Random psychonauts headcanons 2. Another one. (DJ Khaled voice)
🧠 Sasha doesn't like kids at all, despite working with them at Whispering Rock. But Milla begged him to join her. (and plus, there needs to be someone to keep Morceau from murdering the kids.) He doesn't mind Rasputin or Lilli though, since they are actually responsible with their powers, as well as their determination and passion for the psychonauts themselves, compared to everyone else.
🧠 When Loboto behaves, (Ex: doesn't threaten people with his dentistry tools) Milla takes him with her to go through the car wash. Loboto loves this, and it's actually convinced him to be less evil. (He likes the spinning mop things and the colorful soap)
🧠 Loboto has hyperdontia. (Extra teeth that grow in the mouth)
🧠 Bob is a transman, but he only started hrt after his mom's death. (He never got an opportunity to come out to her because she was... Y'know.....)
🧠 Helmut can probably kill someone with how strong his bear hugs are. Bob, of course is the #1 victim of these hugs, and he's convinced that's the leading cause of his back problems in his old age. (It absolutely is. Take this poor man to a chiropractor immediately.)
🧠 Bob likes wearing Helmut's old sweaters because they smell like him when he still had his body. (Helmut currently smells like a hospital, thanks to Otto excessively sanitizing the jar he's kept in.)
🧠 Milla uses citrus-scented shampoo and conditioner, it's strong but not in an unpleasant way.
🧠 Compton, Loboto, Sasha, Morceau, Bob, and Cassie are all on the aroace spectrum.
🧠 Compton paces a lot when he's stressed, which is very often.
🧠 Lizzie once bought Compton some noise-cancelling headphones to help him with his sensory issues. Unfortunately, he accidentally blew them up when he forgot to put them on during a panic attack. But Razputin managed to get his hands on another pair made by Otto to replace the exploded ones.
🧠 Sasha smells like cigarettes and metal after it rains. (No clue how to explain the metal thing, he just does.)
🧠 Raz uses pool floaties since he never learned how to swim. (thanks to his former fear of water)
🧠 Gristol is bilingual, thanks to being a Gzar and having servants that taught him when he was young. Unfortunately, one of the languages he's fluent in is German, so he constantly harasses Sasha in German when he's being experimented on.
🧠 Gristol once managed to convince Otto to let him out of his psychoisolation chamber and it almost made Otto lose his job and his position in the psychic seven/six but nobody could find a replacement for him that wasn't a chainsmoker so they just kept him. (Even though Truman and Hollis were PISSED about it.)
I felt like I was intruding, seeing him vulnerable like this so soon after we had reconnected. But... he needed someone to talk to, why not his uncles?
today's daily bob brought to you by the artist's silly "id write this minific one day but not today" au where post-game helmut and "just showed up at the gulch a week ago" helmut swap places in space/time for a day and it's stressful for everyone involved
The Implications of Water in each Mind (aka i assign meaning where there might not be any)
PSYCHONAUTS 2 SPOILERS BELOW!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Loboto: (ok side note i have not played Rhombus of Ruin yet). Loboto's mind doesn't actually have that much water, just a void/platforms to fall off of. The water in Loboto's mind is all around the poster gallery/the path to his office. The posters reminding him of the consequences of snitching. Posters that feature Maligula's eyes. Outside of the fear of Maligula, he doesn't have a particular fear or connection to water, as far as I can tell. So the water in his mind is tied to that fear of Maligula that Gristol put into him.
Hollis: There is no water in Hollis's mind, both before and after the Luctopus gets awakened. Hollis has no reason to have any water in her mind, either tied to a trauma response or just in general. She's actually one of the few water free minds that are in Psychonauts 2 (minus Compton's and Bowling Ford's).
Compton: There is also no water in Compton's mind (minus the pot of boiling water, which can snatch you if you're not careful, but its not a platforming related obstacle, which i'm counting as 'water' in a mind.) This is actually pretty interesting, because while he definitely has trauma related to Maligula (they all do), his seems to manifest more as a failure to live up to others/actually be useful in a dangerous scenario. (also feeling lost without Cassie). So he actually might be the only one out of the seven (minus Otto bc idk how he feels about water) that is the least traumatized around water.
