#so while he does run his life in his own way. its also impossible for him to choose to settle for less.

[perfcell]

Excuse me Mr. Perfect, I have a question. Do you ever feel as though you truly have free will, or do you feel like a puppet forced to obey your "programming" and feel as though you have your own will?

Have a nice day! 😊

❛ oh please. this is all me. ❜ he gestures to himself, a very content placement of his hand on his chest. and then he gestures to his surroundings, somehow trying to encompass everything he's accomplished so far with just a single sweep of an arm. ❛ sure, i was created with a specific purpose in mind but i found it... well, quite beneath me. ❜

can grudges be programmed and transferred through glass? the supercomputer that spoke to him deemed it important for him to know - you will have power / you will have strength / you will defeat our enemies. he internalized the first two statements, yes. but the last one-- something got lost in the translation. after all, there are no our enemies. there are just HIS enemies, CELL'S ENEMIES.

and he likes to think there's only one master of his fate ( him, of course! ) -- but he doesn't speak about the hunger that pushed him out of his glass tank in the first place. the same hunger that made him do the impossible and quite literally bend the time itself to his need. you will be perfect, said the machine. cell didn't understand why in order to become that, he had to be starved first.

but he survived that. he could not die imperfect. and if you asked him why, he'd have no answer.

is that programming? maybe in the same sense as cicadas are programmed to molt. an overwhelming desire to discard the current body or else.

at least cell had the benefit of knowing what awaited him on the other side of his husk.

he thinks it was a benefit.

[boinin]

Blue Lock volume cover analysis

An examination of unusual features and chains among the 31 volumes released to date. Subject to revision.

Like this? Want to reference these points in your own analysis on Reddit, YouTube, wherever? Go ahead! A shout out to this post is appreciated. Straight up plagiarism isn’t.

Volume 8: Mikage Reo

Reo's chains are noticeably shaded green. Guess whose eyes glow green when they're fired up...

In addition, @thyandrawrites has a theory that Reo ties/reties his hair up as a way to maintain emotional composure. The volume covers tend to represent the character's personality or struggles in some sense. If so, this is an early nod to the emotional trials Reo endures during the series.

Volume 10: Tokmitsu Aoshi

No chain weirdness here, but Tokimitsu is surrounded by black gunk in his cover. This may be a visualisation of his anxiety and the way he copes with it: running at speed and bulldozing through his opponents.

Volume 11: Ego Jinpachi

Ego's cover depicts him totally immobilised by the four chains bound to his neck. To date, no other character has been more restrained by the chains. This likely represents that Ego's fate is utterly dependent on the outcome of Blue Lock. His cover also suggests that Blue Lock (and football) consume Ego's life.

Volume 12: Shidou Ryuusei

Shidou's chains have a blue glow, much like Sendou's in volume 27. This glow is far closer to Shidou's collar however. It could imply that Blue Lock is the beginning of Shidou's pursuit of football.

He's also depicted with demon wings. The collar or chains don't impede his movement significantly, unlike other characters. In addition to portraying his incredible physicality, this could also visually represent how Blue Lock has failed to subdue Shidou.

Volume 16: Oliver Aiku

Aiku's chains are wrapped tightly around his arm and he's pulling them taut. The chains themselves appear rusted and cracked, most notably on his collar. This could represent Aiku's relationship with football. He grew jaded with being a striker in high school. Becoming a defender, then the match against Blue Lock, revitalised his enthusiasm. Hence, the chain is holding fast: he's just as ensnared by football (and Blue Lock) as the others.

Volume 17: Itoshi Sae

Sae and his chains are bathed in radiant gold light, which is associated with both divinity and wealth. His chains crumble in one place, and remain barely intact. I offer two interpretations for this. Firstly: unlike the others, Blue Lock does not have a strong impact on Sae—his success as a footballer is completely independent of it.

Secondly: if we take the chain to represent Sae's footballing career, the crumbling chain could allude to a time when football negatively impacted him. Perhaps whatever happened in Madrid? But he came back stronger, as the rest of his chains appear even more golden.

Volume 18: Teieri Anri

Anri is the only character depicted without chains or a collar. While working with Ego is a prison sentence in its own right, the artwork suggests that her ambition and future isn't connected to the outcome of Blue Lock. It can also be interpreted as a nod to the hierarchy within Blue Lock. Anri is Ego's boss and thus, she is free while he is constrained. However...

Zoom in on the reflection on her phone screen. It appears to reflect a wide grin—which can only be one person's. Taking into account her passivity in chapter 247, this detail positions Anri as Ego's accomplice: willing to do his bidding, no matter how amoral.

Volume 19: Michael Kaiser

Kaiser's collar and chains are made of glass, through which his blue rose tattoo is visible. As chapter 243 told us, a blue rose represents the impossible to Kaiser. Glass chains suggests that his ego or ties to football are fragile, and could be broken easily. Symbolically, glass can also represent transparency. As a character, Kaiser is upfront about his talent and desires. Nobody is in doubt about his footballing mantra or his intent to undermine Isagi.

Volume 20: Alexis Ness

Ness's chains are entwined with blue rose brambles, all but for a short length to the top right of the image. While Ness came to love football independently, seeing it as magical, the rose brambles show that his connection to football is now inseparable from his devotion to Kaiser. It also reflects that Ness would not be a professional footballer without Kaiser, as per chapter 242/243.

Volume 24: Hiori Yo

Hiori is the only character shown holding the end of his chain, which is secured by a football-shaped weight. This suggests that Hiori himself is the one in control of his career, rather than external forces. Football is a burden to him, albeit something he can carry. Therefore, Hiori is not ensnared by the chains (or Blue Lock) to the same extent as other characters. Appropriate for a character guaranteed to succeed as a footballer, but who ultimately may not choose to pursue it.

Volume 25: Niko Ikki

Niko's volume cover is hilarious. I'll leave the explaining to Tomo-tan, who lays out the humour and genius of Niko's cover in this great Reddit post.

Volume 26: Don Lorenzo

Members of the New Generation World XI have no chill when it comes to their covers, and Don Lorenzo is no exception. His collar shows bite marks, as though chewed through. Gold teeth are good for more than caramel popcorn, apparently.

Lorenzo's chains are accompanied by what looks like electricity. This suggests that football reanimated Lorenzo from near death, as per chapter 216. It's a visual nod to his playstyle, which resembles the incessant pursuit of a zombie. Guess we can call him Snuffy's Monster.

Volume 27: Sendou Shuuto

A blue glow appears on Sendou’s chains, halted from travelling further by his fist. This may represent the threat Blue Lock poses to Sendou's footballing career. He's already been kicked as the striker of the national team; now in the Neo Egoist League, he must battle for a place on the new U20 line-up. No easy feat, as his sweaty face implies.

Another detail worth mentioning is that the trajectory of one of Sendou's chains appear to align with the chain Aiku's pulling in his cover. This similarity, and the fact that they're both holding their chains, may be interpreted as a nod to their status as former U20 teammates—likely the only ones that will make the new team, going off the latest NEL auction table.

Volume 29: Nanase Nijiro

Debated adding him, but eh—I wrote up Reo's cover. Nanase's illustration (incl. the chains) is shaded green… similar to Rin's eyes and aura colour. His chain jerks right and left in a nod to his ambidexterity.

Volume 30: Tsurugi Zantetsu

Another gag cover on par with Niko's, albeit less clever (intentionally?). Zantetsu's chain is made of shapes you'd associate with a toddler's learning shapes toy.

Volume 31: Charles Chevalier

Charles's cover is a double whammy. He gets two colours like Aiku, reflecting his capricious nature. Gold and metallic are representative of his high worth. The background spirals are a definite nod to the Cheshire Cat, a character Charles states he likes in an end of volume character profile.

The chains are shaped like the devil emojis that appear in Charles's dialogue. The chains also feature two materials: an alternating light and dark metal with no evident pattern. This perhaps represents the way his passes are hit or miss, or the way he decides who to send passes to on a whim.

[sweetieviktor]

viktor x lab partner! reader (headcanons + tiny scenarios)

summary: working with viktor and jayce is all fun until you start wishing your lab partner was well.. your partner.

content warning: minor spoilers about season 1, arc 2 and fluff!!

author notes: im sorry for the waiting!! life has been chaotic and im pretty busy doing things but i've managed to finally write down this adorable request yeey! hope you like it :D

» working with the hextech genius and piltover’s golden boy surely wasn't an easy job. high expectations, sleepless nights, doing experiments and calculations all day...

» at first, it was difficult to blend in as part of the group. jayce and viktor had been good friends for a long time now, and being added as a scientist alongside them in their own lab seemed like something experimental, almost incorrect.

» but things soon started to fall into place. and just like two plus one is equal to three, in the late hours was the time you all could be more free, more like your true selves. maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but it finally felt like there was a little place for you after all.

» whenever you needed to breathe a bit of fresh air and they were too focused on some research, you would go out and get them lunch on your way back. when you return to the lab, jayce would welcome you with a side hug and such a big smile that it could possibly blind you, while viktor would thank you with a little nod and a ghost of a smile on his lips.

» on these lunch breaks, it was common for you to talk about anything and everything that came to your minds at the moment. the hextec, politics and the council, how chaotic or abnormally normal life has been, literally whatever.

“i swear, i can't stand councilor hoskel anymore! why does he never listen to me but when mel says the same thing, then he is all ears?” jayce said while running fingers through his hair, smothering the mess to it place again.

“maybe because you can't verbalize things as good as her?” viktor suggested, tilting his head to the side, taking a bite of the cookies you've got for them earlier. “eeh, i mean, she works at the council for quite a time, right? you're still new to it.”

it was true, of course, but there was one thing they didn't consider yet. “or maybe you just ain't a woman!”

“surely a smart remark, i must say.”

“NO!”

» of course there were times where you could be more relaxed, but almost everyday was the same: calculation, experiment, malfunction and all again. it was frustrating, but worth it. after all the failed prototypes and explosions (so many explosions), now it is finally working.

» also, going on all nighters is a common occurrence (but jayce can't work through the night, because in the day time he needs to attend on the council and can't be late, so the boy needs to sleep early) and when this happens, you often go get you and viktor a mug full of coffee and then continue working on whatever you've been up to.

» oh, and the hexcore. magic and science at once. runes and mathematics all together, the almost impossible and so ethereal dream.

» to be able to study it this close was one of the best things that happened to you, to see, understand and manipulate hextech was incredible. the soft blue light it casted on the lab walls was beautiful, but to see it shine against viktor's skin was a delightful sight.

» his disheveled hair, dark circles, cheek bones. all of the shadows in the right places. the shining amber eyes, his nose and, oh, janna, his mole, the one just above his lip. it drives you insane. like it was luring you into locking your lips on his.

“why are you looking?” he asked, still focusing on the source of the light in front of him, molding its runes, the core moving along it. “studying?”

“yes, yes!” your tone more high pitched than you intended to. shit. “just studying the... hexcore.” you tried to remain your voice at a normal level again, inhaling and exhaling to calm down.

pulling his goggles up, he let his head fall back, laughing, “i'm just messing with you,” he looked at you from between half closed lashes, smirking, “good to know you like to study this.”

» the stealing glances, the absolutely profissional soft touches, the desire for something more, something you couldn't quite have. godness, if you could use hextech to solve your love equation, you would. maybe it would be easier to focus on work with a little magic.

» but it was so hard to focus while he kept looking at you like this, calling your name so sweetly, brushing his fingers on yours whenever you handed him something. you were head over heels for him but why does it seemed so hard to just tell him how you felt?

» again, this love equation was a confusing one, but you wished that the cup of sweet milk you left alongside a little sticky-note saying “you + me = date?” for him to find on his workplace was enough to be called a confession.

» now, you were almost ready to head home, but first you needed to look for jayce and update him about the research you've been working on lately.

» and after doing so, you headed towards the academy's lockers, unlocking yours, sending the same sticky-note you left on the lab flying to the pale ground. when you picked it up, you noticed some words written just below yours. “this is an easy one! the answer is yes. so... at the coffee shop near the academy, at 4pm? – v.”

[antianakin]

I'm starting to see some very funny (and by funny I mean infuriating) takes on what Andor was actually ABOUT and the way it utilized its more adult narrative within the context of Star Wars. Andor as a show followed Lucas's themes BRILLIANTLY even while choosing to look at them a little differently.

One of the primary themes in Star Wars is that there really isn't much of a "middle ground" in life. You are either choosing to be selfless and compassionate, or you aren't. Trying to stay in the middle or run from making this choice inevitably ends up badly for the people who try. And one of the other primary themes of Star Wars is that being selfless and compassionate often requires LETTING GO, most often letting go of the people you love and accepting that change happens in life.

I've seen people argue that Andor is able to be a morally grey story because its characters aren't Jedi or Sith who tend to be more bound by these cosmic themes or good vs evil, but I'd argue that Andor actually represents that theme JUST FINE.

Despite many of its characters living in a "morally ambiguous" area, we still have to see them make the choice to be selfless and compassionate or selfish and greedy. One of the primary themes for the characters is how well they can LET GO or not. Cassian is constantly having to figure out how to let go of his plans for his future, let go of his mother, let go of his dreams of a normal life. Cassian is ruled by fear for much of the first season and it's only once he is pushed into a situation where there's no longer any way to run, he starts finally fighting back and refusing to bow to the oppressive force that wants nothing more than to see him discarded like so much refuse. The people of Ferrix have to let go of their desire to stick their heads in the sand and simply hope the Empire won't notice them.

And on the other end of the spectrum you have Syril Karn and Dedra Meero absolutely fixated on their respective goals to the point that they're willing to kill and betray innocent people to reach them. They've convinced themselves their goals are selfless, but their motivations are in fact actually SELFISH, they serve nobody but their own ambitions. And both of them end up paying for it.

