Yes, it IS a JoJo reference.

A place for some of my JJBA ideas. Mostly yandere stuff. Sensitive and squeamish people be warned. This blog is smut free. I'm an adult. No politics. No activism. Just JoJo. I DO NOT TAKE REQUESTS! I also post my stories under a differnt name on Ao3, Quotev, and Wattpad.

[thornybubbles]

Upcoming Projects part 2: Tattle Bendancy

Currently working on:

Planned projects (no particular order):

Start working on the second chapter for "Dance Macabre" Posted!

More stories using the Picker Wheel method with characters I haven't written for yet. Characters I already have plans for include:

Terrence D’Arby

Hol Horse

Anubis 

Rubber Soul

Devo

Rohan

Whammu

Esidesi

Steely Dan

3. (Since a few people were asking for it) a sequel to the Yandere Santana story.

[thornybubbles]

I'm not dead. Posting something soon!

I haven't written anything in a looooong time and I'm sorry for that. I plan to post something soon. For those of you waiting on a continuation of Dance Macabre, don't worry, I'll get back to that, too. But I want to post something shorter simply because I want to do something to get me back into the writing mood again. So hang in there and continue to be patient. I'll have something for you all soon.

[thornybubbles]

Another silly Stardust Crusaders Imagine...

Imagine you're with the Stardust Crusaders and you're one of the only members that just loves old man Joseph's stupid dad jokes. You've basically become his adopted grandchild.

Imagine getting a minor injury in a Stand battle and Joseph uses his Hamon to heal you. He makes the end of his finger glow and does a perfect imitation of E.T. that has you giggling.

Joseph: "Oooowch!"

You: *bursting into ugly laughter which causes Joseph to laugh along with you.*

It takes him a good ten minutes to actually heal you because the two of you can take nothing seriously.

Jotaro: *Grumbling under his breath because of the second hand embarrassment of his Grandpa's cringe 80's memes.*

[brightgoat]

jojo's bizarre analog adventure

[la-principessa-della-squadra]

You're a Stand User now

[thornybubbles]

Someone turned JoJo into analog horror and I love it.

[thornybubbles]

Sick Love (Yandere Akira Otoishi x Reader)

**Note: Man, I struggled with this one. I just kept starting and stopping on it and getting increasingly frustrated. I kept finding plot holes and inconsistencies and it was driving me crazy trying to fix them all without completely changing what I was trying to convey. Well it’s done now and I really hope it’s good enough. I did this while taking a break from “Kinder Than Love” because I was struggling with that one too, but don’t worry, I’ll be resuming work on it just as soon as I post this!**

**Another picker wheel story prompt with a character I’ve not written for yet**

Prompt: Darling finds out about yandere's murder/s.

There was a time when the roar of the crowd was enough for Akira. Having all those people looking up at him with amazement, excitement, and awe reserved only for gods was all he needed. The way women looked at him with their eyes filled with tears and desperation as they reached out, aching to touch him, struggling to just be able to feel the fabric of his clothing or even just heat from his body as if that alone would grant them some kind of salvation…it used to be enough to keep him satisfied. 

Not anymore. 

Because THEY weren’t YOU. 

After meeting you, getting to know you, falling for you…

Everything changed. 

Everything felt empty and lifeless when you weren’t involved. 

Even his beloved music sounded dull, generic, and lacked the edge it needed to make him the star he deserved to be. 

But, he started writing songs inspired by his love for you and it launched him into a new popularity almost overnight. He put every ounce of his love and longing into his music and EVERYONE could feel it. At first he feared that the new sound would drive his old fans (what little he had at the time) away. But no. They loved it. Even the critics took notice and raved about how his songs hit harder, felt grittier and more intense than ever before. People were singing along at his performances. They never did that before. His dream of being the greatest rocker the world had ever seen was becoming a reality. And it was all thanks to you!

You had to be some kind of angel. 

HIS ANGEL. 

But it wasn’t until after he gained stardom that he realized how important you were to him. He would be nothing without you. You were the one to put him on the right path and you did it for no reason at all. You wanted no payment and asked for no favors. You did it simply because you cared about him. That’s when he realized he loved you and he could never, ever let you go. He couldn’t let things go back to the way they were without you. Even if he stayed famous, he wouldn’t be able to live without you. He loved you that much. 

But there was one thing that he hated about his relationship with you, and that was the fact that he had to keep it a secret. 

His manager kept going on and on about keeping up appearances. He told Akira that a lot of his fans would be very unhappy if they found out that he was in a relationship. For the sake of his career, he was forced to pretend to be single. Sure. Fine. He could handle that. It was safer for you anyway. Some of his groupies got a little… well… carried away sometimes. If they found out about you, they’d track you down and tear you apart. He couldn’t have that. So for your own safety, it was better that he kept you a secret. 

So maybe pretending he was single was fine when he was in the limelight. He could always make up for it later when he was home and it was just the two of you. 

But what he couldn’t handle…

What he absolutely couldn’t tolerate…

…was his manager telling him to break up with you. 

----

“What do you mean I can’t get married?” Akira demanded, straining to keep his voice from dropping to a growl. 

His manager puffed cigar smoke in his face. 

“Just what I said, Otoishi. You can’t get married. A secret relationship is one thing, but a marriage is much harder to keep under wraps. The media will be all over it!” 

“It’s not like we were gonna throw some big party or anything!” Akira protested. “It was just gonna be a private thing!” 

His manager shook his head. 

“It won’t matter. Someone will find out about it. Someone will talk. Trust me, I’ve been in this industry for a long time and I know how it goes.”

His manager leaned back in his office chair. He took another drag off his cigar before putting it out in the ashtray on his desk. He blew the smoke out and sighed. 

“While we’re on the topic… I really need to talk to you about this relationship of yours.” 

Akira’s eyes narrowed. What else could his manager possibly have to complain about? Wasn’t it bad enough that he was forbidding him from marrying you?

“I think you need to break up with your lover, Otoishi.” 

Akira felt like he’d just been shot. He stood there and stared, dumbfounded at his manager. 

“What… did you say?” he said, voice coming out in a stunned whisper. 

His manager sighed. 

“I know how it is, kid, believe me. You find someone and they’re the love of your life, you can’t live without them, they’re your world, your soulmate, yadda, yadda, freakin’ yadda..” 

Akira could feel his body beginning to tremble with the strain of keeping Red Hot Chili Pepper in check. He was getting angrier the more his manager spoke. 

“...but at the end of the day, your career should come first. Always. First of all, you can’t keep the relationship a secret forever. The only reason I haven’t said anything about it before now is because I figured you would’ve moved on to another lover by now. That’s how it usually goes anyway. In this business the groupies don’t care if you sleep around, just so long as they feel they’ve got a chance. You know what I mean? Second, tying yourself down to one lover is just a hassle. You’re young. You got plenty of time to worry about things like marriage once you’ve got your name out there. You’re already on your way to becoming a superstar, but there’s no reason to hold yourself back. Getting married? Not only will you turn your fans against you, but your spouse will start to get on your nerves. One minute you’re in domestic bliss, the next thing you know they’ll be wantin’ more jewelry or cars or whatever, then they’ll be on your ass about stayin’ out all night, or goin’ on tour and leaving them all by themselves…. It’ll turn to hell quicker than lightning. You’ll end up divorced, broke, and with no career to speak of. I’ve seen it happen a million times…” 

Akira listened in silence. With every word, he lost more and more control on his Stand. Eventually, he let go and Red Hot Chili Pepper manifested, sitting cross-legged on his manager’s desk. Akira just looked on with wild eyes as his Stand reached out to touch the phone on the desk. 

“It’s just plain bad for business. I’m tellin’ ya. You’re better off forgetting about all that romance and marriage stuff. You don’t wanna piss fame and glory down your leg, now do ya?” 

The desk phone lit up and started ringing. 

His manager huffed. 

“Hang on a sec, gotta get this.” 

His manager reached for the phone, picking it up and putting it to his ear. 

“Yeah?” he said with a bored sigh. 

Only static and shrill feedback could be heard on the other end. 

His manager jerked the receiver away from his ear, squinting one eye closed in pain. 

“The hell?” he grumbled. “Hey! Can’t hear ya! There's too much feedback! Who is this anyway?” 

Sparks flew from the phone, arching upward and wrapping around the length of his manager’s arm. Bolts of electricity encircled his body and the man’s whole frame froze up in agony. He cried out in pain and terror. One hand was practically crushing the phone receiver while the other’s fingers dug into the leather of the arm of his chair. Moments later, the cries of agony died down and Akira’s manager slumped over in his chair. He’d been reduced to a smoking corpse. His wide eyes stared blankly, the expression on his face frozen in pain and fear, jaw tight with lips pulled away from his teeth in a tortured grimace. His hand was still clutching the phone to his ear. Ever so often the body would twitch and jerk, but all signs of life were long gone. The phone on his desk had been reduced to a pile of melted circuitry and plastic. 

Akira plopped down in the chair across from his manager’s desk and began playing his beloved guitar. He really, really needed to calm down now. He plucked at the strings, belting out a laid back tune. It was soft and calm, not his usual style, but it reminded him of your soothing voice. He focused his thoughts on you, He imagined that the music was you telling him, 

“It’s okay, baby. Everything’s alright. You did what you had to. He won’t be taking me away from you. It’s all over now…” 

Eventually the murderous look on his face gave way to a dreamy, lovestruck expression. A slight blush spread across his face and he sighed, feeling much better. 

