#that mural is haunting

[an-established-butt-dent]

Soooooo after the new details that have been revealed about Veilguard, how do we all imagine a Solavellan reunion is going down? Trapped in the fade together? Lighthouse makeout sessions? A very sad mural dedicated to his Vhenan? My brain is infested with new headcanons.

[resident-problem]

Bitch I was right

AAAAAHH OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERED THAT VIDEO (interview?) TRICK WEEKES DID ABOUT SOLAS AND HOW HE’S A REFLECTION OF WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT HIM!!!! YEAH LIKE A FUCKING SPIRIT OR A DEMON IT’S **HOW** YOU FUCKING PERCIEVE HIM!!!!

[sandyhelga]

Introductions

[webdiggerxxx]

꧁★꧂

[moralcandy]

first chip jrwi drawing‼️

[finnishtango]

HUNTED

[divinekangaroo]

a home painted bright with blood and thorns - pettiot - Peaky Blinders (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | (COMPLETE)

After the S4-S6 election/marriage, pre-S5. Some months into Tommy and Lizzie's marriage.

This frequently absent father and husband considers that he often does his best work in extreme circumstances: time pressure, resource constraints, situational uncertainty, high stakes, and gross emotional wounding. He knows what to do, doesn't he?

No matter what sort of internal spiralling disaster cascade he's busily ignoring inside. No matter what badly considered spur of the moment decisions he makes to get through the moment that he might pay for later. No matter what—

.

Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark, Charles Shelby, Ruby Shelby, Arthur Shelby, Frances, Various Shelby Household Maids, Charles Strong, Cyril the Dog, | Domesticity, Intimacy, Menstruation, Bodily Fluids, Bodily Solids, Bodily Functions, Babies, Lactation, Mental Health Issues, Repression, Abusive Families (Past), Attempts at Communicating, Trying Hard, Family Trauma, Family Feels, Nail-Biting, Household Dynamics, Absent Father, Avoidance, Deflection, Trying Sooooooooooo Hard, Distress, Comfort Sex, Dysfunctional Family, Contraception, Spiralling, Intrusive Thoughs, Mild Paranoia, Grief, The Lasting Legacy of Catholicism, Fear of Mental Illness

.

[wolpatinga]

shout out to that one kid heartanon

you told me that one of the alters in your head is me

or. hms from jupf. which is me. whole in that is myself and those are three of my alters who wanted attention (and still do)

so like. is the guy in your head also a cluster of guys or have you flattened me into a 2d plane and had my average self be plugged in there? what am i like when you flatten me?

id kill to know about that situation. who are they like? are they still there in your head? is the me in your head dead?

[shapelytimber]

I hope you know how just gorgeous and amazing your art is. I’ve just started on my first commission (it’s for family so it doesn’t really count) but seeing all of your work is really inspiring. Love your stuff!

Awww thank you so much that's so nice ! :D

And don't devalue your work, even if it's for a family member it still counts ! Hope it turns out great and you get well paid <3

[quietpersephone]

rebels fans really are blessed that live action zeb turned out so fantastic because hopes were not high after we got jumpscare pixel zeb from celebration last year. like this really had the potential to be disasterous. 😬

[xtruss]

These Mighty Pyramids Were Built By One of Africa’s Earliest Civilisations! The Mysterious Rulers of Nubia, in Present-day Sudan, Erected Hundreds of Tombs and Temples that Rival Cairo’s.

— By Emma Thompson | 29 December 2022 | Photographs By: Nichole Sobecki

A “haboob” (sandstorm) rolls across the Meroë pyramids in Sudan. Most of the 41 tombs here belong to the royals of the powerful Kingdom of Kush (900 B.C. to A.D. 400), which ruled large parts of the middle Nile Valley.

Powered by agriculture, ancient Sudan’s great civilisations thrived and erected mighty temples and tombs honouring their gods, kings, queens, and nobles. Their building boom left behind some 255 pyramids—more than twice the number Egypt constructed next door.

Yet few Western travellers have seen these hulking sandstone relics. That’s because Sudan’s tourism industry has been impeded by two civil wars (1956-1972 and 1983-2005) and the battle for independence that led to the creation of South Sudan in 2011.

The temple of Soleb was built in the 14th century B.C. by Pharaoh Amenhotep III, in present-day Sudan. Visitors can still view its massive columns and splendid relief carvings.

Travel to Sudan is still currently not advised due to ongoing civil unrest related to a 2021 coup. However, when tensions ease, Sudan offers a singular chance to camp beside crowd-free ancient pyramids and to learn about the mysterious reign of these little-known pharaohs. A guided road trip along the Nile Valley takes you from the splendid temple at Soleb to the UNESCO-recognized Meroë, with the world’s largest cache of pyramids.

