#and someone added the jojo effect while I was away and??

[iiguess]

OOC. Guess who drew one(1) Cherry Boy on our school’s wALL—

[joongernaut]

pairing: osaki shotaro x reader

genre/warnings: slight humor/crack, suggestive, reader is a lil drama queen and shotaro shuts her up, heavy making out, a little dry humping but nothing too explicit tho

word count: 1k+

A/N: this was requested anonymously by anon who wanted more taro stuff since tumblr is so scarce 💔 i hope you like it anon!

“y/n…” shotaro started carefully, taking in your curled up body on the couch as you grumbled an incoherent response. “come on, y/n. i said i was sorry.” he said, stifling a laugh he badly wanted to let out. he honestly couldn't even bother to be annoyed at how petty you were being right now. you were honestly just too cute for your own good.

you looked over at him with a sharp look, trying hard to look at least a little intimidating, but with the little pout accompanying your face shotaro could only smile fondly back as he sat down next to you. “i really didn't know you would want any candy. we can run to the store later and i’ll pick up some more just for you, okay?” he said, reaching out to pat your thigh before giving it a small squeeze.

a dramatic sigh fell from your mouth as you wiggled away from his grasp. “no thank you.” you said flatly, looking down at your finger nails with disinterest. “i wanted some earlier but you know… someone ate it all.” you added, sitting up more as you scooted away from him towards the other end of the couch. shotaro shook his head as he followed your movement, sliding closer until you two were shoulder to shoulder. “to be fair,” he started, “that was my last bag of candy. but if you wanted a piece, you should've said something sooner! i’m not a mind reader, baby.” he said with a chuckle, poking at your side as you squirmed away from his touch.

“what happened to ‘sharing is caring’? splitting 50/50? isn't that what couples are supposed to do?” you said, gesturing with your hands as shotaro’s eyes only continued to crease more, giggling as you went on. “this has to be your biggest betrayal, i think. right after that time you finished jojo’s bizarre adventure without me!” you whined, lightly shoving his shoulder as he snaked one of his arms around your waist.

“what if i said i actually had one more piece left?” shotaro questioned, already reaching into the pocket of his jeans to fish for the packaged wrapped candy. he didn't miss the way you slightly perked up hearing him, watching as he dangled the fruity treat in your face almost tauntingly. “that's been in your pocket though! for who knows how long…” you complained and shotaro let out a sigh of defeat. “fine, i’ll eat it.” he said, starting to unwrap it quickly before popping the candy into his mouth as you gawked at him in surprise.

“hey, i didn't say i wouldn’t eat it!” you said, twisting in your position to fully face him now. shotaro gave you a look, half amusement and half exasperation before he turned his body to face you as well. “okay, then… here.” he said, bringing his hand up to place it on the back of your neck. you opened your mouth and let out a small sound of protest as he pulled you closer. you effectively shut yourself up though once he pressed his plush lips against your own in an unsuspecting kiss.

with your lips parted in mild shock, shotaro took the opportunity to push his tongue into your mouth and your breath hitched once he came in contact with your own appendage. it was instinct to kiss him back, the softness of his lips easily reeling you in as your hands fisted the front of his shirt to anchor yourself. you nearly forget about the candy that he had in his mouth if it weren't for him pressing the sweet piece against the both of your tongues as you let out a soft moan.

the little noise flipped a switch in shotaro as he brought you even closer, deepening the kiss while he pulled you over into his lap with ease making you straddle his waist. you wrapped your arms around his shoulders as you pressed your chests together firmly earning a pleased hum from the man under you. the candy had all but melted once you finally parted from each other’s lips, a very thin string of saliva breaking once you got a bit of distance between your faces.

you both were slightly panting, regaining a bit of composure as you sucked in some much needed air. you didn't have much time to get a look at the way shotaro’s lips had puffed up a bit from your heavy makeout. you only got a quick glimpse of the red dye of the candy that had stained a bit of the inner part of his mouth as well as his tongue. the droop of his eye that brewed a deeper emotion in him the more he stared at you was the last thing you really saw before he buried himself into the crook of your neck.

“taro…” you whimpered, grabbing at the back of his head when you felt the wetness of his tongue drag along your collarbone up to the shell of your ear. he bit down softly on your lobe eliciting a gasp from your mouth as your hips jerked forward subconsciously. he made a noise, something between a low growl and a grunt, grabbing at your ass to press you into his crotch more. your spine tingled at the contact, feeling the faint print of an erection forming right against you.

“i don’t think i care for that flavor that much anymore.” shotaro muttered against your skin suddenly, pulling you out of your lust-filled daze briefly. “w-what? you mean the candy?” you questioned, earning a low hum of confirmation. he squeezed at your ass again, harder this time, grazing his teeth along your neck before pressing a small kiss against the column. “i think you taste a lot better than the candy.” he voiced, placing another kiss on your neck before sucking and nipping at the skin harshly with the promise of hickeys surely to appear when he felt satisfied enough.

you would definitely have to press him about buying more candy for you two much later but, for now, you enjoyed the addictive feeling of shotaro’s lips on every part of you that he could reach. if he thought you were the one that tasted good then, to you, he was the sweetest thing you had ever known.

[baravaggio]

finished my steel ball run bag 😗✌️

(some project notes below)

When I work on these projects, I usually make notes (typically voice recordings) throughout so I can organize my thoughts about the piece. I usually delete the recordings right after I've listened back to them, but since this project was a big learning experience, this time I feel like documenting some of my notes in writing.

This has been one of my favorite projects I've ever worked on! I got to try a lot of new things and work on improving certain techniques, overall I feel like I was successful in executing what I'd intended.

Some stuff that was new for me:

Embroidering on this weight/weave of fabric

Adding shading freehand after handwashing

Using a different handwashing technique to keep the integrity of the stitches

Using a greater variety of floss, as well as marker, pen, and pencil, to try to create a greater range of value for shading

Process:

Selecting the image - this took a lot longer than I thought, since many of my favorite JoJo characters/panels have features in them that wouldn't translate well to embroidery. I wanted to choose something that would look great in black and white too. I chose this one because it had a level of detail that wasn't unmanageable, the shading is primarily done with lines/hatching (so no complicated, small patterns), and I knew anything I'd have to add or omit to make it more effective as an embroidered piece wouldn't fuck with the depth (or recognizability) of the piece. Making the pattern - as usual, I used Procreate to edit the pattern. I took more time than usual to remove shading that I would be adding in after the wash. This included the big blocks of dark shading as well as any lines that were long and fine. Stitching the base design - for this piece I used my usual 1-2 strands of DMC embroidery floss, but for some of the bolder features, I used DMC Pearl Cotton 12 floss. I really liked using this, even though it's still 2 strands of floss, the fact that they are twisted together helped create a nice bold line that held up well in the washing.

Here's an in-progress pic. One area where I used the 12 Pearl Cotton was the outlining for Johnny's hat, which I think looks really nice and bold here!

(Before step 4, I'll clarify that I use a printable stabilizer to transfer patterns to the fabric - it's basically a sticker you can print directly on, stick to your fabric, stitch through, then wash out with water. It's great if you're like me and not good with tracing, drawing freehand, or usually use designs that are too detailed to use something like your average transfer pen for. But if you have an Inkjet printer especially, you will want to use as little ink as possible to reduce the risk of staining...honestly, if you have any questions about this product, feel free to ask me - I have a lot of experience with/thoughts on it lol) Washing - I opted to wash this piece in the hoop. I wanted to maintain the tension of the fabric while washing to hopefully minimize the warping I've experienced when washing in the past. I also didn't agitate the fabric as much or use any kind of soap or detergent to wash away the adhesive. This was really successful - not only did the stitches stay even, I didn't encounter any staining, which I'm really pleased about! Here's what it looked like post-wash, before I started shading:

Shading - this was the most intimidating part of the piece for me...I'm not someone who's very knowledgeable about the technical aspect of visual art, so the idea of placing shading lines without a guide was kind of scary. I followed the shading on my reference image more or less exactly, although I did omit some stuff that I thought would look too heavy.

I used a mix of sewing floss, pencil, marker, and pen to give myself some flexibility when it came to line weight and gradients. There were a couple areas where I knew floss would be too intense, such as the lips and eyes, the underside of Gyro's goggles, and the horse on Johnny's hat. For the horse and goggles, I used the texture of the fabric to my advantage, the rougher texture was definitely conducive to achieving a textured effect similar to the original image. I opted to shade in the underside of Gyro's hat completely black to complement that huge block of black shading on Johnny's neck. I used a regular 0.38 nib pen to add some details to Johnny's eyes and lashes too.

I'm mostly really pleased with the shading, except for the shading along Johnny's nose. tried to go in and fix it, but with a fabric this weight, I was hesitant to pull out stitches and completely redo it because I don't want to leave noticeable holes in the piece. If it keeps bothering me, I might go back and fix it later.

Final thoughts:

This piece really encompassed everything I like about doing this kind of embroidery. In real life, I get asked a lot by family and friends why I choose to embroider things from manga/anime instead of my own original designs. One of the main reasons I do this is because as someone who got into manga for the art, I find it's a really fun and hands-on way to "study" the work of artists I enjoy. Through translating it to embroidery, I have to pay attention to a lot of details about a piece I might not have otherwise. And I almost always pick up on something really interesting and exciting when I do this!

I knew I wanted to embroider something from Steel Ball Run when I reached the part of the manga where Araki's art shifted more to the detailed, dramatic, and cinematic. But having read the colored version, I didn't really appreciate how difficult it can be to achieve this level of detail and drama in black and white, especially without the use of digitally added texture. Through making this piece, and particularly while doing the shading, I really began to respect the amount of skill it takes to do something like this.

Overall, I think this is the most satisfied I've been with something I've embroidered. I'm a huge perfectionist about my embroidery so I'll always have something to nitpick, but even so, I can honestly say I'm really pleased with how well the process I'd planned out translated to the final product. And I'm really pleased with my progress overall.

[cynthiaandsamus]

Custom Toonami Block Week 96 Rundown

Stone Ocean: I actually really like this episode despite how fucked up and dark it is, (this is the reason I have tw in the tags so nobody get on me about this one it’s just the subject matter of the episode) but this might be my favorite episode of Stone Ocean thus far, Hermes Conrad… I mean Ermes Costello, has awakened her Stand and apparently was just passed out for days while Jolyene was having two and a half Stand battles already. Her Stand is Ki-I mean Smack, and I actually really like it, it’s one of those creative ones like Bruno’s Zipper Dude that I can see having a lot of weird uses later. Just the fact that it makes clones of shit is cool but then its only way of dealing damage is dispelling the clones to basically hit something with the force of itself, it’s limited offensively but spacially it’s a really neat idea since the clones seem to do more damage the farther they are from the original. She ends up facing Lightning McQueen’s suicidal older brother Thunder McQueen. And while this is as dark and fucked up as it sounds, his Stand ability to transfer his suicidal actions to Ermes is kind of an interesting metaphor for how suicide doesn’t just effect the person committing it, Ermes even says as much in some on the nose dialogue. In addition they have to address the ugly truth that Ermes is only trying to stop this guy because it will hurt her which is an unfortunate implication since it can seem like people buy into Suicide Prevention so they don’t have to go through the pain of losing someone rather than actual value for the life itself. So yeah, weirdly insightful for something so ridiculous and wildly insensitive otherwise. McQueen is of course a trash person as most Jojo villains are but it’s an interesting dynamic, obviously Ermes is only trying to stop him to save herself but at the same time I think even without Stands involved most people don’t want others to commit self-harm so there’d probably be at least something to try and stop him, and also obviously given the fact he’s still alive means he’s probably not very good at it, ironically never having gone through with it until Ermes trying to convince him to live makes him want to make sure they can die together because he likes her, so yeah adding murder to the equation revokes the 0.001 sympathy point I had for McQueen’s admittedly fucked up backstory that I hear was based on/inspired by a real thing that happened or at least an Urban Legend. Ermes herself is really fun because she’s more of an outward hardass than Jolyene but also shown to be a goofball putting up that façade in a way that kind of gels better than the weird fractured halves of Jolyene’s own personality. Emporio tells her about Jolyene and she gets McQueen’s Stand disc to turn off the link between them so she’s off to find Jolyene and become the new Jobro.

Inuyasha: More filler, this time Kirara has run away and everyone’s trying to figure out where she went. This episode is REALLY light on plot and you can really tell how they’re setting up things to be a big misunderstanding but taking it super seriously. The first half is Shippo listing how everyone’s used Kirara for their own ends, Inuyasha trained with her for the Wind Scar/Backlash Wave which apparently did some damage to her fur, Miroku used her to pick up girls/fend off other girls, Kagome used her as a car and then made her wait a ridiculously long time for her to come back and Sango just feels kinda bad in general. Of course Kirara didn’t actually run away but they run into an ogre monkey thing that they play off as having EATEN KIRARA like at this point everyone knows that the filler has gone too far but at least we get to see Sango’s silent rage and flashbacks to her getting Kirara which at least makes something of value for this episode. Turns out Myoga borrowed Kirara to carry a heavy sharpening stone for the Tessaiga which they’re definitely not taking with them so idk why they even bothered, would’ve been better leaving it at Totosai’s and calling Inuyasha there to use it since it’s way too big for them to just carry around.  But yeah turns out Shippo was supposed to give the message about where they were but he got it while he was half asleep so didn’t remember even Kagome lets Inuyasha beat Shippo a little for that after blaming them the whole time. The whole thing is this weird farce of unlikely coincidences but it does go into Sango and Kirara’s relationship a bit so that’s nice I suppose.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Finally we get a breather after the last two rounds going back to back, Yusuke and co get about a two day break since there are other rounds to be had. Yusuke’s spirit beast finally hatches and it’s… a penguin with fur, yeah I feel like if YYH was made today this would be a lot cuter to sell merch and shit but just the fact that the reflection of Yusuke’s soul is this chill little derp is really fucking hilarious. Everyone gets a good laugh out of it and honestly it’s really endearing to see this group together and it really makes them feel like good friends even though they don’t spend a lot of time together as a group, like they make good use of the on-screen time they do have to just have them bullshit with each other making fun of Yusuke’s penguin or Hiei being Yukina’s brother and her and Kuwabara being literally the only people that don’t know. We see the next two matches and unfortunately Yusuke’s group never gets teamed up with these dumb punching bag demon teams that the villains get matched up with cause they never seem to put up a fight at all when the next team Yusuke’s gonna fight is fighting them, that’s probably part of the tournament committee bull putting Yusuke’s team through the wringer by putting him against the toughest teams (honestly having the structure of the arc itself out to get you is such a good mechanic) Toguro shows up and does his spirit energy flex which makes Kuwabara shit himself while Yusuke and Not!Genkai go have a talk, turns out all along Not!Genkai was… Genakai! Holy shit guys did you know about this? Anyway turns out she’s just been putting on a disguise and part of her power is reverting to her prime when she’s firing on all cylinders which legit no other old person in the series does so I’m pretty sure that’s some bullshit she made up to fuck with Yusuke and she’s just using a glamour or some shit. But yeah now it’s time for Yusuke to have his super duper ultra final definitely for real this time lesson with Genkai.

Fate Extra: So after Hakuno kills the Officer Jennys (we still get no explanation for ???% Mob Psycho Hakuno so dunno what that was about) he just kinda breaks all Shinji’s barriers and then Rin shows up on her motorbike to save them. She goes into how Shinji won the fight on the lowest level but decided not to go up and thus gained control of the level and became mayor and shit. Honestly this Shinji is kind of my favorite version of Shinji because he’s still a coward and an asshole but he does seem to care that he’s murdering people and doesn’t want to do it anymore which is fair, so knowing he can’t win because he presumably just barely won the original fight, he decides to make a city for peeps at the bottom. It’s weird because we never actually see any of the former masters and they later say the floor was empty so idk what happened to them. But yeah Hakuno immediately joins Rin’s terrorist group against Shinji because how dare he feel regret about murdering people and not want to fight, like I get that Hakuno’s basically still mad because Shinji killed him and that if they don’t move up they won’t be able to punch the big buddist rings in the sky from killing humanity or whatever so he is a villain of opportunity but it’s just weird how Shinji’s like “I don’t like killing people” and everyone’s like “What the fuck dude” Anyway Rin does some kind of hacker thing to find Shinji and Hakuno and Nero meet him in a replica of the Fuyuki school on the roof because Shinji thinks he’s the anime protagonist. So Nero and Drake fight and apparently Drake’s NP is the ghost ships from Lord of the Rings and a cannon that is a lot smaller than the one she has in FGO. She blows Nero underwater and Nero’s about to command a ship but needs more mana so Hakuno swims underwater to kiss her and I feel like I should be more mad about that senseless fanservice harem bullshit but honestly given original Fate had magic dolphin sex I’m just counting it lucky they didn’t have to have an underwater quickie to boost her magic. Anyway she raises a ship to crash into Drake’s ship which does… something, honestly now that I think about it idk what it does, like Drake’s main ship wasn’t moving all that fast and Nero attacks head on from another direction anyway and it doesn’t damage the main ship all that much so I guess she just rammed the broken ship into her for show or something. Anyway after that Nero does her red glowy deal and just kinda slashes Drake and Drake has her guns on her to shoot her and then just… doesn’t? Like idk it prolly wouldn’t have killed her but it would’ve kept this short fight going a bit longer. Only thing I can imagine is that Shinji’s a really shitty master and she ran out of mana bullets or something. But yeah Nero beats Drake really quickly and they do a quick reflection on Shinji not wanting to murder people and Hakuno’s like ‘well I don’t agree but no hard feelings about the murdering me thing’ and Nero, Hakuno and Rin all go to the next level of SAO.  

Bakemonogatari: It’s new arc time and we’re immediately introduced to the new arc girl Suruga who jumps Araragi while he’s doing his little sister thing with Mayoi. Since Araragi knows he’s not some kind of harem protagonist he wonders why he suddenly has random basketball girls approaching him and asks Hitagi about it. After she almost murders him for asking about another woman, she explains that Suruga was both an athletic colleague, a friend and her junior in middle school but she found out about Hitagi’s weightlessness and backed down when Hitagi went all yandere on her with the box cutter and stapler since she can’t heal like Araragi. It’s most likely that Suruga is trying to find out about Araragi because he’s the person that managed to get through Hitagi’s five layer steel fortress of a personality and is even dating her now. Araragi calls Hanekawa to get more info which she chides him as being a little weird digging up dirt on his gf with another girl which I guess is true but we need more exposition. But basically they were a big pair and good friends, Sugura even worshipped Hitagi as her senpai and Hitagi kind of cut her down real fast and hard, so who knows what’s going on between them. Hanekawa ends by saying that both Araragi and Hitagi are people that don’t like interacting with people but do like people in general, they’re both more reclusive than average so they’re both good for each other but will also have a hard time expressing things to each other, classic Hedgehog Dilemma shit, cue the Evangelion music. Speaking of Evangelion things are about to get bloody as Araragi gets jumped on his way home by an apparition that has the same kind of injured arm Suruga had, he’s left to bleed out on the railroad tracks for Hitagi to find and bring him the money for her Arc 1 services. So from what I’m gathering we’ve got a yandere demon basketball player that wants to fuck Araragi up out of conflicted emotions for him being able to help her senpai when she couldn’t, that’s just what I’m gathering but I could be way off. Though at this point it is kind of a standard for the arc girl to beat the shit out of Araragi so it wouldn’t be surprising.

Sailor Moon Crystal: It’s time to start the investigation into Mugen Academy! …but first Usagi has a temper tantrum that Mamoru is chaperoning Chibi-Usa’s amusement park trip and she’s still having this weird complex about wanting to date this older guy that’s also technically her father. Honestly I can see how Usagi’s petty tantrums can get annoying but this one’s so impotent and harmless that it’s just kind of funny and really makes her look pathetic, which I’ve gone on record as Usagi being a pathetic dork is preferable to the emotionless stoic drama queen so it’s fine. We get a brief intro to this season’s antagonists that are making the Daimons, the Slutty Winx Club, apparently they call go to  My Evil Witch Academia and if they kill Sailor Guardians they get to take in the… wait for it CRYSTAL that gives them all mysterious magical powers. How many of these fucking crystals are there? Like just every fucking group has their own geological power source from nowhere and we don’t know shit about them except ‘they strong’. When it was just the Legendary Silver Crystal and the Malefic Black Crystal as its counterpart I could excuse it but now that we have three I feel like we need an answer. Anyway Chibi-Usa is a dumb bitch like her mother and wears a hat on a roller coaster so of course it flies off and she wanders off to get it. I feel kinda bad for Mamoru, he’s not a quirky dude he’s just the straight man in a gaggle of dumbasses trying to herd cats and he has to play into everyone’s weird emotional quirks to not make waves. Anyway they do the Mugen investigation and long story short they don’t find out shit. Michiru’s out playing the violin and apparently people can hear it from outside and Mamoru can hear it from like a block away so I have no idea how that doesn’t piss people off trying to study in their skyscraper academy. Usagi finds her and Michiru’s all ‘bitch you never shoulda come here’ and even though Usagi knows nothing about this bitch other than she plays violin and gives mean death glares she knows she’s plot important. Haruka is outside and does the same thing for the rest of the Guardians. Meanwhile Chibi-Usa finds a girl having an anxiety attack or some shit and they all get attacked by a Cat Daimon which leads to a scene I found hilarious where Mercury uses her super IQ visor thing to scan it and she’s just like “Watch out it’s got claws!” Like no shit Sherlock, glad we busted out the analysis device for that one. And then we get SIX transformation/motto scenes back to back, like really guys when this was a weekly anime and had hundreds of episodes to fuck around with monsters of the week I get we needed to fill time but when it’s a seasonal anime with 13 episodes and a lot to explain do we really need this filler? Like maybe save the full transformations for a season opener/ender or big battle or at least do split-screens. Anyway they blast the cat thing and the girl who Chibi-Usa helped heals her with her Whitelighter powers I guess and then Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune hop down from the heavens and because they’re wearing Tuxedo Mask Masks that means nobody can tell these are the girls they were talking to ten minutes ago because characters in Sailor Moon have the attention span of a goldfish. I riff this episode a lot but I will say Season 3 is still a big improvement, there’s a lot more personality and intrigue in the proceedings and even though they still go on about the “Are they friends or enemies?” line they do every time someone new shows up even though unless they attack them on sight the answer is always friends, it’s still a neat mystery about of the Outer Guardians fit in on all this so I am having fun.

