#and again like... who is this comparison even /for/?

[le-trash-prince]

Unpacking my Feelings on Kim Feeding Kenta

There's so much uncertainty coming from Kenta at the start of this scene. He hesitates to sit down, he hesitates to serve himself, and he consistently looks to Kim for guidance. And Kim sees this without Kenta needing to verbalize it. Where Kenta is constantly hesitating, Kim is constantly reassuring him with gentle but firm commands.

I want to make obvious how important this is specifically in the context of Kenta's relationship to Tony, who would get physical with Kenta out of nowhere for failing to do what Tony wanted, even when Tony's wants hadn't been made clear. And when Tony did give clear instructions, he would treat Kenta like he was stupid for needing them.

Where Tony's orders and expectations came from a place of cruelty, Kim's come from a place of kindness, and Kenta doesn't have to try and read Kim's mind, even for something as simple as eating.

And where Kenta was practically invisible against the walls of Tony's house, he sticks out so much more in the daylight of Kim's condo, making it all the easier for Kim to see him. Kim's eyes flick down, noticing that Kenta has his chopsticks in hand before he's grabbed a piece of lettuce, which will make it more awkward to assemble the ssam.

But Kim doesn't treat Kenta like he's stupid, the way Tony would. He doesn't sit back and watch him flounder or make fun of him or criticize him, he simply sees that Kenta needs help and immediately decides to help him. It's the most quintessentially Kim thing he could do.

There are a lot of ways that Kenta could have responded to this. He could have pushed Kim's hand away, he could have taken it as an insult, he could have pulled away or stubbornly kept his mouth shut. But Kim's guidance has already established a sense of security for Kenta in this scene, and his actions in previous episodes have established a sense of trust.

So Kenta has only the briefest hesitation before obediently bending his head forward and opening his mouth so Kim can push the ssam in. If I sound normal while typing this just know that I'm about to faint. Kenta has gone from putting up a weak and performative resistance to Kim's offers of help... to barely even hesitating before allowing Kim to feed him by hand.

Handfeeding is something that can be so normal, such a basic means of physical care that humans must have been doing it since time immemorial. So to know that Kenta has been deprived of this, to know that he is finally receiving this, an action that at its heart says, "I hope you live. I hope you eat well and you live." Well, I could go supernova.

Then at the last moment, Kim actually cups Kenta's chin 😭 Excuse me while I hide my face into my pillows and cry about it. It's such a physically vulnerable position for Kenta to allow himself to be in, and he doesn't pull away even an inch. He has zero expectation that Kim will hurt him in this moment.

Then Kim is so pleased by this interaction that he immediately goes back in for seconds. Kenta hasn't even finished chewing before Kim is already putting more food in his mouth, and again, Kenta just lets him. (many things can possibly be divined about their future sex life from these interactions)

I'm also just so charmed by the tone of Kim's voice when he says "Have this too." It's so low and gentle and caring.

I love the shots of Kim's face in this scene. He's gorgeous, he's glowing, the lighting is practically throwing shoujo bubbles around his face. It's such a visual representation of Kenta's feelings of warmth in this moment, and it pairs so perfectly with the music, which makes me think of butterfly feelings, of a racing heart. Kenta feels so deeply here that he immediately has to check himself by reminding himself that Kim is leaving.

And the shots of Kenta are drawn into sharp focus by comparison, showing how clearly Kim sees him. And I think it's significant that Kenta is seen most clearly by anyone in a moment when he's at his softest, dressed in a sweater style shirt, wearing socks and cozy slippers, his cheeks full, and letting himself receive affection. *explodes into a million pieces*

I think it is also worth pointing out that this is the first time we've seen either Kenta or Kim have a meal in the entire series. Kim has breakfast offscreen with X-Hunter, but we never actually see him sit down for food, and (aside from Willy, who's new), he and Kenta are the only ones in the cast who've never done so. Even Winner and Dean get celebratory snacks with their teams, but Kim and Kenta are the lone wolves of the series. They may ally themselves with other characters, but Kenta has been truly alone most of his life, and Kim comes and goes from teams as he pleases.

So it's meaningful that the first time they eat onscreen with anyone, it's with each other and it's in a way that establishes such a degree of trust and connection. One of Kim's first lines in the series was "I don't want to cooperate with anyone." But he suffered firsthand the cost of working alone, and now he's here sharing a table with Kenta, who has always been alone.

The very last scene we saw KimKenta in, Kenta was telling Kim that he'd devoted his life to men who never felt anything for him, and Kim responded by saying that one day Kenta would find someone who truly loved him. And then they follow that up with THIS and we're SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL ABOUT IT????

[bellaxgiornata]

Not Like Before Chapter Three

Pairing: Jax Teller x fem!Reader Word Count: 4.5k [Series Masterlist] [Jax Fic Masterlist]

Warnings/tags: 18+; nurse!Reader, canon-divergence (no Abel or Thomas), fluff, angst, friends to lovers, eventual smut, girl dad Jax

a/n: I've had this series stuck in my head and I'm curious to see the reactions y'all have to these next few chapters! I've been binge writing them... Feedback is always appreciated! Dividers by the lovely @secretlysamcro.

series tag list: @kmc1989 @secretlysamcro @chloe-skywalker @cindsvibes @aussiefangirl95 @sjester42-blog @danzer8705 @uknowmesstuff @mmarysha @shiggynuggiez @stevie75 @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @kaydallas21  @orymgraves @unholycheesesnack @livewaspsblog @leather-n-velvet @staley83 @moongirlgodness @shelbyteller

Standing beside the hospital bed, you found yourself in a stare down with the last patient on your rounds for today. The rhythmic beeping of his heart monitor repeatedly broke through the silence of his room as he held your stare with his own. Placing one hand on your hip, you absolutely refused to back down from this standoff.

You raised the chocolate pudding cup in front of yourself, watching Chibs’ attention switch from you to the dessert in your hand. “We had a deal for this past week, Chibs,” you reminded him, shaking the pudding cup to emphasize your point. “That's the only way this works.”

“Bit more like a bribe, sweetheart,” he countered, his eyes narrowing as he met your gaze again. “And what's a few ounces of water even matter? I'm gettin’ discharged this afternoon.”

“Well, until then,” you began, turning around and setting the pudding cup down onto his bedside table, just out of his reach, “you're still my patient. In my care. And we–” you turned back towards him, crossing your arms over your chest and fitting him with the same stare you used on Em, “–had a deal. Drink your water if you want the extra pudding cup.”

Chibs frowned back at you, but you didn't ease up on the stern expression and the Mom Stare you'd long since perfected. You'd done this dance far more times than you could count with a four year old who's brain wasn't nearly as developed enough to comprehend logic and reasoning, especially when she really wanted something. So Chibs? He was nothing in comparison to your stubborn and hard-headed girl. He broke far easier than Em would have for his damn extra pudding cups. 

After another few beeps from his heart monitor marked the passing time, he finally folded. Releasing a sigh, his shoulders dropped before he reluctantly reached a hand out. Grinning triumphantly, you grabbed the large jug of ice water he'd been avoiding drinking and placed it into his awaiting hand.

“Swear ya must be a witch,” he muttered.

Biting your lip, you fought down your laughter as you switched your focus to filling out his medical chart for the last time. Admittedly, you were going to miss seeing him on your rounds since he was getting discharged this afternoon. He was the last patient on your schedule for today, meaning this would be your last visit with him. Over this past week that he'd been here, he'd brightened your days at this small hospital far more than your other patients–like Mrs. Trenton down in room 245. She spent most of her time telling you how her eldest son was the devil because he wouldn't sneak her food into the hospital that went against her dietary restrictions.

“Not a witch,” you assured him, focused on filling out his chart, your head bowed over the clipboard. “Just have a lot of experience with getting my stubborn daughter to listen to me.”

Chibs swallowed his water, lowering the jug to his lap as he eyed you curiously. As your pen continued to scratch across the paper, you could see him watching you from his bed out of the corner of your eye. He'd told you he had a daughter the other day as well. Though he'd never elaborated on it further, and the somber look in his eyes when he'd mentioned her kept you from asking any questions.

“She get that from her mother?” he asked curiously. “That stubborn streak you're always talkin’ about?”

Grinning, you shook your head as you continued working on his chart. “No, not from me. I'm not nearly as hard-headed as she is,” you told him, a fondness in your words as you spoke about her. “Probably gets it from her father.”

When you realized what you'd said, you fell quiet, the grin gradually falling off your face as you continued writing down a few notes on the chart. Emilia’s father was a difficult topic for you. It wasn't as if you wanted people to know that you'd hooked up with a stranger for one night and the encounter had resulted in your daughter because people were judgemental. 

Even if that night with him had been beyond incredible–and one of the last times you'd really had sex, or at least great sex. You'd obviously not been with anyone during the time you'd been pregnant with Emilia, and at the time, that had been the furthest thing from your mind. After Emilia was born, you had attempted to date, but the moment you mentioned your little girl, the dates always ceased. 

Eventually, you'd resorted to having one time flings, getting a sitter for Em so that you could have a few hours to be something other than mom for a while. But those nights only further proved how unique that first night had been with Em's father–because you were quick to discover flings did not go like they had that night. They were quick, unsatisfying, and boring, so you’d given up years ago. It had always just been you and Em ever since she’d come into your life.

“Never seem to want to talk about her father,” Chibs pointed out. “Why is that?”

“I never really knew him,” you stated softly, still focused on the clipboard.

Judging by the quiet hum he made in response, you knew he understood what you hadn’t actually said. Em had been a surprise, fathered by a stranger. You figured if anyone in this town wouldn't judge you, Chibs was probably one of them. 

“Ahh, I see,” he replied. “At least he wasn't some deadbeat prick that needed his arse kicked. Though I woulda been happy to do that for ya.”

Lowering your pen to the paper, you turned and looked over at Chibs, a small smile creeping over your face. “Can't say most of my patients repeatedly offer to beat up men for me,” you teased lightly. “I'll definitely miss having you around here.”

“So ya do like me,” he shot back with a chuckle. “I knew it, sweetheart. Can't really resist my charms.”

You rolled your eyes at him playfully before grabbing your clipboard from the counter. Chibs lifted the jug of water from his lap, taking a few deep drinks through the straw. As he drank, you turned and grabbed the bedside table, wheeling it closer to him so he could reach the pudding cup.

“Enjoy your last stolen pudding cup,” you told him. “But you should really drink more water when you're out of here.”

Chibs was quick to set his water down and grab the dessert, a soft laugh falling out of you as he tore into it. You didn't know the rest of the guys in his motorcycle club, but he seemed harmless enough. You still didn't understand why the other nurses here were so against caring for him, acting like they thought he’d shoot them for taking his blood pressure or administering some pain medication.

“Be honest with ya, sweetheart,” he said, already scooping up some pudding with a spoon, “that ain't gonna happen.”

“Could have at least lied to me,” you pointed out with a grin, beginning to walk towards the hospital room door. You could hear loud voices coming from down the hall just outside of it, but you kept your focus on Chibs. “I hope I don't see you injured back in here, but I will miss your awful jokes brightening my days. Take care of yourself, alright?”

“Aye,” he said with a nod. “You as well, sweetheart.”

You gave him one last goodbye before turning and opening the door of his room, stepping into the hall where the unmistakable noise of his friends was impossible to ignore. Glancing over towards the right, you saw a group of Sons making their way towards Chibs’ room. You had been about to turn away from the loud bikers and continue down the hall, needing to change out of your scrubs and go pick up Emilia from preschool, but then your eyes caught onto a set of blue ones. 

He froze and so did you.

Hugging your clipboard against your chest, your breath died in your throat as the rowdy group continued their way towards Chibs’ room. None of the others seemed to notice the strange way you’d gone entirely immobile just staring at the blonde who was staring back at you. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that the hospital staff here always treated them differently, but you didn't give it much more thought. You were too distracted by how the blonde had reacted to you, just standing there staring at you with wide, surprised eyes that probably mirrored your own.

As the others continued obliviously into the room you'd just exited, one guy with a thick, dark beard and a neck tattoo hung behind when he finally realized his group was a man down. Returning to his side, he nudged an arm against the blonde whose face was quickly resurfacing in your mind from so long ago. The taller man leaned over, asking him something you couldn’t quite hear. The blonde nodded before his friend glanced over at you for a moment, a curious look in his eyes before he turned and joined the other Sons in Chibs’ hospital room.

Then you were left standing alone in the hallway with him, your heart violently pounding in your chest as you stared at the man you had no doubt was your daughter’s father. The man who had absolutely no idea he had a child with you. And considering he didn't know that, it only made his strange reaction to you incredibly confusing and unusual. He seemed to have recognized you just as quickly himself even though it'd been five years since you’d spent those few hours together, something you were certain he'd done countless times with other women since then. 

Why did he recognize you? How could he possibly have remembered you? 

He took a few cautious steps towards you in his pristine Nikes like he wasn’t entirely certain if he should. Squeezing your clipboard tighter to your chest, you still felt as if you couldn’t breathe. You were carrying a secret he had no idea about. A massive, life-changing one. While years ago you’d initially wanted to find some way to tell him when you’d discovered you were pregnant, now you had absolutely no idea what to say. You were entirely unprepared for this encounter. You’d known he’d been in some sort of motorcycle club back then, but you hadn’t ever thought that it could be the one here where you’d just moved. 

The silence felt suffocating the longer it stretched on in the otherwise empty hallway, your nerves steadily rising as his eyes scanned over your face in disbelief. You didn’t know what to even say, but you knew that you couldn’t just blurt out the truth to him. That wasn’t something you just dropped on somebody five years later the second you saw them. But while your mind was racing with thoughts about having found your daughter’s father unexpectedly all these years later, you had no idea what the hell was running through his mind with the way he kept staring at you.

