#LORE?!?!?

[alfredojesta]

laughing jack's relationships!!!

a crash course in friendship

Laughing Jack doesn't understand feelings too well. This makes it difficult for him to exhibit empathy, sympathy or general compassion for anyone. He's been seeing humans as nothing but toys he can mess with. Their feelings only matter to him for the sake of his amusement! Fun, fun, fun! Laughing Jack loves having fun! But when he meets William Grossman — LJ starts to change.

WILLIAM GROSSMAN

LJ: "WILLIAM!!! A GOOD LITTLE KID. I MET HIM ON A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT WHILST HE WAS DUMPSTER DIVING FOR EXTRA CHANGE!"

Will: "Laughing Jack and I are like this." He crosses his fingers. "Best-friends for life!"

William eerily resembles Isaac. Laughing Jack subconsciously sees this as a second chance to make things better — to heal his inner conflict. However, his consciousness won't let him admit that. Therefore, he aids William in his misdeeds, guaranteeing him that he will someday become a serial killer. It's something that brings LJ more regret than it brings him satisfaction. But in regard to William, LJ always speaks positively, considering him to be a close friend. He protects the kid, whether he wants to or not. Because this could be LJ's redemption. The one he so desperately wants.

On William's end — Laughing Jack is this incredible killer clown who's going to teach him how to be one! William brags about his friendship with LJ. Although, he can admit LJ is overbearing at times. There's only a certain amount of chaos they can cause together before William has to stop.

FRANKIE THE UNDEAD

LJ: "Who?"

Frankie: "I wanna take my fuckin' pistol and shoot that clown's head to itty bitty bits."

Because Frankie is William's roommate, LJ and Frankie have had their fair share of interactions with each other. None of these interactions were positive. LJ thinks he's a total jerk and doesn't know why William is so interested in him.

Frankie wants LJ to die. There have been far too many times where LJ has stolen his money for Frankie to be comfortable.

LAUGHING JILL

LJ: "HA! JILL IS SIMPLY RIDICULOUS! I CANNOT BELIEVE PEOPLE SEE US TO BE TWINS. WE ARE NOTHING ALIKE!!!"

Jill: "If I'm honest, I don't like Laughing Jack at all...! He's so cruel...!"

Even though these two come from a similar place of betrayal, they have entirely different ideals. While LJ wants to kill children, Jill wants to save them by killing their abusive parents. LJ thinks Jill is stupid for this (though he'll never admit it, he wishes he went that path instead.) In addition, he's jealous of how well Jill gets along with Candy Pop. He wholeheartedly thinks Jill is trying to steal his friend away.

Laughing Jill despises Laughing Jack. She loves children with all her heart and it sickens her to see someone kill them so mercilessly. Jill tries to avoid LJ, but being apart of the mansion means they're bound to have encounters.

CANDY POP

LJ: "AH, CANDY POP! MY DEAREST, BELOVED, AMAZING, SIMPLY THE BEST, EXTRAORDINARY, BEAUTIFUL, WORK OF ART, STUPENDOUS, ASTONISHING, ASTOUNDING, PHENOMENAL, BREATHTAKING, TERRIFIC, AND WONDROUS JESTER!!! YES, YES, YES I ADORE HIM VERY MUCH!!! HEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

Candy Pop: "My dearest clown! What a pleasure to be around. How I wish he did not kill children, but I suppose every person has their flaws."

Laughing Jack believes Candy Pop to be hilarious. A clown and a jester — great friends who leave each other in hysterics. Their dynamic has been positive since they met. Candy Pop is the first person who's been affectionate with him in a long time — both verbally and physically. Thus, LJ holds strong feelings toward him, causing him to be rather possessive. He belittles those who want to interact with Candy Pop. It's jealousy, for sure. LJ rarely meets someone of his calibre. He's in awe over Candy Pop's abilities. They frequently go out together to "explode things into a bajillion candies!" LJ also eats Candy Pop's hair, or chews on his arm, sometimes because he literally tastes sweet.

Candy Pop sees Laughing Jack as a close friend of his. Everything he does, from the hand-holding to small kisses on the cheek, is platonic and will remain platonic. While LJ is fun to be around — and in someways, Candy Pop empathises with him — he is way too erratic. Other than that, he is cute! Candy Pop respects and appreciates him. He is oblivious to LJ's jealousy.

JASON THE TOYMAKER

LJ: "I reckon Jason the Toymaker should fall into a pit."

Jason: "Eugh." He grimaces at the thought of Laughing Jack alone.

Laughing Jack only likes Jason when he can mess with him. Although recently, he's started despising Jason more because of how Candy Pop clings onto him. LJ has been plotting Jason's death ever since.

One annoying jester was enough, but now there's an annoying clown. And the worst part is, that annoying clown is horrifying to even look at. Jason wants to kill someone everytime he hears LJ's voice.

ZERO THE HERO

LJ: "ZERO IS MOST FUN TO HANG WITH! FEARLESS DEMON! I APPLAUD HER!"

Zero: "THAT CLOWN UNDERSTANDS ME! TOGETHER, THE HUMAN WORLD SHALL COLLAPSE UNDER US!"

