#Campster

[psi-spectacular]

Made a blank campster profile for your oc needs!

[canageek]

Alright, I expect a lot of people will already know about these ones, but just in case:

Noah Gervais often does complete series retrospectives, going over ever game in a series including DLC and wired spinoffs and what they mean for the series. His latest one is a 2 hour overview of Quake from a narrative perspective (since most people talk about it from a multiplayer perspective)

He isn't mostly on YouTube (he started when having a blog with an RSS feed and a link to archive.org was totally normal.) But Chrontendo: he doesn't go into much detail on each game, but he is doing a damn fine job going into every NES and Famicom game in order of original release and showing that some things often claimed as inspiration aren't plausible even you take Japanese release order into account.

Atari Archive: A similar idea to Chrontendo but instead he does one game per episode and DEEP dives including reading developer interviews, print reviews, industry publications, sales figures, and related games on other systems.

Stop Skeletons From Fighting: Goes into weird bad games (Or as he calls it, "The good garbbo", especially ones that failed due to being far too ambitious like trying to do a first person shooter on the game boy. His latest video is a multi-hour one examining every game on the Zeebo.

(Edited to fix the links and add more:)

He doesn't post anymore, but Errant Signal is damn good. He is more on the game theory, literary/game mechanics side of things, but if you like the above links, he is very good. Also, he has been making videos forever, and has less then 200K subscribers, which really sucks.

If you want more DEEP dives on the first women in video games, or the influences of Metroid, can I offer you Critical Kate ?

RetroAhoy does cool stuff with lovely illustrations, going into the history of things from X-Com to music trackers, to various firearms and why those specific models show up in video games so often.

Dark Lore Dash does lore dives and lore lets plays of darker games: Mostly the Diablo series, but also some Star Wars games and Oblivion (What I watch him for). (I know, you are saying Oblivion isn't dark, but there is plenty of necrophilia and cannibalism in it. I mean, it isn't dark vs Diablo, but still)

Ok, need to get on a plane. Again, if you want more, let me know.

my favorite genre of youtube video by far

[razbian]

“Micky and I have a lot in common in that we hurt people sometimes and we don’t know why. We try to be nice but then everybody starts screaming and crying and then they ship you off to camp.”

…

“And he has a special hat, just like me.”

[2hoothoots]

happy birthday*, Raz!

*we don't have a canon birthday for Raz, but his old myspace page says his sign is capricorn (dec 22-jan 19), so I go with that for my headcanon! as for why the 30th, well...

i just think the irony is kinda funny :p

[cosmicheartz]

I will always love the fact that the only psychonauts character to canonically say fuck is Crystal

[curi0uscreature]

* Big day for weird kid enthusiasts (me)

[doodle17]

Does anybody know how I could read the Li-po doc, or possibly has a link or something

[mirchloe]

sending my apologies to the splatoon 3 user called campster for splatting them with my big ass hammer as they desperately tried sniping me the closer i got.

[psicadetterra]

Does "hee hee" mean that he likes Michael Jackson

[gruloky]

i am so autistic and determined i can do so many things that are probably extremely helpful to fans of these games however the caveat is that half the time i will only do it if there's something donatella related in there for me

[mrprestto]

[king-magppi]

SIGHHHH it was bothering me SO much that the Dooms already had canon names that I went in and edited the image and fixed the post... 🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️ If you saw their original names just pretend those are their middle names.

[cluepoke-archive]

Ohhhh I wanna make a psychonauts archive blog so bad

[violixir]

If you could pick one character to be the new main/playable who would you choose and what kind of arc do you think they'd go through?

ough this is hard because i really like raz as a protagonist.... i'd probably end up picking an aquato or an intern, because both of those threads were set up and kind of let down.... my aquato bias says frazie, who could get an arc relating to the current turmoil her family is in relating to the sudden upheaval and request to stay for psychic training. a fantastic excuse to also explore the aquatos as a family unit in more depth, tbh, because i felt like they ended up taking the backseat in a story about the origin of their family trauma. it being about frazie in psychic safety training also adds to the 'this really took place in like a week' style psychonauts tends to fall into.

if the aquato storyline was being moved on from as a main point and that's why raz was being shelved, though.... i have a bias toward gisu. she's clearly smart and resourceful and has a blunt charisma to her, and i could see her having a really interesting moveset with new powers and gadgets. give her a game about becoming reengaged with her work after a mission goes belly up, maybe...?

[dammarchy211]

More au rambling !

