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leliel_12[Trigger Warning: More Heroes In Crisis, more horrible attitudes towards mental health, and gore. Add self-harm, gaslighting, depression, PTSD, sheer incompetence in medicine, and a whole bunch more to it.]
[Image heavy by necessity. Also using Imgbb, which is hopefully not blocked, and easier to use than Imgur anyway.]
[Link to das_sporking.]
Malcolm: …I feel a little targeted by that.
Maruki: Well…not to be prejudiced, but you are literally the vigilante vampire with hellfire powers. It is kind of hard to make any reference to Dante without tagging you.
Wanderer: Mildly awkward puns aside, welcome back to this mess of a comic series, where…[sigh] Something I have not been looking forward to happens…
Sumire: …how many of those things are there in this series?!
Leliel: Too many. But there’s a reason we got the psychology sporkers plus the guy who’s plotting to burn it down for this chapter, because this issue is all filler, due to it being a sudden flashback to Sanctuary just before the massacre…and the full reveal that yes, this place is a fucking nightmare of self-inflicted torment.
Malcolm: Correction: I want to burn it down and exorcise the remains. Make sure whatever intelligence formed in the site is well and truly gone.
Wanderer: But first, a backpoint. See, juniper_sky brought up the fact that, due to the shifting continuity of DC…we don’t actually know how many friends and teammates Batman has lost. Jason Todd hangs over him, even and especially if he comes back as Red Hood (because that was done with a Lazarus Pit, and Jason suffers the aftereffects, namely PSYCHOTIC FITS OF RAAAAAAAGE! at times), and so, it’s hard to figure out what substance there is. There needs to be some substance.
Leliel: This wouldn’t be that big an issue, Bruce has a huge hero complex and has lost several civilian friends…but the thing is, Heroes in Crisis was happening concurrently with a different crisis event that was very much causing continuity-affecting issues on purpose, Doomsday Clock - basically, Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen universe becomes aware of the DC universe and starts recklessly experimenting with its histories because idealism confuses him after the shittiness that happened in his world - keeping track of what is happening is freaking important. Heroes in Crisis was supposed to be a companion piece to Doomsday Clock, and in fact, the continuity issues make it somewhat incompatible with it.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 37
Wanderer: And our cover is…well, it is once again, a lie. A worse lie than normal.
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_Vol_1_3)
On this cover, see Batman and Barry Allen reflected in the Totally Mentally Healthy Cult Masks, since Wally West has a different mask design. See the black-gloved hand implying Bats is holding it…two people who will not be in this comic. Batman isn’t even mentioned.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 39
Maruki: That…break in time aside, we also get this:
Besides how, once again, Sanctuary erases its files, so it should not have this-
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 40
…is this important?
Leliel: Not to this series, though it really should be for a psychological thriller, no. Wonder Woman is also Dame Not-Appearing-In-This-Issue.
MEANWHILE…: 18
But basically…that’s also not how it happened. She didn’t punch him out, she snapped his neck. Quickly and cleanly as she could, because at that point, she realized he was about to activate an army of genocidal cyborgs, and there was nothing she could say in that moment to make him stop - so the Spirit of Love closed her eyes, and the Amazon cradled his neck:
(https://wonder-woman.fandom.com/wiki/Maxwell_Lord)
Sumire: [Winces…then frowns] Not going to support this even if it was necessary to stop him, but…this looks like a really clean death. Why does the Sanctuary picture making it look like his face is…melted?
Wanderer: I’d post the itisamystery gif, but I’m trying to space it out a bit.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 41
Leliel: And then…hoo boy, this is going to need some explanation with the new guy here, Lagoon Boy:
Malcolm: …okay, where did that…pufferfish thing come from? And where did it go? Details!
Wanderer: That actually is his own sac. He’s a derivation of Atlanteans who have more fishlike traits than the more human ones Aquaman is a part of and…yeah, that was just shown and not explained. Leliel thought it was some kind of shield for a bit.
Leliel: More importantly: Lagoon Boy, given the name La’gaan in Young Justice, and nowhere else, so it’s as close to a canon name as he has, is someone screwed over by the seeming hate DC has of the Teen Titans. See-
Sumire: Whoa, wait a minute! Three months? He’s been in the literal asylum for a season? Since when didn’t that clue in Sanctuary’s AI he needed more intense help if he literally took a vacation from superheroing?
[Long pause]
Malcolm: Let the record show that “Shattered Space” makes sense, because this allows La’gaan to be chewed on rather than any sane medical procedure.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 126
Leliel: Yeah…keep that in mind…
Maruki: [Spits out tea] Guh! We didn’t even see him at Sanctuary before the attack-
Wanderer: This isn’t the attack.
Maruki: …I…what? But the laser-
Leliel: You know what? I’m going to break the comic’s continuity a bit and show you the pages in order, because this is divvied up between Lagoon Boy, Booster, and Wally otherwise! Observe!
Maruki: …he’s training? At a rest facility? La’gaan, I respect your dedication, but please, this is hurting yourself! You’re literally here because-
Maruki: [Catches on, jaw drops.]
Malcolm and Sumire: [Quickly follow his example.]
Maruki: [Slowly working his jaw] That…that’s self-harm.
Leliel: Yep.
Maruki: That’s self-harm recreating a post-traumatic event.
Wanderer: Mmm-hm.
Maruki: He’s been at it this entire time…hundreds of repetitions.
Leliel: Straight from the seahorse’s mouth.
Maruki: I see. [Puts down clipboard carefully] I have only one question:
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Persona5TakutoMaruki)
Maruki: WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY IS HE NOT ON SUICIDE WATCH!? THIS MAN IS LITERALLY SHOOTING HIMSELF TO TRY AND DEAL WITH HIS PAIN AND THIS SPYWARE THAT CALLS ITSELF A THERAPIST HASN’T INTERVENED?! EVER?! AAAAAAGH! [Partly manifests armor, then clears throat] I’m…I’m sorry if I gave you a fright there.
Sumire: Noticed you didn’t apologize for being out of line. [Icy smile] It’s good you didn’t, you had nothing to be sorry for. One point for every shot.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 466 (Counting the zaps we saw.)
Malcolm: Of all the- The audacity- The utter unmitigated gall! I hunt Shattered Spaces as my duties to the Accursed community, but this has to be the most sadistic…I hope it’s a Shattered Space because at least feeding on trauma is rational!
Leliel: Oh, it gets worse. Because by all rights, Lagoon Boy either should be dead…or shouldn’t remember this happened at all. Because in this timeline, it didn’t.
Sumire: …explain?
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Titans_East_Special_Vol_1_1)
Wanderer: Yeah, he’s referring to an event where he got zapped by a loyalist child of Trigon the Terrible, the archdemon who’s the parent of fellow Titan and darkness-manipulating witch Raven, who managed to break out of his influence to a degree. And, here’s the big thing…
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashpoint_(comics))
That happened, out of universe, before Flashpoint, the event where Barry Allen accidentally screwed up time to save his mom from Reverse-Flash (it wasn’t entirely his fault, he got mind-wammied by Mirror Master), which caused such damage to the cosmos that, after he fixed the paradox, it reformatted the multiverse, creating the New 52. Quite simply, Lagoon Boy was never in a situation where he was ever possibly killed.
