#updates Tuesdays

[dathomirdumpsterfire]

~Chapter 3: Haunted, Hunted, & Other Fun Hobbies~

[Ao3 link below the read more, at the end.]

It begins the day after Maul makes his return to Dathomir. 

The sith is elbows deep in datapads trying to gain background knowledge on the Crimson Dawn's next venture: an escargot farm, of all things, for a particular breed of shellfish. One that acts as a nearly universal aphrodisiac when eaten. Vos had declared the market for it 'an untapped niche' with projected gains in the 'I could buy a moon every other year' category. 

He already has a planet. Dathomir is more or less his, but Maul thinks he might like a moon or two. Besides, one never knew when they might need a spare astral body in his line of work. Perhaps for trade, perhaps for crashing into things. He is flexible. 

One minute he is reviewing zoology documents made by a mon calamari, and then gently, like a cloud over the sun, he is being watched.

His spine straightens and the sith pulls his sense of self tight to his skin, guarding himself while attempting to observe the observer. The presence slips through his fingers, but he too slips through theirs. They go round and round like two predators in the night, stalking each other through the flow of the force. 

Eventually the feeling fades, and Maul is left alone in his office space, perturbed. He waits an hour or more, patient and wary, but the sensation of being sought does not return.

He exhales heavily through his nose and returns to reading about aquarium keeping, stopping only to make snacks, refresh the tea pot, and stretch his back.

Dathomir's red star sinks below the horizon. Domir takes with it the light that had been coming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows, leaving the spectacular view of the sunrise canyon in deepening purple hues. Maul takes this as his cue to end the day.

The sith stalks out of his simplistic office, and heads to the end of the hallway. The decor transitions from plasteel to roughly carved redstone at the doorway, from the soft orange glow of sodium-vapor bulbs to flickering oil lanterns and magelight. He had appointed the bedroom den at the end of the hall with far more dathomirian aesthetics than the modern office space. 

Some furniture he had been able to scavenge from the temple, mostly of carved stone, though there were a few precious wooden pieces left unburnt by the droid army among them. A small table, a few mismatched chairs, and a hefty trunk. The rest of his furnishings Maul had collected from offworld. 

The result is… functional. Quiet and dark. The bed space is large and comfortable, partially carved back into the wall for extra protection. Nowhere is too open. Everything he wishes to be reminded of has a place to sit, somewhere he can see. 

Dim candles light all the cracks and corners without hurting his eyes. There are books and scrolls to read, an orb recovered from his mother’s temple, projects to tinker with in idle moments. It is… good, he thinks. Though he might reorganize his memory items again. Later. 

For now, he plans to undress, bathe, and-

w

  a

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    c

     h

    i

  n

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l

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  o

    k

      i

       n

       g

          f

               o

                      r                                                      ?

                                     y       o       u           ?

Maul whips around, expecting a physical presence, but there is no one and nothing there. He coats himself in a basic spell of obfuscating mist and draws his force presence close to his hearts, under his skin. 

The observer tries to catch him up with a searching pattern that feels like smokey claws and gossamer hairs, winding ribbons and closing jaws. Threads, deceptive in their affectionate creeping. 

"One?" he rasps in the empty hallway, "No… more. Several." 

There are so many aspects of force trying to locate him that surely it must be a ritual, fueled by multiple people. Four or five, at bare minimum. He would guess it was his former master's doing, but surely Sidious would not need to look for him so much as come for him if he decided to spare the effort. 

So who? Who?

But to look with that part of him which can See is to open himself, and Maul is not certain of the wisdom in letting this coven of force users near him just for the chance to find them.

Sweat beads on his scalp, dripping down and sliding off his chin. The effort to remain untouchable, hidden from these hunters, is intensely taxing, but the force vibrates in warning whenever he starts to slip.

Then, suddenly, he is alone again. 

