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serpentface · 1 year ago

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Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

#I'm kind of fascinated by the quasi-religious beliefs that have developed around recreational hallucinogen use (ESPECIALLY DMT)#In contrast to like. Uses of DMT-containing substances like ayahuasca for long-established religious purposes #So this concept is basically 'what if a religion was FORMED from pretty much the ground up out of DMT usage'#Like the common 'entities' people encounter in recreational use being identified as the Real Gods and producing a religious worldview #that is mostly rooted in this experience (while still influenced by other cultural factors)#Also the like. Meta going on here is that the fungus is a 'living god' and the oldest one on the planet #It is a VERY rare type of living god that is 'created' by non-sophont (non-sentient even) beings and exists as a mycelial network #that perfectly supports and protects an entire forest. Basically a god for plants. It is so deeply interconnected with its forest that the #usual power sophont belief would have over it has basically zero influence. This is absolutely the closest thing to A God in canon.#(While still not being a Creator/sapient/or even supernatural within the framework of this reality. Just VERY unique.)#The Ur-Tree has always been above water and grows very very slowly over the course of millenia by kind of 'pulling up' plant life from #the ground (so you see ancient long extinct plants in its higher branches and contemporary plants close to/on the ground)#The mycelium helps shield and feed extinct plant life that could not otherwise survive in the contemporary environment #And the forest is big enough to produce its own weather (it is a rainforest and has been ever since the capacity for rainforests Existed)#It's not really a tree at all in any normal sense but an amalgam of thousands of types of plants-#Some growing on top of others and some interwoven beyond any distinction. It does form a superficially treelike structure #(mostly in order to physically support its own mass) with a very wide 'trunk' and massive 'roots' (which end in actual roots).#It feeds on its own perpetually shedding and decaying 'body' and any animal life that dies in the forest is VERY rapidly #decayed and absorbed by the mycelial network (to the point that many large scavengers cannot survive in this forest)#(If you kill a cow and leave it on the ground for just 1/2 hour you'll see little strands of mycelium already growing up around it)#The fungus fruits and spores on a very infrequent basis (scale of ten-thousands of years) which causes the forest to very slowly spread #Fortunately this isn't really an existential threat because the spread is VERY slow (even on a geological scale) and the fungus #itself is rather mundane in nature and cannot usually compete against established fungal networks in other places.#Though there are little Ur-Tree mycelium groves and woodlands in other parts of the world that may (over untold millennia)#generate their own Ur-Trees (there's already a few but they are all MUCH smaller and not readily recognized as the same thing)#WRT THE TRIP:#Most of what I'm describing is a DMT trip but consumption of high doses of Ur-Tree mycelium has both mundane psychoactive effects #and IS kind of the person experiencing the fungus' entire lifetime and seeing flashes of the world's actual evolutionary history.#The amount of material knowledge that can be accurately gleaned from this this is VERY limited though.

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thedrotter · 1 day ago

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One of the things that gets me choked up so much in Re:Kinder is just how little Yuuichi wanted from others. He was a kid who wanted to have the suffering of not just his mother, but his suffering to be seen and acknowledged as even existing in the first place. To be faced by anything other than disgust, superficial sympathy, and… to not be left alone.

The thing from the scene with the cherry blossoms where Shunsuke tells Yuuichi what he thinks about him, is that Shunsuke isn’t telling him how much it breaks his heart to know of the suffering he is going through, it isn’t him comforting him, not any sweet, sympathetic word is said. It is him saying he cannot simply ignore Yuuichi’s suffering and who he is. That he can’t just look away from it and act like it isn’t happening, and that in either way that this suffering is being expressed, anger or numbness, all that is Yuuichi; and he acknowledges it. That’s all he does.

And yet, when faced with this, Yuuichi feels understood for once, thinking that Shunsuke cares so much about him, that he feels so bad for him. That he is being so nice to him. Yuuichi’s heart at once notes that he has never met anyone like this before. Never met someone who even acknowledges him at all.