He cast a glance at his manager’s still smoking carcass and resisted the urge to spit on him. Who did that fat fuck think he was, telling him that he had to break up with you? He squinted his eyes closed, taking a deep breath, and strumming another tune or two on his guitar. No point in working his anger up again. He was going to have to leave soon. Let someone find the body in the morning. There was no chance of it being linked back to him, as long as no other nosy Stand users like that Josuke asshole got involved, it would be fine. It would be deemed a freak accident due to faulty wiring or something. He could hire another manager… one who wouldn’t pry into his personal relationships… and everything would go back to normal. 

To think that his manager wanted him to break up with you… It was madness! Akira would be lost without you! After getting out of jail, he had a hard time picking himself off the ground. Staying in Morioh was out of the question, so he left, hoping to start anew. It didn’t go as well as he planned. Getting a job was the really hard part. He couldn’t seem to find work other than gigs in sleazy bars and busking in the park. 

No one listened. 

No one heard his music. At the bars his audience was too drunk and rowdy to even look at who was performing for them. At the parks people would overlook him completely. If anyone paid any attention to him at all it was to offer him a polite smile before dropping a few measly pity coins into his jar, but no one stayed to listen. His confidence was starting to deflate and all his energy was draining. 

By the time you found him, he was as low as he could be. You came across him slumped on a park bench one evening, staring with empty eyes into a beer bottle. You recognized him immediately and couldn’t stop yourself from approaching him. 

“I don’t mean to bother you, but aren’t you Akira Otoishi?” 

His head shot up as he looked at you, sobering up almost right away. He was stunned that not only had some pretty thing approached him, but actually recognized him. 

“Uh… do… do I owe you money or something?” he asked. 

You laughed and that was how it all started. 

It wasn’t long after that, that you and Akira became an item and he fell for you in a way he never thought he’d fall for anyone. You became his muse and he began writing songs inspired by you and the rest is history. You saved him. With all his confidence and ego, he could fully admit that he would be nothing without you. You pulled him out of the depths of despair. You kept him from fading into obscurity. 

And now some low life came along and wanted to separate you? First his fans, then his own manager!? UNFORGIVABLE! 

Akira would have to be more careful. He would have to make sure that NOBODY knew about you. They would just try to make him leave you, make you leave him, or worse; actually take you away from him!. No way! Not if he had anything to say about it!

-----

You were living in a dream. You had to be, because the last four years just felt too perfect to be real. Everyday you thought about how lucky you were to have a guy like Akira Otoishi. You befriended the washed out rocker and helped him regain his lost gusto for music and living. You watched as he rose from nobody to superstar almost overnight. You never suspected that the loud, obnoxious, funny, energetic musician named Akira Otoishi would become the love of your life. But that’s what happened. Now you strolled down the halls of the music studio on your way to surprise him with some flowers. He loved it when his fans sent him stuff, but he always seemed to be more excited when those gifts came from you, a fact that melted your heart. You wanted to give this bouquet to him personally this time because you loved watching him turn into a blushing mess. 

It was late at night and there weren’t many people in the building. With the exception of the receptionist and the janitor on the lower floor, it was practically deserted. Walking down the empty halls with no sounds but the hum and buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead was a bit unnerving, but it was worth it for your baby. 

You nearly jumped out of your skin when an anguished scream echoed through the halls. The lights flickered crazily and you could feel your hair standing on end from the static in the air. Some kind of electrical malfunction? What was that scream just now? You tore down the corridor and headed for Akira’s room. He wasn’t there but you could hear music coming from the next room over. That was Akira’s manager’s office. You sprinted to the door and knocked on it loudly. 

-----

Akira stopped playing when he heard your frantic knocks. He stared at the door in horror. 

“Akira! Akira, are you in there? What was that scream just now? Are you alright?!” he heard you shout through the door. 

Panic washed over him. 

“I’m here, babe!” he answered, hoping the sound of his voice would calm you down. He got up from the chair and turned to the door just as it started to open.  “Just give me a second and I’ll…. NO! DON’T OPEN THE DOOR!!” 

Hearing the panic in his voice caused you to burst into the room. 

“What happened? Are you o….k….” 

The sight that greeted you there caused the words to catch in your throat. 

Akira stepped to the side, trying to hide his manager’s corpse from you, but it was already far too late. 

“Is he… dead?” you choked out, already knowing the answer. 

“It was an accident!” Akira exclaimed. “Something is wrong with the wiring in the building, I guess.” 

This was the worst possible outcome. You weren’t supposed to see this. You weren’t even supposed to be here right now! 

“What are you doing here anyway? It’s not a good idea for you to hang around the studio, remember?” he said. 

“We need to call someone! Paramedics or--” 

He cut you off. 

“Phone’s dead. Wiring issues.” he said in a clipped tone. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of this, but his mind was already coming up with a number of ideas. 

“Then we’ll tell the receptionist downstairs. She was using her phone when I came in. So the phone line downstairs aren’t affected.” you offered, trying to stay cool and collected. 

“No good.” Akira said quickly. 

You gave him a look of confusion. 

“Why not? Someone has to know what happened! We can’t just do nothing!” you cried. 

“Yes we can.” Akira said darkly.

That static feeling in the air was coming back. You felt your skin prickle and it felt as if something brushed past you. You heard the sound of the door behind you closing shut and locking. You looked behind you at the closed door in growing dread. You turned back to your boyfriend. He was approaching you now, guitar hanging lazily from its strap as he reached out for you. You flinched and froze, not knowing what he was planning to do. You held back a shriek as he pulled the bouquet from your hands. 

“Aw! Are these for me?” he said, burying his face into the blossoms and taking in their smell. His eyes were closed and he was smiling blissfully, a blush across his cheeks. Normally seeing Akira acting so smitten over your gifts would have you looking on with adoration, but your eyes kept flicking back and forth between your seemingly oblivious boyfriend and the corpse of his manager. 

“Akira…” you said, gulping down your growing terror. “Why are you acting so weird? Your manager’s dead! Don’t you… don’t you care?!”

“He deserved it.” Akira said, looking up from the bouquet to stare you right in the eyes. 

He decided that there really wasn’t much point in keeping you in the dark any longer. You may as well know everything. That’s the way it was with couples, right? They share their darkest secrets with each other all the time! 

You stared up at him in shock. 

“...what?” you said after finally finding your voice again. 

“He told me that we shouldn’t get married. Then he told me that I should just break up with you altogether. Can you imagine, babe? He wanted me to just abandon you! You, my little muse! So I did what I had to.” 

Your little dream was falling apart around you. All this time you’d been so smug about bagging a hot, up and coming rocker guy… all this time that you swooned over him and let yourself be swept up in a romance that happened much too fast to be normal…. It was crumbling into dust. You knew that Akira had a lot of secrets. You knew that he’d been in prison before you met him. But this was too much. Fearful tears pricked at your eyes and Akira noticed. 

“Don’t cry, sweet thing! You don’t have to worry! I won’t let anybody come between us!” he cooed and wiped your eyes with his thumb. You were frozen to the spot and unable to pull away no matter how much you wanted to. 

“You killed him.” you stated. 

“I did.” he said with a grin that made your skin crawl. 

“How?” 

You glanced at the body again. You could tell that the poor man had been electrocuted but how Akira managed to do something like that was beyond you. 

“That’s a little tougher to explain,” he said mysteriously. “Maybe it’s best if I give you a demonstration.” 

That staticy feeling in the air increased and the lights in the room started doing strange things. They flickered, brightened, dimmed, and shut off completely only to come back on moments later. The digital clock on the wall cycled through the hours at rapid speed and the damaged phone sparked worryingly. You watched the scene wordlessly, unable to process what you were witnessing. 

Suddenly a pair of arms grabbed a hold of you. You looked all around you in a frenzy of terror but you couldn’t see anything. You were being held by something that was totally invisible! Your skin prickled at the feeling of its hold and you could feel your hair standing on end. You started to scream when an invisible hand clamped over your mouth. You struggled, but whatever held you was far stronger than you. You looked at Akira with wide, fear-filled eyes. He just stared back at you with his usual loving expression. The expression looked so wrong on him now. 

“That there is Red Hot Chili Pepper. He’s my Stand. I wish I could’ve given you a proper introduction, but under the circumstances, that’ll have to wait. You don’t have to be scared of him, though. He won’t hurt you unless I want him to. If I had another Stand arrow I could give you a Stand and you’d be able to see him. But I’d never risk it. The arrow would kill you if your will’s not strong enough. Not that I don’t think you’re strong willed or anything, but I’d never take a chance with my baby’s life like that. ” 

What… the… hell… was he rambling about? 

All this talk of Stands, and arrows, and chili peppers….

You didn’t know if he was going insane or if you were. 

All that you knew is the man you called your boyfriend had murdered his manager, somehow he was controlling the electricity in the room, and you were being held captive by something he called a Stand. The thing, whatever it actually was, nuzzled into the back of your neck and you found yourself once again on the verge of tears. 

Akria, ever vigilant when it came to you, noticed your watery eyes yet again. 

“Hey! None of that!” he said, walking over and wiping the tears from your eyes once more. 

“Water and electricity don’t mix, you know!” 

He offered you a sickly sweet smile and you felt the bile rise in your throat. 

He glanced back at his manager’s body and sighed. 

“No one’s gonna look at this and see it as anything other than a freak accident. Even if Josuke and Jotaro were to find out about this and relate me to it, they can’t do shit to me now. I’m way out of their jurisdiction. We’ll just leave the body here. The receptionist and the janitor are the only people that knew that I was in here with him so I guess I’ll have to kill them, too. Probably best if we don’t leave the building in the usual way, so we’ll just go through the electrical system.” he muttered, talking more to himself than to you.