[Long pause]
Maruki: And there is no explicit memory bleedover from timelines.
Leliel: Not in the timeline we got, no.
Maruki: …my rage is matched only by my disbelief, and my vicious disappointment that we don’t have a novel look at PTSD from previous iterations of the universe that could probably end up as a nice study. Perfect for those anxiety disorders pulled directly from the rears of forgetful authors, however. So I’m adding fifty-two points, for the humor.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 93
Malcolm: Ugh…so, going back in order, we’re cutting back to Wally West and-
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 467
Wanderer: Honestly, you don’t need to. For the record, Jai is one of Wally’s time-banished children, and so this is a sign he is…not improving. No points yet, as this is more a sign of Sanctuary’s incompetence and thus covered by the previous point…but take in light of this…
Malcolm: [Stares, then shivers] Well, that isn’t creepy. That isn’t creepy at all. I’m not at all reminded of the expression Zel - apparently your world keeps confusing my security guard friend Zelda with a princess in a franchise Nintendo publishes, so she’s decided to go by that instead - gets when she has lured someone into one of her traps or is about to win a massive pot on game night. You know, the werespider. What is with these expressions…?
Leliel: Seriously, and the dialogue is so generic it just…well. I can see the attempt at sympathy and greeting, but here, it comes off as patronizing. I think mental hospital staff are supposed to come off as “warmly professional”. Compassionate, but they’re your doctors, not your friends, so they treat you as an equal here to receive treatment, not a buddy or a child. This comes off as overly friendly, intrusive, and…eerie. Love-bombing. Especially with the art and knowing these greeter robots are…robots. It does not seem genuine.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 468
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 70 (Dear Bats, or whoever else designed this: This is not a great way to come off as more appealing than robots who at least intentionally look creepy with singular flashlight optics.)
Wanderer: Speaking of creepy, we get to look at how Sanctuary operates:
Maruki: It…recreates your past and asks you questions about it while you explore it? That’s actually rather clever, it comes off as a more advanced form of art therapy-
Maruki: -aaand praise withdrawn. Even beyond the fact that the “perfect therapist” needs to know when to let the man just enjoy his happy place and de-stress, just reminding him this is a simulation used to center himself, these questions are…insipid. They are, from what I gathered, his family. I literally had an entire scheme to rewrite reality born of grief due to a relationship going bad and learning bad lessons from it and people did not seem to need to ask me why I felt that way to clarify.
Sumire: Honestly, this seems kind of offensive. “Hey Sumire, why do you feel like a part of you is missing after your twin sister died in front of you? Don’t you think that’s a little immature and you need to get with the program? We’re running a tight ship here, and mature people just forget their family!” Of all the callous-
Leliel: It’s even worse than that.
Sumire: [Dread] …huh?
Wanderer: Wally’s family isn’t dead. In fact, the fact they’re not dead is why he’s even at Sanctuary.
Maruki: …What.
(https://dccomicsnews.com/2020/01/15/review-flash-forward-5/)
Leliel: Yeah, uh, Flashpoint? Because the Great Multiversal Fuckup was done via the Speed Force, the Speed Force also provided a relative resistance to the ripple effect - and Wally, as a speedster, inherently has access to it, so he was able to use it to hide outside the universe until he was able to contact and reawaken Barry’s pre-New 52 memories of him…because Wally West, until he was rescued from the Speed Force, was never born in the New 52. And reality kind of broke upon the fact he lived again and reality started retroactively forcing his life story back into it - including the fact he married and had kids.
Malcolm: …shit. This is an Epoch situation isn’t it? What we Accursed call the liminalities born of what could have been, stillborn worlds that Time is trying to destroy to remove the irritant and not caring for those stuck within.
Wanderer: Somehow more and less dramatic. The New 52 having a maximum of 52 “normal” universes meant there was a sort of “leak” that brought it closer to universes that should not have been - ones that were directly shaped by the fears and desires of the Light Multiverse, all of which were fated to exist long enough to suffer catastrophe caused by those fears - the Dark Multiverse.
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Multiverse)
Leliel: Fears, for example, like a father never being able to find his children. Desires like finding them.
Sumire: … Oh. So…they were stuck in his section of Mementos, in my and Dr. Maruki’s terminology?
Wanderer: Pretty much! They got stuck on a barren planet that existed largely to keep them away from Wally - they were thankfully reunited and freed long after this event, but make no mistake, that was an apology for Heroes in Crisis. And Wally got sent here because the stress of knowing he had a family but they were possibly unexisted forever broke him, so they sent him here while they (presumably) worked on a solution.
Maruki: …and from the sound of it…this machine either does not know they are alive but time-lost, or thinks they are a product of delusion.
Leliel: Them or the writers!
Sumire: Oh. I see. Doctor, do you mind-
Maruki: Please. Azathoth might destroy the building, to say nothing of Adam Kadmon.
Sumire: Thank you.
Malcolm: [Blinks] That…is an impressive hole in the wall. But as noted, this is just…wrong. The very fact that Wally’s family ever existed means that this is already the wrong tack to take, a reasonable mistake is “oh, this man is grieving.” Hell, that could have been the core drama - the Sanctuary AI bugs out upon discovering Wally’s unique situation, unable to process the unique situation of “survivor from a previous iteration of the multiverse” and ends up either going evil from trying to rectify the issue and mad experiments in understanding multiversal concepts, or it goes behind everyone’s backs to someone it shouldn’t have trusted. As it is…what the fuck? Did nobody catch this? This isn’t even (entirely) on Sanctuary itself, because it’s conceivable that its databanks aren’t updated to “oh yeah, this woman was married to Wally and they had kids” and it thinks he had a psychotic break. It’s on everyone else practicing criminal negligence! One hundred points for forgetting the premise of the story!
IT WAS ME, WALLY: 193
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 170 (You better hope Joker doesn’t get hands on footage of this, or Lex. Both, after finally calming down from laughing their ass off, would promptly redistribute it, unaltered, with notes on “this is how they treat their teammates.”)
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 278 (This would be why they’re laughing their respective ass off - literally at least Superman knows, and that means the rest of the Trinity knows.)
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 469 (Just one here because it’s not even more stupid based on available info, but man does the computer need a digital dope slap.)
Wanderer: And as one last point: Iris is the daughter’s given name, but to avoid confusion with Iris Allen, who she’s named after, everyone, including her father, calls her Irey. So that’s another headdesk.
IT WAS ME, WALLY: 194
Leliel: And now we get the cloaks and masks explained which…aren’t inherently bad from a protection standby, just psychological, but absolutely fail to to have as a “supervillain sneaking in” countermeasure. “No, I am totally not the devastatingly distinguished and brilliant Lex Luthor, I’m just too embarrassed to show any weakness that he obviously would not have. Now, where was the alien’s-er, Superman’s contribution to Sanctuary?”