Durararax2: The mafia’s still pissed that Shizuo supposedly killed three of their men but even they’re like ‘wait he could easily murder us all, why is he running around and not fighting back?’ and we have the hilarious scene of Mafioso trying to explain to their don how Shizuo just chucks half a city block at people. Though it seems Izaya was a step ahead since he told Akane that Shizuo was going to kill her family so that she’d attack him and she’d be seen with him so the mafia would have extra incentive to come after him. Also apparently the message Mikado got from Masaomi about staying away from Dollars stuff for the weekend was actually from Izaya hacking Masaomi’s account and that’s why Masaomi’s chat history was blank because Izaya cleared it so he couldn’t see. Apparently Izaya and Aoba are cut from the same cloth and the thing evil geniuses hate most is company. Aoba’s basically forcing Mikado’s hand to become the leader of the Blue Squares and Celty watches until she gets caught because Shinra called her about the mafia men showing up at his place looking for a little girl and Shizuo. Aoba basically calls Mikado his boss in front of the Toradora people attacking them and makes it so he can’t clear that up so like it or not he’s being hunted as both the boss of the Dollars and Blue Squares. Celty gets him out of there and the Russian assassins gunning for her give chase and Celty picks Anri and Akane up right before a mafia war starts up between the mafia and the Toradora dudes and now everyone’s running everywhere scrambling to make sense of things in like the third gang war Ikebukuro has had in the past year.  

[brief-candle]

ᴡɪᴛɴᴇss - Yoshikage Kira.

this has been a hiatus and a half, huh?

first of all, i'd like to apologise for the wait on this. and a couple of other requests that i've yet to do, but this in particular. because this is a good couple of months old and,, omg i can't believe it. i'm so so sorry

a lot has happened. college is back, unfortunately, and i've just been taking a lot of time to myself to avoid writer's block! as well as having wrote like 3000 words for this chapter and hating it all so then purging the vast majority of it to make it like twice as dark and gritty. kinda. still kinda iffy on most of it.

hope it's at least passable, and apologies that my long hiatus resulted in,, this.

anyways! here's wonderwall everyone's favourite hand fetishist!

series: jojo's bizarre adventure.

notes: yandere, choking, minor character death, general lack of niceness here.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰ 

Work wasn't exactly stressful, but by god it was boring. Day in, day out; nine until five, nothing was ever different. Not that you'd expected anything different. It just came with the process of being an adult.

You almost snorted sardonically, thoughts wandering back to school. Back then, your head was full of dreams of grandeur, of something far better than some dead end job sat in an office, achieving nothing before death finally arrived. However those ideas were little more than delusions that would never be given the chance to develop to fruitation. Such were the realities of life, that childhood dreams very rarely were given the chance to become a reality. A truth. Something more than an unachievable, faroff pipe dream that could only be experienced through hard drugs or strange dreams that one would shrug off or forget by the time that a coffee is poured. Ah, speaking of, you could really do with one of those right now.

It was like he had read your mind, as per usual you'd found with him, as a cup of coffee exactly to your tastes had found its way onto your desk.

"Ah, thanks Mr. Kira."

You'd found yourself coming almost quite close with the man, despite him usually keeping to himself and separating home life from work. Well, as close as one could get to someone who seemed to distance himself from those who worked with him, anyway. In a way, you'd found it rather admirable. Some colleagues may have thought the same, or disregarded it entirely, with how they fawned over him. It was pretty gross to watch, but you tended to keep such thoughts to yourself. Life was easier that way, as less drama came from it.

Besides, you could see where they were coming from in a way. It was clear to anyone with functioning eyes that Yoshikage Kira was attractive, with immaculate taste that only seemed to compliment naturally good looks. Especially with his smile, which seemed so broad and genuine. You envied him in a way, with beautiful features and a smile that could make many a heart skip a beat.

Though you supposed that you were no exception.

Even now, after so many coffees brought to you and so many small sessions of idle chat, you could practically feel your cheeks redden as he spoke. Voice like honey and smooth as silk, with such a charming expression to match. You could only hope that your cheeks weren't as red as they were warm to the touch. As long as no one noticed, it would be fine. You feared you'd die of embarrassment if your little schoolgirl crush on your coworker was exposed, even at this stage in adulthood. It truly was a pathetic situation. Especially when you couldn't even dream of calling him by his first name else you'd immediately regret it from the sheer embarrassment it could bring upon yourself. Besides, no one called Yoshikage Kira by anything but his surname, seeing as he tended to keep to himself and no one was close enough to acceptably use his given name.

Then that smile emerged, and the revelation that your heart was not immune to the effects of his charm made itself known like a slap in the face. Oh, how the mighty do fall. Or how the pathetic fall further.

"You're welcome."

Just those two words, spoken like they were imbued with the very essence of charm itself, and he was gone. You almost sighed, whether from relief for your heart or some sort of wistful longing was beyond you. Perhaps it was even a combination of both, seeing as that would most likely be your only conversation with the man that day. Maybe even for the next couple of days.

That said, your cheeks felt like they were on fire. This interaction had been different, shockingly so, as there was something more than words there.

It was almost funny how things so quickly changed. From there you'd ended up in what felt like some sort of alternate dimension, as strange and silly as such a thing sounded.

"Don't kill me...! Please- please! I won't tell a soul, I swear!"

It was just a drunken night out; the first in a while and a chance to catch up with some old friends for the first time in a long while. Your separate careers had prevented you doing so for a good few months at the very least. And oh, how you'd wished it had been delayed for a few months longer. How nice it was to imagine how differently it could've all gone, to find comfort in the infinite possibilities of 'if', to seek shelter in it away from the harrowing present splayed out in front of you.

Or the lack of things splayed out in front of you, that is.

You were just a normal office worker who liked their morning coffees a little too much. This sort of strange, otherworldly phenomena were way beyond you. Was this some sort of dream? A sick joke that life had decided to play on you?

It was easy to believe that. Much too easy to fall into disbelief. And yet you couldn't do it, with your throat feeling like it was being constricted torturously slowly, closing in on itself little by little. Fraction of a millimetre by fraction of a millimetre. Tear ducts had long since dried up in your panic and sheer, unbridled fear. How useful they'd be now, adding any sliver of extra punch to your last resort: begging for your life from what you had believed to be your just-as-normal coworker.

His gaze was cold. Sharp as it seemed to pierce you completely, and only further convinced you that it was over. Useless to do anything but sit there on your just as useless, quaking legs and take the death he'd grant and hope to any and all forms of God that it'd be quick. Hell, maybe he'd just erase you completely. Like what had happened to the rest of your friends, drunkenly foolish in their suggestion to follow your coworker for the sole purpose of revealing your mundane, fruitless crush. How childish it was, and how unfathomably huge the consequences were. How what you'd stumbled in on, little more than a hand with no body in sight that he grasped so tightly onto, with a strange smell and thickness to the air. How quickly his head had snapped around as you'd all turned around the corner into the apartment's living area, bumbling and brainless as you'd almost literally stumbled upon such a horrifying sight.

The screams bounced around your head, echoing off each wall of your brain and skull and everything. Vibrating and reverberating through your skeleton, before crashing to a sudden, incomplete halting.

"You weren't meant to be here."

His voice was smooth as always, icy as it never was. You would've described it as uncharacteristically so, if you weren't so firm in your realisation that the Yoshikage Kira that you'd known was little more than a façade for this...

Whatever this was in front of you.

His eyebrows furrowed, perfectly groomed in their shape like every other immaculate thing about him, and you briefly wondered why he hadn't spoken about his obvious displeasure. You would've asked if you could, but the heaving movements of your body quickly told you the reason why.

You were laughing.

"Don't you think," and, as if you weren't already convinced your grave had been dug there and then, you decided to pipe up with your foreign, cracking and hoarse voice, "that I'd love to be anywhere but here, too? You think we followed you asking to..."

Asking to what? To continue that question, rhetorical or not, it'd require you to have an ounce of knowledge as to what was going on. You didn't even have a fraction of a fraction of a clue. And so, hysterical laughter finally grinding to a slow and weak halt, just like the rest of you, you abandoned that train of thought and speech completely.

"Just get it over with."

He was still silent, as if listening to the heightening of pride and lack of fear many humans seemed to have when realising that death at the hands of another was inescapable.

"I mean-" it wasn't even a laugh, more of a dry and desperate huff than anything else, "what are you even waiting for? I bet you're enjoying this, aren't you, you disgusting fuckin--"

Then you were cut off, a force akin to a truck at full speed crashing into your neck and

tightening

its

hold.

The prior panic and fear reared its head again in full force, limbs thrashing and clawing at thin air. You could feel the imprints of ghostly fingers around your neck, silently gasping in a greedy attempt for air and out of groundless shock as they pushed and slammed your already disoriented, powerless form into a wall and pinning you there. It was confusion, panic panic panic panic as you continued to struggle.

Air came just after the darkness threatened to invade, and your aching lungs welcomed it with open arms.

Whatever invisible, untouchable hand had grasped your neck was still present, if the grooves threatening to choke you within an inch of your life again were anything to go by.

"Now, now, now," he'd said, moving closer. Each step seemed to bring the already very present threat of immediate death closer, as if even one step into his shadow could wipe someone off the face of the Earth without a trace nor second glance. And, at this point, you'd believe it.

His mouth was moving, words spoken but drowned out by endless roars and waves of deafening white noise. You had to crane your neck to look at his face, and the hand around your throat used its thumb (? did it have a thumb? you didn't know, and didn't care to know at that point) to do so after noticing your lack of effort to do so. His eyes were daggers, and lip curled in disapproval.

You were looking at him, but all you could see were your friends becoming less than dust.

How their eyes, dull and lifeless, blamed you wordlessly with oceans of contempt. It was your fault for not stopping them, for having such feelings for such a monster. Even if you didn't know; you must've known! It was impossible for you not to notice something so inhumane lurking under that mask of pleasant smiles and warm small talk.

Even sharper than his gaze was the pain in your scalp as he wrenched your head to the side. When had he kneeled down? You weren't aware; you weren't present. But you were. Were you? Through his staring, you could see their tears and the unclosed eyes, wide and frozen in time. Doomed to shock and fear for an eternity.

"It'd be wise for you to start listening." They screamed at you, for you. To join them, that you would join them. To run, to lie down and just let him off you already. To scream for help, as if anyone who'd have offered help in the first place wouldn't have come running by now.

"What's the point?"

You were still snappy, it seemed. As if begging him to send you to meet your friends. Maybe you were. It would probably be better than teetering on the line of panic and terrifying calmness, seesawing between them with too much ease and swiftness.

"This is why you should've been listening."

He released your hair, cool and unsettlingly neutral eyes wandering to one of your hands. They were lay by your side now, having given up on your struggling some time ago. You didn't struggle when he picked one up, either, cradling it and rubbing soft circles into it. There was no reaction from you. Just apathy, letting him continue as he liked. It was easier that way, and would bring a less painful fate.

"It seems your manners need some work," neither of you were sure if you were even listening anymore. You doubted he even cared either way, with the way he tended to your appendage, "but there's time. We can improve it, can't we?"

Surely not.

Absolutely not.

If he was meaning what you thought he was meaning, you suddenly found that death seemed much more favourable. Desirable, even, rather than a resignation of yours.

"Don't stare so dumbly."

Yoshikage was quick to chide you there, and even quicker to strike you not-too-gently upside your head. Not quite enough to black you out, but definitely enough to daze you for a good while. Not that it mattered too much if you weren't fully unconscious; your chance of escaping was incredibly slim to none even if you did know the way. After all, Yoshikage's routine was perfect. Always followed meticulously. All he needed to do to make sure you didn't wander was to slot you in there as well.

Your hands weren't the most beautiful. Definitely not when compared to prior girlfriends of his, but (strangely enough) they weren't his main focus for once. It was everything else, too, from the curve of your smile to the lightening up of your eyes, to the way you styled your hair and the scent of your perfume. A combination of the small, meticulously analysed details that made you... you. And this strange fascination made you one of a kind. Dangerous, really, yet he couldn't yet bring himself to be rid of you.

Maybe one day. It would be easier to continue living that way, without you to confuse him so after a lifetime of being certain about everything he'd done. Having planned his whole life, only for you to upset it all and throw off the delicate balance.

He'd make it work. Until the day he could bring himself to rid himself of you, you'd stay no matter what. Even moreso after what you'd witnessed, after you saw what he hadn't planned you to.

Though you won't be seeing much of anything anymore, really. Three rooms maximum don't really offer much in terms of variation in sights.

[sohin-ace]

Dio - Silence

This is cross-posted from Wattpad and available on AO3.

Enjoy~

It was a late afternoon in the country side, Dio was taking a stroll to calm down his nerves, still thinking about his earlier altercation with his adoptive brother, Jonathan.

Him and Jojo got into yet another fight, and when Dio thought he could teach him a lesson, the Joestar heir proved himself to be much stronger and determined than he was. And this pissed Dio off greatly. His stomach and jaw still hurt from the hard punches and kicks he received.

"Tch! That Jojo!! How dare you humiliate me like this..." He growled in deep frustration.

The blonde huffed, punching a nearby tree, getting angrier and angrier by the second, the more he thought about it, the worse he felt.

"I'm not going down so easily, believe me Jojo... First was your girlfriend, then your dog, next in line will be your father, I won't hesitate... You damn wimp, I won't stop until I make you cry tears of bloo-"

He immediately cut himself off after hearing a creak, like someone stepped on a dried leaf. Dio abruptly turned around, tensing up, but saw nobody as he did.

"Who's there? Show yourself before I find you!" He called out, warning and threat tainting his voice.

He was greeted by a deafening silence, which added even more to his current rising anxiety. His patience was already running low, and now of all time, he didn't want anyone to spy on him.

"I swear If you don't come out now I'll make you regret even stepping outside in the first place!"

Not even a second before he finished his sentence, he saw a H/C haired figure darting away from behind a tree, and, without a second thought, Dio sprinted after her. He of course, was way faster, and easily gained on the girl who was running for dear life.

He swiftly grabbed her arm and pulled her against his chest, locking his strong arms around her smaller frame to prevent her from slipping away.

The young girl yelped in surprise and started thrashing around in his hold, desperately trying to free herself.

She was panting heavily, both from running and from fright of what he would do to her. She struggled and squirmed against him, but his hold on her was like steel and he barely budged. He pinned her wrists against her own chest, caging her.

"Stop moving, you damn woman." He grunted, tired of her useless fight.

"L-let me go or I'll scream!" She cried in a fit of panic.

"Then do. Knock yourself out. See what good it does you."

He only squeezed her more against him in response and she gave up struggling as she was already exhausted from running. She was so scared and desperate, tears threatened to well up in her eyes and she sobbed quietly through heavy breaths.

As Dio thought she would finally cooperate she let out a shrilling scream.

"HELP!!! SOMEBODY HELP ME! I'M BEING RAP-HMMPHH!!" The male covered her mouth before she could finish her incriminating sentence.

"Shut up or I'm really raping you." He sharply hissed against her ear and she flinched at his, way too serious to be messed with, tone.

The girl then calmed down, hoping the strong and crazy man behind her would release her as she couldn't breathe and was uncomfortably pressed against his solid chest.

He however kept her there, only removing his hand from her mouth carefully, trusting her to not scream again, and fortunately for him, she didn't. She only panted, trying to calm herself down a little. Before she could ask him anything, he beat her to it.

"What did you hear?" He asked leaning over her shoulder to stare at her intimidatingly.

She looked down, avoiding his sharp vermilion gaze. In this state, emprisonned in his arms and defenseless, she could only answer the honest truth.

"I... Everything..." She shakily answered.

"Hmmmm...." He purred and leaned in close to her ear. "What do we do about this then...?" He huskily breathed, tickling her skin and sending shivers down her spine.

She was terrified, but she couldn't let him get away with whatever he planned to do. She either had to play it safe or act even crazier than him to gain some time which is something she wasn't ready to do now..

"Wh-what is there to do...?" She softly muttered, not trusting herself with confident decisions just yet. He chuckled darkly.

"I'm giving you two options." He moved slightly to secure his hold on her, giving her gentle squeezes that were not reassuring in the slightest. "You either nicely keep this to yourself like a good little girl, or you play it the hard way and I have to dirty my hands." He said, crazed yet calm at the same time.

She tensed up. He spoke with such a soft and velvety voice, it absolutely did not match his awful words. This man in himself was uncanny and this made the young girl's stomach churn. What to do?

She couldn't believe his words. He was actually blackmailing her. She didn't want to be here in the first place, she wasn't even spying, she just so happened to be there at the wrong time and place. But now she knew of Dio's evil plan and couldn't just ignore it, as everyone knew that whatever Dio yearned, Dio acquired.

She however couldn't just let it go like that. She was scared to death, but she had to try. Even if he hurt her, she had to do something. To help Jonathan and his family. In a moment of unfound bravery, she negociated, not without a slight wave in her voice.

"What is there for me if I listen to you?"

"Huh? You talk quite fast for someone in such a delicate position." He smirked running one hand up her waist and resting it dangerously right below her breasts.

Her heart jumped in her chest and she gulped. What was he doing now? She tried her best to ignore it and keep her composure, but the blonde wasn't even close to being done toying with her.

She was already burning with stress, and he only made it worse as he inhaled and sighed on her neck, making her skin crawl, all the hairs on the nape of her neck standing.

"I actually never noticed... You smell delicious Y/N..." He said nuzzling her neck and her heart pounded in her chest like a hammer.

"L-l-let me go Dio, please... That's enough, stop!" She squeaked and shut her eyes tightly, losing her composure again.

What was she supposed to do? He was pushing on her buttons and she was helpless. She couldn't fight him at all. All of this for her silence? Negociating and gaining time was useless at this point.

By some Godsent miracle, a carriage parked not too far from the two teenagers and a man dressed in a dark suit, probably a butler, called out to Dio to come back home.

The blonde, pulling out his best good boy act, released the girl and pretended to smile and bid her goodbye with a wave while running off to the car that was sent out to him.

When he was gone and out of sight, Y/N collapsed to her knees, taking a huge breath, hands clutching at her chest, both relieved and shaken by the ordeal.

"Oh my god, I thought I was going to die..."

Days later she tried her best to avoid Dio at all costs and wanted to warn Jonathan without giving herself away, afraid of the potential repercussions that telling the truth to him could have on her.

Dio on the other hand, acted unusually sweet towards her whenever he saw her, which totally contrasted the way he treated her back when he found her eavesdropping.

She was walking home from school and didn't notice the blonde boy coming towards her, accompagnied by what seemed to be two friends or minions, whatever they were called.

When she looked up and noticed him, she pretented to not see him and avoided eye contact, but the tall male came in front of her and effectively blocked the way.

"Y/N dear, how are you today? I hope you are not avoiding me?"

The girl looked away and didn't say anything, clearly not in the mood to confront him. He came closer to her and took out something from behind his back.

"Listen, I apologize for what I did last time. That wasn't very gentlemanly of me. I got a bit ahead of myself." He offered a beautiful red rose and she couldn't help but be astonished by its beauty.

She delicately took the flower between her fingers, careful to not hurt herself with the thorns and brought it to her face to smell its mild scent. The girl blushed at the unusual, but charming gesture and Dio smiled at her reaction, satisfied with himself.

"Thank you..." She uttered and quickly walked off, not wanting him to see her reddening face, even if it was too late.

One of Dio's friend stared at the leaving figure, confused. "Huh? That's it? That's not going to make her shut up about what she heard."

"Oh don't you worry," Dio smirked. "This is only the first step."

Another day, Y/N was sent by her mother to the city to buy some bread and fruits. Too focused on counting the fruits inside her basket she wasn't looking where she was walking and didn't see the diligence that was speeding towards her.

"LOOK OUT MISS!!!"

Startled, she looked up and saw the vehicle and the neighing horses dangerously close to her, hovering over her helpless form, but before the coach could hit her, she was abruptly yanked back by the shoulders, and fell on someone's chest with a yelp of surprise.

The basket fell out of her hands and the fruits came rolling out of it as the diligence kept on advancing past her, padding sounds of horses running fading in the distance.

The male who saved her gently held her shoulders as she was pressed against him and she slowly opened her eyes, realizing what had just ocurred.

"Aah! I'm so sorry sir! Thank you so much for saving me!" She frantically said. But when she looked up she was met with familiar amber eyes staring down at her and she gasped.

"Be more careful, Y/N. What will I, Dio, possibly do if you die on me?" He lectured in a fake caring voice.

She pushed herself out of his embrace and crouched down to pick up her fallen fruits. Dio then followed suit and helped her.

The girl was beyond confused and almost creeped out at the boy's attitude. It was like Dio Brando was a completely different person. In another context, she would have thought it was charming and sweet, but knowing him, and with what happened only a few days prior, it was almost scary.

"What do you want, Dio?" The girl spat warily, her voice cold and he raised his glance at her.

"Hm? Whatever do you mean?" He feigned innocence as he handed her the last apple of the bunch.

"Why are you so nice to me...?"

The blonde boy chuckled and softly smiled at her. "Can I not be nice towards a beautiful lady?"

"...You are trying to buy my silence, aren't you?"

They both got up and the tall male's expression darkened visibly, careful of her next words. Damn, she was smarter than she looked.

