Mind

**Mind** *(pronounced: "Mint")* is a young girl around the age of 10. She comes from a rich and proud family and lives a sheltered existence. She's never been outside one day of her life and kept indoors because her parents are often gone and consider their envious high status to make it unsafe for her to leave the house.

She is a victim of domestic sexual abuse at the hands of her father. She told her mother and called the police more than once, but they don't believe her because of her father's flawless image. In the animated short she commits suicide and this is considered the canon conclusion to the DenNIM storyline, despite there being different endings.

Because of her "imprisonment", Mind never had the opportunity to meet other people. Her early pain and loneliness created Dennim, who can be best described as an imaginary friend mixed with a classic demon. Upon first meeting him she questioned his low voice, but not knowing what humans can look like and being practically raised with him by her side never made her question his demon-like appearance. Mind was 3 years old when she started seeing him.

Because Dennim never told her the truth about himself and kept his origin vague, she always assumed him to be "some rebellious, neighbourhood kid" who breaks into people's homes out of boredom. As she wanted to keep his company, she never told her parents about her burglar friend.

Mind is being homeschooled and follows an university level of education. Even so, her intelligence doesn't necessarily reflect that and her lack of life experience makes her ignorant towards whatever is considered normal or abnormal in the social world. This is why she is accepting of Dennim's appearance, and in some realities that have them grow up, accepting of monster Dennim's appearance. She's also behind on modern media and the only movie she's ever watched is The Phantom of the Opera. Her parents tend to create a very outdated Victorian environment around her, despite the story being set in 2011.

Mind lacks self-respect and often needs Dennim to motivate her to do something else besides sob. She has a mousy, almost gloomy personality, but this is hard to find back when she's with Dennim. His presence enables a different part of her brain, giving her a voice and making her behave like a fairly regular child, which is best portrayed in the comic series. In the animation it's shown that her interactions with Dennim are psychotic episodes where she stares into space, which means she's only this person in her own mind. Mind does not play and talk by herself, for example, but this rule can change depending on the universe they're in.

Being closed off from the world made her devoid of creativity and there isn't anything she wants in the future, besides for her father's abuse to stop. The only dream she revealed to Dennim is wanting to see the ocean. She's never talked about what job she'd like or discussed family plans.

Mind has blonde half-long hair, thick eyelashes, blue eyes, and wears a blue poofy dress with white lacing, a red corset, white shoes, and she has a red ribbon in her hair.

Even though she never leaves the house, she has to wear fancy clothes at request of her proud mother. Her father makes her wear lipstick.

## In other realities

The story continues depending on whether or not Mind accepts the key from Dennim and dies. Even so, some universes allow her to exist in the afterlife or create a way for her to come back to life. Most realities have Mind not commit suicide, but she can still die later in life; which is always by the hands of her father.

While Dennim can grow up to become either caring or selfishly vengeful, Mind's personality is mostly consistent. In all realities she's dependent on him because of her uncertainty in everything, and extreme lack of life skills. Dennim tends to know exactly what to do and often has the advantage of possessing supernatural powers.

Mind has the same personality traits, views and opinions in every universe, but Dennim's actions can change her opinion on him. She'll have him as a friend by default, but can either despise or love him later in life, depending on how he solves her problems or treats others.
 Nevertheless, there are endings where Dennim is bold enough to confess his feelings for her early in the game without having to "work for her affection", and Mind will still consider him. This means that their canon friendship provides a strong enough basis for her to feel flattered by his confession and return the feelings, even though she'll just as easily walk away from him or fall for someone else.

Her inability to consider anything without getting some kind of input has mostly to do with her abuse defining her existence. This is also why she doesn't have any plans and dreams for the future, as these things are not considered important enough for her to worry about as long she doesn't have the certainty she'll have a future.

