Analysis Megathread -

[DeagleDad420]

This thread is for in-depth analysis of the ParkourDude91 saga. Some topics worthy of discussion:

• Things the casual observer might miss; there's a lot of dots to connect here

• Jace's psychology

• Speculation on the history and future of Deagle Nation in general, and where this is all leading

• Posting and debunking theories for why Jace behaves the way he does, and what influences him to act this way

• Jace's family and friends: why, for example, is he friends with Tyce? What do they get out of such a relationship?

• The change that Jace has undergone since this all began

• Jace's dark secret: his anime obsession

• Jace's motivation

In every PKD thread, someone writes an awesome series of paragraphs picking apart a new update... They're always fun to read, and encourage a little bit deeper thinking. If there's one thing the Jace saga has taught me, it's that we are only at the tip of the iceberg here. There is a lot going on that we really don't know anything about. We've only been granted an occasional window into his life, and only for the last year and a half, and even that has been a fucking rollercoaster ride. Add to that the fact that there's tons of deep-cover trolls interacting with him on a regular basis. Any of them worth their weight in salt would save logs, logs we obviously can't get our grubby hands on yet, because they haven't been outed as trolls yet.

So there's a lot we don't know. What we do know is not only awesome, it hints at a lot more. What would I like to see in this thread? Well, not everything has to be a 12-page dissertation; short and sweet is fine too, but for example, this is a really good example of posts I'd like to see here.

It's a script for a video (that was never filmed or published, evidently) by a Gamerfood operative, in which he picks apart the "Adderall Binge" fiasco with a fine-tooth comb, with frame-by-frame commentary. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's seen the videos and is wondering what the fuck is going on. Trust me, they're even more insane in the context he's pieced together.

To get another ball rolling, I'm going to start out with something I've been wanting to talk about for a while: Jace's relationship with John Cena. I'll make it a new post to not shit up this OP any more than I already have.

 

[Ivan Komarov]

One notable thing about Jace is how he harps on phrases. It was much less apparent in his older videos from 2012-2013, where he seems like a casual dudebro. However, as time has gone on, more of these phrases have started to surface repeatedly.
Examples include

• Fact
• Fact of the situation
• Crucial fact
• Situation
• Crucial danger
• Crucial danger situation
• CHYEAH
• TAAAAAA
• HAA HAA
• GAMER HUMOR
• On this site
• Saying "ok" repeatedly
• Realistic
• That's Unrealistic (says this about real life items and events)
• Gamer of the battlefield
• Crucial battlefield situation
• Master of the battlefield
• Gun kata

This is a small list off the top of my head. As stated before, these are increasing in use and in the amount he makes up, indicating some psychological change within Jace.

 

[NeetBoy]

One notable thing about Jace is how he harps on phrases. It was much less apparent in his older videos from 2012-2013, where he seems like a casual dudebro. However, as time has gone on, more of these phrases have started to surface repeatedly.
Examples include

• Fact
• Fact of the situation
• Crucial fact
• Situation
• Crucial danger
• Crucial danger situation
• CHYEAH
• TAAAAAA
• HAA HAA
• GAMER HUMOR
• On this site
• Saying "ok" repeatedly
• Realistic
• That's Unrealistic (says this about real life items and events)
• Gamer of the battlefield
• Crucial battlefield situation
• Master of the battlefield
• Gun kata

This is a small list off the top of my head. As stated before, these are increasing in use and in the amount he makes up, indicating some psychological change within Jace.

I've been thinking about compiling a list of Jace's favorite phrases ever since I first started following him, but trying to make sense of them turned out to be much more complicated than I had thought. Some (e.g. realism, gamer humor, gamer of justice) seem to convey actual concepts and meanings, while others seem to be meaningless drivel from what DeagleDad420 has aptly called a "pocket dimension of nonsensical faux-English inside his own head". Some seem to overlap, others serve as comparatives, elatives, and superlatives, some work more like expletives and linguistic padding. Jace's language is a fascinating puzzle, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before.

 

[DeagleDad420]

"Never Give Up": A treatise on Jace's obsession with WWE superstar John Cena

Warning: this is long and autistic as fuck, but it needs to be written.

I'm not going to bother going through the many ways Jace shows his obsession for Cena: the wiki has already done a good job at that. For a newer example, look to the Deagle Nation website, where a picture of Cena is included on the banner bereft of any context or explanation. Evidently Jace thought that Cena's presence was self-explanatory.

