asylum meme

[alkali]

 

 Meme, Interrupted


"People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It's easy."

Well, you've really done it now. You're in a mental institution. Maybe it's a modern facility with a therapy garden, compassionate staff members, and a warm environment meant to help nurse people back to health, or maybe it's a glorified dungeon where the government shoves people they don't want to deal with and patients are abused by staff. Regardless of what it is, you're there, and it doesn't look like they're planning on letting you out any time soon. 

Maybe you're actually not supposed to be there and you're trying to arrange for your release. Maybe you actually are meant to be there and you're struggling with your illness. Maybe you're not a patient at all and you're just there to visit or earn your paycheck. It's up to you. 

Rules: 

1. Post with your character's name, canon, and your preferences on the subject bar, and set up the situation.
2. Tag other people. Are you a visitor? A staff member? A fellow patient? A hallucination? It's your choice.
3. Have fun!

Comments

Stiles Stilinski | Teen Wolf

[threeisapattern]

[some options:

investigating
Stiles is an in-patient or orderly because there's something supernatural afoot in the hospital (doctor? patient? orderly? who knows!), and he needed access to the place to Investigate. (yes yes he's very heroic, please hold your swooning until after the investigation is complete.)

patient
He cannot keep it the fuck together after being made a surrogate sacrifice and ends up committed for his own good. Symptoms include night terrors, hallucinations, insomnia, alexia, heightened anxiety, and inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Please come visit him, his life is Hell.

And then there's the classic 'werewolves and the supernatural aren't actually real, you're just crazy, Stiles' option.

Open to other ideas!] ]

Percy Jackson | riordanverse

[kelpheaded]

[patient

a. potentially in an au where Sally doesn't know about Poseidan or see through the Mist and just knows that her daughter is deeply troubled, hallucinates monsters and destroys properties. someone could maybe help bail her out before she gets killed?

b. cuckoo nest trope! Buffy-style, Percy gets poisoned by a monster that causes hallucinations of being in a psychiatric ward and needs some help figuring out what's real and what's not.

open to other ideas!!]

[gracedlightning]

When the orderlies bring Jason in, the only reason he's not fighting them is because he's been pretty solidly drugged. Even so, no one's bothered changing him out of the dirty t-shirt and jeans he'd been wearing while caught, and his short, blonde hair is also dirty and unkempt. He has the look of someone who's been outside a while — because, as anyone who can hear the exchange between the staff will learn, he was.

He'd been found outside in the Sonoma Valley area, and no one's got any idea where he came from or how long he was on his own. He's not very talkative, and startles at shadows sometimes, and they'd tried to put him in foster care but he'd only kept to himself or babbled about monsters when someone could get him to talk. Mostly he preferred to stay silent. Or growl.

And he was always running away. This is the third time they've caught him, in fact, so foster homes clearly aren't cutting it. He needs more help than they can give, it seems, particularly with the way he seems half-wild sometimes, snarling when cornered and rarely using his words. Sometimes staring at people a little too long.

So, here he is, dumped into the common area because they're short-staffed today (they're often short-staffed) and they'll have to wait until one of the bigger nurses comes in for his shift to try to get him cleaned up. He'd bitten one of the police officers handling his case, this time. No one wants to risk it, and he seems calmer when they just leave him alone.

Jason finds himself curled into a corner, partway behind an overstuffed chair, eyes darting around the room, unable to stay still, buzzing over every face like he's expecting it to turn into something… well. Else.

Jason Todd | DC Animated Movies

[robintohood]

To say Jason was angry this time would be an severe understatement. He's always been an angry person. But this time, a fury beyond words is stewing within himself. This was the thanks he got for trying to coming back into the Bat-Fold and letting Bruce have influence him over again. Bruce once called his teenage self a "a danger" to himself and others so maybe this was just a long time coming.

Jason didn't kill this time but his violent outburst after the latest breakout by the Joker crossed the line enough for Bruce to ship him elsewhere. Essentially telling his son to sit in the Arkham corner and think about what he's done.

Somehow, Jason still loves his siblings enough not to reveal their vigilante secrets as soon as he was admitted but even that's been tested. He nearly refuses when he's told that he's got a visitor but he needs a break from stewing in rage and plotting his escape. For now, he'll entertain this but he's not hiding how he's feeling.

[perfectlyfine]

Tim tries to be the mediator, the calm one. He became Robin because Batman needed someone to check him, to stop him from going too far, and even now that Bruce has a much better support network to provide him with stability and help, he stays careful. He monitors the situations. He counterbalances when someone's rocking the boat. He doesn't get into screaming arguments with Bruce, no matter how messed up things have gotten.

