#long post (not remorseful)

[demigods-posts]

luke fumbling in recruiting percy has to be one of his greatest failures. a beautiful thing the show does regarding luke and percy's relationship is building rapport between them through shared moments like settling into camp, eating meals together, but especially through swordfighting lessons. the swordfighting scene at the beginning of episode 8 not only reveals that percy and luke already share similar beliefs about the fear-based system the gods have cultivated, but it's clear the conversation stays with percy when he fights ares and later calls out zeus on his waning skills as a father and a king. however, luke's plan fell through the moment percy learned that the winged-shoes were meant to drag him to tartarus. not only that, but the shoes nearly killed grover, a friend percy cared for deeply. if nourishing loyalty and trust was the key to ensuring a partnership with percy, then it was luke's faulty planning, arrogance, and impatience that cost him the greatest ally he could ask for.

[ew-selfish-art]

DP x DC AU: Danny desperately wants to find the explosion guy. Tim is really good at covering his tracks... he didn't account for ghosts.

The explosions make it onto TV as purported terror activity and most people haven't heard of that part of the world much less ever given a second thought to care about it. The only real reason it gets reported on has something to do with the Justice League and... Danny knows too much.

He's been in training for Clockwork's court (which he's suspicious of- feels like kingly duty bullshit- but Danny is playing along out of curiosity for now) and he's learned a lot about how the living and non-living worlds collide. That means learning about CW's usual suspects- one of which just happened to have a ton of bases around the area Danny was seeing on the news.

It didn't take long for Danny to try to piece together that whoever blew up Nanda Parbat was trying to fuck with the League of Shadows, and was doing it successfully. Less green portals in the world the better, same goes for assassins. But it gets Danny thinking... Maybe he can employ similar tactics on the GIW Bases that keep spawning on the edges of Amity Park. It would at least set them back while he and his friends navigated the help line desk to request Justice League intervention. None of them can leave Amity Park, so outreach is going to have to be creative.

So Danny figures he'll just find the guy. Call up some ghosts who were there, or er, came from there and get a profile and track him down. But the ghosts keep saying it was The Detective. Annoying!

Danny goes full conspiracy theory, gets Tucker and Sam involved, and begrudgingly asks Wes Weston his thoughts.

He hadn't expected Wes to garble out a thirty minute presentation (that had 100 more slides left to go before he cut it off) about how Batman totally trained with a cult and so did his kids. Danny kind of rolled his eyes but... hey, new avenue of searching in the Infinite Realms at least.

The ghosts confirm that Bombs is for sure not Batman's MO- But maybe his second kid would know? The second kid was already brought back to life though, so no way to easily reach him... Danny starts to realize that this might be the work of a Robin now. Wasn't the red one known for solving cold cases? (Sam provides this information- its a social faux pas to not know hero gossip at Gotham Galas- everything she's learned is against her will).

It all comes to a head when Danny goes about the hard task of opening a portal for the guy to come through at just the right time, explain the infinite realms so he doesn't panic and then describe what the fuck was going on with the GIW. It takes months, just over a full year, of random (educated guesses) portal generating- Finally, Red Robin drops into the land of the dead.

"So, you're the guy I've got to talk to about explosions right?" Danny enthusiastically asks.

Tim thinks he's died and landed in the after life following 56 hours of being awake and plummeting off the side of a building into a Lazarus pool. Nothing makes sense about the kid in front of him.

"Yeah, I got a guy for munitions." Tim answers cooly.

"How do you feel about secretly sanctioned government operations that violate protected rights?"

"Gotta get rid of 'em some how. Need me to point you in the right direction?" This might as well be happening.

[wreckedhoney]

MASSIVE SPOILER for one of the endings.

it's been a while since i tried looking, but i did hear that something like this happens last year and over time started to think, "was it a fluke?" bc no one posted footage or caps of it then, and i aimed for a completionist run in my first playthrough. turns out it's real! and definitely shines a new light on a character that, for most other types of playthroughs, will not give this much emotion! EDIT: transcript now included, and some stillshots under the cut

[0:28] Marie: Henry, this is the man who kept you from doing the right thing tonight. Kill him. [0:15] Forrest: Henry, you don’t have to do this. If you’ve not killed anyone yet, there’s still time to make the right decision. [0:05] Out of shot: (Gunshots) Henderson Police! Freeze! Marie: No! Henry, get out of there!

[guardian-angle22]

911: Lone Star S4 E14 | The Case of the Stolen Pudding Cup -> The Culprit Revealed

[waytray]

link to the tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sshields_42/video/7445501628066630942

link to a tweet about the tiktok: https://x.com/NyxenV/status/1865439003580755968/video/1

and for good measure here's a link to my edit of each time Arcane is mentioned in the second 2024 Thankmas live show:

[thegreatyin]

rip my heart out and shoot it, why don't you???

at least it makes for a great mantlepiece item!

