#and it just has ZERO effect

[gatekeeper-of-witchcraft]

correct me if I’m out of line bc I’m not a detransitioner, but I hate hate hate how common arguments against transition/“in defense of” detransitioners is “they can’t have kids!” or “they can’t breastfeed!”

why should mitigating harm always come down to what a woman can do for a potential child (or a man’s ability to father children)? why isn’t it enough to keep HER from harm? it’s just prioritizing women as broodmares all over again. why isn’t it enough to keep HER from chronic pain, heart and blood pressure issues, incontinence, necrosis, limited mobility and death?

[caterpillarinacave]

I would so many things to get my hands on copy of that script

[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).

[swan2swan]

Dominion haters will fume like "If they were treating this dinosaur situation realistically with regards to environmental impact, they would be treating them like a proper invasive species, because the populations would have flourished from ten to ten thousand in four years! See, by every animal asexually reproducing with ten offspring every year, and the fact that nothing would kill them, we would reach numbers that would DEVASTATE the environment! Especially because the biggest creatures would reach full size within months of their birth!"

And I'm here just...

Guys. Elephants grow to full size over fifteen years.

Even if the accelerated growth gene Wu programmed into his animals resulted in fast-growing populations, they'd still probably take a year or two to reach adulthood and/or breeding age. Bumpy took a month or two to reach her peak, and she still turned out a runt, and she was a freak who was running at about 500% speed. And "rapid growth rate" is a whole different can of worms to study.

But...yes, it's boring, but that's not how invasive species work. I'm begging people to study the timelines of these things. I just looked into the python infestation in Florida, and they were basically introduced in the 1930s. The nineteen thirties. Almost a century ago. Then they were confirmed to be breeding in the wild in the nineties. Sixty years later. They weren't banned until 2012. They're an invasive species that's devastated the Everglades, but it took them decades to reach that point.

Pablo Escobar's hippos? Forty years.

But then you look at the Spotted Lanternfly and the Emerald Ash Borer. Insects. The Ash Borer came over in 2002, and it took a decade or so to mess up my neighborhood's ash tree population. The Lanternfly arrived in the 2010s. By the 2020s, it's Public Enemy Number One. Insect epidemics take a decade to latch on and do their thing. That's fast.

That's why the locust plot worked in Dominion. Because bringing back a prehistoric insect that can't be hunted by falcons or mantises or spiders or carnivorous non-avian dinosaurs is going to have FAR more rapid consequences than a dozen elephant-sized herbivores who wandered off a farm. Even a bunch of ostriches three times the size of ostriches.

If you take things seriously...you have to take it seriously in every aspect.

[adwox]

the two most decorated soldiers of the offputting wars

[samuelroukin]

i'm making soap pull out the sluttiest shorts he has every time they work out together and he's so focused on staring at the ghoobies that he thinks ghost isn't looking at his ass (and being sad about it)

[vivid-vices]

the quest for sleep continues unsuccessfully

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF GRISSOM ACADEMY

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, EDI, and Jack With: Flight Lt. Jeff "Joker" Moreau, Lt. James Vega, Ens. Jason Prangley, Ens. Rodriguez, David Archer, and Kahlee Sanders I never had a family- and these guys... Anyone screws with my students and I will tear them apart. Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[someominousecho]

if umbrella Ben (as a ghost) had made it to season 3, do you think both Bens would have experienced paradox psychosis or would they have been fine because Ben is dead?

[duckapus]

Pokemon/WarioWare crossover because why not throw yet another Anime Rewrite AU that I say I'll write a fic for and fully intend to but never do on the pile? (i have issues...)

Five years before the start of the series Delia and Ash find a girl around Ash's age with red eyes lost in a park who can't remember anything about herself except that her name is Ashley. Fallers are a bit more common in this timeline than others (though still pretty rare and not yet well understood) so when the authorities investigate they realize her situation pretty quickly...particularly how near-impossible it would be to get a 5-year-old who seems to be from a world without Pokemon (Fallers typically remember what Pokemon are and can name ones they're familiar with, so the fact that she only refers to them by general terms like "cat" or "bird" and is confused by a lot of their behavior is very telling). Delia, of course, agrees to take her in permanently after they break the news to her (she'd already been looking after Ashley during the investigation because of course she would).

So now Ash has a not-actually-a-twin sister. She still manages to become a witch-in-training since she's still got her massive potential for magic and witchcraft is canonically a thing in the Pokemon Anime. She even manages to summon Red and make him her familiar at seven. She's a bit more outgoing thanks to being raised in the Ketchum household instead of growing up more-or-less alone in that haunted mansion, but at her core she's still the grumpy little witch girl we know and love.