No, he was definitely the crazy one here. 

How had he been hiding this side of himself from you all this time? 

He prattled on for another minute or two before kneeling down next to you. 

“Babe, you’re shaking,” he said, noting your trembling form. “You’re… you’re not scared are you?” 

You didn’t respond. You couldn’t respond with the invisible hand over your mouth. All you could do was give him a desperate look, pleading with your eyes for him to let you go. 

He didn’t. 

Instead he wrapped his arms around you, holding you close to his chest while the invisible thing snuggled you from behind. 

“You know I’d never hurt you, don’t you?” he asked, straightening up to look at you. 

You moaned pathetically into the invisible hand over your mouth. You wanted to cry, but didn’t dare.

“I’ll come back to take care of those other two later, but first, I gotta take you somewhere where no one will find you.” 

Your eyes widened and your face went ghastly pale. You looked up at him but he just gave you a stern stare down. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I gotta do it, baby! They’ll take you away from me if I don’t hide you from them! Now hang on, this will be kinda scary at first, but you’ll get used to it.” 

You didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about, but you didn’t have much time to think about it as you were promptly blinded by a bright yellow light. You squeezed your eyes closed, hoping to block the blinding light from your vision. It dimmed a moment later and you slowly opened your eyes. You were glowing, and so was Akira! All around you was snapping, popping, sizzling electricity and yet somehow it didn’t seem to harm you at all. As Akira held onto you, you could feel the both of you being pulled towards something. You looked around Akira to see that you both were being pulled into a wall socket. You let out a muffled scream as you were pulled into the socket and forced to travel through the building’s electrical wiring. You didn’t know how such a thing was possible, but you did know one thing:

Your little dream of dating a famous rocker had become a nightmare that you would never wake up from.

[thornybubbles]

Thank you @kobb4ni2 and everyone who got me to 500 reblogs!

[thornybubbles]

I feel like fans forget about things sometimes...

It's odd, but I often see JoJo fans say how much they'd "love to eat at Tonio's" in reference to Part 4 and it makes me raise an eyebrow and go, "Would you really?"

I instantly think back to Tonio's introduction episode and recall both Okuyasu and the puppy eating some of Tonio's food and having their insides rearranged. Not to mention all the other weird stuff that happened to Okuyasu. Sure Tonio's Stand power is the ability to heal people's ailments through his food, but the process in which people are healed is usually horrifying and probably incredibly painful. A clear case of the cure being worse than the sickness. I can safely say that I'd rather just deal with mild diarrhea if the cure means having my intestines pop out of my stomach and rearrange themselves. Seriously, I'll just drink water and take some Imodium. I'll be fine. I'll pass on the literal creepy pasta.

Edit: No hate on Tonio himself though. He's a great character.

[thornybubbles]

Fourth Wall (JJBA Yandere Scenario)

Scenario: Recently, you’ve moved on from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to a different anime series and fandom. You realize that this was a terrible mistake.

Note: This is based on a prompt I saw on Tumblr ages ago. I just expanded on it a bit. 

Warnings: Typical Yandere behavior, threats, abusive behavior, possible harm towards reader, mental distress, anti-comfort. Remember that you alone are responsible for what you read. 

-----------

Changing fandoms wasn’t that unusual for you. You would find a new anime, fall in love with it, then it became your new hyperfixation. After a while, the process would repeat. This is what happened with you and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It wasn’t that you didn’t like the series anymore, you just moved on to a new anime/manga. Still…it felt different this time. You weren’t sure why, but ever since you moved on to your new favorite series, you had this unexplainable feeling of guilt wash over you every time you watched an episode of your new favorite anime or read the latest chapter of the manga. Stranger still, there was an underlying feeling of dread as well. 

As many times as you’d changed fandoms, you’d never experienced such feelings before. It was uncomfortable and you wished that you could move on to your new obsession without any strings attached. It was ridiculous, really. Why should you feel guilty about a change of taste? You weren’t hurting anything. No one would be affected by it. And yet, you still felt unnecessary shame over changing fandoms. You guessed it had something to do with the lingering attachment you had for certain characters from various parts throughout the series. It almost felt like you were leaving them behind somehow. Another silly notion. They were fictional characters and did not exist outside of the world within JoJo. They had no knowledge of you, much less having knowledge of your “betrayal”. You decided that it was stupid to dwell on it and dived headfirst into your new favorite series. That guilty feeling would surely fade after a while. 

You got the perfect opportunity to binge your new favorite anime one day. It was one of those days when you were fortunate enough to have nothing to do. All of your responsibilities had been dealt with and you had no plans other than to sit on your ass and watch your new favorite show until bedtime. Sure, you could go out with friends, but you really just wanted to chill by yourself for the day. So anime binge party it was. You made a comfy nest of blankets and pillows on the couch and set up your laptop on the coffee table. You got some snacks and a drink, made yourself comfortable on the couch, and pressed play on the screen. You relaxed into the softness of your pillows and blankets and immersed yourself in another world for a few hours. 

About ten episodes in, you had to go to the bathroom very badly. All of that soda you’d drunk was taking its toll on your bladder. You paused the video, untangled yourself from your blankets, and stiffly power-walked to the bathroom. Once you relieved yourself, you washed your hands and went back into the living room. You snuggled back into your blanket burrito and reached over to start the video, but something wasn’t right. On the screen wasn’t the anime you’d been watching. It was the first episode of Phantom Blood. 

What…???

Did you accidently click the wrong thing in your haste to pause the video and rush to the bathroom? 

That had to be it. 

It was the only thing that made sense. 

You clicked off of the JoJo episode and went back to the previous page which took you back to the episode of the new anime you’d been watching. You found the place in the episode that you left off on and pressed play. You settled back in your comfy nest and watched the rest of the episode. You watched for another hour or so. During the opening of one of the episodes, you suddenly found yourself watching the opening for an episode of Battle Tendency. You sat up straight and stared at the screen in shock and confusion. 

“What the fuck?” you muttered under your breath. 

You refreshed the page and the episode started properly. That’s the second time your video was suddenly changed to an episode of JoJo. The first time you assumed that it was because of an accidental click but now you weren’t so sure. You hadn’t been touching anything when it happened the second time. All you were doing was staring at the screen when the switch happened. Why did it keep happening? Some kind of glitch with the streaming service? You didn’t know, but it was a bit annoying. You hoped that wouldn’t be a constant thing while you were trying to watch your show. 

The rest of the day went by without further incident. Eventually, you noticed that it had grown dark and you decided that your day of doing absolutely nothing needed to come to a close. You closed your laptop and reluctantly pried yourself off of the couch. As much as you wanted to just lay there in your blanket nest, you knew that you’d get a much better sleep in your bed. So you hobbled off to your room; your mind on nothing but getting a decent night’s sleep. 

You woke up a few hours later with a dried out mouth and an aching throat. You swallowed a few times, wincing at the sandpapery feeling of your tongue against the inside of your mouth. Well that’s what you get for sleeping with your mouth wide open. You flung the covers off of you grumpily and climbed out of bed. You stumbled into the kitchen, not daring to turn the light on and submit your sleep sensitive eyes to an onslaught of painful luminosity. You made your way over to the counter, grabbed a glass, and staggered over to the sink. As you were filling the glass you suddenly had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. You assumed that it was your sleep fogged brain at work. After all, part of the reason you woke up was because you were having a disturbing dream. You tried to remember what the dream was about, but you couldn’t piece the memories together to get a full picture. You just remembered being in a place that made you uncomfortable and meeting someone that was familiar to you, but their presence frightened you. You just couldn’t remember the details. It kinda made you want to stay awake for the rest of the night but you decided against that. You knew you’d feel like shit the next day if you didn’t get back to sleep. There was nothing worse than waking up with a splitting headache due to lack of proper rest. You downed the glass of water and put the empty glass in the sink. 

You suddenly became aware of a strange odor in the air. What was that smell? Smoke? God, was something burning?! You took another sniff of the air and recognized the smell as specifically cigarette smoke. Okay, so that meant that your house wasn’t burning down. That was good news, but why would you be smelling cigarette smoke? The only way you would be smelling cigarette smoke is if it were coming from in the same room as you…

You heard the sound of rustling fabric from somewhere behind you. You spun around and immediately spotted the outline of someone sitting at your kitchen table. You could also make out the small glow of a lit cigarette sticking out of their mouth. As your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you could make out some details of the figure. They were large, broad shouldered, and wore a long white coat, and on their head rested an oddly shaped hat. In the miniscule amount of light in the room you could make out the glint of gold accessories on both their hat and coat. 

“No way…” you gasped in a quiet voice. “No way in hell…” 

The figure lit a lighter and held it to the wick of the candle that was located in the middle of the table. Once the candle was lit fully, you could see the figure better. It was as you expected, Jotaro as he appeared in part four was sitting at your kitchen table, glaring at you as if you were less than dogshit. 

“You recognize me?” he scoffed and took another drag from his cigarette. “I’m surprised. I thought you forgot all about me… about us….” 

You backed up against the counter, unable to believe what you were seeing and hearing. 

Jotaro glanced down at the cigarette in his hand. He held it up in front of him. 

“This is your fault, you know.” he sneered. “I quit smoking, but after you abandoned us, I started the habit again. I’ve been tolerant so far because I was stupid enough to think that you’d come back eventually. Maybe you were just taking a break and you’d come back when you were bored… that was my stupidity. I’ll own up to that. But when I realized that you’d thrown us aside like trash, well, I got pissed. I guess I took up smoking again just to stay sane…” 

You were so appalled at the fictional character seated at your table that you hadn’t been paying much attention to what he was saying. Slowly the words began to filter into your mind and of everything he said, one thing stood out the most…

He said “us”. He said that you had abandoned “us”...

