#externam

💀Thanatena💀

This one is not included in the main pantheon, but nevertheless, I decided to draw her too. Seriously, if this sweet old lady met me after death, I wouldn’t even grieve!

Why being born a twelvian is already a death sentence.

I once came across a post of @phosphorus-12 talking with vinillain about a topic I incredibly became focused on.

The post where they were talking about Yugo never seeing his friends again.

I read their conversation three times, and each time I reread it, it became increasingly clear that Yugo’s situation is not worth being deemed worthwhile or even incredible.

Yugo's experience of death differs from that of his friends. Even the deaths of Dally, who is an ex-god, were considered normal in comparison.

We all know by now that Yugo has a death cycle.

No matter how many times Yugo dies and comes back to life, it will undoubtedly be a painful experience to see. Repeatedly facing death and returning to a life where he no longer remembers his friends can be a distressing ordeal. His recurring history of losing people and then losing the memory of them may stem from his purpose and role as one of the primordial eliatropes. Born to serve his people as a protector, Yugo’s original goal was clear, but now that he has experienced something new outside of his original home, the endless cycle feels futile, especially because he found something unrelated to his people that he grew to love.

If for whatever reason he gets told about his past life by someone who's been there, chances are, Yugo will literally say: "Well that's not me anymore, that was one of my past lives. I don't remember doing all of that with them." He'd respond so nonchalantly.

And the worst part about this is that WE KNOW HE WILL SAY IT LIKE THAT.

We've seen his and Adamaï's reactions when they went to Mount Zinit in the Wakfu manga (between season 2 and the ovas) and learned about their people and SAW THEIR OLD ROOM AND SHIP.

Upon seeing what was left of their past, Yugo and Adamaï do not express any bitterness or distress in the slightest.

This reaction confused me and slightly weirded me out because I expected them to have a more negative response, considering the life-altering nature of the event and the fact that they are now in a different world. Typically, one would expect some level of negative emotion upon returning to one of their gravesites, even if they don't remember their most recent past life.

Not only that, but Yugo even talks about his old reincarnation as if he were another person. When he saw the recorded message his past self tried sending to Adamaï, Yugo just addressed himself as "he" and not "I."

Even in this last panel, he had trouble considering and saying out loud that "that man" was him. Look at how his first instinct was to say "he" and not "I." It was only after a quick correction that he finally gave up and spoke with the knowledge that the man was indeed him.

Another thing I should mention about the manga is that @kerubimcrepin talked about volume 4 in this post and mentioned Yugo and Adamaï's cycle by comparing it to Joris. The line that especially hit me was this one, and I quote: "It's especially horrifying and off-putting because of how casual Adamaï and Yugo are about death and forgetting. Joris has always valued memories — they may as well be all he has of some of the people he loves, at this point. It's the reason he gifted them his fishing rod — in a way, it is a memory of Khan."

If he and Adamaï can respond with such nonchalant attitudes about the challenging and tragic events of their past lives, supported by visual evidence, then there's a possibility that he will also react with indifference in his next life to the news that he once had amazing friends in his old life.

So again, their reactions to seeing Mount Zinit and their old ship are incredibly eery and disheartening.

By the way I incredibly urge you to read what @kerubimcrepin said about volume 4 in the post I shared above, they absolutely killed it.

We know cameras exist in the World of Twelve thanks to Season 2. The Brotherhood of the Tofu went to an island to help an ecaflip rescue his fiance. At the end of it, and during the mission, we saw the male ecaflip using photographs in his flashbacks to explain what happened to him.

So if photographs and cameras exist in the World of Twelve, the least Yugo could do is capture his memories in pictures. His boufbowl matches back in the day are already engraved in history, but his memories with his friends had to have been kept in a photo book as well.

Despite not seeing Yugo capture any moments, I can heartedly believe that he'd be the type to capture those moments to keep them to himself secretly.

I headcanon that he keeps those photos in a safe box and stares at them when he's all alone.

To be aware that your life's experiences with other people means nothing to your cycle because you're going to forget about it all in the long run anyway is tragic and trauma inducing. Yugo will have to keep on living and living and living until there's no meaning behind living anymore. Life and death will have no meaning and no concept. Even if he can't remember his past lives like Qilby and Shinonome, he could someday be left wondering why he's even here anymore if all he's done is keep repeating the same life and death cycle for millennials.