She sighed heavily and glared away from him. "Don't fret, I didn't tell anything to Jojo, and I won't. Just leave me alone." She balanced the basket on her arm and hastily continued. "Thank you for the help today. Goodbye."

She walked off and he stared at her back, her ice cold tone still ringing in his ears. He smirked viciously and mumbled to himself.

"Oh it's not about Jojo anymore, don't worry lovely Y/N. It's about you playing cat and mouse with me and foolishly thinking you can win..."

I don't even have author notes for this asshole. Burn in hell, Dio you two-timing hussie.

[jjba-arni-reblog]

Games and chill

[The last raffle work for @triggs-jpg. This one is streamer/youtuber AU with multiple small stories of you and your group trying different games. Implied Kakyoin/reader relationship. I wrote for a variety of  games I know and played myself.Thank you]

Pairing: Kakyoin/reader.

Time: wholesome AU(?), present times, ages not specified.

Words: ~ 3.1K

[Uno]

The idea to play Uno was going to be either a blessing or a curse. But it was an idea nonetheless and you and Noriaki asked Jotaro, Polnareff and even Dio if they want to participate in a video. Polnareff eagerly accepted the offer, asking if he needs anything to buy for the small ‘party’ you were to have. Jean even asked if he could bring Iggy to the party. Even if the dog wasn’t the friendliest one, he was sure eager to get free food from your group. He knew that you and Kakyoin would be the ones to spoil him. Jotaro was reluctant at first, not quiet used to being recorded but upon hearing that Dio himself accepted the offer, the man became interested in annoying Brando. Dio Brando himself accepted rather quickly, mostly to advertise himself as well as hopefully annoy Kujo.

And so your group placed different snacks on the big table, getting comfortable for the first round of Uno. The rules allowed to pretty much ‘spam’ anyone with cards, whether based on color or number. After eating all the cola flavoured gum since Polnareff forgot to hide it well enough, Iggy decided to sleep next to you, not quick eager to disturb the game today.

~

“Another 4” you said, choosing a card to place down, quickly starting to annoy Jotaro who was the one to receive it. You could only evilly chuckle as the man was so close to winning, only to lose his chance right away.

“And another” Kakyoin suddenly joined in, adding to the annoyance of Kujo.

“Okay, you can stop now” Jotaro said, hoping to not provoke any more actions from you two. At this point, he had 10 cards already. And before that he had 2 cards, hoping to win.

“And here is more” Pol put the nail in the coffin, laughing as more cards appeared in Jotaro’s ‘hand’

“What the fuck are you doing?” the latter spoke angrily as your group laughed.

“Winning, unlike you” Dio answered proudly while looking at his cards. He only had 2 left and the man was pretty confident.

As Dio was approaching victory rather quickly, he became more relaxed. Trying to get rid of the one of the two remaining cards, he was quickly shut down by Jotaro, whose hand represented a fan due to how many cards did he have. At least he would have fun this way.

“Un-“  Brando was about to say.

“I don’t think so, bitch” Jotaro cut him off as the blonde scoffed at him, getting two cards from the desk.

“We’ll see about that” Dio glanced at him, smirking a little at the clear contrast between them.

At the end, Polnareff won the match. Kujo was fine with that, as long as it wasn’t Dio it was alright.  

~

“Okay, new game, new rules. Whoever will win will decide on the dinner” Kakyoin announced, getting comfortable near you. Polnareff went to get a drink, urging you four to play without him. Iggy, hearing the footsteps towards the kitchen, quickly woke up in hopes to get a treat from Jean.

“Also, check if the camera is recording” You told Jean, hearing the man mumble the answer. Jotaro was quick to glance at you, as if an unspoken plan appeared in your minds. You quickly nodded, understanding what the man had meant, silently agreeing with it.

“It’s recording” Jean notified the group, now sitting on the couch with his drink, watching over you four.

“Skip” you said, placing the card to annoy Dio who sat next to you. You felt Kakyoin nudge your shoulder, praising your actions and smiling widely.

Next was Jotaro’s turn. The man placed the same type of card, only in a different color, his face without emotions.

“Same” he simply said, not commenting on the surprised gasp that Kakyoin let out. He wasn’t expecting such betrayal from his friend.

“Again” you put another ‘skip’ card, making Dio growl irritated at another lost chance for him.

“Another” Jotaro continue, placing one more ‘skip’ card. At this point, Dio and Kakyoin started to worry about their chances of winning.

“Since when you two work together to be a pain in the ass?” Dio asked, glancing at you two. Noriaki could only nod, not quite on the same aggressive level as Brando.

“Since you announced the that the winner will decide what to eat” you answered, looking over your cards, hoping to win at the end.

“I am tired of cherries and wine for dinner” Kujo rolled his eyes as you chuckled at his typical straight forwardness.

“Hey” Kakyoin objected, then turning his eyes towards you “can’t believe I have been betrayed by you of all people” he said dramatically clutching his chest.

“Well, no mercy” you winked, getting comfortable, hoping to eat something different for once. As long as you and Jotaro worked together. Polnareff was equally as interested in the game, watching as the tension got stronger around you four. He was having fun, watching as you tried to outsmart each other. Iggy joined him, getting ready for another nap.

Somehow, you and Jotaro managed to win, gaining yourself a healthy meal for once. Kakyoin, still ordered himself a cherry desert, teasing you about not sharing. Another evening well-spent.

~

[Minecraft]

Playing something as relaxing and nostalgic has been on your mind for a while. It is nice to have a gaming series where you can just all relax and have fun. Minecraft was a nice start for that. Kakyoin himself was quite eager to delve back into the known game, messaging your group, asking if they want to play with you two. And so the group reunited once again.

Surprisingly, Dio knew how to play it. He reluctantly admitted to playing the game with Jonathan when he was younger, even if the primal reason for it was to purely annoy Joestar kid.

You had to explain Pol and Jotaro how to play, while Kakyoin was getting the first resources. Dio was complaining as usual. It took you five a while to get situated, choosing a nice and cosy place in the woods. Dio insisted on building a big mansion. By ‘insisted’ he meant that ‘someone should build it and he, Dio Brando, will decorate it with his fine and precise sense of style’. Kakyoin then told him that dirt house would accompany Brando just as well, earning couple of swears from the blonde.

~

As time went on, the five of you established a nice and somewhat big place, each one of you having your own rooms. Jean got himself a dog, after hearing that you could turn some animals into pets. Jotaro was enjoying the soundtrack, mostly killing mobs and travelling whenever he wished. Brando was pretty much useless after getting the mansion built, instead now focusing on the décor of the house, pretty much making it a banana house using bright colors. Overall, it was a nice experience for your group

~

One evening, while everyone was off, Dio was playing on the server. Suddenly he had a random idea to push Jean’s dog a little bit closer to the open fire. Not really expecting it to actually burn, Dio ended up killing the dog by pushing it into the fire.

“Damn, this feels awfully familiar…” Dio mumbled to himself, not quite sure what was it that made is so particularly familiar. After realizing what he has done, the blonde was quick to place a sign on the wall next to the open fire.

Killed your dog, lol -   Dio xoxo

Later Jean destroyed his room, making Dio rage quit playing Minecraft for a week.

~

“Would you like to befriend a cat” You asked Dio next week, after he returned to the server. The man was facing the multiple cats scattered across the village.

“I am not a cat person” Brando answered, scoffing at your suggestion. Nothing unusual.

“You are nobody’s person to be fair” you rolled your eyes.

“Alright, go to hell” Dio replied, earning a snarky laugh from you. How typical of him.

“Okay, how do I make the cat my friend?” Polnareff suddenly asked, after hearing the delightful information from you. Hopefully, this pet will survive.

~

“There are also dolphins, turtles, coral reefs and tropical fishes by the way” Kakyoin mentioned to the group but most importantly to Jojo. He tried not to show any reaction.

“Whatever” Jotaro answered. However, you knew better.

After a couple of minutes, you heard Kujo speak again.

“So where are they?”

~

“Hey, Dio, I decorated your room a little, hope you will like it” Kakyoin casually mentioned, making you look at his screen. He winked, noticing the mischievous look you had. You were absolutely loving his idea.

“Don’t you dare pull off something or I will end you, Kakyoin” Dio said, not quite liking the tone he had. He decided to check it out later as he wasn’t playing for now.

Later when Dio arrived at his ‘mansion’, he opened the door, seeing a small flag on the wall together with a sign that said:

‘Don’t ever forget your origins’ - Kak

Seeing the flag, Dio found himself greatly annoyed. It was a flag of Scotland after all.

Brando was quick to open up Discord the type in ‘I am not from Scotland, you moron’, earning quite the reaction from the two of you. It was worth it.

~

Today, Brando seemed to be in a good mood, which made your group question what caused such effect on the usual annoyed Dio. But good Brando was the key to a good stream and communication. That is, until Jotaro noticed blonde being quite cocky.

“Hey, Dio” Jotaro’s tired voice called for the blonde as the group was in the voice chat. You and Kakyoin didn’t pay much attention to the conversation, instead checking if the recording program worked as well as the game.

“What?” the man answered, already feeling himself getting annoyed just from listening to Kujo’s voice

“You got mfat?” Jotaro asked emotionlessly as you and Kak suddenly stopped chatting. You knew where this was going, and you couldn’t get more excited.

“What?” Dio became more annoyed. Everyone else was suspiciously silent “What is mfat?” he asked, half-confused, half-tired of Jotaro’s shit.

“My fat dick in your mouth” the man answered, making the group burst into laughter.

“I can’t believe you felt for that, Brando” you said, laughing together with Noriaki.

“Fuck off, Kujo, go fuck yourself” Dio angrily answered, almost yelling.

~

[Hatoful boyfriend]

Today, you had something different planned. You were supposed to stream with Kakyoin for a while, however you decided to start a little bit earlier to try a new game. Today, you decided to stream a dating sim game. A bird dating game. Hatoful boyfriend. You checked if the equipment properly worked, then greeting the audience and introducing the plan for the next video. At first, you were amused and laughed everything off, joking about the dialogue lines and interactions as the chat noted the weird vibe the game was giving off. However, later, you felt yourself being immersed in the gameplay that Hatoful Boyfriend had to offer. The chat was as equally interested, commenting both ironically and unironically about the ‘hotness’ of each bird.

You were enjoying yourself, when you heard a door being open as the voice called for you.

“Did you see-” Kakyoin stopped in his tracks, noticing the equipment “Ah, shit, sorry” he was quick to apologize, then noticing your pc screen.

“What are you doing?” he approached you, looking at the screen with a puffy bird on it. He sat down next to you to fully absorb the image before him, baffled at the weird choice of a game.

“Well…” you chuckled, not even trying to explain yourself. You could the chat being as equally interested in Kakyoin’s reaction as you were.

“Am I not enough?” he suddenly dramatically asked, hiding his face behind a hand and striking the most bizarre and dramatic poses of them all while leaning back on the chair.

“Are you a bird?” you decided to tease Noriaki, raising an eyebrow at his question.

“No?” he was confused of what to say to this, chuckling confusedly.

“You just answered your own question” you simply answered, turning back to your lovely bird boyfriends, while Kakyoin stared at you for a couple of seconds.

“Wait a minute”

The chat was full of ‘F’s to show respect to the fallen soldier who lost against birds.

~

[Cuphead]

Your group was up for a challenge. You decided to try out Cuphead. Seeing the lovely artstyle and hoping that the game might spice up the recording/stream, you were eager to try it out. After multiple hours of practice, you felt yourself getting better at the game. Kakyoin was also catching up pretty quick, asking when weapons do you use for certain bosses.

“You can use parry to get it quicker” you explained to him.

“Ah, alright, got it” Noriaki smiled at you, hugging you closer as you two relaxed together. You still had couple of hours before the stream, so you decided to make the best out of it. While streaming was fun, occasional quiet hour was equally as important. You two simply lied down, talking about preparations and everything that came to mind. You felt him nuzzle your neck as he hugged you closer.

“Don’t fall asleep on me here, Nori” You brushed your hands through his soft locks.

“Then just wake me up before the stream” he half mumbled.

“Are you going to complain afterwards?”

“Yes, but I will wake up” Kakyoin answered back, chuckling a little.

After couple of minutes, you decided to speak. It seems like Kakyoin wasn’t going to sleep anyways.

“5 dollars on Dio rage quitting the game”

“10 if he will break something afterwards” Kakyoin answered back, excited by the idea of seeing someone get angry.

“Deal” you two shook hands while giggling. It was always fun to bet on stuff like that.

~

Dio wasn’t very good at the game, to say the least. The man didn’t have patience, always trying to rush forwards and eventually dying without reaching the end or killing the boss. Somehow he managed to beat the first world, proclaiming that he is getting ‘so much better’. The next boss he chose whoever, was getting on his nerves.

“Fuck this piece of shit clown” Dio growled, getting fed up with endless dying,

“That’s quite the self-love here” you answered back, hearing Polnareff and Kakyoin laugh.

“Shut up” Brando could only curse at you, replaying the level once again.

~

Jotaro being Jotaro, didn’t really get the excitement and panic over playing Cuphead, instead he was grumpy at the endless amounts of swears from dying.

“Why bother with the game if you lose so much anyway” he asked.

“That’s what games are for, Jotaro” You explained to him, not really wanting to waste your time to prove him wrong.

“Go try it yourself, Kujo” Kakyoin said “show us the results later” he teased the man, knowing that Kujo would eventually try the game.

“Will do” Jotaro answered, not bothering to continue watching

~

About two days later, you get a message in the group chat.

‘I broke my screen’ Kujo wrote. It was followed by multiple ‘lmao’s from you and Kakyoin, because of course he did.

‘You WHAT?’ came the message from Pol.

‘I broke it, alright, now stop asking’

After that, Kujo had to endure a week of teasing from your group, once again establishing himself as an ‘angsty’ man…together with Dio that is.

~

[Nekojishi]

“Hey, Nori, what are you doing there?” you asked, opening the door to see what he was up to.

“Ah, just playing a small novel game” Noriaki explained, hoping that you won’t be interested in further inspection of the said game. However, seeing the chat being exited you had your doubts.  Deciding against prying and finding out for now, you left the man alone.

That was the part of the plan. As you waited for Kakyoin to go grab himself water, you quickly entered the room once again, greeting the audience and reading the text that was on the screen, so far it seemed like a normal game. The aspects of the talks were mostly about sacred placed, which made you slightly confused. That is, until you found one of the characters, just as Kakyoin returned with his drink.

“Hey, oh…” he stopped, standing still as you eyed the screen.

“Kakyoin” your tone was serious.

“Yes?”

“Why is there a buffed tiger?” you turned towards him, chuckling at the confused look he had.  This wasn’t what you had expected.

“Well, first of all, guardian tiger” he corrected you out of nowhere, now approaching and sitting next to you “second, Lin Hu and third, I am trying to take his route and get the ending” Noriaki finished.

“So I guess you are a cat person, huh?” you asked, turning towards the tiger to take a good look once again.

“Well, certainly not a bird person” Kak commented back as you two laughed.

“Alright, you got me there. Go have fun with your tiger” you rolled your eyes a little, standing up to brush Kakyoin’s hair affectionately before taking your leave.

Seeing the chat enjoying the interaction you two had, Kakyoin couldn’t help but to note.

“Okay, I am not VERY into this game of course” he tried to find a small excuse for himself “but there is something about this guardian tiger…” He mumbled to himself, eyeing the buffed catman before him.

The chat quickly typed multiple Fs for your defeat against the buff tiger.

~

[Broforce]

Having the game named Broforce, you just had to engage in the whole ‘bro’ atmosphere to fully experience the game. So you and Kakyoin joined the voice channel, getting ready to play this indie game and checking the equipment. You decided to record this let’s play instead of streaming.  Jotaro and Jean had other plans today and Dio was nowhere to be seen. You two decided to join the group voice channel, not really expecting anyone to appear. Rushing through the game, you didn’t notice that Dio joined the voice channel. Not until he asked you about the next stream. You two decided to joke a little to slightly annoy Brando.

“Bro, I got you” you said with a deep voice, killing the enemy that almost shot Kakyoin.

“Thank you, Bro” he answered back, mimicking your low voice.

“Bro, no problem”

“Appreciate it, bro”

“Can you shut the fuck up with your bro shit?” Dio suddenly spoke up, annoyed at the whole ‘bro’ act you two pulled off.

“Damn, chill bro” you said back, earning a chuckle from Kakyoin.

Dio could only growl, exiting the voice channel in hopes of not hearing any more of that. Not today.

[wthelvetica21]

Linked Souls / Timeline Splitting Delirium : Part 1

(at High Mays Jr’s)

Lewis: Man this place is surprisingly quiet for a bar.

Bar Patron 1: Holy shit man he’s tall. Also what’s with the pompadour? It ain’t the 70s dude…

Bar Patron 2: What’s with him wearing sunglasses not only indoors but at night too? High may’s sure attracts some strange characters sometimes like that literal numb skull.

Bartender: ID please.

Lewis: Sure sir.

It felt weird handing off his ID for a drink after a few months since he last been to a bar. Lewis wasn’t really a heavy drinker. The only time he remembered he gone overboard with the drinks was after his 21st birthday. He since put a cap on at least 3 to 4 drinks after that disaster. He wondered if he was too conspicuous looking despite his disguise since the bar patrons where rumbling and murmuring about something. But listening a little closer they weren’t talking about him but something or someone else that just entered the bar.

Bar Patron 2: Wait a fu*king minute? How the hell did he survive without a scratch? Wasn’t he in the hospital mere days ago?

Bar Patron 1: I think we’re haunted y’all. There was that freaky gang green arm crawling around earlier. Now we’re seeing either a ghost or something. This shit is freaky man.

He then hears a familiar voice. It sounded like zero_one’s but was different some how and not because of the lack of modulation. Maybe it’s the intonation perhaps so Lewis pays it no mind.

Familiar Male Voice: Hey Rags, give me the usual.

Bartender: sigh Sure… Wait, didn’t you disappear days ago?

Lewis then looks to his right and sees a lanky bald guy with an orange hoodie. What really caught his eye was a white skull mask not unlike Doc’s or Armstrong’s. But his complexion still looks human and it didn’t look like a tomesona he seen (at least not yet). Not only that but he couldn’t shake this feeling like he seen him before. It was a strange case of deja vu.

Skulldude: What are you talking about? I was gone for that ad shoot remember. Or… Hey ya a visitor. You outta town?

Lewis: Uhh… (That’s an understatement my dude, trust me)

Well kinda sorta, I’m looking for someone… But I ain’t sure who.

Skulldude: Huh? Someone? I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but you seem like the type to have a drink with.

Lewis: Sure thing. I needed to gather intel here anyway. I heard rumors about a green dismembered arm with a single black eye that was seen somewhere here.

Bartender: Well I only saw the thing trying to grab at a patron’s hair about an hour ago. But no one could find it after that.

Skulldude: Ah… I’m sorry… What? A green dismembered arm? How the hell does that even happen? 

It was already at least five to six drinks in (at least for the skull faced individual (SkullDude)). Lewis only had one or two just trying to explain to him about how his friend was possessed by an evil spirit and got pushed off a cliff into a pit of stalagmites. Later he comes back as a vengeful ghost and tried to exact his revenge on said friend but ultimately didn’t. Lewis wasn’t completely sure if he even bothered to listen at all after the fourth drink. 

He kept on going on tangents about feeling like he doesn’t belong anywhere because his friends are either drifting away or don’t care about him. And how his long time friend glued that mask to his face and slipped him a drug that made his hair fall out. Also how he hates his job because the pressure he’s under and has little to no creative freedom. Not only that, he claims that he feels “indisputable“ when drunk. 

Lewis : (Uhh… I think you need to get some serious help their buddy. Also who the flying fu*k uses “indisputable”? Holy shit man you’re the very definition of an alcoholic.)

Lewis just lets it roll off his back. He’s known way too many people who are like this guy he had to be designated driver for. But there is something about him that’s weirdly familiar that he couldn’t put his finger on. Could it be that mask he wondered which he knows now is a fake glued to his face as part of some cruel prank.

Lewis : (This “friend” of yours sounds like a grade A asshole. You have shitty luck dude.) But yeah I’m a ghost. 

SkullDude: Huh… So you’re saying you ARE an actual ghost?

Lewis : Well… yeah but it’s…

-gets interrupted by Skulldude raising his hand in disbelief

SkullDude: Hold up Wait a minute…

-gets uncomfortably close to Lewis to where he could make out his whites of his eyes inside the black lenses of his skull mask

Lewis: Hey personal space man, What the fu…?

SkullDude: Hah, you weren’t kidding… (in a unfazed tone)

-gets backs to his seat

SkullDude: Hey, Rags give this undead Jojo bezarwhatever looking guy another drink over here!

Lewis: sigh Really? (Oh shit, he’s the annoying kind of drunk. This is gonna be a long night so might as well)

Sure, thanks for the offer.

SkullDude: Anyti… *hurk*…me.. Oh God.. *hurk* not…now… BLARGH

-proceeds to puke the last 4 drinks and last meal he eaten-

Lewis: Ehhh! What the fu*k dude? 

Lewis reels back in disgust

Bartender: Ugh… not this shit again… Hey Jin, clean up behind the bar counter please.

Asst. Bartender: Really? Fine brother.

Lewis: Holy shit man, are you that much of a lightweight? No wonder you’re a bean pole with a beer ponch.

Bartender: Yeah, we got use to it by now ghost guy. This isn’t even the most embarrassing shit he’s done when drunk. One time he stripped naked to show off a poorly done new tombstone shaped tattoo he got on his flat ass… Makes me want to have a drink for once to get the image out of my head.

Lewis: WHAT THE FU… ehh… I did NOT wanna hear that shit. *covers his face mumbling in frustration*

-Lewis wanted to pretend he didn’t hear that. He also wishes that alcohol had some effect on him as a ghost-

Lewis: The hell man… huh?..

