The Mindscape Meme

[fiver]

☄ 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.

Comments

Eliot Spencer - Leverage

[retrieverchef]

[His mind looks like a horse farm. There's the stable with the horses' stalls, the corral, the fields where the horses gaze, and the house at one end of the property. The sun shines in the bright sky for now. Of course, Eliot's at peace right now. Expect that to change as his mood changes.]

1

[stlg13bomber]

[Carter was raised on a farm, so it's as soothing to him as it must be to the owner. He roams the fields, petting the horses and smiling at the scenery.

But unfortunately he's not here to reminisce about his childhood. He's been sent here to find what's in Spencer's head, for reasons that aren't too clear to him, and so he continues onward towards the house.]

Stiles Stilinski | Teen Wolf

[imalwaysright]

[It's a huge library with doors lined along the walls. Some of them are obviously locked up, while others just won't open, others loop right back to the library.]

1

[hellishreporter]

[He gives a small hum of appreciation as he makes himself manifest within this mindscape. Libraries have always been something of a comfort to Rick. He knows libraries. They're his friends. Before even trying to go about looking willy nilly, he goes around to search for a catalog collection. Hopefully his mind supplied one.]

Tsubaki (+Eileen) | Yami no Matsuei

[liesovertheocean]

[Whoever you are, you find yourself at the deck of a modern ship, The Queen Camellia. It sways gently underfoot, and there is nothing but blue ocean and blue sky all around.

A young woman stands at the bow, her back to you.

Behind you is the entrance to the rest of the ship. A sign next to a door shows the ballroom, guest rooms, casino area, and more can be reached via the stairwell, though a nearby employee elevator will also take rider to these floors, plus the lower decks.]

Barnaby Brooks Jr (AU) - Tiger & Bunny

[robobunny]

[It's a digitized version of Sternbild: buildings and statues are recognizable, but they've been simplified and streamlined, and everything is rendered in shades of black, white, or blue. There's no sky or ocean, just an endless sea of data in place of both.

And yes, it is the whole city. Android minds need a lot of storage space. Not every building can be entered, and trying to force the doors will result in a nasty electrical shock. Poke in the right places, though, and things might get a little more realistic.]

3

[thejakeisalie]

[Barnaby slowly walked down a street, looking around himself in a sort of bemused amazement. His 'twin's' mind was really... neat was the only word he could think of to describe it. Clean. Uncluttered. But except for the streams of data gently drifting by overhead and how clean everything looked, he could have sworn he was walking down Main Street in the real Sternbild.

...he was pretty sure he could see his penthouse from here. Was the entire city in here? It was far bigger than he'd been led to believe... actually, the people who had sent him in here hadn't been able to prepare him very much at all, only that he had to find the damage--somehow--and fix it. Somehow.

Barnaby sighed. He had to find a way to navigate this... bizarre copy of the city, and his double's brain. And he had to do it quickly; the city was eerily empty so far, so empty it was giving him a bad case of jumpy nerves. But it might not stay that way for long... better get started.

Walking briskly up to a building (one that closely resembled the building used by Apollon Media) Barnaby wrapped one hand around the handle and tried to open the door.]

Rick Schoenbrun | World of Darkness | OTA

[hellishreporter]

[His mind's a a library, large and almost labyrinthine as the shelves, aisles, and study areas seem to followno logical placement. Mixed with ancient tomes or plush gothic chairs are datapads and and the generic urbanity of something reminiscent of an Ikea store. Somewhere amongst it all is Rick, storing and collating the countless data his mind's amassed over the years.]

5.

[gramarye]

[ While being in a library is an enormous relief compared to what else it could be, Uri's pleasure in it is spoiled by the fact that he's also more than a little freaked out - because this isn't supposed to happen, if this is a dream, it should be somewhere that he knows. The one thing his dreams all have in common is their shared sense of deja vu; he's always been there before, they are memories. There's nothing familiar about this.

So if it is a dream, it means it's about to get ugly very fast, and if it's not, it means he fucked something up monumentally (again) and he's somewhere he didn't intend to go. Either way, it's unnerving.

But it is a library, it's huge, and it's beautiful (Uri is a nerd) - he could live here. He spends some time wandering around, hopelessly lost, a vaguely unfocused look on his face. He doesn't touch anything, but he's looking. Finally, hesitantly, he calls out: ]

Hello?