So Andor ABSOLUTELY gets the central theme of Star Wars, it isn't actually trying to change that. What it DOES do is take that theme and just digs slightly deeper, looking at this theme from a slightly different angel even when it ultimately comes to the same conclusion. Andor asks if selflessness and compassion always looks like "I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you!" Or if maybe sometimes making the selfless choice means burning yourself to light a fire to lead someone else to safety. Are all people who make the selfless and compassionate choice considered heroes, or are some of them having to make those choices down in the dirt and destined to be forgotten by history? Andor asks how many variations of selflessness might exist and then explores them in its wide, colorful ensemble.

Andor also is looking at what selflessness might look like in characters who are forced into making a choice between standing back when they see evil happening and dirtying their hands just to make the smallest difference because forces of evil outside of their control are making the purer options impossible.

And that is the EXACT SAME THEME explored with the Prequels Jedi. The Jedi who want so badly to be selfless and compassionate, whose philosophies and ideologies lead them to use violence only as a last resort and love everyone and everything in the galaxy equally. The Jedi who are thrust into a war where there's no way to win because the Sith are running both sides of it and the Jedi can't just NOT FIGHT because that will get innocent people killed and will help no one but themselves, but they have to compromise their morals as a result. The Jedi who see a politician slowly amassing unreasonable amounts of power he's unwilling to let go of and a Senate too controlled by fear and greed to see the danger, so their only option is to commit treason to try to remove the corruption personally.

The Jedi LOOK the hero part a lot more than the characters in Andor do. They're strong, confident, powerful, and wield swords of light. They fight out in the open rather than from the shadows. Cassian, Luthen, Saw, Mon Mothma, Vel, and Cinta all manipulate things and threaten people and lie and cheat their way towards victory. Both Mon Mothma and Luthen fully admit to choosing to act like their enemy in order to defeat them. And it's not that the Jedi's way of fighting is any worse than the way the people of Andor have learned to fight. The people of Andor would LOVE to be able to fight like the Jedi used to do. But they can't. Palpatine has created a world in which being heroes that way is NO LONGER POSSIBLE. He started with the Jedi, by forcing the Jedi into a situation where fighting the way they once did was the wrong choice to make. There were no longer any right choices, just better choices. The only choice.

The Jedi stood as a bulwark between the darkness and the people of the galaxy. For years they chose to dirty their hands in order to fight the battles no one else WANTED to fight because it was the ONLY CHOICE TO MAKE. So what happens when the Jedi are gone?

The rest of the galaxy is now faced with the same choice. Do you stand by and let darkness grow? Or do you dirty your hands a little because it's the only choice you CAN make?

The people in Andor are picking up the torch that fell out of the Jedi's hands when they were murdered and persecuted by the Sith. Only the people who are left don't have magic powers or swords of light, so they use the resources they have at their disposal, which mostly amounts to manipulation and trickery and striking from shadows. The fight looks a little different now, but it's still the same fight the Jedi were fighting for years.

So Andor is taking those bigger cosmic themes from the Jedi/Sith conflicts that permeate the rest of the Skywalker saga and asks what those themes might look like when applied to the little people. What kind of choices might THEY make, what kind of things might they have to let go of in order to make those selfless choices? What kind of consequences might happen when they DON'T make the selfless choice? It's the exact same theme Lucas has ALWAYS had in his stories, just viewed from a different angle or through a different lens.

But the stories we've been getting recently that are trying to argue that being selfish is actually totally fine so long as you're doing it For Love, that the Jedi were in fact the source of everything that went wrong in the galaxy, that the Jedi were DESTINED to be destroyed, those all go completely against Lucas's themes. They're the direct OPPOSITE of his intended message. It is in fact entirely possible to write a more adult story with grittier content that STILL SENDS THE SAME FUCKING MESSAGE AND FOLLOWS THE SAME THEMES and doesn't try to get edgy in its interpretation of the source material.

[waitmyturtles]

I am here to complain a bit about Jack & Joker (and apologies, because I'm going to make an inevitable comparison to Kidnap at the end of this post), so this post might be triggering for you (consider yourself warned, some of y'all don't read TWs!) But if you wanna hear some constructive criticism about director Tee Bundit's intriguing storytelling choices for this show, then come with me....

... because there's a lot about this show thematically that would usually sit right with me, namely its heavy focus on family.

Thanks to @veemark, we got a deep-dive into the wedding symbolism of last week's Lunar New Year celebration. I can feel that! Joke is clearly deeply touched to finally be a part of a family -- which is ever more meaningful, considering his brutal rejection by his own blood father in this week's episode.

And there are so, so many more family (and wedding) themes (in non-chronological order):

1) Tattoo's mom taking in both Tattoo and Hoy 2) Boss rejecting his own son, Arun, and adopting Jack (to then use Jack for his own financial gain) 3) The community that Ah Mah has built around her, from taking Joke in, to the little girls she hosts 4) Jack losing his parents and being raised by Ah Mah 5) Arun finding new family with Tattoo 6) Understanding how family ties runs the criminal underground of Bangkok 7) All of the ring symbolism, from Jack getting his parents' ring back, to rings being used as power symbols for the aforementioned criminal underground -- a theme I LOVE, actually, because strength in numbers in society always means more power for those individuals, including for couples that get married (INCLUDING FOR COUPLES THAT WILL BE ABLE TO LEGALLY WED IN JANUARY IN THAILAND AND WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR SPOUSAL PRIVILEGES, EEEE!)

So many family themes going on in this show. I love it! I love the indication that when Jack and Joke first met years ago, that there could have been a frisson of potential family between them, two guys meeting at a bar and connecting.

AND, I ALSO love the themes of family fucking each other over. Because families aren't perfect! Not by a long shot. Families can truly suck towards each other. Boss to Arun. Save (FUCKING SAVE, YOU DICK) to Jack. Joke's dad to Joke, all of his life. If we're talking potential family from back in the past, then of course -- Joke fucking over Jack, the issue that started this series.

What's not working for me in this series, though, is that somewhere along this trajectory, director Tee Bundit got too caught up in liberally sprinkling these otherwise excellent themes throughout the show (really, much to my joy, because I otherwise love these themes) without offering emotional build or context to our two main characters. There are other connectivity issues to this show, but this is my main gripe.

Now, I've had an up-and-down relaysh with Tee Bundit's work. I hated TharnType, I HATED Step By Step, I ADORED Lovely Writer, I LOVED I Feel You Linger In The Air. We're teetering on Step By Step-territory here in Jack & Joker by the way that Tee seems to be gunshy about giving romance -- which needs to be the cornerstone of an ostensible romance BL -- time to breathe and develop.

We have jumped from an inferred wedding banquet last week, to tired spousey-spousey dinners this week, with hubs ripping off his tie and apologizing to his househubs about not finishing his plate.

Not to say I need to see the boing! I don't need boing to contextualize romance. What I need to contextualize romance is to see these two falling in love, before their marriage got tired and problematic!

Like. I was watching these dinner scenes, and I'm... trying to parse what's happening at the table. Jack is getting screwed time and time again by poverty. It's brutal. Is Tee saying here that love is an impossibility in the context of poverty?

(I don't know that Jack says that about love, per se, in his monologue to Rose while they're with the village children, but he does talk about the inability of impoverished people to truly dream, so maybe that's the correlation?)

And then, because Jack must make his choice to serve Boss and earn money for his grandmother's treatment -- he has to let go of Joke. But.... they were never together anyway! Right?! (See @lurkingshan here for the wise comment on noble idiocy.)

I'm not bought into the closeness that I'm supposed to assume from Jack and Joke -- because we haven't been taken there yet. I haven't seen that closeness develop. I've seen Joke make it up to Jack for Joke's previous transgressions. But I haven't seen Jack respond to that emotionally, bodily, with heart, as a narrative would otherwise convey romance successfully in a script.

Unless this is an allegory meant to convey that poverty prevents people from falling in love. Is that the message? Because... dang, wtf. That's a hell of a message.

It's a brutal message, if that's the message, commenting on the assumed strength of the criminally powerful of Bangkok to squeeze out every last dream of those who are in lifelong debt to crime lords.

It's a very Tee Bundit message, honestly, as well. I can see him driving this show right towards this message that hopelessness is absolutely a reality for the thousands of impoverished Thais who will die in debt.

But this is a YinWar show -- and, unless we are going to be MASSIVELY SURPRISED, which I don't think we are, the car's gotta drive towards romance at some point. These guys aren't even together, and we're headed towards divorce court. We've missed some significant emotional beats along the way, and my eyebrows are furrowed as to how Tee Bundit will three-point-turn his way out of this traffic jam.

(What's my inevitable comparison to Kidnap? Kidnap is the other crime-y show of this autumn season, and its narrative has jumped all over the place. It's SO MESSY. AND, arguably, Min's and Q's romance has been driving at 90 mph since the start of the show. We've had MORE romance than plot, the opposite issue of J&J. But Min showed his true colors by 4/4 of episode 1. We knew the road we were driving on with our two mains! And there arguably hasn't been jumping of the romance narrative, although we got a pretty fast break-up in last week's episode. Kidnap is messy AF, but its intentions are clear. I'm not getting that clarity -- as cheesy as it's been in Kidnap -- in J&J.)

[stealingpotatoes]

just watched mando s3 it’s great that we TOTALLY had a whole season about din coming to grips with being mand’alor & life without grogu and about dueteragonist bo-katan coming to realise she was only trying to lead mand’alor bc of her sister not bc she thought she was the best leader. and the whole season centred around the theme of accepting who you really are even if you’re certain you’re something else and was about how heroes and leaders can come from anywhere, they don’t have to come from a special bloodline (a sorta thesis against the skywalker saga) and about the uniting power of grief and oppression. isn’t it great we had that instead of a season with no plot 

isn’t it great that there were no mando cameos in tbobf and mando season 3 started with him on a bounty, cringefailing at using the darksaber and stabbing himself but he did the job and got paid in a nubian starfighter (he wanted a razor crest but he’s injured so he doesnt argue much) which he then used to find his covert on the canyon planet. then he revealed to the armorer and paz that he had the darksaber which after some time leads to paz duelling din for the saber (without telling the others bc they dont know din has it) and din wins but its revealed he took his helmet off. he’s made apostate IN FRONT OF EVERYONE (EVERYONE!!) with only one IMPOSSIBLE chance of redemption (nobody can go to mandalore anymore!!) and has to leave and now has nothing — no child, no clan. so he does the only thing he can think to and goes to a green planet we’ve never seen before. he lands safely but still injured from his fight with Paz and not fully healed from the original injury he passes out. and the episode ends with a kid running over and telling another kid to call master skywalker

and sure episode 2 was the fanservice episode but its disney! we have to expect a marketable plushie cameo episode — except of course that didn’t mean it wasn’t plot relevant! din wakes up and we realise he’s at luke’s jedi academy and this is great n stuff we finally get to see luke in his prime teaching a whole bunch of students! and we get to see grogu happy and having fun with his kind (which makes din happy but miss his own covert). luke notices din has a saber himself (despite it being well-hidden — luke can sense it) and din admits he can’t use it and that he doesnt think it even belongs to him while luke shows him saber forms (but pretends its for his own training and not din’s bc din refuses to learn). they have a discussion and din reveals he came here bc he got kicked out and has no way to redeem himself bc there are no mines left and even then the planet’s poisonous. luke spouts some jedi stuff asking din if he’s certain and says blind certainty is the enemies of hope and progress or whatever (setting up the larger theme of identity certainty in the season). luke also points out that if they imps r there then they have to have some way of getting around the environment they caused. inspired and knowing grogu is safe here, din is ready to go redeem himself on mandalore. he says he’ll come to see grogu again and luke makes it clear that while attachments can’t get in front of duty, din is always welcome here <3 

episode 3 of course had din go to the ruins of mandalore to redeem himself, inspired by luke’s words about certainty he goes to the ruins of sundari, where he knows there was once living waters (the other option is the one surviving and imperial-controlled city, but he’s not that dumb). also bc the imps only hang around the cities so that must be where it's survivable. there’s some imperials about the edge of the city (not many) and he does have to subtly fight them but he gets spotted. he wins but he’s panicking bc during the fight his breathing system got hit but then he notices a plant growing. and he realises he’s not dying — the air isn’t poisonous anymore or whatever! so he turns off his failing life support and goes to the city. he explores the city and finds many remnants of mandalorian culture there in the small parts that survived. ash-covered murals, mostly-burnt toys, something that could have once been a palace. he finds a memorial to a duchess satine kryze and thinks huh like bo katan? (because of course the show wouldn’t ignore bo’s motivations) anyway after some slow but meaningful exploring (its quietness eerie, unlike the quietness of the previous stealth section) he manages to make his way below the city. he finds the mines, reads the inscription and then goes in. except of course its no longer shallow and he falls and he falls and he realises well fuck he’s gonna die. his life support got hit earlier and he doesnt have his jetpack he’s going to sink. but then in the darkness, a great looming eye opens and before din knows it, SOMETHING is throwing him out that sinking water. it had to have been a freak current right? he was hallucinating. surely a MYTHOSAUR didn’t just save him… those are all dead, only to return with a new age of mandalore! he shakes his head, ignores it, and collects the water with something new to bring to his people

episode 4 reintroduced us to old fan favourite bo katan in her depression girl era bc din shows up to her empty palace ready to help her take back mandalore… only to find her in a depression pit and— oh my god is she drunk??! she drops that her ppl left her bc she didn’t have the darksaber and din’s looking at the depression pit like. right. bc of the darksaber. he briefly tries to convince her to fight him for it but she’s like no you’ll throw the fight it won’t be true comba— oh no! explosion nearby bc looks like din wasn’t as careful as he thought and the imperials followed him to bo’s place so both of them have to fucking skeet outta there and bo’s home’s destroyed so din’s like hey come on let’s go to my people we can take back mandalore with them or smthn. so they head back to the covert, din reveals he’s no longer apostate and that mandalore isnt cursed it’s breathable + you can successfully walk on the surface now. this is however interrupted by a beast showing up and trying to kill some ppl. it almost kills paz’s son but din kills the beast first in his starfighter. anyway back to the conversation (now within the cave) and din’s trying to convince his clan that they can take back mandalore (with bo as leader) but none of them want to follow her or risk what few numbers they have left. dejected, din and bo make to leave again, but paz follows them out and is like ?? din you literally have the darksaber why didn’t you use it to get at least SOME of them to follow you and din’s like i don’t want people to follow me bc of a legend, if they follow me it has to be bc they want to and paz and bo r internally like wow damn. anyway paz then says he’ll always fight w din if needed bc he saved his son but if he wants the people to follow him they should try get some of the other clans to help so it looks less dangerous. so bo and din leave on their quest. also throughout this episode, we’re introduced to some random civilian in the reintegration program. its implied they worked with gideon and that they’re preparing for something, but we don’t get much more than that. 

