#I queued this last August damn...

[strawberrypinky]

can't catch me now. - a. sharp x reader

i'm in the trees, i'm in the breeze my footsteps on the ground. you'll see my face in every place, but you can't catch me now. through wading grass, the months will pass you'll feel it all around. i'm here, i'm there, i'm everywhere, but you can't catch me now.

aesop returns to the place of your demise and the source of his everlasting guilt.

prompt fill for sharpuary no. 8 'scarborough'

A/N: Here we go! I'm kicking off Sharpuary with my take on the "Scarborough" prompt! Big thanks to @ynyseira and @gufu-vire for publishing the prompts ahead of the month!

Throughout the month I'll be publishing the prompts 'Portrait', 'Valentine', 'Gherkin', 'Mirror of Erised' and 'Slytherin'. I wish I would've had the time to do more, but alas these are the ones I have queued up. If inspiration strikes and I find the time, I might publish some more.

This one shot was loosely inspired by the song "Can't Catch Me Now" by Olivia Rodrigo & takes places in Aesop's early years, only shortly after the events of Scarborough. I am aware that Aesop tells the player of the battle taking place on a ship, but I am bending the story slightly aka taking some creative liberties 😗✌🏻

CW: Major character death, (auditory) hallucinations, overall angst

Word Count: 3.8k

Link to AO3 Version: can't catch me now.

Scarborough was decidedly one of those infernal places which seeped with indulgence and détente at every corner yet truthfully simmered with wretched delinquency and bitter peccancy enshrouded in its shadows.

At least if one were to ask Aesop Sharp what he thought of the place.

The town on the northern coast of Yorkshire was a far cry from how Aesop remembered the place. The last time he had stepped into the place, the air was cold and frigid, and the streets barren of any human soul, safe for the few lingering locals that stayed even when the travellers left. Scarborough was the epitome of splendour and abundant leisure, the upper class spending their summers far away from the sweltering and stifling heat of London and its boroughs and trading the sheer endless days of summer for the gentle breeze and wide horizons of the English coast. Aesop supposed that perhaps, in another life, he might have enjoyed the place himself, a life in which he had not stepped into the town as an Auror but as a traveller himself. Perhaps, he glaringly thought as he stood atop the hill bearing the ruins of the medieval Scarborough Castle, and his gaze swept across the vast horizon of the coast, he might have stayed with the upper echelons at the Grand Hotel himself, instead of the seedy tavern you and he had spent your final moments together. 

Cursed be the Ministry and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for ever sending the two of you to the forsaken town at sea. And cursed be the Ministry and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for asking him to come back - to return to the scene of the end of one life and the eternal damnation of another.

It had been 178 days since that day.

178 days since he had last heard your voice, last seen your smile, last shared the quips you and he shared.

It had been exactly 178 days since your life had ended, and his had forever been changed.

Growling, Aesop turned away from the sun, his newly cursed leg starkly protesting the movement as he limped himself into the shadows of the castle, searching for just a semblance of respite from the stifling August heat. The damned thing ached beyond belief as if a million knives pierced his skin over and over again at his hip and spread down to his leg. It was a persistent reminder that the night you had lost your life happened, though the scar his soul bore was infinitely more agonising than his leg would ever be.

Glancing at the watch in his pocket, Aesop noted it was a quarter past three, his former supervisor late to their agreed-upon meeting and he had half a mind to apparate out of Scarborough and drown himself in firewhiskey in his home as he had done past 100 days since his release from St. Mungo's. Yet as he glanced upon the ruins once more, he recalled why he had come in the first place, the Ministry intent on gathering any intel from that night as they had yet to capture those who had slaughtered you in cold blood and thus Aesop stayed - he owed you that much.

You.

You had been a rather annoying thorn in Aesop's side from the second you had stepped into the Auror office, sauntering and high-strung with a burning thirst to do good in the world as you threw yourself into cases headfirst with reckless frivolity. Sometimes, he had wondered how you had passed the initial training stage at all, your hyper personality a stark contrast among the serious and battle-worn officials that littered the office. It was a personality beaten out of recruits over the lengthy training period, and while Aesop was a mere five years older than you had been, he doubted that you hadn't been exposed to the cruel realities of war and crime as any other recruit had been. You were an oddity - an eclectic fireball among the burnt-out personalities that were Aurors and Hit Wizards, and Aesop had loathed it.  

When he had first been paired with you a mere two years before, he had all but begged his supervisor to reconsider, to pair him with anyone but you, but they had insisted.

"She's a promising young soul," the words echoed in Aesop's mind. "You will make a fine pair."

He had doubted it then, obviously. Denied any possibility of someone like you - skittish and genial - ever being a perfect match for him - staid and austere. Your first mission together had been a complete and utter disaster, for what should have been an easy arrest of a reprobate had turned into a full-blown battle you had fearlessly and recklessly charged into.

"Come catch me," you had giggled before abandoning all rules of basic Auror training and charging into the unknown. 

While you had successfully apprehended the suspect and turned him over to the Ministry, the battle had commenced in broad daylight and enlisted five Obliviators to manage dozens of Muggles who had witnessed a heated exchange of spells and curses and had confined the two of you to desk duty for more than three months. Aesop had been seething with rage, desk duty the most mundane and imbruting tasks one could ever sentence an Auror to. He was a soldier, a shining paragon of honour and defence - not a desk clerk. It was a speck of dishonour among his otherwise pristine rise among the Aurors and it had all been because of your extroverted, verging on effusive personality. 

You had not minded, of course, even making a joke of the situation and blathering on with what you thought droll jokes and enthralling stories, and Aesop had more than once snuck alcohol into the office, unable to take your disposition any other way. It had been freeing to return to active duty once more three months later, even if the task of simple observation had been mundane and hackneyed - at least it had been a change of pace.

It had seemed, at least, that you had at least learned after your idiotic endeavour, no longer charging into situations unknown but awaiting his command, for he remained your superior. Your demeanour had not changed otherwise, but at least he could count on a partner slightly more conscientious in the field. It was a win he did not relinquish, and your entire company seemed a little more bearable from that point on.

It hadn't been until one night of observation, eight months after your initial pairing, that he had been privy to see another side to you.

"You're quiet tonight," he had remarked as your gazes meticulously observed the seedy establishment where allegedly all sorts of prohibited deals and Faustian bargains were closed. "Oddly so." 

"Sorry," you had mumbled in a half-hearted apology, your eyes not meeting his. "Long day."

"That's never stopped you before," he had snarked cruelly, the week long and tedious. 

"Sorry," you had all but whispered again, shrinking slightly under his scrutinising glare. "I'll be sure to be less bothersome in the future."

"You are not -" he had begun to argue, stopping himself mere seconds later, for he was many things, but Aesop was not a liar. You had been bothersome. 

A bitter laugh had escaped your throat, the sound paradox coming from you, of all people, when all he had seen of you was a person as jovial as someone drunk on Alihosty. "Exactly."

He had later found that your father had passed a mere fortnight earlier, and the burial had been that day. He had felt like a grand arse, swallowing down his pride and openly apologised for his behaviour and offered you a shoulder to cry on, though you had never actually taken him up on the offer. Instead, you had smiled gratefully before burying your grief beneath the infinite layers of frivolity and mirth he had grown accustomed to, and Aesop finds himself seeing you with the depths of your soul and all its paradoxing contrasts and within seeing you, he is falling for you.

It had been a slow realisation at first, from noticing how, instead of vexation, your laughter and stories brought a comforting sense of familiarity to laughing manically alongside you, confusing his colleagues, for nobody had ever seen Aesop Cyril Sharp smile that much. 

You had slowly yet surely crept into his mind and heart, your being a beacon of amenity and Aesop was powerless to do anything but surrender to the shining light that was you. 

The amicable partnership that had been between you blossomed into a bountiful and fulfilling romance, and with each passing day, it became more challenging to maintain a facade of his characteristic stoicism and the carefully curated illusion of mere friendship. Your superiors had been correct in their assumptions after all: You made a fine pair. It went unspoken between you that your romance could never see the light of day, the sheer scandal of a workplace relationship enough to silence even you, though Aesop yearned to show off how deeply you loved the longer it went on. Your blossoming romance transcended into your professional lives, too, the pair of you rising through the ranks and taking on more complicated and intricately woven cases as you helped bring justice to the Wizarding World.

Your keen and genuine yearning to bring goodness into a world littered with hardened criminals and devilish syndicates is nothing short of inspiring, and while you had never truly ceased to be slightly more reckless than you perhaps should have been, your prowess in battle was unmatched as no onslaught of chaos or destruction could hinder your sheer determination or force of will. 

"Come catch me?" you had jokingly asked before each and every battle you and him found yourselves in, alluding to the disastrous first case, yet then Aesop found the words comforting rather than infuriating. It was as if you were making a silly game of a perilous situation, and while he had initially been hesitant to follow your jubilance, it had quickly become addicting.

"Come catch me?" had been the final words you had uttered to him in the place he now stood, the desolate ruins of a formerly stately palace cold and unforgiving as the bitter February winds had whisked along your heads and you had thrown yourself into a battle you'd never emerge from. The seedy smugglers you and he had been trailing for weeks had seemingly finally slipped; a contact Aesop had acquired telling him of a supposed incoming shipment of shrunken heads which was to be traded in the ruin of Scarborough Castle and then taken to over parts of the country via the port of the city. As Aesop reminisced on the minutes preceding that fateful battle, he only realised how foolish it had been to expect the man to have been working alone; how foolish it had been to expect a sudden contact was telling the truth. The arrogance with which he had displayed confidence, further emboldened by every battle you and him had won, was the beginning of the end.

From the second you had stepped from the shadows, you were ambushed by what seemed like an army of reprobates and scoundrels, lunging at the two of you with cruel precision in the pandemonium. The ruins of the castle upon the rocky promontory, once a symbol of royalty and defence, had been transformed into a brutal battlefield with colourful hexes and curses illuminating the night.

Aesop had scarcely been granted a second to draw upon his Auror badge, a clever charm allowing him to call for backup.

It was the first time he had felt genuine and true terror as he continued to fight alongside you, his feelings for you at the forefront of his mind as his role had turned from Auror to protector among the assailment of spells hurled your way.

As the seconds ticked by and it became more evident that the battle you were fighting was a losing one, Aesop had all but hoped you would retreat and run as far as you could, but he should have known better. You never backed down from a fight.

All too late, he had noticed the witch sneaking up on you with impeccable stealth before she drew upon her wand as your back was turned to hers, engaged in a duel of your own, and uttered the words which would void you of any life. 

"Avada Kedavra."

You had fallen to the ground within a second, your body plummeting into the dirt as the witch cackled in sadistic delight upon having ended a life with a mere flick of her wrist, obliterating any future you might have had. Aesop could not recall what had transpired next, unadulterated mania consuming his body as he fired curse after curse at the witch who had taken you from this mortal coil, which she deflected with tantalising ease. His love for you, which had translated into his rage, had been his second mistake that night, and though now he wished it had meant the end of his life, it had allowed another to sneak up on him, uttering a strange curse and aiming at his leg, damning it to the pain he now felt with every step.

Aesop was unsure what happened after; the rest of the night, a blur of colour and shapes and overwhelming sentiments obscuring his memory before he awoke in St. Mungos again, and 178 days later, the memory of the night seemed far away as the sun illumed the grassy patches and rocks, and a gentle breeze carried the scent of summer instead of the fetid stench of decay.

Half past three, Aesop noted as he glanced at his pocket watch once more. Resigned, he sighed as he leaned against the cool stone, closing his eyes as he desperately tried keeping the weight off his bad leg as it spasmed and the pain etched itself into his very core. Damned be the blasted thing, and Aesop had no one to blame but himself.