He waits, just as before, shoulders high and breathing hard as he remains watchful. The air remains still, lacking that dark innervation. Maul falls back against the wall, and presses the heel of a palm to his forehead. The effort has earned him a headache and shaking fingers. 

The sith returns to moving down the hall, but changes destination. His den, while comfortable, is not the most secure location available here. That title goes to his mother's sanctum, riddled with runes and steeped in ichor fueled protections. He has not yet deciphered the nature of even half of the witch-made wards from the books and murals that remain of her teachings. 

Maul slips into the sanctum, touching his chest where once her spirit had anchored itself. 

"Mother," he begins, searching for an acceptable explanation for intruding. "I seek… shelter, in your sanctum. I am hunted by a power unknown, and the force warns me to avoid its touch." 

That is an understatement. The force buzzes with indistinct warning, a vibrating drone so deep and ubiquitous it feels physical. Bumblebees underwater, crawling anxiety like marching ants. 

No reply comes. He counts that as permission.

The sith goes to sit on the stone floor at the center of grooved patterns and runes. He will meditate now and gather his strength, assuming that eventually-

It returns! So quickly the threads descend again.

Vitriolic green light bursts to his left, then forward, then above him. Sharp eyes survey the room as sections of sigils light and dim along the walls, like fireworks. The grooves in the floor begin to fill with-

"Ichor," he murmurs, watching the luminous waters fill in the circling patterns. He cannot identify the source of where it flows from. 

This… is not magick Maul has witnessed before. Savage had, reluctantly, described his own rituals, and the healing the Nightmother had done for Maul after Lotho Minor, but this is… different. Carved into Dathomir’s living stone, commanding the planet’s power even in the absence of a witch to direct it. It is wonderous.

The feeling of being looked for slides away from him with so much more ease, and he sighs in relief.

Maul ends up sleeping there, curled in on himself on the stone floor. Every few hours the cloying tendrils return again, and he wakes to watch the wards and push away the hooks that stretch for him.

It is only after a week of being chased back to his mother's room, day and night, that he realizes he is trapped on Dathomir until the hunt is ended. Until he ends it. To do that, he will have to learn to hide all on his own. Without becoming an unhinged, sleepless mess incapable of hunting these new enemies.

Maul faces this reality with easy acceptance. He has survived harsher challenges before, and will again. Mustafar, Lotho Minor, Hypori- the dark sustained him every time. 

This will end no differently.

[mizgnomer]

Crowley’s hairstyles/looks - down through the ages ...now including Good Omens Season Two

The original Season One post [ x ]

[moszeel]

Argus and Freakday

[intotheelliwoods]

I should also mention...

We are entering the Endgame Territory.

I am working hard on whats coming, which is definitely the hardest update I have ever drawn! I have been saving this final plotline for over a year now and I am feeling so many emotions about finally getting it on paper! (on... tablet? digital canvas?)

I hope you guys are excited! I also hope the wait for another update wasnt too bad!

[haysaca]

watched the 2.1 and Tuesday's trailer and decided to make some low quality memes based on the vibes I got from some scenes

[genshin-impact-updates]

Character Trailer - "Kinich: Fiery Pursuit" | Genshin Impact

The hunt may be arduous or conclude in the blink of an eye, but for Kinich, there are only two crucial steps: the beginning and the end.

As for the remaining issues, well, they'll be devoured whole by the ravenous and ambitious Ajaw.

[badolmen]

Ten Dollar Tuesdays!

$10 isn't much - it might not even be enough for your favorite streaming subscription or morning coffee. Why not donate $10 for one of the following campaigns!

If you cannot donate this Tuesday, please reblog so this post reaches someone who can.

(verification) Abdulkarim Al-Madhoun ($518/$20.000) [2.59%] *new campaign and reduced goal, see here.

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(verification) Ibrahim Iwais (kr 797.869/kr 1.500.000) [53.2%] *note $1 = kr 10 conversion rate; ie. goal is roughly $150.000

(verification) Ahmed Al-Zaeem ($28.058/$50.000) [56.1%]

(verification) Abedalrahman Salem Alhabil (€92.101/€120.000) [76.7%]

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Timestamp: Feb. 4, 2025

More information and campaigns under the read more.

