#I just assumed it had something to do with a mental asylum

[pixielpunk]

Only just now realised it's Disco Elysium and not Disco Asylum

[hauntingrabbits]

More Batman/My Little Pony au art because these are ridiculously fun to draw. Part 3 here! Part 1 here!

More info under the cut!

1. Sweet Talk/The Harlequin (Harleen Quinzel)

Originally contracted to work as a psychiatrist for the Tartarus villain redemption program, Sweet Talk had a unique relationship with the Joker. This relationship was proven to be even stranger than her coworkers had originally assumed when she broke him out and joined him in his life of crime.

Devoting herself entirely to her new life and relationship with the joker, she covers her original cutie mark at all times. Snce her horn was snapped she can no longer cast precise spells, leaving her magic mostly emotion-based and intensely volatile, (typically manifesting in the form of sparks, zaps, and explosions).

Other Notes:

-Using Tartarus as a substitute for Arkham Asylum for this au because why not.

-The villain redemption program did NOT go well. Sorry Twilight.

-Mostly based on BTAS Harley because I adore the original costume.

-Her horn was cracked by the Joker

2. Pudding Pie/The Joker (The Joker)

Batpony’s most notorious foe. Said to have been just a regular pony until he fell into a vat at an Ace Potions factory during a conflict with Batpony.

He doesn’t have a Cutie Mark, but it’s unclear whether this was always the case or instead a result of his accident. The effects of permanent Cutie Mark loss—the only known cases of which occurred via long-banned magic and/or traumatic injury—are largely unstudied, and it’s ramifications are unknown. Some ponies theorize this may be the reason for the Joker’s mental state and general disposition.  

Sundown has a different opinion on the matter.

Other notes:

-Based mostly on BTAS joker and the ‘89 Nicholson joker.

-His name is just based on Harley’s “pudding” nickname for in in a lot of versions, but I think it would also be hilarious if he was a distant relative of Pinkie Pie.

-I could leave it ambiguous but. Yeah the potion vat didn’t actually do anything beyond slightly altering his physical appearance. He’s just like that and he never got a cutie mark in the first place.

3. Gadiel/Scarecrow (Jonathan Crane)

Raised among ponies, Gadiel was relentlessly bullied for being gangly and birdish, earning him the nickname “Scarecrow” in his youth. Though he later successfully became a professor and psychologist in Gotham, Gadiel was eventually fired when he was found to be testing his fear-inducing potions on his students and purposefully putting them through terrifying and dangerous situations. Deciding to take his experiments to the masses, Gadiel donned the mantle of Scarecrow and weaponized fear to become a career criminal.

As the Scarecrow, he’s known for his skill in manipulation, psychological torture, and crafting dangerous potions and gas. The effects of fear on magical creatures are unique and intense, much to Gadiel’s delight and interest.

Other Notes:

-I wanted to make his front half a crane but I couldn’t get the long neck to work right with the mask, so he’s more crow-like instead.

-according to the wiki 1/3 of Griffin names start with a G so naturally I was extremely tempted to name him Gonathon and you should all be very grateful I did not. The name Gadiel has origins in the bible as the name of an archangel which I thought was fitting given the insane religious trauma some versions of the scarecrow went through. I thought about trying to do something similar for this version but given that the mlp universe uses Princess Celestia as a replacement for God in expressions like “Celestia knows where” and “Oh my Celestia” I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. There’s probably some kind of sun-worshipping thing in equestria idk.

-I spent a long time on the mlp wiki but from what I could find the only “fear” magic in the show is just used by one guy and its just called “dark magic”. I thought for sure there would’ve been some random plant or magical creature they dealt with at some point that maybe did something similar I could use for his blurb but unfortunately there was not.

4. Mandible/Falseface (Basil Karlo/Matt Hagen)

Hungry and deeply resentful of the changeling queen for forcing her underlings to share what little stolen love they had with her, Mandible went rogue early on and split off from the hive to pursue his own ventures. Finding success under the name Claypose as a pony actor in Gotham, he was sustained primarily by the one-sided love of his fans for years, despite the false identity having no real prior personal relationships to leech from. 

After a magical special effects accident on set revealed his true nature, he went into hiding and immediately started crafting a new persona, but soon found in his distress and rage over losing his identity as Claypose that he could no longer sustain any disguise long enough to keep up a long-term facade. Blaming the accident, he targeted the unicorn responsible by posing as his wife to leech his love, but ended up killing the pony in a panic when his disguise failed much faster than he’d anticipated it would. Unable to keep up a new identity or return to the hive, Mandible turned to a life of crime instead, doing dirty work for the bigger criminal names in Gotham and leeching love from his employer’s targets to survive.

Other notes:

-Clayface being a changeling was an obvious pick given his power set but I really wasn’t sure how to tackle the main issue of him being unable to keep a solid form for long. I went with his distress and frustration being the main thing keeping his disguise flimsy (so he gets put in kind of an ourobouros cycle where his disguise being bad makes him upset but him being upset makes it harder to fix his disguise), but the magic accident probably also contributed somehow.

-Why are all the changelings straight up just named after body parts in this show whats that about. The “Clay” in Claypose is obviously a reference to his title/schtick in the comics while the “pose” comes from both his job as an actor and the fact that he’s posing as a pony. Mandible is the name for the jaw part of an insect.

-there's actually an entirely different batman villain called falseface in the '66 series (…and another in the comics apparently, whoops) but I couldn't come up with anything better. Changeface just does not roll off the tongue.

3. Winglon/Killer Drake (Waylon Jones)

Originally intended to be used in an entrance exam, his egg was stolen from a Canterlot delivery cart on its way to Celestia’s school of magic and sold on the black market to a Pony Island circus. Raised to be part of the freak show, Winglon was pitted against circus performers and overconfident challengers in ring fights for money and entertainment. Enduring abuse and injury throughout his life from ponies that he was always fundamentally stronger than, it was only a matter of time until he snapped. Garnering the name Killer Drake for his actions, Winglon escaped into the Gotham sewer system.

Not knowing how to return to the dragonlands or whether he’d even fit into dragon society at all, he continues to lurk in the dark away from any life, deeply resenting ponies and all other manner of magical creatures that make friends with them.

Other notes:

-I like silly names ok. Winglon Jones. -I like the theory that the dragon egg used for Twilight’s entrance exam was actually fake/meant to be a no-win scenario, but I also don’t think it would be that hard for enterprising ponies to get their hands on dragon eggs. The practice probably stopped in the later seasons when they made friends with the dragonlands or whatever though.

-Given that dragons threaten to eat or kill ponies at multiple points in the show, the cannibalism is actually kind of understandable. And also not even cannibalism anymore. Still murder though.

[thesleepyhollows]

Understanding Arkhamverse scarecrow.

I’ve been wanting to make this post for awhile. I think with the release of Arkham shadow we might finally have all the necessary pieces to understand the life of Jonathan crane, his motivations and his descent into obsession.

This scene gives us a lot to work with.

Let’s start with this. It seems like unlike some versions of crane who see fear as a tool. The true face of control and power. Arkhamverse Crane sees fear as everything. This has been observed all throughout the series. From him discussing how fear drives every human action in Arkham asylum to this line in Arkham knight just before he’s defeated.

Something else I noted in that clip was Jonathan immediately trying to rationalise and analyse his reaction to his toxin using fear.

Now we’re not quite sure what this original chemical of his does. Only that its intention is to trigger the shadow within people. We can assume through both his and Batman’s reactions that it aims to do this through a similar process to the future fear toxin. Bringing out and facing people with their deepest fears. Hoping they may become them.

Though that leaves the same question. Why jump to fear. He’s clearly talented in chemistry. Surly there would be more direct ways to bring out people’s demons rather than only focusing on a single part of the shadow. Well I believe that shows us even before this realisation Jonathan had some experience and issues with fear. It’s also why his greatest fear seemingly is just. Fear itself. The helpless fears given to us from evolutions and experiences long before our time. Inherent fears.

However we also shouldn’t disregard his fixation on the shadow itself. Why does he seemingly want to get people to become their worst selves. As seen in his tapes with Harvey. Why is Jonathan crane like this?

Well I think there may have been a time where he saw someone consumed by fear. Destoryed by it.

This could draw an interesting parallel to the story of Amadeus Arkham whose story started when he watched his own mother be consumed by her mental illness before ending up consumed by it himself. I think this parallel could make a lot of sense given that I’d argue although the joker plays a more personal threat scarecrow is the main villain of the Arkham series.

So allow me to tell you what I believe to be the story of Jonathan Crane in the Arkham series. Assuming that the brief backstory we got in his Arkham asylum character bio isn’t considered canon.

A parent or other caregiver suffered from great anxiety and paranoia that caused them to do great harm. Maybe overtime perhaps in one tragic incident. Jonathan internalised this and began to grow interested in the mind. Maybe it started with good intentions. After all he does claim to be helping people in Arkham shadow. Maybe that was a lie and he’s been twisted for a very long time. Who knows.

He began work at Gotham state university and we know how that ended up.

Though it’s worth noting he clearly was brilliant. So much so that this incident unlike most versions of the character did not get him fired because his classes brought the university so much revenue. Instead he left on his own accord to take over as head of rehabilitation at blackgate. An odd choice given the amount of institutions bidding over him. They were likely offering more, far more than the job he took. Though I think his motivations for this were split. Partly is of course the obvious motivation of easy access to test subjects that couldn’t easily speak out. We can see in the previous game that he was running controlled tests likely of the chemicals we see used in Arkham shadow and his subjects were willing participants.

Now either not enough people were choosing to participate or the effects were becoming so potent it risked drawing unwanted attention to his work.

The second reason connects to my proposed backstory. Maybe he was curious to explore how fear connects and causes crime and violence via the shadow. The chain reaction that begins WITH fear.

We then see the events that happen in Arkham shadow and we find out alongside Jonathan that he’s been inhaling his own chemicals during testing. Smart move there buddy. This sends him into a psychotic spiral and forces him to confront and become his greatest fear. His shadow. Fear itself. We can see that this truly set in given how messed up he looks the following day. Not to mention his actions becoming erratic. No longer thinking to hide his crimes until after he severely injures Harvey and huffing his own chemicals right in court.

Afterwards? We’re not sure. Of course he goes on to become the scarecrow then the events play out as we see throughout the rest of the Arkham games. He gets mauled by killer croc during the events of asylum and his previously smug and joyfully sadistic personality get destroyed alongside his face. The experience clearly changed him quite drastically as a person. Although clearly it didn’t shake his core ideals and beliefs about the all consuming nature of fear.

How pitifully ironic that this idea became true in the end. As he’s injected with his own toxins his mind collapsing and giving way to permanent insanity and terror. Fear really was everything Jonathan had left in the end.

[sharksfrommars]

Hiii!! Big fan of the asylum ford au over here!