A gentle breeze passed him by, the scent strangely familiar as it passed in a second. Aesop scrunched his nose, hoping to catch it again to identify the source, but all he got was a strange sound instead - a near-mocking giggle reaching his ears. His eyes shot open once more, the sound too close for him to be comfortable, yet as he searched the place, there was not a single soul in sight. His hand strayed towards his concealed wand, ready to fight, yet the place was quiet again, merely the breeze enveloping him in a cocoon of familiar and comforting smells. All too late Aesop realised that the scent was you, the tantalising allure of it nothing but a distant memory that continued to fleet the more seconds passed. 

The giggle sounded again, his ears perking up as a presence clouds over him like a paradoxical embrace both chilling and warm, a gentle voice accompanying it. 

"Come catch me." 

Your voice hauntingly sounded around him, though there was no source to be determined. The words struck him like a hot iron, piercing his soul as Aesop feels as if he were struck by a physical blow. He blinked rapidly in almost visceral disbelief.

Had he just heard your voice? Aesop shook his head, trying to convince himself his mind was simply playing tricks on him, the proximity to the place of your demise aiding in his delusions. Another resigned sigh escaped him, deciding that if his superiors did not arrive within a minute or two, he would disapparate and schedule the meeting for another day, even if he was not terribly keen to return to Scarborough either way. 

"Come catch me."

And there it was again, a sanctimonious sound ringing in his ears as your voice penetrated his senses and twisted his mind. It had to have been a trick - a cruel diversion. Yes, that must have been it. Aesop's mind was twisting and turning, forcing itself to remember that you couldn't be there. A shaking puff escaped his lips, air filling his lungs with a semblance of clarity as the echoes of your voice faded once more and all that was left was the gentle breeze and the rustling leaves with the chirping birds off the coast. 

Enough was enough, Aesop determined, unwilling to wait a single second further in this forsaken place of demise and terror and anguish, his rickety leg carrying him through the wading grass before his mind could think of it any further and convince him to stay any longer.  Damned be the Ministry - may they reach out any other time or kiss his arse, but to torture him with this was asking too much. How dare they ask this of him after all the months, wasting time and efforts when your murderer was still on the loose and - 

Aesop stopped dead in his tracks, feet frozen to the ground as a surge of consternation and terror courses through him at the picture he was faced with.

There you were, standing in the clearing between the crumbling castle walls and the remains of the barbican, as if you had always been there. You were a shining beacon, seemingly untouched, with your clothes pristine and your countenance not cadaverous but as full of life as Aesop fondly remembered in his darkest nightmares and most precious dreams. A strange look had clouded your features, though your smile was as warm and familiar as it had always been. Aesop shakingly exhaled, his eyes not leaving yours as they held your gaze in sheer disbelief and poignancy he was unable to describe. 

You stood as still as he as if awaiting his movements, though Aesop remained motionless - stunned by your sudden appearance. Was this a cruel trick? Or was it a gift from a deity pitying the man? Aesop would have described himself a Nihilist, yet there was no worldly explanation for this otherwise. 

His mouth opened, then closed before a single sound could leave him, his chest constricting the more he gazed upon your frame, and he felt his heart beating erratically. One step forward, he told himself, his agonising leg a mere afterthought as he stumbled towards your vision, which stayed unmoving. Another stumbling step forward, hands reaching for the silhouette etched in his mind; a body so familiar to Aesop, like a painting whose lines he had drawn over and over - all your strengths and vulnerabilities - and he held onto your gaze fiercely, afraid that when he let go, so would you. Like a man possessed, he staggered through the grass, fearful that you would vanish if he did not reach you, as he imagined you retreating to a place he could no longer reach you.

Aesop's mind was a hollowed place filled with a cacophony of screams, mindlessly scrambling for answers - for reason. He wanted to scream, demand answers he had been searching for since that harrowing night. 

Come catch me, he could hear your voice ringing in his head. 

One more step. Just one more, Aesop told himself.

A second more, but before his hand could reach for yours, a firm hand clamped around his shoulder, grounding him to the spot. Aesop whipped around, hand on his wand and ready to fight as a piercing pain shot up his spine, shooting him down, hissing and groaning.

"Bloody hell, Sharp," Aesop could hear the deep timbre of Eleazar Fawley, his former superior, as he knelt on the ground, pain flooding his system as he groaned in an effort to suppress the screams at the back of his throat. His vision blurred as he focused on the ground, the viridescent grass beneath him soft between his fingertips as it ground him to the earth. 

"What the fuck, Eleazar?" Aesop hissed after a while, still feeling the pressure of Eleazar Fawley's hand as he slowly raised himself, further suppressing the screams which threatened to escape his throat as his blasted leg ached and spasmed under the pressure, having been used far more in a mere two hours than it had been in the last couple of months passing him by. Aesop turned to face Fawley, a man of unimpressive stature or height, with a face marred by years of brutal combat, though his presence was imposing nonetheless. The man's most extraordinary edge had always been his unremarkableness; many a foe underestimated him and paid the price with a one-way ticket to Azkaban. Aesop glared at him, though Eleazar Fawley remained unimpressed, if a little leery in his questioning gaze. 

"What the fuck is an apt sentiment," Eleazar Fawley mused as he removed his hand from Aesop's shoulder. "Because why the fuck do I arrive to you staggering through these ruins like a man possessed, ashen like a ghost? Are you out of your mind?"

Aesop flouted the man, turning around to where you had stood as your voice had finally ceased to echo in his head, only to realise the spot was vacant once more; any trace of your phantom vanished as if it had never been there in the first place. His mind reeled, void of anything but you and your ephemeral vision.

"Sharp?" he heard the questioning tone of Fawley again. "Is everything alright?"

Aesop looked around once again, his eyes sweeping over the place, desperately looking for only a hint of you or even a testament that you had been there, but the place was void of any other soul but him and Eleazar Fawley, leaving nothing but a lingering feeling of mournful longing and haunting despair in its wake.

"Yes," Aesop hesitantly mumbled after a while, returning to look at his former boss. "Everything is perfectly fine."

The man in front of him nodded, and though the disbelief was evident in his eyes, Aesop gratefully noted he refrained from prying any further, though whether this was out of the goodness of his heart or genuine disinterest, Aesop did not know. He stood up straighter, though he scarcely reached Aesop's shoulders and let out a huffing breath before his gaze hardened once more and became the picture of collected lassitude Aesop was accustomed to.

"Right then," Fawley cleared his throat, turning around to walk away. "Then let's not dally any further and get this over with." 

Aesop nodded in compliance, slowly forcing himself to follow as your voice rang in his ears once more.

Come catch me. 

Once more, he looked over his shoulder, hoping to see you smiling at him with the familiar impish glint your eyes held before you charged into battle, yet the fields stayed clear, and Aeosp bitterly realised that nothing remained of you but your shadows haunting the ruins of Scarborough Castle, tormenting his mind as he would forever be unable to catch you now.

[meltwonu]

57. “Say it.”

84. “I’m gonna strangle you.”

            “Is that a promise?”

notes; racer/street-racing!au, dom!jihoon, frustrated!jihoon, ‼️ car accidents ‼️, a bit of arguing, dirty talk, degradation, overstimulation, oral(fem receiving), fingering,, choking, jihoon being a tease as always! AAAAAND WE’RE BACK AAAHHH 🥺💕 I can’t believe my account took an extra long unplanned hiatus dkfjhskh I did take the time to just recharge which was good for me tho, I think! 😭💕💕💕 And now I’m ready to tackle drabbles and fics and prep for halloween~~ 😈 hehe also I do be thinkin about jihoon in a leather jacket sooo heh h0e hours are back yall! 🤣🤣 LMAO also this is a little long bc i got carried away oops 😗💕 As always, thank you so much for requesting! Enjoy! 

Edit: NOT JIHOON POSTIN PICS ON WEVERSE AS I’M PROOFREADING THIS DKJHJKSH PLEASE SIR, I’M---I’M SORRY…. 😞🥲

Edit 2: this was in ref to Christmas In August GoSe!! from... last yr.... hahahah... ☠️

*queued post.

Jihoon curses as he shifts gears - car screeching as he drifts around the mountainside.

He’s almost to the end; a whopping $5000 waiting for him at the finish line. 

But more importantly, the bragging rights of finally being able to beat Jeonghan in a race.

“Fuck, fuck fuck…”

His eyes peer into the rearview mirror to see Jeonghan’s car only a breath away from his own; body going rigid when he realizes his turn was too wide and Jeonghan’s car ends up on the inner side of the road just as his car grazes Jihoon’s when they both drift the corner together.

Jeonghan has the upperhand as he zooms past the younger male’s car for the umpteenth time and Jihoon can’t help but feel the dread filling his body. 

“Goddamnit!” Jihoon’s fist bangs against the steering wheel as he does his best to pick his speed back up, but it’s too late as Jeonghan’s car zooms out of sight.

Regardless, he growls under his breath and shifts gears again - except this time, the unexpected slick on the mountain road has his breath stuttering when his car suddenly starts to hydroplane down the winding road.

“Oh fu---”

“Jihoon?”

“Mmnh…”

“Jihoon? Hey, c’mon, talk to me…”

“Ugh…”

His head hurts, and so does his ego; eyes blinking slowly as he adjusts to the light and your face hovering above him.

“Am I dead?” Groaning, he places his arm over his eyes as you scoff and roll your eyes at the male laying on the sofa in front of you.

“If you were, this would be a real shitty place to be right now. You’re laying on the sofa in Seungcheol’s car garage. But more importantly, are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? Do we need to bring you to the hospital?”

“How bad did I fuck up my car? Is it totaled?”

He moves his arm before sluggishly making an attempt to sit up - eyes on you before he notices his leather jacket slung over the armrest and the bandages littering the coffee table next to you.

“Damn, it’s probably gonna take a lot of money to fix…”

“Ugh, Jihoon… Can you not worry about your fuckin’ car right now? Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? You literally slammed into a tree! You’re lucky you weren’t so fucking far from the finish line… They thought it was weird when you weren’t there after a few minutes and found you slumped over the steering wheel!”

Your brows are furrowed as you meet his eyes and he’s quick to sigh and run his fingertips through his hair.

“Cut me some slack - my ego’s fuckin’ shot, right now. I’ve never wiped out that bad. And no, nothing hurts, but the bandages say otherwise, so what’s my damage?”

You move to stand up, picking up the discarded items as you place them back into the first-aide kit.

“You have some scratches on your forehead but that’s it... I’m just worried, okay? That’s never happened before and it could’ve been worse. And on top of that, I wasn’t even there! Do you know how scary it was to get a frantic call from Seungkwan that you were in an accident!?”

Jihoon’s lips purse into a firm line as he watches you put the first-aide kit away.

He typically didn’t like it when you came to his races anyway - he thought you worried too much. But also, he had the exact fear of getting into an accident and somehow harming you when you had no part in paying for the consequences of his hobbies.

“I know, and it’s going to stay that way.” Grumbling, he stands up and stretches - joints cracking as he reaches for his jacket. “It’s fine if I get hurt, but it’s not if you do. I’ll be careful next time, okay? Just got caught a bit off guard, is all. I’m gonna go check the damage on my car now so if--”

You move faster than you anticipate; hand meeting his cheek in a quick motion as his head whips to the side.

“You’re an asshole, Jihoon.”

His fingertips reach up towards his stinging cheek; lips curving into an amused grin as he nods.

“‘Kay, I probably deserved that.”

Jihoon tosses his jacket back onto the armrest before shoving his hands into the pockets of his tight denim.

“So what, then? Hmm? You want me to sit here all annoyed that I not only lost to Jeonghan, but also wrecked my car and probably have to wait months to get parts? Not only that but then spend weeks fixing it... I’m not exactly jazzed right now, doll.”