Black Pharaohs and a Once Great City

Nubia once stretched south from Aswan, Egypt, to modern-day Khartoum, Sudan. It gave rise to one of Africa’s earliest civilisations, the Kingdom of Kush, whose kings—nicknamed the Black Pharaohs—conquered Egypt in 747 B.C. and ruled the vast territory for nearly a century.

This drama played out on the banks of the world’s longest river, the Nile. Flowing south to north from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, the legendary waterway was considered the source of life itself because the annual flooding brought fertile soil for farming.

From the capital of Khartoum, it’s a nine-hour drive north to Soleb, Sudan’s best-preserved temple and the southernmost structure built by Amenhotep III, the Egyptian pharaoh who also commissioned the temples at Luxor. It was once guarded by the Prudhoe Lions, a pair of finely carved red granite beasts inscribed by the boy-king Tutankhamun when he visited. They are now displayed at London’s British Museum.

Top: Visitor Nadeem Abduraziq Mohammed walks through the ancient city of Kerma, Sudan, in July 2021. Kerma has been occupied for at least 8,000 to 10,000 years, reaching its peak around 1800 B.C., when it was capital of the Kingdom of Kush. Bottom: There are 41 tombs in Meroë’s north cemetery, 38 of them belonging to monarchs who ruled the region between B.C. 250 and A.D. 320.

Take a small barge from the village of Wawa to the western bank of the Nile, and you soon see the sandstone columns of Soleb’s main hall. Carved at their bases are images of Assyrians, hands chained behind their backs, whom the Black Pharaohs took as prisoners of war.

A few miles south of Soleb, set back from the tents where locals serve small glasses of tea beside the Nile, is Kerma. Established around 5,500 years ago, this ancient capital grew up around a huge adobe temple called the Western Defuffa. At its height the city had a population of 10,000; today, its mud brick ruins are inhabited only by nesting swallows. Nearby lies one of the oldest cemeteries in Africa.

Top: A fragment of an ancient carving sits near the Kerma necropolis. This area of Sudan has been inhabited since Paleolithic times. Bottom: Tahani Abdulaziz takes a photograph of family members during a visit to Kerma.

Haunting Tombs and Dazzling Murals

Just over an hour’s drive south, and slowly being swallowed by sand, is Old Dongola. Founded with a fortress in A.D. 600, it served as the capital of the medieval Nubian kingdom of Makuria and grew to include palaces, houses, and Christian churches. It was a major stop on the Darb al-Arba’in (Forty Days Road) that thousands of camel caravans followed, transporting ivory and slaves between the Sudanese town of Darfur and Egypt.

Best preserved is the Church of the Old Granite Columns, its pale pillars framing a Throne Hall that was converted into a mosque in 1317 and remained in use until 1969. Now it’s open to visitors, along with an adjacent Islamic graveyard with distinctive 17th-century domed tombs known as qubbas.

From there, the Nile loops eastward and you come to El-Kurru, a cemetery used by the royal family of the Kingdom of Kush. Unlike in Egypt, Nubian burial chambers sit below the pyramids, not inside them.

Adobe tunnels cover the entrances to the chambers, chief among them the tomb of King Tanutamun (who died around 653 B.C.). Uneven shallow steps descend into the darkness until a flashlight click reveals a duo of domed rooms, one leading onto the other. Their white gypsum walls are covered with intricate murals in colours of ochre and yellow.

On the back wall is an arresting scene depicting Tanutamun’s heart being weighed against a feather by Maat, the goddess of truth. Kushites believed this recorded a person’s good and bad deeds and determined if the king’s soul could pass into paradise.

A Sudanese family tours El Kurru, a field of pyramids built for the kings and queens of ancient Kush.

More royal tombs crop up in Nuri, further upstream. Its smaller and steeper 70-plus pyramids are now reduced to 20. The most famous tombs belong to King Taharqa, the Black Pharoah who conquered Egypt, and King Nastasen, which archaeologists have to scuba-dive to reach because of rising ground waters.

Nuri served as the royal necropolis for the adjacent town of Napata, the first capital of the Kingdom of Kush. Both the cemetery and the ruins of the settlement lie across the Nile from Jebel Barkal, a 341-foot-tall sandstone mesa. From its summit, you can see the ruins of Nuri, including rows of cracked pillars and pairs of giant stone rams, their eyes and ears worn away by time.

Top: The pyramids of Nuri, Sudan, were built between 650 and 300 B.C. The most famous tomb belongs to King Taharqa, the Black Pharaoh who conquered Egypt. Bottom: Archaeologist Gretchen Emma Zoeller excavates a burial site in Nuri. The ancient site sprawls across more than 170 acres along the Nile in northern Sudan.

On the western side of Jebel Barkal is a crumbling stone door frame leading to the Temple of Mut, wife of Amun. Spotlights illuminate its fine wall murals chronicling Taharqa’s coronation in white clay, ocher, and deep blue.

