#points off for using the same meme twice in the same day

[shitpostingkats]

Okay, who had "spk becomes convinced that Zarc was an incarnation of Jaden in the original timeline" on their bingo cards?

[minniiaa]

Sorry if this seems repetitive but I haven't been active on social media in yearsss

Is it true that there's a lot of lawlu hate on tiktok and Twitter? I'm so confused because there used to be so much love for the ship back in 2017/2018 from my perspective (Amino era).

The short answer: yes and no. Let me start by saying I'm not the best person to answer this since I purely consume on twitter. I made my personal twitter in 2007 like it's everyone I've ever known irl and has nothing to do with shipping or hobbies and I follow approx 0 accounts related to anime, manga, or lawlu. I just looked up lawlu a few times and browsed and suddenly it's my whole fucking timeline and there’s no going back and now I have a lawlu twitter (This makes me very happy).

So if anyone else has an opinion on this that is more in the community, please feel free to comment away. Otherwise, below are my observations.

First off, there IS a ton of love for the ship. Most of what I see is beautiful art (they got the nsfw ayo), memes, fanfics, and headcanons just like tumblr. There are tons of comments of people swooning over these posts, Lawlu IS one of the most popular OP ships after all.

There's just a vocal minority that are very against the concept of shipping and in that subset there are those who are very against Lawlu. There people out there that will literally list accounts to block that ship lawlu or write lawlu DNI in their bios. The same can be said for other ships, it's not just this one it’s any they deem a ‘pro ship’ (problematic ship) and Lawlu is generally considered one of these. Below as is an example:

The biggest issues I’ve seen with Lawlu are the following 1. luffy is aroace and cant be shipped period 2. law groomed luffy and the age gap is gross. IMO I think most of these people are just infantilizing Luffy as some goofy autistic kid that doesn't know what love and sex are when in reality he's very self-aware and happy does not equal stupid. Also he's 19 he’s not underage. He met Law twice when he was 17, one of which was saving his life as a doctor and Luffy was unconscious most of this time. Let's not forget Luffy's a war criminal kicking the asses of people 4x his age in a pirate world, age doesn't really work the same as irl.

BUTTT Not that any of this matters because you can ship whoever the fuck you what because guess what? It's ~fiction~. I could rant about how people can ship whatever the hell they want all day but I'll save my breath for now. (my opinion of course)

Also there are just mentally ill people who enjoy telling others to kys if you like something they like do. Lawlu shippers are just their chosen target demographic. Creators get foul messages in their inboxes, rude comments, just general hater behavior. Twitter is just a firey cesspool and all fandoms have 'fans' who do nothing but hate. We live in an age of negativity where being a hater is the cool thing to do.

HOWEVER, I see more people posting about why those people are wrong and stupid than the actual negative tweets but maybe that's because I actually support the ship and the algorithm sees that. Not sure how twitter works, nor do I want to know about that dumpster fire there's a reason I came over to tumblr.

As for tiktok, I don't really consume a lot of tiktok so I can't speak on it besides seeing cosplayers and cute animations/art. I'll leave that to the tiktok people to look into.

For argument's sake, I went through the lawlu tag and picked some lovely tweets to share with you so you can see the toxicity for yourself. Sadly only 10 images per post but I think you get the point. Thanks for the ask hope this was informative. :)

[shrinevandal]

Initial thoughts on Double and Neoplasm - Who is guilty? What's true and what's a lie?

Hello! This is a (fairly long, sorry) post analysing the MV for Double, as well as Neoplasm, and what it means for Mikoto, Orekoto, a potential 3rd alter, their relationship as a whole, and Mikoto's judgement.

Note: I am a system myself, I am usually not very open about this so please don't ask about the details. But I think it's important to state that I do struggle with a lot of the same stuff Mikoto* does, and so my perception of it comes from a level of understanding that singlets may not have.

Obviously this contains spoilers for both Double and Neoplasm, I would recommend you watch/listen to both beforehand. This is also just my initial interpretation, I have purposefully avoided any other posts about it to make my theory/interpretation as straightforward and from-the-source as possible.

Some terminology notes: I will be using John to refer to Orekoto, as Es has so thoughtfully dubbed him. Also, if I say MILGRAM in all caps I am referring to the project itself, and if I say Milgram in title case I am referring to the location/entity which Es works for. I also believe the 3koto theory, which will become relevant at various points here. Any translators or sources will be linked at the end.

Alright, let's get into it. Music video analysis:

Double - Visual Motifs

There are a lot of visual elements to Double, which I will break down into different sections.

Phone (& Tarot)

There are two major instances of Mikoto's phone being important in the song: Right at the beginning, when he's getting several texts and then an incoming call from "Chief" (almost certainly his boss), and in the middle of the song, when he gets a call from his mom. In the beginning, Mikoto* doesn't even look at the texts, and when he answers the call, he seems to barely be listening.

Translation of the texts are as follows (thank you rochisama on wordpress!):

- Regarding the first draft you submitted today, I think option B might be the best after all, so can you remake it by morning.

- Also, I forgot to mention, but you made a lot of mistakes with the one we spoke about earlier, so make sure it’s all fixed too. This one also needs to be ready by morning, so I’ll leave it to you to get everything ready.

- Oi, get back here now.

- Are you going to abandon your duties?

There are also two fun little details here with the phone: His lock screen is a picture of the Hanged Man, the same version that was on his shirt in MeMe:

Also, His battery is at 29%.

Two of prisoner nine.

Later in the song, when his mom calls him, he immediately picks up, greets her energetically despite the bags under his eyes, and informs her he's doing well and not to worry.

"Oh, hello? Mom? It’s been a while. Yeah… well, I mean, some days are hard, but… I’m doing alright, don’t worry. How’ve you been? I’ll go home next time I get some time off."

He also hangs up very quickly, as if he doesn't want to talk to her. He gives her placating words and then ends the conversation as soon as he can.

According to his S1 Interrogation questions, Mikoto's family consists of him, his mom, and his younger sister. His parents are divorced. He gets along well with both his mom and sister, but also states that he can't let his mom worry. This checks out with him hiding the truth from her, as letting her know just how badly he's doing would certainly cause concern. Keep all this in mind, it will become important later on.

Eyes

I don't have much of note to say about it right now, but eyes are a pretty heavy visual motif throughout the whole video.

One thing I will say about it, though, is the large eyes across the whole screen show up twice: Once as orange, symbolizing John, and then as a grey-blue, symbolizing Mikoto.

Colors

There are five important colors: Blue, Green, Red/Orange, and Pink.

I'm grouping red and orange because I believe they both symbolize John. Blue is obviously Mikoto.

As I've mentioned, I am a fan of the 3koto theory- The visuals in the MV for MeMe, and even the composition itself, allude to 3 different entities (Music theory nerd here, hehe - I wanna write my own take on the 3koto theory eventually and talk about the way the song itself changes, but that's for another time.) And now in Double, it seems like there is still that imagery, albeit much less strongly than before.

So green, like in MeMe, symbolizes Midori/Midokoto/whatever you wanna call him. Pink is a little bit of a weird one, so I'll get to that in the moment. Anyway, let's start with some John moments.

The red glow in the back shows that John is the one fronting in all three of these shots, with Mikoto being asleep behind him in the second one.

An example of blood splatters with an orange tint. This is part of the reason I think both orange and red symbolize Mikoto, since they're so interconnected here. Also, as mentioned in the eyes section, the eyes there are very orange whereas John is usually associated with red.

Speaking of eyes,

Huge 3koto implications in a few frames from this shot. John's body flashes green at one point, and the background and fire-halo are green when John's eyes are glowing orange. In the next image, the body's eyes are scribbled over in green. This scene in particular is very interesting to me, with both implications of Midori's existence and his connection to the eye motif. It also calls John "savior"

Here's another notable instance of 3koto near the beginning, right after John throws Mikoto's phone. Notice the color progression in the scene. Green background with blue text, down to red background and red text. John is clearly being portrayed as an outsider here, with Midori and Mikoto being a duo.

Going back to blood splatters, there are various points in the video where the "inverse" of the blood is either green or blue. This also checks out with both red and orange being John's colors; Blue is the opposite of orange, and green is the opposite of red. This also doubles (haha) as another example of John being the opposite of MikoMido

The train itself has a lot of green highlights. When John stares out the door into the other train cars, it flashes green a few times. It's not pictured here, but the door also flashes a staticky pink once, and so does Mikoto's body earlier in that same scene I showed where it's fully green.

Alright, more on pink now. I'm actually not entirely sure what it may symbolise, but my main guess is it's Mikoto's victims.

Aside from the instances mentioned above, these are the most prominent pink scenes in the video. Similar to how orange was juxtaposed against both blue and green, here it's against blue. In context, these scene also seems to me like a switch, a realization of what Mikoto has done. A brief instance where his memories coexist with him, and he's horrified at his actions.

Double - Overall Analysis

As pointed out in the colors section above, Midori seems to be very present still. He seems to be haunting the video in a way, lying just underneath the surface.

A really important aspect of DID that hasn't been directly addressed by MILGRAM is the fact that it's caused by childhood trauma, usually around the ages 9 to 10 or younger. For those who don't know, this is because young kids have not fully formed their identity and sense of self yet. Usually, kids will eventually consolidate all their various parts into one, which becomes their sense of self. But trauma literally changes how the brain works on several levels, and for some kids, that interrupts the process of those parts fusing together. (This is also why there's discourse behind the idea of an "original" personality - Which one is the "original" between a pair of identical twins, for example? One cell divided into two, so really neither of them are that first cell.)

My theory for Mikoto's childhood trauma and subsequent DID symptoms, is that Mikoto in his current form is the body's "first" alter, and that Midori was the original host. (I have several reasons for believing it's this and not the other way around, but it's not that important for this post. But do think about, "I'm already the fake one.")

We know that John specifically was created as a result of Mikoto's job stress, meaning he was obviously not around when Mikoto and Midori were kids. By the time the events of MILGRAM roll around, it seems like Midori is completely dormant, or at least very rarely fronts, as John seems to pretty clearly imply just his and Mikoto's existence in both Double and Neoplasm. But if John wasn't around when Mikoto was a kid, there has to have been at least one other alter throughout the course of Mikoto's life. You don't just suddenly develop DID at age 23 without having had it since you were traumatized (Unless the MILGRAM team is just clueless about DID, which is possible too but imo they've done a pretty decent job so far so I would rather believe in 3koto. I have faith in them, maybe that'll bite me in the ass eventually, who knows).

