#lady luctopus

[takem46]

[redularium]

Hollis Lucky . i think

This is so so lazy . i just needed to get a bit of the design down because i’m also working on another Hollis n Lucky piece but I might as well share this

[how-good-day]

The hole ( hi vines from 2014 )

Where is intern?

in the hole

[jnixz]

Painted more screenshots

Learned 'bout how hard it is to colour in lighter colours once the darker colour is down

Oh neon and mist I tried

[deezeyrabbidy]

" Who are you calling a BAD IDEA? "

I return to tumblr with an actual psychonauts piece, who knew??? School has been STRESSING me the fuck out latley so art has taken a bit of a backseat, but I'm glad I can finally share my first ever Psychonauts gjinka with y'all lol

[tentacletournament]

TENTACLE TOURNAMENT REVIVAL ROUND - GROUP F

[pixie-mask]

Love it

revisited my luctopus hollis design from this post

[twotapbuz]

I’m so stupid I just realized the name lady luctopus is a reference to Lady Luck

[jenniferstolzer]

Psychonauts Theory revisit

The more I think about Psychonauts 2 the more I am convinced that Agent 33 is a Deluginist. I think she was recruited prior to the events of the game and responsible for putting the Maligula block in Loboto's head. Everyone talked about how a powerful psychic was required for him to break the office construct and a lot was made of the fact that Malik was not psychic. The line about Agent 33 being on vacation does not satisfy me. She manipulated her vacation to put her in the Lady Luctopus so that she could work with Malik undetected. She was used or recruited by the Deluginists, made Truman's kidnapping possible, and got away with it.

If we ever get a Psychonauts 2 DLC mission I want it to be about Helmut.

But if we ever get a SECOND Psychonauts 2 DLC mission I want it to expose Agent 33's crimes.

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[psitaniumpsichosis]

[Psychonauts 2 Spoilers! You have been warned!]

Razputin Donovan Malik, future Gzesarevich of Grulovia

No one really knows how the lost baby ended up in the Lady Luctopus, much less how he ended up in the North Penthouse. But as Gzar Theodore Malik and Gzarina Rokel Malik argued about what to do with the screaming infant, their twenty-something son-- Gzesarevich Gristol Malik-- Decided to handle things himself.

Gristol cleaned the little boy up, who only had an armband that read "Razputin", and quickly fell in love with the sweet little boy. With some challenges, he began raising Razputin as his own son.

At age 6, Razputin watched his grandfather Theodore die. At age 7, his grandmother Rokel followed.

Suddenly he was uprooted and became part of Gristol's plans to infiltrate the Psychonauts -- now under the alias "Razputin Johnsmith", and the Motherlobe became his primary residence as his dad "Nick" started working there.

Now he's 10, and being sent to summer camp with his friend Lili-- his dad insists it's important.. just won't say why.

[redularium]

Changed her design just a bit … but it’s mostly the same because i am very lazy :]

eight limbs, eight tentacles for a skirt . silly!!

[doodle17]

Jazzy upbeat boss music us literally the best kind of boss music because it will literally blow your tits off with hie fucking HARD it SLAPS

[highbrasshighkass]

obsessed with the lady luctopus mission how the interns are disappointed that they can't enter the casino bc of the "no psychics" rule as opposed to the probably "no minors" rule

[kieraspsychonautssideblog]

Why Hollis Forsythe is a Deeper Character Than You Realize

So ya'll seem to like my essay on why Loboto's Labyrinth is a good tutorial level for Psychonauts 2. I've wanted to write an essay on the rest of the cast as well, so I decided to start with the second character we head into the mind of: Hollis Forsythe.

We are first introduced to Hollis when she comes to greet the cast after they land at the Motherlobe. I have played this game with my friends and my step-dad, and both parties initially believed Hollis was the mole due to her saying she didn't hear the crew's call for help and her initial dismissal at the idea of a mole being in the Psychonauts.