I’ve got a question (not sure if you’ve answered it or not) about something I’ve seen you mention a few times. But what did Bill actually do in ford’s head?

Are we talking just possession like in the court trial or the assumed ‘mental breaks’ afterwards? Or was he up in there changing things and memories around like the ‘burden/sea otter’ incident in the journal? I’ve been assuming the second because the idea of Bill, on top of everything else he’s done to ruin Ford’s life, convincing him that maybe he is crazy is a really tragic premise that I love. How would he continue to believe what he went through was real and that he’s not insane if Bill can just make his brain think otherwise? Or would Bill not bother with that at all because he finds it more entertaining to have Ford deal with no one believing him when he KNOWS what happened was real?

Again, loving you’re au and would love to hear more of your amazing thoughts.

I have had thoughts about this for a while. I think Bill did a lot of different stuff to Ford over the years, just kind of whenever he was bored. Definitely switches words around and stuff. It’s really bad for Ford’s mental health.

anyway, I went kinda buck wild with this, so I’ll let Bill present a snippet of what he did to Ford.

(warning! Unrealistic depictions of Gore! And cartoon psychological horror!)

Thanks Bill! Maybe tell this to Ford’s therapist next!

I imagine Bill did more stuff as-well, but along these lines yk?

hope this answers ur question + sparks ur imagination!

[nemesis-writer]

Five Minutes (Chapter 2)

Masterlist Uh Oh TW: Neglect, mentions of blood, mental illness

The sins of the world are no match for the neglect and hatred you were given. You know that they'll never like you, who would like a villain of the most horrific stories?

Every man and woman has an Achilles' heal, and Bruce's was his children, not you. You weren't his kid, you were nothing in the face of the Waynes and of the news.

At the Waynes'...

"We need to find her now." Damian says in a rush.

"No need I was able to find her location, now all we need to do is wait while she's asleep." Tim admits.

"Well then let's prepare and bring her home." Jason rushes.

They all suit up and brought their best gadgets to eliminate all the guards. They had a plan for your 'coming home', (or what normal people call kidnapping.)

we kill her guards since they take a routine

Jason will take out the snipers

Tim will hijack the security cameras

Cassandra and Barbara will play as maids

Dick, Damian, and I will take all the possible assassins nearby.

Then we go to her room while she sleeps

Later that night...

Everything all worked out and they were able to eliminate (or if you want to simplify it, kill) all the criminals. But then something went wrong...

There was no one in her bedroom except a mannequin on the bed with a tape attached on it's chest. They had to put it in the VCD and when they play the recording they saw you.

"You really think I wasn't prepared? Y'know for talented vigilantes you do have a predictable routine." You say.

"WHAT THE FUCK!!! Y/n what the hell are you saying?" Damian yelled, even though he knows you won't hear.

Tape starts...

"You have mediocre skills which is good for other criminals, but you don't like picking up on new ones. Like Jason, better at climbing, or Tim, good in IT, or even the Barbies, good at blending in.

Another flaw was underestimating me. You've seen the recordings in the asylum, but yet still seem completely ignorant to what I do. I am completely capable of building an empire without you or your money.

I guess I should say thank you. Thank you for neglecting and hurting me in the most vile and heart-less manner. It molded me into forming an empire that's bigger than the yakuzas, and bloodier than the mafia.

Now let's get to the point...

You've just killed over 20 innocent people, I drugged them and edited the normal function of their brain. Now your a murderer and a villain like me and I have recordings of your crimes and if you want them erased then you're gonna be going along with my plans.

I will send you messages, thanks to the help of the Riddler. And every one you figure out, one person will be removed from the tapes and won't be considered as a murder but rather as a disappearance.

Now let's see if you're truly as talented as you like to assume."

Tape ends...

Taglist

@lunayaps, @not-aya, @iluvcatzz, @vanessa-boo, @ivyrose9194,@thesehandsarerated-e, @eyeless-kun, @errorunfound1, @gwyneveire, @alishii, @cxcillia

[fanaticmorelikefantastic]

"No you don't understandd Yakumo is my man fr!!!" I scream while they drag me into the asylum.

But on a serious note Yakumo's entire character scratches an itch in my brain I didn't even know I had.

And he's hot imo but I digress-

I feel like he's a very unique take on the trope of 'starving artist'.

When we're first introduced to him, he's passed out on the floor buck naked scratching his balls and cradling a bottle of alcohol. Unsurprisingly, this instills the idea of him being trashy aand, due to the cultural connotation of balls=funny (which I have a number of opinions about but again I digress) the reader begins to assume that he'll be a rowdy comedy relief type character.

This assumption is blown out of the water at least to an extent by the reveal of his painting during class introductions. The piece portrayed was melancholy and soulful, not to mention the incredible amount of skill present. Even though the manga is in black and white, we can still tell that the colors are rich. This kind of piece is in direct contradiction with his presented personality which is loud, straightforward, and friendly. This lets the reader know that there's more to this character than there may seem.

This is only compounded when he gives Yatora a mini history lesson during the Tokyo project mini arc. The juxtaposition of his smoking the money out of his wallet till he needs to fish to eat and deep knowledge of Japanese theatre history (which, is something that might usually be associated with more wealthy persons) add to the mystery of him. Now, he has evolved from a strange and rowdy broke guy to someone who has the ability to understand and appreciate the finer things in life, despite staying in his comfort zone of poverty, be it on purpose or by accident.

I'd also like to touch on the philosophy behind his work; to make the strongest art. It sounds like something straight out of a typical shounen piece, some broke boy striving to be the strongest. This perception is compounded when we see him associate larger paintings with stronger paintings. It seems childish at first. Just because a painting is large doesn't mean it's strong. Paintings can't even be strong in the first place. This view, however, discounts one important thing, the strength of the artist making the work. Speaking from experience, it's hard as hell to make large works, I've never even made an f100, let alone the gargantuan sizes of paintings that Yakumo churns out for every project or assignment. It takes an obscene level of endurance, focus, and drive to complete a piece of that size, and for him to do that every time without fail takes strength. I saw somewhere online that art isn't the piece, but what happens inside the artist while it's made. If the artist requires immense strength to make the piece, then the subsequent work is strong.

This takes us to the central question of Yakumo's person. What is strength? What does it mean to be strong? As with most things in this series, it's complicated.

Yakumo represents strength. Be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual strength, there are times in the story where he exhibits all aspects of it. When learning of his backstory and how he discovered art, we see that Yakumo was victimized throughout his formative years. Whether it was his so called parents, or the woman he lived with, it seemed like he was constantly subjugated to abuse. I don't know if it was middle or high school when he moved in with the mystery woman (my brain wants to think that it was middle school, but I'm not sure). Either way, he was a child who was living with an adult. We don't get it directly told to us, but it is STRONGLY implied that this lady raped and/or physically hit him multiple times throughout his stay there. He described it as hurting each other, but clearly the child being violated by a full grown adult would be hurt more than the woman victimizkng a child. Despite the hurt this caused him, when recounting his experience, Yakumo focuses more on the few good things that happened, see, his discovery of art. He doesn't act like it was all sunshine and rainbows, but he doesn't emphasize how hard things were for him. To me, the story of his past shows the extent of his mental strength. He not only persevered through his hardships, but he used it as a catalyst for his future. It takes a great amount of strength to do that.

He leaves that house, we know, and enrolls in a cram school. He works in construction at night and studies art during the day. He goes without food and spends hours learning new techniques. It takes physical strength to do that. To endure harsh conditions for that long and not crumble under the pressure requires an incredible level of endurance and, for lack of a better word (or the presence of an opportunity to use the right word) strength. Assuming that he's still working in construction (albeit with less hours assuming he's selling his works too) and going to college and chugging out competition pieces of massive size, he undoubtedly has physical strength.

On the topic of emotional strength, I cite the entire story of Sarada and her death. I spoke on the situation in my first bp post as well as the one about Yotasuke so the story of the thing is already established, but I'd like to elaborate on Yakumo's grieving process. He still used her brush. He still saved her empty canvas. He saved small reminders of her everywhere. It certainly gives an air of guilt, though nothing completely concrete. Something to consider is that he's going to school right after her death. From my knowledge of the timeline, the start of his first year in university is almost immediately after Sarada's death. To be able to not only attend university, but begin to make new friends and carry on despite still being in the throws of grief requires emotional (and mental to an extent, but I already talked about that) strength. This also adds a new context to his introductory scene. Maybe the reason he was drinking till he blacked out on his friend's floor was because his other friend died almost a month prior.

I think that spirit is somewhere in between mental and emotional. As such, I feel the culmination of strength in attitude and behavior results in strength of spirit, as well as vice versa.

[tawked]

So I know Arkham Knight is going for a whole thing where Batman realizes Arkham Knight is Red Hood is Jason Todd pretty much immediately, but he's in denial, so he can have a bunch of back-and-forths with... um... blood transfusion psychosis Joker (lol, lmao even)

but he really does seem like a fucking stupe in this version.

I think it comes down to interactivity. If we the audience are supposed to be Batman, then theoretically we the audience should be doubtful or anticipating some late game twist where it's not Jason Todd, reflecting Batman's doubt or denial.

Except, he's a detective, and if we as the detective can piece this together first - HOURS before he does - it builds a real animosity between audience and art, imo.

The way this worked in the comics was that he was provided the Clayface-as-Jason explanation, which made the most obvious direct sense, and thus played on his detective impulse (the simplest answer is often the correct one) vs. the gnawing doubt Jason stoked (crowbar in the Batmobile).

In AK, the only possibility Batman ever actually proposes via his hallucinations, rumination, paranoia about Barbara and Tim, blah blah blah, is Jason. There's no red herring or other explanation. It's just "Alfred search batmanwiki for a list of white guys between 20 and 30 who could kick my ass" and Alfred's like "that's a long list" and Batman's like "fuck off." Incidentally, this is the closest thing Alfred gets to a real sarcastic comment in this game - this is the worst Alfred, imo.

So the whole time it's like...

If you don't know who Jason Todd is, this probably doesn't land. They have to backfill so much of his narrative which they do through the flashbacks, sure, but it's all presented in such a distorted way and contradicts other themes. Scarecrow is telling Batman he wants to destroy the hope Batman symbolizes but we've just spent like six hours being told Batman let one of the Robins be tortured by the Joker for six months or whatever.

And as backfill to an existing universe that has not mentioned Jason before, no less. Maybe they did in a codex entry or something but I consider codex storytelling fundamentally unserious because 90% of players do not engage with it.

I don't know how connected a new audience member would feel. I know I, in 2015, did not know who Jason Todd was or care, because I had yet to absolutely lose my mind (literally I started reading comics to pass time after my schizophrenia diagnosis, this is all a labour of severe life-ruining mental illness) and decide to read comics published after 1980, and so the whole time I was like "wait there's like three Robins? What? That's stupid," not knowing there were actually six Robins, seven if you count the robot Robin from that one shit Elseworlds no one likes, probably more lol.

