#this was so wordy and still i didnt even touch on a lot of stuff idk IT BECOMES SO HARD WHEN SOMEONE ASKS TO HEAR IT ALL LOL

[cosmicarcanist]

hii, asking here because i’m shy lol

i saw on twitter that you (and chër) have been working on psychonauts aus. i think the concept looks really cool so i was wondering if you could tell us a little about what you’ve been cooking !! love your work btw <33

oh thank you so much! yeah me and cher talk a lot abt intricate aus (and canon) so i can share some of my viktor stuff for the psychonauts au (under the cut its long)

viktor was originally an intern for the psychonauts! He mentored under sasha, and he has the special ability of like tech psychic powers (he can remotely control any tech w his mind, hes also adept in most other abilities except he cant read minds at ALL)

He met chuck (pre mundo) who was working security there and decided to help him try to awaken and stengthen his powers while also testing his own devices! Sasha (and otto) rly believe in him so his machines begin to be used by the psychonauts and hes being tracked to join them!

The other psychonauts tho are p worried abt some of the stuff he talks abt, some of his aspirations and ideas, theyre... concerning (unless ur otto). Sasha still vouches for and defends his pupil cause hes just misguided his hearts in the right place hes just very intense and passionate and ambitious but he can be put on the right path! Some stuff happens, a kid dies, viktor thinks its the perfect opportunity for him to test his robot he built that requires a brain (it was originally built for an adult brain but viktor saw a kid in need whose life was cut short and he decided to take the chance now). The psychonauts see this as an affront to humanity, that viktors trapped a child in a construct and turned them into a monster, that this is unethical and dangerous; viktor sees the psychonauts as wishy washy centrists that twiddle their thumbs rather than help a child by any means necessary.

he gets kicked out.

hes stripped of any accolades, any prospects, even his own inventions (they choose to keep and USE THEM). Sasha fought to keep him, otto genuinely thinks what he did is right and Cool, but hes deemed a danger so they kick him out. Sashas concerned what this will do to his pupils psyche and that this is a surefire way to create an enemy for the psychonauts and he was CORRECT

viktor goes and becomes a weird hermit in the woods, sets up a lab out there. He got separated from chuck and he cant go back to talk to him, but after a short while he founds out chuck left and thinks he just left of his own volition without saying anything. He has drones survey the woods as a means of security but also kind of to see if he ever finds chuck (his drones act as a sort of hive mind of which he controls and can see through). Blitz comes with him as his now adopted robot son (gender nonspecific). Theres quite a few things viktor can never forgive the psychonauts for but one of them is treating blitz as if theyre a monster and not a CHILD

fast forward quite a few years and chucks come back from the asylum, now as mundo, and escapes hq into the woods where viktors drones find him. Viktor being psychic and also chucks ex?? boyfriend recognizes him immediately and is horrified to find him transformed and not himself, so he takes him back to the lab and hooks him up to a machine that he can astral project his own cosciousness into mundos head

where he promptly gets trapped

YOU as the player have up till this point heard nothing but horrified whispers and terrible rumours about viktor. Hed been stripped of the records as the man that had invented much of their tech, but you hear enough to get the impression hes a deranged, dangerous monster that killed a child and put their brain into an unfeeling unthinking automaton to do his bidding, and that he lurks the woods looking for more victims. You start to hear other stories tho that may pique your curiosity, so you go looking for his lab and have to brace yourself for whatever dangerous psychic youll have to face

instead you find viktor and mundo hooked up to this machine unresponsive, and for god knows how long. To advance youd have to enter mundos mind to rescue a trapped viktor, who is very hostile to you as a stranger that has suddenly entered this space, and a trespasser, but because hes been lost in the labrynth of mundos mind for god knows how long, he will reluctantly work with you to get out.

(im sure youve seen chers description for mundos mind/level but the tldr is viktor just cant wrap his head around navigating it alone so its a bit of an escort mission except viktor cant die so hes kind of just tagging along. You get to see moments of chuck/mundo and moments and memories of viktor and how he responds to them until you get to the end and fight mundo as the boss and can unite chuck and mundo as one entity hereafter referred to as atlas)

once the two of you are spat out and atlas has come to, viktor will reluctantly offer his services to you for the rest of the game, where he acts as a kind of shop and upgrade system, but at this point its fairly limited and hes still pretty standoffish.

If you want to fully unlock him and get i guess the true ending for these two, youd have to do viktors level which is completely optional because its BRUTAL. Just a completely unnecessarily harsh difficulty spike.

Viktors mind/level is a hostile environment. When you first enter its just a void with a small matryoshka in a spotlight. As you approach some wacky camera shit zooms in to find you on the surface of the now giant matryoshka, and the environment remains extremely dark, only your immediate surroundings are lit, save for the odd flash of bright light that will only briefly light up your environment. This place is overrun with enemies that are already difficult enough to deal with while trying to navigate in the dark as you look for the way to advance. The matryoshka acts as a giant safe where each doll is another vault you have to unlock to step down into the next level (each doll is also modeled after another "mask" for viktor, the outermost being the terrifying machine herald youve come to associate him as).

