#against the spread
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Against the Spread
by CammiKazzie
Bulla Briefs knows men and knows they can’t resist her. She’s run the gamut of human males and they all have one thing in common, an insatiable desire for sex and her. That’s why she doesn’t believe Trunks when he says his best friend Goten is a virgin and won’t fall victim to her charms. Trunks says Goten is incorruptible but Bulla disagrees. With their prides on the line, the Briefs siblings are betting on whether Goten is just like any other man. Trunks thinks he’s got this on lock, but even the low odds won’t deter Bulla’s confidence.
Words: 536, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English
Fandoms: Dragon Ball
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: F/M
Characters: Bulla Briefs, Son Goten, Trunks Briefs
Relationships: Bulla Briefs/Son Goten, Bulla Briefs & Trunks Briefs, Chi-Chi & Son Goten
Additional Tags: Loss of Virginity, Virgin Goten, Experienced Bulla, Betting, Humor, Romance, Age Difference, Aged-Up Character(s), Raunchy scenes to follow, Gambling, Cat and Mouse, Maneater Bulla
from AO3 works tagged 'Bra Briefs/Son Goten' https://ift.tt/ruO0twZ via IFTTT
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Hey, if you have half a minute and care about the LGTBQIA+ community in the EU, I'd suggest you take a look at this initiative to ban conversion therapies in the EU.
1 million people are required to sign, but there's barely 100k. The form takes less than a minute, it only requires your ID, name and surname.
Please, help spread the initiative so that it can reach the goal ASAP! If you're not from the EU and can't sign, at least reblog! Thanks in advance.
#lgbtq community#queer#queer community#eu initiative#Europe#mine#please share#please spread#against conversion therapies#ban conversion practices#lgbtq rights
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Taking a moment to honor all the fallen journalists who gave their lives in order to document the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank; wishing all of those who have evacuated a safe journey onwards, and thanking those who are currently still working in the field.
#free palestine#from the river to the sea#free gaza#gaza#palestine#rafah#all eyes on rafah#all eyes on palestine#gazaunderattack#i may not be able to do much#but i can make art to help spread awareness and thank those who have given their lives#the sun will rise over palestine once more#art#artist#palestine art#art for palestine#artists against apartheid#artists for palestine#ceasefire#ceasefire now#gaza journalists#palestine press#palestine journalists
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REPLICA'S PATREON IS FINALLY HERE!
You’ve asked for it and now that I am back I can finally put some wonderful treats up on my brand new Patreon including a sneak peek to the next Replica update, some sketches, and Part 1 of a short story focused on Replica Donnie:
"The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Data"
It centers around Donnie's journey towards becoming the powerhouse we know in Replica as well as the drastic steps he takes in the early months of the Krang invasion to achieve his lofty goals.
NOTE: I highly recommend signing up on a browser or desktop (not on an iPhone) due to extra fees that were recently applied.
2ND NOTE: while some things such as the Replica page WIP will eventually make their way onto my Tumblr, the sketches and these short stories will stay exclusive to Patreon for the time being. This is because most of the content on my Patreon will be focusing on sensitive themes of war, a deeper look into the characters, and maybe even a bit of romance. All things I doubt would have been touched on in the Rise canon. So think of it as just extra fluff for readers who want more secret lore from this universe. If any of these themes DO interest you then please consider checking it out HERE! (I might bring it onto Kofi, in the future if people have trouble accessing it.)
#also you'll finally get to learn what happened in Shanghai#but later... that's a story for another day#also a reblog of this would mean a lot so as to spread the word#fight against the algorithm haha#I'm still very new to all this so please forgive me as this is all a learning process#Patreon#rottmnt replica#replica#rottmnt#kathaynesart#save rottmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#unpause rise of the tmnt#tmnt#unpause rottmnt#Donnie#replica Donnie
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Cynicism is the death of democracy.
Break the Spell.
#dumptrump#break the spell#spread the truth#against trump#fuck trump#resistance#church of permanent revolutionary blisss#roe roe roe your vote#vote 2024#vote biden#vote democrat#vote blue#please vote#go vote#get out the vote
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Okay but it's super interesting how
Din = Power = Ganondorf
Naryu = Wisdom = Zelda
Farore = Courage = Link.
Because Din, in the hylian creation myth, created the physical world. Naryu then created the laws - gravity, time, etc. And Farore finally created life - plants and people.
