#Plant as Structure

[zegalba]

[arc-hus]

L’Atelier, Bordeaux - A6A

[yorksnapshots]

Crocus in Dean's Park, York, England.

The Arcade in the background is now a War Memorial.

[unholyeldritch]

Some Japan loving.

[nanmo-wakaran]

these are almond blossoms if i am not mistaken!✿

(own recording, credit this post if u use)

[rumeko]

in dreamland

隠れ家

[johbeil]

Four black and white plants studies

Executed with Sony Xperia Mini (Sk17i) using the Blackboard setting of Vignette for Android.

[serpentface]

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).

[mynorse-verse]

Finally checking Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, and got to the infamous Loki-Logi identification. I wasn't expecting this part to be as funny as it was.

No, I was not expecting him to go like "Also Odin is Kári, so I guess Hoenir is Aegir... Which I'm not sure how it works at all". It should be at that point he realizes something is faulty, but for some reason he's adamant in making Loki the figure Caesar identified with Vulcan (rather than I don't know, Völundr/Wayland?). And that's when things for sure take a turn:

Since he himself realizes it makes no sense he decides to go "Loki=Prometheus=Logi=Vulcan=Grendel=Saturn=Saturday (Lauderdag)=Satan". No, he's not able to make this work either, and in fact proceeds to debunk the Grendel part. He then partially debunks the Prometheus part by somehow using all the wrong sources, yet the conclusion he reaches is somehow actually right.

By that point one would have either gotten back on their tracks, something he's actually willing to do in the future for other figures if newer sources were to be found; or just fully embrace the bullshit. Once again within the same paragraph, Grimm is actually willing to consider alternative theories and is more than welcome to discuss other sources. For example, when talking about Phol, he's adamant in connecting him to Baldr; but he knows there's the possibility Phol is an independent figure, Freyr or even Ullr, and admits he might be wrong in his prior identification and the reader should also consider the other theories and expect further sources. This is a nice thing. This shows Grimm knows he's not infallible, and that critical thought should therefore prevail.

AND YET he can't come to wrap his head about the fact Loki and Logi may not be the same, and may not be related to any of the other figures he tries to connect them to make it work. He's way too deep into this bullshit and seems to hold this theory in such high regard (even though he wasn't even the one coming with it in the first place!), he just disregards any common sense and proceeds to discuss goddesses as soon as possible.

And here I was worried my hypothetical work of fiction could be way too derivative for huh (checking my own notes) using continental and western figures and myths or playing around with figures and family trees. The moral of the story is don't feel too pressed about (supposed) accuracy regarding your fiction, because Grimm himself didn't obviously care about it either.

[roseofhybrids]

more godhood AU rambling

while thinking of what the trio would get up to in 1500 years and an interesting idea came to mind

so, with all the humans gone, J, N, V and the solver are the last beings around that were on Earth before it got destroyed. Also, after that generation of old drones we see in canon are gone, no one on Copper 9 accept for those 4, Khan, and maybe Nori, will remember being on a planet that isn't just snow, ice, and dead trees (till of course they get some spaceships up and running, but I digress)

now, we've already established that N brought the immortal dogs back, but who's to say he has to stop there?

idea is that N makes it a personal project to work on bringing other animals back to the planet, and that V decides to do the same with plants. So, the two work together with some worker scientists to make the planet habitable to organic live again

I'm not sure how much progress they'd be able to make in 1500 year. It's a long time, sure, but this planet has had like 5 holes punched through its core. That kind of climate disaster is gonna take some time to fix

but I like to think that, eventuality, after spending years at the manor seeing all these plants and animals in books. The two get to see them in their new home as Copper 9 heals

[arc-hus]

Iporanga House, Guarujá, Brazil - David Bastos

[fbwzoo]

Pouting about having to be an adult and buy things slowly for turtle instead of just getting everything Right Now Already so I can set it up and play with it and make sure it all works well and ahhhhhhh.

I need to be focusing on Crab Con, someone put my brain in time out

[shatterdome-underscore]

i hope in tristamp season 2 Milly asks Vash some vaguely intrusive questions about plant anatomy. Not even like "oh hwheh hwheh what are your genitals like?" I mean shit like "Hi. Do you have real bones or just cartilage???" or "What sort of circulatory system do you have and also do you have lungs??? Do plants have lungs??? Do you have kidneys??? How about an appendix???" like??????? I want to know and Milly is the only one who would ask?????

[cloudgremlin-creations]

The amount of times I have bemoaned to my friends about having to sleep/eat/work instead of drawing/writing turtles shows just how good of friends I have, that they continue to love me and give me consoling pats and then cheer n clap whenever I do show up with a bit of turtle art for them. Truly the friends of all time <3

[amethystsoda]

Gelatin Hell my beloathed 🤢

[silverskye13]

Trying to analyze the tropes in my own fics to see if I think they're successful as component pieces and getting so confused I give myself psychic damage send help