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diamondpython00 · 1 year

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I was watching videos on Psychonauts 2, specifically on the imagery and meaning behind Hollis’ mind, when I had an interesting realization: a lot of the characters in both Psychonauts games have family-related problems.

Oleander’s initial levels (the brain tumbler experiment and basic braining) don’t have much beyond initial foreshadowing for plot reasons, but meat circus is such a colossal mess of daddy issues that i think it makes up for it

Sasha’s main problems are the death of his mother and the memories of her he collected from his dad’s mind that freaked him out (nooo little german boy don’t use your psychic abilities to read your father’s mind)

Milla’s trauma has to do with her relationship to the children at her orphanage and her failure to protect them, something that while she has moved past, definitely still hurts her. She’s still working as a caretaker of some kind though, and it’s clear that she’s not eager to repeat that mistake.

Gloria was pretty seriously messed up by her mother’s emotional neglect and high expectations, her treatment at the boarding school, and her deadbeat dad. This trauma is only compounded with her mother’s suicide, which starts her downward spiral.

Fred’s problems have to do with his family legacy, literally being constantly berated in his mind by the image of his ancestor. To Fred, he’s failed at being a Bonaparte, and his ancestor has come back from the dead to express his displeasure.

Lili and Raz both have fairly complicated relationships with their fathers - Raz views Augustus as constantly pushing him in acrobatics and outright denying him his interests, while Lili has had to grow up a little too fast thanks to how busy her father is, and expresses some of that frustration with a tough front.

Loboto. (i don’t think i really need to say more. yikes doesn’t even begin to cover it)

Although Hollis’ family is notably absent from her mind, some dialogue from her and her mind’s NPCs implies a very fraught relationship with her parents. She acknowledges to Raz that “family is horrible”, and the maternity ward patients in her mind all express very bad reasons to have kids, ranging from using children as a proxy to having kids because your partner wants them. Couple that with the absence of her parents from her entire mind, and... well, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

Compton’s issues aren’t exactly related to his family, but they ARE hereditary. All three Booles in both games have both a connection with animals and some blastokinesis, although most of the issues seem to have skipped Sam. Dogen especially is very similar to Compton - both are socially anxious, get overwhelmed by their telepathy, and accidentally blow up heads when they get overwhelmed. It’s not hard to imagine that Compton’s parenting or influence may have had something to do with Dogen’s issues.

Ford doesn’t exactly have family issues, but boy howdy did he sure cause some.

The seed (heh) of Bob’s alcoholism seems to be related to his aunt’s alcoholism and death. His aunt dealt with her problems by drinking them away in her greenhouse, and now that Bob has gone through very similar loss, he uses the same coping mechanism - drown your issues under a lot of alcohol.

Gristol’s main problem is his overwhelming sense of entitlement, but his father plays a very significant role in his worldview. From Gristol’s perspective, his father ruined the inheritance Gristol was owed, and failed both Maligula and the country with his rule. Gristol believes he is entitled to rule of Grulovia thanks to his father, but also deeply resents him for his failures and is driven by the need to set right what he thought his father did wrong.

Nona, or Lucrecia Mux, had most of her issues brought on by the accidental killing of her sister and the false familial relationship she was deluded into believing was real her whole life. Although Maligula is the manifestation of her problems, Maligula very clearly would not exist if it weren’t for Marona’s death.

And these are just the people who’s minds we explore in some sense or another. There is the exception of Boyd, Edgar, and Helmut, but I’ll address that a bit later. None of the campers or the interns mention much about their family, but we can also infer from the way Loboto was treated that psychics are not exactly looked upon favorably. While certainly not all of the campers or interns have bad relationships with their parents, it is interesting that there is no mention that I can remember of a good parental relationship anywhere in either game. It’s either a bad relationship or it goes unmentioned (like Edgar, Boyd, and Helmut). While I can’t say definitively what this theme of complicated or bad familial relationships is intended to mean, there are a couple theories I have. It could be that Psychonauts is trying to tell us that mental illness is often a result of environment - children raised in non-loving environments rarely escape unscathed, and dealing with those issues often involves confronting that familial relationship. It could be that leaving your family trauma unresolved is very unhealthy: the only families we see recover from these issues, the Aquatos and the Zanottos, do so through honest communication. It could be that blood family does not obligate love, and that chosen families (like the psychic six or nona and augustus) are better because they actively choose to love each other. It could even be something completely unrelated that I haven’t thought of. But what I am pretty sure of is that Psychonauts 1 and 2 are definitely trying to tell us something with the family theme. What do you guys think? Is there something to this?

