#flag of homeworld

[jayrockin]

The crest of the Bug Ferret Galactic Community, a intergovernmental organization that represents the of the vast majority of bug ferret polities and institutions in galactic politics.

The crest depicts the habitable tropics of the bug ferret homeworld, and the avatars of their planet (brown and white ferret with a teal band overhead) and their large moon (pink spotted ferret with an orange fungi) surrounded by a pink cloud representing their relationship as egg twins in Star Family mythology. The homeplanet is shown transferring life to their sibling, who is imagined as having been a stillborn that was returned from death by terraforming. The six other ferrets represent the inhabited celestial bodies of the local star system. There are some expanded forms of the BFGC crest that include avatars of more or all of the inhabited worlds in their territory, which can get ridiculously large. Bug ferrets can only see red through green on the visible light spectrum, meaning their blue gas giant and bodies of water are depicted as a dark, grayish green.

Like other ferret crests, it can be represented in any style between painted realism and a "Braille" form; simple grooves that are easier for touch identification in total darkness. Bug ferrets do not use flags to represent political factions— they are accustomed to windless underground tunnels and tend to have poorer long distance vision than other sophonts, making "legibility at a distance" unimportant to them.

PATREON | STORE | Runaway to the Stars

[ode-to-arecibo]

Raptorslugs and their co-sophonts moths

The raptorslug homeworld has no moon, a sunlike star and weak tides. Only one creature ever crawled out of the water, which had a mobile gametophyte phase and a photosynthetic sporophyte phase. Every macroscopic land organism is evolved from this source and about 70% of species have retained the two stage lifecycle.

Raptorslugs evolved from a cursorial pack hunter, much like wolves. Their governmental systems have even more diversity than human governments, and countries are usually smaller than on earth. The pack structure rarely plays into government, but frequently into social events and workplace culture. A raptor has a couple packs: their sport friends, their job, whatever other hobbies. A pack always does something together. Your mate is usually not part of your pack, unless you're also on some team together. Raptorslugs genuinely appreciate the corporate pizza party.

Raptorslug culture centers dances, sport and architecture.

The males with their attractive blue dance much like birds of paradise (I'm thinking of the Greater lophorina). There are many styles of dance, but they all involve the wings and usually involve bouncing or shaking. One of the more common interspecies relationships is female raptorslugs (or gay males) with a human in bright clothing who knows how to use a fan. Human with fan is just as attractive as a natural male raptorslug. They would date drakes or herder kaledevids too, but those species have such different conceptions of romance that it rarely works out.

Sports are often derived from hunting in some way. They're one of the few times when it's polite to unsheathe your mandibles. Most sports are meant to evoke a pack taking down a foe, and are rarely two teams on equal ground competing to get a ball into a goal. They prefer to try to get a certain score, with no opponent team. One sport is basically soccer, except there's only one team, and everyone is blindfolded and the field is full of various obstacles. Another popular sport just involves releasing a xenogazelle into a large fenced in area and ten guys work together to kill it with their teeth, or various more 'civilized' variations. The few competitive sports they have are thievery based. Get 'meat' flags from a 'carcass' while the other team tries to chase you away and get the flags for themselves.

Their architecture often evokes bird nests. Round, winding, spiraling, woven. They think bricks look cheap and low effort. Particularly impressive buildings look like gnarled trees, bulging and intertwining as they ascend.

Raptorslugs' sporophyte phase has atrophied into something resembling a placenta. The egg is fertilized, grows into a flat thin sporophyte within the womb, and develops two baby raptorslugs within it from spores.

Moths are more complicated, with a culture and psychology so alien that it's generally just too much work to understand. There are over 100 species of moth, all intelligent, all different levels of intelligence. These species act like and sometimes include breeds, selectively bred for specific purposes. If raptorslugs didn't exist, moths would be capable of building a spaceship on their own (the empire's standard definition for intelligence) but they wouldn't have wanted to. Moths simply don't have the ambition to leave their planet or invent fire or agriculture. They'll gladly run your datacentre but they would never bother inventing it on their own. They just want their sporophyte trees safe. The occasional species has now been bred for ambition but these are still rare.

Moths are easy to work with however, as they think in contracts. They'll do what you ask, and in exchange, usually they ask for their trees to be protected. Sometimes they'll ask for something more complex, like that one time a colony wanted import laws to be relaxed

Moths clearly have some sort of culture. They work differently, want their habitats differently depending on the colony, and experiments show it isn't genetic. But they don't do anything for fun. They don't make art or watch shows. They read, but they strongly prefer nonfiction. They enjoy maps. It's hard to befriend a moth and impossible to date one.

They do have colonies or genetically related individuals, but they aren't a hive mind. Moths from the same tree just tend to want the same things, and don't care if they or their sibling is the one to reproduce, so they stick together.

[hmshermitcraft]

Listen, Gem didn't— there wasn't— Pride wasn't a thing where Gem is from! Isn't! So, when she hears of a pride parade being hosted around the shops, her brain falls back to her religious homeworld— why would they have a parade for that? Are they shaming someone? No, that doesn't seem like something they would do...

Colour her surprised and embarrassed when she shows up with an axe and a shield, ready to save someone from being publicly humiliated, only to find several shirtless hermits with colours on their chest, their cheeks, some wearing colourful capes to block the sun, and oh, this is not what she that it was—

The hermits have to, very gently, explain that no, they are not publicly shaming someone for pride. They're all just fruity and proud of it.

She gets a couple of pride flags on her cheeks and helps to set up water stations so they don't get heat stroke. And, like, kisses everyone. It only seems right!

It's a nice reminder of where she is and where she once was. Maybe next year she can play an even bigger part in the celebration!

[whereserpentswalk]

It's a debate amoung many scholars if humans ever got a chance to explore their moon.

Since it's been hundreds since any sovereign humans state has existed, and almost all humans were expelled from the sol system only a few generations after the conquest of earth, outside scholars didn't have as much of a chance to see humans in their native environment as they wanted to. So for those who are studying the sol system after its resettled (useally referred to as auxus by the new settlers) they have mostly archeology to go on.

Now, some have tried to consult the humans for their own cultural memories of such things. And though the human diaspora is very large, serving the role of "middle man minority" in a lot of planets, and taking especially well to spaceships, that doesn't mean anthropology should trust their history as they tell them. Because of how primitive humans were at the time of the conquest, their history as they wrote it is thought of as more of a mythology then a history, important for analyzing the character of humanity, but not an objective account. And unless archeological research backs something up, human primary sources are assumed to be myth.

Now. There is archeological proof that someone was building spacecraft in the sol/auxus system around the time of conquest. We've seen examples of the human homeworld Nexcur (called earth in the human's language) having strange and unknowable machines orbiting it as artificial satellites. And Nexcur's moon has objects such as a flag planted on it, and the closest planet to it has some small unmanned vehicles. It's unknown who made these and why, and has been a mystery since its discovered. Some people think the nearby gaetgians or trinurians built them, others think that the iiriu built them long before the humans evolved. There's even some theories that the yethyy empire built them in preparation for the conquest of earth. There's even more crackpot theories about divine beings or ancient interdimensional entities making them on some corners of the internet.

Of course. The humans almost all claim their ansestors made them, pointing to their own myths. Scholars are just starting to take it seriously, though many remain rather skeptical. The humans were known to be a primitive and warlike species on their homeworld, with no ftl capabilities, the idea of them sending anything to space is laughable to a lot of academics. And it very much differs from the image of humanity that most people have when the think about that time period. Humans have a reputation for taking their mythology a bit too seriously, such as claiming heritage from mythical kingdoms such a King Arthur's Britain, the Odyssey's Greece, or Journey to the West's China.

There is also the obvious problem with any archeological research around what is now auxus which is its religious significance to cultures such as the yethyy and aeretiel. While we try not to offend their religious ideas, and treat them with respect, it is often a problem when their religious ideals of an ancient significance in auxus clashes with the archeological reality that before 1458 SD there is no evidence of non human civilization. For example the mummified body that many yethyy claim to be their prophet kkayykar (despite not even possessing the right amount of eyes or arms to be a yethyy) was recently identified as the mummy of the human king Lenin. However, it's still in a yethyy temple, and still in the power armor the yethyy added to it (partially to make him look more like their own race), as archeologists don't want to offend yethyy heritage.

Still, as no religion has fully claimed the ancient evidence for human era space travel as their own, now is the perfect time for archeologists to learn more about them. More and more of human mythology is being proven plausible, especially as the human mythological creatures known as "dinosaurs" have finally been proven to have some basis in paleontological reality in recently. Science still waits to find out more about auxus's fascinating history and prehistory.