This scene makes other lines in the game even more gut-wrenching, seeing just how much the people around Yuuichi failed him. Even though the smallest thing he wanted was for people to see him, acknowledge what he’s going through, he didn’t get that.

Not only that, but people belittled his feelings, choosing to blame him and ridicule him, despite the person they are ridiculing being a little kid who is trying desperately to come to terms with the situation around him and seeking help. Yet there were people in forums wishing him death, as if he were the biggest annoyance to ever exist, and not a single person could even look at him.

It's not just with words that Yuuichi wanted to be acknowledged by. Merely having people stay with him is one of the things he wanted the most. And yet, nobody wanted to face him or what he was saying. Even just staying silent and backing away from him told him he wasn’t wanted.

No matter how much he didn’t want to be hated, nor to hate, it was as if the world around him rejected him the second he spoke about his feelings. So, what else could be done?

One of the lines found within the Aneha apartments section of the game comes to mind. A vulnerable display of wanting the smallest form of support in just having someone stay. To face what he is, what he is going through, even if he is disliked. It highlights the little boy who wants to be loved, even if that love is simply seeing his pain as valid, without leaving him behind.

It is not said explicitly that this text was placed by Yuuichi, but the fact that it is present at all stands for a level of significance to his character and what it conveys. With how his heart manifests, causing Shunsuke to hear moments of Yuuichi’s loneliness, it also seems to reflect within the town, the place where he took out his anger and grief, not just within what Shunsuke gets to hear within his mind.

So, the entire state of Kowada Town paints a picture of not only the rage within Yuu, but also the loneliness. The side of him that wishes to be vulnerable, yet, getting so used to being ignored, he fears seeking any more help at all.

That’s why he didn’t try to reach out to Shunsuke for himself directly. Why all that came through were only dreams brought on by the feelings within his heart that he couldn’t bear to say face-to-face. He was afraid; all he had known was being let down, so if the person he wanted to understand him the most was to turn against him, it would have destroyed him completely.

So, he chose not to, convincing himself he was the one at fault for feeling this way, in a world where all he had to do was hang in there, and not blame society for the problem he was.

Yet all that little boy wanted was to be seen. The smallest thing, the bare minimum. That’s all he wanted.

#yuuichi mizuoka #re:kinder #rekinder #parun #i talk!!!#not art #yooo guys thanks for coming to my ted talk hope you enjoyed this video SMMMMMMMMMMMMMASH that suscribw button and (youtuber outro)#been wanting to share this thing that knaws at me everytime i play the game for a while #like genuinely every time i replay the game i see one more little thing that makes me go. “oh my god all he wanted was the bare minimum”#and thus i cry IT HAS ME BAWLING THE HARDEST OUT OF EVERYTHING #(we do not speak about the princess thing i think about it for 2 seconds and i will sink to the bottom of the earth)#anyways yes i really wanted to do a little rambling post on this it just takes me a while to not just scream at the computer #took me 2 hours to composit this somewhat coherent thing admittedly despite me knowing what i wanted to say #i just had to put it into normal speech and not GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRAHHH UEEEEEEEE😭😭😢😢😢💧💧UUEEEEEEEE😭😭😭😭💧💧💧#and screamjing at the computer in rage shaking it as if it was its fault over just how much this little child was failed #HE IS A BABY HE IS 8 WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO HIM I CURSE YOU FORUM PEOPLE INGAME I CURSE YOU #genuinely everytime i get to that part of the game i need to sit down take some minutes to compose because it makes me so angry #like genuinely iu get very emotional over it SO OF COURSE ME WANTING TO PUT THIS INTO A POST REQUIRES BRAIN POWER #somethn i hav 1 cell available for so. witness here poeple i bring to you this instead of sleeping to wake up early to go work #its okay scoiety may say otherwise but CLEARLY this is more important than attending to my citizen duties of contributing to society by ha #by. idk. having a job /joke #um yes i should actually go to sleep really PUAJSAJAJSAJJSA #anyway i wanna give a shoutuot to my dog daughter her name is maki for inspiring me to finally ramble about this on my blog #she breathed thats what she did so we should all applaud her for her bravery my ugly ugly daughte❤️❤️#love live laugh rekinder RUNING MY LIFE i lov rekinder #minutes went by as seconds as i wrote this i was genuinely so confused as i saw the mintues slip by as i thought how to phrase myslef #it was really funny time sure deos fly when you going insane over da keyboard

