Promotional art for The Switcharoo special.
"I may not be able to let go, but at least I know I'm a better person because of it. Wouldn't you agree, Chia?"
— Dan, The Switcharoo, Part Four: Sanctimonious Lamb
Purple Spades is a webcomic created by DanDaMiniFig
about the author and his Slice of Life adventures battling anxiety, identity, and (more times than not) himself.
Purple Spades contains examples of:
- Beat Panel: Sometimes used to convey sorrow or disappointment towards Dan.
- Bittersweet 17: The first two issues focus on Dan turning 17 and the unreadiness it brings him.
- Brutal Honesty: Dan's dating advice and his anxiety jar.
- Chia: Why is the jar already full?
Dan: (in tears) No reason.
- Check and Mate: Dan's speech to Chia about how his way of teaching Dan how to move on wasn't a healthy way.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each character has a specific color hex assigned to them. Dan's hex code is #4c0191, Chia's is #03900d, and so on.
- As of "Crisis Button," all characters have been given darker tones.
- Grand Theft Me: Chia forces Dan to become his superconscience in "The Switcharoo".
- I Hate Past Me: The dynamic between Dan and Chia.
- Info Dump: Chia explains to Dan how superconsciences function in "The Switcharoo, Part Two: Who's In Control?"
- Multi-Part Episode: "The Switcharoo" contained five parts that were published on a daily basis.
- No Name Given: No name was given to Chia until "Nickname" where he shows great discomfort in it.
- Self-Insert Fic: Both main characters are representations of the author, Dan being the present and Chia being the past.
- Shout-Out:
- Chia shows Dan his self-insert The Amazing World of Gumball character from 2012.
- The song "Two Trucks" was used as a means of getting Dan and Marxie's friends to get familiar with Lemon Demon in the issue of the same name.
- Mordecai from Regular Show is shown to be an example of what a simp is.
- "Slob of the Dead" is a play on the Call of Duty: Black Ops II zombies map "Mob of the Dead". The premise of the issue jokes about Dan's addiction to the game.
- "The Switcharoo":
- "We Can, Too!" (along with the name of the special itself) directly references a line from Lollipop in the season 4 episode of Battle for Dream Island: "X Marks The Spot".
- "Who's In Control?" takes its name from a line in the Halsey song "Control".
- "Lionhearted" got its title from the Porter Robinson song of the same name.
- Dan references the events of the Gravity Falls episode "Sock Opera", to which Chia finds offensive.
- A Stitch Tsum Tsum can be seen on Dan's dresser.
- "True Colors" shares its name with the Zedd song.
- Several references to modern video gaming consoles in the "Split Screen" special.
- The Conscience: Chia is Dan's superconscience, which is explained by Chia as "the physical embodiment of (his) subconscious thoughts and mind" only the host can see, similar to a Helpful Hallucination.
- Traumatic Haircut: Dan in "Bad Hair Day".
- Visual Pun: The empty box labeled "confidence".
