I’m Back To My Roots (being Sad About The Asl Brothers)

yeah so black sails huh?

Instead of sleeping on the floor consider this

sometimes i wish the gay people in my phone were gay people in my house. where i could give them snacks and blankets and hear the sound of their laughter

A Bit of Mirkwood World Building:

The amethyst deceiver mushroom, Middle-earth style.

Commonly called Violet Despair, Violet Deceiver, False Delight, Purple Liar, and Shadow Deceiver in Westron.

*elvish name pending someone better at Sindarin than me devising one.

They grow in the southern part of Mirkwood, near Dol Guldur, and in the poisoned lands around Minas Morgul, where instead of arsenic they absorb the Shadows of the place, becoming darker and richer in color, and capable of swamping you with despair and paranoia if you eat them.

They predate the Shadow, but without a source of evil and corruption to feed upon they were nearly harmless: used often for dyes and decorations, although rarely for eating, for even then the Violet Deceiver was known for feeding on the rot and echo of darker feelings, and thus their flesh often became tainted with these sensations and capable of inducing fear, sorrow, and dismay in those who ate them.

Those fungi which found Evil on which to feed were, of course, much worse.

They are not quite bioluminescent, but their coloring is vibrant enough that in the black shadows of Mirkwood's trees and Mordor's gloom, they can trick the eye into thinking that they glow; but it is a glow that sheds no light to drive back the surrounding dark.

The Rangers of Ithilien encounter them much more rarely than do the elves of Mirkwood, for the Rangers do not brave the lands close to Minas Morgul; but they have come across them often enough to know to be wary of them also. (Among the Rangers, the mushrooms are sometimes referred to as "Violet Joys," as a form of bitter irony.)

Their spores exude a mild compulsory effect, tempting those who smell them to eat them, even when they know better.

The initial taste of the mushroom is sweet, almost too sweet, thick and cloying; this is followed quickly by a sharp sensation of peppery heat, and then a heavy nauseating muskiness (although few people are paying much attention to the taste at that point; mostly the latter is noted as a foul, rotten aftertaste lingering for a while in the mouths of the survivors).

Their scent is distinctive: alluring and floral, like lilies or lilacs, but with a hint of the sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh lurking beneath that floral fragrance. By the time you notice the latter, you are already close enough to be imperiled.

Consuming even a single mushroom is enough to trigger the effects, engendering overwhelming sensations of despair and paranoia. Most victims report simultaneous symptoms of both, but some experience primarily hopelessness, while some suffer predominantly from the fear, and others vacillate between the two extremes.

Eating more than three or four will leave one in a fraught emotional and even hallucinatory state for several hours, or even days.

There have been no known cases of fatal poisonings from consuming the mushrooms, but many folk—elves and mortals—have died while under the effects, whether as a result of blundering into some peril they could not properly comprehend, being too absorbed or apathetic to defend themselves against another threat, or from breaking under the despair and terror and taking their own lives before their senses clear.

The Unhoused Shades that haunt Southern Mirkwood are prone to lingering near the mushrooms as well—or perhaps it is the other way around, and it is the rot of those trapped souls upon which the mushrooms feed.

Either way, the sight of them is a sign of peril.

These mushrooms were devised for @tathrin's fic And In The Darkness to Unmake Them and @babybat98's fic The Last War of the North, but are offered free for use of anyone writing in the Tolkien fandom who wishes to add them to their stories.

Ideally we ask you to link back to this post so that other readers can likewise make use of this bit of shared world building, but that's not a hard requirement for inclusion in your works.

All you have to do it not claim the idea for your own, and continue to freely share it with anyone else who wants to play too. Thank you!

Hi! I am running a short raffle again for my friend Alaa @mariandhamza!

The amazing @p-trichor has so kindly offered 7 slots for fully rendered art, for €20 each for donating to Alaa's fundraiser. Some samples of his art are below:

I will be drawing 2 random winners at the end of this week. You have from now until next Saturday, 7th December to participate and win one of the first 2 slots (1st and 7th December included), Raffle will be drawn on 8th December, Sunday.

Fill this raffle form to participate.

I will then draw 2 new winners for the raffle running between (8th and 14th December) and I will keep drawing winners each week until all 7 slots have been filled. So, please donate to Alaa's fundraiser to participate.

I could say a lot more, about how donations have slowed down considerably, how Palestinians in their posts have been saying how winter in tents is miserable and cold and awful while bombs keep raining down around them still and nowhere is safe.

How at least 10-20 people from one family are usually relying on one 'individual' fundraiser to meet their needs, how these fundraisers are being used to buy daily necessities and winter clothes, which are at inflated, exorbitant prices, and the families have no option but to buy them. How none of this is fair, how none of this is something the Palestinians should have to deal with, how over one year of genocide is too much for anyone to bear. How a few dollars/euros help quite a lot.

So instead, I will just say, please donate to my friend Alaa and get some raffle commissions.

Donate to Alaa's fundraiser

Israel continues the massacres in Gaza... 232 souls taken in less than an hour! We are dying before your eyes—please, don’t leave us alone! Save us, do something... protest, donate, participate. I don’t want to die!

a collection

Apostate

people will design soap dispensers and dish racks and go like it's okay if this is capable of getting rusty, right. that's an acceptable weak point for an item whose sole immutable destiny is to get wet every time it's used, right