#arkham sanitarium

[angelkids]

odd question. but does anyone here listen to ephemeral rift (asmr channel). if so is anyone interested in his universe with arkham sanitarium? ive been wanting to talk about it with people who are at least somewhat familiar with the lore. id really love to explore his concepts and perhaps make some fan characters.

[chronivore]

[dairy-farmer]

Tim is the prosecutor who successfully argues that the Joker should get the death penalty and Jason is completely enthralled by him

!!!!!!

the problem that jason and the other bats face with many of the rogues, not just joker, is that it's hard to change a courts decision that someone is NOT criminally insane. because the things that joker, poison ivy, mad hatter, two face, or any combination of the arkham crew do are very clearly rooted in insanity. who would create a gas just to make people laugh themselves to death if not an insane person? who would make man eating plants if not an insane person?

and so the revolving door of arkham is hard to stop. dangerous inmates are sent there, dangerous inmates escape, cause havoc, kill and traumatize the general population, they're captured, sent back, and wash and repeat.

jason attempting to kill the gotham inmates no matter how much people say they deserve it is opening a huge can of worms. bats running around killing the legally declared mentally ill? not a good look because arkham is the butt of every joke in gotham in its conversation about crime, news anchors love to deride it when complaining about how the city and state spends millions on it. but it DOES work.

not for joker or the other rogues, but they make up less than 1% of the facility's residents. its those that are sent there for a year or so because of the mental breaks they suffer from living in a place like gotham that benefit. arkham's max security inmates are essentially a lost cause, low hope of ever rehabilitating and even if they did their sentences state they they will die in those cinderblock rooms and be buried in arkham's unmarked cemetary. but the minimum security inmates? gotham funnels millions to arkham because its one of the few, if ONLY, well funded sanitariums for psychiatric illness on the entire east coast. arkham's minimum security produces the lowest rate of reoffenders in the state, is a major reason the poor and underinsured are able to recieve quality mental health care at all, and helps make sure that blackgate doesn't become over saturated with people who only committed crimes because of psychiatric issues.

politicians running for reelection use keeping arkham funded as a way to gain and maintain support. because gotham leads the country in rates of violent crime, drug use, and homelessness. all of which are contributing factors to worsened mental health. and in gotham? everyone knows someone or is related to someone who has been or interacted with arkham in some way whether its a six month hold at their facility, a 50 step program, or some other way.

and having people turn on the nightly news and seeing the headline 'gotham inmate killed by red hood'? it's not good. it scares people away from seeking help and makes things worse in the long run.

it's why jason has never gone after any of the arkham crew with intent to permanently put them down. and so joker gets to keep breathing. until tim.

and tim does not have an easy battle to fight because hundreds of lawyers before him have tried. but being able to successfully argue that the joker ISN'T insane and is, in fact, fully aware of his actions and so he no longer qualifies for arkham? it's a hard thing to do. to make the argument that joker is essentially a fraud who has exaggerated and faked mental illness to avoid jail. those who have done so before have personally gained joker's attention and ended up dead during the nest breakout. and those that weren't stll didn't succeed persuading a court because...joker's got a good lawyer.

because it's a mob lawyer and mob lawyers are fucking good. it's why other arkham rogues also successfully plead insanity. the mob knows that if the rogues weren't around batman would be solely focused on them and so they always pick up the tab on legal fees and joker stays in an arkham cell waiting for his next taste of freedom.

but tim is different. tim does not focus on joker, the clown prince of crime. he focuses on something else. jason's not sure how long tim spent on the case, on the lengths he had to go to to track down witnesses, gather statements, find age old security footage that had sat rotting in police stations in the middle of nowhere.

people like joker don't just magically get good at killing, at holding people hostage, at building bombs. however or whenever the joker had gone insane- it wouldn't have magically imbued him with the knowledge to cause chaos the way he had. he had to have learned it somehow.