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killerchickadee · 2 months ago

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So today I worked 9 hours without a break, so that was fun. I was gonna dip right on time, except I wanted to talk to my boss first, and I'm glad I did. ....Stick around that is, not work a fucking 9 hour shift without a break.

In about a week they're completely redoing our aquariums at work. Like tearing the whole wall out and putting in new tanks, etc. Someone has to work overnight shifts to be there for the construction team, and that someone is me. I knew there would be a few new planograms to set so I was prepared for that, but my boss decided to look at the map with me before I left today and actually HALF THE FUCKING DEPARTMENT MOVES AROUND. Like one aisle becomes longer, the reptile stuff and wild bird food and small animal food all move to different aisles. It's a LOT. And I actually think once it's done it's going to be really nice. Like the aisles will make more sense and there'll be a lot more room on the shelves. But uh. I'll have to do it all myself, so that's less exciting.

But imagine if I had left on time and we hadn't thought to check the map. Sunday night would roll around and I'd be like wait what the fuck is happening.

#my paycheck for this week is going to be great cause i get time and 1/2 AND an extra 8 hours pay for working on monday #and my paycheck for the 8th-14th is going to be great because third shift pays a little more #but also these overnight shifts are basically 9pm to whenever the construction guys are done #so I'll be way over 40 hour probably so OT there too #so yay might catch up on bills lol

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skrunksthatwunk · 1 year ago

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ok soooo im like 5 episodes into dear brother and i need you guys to know how much i love rei so far if only for her staggering around like a rain-soaked stray dog just haggard and unseeing all the time. like we know very little about her thus far except that every scene she's in she steals the show by flopping and wilting all over the frame

#just like me fr perhaps #dear brother #oniisama e #idk what it is but shes so intriguing. mysterious shit-untogether lady #also i love everyone's beef so far like im completely hooked on the drama as camp as it usually is #like went OHH SHIT the second i found out the big three were on bad terms like ouhhh theyre fightinggg #and minako is profoundly real. the video essay that convinced me to watch this mentioned her encapsulation of quote #'every bpd feeling ive ever had' and as an outsider that seems right #school full of girls to study under a magnifying glass like bugs. girlbugs #this is an era of shojo im not very familiar with (ok ig all eras are like that but my knowledge of 70s shojo is like.#ok rose of vsailles over here and that tennis thing's over there and uh. yeah thats it)#and yeah ik the anime's from the 90s but it appears. to me. pretty married to more 70s aesthetics at least #ANYWAY kaoru ily we need a butch failgirl to shout these girls into line and shes balling too btw no way #and minako ily you're extremely real and a scene stealer and i need you to beat more girls up #nanoko im leering over your shoulder like a little shoulder devil bc i want you to be worse and im suspecting you're getting there #oh i forgot to say this part but i keep comparing it to utena #no one ive seen brings up db in their utena analyses as an influence so i have to wonder if 1) this is just more obscure #(if only for the western video essayists im watching) or 2) they share other common ancestry im not familiar with #once again i gotta watch rose of vrsailles for brserk reasons but also now bc of this #she's important she's influential etc etc #anyway yeah excited to get back to the mentally ill girl variety hour ✌️✌️#asuka rei #<- I FORGOT TO TAG IT WITH HER 😫😫😫

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the-oracle-of-the-lost · 14 days ago

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calligraphy WIP. i meant to finish it (add gold & silver embellishment) before i leave for vacation tomorrow but i underestimated the amount of time & tries it would take to figure out the spacing of everything and i'm lacking both hand strength and light so we'll finish it next week. it's not perfect but i haven't done any actual composition in calligraphy for years so i'm pretty happy.

