#he is so fucking lost. he has no clue how the modern era fucking works. he has no choice but to stick with her.

[the-ebonarm]

Getting Val and Miraak to confess their feelings for each other was like pulling teeth.

You have Val who is absolutely in love with Miraak but she literally thinks he should know that she loves him by now. Why else would she have spent years of her life dedicating herself to learning how to resurrect dragons (a skill only Alduin, a GOD, possesses) just for the sole purpose of giving Miraak a chance to experience freedom for once in his life. Valkrea resurrected him because she genuinely cared about him. That's it. There is literally no other reason she did it. Also she has never been one to verbally express to her loved ones she cares about them. She will show it though. Actions have more meaning to her than words.

On the other hand you have Miraak. He genuinely believes that Val resurrected him because she is planning to use him for something. He has been nothing but an object to be used for the Dragon Cult's and Hermaeus Mora's own gain. That's what he has known all his life and he doesn't expect it to be any different with the legendary Last Dragonborn. It's something he is really struggling with because he is also absolutely in love with her. He constantly reminds himself to not let her sway him because she has an ulterior motive. He is only sticking around with her while he gets stronger again.

So Val won't tell him she cares about him and Miraak is convinced she has an ulterior motive.

It takes a physical fight for them to finally admit those feelings.

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

Shuichi's Sudden Coronation (saiouma prompt)

First shared in The Saiouma Pit discord server, parts said by others start with their names

Winter: How do yall think shuichi would handle suddenly becoming royalty?

I think "suddenly" rules out inheritance unless it's a long-lost prince scenario in which case he has more on his plate than that

Kai (thelemoncoffee): I mean, suddenly can mean he was distant enough to not have any duties or be considered royalty by the public, but then something happens that thrusts him into the royal line and he has one hell of a time

and if it was marriage he would know what he was getting into… probably if the royalty he married was Kokichi then who knows

Kai: i think i actually have an old au like that where Kokichi is royalty but he hides his identiy to go hang out in a public school with the common folk. between his passion for petty crime and the lack of talking about family, not only does he sell his act, but he does so so well some people even suspect he's an orphan. Shuichi falls for him having not a mcfucking clue he's royal i mean, he's sus of Kokichi's peculiar behavior but he doesn't jump to fucking royal

actually, are we talking modern royalty or old-timey/fantasy royalty?

Kai: that also changes alot yeah i think modern would create a much bigger panic attack on the account of news media coverage

and it'd be much easier to hide being some cousin of a royal family tbh

omg, but think like, late 19th/early 20th century final era of many other royalties but not fucking dark ages

it would have actually mattered, very real possibility of ending up on the throne in that case

and there are trains, lots of possibilities with that

Shuichi sees himself in a newspaper under a bold title "SCANDAL: The prince eloped with a common man" and dies on the spot, right in front of the orphan paperboy (the boy isn't phased, dw)

alternatively

Winter: Say a weird cursed crown thing he finds So i was thinking in a sort of medieval/fantasy setting Shuichi finds the crown and ends up as royalty without meaning to The crown would be cursed to bring him ruin as well so Would he purposely keep the crown to help people Or would he not and prefer to ditch

Vespertin-y: he's gotta be either like…the fifth second cousin of a duke and the country fell apart so badly he's the only one left qualified for the throne, or he picked up some random ancient artifact and now the entire royal court is PISSED that this random kid now outranks them

not necessarily, if they see him as a chosen one/ it was purposefully left to fate since nobody wanted the curse what comes with it I imagine they would either love to have him or be really secretive with their dislike for him

lying to him, but with the purpose of convincing him it's all great so he doesn't think to make a run for it

as for Shuichi himself, I think he'd be really going through it on the inside, but on the outside he'd be like really determined to try to change fate, doing his best, doubting himself all the way through but he just has to do it,

anyone who has seen him not be in public knows he's crumpling the moment he's in a private setting, and they (okay, only some of them) are like, "maybe you should take your chance to leave", but he's like "that's just life and I could never make someone else do this"

Ves: oughogh yeah…if he's not taking The Burden onto himself is he really shuichi

We didn't get to saiou-ing that one in the Pit, but consider already established saiou and Shuichi's new advisors trying to get Shuichi to ditch Kokichi and get into a political marriage or at least find someone of high-class status

or classic jester or bodyguard but with the added pressure of the castle being a pit of vipers and Shuichi being desperate to connect with someone who Is Not A Noble and is capable of having a casual conversation with him

or equally classic Arranged Marriage but it works out for them this time

[vidavalor]

I can't help but notice that back in the first episode, Walker referred to Sam and Bucky as "Cap's wingmen" to Sam, implying that he doesn't really view the relationship between them as anything but this. He sees the Captain as the show and his backup as sidekicks. As much as Walker did genuinely care for Lemar, he also treated him like this in the group settings the whole show. He does all the talking, doesn't introduce Lemar to Sam and Bucky, who have to ask him who he is. Lemar could temper Walker a bit but Walker still sees himself as the show and Lemar a tool to help with his success more than anything else. Why does this matter in the context of Sam and Bucky?

Because John uses the word 'partner' to Bucky twice in reference to Sam and this implies that he can tell that Sam and Bucky roll differently than he does and treat one another differently. But Walker thinks this is dumb because Sam doesn't have the serum and Bucky is stronger physically. He doesn't get why Bucky doesn't act like Walker himself does-- in the leadership role, with Sam following as his wingman.

Bucky replies that Sam has dealt with worse than Karli (and clearly, ironically, means The Winter Soldier in part here, plus Thanos, etc.) He is making it clear that he doesn't see Sam as lesser than him because he's not a supersoldier-- that it isn't all about brute force. In saying this, he's saying that Sam has strengths to bring to the table that are not super physical strength and Bucky respects them. (By contrast, try to imagine Walker recognizing that Lemar had similar strengths. Imagine him saying it aloud, in front of other soldiers, including ones who were objectively physically stronger than him. Impossible, right?) Just by saying this, Bucky is showing another kind of strength that he possesses that John does not-- he's man enough to be a good, respectful partner. Which brings us to that word...

Bucky adds that Sam isn't his partner. This can be read a lot of different ways and has several overlapping meanings that are all probably a bit correct. On one level, he is saying they aren't working together as partners. (Even if the show has proved they are.) They still haven't really defined what it is they're doing together to one another and like hell is Bucky going to let John Walker be the one to label it, right? On another level, saying Sam isn't his partner is saying he doesn't view it that way because he is actually there to back up Sam. He's following Sam. Sam might see Bucky as a partner (even if they haven't discussed this) but Bucky might see it more as his role to back Sam up, similar to how he backed up Steve during the war. Sam, likely, wants to be more partners and has been allowing Bucky that space-- it is what they have evolved into-- but it isn't as clearly defined between them yet. But there's also the other use of it...

Walker, the physical embodiment of toxic masculinity, is attempting to bully Bucky a little, using words because he can't possibly best him physically at this point. The use of 'partner' from Walker comes off as aggressively sexual so here is a case of Walker being that asshole on the football team that we all know he was, trying to look bigger and tougher and more macho through thinly-veiled harassment of guys around him who dared to be comfortable with backing each other up and showing any caring openly. It is worth noting here that we have seen Sam and Bucky's whole evolution in the works here but Walker was just shown two guys he had no idea were arguing with one another because they put up a completely unified front in front of him. To Walker, this all is a little much for him and he tries to slander it by implying that it is gay, which he sees as not masculine.

Bucky denies being Sam's partner here for the already mentioned reasons regarding how they work together and that kind of partnership but make no mistake, he knew exactly what Walker was saying. So, another way of interpreting it is that Bucky was answering not in terms of the field work (where they do act as partners, really, even if Bucky might still be viewing it as something a little different... and, if he is, I hope Sam sets him straight on this being equal footing)... but I think Bucky was answering it regarding the sexual/romantic partners that Walker was trying to call them. But he did so in a way that is protective of Sam and makes him, ironically, a good partner.

Bucky is the character, remember, whose experience in the modern world included testing out and not minding casually outing himself as interested in men in the first episode, to a woman he was on a date with, no less. This isn't to say he's torn off the closet door from the era he grew up in in which he would have had to have been into men in secret. One thing he does get though is this kind of asshole like Walker that has sadly not evolved since the 30s. He responds in a way that he means to be protective of Sam, which is to say with his tone essentially "no, John, actually we are just like this because we aren't assholes like you and even if we were, we would still be better than you." But even if you think Bucky and Sam are already a thing by this episode or are aware of each other's potential feelings, Bucky isn't denying it to Walker as if it's something that makes then vulnerable or lesser as men. He doesn't have the same definition of it as Walker does.

Bucky is responding in a way where his tone says he gets what Walker was implying, thinks Walker is shit for not having a clue when it comes to what being a man is, and then casually answers the question as if Walker had meant field partners because, of course, that's what he meant, right? He makes Walker look stupid (which he is) by answering with word choice that says he didn't get the insinuation, even if his tone says he totally did. So, why not just be like "and so what if we were fucking, Walker! We still could kick your dumb ass anyday!"? Because Sam.

Because Bucky, who knows what it is like to be a soldier forced to sometimes be around guys like Walker, likely does not yet know how Sam approaches it. He likely doesn't know if Sam is out. The canon plays it as if literally everyone just assumes Bucky is bi or gay or basically anything that isn't straight but Sam is a different story. Bucky is not about to out Sam in front of everybody. He likely doesn't know yet how out Sam even is with others or how he feels about it. Out of respect for Sam, he's not about to let Walker's attempt at deriding them get anywhere. They literally could have been sleeping together for awhile now and Bucky is still not going to do anything about others knowing, least of all John Walker, unless or until that is what Sam wants and based on the canon, I would doubt very much if that had been a conversation they've already had by Ep 4.

But Walker, the terrifying awful dumb fuck, tries it again later-- this time, not in front of Sam. He saw what Bucky was doing, understood it, was embarrassed by Bucky making him look like a fool so what does he do? He bullies again. He goes at the core of Bucky in the way only the worst bullies can. He does it when Sam had to be in there alone, with a supersoldier, and Bucky is confident in Sam and giving him the space to do his thing, and then Walker lashes out at this less macho and violent plan to Bucky, calling Sam Bucky's partner again, trying to twist a knife by saying how could Bucky leave Sam in there and does he want his blood on his hands?

It's unspeakably cruel. But you might me mistaken if you think Bucky gave in here, even if it was a worry he had as he always worries for Sam because he cares and he has lost so many people and hurt so many that thinking about it happening again hurts him deeply. Bucky didn't verbally respond to Walker's taunts-- he did something much stronger than words could convey.

He didn't deny any definition of partner for Sam to Walker and he let Walker see how cruel he was by tearing up a bit, the pain in his eyes. Walker had no idea what to do with this. He had been trying to make Bucky angry. Instead, Bucky is silently strong enough to show how he feels *without* masking it all behind a macho, angry cover like Walker. Bucky's face says it all: yeah, you asshole, I love him. Yeah, I'm worried I could hurt him and have his blood on my hands. But also yeah, I survived being the Winter Soldier-- in general and just recently-- and I go to therapy now and I'm making amends and I'm free. Freer than you will ever be because which one of us will tear up and be a little afraid for another man and show him open care in this episode and which one will respond to pain with violence that begets nothing but more trauma and pain? Which one of us, Walker, is a brainwashed soldier and which one of us is a strong, decent man trying to be a good friend and partner? Which one of us, by the end of the episode, will make his partner feel like he'd take the serum in a heartbeat and which one of us will respond to his partner's fear at being vulnerable with "I'm going with you"?

He didn't speak a word in that scene but man. Whew. When it comes to toxic bullies?

Bucky Barnes can do this all day.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

When I saw 'Romanians' mentioned in your last post I had a wtf moment cause I have only watched the movies and I don't think I've ever noticed their existence. Regardless, I just had to read the wiki page and it is hillarious to me cause coincidence or not they seem to be named after the psychopathic ruler 'Vlad the impaler' and his cousin 'Stefan the great'(he might have murdered more people than his cousin known as the impaler, but you know he is great). Also, what do you think of them? Sorry for the rant...

You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.

I love the Romanians because they are, hands down, the trashiest, weirdest, lamest, loser vampires in Twilight canon. 

Just, these two are so hilariously beautiful.

First off, while Meyer undoubtedly named them with Vlad Tepish and Stefan the Great in mind, the Romanians are actually much older. We don’t have exact dates, but we know the Romanians (then presumably the Dacians), held great power over their territory for a thousand years before the Volturi had truly established themselves. After the Volturi took on and won against Amun’s coven in Egypt (and took the grateful Demetri off Amun’s hands making Amun still bitter thousands of years later) they waged war against the Romanians and won. (Vlad and Stefan are still very bitter but give us the silver lining of “oh yeah, well, we’re only partly petrified. SO TAKE THAT STUPID VOLTURI!”)

Vlad, Stefan, and Vlad’s wife were the only survivors. The Romanians, being one of the most evil and trashy covens in Twilight, decided to take on Volterra by amassing an army of 100 vampires. Hilariously, they had poor timing, this is a decade after Aro acquired Jane and Alec. The entire army is defeated in a second, Vlad’s wife is murdered, and by 810 AD, it’s just Vlad and Stefan.

They’ve remained losers the Volturi don’t take seriously ever since. Every decade, Demetri pays them a visit to remind them that yes, the Volturi does remember them and can find them any time they want to. Even more hilariously, Vlad and Stefan take this very seriously, and are constantly on the run from the Volturi, never aware that the Volturi actually don’t care. At all. 

Point being, given these guys, first it’s entirely likely their original names are not Vlad and Stefan. We see many of the vampires of the ancient world periodically change their name. We have Chelsea and Demetri, who are canonically acknowledged as having done this. Given when and where they were born, we can assume Marcus and Caius were not originally Marcus and Caius. Similarly, we can assume Aro’s name was originally far longer as well.

None the less, it would be just like these two to name themselves after these Romanian human warlords, one of whom serves and the inspiration for the modern vampire myth in Europe. And then, insist, of course, that the human rulers were actually named after Vlad and Stefan, because the humans still worship them, you know.

They’re going to be back on top any day now, you’ll see. 

That’s another thing worth getting into. The Romanians are evil. I’m not exaggerating this, of all the vampires in Twilight, they are the most appalling (and this is including James, Maria and the southern war lords, Joham... well not Joham, he’s a special brand of evil). These guys had a thousand year reign of terror in Dacia. Humans were butchered seemingly by entire villages, they made humans their slaves and demanded worship and sacrifice. When the humans periodically tried to overthrow them, they slaughtered them all, presumably placed their heads on spikes, and used them to taunt those few surviving humans.

When they lost power, they made an army a hundred vampires strong, which given what we see of the newborns in Seattle (who were only around twenty and still far too large to control), probably wiped out several large settlements in eastern Europe. Didn’t matter, just as long as they got rid of the Volturi.

And they miss those glory days dearly.

They actively reminisce about in Breaking Dawn to an oblivious Bella, who is just so happy these very important and impressive Europeans are here to help her beautiful daughter and so impressed they they’ve been fighting the corrupt Volturi for thousands of years (which is another bit of hilarity we’ll get into). You know, when/if the Volturi fall, the Romanians will be the first in line to rape the women and enslave us all. Good times, good times.

But back to them being trash people.

Vlad and Stefan are utterly destitute, their entire coven is destroyed, and yet they still insist they’re a Big Fucking Deal. Not only that, but just their every action is beyond weird. They talk in unison like Fred and George Weasley, they’re these ridiculously tiny men dressed as stereotypical vampires, and they show up out of nowhere on your doorstep saying, “So, hear you’re starting an insurrection against Volterra, Carlisle, we want in” (While Carlisle, I’m sure, just dies a thousand times inside). 

