#decayed existence

[identifyingmetalbandsinposts]

Decayed Existence

Death Metal

[dotwpod]

(348) Independent Music Special Vol. 10

Disciples!! Here we go - Volume 10 of the 2024 Independent Music Specials. 10. Dang. We're almost through 2024. Well, at least we have some great music. Crank it! (The volume... you know what, never mind....) \m/

Disciples!!Here we go – Volume 10 of the 2024 Independent Music Specials. 10. Dang. We’re almost through 2024. Well, at least we have some great music.Crank it! (The volume… you know what, never mind….)\m/ BLOCK ONE: 0:00:03 Soror Dolorosa (France) Obsidian Museumhttps://linktr.ee/sorordolorosa 0:03:36 Andrea Palmieri (Italy) Ironmanhttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075575366703…

[im-smart-i-swear]

danse macabre

[anarchistmemecollective]

[signalterminated]

these masks almost feel like the previous masks peeled back, in a way? like their faces hardened into this gilded tarblack snarl, and then it decayed into what was left underneath: chainmail sewn into weathered bone. the funeral shrouds of warriors permanently fused in undeath.

[grotessquerie]

do u fw girls who are disgusting evil decaying entities that are rotting from the inside out. do u fw girls who need a lover to keep themselves alive. do u fw girls who are lowkey forever unlovable. do u fw girls who would give you all of their time and love even if you hurt them. do u fw girls who are pathetic losers. do u fw girlfailures. do u fw girls who have suicidal thoughts at every minor inconvenience. do u fw girls with ptsd. do u fw girls who cry and cry and cry over everything. do u fw girls who rely entirely on you. do u fw girls who would fall apart with one wrong touch. do u fw girls who make loving them feel like a chore. do u fw girls who are obsessive. do u fw girls who hate themselves. do u fw girls who overapologize. do u fw girls who are vicious cunts. do u fw girls who self harm. do u fw girls who need to be loved gently. do u fw girls who need you to be patient with them. do u fw girls who have eating disorders. do u fw girls who have an undiagnosed personality disorder. do u fw girls who are full of guilt and shame. do u fw girls who listen to nicole dollanganger all day. do u fw girls who are ugly. do u fw girls who arent girls.

do u fw girls like me? :3c

[karlavhh]

Controversial statement: Nacho ruined Lalo's life.

[immediatebreakfast]

One thing that I love about this entry is how Jonathan noted the bare contained rage that the Count has towards him.

It's such a tiny detail that could be lost in the middle of all the emotions in the Gothic conflict between Jonathan and Dracula, but when one examines it from the angle of how their employer-employee relationship evolved into a symbolic abusive husband-wife relationship, it just clicks.

The pretense of normalcy is held together by Jonathan playing the feminine gothic role of newly wed wife trying to not set off Dracula who is the husband that has all the power in their dynamic. Moreover, since Jonathan is playing his part so perfectly it makes Dracula eager to break him down, to see how much he can push before Jonathan snaps. It's a power play that depends on fear, and interest, one that the Count has for another purpose too.

He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape.

As much as Dracula loves the game of pretense that he forced Jonathan to play (which our good friend has been handling amazingly) he knows that he doesn't want to waste too much time on him. Jonathan is an amazing solicitor, and an even better plaything, but the Count still hates him for trying to defy him when it's supposed that Jonathan should be deadly afraid of him.

Dracula is a conqueror, a nobleman, and a man who has already shown Jonathan what happens to the people he "loves" once he doesn't find them interesting anymore. It's not an if, it's a when, and once Dracula manages to either mentally break Jonathan completely, or kill him on June 29 he will be able to clear one last line that connects both Transylvania, and England.

The Count can't really start new if he brings a bride that can defy him isn't he? Better to leave all behind.

[tanukitsuneko-suki]

[torridturncoat]

likely thing to happen etcetc, but so many popular asoiaf&hotd bloggers have reached a point where their 'meaningful' and 'serious' commentary has to be wrapped in fifteen layers of purple prose that is also, at the same time, so icky.

theres this post about viserys&aegon&alicent that goes: and viserys put his ROT, his disgusting ILLNESS inside her, and aegon was born and that rot is slowly FESTERING.

and like, you can just say viserys raped alicent? actually, it would be better to just say that, instead of that weird conflation between leprosy and moral rot, and that weird imaginary fiction of the ontological poison dripping through to the children or whatever the fuck. aegon's faults as a person (dyanas rape etc) are because of he's a man benefitting from a violent patriarchal system and he's fine with that.

[teapetal44]

All For One should have stayed on the sidelines as a character after Kamino. His evolvement in everything after that significantly weakens the story. Building up Tomura as his protégé, framing him as the next symbol of evil, and then pulling the rug under everyone’s feet, is the worst writing decision Hori has ever made. In concept, All For One failing at passing the torch to Tomura is good, because it directly  parallels All Might and his mentorship to Izuku. Unlike All For One, Toshinori was aware the younger generation needed to take up the mantle. All For One is a selfish and controlling person, it makes perfect sense for him to be unable to give up his power to someone else. But in execution it falls apart the moment All For One continues to force himself upon the narrative, continues to serve as the big bad. All For One’s inability to pass the torch and Tomura as a main antagonist can co-exist without weakening the themes of the story.  

Like, imagine how cool it would have been if All for One was destroyed by Tomura after he tried taking control over his body and mind. Tomura realizes his master is holding him back from achieving his full potential and his goal, the thing he literally lives and fights for. Triumph over his master would be Tomura’s final step to becoming the new symbol of evil and his self-liberation. Then, he would truly be free of everything holding him back. AFO, the puppeteer, the man always one step ahead of everyone else, would be conquered by the very same person he molded – he planted the seed, but at last, what grows is out of his control. In a sense, he would be punished by the story for failing at passing the torch and Tomura would be cemented as the final antagonist, and his journey would feel satisfying.

All though, I see why Horikoshi didn’t write it like that – cause that would require giving Tomura actual autonomy as a character. Something he actively avoids doing every chance he gets. It’s easier to have a character who is crafted to be evil by one powerful bad man before he was even born, than to portray an abused child failed by a fundamentally corrupt society that values consumerism over actually helping those in need, who ended up in the hands of the powerful bad man because the child slipped through the cracks of said society. MHA conveys to the viewer that there are no bad systems, only bad people within the established systems.

Tomura couldn’t own his conception, nor his heroic goals, not even his abuse. Nothing ever happened to him because of society as a whole or because life is cruel and merciless. It happened because Anime-Satan said so.

[pr1soners-d1lemma]

We are born to die. No matter how much we try, time will eat away at the memories we left and warp them. For our lives are short and meaningless. We came to this planet to destroy things, yet we still wonder why it's decaying.

Its our fault.

We are killing ourselves.

[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).

[grotessquerie]

real footage of me after he calls me annoying

[jelliebabydog]

top tier alterhuman cringe is claiming to be anti-fur farm but still wearing taxidermy tails

[roboyomo]

me when i sacrifice my life trade my humanity for the machine to keep the world from dying