Of course, with many things related to Jace, there's an obvious reason for his fanboyism of Cena. Jace's personality is, in many ways, a hollow pastiche of different things he's awkwardly absorbed from the pleb-tier pop culture that surrounds him. Examples include Affliction hoodies, WWE, Call of Duty, skateboarding, weed... the list goes on. On the surface, his admiration of John Cena is only another example. However, I have reason to believe it goes deeper than that. The interesting thing about Jace is that the more layers you peel back, the worse it seems to get.

My interest was first piqued when Jace seemed to know nothing about wrestling itself, but only care about John Cena in particular. None of the videos he watched, liked, etc. had anything to do with wrestling, they were only videos with Cena in them. Furthermore, he only ever cared about John Cena after Cena decided to reinvent himself as a "Marine", which itself is fascinating, because it may be the answer to where this "Marines" thing came from in the first place.

Jace has never really been able to answer when people ask him why he wants to be a Marine. It's likely because he doesn't know himself. It's known now that before his whole "Marine" dudebro persona, he used to be some sort of anime/manga aficionado, going so far as to have been active on DeviantArt before abruptly closing his account down after a change of heart.

What I find is very interesting is that Cena's reinvention as a "Marine" came right around when Jace would have decided to "leave his anime live behind". I.E. Jace had a void in his life without his Otaku persona, and, not wanting to go through the hard work of actually inventing his own personality, he swung to the opposite end of the spectrum: he went from a fat nerd to a pretend dudebro. Suddenly, he didn't get beaten up for being an Otaku anymore; suddenly the "cool kids" would hang out with him if he let them smoke his pot. He'd found his new persona, and he loved it. Of course, he's Jace, so during this was just as hollow inside as ever, and he wore the "mask" of the dudebro poorly and without truly understanding the intricacies of it, much like Chris's personas. But it was enough to fool the casual observer, and this was good enough for him.

Interestingly enough, by the time we saw him on Fuck Yeah Deagles (late 2012) he had already began idolizing Cena as a messiah. It only got worse; he currently has a framed photograph of Cena at the very top of his closet, high in the sky next to the lights, like some sort of shrine. You can't see it in this picture, but he had to tilt the camera way up in order to make the photo even visible, and it's dead center in the closet, flanked by two Deagles.

In terms of forensic psychology, it's interesting he would put Cena so high up that he would have to tilt the camera and see him. He idolizes the man so much that he sees him as infinitely high up above him, in the clouds, beyond his reach. It was... strange, to say the least. This struck me as firmly outside the boundaries of "oh he's my favorite wrestler". It was creepy. It was celebrity-stalker shit.

So, not content with the idea that he was just a dumb fanboy anymore, I racked my brain. Around Summer of 2013 I came up with a theory that Jace's peculiar obsession was that Jace used Cena as a surrogate father figure or role model of some sort. It's known now that his biological father, Richard, divorced his mother and is no longer a part of Jace's life currently. It's likely he looks up to his older brother Robert in many ways, but Robert is usually preoccupied and equally absent.

My theory was that, as many teenagers do, Jace simply chose the man he had the most respect for at the time and followed in his footsteps. It's a very common thing for teenagers to do, and indeed a part of growth. For those keeping score at home, we are now on layer 2 of the onion that is Jace's drug-addled brain.

However, that didn't fit perfect either. Sure, role-modeling is normal... but most people don't do it with wrestling superstars. In fact, Jace is dooming himself to failure, because Cena will, as the photo's placement implies, always be out of his reach. It's difficult to learn from a role model if you can't even talk with them.

Since then, I've realized it might be somewhat different. Near the beginning, when that theory was initially created, "Jack Stryker" did not play the same role in Jace's life; Jace was not that deep in make-believe yet. He still knew that Jack Stryker was a fictional character, and actually planned for him to develop a personality outside of a Mary Sue. So, given this, I initially ignored the connection between Cena and Stryker in the context of his make-believe world, but now that I see it, it's obvious to me.

 

[DeagleDad420]

"Never Give Up": A treatise on Jace's obsession with WWE superstar John Cena, Part II

Are you ready for layer #3?

Bare with me here, because the lines between Stryker, Cena, and Jace are about to get very, very blurry. And I suspect that this is not because I'm analyzing it wrong. I suspect it's because Jace doesn't want to be able to tell the difference either.