[spyglassrealms]

This time, we'll get it right. With Mars we'll atone; we'll go beyond atonement. We, who nearly killed our living world, will take this cold dead world and breathe life into it. Mars, god of war and rage and death, turned to Eden in time and toil. With Mars, we rejoice that the human miracle has mitosed into a new pair of cells, adjacent to and in harmony with the other, but each of them free and whole. — "Plowshare" by an anonymous author, 2336 C.E.

Mars is a small, dusty, rust-colored world, fourth order in the Sol system, which bears the second-oldest continuous human presence beyond Earth (the oldest, of course, being Luna.) Over the last several hundred years, humankind has meticulously crafted the once barren, near-airless desert of Mars into the beginnings of a garden world full of terragenid life.

At only a third the physical size of its neighbor Earth and barely 11% as massive, Mars is quite a small terrestrial planet. It has an ocean to land area considerably smaller than Earth (roughly 50% water as opposed to Earth's 70%) and a moderately thinner atmosphere, meaning much of the highland regions remain cold, dry, and uninhabitable. Its tides are nearly nonexistent thanks to its two tiny asteroidal moons, Phobos and Deimos, and its natural magnetic field is long gone. But despite the challenges, Mars is a shining example of the terraforming process’ benefits. After centuries of slow, careful tending the red planet has started to become blue and green just like the human homeworld: its atmosphere is breathable, its weather is balmy, its seas are calm, and the lowlands are now teeming with terragenid flora and fauna that have been genetically modified to thrive in the uniquely Martian environment.

Mars’ population, some 2.4 billion strong, forms a rich culture built off the foundations of the original melting-pot inhabitants, with a strong emphasis on hard work and civic duty. The planet is governed in its entirety by the People’s Republic of Mars, which is actually more akin to a eudemocracy facilitated by Mars’ comprehensive satellite communication network. Thanks in part to this new evolution of social organization, Mars (like the vast majority of the UNH) has achieved a near-utopic post-scarcity civilization.

The red planet has come a long way since its independence in 2210 CE, and indeed even further since the first human landing in 2018. Mars takes great pride in its status as one of the oldest Earth-independent nations in all of human space.

been a while since the last entry in the Worlds of Sol series, huh? photobash of a future Mars and its biosphere plus their flags, created for my hard science fiction setting Astra Planeta. this one was not made with SpaceEngine; I made the maps based on NASA imagery and compiled the layers in Map To Globe.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

I don't have a comics "take" to offer up necessarily--but I want to see a Superman run where Clark Kent is essentially J. Jonah Jameson. Constantly finding reasons to just shit on Superman and belittle all of his efforts. Superman is of course just as heroic as usual, but I want to see him having fun writing a bunch of tabloid bullshit about himself.

He is the single least popular editor the Daily Planet has ever had, but it's the age of clickbait and engagement farming, so he's also the most successful. His most famous editorial rant is the one where he claims that Superman must have destroyed Krypton himself, since it's veeeeeery suspicious that somehow a baby just happened to survive while no one else did. Very suspicious indeed. And all these Kryptonian expats that keep coming to Earth to fight Superman must be looking for revenge for their murdered homeworld. If the forces of Earth would just stand back and let these freedom fighters take the filthy alien off their hands, it would save countless lives. They might even stop trying to conquer Earth. No more precious human lives lost on account of an alien!

(Lois reads this in utter disbelief. "Clark...are you appealing to racism to keep people from getting hurt during your fights?"

"Why not? Nothing else has worked. And the term is super xenophobia.")

Aside from Lois, who hates what Clark is doing but loves the free reign he gives her to investigate any story she wants, and Ma, who doesn't read the paper anyway, the only non-hero who knows what Clark's doing is Lex Luthor. He sussed it out the first time he tried taunting Superman with a Kent editorial and Superman merely floated there looking pleased with himself. It took Lex about three seconds to really look at Kent's byline photo and realize he was Superman all this time! Lex is pissed, of course. How dare this alien take over humanity's free press and use it to spread his false propaganda! Compromised newspapers pushing a biased agenda? That's just unamerican! Lex immediately buys the failing Huffington Post, renames it the Lexington Times, makes himself Editor in Chief, and turns the editorial section into a daily rebuttal of every article Clark Kent posts. Lex's elegant arguments against Kent's "shortsighted xenophobia" and "reckless crusade against Superman" garner national acclaim. LexCorp stock is breaking records daily. And Superman's reputation has never polled so high! Lex isn't exactly pleased with the latter, but when you add the former to the fact that he's finally succeeding in thwarting Superman's schemes, he decides that he's come out ahead anyway. All is right in Lexworld-- no, in Lextopia!

Two weeks later he's named the Grand Marshall of Metropolis's annual Superman Day Parade and he realizes that he might have fucked up. Superman and Lex Luthor are linked so tightly in the public consciousness that not only can he never risk attacking the alien again lest his stock plummet, but shareholders are actually expecting him to support Superman. Overtly! His own board won't shut up about destroying their Kryptonite stockpiles and dismantling the anti-alien missiles. Even worse, they want R&D to start working on anti-Kryptonite armor that will make the damned alien even more powerful! Lex never should have bought the Lexington Times. No! He never should have went public! Worst mistake he ever made. LexCorp should have stayed a family company.

He is, of course, placed right next to Superman during the mayor's Superman Day commencement speech. The entire time he's standing there, a rictus smile on his face, he's muttering "I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you" under his breath while he and Superman link arms and wave to the crowd.

Lois gets a great shot of Superman giving a surprised and bright red Lex Luthor a grateful hug, the American flag proudly flying high above their heads.

It wins her her first Pulitzer Prize for Featured Photography.

[baldieboi]

Primarch OC Introduction

Raladus

@ghrgrsfdesfrfg @w-40-k

your local war criminal with a PhD in making everyone uncomfortable

The basics

Name: Raladus (Rala/Ral if you're feeling suicidal)

Legion: "Dread Sentinels" (we're the ones you don't invite to parties)

Found: early (daddy's early mistake)

Home World: Carissa (conveniently destroyed, how mysterious)

Titles

Half-Insane Primarch

Mad Scientist

Dark Innovator

Lord Primarch of the Dread Sentinels

"That Brother We Don't Talk About" (family favorite)

"Please Stop Experimenting On The Serfs" (Imperial complaint)

The look™

Height: 8'7" of concentrated nightmare fuel

Build: Lean and slender (all that manic energy burns calories)

Aesthetic: Pale gothic scientist who hasn't seen sunlight in decades

Hair: Shoulder-length jet black mess (lab safety is for the weak)

Eyes: Sharp dark green that see you as a potential test subject

Skin: Pale, scarred, and rough (some scars are from personal experiments)

Face: Diamond-shaped and catlike (predator energy)

Voice: Cold, hostile, and dripping with sarcasm

Gear&Style

Dark green armor with grey accents (color-coordinated with his legion)

Various medical instruments (they're weapons, he's just creative)

Intimidating presence that makes even Space Marines nervous

Probably carries syringes filled with things you don't want to know about

Personality disaster

The Brilliant Monster:

✅ Analytical genius with innovative solutions

✅ Adaptable and resourceful

✅ Dedicated to his research

✅ Confident in his abilities

✅ Observant and perceptive

The Walking Red Flag:

❌ Amoral sociopath with zero empathy

❌ Cruel and sadistic (it's not a bug, it's a feature)

❌ Manipulative and deceptive

❌ Unstable and unpredictable

❌ Literally experiments on his own sons

❌ Bullies everyone including his brothers

❌ Cowardly when confronted with real consequences

He's the family member who gets uninvited from reunions and somehow still shows up

Backstory&Mystery

Found on Carissa (early discovery)

Plot twist: His home planet is now space dust

Refuses to share ANY details about his past (sus)

Early discovery means daddy had high hopes (oops)

The real tea: Whatever happened on Carissa was bad enough that he destroyed the evidence

Current goals&obsessions

Unlock the secrets of bio-engineering (rival daddy's work)

Create his own army of enhanced beings

Experiment on literally everyone (consent is a foreign concept)

Master gene-engineering to Emperor levels

Secret goal: Stay sane (failing spectacularly)

Terrorize his brothers for fun

Make everyone as uncomfortable as possible

Hidden agenda: Something darker than anyone realizes

Legion highlights

The Dread Sentinels are:

Masters of psychological warfare

Dark green and grey aesthetic (very goth)

Probably have trust issues with their primarch

Experts at making enemies surrender through sheer terror

Definitely have some modifications courtesy of dad

The legion other legions avoid at social gatherings

Abilities

Dark Experimentation (his specialty and hobby)

Brilliant strategic mind (when he's not distracted by science)

Terrible leader (his sons fear him more than the enemy)

Master of psychological warfare

Chaos and fear creation expert

Adept at making everyone regret meeting him

Some horrifying details

The Family Disappointment: Found early but turned out to be a complete disaster

Self-Experimenter: Literally uses himself as a test subject (explains a lot)

Brother Terrorizer: Actively tries to scare his fellow primarchs

The Mystery: His destroyed homeworld holds secrets he'll kill to keep

Daddy Issues: Desperately wants to rival the Emperor's bio-engineering skills

The Coward: For all his cruelty, he's actually afraid of real consequences

The Liar: Nothing he says can be trusted (including this introduction)

Why he's fascinating (and terrifying)

The primarch who chose to be the villain

Represents what happens when genius lacks morality

His own legion probably plots against him

The Primarch who probably would make even Chaos Marines uncomfortable

The real question: What happened on Carissa that was so bad he destroyed an entire planet?