The drawl in his voice pisses you off more than you anticipate when your body starts to buzz from the arousal from his cocky nature.

“Take your frustrations out on me then.” You whisper back; hands balled up into fists by your sides as he looks you up and down with a growing smirk on his face.

“Oh? That's how you wanna handle it tonight, baby? Say it, then. Tell me exactly what you want me to do instead of what I want to be doing right now.”

“Fuck me and forget about your stupid fucking car!”

Jihoon is still annoyed.

“Mmnh, fu--fuck that feels s-so good…”

Even when you’re moaning his name loudly and his fingers are knuckle deep inside your cunt.

He can’t take his mind off of his losses tonight as he growls and suddenly picks up the pace as he snaps his wrist quicker - scissoring and curling his nimble fingers right into your sweet spot as you clench around the slicked digits.

“Yeah? I’ll make you feel even better, doll.”

Jihoon leans in between your spread legs; tongue on your clit in seconds as you react by tangling your fingers into his blonde locks - tugging harshly as he groans against your wet skin.

“Oh, g-god! Fuck!” You grind against his fingers and tongue - chasing an orgasm that Jihoon won’t give to you anyway.

‘You’re only allowed to cum on my cock,’ he’d said, ‘If you even think about cumming otherwise, I’ll leave you right here, by yourself, while I tend to my car.’

So you do your best to behave; mentally telling yourself to calm down even when Jihoon flicks at your swollen nub with the tip of his tongue. 

“Puh--please... Just f-fuck me... I--I can’t wait, ah, a-any longer... If you k-keep teasing, mmh, m-me, I’m gonna cum...” You whine; head thrashing against the sofa cushion as Jihoon sucks your clit into his mouth to tease you even more. 

He feels your pussy clenching around his fingers even more, a tell-tale sign you were about to cum so he immediately stops - wet fingers sliding from your tight cunt and lips coated in your wetness when he slowly starts to sit up. His blonde hair in his eyes as he smirks and licks his wet fingers. 

“So fuckin’ impatient for my cock, doll~ I thought I was the one that had a rough night? Yet here I am, answering to your every needy request, hmm?” 

“So--sorry...” 

He mockingly pouts at you; hands working to get his jeans off as he tsk’s.

“You're gonna be ‘cause now I’m gonna fuck you how I wanna.” 

Your body jerks against the sofa from Jihoon’s harsh movements - toes curling behind his back as his cock slams into your cervix. 

“Ngh, s-shit, I--fuh--fuck, w-wait--” Your eyes clamp shut as you cum unexpectedly; quiet sobs on your lips as Jihoon makes no efforts to slow down as he fucks you through your high.

He did say you were allowed to cum on his cock, after all. 

“Aww, is my pretty ‘lil doll cumming just from my cock filling her up? Hmm? Such a dirty ‘lil thing - you love it when I fuck you hard and fast like this, don’t you? It always makes you cum so easily~”

He laughs cruelly as you whimper back in return; walls still fluttering around his cock as he slides his hands under your thighs and maneuvers your legs until they’re almost touching your chest. 

“Mmh, l-love it when you, a-ah, forget about your s-stupid car shit and just f-fuck me s-stupid...” You lick your lips at the way the annoyed look on Jihoon’s face returns. 

“I’m gonna strangle you.” He grits out, “Watch your tongue, doll.”

“Ngh... Ís that a promise? Fuck, it’d p-probably make me c-cum even harder... Mmh, my p-pussy is getting so t-tight thinking about it...” You clench around his cock as he groans and doubles his pace as he chases his high. 

“Yeah? You wanna cum again? Is that what you want? Okay.” 

He reaches between your bodies as he pinches and rubs harsh circles on your clit instead - mischievous eyes watching as your face contorts in pleasure when you feel another orgasm starting to build. 

“O-oh, Jihoon, I--” 

“Mm, you’re so fuckin’ wet and tight around me, doll... And you’re gonna feel even better when I cum inside your desperate ‘lil cunt and fuck it deeper into you.” 

Your breathy cries mix in with his soft chuckles and he's quick to throw you into another mind-blowing orgasm as you cry out and clamp down onto his cock in a vice grip. 

“You cum so easily, doll~ How many more do you think I can get out of you, hm? How many more times do you think you can cum before you’re begging me to let you rest~?” 

You can barely hear Jihoon through the ringing in your ears and the blinding pleasure that has you momentarily blacking out; eyelashes wet with tears when you start to come down from your high. 

“So pretty when you’re all ruined and messy under me, doll~ And you're right,” Jihoon licks his lips - eyes twinkling with lust as he stares down at you, “This really was a good stress reliever. We should do this more often~”

Jihoon takes his wet fingertips from your sensitive clit and slowly starts to slide them up your torso; gentle whimpers falling from your lips as your entire body trembles knowing exactly what he was going to do. 

“J--Jihoon... I--hic--’m too sen--sensitive... I d-don’t, ah, know if--if I can c-cum again...” You slur out; head fuzzy and eyes hazy as you try to focus your eyes on his cocky expression. 

“Mm, thought you said that me choking you would only make you cum harder, huh? Suddenly all bark and no bite after all that, doll? Have you had enough? Should I stop?” 

His lithe fingertips wrap around the column of your throat - slowly adding pressure to the sides as you let out a shaky exhale. 

"N-no... Don’t--Don’t stop...” 

He snaps his hips expertly into you  as he keeps his hand around your throat; periodically loosening his grip to let you catch you breath before he's tightening his grip again. 

“I’m gonna cum inside your pretty ‘lil cunt. I wanna see you get messy for me, doll. I gave you everything you wanted tonight so it’s time for you to return the favour~” 

Jihoon’s cock throbs inside your pussy; already having been on the edge of an orgasm after you had your first one. 

“C-cum inside m-me, Jihoon... W--wanna feel your, mmnh, warm c-cum filling me up...” You moan out; body trembling and buzzing underneath him from the overstimulation. 

He doesn't say another word as he works to get himself and you off once more - only your moans and his quiet grunts filling up the otherwise empty garage. 

And it only takes a few more skillful snaps of his hips and his fingertips tightening around your throat once more before the two of you are cumming together; his cock sheathed in your warmth as he throws his head back in absolute bliss. 

“Oh, fuck!”

“H--huh....?” 

“Doll...?”

Your entire body feels like deadweight as you peer up at Jihoon; eyelids heavy as his smug appearance hovers over your face. 

“Well, well, well... Guess we both decided passing out was on the schedule tonight, huh. Who would've thought I’d fuck you that hard.” He quips.

“S-shut up, Jihoon...” 

“Or what? You gonna slap me again? I’d love to see where that gets you, doll~” 

[yostresswritinggirl]

Sojourner × 60

Dwelling temporarily in a foreign community dependent on the "good-will" for their continued existence.

Running Time: January 20 to August 16 (2021)

Blog Navigation -> Fics Masterlist

Welcome once again to our newest event! What are we celebrating? We're celebrating our 600 followers milestone, I know, a huge jump from 100 but we're crunching time.

Sojourner is our 30/30 event this time! 30 requests and 30 originals! 60 fics will be featured in this event, half of those will be from the asks you guys give and half of them would be fics I have planned out! Once we reached the limit, my inbox will be closed until all fics are done!

Counter : 60 Fics

s y m b o l s :

°°° - currently writing

✨ - latest published

§ - queued up

Thirty+ Requests Masterlist:

-> This list is updated for every request that is considered acceptable. If the masterlist updates and your request was not listed, it means your prompt did not make it. You can always try again tho! Reminder that the requests are relatively shorter than the originals. The list below does not mean it is the order that it will be published!

>

Scaramouche x Childe's Cousin!Reader 01/20

Game!AU Reader x Player!Albedo/Xiao (Universe Reversal) 01/21

Universe Reversal for Ganyu, Zhongli, Childe 01/22

Universe Reversal for Venti, Diluc (LAST PART) 01/23

You tie Albedo's hair for him (cuz he's sleepy and tired) 01/29

Part 2 of Xiao x Personal Chef!Reader 01/24

Poly Relationship with Jean and Diluc 01/26

Poly Relationship with Venti and Xiao 01/27

Poly Relationship with Xiao, Albedo and Scaramouche 01/31

Universe Reversal - Reaction to Flirty Voicelines 01/28

Cafe AU (A venti for a Venti) 02/02

Dainsleif Content or smth 02/04

Xiao x Adepti!Reader 02/04

Admiring Xiao's lean chest and tummy hot damn 02/06

Albedo x Photographer Reader 02/07

Things We Lost (Bennett x Reader) 02/10

Xingqiu reading to you 02/19

As Klee's Older Sibling 02/20

Shy/Ramble-y Alchemy Enthusiast with Albedo 02/24

Playing with Aether's unbraided hair 02/26

Babysitting Klee with Albedo, and also Albedo 03/03

Albedo and Xiao witness their S/O being tortured 03/06

Dating Headcanons with Kazuha 08/16 ✨

Poly Relationship with Venti and Zhongli, seeing their God forms

Poly Relationship with Xingqiu and Chongyun, ice cream date!

Childe getting sibling-zoned by Reader (who secretly likes him)

Childe/Traveler x Ex!Reader/Scaramouche (it's complicated to summarize lol)

Childe x Diluc's Younger Sister (Oh this might not end well)

Xiao x Dense!Healer!Reader

Cyno curious about Reader's Vision Creature

Student Rivalry with Cyno

Collecting Wolfhooks with Razor

Xiao and Little!Ganyu Moments

Poly Relationship with Zhongli and Venti as an Archon Reader

>

I take requests for any of the characters! But the children (Klee, Qiqi, Diona) are for platonic themes only. Any themes are fine for the others, you can also request for more than one character in a prompt!

Less Than Thirty Originals Masterlist:

-> This part contains my original ideas and will usually be longer compared to the requests, both in word count and duration. Previous event prompts and circlets are included here too, as some you might recognize!

>

Antinomy (Final Part) (Childe x Superior!Reader) 01/20

Research: Pet Names (Albedo x Reader) 01/23

Albedo's Confession 01/23

Where I Can't Follow (Venti x Reader) 01/25

Sophrosyne (Silent Fic Challenge for Zhongles) 01/26

Genshin Boys would be horrible as Disney Princes 01/27

Stages of Grief (How Childe, Zhongli, Albedo and Xiao deal with a break up) 02/02

A String That Binds Him (Xiao x Reader) 02/03

Alatus' Weakness (Pure Angst BITCH) 02/05

Albedo Corruption Drabble (Reader) 02/09

Intermittent (Red/Green Xiao x Reader content lmao) 02/11

Genshin Boys Modern Scenarios 02/12-13

Part 3. 1 of Abandoned By The Altar x Diluc 02/16

Red Xiao x GN Reader x Green Xiao NSFW 02/18

Weight of Living (Zhongli Comfort Fic) 02/22

Tasteless (Xiao x Reader angst) 02/27

Mirror Flower, Water Moon (lantern rite Xiao fluff) 02/28

Pervases Brainrot 03/10

Sequel to Klee's Older Sibling 04/07

Xiao's Birthday Fic 04/17

Part 3.2 of Abandoned By The Altar °°°

Xiao x Human!Cloud Retainer!Reader

Hook Line And Sinker (Kaeya x Thief!Reader)

Go For The Throat (Xiao x Demon!Reader)

Funeral Parlor Man helps prepare Reader's family member's funeral

Turing Love Self-indulgent Fic (Modern AU - Albedo)

>

Long fics are counted based on chapters, for example, Under the Same Artificial Sky is seven chapters long so it will take up 7 slots from the 30 roster.

Tagslist Corner: want to be tagged? Just comment or ask!