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 470
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 279 (Seriously. Is there any security against that here?!)
Malcolm: …in other words, someone able to fake being a patient would be A) completely able to turn a personal room into an advance post without anyone knowing, B), customize those holodecks, now known as the Chambers, to assist in creating potential resources for a scheme like “counselors” that are really body doubles while you slip out and coordinate with your offsite team, and C), all of this is erased and completely unknown to all, and likely not even good for therapy.
Wanderer: I’m wondering how you’d be able to make the simulations a resource, but given comics, that’s only a quarter of a question to one of those points at best.
Malcolm: Good, good, making sure the record and malpractice is fully updated, along with the bias this Shattered Space clearly shows towards predators. And yes, Stella specifies it as a Nightscape, but it’s still a living location that feeds on at least one person to maintain a portal to a hell dimension. To-may-toh, in-furr-noh. Three points for each fail.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 473
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 281
Leliel: In fact, we’re about to see how much it doesn’t help to just create escapist worlds forever with just “Is this what you want?” level inquiries:
Wanderer: Before you ask - yes, Jai and Irey inherited speedster powers. They helped Wally a bit, especially because most of the Flash’s rogues aren’t especially awful - Captain Cold here is usually just a street tough with a freeze ray, who explicitly has it because it’s an effective and less lethal weapon, letting him knock out a bunch of people without mass homicide. He’s fine just being a robber and criminal engineer, and regards the Flash as more “cost of doing business” than actual hate. That’s a little beside the point though:
Maruki: [Skeptical glare] I cannot help but notice he is recreating his life before it was literally erased from time. It is almost like he is mourning and trying to deal with a catastrophic change caused by a mentor figure to it. I don’t think you need a degree for that, but apparently, someone forgot to program this AI with basic diagnostic criteria of the DSM or basic common sense when instilling it with the “Compassion of Wonder Woman.”
Sumire: This is…offensive. I feel like it’s literally the sort of thing that if this was a person, I’d be severely attempted to attack, because how insensitive can you get?! “Sumire, you are recreating a meet with your twin sister, and living out a day with her. Why is that?” Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s because I want to remember the good times before my twin sister died in a car accident in front of me due to a minor spat between us?! And that was with a support network who understood even if Dr. Maruki pushed it into an outright psychotic break with reality in a misguided attempt to help deal with my ambivalence and survivor guilt. To escape from a time anomaly only to realize that your entire immediate family may never have truly existed? The question isn’t why Wally West needed to take a mental health break and is trying to sharpen his good memories, the question is why that was surprising to this… this… glorified sub-roomba.
Leliel: Futaba will be so proud. But yeah, this is what I was getting at when I said this comes off as something you’d see on Apokolips, home of Darkseid, and thus, literally the Planet Of All That Is Evil. A big thing about Apokalips is that it is an environment where everything beats the good out of everyone on it; the government is a tyranny because nobody trusts in anything except strength and Darkseid is the strongest, Darkseid has ruled for as long as humanity remembers because nobody can conceive of anything better (and Darkseid is a relative improvement over his father - he’s merely the New God of Tyranny compared to Yuga Khan’s New God of Evil), and they will continue to war with New Genesis and the rest of the universe because simply existing for every Apokalipian is already an act of spite against a world and society that wants them dead for existing. Sanctuary’s patronizing nature, its complete lack of safeguards, and its ability for its patients to torture themselves comes off as something Apokalips would come up with to make someone seeking help either drive themselves more insane…or focus it in a way to become fanatically loyal to Darkseid. Or maybe DeSaad, pointless cruelty and “experiments” to satisfy dark curiosity are more the New God of Sadism’s forte (go figure). But in any case, ten more points for sheer “no DUH” factor that should be obvious.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 483
Also, speaking of…a page that is literally just text-based exposition! And one picture!
[Beat]
Maruki: Well that was something I could figure out on my own. And ultimately unhelpful - yes, you can figure out the “why”, ultimately, but as shown by Lagoon Boy constantly allowing himself to be shot, it is a foundation, not a solution. This is wallowing, not improvement. On both a psychological and narrative level.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 484
MEANWHILE…: 19
Wanderer: And uh, yeah, gonna be honest - the rest of the story arc puttering out doesn’t stop. Because now we get a page of Wally tucking Holo-Irey into bed:
Malcolm: The puppet Irey says that makes no sense, but I looked it up - apparently a lot of DC’s humans have a metagene, over 12% of humanity, that in exposure to traumatic events might result in development of superpowers, to say nothing of cultural heritage, magical influence, genetic predisposition to innate magic due to Homo magi heritage - apparently a subspecies of hominids split off to learn instinctive magic and were assimilated into H. sapiens like neanderthals - or a number of other things even before one gets into gadgets. So no, Ms. West, it makes a lot of sense - your metagene is why your powers bear a distinct resemblance to your father’s. Even the AI that made you probably knows this.
IT WAS ME, WALLY: 195
More importantly…why are we seeing this? Speedster powers are odd and work on symbolic logic. So do mine, as a vampire that was born out of a deal to punish the willfully stagnant and now feeds on souls and hellfire. The defense requests an explanation to this analogy or that it be dismissed as irrelevant.
Leliel: It’s even worse reading this, because one of those Lagoon Boy pages comes right after this.
MEANWHILE…: 21 (One for each page.)
Next isn’t much better but…once again, we ask what is Booster Gold’s problem:
Sumire: …did he literally just create a clone of himself…to argue with himself? Over hair loss? …and I thought my self-loathing was advanced.
Wanderer: Quick warning: Don’t scream “you’re not me!”, else it’ll turn into a Boss Shadow and then it’ll be a problem. No, wait, that’d actually get at psychology, instead of whining at himself for not giving himself a girlfriend.
MEANWHILE…: 22
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 171 (This isn’t making you come off as stable or mature, Booster).
Anyway, one more page Lagoon Boy finally deciding to stop zapping himself only for an emergency alarm to start blaring, which is repeated twice over so even this plot progression is repetitive-
MEANWHILE…: 23
Then Wally rushing out of Sanctuary with his symbols glowing blow muttering “no”, which is actually somewhat important, then-
Leliel: *EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, EMERGENCY, WHY WASN’T THERE AN EMERGENCY SHUT-OFF FOR THE HOLOGRAM CHAMBERS, EMERGENCY*
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 485
Maruki: Please. You were in the middle of an adrenaline rush, so I will spare you one count, but not for the plot drag for something that happened twice over:
MEANWHILE…: 24
Wanderer: And now, another sign of how drastic the rewrites were…because we’re about to see another time the book outright lies to us.
Leliel: Yeah, uh, this didn’t happen. In fact, Tom King went on Twitter and had to clumsily retcon it as Lagoon Boy’s dying hallucination, because he got killed at the same time as the rest of everyone else with the same way. Which makes it really fucking bad to keep as a clue in a mystery! (In all fairness, he also noted it was a retcon - in reality, it also wasn’t written well - but 50 points for something even the writer notes as “yeah, this was a shit idea.”)