Self-aware about his madness but uses it as a weapon

The family member who makes everyone else look functional by comparison

This primarch is intentionally written as irredeemable. He's the villain of his own story and everyone else's.

[aevumisles]

╰┈➤ AEVUM ISLES :: JUNE FESTIVAL ❂

Throughout the beginning of the summer season, Isle residents gather in multitudes during the day and the night to celebrate the natural world and the communities that share in it. Many traditions find the Aercon and Echoes alike visiting the sandy shores of the Lunar Coast, cleaning up the environment, and showing goodwill to their neighbors with plenty of gifts. Please refer to the ARCANUS ISLE COMPENDIUM for creature and plant references.

OVERVIEW:

The Sunflower Festival

The Sunflower Festival is a month long event taking place from the beginning to the end of June. While the festivities do not last for the entirety of the summer season, residents of Arcanus Isle take great care to enjoy the warmer weather.

Festivities take place during the night and the day. In the daytime, events like the Sunflower Parade or the Lunar Tournament can be enjoyed in the Lunar Coast and Downtown Arcanus Districts.

Each night, in the early evening, Arcanus residents end off the day's festivities with bright fireworks that light up the night sky. 

The Solstice Ball

Takes place during the 18th - 30th of June.

The festival concludes with The Solstice Ball, a spectacular event where everyone dresses in their best to dance under the glorious Golden Moon. (see: Notable Legends down below.)

Like last year, the ball will be hosted in the Viderenox Observatory. See HERE for details on the observatory.

ACTIVITIES:

NOTE: Other activities such as sea shell collecting, beach parties, garden parties and so on are all celebrated during the Sunflower Festival. While you may create member-run mini parties and events during the festival, only interactions with the listed activities/areas will be considered valid forms of festival participation.

For a limited time, a number of Sunflower Festival wares can be purchased (for free!) from the Aevum Marketplace using the Sunflower Festival Voucher.

Some of these wares include:

Shimmer and Glows Sprinkler - (available only with participation in Nighttime Shimmers and Glows.) An endless sprinkler that sparks and changes color! They are also non-flammable. Lunar Rod - (available only with participation in the Lunar Tournament.) A gold-flaked fishing rod with a special tackle that is highly attractive to the local aevum fish. Fish Charm - (available only with participation in Fish Spy) a small charm in the shape of any fish, made from stones, shells, or wood. Olympic Flag - (available only with participation in the Aevum Olympics) A one-of-a-kind flag with the icon of the sport participated in. Garden Bracelet (available only with participation in Charms of the Garden Activity. Garden Bracelets may be gifted.) A custom bracelet made with several unique charms and beads of flowers. Keepers of the Land, Sky, and Sea Shirt (available only with participation in the KLSS) A cool, breathable t-shirt displaying the logo of the volunteer organization. Homeworld Wares (available only with participation in the Gateway Flea Market) These items are custom to each Echo, and are subject to the rules detailed in the event below.

Requests will be processed from June 22nd - May 3rd. All requests should include a link to the thread, ask, or drabble that shows the participation in said event, in addition to the stats, and thread pages.

(NOTE: with the exception of Garden Charms, these items cannot be gifted to other muses.)

Downtown Arcanus.

Sunflower Parade

One of the many highlights of the Sunflower Festival is the Sunflower Parade! It is a warm welcome to the summer sun and the influx of Ivurie Aether that comes with it. Downtown Arcanus has been decorated with balloons, paper sunflower petals, and plenty of other party decor. Music can be heard throughout the streets during the day. Especially nearby the Arcanus University campus.

During the cooler hours of the late afternoon and early evening, a float parade is conducted by residents who choose to participate. These floats range from large to small, elaborate to simple.

As usual, to announce the event on her very own float is is Arcanus’ own Opal Luminous.

Notably, the East Tower Company and the West Tower Society are known to be highly competitive during the parade. Each year, they create more and more elaborate floats. The not-so-rumour has it that they may even be trying to outdo each other.... While the other rumour has it that they've even gone so far as to try and sabotage each other's floats!

It seems that the director of the WTS has been making massive steps in pushing a positive image for her company after recent events.

While many floats are crafted by various other notable figures and local businesses of Arcanus Isle (Echoes will find a representation of almost every Aerconi-owned business!), the Echoes are equally encouraged to create floats of their own for the parade. Or join in other floats to assist their performances. (Or sabotage other performances!)

Charms of the Garden

This activity is eligible for festival redemption.

A favorite activity amongst festival-goers is creating unique garden bracelet for their friends and family members. There are dozens of different ornaments to choose from, each with their own meaning. All ornaments for Charms of the Garden are created by students at Arcanus University, and the proceeds return to the school's funding.

The charms provided are as follows:

Echo Tree Nut ( peace in change ) 

Field Fish Feather ( brings good people into your life ) 

Sapeng Wool ( aid with memories ) 

Moonview Spring Stones ( rejuvenation )

Lunar Coast Shells ( wealth in the summer ) 

Heavens Mirror Bead ( mourning lost loved ones ) 

May Flower Bead ( protection ) 

Zephyr Lilly Bead ( guidance in dark times ) 

Orb Flower Bead ( good wishes ) 

Sunflower Bead ( happiness ) 

Aether Rose Bead ( balance ) 

There are multiple locations for bracelets to be created along campus grounds.

NOTE: The charm bracelets may be gifted to other Echoes participating in the Summer Festival. Upon voucher redemption, a link to the thread or ask featuring it is required to put this item on your stats page.

The Lunar Coast.

The Lunar Tournament

This activity is eligible for festival redemption.

The Trawler Docks are open and bustling with activity! During this time of year, the ocean is flourishing with many forms of sea life.

Some locals offer scuba diving tours of Arcus Cove's coral reefs, while others will gladly rent out boats for other residents to enjoy the clear blue waters.

Of course, the docks are also host to the largest fishing competition of the year: The Lunar Tournament.

There are three main categories that one could enter into:

Biggest Fish (measured by weight and length)

Most Fish (measured by total weight)

Rarest Fish (judged by leading Marine Biologists of Arcanus Isle).

The competition has a catch-and-release policy upon completion of the final scoring.

Winners of each category will receive a cash prize of 1,000 keys, a trophy representing their category, and a brand-new fishing rod!

Fish Spy

This activity is eligible for festival redemption.

Primarily marketed towards families with younger children, Fish Spy is an event taking place in Arcus Cove. Participants are given a bingo card and taken out the coral reefs. There, they can snorkel in the waters while looking for many breeds of fish on their cards. (The cards are water proof!)

Some fish to find that are native to the Arcanus Isle include:

Comet Fish

Gem Fish

Illumenoctopi

Ripple Kelpies

Successfully filled-out cards can be exchanged for a variety of fish charms.

Nighttime Shimmers and Glows

This activity is eligible for festival redemption.

In brilliant displays of wonder and light, a fireworks show is held every Sunday evening along Halycon Beach. Many gather all across the Lunar Coast just to watch the astonishing display. The firework shows change almost every night, with each display being more even grand than the last.

The show is hosted by Vander Bard of the Comet Promenade. Many enjoy watching the show on the Comets Ferris Wheel, especially with friends and loved ones.

Along the Comet Piers and Comet Promenade many shops offer great selections of fireworks, sprinklers, poppers, and plenty of fantastically sweet and savory treats the likes of fair foods.

The Clearview District.