-Notices that SkullDude isn’t moving and is slipping off the bar counter

Lewis: (annoyed) Please get him before he gets a concussion… 

mumbles  in Spanish : Estupido culo borracho… (You stupid ass drunk.)

-Two deadbeats grab him, one by his waste and the other by his spirit leaving his body

Lewis: Ugh!! I can’t take this shit!… Snap him out of it please!

-The deadbeat holding his spirit pulls it back like a sling shot and shoots it back into his head sending him flying to the floor face first.

SkullDude: (In mid air) EUAAAA!!

-Thud-

Skulldude: *loud gasp* What just happened? How long have I been out? Did anything happen while I was out or Wha…. (in a panicked voice)

Lewis: sigh It’s... fine. Want me to get you a cab or something to drive you back to your apartment?

SkullDude: ... (stares blankly at Lewis with his head tilted) Uhh Sure…(slightly confused) but not before I…. ehh…*passes out again*

Lewis: *low groan of frustration* (Are you sure you have a brain behind that fu*king mask of yours?)

-The front door opens-

zero_one: Lewis. I found you we’ve…*sudden pause* I… see you found m… him instead …

-Lewis could tell something was amiss with zero_one. His LED skull face glitched slightly as soon as he saw Skulldude laying on the floor not too far from him-

Both zero_one and Lewis leave the bar with the latter carrying Skulldude over his shoulder proceeding to go to the nearest bus stop.

to be continued  (1/3)

Lewis: (Huh, I wonder what’s got zero_one in a funk… Is it that drunk skull faced dumbass that has him going haywire? I mean if he’s still a… No, he definitely has a human soul in him, I just know it. But it’s still off-putting as hell to think how much that mask had stripped away from him.)

Part 2 https://wthelvetica21.tumblr.com/post/633641009307435008/linked-souls-timeline-splitting-delirium-part

[suntumarchive]

A commission for @cafesotenbori ! Thank you so much~

Fandom/s: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Character/s: Yoshikage Kira x gender- and appearance neutral victim Kink/s: Fearplay, vore CW: Graphic swallowing, implied fatal

Plot: Yoshikage Kira is an unmarried man, and he has no intention of changing that anytime soon. But sometimes, going on “dates” is a great way to get to know his freshly chosen victims... especially when he invited them over for “dinner”.

___

Dark, heavy rain clouds weighed down on the peaceful city of Morioh, and enveloped the buildings in a grey haze, as if they wanted to warn the inhabitants of the approaching storm coming in from the south. Occasionally, thick rain drops landed on the still warmed up asphalt streets, causing ghostly swabs of mist to creep up from the ground. The low rumbling of Kira’s stomach cut through the gloomy silence like a sword, and he checked his wristwatch for what felt like the millionth time. Did his date decide to just not show up in that weather? That would truly be a shame… He’d been looking forward to having them over for dinner.

Eventually, though, the man was pleased to see their silhouette in the distance, getting closer in a rather hasty manner. Clearly they wanted to protect themselves from the downpour, which would soon hit the area of Morioh where the villas were located. Yoshikage Kira gestured towards his house, and greeted them with a small chuckle.

“Looks like you barely made it in time!”, he made it sound like he was talking about the rain, but honestly, there was a slight sense of anger inside him about how late they were. Kira was someone who liked it when everything was tidy and smooth, and being two minutes late was something he personally couldn’t condone. He always made sure to arrive at least five minutes early. But in his 33 years of age, he’d very often experienced that other people weren’t living their lives the same way he was… and it made his fingernails itch for murder. If nobody else was going to do it, it was up to him to get rid of the vermin among humanity, and keep Morioh as beautiful and peaceful as it should be.

“I’m so sorry, my bus was a little late”, his visitor panted, and shot him a bit of an awkward smile as they approached his house with him. Kira knew he was obligated to forgive them, but he found himself staring at the wetness that was pooling on their forehead, debating if it was sweat or rainwater… would he have to wash them…?

“Please, no need to apologize… a few minutes don’t make a big difference, do they?”, Yoshikage smiled and took his shoes off before entering the building… luckily, his date was smart enough to do the same, or he’d have gotten pretty pissed off.

Just the thought of having them in his home made him pretty uncomfortable… Kira glanced down at his fingers, and noticed his nails had  already grown several millimeters from the stress. He felt disgusted… every time he let vermin into his house, he was extremely relieved once he erased them entirely. The unlucky person who happened to be the “vermin” Kira had laid his eyes on looked around his house with great curiosity, eyeing the furniture and decorations… Hm, surprisingly simplistic. The man was quick to gently pull them aside, and guide them to his living room.

“I’m so happy you made it”, he insisted.

“Please, have a seat while I prepare dinner for us.”

“Wonderful! Thank you, Yoshikage!”, the person plopped down on the couch rather loudly, making the office employee cringe inside. He hated being called by his first name by anyone but his father. Once again, his fingers began to itch, and he had to remind himself of why he was doing this… he had to stay calm if he wanted this to go smoothly. This kind of stress wasn’t good for him… Yoshikage needed to avoid anything that would cause him to lose sleep at night at all costs. He wanted his life to stay nice and quiet… inviting vermin to his house was the closest he’d ever get to committing risky murders.

But admittedly, he felt kind of excited thinking about the part that was still waiting for him… the best part of tonight. Dinner. He’d share an appetizer with his unwelcome date, mix a carefully prepared shrinking potion into their food, and have them as a little snack before the main course. He hummed to himself as he removed a wisp of blond hair from his face, and skillfully cracked open the top of the soft boiled egg he’d made before… Half of the still runny yolk was removed, and replaced with a few drops of the potion. Luckily, only a sip would be enough for his visitor to shrink to the size of a little mouse. Once again, he felt his stomach growl as he toasted the bread that he’d serve with it. Kira hushed his own belly and almost lovingly ran his hand across it.

Just be patient, my dear…

Before his visitor could snoop around his home any more, the serial killer brought the appetizer with the added potion to the table. He’d cut the bread up into even slices, and even brought a bowl for the shell, and a tiny spoon in the perfect size to eat the inside of the egg without spilling anything. His guest was pleased to see this, and chuckled lightheartedly.

“Oh, how cute! Thank you, Yoshikage!”

Once again, his first name... He dug his nails into his thighs as he sat down, hoping to prevent them from growing again this way. His urge to kill was almost unbearable at this point, and he found himself eyeing their throat, wishing to see blood gush out of it.

“Of course. I hope you enjoy. The soup will be finished soon.”

They seemed to be satisfied with that… Kira stared at their fingers as they broke the bread and dipped it into the egg… It felt like ages until they finally brought the slice towards their mouth and started eating. Yoshikage felt terribly on edge, like he was just waiting for something to spill… that would probably be what would cause him to spill as well.

“So, I take it you like to cook? Since you know, we could have just gone to a restaurant too! Not that I mind when you cook for me, don’t get me wrong! In fact, it’s nice to be here with you and not have to worry about the rain!”

“Please, be careful with the yolk, or you’re going to spill it all over yourself.”

Once again, the killer watched them drop the bread into their mouth… some orange liquid ran down their chin, which they quickly wiped up with their finger and sucked it off.

“You’re so prudent”, they chuckled, and began to dip more bread into their tiny egg… Kira could almost hear the shell cracking a bit farther, and the single drop of potion land on his table. He gritted his teeth.

“Careful. That’s messy.”

“Oh, ‘scuse me…”, and again… they wiped it up with their finger. There was a streak of yolk and potion visible on the wood of his table… Kira barely had the patience to wait anymore. Lucky for him, they’d swallowed enough of the potion for it to take effect at this point, and the blond man was delighted to see that their hands began to shrink.

For a moment, his date wore a confused expression on their face. Was it just them, or did the bread feel a bit bigger all of a sudden? And the egg? The entire table??

They looked over at Yoshikage Kira, and back down at their body. While watching the sleeves of their shirt growing longer and longer, they started stammering something the man couldn’t understand, but it made him chuckle. He had a feeling he knew what it meant.

“Oh dear… Looks like the main course is going to be served soon.”

“M-m-main- course-“

The helpless person desperately watched the world around them grow, including their date, who soon looked like a giant as he looked down at them with his sharp, blue eyes. Pretty soon, the poor soul was so tiny that their clothes pooled around them like an oversized blanket. Still confused, they attempted to squirm out of the fabric, but partly covered their body out of shame and fear when they saw Kira crouch down next to them.

“You’re bigger than I expected… I suppose I didn’t use enough of the mixture. But it’s alright. I can still swallow you with ease.”

Finally, it began to dawn on Kira’s victim. This guy…! They were the main course!!

“You lured me here because you want to eat me?!”, they squealed, and flailed about, trying to move away from him. How cute… as much as Kira wasn’t a fan of small animals, he always found it quite endearing when shrunken vermin was afraid of him.

“No, no. I didn’t lure you anywhere. You came here at your own accord, because you wanted to.”

“M-my people will notice when I don’t come home, you know?!”

“Oh, will they…?”, Kira chuckled lowly, the tone in his voice sent a shiver down his guest’s back.

“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll just have to eat them as well, wouldn’t you agree?”

The serial killer reached out for the still squirming, tiny person, and firmly grabbed them, leaving them no room to escape. No matter how much they squealed, kicked and bit him, he made it pretty clear that he wasn’t going to let go, and firmly pressed his continuously growing fingernails against their small form to remind them how easily he could kill them.

“Y-you wouldn’t dare to…”

“Oh… Believe me, I would.”

Yoshikage lifted them towards his face, and made direct eye contact with them for several seconds before he parted his lips. Terrified, the person in his grasp stared at his teeth, his wet tongue, and the saliva dripping from the roof of his mouth… When they felt his warm breath on their skin, they immediately began to squirm again. They’d rather be pierced by his nails, or at least crushed than eaten!!

“No, no!!! Don’t eat me!!”

“No? What a shame”, Kira cooed.

“I remember you saying you’d do anything for me…”

“W-what?!”

“Don’t you remember?”, his icy gaze made them shiver.

“You said you’d do anything for me if you could only go on a date with me a single time… well, here you are… we went on a date. And now it’s your turn to give me what I want.”

“I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D FUCKING EAT ME!!!”, their piercing screech hurt Kira’s ears, and he honestly couldn’t wait until they’d be silenced by the strength of his stomach… but no, not yet. He squeezed them a bit tighter, and lowered his fist towards his belly, forcing the tiny person to push their head against him.

“Shh… do you hear this?”, Kira was almost whispering when he asked that.. The poor soul in his hand had no choice but to listen to the noise coming from his gut. Constant bubbling vibrated against them from underneath his belly button, and with the aggressive churning from his audibly upset stomach, it blended into a terrifying mixture. Was this where they were going to end up soon…?

“You’re making me feel stressed…”, the killer continued, and lifted them back up towards his face, giving them a surprisingly calm look.

“I don’t like feeling stressed at all. It influences the quality of my sleep at night… I hope you’ll be quieter once my stomach takes proper care of you. Squirming makes me very gassy… I hate waking up from my own belches, it’s rather embarrassing.”

“You’re nuts…!!”

That response only caused Yoshikage to chuckle, once again forcing the poor thing between his fingers to look at his teeth…

“Is that really how you’d like to be remembered? Don’t you have any… nicer last words to say?”

“No…!! No, please, don’t do this!!!”

He liked the sound of that much better already… The more Kira lowered them down towards his mouth again, the more they squealed and squirmed, but they had no chance against his powerful grasp… or his strong jaws. It was a little uncomfortable to slip them past his lips, but once he bit down and his teeth shut around them like an unbreakable metal door, the poor soul in his mouth knew their fate was sealed, no matter how much they struggled and kicked. All it got them was more thick saliva that coated their body, more wetness they slipped on, and more liquid that brought them closer to the throat they feared so much.

“Please, Yoshikage, I love you-“

Their voice didn’t even reach the predator’s ears anymore… After tilting his head back, Kira gulped down audibly, and the tiny person in his mouth slid down his throat as if it were a dark, tight waterslide. The strong muscles of his esophagus continuously worked them down, past his heart and lungs, and down into his stomach, where they were immediately greeted by humid air and deafening noise. Several of their bones had been broken on the way down. The scent of death crept up their nose, and made them want to vomit… All they could do was desperately gasp for air, and kick the lining of Yoshikage’s stomach. But their panic only coaxed out a small, pathetic belch, which could easily be covered up by three of his fingers.

“Excuse me. Your panicking makes me feel a bit bloated”, he chuckled to himself. Not that they could hear him from out there… his voice probably just sounded like intense rumbling to them. Finally, the blissful silence he enjoyed so much settled in his home again… Well, besides his active organs getting to work underneath his shirt. He patted his belly, satisfied with his meal… Now Kira had a tough decision to make… would he let them suffocate? Or would he immediately crush them with more food?

[coollyinterferes]

unprompted asks 【always accepting】 @jojoingjoseph​​

“Of course I don’t mind,” The old man said, in that gentle tone he would normally use when speaking to Joseph whenever his dear nephew wasn’t causing some mischief around. The questions didn’t come as much of a surprise. After all, it was only natural that Joseph would be curious and have a lot of questions now that he knew about Caesar, and about Caesar’s grandfather, and the connection the late Zeppeli had with the Joestars and the stone masks, and all those things that had been kept a secret for so long for Jojo’s sake. Since a bunch of those cats were out of their bags already, there were no reasons not to give his nephew the answers he was looking for. He owed it to him.

“Caesar’s grandfather…” He said, leaning back into his seat, allowing himself to get more comfortable. That old man, he thought, finding it amusing in some way to refer to him in the same way he used to all those years ago, now that Speedwagon himself was an elder man. “He was… quite an eccentric old man. And I honestly don’t think ‘eccentric’ can quite describe someone like him.” He admitted, recalling not only what he had seen for himself during the couple weeks that Jonathan’s training had lasted and their subsequent trip to Windknight’s Lot but, also, what Jonathan had told him about his mentor, about their first meeting, and some of those training sessions Robert missed while he was out, back in London, searching for information on Dio’s whereabouts at the time.

“Do you remember that day we met with Caesar in Rome?” It was more of a rhetorical question really, as he was almost completely sure that most of the events from those days would be hard to forget for everyone involved, and especially for Joseph. “That… ‘seated jump’ he did before us,–” he said, doing a soft motion with his hand for added effect as he mentioned the jump. “–At the time, I was informed by your grandfather that Caesar’s grandfather did more or less the same thing when they met, followed by that old man Zeppeli punching your injured grandfather square in the gut right before your granny’s eyes.” As far as he had been told, Erina reprimanded Will for his actions that time. It was amusing in a way though, to think how the much more hardened woman Erina had become over the years would have probably reacted to that. She must likely would have tried to beat the living hell out of Will.

“He would always be carrying wine bottles with him Lord-knows-where, no matter where we were at the time, and doing weird things with them. Always speaking in analogies to explain whatever lesson he was trying to teach your grandfather, and talking about some of the things he saw while travelling, when he was younger.” Robert said, both of his hands resting on his stomach, fingers loosely intertwined together like he normally would do when he was relaxing. This was, after all, some of first free time he’d had in a while. An index finger softly tapping the back of the opposite hand as Speedwagon let himself wander through all those memories, from 50 years ago.

“He was an interesting man overall, save for the fact that he seemed to have a bit too much fun trying to take the mickey bliss out of me all the bloody time.” Of course, that was something the young Speedwagon found endlessly annoying, never taking the old man’s shit and doing the same thing in return every single time he could, usually by calling him rude names. At the time, it had been just because of Jonathan and their current quest that he hadn’t gotten (or tried to get, at least) truly aggressive or violent on the man, keeping all the hostility down to verbal stuff only –well, minus Will’s ruse of him ‘accepting’ to activate Robert’s hamon breathing, which only resulted in the Italian man punching him, and knocking all the air out of his windpipe–. Then again, Speedwagon was largely a ruthless, violent, and dangerous street thug around that time, just exactly what Zeppeli would usually mock him for, calling him names and treating him like he was nothing, and exactly what made Speedwagon want to kick his ass the most at the time. Now, however, many decades after finding out that Will’s actions had been fueled by his lack of trust in the blond, Robert was able to just laugh about that part of those memories and how silly all that shit giving had been from both ends, all things at the time considered. Although… if he was to be honest, he still felt somewhat bitter towards Will, about the whole hamon thing, and his evident refusal to teach him those techniques, regardless of whatever reason he’d had at the time. Had Robert been able to use hamon, too, and fight alongside them against Dio rather than staying on the sidelines and killing zombies, maybe, just maybe, Dio would have perished that day, in Windknight’s Lot, and maybe Jonathan…

Maybe Jonathan...

...Ah, that had always been a recurrent thought for Robert, even now, 50 years after that light, the one guiding his path, the one he would often see in his dreams, had been so violently taken away.

But this was not the time or the occasion to dwell on that specific topic. Besides, Robert knew very well that venturing further into that specific memory lane would only end up with him turning into a sobbing mess in no time. No need for any of that. At least not now, and not here, right before Joseph.

“As for your grandfather. Well, I’m pleased to say that all the stories I’ve told you so far about him, details more, details less, are true.” He then went on to talk about Jonathan, as requested, visibly ashamed of the fact that Erina and him had to keep certain things a secret from Joseph. Granted, it had all been for Joseph’s sake and his well-being, in an attempt to keep him from getting involved with the stone masks that had already taken the lives of at least three Joestars, but that didn’t mean Robert didn’t feel bad about having had to keep certain things a secret from Jojo, even lying about some others.

“He was a gentleman. A true gentleman, through and through. In all honesty, I’ve never met anyone like him. Not even now, after all these years. He was truly one of a kind.” He added; a small and fond smile softly curling upwards the corners of his lips as the memories of his many days with Jonathan began to flood his mind once more.

“He was pretty clever and intelligent. A bit naive, too, and far too kind for his own good, but he had a fire in his heart that is so rare and unique. A courageous man like no other! He could be quite a savage and ferocious man when angered despite that ‘softy’ exterior. He always put his loved ones first no matter what, always willing to do whatever it took to put them out of danger, even if it costed him his life.” Which, ultimately, it did, when he sacrificed himself, preventing Dio’s escape from that boat, and saved Erina and a baby Elizabeth (and, unknowingly, George too) that fateful day.

“He could be a bit silly at times, too. The fun and lovable kind of silly. Impressive in pretty much every possible way you could think of!” Speedwagon said, recalling that time Jonathan had been asked to join his soon-to-be-former school rugby team for a last match, some time after they had come back from Windknight’s Lot. Jonathan had invited both Erina and Robert to come to see him play, which they did. Needless to say Jojo’s ‘regular’ strength –that is, nothing that was ‘hamon aided’, just his pure physical strength– rendered them both (and everyone else watching the game, for that matter) speechless.

“He never let the many dreadful things he went through at the hands of that scum he called ‘brother’ change the compassionate, brave, and kind-hearted soul he was.” Even after all the shit he had been put through for seven whole years, Jonathan had still found it in himself to forgive his father for siding with Dio all the time no matter what, for all the countless and harsh –and sometimes unjustifiably harsher than usual– scoldings and punishments and just… for everything, going as far as to grant Lord Joestar his dying wish of forgiving Dio as well, despite all the horrible things his brother had done to both of them.

[sam-winchesters-lost-shoe]

Day 6: Dean x Jo

Ship: Dean x Jo

Trope: Making an ex jealous

Mood: Angst/Fluff

Word count: 1.5K 

The bartender had been trying to flirt with Dean all night, but he tried to politely turn her down. He was still too tired from the hunt, and she wasn't really his type anyways. After a while she seemed to give up and leave him alone, but Jo watched the encounter with amusement. 

"So, is this what you and Sam always do?" Jo asked and took a swig from her own bottle. "You go hunting, and then you get shitfaced at a random bar and break women's hearts?" 

Dean laughed a little at that, looking down at the label of the bottle in his hand. He shook his head took another sip. 

"Yep. That's pretty much it." 

He expected Jo to laugh, but when he turned to look at her her focus was elsewhere. Dean followed her gaze to see that a man had walked into the bar, and Jo's smile faded when she saw him. He didn't seem to see them at the bar, grabbing a stool across the room and chatting with the bartender from before. 

Dean looked back at Jo. He knew that look all too well.

"Let me guess. An ex?" 

"Shut up." Jo mumbled, watching the man out of the corner of her eye. Dean, of course, did not shut up and continued.

"Let's see....leather jacket, tattoos......is his name something like 'Connor?' Maybe a 'Luke?' Oh god, don't tell me he's a 'Dylan.'" 

Jo didn't look over at Dean. She instead picked up her beer bottle and finished the last few dregs before mumbling "Brian." 

"Seriously?" Dean asked. He couldn't hide the laugh that bubbled up and he attempted to hide it by running a hand over his mouth. "Sorry, just.....you dated a guy named Brian. That's even worse than any name I could've come up with."  

Jo shot him a glare that cut off his laugh and he cleared his throat instead, twirling the beer bottle in his hand to avoid looking at her for fear of laughing again. That was when she smacked his arm and gave a hushed "Shit. He saw me, he's coming over." 

Dean looked over his shoulder just as Brian came into view. The man stopped about an arm's length away from Jo, putting a hand on her shoulder because he wasn't aware that she had seen him. She did a dramatic show of spinning around like she hadn't been watching him from the second he came in the door. 

"Hey, Jo! I haven't seen you in forever."

"Yeah, it's been a while." She smiled, but Dean tell it was forced by the way it didn't reach her eyes. Brian's hand lingered on her shoulder for just a second too long, so Dean cleared his throat and held out a hand. 

"Hi. Nice to meet you, I'm Dean." 

Brian turned to Dean and gave him a quick once-over before taking his hand and gving it a firm shake. "Brian." 