That’s when you became aware of the other figures lined up behind Jotaro. 

You could make out their shapes and features in the candlelight. Jonathan stood there looking as utterly brokenhearted as a man could be. Joseph had a smug grin on his face as if he’d just caught you committing a crime. Josuke’s face was contorted in a vicious snarl while his fists were clenched by his sides. Ever so often his left eye would twitch indicating that he may be on the verge of a psychotic break. Giorno offered you a placid smile that was off putting when set against the coldness of his eyes. 

Your eyes darted nervously from one face to another before finally settling back on Jotaro’s. It was too much. You pushed away from the counter and ran out of the kitchen. A voice that probably belonged to Jonathan called out for you to stop but you paid it no attention. Luckily the kitchen was right next to the front door. Once you were outside, you could run to the neighbor’s house and get them to call the police. You wouldn’t dare tell them the truth. What would you even say? You couldn’t tell them that five fictional characters from an anime had invaded your house. They’d think you were on something. You would just tell them that someone had broken into your house. That’s all. Honestly, you didn’t know what the hell the police could do against them, but you didn’t know what else to do. You reached the front door but your hand froze just as you were about to unlock the door and yank it open. 

Two people were staring down at you from the window in the front door, two people you recognized. Kars looked down his nose at you with a haughty expression. He looked ever so much like a strict parent that had just caught his kid trying to sneak out of the house. DIO on the other hand had the most sadistic smile on his face. He made a “come-hither” gesture with his clawed hand as if he fully expected you to just open the door and throw yourself at him. Their eyes glowed with a hellish light and you couldn’t take the sight of them. You screamed and backed away from the door. As you stepped back, you saw two other familiar faces staring at you from the windows on either side of the door. Doppio had one hand pressed against the glass while the other hand held a rock from the garden to his ear as if it were a cell phone. One of his eyes had changed to a jade green color and glared at you with intense rage. His other, normal eye had a pitiful, disappointed look in it. From the other window Kira stared at you with an utterly emotionless expression. You didn’t dare speculate on what kind of thoughts could be going through his head at that moment. You screamed again and started to turn and run towards the back door…

“Star Platinum!” 

Suddenly you were held tight in an iron like hold. An invisible hand covered your mouth preventing you from screaming anymore. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that you were being held in place by Jotaro’s Stand. Struggling in Star Platinum’s grip was useless so you just hung there in midair as Jotaro approached you. 

“We weren’t done talking.” he snapped. 

He leaned in slightly and you got a whiff of cigarette smoke mixed with cologne. 

“Now you listen and you listen good,” he started to say. He held up a single finger.

“One. Just one more chance. That’s all you get. Come back to us and there won’t be a problem. Leave us again and it will get ugly.” he said, glancing up at the villains peering through the windows. His upper lip curled in disgust when he locked eyes with DIO and Kira, but only for a moment before his eyes were back on you. 

“Is that understood?” he asked. 

You nodded your head, whimpering behind Star Platinum’s invisible palm. 

“Good.” 

You don’t know what happened after that. You just woke up in your bed with a pounding headache. 

“Fuck…” you groaned, pressing your hands to your temples. 

You felt awful. You could only guess that you just simply didn’t sleep very well. Damn nightmares. What was with that dream? Was it all because you felt guilty about leaving the JoJo fandom? You grumbled and rolled out of bed. You were going to need to take something for that headache. First you needed to get a glass of water. You stumbled off to the kitchen getting an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu. The moment you entered the kitchen, your eyes glanced to the kitchen table and you nearly fainted. 

The candle was out, but it was smoking as if it had only been put out mere moments ago. The cigarette butt that rested on the saucer that had been used as a makeshift ashtray was also still smoking. 

That night you made it a point to sit down and watch a few episodes of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure starting with Phantom Blood. You planned to rewatch the entire series from the very beginning all the way to Stone Ocean. With each episode you watched, you noticed that ever so often a character’s eyes would slide over towards you as if making sure you were still there, watching them. Sometimes it would be one of the main characters. Sometimes it would be one of the villains. Sometimes it would be a side character. Regardless, they all kept checking to see if you were watching. Every day, you would make it a point to watch at least one episode of JoJo, no matter what. You didn’t dare skip out on your daily dose of JoJo. You also never went back to the other anime you’d been watching after you left the JoJo fandom. No, you learned your lesson. You were familiar enough with Jotaro’s character to know that he only gave people one chance and no more. Just like with Rubber Soul and Steely Dan. He gave them both a chance to leave mostly unscathed but they both decided to turn on him at the last minute. They both were punished severely. You weren’t going to make that same mistake. 

So you sat there on the couch, stiff and terrified as you watched your “favorite” anime… 

… like a good little fan should…

[lia-nikiforov]

Fanfiction pet peeve: People who use color+ette to refer to a character with crazy hair color. “Bluenette”, “Greenette” and “Pinkette” seem to be the most common ones and they sound so damn dumb. Those are not even words, people! Don’t do it! It looks BAD

[thornybubbles]

Re-blogging this because it's so true. There's no such thing as a "bluenette" for Pete's sake! You don't have to describe the characters by their hair (or eye) color to get the point across (also "the male", "the female", or whatever sound pretty stupid, too). Just use the character's name. It may be slightly repetitive but it makes far more sense. Besides, what do you do if there's more than one character with the same hair color? You can't just say "the blonde" if there's more than one blonde present. Which blonde are you talking about? Just use their name!

[thornybubbles]

Blood Red String of Fate (Yandere Risotto x Reader)

Scenario: The reader discovers that they are Risotto’s soulmate. Risotto is thrilled. The reader is not. 

Warnings: Yandere themes, canon typical violence, kidnapping, attempted self harm, forced relationship, and other “fun” stuff. 

You thought that it was just a story; an urban legend spread between lovesick teens and desperate young adults. You never believed for a moment that the whole “red string of fate” thing was true. Soulmates didn’t exist. Relationships didn’t come into being from a whim of chance. You didn’t believe in destiny or naive notions of love at first sight. But all of that changed the day you woke up and found the seemingly endless crimson colored string tied to your pointer finger. It wasn’t endless, of course. You knew that it was attached to the finger of your soulmate (something that you believed to be a fairy tale only a day before). It horrified you, not because you had an aversion to love or the idea of it. It was just that you believed that love should be something that is a mutual choice between two people. It should never be something that was forced onto people by fate. But that wasn’t what had you feeling like your stomach was doing cartwheels. You could actually sense the person on the other end of the string. You could feel their thoughts, emotions, and their very presence as if they were in the room with you. What you felt from them appalled you. You could feel their love for you and it almost had you returning the sentiment, but the warm feeling it gave you was overshadowed by the strong possessiveness that you felt, too. This person, whoever they were, genuinely thought that the string being attached to you meant that they owned you. Not only that, but you could feel an overwhelming blood lust and violence coming from them. Whoever your soulmate was, they were dangerous and the thought of being with them did not appeal to you. As far as you were concerned the two of you were not compatible, soulmate or not. You didn’t give a damn what fate or destiny had to say about it. 

-----------

Risotto stared at the red string tied to his finger. He didn’t know how to feel about it at first, but once he sensed you on the other end of the string, it stirred in him an uncontrollable obsession. He never asked to be attached to you, but now that he was, he wanted you. He couldn’t imagine life without you. It wasn’t enough to be bound to you, though. No. He needed you by his side. He had to find a way to bring you to him. It was strange, Risotto never imagined himself to bother with a significant other. He always felt that it would be too dangerous and an inconvenience to him as a member of Passione. Suddenly finding out that he had a soulmate was a bit bizarre. It didn’t matter. Now that he was connected to you, he could feel what kind of person you were. You were everything he needed, everything he desired. He found himself craving you the way a starving man craved food. He truly felt that if he didn’t bring you to him soon, then he would die. He had to have you here. NOW!

“Boss? Whatcha starin’ at your hand for? Didja get hurt?” 

The voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked up to see Formaggio looking at him with concern. 

The others couldn’t see the string. No one knew of the bond that he shared with you. It gave him an odd sense of comfort and made him feel even more connected with you. You were meant for each other. No one else could interfere. No one could break the bond that he had with you. The obsession that he felt for you grew even greater knowing that. 

“I’m fine.” Risotto answered his subordinate. He glanced at the string, following it with his eyes as it ran along the ground and out of the room. He could follow it and it would lead him right to you. He could find you easily. He could…

Risotto shot up from his chair and yanked his hand into the air, effectively pulling at the string. He could feel you just then. You were about to do something awful, but he managed to put a stop to it. He glared down at the string as if he was glaring at you. Why would you ever attempt something like that?!

“Boss?” Formaggio asked, giving his Capo a concerned look. “What was that about?” 

Risotto didn’t acknowledge him right away. He gave the string another pull. He wasn’t completely sure how the string worked or what he could do with it, but he quickly figured out he could send his very will through it somehow. He did that just then, to stop your foolishness. It was clear that he couldn’t put off meeting you any longer. 

“Get in contact with the others. Tell them that I’m going to pay someone a visit.” he said suddenly. 

“Huh? What?!” Formaggio cried in confusion. 

He watched as Risotto passed him by and left the room. Formaggio clambered up from the sofa and trailed after him. 

“Wait a minute!” he called. “You’re leaving now? Who’re you gonna visit? Is this a mission? Ain’tcha gonna tell me anything?” 

“This is a personal matter.” Risotto said, his tone implying that Formaggio should stop asking questions. “I won’t be gone long, but I have to leave immediately. Continue with business as normal until I get back.” 