episode 5 is the bo episode, this is where we explore her character, have her arc, and ya know really cover her motivations (bc disney would NEVER make it so her motivation is invisible unless you’d seen two other tv shows). din and bo head to where her clan is. they just want to see the clan but they end up being dragged into a b-plot about helping the local pacifist duchess (& duke). din tries to say no but bo-katan says smthn abt diplomacy. this quest initially doesn’t seem plot relevant but throughout bo opens up about her own pacifist duchess sister and she comes to realise how much of this quest has been about trying to live up to satine and not bc she thinks herself the best mand’alor. the thing she said abt diplomacy earlier, she reveals, is just a quote from her sister. anyway they’re finally able to go to bo’s old clan and she, now reinvigorated in accepting and knowing who she is and what she wants (no longer depression girl) challenges axe for leadership of the clan. she wins and in a speech is like we’re gonna retake unpoisonous mandalore by uniting the clans!! most agree but theyre like HOW are we supposed to convince the other clans? and it descends into insane yelling UNTIL a low hum and a black-white light falls over the group. silence falls. everyone looks on. high above his head, din is holding the darksaber (proudly!!) and he’s like we’ll unite them with this. but axe has to constantly be chatting shit and getting up from the floor where he got his ass whipped he’s like really???? you wanna follow him???? he doesn’t even have any mandalorian blood in him!!! and bo makes a great speech about blood doesn’t make a good leader what makes a good leader is knowing when to use your power. and then she’s like he is my mand’alor amen and kneels before him. everyone else follows and din awkwardly stands there still not fully accepting his role 

episode 6 was the great prep episode. we start with din and bo helping and getting a new tribe on their side and heading back to Concordia we realise they’ve got this HUGEEEE war camp of mandalorians!! there are so many clans with them now (except one, which din is really missing)!!!!! this episode mostly focuses on mandalorian culture and them training/ planning and din and bo trying to keep the clans from biting each other’s heads off. but this is interrupted when a small group of imperials try to pre-attack them (like they did w bo’s palace) but the mandos all manage to fight back and take them down, which then leads to a whole speech from din and bo about how mandalorians are all fighting but theyre united now in their grief and with this they can fight the empire. the b-plot of the episode comes back to that random civilian from episode 4 and whoomp turns out their plan was to BREAK MOFF GIDEON OUT OF JAIL!! shitttt!!!! oh no!! he’s back now, that’s gonna make their very decent plan to take back mandalore harder but they dont knowww (irony!)

episodes 7 and 8 were the battle of mandalore, woo! it had to be two episodes because it’s a taking whole occupied planet and not a single base, a pretty damn difficult task that definitely can’t be done by two single clans in like 40 minutes! there’s all those mini tiny bases scattered throughout the planet on the ruins (like din encountered in episode 3) AND more importantly there’s the one domed city that the imperials kept alive as their main base — which means they have to be careful, bc they can’t do any sort of aerial assault or great deal of damage to the imperials without also destroying the one surviving place for them to live. so the plan is smaller strike teams to go the bases plopped around the planet as a distraction and to stop reinforcements to the city while the main force surround the city and take it. the first city team (with din and bo) has to open up all the ports and stuff to allow the HUGE armies to get in. unfortunately this is in the main imp base in the centre of the city so they have to get there. (they’d prefer 2 strike teams but they can only spare 1) MOST of the mini-bases r meanwhile being successfully captured. the strike team gets to the centre to de-activate the port shielding n stuff and GASP! IT’S GIDEON!! FROM JAIL!! and he’s surrounded by fucking MANDO STORMTROOPERS and IN BESKAR ARMOUR oh no!! ambush!! he knew they’d have to go here to allow a full-scale assault! the small strike team at sundari also gets captured bc there were some mandotroopers there (they increased security post episode 3). episode 7 ends on a cliffhanger bc all seems lost and the strike team’s surrounded 

episode 8 starts straight off the cliffhanger and oh no they’re all gonna die gasp WHEN BAM fighting noises elsewhere, everyone’s confused, when paz’s voice crackles over din’s comm like hey bro! BC DIN’S CLAN FINALLY SHOWED UP TO HELP AND THEY WERE ABLE TO MAKE THAT SECOND STRIKE TEAM and in the confusion din & bo’s team take out the mandotroopers, gideon gets away. din and paz and the armorer come face to face and paz calls him mand’alor or smthn bc he’s also accepted it and they’re like woo let’s go now we can fight fr!! din heads to help lead the battle ig but bo’s like nah i have to end gideon for what he did to our planet. and din’s like well he’s wearing beskar armour so you’ll need this and gives her his beskar spear WHICH IS SYMBOLIC BC he’s finally giving up his other weapon and is going to solely use the darksaber!! he’s accepted who he is and is going to lead their ppl!! so yeah instead of having din fight gideon, who he already beat once, bo fights him and its incredibly cathartic. at sundari that strike team who got captured is also not looking great but MYTHOSAUR EX MACHINA COMES AND FUCKS UP THE IMPERIALS THERE (its returned!!). so big battle and gideon’s down and the darksaber DOESN’T get destroyed yay! afterwards they all vibe and they go to the forge and the armorer relights it and they proclaim din mand’alor fr and he accepts it and throne. sure he's still a BIT uneasy (mand'alor the reluctant anyone?) but he's not saying NOO now loll. yayyy!! AND THEN final scene is din returns to the jedi academy like hii thanks for ur advice u were right being blindly certain abt stuff is meh and leaves no room for hope. uh could i show grogu mandalore i promise i’ll bring him right back and it ends on din showing grogu the planet finally bc thats cute and fanservice

anyway isn’t it great this is exactly what happened, it’s all canon and definitely not the stealingpotatoes sequels canon continuity rewrite! 

[nthspecialll]

Lost love

Agnes Dowd is an NPC you might have met on your adventures without ever knowing who she is, in fact you might have fled from her.

Being in the swamps of the bayou is not something I imagine a lot of us feel very enthusiastic about doing, so suddenly hearing a voice come from no where is without a doubt going to rise suspecion, however before you run of, check to see if it might be Dowd telling you the story of her life and in the end her death as she relives memories.

Agnes is a ghost, she has 16 encounters, some of which you can see her at and some which only her voice can be heard, they will appear in a randomized order, thus making the story a bit hard to follow, but if pierced together it is quite chilling.

Let's start at the end, her grave can be found by Shady Belle, where she most likely lived, having come from a well off family, not only does the gravestone tell us when she died, 1883, which will later reveal a historical inaccuracy, but it also tells us that not only did she take her own life, but also others.

The first thing to know of Agnes's love story is that she was in love with a married man, not only a married man, but a married man of lower class, which is revealed when she curses him out calling him "white hilbilly trash" though the word hilbilly wouldn't actually make its offical debute for another 17 years.

Her family was was naturally not very happy about this arrangement, but that did not stop her from meeting the man underneath the tree where her ghost can be found and getting pregnant with their child, a child made out of wedlock. Agnes sees this as something great, as this would now mean he had to marry her, leaving the woman he was already with, whom Agnes said did not love him, however it did not go that way instead he left Agnes.

Agnes gets upset, saying that he never loved her, that her mom was right and that he was just after her for the money. They argued and Agnes was stressed over the thought that no one would have her now as she had a "bastard" child.

Though they argued, Agnes came to miss her lover and she can be heard calling out to him, saying she misses and loves him, begging for him to return.

Having never liked this relationship from the beginning, Agnes's parents were very vocal about taunting her for her lovers disappearence, however she defended him, claiming that he would return.

At some point after the baby's birth, Agnes and her lover met up again where she tried to convince her lover that he loved her and that their child looked just like him, but in the same encounter she also reveals that she left the baby and everything she had for him.

On the fateful night of september 4th 1883, Agnes's father grabbed his gun and went to pay the lover a visit. Agnes followed, telling her father "please daddy, please don't say that, you are going to make me cry" probably stating an intention of hurting her lover, as he would do, "daddy! Daddy I forgave him why can't you?! Daddy! Daddy, no! Please put down the gun! Daddy!"'

The following encounters reveals a fight between the father and the lover while Agnes is panicking, trying to calm her father, it did not work as a shot can be heard at the end of an encounter, her lover died and Agnes admits to loosing her mind, with the heat of the moment, the gravestone stating she killed others and the calmness of the following encounter, it isn't impossible to say she killed her father and possibly also someone else.

The very last encounter and Agnes is calm, her ghost hanging from the tree which she met her lover by as she calls out "Hey stranger, I know you have been watching me, come meet me in the swamps by our tree. I will be waiting." This reveals that after killing her father, she went and killed herself.

[ahoyimlosingmymind]

there's something so personal about Fitz Vacker being 'girl coded' bc of his upbringing and the way he's perceived and how he's been socialized. I personally see him as a straight cis guy- but there's something so identifiable about the way he's perceived as 'hysterical' or 'hyper-emotional' when he reacts totally normally to high stress situations. How he's always expected to be palatable, easy to digest, to carry the burdens unique to him, that will always go unacknowledged. How he can never just be. Everything is a carefully crafted performance piece.

It's the way the foxfire girls sexualize him, (Which also happened to Keefe) how Sophie is always concerned and commenting on his looks. How he's treated like a trophy, something to attain, something to be experienced and then left behind. The way people hate him for his success and hate him for his failures. How he must feel like a piece of meat.

he's beautiful. but nobody cares what goes on underneath.

Something about the way he can never be just good. How his effort and accomplishments are always tied back to his father's name and his appearance. Nothing about him is acknowledged for its own merit. There's always some excuse for why he shouldn't deserve it, that he's had it 'too easy', that it's because of daddy's 'money' that he is where he's at.

Nothing about Fitz is ever allowed to be about him. He's expected to be the 'perfect victim', seen and not heard, any issue he voices is dismissed because he's seen as a 'protected class'... but if he was so protected, why does he never feel safe?

it's something about the way he's always watching himself in 3rd person. it's something about the way he's told to trust the adults in his life that have thrust him into a box that is impossible to maintain. The way he's always been told 'This is who you are. This is who you will be.'

how It wasn't his choice.

How he's so jealous of his care free best friend who doesn't exist in his world, who will never know quite what it's like. It reminds me of being a girl and watching my guy friends just not understand.

How they are free to fuck up. How the phrase 'boys will be boys' sticks to them like putty, and molds to any situation to justify them. That's their lot in life.

While this constant anxiety, looking over your shoulder, running from vultures... that's yours.

i don't know. It's something about Fitz Vacker being girl coded that just gets to me.

[icycoldninja]

*kicks down ask box* WELL WELL WELL, IT APPEARS WE HAVE TOO MUCH HAPPINESS HERE O’ QUEEN OF ANGST~! Time to absolutely fix this >:3

Ehem! My request be but the simplest kind: Rough Angst Headcanons that you wanted to talk about or can see being a thing for your fave character~ I initially wanted to request something that’s on the much darker and heavier side of life but… well come back to that one a lil later~

As always, love ya work :3c

Thank you 💜💜💜 thing is I have so many favorite characters it's impossible to choose. Ah well, most of them have been done anyway. Let's go with Genesis.

Angsty Genesis headcannons

-Genesis is probably the loneliest character in the game, always wanting to talk about his interests, but no one wants to hear it.

-His "friends" find him annoying, and while he pretends he doesn't know to try and save their dying relationship, Genesis is painfully aware of this. They don't like him anymore; can they even be called friends now?

-Things only get worse when his degradation begins as in addition to mental pain, Genesis is filled with physical pain.

-His whole body burns like it's on fire as each individual cell disintegrates before his eyes. It's a very painful way to go.

-He also has a constant fever and incurable fatigue that only seems to get worse the more he sleeps. He's miserable, constantly hungry, and pretty much running on fumes.

-Sometimes he does things he has no control over, such as killing his parents. He didn't want to do that, it was like his body moved on its own.

-Poor guy just wants to return to normal, but fate just doesn't want that to happen.

-All around him, his friends either die or turn on him--not that he's been of any help. He egged Sephiroth along, probably to get revenge for not paying him any mind when he wanted to talk about LOVELESS in the past--or maybe that was just his body functioning without him.

-He really does miss his parents. And Angeal. And Sephiroth. And Zack. Oh God. What has he done?

-He's not really evil, just misguided, sick, and tired; or perhaps all that stuff turned him evil. He doesn't know, he's too ill to know, so neither will we.

-His self centered nature probably stems from childhood neglect. His parents were rather wealthy, and the rich tend to forget their families, so this isn't too odd of an assumption.

-He has self esteem issues stemming from aforementioned childhood neglect as well as never being recognized for his efforts during the war. He worked hard too, why should Sephiroth have all the fame?

-All he really wants is to be loved, appreciated, and treated like an actual person, not some mindless zombie working for Shinra who is always seen as an irritating person that everyone seems to hate.

[undertale-fic-librarby]

hii so sorry if this is too vague or has been asked before, but do you have any recommendations for good error-centric long fics? im okay with any ships or genres, i just rlly like error 💔💔 tysm!

Howdy, thanks for asking! Here are some fics that might fit what you're looking for!

The Clot by DustyLynx (Explicit, Complete)

When did life start going downhill? Error couldn’t answer. He didn’t see his path as something to climb, which meant that there couldn’t be a slope going downhill. He saw life as black and straight, running across the blank emptiness of the Void. No rising, no falling. Just a sequence of events that leaves new scars on bones. Endless battles on the way to the outcome — routine. Madness — the truth of life. Not to mention this pregnancy — unwanted, hateful and painful.