Din created the body, naryu the mind, Farore the soul.
And the triforce and its wielders so perfectly reflect that.
Ganon is physical power, he is big and intimidating and he breaks things. He is cunning and determined, but that's not what he focuses on. He is might makes right.
Zelda is wisdom and cleverness. She is stall tactics and information and team work. She is a powerful mage with a spine of steel, but that's not how she'll win. She is the pen being mightier than the sword.
Link is courage and persistence. He is the wild card sneaking behind enemy ranks, always moving, plunging into terrifying situations head first. He's a phenomenal fighter with a keen wit, but that's not what will get him through his challenges. He is bravery not being the absence of fear but the triumph over it.
They sit in perfect parallels to each other.
And ganon is reborn through his body - his resurrection is immortality. No matter how low he is cast, as long as he has a body he can claw his way back. He can cling to his power, build it ever higher.
Zelda is reborn through the magic of her bloodline. It's the accumulated knowledge handed down for generations, the unique power she must master, the skills she must develop to survive and get her kingdom out the other side intact. Even her name, the knowledge of herself, is handed down from all the way from the very first. Her ancestors knowledge of her future presence, her stability, is what gives her the edge.
Link is reborn in spirit. He is not bound by flesh or blood. Just like his wanderlust soul he can reappear in any time or place. His variation, his unpredictability, is exactly how he fights. It's what makes him so hard to pin down.
Ganons need to build strength means he can't chase after link. Links impulsiveness means zelda can outwit him. Zeldas stationary predictability means she's an easy target for ganon.
But the other direction?
Fire melts ice, ice redirects lightning, lightning burns fire.
And that's the very essence of the triforce.
#It's little details spread across the games like this that just makes it work so WELL it's SO COOL#They're all great at all parts of the triforce but they CHOOSE to focus on the path most meaningful to them#And that's literally reflected in their unique cycles of reincarnation isn't that just AMAZING#And that's why the team up is so important! If they were all working against each other they'd be locked spinning their wheels#If zelda and ganon teamed up link would immediately die and if link and ganon teamed up zelda would instantly perish#It's the link zelda team up that means ganon is the one who kicks it#Also the elemental thing was cool but they do jump around a bit. Like wind is there half the time#In botk the gerudo have lightning and the goron have fire. Farosh still has lightning tho and dinraal fire#In ss lanaryu was the lightning and faron had water like its all over the place thematically. And that's when it's only 3!#Don't even get me started on the 5/7 lots notankyu#But that's the most common group and it's also thematically accurate#Fire being the only one able to self perpetuate with fuel. Can be banked up again. Ice compresses with time but needs the right environment#Lightning go boom 👍 you can feel the static in the air but you don't know when/where it'll strike and then it's all over#Like fr it's hilarious zelda and ganon are playing the long game and link runs past eats all the pieces and while ganons yelling after him#Zelda checkmates his king. And nobody can prove she wasn't cheating because nobody was looking lmao#Ah the duality of metaphors#ANYWAY isn't that so neat???#Reason no.372 why rhoam was a terrible king he didn't just screw up he did it ✨thematically✨#If link had been allowed to run off and get dirty and if zelda was allowed to study her interest (like post kingdom fall FOR EXAMPLE)#They'd have won (like aoc) but nooooooo. I've already made a post (or 3) about it lmao I'll be quiet now#loz#legend of zelda#botw#triforce#loz link#the legend of zelda#zelda#loz botw#ganondorf#loz ganon
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#Eddie spread them even more after#wink wink#I can just imagine these two bitches fucking against a wall all of the sudden after realizing new kinks#Steve likes to be manhandled and Eddie likes to see pretty boys let out small noises of protest#GOOD KIND#AHH#steddie#I love these two#hairfreak#steve harrington#eddie munson#stranger things#incorrect quotes#pic#edit#steve x eddie#steddie fandom
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Humans are so cute. They think they can outsmart birds. They place nasty metal spikes on rooftops and ledges to prevent birds from nesting there.
It’s a classic human trick known in urban design as “evil architecture”: designing a place in a way that’s meant to deter others. Think of the city benches you see segmented by bars to stop homeless people sleeping there.
But birds are genius rebels. Not only are they undeterred by evil architecture, they actually use it to their advantage, according to a new Dutch study published in the journal Deinsea.
