#fumbled attempts

[lildudie18]

🐞 I sing good luck babe to myself bc I know I deserve it 🐞

[smapis]

undoing of the sixth aka my half of a trade w dear sweet @bvllyrag

[foxprints]

As with most of my other Murderbot art, there's a long headcanon that goes along with this piece. This one can be summed up as: ART has an unexpectedly difficult time performing system maintenance on its engines using its repair drones after the alien synthetic incident. Murderbot steps in to help out and then continues to periodically help out because they both find that time together soothing.

[sergle]

perhaps it doesn't need to be that Deep, but some of y'all's relationship with age and youth truly stresses me out. you're doing this thing

like nevermind that using reaction pics/gifs in place of a text response is not something that Olds Do, if it's becoming less common on tumblr, i think that's been in the past like. 2 - 4 years. nevermind that... you truly stress me out using Thirty Five as the old and out of touch age to make a joke about. oh my god girl... 35.... please!!! you don't need to be so scared of aging!!! 35 is young! the imaginary 35 year old mom being used for this joke is a Young Woman! my first instinct is to make jokes abt how I am, in fact, geriatric (which I like to do) but I gotta break character and be like. hey you guys don't Actually think that 30 is elderly, right. we're joking when we say we're old, right?? you aren't actually internalizing that. right??????

also I spent like 5 years curating my Fotos Folder and I've got so many good ones... so I am actually probably gonna keep using them when I AM old. I love these images

[kayawolfhorse]

Day 7 — Between Your Teeth

—☾—

Pearl kisses the top of Tilly’s head in a hasty goodbye before scrambling down the rickety ladder at her tower’s core. When the ground is close enough to make out the individual blades of grass, Pearl releases her hold and curses when she feels the damage tick in her ankles. Normally, she wouldn’t mind sending a tickle or two Scott’s way, but Scott definitely knows what she’s planning now.

The forest is a blur around her as Pearl careens through dense underbrush and just barely avoids getting caught on low-hanging branches. Birch turns to oak and gentle hills give way to a steeper uphill climb until finally, Pearl reaches spawn.

The clearing is about the same as she remembers it to be; a meadow overlooking the plains below, miraculously untouched by the snow that cascades down the side of its crest. The only difference now is a group of seven stones in its center, arranged in a perfect circle, a golden apple set upon each one. It stands empty, the apples untouched; Pearl is the first to arrive.

Pearl slowly approaches the circle. Every apple is identical, but as she looks between them, something tugs at her heart, like a string suddenly pulled taut between her ribs. Extending her arm, she allows the invisible line to guide her hand until it closes over the easternmost apple.

Nearby, a twig snaps. Pearl snatches up the apple and holds it in a tight fist as voices draw nearer, rustling in the boughs of the forest around her until they emerge into spawn.

Scott’s bright blue hair is hard to miss amidst the brown trunks, and the laugh he shares with Cleo is achingly, hauntingly intimate.

“I figured that’s why you were in such a hurry,” Scott says to Pearl after he looks from her hand to her face, and Pearl swears he sounds smug.

Pearl grits her teeth before displaying them in a too-wide smile. “Well, wouldn’t you look at what we have here! I couldn’t let just anyone get a hand on this, now could I?”

She holds her victory aloft, and in the morning sun its golden flesh shines with the faint purple sheen of enchantments. Pearl’s next inhale is a little sharper. They all know what regular golden apples are rumored to do, but this—Pearl’s not sure.

Scott’s gaze is calculating as he takes it in. Scoffing, he says, “We both know we’d be better off if you ate it.”

Before Pearl can respond, Martyn comes crashing through the trees, stumbling at full speed towards the stone circle before stopping abruptly when he catches sight of the two empty spots.

“Cleo-oooo!” he whines, to Cleo’s smirk.

“You really think I’d trust you with this?” Cleo says, raising an eyebrow. “You’d get us both killed!”

“C’mon, we’ve got no clue what it does!” Martyn says. “You’re just going to eat it for yourself.”

“You’re damn right I am.” Cleo raises the apple to her lips and bites down. Martyn flinches hard, half-reaching for them. Scott looks on with vaguely detached curiosity and Pearl holds her breath.

Nothing visibly happens. Cleo frowns at the fruit in their hands, and Martyn straightens up in relief. Its unbroken skin is a punch to Pearl’s chest when Cleo twists their wrist to reveal it. Her win over Scott suddenly feels very hollow.