Itachi Uchiha / Naruto / ota

[itachi_san]

Itachi's mind is like the Tsukuyomi. A world of torture, pain and regret. It is a place highly shielded, even from himself if he can manage it... but the biggest question - is this world real or is it, like the jutsu, just an illusion?

irene adler | bbc sherlock

[thedominatrix]

[The outskirts of Irene's mind are beautiful. There are echoing, sumptuous halls and manicured gardens lit by dawn; it's that moment in the morning when you've become separated from your friends, when it's quiet, when you can't tell whether you're drunk or not and nothing feels quite real. It's a little frightening, but the lack of breath in your lungs is somehow exciting. There's a breeze which sends ripples through the grass and the silver and blue shadows, carrying the sounds of faint music, laughter, clinking glasses, but you never find the party. And that's for the best, really, because the anticipation in the air is more satisfying. The knowledge that fantastic, forbidden things are about to happen is always better than the feeling when they do. The smell of flowers is thick and sweet. You can almost taste it.

Leaving the gardens is difficult. Why would you want to move past them, in fact? They're hypnotic.

They're also engineered. Fake is a strong word; you can't fake a mind. Still, you can arrange it, organise it, compartmentalise, build up layers of yourself. Irene's illusions are so strong she's got them right up in her own mind, and that's intentional. Sometimes she falls for them herself, though never for very long; it's not easy to forget who you are, particularly not when you're Irene Adler. There's more, if you go deeper, or if you simply take a few moments to explore- and none of it is what it seems.

Irene doesn't have a dark side. Irene has a dark core around which everything else orbits. Aren't you glad you're just exploring the gardens? Don't you think it's for the best that you don't go wandering off into memories or nightmares or worse?]

[doingthemistything]

[Kirino's mind looks... something like a corridor, lined with doors on either side. All the doors are unmarked of course, and some may even be locked.

One notable thing about the otherwise unremarkable mindscape is the constant mist that hangs in the air here... though, near some doors, the mist is much, much heavier... almost like it doesn't want you to look behind those doors...]

....6, if that works?

[netting_nettles]

[Ugh, even Kirino-senpai's materialized subconscious is all organized and boring. How predictable.

It's not all that well-marked, either. From what Kariya can see through the misted corridor, most of the doors look much the same, and there's little telling how far down the hallway runs in either direction. No good sign of where to start. Or even of what he's looking for.

Finally, he just opts for the nearest unlocked portal. Grasping onto the knob, he turns, shoulders the doorway open, and steps into -- ]

Sherlock Holmes | Sherlock

[the_new_sexy]

[A vast three-story Victorian mansion at the top of a very large hill. Huge, drafty rooms and walls covered in musty-smelling books.

Nice, quiet spot for a murder, don't you think?]

Tyrell Badd | Ace Attorney

[tasteoftruth]

[It's the city every noir detective has visited. The citizens wear trenchcoats and fedoras, their bright eyes peeking out from under their collars as they lurk on street corners. They are as monotone as the buildings around them. A constant mist floats over the city, making it hard to see what dangers lurk in the back alleys--and there is always danger here. This mind is not friendly to visitors.

There is one small house in the core of the city, one small place locked up tight that's still full of bright colors...but you'll have to look hard to find it.]

Soubi Agatsuma | Loveless

[pinned_butterfly]

[Soubi's mind looks like it's made up of a single room: windowless, with a single flickering paper lantern in the corner poorly illuminating its features. What is inside the room is easily as confusing: they look mostly like large instruments of torture. Some are sharp as knives and some have heavy, crushing devices. A closer look will show that they're not exactly solid, though. They are made of thousands upon thousands of interwoven words in kanji characters. A rack-like instrument is made up of kanji with meanings like, "persevere" and "victory" and "obedience". The kanji characters for "obedience" pop up quite a lot, if you look for them.

There's a door at one end of the room, but since it's so far from the lantern's light it can't be seen at first. It's locked and bolted with enormous metal bolt, anyway. With all these words around, perhaps it will take some magic words to open those doors.]

