PLOTTING: Psycho-Not

[thelostmods]

On the 8th of the month, residents of the Meadous will wake to find a message from Zephyr in their mailboxes.

I got my first homework assignment! I was hoping you could help? If not, that's okay! Like I said, I'm not doing anything without you saying it's okay anymore. I have to test the limits and shape of my power. Teacher said I should pick out one person from the Meadous with special abilities and share those with as many other people in the Meadous as I can. But I have to be careful to make sure nothing gets out of control, and I can keep an eye on everyone all at the same time to make sure they're okay.

I thought it would be fun for everyone to try out Lili's powers for one week. Being a Psychonaut is really cool! You get to be a psychic spy and see inside each other's heads. Lili has all of her Merit Badges, so that's clairvoyance, confusion, invisibility, levitation, shield, marksmanship, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis. And you'll each get a special door that will let you access the Collective Unconscious where you can visit each other's minds and see what they're like.

Please let me know if you want to join in! :)

Beneath the words are two big check boxes. One says: 'Yes, please!' The other says: 'No, thank you!'

PSYCHO-NOT

The Events Calendar post for the plot is HERE

This is a week-long event that is the first homework assignment Zephyr will be trying out for school. It is an OPT-IN event. (You may hand-wave the opting in/out, as you may do for all of these types of events moving forward.) Your character will not gain Psychonaut abilities if they do not want them. Whether they would still be affected by those with Psychonaut abilities is up to you.

If anyone abuses the abilities to hurt another person or themselves, they will be stripped of the Psychonaut abilities for the remainder of the event. We will have an open log post for characters to play with their new abilities and test them out. Go wild! Just don't hurt each other or destroy the Meadous. And maybe someone ought to wrangle Lili for a better explanation of all this stuff.

A brief overview of powers may be found BELOW


May I opt out?
Yes! This is an OPT-IN plot, meaning that your character will not be affected unless they would ICly elect to be.

My character would not opt-in. Is there still a way for me to participate?
Indeed! It is up to your discretion if your character will be affected by the powers other characters are given. If you still want to do mindscape shenanigans, you could totally have someone who has accepted powers enter into your character's mind. Or have them be affected by confusion, clairvoyance, or any of the other abilities Psychonaut powers confer.

Can we abuse our powers to hurt someone?
You can! Zephyr will be very disappointed, though, and your character will be stripped of powers for the remainder of the week once the abuse occurs. Depending on the severity of the abuse, your character may receive additional punishments up to and including being barred from gaining powers in the next power-granting event. Please take this into account when considering OOCly what you would like to do! Minor abuses for silly pranks will be met with chiding after the event, but nothing during the event. NOTE: Abuse of powers to hurt a character will require BOTH mun and mod approval.

What if the abuse is accidental?
Zephyr understands that people can make mistakes, especially with new powers. If it's obvious that the abuse was accidental, Zephyr will gently remove that particular power and let the character play with their other abilities for the remainder of the week. NOTE: Abuse of powers to hurt a character will require BOTH mun and mod approval.

Help! I don't understand this Psychonaut stuff at all!
ICly, that's to be expected! Unless your characters talk to Lili, they'll be sorting all of this out on their own. OOCly, please feel free to ask questions below so we can get things ironed out for you!

Can we talk to Zephyr?
Unfortunately, they will be unavailable for talk during the event as they'll be focused on keeping it running/observing. If your character abuses their powers, they'll receive a message from Zephyr, but the godling will be quiet until after the event when they'll ask for feedback, otherwise.

Please feel free to ask below if you have any other questions that we haven’t thought of!

Comments

PSI POWERS AND QUESTIONS ON THEM

[thelostmods]

Clairvoyance - You'll be able to see through someone else's eyes when you're touching them. The world will be colored by their perception, though. This ability could be used to see what every other character sees for the walls of the Meadous, for instance, as the perception of what they look like varies.

Confusion - What it says on the tin. You'll be able to create a throwable grenade that bursts into a cloud that causes severe confusion and disorientation.

Levitation - You'll be able to create a large ball of light that your character can roll on to hover about 3 feet off the ground. The colors are varied and can be chosen to suit your characters' preferences.

Shield - What it says on the tin. You'll be able to create a small, spherical shield all around you that goes out about 1.5 feet from your body. It can fend off most physical and psychic attacks.

Marksmanship - You'll be able to form psychic energy into a ball and shoot it out at a target. It would only go about as far as a typical arrow from a small bow would go.

Telekinesis - You'll be able to create a giant floating hand that you can use to pick things up and move them around. The heavier the object, the greater the mental strain.