At this point, I believe Jace is not content with merely modeling himself after Cena; I believe he wants to become Cena. I believe that Jace is so deep in his absurd macho make-believe fantasy land that he literally wants to transplant Cena's personality to a character that is in his control. He isn't content with living with Cena in the clouds anymore, god damnit. He's not just a dumb teenager anymore - no, he's Atlas now, and he's going to shrug until the stars come down from the heavens and walk amongst him. At least in his imagination.

tl;dr: Jace wants to live Cena's life without any of the actual work that goes into creating such a life. Jace's answer to this was Jack Stryker. Similarly, I believe that Stryker is, in many ways, Jace's answer to what he could be if he actually tried: if he had the courage stepped out of his bubble of delusion for one minute. But right now, that bubble is too damn comfortable.

This timeline has been enlightening, but let's skip ahead to present day now.

The most recent mention of Cena I can find occurred when Jace commented on a YouTube video of a match between John Cena and Batista. His full comment is shown below:

A few things to notice here:
-"Inspiring" is not a word people usually associate with a sport that's known for cheap, tacky entertainment.
-This means that:

1. Jace believes WWE is real and unscripted.
2. Jace believes Cena's actions were somehow heroic and awe-inspiring.

After watching the match myself in an attempt to better understand Jace's psyche, it mostly consists of Cena being put through comical amounts of pain and misery by Batista, whos motivation boils down to "I am evil because I am the bad guy because evil." No sympathy is ever given towards Batista, nor any attempt to understand his motivation, because ultimately, it's all about Cena and his hardships, his overcoming such hardships, and most importantly, his battle cry: "Never Give Up!"

Throughout the 30 minute match, John is portrayed simultaneously as a hero, an infallible God, and a martyr. The similarities between John and "Jack Stryker" now become obvious, as does Jace's ease for sympathizing with Cena.

In many ways, it's eerily similar to the plot of Tiberius Rising, if better executed: Nobody cares about Omar Khadr. The point is that he wronged Stryker, putting him through massive amounts of pain FOR NO RAISIN, and he is now going to die for it. Jace is so narcissistic, so consumed with his own struggles, that he has no empathy or consideration left for his "enemies". He believes Team Gamerfood, Myg0t, etc, everyone else is just doing it because they're jealous of him, or because they hate him because he's a Marine, or some other nonsense he made up. A great example is his responses to WachtAmWeb: Wacht is clearly trying to help Jace, to make him understand his own failures so he can better himself. Jace doesn't want to acknowledge this, so he doesn't. It's much easier for him to simply paint Wacht as an enemy than it is for him to ever admit any wrongdoing. Theory of mind takes effort - effort he's not willing to give.

Ultimately he doesn't care for other's motivations; he just wants to be the hero. And right now, he's invented a world where he is the hero. He's invented Jack Stryker, a terrible Frankenstein literary monster pieced together from (among other things) the parts of Cena that Jace idolized so much.

Let's take a quick break now to review the similarities between Stryker and Cena:

• Both pretend-play as US Marines, but have a hilariously shallow understanding of what being a United States Marine actually entails. But ultimately they don't care: they're in it for the aesthetic, nothing else.
• Both are typical tough-guys who are pointlessly ruthless to their enemies, but always kind and respectful to their allies.
• Both only know how to respond to criticism and adversity with violence and massive application of force.
• Both use stupid one-liners and talk like anime characters to intimidate their opponents.
  
• Both are showmen; they aim to please the crowd, they love interacting with their fans. This is more similar to Jace than Stryker, however.
• Both style themselves as rappers as a side hobby, their main thing being violence.
• Both use bland, but marketable aesthetics. Cena has a Wal-Mart personality. He is likable, well-rounded and non-threatening, but completely shallow. Likewise, Jace attempts to "fit in" by mimicking these same aesthetics, but this tough-guy facade ultimately falls apart when inspected too closely, leaving him a blubbering mess.
  
• Of course, the biggest similarity of all is that Jace himself wants to never give up, but in a completely different way. And, above any of the other similarities, this is the key: Jace conveniently borrowed this concept from Cena under the logic that it would endow him with some sense of strength; indeed it did, but a very different kind of strength. Jace uses this perseverance not to overcome his own limitations and achieve things in life, but to hold up his own make-believe fantasy world against the advice of everyone else. Every time someone tries to poke a hole in his bubble of delusion, he wheels out the same tired old lines: "I will never give up no matter what you do to stop me! You can never convince me I am not a US marine! You are banned from comments, troll!" In this way, Cena and Jace are complete opposites. Cena is determined to succeed, while Jace is determined to fail.