Aevum Olympics 

This activity is eligible for festival redemption.

Attention all sports fans! Hosted at the Clearview Stadium is the most highly anticipated events of the Isle! The Aevum Olympics. Aercon from all over Arcanus joing together to compete in various sporting events and prove their mettle. Sporting events include but are not limited to:

Track and Field (split between marathon and half-marathon sprints)

Swimming

Wrestling and Boxing

Various sports (e.g., soccer, football, baseball, tennis, etc.)

Pole Vaulting

Gymnastics

Ice Skating

Ping Pong

and many others!

Note: The Olympics can also include sports from an Echoes' homeworld.

All are welcome to come and spectate or participate! There’s just one universal rule:

No Cheating.

Cheaters will be forced to repeat their event against an Olympian Android. (Specifically, one designed by the event's biggest sponsor, the East Tower Company)

It never loses.

Of course, Aevum’s Tossup is one of the most popular sports. Over the spring, the four teams have been preparing near-endlessly for the playoffs that occur during this event. Now, it is finally time for the four biggest teams to compete for the championship title.

See here for information on the local sport.

Make sure to follow Aevum Daily for updates!

Fanalea District.

The Golden Harvests

No people are more excited about the Sunflower Festival than the residents of the Fanalean Farmlands, and Echoes are encouraged to join in! Beneath the Golden Moon, the Fanalean community ensures that their fields are fully revitalized for the coming crops to grow.

Plenty of help is wanted, and Fanalean farmers employ any volunteers to pick up a trowel to clear the fields of Whisper Thistles, care for livestock, harvest the last spring produce, sow summer seeds, and prepare some fields to lie fallow for the season.

Up to 500 keys per day will be offered to participating echoes.

At night, the workers watch in awe as fields of sunflowers begin to glow brightly across the fields, matching the Zephyr Lillies around them. The sunflowers absorb sunlight in their petals, and then under the golden moon, they glow a bright golden color.

Sunflower Feast

During Sunflower Festival, locals will often spend time experimenting with new dishes and flavors. When new recipes have been concocted, chefs of all calibre gather around the bonfire at the center of Fanalea to share them. In fact, the whole community comes together!

Sunflower is a key ingredient in many of the foods found. A glowing, golden tea - called Golden Cortania - is made from the petals of the sunflower. It is especially a fan-favorite. Tins can of Golden Cortania be bought from select shops in the Vesper Town Trading Post.

Some of the foods that can be enjoyed include:

Sunflower Seed Muffins

Pumpkin Sauce Pizza

Eben Root Stew, and many others!

Honeyglow Meadery is also offering Sunflower Wine, which is only available during this festival.

The Aether Reserve.

This activity is eligible for festival redemption.

Keepers of the Lands, Skies, and Seas

As nature is the focal point of the Sunflower Festival, the Padedue Temple, Whisperwind Hacienda, and West Tower Society have combined efforts to create volunteer programs to help clean up and protect the natural world of Arcanus Isle. 

As this is a joint effort, the Hacienda is focused on education, the Padedue Temple is focused on volunteer work, and the WTS is responsible for funding and advertisements.

Information booths with petitions written by the West Tower Society will be posted all throughout Arcanus. Signers will pledge to protect the environment and spread awareness about ways residents can keep Arcanus Isle spick and span.

Those who sign on to the petition pledge will be made automatic volunteers, where they will be assigned a location to clear up any trash and resident-made debris. These trips involve waking up early, and are often an all-day event. Supplies are provided to the volunteers by the West Tower Society, and Willow Westson has designer a cool shirt with “Keepers of the Lands, Skies, and Seas” written on it. —They're tie-dye!

Most volunteer work will be found along the Lunar Coast. Primarily: Halycon Beach, Arcus Cove and Arcus Reef. Downtown Arcanus' Quill Pillar Shores, the Aether Reserve's Moonview Springs, and any of the parks across Arcanus are also available as volunteer locations.

Merchant Town.

Gateway Flea Market 

This activity is eligible for festival redemption.

In the center plaza of Merchant Town, a giant, mysterious tent has appeared seemingly overnight! Instead of the various food stalls and market shops, there now sits a wondrous pavilion called the Gateway Flea Market.

This tent houses brand new stalls full of Aercon selling or trading their random assortment of goods to anyone who may find a home for them. 

While many of of the prices come cheap, many other items may only be acquired through trading specific items that may take hours to find. An Echo dead set on a ware may find themselves embarking on a long and arduous Exchange Quest.

Curiously, in some of these stalls Echoes may come upon strange wares. Instead of the usual bits and bobbles however, what makes these wares so strange is that they may be familiar to the Echoes themselves.

These items range from books and journals, to trinkets, toys, jewelry and clothes, tools, decorations, and other such similar items. As with any item, these come at a price, and some merchants drive a harder bargain than others.

The rule of the game? One man's trash is another man's treasure. 

Be warned if you see one of the Pyrite Pawners triplets! They are all ruthless in their pursuit of unique items to sell in their shop.

Note: The following restrictions apply: The Items can: - Be items that exist in an Echo's native world - Be pulled from any point in time in the Echo's world, regardless of an Echo's current or potential canon points. - Be minor canon items, background items, and major canon items. The items cannot: - Be any belongings found on an Echo's application, current or future. - be weapons or magical in any way. - be eligible for the Tier Four Homeworld Redemption item. - Be larger than a two-foot cube. - Be items that canonically belong to another character or from a world separate to their own. All items redeemed must not serve a largely important purpose. e.g., Bilbo Baggins could not find one of the Ten Rings. These items must be found in either thread or drabble form in order to keep them. In which, a brief description of what the item is, and may be used is required. The thread or drabble must be submitted to the Aevum Marketplace as proof for approval to put on one's Stats page inventory. Requests will be processed from June 18th - July 5th.

Viderenox Observatory.

Solstice Ball

During the last two weeks of June, the main event held inside the observatory is the highly anticipated Solstice Ball. At the twin moon's apex, the ceiling of the conservatory opens, allowing for the light of the golden moon to shine upon the dancers below.

In order to attend, the invited must present their golden letter to the attendants at the gate. Inside, arrivals will find the well-decorated room full of people dressed in their finest, fanciest attire.

Attendants walk between guests with trays of drinks and hors d'oeuvre, though larger portions may also be found at the open bar and snack tables. The food has been catered by the famous Chef Trop Chere, owner of the Casa Nova restaurant. The featured wine is, of course, Honeyglow Meadery's Sunflower Wine.

The telescope is also open to those who may wish for a closer look at the stars. Janus Astrophel can be found assisting visitors with the equipment and teaching them about Aevum's galaxy. The studies and offices are closed during the event. Echoes who prefer to explore will find these doors have been locked. Fortunately, other exhibits may be explored, creating quieter areas of rest during the party.

Of course, the main activity of the ball is the dance!

A live orchestra fills the hall with beautiful music, while the dancers pair and waltz under the stars. In some of the dance numbers, the floor of the observatory matches the night sky above. This creates the appearance of literally dancing among the stars.

NOTABLE LEGENDS:

The Golden Moon

The twin moons of the Aevum Isles have always held a certain air of mystery to them. Most scholars agree that these moons are a symbol of Ebenos, while the sun represents Ivurie's qualities. As Aerconi understanding of the Aether grows, studies have shown that during select periods of time, one Aether may influx so greatly that its influence may even reflects upon its counterpart.

One of these select periods is in the beginning of summer. During this time, Ivurie Aether burgeons so greatly that it reflects in the largest of the two moons, turning it bright golden color. As the light of the golden moon bathes Arcanus in its glow, it can be noted that plants grow much faster than usual, and the wildlife become more active and present in day-to-day lives.

Many speculate that this phenomena is the Aether replenishing itself in all forms of life. There is, after all, no other time of year where Aevum sunflowers glow as they do during the summer nights.

Now, residents of Aevum Isles look to the glowing, golden moon and her many stars for glad tidings, good luck, and rejuvenation.

[tennessoui]

Kit! I'm obsessed with your writing!

For the prompt list: 25!

(prompt list)

i don't think i've ever done this prompt/this combination!

25. librarian/avid reader au (sort of)

(2.6k)

As a Jedi who rarely goes undercover, Obi-Wan is used to the occasional stare. Citizens of the Republic are all too often fascinated by the Jedi, and Obi-Wan knows he looks like a holo-perfect one. His choice of wardrobe rarely deviates from Jedi standard, and he’s been told he radiates the sort of complete inner peace that people associate with Jedi. It’s all very flattering and it mostly means that it is impossible for him not to be made as a Jedi the moment he steps out of the Temple.

