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catflowerqueen · 9 months

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It occurred to me today that the reason it rained for three days straight after Helmut decided to be the one to raise Raz in “This Jar Can Fit So Much Love” was probably due to the collective grief of the Aquato family as they became more frantic when a full day had passed since the accident and they were still unable to find Raz. They probably had no idea they were the causing it, but it was definitely a mixture of Lucy and Augustus—mostly Augustus, tbh. …Possibly also influenced a bit by Frazie, but she I think would have been freaking out in a different way and subconsciously focusing her powers more toward clairvoyance and trying to seek out Raz’s psychic signature, since she was the one who witnessed the accident to begin with.

What actually stopped the rain after those few days would have been a mixture of a few things. They probably felt slight bits of Raz’s psychic signature echoing out in pain when he pulled that little stunt and tried to make it stop raining—but it would have been distorted enough by both distance and the way it interacted with the protections of the Gulch that they wouldn’t be able to overtly recognize it for what it was and who it belonged to. In addition to them just not being too familiar with it since really only Frazie and Raz would have been familiar with each other’s since they did apparently play with their powers a bit together before canon Frazie decided to be more like Augustus and hide it. But in any case, whatever echoes they heard/felt would have shocked them enough to separate the weather from their emotions and release control over the rain. Whether because they realized they accidentally caused Raz to hurt himself, or were just able to finally recognize their surroundings and realize the danger they were putting themselves in if the rain continued, though, is anyone’s guess.

Likely it was a mixture of the two. Perhaps little Mirtala started toddling a bit too close to the now dangerously-high and rapid-filled river, or maybe one of their tents was starting to flood, or the heavy rains started to bring up some memories of the aftermath of the Deluge of Grulovia, and the personal loss it had on their family…

More than likely this is what started unraveling the flea circus Ford put in Lucy’s mind. Not enough to really bring out Maligula or anything, but enough to remind her—if only momentarily—what she was capable of in regard to the rain if she didn’t keep things in check. And maybe, subconsciously, there was a fear that the little echoes she heard were because she’d just drowned another beloved family member—but she could never be completely sure, because, unlike before, there wasn’t a body to confirm it one way or the other. They had literally no idea what happened to Raz, and the uncertainty is what would have both tugged Maligula closer to the surface and kept her at bay, since she could still keep some hope alive. …Less hope as time went on, sure, but then she also had those ties to the rest of her family and they all would have been forced to move on to safer and dryer pastures eventually.

But the Aquato family likely was plagued by more rain over the years in this universe than in the canon one.

#jar of love #this jar can fit so much love and also a brain #psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #fanfiction #have brain will parent

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ashes-and-static · 4 months

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Right so I'm stuck on the Psychonauts train and I need to screech this into the black hole that is Tumblr

Spoilers (at least vague ones) for Psychonauts 2, so it goes under a cut. Warning for talking around trauma.

After the events of Psychonauts 2, Hollis Forsythe mandates therapy for everyone under her command who was involved with the events of the game (and especially the newly-minted junior agents). She also recommends therapy for the non-Psychonaut Aquatos, offering them their choice of therapist(s) at no cost to the family.

This goes over fairly neutrally for the kids who have been in the Intern program for a while - par for the course, pretty bog-standard when there's a major event. And, being that this is the Psychonauts, major events are pretty common.

It goes over like a lead balloon for Razputin, who has never had any kind of psychotherapy before and does not like people being in his head (literally or figuratively) any more than is necessary. Even with Sasha or Milla, he's EXTREMELY reticent to let them into his head. Or to really talk about what all happened. Like, yes everything happened and he did his best, that's all anyone can ask of him right?

Except, no, that's not the question, Raz. Raz is canonically 10 years old (unrelated fun fact, I thought he was 12 until recently), and not only ran away from home, not only had to help rescue his heroes from a man driven mad by his personal demons, BUT he was also subjected to psilirium poisoning, had to rescue his heroes and his girlfriend? (he's still unsure if she's actually his girlfriend, to my knowledge) from the person who kidnapped the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, AND THEN we have. Everything. from Psychonauts 2.

Lemme see here, we have 1)relentless bullying from the interns for the first while, 2)the whole thing in Hollis' mind, 3) the process of trying to find the mole (including both himself and the only friend he really has in the Motherlobe being suspect), 4) sorting through the various traumas and tribulations of the members of the Psychic 6, 5) confronting and dealing with literal generational trauma inflicted on his family by one of his greatest heroes.