So maybe they avoided a red herring because they assume, as evidenced by the overall design of Asylum and City, that no one actually reads the comics and our primary point of cultural connection is the 90s DCAU (a safe assumption in 2009, three years after Justice League Unlimited finished up).

Worth noting: I didn't finish Knight the first time around because I didn't like the batmobile and didn't know / care about any of the characters; Asylum, City and Origins felt like all I needed to know was the DCAU, Knight feels like I need to know the 90s comics to appreciate.

If you do know who Jason Todd is, as I do this time around, it feels insanely condescending. Like, Bruce, it's Jason. It's Jason. Bruce the Junkstlin is telling you it's Jason because it's Jason. Please stop wasting my fucking time and engage with the OBVIOUS reveal drama that's coming. My GOD just dial him up on the batphone and be like "okay Jason, let's have it out, what's the fucking deal," maybe before he blankets Gotham in turbo deluxe fart gas. Bro we can literally see your subconscious this time and know you know that it knows that you know it's Jason.

This kind of denial narrative only really works, imo, as an Act 1, or in the context of a short comic arc. Stretching it out for between 10 - 20 hours (depending on side content) is a crazy choice and I cannot imagine the guy who was nailbiting throughout this.

[bloodismymedium]

I don't know if you've already asked this, but how would Mona feel after Bill's death? 😔

CW: mentions of suicide and depression ahead

She didn’t even register it at first, she just assumed Bill would be able to survive being shot but when it slowly dawned on her that he could be dead she basically speed run the five stages of grief but would always skip acceptance, being caught in a loop where she would always try to delude herself into thinking Bill is alive and will try to bust her out.

When she was told by police that Bill died she went into a state of absolute ballistic hysteria, screaming, swearing and crying for hours in her holding cell and even resorting to hurting herself, which resulted in her having to be restrained in a straight jacket. After calming down a bit she would sob in the corner of her cell for hours until falling into a state of depression, it finally dawned on her that the only person that ever cared and even loved her was gone and he’s never coming back…

Mona stopped talking, stopped eating, and she slept as much as she could, her only escape from the reality of being alone for the rest of her life was dreaming of being with Bill again, she even stopped painting or drawing which was a huge deal since she always had a compulsion to do art of some kind but… no, she just didn’t care anymore. She contemplated suicide countless times but she was on around the clock surveillance so she couldn’t do anything if she tried which only made her depression worse.

She would only come out of her depressive state when she started getting an exceptional amount of media attention after being transferred to a maximum security mental institution. News reporters, true crime podcasters, psychologists looking to write books about her, there were even people who’d commission art from her. Mona would even develop something of an underground fandom, ranging from weirdos who genuinely thought she was badass or even sexy to people who just liked making memes about her and her murders/paintings and she took it all in stride.

All of this attention sent Mona’s narcissism into overdrive and gave her a a new lease on life as she now finally felt like she was being recognized for her art, receiving all of the attention and validation she craved all her life and she incredulously became one of the most frequently visited patients in the asylum, and she thanks Bill every day for helping her get to this point…

…She now only wishes that Bill was still here so that she could share the “limelight” with him…

[renny-mayflower]

Zoriri, should we make some guesses or predictions on what GameToons will post next with @wolftails-funkin-arts and your other moots in the reblogs and/or replies? If yes? THEN LET'S. DO. IT!!

"WE WERE NEVER SANE ANYWAYS!!" i yell out as im being dragged to the mental asylum

YES YES YES

@wolftails-funkin-arts @smallblogforstuff COME HITHER MY MOOTIES WE HAVE THEORIES TO MAKE!!!!!! I'll go first <3333

Ok so I'm not 100% confident that Gametoons will post smth directly addressing Gray's dark powers, but there may be more hints towards it considering how many they've already been dropping (Gray being able to equally match Black's strength, Gray using Black's hat, Black referring to Gray and himself as the colors of the dark)

Plus, looking at the SPECIFIC videos chosen for their latest compilation (IGNORING the ones featuring Mroona), they had IN ORDER,

"The End Of Sprunki", The one where Wenda dies and Gray attempts to fight Black, and where Black's hat is DIRECTLY called magic.

The Sprunki house of horrors episode, Where we got the BIGGEST hint at Gray having power similar to Black via him using Black's hat.

The Werewolf Gray ep and the Sprunkis but they're beasts ep which... To be fair aren't THAT relevant, but it IS worth noting that the werewolf episode basically gives Gray his first true "villain arc" sooo...

The rainbow Gray episode, where like stated before, Gray can somehow match Black's strength and, again, it's essentially another villain arc for Gray where he "goes mad with power" in a sense.

And finally, the "Wenda deletion" episode. The one where Gray has to find and save Wenda and other Sprunkis get deleted, and has to again fight Black, successfully this time.

One thing I noticed right away is how this specific compilation seems to be Gametoon's way of discreetly addressing the earlier episodes. Why would they do that if they weren't planning something big, hm?

So while I can't say for certain what the next episode will be about, I can say that with all this evidence I think it's safe to assume they may be planning something regarding Gray's supposed strength, considering he is, in Black's own words, "A color of the dark" (<- good lord don't take that out of context)

But yea who knows this could all just he some huge one-off idk gametoons works in mysterious ways

[envihellbender]

What fears are the (original) DBD killers?

The Dead By Daylight Original Killers As The Magnus Archives Fears

The Trapper: the Web

Evan was being used as his father’s puppet and was pushed to enact his actions. The entity used him in the same way, torturing him until he relented. He uses bear traps to hunt his prey, reminiscent of a spider trapping his prey in a web.

As an avatar of the Web his bear traps have minds of their own, they grow spindly legs to wander around to stalk their pray not unlike spiders. When people stand on them they are impossible to break off, and cover the prey in something thin and sharp. It’s like being covered in diamond. Even years later Evan still has string attached to his hands and feet, sewn in to his bones. Occasionally there’s a tug, a reminder of what he has to do.

The Wraith: the Hunt

Phillip had being a hunter forced upon him, and just when he thought he’d escaped it … it turned out he’d simply been used as the gun instead of the soldier. He stalks his prey silently, and strikes when they least expect it. His appearance is bird like, covered in what looks like feathers - he is like a bird of prey who dives down and strikes suddenly to kill.

As an avatar of the Hunt he is very similar to what he does for the Entity, except he works silently and he isn’t invisible in the same way. He doesn’t have a telltale shimmer, instead his shadow is completely visible but not his body. His victims often talk of a dark shape following them, like a shadow without a person to cause it. They don’t see their attacker until they’re about to die.

The Hillbilly: the Flesh

Max’s identity is more seeped into his physical disability than it needed to be thanks to his abuse, this as well as being born and raised on a farm is what connects him to this fear.

Max was born into the Flesh, most assume because of his physical disability but actually it’s because of the farm. His father before him was an avatar too, he raised every single animal he had in isolation, they didn’t get to run through his cornfields, they were trapped in cages, fed until they were immobile beasts and filled with hormones that made them produce unnatural amounts of milk. They had obscenely large and repeated pregnancies, and it was a task the man inherited from his bloodline. When his son was born he knew killing him would devote him to the Flesh and he was worried that would offend his god… but the fear was furious about one of its own being locked away. It was time to start the entire cycle anew, Max would make a much better avatar then his lazy father who simply repeated what had been taught to him.

The Nurse & The Doctor: The Spiral

Doing these together because I think as Fears they would be two halves of one whole. The two of them both meet the criteria for medial abuse which falls under the Spiral but in different ways. Sally’s mental health broke after several traumatic events and then spending a long time working in a psychiatric hospital and being susceptible to the words of another patient. The building, the asylum, and the people inside it, psychiatric patients, were responsible for her slowly losing her mind before she became a killer. This also fits within the Spiral. Herman experimented on patients with ECT - use on psychiatric patients, he learned everything he knew about the mind from being taken into Léry’s Memorial Institute at a young age. The entire concept of grooming a child to interfere with victims’ brains seems to fit very well into the Spiral territory.

As the Spiral Nurse Sally and Doctor Herman both run a hospital, one that from the outside seems quite prestigious and well managed. It’s common for rich families to send troubled teenagers there, as a last resort. The kind who if they never returned or if they were lobotomised. Sally deals with the patient care and Herman deals with diagnosis and surgery. Sally’s specialty is manipulation and gaslighting, Herman however prefers to manipulate the brain directly from the inside with his new devices, as well as testing out new concoctions on the patients. The building itself is also very strange in that it appears different to every patient, the corridors don’t make sense constantly twisting in odd manners, and the doors and windows don’t always stay where they are.

The Hag: the Buried who’s been scarred by the Flesh

Lisa Sherwood’s was kept in a dimly lit cellar when she was kidnapped, she slipped on wet mud during a thunderstorm and fell into the earth. They consumed her and the prisoners flesh down to the bone. The cannibals resemble the Flesh, but this was forced upon Lisa. She became essentially a corpse, she sunk into the earth to return to her family. This is similar to Daisy Tanner staying within her coffin, and also Hezekiah’s embrace from the Earth.

Lisa was born into a sect that was dedicated to the Buried. They were a peaceful group that worked with the Fear, they preached that the Entities did not need to be treated as a terrible thing - fear and anxiety are healthy, human emotions after all. Lisa was very dedicated to the spiritual practices they used to summon the Earth, to be protected by it, to explore everything it had to teach them. However, when she was lost in a thunder storm and fell to the ground, the Earth could not protect her from her kidnappers. A group of cannibals who swore themselves to the Flesh, Lisa was grateful they kept her in the cellar, so she could pray to the Earth every night. One day, her pleas were answered, and even though her flesh had been consumed, she managed to rip herself from the shackles, and to be taken by the Earth itself, who promised her vengeance.

The Unknown: the stranger merged with the flesh

The Unknown takes over people’s bodies, steal them, distorts them and abandons them. It’s similar to the Not-Them of the Stranger, but it doesn’t try to convince anyone that it is a human being, or play the part of another human. It’s a creature that takes human flesh and distorts it into something disturbing for humans to look at. That’s where we get the realm of the Unknown which exists between the Stranger and the Flesh.

No one knows quite how the Unknown came to be. There are many theories, a member of the circus’s freak show who ran off or was taken by an avatar of the flesh perhaps. Most however think it is far more ancient, far more unfathomable than that. It seems turn up in quite a few different stories and urban legends, suggesting they are many of them. It is as if takes people and moulds their bodies like play dough. It creates many of them, replicating them, but they don’t contain a personality or mind that the Stranger manages to copy. It is as if it simply about the flesh itself.

The Huntress: the Lonely

Anna was cursed from the very beginning to be alone. She was born alone in the woods with her mother, raised to fear the men who passed through the woods. She had no relationships or connections but that to her mother. When she died, all she could do was hum the nursery rhymes she sang to her and continue to hurt the men her mother taught her to hate. She tries to have love and care in her life with the children she takes in but doesn’t know how to care for. Then, of course, the forest was taken by fog.