and tim finds out how. before databases to categorize evidence existed, most police stations just stored samples they found in evidence bags and left them in a storage room until time came to test them against a suspect. but never getting a suspect meant that the evidence just sat unused.

when batman first caught joker the first thing he did was store his blood and dna on the computer to match up with any future crimes. but he hadn't found any past crimes, mostly because the evidence batman could have used was sitting in a police station whose most technologically advanced equipment was a new coffee maker.

people like joker don't appear out of nowhere. and he didn't.

tim finds trails of crime dating back a near decade before "joker" appeared in gotham. only he didn't go by joker. he went by jack napier. some failure, drop out chemistry student that made money by building bombs and stealing chemicals for low brow gangs. murdered security guards, dead gas station cashiers, a high way patrol officer. bodies and crime from philadelphia, to trenton, to atlantic city, and ending in gotham where jack had remained ever since.

joker had been declared legally insane. but jack napier? after getting expelled for trying to steal from the chem lab, one of the university's psychologists had evaluated him and recommend the school press charges. because during their talk it was revealed that jack was no more a slave to impulse than he was. that he'd gone in with clear intent and planning, that he was aware of consequences, and that he was not an individual that could be trusted to remain on campus. the university called the police but by the time they arrived jack had cleared out his dorm.

from there the crime spree was traceable. with eyewitnesses and dna putting him at the scene of where a 17 year old cashier was shot in the face so jack could leave with a full tank of gas and $45.67 in money from the register. the car he was using that matched the description of where a highway patrol was mowed down during a traffic stop. more dead cashiers and dead security guards at chemical supply companies, including one less than 5 miles from jack napier's university that was robbed the same day he was expelled and where a student id had been found at the scene.

it was sloppy work, buckets and mountains of evidence tying jack to all those crimes. it's something a prosecutor could only DREAM of.

and tim had found it. and could use it. because both new jersey and pennsylvania had no statute of limitations on murder.

but there was still one key difference between the two states that swayed tim's decision on where to take the bar exam to get licensed.

it was something that made jason pay very close attention when yet another prosecutor wandered into the gotham courthouse with papers to begin an Interstate extradition for joker from new jersey to pennsylvania.

it was important that joker be tried in pennsylvania.

because unlike new jersey, pennsylvania had the death penalty.

and joker may be legally declared mentally ill, he was not mentally incompetent.

so, if found guilty, the state would kill him. he would die.

he would die and pay for crimes he comitted decades ago under a different name. crimes he probably didn't even consider as 'worth' the joker.

and jason sees how that starts to settle in for him when joker's face twitches as the courts start referring to him as 'mr. napier' and 'jack napier' instead of his preferred title.

barbara had always said calling the rogue gallery by their stupid made up names like joker or mad hatter or poison ivy just further reinforced and encouraged them. but using civilian names always tended to make them all angry or violent so the bats refrained from it.

and yet here jason was in the raftors of the court watching the sweating judge, the clerk, the court reporter, the lawyers, and tim drake hesitantly use joker's real name and then grow more confident and then boldly turning to a furious joker and asking "mr. napier do you understand the proceedings happening here?"

jason's at the courthouse along with the rest of the bats.

when bruce had caught wind of the extradition going through he'd gone quiet and then, in a strange toned voice, told the rest of them they'd be on protection detail at the courthouse and escorting the prison transport until jok- bruce had stopped and then said "jack napier" was in custody at a philadelphia prison.

it's a tense few months. once out of gotham joker doesn't have his connections not with guards or goons and can't stage his usual breakouts. bruce is out of gotham through the entirety of the trial, setting up camp in philly because he wasn't going to be taking any chances.

dick said he thought it was because bruce still didn't quite think it was really going to happen. it's like all of gotham was waiting with bated breath over the outcome of the trial. every update was plastered all over the news and on the radio. a few of gotham's hometown news stations had even begun making the drive to the courthouse to film as much of the proceedings rather than using shots made by other and more local news crews.