[volfoss]

it is beyond infuriating how anne rice seems to insist on marius being a positive force in anyone's life ever. like she can't fully commit to exploring the fact he groomed armand and has repeatedly taken away his consent for what marius thinks is best (take the end of TVA as an example) and just kind of flatly puts it in the narrative. there's not really much interest in how these horrific events make marius come across as the worst because EVERYONE loves him. for gods sake, lestat learns from armand exactly what marius did to him in TVL and then proceeds to go find marius and be super friendly to him in the same fucking book. even armand and pandora, two of the people who have MORE than enough right to hate him, do not. it doesnt feel like shes trying to explore the toxicity of the abusive dynamic he traps them in, it just is there. and like yeah ofc the toxic vampire romance series but i think that this should be handled with more care. and it is not ever really framed in a way that she is interested in exploring how marius should easily be one of the most horrific characters in this series because it kind of feels like sa/rape/grooming/other things of that sort are just put there to further plot and not to really get the respect that they deserve in a medium.

[landfilloftrash]

wild blueberries in my sleep

[iamthetruestrepairman]

god I loved the iron giant so much as a kid

[truearchangel]

📜 / / for funsies !

@2ndrib incorrect quotes generator

Michael:��Just a minute. I need to go take out the trash. Eve: Oh. We're going out? Michael: Wh...

─── ⋆⋅꒰ঌ ໒꒱⋅⋆ ──

Michael: I am not out of control! I'm a law abiding citizen! Eve: Really? Name one law Michael: Don't kill people? Eve: That's on me. I set the bar too low.

─── ⋆⋅꒰ঌ ໒꒱⋅⋆ ──

Michael: .. .----. -- / … --- .-. .-. -.-- (translation: I'M SORRY) Eve: What is this? Michael: Remorse code. Eve: I'm even angrier now.

─── ⋆⋅꒰ঌ ໒꒱⋅⋆ ──

Michael: Okay, help me please! Eve: Got two words for you. Michael: I bet they won't be helpful. Eve: Your problem. Michael: I was right.

[sashayed]

You know what I had a comedy fun time tossing off this despairing little anecdote into the internet, and it made me feel better about this doctor's visit that I didn't enjoy, but it also did something I didn't mean it to do: it sneakily posited a dichotomy, Me Badbrain vs Dr. Goodbrain, Us Who Can't Be Helped By Calendars vs Them Who Can, the People Neurodivergents vs the Bourgeoisie Neurotypicals and never the twain shall meet. Which is a funny idea, and it sometimes feels true, but I don't think it is! I don't think there are any human experiences that are limited to Everyone Except Me. (Or you.)

So now I'm not having a comedy fun time anymore, because I wish I hadn't told a loud story about refusing help out of hand! Times might have come in my life when a calendar was really helpful, and they might come again. Those of us who feel constantly, second-by-second aware of how difficult it is to be alive can consensually steal fire (coping mechanisms) from those who feel that awareness less frequently! And vice versa: when someone who has never felt The Crushing Dark finds themselves here -- and everyone does eventually -- they know I know the territory. I have tools I can pass back to them. I have scavenged some good shit down here.

Why am I writing all this! I guess because I want to emphasize the difference between an internet persona and a consolidated, full-time life. I come on the internet in part because I want the relief of being a character instead of a person. The out-of-control, incomprehensible Bad Brain Bitch is a fun character. It is a #relatable experience--everyone is in it at one time or another--and kind of exciting! One becomes the fucking Experiencer of the Interior Wild Hunt, right? The carrier of the secret of the love of death.

And everything in this story is true -- I do (or did lmao, I don't write shit anymore!) write about my real life and my real feelings. But when I tell stories this way I think I now want to be more explicit about how this storytelling mode serves a purpose for me, the human being doing the telling. Me behind the screen.

When I write a caricature of myself who grovels and defers to the unachievable Correct View of the Competent Other but simply Cannot Do It*, now, instead of feeling angry or inferior or ashamed about this incident, I feel distantly amused. This is now a story, and I controlled it, and so in a way I came out on top and I don't have to remember the way the friendly, reasonable suggestion "try using a calendar!" sent me into a life-threatening internal tailspin for a full evening, because if I had to sit with how I really feel about that, uh, yikes!!!!

But I want to be able to sit with that feeling, or at least I want to try. I don't actually want to be a funny story about how it feels to feel bad. (the answer is: Bad.) I like myself and I want to be a person and I want you to be a person too. (Not that you needed my permission! What?? Anyway.) Did you know that putting something in your calendar is a good way to make it a habit? Or maybe it isn't! Either way, you're doing your best. How's the sky looking outside?