BAT GUANO CLUES: 176
Wanderer: [Suddenly punches table]
Malcolm: Jesus! What-
Leliel: Remember this line. At the end of this series, this line will become the symbol of everything we hate about the portrayal of mental health in this series. But now, what Booster saw!
Leliel: And as much as I’d like to hit it with BAT GUANO…it explains why Booster is so cold with her, and it shows why he isn’t trying that hard to deescalate, or why the Trinity is trying to arrest her. So it's a good part of the mutual framing. Besides, I have worse to kvetch about!
Sumire: Well. Look at all the dead people who we will never see again, who all died. Also…several have months! Again, warning for proper therapists, please!
MEANWHILE…: 25
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 486
Maruki: Well, that was akin to a blow on the head. Painful, and with lasting agony, but…only glancing. Mostly because so much of it was filler.
Malcolm: Agreed. Though that look at Sanctuary’s guts was…interesting.
Wanderer: Indeed. Honestly, were it not for Lagoon Boy, it would be just boring. As it is…Lagoon Boy makes this one of the most resolutely horrible issues thus far, simply for his portrayal of self-harm, and how Sanctuary enables it.
Leliel: Yep. And speaking of enabling horrible behaviors and practices - next week, we go from awful medicine, to awful journalism, as the plot continues to go nowhere!
[Image heavy by necessity. Also using Imgbb, which is hopefully not blocked, and easier to use than Imgur anyway.]
[Link to das_sporking.]
Malcolm: …I feel a little targeted by that.
Maruki: Well…not to be prejudiced, but you are literally the vigilante vampire with hellfire powers. It is kind of hard to make any reference to Dante without tagging you.
Wanderer: Mildly awkward puns aside, welcome back to this mess of a comic series, where…[sigh] Something I have not been looking forward to happens…
Sumire: …how many of those things are there in this series?!
Leliel: Too many. But there’s a reason we got the psychology sporkers plus the guy who’s plotting to burn it down for this chapter, because this issue is all filler, due to it being a sudden flashback to Sanctuary just before the massacre…and the full reveal that yes, this place is a fucking nightmare of self-inflicted torment.
Malcolm: Correction: I want to burn it down and exorcise the remains. Make sure whatever intelligence formed in the site is well and truly gone.
Wanderer: But first, a backpoint. See, juniper_sky brought up the fact that, due to the shifting continuity of DC…we don’t actually know how many friends and teammates Batman has lost. Jason Todd hangs over him, even and especially if he comes back as Red Hood (because that was done with a Lazarus Pit, and Jason suffers the aftereffects, namely PSYCHOTIC FITS OF RAAAAAAAGE! at times), and so, it’s hard to figure out what substance there is. There needs to be some substance.
Leliel: This wouldn’t be that big an issue, Bruce has a huge hero complex and has lost several civilian friends…but the thing is, Heroes in Crisis was happening concurrently with a different crisis event that was very much causing continuity-affecting issues on purpose, Doomsday Clock - basically, Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen universe becomes aware of the DC universe and starts recklessly experimenting with its histories because idealism confuses him after the shittiness that happened in his world - keeping track of what is happening is freaking important. Heroes in Crisis was supposed to be a companion piece to Doomsday Clock, and in fact, the continuity issues make it somewhat incompatible with it.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 37
Wanderer: And our cover is…well, it is once again, a lie. A worse lie than normal.
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Heroes_in_Crisis_Vol_1_3)
On this cover, see Batman and Barry Allen reflected in the Totally Mentally Healthy Cult Masks, since Wally West has a different mask design. See the black-gloved hand implying Bats is holding it…two people who will not be in this comic. Batman isn’t even mentioned.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 39
Maruki: That…break in time aside, we also get this:
Besides how, once again, Sanctuary erases its files, so it should not have this-
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 40
…is this important?
Leliel: Not to this series, though it really should be for a psychological thriller, no. Wonder Woman is also Dame Not-Appearing-In-This-Issue.
MEANWHILE…: 18
But basically…that’s also not how it happened. She didn’t punch him out, she snapped his neck. Quickly and cleanly as she could, because at that point, she realized he was about to activate an army of genocidal cyborgs, and there was nothing she could say in that moment to make him stop - so the Spirit of Love closed her eyes, and the Amazon cradled his neck:
(https://wonder-woman.fandom.com/wiki/Maxwell_Lord)
Sumire: [Winces…then frowns] Not going to support this even if it was necessary to stop him, but…this looks like a really clean death. Why does the Sanctuary picture making it look like his face is…melted?
Wanderer: I’d post the itisamystery gif, but I’m trying to space it out a bit.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 41
Leliel: And then…hoo boy, this is going to need some explanation with the new guy here, Lagoon Boy:
Malcolm: …okay, where did that…pufferfish thing come from? And where did it go? Details!
Wanderer: That actually is his own sac. He’s a derivation of Atlanteans who have more fishlike traits than the more human ones Aquaman is a part of and…yeah, that was just shown and not explained. Leliel thought it was some kind of shield for a bit.
Leliel: More importantly: Lagoon Boy, given the name La’gaan in Young Justice, and nowhere else, so it’s as close to a canon name as he has, is someone screwed over by the seeming hate DC has of the Teen Titans. See-
Sumire: Whoa, wait a minute! Three months? He’s been in the literal asylum for a season? Since when didn’t that clue in Sanctuary’s AI he needed more intense help if he literally took a vacation from superheroing?
[Long pause]
Malcolm: Let the record show that “Shattered Space” makes sense, because this allows La’gaan to be chewed on rather than any sane medical procedure.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 126
Leliel: Yeah…keep that in mind…
Maruki: [Spits out tea] Guh! We didn’t even see him at Sanctuary before the attack-
Wanderer: This isn’t the attack.
Maruki: …I…what? But the laser-
Leliel: You know what? I’m going to break the comic’s continuity a bit and show you the pages in order, because this is divvied up between Lagoon Boy, Booster, and Wally otherwise! Observe!
Maruki: …he’s training? At a rest facility? La’gaan, I respect your dedication, but please, this is hurting yourself! You’re literally here because-
Maruki: [Catches on, jaw drops.]
Malcolm and Sumire: [Quickly follow his example.]
Maruki: [Slowly working his jaw] That…that’s self-harm.
Leliel: Yep.
Maruki: That’s self-harm recreating a post-traumatic event.
Wanderer: Mmm-hm.
Maruki: He’s been at it this entire time…hundreds of repetitions.
Leliel: Straight from the seahorse’s mouth.
Maruki: I see. [Puts down clipboard carefully] I have only one question:
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Persona5TakutoMaruki)
Maruki: WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY IS HE NOT ON SUICIDE WATCH!? THIS MAN IS LITERALLY SHOOTING HIMSELF TO TRY AND DEAL WITH HIS PAIN AND THIS SPYWARE THAT CALLS ITSELF A THERAPIST HASN’T INTERVENED?! EVER?! AAAAAAGH! [Partly manifests armor, then clears throat] I’m…I’m sorry if I gave you a fright there.
