#admittedly bail wouldn't have liked him either

[spindle-girl]

I will never not get annoyed over people saying that Brian/Grue joining the Heroes was the obvious and easiest choice out there. Admittedly, the WOGs expand more on it, but even with what we get from Arc 4 when he talks about his trigger event, I can't comprehend how anyone wouldn't see the reasons for him not wanting to join the government sponsored heroes.

Basing this off memory, but to sum it up, Brian goes to him moms house after getting a text from Aisha asking for help. He finds her in some poor condition ( I don't think he goes into detail and it may not matter if he did cause he's not telling the full truth here) and when he tries to take her back to his dad's, their step-dad gets in thew ay and doesn't let them leave. Brian proceeds to beat him up, take his sister back, and gets powers sometime in between.

Then, he, aisha, and their dad go to the police the very next morning. They explain what happened and Brian still describes how he almost got sent to jail. Only aisha backing him up and his step-dad missing an asshole anonymous meeting saved him. And he still got some months of community service. Like, in my opinion he did the right thing every step of the way and still almost got screwed over.

Sometime later, (not immediately cause he's 14 to 15 when he gets powers) he decides to try and take care of aisha by being a villain to get enough money/backing to do it.

That's all described in arc 4. Now we get into the WOGs. Again, basing this off memory, but I can try to find them later.

First, Brian lied about his trigger, a little bit. General event still happened, but when he claimed he didn't know who the man was besides being his mom's new boyfriend, he lied. He knew that man bc it was the same boyfriend who had abused him in the past. And his mom brought him back and let him interact with his sister. Add in his mom's other problems and his dad's ("I wouldn't describe him as abusive") there was a fair bit of emotions Brian was going through that he didn't share. But at the end of the day, every adult in his life failed him and his sister. He wouldn't be willing to extend his trust as easily.

Second, a different WOG described Brian getting into crime in a panic bc aisha had done something afterward that led to her needing to get bailed out of something with money (again, going off memeory) so even if he wanted to join the wards he'd be doing it with a record. Presumably he later decided he might as well go all in on it and get aisha into a safer environment than both his parents. He probably thought it may help with keeping her out of trouble as well if she wasn't around two people who didn't know how to raise kids (not that he did either, but he probably thought he couldn't do worse).

Third, by WOG he did actually consider the wards, but after researching them decided they wouldn't be worth it. Admittedly this was moreso bc of his own hangups with commitment. Bc telling the big organization your power and identity then trying to bail wouldn't really work out, but apparently it was still preferable to a career of crime. It's not like the Protectorate would actually have authority to take a child away from their parents anyway without major proof, especially if that kid isn't a parahuman themself.

Fourth, the undersiders were generally a low risk high reward chance until Taylor joined and brought them her bad luck. They operated for a year and only got into some mild skirmishes with Lung and them being escape artist didn't have an issue with him. Besides that, they made a shot ton of money on top of the 2grand their sponsor gave them.

Fifth, I don't think we ever learned what the time table was for Coil helping out with Brian getting custody, especially given how suspicious Brian was of their mysterious boss and his motives preleviathan. Maybe Coil admitted to knowing Brian's problems and offered a solution at the start. Maybe Brian opened up with it as a condition to him joining. Or maybe after a few months of getting 2grand a relatively easy missions Brian decided to trust the boss who hadn't screwed him and ask for the money to be given to him in a legal paycheck for better chance at custody. I say that last option bc Brian is supposed to be the careful pragmatic one who thinks about his choices and doesn't do the crazy option unless bug girl decides to go full throttle and he begrudgingly goes along. And giving his personal details and a sure fire way of blackmail isn't excalty the pragmatic choice.

Tldr: he has to have some pretty big distrust of authority cause shifty parents and probably shotty police and by WOG became a criminal in a panic before going full in on it. Cause he was, again, like 15 years old.

Now, the argument for him joining the wards is that the Heroes/PRT could have snapped their fingers and given everything Brian would want. And seeing the deal Madcap got I can definitely see the idea behind it, but there are a few problems with that. A) Brian wouldn't know shit about how desperate the Heroes are bc they don't advertise that. B) I'm not sure how much power they would actually have over taking kids away from unhealthy environments cause laws and shit would probably limit that. C) as stated above, he says he almost got jailed for hurting his step-dad so I don't see him liking authority at this stage, no matter how just he was in the eyes of the law for it. D) Brian's own issues and that he's a 15 year old so he won't see the world as a perfectly rational being.

[sophiegoose]

A List of Times Dio Brando Has Appeared In My Dreams (a memoir)

Today marks the ???th occaision of Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure appearing in my dreams.

I should note that I haven't read Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, haven't watched the anime, and have no intention of doing either, yet this mf continues to appear in my dreams.

This has been going on for years now, and more than one of my friends has stated now that he is surprisingly "in-character" whilst in my dreams, so with him appearing yet again in my dreams I thought I'd finally share some of the saga of this random-ass anime character messing around in my dreams for the amusement of onlookers everywhere

Enjoy.

Dream 1, The Cosplay:

The first dream I ever had that featured Dio happened back at the height of quarantine in 2020. Had a dream about quarantining in a fancy apartment, alone in a big city. Tuned into a livestream where a bunch of folks were having a "stay-at-home convention," and at one point they had a little contest where the idea was to put together the best cosplay you could of an anime character from stuff around your home under a time limit.