Laughing Jack and Zero wreak havoc together. The mansion's biggest threats are those two. Zero is difficult to befriend, given her arrogant and disorganised personality. LJ often doesn't understand Zero's character. But he doesn't have to because all that matters to LJ is that she's chaotic and makes things fun.

Zero, being as misanthropic as she is, likes Laughing Jack for the sole reason of him being another demon. She believes that if she gathers enough demons, they can take over the world. ...But also, she generally thinks causing trouble with LJ is a fun pass time.

THE PUPPETEER

LJ: "DEAR PUPPET!!! Due to his influence, my diet has greatly improved! Now I eat these for dinner!" He holds up a bag of pebbles.

Puppeteer: "LJ is... an interesting fellow. I make attempts to expand his food options."

Laughing Jack, weirdly enough, gets along with The Puppeteer. Their conversations are simple and, because of Puppeteer's easygoing nature, get rather therapeutic. LJ wants to impress Puppeteer by taking his advice.

The Puppeteer thinks Laughing Jack is a little weird, but he tolerates him. He's one of the few people who treat LJ nicely in the mansion. Pup is also the only person who knows what happened between LJ and Isaac — not because LJ explained it to Puppeteer, but because he pieced things together. He's interested in how LJ's mind works and wants to know more.

KAGEKAO

LJ: "I must take Kagekao to a rehab center!"

Kagekao: "Can he leave me alone?"

Laughing Jack usually finds Kagekao to be a boring alcoholic. But he and Zero think forcing him to participate in their antics is funny. There's no real bond besides them pulling pranks together.

Kagekao has learnt to tolerate Laughing Jack, but he still wishes there could be some distance. He's frankly tired of LJ and Zero bothering him, especially because he'd rather spend time with other people.

Some honourable mentions: he hates Jeff the Killer for certain reasons; all of the kids in the mansion are terrified of him; and Eyeless Jack is his self-proclaimed name-buddy.

TLDR: Laughing Jack likes fun people who aren't close to Candy Pop.

[adobe-outdesign]

the craziest beta 'mon is this guy, who would evolve into a random Pokemon upon evolution

like imagine finding this autism creature fighting for its life out in the wild so you catch it out of pity and two months later it evolves into goddamn Rayquaza

[redrook]

old German lady gave me acupuncture today

she lifted up my shirt, saw my top surgery scars, and immediately went "WHOA! What caused THIS?"

my fellow comrades, it took every atom of my strength not to just say the funniest lie I could think of on the spot.

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.

[fluff-e-boy]

Graphic design is my passion

[morganbritton132]

The funniest aspect of a child crime fighter is that sometimes they’re going to run into something that makes no sense because they don’t have the life experience. Because they’re nine.

Like Robin runs into a guy who works for The Penguin and the guy just throws his hands up like, “Don’t hit! I’m not an enforcer. I’m an accountant.”

Robin:

Robin, squaring up: I don’t know what that is.

[atissi]

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

[agave]

as a root vegetable, parsnip naturally desires to return to the earth 🌏🥕

[hollis-art]

ngl im not even a superman fan. i just REALLY like clark kent,,, (thank you, Smallville, for that.)

[transmasculinizing]

i honestly still think about this post daily

[this-is-where-i-hide-my-bullshit]

I know it's not people's faults for not knowing, but I still get extremely annoyed at people saying stuff like "why are ghosts always represented by sheets? I guess people used to just be scared of sheets."

They aren't ghosts because they're covered in a sheet, they're covered in a sheet because back in the day, they wrapped dead bodies in sheets when they buried them. The ghosts are wrapped in burial shrouds because that's what they were buried in.

People weren't scared of sheets, they were scared of the corpse UNDER the sheet.

[slightlyartist]

Tate deserves to punch Ford so I drew it, felt really therapeutic <3

[redrook]

can't have shit in Baltimore

[inbabylontheywept]

I was walking out of the Walmart today, and a car passed me, and I got this incredibly vivid impression. It wasn't really in words, but if I had to put it into words, the two key points would be

a). I needed to watch that car and

b). That I needed to be careful, because the driver of the car was a massive bitch.

It kind of took me by surprise, because I really had no reason to be beefing with that car, and I also hadn't really had an impression like that since I was religious, which was in my teen years. Right? It'd been a decade since I had a little voice whisper in my ear, and I'd basically written it off as nonsense.

Anyway, I watched the car, because The Spirits or whatever were very insistent that I did. Car drove fine, went into the parking spot, inched forward, and right when it should've just stopped, the driver gunned it for some reason and it ran into the curb and cracked its bumper.

So, the driver got out, and she went to the front of the car to check that yes, she had cracked her bumper, and then she turned to look at me. The parking lot wasn't empty, but we were the only two people standing in that row, and I'd probably been staring at her for tenish seconds now.

She demanded very angrily to know why I hadn't warned her of the curb. And I could have said I didn't know you were about to gun it or is it my job to help every stranger park, or even could you have even heard me, inside your car?

And all of those would have been fine, but I was really, really busy digesting that I had somehow communed with Mormon Jesus again for the first time in fifteen years, and that the communion had mostly been there to let me watch someone park badly (?), so what I responded with was:

"Because it was foretold."

And I can't tell which would be funnier, if she went silent because there's not much to be said to that, or if she went silent because in Utah, she might actually believe me, but we parted ways without more words.

I'm still kind of digesting this myself, actually.