I dunno maybe I'm weird but the hair on his legs makes me feral. Thighs!
You're NOT weird.
I love fuzzy legs! Give me more thigh, Dyl! All the drooling will have me dehydrated, but I can find something to drink somewhere ;)
I'm lucky enough to have a hub who is almost identically hairy. His legs also look almost exactly like Dylan's. Actually, stick Hub's face on here and it could be him.
This is the sequel to Weakness, the first Dio oneshot I posted here. Lord knows how long I had this thing in my files. I think it was 9 or 10 days? I had writer’s block and college had me in a chokehold, so I lost track of time. I was actually thinking about how I should end this for days now, and here we are. I rushed the ending, to be honest, so I still hope you guys enjoy it somehow.
warning: mentions of blood, minor swearing, huge spoilers for Part 3, another very long oneshot, and a lot of references to the oneshot preceding this
Note: I deliberately used Dio as his human side and DIO as the current one with the insane god complex.
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Dio Brando—no, DIO stood at the peak of humanity; transcending its mortal existence entirely. The moment he received his Stand from an old crone, the idea of anyone opposing the charismatic and powerful vampire was inconceivable. Foolish, even, in the eyes of his most loyal followers. The man couldn't care less for the corpses and blood that trailed after his every step nor for those who swore undying fealty with lips pressed to his shoes in a kiss of fear and reverence. Every word that rolled off his tongue is law and grace combined, akin to religious faith with its own avid believers and devotees. A mere touch is denied and unattainable, something that no one could even work hard for, unless it was to satiate his more carnal desires. If anything, men and women either feared or admired him. On more than one occasion, it was both. A god among men, they say.
So, why is one measly photograph enough to chill the blood in his veins and falter the confidence in his stride?
Enya watched her master with obvious curiosity. Her fingers gripped her cane tighter the longer DIO stared at the developed image. The old woman assumed that her lord, almighty and fearsome, stewed in cold rage. Never had she seen him cower from terror nor lose his composure. It was unimaginable. Enya discarded the notion and did not bother to ask questions. No one dares question him, after all.
His fingers curled, knuckles discreetly trembling from the force, and nearly crumpled the poor thing in his hand. To the untrained eye, his focus remained on the two prominent figures of Jotaro Kujo, a teenager donning a high school uniform with the addition of his unusual cap and a large chain hanging on the collar, and the latter's grandfather Joseph Joestar whose clothes resembled that of some human adventurer—Indiana Jones, was it? DIO didn't care to know and never will. He gave little thought to those men. Not even the two Stand users that left his ranks and became traitors once the Joestars took the implanted fleshbuds off their foreheads.
What caught his attention was the face of a woman who seemed to be in her early twenties. She stood next to Jotaro with her arms crossed and her gaze focused on the horizon. The grim smile and the hardened resolve in her eyes made her look more alive in the photo than what DIO wanted. The tension in her expression contradicted the ease in her posture, marked by her lax shoulders and dainty fingers paused midway from drumming against her arm. She brought unwanted memories of blood and weakness, ones he thought he buried long ago after a century of isolation.
It was you. The same eyes, nose, lips, skin, hair—even the damn way you held yourself. The glaring similarities between the woman in his memories and the woman engraved in the film rattled him to the core. DIO never believed in the supernatural before he became one himself. Although, he thought that reincarnation was an idiotic concept born from those who cannot accept that death and the afterlife were the end of all things. Yet, there you are; a painful reminder of his former humanity. The turmoil that wrapped itself around his mind added to the phantom throb of his heart from when he was still human.
His glare intensified, easing his grip on the spirit photograph. DIO doesn't want to alarm Enya nor any of his underlings. He loathed appearing weak and undignified; giving them an opportunity to ambush him should he let his guard down.
The photo fluttered next to a broken camera, smashed to pieces with a chop of his hand, on the table with a huff from the imposing man. Moonlight spilled through the windows and bathed him in its luminescence; his shadow swallowed by the darkened areas of the room where the light would never reach. The fury burned bright in his eyes, yet Enya noticed something else—an emotion indecipherable and foreign. She never had the chance to mull about it, because DIO turned on his heel and walked towards the stairs with an unnatural grace and elegance in his gait.
“It seems that fate is upon us,” he told no one in particular; his smooth, honeyed voice carried across the expanse of the lobby. "I shall retire to my room for the night. Do not disturb me."
