#HOO BOY THIS WAS A LONG ONE

[yakool-foolio]

Idk if anyone actually talked about this but this has been on my mind lately

Lets recap for a bit: Yakou died back in chapter 4 because his soul was reaped in the Mystery Labyrinth, being revealed as Doctor Huesca's killer.

In Yakou's DLC, we see his wife's ghost give him the badge with the cell regenerating pill, right? But what really bothered me is how Yakou's gonna come back IF he took the pill.

Let's say the pill ends up working and Yakou comes back. But his soul was reaped in the Mystery Labyrinth, Wouldn't there be nothing of him? Would his Homunculus soul get resurrected? Would it create a new soul with the memories of his human self as its base? Or would Homunculus Yakou's body just be an undead being living without a soul?

There's a lot left unanswered with how the homunculi would be revived. However, there is some groundwork that can be laid out to at least form some paths that could be explored.

I think I have a pretty confident answer to your first query about the reaped souls. The reaping doesn't meant that the soul, and therefore the person, ceases to exist. I believe it's just a fancier way of dying 'naturally.' If the soul of a human were to be reaped, the soul would separate from the physical body, but wouldn't be completely destroyed. Shinigami actually chooses careful wording by saying that while the Mystery Labyrinth may be destroyed, the soul isn't. The body 'perishes.' She mentions nothing about the soul being erased.

As ya might have noticed, I specified that this is what would happen for humans, not homunculi. However, the reaping of a homunculus' soul may not be as complicated as it looks. This is entering speculation territory, but I have a bite of evidence to sink your teeth into! I theorize that when the soul of a homunculus is reaped, the body goes through the normal process of death. The soul is separated, and the body is now empty. However, when the imperfect revival state begins after several hours, the soul of the homunculus boomerangs right back into the now-zombified body. If the soul were to be destroyed, and the zombies were simply empty husks, then how would the zombies have any of their memories? A soul should most likely contain all memories. Hitman Zilch is able to recall his work with Yomi, although spotty due to the deterioration of the brain that the soul is reconnected to. Yakou gets flashes of photographic memories of his detectives, can recite Yuma's name, and recognizes his wife. They still have souls in them, but the decayed body and mind burns through some or many of those memories.

So now we arrive at the question of what would happen if a zombified homunculus were to be revived with the finished creation of the work-in-progress regenerative pill Yakou's wife worked on. This could go in several directions, but I'll stick to discussing the most notable ideas.

The least painful road to walk on is that if a zombie is revived, their brains are fully healed, and they are able to keep all their memories up to their death, so nothing is lost. That's pretty much the happiest ending. The narrative decision to write that would mean it needs some serious right to earn that ending, and I think I could at least provide a start to that in order to get Yakou back in perfect condition. Yakou loves and protects Kanai Ward, so he's selfless toward his fellow citizens. It'd be very in-character if the zombified Yakou made sure that all the other zombies were revived before himself. Their lives are more important than his. So in the end, once everyone else is revived, Yakou is rightfully rewarded for this selflessness by regaining all his memories.

The more bittersweet route is that the revived homunculi's memories are reset back to when they were first created, so they still have their human counterparts' memories, but nothing that belongs to them. In Yakou's case, that means he'd have no memories of the NDA detectives or the truth behind his wife's death. It's sad, but it's a very plausible outcome.

A somewhat similar, but possibly not as upsetting choice is that Yakou has a bunch of holes in his memories. He can remember some things perfectly, and some things he can't recall no matter how hard he tries. So there's a chance he could remember the detectives, but not remember anything about going through his Huesca murder scheme. Could have humorous results. I'll take a silly ending any day!

[lady-laureline]

I want to get to the bottom of neurodivergent burnout. I feel like there are a lot of people that have no context to take it seriously in, so they don't.

As with a lot of these posts, writing this is my way of ironing out my own understanding - take it with a grain of salt, I'm not a professional. I've tried to keep it general but as I'm speaking from a late-diagnosed audhd experience, it will lean in that direction.