Sumire: Noticed you didn’t apologize for being out of line. [Icy smile] It’s good you didn’t, you had nothing to be sorry for. One point for every shot.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 466 (Counting the zaps we saw.)
Malcolm: Of all the- The audacity- The utter unmitigated gall! I hunt Shattered Spaces as my duties to the Accursed community, but this has to be the most sadistic…I hope it’s a Shattered Space because at least feeding on trauma is rational!
Leliel: Oh, it gets worse. Because by all rights, Lagoon Boy either should be dead…or shouldn’t remember this happened at all. Because in this timeline, it didn’t.
Sumire: …explain?
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Titans_East_Special_Vol_1_1)
Wanderer: Yeah, he’s referring to an event where he got zapped by a loyalist child of Trigon the Terrible, the archdemon who’s the parent of fellow Titan and darkness-manipulating witch Raven, who managed to break out of his influence to a degree. And, here’s the big thing…
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashpoint_(comics))
That happened, out of universe, before Flashpoint, the event where Barry Allen accidentally screwed up time to save his mom from Reverse-Flash (it wasn’t entirely his fault, he got mind-wammied by Mirror Master), which caused such damage to the cosmos that, after he fixed the paradox, it reformatted the multiverse, creating the New 52. Quite simply, Lagoon Boy was never in a situation where he was ever possibly killed.
[Long pause]
Maruki: And there is no explicit memory bleedover from timelines.
Leliel: Not in the timeline we got, no.
Maruki: …my rage is matched only by my disbelief, and my vicious disappointment that we don’t have a novel look at PTSD from previous iterations of the universe that could probably end up as a nice study. Perfect for those anxiety disorders pulled directly from the rears of forgetful authors, however. So I’m adding fifty-two points, for the humor.
ANTI-CANON EQUATION: 93
Malcolm: Ugh…so, going back in order, we’re cutting back to Wally West and-
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 467
Wanderer: Honestly, you don’t need to. For the record, Jai is one of Wally’s time-banished children, and so this is a sign he is…not improving. No points yet, as this is more a sign of Sanctuary’s incompetence and thus covered by the previous point…but take in light of this…
Malcolm: [Stares, then shivers] Well, that isn’t creepy. That isn’t creepy at all. I’m not at all reminded of the expression Zel - apparently your world keeps confusing my security guard friend Zelda with a princess in a franchise Nintendo publishes, so she’s decided to go by that instead - gets when she has lured someone into one of her traps or is about to win a massive pot on game night. You know, the werespider. What is with these expressions…?
Leliel: Seriously, and the dialogue is so generic it just…well. I can see the attempt at sympathy and greeting, but here, it comes off as patronizing. I think mental hospital staff are supposed to come off as “warmly professional”. Compassionate, but they’re your doctors, not your friends, so they treat you as an equal here to receive treatment, not a buddy or a child. This comes off as overly friendly, intrusive, and…eerie. Love-bombing. Especially with the art and knowing these greeter robots are…robots. It does not seem genuine.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 468
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 70 (Dear Bats, or whoever else designed this: This is not a great way to come off as more appealing than robots who at least intentionally look creepy with singular flashlight optics.)
Wanderer: Speaking of creepy, we get to look at how Sanctuary operates:
Maruki: It…recreates your past and asks you questions about it while you explore it? That’s actually rather clever, it comes off as a more advanced form of art therapy-
Maruki: -aaand praise withdrawn. Even beyond the fact that the “perfect therapist” needs to know when to let the man just enjoy his happy place and de-stress, just reminding him this is a simulation used to center himself, these questions are…insipid. They are, from what I gathered, his family. I literally had an entire scheme to rewrite reality born of grief due to a relationship going bad and learning bad lessons from it and people did not seem to need to ask me why I felt that way to clarify.
Sumire: Honestly, this seems kind of offensive. “Hey Sumire, why do you feel like a part of you is missing after your twin sister died in front of you? Don’t you think that’s a little immature and you need to get with the program? We’re running a tight ship here, and mature people just forget their family!” Of all the callous-
Leliel: It’s even worse than that.
Sumire: [Dread] …huh?
Wanderer: Wally’s family isn’t dead. In fact, the fact they’re not dead is why he’s even at Sanctuary.
Maruki: …What.
(https://dccomicsnews.com/2020/01/15/review-flash-forward-5/)
Leliel: Yeah, uh, Flashpoint? Because the Great Multiversal Fuckup was done via the Speed Force, the Speed Force also provided a relative resistance to the ripple effect - and Wally, as a speedster, inherently has access to it, so he was able to use it to hide outside the universe until he was able to contact and reawaken Barry’s pre-New 52 memories of him…because Wally West, until he was rescued from the Speed Force, was never born in the New 52. And reality kind of broke upon the fact he lived again and reality started retroactively forcing his life story back into it - including the fact he married and had kids.
Malcolm: …shit. This is an Epoch situation isn’t it? What we Accursed call the liminalities born of what could have been, stillborn worlds that Time is trying to destroy to remove the irritant and not caring for those stuck within.
Wanderer: Somehow more and less dramatic. The New 52 having a maximum of 52 “normal” universes meant there was a sort of “leak” that brought it closer to universes that should not have been - ones that were directly shaped by the fears and desires of the Light Multiverse, all of which were fated to exist long enough to suffer catastrophe caused by those fears - the Dark Multiverse.
(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Multiverse)
Leliel: Fears, for example, like a father never being able to find his children. Desires like finding them.
Sumire: … Oh. So…they were stuck in his section of Mementos, in my and Dr. Maruki’s terminology?
Wanderer: Pretty much! They got stuck on a barren planet that existed largely to keep them away from Wally - they were thankfully reunited and freed long after this event, but make no mistake, that was an apology for Heroes in Crisis. And Wally got sent here because the stress of knowing he had a family but they were possibly unexisted forever broke him, so they sent him here while they (presumably) worked on a solution.
Maruki: …and from the sound of it…this machine either does not know they are alive but time-lost, or thinks they are a product of delusion.
Leliel: Them or the writers!
Sumire: Oh. I see. Doctor, do you mind-
Maruki: Please. Azathoth might destroy the building, to say nothing of Adam Kadmon.
Sumire: Thank you.
(https://media1.tenor.com/m/9vvcPZZoi_UAAAAd/persona-persona-5.gif)
Malcolm: [Blinks] That…is an impressive hole in the wall. But as noted, this is just…wrong. The very fact that Wally’s family ever existed means that this is already the wrong tack to take, a reasonable mistake is “oh, this man is grieving.” Hell, that could have been the core drama - the Sanctuary AI bugs out upon discovering Wally’s unique situation, unable to process the unique situation of “survivor from a previous iteration of the multiverse” and ends up either going evil from trying to rectify the issue and mad experiments in understanding multiversal concepts, or it goes behind everyone’s backs to someone it shouldn’t have trusted. As it is…what the fuck? Did nobody catch this? This isn’t even (entirely) on Sanctuary itself, because it’s conceivable that its databanks aren’t updated to “oh yeah, this woman was married to Wally and they had kids” and it thinks he had a psychotic break. It’s on everyone else practicing criminal negligence! One hundred points for forgetting the premise of the story!
