#psychonauts headcanon

[nd-of-a-manatee]

I know this isn’t quite how ranks work in Psychonauts canon, just go with it.

[Image ID: The following is rendered in fuzzy digital pastel. Razputin Aquato–in his late teens, tall and skinny–lies breathless on his back on the ground, covered in sweat. He’s wearing sweatpants, a striped undershirt, and sneakers. His hair is disheveled, pushed back by his signature goggles. One of his eyes is a little higher than the other, now that he’s older. He stares upward with eyes wide, at his wit’s end. He lies in a white space, his colors graded dull blue. The foreboding cyan shadow of a three-digit number is projected over him: 206. End ID]

Raz has a problem.

He trains so hard to rank up his prowess as a psychic. He’s been training since the day he learned what a Psychonaut is. Now that he’s one of them, he sees diminishing returns for his efforts. That’s normal, they say. It gets harder over time. But he’s only 15, and it hasn’t changed in months. He’s way behind the other cadets his age, all approaching the 300s in their psychic specialities. Here he is stuck at 206.

This isn’t normal.

It’s not just about the number. There isn’t supposed to be a ceiling. A person can always improve, always extend themself to reach closer to their full potential. His mentors–his heroes, all well into the 1000s themselves–gave him a chance to be a Psychonaut because they saw so much of that potential in him. They were impressed that he picked up his first set of powers so quickly and used them to save the day nearly by himself–twice. What if that was the trick? He picks up a new discipline right away, then can’t advance it past a certain point. Hydrokinesis should be what he’s good at, but he’s barely better with it than anything else. That’s it. This is his potential. It was all a trick.

He lies awake at night, frantically weighing in anything that could be related to why. Anything he could do about it. He has often looked back on himself and thought that autism or ADHD or both could explain whatever being an enthusiastic little psychic nerd couldn’t. What if this is part of that? What if he can’t change it? His heart sinks.

He can’t hide it. They’ll all find out what he really is. What will they do if he can’t live up to the position he’s been awarded?

An old anxiety stirs. He doesn’t belong here.

Suddenly, Raz can’t concentrate. His performance falls below even his mediocre rank in practice, in study, in everything. He can’t even walk without tripping. His peers and mentors notice, though he insists that he’s fine.

It reaches a point where a couple of his teachers stop in their busy schedules and call him to sit down with them. That’s when the truth comes out. He tells them everything.

He waits nervously for their response.

They answer easily and say that he’s already proven his worth as a Psychonaut beyond any kind of rank or measure of raw power. His sense of duty, determination, willingness to learn from his mistakes, inventiveness, and compassion are what maximize the effectiveness of his psychic abilites–not to mention his unique skills as an acrobatic. If strength were all that mattered, none of them would be worthy of the abilities they wield.

[Image ID: Raz sits up. The hole in the zero makes it look like the shadow has retreated until it’s almost all the way off of him, lingering at the top of his head. His eyebrows are raised, but he’s calmer–having made an epiphany. End ID]

He hadn’t thought of it like that.

After some rest, Raz goes looking for new psychic sensitivities–not in a desperate attempt to find the thing that will bring him up to par, but with all the curiosity of an adventurer in search of new discoveries. By the end of the year, he has achieved adequate command of a wide, wide range of disciplines and has begun experimenting with using them in tandem. “Power juggling” is a difficult art for most psychics. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and lose control. As it turns out, Raz thrives in that kind of chaos and is able to compartmentalize his focus enough to practically create new powers unto themselves, if for a very short time. He shakes the dust off of his acrobatics. It’s no longer a grueling requirement to please his family. It’s his now. Fun and challenging, a test of dexterity and flow. He quickly renews his skills and finds new ways to wrap his powers around them. The other cadets come and watch him practice just to see what wild shit he’s up to that day.

He feels alive. He feels like himself, now more than ever.

