#sentient types

[sentientsheepdog]

My thoughts on what kind of hybrid the 141 guys would have (all more or less accidental acquisitions since none of these guys have normal or predictable schedules) Tw for sensitive topics (past neglect/ bgc suicide/trafficking)

Gaz: Grey parrot hybrid that escaped neglect and hit his window. The concussion was barely a memory by the time all their pulled feathers had grown back. He loves showing off his healthy, shiny birdie in pictures (don't you dare call the grey drab that's thinnnn ice look how shiny its basically silver arent they so pretty) and takes great pride in keeping them happy. Always smiling like the sun when he gets to go home because his birdie will tell him all about every piece of entertainment they devoured while he was gone over some fruity treat and season appropriate drink. Loves taking his bird out book shopping and to museums, Birdie needs enrichment and he needs to spend time in society. The anklet his bird wears has a tracker in it, just in case they get lost or worse.

Soap: wild Snake hybrid he kept from a worse fate by catching them before they reached his neighbours chicken coop. Hissed and struck at him all the way back to his living room until they felt the heat from the hearth and proceeded to curl up and sleep for hours. They always hang off the beams in his farmhouse whenever he gets home to 'scare' him. He plays along just to take their heating pads as 'punishment'. Wild thing can't admit they want to cuddle up. That's alright. Johnny can read his hissy housesitter like a picture book and enjoys the little game they play. He still hasn't quite managed to catch the iridescent glint of their scales in his paintings, but he's working on it every chance he gets.

Ghost: Bunny hybrid he found sitting on his cabin porch. Poor thing got lost, and was so scared it bit him when he tried to herd it inside. Couldn't find them for 3 days when he let them out of his sight for a second after cleaning the filthy stray, found them shoulder deep in the fridge at 4 in the morning with a mouth full of chocolate still in the wrapper. Frequently and fondly thinks back on the adorable growl they let out when he wrestled the plastic out of their mouth. Wouldn't admit it but has grown fond of the flighty fluffball and its tendency to nap on him. Let's him play with their soft tail like a stress ball. Drags their ears down over their eyes to initiate play since they made fun of his mask with he gesture and got chased around for it.

Price: ESA Dog hybrid he took in when the previous owner took his own life a while after being medically discharged. Takes the hybrid to base with him at every opportunity so the bored pup can make use of their training by hanging around medics and keeping everyone calm. Wanders back to his office eventually and curls up in their bed under his desk until he's ready to leave for the day. Fetches him anything and everything he asks, even the occasional water bottle and snack he didn't ask for when he's focused on work. Acts like he begrudgingly lets them sleep in his bed when they have a perfectly fine one in their room, probably couldn't sleep without them there if he was honest about it.

Nikolai: Pangolin hybrid he got as a bonus on a business deal. He was thoroughly unimpressed with the unnegotiated crate he unpacked back in the Hangar, even less so when he heard scratching from inside it. Has a starring contest with the pitch black eyes that peek out at him he loses when their dark clawed scaly hands grab onto the remaining slats and rip the crate apart. He can't bring himself to give them up to a sanctuary, so he moves them into a homestead of a safe house where they are as safe and free as can be. Visits often to keep the mute hybrid entertained and supplied with everything they can't forage, grow, or make. Is guilty of fueling up extra to watch the hybrid happily sit in the rotor wash with bristled scales. Never leaves the homestead empty-handed, Pangolin is living in abundance and always has some hand-made treats on hand to share.

[teh-inggris]

aw seriously

[swearingcactus]

can we discuss how the necropolis adds an extra room in the memorial gardens that emmrich comments to be 'possibly a way to shield itself from the chaos in the fade'? but that if you solve the puzzle and open the gates to the room, you'll find that it's empty of any tombs, except a board game that johanna hezenkoss used to play? the same game she begged emmrich to play with her when they were younger? do you think that maybe the necropolis remembers the prickly, ambitious young watcher that used to stalk its halls? the same watcher who did wretched things and stole part of the necropolis for her own misdeeds? do you think the necropolis still has love for her anyway, so much so that when she no longer can harm any fade denizens, it allowed itself to give a tomb of some sort to her memory? hezenkoss may be half lich but that means part of her is half human and that half is dead and is the necropolis not a home for the dead? can we discuss that??

[ineveryfandom]

bruce wayne stans cant hate on any member of the batfam cus thats like the equivalent of shitting on jesus’ disciples

[horror-aesthete]

[sourtomatola]

Solar was afraid that after he was falsely arrested and imprisoned for a month, his poor little ornamental pumpkin plant would die without him. To his shock, it instead gained sentience.

I was trying to think of a metaphor for how it must have felt for solar, making something that was basically alive but not sentient, only for it to gin sentience on its own...anyways this is what came to mind. Also instead of dying he was falsely accused and arrested

Part2

[thelaurenshippen]

next up in our little phantom pulse intro round:

Jo, the "motherfuckin' drummer" as Ren wrote on her polaroid. she/her born January 9th, 1974 Music: Drummer Actual job: Bike messenger and delivery person. Power: Can slice and slash poltergeists with the sound of her cymbals or groove so hard the spirits dance themselves to the afterlife

[tropicalcontinental]

What if he was human chat (he is human)

[bitchfitch]

Basically since the very first iteration of Pavo and Esti there has been the like. sub plot that demons are not humanoid, a subset of them just use magic to look humanish. Most of the main demons in the story included.

And it never really came up all that often outside of the first Very early drafts and so I went like three blissful years without having to figure out what demons actually look like. Mostly bc I didn't want to. bc I couldn't figure out how to make them look. like. Right™

The whole bird theming really through a wrench in things because most of the ways to get something to read as both Bird and Demon result in pterodactyls, feathered dragons, or something extremely dorky looking. I do not think I escaped any of those with this design. I think it is somehow all of them. but by being all of them it is smack dab in the middle of them and thus none of them. It's probably not going to remain the base design for the demons and it's probably never going to come up in the actual story but I'm done looking at it so you have to look at it.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[ghoulsbian]

furuta seems like a guy who says shallowly thoughtful and existential things that he feels like the person to have first realized in his twenties when they're thoughts most girls had at age twelve

[lime-bucket]

i hope s3 change my mind cause earthspark optimus really doesnt feel like optimus by how dumb hes acting

[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).

[sharpfurry5917]

Take this incredibly stupid comic I thought of while riding home from a road trip back in August

[buttercatrho]

Monitober 22

Monika takes care of her little trapped digital buddy

[horror-aesthete]