### As an adult

     As an adult, Mind often shows off a calm, almost motherly personality, and becomes less riled up than when she was a child. While this seems an improvement from her old self, it is the result of her second character too being broken after the years of abuse. Though she was already rather quiet and mousy in reality, in Dennim's presence she could be demanding and easily dissatisfied by his disobedience and jokes, as is expected from a young child. But in combination with her growing maturity, their meetings started getting affected more and Mind's factual personality sneaks in at times.

If she still hasn't been rescued from her father by the time she is 16, she gets a moment of silent depression every day that Dennim can only watch her go through.

Later in life, Mind has noticeably more patience for Dennim's games and controversial statements. Her mellowed approach towards him made its slow start after she lost her temper with him once and slapped him in the face. She was ashamed of herself and promised him to never strike him again, which urged her to dissect all his future insults and eventually understood his character better by doing so. In her teenage years she began to appreciate the concept of dark comedy, and she and Dennim perform improvised skits together as part of their daily conversation.

Because Mind has no life experience or proper social skills, Dennim prefers that she doesn't deal with the outside world by herself. She's considered a classic beauty and grabs the attention of men, which makes him more possessive. His hostility towards others is seldom seen by Mind as a tactic to claim her, and she accepts all his negative advice as genuine.

In the realities where Dennim is a dictator or monster, outsiders are less concerned with hooking up with her, though her beauty is thought to fit a maiden of sacrifice and it often ends her up getting offered to her own friend.

## Relationships

### Dennim

Dennim is Mind's best and only friend. While she often sees him as a pest and he likes to make insensitive remarks concerning her abuse, his loud presence makes her forget about the harsh reality she lives in. He is the only person in her life who enables the chance for her to act like her age and they play together every day.

While Mind is described to be an unsure person, she calls the shots in their friendship and is nearly always the one who decides how to spend their days. There isn't much Dennim doesn't want to do for her, though his cooperation often comes with a personal spin given to it.

Though Dennim can be mean-spirited, he is loyal and takes any negative response from her with a smile. Despite being the only "real" friend she's ever had, he is taken for granted. In the alternative realities she grows up in, she realizes this fact.

### Mind's mother

Mind considers her mother good company, even though her trust in her decreased after she refused to believe her abuse claims. If Mind is not summoned by her father or hiding in her room, she's downstairs drinking tea with her mother.

Mind knows that her mother isn't what she seems on the surface and is actually quite unhappy, which is why she sympathizes with her and wishes for her happiness.

In one reality she asks Dennim to fulfil that wish, though it's unknowingly.

### Mind's father

Mind's father is her abuser and the cause of Dennim's existence. She's very fearful of him.

His behaviour towards his daughter is an unpleasant combination between flirty and intimidating, and is always followed up with unwanted contact. After years of being unheard and disbelieved, Mind considers herself defeated and no longer attempts to run away or fight him off. Instead, she mentally shuts herself down as a defense mechanism. When she returns to her bedroom, this mechanism summons Dennim.

Obviously she doesn't want to be alone in the house with her father and prefers him to stay at work as long as possible, but despite this, she doesn't feel hatred or the need to get revenge on him. This is why in none of the realities she advocates for killing him, while Dennim sees it as the only solution. Since she's never had a decent relationship with her father and this is all she remembers him as, it means her inability to hate is just part of her personality.

## Trivia

* The art style for Mind and Dennim was designed with The Powerpuff Girls in mind.
* "Mind" was originally spelled "Minned";
	+ When reversing the letters, that makes "Dennim".
* The adult version of Mind and Dennim starred in the music video "Little Animal" by Kinkobra.
* In one story, Mind explains to Dennim that the unusual spelling of her name is thanks to an inside joke her parents started after they had visited the Netherlands together years before her birth;
	+ They used to make fun of the words that ended with a "d" that were pronounced as a "t", as for words that ended with "dt";
	+ Mind claims they were close to calling her "Mindt".

## See also

* DenNIM (about page)
* DenNIM (animated feature)
* DenNIM (comic series)
* Mind's room