Mikoto's childhood trauma is not very clear, but I think it can be one of two main things, and they are likely connected: Either something to do with his parents' divorce, or the reason he is so against worrying his mom.

Mikoto clearly loves his mother a lot, but it seems like doesn't trust her on some level. He doesn't want her to worry, which is an understandable emotion, especially if she puts a lot of pressure on him to perform well, which I have a feeling is the case. (Full disclosure, I could be projecting my own experiences here, because I have had these same struggles with my own mom pressuring me to do well in school and such. But I think it's worth mentioning)

Mikoto clearly hates his job, but he doesn't get a new one. Referencing the Interrogation again, while he seems to enjoy the career path he's on (ie graphic design), the job he currently has is purely to make money, and not for his enjoyment. He also mentions in the Interrogation that he hopes someday he can start his own indie company. In the real world, it's actually very common for graphic designers to start with jobs in advertising, because it makes a lot of money. Then once they have enough to support themselves, they go on to projects they're more passionate about. So Mikoto's reasons for sticking with his advertising job could be either to make money or to satisfy his mom, or both. Again, I could very much be projecting here.

Now onto his dad and the divorce. I won't lie, I am not at all an expert in Japanese law, but I'm fairly familiar with US law because my mom is a lawyer here. So how it usually how it works in the US is that parents divide custody by either working out a schedule or by simply choosing which kid goes with which parent, unless one parent is abusive, in which case all kids go to the non-abusive parent. In Japan, however, apparently the mom is the default parent that kids go to, regardless of other situations, except in some extreme cases probably. Again, not an expert, but it seems that even if Mikoto's mom was abusive in some way, the court system would still give Mikoto and his sister over to her, especially if her form of abuse is purely psychological with no physical evidence. So this is one possibility, but even if both parents were good people and separated on friendly terms, divorce can be traumatizing for kids. It's unclear at what age Mikoto's parents divorced, but it seems to have been long enough ago that he doesn't even consider his dad part of his family. Meaning it's very possibly the main source of trauma that cause Mikoto's DID.

Neoplasm

Alright, finally it's time for the audio drama! This is a much shorter section, but there's a LOT here and I'm really excited about this one actually, because it seems like a step in the right direction for Mikoto and accepting John. He doesn't know it's DID, nor does Es try to tell him, but he acknowledges it as "sleepwalking", which is still super huge. If Kotoko and Es ever choose to inform him, it seems like they have a much better chance at getting across to him now than when MILGRAM started.

John being much more present and coherent is also big news, as he has a full on conversation with Es, and even receives a name from them. Although he expresses concern about this and "wishes he had stayed a monster", I honestly think this is amazing for both him and Mikoto. Along with the sleepwalking analogy, it's progress on their ability to accept themselves and each other.

John also sheds some light on his and/or Mikoto's murder, claiming that there were several indiscriminate victims, and that his memories are also fuzzy, citing that it's likely because he had only recently been born. To me, the most interesting part of this is the fact that John's memories are not intact. While he seems to think it's just due to not really being used to being alive, I think there's another explanation for it. Fuzzy memories are a very common symptom of DID, and most notably happens when one alter tries to access another alter's memories, often because they're being blocked. Maybe in a similar way to how Mikoto doesn't remember anything? 🤔

Another important thing here is that John claims that he is the one who killed people. But the most pressing question is, is he telling the truth?

We know that Milgram's criteria for what counts as murder and who counts as the perpetrator is very loose; For example, Yuno's abortions are enough to qualify her, and Fuuta doxxing Killcheroy is enough to qualify him. So it's not a stretch to think that maybe John really is the killer, and that Milgram just picked Mikoto as the person to be judged since he's the "main" alter. But this honestly doesn't sit right with me.

If there's one thing we know for certain about John and his dynamic with Mikoto, it's that he would do anything to ensure Mikoto's safety. Notice how he was incredibly nonchalant about the murder until Es pointed out that even with psychological evaluation taken into account, the death penalty is still very likely for Mikoto. As soon as they allude to Mikoto being in danger, John's attitude immediately switches, claiming over and over, very relentlessly, that he was the sole killer, and that Mikoto is innocent. His frantic behaviour is a very clear sign that this is survival mode; why would he tell Es the truth if it could put Mikoto in danger?

All of this really goes back to the major differences between them; Mikoto is honest and uses humor to cope, John avoids being open and lashes out at people. Mikoto straight up blocks all the bad memories, John is aware of them but has a hazy recollection of events.

So while it's a possibility that Mikoto is innocent and that John is the killer, I find it much, much more likely that Mikoto did it and then blocked his own memories, and that John is lying about the situation to protect Mikoto. It's what he's always done, after all.

Final thoughts - Forgiven vs Unforgiven

This may be an unpopular take, but I think as of right now, my first instinct is to vote Mikoto as Unforgiven. I'd like to point out that there's a difference between Innocent vs Guilty, which is how the terms are officially translated, but in Mikoto and John's case I think they are interconnected. There are cases in Milgram where I think they're completely separate ideas and cases where I think the difference is moot, and MikoJohn definitely fall into the latter one.

I also am very conflicted on the concept of Metavoting; for example, Amane being voted Unforgiven was an incredibly stupid decision on the majority's part and I'm not afraid to state that. (Tbf Her mental state is delicate enough that forgiving her would also not end well, but lesser of two evils imo. But all that's for another time.) However, with MikoJohn, again, it actually aligns very well with my actual judgement. John very clearly states that it's his belief that forgiving Mikoto will reduce Mikoto's stress, and allow John to fade away. Whether this is a good or bad thing, or neutral even, is pretty complex honestly, but I think for me personally, I would view it as a bad thing.

Again, I am not very open about my system-isms, but I relate a lot to Mikoto in his current state of being unable to accept John's existence. I was in that exact same position once, and for me, accepting the existence of my alters was very beneficial to all three of us, and we are much closer now and less stressed overall. If John continues to exist, that means Mikoto will have a chance to figure things out and accept John's existence. But if John fades, he may be still caught in that perpetual state of half-existence, with Mikoto being unable to accept him.

So with all these things together; the fact that Mikoto is the one we are judging and I am pretty sure he is the killer, the fact that John may fade if Mikoto is forgiven, and how that isn't a good thing in Mikoto's case, and the fact that - I am pretty damn sure I want to vote Mikoto as Unforgiven. This isn't the be-all, end-all, of course. We don't know if John's prediction is correct about disappearing, we don't know if voting Mikoto Unforgiven will actually have the opposite effect that I hope for and drive him to his breaking point, hell we still don't know who did it. My opinion may change because again, this is just my initial thoughts. I'd love to interact with other systems about this and see their thoughts and opinions. Thank you for reading if you made it this far!!!

Translations, Resources, Etc

Chief's texts, translated by rochisama on wordpress

Interrogation questions, referenced from the MILGRAM Wikia. I'm unsure of the translator, sorry.

A/V of Neoplasm, edited by ac on youtube, featuring translation by onigiriico

kayanomikotoba's Triokoto theory (fun fact, this post is one of the main reasons I got into MILGRAM!)

A quick overview on Japanese divorce law, specifically by the US foreign embassy but it's good enough for my purposes

[punkeropercyjackson]

Spiderband groupchat headcanons but it's based off my bio siblings and friends who're teenagers that i also consider my younger siblings because Y'all Do Not Know How To Write Teens

It's called 'Websters Declassified'

It was Margo's idea to start it obviously

Miles already had a groupchat app that she used for her family but the rest of the band except Gayatri had to install them-Gwen and Miles G DID have one but she took it off because she only ever used it with 65 Peter and she had multiple meltdowns looking through their messages so she forced herself to out of mental safety and he smashed his phone in agonized sadness after finding out about Jefferson so all the data on it was lost

Gayatri has an additional old one she uses for school friends since she's so popular and dosen't want to fuck up and accidentally send Spiderwoman stuff to them

The layout of it has a notebook theme and is popular among black people thanks to it containing various exclusive black stickers and emojis and that's why Miles and Margo both use it

Hobie's a bit of a grandpa when it comes to technology because of being from the 70s and not having been at Spider Society for that long so he had a hard time communicating in it at first,not helped by his cockney

Peni is reverse where she considers it slighty obselete thanks to her futuristic world but in a charming shaking her head 'This old thing' way(Just like she does with Noir /hj)

Their icons are:Miles-a black/blasian edit of Orihime Inoue,Gwen-A random picture of a half eaten pink cupcake she took,Peni-A lesbian flag meme,Pavitr-Bugs Bunny,Hobie-A black/blasian edit of Ichigo Kurosaki to match Miles(They are LITERALLY black4black Ichihime),Gayatri-Bugs Bunny but in one of her fem outfits,Margo-Nessa from Pokemon with a pink filter and Miles G-A cartoony drawing of a black kid with braids

They use it almost every day and night-It actually messed up a few of their sleep schedules but they fixed them again when it started going too far by reminding the other to go to sleep because they love them and deserve good health

Gwen sends them her audio files,either as gifts by covering their favorite songs or just to try out how a new song sounds

Pavitr violently falls over from so much bouncing with his phone getting the brunt of it SO many times but it's somehow always completely intact despite having no special protection

It's where Miles came out to them after her egg cracked but she did because they were all sitting together physically so she'd have them there to comfort them as she sobbed in a big flurry of different emotions

The other girls then start sending her transfem memes on a regular basis and Miles G is actually the one who made her her Orihime pfp

They tried to have movie nights but the collective audhd proved to be too much so they just have normal ones

It's incredibly active and a mixed ass bag,one second they be talking about Spiderjunk,the next someone's venting to the point you can feel them shaking through their texts and then they're discussing the history of legos

Peni's the one who most uses it in class and had a special mini comic where she got it back from her principal and didn't learned her lesson at the end

Since Miles uses kamojis,Margo is a gifs addict

They learned a lot about eachother cultures,more than ever

Selfies sending is a pretty regular thing

Miles G was more hesitant to start using his app again than Gwen since his was actually the same but he prowlered through and now it's a healthy and stable part of his life