Errors (Spiteful) Holiday by Finally_Free, little_clown, PappyIsTheBest (Not Rated, Complete)

The story is also called; I don’t want too, so I shan’t. Error has had enough. He didn't choose this, he does NOT want this responsibility. and on top of that, he feels like he is missing something. Missing memories - he can't even remember his past. Nothing past arriving in the blank Anti-Void. The dreams won't leave him alone, Thinking about them give him headaches And 'Fate's Harpies' aka the voices are still bugging him when he's in the Anti-void... So he decides to go on strike. He's taking a holiday from destroying AU's; no matter the consequences to the Multiverse. Its a Reaper/Error/Nightmare Poly. (Chapter 1 & 2 rewritten on: 11/02/2021)

*OLD VERSION* Healing What Has Been Broken by Harrish6 (Teen And Up, Complete)

Error is the destroyer, Ink is the creator. Both Gods in their own right. They are the balance in their Multiverse, making sure that their Multiverse did not fall apart at the seams. If Error was able to destroy all the AU's, then there would be nothing left. The universe that they live in would just cease to exist if that happened. If Ink was able to continue to create with no one to stop him, then the AU's would collide and destroy one another. The universe would crumble and decay as they touch, as there is no more room to grow in. Error knew this well. Ink did not. Error was broken. He had nothing in the end. He had no friends, no family. He called for help, for anyone to save him from his own madness. But no one came. He fell into the void to be scattered across time and space. But he did not scatter, he traveled through time and space. Error landed in a new Multiverse. By the time Error's universe knew what they did wrong and the truth of the matter, their universe was falling apart and they had to get back Error. But they hit a big roadblock when they finally found Error. This universe would not let Error go without a fight.

Reborn [Error!Sans fanfic] [Fgod] by 3KainNyah (Teen And Up, Incomplete)

Error is the (forced) god of destruction, Ink is the god of creation. Both are needed to keep the balance, but while one is loved the other is hated. Ink together with the judges elaborated a plan to finally stop Error. A deadly trap. Impossible to escape even for the feared destroyer. But someone is not following the plan. Things get out of control. Error gets out of control. Although things don't go exactly as planed, and the results are more chaotic than they should. It still worked. Error was finally gone. Lost into the VOID, scattering across time and space. But someone had their eyes on the broken destroyer for a long time, and they were waiting for this moment. Now they can finally act. And take care of their chosen child.... Error woke up at the sound of his own crying. What? What's this sound? Why can't he speak? Wait, where is he? Why can't he get up? ...Uh? Why is he... so small?...what happened to him?_________________________________ This story is inspired by 'Healing what has been broken' by harrish6. - fgod Error concept belongs to harrish6 - Undertale belongs to Toby Fox (Also available on Wattpad)

Careless Whisper by cheeseyfries (Explicit, Incomplete)

Error didn’t mean to fall, but here he was, in a multiverse entirely not of his own. Confused and outright a tad pissed, Error continues on his journey and meets many familiar faces. However, what will he do when he sparks the interest of the world’s most notorious mafia gang? Making a deal with the devil is dangerous, but who said Error was scared? [F!God created by Harrish6, check out their works!]

[longitudinalwaveme]

I Diagnose Basically Every Flash Villain

For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to organize the Flash villains by symptom type.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (commonly referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder)

Rose and Thorn: Rose Canton, has two alters, the mild-mannered Rose and the villainous Thorn. Since she is a Golden Age character, we know relatively little about her life experiences prior to becoming Rose and Thorn, so it's impossible to say if her Dissociative Identity Disorder stems from childhood trauma (as it often does in real life). The fact that most of her appearances are in Golden Age comics that I haven't personally read means that I'm also not certain how her alters presented themselves, though from what little I know of the character, it doesn't appear that either of her alters was unaware of the other. Nor did either of her personalities appear to experience amnesia during the period when the other was in control (though this is not a diagnostic trait of the disorder). It seems likely that the Rose personality was the original one, and that the Thorn personality developed later, and it is also clear that Rose was very distressed by the actions of her alter---so much so that she would ultimately commit suicide in order to prevent Thorn form harming her children, Jade and Obsidian. I am also not sure if her alters are able to "talk" to one another like Harvey Dent and Two-Face can, although what little I have read of her seems to suggest that they are not able to do this.

Mr. Element/Dr. Alchemy: Albert Desmond has three alters: Albert Desmond, Mr. Element, and Dr. Alchemy. According to Flash vol. 1 #216 ("The Curse of the Dragon's Eye!"), neither Dr. Alchemy nor Mr. Element manifested until Albert turned twenty, meaning that Albert is undoubtedly the original personality. The two malevolent alters emerged as a response to what I can only assume were chemical alterations in Albert's brain, produced by his body's sensitivity to the fluctuations of a distant, pulsating star. This is ridiculous, of course, but if we accept the rules of comic book physics, I suppose it's not too unreasonable to assume that the pulsating star could have affected his brain in such a way that it produced the symptoms of DID.

Albert's situation is also further complicated by the second Dr. Alchemy, Alvin Desmond, who was initially stated to be Albert's astral twin, but was later revealed to be Albert's darker impulses, given life and independence by the Philosopher's Stone. This obviously has no real-world parallel, but, again accepting the bizarre physics of the DC universe, it wouldn't be totally illogical to surmise that Alvin is one of Albert's alters (given their relative behavior, probably Mr. Element) given physical form.

In addition to not having its roots in childhood trauma, it is apparent that Albert does not have dissociative amnesia when his alters come to the fore; instead, he is usually presented as essentially watching in conscious horror as his alters run amuck. It is less clear to me what Dr. Alchemy and Mr. Element remember of the periods during which Albert is in control. Mr. Element treats Rita Desmond, Albert's wife, like his wife (he reacts angrily when he sees Barry Allen alone with her in Flash vol. 1 #216), but Dr. Alchemy either does not view himself as sharing this relationship to Rita or is so evil that he doesn't care if he hurts his wife, since he abandons her to die in Flash vol. 2 #230 ("The Fury of the Fire Demon!"---Barry saved her life).

Whichever alter was given physical form as Alvin clearly displayed signs of dissociative amnesia once he was given his own body, because, while Alvin is aware that he shares some sort of relationship with Albert, he believes himself to be an entirely separate person (which, at this point, he actually is!), rather than as Albert's alter.

Except when Alvin was literally an entirely separate individual, Albert's alters did not display the ability to "talk" to one another. This is something that some individuals with DID report experiencing in real life, and it is also found in Harvey Dent/Two-Face, but this was not a symptom that Albert displayed. Unlike Two-Face, in other words, the alters are never fronting at the same time.

That being said, Dr. Alchemy has displayed very few signs of Dissociative Identity Disorder in the past few years. Rather than two (or more) personalities fighting for control, there seems to be only one personality; one who could be classified as having Antisocial Personality Disorder. I suppose that it isn't outside the realm of possibility that the Dr. Alchemy we've seen from Geoff Johns' run onward is the Dr. Alchemy alter having taken full control over the shared body, and that the Albert alter is locked somewhere inside his mind, but since there's no indication of a struggle between personalities, it seems more likely to me that Geoff Johns was simply intending to retcon the character into a man with Antisocial Personality Disorder, but without DID.

Magenta: This is another case of two alters. The original personality, Frances Kane, suffered serious trauma when her brother and father were killed in a car crash, one that was the result of her powers kicking in for the very first time; trauma that was only compounded when her mother decided that she was possessed by the devil and disowned her. Wally West, who started dating her not long after the Teen Titans helped get her wild magnetic powers under control, further complicated things for Frances. Both Wally and Frances were suffering from both mental illness and the pressures of being a hero, and, as a result of this, their relationship was tumultuous and ended badly not long after Wally became the Flash.

While Frances' initial symptomology wasn't explored in great detail, it seemed that she subsequently struggled with PTSD-like symptoms as the result of the aforementioned trauma, and, as such, her teammates suggested that she get therapy. This sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately, the therapist that she ended up going to was evil, and used Frances' pre-existing symptoms to induce an alternate personality. The therapist then manipulated this new, more aggressive personality to commit crimes for her until Frances was rescued from this disgrace to the psychiatric profession by her fellow Teen Titans.

Unfortunately, the induced secondary personality didn't go away, and would continue to plague Frances and Wally for a long time---though as of 2016, Frances does seem to be in reasonably good mental health.

Frances is unique amongst the three villains with DID in that, while she had pre-existing trauma, her alter was iatrogenic rather than naturally-occurring. Dissociative Identity Disorder often comes under fire in real life for being a condition that it is easy for psychologists to intentionally or, more commonly, unintentionally induce in patients, so it actually is realistic for Magneta's DID to have been induced by a psychologist.

Neither Magenta nor Frances appears to suffer from dissociative amnesia when the other personality is fronting. They seem to share all of the same memories (especially where Wally is concerned); they simply interpret and react to those memories differently.

Magenta and Frances also do not appear to "talk" to one another; they do not co-front.

With all that being said, it is important to note that while basically all cases of Dissociative Identity Disorder in comics involve a "good" personality and an "evil" personality, this is not what one typically sees in real life. This makes it very difficult to figure out if the "good" alters would be found not guilty by reason of insanity in real life. In comic book terms, I have no doubt that all three of them would be sent to Arkham if they lived in Gotham, since comic book insanity has a very loose relationship with real insanity, but I'm actually not sure how cases like these would work in real life, since I'm not even sure if cases like these would be psychologically possible in real life. I will, however, say that they would probably be more likely to be found not guilty by reason of insanity than most versions of Two-Face, due to the fact that Harvey Dent and Two-Face sometimes co-front and argue with one another. This indicates that Harvey Dent could, theoretically, stop Two-Face's actions, and is therefore legally responsible for not doing so. In contrast, Albert, Frances, and Rose do not co-front with their malicious alter egos, and, in the cases of Albert and Frances at least, they immediately put a stop to any criminal activity the second they regain control of the shared body. Because the "good" alters are either fully in control or fully submerged, there's less sense that they share culpability for the actions of the evil alter(s)-especially since there are currently no drugs that exist to treat the main symptom of Dissociative Identity Disorder (namely, the existence of alters), and we know Frances at least seeks out therapy pretty regularly in spite of her very bad initial experience with psychiatry.

Psychotic Symptoms

Murmur (Dr. Michael Christian Amar): Murmur's exact diagnosis is never specified, but given what we're told of his symptoms (auditory hallucinations which instructed him to murder people and cut out their tongues in order to make them quiet; killing at least twelve and possibly up to fifty people; cutting out his own tongue after a nervous tic caused him to incriminate himself on the stand) strongly implies that he's supposed to have Schizophrenia (since most writers aren't aware of the fact that Schizophrenia is not the only mental illness that can include psychotic symptoms). The nervous tic could be another psychotic symptom, but it could also be evidence of a tic disorder, like Tourette's; it's quite common for a person with one mental illness to have more than one. (For example, I have both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder.) And, of course, given the sheer number of people Murmur killed, it's very likely that he would also be diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder, especially since he displays no remorse over any of the deaths.

If Murmur was in Gotham, he would definitely be sent to Arkham Asylum, since the only prerequisite to being declared insane in Gotham appears to be displaying a flagrant symptom of a mental illness, but in Central City, he was not declared insane---and that's actually almost assuredly what would happen in real life, as well. While it is possible that he could be declared not guilty under the "irresistible impulse" definition of insanity, most court systems in the United States currently use a variation of the "M'Naghten rule", which defines insanity as a person who is so impaired by their mental illness that they were unaware that what they were doing would constitute a crime. For example, a person with schizophrenia hallucinated that their next-door neighbor was about to stab them with a knife, and then killed that person in what they honestly believed to be self-defense, would probably be found not guilty by reason of insanity under this definition, but someone like Murmur, who murdered people because hallucinatory voices told him to shut them up, would probably not be considered legally insane. In effect, the law treats a person who kills someone because hallucinatory voices told them to in the same way it would treat a person who killed someone because their drinking buddy told them to: in both cases, they knew that they were breaking the law by murdering the person, and they did it anyway.

Depending on how psychotic Murmur was while committing his crimes, he might also be declared guilty but mentally ill, which would basically mean that he would be sent to a mental institution until such time as he was no longer psychotic, and would then be transferred to a regular penal institution to serve out the rest of his sentence. Either way, though, as Barry Allen said in The Flash: Iron Heights (2001), "A "nervous tic" [or a hallucinatory voice, for that matter] doesn't force someone to cut people's tongues out, Mr. Cossi. It doesn't make them insane---or absolve them of their actions." So uh....yeah. Congratulations to Central City's justice system for knowing the actual definition of insanity.

Pied Piper (Hartley Rathaway): Towards the end of Barry Allen's run, the Pied Piper ran a fairly extensive campaign to ruin his foe's life----but, as his scheme went on, it became increasingly apparent that he wasn't emotionally stable. He was very agitated and on edge, and, when his plans ultimately failed, he had a full-on mental breakdown. He openly hallucinated, engaged in behavior that was very unusual for him, and seemed to display some degree of avolition and disorganized speech as well. In other words, he experienced a psychotic episode, and, unsurprisingly, the comic itself stated that he was suffering from "a classic case of borderline schizophrenia" (Flash vol. 1 #339, "Warday!"). This is a term that was once used to describe the combination of borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia, and, since the comic in question was published in the 1980s, it isn't surprising that it would use outdated terminology.

In effect, then, the comic is telling us that Pied Piper suffers from schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder.

According to the DSM-5, the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder include at least five of the following symptoms:

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment; this does not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in criterion 5

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

Markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (eg, spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating) [5] ; this does not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in criterion 5

Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (eg, intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

Chronic feelings of emptiness

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (eg, frequent displays of temper, constant anger, or recurrent physical fights)

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

And...yeah, that actually does sound a lot like the Pied Piper, especially prior to his reform. And, since the treatment Piper received for his nervous breakdown was, ultimately, successful in curing him of his psychotic episode, maybe it helped him to deal with some of his broader symptoms of borderline personality disorder as well, and that's part of why he became nicer and chose to reform around the time Wally became the Flash.

