(look Who Cups Ran Into!)

They're friends and partners in crime, change my mind

Hey if you’re schizophrenic/psychotic I just want you to know that you’re a wonderful person and that you deserve so much better than the demonization, marginalization and stigmatization you face in this society.

geeked vs locked in drawn over this picture of the polar bear and the penguin because its been in my mind for the past days

To try to help my crippling anxiety, I'm going to try to share 4 sketches in posts every now and then.

Have some penguins and a puffle!

SLEEPY BOYS

EEPY BOYS

THIS RIGHT HERE- THIS MF FANFIC OMFG I LOVE ROOKIE AND JPG SO DAMN MUCH I WANNA EXPLODE AAAAAARGGH /vpos

Curses

There’s a fire in his brain and It’s burning up.

The blackout flashes still haunted Rookie’s memories. Maybe he just needed help to go back home.

A jetkie oneshot for my best friend, happy birthday mate! <3

Link to fanfic on my AO3

———————————————————————-

There’s a fire in his brain and It’s burning up.

The sink was dripping and the igloo looked like a total mess after the kidnapping. But, that’s alright, no? This place, this big empty, messed place was his house after all.

It was supposed to be Rookie’s house, after all.

He didn’t know why he’s afraid, the Blackout was over. He was safe, everyone was safe, the island and the islanders were fine, he had nothing to worry about, it even felt like the blackout had happened months ago, even if it was only a few weeks.

He was supposed to be safe.

Rookie went to the kitchen, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a decent meal, the last time he’d enjoyed cooking, and went out for pizza with JPG. Oh sure. JPG, they hadn’t spoken since the end of the operation. His interactions were limited to casual “good morning” and sometimes meetings about the future of the island after the EPF went public, which made it more complicated for Rookie, he was “The Communications Lead,” it was his job to make announcements to the public, divert attention and calm the nerves of reporters who increasingly filled his mailbox with e-mails, wanting to know more about the real thing that happened behind the scenes, or receiving anonymous death threats.

Arctic tried to control the reporters but some of them revolted after the blackout, claiming that the “Club Penguin News” was biased and used to deceive the island’s residents. And again, it’s all up to him. He had to deal with reporters, make several speeches a week just to say the same thing: “Operation: Blackout was over and the EPF was in the shadows so chaos wouldn’t spread.”

He was starting to feel a little, well maybe more than a little, overwhelmed .

He took a glass and filled it with water from the sink. It was very cold, like before he was frozen. Memories dripped like a trickle into a dry well, reflecting on every drop, reviewing every regret, every bad decision he’d made since stepping foot in that building after his forty-eighth test. His eyes widened, looking into the void and getting lost in broken memories, without realizing he dropped the glass that fell to the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces like the fragments of his memory that insisted on coming back, stronger and worse as if his thoughts wanted to eat him alive and drown him in the icy sea from which he felt heavily he should have never left. Rookie sighed, his stomach felt heavy and he had a headache, suddenly he didn’t feel hungry anymore, he didn’t feel like doing anything anymore.

“That- urgh, it’s okay, it’s going to be alr-” The words came out kindling from his throat, every one of them. He himself seemed in disbelief at what he was saying. Rookie felt his throat burning, but he needed to compose himself, he needed to pick up the shards even if he wasn’t going to rebuild the glass.

He looked at the mess and sighed, going to get a broom. Rookie strongly considered ignoring the mess, but that only made the house look even dirtier and more morbid. His footsteps echoed on the old wooden floor, he smiled remembering when he’d just moved in, a newbie in town with a job helping out at the cafeteria. He smiled remembering the first parties this house had seen, all the years he’d lived there, all the times he’d painted the walls, all the furniture that ever passed by.

He smiled remembering when that house was home.

Now that place sounded like an elegy, he felt the ghosts of his happy memories coming out of the corners of his mind where they used to be and tearing through the walls, burning them down. The corners were crawling with cobwebs and he felt himself stepping on bones, bones of what was once the empty shell he’d dared to call home and brutally ripped from him, everything in this house burned to the bone and slowly disintegrated like ash and he was inhaling the dust. Rookie just needed to get some more sleep, ignore this strange feeling of melancholy that was consuming him and enjoy his first break in a long time.

Knocking on the door made him grab the broom faster, he was scared. It was almost ten at night, people don’t visit you at ten at night. He waited, maybe it was just the wind and he was getting a little too paranoid. Agent said that this paranoia would one day save them, but Rookie wasn’t so sure, so he waited, staring at the door. The knock on the door was repeated, this time a little louder. He looked at the broom and wielded it like a weapon, making his way slowly to the door.

“Who’s there?” He asked, with his ear against the door trying to hear better on the other side.

