it's important that it's understood /by another human being/. ]#[ and i also think some people genuinely don't mesh in /that/ way. some can mesh perfectly platonically in my head and then... ]#[ not at all romantically. but when /my head/ has decided that this is how it is-- i respect when people disagree; i do. ]#[ i will never say that my opinions are the be all end all for other yelans or even yelan's character in specific. ]#[ as much as i like to think i analyze-- /i could be wrong/. ]#[ but all in all; i do respect if people disagree. but there's just certain opinions i have for my own portrayal that i need to note. ]#[ but also-- a little explanation as to why i'm single-ship more often than not. i wish i could budge how my brain works. but alas. ]#[ /sips coffee past midnight. ]#[ it's been a day. it really has been a day; i need to make my own serotonin tomorrow. i miss writing. ]

10 notes · View notes

nervousnotion · 1 year

Photo

(G)I-DLE ✖ 5th Mini Album "I love" ✖ I'm born nude And you’re the pervert.

#femaleidolsedit #gidleedit #femaleidol #gidlenet #idleedit #gidle #*edit #top2022 #this concept beyond giant brained galaxy brained it's just not something they made this is some professional its on another level #flashing tw

102 notes · View notes

oswinsdolma · 1 year

Text

i'm too tired to properly comprehend the full implications of this but the fact that excalibur, basically the universal symbol of arthur and albion as a whole, was made not by some ancient force of destiny of distant legend, but by the father of arthur's love and thrust in the stone by his dearest friend is just so incredibly powerful? like. it really just hammers home that destiny isn't something distant or preordained, but an inevitable tragedy of love. that fate is built from human follies, and that what makes it important.

#terrible midnight analysis #not to sound like a broken record about my whole 'humanity is the hamartia in bbc merlin' crusade #but the more i think about it the more examples i find #i genuinely think the sword in the stone in bbcm might be my favourite interpretation of the concept #because it's so human #and because merlin lies #but tells such a strong unspoken truth as well #nothing in media will ever go as hard as bbc merlin #also i get my a level lit coursework back tomorrow and my thesis is about the triumph of humanity over god #so it's on the brain #merlin #bbc merlin #the sword in the stone #merlin meta

49 notes · View notes

yersina · 2 years

Note

For your s class asks, au where Yoojin used to pet sit for his neighbours pets for some extra cash whenever he doesn’t have a job to do. When he awakens, he ended up with an animal taming ability, making him a legit monster tamer (would be funny if it worked with high ranked monsters as well)

When Yoojin sees the terrifying, pterodactyl-like monster heading for his boss’s van, he doesn’t stop to think. Without a single thought in his head other than desperate panic and an overwhelming desire for Lee Soojin and Im Namgi to stay alive, he whistles sharply, the way he does when he’s first starting to train a dog, and shouts, “Stop!” with as much confidence and sternness as he can muster.

Later, he’ll clutch his head and wonder why the fuck he thought this would work, because under any normal circumstances it shouldn’t have. The monster should’ve devoured them both. Yoojin should’ve died with them. But he stands there now, hands shaking with adrenaline and throat still aching with his yell, and watches the monster pause and turn around with a combination of terror and relief.

“B… back away from them,” he adds, since the monster doesn’t seem like it’s on the offensive anymore, and to his utter shock, it does. It climbs off of the car, ignoring the startled yelps of the people within, and instead walks towards Yoojin. “Oh, fuck.”

It slowly creeps forward, using claws on its wings and its short hind legs to unsettlingly and jerkily crawl along the ground, until its giant, sharp beak that was until only a second ago poised to dive into his boss’s car is only an arms-length away. At this distance, Yoojin can see its dark eyes, clear and focused on Yoojin, and how its head is covered in short, iridescent black feathers that almost look like scales. It’d be beautiful, if not for the needle-sharp teeth that poke out of its beak.

“What,” he croaks quietly, not daring to move. There’s a lesson about scaring away wildlife blaring in the back of his brain, but none of them hold a candle to the reality of being stared at by a creature that could undoubtedly kill him with half a thought.

It makes a strange noise in its throat, something between a chirp, click, and purr. It sounds… friendly, bizarrely enough, and the creature doesn’t look like it’s about to rip his head from his shoulders, but Yoojin doesn’t trust that for a single second. He doesn’t dare move.