General - @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @snackgod @rxsalinee @cala-ran @wind-wheel @lilydewi22(all) @yellowflowre(all) @traveler-lumine @nonniechan @creation-magician @hanniejji(all) @gojos-baby @just-some-stars @volleybloop @tartuu @sassyglassesbunny

No 18+ Content - @moaa @dandelion-dreams @witchsungie @lehra

Specific Charas :

Venti - @ellitx @sk1nnyangelic @scarletroseneko @bunniesrorange

Albedo - @albaedhoe (no 18), @xiaophilia @heisenwurst @childe-simp-exe

Ganyu - @genshin-idiot @scarletroseneko

Cyno - @kookieyachi @childe-simp-exe

Xiao - @kookieyachi @xiaophilia @bunniesrorange @anormalguyreader @scarletroseneko @childe-simp-exe

Childe - @kookieyachi @sk1nnyangelic @scarletroseneko

Dainsleif - @sweetstrawberrybabe @genshin-idiot @anormalguyreader @sinpai-writes @idyllic-dreams @optimestick @bunniesrorange

Specific Chapters :

Abandoned By The Altar - @mortifiedmoon @dankchikorita @ly-nia @endeavors-big-dick @karlitaburrito @bunniesrorange @keiwahikari

#About Sojourner #Sojourner Specials

Event FAQ Section:

When does this start? - This has been discontinued!

Is there a schedule? - Nope, at least once a day, but if I finish a fic I'll schedule it in queue right after.

Will your usual random posts be discontinued? - Haha, you can't escape from me just yet!

Aren't you sick tho? - Your point?

Pray for me.

Spirit of a nestless; Exiled. Till journey's end; Sojourner.

[theofficialdeannawinchester]

Indefinitely Hiatus: 💜 🤔 💬

Status: Currently.

Last updated: January 26, August 26, and February 2.

On December 9 and 10, and the upcoming following weekend i’m being offline from my blog if I do update more stuff then the last post is December 10, i’m going out of town on December 11 and won’t return until January 14.

Then i’m focusing more on college, therapy, and my job so I will be available to do virtual classes and do my job next year. I’m focusing a lot more on my personal private life. I will be offline a lot from the blog. I hope you understand. :3 I’m still offline all my posts are on queue. If I reblog more stuff still on my hiatus remaining next year. But it be slower updates.

Update: My flight was delayed instead I return home on January 20 so I will be staying on my vacation a little bit longer. Probably for five days. I had to cancel my therapy appointments. then I reschedule when everything calms down. All my posts will be automatically queue. I’m home now just focusing on my private life now. I’m already offline; so all on queue.

Updated: I have three more posts and 10 more pages before I go on hiatus officially on May 8.

EDITED: MARCH 12 and April 28.

All my posts are automatically queued now weekly; however, I’m thinking 💭 of changing my blog schedule. Because as I soon start college; my schedule will change. My blog is inactive. Taking indefinitely hiatus. I update my blog now and then but keep in mind I’m still offline. So yes a very longer break. Because I can damn right. Inboxes are open. Private messages are however closed. 💜

Taking lot of breaks for my mental health it significant.

I started my first week of college my classes are on Monday so I will be a lot busier. I will be resuming my blog hiatus and continuing my indefinite break. Thank you for understanding.

💙

Note: If I delete a post I'm saving it in my drafts.

Enjoy reading my blog. Stay safe. 💜💫

[vergess]

Yo, helllo!? Dunno if you're back, temporarily or not, or if those are some queued posts from Way Back, but in the off chance you're actually here for however brief or long it is, here's some asks: 🌿 Herb: What is a scent you find relaxing? 🌱 Seedling: What is something you want to begin learning? 🍃 Leaf: What is a plant you find beautiful?

Oh, who knows anything anymore, really?

But! Society is in freefall and I've decided to return to my digital homeland even as it continues trying to exile me, for what else is left when you are probably not dying but the knock on effects of months of homelessness nevertheless feel like they are killing you, and the entire internet you loved has been replaced by a dozen advertisement revenue streams.

So like, at least a couple weeks, probably?

Although the posts were queued all the way back in August. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to welch.

It sounds really fucking dumb out loud, but coming back here after all of the fucking shit over the last few years is just... the enemy you know, y'know?

A N Y W A Y

🌿 Herb: What is a scent you find relaxing?

You know the pineapple and cilantro candles at bath and body works that, for some ungodly reason, don't have matching skincare and perfume products?

Love that shit.

I demand that Bath & Body allow me to drown in it.

🌱 Seedling: What is something you want to begin learning?

Hmm. Tough question. One of the problems with chronic illness and long term depression is that not only does everything get so much harder, it also just feels useless.

Most of my interests these days have been reduced to passing whims that I know I'll never follow up on.

Kinda wanna learn how to make a VTuber model tho

🍃 Leaf: What is a plant you find beautiful?

So there's this weird vine thing that grows all over the place here, and I think it might be an invasive? Everyone calls them "those weeds" with the most dripping disdain, they way people talk about kudzu back home.

But DAMN dude, it's a pretty little fucker and it smells so nice and bees are ALL OVER it.

A thorough googling suggests it is called "Hairy Vetch" and it's very pretty, aside from presumably being an environmental disaster.

Image 1: A bee hovers near a small purple flower on a vining plant with pea-like leaves.

Also, the change in the way bullet points are created in the desktop rich text editor?

Bad.

[[Cottagecore Ask meme]]

[ineffablecolors]

I'm sending you 42. and 80. (because this gotta be funnnn) for the trope mash-up, but only as long as you don't forget that you also kinda promised to write the pregnant-neighbor-comes-begging-for-food thing. Because I won't forget about it. :)

The lovely @laschatzi is talking about this post. I cheated a little bit but I hope you’d like how because now we have

Hungry pregnant neighbour + The Big Damn Kiss + Green-Eyed Epiphany 

Family Recipe;  ~ 5, 500 words; FF.NET || AO3

previous: wilderness/survival + I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On &Detective AU  + Awful First Meeting

Killian is somewhatashamed to admit that he has become something of a take-out guy.

It’s just… it’s one ofthose things he never got back into after losing his hand. Like volleyball. Orplaying the guitar. Or arm wrestling Will. Or the black nail polish. Or goingto the beach. Or hitting on that cute girl at the bakery around the corner. Orgirls,period. Or basically anyone he didn’t already know before the accident.

But anyway. Cooking.He never got back into cooking. He was never all that good at it to begin withbut it gave him a funny sort of pride and he enjoyed it.

He enjoyed having togo to three different stores to manage to collect all the herbs and spices fora proper curry. And lying all his products out – basically filling everyavailable space and then having to push stuff around to have somewhere toactually cook. And chopping histomatoes really fine – concasse, was it? – and his onions not quite because hedid not enjoy crying over their massacred corpses. And – never to be revealedto another living soul – making a mini forest around his chopping board withthe broccoli and the cauliflower. And the whole kitchen smelling for two daysafter. And basically making a mess of every horizontal surface – and thevertical ones that one time when he was learning how to spin pizza dough.

Yeah, he enjoyed that.And then he didn’t. Couldn’t. Didn’t.

And now here he is,sipping his beer and scrolling down his take-out app as if he doesn’t knowhe’ll get the Chinese because he had pizza twice during the week and they’vetotally ruined the Mexican place and Liam says he is a masochist but he is nota ‘take-out sushi’ level of masochist.

He looks outside.Checks his watch. At least two more hours of solid daylight. He wasn’t evenhungry yet. He could get some tortilla chips to snack on while trying to see ifhis oven still works.

Really… what couldhappen?

///

Mrs Lucas has spoilther.

It is the only reasonEmma is even contemplating this. That and the fact that it smells really good.

And look here, Emma isnot one of those girls that needs to always get what she wants. She iscertainly not used to getting whatshe wants. It’s just… her baby doesn’t seem to have followed in her footsteps.

It might havesomething to do with said baby not even having feet to walk with yet. Or… shethinks – tries to remember what she’s been readying semi-obsessively and thenthrowing under the bed as if the books are judging her for her singleness andbrokenness and the general dinginess of her apartment – maybe it has feetalready?

They’re definitelyforming but definitely not usable hence no following in any footsteps anytimesoon. There. She’s leaving it at that. Maybe she’ll dig out that last book fromunder her bed tonight. After she has some dinner.

Which brings her rightback to the problem at hand.

She is pretty surethat 5C is one of those bachelors that live on beer, pizza and whatever elseyou can get delivered to your door; has a football or poker night with the guysevery month – see the football she is sure about ‘cause those walls are fuckingthin and those boys are fucking loud but she likes to imagine the pokeras well ever since she saw the guy in this super slick vest that she is sureonly people who can actually step into a casino and somehow manage to not look sleazy own; occasionally blaststoo loud music but not often enough to warrant a complaint; puts Netflix on loud enough and regularly enough that her brokeass is hoping she can keep up with the new season of Stranger Things simply bymoving her couch next to the wall his TV sits against; never brings girls backto his place.

Honestly, Emma is notjudging (or stalking – the walls are thin).She’d probably be giving 5C a run for his money on the easy single living, ifshe wasn’t pregnant and broke and grumpy half the time and hungry the otherhalf – which also makes her grumpy, and generally disillusioned with humanityand the world and the idea that one might actually be able to enjoy life andnot struggle through it at every step and did she mention broke? She is brokeand constantly hungry and constantly trying to fool her baby into thinking thathe likes overcooked pasta and whatever fruits are on sale this week.

He doesn’t. He likeswhatever 5C is cooking.

///

This was a disastrousidea. The kind of disastrous idea he hasn’t had since he was 4 years old andthought that if he puts snails on Liam’s bed they’d stay there and not like…make their way all over the room that Killianshared with Liam.

This is worse thansnails. This is a dozen utensils in the sink already – because of course hetosses a spoon in the sink the second after he has used it once, of course, why put it to the side and use it again when hehas to stir his unholy concoction, and half a dozen plates – one of those inpieces in a trash bag by the door because your one hand being a slippery one isnot the situation in which you want to be handling porcelain.

He has a sizeable cuton his big toe where he stepped on one of the pieces and his t-shirt issticking to his back from the effort of grinding bloody vegetable – Jesus, heused to run miles without breaking a sweat and now blasted carrots are gettingthe best of him, and all he has to show for all his work is what he hopes is apassable mince.

Now for the mash. Hestill has three limbs and 14 uninjured digits to go…

///

Look, Emma doesn’thave much but she has her pride, ok? And this kid growing inside her has madeher relinquish her hold on that enough to knock on Mrs Lucas’s door and ask herwhat it was she put in her cookies because apparently Emma – or someone else, was addicted to it nowand it was not cinnamon. And that hadtransitioned into Emma becoming almost a firm fixture at Granny’s on weekendsand then into Emma busting tables for a month until Granny gave her a nononsense look and told her she won’t be doing this in a few more months, andafter a week of asking and listening and string pulling and cookie bribing, shegot her a job at August’s bookstore even though he still grumbles that he doesn’tlike anyone else ordering his books.

And, yes, this allworked out pretty well but Mrs Lucas was the one that came to her door on her first week in thebuilding with a plate of those cookies that by this point Emma can barely lookat.

(It’s what she does.She falls in love with peanut butter and then eats so many PBJ sandwiches thatnow she almost gets sick at the mere sight of a jar on the counter. And shehears the The Kooks coming from 5C’s wall and goes on to listen to them onrepeat for two weeks. Mind you, not even everything but just Junk of the Heartbecause she is mental like that. And she starts Modern Family, when she stillhad a freaking Netflix account, and binges the whole damn thing in a couple ofweekends and a few late week nights.)

So, yeah, Emma mighthave some addictive tendencies – the legal kind, and some impulse controlissues.