Music Meister | Batman: Brave and the Bold

[hypnotic_patter]

[The Music Meister's mind bears some resemblance to the theater he's made his home. Out front is lights and glamor, a grand Parisian Opera House that's always full of adoring fans. The walls are covered in posters for various plays and bands, but in each case the actors are replaced with himself and their names with his own.

Backstage, behind the rhinestone and neon set pieces, is a crew of purple and green stagehands running around desperately trying to maintain the stability of the scenery. Every time something falters they're there with duct tape and soldering irons to make sure the front is never exposed to the public. From this side the scaffolding seems weak and shoddy.]

Clare Edwards | Degrassi | Canon and Second City variants.

[unfinishedstory]

Canon
Clare's mindscape is the Degrassi community school in springtime. It's mostly the same as the school proper, the library, media lab, and drama department are all intact. But most of the classrooms have been replaced with other places. Either from her own life (her house, The Dot, her Co-op job) or from books she loves (Hogwarts, The Mississippi River, all sorts). Making a latticework of fantasy and reality.

Second City
Much like before it's still the Degrassi school, and several classrooms are replaced by locations in her life. But now most of them are from Chicago. There are no book locations, nowhere fanciful or merry. And the entire place is covered in frost and snow. Even inside. The cold is bone chilling in some rooms.

1

[buildingproblem]

Harry had needed to perform a series of bizarre tasks as he'd walked through minds over the past few seconds, at least they should have been seconds even if they felt like eons, seeking entry into his friends private thoughts to grant them freedom from the sorceress's hold. He'd needed a key, to wrestle a monster, and in one instance to have a credit check done on him, but this? This was by far the worst.

Boots crunching in the frost, he moved through the double doors making the entrance to Clare's mind, and approached the front office. Taking a deep breath as he went up to the window, Harry swallowed down his pride, and asked the one question that would open all doors to him.

"Excuse me, I need a hall pass."

Regene Regetta | Gundam 00

[innovatively]

[The inside of his mind is like stepping inside of a super computer. Laws of gravity and nature take a backseat to futuristic style. There's data all around you - but much of it is classified. But the one you're visiting might share. If you give him a reason to feel so inclined. But even without his high-level clearance, there may still be something of interest to find.]

[mischief_maker]

[ Inside his mind is a vast bright forest with a stream running through it. A balance of nature and feel of magic in the air yet past the threes are dark angry storm clouds.]

[themurderhouse]

[It's been so long since Tate has been anywhere in nature but his own back yard that he can't remember if camping trips looked like this. Probably not, but he'd spent most of those trips sullenly ignoring the other Boy Scouts and setting fire to wasp nests.

He traipses through the stream, watching for fish to startle, wondering if he's as alone here as it seems. There has to be a ranger, right?]

Fun Ghoul | Danger Days

[fangool]

[ Fun Ghoul's mind is a very small, abandoned town, in the middle of a desert. There's a gas station, a general goods store, a diner, a few houses, a library, a small hospital like building, and a fountain in the middle. Any attempts to go further than the edge of the town results in a loop. The insides of these buildings are messy, but organized, in a way that probably only would make sense to the person who put the things there in the first place. There's nobody inside any of the buildings, but there's a sort of dark, intense feeling, a forboding sort of get out.

Whichever building or area the visitor chooses will be described in full! ]

[dr_janitor]

[When in doubt, his daddy-brother always used to say, get to a gas station. But since Janitor has seen one too many post-fire victims, he goes to the hospital-ish building.]

Derek Hale | Teen Wolf

[sourwolf]

[The house is massive on the outside, a sort of sprawling would-be mansion if it weren't set back in what is mostly unmanaged forest. The interior is vastly different, a twisting mishmash of what appear to be apartments and other rented rooms, some fairly hospitable and others pretty obviously nothing but temporary squats.

None are particularly well decorated, a lot of neutral beige walls and second-hand ikea furniture, but scattered throughout are collections of photos, a few hung proudly and others lost behind pieces of furniture, frameless and held together with rubber bands.]

#5, idk, i figured he's a wolf, she's a wolf, they have that in common. :P

[thebetterto]

[Red slips from room to room, trying to figure out how she came to be in this place and for what purpose. After a few tentative Hellos, she sets about exploring, and stops in front of several photos on the wall, leaning in to examine them.]