*It's NOT a mom issue THANKS FOR ASKING!! maybe YOU had a very practical, competent mom and now YOU have the mom issue!!! Probably that's you, not me!!!!

the other day a doctor told me that "the best way to make [something i should do but never want to do] routine is to put it on your calendar!" and i found myself completely buh-- hhuh?-- about how to respond. i was stupefied by the gulf between our worlds. i looked into her kind eyes and i thought "put it on my what?" shoot it into space? i did not know how to explain to this extremely functional woman that an obligation to myself, with no stronger enforcer than my own words on a calendar, is to me a tattered codex from a lost religion. like this text is maybe historically interesting but not useful as a structure around which to build a life. what am i now going to write that will (or indeed should!) have any authority over me later? WALK? i don't know her life! and in what world would i respect directives left to me by a complete stranger (me from two days ago) whomst i have every reason to distrust (ate all the entemann's and put our keys in the laundry)? put it on my calendar. ok, dr goodbrain. but in the moment i nodded like a grinning toy monkey and dutifully thumbed WALK! into my phone at 4 p.m. Repeat: Every Day like that would have any effect on my actual behavior. sometimes it takes an enormous amount of optimism to be a person and frankly i admire us all for trying to do it

[prettieinpink]

BUDGETING + SAVING MONEY FOR TEENS 𐙚

For many of us, we are entering an age when we can work casual jobs such as retail or fast food. It’s not a lot of money that we receive, depending on how often you get paid, but it can go a long way in the long term. 

In this post, I’ll be discussing how to budget for your needs/wants and save money for future goals. 

CREATING GOALS, you may want to save a certain amount of money in a time frame, want to make a big purchase (like a car) or buy everything off your wishlist. It is entirely up to you what your goals are, so I can’t say too much. However, the more specific it is, the better.

HOW MUCH? Determine how much money you need to save to achieve your goal. In total, and monthly. 

There are three types of saving goals that may apply to you;

Short-term goals >1 year (outings, latest gadget, buying your cart)

Medium-term goals 1-2 years (road trips, shopping spree)

Long-term goals 2-4 years (higher education, car)

It’s very important to set a realistic time frame, as teens we don’t get paid much and we also don’t work as much. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself as well, as it takes patience and self-control to achieve these goals.

NO LOOONG-TERM GOALS! This may sound aggressive, but any money that just sits in your account for years on end is dead money. Even though the amount of money is increasing, its value is slowly decreasing. Keep your goals achievable within a time frame of less than four years. It's much more useful if this money is put into some type of investment instead. 

CREATING A BUDGET

Calculate how much money you receive every month, and how much money you spend every month. 

You have two types of expenses. Fixed and variable. Fixed are any expenses required in your day-to-day life or it’s an amount of money that doesn’t change e.g. subscriptions or transportation costs. Variable costs are expenses that may fluctuate, like food, or any other recreational activities. 

Record the average you’re spending monthly with these two categories. 

There are many ways people choose to budget, but you have to choose a system that works for you.

Work out how much money you need to save each month to achieve your goal.

However, for anyone who’s starting in budgeting, I would say to allocate your costs using a percentage system. Your percentages for each category are going to differ from mine; e.g. 60% = savings, 20% = wants, 20% needs. Make sure it reflects the end goal. 

Track your progress. This is the major part of budgeting, you want to be recording and regularly reviewing how much money you’re spending and comparing it to how much you’re earning. It allows for space to reflect on the flow of your money like if some purchases are worth it, if you’re impulsively spending, or if you’re frequently withdrawing money from your savings. 

Adjust if needed. Maybe you want to put more money in savings and less into wants, or you want to put more into wants and less into needs. 

SAVING TIPS

SAY NO! This is probably my biggest struggle at the moment, but say no to things that will cause you to go off track. Whether its outings, getting fast-food or anything similar, say no. You have to be firm with your financial boundaries, as these opportunities will always arise again. 

RESTRICT IMPULSIVE SPENDING. We all have our moments when we see a product and we instantly think ‘I’ve got to have this’. Giving in once or twice is okay, but it shouldn’t become a habit at all. Its unnecessary spending (most of the time!) and leads to buyers remorse. 

IS IT WORTH IT? Always remember to work out which products you’re getting the most value out of. 

PAYING FOR THE NAME, a lot of brands will cut down on quality to save a few dollars, so essentially the customer is only paying for the name of that brand. Just because a store is more expensive, doesn’t mean its better.

[avelera]

Arcane's Jayce & Viktor: A Tech Industry Perspective

I've been wrestling with whether to make a short and sweet post about these points or to just have another long-winded meta and clearly since I'm incapable of being brief, I guess we'll just dive in.

I work in tech. What I see in this industry colors a lot of how I see Jayce and Viktor in Arcane. I'll try to be brief about a few of the things that stand out to me the most and that I think are intentional.

1 ) Jayce and Viktor are references to Alfred Nobel - This is a historical reference so direct I genuinely don't know how people grasp Jayce and Viktor's characters if you don't know about it.

Alfred Nobel is known for two things: inventing dynamite and bequeathing his subsequent fortune to founding the Nobel Peace Prize. These things are very much related.

Nobel was brilliant but socially naive. When he invented dynamite, he intended it to make life easier and safer for working in mines. Sound familiar? That is literally what the Atlas Gauntlets and Hex Claw Jayce and Viktor invented with Hextech was posed to be. It is a direct reference to Alfred Nobel and dynamite, there is no question about it in my mind whatsoever that they pose the benefit to society as specifically being useful to miners.

Nobel also believed that the awesome destructive power of dynamite would mean the end of warfare. Literally. He thought it was so disgusting and unthinkable that people would use explosives on each other that it would grind violence to a halt. He was very, very wrong about this. So wrong, in fact, that he spent the rest of his life in horror and remorse at how explosives were being used to kill people and created the Nobel Peace Prize to promote innovations aimed at peace, a prize which annually recognizes those who "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".