But Emma would neveractually go to someone’s door – someone she has never exchanged a single wordwith despite sometimes hearing their voice float through her wall – and, yeah,he has a pretty voice but what’s that gonna do for her? shitty people can havegreat voices, she is sure – to ask them forthe love of all that is good and holy, what they are cooking because it smellsso fucking good and she has to know and she has to have something that at leastcomes close to it.

She’d never.

///

It’s in the oven. It’sover. Well, all he has to do now is make sure he doesn’t burn the damn thing toa crisp. But if he managed to put it together in the first place, for the firsttime tonight, Killian thinks he can maybe pull this off.

///

It got worse. Worse asin better. Fuck, it got so much better. And now her stomach is grumbling andshe has made for the door three times in the last five minutes and for thefirst time tonight Emma is coming to the horrible realization that she probablywon’t be able to survive this day with her dignity intact.

///

He is just about todig into his plate – fancy plate set and fancy napkins that he didn’t even knowhe owned and the second episode of American Gods queued up and-

There’s a knock on hisdoor.

Killian freezes withhis fork in the air, eyebrows bunching together. Who on earth? He knows hehasn’t invited any of the guys over and Liam knows better than to just drop infor an unexpected ‘we are going out and getting you someone to go home with’visit by this point.

He waits. Nothing.Maybe he imagined it?

///

“There, happy?”

Emma glances down ather slightly rounded stomach and tries on her best ‘mom look’. She thinksshe’ll definitely need to work on that one before the baby comes out because heis already too stubborn for her owngood.

She glances at thedoor with 5C on it one more time, raises her hand and then drops it again.

No. She knocked. Thisis a sign. For once the universe is sparing her the embarrassment and-

“Yes?”

No, of course, not.Why would the universe ever spare her anything?

///

She must be the onethat knocked. 5B. His sweatpants neighbour.

Killian tries not tofeel bad about the nickname. They’ve never been properly introduced and… well,he has mostly seen her back disappearing inside her apartment or her back goingdown the stairs with laundry or her back rushing below his window on a jog. Sohe’s never seen her in anything but sweatpants. He’s not judging. It’s just…the only thing he had to go on.

She is in sweatpantsnow as well but as he looks at her to ask what she needs, he is taken aback byher green eyes. He is taken aback by the sudden realization that his neighbouris this young and very pretty woman and her eyes are the kind of eyes you can’thelp but notice.

It’s… interesting. Hehas heard the soundtrack of her daily life through the wall they share for afew months now but somehow he never imagined the face and body that must gowith those sounds.

As he thinks his gazeslides down almost involuntary and he doesn’t know what catches his attentionmore: the fact that she is a few months pregnant or the fact that she came overbarefoot.

The latter is trulyendearing, the former a tad disheartening for some reason.

Not that he hasanything against kids. Or pregnant women. It’s just… it’s not every day yourealize your neighbour is a pretty girl about your age and currently standingat your doorstep. But he shouldn’t have just assumed and anyway he doesn’treally… that is… is she ever gonna say something?

///

“Lass?”

Emma shakes her head alittle and wants to slap herself back into reality. You know that space andtime continuum where she is not attaching thisman to every sound she has ever heard come through their wall.

(She is convinced heplays air guitar when blasting Bon Jovi hits and that his eyes blaze reallybright when he is swearing at something about “bloody this” and “bloody that”.)

“Umm, hi. Sorry. I…”

He raises an eyebrow.She doesn’t really appreciate the mix of amusement and expectation. Then again,she is standing on his doorstep. He probably has some right to expect anexplanation. Why on earth didn’t she rehearse what she’ll say if he opened thedoor?

“Did you needsomething?”

Fuck.

“I just… ummm, am I botheringyou?”

��Not at all, lass. But,to be frank, I’ll probably be more capable of answering truthfully, if you toldme what you are here for.”

The hell? Was hetalking like that on purpose?

“I-“

Come on, Emma, like aband aid, nowhere to go now unless you wanna be the weirdo asking for a cup offlour.

“What you arecooking?’

///

“Oh.”

Oh. Bloody hell.

Killian can feel hischeeks heating up and focuses half his attention on keeping his hand at hisside and not scratching his damn ear.

“I apologize. I didn’tconsider the smell might bother some-“

“No. No, no, no. Ilike it! So… I was wondering what it was.”

She likes it? Thattimid feeling of pride he felt when he took his dinner out of the over and it wasn’t burn to a crisp grows threetimes.

“It’s just ashepherd’s pie. Slightly altered recipe. My mum’s. Supposedly, probably muckedit up along the way and it’s twice altered now but yeah… Shepherd’s pie.”

“Oh.”

///

Great. She was hopingfor something along the lines of a lasagna. Then maaaybe she could’ve boughtsome frozen crappy version from the supermarket and tried to cheat her bodyinto thinking it was the real thing.

But no, of course,not. It had to be shepherd’s pie. Family recipe edition. Just her damn luck.

“Well, thanks. Andsorry! I was just… curious. Sorry to bother you.”

///

She turns to go andthis might have been the most bizarre conversation he’s had this month.Including that guy on the underground with the orange hair.

Did she just want toknow what the smell invading her home was? She did say she liked it. Maybe-

She is already half toher door so Killian just thinks to hell with it.

“Would you like some?”

He sees her stop deadin her tracks and cringes, hoping he isn’t now the biggest weirdo of her month.And not in a good way.

The blonde turnsaround and he knows the second he sees her face that she would indeed likesome. But Killian likes to think of himself as at least moderately intelligentso he keeps his smile to himself and instead prepares for the distrust in hereyes that is obviously warring with her appetite.

“Do you usually offerfood to unknown women who come knocking on your door?”

“I can’t say, you arethe first.”

He doesn’t actuallysee her cheeks change colour but then again he thinks it might be because shehas been blushing this entire time.

“I didn’t mean tobother-“

“It’s no bother, love.Truly. Now that I feel knowledgeable enough about your intensions to say so.”

She rolls her prettygreen eyes in a way that has his pulse speeding up a bit.

“Plus I just made adish more people share with a family of four. For myself. I think I can sparewhatever you can eat.”

It’s a gamble thatpays off when he sees her eyes blaze up and let’s himself grin at herteasingly.

“I’m sorry, was that achallenge to how much I can eat?”

He steps aside andwaves her in.

She only hesitates fora second.

///

OK, first of all, hisapartment is waaay better than hers like, both bigger and with more naturallight coming in but also simply more tidy and colour-coordinated. Also, ifpossible, it smells even better inside and Emma’s eyes immediately zero in onthe dish on the kitchen counter.

She hears 5C chucklebehind her and tries not to feel even more embarrassed. Her capacity for itmust be running out by this point. Thankfully, he doesn’t make a comment butjust moves around his kitchen island and takes out a plastic food container.IKEA guy. Cute.

It probably takes hera bit longer than it should – what with her still mostly trying to pretend sheis not hustling her nice and pretty neighbour for food – but eventually Emmanotices the peculiar way he moves around his kitchen and operates only with hisright hand. A quick inspection proves that it is because he simply has no leftone to assist him.

“No shit!”

The guy startles ather words and turns around and probably follows her gaze because in the nextmoment the limb is tucked slightly behind him and he is giving her a tensesmile.

“Shit, I’m afraid.”

She honest to Godcovers her mouth. Better late than never. Or not.

“Shit. I mean, sorry!Sorry. I wasn’t- I was just- you cook?!”

5C frowns at her as ifher person skills are something that would only befit a visiting alien. He’sgot her there.

“Sorry. Again. But,like, I can’t cook for shit even with two hands.”

To be fair, the crapproducts she can afford probably have something to do with it but Emma is gonnabe a single mom pretty soon and she is pretty sure that “to be fair”s won’t cutit when she has to cook for her kid.

But makes-food-that-smells-illegally-good-single-handedlyneighbour seems to relax a little.

Foot – partially outof mouth.

///

Killian tries to unbunchthe muscles in his neck and not keep his right side weirdly angled towards her.It’s fine. Really, it’s fine. She was bound to notice eventually.

“To be honest, this ismy first try in quite some time.”

“Seriously?”

“Indeed. So if you getfood poisoning or something, I’m not to be held accountable.”

The thought gives himpause and he turns to her with his eyebrows all drawn together and almostreluctant to hand her the container in his hand.

“Actually, are youallergic to anything? I mean… I don’t think there’s anything too weird in itand everything I used was fresh but-“

He can’t help butglance down at her stomach. Gods, she ispregnant, right? This will be just the kind of thing-

But the blonde’s handcomes up to her stomach and she smiles at him almost shyly and Killian breathesout a quiet sigh of relief.

“I’m sure it will befine. I mean, the things I’ve been feeding myself… I’m pretty sure someonemight get a bit of a shock from the home-cooked food but definitely not the badkind.”

He tries not tooveranalyze the “feeding myself” part and instead nods and finally hands thecontainer with half of his shepherd’s pie inside.

“Whoa. You really arechallenging me.”

He laughs and dips hishead to the side to admire the way her eyes widen a little.

“It should keep for acouple of days if you put it in the fridge. And you can always just feed it toSmee.”

“Smee?”

“Oh.”

His cold ring grazeshis earlobe and dammit, he forgot to watch out for the damn tick.

“I named the cat thatalways hangs around behind the building.”

“Oooh, ok. And hellno.”

She hugs the food toher chest almost protectively and Killian laughs again and bloody hell, is hecoming across too giggly or something? What else can he say? He-

“Well, I shouldprobably let you finally eat your dinner. Whatever you have left,” she beatshim to it and juts her thumb at the door and he can’t really do anything butnod.

///

She is alreadystepping outside, teeth embedded in her lip and what do you say to the cute neighbour that fed you dinner but not inthe date sense?

“Oh. I’m Emma, by theway. Emma Swan.”

His eyes light up andEmma finally gets to put a mark in the ‘didn’t fuck it up’ column.

“Pleasure to meet you,Swan. Killian Jones. Always at your service, though I must warn you, myculinary repertoire is quite limited.”

Killian Jones with thefancy words and delicious food. Fuck.

///

She uses her employeediscount on something other than baby books for the first time.

He finds the bookwaiting for him outside his door. The post-it note says “This is why peoplelike home-cooked food. Who knew.” And the book is Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things and it takes him a momentto connect the dots and remember that he was watching Amarican Gods the othernight and, yeah, maybe it makes him feel kinda good that Emma Swan noticed andremembered that.

///

He tries some Mexicannext and it’s 100% because his favourite place has gone to crap and not at allbecause he once saw their delivery guy in front of 5B.

She opens the door andhis face is half-obscured by an IKEA container and he says it’s just a not sosubtle reminder that she hasn’t returned the other one yet and she pretends tobelieve him.

///

She reasons that youcan’t return food containers empty so she tries to bake muffins because muffinsare supposed to be easy.

He hears the firealarm and five second later he is banging on her door and having a veryflustered Emma Swan dragging him inside and pointing at her oven or what can beseen of it behind the cloud of smoke and explaining how it’s all his fault.

///

He’s been looking fora not food-related reason to knock on her door for a week and coming up emptyand he is damn rusty when it comes to talking to pretty girls but then againshe is pregnant and the fact that he didn’t see a naked man in the middle ofher kitchen the one time he was there for 10 minutes doesn’t mean anything somaybe that’s for the best.

She knocks on his doora day after Stranger Things comes out with three bags of popcorn, explainingthat only one of them is for him, obviously.

///

She lives to binge andyet here she is trying to stretch an 8-episode season over more than a week.

He honestly debatescalling Netflix and begging them to somehow somehowrelease more episodes of their damn show.

///

He has been thisscared exactly once in his entire life and that situation included headlightscoming straight at him.

