#especially from its creators

[tabletoplife]

Also mini rant incoming!l

Critical Role put out this great adventure right, Call of the Netherdeep, we've all heard about it by now played it by now blah blah blah.

And they put out miniatures like a whole little line of them that I bought at my local game store cool cool cool

Soooo where are the Netherdeep minis?!

These are not your everyday monsters people!! Like:

Best I got is the brain bug from starship troopers 😔 and now I got this vagina face monster I just know my players are gonna giggle at all night. The struggle is real Mathew Mercer.

Why is all realm would you write this gorgeous adventure with all these great custom aquatic monsters and not put out a line of Netherdeep minis.

You know what I don't need, half a dozen boxes of extra bs NPCs or random monsters

No one needs this, it's so random and pointless and I hate it 😵‍💫😤

Where are the Sorrow Fish, Deaths Embrace, Light Devourers, and Slithering Bloodfins?! Ruidium corrupted Sharks?!? Hello?? And Wizards of the Cost you suck too nearly every other campaign book got exclusive or named miniatures printed! Where are the Natherdeep ones?! I cannot be the only one screaming about this!

And you know I thought being a CR fan that one they must not have out out minis because of maybe spoilers that would happen for campaign 3 but that's clearly not the case at this point!

[juniemunie]

"Why am I still doing this?"

"Don't you get it?"

"This is all just a show... and we're playing parts~"

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[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).

[artofapeach]

Actually laughing so hard, Pav truly is a poor little meow meow, doomed by the narrative, 100% asshole, fuck your redemption you bitch

[hermitcraftx]

just got a dm abt one of my posts and y'all please don't try and show the hermits (or any minecraft youtuber or content creator for that matter) my posts, i'm uncomfortable with it and don't want any of my posts shown to a cc. if they stumble upon it naturally that's unfortunate but i can live with it since i do maintag a lot (something i REALLY need to stop doing tbh i already know i need to make a tagging system just for my blog that wont clog results) but going out of ur way to show a cc is entirely different and something i am not comfortable with.

no hate to the person at all but even if i wasn't a little silly and weird with it sometimes i wouldn't be comfortable with it, i want my blog to be a purely fandom only space with none of the creators involved <3 please respect this

[lovetogether]

Something we liked about mouthwashing is that it had characters which fit into the “ostracized by society” group but made it very clear these people were much different from the actual perpetrator. It’s too often “social fuck-ups” are lumped together, giving true abusers a place to hide. Pointing that shit out as what it is and that it’s very much NOT the same as, say, being an alcoholic, meant a lot to us. One is a place somebody lands in, the other is an act the person in question has full control over.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

aaaand immediately after answering that ask i got one pretty much saying what it is. thankfully tumblr blurs pictures in asks until you click on em so That wasn't spoiled for me but still. cmon

[jinxedshapeshifter]

the amount of "actually Billford isn't canon because Bill was using him for his own gain" i've seen on Twitter is fucking insane. I HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN GRAVITY FALLS. I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. but "it isn't canon because character A is using character B as a tool" is NOT how you determine whether something's canon or not lol.

list of ships that fall under "one of them is just using the other"/"this is so obviously one-sided in some way for the sake of proving a point:

Lloyd and Harumi from Ninjago (arguably)

Kai and Skylor, also from Ninjago, started out as "Skylor's using Kai's attraction to her against him to manipulate him" then turned into a genuine relationship because Skylor was also being manipulated and used

I THINK this was the case with Tigerstar and Leopardstar in the first Warriors arc but I might be misremembering

The Erazor Djinn and Shahra from Sonic and the Secret Rings

Angel and Val from Hazbin Hotel

This kind of dynamic is implied on some level in Helluva Boss with Chaz's relationships with Moxxie and Millie

a relationship being one-sided or manipulative doesn't suddenly make it not canon. hell, someone can be manipulative towards someone they genuinely love. manipulation in fictional relationships doesn't indicate their level of canonicity, it just means the relationship isn't healthy

[motherforthefamicom]

uhhhhbbhhhhh shitty art dump cuz i kinda hate posting art individually 👍

[faerociousbeast]

unpopular opinion but i dont care that homestuck throws away a lot of its own writing to instead make fun of the fanbase. like yeah honestly its deserved

[themyscirah]

Reading shit comics kind of sucks but at least I get the satisfaction of proving my own point w this

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

You know, I'm glad that some of us take the step to embrace things that we like even if they're "cringe" or "objectively bad"

But perhaps we could take the next step forward and embrace the idea of reading into books/shows/movies/etc even if they don't seem deep. Perhaps we could understand that the two kinds of media aren't either "shallow and meaningless so you're weird and brainrotted to read into it" or "incredibly and profoundly deep in every way so if you don't analyze every single angle of the thing then you're brainrotted". Some media is deeper than others, but all I propose is that no matter how deep it seems it's acceptable to dig into the thing and take the media seriously instead of just assuming that because of ____ thing (such as target audience or how cringe it is) the media not deep and will never be deep and everything good about it happened on accident.

[cowboy-robooty]

im so glad i live under a rock and never look at anybodys posts ever bc omfg me when gus shows me her feed and i keep getting mad like every 9 things i see because i go "thats from the dears outro. does anybody know thats from the dears outro. do they care" and keep seeing people use anime ops/eds or niconico douga meme songs thinking its a tiktok song and not from the source LIKE OMG. IM GOING TO KILL EVERYBODY AND THEN MYSELF.

[regulusrules]

Internally screaming and crying in awe from my friend who sent me this fanart telling me how much it screamed My heart is readily yours for her. Like imagine you find a brilliant mind out there thinking of something so similar to your fic, but they're just so much more talented because they described it in imagery rather than in words🥹

Art: He's my friend by kneelmortals @writingupsidedown

[walker-lister]

I just have to remind myself sometimes that no matter what anyone else says, the way a piece of media makes me feel and the positive impact it has had on my queer identity is valid, and that tearing myself apart thinking I have to defend it or questioning my own place within queer communities is not at all important when compared to the almost tangible sense of 'rightness' that piece of media helped me to feel about myself.