Crows and magpies, it turns out, are learning to rip strips of anti-bird spikes off of buildings and use them to build their nests. It’s an incredible addition to the growing body of evidence about the intelligence of birds, so wrongly maligned as stupid that “bird-brained” is still commonly used as an insult...
Magpies also use anti-bird spikes for their nests. In 2021, a hospital patient in Antwerp, Belgium, looked out the window and noticed a huge magpie’s nest in a tree in the courtyard. Biologist Auke-Florian Hiemstra of Leiden-based Naturalis Biodiversity Center, one of the study’s authors, went to collect the nest and found that it was made out of 50 meters of anti-bird strips, containing no fewer than 1,500 metal spikes.
Hiemstra describes the magpie nest as “an impregnable fortress.”
Pictured: A huge magpie nest made out of 1,500 metal spikes.
Magpies are known to build roofs over their nests to prevent other birds from stealing their eggs and young. Usually, they scrounge around in nature for thorny plants or spiky branches to form the roof. But city birds don’t need to search for the perfect branch — they can just use the anti-bird spikes that humans have so kindly put at their disposal.
“The magpies appear to be using the pins exactly the same way we do: to keep other birds away from their nest,” Hiemstra said.
Another urban magpie nest, this one from Scotland, really shows off the roof-building tactic:
Pictured: A nest from Scotland shows how urban magpies are using anti-bird spikes to construct a roof meant to protect their young and eggs from predators.
Birds had already been spotted using upward-pointing anti-bird spikes as foundations for nests. In 2016, the so-called Parkdale Pigeon became Twitter-famous for refusing to give up when humans removed her first nest and installed spikes on her chosen nesting site, the top of an LCD monitor on a subway platform in Melbourne. The avian architect rebelled and built an even better home there, using the spikes as a foundation to hold her nest more securely in place.
...Hiemstra’s study is the first to show that birds, adapting to city life, are learning to seek out and use our anti-bird spikes as their nesting material. Pretty badass, right?
The genius of birds — and other animals we underestimate
It’s a well-established fact that many bird species are highly intelligent. Members of the corvid family, which includes crows and magpies, are especially renowned for their smarts. Crows can solve complex puzzles, while magpies can pass the “mirror test” — the classic test that scientists use to determine if a species is self-aware.
Studies show that some birds have evolved cognitive skills similar to our own: They have amazing memories, remembering for months the thousands of different hiding places where they’ve stashed seeds, and they use their own experiences to predict the behavior of other birds, suggesting they’ve got some theory of mind.
And, as author Jennifer Ackerman details in The Genius of Birds, birds are brilliant at using tools. Black palm cockatoos use twigs as drumsticks, tapping out a beat on a tree trunk to get a female’s attention. Jays use sticks as spears to attack other birds...
Birds have also been known to use human tools to their advantage. When carrion crows want to crack a walnut, for example, they position the nut on a busy road, wait for a passing car to crush the shell, then swoop down to collect the nut and eat it. This behavior has been recorded several times in Japanese crows.
But what’s unique about Hiemstra’s study is that it shows birds using human tools, specifically designed to thwart birds’ plans, in order to thwart our plans instead. We humans try to keep birds away with spikes, and the birds — ingenious rebels that they are — retort: Thanks, humans!
-via Vox, July 26, 2023
#birds are literally learning how to better live/survive alongside us#this is like. actually kind of remarkable. and the technique is spreading including to other species.#is this hopepunk? it kinda feels like hopepunk to me.#animals are literally learning how to use our attempts to get rid of them against us#that's kind of amazing#and also VERY encouraging re: life's innate resilience#crows#magpie#corvid#crow#bird#bird nest#bird nerd#bird news#adaptation#urban animals#ornithology#climate adaptation#kinda#good news#hope#hope posting#hopepunk#animal intelligence#wildlife#animals are awesome
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Here's the thing that really broke me about the goyische left's response to the Hamas massacre: once again, the uncritical, antisemitic double standard for Israel and Jews versus literally anyone else has now expanded to assume that Jews do not deserve human rights or have lost them by virtue of being Israeli.
Let's say, for a moment, that you have been radicalized to really believe that the Hamas attack on civilians was a liberatory action, perhaps unfortunate that it targeted unarmed civilians, but what else were they supposed to do? Besides, Israel has visited similar and worse attacks on Palestine for years, so turnabout is fair play, especially in service of the struggle of liberation of a brutally oppressed group. [To be clear: I take issue with this and find it morally repugnant. But for the moment, let's accept arguendo this belief as a baseline.]
