#the thousands of years of experiences

[totem-but-shark]

I have to give props to foolish for the way he plays qfoolish because whether intentionally or not he really sells the vibe of an ancient immortal character, though not in the expected sense. Where other immortal characters may become jaded by a life so long qfoolish is literally just chilling, he's seen it all before and so can't be shaken so easily. Moments that to other mortal characters are earth shattering are just another Tuesday for him, funny even.

Despite this he's no less enthusiastic for life, he wakes up every morning and simply lives, as he has done for an unknowable amount of days prior.

It's fascinating, hes able to roll with every punch and shrug off every struggle with a laugh. Why should he be upset? in the grand scheme of everything he's lived through it's not even a blip, why cant it be funny instead?

But this makes it so much more impactful when he DOES care, the rare moments where he is affected are heart wrenching when contrasted with his usual easygoing happy-go-lucky laissez-faire attitude. There's something raw and human to me in the way that for however long he's lived he still feels, he loves and grieves. He still lives and so he still feels.

Anyways stan an unbothered king

[linkedin-offficial]

more vivian things

[bixels]

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

[tokkimins]

honk shoo… mimis time

[i-am-trans-gwender]

One time I came out as trans to someone and they said "Cool, just like Vivian."

On one hand this shows the power of positive representation, on the other hand "Bro only knows trans people from Mario."

[missd476]

I had the urge to try watercolors again. Even if I'm not good at it.

[igneouswyvern]

when sorey said "i won't let you be my sub lord because this isn't your dream and i don't want you getting roped into something you don't personally believe in" and mikleo came back with divine artifact in hand and strengthened resolve to become a sub lord and he said "this is my dream too" but what he really meant was "you are my dream." and "you are my everything. your dreams are my dreams. your beliefs are my beliefs. and i would go to the ends of the earth and back just to be with you. and i would give my life and my everything just to see your dreams realized because i know it means the world to you and you are the world to me."

and when sorey says "i want to create a world where humans and seraphim can coexist" he means "my bond with mikleo is so great that i believe every human should have the opportunity to have a bond like that. everyone should get to have what i have. humans and seraphim were meant to be together and i know this because mikleo and i were meant to be together. and i would go to the ends of the earth and back and give up everything if it means the rest of the world has a chance at someday having what i have. because every human deserves a mikleo."

mikleo's "i would give the world for you" and sorey's "i need to give you to the world."

[fistfuloflightning]

When even a Fury’s strength may wane

[twentytwoarts]

i feel different but the same but different but the same

[mizushidokoro]

I think the most obvious reason yuta does not have access to Gojo’s memory is because this is his first time using kenjaku’s technique and he likely can’t use it perfectly without practice

[ilumel]

— never underestimate a cornered mandalorian.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Withers tells Durge they shouldn't get their memories back because it would drive them insane.

Pretty sure from context that Larian intends that to mean it as in they wouldn't be able to cope with the guilt (even though it's entirely possible to still be an evil jackass at this point), but I'm just looking at Durge's backstory - both the canon components and the headcanon - and going 'yep.'

Loss of identity is traumatic, but probably not as traumatic as knowing all that *gestures at the backstory snippets* intimately instead of knowing of it in abstract.

[supermair0]

Wanted to play around with the big lines i did for the pride piece more so i drew vivian paper mario the thousand year door ttyd again yippee

[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).

[aureliaeiter]

This is the dumbest thing ever but on Wednesday I dreamt of Apollo's red dodge ball.

You know, this thing?

It was sitting in my sofa. Just there. Chilling.

I woke up like what TF did that mean

[waywardsalt]

the only minecraft movie i want to see is the one i found on yt several years ago and have been trying to track down again ever since

edit: i think i finally found the video i was looking for. win