Likewise with Jayce and Viktor, they are both horrified to imagine Hextech used for warfare and we think they're incredibly socially naive for thinking this, because they are. Maybe in another universe, there'd be the Talis Peace Prize to try to make up for what they unleashed on the world. Which brings me to my next point:

2 ) Jayce and Viktor have typical engineer blindspots to society's ills - As I've discussed in-depth in another meta, Jayce and Viktor both desperately needed some non-STEM or scientific classes in their life because their worldview is so naive and stunted as a result that it's the source of a dizzying number of their problems. Neither of them could even consider that Hextech, like dynamite, would be weaponized immediately. But they have other huge gaps too as a result of their narrow focus on science, and I do believe this is intentional by the writers as a commentary on engineers and tech people in general.

Short version, Jayce desperately needs some understanding of history and of rhetoric. When Ambessa asks him if his school teaches military history, he doesn't even know if they offer it. She was testing him with that question and as a canny manipulator and general, she clearly takes that to mean she can run circles around him, and she is right. Because with incredibly simplistic plays to his male ego, like calling his leadership "impotent", Ambessa immediately gets Jayce riled up and not thinking clearly. She blindfolds him, spins him around, and shoves him headlong into taking violent military action in exactly the direction she wanted him to go in to kick the nest and set off a war.

Jayce is also easily manipulated by Mel for more benevolent but still self-serving reasons with appeals to his life's work with flattery, his male ego with sex, and his dreams for a better world to make him fall quickly into step with the city's corruption with only a little nudging because he has no strong civic understanding of his own to fall back on. As Cait notes, he's never taken an interest in the Council or politics before until he becomes a Councilor himself.

Short version for Viktor, he wants to make the world a better place but he's never actually had to think through human nature before. He's literally never bothered. We know this because of his blindspot towards Hextech weaponry where he truly believed they could avoid it being used for warfare, and the fact that later in his cult, he's somehow shocked to learn that people will do bad things for the ones they love and won't just slice pieces of their own nature and personality off to fit into his little Utopian commune.

Literally cracking any kind of history or sociology book or heck, a Pratchett Discworld book, would have told him that there's a straight fucking line between deciding people are the problem when it comes to fixing society's ills and eugenics. He falls headlong into that trap and it requires his older, wiser self to beat him over the head with the truth of the horrors of his own simplistic worldview would lead to before he literally annihilates all life in his home city in his attempt to save it.

Which brings me to my next point:

3 ) Jayce and Viktor as oblivious tech nerds who have never cracked a book open but suddenly thinking that because they're great engineers, they have the solution to all of life's problems.

This is a somewhat shorter point, but I think in modern society we all know about the proverbial tech bro who keeps reinventing things like public transportation and taxes because they've never read a book in their life that doesn't have equations in it.

To be clear, they aren't bad people! I'd even hazard to say that young tech bros trying to make public good-based startups with a laughable lack of social awareness aren't bad people either! If anything, the education system has failed them, and they're pouring their intellect and earnest, human desire to help others into endeavors with the narrowest possible world perspective, which happens to be their field of expertise and thus it makes sense they'd see that as the greatest value that can offer, it's just too limited a view so they end up reinventing things that already exist or making worse, more dangerous versions of things that already exist. Tragically, their naive but well-meaning worldview often leads to:

4 ) Viktor and Jayce, but mostly Jayce, as tech bros being beholden to billionaire interests to make their dream come true:

Like Jayce, we see how these tech bros have their vision co-opted by people with a broader vision and understanding of the world, by billionaire investors who turn their inventions into making a quick buck for themselves, to warmongers and dictators who turn the creations of their mind into surveillance state horror stories. Some of that is a lack of wisdom on their parts when it comes to building in safeguards, sure, but part of that is there is a class divide too between the powerful and bright-eyed young inventors who just want to improve the world. As Singed notes, no one in power is ever innocent. And those in power have the capital to make a young inventor's dream come true and thus, tie them to their demands and interests. As Jayce said, they built the Hexgates, "Like [the Councilors] asked." Specifically this indicates that their vision has already been co-opted to serve financial interests. It also, again, makes it almost laughable how naive they are that they didn't realize warfare was next after trade.

Like many tech bros with billionaire investors, Jayce relied on the Kirammans, who were one of the wealthiest people in the city and literally on the Council that represents the State, and on Mel who is also part of the State, who is the wealthiest woman in Piltover, and who comes from a family of world-conquering warmongers, to make his dream come true from the very start.

From the beginning, Jayce was at a losing disadvantage when it came to keeping his dream ideologically pure and free of the influence of the wealthy and powerful.

And finally, just to point out that I'm not making this up, that these parallels are in fact intentional and built into the story:

4 ) Jayce and Viktor as parallels to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founders of Apple. Christian Linke, co-creator of Arcane, specifically noted them as inspirations for Jayce and Viktor's relationship, with Jayce (Jobs) as the face of the company and Viktor (Woz) as the real brains behind the invention.