Also, depending on how much you relate, this may warrant a mental health trigger warning? There's self-talk that isn't very kind.

×××

The precursor to burnout is survival mode: a state in which the body doesn't allow itself to fully enter a state of rest, as it is perceived to be "unsafe" by the nervous system. Neurodivergent symptoms aren't always a cause for stress in and of themselves, but people displaying them quickly learn that symptomatic behaviour rubs others the wrong way, even if they lack the intuition to see why.

☁️ People don't like the way I behave.

×

This is compounded by miscommunication.

Say a divergent child says something that sounds neutral to them, but rude to everyone else. They might get reprimanded for hurting someone's feelings, but they don't see how what they said was hurtful. Say this child's requests for an explanation are seen as insolence instead of curiosity.

The adults might come away thinking the child needs more discipline. The child might come away knowing they did something wrong, but unsure as to what that was or how to avoid it in the future.

☁️ I can't trust myself to say good things, even if my intentions are good. If I say a bad thing, it's my fault even if I don't know why it's bad.

×

The more these situations crop up, the more the emotional takeaway morphs into low self-esteem and constant vigilance (to catch mistakes before they happen). As the child grows older and responsibilities increase, they are also faced with a more nuanced picture of society that they're already lagging behind - demanding more nuanced masking, which is already a separate workload - on top of battling those good old sensory issues.

To those who don't know what the fuss is about: you know when you have a fever and your skin is super sensitive? If you separate the tingliness from the discomfort, and then apply that discomfort to the rest of your senses, you'll get a pretty good idea of what sensory overwhelm is like. We don't all experience this the same way (for example, I'm generally fine with food textures but really sensitive to noise) or with the same frequency, but it tends to be both unpleasant and consistent.

These additional energy drains inevitably lead to feeling the effects of hard work without anywhere near the same results of our peers. The easiest explanation, and the assumption most uninformed make, is one of personal shortcomings. Laziness. Selfishness. A "bad attitude".

☁️ No matter how hard I try, it is not enough. I haven't earned my pain. I haven't earned my rest.

×

It's a frustrating experience, and all those feelings need to go somewhere. We learn skills such as silent crying to hide our "overreactions"; we use our anxiety as a driving force for productivity. Many disabled people have the dissociative method down pat. And then there's the assertive emotions.

Displaying anger out of bounds of the neurotypical context is a whole other kettle of fish. When the nervous system is cortisol city, things will boil over eventually. Any witness is likely to be unaware of the extent of the stressors that led up to this outburst, so it can seem to happen out of the blue. Plus, if the inciting incident appears insignificant to the onlooker, they'll probably think it's all a bit childish.

Say what you will about neurospicy social skills but we have a killer radar for cringe. Raise your hand if you smush down irritation on the regular. Better yet, raise your hand if you "never get angry".

☁️ My frustration is misplaced and out of proportion. If I show it, I lose the respect of people I care about.

×

Maybe we've been afraid to feel what we feel our whole lives, but there comes a point where something's got to give. We might even be making a conscious effort to get in touch with our emotions after years and years of ripping them down and sealing them away. It's a Pandora's box situation: once the seal is broken, there's no getting the horrors back inside.

That's usually the beginning of what is widely recognised as burnout. There is so much to sort through, life effectively gets put on hold, at least for those of us lucky enough not to crash and burn the moment we let go of the wheel.

Recovery isn't a matter of a little vacation time: it can take months or years, and it may not look like work but it very much is. The trauma runs deep and we have no choice but to get to the bottom of the trench if we don't want to be stuck in a permanent state of exhaustion. It can be isolating as there's not a lot of energy left for much else - overextend and your body will slap you back in line so fast your head will spin. And no, you do not get to choose what overextending yourself entails.

To anyone actually going through this, try not to keep yourself in check, at least when you're alone. Your psyche does not want to pretend anymore. Pretending has repercussions now.

