#and it had NOTHING to do with the Lukanette breakup 😂

[verfound]

Can you tell me about “I didn’t run”? Mysterious and sounds slightly angsty

Angsty yes, but not that mysterious? 😂 Unsurprising to anyone, there's a decent chunk of the Hoard focusing on Jagged. Also unsurprising to anyone, I was not entirely pleased with a lot of the S4 decisions - how they handled Jagged and his relationship with Luka being one of them.

I Didn't Run was me kicking around a fix-it to work out my Thoughts on Truth with respect to said relationship. Because here's the thing. Jagged is a flake. I can kinda see Jagged deciding kids weren't for him (or that he just couldn't be the dad a kid needed) and bailing. I just find it more likely that he never knew to begin with. Anarka was 100x more likely to know Jagged's character and leave before he ever knew about the baby because she didn't trust him to be a good dad to begin with. She is fiercely independent and set in her opinions of Jagged, and in her mind that would be the best way to protect her bairns. (I also refuse to buy into that whole "Luka/Juleka Twin" bull or separate father thing - but that's a HC rant for another time. There are ways to work this storyline out that the showrunners are either too lazy or too cowardly to approach. All I'm saying.)

Anyway, I don't have much here...

“I didn’t know!” he snapped, spinning to kick at the table nearest him.  It toppled over in a loud smashing of crystal goblets and golden plates – only the best, André had declared, for Price Ali, even if the birthday boy in question would’ve been happier eating off disposables and sending the money saved to charity.  At his display, Penny folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes.

“You did, Jacob,” she said, her voice firm and steady.  He winced and curled in on himself.  No one used his real name anymore, not since he’d put his folks in the ground five years back…

“Not at first,” he said, his voice quiet.  He reached up to scrub at his face, pressing his hands tight against his eyes.  “When Nanarchy showed up with the kid…she’d been gone so long already, Pen.  I didn’t think…I didn’t want to think…I wasn’t the one who ran away, damn it!”

“Not at first, no,” Penny said, walking over to him and laying a hand on his shoulder.  He tensed when she squeezed.  “But you didn’t run back to them, either, once you did.  You just…took everything she said about you at face value and never even gave yourself a chance to prove her wrong.  You are not the man she says you are, Jacob.  Luka and Juleka deserve to know that.”