Gayatri looks for wholesome videos to show all of them

"MARGO,GIVE ME YOUR PHONE"-Hobie at least twice a day

Gwen and Margo are an e-couple in the sense that they act exactly like girlfriends in it but are in denial irl

Hobie randomly infodumps in it once he gets the hang of it and takes up Miles' kamoji usage but only the smug/bitchy ones

Their usernames are mostly just their names but with a special twist to give them personality-Miles is her name with a sunflower next to it,Pavitr has a sparkles emoji and Miles G has his in that edgy font.But Margo is 'Margo Thee Byte',Gayatri is 'The Ungwen' as a reference to 'The Undead' and for irony,Hobie is 'What are you?A cop?',Peni is 'Pastel Genesis Evangelion' and Gwen is just an assortment of pink emojis

Rio:Mija?Are you texting a boy? Miles,texting Hobie:Technically yes but also literally no

Margo gets them to be on her streams and Miles ends up making her own channel and her fans nearly broke her comments section when Hobie made his first apperance(Tragic day for weird ass Miles fanboys)

Gwen and Peni start rubbing off on eachother,like Peni starting to love her kind of music and Gwen starting to get blunter

Pavitr is the most slang knowledgable and this is thanks to Gayatri-He surpassed the best there is

Miles and Hobie did the 'At Dairy Queen with my Dairy King' meme once but the picture wasn't them at Dairy Queen,it was them chilling with mutated cows they'd saved and they didn't even get the food at Dairy Queen,Hobie cooked them copies because fuck capitalism

[stainedglassandpigs]

Smallville

I don’t know if I’ll continue this story much bc I don’t have tons of confidence in it but it was fun to do something with Clark since I kept seeing a bunch of edits with him and I rmbered how much I liked the lil farm boy.

Also I don’t know how I feel about using emojis in writing lowkey don’t like it but yk gotta try it out at least once or twice to see fr ( jury is leaning toward don’t like)

.

.

.

.

It appears to be somewhere in the country. Lush green trees and a sea of grassy plains for miles. I don’t remember when I began walking or why I was.

As I was now pushing through a corn maze it began to be clear I was looking for something. I became more and more frustrated that I wasn’t finding whatever it was I broke out in a run, I had to find it now time was running out. Hope was beginning to lose me when I stumbled outta the ocean of corn stalks. Getting up and dusting myself off I could see in the distance there was a house and barn. Just as I began to walk to the far off house something zoomed out of the corn and crashed into the barn.

BOOM

I bolted up, my alarm going off.

Turning it off I reach for my phone checking the time.

Shit shit shit.

It was 8:30, that was my alarm that told me I was supposed to be out the house by now.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Mom hated when I was late, the office lady was always so unusually mean for someone who worked with people all day.

Rushing outta bed I began a speed run of my usually morning activities.

A normal person might forgo finding a playlist to listen to when they were already in a rush, but I figured the morning was already fucked at least I could still listen to my favorite songs while I panicked.

By the 2 song I have changed and was beginning to brush my teeth. Song 3 began and so did my morning skin care.

Rush or not there were things I was not willing to compromise on when getting ready.

My grand final now is deciding what to do with my hair.

It was wash day yesterday so the hair was looking a bit wet. I didn’t prefer it this way but at least it was cute.

I opt for down since it would help the curls dry faster

Making sure all the hairs were in place and my part was clean I called it. And all it took was 4 songs to get ready, not too bad.

Before I headed for the kitchen to pack my lunch I made sure my back pack was ready for the day.

Well I made sure my headphones were in there and I barely spared a glance at what was actually in the bag.

The kitchen was a bit more tricky of a situation. If I were lucky no one would be in there to question why I hadn't left yet, especially not mom.

Being as quiet and quick as I could, packing my lunch and dashing off immediately, grabbing my keys from the bowel and sneaking off.

Gettign in the car I threw my stuff in the passenger seat and checked my phone for the time and any important notifications.

The time read as 9, first period began at 8:50. I was officially counted absent when I was deciding on water or tea as my drink of choice for the day I thought.

Being absent wasn’t good but math class was soooo boring, I was thankful it was my senior year because there was no way I could fight another year doing high school math.

I answered a few of my messages most of them being from my best friend Jade on different platforms.

She had sent me at least 30 tik toks, 5 instagram memes and 9 messages about random stuff.

Replying to the message and telling her about how I woke up late she laughed about it and pointed out how I hated math anyways and I should just pick up a nice sweet treat cause I was already late.

I would have picked up something for her too but she already graduated last year and was off to Metropolis University getting her degree in computer engineering.

Next you I would be doing the same for anthropology so I didn’t let the distance bother me bc soon we would be seeing each other everyday annoying the living shit out one another. I smile at that.

So instead I just sent her some money to get something nice for breakfast, picked a song from my ongoing playlist and began heading to my local smallville coffee shop.

Getting a large motcha and danish i sorrowfully started heading for school.

Pulling in the student parking lot I happened across another late student. When I saw them I honked my horn lightly and waved for them to come over.

“doesn’t your mom hate when you're late y/n (nick name)?”

“Doesn’t your coach hate when your late Jacob?” I copied the tone of the football player while I open the car door.

“Touché, why you late tho ?” Jacob said, grabbing my drink out of my hand, I made him hold the rest of my stuff as we walked in the building cause his greedy ass was gulping down my drink like I had gotten it specifically for him.

“slept in by accident, stayed up trying to read the last of Macbeth cause I kept putting it off, what had you late?” Gesturing for my drink back I open the doors for us but he just grabs the door and waits until I walk in.

“Went to the lake with a few of the boys”

“How late could it have been that it had you sleeping in '' we were halfway to the attendance desk now.

“3 in the morning 🤥”

“Yall have terrible time management skills, I just want you to know that”

“At least I finished the class reading on time” he said with a grin.

“Name one thing that happened in the second act, quickly” I said side eyeing him

“Macbeth , he, he ummm”

“times out” now I’m the one grinning

“If you know everything then name something miss know it all”

“Lady Macduff and her sons gets killed cause Macbeth went crazy, boom and under 10 seconds'' he rolled his eyes at me dramatically causing me to laugh.

There were a few ppl in front of us in the late line so we continued talking about random things until we both got our late notes.

“Your going to art now right, lemme walk you my next period we get a longer passing period then yall”

“You work in the library during this period right ? What do you even do in there? "The art class wasn’t that far off from the office so I wasn’t in a rush either.

“Mostly just put the books away n once we’re done with that it’s basically a free period”

The conversation continued on random classes and such till we came to my class and Jacob handed me back my stuff. We said our goodbyes and I entered the art room, it looked like I was one of the first ppl there other than Mrs.Ruth the teacher.

A lovely woman, very bright and passionate about her craft.

Taking my seat I chat with her and as more students fill and get situated.

Mrs.Ruth said we were waiting on something b4 we started our assignment today, I didn’t think much of it and continued yapping about with my classmates and friends.

Another one of my best friends came to class, taking her seat behind my table. We started talking about what could be holding up the class today.

“Wonder what the hold up is. Maybe we’re getting a Halloween party, what do you think Rose ?” I say trying to think of what it could be

“Mmm prolly not we’re so busy with our projects, maybe something about another art comp”

Our conversation naturally fizzes out as we both start getting our normal art stuff out for the class.

It was maybe the length of a weekend song (famously long asl) when the door opened.

We were in October now so never would I have thought she meant a new student.

Another thing that shocked me was who it was.

I immediately turn my head to look at Rose and she’s already looking at me, giving me a knowing smile.

You know how when a new person comes and you always hope they’re cute to give you something to look at, that was him but this was even more exciting because of who it was.

Because he wasn’t new new, I had just never had any classes with him up until now. But trust me and my girls were more than well acquainted with who he was.

Because my brother was a football player I got to know tons of the players and even became good friends with some of them.

So I would see him all the time, but we would only really talk in passing. The thing was though me and the girls had this one going minor local celebrity crush on him and we would talk about him all the time, not only was he such a gentleman (plus) he was also unearthly pretty (big plus)

Cause who doesn’t love a good pretty man. Like how could we not talk about him, with all due respect and regard for his personhood ofc…

And here he stood now in our class.

Just from Roses face alone I knew the girls were gonna love this, lunch was going to be so exciting today ‼️.

I didn’t want to keep staring the boy down so I tore my eyes off him for Miss Ruth who was explaining what was going on.

“Okay class as you can see we have a new class mate today, Clark Kent” she said motioning him over to her.

“Clark was in art four, but me and his old art teacher talked and thought it would be best for him to join us in ap art, please class if he needs any help adjusting give him a hand and be nice.” She says giving the class a once over, our class wasn’t bad but we could definitely be asswholes, and it was clear she was trying to get us to be nice on his first day.

She turned to him now and explained a few things before telling him to pick a seat anywhere.

As he looked around the class he spotted me and seen where I was sitting, heading over he waved. At first I rationalized it, ofc he would sit with me I was probably the only person he knew in the class fr. But I doubted he even remembered my name fr.

“Y/n!”

Well I was wrong, but I was happy about that.

“I didn’t know you were in this class! Is it okay if I sit with you ?” He said so politely,

lord this was going to be a long year if I had to sit next to someone so beautiful.

I know Rose was finding this all very entertaining right now for sure.

I had to remind myself he asked me a question cause I was staring yet again. Up close I could see that his blue eyes had specs of green but I digress.

“Ofc Clark” I smile trying not to look too much like I indeed did have a massive crush on him.

He settles in and all I can think bout is how close we are sitting to each other.

I mean he was a football player so ofc he was huge, but Clark was pretty big even for a football player. He was touching above 6 feet at this point. Even though he was huge he still remained a respectable distance and didn’t manspread trying not to take up any space.

How nice, then again that was the bare minimum and I reminded myself to pay attention, I probably wasn’t even his type anyways.

“Today we will be starting a new unit, so pair up because you’re gonna need a partner.” Miss Ruth said as she gathered the lesson plans and her notes on it.

I look over at Clark and he’s already looking at me with a small smile with his eyebrows raised a little. How he didn’t have a gf right now was a marvel I thought.

“Partners ?” He said, returning his small smile in tandem.

“Partners” I whispered back enthusiastically.

I take my phone out and send Rose a quick text saying we also are gonna be partners.

She just sends back a reaction meme of someone smiling.