Do you really include rape, torture, killing children at all but especially in front of their parents, or killing parents in front of their children and taking hostages of the survivors, beheading infants, trapping and burning families hidden together alive, stripping and parading hostages naked through the street, mutilating and displaying the bodies of the dead proudly and celebrating their deaths, and doing all of this on a holy day where Jewish people the world over are supposed to be celebrating the end of the holiday season and the beginning of a new cycle of Torah learning. On a day that people will be resting, with their families, unarmed and in their holy spaces, and are explicitly commanded to be happy.
.......amongst the "unfortunate-but-necessary violent struggle?"
Like even if you believe in your heart of hearts that all Israelis should die or at least are acceptable casualties in the struggle, do you really believe that there is any excuse for the above atrocities? If you do, I need you to ask yourself some things:
Do you think there is any justification for the manner and cruelty of the deaths?
Do you really think that there is anything a person could do in order to deserve any of these actions as a sentence?
Was the cruel nature of this, designed to inflict the greatest amount of trauma on the survivors and the Jewish people at large, actually necessary to accomplishing the goal of liberation?
Would you accept any of these actions being done to any other group?
If you are a white American, do you think you personally deserve this yourself for everything the United States has done to the native population (never mind anyone else)?
Do you think that civilians can be held 100% accountable for their government's actions? Is that a standard you yourself would like to be judged by?
If context is important, how is the last 2000 years of brutal antisemitism from virtually every part of the world not also relevant context? How is the Holocaust not relevant? The Farhud?
Do you think refugees fleeing genocide should be able to live wherever they can and that other countries and peoples have a duty to step up and take them in? If so, would you call refugees of genocide colonists and settlers?
Do you think that children should have to answer for the crimes of adults? That it is ever okay to kill them in cold blood?
Do you think that non-combatant deaths should ever be celebrated?
Theoretically, if the only way Hamas could accomplish its goal (which we will assume arguendo is Palestinian liberation, despite the mounds of evidence against that) is to kill whatever Israelis they could get their hands on, don't you think that a valid liberation force would just kill people as efficiently as possible rather than take the time to brutalize and humiliate them first? Wouldn't that be the more morally understandable thing to do?
Do you think it's ever okay to mock or talk down to people grieving their dead, no matter who they were, especially if they were random citizens rather than, say, high-profile politicians?
These questions to me are unanswerable and the fact that they are even in question at all unjustifiable. The left has either actively participated in this or remained silent in the face of it. And too many friends who I thought were allies have failed to reach out to even ask if we're okay, let alone made even the weakest of condemnations of the brutality my people have experienced this week.
This tells me that you think my humanity, as a Jew, is conditional. That my right not to experience war crimes is up for debate.
How am I supposed to trust you ever again? Feel safe in your presence? Collaborate with you on other issues? Why should I?
For the people who are posting about the situation yet failed to condemn the torture and brutality against my people, please know that I will likely never fully believe you that you are for restorative justice, against the death penalty, against cruel and unusual punishment, against sexual violence, for children's rights and against the murder of children, against terrorism, against civilian casualties, for the rights and protection of refugees, for freedom of movement, support indigenous groups, and certainly certainly anyone claiming to be against antisemitism. There will forever and always be an asterisk next to your statements in favor of universal human rights which reads: *except Jews.
#if you are my friend and you haven't even said one thing about the victims not deserving this#yet are posting about the situation#we are not on good terms right now#like I understand staying out of it entirely in your posting if you are worried about spreading misinformation#but I see those of you reblogging things justifying the brutal violence against my people#I am hurt and I am angry and I am heartbroken#if you read this and know this is you feel free to reach out if you want to work on it#but there is going to be a *long* road to teshuva#I actively feel unsafe around you right now#I should not have had to say any of this for you to care#resisting the urge to tag specific people#I won't name names publicly - you know who you are
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Do It For Her.
Let them ascend to their final form by making sure she wins #1 mcyt sexyman.
#zombiecleo#andy rambles#hermitcraft#3rd life smp#last life zombiecleo#last life smp#mcyt sexyman#mcyt sexyman poll#feel free to repost these anywhere you want to help spread the propaganda just remember to credit#also made this in preparation of tmmrws fight against pearl. i love pearl but dont fail me now people#memes#hermitcraft memes
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I'm pretty much the worst person to even weigh in on this topic because I've been partial to Suvi since day one, but in my opinion there wasn't ever a need to explain or justify Suvi's choices/reactions.
