#in anticipation

[jelzorz]

174.

The Celestial elves say no. Of course they say no. Callum doesn't know what else he expected. Did he really think they could just waltz into the Star Scraper and ask to borrow the Nova Blade and a handful of quasar diamonds, and then get them, no questions asked?

His head still hurts from that vision, that dream that felt far too much like that time he'd collapsed after doing Dark Magic for the first time, and though he and Rayla have been granted a room for their trouble, the Nova Blade is still out of reach, and those quasar diamonds are embedded into that crown the blind priest refused to share. Rayla is lying on the bed, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling of stars, dazed and a little defeated, he thinks, because those diamonds are the only way to free her parents, and they'll never get them, not like this, and meanwhile the sword—

Callum makes a face. He's been pacing up and down the length of the room for about twenty minutes because there is... one more thing they could try. One last chance to obtain the weapon that might save them all and the jewels that would free her parents. It's just... not a particularly bright idea. Not a very legal one, even here.

"What are you thinking?" asks Rayla at last. She sits up in the bed, wary, exhausted, like even she doubts their mission here is one they can complete. "You've been pacing for ages. Want to share with the class?"

Callum presses his lips together. "I don't know," he says after a moment. "I just... We need that sword and those diamonds, there's got to be a way to convince them—"

Rayla lets out a hollow laugh. "Yeah, no. I don't think there's anything we could say to change their minds."

"Yeah, but—"

She flops back down. "I dunno, Callum," she mumbles. "I want to get my parents out of those coins so bad, and I know you want that sword to use against Aaravos but... I don't think there's anything else we can do here. They've made it clear it's not happening and I... don't want to get my hopes up for nothing."

He grimaces then, hating how hopeless she sounds, hating the wobble in her voice and the way it makes his heart ache in ways he will never be able to explain. There's still that last resort, isn't there? The final chance to get everything they need in one go, with permission or without it, and it all comes down to what they are and aren't willing to do.

But that would mean—

He shakes his head. No. It's stupid. It's dangerous. It would bring the wrath of the Celestial elves right to Katolis' doorstep. Ezran would be furious, but it would also mean...

He glances at Rayla, at the way her eyes are dull and unseeing with resignation. His heart stutters for her, for the thought of her happily reunited with the people she loves most, the brilliance of her smile and the love she deserves.

Hasn't she done enough for everyone? Hasn't she sacrificed enough to get just one good thing?

"Don't give up yet," he decides. His resolve feels like steel and jelly at the same time, like he would do this for her, no question about it but ony as long as he doesn't give himself the time to think twice. Rayla turns her head to him, confused, daring to hope, and Callum closes his fingers into fists at his side, refusing go home empty handed, refusing to let Rayla down like so many others before him.

"Get your stuff together," he says. "Wait for me here. When I get back, you gotta be ready to run."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Callum."

"You trust me, right?"

She sits up slowly, suspicious of him, of the resolve in his eyes. "Yes," she says after a moment.

He swallows, his nerve wavering, just for a moment. Then he nods and clenches his jaw tight. "Back in a minute," he mutters, wrenching the door open before he can change his mind.

He would do anything for her. He's done worse.

Stealing is not the furthest he can fall.

#callum in his nic cage voice: im gonna steal them #[insert national treasure gif here] #me with my head in my hands: he'd do it too hes so fucking stupid when it comes to rayla #in anticipation #rayllum

[kiwiplaetzchen]

*her head popped around the corner*

Ssssqqqiiiissshhhhh? 💚🤍💛🖤

You bet your BUNS these cuties are gonna get squished!!!!

#Yuki #ask #IT'S SQUISHY TIME #BABYYYYY #squeeze the FECK out of those THICK bebehs #make them BEG #for you to stop #OR continue #we don't judge the kinks of the squishies here #especially Bobby #my fingers are already jerking #and twitching #and flinching #in anticipation #to SQUISH

[cottagecorevampy]

sweet as cherry wine

#are my eyes still your favorite #do you still need me with my mouth open #waiting for you #in anticipation #me #my face #up close

[scribefindegil]

someone: hey I noticed this thing you did in your writing!

me, kicking my feet up flirtatiously: oh??? do you want to hear my thoughts on why I did that? do you want a play-by-play of the language choices in every related sentence? do you want an exhaustive breakdown of The Themes???

#sorryyyyyyyyy #listen if the curtains are blue it IS because i overthought their significance for Many Hours #and am vibrating with anticipation for someone to pick up on it

[vulturedimension]

we are discussing our childhood passions on the dash tonight

#normally i dont do these 'my dash did a thing' posts #but like. i had to #mine #[tumblr] #1k #in less than 24 hours #jesus christ #2k #3k #technically rn it's at 2893 #but it's gonna get to 3k soon #for some reason #4k #almost #this has now reached at least 2 of the 6 blogs in this image #3/6 now #5k #WHY #also i did not anticipate how weird it is to see all those urls on the top stacked on each other #10k #15k

[mon-petit-coeur-noir]

#kneeling #anticipation

[shandsformation]

hmmmm

#animation class assignment was to make examples of anticipation with 3 characters #grabbed these losers KJHSDGS #also finally an excuse to animate them!!! dies #transformers #tf #maccadam #my art #elite trine #starscream #skywarp #thundercracker #animation

[greyias]

Oh look, it seems everyone has been opted into the unfortunate "experiment" now. For everyone who has been blissfully using the old UI up until now, welcome to hell :)

Do you not like hell? Do you want to leave and crawl back up into the sunlight of the old UI? Well, have I got a link for you! A beautiful tumblr user (who is not me) has gone and fixed things beautifully for you already: https://github.com/enchanted-sword/dashboard-unfucker

You will need to have Tampermonkey installed on your browser of choice, and once that's done, just go to the github link above, and peruse the readme to install. And voila! You have your old dash back!

