#the way im thinking of him being psychic isn't the way he's pretended to be psychic tho

[couchcandy]

Psych x Community ??

I love psych and i love community so this vague concept of them existing in the same universe has been floating around in my head. 

The key connecting factor being the references to Shawn/Britta’s similarly eclectic off-screen pasts. They're close in age so I'm like okay - it would totally be possible for them to have known eachother/dated/whatever at some point before. 

psych aired from 2006 - 2014; Shawn born 1977

community aired from 2009 -2014; Britta born 1980

(Take these two quotes just as an example but it's referenced casually throughout both shows)

Britta’s Dad: I mean, every time we get too close, you run off. We sent you a birthday card to your apartment in New York, and the next week you’re setting fire to a Jamba Juice in San Jose.

Britta: How long is that gonna stick with me?

Britta’s Mom: Until arson is legal, sweetie.

Gus: Shawn, you’ve had fifty-seven jobs since we left high school.

Shawn: Yes I have. And they were all fun. But this one takes the cake.

Gus: Oh yeah? Better than the acupuncture clinic?

Shawn: I didn’t realize experience was necessary.

Gus: What about the summer you spent driving the weiner mobile?

Shawn: I did that for the hot dogs.

I think they fit somewhere in the ballpark of each other's types, both sluts(affectionate) and it makes sense for them to have crossed paths at some point during Britta's “anhercists” days. 

So that establishes a link between the groups, but what would it be like if they interacted? Take the arbitrary scenario; Shawn and Gus have gotten themselves and by extension the SBPD into another whacky shenanigan somehow who cares how i'm not writing this

I imagine initially everyone in the study group has a more or less positive impression of Shawn because he's charming, (with the notable exception of…you got it! Jeff)

JEFF

In typical jeff fashion is immediately threatened by Shawn because he has to be the coolestmostlikeabledude™ in the room at all times while simultaneously has to act like he doesn't care so he's quietly seething and - hey what's this new dude doing here making all my friends laugh that's my job! i must now make it my life's mission to prove this guys a fraud and reclaim my status no matter how much a fool i make of myself in the process (a la: advanced documentary filmmaking)

BRITTA

Normal standard “hey old friend” situation, remember when we *insane thing involving multiple felonies and property destruction* haha anyway let me introduce you to my friends - 

ANNIE

immediate skepticism that Shawn is able to sidestep pretty quickly by being charming/flirty (NOT in a gross way *hisses at the jeffannie shippers*) Her reaction being like when the dean “swaps bodies with jeff” or after abed’s don draper impression.

ABED

Knows Shawn isn't really psychic but goes along with it/doesn’t point out that Shawn’s hyper observant because he's invested in watching the psychic/cop show formula play out. He would! and I would too!

(quote from 5x03 Basic Intergluteal Numismatics):

Abed Nadir: [Pretending to read the crime scenes as a psychic] I see a man... using a social disorder as a procedural device. Wait, wait, wait, I see another man. Mildly autistic super detectives everywhere.

TROY

Obligatory: “you’re wrinkling my brain right now” and just general fascination, awe, and wonderment. Asks Shawn to tell him his future

SHIRLEY

Immediate judgment on Shawn's practices not being christian enough for her standards, but easily swayed to liking him once he picks up on something and comments on her ex husband being an idiot to lose her or something

PEIRCE

Does his peirce thing and tries to seem impressive and fails, something level five laser lotus blah blah - u get it thats enough on him 

THE DEAN

Is facilitating the psych crew being there because it might bring in good press for greendale and he def does the hand on shoulder thing when he meets him you know the one - omg and totally is into Lassiter furrowed brows “im packing heat” Carlton, please. – lassie is Not Amused™ 

CHANG

This depends on what point in community canon this interaction takes place because season 1 chang would prob be normal(for him), but like season 5 Chang would do/say something so insane and so chang that i can't even come up with it

As for our psych guys, Gus points out how weird and fucked up and bizarre Greendale is meanwhile Shawn is LIVING for it - signs them up for the Dean’s PA announcements class, and “Gus! buddy! I hope you don't mind. I used your credit card to sign us up for The History of Ice Cream. Come on, it starts in 20 minutes ! :D” Gus: “Shawn! >:0”

Lassie would just nonstop point out all the health and safety violations- he doesn't want to be here- calls a lot of people hippies, generally grumpy demeanor and we love him for it.

Starburns terribly hits on Jules - gets rejected, proceeds to try and sell her drugs - gets arrested.

