bakerstreet | The Mindscape Meme

☄ The Mindscape Meme ☄

If you've played Psychonauts, you have some idea of what's going on with this meme. (It doesn't have to play out much like Psychonauts if you don't want it to, though.) Your character has something going on in their inner mental world that needs to be confronted by psychic voyagers, and that's what's going to happen here. It's nothing but metaphor and symbolism from here on out, and you can be as dark or as silly as you want about it.

»» how to play
1. Post a comment (with your character's name and canon as the subject line) with a quick summary of what your character's mental world is like. It doesn't have to be long. "A colorful amusement park with inexplicably Arctic-themed rides" could work for a childish hedonist hiding the emotional scars of a terrible polar-bear-related incident, for example. Give it a snappy name if you feel like it. If you have some imagery or music that fits the atmosphere, you can even link that.
2. If you have any preferences you want to stick with, be sure to make a note of them in your initial comment.
3. Respond to other people's threads with a character to explore their mindscapes. Pick or roll the RNG for an option for what part your character winds up in--or suggest another one if you've got a wildcard idea.
4. First player, your character is the host. Second player, your character is the visitor.
5. The first player writes tags about the mental world that's being explored, explaining how it reacts and adapts to the visitor's presence there. You can do more than set the mood and describe how the environment changes, though: people can crop up inside the mindscape representing various aspects of your character's personality, and the visitor can interact with them. Or if you'd rather, you can have your character accompanying the visiting character through the mindscape, trying to help or misdirect them as they please.
6. The second player tags with their character's attempts to navigate the strange mindscape and solve the inner conflict plaguing the host character--or simply escape back to the material world. Or maybe their motive is less pure, and they're trying to uncover a secret that the first character is hiding deep within. You get to decide why they're there, really.
7. There isn't any right or wrong way to do this meme, so take as much or as little as you want from the options given.
8. Do your best to communicate OOCly with other players if you run into any trouble or confusion, provide warnings if it becomes necessary, and don't be afraid to tag around!

»» prompts for the mental voyagers
1. AT THE GATES. You're about to jump off from the outermost layers of your host's personality and start getting into the stuff that really makes them tick. Can you find the key to the lock, or the hidden door, or whatever wacky trick will lead you there? Of course, the more this character tends to hide their true self, the more their inner world will try to convince you there's nothing lurking behind this facade.
2. YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO FIND THIS. You've stumbled into a hidden place where the host keeps a secret that they never wanted anyone else to know. What is it and how does it manifest in the mindscape? Are they going to attack you somehow for revealing it?
3. NIGHTMARE TIME. Oops, you've gone the wrong way, and now you're squaring off against the host's worst fears embodied within their head. What do they look like and what do they represent? Can they be defeated in combat or do you have to take a more delicate approach? Maybe they don't appear as obvious enemies at all, and they pose a more subtle danger.
4. FREE ADMISSION FOR CHILDREN. Hey, look, it's where your host keeps their most important childhood memories...good and bad. Be careful: they might not be all that accurate or trustworthy. Kids don't have the most objective perceptions of their lives.
5. THE BEST PART OF ME. You've finally found the host's greatest ideals and noblest inspirations--the things that drive them to do good and be a better person. Or maybe what you're dealing with here is the actual personification of their own greatest virtues. Perhaps they're under siege for some reason and need some help getting their strength back, or maybe they have something to teach you. On the other hand, in some characters, this part of the mindscape could be in pretty bad shape.
6. COME TO THE DARK SIDE. This isn't good. You've reached a part of the mindscape that represents or is controlled by the shadow--all the bad things about your host that they don't want to admit. Unless they have admitted it, in which case this place is under better control by them...but that doesn't necessarily make it any less dangerous for you. How will you escape, or will you try to help the host come to terms with this part of themselves first? Of course, you could also try to get them to give in to all these dark temptations and embrace them, if that's your preference...
7. FINAL BOSS. You're facing the embodiment of the core issue that haunts this character. Whatever it is, you have to think of a way to defeat it, whether through violence or other means. Are they too emotionally stable to have such a thing? Then it's the embodiment of their deepest motivation and you have to defeat it to get out of here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

At first glance, it's very peaceful here. There's sunlight, meadows full of wildflowers and tall grass, and lots of bees just buzzing around industriously.

There's something just plain off about the whole scene, though, an undefinable sense that there is something here just under the surface that is seriously amiss.

The bees are hardly surprising, given what little he's seen of Castiel's mental state and new interests. Actually, the only thing that's surprising is how peaceful and pretty it all is. Balthazar feels like an intruder. Like he may even been a blot on the peaceful landscape, unwanted and unwelcome.

Anxious and unsettled, he attributes the sense of wrongness to his own mind, rather than Castiel, and moves slowly through the meadows, trying not to step on any bees.

The longer he wanders the meadow, the more obvious it may become that the bees are busy, but not actually productive in any sense of the word. As soon as one lands on a flower, it tends to take off again, and their patterns of movement are meandering and pointless. They keep revisiting the same flowers, criss-crossing in the air and making utterly random direction changes as if they're completely lost.

Of course, if he spends too long watching the bees while he walks, he may trip over one of the low gravestones.

He's not prone to tripping, but the stone catches him by surprise, and he stubs his toe rather painfully on it. There's a brief burst of swearing; pain shouldn't be that painful! Not to an angel!

Being within another being's mind might be the source of that problem. Balthazar kneels to look at the object that's injured him, bearing a slight grudge, but seeing that it's a gravestone gives him pause.

That can't be an auspicious sign.

It's very low, and not very big, almost as if it's sunken down vertically. There's something carved into it too, weathered and worn so it's almost impossible to read by sight, but he can feel out the etched sigils. It's in Enochian, and it's a name, familiar but more or less forgotten. Varhmiel

Balthazar fought alongside him, once or twice. He died in battle, some time ago, under Castiel's command as captain.

His lips move soundlessly, mouthing the name. He remembers the person it was attached to; an Ofanim, like himself, and someone who shared his sense of humor. But they were never close.

He'd almost forgotten, but clearly Cas remembers. "It wasn't your fault, you know," he says aloud, into the air around him. "Soldiers die."

It may not have been his fault, but now that Balthazar is sitting in the little space made by a sunken headstone, he may begin to recognize there other little open spaces dotted all through the meadow where others may lie. Farther away, some of those holes in the net of wildflowers are even bigger.

He's not sure how ominous that is, but given the sense of quiet desperation that permeates the place...he's inclined to be concerned. Rising again, he moves slowly through the meadow, glancing at stone after stone and making cautiously for some of the largest empty spaces.

(deleted comment)

((Hngh! Fixed... sorry.))

At least he won't be tripping on them, now that he knows what he's looking for. Some of the gravestones stand higher and are inscribed more clearly, newer. He passes one that's inscribed with Rachel's name, and another large one that says Annael. When Balthazar reaches the one that bears his own name, it's the biggest yet. There are bunches of poppies and some wild roses growing around it. It's no taller than the grass, but the sigils of his name are ornate. It looks older than might be expected. Possibly it's been there since the first time Castiel thought he was dead.

Balthazar strokes the edge of the stone, pensive, then kneels to get a closer look at the roses and poppies. He's quiet for a while, listening to the erratic buzzing of the bees, then says softly, "Cassi, can you hear me at all? Give me a sign."

The Mindscape Meme

Castiel | Supernatural | MSG me for other points in canon?

Improvising!

Is there a form of RP that isn't?

No, I guess not!

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Re: Cas' mindscape is littered with broken html!

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