So he’s rather used to the occasional stare from civilians. It’s almost to be expected.

He is much less used to that sort of attention within the Temple. 

Especially within the Archives, where general practice and observation of decorum demands that all who are present must keep their noses out of everyone else’s business. Jedi do not come to the Archives to chat. They come to research, to learn, to study.

They certainly do not come to the Archives to gawp at other more respectable Jedi.

Obi-Wan tries to convey this in the glare he sends across the cavernous reading room to the padawan currently watching him from between the stacks of datapads.

It must work because the padawan’s eyes widen and then he ducks out of sight, disappearing in a flash of lilac robes, the color of fabric denoting an Archival padawan.

Huh.

He’s never drawn the ire of the Archival Jedi before, and he doesn’t quite understand what he could have done now. After all, he is waist-deep in a research project for Grandmaster Yoda—he is in the Archives almost every day of the week and makes a point to abide all of the Archive’s customs and rules.

When Obi-Wan leaves a few hours later, daily notes carefully tucked away in a bag and two datapads on loan, he checks with the droid that scans the serials on the ‘pads, but the droid has no record of Obi-Wan Kenobi possessing an overdue ‘pad or flimsi-book. 

It’s strange.

But then, padawans are strange creatures. Probably why Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’ll ever have one himself.

—-------------

Three days later, he returns to the Archives, one datapad in his bag for return.

It’d looked promising on the shelf, a database containing different accounts of the oral history of Jedha, but upon further perusal, it had been useless to his needs. What Obi-Wan was researching—what he needed to find were descriptions of the earliest Jedi on Jedha. The growth of two factions inside that temple, told from an outsider’s point of view. 

What he needed to find was a description of the beginning of the Sith, and that was proving difficult.

He deposits the datapad at the droid’s counter, tapping his fingers along the surface for a moment in thought before he turns to stride deeper into the Archives. He supposes—there are planets outside of Jedha with histories heavy in Sith ideology. He does not have to start with Jedha, even if that’s where the Sith Order began.

He can pull a list of the most notorious Sith lords; he can note down their homeworlds, perhaps request Council permission to travel to those planets. To understand the past, one must understand the present too—or the nearer decades of history at the very least. 

It’s a place to start, anyway.

Two hours later, he has neatly copied down the names, titles, and homeworlds of six different Sith lords.

And then he runs into a problem. His search of the Sith Lord Plagueius results in a short missive from the database:

>> User: OWKenobi, ACCESS has been denied. Your activity has been flagged as SUSPICIOUS.

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows furrow, and he looks around himself, half wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same sort of problem.

But the group of Initiates closeby seem to be carrying along fine, giggling quietly to themselves as they pick at the keyboards in front of them.

Obi-Wan frowns and turns back to his own keyboard, deleting the name of the Sith lord and typing in another’s. Darth Feindan, a ruthless Sith who had lived close to five hundred years ago, known as the ghost of the Outer Rim and known for—

>> User: OWKenobi, ACCESS has been denied. Your activity has been flagged as SUSPICIOUS.

Alright. Fine. Darth Derritus. He had risen to power a thousand years before, because of—

>> User: OWKenobi, ACCESS has been denied. Your activity has been flagged as SUSPICIOUS.

“What?” Obi-Wan murmurs to himself, putting down his stylus finally to stare at the locked screen.

When he drags the cursor across the screen, a new message pops up.

User: OWKenobi, your account has been LOCKED. Please see SYSTEM ADMIN for SUPPORT.

He blows out a shocked, annoyed breath, standing from his desk. Alright. Obviously there’s been some sort of mistake, and Obi-Wan can sort of understand what’s happened. The Sith are not much of a threat to the Jedi Order in this day and age, but they’re still considered rather…taboo.

Obviously, his purely academic interest was flagged as suspicious because of the nature of some Jedi attitudes towards the remnants of the Sith. 

All he’ll have to do is talk with the Archival staff and get his access back. Perhaps Jocasta Nu is present today. He will tell her of the error, that he has been assigned a research project by the Grandmaster Yoda, and she will straighten things out.

Yes, she’ll handle it completely.

Only it’s not Master Nu behind the Archival desk when Obi-Wan approaches the front entrance.

It’s the same lilac-clad padawan that Obi-Wan had caught glaring at him all those days ago.

And to make matters worse, the boy is glaring at him again, watching him approach with his arms crossed over his chest.

Obi-Wan fights the urge to glare back. He is an accomplished Jedi Knight, and this is a youngling.

Well, not a youngling. He is obviously a senior padawan, braid long enough to reach past his shoulder and rest over his heart. Obi-Wan would put him at perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty. There’s something still rather boyish about his features, despite the overall pleasantness of his dark eyes, soft lips, apparent cheekbones.

Though that just may be the childish scowl he’s wearing as Obi-Wan approaches. As soon as he gets to the counter, however, the boy drops his eyes to the book in front of him as if it’s suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. “Hello,” Obi-Wan says, because he is an accomplished Jedi Knight who is capable of keeping annoyance out of his tone. “I seem to have run into a problem with my research.”

“Oh?” The senior padawan says, sounding somehow both insouciant and insolent. Obi-Wan bites on his tongue so he cannot say any of the first five things that pop into his mind. “Yes,” he says instead. “The problem being that a system administrator seems to have locked me out of my account.”

The system administrator in question turns another page in his book. “What were you researching?” 

“Information that I as a Jedi Knight have the right to access,” Obi-Wan snaps, irritation seeping into his tone despite his best abilities. “Now can you please give me back my account permissions, padawan—” he breaks off and cranes his head to look at the nameplate on the desk.  “—Skywalker so that I can get back to work?”

Padawan Skywalker shuts his book with much more force than is required as he turns his face up to glare at Obi-Wan. “You’re researching the Dark Side.”

“I’m certainly trying my best to,” Obi-Wan replies drily. “It would go a lot faster if you would unlock my account.”

“Why are you researching the Dark side?” 

“Because I’m deliberating the benefits of Falling and would like to understand their position on universal healthcare for Dark side users before committing, padawan. Now, could—” “You’re not funny,” Padawan Skywalker says furiously, lips suddenly pinched white, taking his book and his bag and turning away.

Obi-Wan watches him go with his mouth open.

Well, he supposes that means he must put a pin in researching the Dark side for the moment.

Good thing he has just stumbled upon another subject worth investigating.

—--------------------

He feels rather sheepish the next day when he returns to the Archives with a cup of take-away caf in one hand and folded piece of flimsi in the other.

Thank the Force Padawan Skywalker is behind the front desk once more. 

Damn the Force that Padawan Skywalker is behind the front desk once more.

He’s leaning with his head on the palm of his hand, pushing his stylus around on a blank sheet of paper with the Force as his other fingers drum restlessly over the protective covers of the datapads near him.

“Does your master allow you to use the Force in such a needless way, padawan?” Obi-Wan is saying automatically before he can bite his own tongue off which really would have been preferable. Anakin Skywalker lets the stylus drop and glares up at him as if he thinks so as well. “What are you doing back here?” He says, an accusation.

Obi-Wan, because he may be more of a youngling than he gives himself credit for, says, “This is a public place.”

And Anakin Skywalker, who is every inch a nineteen year old child, sneers and replies, “Maybe for people with account access,” which really just makes Obi-Wan want to close his eyes and take several deep breaths and then pinch at the bridge of his nose.

But he cannot do that, because he’s holding a piece of flimsi paper in one hand and a cup of apology caf in the other one.

So instead he places the caf on the counter and pushes it closer to Anakin. “I didn’t recognize you,” he says before Anakin can decide to throw it at him or push it away or point out the sign at the entrance to the Archives that says, in very bold letters, NO FOOD OR DRINK PLEASE.

Thankfully, Obi-Wan’s words throw him off guard. “What?”

“Yesterday,” Obi-Wan says patiently. “I didn’t recognize you nor your name. I’m sorry, Anakin.”

Anakin blinks. For the first time in ten years, Obi-Wan is treated with the sight of the boy’s face without a glare or sneer or unpleasant expression. He’s all wide-eyed disbelief, slightly parted lips, dark eyelashes, darker brows, creased in confusion.

Obi-Wan suddenly and very intently misses the sneer. At least then the boy was too annoying to be considered attractive.

He’s much too young to be considered attractive now, Obi-Wan reminds himself rather pointedly. 

And he’s still annoying.