×

It may come as a surprise that a lot of people don't take kindly to healing. A person in burnout recovery is (by necessity) less accessible, more self-centered, taking up more space and drawing new boundaries. Unmasking may reveal a person your friends don't understand like the contorted version of yourself they got to know. Furthermore - change, when seen as a threat, can cause people to lash out.

☁️ Healing is a punishable offense. It hurts those around me. They don't want me as I am, but they don't want me to change, either.

One of the things I've had difficulty accepting is that there are good, caring people in my life that don't deserve an explanation of what I'm going through. They might have a space in their hearts for the person they think that I am, but the capacity to truly get to know me isn't there, at least yet.

Once I'd been burned enough times, I made a decision to settle for nothing less than sincere interest as a prerequisite for any attempt to make myself understood. From there, it wasn't not far to the bittersweet realisation that the only person's permission I need to grow is my own.

×

I'm not sure how to wrap this up, which might mean future edits (there are always more edits), but the thought is complete enough to post.

I suppose there is no end to becoming one's own person, and even though the line between recovery and living can be blurry a lot of the time, existing with purpose is a decision each of us has to make.

I'm sending a telepathic hug to anyone who needs one right now. Take care of yourselves.

×××

The self-talk of some weird kid:

"People don't like the way I behave. I can't trust myself to say good things, even if my intentions are good. If I say a bad thing, it's my fault even if I don't know why it's bad. No matter how hard I try, it is not enough. I haven't earned my pain. I haven't earned my rest. My frustration is misplaced and out of proportion. If I show it, I lose the respect of people I care about. Healing is a punishable offense. It hurts those around me. They don't want me as I am, but they don't want me to change, either."

(I've included this depressing subconscious narrative because I think it's important to show how little unresolved rejections add up over time. One can put on a dazzling performance to meet social demands while believing all of that, and we desperately need community support that is informed and equipped to help them pick up the pieces once the show falls apart.)

[edwinisms]

seriously wondering why WW1 was never brought up at all throughout the show in regards to edwin and the life he was living before hell. I mean fuck we get a WW1 ghost in the FIRST EPISODE but edwin doesn’t say a single thing about his familiarity with the soldier’s garments and circumstances. you’d think that would come in handy in some way, or at least be an interesting thing to reference to emphasize edwin’s age (for lack of a better word) considering this was all during the expository section of the first episode.

1916 is directly in the middle of the Great War, and depending on how long edwin had been 16 by the time he died, he would’ve been somewhere between 1-2 years off from being conscripted and sent off to the trenches– ie; really not far, so it inevitably would be a huge weight on his mind at the time. since it was the middle of the war, he would’ve known decently well the horrors being faced out there– the mustard gas, the widespread illness, the shellshock– from newspapers and such, and I have to think that he’d feel like there was a clock ticking, counting down the days until he’d be sent to his inevitable death (considering he’s not the most athletic and physically resilient boy to say the least). and if he was exempted from conscription? it could very well be for “mental illness” and/or “moral indecency” if he didn’t hide his “effeminate” behavior well enough. all-around, it’d have to be an incredibly stressful time period for more reasons than just being bullied, alienated, and repressed at school– and yet we never hear about the elephant in the room. will they do something with it later? will it play into his family background in some way? for gods sake I need to KNOW

[connortheconceded]

You dreamed that a tall figure with a golden mask spoke to you, but you understood not a word. He smiled, and seemed pleasant, but when he reached to touch you, it terrified you.

[98chao]

valentines day is best spent with family!

[zu-is-here]

the secret garden

Horror from horrortalecomic by sour-apple-studios

Farmer by GuinongTale_AU

[shmothman]

Stuck Like Glue

Pairing: Vash the Stampede/Reader Rating: Explicit (18+ only) Words: 8057 Read on AO3

Summary: Vash has always been a little bit more than you bargained for… but that’s just part of his charm.