“Wait!” Formaggio said, trying once more to reason with his Capo. “Shouldn’t you tell the others this yourself? Why do you have to run off in such a hurry?” 

Risotto turned his red gaze on his subordinate. 

“I trust you to let them know that I’m gone. Just tell them that I had an emergency that I needed to tend to. I’ll explain when I get back. I have to go now, Formaggio.” he said. 

And with that Risotto left the building. Formaggio stood staring at the door wondering what was going through his Capo’s mind. Risotto was a mysterious guy, but he was acting very strangely all of a sudden. He thought about it for a moment longer before throwing his hands up and turning away from the door. 

“Eh. Can’t be helped. Orders are orders. Guess I’ll let the others know.” 

---------------

You’d tried everything. You tried cutting the string with scissors, a knife, or any other sharp thing you could find. You even tried biting through it. Nothing would cut the string. There was only one alternative that you could think of for ridding yourself of the unwanted bond with your equally unwanted soulmate. If you couldn’t sever the string, then you would simply sever the finger that it was tied to. God, you didn’t want to do it, but what choice did you have? 

Every moment you spent bonded to your soulmate, you could feel more and more of what kind of person they were. They were a killer. They’d killed a lot of people and you could tell that they would kill a lot more. It would be just your rotten luck to be stuck with a murderer as a soulmate. You knew that they could sense you and you hated it. You didn’t want a killer knowing as much about you as you did about them. You wanted them gone from your life. So you would disconnect from them. With luck, once the deed was done, they would just think that you died or something and wouldn’t seek you out. 

You set some medical supplies to the side, to be ready to deal with your self inflicted injury. The plan was simple enough. You would cut off your finger, ridding yourself of the bond, then you would quickly patch up your injured hand, wrap and place your severed finger in a container full of ice you had set alongside the medical supplies, then call 911 and have them take you to the hospital where you could hopefully have your finger reattached. You had no idea how you would explain what happened to you. If you told them you cut off your finger to disconnect the bond with your soulmate, they’d have you committed. So you would have to think of something more normal to tell them. An accident cutting food maybe? 

Hesitantly, you paced your finger on the edge of the kitchen counter. You held the knife in your other hand. Suddenly a thought occurred to you. What if you didn’t cut it off in one chop? What if your strength wasn’t enough to cut through the bone? What if the knife wasn’t sharp enough?  What would you do then? You glanced at the knife. It seemed very sharp. Still, it would require some level of strength to cut through the bone. Oh God! What if you had to saw through the bone with another tool? The thought of the prolonged agony made you feel queasy. You could feel the color draining from your face and you swayed on your feet slightly. You shook your head. Determinazione! That’s what you needed now. You had to suck it up and deal with the pain. This was the only way you knew to deal with this. 

You raised the knife high over your finger. You took a few deep breaths and mentally hyped yourself to do what needed to be done. 

Don’t think about the pain. Don’t think about the blood. Think about being stuck bonded to a murderer. You thought to yourself. 

You let out a cry of resolution and raised the knife even higher. 

Suddenly there was a powerful yank on the string that pulled your hand away just as the knife came down on the counter. The blade sank into the countertop, leaving a notch in the Formica. Yeah, that blow definitely would have cut through the bone. Too bad something stopped you. You grabbed the knife by the handle and tried to pull it from the countertop. You managed to pull it free but the string was tugged again with much more force this time. The action caused you to lose your hold on the knife. It fell into the sink as you were yanked nearly to the ground. You fell to one knee in an attempt to regain your balance. You yanked your arm backwards only to find that it wouldn’t budge. The string was somehow pulled taut and you were practically being dragged across the floor. 

“STOP PULLING ON ME, ASSHOLE!!!” you shouted, anger in your voice disguising your terror. 

The pulling stopped and the string went slack again. They stopped you! Whoever was on the other end of the string knew that you planned to chop off your own finger to sever the bond with them. They didn’t want you to disconnect from them! Why? Did they really put value in the bond? Didn’t they know that you had no interest in them? Why would they bother? It was madness! 

Suddenly you could feel a strange sensation through the string. It was as if your soulmate’s presence felt stronger somehow. You couldn’t understand it, until you realized… they were getting closer to you! They were coming for you! Well you wouldn’t be there when they arrived. You jumped up from the kitchen floor and ran to your room. Quickly, you packed a few clothes and other essentials. You didn’t know where you would go, but you weren’t going to fall into their grasp no matter what!

---

Risotto stared down at the string on his finger as he sat in the back of a cab. He allowed himself a small, bitter smile. You were a fool. Did you really think that you could escape him? Apparently so, because he could sense you moving away from him. It was frustrating, but it didn’t matter. He would find a way to get to you before you got too far away. The problem was that you could sense how far away he was from you at all times. Did you really mean to stay on the run from him for as long as he tried to pursue you? What if there was a way that he could hide himself from you? An idea came to him. He asked the cab driver to drop him off at the next block. The driver did as told and drove away. Risotto looked around. He was standing outside of a vacant lot. It seemed that this was an abandoned part of the city. Good. He could experiment here with no one around to intrude. It was a long shot, but if he used Metallica’s ability to camouflage himself, he might be able to disguise his presence at his end of the string. Risotto activated his Stand’s secondary ability and waited. He could feel you on your end of the string. You stopped pulling away from him. He began to follow the string, half expecting you to start pulling away from him again. You never did. You were staying put. He followed the string until he was in a better part of town. Still, you didn’t move. It worked! As long as he stayed invisible, you couldn’t sense him! You were as good as his!

----

You had just driven into an unfamiliar part of town when you felt the presence at the other end of the string disappear. What happened? Did they die? Did they disconnect the bond? No, you could still see the string wrapped around your finger. Maybe they just stopped following you? You sighed. Thank the Lord. In the distance you spotted a sign for a hotel. You would stay there for the night and think about what you were going to do in the morning. You pulled into the hotel and walked into the office, dragging your bag along with you. You got yourself a room and collapsed on the bed there. You’d been running from your soul mate for days now. Why did they just stop following you? Did they give up? Did they realize that you weren’t interested in them? What was their game? You had only planned to stay at the hotel for the night, but decided to stay there until you felt that it was safe enough to return home. That was only if your soulmate didn’t decide to start following you again. 

That night, you dreamed of a man in a strange black costume resembling that of a jester, with white hair and red eyes with black scleras. You seemed to know each other, but you couldn’t remember from where. You were afraid of him, but you weren’t sure why. 

----

Risotto strolled into the parking lot of the hotel you were staying in. He was overwhelmed with joy at having tracked you down, but he would have to be careful from here on out. If you got so much as an inkling that he was nearby, you would start running again. He couldn’t allow that. Not when he was so close. He’d been walking for ages, sleeping in hotel rooms that he broke into and stealing food. If anyone got too nosey about his invisible activities, they met a swift and horrible end. He was exhausted having to travel on foot (an invisible man couldn’t flag down a taxi after all), but it was all worth it now that he finally tracked you down. 

He followed the string until it led under the door of a certain room. Your room. He grinned at the feeling of your presence on the other side of the door. You were sleeping, so he would have to be quiet. Using Metallica’s magnetism, Risotto unscrewed the screws around the doorknob to your room. He was thankful that the hotel was an older one that hadn’t yet converted to the use of keycards. The door knobs popped out of their sockets and clattered to the ground. Risotto froze, afraid the sound would wake you. He was relieved that he could still feel that you were asleep. Carefully, he opened the door and let himself in. 

He spied your sleeping form on the bed. He smiled fondly at you before coming out of his camouflaged state. There was no point in hiding from you anymore. Abruptly, you sat up in bed, gasping and sobbing. 

----

What a horrible dream. You’ve been having nightmares about the strange man with the scary eyes ever since you started staying at the hotel. The dream was always the same, the man would corner you somewhere, tell you that you knew each other, then try to drag you off somewhere you didn’t want to go. If you weren’t sure before, you were certain now, that man in your dreams was your soulmate. He had the same aura you felt at the other end of the string. The same aura of blood and death that you felt so strongly that it caused you to wake up in a panic… The same aura that you could still feel as if it were in the room with you at that very moment. 

You turned to face that overwhelming presence you could sense nearby and your blood ran cold. 

“You!” you gasped. “It’s you!” 

The man took a step towards you, smiling sweetly. You cringed away from him, pulling the bed covers up as if they could shield you from him. 

“How did you find me without me sensing you?” you demanded. 

“Not important,” he said in a deep voice that would have had your heart fluttering in any other situation. “What matters now is that we are finally together, as fate intended.” 

“To hell with fate and to hell with you! I want nothing to do with you! Now get out of my room before I call the police!” 

The man laughed at your poor attempt at bravado. 

“You can fight it all you want, but you and I will be together no matter what.” 

You jumped up from the bed and made an attempt to run out the door, but he stepped into your path and you ended up in his crushing embrace. 

“Let go of m-- mph!” your demands were silenced by one of his massive palms covering your mouth. 

You struggled in his hold but he was far stronger than you. You could barely move in his grip. Something sharp pierced your neck and you screamed into his hand. You struggled a moment more before dizziness overwhelmed you. Your limbs felt heavy and it became impossible to move them. Your vision grew blurry and you felt yourself going limp in his arms. Just before you passed out you heard him say, 

“You tried to hurt yourself all because you didn’t want to be bonded to me. I couldn’t allow that. I know that you don’t want me as your soulmate, but I know that you can learn to love me. I’ll take you somewhere where I can keep an eye on you and make sure that you never try to hurt yourself, or sever our bond again. Whether you want it or not, you and I were meant to be. You should know by now that you can’t fight fate.”