#i even used nice paper!#also manetheren's sigil/flag is canon accurate but ngl i wish it was a better design #i tried to spice it up a little bit but 1) im not good at that sort of decoration in the best of times and #2) the red and blue ink i have is absolute shit. i originally meant to do a design inside the eagle but i got a big splotch of clumpy ink so #:/ guess i'll paint it now because im not starting over after 5 hours #i'll post this in the main tags once i have the finished version but i just need to feel like i accomplished something #my posts #my art

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doctorwhoisadhd · 1 month ago

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i should do another edit tbh.

#ari opinion hour #choices choices choices.#i think the options im legitimately interested in doing are. jackjohn our lady of sorrows #deep breath replacement waltz and the doctor falls if you want it relient k #which are 2:08 1:51 and 3:19 respectively #if you want it is i think a little longer than ive done but itd be such a good edit that itd be worth it #plus then i only have to download one (or MAYBE two) episodes #hmmmmmm #actually the nice thing about all 3 of these is at most id have to download 3 episodes. as opposed to searching out various clips from #all over the place (deep breath = obv just the one the doctor falls i Might also have to download world enough & time and jackjohn well joh #hart is only in 3 episodes total. and one of those hes in like 1 minute of it at the very very end)#hmm.#im gonna go brainstorm and listen to these

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teethsmoothie · 3 months ago

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REINSTALLING . blender. i want to make things let me innnnnn

#over the course of a few hours i update everything my computer says it needs me to. it still crashes blender #i have a little over an hour of playtime's worth of trying to get this thing to start #if reinstalling doesn't work i will 1) cry and 2).? idk. i need to upgrade if i want to do everything im planning on but. it aint broke #&if it aint broke i dont fix it. words ive lived by since iwas a kid ive only upgraded my phone because i dropped my old one in the toilet

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dawntread · 4 months ago

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(walks out of ffxiv covered in blood)

#GENERAL.#usually fiddling with mods and such is fun and rewarding. it was not so today. and im kind of a little cranky that #1) i completely derailed myself from my initial idea [which i had spent like over an hour on already for outfit purposes]#and then 2) spent even more time trying to figure out manually installing eyes before i rage quit and found some ones #that were already set up #GUHHH. more lessons learned. that outfit will be useful for fucked up in from the cold stuff at some point one day.#but wehhhh. whatever. made it in by like. a little less than an hour.

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linnea-ancalime · 6 months ago

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Engaged in touching grass today (figuratively; visited an offline friend) and it was nice. There was a cat even (literally the chillest chonky white-orange I have ever seen). I recommend the experience.

#saltposting #even got a little treat from the mcmonald's on the way back home!#Now however it is writing time #and we are Dying due to we slept a grand total of about five hours last night (Writing Inspiration Wave struck) & it's been a Full Day #but also we want to write more so... down into the mines we go (whistling happily)#this smut isn't going to write itself.#fic: you did it unto me #by the way. It's been our working title and pending maybe finding something cooler but I'm ngl it's growing on us #especially because the reason we picked it means there will be a part 2 and I can't wait to write THAT as well #because. you did it unto me. now I'm doing it unto you. <- guys who have listened to one (1) song on repeat over the past week #ANYWAY it's time for writing and stop procrastinating on Tumblr. Do would like to go to bed at a decent hour tonight #especially with Evening Socials planned for tomorrow #I can't really reasonably tag this writing post because the POST ITSELF has nothing to do with writing it's all in our tags. Lol #ANYWAY 2 etc etc. good night everybody throw us into the sun if we show up again before tomorrow (in like 10 hours from now)

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icewindandboringhorror · 7 months ago

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