Invisibility - What it says on the tin. Characters can briefly turn invisible for brief periods of time. They can be sensed by other means, but they're out of sight while invisibility is going.

Pyrokinesis - What it says on the tin. You'll be able to create small fires. Very small fires. Zephyr is putting a tight leash on this to prevent accidents. The ability will be dampened so that characters can only create fires about as big as a lantern's light in their hands.

Collective Unconscious - The collective unconscious is where characters can gain entry to each other's minds. Every character taking part in the collective unconscious will have a unique door and a unique world beyond it representing their minds. THIS provides a general guide to creating a mindscape. And below are two examples of mindscapes that players have developed for use in the game:

Bertie's Mindscape
Dustin's Mindscape

GENERAL QUESTIONS

[thelostmods]

From Bramble

[thelostmods]

How will the psychonaut-style telekinesis interact with existing telekinetic powers? Troll psionics are at least visually different from Lili's powers - will the new powers overwrite existing but similar powers, or will Waspfire have access to both forms?

[thelostmods]

Characters with similar powers to those of a Psychonaut will have their native abilities temporarily overridden by their new powers to avoid any potentially dangerous power-mixing. A psychic troll may find their skills as a Psychonaut are particularly advanced in certain areas, like Waspfire with telekinesis.

[raimeibrave]

If a character dies in another character's mindscape, do they die in real life?

PLOTTING

[thelostmods]

Luce Blancos

[thelostmods]

So, Luce is going to ignore his little door thing and think everything is normal and everyone else is acting weird because he knows how to control his own innate psychic abilities already.

But this also means I am open to people harassing Luce. And because I like to think I know Psychonauts p. well, if you wanna go into Luce's mind I can help with the walkthroughs and such.

Resident Psychonaut!

[justshutupraz]

After Lili's initial frustrated screech at Zephyr for this- she'll likely be posting something on the bulletin board or tucking flyers around town.

If you're character is going to have these powers, she's going to teach you how to actually handle it./Clean up after any potential mistakes. She's going to try and help people cope with the sudden influx of abilities.

Lili's also had her hand very heavily in the Collective Unconscious of the The Meadous. People who do investigate will find hints of Lili around it and marked off doors and the occasional lost note in her curly handwriting. ALSO- Her mindscape's door in the Collective Unconscious will be completely closed off. Bolted door and locks on everything. People are free to comment on that and try to break/fail at it.

If anyone wants to play off of that, I'm definitely game!

[mycopilotisatrex]

Ooooh! If King finds the fliers, he's going to look for her to ask for advice! He's signing up because he wants to help Zephyr with his homework, but he's not considering anything else. Like those little details of how to handle those powers properly.

Alice Cullen

[pythianpixie]

Alice is going to be participating because why not. Her mindscape is going to be...interesting. To say the least. Considering she's a vampiric amnesiac.

She's also very practiced with mental control (canonly shutting out her telepathic brother, plus controlling her her own brand of psychic future-vision), so expect her to pick up on the abilities abnormally fast. And she'll probably try to block or divert people away from places in her mindscape that she doesn't want them to go, once she gets the hang of that one. I'm really hoping to have some fun with her trying to continue her "normal" pretense in the face of some really bizarre proficiency with this stuff.

Dustin Silver

[scruffy_mcjackass]

So Dustin is going to check that "NOPE" box about a million times over and not have any powers himself, and also will be fortifying his mental defenses basically the entire time. He does not trust you dirty telepaths.

BUT that wouldn't be very fun if I left him out of things! I'm really eager to have someone get in his head and get lost, and then have other Meadous folk have to work together to get them out. Or other such business where Dustin becomes someone's test subject! The grumping will be glorious.

The Psiioniic

[xanthous]

He will be participating! He'll decide to give the PSI powers a go to see what it's like to have powers that aren't his own. There will probably be judgment on just how...powerful these powers are, because he's gotten way too used to being the most OP psionic troll around.

His mindscape will also be totally open, with practically no memories hidden away. Most of his memories will probably be complete horror shows filled with violence, body horror, slavery, and the like as a warning, but ICly the Psiioniic will just not care who sees his memories, or how many people see them. (He will also not understand how anyone could be upset over their vaults being open and will generally be an ass about this whole thing.)

He'll also be wandering the Collective Unconscious and travelling through the doors freely, so if anyone wants someone to barge in on their minds with zero sympathy but a lot of curiosity, the Psiioniic could be your man.

Re: The Psiioniic

[inheavenslight]

Would you like the Psiioniic to go barging into Luce's brain? Luce is a psychic who is ashamed about being one?

The Disciple

[disciplewhomsignlessloves]

Di is going to check yes because her life has been spent around people with shiny interesting powers in some fashion and one can only be curious. It's not precisely the same but still.