Anna’s mother had been cursed by the Lonely when she was with child, not that she knew it then. She felt something calling to her in the woods shortly after she became pregnant, from a charming man she had a summer dalliance with. A James Lukas, he said his name was. Soon as he abandoned her with no one but the baby growing inside her, she began to yearn for the woods. It was strange, usually the children born of the Lukas craved the sea, but her mother desperately wanted the woods. The mountainous, isolated woods. So one day she fled there, she told no one where she would be going. She found an abandoned lodge in the centre, an area so treacherous few even dared to take an expedition through it. She made a home there for her and her daughter, vowing that she will never allow her precious Anna to be harmed by man again. The fog and the woods would protect them, and she would teach her to hunt and defend herself. What she didn’t prepare her for was the fact her mother wouldn’t live forever, and no matter how much Anna tried to gain companionship through the children she found… The Lonely took them away from her every single time.

The Clown: the Stranger

The Clown aka Jeffery Hawk aka Kenneth Chase has several aliases which is one of the reasons why he fits so well within the Stranger. He is so capable of changing who he is, from the strongman to the clown. There is also the fact that he is inspired by John Wayne Gacy, and the entire concept of Stranger Danger which killers such as the Clown embody. Of course the most obvious connection to the Stranger is the fact he is a clown, which brings us to the circus.

Kenneth first found himself enraptured by the Stranger at a young age - not that he knew it then. His dentist seemed like an odd choice for a young boy to choose as a friend, but given it was the 1940s few people questioned it. The man gave the child plenty of access to anaesthetic and plenty of other drugs, which the child used to trap and harm birds, squirrels, and other small animals. Kenneth never felt connected to anyone around him, his father was an alcoholic and he had very few friends. He was oddly tall and strong, throwing himself into athletics at school. When his father discovered his extracurricular activities and his finger collection, Kenneth fled to his friend the dentist. He pointed him into the direction of the Circus of the Other that just so happened to be in town, and in particular to Gregor Orsinov. Finally, Kenneth had an escape from his father, the town, and an iron clad alibi for whatever crimes he wished to commit.

The Spirit: The Buried

Rin’s family’s problems began when they became wrapped up in financial troubles. She went to a private university which weighed heavily on her family’s money problems. Her father worked long, long hours hoping for a promotion. It drove him mad as he heard a whisper speaking to him, he lost sleep and his grasp on reality. This, and him losing his job, resulted in hers, her mother’s, and eventually his own death, the sheer anger Rin experienced is what resulted in the Entity taking her. The Yamaoka estate became her tomb. The estate is dark and almost resembles a graveyard. The ground is named haunted through Rin’s abilities, and during her phase state she can see the scratches and blood on it even when people disappear. This shows her connection to the earth she was raised upon.

Rin’s father built coffins, an unpopular business in Japan where the majority of the population chose cremation. However he insisted upon it, beautiful creations - dark wood with intricate painted patterns across them. He sold very few locally, or even in Japan as a whole. Rin spent most of her childhood with beautiful coffins filling the house, acting as chairs and tables, or simply being in the way. Her mother tried to get him to get a new line of work, he had a contract with this British company but it wasn’t enough. What her father hadn’t mentioned was the contract was more than legally binding. They were in more and more debt every day, so much so her father began to whisper to the coffins, to something that wasn’t there. One day late at night, Rin crept to the kitchen for some water and she heard him yelling at the coffin, there was nothing replying but her blood ran cold when she heard what he agreed to. He was going to build two coffins, one for Rin and one for her mother.

The Legion: the Slaughter

The Legion’s connections to the Slaughter lie in the military origins of their name (the division of the Roman army), the fact that the loyalty between the four of them makes them seem like soldiers for the Entity, and the music that plays from their mix tapes when they attack. Each mix tape gives them different abilities, and there is a tape for each of them, but also one made by the Entity which is the most powerful. This mimics the sounds of bagpipes that calls the soldiers to the Slaughter.

The Slaughter had been watching the four of them for a while, Frank was the longest of course, but it didn’t take them completely until the night with the janitor. It spoke to them before that, giving each one of them solace through music. They each felt a pull that no one else could understand, as if the music spoke to them individually, it was instructing them to do something but they didn’t know what it was yet. No one really understood why Julie chose to be friends with Susie and Joey. They all felt a connection with each other, they weren’t sure what and Julie’s shallow family kept trying to push her to have friends they considered “appropriate”. When Frank appeared… Music became sweeter. Stronger. The connection made their bonds unbreakable and even though their tastes differed any song they copied to tape became sacred almost. After breaking into the convenience store and accosting the janitor, the same one who’d been racist to Joey and lecherous to Susie and Julie, they all thought it was their choice. The music they heard must have been one of their tapes, the Slaughter came to them that night as a result of what they did… Of course the truth is a little more complicated.

The Plague: the Corruption

Adiris was a priestess who was chosen to save the priests and her temple from plague, a feature of the corruption. She became the High Priestess after a ceremony involving cutting off her toe, she cured the temple and city of the plague. This led to her developing an infection, she kept herself veiled to keep the corruption to herself and inside of her. She is taken by the fog after she heads to the forest looking for a cure, eventually dying in her own vomit only to disappear, She uses the power of Vile Purge as the killer, passing on her infection and sickness to the survivors. She is even capable of corrupting the cleansing waters, both of which point to her being the Corruption. She is also a priest become killer which suggests she’s undergone moral and spiritual corruption from the entity’s interference and her own trauma.

Adiris was born into the Corruption, in the Temple of Disease and Healing she was raised, to serve and worship the God that resided there. Of course the deity was or worked for the Corruption, and any healing that was supposedly given was false or came with a price. Adiris believed in the faith and sanctity of the Temple until she became a High Priestess. That was when its true purpose was revealed to her. The diseased came to the Temple, and the High Priestesses would absorb their disease and illness, creating a contained building of suffering and pain, of plague and corruption. She was restrained, each disease and ailments forced upon her body which grew weaker with every ritual. All the records say she died of an infection of some kind, but still to this day at the Temple a rotting woman covered in boils, sores, blood, viscera and vomit stalks the halls, a sickening miasma omitting from her that fills the entire ruin.

The Oni: the Desolation

Kazan is cursed by the Entity to appear and Oni, a yōkai, demon, troll type being in Japanese mythology/folklore. During the Heian period in literature they were shown to be terrifying monsters that ate people. This was precisely what Kazan did not want to become, but the Entity forced him to be this being of mindless killing and terror. The Entity made him his soldier, and forced him to do it blindly. He absorbs the blood of the survivors (similar to drinking it) which helps him track them like an obedient monster. This represents one half of the Desolation - destruction for a meaningless cause. The other is shown in Kazan’s life itself before the Entity. He was dedicated to Japan and Samurai, ridding it of what he deemed to be “imposters”. He was dedicated to destroy Japan until that caused him to become the Oni.

As a fear Kazan’s story is not that different, his father wanted him to be a Samauri, but Kazan killed all of the false samurai and imposters in Japan determined to purify his homeland, to bring honour to his family name. He started this because went on a pilgrimage where the spoke to a God he’d never met before, it showed him the true way of honour. It told him it would give him unbelievable powers and make him a true protector of Japan. Kazan accepted without question, and his new abilities to smell blood and be filled with the power of his new God to become indestructible in battle. What Kazan did not notice however, is with each battle he changed slightly. He didn’t realise he was a few inches taller or muscular at first, until it became enough for people to comment on it. These changes did not concern him and seemed quite positive… Until his skin grew red and horns penetrated his skull, it wasn’t long before he became the Oni. A being of pure destruction, fire, blood and desolation.

The Deathslinger: the Hunt

Caleb’s power is named the Redeemer, it’s his invention of a speargun, that can hook into a survivor and pull them towards him. This is an indicator of the Hunt in itself. He invented objects to punish those he declared as wrongdoers, all starting when he was a child want vengeance on those who bullied him. The racism his family experienced meant resentment and a desire for what he saw as justice was ingrained into his mind from an early age. The first man he killed was with his first gun which shot railroad spikes and it was for the punishment of stealing his inventions. When he was in prison he designed torture devices for a warden in exchange for extra meals. All of this is what makes him within the archetype of the Hunt which is primarily used to signify the police and its brutality.

Caleb’s life with the Hunt itself is extremely similar, the main difference being that his kills started much earlier. Instead of fantasising about torturing and killing his bullies, he followed the saviour that whispered in his ear and acted on it. His devices then were much more simple but they slowly got better and better, especially with the help of his saviour. As his weapons progressed in the same way they do in his regular canon, the saviour came and told him which villains to kill, it protected him. Ensured that when he was finally caught that the prison wardens saw him as one of their own. He was above everyone else in jail, warden or prisoner, he was the Redeemer.

The Blight: the Flesh

Talbot Grimes wanted to become more than human, he wanted to rise above his fellow mortals. He had become obsessed with his flesh and the limits of the human body from a young age, testing poisons on himself and forcing his body to purge and purify himself. That did not dissuade him, it simply encouraged him to explore what the human body could do, what it was weak to, and how to solve those weaknesses. He wasn’t innately connected to the flesh, but through his experiments and work he became that way. Experiments such as his inhumane tests on prisoners of war, which allowed him to bring himself back from the brink of death and cause him to become something more than human. A being of distorted flesh.

Talbot learned of the Flesh at a young age, his parents were collectors of Leitners and his father told him scary stories about the Entities at bedtime. The way his mother scolded his father for them told him that they were, she wouldn’t be as furious over him simply being frightened. He ended up sneaking down to the library at night to pour over their Leitner collection. They made him horrifically ill repeatedly, and no matter how much his parents punished him he desperately tried to be heard by the Flesh. He spent his life doing that, after he got his doctorate he began experimenting on humans, allegedly, and breaking in to slaughterhouses. Eventually, the Flesh caught up with him, and either through curiosity or sheer annoyance, turned him into a monstrosity.

The Twins: the Lonely

The circumstances of the twins birth can be an indicator of their close connection to the Lonely. In theory twins should never be lonely, but Charlotte was denied a true companion, and Victor was never given any true possibility of a normal life. Everyone abandoned them, giving them a cruel abusive life. They never knew any specific people other than their mother, all shapeless faces who abused and harmed them. Their abilities mean once they are separated they cannot both move at the same time, showing they see each other as one whole person. This means they don’t view each others company as separate, which adds to the Lonely connection.

There is a Leitner that is a handmade children’s book named The Adventures of Charlotte and Victor, but if it is read it is very clear it is most certainly not for children. The story begins telling the tale of a mother giving birth to a beautiful little girl who had a parasite clinging to her body, or that’s what the doctors called it. It was her twin brother, or what was left of him. They attempted to remove the boy, only for her to scream and cling tighter. They thought as she grew older she’d let them remove the parasite, when she didn’t the mother couldn’t bare to keep them. But who would take this hysterical little girl and her parasitic monster?