Dean clicked his tongue and nodded, giving Brian his best copy of Sam's bitchface. He then added "so, you and Jo know each other?" 

"Yeah, we dated for a while about a few years back." Brian winked at Jo, and she didn't respond to it at all in hopes of it deterring him. It didn't. 

"Oh, really?" Dean asked with fake interest. 

"Yeah. We uh, were a pretty good couple, huh Jojo?"

Dean had to resist an eyeroll at the nickname, but Jo had to resist a gag. He didn't seem to notice her discomfort and was about to say something else when Dean interrupted him.

"Well, speaking of being a couple, our sixth month anniversary is actually in a few weeks." Dean grinned and playfully punched Jo in the shoulder. She managed to play it off and give Brian a smile, but her jaw tensed slightly.

"Oh, you guys are....together. I thought this was just some kind of 'one night stand' thing." Brian admitted openly. Dean and Jo exchanged a look before Jo smiled as innocently as she could and reached to grab his hand. 

"No, we're a couple, actually."

Brian seemed to back off a bit after that, making some small talk and backing off a bit when he found out that Jo was 'taken.' After a few minutes a voice called his name from down the bar, and he wrapped up the conversation pretty quickly. 

"Sorry, I'll be back in a minute." Brian grinned and walked away to meet up with what Dean could only assume was one of his 'bros'. 

He turned to look at Jo and raised an eyebrow, leaning his back against the bar counter. "He seems like a keeper, 'Jojo'" 

She punched him in the arm, a bit harder than intended. "What the hell was that? We're not dating, Dean." She hissed once Brian was out of sight. 

"Oh, come on. You hate his guts, I can tell, and he was gonna start flirting with you if I didn't end that shit when I did." 

"You don't know that." Jo denied with a shake of her head. She folded her arms over her chest. "I had it under control."

"He was about to flirt with you, because it's exactly what I would've done." 

Jo's cheeks burned and she turned away from Dean. She called over the bartender and ordered another round of beer for the both of them, trying not to think about what Dean had said. When the alcohol was set down in front of them, she took a few heavy swigs to try and numb the embarrassment that only seemed to get worse every time Dean looked at her. After she downed the beer she ordered a few shots for good measure.

"Come on, are you that offended of someone thinking we're together?" Dean teased with a shake of his head. 

Jo sat quietly and kept drinking her beer. She wasn't against people thinking they were together, so she wasn't even sure why it made her upset. The man sitting next to her was the perfect way to make any ex jealous. He looked like he was straight out of a magazine, all freckles and green eyes. He was gorgeous and fit, and had enough charm to make any girls' knees weak. Not to mention the fact that he could definitely take Brian in a fight (although Jo probably could too). It was the perfect plan to intimidate her ex enough to leave her alone for good. 

Maybe it was the fact that deep down she did want something with Dean, and having to fake a relationship was too close to what she wanted. Too perfect to be real. Once she started acting like they were a couple, she didn't think she'd be able to go back to being friends again. 

But.....screw it. The alcohol was starting to take effect, so why not have some fun with the older of the Winchester brothers. 

Jo slammed down another shot and then turned to Dean. 

"You know what? What have I got to lose?" 

Now that caught even Dean off-guard. 

"Wait....what?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. It may have been his idea to pretend being a couple, but now that Brian was gone he wasn't sure what  she was talking about. Jo just gestured to the area around them. 

"Come on. We're at a bar, let's have fun and play some pool or something!" 

"I-" Dean started to object but he wasn't exactly sure what to say. Jo was......right. He had nothing to lose, and neither did she. Plus, he could feel Brian's eyes on him from across the bar, and he had gotten her into this situation in the first place. 

"Alright." Dean shrugged and slung his arm around her shoulders. Jo snuggled up closer to him, looking up at him with eyes that seemed too warm for her to really be faking. 

"Do you wanna play some darts or something?" 

Dean nodded, unsure exactly of what to do now that she was so close. It was rare that he didn't know what to do around a woman. What were his boundaries? Ellen would kill him if he tried anything, but Jo might kill him if he starts to act awkward around her. 

"Yeah, let's play some darts." Dean said after a moment. They both got up and started walking over towards the dartboard on one of the walls. 

Brian met Dean's gaze once again, but Dean's arm was still around Jo. He couldn't help the cocky grin that crept onto his face as he sent a wink back at the jealous man across the room. Jo was blissfully unaware of their interaction, but Dean made sure to give a warning glare anytime Brian tried to approach them.

He didn't try again for the rest of the night.

[wearesorcerer]

DIO’s Hired Assassins Ranked

I’ve been rewatching JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders lately because it finally came to Netflix and thus I could get my old DM to watch it (for the sake of memes). I haven’t watched it since it came out and remembered having something against it, but I couldn’t remember what exactly; my fondness has only grown thanks to how memetic it is.

The answer: it’s too long and the villains aren’t especially memorable, DIO aside.

After I got to Alessi, I decided I wanted to rank them (specifically to put him as dead last, though I ended up not doing that). I was originally going to put this on my personal blog, but realized that I’m evaluating a bunch of weird spells, so it’s here.

IMHO, Stands split pretty well between Monk (fighting spirit, etc.) and some sort of caster (so many of them are just flat-out spells). The majority of the villains are the latter type, so I figured this would work here.

I’m going to skip anyone on Team Joestar and DIO because that’s just unfair.

Murder Stands

Before I get underway, I want to introduce a term I’ll be using again and again: “Murder Stand.” This is a Stand which has no ability beyond hurting/killing people. I take off points for this because even Punch Ghosts like Star Platinum have other utility.

Unranked: Thoth (Boingo) -- Precognitive Manga

Thoth is all potential and little application -- mostly because the Oingo Boingo brothers are comic relief villains. Thoth’s ability is to predict what will happen to the reader (who doesn’t necessarily have to be the Stand user) in the next few minutes, but without enough context for it to get used reliably. Indeed, every character who uses it ends up hurt. Since it’s an item, it’s possible that someone could steal it from Boingo permanently. That said, the possibilities with this Stand are immense, so it should be far more powerful than presented.

25 - Sun (Arabia Fats): A miniature sun with a suite of solar powers.

Illuminates a large area as though it were noon. (Sun sits at approximately 100 meters in the air and has a very wide area of effect.)

Raises the ambient temperature in that area to intolerable levels

Can fire highly accurate energy blasts at anything in the area

This Stand appears in a single episode (not quite a BLAM episode: it fits contextually, but it’s never discussed beforehand or afterward) and the only dialogue we get comes from Team Joestar, so we don’t know what the Stand’s actual parameters are. We do know that its use range is largely taken up by how high it sits in the sky and that it affects everything in its area of effect indiscriminately because Arabia Fats is present and has to take precautions against it. This makes the Murder Stand aspect of this suspect: there just aren’t many situations where you need (or would even want) to kill on that scale. Since we don’t know if Arabia Fats can control the light or heat his Stand produces (beyond firing lasers), any further utility is also suspect.

24 - Emperor (Hol Horse): magic missile in the form of a gun with a homing bullet.

Don’t get me wrong, having magic missile at-will is a great thing, but this isn’t an unerring missile (as in D&D) but a homing missile (as in most incarnations of the spell I’ve found elsewhere). It can miss. It’s also a 1st-level spell and there are far more powerful effects on this list. (No idea why this is called “Emperor.”)

23 - Deep Blue Moon (Imposter Captain Teneil): punch ghost fishfolk with various underwater abilities.

This Stand is powerful only if encountered in the water. It’s more powerful than the Emperor and has slightly more utility, but not by much. (Not terribly lunar beyond the association with water.)

22 - Khnum (Oingo): alter self (or possibly disguise self as a Transmutation).

Oingo only ever uses this on his face and hair, but supposedly he can use this on the rest of his body, altering height, weight, and possibly clothing in the process. This has more utility than any of the above, but Oingo’s an idiot (comic relief villain) and there’s another Stand that can do this and more. (”Khnum” because Oingo rearranges his face as though it were clay.)

21 - Tower of Gray (Gray Fly): stag beetle with super speed and xenomorph bite. Mainly used to cause airplane disasters and similar.

The range on this stand is fairly short (the user has to be on the plane he’s trying to crash, for one), but longer than most punch ghosts while still remaining potent. It’s small enough to escape some attention and fast enough to give Star Platinum problems. (”Tower” because it’s used for mass murder via disasters.)

20 - Set(han) (Alessi): user’s shadow animates, de-aging the bodies (and gradually minds) of opponents it comes in contact with; can wield any object the user holds.

By range, this would be a Punch Ghost, but it doesn’t have the other stats for it. Its special ability is rather powerful, but it puts Alessi in difficult situations (he’d be a suspect in any missing person cases seeking his victims); it doesn’t have to be used to murder people, but it’s of limited-enough utility that it may as well be used that way. Finally, the entire arc screams “pedo,” so it doesn’t deserve a high rank even if it had more power. (”Set” doesn’t really fit, but I think they picked it because it’s an approximation of an inimical/evil entity. Not sure why it’s rendered as “Sethan” in English sources: that’s an uncommon transliteration [not related to many inscriptions] and the Japanese rendering is “Seto- 神” [Set-god].)

19 - Ebony Devil (Devo): Chucky. Stand activates after the user is injured, then possesses an object (generally a doll) to seek out vengeance. Stand’s power amplified by user’s hatred of the target.

This is the first truly remote Stand on the list, which is its main perk. Generally speaking, long-range Stands lack power, so having an ability that amplifies power is really handy. However, the fact that it basically requires that the user gets severely injured to work is a deal-breaker. The seeming need to have a doll present to use is also a drawback, but it’s not clear how far the user can be from the Stand, so maybe that’s not that big of a deal. (As for Devil, it works. I guess. I mean, that card has a lot of meanings.)

18 - Wheel of Fortune (ZZ): Stand attaches to a car, manipulating its attributes and making it far deadlier than usual.

From what the episode implied, the user has to be driving the Stand for it to work, which could be an issue. It’s not entirely a Murder Stand (it provides off-road capabilities -- and even vertical surface scaling), so there’s quite a bit of bonus there. (This really should be The Chariot [Silver Chariot doesn’t fit that card anyway].)

17 - Strength (Forever the Orangutan): Stand attaches to a small boat and turns it into a giant tanker. Like Wheel of Fortune, can manipulate any part of the ship. Unlike Wheel of Fortune, can merge/phase the user through its parts.

You’d think I’d rank this lower because it’s water-based, but since it can work on a lifeboat and Forever is an Orangutan, there’s no reason why Forever couldn’t carry a boat around (sneakily), activate the Stand, and then go to town in a town. It’s big, it’s lethal, and it’s easy for the user to hide while killing people. Its just a little too specific to get much use. And, well, you’ve got the user. (”Strength” because of the user.)

16 - Death 13 (Mannish Boy): nightmare; clownish grim reaper kills people in their dreams Freddy Krueger-style. Upon waking, targets who manage to survive do not remember what happened in their dreams without taking extra precautions while asleep. Stand users cannot use their Stands if the Stand was inactive prior to the dream.

If you want to get away with murder some of the time, this might work. Most of the Stand’s abilities are designed for the user to escape attention, but there are two major problems. First, anyone killed in the dream manifests the injuries they receive on their waking bodies, which tend to be gruesome. Second, it’s an incredibly short-range Stand without much developmental potential. If Mannish Boy were to avoid using it much, he could survive to adulthood, but his presence at the scenes of his murders would eventually be his undoing.

15 - Bastet (Mariah): Stand creates an electrical outlet that shocks targets who get too close, thereby magnetizing them. This magnetism grows in strength over time, eventually leading to death from dangerous metal objects impaling or crushing the target. Can affect multiple targets simultaneously.

It’s not entirely clear how close Mariah has to be for this to work, but it’s farther than Death 13. Since the conditions for this Murder Stand are easier to meet, it’s slightly better. There might be added utility to the magnetism, but that’s dubious. Still, the range is close enough that it should be easy to catch Mariah in the act and the Schmuck Bait gimmick is too silly. It’s also unclear if non-Stand users can see it, so it might have less utility than Death 13, but I’m assuming as the sort of Stand it is that they can. (Bastet = cat = curiosity killed the cat.)

14 - Empress (Nena): parasitic growth latches onto target, growing and attacking them until finally killing them.

I strongly suspect that there’s more that someone could do with this Stand than simply killing people (or getting them into trouble), but we don’t see that at all during this episode. Since it’s a physical Stand, even though it’s not technically alive, it’s easier to attack than most Stands and thus remains a liability to its user. (The whole episode has a lot of father-child talk, referring to the fact that the Empress has much to do with fertility and pregnancy.)

13 - Geb (N’Doul): water elemental with incredible range.

In 3.x terms, this isn’t even summon nature’s ally II, which is the earliest available summon that can summon a Water Elemental. The reason is that the smallest elementals in the core rules are all Small and this one is Tiny. It makes up for its size by being deadlier than usual (it might have vorpal attacks, but then again it is JoJo, so it’s hard to say), but it’s not considered a powerful Stand (Destructive Power is C). Its fairly fast, but its main strength is its range: N’Doul was able to command it at a distance of four kilometers (2.5 miles) when attacking Team Joestar, which is insane. (Despite being a water elemental, it’s named after the Egyptian god of the Earth because N’Doul, a blind Stand user, uses Tremorsense.)

12 - Lovers (Steely Dan): microscopic Stand can invade people’s bodies, transmitting and amplifying its user’s pain to them.

This Stand has fantastic potential that’s left unanswered: how much damage can it cause on its own? The episode revolves around Lovers planting spores of DIO’s flesh buds inside brains, leading to death, but given its size and ability to manipulate brain cells, one would think that this thing could cause heart attacks, strokes, severe brain damage, and various other major (or minor) conditions. The range on it and the sorts of deaths it might be able to cause would make it much better at assassination than Death 13 or Bastet. However, it’s not clear what the limits of this Stand’s powers are. I’ve ranked it here for potential, but it might be unable to do all of that. (No, the name doesn’t really fit here, either.)

11 - Tenore Sax (Kenny G.): mirage arcana.

We don’t see this Stand (at all), only its effects, and Kenny G gets killed very quickly (no fight), so who knows? That said, mirage arcana is a fairly high level spell, hence the ranking.

10 - Anubis (various): intelligent sword which provides its wielder with exceptional speed and skill; can phase through matter selectively and learn enemy techniques.

Anubis is pretty standard as far as evil weapons possessing people go, save that it also learns any attack used against it the first time it sees it and afterward can perfectly counter that ability. This makes it a difficult foe to defeat in general; the fact that it can choose to ignore any matter it chooses (though apparently not Stands) is just icing on that cake. However, as it is attached to a sword, it is susceptible to anything that would damage or destroy its “body.”

9 - Yellow Temperance (Rubber Soul): ooze. Invulnerable to damage, devours anything it touches as it wishes. Can coat user to grant imperviousness and disguises (as disguise self).

As Khnum, but also a perfect defense and a fantastic offense. Its main issues are that it requires sustenance, it has limited range, and the trick to defeating it is to separate it from its user and then attack the user directly, which is easier than attacking a Stand in general anyway. (I guess having a defense is temperate, right?)

8 - High Priestess (Midler): imp-like Stand can merge with minerals, growing in size the closer it gets to its user.

Vulnerable to Star Platinum, but otherwise this is an incredibly useful Stand: it’s both a reconnaissance Stand and a Punch Ghost Elemental. As a long-range Stand that can merge with any mineral, any deaths it causes would be difficult to pin on the user (they could all be accidents and the user wouldn’t be suspect). (The only similarity to the High Priestess is in gender.)

7 - Horus (Pet Shop): cryokinesis.

Pet Shop demonstrates a variety of techniques with this Stand (similar to how Abdul has many uses for Magician’s Red), so it may as well be “any spell with the [Cold] descriptor.” (It’s “Horus” because the user is a falcon.)

6 - Hanged Man (J. Geil): light-based Stand attacks from reflections.

It was utterly implausible how they defeated this one, given that it’s able to move at the speed of light from one reflection to another. Mainly a Murder Stand, but plausibly a reconnaissance one, as well. (Not sure how this is the Hanged Man. I guess because it’s limited in where it can go.)

5 - Judgment (Cameo): “Grants wishes” (uses an improved form of fabricate to create perfect copies of whatever its targets wants [down to memories and bits of personality for people] out of clay, but subverts the wishes)

There’s a lot of potential here, with the main limit being the durability of the materials used. That said, one wonders if there are other limits to its ability. Could it fabricate a functional death ray or a supercomputer? (Personally, I think this should have been Khnum, given that Khnum is a potter. It’s probably “Judgment” [as in “Last Judgment”] because Polnareff wishes for his sister to be resurrected.)

4 - Osiris (Daniel J. D’Arby [the Elder]): Steals the souls of those who admit defeat, storing them as coins/poker chips.

Soul bind (a 9th-level spell) as a spell-like ability (so no focus component - ordinarily an expensive gem), used by a professional gambler (so someone with an incredibly high Bluff/Deception). Yeah, it’s a Murder Stand, but it’s one that’s going to make the user very wealthy. (Osiris as lord of the underworld, so souls.)

3 - Atum (Terrence D. D’Arby [the Younger]): Steals the souls of those who admit defeat, storing them in dolls; can read an opponent’s soul (mind), answering yes or no questions.

As Osiris, but also with a faster-acting (but limited) form of detect thoughts. There’s so much potential here, it’s almost terrifying. (Atum doesn’t really fit here. Anubis might, but Anubis wasn’t part of the actual Ennead anyway.)

2 - Justice (Enya the Hag): air elemental manifests as city-spanning fog (as control weather rather than fog cloud), providing mirage arcana and veil to anything and anyone in the area (but selectively); can control bodies (living or deceased) through its tendrils entering wounds; gaseous, so impervious to damage.

As Tenore Sax, but it does way more. Its animate dead-style ability provides total control over corpses in the area without actually being necromancy (it’s actually control body, but seems to work on any type of body so long as it has been wounded). The only thing it lacks is the ability to attack, despite having claws. Still, when you have several spells as spell-like abilities usable over a vast area without the standard limitations those spells ordinarily have and one of those gives you minions, it’s not like you need to be able to attack. In theory, this should have been one of the most powerful Stands in the entire series; the only way Team Joestar defeated it was through shenanigans which made no sense (Star Platinum inhaling the Stand, causing Enya to black out -- because Stands have lungs). (”Justice” because Enya uses it for revenge.)

1 - Cream (Vanilla Ice): Stand’s mouth is a portal to a dimension of darkness. Anything the Stand swallows is destroyed by portal cut (as disintegrate). The Stand can swallow itself and its user without harm, removing them from this reality (as etherealness) and disintegrating anything else which comes in contact with it (as an orb of annihilation).

Invisible. Almost undetectable. Intangible. Wholly destructive. The invisibility comes with the drawback of having to be careful while moving if wanting to go entirely undetected, but that’s not a major drawback. While ethereal, the user doesn’t seem to be able to see where it’s going, though this is inconsistent.

[transhitman]

My Actual Critical Thoughts on the DIU Movie, Unclouded By Gayautism Moments

Ok so I fucking loved it, and here's why. Spoilers for movie exclusive scenes.

First of all, I LOVED the look of the characters. I think the costume design was superb, ESPECIALLY Josuke. The modifications really made it feel like actual clothes someone would wear, but it managed to keep the Anime Bullshit vibes intact. The live media also added a lot to their outfits imo because of the way their clothes moved with them. It's a little thing, but animation rarely captures the way a bigass jacket flaps around. The casting was great imo. Josuke and Okuyasu actually looked like high schoolers (not sure if the actors were actually teens or what), and they looked... So Baby 🥺. Okuyasu especially... I loved him. My boy 🥺🥺🥺. And IDK if this is an unpopular opinion but I loved Jotaro!!! He looked like a dad and I appreciated it. I also liked the way they did his hat hair, like it was so funny. LOVED how his hat was tilted all weird like how it's always drawn. Loved the cartoony hair in general, actually.

Speaking of the Look, I loved the sets too!!! In the manga and anime the backgrounds were always kind of barren, and I get that Araki can't draw cluttered spaces every pannel, but it really did add a lot to the Higashikata and Nijimura households. Having all that background clutter really made the Higashikatas feel like a family to me. And, oh my god, the pictures Josuke drew as a kid 🥺🥺🥺. (While we were watching, my friend was like "he drew those like 2 weeks ago" and I lost it.) And UGH don't even get me STARTED on the catholic imagery in the Nijimura household. WHAT WAS THAT??? They made Okuyasu believe in God and I have no idea why but it fucking rules!!! Literally every shot of their house was like looking at a really fucked up Renaissance painting and it made me go crazy!!! MASSIVE fan of that.

Now the effects... I mean, for the most part they were pretty good. The Stands looked a little shaky at some points, but the cool shots and framing of their powers more than made up for it imo. Like the part where Josuke punches through those people at the store, and, like, they don't actually show CD at first was really cool. Speaking of not showing things, BAD CO'S INTRODUCTION WAS SO AWESOME. I LOVED it so much more in this. They did SUCH a good job really showing how gross and unpleasant the wounds caused by BC would be irl. It actually made me cringe a little, which is impressive, considering I rarely get grossed out by gore. AND!!! The fact that they used practical effects for Okuyasu's dad made me so happy!!! It looked pretty good and I expected it to be shitty cgi, so it was a real treat. CD and The Hand also looked pretty slick. I loved their textures... Which sounds weird, but it's true. CD had the whole faceted armor thing going on AND his flesh looked striated, which makes his otherwise kinda silly design SUPER cool (No offense, Mr. Diamond 😔). The Hand looked like a robot, which was so cool. He looked weathered, like his paint was chipping or something, which really added to his intimidating vibe. Overall, in terms of the anime adaptations I've seen, they did pretty damn good with the effects, and I think they really captured the feel of Stands as a whole.

