#OPTIMALS BODY

[defiledtomb]

merry xmas! im drinking rum with aleks and listening to some really old techno. i blurted everything about ouro and all the tough things surrounding, and its future, and i got so excited i yelled and yodeled into the dead and dark forest. it's been such. such a good christmas. 2025 got nothing on me. we live we die and we fucking live again. hold my hand. giggle with me. have some zacapa. i love you

[oneluckydragon]

"What do you remember of being human, Echo?" The question is out of the blue and unexpected. But Sora offers a patient smile and tilts her head in curiosity, just enough that one of her ears flops over. It's endearing, if anything.

But Echo wishes she hadn't asked.

"Not much. Distinct memories are cloudy." A tired tone says softly, a pained recollection in her eyes and an acrid haze in her soul that endures, endures, and endures, "But I remember the discomfort more than anything. My body always did feel wrong back then. Misshapen. Condensed. Like it was too small for everything buried underneath, and that ache went so deeply some days that it would make my skin crawl. I hated that part the most."

At that, Sora's expression falls. She looks inexplicably sad, as if she'd hoped for a different response, a gentler one despite knowing the harsh truth about the dark future and the struggles Echo must have suffered. "But you had Grovyle, right? I'm sure he took care of you."

"He did, Sora, of course he did." A sigh, a flick of an ear and claws clenched tightly into the churned earth pressed under her paws. "I doubt I deserved his attention, though. I was too busy being angry at the world to give any care back."

In my lore, Echo does not look fully human during their time in the dark future. Since they were Darkrai before becoming human, and as a result of Palkia's reckless shattering of the Dimensional Portal which distorted both time and space, Echo's transformation was broken and accidental. They ended up looking pretty messed up and definitely (not) human. A lot of their characteristics as Darkrai carried over but rather morphed into something else.

And Grovyle, growing up in a world where humans have been extinct for longer than any living pokémon has been alive, has no concept of what a "true" human looks like. The only thing he knows is descriptions of humans from glyphs and texts in old ruins. Thus, he mistakes Echo for an actual human. And Echo, not knowing what a human looks like themselves due to amnesia, accepts this identification with nothing better to use.

[queenlua]

all of us who are snobs about Good Novels certainly have a lot to complain about, right? there are SO many widely-loved, widely-read novels that are bad bad bad, & us assholes gotta hear all about them

but

do you know who is really taking a nigh-lethal amount of psychic damage, on the regular, from Mainstream Opinion?

people who like good poems.

i'm so sorry, poetry enjoyers. you deserve so much better than whatever trite hogwash is going viral at any given moment. i hope there's enough good hipster shit getting published somewhere else to staunch your wounds

[thepersonalwords]

communication skills, quotes by Susan C Young, relationship quotes, emotional intelligence quotes, motivational speaker Susan Young, body language quotes, handshake quotes, make a positive first impression quotes, susanspeaks.com, customer service quotes

Susan C. Young, The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact

[notbecauseofvictories]

it feels very monkey's paw to get out of the Family Christmas Celebrations early, but only because I had such a hellacious cold that nobody wanted to be around me a second longer than they had to.

[kaurwreck]

There's certainly Something about singularities in Bungou Stray Dogs presenting as massive, myth-derived creatures with more than passing resemblances to kaiju given the setting predates its analog to World War II.

Gojira and the kaiju genre were born in the aftermath of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Lucky Dragon Incident (in which an American hydrogen bomb test rained radioactive ash on a Japanese fishing boat and much of the South Pacific). Life form singularities (like Chuuya and Verlaine), the Seven Traitors, the Transcendants, Mori's fixation on skill-based warfare, and everything else about the Great War all indicate that skills are akin to nuclear arms.

But unlike nuclear arms, skills are generally framed as intrinsic to their user. They're neurological; as much as part of skill users' wiring as the rest of their synapses. Even for Kyouka, whose skill was inherited but not fully integrated, her skill more resembles hereditary neurochemical wiring than it does nuclear proliferation.

Gojira (1954) ends with Dr. Serizawa's promise that hydrogen bombs would always assure nightmarish, monstrous manifestations of the horrors of war. You'd think Dazai's gift, then, would be the enigmatic focal skill of the series; he's capable of nullifying hydrogen bombs, after all.

But it's Atsushi and his celestial Byakko that Shibusawa calls the antithesis of all other abilities. And, as explained in 55 Minutes, Byakko doesn't heal or regenerate Atsushi, it negates his wounds. Atsushi isn't only a particularly tenacious shounen protagonist, Byakko compels him to stand when he's been cut down. When Atsushi is at the edge of death, Byakko consumes him completely, and Atsushi is lost within him, moreso than even Chuuya is in his Corruption state (Chuuya is fully conscious in Corruption— if Atsushi is conscious, he's either repressing or sluggishly recalling the memory of what occurred). Akutagawa also mentions during the Cannibalism arc that Atsushi's claws cut through skills themselves (even Rashoumon, which eats space). Akutagawa also becomes aware, in 55 Minutes, that Byakko can be triggered by Atsushi's peril, and Akutagawa does so to negate the manifestation of a seemingly transcendant skill that otherwise had utterly defanged them (although he seems sorry to have to do it).