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Daily Campaigns @writing-prompts-for-palestine

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[highgroundanimations]

The boys are back in town! 🪶

After months of rather slow progress, I'm stoked to finally have a bit more time for Tukk Tales again! Just made the switch to Blender 4.0, revised some workflows, updated PewPew (my laser fx addon), & now am back at doing asset creation, previz & animation work. 🫡

Since the announcement teaser in April I've made a bunch of rewrites that I think really elevate the story, that's why some more assets & heavy previz rework are needed. I want to make this the best it reasonably can be! Excited to reveal some new characters soon! 😁

Btw you can get PewPew for FREE on my gumroad page.

[cinamun]

Earlier that evening... | Next

[smrtnik07]

i havent drawn anything worth posting in a while hi ^__^ erm..... are texans always this strange and unusual?

[coolnonsenseworld]

Some calendar 2024 pieces in no particular order, still available as prints as well! Another leftover reminder? YES, yes it is! It's the last call for me to send them before Christmas break, so I'm trying to get the word out. Also... those are just pretty cute pieces.... I hope they bring you a smile.... Enjoy the klance otherwise and see you soon for another part of Winter Wonderland comic, anyone remembers it? 👀

linktr.ee/mezzy

[dathomirdumpsterfire]

[In-progress Obimaul, post TCW, updates tuesdays! New? Read the prequel "Desertification" on Ao3! 18+, Link at the end. ]

~~~~Chapter 9: Vacation Planning~~~~

He wakes, he fights, he rests.

He wakes, he fights, he gets up to eat, he rests again. 

He wakes, he fights, he almost manages to rest. 

He’s torn from the edge of sleep to fight, he rests again. 

He wakes, he fights, he gives the fuck up on further rest, staring in bleary confusion at the ceiling. Because it is pink. That is the wrong color for the ceiling to be. It should be… should be… 

'Come to me…'

… mother? 

'... Son of Dathomir, follow me…'

No. No! It is only the voices. There is no Mother to go to, only her empty sanctum, and he is determined to wean himself from its necessity. This task is not beyond him. He had not slept more than a few hours during a fortnight spent on the harsh surface of Mustafar, and again, when Sidious tested him against the army of assassin droids on Hypori. This present situation is far more draining than it is deadly. 

’Follow me…’

The pink cast to his vision is not going away. He had awoken to a headache during the previous attack and it is not going away either, the pulse of it behind his eyes is a continuous irritant. He squeezes them shut for the faint relief that pressure brings. 

A lazy sort of dizziness sways within him, in the flow of the force and the warm darkness behind his eyelids. Gravity twists sluggishly, focus eluding him just as keenly as sleep. These afflictions culminate in a relentless insomnia. Maul bares his teeth at the ceiling in a silent snarl of frustration.

’You should rest, brother.’

No.

’It is a hard trek through the swamps.’

No.

The voice shifts, rising in pitch and slowing in cadence. Mother, again. ’Now… sleep,’ she bids.

If only he had been-

Gentle fingers touch his horns and he whips around, hearts pounding. Had her spirit finally found the strength to..? 

Blue eyes and pale features meet his gaze, but the face before him is framed not in lines of black but a faded, bloody wine. 

Not his mother, just Vos, looking a bit shocked himself at Maul’s reaction. That expression quickly fades to… what is that? Something anxious, but milder. He squints at it irritably as a hand cups his shoulder and slides down his arm. Fingers squeeze his wrist.

“You look pained, my lord. What did you see?” 

He growls and sloughs flat onto his back again, palming his eyes as the headache spikes higher and vertigo swirls like mixing paint. The other man only shifts closer despite his silence. Cool fingers skim up his arm, tracing the edge of black along his collarbones. Solid. Real.

“Keep trying to rest, won’t you?” the man breathes, “Our little family is out hunting in your name. Save your strength for the time of action. I will remain at your side until then… if it pleases you."