But... The editing, unfortunately, took me out of it a few times. They had some REALLY great shots (CD's first instance of healing, Yukako's intro, really anything at the Nijimura household) but a lot of shots felt disconnected. Like motions got cut off, or you could tell it was a different take. It was kinda weird. I liked the OST when I noticed it, but nothing really stood out. The color grading was SUPER fucked in the first half of the movie, too. It looked very yellow, and I didn't like it, especially coming from a series as colorful as JoJo. There were also a few moments of overacting, but none of it was unbearable. Technically, it could use some work.

BUT. The plot was great. It was just a rehash of the Angelo and Nijimura arcs, but they pulled it off very well. They did a good job balancing the cuts with the additions. They replaced a lot of the inane JoJo bullshit with character development for the Higashikatas, which was galaxy brained fr. I actually Felt it when Josuke's grandpa died this time around. Josuke's relationship with his family in this version makes him a much more compelling protag. Not that he was bad before, he's my favorite JoJo so far, but he seems more driven now. His grandpa's death wasn't just forgotten about. And as for streamlining the story, spoilers but I was legitimately shocked when Sheer Heart Attack showed up at the end. I YELLED. I think that was a really good way to bridge to further in the story for a possible sequel, and it made Keicho's death more, for lack of a better word, Fuckt.

Speaking of, all the characters had really great spins this time. Josuke was like, a mama's boy who was trying and failing to be aloof, Koichi was more silly, Yukako seemed way more Unhinged, Okuyasu was like... an evil minion For Real (which I LOVED... He was very over the top Menacing at first), and Keicho was way more sympathetic. A lot of that last one was because of changed wording during his backstory section. His narrative was much clearer, and I actually sympathized with him this time around. His death also seemed more selfless because of the way SHA attacked them. Instead of just kinda knocking Okuyasu away, he ran across the room to push him out of the way. It makes the idea that he really did love Okuyasu deep down more believable. The little details really did add to the story, and it more than makes up for the stuff they cut out, which wasn't much in the first place.

All in all, it wasn't Technically a masterpiece, but I loved it and definitely recommend it if you're a fan of gay delinquents. Very fun, very epic, 8/10.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2019, Part VI

Yes, I know that it’s almost March. Thanks for taking the ride. GREAT MOVIES

22. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)- To disrespect this movie is to disrespect the moon landing itself so... I do like listening to the Walter Cronkite snippets about "the burdens and dreams of all mankind" and smirking at the idiots who talk about "back when people just read the news without editorializing." 21. Waves (Trey Edward Shults)- I could have done with five fewer shots of people holding each other, and the foreshadowing could be more subtle, but, man, Shults takes some huge swings here, for a more powerful effect than either of his previous films had. It isn't often that a colorist gets a single card in the opening credits, but it makes sense for a film that stands out as much as this loud, woozy piece does. I don't think there's anything as present-tense this year as a character drunk-driving to Kanye West's "I Am a God." 20. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)- The dissenters of Jojo Rabbit have been pretty uniform in their negativity, and I think their stance has to do with not wanting to be told what to think or feel. (Putting "an anti-hate satire" on the poster has to fire up those haters.) This movie is not subtle or ambiguous, but you know what? Casablanca is a pretty didactic movie too. Let me back up from the C-word. For me, the film's emotional scenes are better than its comedic scenes, but in either form, Waititi directly engages with a ten-year-old in a way that neither romanticizes him nor condescends to him. That's such an imperfect, transformative age in a boy, and not enough movies are willing to wrestle with how ugly it can be. Roman Griffin Davis is pretty good, but he's spotted by sincere, compassionate performances by Thomasin McKenzie and Scarlett Johansson. It's possible that Johansson has never been better. I totally understand why someone with her sex symbol baggage would resist playing mothers; if I've done my homework, this is the first time she has done it, even though she's a parent in real life. But her maternal scenes here are heartbreaking in their patience, particularly in a scene for which her character "plays" herself and her absent husband. Besides uncorking a more vulnerable part of herself, Johansson nails the performative aspect of being a parent, resisting the urge to make everything a lesson but wanting so desperately to be a positive example for a kid who needs one. 19. Honeyland (Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska)- I greatly prefer the term "non-professional actor" or "first-time actor" to "non-actor" because it's only human nature to act differently when being filmed. The second even a camera filming a birthday party captures you, you start to perform. But in handmade stone houses in rural Macedonia, the subjects are true non-actors. They have no affect because, in all likelihood, they have not seen a movie before. So the way that Hatidze lived over the course of the three years of this project--with purpose, focus, and wisdom--seemed new to me. Honeyland is the gift that I always hope for from documentary and (especially) foreign documentary: a slice of life that I never knew I needed. 18. Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)- Andrew Garfield's Sam spends a lot of time on his balcony surveying his apartment complex, staring at a topless woman in a way that recalls Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, one reference point among hundreds. Sometimes he watches through binoculars, sometimes he watches through blinds--blind imagery that shows up over and over again in a movie about voyeurism. Anyway, this neighbor keeps parrots, who we're told as kids can "talk." Not that the animals have any conscious intention with their mimicking, but they replicate what they hear or are taught. The words are signified without any signifiers, so it's hard to even classify the noises as speech. Maybe those noises are everything--a tie to our species that reveals impressive intelligence--but maybe they're nothing--a silly hope of a world that seems less alone. And that subjective interpretation of code is the clearest metaphor in an otherwise elliptical, bizarre, sprawling, sui generis film. It's messy alright. Some of the threads lead nowhere, but in a movie about order and chaos, that's obviously the point. The scene with The Songwriter--barely any of the characters have names--is over ten minutes and might not have any narrative consequence. But in the moment it's earth-shattering and urgent. And maybe I'm the obvious audience, but I'm not going to complain about anyone taking a dance break for "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" 17. 1917 (Sam Mendes)- Weirdly enough, a Lauryn Hill line kept bouncing around in my head as I was nervously tapping my foot: "It could all be so simple, / But you had to make it hard." This is a direct story told with impossible technical aptitude. 1917 isn't saying anything new, but have you ever seen a plane crash ten feet away from the camera forty-five minutes into an unbroken take? No offense, but do you remember when we were all impressed that Creed had a five-minute fight in one take? Blimey. 16. American Factory (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)- It's a rare documentary that makes its case so gracefully and so forcefully at the same time. The film ends so conclusively that it could be considered labor activism, but it's so fair that the union-busting schmucks are willing to joke around with the filmmakers without obfuscating at all. The obvious forebearer for this sort of boots-on-the-ground snapshot of American labor is Harlan County U.S.A., but American Factory is more staid and less concerned with setting because, you know, this could be anywhere.The Chairman is the best villain since Thanos, and as he looked back on his life while walking around his empty cabana, I had to squint a bit to make sure he wasn't purple.

15. Ad Astra (James Gray)- Ad Astra declares so that it can suggest. The opening crawl says that the near future is a "time of hope and conflict," but all we see is the conflict: the pirates on a borderless moon that we've ruined with Applebee'ses, the neglected wife leaving her ring on a table, the voiceover that declares, "I always wanted to be an astronaut...for all mankind and all." This film will take place in four parts--Earth, Moon, Mars, Neptune--and each part will offer unique obstacles to challenge our phlegmatic but confused hero. But all of that table-setting allows James Gray to explore. There's a scene in which the Roy character uses a belt to pull himself, one tug at a time, deeper into the unknown, and we see the action through the reflection in his helmet as we're watching his face. We're seeing through his eyes but at a remove, and in this moment we're watching him heave himself into emptiness, thinking that the more distant and lonely and absent he gets, the more of a man he becomes. We know that's not true, but we kind of think it is from the movies, and Ad Astra has a happy ending if only because it wants to disprove that notion. Lots of artistes talk about how they could, without compromise, make grand, big-budget entertainments if they only wanted to. James Gray did. 14. Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)- In a train on the way to her hometown, the protagonist Xiao casually tells a fellow passenger that she has seen a UFO. Although it comes up later in a sort of magic realism flourish, her statement seemed like a character moment for me. People who see UFOs are either guileless rubes or attention-seeking hucksters, and that's the dance of Tao Zhao's performance. Even after seeing the movie, I can't tell which one Xiao is. Often it changes in the course of a scene. The time when she shows the most agency, firing off her boyfriend's illegal gun to ward off his attackers, results in the time when she is the most helpless, being ordered around in jail. She might confess her ex-con status in a moment of vulnerability, then flake out at the next train stop in an attempt to seize her power back. (It's worth mentioning that there are lots of movies about flaky drifters who don't pay the tab, but few of them are about women.) Even the way that she holds her backpack--frontways--is street-smart and child-like at the same time. This is the second film that Jia has made with a triptych setting, (Mountains May Depart is slightly superior.) and he doesn't make the flash forwards obvious. He invites the performance's same sort of healthy confusion upon the viewer with the formal elements. I, for one, am willing to get probed by these foreign objects. 13. Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley)- I questioned a late moment in the film, one of the plottier ones in which Woody goes back to save another toy one more laborious time. When I sighed, my wife reminded me, "He never leaves a toy behind." Toy Story 4 is a dazzling upgrade in the series from a visual standpoint, (I gasped again at Woody lying in a damp, sunny patch of concrete.) but it's more of a reminder of the consistent character development and weight that have been blanketing us for twenty-three years. Pixar isn't reinventing the wheel because it is the wheel. Sure, the characters are too numerous and separate now. I miss the OG's Rex and Hamm. But for one thing, that rogue's gallery makes it funnier when, say, Buttercup pops up with a joke out of nowhere. And the new characters, particularly Forky the Nihilist, are so lovable that I wouldn't know who to trade. Toy Story 4 is probably the worst of the franchise, but that franchise--especially when its subtext seems to be questioning people who want to stop intellectual property from evolving--might be the best we have. 12. Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu)- In discussing the aftermath of an execution, Alfre Woodard's warden character Bernadine mentions the mother who will claim a prisoner's body, who will follow through with plans for burial. And I realized, to be honest, that I had never thought about how executed bodies are claimed and laid to rest, though obviously those sad practicalities persist. This whole film is a reminder of the numerous costs that arise from a system that is out of time and out of reason. To that end, every character is fully drawn with empathy. For example, the assistant warden, which could have been a nothing part, has ambitions and fears that give him an arc that shades the protagonist. The Richard Schiff and Wendell Pierce characters make the film about the compromised promises of retirement, but the assistant warden is there to tug us back into law enforcement. Neon ended up putting this movie on the awards circuit back burner, but Aldis Hodge deserves the world. Although the film piles on one indignity too many for my taste, drifting into miserableism, Hodge's performance has a rare possessive quality. Catatonic in his most crestfallen moments and antic when he clings to hope, Hodge drags the audience along with him. The character is quiet, but every word counts. 11. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)- I was not been more thoroughly charmed all year, especially by Awkwafina, who is a revelation in a tricky role. There are a few scenes that get comedic effect through repetition, and it's telling that the subtitles stop by the third or fourth run-through of a line. The movie assumes you're smart, which goes even further than its piercing emotion. Shout-out to Mr. Li, who made me crack up every time I saw him. The elderly sort-of-boyfriend is such a common figure in real life, but I'm not sure I've ever seen that character type on screen. I'm not sure I've seen any of this on-screen, and that's the reason the film exists.

10. Avengers: End Game (Joe Russo and Anthony Russo)- For a guy who grew up in the '30s, Captain America is pretty cool with gay people. 9. Gloria (Sebastian Lelio)- I saw Lelio's original Gloria, the one that he's remaking here, and it didn't do much for me, even though it hit some of the same beats as this one. I wonder what the difference could be...do you think the total commitment of one of the greatest actresses in the world matters? Lelio documents who this woman is to her children, to her mother, to her ex-husband, to her lover, to her co-workers, and it's by tracking the tiny compromises of those relationships that the viewer gets to see the fully realized her. The cyclical editing of those pieces--sing a disco song to herself in the car, rinse, repeat--ends up lulling the viewer into his role of seeing the complete Gloria. It ends up being a fun, absorbing process. I yelled out loud at Turturro for disrespecting my girl. Moore, who is in every scene, sells us on these different versions of the character through complete control of her instrument. She lets headphones slump along her body at work. She kneels down toward a street performer in a more maternal way than she ever presents with her actual daughter. She sits cross-legged with her best friend, as if they're little girls. I won't spoil what she does at the end, when she is at her most empowered. 8. Midsommar (Ari Aster)- I love this movie, but, boy, is it a friendship killer if you recommend it to the wrong person. Whether you liked Hereditary or not is a good predictor for your taste, but I think Ari Aster's follow-up is much better: Whereas the unpredictability of Hereditary makes the mysticism of its final fourth seem like a leap that you either accept or don't, Midsommar is driving so hard in one direction that its dread is even more pronounced. (The prologue is so masterfully deliberate and gloomy that it takes a long time for the film to get back to those depths.) For comparison's sake again, Aster was painting in the colors of hysteria and fractured relationships before, but the new film seems much more biting and vital in the way it depicts modern men and women. I'm thinking of the way Dani excuses herself at the risk of compromising her safety or rationalizes her boyfriend's forgetting her birthday with "Well, I didn't remind him." All of the characters become victims of a misinformed, selfish brand of multicultural tolerance that makes them rationalize evil instead of speaking up, and that acceptance serves the plot way better than the average horror movie's running up the stairs instead of out the door. For his part, Christian, who seems sympathetic at first, takes ideas, drugs, and even women for himself with impunity. (It's important that he's an anthropology student, and it's more important that his name is Christian.) When he colonizes his Black friend's thesis topic, it might seem like a tipping point, but he was one step ahead in using rules and approval for his purposes. None of the Americans bother to stop him, but that doesn't mean that no one stops him. 7. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)- "The sun shines on good and evil the same." In the baggy second hour of what might be Terrence Malick's most direct and linear film, martyr Franz Jagerstatter tosses off that line with grace and aplomb, at a time when most of us would have neither to spare. His captors are confused when he denies that his conscientious objection will make any difference in the war or when he doubts that he is more morally evolved than his countrymen. His refusal to pledge an oath to Hitler is a state with no outcome in mind, which the results-obsessed Nazis cannot understand. In that way he is the perfect Malickian hero, which means he is the perfect Heideggerian hero: a man who sees all planes of existence as equal--or at least equally unknowable to him. As a farmer, Franz observes and acts upon cycles, but he is smaller than Nature and the communion he finds with God there. So when he's torn from his family and daily life to be stuck in a prison, he is separated from that concord further and further. The key, however, is that he is no more or less powerful than before, and that knowledge is what gives him transcendental perspective. He is indifferent in the way that only a saint can be. Of course, what I'm describing also makes for a passive protagonist, which is why the cross-cutting to his wife Fani is so effective. She is the one who has to shoulder the burden of his ideals, and Valerie Pachner's stolid performance sells that sacrifice. The overall balance comes from the jagged but precise editing, and the production is all the more impressive for retaining the Malick style despite the absence of most of his regular collaborators. (This is the first time since The Thin Red Line that he hasn't worked with Jack Fisk, but there the production design is, crafting a 1940 Austrian town out of nothing and building a network of water symbolism that I don't understand yet.) In fact, the whirling steadicam and the avoidance of artificial light have more of a thematic purpose than ever if "the sun shines on good and evil all the same." Perhaps the greatest achievement of this film about unjust war is that it made me pray for Donald Trump today. Because if I want to be like Franz Jagerstatter, then I have to believe the light of God shines on him too. 6. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)- A third of the way into this imaginative, absorbing whodunit, I started to talk myself into the surface pleasures of cinema. "So what if it doesn't have much to say; look at these stars going for it with this spicy dialogue and these gleeful twists." Then the subtext asserts itself through a radiant Ana de Armas, and the subtext becomes the text in the final shot. Knives Out is the best of all worlds. Rian Johnson might be the first filmmaker for whom a Star Wars movie ends up being a footnote. 5. Everybody Knows (Asghar Farhadi)- There's a photograph hanging in the library (yes, the stately library) of the patrician family of my childhood best friend, and I'm in that picture. There I am, dressed a bit sloppier than everyone else, near the edge of the frame. Because I was there, as usual, and because they are kind. Everybody Knows is about one of those family friend outsiders, perhaps in a way that no other movie has been. When it's at its best, it's about what those marginal figures can and can't say, can and can't do. The film dips into soap opera territory, but only to sell its message of how secrets beget other secrets. For me, it's another Farhadi hit of approachable, modest conflict that bakes itself into an experience. 4. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)- The best divorce movie ever made--by the guy who wrote and directed the former belt holder of the best divorce movie ever made. These luminous lead performances aren't just about saying cutting, hurtful things or reacting to their child's preference for the other parent (or at least the other parent's toys). They're about the internal devastation of realizing you can never take back something you've said. Driver and Johansson each get a chance to sink into one of those moments, and they're joined by a head-tilting, blustery Laura Dern, who gets a Virgin Mary speech that won her an Oscar. And there are jokes! Underrated aspect of the movie: The son is kind of a dipshit. I like that he just hates math and wants to eat candy, as opposed to the cute prodigies we've seen before in this type of movie. They're fighting over a kid only a parent could love. INSTANT CLASSICS

3. Uncut Gems (Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie)- Howard the jeweler lives somewhere in upstate New York, but he has an apartment in the city. It's an apartment that is close enough for him to cab over to his mistress who lives there, but it's far enough away that his family wouldn't bother popping in for a visit. That sort of gap is present throughout Uncut Gems: Family members act differently in the Diamond District than they do at seder, and we first see Howard from the literally vulnerable inside of a colonoscopy, not the animated brio of his tightrope-walking exterior. Of course, the gem of the title is the ultimate division: something pure that the characters are searching for, untouched by the process that Howard, by definition, does. And the film is about how little he can abide by purity. Until now, The Gambler (1974) was probably the best film of this type, a snapshot of a cursed man who seems to be gambling with forces way beyond the game in question. But Uncut Gems is more pathological, more authentic, more intense, and more decisively realized. By focusing more on character than the Safdie Brothers' other work, it offers a unique depiction of compulsive behavior and implicates the audience in rooting for Howard's (technically unrealistic) parlay. By doubling down on his bets or re-uniting with his girlfriend, Howard thinks that he can reinvent himself and start anew. But like the legacy of the Chosen People the film depicts, like the lines on all of these great New York faces, some things are permanent.

2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)- "It's what it is." You wouldn't blame someone if he saw the logline and lineup of The Irishman and expected GoodFellas. In fact, this one quotes Scorsese's signature film continually. Instead of slicing onions with a razorblade, old convicts pitch bocce balls. Instead of tracking sumptuously through the Copa, Scorsese's camera wanders through a nursing home. Instead of pistol-whipping Karen's neighbor for getting handsy, our protagonist curb-stomps a grocery owner for shoving his daughter. But there's a GoodFellas staple that is missing. The first fourth of that crime saga closes as Young Henry, played by Christopher Serrone, gets rewarded for staying mum in court. All of his partners in crime cheer him, and he is told that he learned a valuable lesson (in protecting the family and subverting the law). Then we cut to Adult Henry, played by Ray Liotta now, because Young Henry has learned everything he has to know. The Irishman has no such moment of elevation or revelation. Frank is, crucially, played by Robert De Niro over the course of decades because his fall from grace--if there ever was grace--is too imperceptible for any before-and-after divide. The lessons that he learns are just as corrupting as what Henry discovers: Power comes from insularity. Having power means you don't have to prove it. Organized crime, organized labor, and the political process are all the same thing. A code is all a man has, but all codes have limits. However, Frank's corruption, the selling of his soul, doesn't even bring an Asian-inspired chiffonier or a Janice Rossi sidepiece. Frank doesn't get rich; he jams his hands into a plastic ice bucket at the bar next to his couch. He doesn't get powerful; he has to kill because Russell is too prominent to be in the same town as a hit. He doesn't get glory; even a celebration held in his honor is just an excuse for more influential men to do business. Frank is a tool, and he is trapped in a fruitless silence, at best an accessory at meetings. (De Niro is doing quoting of his own. There's a lot of Jackie Brown's Louis in his shrugs and smirks.) As boisterous as Scorsese's films can be, he also knows how to use silence. Robbie Robertson's score is weak, but luckily the film goes without for long stretches, including a suspenseful car ride that begins with a treacherous hug and ends with a malignant secret. The best performance comes from Joe Pesci, probably because his stolid stillness matches the overall atmosphere. Of course, the quietest moments correlate to the loneliest moments: Frank touring a cemetery or sitting with a door half-cracked to a complicit viewer. It's the silence of deliberate toil. Like the mobster ripping up carpet in the lake house, Scorsese is on his hands and knees destroying his own myths.

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)- Parasite is Bong Joon-Ho's masterpiece because it distills the worldview and passions that he previously flirted with into a condensed but elaborate statement. In the same way that Mean Streets is perfectly good but feels like a rehearsal for the slow boil of encircling gangster life in GoodFellas. In the same way that Hitchcock played with the impotent everyman voyeur in a confined setting but didn't perfect it until Rear Window. Like the examples above, Parasite, a true ensemble, is a case of the subtext becoming text. Back in his native country and language, working more or less with realism, Bong is free to take aim at class in a more direct but still wacky way. In all of its crowd provocation--there's so much pleasure in just a suspenseful winding down stairs--the film is destined to be a foreign film gateway drug. But really it just makes we want to take a half-star off my Snowpiercer review since I know Bong can do better now.

[filmfanatic82]

AO3 Link (HERE)

Chapter 7

“All I knew this morning when I woke

Is I know something now, know something now I didn't before

And all I've seen since eighteen hours ago

Is green eyes and freckles and your smile

In the back of my mind making me feel like

I just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now”

-- Everything Has Changed, Taylor Swift

__________

“I’ve got this,” Penelope whispered under her breath for the thousandth time in the last hour as she approaches Josie and Lizzie’s dorm room door. “It’s just Josie.” 

But that’s the crux of the problem. 

