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Flamel Parsons	https://i.imgur.com/lt1Qr9N.jpeg     Night Classes have been going for some time. Basic Braining has been teaching folks the ABCs of engaging with emotional baggage, and Ranger Cruller (https://i.imgur.com/tmZtiV6.png) has been opening up new areas of the camp as telekinetic bears have been persuaded away through clearing out food waste and suchlike. One of those has been the strange barbed-wire structure that people have definitely been encouraged to not approach. Yet, why do campers sometimes enter and leave? Why do *counselors* sometimes enter and leave? Why do they sit in there for hours? Even Flamel!     https://i.imgur.com/cohC8g0.png     https://i.imgur.com/TJ6rEcm.jpeg     Gang, this one's real messed up.     Which makes it really odd when Flamel's voice pipes up on the radio. "Flamel Parsons here, voice of vague yet ominous public-announcer authority!" Positive, friendly, happy. "Would the Night Class please report to the Geodesic Psychoisolation Chambers, for Censor Control with Sasha Nein? Thank you!"     There's a fellow there among the chambers, here to meet you. He waits at the entrance, stoic and unreactive. His telekinesis allows him to smoke his cigarette with even less expression than he'd naturally have, which is already very little.     https://imgur.com/xKNdrAs
Kale Hearthward	Back into Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp (Night Classes Version)! Kale's been jumping back and forth between his work in Skyrah, his position in Trideag, his missions with the food truck, the unfortunately abbreviated Supervillain Readiness Simulator, and also this. SEE PETRA, YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONE WITH LIKE FIVE JOBS Ahem. Unfortunately, the telekinetic bears are gone. Kale had been looking forward to fighting one. Oh well! Kale reports to the Geodesic Psychoisolation Chamber. Tha's fun to say. I'll say it a couple more times. "... isolation chamber. Geodesic psychoisolation chamber. Geo-" He stops when he figures he's within audible range of everyone else, but doesn't quite get it right. Oh, and there's... someone new. He looks like a Sasha Nein. "Hey there! Kale Hearthward, Paladins. You're-" He starts to approach, but notices the cigarette, and stops. "Sasha, right? For Censor Control?"
Marigold	Recent arrival here: Lugh, junior deputized psychonaut among the Lycian army! Father Lucius drops him off with a leather backpack of essentials and a promise to be back before the next battle (which is, maybe, a tiny bit grim).      Apart from having charming fantasy-medievalish equivalents to the summer camp necessities (wooden toothbrush! heavy note-taking tome!), he fits right in almost immediately- the Slightly Haunted Sunny Child is a time-honored archetype.      "I wish I could've seen the bears," he murmurs under his breath while gazing longingly into the distance, unknowingly echoing Kale. Then he sizes Kale up. Psychic animals are still real . . .      "Oh, right! I'm Lugh. I'm here so I can help cheer up Roy's army a little better! Or Echidna's army, now...?" Mild confusion. "What are you all here for? Just for fun?"      En route to the dome, he gets to say very confidently: "Maybe they'll let me help the teacher this time. Lucius says I'm really good with censers."
Angela	Parker has been participating in Night Class but no doubt missed some sessions while going back for the Meltdown. She has been self reflecting, thinking about herself and her past, thinking about who she really is and how she has come to be the way she is. And then the Meltdown happened and Binah...released something from within Parker's mind with the power of her fairy Tech. And now Parker has returned, showered, cleaned up, no longer wearing that horrible flesh mask and also, actually, no longer wearing those papers over her face. She has brought the Angelapad with her, though she's not sure she is going to actually return to Lobotomy Corp after this visitation or if she should stay to make sure the job is done, at least, before leaving. If there even is a job to do anymore. All this doesn't mean she's emotionally healthy so much as no longer utterly shatttered. She ''can'' tackle those myriad struggles in her head rather than just swapping to a different face. Seeing as how the Night Class, at least, has been helping her deciding to keep doing ''that'' was easy. "PsiCadet Parker reporting in," She says stiffly before glancing to Kale. Then back down at the Angelapad in her hands. She tosses it to Kale, "Hey Catch--"                 "Do not throw the pad--" Angela says, midair.
Marigold	Lugh makes a valiant effort to make the pad not airborne, but jump and reach as he might, he's just too short for the arc.      "Ms. Angela--!"      He may be under the impression that she could come to harm if it broke.
Meika Kirenai	Despite how often the prefix is used in oh so many words around the camp, 'psychoisolation chamber' still parses first as where one isolates psychos when it's said aloud and not just marked on maps. 'Censor control' not much better- but first pass ringing bells of worry is, thankfully, normal with everything to do with Whispering Rock.     By the time she's on her way, Meika looks like absolute garbage- that's familiar, but it shouldn't be, anymore. Weird occurances, stress, the psychic radio she stole being so quickly and entirely burned as something useful for snooping- at least she thinks, if that even happened, if any of the weird radio chatter even happened, and God knows she isn't brave enough to check back in yet and see if that was real or some falsehood stirred up by whatever side effects she's undergoing. Crumpled jacket loose on her shoulders, eye bags, short hair not tidied up, and a headache from something or other, the lights shimmering in through moving treetops makes her scowl as she hikes on past.     On arrival, Meika drops her cigarette and puts it out with a quick heel-twist into the ground, and only just regrets it once she's face to face with the instructor- the faint annoyance manifests as scowling somewhere in Sasha's direction, unfairly.     Kale Hearthward, 'Paladins'     "... Like... The Paladins..? That whole- really? Is that-" She cuts off her quiet questioning when muddied, uncertain thoughts twist in, utterly uncertain how much about their sort-of-mutual employer, on this somehow-secret not-really-secret assignment, or how any of this works, or maybe that's overthinking something weird to begin with, and- "... No, uh, nevermind, I guess I just didn't... that's neat."     "I, um- Meika." A tired sleeve-brush across her eyes, mid-speech, words blurring with the ghost of a yawn. "... 'S this... censor control? The geodesic something...? That's... domes, right?" 'I'm here so I can help cheer up Roy's army a little better!'     "... An army?" Immediate confusion, then, mumbled, "... Oh, like, one of those really dedicated sports fan groups..? Soccer?" 'What are you all here for? Just for fun?'     "Secret mission." She's fairly sure that'll sound like nonsense, especially if said to a kid. A yawn- her mouth lingers open, and she declines to follow that up- an assumption that it'd be more suspicious, not less, to backpedal.