This caused a lot of sturm and drang on Twitter with people misinterpreting that he means Jayce isn't the actual inventor of Hextech, which I think is an overreaction. Jobs, unlike many tech bros who have earned society's ire lately like Musk, was actually an engineer too. It's completely common in tech spaces for partnerships to be made up of one partner who is able to handle being the public face of the company, and one introverted and socially awkward genius who prefers to sit in a dark room and actually tinker with the problem and who would literally rather set themselves on fire than talk to a non-technical human being. I know because I've been in such partnerships before myself as the public face.

Where Jayce and Viktor rather charmingly buck the stereotypes of that relationship and so in turn actually make it more like what I've seen in the real world, is the fact there isn't resentment between the two as a result. Viktor is glad that Jayce is willing to be the public face and doesn't want to get in the way. This is actually very common with the engineers I know! It's not seen as glory stealing, it's seen as sparing them awful, painful work they don't want to do, like networking.

Yes it means Jayce needs to sacrifice some time in the lab, but it's a simple division of labor that he's happy to do, especially if it frees Viktor from the responsibility so he can focus on what he loves, because Jayce loves him. And you'll note that Jayce is very above-board academically speaking on this front, he always cites Viktor as his partner and is scrupulous in giving Viktor credit, in conversation at least, even if he doesn't forcibly drag Viktor on stage to take credit there.

Anyway, when I write meta or even fic for these two, this sort of background is always on my mind, and I thought it might be valuable for others who maybe aren't as familiar with the tech space as I am.

[yuwuta]

JUST KEEP LOVING ME THE WAY I LOVE YOU LOVING ME — SATORU GOJO

pairings. satoru gojo/reader

content, warnings. non-curse au, doctor au (reader), ceo au (satoru), no real content warnings, fluff, satoru is nothing but a romantic at heart

word count. 3k

notes. this exists in the post-completion au of a larger universe/incomplete fic of mine, that i will hopefully finish someday lololol but this is way easier to write than that so here you go 🥳

“There are four chairs worth a collective seventy-five hundred dollars in this office, so, pray, tell, why is your ass on my desk?” 

Satoru grins at your words, too distracted by taking in the sight of you to take into consideration the underlying threat. It’s been far too long, almost three whole days since he’s last seen you and, god, you look good. He knows if he said that you’d roll your eyes and insist that there’s nothing good-looking about your worn-in business attire and lab coat that was in desperate need of laundering, but it wouldn’t change his opinion: you always look good, and Satoru really fucking missed you. 

Which is why he doesn’t say the words, but makes sure to throw a deceivingly charming wink your way so that you get the message anyway. As expected, you still roll your eyes, but he doesn’t mind; you look good doing that, too.

“Seriously, Satoru, what are you doing here?” you question, closing the door behind you when you fully step into the room. You make pace towards your desk, attempting to get to the other side, but this is exactly why Satoru chose to lean against it instead of sitting on any one of your very expensive and comfortable chairs—because this way, he’s in the perfect position to intercept your path and pull you to fit neatly between his legs before you can even think about reaching your office chair and ignoring him. 

He pulls you by the loop of your lab coat, but his hands quickly find their way to your shoulders, unpeeling the white layer just enough so that your blouse is exposed to him, and he can slowly rub his palms against your arms and shoulders with just enough pressure to hopefully release some tension. You won’t let go of all of it, but that’s alright, because Satoru’s got other methods for taking care of you.

“Hi,” he calls, smiling gently down at you, “I missed you.” 

This close, Satoru can see the exhaustion clearly in your eyes. There’s more, too: frustration, guilt, worry—and it takes everything in him not to coo and pull you into his chest and do his best to shield you from the world forever. 

There’s a beat before you speak, a small sigh, that’s quickly painted over with a tired smile and a remorseful, “I missed you, too. I’m sorry for being so short, the interim chief has been getting on my last nerves, and—”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Satoru cuts in, leaning forward to press a reassuring kiss to your forehead. He likes that he can feel you relax under his touch. “I know you’re busy. I just missed you.” 

It’s not easy to share you with anything or anyone, but Satoru knows that even on the hardest days, you love your job, and that so many people need your brilliant mind. What he does mind is when people make your job harder than it needs to be, and he’s been getting an earful about this new interim chief from just about everybody—you, Kento, Yuuji, Ieiri, even some of your favorite scrub nurses have indulged him in the gossip about the newest common enemy—and he doesn’t appreciate that someone is putting extra stress on his baby. So, even if it is a makeshift massage in your office and distracting you from your paperwork, Satoru will do what he can to help you relieve tension. 

You reach your arms to wrap them around his shoulders, taking a half step closer to him, peering up at him. Satoru loves when your arms are around his neck like this; he can’t quite pinpoint why—maybe it’s the way you have to crane your neck to look up at him, the way you’re perfectly nestled under his view, the feeling of being wrapped in you. He does his best to close the loop of your intimacy, resting his hands on the small of your back and pulling you impossibly closer and pressing a kiss to your forehead. He likes that he can feel you relax into his touch.