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aquato-family-circus · 9 months

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ok then how about if lucy was born naturally instead of being an ecto-child effectively resulting in her having no post scratch equivalent in a2, ergo leading to raz being a b1 human instead of an a2 troll

and shenanigans result in lucy entering the b1 earth where she saws off her horns and takes the identity of a human, specifically marona after witnessing a meteor body her, said meteor was bearing an infant augustus, of whom she adopts on the spot

also in regards to hemocasting for the trolls

ford/norma: cobalt

compton/sam: bronze

cassie/adam: gold

bob/lizzie: jade

helmut/morris: indigo

otto/gisu: teal

lucy: purple

theodore/gristol: fuschia

also imagine this: norma and lizzie end up getting the same hive because their lusae somehow chose the same last name

while homestuck doesn't generally seem to say that trolls can have siblings, I do like the typical fanon theories that trolls sharing the same symbol/bloodtype or lusus could generally be considered siblings, so I like that as an explaination for norma and lizzie :-)

tho if I could suggest I feel like ford/norma should be burgundy instead of cobalt. ford doesn't seem like a higher royalty type + norma's most interesting when she's trying really hard to prove she's worth respecting and being treated seriously

all the other blood colors are chill tho no more objections there

if you wanna make the p7 and interns trolls, having lucy assume human marona's identity is a neat way to refer back to the original comic and the game at the same time, so thats fun too

back to the original set up you suggested, when you didnt know who should be with lucy cal and truman, the way you had set it up makes it look like you drew a connection between cal and dogen, which is Interesting. dart's a weird enigma of a cut character and while unfortunately I do not typically dig into the lipo documents bc I don't care for them, might I suggest that fuckin weirdo who ford originally had his mind shattering dual with.

if you don't feel like using such a weird useless character tho, maybe uuuuuuh boyd? he's basically like the PN poster child for its mind level designs. that feels natural feels organic, the rest of the thorny towers crew could get bit rolls or something.

Sheegor is also an option. her and cal having to be on the same team would be a nightmare

those are a bunch of different roads to go down, and like I said I might like develop my own take on the au but you keep truckin bc sburb is a mess and there's many doors

#asks #thefallen16 #aus #homestuck

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britishsass · 1 year

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if i were to ever write my random little psychonauts / professor layton au with the pl chars as the psy7 I just know a few million things for it

Which is why I'm saving everyone by including a cut here.

(also because there's spoilers for all of professor layton and for all of psychonauts, but hey)

To start off: Characters who I know or at least can assign tentatively.

(this is mostly the main characters tbh. A few extras seeped through)

Luke is Raz. Both are sonboy incarnate, have strained relations with their father, and have some sort of power that most people around them don't understand.

Flora is Lili. I'm saying this partially for the name joke, partially because I think Flora deserves to be a bit angry about everything that happens to her. Her dad is still alive in this au, too! wow! reinholts stay winning i guess!

Claire is Ford. I know that's not what's expected but I really, REALLY want to talk about Claire and I think that her mind could have such an interesting time theming throughout that you have to contend with-- past/present/future, mainly. Plus, she's morally a little gray already.

Hershel is Lucy. Yes, I know, it doesn't really fit, but imagine the emotions here. Also, this gives me an excuse to have him being Luke's mentor throughout his life and for the two of them to have a very close bond as a sort of family. (Plus, he's already taken the name of a sibling in canon, just like Lucy did.) Additionally, everyone would probably fall apart without him.