“It didn’t even work,” Martyn says, between a short laugh and a cheeky grin.

Cleo fixes him with a stare. She’s not glaring, but the sentiment behind her unwavering yellow eyes is all the same. Pearl’s tempted to clap her hands, just to see what would happen.

Soon enough, Martyn shifts, and Cleo tosses their hair over their shoulder. “I’m not breaking a tooth for this fool,” they declare, and walk back over to Scott. Addressing him, they ask, “And you?”

Scott shrugs. “She’s got the apple. I don’t care.”

Cleo glances at Pearl before looking back at Scott with an expression that speaks of concerns she won’t raise until they’re back in the safety of their base.

“Can I at least have the apple, then?” Martyn asks, joining their little group.

“No.” With a decisive swipe of their hand, the apple disappears into Cleo’s inventory, and Martyn hums in disappointment.

“Well!” Scott says after cheerfully letting the moment linger too long. “We’d best be on our way. Don’t want to be here when the reds show up.”

“Right,” Cleo agrees. “I’d say it’s been nice, but…”

“Yeah, yeah, point taken,” Martyn grumbles. “I’m out of here.” He trudges down the snowy side of the hill, muttering complaints as he goes.

Neither Scott nor Cleo offer Pearl anything more before they take off together, leaving Pearl standing alone. Her fingers flex. She wishes she had thought to bring her powdered snow bucket.

As she strides back home, she purposefully takes a few landings from too high up.

—☾—

Pearl tosses the wretched thing between her hands and groans in frustration. Tilly looks up from her spot beneath the window and tilts her head at the noise.

Tucking the apple into her pocket, Pearl drops onto the floor next to Tilly and wraps an arm around her. “I just don’t know what to do.”

As far as anyone knows, there’s only ever been one golden apple within the boundaries of this world, and it’s long gone now. This was supposed to be Pearl’s chance to finally unbind the shackles between her and the soulmate that never wanted her, and she can’t even eat it.

Magical foods tend to be tricky things, meant only to be pierced by the recipient’s bite. Slicing it would ruin its properties, as would any sort of denting, cracking, or otherwise tampering. Pearl had thought that maybe Cleo just hadn’t bit down hard enough. Her own aching mouth proves otherwise.

Tilly turns and snuffles into Pearl’s side. Pearl laughs and scratches between her shoulders, and Tilly leans into the touch hard enough to almost topple them both.

“I’m glad I have you, Tilly,” Pearl says, smiling something bittersweet. “No matter who the universe stuck me with, I know who my soulmate really is.”

—☾—

The weight in her pocket grows heavier as the games continue on. Pearl doesn’t know why she bothers keeping the apple on her person. She can’t bring herself to put it properly away.

It becomes a comfort in the center of her palm. It’s a perpetually painful reminder of inevitabilities outside of her control. She debates throwing it at Scott a few times.

Weeks later, after the apple against her hip has become a permanent bruise, the finale is finally upon them. Pearl begrudgingly teams with Scott until it makes more sense to split up, and she relishes in leaving him for once, even if he had technically agreed to it. Their shared health is a liability; it was never going to work out.

Pearl and her wolves hunt through the night and watch the sun rise on what she knows deep in her gut to be the final day. Death reins like lightning around her as pair after pair are sent to what lies between this world and the next.

Her vision turns red in the wake of Tilly’s death. Pearl kills Impulse and Bdubs in a blind rage; Martyn and Cleo fall to her blade soon after. Suddenly, jarringly, the world is quiet, save for the quiet yips of the few wolves still wound around her legs. Pearl gives them the last bit of food she has and wonders if this is the end.

Pearl meets Scott at spawn. The game is not yet over.

Scott strips away his armor and places TNT at his feet. Striking flint to steel, he looks up at Pearl and says, “You deserve this more.”

Lurching backwards with a yelp, Pearl exclaims, “Excuse you? What do you mean?”

“You do.” Scott crouches down and sets the TNT alight. “Tilly death do us part.”

Pearl scrambles for the apple in her pocket in the ticks it takes for the spark to eat away at the fuse. Grasping its smooth surface, she brings the apple to her mouth and bites as hard as she can, even as a tooth shatters and her jaw screams in agony.