They then talk to Bella all about how they fight the corruption of the Volturi. What is the corruption, you ask? Well, the Volturi drove them out of their kingdom and liberated the human slaves. Then they imposed this stupid law where you couldn’t eat humans in broad daylight. Then when the Romanians tried to invade Italy they killed them all.

The Romanians will expose the Volturi’s crimes here and now. They stand for justice, peace, and Renezel--Renpunz--Renesmee. (The Romanians decidedly do not come for Renesmee, they hear about Carlisle’s army through the vampire European rumor mill, which just shows how out of hand it all got because now Carlisle’s amassing an army to protect the immortal child his son made. They show 0 interest in Renesmee.)

They give me serious McPoyle vibes.

More, beautifully, everything they touch becomes tainted.

Laurent, another beautiful loser character, starts life as a French courtier in Versailles. When he’s turned into a vampire, he assumes the vampire world works like Versailles. It works nothing like Versailles.

He seeks out those vampires with the greatest power.

Well, vampires in general are cannibalistic homeless nomads who care nothing for power.

This brings him, beautifully, to the Romanians. They insist to Laurent they’re super cool and powerful, Laurent believes them, but either Laurent eventually clues in or realizes something’s not right here. So, he goes to seek out the real power, the Volturi.

Unfortunately, Laurent is a loser, the Volturi is not court, and Aro has no need for some lackey trying to get in his good graces. Plus, Laurent hung out willingly with Vlad and Stefan. And anyone who does that...

So, Aro goes, “Ew, no, leave.”

Laurent is convinced, even when canon rolls around and he’s sunk so low as to hang out with James and Victoria (also loser vampires), that Aro will call him back any day now.

Aro never does. Laurent is eaten by untrained sixteen-year-old shape shifters.

But yes, point being, I imagine that in this modern era the Romanians would have a Go Fund Me for purchasing the blow torches they’ll use to destroy the Volturi once and for all. They also have a YouTube channel which is unintentionally dungeon porn, in which they cover their heads in bags so as not to be recognized, and talk about the good old days in thick Romanian accents. It’s a very popular YouTube channel, nobody understands why they wear so much body glitter.

Oh, right, Bella.

Bella is so beautiful with these guys. So, in Breaking Dawn, Bella actually takes the Romanians seriously. They’re all I describe above and more, they’re not hiding it, they’re full McPoyle (including the taking over the world built). Jake even tells Bella he finds them weird as hell. Bella thinks they’re great.

No, really, she thinks they’re great.

They tell her how they enslaved all the people in their territory, demanded tithes, and would eagerly do so again as soon as they get the chance and she stares at them with wide eyes and thinks about how cool all these vampires who came for precious Renesmee are. (Which, funnily, they actually all came either for Carlisle, because he has a billion friends everywhere, or else as a power grab like the Romanians, or both in Amun’s case. It’s the weirdest, most beautiful, mixture of people.)

Bella has her moments, but loving the Romanians has got to be a top ten for her. My explanation is that she’s so high on vampirism and Renesmee that this is all just great for her. LIFE IS WONDERFUL!

EDIT: I could no longer abide my spelling mistakes, I also edited a bit for cleanliness.

[aclosetfan]

21

(ask game) thank you so much for playing the game!! you’re the best (per usual)!!

Helllll yeahhhhh 21 is the DUMBEST STUPIDEST fic I’ve ever made and I lovvveee it 💚💙❤️ it’s the “Vampire Zombie” one i mentioned in the original ask game post 😂😂

So glad someone picked the number!! Background to keep in mind: do yall remember when there was just a shit ton of Vampire fics on FFN?? Idk about ao3, but for newer fandom members this was TOTALLY a trend in the early 2000s on ffn, and I was like why the fuck are all of these here??? And like, why is it constantly a predator-prey relationship between the rrb and ppg??? So I was like wait…okay, but this could be funny and decided to write a story making fun of these super cringey stereotypes.

The story would be a multi fic and I have zero idea how to explain it concisely, so basically below the cut is just me laying it all out for you srsly I’m just bearing my soul to you:

For the girls’ birthday, the Professor tricks out the simulation room they train in to be a VR game room b/c the girls had talked about VR once (and only once), but the Professor thought it was cool and ran with it. The Girls can create a world of their choosing and explore. They admit the idea is pretty cool and eventually start arguing where they should “go” first. Blossom suggests a historical era like the Victorian era/Bubbles suggests something romantic, where she hints at vampires/Buttercup doesn't like any of those ideas, but the vampires reminded her of all of her zombie videogames she plays and she ends up suggesting something like that instead/ To prevent arguing the Professors says he’ll combine all three ideas into one!

[[how does this machine work??? IDK in the spirit of early 2000 fanfics, anything complicated and confusing is only vaguely explained—which has in story effects that drive Blossom INSANE! Idk how it would work technically, but my choices as the writer on what is/is not describe and purposeful grammar mistakes has story implications] [ill explain this more later]]

The Professor loads up the “game,” but something malfunctions. He tells the girls (Buttercup) not to touch anything. She doesn't listen and ends up plugging something into an entirely different device against Blossom & Bubbles protest. The device is that old “time machine” thing the Professor made in one of the OG cartoon (the one where the girls meet the Young Professor). It turns out that whatever she does (again still don't ask me how) fuses the basic concept of the two machines together and creates a device that transports them to a parallel universe that matches the specifications of the “game” they wanted to create.

[[Throughout the story, i want to include little video game gags, like bottomless bags for storage, or random bullets laying around, little things like that. (they've lost their powers/ but BC keeps finding all these random guns/knifes so they're good) I also give the girls the “ability” to read the dialogue I write. So, when I mess up a comma (i.e. Let’s eat Grandma! vs Let’s eat, Grandma!), Blossom will look at the “character” they’re talking to and be like, “WELL, which is IT!?”] [I know it’s stupid, but I think its so fun!]]

So, because of the video game “glitch,” the girls think for the longest time they’re actually IN a video game, but when they “go to sleep” thinking that’ll save the game and they can quit, per Professor’s instruction, they find out they can’t. Cue freak out. After the calm down, Buttercup’s like okay, listen we probably just have to beat the game! Too bad they don’t know what the game’s objective is exactly. They just know they’re dressed in Victorian Era clothes and their “Professor” is the town’s doctor? Their mother died (tragically). It’s all a bit dramatic. They start searching for clues. Eventually, they find out that the Town has a zombie problem (THANKS BUTTERCUP!), and Blossom figures if they can cure that, they beat the game. Unbeknownst to them, they are actually stuck in a stupid vampire love plot there just happens to be zombies. [Like, you can’t have one supernatural creature without another and I wasn’t going to write about werewolves.] No one in town seems to care about the undead problem. Buttercup keeps “leveling up,” Blossom’s on the verge of a breakdown, and then, finally, Bubbles meets Boomer.

Boomer swears up and down Bubbles is his fated mate. Bubbles—who is definitely interested—is like ooo so you’re a vampire, cutie? He’s broody about it. She’s like so do you sparkle in the sun?? (I absolutely love sparkles, she says). He’s like, wut?? She’s like, do you sparkle???? He’s like, uh no, the sun kind of burns my energy tho. She’s like, oh. Okay. I see. You don’t sparkle. Sooo, well, haha, okay you seem like a really really sweet guy with the whole eternal devotion thing, but I don’t think this is really going to work out between us. He’s again like WUT. Boomer gets broken up with because he doesn’t sparkle.

Vampire Butch is flat out scared of Buttercup. Like he fully admits he’s sucked infants dry of their blood; he’s why people should fear the night; he’s not a “good guy”; but BC is a force to be reckoned with. In the Victorian era, I’m guessing they had little to no experience with the modern day “bro” and BC is full on bro. This doesn’t mesh well with Butch’s broody, dark, vampire thing he’s got going on. She’s too vulgar for a Victorian lady, she wears things called “Chacos,” and she has a gun??? Multiple guns. And He. Has. No. Fucking. Idea. What. She. Is. Saying!! No! He will not “dab her up!” No, he “doesn’t lift.” This wasn’t his mysterious, tough (but still a damsel, mind you) mate he met one fateful evening, this was some heathen creature (and this is coming from a vampire), so please, please, please, can he kill her?????  

Blossom’s like I don’t like to be touched and I’m a lesbian, and Brick’s like one) I think I respect you more than the old Blossom; two) the zombies just appeared, stop asking; three) you need to now help us find our mates before their eighteenth birthday or we’re all screwed.

Ready to kick ass and fight sexist stereotypes with their new “bros,” the girls set out with their new objective, hoping beyond hope that once they find the missing girls they’ll be able to go home. The girls find out that their parallel alternatives went disappearing a few days ago, so their “return” had been a relief to the whole town. [[Blossom’s like why did no one question our clothing?!?! Why are there zombies?!?!]] ugh and then, I don’t know what happens :( really. I never really ended it. They girls just constantly shit on the boys being broody vampires and kick zombie ass, like idk what else a gal could want out of a story. I feel like they end up finding the other girls. And I think that I was going to bring HIM into the mix, but it’s still just regular HIM. It turns out that HIM likes jumping dimensions to make the Girls life hell in every lifetime and has cursed the three girls living in the vampire dimension. (“I’ve got a life outside of just you, ya know.” HIM huffed, “What are you three doing here?”) It also turns out that out of all the dimensions, our Girls as Superheroes are the best at beating HIM and saving the day, so he’s extra pissy that they’re ruining his carefully crafted “historical romance vampire soap opera.” Blossom loses her shit because the historical inaccuracies are too high to now ignore, Bubbles is pissed because HIM didn’t make good enough vampires, and Buttercup’s like honestly, not a bad game, ngl. Everyone ignores her.

[[They beat HIM, free the other girls, return home, and BC obsesses over their stats sheets. Back in Vampire land, the boys are like wait a second the relationships we are now stuck in suck.] [The zombies are still not explained]]

[stoppit-keepout]

hikago your name 👀

(For the WIP Grab Bag meme) OH NO you already know pretty much everything in this doc!! It’s just the chatfic you and I worked on together, but in a google doc in the hopes that ~someday~... you know. So here’s an excerpt written off the cuff for you:

Hikaru’s stomach is churning from the moment he regains consciousness; he doesn’t have to open his eyes to tell he’s there again, in Torajirou’s house that is quieter than his and Touya’s, that smells crisper, that has rougher sheets. His stomach knots because while he wants so desperately to be here and make good on his promise to let Sai play, it hurts for Sai to look at him and see Torajirou, to smile at who he’s not.

He blearily pushes himself up and curls over, chin touching knees.

“Good morning, Torajirou-kun.” That voice, oh... It’s comfort that warms under his ribs, and pain that twists close behind.

“Shall we continue where we left off last night?”

--

For those not lucky enough to have had a chat with feelsfic about a Hikago AU of Your Name/君の名は, the chatfic is below the cut; heads up for implicit spoilers for Your Name, which is a GREAT movie and deserves to be seen without your having been spoiled!

sk: what i shouted at ps before was basically: shindou wakes up as torajirou and vice versa a few times (both when they're like... 20-ish years old)

and hikaru lives a day of torajirou's life (kinda thinking it's a dream) and torajirou lives a day of hikaru's life (kinda thinking it's a dream)

but after it happens a few times they start leaving each other notes and guidelines OR MESSAGES WITH SAI. but like.... the first time they switch, this is a few years after hikaru's lost sai in his own life. and he still MISSES him. so he ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HANDLE waking up and seeing sai.

but from sai's pov it's just like... torajirou wakes up one morning and stares at sai like he's (lol) seen a ghost, and then starts CRYING and THROWS HIMSELF AT HIM and it's all PRETTY SURPRISING. and then he's CRYING and babbling about WHAT KIND OF DREAM IS THIS and trying to tell him all this stuff??? about things sai has no clue about?? and how he's been playing go, and he hopes sai's proud of him.

and he would absoLUTELy wanna play sai, but this is also shuusaku-era sai, so he'd probably... learn things from shindou? (but he's still gonna beat him, i mean, i'm not THAT horrible)

and like, sai would learn new things but what caused his EXPLOSION OF GROWTH that one summer was playing constantly for weeks on end, and on these visits back, hikaru would still have to fulfill torajirou's obligations (according to a very sternly-worded message he left with sai). so sai doesn't become instantly modern and mess with the timeline.

ff:

 but now you've got me thinking about how sai was always a substantial ghost for hikaru as in hikaru could high five him and maybe he should have thought that was weird but he misses it

sk:

 ;;;; hikaru watching ghost movies and getting annoyed because that's not how it works

"they don't mess with electricity!!"

ff:

 hikaru having to teach past sai what a high five is

sk:

and hikaru acting as a proxy again for past sai, letting him play all the games, 'cause that's what torajirou did

ff:

does hikaru think of his bargain with the universe

that he would let sai play every game

sk:

OH MAN HE DOES!!!!!!!! this is the universe's way of helping him.

and then torajirou's also spending some days in hikaru's modern life, learning the ropes.

and hikaru doesn't remember these weird dreams super clearly when he wakes up, but his shuusaku obsession is kicking up into high gear again (so think the ppl around him)

BUT TORAJIROU WASN'T AS GOOD A PLAYER AS SAI. SO ON DAYS WHEN THEY'RE SWITCHED, TORAJIROU KINDA... FUCKS UP SOME GAMES

but he's obvi very influenced by sai's play so people see THAT as also being like "shindou-5-dan doing some weird risky old-fashioned play again"

he'd been kinda getting over his reputation as a weird unpredictable player, but now there are days when he looks like a deer in the headlights, and speaks pretty formally to people, and plays super strangely (for him), and misses some commitments (because hikaru's schedule-keeping abilities are prolly pretty reliant on just mental notes of like... "turn up at x's house for tutoring on monday nights" but his calendar is not organized)

there are all these rumours that it's the stress of the honinbou title matches (or w/e)

ff:

yeah like if this were a theater company or similar people would just be like… man that shindou… he's so method. did you hear about that time he acted like he'd never seen an electrical scoreboard before? classic shindou

sk:

YES. i want shindou to be living with touya in this au.... not ~in a relationship~ (yet, ahahaa) but roommates in a place not incredibly far from the ki-in. and so touya at least makes sure he's like... wearing the appropriate clothes and stuff. (roughly speaking).  touya cannot BELIEVE he had to remind hikaru how to use a zipper, just btw.

ff:

 touya akira's guide to appropriate outfits.....

sk:

oh yes. he is very trustworthy...

i had one last thing written out in our chat.... ok so. in the movie Your Name they cry when they wake up from their dreams sometimes, and we already know that hikaru cries when he dreams about sai ha ha h a. so at least once:

touya gets up and shindou's already out of bed! weird. he's fumbling incompetently around the kitchen, but for once he's being quiet about it. touya offers to make some breakfast for both of them because shindou's obviously not at his best. shindou thanks him very formally. it's weird.

shindou asks what they're doing that day; also weird, because he's actually usually the one who keeps track of touya's schedule too? but whatever, touya fills him in

(it's a quiet day, shindou goes for a walk in the park--also weird--and they play go later, and he's having a weird shuusaku mood and doesn't shout at touya at all--still weird)

and then the next day touya's up before shindou (AS USUAL) and as he's drinking his tea he hears a thump from shindou's room which might be shindou falling out of his bed.

and shindou emerges, bleary-eyed, still in pyjamas, hair all messed up (and touya's heart DEFINITELY FLOPS AROUND IN HIS CHEST AT THAT) and he folds into himself at the kitchen table and just drinks tea and stares at a newspaper without reading it

and touya's not really sure if he should mention it, because shindou doesn't seem to have noticed, but he seems to be slowly and steadily crying. just with his eyes! his breathing's steady and stuff. but he's dripping tears onto his pjs, and touya is a little... concerned.