DIO didn't need to say any more. The underlying threat in his words told Enya everything. If anything, this decision served to confuse the witch doctor more. Her master always ridiculed the Joestars, either with a scoff or a mocking laugh, in their quest every time he checked their progress to send in the next Stand user. Tonight, he barely uttered an insult nor a snide comment. She wordlessly watched him disappear around the bend, then sighed.
"Oh, Lord Dio… What troubles you so?"
The heavy thud of a closed door echoed in DIO's ears; magnified by the lifeless expanse of his room. His feet absent-mindedly led himself to sit on one of the armchairs across a small table where a golden goblet accompanied a bottle of wine. With a practiced motion, his fingers curled around the stem of the goblet as he poured himself a drink with his other hand. His vacant gaze remained on the red liquor flowing into his cup; lost in memories and possibilities that tortured him for a century.
DIO never did forgive himself for allowing you to die.
He had his chance. He could have turned you into a vampire like himself when he held you in that castle. He could have given you an opportunity to live life with him; his abiding presence a gift to compensate for the time he left you after he gained immortality. He could have given you unimaginable freedom—to see civilization evolve and change before your eyes, to live in a time where you two would be the only constants in the world. DIO could have taken you with him during that lonesome century to be beside him when the coffin was opened. He could see the silent admiration in your gaze if you were to travel the world with him as he searched for a way to attain Heaven. Knowing that you had never traveled outside of London, DIO would have gladly taken you to anywhere you wanted and wished. You could have been the one sitting across from him at this very moment. He could imagine a thick tome in your hands and the curious gleam in your eyes as you carefully flipped pages, as if they would break under the slightest pressure of your touch. You had never held a book before since girls were rarely educated then, and DIO was certain you would have loved to read.
If it wasn't for the fact that he respected your dying wish, DIO could have lived the rest of his life with you.
The bottom of the bottle harshly slammed against the wooden surface. Hairline cracks crept across the glass bottle due to his vice grip, knuckles turning pale from the force. His jaw clenched, teeth gnashed and bared, as he brought the rim of the goblet to his lips. Your disappointed frown flashed across his mind; the faint memory of your hands gently taking away the bottle from his grasp consumed his senses. DIO could feel your fingers brush against his wrist as you pulled him to the spare room in your house; the one which once belonged to your parents. The slur in his voice was painfully obvious, yet you never pried for the reasons that caused him to drink so much. That soft smile still graced your features, even when you faced his alcohol-induced outbursts of rage and annoyance. It burned itself into his mind even after all these years. DIO brought the untouched wine back to the table as fingers buried themselves in his hair.
He couldn't even bring himself to drink away his thoughts of you.
"Useless," he muttered, tipping his head back against the cushion. He closed his eyes with a grunt. A thunderous roar shook the floors of the castle as he slaughtered zombies who dared laid their greedy hands on your corpse. Blood—your blood—smeared his skin, stains that still haunted him for eternity, and it was everywhere. His hands desperately reached for you, your dead body clutched by that damnable blond who accompanied Jonathan, as he fell from the balcony—
"I, DIO, being pathetic and weak?" He spat, feeling pinpricks of pain blossoming in his clenched fists. "Forget your humanity. Forget Dio Brando. Forget her."
DIO found himself spending the remnants of the night wallowing in memories of you, until the light of dawn peeked through his curtains.
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Your smile greeted him the following night.
In the solace of his room, DIO traced a sharp nail against the photo that held your beaming expression: eyes alight with laughter and lips pulled into that godforsaken smile. Your fingers brushed your mouth, paused in the middle of hiding the aforementioned smile behind your hand. You shared the same name as her. Two cameras lie broken on the table along with a photo—disregarded and forgotten—of the Joestar group riding camels through the Saudi Arabian desert. He didn’t care for the others laughing beside you.
What mattered was the bitter throb of his heart that shouldn’t even be possible for someone who claimed to have triumphed over his humanity.
"Dio!" He could hear your scandalized gasp ring clear in the country air. A hand covered the smile on your lips as you laughed out loud, brushing off the strands of hair that stuck to your face. Water soaked the cuffs of your sleeves and your collar, but you didn’t mind. “I can’t believe you did that!”
Neither did Dio, but there he was: water from the nearby stream trickling down his fingers and a smug smirk stretching from one ear to another. He huffed, shaking the water off his hands, “You forget that I’m not some stuck-up aristocrat who can’t have fun.”
“True,” you hummed, wiping your hands on your skirt. “Then again, it has been a while since we spent time together like this.”