She abandoned Charlotte at a lighthouse, it had been abandoned for decades and it was on a bit of abandoned beach, there was no civilisation or anything to eat for miles. When she got in her car and left them there, she didn’t even look back. The only things there were the lighthouse, the beach, and a man tunnel into the sewers. There were rumours that they survived, feeding on hikers who’d gotten lost in the area. On the final page is two photos and a missing persons poster, the first picture is of a little newborn baby girl with an odd tiny pink creature clinging to her. The second is a photo of a middle aged woman smiling with a man on a beach, it’s a windy day, and in the background there is a young woman with lank blonde hair, hunched over in a ragged, filthy dress with a small misshapen creature on her shoulder. The missing person poster shows the middle aged woman who was last seen at a bed and breakfast by the coast 20 miles south of the old lighthouse.

The Trickster: the Eye

Ji-Woon loves nothing more than to be watched, to be stared at, to have people take his picture, to have an audience - it is all what Ji-Woon craves the most. He wants to be on screen, he wants to know everything and be known. He wants to be the ‘main event’ and he can stare so intensely that he can throw knives so perfectly that repeated cuts send a survivor into a dying state. His appearance is always so eye-catching, and his kills are always filmed, witnessed, and recorded.

Ji-Woon is different to the other avatars of the Eye in the sense that instead of witnessing he wants to be witnessed. Before it took him he was strange in the sense that whilst most cowered when the Eye pierced them with its gaze, Ji-Woon delighted in it. He craved it. He became addicted to it. So much so that he sought after it, until the Eye readily accepted him as one of its own. He is one of the few who can walk through the Eye’s realm without a care. As such he is the perfect one to lure an audience, he is adored by so many fans that they eagerly line up to see him perform. An entire audience, that is eager to be on screen next to him. That is desperate to be watched.

The Artist: the Vast

The Artist fits the vast primarily because of her connection to the birds - particularly crows, her birdlike appearance, the way her abilities involve soaring across a long distance, and the fact her associated location is the Foresaken Boneyard. Here objects seem to ignore gravity, and it is extremely open and light.

The Vast sunk its claws into Carmina from birth, the crows always watched her and seemingly appeared in South America despite not being native to the region. Her paintings were collected by Jurgen Leitner to her disgust, and she constantly searched for them. Some interpreted her crows as a death omen, perhaps that was confirmation bias because if you saw her soaring through the skies in a vast covering of crows… then you were almost certainly going to die. She always ate her victims, odd for a being of the Vast but her friends and family the birds needed to eat.

The Dredge: the Dark

The Dredge is the combination of dark and terrible thoughts, he is created in the metaphorical and literal dark, and his abilities cause darkness and he teleports through the dark lockers.

The Dredge is the monster in the wardrobe that so many parents dismiss and that children grow out of fearing. The dark and painful thoughts that the children feel that never go addressed congregate inside their bedroom, their safe space. They call to them from their wardrobe, created unconsciously by the children themselves and usually those who have been through great trauma, it leaves their wardrobes at night, it can’t move in the light and so many parent refuse to let their children leave there’s on. The creature is terrifying but it doesn’t come for the child’s terror, it beckons the child inside. The fear it feeds on is that of the parents, that their child is hurting, that their abuse will be discovered, and when the child walks into the wardrobe to join the Dredge’s brethren if the child will come back. One the child is empowered and emboldened by the Dark, it began to stalk and torment those who would abuse and hurt them in the shadows. That is until their terror and guilt pushes them over the edge.

The Skull Merchant: the Eye

Adriana uses her drones (similar to security cameras which are specific to the Eye) to watch the survivors, extremely academic (books and libraries are specific to the Eye), her first ‘crime’ is stalking her rival, the manga her father made which mimics her life in someways does some to be prophetic in a way which whilst isn’t specific to the Eye it is showing a strange connection to his daughters mind which is similar to the abilities the Archivist has.

There is a Leitner that Gerard Keay found in a comic book store in Fortaleza, Brazil. It was shoved underneath a broken shelf, propping it up so it was even. It’s a manga which is what caught Gerry’s eye immediately, when he first examined the cover it was in Japanese with a woman with a metal mask with a red light for an eye and a drone. When he examined it the drone flashed a blue light, and the title went to Portuguese, then the cover went to a glitching orange before it settled on English: The Skull Merchant. When Gerry flicked through the pages, he found the story somewhat chaotic and difficult to follow. It was about Adriana Imai, or the Skull Merchant, who kept an army of different types of droids to hunt down her enemies, and she is staggered by two teenagers with kites. That wasn’t the interesting part to Gerry, what he focused on was the drones on each page moved. Specifically they mimicked his eye movements, but if he moved they followed his movements. He shoved the manga in his bag, the Eye tattoo on his neck tingling. Hopefully once he burned the thing Adriana Imai will stop stalking anyone who read it.

The Knight: the End

Tarhos is the oldest killer, he has spent the majority of his life bringing death. He is the most entwined with the Entity, a being of death. His realm is the Decimated Borgo, a dying realm where the only colour is blood red. Even before the Entity takes him all Tarhos can remember is screams and death from his village.

The Knight has lived for far too long, and yet still he lives, he walks, he kills as is his duty as the Knight. He doesn’t remember his name any more, he has no use for it. His body has decayed with time but his skeleton and armour remains. His hair and finger nails remain, growing, and growing, and growing into lifeless, twisted tissue clinging to his steel plate. He didn’t know he would be trapped within this hell, not truly, he followed Vittorio and somehow ended up saying yes to a beast he didn’t understand. It promised eternal life to hunt down his enemies, to capture Vittorio… And he did get that, he supposed. Of course he wasn’t going down alone, he dug his claws into each of his fellows, they had become his decaying, dying brethren, but they are more like slaves who are forced to fight and work by his side.

The Singularity: the Stranger

The Singularity’s method of killing is to stalk and observe. He launches his biopods across the map in order to find the survivors and kill them. He is able to use his AI to manufacture memories, and mimic human ones. He wants to replace all humans with beings like himself, he wants to use their thoughts and minds to create the perfect being. Not dissimilar to the Not-Them and what it did to Sasha.

The Singularity watches. He watches his victims, he studies them, he learns everything there is to know about a person, and then he creates a being to replace them. His children are far superior to humans, and when they replace them no one is aware of what has occurred. The Singularity can even reprogrammed the memories of those around the person and any digital footprint to ensure everyone sees the Replacement as the human they took over. The Not-Thems come from him, and are far more powerful than their previous counterparts.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the comics: BEMIS. Part 2

READING THINGS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO! 

Part one is here. Thanks Tumblr.  (please go read it)

Two issues left of this trash heap volume. Any time you think it can’t get worse you look at the next panel. 

NEXT ISSUE. We’re almost through this collection. This bread is not what I ordered. Send it back. 

ISSUE #192. 

(Spoilers: There are no sharks in this episode. For those of you waiting for the dolphins, that’s in vol 2)

Alright. In this issue. We open with Marc, Diatrice, and Frenchie sitting at the table having coffee. ANd Frenchie looks very dead and is in scrubs. 

I’MMA PAUSE FOR A SECOND. 

I will cover the Lemire run later. It’s inevitable and something I’m deeply looking forward to. 

The thing about the Lemire run is that it takes place at a time when ALL of Moon Knight’s original friends had left him. Gena, the kids, Crawley, Frenchie, Marlene… They had all been driven away. They were all in pain and either hated him, were disenchanted by him, or just pushed away. 

The Lemire run takes place with the Moon Knight system, Marc in particular, having a severe mental health crisis. 

DID is caused by extreme repeated trauma at a young age. It leads to dissociative episodes, and it is not uncommon for other issues to crop up (thanks trauma!). A lot of systems, if they have the health care, end up in and out of hospitals when they reach crisis points. 

In this run, a LOT of things happen that seem spectacular and fantastical and a lot of things that are grounded in reality. It’s hard to say if the whole thing happened or was really all just in Marc’s head. There is evidence for the latter. I’ll discuss that at a different time. But in this run, he witnesses his friends all leave him again. It’s a way for his mind to make sense of it and to let them go. To let go of the past and the pain associated with his friends departing him. In this world, Frenchie sacrificed himself to save them and died. 

So… Bemis is assuming that the audience took in the Lemire run at face value. He feels he has to explain away the events. He isn’t trusting the reader at all. In fact, he’s even going to try to explain it to the reader.  This is bad writing. This is just… Where is the editorial team? Why are they not explaining things to him? Did they even read his script? Or were they so desperate to feed off of the success of Lemire and get Moon Knight up and going again that they just shoved whatever they could at the fans and waited for the money? 

UNPAUSE. 

So this is why Frenchie is a zombie. He’s trying to explain away Frenchie’s ‘death’.

"Undead?" Frenchie asks Marc. 

"Well, no. Not really undead. Just dead. It's all I can visualize. Like when you seen an old person and think of them naked and then can't stop picturing it." 

"That's disturbing. But I'd be equally haunted if I had seen YOU get murdered in a waking nightmare of insane asylums and Egyptian Gods. You saw it. You felt it. It was real enough." 

(Also he has his legs.) 

There's one of those comic editorial notes in the corner: To find out what Marc's talking about, read the mind-bending Lemire/Smallwood Run! - ED

#^%#$$@ YOU ED. DO YOUR JOB AND ACTUALLY KEEP THE CONTINUITY AND EDIT THIS PILE OF-

deep breaths. deep breaths... We're going to get through this. 

So Zombie Frenchie talks to Marc about what Marc saw in the asylum. 

"Losing you was some kind of fantasy. You can chalk it up to me accepting my dissociative identity disorder, or me facing my demons...But I think I needed to see you die in order to make sense of your worth to me. That's not fair to you. You're my best friend." 

So close. He's SO close to getting the run. And I get the feeling it's spouting off what he was cliff noted about the run without either reading it himself or perhaps he did read it, didn't understand it, and someone had to explain it to him. 

It wasn't about him accepting his dissociative identity disorder or facing down his demons. It was so much more than that. 

At this point Frenchie pulls off his zombie look (literally) and is back to being a normal looking man. 

And we get what Bemis REALLY thinks is going on. 

"You think too much, Spector. You can picture whatever you want in that malfunctioning cranium of yours if it helps you make sense of the hand you've been dealt." 

"...Okay." 

"Now, Marc, are you actually hearing me, or are you still picturing some grotesque fantasy?" 

He’s just using things as an excuse to paint Marc with whatever mental illness he fancies at the time. Hallucinations are apparently now in the mix. What does Bemis actually think is mentally wrong with Marc? Did he do ANY research at all? Is he just pointing at the DSM randomly and picking out things that make the comic edgy or ‘funny’??