“It’s been ten years,” Anakin points out. His presence in the Force has turned rather…shy, akin to a blush as he reaches out and takes the caf from the counter, curling both hands around the cup. “And we never met.” “No,” Obi-Wan agrees. “But we should have. We would have shared the same master, if the Force were kinder.”

And they really should have—Obi-Wan had been Knighted at the age of twenty-three. Two years later, his old master went on a mission with his old master to Naboo. When they’d ended up on Tatooine instead, Qui-Gon Jinn had found a stray he’d wanted to adopt, a little boy from the desert. And when he’d been murdered only a few days later, Yan Dooku had stepped in and taken the boy as his padawan.

Up until he left the Order four years ago.

“Yeah, well,” Anakin mutters, shoulders falling down and in slightly. “It is what it is.”

The rumors are impossible to escape, and Obi-Wan admits that they’re…intriguing. That Dooku didn’t just leave the Order four years ago, but that he Fell. That he succumbed to the Dark Side after years of fighting against it. That studying the Dark had become a fevered pastime of his in the last few months before he Fell. Before he left.

Before he left his padawan behind.

“Lilac suits you,” Obi-Wan blurts out, wholly without meaning to. The boy had just looked so despondent for a moment, so pinned and small. 

He has not had an easy lot of it, one master dead at the hands of a Sith after only a few days in his company and the other giving him up after several years to become one.

No wonder he’d been so suspicious of Obi-Wan’s research. The poor boy probably sees the potential for Sith in everyone’s shadows. Obi-Wan knows he would, if it were his master who Fell.

“Um,” Anakin says, and his cheeks flame red. Obi-Wan’s own darken in response. “Thank you.” He darts his eyes from Obi-Wan’s face and then back, as if he doesn’t want to look away for long. “Master Nu took me on after my master—left. She says I could become an Archival Knight within a few years.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, and he finds that he means it. Despite the boy’s terrible customer service. “And speaking of the Archives, padawan, I thought you might like to see this.”

He unfolds the piece of flimsi with a flourish and places it down on the counter between them. Anakin glances down at it and then back up, as if checking to make sure Obi-Wan would like him to read it. 

Obi-Wan gives him an encouraging nod. Padawan Skywalker seems like the sort of padawan to thrive under encouragement.

“Please reinstate Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Archival account access, as I as Grandmaster of the Jedi Order have given him leave to research a topic of great importance to me: the nature and nurture of Dark side use on Jedha, coordinates….” Anakin trails off, and then looks up at Obi-Wan again, eyebrows furrowed. “Yoda doesn’t talk like this, everyone knows that. Put more effort in your counterfeiting, you should have, Knight Kenobi.”

“Grandmaster Yoda did not write that,” Obi-Wan corrects. “I did. However, he did sign it,” he gestures to the edge of the flimsi.

But Anakin does not look impressed. He also does not look like a boy who is about to give Obi-Wan access to his accounts. “How do I know you didn’t just forge his signature?” “Because that’s the imprint of his hand,” Obi-Wan says incredulously. “And I do not have claws.”

“It looks like a pigeon’s foot,” Anakin studies the flimsi for another second before pushing it away. “I’m sorry, I can’t accept this. It’s obviously a fake.”

Obi-Wan had watched Yoda dip his claws into the ink for the signature himself. His irritation comes rushing back in a tidal wave of rage. “What.” Padawan Skywalker shrugs and sips his caf. “Sorry, Knight Kenobi. Thank you for the caf though.” 

There’s a fucking smirk at the corner of his mouth. His eyes are fucking twinkling.

Obi-Wan has never wanted to strangle someone more. “You don’t deserve that caf,” he tells him lowly, grabbing up the flimsi and crinkling it in his fist.

“Oh?” Padawan Skywalker says. “Was it a bribe? I thought it was an apology for being a dick yesterday.”

It was both actually. 

“Padawan Skywalker,” Obi-Wan says, closing his eyes and exhaling through his nose, reaching for calm. “I need access to those texts on the Dark side for important research.” “Knight Kenobi,” Anakin says in the same tone. “I cannot give you access to those texts while your account is under investigation for suspicious activity. However there are other titles you may find useful that you can access while you wait for the Archival staff to conclude their investigation, and I would be happy to point you towards them, should you like.” Obi-Wan’s teeth ache from clenching his jaw so tightly. “Fine,” he snaps. “What do you have?” “Methods for Mindful Meditation by Master Muinollie comes to mind,” Anakin blinks up at him with a beatific smile. “It’s currently on loan to the crechèmaster, but I can put you on the waitlist. Think of it like an exercise in patience.”

Obi-Wan lets out an audible growl and turns away before he can do something stupid like throttle his grandmaster’s old padawan.

It's almost as tempting as the boy looks when he smiles.

[universallydestinytaco]

I’m vexxed, livid even. (Personal + VENT)

Pleakley and Jumba, from the OG Lilo and Stitch? These two where and still are super-super important to me. They where my first pairing little-baby-me ever shipped before I even knew what shipping was, and it’s a HUGE reason why what the remake did to these characters absolutely destroyed me, ESPECIALLY since I’ve just realized since last year or two I’ve been a huge Pleakley kinnie for years.

(Head’s up, MAJOR TW for a lot of serious shit in the “read more”, when I say this is Personal/Vent, I really fucking mean it.)

…I grew up in a toxic, sheltered/“homeschooled”, doomsday cult-esque household where I was treated like dogshit even before outed against my will, I was continuously and progressively dehumanized and told I was going to be hated by everyone gay and straight, my existence was against God, that I was pretending to be queer and therefor a bigot for presenting myself as queer, going to hell, that me as a child myself telling people around my age I was queer was disgusting and inappropriate, beaten-up and kicked out of the house on occasion for very petty reasons if not for the fun of it, had harmful rumors spread about me in my own home and sexually harassed by my own bio father while my own mother justified it….in a place where I wasn’t allowed to leave and I was treated like property they tried their hardest into converting me into being their ideal straight Christian girl they infantilized and bullied for being (undiagnosed) ND. Neither me or my sister where even allowed to go to school and we where endlessly barraged with propaganda day and night, pitted against each other in various ways, and I was deemed a brat and ignorant for not wanting their weird doomsday cult shit shoved in my face 24/7.

But during that harrowing time? I found comfort and freedom in the media I hyperfixated on at the time, especially looking back at the OG Lilo and Stitch as well as the series. All that wholesome and adorable Pleakley x Jumba fanart plus the fact that even one of the creators of a franchise I found escapism and solace in was celebrating the day same-gender marriage was finally legalized with a doodle of Stitch waving a Pride flag in support all while the adults who kept me in their toxic circle threw fits like bratty children while pretending to be apathetic. They especially could never comprehend the idea of me being a transmasc genderfluid femboy without enforcing their belief that being trans is “exterminating” the gays that they also seemed to hate so much except when they need to have yet-another excuse for their bigotry.

None of those adults who tortured us live in this house anymore, they left me and my sister here in the middle of our 20s, neither of them are around to control either of us anymore and I finally get to be openly myself with neither of them around to make me feel like their punching bag anymore (one of them still owns the place and visits now and then, and yes she is still hateful of the LGBTQ+ community and over the holidays, she even tried to angrily lecture me about how selfish, immature and even how it could be contributed to “grooming” that it is to come out as myself before my stepdad and I changed the conversation, which considering my upbringing, she is a dirty, cowardly hypocrite)….and during the time I finally feel more and more comfortable presenting my authentic self, the remake to a movie that helped shape who I am as a person gets massacred. They removed the queerness of Pleakley and made Jumba an irredeemable villain who replaces Gantu who was removed from the story in a vain attempt to make the remake work when it only makes it even worse.

It crushes me that two characters I shipped together since I was a baby get hit with this bad of character assassination. It’s like if someone rebooted Steven Universe and made Garnet split up and have Ruby be a mole to Homeworld, or those shitty Smiling Friends fanfics that make Charlie a total dick to Pim and remove all his good character traits.

…..I’ve never felt so betrayed and hurt over a piece of fiction in my entire life. Disney as a company is so ass-backwards and patronizing that it’s painful in so many ways. I’ve lost my respect for this company ever since the controversy with where they filmed Mulan (2020) which in-itself is a whole other can of worms regarding ethnic-cleansing and colonialism.

As if it isn’t bad enough Nani gives up Lilo for Mainland USA Collage of all things, this movie goes out of its way to to completely spit in the face of everything that made the original great. I have not seen this film and I really don’t want to now, It’s not worth hate-watching for the kikis and I beg y’all to just rewatch the OG movie instead of wasting money seeing this blasphemous trainwreck.