The authors of XKit Rewritten said during the experiments that at the time, since this was an "experiment" they weren't going to implement anything to revert to the old UI (although who knows if they'll do it now). And the dashboard unfucker has worked beautifully enough for me to where I genuinely couldn't tell if they had ended the experiment or not.

#EDIT: pinning this for a few days so muts can find it if needed #EDIT: but also because i'm muting notifications because my phone is now dying #i foresee me possibly having to mute the notifications on this post #but whatever #(update: my prediction came true faster than i anticipated before i could even fix link mistakes or typos 🤷‍♀️ SORRY) #(when posts you make for your muts get a little further out than expected) #psa for anyone who the new ui winds up bothering #here's a way to basically revert to ye olden times

[bunneis]

21/05/23 edit: heres the full gifset

#shigeru miyamoto approved this :V #okay so now i gotta do a bowigi gifset once the movie comes out #what else... #1. peach gifset cause shes the cutest #2. game-movie comparisons still hoping we get a paper mario shoutout #3. mario and luigi being brothers in movie and other games #4. and now bowuigi apparently jdhkfhsjhk #s.og #s.gif #c #m #smb #mario movie #the super mario bros movie #nintendo #bowser #luigi #bowuigi #nintendoedit #edit: this is getting way much more attention that anticipated jdsfdshfdks #i just went back to the trailer and i missed the shy guys doing the head tilt thing #if this passes 5k and reblogging that addition #second edit: 50k notes later.... insane :v #anyways i linked the full-ish gifset #tumblr staff please increase the max gif size to 15mb. just do that delete tumblr live and do that please

[hinamie]

surprise it's yuri!!!in 2024

#my art #yuri on ice #yuri!!! on ice #yoi #fanart #katsuki yuuri #victor nikiforov #victuuri #yoi fanart #this was the secret 4th thing that lost the poll jdsfgsdfjj #id been thinking about doing a tribute since getting that one ask but i didn't anticipate how Into it i would get once i started #the way i flew through this piece .. just over 1 day??? insane #yuri is /that/ ingrained in my muscle memory #I was looking at refs and ?? id forgotten how wild this show was #we just got all of that?? a pole dance a proposal a kiss a pair skate....and it was ALL canon? incredible #AND YEAH UNPROMPTED HISTORY MAKER PLAYS IN MY YT MIX #dean fujioka jumpscare #also looking back at my old yoi pieces was so wild. that ws really 8 years ago huh. #little bit of an ego boost looking at how far ive come #but also im just grateful idk sry 2 b sappy on main #i hope 16 year old me is happy that i did this bc im happy i did this #edit bc i forgot a bunch of white outline i am a fraud

[jelzorz]

158.

"Hey, you know how to pick locks, right?"

It's an odd thing to ask. Callum's always been weird like that, Rayla supposes, and usually his weird questions are related to magic, and Xadia, and elven script and Rayla is (generally) happy to oblige. What can she say? He likes to learn, and the lilt in his voice and the light in his eyes and the excitement in his smile is endearing, and she's never been particularly good at saying no, at least not to him.

But this one is weird because it's not a Xadia thing, or a magic thing, or an elven script thing, and when he asks, he's not nearly as upbeat about it. At first, she doesn't get it. It's a useful skill to have, and a fun skill to master—it's like a puzzle but more fiddly, and Rayla had taught herself years and years ago because she didn't like it when Ethari and Runaan tried to keep her out of places, so of course she learned (in part) to spite them. Callum's never really had the same restrictions because he's a prince, and all he has to do to unlock anything is ask, usually, and yet—

"Can you teach me?"

"Er. Sure?" Rayla tilts her head at him curiously. "You planning a heist or something?"

Callum chuckles a little. "Or something," he says cryptically. "What, you don't think I can do it?"

"I don't think it's your style," says Rayla. "You're a prince and high mage, why on earth would you need to know how to pick a lock?"

He smirks then. "Ancient tomes, forbidden libraries, old abandoned ruins, jellytart runs... All sorts of reasons. Just feels like a necessary skill for adventure, y'know?"

Rayla laughs at that. "I mean, I guess. How often are you intending to break into forbidden libraries and old abandoned ruins?"

"As often as I need to, thank you very much. I have a whole life of adventure ahead of me, and I'll be damned if not being able to pick locks is the thing that stops me."