However, I don't think the schizophrenia diagnosis is applicable in this case. While schizophrenia is the most well-known psychotic disorder, it isn't the only one that can induce psychotic symptoms, and it's rare for a person with schizophrenia to experience only one psychotic episode. Since the Pied Piper's breakdown was brief and appeared to be the result of stress, and he didn't seem to display any residual symptoms after he recovered (at least after the initial Kadabra-impersonating-Reverse-Flash-induced relapse), I think it's more likely that Pied Piper was suffering from a different psychotic disorder---perhaps Brief Psychotic Disorder---or from a mood disorder accompanied by psychotic symptoms.

That being said, after Pied Piper went through the trauma conga line of having his parents murdered, being hypnotized into believing he was responsible, being sent to prison, getting abused by the warden, going on the run, joining the FBI, having the Top mess with his mind, going undercover on a mission that went disastrously wrong and resulted in the death of Bart Allen, being chased all over the DCU by everyone, watching the Trickster get shot in front of him, and then having to drag the Trickster's corpse around a desert, he understandably had another psychotic episode and started to hallucinate that the Trickster's dead body was talking to him. But once again, the psychotic episode seemed to be pretty brief, and he was somehow able to recover without many noticeable residual symptoms---which, again, seems to point away from Schizophrenia. Again, I do think he has either some kind of psychotic disorder or a mood disorder with psychotic symptoms in addition to the BPD, but I don't think it's Schizophrenia.

So, would the Pied Piper have been sent to Arkham before he reformed? It's hard to say. Just wearing a costume isn't sufficient to get you sent to Arkham (Catwoman and Black Mask aren't sent there), but I can't rule it out as a possibility even before his initial psychotic episode, especially given how emotionally unstable he was as a villain---and, since Gotham either has a completely different set of standards for insanity or is just so corrupt that all the costumed criminals can bribe the courts to get them declared insane, that emotional instability might have been enough.

In the story from the 1980s, it appears that Pied Piper was probably deemed incompetent to stand trial, since he was sent to a psychiatric hospital immediately upon his arrest. Presumably, he was tried for the crimes he had committed in the period leading up to his mental breakdown after he had recovered, though this was never directly stated anywhere due to the chaos surrounding Crisis on Infinite Earths. This is all reasonably consistent with what we might expect in real life. His second mental breakdown came after he had reformed, and as such there wouldn't really be a need for a trial in that case (since presumably the FBI had him legally cleared for breaking prison when they hired him).

The Top (Roscoe Dillon): Roscoe Dillon suffered from a very long period of psychosis, one which lasted from Flash vol. 2 #121 to Flash vol. 2 #216. The psychotic break was heavily suggested to be the result of trauma, but, thanks to retcons, there are two contradictory explanations for what the initial trauma was. When Roscoe's psychotic break initially happened, it was clearly implied that he had gone insane as the result of being attacked by the soulless bodies of the Rogues who had died in Underworld Unleashed, but, in Flash vol. 2 #215, Geoff Johns retconned things so that Dillon had been psychotic since before Barry Allen died in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and that he his psychotic break had occurred as a direct result of Zatanna brainwashing him into being good. Notably, when Wally has Zatanna "fix" the brainwashing, Roscoe is immediately presented as being sane again.

In terms of symptomology, Roscoe displayed signs of hallucinations, delusions, strange behavior (in spite of usually being rather fastidious, he seemed unable to maintain basic hygiene during the course of his long psychotic episode) and disorganized speech. There's no doubt that he was suffering from psychosis, but, as underlined previously, that doesn't automatically equate to schizophrenia, which means we need to look at the context clues in order to determine what the most likely diagnosis would be.

Schizophrenia is, of course, a possibility. Unlike the Pied Piper, whose psychotic episodes were both relatively brief, the Top's psychosis lasted for what seemed to be at least a few in-universe years. That being said, the rather rapid onset of his psychosis and his seemingly immediate and complete recovery upon being un-brainwashed would both be somewhat unusual in schizophrenia, and, while his psychotic episode was very long, there isn't really any evidence of him having had any previous---or subsequent--- psychotic episodes. Of course, it's quite likely that Geoff Johns was intending for the Top to have schizophrenia (since that's the only psychotic disorder most writers know about) and just didn't realize that the symptoms he was having the character present weren't especially consistent with it, but in the spirit of the initial post, I will take the symptoms as signs that might indicate a disorder other than schizophrenia (other than the ubiquitous diagnosis of "comic book crazy", which is probably the true diagnosis of most comic book characters with a mental illness).

And if I had to diagnosis The Top with a specific mental illness (other than Antisocial Personality Disorder, which wouldn't explain his psychotic episode), it would probably be Bipolar 1 Disorder, and my reasoning for this is primarily based on his very first appearance, in Flash vol. 1 #122 ("Beware the Atomic Grenade!"). In order to be diagnosed with Bipolar 1 disorder, a person must experience at least one manic episode---and, while it was absolutely not the author's intent, the behavior the Top displays in that issue is surprisingly consistent with the behavior one might expect in a manic episode. He displays an unusually elevated mood (he's much more giggly and unrelentingly cheerful in his first issue than he is in all his subsequent appearances, and he doesn't even seem upset when the Flash carts him off to jail), he displays mood-congruent delusions of grandeur (deciding that succeeding in a few robberies means that he'll definitely be able to take over the world, and also apparently believing that he can blow up half the world and be safe on the other side), he seems to display at least some flight of ideas, he seems unusually driven even by supervillain standards ("One coup after another! Can't slow down while I'm at the top of my form!"), he's extremely talkative (admittedly, the Top does like the sound of his own voice, but talking to himself for like a full page is a bit much even for him), and his attempt to take over the world is much riskier than any crime he commits after this initial appearance, suggesting a degree of impaired judgement.

Again, this was not intentional on the part of the writer, but if we take his first appearance as as The Top having a manic episode, then Roscoe's subsequent psychotic break could in turn be attributed to another mood episode, this one with psychotic features. More specifically, since his psychotic break was the result of trauma of some sort, I would hypothesize that it was either a depressive or mixed-mood episode with psychotic features.

Would the Top be sent to Arkham if he were in Gotham? Absolutely. He's clearly mentally ill, and that's all you need to be declared insane in Gotham. In the real world, he would almost assuredly not be declared insane, since his mental illness doesn't impair his judgement to the extent that he doesn't realize he's committing crimes---and, indeed, since we saw him in the state prison, and then in Iron Heights, it's clear that he wasn't declared insane in Central City either.

That being said, I am somewhat surprised that he was found competent to stand trial after Flash vol. 1 #121, since he was very obviously both psychotic and incoherent when he was arrested, and didn't seem to be any more put together when we next saw him in Iron Heights.

Zoom (Hunter Zolomon): Hunter Zolomon has had a ton of trauma in his life. He grew up with parents who barely ever spoke to him, on the day he was going to leave home for college, his father murdered his mother and was then killed by the police (and he also learned that his father was a serial killer), and, as the result of making a bad call while on a case for the FBI, he was shot in the knee and his father-in-law was killed in front of him. And then, to top it all off, his wife divorced him and he was fired from the FBI. In short, while it wasn't explicitly shown before he became Zoom, I'm pretty sure that Hunter was at least dealing with some PTSD-like symptoms before he even moved to the Twin Cities; and, while I'm not sure he was clinically depressed, he definitely seemed to have some depressive symptoms.

Then, as if all that wasn't enough, he was eventually attacked by Gorilla Grodd, who broke his back and left him paralyzed from the waist down, and when he asked his friend Wally West to go back in time and fix things for him, Wally refused (understandably, but it was still clearly a blow to Hunter) . And if that STILL wasn't enough, when he broke into the Flash Museum to try to use the Cosmic Treadmill himself, it blew up in his face and he ended up in the hospital again.

In addition to the never-ending trauma, Flash vol. 2 #197 also seem to indicate that the time powers Hunter gained as a result of the Cosmic Treadmill exploding in his face negatively affected his mind.

As such, it isn't especially surprising that Hunter started displaying symptoms of psychosis, including delusions and hallucinations (which seemed to draw on PTSD-like flashbacks). Again, there are a number of diagnoses that could be responsible for this psychotic episode, but I would say that the most likely is Major Depressive Disorder with psychotic features. In addition to the depressive symptoms he displayed both throughout his life and more prominently after Grodd broke his back, there's also a distinct suicidal undertone to his attacks on Wally, since his idea of making Wally a "better hero" pretty explicitly includes getting Wally to kill him.

If Zoom was in Gotham, he would be sentenced to Arkham Asylum. Once again, he's clearly mentally ill, and in Gotham, that's all you need to be declared insane. On the other hand, I'm genuinely not sure if he would be able to successfully plead insanity in the real world. While he seems to be aware of the fact that he's committing crimes on some level, his delusional belief that he is "helping" Wally is so strong that it really does seem like there might be a genuine question as to whether he recognizes that his acts are objectionable---though him being found guilty but mentally ill might still be more likely. Although given how openly psychotic he is---and appears to remain---I think that he might be found incompetent to stand trial altogether.

Pyromania (and Cryophobia)

Heat Wave (Mick Rory): The classic version of Heat Wave would be diagnosed with a simple phobia---specifically, cryophobia, a fear of the cold that's so overwhelming it negatively impacts your day-to-day life. As with many phobias, Mick's fear of the cold stems from a traumatic childhood experience; specifically, when he was nine years old, he accidentally closed himself inside of a meat locker and nearly froze to death before he managed to get out. This, obviously, would not get him declared insane, even in Gotham. Probably.

However, when Geoff Johns elaborated on Heat Wave's backstory in Flash vol. 2 #218, he established/retconned in that Heat Wave also suffers from pyromania, a much more severe mental illness.

According to the DSM-5, the criteria for being diagnosed with pyromania are as follows:

The person deliberately and purposefully sets fires on more than one occasion.

He or she experiences tension or affective arousal before the act.

The individual has a fascination with or attraction to fire.

He or she feels pleasure, gratification, or relief when setting fires, witnessing fires, or participating in their aftermath.

The fire setting is not done for monetary gain, as an expression of sociopolitical ideology or anger, to conceal criminal activity, to improve one’s living circumstances, in response to a delusion or hallucination, or as a result of impaired judgment.

The fire setting is not better or reasonably explained by a manic episode or other disorder.

Johns' Mick displays every single one of these symptoms; he is, in fact, a textbook pyromaniac. This would, naturally, be sufficient to send him to Arkham (Firefly is one of the patients there, after all), but it would probably not be enough to get him declared insane in real life, unless he was tried in a jurisdiction that used the "irresistible impulse" definition of insanity. He might be declared guilty but mentally ill, though.

Substance Abuse

A lot of the Rogues have been shown drinking alcohol or smoking, but there's really only three villains where I think there's sufficient evidence to suggest that they actually have a substance abuse disorder.

Captain Boomerang: According to the DSM-5, in order for an individual to qualify for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse disorder, at least two of the following symptoms must be met:

Drinking more alcohol or over a longer period than originally intended.

Unsuccessfully trying to cut down or control alcohol use.

Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use alcohol. (Wanting a drink so much it’s difficult to think of anything else)

Drinking that interferes with responsibilities at home, at work, or at school.

Continuing to use alcohol even when it causes problems with family and friends.

Giving up important social, occupational, or recreational activities because of alcohol use.

Repeatedly using alcohol in physically hazardous situations.

Developing a tolerance to alcohol (needing more alcohol to get the same effect).

Experiencing withdrawal symptoms such as shakiness, restlessness, nausea, or sweating after stopping or reducing drinking.

Given how often Digger is shown drinking or getting drunk, I think it's fair to say that he qualified for the diagnosis.

During Ostrander's Suicide Squad run, Digger was also identified as having Antisocial Personality Disorder; specifically, he was described as a low-functioning sociopath. Given the behavior Digger regularly displays, I think that diagnosis is quite accurate.

Obviously, though, antisocial personality disorder and alcohol abuse disorder are not enough to get someone declared not guilty by reason of insanity, not even in Gotham. Even if he decided to move to Gotham, Digger wouldn't have to worry about Arkham Asylum.

Mirror Master I (Samuel Scudder): In order to be diagnosed with Tobacco Use Disorder, an individual must display at least two of the following 12 symptoms within a 12-month period:

Tobacco is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended.

There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control tobacco use.

A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain or use tobacco.

Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use tobacco.

Recurrent tobacco use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home (e.g. - interference with work).

Continued tobacco use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of tobacco (e.g. - arguments with others about tobacco use).

Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of tobacco use.

Recurrent tobacco use in situations in which it is physically hazardous (e.g. - smoking in bed).

Tobacco use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by tobacco.

Tolerance, as defined by either of the following:

A. A need for markedly increased amounts of tobacco to achieve the desired effect.

B. A markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of tobacco.

Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:

A. The characteristic withdrawal syndrome for tobacco (refer to Criteria A and B of the criteria set for tobacco withdrawal).

B. Tobacco (or a closely related substance, such as nicotine) is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.

Given that Flash vol. 1 #146 establishes that Sam smokes four cigarettes an hour, and the fact that he was shown smoking more than any other Flash villain, I think that it's safe to say he qualifies for this diagnosis.

There's also a good case to be made that Scudder has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. In order to be diagnosed with NPD, an individual must display at least 5 of the 9 following symptoms:

a grandiose sense of self-importance

a preoccupation with fantasies of success, power, beauty, or perfect love

a belief that they are "special" and can only be understood by other special people

a need for excessive admiration

a sense of entitlement, which may include an unreasonable expectation to be treated favorably or for others to comply with their demands and expectations

behavior that is exploitative and takes advantage of others to achieve their own ends

a lack of empathy or an unwillingness to identify with the needs of others

a tendency to be envious of others or a belief that others are envious of them

arrogance, haughty behaviors, and attitudes.