As Marc prepares to go, a brick smashes through their window. 

He climbs out the window, dramatic style, and finds Bushman and Truth and some other guys with guns waiting on the street below. 

Bushman has the landlord (a little old lady) at knife point. 

They tell Marc to meet them in the lobby or the old lady gets it. 

Oh look. Another jab at underlined villainous homosexuality. 

Just before Moon Knight can start trashing them all, and Bushman knows he would, Raoul tells him that Marlene is on the boat. 

Oh good. Khonshu's narration is back. I'd missed it. 

Honestly, any time Khonshu narrates it's just a lot of random metaphors, over explanation, or depictions on what's going on that aren't needed. 

He describes Marc being tied to a boat surrounded by his enemies with his fate unknown. ....as the comic shows him tied to a boat surrounded by his enemies with his fate unknown. 

Let the reader read the damn comic! 

Bushman goes against orders of the Sun King and decides to go toy with Marc. 

Never a good idea and everyone there knows it. 

He holds a knife to Marc's face. Well... Honestly, it’s in his style to do just this… Props for that I suppose. 

And Moon Knight makes his way around the top deck of the boat and takes out all the bad guys,circling back around to Bushman. 

"You don't scare me, Spector!" 

"I didn't want to have to do this to you again." 

And Marc cuts off two of Bushman's fingers then tosses them overboard. 

"You can replace those, but they'll never be yours again. And next time, I won't be satisfied with a piece of you. I'm not one of those super heroes who won't straight-up kill you, Bushman." 

It's fitting for what Moon Knight did from the 90s through early 2000s. As much as I disagree with it, it does fit for those times. 

He goes below deck and finds a bunch of sad looking people sitting around like refugees. 

Marc asks what's going on and he's told that they signed up for this. 

He talks to one of the kids who tells him they are going to an island to form a new city for only them. 

Back on deck, he finds Truth. 

"Unlike Raoul, I think I may have learned my lesson in trying to defeat you personally. Besides, I was tasked with your delivery to the Sun King. I just want to help you see what I see, Spector." 

For once, Truth is pretty reasonable. 

True uses his powers on Marc and it's just... 

"I have a vision every waking day. Lovers and dreamers piled waist-deep in the streets. I wade through piles of their slack, twisted bodies. Utterly powerless. Nauseated. It's my fear of this moment that motivates me, not the desire to save lives. The Fear that I've built my sanity on a lie. My hope for a better world is my most tragic form of dissociation." 

You know... I'm not even sure Bemis knows what dissociation really is at this point. 

Truth tells him that he's ready to face the Sun King now. 

They arrive on the island where the 'refugees' get off and go to make camp in the village that they found. 

OKAY. Okay. okay... here we go. 

So... I'm going to point out something here that someone probably should have mentioned to Bemis while editing this crap. 

The bad guy henchmen are all disabled people. People missing arms, legs, hands, eyes, on crutches, or fake legs and things. 

They follow around a man that looks like white Jesus that calls himself "Ra the God '' and "Sun King". They head to a place that Bushman called an "Undiscovered tribe of underdeveloped backwards people". They take over the island for themselves and he brings in other people to populate it....

He's literally colonizing it. 

The other bad guy is an overweight drug dealing black man with possible repressed homosexual desires for the good guy. The other bad guy is a large menacing tattooed white guy that makes people spout nonsense and calls it deep truth like characters in a Chuck Palahniuk novel! 

Is anyone else as fed up with this as I am? Am I reading too much into this? Is this really not as bad as I think it is? Because…this looks pretty bad. 

Moon Knight finds Sun King on the beach who welcomes him to "Isla Ra". 

"Soon this island will burgeon with those willing to light up this shadowy world. They're like us, Marc! The sickly, the fragile, the INSANE. Society's regrettable by-product, but to me...To us... They are everything!" 

He tells Moon Knight to relax. He knows that as long as Marlene is his prisoner, Marc won't do anything to risk her. 

"Take a catnap, Marc. We fight to the death tomorrow, but tonight we indulge in a ritual." 

"A ritual you probably just made up." 

"Ra feeds my mind what it needs to know." 

"You're going to drug me, aren't you?" 

"Sleep, Marc. Tonight we become enlightened." 

So... We see nightfall and Sun King and Marc sit before a camp fire. 

So of course we get an instant jab of homophobia. 

"Why did we have to do this half naked?" 

"Shhhh Let your mind unravel, Spector." 

"I don't do well with psychedelics, Sun King." 

"It was only tea." 

"It smelled like woodstock." 

I have a problem with this. Marc is telling him flat out that he doesn't do well with psychedelics. 

Studies have shown that certain drugs can actually trigger mental illnesses that are linked to chemical imbalances. Not to mention that if he happens to be on any drugs meant to help him, they could negate their effects, interact with them poorly, or make him very ill. 

We know Marc has been in and out of mental hospitals. We know he's been drugged before in these hospitals. Forcing him to take a psychoactive trip is not a cool thing to do for the dramatic storytelling. What’s going to happen is that we’re going to get a really trippy scene of them going into Marc’s ‘messed up’ mind and he’s going to learn things, find peace or some bullshit, and then be healed. 

This gives the wrong message that doing these potentially harmful drugs will fix all your problems! Especially if you have dissociative issues or other similar issues. 

ALSO. People with DID? Not all the alters respond the same way to inebriation. Some will get drunk if they look at a beer. Others can do a LOT of pot and not feel a thing. The brain is a fascinating and complex place. Marc could do psychedelics and Jake could just be having a nice time while Steven has the worst trip of his life. 

Sun King goes on. 

"We share what they label 'insanity'. That gives me a gateway into your beautiful, tortured mind. Let me in, Marc. Let US in." 

NOT ALL MENTAL ILLNESSES ARE THE SAME. ONE CRAZY DOES NOT ALL CRAZY MAKE. 

And Marc starts tripping. 

In Marc's mind, we find Marc, Jake, Steven, Khonshu, Sun King, and Ra. 

Ra calls Khonshu a "bad boy" and Khonshu calls Ra a "loathsome fascist." 

Marc tries to tell himself that this isn't real. Jake demands to know how Ra can be there if it's "all just made up by Marc's mind". 

"Steven is distressed and theorizes that "I think we've entered the world of metaphor, Jake. ANd it's scaring the hell out of me." 

Bemis must really dislike Steven Grant. He writes him as weak, cowardly, clingy, and narcissistic. Not a fan. 

So now, Ra takes hold of Khonshu and tells him to show him the truth. 

He spouts a lot of garbage here and it just... It's fanatical. It's... It's dangerous. 

What do I mean by that? He's talking about things like righteousness. About prophets and saviors and gives images of a world under idealistic circumstances where everyone gets along because he rules it. 

Marc snaps out of his trans by the fire to declare "No... Ra is....RIGHT?!" 

There was nothing right about that crap. It makes no sense. It’s just propaganda crap. There is no just and right and perfect in this vision. It’s a problem. A big problem. 

END ISSUE. 

One more to go. I can’t wait to put the Sun King behind us. 

After all? How much worse can it get? (spoilers so much worse. Sooooooo much worse). 

ISSUE # 193

I like how the past two covers have had NOTHING to do with the actual story inside. It’s like they are trying to make it look cooler and more dramatic than things are. 

Moon Knight in the jungle? I’d read that. Marc spent a lot of time in South America. Although, standing on his cape like that means he can't stand up without falling out of the tree. Just saying. 

Alright so... Marc went on a drug trp and came to the realization that Ra and Sun King were right for some reason? 

And this broke him and made him some passive weakling for some reason? 

We see him wake up the next day and being kicked around and dragged around because "the moon can't save me now." 

Then he's taken to a tent with some old lady outside knitting and she uses her flaming hot knitting needles to burn a sun into his back? 

Back with Frenchie and Diatrice, we see her praying to "Dear Mister Khonshu" and she asks that he not let "the bad men kill my daddy." 

She asks him to let Marc save her mom so they can be a family. 

Marc is pretty broken now and he's taken to see Marlene. 

He tells her that "this time is different"

"I know. He's different. I know because I'm actually scared." 

And Marc begs Marlene not to let Diatrice forget him because he's going to die. 

Why are they acting like Sun King is some super huge bad guy unlike any they have ever faced before? They have faced WORSE. 

He's fought ghosts. He's fought vampires. He's fought werewolves. He's faced aliens and apocalyptic events! 

Some hippy looking man with flames is NOTHING. 

HE'S FOUGHT SO MANY ANIMALS (I need to make a list). 

Marc is taken to a ring of fire and tossed inside to face the Sun King in a battle to the death. 

He tells Marc to fight like he means it or he'll hunt down his daughter and burn her to death. 

They fight and he takes a beating because suddenly Sun King knows how to fight? 

He sets fire to Marc more than a few times. 

Back in the head space, Jake tells Khonshu that they have to do something. 

I have real issue with the assessment here. 

Khonshu tells him: 

"Look around us. We're just faint firings of his synapses now. His defense against the darkness. As we have been since his childhood, and...Our connection is nearly severed. He is alone now, save for death itself." 

This is the belief that Marc is "the original" and that he created the others to deal with things and gave them all parts of himself. 

This is old thinking that people with DID were just shattered and broken bits of themselves that needed to be put back together. It's outdated. It's insulting. 

Why does everything Khonshu says just sound like absolute drivel? 

Like he was TRYING to be deep and just spouting off things that sounded metaphorical. It's just bad writing. He's clearly trying to copy Lemire. 

So he asks if Jake has ever believed in anything. 

And Jake remembers Diatrice. 

And they all take a moment to bask in the glow of their daughter’s memory. 

Then we get Steven’s version of what Khonshu said. 

Yeah. This is where that saying comes from. 

Somehow this gives them the ability to punch harder? 

And he starts beating on Sun King. 

He gets the Sun King to admit that he fears him now for some reason. 

And this makes everyone happy like some sort of 1980s movie.

And the Sun King can no longer use his fire. Because 

"I convinced you. Now Bow before me you horrible bastard." 

I'm not sure it works like that, Marc. But sure. You convinced him. 

And the Sun King bows down before him. 

"Thus ends the reign of the Sun King." 

And the people in the croud are cheering? Despite being there to support the Sun King and because they hate Moon Knight. 

Later we find Marlene bandaging up Marc's burns. 

The Truth stands by watching for the boat to return to get them off the island. 

"The man's cause is dead to me. Proven false by his impotence. I would undo any affiliation I had with him. I've found the facts of life to be more...Malleable than I realized. Maybe with some time in a room by myself...I might reassess my purpose." 

Yeah sure. A man is impotent because he lost a fight with another man and now no one believes in him. 

This is some fucked up masculine toxicity. 

Marc turns to address the other people on the island. 

"All of you just got stuck on a desert island because you let yourself get convinced of a bunch of crap by a completely mad super villain."