Rayla shakes her head at him, trying not to laugh at the way he wheedles. She was never going to say no, and he knows it, and he's far too smug about it for it not to be funny. For a second, she actually forgets that it's a weird thing to ask and teases him back: "Fine, but you'll have to ask Opeli for the handcuffs. I'm sure she won't wonder why you want them."

Callum snickers loudly at that, and it's that simple, that easy, just jokes between the two of them about a skill they don't really need, until later, when Rayla's showing him the mechanics of a lock and a thought occurs to her that reminds her why the whole thing feels a bit off-kilter.

"You know, we've only really had problems with locks, like, twice," she muses. "There was that one time Opeli arrested me, and then that time on Sea Legs, but I mean, you managed fine."

Something flickers across Callum's face. His smile twitches, falters, and if Rayla didn't know him so well, she might have missed it because she can see how hard he's trying to make it less of a deal than it is.

"Yeah, well." He shifts uncomfortably, the memory just as unpleasant for him. "I don't want repeats. I don't want anyone else trying to feed you to any sea leviathans."

"Somehow I think that was a one time thing." Rayla pauses, her smile fading a little as she fiddles with the manacles on his wrists. "How'd you get out of the chains Finnegrin put you in anyway? You apparently didn't pick them."

There's a pause. Callum looks away, and the whole world stills as the realisation dawns over Rayla, as cold as the way her blood froze in her veins that same day.

"...Callum."

"I had to do," he says quietly. He meets her gaze then, and the storm in his eyes makes her intestines writhe like snakes. "I couldn't let him hurt you."

Rayla says nothing for a moment, fingers hovering over the chains locked around his wrists. Her heart thumps heavily. Her breath shudders out. "Well," she says after a moment. "I guess we have to make sure you don't end up in that position a third time."

"You're not angry?"

"I don't know." She touches his hand then and finds herself relieved that it's still warm under her fingers. She doesn't know how to feel about it, but they're both alive and they're both safe so... that must count for something. "It doesn't matter," she says in the end. "I'm just... Glad we're okay. You won't do it again anyway."

Callum looks up at her. "Won't I?"

"No." Rayla hands him the lockpick. "I won't let you."

#this is a mess but im sleep deprived which is always my excuse and always valid #rayllum #in anticipation

[scruffylookingpiratecaptain]

I think people have truly lost any ability to be patient with storytelling.

‘I don’t understand this’ They’ll explain it if you wait.

‘I don’t like how this episode left things hanging’ There’s a continuation next week.

‘This character is flat’ Wait for them to be fleshed out.

So many of the complaints I see about shows lately are people being confused by things THAT THE SHOW WANTS YOU TO BE CONFUSED BY THATS THE FUN OF MYSTERY AND FORESHADOWING YOU ABSOLUTE GOBLINS THE MAIN CHARACTER IS ALSO CONFUSED AND THEYRE GONNA DO A BIG REVEAL AND EXPLANATION LATER IF YOU WOULD JUST FUCKING WAIT

#i can’t anymore #anti fans #anti fandom #venting #I fucking hate impatient people #sit your ass down and wait #anticipation is fun #I’ve heard about so many people who gave up on wandavision after the first two episodes #because they didn’t understand what was going on #like #*sigh* #you weren’t fucking supposed to understand how stupid could you be to not get that #1k #10k #50k #100k

[pangur-and-grim]

waiting for the lady to send me today's kitten photos....

#she sends photos once a week #and the last two times it's been between 1-4pm on a friday #now it is nearly 6pm and I am vibrating in anticipation

[spiderversegf]

oh btw just in case nobody ever told you. just because your life looks different than you thought it would doesn't mean that your life is bad or wrong or disappointing or less than. sometimes things aren't good or bad. sometimes they're just different

#ok to rb #just thinking a lot ab expectations n things and realizing that even tho im experiencing a Lot of suffering i can still find happiness #and even if it isn't the life i anticipated it is still MY life. there is always good in it. i will never stop searching for it #🍜

[143bc]

Anticipation 🌹🔥

#stupid wife #valu #valentina x luiza #priscila reis #priscila buiar #anticipation is a sensory delight

[just-a-sewer-goblin]

The way Soap would use military talk to get a reaction from you. He knows you're into it. So you're standing in the kitchen, maybe cooking something and you can hear his raspy voice from behind the corner "Got visuals on the target" and you're already grinning, wisely putting down anything that could make a mess. You hear slight shuffling and a whispered "Nice and stealthy boys", the next thing you know is him tackling you and immediately catching you in his arms, carefully lowering you to the floor. He crawls over you rasping: "Hostage secured", and presses his lips to yours but you both have to laugh. And it ends up being a messy kiss because you both can't stop giggling and grinning into the kiss. And when he breaks away because you're both smiling so wide it's just impossible to properly kiss, you put your hand on his chest and tell him: "You're a goof MacTavish". His smile softens and he replies: "Aye, your goof, that is."

#the sewer writes #john soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x reader #soap x reader #soap x gn!reader #soap mactavish x reader #gn!reader #john soap cod #cod soap x reader #the way it would be so ridiculous #he would always find a way to make intimate moments funny #sometimes it's just straight up funny #sometimes it ends up being hotter than anticipated