[thornybubbles]

Well that ruined my day.

When you find a fan fiction that deals with an obscure part of your favorite fandom and it's actually really good, but the author deletes it right in the middle of you reading it...

Seriously, I read about 6 chapters of it and went to bed. I got up the next morning, read the 7th chapter and when I went to the next chapter I got a "This content is unavailable" message. I checked and found that the story seems to no longer exist along with any other story the author wrote. Why'd that have to happen just as I discovered their stories? Jeez...

[thornybubbles]

Random Gemstone Themed Yandere Prompts with the Jobros.

Warnings: Typical yandere horror stuff, abusive behavior, possible harm towards reader, disturbing situations, good guys gone yandere, anti-comfort, and canon typical violence. Remember that you alone are responsible for what you choose to read. 

---------

Speedwagon: Prompt 17 -- Unakite- does the yandere have a point of no return or will they eventually realize how dire the consequences of their actions?

As far as yanderes go, Robert is pretty tame. His point of no return would only happen if you were ever harmed in any way. His greatest fear is if you get hurt or worse. Having his greatest fear realized would unlock a side of good ol’ Speedwagon that not even his closest friends have ever seen. Remember, he was a violent thug before he got involved with Jonathan and his quest to put an end to Dio. If anyone was ever dumb enough to put their hands on you he would revert back to his thuggish nature, only worse. It’s not a side of him he ever wanted you to see, but he’ll happily sacrifice his reputation if it means protecting you. 

As far as realizing the consequences of his actions, he’s pretty lucid. He knows that breaking into your home to watch over you as you slept is not only unsettling and inappropriate, but highly illegal. He knows that following you around to keep an eye on you is borderline stalkerish behavior. He doesn’t care though. In his eyes, it's all perfectly justified. He’s extra careful to make sure you never catch him in the act of doing these things, but rest assured that if you ever did he wouldn’t bother lying to you. He’d come right out and tell you exactly why he was doing it. 

“I don’t mean to be overstepping any boundaries, but the world’s gettin’ a lot more dangerous lately. More so than usual. Someone’s gotta look out for you in these dark times and I figure that someone may as well be ol’ Speedwagon.” 

You’ll find it difficult to look into those big, sad, brown eyes and find any fault with him. Speedwagon a stalker? Absurd! Because of this mindset that you have about him, he’ll never really experience any consequences. You’ll just have him walk alongside you instead of trailing behind you in the shadows. 

Caesar: Prompt 9 -- Diamond- what does the yandere want from their ideal darling?

With Caesar it’s all about romance. He’s no stranger to having ladies swooning over his words and actions, but just once he’d like to have someone make the first move or at least offer him something in the way of a challenge. He occasionally finds himself bored when he’s the one doing all the wooing. He flirts and flirts, but nobody ever seems to flirt back. More than even that, he’d like it if his darling didn’t just turn into a blushing mess the moment he put on the charm. Make him work for it!

If he finds you attractive, he’ll flirt the moment he lays eyes on you (though it’s mostly to annoy Joseph… at first). Maybe he goes for the traditional kiss on the back of the hand and instead of just standing there looking up at him all smitten and red-faced, you grab him by the wrist and yank him close. 

“Nuts to that old fashioned stuff! If you’re gonna kiss me, then just kiss me!” you say. 

And then maybe you pull him in for a kiss right on the lips. If you do something bold like that, you’ll completely throw him for a loop. He’ll stand there, feeling like his face is in flames and his heart is going to beat out of his chest. That brazen action of yours may have been the very thing that caused his yandere side to come bubbling up to the surface. You can’t just… you can’t just do that and walk away from him! You just can’t! You better expect him to pursue you now. As far as Caesar is concerned, you and him are practically engaged, so you may as well get used to him being around. 

Kakyoin: Prompt 14 -- Moonstone- are there things that the yandere will hide from darling at all costs?

Noriaki definitely has a dark side. We’ve seen just how bad it can get with his first introduction while he was under the influence of one of DIO’s flesh buds. Even when he is his normal self, Noriaki has a vindictive and violent side. It’s this part of him that he doesn’t want you to see. Ever. He wants you to view him as the polite, somewhat shy boy who always manages to make you swoon without even trying. He wants you to love him, not fear him. 

His dark side is reserved for people who deserve it. Like anyone that tries to interfere with his relationship with you. Let’s say some guy tries to sway you away from him while he’s standing right there: 

“Hey there, hot stuff! Why don’t you come hang out with a real man, like me, instead of this skinny dweeb?” he says as he reaches over and flicks Noriyaki on the forehead, laughing boisterously at the redhead’s displeased expression. 

Suddenly, the guy stops laughing. 

“S-sorry… about th-that…” he stammers with a strange look on his face. “I-I was out of l-line…” 

He then staggers away, staring blankly into the horizon. 

“That was weird.” you say, disturbed by the whole interaction. 

“Probably on drugs or something.” Noriaki comments, disinterested. 

Moments later there is the sound of shrieking tires followed by the sound of a car ramming into a human body. 

“That guy just walked into traffic!” someone shouts. 

You turn your head, but Noriaki is quick to shield your view. 

“You don’t want to see that!” he says as he ushers you away. “Let’s just get out of here before the rubberneckers show up.” 

Not wanting to get caught up in a crowd wanting to see blood and guts, you agree and allow Noriaki to lead you away. Nori’s expression is grim and you wonder if he saw the accident as it happened. It worries you. The last thing Nori needed was more trauma to have nightmares about. Egypt certainly took a toll on him. He still refuses to tell you anything about why he ran away or what he was up to during the time he was gone. All that you know is that whatever happened, it nearly killed him. You lean into him and he holds you close, seemingly grateful for you for just being by his side. 

As you leave the scene, Noriaki calls back Hierophant Green. The Stand slithers out of whatever is left of the lowlife’s body and returns to his master. Noriaki wants to smile in satisfaction, but he refrains. He’s very glad that you can’t see Stands, or else you would be horrified by what he’d just done. 

Okuyasu: Prompt 16 -- Rhodonite- does the yandere want kids and would they force darling into having them?

 (This is assuming that reader can have kids in the first place)

Does Okuyasu want to have kids? OH MY GOD, YES!!! Poor Okuyasu’s family life suffered so badly after his father became one of DIO’s followers. He longs to have a normal family again, or at least as normal as he can have while being a Stand user. Okuyasu sees having kids with you as a means of getting back the family that was taken from him. You can bet that he’ll be a great dad, if not a little over-protective. Okay, maybe more than a little…

As much as he wants a family, he will NEVER force it on you. If you aren’t interested in having kids, he’ll be a little disappointed, but he’ll settle for it just being the two of you alone. 

“I’m… I’m gonna be a dad? Really? Y-you’re not messing with me are you? You really mean it? We’re gonna have a kid?!” he’ll say when you tell him you’re expecting. 

Once you confirm to him that he will indeed be a dad he sinks to his knees and bursts into happy tears. After about ten minutes of that, he’ll dry up and shout, “I gotta go tell Josuke, Koichi, and everybody else in the whole neighborhood!!!” 

Before you can stop him he’s on his way out the door. He returns a moment later, grabs you (gently, of course), plants a long kiss on your lips, then runs out the door again. You stare at the door. He didn’t bother to close it behind him. You shake your head and allow yourself a small smile as you close the door. You love Okuyasu, but now that you were both going to be parents, you were going to have to have a long talk with him about his over-protectiveness. 

Bucciarati: Prompt 8 -- Chrysoprase- how does the yandere deal with heartbreak?

Honestly? Not very well. He should have expected this to happen and he blames himself. It was only a matter of time before you discovered his career as a Mafioso. It’s only natural that such a thing would scare you away. It was bad enough that you wanted to leave him, but the way you looked at him with fear and suspicion as you broke things off absolutely destroyed him. He tried to explain himself, tried to explain what his true intentions were: to destroy the illegal drug trade from the inside out, but it meant nothing to you. You wanted nothing to do with such a lifestyle. It was too dangerous for you and far too frightening. He understands why you want to leave. He really does.

But he doesn’t care. 

He should never have pursued you in the first place. He should never have let himself get involved with a normal citizen that had no connections to either Italy’s underworld or the equally hidden world of Stands and their users. You were right about it being too dangerous for you but he was far too obsessed to let you go. He should have never let himself fall for you so deeply…

It’s far too late now. Not only is he overwhelmingly in love with you, but even if you leave him, you’ll still be a target for his enemies. You’ve already been seen together far too often, so surely some of his enemies know of your connection to him. They will use you to get to him. Most of them will be Stand users, too. You aren’t a Stand user. You will have no way to defend yourself. If you go now, you’ll be putting yourself in harm’s way. You’ll be alone, without him by your side and his enemies would take advantage of that. So, that’s why he has to spirit you away and hide you somewhere that no one will find you. That’s what he tells himself. He deludes himself into thinking that he’s doing it for your own good, but deep down he knows that he just wants to keep you from leaving. And you really are in danger now, so this is mutually beneficial! Even if you don’t love him anymore, he’ll keep you safe… whether you like it or not. 

“Glare at me if you wish. Call me all manner names and swear at me if it makes you feel better. Scream until your throat bleeds. None of it will make any difference. I won’t allow you to put yourself in danger.” he tells you as he unzips your limbs. 

Anasui: Prompt 6 -- Carnelian- how does the yandere deal with their darlings strong will?

