wethelostooc | PLOTTING: Psycho-Not

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Copy/pasting from the earlier Psychonauts plot with a little editing...

So Hajime's mindscape is set up like a very old, very dark labyrinth. Some areas have torches on the walls, others have rickety electric lights, single lightbulbs hanging off of wires. Following the torches leads to older memories, while the lightbulbs will lead to more recent ones. The older walls are lined with flaking cave paintings of strange, spiked monsters, and the newer ones have photographs taped up everywhere. They're photographs of the people in his life, for the most part. The more important the person is, the more photographs there will be. People he likes have really good photographs of them, while people he doesn't like will have distorted photographs in bad quality.

The older areas are pretty clogged with mental cobwebs and full of censors--they're pretty much representative of his memories as an Undead fighting in the Battle Royale ten thousand years ago. In the older areas, there's a dungeon of some sort, a room with a heavy barred door. Inside is a large stone slab carved to look like a giant playing card, and it looks like something was once chained to the slab with heavy iron chains. There is, however, nothing there anymore. There are, notably, no cobwebs in or around the dungeon. It's old, but the area's been used recently.

Every now and then, the labyrinth will open up into a room. Most of them look like photography studios, though they'll have slight differences reflecting all the studios he's gone through since leaving home, and it's very easy to find photographs of his loved ones in there. There's also another room that looks like a small, family-run restaurant--it's the Jacaranda, the restaurant he lived at back home. Wandering for too long in the labyrinth will inevitably lead back to that spot. At one point, the labyrinth will open into a forest clearing. In the middle of the clearing is an imprint as though a large, skinny, and heavy rectangular object once sat there, but no object remains.

Hajime's censors are just variations on Chalice, his Rider form, while his personal demons resemble normal Darkroaches--they're aggressive and don't chirp. The normal inhabitants of Hajime's mind are actually various generic Kamen Rider knockoffs with cameras. Mostly, they're just prowling through the labyrinth looking for...something. But sometimes they stop and take selfies or can be found developing photos in one of the photography studios. Don't go into a darkroom if the red light is on outside the door--they'll get upset.

The version of Hajime that's wandering around in here will actually be a bit friendlier than he is in real life--because oh my gosh he's human and that being entirely human is actually really exciting even if he never really gives voice to that enthusiasm (or even knows how to do that) in real life and his subconscious isn't quite as concerned about appearances. He feels things now, and it's great! But he'll also kind of be a pest and follow people around, because hey, this place is kind of dangerous and you don't want to be hanging around here in case Joker ever comes back. He's mostly dressed as the Human Undead might be back home, which means he's got a pair of pants on. And that's it, because that's how Human Undead rolled. No belt, because humans don't need belts the way Undead do. Bringing him near the dungeon mentioned earlier will probably get him talking about how he's glad Joker's gone, because he'd be chained in there while Joker was loose. Talking about Joker for too long will draw Censors pretty quickly.