Scudder's pretty much 9 for 9 here. Who would have guessed that a guy who named himself "Mirror Master" would be a narcissist?

Neither NPD nor a cigarette addiction would be sufficient to have someone declared insane in the real world, but, given the precedent set by the Riddler....NPD might be enough in Gotham. Granted, Riddler is sometimes also portrayed as having OCD, and thus an irresistible impulse to leave clues, but still.....

Mirror Master II (Evan McCulloch): Famously, Evan McCulloch is addicted to cocaine. Since cocaine is a stimulant, that would mean that he would be diagnosed with stimulant use disorder.

That being said, McCulloch's issues extend far beyond the cocaine addiction, and, in many ways, the addiction seems to be just another symptom of a larger problem.

As established in Flash vol. 2 #212, Evan has lived through a lot of traumatic experiences, including accidentally killing his father, finding his mother dead from suicide, and being sexually assaulted by an older boy in the orphanage where he grew up (before killing that kid in self-defense). That, naturally, raises the possibility of a diagnosis of PTSD, the criteria for which are as follows:

Criterion A (1 required): The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in the following way(s):

Direct exposure

Witnessing the trauma

Learning that the trauma happened to a close relative or close friend

Indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, medics)

Criterion B (1 required): The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced, in the following way(s):

Unwanted upsetting memories

Nightmares

Flashbacks

Emotional distress after exposure to traumatic reminders

Physical reactivity after exposure to traumatic reminders

Criterion C (1 required): Avoidance of trauma-related stimuli after the trauma, in the following way(s):

Trauma-related thoughts or feelings

Trauma-related reminders

Criterion D (2 required): Negative thoughts or feelings that began or worsened after the trauma, in the following way(s):

Inability to recall key features of the trauma

Overly negative thoughts and assumptions about oneself or the world

Exaggerated blame of self or others for causing the trauma

Negative affect

Decreased interest in activities

Feeling isolated

Difficulty experiencing positive affect

Criterion E (2 required): Trauma-related arousal and reactivity that began or worsened after the trauma, in the following way(s):

Irritability or aggression

Risky or destructive behavior

Hypervigilance

Heightened startle reaction

Difficulty concentrating

Difficulty sleeping

Criterion F (required): Symptoms last for more than 1 month.

Criterion G (required): Symptoms create distress or functional impairment (e.g., social, occupational).

Criterion H (required): Symptoms are not due to medication, substance use or other illness.

More specifically, Evan's PTSD appears to be of the dissociative variety, since he does seem to display signs of what's known as derealization (persistent or recurrent experiences of unreality of surroundings, e.g., the world around the individual is experienced as unreal, dreamlike, distant, or distorted) even when he's not actively using cocaine.

In addition to the cocaine use and PTSD, there's also an argument to be made for McCulloch having Antisocial Personality Disorder.

I'm pretty sure McCulloch would be sent to Arkham Asylum if he lived in Gotham, more due to the PTSD and associated dissociation than the cocaine use, but I don't think he'd be declared insane in real life. Maybe he might be declared guilty but mentally ill if he was in one of his particularly weird phases, but he's way too cognizant of his actions to be considered legally insane.

Dissociative Disorder

Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash (Eobard Thawne): In addition to the really, very, extremely obvious Antisocial Personality Disorder, I think that Eobard Thawne has experienced at least two dissociative episodes in his life. Specifically, during the Return of Barry Allen storyline, when a young Eobard Thawne traveled through time to visit Barry Allen, the stresses of time travel, combined with the shock that learning that he was the Reverse-Flash and that his idol would one day kill him, Eobard entered a state of dissociative fugue, losing his memories of his past life and then taking on the name and identity of Barry Allen. His memories eventually returned when Wally West confronted him with his Reverse-Flash costume, but when he subsequently returned back to his native time after being soundly thrashed by Wally, the stress of time travel induced partial dissociative amnesia; he completely forgot about his first trip to the past and would never remember it.

Eobard is also a creepy, obsessive stalker to both Barry and Iris Allen, but to a large extent that's probably attributable to his ASPD.

In the real world, dissociative amnesia of the sort Eobard displayed, where he still clearly has the memories of all of his most heinous crimes, would not be at all sufficient to get someone declared legally insane, and, of course, neither would ASPD. That being said, given the way that Gotham treats the Joker, and the similarities between Eobard and the Joker, I have this horrible feeling that Gotham would totally send Eobard to Arkham.

Personality Disorders

Personality Disorders alone are not sufficient to get someone declared legally insane in real life, but since Gotham's legal system seems to operate under its own totally unrelated definition of insanity, I unfortunately have to go through all the characters with personality disorders anyway.

Blacksmith (Amunet Black): Blacksmith has Antisocial Personality Disorder, but Gotham wouldn't send her to Arkham. She's a lot like the Penguin, and he never gets sent to Arkham.

Gorilla Grodd: Grodd also has Antisocial Personality Disorder, and if he was in Gotham and for some reason couldn't be extradited back to Gorilla City, he'd probably end up getting sent to Arkham under the "Clayface/Mr. Freeze" rule, which states that Arkham is apparently the only penal facility in Gotham capable of housing the more physically abnormal inmates.

Abra Kadabra: Abra Kadabra definitely has Narcissistic Personality Disorder; he's even more of a showboat than Sam Scudder. I get the feeling that he'd probably end up in Arkham because of his flamboyance and obsessive need for applause.

Girder: ASPD. He'd end up in Arkham under the "Clayface/Mr. Freeze" rule.

Golden Glider: I think a case can be made for Golden Glider having Paranoid Personality Disorder. In order to be a diagnosed with PPD, an individual must display at least four of the following symptoms:

Suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving them.

Is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates.

Is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against them.

Reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events.

Bears grudges persistently, being unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights. 

Perceives attacks on their character or reputation that are not apparent to others and quickly reacts angrily or counterattacks. 

Has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner.

Does not occur exclusively during the course of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depressive disorder with psychotic features, or another psychotic disorder, and is not attributable to the physiological effects of another medical condition. 

Golden Glider became a supervillain specifically to get revenge on Barry Allen for the death of the Top, so she certainly meets the "bearing grudges" criteria. In Flash vol. 1 #261-264, she reacts angrily to being administered a psychological evaluation and treats it as a personal attack, which would seem to meet a few of the diagnostic criteria, and she certainly reacts violently to any perceived threats. Furthermore, in Flash vol. 2 Annual #1, Golden Glider accuses Captain Boomerang, Weather Wizard, and Trickster of having blown the whistle on her without any apparent evidence, and in her debut issues, Flash vol. 1 #250-251, we also saw that she was willing to pre-emptively knock out her brother and leave him to the police in order to ensure that he wouldn't try to interfere with her revenge plans. This, combined with her experiences as a child with an abusive father, a frequently-absent mother, and a brother who ultimately left her alone with her father, makes for a pretty good argument for at least some level of paranoia.

Would Golden Glider be sent to Arkham? I'm inclined to say yes, if only because the sheer intensity of her rage. Which, given her reaction to the proposed psychological tests, would probably just make her even angrier.

The Character With No Clear Mental Illness Who Would be Sent to Iron Heights Purely on the Basis of the "Clayface/Mr. Freeze Rule"

Tarpit (Joey Monteleone): Joey doesn't seem to have any mental illnesses as such, but the fact that he's a giant flaming tar monster means that he'd probably get sent to Arkham by default if he lived in Gotham.

Characters I'm Pretty Sure Wouldn't Be Sent to Arkham

Captain Cold (Leonard Snart): Len doesn't have any clear mental illnesses at all (maaaybe you could make an argument for PTSD or alcohol abuse, but that seems like a stretch), and he's so pragmatic that even Gotham would send him to Blackgate with no questions asked.

Weather Wizard (Mark Mardon): He's moody, and does seem to have occasional flashbacks to his brother's death, but there's nothing in particular that I can pinpoint for him. He doesn't really get as much focus as you would expect. And he's not quite weird or flamboyant enough to get sent to Arkham.

Trickster I (James Jesse): Unlike his television adaptations, James is neither psychotic (as in the DCAU) or psychopathic (as in the 90s show and the CW show). Weirdly, he might still get sent to Arkham anyway, if only because of how much he plays up the wacky screwball angle and how bad Gotham is at understanding mental health.

Trickster II (Axel Walker): There's a definite argument to be made for Conduct Disorder, but Axel's effectively just a teenaged punk. Even Gotham wouldn't send him to Arkham. Probably. I hope.

Gotham seems convinced that anyone with a clown theme is insane, though, so who knows.

Peek-a-Boo (Lashawn Baez): Arguably some trauma and depressive symptoms, especially after she was abused at Iron Heights and her father died, but nothing that would get her sent to Arkham.

Fallout (Neil Borman): Again, I can't rule out PTSD or depressive symptoms, given the horrible way his family died and the equally horrible way Warden Wolfe used him to power Iron Heights, but he doesn't do anything sufficiently weird or violent for him to get sent to Arkham.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

@intertexts BEHOLD. NEW HAVEN WARDS: THE WIBBY AND DAVID DYNAMIC ESSAY. this got way too fucking long 2 put in ur inbox so im making a post about it. ENJOY THE STICK FIGURE VIOLENCE <3

okay im just gonna start from the beginnign here and try not to get too sidetracked as i go (<< me when i lie) um. so. still not entirely clear on what williams trigger event would be so that may change how some of this works out logistics wise. but just assuming it would be SOMEWHAT similar to pd- william dies/has his near death experience and is Changed By It. in obvious ways that are impossible to hide. his parents find out because he had been missing for days and presumed dead so when he came back home covered in mud and dried blood and Different, everyone kind of broke down. they know about his powers from the start. william hates them (the powers, not his parents) but his dad especially has always been very supportive of capes and urges william to use them for something good! his mom, who has always grieved the lack of a relationship between her two sons, brings up the suggestion "hey, you know what! yeah! your older brother just so happens to live in a city with a really good cape population, maybe you can go live with him for a bit while you go to school <3" (<< this is also going off the assumption that the general public doesnt really. understand. capes much. his parents dont know theyre signing him up to be a child soldier and die before 40. they love him so much and just want the best for him- if they knew about all that they wouldve never even made the suggestion. but they see how much his powers are hurting him and theyre grieving the death of their youngest son who is still. awake and sitting in his bedroom. and i dont think any of them know how to deal with that)

william, not really having a place to argue from or another option to even consider, reluctantly agrees. hes too caught up in the fear and worry and unpredictability of his powers to even imagine himself as one of the heroes. but he goes anyway. and lives with david. its just as painfully icy as you imagine- david never signed up to be a permanent babysitter, i imagine theres a lot of. phonecalls overheard through the walls of his apartment of david on the phone with their mom asking if this was some sort of punishment. david spends all his time at his office and never takes time to even get to know william. he still takes care of him- he has the money for a penthouse apartment and keeps groceries stocked- but its not like theyre having cozy family meals every night. this does wonderful things for williams mental health obviously. which im sure makes his powers feel so much better (<< this is sarcasm). they dont talk much. obviously. william knows david works for/runs a branch of some tech company but thats about the extent of his knowledge and he never cares to ask further details than that. theres a little bit of resentment there on williams side (william wisp, known jealous petty little bitch- "i thought you were the first good thing to come out of deadwood"). david is someone who's important and has his life together and william is. in his own mind. a freak.

after joining the wards program and meeting dakota and virion and such. william IMMEDIATELY decides he is going to spend less and less and less time at davids place. and so the fucking. chasm between them grows. mutual good riddance. (they dont hate each other. theres just. not a whole lot of care there. but theyre still family, yknow?) and its just like. the BARE MINIMUM amount of contact. william stops by davids place to like. get stuff from his bedroom. uses davids apartment as storage for things he can't keep at the wards base (are teen superheroes allowed to smoke? i imagine that cant be good for their public image). so its not like they totally cut contact theres just. even less of it than there was before.

and then william learns about the SIGNIFICANT importance of keeping your cape and civilian identities separate. any villain who learns who you are behind the mask can be a threat to not only you but also your family. william, who loves his parents very much and knows they love him back, wants to protect them at all costs. conveniently, he doesn't live with his parents anymore. his current guardian just so happened to keep their mom's maiden name. so what does he do! bam. easy fix, change your last name to match with your brother. satisfies the heroes a little bit because its that extra step harder to connect william with people outside the city, AND its not suspicious on the civilian side either because. i mean he still matches surnames with his family. surely this will not come back to bite him (foreshadowing). i think it would be PERFECTLY in character and slimy for david to get a kick out of this name change btw. its been weeks since theyve spoken full sentences to each other but the next time william goes back to the apartment david is there at the kitchen table and just kind of laughs at the paperwork like "aw, little brother, i didn't realize you liked living with me that much. im flattered" etc. etc. eugh

behold! i can call him wibby now. awesome. so cool. anyway.

blahblah whatever whatever. im saying for au convenience david lives in new haven even though in pd canon he technically lives in freedom city. don't worry about it. HOWEVER. this becomes important. new haven wards are like?? vaguely sometimes in contact with the wards of the nearest settlement with a significant cape population- freedom city! this is alan, x, cantrip. I think they probably have like. fun friendly sparring matches sometimes (like the cage matches where they first met but like... legal. and mario kart!) but aren't close enough to be Friend Friends. freedom city wards uncover some shady underground company using illegal research (nhw equivalent of harttawa? dying 2 link this back to mark somehow bc im always thinking abt him but i KNOW u have plans for him already and im dying 2 know them) to give people artificial powers (connected to cauldron in some way but not obvious about it. ill explain this more in a minute) and guess who this gets linked back to. our one and only lovely wicked david bell. freedom city wards don't know williams connection to him since they wouldn't know his civ name. I don't think he would tell them. i also don't think they would actually TALK to David here like they do in canon, i think the heist goes a little more successfully and he's not actually physically THERE so all that happens is that they sneak in and see a bunch of files/papers. and william makes the connection with David's name and maybe picture. but the whole. killing a bunch of guards still happens. "its okay they're villains" etc. i don't know who would run freedom city wards program but they're more. loose about the rules than in new haven. which is why xavier and cantrip are Like That.

