#WRT: Part 2

[journey-to-the-attic]

the new nightmare is cool but i think not putting them in hanfu was an missed opportunity

(+ long hair version that i wasn't as sure about)

[honeyblockm]

generalizing statements like 'all men are evil' are for sure wrong but also i think its important not to cut discussions of gender out of the picture esp bc they are extremely relevant in this case as misogyny is a big part of wilbur's abusive actions and the wider discussion of the. social environment of cc spaces that enables things like this. so.

[lamentable-comedy]

you know, that one story about a relationship between a guy with an unprecedented one of a kind power and his kind of dead love interest who wears a lot of fancy floral print outfits

(aka Simon Snow Pushing Daisies AU)

[starryoak]

Making memes out of my headcanons, part 3, swinging bats at hornets nests edition!

[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).

[lemongogo]

why do i love the conflict more than anything else . the misery . the incompatibility that spreads like oil slick . wanting so desperately for resolution that never comes . hmmm

[mr-magoriums-im-sorry-emporium]

on one hand, nobody is entitled to ai generated art because their disability prevents them from making it, because As It Stands Now, ai models are built off stolen artwork. there is not a SINGLE (publicly available at least) ai model trained off art that was willingly given to the model by the artist, and using the current models only helps exasperate this problem

on the other hand going "well i/this famous artist was disabled and THEY figured out how to make art, so its condescending to say that some disabled people CANT make art, and if ur disabled just figure it out :)" is the kind of rhetoric that time and time again hurts disabled people wrt the "well if THEY can do it, so can YOU" false dichotomy and really should not be used to make your point

& i say this as a disabled artist who absolutely does not like ai art, ESPECIALLY used in a commercial sphere. on paper it would be a fun Fucking Around Machine (esp if there was a bot trained on consentually aquired art) but capitalism requires every last scrap of revenue be squeezed out of anything like blood from a stone so we cant just have a fun thing to have a fun thing and we have shit things like it being a threat to peoples' liveliehoods and training it to mimic dead artists. and we cant really have the fun part without feeding into the bad part. what im saying is its a shame also maybe bootstrap theory is not good

[sweetmage]

I am genuinely sorry for people who aren't enjoying this game but I am having a ball in this bitch.

[jacksoldsideblog]

Chronological fight club playlist goes brr

[lorillee]

[delivish]

‎

[mifhortunach]

.

[starryoak]

Me: I am a totally reasonable person capable of accepting that some people won’t enjoy my favorite media and not freak out over that.

Someone: (expresses even a mildly negative opinion about Psychonauts)

Me: I am no longer reasonable, I am ready to murder.

[rexcaliburechoes]

the lyrics to detect my love sound oddly ominous, not gonna lie...

[thekissandcry]

okay I yelled a bit about the stuff I liked the most in s2 pt 1 now here's my obligatory cons post that'll be deleted in like three hours (I do this with any commentary here it's not that serious)

[beesarthur]

The X-Files, 6:4: Dreamland, part 1

What is the plot? Well, a lot of things become text, or become more textual here, starting with Scully voicing her concern that other people have "normal lives" with children and dogs and maybe she wants something like that. Mulder alleges that they do have a normal life, and, not ten minutes later, his life takes another turn for the very not-normal. It's a body swap! Mulder further messes up the marriage of the Area 51 employee everyone thinks he is, while Scully finds herself not only dealing with the case Mulder wanted to pursue near Area 51 in the first place, but with her own personal x-file of why the guy she thinks is still Mulder is acting so strangely!

What does this episode suggest about Mulder and Scully’s relationship with each other? Not-Mulder's behavior as his version of Mulder really highlights some things about Actual-Mulder's behavior. Actual-Mulder might have ever watched porn at work and has his clumsy flirting with Scully that sometimes seems inappropriate for their dynamic, but he doesn't slap Scully on the ass, as Not-Mulder does!! (Edited to add: ALSO, Mulder-as-Fletcher in part makes Fletcher's marriage situation worse due to sleeping in a recliner downstairs instead of in bed with Fletcher's wife. Of course, she thinks its her husband doing this and takes offense, but I would argue that Mulder doing that is respectful and responsible. And very unlike the way Fletcher-as-Mulder behaves towards Scully.) Actual-Mulder also, of course, doesn't kowtow (or even show average levels of deference, really) to his bosses, smoke Morleys, or hook up with FBI secretaries on his "lunch hour" (I don't think Mulder acknowledges conventions like lunch hours, anyway, which is a different problem). Scully immediately and repeatedly clocks the strange behavior, and confronts him about it, but is not ready to believe the body-swap premise (she has other theories), though maybe she starts to at the end.

Where are the aliens? well, what's going on at Area 51? All we see is workplace dysfunction, bright lights, and some more guys who love to destroy evidence