Putting my phone away again I look at Clark again x

It was almost like the sun was in love with him I thought.

the way it shown on him, living art, I wasn’t much of a romantic but I wasn’t blind to the way he was making me feel.

But I ignored it, talking about attractive people and being delusional over them was one thing but actually putting myself out there was a whole other thing. Most days I was just content with being friends with people I had crushes on and that was exactly what I was gonna do with Clark.

Just friends.

To get myself to stop thinking about him I remember that I still had my cheese danish from the coffee shop. As I get it out I tear it in half and tap Clark. I don’t say anything, I just hand it to him with a napkin. When he realizes what I’m doing he mouths a thank you with a giant smile.

He must like sweet just as much as i did.

Miss Ruth finished explaining what the class would be doing for our next project.

We were tasked with creating a sort of art year book with our partners. We would be capturing moments and artwork and putting together two books. And the books had to be huge at least 2 feet in hight.

She handed out the rubric, and showed some videos and examples, but for the most part the rest of the class period was left to us to brainstorm and get a feel of the project and get the ball rolling.

Which meant I would be talking with Clark more.

I was being to hope that he was secretly a dick and he would kill my crush with his actions.

Turning my whole body to face Clark now, the art room was big so the tables were too, meaning there was a lotta space in between us technically,

but it felt like I was breathing down his neck.

He turned too, but once again I could tell he was making sure to give me my space

how kind,

a symphony of screaming began playing in my head as I thought about how stupid I must look to him.

Pushing it down instead I began thinking of our project, that I could do with ease. Art was my thing and not even an unearthly sweet and cute guy was going to change that.

“So far honestly it don’t look to daunting, which is nice, it’s more a time and dedication thing. Very tedious but I’m excited lowkey. I always loved the idea of making my own yearbook” digging through my backpack I bring out my class sketchbook and flip to a free page. Grabbing a random pen from onna the pockets on the side of my backpack I write “ Clark and y/ns year book project”

“So whatcha thinking ? Any ideas of things you really wanna have in here ?” I know sometimes I tend to talk a lot and I didn’t want him to feel like his thoughts weren’t important.

“I’m actually in photography and journalism class, so I think maybe we can use some of my skills from there too”

“Dude that’s so cool Clark !Do you write for the school paper ?!” Ofc he’s arty, the screaming in my head pitched up an octave.

“Sadly no, football takes up a lotta my time but they do let me help, I’m best friends with the editor, Chloe. And if I have the spare times sometimes every blue moon she’ll let me run a story. I do take some of the photos tho, cause “I’m in the field and get a closer perspective,” Chloe says.”

“We’ll definitely find a way to incorporate that, I don’t have any fancy cameras like the ones the school does but I am an instant and digital camera collector. So you can use mine if you’d want to as well” This was good, I always loved photography but a lot about it confused me and here Clark comes filling in that blank.

“May I?” Clark gestures to the pen, as I hand it to him for a moment his hands cover mine and I can feel my face going red so I get up abruptly which startled him a bit.

“I just remembered you don’t have any of the standard Ap supplies, lemme go ask Miss Ruth for you. You can just write your ideas and stuff down while I go get it. You can also look through my sketch book I don’t mind” I was ready to speed away from him when I heard Clark call my name. I turn n look and he has a very sincere look on his face.

“I just wanted to say thank you y/n, you’ve been really nice to me when you could have picked someone else to be your partner. Thank you”

He smiled but it looked a little sad, like he was thinking of something else.

“What are friends for” I say half smiling, I wondered what could have given him that far away look.

Going off I got all the stuff he needed for the class and came back to my set, it took only about 5 minutes, about as long as a rock song I thought.

Handing it to him I explain what everything is and get a permanent marker so he can label his name on everything .

For the next 40 minutes we sat there drafting up ideas and thoughts.

The conversation came easily and when Mrs Ruth reminded us as she always does that we were at the half way mark of the class, we began really planning out what we wanted to do.

First we looked at the due date which was in 3 months in January after Christmas break.

Each book needs to have at least 16 pages not counting back and front. With that we calculated how many pages a week needed to be done and began planning the little things.

By the time we got done most of the planning the period was soon to be over.

Getting up to stretch I started thinking bout lunch.

I wonder who Clark ate lunch with, the football boys? He’s own friends ? By himself?

“Clark which lunch do you have ?”

“B lunch why?” He says while he packs his things up.

“Just curious. Oh hey actually can I borrow your phone real quick” I say as I too begin putting my stuff away.

He hands my his phone unlocked, interesting that he didn’t ask why I needed it I thought.

“Since where most likely gonna have to work outside of school we should have each others phone numbers and stuff. And honestly all the years I’ve known you it’s crazy I don’t have it yet”

“Not really on my phone too much, being on the farm all day the WiFi’s awful so I’ve never really used it much. I always forget I have it” he was now standing in front of me and I had to look up a bit to see into his eyes.

If I was a little less stubborn one might call it butterflies but I just gonna chalk it up to me being hungry.

“Hey smile for me for a sec Clark” and ofc the sweet boy that he was he did.

I took a pic showing it to him then made it his icon on my phone and texted him a pic I took this morning of the clouds saying it’s y/n.

“Okay you have my number now, I’ll text you later bout some ideas I have for our year books”

“Wait you didn’t put an icon in my phone” he said pointing to the blank one on his phone.

“Didn’t think you would want one” I say with a small shrug.

“Well I do, smile y/n please” I put my stuff down and smile making a heart with my hands.

He begins smiling ever so slightly as he makes it the new icon. Now I think the photo must look crazy cause what was he smiling for

“I demand tew see the awful photo you just took” I say moving to be right next to him.

He tries to hide it from me but I just grab his hand and take the phone with my other, we’re both laughing now.

When I finally see the photo it just looks like a normal photo of me smiling and I wonder if he was just doing that to trick me.

Giving the phone back I noticed he had a red case.

I begin to think about the little details that he has all about him.

It was barely visible but I could see the glint of a small chain around his neck, it was silver but that's all I could tell about it.

That was the only other jewelry he had other than a Rolex that was also covered by the flannel he was wearing, the Rolex was silver too. It looked at least 20 years old.

A family heirloom I thought. He wore weathered jeans with well loved sports Nikes. His style, although simple, appeared very thought about.

Checking my phone I see we only have 5 minutes left of class, I kinda got sad because now I won’t be able to talk with Clark anymore.

But then again art ending means I can go eat lunch and talk to my friends about all these new developments

I looked over at Clark, he was right about not being on his phone, as the class waited for the bell to ring he was doodling in his sketchbook what looked like a man holding a camera.

Being the D1 yapper that I was, I think of a random question to ask him.

“What type of music do you listen to, Clark ?”

He looks up at me closing the sketchbook and thinks for a moment.

“A lot of people are kind of surprised to hear this but I do enjoy a lot of rnb actually”

“I can def see why” you laff a bit at the idea of him on Stan Twitter arguing about album sales and whose a better performer

“Who’s onna your fav artist?”

“Steve lacy is a favorite of mine I really like his song mercury”

“He’s a good artist, his song infrumai was good and ofc dark red”

“Dark red’s a classic. I also listen to a lot of rock, like Jimi Hendrix, radio head, and Rick James”

“Where do you listen to music on, I wanna follow you”

“Spotify mostly” Clark fidgets with his phone then hands me the device with his Spotify pulled up.

It was becoming very clear he wasn’t a phone guy at all, he even looked a bit confused when I said I would follow him on Spotify. I followed him on my phone then accepted his request on his phone.

He didn’t have any other followers than me, I noted.

Just when I was bout to say something else the bell rang so I handed his phone back.

Looking around for Rose I couldn’t find her, she must’ve darted off to hear her lunch. She always had something to warm up.

“What’s your next class? Maybe I can walk you?”

“Photography near the cafe, what’s yours?”

“This is my lunch period, so I can definitely walk you”

We began walking out of the class and I said my goodbye to Miss Ruth.

“Good thing where I eat lunch is on the way, so I can ask you more random ass questions. did your schedule change much for the switch to ap?” Walking and talking to him like we were good friends was nice.

I looked at him as we walked,

I wondered if he knew how polarizing he was. Could he feel it like I could ?

The conversation continued on his schedule change, until we reached the table where I sat.

Ofc the only person there at the moment was Rose trying to conceal a sly smile.

She immediately looks between me and Clark walking up to the table raising an eyebrow at how close we were.

Our eyes alone were having a very excited conversation about the presence of Clark Kent while he was none the wiser.

Where we had lunch was in a nook of the school with some tables and a decent window that looked out onto thin woods that basically surrounded the school.

The two tables that were in the corner had long since been riddled with stickers and ppls graffiti, the table had treated me well since my freshman year when our little group began sitting there.

There wasn’t much in the little area other than the two tables and its accompanying chairs.

The school had a lot of areas like that, little nooks for ppl to sit and get work done. But the main cafe wasn’t far from where we sat, maybe a classrooms distance separated my little area from the rest of the cafeteria and I could definitely still hear everything going on in the lunchroom.

The doors that connect the two areas always open and ppl constantly drifting in and out. By no means was it a still space.

Setting my backpack down, I introduce the two.

“Rose this is Clark, I'm sure you heard Miss Ruth introducing him to the class” Rose just silently smiled at me, going her best to act like she didn’t already know basically everything about him.

I could literally see all the questions she had formed ready to burst out.

“Clark, this is Rose onna my best friends. She sat behind use in art”

“Hi rose, nice to meet you” Clark gave her a little smile and wave. Rose returned it.

“Well this has been fun, Rose I’ll be right back I’m gonna walk Clark to class it’s only down the hall.”

“Kk I’m gonna go grab my pizza from the microwave” I was right about her needing to warm something up, and we all parted ways.

As we walked a few people said hi to Clark, dapping him up in passing and they exchanged friendly remarks. It was endearing to see him interacting with other people.

As we walked to his next period I kept asking questions about the class.

“What are y’all working on right now?”I said fidgeting about with my hands trying to make the normal amount of eye count without staring too much or looking away for too long.

“Right now we’re taking pictures of interesting things around the school and putting it in a newspaper model. It’s pretty fun, the teacher wants us to make our model first though. So he’s giving us all of today to get that done.”

“That’s perfect for you too cause your whole journaling thing, I def would like to see your assignment when you're done it sounds fun.”