IT WAS ME, WALLY: 193
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 170 (You better hope Joker doesn’t get hands on footage of this, or Lex. Both, after finally calming down from laughing their ass off, would promptly redistribute it, unaltered, with notes on “this is how they treat their teammates.”)
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 278 (This would be why they’re laughing their respective ass off - literally at least Superman knows, and that means the rest of the Trinity knows.)
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 469 (Just one here because it’s not even more stupid based on available info, but man does the computer need a digital dope slap.)
Wanderer: And as one last point: Iris is the daughter’s given name, but to avoid confusion with Iris Allen, who she’s named after, everyone, including her father, calls her Irey. So that’s another headdesk.
IT WAS ME, WALLY: 194
Leliel: And now we get the cloaks and masks explained which…aren’t inherently bad from a protection standby, just psychological, but absolutely fail to to have as a “supervillain sneaking in” countermeasure. “No, I am totally not the devastatingly distinguished and brilliant Lex Luthor, I’m just too embarrassed to show any weakness that he obviously would not have. Now, where was the alien’s-er, Superman’s contribution to Sanctuary?”
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 470
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 279 (Seriously. Is there any security against that here?!)
Malcolm: …in other words, someone able to fake being a patient would be A) completely able to turn a personal room into an advance post without anyone knowing, B), customize those holodecks, now known as the Chambers, to assist in creating potential resources for a scheme like “counselors” that are really body doubles while you slip out and coordinate with your offsite team, and C), all of this is erased and completely unknown to all, and likely not even good for therapy.
Wanderer: I’m wondering how you’d be able to make the simulations a resource, but given comics, that’s only a quarter of a question to one of those points at best.
Malcolm: Good, good, making sure the record and malpractice is fully updated, along with the bias this Shattered Space clearly shows towards predators. And yes, Stella specifies it as a Nightscape, but it’s still a living location that feeds on at least one person to maintain a portal to a hell dimension. To-may-toh, in-furr-noh. Three points for each fail.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 473
LASSO OF DUMBNESS: 281
Leliel: In fact, we’re about to see how much it doesn’t help to just create escapist worlds forever with just “Is this what you want?” level inquiries:
Wanderer: Before you ask - yes, Jai and Irey inherited speedster powers. They helped Wally a bit, especially because most of the Flash’s rogues aren’t especially awful - Captain Cold here is usually just a street tough with a freeze ray, who explicitly has it because it’s an effective and less lethal weapon, letting him knock out a bunch of people without mass homicide. He’s fine just being a robber and criminal engineer, and regards the Flash as more “cost of doing business” than actual hate. That’s a little beside the point though:
Maruki: [Skeptical glare] I cannot help but notice he is recreating his life before it was literally erased from time. It is almost like he is mourning and trying to deal with a catastrophic change caused by a mentor figure to it. I don’t think you need a degree for that, but apparently, someone forgot to program this AI with basic diagnostic criteria of the DSM or basic common sense when instilling it with the “Compassion of Wonder Woman.”
Sumire: This is…offensive. I feel like it’s literally the sort of thing that if this was a person, I’d be severely attempted to attack, because how insensitive can you get?! “Sumire, you are recreating a meet with your twin sister, and living out a day with her. Why is that?” Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s because I want to remember the good times before my twin sister died in a car accident in front of me due to a minor spat between us?! And that was with a support network who understood even if Dr. Maruki pushed it into an outright psychotic break with reality in a misguided attempt to help deal with my ambivalence and survivor guilt. To escape from a time anomaly only to realize that your entire immediate family may never have truly existed? The question isn’t why Wally West needed to take a mental health break and is trying to sharpen his good memories, the question is why that was surprising to this… this… glorified sub-roomba.
Leliel: Futaba will be so proud. But yeah, this is what I was getting at when I said this comes off as something you’d see on Apokolips, home of Darkseid, and thus, literally the Planet Of All That Is Evil. A big thing about Apokalips is that it is an environment where everything beats the good out of everyone on it; the government is a tyranny because nobody trusts in anything except strength and Darkseid is the strongest, Darkseid has ruled for as long as humanity remembers because nobody can conceive of anything better (and Darkseid is a relative improvement over his father - he’s merely the New God of Tyranny compared to Yuga Khan’s New God of Evil), and they will continue to war with New Genesis and the rest of the universe because simply existing for every Apokalipian is already an act of spite against a world and society that wants them dead for existing. Sanctuary’s patronizing nature, its complete lack of safeguards, and its ability for its patients to torture themselves comes off as something Apokalips would come up with to make someone seeking help either drive themselves more insane…or focus it in a way to become fanatically loyal to Darkseid. Or maybe DeSaad, pointless cruelty and “experiments” to satisfy dark curiosity are more the New God of Sadism’s forte (go figure). But in any case, ten more points for sheer “no DUH” factor that should be obvious.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 483
Also, speaking of…a page that is literally just text-based exposition! And one picture!
[Beat]
Maruki: Well that was something I could figure out on my own. And ultimately unhelpful - yes, you can figure out the “why”, ultimately, but as shown by Lagoon Boy constantly allowing himself to be shot, it is a foundation, not a solution. This is wallowing, not improvement. On both a psychological and narrative level.
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 484
MEANWHILE…: 19
Wanderer: And uh, yeah, gonna be honest - the rest of the story arc puttering out doesn’t stop. Because now we get a page of Wally tucking Holo-Irey into bed:
Malcolm: The puppet Irey says that makes no sense, but I looked it up - apparently a lot of DC’s humans have a metagene, over 12% of humanity, that in exposure to traumatic events might result in development of superpowers, to say nothing of cultural heritage, magical influence, genetic predisposition to innate magic due to Homo magi heritage - apparently a subspecies of hominids split off to learn instinctive magic and were assimilated into H. sapiens like neanderthals - or a number of other things even before one gets into gadgets. So no, Ms. West, it makes a lot of sense - your metagene is why your powers bear a distinct resemblance to your father’s. Even the AI that made you probably knows this.
IT WAS ME, WALLY: 195
More importantly…why are we seeing this? Speedster powers are odd and work on symbolic logic. So do mine, as a vampire that was born out of a deal to punish the willfully stagnant and now feeds on souls and hellfire. The defense requests an explanation to this analogy or that it be dismissed as irrelevant.
Leliel: It’s even worse reading this, because one of those Lagoon Boy pages comes right after this.
MEANWHILE…: 21 (One for each page.)
Next isn’t much better but…once again, we ask what is Booster Gold’s problem:
Sumire: …did he literally just create a clone of himself…to argue with himself? Over hair loss? …and I thought my self-loathing was advanced.
Wanderer: Quick warning: Don’t scream “you’re not me!”, else it’ll turn into a Boss Shadow and then it’ll be a problem. No, wait, that’d actually get at psychology, instead of whining at himself for not giving himself a girlfriend.
