#just being slow in general

[lured-into-wonderland]

Got really captured by Nunnally's royal au and the associated world building so yes there comes the crown. Her crown. Though perhaps chess would be better?

[kandicon]

Actually I think it's severely underrated how fucking funny ejm Brian has the potential to be when there is no actual end. When he's just living on the ship on the day to day between stories and the like. Ends are so, so subjective when there are no wars or really even active society. Stuff like

Brian on his way to the kitchen to grab smth to feed the octokittens -> Jonny and Tim are arguing in front of the door -> he knows from experience that interrupting or trying to get by would only mean getting himself dragged into it -> the octokittens make (most) everyone happy and deserve to be fed food that won't immediately kill them -> conclusion: shoot both Jonny and Tim before they notice him so he can walk over their corpses to the fridge and get the octokittens food

[blueblurbbaskets]

there's something to be said about the way that the romance and love triangle was handled in JCVTU and how that's usually the aspect of the writing that gets the most criticism, however as a romance averse person I went into the show fully planning to ignore it anyway lol and personally I thought the show was fantastic

[art-from-the-juice-box]

gen loss dump part 2 :]

i have a gen loss playlist so the last two was me hitting randomize and drawing a pic based on the song before it finished. the second one technically isn’t that cause charlie’s inferno isn’t on apple music cause they hate me so it’s way more of the song out of spite because they wouldn’t give it to me.

[blissfulbluee]

how it feels when im rapidly approaching my 20s but i haven’t have the normal teen life, practically wasted my teen years, and have very little life experiences compared to everyone else

[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).

[lupinescribbler]

[okthatsgreat]

i’m realizing that one of my favorite ways to create a character is by first establishing a major flaw of theirs and then examining how that will inevitably fuck them up a bit. then fleshing them out from there

[goldkirk]

.

[aroaessidhe]

2025 reads / storygraph

The End Crowns All

sapphic YA reimagining of the fall of troy, from Cassandra & Helen’s POVs

Cassandra is offered the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but backs out on sleeping with him, and he curses her so that nobody believes her visions

Hera came to Troy for love, bringing a war in her wake, and while they initially hate each other, slowly a friendship and romance develops

as the war and political situation gets worse, they desperately try and save their city through the strands of fate they have access to, despite the fact that Troy is destined to fall

ace lesbian & bi MCs

[ghostcrows]

I was going to praise olive town for actually adding a decent amt of variety to the crafting and resources you can gather bc there actually is a fair bit more here than other hm/sos games ive played in that respect

But then I played thru one of the first events The Egg Hunt and you know what you don't even do you don't hunt eggs. You watch a cutscene of yourself hunting the eggs with these fuckass kids. L game

[rosecoloredknight]

How does someone overcome the fears of driving through the highways/interstates?

Asking for myself

[nexus-nebulae]

"why are you so worried abt random accidents, stuff like that rarely ever happens" well you see I'm too disabled to ever evacuate a situation on my own, so I'd rather be a safety advocate now than become a statistic later

[batberryparfait]

i feel nothing but neverending sympathy for basically everyone involved with Homestuck Beyond Canon. if you put me in a situation where a major, controversial plot point of my story was revealed through a fan-contest YEARS before it was actually going to be put into motion, and then i had to deal with people whinging and whining and complaining about it non-stop for YEARS despite the fact that it hasn't actually happened yet and they have no idea what i'm actually going to do with that plot point, i'd kill everyone in the room and then myself.

it's one thing to not like where the story's gone thus far, to be disinterested in post-canon, etc etc etc. totally fair. but holy shit can Homestuck fans realize that complaining about plot beats that HAVEN'T HAPPENED YET is fucking stupid??? you have no idea what's going to happen! you don't! you don't know how this story is going to go! you have your headcanons and theories and your wish-list of shit but you don't know the future and acting like you do is fucking stupid!!!! either let the story be told and save your bitching for when you actually HAVE something to bitch about, or just stop reading and posting about the comic you don't like!!!!!!!!

[sskk-manifesto]

!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[undermine-the-instinct]

Yeah yeah, college is great and all, but what do you mean you dont know what a protaganist or an antagonist is? What do you mean you dont know what a hyperbole or simile is???