Fingers brush his cheek and Maul gathers himself enough to snap at them, but Vos only dodges his teeth and makes an admonishing sound, amusement clear in the force. His touch wanders lower, stroking the markings down Maul’s chest and ribs instead. "Easy..." 

Oh, he should put holes in the man for this. For the presumption, for startling him, for the… the rest of it. A cool palm smooths over his skin, erasing the trails of fingers gone by, only to start anew on the fresh slate. He works up a growl, but between one scattered, irritable thought and the next it loses out against his state of being.  

Voices whisper at the edges of his perception. A low, metallic creak rumbles in his ears, emanating from somewhere inside the solid rock of his bedroom wall. A few breaths later, dripping water, landing in heavy, impossible plaps against his left temple in time with the ache pulsing through his skull. Vos’ wandering hand moves to his head again, dragging a long thumb claw along his forehorn. The ticklish vibration neatly drowns out a phrase of Mon Calamari opera music. It is overstimulating in its own way, but a few passes later the sensation of water drops ceases as well. 

Vos should not be encouraged so, but… he is a tangible presence, as opposed to the cloying sensation of the attacks. Or the phantom brush of ghosts. 

Weight and warmth, the sounds of calm breath and that singular heartbeat on the fringes of his perception. Vos’ senses may not be as sharp as Maul’s but he is far from inept. A pair of eyes and blades in the dark, their loyalty secured by spilt blood and greed. All of it offensive, yet it weighs on him like satiety, the fulfillment of a nightbrother’s instincts to have a bedmate dangerous enough to matter. 

Vos croons something he does not hear. Those cool, real fingers move back and forth across his pecs in a soothing rhythm, and soon enough he is gone. 

… and then he wakes.

"Mnnnnegh," Maul groans, sitting up as the threads start to spool. 

"Mmmn?" asks a lethargic voice to his left. 

"Hngh," he replies, dragging himself up and moving on autopilot for his mother's sanctum. 

The gossamer strings try to catch him, but readily slip away. He waits it out standing on the center circle, eyes closed and half awake. When the effort is done he meanders all the way back to his kitchen, and starts making a decanter of caf. It is late enough to be early, and that is good enough for him. Good enough for now.

Maul goes through the motions half aware with the same precision he would spare to a nightmagick ritual. Whole beans into the grinder, grounds into the filter, filter into the machine, clean water as well. Caf is brewed like the elixir that it is, and he stands to bear witness as it percolates. It would be any other morning on Dathomir for him, if only the stone countertop’s striations would stop flowing like lava. Tired lava, perhaps. The effect fades out after he digs his palms into his eyes and blinks a few times.

When Maul finds who is doing this to him he will need a bacta tank on hand so he can skin them more than once.

A carafe of warm beverage is prepared. Two clean mugs are procured. Cream. He has no taste for sweetness, but his guest does, and so he adds a tiny jar of nectar to the collection. 

Maul loads up a tray and carries the lot of it with the force, more steady with that than his current two feet. It drifts behind him down the hall and into the bedroom, where Vos is half lost in the pillows, sitting up and typing. 

"I have lovely news," the crime lord begins, far too chipper, "well, mostly lovely news. Though there is a complication." 

"Mnh," Maul grunts, setting the tray down on a carved shelf by the bed. He pours himself a cup with cream, and then fucks off to the canapé. 

"One of our agents has found a lead.”

Thank the fanged fucking god. “Mnn?”

Vos practically preens. “There's an extremely ancient sith temple under a jedi temple?” Vos says, tapping his elongated claw on his chin, brows raised as if that information was somehow provocative.

Maul grunts.

The other man rolls his eyes, presumably at the reticence. “Anyway, the whole thing appears to be dedicated to hiding secrets, finding secrets, numerology, mystical bonds, et cetera." 

The laggard sith snorts at the emphasis on 'under'. "Mnnss more common than you would think."

Vos smirks, inhales with a look of interest, then smiles winsomely as he points toward the freshly poured caf. "Some of that for me?"