“You’re…” he began, that odd look still on his face. “You’re the girl from Fresno.”

Palms beginning to sweat against the clipboard you were holding in a death grip, a strained smile tugged at your lips. “I guess? I mean I used to live there,” you told him. “I uh, moved. Recently.” Your eyes darted towards Chibs’ room where the Sons were currently still making raucous conversation inside despite being down a man. “Obviously,” you added awkwardly, focusing back on him.

A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips at your answer, like he’d been surprised but pleased to hear it. “So you remember who I am?” he asked. 

How the hell would you ever be able to forget him? That night had been easily the best sex you’d ever had and probably would ever have. But besides that, he’d given you your daughter. The one thing you loved above anything in the world. Of course you hadn’t entirely forgotten him, you’d just never expected to ever meet him again.

“Yeah,” you answered. “You look a bit different now, but I’m pretty sure there’s only one biker who’d have a reason to recognize me. Though I’m…truthfully kind of surprised you even remember me.”

He bit his lip, fighting back the growing smile as he took a few steps closer towards you, closing some of the distance between you both in the hallway. Your feet remained rooted to the floor as he stopped a short distance from you. Unable to resist, your eyes began to scan him over in return.

He’d changed from the memory you had of him all those years ago. The long, shaggy hair had been replaced with a different style, something slicked back and neater. His facial hair wasn’t nearly as unkempt and outgrown, but he still had that blonde beard on his handsome face–a face which had only grown more attractive over the years. He’d matured from the young man you’d taken home with you back then to the broad, muscular man standing in front of you now. But he still carried that dangerous aura which oddly drew you in instead of away. 

“Couldn’t forget you, if I’m being honest,” he admitted.

He still had that smooth voice of his, too. You remembered how it had once murmured such dirty things into your ears, but even now it could still make your pulse quicken. 

“That was a damn good night,” he added.

Clearing your throat, you felt goosebumps prickle along your forearms at the comment. A ‘damn good night’ seemed like a vast understatement to the way you’d both been so completely tangled up in each other for hours. 

“Yeah, it was definitely something,” you agreed quietly.

The smile lingered on his lips as something hid behind his pretty blue eyes. But the longer you held his stare trying to make sense of it, the more you began to realize that Emilia’s eyes were the same shape as his, and that smile he was wearing looked incredibly familiar, too. She’d inherited more than you’d realized from her father.

“Honestly, darlin’, I never thought I’d run into you again,” he confessed with a shake of his head. “But now you live in Charming?”

You nodded, the nerves in your stomach growing under the weight of his gaze. Five years ago, you'd had a completely different reaction to his undivided attention than you were having now.

“Just moved here about three weeks ago,” you replied.

Still hugging the clipboard tight to your chest, you could feel the erratic thudding of your heart beneath it. While part of you wanted to stay and talk to him–admittedly you could feel that familiar attraction and the strange draw towards him even years later–you knew you really couldn’t. Besides the fact that you needed to pick up your daughter from preschool, you were also struggling not to just blurt out the words ‘you got me pregnant’ the longer you stood here with him. 

But you knew dropping that on him out of nowhere would not be the best way to disclose the news to him. Which was apparently now something you needed to figure out how the hell to even go about doing, but a run-in with him for the first time in years didn’t seem like the best time. Especially when you really needed to get going and didn’t have time to sit here and answer the questions he might have.

Running a hand over his mouth, he nodded his head at your answer. With the way he was acting, it seemed like he wasn’t ready to let this conversation just end. He hadn’t excused himself to go into Chibs’ hospital room with the other Sons, lingering in the hall like he'd rather be out here with you. Which only had you growing curious about why that was.

“You move out here with a boyfriend or somethin’?” he questioned next.

Lips parting in surprise at the blunt, bold question, both of your brows rose up onto your forehead. The man chuckled at the look on your face while you contemplated the audacity of him asking about your relationship status so quickly and easily. 

“Just wondering. Don't know if I gotta worry about some guy tryin’ to start shit with me for having history with you,” he told you, shrugging his shoulders in faux innocence. “Just wanna make sure I’m not kicking someone’s ass that I probably shouldn’t, y’know?”

Somehow you had a feeling he wouldn't mind kicking anyone's ass.

“No, I uh, definitely didn’t move here with anyone like that,” you answered him.

You’d been about to add on that you’d moved here with your daughter, but the words got stuck in your throat. Tongue feeling like it had turned to lead, you couldn’t get the words out. Because if you told him about your daughter, you felt like you needed to tell him the full truth. And you'd already established that it didn't feel like the time and place.

“So no guys I gotta be lookin’ out for, huh?” he teased, unaware of your internal conflict.

It felt like there was something else in his words, a flirtatious undertone. While you’d love to have a repeat of that night–sans another pregnancy–you couldn’t just sleep with him now. The dynamic between you two was going to get messy and strange once you finally did tell him the truth. If he didn’t want to be in Emilia’s life, you couldn’t possibly imagine letting him sleep with you again. But if he did want to be, well, that further complicated matters when it came to possibly co-parenting with him in the future. 

“Not at the moment, no,” you told him. 

You caught the way his head tilted to the side and his smile grew wider before your attention shifted to the clock hanging on the wall in the hallway. You needed to get out of the hospital and go pick up Emilia from preschool before you were late. As if he’d figured out where your thoughts were, you saw his smile had dimmed when you focused back on him.

“Gotta go?” he asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

“I’m actually off my shift now,” you told him, gesturing your thumb down the hallway behind you. “I was on my way to change out of my scrubs and…I needed to make an appointment.”

The lie felt uncomfortable and wrong as it fell out of you, but what else were you supposed to say? If you mentioned a daughter now, you knew you’d feel even worse lying to his face by not telling him that the daughter you were picking up wasn’t just yours. 

“Don’t let me hold you up then, darlin’,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you around town now that you live here.”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” you replied awkwardly.

Biting your lip nervously, you ignored the weird sensation in your gut as you took a step away from him, the feeling begging you to just spill absolutely everything to him. Instead, you released the clipboard with one hand and gave him a brief wave before you turned around, beginning to head in the opposite direction down the hall.

“Wait!”

You’d only managed to take a handful of steps before he’d called out after you. Stopping at the sound of his voice, you looked over your shoulder at him behind you. He was smiling again, and that hint of something in his eyes had returned, the sight of it making your heart skip. Even after all this time, he still had that same effect on you.

“Can I get a name this time?” he called after you. “To finally go with the pretty face?”

Unable to help yourself, a small smile spread over your lips. He was still far too smooth for his own good and dammit if it still didn't work for you, too. You called back to him, giving him your name and watching some unknown emotion flicker across his face.

“You have a name?” you questioned in return.

“Jackson,” he told you, already beginning to walk backwards towards the door to Chibs’ hospital room with something in his step. “But I go by Jax, darlin’.”

And there you finally had it. Emilia’s father’s name. Five years after the fact. 

“Was good running into you,” he said, his grin growing a bit cocky as his hand pressed down on the handle of the hospital door, pushing it open. “Be seein’ you.”

“Yeah,” you agreed. “I'm sure you will.”

But not for whatever reason he was probably expecting.

Sitting on the couch in your living room, you barely paid attention to the show that was playing on your television. You were sitting on your couch with your legs tucked up beside you, trying to relax before bed this evening. Harley, your pitbull mix, stretched his legs out on the cushion beside you, raising his large, gray head as his mouth opened wide in a yawn. Afterwards, he lazily dropped his head onto your thigh, dark eyes staring up at you. Glancing down at him, his tired eyes met yours before one of your hands absently landed on his head and began to pet him.

Your surprise encounter earlier with Jax at the hospital had been on your mind for the rest of the day. It had been near impossible to focus on what Emilia had been telling you about her morning at preschool–and anything else she’d been going on about the rest of the day–because your thoughts kept drifting back to him. You had not expected to run into him in Charming. Or ever, for that matter.

As much as you'd wanted to focus on the fact that he seemed like he was interested in you, or at least interested in sleeping with you again, all you could focus on was how you were supposed to tell him what you obviously needed to. You hadn’t been prepared for this, and the stress had been eating at you all night, making you feel sick to your stomach. You'd hardly been able to eat dinner, having to lie to Emilia about not feeling well when she’d asked if you were alright. You'd put her down to sleep just over an hour ago and all you'd done since was sit on the couch drowning in your thoughts.

“What am I supposed to do here, Harl?” you asked your dog softly. “How am I supposed to tell him this? We barely know each other. Took me five years to even learn his name is Jax, how do I look him in the face and tell him he's got a four year old daughter?”

Harley stared up at you, his dark eyes watching as he listened to you speak. Head falling against the backrest of your couch, you continued to pet him gently, finding a bit of comfort in his presence. 

“I don't even have his number,” you mused aloud. “No way to contact him besides showing up at that motorcycle clubhouse by that garage. And I really don't want to do that just to ask him to talk to me. Cause that's weird, right?”

Harley raised his head from your leg at the inflection in your voice, tilting it curiously to the side like he was trying to understand you. You sighed, beginning to scratch behind one of his ears as you let your thoughts freely flow out of you to the only one you could ever really talk to–your dog.

“What if I tell him and he wants nothing to do with her?” you asked him. “It was one thing when I just didn't know how to find him, but to have her dad not even want to know her?”

Your heart ached at the thought. Emilia had been asking questions about her dad starting almost a year ago. You had struggled trying to explain to her that her daddy just wasn't in her life because he didn't know about her and because you had no way to find him. You’d tried to make it a point for her to understand that him not being around wasn’t by choice or because he didn't want her. You'd hate to have to tell her the truth when she was older, that you’d found him and he hadn’t wanted anything to do with her. 

“But what if he does want to be in her life?” you continued thinking aloud to your dog, absently petting him as he stared up at you. “What kind of man is he? He's part of a motorcycle club–whatever that even really means. Which was fine for some random one night thing. But as a father?”

Could this man even be a father? What would that even look like with whatever it was that he did for that club? Was his life even safe enough for Emilia to be in it? 

“I wasn't anticipating this to happen when we moved to Charming, Harl,” you murmured, blankly staring ahead at the television screen again. “I don't even know how I feel about finding him. For so long it's just been Em and I. We've never really had anyone else. How am I just supposed to let a literal stranger into our life if that's what he wants?”

Sighing, your eyes drifted back down to Harley as he stared back at you. He made a quiet little noise before he dropped his head onto your thigh again. Your hand moved to his back as you lightly patted him.

“You want to tell him for me?” you asked Harley hopefully. “We could trade places for a bit and you can have that conversation for me. Because I'd honestly rather go piss in the backyard as a dog for an afternoon instead of having to look him in the eye and tell him he knocked me up all those years ago and now he has a daughter running around Charming.”

Harley shifted his head on your leg with a soft groan before his eyes slowly closed. A frown pulled at your lips before your attention drifted back to the television. Those same thoughts continued to spiral in your head. You knew you needed to tell Jax everything because the longer you waited, the worse it would be to tell him the truth. 

“Figured as much,” you murmured quietly. “Next time I see him, I’ll do it. Whenever I'm not in a complete rush and Em isn't around. I'll just have to spit it out,” you quietly vowed to Harley. “Don't really think there's any other way to do it. He deserves to know, however he ends up reacting to the news. She's his daughter, too.”

You only hoped the opportunity came sooner rather than later so he didn't feel like you'd been trying to hide something from him. 

[dragonanon]

Dancemrsandman you made me audibly wheeze on the bus with the comparison to Tim Lockwood- 😭😂

I now have the mental image of telling Jimbei to drag the mouse across the desktop, and he just fucking grabs the thing like it owes him money and completely sweeps it across desks, knocking literally everything off it in the process. He then looks at you all sad and confused like “That did nothing. :(“

noT MIHAWK BEING THE “back in MY day, we didn’t need no fancy electronics!” BOOMER!! 😭😭😭😂

- You were once summoned by Crocodile because his mouse was “behaving strangely”. You got there and…he was using it upside down, as in the cord was laying TOWARDS himself instead of AWAY.

- Buggy requests your help in choosing a new puter and different equipment because he wanted to “hijack the internet”. It took awhile, but eventually you managed to figure out “hijacking the internet” was actually just him wanting to steal WiFi from Shanks.

- Hancock called and bitched you out once, claiming that you had broken her puter because “I can’t log into it now, what did you do to my puter?!” After having her explain step by step what she was doing to log in, you discovered that she wasn’t pressing “enter” after typing in her password. Somehow, this was STILL your fault.

- The marines got a new fax machine, one that would spit the document back out behind it instead of back out front. Garp came charging into your office flipping his shit because he’d faxed a document and had “accidentally faxed the original copy” and was convinced it was gone now. He was very relieved when you turned the machine and showed him the output tray in the back where his precious original copy was.

- Mihawk is FINALLY convinced to use a puter, and immediately calls to report that his puter wouldn’t turn on….he neglected to tell you that his castle doesn’t have electricity, and could not understand why he would need such a thing to use his Puter. He was not pleased.

- Corazon called once because he couldn’t access the internet, and he asked you if it was because the internet is closed…You came dangerously close to telling him “yes, the internet closes in the evening at 9PM. But it will reopen again tomorrow at 8AM”

- When you were first getting Shanks set up with his puter and trying to show him how to use it, he picked up the mouse and pointed it at the screen, trying to use it like a TV remote. Mf still had the nerve to insist that he was not that drunk.

- At LEAST once a day you get a call from an irate Marine that “all their stuff is gone” after you had to do a factory reset on their device. This happens despite having EXPLICITLY told the Marine that EVERYTHING would be gone after the reset and having gone into excruciating detail about how to backup all their files and documents.

