It's been a nice reprieve at the end of a very long workday; something about your writing has always felt relaxing, even when it's dealing with deep or dangerous subjects.

To echo what many others have said: I know nothing about Psychonauts, and that wasn't a problem in the slightest. ^_^

hS

Okay, this was EXTREMELY interesting to read. I don’t know anything about Psychonauts other than the title existing, but you did an excellent job of making the game mechanics flow naturally with the narration style, so there’s no jarring transition between the game combat and puzzle-solving, and the dialogue and other actions. The entire pirate ship metaphor is amazing! I don’t tend to think in complex metaphors, but I love all the details on the ship so much: the Mary Sues That Weren’t as a crew that’s come apart with the loss of Zit; the ship being too narrow because the ice is slowly squeezing it, and Blank’s psychological state is unhealthy long-term; the masthead assuming the only way forward is blind revenge against all Suvians, representing Blank’s prejudice against Moira; the candle room being such an old mental haven because Blank needed it during the abuse in Sparklee; and Zit being a literal anchor that’s keeping Blank from moving forward. (Which is interesting, because at the surface level, the ice is serving that role; yet from the perspective of Blank’s loved ones, Zit’s death is the more obvious “surface” cause of her anger. I wonder what the ice represents, assuming it’s something separate from Zit?) I also love that in order to find Zit and the memory about him, Moira had to think outside the confines of the ship and the game mechanics. The whole scenario is constructed masterfully!

I was having some denial myself, hoping Blanks’s statement that she had killed Zit was wrong somehow, an accident, or weird circumstances that she falsely blamed herself for. Early on in this story, I was even hoping that the memory Blank was trying to retrieve was something else, and Zit had tried to get it from her mind and got hurt doing so. But yeah, I was clearly wrong, and Blank really did kill Zit. I know it wasn’t really her fault, but it’s still just so tragic and sad. Honestly, I hate it; why did you make me read this, Ekwy? : ( I do like the “tinted memories” as coping mechanisms, and I can completely understand the need to imagine how things might have gone differently that day. Also, that wraith seemed to recognize Blank and Zit. Was it someone they knew from Sparklee? Could it even be . . . She Herself? The Musical ends with Blank getting exorcised, but nothing on-page really indicates that She was destroyed . . .

So, an RC number, and “Forrest and Trixter.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there are still two MSTWs who have yet to appear in your “rebooted” series? So those could be the surnames of Blessie and Vidja! (Sorry if I’m misremembering; I’ve just read so many things since you returned and started writing again, I can’t recall which characters have appeared on-page since the reboot began . . .) Anyway, very curious to learn what Zit was trying to communicate to Blank. Hopefully something that will soothe her guilt a bit, and help her move on!

The only error I noticed is that the quotation marks are missing in the paragraph that begins, “Mirrad appeared to consider it.”

—doctorlit apologizes for the long time it took him to respond to this, but he’s stuck at his parents’ house for a while, and is obligated to socialize instead of read sometimes

Sorry it took me so long to reply! I’d been wanting to read this for a while now, but it came out during finals week and I’ve been trying to get to personal writing these past few days. But I read it, and it’s pretty good! I’ll admit I haven’t read much of your spinoff besides the last mission you posted, but I think that and this helps illustrate the dynamic and background of its characters well enough that I’m only slightly confused, haha.

I also know almost nothing about Psychonauts, my only real exposure to it being a discussion on how it would work in a crossover with Omori, and the “I am the milkman” meme. There was I think maybe one moment where the focus on ‘video game logic’ took me slightly out of a well-flowing scene, but most of the time they helped add flavor to the mindscape. The descriptions themselves were great, by the way. I could picture everything solidly in my mind, and I kind of envy that ability. The conflicting memory sequence in particular was amazingly strange.

It doesn’t feel like a standard PPC story, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I like the more tonally unique stories that show up in the setting, rare as they are. The ending was nice, too, with the open-end mysteries and realistic lack of instant emotional resolution. Good stuff all around

I liked the Psychonauts memory retrieval idea, and I had a good time following it even though I've never played those games.

I don't have detailed feedback, but ... was good, and thought you'd want to know someone had read the thing.