[Image ID: Raz sprints out from under the shadow, turning to raise a middle finger at it with gleeful disdain. End ID]

[Image ID: The story shifts to a comic book sequence, also graded blue-green. Morceau Oleander has a green psychic shield raised to protect him, Milla Vodello, Adam Gette, and Norma Natividad from blue psychic needles that threaten to skewer them from above. The others use their own powers to try to fight the needles off, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Someone talks over them. “Miserable fools.” A lanky white woman in a housecoat, plain shirt, sweats, and slippers with long billowing silver hair commands the scene from the center of some kind of pump room. Her arms are outstretched like a conductor. Her needles press buttons on control panels and hover menacingly over tied and gagged hostages. “I’ve had to devote my life to perfection to get this far,” she declares with triumphant superiority. We see her up close. She’s in her late 50s with sharp facial features and a high hairline, and she’s wearing a small earring on each ear. Her teeth gleam in a wicked smile as she shouts. “You have no idea of the sacrifice. The fortitude. I alone am qualified to correct the modern world’s failure to compete. Content weaklings like you don’t stand a chance. Just look at you.” She turns to face a shadowed corridor within a tangle of pipes behind her. “You can’t even sneak up properly.” Someone with angular shin-high boots runs down some steps deep in the corridor. That person– wearing black gloves and Sasha Nein’s old green jacket–uses orange psi power to draw water in the shape of a hand from a pocket-sized bottle. The hydro hand leaps forward toward the woman with its fingers outstretched. A coil of orange lighting snakes around it. Then, the hand freezes into an electrified claw. The hand is suddenly shattered on a horizontal needle that pops into existence. The woman sneers. “Ha!” The person uses the needle to swing forward and lunge out from the shadows feet-first. It’s Raz in his cool spy mission outfit. His boot folds the old woman in half by the stomach. She makes the dumbest surprised face, having been caught in her most confident moment. Raz looks determined and focused. Ice shards tinkle in the air around them. Raz then has her pinned on the floor. He has produced a helmet that looks like a Geodesic Psychoisolation Chamber from his jacket and plunked it on her head. “Did I break anything?” he asks, deadly serious. “My worldview is shattered,” she answers, bewildered. Raz pops into his excitable mode. “Oh! We can help with that.” He takes out a psi-portal. She turns to him and says, “Ok.” End ID]

------------

I keep rewording my commentary on this idea, so here’s the jumble:

I love the idea of protagonist syndrome. Main character kiddo is the specialest one of all who overcomes impossible odds or has a big cool unique ability. You see it all over magical/superhero kid cartoons. And then, that all collapses when they get older and change or can’t measure up and have to learn how to detach from the initial self-image and explore who they want to be (Steven Universe & Future, Venture Bros, my actual life experience if you can’t guess). I know it’s a little weird to poke holes in fun kids’ media and should be done with care. But I’m super interested in how protag syndrome applies to real life post-straight-A/sports star/Good Kid TM imposter syndrome. I wanna use this kinda thing as a framework to explore ways to be kinder to and happier with ourselves.

And just look at the boi. He’s doing so good.

Special guest appearance by the Noodler’s mean aunt, the Needler.

[Image ID: The Needler–the woman described before–is depicted in an initial sketch in black and white. She looks annoyed, standing with her hands and fingers splayed out in an “evil wizard” kind of gesture. The image is a little simplified. She has no nose. End ID]

#psychonauts headcanon #razputin aquato #raz psychonauts #pn hc #psychonauts hc #psychonauts 2 #psychonauts fancomic #psychonauts fanfiction

[sxrrandomfanfics]

Psychonauts 2 post-game takes place shortly after the main game (main game probably taking around 2 days (arrival, lucktopus mission, post-mission, and night of Maligula's attack)).

In Rhombus of Ruin, we know that the trip was also at MAX 2 days (one day in finding Truman and one day spent at the Rhombus considering that Malik got the delivery of his body done and was still in the mail by the time the crew gets back with Loboto and Truman's body)

And then we know that the first game flowed into Rhombus of Ruin. And of the total time on screen we see Raz spend at the camp, we see the night he arrives, the day he spends learning powers, the night he spends saving the brains, and the day he is supposed to leave.

Again, he also took at least a day traveling to the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp and arrived on the first day.

Given all this time, we can assume that Raz most likely started his adventure on the night of November 28th, or on the night of the 5th of April.

Timeline of Events probably

November 28th/5th of April - Raz gets the pamphlet and gets inspired to run away November 29th/6th of April - Raz arrives at the Summer Camp November 30th/7th of April - Raz learns his psychic abilities and saves the brains. December 1st/8th of April - Raz is about to go home, when he's recruited to join the Rhombus mission. It would probably only take the day to get to the Rhombus, considering the state of everyone. December 2nd/9th of April - Raz and co survive the rhombus and bring Truman back in time for Raz's first day as an intern. December 3rd/10th of April - Post Lucktopus mission and return of Maligula December 4th/11th of April - Post PN2

