#which is what that second one did

[astromechs]

in retrospect, that new trailer made me look forward to gotg vol 3 a little less

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[junodoom]

swordtember day 8: sun

[brainrotcharacters]

makes me giggle to think of X2 Logan meeting dp&w Logan when this is a thing

[egophiliac]

I have never been more concerned for a JP update from your art than I am seeing a Cheka knowing the context of Leona’s dream.

My bois ok right?????? My sweet nephews ok right??????

well

uhhhh

I'm sure the real one is fine :)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bros before Ho(oh my god is that Hanguang-Jun?)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[theusernameiwantisntavailable]

Returning to my roots, just a quick soft doodle :)

[felassan]

What kind of spirit do you think Felassan waz?

Swag

[theceaselessidiot]

Eloise Bridgerton being an absolute mood:

and Cressida's reaction of 'this girl is so weird, but I'm into it??? Wait am I into this??'':

[snoozerin]

sketches and a wip. i dont like thinking too much before posting, head empty this is the stuff i have in my gallery take or or leave it the void is nice

[puppppppppy]

I can teach you how to be just like me

crying all night, sleeping till three

[mickedy]

You have quite the task ahead of you

[unfinishedslurs]

The boy stops in his tracks. “I know you,” he says, tilting his head curiously. He’s not tall, but he’s regal nonetheless, dressed all in white. Something about him makes Leia’s hair stand on end, and although she hides it she feels a stirring in her own chest. I know you like I know my own soul, she thinks wildly, and wonders where it came from. Has she gone insane?

“That’s nice,” she says, and shoots him anyway.

He deflects it in a flash of light, a glowing blue laser sword appearing in his hand like magic. She’s only seen one of those before, and it’s Vader’s. If this boy is anything like Vader, she realizes, she’s in deep shit.

She’s smart enough to know when she’s outmatched. Leia makes the tactical decision to run for her life.

Later, as she’s getting the hell out of there, she wonders why he didn’t try to stop her.

She remembers being young and tugging on her mothers skirts, demanding to know why their guest was so sad. “Does he not like it here?” She’d asked, and then, trembling, because Kenobi always seemed saddest around her. “Is it…because of me?”

“Oh, Leia,” her mother sighed, lifting her into her arms. “It’s not that, I promise.”

“Then what is it?”

“Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, years ago.” Breha’s eyes grew deeper, darker. “It was not his fault, but he blames himself. You remind him of that child, that’s all.”

Leia had quieted at that, contemplative.

The next time she’d seen Master Kenobi, she had given him a hug. He didn’t seem to know what to do with that, so she resolved to give him more of them. “He’s lonely,” she’d told her mother. “No one should be lonely.”

Looking at Obi-Wan Kenobi now, the memory seemed so far away. He’d aged thirty years in the ten it had been.

He looks, Leia thinks with a small twinge of regret, very lonely.

“Leia,” he greets. “It’s been a long time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Leia sees a glint of white.

Kenobi freezes in his tracks. “Luke?” He whispers, and through the distance Leia can hear it as if he’d been speaking directly into her ear.

Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, her mother whispers in her head. He blames himself.

In an instant, Leia understands everything.

Kenobi is still staring at the boy he’d lost so long ago when Vader cuts him down.

Later, as she’s pacing around on the Falcon to Han muttering darkly about Princesses and supernatural abilities, she rememberers the way the boy collapsed, as if all his strings had been cut. Vader was too occupied with him to even look at her as she shot at him desperately.

Luke. She hates him more than she hates herself.

“They know where you are,” he hisses frantically. “They’re coming for you. You have to run.”

“Wait!” Leia quickly pulls up their sonar. Nothing yet, but it would explain the distant queasiness she’d felt since they’d landed. She tended to trust her gut. “How do you know? How much time do we have?”

“Not important, and not enough,” he says. “I have to go, and so do you. You need to leave yesterday.”

“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know who you are.”

He pauses. “Call me Skywalker.”

“That’s not an answer, Skywalker.”

“Yes it is.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but there are faint voices on the other end, drawing nearer.

“Shit,” Skywalker mutters. “I have to go. I’ll be in contact, okay? Don’t ever tell me where you are, or where you’re heading. Vader and Palpatine aren’t shy about reading minds. Just leave as soon as you can, and figure out the rest.”