Of course, being Jace, Jace fails to copy (or indeed understand) the traits of Cena that actually made Cena sucessful: the showmanship, acting, talent, professionalism, and massive application of effort and hard work.

This is layer 3. Of course, if he continues on this path of "never giving up", his psyche will get even more twisted and bizarre, and a new layer will bloom underneath this one. Hopefully, when/if this happens, we will be able to peel it back and reveal something even more depressing and insane.

I've been thinking about compiling a list of Jace's favorite phrases ever since I first started following him, but trying to make sense of them turned out to be much more complicated than I had thought. Some (e.g. realism, gamer humor, gamer of justice) seem to convey actual concepts and meanings, while others seem to be meaningless drivel from what DeagleDad420 has aptly called a "pocket dimension of nonsensical faux-English inside his own head". Some seem to overlap, others serve as comparatives, elatives, and superlatives, some work more like expletives and linguistic padding. Jace's language is a fascinating puzzle, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before.

This is why I gave up on the countless drafts of the "Jace and English" Wiki page. Just when you think you've found a pattern to his madness, he comes out with something like "agile warrior". I can never really tell which ones of his catchphrases are actually borrowed and which are just made up to sound cool. He also switches them out from time to time, as if he thinks they're getting stale somehow. He'll use completely different language depending on context; even the pitch of his voice will change. "Puzzle" doesn't do it justice. His mind is a fucking M.C. Escher painting.

 

[waffle]

Which would people rather read, why I think jace has schizophrenia, or how many videotaped felonies he's committed in the last six months?

 

[Gorogoroth]

That was great Deagledad, it's opened up a whole new train of thought, for myself at any rate. I considered myself fairly knowledgeable in Jace lore, but I was wrong. I'd never really considered John Cena's influence on Jace ; I was also ignorant of his previous incarnation as a weaboo. I'd always imagined him being a "dudebro" since the beginning.
This needs to be on the wiki, or at least a link to it.

 

[DeagleDad420]

That was great Deagledad, it's opened up a whole new train of thought, for myself at any rate. I considered myself fairly knowledgeable in Jace lore, but I was wrong. I'd never really considered John Cena's influence on Jace ; I was also ignorant of his previous incarnation as a weaboo. I'd always imagined him being a "dudebro" since the beginning.
This needs to be on the wiki, or at least a link to it.

For more information on Jace's weeaboo status, there's a page about it on the Wiki. Notice how in nearly every instance, he defends himself with "I used to watch..." or "back when I..." however he still watches anime in small moments of weakness to this day. Also, in one of the Adderall binge videos, he specifically said "I don't need anime to be happy anymore!" while filming a bunch of mangas spread out on his couch.

 

[Smutley]

This thread has been a crazy excellent read, and it's got me thinking of an idea I had last night. I have regular bouts of insomnia, and in the past I would watch Chris videos until I ran out of them. These days, I spend sleepness nights with a set of headphones on transcribing Jace videos because I'm a big fucking nerd.

I think I'm going to start doing analysis on the transcriptions I manage to knock out, and maybe find out the ratio of common repeatable phrasings to regular words, first time certain phrases were used, etc, etc. I don't see how this will be of any USE, but it might be fun to see that Jace has said, "y'know" and it's variants 10,000 times*.


*(rough estimate)**




**(not an actual estimate)

 

[Andrew Noel Schaefer]

This is why I gave up on the countless drafts of the "Jace and English" Wiki page. Just when you think you've found a pattern to his madness, he comes out with something like "agile warrior". I can never really tell which ones of his catchphrases are actually borrowed and which are just made up to sound cool. He also switches them out from time to time, as if he thinks they're getting stale somehow. He'll use completely different language depending on context; even the pitch of his voice will change. "Puzzle" doesn't do it justice. His mind is a fucking M.C. Escher painting.

All people use their own mixture of phrases they found, modified and made up. The only one thats *really* worth pointing out IMHO is his use of Unrealistic.