“You’re sweet,” you smile, rubbing your thumb against the shorter hairs at the back of his head. Satoru feels himself melt into you, too. It’s been too long since you’ve been this close, three whole days too long. “Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for, baby,” he smiles, stealing a gentle kiss. Satoru loves this the most, loves the feeling of your lips on his—and it’s definitely been too long since he’s kissed you, so he makes sure to do it again, and once more after that for good measure. 

But it’s not enough. He’ll have to take you home, sit you on the couch so he can kiss you all night and make up for the lack of kisses and touches and youness he’s been deprived of these past few days. But first, he’ll have to pull you away from your work, and that’s not easy work. 

“Come home,” he muses, leaning his forehead against yours, “We can order in, and share your favorite bottle of wine, and watch a movie.” 

You lean up to kiss him briefly. “Every time we share a bottle of wine, we end up making out and not watching anything.” 

“Do we?” Satoru feigns innocence, “I never noticed. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea, though.”

“Satoru,” you whisper, quiet but firm, with a smile that lets him know you want to, but you can’t. It’s a tone that Satoru knows all too well, and isn’t particularly fond of. “I have charts to finish.” 

“Finish them tomorrow,” he steals another kiss, “Or pawn them off on Kento,” another kiss, “Or Yuuji. Residents always need more experience—isn’t that what you and Ieiri always say?” 

You let him kiss you again, and again, and again. Each time a little longer, a little warmer, a little less innocent than the last, growing from a little, to a lot, to all-consuming. Satoru hums when he feels your nails raking through his hair; an unfortunate move, as the sound pulls you back to reality and away from him in a decrescendo of kisses. 

“You’re really good at that,” you laugh, voice soft. 

“At kissing?” Satoru dips his head down to taste your laughter against his lips, “Thanks, I’ve had a lot of practice with a very pretty girl.” 

“No,” and you’re laughing again, louder this time, and Satoru counts every little giggle as a victory, “You’re good at... seducing me without saying you’re seducing me.”

“Oh, that?” he grins, tucking his pointer and index finger under your chin to meet you in a knowing kiss, “Yeah, that’s a talent of mine, too.”

You let him steal one more, and Satoru doesn’t take it for granted. “Come home,” he whispers against your lips before slotting them in yet another kiss, “I miss you.” 

And he can feel it when you finally break, sighing into the kiss, and melting into his touch completely. One more, he just needs one more kiss to seal the deal, and then—“Fine,” you concede, “But I get to choose where to get dinner from.” 

“Of course, sweets, whatever you want,” Satoru grins, pulling back to kiss your forehead again, “Now—shall we? If we order in the car, we can probably pick it up on our way home.”

He’s in the home stretch now, but he’s not completely free: if you catch a glimpse of your work, or someone comes in to find you, or your godforsaken pager beeps then all of his plans could come crumbling down before him. The key to transitioning from the “you’ve agreed to come home with him early stage”—if you can count 9:45pm, coming off of a 17-hour work day as early—to the “we are actually leaving this hospital and nobody can stop us phase” is swiftness. This time period is critical, and Satoru is ready for the sprint. 

He shimmies your lab coat all the way off of your body for you, checking for the weight of your pager in your right pocket, before hanging it on the back of your chair. He shoos you to grab your coat, and makes sure you don’t get within three feet of this side of your desk—taking your purse out of your locked drawer and closing an open file folder in the time it takes you to slip out of your heels and into your sneakers, and by the time you’re turning back around, Satoru is already there next to you, with your purse in one hand, and his other hovering on the light switch. 

He makes sure you’re out the door first, and flickers off the light with a satisfied grin. His baby was coming home early with him, and there is nothing else he’d rather do than spend time pampering you. 

You must truly be more tired than you know, because you make no protest when he slings an arm over your shoulder on your way out of the elevator. Usually, you chastise him for any PDA within hospital walls, but tonight you let it be, even leaning some of your body weight against his as you walk. Satoru’s not complaining at all, maybe he’ll try his luck and sneak a kiss on your cheek. 

He decides to go for it, leaning over for a kiss, when you suddenly pull away, turning and patting against your side. Confused, and disappointed, Satoru pouts, “We’ve really got to work on this fear of affection you’ve got going on, sweets. It’s the leading cause of makesatorupout-itis.” 

“We’ve been over this—you can’t just add “itis” to the end of your words to make them diagnostic,” you giggle, “I was looking for my keys.”

Satoru’s frown deepens. “You have the fancy reserved doctor parking space, they can’t tow you. So, we can take my car home.” 

“No, we cannot, because I do not trust you to wake up and drive me back tomorrow morning.” 

“Then I’ll get you a cab in the morning, or—even better, I’ll call Ichiji to pick you up.” 

“Ichiji is still in Paris,” you remind him. Satoru purses his lips. He did ask Ichiji to stay with Megumi. Damn it.

“I have other cars, you can drive one of them in the morning.” 

“And park it where?” 

“In your fancy reserved doctor parking—oh, okay I see the flaw there,” Satoru pulls back. You find amusement in his disappointment, but he doesn’t think there’s anything funny here. 