[jojosbizarreadventur]

Time’s Crusade: Chapter 4 (04)

also available on AO3 (under emih)

This chapter: Plane tickets, Polaroid photos, and yours & Jotaro's response to Noriaki's infertility.

warning (just in case): none, really

Summary: Yesterday in 2011, your husband Noriaki and close friend Jotaro were both murdered together just months before your university graduations. The day before yesterday, you discovered that your nerve-wracking IUI procedure was successful. Two months before that day, said close friend made a proposition to the both of you due to your husband’s recently-discovered infertility.

Today in 1988, you’re over 20 years into the past of an alternate universe, suddenly tasked with trailing after different versions of your late husband and close friend as they travel with unfamiliar faces to Egypt, determined to confront the man you now work for.

And in the following days, you discover how easy it was for your sentiments to change.

04

The Wife of an Important Man, Part 2

November 27, 1988

You… a Stand user.

At the very least, you manage to turn your head on its side.

The cold metal of the suit’s helmet hits against your cheek as your eyelids flickered, facing Dio’s bare feet. You were able to see due to the clear embedded shield over your face; apparently, it was durable enough not to crack when it came into contact with the stone floor. Gazing upward, your eyes almost cross as you focus on where the blood from your forehead started to dry on the shield.

Dio slowly turned to Enya, donning a matching expression of fascination. He feels Jonathan’s— his heartbeat getting faster. The sight of you surviving the Arrow shot and gaining a Stand… well, it made him intrigued. His plan— despite its unforeseen amendments— had worked as he predicted. Nevertheless, he kept his composure as he spoke to the old woman, ignorant of your current state.

“It appears as a suit of some sort on her,” Dio comments, glancing back at your downed metallic body. “I was not aware that a form of Stand exists.”

“It is exceptionally rare,” she elaborated, sauntering over to you. “I myself have never seen a user with one of that form. But based on her circumstance, it’s clear that she is not average, Lord Dio. That is why  she  was destined to meet a being as  divine  as you.”

That isn’t in the least surprising for him, Dio.

It seems that he had been rewarded for his own deeds himself. For nearly five years, it became clear to Dio that fate was in his favor. He’s had hundreds of men and women willing to serve him, either for a single night to fulfill temporary desires or indefinitely to aid him in various assignments. Any and every source of wealth that he managed to get his hands on is now his, and that flow of riches isn’t stopping any time soon. The small list of people that have piqued his interest enough gradually grows.

Since his awakening, Dio had spent the first three years recuperating alone. To pass the time, he would travel around the world and learn more about the new, modern society before his eyes. Compared to the era he once knew, it seemed that people were given much more liberty in doing what they pleased— something Dio took full advantage of. Of course, he’d come across the occasional person to unwind, which also taught him more about Jonathan’s body. There was that trip to Italy two years ago, where he encountered a young woman with prominent sideburns. Her looks were not up to par in his opinion, though his lower half apparently thought otherwise.

For Heaven’s sake, he could not refrain from staring at her, he couldn’t stop getting aroused at the sight of her face as he sat in the corner of the room, watching her dance with friends. And later that night, when she bounced on his cock and cried for his lordship, it occurred to Dio that her blonde hair and blue eyes must’ve somehow triggered a response of familiarity from Jonathan’s body. Needless to say, his scar hadn’t fully healed. Despite the hundred or so years, his upper and lower half were still two different entities, and it bothered him greatly.

He wouldn’t dare admit aloud that he hadn’t a fucking clue as to  why that response occurred. Jonathan’s head had long been rotten at the deep depths of the Atlantic Ocean. There shouldn’t be any discernible link to his body  left.

Dio’s next declared sub-goal, as a result, was to accelerate his healing.

Right now, he’s almost at that stage of full recuperation. The division between his head and Jonathan’s body has almost completely faded. He’ll be able to continue with his main objective with undivided attention afterward. But for now, it’s good to focus on what’s in front of him.

You.

It was ironic to him, really. According to Piper, you were not wed to the father— his friend, in fact— and yet here you were, carrying a zygote of future disappointment. But with what Dio has planned for you, you wouldn’t be burdened with that for long. You’ve linked yourself to a family that has no business in staying alive regardless of dimension. Sooner or later, you’d be regretting that procedure.

While lying face-down, you continued to take slow, deep breaths. The blood on the rest of your face started to reach a thin, matte consistency. Your throat and mouth throbbed in pain, and the metallic after-taste on your taste buds made your face scrunch up.

Again, you— an actual Stand user. It was quite surreal; never in a million years have you considered yourself having any potential for something of this level.

There’s information about the suit that starts to enter your thoughts.

The suit itself is a Stand, but to a non-Stand user, the suit is made of known materials on Earth. The body and helmet of the suit appears to be made out of nitinol— nickel titanium alloy. Likewise, the arms and legs are crystallized titanium. Inside the entirety of the Stand feels like ballistic mesh, which you can feel wrapped around your skin instead of your actual clothes. The exterior has a light coating containing some material— maybe carbon nanotubes— meant to reduce heat build-up. The sides of the helmet have small passages for air flow, but enough for the face shield to not fog up.

…your Stand’s ability is to tamper with most types of metal. There’s a locking mechanism on your helmet that can only be undone and removed with that ability.

You don’t have the capability of manipulating with larger objects such as vehicles or parts associated with such objects.

The ability can, however, be applied to smaller, intricately-designed or generally undetailed objects such as mechanical pencils, through-hole tech for printed circuit boards, or crowbars.

Everything else about the Stand can be learned from usage…

“Get up.”

The intrusive thoughts about the Stand stop.

Lord Dio watches you with hawk-like eyes.

With a swear, you shakily attempt to push yourself off the stone floor, still wearing your Stand. The metal on your palms clink against the ground as you raise your upper body, brows creasing at your effort.

Thankfully, the Stand didn’t add any extra weight on your limbs, but you lost a lot of strength due to… whatever Lord Dio did to your forehead, and the old woman shooting you with the peculiar-looking projectile.

Lord Dio’s fingers were still wrapped around its shaft, by the way. His forearm— the one you had scratched into bleeding earlier— reverted to its usually-smooth skin. There was absolutely no trace of you ever digging your fingernails in the alabaster-colored skin. It was strange, to say the least.

As you raised yourself up from the ground, you felt yourself tumbling backwards. You attempt to balance yourself despite your blurry vision and what feels to be nausea. This time, Lord Dio motions to help you, firmly grasping your shoulder as your senses settle down. Your eyes attempt to land its focus on the old woman, who looked to be nearly a foot shorter than you. Her eyes were filled with interest; it seemed as if there were a million answers she wanted out of you. But frankly, you couldn’t give a damn to give any right now.

You look over at the hand on your shoulder— Lord Dio hasn’t released his grip. That was the least of your worries.

“Enya Geil, was it?” you greeted in a drunken-like manner, flashing a genuine grin at her through the face shield. The feeling of light-headedness started to return.

When she nodded eagerly— still ignorant of your well-being— your attention abruptly turned to the towering man beside you. His golden eyes were locked with yours, curiosity glinting in them. You curtly nodded.

“It’s my pleasure to help, Lord Dio.”

He can’t wait.

——

Lord Dio cemented this into your mind after congratulating you: you are a prized possession of his. Maybe were you actually one of many, but you were part of that list and that was enough to be thankful for. You couldn’t be any more happy to oblige with anything he wanted out of you.

And yes, this included staying put in the largest guest room. Initially, you didn’t know that he himself ordered for you to be there. So when the masked and skull-faced Stand abruptly materialized beside you and Vanilla Ice’s face appeared out of its mouth to tell you, you weren’t happy in the slightest. In fact, you let out a lame attempt of a scream once he popped up. However, you have to admit your satisfaction due to finally knowing what his Stand looked like.

Both of you were standing directly in front of the double doors leading to said guest room.

“I don’t believe you,” you spat.

He grunted.

“If you don’t believe my words, which— by the way— are actually Lord Dio’s, then you may as well rest on this corridor rug for the night. These quarters will return to collecting dust as  someone  never cleans them properly…”

You ignore that last part. It also takes you a moment, but you realize that his Stand appears to be… consuming itself.

“Well, I’d rather do that then go wherever… this is,” you counter, gesturing to the double doors in front of you. “I’ve already experienced the illusions once, when I got shot with an Arrow in the middle of my ‘apartment’, okay? I think another Stand user created the room, so I don’t want you collaborating with them too and using my weaknesses to your advantage or something.”

Vanilla Ice blinked before eyeing you up and down with mild disgust. He doesn’t question the evident blood stains on your face and the shield. “Such as that gaudy armor of yours?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, the  clang  of metal hitting metal resonating throughout the corridor. “It’s my  Stand, apparently. I don’t even know how to take it off, but thanks.”

“For goodness’ sake, didn’t Piper tell you what a Stand  is? It’s a physical manifestation of your ‘life energy’— you summon and de-summon it yourself. If you need them gone, the Stand will know. You must trust it as it trusts you.”

Mild surprise was written all over your face after he spoke.

His standards for you have lowered even further.

“…that has to be the only helpful advice you’ve given me so far,” you admitted.

In all honesty, Lord Dio nor the old woman had given you any unknown information. Though, one shouldn’t be mistaken— Lord Dio is the Everest of man. It simply must’ve slipped his mind, though that might be a rare occurrence for him. Regardless, you aren’t upset at all. You could even view it as an opportunity to teach yourself more.

“Only to get the new nuisance of the mansion out of my hair,” he retorted condescendingly.

Of course, he still dislikes you. But you bother to believe his words this time.

——

It would’ve been nice to know that the doors to this guest room only lock from the outside. After the heavy door shuts by itself, you reach behind your back to lock the door and discover the lack of any door handles. You doubt that anyone would hear you banging on the doors, much less bother to assist you in getting out. Rolling your eyes, you instead indulge in the sight of the guest room.

Simply put— it’s bigger than your entire fucking apartment.

The interior and its motif seemed to match the rest of the mansion, which confirmed the lack of illusions here. There’s an enormous bed that you saunter over to with your backpack, which you carefully set on the satin bed sheets. And, after pushing it a bit, you unceremoniously fall back onto the bed with your arms splayed out.

You were about to rub your face with your hands until you remembered the suit you were wearing. The metal alloy on your fingers came into contact with the clear face shield, which was still lightly stained with your blood.

If you need them gone, the Stand will know.

You blink and stare up at the high ceiling.

Will  it— this suit— know?

…how  will it know?

It’s a physical manifestation of a person’s ‘life energy’ or ‘fighting spirit’.

What Piper and Vanilla Ice told you made you scoff. Fighting spirit? Life energy— sure, that made sense to you, but fighting spirit? The notion of you having any semblance to a spirit for fighting just seemed ridiculous. Most of the ‘fights’ you’ve ever gotten in were verbal; physically attacking someone has never been your thing. Was a Stand  supposed  to represent that? Was it the Stand’s—and, thus your— innate desire to get into a fight? Were  all  Stands like that?

We’re bound to get into a little trouble from time to time.

You deeply exhale through your nostrils. Lord Dio found you and your Stand useful, so that should be all that matters, right? It’s best that you respect his thoughts and opinions.

Anyway, this weird suit just needs to get off of you. It fit fine— perfect, actually— but traveling while wearing metal seemed very unpractical.

The layers of titanium and ballistic mesh start to dissolve off of your body almost instantly, and you feel yourself lightly sinking into the bed. Your clothing quickly returned to sight; it’s as if they were never actually taken off. Instead of the shell of the helmet, the back of your head and hair comes into contact with the satin bed sheets. Wriggling your sock-clad toes, you remember that you took off your boots in the fake apartment.

Maybe if you… you don’t know, get out, you could get them back from that other room. Though, judging by the sheer size of the mansion, you might get lost in one of the corridors. You reluctantly back away from that idea.

Subsequently, you turn your head to your open backpack. Peeking out of its zipper opening was your laptop, which makes you realize there’s definitely something you can do to pass the time.

——

Strangely enough, you seem to grasp onto your Stand’s ability pretty quickly.

You’re sitting at the carved wooden desk placed far across the bed, taking the time to do heavy maintenance on your laptop. In order to do this, only the metal arms of the suit appear on your body.

Earlier, you took the time to clean yourself in the room’s connecting bathroom and accidentally summoned only the arms and helmet of the suit while being fully submerged in the bath. It only occurred to you then that it was possible to do that, so you decided to take full advantage of it.

The battery cable stayed intact and connected, but the chances of reconnecting the camera and Bluetooth cables back to the bent motherboard were low. And… well, the motherboard was bent, so the chances of this laptop actually functioning properly were basically nonexistent. You used the Stand to take out the cracked case of the lower half of the laptop— screws and all— to find this sad excuse. Your face was nearly pressed to it as your hand hovered over every screw and tab to gingerly pull out everything necessary and fix the display.

To better see the motherboard, the open laptop is propped on the DVD-drive side on the desk. As you place it this way, you hear the creaking from the double doors as they open rather abruptly. Your head whips around to face the intruder.

The arms of your Stand instinctively vanish.

Fortunately, he didn’t have the chance to notice them as he tumbles into the guest room. He pulls at his orange robing to make sure it doesn’t get trapped between the doors.

You blink a few times, ensuring that it’s  really  him.

“…Piper?”

What the hell was he doing here?

Was he going to let you out?

“Oh, you know my name now,” he observed, flashing you a quick smile before ‘discreetly’ kicking the carved nightstand beside the bed. “Yes, that’s… very fine, yes.”

One of his hands held onto a stem glass half-filled with red wine. Your eyes dart down to it.

…yeah, he’s probably not letting you out.

Still gazing at him, you reluctantly give him a small smile, which quickly disappears once he starts to tread over to you.

“Okay,  no— you shouldn’t even  be  here,” you warn, whipping your head back to your laptop on the desk and back to his approaching form. “I…  come on, you’re not even supposed to see this yet.  No one is  for over 20 years.”

Piper stood directly beside the desk. He pointed to the logo on the upper case.

“Interesting, Apple changed their logo? What happened to the rainbow apple?”

As you tightly grip the upper case and display, you glare at him. “Goddamnit, this is from 2011—  stop looking. I’m trying to fix the display with my— yeah, I’m… trying to fix this  shit…”

“What an atrocious laptop.”

  …what?

You narrowed your eyes up at him for a second before your features softened.

“Oh, that’s right,” you remembered with a soft tone, “Laptops were already being built this decade, so… uh, are you familiar with the Kyotronic 85? That’s… the only one I know of that was built during this decade.”

He hummed in agreement. “Mhm, the Tandy Model 100, yes. A few years ago, I broke mine after I tried and failed to put those dental rubber bands under the keys to make typing quieter.”

You awkwardly nod and purse your lips.

Yes, this was the decade that ‘portable computers’ would start popping up— you remember the lengthy lectures and the times you helped… him… study for tests. But having knowledge of models that haven’t even been conceived yet, however, is something you find to be a bit dangerous. For once, you regret studying all of this.

Anyway, should you keep working in front of Piper? Is it even worth it?

You drum your fingers on the wooden desk, keeping your gaze down on the open laptop.

This starts to occupy your thoughts for a few minutes, and it reaches a point where you don’t even realize that he already left your side during that time.

Taking a deep breath, your eyes land on the Bluetooth cable on the motherboard. Since it’s 1988, and Bluetooth doesn’t become patented until the middle of  next year, the cable’s existence is entirely pointless. Maybe you should just ignore that.

Or maybe you  shouldn’t  ignore that, and  should  remember that you just showed an invention from 2011 to a man from 1988.

Who knew what would happen if people besides Piper found out about this? Actually, what if he already learned, and decided to out the information to the wrong minds?

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“I broke a time-travel rule,” you grumbled to yourself.