The moment—if it could even be called a moment, rather than a pause before the creature could eat Yoojin for interrupting its previous meal—is shattered by the ear-piercing cry of another pterodactyl creature. His eyes instinctively go for the new threat, which is flying towards them with single-minded focus, before he remembers that he shouldn’t take his eyes off the thing that could kill him right now.

Instead of having a chunk taken out of him like he expects, though, the creature in front of him whips its head around and lets out one of those same ear-piercing cries and lunges for the other creature. Yoojin has to raise an arm against the dust and gravel that’s inadvertently flung into his face, but when he squints his eyes open again, the first flying creature has already tackled the second one full force and is obviously trying to gouge it in two.

Are they fighting over who gets to eat us…? Yoojin spends a moment staring in disbelief, before he remembers Lee Soojin and Im Namgi all at once and sprints towards the overturned van.

“Boss!” he yells, and is overwhelmingly thankful for the way Lee Soojin immediately pops her head out of the window and waves that she’s okay. “Do you need help?”

“I think we’ll be okay as long as nothing else comes at us!” True to word, she begins hauling herself out of the window and turns to grab her husband as soon as she’s free. Yoojin hurries over to help them both down, and they all duck for cover as soon as they can get their bearings.

“What do you think those are?” Im Namgi asks shakily, looking out at the scene of destruction laid before them through the window of the bank they’re taking cover in. There are other people in here too, but most of them are huddled as far from the windows as they can, apart from the security guard who’d let them through the doors. “They’re not like any animals I’ve ever seen.”

“They look like dinosaurs,” Yoojin offers, “but that doesn’t make sense either.”

“Who cares what they are,” Lee Soojin groans, sliding down the wall and staring up at the ceiling in despair. “They’re still wreaking havoc either way.”

Yoojin turns to join her, but a flash of blue in the corner of his eye catches his attention first. It’s a glowing blue screen hovering in the air, reminiscent of a game window.

[The Awakening of Han Yoojin has been registered.]

Once Yoojin reads that window, another pops up.

[Awakened Han Yoojin

Level 1

Stamina: 6 | Strength: 4 | Agility: 5 | Spirit: 4 | Mana: 2

Titles — Caregiver (S), Monster Tamer (A)

Caregiver additional skills…

Monster Tamer additional skills…

Skills

Strength Up (E): Strength of the target + 5% (Immediate effect, similar and/or identical skills cannot overlap), duration 30 minutes

Agility Up (E): Agility of target + 5% (Immediate effect, similarity and/or identical skills cannot overlap), duration 30 minutes]

Yoojin has to sit down.

“Hey,” he says to Lee Soojin once he’s taken a deep breath. “Is there anything strange in the air right now?”

She raises a sardonic eyebrow. “You mean other than the dinosaur creatures?”

“No, inside the bank.”

She gives him a concerned look, but she gamely gives the entire bank a passing glance. By the time her eyes settled back on Yoojin, she should’ve seen the window. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Yoojin-ah, are you okay?”

“Other than the dinosaur creatures?” he jokes weakly and earns himself a snort. “I’m fine.”

So he’s the only one who can see the windows. He settles back against the wall and takes another look at… whatever the windows are supposed to be. As he scrolls through the information, careful not to be too obvious about his movements, he’s overwhelmingly reminded of video games and fantasy stories. Except—

Except.

This is real life. If his concentration wavers even a little, the screams of people outside are all too audible. There’s the sound of crunching glass, the shriek of metal, the frantic pounding of feet. This is not a video game, and yet somehow Yoojin is a player.

What is happening?

“Oh my god,” someone whimpers from across the room. “There—it’s here. Why is it looking at us? The rest of them have ignored the insides of buildings.”

Yoojin scrambles back from where his back was pressed against the front-facing wall, followed closely by Lee Soojin and Im Namgi and anyone else who’d taken shelter at the entrance. Right there, crouched over the space Yoojin had just been sitting, is one of the feathery flying monsters, peering intently through the glass.

“It’s not attacking us,” someone else whispers. “Maybe if we all stay quiet and still, it’ll go away?”

The creature doesn’t move, and neither does anyone else in the room. Yoojin’s eyes catch on a series of scratches down the creature’s flank, like something had turned a set of sharp claws against it. Like… like another one of those flying creatures.

[Current targets: Agile Devil Pterosaur (C-Rank)], the blue window had said when he’d clicked on the monster tamer title. Maybe that would explain why the first dinosaur that had attacked them had turned on its own kind? Maybe it was something Yoojin did? Is this what the taming skill does?