Ah yes, one of JJBA’s canon yanderes… 

Your strong will may very well have been one of the many things that attracted Anasui to you but, if your strong will leads you to push him away, when you’re so obviously meant for each other, then he’s going to be a lot less happy about it. He feels that he learned his lesson with Jolyne (he hasn’t). If you push him away the first time he puts on the charm, he’ll apologize and dial it back a bit. He doesn’t want to come on too strong, not like he did with Jolyne. So he’ll restrain himself and bide his time. You’ll come around eventually. All he has to do is find a way to endear himself to you while secretly scaring off (or getting rid of) any possible competition. It has to be different this time… he can’t take any more heartache. 

If you still refuse him, though, he might go “full yandere”. Believe me, you don’t want that. He’s only ever done that once before and that’s how he ended up in prison in the first place. Being cheated on and then rejected by Jolyne… he can’t take anymore heartache. So if you keep refusing him, he’ll realize that he’ll never earn your love. So he’ll just have to make you love him! This will lead to a psychotic break in him that will change his way of dealing with you. He’ll grow cold and sadistic. No more simping. His patience has run out. He’ll just have to kidnap you and teach you how to love him. He’ll have to punish you when you get it wrong. He won’t permanently damage you, but if he has to break you for you to learn your lesson then he will without hesitation. 

If you keep resisting even then, well it’s obvious to him that there must be something wrong with you. Maybe if he takes you apart he can find out what it is inside of you that makes you keep refusing him and remove it. He just hopes that he can put you back together again when he’s done…

“I’ve accepted the fact that I’m completely unlovable,” he’ll say in tearful rage, “but I will never accept being unloved!” 

Gyro: Prompt 12 -- Kunzite- is the yandere’s motivations love, lust or something else?

All three. Love and lust go with the territory in a romantic relationship, but Gyro also wants something constant in his life that is only for him and no one else. Gyro spent much of his life living up to his father’s strict expectations and dealing with responsibilities that were foisted upon him at an early age. He found himself taking on more responsibilities when trying to earn amnesty for young Marco. Then he agreed to help Johnny during the race and teach him the art of Spin. Nearly everything that Gyro did was for someone else’s benefit. He can’t remember a time when he did anything for himself and himself only. 

Gyro reasons that he has every right to be selfish when it involves you. He wants your love, your affection, your heart, your soul, and anything else you have to offer. Plain and simple, he wants you. Sometimes he feels guilty for his selfishness, but the moment you throw your arms around his waist and give him a loving squeeze, all of that guilt goes right out the window. You're his and his alone, and he wants everyone to know it. It's the reason he becomes like a rabid dog when you’re around anyone but him and Johnny. Gyro knows that Johnny won’t interfere, but other people? Not so much. That damned Dio keeps throwing you smug grins like he knows something… what’s that all about? And Mountain Tim had better keep his distance or he’ll end up with more scars than just on his face! 

Expect him to do a lot of hovering whenever you’re out and about. It’s a little weird, but it seems like he’s trying to hide you with his own body sometimes, almost like he doesn’t want anyone to even look at you. For example if you go to a restaurant with booth seats, he’ll always have you slide into the booth first then slide up as close as he can get to you. 

“Gyro!” you grunt uncomfortably. “Will you give me some space? You’re practically sitting on me!” 

Of course he plays it off as a joke. 

“Hmm? Wha? Did you hear that, Johnny? It sounded like the bench was talking to me! I must be losing it…” He’ll say, pretending that you aren’t practically wedged up under his ass. 

“You already lost it.” Johnny quips, ignoring your plight completely. 

He’s not about to get involved with whatever it is that’s going on with you and Gyro. 

You groan and poke him in the ribs, inadvertently starting a tickle fight. It completely takes your mind off of his clinginess. 

If he sees you spending far too much time talking with someone while you’re in town, he’ll grind his grills together so hard they shoot sparks. Once he calms himself down a bit, he’ll saunter over and fling an arm around you. 

“Hate to break up the party, but we really need to be going.” he’ll say with a good natured smile that doesn’t at all indicate how he really feels. 

That’s odd. You thought you’d have plenty of time before your group would have to get back on the road. Oh well. Guess an early start won’t hurt. 

While he’s leading you away, he takes the time to shoot the person you were talking to a warning glare. The message is clear: Stay away, or I’ll make you pay! They distance themselves from you after that. 

You are the only thing that Gyro has that’s all for him. He’s not sharing you with anyone!

[thornybubbles]

Chapter 2 of Dance Macabre has been posted.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[thornybubbles]

The Cat Came Back (Followup) The Morioh Gang reactions

Note: This is a follow up piece to “The Cat Came Back” in which the Reader finds themselves in the possession of the Stand, Killer Queen and asks Josuke for help. The following is just showing how the other characters would react. So headcanons I guess… You can find the original story this is based on here: 

The Cat Came Back

NOTE: This is just a blurb based on an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while. I was debating on whether or not to share th

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Josuke: You already saw his initial reaction when you told him about your unwanted Stand, but there was a lot that Josuke left unsaid, mostly because he didn’t want you to see just how disturbed he really was. He can’t even imagine what you must be going through. This whole situation is horrific and… well… bizarre. It was bad enough that you were targeted and held hostage by Kira during the final confrontation, but now you’re stuck with Kira’s Stand as your own. He still doesn’t understand how something like that could even happen. How does a living person end up with a dead man’s Stand? It’s even more confusing if you consider how Reimi said that Kira died. If both user and Stand were torn apart by ghostly arms, then how is the Stand still active? And why, WHY, WHY, is it acting as your Stand now? Josuke never wanted you to get involved in the crazy, dangerous world of Stand users, but you are now and he can’t help but blame himself. If he had never become friends with you, then maybe you wouldn’t have run into Kira that day and this wouldn’t be happening to you now. He really, really hopes that Jotaro and the Speedwagon Foundation can help you with this, because this is one thing he knows he can’t fix. Just like with the death of his grandfather, he feels helpless and frustrated. But to you, he’s a beacon of calm acceptance. He’ll never let you see how shook up he is because you don’t need that right now. 

Okuyasu: He takes it pretty badly. He finds the whole situation to be freaky and incredibly unfair. Expect a lot of angry crying from him in the beginning. 

“Whaaaaat??!!” he shouts. “What the hell is this?! How does something like that even happen?! Can’t that creepy hand-humping bastard go haunt someone else?!” 

He insists that Josuke could probably fix it if he used Crazy Diamond to bring you back to a state before you became a Stand user, but Josuke explains that his powers don’t work like that. Okuyasu is so desperate that he even suggests, to everyone’s horror, that he could use The Hand to erase Killer Queen. That idea is very quickly shot down by Josuke. 

“Think about it, Okuyasu,” Josuke says. “If you erase a person’s Stand it’s like erasing their soul! Do you want to do that to our friend?” 

Okuyasu realizes his idea was awful, but dammit he wants to help okay? He feels helpless and frustrated that he can’t think of anything useful in this situation. He just wants the Stand to go away and leave you alone. He even goes so far as to ask you to summon Killer Queen just so he can say that to the Stand’s face. 

“Listen here you pink cat bastard!” he practically spits at the Stand. “You better fuck off and leave our friend alone or I’m gonna make your life a living hell!!!” 

Killer Queen merely stares Okuyasu down until the delinquent actually starts feeling a little nervous. Then the Stand has the nerve to give him a wry little smile and duck down to nuzzle his head against yours. Freaked out, you dismiss him and Okuyasu rages. It’s going to take a LOOOOOOOONG time for Okuyasu to come to terms with your new status as a Stand user. 

Koichi: Koichi is horrified, not just at the situation, but he is very worried for you. Like everyone else, he’s baffled at how you could end up with someone else’s Stand. Not only that, but Koichi is the first to notice that there’s something different about Killer Queen now that it’s attached to you. The Stand seems more lively and sentient with you than it did with Kira, even going so far as to mock others and show you unwanted affection. It was far, far more reserved with Kira. What did that mean exactly? Did it have to do with your personality having an effect on its behavior? He wants to offer you all the support and comfort that he can as your friend but he can’t ignore the creeping feeling of dread that comes over him when he’s in your presence now. He tries not to let it show, because the last thing he wants is for you to think he’s afraid of you. You have enough to worry about without having to consider if your friends fear you now. 

Koichi starts doing research on Stands and Stand users, hoping to find something he can use to help you. Maybe there’s a way to separate a user from their Stand without hurting them? Of course, he has considered your feelings on the matter. Would you want to be separated from Killer Queen? Koichi will never say this out loud, but he has a terrible fear that a little bit of Kira’s personality has remained within Killer Queen and that there may be a possibility that Kira’s violent tendencies will start to manifest within you. He really hopes that isn’t the case. He doesn’t want Kira somehow hurting anyone else from beyond the grave, least of all one of his closest friends. He doesn’t know what he’d do if you started turning violent…

Jotaro: As per usual, Jotaro’s reaction is minimal when he first finds out, but his eyes are filled with a myriad of emotions: anger, shock, horror, and exhaustion. Especially the last one. Jotaro is so very tired. It’s bad enough that he’s still having to deal with DIO’s evil influence on the world even after the blood-sucking asshole’s death, but now Kira’s Stand has fused itself with your soul and is acting as your Stand. What is it with villains and the need to cling to the living world even after their very deserved deaths? Jotaro is oddly reminded of that stupid old kid’s song he heard when he was very young: 

But the cat came back the very next day

The cat came back, they thought he was a goner

But the cat came back, it just couldn't stay away

That did seem to be the case with Kira. Though, Killer Queen wasn’t Kira’s Stand anymore so it technically wasn’t Kira anymore either. He couldn’t ignore that fact. Killer Queen was your Stand now. Like Koichi, he could sense a difference in the Stand now that it was yours. It seemed more sentient than it was with Kira and he wasn’t blind to the mocking smile the thing would give him and the others. That was worrying. That and how affectionate it seemed towards you. It very clearly recognized and accepted you as its new user. This sudden level of sentience it displayed was disturbing.