“Indeed you have,” he confirms aloud. You immediately turn your head to find him distracted by the provided luxury-branded toiletries on the nightstand. Its ingredients seem to preoccupy his attention instead of… you don’t know, inducing him to  leave.

So much for repairing your laptop in much-needed silence—  away from him.

“You can name your Stand, you know,” Piper suggested, twirling around and gesturing his glass to you. The wine in his glass sloshed around.

You rapidly blink at him.

“You  know  about it?”

Okay, you didn’t even bring it out in front of him while he was here, so how…

“I may or may not have been eavesdropping between the floor and the rug in the hallway, while you were bickering with Vanilla. To call you the ‘new nuisance of the mansion’… goodness.”

Whatever that meant, you didn’t comment on it. Though, you did imagine Piper lifting the rug and casually sipping his wine from the innards of the stone floor, ogling at you and Vanilla Ice like a television drama.

You turn back around to focus on your laptop, which still desperately needed to be operated on.

“Well, I… can’t think of a name right now,” you admitted. “Honestly, naming my Stand is the last thing I’m worrying about right now.”

“Understandable,” he replied, shrugging.

“Does my Stand even need a name, anyway?” you ask, slowly turning around to face him again. “It’s literally just a suit.”

At your words, Piper slightly opened and closed his mouth in a fish-like manner before sighing and rubbing his temples.

“It’s expected for Stand users to name their Stands the moment they become aware of it. Unlike you, I got my Stand at birth, which was around the same time my father was listening to a cover of ‘Take Five’ that pianist Sadao Kujo did with his jazz orchestra when he started becoming hot shit. So when I found his old LP  and  was old enough to fully comprehend my Stand, I named mine Take Five after that wonderful—”

“—no offense,” you interject calmly, “But… can you get to the point?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes. You  know  you have a Stand, so name it after something you’re fond of like music or… or movies or whatnot. But don’t get maniacal about it, or you’ll have a Stand named  I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook, and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney. By the way, that’s by Ben Affleck, and your universe is the only one where it’s a smash hit and furthered his directing career only.”

Lightly snorting, you retort, “What, is he like an actor or something elsewhere?”

“Actually, yes.”

You blinked.

  Hm.

“But my Stand  is  a suit,” you say, diverting the conversation back. “I don’t think it would care if it had a name or not.”

“But  other  Stand users need to know what to refer yours by,” Piper countered. “You know, Stand users like me— I  brought you to this dimension, for heaven’s sake. We can’t just call you random nicknames like… uh, ‘Iron Lady’. And, well, that name’s technically already taken by British Prime Minister Thatcher, so we can’t use that anyway.”

You lean back in your chair and swear.

Piper  did, in fact, bring you here. How could you forget?

To be fair, within a day, your life has literally done a full 180°. You’ve gone from a happily married, prospective university graduate to a moody widow with some magic metal suit. It’s done enough to distract you and make you temporarily forget  how  it all happened.

There’s a part of you that’s still convinced that this is a dream.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening,” you complained, burying your face in your hands. “I mean… am I  really  going to believe everything you said earlier? You know, about how I’m in  1988  and in a different universe?”

Piper rapidly blinks at you. “Did you not believe it before? I was given the impression that you did.”

You reply in a bored tone, “I grew up reading and watching weird shit. I even  married a guy who does… did the same. I believed it at first out of fear, because I didn’t know what you’d do to me if I didn’t. But now… I mean, I just want to know  why  I’m here in the first place. Whatever you’re doing to me right now is probably just some distraction or ruse.”

“And you…  acquiring  a Stand after getting shot… isn’t?” he asked with an amused tone. “You pledged your loyalty to Lord Dio, right?”

You don’t hesitate to respond.

“Oh— yes, of course.”

For a brief moment, Piper doesn’t speak right away as he appears to be taken aback at your response. He glances at your forehead before sipping his wine and nodding.

“Alright, then, alright. You mustn’t doubt yourself. And you’re here for a reason— we  all  are, you know. Nothing here that Lord Dio presents to us is deceitful—  he  has his reasons for letting us serve him.”

That seemed quite reasonable.

Again, you wouldn’t dare question Lord Dio— you’ll just have to trust him on whatever he wishes to acquire from you. You weren’t given any specifics yet, but you’ll happily wait for them.

After speaking, Piper sipped his wine again… and again, and again.

This definitely wasn’t his first glass today. Hell, maybe not his second or third either.

“You should probably know that the potential for having a Stand has stuck with you for a very long time.”

You raise a brow. “What do you mean by that?”

He hiccuped and cleared his throat. “Well, you obviously weren’t born with one, but fate intended for you to be able to acquire one at some point in your life. If not from being shot with the Arrow, then perhaps from work that you do constantly and consistently in order to strive for perfection. You  do  wear a metallic suit— you don’t happen to be in any technical fields, by any chance?”

“Guilty,” you responded sheepishly. “Engineering.”

Piper snapped and pointed to the open laptop on the desk. “Ah—  see. You’re even fixing that piece of junk without any instructions.”

You start to wonder if he has any sort of decency, but you realize that you already know the answer to that. He gladly shoved you twice, talked shit about cutting-edge technology in 1980’s terms (literally— you accidentally pricked yourself from grabbing a tab earlier), and is currently drinking alcohol in the early hours of the morning without much care. What a man, he is.

“Thanks,” you sarcastically appreciated.

Suddenly, he started to reach inside the inner layers of his robing. After a little fishing inside, his hand grabs onto a familiar flat device. Your eyes widen.

“Oh, and here’s your… phone,” he says, carefully placing it down on the satin bed sheets. “I don’t like it— too small, too bright, weird screen. I hope the phones in this dimension don’t have a build as ugly as that once 2011 comes around.”

You roll your eyes as you stand up and walk over to grab the familiar device. “As if 1988  brick  phones look any better. Anyway, did you go through my phone, tamper with it, or anything?”

He snorted. “Do I look like the type of person to know how to do that? I’m from 1988. I’ve been hopping dimensions since I was in high school. Technology is not my forte.”

Entering the passcode, you search through the phone to ensure if he’s telling the truth. It takes about a minute or two to check, but none of the contents on your phone have been changed. By default, the phone continues to record the date and time in Japan Standard Time— technically, the  wrong  time zone— as it doesn’t require any sort of Internet or cellular connection to do so. Likewise, you don’t have any cellular service for obvious reasons.

Occasionally, you have to shoo Piper away as he tries to creep over your shoulder in order to see your phone screen.

You slide your phone into your pocket afterward, crossing your arms over your chest as you face him. You’re about to say something to him, but he interrupts.

“Anyway, I’m going to leave to get more wine— I met a sommelier from the capital of the Sasanian Empire back in the 7th dimension,” he announces, gesturing to his now-empty glass. You donned a deadpan expression, and you don’t question… whatever he’s saying.

He then uses the glass to point at your backpack, which is still sitting on the bed. “Also, I’d advise that you don’t lose your wedding ring here. It’ll be a pain to look for it later.”

As he strolls past you and over to the space between the stone wall and the embroidered curtains covering the tall windows, you turn away to glance at the piece of jewelry with wide eyes. While pulling out your laptop from your backpack, the ring and other small possessions of yours must’ve been pulled out as well. You lean over the bed to grab onto it. There’s a thin scratch on the underside of the ring, making you swear aloud.

During your research work, you normally took the ring off as a precautionary measure to avoid the small (but barely any) risk of it conducting electricity. On any other occasion outside of work, you always preferred wearing it to avoid any awkward or uncomfortable situations with anyone else.

Now that you think about it, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to wear it again. But after you fix that pesky laptop of yours…

——

The dining  hall  became the only other room you could visit, and only during conventional meal times.

For most of the day you were locked inside the guest bedroom, occasionally getting visits from the butler Telence, who allowed you to call him by his first name. At the very least, you were still provided with basic necessities such as toiletries, first aid, and social interaction— something done sparingly all day due to the questionable personalities of the ones you’ve met.

Telence was friendly, though he liked to pry into your personal life and make comparisons to himself an uncomfortable amount (he visited the most; he was required to, anyway). Like Piper, he also happened to be American. Vanilla Ice always seemed like he wanted to off either himself or you every time you breathed in his direction (he never visited, but made sure to sit as far away from you as possible during meal times). Piper was just the personification of an acid trip (he didn’t visit anymore after the first time and never ate with any of you).

As of the early morning, all three became your colleagues. The diversity of this workplace is astounding.

“Hey, does anyone know if Lord Dio eats during the day?”

“You stupid girl. How dare you ask such a personal question about our Lord Dio?”

“…thanks, Vanilla Ice.”

Seriously  was that long-haired maniac exhausting to speak with.

…it was a genuine question, alright? He’s always cooped up in his room and you never see him in the dining hall.

Reportedly, there were a few others living here in the mansion, but none of them had any business meeting you personally. Learning all of their names was a gradual process, it seemed.

It was only until tonight where leaving the guest room had a legitimate purpose besides eating. Telence had knocked on the double doors, prompting you to alert your presence by knocking back. He had a particular rhythm while knocking, so even before the doors opened, you knew it was him. Out of the colleagues that you’ve met, he’s probably been the only one you had positive opinions about.

The butler’s eyes widen at the sight of you clad in silk pajamas that he personally provided.

“Oh, were you just about to retire for the night?” he asked in an apologetic tone. He held his hands behind his back as he stood before you. “Forgive me for disturbing you, Miss…”

You shook your head. “No, it’s fine, I wasn’t sleeping yet or anything. Is there something wrong, Telence?”

Sighing, Telence replied, “Well… Lord Dio requests your presence in the dining hall.”

…oh.

Glancing down at your pajamas and back up at the tattooed butler, you purse your lips.

“Immediately?”

“Immediately,” he repeated. You see him briefly glance down at your hands, your fingers… his eyes widen before the outer corners crinkle due to him smiling. “Don’t feel the need to get dressed up— I’m sure your presence alone will suffice, really.”

Was it that urgent?

What in the world would you speak about with Lord Dio?

…well, it’s not like you’re complaining.

Telence stepped aside to make way for you as you walked out of the guest room. You felt the cold stone beneath your socks, and the temperature made you stand up straighter. Deeply inhaling— and (still) smelling the faint scent of corpse— you step onto the never-ending runner rug with Telence at your heels and rambling.

——

“Really? It  had  to be you taking me to the Airport?”

Vanilla Ice took a second to glare at you through the rear-view mirror. Per Piper’s (drunken) suggestion before you left, you were blindfolded with a handkerchief of his to prevent you from seeing the exterior of the mansion and the route. To Vanilla Ice, you were surprisingly obedient about it. Nor was it a terrible idea, but he’d never openly admit that.

Once you arrive, you better get that handkerchief back from her!

Why so? It resembles a defecation wipe.

Are you fucking stupid? It’s over 140 years old— it’s quite dear to me.

“I’m not enjoying this in the slightest, either. It seems that as of tonight, we have both experienced a loss.”

Out of everyone in the mansion, Vanilla Ice was the only eligible driver.

Kenny G— the Stand user with the illusions, apparently— forgot to apply for an International Driving Permit. Enya was too old to see the nighttime road properly and had to phone her son anyway. Telence had to monitor the mansion and order that guy Nukesaku around to clean. Nukesaku was  also  not trusted because everyone believed that he’d accidentally kill you in a car accident. Piper was mildly inebriated from the glasses of wine he had. And Lord Dio said he never learned. Also said he’d  never set foot near one until 1983… whatever that meant.

You purse your lips.

“You know, I didn’t even know you could drive.”

“I will sever your tongue.”

Rolling your eyes, you resort to staring at darkness for the rest of the car ride.

November 1988 || Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is very different in the 80’s, which you fully process the second you pass through the terminal at Narita the next morning.

Granted, you’re coming from a different age— literally— though the sight of everything continues to overwhelm you. There hasn’t been a single thing that you  haven’t  been surprised by, including the lack of questioning from your now-forged passport and the contents of your luggage.

Back in 2011, surely you would’ve been detained due to possessing a passport with a changed birth year and expiration date. Surely the LCD-screened smartphone that was slightly bigger than a pager would’ve gotten you stopped, because not only is that not even supposed to  exist yet, but it could easily be mistaken for some sort of explosive device in 1988. However, a simple nod was given to you each time you passed a checkpoint, confusing you.

It’s not like you  wanted  to get caught— no. The suspiciously lax restrictions from security just weirded you out more than anything.

Right after an hour-long taxi ride to Meguro-ku, you set out on foot with your duffle-bag backpack. Naturally, your clothing garners confused stares from locals as you passed by. Your old backpack did you no favors considering how half of your belongings became broken, so you ended up being given some durable expensive-looking bag from the mansion’s butler. He looked to be about your age, so it was… nice… to have another young contemporary working for Lord Dio.

After handing the new backpack to you, Telence had obliviously asked for tips on getting married at a young age—  like you, he points out,  as he wanted to propose to his girlfriend one day. This ended up pissing you off more than it normally would, especially as you realize that you stupidly left your wedding ring in plain view.

You were here in a different country, in a different continent, in a different  year, in a  different universe, and you were locked up in one of the guest rooms. Mysteriously, nothing built in that room actually had traces of metal. You were trapped— even during dinner before that, which contained actual food and not scraps like you assumed— and he had the nerve to bring up your husband. It still hasn’t been a whole fucking week yet.

Your subsequent argument with Telence unfortunately soured a beginning of camaraderie with him, which was a shame. He was probably the only person who tolerated you in the mansion, besides the old woman who shot you with the Bow and Arrow. However, you didn’t see much of Enya, nor did your colleagues. Lord Dio didn’t really count as someone you could befriend, as you were tiers below him and thus, weren’t worthy enough to do so.

But it’s not like any collective agreement was made to befriend colleagues in the first place. You could tell— based on the other servants— that carrying out tasks alone was preferred over collaborating. The same was expected for you, which explains your lack of accompaniment. You’re expected to do everything yourself, but that’s fine.

Hopefully, your work ethic comes back into play when finding Joseph Joestar and his group— whoever those people are.

——

You’re currently sitting in a room at a small fertility clinic a short drive away from the hotel. While you were still in Cairo, you brought up a desire to visit a fertility clinic again, prompting Telence to book an appointment for you here (pre-argument). Like everything else, Lord Dio had taken care of the expenses.

As you waited for the specialist, you patiently sat on the medical exam table in one of the rooms, fiddling with your fingers and staring at the open window. The clipboard with a long questionnaire had already been filled out and was set down beside you on the smooth table paper. Through the glass you see a large, strangely-modern building right across from the clinic.

SPEEDWAGON ☸ FOUNDATION  

Huh.

Since it’s the late 80’s, they probably became defunct by the 2010’s or something. You’ve never heard of that company before. Though, their architecture definitely looked more like something you’d see back in 2011.

Anyway, your eyes avert from the window to the closed door of the exam room. The day of your previous clinic visit made you cry tears of happiness, as that was the day you discovered that your IUI procedure performed weeks before was successful. You and Noriaki went out for dinner that night to celebrate, knowing that you couldn’t really go to a bar to do that anymore.

That was probably the last of your good memories. Of course, you remembered what brought it along in the first place.

July 2011

This was only the second time you’ve been to Jotaro’s apartment. The phone call you had with him warranted a rare visit from you.

His apartment is a large studio, and you’re a little shocked by the sheer size of it. Near the television was a large shelf unit that caught your attention, so naturally you approach it with curiosity.

The large shelf unit contained various marine-themed trinkets, along with a few model ships and non-flying model airplanes. Rows of manga and American comics filled the top shelves, while Blu-ray cases of movies tightly lined the lower ones. As your eyes skim through each shelf, you notice the lack of anything relating to family, save for a total of… three frames.