- Said Marines are ALSO usually the same ones who insist that their puter being broken is YOUR fault because you touched it 2 months ago. It simply can’t be the 75GB of porn they downloaded from sketchy websites, no siree, it must have been some puter-wizardry from you.

I just thought of the most stupid idea, but considering my Hey Doc series is also stemmed from my stupidity, I just thought I'd share the idea regardless to see if it becomes something.

You are a marine. A quiet marine. A marine with the quickest wit and sharpest intellect.

Due to this, and a series of unforseen and extremely niche circumstances, you have been pushed forward to undergo a variety of training regarding the advances in technological sciences. You are the first point of call, where, should anything technological goes wrong, you are the line of defence.

You thought this would mean working on the front lines in the Great Pirate Era to halt the enemy in their sails with technology alone.

What this actually means:

Garp calling you up on his snail, trying to locate the "off switch" for his personal transponder, while not listening to anything you've got to say with his radio turned up on full volume.

Sengoku needing to update his digital resume to send over the wavelengths, but does not trust the seagulls to not intercept them. He is paranoid.

Teaching Tsuru to block any call from Donquixote Doflamingo and switch it over to other mediums. Doflamingo finds her anyway.

Educating the young recruits on the fact that anything spoken into a World Government issue Den Den Mushi holds a history to their voice and a memory of their call requests.

You... Are so tired. So, so tired.

You thought this would mean a new life for you as a renowned marine.

What you are is the only member of the marine IT department.

[mothergo0se]

Hi, little ones.

It’s been a while since I last spoke directly to you. I want to start by thanking everyone who respected my break, reached out with kindness, or simply held space for me in silence. That kind of support means more than I can fully express.

When I first stepped back, I knew I was overwhelmed—but I didn’t realize just how deeply I was struggling. A mix of life transitions and pregnancy-related depression quietly crept in and took more of my energy and joy than I anticipated. I’ve had to slow down, recalibrate, and relearn how to hold space for myself before I can hold space for others.

During this time away, I’ve done a lot of thinking about the pressure we can all feel in this digital world. Whether you're a little, a caregiver, or anywhere in between, it’s so easy to scroll through posts and feel like you're behind, or not enough, or like you should be doing or feeling more. I’ve absolutely felt that too—even in a role where I’m meant to guide and nurture.

But here’s the truth: there is no race. No “right” way to exist in this community. No milestone you need to reach by a certain time. We’re all doing our best, in our own seasons and stages.

Comparison is a thief. It takes joy from your journey and replaces it with doubt. So if you’ve been feeling that weight, I want you to know—I see you. I get it. And you are not alone.

As for me, I’m not back at full speed, but I am returning. Slowly. Gently. I’ll be dipping my toes back into this space—sharing, supporting, and connecting again in the ways that feel sustainable and fulfilling.

Thank you for your patience, your understanding, and your trust. I’m looking forward to growing with you again. 🌱

Love, Mother Goose 🩷

[darksigns-exe]

ghost in the silence // deer in the headlights — part i: the void between us

Warnings: Grief, minor character death, swearing, alcohol and drug consumption, intercourse, swearing

Word Count: 10k

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The comments are full of the same comparison. 

Pia can see it in a way. 

But then again, they’re all a little guilty of finding inspiration in Sempiternal, although she would never admit that to Oli. She’s not giving him that satisfaction. But the commenters under this video are taking things a little bit too seriously even for her taste. From what she can tell, this is a fairly new band. At least this is the first she’s heard of them. The label had sent her a few links of bands they were considering as support for the bands' next tour. It wouldn’t be a big run, just a couple of shows up and down the country. 

These guys could be fun to bring along, Pia thinks. She does a little more digging, looks up what their live shows are like. She has a reputation to uphold, after all, can’t bring a group of dorks on tour who are only good on tape. 

Deciding that she’s happy with what she’s seeing, she sends a couple of links to the rest of the band. 

The rest will have to co-sign her decision before she’ll even consider giving the label an answer. 

While she waits for their responses, Pia orders another Americano. Maybe this one will take her headache away. With her coffee ordered, Pia decides to actually reach out to the band. Regardless of if they’ll bring them along or not, she wants to show a little bit of support. She knows how much that means when you’re still in the infancy of your career. 

She pulls up the band's account. 

badomenscult

It’s a little cliché, but there are only so many ways to name an Instagram account. She scrolls through their posts for a bit and quickly before she settles on a message. 

⮚ Hi! Just got sent some of your stuff and really liked it. Do you have stuff planned for next year?

She’s popped into enough band guys' DMs at this point to feel somewhat unaffected by it. It stopped being a big deal once they started to crawl into hers. She doesn’t expect an immediate response. She doesn’t know where exactly in the US they are, but Pia knows that it’ll still be early over there. 

She still has a few things she needs to finish before she can take a break. The band pays okay, but it’s still not enough to feed everyone. And besides that, Pia would rather have a second leg to stand on, just in case. 

By the time she has tweaked the last few things on the poster she’s been working on, Alex and Morgan have already given their approval. She’ll annoy the other’s about it when they meet up later that week. 

It’s nearing three when she decides to call it quits for the day. She’ll stop by the shops on the way home, pick up something quick to eat so that she won’t have to worry about that. 

The line-up of sandwiches and salads is always unimpressive, and she settles on the same pasta salad she usually goes for. As a treat, she grabs a bottle of Lambrusco that will leave her with the worst hangover. 

She needs the buzz of it, though. 

Just as Pia turns the corner towards the underground station, her phone pings with a notification. 

She pulls it from her bag, unlocking the screen quickly. 

noahbehumble liked your post

When she taps on it, it’s an image from 2012. A horrifically grainy and honestly unflattering image of her squished between a variety of people at Slam Dunk. She’d just turned 18 and spent the summer selling merchandise for another band to build up a little bit of a cushion before she’d start university. 

It’s a nice memory, but it’s buried so far down her timeline that she doubts that he meant to like it. When she checks the people who have liked it, his username has conveniently disappeared again. 

A moment later, a message from the band account pops up at the top of her screen. 

⮘ Hey! Thanks for the support. We’re currently looking for shows to book over the summer. We have a couple of festivals lined up but nothing big - Noah

Pia decides to let him stew for a moment. He can wait until she’s home. And at any rate, she doesn’t know if they’ll even go for these guys. But there’s something endearing about how quickly he’d answered. She knows the excitement too well. She’d been through the roof the first time someone from a bigger band had reached out to her. 

They’d just put out the EP, entirely independently. And sure, all of them had friends and contacts in the scene before, but the five of them had been determined to make it with as little support as possible. The overall reception had been so much better than any of them had anticipated. The cherry on top of all of it had been the love they got from other bands – their peers. Hearing that they liked what they’d put out had been so incredibly validating. 

Throughout the ride home, Pia tries to come up with a good way to keep this conversation going, even if they don’t end up taking them on this tour, she wants to keep things friendly. 

You can never know, after all. 

By the time she’s home, Pia is sure that she’s come up with a decent answer.

⮚ Oh that’s sick. We’re coming to the US for a few shows later that year too, maybe we’ll run into each other at some point

It’s neither here nor there, but she can’t exactly ​​tell Noah that they’re considering them as openers. That’ll be a job for their label. 

The flat is too quiet when she unlocks the door. 

She still isn’t used to it. And she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be. It’s especially bad in the mornings. Sometimes she thinks that he’ll be there when she wakes up, but the bed is always empty. The sheets are starting to lose his scent too. 

Pia hasn’t had the heart to put any of his things away yet. 

Realistically, it would probably help if she’d do that. 

Not being constantly reminded of what has been can only help her, but at the same time, removing him from their home makes it final. 

And so she avoids the flat as much as she can. 

She works from a café in the city, even if the coffee is too expensive there. Pia doesn’t remember the last time she set foot in the kitchen to cook a real meal, either. None of this is healthy, she’s well aware of that. But she just isn’t ready to let him go yet. 

You don’t just let six years disappear like that. 

She knows that he’d want her to move on, and honestly, she’s trying, but taking the steps is so much harder than she thought it would be. She’d poured all of her pain and anger and sadness into writing this album, hoping that it would take a little bit of it from her shoulders. 

They’re almost done recording it and maybe by the time it’s out in the world, she’ll feel a little less heavy. 

The week drips by like honey. 

Pia goes through the motions of her daily life. It’s a safe routine that keeps her on track as best as possible, but she still finds herself struggling. Her mornings do become a little easier, if only because she drags herself out of the house at the crack of dawn to start working. It’s not entirely healthy either, but at least she’s not rotting away in bed for the whole day anymore. 

The one time she’d dared to go out with friends — they’d practically dragged her out of the house and into the nearest pub — people got so offended that Pia hadn’t shown herself publicly for a good few weeks. 

How dare she try to crawl out of this Marcus-shaped hole again? 

It’s been all downhill from there – as if she hadn’t been heading towards a destructive downward spiral already. 

In a way, Pia understands it. They want her to be upset because he is was a beloved figure in the scene. People have lost, and she understands that they want him to be mourned, but they’re demanding something impossible for the sake of her well-being. She’s glad that she’s become aware of this at least. And maybe that’s the first step in the right direction. 

She’s saying her big goodbye with this album. 

She still has a few tracks that they’d worked on together. Fragments of things that she at least wants to try to incorporate into this new album. Maybe that’ll make it feel  a little better. 

It’s been almost six months, and one some days, Pia still catches herself thinking that she has to stop by the hospital to visit him. 

Taking this particular line will always remind her of that. She almost gets out at an earlier stop but catches herself, just before she rises from her seat. 

Maybe one day she won’t feel like this anymore and this stop will just be a normal stop again. 

Stepping out into the stuffy underground station, Pia quickly makes her escape towards daylight. She stops by one of the overly expensive coffee shops on her way to the studio they’re renting at the moment. She lets herself into the building with the electronic key fob. 

Pia can already hear the rest of the band debating further inside the space. Whatever they’re discussing has them tangled up in a heated debate. Knowing her friends, it’s not that serious, and they’re just trying to rile each other up. 

“Look who’s finally made it.” Liam announces, when she attempts to quietly sneak into the main room. 

Pia pushes the nagging anxiety to the back of her mind – at least she tries to. Keeping herself occupied with this will be good. She throws herself into the conversation, hoping that it’ll make her chest feel less tight.  

“So what are we thinking for the tour?” Charlie asks when they gather in the main room for lunch. 

“I think there’s a clear winner.” Alex replies, taking a bite out of his burger, “Don’t get me wrong they’re all good, but I really felt that those Bad Omens boys have a lot of potential.” 

Pia had a feeling that they’d all be on the same side with this. 

“I messaged their singer. He seems nice.” Pia adds, “Said that they’ve been trying to get a foot in the door over here, but their label hasn’t been very helpful.” 

They all know what that feels like. Their label had been rather unhelpful in getting them overseas so far and the band had only made it to the States with the help of friends. Another thing she’ll never tell Oli about. 

His ego really doesn’t need that. 

It’s a quick decision. Liam’s excitement about the band's drummer seems to seal the deal and while the real final decision is with the label this is a pretty done deal. They won’t tell the band until the label has given their okay.

Pia’s glad that they decided on these guys, they remind her a little of their own start. If it hadn’t been for other people having faith in them, they’d never made it this far. It’s only fair if they try to do the same for other bands. 

It’s nearly midnight when they leave the studio again. It starts to feel better, as if every bar they write, every song they finish seals up the open wounds in her chest a little bit more. It’ll take a while for it to heal completely but for the moment the exhaustion of the day is heavier than the grief. It’s a good kind of exhaustion. The kind you feel after a day of creating and engaging with people you like. On the way back home, Pia lets her eyes slip shut. The rhythmic rattling of the underground almost lulls her into sleep, but the sharp sounds of the breaks stops her just before her mind slips from her entirely. 

She watches as a few more stragglers enter the carriage. She only has a few stations left until she has to exit. As much as she dreads going home, she can’t wait to curl up under her duvet. 

Sometimes she thinks that she should just get a new place, start over in a new part of town. There’s so much attached to this one place. Moving out of that flat would surely make things easier, but at the same time Pia has never felt more at home in a place. And maybe she just needs to find a way to feel comfortable there without Marcus. He’d want her to move on, to be happy without him. Moving on doesn’t mean that she’s erasing him entirely, even if that is what it feels like on some days. 

Climbing the stairs to the top of the station feels odd, knowing that he wouldn’t be there to walk home with her. Whenever she’d come home late, Marcus would pick her up from the station, and they’d talk the long way home, stopping on the way to get a little late night snack. Now, Pia takes the shortest route home, not stopping unless absolutely necessary. Their part of the city isn’t unsafe, but walking around on her own like this has always made her a little nervous. 

The flat is quiet when she enters. 

It’s always quiet now, but for the first time in a while the quiet doesn’t feel overwhelming. Instead, Pia feels a rush of comfort when she closes and locks the door behind herself. She takes a moment, draws in a deep breath, before she toes off her trainers. 

The noise of the city is non-existent here. There was always comfort and quiet in this place, and maybe Pia just to find a way to let herself feel all that again. She’s managed to shed the overwhelming guilt that she’s still here when Marcus isn't, so maybe she’ll be able to feel comfortable in her own home again some day. 

June comes around sooner than Pia had expected. Before she knows it, they’re rehearsing the new songs and getting the show ready. 

They've been informed that they’ll meet Bad Omens a week before the first show in Leeds. They’re friends with the other support and will travel to the venue with them. 