Petra Soroka	Psychonautra spends most of her time at camp, but whenever one of the counselors leaves she tends to hop into their mind and hitchhike her own egress, biding her time until she astrally projects herself out before getting caught at a random point in their journey. Like hanging onto the side of a train car and then leaping off when the officers start checking for tickets, this results in exciting adventures in unpredictable locations, and it also results in her being totally stranded in those locations without any randomly generated bus drivers to take her back to Whispering Rock.     Occasionally, this means that the camp counselors will get a psychic text from Psychonautra with a name, a set of coordinates, and a few lines of pleading emojis. This doesn't make her the best camper to have around-- but somehow, she's still more tolerable than any other Petra would be, especially since she's so enthusiastic about the content, instead of being homophobic.     Sometimes, her enthusiasm isn't directed to the best ends.     Before the announcement, Psychonautra was loitering in Coach Oleander's mind, telepathically nagging him while hunting for keys for a large locked door in his mindscape labeled "PLANS FOR WORLD DOMINATION; KEEP AWAY FROM CONSCIOUS CONTEMPLATION". "I mean, like, it's got *barbed wire* and shit. Can't I just be let in to the weird torture chambers we've got in the corner of camp just for, like, fun? For extra credit? We could make it a, like a character-building exercise! My mind's actually specially built to be refined under totally unnecessary pressure and harm, you know, so it's actually just a good exercise, for me. Can't I? Can't I go in the messed-up torture chambers?" "Would the Night Class please report to the Geodesic Psychoisolation Chambers,"     "Oh, sick. Smell you later, Coach!"     She doesn't wait for Oleander to actually give her a psychically accessible route to Sasha, instead performing her tried and true method of aiming her still-janky internal Psycho Portal like a slingshot for a Hail Mary across the entire length of the camp, leading to her tumble into a somersault into a squirrel's head until readjusting to jump into Kale's mind nearby.     "Hi, Agent Nein! Petra reporting for class! Quick question, though, are we going to be focusing more on the Psycho, or the Isolation today?" Psychonautra's bright voice emits out of Kale's head, as usual, before she turns her attention to the new arrival. "What are you all here for? Just for fun?"     "Oh hey, an army boy! I'm here because my confabulated backstory as a mental construct led me to feel like I went through this camp during a childhood that never existed, causing me to feel fondly nostalgiac for it without any genuine experiences with it the first time! Also because the mindscape I came from only had a basic concept of what a Psychonaut is, which I embodied, but to actually reconcile my assumed role with reality once I started interacting with it, I need to get trained for real! So your army's doing bad? Is everyone getting PTSD and stuff?"
Flamel Parsons	"You don't wanna see those bears!" Ranger Cruller wanders by, raking leaves. "Some kids, they go and wrestle the things. You know what kids got? Pockets full of snacks and candy. Know what's the first thing a kid thinks when he's losin' at bear-wrestling? Drop the snacks and run!" He makes a "phuh!" noise of exasperation. "Gets 'em looking at you like you're a little pinata. Don't you start."     "Mm. Mr. Hearthward. I was told to expect you." He adjusts his cigarette, exhaling a thin stream of smoke that never gets anywhere near anyone else's face, much less his own. "This lesson is going to be important for everyone. But it will be important for you, most of all. You've recently become telepathic, and begun to struggle with that. You'll need careful training to use it properly."     Meika gets a strong look. What's that look? He knows her from some file or dossier, he recognizes her. "Geodesic Psychoisolation is the phenomenon of total psychic blocking through geodesic structures. We psychics often find it therapeutic. However, I understand you might have *too much* psychic blocking in your life. If Agent Parsons weren't already underway on studying your injuries, I might myself. You're invited to see me if you ever want a second opinion."     Lugh gets a nod. "Ah, Parsons' understudy. Good. I've needed to see how the magic of your world interacts with psionics. Using Agent Parsons' readings, I've been working on a psychoportal that I hope will fit properly."     Parker's not got the masks. Briefly, Sasha Nein's eyebrows actually move and his posture shifts when he sees that. No-- did that actually happen? He's right back to normal. "Welcome back, psicadet." However he reacted to Parker's absence of facial faceting, he doesn't flinch when the pad is thrown, nor when it lands where it may. "It seems our work today will focus more on reinforcing something done by another."     He guides the group up, pstamps out his cigarette, and enters the main psychoisolation chamber at the top, taking a seat on the floor. Psychic Petra lands through the door, and Nein's immense control over his own mind means her projection barely feels an impact on landing. "We're focusing on what isolation can do to help us, para-counselor. Telepathy is one thing it can help. But there are *many* benefits to clearly controlling the channels that lead in and out of the mind." He takes his seat on the padded floor of the chamber and invites the others to form a circle with him, before telekinetically closing the door (and obviously not locking it), isolating them completely from telepathic contact with the outside world.     The quiet is... even more than sound isolation. Even non-telepaths have some background noise. One might begin to feel something like the mental equivalent of a tiny bit of tinnitis, a silent 'ringing in the skull' that signals nothing but the absence of a sound you never knew was there. It'd be hard to get any sleep here.
Angela	''What are you all here for? Just for fun?'' Parker is a little sympathetic to well behaved orphan children, though she is mostly sympathetic to misbehaving orphan children. She says, "I guess I want to be able to go into the heads of people who say they're my friends so I know how they actually feel about me." Parker says, which isn't actually why she is here but she doesn't have much reason to NOT be honest right now. She recognizes Meika! She turns to look at her and leans in and she says, "Psst," softly. "They're all lying to you." which is Parker's estimation of the situation though she's vague about who 'they' are. Parker kicks her foot acoss the floor. ''It seems our work today will focus more on reinfrocing something done by another.'' Parker is suddenly more focused and into it. "...Are you saying you can help?" She follows after Sasha. Isolation, what isolation can do to help us. Parker shivers. She doesn't like the idea of isolation at all. "...Isolation can do that..?" She asks, the idea of all her friends being gone hitting her again. She sits herself down on the padded floor. She doesn't like how much it feels like a padded cell, but she does... trust the Psychonauts, somehow. She closes her eyes, feelnig like she should be. She promptly starts fidgeting, unable to pass out but unable to feel at peace, she keeps...twitching. She thinks about her team.
Kale Hearthward	"Hmm? - Whoa!" <DICE ROLLER> Kale Hearthward rolled 1d20 <15> + 0 = 15 Kale manages to grab it fairly easily. "Whoa, I almost broke-" Well, not Angela herself. The tablet. "... Hey, uh - didn't you used to wear a mask?" > "... No, uh, nevermind, I guess I just didn't... that's neat." I still don't understand her... Still, An Attempt needs to be made. "Yeah - the Paladins. I'm doing a lot. I mean - I imagine you feel the same way, right?" ... Was that the right thing to say? Wait, she's here 'secretly' - uh. Maybe just... move on. > "You don't wanna see those bears!" Kale holds up the Angelapad. "But - Angela wants me to fight the bears. You wouldn't want to disappoint Angela, right?" Instruction time. "Oh - yeah, it's been... a bit of a problem. I've managed to get it under control, though." He hasn't really been able to get it under control. "I've got some techniques that work really well." They barely work. "Honestly, the formal training is kinda a formality." He badly needs this. He relaxes a bit when the cigarette gets put out - he was a *little* worried that Sasha was going to smoke inside. "So what does-" he starts to say as Sasha closes the door. Then he goes stock still. Then he looks around. "It's..." "... So quiet." He breaks off of the circle, and approaches one of the chamber's walls, putting a hand up on it. "I can't hear - I can't hear anyone anymore." "..." Then he sags a little bit, exhaling. "It's... nice."
Marigold	"I'm supposed to have pockets full of snacks??" Lugh says to Cruller, bereaved. "Someone's been stiffing me..."      "Sports? No, I mean the Lycian League's army. We're doing really well, actually! I mean, everyone else is! And hardly anyone's been afflicted at all," Lugh says to Meika and Psychonautra, strutting with his upper body bent forward in a way that's both triumphant and defensive.      He squints intently at Kale's head, trying to figure out why he's got two voices, but then decides that must just be how psychic animals are.      "A secret mission, though..." That prompts a more-than-casual examination of Meika, and despite her battered state, that sparks something behind Lugh's eyes. While Sasha talks, he leans over to behind-the-teacher's-back gossip:      "Meika... Meika! You know, Chad seemed kind of worried about you, but he wouldn't say where you went. I guess if you got a new secret assignment..." He's awestruck, but a little worried, too.      Then he filters in to the isolation chamber, seating himself in a neat-and-practiced cross-legged meditation pose. About magic and psionics, he pats his book: "Well, I'm not really good for anything but throwing fire! But if you need a campfire started, just ask me."      Then he sets the book aside, shuts his eyes, and breathes deeply. The unpleasant tinnitus-like totality of the silence makes him wince a little, but otherwise he tries to acclimate, until...      "... You think this is nice?" Kale-of-two-voices baffles him more than he already did.