That sounded like fun, so I waited for the timer to start, then began rifling through my closet for stuff. Admittedly I don't watch much anime at all, so I was struggling for a character to try and cosplay when a thought wormed its way into my head, almost forcibly: I had a few things that would work perfect for Dio Brando.

So, I rifled through my closet, grabbing a yellow jumpsuit, a black undershirt, some random green bits of cloth and makeup and proceeded to make the crappiest Dio cosplay you've ever fucking seen. Looking in the mirror once I was done cobbling stuff together and happy with what I had managed to scrounge together, I looked down to the counter to grab the final touch: some green lipstick.

As I looked into the mirror again, I noticed that something was wrong with my face: it already had the green lipstick on, and it seemed to be morphing and changing. As I touched and focused on my face, the changes rapidly took hold, and before I could really respond I WAS Dio Brando. I'd been transformed into him. Spent the rest of that dream just walking around my apartment as him, awkwardly standing around and bewildered.

Dream 2, Shenanigans Against Our Will:

This was either the second or third time Dio showed up in my dreams, can't quite remember which. Either way, it involved me hanging out with a friend of mine when Dio and some lackeys showed up. They were destroying stuff and causing all sorts of chaos around town, and before either me nor my friend could run for it, Dio roped me and my friend (along with about a half dozen other unfortunate souls) into going along with his shenanigans and helping him and his lackeys destroy stuff, under the threat of death if we disobeyed.

We went from door to door in town, with Dio fucking up each house in a different way. One of them he changed into a jagged mess of spiky, non-euclidian shapes, like a glitch in a videogame, with the residents still inside. Another house he killed everyone inside of in increasingly whackier and cartoony ways, having a good laugh about it all. And then another house he just stole some stuff from.

At one point, me and my friend tired to bail, only for Dio and his lackeys to catch back up with us and drag us back into causing mayhem. Dio apparently found this hilarious, cackling the whole time he forced us back into the group to partake in committing arson and the like.

Not a great time, tbh.

Dream 3, Dio Goes Full Karen:

Had another dream once where I was at mall with some friends and family.

It was one of those weird malls that only occur in dreams, too big/weirdly structured to exist IRL, but in the dream it's perfectly normal and accepted.

Anyway, I was walking down into this weird wavy, tiled pit that the food court was in with my friend when all the sudden I hear some loud yelling. I turn my head towards the little coffeeshop kiosk nearby and wouldn't you fuckin' know it's Dio FUCKIN' Brando again, loudly arguing with the barista.

Me and my friend pass by as we're heading to a different kiosk and overhear a bit of what's going on. Apparently the barista messed up his order, some sort of big fancy drink he ordered, in several ways and he's demanding blood because of it, livid as can be. He's pulling out all the stops: he wants to see the manager, how did this person even get hired, such incompetence, the usual guff you'll recognize if you've ever worked retail ever, etc.

He continues ranting and raving and we try to pass by, only for him to recognize us, apparently (this was a different friend than the one I had in the last dream, FYI). He proceeds to try and call us over to back him up, acting as if we know him and would assist him, and we both book it away from that mess as fast as we can.

Hope that poor barista got a raise.

Dreams ?-???, Random Encounters:

Ever since I had my first dream featuring him, Dio has shown up off and on, even when not the main focus of a dream/moment in a dream.

Over the years I've noted a few times he's been in crowds, sitting around at a location I'm at in a dream, etc.

One time he was one of the lackeys of a different Big Bad in one of my nightmares, and another time he was just casually standing in the same line as me at a store in a different dream.

Dude's been hanging around for a while, but I haven't had another dream with him as a focus in quite some time...until last night.

Dream 4, The Ruined Vacation:

So, last night.

Slept deep, had a vivid dream.

I was on vacation in a cozy town in the French countryside with my family. We decided to stay in a hotel room whose balcony overlooked the town's small marketplace, all very quaint and cozy.

The hotel itself was strange, way taller on the inside than it was on the outside, and gave off eerily liminal and abandoned vibes. Anyway, we got our room and we climbed up the satirs, and the whole time a creeping sense of dread continued to gnaw at me.

We get to our room, and, finally, here he comes, the mf of the hour.

Turns out Dio and some pals of his had rented the suite next to ours, and how better to celebrate than to be loud and obnoxious, break shit, and ruin our vacation as best he can.

Starting off, he trapped two of my family members' souls into a basketball, which he then dribbled down the street as I chased him. He played a professional level game of keep-away with it the whole damn time, with me yelling and swinging at him and the ball to no avail. This mf.

Later on in the dream I met up with some friends, and one of them went missing. Dio heavily implied that he'd stuffed said friend's body into the air ducts above one of the hotel rooms, which me and a couple of pals tore up looking for it, only to realize that Dio had tricked us into digging a huge hole between two floors of the hotel, with no air ducts, body, or friend in sight. Thissssss bastard.

Finally confrontation involved me coming to kick his ass whilst he casually floated in midair, spinning the basketball atop his finger, monologing as I approached, completely unbothered...

And then I woke up.

Didn't even get a chance to punch him.

In conclusion:

Whoever sent this motherfucker to my subconscious take him back, I do not want him. Thank you.