“Rookie, this isn’t a knock knock joke, it’s ten o'clock, may I come in?” The voice replied, a little annoyed. Rookie recognized that timbre, he would recognize that voice anywhere.

He opened the door, and there he was. Unlike usual, JPG had his sweatshirt and his lucky sunglasses, his jet pack, as usual, on his back and carrying a freshly purchased pizza with him. JPG smirked, almost imperceptibly as the door opened.

“I-“ He began, taking a deep breath. “I- talked to Dot because-” He stopped again, unable to maintain eye contact, so he looked down at the floor. "I didn’t know how- talk to you, so Dot said I could, I don’t know, buy you a pizza and I don’t know- we’ll watch Shadow Guy and Gamma Gal, ‘cause I know it’s your favorite play and-”

Rookie hugged him hastily, which almost made JPG drop the pizza on the floor. He was clearly startled, as Rookie could feel him flinch. He released the hug a little and looked up to see JPG with his glasses askew, holding the pizza over his head. Then he smiled and released the hug, kinda embarrassed.

“So, do you want to come in?” He backed away, making way for the door.

“Sure!” JPG said entering the house, completely dark and cold. All messy, there were things scattered on the floor, broken paintings, a plant pot was lying broken on the floor and in the kitchen he can see shards of glass reflecting the moonlight coming through the window.

He stopped in the middle of the room, staring at the mess. Rookie threw the broom anywhere and closed the door, locking it. JPG gently removed the things from the coffee table in the living room and placed the pizza in the middle, opening it. Rookie’s stomach growled loudly, which made him blush in embarrassment.

“Sorry for the mess, I- didn’t have time to clean up.” He lied, and he swallowed thickly when he saw JPG raise an eyebrow. His boyfriend was an expert at body language, he wouldn’t fall for that.

However, he didn’t say anything. He just went to the broom and started sweeping the floor of the room, picking up the shards from the ground and picking up the broken things. Rookie, went to pick up some shards and thrown objects but JPG scolded him with a look.

“You can eat and watch the movie, I’ll watch it with you in a bit.” He said without taking his eyes off the mess, Rookie sat on the couch staring at the pizza, strangely he didn’t feel like eating it, he didn’t feel hungry, he felt like he was going to throw up as soon as it got to his stomach, so he just stared, as if the pizza will bite him.

Meanwhile, JPG was sweeping the living room, looking at the open kitchen door and the broken glass on the wet floor. He finished tidying up the living room and went to the kitchen, carefully picking up the shards and seeing the faucet running, but the sink was strangely empty, Rookie was strangely quiet. JPG didn’t like to analyze people close to him, especially his boyfriend, but he was already starting to get worried, so he decided to test his theory. After picking up the shards from the broken glass and making sure the floor was dry, he went to the fridge.

“Hey, Rookie, I forgot the cream soda. Can I see if you have some?” He asked from the kitchen, receiving an affirmative humming in response.

JPG opened the fridge, confirming his suspicion: it was almost empty, there was a half-empty can of an energy drink, a full bottle of cream soda, and a lunch box that Agent probably brought him a few days ago. Which terribly proved his suspicion, Rookie wasn’t eating properly and was drinking caffeine, which when it came to him, caffeine was no good. JPG sighed, taking the Cream Soda and two cups, feigning neutrality, he was good at that. He walked over to the couch and sat next to his boyfriend that was staring into nothingness, and seemed to have been doing so for a while.

“So-” Rookie tried to make conversation, but failed miserably.

“Won’t you eat?” JPG asked gently, taking a piece for him and filling the glasses with purple soda.

“Uh? Oh sure…” He said looking at the pizza.

JPG sighed, handing the cup to him, Rookie managed that he had already noticed, he took the cup silently and took a sip. He took the remote and turned the play on the TV, but Rookie wasn’t paying attention, he couldn’t pay attention .

“You know you can talk about it, don’t you?” JPG whispered, taking another bite of his pizza slice.

Rookie looked at him, and gave him a wretched smile. “You, telling me about talking? This one is new.”

JPG looked away and took another sip of his soda, took another bite of his pizza and continued to stare at the floor. Rookie convinced himself to take a bite of the pizza, it was strangely better than he remembered. He concentrated on eating the pizza, then took another bite and devoured that one too.

“Oh, nice! You bought-”

“Your favorite pizza flavor…” JPG completed, blushing soon after. Rookie felt his cheeks burn.

It was strange, now the house felt like home again. His screaming bad luck curse seemed to have taken pity on his poor soul, it felt like all his thoughts stopped screaming when JPG was close, it felt like everything went up like smoke he knew he could feel it: JPG would stay with him even if this one place would never be a home again.

And it made him feel at home again.