Petra Soroka	"And hardly anyone's been afflicted at all,"     "Oh, you're one of those new-age-type armies, huh," Psychonautra sounds a little disappointed at that. "Well, damn, good job, though. So you must be either winning by a lot, or losing by a lot, right? Gimme the lore; I was basically born in a war zone and Coach Oleander's mind barely even feels like one most of the time."     Training's starting, though! That means it's time to hop into Sasha's mind, and prepare for whatever fun camp/psychic/Cold War era torture activities he's got planned for night classes today! "We're focusing on what isolation can do to help us, para-counselor."     "Ahhhhhahah... oh, I don't think I'll like this one...." Just from the shakiness of Psychonautra's telepathically-projected voice, it's easy for everyone to imagine the way Petra gets tense and pale when afraid. Inside of Sasha's mindscape, in the tightly-controlled compartmentalized cube where Psychonautra sits just before the door to the chamber closes, she has to make the split-second decision to jump ship with the threat of isolation hanging over her.     Sasha's mind is highly regulated, Meika's mind is cold and still, who knows what's going on with Parker, Lugh causes her Psycho Portal to flash with YMP warnings when she aims it at him-- so it's off to Kale's mind again, jumping onto the chaotic theatre-ship for a dose of community before Geodisically Psychoisolated. She has a moment of being inundated in the senseless chatter and shouting of the argumentative groups in his head, and then the door seals shut, and as Kale meditates, the crowd slowly quiets down, to a hushed murmur.     Psychonautra picks herself up off the deck, swiping dust off herself, and looks up at the spokespeople speaking into their podium microphones at a normal volume rather than the insecure shouting she's familiar with from previous visits. "Oh my god... he's been afflicted with the 'Inside Voices' psychohazard..." She is only being partly serious, but fully unnerved.     So to cope, it's time to babble, thus counteracting the idea of telepathic isolation at all! Haha, I don't really think it's nice at all! You know, like, motion is the foundation of a living body and a living mind, and the transmission of psychic phenomenae in and out of a mind is sort of as fundamental to a healthy mind as bloodflow is to a body! I mean, as a psychic phenomena myself, I guess I'm a bit biased, but no one's ever been better off for being alone except in the ways that they kind of get a little weird because of it once they're not alone anymore!"
Angela	''Whoa, I almost broke--'' "Kale." Angela says, before looking to Lugh. "Ah--..." Something occurs to her, thanks to having known Xion. "--Do not worry, Lugh, I am not actually ... inside the pad. I am telecommunicating." It occurs to her this explanation may not suffice. "I am using technology to communicate over vast distances." She clarifies. "...But obviously the pad is still quite expensive." ''... Hey, uh - didn't you used to wear a mask?'' "I don't need to anymore," Parker says to Kale. "There's no reason for me to hide from myself, the City, or others. And even if I needed to, I can't anymore." Angela almost doesn't think twice about Lugh commenting to Meika about Chad before she remembers that Meika isn't going to remember Chad, probably? Or would she? This is too annoying, Angela thinks, to actually try and stop this misunderstanding. Instead she says, "Throwing fire is pretty useful." She is wholly oblivious to the torment involved here. She also continues to be completely oblivious that Psychonautra is saying anything at all or she'd probably be trying to communicate right now.
Meika Kirenai	'I imagine you feel the same way, right?'     "Huh? Feel the same about- about what? Are you- what's that mean?" While her voice is accusatory, the link in what Kale asked to her assignment technically being secret isn't drawn- she just doesn't understand, and thinks she's being picked on. 'You're invited to see me if you ever want a second opinion.'     "A- a second opinion on what? Him poking around, in all sorts of-" She pauses, thoughts pooling up on, with that cover story explanation still intact, getting closer to proximity to someone she also has (surely worse and far less professional) dossiers on. That her cover story isn't fake, and that she still thinks it is, once more bites back at her. "... Okay. Sure. I'll- I'll do that sometime. That can't be worse than- than just him, spouting everything off, right..?" 'No, I mean the Lycian League's army.'     "... Oh." Air sucked through teeth. She has no idea what that is, but if it's not sports- "... Aren't you a little young..? Or just-" 'You know, Chad seemed kind of worried about you,'     Even before she speaks up, there's a defensive shift in Meika's posture, shoulders tighter up and in, hands tensing in jacket pockets. Each time it happens is weirder than the last. "#-1 INVALID ANSI DEFINITION: 248. I- I'm sorry? I don't think I... know a Chad?"     "... I- I shouldn't, right? My name's similar, or I look similar, or-" Worry and awe are disarming, and she tears her eyes away when they pass close to Lugh. It can't feel like a prank, spoken like that. "This happens a lot. It's been happening a lot. People I know, or people know me, when it doesn't- I don't have- why? Why do you think I'm- why do you think any of that? I know I'm just-"     She cuts off, and walks a small circle, not quite in place, to look anywhere else for a moment- as the group is ushered in, she lingers outside of the dome, a hand covering her mouth, stressed. Lingered moments can't stay forever, though, and she ducks inside, too embarrassed to waste more of everyone's time- 'They're all lying to you.'     Parker only gets a glare back as Meika heads in, uncertain, half-believing, and more shaken each and every time it happens, even if she sort of knows why, and it's really just so simple as to blame it all on that, but-     She sits down, criss-cross applesauce. By the moment the door closes, and the tinnitus starts to loom at the edge of her hearing, she's already feeling nauseous, without any real certainty why.
Kale Hearthward	> "... You think this is nice?" "... Yes? I... you mean it isn't nice for you? I'm hearing quiet for the first time in months." Kale is, for the first time in his life (okay, for the first time in a few months) blocked off from the thoughts and presence of everyone around him. ... Or - actually, just blocked off from the thoughts of everyone outside of these walls. Those, he can still pick up. Maybe even more so with everyone else filtered out. Thus: > He squints intently at Kale's head, trying to figure out why he's got two voices. Two voices? Oh I think he means me. What - where'd you come from... I've been here. I've just been ignored, it seems. Kale puts a hand on the side of his head, as if he's feeling a headache coming on. Maybe you could *stay* ignored. You'd like that, I'm sure. I *would* like that. I'd like that very much. The voice of reason, silenced, so the aggressive idiot half could play around unchecked. Aggressive idiot half?! You're the half that's the cautious coward. --MINDSCAPE-- > Haha, I don't really think it's nice at all! Psychonautra's silence only lasts so long before the two camps of Kales start loudly ~~yelling at~~ debating each other. "Yeah, didn't think that'd last too long," says one of the listless orange Kales in his mindscape, slouched in his folding chair. "It was nice while they weren't actively aware of each other," comments another, not looking up from his fashion catalog --REALITY-- > "There's no reason for me to hide from myself, the City, or others. And even if I needed to, I can't anymore." "Well-" Oh, right. Kale's holding the Angelapad, which has been facing the wall for the last full minute. He turns back around. "Well, good for you." "Good to... meet the real you?" This sounds suitably profound to say.