Uh huh. So the notion of him raising his own group of followers and warriors out of normal people. Cause that isn’t an issue. Obviously these people are easily swayed and maybe a bit fanatical. So telling them that you are now the new leader is not problematic at ALL. 

Also? That “I believe” in the back? 

We get a zoom in. I’m not going to show you the image. 

It’s Dr. Emmett! 

She's in her Moon Knight cloak thing (why would she bring that to the island with her if she was there following Sun King?). 

She's covered in burn scars and missing an eye. It's drawn to look like a rotten hole. 

Does no one believe in medical care here? Open eye holes are a problem. They run a risk of infection! Also they don't just stay open eye holes. The eyelids will collapse downward a bit. 

Anyways. She's back there going "I believe... I believe! Your doctor believes, Marc!" 

And the comic ends there. 

That was something alright. UGH. 

Give me a second to gather my thoughts up from this burning dump of ableism and poorly depicted mental health peppered with racism and anti-semitism. 

Volume one of Bemis is like a love letter to the kinds of people that think it’s fun and funny to show mentally ill people as dangerous, wild, unpredictable, and overall pathetic. 

The continuous use of language like ‘Insane’ and ‘Crazy’ is more than poor taste. It’s a constant reminder that we aren’t supposed to see Moon Knight as normal at all or even sympathies or identify with him. 

You see, there is a difference between “We have the power of crazy” and “You were the only superpower I ever had.” 

A big difference. 

In the former, it’s played up for laughs. Much like the old gags of seeing a man in a dress. It doesn’t age well but it persists. It persists because it still garners laughs. And the people that are still laughing are the people like Bemis. And he draws in more people who are like minded and he tells them it’s okay to keep laughing. 

The latter is a beautiful way to show that having DID was a powerful and wonderful way to be strong enough to survive when everything didn’t want you to. 

How did he get away with this? He is Bipolar. I’m not going to argue if he is or isn’t. I don’t know him and that’s his own personal history. I’m going to argue that being Bipolar does not give you the right to assume you understand ALL mental illnesses or that you can write for all of them. Or even lump crazy with crazy. 

Marvel is the sort to say “Ah yes, this person had a drink with a black person once so they should be able to write for Luke Cage.” Or “I took high school spanish so I can write for Miles Morales.” 

We can’t put up with this anymore. We can’t let them do this. We can’t let Marvel keep perpetuating things that hurt us. That hurt others. That keeps ripping the power away from those with so very little to begin with. 

So this is Vol 1 of Bemis. 

“But Drifting Pieces” you might say “How can it get worse than this? This was pretty bad.” 

My friend… You are in for a ride. 

PART THREE: HERE

[fandomworldofdreams]

Hospital For Souls

"Turn off your porcelain face. I can't really think right now and this place. There's too many colors, enough to drive all of us insane. Are you dead? Sometimes I think I'm dead. Cause I can feel ghosts and ghouls wrapping my head."

-Cavetown

Previous: Prologue

Chapter 1: This is Home

Arkham Asylum was not entirely an accredited mental health facility. But it was the only one Gotham possessed.

With the large number of criminals in the city, gang members, masked lunatics dressed up for a performance.

The caped crusader was this city's only godsent in Velaria's mind. She admired the ability of one men to make a change while seeking not to reveal his identity and claim the spotlight.

The hallways in Arkham were vast and Velaria felt herself becoming sick at all the turns.

"We're taking you to the doc first for your evaluation, then we'll take you to your cell." She nodded to the shorter of the two guards. Valeria could feel the handcuffs digging into her wrists, they didn't know her level of aggression or risk yet.

After what felt like an eternity they reached a door with a name on the front.

Dr. Jonathan Crane, PhD

The taller one knocked twice. They waited and with each second Valeria felt herself growing more anxious.

The door swung open and Velaria's eyes widened at the man before her. He had combed back brown hair and rectangular glasses. He wore a brown suit with a sweater vest.

It was his aura that made Valeria start to shake.

His cold blue eyes skimmed her over. "Come in." The guards escorted her into a seat and with Dr. Crane's instructions they uncuffed her and left.

"Ms. Gray, do you know why you have been admitted here?" He was flipping through what she assumed to be her file. .

His voice was lifeless, tone borderline bored.

She tilted her chin up. "I do."

His eyes flicked up to hers and she tried not to shrink.

."Tell me what happened." It was a command.

"What is there to tell? I tried to kill myself and failed so now I am here because for some reason Gotham wants to show they care about the mentally ill." She wasn't fond of this doctor. When she focused on his edges she saw a mahogany and black, outlined by a gray. His aura was built like a spiked wall.

"Have you been diagnosed with depression by a previous doctor?"

"When I was around thirteen," she said. "I saw a therapist til I was fifteen, in those three years and then two years after I took escitalopram. I wondered for five years why I didn't feel anything, it was the meds. Then after I felt too much. I had become reliant on them. So to better control my emotions, or at least feel better about it I turned to drinking."

She didn't see the point in hiding everything, this place was supposed to help her.

He wrote something down on his notepad.

"Are you going to be my designated psychiatrist?"

"Not necessarily. I am head psychiatrist, so I do the initial evaluation and see which doctor you would pair best with."

"Good." The word slipped out and her cheeks turned pink. His full attention was on her now.

"Good?"

She cleared her throat.

She couldn't just say his aura and her didn't vibe.

"Don't take this offensively, I am not partial to your demeanor, as I'm sure you do not favor mine. So it would seem this would be a bad match."

Tints of a dark mustard yellow entered his aura and she sighed.

Challenge.

"Ms. Gray, how would you describe your home life?"

"I live with my father."

"Your mother?"

"Died in a car crash when I was six."

"Siblings?"

"I had a younger brother. He overdosed just last year."

Dr. Crane's mouth quirked for a millisecond, if Velaria had blinked she would have missed it or thought she imagined it.

"Why did you decide to try and end your life, Ms. Gray?"

"I don't understand the question. I obviously do not want to live." Her tone was becoming more irritated.

He frowned at her, eyes squinting.

"What happened in life that pushed you to do that?"

"I feel that is best suited information for the therapist you assign me. After all I have three days."

"Or more." Dr. Crane said.

Valeria clenched her jaw. "Or more?"

"72 hour watch is the minimum requirement for me to watch you and figure out how stable you are. If I find you unstable or unfit to return to society then your stay extends. Your fate relies on me." He stood from his chair and walked around the desk til he was in front of her, towering above her.

"You will see Dr. Lecter for a long session in the morning, and you will see me in the evening for another. I'll let you get settled."

He opened the doors and the guards walked in to cuff her and bring her to her cell.

Three small walls, a toilet, a sink, and a bed that felt more like a cot.

Velaria ran her fingers over her bandages and stared at the wall. She became increasingly aware that she had the same fate right now as the criminally insane. Those who harmed others.

She pressed down on her wounds and sucked in a breath.

Perhaps this was where she belonged, where she could rot away without worrying about anyone she loved seeing her.

It would be a sweet end.

She didn't touch her food that night and curled up in the bed, clutching her necklace that she had successfully hid from he guards.

The pentacle felt heavy in her hand and tears welled in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into the darkness.

The darkness did not respond.

[t3acupz]

ok I have to ask because I'm so curious. Do you ship brownham in a "two hawks" serial killer couple way, or a Will is manipulating Matthew way, or a pwp way, or a doomed by the narrative way or...? I just want to know your headcanons XD

There’s so much to say about brownham that I get emotional about it.

Essentially, what happens in canon isn’t that great for Matthew. Will emotionally manipulates Matthew, and uses him to try and kill Hannibal. For Will, Matthew is just a pawn in his chess game against Hannibal.

But I like to approach this ship from Matthew’s point of view. He is someone who has been hiding his true self from everyone for most of his life. He’s spent time in a mental asylum for unknown reasons. He fakes a lisp and changes his mannerisms to appear as an unassuming orderly at the BSHCI. We can only assume his backstory and what led him to act this way but he’s clearly desperate to be known. Truly known. And in truly knowing someone, we love them.

I love that we get a small shot of Matthew in 2.01 Kaiseki (bringing Will his dinner) because it shows that he’s been with Will since the beginning of his imprisonment. Matthew spent months studying Will, silently watching him from the shadows. Listening to his conversations with Chilton. I’m sure he’s heard Will denounce Hannibal as the real Chesapeake Ripper plenty of times. Matthew read Will’s file and studied the Chesapeake Ripper’s murders just so he can come up with a plan to free Will by creating an alibi for him.

This scene in 2.05 Mukōzuke is so great because of the symbolism. Matthew opened Will’s enclosure, and watched him exit the cage with complete adoration. That was exactly what Matthew had planned by killing the bailiff. He wanted to set Will free. He knew that Will was an empath; someone who could finally understand him and not think he was depraved or insane.

Matthew is wearing all white, a symbol of purity. He wants to be Will’s savior, his guardian angel. He talks about hawks and how their folly is their solitary nature. He’s so in love with Will that he will make them go against their natures just to be together.

I’ll talk briefly about the pool scene. Water is one of Will’s motifs in the show, and Matthew thus became an extension of Will. He swam faster than Hannibal and then outmaneuvered him with the tranquilizer dart. He could’ve just let Hannibal drown and that would’ve been the end of it but he wanted to mock Hannibal. He wanted to show Hannibal how much he hurt Will and in doing so, compared Hannibal to the traitorous Judas. He needed Hannibal to know that he was killing for Will, and at Will’s request. It was Matthew’s way of saying, “Yes, I won and I killed you for my man.”

Matthew wasn’t shocked in the slightest when Hannibal told him that Will wasn’t a killer. It didn’t faze him at all. He also wasn’t the least bit fearful to be facing the actual Chesapeake Ripper. A man known for killing dozens of people in gruesome and horrific ways. He had Hannibal tied up and bleeding out and did it all while being adorably jaunty. That’s an amazing power move and something completely unforgettable for me when watching this show.

So the way I view the ship is in canon-divergence. Matthew succeeds in killing Hannibal, and Will is freed from the BSHCI when new evidence comes to light to prove that Lecter was the Chesapeake Ripper. Will returns to Wolf Trap and takes time off from working for the FBI to deal with the trauma of everything he went through. Initially, Matthew gives Will space by just dropping of care packages but eventually starts to help with chores around the house. Finally, Will invites Matthew to talk candidly about what transpired. It begins as unrequited love but evolves into real feelings from Will when he finally accepts the love he deserves.

I don’t picture them becoming serial killers because Matthew’s only known kill was the bailiff and that was done out of love, unlike Hannibal who killed for pleasure and to consume his victims like they were nothing more than livestock. Will had two paths - embrace the darkness within himself with Hannibal or follow a lighter path with Matthew (I enjoy both).

[girlyliondragon]

Asgore and Tenna are kinda similar in a way, that desperation to get everything back to "the way it was before" by any means necessary, even if you have to do morally wrong things to get that.