“But—“

It’s too late. The comm has disconnected.

She stares down at it, disbelieving. How would the Empire know they’re here? Why should she trust a stranger who somehow got her personal comm code?

Gut feeling or not, on paper this was a perfect location. Supplied, armored, and most importantly, extremely well hidden. There was no real reason to think it would possibly be found out.

It’s probably a trap. Almost definitely a trap.

Han sticks his head in the door, a sour look on his face. “Hey Princess, can you tell these idiots—“

She makes a decision then and there.

“We’re leaving.”

“What?”

“We’re evacuating, effective immediately.” She pushes past him, and he follows so close he’s nearly stepping on her heel.

“Why? I think it’s pretty cozy here. Actual sunlight doesn’t hurt, either.”

“Apparently too cozy.” She grabs the first person she sees, a pilot who stares at her with wide eyes. “Emergency evacuation. Spread the word to pack everything you can and leave, I’ll let you know where we’re headed when we’re in orbit.”

He salutes and scurries off.

“Woah, hey now.” Han snatches at her elbow until she turns around to face him. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a new informant. He told me the Empire knows we’re here. They’re coming for us.”

“And you trust this person because…”

“I don’t have a choice,” she snaps. Someone runs past them, holding three packs filled to the brim with rations. “It’s either he’s lying and we’re not in danger, or he’s telling the truth and we’re going to die if we don’t listen. It’s not exactly hard math.”

It could be a trap of course, but he hadn’t suggested any sort of direction or destination to follow, and Leia wasn’t inclined to share. Especially not after his tidbit about Vader and Palpatine reading minds.

He squints at her. “That’s not it.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe you,” he insists. He’s so infuriating. Leia doesn’t know why she hasn’t kicked him out yet.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, and you’re either gonna tell me why, or find a different transport when we head out of here.”

“Who said I was riding on your hunk of junk?” She demands. She actually was planning on going with them, since the Falcon has more than enough room for all the supplies that can’t fit in the other ships and none of the trustworthiness of the other pilots, but Han doesn’t need to know that.

“Well?”

Damn him. Damn him for knowing how to read her. She doesn’t know when she let that happen.

“I feel it,” she admits, defeated. “Something tells me he’s trustworthy. We’ll wait and see if it’s right.”

He studies her. She holds her head high, but inside she’s jittery at the scrutiny. They don’t have time for this.

“Yeah, all right,” Han finally says.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He rolls his eyes, like she’s not acting absolutely insane by putting all her trust in a random man she’s never even met. “Now come on, Princess, weren’t you the one who said we had to hurry?”

What is it about this man that makes it impossible to tell whether she wants to punch him or drag him into the nearest supply closet? They don’t have time to find out.

“So there’s good news and bad news.”

“Bad news first,” she demands.

“They know there’s a mole.”

“Shit.” Of course they know, how could they not? She should have been more careful, less obvious about the correlation of their movements with the Empire’s plans. “The good news?”

“They’ve tasked me with hunting down this ‘pathetic rebel spy,’” Skywalker says, humor in his voice. “That should buy me some time.”

Leia can’t quite stop the snort she lets out. “Seriously?”

“Yep. You’re speaking to a professional mole-hunter, here.”

“Well congratulations on the promotion, Skywalker.”

“Thank you,” he says grandly. Then, quieter, “It won’t last, Princess. They’ll find out eventually.”

“I know. Just hang in there, it will be over soon.”

“Will it?” He asks, suddenly sounding very young. She realizes that she has no idea how old he is. She doesn’t know anything about the man who has saved them more times than she cared to admit, and the idea rattles her until they sign off.

Later, she looks up the name Skywalker in their archives. There are a few results, but only one sticks out.

Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and hero of the Clone Wars. Killed at the hands of Darth Vader. There are gossip articles too, speculations on his relationship with the pregnant Senator Padmé Amidala, who died around the same time Skywalker did. The baby, it seems, died with her.

Unless he didn’t.

It’s ridiculous. It’s impossible. The idea is so ludicrous that Leia almost rejects it entirely.

But it makes sense. By the Maker, it makes sense.

The child of Anakin Skywalker, it seems, would be a powerful Force user indeed. Powerful enough for Kenobi to take the baby and run. Powerful enough for the Emperor to want him for his own gain. Powerful enough to send Vader after Kenobi and take the boy himself.

