#It all could have ended otherwise

[judasiskariot]

Resident Evil Albert Wesker Headcanon

Wesker lies awake at night because the ghosts of the dead ⭐S.T.A.R.S.⭐ members haunt his thoughts. He can't sleep because he sees their faces in front of him. Deep down, he regrets that he betrayed them, to be responsible for their deaths.

That's it...that is the post.

[milchreste]

An addition to "Monster Tidbits: Kensuke"... I willfully misconstrued Marcille's "I have a bad feeling about this" as them sending feathers to Shuro.

[egophiliac]

Do yoy like their silly little dance

the inside of my brain at any given moment:

[firestorm09890]

Y'ALL. Y'ALL so for a long time I've believed that "the sun" in Meursault's story is Carmen, and I went to check Hell's Chicken's dialogue to see exactly how he said that he'd dealt with distortions before, and... you know what else he said?

To my knowledge, it is a phenomenon where an individual morphs into a form often unfit to be considered “human”. It has no known causes, and the appearances were all different.

Unfit to be considered human.

Meursault, who, in his book, was judged by the court to be soulless.

Meursault, who has EGO for Cyborgs who have been so mutilated they barely act like people anymore; a murderer who was experimented on until ceasing to be human; a sheep named after Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a novel about the humanity of androids and the inhumanity of humans; and now a rose that can't help its bloodsucking nature, based on Carmilla, a vampire whose story emphasized the duality between her vampiric traits and her human ones.

Meursault, who answered Heathcliff's ironic question of if he had metal for brains like this:

I'm placing my bets now, that line from Hell's Chicken is foreshadowing for Meursault's canto even more than "I have witnessed a number of [distortion] cases in the past" was

[seasideoranges]

y'all i gotta be honest for a sec, the "atla wouldnt change much if aang wasnt there, in fact it might be better" and "the atla finale wouldnt change much if aang wasnt there to fight ozai" debates is the funniest thing ive seen come out of this fandom

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Most important thing to know before writing: What is the point of your story?

There are two parts to that question.

-What are the main story elements you want to feature? A certain character? A setting? A moment of the plot? A particular theme? Which elements are essential to the story you're trying to tell?

-What type of ending are you aiming toward? It doesn't have to be super-detailed, but knowing something about where the story is going is how you know you have a story and not just an image. Is the main character going to change/grow somehow? Learn the answer to a question? Accomplish a certain goal? Make a friend?

Defining those things before you start lets you know that your idea is a story, not just an image or a concept that won't go anywhere. It also gives you a core to base the story around and keeps you from going off-track.

As long as you have defined the essentials to the story and the general direction that you need the story to go in, everything else is negotiable. You have freedom to adjust the non-essentials and explore different possibilities as you discovery-write, so long as none of those non-essentials interfere with the point of the story. If it distracts from the main point, or turns the plot in a way that'll make it impossible to reach main point of the story, it needs to be discarded. Anything else will most likely enrich your story.

[septimusmoonlight]

You doing ok?

hi

[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).

[crustyfloor]

I still feel as though I'm missing something when i see the connection of Luka staring at Ivan and Till staring at Luka but nobody is actually looking at each other.

I know the reason for this homophobic stare was probably Ivan regaining his composure/giving himself a check "damn I really did that"/realizing that still trying to reach out to Till one last time was fruitless after slipping up during the song but. What if he was staring back at Luka? what if he knew what was coming all along.

[amanedachi]

iron / heart

Part of LoL Esports Elemental Series.

[sysig]

Growing closer than expected (Patreon)

[dimension-20-every-introduction]

Everyone Introduced in Dimension 20's Fantasy High: Junior Year episode 20 (finale)

[shorlinesorrows]

qpr jean and neil. that's all i'm gonna say.

do you see my vision?

[knowlesian]

modern media criticism and the strange inability to say ‘this piece of media accomplished what it set out to do, but i did not want or like that so it wasn’t for me’ instead of ‘it was bad’ is gonna drive me off the proverbial cliff one day

[mars-ipan]

some postgame doodles for pride month

[kyouka-supremacy]

The very opening in BEAST and the implications of The Heartless Cur about Akutagawa constantly stuck in a dissociated state as a child in the slums does incomprehensible levels of damage to my brain. Living in a state where you're always starving, always fighting for scraps, being beaten by adults, waking up next to dead friends, having to maim or potentially kill at such an early age, escaping from traffickers so often, etc. are all so horrific that it's no wonder why he was called a child without emotions. Having to experience the grief, pain, and terror as it comes and goes in his situation would be a kind of hell that would be impossible to survive. Part of his brain probably shut itself off to avoid any more pain and distress. I have so many thoughts about it. There is something extremely heartbreaking about how despite living completely dissociated from his emotions, and possibly pain --to the point that he stared off into empty space while being beaten, or couldn't even express enjoyment at warm meals-- his priority had always been taking care of and protecting Gin and his friends. The one panels where he (gently, i have to mention) holds his friend that had frozen to death in their sleep, and him cutting a man's arm off for harming his friends imply that he either had the responsibility or took it upon himself to deal with the difficult and dangerous stuff. I am in the trenches losing the idgaf war

Akutagawa, upon feeling rage and hatred for the first time, thinks, "I've gained the ability to feel. Therefore, I'm no longer a heartless cur." Implies that he probably didn't see himself as anymore human than anybody other adult, which, considering that is all he had been called, he probably internalized. His friends were capable of smiling and experiencing joy with each other and also capable of experiencing sadness too. Did he ever look at his friends having fun and think something was wrong with him to be unable to feel anything or express it if he did? How did he feel looking at his sister--his other half, the most important person - while trying his best to take care of her and be the best for her while not being all there? How does it affect him now? So many questions and I'm going insane about it. Sorry for dumping this onto you but I needed a victim

Anon, have mercy on me

I think that Gin is such an important part of Ryuunosuke's character exactly for that. It is impossible to transcend from it– if you forget about her, you're just failing to comprehend Ryuunosuke. Gin is literally the only factor that keeps Ryuunosuke human. We see him lash out and we see him howl and we see him being beaten up and we see him act with not an ounce of reason; for most of the story, we see nothing of Ryuunosuke but a rabid animal. But I think the moment he shows to truly care about Gin, that's the moment the reader starts perceiving him as human, as well as the moment we start feeling sympathy for him. Unexpectedly and unpredictably, he shows a side of him that isn't violent and bestial, a side of him that is caring, that is loving towards a family member, something that is easy to relate to; then, even him can be human. Even in the slums, even when everything else of him seems numb and detached and heartless, he still cared for his family first. He still made flowers with his ability and retaliated against anyone who mistreated his siblings. When one of his friends got hurt, he carried them on his back. When a dog killed his friend, he mercilessly slaughtered all the dogs in the vicinity. What's that, if not the only way someone who never knew anything but violence and pain has left to express love?

Of course Ryuunosuke had internalized his being not human, of course he believes that. Of course he's the first who considers himself a dog. But that's what makes Ryuunosuke's character development so meaningful, isn't it? Isn't that true that it wouldn't result as impactful if such a strong ability to hate and such a strong ability to love didn't come from a place of true incapacity to feel? It is, alright, a simplistic perspective, but Ryuunosuke's story really is the succession of quests that have him gain emotions, and with every new one he becomes a little more human, till he's reached the fulfillment of his being. Maybe love really is the ultimate thing that makes us human.