He shakes his head. He should have taken a cab from his office, but this is okay, a minor setback, nothing he can’t think around. “New plan: we take your car, and I’ll come by to get mine tomorrow. Easy peasy.” 

“Yours will be towed by then.” 

“That’s fine,” Satoru shrugs, “I can afford a tow fee.” 

“Satoru,” you call, reaching your free hand up to place your palm against his cheek, “We both drive home. It’ll be thirty minutes, tops. Forty if there’s traffic, but if you stop pouting and we leave now, we should be fine.” 

Satoru sighs. He knows that’s the most reasonable plan of action, but the simple truth is that he doesn’t want to be away from you right now, even to go the short distance home. He’s already spent the last few days without you, and even though this is calling it in early for you, he only gets maybe four hours awake with you before you’re off again. Thinking about that makes him miss you again already. Pathetic, maybe, but he doesn’t care.

“Oh, Dr. (_____), hey!” Yuuji’s voice is an easily distinguishable interruption to your petty argument, and Satoru’s sulking, “Perfect timing—I’m glad I caught you before you left. Is it okay if I ask you to sign something before you go?” 

You easily warm up to the younger boy and agree, fondly making conversation with Yuuji as he scrolls through some documents on his tablet. And just as you’ve finished scribbling your signature along the screen, Satoru has a bright idea. 

“Hey, Yuuji, you can drive right?” Satoru questions rhetorically, already reaching for his wallet and car keys, “Great! Here’s two grand, it’s all yours if you drive this car home tonight.” Satoru smiles widely, shoving his keys and some cash into the pocket of Yuuji’s white coat. 

“What—really? Awesome! But, why—” 

Satoru dismisses his disbelief with a wave of his hand. He steps a bit closer to Yuuji, just enough to lean into his ear and tuck a couple more bills into his pocket, “And between you and me, that’s an extra three grand if you finish up a couple of charts for my lady so she can sleep in tomorrow. Not a bad deal, right?” 

“Sure, no problem!” Yuuji salutes, “I’d do anything for Dr. Almost-Gojo. Plus, if I’m busy working for her, then I don’t have to babysit cells in a dish for Dr. Gakuganji.” 

“Atta boy,” Satoru ruffles his hair, “Catch you later, Yuuji, I’ve got a hot date to get to. And tell Nanamin I say hello!” 

You elbow Satoru shallowly, a silent warning to keep his voice down, and a verbal chastising of, “It’s Dr. Itadori and Dr. Nanamin to you.”

“More like Dr. Nanameanie,” Satoru laments, resuming the position of his arm around your shoulder, “I’ve left him six calls this week! He’s so cruel—he knows I have to leave next week and he’s depriving me of one on one time. I think I’m gonna have to sneak into his office at lunch tomorrow and confront him.”

Despite his crass words and dramatics, you laugh, and so, Satoru smiles. He finally gets that cheek kiss right as you two reach your car, bending down to plant one for you at the same time he steals your keys from your hand and banishes you to the passenger seat. He’s not much of a driver himself, despite his excess amount of cars, but you’re his baby and you deserve to be driven around no matter the case, but especially when you’ve spent all day taking care of other people. 

Plus, on days like this, if he’s real careful and smooth, you fall asleep in the car and he gets to carry you inside. He makes that his goal for the next thirty minutes, and he succeeds in twenty, confirmed by your soft snores just as he pulls into the curbside pick-up spot of your favorite restaurant. He retrieves the take-out as quietly as possible, before making the rest of the journey home, taking the time to glance over at you during red lights. 

Satoru loves the way you look when you’re asleep, loves to see you well-rested, but something even more dear to him than that is a fact that Nanami let slip in the aftermath of a dinner party he’d hosted about a year after you two had started dating: “She never sleeps outside of her bed, for as long as I’ve known her,” he muses, nodding to your sleeping figure on Satoru’s couch, “Not even in the on-call rooms during our 72 hour shifts. She must... she must really trust you, Satoru.” 

(He also recalls the awfully strong grip on his shoulder and subsequent shovel talk Kento gave him a moment later. Not that Satoru ever had anything but pure intentions with you, but the threat of breaking Kento’s best friend’s heart was more than enough to keep his commitments in check).

Satoru peers at you fondly in his arms, held bridal style with the takeout in the grip of a pinky finger, glancing up only to nod and thank his doorman for pushing the penthouse button for him. Satoru prides himself on many things, but the one thing he always holds in his highest regards is you: call him cocky, but he thinks he’s quite good at caring for you, that there’s nobody else fit to look after you the way that he can; and knowing that you feel safe in his arms is the highest honor he could achieve in this life.

He sets you carefully on the couch once he steps inside the apartment, and places the food on the coffee table. He debates whether or not he should wake you up now; he hates to, but he knows you need to eat, and, selfishly, he wants to cash in on those few hours he has with you to hear your voice. 

He’ll dish out the food first, and then wake you up to eat, he decides. He leans down to kiss the crown of your head, eyes flicking to your face, and pausing at your neck, where your engagement ring rests crookedly against your skin. You must have had an emergency surgery today, he thinks; your schedule for today was originally just to round on post-op patients and attend some meetings, but you knot the ring into your chain when you have to scrub into the operating room. 