Anyway, she and Ash both plan on challenging the Indigo League, though they're going to travel together at least for their Kanto Journey (...yeah they're definitely gonna stick together even after that 'cause this is still meant to be a canon rewrite), partly because they know ahead of time about the Starter shortage and they figure that as long as at least one of them gets a Pokemon they can help the other catch something on Route 1 so they don't have to wait a month for a new set to be available (what, you really think Oak would've left them in the lurch for a whole year if the shortage had been real and not a Timeline Preservation Measure? though given how big a head start that would give the other trainers (particularly Gary) it still makes sense why 10-year-old Ash acted like it was the end of the world).

Of course, their alarm clock mysteriously breaks and they oversleep and end up with a Pikachu who hates them and an Eevee with absolutely no thoughts in its fluffy little head.

Anyway, things are mostly normal for a while aside from Ashley and Red being along for the ride, up until Power of One, where they encounter Wario. Apparently he ended up in the Pokemon World because he found some sort of magical artifact during one of his treasure hunts. Notably, he isn't Amnesiac like most Fallers, and he's not from the version of the Mushroom World that Ashley originally came from, as evidenced by him recognizing her on-sight even though she would've disappeared before ever meeting him. Anyway, he helps them beat Laurence III, then decides to claim the Hikokyu as spoils of war and fix it up to use as the local WarioWare HQ. So he's settling down in Shamouti for the time being.

Meanwhile, back in the Mushroom world, the WarioWare crew and the main Mario cast are trying to figure out what happened to Wario. They eventually manage to create a pipe that goes between Diamond City and Shamouti at some point midway through Johto...and find out that he ran off to Johto with Melody to challenge their League because he found out that Pokemon Battling, especially official League matches, gets you prize money, and he needed funds for replacement parts to get the Hikokyu up and running. So Mario, Peach, and about half the crew are off to fetch him. They don't finally catch up with him until the Alto Maire incident. Ashley's part of the search party, so she and the AU's main Ashley (and both Reds of course) end up meeting and it's a bit awkward at first. They end up going by Ashley K (for Ketchum of course) and Ashley M (for Mushroom, since she doesn't have a last name and Ashley W would be too clunky to say, plus she wouldn't be caught dead naming herself after Wario) for the sake of convenience (the Reds follow suit, of course).

I also have the idea of having the Hikokyu set up shop in Orre after it's been made skyworthy again and fully converted into a second game studio, then having the WarioWare crew stumble into and run roughshod over Gale of Darkness's plot with their own brand of glorious mayhem while just trying to introduce their games to the fresh new audience the Pokemon World provides.

[optiwashere]

Answering a batch of these anons at once and under the break because I don't want this blog to be a pit of negativity.

Also, as a reminder: any bashing in my inbox will be ignored and continuous bashing will get you blocked. Be kind to others within the fandom. We can all have different preferences without being assholes to one another ty ty.

If you like that Space Frog/(ex-)Sharran ship, it's probably good to skip this. Also, what people ship has no impact on how I think of them so we're probably still cool unless you give me a reason to think otherwise lol.

It's very difficult to love both characters, exist in this fandom, and try to explain to other folks that, no, I don't see it lol. I've had to do it like 12 times now. It's fascinating.

I tried to read some fics to understand the hype. The toxic thing is part of the enjoyment, but they get past the murder attempt so fast and turn pretty quickly to respecting each other so it never even gave me toxic ship vibes. Just two ladies going, "good for her!"

So then I try to approach it from a more wholesome angle. Or a redemptive angle. Oh well. Not everything can be for everyone! I'm certain there's plenty of shippers in the fandom that can't stand my interpretations, so I'm not going to try and take a moral high ground on this. Just different tastes.

Also, a ship doesn't need to have any canon basis to be shipped, but maybe I'm too used to genuinely awful toxicity in toxic ships.

Plus there's no real "canon" in BG3 other than what exists in each of our playthroughs, so it's all moot anyways.

That's pretty much where I stand on it anon, so you've got me in your corner on that as well.

In my playthroughs, their banter when I had them together was always very neutral in any sort of romantic light. Again, a ship doesn't need canon basis to be a ship, but it really does come from that one scene. And that hatchet gets buried almost instantly.

So I just never got it. Maybe it was more of a thing in Early Access? But I like to consider stories when they're finished in totality rather than from the morsels EA gave people.

And I love that for you!

She has a fucking lich-queen to murder.

[nullheaven]

Need a cup of coffee rn

[firestorm09890]

organization xiii recusant sigil being used as a panopticon situation. xemnas COULD be tracking you right now, we just don’t know

[thenamessparkplug]

every second i spend not making a twisted psychological horror is a second wasted

[direwombat]

r: free animals (aka. jacob seed / sybille la roux / eli palmer) | far cry 5

You get what you came for, what you stayed for I only know how to satisfy your craving This is what you crave Know what you're made of, what you're made of Flesh and bones won't lie They won't lie Free animal, free animal My heart beats in patters to the broken sound Free animal, free animal You're the only one that can calm me down

made using @marissources template here!

[rohirric-hunter]

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