The real kicker to his level, though, is you are being pursued by an unkillable, unrelenting, furious and desperate machine herald through the entire level. The further down you go, the closer you get to the center, the more desperate your pursuer becomes, and the more relentless. If he catches you you will get thrown out and have to start all over, and the layout and puzzles will change. Every single part of this level is doing everything in its power to keep you from getting to the center

once you DO though, maybe you expect some kinda final boss fight against that pursuer, but once you reach the center you just find... viktor. viktor the day he got kicked out, just younger, fully human, small and afraid and extremely upset. No boss fight, just talk to viktor and help put him on the path of healing from this moment!

after finishing viktors level you unlock his shop/upgrades fully! His demeanor also changes towards you where he still feels a lil standoffish and awkward, but hes a lot more receptive to you now. His lab has also taken on more of chucks qualities since now atlas and viktor are reunited and can live together :) viktor seems more relaxed finally, sometimes he even sleeps now! he still refuses to return to the psychonauts but hes less obsessed with revenge against them, he just kind of wants to start his life over now with atlas

arguably this is the HAPPIEST au for him, psychonauts is a lot abt healing and how its a process, itll never be perfect but its all abt trying and accepting help so he gets to heal a lil as a treat here :)

uhh sorry this was the tldr version i just like coming up with fake levels, gameplay, idle animations, dialogue etc etc so its fun to stick him in a world like this and see what stays the same and whats different

[pengosolvent]

What makes Sonic Adventure 1&2 your favorite?

i learned my lesson that im too wordy for tumblr and had copy pasted almost everything to word pad.

grew up with them and they have things that touched and/or surprised me as a kid

i have a lot of feelings for e 102 gamma, and sonic adventure 1 itself has a really… specific "exploration" feel to me that stemmed a lot from not really understanding that game devs dont always develop a bunch of extra stuff? this is hard to explain but i didnt treat the world as like… "it makes sense that they made this portion because it has this use mechanically or storywise" it felt more like trying to find secrets in a world where there would (in my mind) be entire swathes of things behind a closed door or something

i think it also helped that sa1 as a game is kind of … disconnected in some ways the flow of progression on where to go and why isnt always the most intuitive (hence little hint orbs around if you get lost)

i didn't really understand in a way that made the game really fascinating also, it helps that i did find weird glitches, like i clipped into the sonic version of a level as knuckles i love the music, i do like the story a lot too, the base concept (replaying levels and stories in ways that focus on different characters (with some contradictions like who won where)) was cool to me

i gravitated a lot as a kid to things that felt like they had logic to them, i just couldnt see what it was just yet i think with sa1 it was easy for me to feel that feeling because sonic was basically a cartoon (what i spent all day watching since my parents were busy) that i could play

theres a solemness to some aspects of sa1 i also really appreciate like… idk… knuckles gives me feelings he's tricked but also he's… alone and just very focused on his goals i don't know there's a lot of breathing room in some ways also the way eggman's voice lines when you play as tails is so much more… like… Negative or scary is a good touch tail's theme can make me cry sometimes

e 102 gamma makes me cry too

i dont know, theres such a particular feeling to the whole game for me that i love

sonic adventure 2 doesnt have hub world exploration and the music is different but i still really liked the story and music i worked really hard to get all 180 emblems in the game (i never managed to get all the emblems in sa1 i think…) i wrote the date i got all the emblems down somewhere

i felt like… when i was a kid it was really hard for me to "understand" story beats? like i watched aladdin so much as a kid that the vhs tape broke, but i didn't really "understand" everything was connected

i think sa2 was something where it actually truly connected for me and i was shocked at the characterization of shadow i really really liked him there is such a huge feeling in… seeing a character do something because they care about someone else and their words… and when shadow realizes he had been misremembering maria's words and wishes, he changes so the care felt real it didn't feel like using maria, it didn't feel like shadow just solely used maria to fuel his own hatred once he understood maria didnt feel the way he thought, he changed how he felt because he genuinely did want to care about what maria felt

it was something that would have touched me as a child a lot, because i was around people who claimed to care but… didn't it felt like i could feel "this is care in a way i would want to experience" or something like that

i cried so much at the end

truthfully i just really appreciate when things are taken seriously but also like… in this way that is not Gritty Realism

i think chuck jones (one of the classic looney tunes director) said something about… cartoons don't have to be realistic, they just have to feel believable the logic needs to be able to be felt and followed, even if its not realistic like, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyxjkblA6Ok