Maybe even powerful enough to shield his mind from Vader and Palpatine’s intrusions.

Powerful enough to hide the fact that he’s a spy.

Leia sinks into her chair, covering her face as she laughs.

Maybe Luke isn’t so bad after all.

“No, no, no,” she mutters, digging through the smoking wreckage of the TIE fighter. “Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.”

“Princess…” Han lays a hand on her shoulder that she immediately shrugs off.

“No, he’s not dead. He’s not. Luke!”

A faint cough answers her, and she’s so relieved to hear it she could cry. Behind her, Han starts bellowing for a medic and, “Some damn help here, do you expect us to move all this ourselves?”

“Luke, it’s me,” she sobs. “It’s Leia. You’re at the Rebel Base. You’re safe.”

More coughing, and there’s a worrying rasp to his voice when he says, “You know…my name?”

“I figured it out.”

“Smart.” This time, the coughing is so bad Leia and Han both wince.

“Shit, kid,” Han says, moving another piece of rubble. “Don’t talk. We’re gonna get you out of here, all right?”

“Stand back,” Luke chokes out.

“What?”

“Stand back. Please.”

Han protests, but something in Leia knows they should listen to him. She drags him back, and motions everyone else to fall back with them. They do, albeit reluctantly.

“Clear,” she calls, hoping Luke can hear her.

The TIE explodes.

“Fuck!” Han goes back in, Leia on his heels with the terrifying feeling that she’d just allowed Luke to die, before they both stop in their tracks. Around them, the broken pieces of the TIE are floating.

And curled up in the middle is a man dressed all in white.

“Luke!” She pushes past Han to start dragging him out, and after another moment of staring around them, he helps her.

As soon as they get clear, the pieces fall to the ground with a clatter. Luke falls limp with them.

Han is still looking at the TIE. “Can you do that?” He asks quietly.

Leia pauses her examination of the unconscious man in front of her to glare at him. “Is that what you’re most concerned with right now? Really?”

“Excuse me for asking, Princess!”

“It’s white,” Luke grumbles, pulling at his hospital gown bitterly. “I hate wearing white.”

“Should I be offended?”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t even. You look great and you know it. I just feel like I never left.”

“Well,” she says gingerly. “I guess it’s a good thing you got sick of it. If we went around in matching outfits all the time, people might think we’re twins.”

He snorts. “Yeah, right.”

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 273

You know what? We need more Good parents Fentons. 

And you know what else? Technically, Jack helped Danny defeat Pariah via the use of the Ecto-Skeleton. And like, that’s his son, his baby boy. Sure Danny is and has always been a mommy’s boy, but it doesn’t change that fact. They’re both already feeling horrible about the fact they could have hurt him, they could have hurt their son- they have hurt their son, killed him with their inaction and never again. 

So when these oversized jello-eyeballs try to insist that their baby, their precious baby boy, take a crown? Become a king when he’s not even out of highschool, when he doesn’t want it? No. Hell no! That is his Danny-o, his baby boy who was terrified of his own parents! 

Which is how Jack, despite technically still being alive even if so-very ecto-contaminated, became the Ghost King. 

And for some reason there’s several ghosts rather happy about this- oh, these are his Danny-O’s ghost-parents? Not-ghost parents seeing as some of them have never been anything but a realm denizen? That’s really fascinating- y’know what, want some fudge and we can exchange childcare- Maddie dear come over and meet our co-parents apparently!  

Now it’s not all easy, but they’re trying their best, and that’s all that can be asked. 

…

Which is perhaps why it’s so exasperating- or as Maddie would put it, downright infuriating- that it is now, almost an entire year and a half later that the Heroes finally arrive to investigate. Well, at least he has plenty of fudge since it’s almost time for the council meeting. 

[why-the-heck-not]

20.12.23, wednesday

My main hobby is just procrastinating in any way I can. The plan was to make a cup of coffee and then start working. What actually happened is that I watched a 3 part video series (by james hoffmann ofc) on Aeropress coffee and made a few cups with different variables. Still not sure if I found The Recipe for me, but it’s getting better (tho I don’t love the coffee beans I have)

[serpentface]

What’s the architecture/layout of old Bur, how do modern people perceive the ruins?