She has a freakingstomach ache, probably from too much popcorn, and she is almost as embarrassedwhen she comes out of the doctor’s office as she was that first night sheknocked on his door but Killian doesn’t really seem to care how she is ok as long as she is.

///

She is scrollingthrough her Instagram at work and she is so bored and distracted that shealmost misses it but then she goes back and blinks and then goes to the accountto check this is not some sort of ridiculous surveillance thing or she doesn’teven know what – but sure enough, there – on @cutestparentstobe, is a pictureof her very pregnant self, eating ice-cream on the beach with one KillianJones.

He doesn’t know how heworms his way into a doctor’s appointment, he just knows that when the nursecalls him “daddy” Emma kinda sputters but doesn’t say anything to contradicther and he sure as hell keeps his trap shut and just smiles and nods when theygive him an ultrasound picture all for himself.

///

They’ve been doingwhatever they are doing for 4 freaking months and within the first couple ofweeks they were already using like only 30% of his couch for the both of themand in a month they started venturing outside the bubble of their apartmentsand Emma never thought she’d be thehand-holding type but yeah, they kinda hold hands all the time and they hug,like, every day and they text all the freaking time while they are at work andshe meets Liam when she is 7 months pregnant and convinced that he is gonnahate her on sight for saddling his little brother with herself and he doesn’treally but he also doesn’t seem to love her on sight and Killian is verypointedly unamused by the lukewarm reception but honestly, Emma is just glad tobe given a chance here, and he goes shopping for baby stuff she can barelyafford with her and then he goes shopping for baby stuff by himself and shegets kinda angry and they kinda break up or whatever at least twice, basicallyeach time Emma decides that this is ridiculous and he can’t just date a girlthat is having another guy’s baby and that’s twice the size she should be andthat he’s only known for a few months and one night Killian lines up fourfreaking shepherd’s pies outside her door and if she even keeps her door closedto that then she must be dead inthere and one night he lets it slip about these therapy sessions that he issupposed to go to but doesn’t and she basically makes an appointment for himand drags him out of the door and maybe threatens him with not coming to herdoctor’s appointments anymore, if he doesn’t go to his.

And through all that and then some, they never actuallykiss.

Sure he kisses hercheek when he wishes her goodnight and she kisses his head when he falls asleepon her during Lord of the Rings and he kisses her hand placatingly every timehe tries to dissuade her from helping him with dinner and she kisses hisforearm in the park that one time he freaks out on her because she is on hisleft side and goes to hold his arm and he kisses her stomach the first time shegrabs his hand and lets him feel the baby kicking but-

They’ve never properly kiss and it’s this lastfrontier and maybe he is waiting for her to cross it but she just can’t seem to.

And then she is givingbirth and he is there when she is givingbirth and they haven’t even kissed.

And then there’s Henryand they both kiss him plenty but-

///

they don’t kiss whenKillian refuses to hold her baby and she is hurt and offended and so confusedand kinda angry and then he says he can’t, he can’t hold him with one hand andshe is just sad and, yeah, maybe still kinda angry but also eerily calm as shebents Killian’s elbow and gives him the kind of look that makes him shut hismouth audibly and places her son in his arms

they don’t kiss whenKillian barges in on her breastfeeding and twirls around on the spot, slappinga hand over his face and sputtering apologies while all she can do is laugh andlaugh and tell him to stop acting like her tits are a big deal and make her acup of that crappy decaf coffee and he does and he also makes sure to look herdirectly in the eyes and then wink very poorly when he says that her tits are a big deal

they don’t kiss when Henrystarts teething and Emma is up at all hours of the night and she looks likefucking hell and Killian tells her so in no uncertain terms and basically,somehow, taking advantage of her sleep-deprived brain, manages to rope her intoa teeth-sharing plan which basically includes her passing half of her insomniaonto him and Emma can’t forgive him and at the same time can’t love him enoughand yeah, she loves him now and they’ve known each other for a year and they haven’t fucking kissed and what ever

///

they don’t kiss whenshe asks him if he thinks maybe, possibly Liam would like to meet Henry and allKillian can do is nod and swallow and start planning the kind of lecture he’llgive his brother, if he dares to voice any of his doubts about the soundness of the situation, but Liamseems to think that if his brother is spending half his day around a certainbaby – no matter whose it is – it probably isn’t a terrible idea for him tomeet said baby and Liam Jones may be a military man and he may have nevergotten over the fact that he didn’t manage to protect his little brother fromall the evils of the world and he may have been determined to give Emma Swan ahard time for even the slightest hint of her using Killian but he is also puttyin the hands of Henry Swan within 10 minutes

they don’t kiss thefirst time she uses the key to his apartment and sneaks into his bedroom in themiddle of the night – baby in her arms and her hair into the messiest bun thathas ever been twisted and her damn sweatpants and her eyes all puffy and herwhispered worries all about not being able to do it and being all alone and notbeing good enough and he just folds himself around both of them and tries tostart the process of getting each ridiculous notion out of her head

they don’t kiss when shetells Henry to spot throwing his food all over daddy and Killian just standsthere – carrot puree all over his t-shirt, and watches as she continueswhipping the eggs in front of her as if she didn’t just- and he loves them bothtoo damn much to point it out and risk having her take it back and bloody hell,he loves her now and they’ve been together for all intents and purposes forover a year now and they haven’t bloodykissed and good lord

///

She comes back fromthe store and heads directly to Killian’s apartment and tries to calculate ifshe and Henry are spending more time at her place or at his at this point. Butas soon as she opens the door and the smell hits her, her calculations are leftoutside in the cold and it’s all she can do not to moan out loud. Turns out itwasn’t just the little guy growing inside her that made her love Killian’spies.

She hears the lowmurmur of Killian’s voice and decides to tiptoe into the kitchen as quietly aspossible. She wants to look at them without giving her presence away just yet,when it’s just them.

And sure enough Henryis tucked into Killian’s left arm, his little fist twisted into the hair at theback of her boyfriend’s neck (god, he is not her freaking boyfriend, along withHenry in his arms he is her entire fucking universe).

She knows what theyare making already but she narrows her eyes as she realizes that she has neveractually seen Killian make his shepherd’spie.

“This is the only wayI can make your mom eat these, Henry.”

He twirls a broccoliin front of her son’s little nose and Emma rolls her eyes. Partially because it’strue and partially because the broccoli version is not her most favourite.

“When you are oldenough I’m gonna teach you how to make it on your own but for now I’ll justshow you how to make yourself a little forest.”

She honestly doesn’tknow if it’s the implication of years tocome in his promise, the fact that he says it so confidently, so easily,without any doubt, without any caveat of “if we are still together”, withoutany alternative in his mind. Or if it’s the fucking forest of broccoli that heis arranging around his chopping board like the most precious human being thathe is.

Emma honestly doesn’tknow. But she does drop the bag she is carrying on the floor and she crossesthe space between them in the time it takes Killian to turn around and open himmouth to greet her. And then she finally finallyfeels his lips under her own.

He tastes even betterthan his damn pie.

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

What even is Destiny 2 PvP scoring?

So we’ve just been through another Iron banner week; one with quite a few changes to both aesthetic as well as rules and it has just left me contemplating the entire nature of D2 PvP and how it is played and scored.

We don’t have to rehash all the drama of the SB/CBMM debate, but I think it’s safe to acknowledge that things were not on the firmest ground there. We also know that Forsaken is only two weeks away and that will have a huge impact on how we experience the game. All that said, I’m still sitting here this morning just scratching my head at exactly why D2 PvP works the way it does.

There are many layers to this that go back to D1 design decisions and rather than evolving in D2, there seems to be more regression than anything and I’m not sure why. The first thing that has been really odd from the launch of D1 has been stat-tracking. When Bungie made Halo, we had access to such a wealth of post game statistics on bungie.net. It wasn’t just kills, deaths and assists. We had statistics for who we killed most within a match or killed us, what weapons we died to, heat maps for every kill and death within a match or on a particular map.

When Destiny released, it’s post game stat tracking was spartan by comparison. We had access to win, losses, kills and deaths, but not much more. Now we could go to sites like destinytracker to find out more detailed information on what weapons we killed most with, statistics on number of zone neutralizations and caps, etc, but still nothing to the scope of Halo and all pulled from bnet API.

I can understand that maybe all the stat tracking that existed was a heavy upkeep within the bnet framework and therefore works out well for it to be outsourced to community willing to take that on; and for the most part bnet gave enough relevant info in D1 to get by, but D2 has even less information. While D1 at least let us track our k/d by gametype over the last week, 30 days or all time, D2 simply lets us see match results.

Where is gets even more odd is what those results show. This is a clash match I played on August 5th and take note of the over all score vs the opponents defeated.

In a 99-97 loss we somehow defeated 157 opponents to 141 for the winning team... In Clash.

Here is the individual breakdown for the match which makes for great post-game screen shots of high kill games, except for the fact that the numbers aren’t real or representative of actual individual kills.

I sort of understand why Bungie decided to go away from k/d tracking and moving to kd/a in D2. They were trying to make the game more player friendly for everyone and kd/a numbers look nicer, but again the numbers aren’t really relevant to much and don’t really give a player an accurate assessment of their overall skill level. We are also seeing all these 40, 50 and 60 kill games popping up since the switch to 6v6 and while Control does track actual individual kills per game, anything coming out of Clash is meaningless.

The picture above shows I defeated 25 opponents. I had a good game, woo hoo! Except that the only real kills I can count are 2 super and 1 grenade. I have no idea how many actual weapon kills I got since assists count in opponents defeated. So yeah, it doesn’t really make any sense what we are being shown or why. In Halo I could go to the post match statistics and see where my game was lacking and where I was doing well. I get literally nothing out of stats post-match in D2.

Another problem with the lack of meaningful statistics is in balancing the game and player complaints. I read all the time that the only weapons players are dying to are Graviton, Vigilance or whatever the flavor of a particular week or month is. I personally despise the kill feed as it stands with no followup post-match stats. The information is there and I can see all the different weapons in the feed and how little I actually die to the metas, but there is no way to show that outside of the kill feed because outside of the studio those numbers don’t exist.

This leads to players seeing a particular weapon kill them in the feed and it stands out because they know it’s popular. They’re dying to other things as well, but God damn that Graviton when it’s in the feed. This was HEAVILY exacerbated by the introduction of Trials in D1 because in 3v3 Elimination, if a team or teams use one particular weapon and that’s the only thing you die to each round due to the format, it makes it seem op or overused, but that has zero transition to the entirety of the rest of PvP.

I don’t expect to ever have a level of information available that Halo offered, but what we have now just isn’t good enough and needs to be better and not only more substantial, but relevant as well. Also I would like to give a bit of thought once more to scoring overall in the context of D2 Control.

As I have stated in previous posts, I understand why the rule changes were made that started with zones capped and eliminated having to first neutralize in D2 since it was going 4v4. Ultimately that decision played a big factor in supporting the heavy team-shooting and fireteam advatage play in D2. It made zones disposable because they were too easy to cap and too difficult to defend. So we got the merry-go-round (thank you PBRbaby on bnet for that perfect descriptor) play that is D2 with teams just stacking up and running zone to zone capping. The other side effect of this has been the unending spawn flipping and by proxy this has fed into the problems D2 has had with bad spawning and getting spawn killed.

Iron Banner made the changes that allowed zones to be locked on powerplays and then reset and ultimately it just magnified the need to stay grouped and blitz around to zones, especially since a group could cap faster and even if a player or two were contesting one of their zones, they could still lock by capping first. The fact that you can be 1% away from taking an enemy zone and still get locked out is broken in my opinion. I like what Bungie were attempting overall with the IB changes and it did give it a unique feel and aesthetic, but ultimately I don’t think it led to a plethora of great matches or particularly rewarding play.