#psychonauts headcanon #psychonauts 2 #psychonauts #if they didn't want me to be overanalyzing details they shouldn't have put the details in

[doodle17]

Psychonauts LGBT Headcanon doodles

Raz 'n Lili ❤️❤️

Lizzie and Morris yoooo

And OF COURSE Sasha and Milla❤️❤️

Bonus D'art and Clem doodle I thought was funny

Full doodle dump below

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #doodle's doodles #razputin aquato #lili zanotto #sasha nein #milla vodello #morris martinez #lizzie natividad #D'artagnan #Clem foot #Psychonauts headcanons #Psychonauts headcanon #My heterosexual ass proceeds to trip and fall down a flight of stairs

[thenecropolix]

Listen

Sasha unexpectedly getting better at levitation because of the time he spends with Milla

He's watching her one day and his affection for her becomes so tangible that next thing you know he's fallen over because a levitation ball suddenly appeared under his feet

On the opposite hand, Milla seeing Sasha hurt during a mission and/or getting talked down by someone makes her so angry that she creates a psyblast at the offender

#psychonauts #psychonauts headcanon #ive seen posts where its like #these 2 would not be good at the others specialty #and then I thought #but what if it was the opposite #cause like #repressed feelings #sashas love for milla #versus millas righteous anger in honor of Sasha or the kids #sashamilla #just some thoughts

[doctor-loboto]

okay guys grab some s’mores ingredients and turn up the burner because a disabled person is going to get all weird and serious about fandom stuff

Loboto is kind of a deconstruction of the “absent-minded professor” archetype (which is thematically appropriate because all the inmates pretty much fit the mold of “one-dimensional and kind of ableist joke on the surface, actual person on the inside”). Some people think of Loboto as an outlier in the cast who doesn’t portray a person with a specific diagnosis, although this is a less common opinion after Rhombus of Ruin. The Psychonauts series is, on rare occasion, criticized for its exaggerated and unrealistic portrayal of mental illness. I feel that this is because its cartoonish imagery and tone tends to take center stage and the realistic portrayals of mental health struggles, especially in secondary characters, can be more subtle and hard to detect, usually only being picked up on by people with similar experiences.

So this brings us to Loboto’s psychosis/trauma/brain injury (depending on what you personally emphasize in your headcanon, probably a healthy mix of all of three in canon) symptoms. The most obvious ones are excessive anger/irritability and a hyperfixation on teeth that may involve delusions about the role of teeth in the body. But if you look at his dialogue and behavior, you’ll also notice that he seems to have a lot of issues with his memory and situational awareness.

For example, his introductory scene in PN1 where he pauses and asks Dogen why he’s screaming. I’ve brought this up before and explained that I think he honestly forgot for a second what he was doing and why his patient was making so much noise before looking at the evidence around him and remembering. I have memory problems and schizophrenia-related confusion and I’ve forgotten what time of day or year it is, whose house I’m in, why I’m holding a pencil, etc. Loboto may have a lot of trouble keeping information straight, which could be very inconvenient or even dangerous for him considering that he lives largely outside of society and engages in sketchy activity.

In fact, the state of his memory may be the only reason Truman’s brain was able to be recovered. This also could have made Gristol very hostile to Caligosto once he realized the man he chose to carry out his plan could barely remember the instructions clearly. Antipsychotics in particular can make it hard to hold even the shortest amount of information in your head; his brain could have been further damaged by years of overmedication with primitive drugs in Thorney Towers. It’s also interesting that when Loboto is shown trying to remember in the opening level of PN2, he gets frustrated and actually directs his abusive anger towards himself. This leads me to believe that he has self esteem issues regarding his memory and maybe secretly thinks of himself as having a “bad brain”. Caligosto places a lot of importance on his intelligence and scientific accomplishments (“I’m the dentist of the century!”) because it’s one of the few objective things he has to hold onto about his identity that makes him feel good about himself.

If you look at the bigger picture, Loboto isn’t just a villain with a traumatic past, he’s a disadvantaged disabled person who is surviving in the only place that he’s allowed to exist without being medically subjugated, and even that is challenging because of the way his mind works. He’s angry at the Psychonauts for “kidnapping” him and feels that they’re intentionally hurting him and taking away his lifestyle (sidenote: you could read that memory vault as “Loboto is so confident and self-centered that he thinks the Psychonauts are just being mean to him” but it could also be seen as “Loboto sees everyone as a cartoon bully and assumes they want to hurt him because so many authority figures in his life have hurt him and that’s what he expects”) when they actually most likely saved his life because he otherwise would have died prematurely in a lab accident or been killed by an angry client for fucking up.

