BAH FINALLY
THE REFS IVE BEEN WHINING ABOUT HAVING TO REMAKE
THEEYRE DONNE

i was originally going to make Emotional Amplification a mini entry (those images with [L] in the titles but that arent labled as enteries) but also realised that i didnt really have much of anything to say about my junior redesigns. ill still talk about the teens first, and then get into the weird headcanon/PSI-Power shit.

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The first thing about the teens I should point out - Morris.
Why is he standing - he looks like he's been scruffed like a naughty dog, why? That's because I need a clean, easy to read ref of his outfit, which he can't give me sitting down. Which is shockingly complex. He's got like 7 layers on, and I have notably simplified it to cooperate with my art. I have, however, plans to redesign his chair. Or really, just design him a new chair, so that hes not stuck in a fuckin lawnchair m’lord who thought that was agood idea. Imma stab them /hj. But I don't have that design yet, so he’ll likely be in the lawnchair for a while longer while I bash my head into that ref sheet.

Nothing to say about Adam. He’s- he’s fine. Idk. oh i did notice on the redraw that he's got swirly pupils kinda like Kitty. Not like I think they’re relatives or someshit - just, it's the same deal. Maybe Adam’s good at confusion like her. That'd be a funky headcanon - the more you use certain PSI-Powers the more you “become” it. Not for me though - im basically doing the same thing but in a different (possibly more fucked up) way (more info in entry 7)

Lizzie has 3209471901 tattoos, which I've elected to not put onto her ref, but rather just place next to her in roughly the correct places in the correct colours. Same for her buttons/pins/badges/whatever the fuck you wanna call them on her vest. I can just copy them off of the ref and then paste them onto her when needed. Or trace them off the ref - tomato tomato. She actually had a very easy colour palette to refine down. The most cluttered part of her design that needed simplifying down were the belts on her skirt. Which i wasnt able to simplify by much lol.

Sam’s colours were adjusted to be closer to her brother Dogens. Mainly making her black/dark eyes more reddish, and tinting her skin ever to slightly bluer/cooler toned.

Norma was the first of the juniors that I got a ref started for, which is why she's got so much more art before the rest. (so much more as in like... 3 images lmao). I think it's just because I had such a strong idea for how I wanted to handle her hair, whereas the rest I needed to figure out as I was drawing them as opposed to prior.

That actually might be it, other than the many hours of screaming at Gisu’s skin tone for not playing nice. No clue why either. It just… looked gross and either way too saturated or way too dull, so I had to mess around for a while to get a single clean base tone for her. Oh speaking of ‘her’ - i headcanon that Gisu goes by any/all, I just usually still refer to them by she/her. 

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Ok, PSI-Power nonsense time.
The first thing I have to explain is the definition of "negative" and "positive" emotions.

For my universe "negative" and "positive" emotions don't truly exist in the way we commonly think of them.
In-game Sasha lists 'anger' and 'fear' as "negative" emotions, the problem is that by saying "anger is a negative emotion", we societally very often interpret this to mean "anger is a wrong/bad emotion", as in one you shouldn’t want, shouldn't feel, or shouldn't express. which is incorrect - there aren't wrong feelings, there are wrong reactions to those feelings. But feeling or expressing anger in and of itself is not wrong. So I use the terms "negative" and "positive" to coequally refer to emotions that are respectively undesirable or desirable by the individual either in general or in the moment.

PSI-Blast runs not specifically off of "socially wrong" emotions, but any feelings that the psychic doesn't want to feel, hence why Sasha's PSI-Blast is so strong - he doesn't want to feel anything most of the time so that he can "think logically", even though he as a Psychonaut should know better than to bottle his feelings, even at the cost of having a slightly weaker weapon on hand(or would it be on head? gets hit with rolled up newspaper).

This is mainly done because in the context of the Psychonauts organisation being founded in science and research of psychic powers and the functions of the human mind, I feel it would be fitting that they acknowledge that there aren't effectively "wrong" emotions to feel, just wrong reactions to those feelings.

Next is the concept I call Psychic Emotional Amplification. The thing you came here for. The thing I have been advertising.
Does what it says on the tin - emotions of any kind can/will amplify a psychic's power. It doesn't have to be a 'negative' emotion, like for PSI-Blast or Blastokinesis (I do consider those diff but related Psi-Powers).
The reason I say this is because we see it all over at least both of the main games, but also to an extent in RoR.