Excuse me while I have a good cry after typing all this out, go fuck yourselves Disney. I wish you’d go bankrupt and get bought + liquidated by WBD for defiling one of the only good things from my childhood.

[empress-violetlight]

OC Overview - Captain Raw'nuru

Captain of the Empire of the Hand-aligned privateer Interdictor cruiser, the Maelstrom

Art by my husband @fasturtlemedia, reposted with his permission. Original here

MASSIVE spoilers for my Empire of the Hand AU, and for "The Hand of Thrawn: Penelope" in particular, though maybe not that surprising for those who had read Timothy Zahn's Visions of the Future and Survivor's Quest

Raw’nuru

Role:  Captain of the Maelstrom

Species:  Chiss (Clone)

Homeworld:  Nirauan

The clone of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who emerged in 19 ABY after the hanger accident at the Hand of Thrawn fortress.  Created with the memories of his predecessor up until the start of the cloning project on Wayland in 9 ABY, Raw’nuru feels he needs to prove, not to the Galaxy, but to himself, that he can eventually step into Thrawn’s boots and lead the Empire of the Hand’s military in the upcoming Far Outsider invasion. 

During Thrawn's campaign against the New Republic of 9 ABY, an ISB agent under Thrawn's command rescued renowned Imperial geneticist, Dr. Penn Pershing, from a (completely illegal) "reeducation" facility on Coruscant. While Pershing was recruited primarily to aide in Thrawn's cloning project on Wayland, in order to crew the newly acquired Katana Fleet of 178 pre-Clone Wars era Dreadnaught cruisers, Thrawn also requested Dr. Pershing's assistance in another, more personal matter. Create a clone of himself, as a failsafe in case of his campaign's failure.

At Pershing’s expert suggestion, the clone, unlike those grown for the Katana Fleet, would have a Kaminoian-inspired growth schedule of 10 years, with flash training provided from the Grand Admiral’s own memories.  The project was top secret – only Pershing himself knew of it, not Thrawn’s family, senior staff, or even his bodyguard, the Noghri Rukh, who otherwise accompanied him almost everywhere during his campaign.  Thrawn reasoned that the threat posed by the Far Outsiders was too great to not prepare for the eventuality that he could die, especially against a foe that had already had succeeded against all reason.  It proved to be an unfortunately-needed precaution, as Thrawn was assassinated by Rukh during the Battle of Bilbringi. 

The clone almost met a similar fate, when Mara Jade (unbeknownst to her, Thrawn and Xelarra’s former adoptive daughter), and Luke Skywalker stumbled across the cloning chamber beneath the Hand of Thrawn fortress on Nirauan, and were forced to destroy the fusion generator powering the Spaarti Cylinder and related computers.  Luckily, the Grand Admiral’s ingenuity persevered, as emergency blast shields protected the clone from destruction during the fusion explosion.  Disoriented, the clone made his way into the rest of the base, disguising himself as a stormtrooper and learning of the events of not only the last few hours at Hand Base, but the state of the Galaxy as a whole in the years since his predecessor’s death.

Feeling like the Empire of the Hand no longer needed its Grand Admiral, the clone tried to escape the Base, but was stopped by Thrawn’s wife, Empress Xelarra, who was able to make certain of his identity.  It became clear to both that after the Imperial Remnant’s recent “false Thrawn” ruse, the Empire of the Hand would not be ready for the actual return of their Grand Admiral. Moreso, the clone was still uncertain that he was even able to fill his predecessor’s boots.  Reluctantly, Xelarra agreed, and allowed him to leave, but not without first giving him “quest items”: the HWK-290 “stealth” light freighter, the Daggerfly, Xelarra’s personal Viper probe droid, named Probius (both previously used in the black ops Honoghr mission, though unknown to the clone) and finally, a name:  “Raw’nuru” – the name that would have been Thrawn’s if he had ever reached flag rank in the Chiss Ascendency, a reminder of who he could be. With these three gifts, Raw’nuru left the Empire of the Hand.

Raw’nuru spent about a year wandering the galaxy in the Daggerfly. He tried the Galaxy’s favourite “fallback career”, bounty hunting, but soon grew utterly bored with it – even hunting Noghri, the species that murdered his predecessor, did little to occupy his still-brilliant mind.  He was occasionally joined in such hunts by a fellow bounty hunter, “Canon”, the son of a Clone Trooper member of the original 501st, by the name of “Dogma” (the player character in the original Star Wars Battlefront II for the PS2).   

On a visit to the Glavis Ringworld, after an unsuccessful attempt to convince an old associate of his predecessor’s, the Mandalorian smith known as “The Armourer”, to make him a Beskar chest and back plate, he overheard a group of pirates discussing plans to steal a soon-to-be-scrapped Immobilizer cruiser from a backwater New Republic scrapyard.  Knowing what danger such a ship, even an old, busted up one, would be in hands of the scum and villainy of the Galaxy, Raw’nuru invited himself to join the crew, offering his experience with such ships as an “ex-Imp”.  With Raw’nuru’s leadership the pirates were able to successfully steal the ship, and during the mission Raw’nuru slowly turned the loyalties of most of the pirates against their captain, and towards him instead (inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Gambit”, where Captain Picard does much the same).

The first thing Raw’nuru did when he gained command of the Maelstrom (after allowing his crew to punish the previous captain as they felt fit – by spacing him), was to contact Empress Xelarra and request a letter of marque.  Now officially privateers for the Empire of the Hand, the Maelstrom started taking on missions where the official Hand Navy could not go, such as privateer missions for the EotH’s allies in the Outer Rim, where the eyes of the New Republic were too watchful for the Imperial Navy to show themselves. 

Despite the year without contact with her, and feeling more sure of himself, less like a collection of memories from someone else, Raw’nuru still felt drawn towards Xelarra.  His love for her wasn’t just a memory – it was wholly his own, and to his joy and relief, she reciprocated.  While his daughter Andorra accepted him almost immediately, his son Shran was much more wary of Raw’nuru, going to far as to threaten the clone that if he broke his mother’s heart, he would break him. Shran inadvertently made his father proud by saying so. 

Over the next few years, Raw'nuru uses the Maelstrom as his primary vessel while patrolling the Empire of the Hand’s borders, taking on privateer missions, recruiting allies, and protecting his Empire from the shadows as he regains the confidence he needs to retake his old mantle. The ship is involved in several notable events, such as destroying a New Republic vessel that attacked them unprovoked without even firing a shot, which subsequently leads to Raw'nuru finally getting to warn Admiral Ackbar about the Far Outsiders, and the start of their “long distance” friendship (fic idea - “Pen Pals”), frequent anti-slavery missions, pick up duty for several of Empire of the Hand General Bentilais san Sk'ar's strike force offensives in the Outer Rim, and defending Hand member world Lysatra on the onset of the Far Outsider war.

Raw’nuru shares his predecessor’s concern for his species, tactical brilliance, and love of art.  However, he develops a rougher, more improvisational tactical style, working with the very limited resources he has available, often using the surrounding conditions of space, or even physics itself, to his advantage.  All the while, he is keeping his glowing red eyes open for any signs of the Far Outsiders, and slowly teaching his crew the skills and discipline they will need to eventually become not mere privateers, but Imperial officers.

Raw’nuru’s appearance is quite different from his clean-cut, Imperial predecessor.  He allowed his hair to grow out to just past his shoulders, usually tied in a low ponytail.  Like most Chiss who operate in Lesser Space, he usually disguises himself as a Pantoran (though an actual Pantoran would be able to tell the difference easily) by wearing goggles to disguise his Chiss eyes, and gold facepaint mimicking a Pantoran’s facial tattoos. Raw’nuru’s facepaint shows about half of the Chimaera sigil he adopted from his Paccosh allies and that once decorated his flagship in the Empire proper, snaking across half of his face, and the sigil also decorates the stormtrooper helmet he usually wears when away from the ship.  The Chimaera sigil has become a major symbol of the Empire of the Hand, so by wearing it, Raw’nuru declares his loyalty to the faction his predecessor built, the home to which he will someday return.

[arquimidna]

For the color palette challenge, could draw White Diamond with the "Eternity" color palette?

"The Queen in White" Here you go~! I wanted to make White Diamond as the King in Yellow, and Homeworld would be like Carcosa. So technically White Diamond is an Eldritch Goddess in this fanart. And also subtle Ace Pride Flag! Wiiiii!

Hope you like it! ♥

[jaylynn1318]

Little Lies and Alibis: the banana spilts edition

When I remember this clip from king of the hill

And I saw the shotty car Wolf had in the sequel, cogs started working in my brain.