Pia is surprisingly excited to play these songs live. Over the last few months, she’d found herself dreading the moment she’d have to step on stage and face these people. They’ll forever look at her as the person who could or should have done more. They’re not alone in that. For months, Pia had told herself that she should have seen it coming. That she should have known, but at the end of the day there was nothing more she could have done. Pia had chewed through the whole thing multiple times with her therapist, just to be repeatedly reminded that she had done everything she could have done. 

She had come as soon as she had heard him fall, she’d called the ambulance, tried to resuscitate him while she’d waited for them. In the end, the paramedics had pronounced Marcus dead less than five minutes after they’d arrived. 

They had taken her to the hospital too, and Pia hadn’t fully realised what had actually happened until a few hours later. 

Since then, she’d played through that day again and again, trying to find something she could have done differently. And much to her dismay, she’d always come to the same conclusion. 

She had done everything she could have done. 

Pia had thought about clearing the air about it. Whenever she had brought the idea up with Charlie, he’d only shaken his head. 

They don’t think that it’s your fault he had said the first time – and every other time the topic had come up. 

Commotion drags Pia out of her thoughts. They’ve gathered at a practice space that will give everyone a bit of space to sniff each other out. 

“They’re here.” Morgan announces, quickly slinking away from the window again so that whoever is approaching won’t see her, “Why are they all so tall?” 

Pia just about manages to conceal her chuckle. 

There’s a crush in the making there, she thinks. 

Knowing Morgan, they’ll have to tie her down by the second week. 

They’ve done this often enough for her to only feel nervous about meeting someone new. There’ve been a few conversations over the last few months, but at the end of the day, they’re still strangers. 

A few minutes later, a group of boys – varying shades of tall and tattooed – make their way into the room they’ve all been hanging out it. 

Pia eyes them as they file into the room. 

The one she recognises to be Noah – their singer – lingers at the back, almost hiding behind another one. 

Alex thankfully takes over introductions, allowing Pia to sit back and watch for a moment longer. 

They make a good first impression. Jolly, the guitarist, seems to be fairly comfortable being the voice of the band and really Pia gets it. People always expect the singer to be front and centre, but if she’d never had to give another interview again, she’d be just as happy. 

They’re an hour into getting to know each other when Pia feels eyes lingering on her. She follows the line-up of boys until she finds Noah. When he notices that he’s been caught, he quickly averts his glance, suddenly so interested in a loose piece of string on his jeans. But Pia doesn’t miss the bright pink that colours his cheeks, no matter how hard he tries to hide his face. 

It’s a little endearing. 

The next time she gets to talk to any of them is the morning of the show. It’s an all hand on deck kind of morning. The only person she doesn’t see until midday is Noah. And it really does colour him in an off light. No one from their camp seems to be worried that Noah is painfully absent, which makes Pia think that this is not the first time he hasn’t shown his face during set up. 

“Bit odd that he just doesn’t show his face until lunch.” Pia notes, when he finally slips into the dressing room, they’re all forced to share. 

Morgan shakes her head, “Without saying anything too. If he’s poorly, he could have just said something.”

Pia shoves another forkful of pasta into her mouth, “It’s not a good look.” 

Across the room, the band's drummer – Folio – lets out a loud barking laugh. 

None of them seem to be particularly rustled by the fact that their singer had been so glaringly absent. In fact, she thinks that the band's bassist still regards him with a degree of worry that she doesn’t quite understand. 

Going up to one of them to ask hey why was your singer all morning? feels misplaced too. And somehow that makes Pia feel even worse about just assuming that he couldn’t be bothered to help. At the end of the day, she doesn’t know why he wasn’t there, and she thinks that at least a small part of her is trying to look for things to dislike. 

Either way, someone could have said something. 

The next thing she hears of Noah makes her want to scratch out her own eyes. Pia has gathered that he’s the stoic silent type. The shy smile he’d thrown her way on the first day seemed to have been a once in a lifetime mistake, rather than a common occurrence for him. The boy has a near terminal case of resting bitch face, barely manages to exchange more than a handful of words with any of the other people on this tour, and when he does he sounds so absolutely full of himself. 

None of it makes sense to her. 

Pia gets that at least a part of it has to be compensation. They’re the least experienced band on this bill, and they’re overseas for the first time. He’s probably trying to cover up the fact that he’s nervous. She’s been in his shoes herself. 

His calculation comes with a fatal flaw, though. 

Instead of garnering sympathy for himself, his act slowly chips away at Pia’s patience and, at least in parts, she’s starting to regret the decision to bring a band they don’t really know on this tour in particular. 

Her nerves are raw enough as it is, she doesn’t want – or need – to deal with the tough boy act of a newly signed frontman. 

Sleep is always rare on these tours. They’re finally in a bus, which makes things a little more comfortable if there wouldn’t be the small detail that Pia has been barely sleeping as it is. It’s getting better, but she still doesn’t feel as if she’s ever truly rested. 

The exhaustion of running around on a stage for ninety minutes does help. It’s better than running circles into the living room carpet while she attempts to listen to another audiobook that she’ll quit not even three chapters in. The shameful pile that she’s starting to build up feels more and more daunting every time she opens that damned app. 

They’re in Bristol when Pia decides that she’s had enough of whatever kind of trip Noah is on. At the very least, she has to find out why he keeps missing out post show dinners, shared breakfasts and most importantly set up. 

She just catches Nick – the bassist – as he’s slipping out of the back of the venue. Out of the four of them, he seems the most approachable to her. Jolly seems decidedly too been-there-done-that for her, and the other Nick is busy throwing heart eyes at Morgan. 

She doesn’t even add Noah into this calculation.

After another failed attempt at a conversation with him that had ended with her frowning and him looking as if he’d rather be doing anything else in the world, Pia had given up on trying. 

“Nick.” she calls after him, almost tripping over her own feet as she tries to catch up with him. 

Nick not only has the vibe of someone who spends most of his free time in a tattoo shop, as she has learned that this is exactly what he does. Most of their conversations so far had consisted of him showing her pictures of his cats, which Pia had countered with pictures of her mum's Bernese mountain dog. She’d learned that Nick is, while entirely inoffensive, not the bland kind of inoffensive. He’s somehow the second most level-headed person she’s ever met. Third if she includes Marcus. 

Pia thinks that Marcus would have liked Nick. 

Marcus had repeatedly tried to get her to agree to a cat of their own. Pia’s argument against it had been their touring schedules. And now she wishes that she’d just said yes the last time he had asked. 

Nick stops when her words reach him. He turns, looking pleasantly surprised.

“One of your guys said you’re going for coffee?” she offers. 

He gives a nod in reply before he takes a drag from his cigarette, “You wanna join?” “If I have to have another cup of whatever piss they’re serving in his venue I might cry.” 

He laughs at that, “Believe it or not, we’ve had worse.” 

He tells her about a venue they’d played back home that served what he describes as brown water as coffee. Whatever they had here wasn’t too far away from that. 

“So how did you all meet?” she asks while they’re in line at the coffee shop. 

He thinks for a moment. 

“I’ve known Noah for ages. Jolly’s a friend of a friend and we found Nick online. Or rather he found us.” 

Still nothing that explains why Noah is the way he is. 

“You just know a guy who knows a guy from Sweden?” Pia asks. 

“Basically. Yeah.” Nick nods, “We needed a new guitarist and Jolly’s old band was about to end things. Just kinda worked out like that.” 

They talk about everyone else for a while longer before the topic finally reaches Noah. 

“Noah put this whole thing together, you know? He’s the brains behind this whole operation. We all contribute of course but Noah’s doing most of the writing.” Nick talks about him almost reverently. 

She gathers that they’ve been friends for much longer than she’d anticipated and from how carefully Nick seems to navigate around anything that seems too personal she assumes that he won’t take well to her digging for more details. 

She does have to ask about the absences, though. She reasons that if anything is going on they should know. As much as she currently hates his guts she’d hate for him to have some kind of health condition that they didn’t know about. 

“So some people have noticed that he keeps disappearing.” She starts. 

Framing it as some people instead of Morgan and I have been speculating about what he gets up to feels a little less — forward. 

“Is that normal?”

Nick gives a chortled laugh in response, and Pia thinks that he almost choked on his coffee. 

“I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you this to be honest. It’s a multipart problem, actually. He gets these really bad headaches sometimes. It’s been worse since we got here. I don’t think that the jet lag and the time difference help.”

Pia knows that this isn’t everything. And Nick doesn’t seem to want to hide that he isn’t telling her everything. 

It does explain some things, and Pia does sympathise with him. She knows how big this is for them and feeling poorly on a tour like this is awful. She watched Morgan barrel her way through their first big tour before she’d started to get any kind of help with her endometriosis. They’d had so many late night talks trying to decide if they could ethically ask her to continue like this, but Morgan had insisted. 

“I’m sorry that he has to deal with that.” She says finally, “If we can do something, just say the word.”

Nick mouths a quiet thank you. 

The headaches don’t explain the arrogance Noah puts on display. It’s frustrating, and Pia really doesn’t understand where this attitude is coming from. Sure they’re a good band, Noah’s a great frontman, but he’s not exactly in the position to act like this. 

It all comes to a head just three days later. 

Pia watched from the balcony of the venue as Bad Omens set up their gear. She had intended to work on a few designs – new merchandise that they’re planning to drop later in the year. Her attention is quickly drawn to the goings-on on stage. 

She watches as Alex joins them, asking if they’ve got a hand to lend. 

Noah is nearest to him, but barely manages to look up from his phone. She’s within earshot and the fact that he doesn’t even say a single word or give any kind of indication that he has even heard Alex fills her with a deep settled fury. 

And when he turns away mid-sentence, Pia decides that she’s had enough of this. She makes her way down to the main part of the venue and just as she rounds the corner Noah comes towards her. 

“Got a moment?” she asks without a lot of fanfare, hoping that her anger is somewhat masqueraded. 

He nods, “Sure.” 

And even then he sounds as if he’d rather not listen to whatever she has to say. He still follows her towards one of the two dressing rooms they have available at this venue. 

She paces towards the far end of the room, trying to gather herself a little. When she turns around, Noah is leaning against the door. 

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing but this act –” Pia gestures towards him, “is not doing you any favours. I know what it’s like to be the new band on a bill. All of us do. But you need to cut back on the attitude. If someone asks if you have five minutes to help with bringing boxes inside, the least you could do is pretend to listen.” 

His face twists into a frown, but he remains silent. 

“And this is not the first time people have noticed this. If you want to act as if you’re better than all of us, by all means do it, but it’s not going to help you make friends.”

“Who says that I want friends?” 

Pia thinks that he sounds more like a bratty teenager than the Alex Turner-esque cool guy he’s trying to be. 

“You need friends – contacts – people don’t fucking hate you in this industry.” 

He has the audacity to scoff.

“I really don’t know what your play here is.” Pia shakes her head, “Do you think that this is going to help any of you in the long run? Burning bridges on your first international tour is not going to make anyone want to take you on again.” 

“Then we’ll just go on our own.” 

“You know that you cannot make it on your own in this industry right? Egotism and this fucking awful attitude will not sell your records.” 

Pia realises that this is going exactly nowhere. She gets ready to push her way out of the room, but Noah makes no indication that he’s willing to move away from the door. 

“Why do you think that I need to hear you tell me how to go about our career? We’ve gotten this far without help.” The almost cocky sound of his voice makes her want to jab her fist into his stomach. 

“Why are you here then? If you need no one, why did you agree to this?” 

Noah doesn’t have a quipped reply for this question. She can practically see the cogs in his head turning. 

“You don’t need to put on this weird ass tough guy act. Whatever you think it’s achieving it’s not doing that. It makes you look like a dickhead and if that’s who you want to be, that’s great. But the guy who replied to my initial text didn’t seem like a dickhead.” 

Noah fixes her with an odd glare. She thinks that he wants to say something, but he remains silent. 

“I get it – wanting to make it on your own. But that’s just not how this works. I would know. I tried.”

Pia doesn’t know why she’s trying to convince him of something he very clearly does not want to understand. She has no horses in this race. It shouldn’t matter to her if they “make” it or not. And yet here she is. Watching someone who very clearly has the ambition and talent for this flush it down the drain with an awful attitude just feels wrong. 

Pia can’t decipher the emotion that flickers across his face. 

“This has to work out.” He says quietly. 

It’s a moment of vulnerability Pia hadn’t expected out of this confrontation. 

“I know. But you need to get your act together. And you need to do it quickly. Alex is already on my ass about me putting a word in for you. I’d hate to be wrong about this.”

They’re silent for a long moment and Pia feels as if there’s something Noah wants to say. But he doesn’t. He remains silent – albeit not stoically. No, this is someone who was caught, someone who she thinks looks at least a little ashamed of how he’d acted. 

“Can you move away from the door? I need to pee.” Pia says after a long moment. 

It’s only half the truth. 

The reality is that she needs to get out of this room as soon as possible. She doesn’t need him to see her fight her tears or the panic that is threatening to bubble over in her chest. 

Noah steps out of the way, but doesn’t look at her. 

“Don’t think you’re off the hook.” she says as she opens the door, “If this has to work out, fucking act like it.” 

Pia slips out of the dressing up and, as quickly as her feet will carry her, makes her way into the nearest restroom. As soon as the door clicks shut behind her, her breathing is out of control. She has to clasp her hands together to stop them from shaking, but even that doesn’t seem to help much. 

She doesn't do this. 

She doesn’t do confrontational like that. 

And now she pays the price. 

The adrenaline has worn off and all she is left with is panicked breathing. The tightness in her chest is like an old friend these days, but something about this feels worse. This isn’t like the panic that grips her when she remembers that day. 

It takes her a moment to feel like she’s a person again. 