So, yes, Raz needs therapy. Raz does not acknowledge that he needs therapy.

Imagine it's his Nona who breaks through to him, by sitting down with him and asking him to talk about everything. (Imagine Lucretia, between the founding of the Psychonauts and the events in Grulovia, pursuing a degree in psychology). Imagine Hollis listening in (with Lucy's permission), and being horrified about what all this kid, this literal ten-year-old has gone through in under a week. And Raz is nonchalant about it, at first. Plays at being blase about the literal brain-powered battle tanks, the terror-inducing experience of thinking he was being left behind by the others at the end of RoR, the isolation and humiliation he felt during his internship.

And then Lucretia says something along the lines of "I would've been scared, trying to go through all of that."

And Raz... pauses.

And in the smallest voice ever, says "yeah, it was... um. it was really, really scary."

And that's the breakthrough moment. He doesn't cry, not unless it's in the private safety of his family's camp, but he does just. wilt. Lucy talks with him about everything, and talks about how Hollis has pulled some strings and has offered therapy to the entire Aquato family. To her.

And to him.

Look I have thoughts™ about my faves getting therapy and taking care of their mental and physical health.

(Yes, this specific instance involves Raz getting a PTSD service dog because there is no way Raz is not dealing with trauma.) (also imagine best boy with a best boy/girl of his own, either a newfie or a great pyranese - dog is literally big enough for him to ride on and is perfectly willing to leverage its superior size to make him sit still and do his therapy exercises)

#speaking #psychonauts #razputin aquato #psychonauts razputin #psychonauts 2 spoilers

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jnixz · 2 years

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Now that I think about it. How would the mental constructs and residents of Otto's mind react to the Psychic Seven? Razputin, except for Nona, has always only entered the mind of people he's just met, whose mind was shattered, or where there no constructs. (The latter in Ford's levels. Even so, Ford barely knows him.) Otto and the rest of the Psychic Seven, though. They're friends who've known each other for years.

Ooooo good question. We never did encounter a Raz mental construct, the best we could have gotten got squished. So we don't really have a concrete sample unless you wanna read on take a bit of hcs from fanfics

I find the presence of autonomous mental constructs fascinating in each mental levels. Likely another separate post. But the idea of talking to your counterpart or the counterpart that would know you is a fun thing to explore. Like literally checking out someone’s perception of someone and how they think they would react to a certain person based on what they know of their relationship.

Going off the rails here for a bit, we could take in the mental constructs that have a human counterpart

Pn1

Edgar - Lampita, Dingo and the wrestlers

gloria - Jasper and actors

Pn2

Hollis - Old colleagues, patients too maybe?

Compton - Goat judges, Tincan Zanotto

Helmut - Feast of the Senses, Maligula

Cassie - Psy 7 Paper Projections, her archetypes

Bob - “Lili”, “Truman”, “Otto”

So there is like, purposefully antagonistic and part of the issue the person is having (pn1s, hotstreak constructs, goat puppets) , or the person’s current perception of the person which is most of the psy 7 constructs.

I suppose it depends on what kind Otto’s constructs are? Probably the latter since his main issue is not something represented by them. At least in aquato-family-circus obdlc version

In my otto brain level idea I've got like at least 3 types of Psychic 7 representations going on: Media, Broken and Current/Actual. and I’ve got to plans for those still so I’ll have to hold on sharing that.

How would the mental constructs and residents of Otto's mind react to the Psychic Seven?

I think most residents(if there are any) would act as like how npcs normally react to raz, with no knowledge of who the psychic 7 are and no bias by Otto’s perception.

As for the more autonomous ones, I think they’d be more friendly, kinda like Cassie’s archetypes knowing Raz and what he is up to. Allies. As for like interaction, I did mention that I think it would be like how Otto perceives this person reacting to this person. As for the counterpart-to-person, maybe like thoughts on what Otto thinks this person is like to themselves. If that makes sense. Like Librarian and her opinion on Counterfeiter.

Hrmm there isn’t much discussion of the psychic 7′s counterpart in aquato-family-circus obdlc version yet other than components are representation.

There is the okay mental state with the fair, to which we would only see Raz interact with them if ever they appear.

Then we got the actual psychic 7 possible interactions as they try to help Otto.

If we based out areas of the level to the post I made, it is possible that they would stay in the area where all the rest of whatever constructs there are. Not sure what they are doing there but I like the idea of recruiting these specific constructs to help solve that area’s problems. They’d totally help out like the Feast of the Senses. Maybe they’d build something together to amplify whoever members are helping them calm the other constructs.