It’s Josie Saltzman.

And there’s no divorcing the sweet and innocent 16-year-old siphoner from years and years worth of past memories of the other version. The one that tends to haunt the darkest recesses of Penelope’s mind. 

The Josie Saltzman, who quickly became notorious for the wake of death and destruction wherever she went. The one that murdered her twin sister in cold-blood. 

The one who almost killed--

Penelope’s fingers go to trace the scar on her neck and is once again reminded that it no longer exists. 

It never happened. 

At least not yet.

Maybe not ever if Penelope can manage to pull herself together and complete her mission. 

“C’mon, Park. Stop hesitating,” Penelope says, channeling the words of Hope. She does one final check of her faded Pearl Jam concert t-shirt and jeans, runs her hands through her hair, and then knocks on the dorm room door. 

A moment passes and then--

The door opens to reveal not Josie but Lizzie instead. The blonde-haired siphoner stands within the doorway, arms folded and looking as though she is the quintessential definition of ticked off.

“What do you want, Satan?” Lizzie asks with an extra level of annoyance to her voice.

“Hello, Liz.” Penelope calmly replies. “Is Josie home?”

Lizzie’s face instantly morphs into a look of utter bewilderment. “Did you just call me--”

“Pen!” Josie emerges from behind her sister and Penelope’s heart instantly swells at the sheer sight of the girl that she loves more than life itself. Although clad in a simple crimson sweater and dark denim jean combo, she looks nothing short of stunning. 

“Hey,” Penelope says as her face lights up with a smile. “You look amazing.”

“Thanks. So do you.” Josie blushes. Penelope watches as a familiar set of chocolate brown eyes work their way over her, taking in her entire look from head to toe. “Love the t-shirt.”

Penelope makes a mental note to personally thank the Tribrid the next time she sees her as she feels her cheeks flush with the tell-tale signs of embarrassment. “Someone might’ve mentioned to me that it was a favorite of yours.”

“Ugh!” Lizzie interrupts with an exasperated huff of air. “Can we please get back to what you called me? How did you know that--”

“Lizzie, not now,” Josie says. The sudden authoritative tone in her voice instantly throws both Lizzie and Penelope for a loop. They both stare at Josie for a moment, sharing a look of confusion.

“Excuse me?” 

“Just drop it, Lizzie. Okay?” Josie scoots by Lizzie and joins Penelope out in the hallway. “I’ll be back later. If dad swings by can you cover for me? Tell him I’m at the library working on that anatomy of a vampire essay he assigned us last week. Or something else along those lines.” 

“Yeah. Fine,” Lizzie mutters, still very much thrown off by Josie’s sudden dominance, and then retreats back into their dorm room and shuts the door. 

Josie turns back towards Penelope and spots the look upon her face. “Everything all right?”

“Okay… Who are you and what have you done with Josie?” Penelope playfully responds causing Josie to laugh. 

“You know you’re not the only one who can turn over a new leaf.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yup.” Josie pops the ‘P’ and then flashes Penelope a smirk of her own for added effect. 

“Good to know.” 

“So,” Josie says taking hold of Penelope’s arm and linking it with hers. “Where are we going?” 

“You’ll see.” Penelope matches Josie’s smirk and gently pulls Josie’s body a little bit closer to hers. “You ready?”

Josie nods, leaning into Penelope until they fit together like two puzzle pieces.“Lead the way.”

__________

“I still don’t get why I had to close my eyes,” Josie says a little while later as Penelope carefully leads the taller girl out through the attic window and onto the roof. “I know where we are.”

“The location is not the surprise, Jojo.” Penelope positions Josie in a secure spot and then reaches back through the window with her arm while making sure to keep her eyes on Josie. 

“Can I open them now?”

“Just… One… Second… More…” Penelope gropes around with her hand for a moment or two and then suddenly stops as the flick of a light switch cuts through the night air. “There… Go ahead and open them.”

Penelope holds her breath and watches as Josie slowly opens her eyes and gets her first glimpse at their surroundings. 

It had taken some advanced level magic and last-minute help from both MG and Hope, but somehow Penelope managed to recreate the same exact fairy garden that Josie had surprised her with on her birthday all those years ago. 

The lights… The picnic blanket… Every last detail, a perfect mirror image.

“Pen… Is this…”

“The fairy garden. Yeah. It is… Or at least as close to it as I could get.” 

Josie slowly moves around the roof fully checking it out, in slight disbelief. “But how?”

“A good witch never reveals her secrets,” Penelope replies with a smirk. “You like it?”

Josie nods. “I love it.”

“Good.” Penelope gently reaches out and takes hold of Josie’s hand, leading the taller girl to join her on the blanket. The two sit down and Penelope pulls out a bottle of wine from the nearby basket. “I know you usually like red over white, but this is all I could get my hands on given the last minute notice.” 

Josie laughs in mild amusement. “You got us a bottle of wine?”

“And maybe some aged gouda too… And those buttery crackers that your dad likes to hide on the top shelf of the pantry behind the canned lima beans… Oh, and wait until you see the best part,” Penelope rambles on as she uncorks the wine and pours Josie a glass. 

“I can’t believe you did this. We were just supposed to be hanging out, Pen.”

“And we are… See?” Penelope motions to their surroundings with her free hand. “It just so happens to involve a little extra decor and snacks, that’s all.”

Josie hums a response and then takes a sip of her wine as the two sit side by side, enjoying the stillness of the night. 

And for the briefest of moments, Penelope lets herself forget. No hidden motives or lingering secrets. Just Josie and her. Sitting together in their favorite spot and basking in each other’s radiance.

But then the moment passes and the flood of memories crashes back down upon Penelope. She closes her eyes and swallows the dry lump of emotions building within the back of her throat. 

“What are you thinking?” Josie asks.

Penelope inhales and then forces a smile back on her face. “Nothing.”

“Pen…” Josie scoots over next to Penelope until the entire length of their bodies are touching. She gently places her hand down on Penelope’s thigh and gives it a squeeze. “It’s not nothing… You’ve got your deep thoughts wrinkle. Right there. On your forehead above your right eyebrows.” 

“My deep in thought wrinkle?” Penelope lets out a laugh as Josie gives her an adamant nod.

“Yup. Right…” Josie leans in closer and with a feather-like touch, traces the wrinkle upon Penelope’s forehead. “There.” 

Penelope’s heart rate to instantaneously skyrocket from the sudden touch as she’s hit with the overwhelming urge to kiss Josie. It’s a simple move. One that her 16-year-old self wouldn’t think twice about making. And yet… 

“This is my favorite memory,” Penelope says with an underlying raw honesty to her voice. 

“Memory?” 

“Yeah.” Penelope swallows down her emotions once again and then runs her hand through her hair. “Not of us sitting on the roof, but of my birthday. The one where my parents stood me up and you surprised me with the indoor fairy garden in your room. It’s my favorite memory.”

“Of us?” 

Penelope shakes her head and then looks up at the blanket of stars above them. “Not just of us. It’s my favorite memory of my life… I know, cheesy right? But it’s the only thing that has helped me get through the past few ye-- months. I don’t know… There’s just something about it. How you went out of your way to surprise me, even though I was being stubborn and told you I didn’t want you to do anything for my birthday. You somehow just knew what I needed the most… That memory reminds me that no matter how much I fuck up or how horrible life gets there was at least one moment in my life where someone truly loved me.”

Penelope holds her breath and continues to stare up at the sky as a deafening silence all but engulfs them. 

Too much. 

Too much, too soon.

Josie says she wants honesty, but… 

Honesty comes at a price and more often than not, it’s one that most people aren’t willing to pay. 

And Penelope more than knows this from years upon years of first-hand experience.

At the end of the day, no one really wants honesty… 

What they really want is the reassurance that everything will be okay… 

Even if it’s a lie. 

“Penelope,” Josie’s voice cuts through Penelope’s thoughts as she feels the all too familiar sensation of a hand upon her cheek. She quickly blinks back the tears pooling up in the corners of her eyes and exhales. “Penelope, look at me.”

Penelope slowly brings her gaze back down from the sky until her eyes meet Josie’s. They stare at one another for a moment or two as the world around them seems to all but fade away, and then--

Josie leans in and seizes Penelope’s lips, pouring out a lifetime worth of raw emotions as she does. 

It takes a second for Penelope’s brain to process what is transpiring, but then she kisses back, matching the siphoner’s intensity. She snakes her hands into Josie’s soft chocolate brown locks and pulls her closer, desperate for more contact. 

God, how she’s missed this.

Penelope goes to deepen the kiss but suddenly Josie pulls back, breaking them apart. 

“I’m sorry…” Josie starts to say as a look of pure fear whirls within the depths of her eyes. “I can’t…”

“Jojo…” Penelope goes to reach for Josie’s hand, but it’s too late. Josie is already up on her feet and hastily making her way back towards the window.

“I can’t do this.” 

And with those words, Josie disappears back into the attic, leaving Penelope all alone with nothing but her endless amounts of conflicting thoughts and regrets. 

__________  

An hour later and Penelope finds herself in Alaric’s office, scouring the bookshelves for his secret stash of whiskey. 

She had lingered up on the roof alone for a while, just staring up at the star and fighting tooth and nail not to give way to the tsunami of tears, but then it had gotten too cold. So Penelope had headed to the one place where she knew no one would come looking for her… and also, so happened to be the only place on campus where she knew for certain she would be able to find something suitable enough to help her drown her sorrows.

Breaking into Alaric’s office had been surprisingly easy. Too easy. But then again, after years worth of breaking and entering, there wasn’t a lock on the face of the earth that Penelope couldn’t crack… especially with a little-- or a lot-- of magic. 

“C’mon…” Penelope mutters under her breath as she pulls back book after book. “It’s gotta be here somewhere.”

Penelope reaches for a rather large looking textbook on the end of the shelf and suddenly--

CLICK.

A hidden door swings open on the bottom panel of the bookshelf, revealing a secret stash of alcohol. 

“Yes! Thank you, Dr. Saltzman, for being such a predictable lush.” Penelope snatches up a bottle of fireball whiskey and then starts to head back towards the office door when a picture frame sitting on the desk catches her eye. She moves closer to investigate and is instantly hit with an invisible sucker punch straight to her stomach.

The picture in the frame is of Caroline.

Penelope puts down the bottle of whiskey on the desk and trades it out for the picture frame instead. She makes her way over towards the cracked leather couch, unable to pull her eyes away from the photo. 

“Hi…” Penelope exhales. She continues to stare for a moment or two longer and then--

Tears.

Two distinct trails flow freely from Penelope’s eyes as the dam breaks and the tidal wave of emotions that she’s been working so hard to hold back finally burst through. She sobs uncontrollably until her body shakes from the sheet weight of the last two days. 

“God, I wish you were here so you could tell me what to do,” Penelope says as the tears subside and she’s finally able to catch her breath. “Cause I don’t think I’m strong enough to do this.” 

[hideyoshineki]

What is Most Important

Written for the @tokyoghoulreversebang! Thanks to the mods for organising this! Special thank you to my bang group of @skiewrites who was my beta, @fukurou-hime, whose art this fic is inspired by, and @scribblyorro who also wrote a fic for Jojo’s art! 

Pairing: Kaneki Ken & Nagachika Hideyoshi

Word Count: 7401 words

Summary: 

Hide liked to believe that if there was anyone that could help Kaneki, no matter what the situation, it would always be him.

Starting with some paper cranes.

Read on AO3!

-

Seeing more and more of a person as they opened up was something Hide found he loved about making a new friend.

Not that it was something that had actually happened much in his life. It wasn’t until after he moved with his new adoptive Papa and Dad that he really got the opportunity to make friends. His new school and class had plenty of children he could have befriended, many of which were boisterous and fun enough for Hide to get along with.

But funnily enough, out of all his new classmates, he was drawn to the one that was not like any of those kids, but was someone who was on his own, isolated from the rest of the children, quiet, and reading what looked to be a book written for those of a much older age range. 

Hide didn’t quite know exactly what it was that first drew him to Kaneki. Whether it was out of a desire to help someone lonely, a fascination with a person so different to himself, an interest in getting to know someone who seemed so closed off to everyone else, or some combination of the three. No matter the reason for its start, becoming friends with Kaneki was something Hide was grateful for.

It was a bit difficult at first. They had very little in common and had such different personalities. Kaneki was used to reading books that Hide never understood, and wasn’t easily able to talk about himself, while Hide was the type to talk so much he would jump from one thing to another so quickly that Kaneki would struggle to keep up. But with both of them willing to be friends, they were able to familiarise themselves with these differences and become more naturally close.

In the process of becoming closer, Hide began to see Kaneki open up to him in a way he didn’t see Kaneki with anyone else. He didn’t think any of the other classmates had ever seen Kaneki laugh, or even smile. But he was doing it more and more when it was the two of them together. Hide felt incredibly lucky knowing he was the person who got to witness Kaneki’s smile the most.

Kaneki’s shyness wasn’t gone completely when the two of them were together, and Hide accepted that as part of who Kaneki was. It didn’t matter since Hide could be outgoing enough for the both of them anyway. But seeing Kaneki open up bit by bit from the withdrawn kid Hide had first met was something Hide valued more than any amount of outgoing nature of his friend.

So, when Kaneki went back and withdrew himself around him, Hide noticed.

Not that he could miss it, since the reason Kaneki had done so was not for any small reason and had a huge impact on him.

Hide wasn’t a stranger to the loss of a parent, since he himself had lost both of his own biological ones. Unlike Kaneki though, he had absolutely no memory of his mother, as she had died shortly after his birth. With the passing of his biological father however, Hide could understand Kaneki’s grief a little more. Hide’s father, who had been an investigator for the CCG, had died in action when Hide was a much younger child.  

This was different though. The impact of Kaneki’s mother’s death impacted on Kaneki as a person much more than Hide’s father’s had to Hide. Kaneki’s relationship with his mother had been very different to that between Hide and his biological father, and Hide had never fully understood it from the outside looking in.

However, even Hide’s small understanding of the grief Kaneki was going through made him more desperate to somehow lessen his best friend’s pain.

But he had no clue where to start. It was even harder to figure out any way to make Kaneki feel better when he couldn’t see him. Kaneki took a period of absence from school after his mother’s passing, and obviously wasn’t able to meet with Hide outside of school during this time either.

Once Kaneki did return to school though, he was different.

It was as if Kaneki had retreated back to the boy that Hide had first seen upon moving to the new school. Only this time, Kaneki was even more withdrawn than before. It wasn’t as if he was isolating himself from Hide physically; once he returned to school he resumed walking there and back with him, and they continued to be together during lunch breaks. But mentally, it felt like Kaneki was somewhere else. He was largely unresponsive to Hide where he usually would’ve cracked a smile at something Hide said or did, or even looked at Hide with a puzzled frown. It was clear to Hide that trying to be as he normally was before would not lead to Kaneki being as he was before, as no matter how he acted, Kaneki’s default expression remained distant.

Hide viewed himself as the one who would be there the most for Kaneki.

When Kaneki was all alone in their class, it was Hide that cracked his shell and befriended him.

When the other kids pestered or bullied Kaneki, it was Hide that would draw the bullies away and protect him.

And when Kaneki was sad, it was Hide that would be the one to bring out the hint of a smile.

Helping Kaneki this time would require an action much bigger than Hide had done before. Kaneki’s shell was now as impenetrable as ever, and it would be much harder to bring him out again this time.

In class, Hide spent most of his time wondering what gesture he could possibly do which would make him succeed in this goal.

He would want it to be something big enough to really surprise Kaneki, as something small and common might not have a big effect on Kaneki in the state he was. Something Hide could really show that he would do everything he could to make Kaneki happy again.

It was the class itself that was what prompted the inspiration for Hide. It hadn’t even been the focus of the lesson, merely a side-mention within the larger topic. Within a lesson of history, featuring discussion of efforts to spread messages of peace, Hide took notice of a brief mention of paper cranes.

One thousand paper cranes.

That was something Hide could do. It was perfect, as not only was it something that could be realistically done with time, but it was also a big enough gesture that would bring out a smile on Kaneki’s face, plus it had the added bonus of having the power to make him better. It was legend that folding a thousand cranes would grant one a wish after all. To tell the truth, Hide had his doubts about the wish part, but it couldn’t hurt to think about the possibility.

Hide couldn’t stop thinking about his idea for the rest of the day, eager to get started on it as soon as possible. That very afternoon in fact.

Origami paper was something that he would need, and a lot of it, so that would have to be the first step for Hide to take. Whether or not he already had some at home didn’t matter since he knew there wouldn’t be enough for a thousand even if he did.

There was a store nearby where he knew he could get some, but it would require changing his path home. This was tricky, as he and Kaneki walked home together most of the way. Somehow, Hide would need to separate himself from Kaneki.

“Kaneki, I’m going to be going this way today,” he said nonchalantly as they approached where he would need to divert. “I have something that I need to do today.”

“Oh?” Kaneki blinked in surprise. “I don’t mind going with you,” he said. “I’m not in a rush to get back. I can stay out longer.”

“No no, it’s ok!” Hide said hurriedly. “It’s easy enough that I can do it quickly myself.”

“Oh…”

Hide stood around a moment longer, unsure of what to do next. Kaneki seemed disappointed, but Hide didn’t want to tell him exactly what he was going to do. If Kaneki knew what Hide was going to do, that would spoil the impact it would have, wouldn’t it? It would work out better in the long run if Kaneki could be fully surprised by what Hide was going to do for him.

“Well,” he said once Kaneki wasn’t saying anything more. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kaneki!”

“See you.”

Hide slowly took the different path, waving to Kaneki as he walked away. He kept turning back to Kaneki as he walked off, seeing how Kaneki remained standing where Hide left him for quite a while afterwards, waving back. It was only once Hide was about to walk out of sight that he saw Kaneki eventually walk off on his own.

It wasn’t a long walk to the nearest store where he could get origami paper. He would arrive home afterwards only a little bit later than usual, a difference that would barely even be noticeable.

Once he made it to the store, he immediately went over to where he knew the origami paper would be. There were several kinds, some all one colour, others that were patterned. Hide didn't need any of the fancy kind of paper, just enough to make one thousand good quality cranes. He found packs of two-hundred pieces of origami paper that he thought would do. They were cheap enough that he would be able to buy several packets with what money he as an elementary school student had on him. They also consisted of several different coloured pieces of paper, which was nice.

Hide decided to buy six of the packets. Five to make the thousand, but a sixth to allow for mistakes, since if he even ruined or lost a single one, he wouldn't have enough otherwise. When he was paying for the origami paper, the store’s cashier gave him a knowing look.

“Best of luck making one thousand,” she said as she handed the packets of paper to Hide in a small bag.

Hide almost skipped his way home. Having the paper in his hands was making him more eager to get started on the task ahead of him, and more excited to feel like he would finally be doing something to help Kaneki now.

One of Hide's fathers was already home when Hide arrived.

“I'm home!” Hide said when he entered.

“Welcome back!” his Dad answered. He then noticed the small bag in Hide's hands. “What’s that you’re holding?”

Hide suppressed his immediate urge to hide the paper behind his back, an old habit that somehow hadn’t left him from when he was in the orphanage and sneaked in things he technically wasn’t supposed to. He had no need to hide things with his fathers however. Besides, he knew that if he did want something to be kept secret to himself, his fathers wouldn’t try to pry. For a period of time after Hide had initially been adopted, Hide’s fathers had given him a lot of space and had been very careful around him, having still been learning how to be parents and not wanting to do anything that might get Hide to dislike them. Even though now everyone had long adjusted to the family arrangement, they still tended to give Hide a lot of freedom and not push him.

In Hide’s eyes, they never needed to worry; his dads were fantastic, so in return he made an effort to share things with his dads and not take advantage of the space they gave him.

“It’s origami paper!” Hide said, holding it out so his Dad could see it properly. “I want to make a thousand paper cranes for Kaneki.”

“Ahhhh…” Dad said knowingly. Hide’s dads were very aware of who Kaneki was and his importance to Hide, especially since Kaneki was who Hide talked about to them more than anything else.

“I thought maybe it could make him feel a bit happy again after… you know…”

Dad nodded. “Do you know how to make paper cranes?”

Hide realised he hadn’t actually considered that part. He slowly shook his head.

Dad softly smiled. “Lucky for you, I do.”

He made his way over to the table in the living room and sat down. “Come over here and I’ll show you,” he said, gesturing for Hide to sit down.

Hide went over to the table, sitting beside him. Hide opened the packet of origami paper and took one out, placing it on the table in front of his Dad while the packet was put to the side.

“Ok, so what you want to do first is fold it in half diagonally…” he began, demonstrating for Hide as he spoke.

That was simple enough. Most origami started out with an easy fold like that so Hide knew he had step one down at least.

The first few steps of the crane were easy actually, as a lot of it was folding the paper in halves. He was able to follow along with his Dad’s demonstration fairly easily, only not quite getting what his Dad was doing for the folds of the wings. Hide didn’t stop him however, and continued to watch until his Dad completed the final touch of the small head fold.

“Here you go, there’s your first one!” Dad said triumphantly, holding the finished crane out to Hide.

Hide took it, not mentioning out loud that he didn’t intend to count this one as one of the thousand for Kaneki. Not only did Hide want them to be all his own work, but he also wanted to keep this crane made by his Dad for himself.  

“Now you try,” Dad said. “I’ll do another one with you.”

Hide reached for the pack of origami paper, taking out an orange sheet for himself to use and passing his Dad a blue one.

As Hide did the first folds, his Dad began to repeat the instructions to Hide as he continued. Once Hide got up to the wing folds that had stumped him earlier, he looked at Dad for assistance. His Dad went through that step again, more slowly this time, as Hide copied what he was doing until he understood what to do for it. The wings of his crane looked a bit sloppier than Dad’s did, and they weren’t exactly even, but that was something he could improve on. He had nine hundred and ninety-nine more chances to get it perfect.