The Eleventh Doctor | Doctor Who | OTA

[icanbuyafez]

[His mind... is outer space. More specifically, the heart of the Medusa Cascade, a giant rift running through the fabric of space and time. If you look deep enough, you can see a little blue box floating through it.]

is he up for another Doctor?! XD (I got 2)

[bornsnarky]

Whoa, this is interesting.

Itsuki Koizumi | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya | OTA

[dontmindmepleasecontinue]

[Itsuki's mind is, on the surface, the most happy and carefree place in the world. A sledding hill, a fairground filled with smiling faces, a little girl's birthday party - you find whatever it is you would think most happy and cheerful. It adapts itself to each individual person, responding to their mind and their desires.

If you're attuned enough, however, you might be able to sense that this is not all there is to Itsuki's mind. There's something quite different hidden deep under the surface, once you get past this smiling charade.]

Vincent Brooks | Catherine | OTA

[allegorist]

[ Welcome to block puzzle hell.

Or rather, you just reached here after beating a block puzzle hell. Vincent is sitting alone outside a church-like confessional, confused to see anyone approach who doesn't look like a sheep. ]

Aries Mu | Saint Seiya | No Smut please!

[lamb_of_gold]

[It's quiet in the mountains. Chilly, but not uncomfortably so. It's early morning, and the light is soft and cool, pale pinks and purples reflecting from the rocks. The sky above is clear. Below, a few thin wisps of low-hanging clouds (and a very long fall. Do mind your step).

There are some paths behind you, some leading up to the summits, others leading down. Will you explore them?]

[desertdaggers]

[…wow, yeah, that's pretty high up. Hawk peers down for a few moments, trying to make out anything below him, and then turns and treats the view up with the same attention. He's going to go that way, he decides, and starts moving, keeping an eye out for where he's stepping.]

Mytho | Princess Tutu

[prinzundrabe]

[It's a stage. heartless!Mytho's stage is empty and gray, and the backstage clutter is dusty and indistinct. Each heart shard restored to him brightens up the place, whether as a stagehand or a dancer, and begin to do/prepare for a ballet. Any set dressing that exists is fairytale-kingdom stuff.

evil!Mytho's stage is lit up red, and the fairytale set has taken a turn for the dark. The cast and crew now wear black feathers. Aggressive ravens are everywhere to be found.]

rolled a 7. Uh-oh.

[sinningsaint]

[Joshua looks uneasy and glances around at the stages, keeping his arms crossed over his chest as if that will protect himself. He's not sure where he is, or how he got here. He just knows that this place gives him the creeps.

For some reason, he finds himself drawn closer to the stage, and decides to start walking onto it.]

Izumi Curtis | Fullmetal Alchemist

[ahousewife]

[It's a pleasant little city street in Dublith, but the front doors don't always lead to ordinary buildings. One, for example, seems to open onto an icy mountainscape.

The most interesting building, the Curtis butcher shop, is bright and airy... mostly. One locked door will, if forced, take you to a sad little empty nursery with a sad little empty crib. Continuing through that room will take you somewhere dark and bloody.]

Agatha Heterodyne | Girl Genius

[heterodyning]

[Check out this awesome machine shop! It has everything! And that music is oddly energizing.

Just... be careful. Pay attention to any warning signs you may see. She's not alone in her mind, this one.]

4.

[king_of_figaro]

[Okay, so he has zero idea how he got here, but so far it's certainly been a fascinating place to be. Dangerous, certainly, but Edgar can't help himself. He'd never seen a machine shop this well-equipped in his life, and he was literally the king of the most mechanically advanced country in his world!

There was so much to see, so for now, he was just going with the natural flow of the shop. He'd start a systematic examination later. But interesting things just kept catching his eye.]

Joshua Christopher | Chrono Crusade (post-manga) | OTA

[sinningsaint]

[Yeah I forgot to do this, whoops

The main area of this mind looks like a beach with gray cloudy skies. Further up the beach is a house with a wrap-around porch--the door is locked, however.

If you walk further out into the ocean, you'll start to hear strange whispers--some sound human, some don't. However, you can never quite catch what they're saying--unless you decide to dive down into the depths of the water...]