And once the panic has subsided, Pia lets herself out of the restroom again. When she makes it back into the other dressing room that has been designated as a communal space she finds Alex and Noah wrought up in a conversation. She doesn’t involve herself in it, but she makes a note of the fact that Noah seems to be capable of accepting advice, after all. 

“So I was thinking – we’ve done Crownless with Kadeem this whole run. What if we do it with Noah?” Alex suggests, and Pia almost chokes on her water, “Just as a change of pace.” 

It’s been a day since they’d had their conversation in the dressing room. This is the London show, their hometown show. A part of her had hoped that they’d be able to get Sam to come, but he’d sent her a very apologetic text to say that he wouldn’t be able to make it. 

Bringing Noah out at this show in particular feels bigger than it probably is. 

“Sure.” she says flatly, “Why not.” 

Alex looks as if he’s won a bet, and she doesn’t like it one bit. 

It wouldn’t be the first time that they’d tried to play her like this. She eyes Alex for a moment longer before she shakes herself out of her stupor. 

“Does he know about this?” she asks then. 

“Oh, he brought it up when we talked about it. Said that it’s his favourite.” 

And suddenly it all makes sense. 

This has to be Noah’s attempt at showing her that he’s willing to put in the work. 

“Great. I’ll go find him.” she sighs. 

She finds all of the band at the back of the venue, sitting neatly lined up on the low wall near where the bus and vans are parked. There’s something oddly sweet about Nick and Noah sharing a cigarette as they talk. 

Pia stays at the door, waiting for him to notice her. When he does, Noah passes the cigarette back to Nick and hops off the wall. 

It only takes him a few long strides to reach her. 

“Hi.” he says, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. 

“Got a moment?”

“You wanna tell me how I’m a massive fuck-up again?” there’s a hint of a smirk on his face, and Pia feels her insides heat.

“You already know that.” His smile widens a little, “Alex said something about you liking Crownless?” 

“Like?” He looks almost appalled, “That’s one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.” 

Pia’s sure that he’s one wrong move away from breaking into a speech about it. 

“Do you know the words to Sam’s part?” 

She watches as the pieces of the puzzle assemble in his brain. It’s a little endearing to see his face light up when it finally clicks. 

“Of course.”

“Good.” for a second she thinks that it’d be hilarious if she’d just leave it at that and leave him standing here like this, “You wanna do it with us?” 

“I’d love to. Thank you.” Noah looks genuinely thankful, “Really.” 

“Alright London.” she paces along the length of the stage, “You know that we usually bring out a friend for this one. Now, bad news first. Sam’s busy.” a round of ohs goes through the audience, “Good news, we found someone else to do it.”

The noise of Liam’s kick drum is almost drowned out by the cheers of the crowd. 

They start into the song and Pia goes through her usual moves. 

She looks over to the side of the stage, where she can just make out Noah. Something about the way he looks at her is different. 

He watches her every move, focused entirely on her. It sends a shiver down her spine and Pia almost misses her cue to continue the song. When the part he’s supposed to do comes up, she holds her hand out signalling to the crowd — and Noah that it’s time. 

He practically bounds onto the stage. 

She has watched a few of their sets but seeing him this up close feels different. 

He brings a massive amount of energy to the stage, his presence demands the audience's attention. Some of the girls in the audience seem to be particularly drawn to him and in a way she gets it. 

She’s never denied that he’s attractive. Tall and tattooed just so happens to be something she enjoys. 

Before she knows it they’re heading towards the high point of the song. She knows that Noah has the capabilities to pull it off, but actually hearing him pull the low growls out of his admittedly slight frame still surprises her a little. 

He does better than Pia had expected — not that she’d expected him to mess it up. 

“Make some noise for Noah from Bad Omens!” She calls as the last notes of the song ring out through the venue. 

She watches him take in the deserved applause the audience showers him with. Pia thinks that he looks a little too surprised by the reception for someone who’d just a few days acted as if he is already headlining the biggest venues of the country. Noah gives a slight bow and then turns to her. Without even thinking about it she pulls him into a quick hug. And just for a moment his hand rests at the small of her back but it’s enough to send a shock of electricity through her body. Noah pulls away not even a second after that. 

He felt it too, she thinks. 

Static surely. 

He stays at the side of the stage watching the rest of their set and Pia is acutely aware of his eyes on her body. He burrows into the marrow of her bones, settles in the cracks of her that have ached for this kind of attention. And at the same time she feels nauseous knowing that someone who is not Marcus looks at her like this. It’s different when she doesn’t know that it’s happening, when it’s someone from the audience. But this — knowing that Noah is watching her so intently makes her skin crawl in the most confusing way. 

They’re barely on speaking terms. There’s still a little bit of that tension bubbling underneath the surface. She still thinks that he’s sabotaging himself and it’s frustrating. And still — she likes how he looks at her. 

The audience is still roaring when they finally leave the stage. Her blood buzzes with the thrill of it. This is the good kind of adrenaline rush, the one that makes her feel alive again. She’s missed this more than anything. 

Alex knows the guy who owns the venue, and they’re allowed to host a little get-together with friends after the show. Pia doesn’t plan to get drunk, but she also can’t say no to the drink Morgan shoves into her hand. She’s surprised to see Noah, eyes heavy with something. 

He finds her looking at him, and she swears that he blushes a little. Maybe it’s the heat inside this room too. She keeps catching him staring at her and after a while the heat around her becomes too much to bear.

Pia pushes out of the main room into the backstage area of the venue. She has to escape the mass of bodies and eyes for just a moment. 

She finds her way into one of the dressing rooms. It’s quiet here, a little cooler too. 

Her heart races at a thousand miles a minute, but this time it’s not the anxiety. It’s been ages since she’s allowed herself to feel this — attraction, lust. Since Marcus, she’d retreated into a shell warding off every kind of advance. 

Pia still doesn’t want the commitment. She can’t tie herself to someone else yet. But she still feels Noah’s hand on her back, his eyes drifting across her body. 

She wants to know if his skin is as soft as it looks, what kind of noise he’ll make if she pushes his buttons. 

Starting anything with him now would be incredibly unprofessional. 

The door opens before she can make up her mind about it. 

“Everything okay?” He asks and Pia almost wants to say that nothing is okay. 

She nods, “Yea sure just needed to — get out of there for a moment.” 

Pia feels his eyes burning into her back. 

She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to control herself if she looks at him now. 

“Do I need to give you a speech about how not looking at people when you talk to them is rude too?” Noah says, and she knows that this damned cocky look is on his face again. 

The need and annoyance fight for dominance in her chest. He still makes her want to claw at her eyes, that hasn’t changed. The buzz under her skin, that’s new. 

He’s so awfully full of himself sometimes. He talks so much about wanting to make it when they’ve barely gotten started. 

She listens as he steps closer to her. 

“You know for someone who talks so much about how we need to make friends, you’re being really unfriendly right now.” 

Pia fights the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Do you always talk this much shit?” she asks, finally turning to face him. 

“Maybe you bring that quality in me out.” 

It’s obvious that he’s had a few drinks – maybe something else too. She’s not much better off either. Her own thoughts swim and waver and her self-control is teetering right at the very edge. 

“I think it’s a natural talent.” she quips back. 

They’re so awfully close – too close. 

She can smell the alcohol, the cigarette, the weed.

He hums, “Nah I think that’s all you. Normally I’m much more chill.” “I don’t buy it.” she shakes her head, “You look like you’re fucking annoying most days.” 

“That so? Why were you so worried about how we go about our band then?” 

Something inside her snaps then. Pia yanks him down by the collar of his shirt. 

Noah lets out a surprised little sound when their lips meet. 

Her hands skitter across her body, trying to find purchase. They settle at her waist, fingers digging into her flesh almost desperately. 

There’s a hunger in the way he kisses her. It’s the same kind of starved need that has made its home in Pia's chest. 

Feeling someone else's hands on her body again is a little odd – but she needs this. She needs to feel wanted. 

She shoves her hands under his shirt. His skin is so warm beneath her fingers. He feels softer than she’d anticipated. 

Noah sighs against her lips. 

It’s a brief moment of tenderness before Pia catches herself again. Tender isn’t what she’s after. 

She scrapes her nails against his back. 

He winches, pulling away from her. 

“Are you going to stay in a shit mood even when we fuck?” Noah asks bluntly, and she almost wants to punch his lights out. 

The assumption is one thing, but it’s the way he says it. 

“Shut up, Noah.” she says instead of aiming for his jaw. 

For a moment, she thinks that he’s about to walk out on her, but then she feels his hands flex against her waist. 

He lets out a quiet curse before he leans in to kiss her again. Pia allows herself to melt a little in his hold, lets him pull her in closer. 

They barely make it to the sofa. Pia finds herself straddling him, arms draped over his shoulders. She grinds down against him, and Noah lets out what she can only describe as a whine. 

It’s a little amusing. 

He rights himself quickly enough, though. She knows that this was a slip up. A sound like that isn’t meant for a moment like this. 

She fumbles with his belt, yanking at it a little rougher than she’d planned. Noah lets her undo it without intervening. 

Getting out of their clothes proves to be a bit of a struggle with neither of them being very willing to move, but somehow they manage to free up just the necessary parts. 

Noah’s fingers trace through her folds. 

Pia lets her head drop back when his fingers dip into her. The long digits curl against her, thumb pressing against her clit. She lets out a sigh of her own. If she were looking for something soft and intimate, she’d let him continue like this. But that isn’t what they’re here for. 

She tangles her hand into his hair, tugging at it rather harshly. 

“Fuck.” he groans, “Ready?”

“Yes.” her reply sounds less steady than she’d hoped, but what is she supposed to do with his fingers still moving inside of her, “Condom?” 

“Shit. Yes.” he tries to reach for the backpack that sits at the side of the sofa, but can’t quite seem to reach it. 

Pia clambers off him. In the corner of her vision she sees him pulling off his underwear. She’d get it if he’s cocky about that. 

“Where?” she asks, crouching down in front of the bag.

“Front zip.” 

Noah sounds a little breathless and when she gives a brief look over her shoulder she understands why. His hand is wrapped around his cock, slowly and carefully teasing himself. 

She digs through the zipped compartment, trying to find the foil wrappers. She passes snack bars, receipts, folded up notes before she finally finds what she’s looking for. Pia sets herself upright again. 

When she turns back to Noah, he’s reclined against the back of the sofa. He watches her with hooded eyes. His hand has stilled, but it’s still wrapped around his length. 

Pia rips open the wrapper as she makes her way back towards him. She places herself back on his lap and one of his hands immediately finds its way towards her waist. 

Noah lets her take him into her hand. His eyes flicker between where she carefully puts the condom on him and her face. Once it’s on, Pia sits up. 

His hand remains on her waist when she shuffles forward. 

Pia feels her breath catch in her throat when she sinks down on him. It’s been too long and her own fingers just don’t compare to this. He fills her so perfectly, it’s almost too much. Her movements falter for a moment. 

His hands shift on the body, one remains on her waist while the other finds its home on her backside. 

She chances a look at him. 

Noah’s face and neck are flushed pink. It’s barely visible beneath the tattoos of his neck, but it crawls lower beneath the neckline of his shirt. He draws in a deep breath, and she thinks that he feels just as shaken by this as she does. 

Everything about him feels different from Marcus and maybe that makes it easier to push the vision of their last time together from her memory. 

She lifts herself up again, until just the tip of him remains inside of her. 

When she sinks down this time it doesn’t feel as groundbreaking anymore.

With his hands steadying her Pia manages to find a comfortable rhythm. But it all feels too tender, too intimate, too close. 

Noah seems to sense that they need a change of pace too. His hands dig into her flesh with more determination. 

“Don’t get soft on me now, Desmond.” He chokes out through gritted teeth, “Had so much bite a moment ago.”

She feels his dull nails digging into her skin. 

“You want bite, huh?” She shoots back. 

If he wants bite, that's what he’ll get. 

Pia brings her hand back to the back of his head. Her fingers tangle into his hair once more, gearing up to tug at it. His reaction from the first time she did it still reverberates around her mind, and she needs to hear it again. 

Noah lets her yank his head back, allowing her to scrape her teeth across the skin of his neck. This time he rewards her with a groan. 

Pia lets herself get lost in the feeling. 

Between his hands on her body and the drag of his cock inside of her, she can’t quite decide what she is supposed to focus on. It’s just the right amount of too much. There’s no rational thought left in her head. Everything that tries to tell that this is foolish, that they shouldn’t be doing this has been drowned out by nothing but pleasure. 

A moment later, she finds herself on her back with Noah leaning above her. She brings a leg around his waist. He’s surprisingly rough with her. Pia doesn’t have time to question where this is coming from, but that won’t stop her from enjoying it. 

She drags her nails along Noah’s back, pulling another moan from him. 

He grips into her thigh, keeping her leg angled up. 

All thoughts about wanting to come across a certain way fall from her brain when he readjusts his position. She lets her head fall back, allowing the pleasure to take over all of her. That thrum of static soon makes itself known. It crawls up the length of her body, twists around her spine.

She can see his determination wavering. It’s starting to get to him too. 

Pia doesn’t know how much more of this she’ll be able to take. She can feel herself getting closer and closer to the tipping point. The sounds Noah makes only push her further. He sounds so worn out, so lost in his own pleasure. 

She pushes the loose hair away from his face, just to get a better look at him. Noah briefly leans into her touch, but quickly catches himself before the tenderness of the moment really settles. 

His eyes meet hers. 

The lids of his eyes are heavy, and he barely manages to hold her gaze. 

He folds forward then, leaning in to kiss her. 

“You feel so fucking good.” the breathless words barely reach her mind. 

