#count them all

[epsilontlosdark4]

A Hard-Boiled Detective Short

It was rough Monday morning. Barely had enough coffee to keep me awake and not nearly enough to sober me up. I cursed my receptionist for her cruel insistence that my agency needed to be open at 8am and that meant I needed to be here even earlier than that. "Professionalism" she called it. What a joke. I'd fire her, but considering she's my mother I'd probably never hear the end of it.

I swallowed another bitter mouthful of my liquid breakfast when she walked in. Hell in high heels. A platinum blonde dame who must have turn a hundred heads every time she walked down the block, and ended even more marriages. Deviling good looks a sinner might say, and I was certainly deviled.

She was wearing a long dress, red as the sirens flashing in my head. Her mere presence was suffocating, I felt like a horse with a yolk two sizes too small around his neck. This gal was dangerous. I knew if I valued my life I shouldn't even be speaking to her, but here she was in my office, a tissue dabbing her wet and puffy eyes, and gosh darn it, I'm a professional after all.

How she even found my little hole-in-the-wall agency she didn't say. I'm used to trying to poach clients from the bigger boys, I don't get too many walk-ins unless everyone else in the city already turned them away. I asked what I could do for her.

She sang me a nursery rhyme. A classic. And then asked for my help. I almost laughed if my sense of humor hadn't been beaten, whipped, and crippled by the Dursby boys a few years back. But the case she brought me was still a joke none the less.

Everyone knew it was an accident.

We'd known for years. The kid's death was tragic for sure. He was well known, hell even well liked which is saying something in this city. Cheery, if a little stupid, from what I'd heard over the years. Always looked on the sunny side up until… Well until he died. But it was an accident, six ways to Sunday it was an accident.

And yet here she was crying bloody murder. I don't even know how she knew the victim. Clearly not related. And even more clearly, they weren't a thing.

God I wish I still smoked.

I needed the money and getting paid to investigate a solved case would certainly put some extra change in my pocket for no work, but sadly I caught a bad case of ethics before I even started this whole business. They're why I got kicked off the force in the first place.

If I was half the hard-boiled detective I claimed to be, I'd investigate it. Get to whatever truth she was looking for. But cases like these, people aren't looking for the truth. They want to be coddled, told their right and nothing else. There was nothing here to crack open.

I was gonna turn her away then and there, but then she said something that caught my attention. It was as crazy as the rest of the yarn she'd been spinning and yet my mind clung onto it. If true then she'd be right and the world would be wrong. Not an accident, a murder, and a cover-up bigger than the mayor's combo-over. I knew digging into a case like this wouldn't go over easy but it was too tantalizing to pass up. My mind scrabbled trying to put the pieces together.

She said it again,

"Humpty Dumpty was pushed."

[isjasz]

Stellar death

[ghosted-jazz]

I hope they got that microwave in the break room

Bonus version with different outfit colours:

[kimdokjas]

though the movie might be cancelled, yuri on ice will live forever in our hearts. thank you yoi fandom, it's been real ♡

[freyadragonlord]

I found this meme chart and I SawTM them.

[noxer]

"Bury My Mother Pale and Slight (Myla's Song)" - Amalgemotion

A little bit of Hollow Knight in your Star Wars

I wanted something simple, yet emotional. I think i like it. It was a bit difficult to distribute the characters among the verses. Some fit perfectly, while others have to be interpreted. Like, "the lady, lovely and pale" suited Padme well too, but i choose "the writer" because of, well, a broken heart (i guess you can interpret the senator as a writer, in some sense?). "The sage and his sons all three" was also good for Yoda and his lineage (Dooku, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan). That's why I didn't take the last verse, because I couldn't find suitable characters for it (you can write your own ideas if you want).

But otherwise, I like the result.

[askyofexplodingstars]

girldad tenna doodles 💕📺

bonus:

[king-magppi]

♥️♣️It’s old coot game night... TIME TO GAMBLE!! This time a few others were invited to join the "old coots". It's more fun that way, anyhow.♦️♠️

(w/o dialogue vers under cut!)

[myxineye]

I told ya don't touch that darn thing.

[chalkrub]

some scrimbles for @bowelfly as part of a trade <:^) the wickedly talented brother gregor and trungo

[soupforsoup]

One thing about Eliot is he's gonna go so in on a grift. A wedding caterer? Get the fuck outta his way he's got two hundred guests to cook for and these canapes aren't gonna plate themselves. A baseball player? Fuck the con he gets a damn sandwich named after him. A supermarket worker? He's doing his full day of work AND THEN starting a union uprising first chance he gets. Sophie is "the grifter" but Eliot is the one who can match and beat her freak for commiting to a character so hard it becomes your new personality for the next week

[zerovsilver19]

So, does this count?

This is a recent painting… Well, let them fight.

[kevinslefthand]

Kevin Day: if I had a nickel for every tragic gay exy player I became close personal friends with I’d have one… I’d have two… I’d have… I’d have FOUR NICKELS? WHAT THE FU—

[bixels]

pop fashion.

[nutsack90]

she is appallingly underrated

[huachengsromcom]

People call Heaven Official’s Blessing / TGCF a slow burn but Hua Cheng is literally courting Xie Lian like they are DATING. Slow burn who??? They’re sleeping next to each other on straw mats and Xie Lian’s offering to cook him dinner and they’re bantering across THE HOME THEY SHARE like a bunch of desperate hussys

San Lang LEAVES XL WITH A KEEPSAKE OF THEIR TIME TOGETHER SLOW BURN WHOMST

They have A DATE in HC’s armoury where they HOLD HANDS and XL pets San Lang’s quivering sword I-

Hua Cheng basically throws himself at this man he’s like you want a sword?? All of them ?? You want ALL THE SWORDS?? Fuck it take the whole room THE WHOLE ROOM JUST COME VISIT I WILL CLEAN THEM FOR YOU

Like he isn’t the king of a whole realm with shit to do

And this is just the first half of the first book—again I ask the world SLOW BURN WHOMST