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Razputin's hydrophobia and hydrokinesis. Raz was raised to believe his family's false history, and thus believed that he was truly cursed to die in water, which matched with his predisposition to hydroK from the Aquato lineage, meant that he possibly was seeing the "Hand of Galochio" before he even realized he was psychic, or got control of his more standard powers.
i also suspect that he might not have know it was his psychic powers creating/controlling the Hand. I believe he'd know what hydroK is from True Psychic Tales, but may not have recognised it in person nor as his doing, having only read/seen it in comics and thus left with no real-world reference point. We see something similar in PN1 after Sasha hands him the button and totally definitely doesn't tell him to find him and his lab, where after Raz tries to call after sasha asking where his lab is, Sasha telepathically repeats himself to Raz that "isolation can lead to new discoveries" or whatever, and Raz responds to this by saying out loud "oh great, not im hearing things". again, he likely knows what telepathy is, he just doesn't know what it looks/sounds like in practice.

and by the end of PN2 he's just aware that the curse isn't real and the water isn't actively trying to murder him, but he's still hydrophobic from the 10 years of previously believing the curse, so the hand still appears, it just doesn't attempt to drown him anymore. Actually the hand never successfully drowns raz - I assume it's something similar to how you could bite your own fingers off because they're only as strong as carrots, but you can't actually because your brain stops you from being stupid. and this is just the psychic equivalent.

It is also possible that under the stress of the situation in RoR, his already strong Clairvoyance was amplified, allowing him greater range of its use (as well as PSI-Poke, which he's seen using at the same distances, and in addition to his CV) to help the others snap out of their delirium and reconvene to finish the mission.

also, it might not be common knowledge even amongst the Psychonauts organisation that curses aren't real - as lili knows of Razputin's family curse, but in spite of her training and knowledge, just accepts it as fact. It's possible she thinks raz is lying to make his hydrophobia less embarrassing on himself (as he does hype it up a bit in front of Elton in PN1 when Elton questions Raz about it), but in that case, it feels more in-character for her to call him out for lying about an "obviously fake curse" because curses aren't real. although this scene occurs during Loboto's Labyrinth, so it's possible she's more focused on the mission/her dad, and thus isn't putting 2 and 2 together atm.

Next is Lucrecia Mux. You should know this one well - there was a whole game about it. She was emotionally unstable from the (likely unethical or at least heavily drug-infused) experiments she and the 7 homies were doing, she heard about the war stuff back in Grolovia, on a whim went back there to help. Became the Minister of war, there were protests, and in an attempt to get them to stop, brought in a rainstorm. Presumably, she didnt think she brought in one strong enough to flood the fucking dam, but we all know she did. This was likely the amplification of her hydroK caused by the emotionally/mentally fragile state she arrived in plus being in Grulovia for the war stuff. And then through killing not just a bunch of peaceful protesters by accident but her own sister (and brother-in-law(poor Lazuraus gets so little attention outside of dying with his wife)), threw her over the edge and entirely into her Maligula persona. Wherein she then went on to continue killing.

We see amplification with Phoebe Love in PN1 with her pyromania and pyrokinesis. She ties positive emotions to setting things on fire, and thus when she gets over-excited, she starts uncontrollably/accidentally lighting nearby objects or entities on fire. She's done this enough times that she's got a fear of lighters, and likely other fire-starters or sources of fire as well.
Because that generally seems to be how PSI-Powers work in-universe; there's a degree of "you have to believe in it to make it happen". It's a strong emotion manifesting as the 'most appropriate' PSI-Power. Raz thinks/thought water's going to kill him, so he makes water try and kill him; pheobe feels happy setting things on fire, so being happy makes things catch fire.

Dogen and Compton Boole both have displayed that when overwhelmed by the thoughts/voices of animals, they have accidentally blown them up with their Blastokinesis. Dogen was with the 3 squirrels in PN1, and Compton was in the memory vault “ I was only trying to help!”, with the pound dogs. It's actually possible that Dogen’s killed many more since he says to Elka that he's blown up people 4 times, which would either mean 1 human and the 3 squirrels, or 4 humans prior to the 3 squirrels (7 total). Either way, the kid's a bit of a mess.

And Sasha Nein i went over in the explanation of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotions.

That’s… I think all of the examples as seen in-game. So yeah. That's today’s yapping finally wrapped up after like… a whole month of failing to finish this. I do have waaaaaaaaay more lore shit to write, but this’ll do for now me thinks.

Next entry will be about the Psiromium, Deity nonsense, and funky lore bullshit. Yayyyyyaaayayay dies