Maul glares at him, then pointedly at the table next to him.

"Ah, wonderful!” the man says, helping himself, “As I was saying, the twin temples seem to be uninhabited and unopened for some time. No one knows how to open them… though I'm sure that won't be a problem for you?" 

"Hmn,” he replies. It was a stupid question. 

“Oh now this is interesting,” Vos continues, curled over his datapad like an oversized shrimp. "The temples are also quite elevated, and they seem to lack the usual pathways you'd expect. Stairs, causeways, and the like."

"Mnh."

"The only real issue here is that the location is technically a core world." 

Maul makes a face, then drags a hand down over it. A core world. Why.

When needs must, he speaks, "A risk, but not unthinkable. Although… a core world with an unopened temple? That does not add up.” Especially considering the jedi’s thirst to gather and restrict force knowledge at all costs.

The sith finds himself skeptical. Surely his former master would have conquered its challenges by now? His grandmaster had been voracious for secrets of the force as well. The odds…

Vos finally takes his first sip of caf, tsks and starts adding things to it. "Defenses, of course. Lethal ones. Impassable ones."

Expected, though… less common in jedi designs. "You are sure the temple above is a jedi temple? A force nexus of some kind?" 

"No?" the man offers with a flap of one hand and a shrug. "Maybe it isn't… but the pictures do look like one."

“Hmm.”

Vos tips him an inviting look over his caf. “Would you like to see?”

Maul stands with a sigh and goes to refresh his cup, then sits beside him. "Show me."

A few buttons are pressed, then the datapad is passed over to him. He takes it and starts swiping through the flat images. 

A massive stone tower, reaching up into the clouds of a mountain range. It sits perched over a sweeping river valley. The heights are like a fantasy castle, white stone and jade, windswept vine growth and gold filigree. The depths of it are a dark mirror, dripping stalactites and upside down bridges of obsidian. Silvery metalwork and amethyst beacons wind around its depths like musical bars. The pillar holding it all up looks unreal, alien, as if time had worn away the land but could not unmake that central piece. 

Where once there was a temple above and another below, now both are in the sky. 

The next image is a set of grand double doors with a mural of growing things, solid stone that presumably led into the temple above. 

Following that is a matching door, deeply recessed and foreboding. Its face is a smooth, featureless plain.

After these first few pictures are more, taken at range and with surveillance drones, capturing the various facades and designs of both structures. Or rather…

Maul explores them with his eyes. "I suspect this is only one temple. Where did you say it was?"

Vos sips his caf, seemingly satisfied now that he could not taste it over the nectar. "I didn’t. Hmm.. have you ever been to Palawa, my lord?" 

Maul hands the datapad back. 

"No," he says ponderously, "Perhaps it is time to change that."

The other man beams, his striations flaring pink with excitement. “I do love to travel.”

Tag List (comment to be added):

@savageopressbignaturals

[st4rstudent]

Shirt design for my class

[voidsylus]

sylus loves to reassure us he’s got our backs

the best thing about 3.0 is the update for sylus orbits and today marks the day we completed 100 trials together

the phone call after our success made me want to cry. we were worried about our evol getting rusty during battles which cause harm to sylus because we are a team but he was having non of that

there’s nothing more beautiful knowing that your partner trust you wholeheartedly with our skills but also reassured you that no matter what he’ll protect us

since our love language is quality time and words of affirmation, we are celebrating once again and this loverboy wants to make sure that when we sleep, we’ll dream about him

[callipygouscoulrophiliac]

is anyone else having this problem today

[celestialthiccy]

How is your casual, "eat what you like but it's not really gaining, honest" going?

Tbh I'm almost at my highest again, but I'm planning on working out every day for the next couple of weeks so I can fit into my birthday dress 😭