“I can show it to you maybe this weekend? We gotta work on our assignment too…” he said slowing down

“This is my class right here.” He gestured to the sign about the classroom that said Journalism and photography class.

The door was open so I could see a glimpse inside. It looked like a standard computer room, there was a big cabinet at the back end of the classroom. I imagined that’s where they must keep all the cameras.

“Wait, I forgot we had to work during the weekends, lawd, would you prefer my house or yours ?”

“Mine is fine, the barn has a nice area to work and you can see the farm”

“Great, we can text more bout the details later” We were now both standing next to the door as students passed by

“ ight been fun but my stomach is beginning to kick” I say playfully, I was just about to walk off when Clark began speaking again.

“Thank you y/n” I was looking into his eyes now.

“For?” All I did was walk him to class, what could he be thanking me for.

“I know we didn’t know each other that well but even so you made sure to help me. You even walked me to my class. I just want you to know I appreciate it a lot. "It took everything in me to keep eye contact with him as he said nice things about me but I knew this was onna those moment where I had to.

In the back of my head I wondered if he was just being nice or someone had made him feel like he was a burden.

Being from the south I was very familiar with southern charm but the way Clark acted was so much more emotional, southerners were nice sure but it really felt like he truly cared .

Not that I didn’t like it but it took me by surprise a bit.

“You make me sound so nice, Clark. And besides I couldn’t just let you struggle by yourself.” A quick moment passes where it’s just him and I looking at each other.

Feeling awkward I quickly fill in the break in conversation.

“Ight, I’ve held you up enough. Get to class young man” I say lightly

Laffing a bit he says his goodbyes and headed into class.

I watched just for a moment until he fully entered the classroom before I made my way back to my lunch spot.

Lawdddd these girlies were gonna love hearing about this. I could already feel the fan girl giggling we all would let out about these little details.

Walking over to the table I began replaying everything in my head.

I was secure in who I was, but Clark seems on a whole other level. I also knew Pete so I heard bout Clark’s massive crush on Lana all the time. And she was everything.

Kind, smart, opinionated, beautiful, and hilarious. I even lowkey had a crush on Lana to hell. She was onna the first friends I made when I moved to Smallville. Whitney may have been her boyfriend but just by the way they looked at each other I could tell deep down Lana liked Clark too.

It’s crazy how a moment of overthinking and something that you were excited for turns sour.

I try to justify my bad thoughts, ofc Clark wouldn’t like me. I mean do I even like Clark ? He’s not even all that.

No

Clark didn’t do anything.

Lana didn’t do anything.

I didn’t do anything.

Being mean to myself and attacking them only made me feel awful.

A quick fix from being an asswhole to ppl who didn’t do anything wasn’t gonna get me far or make me feel better.

All these thoughts just cause I had a small,

Small

Small crush on someone lord save me.

No,

I can stop this, Clark is nice, and being his friend would make me happier than anything else.

Just friends, no crush.

That’s enough.

The walk back only took about 3 minutes I thought. Taking a deep inhale in and out,

Calm,

I am calm and I will not let a crush drive me crazy not again.

Turning the corner I could see Rose was seated talking with our friend Devan.

Walking up I didn’t even get a word in before Devan started asking questions, I respected her speed.

“Did he smell nice? How do you feel? Class together?!!! You walked him to class ???? Rose told me you got his freaking number ??? Like helloooo.!! Y/n cmon don’t hold out” devan said practically buzzing.

It was like talking to the girls no matter how unserious we were being always made me feel better.

“He smelt amazing, think woody with notes of vanilla, I feel pretty normal actually, he switched from his old class into mine. So we’ll be having class together for the rest of the year. He walked me to the lunch table, then I walked him to class. He was just being friendly guys trust” sitting down I let out a little sign at the last part, of course for no reason in particular.

“Friendly” Rose said looking at Devan

“Friendly” Devan said looking at Rose.

“Friendly” they now both said looking at me.

I was beginning to hate that word.

“We’re gonna work on the yearbook project together. Also have y’all finished applying to the colleges you want. I’m almost done, just gotta write my essay. I wanna have it all done as soon as possible, with all respect due I’m not tryna stay in Smallville any longer then I have too”

“Pause rewind, I wanted us to be partners for that. I know you said you’d still work with me but I don’t want you to be doing all the y/n (nick name). Immediately no longer team Clark, he needa back up a bit stealing my wife” Rose said while picking all the pepperonis off her pizza for Devan.

“We can still work together trust, it’s just I don’t wanna leave him out in the cold. He just got in there and doesn’t really know anyone in class. Besides, it's not like the project needs to be done in a day, I can multitask beloved.” To keep the narcissism at a low level, I try not to think about it all the time, but to say I was more than okay at art was putting it nicely.

Art was my shit, my sauce, my thing.

So it wasn’t like doing both projects would be the end of the world for me, and I was not bout to leave my friend hanging just cause Clark was there now.

Opening my lunch box I almost shed a tear at what was packed. My Ma had recently given me the recipe to her famous rice and beans, and I had finally braved up to trying it out myself. It was ofc not as good as hers, Gordon Ramsey couldn’t make better rice and beans than my ma. Nonetheless it was close, and compared to the mid oatmeal’s I had been packing for lunch this was Michelin Star in my eyes.

I went silent for a moment there just absolutely fucking it up. I was so entranced by my food that I started doing a little jig. Small things like this made thinking about your not-crush seem so stupid.

Like who cares about Clark Kent there’s Rice and Beans in this world ‼️

The girls and I continued on about the upcoming school project as I reserved myself to my food, giving small comments here and there. I was a quick eater so it wasn’t long before I rejoined the conversation as a full member.

“Hey did yall read the new article from the torch? Apparently there’s been a string of students falling into comas after they started seeing these weird creatures. Chloe’s writing is riveting per usual. This time though she mentioned it in connection with that particle explosion in Central City. She thinks there’s a connection between our so called “special space rocks'' and all those weird things happening in the city.” Devon was mid-bite of what looked to be a pretty good looking sandwich when she began talking bout our local school newspaper, The Torch.

“Oh I was reading bout that, well I was reading bout the streak and they mention the particle accelerator explosion, the writer thought there might be a connection between the two.” Rose said, checking her phone.

“We have 10 more minutes of lunch, I’m dreading math. I heard Miss Anhook was giving out quizzes today”

“Ohhhh don’t say that, I alr hate thinking about the class when I’m actually in there. I don't wanna ruin my lunch with such thoughts” I said rubbing the sides of my temples, math was truly made by some evil spirit.

Eating more of my rice and beans the conversation digressed back to The Torch.

“What do you think has all these students in a coma ?” I asked separating the rest of my food into 4 perfect bites.

“I heard that all the first few got sick after going to the last football game, and ppl think it spread from there” Devan remarked

“Y/n didn’t you go to the last game ? Did you see anything weird ?” Rose said curiously.

She was right but I couldn't recall anything being abnormal about that night. I was just about to tell her I didn’t see anything when I remembered leaving the game, usually I would park pretty close to the football field but Jade and I got there later cause we couldn’t find our Digital cameras and we really wanted to get cute pictures that night since we finally got to see each other in person after so long because she was now in Metropolis. By the time we got there the parking lot was beyond full so we opted for parking a little walk out.

When the game ended and we were walking back to the car Jade had pointed out a small group of ppl doing something strange, but it was so dark and neither of us could make out anything for real so we just continued on back to the car.

Jade swore she saw a green light coming from the group when we talked about the game over at the local burger place everyone went to after games.

But we both abandoned the conversation after more and more of our friends packed in and everyone began talking to each other about plans for after the food.

I recap the night to the girls “ definitely weird but I don’t know if I would say it’s connected to the sleeping students”

The conversation continues but with no real evidence or sources we naturally move onto something else and before long the lunch’s bells rang it was time for the next period.

The rest of the day goes by pretty uneventful until last period when a student was found near the football field passed out like the others. Keeping us in a hold so no one was in the halls while the student was driven to the hospital

This would be the 6th student affected and all of them somehow connected to the football team.

Maybe I could ask Clark about it… it would give me an excuse to text him…

Taking out my phone and going to messages and finding his contact. Ig in all the commotion of the day I didn’t notice that he had actually texted.

It was a photo of the assignment he was doing in photography. Under the photo Clark left a little message.

“The newspaper template I made, not as cool as I woulda hope but I figured you would like to see it 🙂”

Even his emojis were cute.

This was so frustrating.

Liking both messages I thought about what I should say.

After a few moments of coming up with nothing I take a screenshot of the message and send it to Jade.

“What should I say ?”

[inhibitionfreewriting]

okay so, i definitely got off track of the initial way i planned on writing this, but i got into a groove and... just gonna put it into (at least) 2 parts.

jerma x reader x ludwig (part one)

it starts totally innocuous, you're helping on dollhouse and end up just getting in with the two of them. you click at one of the end of day get-togethers. jerma makes you laugh first and then lud comes over to investigate what's going on and they've both got you doubled over. you end up getting food together and just spend more hours than you should have talking. by the end of the dollhouse event, you're in a group chat with the two of them and by the end of the first week of it existing, it's... always active.

you start to send good morning and good night messages, talk about your day even when they're busy and when they catch up on the memes and stuff you send. they're both busy bees so you know they get back to you when they can, but at some point it starts to make you sad when it's got long periods in between. not just that platonic sad but... longing. you're a little embarrassed over it, but it doesn't really come to an apex when you send a very tired 'ok love you guys im goin to bed'

it makes them both panic separately for the same reason but they don't talk about it on the side. ludwig replies immediately without thinking, 'love you 2, sweet dreams' and jerma replies 49 minutes later after trying to not overthink it (but did for all 49 minutes) a very simple 'love you'. he thinks about deleting it too, or changing it, but he thinks it's better not to and manages to go to bed after some tossing and turning. (and putting on something mind-numbing on his ipad) but that first time comes and goes and it just becomes routine to say it all the time. all the time.

it's not until you go hang out with jerma again that the energy is just.. different, not bad, just different. maybe even a little awkward. your hands are a little sweaty but you two spend the entire night playing dumb shit on the switch and you cook dinner together and somewhere along the line you're sitting next to each other and blurt out that you both miss Ludwig and then laugh and are like haha y-you too? but there's the electricity between the two of you too, and he invites you to stay the night "not like that of course... i mean unless you-" "yes" and you share your first kiss and it's fun and you still just...

you're both still thinking about Ludwig, and he knew you were hanging out but didn't realize it was a date and he feels this empty pit in his stomach because the two of you aren't talking to him even though he knows it's because you two are hanging out. and there's this seed of not jealousy but sadness because he isn't there too.

ludwig comes out with an awkward confession after you and jerma start to hang out more and more. "kinda hate when you guys go on dates tbh" tone is impossible to read through text and you prod him on why and after the conversation starts to get heated you open a call, and it. for what it's worth, the civility between you and ludwig lasts exactly 3 sentences and jerma is really trying to just mediate but once you both start yelling it's impossible (but he definitely feels like he's listening to two children bicker).