Don Paulo is Otto. This is partially for the memes, partially for the serious fact that they're both brilliant inventors who probably had a Thing for Ford/Claire. Also, both would give dangerous inventions to children, no holds barred, give the boy a flying machine just 'cuz.

Randall is Bob. This is specifically him for a few reasons: One, although his main storyline does align with Helmut ("dying but not really, coming back, thinking he failed everyone") his other storyline of being mad about losing the ones he cares about to the point of making it EVERYONE'S PROBLEM is very much a Bob thing.

Angela is Helmut. It's unfortunate, but at the same point I genuinely cannot find much information on her as a person and it's kinda annoying. PL series treat your women better please. On that note: Being romantically involved with Randall, being one of the more positive forces in the lives of the others, caring about other people's safety... Yeah.

Henry is Cassie, sort of. This is where it gets a little messy. I say this mostly because he went to Green Needle Gulch to keep an eye on Randall, not because he did anything in particular. However, he's still trying too hard to fix everything up for when Angela, Hershel, Claire, and Randall are back in shape, cleaning up everything a bit too much. His archetypes are everywhere, but they're more like dust clouds than archetypes-- desperate to clean up the mess but just making more mess.

I've been tossing around Dimitri as Compton as well, but i can also see someone suggesting almost anyone else here. I'm saying Dimitri solely because I personally adore Unwound Future, though. No real reason.

For Sasha and Milla, I've been kind of joking that they're Sammy Thunder and Katia. This is, yet again, mostly because I enjoy Diabolical Box a lot. Plus, they're one of the best duos in the series, other than Chelmey and Barton. There's nothing romantic here because they're cousins, but they got the standard "fun music-lover and serious thinker" dichotomy for it.

Since Luke is Raz, Clark is Augustus. Both tend to throw themselves into their work during times of stress, and they don't exactly listen to their kids the best, but by god they're trying so hard to be good dads, and they have to let their sons go to learn more.

Additional pieces I've thought about include that Luke calls Hershel "Uncle Des," the battle that wrecked the psy7 was only 10-15 years ago here, and that everyone's powers are definitely gonna be mixed up. Also, Luke's not cursed! That's just "Uncle Des" thinking that something is definitely amiss whenever he feels something psychic around. No curse here.

#laytonauts au #i'll tolerate that name for now /lh #professor layton psychonauts au #the owl posts #the owl writes #psychonauts spoilers #professor layton spoilers #i just really like coming up with random ideas tbh

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themotherlobehq · 3 years

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While I think Maligula was unconscious when Ford locked her away, I think Lucrecia was awake when he altered her memories. Or at least it would happen.

I dislike the idea that Lucy had no control whatsoever about what was happening to her. The violation that her friend and lover messed with her memories, created a different identity for her.

I prefer to think that she woke up and was aware. She knew enough. Remembered enough. Too much and was too lucid for her own mind to bear. She begged Ford to make the horrible memories go away.

Ford would’ve still tempered with the memories of an emotionally vulnerable woman who couldn’t make the best decision. He would destroy her old identity. It would cause horrible consequences when he instilled that fear of water into her and young Augustus’ minds. But it gives more agency to her, to ask for it to happen. She couldn’t bear the pain, her guilt from killing her people- from killing her sister and seeing her body float in the wreckage. The aftermath of her breakdown when Maligula manifested, the further death she caused.

It also makes more sense to me why Ford altered her memories even in his desperation. Wouldn’t he check first if it had worked? If the woman who woke up was Lucy?

#psychonauts 2 #Lucrecia Mux #ford cruller #psychonauts 2 headcanons #psychonauts 2 spoilers

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cicadabooks · 3 years

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Nitpicking on time passage in Psychonauts 2

Can someone explain how much time passed between events and people’s general age in the in-universe game? It’s throwing me off.

Ok so first the Psychic 7 were getting together and doing brain stuff, then some years pass, then Lucretia goes back to her homeland, then at some point she’s Maligula (after more years pass?), then Maligula is taken down and skip 20 years to present events. Or did I miss anything.