I'm still working out how mindscapes work, being utterly canonblind, so I'll be figuring that out later. On the power side of things, one can definitely expect her to be messing with telekinesis, pyrokinesis and levitating. Her hair might get set on fire. A little. And I anticipate her getting people and things stuck up trees and on windmills.

She'll have tons of fun right up until mindscape part but such is life. She never really wanted to go into other peoples minds.

[mycopilotisatrex]

I volunteer Daigo to be stuck up somewhere high!

Hajime Aikawa

[chalicejoker]

Hajime is not going to be able to resist playing with new powers when given the option, so he's opting in to this. I'm up for people coming into his mindscape, parts of which look way older than they should, given Hajime's apparent age. (Someone please give him grief and/or make him awkward about this, please. 8D)

Since he's got issues with emotions because they're still weird to have, I'd really love to have him remain stone-faced about something that would make him get all emotional, and then have his powers start doing crazy things while he's just standing there and linefacing and trying to deny that.

[spitefulvitae]

Natalie and Hajime need to test out their new powers together. Maybe they can make it a bit of a competition? They're technically on even ground, being equally new to the stuff....

[mycopilotisatrex]

Can Daigo get into his mindscape? Hajime is welcome to wander around in King's as long as he wants :P

Ienzo

[ignes_fatui]

Look Ienzo wouldn't be a very good scientist if he wasn't incredibly nosy, so he'll be opting into this super hard. For the most part he's just excited to compare and his invisibility and fire spells and so on with these new abilities, but if he can get someone's consent he'd be very interested in looking through their minds. Barring some kind of slapstick falling-through-a-door accident, though, that's the only way he'll do it. Even big snoops have standards.

Thanks to Lili's amateur therapy week last year I've already got a mindscape set up for him which people are free to explore! It's in slightly better shape than it was at that point in time so I'll be writing an update to it eventually. Be advised that he'll probably be pretty upset if he finds out you've been in there without his permission, though.

[spitefulvitae]

Natalie is going to sign up for having powers because powers wow yes please this is great. She's not going to be all that good at using them, however, so she's available for any powers-backfiring shenanigans if anyone needs some of those. She's possibly nosy enough to go poking around in people's heads, too, if someone wants that.

Isaka is going to sign up for them as well, although he's doing it on a more academic kind of basis. He already has some psychic powers and he's hoping that maybe doing this will help him improve the use of his own. He'll have slightly more control than your average person might, and be better at telekinesis, levitation, and confusion. He's probably not going to go rattling around inside anyone's head unless asked... and also be pretty hesitant as to who he'd let into his.

Dakki will be opting out of cool mind powers, because they're really not her thing. She's more than happy to be a test subject for just about anything anyone wants to try, though! The education of the young is important! Also, it's something to do.

Eddie Riggs

[kingroadie]

Eddie will be opting out of powers. He's really not interested in being a psychic, much less all the responsibility that comes with it. Marrying a psychic (rip sasha nein) kind of made him wary of getting any powers.

Good news though: Eddie is a VERY loud thinker. Any psychics passing him by will be blasted by heavy metal music that seems to be perpetually playing in his head. He can't wholly control it, so enjoy.

His door in the Collective Unconscious is also open, open as all hell. Noisy people are free to poke around, though Eddie will be so pissy about it later. His mindscape is rolling valleys of grass, statuary bursting up through chunks of the greenery, metal trees/plants, wild creatures lurking around and flowing waterfalls that defy logic by going upwards.

Mary Watson

[marywatson]

Mary will only be saying "yes" so that she has enough power to block everyone else out. She has secrets and they need to stay secret. She's not interested in using such powers to gain knowledge about anyone else. I do head-canon (there is one inference in canon to this possibility) that Mary uses the Method of Loci, so the idea of a mindscape won't be completely foreign to her. Mary's history prior to her being an assassin/joining the CIA are completely off limits, since we don't have that information from canon right now. Therefore, Mary's door in the mindscape will be locked with a coded lock. Not impossible to get through, but you'd have to work at it. (IE: please plot first)

That said, I'd love to play up some of this, because horror games are horror and Mary has secrets and pains to hide, but it might be fun to explore some of those 'getting out'.

Mindscapes

[thelostmods]

For organizational purposes, please reply here with links to or descriptions of your character's mindscapes. List if its possible to enter or meddle as well!

[mycopilotisatrex]

Daigo is absolutely going to participate. He wants to help Zephyr as much as he can, and this sounds like fun. It's going to be an impulse sign up on his part and he won't read the fine print for this. But he's sure he'll figure things out as they come.

He won't hurt people on purpose, though.