“Let's see if you can do one without me telling you the steps now,” Dad suggested. “I don't know if I have the time to repeat the instructions one thousand times.” He laughed at himself.

Hide took another piece of paper out of the packet and immediately started with the beginning folds once again. He hesitated once he got to the wings again, but his Dad didn't prompt him this time. Hide slowly repeated that step which he had just figured out last time, and managed to do it on his own. In fact, Hide found that this time the wing fold actually looked better than the last time.

Once Hide did the final touch on the head and tail, he turned to his Dad and held up the crane proudly.

“You did it! Awesome work!”

“I couldn't have done it without your help. Thanks Dad!” Hide said.

Hide picked up the packet of paper and the cranes that were on the table. “I’m going to take these up to my room now and make more,” he said. “You'll see me with one thousand soon enough!”

“Good luck,” Dad said with a smile as Hide left the room.

Hide picked up on how to more expertly make the paper cranes rather quickly. The more he did them, the easier the process came to him, until he was able to do it without having to pause in between steps to think about the next fold. He even got the hang of the wing fold until it was no longer a problem for him.

He had wondered how he should go about approaching the thousand. Should he set himself a goal of a certain amount per day, or should he try to do it as fast as possible? He didn’t want Kaneki to be waiting too long, so he did consider having daily goals so it would be easier to calculate the date they’d all be done and ready to give to Kaneki. However, he wasn’t sure how many cranes per day would be realistic but also enough that it wouldn’t take forever. So instead, Hide had taken the approach of setting aside a specific timeframe for him to be working on cranes.

The best time where he would be the most free to work on them was the late afternoon, so he had decided that he would mostly focus on working on the cranes when he got home from school. He would arrive home, greet his fathers if they were home yet, and then go to his room to fold the cranes. He ended up sometimes being so eager to continue working on them that he would head home on his own so he could rush instead of slowly walk, just so he would have more time to make cranes.

Hide had set up a space on the desk of his room to work on the paper cranes. Most of the desk had been cleared so Hide could have plenty of room to get it all right. At first, Hide put completed cranes on his desk, spreading them out along the top and stacking some of them when the number of cranes grew bigger. After some time however, it became more impractical for the cranes to be put on the desk. As they grew in number, the desk became more crowded, and many cranes toppled from their stacks or spilled over the sides of the desk.

Luckily, Hide’s Dad helped him out with that problem. When he poked his head into Hide’s room and found the mountain of origami that was building up, he went to find pieces string for Hide to put the cranes on. It made it easier to count what Hide was up to as well when the cranes were sorted into groups connected by string.

Once it became the weekend, Hide’s time wasn’t restricted by school. He found that he could make twice as many cranes in a day on the weekend than he did during the week, which he took advantage of to get ahead. One Sunday however, Hide decided to give himself a rest day. He had been working on the cranes for a while, and had made it to over two-hundred and fifty cranes. Surely making it past the milestone of a quarter of the way through was deserving of a day’s break.

He decided to see if he could visit Kaneki for the day. Before Kaneki’s mother had passed away, Hide had gone over to Kaneki’s place quite a few times to see if Kaneki would be able to go out and play. Kaneki’s mother had usually been working hard on something in the house at those times, so Kaneki had been able to go out.

Hide hadn’t visited where Kaneki was living since his mother’s passing though. It wasn’t the same house of course; Kaneki had been moved to his aunt’s house. Hide knew where the house was, but obviously hadn’t gone over there yet, what with having to allow time after Kaneki’s mother died, and then time for Kaneki to go through the process of moving and settling into a new home.

Hide felt that now was an alright time to try. Especially since he hadn’t seen Kaneki as much lately, with his afternoons now taken up by paper crane folding. It would be nice to have a full day with him again.

In fact, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t had a full day with Kaneki in a long time.

As he walked to Kaneki’s new house, he was hopeful for the day. A full day not thinking about origami for the time being and just enjoying spending time with his best friend. Maybe having made a quarter of the thousand paper cranes would give him a quarter of the good luck and wish for Kaneki to feel better.

When he reached the house, he trotted to the front door and reached to press the doorbell.

In the next instant, he suddenly got a feeling of dread that it was probably a mistake.

The front door was opened abruptly, and a woman stood in the doorway. She peered down at Hide with a frown while she stood with her arms folded. Completely closed off, and Hide hadn’t even started speaking yet.

Hide refused to let it phase him. He was here for Kaneki after all. He stood up straighter before speaking to her.

“Hello,” Hide greeted politely. “My name is Hideyoshi Nagachika. I was wondering if Kaneki was here and allowed to come play with me?”

The woman paused, her unimpressed face scrutinising Hide. She then turned behind her to the house’s corridor.

“Oi!” she called out, her tone irritated. “There’s a boy here for you! Hurry up and go with him so I haven’t wasted my time!”

A few moments later, Hide saw Kaneki’s head poking around the corner of the corridor nervously. His eyes widened when he laid eyes on Hide. He stepped around the corner and made his way down the corridor. As Kaneki reached his aunt, Hide noticed the slight hunch of Kaneki’s shoulders as he walked past.

As soon as Kaneki stepped out of the door, his aunt closed the door roughly, startling Hide and Kaneki in the process.

It took Hide a lot of self-control to not make a blunt statement to Kaneki about that woman. Instead, he turned to a still stunned Kaneki and tried to make sure the next thing he said was in as hopeful of a tone as possible.

“Want to go to the park?” he asked.

Kaneki nodded in agreement.

It wasn’t until after the two of them had walked away from the house and out of the street that Kaneki spoke.

“I was surprised that you came for me today,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…” Kaneki hesitated before speaking again. “It’s been a while… I’ve missed you.”

Hide reached over to put an arm over Kaneki’s shoulders as they walked.

Being with Kaneki now had made him feel a little better after that encounter with his aunt, but Hide’s relief and hope from his self-assigned rest day had still already evaporated.

He thought he was making these cranes at a good pace, but getting a glimpse into Kaneki’s home life was a realisation that it was not enough right now. The longer he took to fold these cranes, the longer Kaneki would be suffering. Even as he spent time with Kaneki for the rest of the day, a tiny part of the back of his mind was trying to guilt him, and remind him that this would remain the only day that he’d take a rest from making cranes until all one thousand were done.

Hide tried squeezing in time to make more cranes as much as he could. He now tried to get some done before school where possible, and once he got home at the end of the school day, made cranes all throughout the afternoon, even into the evening.

It was from there that Hide’s hours that he dedicated to making cranes extended. The set time after school he had originally started with had now changed to as soon as he got home until as long as he could go into the night, with breaks for the bathroom and dinner when necessary.

One evening, Hide hit five-hundred cranes.

He grinned at the achievement of making the halfway point. It had been several weeks however, and the idea of continuing for several more slightly dampened Hide’s excitement. But he had to keep going, at a more intense pace than before. Reaching the halfway point of five-hundred cranes gave Hide an extra boost to his motivation and strengthened his resolve to keep going.

Hide’s momentum carried him further into the night, until it was time for him to go to bed.

It became increasingly exhausting after making that transition to more time spent daily on folding origami. The more time Hide spent making cranes, the slower the whole process felt. His time after school felt more like work than time to himself at this point, but Hide reminded himself that he would be able to go back to his own free time and hobbies as soon as he finished making the cranes.

This was all for Kaneki after all.

Hide consistently had to keep in his mind the reason he was doing this. Kaneki was most important here. He was worth a period of time dedicated to him instead of Hide. He was worth Hide making a few sacrifices for him. Kaneki’s happiness in the end would make it all more than worthwhile.

It was this line of thinking that pushed Hide one night to continue to make cranes even after his fathers had tucked him into bed. His thoughts about it all prevented him from sleeping, so once he felt that his fathers had gone to bed themselves, Hide got out of his own bed. He closed his bedroom door before turning on the lamp on his desk, giving himself light but not so much that his dads would notice. Hide sat at his desk, and picked up where he left off before he had been sent to bed.

He continued to keep making paper cranes after midnight.

His brain wasn’t entirely working at this point, but it didn’t really need to. It wasn’t entirely necessary to think in order to fold paper cranes. The motions and folds were easy to him by now, and he could keep a good pace to get through a fair amount at once.

His eyes on the other hand were getting heavy. As much as he could go through the folds without thinking, he did still need to be able to look at what he was doing to make sure the creases were in line.

With only the lamp’s light to look at the folds he was making, sometimes it was hard to see if he was doing it quite right. And it didn’t help that the lamp’s light seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer.

Hide didn’t remember at what point he dropped off.  

“Hideyoshi?”

The sound of his Papa’s voice pulled him out from his sleep. Hide lifted his head from what he soon realised was the top of his desk. He had fallen asleep in the middle of a fold too, and his head had rested right on the unfinished crane, causing an unwanted crease to be pressed into the paper. Hide sighed in frustration at himself over the ruined crane, and turned to see his Papa standing beside his desk.

“Have you been staying up late doing these?”

Hide didn’t answer, and simply glanced back at the crane he had been in the middle of making before he fell asleep.

Papa sighed. “Hideyoshi, you can make more of those tomorrow. Not when you’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“I know I can but…” he trailed off and looked over at the pile of cranes on his desk with a pained expression.

He knew his fathers were supportive of him, but Hide couldn’t shake the feeling that they didn’t quite understand just how much this meant to him. This wasn’t a game or project for fun. This was an important task he had to do for Kaneki. It was something he had started to help him and now it was his responsibility to see it through to the end, and as fast as possible, for Kaneki’s sake. Even if it meant sacrificing a bit of sleep. A little inconvenience to himself was nothing compared to Kaneki’s pain.

“Hideyoshi,” Papa said, his voice still soft but indicating a slightly sterner tone than before. “We love that you’re so enthusiastic to do this for your friend, but we’re growing a bit concerned about how much time you’re spending alone in your room making these, especially when you’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“As soon as I finish these, I’ll go to sleep properly again.” Hide knew his tone towards was becoming sharper. He rarely spoke to his dads like that.

“Hideyoshi…” Papa considered his next words carefully. “You are not personally responsible for everything that happens in your friend’s life.”

Hide didn’t know exactly why, but those words were rubbing him the wrong way.

He knew he wasn’t personally responsible, but why should that stop him from trying to help Kaneki as much as he could? Especially since there was no-one else in Kaneki’s life that even tried to make his life easier. If nothing else was going to provide Kaneki with happiness, then Hide was going to try his hardest to make up for that.

He didn’t know how to say that to his Papa without becoming more frustrated. He was already feeling bad about his tone from before, and he didn’t want to make it worse.

He was too tired for this.

Hide sighed. He got up from his desk chair, which his Papa pushed properly back underneath the desk, and flopped into his bed.

Papa stood by Hide’s desk, looking unsure as to what to do next. He slowly made his way to Hide’s bed, and reached for the blanket to tuck Hide back in properly.

“We want you to take care of yourself too,” Papa said softly, lightly kissing Hide’s head. “Goodnight, Hideyoshi.”

Hide wasn’t really registering what his Papa was doing or saying, as once had lain back down into bed and put his head on the pillow, the wave of sleep began to hit him full force once again.

Hide refused to admit that Papa may have had a point that he should have slept.

He had to be almost dragged out of bed the following morning, having had way less sleep last night that he should have.

He was still half-asleep when he met up with Kaneki on his walk to school. So much so that Kaneki easily noticed the difference in Hide.

“Hide, are you okay?”

Hide blinked several times to try to force his eyes to look wide awake and alert.

“Yeah? Yeah!” he answered, hoping his voice came out as bright as he wanted it to. “What makes you ask that?”

“You just seem a bit... off today,” Kaneki said.

“Off? No no, I'm fine!” Hide insisted. “I mean, I went to bed a little later than usual last night, but I’m all fine!”

Kaneki didn't look convinced. He made a movement as if he was going to ask him another question, but he then closed his mouth and lowered his gaze as they continued to walk to school. An expression of concern remained on his face.

Hide couldn’t help feeling frustrated at himself for that. He was supposed to be helping Kaneki, but now he had caused Kaneki to be more worried, as if he wasn’t already having to deal with and worry about enough things going on. That was the exact opposite of what he wanted.

When would the cranes stop?

They consumed his thoughts, every available waking moment he had, and all the space in his room. He’d come way too far to stop now, but it still felt like the end was so out of reach.

Even after he had passed seven-hundred and fifty cranes a while ago, three quarters of the way through, it felt like it wasn’t working. Kaneki seemed just as sad as he did before, if not sadder recently. It seemed Hide needed to make it all the way to the end or nothing would work. But Hide was beginning to doubt that even getting to the end would be much help at this point.

It was an afternoon where Kaneki and Hide were walking home from school together, having been a few days since they last had done so. For some days before, Hide had gone ahead of Kaneki in order to get home early, telling Kaneki that he was required home early to help his fathers with something on the house, or saying he needed to carry out another errand.

“Hide, why are you walking faster?” Kaneki asked suddenly.

Hide hadn’t even noticed he had been doing it until he looked at how Kaneki was a step behind him, having had to almost powerwalk to keep up with the pace Hide had been going. A habit out of his usual drive lately to get home as fast as possible he supposed.

“Sorry Kaneki,” Hide gave a small laugh to shrug off the mistake.

Kaneki didn’t look anywhere near laughing however. He looked towards the ground as they continued to walk the rest of the way, not saying a word.

Until they reached where they would usually part ways to their houses.

Kaneki turned to Hide abruptly. “Do you-?” He shook his head and changed his question. “Is there something you’re hiding?”

Such a question normally wouldn’t have caught Hide so off guard. But it being asked so suddenly by Kaneki, unusually direct on his part at that, definitely threw him off.

“Hiding?” Hide scratched his cheek. “Nothing! What would I be hiding?”

Kaneki didn’t say anything, merely looking at Hide. His grey eyes stared into Hide’s own for a good moment, almost pleading.

The guilt that hit Hide was almost too much.

“I see…” Kaneki said. He turned to leave, and in that moment Hide saw a slight tremble of Kaneki’s lip. “Bye Hide.”

Hide couldn’t do this anymore.

“Kaneki, wait,” Hide said, reaching out to grab his hand. “Come home with me. I want to show you something.”

Kaneki frowned at him, but then allowed himself to follow Hide.

Hide had to hold himself back from walking with a fast pace, after Kaneki had reacted to it before, but he was so tempted to get them home as fast as possible before he changed his mind. Was he really going to undo all his hard work by showing it to Kaneki before it was even done? Would it all be pointless? What if showing Kaneki what he had done now wouldn’t be nearly as helpful as completing the thousand would have been?

But the look Kaneki had given him was too pained for Hide to keep it from Kaneki any longer.

Hide’s fathers weren’t home when they arrived. That was probably better for today, as Hide could take Kaneki straight up to his bedroom where the cranes were kept.

Upon reaching his room, Hide hesitated to open the door. He really had wanted to wait until he was completely finished, but knowing Kaneki was hurting while Hide was keeping him waiting was enough to get Hide to change his plan.

Hide opened the door and entered his room.

Hide probably should have thought about what he was going to open with a little more, as well as how he was going to display the cranes. He had some in their groups connected by string, but he had a lot of loose ones lying on his desk and around it as well. He knew it wouldn’t have been displayed that well right now, but it was even more cluttered that he remembered it being. Much messier than he would’ve liked to show Kaneki, but it was too late now that Kaneki was here.

Kaneki walked into the room, a puzzled expression on his face. As he stood in Hide’s room and took in the sight, his initial reaction was blank, as if he didn’t know what exactly he was looking at and why.

The first of the tears then started to come in the seconds that followed. They came quietly at first, until Kaneki’s face cracked and his breathing became shuddered.

“K-Kaneki?” Hide stepped towards Kaneki, his hands half held up as he was not sure if he should hold him or not.

“Is this… for me?”

“Yeah! All for you!” Hide answered.

It was then that sobs began to escape from Kaneki.

Hide really didn’t know what to do. “Did I do something wrong, Kaneki?”

“It’s not just- It’s…” Kaneki could barely get his words out in his state. “It’s everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything since… since… Mum…”

It was then that Hide realised that this was the first time since the passing of Kaneki’s mother that he had seen Kaneki’s shell crack. It was doing more than just cracking; it was completely breaking apart with everything that had been kept inside spilling out all at once.

“Everything is so bad now!” Kaneki tried to take in breaths to try to settle himself. His attempts were shaky. “Mum is gone! My aunt and cousin are so awful to me! And then after that,” he looked up at Hide. “You started to go away!”

Hide froze. “I-I what?”

“You started leaving me! You stopped wanting to be with me after school and you kept going off on your own to do things! And then you were acting differently and you weren’t telling me anything! I started thinking that you didn’t want to be my friend anymore!”

“Oh Kaneki…” Hide didn’t know what to say.

He hadn’t realised. But Kaneki was correct; Hide had been leaving him. Ironically, in Hide’s efforts to work harder for Kaneki and make him feel better, he had inadvertently made things worse for him. Hide knew he had spent less time with Kaneki so he could spend more time making as many cranes as he could. But he hadn’t thought about how doing so would have come across to Kaneki, who didn’t know about what Hide was doing. Hide had left Kaneki thinking that he was beginning to abandon him, just when he had lost everything else and needed him the most.

Hide stepped forward and pulled Kaneki into a hug. He may have been going about helping Kaneki the wrong way before, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try doing it right for him now.

Kaneki cried into Hide’s shoulder as he held him. Hide could feel Kaneki’s tears getting on his shirt, but he didn’t care. He held onto Kaneki for as long as Kaneki needed to let out what he had been keeping withdrawn all this time. He lightly rubbed Kaneki’s back until sobs quietened into soft sniffles.

“Kaneki, I’m so sorry,” Hide said when Kaneki had calmed down, resting his head against Kaneki’s own as he continued to hold him. “I had no idea.”

Kaneki slowly released himself from the embrace, and looked once again at the mess of cranes atop Hide’s desk.

“Did you really try to make a thousand of those for me?”

“Yes, I was hoping to get them all done as soon as possible and wish for you to feel… happier again. That was why I coming home so much and keeping it a secret from you,” Hide grimaced. He was feeling a little foolish about the entire plan now. “I only got to about… eight-hundred and fifty though? Sorry...”

Kaneki shook his head.

“I don’t care about some silly cranes,” he sniffed. “I want my best friend much more.”

His best friend, nothing more, nothing less. That was something Hide was perfectly capable of doing, more than anyone else.

“Kaneki...” Hide said, reaching forward to hold Kaneki's hands. “Let me make it up to you now.”

Try as he might, Hide couldn’t create miracles.

He couldn’t change the things in life that were completely out of anyone’s control. He couldn’t change the living situation that Kaneki was in now. He couldn’t prevent Kaneki from feeling anything bad for the rest of his life, nor change the fact that Kaneki was going to experience grief.

What he could do was focus his energy on helping Kaneki through the worst of times, instead of taking it upon himself to trying to fix everything that couldn’t possibly be fixed.  

Hide left his house with Kaneki and led them to a store. With the spare change he had in his pockets, he was able to buy an ice cream each for himself and Kaneki. With their ice creams in one hand and their remaining hand holding each other’s, they walked to the place in the park they had called their own. They hadn’t been there since the day Hide had made an appearance at Kaneki’s house.

That day felt like too long ago. Kaneki had said that day that he missed spending time with Hide, and Hide hadn’t allowed himself to think about how much he himself missed it too. Or how his obsession with completing the cranes had been the cause of it. In his focus on the cranes, he didn’t realise just how much he had denied from himself. Not just from himself; whatever Hide had decided to sacrifice in carrying out his goal also affected Kaneki.

The two of them sat on top of the piece of equipment at the park. It was a nice spot to sit during the late afternoon like this, as they could admire the colours of the sky as the sun began to set and then afterwards they could stargaze once it got dark enough. It was a nice enough park that they often wondered why more people didn’t come here, but then they’d be thankful that people didn’t. This was their spot for a reason. It was just for the two of them, away from home and whatever problems they had, a place where they could just enjoy each other’s company.

After Hide finished eating his ice-cream, he lay down and looked up at the sky. As he relaxed more, he let out a yawn without realising. The lack of sleep was catching up to him.

“Hide, you’ve really looked tired a lot lately,” Kaneki said. “Is that because of the cranes?”

Hide nodded. The secret was out, so there was no need to try to hide it anymore.

Kaneki frowned. “No more,” he said.

Hide laughed. “Alright, alright, I’ll go to bed extra early tonight.”

“No more after this as well.”

“What do you mean?”

Kaneki exhaled. “You do so much for me Hide,” he said. “And I’m really, really thankful for it. But you don’t have to! Looking out for me means nothing if you’re not looking out for yourself as well!”

Kaneki did care about Hide as much as he cared for Kaneki. It was something Hide knew, but often forgot, so little reminders like this were always reassuring.

“Ok,” he said. “I’ll take better care of myself.”

Kaneki seemed satisfied with his answer, and went back to looking out from their spot as he ate the last of his increasingly melted ice cream. Once Hide saw Kaneki had finished it, he reached up to tug at Kaneki’s sleeve.

“You should lie down too. It’s nice like this,” he said.

Kaneki shifted to lie down next to Hide and look up at the sky with him. By now the sun was setting enough that they were in no danger of it getting in their eyes if they looked directly up, and the sky was painted in a warm orange with flecks of pink and purple.

“By the way Hide,” Kaneki rolled over and poked him. “You know the cranes’ wish is just a legend right? It wouldn’t happen for real.”

“I-I know that! But-!” Hide protested. “Well-! I thought I could at least try!”

Kaneki looked at him, and then shook his head with a small smile on his face. Hide always felt relieved seeing Kaneki smile, especially now.  

Hide didn’t know if he was ever going to truly stop doing everything in his power to bring a smile back to Kaneki’s face. But maybe now, not at the expense of his own.

Kaneki would smile when they could both smile together.