Hmmm thinking about it, there could also be like 2 psy7 constructs per trouble area, and they give the hints and additional help for that part. Kind of like Otto’s own way of maintaining the area that are just weakened or something. They could a handle of it when Otto gets his energy back

Hope this makes sense, kind of hard to make something concrete right now. just loose ideas and speculation on the possibilities for that version

#asks #youareshauni #psyn rambles #obdlc #mental constructs #afc cos obdlc #my obdlc #my vers obdlc

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catflowerqueen · 3 years

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Spoilers for some endgame “Have Brain, Will Parent” below:

The reason I feel like there will be some lowered stakes in regards to the Maligula reveal (as in she isn’t going to go all water tornado and try to drown everyone when the truth is revealed) is a combination of there just being so much other stuff going on in regards to Raz’s reunion with the Aquatos, and trying to get in some family bonding, and realizing, “hey, wait a minute--this tiny Aquato child can control water, and the water literally saved him from drowning when he was passed out from getting a head wound even though he’s supposed to be cursed to die in it. Something very suspicious is going on here.”

And especially for Nona--it seems like the final thing that made her snap and become Maligula in the first place was tied up in accidentally drowning her family members. I can very easily see at least part of the “water curse” being not only Ford’s implanted suggestion, but also her unconscious fear of not being able to control the water if she tries to use it again. Hating herself and saying water=bad, nothing good can come of it.

Except... here, water is the only thing that saved her grandson/grandnephew from dying after his accident. It can save and heal just as well as it can hurt. And she’s going to have thoughts like those in her mind from the very start of her unraveling memories. ...In addition to the fact that they may or may not be more frayed than usual, depending on just how bad she took the initial accident itself--especially considering that it was just a legitimate accident, no psychic powers involved. Raz was just running around and practicing his physical acrobatic abilities and then took a bad tumble/misjudged a jump/didn’t see there was a cliff/thought it was solid ground below him rather than the dense leaf canopy. It wouldn’t have been enough to trigger a full on Maligula relapse, but I do think it would have affected her, especially, in a very negative way.

Also, going back to the more positive things--when the family is finally all together again, hanging out in the Questionable Area while they try and figure out things like legality, custody, and helping regain some of Raz’s early memories--all of which are kind of being put on the backburner due to the situation with the mole--Nona is going to have these burgeoning positive feelings about water and psychics coupled with her own memories of living happily in the Gulch playing in the background and reinforcing themselves as Raz takes everyone on a tour and she and they get to see the memories he made growing up here. The evidence of his mostly happy childhood, living in the forest, becoming an urban legend/cryptid, the physical changes he made to the place as he fixed up her river house to live in and filled it with tiny gardens and apiaries and makeshift circus equipment (because, hilariously enough, that is the topic he is going to be more obsessed with in this canon)...

It’s a gentle reminder of happiness and the family she had, as she gets to see it from a slightly shifted perspective, her old friends coming together and being a family for this tiny hydrokinetic, one by one (and maybe, ironically, in reverse order from the original? With Helmut being the first to care for Raz and Ford being the last).

So it’s going to be more of an “Oh, yeah, it turns out I was never who I thought I was” moment of revelation between her and Augustus as far as the truths of their identities go. And I could see maybe a few storms happening, and a few moments where they don’t feel in control, but nowhere near as dangerous as it was in the game.

...And then they just walk up to the Motherlobe and are like “Good news! We found Maligula--she isn’t dead, but she’s also not dangerous anymore, apparently?”

And “Truman” will suddenly “wake up” and reveal that he’s actually Gristol, and Nona will refuse to have any part in his plans and the dude will quickly get arrested for brain and identity theft and swiftly wash their hands of the whole thing.

Then they’ll probably go on that mission to retrieve Helmut’s body (if they hadn’t already gone to do that while Raz was at camp) and then go back to figuring out custody and how to properly socialize Raz. ....And maybe also try and fix what Ford broke in his own mind.

...I just find it really hilarious that he’s essentially going to miss the entire plot of everything going down beyond Raz’s incidental run ins with him as his various Whispering Rock personas and his increasing questions and demands to know what a burger is (since it’s not like he would have had those while living in the forest) and whether he can stock this thing called “corn dogs” (which he’s heard is apparently a staple at circuses and is not, as he’d been led to believe, a special breed of corn grown/assembled in the shape of a dog) in between buying dream fluffs and knicknacks at the camp store.

#psychonauts #have brain will parent #spoilers

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