#Slowly Decay

[fishbloc]

the trees still wither, with or without you

[kinerxy]

throws low quality werewolf jpg at you

[rubikor]

Thrain

design by @lycheesodas 🦋🖤

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #97

The Justice League fought hard against the anti ecto acts but unfortunately it wasn’t enough and the laws were passed anyways but not before a clause was added to them that states the JL had the right to pull a ghost out of a facility of they had potential to work for them. When they see the potential hero Phantom is caught by the GIW they of course do their best to acquire him. Unfortunately the government sees Phantom as JL property now instead of his own person. Phantom seemed content being trapped on the watchtower and explained it was better than whatever the GIW was planning. Superman thinks something weird is going on with the ghost as when he supposedly went to bed in the room he was assigned he’d temporarily gain a heartbeat again. Constantine is just glad the young prince hasn’t decided to kill anyone in the US congress yet for passing such a ridiculous law. Batman’s adoption senses are tickling.

[inthehouseoffinwe]

Angband falls. Beleriand sinks. And Maglor’s wandering when comes across an emaciated hand on the sea shore. Now, it’s not uncommon to see bodies and limbs especially with the mass death of so many orcs and elves killed in the War of Wrath.

But this one he recognises.

The ring bearing the star of the Crown Prince turned King, at the time only recently given by a dying father to his eldest son. The misshapen gold from a young nephew learning his craft, worn with pride even in the darkness of Beleriand. Favoured gemstones embedded in a more elegant ring given by a younger brother as a gift for reaching the highest level of scholarship.

But he wouldn’t need any of that. Not really. Because even scarred and bloodied and shrivelled as it is, Maglor recognises the hand of his eldest brother, left in an iron shackle on the heights of Thangorrodrim.

A hand taken trophy by a Vala and enchanted never to decay. A prize with a place of honour in Morgoth’s Iron Hell.

A hand that’s all Maglor has left of his older brother.

Cradling the slowly decaying flesh, Maglor slowly works at pulling off the iron cuff, careful not to damage Nelyo’s hand any further. It takes days. Weeks. But he refuses to make another mark on it. When it finally comes off, he tosses the cursed object to the depths of the sea, and for the first time, leaves the shore.

Ulmo watches as the Singer makes his way inland, single minded focus driving him away from his lamentation. Maglor walks and walks, weeks, months, all the while carefully protecting the last piece of his brother. The Vala of the Oceans isn’t the only one watching as he stumbles and falls and fights what orcs remain with terrifying fervour until he at last reaches what he’s looking for.

A fiery chasm. One of few left in an almost sunken Beleriand. Just big enough to do what’s needed.

Kneeling at the edge, he holds the hand to his chest, and for a moment it’s like Nelyo is there with him, promising it will be ok. It’s all the courage he needs.

When Maglor falls, he doesn’t feel fear. Pain. Grief. Or even the fire.

Only his brother welcoming him home.

[shelfperson]

this too is yuri

[kimquatz]

i think it's so fucked up i bought a gamer laptop in hopes of it being pretty sturdy only for it to kaput on me in two years LMFAO

[lazylittledragon]

wow the years really don't stop coming and they don't stop coming

[leighsartworks216]

I say I'm working on a fic and immediately lose all interest in writing it

vs

I don't say anything about the fic to anyone and slowly lose all interest in writing it

[chirpfinch]

pd update. the fuckinggg animated bit after wiwi punched the wall to death. holyy fuck. what do you Mean his body is decaying. him not being able to become tangible enough for dakota to comfort him the way he’s trying to. vyn and dakota both trying the whole time to make physical contact with him anyway. ohhhhh this is sickening

[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).

[nonbinaryaubrey]

ok super rough doodle SO SORRY but now im thinking abt the skeletons in the abyss now. that one aubrey skeleton.. do they decay you think?

[roboyomo]

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

[crabuncle]

thinking about characters so wretchedly in love and so terrified of being alone that they commit world destroying and self annihilation just to bring their beloved back to them

[holymotherstick]

mmmm thinking ab .. a spooky deltarune au.. kris died and the body is still being forced to move from the possessed soul thats staying together from the players determination.. lots of zombie imagery

[caterpillarinacave]

the most accidentally hilarious moment in NATM 3 is as the tablet is dying and Larry is cradling Dexter while the audience has this clear view of Ahkmenrah, a teenager who was murdered thousands of years ago, is very, very, slowly collapsing to the floor as his body reverts to a decayed mummified corpse. And nobody acknowledges it.