Actually, lemme sperg a moment and wonder aloud: If Thing X isnt realistic, what is? Jace clearly thinks the Call of Duty series is based around real-life stuff (even the missions based off of top secret spec ops raids - As if Infinity Ward/Treyarch/Sledgehammer Games would have access to information regarding top secret military operations to name just one problem) and has expressed dissidence that Black Ops 2. Call of Duty has heavily altered his perceptions of what a solider, specifically a Marine, is. Tough and Uncorruptable, able to skirt by regular laws because... because America, I don't know. Theres also the odd hypocrisy that he has no trouble sticking it to police in vidya which let me remind you that when Jace plays vidya, he goes all-in to escapist mode (he calls it role-playing) yet has expressed anger over Spec Ops: The Line for (as far as he has gotten in it!) having to shoot rouge US Soldiers.

Just some thoughts.

 

[NeetBoy]

All people use their own mixture of phrases they found, modified and made up. The only one thats *really* worth pointing out IMHO is his use of Unrealistic.

Actually, lemme sperg a moment and wonder aloud: If Thing X isnt realistic, what is? Jace clearly thinks the Call of Duty series is based around real-life stuff (even the missions based off of top secret spec ops raids - As if Infinity Ward/Treyarch/Sledgehammer Games would have access to information regarding top secret military operations to name just one problem) and has expressed dissidence that Black Ops 2. Call of Duty has heavily altered his perceptions of what a solider, specifically a Marine, is. Tough and Uncorruptable, able to skirt by regular laws because... because America, I don't know. Theres also the odd hypocrisy that he has no trouble sticking it to police in vidya which let me remind you that when Jace plays vidya, he goes all-in to escapist mode (he calls it role-playing) yet has expressed anger over Spec Ops: The Line for (as far as he has gotten in it!) having to shoot rouge US Soldiers.

Just some thoughts.

My first working hypothesis was that Jace's "realism" was simply inversely proportional to the amount of resistance a game or real life situation would put up when he tried to twist and bend it into becoming a part/representation of his fantasy world. Thus, Call of Duty, where he is presented with a never ending stream of tangos that he can mow down with impunity was very realistic, while ARMA, where a single shot could kill him, the enemies refused to show themselves, and he was supposed to work hard and put his empowerment fantasy away in favor of working as part of a team was unrealistic. The Sims was incredibly realistic as long as he could it control it to act out his fantasies, but became incredibly unrealistic when it got creative – and we all know it got VERY creative – in taking that control away from him.

Then I realized that his fantasy world is in turn influenced heavily by some of the same games, especially Call of Duty. And that is where all the factors you just mentioned come into play. "Realism", real reality, and reality as depicted in his various games and other media are weirdly interdependent and I don't yet fully understand how exactly this interdependency works. That's why I'm really looking forward to seeing him play other and more diverse games.

 

[Bosnian Wizard]

Theres also the odd hypocrisy that he has no trouble sticking it to police in vidya which let me remind you that when Jace plays vidya, he goes all-in to escapist mode (he calls it role-playing) yet has expressed anger over Spec Ops: The Line for (as far as he has gotten in it!) having to shoot rouge US Soldiers.

You see a lot of people like that. To Jace, all a police officer is is someone who takes his weed and tells him off for drink driving, whereas a soldier is out in the Middle East protecting his American rights and being a patriot! I suspect this opinion is also influenced by his and his mom's political beliefs. He's said before he is a Republic supporter (although he probably knows bugger all about politics), and she seems like a typical right wing religious type, and police officers mean more taxes and all that.

 

[ChurchOfGodBear]

The implication he's making is that enjoying anime is damaging, while pretending to be a marine based on a playing too much CoD and smoking a fuckton of weed is beneficial.

Wow.

 

[homerbeoulve]

Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't Jace's also doing what we call "projection"?

 

[Horde Prime]

Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't Jace's also doing what we call "projection"?

Can you provide examples of when he has done this? As I understand it projection is when the subject (Jace) identifies negative character traits in others that they themselves possess (but are unable to admit). Jace may be guilty of this, but I can't think of an example off hand. As far as I can tell his exchanges with other people seem to amount to him claiming to be a Marine and telling people they are banned or harassing him or somehow violating his rights.

 

[24isthehighestnumber]

I don't know about projection. I mean, I'm sure he does it, but I would guess not significantly more than your average person. With someone who lacks self awareness in the capacity that he does, projection is clearly bound to happen, though.

I mentioned this elsewhere, so I thought I'd bring it up again in the proper thread: I think there may be a possibility that he was abused as a child in some way. If you think about it, the whole Commander Stryker persona (and the increasingly blurred lines between it and his real life self image) reads pretty clearly as a giant defense mechanism. Add to that his severely arrested emotional development, history of self-medicating, and the rapid growth of his fantasy world, and it does seem to suggest that past abuse is a possible part of the equation.