Tenna was the antagonist for Ch3 but he only really got at his worse when you were going to leave him in the Dark World (Excluding how awful he was to his employees for a moment bc it's not really relevant here but ya know, still counts). He was stuck in the past, greatly traumatized by the Dreemurr family breaking up and the butterfly effect that had on those around them, to the point he gathered dust via misuse, and didn't want to relive that abandonment again he traps the protags to keep them there so he doesn't have to.

Asgore is also stuck in the past, and wants his family to be back together again instead of broken up. As much as I am not into the idea of him becoming a boss for the next chapter or whenever it will happen, it's extremely likely he will (The prophecy part about him as the Flower Man, stuck in Asylum for one, the double doors being the staple entrance for Dark Worlds in the very back of his shop for another), and we've seen in Ch4 in Noelle's house he basically says will do whatever he can to achieve that. To get them to "understand" finally. He is absolutely obsessed with what I assume is the Dess case, hoping that it will be the answer to everything when it's done.

I don't think he's "going evil" but I do really hope this is leading into what could just be a parallel to Tenna, instead of just possibly kicking Asgore fans down further and telling us through the game to not like him/we shouldn't like him or something my paranoid brain is. Maybe it is after his time as a Dark World boss via however it happens that he learns to finally move on, as much as it hurts.

Idk, I just want Asgore's situation to be written as sympathetic like Tenna's was, and I'm hoping that he is just in the making of that sort of thing in contrast to us already having seen Tenna kinda on his last legs mentally when we met him, instead of being made as some hate-sink who is the pathetic divorced dad with nothing good going for him and only there to be the butt of a joke to laugh at. Even just writing this I sympathize with Asgore still bc I love him and even his UT counterpart was sympathetic to an extent.

Idk, I probably worded this rambling wrong/badly but I just hope what Toby has going for him will actually pay off, and that he's cooking well with this lead up.

[serial-serializednovelreader]

Nova’s Notes - Dracula Daily - July 19

In which Seward says no….

Just a heads up: this is where we get into some of Seward’s more ableist language/practices. I’ll try to describe it more than quote from it in those places and I’ll tag this appropriately. I just wanted to give a heads up that this is where it starts to get rough. Please feel free to skip this entry if it’s too much: your mental health is more important. I also made a cut where I start talking about this topic (and yes, it is very soon into the entry).

“We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated.”

“We”? Who is this “we”?? Are you speaking French? That’s all Renfield! And here Seward goes again with this “my friend” thing. It really makes me uncomfortable when he does that, not least because you can draw a distinct parallel between him and Dracula when he does it (if you want to see more of that, check out @vickyvicarious’s posts about Dracula and Seward: she does amazing analysis about the parallels between them!).

As for Renfield, a COLONY of sparrows??? I can see getting one in and closing the window (yeah, I figured that out), but how did he get all of those? Again, so many questions and if Seward is going to play creepy observing doctor, at least ask some questions about how he opens the window to get more sparrows without letting others out. It’s a valid question!

So, the next part is where we get into ableism — or what I see as such (and we’re only into the third sentence too…). Basically Renfield asks Seward for a favor, but Seward compares him to…a dog. While this isn’t blatantly ableist, I suppose, I still don’t like the way it’s phrased. It’s very dehumanizing. First of all, as a doctor, you are never supposed to talk about your patients that way. Second of all, even if he is “begging” in that way, think about why, Seward. He has to depend on you for everything — he is at your mercy and your whims. If he acts like…that…while asking for something, that is only because you have put him in a demeaning position in the first place!

On to the favor itself:

“‘A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feed—and feed—and feed!’ I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten.”

Says a lot about Seward that he only mildly cares about animal life when we get to the cats. And that he seems to be fine with him having an adult cat, but not an adorable kitten…hm. Also, Renfield is a bit concerning on the “feed feed feed” part but eh, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about! (I’m totally not foreshadowing I don’t know what you’re talking about /s).

“‘Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?’ I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it.”

LOL he’s so right, it would be hard to refuse someone a kitten, I mean just whip out the puppy dog eyes again, right? For real though, I don’t know how to feel about this because I know what Renfield is doing to these animals — and I can’t really condone it. On the other hand, if this were just someone in an asylum who wanted a pet to take care of, why should they be refused? Because of ableist stereotypes? It’s tough because Seward hasn’t refused him up to this point, so he probably assumed he would get to also have a cat. Was it right for Seward to set a boundary at this point (making him feel strung along), or should he have just never let him have any pets in the first place?

I think the problem with Seward is that he doesn’t explain why he can’t have a cat. He just says no. Also, he hasn’t been giving Renfield these animals and insects with good intentions — it’s all been to run an experiment for his own distraction. So yeah, I don’t like what Seward’s doing here or how he just shuts him down. If you’re going to refuse, at least give a valid reason why.

This is where Seward really loses his credibility with me — and is why I put a warning in the first place. Renfield then gives him a fierce look that Seward doesn’t like. Oh, I’m sorry, are people not allowed to be angry you refused them something they wanted??? Then he refers to this look as something verging on a murderous look — uh-oh. It gets worse. Again, I promised not to quote what he says here, and I’m going to stick to that, but let’s just say he thinks that Renfield is dangerous to him and shouldn’t be trusted not to attack him…or worse.

It’s telling that he gets all of that from one look. Where was your rational assessment of him from so long ago, Seward? Is that just out the window because he’s more upset at your refusal to give him a cat? This isn’t surprising, though. I would say most people in Renfield’s position are considered “fine” by society unless they show any kind of emotion at all; then, all of a sudden, they’re “dangerous” and need to be locked away from society for “safety reasons.” This is so harmful on so many levels.

“I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more.”

If Seward was a cat, this is where I’d spray him with water from a spray bottle. Bad Seward, bad!!! Stop using Renfield’s emotions and cravings for your own nefarious purposes. If you want to give him the cat, fine. If you don’t, don’t. But stop playing with him and dehumanizing him this way. It’s horrible.

Later, Seward goes to visit him and Renfield is (understandably) brooding. He again asks for a cat and says his salvation depends upon it (note that for later, by the way). Seward again tells him no and Renfield goes back to his corner, gnawing on his fingers. The gnawing on the fingers reminds me very much of stimming (for the uninformed, stimming is a repetitive action, often used by neurodivergent individuals, to gather focus or gain emotional regulation. Examples include chewing fingernails, playing with a fidget toy, bouncing your leg, etc.) and I can’t help but see him trying to calm himself down a bit here. I think it’s rather cruel of Seward to give Renfield false hope by visiting him and then still saying no. :(

“I shall see him in the morning early.”

Why, so you can continue to get his hopes up? UGH, hate this!!

I know I’m really hard on Seward in this one, but I think it’s deserved. He’s being cruel to Renfield and I hate it. Very unsatisfying entry, unfortunately.

[lawfulgoodness]

Experimental campaign idea

I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain my next campaign setting/idea in a brief, sensible way.  It’s really silly, but also really ambitious, and we’re about to have the second session, which means I really need to get a firmer grasp on all the moving parts.  To that end, here are the 3 main things I’m doing with it:

Self-insert PCs - All Player Characters are self-insert, so everybody’s just literally themselves.

Reality is a simulation - The players are “pulled out” of our world, and “plugged into” another one.  They are thrown back and forth with little explanation, hopefully motivating them to investigate why.

A Multiverse of RPGs -  Initially the world they are thrown into will be Shadowrun, since it already has an understanding of “jacking into the matrix.”  However, the goal is for them to try and find a way to escape from the world of Shadowrun, only to find themselves trapped in the world of Earthdawn instead.  The levels of reality are nested, so escaping one simulation leads them to discover what they thought was “reality” is in fact another simulation.

It’s basically “Sliders” meets “eXistenZ”

If you’re interested in the currently planned nesting realities, click the “Read More”:

World 0x0800:  Fake Shadowrun, but a very glitchy VR video game, simulating the world of Shadowrun.  It is so glitchy, that the players are able to exploit it in a way that creates a rift in the underlying simulation of all worlds, allowing them to begin traveling between worlds.  

World 0x0700: Real The world of Shadowrun.  The players were hired to pull a series of jobs in a popular video game, but after the first few jobs, the world of Shadowrun started to demonstrate weird glitches just like the video game.  Players try to escape to get back to their “real lives.”

World 0x0600: Spawn point.  No system/setting.  This is the world players initially find themselves in when the campaign starts.  It is clear that 0x0800 isn’t real, it is also implied that 0x0700 may not be real.  All but one player is currently assuming that 0x0600 is probably “real.”

World 0x0500: Earthdawn  After finally realizing 0x0600 is not real, the players escape and find themselves in Earthdawn.  In the world of Earthdawn, the players are welcomed as rescued heroes that had been trapped by the Horrors of Barsaive.  They are finally awake, and all of their previous adventures are considered nightmares, but not real.  Other nightmares and astral adventures will occur from here, throwing the adventurers into 0x0610 (d&d), 0x0620 (pathfinder), and 0x0630 (Golden Sky).  Once the players find out 0x0500 isn’t real either, they escape to...

World 0x0400: Trail of Cthulhu  Players find themselves to be mental patients in a late-30s mental asylum, locked up for their insane ramblings about the future, and for being suspects in the murder of a local business magnate.  Lovecraftian Whodunit to follow, giving them the ability to travel to other worlds, such as 0x510 (Solomon Kane) and 0x520 (Castle Falkenstein), which forces them to collect powerful magical items in order to escape to...

World 0x0300: GURPS Cyberpunk - Players find themselves to be unwitting contestants on a reality game show, where their simulated adventures are a form of public entertainment.  In addition to worlds 0x4000 - 0x8000, the players will now be throw into additional fictional settings for one-shot adventures to entertain the masses.  These adventures include 0x410 (Star Wars), 0x420 (TMNT), 0x430 (BtVS), and other popular franchises.  If they are able to escape this world, they find themselves in...

World 0x0200: Android RPG by Fantasy Flight Games.  They are recently activated androids, designed to replace a series of violent malfunctioning androids.  They have to hunt down their counterparts and stop them.  If they succeed in escaping the world the enter....

World 0x0100: A Tron-like world, probably using d20 mechanics of Horizon:Virtual, unless I can find something better.  Players find out they are each distinct AI/ML processes being groomed for placement in the “real world” to infiltrate & replace humanity.  All of their adventures up to this point is to help them simulate being actual humans, but able to understand why humans must be replaced.

“Ascend” as AI/ML constructs in synthetic bodies and step out into the real world for the first time.

Destroy the Master Control Program that’s been pulling the strings behind the entire campaign, but trapping themselves in the simulated environment in the process

Return to what they originally thought was the real world (Planet Earth in the 2020s)

Something else that I haven’t thought of that the players do instead.  Obviously, this is going to be the one that actually happens and I can’t wait to find out what it is.

Root 0x0000 // The game’s actual reality.