[retiredgremlin]

is shawn maybe actually psychic pt1

so I just finished watching 6x14, Autopsy-Turvy and that bit in the beginning is very interesting, from 2:13 to 3:15. The bit where Gus lays on the street and Shawn backs up, thinking through the incident presented to them.

Bob White, the victim of the current “case of the week,” was run over by a bus. The bus didn’t see him because a singular street light was out that night. Neat, okay, so Shawn is thinking through that, right?

And then we are shown the light going out, with glass raining down on Shawn, who visually reacts to it. We are shown the shot of where Gus was on the street, only it’s pitch black now. Shawn asks Gus if he’s still there. We get a glimpse of the usual “psychic recreation” then with the bus driving over the spot where the body would have been, showing how the body would be completely invisible. When whatever this is is over, we see the lights come back on and things resume regularity.

I wanna talk about this.

I wanna talk about this because this bit is....unprecedented. I haven’t started my critical analysis yet and I usually need the second pass over a series to burn everything into my memory, but I have no recollection of being shown something like this before.

Typically, we see “recreation visions.” Those show past events and have a grain filter over them, maybe a little desaturation. Notably, Sometimes Shawn’s memories are also shown this way (which hohoheehaaa is a whole ’nother can of fucking worms but let’s stay on track here-)

Let’s do a play by play here.

We are shown the light going out, with glass raining down on Shawn, who visually reacts to it.  Shawn states that [the report] says the streetlight directly above the bus stop was out. The camera zooms in on his face before cutting to a set distance away and the light in the scene is shown to flare before we hear the bulb break. The light goes out and glass falls onto Shawn. Shawn is shown physically reacting to the glass with squinting and a slight flinch. The camera zoom and reset indicate a change of scene, despite still just watching Shawn. The following events are presented to us as a physical change to the environment, one that is shown to interact with Shawn who is reacting to this change. 

The place on the street where Gus is laying is now in total darkness. Gus is now obscured as there is no light. This further enforces the physical shift to the environment. This also implicates that Shawn can no longer see Gus, just as we no longer see Gus. Shawn then cocks his head to the side, accompanied by a sound suspense sound cue. This body language is often used in media to convey confusion, curiosity, or inquisition. As someone who does this irl, I use it as a visual cue that I’m listening/paying attention if I’m unable to make eye contact during the conversation. At the very least, removing conjecture, it’s a reaction to a stimulus, indicating attention of some sort.

Shawn asks Gus if he’s still there. This is when this starts to hit home, right? This statement all but confirms that Shawn is no longer seeing Gus on the ground at all. This also confirms that what we the audience are seeing is something Shawn is experiencing in that moment. Shaw cannot see Gus currently and thus he asks for a verbal confirmation. We hear Gus respond, exasperated, saying Shawn can damn well see his face on the asphalt. Except Shawn can’t. Instead Shawn is seeing the space as though one of the lights was punched out. Shawn then comments by saying, “That’s interesting.” This is a verbal acknowledgement of what is visually happening in the scene right now. What precisely about this scene is interesting? We could easily infer the explicit lack of a visual Gus while still hearing Gus. Otherwise, why ask if Gus was still there? Notably, Gus’s response reinforces that he is not experiencing the change to the environment that Shawn and the audience are, as he is not reacting to it.

The usual psychic recreation kicks in to show us the bus running through the dark patch. Cue the typical grain filter of the scene. These visuals clearly mark the shift from real-time to flashback/past events, as the show has trained us to read this visual. This is also what we normally see when a scene is revealed to us or facts come together. The show could have just as well have shown us this flash without showing the dark street real-time, but they didn’t Why? Why is this different? Why does this call for a different kind of visual? I would assume because this is different somehow.

The recreation ends and we see the light come back on. The flashback recreating is over and simultaneous with the scene shift back to Shawn’s face, we see the light coming back in again and zooming out from Shawn’s face, mirroring how the scene started. This marks the end of whatever moment was happening.

Taking all of this into consideration, what conclusion are we left to draw from this short scene? Shawn experiences what we just saw: he sees the light flare, hears the bulb break, feels the glass fall around him, and sees the street as though this street light was out. It’s not as though it’s recreating something though, or imitating how a light would have actually burst. The light flares before popping, mimicking how a light would act when it dies. The filament grows thin and puts off a super flash as the filament breaks.