One had a younger Jotaro— you’d guess elementary school-age— with his parents; his blonde and green-eyed mother gleaming while his black-haired and brown-eyed father giving a smirk reminiscent of his son’s. Another had Jotaro visiting Italy with his mother and maternal grandparents, though you could tell this was taken within the last five years. The last one had current-Jotaro with two other men; one you immediately recognized as that same grandfather in a dark button-up, a green tie, and suspenders, but the other you had no recollection of. With black hair that had a tint of blue, slightly outdated clothing, and muscle mass  far  surpassing the other two… yeah, you had no idea who that was.

Jotaro peers over his shoulder to find you standing in front of the shelf unit, preoccupied.

“Are you okay?”

You look over, shaking your head.

“Yeah,” you respond, crossing your arms over your chest. You continue to stare at the photo, wondering if you’ve met that person before. He didn’t look any older than Jotaro’s parents; honestly, he was probably just an uncle of his. The resemblance to Jotaro and his grandfather (what was his name, again?) was a bit uncanny, after all.

Anyway, Jotaro notices what you’re looking at.

“Do you want tea?” he blurts out all of a sudden, sincerely hoping you’d place your focus elsewhere. “Or… eh,  anything?”

You shrug, (finally) deciding to leave the photo alone. Not once do you notice his looming nervousness.

“Sure, ah… I’m fine with tea.”

When you’re not looking, Jotaro lets out a small exhale of relief as he heads over to the open kitchen to prepare a teapot. Just once more do you sneak a glance at the photo before heading to the dining table. Once you’re there, you either watch him make what seems to be green tea, or sit there daydreaming. You absentmindedly poke at his white hat, which sat on a textbook about marine invertebrates beside you.

It’s less than a month until summer break. You’ve been trying to study for finals this semester, which for the most part you’ve succeeded in doing so. However, since the first clinic visit, your concentration has started to falter. Most of the time, instead of focusing on exams for your 300-level classes, you’ve been focused on Noriaki.

He hasn’t been talking to you much since, and it worries you. For the past few days you’ve been trying to indirectly comfort him, from preparing food for him or doing other things— non-sexual, you might add— that were previously successful in making him happy. Such actions were indirect, because he seemed to react better when you weren’t in his presence. It hurt; every time he never responded to you or enacted in any sort of physical contact with you was like being stabbed multiple times, the knives getting slower and slower and excruciatingly more painful as it entered and penetrated through layers of your body.

You never went against Noriaki’s wishes. To betray him in such a way was unforgivable; it made you unworthy of being his partner. Though, being here in Jotaro’s presence already seemed like a red flag. Noriaki never mentioned his displeasure about it once, but to talk to Jotaro about Noriaki himself… well, you hope that it’s worth it. After all, it was Jotaro himself that had called you here.

And in that phone call, you both first realize that you’ve been having the same thoughts regarding the redhead. Then, Jotaro had talked about something that  definitely  warranted a visit from you.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

You whip your head to Jotaro, who towered over you while carrying the tea tray. His brows were furrowed; he was giving you a hardened look as he set everything down in front of you.

He sits directly across from you, minding how his legs no longer have space to stretch out. As he pours you tea, the only sound that resonates in the room is the sound of the tea being poured. Nothing else— you can’t even tell if he’s breathing anymore, nor you.

“Don’t take any of this the wrong way,” Jotaro demanded.

He legitimately looked angry, even when you both toasted out of instinct.

You slowly blinked at him afterwards. “I wasn’t intending to, I just…”

“It’s okay for you to be confused— pissed off at me, even,” the black-haired man assures as he starts to sip his tea. There’s a brief flash of contentment on his face before he continues to frown. “I…”

Jotaro finally took the time to look into your eyes.

“Listen— he’s absolutely heartbroken,” was how Jotaro was describing the incident. “…it hurts. It hurts to see Noriaki act like that… I mean, we took  Ukon no Chikara  beforehand— so  mostly  nothing wrong health-wise— but Noriaki still looked like he was going to drink himself to death.”

Your breath hitches. This is the first time you’ve heard about Noriaki drinking since the clinic visit. Usually, if he drank, it was with you or Jotaro or anyone he could trust to bring him home if he became absolutely wasted (which, to be honest, didn’t take long to happen). He’s told you in the past that if he drank by himself in front of you, then that was the time that he hit rock bottom. Recent events have  sure  been telling.

“I… I can tell he is,” you solemnly admit after sipping from your own cup. “He won’t talk to me—”

“— still?” Jotaro interjected, until it occurred to him that you had more to say. He cleared his throat, apologizing. “...sorry.”

“It’s okay, but  yes … still. We’ve… I tried to talk to him, but I wanted to give him time to cool off and process everything because I know he… hasn’t.”

“How much time are you giving him?”

You shrug with genuine uncertainty.

“As much time as he needs, but… I hope it’s not something he shelves. We  do  need to talk about it— damnit,  I  want to talk about it as soon as possible.”

“You need to,” he agrees, sipping his tea.

“…yeah.”

For a minute or two, you and Jotaro sit at the table in silence, occasionally lifting your warm cups of tea to drink. There’s at least a dozen thoughts that travel through both of your minds, but neither of you vocalize them at all. Some of them are even about the same topic, but nothing comes out of your mouths.

“…not wanting a child is one thing, but… not being able to have a child is another… I’m so sorry…”

“Noriaki, please, let’s talk about this when we get home…”

“What is there to talk about? I’m a sterile, useless piece of shit. I failed you as your husband.”

“Don’t  say that— why would you say that?”

You rest your chin on your hand, elbow rudely propped up on the table.

“I want to help you two,” Jotaro blurted out, which made you perk up. “It just got me thinking…”

“And… that’s why you called me here? To— to ask me about it…?” you stammered.

“Yes.”

His eyes avert from you down to the tea tray.

You slowly nod.

“Because you want to… donate sperm,” you clarify, expressionless.

Jotaro choked out, “…yes.”

When he mentioned discussing it with Noriaki during the phone call with you, you froze in shock. It’s rather… bold… for him to bring up this suggestion, especially during a time when you and Noriaki were experiencing a time of grief. It’s also not everyday that you get a call about your good friend giving sperm to you while you’ve been fully immersed in watching a game show on the sofa.

You had nothing against sperm donation or assisted-reproduction tech in general, but you didn’t think it would ever be necessary for you and your husband of all couples.

And… well, there’s a massive amount of legal considerations. Jotaro was close friends with the both of you, which introduces an issue of involvement with the child’s life— even if it’s expressed in a contract that he  won’t  have any sort of parental relationship with them once they’re born. It would seem outrageous to stop being friends with him in order to not violate that. Also, you trusted Jotaro to be cooperative with whatever is specified in a contract, but a court might not see him that way.

The child would obviously not resemble their legal father, Noriaki, either. There’s no telling that they’ll resemble you more than the biological father, Jotaro, to the point where no one would question otherwise. You cringed at the idea of you three at some get-together a decade from now, where nosy family members start to gossip and rumor about a possible case of infidelity between you and the child’s biological father. The rumor would be a terrible burden for all of you, and not to mention a headache. One day, either you or Noriaki would attempt to explain to the young child about  why  they didn’t inherit their father’s red hair or lavender-grey eyes.

“I’ve been friends with Noriaki for almost six years,” Jotaro explained, setting his tea cup down. “And… I care about him—”

“—do you really want to do this?” you interjected, eyes wide. “Jotaro, I know you’re not impulsive or anything, but… this will change…  everything, you know. I don’t… I don’t want you to end up regretting this decision. You’ve got an entire future for you to experience, and… I don’t know, you might be at this stage of planning with whoever you vow to be with in that time. I don’t want all of  this  to complicate  your  life.”

It wouldn’t complicate his life— he thought everything through, even if he first told Noriaki in the spur of the moment. He was serious about this… about everything.

Jotaro had a stern look on his face.

“…but, do  you  want to do this?”

At that question, you turn away.

…did  you?

You let out a shaky sigh.

Do you really have any other option, though?

“I love him, Jotaro,” you say, starting to sniffle. You bring a napkin to your eyes to pat them dry. “I… I love Noriaki so much. I don’t want him to think that… this… will make me love him any less, but I just… it pains me to see him suffering like this, you know? I’m his wife, and yet I feel so useless— I can’t even do anything to help him myself…”

“That’s why I want to help,” he told you with a soft tone. “I don’t want to beg or plead or any of that bullshit, but I want you and Noriaki to make the decisions yourselves. Like you said, ah… what I’m doing  will  change everything. I want  you — the both of you— to think about this.”

You gaze over at him before hanging your head low.

“I… well, we don’t really have any other option,” you confessed. “Noriaki and I aren’t old enough to adopt here, so that’s out of the question, and…”

Trailing off, you try to think if there  were  other options in the first place.

Eventually, Jotaro cleared his throat.

“You— you don’t have to make this decision now, if that’s what you’re… ah, thinking.”

You rubbed your face with your hands, sniffling.

He’s right.

Why bother to pressure yourself with something like this at this very moment? There’s plenty of time for you to contemplate, for Noriaki to build up the courage to speak with you again, for the both of you to take the time to discuss this in whole…

Back at your apartment, Noriaki was sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed, mind wandering towards the topic that Jotaro had brought up to him on that night. He’s eating from a small bowl of cherries that you bought for him, which sits on his lap. His face is expressionless; there’s dried tears stained on his cheeks.

Of course, you don’t know that.

“Okay— no, yeah, I got that,” you finalize, nodding at Jotaro. You set your tea cup down rather loudly. “When, ah… when he’s ready to talk, I’ll… I’ll give you a call, alright?”

Jotaro nods back, the corners of his mouth upturning as he gives you a small smile.

November 28, 1988

They’re sitting patiently in another room beside the kitchen when the sound of a landline being slammed back into place is heard. Immediately, the three of them avert their eyes to the sliding door, waiting for the owner of the storming footsteps on the  engawa. The architecture of the family home— along with the unfamiliarity on the walker’s behalf— seemed to be accentuating every sound he makes as he approaches the door and roughly slides it open.

Seeing the towering, old man slide open the door with such force makes the three inwardly cringe— particularly the two teens.

The frame continues to lightly shake as he firmly speaks in his aged voice.

“[We board the flight to Cairo at 8:30 tonight],” Joseph Joestar announces in English as he ducks under the door frame, steps on the tatami, and stands directly in front of the three.

“[Why so late?]” the taller teen suddenly questions in an annoyed tone. He’s glaring at his grandfather as his hands are shoved in his front pockets; the bill of his black cap is pulled lower than usual.

It’s not obvious, but he’s starting to become antsy. The last thing he wants, however, is for his grandfather and the other two to pick up on that underlying anxiety of his.

Joseph sighs heavily, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“Trust me, Jotaro— I asked the same question,” he replies with a frown. “The Speedwagon Foundation says that that flight is the earliest one. It’s also likely that Dio knows about our connection to the Foundation, so there’s no way we can directly travel under them either. Besides, they’re already sending some of their best doctors from all of their branches to monitor Holly here.”

“Did they say when they’ll be arriving?” the Egyptian man, Muhammad Avdol, asked.

Frankly, he’s still quite shaken after seeing Ms. Holly unconscious on the kitchen floor. The green vine-like Stand— similar to her father’s purple one— continued to grow and wrap around her back as it attacked her from the inside. He, like everyone else, knows that there can’t be much time left until Mr. Joestar’s daughter succumbs to the illness.

“There’s one coming from the Meguro branch today, and a few others flying in from America between tonight and tomorrow.”

Jotaro  tsk -ed.

“At least  we’re having  one  coming today,” Joseph repeats, giving his grandson a pointed look before turning away. “It’s… better than nothing.”

He didn’t respond to Jotaro’s further actions, which included a roll of the eyes and a swear grumbled under his breath.

The other red-haired teen cleared his throat.

“Ah… so what will we be doing until then?” Kakyoin asked, resting his hands over a large encyclopedia. His eyes averted to the wood grain alarm clock radio, which oddly sat on the low table beside him. “It’s only after 9, and we board that flight several hours from now.”

“Avdol and I could go out and get some supplies for our trip,” Joseph suggested, gesturing to himself and Avdol. Avdol nodded and hummed in agreement. “You and Jotaro could wait for the Foundation doctor here and look over his mother in the meantime, maybe ready a bag of clothes, underwear, toiletries… whatever you need. But I recommend packing light— this trip to and in Cairo won’t be long.”

Kakyoin glanced up at Jotaro, who side-eyed him back. “I’ll just quickly drop by my house to pack some of my things, then. I don’t actually live that far from here.”

“If we’re driving, we can drop you off,” Avdol pointed out.

Joseph crossed his arms, nodding. “Yeah, just tell us the address. Luckily, these Japanese roads are like the ones in England— driving on the left side and all— except there’s not that much traffic here… one of the few good things about this place, I believe. But I almost hit a stupid cyclist the last time I was here, you know?  Sheesh!”

“Maybe because you never needed to drive on the left side of the road for fifty fucking years and forgot how to.”

The old man whipped his head over to Jotaro with a glare before sighing in defeat. “That may be true, but  watch your language! Again!”

Jotaro grunted.

Joseph turned to speak with Avdol about their remaining expenses, who crossed his arms over his robed chest. Kakyoin strolled over to his towering classmate as he attempted to adjust the tight bandage around his forehead. Once he approached a respectable distance from him, Jotaro’s eyes darted to the covered wound from the flesh bud; the amount of blood that bled through had been decreasing, and there’s barely any stain as of this morning.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m a little eager to leave for Egypt,” Kakyoin quietly said with a content expression. He switched to Japanese to speak to him. “I wouldn’t mind revisiting so soon, despite having some… unpleasant memories, now that I think about it. It’s nice there, though.”

After letting out a curt hum, Jotaro also replied in Japanese, “I’ll take your word for it, but I just want to see that bastard, Dio, get what he deserves.”

Kakyoin lightly snorted. “I feel the same way.”

The redhead swears he sees a glint of amusement in Jotaro’s eyes— a rare occurrence, it seems. Though, he doesn’t mind it any longer when he sees him turning away from him. Jotaro calmly went over to the sliding door and comically opened it with much less force than his grandfather did before. Kakyoin resorted to watching him for a second before deciding to follow him for a few minutes. He was probably going to the other room to where his mother was, passed out cold and tightly tucked into a futon in the middle of the room.

It was a scary sight, to be honest. Having your Stand fight  you  instead of it fighting  for you— Kakyoin couldn’t even imagine how Mrs. Kujo was feeling right now. He didn’t know how long he’d be there to monitor her, as he had to leave with Mr. Joestar and Mr. Avdol soon to go to his house.

His parents both worked during the day, so luckily they wouldn’t be home to question his absence between yesterday and this morning. Somehow, the fight that he had with Jotaro during cram school yesterday felt like an eternity ago, and now here he was, planning to go on an impromptu trip to a different country.

“[I’ll— eh, Kakyoin and I— will be keeping an eye on Mom. Are you… all leaving now?]” Jotaro asked aloud in English to the two adults in the corner of the room.

His brows furrowed when they didn’t immediately answer, so he repeated his question much louder. Avdol was the first one to respond with a nod, so Jotaro was about to take that as the sole answer and leave. However, Joseph started to speak, and his abruptly soft tone made him and Kakyoin come to a halt. They stared at him in anticipation, but Avdol’s lips remained pursed. He must’ve already known what the old man was going to tell them.

“…I need to take another spirit photo,” he breathed out.

His head suddenly whipped around for any sight of a camera in the room. While his grandfather started to crouch and look under furniture, Jotaro already started to re-enter through the doorway and over to him. Kakyoin, on the other hand, stayed where he was at the front of the sliding door.

“So, you’re both not leaving now? Haven’t you taken enough, already?” he asked gruffly.

Joseph sighed as he pulled out drawer after drawer, opened container after container.