I also posit that his desire to recruit and maintain Deagle Nation--along with his aggressively negative view of higher education, employment, and even reading--is indicative of an almost tragic blitz to return to some semblance of his halcyon days. I can only assume this time in his life involved a relatively ordinary combination of hanging out with high school friends, playing video games, going to the skatepark, eating junkfood, smoking copious amounts of weed, and being blissfully unaware that that shit only lasts for about four years until you have to start doing something with your life. He's been left behind while so many of his friends have moved on from a routine he holds dear. By itself, that frustration is not really something you can fault him for; it sucks to feel that way. But most people suck it up and move forward. He seems to be regressing in this sense, and rather actively I'd say. I don't think he even knows what's going on in his mind, but it's kind of hilarious to watch him put up the tough guy marine image while simultaneously asking for his mom to bring him snacks.

 

[The Dude]

I'm going to speculate on the lazy eye. I'm in the camp that he does have a lazy eye and that's the reason for the ubertacticool (read cheap-ass) shades. I'm going to take it a step further and say that I believe It's his right eye. In a lot of his videos it seems that they are shot with a bias towards the left side of his face. I believe this is for two reasons, the first being that his left eye is his good eye so everything is set up towards his left, and the second being that with his right side being obscured It's less likely that someone will see his "bad" eye. Of course if someone did see his bad eye it would be very damning because even he knows that it would disqualify him from the Armed Forces.

So that's my $0.02.

 

[Stalin]

I believe with a high degree of certainty that Jace is either a paranoid schizophrenic or has schizoaffective personality disorder. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I have some experience with the trade. However, this is still armchair psychology, and I can't be for sure. This is also, definitely, going to be autistically TL;DR.

Paranoid schizophrenics are still able to function in society to some degree. The two major facets of paranoid schizophrenia are delusions and hearing things that do not exist. Jace has numerous examples of both of those.

Jace firmly believes he is a Marine or at least Marine quality. He believes there are organisations dedicated to hunting him down and killing him. He believes, to some extent, that he is Commander Stryker and lives through his character. The idea that Call of Duty is just like real life and since he is accomplished at COD, he is a talented sharpshooter in real life. Those are all delusions, things he unwaveringly believes in.

I have less evidence for auditory hallucinations, but one example stood out to me the moment I saw it. In the Home Defense videos, when he is in the bathtub, he hears something, enough to set him off. The average person hears nothing. He thinks someone has broken into his house to kill him (tying back to the delusions). He does have auditory hallucinations, and I think if I watched further I would find more.

A group of symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia are anger, violence, and argumentativeness. I don't even need to explain this one. Jace has or is all three.

Finally, and I think one of the most damning pieces of evidence, is the symptom of self-importance and condescendence. Again, I feel that I don't need to explain this one. Jace believes he is the best: the best Marine, best shooter, best tactical officer, a parkour master, etc. He is clearly not, but that doesn't shape his perceptions. He doesn't see his faults, though we all do.

And that's it. If this is the case, I feel some sympathy.

 

[Horde Prime]

Well said Stalin. You laid it out there and I've also been thinking along the same lines, though I didn't know of any actual incidents of auditory hallucinations. I have been thinking along the schizophrenia lines since I first started learning about Jace. However, one thing now makes me second guess this. The other day I asked in the general thread what, if anything, is known of of Jace's behavior prior to his rise to internet infamy. DeagleDad420 responded basically saying that someone claiming to have gone to high school with Jace posted on Jace's tumblr (I think) a few years ago basically saying that Jace has behaved this way for a while now. Later Tyce seemed to corroborate this. Now, as I recall (I'm not a psychiatric professional either) everything I've ever read and experienced about schizophrenia has indicated that symptoms begin to manifest in late teens (18, 19) at the earliest, generally more towards the early twenties. If Jace was already delusional since his early to mid teens, well it casts some doubt in my mind regarding schizophrenia. Now I'm sure there are exceptions and more to it all, I don't know, but that is my most recent line of thinking about it.

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

I rather wonder how many of his symptoms would go away if we found a way to detox him for a week.

Honestly I see a lot of burned out users with symptoms very similar. I'd venture to guess his heroic intake of drugs significantly impacts his ability to think rationally and impairs his judgement to extreme levels.