Nevertheless, although Atsushi's Byakko seemingly negates the metaphorical horrors of the Great War illustrated by the others and their relationships with their skills, it's Atsushi who posits that perhaps skills aren't innate. He says to Kunikida, "Maybe they come from somewhere else and stick to us. Maybe they're something we can't understand... I don't really know how to put it into words, but that's how I feel."

Much of 55 Minutes is colored by Atsushi's fear of Byakko and his understanding that Byakko could devour him. His fear is seemingly validated by the antagonist, a manifestation of a skill that seemingly swallowed its human. But although textually consistent with his expressed fear, Atsushi's tone, demeanor, timing, and thought processes from when he speaks that line until the light novel ends aren't. His musings reflect his namesake's exploration of and uneasy relationship with the nature of existence, which he understood to be constructed by one's culture and environment better than most due to his somewhat rootless childhood.

I think it's interesting that someone with a skill capable of cutting through other skills, negating wounds, and antithesizing all skills challenges whether skills are innate at all. And if they're not, what does that imply about the parallels between skills, the horrors of war, and the fear of nuclear holocaust?

It's important to me that the scars of American imperialism and disregard for the sanctity of life are not erased from the narrative when discussing the world wars and nuclear proliferation. So I hesitate to posit anything about what skills may be in Bungou Stray Dogs that is too abstracted from trauma wrought by Western imperialism, Japanese imperialism, or the horrors of World Wars I & II. But perhaps that's it; when Atsushi speculates that skills are something that sticks to you, I'm reminded of how trauma has shaped and informed his own. He is certain that Byakko's negation and restless hunger are connected to his birth and subsequent suffering. At first, I thought we were being teased with his early background. But there's no need to tease; the reason so many characters in Bungou Stray Dogs are orphans directly relates to the Great War and the generational trauma still reverberating in its aftermath, and amid the threat of another, even more destructive war.

Perhaps Atsushi was implying that skills are constructs born not from any innate self, if there's such a thing, but from traumas, experiences, needs, cultures, and environments. Which is to say that skills aren't separable, exactly, from their users, but they're not innate either. They're like our personalities: immutable once shaped in the crucible of our most formative years, but nevertheless reflections of not only ourselves, but of what we need and who we become when confronted by others, in all of their beauty and horror.

Thus, perhaps it isn't Atsushi's skill that's so very antithetical to all others. It's his understanding of it, his ability to cut through to others, his compassion, his cowardice, his curiosity, and his separation from his sense of self that both inflicted him with Byakko and which will allow him to transcend it to become who he desires to be. It reminds me that, shortly before his death, his namesake decided to become a writer. And that although he wrote and lived only briefly, his sincerity, thoughtfulness, and introspective skepticism cut, and continue to cut, with a brilliance emblematic of life.

Anyway. Atsushi is both the main character and protagonist of Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai knows this, too; even if he can nullify Byakko, he's just as impacted by Atsushi's brimming earnestness as everyone else Atsushi encounters. Atsushi liberates the narrative so that it's not a warning that the horrors of war will proliferate so long as we are capable of mass destruction, but instead it's a promise that hope needn't be intrinsic to persist all the same.

[the-overthinktank]

The dentist scolded me for using pick flossers, which is fair because they're less effective. But I tried string flossing again and it makes me feel like an absolute buffoon. I can't keep a hold on the string because it instantly gets slippery, it seems I can't grip it hard enough to push it through the tooth contacts, the string starts fraying immediately which makes things harder, and I'm not flexible enough to actually wrap it around my molars to clean them properly. Chat what the hell is wrong with me. How do people do this daily.

[lavenderjewels]

A glimpse into what gojo sees! my main takeaway is that Sukuna and Megumi’s souls seem to be coexisting, whereas Kenjaku’s technique makes it so only Geto’s soul is perceived by the six eyes. A full transformation into someone else. We already knew this without explicit confirmation, but it’s adding more possibilities to how they could deal with Sukuna specifically and throws more layers onto Kenjaku’s character

[twerkyvulture]

we know that the King of All Cosmos looked just like a Little Guy in his youth, just like The Prince does now, so i pose the following to you: has anyone drawn a design for what The Prince (or any of the other cousins/little guys!) would look like as colossal chad-ified version of themselves

[worldyea]

soil

[silent-sentinels]

we have gotta actually finish the other account, it has been months and we want to tell revi that we're also plural hgkjgk

[thepersonalwords]

The consistency of their moods and emotions creates a predictable and consistent outcome that can be reassuring in our turbulent times. You know you can depend on approachable people to be well balanced, accepting, and empathetic to the needs and feelings of others.