Without thinking, Yoojin takes a step forward and has his wrist caught by Lee Soojin before he can move any farther. “What are you doing?!” she hisses, eyes wide in fear. “Stay here!”

“I think it’ll be okay,” he reassures, and curses himself for the hesitation that’s audible in his voice. “I… I think it’s here for me.”

“What does that mean?” she demands. Yoojin tugs on her grip until she lets him go, and she curses. “Yoojin, you’re not allowed to sacrifice yourself for us or whatever harebrained scheme you’ve got cooked up! It’ll just come after us next!”

Yoojin breathes out a laugh. “Don’t worry, I don’t think that’s what will happen.” And then, before he meets any other resistance, he strides to the door and slips outside.

It’s loud. Much louder than what he was able to hear inside the bank, and he’d barely been able to ignore it while he was in there. There’s a flying dinosaur creature perched on a car not far from where he’s standing, too far for it to notice him stepping outside but easily within swooping distance. He gulps.

The flying creature—Agile Devil Pterosaur, or whatever it’s called—stays shockingly docile as he closes the door behind him and they both size each other up. It cocks its head when Yoojin fails to do anything other than stare at it, and lets out one of those clicky chirp-purrs.

“Hi.” Yoojin’s voice cracks in the middle of the word and he has to cough awkwardly. “You… Do you understand me?” It clicks its teeth together at that, which would be encouraging if it weren’t so threatening. “Right…”

As if sensing his hesitation, the pterosaur slowly bows forward until it fits the tip of its beak under Yoojin’s hand. This time, the purr is more pronounced, and in combination with the gesture and the way Yoojin can spot its tail wagging slowly back and forth, he has a fairly good idea of what it means.

Oh god, he thinks faintly, I have a pet dinosaur?

“Okay,” he says, because there’s no amount of time in the world that would allow him to process all of this. “Okay.” Just—just pretend that it’s a dog. It’s a huge, feathery, murderous dog. Oh god.

The ground rumbles alarmingly, and Yoojin is forced to throw his arms forward for balance, inadvertently caught by the hulking form of the pterosaur. Further down the street, what looks to be a gigantic tree has split the road in two, cracking the pavement and throwing the sea of abandoned cars into disarray. When he looks more closely, there are people struggling in the branches, temporarily out of reach from the swarm of pterosaurs around the tree’s base but soon to be in danger once they figure it out.

Yoojin looks consideringly at his—his tamed monster? His pet? It looks back at him patiently, feathered tail snaking back and forth, and Yoojin makes a decision. “Let’s do this.”

He whistles, and the pterosaur visibly straightens to attention. “Let’s start by rescuing those people, okay?” He points at the people still clinging to the branches of the tree desperately. “Bring them back here when you’re done. Be gentle!”

The pterosaur lets out a shrill cry and takes off in the direction of the tree. Yoojin takes a moment to scan the street, looking for others that could use help. He doesn’t know what his stats mean, but until he can figure it out, he’ll be treating himself as the same squishy human he’s always been.

There’s a man to his right who’s punching the creatures with a speed and strength that can’t possibly be human, fist glowing red when he pauses to take a rest. There’s a teenager further down the street who weaves impossibly fast between the mess of wreckage around them, light and graceful on her feet as she escorts people to safety.

That’s who I can be, Yoojin thinks determinedly, and squares his shoulder as he spots the first two rescues dangling in the feet of his pterosaur, winging towards him slowly.

Come on, Han Yoojin. Let’s help people.

#robins-on-lea #sina writes #sctir #s classes that i raised #fanfiction #tamer au #hi I have so many thoughts abt this au #my brain completely hijacked this concept after I started writing #i think the monster taming skill/title is canon? i think yj mentions that there aren’t enough high rank tamers pre-reg iirc #which is why the caregiving title + skills are so valuable in comparison #but naturally yj makes it his mission to level it up as much as possible ((to keep up w yh shhh))#speaking of yh #i think in this au yj and yh actually get along for much longer than canon pre-reg #but yj stays in dungeon break cleanup efforts bc he feels like that’s where he’ll be most useful #esp before organized dungeon clearing efforts become a thing #and he’s horrifically squishy if there isn’t anything protecting him #so yh is just constantly terrified that smth will go wrong and he doesn’t really trust any of yj’s tamed monsters #and yj interprets his hostility and reluctance as disapproval of what he’s choosing to do (instead of like clearing dungeons or smth)#so it’s more of an ideological split. maybe.#like I said I have a lot of thoughts akdndjendj #also yj names the pterosaur to be 공룡이 (공룡 = dinosaur) bc in this house we stan yj’s awful naming ability

125 notes · View notes

technovillain · 1 year

Note

OTTO MENTALLIS. god i wish he had a brain to go in I need to know what it looks like

I've seen a few really great concepts for an Otto brain level overtime and I may have been influenced by some of them....