This does not mean the fucking glass shatters though. Conversation does indicate that the light being broken is why it was out the night Bob White was run over though. This is piece of the....”vision,” shall we call it, imitated what would have happened. But for the light to both flash and break? Unless I’m terribly mistaken, it’s usually one or the other that will put a bulb out of commission, not both. This lends additional credence to this being an unnatural occurrence. Given the glass shatters after the flash, to would indicate to me that the light dying somehow lead to the glass breaking? Either way, it’s a bit extreme and unusual, which plays into the entire strangeness of the scene. 

It’s like is someone grabbed the space around them and metaphysically punched the street light. Somehow Shawn is experiencing a manipulation of the space around him, enough to alter what he’s sensing in a targeted and specific manner. 

Now sure, we could just say what this scene was meant as: a visual built to communicate to the audience what is going on. Psych likes to show us how a situation is being assessed, what information Shawn is taking in and processing. But where’s the fun in that, especially with how they chose ground this short experience through having Shawn experience it.

You want to know something else I find very interesting here? 

Shawn’s response is mild.

Listen, I dunno about you, but I probably would have had more reaction to a bulb over my head suddenly bursting and throwing glass at me. I probably would have had more to say if I suddenly wasn’t seeing light when there was light in front of me, especially if it wasn’t that I suddenly lost all sense of light, but that a singular light suddenly and magically seemed to turn off.

Guess Shawn wouldn’t though! He takes this all fairly well in stride. There are two major possibilities here. One is that he’s more focused on the case than anything else so he mentally dismisses whatever is happening and proceeds until it goes away. There is precedent to him acting this way when he gets fixated on something, but we’re not seeing many signs of that here. Option two is that the reason Shawn barely reacts is that this not new or overly concerning because he is aware it is not real.

Shawn certainly recognizes what’s happening as unusual, but he is not panicked or caught off guard. When asking if Gus is still there, his voice does not betray anything strange. He is simply affirming. His “that’s interesting” comment also expresses no concern and he does not dwell on this occurrence, simply makes use of it. This leads me to believe that this is not the first time Shawn has experienced something like this. Something where he needs to see something in a different light (ha), and it just happens. We are not shown this prior because the show had no reason to concoct this sort of occurrence before now, as most investigation could be done through the physical clues given in the state they were in. This is new for the audience, but this is presented as something that isn’t really that new to Shawn.

The thing is, the vision is accurate. The vision is not an exaggeration or unrealistic distortion of the space. It is the space as is, except as if the light went out. Not that suddenly everything went dark or that he can’t see anything. To see the space as it would be with one thing different, especially when that one thing is something that interacts with everything in the space? That’s...something.

Let’s not forget the cinematography and sound cues though. With the scene starting up, we get real close and personal with Shawn’s face before the camera cuts to where it’s zoomed out again. Well, what does a camera cut indicate? Typically the shot is focused on the character relevant to the scene, whatever you should be seeing to line up with what’s happening. We were already looking at Shawn though, so what purpose does this cut serve? They wanted to shift the perspective we were viewing Shawn with. This cut indicates a change to the scene. Directly following this cut, the light bursts. This cut signified the shift from reality into the vision. When the scene was over, the camera cuts to Shawn’s face and is zooming out, clearly outlining the end of the vision. This explicitly bookends the start and stop to the strange phenomena.

As for the sound, we hear a back and forth piano tune leading up to the start of the vision. It starts just as Shawn is backing up from Gus laying down on the street and continues through Shawn noting that the report says the streetlight was out and fades as the glass shatters and finishes falling. This is a leadup, a lead in, an indication of something eerie going on. It lets the audience experience a moment of strangeness as the music disappears when we look back and see the street is dark with no Gus. We get a short violin sting to punctuate Shawn cocking his head and the recognition of something wrong here. When get a softer, deeper version of that sting as Gus responds, accentuating something even stranger going on. As Shawn lifts his arms to mimic a bus steering wheel, get a short orchestral bit that strings into the recreation of the bus driving over Bob White and concludes with the vision. This feels like a carry through, a dramatic reveal piece. 

These shots and sounds of this scene do everything to accentuate that something fucking weird is happening here. Please note that I have an education in art, not cinematography or music, so I can give an interpretation of them as a critical consumer, but I cannot speak speak to them in the manner of a trained and educated professional. Take my opinions there with a grain of salt. 

What is all of this then? How does this happen? What is this scene telling us?

I have 2 ideas.

1.) His eidetic memory is able to be used to create hyper realistic visualizations wherein the space can be manipulated.

2.) This is a preternatural vision and Shawn has latent psychic abilities.