It’s the first thing he’s said to her since she settled back in his lap, and actually hearing how affected he is by all of this makes her insides bubble up a little. 

The particularly rough thrust he gives after that makes her gasp out loud. 

“Getting close?” his breath brushes against the skin of her cheek as he speaks, “Fuck. I don’t know – I don’t know how long I’m gonna last.” 

Pia pushes a hand between them. She gasps when she makes contact with herself. It doesn’t take her much, just a few swipes of her fingers across her clit. Her climax pulls Noah across the edge too. 

He follows her down the ledge so easily, burying his face in the side of her neck as he tries his best to work both of them through their highs. But his movements have become unsteady and almost erratic, as if it’s all becoming too much for him. 

He stays leaning over her body for a few moments, drawing deep breaths into his lungs. 

Pia lets her eyes fall shut for a moment. She feels Noah remove himself from her. The weight of his body disappears, and Pia feels herself shiver with the sudden chill. She lies still as he rummages around the room. 

When she dares to open her eyes, she finds him pulling on his underwear. He doesn’t seem to notice that she’s watching him, and Pia takes a moment to take the shape of him in. For a moment, while he’d been leaning over her, she could have sworn that there was more of him. 

He crosses the room to where the venue had set up a now mostly raided table with snacks for them. He plucks something from the table and picks up a bottle of water before he comes back to her. 

Noah holds both the bottle and the chocolate bar out to her. 

“Not a lot left. I don’t know if you like those.” he says, likely regarding the chocolate bar. 

It’s not her favourite but the thought counts. 

“Thank you.” she replies quietly. 

Pia sits up against the armrest of the sofa, pulling her legs up against her chest. 

The first sip of water feels like the best and most refreshing she’s ever had. 

They’re quiet for a while.

Noah sits at the opposite end of the sofa, still only half dressed, trying to look as if the moment isn’t as awkward as it is. 

He speaks up, just as Pia takes a bite out of her chocolate bar. 

“So what happens now?” 

The truth is that she doesn’t know how they’ll move on from this either. 

She’s glad that she’s still trying to get through the caramel filling of the chocolate bar and doesn’t have to answer his questions just yet. 

“I mean – do we just pretend that this didn’t happen?” he doesn’t look at her and in a way Pia understands. 

“We don’t have to.” she says finally, “Personally I would prefer it if the others wouldn’t know, but that’s more of an I don’t need my friends to know who I sleep with thing. Morgan’s terrible at keeping secrets.” 

She holds out the other half of the chocolate bar to Noah. He takes it from her with a thin smile. 

“We’re both adults. This is completely fine and normal, and it doesn’t have to be complicated.” she continues, “We have what – two weeks of this tour left? If we feel like doing this again I don’t think that there’s any harm in it. Tour’s rough sometimes. A little comfort can’t hurt.” 

Noah nods, now silenced by the caramel as she was a moment ago. 

“Obviously I’m just speaking for myself here, but I’m not exactly looking for complicated right now. I get it if that’s what you were hoping this would become. I just want you to know where I stand.” 

He shakes his head quickly, “No – no I’ll be honest I didn’t think much farther than this. I don’t know where this band is going to go and getting into a relationship when I don’t know if I’ll have the time to do that justice feels shit.” 

“So we’re on the same page. If we happen to be in the same place, and we’re up for it, a repeat of this –” she gestures vaguely between them, “Is an option. No hard feelings if someone changes their mind and no obligations.” 

“Sounds good.” Noah agrees, “I think I’m gonna head back out before someone starts asking questions.” 

No obligations also means no pleasantries. 

Pia has set up the rule, and so she swallows the lump in her throat. 

It happens again at the next venue – the one after that. 

There’s no rhythm to how it starts, nothing that triggers it. They’d agreed on no obligations, but Pia still feels a little odd when he doesn’t pull her aside for a day or two. She’d noticed that Noah had thawed a little since their first encounter; he seems less rigid when he talks to the others, more willing to take part in the community aspect of it all. 

And when his behaviour reverts back to the quiet and cold she’d grown to dislike she notices immediately. 

Through a conversation with Jolly she’d learned that Noah retreats to the van they’ve rented for this tour when his headaches get too bad. And when she doesn’t see him for most of the day, Pia goes to investigate. 

The windows of the van are covered in tarps and blankets to darken the interior – they’d done the same back when they still toured in a van. 

No obligations doesn’t mean that she doesn’t worry or care, and so she takes a trip to the pharmacy she saw as they arrived here. She’s sure that he has whatever he needs, but a few necessities can’t hurt. 

Armed with pain medication, fresh coffee and a sandwich, Pia goes to fetch the ice pack from the freezer on the bus. 

She feels a little odd knocking on the window of the van. And in the moments it takes Noah to pull open the door she wonders if this was a bad idea after all. 

He looks pleasantly surprised to see her even when he still seems a little groggy. 

“Nick said you weren’t feeling well?” she starts, “I got you some stuff.” 

He looks from her face to her hands and back to her face. 

“I thought we said no obligations.” 

Pia rolls her eyes, “Listen.”

His face breaks into a faint smile then, “Thank you. I ran out of pain meds, so that’s a lifesaver.”

“I got what the guy in the pharmacy suggested, so if they’re shit blame him not me. Also, I don’t know how you drink your coffee, so I got what Nick had. I hope that’s okay.” 

“That's really nice of you, Desmond.” 

“I am determined to keep up my good reputation. Don’t think that makes us friends.” 

His head drops as he lets out a quiet laugh, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good. We’re having dinner at 5:30 by the way.”

“I’ll be there.” 

It’s the last day of the tour. 

The last stop. 

Cardiff. 

They’re staying the night before people will go their own ways again. Alex had insisted that they have a big dinner together, maybe drinks afterwards. And knowing Alex that meant that they’ll only see the insides of their hotel rooms for a few hours to get changed and maybe shower. 

For once, Pia doesn’t feel like drowning herself in liquor. 

Pia stuffs the book she’s been reading into her backpack. If she times things right, she’ll be able to just slip away when they move from the restaurant to the first bar. Maybe she’ll even stay for a little bit. 

It was a good tour, all things considered. 

Finally getting the songs out, hearing other people's reception to them, had eased the pain in her chest a little bit. Naturally, it didn’t heal everything, but she feels a little bit better. 

Going home will still be odd.

Maybe she’ll ask Morgan to stay with her for a day or so. 

The door to the dressing room opens. 

“Oh – sorry.” Noah says quickly, “Didn’t know you were still in here.” 

He’s clad in nothing but a blue and gray striped towel. His hair still drips from the shower he just had, and the droplets of water race down his chest. 

“I was just packing up. I can do something else if you want to –” she gestures towards him. 

“Nothing you haven’t seen before.” he shrugs, “If you don’t mind.” 

She keeps her back turned towards him, keeping herself busy with packing and repacking her backpack, all in an effort to not turn around. 

She already feels a little too attached to him. 

The end of the tour can’t come soon enough in that regard. 

“Are you going out with the rest?” Noah asks. 

“For a bit.” Pia replies, “You?”

“Of course. Gotta make the most of this, no?” 

Pia can’t stop herself from letting out a little chuckle, “Sure. Just don’t let Liam involve you in his drinking games. You cannot out drink him.”

“Noted.” 

They fall silent after that, both busy with their own things. Pia is just about to zip up her bag when she feels the warmth of a body behind her. 

“Am I going to see you before we leave?” He asks a little too softly. 

“Noah.”

“I don’t know when I’m going to see you again and — said it yourself gotta foster my connections and all that.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” He replies, and she knows that he has that little smile on his face, “But maybe you’ll let me have this. Who knows if this’ll happen ever again. Maybe we’ll never cross paths again.”

Pia has discovered that she is incredibly bad at saying no to him. 

And so they do end up back in her hotel room after dinner. Noah has the cheek to call it dessert when he’d made his home between her thighs and for a brief second Pia considers just walking out of the room. But all that is quickly forgotten when she feels his fingers, his tongue on her. He’s careful and diligent, taking his time to explore her like this. 

She knows that he’ll be gone in the morning. 

They’re taking an early flight out. 

He’ll be long gone by the time she wakes up, and so she allows him to indulge in this. Or maybe she’s the one indulging. 

He is right after all there’s no knowing when they’ll meet again. 

Pia is home for two days when his message pops up on her phone. 

⮘ What are you up to in October? Just got news that we’ll be heading your way again. 

She wonders if he already knew when they’d said their goodbyes. He had to have known. 

Either way, she feels a little bit too excited about the message — and the prospect of seeing him again. 

No obligations, she repeats in her head, no responsibilities. 

Just really bad decisions. 

taglist: @th4t-em0-k1d @malice-ov-mercy @fadingangelwisp @baddestomens @chey-h @theanarchymuse95 @sitkowski @deathblacksmoke @concretejunglefm @xmads-omensx @saythatuwill @lacy1986 @somebodyels3 @ladyveronikawrites @ferduttini @circle-with-me @collapsedglasshouses @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @renegadebirch @ami--gami @dominuslunae

[dem0nteef]

excerpts

started off as a slice of life, tumbled down hard into satanic church politics, theology, slow burn, a bit of flowery language and perpetua's road to becoming the new papa. twins twinning and trying to close the distance left by years of not knowing of the other's existence, too. also ended up with like two new ghoulettes and at least two side-cardinals and an entire swedish bishop.

i might also be a bit too obsessed with silver and starlight comparisons. i am sorry, the creechur is too lovely!!!!

anyway here are some excerpts:

excerpt 1

Right now, from behind, you cannot see his face. Only the way V holds his spine — straight, unyielding — and the way the air shifts as his words land. And still, you know.

Know that he's proving what you have whispered before the chamber doors opened: that the star in his eye had been placed there by the Morningstar himself, and it would scorch those foolish enough to question its presence.

excerpt 2

“Even if you walked away from all of this tomorrow, I wouldn’t be disappointed. I couldn’t be.”

His eyes open at that—startled, almost. He meets your gaze, and something in its certainty pulls at the center of him. It aches, and it makes his chest feel tight in that strange, vulnerable way that only real things can.

He’s always wanted this. Always craved it.

All his life, he was the one to believe, not be believed in. For years, there was only emptiness disguised for a god. Ephemeral figures flitting through his life, never quite staying long enough to be real. Silent saints. Empty sanctuaries. People who left when the shadows grew long.

This is different. This is warm and solid. This is human. Private. This is his.

He shifts on the settee, turning to face you more fully, taking your hand again. Holding it like it anchors him to the floor of the studio, to this moment, to the version of himself he’s still learning how to become.

He’s imagined leaving it all behind—books under his arm, a coat slung over his shoulder, the weight of legacy traded for freedom. A quiet life. A little house somewhere far from cathedrals of any sort. Just time and space and you.

Always you.

But he could never ask you to leave what you've built, to leave it all behind. He could barely ask himself.

excerpt 3

You watch him, heart aching with fondness. You have rarely seen him speak so freely of his music, so utterly captivated by his work, eager to share his vision with the world.

He’s radiant like this, at ease within the safe confines of his own creation — unburdened, unbound, free.

His passion is contagious, swelling inside you until you fear it might swallow you whole. Only the quiet awareness that these moments are meant to remain private stops you from taking his face in your hands and covering him with kisses.

There’s an intensity about him now, a singular focus. His gaze drifts, lost in the realm of creation, his voice alive with barely contained excitement.

In this moment, he is not just the frontman of the Ghost Project. Not Papa V Perpetua. Not a replacement, a copy, or the Clergy’s puppet. Not his brother’s shadow.

His eyes shine, gaze focused but distant — not on you or the room, but on some far-off place inside his mind where he’s arranging symphonies, retracing the creation of Lachryma.

This is just... V. Your V, with his music and that star-kissed silver eye.

You wonder if Freddie was right when he sang, Too Much Love Will Kill You.

excerpt 4

V has never stood before a gauntlet like this, not truly, and you have feared — no, not doubted, but feared — that the blood and dust of his former life might cling too closely in a room like this. That your rehearsals, nights spent plotting each tactic with care, might prove too brittle.

But he stands. He has spoken.

And the words — his words, not just what he's learnt — have carved through the chamber like silver drawn across soft flesh. Measured. Meaningful. Unforgiving.

He is still learning how to carry the knife but today, he wields it well.

Your pride surges so high it nearly makes you sway.

You have seen many men bluff and stumble under less heat; this one stands. Still. Certain. Beautiful.

And when V speaks of the Morningstar, it is not just performance.

It is belief.

[fanfic-lover-girl]

Why I picture the big three kids with Jason instead of Thalia

Now I have seen at least two posts which I am 90% sure I have queued for reblog where the people claim that the concept of the male little three is due to sexism. That it should be:

Percy, Thalia, Nico or

Percy, Jason, Hazel

But honestly I reject this form of fandom policing. When I got into pjo fandom and I hardly knew who Nico even was, I preferred the male little three fanarts over the ones with Thalia, and after knowing a bit more canon, my preference is solidified.

Hazel is cool, but since I haven't spent time learning about HOO, I don't care much about her or the other HOO characters. Plus, I find Nico way cooler as a Hades kid than her. His powers are awesome!

Here are my simple, non-sexist reasons for preferring Percy, Jason and Nico as my big three kids, instead of Thalia:

Character preference:

TLDR - I dislike Thalia. Neutral on Jason. Next!

Fanart Aesthetic:

I just think the boys look better together than Thalia with her cousins. One of my favourite fanarts of them is the ones where they have Ancient Greek outfits with the laurels. They are so cute! There's something about Thalia that doesn't make her fit. Not a fan of punk characters and with her hunters' get-up, she doesn't belong in my opinion. Especially as the boys get older and she's stuck as a teenager. Not my vibe.