"it was one date and we've only seen each other twice! out with it, why is it such a problem only now?? it was two days where you were busy anyway so it's not like we skipped out on a night time video call!"

"that's not the fucking problem!"

"you didn't say anything when jeremy asked you if it was okay?? he asked you!"

"because it's not just you!! it's both of you, both of you are the problem."

"what does that even mean?? how is it--"

"wait, both of us? stop let lud talk"

you stopped out of indignance, almost throwing your headphones down instead of listening to whatever he had to say but with your arms crossed and mouse hovered over the leave call button, you stayed. you couldn't tell if ludwig had walked away from his computer or if he had muted his microphone and just gave up on talking. jerma breaks the silence first and cracks a half hearted joke, "i-i think this is the longest he's gone without talking to us. i don't think we've ever heard him this quiet for so long" it gets the driest chuckle out of you, almost like a pity laugh, but ludwig groans loudly and it genuinely cracks you up further. you can almost see it as he sighs, too, the way his hands are braced against his forehead and it's wrinkled with frustration.

"i fucking... it feels like shit knowing you two are hanging out and i'm all the way in los angeles. it's not just... one of you, it's both of you, i don't know. saying that out loud feels so fucking dumb." but you both scrambled to interject, explaining that you both felt that way too. neither of you knew how to bring it up and that it had been plaguing you especially hard, feeling like one side of the feelings were fake, both jerma and ludwig were scared that it would wildly change the dynamic the three of you had.

but it didn't.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

So shit like this, shows me how inept people that vote blue are. You all think, "Well this thing is called "x" so it must be so". It's literally this meme in a nutshell:

Then there was the, "Inflation Reduction Act" which itself did almost nothing to reduce inflation and the only projected loss of inflation would be by a % and only by 2027. Trump was a New York Democrat. And he explained why he didn't run as one several times. And the reasoning was because the Dems would not have let him win. The same way they didn't let Bernie win. And policy wise, Trump and Bernie were not super far off. It's why when Bernie got gutted during the primaries, a lot of Bernie voters went Trump.

And just because Trump doesn't align with the new socialists doesn't mean he's not still a Dem at heart. Just means the modern Dem party keeps moving further and further left. Which if you want tyranny then keep voting for them. You'll get it soon enough. Oh and the prospect that I am "Only critical of Dems" and I "Promote Reps" is fucking stupid. I'm far less critical of Reps because I KNOW they are mostly stupid. But I will let the right criticize their own, and when Reps do something I'm very much slighted by I talk about it. Like when I complain about Abbott. And the only Reps that I promote are more libertarian party members while only being republican in name. And that's both Rand Paul and Ron Paul. Also Tulsi is a Dem I like. But I guess she's not Commie enough for your tastes. Because she's anti war and the modern dem party is extremely pro war.

Fact is. I only like Trump in so far as he protected our borders, pushed the Abraham Accords, and did his best with LYING generals at his side to pull us out of wars and bring our troops home. Of which I am ALL for because I'm a prior. Get my brothers and sisters out of these pointless wars. And out of these dangerous war torn countries that never stop fighting. Trump is a crass man who's self important to a fault. I'd never deny that. He has done some not great things in his past. But did he fly to Epstein's island dozens of times? Not according to flight logs. Bill Clinton on the other hand took several trips to said island. Bill Gates took several trips to his properties and I believe the island once or twice.

If you are going to come at me saying, "TRUMP'S RUNNING AS A REPUBLICAN SO HE"S NEVER BEEN A DEMOCRAT!", Well sorry just proves you can't parse words. Just because you don't see him as one doesn't mean he isn't one. He's not currently threatening to ban abortion. Most Reps would be. He's not threatening to ban Gay Marriage. Some Reps would be. Hence you miss the point. IE: You miss the forest for the trees. Reps are voting for Trump because the economy was good under him and he didn't want communism or socialism. And if you believe that there was no election meddling going on, you clearly didn't read Time Magazines, "The shadow campaign to save the election". In which they outline a number of things they did behind the scenes to make sure Trump could not win.

Many of which would be LEGALLY considered election meddling. Like IDK. Hiding the Biden laptop under "Misinformation". Which is funny because most modern "Misinformation" as reported by Dems and Mainstream Media just means, "4-6 months until proven true". Like the machines that DID flip votes. But the "Fact check" websites will tell you, "Well yes it did happen but we caught it and fixed it". Ok.......so it happened, meaning it could have happened to other machines, and no investigation was allowed to happen on those machines beyond, "Here you can look at it physically sitting on a pallet in shrink wrap and that's it". Yeah that's "Investigating" surely.

Yeah, if that had happened to Dems you'd still be shrieking to this day about a stolen election. But because you won, any and all funny business is reasonable and fine and shouldn't be investigated. Which tells me you don't care about fair elections you care about power. Because if you did care about fair elections, you'd have voted against policy changes that were against constitutional law. But unlike me (not a rep) you don't have morals. So long as you win and wield power like a weapon you don't care how you get there. And if that's the Democrat party I want nothing to do with it ever. Real things happened in 2020 that never got investigated. You don't give a fuck. Trumps voted blue most of his life. But in no true scotsman fashion, he's "Not a Democrat because he's not aligned with my idea of modern Dems". Spare me.

All communists should be purged. You aren't people so much as I'm concerned. You're a cancer on this earth. And modern Dems are basically Communists. Certainly not all. But far too many.

Oh and "Our enemies are trying to get Reps elected. Oh so Reps like Bernie Sander and Jill Stein?

And this is only one report. Several others actually claim that Hillary was in fact aided by Russia herself. Sadly the MSM doesn't care about it and buries it because it's damaging to their narrative of "Trump is Super Hitler". Get over yourselves. Your party is currently flooding the US with illegals and putting US citizens on the back burner.

[ossyflawol]

Did you know that the cake signage appears in Portal 2? It's when the crabhead Wheatley decided to get off the rail.

(i tried to answer this atleast twice but it crashed the text editor twice, third time's the charm!)

Yup, fully aware of it. Though, a more interesting question is - why is it here? Valve, going into Portal 2's development, wanted to avoid every possible reference they could to the cake from Portal 1, as the internet practically ran wild with the whole "The Cake Is A Lie" thing and it'd be seen as them trying to cash in on a dead meme.

So let's answer that, why is the cake signage here, and only here?

So, back in Portal 1, every single Test Chamber sign was actually it's very own, unique model. The sign present in Portal 2 specifically is "models/props_animsigns/signage_num08.mdl", and it's the sign used in Test Chamber 8 from Portal 1.

(Sidenote, I don't believe that the dilapidated Test Chamber in Portal 2 labelled as "08" is the same Test Chamber 8 from Portal 1, it's just a different Test Track, the fact it's on the same level as Portal 1's Test Chamber 7 says enough.)

Let's take a quick look at Portal 1's Test Chamber signs on the more internal level. Valve did the 'activation' of the signs by having various texture skins that the model would progress through, controlled by internal map logic.

As depicted below, it starts at Skin 1 (the second leftmost skin), and progresses all the way until Skin 6, which is the "fully activated" Chamber Sign.

The main thing is that these signs are entirely premade, if you want to change the icons on these, you have to recompile the model to switch it over.

This was easier to do back in Portal 1, the game was smaller, only had 19 Test Chambers, and this design was established quite early in development, of course, after some iterations of earlier designs, but that's besides the point.

This would, however, become problematic if, say, a game had up to ~110+ unique Test Chambers...

Oh wait.

When making Portal 2, Valve was almost certainly not going to try and make a hundred unique signs for each and every Test Chamber, especially when they were shifting around the level order constantly to try figure out the difficulty curve of the puzzles.

So, now with the whole company working on Portal 2, rather than the small team that was Portal 1, they came up with an ingenious solution:

Just one, universal sign.

So, rather than making a hundred unique models, Valve instead projects a GUI onto the screen that mimicked the visual style of the Chamber signs from Portal 1, and the best part? It is completely modular.

Instead of a hundred bajillion models, Valve simply had the GUI read from two text files.

"lightboard_startup_sequences.txt" defines the unique style of 'activation flicker' of the signs, but the real meat and potatoes is in "sp_lightboard_icons.txt".

And so, rather than a million models, Valve controls it all through simple text! They can tell the UI to display every possible detail, such as what Test Chamber number the player is on, how many Test Chambers there are in the sequence, etc.

Though, most important is the icons.

At the beginning of the text file, every possible icon the signs can display is listed:

Notice anything missing?

There's no cake icon.

So, what's going on in this Portal 2 map, the one with Chamber 8's sign?

Simply put? It's just the very same Chamber sign model all the way back from Portal 1, stuck on the third activation skin of the set, which happens to display the cake icon as part of the model.

This is actually due to to a limitation of how the modular chamber sign system works in Portal 2, it can only support one unique sign per map, which is a downside compared to Portal 1's 'every Test Chamber sign is it's own model' system. Both have their flaws and benefits, but Portal 2's is easily has more pros can cons.

So in order to combat this problem of being unable to have two unique chamber signs in one map, Valve just plonked in Chamber 8's sign into the other chamber, and called it a day.

I just thought that was interesting.

ADDENDUM:

If you're wondering, the Cooperative Campaign of Portal 2 has it's own lightboard_icons.txt, it's just located in the 'coop' folder for scripts.