You lifted your apron to wipe off the water on your face when a handkerchief softly rubbed against your cheek. Dio, who was surprised at his own gentle ministrations, continued to dab the water off as if it was routine; his thumb ghosting your heated skin through the thin cloth. The scarlet flush blooming across your cheeks and tinting your ears made his smirk widen, if that was possible. You sputtered your gratitude, yet adamantly tried to evade the touch of his handkerchief as you held your apron in an iron grip. Dio could only laugh at your expense, his heart thundering and his own cheeks the slightest bit warm.
A resounding crash stole him away from the memory. The bright, blue sky and its cotton-wisp clouds faded from view; the bleak, ornate walls of his room in their place. The light of the sun was replaced with streaks of moonlight slipping through the cracks of his curtains and cascading down the floor. It was only then did DIO realize the crinkled edge of the photograph in his hand, the glittering shards scattered on the ground, and the wine that dripped from the wall to pool around the fragments of what once was a glass bottle. The quiet of the room was broken by three, quick knocks and a voice asking the man of his condition with an unmistakable, underlying tone of concern. DIO recognized the voice to be one of his most loyal subordinates, Vanilla Ice.
“What happened? Is something the matter, Lord Dio?”
A low growl rumbled in his chest. DIO closed his eyes, stopping time and pocketing your photo in one fluid motion. The World picked up one of the broken cameras and threw it out the window while the vampire stood over the Joestar photograph as if nothing happened. Images of you from his memories and your reincarnation occupied his thoughts; your photo burning a hole in his pant pocket. When time resumed, DIO swiped the photo off the table and thrusted the memories of his past to the darkest recesses of his mind.
DIO would leave you be for now if it meant he could take you back by his side in the end.
“Nothing that concerns you, Vanilla Ice. Come in, I have new orders for Enya.”
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She’s not you. She will never be you.
But you want her to be, DIO’s traitorous subconscious whispered. This is ridiculous. The man has never even met your reincarnation. He never spent time with you in this life, barely even a ghost of a conversation between you two, yet he longs for your company more than anything. His rational thoughts and sentiments warred against each other, vying for his final decision on what to do with you. The moment DIO saw you, bleeding and bruised on the stairs below, his heart bled and his shoulders nearly hunched from the pain. His rational side of the argument was silenced and shackled by the chains of past memories that bound him to you. He ached to take you into his arms and whisper reassurances in your ears, that he will give you all the comfort and security he could never give you before.
He couldn’t. Not with Polnareff leaning into your touch; his arm slung over your shoulders and head dangerously close to yours. Not with his blood simmering under his skin and his nails piercing through his palm, blood slowly seeping through the fingers of his clenched fist. The fight in your eyes hid the intense worry for your wounded comrade—maybe even lover, DIO bitterly mused—as you pressed your side flush against the silver-haired man’s battered, stumbling body. You looked at DIO as if he was the gum stuck on the sole of your shoe; as if he was the vilest, most putrid thing that ever graced the Earth. The tension and anger twisted your expression into a scowl, brows furrowed and lips dipped into that all-too familiar frown.
DIO had so many questions to ask you; so many memories to share in the vain hope that you would sympathize with him and join him. One look in your eyes, the same indiscernible emotion flickering to life when you tended to his bruises before he was adopted by George Joestar, and DIO knew he would lose this battle with you just like all those years ago. He could feel your fingers wrapped around his arm again; the cold cloth pressed to his bruised cheek; the soft smile he hated and adored at the same time. White hot rage bubbled and coursed through his veins. His jaw clenched and his nails dug deeper into the scarred flesh of his palms, drops of blood dripping towards the floor. His heart pounded against his chest as if desperate to flee into your embrace.
“In your fucking dreams,” you spat, scowl deepening and shifting your hold on Polnareff. “I’d sooner die than join you.”
Phantom daggers planted themselves into DIO’s heart, violently thrashing in its cage, as the image of you in his memories clashed against your battle-worn figure. Remnants of your smile adorned your lips followed by the laughter that echoed in his ears; the teasing lilt reserved solely for Dio. Your eyes glowed with life, brimming with joy and love that he realized too late. Your outstretched hand implored him to take it; to cool the swell of his bruises and wipe the blood off his wounds; to run across the fields once more before he had to return to his studies; to spend another day with you in Victorian London before he found that stone mask. Then there was you of the present, breathing ragged and gaze lit with spite and abhorrence for everything DIO is. You struggled to carry Polnareff’s weight from how much you leaned on him. Blood matted your hair and a long scratch marred your cheek. He noticed your leg wobble, threatening to let you and the other man pathetically fall to the floor. Your hands gripped Polnareff closer to you, whether this was an intended or subconscious action was beyond DIO.
He still yearned for you, despite all of this.