Carefully, Satoru reaches to undo it from the chain, and slips it back onto your ring finger. It looks pretty against your skin when it’s around your neck, but personally, he thinks it looks best this way, the sparkle of the aquamarine against the halo of diamonds fits perfectly across the width of your finger, just the way he had it made to be.

Satoru bends down even further to kiss the back of your hand, before laying it to rest on your stomach. He might need to bribe Yuuji to take care of some more work for you, you two really should get a move on that wedding planning, and you’re going to need at least a week off to fly and visit his grandma’s pastry shop in Osaka for cake tasting.

He smiles at the thought. He doesn’t feel so bad about waking you up now—wedding talk seems like the perfect way to end the evening if you ask him; there would be no sweeter sound than hearing how you imagine the start of the rest of your lives to be. 

[ayosdesignz-blog]

This is great. High quality post no arguments here.

I just...I just wanna add this old meme that still surprises a laugh out of me even now and I can't put it in the tags soooo...

Leaving out how shitty of person Sakura is and how she literally never grows up. She was nasty at 8, nasty at 16, and continued to be nasty in her 30s when she became a parent...

People who genuinely don't like Sakura aren't sitting there disparaging her body, hair, or forehead. They're calling into question how her one goal in life was to become the wife of a boy she continued to disrespect for years. How she didn't take her job seriously and put her team in danger because of it, despite no one forcing her to become a ninja. How she continues to treat her own friends and even her daughter terribly.

Emotions?

You mean where she consistently invaded someone's personal space, refused to take NO for an answer, and then made his trauma about her contrived feelings?

Or how she invalidates everyone else's feelings in favor of her own and manipulates even her child's father, so he won't learn the truth of her behavior at home?

Ideals?

You mean the obsession with her looks and not training until Sasuke and Naruto almost die in front of her?

Or how even after that she didn't start taking things seriously until Sasuke left?

Or what about when all her character growth vanished because she got the chance to see Sasuke again and just stopped being helpful in the canon story and went back to being selfish and rude?

Dreams & Goals?

You mean the desire to be Sasuke's wife regardless of how many times he's pushed her away, told her she was annoying, and avoided her?

Or how her obsession with him was so intense she had to try and guilt trip him in the middle of a war for the sake of the world, into confessing non-existent love to her all because SHE claimed to love him?

Or how she was so attached to being an Uchiha wife that she wears his mon like a badge of honor on all of her clothes when he can't even force himself to wear it or even return to the village to see her and his kid.

Relationships?

You mean where she got the guy in the end, but still decided to be a sob story who did everything alone and then complained about getting no help?

You mean where she was hoping with everything in her being, that her new teammate would insult her supposed best friend too so she would be just as hurt?

Or is it how her obsession with a guy was so intense that she drugged her entire team and left them unconscious in enemy territory just so she could go off to see him to 'kill him' but still needed her drugged teammate to come and save her from being killed by him instead?

Or what about when she broke off her first ever friendship over her obsession simply because of hearsay?

Or what about when she taped her picture over the picture of her husband's friend, and then got angry because her daughter found out and dared to ask questions about it, so she threw a super punch at the space by her kid's feet and took the whole house down in the process?

Or what about that time where she was heavenly pregnant and decided to charge into a very dangerous situation, all for the sake of pride and not being left in her teammate's shadows as usual, and then literally put herself and her unborn child at risk?

Abilities & Strengths?

You mean how her stans try to act like she's surpassed her master by 17, and is better than every other woman in the series when she keeps getting curb-stomped and still needs to be saved by everyone else?

Like, no one is arguing that she hasn't improved as a ninja, cuz it's pretty damn obvious she did, but when y'all sit there being like, 'she's a goddess and Hinata sucks!' are you really being truthful? The enhanced punches aren't helping her all that much so all she's got is healing and even then, she's still not the best at it by adulthood. And she hasn't exactly made a name for herself as she never got out of her teammate's shadows... because she wasn't serious when it mattered.

Y'all brag about how 'Sakura won' when comparing her marriage to Ino's as if Ino isn't in a happy relationship. As if Ino doesn't have a good family unit and that Sai isn't a good father. Sasuke won't come back to the village and only talks to Naruto. Sasuke has never kissed Sakura but HAS kissed Naruto and a Dinosaur of all things. Sasuke didn't even know what his daughter looked like when he met her. When Sakura got stabbed while standing beside him, he didn't care, but when it happened to Naruto he asked after Naruto's well-being. Sakura got the guy she always salivated over, but she didn't actually win anything.

Your consistent need to degrade Hinata and Ino as characters to 'prove' that Sakura is somehow better than them, is also sus. Objectively, they have more character growth and better motivations, and while they might not be super strong and can't punch a house to smithereens in a tantrum, they're far better characters and have better relationships with the people in their lives.

But yeah. People not liking SH for all of these things that make up her character, means they are misogynists.

[waytray]

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥.

Some season 2 episode 8 screenshots I took of Viktor part 3/3

link to part 1

bonus: (the last frame of where he says 'as partners') before Jayce responds)