We know that Otto turns to inventing to express his emotions and moods, as he showed Raz in his lab. Despite having a good outlet, I can't see Otto as the kind of person who is easy to get to open up. He's definitely a really layered individual, that's definitely evident in his characterization even without seeing into his mind.

I know that like every character in Psychonauts is tied to brain imagery, because duh. It's the brain game. But Otto feels especially brain-coded to me. I'd love to see his mind broken up into the id, ego, and superego.

So the brain level would consist of 3 main chambers: a center chamber with grand showroom floor full of Otto's crowning achievements and brilliant devices. I picture Otto being extremely present in his own mind, almost to an unnerving amount. Like every mental figure is Otto in some way or other. I'd picture a lot of them being "Otto-bots" with his mind being so mechanically inclined. A big screen similar to those on the Otto-matics displays a giant Otto head, who talks over the showroom and guides the room's puzzles. On two opposite sides of the room are two doors, heavily locked, that have to be unlocked through solving the puzzles in the main room with the various gizmos and gadgets.

Beyond the now unlocked door on the right lies a figment-strewn, winding hallway indicative of the twisting membrane of a brain. Inside this room is the "superego" Otto, who I think might be heavily brain-looking, like maybe just a brain for a head. I think this version of him is being terrorized by a bunch of robOttos (lol) asking him a lot of questions. Questions of ethics against his experiments, questions about Lucy, about Ford, etc. Raz has to find his way through the overwhelming crowd and get to this version of Otto. He then goes inside of this Otto's mind. I think this area would contain a memory vault showing a bit about how Otto was raised and how he was taught "good from bad" a la superego. The ground would be covered in water (which is such a guilt-associated element to the Psy7 at this point, also doubles like all the tears Otto kept in.) that is electrified, needing levball mechanics to finish the section. Raz tries to bargain with the superego-Otto, but accidentally ends up misguiding him. He gets booted from superego-Otto's mind back to the area with the big loud crowd. (He was trying to balance superego Otto with id ideas and gave him the wrong ideas) This Otto disappears, descending downwards, having a change of heart about feeling guilt.

Beyond the unlocked door on the left is another hallway, growing darker as Raz proceeds down it. It is a factory floor with dozens of brain-Ottos being cruelly driven to work by 0tt-0, a seemingly evil robot version of Mentallis. 0tt-0 is obsessed with the bottom line and cranking out revolutionary, helpful ideas at an unreasonable speed for genius to progress at. The puzzle platform would involve Raz having to help the brain prisoner workers get their work done in time without getting detected so he could get up to 0tt-0's platform and infiltrate his mind. It's sort of the same deal as the other room, except the electricity in this room has caused an electrical fire and needs a lot of time-bubble mechanics to get through. (He was trying to balance id Otto with superego ideas but it backfired, yada yada) 0tt-0 disappears, ascending upwards.

Returning to the showroom shows Regular Otto Mentallis onscreen, now becoming increasingly unstable as his superego and id selves fight on his shoulders. Raz explains how he was just trying to help, Regular Otto pretends he is fine.

Eventually, the showroom floor drops away, the invention parts now floating in a big empty void. Regular Otto grows very large and is tormented by the two smaller versions of himself. As the id and superego fight, everything in the void tilts back and forth. A scathing remark from the id means everything tilts left, superego means everything tilts right. Yada yada, platforming hell, definite justice scales imagery, Raz has to get Regular Otto, aka the Ego, to accept that he has to be open to other people about his feelings, that fighting internally and keeping himself down with his own internal struggles without reaching out will never get him anywhere but more stressed.

I hope that made like. A smidgen of sense. I might draw a super messy layout for it later!

#anonymous #ask #hcs #otto mentallis #brain level concept #.txt

53 notes · View notes