Susan C. Young, The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact

[anothermonikan]

[Image ID: A drawing of Gourmand and Artificer from Rain World. Gourmand is standing on the left and looking upwards. Artificer is standing on the right and looking away from Gourmand. Artificer is shorter and thinner than Gourmand and their fur is matted. Artificer has a scar on the right side of their body. Artificer's teeth are bared and their left eye is squinted. They are holding hands. The background is very light peach with dark red around the drawing. End ID]

[Image ID: A drawing of Gourmand and Artificer from Rain World. Gourmand is standing on the left and Artificer is standing on the right. Artificer is similar in height and size to Gourmand and they have fluffy fur. Artificer has a scar on the right side of their body. Artificer has an eye-patch with a red patch attached to a dark brown strap with yellow lining. They are facing each other and holding hands. Artificer is smiling. The background is very light peach with dark red around the drawing. End ID]

ough did I not post these? BBQ AU doodles I made a while back. Yay <3

[flurriethefox]

Dude I gotta stop making myself fucking cry.

Back on that animatronic rant so here we are (I think this counts as robot whump?).

Cw: robot whump, isolation, abandonment, optimism that results in very strong denial, please let me know if I miss anything!

The park has been out of date for years now. 3,437 days, 3 hours, 51 minutes, and 9 seconds (counting).

Of course, that’s not gonna stop Whumpee. They just have to keep the park as well kept as possible, and eventually, people will start coming back. Everything will be back to normal, with people visiting from all over just to meet them and their friends! They’ll be able to entertain again! Just as it used to be! And they’d just had two visitors! Granted, they’d left a bit early and a bit quicker than expected, but they were still visitors!

Their programming insists that everything is fine; the crumbling of the buildings is just renovations being prepared for, the overgrown weeds in the cracks of the concrete are just to make the park feel more natural, his friends are just resting. Everything is normal, the park is just closed for a bit so the renovations can be made! That’s all!

They walk into the theater, flipping a switch, watching as the lights flicker a bit before barely turning on, casting an eerie, dim glow over the rows and rows of seats. The stage is barely illuminated, with most of the stage lights burnt out or broken, the few that are still working either flickering weakly or simply giving off a glow that really only gives the glass a tiny bit of color.

“Hey guys!” They call out, their voice glitching. They walk unsteadily towards the stage, their legs occasionally buckling a little before they manage to drag them forward.

They look up at the figures on the stage. Whumpee 2 is standing on the far end, their eyes completely dark. Their expression is still in a smile, their hand up in the air as though waving hello or goodbye.

Whumpee 3 is closer to Whumpee 2, their eyes the exact same as the latter. Their expression looks a lot softer, less proud than Whumpee 2’s. Their hands are clasped in front of them, a smile on their face, their mouth open as if they’re about to speak.

Whumpee 4 is closer to the front of the stage, almost in the middle, their arms splayed out to the sides like a ringmaster welcoming the guests of the circus. Their face looks proud, but more of a gentle kind of proud than Whumpee 2’s expression. They look content.

Whumpee 1 laughs a little. “You’re not gonna believe this, but we had visitors! Real visitors! It’s been so long, they were so excited!”

They walk forward and heave their metal frame up onto the stage. “You all would’ve loved them, I’m sure. They were two teenagers, a boy and a girl. I think they came to try and escape their parents for a little night out,” they continue with a chuckle. Even though the two visitors had been adults, Whumpee 1’s optics aren’t in the best shape; their system is outdated by a landslide, their parts are in need of repair, some in need of replacing, and their voice box has definitely seen better days. Their programming insists that they had been teenagers.

“You would’ve loved them especially, Whumpee 2,” they say optimistically, going over to their shut-down friend and wrapping an arm around their frame. “They were so nice, and they were so excited! You would’ve loved to show them the rides. Especially yours!”

The only response they got was silence, the only thing breaking the noise being the whirring and creaking of their own metallic joints.

“And Whumpee 3, they would’ve loved you! They seemed a little scared of me,” they add with a sheepish look, “but you would’ve easily been able to reassure them. You’ve always been great with kids!”

Again. Silence.

They stumble over to Whumpee 4, stepping off the stage and looking directly up at them. They pause for a moment, a bit of nostalgia hitting them. “And you would’ve been so proud of them, Whumpee 4,” they say softly. “They were just the kind of people you’d want them to be. You would’ve been honored to perform for them. They’d have loved to meet you, I’m sure.”

Nothing.

Whumpee 1 sighs, getting back up on the stage and standing beside Whumpee 4, staring out at the empty theater.

They smile a little. “Once the park’s renovations are done, it’ll be filled with people and kids, and we’ll get to perform again. Everything will go back to normal.”

“Just like it used to be.”

[windupaidoneus]

really funny to me that ppl perceive emets solus body at like 60s. he looks blatantly younger than varis or like, the same age. varis is 46