Honestly, these possibilities can coexist with each other, and maybe they should?

This scene is deliberate, is the funny thing. The way is was shot, the way it was presented, the way the characters interact. Nothing here is a mistake, but it’s out of left field as a totally new way to observe a crime scene from anything else they’ve shown in the series. (I have only seen up to this episode, so if there’s another incident after 6x14, then neat, I’ll dissect that to when I get there.)

In conclusion, this scene leads me to believe Shawn has the ability to see, or is subject to the phenomena of seeing, space in a manipulated manner. The space mimics reality and reacts like reality, where variable can be arranged and shifted. Evidence from this incident would indicate these shifts are based on what Shawn is currently thinking about or puzzling through, showing him the scene the way he needs to see to it rather than how it necessarily is.

I, personally, would like to think this points to genuine latent preternatural abilities that tie into his eidetic memory and how that exists. Mostly because I think it’s fun that the show about the fake psychic is actually a show about a sort of psychic who doesn’t realize he’s actually sort of psychic while pretending to be a psychic. I think is an incredibly fun take to explore. Which I will later because I have a working idea of how this all connects in and functions but this has gone a bit long for a dissection of what is a minute or less bit at the beginning of a single episode.

This is the prologue to my TED Talk: “Shawn Spencer is probably psychic” and in this presentation I will-

[ot3]

hey i just read through ur ace attorney au comic and i just wanted to make a list of things i love about it:

-the color choice omg!!! the way u use bold colors to create stark contrasts and silhouettes is so inspired and unique

-i would sell my soul to be able to do composition as creatively as you do

-the expressions! im in love

-gregory....h

-the way you're not afraid to make edgeworth unabashedly an ass. i hate seeing him being an ass but it hits HARD. it really drives the emotions of the whole thing home

-the. the panels wi. with the three. the elevators. and then edgeworth on the stairs. i dont know what fucking emotion it makes me feel but it deals psychic damage while also adding 10 years to my lifespan

-ur style reminds me of the opening of the Great Pretender anime. which is one of my fave anime artstyles so

-(not the absolute fave im sorry but mob psycho 100 will always fuck the hardest)

-d. dahlia....the ncklace.....h

-BABY MIA

-literally everything about part 9. i cant. i cant even words about it

-OK I CAN DO ONE WORDS ABOUT IT AND THAT'S. EDGEWORTH'S FACE WHEN HE WAKES UP I CACKLED

-WHY IS THE BLUE BADGER IN THE FUCKING REALM OF THE DEAD???????????

-the 3d glasses that mia and edgeworth wear

-mia isn't dead she's braindead....is this....a surprise tool that will help us later?

-phoenix choosing all the dumb fuckin investigation options that we didn't choose in our playthrough because neither of us can handle secondhand embarassment

-all the little stylistic flourishes! from the dialogue boxes to the silhouettes to the little rays around miles' alarm clock

in conclusion: outstanding work op

THANK YOU SO MUCH i have put by this point literally hundreds of hours into drawing this comic so getting feedback like this means a ton to me... im glad edgeworth being a complete bastard is hitting because tbh i feel like there's a tendency to underplay exactly how awful edgeworth was when he was at his Awfulest but i think the extremely good redemption arc he gets in canon is a lot more meaningful when you remember that he was genuinely a pretty terrible person who ruined a lot of (very likely innocent) lives without it ever really registering as an issue for him.

i have not actually seen great pretender but i've heard of it and so i just went and watched the opening on youtube and this is a very flattering comparison so thank you! this is exactly the kind of art i like. and mob psycho too, definitely one of my favorites of all time - i was literally just watching it in stream with a friend for the millionth time directly before seeing this ask, and we were as always gushing about how much we like both the directing of the anime and the paneling in the manga. definitely some of my biggest artistic inspiration. i originally wanted to go into the animation industry and never really intended to draw comics so pretty much everything my comics do is to try and attempt to capture the really fun transitions and motions of animation within the confines of a static image, so i'm glad it's having some of that impact.

the proto-badger is in the realm of the dead because i think it would be funny for him to be there. that's the whole truth of it.

mia being braindead rather than dead is very much a surprise tool that will help us later - now that i've done all of the Setup things are going to begin diverting more heavily from the original sequence of events in the game. otherwise, pretty much everything would be essentially identical to the way it plays out in canon and there's not really any fun in drawing something like that. so yeah. lots more to do ! hope y'all like the rest of what i've got planned !