Helmut: His mind is one of three (Bob's and Barber Ford/Mailroom Ford's) in that water instant kills you. In every other mind/outside the minds, you get three chances before the hand pulls you under. Not in Helmut's mind. You get snatched immediately. Which makes sense, buddy 'died' to water, that's traumatic even if you can't remember much. Interestingly, the two places in Helmut's mind without water are the stage and his quiet void. While the stage likely has no water just from a game design standpoint (it's the neutral ground between the other levels), I also like to see it as a place where Helmut feels safe and secure, same with his quiet void. He retreats to the void when he's feeling too overwhelmed, with either senses, or his memories (when Maligula appears out of the memory vault).
FORD'S MINDS:
Campfire Ford (the first one you briefly go into when you first summon Ford): This one doesn't have any water except for the lake that you go across. I don't think it's possible to fall into this one, though I could be wrong. This lake is dark, almost void-like, and contains the memory of how Ford and Lucy first met. It also is what separates the campfire, and the pillars of the Seven, from the shattered part of Ford. Maligula is what destroyed Ford and drove the Seven apart, so that void of water is what I think that represents. (also maybe represents some cognitive dissonance/the literal not being able to remember of what Ford did)
Bowling Ford: Now, this is actually another mind with no water. At all. It has the usual platforming void, but its not specifically water shaped or coded. This is also the only mind that has only positive memories of Lucy. It's their first date, it's cute, nothing bad happens here. There is no reason for water to be a thing of fear here.
Now this is HEAVILY contrasted in the other two minds of Ford.
Barber Ford: This is the level with the most brutal water symbolism in my opinion. Not only is Ford himself represented as a lighthouse (a guiding symbol to help lost ships find their way back home) (aka i am SCREAMING at that symbolism), the whole level is FILLED with water. Violent water, at that. It's a whirling storm of chaos in this mind. This also is another mind where the water insta-kills you. You're dragged down without any chances to platform to safety. This is also the level where the Barbercide is used as an allegory for the floodwater. While this is also a clever pun (Barbercide is a real thing used to sanitize and disinfect barber tools), it also serves as a visual metaphor for how Lucy saw the people of Grulovia and her own hydrokinesis. She saw herself as a cleansing power against 'pests'. This is also (as far as I remember) that actual flooding is used in the level design. Twice, Raz knocks down the Barbercide, which floods over the floor, killing the lice. In every other level, the water is still, more a looming threat than an actual moving part in the level. This, along with Lucrecia's/Maligula's mind later on, is one of the more violent portrayals of water in a Psychonauts level.
Mail Ford: This one doesn't actually have that much water, besides for the swirling vortex of mail below the Ford robot. This functions as the main water mechanic of this level, and it also drags you down instantly. What is interesting about this mind, in my opinion, are the dead letter offices. Both offices are flooded (pun intended) with mail, all in the shape of waves. There are also buildings and cars strewn about the waves of mail. All of this is platformable, though. None of it acts like actual water, you can run on it with no consequences. But it represents the violence of the Deluge of Grulovia. I see this as almost a resigned acceptance of the past, where its just as brutal as when it happened, but it happened so long ago, it's no longer a current threat. It's a painful memory thrown away and left to rot until its nothing but a footnote. Also, Ford does, in the level, say that if he had sent that letter, perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps the Deluge being made up of mail is his own guilt over the tragedy happening.
Tomb of the Sharkcophagus: This is actually another level without water, which is interesting, as it is DIRECTLY about the Delgue and what happened to Maligula after. Perhaps, in Ford's mind, the water represented the violence, and here, in the Sharkcophagus, the lack of water represents the aftermath, once the floodwaters receded. While there are sharks floating around (horrifying to think about sharks just, swimming around the ruins of the city after the flood but anyways), that's about the only water related symbolism we get in this mind. Almost all of the visuals are related to tombs, graves, and death. I also think its VERY interesting that in this mind, Marona and Laszlo's skeletons are in bed, an almost peaceful contrast to the memory of the event we see in Lucrecia's mind (where she found Marona's body floating in the floodwaters). This could be Ford trying to add a layer of separation between the harsh reality of the Deluge and his own recollections of it, but it could also be representative of Ford changing Lucrecia's memories of the events. Trying to perhaps soothe the guilt in her own mind, by making her sister's death seem more peaceful than it actually was.
Cassie: Cassie's mind only has water in one specific spot in her mind, the Waterfront, where she spent most of her time as a counterfeiter. In the library and the surrounding areas, there is no water. And in the waterfront, the water doesn't seem to hold a ton of bad memories. To me, it's more just something that is heavily associated with her past, in a neutral way. The water hand in this level doesn't instantly drag you down, it gives you three chances, like we're used to in other levels. There is also water when you fight the Librarian, but it's more just surrounding the platform you're fighting on, not a part of the actual boss fight itself. Like Compton, her trauma surrounding the event seems to manifest less in how the water mechanic works or is portrayed, and more in her own personal conflict of how she approached that fight. (The Librarian was literally created as a way of protecting herself and others after she 'failed' at the fight with Lucy).