Bobby and Benny are still Bullies, but as Benny enters the intern program, and just generally gets older, he starts getting more into his passions. Which happens to be theatre. Bobby starts to also make fun of Benny because of that, which starts creating a rift there. They’ll amend it don’t worry, hopefully with Bobby getting nicer in he end. These two are both currently friends with Dart and KC from my other headcanons. (Rip 13 y/o Dart design it got deleted when my tablet was wiped lol)

Kitty and Lili are starting their petty enemies to friends arc because they realized they have similar tastes in music, and only really hated each other to begin with because they’re Both standoffish.

As for Dexter! Obviously he’s not in the intern program, but Raz sees him again at school. Raz is going because of a psychonauts legal issue that says he has too/hj. Genuinely Batty thinks that Dexter’s education is important, so after skipping a year or two of school due to being a gang of criminals, Batty gets him enrolled with some well placed intimidation for anyone to look away. Dexter’s not Super currently allowed to be doing any criminal activities or psychic evils, so over the year him and Raz & others become surprisingly good friends! There’s still this fun “ahaha we’re like comic book nemeses!” energy to it, but there’s no urgency to fighting like if Dexter was up to something.

These guys still exist as the early 2000’s cartoon that lives in my brain

Raz is obviously no longer in the interns program, but I’m debating on whether or not he’s still a junior agent because he IS thirteen. So probably. Regardless though him and Lili have to hang around with the new batch of interns which! Happens to be a lot of the kids they met at camp! Being an au of my creation this also includes a lot of my ocs because, my universe I do what I want. Lili, Raz, a few of the interns are all attending the same middle school near the area. Oh as well as super cool(/j) kid villain Dexter Fahrenheit, villainy on the down low bc Dr. Sawbones thinks school is important.

[spaloonbabooguuscooties]

You could drink your whole life away and still never get that taste out of your mouth.

half commission for @salempie half completely self indulgent dreck pieced together from our insane conversations abt franke and elka. told myself id finally write a big explanation for all of the dum shit between these two for context so Thats Under The Cut.

so I already wrote some stuff about elka and franke's relationship back in whispering rock so feel free to look at that too . it goes over elkas blindness/‘seeing’ with clairvoyance and how her and franke started talking & all that good stuff

SO FOR STARTERS. a lot of thsi wont make sense without a big breakdown of elka herself. because elkas potential as a character is like insane to me. like just the idea of her in the long run of her life reads as something so potentially tragic; a young girl whos plagued with visions of doom and destined to be an outcast even in her own home for things she cant control and clings to the One vision of her wedding that she thinks is 'happy' even despite the fact she doesnt really love the person in it. im choosing to take the li-po doc as canon here because its funny shes the only one with backstory-

but my fucking god even the smallest look into what her parents are like is soo fucked up to me. and i do think elka especially gets a lot of influence from her mother; its funny how easily you can fit mabel doom into a box just from what elka says about her. knees deep in an avon-esque pyramid scheme and leaning into her daughters depressing ass visions & taking her to therapy at age 11 (which would be good if not for the kind of person you can already assume she is & so i doubt the therapist she has really does her any good. i think they share one). she reads as a very I Am My Daughters Best Friend type of mom to me and i can see elka being a centerpiece of the conversation when she has her Amway Girls over for drinks. wine-mom that lets her kid sip from the glass so she can feel like a big girl type deal.

and you can tell that elka is trying to hard to be too mature for her age even in her campster posts. how she writes letters to nils' mom and exchanges baking recipes with her and that feels like she really only interacts with middle aged women and not really many people her own age outside of camp (like her moms friends). which makes sense shed feel the need to ‘grow up’ early when shes probably had to process so many hard things at a young age bc of her visions.

theres a lot of filling the blanks here of course.

elka obsesses over nils to an overbearing degree even despite the fact he treats her like shit ('you promised no talking' and so on) and she treats him bad right back. she leans onto stereotypical heterosexual ideals like taking care of him and overblowing how Manly and Protective JT is and she admires romance stories like pride and prejudice and it feels like she Projects Soooooooo much of what she wants onto boys she barely feels anything for without knowing what its actually supposed to feel like. and clearly she WANTS that ideal future, a happy marriage, an actual romance- but according to nils even when they were dating she ignored him most of the time, which just seems Very Telling