It looks like Raz’s father Augustus is... Going backwards in time, still a short little kid as depicted in the quilt level, when Lucy and him meet as “parent and child”. Let’s say 10-15yrs. Dion is... older than Raz, age unsure, I feel like I read 14yrs somewhere but wriggle room is fine. Ok, so let’s say August is 15yrs, and 6 years later at 21yrs, he has met Donatella and the two have baby Augustus. Kind of early to me but moving on. 14 years later, Augustus is 35 yrs old and has 10 yr old Raz and 14 yr old Dion? I guess?

More persnicky details, esp about Lucy. So she’s kind of the oldest looking member of the psychic 7 tbh. I mean, granted, she could have aged a lot, which would be fair. But that slight quiver and apparent forgetfulness, and delicate looking rendered old person’s skin (nice detail!).... I kind of vibe idk 70′s or 80′s? (I’m not very good at people’s age). So 20 yrs earlier, in her 50′s, she was reigning terror as Maligula? (Which ngl is kind of cool, narratively.)

(I’m being completely subjective in this part.) Although the game narrative mentions her being a young woman when she went back to Grulovia. IDK what “young woman” could be, but let’s be broad and call that uhhhh 20-35? 40? Although I kind of want to age her up when she met Ford and was doing Psychonauts stuff. (18-20 yrs old is baby to me, for that. Edit: belatedly, I forgot she lost a husband before meeting the early Psychonauts. So mid 20′s, 30′s or older in my mind.) Also, again, she seems like she might have been one of the older ones in the group, at least at the end when she appears with everyone else. Ok let’s say she went back to Grulovia at.... idk 30-35yrs. 15-20 ish yrs of Maligula work? Her Maligula career, if you will?

Look, otherwise there are some giant time leaps between “Young country woman” to “Nona the very old, quivering, forgetful adorable grandmother that is clearly same or older age as grey haired Ford” and 20 yrs is not enough for that. So I’m going to put some buffer time when she was in Grulovia, and also I’m headcannoning her as actually one of the older Psychic 7 members. Although Maybe Otto seems older tbh.

I can’t tell how old Ford is at any point, but tbh the “I was writing love letters!” era + his dark hair could be 25-50 and I’d believe it. The constraint of the dapper dark hair style of his stamp image (and other impressions from time vault images) would put him more in the middle of that age range? Otherwise, love letters are eternal and all ages imo.

Also Ford looked like he might have aged dramatically after the astrolathe (in the memory vault images), so again, ages are kind of out the window in this game. Maybe Lucy is actually like 50 or 60 in the game in current era, just really aged. Who knows.

Honestly Bob looks the most accurate vibes of “oh yeah he was idk 30′s or older and happily married with Helmut but worried about Lucy; cue Maligula fight around then; and then 20 yrs later he’s a bit of scraggly mess at 50′s or older with grey in his hair. He’ll clean up with a haircut.” Like the timeline flows fine with that character.

Also, what year is it in the psychonauts universe. Who knows. I read somewhere “hippie 1960′s + 20 yrs = 1980′s” but again there’s that buffer of Maligula years, and also the technology and time line of the universe is “?”. The computers do look a little retro. Apparently no one has cellphones. (Edit: except... Hollis’s phone?) Who knows.

#psychonauts 2 #psychonauts #ages #years #time passing #spoilers #ford #lucy #lucretia #maligula #bob #helmut #augustus #raz #dion #rambling

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amaryllisblackthorn · 3 years

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theory/thoughts on maligula’s identity based on everything revealed so far (psychonauts 2 spoilers!!)

similarly to my other post, this basically involves an indepth look on things revealed in the peaks we’ve gotten into the game so spoilers especially if you don’t want to know what what may happen in the story beforehand based on close inspection of trailers and other stuff (including like, spotting concept art in the background of a video and such)

so based off of everything revealed about the game so far

lucrecia is almost definitely maligula. the only thing that’s an obstacle is the concept design of current lucrecia as a small old lady, but rn there’s so much indicating lucrecia’s maligula. there’s the imdb voice credit, there’s the fact that it’s the “psychic six” and not the psychic seven -- that lucrecia is the only one from the stumps at camp to be excluded from the stone tablet mural in hq while still having a depiction in the game on a stamp in ford’s mailroom mind level connected with the others which means she’s still relevant -- !!!