in gotham everyone is restless especially the capes. this is a case none of them have had a hand in. and its not like gotham's legal system is fully incompetent it was just that everyone knew things went smoother if the bats were involved. but here not a single one of them had touched decades old murder cases comitted alongside and on a stretch of empty road.

bruce was stepping on more than a few tail feathers, strongarming into someone else's territory. based on what dick said the capes from the philadelphia area were none too happy over his prescense but willing to give him a break given everything.

jason knew more than a few capes were paying close attention and that clark even did frequent checks of joker in his cell on bruce's request.

it's a high stakes situation. if it doesn't work it'll be the biggest disappointment any of them have ever felt. so they try not to get their hopes up.

but still.

[wanderingmind867]

Batman loses all likeability when you remember Arkham exists. Have you seen Arkham!? The damn place is a run down sanitarium or something! It's clearly never been renovated since the early 1900s! And yet it still stands! We're sending a bunch of mentally ill people to a place that looks specifically designed to torture them. The only batman who has my respect in this regard is the telltale games one. I'm pretty sure those games had (or had the option to have) arkham get replaced by an actual functioning mental health facility.

Cause let's be honest. You keep sending people like Two-Face, Riddler, Mad Hatter, Harley Quinn, Mister Freeze, etc to a place that looks like a 1800s facility where they'd try to beat the abnormality out of you, and then you're shocked when they don't get better! No duh, idiot! Or is the stupid rich man fine with gotham having a non-existent mental health system!? Screw you Batman. Screw you!

[wormnamedwax]

Batman: Arkham Knight, Gotham City Stories - The Fall

“The Sanitarium had been derelict for years. A burnt-out patch of dead earth on top, a forgotten warren of cells below. Good, Jason thought, he’s already in the dirt.”

THATS NOT FUNNY AGHHHH. YOU CANT JUST SAY THAT…

[splathousefiction]

It Came From Tubi, my movie review podcast, is going to likely be free to the public going forward as it's become a fan favorite.

This week, we cover HP lovecraft and a movie inspired by that ol' racist.

[whump-is-my-drug]

The Thing on the Doorstep + The Haunter of the Dark ->

Arkham Sanitarium

I'm so mad/frustrated because this movie is not finished after many years. There is only the trailer and fragments of scenes. I would love to watch this in full.

[squashfolded]

*draws niche content no one cares about*

[painted-piggy-ships-archive]

so i might have yet another timeline idea for my ship with j SHSHSH-

[kyttehw-blog]

Celebrating 128 Years - The Life & Literary Work of H.P. Lovecraft

LoveFest 2018 - Path To Madness - Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft opens August 17th! Male & Female Fashion,Home & Garden,Live Entertainment,Workshops,Roleplay,Book Readings,Burlesque Performers,Art Gallery,Quest and more!

https://beautydollssl.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/celebrating-128-years-the-life-literary-work-of-h-p-lovecraft/

[andrewckeeper]

Before/After LIDMF

“Arkhampo”

[queen-in-blue]

Slender was walking around in a forest on Earth, he appeared to be deep in thought as he walked out of the forest and walked down the road and snapped out of it when he saw the sign that said ‘Welcome to Arkham, Massachusetts’ and he immediately knew where he was and he went in to Arkham as he teleported around for a bit before seeing a building and stood there. Watching it as he turned to leave before he heard a stick snap.

Elizabeth Clemmons stopped dead in her tracks. What the hell was he doing here? The sanitarium was protected...

She was a lovely young lady, with hair black like a ravens wing, cerulean blue eyes, and her complexion was a slightly icy color. The being could sense she wasn't exactly human...