When he found out about Jason, he got into a screaming argument with Bruce. No matter his disagreements with Jason's methods of doing things, no matter how much Bruce might argue Jason needs treatment, you don't throw your kid into Arkham. It is - ironically - insane. And Tim's roughly 70% convinced that something's wrong with Bruce, especially after confronting him about it, and that will need to be dealt with but in the meantime, Jason's the higher priority. Which is why he basically storms out of the Manor immediately after the fight and heads directly to Arkham, do not pass go, do not collect yourself to plan what to do. He just shows up and demands to see his brother, even if they're going to be separated by glass for his protection.

"Jason?"

Probably not the visitor thing, but the rest of the setting could work?

[definecat]

Sometime in the middle of the night, long after the last of the screamers have been drugged into a stupor, Jason will find himself aware that he's no longer alone. It isn't a threatening kind of presence, however. Even possibly supportive.

Because the last thing Jason ever needs is to feel alone when Sleeper is there.

Alan Wake | Alan Wake/RCU | OTA

[crazyisinevitable]

[ He's most likely a patient after his experiences in the Dark Place. Maybe he has good days and bad days, or maybe every day is bad. Thirteen years of having his mind and memories messed with have definitely taken a toll.

Maybe he's not in a psych ward at all; maybe he's in an FBC holding cell where they can monitor him. There's a lot of ways to approach this. ]

Johanna Constantine | The Sandman (Netflix) | OTA

[keepgodwaiting]

[ RUBS HANDS. The patient. Is it Ravenscar? Is it another institution? It's all good! Let's get horror canon with it!

Will match brackets or prose. hmu via DM if you want to plan something specific. ]

[cw: death of a child, Satanic stuff, forced institutionalization, probably horror tropes about mental hospitals]

Johanna Constantine is 23 years old and she killed a kid.

This, at least, is what it said on her intake forms. That she was found in a club holding the severed arm of Astra Logue, surrounded by Satanic paraphernalia. That when the authorities arrived, she was scribbling strange sigils and pentagrams on the floor in chalk, even while she gripped Astra's arm in her other hand, and that when the police tackled her to the ground, she screamed about demons and Hell and how she'd kill Alex Logue for what he'd done, she'd send him straight after his daughter, you just fucking wait, until they got her into a holding cell and sedated her.

Johanna Constantine is 23 years old, a child murderer, and considered incompetent to stand trial. Her solicitor had successfully argued that she couldn't be expected to mount a defense of a client who was swinging between catatonia, night terrors, and violent outbursts, all while clinging to a delusion about demonic influences. And so Johanna has been sent here: to recover. To face punishment. To be forgotten about by the civilized society she no longer belongs in.

Johanna Constantine is 23 years old, a child murderer, legally mad as a hatter, and currently sitting in the common room of the ward with a sheaf of paper and a green crayon, carefully -- some might say obsessively -- drawing five-, six-, and eight-pointed stars inside circles.

general cw for internalized ableism re: mental health

[inaxorable]

Rodion Raskolnikov isn't crazy. He'd killed the old woman and her sister, but he'd been fit to stand trial and fit to go to prison! The hallucinations hadn't been a big deal anyways. But the state had said otherwise, so instead of being in prison and repenting like Sonya had wanted, here he is, being treated like some sort of madman. He doesn't talk to the other prisoners patients, content to spend his time lost in thought. Sometimes he prays, when he's in the mood. Most of the time he just sits around and does absolutely nothing.

The common room isn't busy, but there are enough patients in it to make him vaguely uncomfortable, irritated in the omnidirectional way that only socialization (ugh) can cause. He's curled on an uncomfortable chair, feet drawn up off the ground and arms wrapped around his knees. He's content to watch what everyone else is doing with this free time.

Which apparently, for one vaguely familiar woman, is drawing stars in circles. A strange hobby, but then again, they are in a mental institution.

He doesn't like talking to people, doesn't like even being near people, and yet he can't help but be curious. What is she doing with those symbols? Why is she so focused on them? With the strange sensation of not entirely being in control of his own body, he slides off the chair and walks over.

"That's quite impressive." He points at one of the freehand circles, which indeed is impressively circular. (If he tried to draw a freehand circle, he's pretty sure it would turn out looking like an egg.)

[justnotgoingtodie]

[I know I'm late to the meme, but I hope this is alright with you?! If not, feel free to ignore this! I am open to all the crazy hospital horrors, hijinks, and general nightmare fuel one enjoys. Hello.]

---

When telling someone you are not crazy, one tends to think you might actually be crazy. Hob Gadling was not at all crazy, of course, but he had been caught at a very bad time and place in his life. Not that he hadn’t had bad times before, but in this age of technology and ease of information gathering, Hob had managed to find himself on the wrong side or someone's ancestor that he had possibly wronged some hundred years ago.