[pokemonpostsdaily]

i hope your ass looks up mutual aid posts in the search bar after this “it’s just a few dollars uwu i’m gonna and give money to people who are racist and transphobic in exchange for some shitty useless checkmarks that don’t do jackshit uwu” shut the fuck up and give your money to black and trans people who need it

what the fuck are you talking about? How do you ask me a question as anonymous and have the audacity to tell me what to do and how to spend my money. How about YOU shut the fuck up and you give your money to black and trans people who need it. If you hate this site so much why are you even on it to begin with? By you using the site, you are supporting the same people you are calling racist and transphobic because they are still getting the ad rev off of you. I literally only use this site to post pokemon memes and have fun. If you think for once that I would even dig deeper into tumblr further beyond that, then you got me fucked up lmfao. I literally log onto the site like once a day, either post a pic or see what got updated and log off, I literally don't think twice about this site at the end of the day. If you truly have an issue with the site and the people who run it, don't tell me about it (especially as an anonymous), tell the people who run the site. I work hard for my money and I have the right to spend it how I want. If you think otherwise then you're very mistaken. I don't share a lot of my personal life on here for a reason but if I need to start doing so to prove points then I will. But I'll keep it at that. Whoever you are "anonymous", block me and don't even think about my account again. Leave me alone. Due to this, I'm turning off anonymous asks once again, sorry but this person ruined it and I'm also not fond of "anonymous" anyways.

[beevean]

Y'know, the Shadow talk kinda reminded me of how the fan perception of Silver being a goofy dork was almost invented the same way. Back when arts of Sonic Shadow and Silver as a group started popping up, people kinda resorted to group dynamic stereotypes when portraying them, and since "The Cool One" and "The Serious/Edgy One" spots were taken by Sonic and Shadow respectively, I guess "The Dork" was the only option available back then...?

Or maybe people just looked at 06, only looked at the "ITS NO USE" memes and then just decided to base his character only off that, I dunno.

For the life of me, I still don't understand where the misconception not only came from, but spread so wide that it pretty much became the Western portrayal of Silver

Archie Silver, IDW Silver, even TSR Silver...

I only remember when back in the day people despised Silver for being stupid, for his broken boss fight and for the billiard puzzle

My guess is that it's the evolution of his canonical naiveté? As in, the fact that the poor guy lived all of his life in a lava wasteland to the point that he was amazed at a desert - and more importantly, fell hook line and sinker for a guy who looked like the devil lol.

So naiveté = childish innocence = dorkiness. And that's how the Western fandom forgot that Silver was super ready to kill Sonic and almost did it twice. Dude's no cinnamon roll lmao

[peachyhcney]

♡♡ ATLANTA MILLIONAIRES CLUB ♡♡

an ask meme based off of Faye Webster’s 2019 album . feel free to change wording as needed .

room temperature .

“ Looks like I've been crying again over the same thing . ”

“ I wonder if anyone has ever cried for me . ”

“ I should get out more . ”

“ Still wearing the same thing, these aren't even my clothes . “

“ I just don't change that much 'cause who's to impress ? ”

“ There's nobody around when I'm at my best . ”

right side of my neck .

“ I kinda wonder where you got it . ”

“ The right side of my neck still smells like you . ”

“ You looked back at me once, but I looked back two times . ”

hurts me too .

“ My mother told me one day she's tired of my sad songs . ”

“ But loving you has only made me cry twice or so . ”

“ The day that I said I loved you, you didn't say it in return . ”

“ And I am done changing words just so my songs sound prettier . ”

“ I just don't care if it hurts 'cause it hurts me too . ”

“ And what am I 'posed to do when my dad cries in front of me ? ”

“ Do I just close my eyes and pretend like I didn't see ? ”

pigeon .

“ My time's been wasted . ”

“ Been thinking of him . ”

“ I only said it once but was he listening ? ”

“ It's the little things that just aren't the same . ”

“ I used to make my bed, but now I see no point in it . ”

“ He's awake the whole time that I'm asleep. Maybe that's why I don't see him in my dreams . ”

“ I sent a pigeon with a note to his house . ”

“I wish I knew but I am too afraid to ask . ”

“I should just let it go but I can't not look back . ”

jonny .

“ And I wonder, what's the point of this life ? ”

“ Sometimes I'll pray but I will never close my eyes . ”

“ Not that I've paid attention, but you haven't said it out loud . ”

“ This wasn't 'posed to be a love song, but I guess it is now . ”

“ Maybe you'll never hear this or maybe it's stuck in your head . ”

“ Well, I hope it makes you cry the way that I did . ”

“ [ Name ], do you see what you're doing ? What you're making me think about ? ”

kingston .

“ The day that I met you, I started dreaming . ”

“ I like the sound it makes when it starts pouring rain . ”

“ I think that tonight I'll leave my light on 'cause I get lonely when it's out and I miss you right about now . ”

“ Baby tell me where you want to go . ”

“ Baby tell me what you want to know . ”

“ He said baby, that’s what he called me, I love you . ”

“ Every single word you say makes me feel some type of way . ”

“ It’s the thought of you that slightly scares me . ”

come to atlanta .

“ I want my time back .”

“ Why won’t you come here to visit ? ”

“ Why do you only speak of it ? ”

“ I don’t want no one .”

what used to be mine .

“ I miss your house on the hill . ”

“ I miss your voice, you’re the only one with it . ”

“ It reminds me of what used to be mine . ”

“ I drive through there all the time . ”

“ I listen to you when I feel like crying . ”

“ I miss your shirt that didn’t fit righ t. I’ve worn it to sleep once or twice . ”

“ I try not to go where I first met you . ”

“ I only see you on occasion . ”

“ You remind me of what used to be mine . ”

flowers .

“ What do you prefer ? ”

“ Can you just give me all your time ? ”

“ I’m gonna try to give you mine . ”

“ I don’t have that much to offer . ”

“ Sometimes the girl of your dreams needs to stay in your dreams . ”

“ I should stop asking people for assistance . ”

“ I don’t like to get caught up in commitments . ”

jonny ( reprise ) .

“ Why couldn’t you be ready, too ? ”

“ I was ready to be happy, ready for that long look that never ends . ”

“ Now, I don’t know what to do . ”

“ This is a love song, isn’t it ? ”

“ Well, I guess this is how it ends . ”

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

a few months ago i had a mutual ghost me. (we had planned ships and everything, they were even a main) by this i mean they stopped replying to discord messages and to threads and eventually blocked me on discord and when i tried following their new blogs they soft blocked me. and no, the soft block was not a tumblr glitch becahse i tried refollowing them twice and the same thing happened, i was soft blocked. to this day i don't even know what i did wrong. anyway, this new mutual i have is giving me the same vibe as the other one where they stop replying often to discord messages and to threads, stop sending memes etc. we have a ship planned and i really like writing with them and their character but due to my previous experience with that other person, i just want to get ahead of this and cut my losses before getting hurt again. any advice?

It is SO easy to let old partnerships interfere with new ones. (I've been in that boat before, too.) Our brains are trained to find correlations where there aren't any - to see patterns that don't always actually exist. Be careful, anon. Don't let a bad RP partner sour your relationship with a new one. Basically - don't become the person your old partner was to you.

The first thing to take note of is this: Has your current partner's activity changed on the whole? Less posts on their blog, less RPs, etc? If so, it could just be something going on in their life that's not related to you at all.

Something else to consider is that what feels like 'less engagement' to you, might be perfectly normal for them. I can personally go for months not talking to someone, and then pick right back up where we left off and chat with them like we were just talking the other day. Of course, if I'm doing that with one partner, I'm usually doing it with all of them because sometimes I just don't want to focus on my writing or my blogs.

So, if it genuinely feels like your current partner is distancing themselves from you specifically (and not their other partners), then you might try reaching out (if you feel comfortable doing that.) Just keep it simple. "Hey, I noticed you haven't been around as much lately; I hope everything's going alright. Since I haven't heard from you in awhile, I just wanted to check in and make sure everything was okay with us and with our threads. If we need to talk about anything, please let me know. Take care."

All you can really do at this point is reach out to them - essentially toss the ball into their court, and hope that they're honest with you, and willing to talk if there really is an issue of some kind.

Do our followers have anything they'd like to add?

~ Mod MJ ~

[sculptural-renaissance]

SGU Week Day 4 (oh are we still doing this): Favorite shi

Eli and Ginn were precious, and it's criminal that we didn't get more of them. C r i m i n a l . To say nothing of that double-fridging (that they did twice... ffs).

I like to think that Ginn would be all in for going to earth, and she eventually gets her wish after her file is removed from quarantine (with a sweet clone body grown from DNA harvested from her old clothes, which were initially saved to be backup clothing for some of the ladies on board Destiny, but later saved for cloning purposes [yes I'm aware this means her body would have been buried in some state of undress, but it was off camera anyway so it's fiiiiiiiine]).

Y'all say what y'all like about Family Guy, but the cutaways have tons of cultural references (I am frequently "Peter Griffin Explains the Joke when I watch with my husband). My thought is that Eli shows Ginn episodes of Family Guy to teach her about earth, which you can imagine leads to some pretty ridiculous misunderstandings.

Please do not enjoy this excerpt from The Eli Wallace Guide to Getting a Cute and Smart 3D Girlfriend

A while back, whilst hunting for meme fodder, I found a mean article written back around when SGU was airing. The gist of it was basically that Ginn was too "pretty" for Eli, and that a "schlubby" guy like him didn't deserve to be with someone conventionally attractive. Idk, maybe I'm old, but I think they're around the same level of cuteness. Also, bear in mind that in the past, having some extra weight was considered a sign of wealth and a positive trait. Eli's body type could easily be a selling point for Ginn, who is apparently interested enough in leaving the Space Cartel that she's willing to risk her life for it. To her, Eli is sweet, smart, cute, and her ticket to a life so cushy that luxuries she can't even imagine are considered commonplace. He's the entire package. 🧡

Look, I'm not creative. This is verbatim from Family Guy, but it's funny as hell, so it's going in the post.

This is Vital Information, mainly because Eli is definitely dragging her to a comic con at the first opportunity. God, imagine being an alien and going to a con, and it looks no different from that trading post you used to go to every month

Gotta learn about Halloween, AKA the best holiday! I do wonder what kind of holiday celebrations they might try to have on the Destiny in some hypothetical future where they can get supplies from earth, especially with all those Lucian Alliance members from various other planets. Obviously not something worth showing in a show that was mainly focused on survival, but it's a fun idea for fics.

And yes, at this point, Family Guy is the only TV show Ginn knows, except for the ones they mention on the show.

Please enjoy the references to Mean Girls and Parks & Rec.