Flamel Parsons	"There are many benefits to taking time for yourself, by yourself. But only when undertaken mindfully, with purpose." Nein explains to Parker. "It can make you more aware of the boundaries you have, but should not. Or should have, but don't. It can let you develop amazing things. And today, we will explore that."     Kale claims that everything's under control. "Mr. Hearthward, I have spent twenty years developing, refining, and perfecting telepathic self-control. I know that you'll find something useful somewhere in this." He doesn't crack a smile when Kale immediately takes to the quiet. "You might have found one thing already."     He's preparing something psychically. Still, Meika promising to see him later, that provokes a nod. Silent, inexpressive. He's so focused! It could read as just about any emotion.     Psychonaut-Petra babbles quietly. Nein is somehow completely unaffected. His ability to *control* his focus, emotions, and psychic power is second-to-none. Petra is talking exclusively to herself, as he sets up what's coming. "What will be happening here is an exercise in what is called 'astral amplification'."     "*This*..." He gestures, letting a phantom form emerge from his mind. "Is a Censor." The tiny little bureaucrat, with thick coke-bottle glasses and long arms and a little "NO" stamp, scampers around in the middle of the circle. "It's a white blood cell of the brain. A functional, effective mind can censor flights of fancy, violent urges, self-destructive impulses, and sometimes, even entire dangerous ideas. It is your first line of mental defense, and the most common threat to any Psychonaut operating in a hostile mind. They are also your only line of defense against telepathic auto-decay."     "You may leave the isolation chamber at any time. But while you remain in here, my Astral Amplification process will intensify thoughts within your mind, or any that enter your mind from outside." He says. Even now, you can see figments of imagination swirling around his brain, mental images, even random impulses. Censors spill out of his head, each identical to the last, stamping them violently and aggressively. Others who have their own mental defenses might see them spill out in projections, themed and flavored. Any rising distress, as well.     "I want each of you to tell me what you believe is the best way to engage in 'self-control'."
Marigold	"I am not actually inside the pad."      Lugh's eyebrows lift when Angela seems to read his mind. Then he looks away, embarrassed. "Well, of course. I mean, you wouldn't fit. Obviously." But it being expensive validates his concern a little, which appeases him.      "Aren't you a little young?"      "I'm sixteen and a half now. And that's not what you said--" Lugh is getting unusually a little grumpy, but then he hits on a sudden realization.      "... Oh. You mean, like, you're her body double? Or she was your double? Maybe for some secret mission?" He blinkblinks his way through that realization, then draws his cape into his lap and starts idly wringing it, filled with strange tense feelings.      "... Well. I hope the other Meika's okay. If you see her, tell her I said so, alright?"      - - - -      Lugh at first looks benignly baffled by Sasha's censor. "Oh. You meant-- why's he dressed like that?"      He doesn't have much time to wonder before things start seeping out of his brain, too.      Around him, like a stained-glass halo, are vignettes of conflict drawn in crayon. Bernish soldiers have demon-horned helmets. Children are drawn with crudely expressive faces, vividly happy or scared. Elsewhere, happier memories and fantasies: the temple. Lucius. Baking and gardening for the others.      Marveling, he tries to reach out to a crayon-sketched Chad, who reaches back. Then from the other edge of the halo, near the Bernish soldiers, dark-scribbled fire catches and starts to spread between the vignettes. Panic seizes Lugh's breath in his chest- "Wait, wait!"- and he bats at it fruitlessly with his hands.      His Censors emerge to extinguish it, making the whole halo-tapestry fainter in the process: Lugh doesn't know anything about bureaucrats, so instead his brain conjures tall foggily-remembered parental figures, distinctly un-Lucius-like.      He breathes shallowly for a second after. By the time he looks back at Scribble-Chad, he's vanished. "Um. Right. I know... some of Elimine's practices. 'Contemplation of the body', focus on..." Deep steadying inhalation. "How you breathe. And all that. Is that how you mean?"
Petra Soroka	"People I know, or people know me, when it doesn't- I don't have- why?"     "Oh, yeah! How did your," The wink and nudge that Psychonautra directs at Meika is practically tangible-- but isn't, actually, at all, and has to be communicated by the telepathic equivalent of a subverbal 'eh? eh?' instead. "*Investigations* go, about that? Anything new?" "It was nice while they weren't actively aware of each other,"     "Oh, thank god, he's still stupid," Psychonautra sighs in relief and ignobly tilts an incensed crowd member on team tan out of a chair so she can slump into it herself. "I was worried he'd actually take to this training at all. You know, Kale doesn't actually strike me as BPD at all, or whatever; when'd this whole feud start? Was there a first issue they split on?' "There are many benefits to taking time for yourself, by yourself. But only when undertaken mindfully, with purpose."     Petra is not the type to interject and argue with teachers she respects. But oh boy, would she like to. "*This*... Is a Censor."     "Oh, *fuck* those guys, by the way. Maybe you guys *do* need to do some isolation training, because all your heads always sic Censors on me when I'm around. I'm not even a disease! I'm barely even an impulsive violent urge!"     Without seeming to notice, a head has started to extrude from Kale's ear while other parts of his thoughts and mindscape leak out-- but this one, very obviously, is not Kale's. Coming out of his ear is... Petra! Except she's got goggles strapped to her forehead, and she's lacking the collar she'd otherwise be wearing 24/7. Psychonautra stops her complaining and looks down at her limited external manifestation in the area of Sasha's Astral Amplification, lightly gasping through jumpsuit and glove-clad fingers when she notices.     "Oh! Hey! Look at that! And look at you guys!" Psychonautra pulls her goggles down over her eyes to survey the room, as if there's radiation for her to protect herself from. "And there's Angela on the tablet. Can you hear me? Testing, testing?" She's audible to Angela now, at least, which is a cool side effect of existing.     "Well, maybe this isn't *too* bad. So, um... I feel like self-control is mostly about crafting the psychic circumstances in your own mind for an environment where only the thoughts and feelings that best describe 'you' can thrive. Censors are the worst way to do it, honestly-- whack-a-mole is basically just a band-aid fix compared to restructuring your emotional foundation to foster the ecosystem you want. So, I guess, self-control is best done by radical denial and conceptual starvation on a targeted scale until the thing you were just 'denying' stops existing at all."