“Yes, and I’m not sure why, but… I feel like I need to take another one.”

——

It takes about twenty minutes, but Joseph finally manages to find a camera in the Kujo household that he hasn’t destroyed to pieces yet.

“Oi, old man. That’s my dad’s camera—”

“—perfect.”

“…good grief.”

He (begrudgingly) sits at the low table, carefully situating the black Polaroid camera in the middle. The Egyptian man and the two teens resort to standing around him, eyes narrowed at him and the camera. All they hear is the inhales and exhales from their breathing; Joseph continues to watch the camera in scrutiny, as if he’s devising his ‘attack’ on the camera. While Jotaro and Avdol have seen the old man’s Stand in action, Kakyoin only saw a blur of purple when the flesh bud was being pulled out of him. He must’ve used it then, but the redhead’s mind and senses were in such a shambles that he could barely tell.

Suddenly, Joseph slowly (and dramatically, in Jotaro’s opinion) lifts up his buff arm.

“…Hermit Purple!”

The incandescent purple vines flash to life around his hand and forearm, and his brows furrow. His arm practically slams down on the camera—  obliterating  it to smithereens— and the three of them feel the pieces of the device being thrown against their clothed legs. Yet, somehow, the camera still manages to produce a photo, which Joseph snatches.

Perhaps they couldn’t tell, but Avdol was always slightly amused at the sight of him destroying a camera with Hermit Purple. He’s sure that there’s another way to obtain a spirit photo without harming a camera in any form, but this will have to do for now. There isn’t much time to advise him how to use an ability of a Stand that wasn’t even his own.

The old man brings the photo up to his not-really-aged eyes, watching it develop. However, when it does, his eyes widen.

His back stiffens at the sight— what  …  what is this?

“Oh my God.”

Joseph rapidly blinks, hoping that his age didn’t finally catch up to him. Maybe he should’ve kept practicing Hamon if his eyesight was already going down the drain, because… uh…

…where’s Dio?

He doesn’t see Dio this time.

In fact, Dio isn’t anywhere to be seen in the photograph.

This has to be some sort of… absurd, bizarre joke!

It’s a woman.

It isn’t Holly (that would make no sense, to be honest), it isn’t Suzie, it isn’t even his  mother  for God’s sake, so who…

Joseph swears that he sees a hint of metal from her shoulder, despite her oversized clothing from the neck down. Whatever she wore was large enough that its collar exposed the lower portion of her neck. She’s only depicted from the side, but there’s a vignette in the photograph that makes it difficult for him to see her face. The background behind her resembled cloth; it was probably a blackout curtain. She had to be in some sort of room because of that, and Joseph wonders if Jotaro’s Stand will be able to identify the type.

If it matters, Joseph also notices the lack of a star-shaped birthmark behind her neck. At least she wasn’t another blood-related relative to worry about, but more questions start to arise.

Who  is  she?

“There’s someone else in the photograph,” Joseph said after a minute, astounded.

The other three’s eyes widen and dart from one person to another in shock.

How…

There’s no way…

“Who?” Jotaro demanded, snatching the Polaroid photo from his grandfather’s gloved mechanical hand. He swears out loud; the vignette obscures her face to the point where even he doubts that Star Platinum would be able to recreate her face on paper. Kakyoin cranes his head to take a look at the photo and he, too, sees the woman with the blurred face and the metal (what?) shoulders. Jotaro grunted before placing it in Avdol’s outstretched hand. The Egyptian man studies it without an ounce of recognition, even while he attempts to identify the background behind her.

Joseph scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. But it’s definitely not Dio.”

“Why did a woman appear in the photo instead of Dio? You should double-check,” Avdol advised, calmly handing the photo back to Joseph.

With the Polaroid photo in hand, he slams his hands on the low table. Pieces of the remaining camera shook and briefly jumped in place as he did so. Jotaro kicked the pieces that landed near his feet.

“Alright— Jotaro! Do you happen to have another camera lying around the house? I promise I’ll buy a new replacement afterwards.”

Jotaro rolled his eyes, watching his grandfather  not  hear his reply as he shot up from the ground and stormed out through the sliding door once again.

Meanwhile, Avdol’s eyes landed back on the low table, staring at the developed Polaroid photo. It was peculiar, to say the least— Dio had been showing up in all of Joseph’s spirit photos, yet only now was the subject of the photo different. This couldn’t be unintentional, though… they were able to derive an adequate amount of information from Dio’s photos— the  fly, for goodness’ sake— so maybe they could do the same with this woman’s. Whatever reason Hermit Purple suddenly produced a photo of  not Dio  had to be important, but they’ll just have to figure it out on the way to Egypt.

“She must be another one of Dio’s servants,” Avdol suggested with a sour tone. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for a woman with similar clothing just in case.”

At that, Kakyoin narrowed his eyes.

——

Sitting on the foot of the bed in your hotel suite, you carefully twirl around the two SSDs from your now-scrapped laptop in your hand. You plan to warp the laptop’s hardware into indistinguishable pieces to prevent an early breakthrough from someone bizarre and smart enough to find it in the trash and rebuild it. The SSDs, on the other hand, had a large amount of files—  photos— that you desperately wanted to keep in your possession.

You scratch the back of your neck.

It feels as if someone’s watching you in here, but you know you’re alone in the room.

——

…maybe you could take connecting flights?

You were strolling out of the travel agency building, dumbfounded. It just had to be today— it just had to be  now  where everything fucks up all around you.

“There’s only one flight to Cairo today, and it’s fully booked. Also, it’s actually… boarding in an hour. I, on behalf of Nippon Travel Agency, apologize… would you like to book the next flight to Cairo? It will be in three days, 14:00 or 2 PM.”

Three days? That’s… the 1st of December.

It doesn’t seem that far away, but to your boss, that must seem like an  eternity. You’d be utterly fucked if you don’t take this flight today— Joestar’s travel group was leaving the country in an hour. Leaving to go to Cairo, arriving in less than a day without you pursuing them. Your boss would have your head if they manage to find the mansion the same day they arrive. If you aren’t at the group’s tails, even worse. Yes, he’d have your head—  literally.

Goddamnit, what else could you do? You made the suggestion to fly out to one of the nearest countries to Egypt instead, but all of the flights to their major cities were scheduled after today. At this point, it seemed like Egypt or bust.

What would Lord Dio say, if he was before you right now? Maybe the other servants back at the mansion were tempted to treat you like a laughingstock now. You, the one who failed to complete the most basic task, and not to mention your first.

The hotel suite came with a fax machine. Unfortunately, you only discovered this after a message was sent to you, the sound of it going off alarming the hell out of you.

You were vaguely familiar with its mechanics; for some reason, a lot of Japanese companies in 2011 still required its usage and preferred it over Internet-based options. This included the company you worked at, which was slightly irritating to say the least. But since it’s 1988, and the usage is even  more  widespread, there’s a part of you that feels like tearing your hair out.

Anyway, it was a message from that fax machine that prompted you to check out from the hotel and head to the nearest travel agency.

There, Lord Dio had informed you that Joseph Joestar was going to leave Tokyo with his group today. He’s booked the very flight you were  supposed  to be on… and he and his group were going to leave in an hour.

Without you.

Yes, without you, to go after  your  boss. The audacity he—  they — have to pursue Lord Dio with the intention to kill him. This was nothing you could excuse— you  had  to stop them. You knew that it was just to do so.

…now that you think about it, a connecting flight to Cairo doesn’t seem that bad. It’s better than not arriving in Cairo at all, to be honest.

However, that presents a gigantic issue. What if it’s too late, by the time you arrive? Once you fly from Tokyo to the next country, there’s no way to tell if that next flight will be delayed or even cancelled. You’d constantly have to check at or call a travel agency to get information because it’s not like you could search on the Internet on a computer here. You’d have to ensure that you still have enough money by the end of this shitshow; after all, airfare in the 1980’s was much more expensive than in 2011, and every hotel you’ve been recommended was unnecessarily luxurious. Luckily, that one was easily solvable, but there’s  still  everything else…

Enough of this thinking.

You’re running out of time.

Quite literally— that travel agency was closing its doors for the day in less than 30 minutes, and a result, would cut off any chance of you successfully completing Lord Dio’s task. And, as a result of  that, your body would probably be thrown in a paupers’ grave somewhere near the mansion.  Or  it would even be left inside. There  was  that odd scent of old blood in the corridors.

You frowned.

Taking a deep breath, you hope this was worth it in the end.

No— what are you talking about? It would be. You’d just have to trust yourself, here.

In an act of impulsion, you come to a halt, spin around, and sprint back to the travel agency building.

—

--> To Be Continued -->

Up Next: Last time you checked, they weren’t supposed to be alive and eating breakfast at a table right across from you.

Link to the Table of Contents

[wolfy-daydreams]

This daydream is number 38. All posts are collected under the tag #38Atlas. It's a combination of Greek Mythology, several anime, and ATLA (don't ask how I was able to fit this one without making it a multiverse, this was a new experience for me too lol).

So before I'm gonna give updates here is the context (hopefully in the future I can just start from the beginning when I create a new plotline but for now I'm committed to this one). This is the story told chronologically (not necessarily how the story went in my head)

The world starts with two beings: Uranus and Gaia (Greek Mythology). They have kids and all that good stuff (cue the plot of Lucifer, the show). Then Uranus (aka God) decides that he is tired of this bunch and basically does Apocalypse time (yay, reset that shit).

Uranus and Gaia get kids again (and now we're back to Greek Mythology). Here the usual stuff happens. Kronos castrates his dad because that's canon for some reason. Titans get born and stuff (cue Attack on Titan even though I've only seen like 3 episodes). Finally our main character is born, Atlas. In this daydream/plotline Atlas has always been a little distant. He doesn't much care about anything really and sees himself as... well basically "woke" describes that best. He oftens calls others naïve fools if they show no signs of appreciating or honouring the things he does. He is also big on rules and is extremely stubborn about them, even if he doesn't actually want to follow his principles, he stays grounded.

Anyways blah blah, Titan War happens (Greek Mythology again cuz why not). And now all the Titans are got yeeted into Tartarus by Zeus. And yes, just like the myth Atlas sides with baby eating Kronos because 🌠family above all rule🌠. Atlas escapes Tartarus though, which is something no one's ever managed before. Sooo, Zeus gives him the punishment that he needs to hold up the sky for all eternity.

So our boi Atlas is holding the sky, which is quite heavy btw. And then he meets a mortal called Won (cue Avatar the Last Airbender shite). At this point the human population is not going near extinct because Titans are hungry motherfuckers. No, now humans have learned 🌠bending🌠 from weird af animals and stuff. Anyways, Won is an airnomad (because I said so) and he wants to bring balance between the 4 elements and stuff. He feels strongly that it can only be achieved by one Symbol of Peace that can bend all 4 of them, and obviously that Symbol must live forever duh.

Other than that, Won and Atlas get along great. They are bestest of friends (although throughout their entire friendship there is definitely some gay energy going on. So far I'm thinking Atlas has a crush on Won, but doesn't wanna express it because he has his own stupid rules and stuff. Fun times. Also Won is definitely the gayest out of the two, just saying). At some point, Atlas decides to grant Won's wish and makes him the Avatar and stuff. He does by energybending and because he is a fucking deity so shut up, I don't need to explain myself. So yeah Avatar line starts and yakno the story. (Btw this also around the same time Lore Olympus takes place, so yeah. We'll get into that plot when I technically "finished the story" and then just decided to keep it going like an idiot)

Alrighto, fast forward like thousands of years and at this point, the Avatar is probably dead. Most people can't bend anymore because the population declined way too much when it comes to that stuff. And the people who can bend don't know any of the forms to do so. Fun times, oops.

Now we got technology and shit, and the gods are just kind of having a vacation. So the humans don't really believe they exist anymore, because srsly go show ppl you exist guys. Now cue whatever modern day anime with people having secret superpowers (think Saiki, Assassination classroom, etc.). This is the era where bending powers have evolved to just having a weird mix of stuff to the point where people's powers don't even resemble the elements anymore. Now at this point no one knows of the existence of superpower people.

Also Atlas has just been holding up the sky all this time and has decided to collect some ingredients for a potion. Not all the ingredients are known but two of them are a part of Appollo's lyre, and a golden apple from the myth Heracles and Atlas. He is getting kind of exhausted holding up this one heavy object for like millennia so he decided that he could get out of this punishment by turning himself mortal. At this point he has the potion all ready and is just vibing with his arms up (cuz holding sky, duh).

Then, suddenly! It comes out that superpowers are exist. And out of no were tons of people with powers come out (oh no, I wonder where those came from. I have no clue at allll). And boom, let's call them quirks baby (cue Boku No Hero Academia).

And then... Atlas drinks the potion. This causes a human couple to have a baby (don't worry, no possession, Atlas was this baby from the very start). And since they moved from Japan to London they decide to give him an English-ish name: Castor. Their last name is Kubo btw. Also because ya'know CASTOR IS NOW HOLDING A TITAN SOUL SOMEHOW, the birth was obviously complicated. So his mother got permanent damage on her legs and lost her job because she now needs a cane and shit and her job requires like... legwork. So basically Castor's dad needs to get all the money now, which means he has to basically work 24/7.

So yeah that's it for now. Cue part 2 where I actually get into the story because this is where it starts (also jfc, thank you for reading this long af post).

Cheers!

Wolfy

[kariachi]

Okay, got access to some more of season 4, so let’s get this train a going again with Steam Fight At The OK Corral

~~

Oh look, it’s Smythe. In an episode with ‘steam’ in it’s title. Whudda thunk.

It seems like people don’t care abut steam power anymore because, get this, nobody cares about steam power anymore.

Oh look, it’s Kevin. Offering help or advice or some such. He’s just, trying to hard to look large and in charge in this scene. And yet he is so small.

“-oily child of the sand dunes-” I need somebody with any amount of editing or artistic skill to put that along the bottom of a reboot!Kev picture like it’s a fucking title. ‘Kevin ‘11′ Levin, Oily Child of the Sand Dunes’.

“Who are you, what do you know of my struggles with the Tennyson brat, and do you like steam?“ That last bit was so hopeful. Like ‘pls god and also heaven let somebody else on this planet care about the glory of steam’.

Kevin takes offense at being called oily. Listen, Kev, sweetie, all we’re asking is when’s the last time you took a shower. I mean, please tell me the Forever Nerd at least supplies shower access. Assuming you’re working with the Forever Nerd at this point, this could be pre-Nerdage.

“My name’s Kevin, I’m the chief authority on Tennyson-whooping, and steam is dumb.” Spoken like a true engineer of the modern age.

Smythe looked like he might cry for a second there. Right before it hit him that Kev implied he could take Ben down and double checked that shit. Which gives us Kevin lying out his ass about having beaten Ben in a fight, very evasive child. He’s not even lying particularly well.

Kev looks so happy to have an ally in his anti-Ben shit, in that ‘mwahahaha’ way antagonists have.

(Honestly, somebody give this child his rat, he needs some back-up and also somebody to teach him how to bluff and con.)

Kevin Levin, here to kick Tennyson butt and bring Smythe out of the fucking steam era.

With the power of a single tablet- which Smythe wouldn’t know from a hole in the ground- Kevin intends to take this mess to the next level (that being at least combustion, dear gods)

Oh look, back to the Tennysons. What were their names again? Len and Ren?

Aww, playing cowboys with waterguns in the Rustbucket.

Max is not having it. He leaves them alone for five minutes-

Overdramatic children in the desert. Make it thirty feet from the RV and just start collapsing

And Max gets them up again with promises of showdown reenactments, because this man knows his grandchildren.

There is no reenactment, the children feel robbed, Max reminds them that this is the best they’re getting since the family’s tablet got ruined during their play earlier.