anyway on the way back to new haven william is REALLY shaken and dakota and virion obv pick up on that right away (i think they'd also know OF williams brother but not a lot of details bc he never talks about him.) william tells them that that was David and doesn't know what to do etc etc . I think he avoids the apartment for a looooot longer than he usually does because he doesn't want to accidentally run into David there and have to confront this. I think he's probably shell shocked by the idea a little- david is VERY MUCH against the hero program and doesn't like capes at all and is very vocal about that fact (this is pd canon too)!! why the fuck would he be working with the company that gives people powers and Makes More Capes! even though his mystery solving brain is going into overdrive thinking about the reasons and details and minutae of this discovery, william is also chronically avoidant of all his personal problems so i don't think he does any digging into it yet. until. well. the freedom city wards go missing

they on the other hand DID do a lot more digging into this. and david caught on to them and we end up with the scene in the basement . this is where I'm gonna get sidetracked bc there's a lot of information I'm thinking about at the beginning of all this

when william/vyncent/tide get there it's a very similar scene to in pd. x and cantrip are chained up, david has allen cut open on a table. william is. HORRIFIED. maybe even moreso than in pd.

x is even more immediately hostile to william when he and cantrip wake up because part of the information they uncovered in doing their own digging was the fact that david and william are related. and this pisses x off SO BAD because william never told them. and I think he uses wills secret identity against him and that's part of the reason william is SO DESPERATE to stop him. Just imagining that scene in the hallway at the beginning where they're screaming at each other and x just goes "that's your fucking *brother?* you're related to that monster and you never thought to, yknow, share that little bit of information with us?! william bell?????" and as soon as x says his name william just SNAPS and swings the axe at him .

anyway. back to the basement scene. david does his whole manipulative villain monologue with a scalpel to Allen's heart and we learn David is the head of an offshoot branch of cauldron (thinking about like maybe where they sell the vials to people under the guise of experimental medical treatment? for their own research purposes on how the vials affect people. real unethical shit! I feel like I need 2 learn more about cauldrons motivations before I set this in stone though) . anyway. we also learn here that david Has Fucking Powers. I don't know exactly what those would be right now but I think they would be pretty... inconsequential and at a really low power rating, but just that fact alone is enough for him to almost lose william completely.

this whole time william is just full of this icy dread and betrayal, but as SOON as david reveals he has powers that all just snaps to rage. comparable to that feeling where you've been bullied for something for years and then one day everyone decides that same thing is cool now. ("how long. how *long*, david? did you have these powers while you shunned me, sat on the phone with mom in the other room complaining about how much of a freak your little brother is? how *painfully sad* it is for you to share an apartment with the corpse of your baby brother, trying to get mom to pity you enough to take me back and get me out of your hair?")

and ofc david being who he is has some sort of slimy manipulation that saves his ass and gets william back on his side. tide and virion being there they immediately see right the FUCK through it but I think william would be compromised enough at that point that he wouldn't be thinking clearly enough to listen to them. (also side note . like I said I'm VERY undecided on what davids powers would actually be but the two ideas I've been bouncing back and forth are a) some kind of medical Thinker which is how he knows how to put allen back together the right way or b) some kind of Master which makes the manipulation thing worse <3. so maybe wibby is compromised bc davids using his powers on him. if it's the second option. smile!)

anyway wibby goes on his nightmare arc. right. even more fucked up bc of what x says to him about his identity. I actually think a lot of this stays the same but just with the addition of context and also the thing I said yesterday about the guards radioing to each other to evacuate.

everything happens pretty much the same with cantrip and he and virion getting back to the office only to find everything totally wiped clean already. william still does the Nightmare Thing in davids apartment afterward. still undecided in whether or not their parents will be there? I guess it depends on what we do with the trickster. (oh god I haven't even thought about the trickster irt new haven wards. fuck!) . I think actually I'm leaning more toward having them NOT being there? because I think william reigned himself in because he didn't want to scare them too much. and this is worm world i don't WANT wibby to reign himself in at all. I want him to go fucking nightmare apeshit.

btw this whole time? virion stays with him and it scares the SHIT out of him. he's still going to stay because ... this is william. this is his best friend (gay) and he HAS to trust that he knows what he's doing. I think afterward william stands up, david still unconscious on the floor, and there are silent tears streaming down his face and there's this expression of rage and betrayal and grief on his face that virion has NEVER seen on another person. so he reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder or maybe offer a hug (which in my mind is HUGE for him bc I've been imagining virion being SUPER careful and sort of avoidant about physical touch bc of his powers) but then william goes to brush his hand away as he walks out of the room and there's just the briefest moment of skin to skin contact. and it only lasts for maybe a second but virion gets this BURST of williams powers and it's terrifying. he can see and feel and hear and know *exactly* what william just did. it goes away almost immediately but the force of it is enough to throw virion off balance for a second as he processes it and when he comes to again he is just. shaking. and he doesn't say anything to william but he *knows* now and he doesn't know what to do with that information. hes scared out of his fucking mind but he's also. sad. he's REALLY fucking sad his best friend (gay) just had to do something like that. and he's not good with words so he doesn't say anything but he stays there. he stays by williams side despite everything. ughahhvhh

uhhhh final note. pain and suffering. william gets a whole Fucking Complex about sharing a name with david after this. but he still doesn't change it back to wisp because he knows x knows his identity now. which means he doesn't know how many other people could know, how many other people x will tell out of spite as a way to get back at him (<< william wisp paranoia WIN) and it's. LEAGUES better that any potential enemies would come after david and hurt david. (in fact he probably privately wishes for something like that to happen. hed never say that out loud though). using his name as a kind of shield even though it hurts like hell to be connected to his brother like that.

anyway! yeah! wisp-bell brothers torment nexus or whatever!

[urwendii]

Me: I will not write anymore.

Also me: 🤡

Set during Lara's time amongst the Remnants and before Jacob's identity reveal. Idk, hes tagging along her shenanigans i suppose.

Fandom: RoTB

Pairing: Jacob x Lara

Rating: G

Wordcount: 768

It is funny he thinks while watching Lara hangs one hand from a pole of rusty metal, her body agile like a cat, unheeding of the hold of gravity – That Jacob is the one with the immortal soul and the more-than-natural abilities while feeling overly human in his old skin, filled with flaws and regrets. She is human too, more than him anyway, and even if extraordinary by all standards, her physical abilities seemed to be the one truly Blessed by God.

His heart is in his throat when he watches her run along a narrow beam of rotten wood, jumping meters away and hoisting herself on the ridge from her ice axe alone. And she does this without breaking a sweat, wearing that ancient armour she has found in the Archives that triggers conflicting emotions from deep down his chest.

Jacob is probably one of the oldest beings on earth by now - aside from his former army stalking the old ruins of his Greatest Sin, he has seen miracles and feats deemed impossible turned into reality. To take him by surprise, ask of you to go beyond his millenium of existence, something that a few weeks until now, he would have been unsure to ever experience again.

And yet. And yet, Lara came barrelling into his life as if placed by the Hand of God Itself, dressed of stubbornness and clothed in a thrive - desperation - to survive he is all well acquainted with.

The path she is balancing on right now is as lethal as forgotten siberian trails can be when encased in blue ice but Lara is quick on her feet, and soon enough she has made it to the other side of the large river-made canyon where the ruins of a once mighty Byzantine building stood.

It is both strange in a way and eerily familiar to see how she blends with the surroundings. The weak winter sunlight peering through the cracks of the rocks above them turn her well-worn armour into a gilded silver beacon his eyes track over the roaring river between them.

He feels he should be praying for her safety - and he does, seeing her so certain and defiant of her own fragile mortality; something she has no idea at how precious it feels, only when one has lost its mantle does one truly comprehend the blessing of an ending. Still, Lara jumps and climbs and defeats all obstacles as if it was any other day's menial task, she goes and solves millenia old riddles and puzzles and unlocks mechanisms Jacob has thought their secrets lost to the flow of time and his caged memory.

"Jacob, you've got to see this!"

Her voice breaks through his musings, excitement tilting her accent even sharply. He hides a smile. For all his Faith and history as the Prophet, there is something queerly right in watching her unearthing religious relics and noble heirlooms.

The time of Kitezh has passed long ago, by his own foolish doings. To her, it is a legend, its history a marvel. She walks the ruins with eyes wide in wonder whereas Jacob only sees blood and death and his damnation. He has been idolised by thousands, has lived ostentatiously in clothes of silk, crowned with gold, spreading the words of God, rallying entire cities to his cult. When Kitezh was built he had been King if not in name and had lied and lied and cheated because the Divine Source isn't Divine, but it is Ancient and Knowing and it had ensnared this young greedy man he once had been. And for all his preaching, God forgives him, he had been too weak to end his folly.

There is nothing good in remembering his time amongst those ruins.

Until her that is. Lara waves at him from a miraculously still standing balcony, a golden chalice in the other hand and a smile that would have made entire armies bend the knee in supplication.

"Look at this Jacob. This is from Constantinople! Incredible." She goes on describing more history he has been witness to. Not that he can tell her. The place where his soul should ache and throbs in something that resembles a warning. He thinks of Sofia and Alya and many others lost to time.

He thinks of God and Mercy. He watches Lara bounces her way back amongst sharp rocks scattered amongst treacherous waters, perfect balance, almost a Divine dance. Like a priestess bringing salvation to a sinner, he hopes she can grant him that which he cannot have.

An ending and a respite. Jacob smiles at her, tiny and proud and starts plotting his own downfall.

[slashmagpie]

Blood & Snow

Pt. I

Directory: {Pt. II} {Pt. III} {Pt. IV} {Pt. V} {Pt. VI} {Pt. VII} {AO3}

Welcome to my @hermithorrorweek fic! I spent a while trying to figure out seven different fic concepts based on the prompt, and kept coming up blank, up until I decided to combine them all and write a single fic, with each prompt being the theme for a different chapter. Blood & Snow is the result, and at the time of posting it is not quite complete, but I'm excited to share it with you nonetheless. I'm hoping to post a chapter once per day, but later chapters may be delayed depending on how long it takes me to get them written. Some of this builds off concepts I played with in some of my earlier Decked Out 2 ficlets, which you can find in my writing tag. TWs for this chapter include: non-consensual body modification*, unreality*, panic attacks

I. GAME MECHANICS

Game design is simple, really.

Well, no, it’s difficult—but the principles behind it are simple. Make it fun. Make it challenging. Make it rewarding. 

Decked Out 2 is a game.

To be more precise, it’s a long-running, deck-building, dungeon-crawling game. It’s competitive. It has rewards—bragging rights, for one. Trophies, for another. If you win, you can get crowns, and buy things to make you more powerful, to make the game more fun. You get frost embers, which are used to build the deck, and—

Clank is Decked Out’s central mechanic. Trigger a shrieker, generate clank. Easy as that. Taking your artefact will also generate clank, because it angers the spirits of the dungeon. That’s another important thing about game design: atmosphere. Design. Having something that feels cohesive. So—no, max clank isn’t quite as dangerous as it should be, but very few mobs would work to replace the vex, because, well, they’re not the spirits of the dungeon, and—

Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. It used to be thirty, but that lined up with card draws, and the sound cues were hard to keep track of. So. Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. Hazard makes the dungeon more dangerous to traverse, by closing doors, raising pathways, and otherwise making certain routes more dangerous or downright impossible to cross. People underestimate hazard at first, but quickly find out that hazard kills. When clank maxes out, that turns into hazard too, because max clank wasn’t dangerous enough by itself, because the vexes aren’t doing their damn jobs—

There were two older systems that got replaced. Not a lot of people know that. Focus could be built up, would synergise with other cards, but it was just—it wasn’t working. It got reworked. No one would miss it. Delve was a difficulty setting, but it was dumb, just press a button to choose your difficulty, that works way better, and—

Game design is simple, really. 

Decked Out is not a game.

Had it ever been a game? In its first iteration, back in season seven, had it hungered the way it does now? Had it slept, slumbering beneath the earth, soaking in blood that would slowly, slowly bring it to life? When the idea had wormed its way into Tango’s head, a sequel—had that been his own thought? Does it matter if it was?

He’d certainly thought it was. Began drafting up plans, re-evaluating what he’d done in the past and putting better spins on them. Decked Out 2 would be huge, would be the biggest project he’d ever worked on, but it wouldn’t take that long. Surely.

…Thirteen months later, Decked Out 2 opened its doors.

Thirteen months. It had started as a hole, as many things do. A hole, a build, a plan, a citadel—Tango had thrown himself into it like he would with any huge project. And at first it had been—it had been a project. A build, a game. A giant hole filled with promise. A castle built in a week. Just Hermitcraft things. The usual.

When had it started? When he’d dug, and dug, for hours and hours upon end? When he’d carved jagged-looking scars into the landscape and dragged the citadel up from them? When he’d started building level one? When he’d begun assembling the redstone? When the ravagers and wardens began to roam its halls? When did Decked Out come alive?

…Had it always been alive?

Okay, better question: when did—

A frozen shard is placed into the barrel. The door lights up, sounds play. The door opens. The hermit—Joe?—begins to take off their armour and items and set up the game. A difficulty button is pressed. A shulker is placed into its slot. The cards begin to filter through the system. A minecart ride, and a pressure plate—

Decked Out turns on.

The Dungeon watches carefully, hungrily. A shrieker triggers. A hazard door closes. The game is running, the game is alive, the game is always alive—

The Dungeon Master floats, untethered, bodiless, watching, speaking, unheard, unseen. His body stands in the dark, empty, eyes sightless and lungs unbreathing. Why would he need to breathe? Dungeons don’t need to breathe, after all. Games don’t need to breathe. And Decked Out isn’t a game, not really, but it still works on principles of game design, and none of those principles require the game to breathe.