Jason has more canon potential to complete the cousin group:

Thalia and Percy have a great relationship. But Thalia and Nico hardly interact. Plus, Nico probably wouldn't be happy being around her much due to what happened with Bianca. Jason, on the other hand, had the potential to be a great bro for Percy AND he has a good relationship with Nico. PLUS, the three of them represent the unity of the camps.

Leadership:

I like those video edits that showcase the parallels of the boys' vulnerabilities. All the boys have earned huge leadership roles, which set them apart. Thalia is a lieutenant of the hunters...but let's be real. Jason defeated a titan. Thalia was a nepo baby and got power handed to her. There is no comparison.

Plot relevance:

One of the things I hate about Thalia is her total irrelevance after book 3. She had so much buildup, interesting backstory with Annie and Luke...then she becomes Artemis' lapdog and vanishes from the dealings of the plot. Her connection to Percy and Nico feels distant because of this. She's in a different world. The boys, on the other hand, have major roles in both series and are integral to the action. Honestly, Thalia could have stayed a tree, and nothing would have changed, really.

Standing up to their fathers:

Between the two of them, Jason is the true rebel to match Nico and Percy, especially Nico. Percy doesn't really stand up to Poseidon per se, but he has been shown to make his case to Poseidon, eg. petitioning to keep Bessie alive and convincing Poseidon to fight Typhoon. Jason spent his entire life loyal to the gods...yet when he meets Zeus for the first time, he stands up for Apollo to his father with little hesitation. Not even Percy did that, and he actually knows Apollo! What has airhead Apollo done for Jason? But, like Nico, he was willing to call out his father when he saw an injustice.

Zeus has helped Thalia more than Jupiter ever helped Jason. Zeus "saved" her life and provided a guide for her. Jupiter offered up Jason as a token to Juno/Hera. Thalia spent her life cursing the gods with Luke, but she was obviously a sellout because every time she met Zeus, she was like, "Thank you, Daddy 🥰". Not faulting her for wanting parental approval, but the point still stands. Thalia is a faker and it's probably the best that she and Luke never met again. If Thalia was that important, she would have been by Percy's side in TLO demanding better for demigods. But Rick literally took her out of the climax with a dumb statue. Wasted potential.

Anyway, these are my reasons why Jason is better than Thalia and deserves his spot in my version of the little three.

[hostilemuppet]

DELTARUNE SPOILER !!! pls don’t come after me I saw that u drew it !

(This is about about the thorn ring scene w Kris and Noel, but it can be applied to the rest of the game ig)

It’s interesting that ppl don’t understand how interpreting then making a hypothesis to slowly make up a theory forged from multiple perspectives and opinions works... Maybe the weird route is called the weird route for a reason and is still missing a bunch of context and lore about what and why it is happening…. Maybe…. ppl are going to be a little extreme when decoding (it is really not that extreme btw) what the scene is trying to say lore wise about Kris or Noel or whatever

Sometimes it’s necessary to pull out that inner English teacher to understand stuff

(dw ive beaten the game and ive seen everything i care about)

i dont even think this is "inner english teacher" i think this is just like. basic english (so i understand people who arent native english speakers not getting it) and - ik this has become a meaningless buzzword lately - media literacy

[deltarune weird route chapter 4 spoilers + discussion of sa]

heres what happens in The Scene: a teenage girl talks to her friend who she trusts, alone in her bedroom with "no one" else around. she talks about them comforting her. once you take control over kris, you deny her the privacy of her own thoughts - she has nowhere she can escape, even her own head - and you force kris to grab her while she tries to get away. she says she thought they wanted to protect her, and she wants to run away but cant, as kris tries to fight what youre making them do but cant because youre inside them. you make kris force something into their friend. the screen goes black, and a flower blooms between where the two sat, before losing its petals. kris shambles to the bathroom in a haze, and kicks the shit out of you for making them do that, for doing that to them. when susie asks what kris and susie talked about, both you and kris have nothing to say

i think its obvious where the SA comparisons come from. even without the flower, grabbing someone and forcing something inside them ALONE would raise alarm bells, but the rest of the scene already was vomit inducing and i knew exactly what was going on. the flower was just the icing on the cake. or. the cherry on top, might be more appropriate

the idea that someone could only see parallels to SA if they were "a weirdo" who "cant be normal" and is just "desperate to see a kid get raped" because they "get off on it" is. such a fucking evil sentiment i cant even begin to get into it. for one, SA survivors just might be reminded of their own experiences (i know! SA survivors are people who are often able to use the internet and might even like video games! its shocking), for another, most people SHOULD recognise signs of SA. the alternative is that it could happen right in front of them, even in real life, and theyd be oblivious to stop it. didnt we just have this SAME EXACT conversation with mouthwashing? where anyone who missed jimmy raping and impregnating anya was considered a moron?

but people keep saying "toby fox wouldnt do that!" as if they know him personally. you have no idea what toby wants to put in his games. you dont know what his vision is. just because he hasnt dealt with these topics before doesnt mean he never can; hed be a pretty boring writer if he only dealt with one topic over and over again with zero variation. im no expert, but im pretty sure hes never made a game with a punk dinosaur girl who eats chalk before either. does that mean he never can?

related: people saying "he wouldnt do that with two minors" is something i find particularly evil, because it either implies they think minors cant assault other minors (ignoring how its actually the player assaulting two minors, but these people also dont seem to understand the weird route conceptually. ive already seen "why do you want kris to sa noelle so badly 🤨" KRIS WAS ALSO BEING ASSAULTED!) OR. theyd be totally okay if it was an adult assaulting another adult. which implies they think of it as just "sex, that happens to be not be consensual" instead of the act of violence it is. someone doesnt rape someone because they were horny and they didnt realise the other person didnt want it, they rape someone because they are making the conscious choice to discard their victims bodily autonomy, to take control of them, to hurt and humiliate

and THAT is why it fits right in with the weird route. the weird route takes the whole games themes of lack of choices and the way you take control of kris, and ramps it up 10x, with you forcing kris to force noelle to do horrible things, because you as the player want bad things to happen, you want to hurt them. and ch2 was very much in line with an abusive romantic relationship: there was a WEDDING RING. if you think this is "out of nowhere" you havent been paying attention. we didnt expect it, but that doesnt mean it doesnt make a lot of sense

which is why i genuinely refuse to believe it was unintentional. theres no way toby fox is that stupid to include an abusive relationship allegory between two teenagers and then a deflowering motif. with so much symbolism and hidden meaning in his game, and how much thought goes into every little thing, theres no way he had no idea what "deflowering" meant for FOUR YEARS, and even if he didnt know, do you know how low the chances are that NO ONE who worked on or playtested that segment knew, or at least knew but chose not to say anything? they have not invented a number small enough yet

it just boggles the mind how anyone could say "see, he removed it so he clearly didnt intend it you gooner freaks", as if the only reason anyone would ever think about SA is bc theyre getting off on it. which really says more about the person saying that, that they think of it as like. a porn category. they hear "sexual assault between teenagers" and they think "barely legal CNC video they saw on pornhub" instead of "cocsa". the idea that fiction could involve anything that isnt either for memes or for porn is inconceivable to them. if youre reminded of SA it must either because you think its funny or because youre getting off on it, even if the general response ive seen from people who saw it as SA was "it made me sick to my stomach"

this is the sinister middle part of the venn diagram between "fandomification declaws all serious topics in favour of silly memes and coffee shop aus" and "victims can never talk about what happened to them in case it makes normal people uncomfortable"

and its not lost on me that a SA reading makes you a weirdo freak, but forcing carol to be homophobic - bigotry is serious, especially from a parental figure who is implied to be not great at the very least, but thats okay to joke about? - seems to be the popular stance, when in the context of the game she just didnt want someone she doesnt know using her presumably dead daughters guitar

after all. toby fox has never tackled the concept of homophobia before. which as we all know means he never can

edit: i think these are appropriate here

[do-what-the-knight-tells-you]

Nice little case study demonstrating the biggest thing AI CAN'T do right now: meaning.

Even setting aside the fact that generative AI eats a ton of power and is trained usually unethically by scraping people's actual work and never crediting or compensating them-

AI makes choices predictively based on statistics in its data set and to adhere to prompts given. It is not making meaningful choices, because it does not understand what it's doing.

Part of the reason that an image set like this is a bigger giveaway than a single image, is because you can see this variation not only in style (which of course an artist can choose to do stuff in different style, or especially in posts where an artist is going through maybe a bunch of design choices they made over the course of several years they may vary quite a bit) but also you can see huge variation in details, as mentioned above.

It's not to say that a real artist cannot vary their details, but a lot of people make very specific choices? Because people have thoughts about the characters and how they would be or should be. And they make choices that align with those thoughts. And if they have made a choice about an object a character wears, or how a scar sits or something, they are very likely to make the same choice in a similar circumstance.

(think about people who are like "comparison! Me redrawing this art from 2 years ago! Look how far I have come!" Which is the most common scenario where you see an artist post a character in the same location and the same pose with the same objects etc as another drawing they have done. Their style may be different now than it was two years ago, and they may be making different choices about things like face proportion, but they are very likely to have the same outfit and extremely similar objects etc. and unless they set themselves a challenge to redraw the same image every year or something, you're unlikely to have three or four images that are the character in the same exact place and pose with the same objects etc.)

There's another comment on here pointing out that the tattoos being scribbles was a flag for them, because lots of artists will take drawing the tattoos either as a test to see how accurate they can get them in their scale/style, or often as an opportunity to do different small subtle or clever things- like maybe he's got more dragons than bats or maybe he's got elvish writing on his arms or maybe he's got a troll head instead of a demon head or whatever.

But of course there is no content there in the tattoos, it's just an aesthetic suggestion, presumably because the person who made the AI prompt did not specify what they should be, and so the AI just filled in the static pixel by pixel where tattoos are most likely to have ink.

For me, even before I saw the rest of the post discussion and before I realized it was AI, I popped that first image open, and started to scroll through them, and it was the rings that raised a red flag for me. Especially in those first few images, the second one particularly egregious, it's unclear whether they are rings or knuckle tattoos or a skin disorder. So very many artists would either have made them plain, but clear, if they were looking for a simple style, or would have taken the opportunity to do something interesting. Like again maybe instead of his pig head ring it's a dragon or whatever. But at least they would for sure look like rings.

(like maybe on the drawing that gives him really pointy ears like an elf, which is not at least movie standard for hobbits, maybe he would have a ring that looks like the even star, or a necklace that does, if that implied part elf thing was intentional and not an error of aesthetically predictive algorithmic generation)

Tldr: in fan drawings, especially a whole set of them, usually deeper scrutiny is both appreciated and warranted- artists like when the audience goes: "I love how you did his moles there" "I love that choice you made for that tattoo" "I love the reference to the hellfire logo on the door" "I love your interpretation of a scar here" etc. Even when the drawings are simple, like sketches, in a set of them like this you will be able to see the intentional choices and artist is making about how they think something would look either in their style or in whatever AU basically they have in their head.

But because AI does not do things with an understanding of meaning, you very rarely are rewarded for looking deeper on an AI image. Cuz there's no content to find; there's no mind who is interested in the content the same way you are, who is putting in specific evocative details.

There may be details that the person submitting the prompts told the AI to include, but there's only so many of those.

Drawings of Eddie and Steve and Dustin as Hobbits

[bigboobshaunt]

Saw a bluesky post saying that Erika Hilton is "our Ka*ala Ha*ris" and got such a sick feeling to my stomach over it.

[nellasbookplanet]

The fandom god discussion is interesting, but I feel it’s sometimes hindered by an unwillingness to separate gods from mortal society, or even a sort of over-eagerness to project our own reality onto them, which simply doesn’t work. I've seen the gods referred to as rulers or tyrants demanding worship (which I kinda understand because it’s something Ludinus says in-game, though it’s funny to see fandom corners confidently repeat the inaccurate talking points of the antagonist) but more interestingly I've also seen them referred to as a higher/the highest social class, as colonizers imposing themselves on mortals, the raven queen specifically as new money. Overall these comparisons tend to talk about the gods and their actions regarding Aeor in the past and predathos/the Vanguard in the present less as if they're about saving their own lives and more as if they want to preserve their powerful position.

The gods, by their very nature, are above mortals. They cannot be compared to any mortal ruling class because they didn’t choose or strive for that power and cannot feasibly get rid of it/step down/redistribute it (nor do they actually in any sense rule; killing the raven queen, unlike killing an actual queen, will not end the 'tyranny' of death), they simply have it by virtue of being gods. Saying that’s unfair or unequal and that the gods should be killed because of it is akin to saying it’s unfair a mountain is bigger than you and demanding it be levelled, except the gods, unlike mountains, are living, feeling beings who shouldn’t have to die because some people can’t stand the idea of not always being top dog. Thing is, the gods themselves ultimately understood this power imballance and that they can't help but hurt Exandria the way humans can't help but step on bugs, and thus removed themselves from the equation by creating the divine gate. Saying this isn’t enough and that they're clinging to power is just demanding they line themselves up to be killed.

[nattikay]

OC lineup! All the characters that currently exist in this "story"

[jean47mclean]

When we talk about characters in JJK feeling more like plot devices than actual people sometimes, Inumaki is actually a character that comes to mind for me. Along the list of people such as Tsumiki, Junpei, Mai, and Hana, I would also put Toge on there. His cursed technique is mentioned to be so powerful that he was the only one in his grade who was able to take solo missions as a first year (with his status being that of second grade), which is fairly uncommon. And to get an idea of comparison, Megumi was also a second grade his first year at JujuTech. While his technique is more simple in comparison to that of Ten Shadows or Love Rendezvous, it's still regarded as a very powerful technique right off the bat. When Yuuta uses the megaphone with the Inumaki clean seal, he even says: "that [the technique] really is hard to use. The cursed energy scatters and it's hard to focus it." Now, using cursed speech involves reinforcing any word spoken with cursed energy. And even though Toge chooses to speak in rice ball ingredients to help mitigate the risk of accidentally using his technique, I do believe that because he has had this technique since he was around 5 or 6 years old, the training required to know how to reinforce his words is probably so drilled into him that for him it's almost instinctual every time he talks.