like shes filling a role, overcompensating for emotions and lacktherof she cant digest quite yet, and it only makes more sense when you know shes had visions of their future together. how could that be bad for her? shouldnt it be like the books and movies? but she doesnt really connect the fact that her visions are only for Doomed futures, and if she does she certainly doesnt show it. Doomed relationships. it's been a part of her family for generations and she isn't turning out much different, is she? i dont think she even realizes thats all she ever sees yet, just that its Going to happen. that it's Her future, and it always will be

and like, her only reference for a real marriage so far has been her own parents, and she already Knows they have an affair, and theyre doomed to split, (and i actually like to think they were in rough waters anyway and elka was a child meant to mend a crumbling marriage but thats a whole other thing) and so without a framework for what an actual healthy relationship is supposed to be like she cant really grasp that her relationship with nils Isnt that and isnt ever going to be. she can only cling to this one happy idea of the future, and thats why she keeps chasing him, self fulfilling the actuality of her situation and creating and fostering the unhappy life they will inevitably live together.

and that bleeds into everything else in her life, of course, because as the years go on, as the visions grow in number it just makes sense for her to fall into the predictability of her life. she always knows whats going to happen, her visions are Never wrong- so why try to change things? shes had time to process tragedies days, weeks, months, years before they happen, shes had time to settle into every crack of her life. her parents divorce, her various break ups, her future with the psychonauts.

“and she's already seen so much of a future with [nils] she feels trapped almost. Like she has to be happy in it or else it just means her life is miserable. And it's a mixture of pride and fear of the unknown that keeps her clinging to the One thing she knows. BUT LIKE!!! She knows what's gonna happen! It's easier to grieve when she's been grieving for years... She wants so badly to be happy, But to do that she has to step into the unfamiliar. And that's more terrifying than staying the same miserable person she's always been.”

and thats where franke comes in— and yeah you Do have to take a lot of liberties for frankes character since it’s basically, like, all the info for her is just that shes a Supreme Baby Dyke but thats enough for me. i think she has protective butch itch in her . on campster shes defensive over other women evidenced in the way she keeps watch over the girls cabins for lili when elton is pursuing her . but shes also eager to please and constantly trying to make kitty laugh and also Very naive. but she tries! and i think it only solidifies more as she gets Older and really gets a hold of her feelings & her powers. this is incredibly franke to me

and i think as they grow older together— because i think franke and elka Do stay friends, both because elka is just pathetic and needs that positive connection even if she doesnt realize it and because i think franke is a very Loyal person & annoyingly persistent if you let her be . and i am also a kitty/franke truther. because kittys also important in this web we weave

because i think franke and kitty stay together after camp, to a point— theres a falling out facilitated on kittys end and they break up, but reconnect, and franke kind of... saves kitty from herself a little, from her strict military father whos love only extends thru finances , from her own stifling future , she drives all the way to bakersville in her shitty van handmedowned from her dad and they move in together eventually . they get jobs at the motherlobe , because it’s a pipeline to a decent job, because it’s whats easy, because franke doesn’t really have a future, because she’s never really been good at much, because shes never had much sense, because franke doesnt really care as long as she can live and help, sometimes, if she can, and because kitty’s there, and because elka’s there, and shes so used to being elkas eyes now and shes good at it. shes good at being the muscle of the missions when her colleagues lack it, when hypnosis and predictions arent enough. she likes it that way.

and elka appreciates frankes company. she listens, shes sweet, she does little things for her that no ones ever really put the effort for before; she likes her. franke is strong and bold and makes her laugh and shes always there but god elka cant let go of that future, of that box shes put herself in, that her mothers put her in, of being a Good Wife to a Loving Husband, of getting married normally and falling into unfailing familiarity. thats all shes ever wanted and shes not going to jeopardize that . not for franke, who may not be a boy but is handsome like one, whos always held her after every break up with nils and the men that filled empty days inbetween.

and elka is too stubborn to recognize those feelings anyway. too prideful to accept a way out. too set in her cycle no matter how much she hates it, her little self fulfilling tragedy of her own making, wallowing in her own doom. she struggles for control of her own life when she feels like every choice has been made for her anyway, she puts up her walls and carefully constructs what people see. but franke was always harder to trick, because while empathy isnt a particularly useful psychic power it’s certainly an inconvenient one. all franke has to do is get too close and all those carefully crafted walls fall apart, and elkas control is gone, and thats all she really has. and she tries to distance herself, really she does, but franke is also too persistent. and elka wears gloves, keeps contact that would make her walls crumble from happening as best as she can, but she cant really keep herself from the brief moments where she feels like someone actually fucking cares about her.