Angela	"Ah--Well, it is a reasonable conclusion," Angela says to try and appease Lugh a little more. "Xion--an acquaintance of mine--had actually informed me of someone who ''had'' been, essentially, 'fit' into a device not unlike this one. It just does not happen to be the case this time." ''I hope the other Meika's okay.'' Angela fails to stop a brief grimace from forming in response to that. Parker sees the glare and sticks her tongue right back out at Meika in retaliation! She doesn't go 'NYEH' or anything, though, she just makes the face and sticks out her tongue. She isn't feeling super great herself, but this is more an instinctual retaliation. ''Well, good for you Good to... meet the real you?'' "Uh huh..." Parker says. "...I get it, you want me to stop talking." She is taking his hesitancy as being weirded out by her. She is pretty confident she is still pretty weird since she was pretty weird, in her mind, even before L Corp. ''While you remain in here, my Astral Amplicfication process will itensify thoughts within your mind--'' Three men and two women wearing those leathery skin masks materialize around her. Aside from the masks, which look like varying versions of Today's Shy Look's faces, their bodies are formed stylistically like any heist thriller you might see. >:E says, "Parker, you didn't check if you could get out of here. Can't watch your back in this kind of space." :( says, "Is this therapy helping you, Parker? Look at all the angles here. What does he actually want by approaching you like that? Why are they so eager to help? Don't just trust what they're saying, they're here for ''her'' not for you." :| says, "Parker, darling... You should give this a chance, treat it as...taking the role of a Psychonaut. Consider the version of yourself as a Psychonaut that can get you where you need to be. We'r all here for you, but you have to be here for you first--" :) speaks up, "Hey babe... I can't crack any code like this--but we're here for you." :D says, "...I like his glasses. I should steal them." "OH MY GOD YOU NARC." Parker belts out. :D says, "Oh like that's stoppeed us before!" Shortly after, people pop in wearing Extraction Team armbands and carrying giant signs with big DON'T TOUCH ME on it complete with an image of THE BUTTON plastered over them. They chase around the masked men and women that are materializing. Parker stands up quietly and tries to casually sneak her way over towards Sasha Nein. MEANWHILE, PSYCHONAUTRA Angela is startled by Psychonautra's sudden appearance! "Petra?? I mean--Psychonautra?" Angela says. "--Ah, I know you were talking before, but you were... still around here?" She seems uncertain of how to deal with this for a moment before finally exhaling and relenting into asking, "...It seems like you're having a good time--are you doing well?" Angela attempts small talk! She seems immediately more relaxed now that some once(?)-aspect of Petra is visible and audible to her.
Kale Hearthward	th --Mindscape-- > "When'd this whole feud start? Was there a first issue they split on?" "Split. Hah. That's a good joke!" "Like one of those koanas." "You should mention it out loud. It'll be really funny later." --Reality-- Thoughts leak out of Kale's mind. There's a lot of animal people, also a lot of humans. A food truck figment that careens around the room in a humorous way. There's a lot of numbers and letters, but - like rankings, tier lists, not math. There's also Psychonautra. "Rude?" says Kale, trying to tilt his head to see her, and then giving up to focus on the training. He holds up the pad near his ear so that the Petra will talk to Angela and not himself. "... Self control?" I've got this. In the mindscape, Psychonautra can see the brown Kales push out the tan Kales and take control of the podium. "It's - authority, essentially?" "I mean it's sort of..." Kale glances down at himself. Since when has he had an afterimage? He takes a step back, and the afterimage doesn't. "Knowing the whole situation? From the top down. And being able to command it that way. Right?" The afterimage, staying in place, becomes more pronounced. The cape becomes statelier. The clothing morphs into a more uniform-like shape, with prominent medals. The afterimage draws a sword from its right hip, and activates it by blowing into it - causing afterimages *of* the afterimage to start forming when its swung. The afterimage gets into motion, clearing the space around Kale of stray thoughts with sword swings. "It was that simple all along," says the afterimage. "Um," says Kale, who isn't quite sure what's going on, and is honestly starting to feel a little overwhelmed between this, the apparations, and the suddenly talkative and independent afterimage.
Meika Kirenai	'And that's not what you said--'     "... What I said? What'd I say, I-" She bites at the inside of her cheek, muddying her next words. "I don't think I- I've said anything." 'You mean, like, you're her body double? Or she was your double?'     Small, quiet, uncertain and unbalanced, "There's only one of me." There's nothing much she can clear up herself, beyond clearly being equally as confused as what she says is confusing. 'They are also your only line of defense against telepathic auto-decay.'     "... What's telepathic auto-decay..? Is- is that contagious?" >Any rising distress, as well.     Meika started this distressed. Heightened emotion, and already overthinking everything, the amplification's hold on her is quick. The first thing that rises up and bubbles out from her is the angry, impulsive thought to get up and slam the door on her way out, a ghostly version of her plays out the action, faded and soft like sunbleached wall posters, then cracked-through on entry like old masonry, then threadbare and light. As quick as it's stirred up, it vanishes.     It's hard to see what made it fade away into windborne dust: soft, light-limned hollow outlines emerge as if always there, crowd-shaped more than people-shaped, fix silent attention on each spouted off figment and, with no tools as garrish as a giant stamp, erode it away to a dusty nothing by some means,; vague, static, and silent. Meika doesn't seem to pay them mind.     Over and over, little thoughts and impulses and ghostly emenations of pondered action push their way out, the longest-lived being only the premonitions to actual actions, changing her sitting posture goes unnoticed by her censors, or fidgeting with her hands, but the nagging urge to grab a cigarette back from her pack time and time again dissapears under the near-see through figures.     'I want each of you to tell me what you believe is the best way to engage in 'self-control'.'     "... You're just supposed to do it. Everyone can. I guess, it's- you can think about what'd happen if you don't, and how bad that'd be, or..." That this is paired with a resigned shoulder shrug, tangible discomfort and spawned-up figments of fragmented, half-remembered scripture lines she's grabbing at, the keys to spelling the sentiment out, the right way.     This, on top of how quick and hungry her censors are, doesn't bode well for her practices to be well-maintained.     "... You- you said we could just, step out? That's-" A few thought-of ends to the sentance spin out in muddled incompletion, themselves never finished before crumbling down again. Meika seems slightly stunlocked, staring around at everything spilling out. "... Is it okay?"
Petra Soroka	"Rude?"     "Tch. *I'm* rude? You think I would've wanted to knock first and ask permission, when your messy-ass mindscape would've taken half an hour to give me three totally different answers? You've got a really all-encompassing crisis of identity in your head and it makes it impossible to do anything in there, and *maybe* I'll help clean up some of it after this, as a *favor*. But you can't get mad at me for just popping out without putting it to a vote in your mind." "...It seems like you're having a good time--are you doing well?"     "Oh, I'm doing alright," Psychonautra hums at Angela, while tugging with her hand embedded in Kale's head to try to dislodge one of her beeping psychic gizmos and scan Parker's smiling figures. "Camp's great, the staff are great, Agent Parsons is great when he stops by; the kids think I'm a ghost and I've started giving some of the wildlife psychic dream-quests to do some poltergeist shit so they get freaked out; it's all a lot of fun."     "It's a little lonely, though! Mostly stable mindscapes, except when these guys come around, so there's not a ton for me to do." Sticking out of Kale's ear as just a head and shoulders, she holds the gizmo near one of Parker's figments, pointing the antenna towards them and squinting at the little CRT screen and the live-display graphs on it. "Weird...."     "So, I've been trying to get over to that insane asylum across the lake to see what weird shit I could get up to there, but the fish all refuse to take me near. Being psychically carried around by other things I can't really control has its limits, I guess! Anyways, how's the tablet-life treating you? Got any games?"