Ben continues to be overdramatic

Y’all had to test your luck. You coulda had a nice, boring day, but no. You had to question shit and now you’re under attack.

Clocktopus 2.0, now gone digital.

Okay, some things of note- 1) Kevin set up a fucking hammock behind Smythe’s seat in the Clocktopus. 2) He is trying to let Smythe do the work while he plays a videogame. 3) The tablet is taped to the Clocktopus’s controls.

Okay, video cuts a bit there, but it’s still clear Smythe has no idea what he’s doing and things quickly devolve into him and Kevin fighting over the controls, presumably because seeing someone fail so badly at using a tablet is painful for Kevin.

And of course that leads to things just being a complete mess of flailing and lasers (because of course Kevin made sure there were lasers)

Oh lords, and all this was just the result of Kevin trying to show Smythe how you set the date and time, my gods. This is going to be a glorious disaster.

Cut again, but apparently Ben got a solid enough hit in.

Smythe losing his temper.

Smythe wants to send out explosive carrier pigeons, Kevin is unamused and calls for more lasers (and is back to playing his game btw, wonder what he’s playing), Smythe is unamused by that.

Smythe gets more smacks in on Slapback, Kevin calls him out of multiplying the little fuckers, demands laser-usage.

...I have to assume these are the people Smythe would’ve been raised alongside had the stork not gotten things horribly wrong.

Huh, six Slapbacks is enough to hold down a Clocktopus.

And of course the Omnitrix times out then. You don’t see Kevin having this problem, at least not as often, and yet his is supposed to be the crappy watch.

Aww, Kevin dragged Smythe kicking and screaming into renewable energy usage. Fuck steam, it’s gonna run on solar or so help him. (Note, I am making assumptions here but, come on, how precisely do you think you’d get Smythe to agree to drop steam?)

And there go the solar panels, courtesy of Humongasaur. (Who still shoulda been named GigantiGecko)

Another cut, but I’m fairly certain it’s just Smythe bitching at Kevin about how they wouldn’t have lost power if they were still running on steam.

And Ben’s gloating is cut short by the Clocktopus powering back on because Kevin is a smart engineering noodle and had back-up power ready. It’s only one battery, but it’s one of the big ones. Also Kevin is not being paid enough to put up with Smythe’s lack of knowledge. He’s just not.

Kevin has had it up to about here with Smythe and his, Smythe-ness.

Oh Smythe, has no clue.

...only Smythe, with someone there giving actual simple instructions, could send a photo to somebody rather than delete it. And to LaMoron at that.

Kevin, really into kicking Ben’s ass. I still have thoughts on this, though I’m trying to catch all the Kevin things before I make any more posts on the matter.

Max worries about his grandkids, also owns so many waterguns.

Aww, the passcode on Max’s chest of waterguns is “I love my grandkids”. That’s so sweet.

Gwen: I’m gonna run you outta town Kevin: I’d like to see you try

Is, is every child oily to you, Smythe?

Such weakness to water. It’s okay Kev, in time you’ll figure out waterproofing. Probably faster than you’ll figure out keeping laser blasts from fucking with your Omnitrix

Smythe calling Kevin out on not making the damn thing waterproof, Kevin frantically trying to salvage this disaster.

There is no salvaging this disaster.

Smythe, not pleased.

Welp. I don’t think these two are ever going to work together again, shocking no one. I’m honestly surprised they got this far.

Smythe had a Plan B and that was ‘go back to good old steam’

And Kevin has been yeeted into the distance. Oh Kevin.

As I said, fairly certain we’re never gonna see these two working together again.

Smythe has found his people and is all teary-eyed over it.

He happily turned himself in just because there were people appreciating steam and he was so happy about it.

9/11

[headlesssamurai]

review blade runner 2049 please

[Yo. @godzillaapproved asked me about this too, as did, like twenty other anons at this point, I meant to post this publicly but accidentally replied privately to the epic city-stomper. Here’s what I wrote.]

Yo, my apologies for taking a dog’s age to properly reply to this one. Between working a new job and teaching kids D&D, my schedule… actually hasn’t been that full at all, in fact being busy has got nothing at all to do with what took me so long. I’m just a lazy bastard, I reckon.

Nah, I’m playing. It’s just this write-up’s a tough one. In trying to properly discuss a movie like this, the worst obstacle I’m faced with is offering worthwhile thoughts which can rise above the more quotidian comparisons of old and new, and avoids falling to the level of all those acerbic neanderthals shouting at each other about reboots and franchise fatigue. Regardless of your opinion on it as a motion picture, Blade Runner 2049 is a film worthy of attentive consideration, approving or disapproving.

So, yeh, like, half the time I tried to write it up my thoughts veered wildly off into existentially perverse nonsense most people couldn’t follow if they were jacked up on a cocktail of Ritalin and whatever drug Bradley Cooper was addicted to in that one movie they later made into a shitty TV show. The other half of the time my critical analysis, though coherent, stretched to thirty-six pages (no exaggeration).

I was able to hack apart the latter version with a hatchet, and a few slivers of it have been included in this write-up, along with some fresh thoughts on the movie after giving it another once-over on my home theater system. Hopefully the thoughts shorn off my now axed 2049 manifesto help create a rational measure of insight to share on the artistry and agency of this contemplative film. And here I am wasting your fucking time, explaining how I wrote this thing up instead of just finishing the motherfucker.

I’ll just preface this by saying it’s impossible to discuss 2049 without at least mentioning the first Blade Runner and voicing a few of my thoughts on that film, considering how much it’s meant to me over the years. Also, so there’s no confusion I’ll usually be referring to this new film as 2049 and the earlier Ridley Scott movie as Blade Runner.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was very loosely based upon Philip K. Dick’s short novella Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, retaining few elements of Dick’s story besides some character names and the general setting of the world. The setting involves a highly advanced technological future, said to be 2019 in the original film, in which genetically indistinguishable androids (the latest model of which is called a Nexus-6), known as replicants, have been created as slave labor, and mostly used for the perilously dangerous industry of colonizing other worlds. It’s not clear how many worlds have been colonized, nor if these worlds are part of Sol’s orbit, or inhabit other star systems, but Earth appears to be a mere footnote by the era of the film. It is heavily implied that Earth is highly polluted, has undergone yet survived various environmental events which have permanently altered the weather and atmosphere, including nuclear war and extinction of many different species, and is now considered a very undesirable place to live.

The original film follows the intertwining story of Rick Deckard, a type of bounty hunter known as a “blade runner” who specializes in tracking down and eliminating rogue androids, and Roy Batty, a dying combat android who Deckard has come out of retirement to hunt. Ridely Scott’s film uses this general backdrop as a mechanism for an aesthetically light narrative of show-don’t-tell, including much visual intrigue and little direct exposition. Though often viewed as a scattershot of stylistic flair with shallow depths to its storytelling, this original film has been praised for years as evolutionary cinema, and has often been interpreted to explore the nature of humanity, consciousness, mortality, and the human capacity for both violence and compassion.

Personally, I tend to shy away from the more relativistic viewpoint in terms of filmmaking, and other forms of cumulative artistic expression and storytelling mediums. I think people who say “Anything can be art” and “Quality is just an opinion” are just people who don’t really know much about art, and haven’t seen enough quality films to be able to distinguish them from those which happen to be steaming crocks of shit stew, never mind the fact that such individuals are likely too dense to grasp what makes quality storytelling worthwhile to begin with. Ipso facto, if you’ve watched enough movies and actually care about movies, and you possess an attention span somewhere north of a toddler on morphine, you probably know what I’m talking about. I want to say this without the sort of high-nosed hauteur normally associated with such statements, but as a talented dude once put it “If it is art, it is not for everyone. If it is for everyone, it is not art.” I’m thankful to say 2049 inhabits a place in cinema well within the span of that distinction and, if box office numbers are any indication, makes no apology for it.

Because Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner has been released in various cuts, some better received than others, there exists a great deal of division over what his film was trying to say, as well as a massive amount of speculation on whether or not Deckard himself actually happened to be an android without knowing it. This level of ambiguity surrounding the original film has become a major part of why its fans adore it so much as praiseworthy cinema. It’s for this, and many other reasons, that Blade Runner remains my favorite movie of all time. Not saying it’s the best movie ever made, I’m just saying it’s my favorite, rivaled only by The Empire Strikes Back.

I was pretty damn rattled when first hearing that somebody in the wretched hive of Hollywood decided it would be a good idea to make a sequel to my favorite movie of all time. Or maybe, as some at the time speculated, it would be a reboot. I couldn’t quite decide which thought was more fuckening. Considering some of the reboots we’ve had, I imagined nothing but a hollow, CGI lightshow of forgettable one-dimensional characters running about a cliché world only vaguely reminiscent of the trend-setting urban dystopia from Ridley Scott’s cultish masterpiece.

That said, clearly Denis Villeneuve isn’t here to fuck around. He’s an established director with a modest, respectably memorable body of work. Even bitterly immersed my previously mentioned revulsion at the thought of a Blade Runner sequel, I recall thinking that if any bastard in the film industry could actually pull it off, it’s probably him. As I previously stated on this very blog, my respect for Villeneuve was deeply conflicted with my closely held conviction that the first Blade Runner is laudable precisely because of the things it doesn’t tell the audience, doesn’t explain, and leaves ambiguous and open to interpretation. Its depth lies in its mystery and somewhat abstract approach to an otherwise simplistic narrative. It’s no surprise this approach wasn’t popular at the time, and continues to be debated among film critics to this day.

I was terribly afraid, despite Villeneuve’s dextrous hand at the helm, there would be a massive exposition dump somewhere in Blade Runner 2049, explaining away gargantuan volumes of plot devices and character motivations from the original movie, effectively destroying everything that made it great. I vehemently avoided any promotional material after the initial teaser trailer, because I wanted to go into the new film cold, no idea of what exactly to expect.

Imagine my surprise upon first viewing the 2049, realizing the abstract concepts from the first movie have mostly been abandoned in favor of a far more straightforward and less nebulous storytelling method, and from the patient start to the unusually optimistic end, the notional mysteries from Ridley Scott’s original film are rarely referenced and safely allowed to remain unexplained. There’s even a scene in which one character proposes an idea to another which could serve as an expository mechanism for something from the first film, yet this is left hanging for a moment before being brushed aside with the feeling that these ideas, this very discussion is irrelevant to the story at hand.

Out of the gate, I appreciated 2049’s ownership of its story, confidence in its approach to that story, and general lack of what I’d describe as cynical filmmaking tropes. Again, like Schönberg said, true art isn’t meant for everyone and by that token 2049 flat out assumes you’re into the sort of vice it’s slinging, and doesn’t even try to placate a wider audience. I loved this about the movie. I haven’t the slightest clue how Villeneuve got a studio to sign off on this approach without adding a plucky side-kick, laugh-a-minute slapstick, or overblown fantastical action sequences, but somehow the bastard grabbed that gem. It’s a movie that’s just trying to be what it is, it doesn’t give a fuck about your politics, your fandoms, your capacity to be offended, and it doesn’t much give a damn about you if romantic comedies are more your speed. From start to finish, this movie comfortably inhabits its own skin without any pandering whatsoever. Even fans of the original film aren’t really catered in any particular way. It’s goddamn amazing to see that sort of integrity in a modern, high budget movie.

Blade Runner 2049 continues the tale of its progenitor, set exactly thirty years afterward. The world is said to have suffered an event called the Blackout, in which most electronic technology was damaged beyond repair, causing digitally stored data to be lost, and some technological regression has occurred as a result. Nexus-6 androids are said to have been scrapped after various malfunctions and uprisings, possibly themselves being the cause of the Blackout, and a corporation run by mega-mogul Niander Wallace later created a new model of androids who apparently have no capacity for free will. Many older models have gone into hiding or on the run however, and thus special squads of bounty hunters still called blade runners are tasked with finding and “retiring” them. The movie follows an android blade runner created to hunt his own kind, Officer KD6-3.7, as he stumbles upon a mysterious clue which could have dangerous repercussions.

While its approach to storytelling differs significantly from its predecessor, 2049 remains a retread of certain material from the previous movie, for instance it’s still set in the dystopian futuristic world of that film, and the story also involves a fair bit of existential quandary, ruminations on human nature, and moral imperatives. It’s a reboot through and through, which builds a sense of atmosphere just as effectively as the original film, but also exists as a reputably well-made film in its own right. Blade Runner, the original, remains my favorite film of all time, so please appreciate the gravity of my admission when I confidently say that 2049 is a better movie.

It’s better because it is far less ambiguous, functions more fluently as a cinematic story, and features thematic elements which effectively translate throughout the plot without turning into fluffy schmaltz, yet still offers contemplative commentary on the human condition, potentially leading its audience to speculate for years on end. While the meditative facet remains strong, we syllogistically have far more coherent story here than the first movie. Odd that ambiguity is what makes the original Blade Runner great for me, yet the lack of it is what makes this new movie equally triumphant. Either way 2049 manages to be its own, different experience while also remaining familiar.

As Officer K follows the trail of evidence, we’re given glimpses of the world around him, once again getting small suggestions that no one wants to live on Earth anymore and that life in “the colonies” is preferable to the polluted, over-populated streets of this overused world. At the same time, it’s cool to see the film sticking to its guns as a follow-up to Blade Runner; Pan-Am still exists in this futuristic dystopia, Atari apparently remains a major manufacturer of electronics, wireless communications seem to be relatively scarce. The world has also progressed somewhat, even since the Blackout, holograms and A.I. are now more common, security and intelligence services now enjoy the convenience of surveillance drones, some cars can still fly but look slick compared to the older models. The level of detail and nuance paid to the production design is breathtaking in maintaining the flavor of the film’s world.

Of course this is aided incredibly by the fact that 2049 is fucking beautiful. CGI and inventive set designs blend wonderfully with practical effects, creating a wonderful sense of immersion. A romantic scene particularly has one of the most memorable effects shots I’ve ever seen. Dirty, polluted, over-populated cities have never looked this spectacular, expansive grub farms and endless fields of solar arrays are somehow hypnotic. Roger Deakins has several decades of cinematography under his belt, so it’s no surprise he’s earned every goddamn ounce of that Academy Award. Aesthetically, you’ll have a tough time finding a more seamless film out there.

There’s some terrific casting as well, with Canadian heartthrob Ryan Gosling in the lead role which, despite some hilarious gags to the contrary out there on the mimetic internets, does in fact require a great deal of subtlety and skill from him as a performer, and he handles the material marvelously. Ana De Armas also stars in the unusual role of K’s holographic girlfriend Joi, a concept which I found slightly uncomfortable at first, but some awesome writing on the part of this character and the way her presence affects K’s arc unexpectedly makes her massively relevant compared to romantic female characters in most movies. Jared Leto flashes his beautiful smug face at us, ironically as egomaniacal industrialist Niander Wallace, neither Lennie James nor Dave Bautista hang around quite long enough to suit me in their cameos but their presence is soothing regardless, Halt And Catch Fire fans will appreciate Mackenzie Davis’ mere existence, and the always elegant Robin Wright appears as K’s superior officer. For good measure, we get short glimpses of veterans Harrison Ford, Edward James Olmos, and Sean Young. Undercelebrated up-and-comer Carla Juri also stars as a kindhearted memory crafter, who helps create artificial histories for replicants.