Not because she's perfect, never wrong (though in my heart I know...) but because I'm very certain that the people that keep on hammering on her mistakes/shortcomings/tendencies are people that already dislike Suvi (or don't like Aabria very much, I wish this wasn't a topic of consideration but even 30+ eps in there's still people like that around) for whatever reason and gather excuses to justify their bias against her and no amount of explanation will turn their hearts in her favour.
It really feels like a parallel to the way Suvi herself tries to be understood by her friends and yet she fails time and time again.
And people insist on forgetting that Suvi is not the Citadel, she's just one young wizard of the Citadel.
And it's gut-wrenching how much I relate to that feeling of alienation before every corner she tries to fit in: amongst her citadel peers she's othered by her position and privilege, and now by her friendship to a witch and a spirit; between her friends she's the odd-one-out because of her Citadel connections and the nature of her power; and now amongst the witches she stands out by being the face of the "enemy".
I don't blame her for clinging to the little corner of the world that has not made her feel foreign despite the very nature of her presence: in Steel's family whom she's not related to by blood, yet completely by heart.
And it'll never be a fair game. The girls especially are very young and with new-found independence, they're given colossal decisions to make, and that before beings older than three generations of them combined and incomprehensively more powerful and less empathic.
As much as Mirara wants there to be a good witch and bad witch, there's no such thing as black and white, there are decisions and consequences, what one does with the power they're given. There is no right or wrong in a fight filled with so much heart, there was never a world where a fight between Ame and Suvi would be clean.
#wbn spoilers#worlds beyond number#wwwo spoilers#I don't know of the opinions spread on tumblr but reddit is doing what it always does#at no point there was in my mind a 'suvi vs ame' mentality#as the philosophers say: why pit two bad bitches against each other?#they'll always be stronger together and not apart#and yet people are crying screaming over people who like or try to see Suvi's side#'oh so you're defending fascism?' like shut up this is a RPG podcast#if you don't like suvi just say it as it is instead of trying to shame who like her through petty essays#people are trying to simplify something that is so vastly nuanced and complex with a billion factors to consider#people discuss about those girls on reddit like it's politics. it's nightmarish#suvirin kedberiket#suvi the wizard#ame the witch#rambles#rantish#long post#(( worth mentioning I don't have insight from fireside chats. so this is going off on the campaign alone ))
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the VAST MAJORITY of teenage girls are actually very nice and doing their best and even when they ARE mean, it's typically because of the stress of going through an incredibly transformational developmental period while having 6833487 responsibilities and no basic human rights. like now that i'm nearing 30 i have a great deal more love and understanding about this than i did as a kid, you will Never catch me dragging/demonizing teen girls for buying into harmful tiktok and instagram trends or whatever. They Are Doing Their Best .
with that said.
it WAS pretty funny going thru adolescence in the late aughts / early 10s when the most mainstream teen music was demi lovato's "who says i can't wear my converse with my dress" stuff.
because EVERY girl who was ever mean to me LOVED that "i'm a brave trendsetting individual who can Be Myself even if other people Don't Understand Me" pop music....
....while also being like "oh, that girl is CREEPY. don't you know she listens to METAL. and is UGLY. and doesn't TRY TO LOOK PRETTY. and is WEIRD. and UGLY. and SHE LISTENS TO METAL...."
#teen politics are so funny in retrospect. of all the shit that doesnt matter at all this was PEAK shit that didnt matter at all#13-year-old metalheads who dont wear makeup are so brave. spread the word.#the linkin park post made me think of this.#now to be clear: i was NOT the only metalhead at school. there were MANY very cool alt girls mostly from the trailer park who i was like.#desperately in love with. and remain desperately fond of to this day.#none of them were ever mean to me though. meanness was exclusively reserved for demi lovato and justin bieber fans#again nothing against these fans. 80% of girls at school listened to these artists bc thats what being a pop musician is#and MOST OF THEM WERE NOT MEAN AT ALL. but FISJDJDBDHBFB. GOD.
