Superego is another MSPA Fan Adventure by Jovian, who's also the creator of Godquest. Ten individuals, each designated by a numeral and a color, are trapped in a hospital and must work together to get out. But what surprises does the building have in store for them? And what deep, dark secrets lay within their minds?Not to be confused with The Superego, the former name of a trope about logical, calculated men.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: For a period of time beginning on February 11, 2012, Percy's shadow had gotten its hands on the Info Database that Percy was so meticulously keeping up-to-date and pretty much trashed it. At first, it was simply a black-out of the information (which copy-pasting into a text editor could easily undo), but then his edits started getting...nightmarish.
Five Temperament Ensemble: Ava and Juliet are sanguine; Rick and Quin are choleric; Sam and Percy are melancholic; Louis and Grey are phlegmatic; Cherry and Helen are supine.
Freudian Trio: The first three characters introduced. Percy is the Superego (logical, perceptive), Sam the Ego (doesn't care about others and wants to get out as soon as possible), and Ava the Id (excitable, loves chatting and getting people's attention).
Genius Loci: The hospital appears to have elements of this. For example, one roomtraps Ava and Cherry within it.
Painting the Fourth Wall: Everyone and their dialog is colored a different hue while the demonic voices have black backgrounds in their text. As things get weirder, filter effects such as smudging and pixellizing are used as well.
Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Rick lands a hell of a beatdown on Louis to avenge his graduation invitation, but the most that he suffers is a slight nosebleed. Louis then does a big right jab on the coach's face, knocking off his glasses in the process. Even Rick's inner demon knew this right from the start.
Rotating Protagonist: You could easily divide the story into scenes with certain characters as focus.
Rule of Symbolism: Rick is one of the only people of the other hospital inhabitants that Cherry seems comfortable being around and talking to due to her rather shy and skittish personality. At one point they get separated after Cherry has a meltdown when he and Louis start fighting; she goes to search for Rick a few minutes later, only to see another woman now following him around. Feeling replaced, she runs away heartbroken and several walls come jutting up from the floor behind her to prevent them from following. In other words, her barriers just went back up.
Soft Glass: The entire floor of the black room, as a shadowy girl who may or may not be Quindemonstrates; Sam ends up on a hospital bed without so much as a scratch.
Subliminal Seduction: During Sam's stay in the White Void Room, censored messages start to obscure his train of thought. When highlighted, they appear to be gibberish. However, if you get rid of the non-alphabetic characters, separate the letters into caps and lowercase, and reverse both strings, you will get two messages. The lowercase one reads, "run boy you should run they are going to get you you do not realize what you have done they want to kill you from the inside out they are the most terrifying things you will ever experience because they are you and only you alone can defeat them sam you better get out of here and quickly quickly," and the all-caps one reads, "I CANNOT POSSIBLY FATHOM TO TELL YOU THE FULL RAMIFICATIONS OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE HERE YOU HAVE DONE SOMETHING DEMONIC AND YOU WILL REGRET IT SECONDS AFTER YOU LEAVE THIS ROOM I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE FATE YOU HAVE PUT UPON YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU WILL BE LIVING IT FOR EVERY SECOND FROM NOW ON."
This happens again after Sam gets struck by lightning, although the text is in Shadow Sam's color and it doesn't need to be highlighted. Although the capital letters don't seem to have a message, the lowercase ones spell out "sam im very disappointed in you/you have been rude and disruptive and entirely unhelpful/sam theres something you should do this is your last chance/it will help you will be fixed you can live normally sign here/sam sign here sam sam sam sign here sam sam sign sam" over the course of five pages.
Theme Naming: Not including full names (as the cast is rarely called by them in-story), they're ten letters long. Even including aliases (Red Diamond) and initials (Rick L. Worth).
Unreliable Narrator: Despite being written in second person, the narration varies depending on the character in focus. Considering the characters' mannerisms...
Even the character's recollections vary stylistically. Compare how Ava sees Sam and how Sam sees Ava.
What the Hell, Hero?: Quin pulls this on Rick after he shrugs off Cherry running away from them in tears, despite the fact that they'd been trying to find her.
Quin: Did you even notice she was crying? Did you even care? You said you were specifically looking for her!
White Void Room: Sam ends up in one. And immediately gets assaulted by a mass of dark tentacles that may or may not be his inner demon.
You Are Number Six: Everyone has a numeral on their left hand which designates their personality disorders according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition. Read more about it here.
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: In only a week's worth of updates, Sam, Percy, and Ava find the exit to the hospital which leads to a cliff that leads to an abyss. END OF PROLOGUE.