This is a game my team won yesterday as I solo queued.

We won by 20 points but the opposing team had 44 more kills than us (and these are actual kills, not Clash’s inflated numbers factoring assists). I get it’s Control and we held the zones, but that is a HUGE discrepancy. It is also worth noting that outside of the actual post match screen, there is no place to see who capped zones. That seems like it should kinda be a thing for Control stat tracking.

That was a good match for my team, but I can’t imagine very satisfying for the opponents and underscores how frustrating D2 can be trying to rely on random teammates with no real communication. I would love to know the average number of caps per match for winning teams in D2 vs D1. I know it is much higher and I’m willing to bet by as much as 60% per match.That means there is even more of a premium on playing as a team in D2 which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but doesn’t seem to be all that popular when you see all the complaints of how tilted D2 is against solo/small team players.

D1 Control allowed solo players to have more of an impact on play both is attacking and particularly in defending. When opponents had to first neutralize, it meant capping was riskier and necessitated more players on a zone to try to cap faster. This allowed for solo players to be able to make more big plays as the other team risked capturing. 

And finally I’ll close with this screenshot and link to the twitter post from @smcglauser https://twitter.com/smcglauser/status/1031391308764536834

When results like this are even possible, something is just broken.

[reactionjournal]

Mandalorian S1 Catchup

106

I’ve been on this same damn episode for like a year it feels like. Probably literally. (I think I only got Disney+ in like August? but it’s been queued since I watched 105 a year ago)

Oh my god though the trick of slipping the tracking beacon onto Qin was incredible. Also I love baby yoda (whose name I know but don’t canonically know yet so here we are) trying to force...(???) push that person aiming the gun at him and just glancing down at his hand like, “Huh?” when Mando (I also know HIS name but again, canonically I don’t yet soooo)

“I told you that was a bad idea.” He says to the baby 😭

107

I love how much fun it feels like they’re having in this weird bar fight the lady is in? I don’t remember her name. 

“He’s not a local warrior. He’s Imperial.” “I’m in.” Wow I love her all over again.

Really interested in IG-11. It feels like necromancy to raise a destroyed robot and seat a new consciousness and programming? “Droids are not good or bad, they are neutral impressions of those who imprint them.” Is fascinating in the context of what I just said. Also... conceptually - this is gonna be me on my bullshit for a minute I just paused.

Conceptually how different is it to allow a new consciousness to be housed in your body when you’re dead than, say, donating your organs? Because I don’t know that there is a difference? Like obviously if there were a protocol for that they would have said it, but just as a hypothetical I think if I was a robot I’d want that? The only thing that I would stipulate is like, needing some very visible changes to my chassis so as not to hurt my loved ones when they see a new pilot behind my eyes. There are a lot of ways robots can have religion, but I think that would be the foundation of mine. Might be the foundation of mine for Turn Your Gays.

Okay, resumption.

“When you worked for the Empire?” “When I was SOLD to the Empire!” Is. Wow. This. TMG: Things will shortly get completely out of hand/I can feel it in the rotten air tonight

“Imps” as an abbreviation of Imperials is interesting

I know this is SW but why is everyone such a terrible shot in this campfire scene?

“He’s trying to eat me” oh my god

hey I’m sorry does this baby have Force Heal? I know I’m like fifty five years late to this party, but!!!!

Okay I’m sorry!!! He did a spinning dual-pistol killshot on two separate targets and they couldn’t hit one bird with like god 100 rounds of blaster fire? I...I mean it’s COOL I’m just so confused about how blasters work. It was cool though he gets this one.

Wow this is a terrible plan, I love it.

“I’ll give you 20 credits for the helmet.” Fuck the plan I’ll hunt that guy.

I know I can’t read EVERYTHING as Indigenous but this man is a colonizer. I know he’s also an Imperial and that’s like already part and parcel but listen. 

oh. yeah no I was just right, huh.

well he’s dead, that’s nice. It’s too bad they’re in a fucking Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai style western shootout now!

Also I don’t like that whoever called that guy was like, “You should check [if you have the child] again” before opening fire. That’s a bad look OH SHIT THAT’S A TIE FIGHTER AHHHHHHHHH

Wow speeder bikes look as cool as they are deathtraps.

wow that’s a sith. 

IS THAT GIANCARLO ESPOSITO? I think I knew he was in this at one point but I forgot, fuck

Oh no Kuiil 😭😭😭

108

Oh my god this like... mundane conversation between the troopers who stole the baby. I needed this after that last thing.IG-11!!!!!!!!!!! IG-11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ST1: Aren’t IGs usually hunters? ST2, dismissively: Well, this one’s a nurse. I’m sorry, Nurse, but, you’re gonna have to get out of here.

God 

“Night of a Thousand Tears” is...I don’t like that. I’m not gonna google it until later tho.

I appreciate how different this Giancarlo character is from Gus Fring.

“Mandalorian isn’t a race. It’s a Creed.” I assume that’s on a lot of gifsets? It’s a strong thing. Also it goes against the whole concept of Blood Quantum and Degree of Indian Blood etc which is a slow genocide in our world so! I’m for it!

oh my GOD IS IG-11 GOING TO THE CITY????

Me: I’m not a gun guy Din, walking through a door with excellent gunmanship Me, sweating: don’t look at me

Wow Giancarlo is a fucking cool character. Two shots: One, a headshot on Din, two, a shot at the fucking generator for the E-Web. If he was an X-Com character I’d go, “Oh you’re my fucking MAIN character now!”

oh SHIT that painted fucking FLAME UNIT YO I know that’s the enemy but YO

Wow the baby just fucking sending the flame back. I....can Jedi do that? Is that why I never see flamethrowers? Because everyone is like, “uhhh HAHA fuck that there’s a Jedi”

IG-11 staying with Din 😭😭😭😭

Me, looking away when Din’s helmet comes off: no I can’t, it’s disrespectful. 

“No. Its kind were enemies. This individual is not.” Is so powerful it makes me want to CRY. No wait I am crying. It’s so... I. I think it’s the secret, close-knit sects and the raw pragmatism that makes me identify with them? (Pragmatism is for the marginalized and the oppressed.) And just. The concept of like... not being able to afford to treat people who resemble those who did you wrong as enemies. Not having the luxury of that is so. God. 

Also I want to hear the songs about the Jedi and Mandalore the Great

“You expect me to search this galaxy for the home of this creature and deliver it to a race of enemy sorcerers?” “This is the Way.” God. 

😭😭The mudhorn as a signet!!! “You are a clan of two”!!!!

Me, watching this Mandalorian forger fight with hammers and seeing her fucking SHATTER the armor of these stormtroopers and just thinking of that damn shitpost about warhammers being to, “crack the shell and get to the juicy knight meat inside.”

Anyway she’s rad as hell.

omg this fuckin ferry droid that looks like an astromech with arms and legs is killing me

wow IG-11 no....

Wow Din being sad...nooooo

DIN: I’m not...sad IG-11: Yes, you are. I’m a nurse droid. I analyzed your voice.

Noooo IG-11 😭😭

“I’m out of ideas.” DIN: I’m not ME: DIN THAT’S NOT AN IDEA BUD THAT’S-...well it worked out I guess..........

“And now that the scum and villainy have been washed away...” HEY HE SAID IT HE SAID THE THING

“You will have the pick of all quarries.” “I’m afraid I’m a dad now.” sorry is that not what happened? That’s what I heard.

Ohhh Giancarlo Esposito is back with a darksaber. Is that the first darksaber on screen? DIRECTED BY TAIKA WAITITI??? WAIT WHAT

[tom-whore-dleston]

Thanks for the tag @poetic-fiasco 💜💜💜 I loved how fruitful these questions were hehe

1 - Why did you choose your url?

I use the w word as much as I unnecessarily say 'like' and I am Tom Hiddleston's secret lover

2 - Any side blogs?

nah just this one

3 - How long have you been on Tumblr?

since last August (?) I had another blog from middle and high school but I deleted that blog bc I had no idea I would end up returning to tumblr lol

4 - Do you have a queue tag?

damn i dont remember the last time i queued something 😂 like at this point I just post or reblog whenever I am on and i have a million drafts waiting to be posted 💀

5 - Why did you start your blog in the first place?

To read and write fanfics

6 - Why did you choose your icon/pfp

bc I'm an S word for Simu Liu (simp or slut? you decide) and even tho the original photo is not a purple background I edited it so then it still matches my theme

7 - Why did you choose your header?

My extra ass wanted a Loki header to match my theme

8 - What’s your post with the most notes?

Make You Mine has 600+ notes and it still blows my mind how much ppl love it. But I don't blame them bc I had such a blast writing it!!🥰🥰

9 - How many mutuals do you have?

I have a lot and I love them with all my heart

10 - How many followers do you have?

413

11 - How many people do you follow?

174

12 - Have you ever made a shitpost?

when do i ever not?

13 - How often do you use Tumblr each day?

According to Screen Time, I use Tumblr app an average of 30 mins a day but thats only the app. Idk about desktop version 😵‍💫

14 - Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

No and I really hope that I never do bc I'm sensitive

15 - How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

it depends on what they want me to reblog

16 - Do you like tag games?

YES!!!! TAG ME IN EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING!

17 - Do you like ask games?

See above answer^^

18 - Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

idrk how to answer that bc while having a lot of followers and notes is pretty awesome, I've always cared more about my friends enjoying the content they are creating/posting and don't feel the need to create/post for their followers ya know

19 - Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I wouldn't call it crush but I really do love my mutuals and would put my life on the line for them

Tagging with no pressure: @wint3r-h3art @ladyfallonavenger @give-me-a-moose @cloverrover @tmholland @crazycookiecrumbles @blackbat05 @buckybleu @wakingbeauty @sparkledfirecracker and anyone else that would be interested in answering these questions (just tag me so I can read your answers😊)

tag game!!

thank you for the tag @barnesafterglow !! 💕 (doing it on a separate post because is getting really long lol)

1 - Why did you choose your url?

my fist was @/habisbi (I was only here to read) but once I decided to write for marvel I chose it @/asgardwinter because I mainly write for Loki and Bucky (and winter is also my favourite season lol)

2 - Any side blogs?

I have I library blog (more for me than my followers because my own reblog makes me feel more confident when I post lol) and a fic rec blog I'm still working on

3 - How long have you been on Tumblr?

I created this acount a bit more than a year ago but only started to really use it on april/may

4 - Do you have a queue tag?

I did but I don't use it anymore

5 - Why did you start your blog in the first place?

at first I was curious about it and than when I returned this year I saw a lot of people writing here and it souded like a fun thing to do (I'm not a native speaker so it was a way to test if I really knew english lol)

6 - Why did you choose your icon/pfp

I liked it and that's it ? (I wish I had a better explanation)

7 - Why did you choose your header?

again, I just found it pretty

8 - What’s your post with the most notes?

my Loki fic Silly Wooden Box I'm so proud of this little oneshot

9 - How many mutuals do you have?

i don't know exactly but love every single one of them (I also know I don't have many but it's just because I'm afraid of talking to people)

10 - How many followers do you have?

244 (I still have no idea how)

11 - How many people do you follow?

about 161 but it increases every day 🙃

12 - Have you ever made a shitpost?

idk maybe?

13 - How often do you use Tumblr each day?

more than I should, for sure

14 - Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

no, the only thing I ever got into was some people translating tumblr works without permission

15 - How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

I just ignore most of the time? idk I fell like not reblogging is my protest lol

16 - Do you like tag games?

I love them!! (I'm just really afraid of tagging people and upsetting them, but I love to see that someone thought of me)

17 - Do you like ask games?

yes yes yes!!