#caligosto loboto #psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #doctor loboto #psychonauts headcanon #tw abuse #tw self hatred #tw violence #tw death mention #long post

[browngonzo888]

Okay i might get tomatoes for this but I think there’s gonna be consequences later in their careers for riding Razs coattails (Maybe not Sam, since she wants to be an animal therapist).

First off, all of them were new, according to Lili. They were just dropped off but already started following Norma’s lead when peer pressuring Raz into manipulating Hollis and yet not getting in the least bit of trouble for it. Even then, two of them had the gall to offload their tasks onto Raz, and the audacity to weirdly flirt with two of his family members (One receptive and one oblivious). And when they all faced up against Maligula, they were all knocked out in one hit. And still Hollis gave all of them across the board Junior Psychonaut badges, oblivious to whatever was happening out of sight.

This all is telling of the Psychonauts organization as a whole and even reflective to the future of Raz and the other interns; since psychics are rare in the first place, the organization seems to graduate as many of them as they can regardless of how they got by, which implies many of the Psychonauts, just like the interns, rode on the success of their super agent peers like Sasha and Milla. That also implies that, just like Sasha and Milla, Raz will get his own sort of personal lab/sanctuary and special reservations for his extensive work while the rest who don’t manage to rank up will end up worried about being laid off, just like the random workers complaining over in the Noodle Bowl.

#Psychonauts #razputin aquato #psychonauts 2 #psychonauts interns #psychonauts fan art #psychonauts headcanon #don’t get me wrong #I still like only two of the interns #Sam and Gisu #Morris is okay just doing his own thing #Adam is alright #Lizzie is a douche with redeeming qualities #but Norma… #oh god do I despise Norma #She will probably find a way to become second head of the Psychonauts #because that’s how evil operates 💀

[multiversal-pudding]

You may think Cassie’s letting the honey-covered books in her house get ruined, but actually Otto invented Honey-proof books specifically because. Um. Well, ok he didn’t really have a reason at the time, but it sure helped out later!

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #cassie o pia #psychonauts headcanon

[summer-skye-64]

A take that I've seen throughout the fandom is that Raz has problems with meat (for obvious reasons). I would like to add that he specifically has trouble with red meat, and can eat white meat without much problem.

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #psychonauts headcanon #psychonauts raz #psychonauts razputin #raz aquato #razputin aquato

[2hoothoots]

i don't believe that man's ever been to medical school

#psychonauts #razputin aquato #caligosto loboto #y'know i don't actually know what my headcanons are for loboto #re: whether he actually went to dental school or not #mostly because i haven't made my mind up on what i think is the funniest option #i do know one thing though. that son of a gun really really loves teeth #please don't make these all blurry tumblr. pretty please #comic

[cubezart]

yaay !!!!!!

#🐟 my art #psychonauts #psychonauts razputin #razputin aquato #more kind of spite fueled art ..... ppl who are weird about queer headcanons im psychically attacking you #it was originally just gonna be a simple spite doodle for fun but i really like how the colors turned out

[technovillain]

timeline of a madman

#sum lobobo headcanons ive had for a while. have them #dr loboto #caligosto loboto #hcs #kiwiarts #psychonauts

[nd-of-a-manatee]

I like to think that we all get a little more uneven and kooky-looking as we age. Though, it isn’t always in ways that we’re prepared for.

[ID: Digital full-color sketches of Razputin Aquato in his late teens. The top caption reads, “Concept: Raz’s left eye starts to drift upward as he gets older”. Raz, wearing his striped underclothes with his goggles pushed onto his forehead, looks in a handheld mirror and lightly pulls at the skin around his left eye with his free hand. His left eye is an inch or so higher than the right. He says, “Huh,” with a mildly bewildered expression. Next, Raz stands next to his mom, Donatella, with her very high left eye. He wears his normal (for my hc) borrowed green jacket from Sasha, black shirt, grown slacks, and grey gloves. He’s looking at the inside of the lenses of his goggles. He says, “I hope this doesn’t make my goggles crooked.” His mom replies passively with a smile and her hands on her hips, “Pray you never need glasses, Razputin.” She’s wearing a blue layered circus outfit that looks like ocean waves. Her hair is styled to resemble a round butterfly or moth. Raz puts the goggles on and messes with the alignment with his tongue out for focus. It does look a little uneven. Next, teen Lili has her hands on either side of Raz’s head. She’s wearing a purple t-shirt with a striped long sleeve underneath, her hair tied in several long bulbs that are dyed pink at the ends, and a plastic woven choker around her neck. She smiles mischievously. Raz stands still and returns the expression. Lili: “Want me to squish it back in place?” Raz: “Nah, that’s okay.” Lili: “You sure? Your skull’s pretty hard, but not that hard.” Raz: “I dunno... it’s harder than it looks.” Lili pulls him in and presses her head against his with her eyes shut. Lili: “I better check.” Raz does the same and giggles. A little red heart rises between them. Lastly, two Psychonauts agents in typical green jumpsuits (a green-skinned woman and a blue-skinned one) talk to each other as Raz passes by with his back to them. Green: “Y’know, that kid’s starting to look a lot like For--” Raz snaps around and startles them with a glare. Raz: “Don’t.” End ID]