Which led to him discovering someone knew who he truly was and that they were out to make his life a living hell…

Which led to his being forced to investigate several missing students from the high school he taught history at, only to discover the brutal murders of each child…

Which led to his latest alias of mild mannered, well liked, “cool” high school history teacher, Robert “Bob” Hoskins, to lose his job, his home, his current savings, and any form of built up life, all in one blow.

To make matters worse, the reason he was in Ravenscar to begin with had to do with the drugs they had sedated him with when they were trying to question him about how and why he brutally murdered those innocent children. He of course denied all of it and tried to explain, but considering he’s over 600 years old, explaining some things was difficult, especially when on the sedation, he openly talked as if he were, indeed, 600 some odd years old.

Which brings us to now, in the common area, wheeled in by an orderly and parked at a small table. Hob swayed a bit in the chair as it stopped, and the orderly leaned in to tell him to behave today. That from now on he needs to eat or they’ll do it again to him. That… ‘You can’t prove you’re immortal by not eating.’

He scoffed at the orderly’s words. “Sure I can. How else does one prove it? Wait, don’t answer that. Tell Roger it was a lovely session and I look forward to being psychoanalyzed again later.” Hob rambled this more to himself, as the orderly already walked off, clearly not caring to hear it.

Blinking his dark eyes to try to focus them, he glanced around the common area a moment, before moving to lower his bare feet, toes curled on the cold floor which felt not as clean as one might think a nut house would be in this era. But he pulled himself over to a table with a woman who was coloring. Awww, look, stars!

“What? No septagrams?” He said, pointing out that she had no seven point stars as he leaned forward to squint at her work. A moment after that he could just be heard whispering out loud in confusion… “So perfect… how the fuck?” Though there is a very high possibility that it had been meant to stay in his head.

selina kyle, dc comics

[catlady]

[ patient and really not taking the whole thing well. she spends her first few days near catatonic, huddled in some corner rocking back and forth, her arms wound tightly around herself as she quietly meows to herself in some sort of obsessive repetition for hours on end. she refuses all her meals and ignores any attempt at conversation, only snapping out of this daze when an uninformed and unfamiliar staff member dares to put their hands on her, resulting in what will be marked down in her file officially as extremely combative behavior. but this isn't her first rodeo: compliance is a necessity if she wants to get their guard down enough to make her escape, and she will the moment that opportunity becomes available. she's willing to try and play nice as the days pass. ]

Cat, meet cat impersonator

[definecat]

[Nobody knows how the cat got into the facility, but they don't seem to be able to get rid of them. The animal seems to be good with the patients, finding the right ones who just need a little company. Or maybe they're just looking for the really interesting ones, and have strange standards for measuring that. Still, one day Selina will find the "cat" snoozing on her pillow when she is put back in her room.]

[ainissesthai]

[It's an all-too familiar routine, isn't it? Back and forth, they run, they're caught, brought back to the start to run again. He'd call it a riddle if there were anything to actually solve.]

A man is in a room. There are no doors, no windows and yet he escapes. How did he get out?

[Edward isn't even looking at Selina as he drops down beside her in the brief period of 'recreation' they're allowed. It's the first time he's been allowed out of his cell since arriving and there's a manic light in his eyes. Too much isolation wearing at him as it always does when he's been left with no one but himself to talk to for too long.]

Stealthy as a shadow in the dead of night, cunning but affectionate if given a bite. Never owned but often loved, at my sport, considered cruel. What am I?

[It's close enough to a greeting. His gaze skips over the space around them, never settling on any point for long.]

I'm hard to get rid of. If you remove my first letter, a bit still remains; take the second, and the little bit is still there; take away the third, it still remains. What am I?

[She should know by now he can keep going for as long as it takes, he has plenty of riddles to share.]

Rocket | Sucker Punch | OTA

[the2ndthing]

If there was one thing Rocket knew, it was that there was always a way out of a place like this, and maybe you needed a multi-part plan like some kind of bank heist, and maybe you just needed light fingers and a trusting candystriper.

She knew there had been other times, after the fire, after the stabbing -those had both been justified as far as she was concerned- and she honestly had no idea that she was actually haunting the building that had once been Lennox House and then a series of other hospitals, asylums and recovery centers, up to the current one.

[ooc: definitely open to other situations as well, I just love the thought of Rocket helping people escape and never actually getting out herself because she doesn't realize she can't.]

[deadtectiveagency]

[what if another ghost is there to help her escape/complete her unfinished business?]

