#max nygaard

Thanks to my great friend @lazymik0r, I got into In Sound Mind recently- it's such an amazing game, i'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of psychological horror, mystery stories and themes of mental health, conspiracies and the lives of a therapist and his patients :)

Anyways, enough yapping, enjoy the art :D

Characters in order:

Agent Rainbow

The Watcher

The Shade

The Bull

Another older fanart from my 2024 sketchbook, but digitally colored and doodled. I was so scared of smudging the pencil render...

Drawing The Bull from memory was certainly a challenge, haha, I really enjoy these characters together

An idea I had for Max is maybe a teacher reader? Specifically Maddie's teacher- Like they know about the divorce and all that but they secretly still give updates to Max about how Maddison is doing and sends pictures of drawings Maddie made during art time or Maddie having fun with her friends to help brighten his day/unknowingly give him things that help keep him calm and remind him why he's in therapy in the first place-

Thanks again for reading my ask!

Max Nygaard×Teacher! Reader.

A/N: gender neutral, Poc friendly.

My chest feels tight every time I listen to Is It Me--imo it's easily the saddest song of the bunch, and it hits me every time. "Is it me, am I wrong for not conforming?" "Is it me, or is anger all-consuming?" I relate so much to the first one and I get the second. Max is fiercely independent but lives in a world where he can't express that, where he chafes at constant orders and (projecting here) inscrutable social rules. His anger is explosive, and it makes it difficult to see past it, but once it clears he clearly feels regret/doesn't want to be that unreachable when angry. It bleeds very easily into self-righteousness.

OGs under the cut!

Part 1 - Part 2

I made this drawing in February, finished it at the end of that same month, but I only posted it on Twitter. Which was silly of me because the ISM fandom is very VERY dead over there, LOL.

the fandom may be dead, but what the fuck!! ISM poster GO!!! I'm still quite proud of this drawing and might remake it in a few years, y'know, to hopefully revive the fandom every once in a while :]

vvvv !! drawing down here !! vvvv

reblogs are appreciated ':]

!!Version with tape in the background down here!!

it might be a tad hard to see, but its there!!

I finished In Sound Mind and I loved it. So I’m going to talk about something I thought was really clever after thinking it through (and something people probably caught immediately but oh well). The patients shadow forms (as I will be referring to them as).

Initially I was confused at the seeming inconsistency of how the patients shadows are characterised. The Watcher and Bull are Virginia and Max’s but with exacerbated mental health issues while The Shade and The Flash are seemingly the opposites of Allen and Lucas. Then the Empty is literally just Rosemary. So why the variation in characterisation?

Then I reflected on something Agent Rainbow said in the final tape. That he will take over Desmond’s mind. That Desmond’s patients hadn’t beaten him, so why could Desmond? Then the obvious hit me.

Agent Rainbow is what Desmond fears. That he’s killing his patients rather than saving them, that he’s actually somehow a malevolent force who makes peoples lives worse (feelings exacerbated by his partner leaving him with what Magdalena said in her note ‘I want happiness’). We know that all of the games patients are impacted by Agent Rainbow and they in some way succumb to it. Therefore, the Shadows we see are the Agent Rainbow’s the Patients would have encountered if they were the protagonists of the game. Like Desmond, they represent their fears, what they were suppressing in their subconscious that was unleashed by Agent Rainbow via connection to the ‘collective unconscious.’ However, unlike Desmond, they do not overcome their shadows and thus become them, as Agent Rainbow stated he would do to Desmond.

Individual analysis:

Virginia-

Virginia has severe issues with her appearance and cannot look at herself in a mirror, feeling people are always judging her. She sings she’s scared of being lonely (‘That I’m lonely’ ‘I would tell you all about it if you’d listen’ - “A Doll’s House”) something she no longer was before being exposed to Agent Rainbow, having a relationship with a guy called Dave and a routine which involves social interaction. The Watcher attacks people who look at her, driving people away, causing her shadow to be lonely, a manifestation of her fear as a result of Agent Rainbow. This is best demonstrated by her tape occurring in an abandoned supermarket with just mannequins and dolls of her family for company. Furthermore, The Watcher’s design is based on Medusa, a woman who’s face was turned inside out and is so hideous looking at her kills you. This is a blatant manifestation of perhaps her most dominant fear, that she is physically repulsive.