The World’s Largest Group of Pyramids

Finally, the Nile weaves past Meroë (pronounced Mero-way), the Kushite capital until the empire collapsed in A.D. 400 and site of Sudan’s best-preserved pyramids. More than 200 of them spread across the sands. Their granite and sandstone bases are etched with elephant, giraffe, and gazelle designs, proof that this was once fertile grasslands.

Sudanese tourists visit Jebel Barkal, Sudan, to climb the small butte, which has been considered sacred for thousands of years. Roughly a dozen pyramids are also scattered around the base of the mountain.

“It’s the biggest congregation of pyramids in the world,” reports archaeologist and Meroë site manager, Mahmoud Suliman. “At the time of the 2019 revolution, street signs, advertisements, and paintings all featured their images. It brought people together because the pyramids are so tied to our sense of identity.”

Mentioned in the writings of Herodotus, there’s an air of defiance about these structures that stand firm against the sands trying to swallow them. Indeed, it was an act of resistance that led to their construction in the first place. In the third century B.C., Kushite King Arakamani (Ergamenes) had grown tired of the Meroitic (Meroë-led) kingdom’s power-hungry high priests. So when they sent an order for him to commit suicide, he responded by having them all murdered instead.

Top: A group of school children approach the pyramids at Meroë. Bottom: Volunteer tour guides show a group of Sudanese school children the Meröe pyramids. During the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir from 1989 to 2019, Sudan’s school curriculum was infused with Islamic ideology and much of its rich ancient history was glossed over, but the new government wants to change that.

The rebellion ushered in a new era of culture: the almighty Egyptian god Amun-Ra was downgraded in favour of the lion god Abedemak, the (still undeciphered) Meroitic script was created, and warrior queens, known as kandakes, ruled the army. Inside the tombs, the carvings of the kings stand taller than the gods. You won’t see that in Egypt. Here, kings controlled everything except death.

It’s a strong message and one that’s inspired a fresh wave of national pride. For just as Ancient Greece informed so much of today’s European culture, so too did Nubia shape Sudan. It is the bedrock that formed the country’s sense of self and identity. Understanding this history suggests a way forward for Sudan.

“These were very popular kings and queens,” says Aya Allam, a Sudanese martial artist based in Khartoum. “They are a reminder that we were once a great nation and could become great once again.”

A pyramid covers a tomb in Meroë, Sudan. Rulers of the Kingdom of Kush were buried here underneath the steeply pitched structures, which range in height from 30 to one hundred feet tall, far shorter than the pyramids in nearby Egypt.

— Emma Thomson is a British Travel Writer. Nichole Sobecki is a Kenya-based Photographer.

[an-established-butt-dent]

'Harellan'

Solas: Dragon age

Mixed media on paper

[pumpkidgrove]

"Das Souterrain⁠ Hotel"⁠ "The Basement Hotel"

Halloween 2015: ⁠ LUEGBURG HORROR STORY - Souterrain⁠ LUEG-CASTLE HORROR STORY - Souterrain⁠

www.pumpkidgrove.de⁠

[sonrium]

DP X DC: A Minor Drinking Problem

Phantom is a relatively new member of the JLA, but it's been a few months, and things are settling in well. He's shy and polite but is a master of the snark with villains.

Before a big mission, the all hands on deck kind, everyone is talking about scars and the crazy stories behind them to distract from the coming fight. Danny, finally feeling like he can join in the conversation with all these adult heroes, pulls off his right glove to show a pretty gnarly scar on the back of his wrist. “I got this one when I fought a guy from the Revolutionary War a few weeks ago! Didn't think he'd charge me with a bayonet.” He shares a couple more stories and scars, but only the ones that he can easily show off.

Because of stories like that and some historical depictions of Phantom from different time periods, they think he's this ancient and powerful immortal that just looks like a teenager, it wouldnt be the first time. He's powerful enough to go toe to toe with Superman, so there's no way he's actually a kid. He even sometimes has the haunted, world weary eyes that their most hardened members only get after experiencing too much. Danny, being our lovable, obliviously dense idiot, has not realized that they think he's an ancient being.

After the mission concludes -it was a rough one-, the JLA celebrate their victory with a couple drinks back at the watch tower. Danny is understandably uncomfortable with this whole situation and keeps asking, “Are you sure I should be here?” They reassure him it's fine as they pass around beers, which Danny politely declines several times. Danny eventually sees this as the perfect chance to pad his blackmail folders on his inebriated coworkers.

Anyway, as the night goes on, they have a good time, but Phantom still hasn't gotten a drink like the rest of them, and Green Lantern (or hero of your choice) really wants their shy friend to come out of his shell. So, he slams an open beer bottle on the coffee table in front of Phantom. “Come on Phantom! Let loose a little. Celebrate!”