MEANWHILE…: 22
LEGION OF DOOM PR: 171 (This isn’t making you come off as stable or mature, Booster).
Anyway, one more page Lagoon Boy finally deciding to stop zapping himself only for an emergency alarm to start blaring, which is repeated twice over so even this plot progression is repetitive-
MEANWHILE…: 23
Then Wally rushing out of Sanctuary with his symbols glowing blow muttering “no”, which is actually somewhat important, then-
Leliel: *EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, EMERGENCY, WHY WASN’T THERE AN EMERGENCY SHUT-OFF FOR THE HOLOGRAM CHAMBERS, EMERGENCY*
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 485
Maruki: Please. You were in the middle of an adrenaline rush, so I will spare you one count, but not for the plot drag for something that happened twice over:
MEANWHILE…: 24
Wanderer: And now, another sign of how drastic the rewrites were…because we’re about to see another time the book outright lies to us.
Leliel: Yeah, uh, this didn’t happen. In fact, Tom King went on Twitter and had to clumsily retcon it as Lagoon Boy’s dying hallucination, because he got killed at the same time as the rest of everyone else with the same way. Which makes it really fucking bad to keep as a clue in a mystery! (In all fairness, he also noted it was a retcon - in reality, it also wasn’t written well - but 50 points for something even the writer notes as “yeah, this was a shit idea.”)
BAT GUANO CLUES: 176
Wanderer: [Suddenly punches table]
Malcolm: Jesus! What-
Leliel: Remember this line. At the end of this series, this line will become the symbol of everything we hate about the portrayal of mental health in this series. But now, what Booster saw!
Leliel: And as much as I’d like to hit it with BAT GUANO…it explains why Booster is so cold with her, and it shows why he isn’t trying that hard to deescalate, or why the Trinity is trying to arrest her. So it's a good part of the mutual framing. Besides, I have worse to kvetch about!
Sumire: Well. Look at all the dead people who we will never see again, who all died. Also…several have months! Again, warning for proper therapists, please!
MEANWHILE…: 25
FORTRESS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: 486
Maruki: Well, that was akin to a blow on the head. Painful, and with lasting agony, but…only glancing. Mostly because so much of it was filler.
Malcolm: Agreed. Though that look at Sanctuary’s guts was…interesting.
Wanderer: Indeed. Honestly, were it not for Lagoon Boy, it would be just boring. As it is…Lagoon Boy makes this one of the most resolutely horrible issues thus far, simply for his portrayal of self-harm, and how Sanctuary enables it.
Leliel: Yep. And speaking of enabling horrible behaviors and practices - next week, we go from awful medicine, to awful journalism, as the plot continues to go nowhere!
Spitefic: In The Mouth of Mania
The shift from normal reality to Nightscape, Mark Grayson reflected, was…disturbingly subtle.
There was no great rippling portal, no dark swirl of purple and black that had echoes of cruel voices and self-doubts leaking through - rather, everyone just waited for the Bleed to stop, for Sanctuary to return to its normal self, and then put on recreations of the masks and cloaks, before coming up for “treatment.”
That’s when a trio of people came out, all smiles and Midwestern charm.
None of it reached their eyes.
“Welcome to Sanctuary!” “Our home is your home.” “We hope you enjoy our hospitality.” “It’s better here, alone with your thoughts.”
There was also something…tinny about it. Artificial, robotic, not just faked but incapable of being anything else.
Stella, who was behind the Leaguers putting on their best cheer faces, caught on. “The Greeter robots are apparently more obvious when they realize there’s a real patient in Sanctuary - turn off hologram masks,” she whispered. “Wanna show that ye came to the right place and the professionals are here. But this lot are Nightscape Extras - less than Nightmares, but part of the bigger psychodrama. Think of ‘em as cells - and so they’re how the Prisoner sees the Greeters.”
“...Now I’m creeped out, and sad,” he whispered back, waving at the estraz robots playing estraz farmers, as the group quietly snuck in for their “treatment”, careful not to disturb the internal logic of the dream and alert the Nightscape’s sentience to intruders.
As soon as they were in, the masks were lifted up, the “infiltration party” having gone all business. “Our first priority is scouting, and defining the internal rules and scope of this dimensional pocket,” Batman said, finally in his element. “As Stella, the only person experienced with Nightscapes, pointed out, each one is a unique psychic manifestation of its Prisoner, and thus, each one has different internal physics and limits - ones that are key to developing a psychological profile of its template and primary victim. Wonder Woman, Manhunter, Raven, and Stella will be mapping the Nightscape and making notes on the psychodrama. Constantine, Mark, Zel - Zelda - and myself will look for Crane and Oizys’ influence - we are more familiar with either of the two of them, and they are likely more aware of potential assaults.”
“Question,” Constantine immediately began. “I get why the, uh, less hardcore half is feeling out the mental health aspects, but why am I here? I’m…not known for my lack of a disaster area.”
“Because this world is made of evil,” Zel replied, bluntly. “You won’t damage anything the Prisoner will want after we’ve helped them realize this isn’t all that the world is. Moreover…you’re also an expert in the kinds of magic that become Defiler arts. No offense.”
“Precisely,” Stella added. “The thing about Nightscapes is that each one is unique and needs to be understood to be cured, or mastered - and Darkness warlocks don’t get a cheat code that lets them cheat that nature. Alhambrans may want to domesticate them, and Defilers may want to weaponize them, but either way, you can’t exactly tell your pet dragon how to bite if it can’t muckin’ speak your language, can it? You need to understand its logic, train it, especially if you’re going to turn it into your own personal Pocket Plane of Evil Shit.”
“And Dr. Crane, at least, has the ideal background to decode the symbolism on a psychological level, even if he needs Oizys’ assistance to harness the occult symbolism.” Batman nodded. “From there, he can then develop a regimen to break the Prisoner to his will, and from there, focus the symbolism of the psychodrama in a way that will allow him to use it as a source of power, most likely as a novel catalyst for his fear gas - we’ve had experiences where he’s used it as a mutagen before, he would leap at the chance to try it again along with pheromones to control Darkspawn.”
“To say nothing of what thrill he’d have to become lord of his own little Hells, should he figure out how to reproduce Nightscapes,” Raven agreed, grimly. “But I have my own question - how’d he get into Sanctuary to begin with…”
There was a long, awkward silence.
Mark broke it. “If anyone thinks they screwed up…it’s fine. The heroes in my world…we’re fuck-ups. Hell, I’m one of the biggest there is. ‘Invincible’ isn’t really a descriptor of my physical abilities, it refers to how I refuse to let myself bow. To start taking the easy option instead of the moral one. And that often involves discovering the hard way what I thought was the moral option was the easy one.”
Batman sighed. “...I think it might have been me,” he said, quietly. “I decided to put up feeds of who was going out and in.”
“Bruce…” Wonder Woman began, more tired than scolding.
“I thought…I thought there might have been someone let in that hacked the system. Even with the Custodian AI able to examine their own logs,” he admitted, choked up. “I know-I know this is the same thing that led to Brother Eye but-I didn’t expect-I saw something-thought it was a bug, not a malware insert-”
“Hey, hey,” Stella said, hand flying onto his back. “You offered it. And now we have more clues than we didn’t before. Even if it turns out to be nothing, we can check, and we can ease your conscience.”