Flamel Parsons	"I feel like self-control is mostly about crafting the psychic circumstances in your own mind for an environment where only the thoughts and feelings that best describe 'you' can thrive."     Nein speaks plainly, watching the various extrusions. Including Psychonautra. "Glad you could join us, para-counselor. And you have a good idea. A solid approach. Psychonautry fundamentals, but only fundamentals. Sometimes a plant must be pruned before it can grow into a good shape. Radical denial can't be achieved. No-- it won't explode later, it's impossible to achieve most forms of it even in the moment. Something leaks through. What if there's a way to deny the undesirable growth at the root?"     Parker is allowed to approach Nein. The scampering yakkity-sax display is permitted and encouraged. Nein offers a seat closer. "I have goggles as well. You can even keep them, if you like. I'd like to keep the glasses." He offers the sciency goggles from his pocket. "But you've managed what few people here have: A softening of something essential to soften. I'll tell you more about what you've achieved."     Kale and his afterimage are regarded plainly. "You know this situation. Yet you don't feel more in-control. This is you, and you, and you, and you, repeatedly. But even knowing yourself, you don't feel like this is an outcome under your control. So focus, for a moment, and watch what I do next."     "... You're just supposed to do it. Everyone can."     "No, Meika. That is your first mistake. Not everyone can control themselves. *Nobody* can. Let me show you." He shifts his position, planting both hands on his knees. "Right now... I feel a little nervous. After all, I am teaching adults rather than children." An anxiety surges out of his head for a moment, and the censors rush to stamp it. "And... I don't want to be inadequate. I have gone on amazing adventures, defused bombs, saved the world. Would it be right to be scared of showing essential censor control to children?" Despite the fact that he's being honest with his thoughts, and despite the fact that he's rationally talking them away, the anxiety seems to be growing, the little humanoid blob has started to... *sharpen*. To turn into a mass of knives, growing in strength. "What if, in this moment, in front of a group of representatives of major factions and offices, I lapse, and reveal some terrible flaw? I wouldn't. Surely." But somehow the fear-energy is rising. It sharpens more and more. A cushion on the ground is sliced up.
Flamel Parsons	"Now..."          "How you breathe. And all that. Is that how you mean?"     "Lugh, you might not think you do, but you have one of the better ideas." Sasha Nein says. His little censors, losing the tiny battle in the center of the ring, struggle to rally, but they start getting it together more when he starts controlling his breathing in exaggerated ways. "We're strangers here. Knowing my thoughts, saying my thoughts, exchanging my thoughts with you..." He gestures at the creature, showing it off. "It's inappropriate, rude."     "But in truth, it's even *unhealthy*. When a thought passes from me to you, in its spoken form, it sharpens. It reforms, from a lesser mass to a harsher, more aggressive one. By turning the thought from shapeless feeling to word, I have given it power without first responding to it."     He snatches the small creature, hoisting it up and massaging the sharpness out of it, rendering it down into a shapeless emotion-mass again. "I may be anxious because I dislike enclosed spaces. I may dislike someone's tone of voice. I may hate the color of the walls. I don't, but I could have. Still: Sharpening it with an articulation evolves it, from a sentiment to a fact, before I even have a chance to take *material action* to fix it." He takes a deep breath, fidgets with (but does not light) a cigarette around his fingers, and releases the mass, letting the censors stamp it out. "I thought of better spaces, voices, and colors." He runs his finger along a gash cut in the padding of the floor. "Instead of giving my feelings a word to cut me down with, I work to resolve them first, *then* learn their name."     He turns to Kale. "And you need to understand, Mr. Hearthward, that this is the case for telepathy as well. Now. Begin by depriving your feeling of a name. See that it could be a dozen things at once, and face them from multiple approaches."
Kale Hearthward	> This is you, and you, and you, and you, repeatedly. But even knowing yourself, you don't feel like this is an outcome under your control. "Yeah? Certainly doesn't feel like it's under my control." > "I could get up to there, but the fish all refuse to take me near. Being psychically carried around by other things I can't really control has its limits, I guess!" "Have you tried explaining to the fish that you aren't actually rude?" says Kale, sarcastically. > "Begin by depriving your feeling of a name. See that it could be a dozen things at once, and face them from multiple approaches." "... Depriving it of a name?" Kale returns his attention to Nein. "That's sort of like - not thinking of pink elephants, I think the saying is?" Kale tries, regardless. "Um... all of this is... just... comparisons, isn't it." He looks around at the rankings expressed as images. "Where I stand, in relation to others. It's meaningless comparisons. It's not that important, as long as I'm improving and not backsliding. Right?" The abstract tier list figments start to become fuzzier. "You don't actually believe that, though," says the afterimage, arms crossed. The abstract tier list figments become less fuzzier (though still less distinct than when Kale started). "Yeah, are these things supposed to talk?" Kale quizzes Nein, pointing his thumb towards the afterimage. "Or self-sabotage like this?" "It's not self sabotage. You just don't have the right answer yet." "And *you* don't have a name either, alright?" says Kale to his afterimage. "So just - start going away too. You're some sort of... psychic side effect of this whole place. "Wrong twice."
Angela	''Oh I'm doing alright,'' "Oh that's wonderful. I am glad you are finding ways to keep busy and enjoy yourself and I imagine there is a certain joy to being a spooky campfire story--" Angela says then frowns at what Psychonautra says next. "...I see. I wish I could drop by more often myself. In truth, I find the Psychonauts' method of doing things to be..." She hesitates but doesn't see Flamel so she continues. "Perhaps a bit more efficient and less intrusive than Lobotomy Corp's methodology when it comes to tampering with the mind?" He must never know that she actually finds him kind of respectable in the field. Or at least, he must never know she's willing to admit it. "If you'd like perhaps I could one of my Agents to serve as a vessel to bring you over? Though I must say living in an insane aslyum does get old after a time as well." That seems to be what she's calling Lobotomy Corp today. She thinks for a moment. "Tablet life is ... ... well, like you said. Being carried around by other things I can't control has it's limits. It gets lonely." Parker hasn't gotten what some might call 'positive reinforcement' in Lobotomy Corp (well at least until after the Binah meltdown) so she's a little nervous about what Sasha Nein is saying here. "Oh--well... um. Goggles are cool..." She reaches out, carefully takes them like she's expecting to be attacked, then snaps it close to her body once she has it, then looks back and says--despite all that--"Thank you," softly to Sasha Nein. It doesn't quite feel as good as stealing but she can still appreciate a gesture like that. "What do you mean--what I achieved..." It is so barely a question that it doesn't get a question mark, but it still kind of is one, just without the intonation. ''Instead of giving my feelings a word to cut me down with, I work to resolve them first *then* learn their name.'' "Oh...I think I get it." PARKER MIGHT NOT REMEMBER THIS, THOUGH.
Marigold	"There's only one of me."      "Oh. Okay?" Lugh's expression of concern lingers on Meika for a long moment. "... Someone was running around using your name, then. That wasn't very nice of her." A doppelganger she didn't know about?? That's a scary idea.      For a while there, surrounded by baffling figures and colors and displays, Lugh just scrunches his eyes, straightens his back, and breathes deeply. That serves him well in keeping his own anxieties under control. He doesn't open them until Sasha's demonstration, and then his wonder quickly turns to melancholy.      "Even grown-ups deal with silly feelings like that, huh..." He murmurs, cheek squished into a raised knee. But it's himself he's calling silly, and not Sasha; and the sadness is in losing a bit of faith in the invincibility of adulthood.      "Lugh, you might not think you do, but you have one of the better ideas."      "Huh? I do?" Lugh looks up from his knee, blink-blinking away surprise.      "Sharpening it with an articulation evolves it, from a sentiment to a fact..."      "So you mean... it's easier to face it at the level of feelings than to argue it away. So things like meditation, or eating some nice food, or hugging someone, or just letting it go away, are really good for that?" He's absorbing the idea, but something still nags him about it.      "Mr. Nein? When do you get better, then? I mean, whatever's giving you those bad feelings... isn't this just," he reaches for a borrowed healer's term, "um, 'treating the symptoms'?"