Okay I have two Stories, one with significantly more focus, one with Taaffeite, and one with the banana splits. Let’s start with Taffy first.

The Taffy scenario is simple. Wolf wanted to nice to Taaffeite by teaching her how to drive. At one point, she gets a PTSD attack and during her freak out, and Wolfie trying to calm her down and remind her she’s not in the amulet or homeworld’s prisoner, or part of a fusion with Angel Aura anymore, she wreck the car. Wolf doesn’t hold it against her, but he does mention he’s going to kill the homeworld gems if they come near her again.

The second scenario is with the banana spilts, the one is the most focus here.

If anyone doesn’t know, the spilts have a annual “great banana spilts race”

Starting here for proof

And during the race, the buggies broke down a lot. Bingo broke down during the most recent race, and was in Diane’s neighborhood when this happened. He tried fixing his buggy, he sees Wolf’s sweet new dig, and without any hesitation

Bingo: I’ll return it later😃

He hops in, the key still in the resignation(a bad habit that Wolf never fixed) and drove off.

Bingo won the race with the sports car and showed off to his Banana brothers, and Katherine(who acted as the flag girl since she was too young to drive), Fleegle first acted like he was against Bingo stealing a car, but then…

Fleegle: Bingo!😡 you know what we should do once we’re done?

He was in on it

Fleegle: once we’re done, we shou- we should fill it with gas, so the next time they’re start their car, they’ll be “ how that happened?”

After dropping Katherine back home, they had a joy ride with the car

Drooper: I feel young again

Cut to late at night where they’re still driving and now doing donuts with the car, having the time of their lives. They were getting dizzy.

Bingo: MY TURN!!! 🥴

Bingo took over while Fleegle, Drooper, and Snorky got out.

Fleegle: just for 5 minutes, we need to return it, and I think it’s starting to run out of fuel

It actually did run out of fuel immediately after the beagle said that. It was suddenly completely unresponsive to whatever Bingo did, and rolled down when Bingo got on a slanted surface, down to a quarry(I’m not sure if L.A has a quarry, but for the sake of the story, let’s pretend it does).

Bingo: AAAAHHHHHH

In a last ditch effort to save himself, Bingo jumped out the door and landed on the ground while the car was now sinking in the quarry

Bingo: a little bruised and dirty, but I think I’ll be alright😵‍💫…*sees the car sinking in the water*ohhh😥

Everyone present was ashamed

Fleegle: we won’t tell anyone about this, not even Katherine, am I clear

Bingo: oh yeah😰

Drooper: uh-huh😥

Snork: *honks*

They kept it to themselves until it get announced that the quarry would be drained due to being in bad shape, bad conditions, and turned into a homeless shelter. If this actually happened in the sequel, the spilts sub-plot would be trying to prevent the drainage in different ways, ie Fleegle trying use the fact he voted for Diane as leverage to get her to back off(all that did was getting them kicked off the premises), and joining a environmental group who wants to stop the project.

They don’t realize that car they stolen from was from the bad guys, until Diane mentioned that Wolf’s car disappeared around the same time their race happened, and they didn’t want to gang to kill them.

[stumbleinethevampirequeen]

Ngl the Earth/Little Homeworld flag they used in SU:F went really hard. Very underrated design that should have been shown more.

[contentment-of-cats]

New fic bit: Long Live the Empire

Leia looks out at the massed Imperial fleet, the remains of the Fifth Fleet and a major victory to obtain their surrender. The Republic forces are massed in a show of strength, the coverage by holonews blanketing the media. Grand Admiral Danner Ashbrough brought 500 ISD and smaller ships with him out of the 5,000 he once commanded. He and the senior officers' agreed to stand trial for war crimes, and those junior officers and enlisted with him would enter reorientation and amnesty programs. For now, the meeting will seal the agreement and handle the nuts and bolts. Ashbrough is pleasant, if oddly distant.

"I'm aware not everyone came with you, Grand Admiral." Leia studies the man's face. Most officers at flag rank have sabacc faces that rivals a duracrete wall for lack of expression.

"It is good that you are aware." The man could be standing in the Allisandre's ballroom, holding a glass of Chandrilan sparkle-wine. "I made this voluntary. Those who wished to leave were dispersed to other fleets."

"The Third, Seventh, and Eleventh?" Three thorns in the foot of the Republic with an estimated strength of 10,000 ISD class, at least four Supers, and thousands of smaller ships. "We'd appreciate some help with that. Mitigate your crimes with helpful information."

A small, polite smile. "We don't speak to them often, but they agreed to take in the die-hards."

Leia reaches out with the Force and encounters something like a shield around the man's mind. Luke, in her field of vision, looks puzzled and shakes his head. A text appeares on her datapad.

It's as if every mind on those ships is Jedi-proofed. Music, mathematics, even building model landspeeders.

"Grand Admiral Faro heads the Eleventh, I presume, with Marinth as Grand Admiral of the Seventh's remains." Now to pry open a vault. "I have intel that an officer named Pyrondi has the Third."

Something itches at the back of her mind and she glances at the battle computer to her left. All the Imps have their weapons powered down, hyperdrives offline, as agreed.

"Indeed?" Left unsaid that she was a protege of Grand Admiral Thrawn - like Rear Admiral Hammerly, Commodore Barlin, and others who formed a nucleus of the Trident Fleet. "Thrawn was said to have sent a core of officers with Faro and when she transferred."

"There's nothing on her. Her entire file is redacted. Not even a date of birth or a Homeworld."

"I met her briefly, once, at the Ascension Week games when I was still a Rear Admiral. I am afraid she did not make any disclosures to me. However, you may find the reasons in the Archives of the Senate, under seal."

They can't access and he doesn't need to know that. A COMPNOR general's dying act was to make the archives for every agency down to vermin control inaccessible. Threepio's estimate was that it would take at least a century to slice, and that would be with top slicing droids working nonstop. It could easily take one thousand years as they did not know how many placements the lock had.

"There are things that not even Grand Admirals can unlock. However, I was alive when the reason for the redaction happened. The heart of it was your friend Saw Gerrera." That small smile again. "Pyrondi will have to answer for herself."

"Saw Gerrera was nobody's friend."

"He was, long ago, an ally of your parents." A fleeting smile, more of a quirk of the lips. "I can tell you that if he is alive, he will very much wish not to be if Pyrondi finds him."

"He's dead."

"So you say. However, Pyrondi will look for him until she turns up his body or his bones. I was there to evacuate the world he destroyed so completely that not even decay will come to the dead. The body count of Jegsziv totaled an estimated two billion with less than half a million survivors." That smile again, wider. Leia wishes she could see his eyes under the bill of his kepi. "Rhydonium gas released from an well on the sea floor - an act of terrorism and sabotage that killed half a world in their beds and choked the rest to death on their own blood."

"I've never heard of it." The itch is stronger, almost a burning. A glance at Luke shows he can feel something, too. "Where is it located?"

"Well, secrets take time to uncover, but the truth always comes out. I do hope that you will meet her one day. Until that day and after it - long may she serve, and long live the Empire."

The white flash is soundless, but the shock wave and the onslaught of molten durasteel impacts the Republic ships in seconds. The Imperials caused their cores to go critical, igniting hundreds of mini novas, obliterating most of the Republic fleet in the space of a blink and a breath.

[laurelaicoop]

Anonymous asked: can we see some stuff about the planets you've introduced so far?

While I do have maps for the Maran homeworld and the Mahl twin planets, I'll just do Frontier for now since it's the most relevant due to it being the setting for Threshold People.

Frontier has a supercontinent with only two distinct countries, Frontier and Aodilea. Aodilea is purely Audi country, and due to the exceptionally small population they only inhabit the east and west coasts. Everything in between is wild country. For Frontier, it's been pimarily used as a home for displaced Marans affected by the 80-year war on Mara. Humans and Mahl have a place in the LIPA Zone, but Marans have the highest population overall.

Fun facts about the World Flag:

Only Frontier is technically part of the Laurelai Inter-Planetary Alliance. Partnerships with the Audi are still ongoing.

The inner seal is a mixture of the three Maran subspecies' main lines of commerce. The forging clamp represents the Cosí, the two needles represents the Èlais, and the closed mussel shell represents the Ysk. The white circle reperents the Amora, who consider themselves ghost children of Mara itself.

The flag is considered the first real symbol of collective peace and representation between the Maran subspecies, having an official truce in place nearly fifteen years sooner then Mara.