Reading this Kel analysis hurts and this may be just me getting overly emotional at 3am but it made me realize how we need to talk about the probability of Kel being a glass child. See, you'd think by the name that it's a term that would describe someone as fragile, but it's quite the opposite. It refers to a sibling of someone who has special needs (usually someone with a disabiliy or someone incapable of taking care of themselves). The glass metaphor represents how the sibling is "transparent" in how their needs and emotions may be overlooked due to the attention and resources being focused on the sibling with greater challenges.

And while we all known about the favoritism from Kel's parents through hints in the game like Hero being refered as the most perfect, golden and charming mama's boy (and also through this post from the official OMORI GAME twitter account), it's still hard to see discussion about how Hero's depression may have exarcebated this habit Kel has of putting his own feelings and thoughts on the backburner as to keep things moving forward. Additionally, the "glass" metaphor from glass child can also signify that they may feel pressure in attracting less attention to themselves as possible to avoid adding stress to the family in difficult times. And guess who also expresses in game this fear of making things worse by interfering and showing a coping mechanism of staying distant since no one gave him guidance on how to deal with the situation?

Yeah. Some food for thought. Because that's the thing about Kel's grief, he had to deal with all of that alone. Of course, Aubrey may claim he made new friends in the past 4 years, but it's not something shown outfront like her connection to the hooligans, and you take just one look at Cris and Jay, the few examples of Kel's "new friendships" and you can easily see how they aren't nearly as close to having the connection Kel had with his old friends.

In fact, the first thing you LEARN about real world Kel before even opening the door to him is through a dialogue of Sunny's mom on the phone, where she mentions Kel's desperation to get Sunny out of the house and how he seems lonely. Statement that's later reinforced by Kel's father in his dialogue at the park in the evening of the last day in Faraway Town, his only frame of reference on how to deal with Mari's death was to keep on because that's what she would've wanted, right? Despite Kel being considered the "acceptance" stage of grief by many who play game, just taking a deeper look shows he's not completely over what happened, especially considering how the aftermath of Mari's death changed the type of relationship he had with his own brother and completely cut all of Kel's best friends from his life in a single hit. Notice how Hero is not aware of Aubrey's status as a bully, how her appearance has changed and how her relationship with Sunny, Basil and Kel changed. Or how Basil was being bullied and seemed to be isolating himself, and how out of all the real world protagonists, he's the only one in the group that doesn't acknowledge even once how Sunny hadn't left his house for 4 years, and how he only knows that Sunny's moving because his mom told him about it just before he found and rescued the gang at the lake, or even how Kel and Aubrey haven't had a civilized conversation in almost 4 years and Hero's first instinct is to brush it off as "another typical Aubrey and Kel fight" and urge them to make up already? At first you may think it's because he's been away at college and wouldn't be there to see it, so he logically wouldn't be aware of how bad things are. But Kel is so talkative, and these are people that both brothers always cared about, so wouldn't it make sense that Kel told Hero about these things? Even just mentioning how bitter Aubrey had become lately or how he misses Sunny! But there's none of that.

One time I saw this reddit post on r/OMORI that was something along the lines "What type of things do you guys think were said in Hero and Kel's fight?", and one particular commentor stated that they didn't see the need to elaborate on the topic, as all that's important is that what Kel said was the wrong thing to say in that situation and Hero lashed out in response. And I found myself puzzled because while I DO think it's important to consider how Hero's words may have affected Kel's behavior moving forward, that type of thought collaborates with how Kel's struggles are portrayed in the game. Something that's not the focus, that you only know it's there because you were paying attention. Something unimportant. And it saddens me a lot, because in a game all about the death of this one girl and how it impacted the ones left behind, one of the protagonists with most screentime does not show his grief even once. The only known about his dynamic with Mari being the single Headspace interaction where Mari indulges in Kel's playfulness. And that's it, all we get of them are these scraps. It makes me wonder if Kel allowed himself to properly acknowledge his grief, or if he just want through the motions because he thought it was unimportant, that he wasn't deserving of it. Forever stuck in the Helper's Pardox, afterall... To Mari, Basil was a dear friend, someone who's just as empathetic as her that she felt comfortable to borrow his camera and do flower crowns with.

To Mari, Aubrey was her sister in everything but blood, someone she would take care of and planned to even dye her hair with. To Mari, Hero was the love of her life, the one she knew had stolen her heart by pure charm and she could never think of it getting back.

To Mari, Sunny was her dearest little brother, someone she loved so deeply. But what was Kel to Mari besides her little brothers friend, or even, what was Kel to Mari besides being Hero's annoying little brother? But he's fine. He's just silly! That's all trust guys /j

uh oh sisters! I’m back with more Kel Angst… but more like a Kel Character Study.

