memory_of_lightwaves

I fear things have not improved on my end! I am very busy and tired. My period has completely stopped and I am losing more hair </3 I am very lucky to have so many friends who have come to help me out, I really do love them. I had hopped to have answers on everything by now, but I don't! I am getting by, but houf am I tired. I am really really hoping to get things figured out soon. I do think I have been in a constant state of panic since late January, and my body is taking the roll for sure. I am terrified to lose my grad school opportunity. I do not have actual breakdowns often, but I did sob in my partners chest today over the state of things.

Today, there is a special person coming to campus. I can not say who, lest I dox myself, but I will be laughing a lot and I need a good laugh right about now! I can not wait.

The weather is beautiful, I wish I could calm down enough to enjoy it! I hate being a complainer or a debby-downer, I have just never experienced this specific issue in my life before. I don't know how to handle it or come back from this. This is something that I have to figure out on my own, and I am trying! But it really does suck right now. I am worried that my family and professors will think I'm not prepared for grad school. I'm starting to get a bit worried that this is a proper burn-out and that I won't have recovered by this fall.... scary.

This weekend I have a concert! I am travelling a decent bit to go, but it's of my favorite artist right now and I'm very excited. Gas prices have me a bit antsy about it, but I will just have to deal with it...

Current Mood: stressed

bedes

You know how Shadow Milk has many childish mannerisms and ways of thinking? How he has many themes and motifs that deal with play, such as plushies, stick puppets, and arts and crafts?

Have you even seen those drawings made by children who have been through trauma or abuse, and who were asked to draw the situation or person that hurt them?

The scribbly sprite of one of the Fount of Knowledge's followers

Did you know that, in the original text, Shadow Milk calls Pure Vanilla a "doll" instead of a "puppet"?

And have you heard that children with trauma often recreate their trauma while playing with dolls to process it?

A screenshot, showing Shadow Milk transformed into a dying cookie, talking to Pure Vanilla. He says, 'You promised... I'd be fine... *Cough* ... But... I'm going... to crumble… aren't I?’

A screenshot, showing Pure Vanilla in the flashback where he experiences what the Fount of Knowledge did. One of his followers says, 'O Fount of Knowledge! My dough grows colder and colder... They say there is no cure… Perhaps, you can help? Will I live?'

bedes

Now, if I were writing the Kingdom Hearts series, I would make it so that Riku cut his hair while undercover at the Organization, so that his hair would grow out again and go down to his upper back by the time Dream Drop Distance comes around. Instead of cutting it short and then associating his longer hair with "Dark Riku" and his flawed past and such.

I mean, the writers can do whatever boring shit they're doing too I guess. All I'm saying is that every time a queercoded male villain is made to cut his hair during his redemption arc, an angel loses its wings.

Jan 22nd update: My feelings on this matter have only intensified since learning that the sole reason that Riku's hair was changed was because ""fans"" kept complaining about it.

bedes

But jokes aside, I’m pretty sure that The First Cookies are the Beast’s “mothers” in the same way that God is “the father”. It’s meant to mean that they are their creators in a religious context, not their literal parents. Especially since The First Cookies were once witches that are now in cookie form, and witches are very clearly worshiped as religious figures. (Shadow Milk even refers to them as “gods” quite blatantly.)

The implication is intended to be that The First Cookies made the Virtues when they were witches — thus, why First Milk is still a human when depicted with Fount of Knowledge.

Anyways, Shadow Milk’s creator being a healer and his other half being a healer and the Beast he’s arguably closest to being a healer is so funny because that freak has never healed from anything in his LIFE

bedes

System: OSDD-1b (lacks amnesia between alters). Unaware that they are a system. They all believe that they are Shadow Milk, who has different “mindsets” he takes on.

Shadow Milk Cookie: Current host. Originated as a protector, now a persecutor. Initially split when Fount was attacked by the angry mob depicted in Dominion of the Beasts 2.

Fount of Knowledge: Ex-host and core. Infrequent solo-fronter, occasional co-fronter.

Young Shepherd Cookie: Syskid and innocence-holder. Only fronts when by himself. Initially split during their imprisonment in the Silver Tree, partially to make up for the system’s lack of a childhood.

mackerelgray

Written by Jude Rook-Machina on March 17, 2026.

thinking out loud about my personal labeling re: nonhumanity (or lack thereof) -

because by definition, "being nonhuman" doesn't say anything about the amount of nonhumanity you need to have. it's a deliberately inclusive label!

someone who's 15% nonhuman, who needs support to feel confident and unashamed of that 15%, belongs in a nonhuman community as much as someone who's 100% nonhuman. they deserve to know they're not alone, there are other nonhumans out there who understand what they're feeling!

And! that's not the only way to think about it when you're partially nonhuman

and I say that because I keep choosing to call myself human, even though I'm partially nonhuman. if you're looking at my identities like a list, you might even say I seem mostly nonhuman? I'm an android, I'm the idea of a dog, I decided to turn myself into a dragon last year and I still don't regret it, BUT. I'm human! I keep saying I'm human!

and I think it's so important for me to have that because I keep being denied humanity for everything else about me. I'm a headmate so I can't be a human being, I'm just part of somebody else. I'm nonbinary and my gender sure isn't legally recognized or even assumed as a possibility. I'm a fictional character so I'm not a real person and I'm definitely not human in a way that matters. I'm nonhuman on some level so I can't possibly be invested in my humanity. I'm an android so I should be better than humans or whatever, I shouldn't think it's desirable to be one.

all of that feels pretty bad! so I hold onto it. I decided to be human and no one can take that away from me. I'm a mechanical canine draconic human being and I chose that! so basically,

IF there's no magical minimum amount of nonhumanity someone has to have to say they're nonhuman and find joy in their nonhumanity -

there's ALSO no magical minimum amount of humanity someone has to have to say they're human and find joy in their humanity

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Happy Saturday!

I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!

If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.

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Desphiria

Reading

Late March Madness

Childhood Trauma Motifs (Cookie Run)

Riku's Character Design Change

Shadow Milk "Mommy Issues" Cookie Confirmed

Plural Shadow Milk Headcanon

thoughts on being partly nonhuman and Human About It

Performing some traffic maintenance today

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February 2026

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