okay this video is funny but its the first thing i thought of when he says "alright 1 second" and he leaves and INSTANTLY is back… thats not realistic, but its communicating a feeling AND being economical in what is shown? you dont have to see him make the whole cup of hot chocolate (And actually that would break the entire thing if you did see that)

its moving through what is "important" for what is trying to be communicated, wherein something is "believable" to the action you're trying to show

https://youtu.be/yz1iScOFJmM?t=69 heres another example, this time a carton directed by chuck jones, haredevil hare, which is marvin the martian's first appearance it should start 1 minute and 9 seconds in

the dog rockets over to bugs, knocks into him, and theyre entangled

bugs bunny instantly plays with the situation by pretending theyre locked in a romantic embrace this isnt "realistic" but bugs bunny is making it believable! he's playing wit hthe emotional logic of the scene in a moment where the dog would be in a transitional state (confused from knocking into bugs) but bugs doesn't forget the actual stakes, and instantly scrams the moment he sees marvin the martian approach (while the dog reaches for bugs bunny, completely believing the emotional logic bugs had set up earlier)

while marvin is angry at the dog, bugs is able to use this to trick marvin too, wherein marvin's emotional attention is on the dog, so he's not really… checking what happens very thoroughly bugs knows marvin wants to blow up the earth so gives him a special delivery that would work with what marvin wants

he's just… constantly using emotional states and understanding to change the flow of what others do in relation to him (or in this case, earth)

its not "realistic", its "believable" for the character in question (the dog or marvin)

so i feel like… sonic adventure 2 had levels of… unrealism but "believable" for me especially as a kid the emotions felt like things i could understand and follow (like the cartoon characters following bugs bunny's emotional cues) even if they were a bit disjointed at times or outlandish (somethings in the story are definitely. outlandish, moreso if you're someone who wants really particular realism in your stories so something like cartoon animals interacting with the president of the united states is already pushing it)

also chao i love chao

i got a weird glitchy chao by transferring a chao between games on the dreamcast and he had S ranks in everything i loved him … then my game froze

[neonun-au]

hi mads!! your writing is amazing 🥹 i think you’re really good at describing a story’s setting in a way that creates a vivid image of the scene but nothing too wordy that i would get bored as a reader. i want to start writing too (as someone starting in my late 20’s, it’s a bit.. lol) but when i do it, it’s either lacking or just too plain boring whenever i describe where the characters are or what they’re doing. do you have any tips?

thank you ! i appreciate that haha creating an image is sort of my main goal in writing. imagery and emotion, ultimately. so im glad that it is sort of paying off for at least some people haha

first of all !! nothing wrong with starting to write at any age. there is no wrong or right time to come to a hobby or an interest. murakami didnt start writing at all until he was 29, and he's not the only one. obvs this is fanfic and not like...literature, but i think maybe that just makes it more fun. and the process and act itself is ultimately the same. its all writing.

i have a few more concrete tips, i suppose ! for me it is incredibly important to make the writing have purpose. your words are meant to be conveying something. a feeling, an emotion, a deeper understanding of the setting or character or plot. figure out what youre trying to say, and then go from there. it helps to tie things into sensory experiences.

what are the characters feeling (like...touch wise). is the sweater theyre wearing wool (rough and scratchy) and cloying at their skin? does it give a feeling of suffocation? or is it loose and breezy, like silk or a light linen? like air lifting the fabric into the air.

what can they see and how does it tie into what youre trying to say? words all have different connotations. the light is either blinding or its bathing you in yellow. maybe theyre the same in actuality, but in feeling and emotion theyre very different.

what can they hear, taste, smell?

those are all things that tie me back into scenes and ground me as a reader and a writer in the story. i prefer a very evocative sort of style. very much show vs tell (though you do sometimes have to tell, especially if its just a short fic). flowery, but not so much that it drowns the writing and the purpose of what youre trying to say. that then throws off the pacing and distracts the reader.

ultimately, it really does just come down to time and practise and patience. ive been writing literally since the second grade (with some huge gaps in between but writing and literature has always been a love of mine), so you have to give yourself time to learn to write in more nuanced ways. it doesnt really come naturally for most people. it is a skill, not an innate talent.

reading a lot from people whose writing you admire is also a hugely important way to learn ! reading more critically, seeing how their words weave together to create the story and the feelings within the story. on the flipside, reading writing from people whose style you dont like is also good ! you can do the opposite. sort of pick it apart and figure out exactly what it is in their writing that doesnt resonate for you.

this is a lot of rambling, but really its very helpful to read, other peoples work and your own! and dont be afraid to write things that you maybe dont think are that great. not everything is going to be great, or even good. i would say i actively dislike or am highly critical of at least 60-70% of my writing LOL but you have to write those in order to finally get to the good stuff. the good news is, this is just fanfiction. its all for fun. were not being paid and we get to just sort of play around with the prose as we see fit !

just try something, hope for the best, and if it doesnt work out then youve still learned something simply by the act of writing it !