[artemis-maia]

P2 did have influences from Gatchaman and Jetman (regarding Featherman), Batman (Joker smile, Batman’s Joker also often wears and uses flowers, in EP Sudou was in the Morimoto Sanitarium (could be seen as Arkham asylum), Joker infection in EP = Joker venom), even in P1 the relationship between Nanjo and Yamaoka was modeled after Bruce and Alfred)

So I recently kinda researched on Marvel‘s/X-men‘s Sunfire a bit and thought that the design might have possibly been one of the inspirations for Apollo since both use the Japanese flag/Rising Sun theme as a basis and have solar powers.

[wyrmalien]

Elwood for the character bingo [activates your autism]

ACTIVATES MY AUTISM LETS GO

He's so. words. he starts out as Just Some Guy and then the horror slowly builds up through the story culminating in Walter's death which changes him permanently. which he beleives to be ultimately responsible for, first for encouraging Walter's studies and then for failing to watch over him on May Eve and May 1st (I think about the reading of "I told Walter he could come downstairs in sleep in my room meanwhile, I would keep watch during the night." "That was good of you my son." "No, father, I failed him!" "I'm sure you did your--" "We talked late into the night about Keziah and Brown Jenkin and about the possibility of travelling to other dimensions...I only made things worse!" That's a lot of words. but. clenches fist. they're read SO WELL in the rock opera I think about them all the time)

In the short story he has a nervous breakdown and is sent to arkham sanitarium for a year (it isn't specified in the short story Who sends him there or if he even sends himself there but regardless I think about it). This doesn't happen in either HPLHS versions as in both he goes to Fr. Iwanicki (who existed in a 1st draft of witch house but howie wrote him out), the DART production he has been recommended by Joe Mazurewicz, the rock opera he is a Catholic going to confession. The voice acting (and writing!) of both are very very good indicators for how horribly this has impacted him. The DART production, he's very quiet, awkward, stutters, and several directions written into the script include Elwood having difficulty getting sound out. The contrast between this Elwood and the Elwood of the past (of which we of course meet as he starts to tell his story) is STRIKING. Like. Past Elwood is loud and confident and very Normal. Right away you can tell something very very bad happened to almost completely inverse his personality. In the rock opera, there's a shorter amount of time to get all of this out though the way he speaks is still a constant, and being Catholic, he is asked when his last confession was:

FATHER IWANICKI Yes, my son. Go on. When was your last confession?

ELWOOD Five weeks, Father. Thirty-seven days ago. That’s eight hundred ninety one hours. My last confession was fifty-three thousand, four hundred sixty minutes ago. More or less.

FATHER IWANICKI Alright. What do—

ELWOOD Three million, two hundred seven thousand, six hundred seconds...

He’s become obsessed with that date. Thinks about this forever. This is of course not to mention the entirety of Between Reality and Dreaming, where Elwood, the Catholic, says this:

FATHER IWANICKI + MONKS Faith in God restores man’s life

ELWOOD Belief in God is a delusion!

Normal Catholic things to say :) And of course the whole “I’ve lost all sense of my identity” and “now I’ll never sleep again/I envy those who live in ignorance” lines

There is also the line at the end of BRaD, where Elwood sings “Am I dreaming?” (echoing a prior song sung by Walter) and Nyarlathotep follows that with lines sung in a song about praising Azethoth. These are the last lines we hear from Elwood. Now that Walter is dead, the horror lives on in him :)

tldr i love to see a Normal Guy weighed down by grief and forever changed by their experiences. there are multiple ways I like to think about what happens to Elwood after the whole ordeal, and because no adaptation goes into it all of these are right and i am correct about everything. He either follows that path, the path Walter took, as implied(? sort of) in the rock opera, or he returns to live in one of the neighbouring houses until the witch house is eventually demolished. i have Thoughts about the last one with the house becoming a point of obsession with him.