Bob: His mind, much like Helmut's, is FILLED with water. (we literally start off on a goddamn island). His mind is also one of the few where the water instantly kills you. Now, the islands/water in Bob's mind serves two purposes narratively, at least in my opinion. They both represent the trauma of having to fight Maligula and loosing his husband, and the isolation that his alcoholism has caused. He feels stranded away from everyone, with no way to get across such a vast stretch of water. To me, Bob's islands are more a representation of the pain and isolation his alcoholism has caused than they are a direct water related trauma. (Though i do think it also serves as a way to show how trauma can isolate you and stop you from moving forward past the event). Especially since the islands have a version of Lili, Truman, and Otto, three people that Bob feels especially isolated from. Now, in each of the bottles, I see the water as serving a different narrative purpose than just a direct allegory to his alcoholism. There's water/alcohol (which serves the same game mechanic as the water), in every bottle. In Tia's bottle, I think the water there is more tied to his family's history of alcoholism and the struggles that caused him growing up than it is tied to any Maligula/water related trauma. Truman's bottle, however, I think is a mix of both. You get to the drowned Motherlobe through a sunken and crashed ship, (which has a figment of Bob, sad and drinking) on it. The drowned Motherlobe is also where you learn of Bob's firing by Truman. I think the water here is a mixture of again, the isolation and feeling of hopelessness related to his alcoholism, but also related to the sudden and very severe trauma brought on by Maligula. Helmut's bottle is the most interesting to me. The first part of the bottle, Bog of the Betrothed, does have water. However, the second two parts that take place on the cake, do not. This bottle contains relatively happy memories, except when we get to the end, with seeing Helmut's skull (horrifying). I think the water in the Bog section of the bottle are, again, related to the alcohol, not anything Maligula related. Any references to that are more shown through the destruction of the Helmut statue later on in the level. Ok, now the final boss battle (good lord this level has a lot of symbolism). This literally takes place at sea. On a boat. With leitmotifs from Maligula's theme weaved in. In this part, I see the water as a direct relation to the trauma Maligula caused, with the moth being the representation of his alcoholism (trying to keep him safe by burying the memories and numbing the pain). The water mechanic in Bob's mind has such a fun double meaning and I love it.
Lucrecia: Now, funnily enough, until you get to the dam in Lucy's mind, there is a pretty big absence of water. (which makes sense, Ford implanted the fear of water in her to keep Maligula away.) The Flea Circus illusion is completely devoid of water except for the high dive (which has a sign saying to stay away from). Again, makes sense with Ford's fuckery in her mind. When we get to the quilt section, there is no water except for the river that leads to the dam. Of course, when we get to the dam it is, no surprise, filled with water. Despite Ford doing his best to hold the water back, it's leaking into the environment around it. In Lucy's mind, the water directly represents trauma. There is no longer any positive connection with it, like she likely had in the past. The mere sight of the dam freaks her out, and that location is where all of her emotional baggage is stored. And when you fight Maligula, the water is no longer trauma, but violence. The water is Maligula herself, all of her destruction and hate and grief. And then, when you defeat her (with Lucrecia's help), the water becomes neutral again. This is where the water hand no longer stays a manifestation of fear and trauma, but of something positive. After this point, water is no longer a foe, but a friend (and when you fall in the water, the hand helps you do a cute acrobatic move instead of dragging you down). For Lucy, water no longer means trauma and death.
Gristol: (i hate this fucker and his stupid small world brain). Now, Gristol's mind has a surprising lack of water, for someone who idolizes Maligula and was also in Grulovia when the Deluge happened. All of the water is either fake (set pieces), or is drained out by Lili when you get off the ride at certain points. Another interesting thing about this mind, is that the water set pieces don't try to drown you. There's no interaction with them. This directly contrasts the first game, where the water set pieces in Gloria's mind COULD drown you. This is likely because of how Gristol's version of Maligula that he knows is a fake, just like his worldview. It's a false interpretation of Maligula and what her water has represented throughout the game, which is violence, death, destruction, and trauma. It's as fake as the water, and maybe that's why it can't hurt you.
anyways, long ass essay over, i love psychonauts way too much
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