She is shown to be strict, serious, and maybe has a bit of an ego due to her preference for "Second Head" instead of Lesser Head, and with how she conducts herself after the casino mission. She isn't exactly soft towards interns, particularly Raz, and she can easily be seen as intimidating.

I do think it's rather odd that she would put a psychic intern under the mentorship of a non-psychic employee, but think of the situation she has been put in.

Truman is out of commission, and she has to keep the whole place running, and a mole is possibly running around about to bring back the biggest threat to the Psychonauts ever, their budget is getting tight, and a new intern has plopped into her lap.

I am choosing to believe that Hollis put Raz under the mentorship of Nick Johnsmith as a temporary thing, and would have given him a proper mentor afterward (given that none of the interns are mentoring under Sasha, I believe that Hollis would have given Raz to Sasha if things went differently.)

However, after she gives your mentor, you can ask her about her diploma, and she mentions being an intern at the Neurological Hospital for one year before joining the Psychonauts.

We learn in Hollis's mind that the reason she left was because while she was interning there, she came up with a new method that could save lives, but Dr. Potts had stolen her work and claimed all the credit. Appallled at this, Hollis used Mental Connection to try and mess with Dr. Potts, but ended up breaking him and they had to call in the Psychonauts to help. Truman gave her the position after this.

It is interesting that this hospital internship seems to be so central to Hollis as a character given that it was only for one year. However, it does seem to have affected her character greatly. She is immensely worried about the safety of the children she mentors, after all, and there are several figments of people being hurt or being cared for in both of her minds. Hollis's Classroom, while important to establish Hollis, is not where Hollis's character shines.

That will have to be Hollis's Hot Streak.

In Hollis's Hot Streak, we go through the Pharmacy, the Maternity Ward, and Cardiology to get three gazillion dollars to enter the High Rollers lounge and fight the Lady Luctopus. In each of these areas, we get a good insight into Hollis's thought process.

Side note: the fact that the hub area is a six-sided DIE in the MORGUE...

This game and its pun.

Anyway, in the Maternity Ward, we see that Hollis actually has a very cynical view of babies and those who want them. Most obvious is the rich couple who only want a baby for their own gain. The fact that there's some emotional baggage only accessible through dark thoughts is also something to think about. In this area, when we go to the backroom, we hear Hollis say "Well, of course, the whole system is rigged! But I mean, I'm just one person! What could I do about it?" which reads very heavily like learned helplessness almost. Given that, if you go talk to Hollis in the Motherlobe after your family arrives, she mentions that "all families are terrible", it does imply Hollis might not have a good relationship with her family.

In the Pharmacy, the entire point is to fix the Pillinko Machine so you can win. With Hollis's heart in the wrong place, it's up to us to try and make better connections in order to get to the backrooms. When we're there, Hollis says "Swallowing your feelings sounds bad, but really, who wants to hear about those ugly things anyway?" She's clearly had to repress these emotions for a while.

In Cardiology, you bet on suits of cards in race. However, Hearts has a broken leg. Although Hearts is told to stay off the leg by their doctor, their doctor is also their boss, and if they miss another race, they'll be fired. They are being exploited. Makes me wonder if that's how Hollis felt when Dr. Potts stole her work. In the backrooms, Hollis says "Different race, same runner. I can do this on my own, I don't need anybody's help, I CAN'T need anybody's help." Hollis clearly feels overworked and stressed about the situation but feels as though she cannot ask for help from those around her.

There's still a lot about Hollis's mind that interests me. The mental barriers you have to shoot through blocking your way, the religious imagery that's also in her mind, etc. But overall, I think Hollis is a much deeper character than we're lead to believe, as she doesn't get to do much after the Casino mission. But still, Hollis is really interesting to analyze.

EDIT: I AM COMPLETELY DUMB AND FORGOT TO MENTION: The fact that Hollis associates being a doctor with gambling is also really interesting. Yes this is because of Raz's actions, but the several ways she associates the two is fascinating. You have to wonder how many patients Hollis might have seen die in her time as an intern.

[tentacletournament]

TENTACLE TOURNAMENT ROUND 1