Excerpt:

He loves you. The thought strikes you anew, and tears prick at your eyes as he mouths at your feverish skin, desire pooling stronger and stronger in your gut. He loves you, and the way he’s holding you, kissing you, shows it; the way his voice trembles, eager and terrified and hopeful and lust-stricken. How can you prove just how much you love him in return? How can you tell him how long you’ve wanted this, wanted him?

A shaky sigh falls past your lips as he leans you back and buries his face in your chest, teeth brushing your skin, hands clutching you tight around the middle like he’ll never get this chance again—and you know him well enough to know that’s truly how he feels; grieving you even with his tongue against your heaving chest. He’s grieved you since the day he met you.

You don’t want him to grieve tonight.

[papple]

*slides in and bites lip* hayy....

so irl stuff happened but we've been cooking up some stuff here and there and we figured you guys might wanna see them :D

so we're gonna talk about the second dreamtale concept we have which is a variant of the swap!osd au by @calcium-cat,,,, and basically! nm has a harsher personality, but at the same time holds a much softer spot for dream. He fights back against his bullies and believes that dream is too kind and tells him so often using scathing comments, but dream understands that nm is just a little tsun tsun. Nm is also proud of all the knowledge he has cultivated and makes sure to rub it in peoples faces by delivering sick burns and insulting bullies left and right

For the apple incident, the apples blacken when nm and the villagers fight over the tree and he accidentally touches one of the fruits. Dream arrives in time to see the villagers dealing the fatal blow to nm as well as the tree

Desperate, dream feeds a black apple to nm hoping that it would still be able to heal him but instead intensifies nm's negativity. This later on will be the biggest factor behind dream's guilt

Nm is still dying so his negativity powers him to continue consuming the apples but he keeps going and the power eventually corrupts him

Now nm wants to get revenge so dream takes the last golden apple (this one fell from the tree while the tree was being cut, before the negativity got to it) to have more of a fighting chance and to better protect the people against nm, but he still gets petrified like in canon (or maybe we'll just put him in a coma induced by the intense negativity... i dont really understand the logic behind him turning to stone so we might toss out that idea) (we're open to suggestions though!)

Nm's adrenaline powered mind sees dream's petrified/knocked out self and goes mad, going on a rampage and destroying the entire village.

Of course, 500 years later, dream wakes up and joins ink's group. Ink actually asked sci to make something up that could weaken nightmare's gang but forgets about it, so the formula somehow ends up in dream's hands as the unofficial second in command. Dream, ever the guilt-ridden but hope-filled person, tests it out first on nm. Maybe, this could buy him just enough time to hold a civil conversation with him... imagine everyone's surprise when the lofty scholar-type king turns into a filthy mouthed baby gremlin

[beansterpie]

rewatching LoK, i'm being reminded how much I dislike the.... the brothers, mako and bolin, yanno? they're such underwhelming characters on basically every level. it'd almost be impressive if they weren't in every episode and didn't annoy me so much ugh

[rithmeres]

yes, the plans that i could not share with you (because the haters would sabotage me) were that i was taking on LACC in my vash getup :)

i have so few pictures of myself but i got so many compliments (especially on my arm) and plenty of other people took pictures of me. and normally i don't like attention but i will be honest with u. under these circumstances i loved it. my arm held up really well through 8 hours on the convention floor and i have never been prouder of anything i've made. it's articulated incredibly well, no part of it gave out or required repair, it's never uncomfortable or a nuisance to wear, and i have enough range of motion to do relatively complex things like tying my shoes.

originally i was not planning to try to meet anyone famous because 1) it's expensive and 2) the lines are long and 3) i feel weird and annoying approaching literally anyone for any reason BUT. the spot where i met up with my sister just happened to be right next to johnny yong bosch's table. right when he started signing things. so i said LOL ok i'll do it.

it was super chill, i asked him how it felt to get the call that they wanted him to come back 20 years later for a trigun reboot and he said it almost didn't happen -- that since they recast everyone else for stampede they considered recasting vash as well (and i said WOW i'm so glad they didn't) and he said he really enjoyed getting to come back and explore a darker take (i forget if what he said was a darker take on vash's character, or just a darker trigun in general) but it was briefly surprising 2 me that he considered stampede to be a darker version but i get it, especially when u consider that there is not a lot of comedy in those 12 episodes to balance out the grief.