and that slightest lack of control, the need to wrestle it back is why she proposes to nils the next time theres a falling out— she knows how it happens, she plans every detail. and he accepts, despite everything. gets her a cheap ring and it feels like lead on her finger and its nothing at all like how shed thought it to be when she was a kid, theres no feather light feeling in her chest, only that dreadful reality that she cant turn this back. BUT WHAT CAN U DO LMAO

elka doesnt tell franke about this engagement until later, on their way back from a mission. late at night when neither of them can sleep, and franke invites elka to smoke in her van, because its been so long since theyve been alone like that, because elkas been so strangely absent lately. and because of everything, because frankes always so damn nice, because elka hates the feel of the ring on her finger, because she let herself get high alone with franke fucking athens whos always been so good at pulling her apart— the truth of it all spills out and its messy and emotional and she hates it, she hates the life shes made for herself, but franke makes it easier to bare and now shes here and shes so close and god she wishes she could see her smile again, she wishes she could see franke, thats all she needs right now and she cant but she can touch her and she can hold her and for tonight, she can be known, she can let those walls crumble, she can be something else just for once here with franke . she can kiss her here in this van, touch that happiness for just a moment, and forget the future that waits for her outside of it. franke begs her to forget the wedding, to just let herself be happy— and god, she wants to, but it means turning her back on everything shes known and everything shes saw to be inevitable, and franke has never been in her future, so if it were supposed to work out why hadnt she seen it and she cant, she cant take that risk but she can have this, even if its temporary, she can have it.

and just as soon as she gets a taste of it, its gone. after that night, after the missions over and theyre back at the motherlobe and have to pretend like nothing happened (franke doesnt, of course she tells kitty about it, she tells kitty about everything.) but that brief moment together haunts elka every time she sees franke, sees herself through frankes eyes, sees herself in her wedding dress because god its all franke can think about! of course it is! she knows how much elkas destroying herself she knows how much misery shes wallowing in that kiss in the van felt like an emotional punch to the teeth and she hasnt ever forgotten it and all she can do is sit and watch while elka throws herself into a loveless marriage. she can come to her wedding and see the way the bride and groom kiss with the emotional weight of a wet towel no matter how hard elka tries to hide it under a pretty dress and bouquets of flowers and meticulous planning.

and elka resents nils but she cant really hate him, its not his fault, not really. he feels trapped just like she does and his feelings of misery only cycle back into hers . they fight and gnash and wear away at each other and its a relationship thats crashed and burned a million times before elka even said i do. and its inevitable that she falls into her mothers habits, a sip of wine here and there to loosen up, until it turns to a glass, until it falls into a bottle on nights when whatever work nils does runs late.

but franke’s still there. shes always been there, hasn’t she? always trying to play knight, always trying to save her, dragging her home when shes stumbling over herself because god who else is going to do it but her? who else is left to care? certainly not nils. never nils. because franke knows her. because franke pities her. shes always pitied her. shes always known. and elka hates it, she resents it, but god in the same breath she’s desperate for it, she envies it to her very bones. elka is a mess but after frankes done with her she has someone to go back to that loves her. and god what elka wouldnt do to have that. to take it and keep it for herself because shes never ever got to have that movie romance shes always wanted.

so now comes this.

because elkas particularly miserable and particularly spiteful and she needs to get franke to understand, just for a moment, drink with her and get on her level and she needs her there with her no matter how her pity makes her feel. no matter how much it makes her shake with anger and envy and desperation, but god the way franke looks at her, the way she still tries to salvage what they have, the soft, slurred way she tells her that it’s okay but its not okay, none of this is okay, it never has been and she just wants franke to shut up and see that, and if she cant then she’ll show her, she’ll show her all the raw angry desperation, with too much teeth and hands that claw and grab and she’ll know why everyones always said she’s too much.

and she knows this puts her on nils’ level too. that this makes her a cheater, that shes no better than he is now. no better than her father and his affair. but god, she wants to be selfish. she wants to be in control. just for once. she wants to feel right and she wants to feel happy and she wants to feel loved. thats all shes ever wanted. and franke will let her have that, just for a little while, at the very least.

anyway. sorry. sorry for being crazy . this isnt even getting into the shit after the comic takes place . elkas stupid brainworld thag she has to overcome in order to finally be allowed in the polycule and live happily ever as worlds first lesbian divorceman

sorry for all the shit i make up instead of caring about actual characters with screentime . bye !