Petra Soroka	"Radical denial can't be achieved. No-- it won't explode later, it's impossible to achieve most forms of it even in the moment."     Psychonautra sighs and crosses her arms, plopping her chin down onto them like there's an invisible table to rest on, floating somewhere beside Kale's ear. She's still nothing more than a head and shoulders psychically noodling out of Kale's head by a thin tendril; there's no full-body manifestation like with Kale's body double.     "I guess, I guess. I'm not gonna Dunning-Kreuger myself into insisting I know better than you about self-denial, but I *am* a, uh, adept hobbyist, at least. Would you say there's a difference between intentional, individual targeting and censoring of bad thoughts that pop up, you know, like how Censors do, compared to restructuring your mind to eradicate 'species' of thoughts before they can even reach the conscious mind?"     "Like, uh, I feel like there's a pretty tangible difference between *not voicing* feelings before trimming them down into something that's, like, more appropriate; and creating preemptive psychic barriers to those feelings ever reaching the point of being capable of being voiced. Like, walls are better than armies, you know?"     Psychonautra grumbles a bit, "... I guess there's still gonna be some little Censors for whatever slips through, anyways. I've just always thought that structured, algorithmic self-denial is a way more reliable tactic than sifting through every option as they pop up. Why trust your Censors to make the right choice at all?" "When do you get better, then?"     Psychonautra points at Lugh, then at Sasha, for lack of a more expressive body to emote with. "Yeah! That's the kind of thing I mean. Censors work, maybe, and reconsideration can weaken feelings you don't want, but in the end, the only real way to be *consistent*, is to figure out structural changes to the actions that you're able to perform at all." "Have you tried explaining to the fish that you aren't actually rude?"     The fish don't care if *I'm* rude," Psychonautra sticks her tongue out at Kale, which is an exceptionally difficult maneuver considering where she's extruding from. "They're just scared of it. Who told these fucking fish ghost stories?" "Yeah, are these things supposed to talk?"     "It's impossible to say," says Psychonautra, who was pulled out of Petra's head because of talking too much. She doesn't actually have a helpful answer, though. "If you'd like perhaps I could one of my Agents to serve as a vessel to bring you over?"     "Hmmmmm...." Psychonautra twirls around a little bit. "Nah. I'd hate for it to be easy. I've got some shit in my quest log that'd be super easy if I just got someone I could boss around to carry me over, but then, like, what else am I doing?"
Flamel Parsons	Sasha reaches out to Kale. "Mr. Hearthward. The thing about control is that a sufficiently complex system is indistinguishable from chaos, and that having absolute control means there are still many things you can't do." He plants his fingers on his temple, takes a deep breath, and shuts down all outflow from his mind. No more feelings emerge. "I've developed my capacity for control for years. But having control doesn't mean I'm capable of feeling happy when terrible things happen, just like being behind the wheel of a car doesn't give you the power to make it fly." He adjusts his sunglasses. "Telekinesis aside."     "You are many parts. Many pieces. That could even be many selves. Parts that work in synchronization. The telepathy you want to control is one of those parts, but every other part could just as well evolve into a self, or stay an unarticulates emotional mass." He gestures to the afterimage. "We call something like them 'archetypes'. The book, Mindswarm, is excellent literature, which I'll be assigning to you. But an archetype can only be powerful when named."     That index finger pushes the idea at him. "A feeling can become a sentiment. A sentiment can become a fact. A fact can become a self. By naming and expressing it consciously, this evolution happens -- for good, or otherwise. Your unhealthiest sentiments and most negative feelings will always be with you, but deprive them of a name and your Archetypes might carry them safely instead, hold them in some way that you can, all together, wear them down and manage them."     "Then the process of improving could happen." Impulsively, he reaches for a cigarette -- then tucks it back into his jacket. A tiny nicotine addiction leaks out of his head, the crack in the dam; the thin and ragged white creature flops onto the ground and scampers for a while. "Or, it might just stay as it is. There's an unhealthiness to overmedication, too. Sometimes, you let your negative aspects rest unformed and unspoken, and trust in time to heal things."     A focus on Kale again. "But articulate the parts of you worth sharpening into facts and pershonhood. And never do the same for the parts not worthy of it."
Flamel Parsons	"What do you mean--what I achieved..."     "Management of archetypes is important. Sharpening the wrong thoughts can be a disaster. What you've achieved is the blunting and softening of sentiments, in whole or in part." Agent Nein flicks his bangs a little out of his face. "A sword has a handle, the bluntest part of its construction. And it needs one. You've created a handhold on who you are. To be who you are means suppressing just enough to hold onto it safely."     "Otherwise, you can't strike anything with it." His voice maintains that patient, controlled tone. "And I know how important that is in your job."     "Even grown-ups deal with silly feelings like that, huh..."     "The older you get, the more you feel them." He's a bit brutal. "I'll give you an important piece of intelligence from the people I work for: Adults. We adults are just people who have learned to deal with that, or have started to pretend they don't feel them, and come up with excuses."     "Isn't this just, um, 'treating the symptoms'?"     "It is." Sasha nods. "But treating the symptoms is worth doing. Sometimes time will heal the issue. Other times, you need more complex and dangerous work. Agent Parsons likes to say things like, 'With a mindful focus and a more stable state, I'm sure you'll solve it with a better approach!'" He shakes his head. "The truth is, if a mental health disaster happens, it's just going to happen. Better to have some symptoms treated, so you've got more of yourself to survive the disaster." Sheesh, dude.     "Like, uh, I feel like there's a pretty tangible difference between *not voicing* feelings before trimming them down into something that's, like, more appropriate; and creating preemptive psychic barriers to those feelings ever reaching the point of being capable of being voiced. Like, walls are better than armies, you know?"     "Structuralist self-denial." Agent Nein says, shaking his head. "Real change through a barrier is... purely theoretical. Like an exotic element in a laboratory. It has an expiration date in the real world." He looks... tense. "I don't believe in it as a primary structure. Some psychics do. The first Psychomaster developed a number of techniques for it." He glances to the door of the psychoisolation chamber, as if thinking of someone in particular...
Angela	''Nah. I'd hate for it to be easy.'' If Angela wasn't confident Psychonautra wasn't actually particularly Petra-like, she'd be sure of it now. "I understand. Sometimes my extreme preparedness means I am too helpful. I hope you find it narratively satisfying, however you choose to go about it.." Angela says. ''What you'vee acheived is the blunting and softening of sentiments, in whole or in part.'' Parker is already putting the sciencey goggles on. Her Face Slot is presently free of any equips so this can easily take the open space. "That sounds like EGO..." Parker admits. It would be nice if she was close. So it wouldn't always be so loud in her own head. That she can hold it with her hands instead. "Thank you, Sasha." She isn't one who really standso n formality, glancing to the psychoisolation chamber when Nein looks thataways but she probably doesn't understand any of the jargon.
Marigold	Nein's bad news about adulthood makes Lugh slump into a posture of mild despair. 'Actually things get harder and more complicated' isn't what an orphan-and-technical-child-soldier wants to hear, even if it might be true.      "Well... I hope I'll figure it out in time," he mumbles, knee-cheeksquished. "Thanks, Mr. Nein."      "Structuralist self-denial."      Lugh rolls that one around in his head with the newly studious urgency of someone who has one-and-a-half years to knit a parachute before hitting the ground.      "Dealing with your feelings as feelings is good, because... it helps you stay together, and you can still fix the problem if you need to. Suppressing them all is bad, because... because you forget there is a problem?" He's hazarding a guess there!      "Maybe it should be Father Lucius talking to you all, and not me..."