If we’re talking badass casting though, hands down, Dutch actress Sylvia Hoeks positively dominates as Niander Wallace’s left-hand replicant acolyte Luv. This woman steals the fucking show for me, and I could not imagine how uncultured a motherfucker I must’ve been to have never seen any of her films before this. I’m not quite sure what it is, but she seems to hit that stride of violent femininity almost perfectly without even coming near cliché territory. Luv is my favorite and, I would argue, the most interesting character in the film. In addition to adding some much needed sense of menace to the plot momentum, Luv is written somewhat unconventionally despite being a strong woman, avoiding that flash-and-thunder spectacle most screenwriters just can’t resist, she displays a range of behavior as the movie progresses, some times conflicting, yet relentlessly driven in her purpose. Where K, in many respects, is simply doing his job, Luv seems to truly, unquestionably believe in what she is doing. I also found it interesting that Joi is named after an emotion with almost no negative connotations, meaning pure elation. Whereas Luv’s name is synonymous with a passionate, wild, chaotic mix of difficult to control complexes of emotion, sensations, and compulsions.

Luv’s name and personality reminded me of a line from Catullus;“I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask. I do not know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.”

I think primarily, the most poignant thing I can tell you about this movie is you might not enjoy it as much as me. It’s very similar to the original film in that manner. It’s science fiction to the core, not swinging too far in either direction, science or fiction respectively, sitting comfortably in that niche and playing to people who are also comfortable right there. In an effort to avoid any direct spoilers, I’ll try to leave my general assessment at that, depending on who you are, you’ve as much a chance to be bored as be mystified and intrigued by this movie. I fucking love this movie, but I’m also not some heckling hipster who wants mainstream audiences to get fucked so I can regress myself back to Shakespearean times where I can head to the local theatre house, buy a tankard of ale and quartroun loaf of oat bread, and watch the players act out the most recently published archaic comedy. I feel just as strongly about this as I do the first Blade Runner, if you don’t enjoy 2049, well I actually could totally see why. It isn’t made for everyone. It’s not quite trying to entertain, or dazzle, or impress, merely trying to tell its own story in the best conceivable way.

Blade Runner 2049 it seems, in the most apropos way, is the rarest sort of movie possible; a film with a wonderful array of talent behind it, an enormous budget to back this up, and a wide net of distribution, but almost no conceit to reach anyone but its target audience. A wondrous, beautiful example of cinematic artistry potentially sold with knowledge that their return on investment would not be entirely achieved, a story both tragic and inspiring. Again, I’ve absolutely no idea how Denis Villenueve managed to get the producers to back this uncompromising approach to such a well-funded movie, but I’m very glad he did.

2049 spins its narrative with a minimum amount of overt exposition, air-tight production design, conceptually interesting visuals, and a great cast of performers, which all gels to offer one of the most memorable, thoughtful cinema-going experiences I’ve enjoyed in the past ten years. There’s a darkness and restlessness to this advanced world, both breathtaking and disturbing, as much grit and garbage as there is streamlined technology and triumphant wonder. Much of this aesthetic filters beautifully into the story Villenueve is trying to tell us. The visuals seem as finely tuned as the editing itself, weaving itself cumulatively into the associative memory of the audience, seeming to hit beats more common of an atmospheric horror movie than a futuristic sci-fi film. Perhaps that’s why I’ve found it so haunting.

My apologies if all of this is a little too generalized for your liking, I could understand if so. As with many worthwhile forms of entertainment, I recommend seeing it and deciding for yourself. I mean, I’m just some asshole on the internet whose noodles are getting cold. Some times I wonder what the hell I’m even talking about, myself. So have a kick-ass day, dudes, and carpe noctem.

               侍   headless                         

[davidmann95]

Whatever his current timeline (though I think they did a genuinely good job of combining it all), I am glad that even if it took them only 30ish years to restore it all we have a lot of the fun Silver and Bronze-Age stuff from Kara returning in full to Utopia Krypton to Superman seemingly having cosmic adventures down to weird villains. And if we're lucky, a bit of the New52 in him to still kick slumlords and bankers' butts when needed. Are you glad they're putting "fun" stuff back in Superman?

Anonymous said: I don’t understand how Superman’s new history is somehow less confusing than just using the Hypertime “it all happened” explanation. I guess the DC Rebirth meta story doesn’t work unless you’re super focused on what continuity has been lost or preserved, but I can’t believe we’re getting a whole arc which is basically an illustrated wikipedia entry. 

Some contradictory opinions here; I already laid out the new timeline as best I could, but I didn’t especially go into what I actually thought of it myself.

So far I like what we’ve gotten well enough (albeit largely thanks to the contributions of books outside Action Comics itself, filtering in some Silver Age and Morrison JLA material). We’re basically back to Secret Origin again, which in spite of my feelings on it was hardly unexpected; one of Geoff Johns’ perks for being the big boss, I guess. Beyond that I do appreciate that aside from a few important ‘milestone’ moments they’ve left most of it up to reader interpretation (do you want him to have gone on Superboy adventures with the Legion, or that he went on pseudo Golden Age adventures before revealing himself to the world? Nothing stopping you. Were his early days more like the Animated Series for instance, or the Silver Age? Your choice), while leaving just enough structure to it that it doesn’t feel as nebulous and ill-defined as the ‘anything goes’ period of around 2004-2009.

But Morrison did it better.

Now, that’s not entirely fair. Grant Morrison tends to do everything better; that’s what makes him Grant Morrison. But it feels particularly pointed with the comparison between this and his Action Comics - that did the same basic thing, except it also incorporated an updated version of Actual Original Superman into its timeline, it implied a few more turning points of real personal meaning while also leaving more space to play with, and most importantly, there was an actual character arc to what he did. This new take may have lots of crazy stuff happen to Superman over the years, but the impression is that he was 100% ‘on’ from the moment he put on the suit and has more-or-less stayed that way ever since, whereas the version Morrison gave us changed and fucked up and grew while still remaining recognizably Superman every step of the way. Not that there weren’t problems - the suit, the Wonder Woman relationship - but I figure a competent team could’ve gotten him back in a decent suit and married to Lois again within two years tops if they’d put their minds to it, and then we’re all but where we are now with no retcons needed. The only reason I’m particularly happy DC didn’t just do that instead of this is because I’m ending up pretty fond of Jon, and especially the potential of what could be done with him once the talent handling him tops out above “average, I guess” (and also because now it’s more likely we’ll get the real costume back).

The obvious counterargument would be that Morrison had 19 issues to do that, whereas Jurgens had the same job to do in 2, plus a plot in the modern day. But again, Morrison’s done that before, and infinitely better.

Last Rites had the same basic task: establish an “it all counts” history for one of the two biggest superheroes in the midst of larger cosmic goings-on, and there’s just no comparison. In theory it shouldn’t have stacked up; you wanna talk about Wikipedia entries, this was in large part two issues of “this happened, then this, then that,” stuffing in tremendously more Batman stuff than The New World did in covering Superman’s history (the first half of The New World largely getting blown on reexplaining how Krypton died probably didn’t help on that front). But in practice, the moments presented, and the focus given to a handful of crucial ones, not only gave a far better sense of the heroes’ world as lived-in and authentic, but also conveyed how Batman had reacted to and been changed by his experiences. The New World might articulate that some major stories happened, but I couldn’t have less of a clue of how any of it is supposed to have impacted Superman, or what he thinks of any of it, or why any of it is important other than the death and Jon’s birth. With Last Rites meanwhile, if that was the only Batman comic I’d ever read I’d have a pretty well-rounded sense of the distinct eras of his history, what events were significant, and what all of it meant to him. Plus its present-day plot served to provide real tension and underline the ongoing themes, as opposed to repeating “I feel funny about this” a few times and fucking capping it off with more fucking enigmatic speechifying from fucking Mr. fucking Oz as if anyone on the fucking planet still gives a fuck about him after a fucking year of this “lurking in the shadows and sprouting bad writers’ ideas of ominous dialogue” fuckery.

So, execution-wise? In spite of one or two nice scenes, mostly about as half-assed as the rest of the post-Rebirth Action Comics. In terms of the foundation it lays down? Probably about as good as we could’ve hoped for given the circumstances, a more-than-workable base that other creators will hopefully build and improve on over time.

[katedoesfics]

StrangerVille | Chapter 6

Twenty-four hours ago, it was just another ordinary night, and Jayson was on an ordinary date, and to any outsider, he lived an ordinary life, just as he always had, and up until now, he thought he would live and die an ordinary man and nothing more.

Tonight, however, he was crouching behind some thorny bushes with a guy he never in a million years thought he’d be friends with - a guy who couldn’t look more conspicuous in a black ski mask - and planning their way to break into a heavily guarded secret lab.

“What have I gotten myself into?” Jayson muttered under his breath, refusing to look at Erwin as he fidgeted with his black gloves.

“Hey,” Erwin snapped. “You wanted my help, right? I told you to wear gloves! We can’t be leaving our fingerprints everywhere. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right and not get our asses thrown in jail!”

“Ladies do love a bad boy.”

Erwin rolled his eyes. “Is that what Siobhan said on your hot date?” He made a crude gesture with his hips and Jayson slapped the back of his head. Erwin rubbed the back of his head, then pointed through the bushes to a hole in the fence.

“That’s our in. I had a friend cut the fence between shifts. But they’ll be coming up this way soon, so we need to hurry. Once they realize it’s been cut, security will swarm this place and we’ll be done for.”

They hurried through the hole in the fence, then kept to the wall of the building, avoiding the sweeping lights that scanned the premises for potential intruders. They kept in the shadows, away from the cameras as they hurried around and into the busted door in the back of the building.

Except for a few emergency lights, the lab was dim. The air was warm and stuffy, dust already settling on the untouched counters and furniture. Jayson guessed they were in a kitchen of sorts. Chairs and tables were tipped over and scattered throughout the room, and they picked their way carefully across and through the door on the other side.

They made their way down the hall. Most of the doors to other rooms were blown in, and as they passed, they found bathrooms and closets. At the end, the hall opened up into a much larger room where several chambers stood in neat rows, their glasses blown in and shattered. More tables, desks, and chairs were tipped over or broken completely, and books and pages were scattered all across the room.

“This place is creepy,” Erwin said. “Way creepier than I thought.”

Jayson looked around them, then made his way to a desk. Pages were scattered across the wood top and her perused through them. Among the pages were various journal entries, data and formulas, even photographs. He picked up the overturned chair to look at the pages more closely.

He found a list of all the names of people with keycards and specific levels of clearance. He pocketed the page along with some images that seemed noteworthy. Some contained specific lab members working on various experiments. A couple pictures seemed to be of a strange plant in chambers somewhere deep in the lab. Jayson recognized the same plant in a picture that seemed to be taken outside of the lab.

He studied the image for a moment more; something about it seemed familiar. Erwin peered over his shoulder, then jammed a finger into the picture.

“I’ve seen a couple of those plants,” he said. “There’s a bunch near the trailer park.”

Jayson folded the picture and pocketed with the other bits of evidence he gathered. Erwin was right; he had seen the plants near the trailer park, too. Could that explain the way the people there were acting?

With nothing more at the desk to look at, Jayson and Erwin continued to wander the first floor of the lab. They came across a large, steel door that was securely locked. A panel to the right indicated that it could only be opened by a keycard.

“We’re gonna need that keycard,” Erwin said. “Do you know anyone with the right access?”

“I know a couple of the military guys,” Jayson said. “Casual drinking buddies.”

“Do you think they’d give you a card?”

“Unlikely,” Jayson said. “But, I can at least talk to them. See what kind of info I can get from them.” He shrugged. “It’s a start.”

Erwin nodded. “Maybe if we find something real good, you can use it as blackmail.”

Jayson hesitated. “Sure. I’ll ruin someone’s life after I’ve exhausted all my other options.”

“What do you care if you’re ruining their life when innocent people are being fucked over?”

“We don’t know for sure what’s going on yet,” Jayson pointed out. “No sense jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”

Erwin sighed. “Fine. Not like there’s anything I can do about it, anyway.” He turned and walked away from the sealed door. “See? You’re already proving to be more useful than I am.”

They continued to make their way through the lab, checking every room they could get into. Most of the rooms had various equipment that lay broken or abandoned. Jayson snapped a few pictures with his phone, hoping at the very least one of the scientists could identify them and explain what they were used for.

It started to seem like they wouldn’t find much else in the lab - not without going deeper, and they couldn’t do that without the keycard - but Erwin’s wary voice pulled Jayson to him, and he peered over Erwin’s shoulder at some photographs in his hands.

Ted Roswell, StrangerVille Mayor, standing outside of the newly constructed lab some years ago. He was a younger man in the photo, and he was grinning, shaking the hand of someone who could have only been the lead scientist at the lab and the head of the military group tasked with guarding the lab from curious onlookers.

Erwin flipped through the images he had picked up. There were a few more images of Ted in the lab, in places that seemed to be beyond the sealed door. Jayson studied the images carefully, looking for any clues in the background of the photos, but found nothing more than the smiling mayor.

Behind these images, they found various newspaper clippings. Jayson examined them, reading them out loud.

“The military arrives in StrangerVille! Residents rejoice as a new base opens near the crater. The City Council welcomes the opportunity of new jobs for the struggling town.”

“New Era for Strangerville! A high-tech super-science facility is being constructed in the crater. While residents are eager to modernize the town, the amount of secrecy surrounding the project has some people on edge.”

“A local resident claims that after he found his lost cat outside the crater, it became unreasonably afraid of his houseplants and wouldn’t stop hidding until they were all removed from his property.”

“After the incident, there have been reports of bizarre plants growing around town. No one has been able to figure out why they are spreading so quickly. Efforts to eradicate them have been fruitless; for each sprout removed, three grow back it its place.”

Behind the clippings were more photographs, and Erwin flipped to these, revealing a lab in ruins. It looked just about as it did now, with a few noteworthy exceptions. For one, and the most obvious, was the sealed door. In the images, it was clearly destroyed. Someone had come in - perhaps shortly after the lab was condemned - and fixed the door, making it functional again.

“Just to keep out annoying conspiracy theorists,” Jayson said.

“Or keep something else locked in,” Erwin said.

Jayson bit his lip. Erwin flipped to the final picture. It was dark and blurry, but they could easily make out the same plants they saw in other images. Only this one appeared to be much bigger. Huge. And… alive?

Jayson took the photo out of Erwin’s hand and peered at it, then glanced at the sealed door. Perhaps they were keeping something locked in after all.

Erwin looked up at Jayson nervously. “What the fuck is that?”

“I don’t know,” Jayson said. “But we need to get that keycard and find out.”

“Are you crazy?” Erwin hissed. “Whatever that thing is, its down there, and it’ll fucking make a midnight snack out of us!”

“Roswell’s involved in this,” Jayson said. “He must have created this… thing. This experiment. And it went terribly wrong. And either he won’t destroy it… or he can’t. So instead they’re covering it up. But how long do you think they can keep this up? How long until this thing destroys the entire town?”

“Even more reason to keep that damn door closed,” Erwin muttered.

“We need to confirm that there is something down there that they’re trying to hide,” Jayson said. “Once we have proof of that, we can expose Roswell and put a stop to all of this.”

“Assuming it doesn’t eat us.”

“Are you really backing out now?”

“This is suicide,” Erwin hissed. “We’d literally be walking into our own graves.”

“That’s why you got a bodyguard, right?”

Erwin rolled his eyes, but a shout from outside the lab brought them out of their argument. They moved quickly through the lab, checking the perimeter before stepping through the broken door and darting between the security lights and crawling through the hole in the fence once more. They crept low in the bushes until they were down the hill and out of sight, then darted through the dark streets until they reached the center of town.

At the bar, a few of the military personnel must have been alerted to a disturbance at the lab, and they hurried out quickly. Erwin instinctively stepped behind Jayson in an attempt to keep out of sight, and Jayson watched as Kenny brought up the rear in a disinterested manner. He caught Jayson’s gaze for a moment, his eyes narrowing on him, before he turned his back on them and slid into one of the vehicles as it took off down the street toward the lab.

With the soldiers gone, Erwin stepped out from behind Jayson, and Jayson looked down on him with a disapproving shake of his head.

“Hey,” Erwin barked. “That’s why I hired you as my bodyguard!”