The city in its peak was very large and spread over both shoreline and a network of small islands. These islands comprised a waterfront district connected by a network of bridges and canals, where a large portion of its non-agricultural lower class lived.

It had a fairly well organized and efficient freshwater+sanitation system across most of its span (the canal district had less effective plumbing largely due to logistical difficulties, most of its wastewater was instead flushed by rain powered cisterns). The water system was powered by the Hsuke river and made fresh water readily accessible throughout the majority of the city (though few homes had direct freshwater plumbing). It had several major public baths, and the homes of the wealthiest members of society had their own private bathing pools.

In this part of the world, it is broadly regarded as once being one of the most beautiful cities to have ever existed. It was particularly noted for its water gardens (still a fixture of present day Burri culture) which were absolute marvels of engineering for that period, with the majority of these being entirely artificial and supported by its network of aqueducts. These hosted thousands of ornamental plants, fish, and fowl, as well as fruiting trees and shrubs. They were treated as a public work meant to benefit all citizens, and existed throughout the city.

The palace in particular was noted as impressive, in part for its architecture but mainly for its gardens. These hosted 'exotic' plants and a menagerie of animals from across the empire's territory, and existed in part as a symbol of the state's power and reach. It was a trend for emperors to bring in the fiercest animal from each conquered province to the grounds, with the an-nechoi being the beast of choice from the lands across the sea to the east, with one (Probably erroneously) cited as killing thirty servants in the process of moving it into the gardens.

The palace was located within the temple district. This district housed over a hundred shrines to the various lesser deities of the pantheon, and temple complexes to the seven chief deities (the firstborn gods who created the world, all other gods were later descendants). Old Burri temples were Kinda similar in shape to a ziggurat, though had an accessible interior space and a central tower which housed the shrine. At this time, the chief gods were believed to physically inhabit their temples. Each god had its own high priest permitted to attend to their shrine, with the emperor being the high priest to Inanariya (king of the gods) and the only person permitted to directly commune with this deity. The foundations to these temples are relatively intact in the present day, though none of the towers remain (collapsed in earthquakes with no one to rebuild them).

The city was heavily fortified, having one external wall surrounding most of its length, and an internal wall surrounding the palace/temple district (which doubled as a fortress).

---

The period of sea level rise began with a 500ish year period of mostly gradual increase, which occurred slowly enough that most infrastructure could adapt very easily and the problem went unnoticed by most (the city of Bur experienced most of its Growth during this time). It then culminated with about a century of (relatively) rapid rise, which is the direct cause of the city's abandonment.

The canals flooding had always been a problem during storms, but this began to occur with notable frequency, alongside the water level as a whole rising quickly enough to be noticed on an immediate human timespan. The canal district was maintained for a while by rerouting some of its waterways and building up barriers, but it was the first part of the city to be abandoned. Things got more serious when the mainland parts of the city grew increasingly impacted by storm surges that never seemed to fully retract, and major parts of its surrounding farmland were hit by surges and tidal waves, and rendered too saline to remain arable.

The actual single biggest cataclysm was the collapse of the city's mainland sewage system. It was built with flood canals as a failsafe, but these were built to withstand heavy rain rather than an encroaching ocean. Storm surges would cause large segments of the city to be flooded with sewage (including some of the freshwater plumbing), and serious disease outbreaks would follow.

These issues were enabled/exacerbated by earthquakes (the region is geologically active and this isn't unusual) that further damaged and mingled the sewage and freshwater systems. One earthquake and its subsequent tidal wave was a turning point, and the resulting breakdown of (already strained) infrastructure rendered a large swath of the city uninhabitable in the space of about a week. This also just caused immediate damage to much of the city's architecture/walls, and collapsed the tower of the temple to Inanariya (never a good sign). This is when the full exodus began, first with people flocking to un-flooded parts of its city and farmlands, and those who could afford it fully relocating to other cities/towns.

All of this issues were compounded by the 1st Burri Empire already being in a period of collapse at this time. This was largely a matter of simple overextension. Its borders were constantly under attack by rival states/its victims, sometimes with great success. Bur's own population had burgeoned well past what the imperial core land could sustain, and its cities relied predominantly on extraction of foreign grain/goods to feed their people. It lost most of its eastern land holdings in a fairly rapid timespan (overextended with wars at multiple fronts), which caused frequent famines in its core.