Kale Hearthward	> I've developed my capacity for control for years. "Years!" exclaims Kale. "I don't know if I have that kind of time." Archetypes This information is getting filtered through a lot of Kale, but the core components seem to be piercing through. Nein's next bit has a call to action in it, though, which *does* get through in a much more intact way. "Right, okay. So that's an archetype - and he will carry things for me." "That is almost certainly an oversimplification of what you're being taught," says the afterimage/archetype, but it does go around and start literally picking up and holding as many of the figments as it can carry. "And - a name. Um." Kale gets distracted by Parker. "Oh - yeah, you're making those work," he comments. "Honestly looks a lot better than some of the stuff I see you Lobcorp agents using. I think there was someone who was wearing a whole second face?" "... Oh, right, a name." "It's fine, like I said, I already gave myself one," says the archetype as it fades away with the figments. "Goodbye." "... Hey, wait, I'm not done - how do you, uh, summon... bring back... your archetype thing?" Kale holds two fingers to his temple, closes his eyes, and concentrates hard, and mostly only succeeds at giving himself (and maybe Psychonautra) a headache.
Angela	Parker looks at Kale. For a moment it's a question of whether or not she's offended because he doesn't recognize her. ".....Who was that?" Oh nevermind.
Meika Kirenai	'... Someone was running around using your name, then.'     "... Why would someone use *my* name? Mine? I- I'm not really anyone who's..." She falters, watching Lugh's worry grow, and tears her eyes away before they twist into a scowl. "It's- it's like I said, you're probably just... mistaking me, or... h-hey, no, don't- don't look at me like that. That's-"     Her posture tightens up, and her eyes still stay dilligently fixed on nothing. "Yeah. Mean of her. Kick her shins, or something, if she tries something like that again. Be mean back. Be *meaner* back." Meika's fists ball up, near her pockets. Where clearer thought-context to that anger ought to well up and bubble out, nothing does.     Letting go of it quickly, she rolls her shoulders. "... It's- really, it's probably just some weird coincidence. Another one. They keep happening, again and again... so- yeah. I don't know." . . . . . 'No, Meika. That is your first mistake.'     Meika winces, sharp, before even hearing out any of what Sasha has to say, or how he's saying it. Staring, unfocused, she chews the inside of her lip as she tries to listen- half-listen, or maybe even quarter-listen. Confusion, worry, and bitterness at disagreements all make for an easier time glossing over things she can't quite grasp to imagine entire different points instead. 'Not everyone can control themselves. *Nobody* can.' 'Isn't this just, um, 'treating the symptoms'?' 'It is. But treating the symptoms is worth doing.'     "... None of that sounds like it's enough. Isn't control, or- isn't the right thing to do, not to even *have* to do any of that? Not to have those- those thoughts, or worries, or- or any of that, in the first place? If it's stuff that's bad, and it's stuff you shouldn't? I know you can, so- how do you do *that*? Is- is that something else? Is that not what the talk's about?" She's really not listening constructively. A bit of anger, too- "... Maybe I just- maybe I don't get it. Philosophy stuff's way too dense."     Eyes fix on the twirling cigarette Sasha won't light up, with a hypocritical, sour glare of dissapointment, or something akin to it, as if that makes it easier to toss out what someone helpful is trying to say and teach. "... Where- where's the door? It's kind of hard to see. I want to leave."
Petra Soroka	"The truth is, if a mental health disaster happens, it's just going to happen. Better to have some symptoms treated, so you've got more of yourself to survive the disaster."     "See, I mean, that's the thing. If 'yourself' is set up to cause a catastrophic mental disaster, then setting up your defenses and recovery so that you scrape back as much of that old 'self' as possible is just, like, setting yourself up for the same failure again. The crucible of systemically losing parts of yourself in the wildfire created by your worse impulses can also help set up your mind in a way that's less prone to doing that again in the future!"     Psychonautra has taken zero lessons on Psychonauts Ethics so far. "Like an exotic element in a laboratory."     Psychonautra squishes a finger into her cheek, grinning. "I kind of *am* an exotic element in a laboratory! I bet you'd learn a lot by sticking some probes in me. Oh, hey, do you think you could imagine up some proper tools for studying me, and I could swing by your mindscape later to see what I can do with them? Maybe Agent Parsons'd be better at that, though." "Suppressing them all is bad, because... because you forget there is a problem?"     "But there only *is* a problem if it ever affects your behavior, right? Stuff about yourself only matters as much as it affects other people." Psychonautra burbles closer to Lugh, but mostly just to poke at the figments popping out of his head. "The symptomatic approach, instead of the structuralist approach, eventually always boils down to thinking that you're able to make the right decision every time if you have enough time. I guess that's really what my problem is with it." "Maybe it should be Father Lucius talking to you all, and not me..."     Nah, philosophy-stuff's way better applied to kids anyways. As long as it gets you thinking about yourself-- you know the tagline! Thinking about thinking.-- that sort of introspection's gonna go a long way compared to some old--" Psychonautra cuts off to glare at Kale.     "Would you *stop*? Your blood pressure's spiking enough to make it hard to *breathe*. Look, hey, *I'll* go look for your archetype construction centers if you really want."
Flamel Parsons	"Isn't the right thing to do, not to even *have* to do any of that? Not to have those- those thoughts, or worries, or- or any of that, in the first place?"     Agent Nein moves to open the door. Most of the people here have settled on their matters. It's a good time to wrap it up. So he moves to open the door for everyone. But he has one thing to say to one specific person: "Meika, it's important that you remember this, most of all: Nobody can have a morality to the structure of their mind. A mind can't be built to be more or less evil for the same reason you can't make sports equipment that's already playing a match before it's in someone's hands. Evil thoughts... these things come to all of us. I've examined the brains of the worst and best of humanity. All of them had, really, mostly the same bad and good impulses. They'd suppress some, and sharpen others."     He gestures with a raised index, staring intently. "But what mattered, in the end, was the control. Always, control. How much they had. How much they were under. And how that control was used. Like a sports team's success: Training, coaching, and motivation are more essential than any innate talent."     He pops the door open.     "Maybe it should be Father Lucius talking to you all, and not me..."     "You're learning. Maybe Father Lucius might give me an engaging philosophical debate." Nein flicks his hair again, as he starts actually fishing the cigarette out now. "But you came here to learn, and you did. That's all that needs to happen. You'll figure this out."     "That sounds like EGO..."     "I've heard of the phenomenon. No chance to study it. But if I had a chance to examine it in the lab, I'd expect the carefully-applied suppression and enhancement of the self to be critical."     "... Hey, wait, I'm not done - how do you, uh, summon... bring back... your archetype thing?"     "Now that the chamber's unsealed, it's much more difficult." Sasha explains. "But not impossible." He steps out, away from the chamber, and lights his cigarette with pyrokinesis, before taking a long drag. Feels like weeks since he's gotten to take a smoke break! "Cassie O'Pia was one of the founders of the Psychonauts, and wrote an important piece of literature on the topic. It takes mindfulness, examination of your own flaws and merits, and a breakdown of rationalizations and confabulations. But it's possible for an effective psychic to manifest an Archetype at will, even multiples. Some of the Psychonauts use it to multitask, or confront problems indirectly. I'll bring a copy of Mindswarm by the cabins."