basically: she’s excluded, and also relevant in the game, which means there’s a significance to her being excluded.

maligula is also described in the recent Psychonauts 2 Developer Showcase as being one of the first enemies the Psychic Six fought. that certainly fits a former member-turned enemy, along with everything else.

maligula is absolutely related to the galochios, which means lucrecia mux is related to the galachios.

my current tentative theory is that lucrecia/maligula is zalto galachio’s wife who lost herself to grief after her daughter died and. became murderous i guess.

theoretically she could also have been a galachio who married out? but that’s why i said tentative theory.

the recent developer showcase stating that raz’s family history and the founding of the psychonauts being close/connected and the showing of the confrontation scene of maligula, helmut, and who i’ve been tentatively thinking is ford but could be someone else (like potentially lazarus or even some random dude) being shown when tim schafer talks about how ‘the aquatos have been cursed by a mysterious figure to all die in water’ seems to further support this. in fact, it seems to suggest that maligula and not zalto was the one to curse the aquatos -- which honestly kind of reminds me of how they changed the second head of psychonauts from being Herndon to Hollis.

technically there could be another reason for the galachios to hate the aquatos and kill raz’s grandfather other than the death of augustus’ mother since the backstory from the lipo document isn’t technically canon and is liable to changes (like ford’s backstory + involvement with the psychonauts for instance) but i really hope they keep that because i really like the whole twisted aspect of the galachios (whether it be maligula, zalto, both) tormenting the descendents of their daughter out of projected blame and hate when it’s also their family too like. i really dig that so i hope that stays the same.

maligula/lucrecia is also probably the reason helmut’s brain is separated from his body//that his location is ‘at the bottom of a frozen lake’ in grulovia -- where the aquatos were cursed to die in water -- on the letters in the mailroom level.

i’m sure there’s more to it and that im missing stuff but this is my tentative theory for now -- and i’m sure there are more people who had similar thoughts.

there is that concept design of current lucrecia as a small old lady that poses a possible threat -- maybe the lucrecia/maligula connection ends up being a redherring or something idk -- but maybe they ended up changing their minds during development or something. or maybe something else. idk. and that’s why i’m excited for the game haha

before i go i kind of wanna mention that before we really knew much about maligula and that she was a confirmed “mass murderer” i hoped it was gonna be marona/augustus’ mother than zalto would raise from the dead but she’d either turn on him bc he literally killed her and then her husband and did the opposite of caring for her son so why wouldnt she??? or do something akin to Mary Rose by J.M. Barrie where she’s kind of mindless/destructive with only focusing on finding her son who is still a baby to her; also there’d be a level inside zalto’s mind where raz would eventually make him deal with his grief and the guilt he’s been projecting and not dealing with for killing his daughter. i’m kind of sad this isn’t the case --- although i know whatever it’s actually gonna be is gonna ne great !!!! dont get me wrong -- but i still think this was a kind of neat idea so i wanted to write it down somewhere lol. basically i really want the marona’s descendants/galachio family connection existent and explored, which hopefully we’ll get no matter who maligula ends up being.

phew this was much longer than i intended it to be and kind of a mess but i kind of wanted to write my thoughts down before the game came out haha and the recent showcase kind of cemented some of my thoughts which stimulated me to do it

oh before i end i just remembered something i forgot that i thought about. i wonder why lucrecia's excluded from the mural tablet thing in HQ and from the "psychic six" but not from camp via the stumps?? interesting.

#psychonauts 2 spoilers #psychonauts 2 #psychonauts spoilers #psychonauts #ab analyzes #pn2 spoilers #ab: personal #;i could also be totally wrong but i like theorizing

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