I’m sure Kel appreciators are already familiar with my analysis of how Kel thinks people value Mari’s theoretical opinions more than his real ones. But since that was at the end of a longer post which was just a “List of Fun Kel Facts :)” I think I didn’t really get to touch on the fact of why this has come to be.

Someone in the tags of that post wrote that Hero does this too, that the two brothers were raised to be people-pleasers and naturally tend to ignore their own feelings. And I absolutely 100% agree with this!!! But consider now: Kel was the little troublemaker, and Hero was the responsible one. To some degree, I think you can also make an argument as to how Hero’s role as the responsible one allowed Kel to be the troublemaker, and vice versa; whether it was by their own will or not, Kel traded positive attention for more freedom, and Hero did the opposite.

Hero is the one to handle responsibility first, and he’s older, too—so it goes that, inherently, Hero has made the better suggestions of the two of them during their childhood, from hangout ideas to problem solving. Kel is the one that makes the silly suggestions, the one that’s a little less realistic, the one that’s still filled with childish fantasies of Captain Spaceboy and renegade stories.

Until he isn’t. Until he’s grown up a little, until he’s slapped in the face by a tragic death, by a despondent, unresponsive brother—by nobody else knowing what to do any better than him.

So he tries—

“Hey Aubrey! Do you want to come to my birthday party? I know we haven’t really talked, this past year, but—”

“Helloooo, Sunny? It’s time for school, and I heard we’re gonna play basketball during gym! You don’t have to play, I can just shoot hoops and you can watch! I’m getting real good at it, I swear—”

“Morning, Basil! Did you need any help doing gardening stuff? I just wanted to see if anyone was free to hang out, but—”

“Hey Hero. Are you… feeling a bit better today? I was just wondering… if you wanted to go get Gino’s with me. Because I’m hungry, and I think it’d be fun if we went together—”

—and he fails.

“—you want to hold a birthday party? Are you- Are you serious?! Tomorrow’s the day she- and you- I- Did she mean nothing to you?!” (He wanted to distract Aubrey from it. But of course she wouldn’t forget.)

“—oh, Kel, good morning! I’m sorry, but I don’t think Sunny can come see you right now… We’re thinking of homeschooling, but… I’m sure he’ll come out to see you one day.” (School was just an excuse to ask for Sunny. Now what is he supposed to do?)

“—ah, um- I’m- I’m okay! I have to… to, um, check on the m-more delicate plants today so, um— m-maybe not today… I-I’m sorry.” (If he were better at not being clumsy, would Basil still have turned him away?)

“—I’m not hungry, Kel… Not today. It’s late anyway.” (He’s never hungry when Kel asks.)

Kel tries to handle things on his own, and it fails. He is confronted with the fact that, on his own, his ideas really are as stupid as Aubrey used to call them, and as silly as Basil and Sunny used to say they were, and as unrealistic as Hero used to tell him.

And Mari…

“—Hi, Mari. Sorry I couldn’t make it last week. But, uh… I was just wondering… if you… if you could maybe… tell me this is all a bad joke…? Because- they all said you- you did it on purpose, but… but I don’t think you would have wanted this, right…?”

(“Well, Kel! You’ve just made a very convincing point. Now I don’t know who to believe!”)

…

The only person who believed in him, the only one who bothered to indulge his ideas even a little bit, is gone.

And yet, just like when they were younger, the one time things work is—

“Mari wouldn’t have wanted to see you like this, Hero…”

—when Mari steps in.

“…what?”

And again.

“I can’t just leave here knowing that this is the person you’ve become. I mean… What would Mari think?”

“Why do you keep bringing her up?”

Granted, the reactions are always a bit rough. But it’s what makes people react, it’s what gets things to change.

So… yeah. Kel’s opinions don’t matter. They’re not supposed to—they’re supposed to make people laugh, or deadpan, or call him stupid so that he can start bantering and bickering, because it’s familiar, because it’s normal. It makes things a bit difficult if he wants to be all serious, but as always, Mari is there for him when his mind comes up blank.

Until she isn’t. Until Sunny says something, and Basil corroborates it. Until every little success he’s been able to achieve with Mari’s help dissipates like the cheap discount foamer in Sally’s bubble baths. Until Kel isn’t sure what Mari would have wanted.

Until Kel is left with only himself. Mari would have wanted—

—he wants—

—everyone to be happy. Everyone to stick together this time. Everyone to help him figure out what the hell he’s feeling right now. Everyone to help him figure out how to stay together when all he wants is to run. Everyone to come back to the room so they can talk, before they split apart again. Again. Not again. Not again.

But how will he do it without Mari?

this may be the worst thing ive drawn

he lobve paris🥖