So the Dungeon watches, and the Dungeon Master watches, and Joe runs straight into the blood-stained horns of a ravager, and—

And—

Tango tries to blink. To breathe. A hazard door slams open and closed. The wires are crossed, that’s not—he needs to go—an attempt to step forward dispenses a stack of frost embers into the dungeon. They’re not supposed to do that. That’s a bug, he needs to fix—

He needs his hands—

Stone walls aren’t fingers, but they flex all the same, groaning under the strain—

There’s an itching in his legs. Skulk creeps up the walls. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t—

It’s dark. A warden sniffs. A shrieker howls. Stone becomes sinew becomes skulk becomes shadow becomes smoke becomes a soul. The Dungeon Master wrenches open his sightless eyes, and the Dungeon sees—

(Buildings aren’t meant to have panic attacks. Neither are dungeons. Nor games. But Decked Out is not a game, never really has been, and Tango—)

Joe and Hypno stare in bafflement at the flickering availability metre outside of the dungeon. “Tango, fix your game!” Hypno cries, and—

Ha.

Here’s a better question: when did Tango become Decked Out?

[p-wrryyy-mordial-soup]

Hiiii :3 heres my pack of losers (my x-rank team) because i needed ghost to actually have a team :]. heres a link to all my splatoons on toyhouse

seperate refrences, little blurbs about them and color alts where they all share eachothers colors below the thang v enjoy my word vomit idk how to write character stuff out teehee

sorry his ref is a year old and rushed for artfight </3 also the age is wrong i think i changed it to 23

he's from around where the deepsea metro is/was. had to leave because of unstable surroundings from an unknown to him cause. he's best friends with Rust and her kids, im gonna be honest i haven't actually thought through how they met and ive just realized this oops. since he spent most of his life underground and now lives in the splatlands he gets sunburnt way too frequently to not be covered up constantly, though he wears thing like tank tops and shorts during splatfest since those mostly occur during the night.

He met wisteria and ember first and then 72. they didnt apoint him as leader nor do they really care to have one but he's the tallest so everyone assumes its him. he's the most softspoken out of the 4 of them but thats a really low bar, he has a hard time making decisions but once he does he will die on that hill

(since its not on his ref like the other three)

72 escaped the metro before agent 8 went through it, he had found a memcake that was dropped after a test giving him just a clear enough mind to think for himself some. he ended up finding his way out after a while of accumulating a couple more memcakes, barely any where his though so hes walking around with memories that aren't his. It also took him a while to get used to the fact he isnt a soldier nor a test subject anymore. If he saw another sanitized mollusk he'd probably hide or run away </3.

72 met Ghost while after wandering around the area for a while, and ended up crashing in his car the whole time on ghosts way back to the splatlands (he thought 72 was like, drunk or something since he was tumbling around and seemed to be not the most coherent). he doesnt blink or breath unless hes actively thinking about it :[.

he had a hard time discerning things for a while but hes gotten better, at first he thought ember was just a weird octoling because she wears the old octoling goggles. we beat the evil soap with friendship in this house!!!

personality wise hes pretty hyper and cheerful which isnt usually your first thought upon seeing a zombie, forgot his age but hes an adult, he was encouraged to pick his own birthday :]

I have the least down for him at the moment, there will be more on her prommy </3 she's 21

She's a callie superfan with a vulgar sense of humor, usually the one who purposefully makes other players angry. born and raised in the splatlands she knows all the places to hide and get you lost in.

he's been friends with ember the longest, they where online friends until ember moved to splatsville. was introduced to ghost and 72 later by ember, he likes to antagonize 72 (think sibling antagonizing, theyre both in on it). down to fist fight you in the back of a waffle house

Originally from the inkopolis outskirts, they're 31

Ember's both a video game and turf/anarchy streamer, she has camera in their goggles for the latter. bad habit of talking in twitch/internet lingo outside of streaming. Once she has eyes on something its nearly impossible to get her to do something else. Very friendly outside fighting, will give you nice words and a pat on the back after a game whether they won or not.

met ghost while playing turf war in a random que, he was, in her words, "a bit to intense to be playing in turf" and told him after the game that he should try out anarchy, he was scared of it since he was new to the area. they ended up teaming up and playing a couple games together, later inviting wisteria and eventually 72.

theres def more to these guys but it will take me a long time to get the words in my head to cooperate 🙏im better at answering specific questions about things then coming up with what to write myself

have some color alts :3

[tsuchinokoroyale]

I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on JJK. Admittedly, I’m not well versed in shonen, so I never even considered that it was trying to subvert the genre.

P.S. Thank you for the consistently thoughtful takes and hot ass 😘

Ooooo boy I hope you’re ready for a whole ass essay 😎😎😎

Shonen as a genre has changed over time as any art form does, but it is still mired in tropes that can be traced back to the classics. The shonen genre is thus named bc its target demographic is boys to young men, for our discussion we’ll say teenage boys. While it obviously has big appeal for other demographics, it is mainly designed to both appeal AND communicate life lessons to that crowd of impressionable kids.

Because of this dual function you get this really odd genre full of super powerful special boys who love their friends but have no qualms about slaughtering their enemies. They typically espouse lessons about the merits of hard work, sticking to your beliefs ((so long as your beliefs are beneficial to society at large)), of goodness and friendship triumphing over evil. Look no further than DBZ and Naruto which can broadly be divided into Battle Arcs and Training Arcs, upping the ante for our special boy main protagonists until we literally have them fighting gods as the logical extreme of continuous escalation.

The Standard™ Shonen formula has a boy main protagonist who’s got some sort of motivation that is so ideologically pure that he’s basically impossible to defeat. Goku loves to fight, Naruto wants to be hokage, Tanjiro wants to cure his sister and slayer all the demons, etc. He forms/joins a band of merry outcasts with their own tragic backstories and sets out to defeat whatever villain appears for that arc. If they win, arc is over move onto training arc, if they lose, they train, fight and win, then train some more. The fun of the genre comes from the colorful side characters, and the little twists that come with each battle system, which brings us to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

At the time JJBA was being published, the big influence on manga was big beefy male led 80s action movies and Fist of the North Star, a manga about a beefy martial artist named Kenshiro going around beating baddies in a post apocalyptic world. Battle systems in Shonen were usually incredibly soft, most tied to physical combat enhanced by some poorly defined life force energy that could be called upon to even out fights and give big climactic finishes, like Ki from dragon ball and their iconic kamehamehas. Even JJBA starts off this way, with our beefy boys learning Hamon/Ripple and duking it out with vampires, til my man Hirohiko Araki was like “mmmm this is kind of limiting. Time to Change Everything~” and he came up with the concept of Stands, incredibly limited psychic/magic abilities that manifest as furries or sexy robots or a Lego version of the White House (?). You can see this idea really grow and expand within the part it’s introduced, going from “fire furry” and “robot knight with sword” to “guy whose stand turns into a ball that immediately erases anything it runs into but he can’t really see what he’s attacking since he has to be inside his stand in order for it to work also his name is Vanilla Ice and he’s a vampire in a thong.”

You can FEEL the impact this had even to this day. Stands became Jutsus in Naruto, quirks in MHA, Nen in HxH, Cursed Techniques in JJK. And part of what made it fun was that it added strategy to the mix! Str8 physical fights are hard to strategize bc it’s basically just a numbers game, right? Like bc his power level is over 9000, it’s going to be a tough time until some plot contrivance and/or training occurs to drive *my* power level over 9000. But now there is an additional layer of *how* these powers interact.

My ability is to blow bubbles and his ability is to turn a single person who comes into contact with bodily fluids into a mindless zombie? Create bubble shields so they can’t splash blood on you. My ability is to fold anything into origami and if you touch the origami you begin to see one object as something else and his ability is an automatic tracking stand that hunts me down by creating face shredding tornados when I breathe? Make a city bus look like my dad ((part 8 is fucking nuts)).

As you can tell, JJBA really burst open the dam on creativity, but as per the examples I’ve given they can often feel very… silly and contrived. The Serious Anime Fan™ will complain and say those fights are full of asspulls, which they are, but that’s very much part of the fun of the series. BUT because diversity is the spice of life, you also get artists who are less interested in adhering to the Rule of Cool and more interested in making things explicitly “logical” which is how we get Hunter x Hunter.

While JJBA dabbles in using stands for characterization, HxH goes HARD into it. Nen abilities are ((usually)) manifestation of their user’s idea of power, creating a direct link between who that person is and what they can do as a result. This is balanced by people having innate Nen types which means the kinds of abilities they can use are limited, though there are rules restrictions and exceptions to this as well. We know all of this bc mangaka Togashi literally gives a college level lecture on Nen in the story, describing how it manifests, how it works, what it can and can’t do, and how individual rules can supersede the basic set of rules and the rules for doing that. I call this style Erudite Shonen, bc bitches be TALKING. In erudite Shonen, powers usually fall on the complex side, even Bungee Gum, which has the properties of both rubber and gum, can be used in insane ways like ricocheting bullets, gluing minors together, and/or cheesing a game of dodgeball and it’s all both shown AND told.

Now where does JJK fall into all this? Listifying the common Shonen tropes we have A Special Boy main protagonist with a pure motive, a crew, goodness triumphing over evil, prioritizing bonds and community over selfish gain, and the winning power of hard work.

Early JJK fits the mold pretty well. Yuji Itadori starts off the series special, with superhuman fitness before he ingests sukuna’s finger at which point he becomes a Naruto analog, where he is strong because he has a powerful spirit trapped inside him. He has the rather off kilter but still acceptable goal of “dying a proper death”. His squad of mentor Gojo, Fushiguro, and Kugisaki is established by episode 3. The villains are cursed spirits who want to eradicate humanity, the good guys are the jujutsu sorcerers who say “no u” to that. Yuji wants to gain power to protect others instead of just becoming powerful himself. And there’s a training arc! Sure, it happens after Yuji gets his heart ripped out, but he’s not even dead that long. Even the powers in early JJK present themselves as pretty simple, Fushiguro does shadow summoning, Kugisaki does hammer and nail resonance, panda, Inumaki does cursed speech.

It wears its darkness on its sleeve however, presenting Junpei as a potential future team member only to shockingly kill him. The whole star plasma vessel incident casts an unflattering light on Jujutsu society. But none of that COMPARES to the shitshow that happens in Shibuya, where JJK finally shows its real hand.

Over the course of the Shibuya arc, we watch our protagonist mount an offense against the villains that have been building themselves up over the course of the show, sacrificing so so much just to ultimately… lose. The Shibuya arc subverts not just idiosyncratic plot beats but story telling traditions as well. “The strongest” loses, multiple fan favorite characters are either taken out of commission or outright killed, the story progression slams the fast forward button as Yuji goes from having ingested 4 out of 20 fingers to 15/20 resulting in mass civilian casualties because his version of the 9 tailed fox is an actual monster, and ((meta-narratively)) worst of all, Yuji doesn’t even get to defeat his arch-rival, Mahito. Instead Mahito is unceremoniously absorbed by other big bad Geto/Kenjaku. It’s supremely unsatisfying and the weight of the tragedy is so immense you wonder how our heroes are gonna come back from this.

And thus begins the “deconstruction” phase of JJK. Cuz they just… don’t. As dark as Shibuya got, a standard Shonen would then go on to give the heroes a big fat W, some sort of come back after all that. But not JJK! Bc JJK is subversive 😏 this means the fact that the story is super unsatisfying is like, the point mannnn. This isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Chainsawman is also a story of major L’s and minor W’s and it’s my #1 favorite modern manga series. The difference is in intent, however. Chainsawman works as well as it does bc at its core, it loves Denji. He REALLY goes through the ringer, but it’s all in service of understanding what life is like for someone trapped on the hedonic treadmill and how one can ((attempt anyways)) to break out of it.

And then there’s JJK. It truly feels like the manga is designed to tear Yuji’s self sacrificial mindset to shreds for the sake of making him suffer and for the reader to feel bad for ever feeling like good has to triumph over evil. The real problem is, it feels as if the series is bending over backwards to make this shit happen.

Part of the change over is what was a previously simple-ish battle system goes full Erudite Shonen. There were hints that cursed energy could get more complicated, what with domain completion competition and guaranteed hits and simple domains and that one guys FPS ability I can’t explain. But we go FULL HxH level afterwards. All of a sudden oxygen delivery to the brain becomes important to cursed technique, there’s domain range and boundary fidelity and incomplete domain properties, disruption of somatic components becomes a factor, and… it honestly feels like utter nonsense at times.

Complexity isn’t bad, like I mentioned I LOVE HxH and could probably explain the chrollo-hisoka fight if you gave me a few hours to study, but I could not tell you all the new rules for cursed energy that seem just kind of invented on the spot in random chapters during this back half of JJK. Bc they involve concepts never really mentioned before, it feels like an asspull, like this was something made up to force the situation at hand. Thing is, more of those situations only benefit the villains. You get shit like a character winning a battle at the end of one chapter and then starting the next one to find they were killed off screen moments later, actually. It’s just like yeah it’s subversive, but the reason stories aren’t told like this is bc this shit sucks lmao. I think out of all the plans the heroes make like only a handful of them are actually successful, and even then they get so unwound by the next step in the plan that they may as well have not happened. It doesn’t help that the abilities are so complicated now you’ll get a chapter dedicated to explaining what one guy can do just to have him wiped off the face of the earth the next one.

So the crew is gone, our special boy is actually the most disempowered guy ever except for the fact that he can’t be killed for some reason, the good guys are NOT doing a great job standing up to evil since like 86% of their plans fail or have bad results, a gag character wins one of the most important fights in the story and it’s unironically the best thing JJK has done in a while, and it’s all just a very confusing slog to read. This is the danger of writing subversion for the sake of subversion with intent for contempt, kids 😮‍💨

Granted we aren’t at the end of the story yet so maybe I’ll be wrong and there’ll be like a reset button that fixes everything (( which would also suck )), but yeah. JJK wants what HxH did in the chimera ant arc but forgot that that story was possible bc it was fundamentally about humanity and love, not just the parts about how people suck and goodness can fail.

If you made it this far congratulations you’re entitled to one big kissy on ur forehead from me and barnaby 😚😚😚