Allen-

Allen has been plagued by nightmares of being swallowed by shadows since he was a child. He is so terrified of shadows and the dark he has centred his whole life around being near light. (My interpretation of Bottom of the Pit is he is so terrified of the nightmares getting worse, and seeing ‘the bottom of the pit,’ he would rather be dead, aka seeing ‘the dark end of a tunnel.’) He also seems to feel very connected to Desmond, and heavily relies on his guidance (‘When I’m uptight I call you on the phone’ - “Bottom of the Pit”). He also very explicitly wants to help people, shown both in the accident that puts him in a coma caused by him warning others ‘about the monsters,’ and in his song (‘All I’m doing is aiding, all I offer to give is a helping hand’ - “Bottom of the Pit”). The Shade is the dark abyss that Allen fears, he has literally become what he feared the most. He also actively attacks, again showing how Agent Rainbow has transformed Allen into his fear, he is now one of the ‘monsters’ in his nightmares who he worried would hurt him or other people. It also ties to his Icarus connection, if he strays too far from his safety, the lighthouse, he fears he will get swallowed by the ‘pit,’ like Icarus did the ocean. The Shade also states that Desmond ‘failed [him]’ perhaps showing even after willingly seeking help Allen both thinks he was beyond saving and was scared of that being true (‘I stay awake wondering if what you say is true, I am flawed but fixable’ - “Bottom of the Pit”).

Max-

Max’s actions are all motivated by getting visiting rights to see his daughter Maddison again, even what gets him killed is caused by a desire for this, so we can safely assume not seeing her again must be a massive fear of his. He seems scared to be fully consumed by his anger else he won’t be able to see Maddison (‘Is anger all consuming’ ‘Is darkness fast approaching’ - “Is It Me?”). Agent Rainbow makes this fear manifest, Max’s shadow, The Bull, cannot control his anger as he was learning to do with Desmond’s help (‘Even in a difficult case, progress was made’ - Rainbow Tape). The Bull also violently attacks people. Both of these things he had to prove to the court he would not do, but due to Agent Rainbow he cannot, thus his fear of never seeing Maddison is created since he won’t be granted visiting rights. He also represents the Minotaur, a beast who, in some tellings, specifically eats children. He has become something that is a danger to his daughter, something that his is both scared of being, and scared to admit that he was due to his unaddressed anger issues.

Lucas-

Lucas is a war veteran who was exposed to some primitive form of Agent Rainbow, with the resulting episode causing him to kill his friend, an event that left him with PTSD. He was evidentially close with the whole squadron of soldiers wiped out in this incident (‘We’ve got plans for what comes later’ - “Me and the Boys”) and is devastated by them all killing each other due to the Agent Rainbow (‘By a show of hands the group disbands’ ‘I’m crashing, I’m crashing down.’ - “Me and the Boys”). He can hear the voices of others impacted by Agent Rainbow and wants to unveil what the government and Mayer is doing as vengeance for what they did to him and ‘the boys.’ The Flash is an unthinking weapon, reflecting Lucas’ fear of what happened to him when exposed to Agent Rainbow, being unable to fully control himself. He also speaks very militaristically, in the Phonetic Alphabet, referring to Desmond as ‘Delta Whisky’ in his tape. This further demonstrates how Agent Rainbow has caused him in his shadow form to become the unthinking weapon of the government which he fears could occur due to his experience of exposure to the agent. It also fits in with his Cyclops connection, the most famous myth involves Odysseus blinding him to escape death. Agent Rainbow causing him to become a mindless monster means he cannot expose the government and Mayer, he is metaphorically blind, thus Mayer and the government escape death, meaning Lucas’ fear of not achieving vengeance is again manifested in his shadow form by Agent Rainbow. Rosemary also refers to the people connected to the ‘collective subconscious’ as ‘human radio towers’ (Lucas’ tape), which is reflected in the Flash’s design. Agent Rainbow has made him physically become his fear of what could be possible through Agent Rainbow.

Rosemary-

I think what reinforces my idea is Rosemary. She is the one character with a record who is NOT impacted by Agent Rainbow, she is murdered (implied to be buried alive?) rather than be subjected to it. She sings she wants to make up for creating Agent Rainbow (‘Take all that I have to give’ ‘Payment for my crime’ - “Whatever it Takes”). The Empty acts according to this, helping you. She is still herself because the nerve agent didn’t impact her, instead she used radio waves separately to contact those affected.

In conclusion, the Patients shadows are manifestations of what the characters fear the most, whether it be internal, like Virginia and Max, or external, like Allen and Lucas. The different depiction of Rosemary, who was not impacted by Agent Rainbow helps solidify this.