ANYWAY he was impressed with my arm and i asked him if he would sign my coat :) so he signed the lining but he was also like u know what, i'm gonna give you a second autograph just because. so he signed a print for me as well (free of charge!!) and the print with the blue signature matches my famous paintings that i always film in front of (that's providence baybee)

other stuff from the con under the cut

cosplay notes:

i saw 3 other vash cosplayers (a 98 vash, a stampede vash, and a purple coat vash) and no shade but i definitely had the best arm build. peace and love to all of them though

i saw 1 1/2 wolfwoods. 1 was the aforementioned mullet wolfwood from yesterday's post (ww if you’re out there ww) and the 1/2 was the 98 vash cosplayer’s gf in some kind of goth-ish dress and she was carrying a punisher

mullet wolfwood if you're out there i regret not getting a picture with you so much. i am deeply ashamed and i have no excuse because i ran into you twice and both times i was too embarrassed to ask for a picture. i just want you to know that your punisher was swag and your earrings were yolo and we would look very good together

i expected to see a lot more trigun tbh. los angeles where u at. 4 vashies at a convention of 120,000+ people is nothing. one guy even walked up to me like wow i love ur vash, i haven't seen a lot of trigun at this con and i was like I KNOW i thought i'd see a lot more

theeeee costume of all time award goes to the cad bane cosplayer i saw on the balcony. spare hand in marriage dude (gn) you looked so good

second place for costume of all time goes to the other mother cosplayer who had button eyes and these crazy finger appendages and never once broke character even while waiting in lines

i took 100 points of psychic damage from this one guy who (and im not kidding) was at least 6’4’’ and wearing platform boots and was dressed as the mfing onceler. with the stupid top hat he was fr 7+ feet tall (i saw him duck to get through a doorway).

someone was there as the brawny paper towel guy?? just walking around in a beard and flannel carrying a pack of paper towel rolls?? go off king

i saw 5 nightwing cosplayers but only 2 were biblically accurate (had ass)

the nanami sweep at this convention was so real u all SHOWED UP. and everybody ate. i saw at least 12 nanamis and not one of them was a flop.

i have never seen so many spider-mans in my life

other things:

fig. 1: this extremely hot captain america on a very large poster was about 2 make me act unwise. hi gorjus................................. nice eyebrows

fig 2: i saw this sign a couple blocks away from the con and i did a triple take. 🔥🔥🔥TRIMAX MENTIONED🔥🔥🔥

fig. 3: i saw all 4 hobbits in panel and can confirm elijah wood’s laugh is ten times more infectious in real life. before they were even done sitting down, dominic monaghan switched around all of their name cards so that none of them were seated behind the right name. as u might imagine much of the panel's content was reminiscing about LOTR, but i heard some stories that i hadn't heard before. they also talked about video games, other projects they are working/have worked on, how their kids feel about their dads' LOTR roles, how much they love ian mckellen, and how they would love to see something happen for the 20th anniversary of ROTK this year. sean astin (the legend) took shots at the stranger things writers (basically said joyce could never be happy with hopper) AND EVERYONE CLAPPED LOL. billy and dom talked about the best food in NZ, their show billy and dom eat the world, and the unfortunate events that led to the friendship onion's hiatus. it was a ton of fun to just watch them be themselves with each other, you can tell that these guys are all so fond of each other and love each other so much.

and finally, fig. 4: i bought these beautiful prints from @/batinyourbelfry and the skeletal washi tape from @/skeletalacademia (both on IG)