Just as the world goes up in a catastrophic symphony, her mouth floods with sweet ambrosia and the metallic tartness of her own blood. Her scrapes and bruises knit themselves back into unblemished flesh as Pearl is flung backwards into the tree behind her.

Scott is dead. The wildly pounding heartbeat that rings in her ears is hers alone. Pearl, a lonely victor in an empty world, has won.

[papercutslut]

Ok now reading TBOB finally has CEMENTED in my head without a shadow of a doubt that Bill "master manipulator" Cipher is garbage shit at manipulating and the main reason he got so far with Ford was

The homosexual situationship

Ford is also a massive weirdo freak. They matched <3

[bengallemon]

Base dynamics of the silliest trio ever.

Loop didn't know Odile was looping alongside Siffrin at first and fucking panicked and just. Didn't mention Sif at all to her. They then proceeded to fumble telling Sif about Odile. Cue Loop desperately balancing a distressed and terrifyingly perceptive researcher and a traveller who is fast approaching insanity. They are digging their own grave. It's going to be funny to watch.

Odile is desperately trying to understand why she's randomly looping through time, simply because it's entirely dependent on Siffrin so she has no reliable data. She's also trying to figure out what's up with Loop because they are incredibly concerning.

Siffrin. Wants Odile to stick to the fucking script. Because she keeps randomly acting off and it's screwing with the other actors. He is not enjoying her throwing off the rhythm. They also want to strangle Loop because they keep acting weird. Siffrin is not having a good time.

[vaugarde]

okay so as a gen 5 stan who does adore the story in bw and bw2, and now that gen 5 has experienced both a vicious hatedom that wouldnt hear a single positive thing about the games, and now a super protective fandom that insists they were perfect and had zero flaws... can we admit now that the bw1 story at least was. a little mid.

[lordgoopy]

as chileans we shouldnt speak abt assasinating politicians i think bc we delegated most of those to argentina and one of the two times we didnt we failed catastrophically

[jacuzziwaters]

Once again banging my head against the table thinking of what MHA could've been compared to what we actually got.

[vimbry]

she's still one of my fav side ponies for the esotropia rep

[sentmail]

psych season vii prompts | @lockhartred :

“Please don’t make me answer that.”

It takes him a second to catch up to the implications of his question, his inquisitive nature having him hound a person of interest until his curiosity is sated (temporarily).

With someone as complex as Ms. Lockhart, well, he really should learn to consider his choice of words in regards to her relationship with other people. He frowns at her reply, tilts his head to the side - and then startles himself when he realizes what she took his question to mean.

"I didn't — what I meant was —" There's no saving it, is there? "When I said intimately, I meant like... Closely. Could be friendly closely. I'm not implying anything." Unless... No, he's not doing this right now, can it Kunsel.

[waywardsalt]

anyways. my very first attempt at malenia

[aveil-moved]

already thinking of restarting fields of mistria because i learned a lot of things i didn't know in the beginning so i have like no money atm my progress is all kinds of screwed up aaaaaaaaaa

[suckishima]

okay i know a lot of those posts i reblogged earlier im kinda shitting on the movie a lot for leaving stuff out, and yeah i am disappointed about that, but honestly the movie did a really good job for what it was. it was a cohesive narrative that makes sense and ties together all of its main themes and tells a compelling story. yes, i will always want a season instead, but for what we got it was pretty damn good

it was clear to me that the director/creatives involved (whatever) had a plan and they wanted to emphasize the hinata/kenma dynamic and how it plays out not just on the court but between them and i genuinely think it was super effective at doing that. while managing to keep in the kuroo/kenma backstories that honestly enhance a lot of the hinata/kenma rivalry as well. im really not mad about it overall

and i wanna say that it tbh gives me hope for the next movie. ill be vague bc i dont wanna spoiler tag this post, but if we get the same team to make the next movie, and assuming they're able to focus the narrative on just one major arc, and they put the same care into that arc as they did the kenma/hinata and kenma/kuroo dynamics here, then i think the second movie could actually be really really good

yes things will be cut again, and i will mourn that stuff too, but i am not joking when i say that the content that (i assume) will be covered in the next movie is the stuff that elevates haikyuu to greatest of all time status for me, and if the producers/whatever are able to really build up the core storyline of the next arc then this next movie will be some of the best shit we've ever seen and im honestly kinda looking forward to it

[hush-pup-py]

all these guns… ALL THESE GUNS… and y’all still can’t aim