Apparently raisins are a universal constant, too, which is good because I love them and will tolerate no raisin-slander on my page

"Shut up, Eli, you don't have a band." Fr tho "Spaceship Full of Bees" is an awesome band name

This is actually one of the shorter "episodes" I've done, in which Dale gets the bright idea to keep bees on a spaceship. I looked it up, and you can't keep honeybees inside, not even in a greenhouse, because they need more space than that to roam around. Maybe they could genetically engineer some that are suitable for pollinating weird space plants on a starship. No way will that hilariously backfire. Ginn is clearly familiar with the steroid bees, so she will probably think they're normal.

Dale's other idea is to get chickens. Maybe they can get some domestic space quail instead. They're smaller.

"So after we finished Family Guy, we watched some of The Cleveland Show. Then, when I took her to the zoo, she threw a beer into the bear enclosure, and that's how we both got lifetime bans from The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo."

But yeah imagine learning all this random pop culture info from some raunchy cartoon so you can fit in on an alien planet, but no one bothers telling you that the second-most common pet on that planet can't talk. Good luck to everyone when Ginn meets a parrot...

[counttwinkula]

i gotta say that one of my least favorite things about the modern internet is the ease with which people just accept that an image exists without any thought of its provenance

like, the most obvious cases of this are when an illustration gets turned into a meme and spread across the internet without the consent of the creator

how many times have you seen the original form of a viral image spreading around tumblr with people reacting in shock and awe, "that's what the original said?"

and here's an example that makes my blood boil: remember the iconic "one fear" comic?

do you remember when someone removed the artist's signature, and then dozens of edits were spread with the words "one big meme" in its place?

it's like someone was out there trying to make my point for me: that once the image goes viral and becomes exploitable (as we called it back in the encyclopedia dramatica days) the artist's identity gets filed off of it

but the other half of this issue, which is the part that really just confounds me altogether, is better represented by the sculptor izumi kato. if you don't recognize the name, you may recognize a very specific photo of his work:

this photo of a work by kato (untitled, 2004) accompanied the original SCP creepypasta. in the years since SCP-173 was first posted this photograph and depictions of the character it inspired—a character whose physical appearance was taken directly from kato's art—has been spread far and wide across the internet's horror communities

(yes i know the SCP website has removed the image from the official website and i applaud that decision)

unlike teen comix, where any viewer immediately, if unconsciously, knows that this is a drawing and that therefore someone drew this, i think that the public does not have that same awareness when it comes to photographs

as many art critics have noted since the advent and spread of photography, the photograph occludes not only the concept of authorship (which is beyond the scope of this post), it also alienates the viewer from the idea of context—the image exists for its own sake, separated from the subject of said image

the internet is built on weird images spread without any sort of context, and i get that. i also know that i'm the kind of person who thinks about this stuff and not everybody is

(chris sharp, fire hydrant jack, ca. 2007)

what just makes me crazy is how people seem so willing to look at a picture and just think "i guess that exists" without taking a moment to think "someone must have made that"

and what irks me is how many blogs here—beloved blogs with tons of followers—repost and reblog this content without any thought put toward attribution when the item in question is obviously an art object. the blogs that come to my mind, and i do not say this with any malice, are ones that reframe the subjects of these photos within a D&D context, placing the focus on their "bit" and entirely eclipsing the artists whose works their blogs rely upon for content

the issue of attribution has become even more urgent because the efficacy of google's reverse image search function has plummeted

i cannot tell you how many times i have scoured the internet for any sort of image source for a work of art, wading through scores of pinterest and tumblr links, before suddenly finding the artist's name—or before declaring the whole matter a lost cause

that was when reverse image search was still useful, and nowadays for whatever reason (i am not knowledgeable enough to say why or how) it has ceased to be useful altogether. i have no idea what alternatives we have, and so i really think it falls on us to try to apply some code of ethics to this matter

i'm not saying i only reblog attributed images, i know that's basically impossible, but i am imploring people to at least think twice about this, and i am asking blogs with big follower counts that rely on other people's images to think about the impact they have on further distancing the art from its creator

[flameof]

I am going to be ranting about Oshi no Ko, a manga/anime series I have tried twice now to pick up, and dropped just as quickly each time, for a post now. I do not know when I will be done. If you love the series, that's all well and good, but I keep seeing it on facebook meme pages, and it has reached the point of annoying me more than Hazama angered me at the end of Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend. If you do not want to hear some nobody like me rag on one of your fav anime, then feel free to ignore me, I'm ranting for my own sake.

I'll start by opening with the fact that those facebook meme pages had basically spoiled everything before I so much as knew it was a show that was airing, so maybe that has something to do with my opinion, but whatever.

It also doesn't help that a lot of those memes boil down to 'Aquamarine has sex with character x', so that's certainly jaded my opinion.

My first real problem with it comes down to the premise. That is to say, the dark side of Japan's idol industry, and two reincarnators born as the children of their favourite idol. Starting with the first point, who in this day and age doesn't know that idol culture is a cesspool of scum and villainy? I know that idol fans are chaos incarnate; I've seen the shit that Vtuber fans get up to. So, already, I'm turn off by the fact that the show focuses on something I already know. Then there's the reincarnator thing... why do they need to be reincarnators? Like, really, why? Don't get me wrong, I like a good reincarnator. They make for some pretty decent isekai shows and manga (god knows I'm addicted to the villainess isekai sub-genre), but THIS is... just excessive. Why do Ruby and Aqua have to be reincarnators? Why can't they just be regular kids? From what I've seen, the only times when the reincarnator plotpoint is a thing is when it's just the two of them. And WHY, for the love of the Gods, are they trying to get into the industry that got their mother killed?

Which brings me to point two: the characters. Now, I'll admit, I only know the basic three characters from how far I got into the series, those being Ai, Aquamarine, and Ruby. The rest of the cast, I only know exist through those aforementioned facebook pages. I get that Ai's suppose to be the cliche 'dead anime mum', but how in the Gods' names does she manage to mix up her children's names? They look nothing alike. And like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, why are her kids trying to get into the industry? The same industry that, might I remind, KILLED THEIR SINGLE MOTHER?! It just makes no damn sense to me (but then again, here I am, bitching about an anime I've only grazed the surface of).

And finally, the last point I want to bring up: the artstyle. There's something... uncanny about it. I'm honestly not sure what it is, or whether it's deliberate on the artist's part, but I just... can't with it. Maybe that's the point, since one of the early lines is about how being an idol is 'living a lie', but when I look at any character, even Aqua in his previous life, I just cannot connect with them. I know the argument to that would be 'they're drawings, dude', but even in shows with such stylised styles (Madoka Magica, for instance), they use their artstyle well, and for shows like, say, the Fate/Stay Night movies by UFOtable, sure it looks 'realish' but there's enough fantasy and exaggerated style to offset that. Oshi no Ko, however, somehow feels like it exists in an anime equivalent to the uncanny valley, where the characters manage to look flat, while the eyes pop the most. Somehow, the characters just don't feel engaging.

Okay. Rant over. Only problem is that there's going to be a second season, and I'll have to deal with all this all over again.

[pinkpruneclodwolf]

YOOO, the new chapter has so many feels and I’m just like bro… I can’t even put it into words mate. Like Meruem feeling bad that she made Grim think that he was pet to her, while it shows the comparison between Grim and her brother + the bullying and how it feels like they were like an accessory to her and how she feel like accessory tp her mom. And how it reveals Meruem’s abuse from her mom after Grim ranaway and how she feels alone without him now. And how it feels like she's changing to a different person that she's afraid that her family or Grim don't recognize her. Then she feeling like she was forgiving Riddle too easily and her not feeling that she isn't allowed to not be the better person, and I'm just like: yoooo. But moving on, I liked how you put Epel interacting and being friends with the group, I really liked that. Also, I was kinda worried when you say that Grim would only forgive Merry in chapter 4, but then I realized that its giving Grim more character and I remembered that I was angry at my sister for something for like 8 months so like yeah. Also not only does Merry has bad luck on her birthday based off the month and month flower, but it’s also the day, I feel so bad for her. So always, I really liked the new chapter! (Sorry for rambling '^^)  

Also I made meme on one of parts bc it reminded me of the meme

Thank you so much!!!!!

There's something about changing so drastically that you feel your family won't recognize outside of your appearance (that's about to change too) that you feel alien in your own skin. It's about wanting to fo back to the familiarity even if it means you endure. It's about wanting to be better but not knowing how. It's about—

Honestly I think that Grim receives the brunt of Meruem's feelings and even other Yumesona's at some points, and I know it's only been a week after Riddle's OB but the stuff Meruem and Co endured during that was like... Almost dying twice? Magic literally setting you aflame from the inside out to the point that Ace gets concerned her nerves will fry???

I'm changing the trajectory of Chapter 2 to focus on siblings and the heavy grudges that can be borne from those relationships bc I genuinely believe there was a point when Leona did want to kill his brother so that he could get a modicum of the recognition he receives but chose to isolate himself instead realizing how dangerous those thoughts were.

Cater will play a significant role too which us why I started off with his pov this chap because of his relationship with his sisters and how they walked all over him (which is how Meruem would treat her brother at points)

I also thought about how the Fandom treats Jade as the normal brother despite him being right along Floyd and that was only because Floyd is more overt in his behaviors so I was like,,,,,,

Chapter 2 is about siblings with complicated relationships with themselves/how society perceives them that changes how they perceive their relationship and how a gap can grow from that. It definitely parallels me and brother's relationship but we've grown closer because of that—Merry doesn't have that chance the same way Cater or Leona does.

It's a whole 3 circle venn diagram of complicated sibling relationships and emotional constipation.

Grim will definitely grow and become his own person as a result bc even if they are two parts of the same whole, Grim is still his own part (person) and Meruem had been eclipsing him as a result.

I also think Grim has a lot of trauma with people exactly like her personality type (or plain abusive) so Meruem has to work hard and nip that in a bud. (Chapter 4 is about them being stuck together, I'm sure if that wouldn't have happened they'd make up by Chapter 5)

Healing isn't a linear process, and it is a struggle (more OB being thrown their way) but the best way to apologize is to fix the behavior that led to you apologizing in the first place.

I'm reading White Fang (the character that Jack Howl is based off of) to get a feel for him and the overall tone of Chapter 2 and the themes tie into the sibling submit so welll.