[curiosityschild]

Amphibiuary Days 11 + 15: Painted and 3D

A holdable friend

[autism-disco]

the most normal trinity of apocalypse stories: zombie saga, omniscient reader’s viewpoint and gakkou gurashi

[svtskneecaps]

my biological peer reviewer (sibling) called this theory “fun” and said i should send it, so here goes

my personal theory is the feds ((”federation”)) created the eggs because they decided the best way to enforce “you can never leave” was to give the people something they couldn’t lose, like in the post by tumblr user alexaloraetheris (no relation to the smp) where their friend who might be a deity had said,

"When you die you descend to the underworld with nothing to lose. To keep you, they give you something to lose. When you want to return, they will demand it back. That's why nobody ever leaves. The only way out is to never enter."

i’m thinkin that on egg D-Day, at the end of the countdown, the feds weren’t gonna give the eggs back. they were just gonna hide them forever, or do something else, anything else, just keep them away from their surrogate parents, because then the people would just be STUCK, because people could theoretically take their eggs and leave, but if the eggs are missing, gone without a trace, then the residents CAN’T LEAVE, because presumably the eggs are STILL THERE, SOMEWHERE, IN NEED OF HELP AND RESCUE, if only the residents could find them ON THE ISLAND. if they leave the island while the eggs are missing, they are abandoning these things that have become their children.

but then in came the brazilians. and shit went south. because see, the spenglish (spanish / english) streamers were INVITED, but the brazilians CRASHED; the feds didn’t INVITE THEM, they weren’t EXPECTING THEM, but they can’t let these guys leave either, so they PANIC, and they scramble to give the brazilians the same thing--something to lose. the new egg had a brazilian jersey, homie was TAILOR MADE for them to pack bond with. the feds didn’t have time to send out multiple eggs, it was all or nothing, so they picked something they could reasonably assume all five of them would find endearing because they don’t know shit about these guys--they had a week to observe the OG batch, but all they know about these newbies is the brazilian flag on their boat--and so they sent the little egg out to become THEIR THING, the thing they couldn’t afford to lose.

it leaves open why the eggs are cracked too, bc idk what’s going on there lol, either 1: the eggs cracked because they’re hatching and the feds picked that date bc they wanted to yoink the eggs before they got Too Powerful, or 2: the feds were the ones to crack the eggs as an excuse for why they vanished--returning the eggs untouched would open too many questions the feds don’t want them asking; this way, instead of being concerned specifically with “why were the eggs missing”, the residents presume they know the answer--the cracks.

but yea i’m just gonna add as an aside that personally i think cucurucho / osito bimbo / the white fucker is way more active again because the feds are still scrambling to keep up with the brazilians (which, again, the feds weren’t expecting), and the binary fuckwad came in to put the fear of god into the newbies--maybe so they didn’t get too focused on the morse code transmissions; iirc max was theorizing that both osito and binary were part of the federation ? and if so it does make sense that the binary entity went to fuck with cellbit immediately after cellbit was introduced to the conspiracies of the island, yknow, a warning shot. i think they want them to be focused on the eggs.

BUT THAT’S JUST A THEOr

[protoindoeuropean]

sometimes when people argue for language change it's just like, who's gonna win:

a mythical reference that has been continuously used for more than two millenia in both high art and common language (and in many languages at that)

getting people to stop saying 'narcissist'

[arbuthnotblob]

Lance Week '22 Ultra-Delayed Crosspost, Day 2! Whew! The theme for this one was 'Day Off' - surely it's not really training to take a nice early-morning run into the mountains with your squad of high-flying dragons, right? [Said dragons are thankfully well-practiced hands at making sure their beloved eejit of a trainer doesn't push himself too hard]

[yes-asil]

During a trip in search of insects, Martin gets swept away by a stormy river current, leaving a guilt-ridden Chris to comb through the forest for him.

Have fun with this 8 year old plot bunny I took out of a dusty folder