#consumption experience

[skunkes]

something about really really liking something or a character or media or wanting to make art abt an event in your life or anything but not knowing what makes a good piece or how to make a good beautiful meaningful piece

[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).

[hilacopter]

no babe you can form your own opinions you've just learned to automatically check what other people think and form them in accordance in fear of having the "wrong" ones and have hindered your own critical thinking as a result

[mirendils]

you need to read stories about people who are nothing like you. you should not be looking for yourself in every text. the point of stories is to illuminate you to new perspectives. to make you ponder/question/wonder. you have to be willing to open yourself up to seeing through the eyes of a character you can't immediately relate to

[cupidswurld]

thinking about supernaturals circular narrative. how i don’t (and won’t) watch sitcoms because of the conventions of a circular narrative.

the parallels of how characters are reduced into one-dimensional imitations of who the audience perceived them to be, boiled down into their most defining, dividing traits— a phenomenon exclusive to the intrinsic nature of sitcoms. thinking about how everything that is learnt in one episode, is forgotten in the next— how there is no progress, how there is no change and everything will always, always stay the same for the sake of the audience where nothings new.

part of why dean felt he wouldve been better off dead, about why he didnt deserve to be saved, was because he could never make any difference. how they were trapped by the same story, over and over again, that nothing mattered no matter what he did, because he'd just end up in the very same position he was 15 years ago. even before the insertion of chuck's storyline, before freewill, the pervasive hand of the writers have always held them down from the very first episode

[total-drama-brainrot]

living in my echo chamber in this fandom. everyone complains about all of the character hate and stans and shipping discourse meanwhile i'm seeing none of this. just gay little characters on my screen. sometimes they kiss.

[madbrake]

Might fuck around and post some of my old short fiction and actually start a comic next year 🤔

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

feeder fetishist is disgusted by unethical and politically problematic practitioners of his repulsive fetish

oh he has more serious opinions

oh he's worried about lack of positive portrayals of his degenerate fetish in pop culture! this is literal violence and early stages of a genocide

for comparison his regular content

[cyndaquillt]

ORV's definitions of constellations and nebula are so counterintuitive to me as an astronomer that I have to turn my brain dictionary off while reading it

[zellink]

literally costs 0 dollar to be nice online LMAOOO like yes I can tag my fanart as fanart but you’re rude so nope I don’t think I’ll do that. also I’ve blocked you so problem solved! no seeing my fanart at all;)

[sidewalkchemistry]

Exposing Scientific Dogmas: Rupert Sheldrake's Banned TED Talk

The talk was reshared again in a video by the YouTube channel "After Skool." It was based on his book The Science Delusion.

Here are the 10 Scientific Dogmas he listed (which could prevent science from greater discoveries and true scientific thinking since they create the default worldview of people worldwide):

#1 Nature is mechanical

#2 Matter is unconscious

#3 The laws of nature are fixed

#4 The total amount of matter and energy is always the same

#5 Nature is purposeless

#6 Biological hereditary is material

#7 Memories are stored inside your brain as material traces

#8 Your mind is inside your head

#9 Psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible

#10 Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works

[vveissesfleisch]

when you’re trying to focus on work but the most insultingly perfect song for the fic you just started writing that won’t stop plaguing your brain comes on shuffle and you have to take a moment (or 10) to just

[daincrediblegg]

my talents are wasted on being a student I should be doing video essays

[smoralcoral]

Lowkey hate mainstream production companies. Everything that comes out has this strange, fake, overly sanitized sheen to it. Now more than ever, support the creations of small, local artists and creators!

[rubberduckyrye]

Now that it's been a while since the song has been out, can I complain about the meaning of the song "Better off Worse" without people suggesting that I'm like, "defending people who cling onto bad feelings and dark songs without wanting to move on/letting the creator move on" or whatever?

[kuzzzma]

A friend is watching second season of Good Omens and at the top is a scene from Hell office.

I see no difference.

To put a positive spin on it: changes in office space for team in later episodes can be neatly tied up with a metaphor of Leo leaving his personal hell.