This is a side note because i couldn’t find where to shove it in in the above discussion but i like how he gets dragged into the madness a little too because of his devotion(? theres a better word than that) to walter. at the beginning he acts as an anchor of reason, recommending the campus doctor & hurrying walter home when he thinks he sees her in an allyway when they’re walking back from miskatonic. then it becomes he becomes interested in walter’s dreams, like there’s a specific part where walter is recounting his experiences and is terrified, but elwood is fascinated. it gets to a point where elwood helps him with his studies, rows him out to the island on the river, and even just straight up steals the necronomicon from the library for him. He helps him try to discover what the figure broken off the balustrade is, and of course the dreaded week before May Eve when they talk constantly of the possibility of traveling dimensions.

and can you believe that essay was all only commentary on the first square i crossed out? theres more :) but shorter i promise

Done dirty by the creator and wasted potential is obvious, he’s a lovecraft character. thank you HPLHS for fixing both of these and making him the most guy to ever. I’m constantly rotating him in my brain is that wasn’t clear enough already :)

there are. so many Elwood songs. i need to make a separate playlist for each of the characters right now theyre all shoved into one 6 hour playlist hold on let me just. okay it’s real now

he CERTAINLY doesnt have enough screentime in the original. HPLHS fixed that thank you HPLHS but he shows up halfway through the story & no he should be there from the BEGINNING.

anyways. i think if there was a witch house fandom they would get him all wrong. i think he would be a very fun npc in a witch house scenario. im really normal about this guy cant you tell

[dangerousconnoisseurdonut]

Poll for Curiosity

Hi there! I have posted five prompts/ideas for future stories and I would like to know which one each of you likes best. As we can’t have a poll the traditional way, please leave your choice in the comments; you may pick up to two choices.

Choice #1: Bruce is given the ability to change into different animals by Strange but can only return to his human form if someone calls him by name. The Rogues look after him in the mean time and kind of spoil him.

Choice #2: My Underworld AU where Jerome is a werewolf, Jeremiah a vampire, and Bruce’s ancestor is their Little Prince, with the other Horribles being their Generals. Someone manages to lock them away by killing the ancestor, but Ivy, who’s a descendant of one of the servants who got away, has found them and is ready to reawaken them.

Choice #3: Matrix AU where Bruce is The One but the Matrix puts him back to sleep by creating a city for him to save; Gotham, and makes some of their best Agents into ‘villains’ for him to fight and distract him from the truth. The Agents eventually take over the system and Bruce is their pet that they try all these ‘fantasies’ on.

Choice #4: Arkham in Space. Arkham is a prison/sanitarium in space where Bruce is a temporary guard. Thing is, it’s getting closer and closer to his expiry date and none of the inmates want him to leave, especially the Legion of Horribles as Bruce is the only guard to treat them like actual people. Not to mention every member of the Legion thinks Bruce is adorable and just wants to cuddle him forever. When they hear the other guards threaten Bruce, they breakout, take over the ship, and keep Bruce as their pet.

And Choice #5: Jervis is a vampire who, to get revenge on former vampire hunter Jim Gordon, turns some of his worst foes into other vampires. To make his revenge complete, he also turns Bruce into a vampire, tying him so intricately into his Court that death of even one member will hurt Bruce, possibly kill him. When he refuses to feed, the others treat him like a baby and use a baby’s bottle to get him to feed.

Those are the condensed versions of the five prompts; if you want to read more on them before you make your choice, just check out my posts regarding prompts (Choice #2 is titled, Blame jeromiah). Happy readings!

[jedidajo]

Another thing I’ve decided I dislike about The Batman (2022) is that they made Martha Wayne an Arkham, and not a Kane. It was for a weird fucking reason anyway - to justify her being in a sanitarium as a young woman - and I didn’t care for that at all. But, making her an Arkham blatantly erases Bruce’s Jewishness and gives the icky side of the fandom ammunition to say he’s not Jewish at all now. And if they wanna make the Arkhams Jewish to rectify that, it’d be playing into some bad stereotypes.

I don’t know how many other people noticed that, but it’s been bugging me since I saw the movie, and it just makes me sad to see it happen.