“Dude! What the hell?! I'm 16! That's illegal!” Phantom squeaks in shock.

“We don't care how old you were when you died. It's how long you've been a ghost that counts.” Flash slings an arm around Danny's shoulders from where he’s sat next to him on the couch. Flash can't get drunk, but he also thinks it would be fun to see their uptight new member drunk.

“That's even worse! You'd be giving alcohol to a two year old!” Phantom is horrified that his coworkers are so casually breaking the law.

“But you said you fought in the Revolutionary War this morning!” Green Lantern said with his eyebrows knit in confusion.

“No, I said I fought someone from the Revolutionary War. As in, the ghost of someone from the revolutionary war!”

“You can't pull that on us. There's murals and stuff of you from thousands of years ago.” The Flash waves off with a laugh.

Phantom’s finger presses painfully hard into Flash’s chest. “I do not need to explain time travel to you of all people. My mentor hates you, and I'm STILL sent on missions constantly to clean up your messes.” Phantom's clear and low. Flash liked it better when he was shouting and not staring him down like a predator with narrowed eyes.

(This random idea popped into my head. It made me laugh, so I thought you might, too. Here you go!)

[stealingyourbones]

During Danny’s 30 minute lunch break he spends his time reading comics from Ghostwriter’s collection in the Watchtower employee breakroom. It took a while to convince Ghostwriter to even start adding comics to his library, but after a passionate rant about the history of comics the influencing media of the medium, a new library wing was added to GW’s haunt that was rapidly filling with comics from all across the realms. In payment for helping him realize the literary importance of comic books, Ghostwriter lets Danny check out as many comics as he wishes. On average Danny manages to read 2-3 comics per break and leaves them in the breakroom during his shift. (the security at the Watchtower is over the top and no one dares steal from other employees as it’d give grounds for instant termination. Stealing a comic book from a coworker isn’t worth losing a very high paying job). The alarm on Danny’s phone goes off. His lunch break has ended. Danny huffs in mild annoyance, he was just about to finish his third comic of the day. Oh well. Danny places a bookmark gently on his current page and heads out of the breakroom. — Red Robin was asked by a maintenance worker near the conference room he just left for a Justice League briefing to grab a multitool he forgot in the employee breakroom. Tim didn’t mind as it was only a small detour on his way out. The breakroom was the same as he remembered it to be. White room with a small kitchen area and cabinets against one wall, lockers against the other, and a Justice League mural on the back wall. Grabbing the multitool which was right where the maintenance guy said it would be, he turned around to head out. He was planning to walk right back to the Watchtower worker and leave but something caught his eye. A small pile of comics lightly stacked on a table. A pile of comics titled Red Robin.

[mcmansionhell]

dome sweet dome

As some of you may know, I have been going to language school for the last few months in order to learn the world's most widely spoken and useful language: Slovenian. At this point, my Slovenian is about as coherent as, well, a McMansion. In order to feel better about myself, I have sought out a McMansion that is worse than my cases and word-order. This house (in Naperville, IL, of course) does, in fact, make me feel better, but will probably make you feel worse:

This Cheescake Factory house, built in 2005, boasts 5 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms and can be yours for the entirely reasonable sum of $3.5 million dollars. Also for some reason all the photos look like they are retouched with 2012-era Instagram filters.

First of all, trying to visualize the floor plan of this house is like trying to rotate seven cubes individually in my mind's eye. Second, if you stand right beneath the hole in the ceiling you can get the approximate sensation of being a cartoon character who has just instantaneously fallen in love.

Even if this was a relatively mundane McMansion it still would have made it into the rotation because of the creepy life-sized butler and maid. Would not want to run into them in the middle of the night.

The mural is giving 1986 Laura Ashley or perhaps maybe the background they use for Cabbage Patch Kids packaging but the floor? The floor is giving Runescape texture.

Have you ever seen so many real plants in your life? A veritable Eden.

The overwhelming desire to push one of the chairs into the haunted jacuzzi...but in reality they probably put those chairs there to keep from accidentally falling into the tub at night.

(elevator music starts playing)

This is one of the all time [adjective] rooms of McMansion Hell. I personally am in love with it, though I don't think I understand it. Perhaps it is not meant to be understood.....,

Continuing with the baseball theme, the guy in the painting looks how I feel after it's been raining in Ljubljana for two straight weeks. (Not ideal!!)

And finally:

We love a house that has four unused balconies and also a sporting grounds that is large enough to build a whole second McMansion on top of. Everyone should so value their health.

Thank you for tuning into another edition of McMansion Hell. Be sure to check out the Patreon for the two bonus posts (a McMansion and the Good House) which both also go out today!

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar, because media work is especially recession-vulnerable.