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His pained screams disrupted the once peaceful night of Cairo, Egypt.
“What?!” DIO felt the cracks viciously trail from his leg to his head, split in half similar to how Jonathan caught him off-guard on that fateful day. Humiliation, shame, disbelief, and a storm of emotions raged in his heart; eyes wide and lips parted from the turbulence wracking his body. Jotaro watched, heated glare shadowed under the brim of his hat, as DIO’s screams reached the heavens. The stars joined in the spectacle, mockingly bright under the torturous pain and suffering of the once invincible vampire.
“I-Impossible!” DIO warbled, choking and gurgling from the blood pooling in his mouth. “I… am DIO! I… am...”
Something in his gut coiled; whispers of his mind urged him to look in the direction of the harbinger of his demise. His gape drifted from the stars to Jotaro, but his attention was not on the high school delinquent. At least ten feet away from the two, you leaned on the railing of the bridge with trembling legs. One of your hands clutched the wound on your left side; a wound DIO inflicted himself. He clearly remembered the triumph and glee that dulled his senses; the swing of the stop sign that would bring the Joestar bloodline to an end; the surprise shifting into panic when you jumped in front of Jotaro with the intent to protect him. In his haste, DIO flicked his wrist and grazed your side with the edge of the stop sign.
He once thought fate favored him. That the decision to cut off his head and to take Jonathan’s body was fate allowing him to live another century. That your absence was a weakness that fate had nipped in the bud for him; that your reborn soul was another chance fate had given him to atone for his mistakes. So, why? Why would fate pit you against him, to relive that cursed night when Dio had taken your life in front of his very eyes? Were you fated to ally with the Joestars and die for them? Another corpse among the others that followed the wake of the Joestar lineage, all just to defeat him?
DIO couldn’t kill you, as much as he despised the sentiment.
A fool. He is and always will be a fool when it comes to you. Dio will always want you in each lifetime, and it pained DIO to admit it in his final moments. His heart lurched and lodged itself in his throat; the fire in his blood scorching his skin and insides. His hand reached out to you, just like before, but you’re not dying this time. He knew that, if the afterlife actually existed, he will never be able to join you. DIO saw your eyes widen as you took a step back, farther from his grasp. Another bloodcurdling scream rang in the night; dying gurgles heard only by the two people who brought him to his death.
This was a trend on instagram called #faceyourart but I thought it would be fun to bring it around simblr. Post 9 faces of sims you have 100% created (not born in game) to spot similarities and to see your style.
One of my former colleagues pushed me into joining Discord because someone created a network/channel/whatever-the-word-is for current and former employees of the company I got laid off from a couple months ago. I had known about Discord and the company employee/alumni whatever, but I didn't know that the latter included a "fur babies" channel for pet pics, similar to the Slack channel we had in the company. What can I say? A bitch is a sucker for cute animal pics.
i don’t really have anyone to tell this to so I’m, uh, posting it to my tumblr. I’ll be talking about grief and loss, so I’m going to tag it appropriately but that’s a heads up if anyone stumbles across this. I’ll go on my computer to try and successfully add the read more feature.
so today I took our family dog, Wallace, to the vet for a recheck for a previous ER visit. we began talking about his arthritis and the vet used the phrase “keeping him comfortable.”
the first time I heard that phrase was when our first dog, Princess, had cancer spread in her right hind leg. It spread quickly from it’s initial appearance but we still had an additional 5-6 years with her. We recently put her down in August of this year.
I cried during the drive about how that I failed her. i eventually reminded myself that I did the best that I could given the circumstances. I also can’t go back so it doesn’t help anything to hold that association with what I was able to do. It brought up memories of the day we said goodbye. it was kinda shitty but it felt good to let it out. I miss her a lot. She was such a big part of out family and she had such a vivacious personality even at the age of roughly 17.
I’ve been sitting with the idea of getting a picture of her as my first tattoo and in the style of the old school books about botany with figures that denote a specific type. Her portrait would have the figure notation under it with either her name. the idea of the tattoo helps because it’s something to focus on to celebrate miss lady. It’s also a mild act of rebellion because both my parents are very much of the the opinion that tattoos are weird bordering on bad. I’ve also been been seeing a lot of stuff relating grief so here I am adding to it for someone else.
Wallace was in the passenger seat (I can’t get him to sit in the back at all, so I know it puts him in harms way but he loves the passenger seat and hates listening to me) and was probably thinking Aunty is really sad… I dunno what to do. he’s technically my sister’s dog so I’m his Aunty… it’s a silly thing because I’m southeast Asian.