Apollo | Inception OC | OTA

[apollodreaming]

[There's some options here: as a patient, he's got an ankle monitor that sounds an alarm if he gets any higher than the second or third floor due to the number of times he's been caught trying to jump off the roof. Not because he wants to die, but because he's trying to get enough velocity to initiate 'a kick'.
He could be volunteering/candystriping, either to visit compatriots or as research for a job, maybe even the job itself.
It could be the whole situation is a job regardless.
Anything else that sounds interesting, let's go!]

Henry Stillman | X-Verse OC | OTA

[malesiren]

[Grandad tried to get him committed when he was in high school for a whole host of (mostly made up or at the very least exaggerated) reasons, maybe this time he actually managed.
Or maybe it's some kind of Mutant holding facility, in which case Henry's going to be double-pissed about it.]

Mina / Urban Fantasy OC / OTA

[raisedgrimm]

[If it's haunted she's probably here trying to remedy that, whether she's doing so as a patient or as a volunteer.
Could also be she's visiting folks about Things They've Seen and/or Been Attacked By, because sadly people who get attacked by Things often aren't believed by the authorities.]

Chrissy Cunningham + Stranger Things + OTA

[cheerybomb]

[We've got some options!
This could be Pennhurst, if we're going canonical-ish, or it could be somewhere with a more religious bent that her mom found.
She could have actually died and come back wrong (in a way no one can really quantify, but they can all tell) OR she could have just been a teenage runaway, but came back only to be labeled recalcitrant and sent off to somewhere they can keep an eye on her. Likewise instead of going home she could have just been picked up by a well-meaning good Samaritan (or the cops) and she refused to tell them where she was from (or didn't talk at all)
Regardless: she is not having a good time, at all.]

Sleeper | Venom/Marvel Comics | OTA

[definecat]

[Therapy cat would probably be most obvious, since they don't really do human stuff. Bear in mind that since Sleeper has chemokinesis they could in theory be able to help with drug administration if desired.

Feel free to work things out here or in PMs]

Alex Churchland | LISA the Pointless | OTA

[twistedvelvet]

[While he is one of the most well-adjusted protagonists of a LISA game, fan- or otherwise, Alex still has some issues in his backstory that, due to the incomplete nature of Pointless, we don't know how much time and effort he actually spent on dealing with them.

[He also experienced some very trippy experiences with a non-zero chance of legitimate supernatural forces and horrors at work, so he may very well either be perfectly sane but mistaken for insane, or alternatively insane and struggling to come to terms with everything he saw having mundane explanations.]

Nico | Dionysus | Greek Myth

[dionysianrevelry]

[Patient. CW for mental health issues.

Bipolar combined with Borderline personality disorder, there is also Complex PTSD. The Greek God is more known for their substance abuse, particularly drugs and alcohol as self-medication. When they crash they will self isolate in mental health facilities to heal or be placed there by those who know Dionysus. There is also a lot of daddy issues, who wouldn't have that with Zeus as a father and mother.]

[malesiren]

As far as places his grandfather could have stashed him, this one... well it wasn't nice but it could definitely be worse, initially he'd been threatened with the Sisters of Mercy center, and he knew as well as anyone that there was no mercy to be had there.

But this place? It was clean, and while he knew that the monitor on his wrist was also a power inhibitor no one was openly anti-mutant and that was probably the best he was going to get. He was even allowed a guitar, in the music room, under supervision, presumably so that he didn't turn it into a weapon somehow, not that he'd desecrate an instrument like that unless it was an absolute emergency.

Though perhaps the most interesting part, at least so far, was that he'd been deemed harmless enough to be assigned a roommate, a new arrival, someone else who was there for the long haul the same as he was.

He rolled to his feet when the knock came, knowing that he needed to be both visible and out of the way as the new guy got dropped off and given the schpiel about rules and mealtimes if he hadn't gotten it already when being signed in.

Alex Casey | Alan Wake II/Remedyverse | OTA

[whaticantforget]

[Visitor - He's visiting the facility. This could be because a FBI investigation has led him here seeking some clues, or because he's visiting someone he knows within the facility.

Patient - After the events in Bright Falls, Alex Casey has gone a bit crazy. Maybe the Dark Presence still lingers in his subconscious; maybe he saw or even lived through all those loops and the extra memories won't leave him alone. Whatever the case, he belongs here.]

Rezo the Red Priest | Slayers | OTA

[redprayer]

[[ooc: options- Rezo's likely to be a doctor at this institution, but he's messed up enough that he might have wound up as a patient too (although he's not likely to be cooperative about it.) Open to AUing him into a modern setting or having this be a pseudo-historical deal.]]