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In Light of Mamoru Miyano Being Mario's VA for the Movie
The Reference
#super mario bros#super mario#Mario#Luigi#paper mario#shadow queen#The blocks fit perfectly well I JUST have to#mario movie#like come on!#this is so funny#and also the fact that Luigis VA voice Kaminari from MHA is also perfect as well#I never watched Death Note But I know a lot about Mario lol#I was tempted to make Luigi's T-shirt black but decided that the white T was more iconic-#at least he got some green pants#I was also tempted to put king boo instead of the shadow queen but decided against it to spread paper mario propaganda /j#super mario bros movie#tearosepedall#art
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The more hate I read, the more I feel the need to say something about it.
Hate says much more about the people who spew it than about the person it is directed at.
People who think they have the right to publicly embarrass others are usually unhappy with themselves and feel bad about themselves, so to compensate they make other people feel bad too.
I always wonder what kind of satisfaction that is supposed to be.
I would much rather make people happy.
But what I understand even less is why do you spew hate at an actor you don't even know personally?
It's easy and there's no consequence to be expected.
It's spineless!
This hate is causing L to be just as reluctant to engage in SM as he has been for the past few weeks AND this hate is causing N to apparently feel compelled to defend him, which then leads to more hate. What's wrong with the world?
Love more!♥️ Love is so much easier and more beautiful than hate and feels so good when giving!
We need more love in the world, because hate leads to war and I thought we already had enough of that in real life
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Intimate Whumpers who discover Whumpee’s deepest fear and dig their fingers into the wound.
#Whumpees accidentally revealing their phobia and Whumper latching onto the information#or Whumper prying the information out of Whumpee and watching the regret spread across their face#either way Whumper has something personal to Whumpee and they have no problem using it against them#whump
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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).
#I'm kind of fascinated by the quasi-religious beliefs that have developed around recreational hallucinogen use (ESPECIALLY DMT)#In contrast to like. Uses of DMT-containing substances like ayahuasca for long-established religious purposes#So this concept is basically 'what if a religion was FORMED from pretty much the ground up out of DMT usage'#Like the common 'entities' people encounter in recreational use being identified as the Real Gods and producing a religious worldview#that is mostly rooted in this experience (while still influenced by other cultural factors)#Also the like. Meta going on here is that the fungus is a 'living god' and the oldest one on the planet#It is a VERY rare type of living god that is 'created' by non-sophont (non-sentient even) beings and exists as a mycelial network#that perfectly supports and protects an entire forest. Basically a god for plants. It is so deeply interconnected with its forest that the#usual power sophont belief would have over it has basically zero influence. This is absolutely the closest thing to A God in canon.#(While still not being a Creator/sapient/or even supernatural within the framework of this reality. Just VERY unique.)#The Ur-Tree has always been above water and grows very very slowly over the course of millenia by kind of 'pulling up' plant life from#the ground (so you see ancient long extinct plants in its higher branches and contemporary plants close to/on the ground)#The mycelium helps shield and feed extinct plant life that could not otherwise survive in the contemporary environment#And the forest is big enough to produce its own weather (it is a rainforest and has been ever since the capacity for rainforests Existed)#It's not really a tree at all in any normal sense but an amalgam of thousands of types of plants-#Some growing on top of others and some interwoven beyond any distinction. It does form a superficially treelike structure#(mostly in order to physically support its own mass) with a very wide 'trunk' and massive 'roots' (which end in actual roots).#It feeds on its own perpetually shedding and decaying 'body' and any animal life that dies in the forest is VERY rapidly#decayed and absorbed by the mycelial network (to the point that many large scavengers cannot survive in this forest)#(If you kill a cow and leave it on the ground for just 1/2 hour you'll see little strands of mycelium already growing up around it)#The fungus fruits and spores on a very infrequent basis (scale of ten-thousands of years) which causes the forest to very slowly spread#Fortunately this isn't really an existential threat because the spread is VERY slow (even on a geological scale) and the fungus#itself is rather mundane in nature and cannot usually compete against established fungal networks in other places.#Though there are little Ur-Tree mycelium groves and woodlands in other parts of the world that may (over untold millennia)#generate their own Ur-Trees (there's already a few but they are all MUCH smaller and not readily recognized as the same thing)#WRT THE TRIP:#Most of what I'm describing is a DMT trip but consumption of high doses of Ur-Tree mycelium has both mundane psychoactive effects#and IS kind of the person experiencing the fungus' entire lifetime and seeing flashes of the world's actual evolutionary history.#The amount of material knowledge that can be accurately gleaned from this this is VERY limited though.
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