18 - Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

idk about famous but I'll say about people that I freaked out a bit when they followed me. @buckysbiota (Ari's so talented I was shocked lol), also @poetic-fiasco (I read her stuff on ao3 and was like "you?? here?? on my page??really??")

19 - Do you have a crush on a mutual?

i need to confess that i fall for everyone who is even a bit decent to me... so more than one 🥰

💕 no pressure tags: @/buckysbiota + @janetsnakehole02 + @writing-for-marvel + @/poetic-fiasco + whoever wants to do!

[inkni]

An Overwashed Laundry List

Let’s get to it already! Enough waiting around.

I’d like to kick things off by stating my favorite commonality between Splatoon and Overwatch: I uniformly love each update that’s been made to these games. Even if I nitpick a tidbit, these games have grown stronger every single time a new update is downloaded and installed, and that delights me endlessly.

When OW launched last May, it had—just in the big sweep of things—two fewer heroes, two fewer maps, no competitive mode at all, and the idea of a “seasonal event” had never crossed our brains as players. Here’s to them keeping up this great momentum!

Arranged from simplest to most complex (at least from my perspective/guessing), here are some changes I’d like to see come to OW during Season 4:

1) While the “Stay as a Team” function is possibly the best smallest update to OW ever (changed so much about how I played the game!), it introduced some troubles where players in voice chat became even more hopelessly fragmented between group chat and team chat. To rectify this, and to attempt to get everyone into team chat, Blizzard added a “Join Team Chat” button in the Hero Selection screen. Visually speaking, however, this option is far more difficult to notice than the neon green “Stay as a Team” during the end results; I would like it to be made much more noticeable. I would also like some way for console players to be able to actively encourage their teammates to join. On PC, players can choose to type a message saying, “hey get in team chat,” or whatnot; maybe a custom button or scroll-wheel text command could be added that we could spam in order to request the same? (Maybe this could even help convince Xbox players to leave their party chat and join the game’s built-in chat?)

2) Much of my frustration with competitive stems from feeling like, just on their face, matchups are not nearly as fair as the displayed Team SR (skill rating) averages would imply. Those averages are the game’s way of saying who it thinks will win, and that bet determines partially how much your rank rises or falls afterward. It does not feel accurate to me to say that my team of all Platinum players is evenly matched against a team with two Golds, two Plats, and two Diamonds—especially when the Gold players are put by their teammates onto high skill-floor heroes like Lúcio that can’t be screwed up too badly, while the Diamond players pick Tracer and Reaper and double-handedly demolish my team while carrying theirs.

What do I want to be done about this? I’m not sure. At the least, I’d like more clarity on how the matchmaking and ranking systems compute this stuff. (Also, some more clarity about why it feels like win/loss streaks have waaaay more impact on rank gained or lost than anything else. If my team was a huge underdog and won despite that, I should always be getting a lot of rank points—I don’t care if I’m coming off a four-game losing streak. Having my rank only bump up by 15 points afterward FeelsBadMan! And yes, this means the opposite is true as well. An upset of a loss should be punished even if on a win streak.) If I had to proffer a suggestion, I’d say this: weigh the rankings before averaging. The further away above a player is from the 50th percentile of the game (which is the 2500 ranking, ostensibly)—or maybe the further up they are from the median of all 12 players in the match?—the more their ranking should impact the computed average of their team. I.e., some sort of system that would reflect the ability of higher-skilled players to carry teams of lower-skilled players.

3) There’s complexity in this one, but we already know Blizzard is on it: FIX 2CP MAPS! Hanamura especially. And don’t wait till after Season 4 to do it! How should it be done? I’m not sure, exactly. On Hanamura, I’d throw up some more walls around the back of Point B to make it slightly harder to reach when emerging from spawn. On all of them, I’d increase respawn timers for Defense on Point B. And yeah, maybe find some way to measure incremental progress in capturing the points. The “3-Tick” system wouldn’t be ideal for this, but it’s absolutely true that if one attacking team was on Point B long enough to achieve a 2/3 capture, they were more skilled than the team that achieved zero of the ticks.

4) Leavers still fuck up competitive! It’s not as huge an issue as it was in earlier seasons, but it’s also far from perfect. If someone leaves during a match where at least 75% of players are in placements, just cancel that match! And double the punishment of the leaver—plus fuck up their rank, or something. Outside placements, I have two ideas:

A) Add in a player queuing for a ranked match, if they said they’re okay joining a comp match already in progress. Unlike in Quick Play, though, the developers couldn’t just say, “it’s a win for you if you win when joining late, but we won’t count the loss if you lose!” because that would fuck up the ranking system. However, surely they could find some way to incentivize joining regardless? A big XP bonus? Loot boxes? Of course, it could be that the latecomer would troll or not try since their rank isn’t on the line, but considering the alternative was a nearly always doomed 5-v-6, I wouldn’t complain.

B) Just a damn bot! I’m not the first to suggest this. Throw me a freaking Lúcio bot programmed to head to the largest group of his teammates he can find and heal them while amping it up whenever someone hits critical health. Boom. Done. You’ve increased my chances of winning the 5 (humans)-v-6 already, even if just by a bit.

5) This one is also coming, but I want it ASAP: a replay system! If Mario Kart 8 could pull off Mario Kart TV, surely you can follow suit, Blizzard. I want to be able to save the whole match and view it later from multiple perspectives, as in Spectator Mode. It would be soooo helpful to be able to analyze my plays. And yes, I’m aware that replays don’t always catch things the way they actually transpired live, and thus could be used by players to bemoan ‘cheap’ deaths they experienced or shots they think shouldn’t have missed... but so what. Fuck the haters!

I think the above list would be an amazing start to things, and leave me even more helplessly in love with this game than I already am. Lastly, in terms of new content, lemme just make my personal beliefs known, in order of what excites me from most to least: balance updates, then events, then new heroes, then new maps. Is that a strange ranking?! I dunno. I think that big balance updates are just soooo neat, and want them to keep coming. Symmetra 2.0 in December was as exciting to me as Sombra in November. I would love to see Mercy receive a new ability, for instance! (She’s the only hero lacking a secondary ability, pretty much. An “E,” they’d say on PC.) The events have been so amazing and so unexpected—I still remember my surprise at the Summer Games in August being unveiled—I can’t wait for them to continue. New heroes are awesome, but they can only really release probably 2–3 per year.

I started things off with a similarity between Splatoon and Overwatch, so here’s a difference for the end: maps. A new map in Splatoon was always a cause for joy, because it worked across four game modes: Turf Wars, Splat Zones, Tower Control, and Rainmaker. A new map in OW, though, is just one more addition to payload, KotH, etc. Not terribly exciting, in my mind. I would love to see a truly new game mode come with the next map! If Capture the Flag was broken on Lijiang Tower, maybe a map built from the ground up for the mode could work? Or they could dream up some totally new mode, I dunno. I’m thirsssty.

That’s all for now! “Look at this list—we’re gonna do great!” :D

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Trump: Tillerson ‘never questioned’ president’s mental health

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Media captionDozens queued for the midnight release of Fire and Fury

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says he has “never questioned” President Trump’s mental health after the author of a controversial book said his staff saw him as a “child”.

Michael Wolff says Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is based on about 200 interviews.

The book has now gone on sale early despite the president’s attempts to block its publication.

Mr Trump says the book is “boring and untruthful” and Wolff a “total loser”.

He said it was being pushed by the media and others to hurt him. He added: “They should try winning an election. Sad!”

Mr Tillerson – who reportedly called Mr Trump a “moron” earlier this year – told CNN: “I have no reason to question his mental fitness.”

He said Mr Trump was “not typical of presidents of the past”.

“I think that’s well recognized. That’s also though why the American people chose him,” he said.

Mr Tillerson added that he had a “developing relationship” with the president and denied speculation that he was set to quit the White House after a rumoured rift, saying he would serve for the whole of 2018.

“In terms of what I would do different, I’m going to build on my ability to communicate with the president better,” he told CNN.

On Friday, Mr Trump refused to answer questions about the book as he departed for Camp David from the White House. Mr Trump will spend two days meeting top Republicans at the retreat to discuss his legislative priorities for the year ahead.

Wolff said that White House staff described the president as childlike because “he has the need for immediate gratification. It’s all about him… This man does not read, does not listen. He’s like a pinball just shooting off the sides.”

Despite the storm over the book, the Trump administration has been pressing ahead with its agenda. On Thursday it:

What does Wolff say about his research?

The president said he had not given Wolff access to the White House nor spoken to him for the book.

But Wolff responded: “What was I doing there if he didn’t want me to be there? I absolutely spoke to the president… It was not off the record.”

He said he had spent three hours with Mr Trump in total, both during the election campaign and after the inauguration.

Hitting back in a television interview at the White House attacks, he said the president had no credibility and that “100% of the people around him” question his fitness for office.

Wolff said it was “extraordinary” that the president of the US would try to stop publication of his book, a move that “the CEO of a mid-sized company” would not attempt.

What is in the book?

The book cites former top aide Steve Bannon as describing a meeting at Trump Tower in New York between a Russian lawyer and Trump election campaign officials, including Mr Trump’s son Donald Jr, as “treasonous”.

Both Mr Trump Jr and his father deny that any collusion with Russians to win the election took place. However Mr Bannon is quoted in the book as saying: “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”

The meeting is being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his inquiry into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russians.

Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018

End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

The book makes many other claims, including that:

The Trump team was shocked and horrified by his election win

His wife, Melania, was in tears of sadness on election night

Mr Trump was angry that A-list stars had snubbed his inauguration

The new president “found the White House to be vexing and even a little scary”

His daughter, Ivanka, had a plan with her husband, Jared Kushner, that she would be “the first woman president”

Ivanka Trump mocked her dad’s “comb-over” hairstyle and “often described the mechanics behind it to friends”

However, the accuracy of some excerpts has been criticised and questioned in the US media.

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Media captionTrump harsher on Bannon than he is on his “worst enemies”

Still, even if only half of what the book contains is true, it paints a damning portrait of a paranoid president and a chaotic White House, BBC North America editor Jon Sopel says.

Will it actually hurt Trump?

Analysis: BBC North America reporter Anthony Zurcher

Donald Trump’s supporters have seen many a media storm over the past few years, and somehow their man always emerges (relatively) unscathed. The book may be generating considerable heat among the chattering class, but there’s little to indicate that its lasting impact will be much more than confirming long-held suspicions of Trump critics and re-enforcing the bunker mentality in the White House.

Outside Washington, in places where people don’t devoutly follow every permutation of the presidential Twitter feed, the Trump administration is compiling a boast-worthy economic record.

Despite some doom-and-gloom predictions following the 2016 election, the stock market has soared. Unemployment remains low. Major corporations are making high-profile moves to at least temporarily boost their workers’ paycheques. And the president can start pointing to his party’s tax bill as a tangible reason why the economy is humming along.

If the current trajectory continues, Mr Trump and his fellow Republicans will be positioned to make the case to voters in the months and years ahead that despite all the drama – the often self-inflicted fire and fury – their agenda is to help Americans where it counts the most, in their pockets.

That’s the kind of message that can win.

More from Anthony: Who are the winners and losers?

What will happen to Steve Bannon?

Mr Trump said Mr Bannon – who was sacked in August – had “lost his mind” after losing his White House position.

Reports suggest that more conservative factions in the Republican party have backed Mr Trump amid the fallout from the book.

Billionaire conservative donor Rebekah Mercer, who had backed Mr Bannon financially and invested in the right-wing Breitbart news website that he heads, cut ties with the former strategist, saying: “I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected.”

Mr Trump tweeted in response: “The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart!”

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Media captionPresident Trump faces questions about his relationship with former top aide Steve Bannon

The post Trump: Tillerson ‘never questioned’ president’s mental health appeared first on dailygate.