Let's talk about his character for a second. And by that I mean the type of person he is. Obviously he's portrayed as this more quiet kid, but I believe a part of that comes from nearly a decade of living with this technique that can harm anyone any time he speaks. If he wasn't born with this technique, I do believe he would have grown up a lot less quiet than he is. Because on top of that, we've also seen him as someone who cares deeply for his friends and genuinely wants to talk to them. Which is why he developed his own way of communicating with those close to him, because he still wants to talk. There's just this fear that every time he does, if he isn't careful enough, it could lead to disaster. Imagine being constantly aware of this. My heart hurts for him. In JJK 0 at first Yuuta is rather intimated by him, due to his quiet nature and seemingly keeping to himself. I've had this headcanon for the longest time that when he was younger, Toge had a friend and when he was still getting used to his technique (because he was just a kid), he accidentally said something to injure his friend. I think it would just make a lot of sense, and add this layer of fear that he probably hides about hurting his friends unintentionally. Toge also loves hanging out with his friends. It's more subdued, but there are little hints sprinkled about that reflect that he has a more humorous side to him. An example I can give is Megumi saying he only respects Yuuta because all the other second years fool around. But we do get to see him shine a bit during the sister school exchange event, which was very awesome to see. I personally think the movie does a better job giving him more depth wise, whereas season 1 is more about using his technique to help with the fight against Hanami. We do get to see him care about Megumi in the small bit where he refuses to let Megumi pull his Mahoraga card out, which shows that Toge is aware of the severity of the Ten Shadows summon, and would rather destroy his own throat to smithereens before letting that happen. Again, he cares so so much.

We're getting into more headcanon territory now because like I said before, we don't really get much of Toge outside of JJK 0, the Goodwill arc, and that small little bit in Shibuya.

There's another headcanon I have that due to Gojo's nature of helping out the younger generation find places for themselves outside of Jujutsu, that Toge is naturally one of the kids he'd kind of take under his wing. Especially considering that Toge is from a well-known clan with a powerful cursed technique. The idea that Megumi and Toge probably were around each other often is really fun to me, I think they would have gotten along fairly well. We know from the exchange event that Megumi knows Toge's specific language, and we also know that it takes someone about 6 months to understand it to its fullest. And this event only happened 4 months between Yuuji becoming Sukuna's vessel and the Goodwill arc. I feel like out of all the characters in JJK, Megumi would be the most similar to Toge in terms of "I inherited this super special technique that's been passed down my clan for generations but I'm not sure if I want to be bound to Jujutsu society". This is a bit of a stretch, but we do see Toge water some plants in the garden, and we have some good speculations that Megumi knows a lot about flowers, so I also like the idea that they both did some gardening together as a way to bond or pass time. (Will forever push my Megumi and Toge friends agenda)

(Also slightly unrelated but the idea that the both of them had a crush on Yuuta at some point is also really funny to me, and though I do believe Megumi grew out of it kinda quickly, I think for Toge it meant a lot more to him) Inuokko forever

Oh this is getting lengthy I have more but I also wanna quickly come back around to one of the first points I made about him feeling more like a plot device. At first, no, I don't think he is. His role in JJK 0 is very significant in terms of foiling Yuuta's character (and the same with Maki) and also being someone who provides the space to let Yuuta find himself. Where Maki pushes, Toge gives room the breathe. He inspires a certain type of kindness in Yuuta where Maki inspires the fierceness and loyalty, ultimately helping grow Yuuta into the character he is today. Saying either Toge or Maki aren't integral to Yuuta's development would simply be wrong. But after JJK 0, yes that cast pretty much gets put on the back burner. And I will say this, Maki and Yuuta both do get to come back and play out more significant roles later in the manga. But... not Toge. This is where I think his character became a plot device, and it was utilized in a way where Gege understood what he had developed between Yuuta and Toge in JJK 0, and then used Toge to advance the plot just a little. Like, the smallest of nudges. I know a lot of people thought it was stupid that Yuuta came back and declared he be Yuuji's executioner simply because Sukuna was able to cut off Toge's arm, but I think it was moreso annoying to me. Gege took the friendship Yuuta and Toge built in 0 and then used that as a way to give Yuuta a reason to fulfill a promise he doesn't even end up going through with. And then we don't see Toge again after that. In my humble opinion, Toge didn't need to lose his arm (which, if there was even a chance he was using sign language to communicate with outsiders, now even that won't work, thanks Gege) and something else could have been replaced with that useless moment that only affects Toge in the end. Maybe I'm forgetting the significance, but I really don't remember it being important at all. Did he really need to lose his arm? I don't think so.

So on top of now being down an arm (there goes any chance of sign language for an almost-mute character), he's thrown to the side. I know that Gege was struggling with the amount of characters he introduced in Culling Games already, but I really don't think it would have hurt to bring Toge back in for a fight or two. He so could have helped! He's a Semi-Grade One, on the same level as Kamo and Mechimaru. I legit hate using the word p*tential (thanks Megumi haters you've destroyed a powerful word for me) but he has so much of it! And not wasted either, there's literally no expectations set up for him. I just wish we got to see him more and flesh him out a bit maybe outside of Yuuta's character (or see them fight together that would have been so cool too) honestly anything. I want to know his backstory, how he views Jujutsu society, what his goals in life are, what he wants to do in the future.

If you know me, then you know I don't get that affected by majority of the JJK cast. In fact, I don't really consider myself a JJK fan, moreso just an Itafushi fan. With that being said, there are a few exceptions, and Inumaki Toge is one of them. I don't know why I'm so hooked on him, but if there was a character I wish got more screen time it's almost a tie between Megumi and Toge.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk, feel free to ask me questions or talk to me about Toge, I'll more than gladly respond T-T

you know aside from gojo and megumi, inumaki truly does have one of the most binding of techniques. because they can go on and lead relatively normal lives, disregarding their techniques, but toge is intrinsically bound to jujutsu. the inumaki clan is just very tragic and i remember when i was reading the manga for the first time thinking “wow that’s so cool” similar to how yuji responded, but when i really sat with it and picked his character up to inspect it further, that poor boy oh my god

[iwatcheditbegin]

The amount of hate some of us got for saying fans who were there in 2016 see reputation album different than ones who joined during eras. Only for Taylor to indeed confirm it was a very specific and awful time

And no it’s not something that makes fans who were there superior as long as you weren’t spamming Taylor’s ig comments with snakes. It just was not a fun time and you aren’t missing anything if you weren’t there

[potatoes-tomatoes]

Instagram ask doodle— someone requested Lola as Barbie!

I think of the deleted exchange she had with lebron in SJ2, where she says “Looney is who [Bugs] is and what he does. I’m not like that.” and I mourn the executive meddling. It was supposed to be satirical, critical and maybe even a lil more cynical and all Looney… but too many mandated rewrites left a sour taste in my mouth, especially when it comes to Lola. She doesn’t really have a place in the world of LT outside of being Bugs’ arm candy and “Basketball”…..Sj2 coulda had that conversation. poor gal

[teamsasukes]

Was Itachi's forehead poke to Sasuke a sign of distancing himself and not wanting Sasuke to get involved, rather than just a mere sign of affection? I saw a few people talk about that and how it's weird that Sasuke does that to his family considering the original meaning.

yes, you've got an accurate handle on the original meaning of the Forehead Poke. fundamentally it is an expression of distance that itachi wields at times when he cannot be with sasuke. and it seems to be a throughline of his childhood: sasuke asks itachi to do something as mundane as train together but itachi continually refuses on account of his duties as a shinobi.

it is not a gesture devoid of love -- it's not as though itachi ever delights in dismissing sasuke (on the contrary, he is always regretful). but there's a cruelty in the uncertainty of it all: the most direct translation is "maybe next time", so itachi fails to provide even an assurance that they can, like, hang out next week or something. this chasm between them is then widened by itachi promising, on the night of the massacre, that he might allow a final battle between them if sasuke ever proves competent enough to bother fighting, leaving sasuke in protracted pursuit of the looming specter of his older brother.

this distance is really only bridged (barely) in their final scene when itachi lays bare the truth of his motives, his regrets (which are lacking, to put it mildly, but for sasuke this is nonetheless momentous), and his unconditional pride in and love for his little brother. the Forehead Poke is notably absent here because textually, the enforced distance wrt sasuke is framed as itachi's greatest wrong. (seriously, itachi says something to the effect of: i shouldn't have done All That because maybe you, my 7-year-old brother, could have brought change to our clan... thereby reducing inconvenience for konoha, of course. the paucity of virtue in massacring the uchiha doesn't really register for him even during this reconciliation, and it's deliberate... because the author doesn't see it as much of an issue either!)

anyway, it might seem odd for sasuke to repeat this gesture with sakura in chapter 699, then, particularly because it seems to be invoked in a manner identical to itachi in his neglect. kind of an odd way to signify a happy ending for these characters, right...?

well, it works for me solely because it is not identical! and naruto's english dub is my worst enemy. i would grab a couple of manga panel screenshots in the original japanese to prove it, but it's easier for me to just plug these scenes from the anime. here is an itachi Forehead Poke (0:51) and here is sakura seeing sasuke off at the konoha gate (0:33). there's a subtle but meaningful distinction in the phrasing: "mata kondo da" vs. "mata kondo na". which, in effect, alter the meaning from "maybe next time" to:

(there's an excellent tumblr post from years ago which performs a substantive analysis of the japanese in both contexts, but eludes me now. pls send if any of you have a link to it!)

so personally i adore its inclusion in chapter 699 specifically. it obviously carries a great deal of weight for sasuke and it's meaningful he chooses to express it to sakura specifically despite leaving the entire team behind -- in lots of ways, and more than any other character, i think for sasuke, sakura is the anti-itachi. (that would require another post to elucidate.) so not only is it an expression of regret at unintended distance, but, more crucially, it's a promise of return. i think it's incredibly sweet that sasuke can repurpose the gesture from something soul-rending to something hopeful.

(also deserving of another post lol but this scene also achieves a neat and, crucially, subversive callback to sakura's foundational insecurities... it's like poetry it rhymes)

all that said, i understand why it reads as something different once we are then given the context of chapter 700 and gaiden... i dislike both of these installments, primarily for the implication that distance becomes a love language, so to speak, between sasuke and sakura/sarada. these relationships are ruled by distance and sasuke accepts it. it's disappointing! his journey to learn about more of the world in chapter 699 jibed with the character's arc until that point. this does not.

my unpopular take is i think this has just about nothing to do with sakura or the sasusaku relationship and everything to do with authorial outlook on sasuke's actions in part 2. and for the record, i maintain that these crimes ultimately amount to very little -- violence and death are occupational hazards if one is a shinobi. konoha is also foregrounded by a cold calculus on the worth of human lives; i'm sure sasuke's indispensable role in saving the world outweighs the killing of a few samurai. i just think kishimoto needs sasuke to atone, somehow, forever, via endless service to the village. and he also cannot sensibly write a kakashi- or naruto-headed government that would impose any meaningful punishment, so sasuke is relegated to a state of permanent rootlessness in some dumbass quest. it's a sacrifice on his part, but contrived for a number of reasons, chief among them being that the sasuke we came to know in the original series would literally never internalize konoha's ideals in this manner. so even though the Forehead Poke in gaiden and boruto retains the elements of promise and anticipation of eventual reconciliation, it feels kind of... lame and weightless. there is a superficial signal at growth but materially, for the parties on the receiving end of the Forehead Poke, very little seems to change.

frankly, i think we are meant to view sasuke's love as noble (and sasuke himself as penitent, suggested by the ascetic quality of his life). sasuke is still doing things differently than itachi, insufficient though it may be: he is honest about the reason for his travels, he does not rush to dismiss sarada when she needs emotional support, his motives are selfless rather than selfish (sasuke guards against the threat of the otsutsuki; itachi... wanted sasuke to kill him, in no small part as a desperate ploy to end his own suffering, notwithstanding the subsequent damage that would be inflicted on his thoroughly traumatized little brother). gaiden is surprisingly candid about the distance as a source of distress for sarada, sakura, and even sasuke, but by the end everyone understands why it must be as it is. the state above all! (you'll notice even itachi's apology to sasuke held this precept intact... there is a reason the series closes with sasuke accepting his old hitai-ate.) it is admittedly vexing, considering the totality of evidence here, to see sasuke's nomadic status in boruto pinned on how much he hates his dumb bitch wife and not, you know. the shockingly bad politics underpinning the narrative.

i appreciate the attempts of sasuke enjoyers to explain his distance as natural aversion to konoha, but this isn't canonically backed by any interiority (which seems to be absent in boruto-era team 7 at large) and moreover it requires miscommunication between sasuke and sakura (or even naruto) so great as to be unbelievable. i've accepted that post-pt2 sasuke is an unfortunate victim of kishomoto's nationalist views. his weird takes on how a man like sasuke would behave in a loving relationship and likely desire for a continued revenue stream don't help either. yes i will weep forever...

TLDR: i think the Forehead Poke fits in chapter 699 precisely because it diverges from itachi's. i resent its recurrence suggesting distance from loved ones is an inevitable condition of sasuke's life to which he's stoically acquiescent.