I genuinely wonder if Amalia ever thought about Yugo's case at all. She's his wife now, so I'm curious to know if she thinks she's unintentionally giving him more burden on his shoulders or doesn't like to think about it, so she shuts her feelings away. The closest thing we've come to seeing her talk or even hearing about it out loud (despite already knowing it) was when she overheard Yugo talk to fake Ruel, aka Sipho, in the Enutrof level of Oropo's tower.

Yumalia has always been doomed from the start and I still don't know if it was worth it or not lol

But regardless, the reason why I even brought Yugo's immortal case into this is because despite having a very cursed cycle, there is at least one thing that his primordial status gets him saved from: being a mortal. At least a twelvian mortal anyway.

Back then, I initially assumed that if you were a mortal in the World of Twelve and died, you'd only go to a realm called Incarnam.

For those who don't know, Incarnam is a floating island that's located on the back of a giant stoned dragon. It's cut off from the rest of the world, but we can catch a glimpse of it at the beginning of Season 4 when we zoom in on the Brotherhood of the Tofu in the Inglorium.

Like the name Incarnam suggests, you reincarnate again and let the cycle of reincarnation run its course. Even if you die again, you'll still go back to Incarnam and repeat the process. You'll become someone else entirely and will have another different life. You won't be yourself anymore but your soul will be the same.

This process is actually a much more graceful way to tackle the cycle of reincarnation, unlike Yugo and his siblings' where they stay the same and act the same and look the same in every cycle.

But Incarnam has a catch to it. And my god, it's so dark.

If you were to ask me what the scariest thing about the krosmoz is, it would be the fact that mortals not only have a shorter life span than demigods, but their souls eventually cease to exist.

And by that, I mean the mortal souls literally expire...

The place where expired souls have completed their entire repetitional cycle go to is called Externam.

Unlike Incarnam, you can never leave from Externam.

Externam is the realm of the dead.

According to Externam's wiki, this is where souls who have completed their cycle of reincarnation are expelled from the krosmoz. There is a portal connecting the World of Twelve to Externam, and it is located in Frigost at Ilyzaelle's Belvedere, under the guard of the latter, who ensures that the souls found there do not escape.

Externam also happens to have a special section created to the side called "The Hall of the Brave" which is a place meant for the most rewarding heroes of the World of Twelve.

This dimension is led by the queen and creator named Thanatena. (who, by the way, is a direct child of the Great Dragon, which makes her and the council of twelve half siblings)

The left picture is her younger self, and the right picture is when she's older.

I can't imagine having your soul stacked away forever after you run out of chances and being kept there by some immortal whose job is ensuring you don't leave.

So what can you do to prevent this?

The solution? Become immortal.

If there's one thing that you DO NOT want to be in the krosmoz, is being a mortal. Despite having an afterlife where your soul gets to be kept in Incarnam for quite some time, it will eventually be in a state we never want to be in if you're not an adventurer: its expiration date.

I say it like this because if you were an adventurer, your soul would stay in "The Hall of the Brave," but who's to say it'll feel better than what Externam has in store for general mortals?

So when you think about it, when the time comes for the Brotherhood of the Tofu to die, they will all leave each other.

Dally, Eva, Amalia, and Ruel are all heroes at heart, based on everything we've seen them do, so they'll be put in the "Hall of the Brave" and tucked away forever.

Meanwhile, Yugo will die, get reborn, and forget absolutely everything that he came to love about this world and how he got to meet his very first friends, went on many different adventures with them, fought off demigods and other powerful foes, saved the world and risked it a couple of times, got married, and ruled a kingdom together with his wife.

He'll never remember them all, and when one of the very few people from his past life who could still be alive tells him of his past self, Yugo will shrug it off and wish the person luck.

THAT is exactly why Yugo would be doomed living among mortals and why Grougaloragran didn't just keep him at Oma Island. He knew how much Yugo had a big heart and would easily be capable of caring for mortals, who, again, have a very shitty life span and afterlife.

So, not only are Yugo's relationships lost causes, but the general system of life and death for mortals is terrifying.