This put pressure on its final emperors to invest in increasingly desperate expansionist projects, while attempting to keep up public morale with lavish public works and objectively stupid vanity projects. The attempt to excavate a canal at the Viper seaway's 'tail' (one of the few eastern regions it retained secure control of at that point) was in part a desperate act to revive its economy by opening up/monopolizing a new trade system. The amount of money and manpower sunk into this ultimately doomed project was followed by Bur being fully ousted from its eastern holdings, and was one of the final straws in its collapse.

People in the city of Bur proper were dealing with the double front of starvation and their homes + streets + immediate water supply being flooded with seawater and literal human feces. These issues impacted the lower classes first and most severely, but ultimately transcended class boundaries. Famine grew more and more rampant, not only with the loss of the colonial holdings that supported the population but of farmland in the imperial core- much of the city of Bur's immediate farmlands were unproductive due to repeat inundation with saltwater during surges, and the farmland along the Yamage river to the north was rapidly being captured and pillaged by the Hsem (historical enemies, a nomadic group with a khait warrior culture from further west).

All this was fucking unlivable in of itself, but also had very obvious implications in the context of Burri emperors also being high priests and the chief intermediary between the gods and the people. Not only was the government failing to sustain its citizens to begin with, but signs of divine disapproval were deeply apparent.

So the last days of the 1st Burri empire were a chaotic period of civil unrest, most acute in and around city of Bur proper. This involved near-constant peasant revolts and several attempted coups. The last Burri emperor (of the First empire) ultimately fled the capital of Bur and reestablished in Titenegal, declaring it the new capital. This was then sacked by the Hsem within a year and after that it was fucking Joever.

The city of Bur was functionally abandoned by this point. People still Lived There and there were several attempts to set up a new government, all of which failed in the short term. After the collapse was complete, its inhabitants were mostly just peasants who built up new homes further inland and sustained themselves on the remaining farmland. Few people lived permanently in the city proper due to all of its intact infrastructure being effectively non-functional without the governmental bodies/human labor to sustain it.

---

It should also be noted that it was Extremely not just Bur that was flooded, the sea level rise was worldwide (resulting from a collapsing ice sheet) and almost Every coastal city during this period experienced the same issue. Bur's demise was just notably dramatic in that it was once the most heavily populated human city that has Ever Existed, and directly correlated with the fall of the empire it hosted.

The flooding was fairly gradual, but it's been 7 centuries since the first Burri empire's collapse and the fall of its capital city, and many contemporary records were lost to the immediate chaos and to the large span of time since. Cultural memory tends to reframe the flood VERY rapid on a human scale, many of the stories describe the city being swallowed in a single wave as an act of divine punishment (the popular notion at the time that the last emperors deeply displeased and shamed the gods has stuck into the narrative, often exaggerated into stories of them being horrifically debauched blasphemers guilty of the worst disgraces imaginable). Even more conservative accounts tend to imagine the totality of the destruction taking place over the span of about a year (merging the memories of the immediate earthquake devastation with more gradual elements of its slow flooding). People widely believe that most of its residents drowned in the city's cataclysmic demise, and that the ruins are now Extremely haunted.

The state of the flooding is not 'completely under the sea' and you can still walk/wade through most of the inland ruins (the canal district is effectively submerged, with most structures that Would be above the water level having collapsed against the strain). As such, some people Do Live Here. These people are mostly smugglers and pirates using the ruins as a hideout, and/or opportunistic hunters and fishermen who won't let ghosts stop them. Entering the city ruins is currently forbidden (largely Because of the criminal nature of basically every motive to go here (even hunting, which is considered poaching)), but enforcement of this rule/active patrols to prevent entry are inconsistent.

The majority of Old Bur's inhabitants are animals. The un-flooded parts of the city and its gardens are now a host to a thriving community of native plants and animals (and a few descendants of escaped non-native zoo animals/ornamental plants that adapted well to the conditions).

The egret shown here is a foreign species originally brought as an ornamental bird. In the centuries since its first import, it has become widespread and occurs on both sides of the Mouth seaway. It can hunt in both freshwater and saline environments, and a very large population lives permanently in the ruins of Old Bur.

Its common name is the ghost egret. Contemporary Burri folklore holds that the ghost egrets of Old Bur are literal ghosts, carrying the souls of those who died in the cataclysmic floods.