“And that sounds like Oizys,” Zel said, nodding. “He is literally something that is a lifeform born of a digital world, as opposed to an AI. You didn’t know what to expect, and he knew that, so he knew how to hide himself as a glitch if it was.”
Batman grunted, regaining himself. “I…understand. I will need to learn this. Take precautions. Positions.”
As the teams filed off, however, nobody noticed a tiny bit of the floor’s composing Darkness matter melt into the internal wiring circuitry and reform into a tiny little camera with a violet lens, that focused on them and flashed with tiny digital photographer’s lights.
And in the painful.love server nailed into the underside of the chamber of the tearful thing the Prisoner imagined himself to be, watching a constant stream of horrors and unable to stop, a soul made of data and silicon assimilated what his prosthetic eye supplemented what his microphone ears had put into his consciousness.
Enter the creeps into the playfield, Oizys logged into his thoughts. Interesting mobs, these carbonites. Unexpected behaviors. Perhaps I shall not autoresolve after all. There may be a use for them yet…
(A/N: Yeah, I got tired of specifying Zelda isn’t Princess Zelda but someone named Zelda to someone else. So Zel is now her nickname.)
There was no great rippling portal, no dark swirl of purple and black that had echoes of cruel voices and self-doubts leaking through - rather, everyone just waited for the Bleed to stop, for Sanctuary to return to its normal self, and then put on recreations of the masks and cloaks, before coming up for “treatment.”
That’s when a trio of people came out, all smiles and Midwestern charm.
None of it reached their eyes.
“Welcome to Sanctuary!” “Our home is your home.” “We hope you enjoy our hospitality.” “It’s better here, alone with your thoughts.”
There was also something…tinny about it. Artificial, robotic, not just faked but incapable of being anything else.
Stella, who was behind the Leaguers putting on their best cheer faces, caught on. “The Greeter robots are apparently more obvious when they realize there’s a real patient in Sanctuary - turn off hologram masks,” she whispered. “Wanna show that ye came to the right place and the professionals are here. But this lot are Nightscape Extras - less than Nightmares, but part of the bigger psychodrama. Think of ‘em as cells - and so they’re how the Prisoner sees the Greeters.”
“...Now I’m creeped out, and sad,” he whispered back, waving at the estraz robots playing estraz farmers, as the group quietly snuck in for their “treatment”, careful not to disturb the internal logic of the dream and alert the Nightscape’s sentience to intruders.
As soon as they were in, the masks were lifted up, the “infiltration party” having gone all business. “Our first priority is scouting, and defining the internal rules and scope of this dimensional pocket,” Batman said, finally in his element. “As Stella, the only person experienced with Nightscapes, pointed out, each one is a unique psychic manifestation of its Prisoner, and thus, each one has different internal physics and limits - ones that are key to developing a psychological profile of its template and primary victim. Wonder Woman, Manhunter, Raven, and Stella will be mapping the Nightscape and making notes on the psychodrama. Constantine, Mark, Zel - Zelda - and myself will look for Crane and Oizys’ influence - we are more familiar with either of the two of them, and they are likely more aware of potential assaults.”
“Question,” Constantine immediately began. “I get why the, uh, less hardcore half is feeling out the mental health aspects, but why am I here? I’m…not known for my lack of a disaster area.”
“Because this world is made of evil,” Zel replied, bluntly. “You won’t damage anything the Prisoner will want after we’ve helped them realize this isn’t all that the world is. Moreover…you’re also an expert in the kinds of magic that become Defiler arts. No offense.”
“Precisely,” Stella added. “The thing about Nightscapes is that each one is unique and needs to be understood to be cured, or mastered - and Darkness warlocks don’t get a cheat code that lets them cheat that nature. Alhambrans may want to domesticate them, and Defilers may want to weaponize them, but either way, you can’t exactly tell your pet dragon how to bite if it can’t muckin’ speak your language, can it? You need to understand its logic, train it, especially if you’re going to turn it into your own personal Pocket Plane of Evil Shit.”
“And Dr. Crane, at least, has the ideal background to decode the symbolism on a psychological level, even if he needs Oizys’ assistance to harness the occult symbolism.” Batman nodded. “From there, he can then develop a regimen to break the Prisoner to his will, and from there, focus the symbolism of the psychodrama in a way that will allow him to use it as a source of power, most likely as a novel catalyst for his fear gas - we’ve had experiences where he’s used it as a mutagen before, he would leap at the chance to try it again along with pheromones to control Darkspawn.”
“To say nothing of what thrill he’d have to become lord of his own little Hells, should he figure out how to reproduce Nightscapes,” Raven agreed, grimly. “But I have my own question - how’d he get into Sanctuary to begin with…”
There was a long, awkward silence.
Mark broke it. “If anyone thinks they screwed up…it’s fine. The heroes in my world…we’re fuck-ups. Hell, I’m one of the biggest there is. ‘Invincible’ isn’t really a descriptor of my physical abilities, it refers to how I refuse to let myself bow. To start taking the easy option instead of the moral one. And that often involves discovering the hard way what I thought was the moral option was the easy one.”
Batman sighed. “...I think it might have been me,” he said, quietly. “I decided to put up feeds of who was going out and in.”
“Bruce…” Wonder Woman began, more tired than scolding.
“I thought…I thought there might have been someone let in that hacked the system. Even with the Custodian AI able to examine their own logs,” he admitted, choked up. “I know-I know this is the same thing that led to Brother Eye but-I didn’t expect-I saw something-thought it was a bug, not a malware insert-”
“Hey, hey,” Stella said, hand flying onto his back. “You offered it. And now we have more clues than we didn’t before. Even if it turns out to be nothing, we can check, and we can ease your conscience.”
“And that sounds like Oizys,” Zel said, nodding. “He is literally something that is a lifeform born of a digital world, as opposed to an AI. You didn’t know what to expect, and he knew that, so he knew how to hide himself as a glitch if it was.”
Batman grunted, regaining himself. “I…understand. I will need to learn this. Take precautions. Positions.”
As the teams filed off, however, nobody noticed a tiny bit of the floor’s composing Darkness matter melt into the internal wiring circuitry and reform into a tiny little camera with a violet lens, that focused on them and flashed with tiny digital photographer’s lights.
And in the painful.love server nailed into the underside of the chamber of the tearful thing the Prisoner imagined himself to be, watching a constant stream of horrors and unable to stop, a soul made of data and silicon assimilated what his prosthetic eye supplemented what his microphone ears had put into his consciousness.
Enter the creeps into the playfield, Oizys logged into his thoughts. Interesting mobs, these carbonites. Unexpected behaviors. Perhaps I shall not autoresolve after all. There may be a use for them yet…
(A/N: Yeah, I got tired of specifying Zelda isn’t Princess Zelda but someone named Zelda to someone else. So Zel is now her nickname.)