#psychonauts 2 spoilers #psychonauts fanart #psychonauts headcanon #razputin aquato #lili zanotto #donatella aquato #ford cruller too ig

[sxrrandomfanfics]

May I request more info on Lili's Lavish Land?

Like all children's brains, it is subject to change. Things are quite flexible and it can change between seasons as quick as Lili's temper can flare or dim depending on what was said to her last. There is a Greenhouse where there are a few memory vaults. Due to kids being younger and living less of their life, they tend to have more memories that build them up. It's only as one gets older that the memories become more synthesized and the prominent memories that truly influence you become the memory vaults.

Most of the people around her are represented by plants, but some are more plant-like than others. It all depends on how comfortable she is around them. Since she's most comfortable around plants, they take the form of plant-like people. Milla is represented by a white Camilla flower dress, Hollis is represented by a white Hosta pantsuit, Sasha is decorated with Sage stems on his coat, Oleander is almost an entire Oleander flower, Truman is almost a full sunflower, and can move around on his own despite his roots, Uncle Bob is represented by a few Cyclamen petals decorating his beard, Sam and Dogen and Compton are Violets (did you know they spread their seeds through explosions?),

And of course, Raz is represented by Roseputin.

#lili's lavish land #psychonauts headcanon

[doodle17]

3/8 for sasha nein for the psychonauts ask game?

(This is gummycube btw, hi!)

(Omg hey girl heyyyyy)

3. I'm assuming that the question is supposed to mean like- sexual orientation, in which case, I Headcanon him as Heterosexual and Demi! He kinda gives off those vibes to me

8. I like to think that he would pretend that he didn't know how to dance, despite being surprisingly good at it so Milla could help him. Can't say I blame him *cough*

#doodles rants #It's fucking midnight dear lord #I need to go to beeedddd #Sorry for answering soo late teehee #*passes out* #Psychonauts #psychonauts headcanon #sasha nein

[thenecropolix]

Is this me projecting

Probably

But I think it'd be funny if Mr Sasha "Mad Scientist" Nein was scared of needles and/or the doctor despite his neutral expression and occasionally asks Milla to either physically or telepathically hold his hand when he has a physical done

#psychonauts #sasha nein #psychonauts headcanon #the necropolix speaks #theres something funny #if not wholesome #about sasha asking milla to be there #when he has a doctors appointment #and milla feels her heart swell #because sasha is comfortable enough to admit he's a little nervous #but she'll also gently tease him #because who would expect superstar spy agent nein #getting the jitters over a checkup

[doctor-loboto]

tbh I will never get enough of fanwork where Loboto’s partner(s) express their love by helping him wash in the bathtub especially in a whump or hurt/comfort context because like oh my god you guys the bathtub is his happy place bathing is his love language he just wants to be in warm water with bubbles and floaty toys and have someone gently wash his back you guys

#psychonauts headcanon #favorite tropes #psychonauts fanfiction #caligoso loboto #my wip fic has a bathtub scene that is SOMEWHAT SPICY but in an AWKWARD WAY #i know everyone on tumblr is like #my villain sexyman is different! he’s so traumatized and he just wants to be taken care of! he’s baby! #BUT LOBOTO CANONICALLY IS THATS LIKE A MAJOR POINT OF HIS PERSONALITY #he wants to be validated and praised and know he’s doing a good job and get rewards and headpats even if he IS a criminal dentist #it’s on full display in the opening cutscene #there is a sad emotionally neglected little boy in his head #oops this went on too long sorry #anyway I rest my case