The whole thing annoyed him. Just like Koichi, he feared that some of Kira’s influence still lingered within Killer Queen and could have an effect on you. It didn’t help that you didn’t seem to have the best control over the Stand, due to the fact that it sometimes materialized when you didn’t want it to and how it hesitated when you tried to dismiss it. That settles it. He was going to train you on how to control Killer Queen before the thing decided to control you. From now on, you can expect to be dragged along whenever Jotaro is showing Josuke how to better control Crazy Diamond. He would work with the Speedwagon Foundation in order to better understand your condition and help you in any way he could. He made a silent vow to himself that he would not let Kira’s influence corrupt you. 

Rohan: Surprisingly, Rohan is the one to take the news the hardest, but he’s also the one to find something close to a solution to your problem. 

Next to Koichi, you’re one of the few people he puts any value in. When you reveal Killer Queen to him his first response is to recoil in fear (let’s not forget the multiple deaths he had to endure because of the Stand’s user). After that he gets angry. 

“If this is supposed to be a prank, it’s not funny! Did Josuke put you up to this? I never realized that low-life had such a demented sense of humor…” he says.

When you explain to him that it isn’t a prank and he realizes that Killer Queen has indeed become your Stand, he starts acting as if you just informed him that you had a terminal illness and only had a year to live. You watch as the poor man goes through all seven stages of grief in a matter of moments.

Denial: “This has to be a joke. I won’t believe that it’s true! Something like this is impossible! How can you have a dead man’s Stand!?” 

Anger: “How could you let something like this happen?! I know it’s not your fault, that’s not the point! Surely you could have done something to stop it?! And where was Josuke or that nitwit, Okuyasu?! Why didn’t they do something?! I’m not shouting, you’re shouting!!” 

Bargaining: “I’ll give you an autograph if you say that you’ve been messing with me this whole time! I won’t even get angry, I promise! What about one of my unpublished manuscripts? One of my figurines? You… you’re really not joking about this are you?” 

Depression: He goes over to his desk and just sits there staring out the window. You don’t get a response out of him but you notice the tears rolling down his face and you’re shocked. The “Great” Rohan Kishibe is actually shedding tears? And on your behalf? After a moment he wipes his face and starts talking to you as if nothing happened. 

Acceptance: “This isn’t ideal, but it isn’t the end of the world. You say that Jotaro’s been teaching you how to better control Killer Queen? That’s good. Now you won’t have to worry about it hurting anyone you don’t want it to.” 

At some point during the conversation, Rohan jumps up from his seat and grabs the sides of his head with disbelief. 

“I cannot believe I didn’t think of this.” he mutters. 

“Think of what?” you ask, hoping he has thought of some kind of solution to your problem. 

“We’ll use Heaven’s Door to prevent you from losing control over Killer Queen!” 

You stared at him, mouth open in surprise. How had no one considered that before now? 

“Give me your hand.” Rohan says and you oblige. 

Heaven’s Door manifests next to him and the little Stand touches the back of your hand. You stare at him amazed, having never seen him up until that moment. You are startled as the back of your hand flips open like a tiny book. You see writing on the inside of it, but don’t have time to read any of it before Rohan grabs a pen and jots something down in the margins of the page. It says, 

“I have complete and total control over my Stand, Killer Queen. It will never harm anyone that is not a threat to me or my loved ones.” 

Then Heaven’s Door flips the book closed and your hand returns to normal. 

“Now, that settles that!” Rohan says with a self satisfied grin. “Really I’m surprised you hadn’t come to me sooner…” 

While Rohan is congratulating himself, you take the time to lean up and give him a kiss of gratitude on his cheek. 

“You’re the best, Rohan!” you say, overflowing with relief and thankfulness. 

Rohan freezes mid-sentence, a stunned expression on his face. For a full minute he just stands there staring with his mouth open in shock and a hint of pink dusting his normally pale cheeks. At first you thought that you might have crossed a line and he’d start shouting at you, but he doesn’t. Then you start worrying if you’ve broken him. 

“Rohan?” You ask. 

This seems to snap the manga creator out of his stunned state. Without saying a word, he turns on his heel, marches over to his desk, plops down in the chair and starts scribbling away in a notebook. 

“....rapid heart beat….feelings of almost unbearable euphoria…” 

He stops to reach up and touch his face then immediately goes back to writing.

“...cheeks feel like they’re on fire….” 

You blink at him, not knowing what to say or do. You guess he’s gone into work mode. There’s not much you can do to break him out of that once his creative juices start flowing. You decide to leave and go tell the others the good news. 

“Okay, well. I guess I’ll go let Josuke and the others know. I’m sure they’ll be relieved.” you say. 

“Later, Rohan.” 

You start to leave when Rohan suddenly turns to you with a serious expression. 

“Before you go, I want it to be known here and now that if you tell anyone, especially Josuke, that I cried, I will never speak to you again.” 

Your lips twitch as you hold back a laugh. 

“You’re secret’s safe with me, Rohan-sensei.” you say.

[thornybubbles]

I Never Go Around Mirrors (Yandere Illuso X Reader)

Note: I’ve neglected La Squadra members for far too long and I wanted to fix that. Still, I think this little story is kinda meh. I will try to do something better for Illuso next time.

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This wasn’t the life that you wanted to live. It was never in your plan to live on the run spending your every waking moment glancing over your shoulder and your every night wondering if you should take the risk and go to sleep. You made sure that when you left, you would head out to the country, staying as far away from any place that could possibly have a mirror. You managed to get far enough away that you managed not to panic when you found the mirrors in the old farmhouse that you rented. You got rid of them immediately, tossing them into the river behind your new house and watching the current carry them away. There had only been four of them; one in the bathroom and one in each bedroom. If you needed to see your reflection that badly, you could just marvel at your tired, haunted appearance in the river water. You weren’t totally sure how his abilities worked, but you were fairly certain that he could only use the reflection of a mirror. It had been a few days and he hadn’t tracked you down yet, so that must be the case. 

You were foolish enough to allow yourself to relax. It didn’t last long. Eventually, your paranoia would just not leave you alone. You started to notice an odd echoing sound that was driving you crazy. It sounded like a faint knocking at first and you ignored it, thinking it must be distant hammering from some construction work miles away. The echo carried far out where you were. The Italian countryside was beautiful, lined with mountains and flowering meadows, but it was not as peaceful as you had hoped. Another day passed and the knocking was beginning to sound like footsteps: slow, deliberate, stalking, mocking… 

You couldn’t stand it!

It had gotten to the point that any reflection was unbearable. Each time you caught a glimpse of yourself on any reflective surface you would panic, expecting to see him standing behind you. He wasn’t there. He was never there. Still, you didn’t want to take any chances. The silverware was replaced with cutlery made from non-reflective material. The old brass knobs throughout the house were replaced with dull metal. You made it a point to stay away from the river from now on. If you didn’t stand in front of a reflection, then he couldn’t see you. You didn’t care if his abilities could only be used with mirrors. You were not taking any chances. 

Another day or so passed. That echo was getting louder. Footsteps. They were definitely footsteps! They were closer than they were a few days ago. Now you could hear them coming up the driveway, up the steps, right up to the front door! Your eyes darted to the stained glass window adorning the door. There was nothing there. No familiar silhouette darkened the doorway. Still you kept glancing down at the knob as if expecting it to turn. It never did. You almost let out a laugh at how badly your imagination was running away with you, but the footsteps started up again. They circled the house a few times, giving off the air of someone who was on a casual stroll. You jumped up from your seat and ran to the record collection that came with the house when you bought it. The house was a treasure trove of old trinkets and homey decor left behind by its previous owners. The record collection was one of your favorites. At that moment, you needed it to save your sanity. 

You picked a record at random, placed it on the record player, placed the needle in a random position on the record, and started the player. An old country song began to play, the twang of a steel guitar covering up the sound of the footsteps. As long as you couldn’t hear it, it was fine. You stared around the parlor trying to find something else to help you relax. Your eyes settled on the bookshelf next to the unused fireplace. Just as you did with the record, you chose a book at random. You didn’t care what the book was about. It could be anything from a dull historical chronicle or an ego-driven celebrity autobiography and you wouldn’t care. As long as it took your mind off of the overbearing feeling of being hunted, you would devour each and every word. You took a seat on the overstuffed sofa, relishing the softness of the cushions, and opened the book. 

What the hell?

You stared at the page and the gibberish written there. You didn’t recognize the language at all. It wasn’t English, Italian, or any other language that you recognized… until you took a second look. 

It was Italian… but the words were all reversed. 

You shot up from the sofa, dropping the book to the floor in horror. That could only mean one thing. 

A low, familiar chuckle startled you. You looked up to see the man you’d been trying to avoid all this time standing by the record player. He lifted the needle from the record, stopping the song and filling the room with silence. He turned to you, giving you a smug grin. 

“I was wondering if you would ever figure it out.” he said with an uncomfortably calm laugh. 

His smug expression became one of soft adoration as he turned to look at you. 

“You really hurt me when you left, mia amata.” he said. “You promised that you would stay by my side forever…” 

He began a slow saunter over to you and you backed up, staring at him with disbelief.

How did he find you?!

“Everything was peachy between us until you discovered what I did for a living. Honestly, I don’t know why that matters so much to you. I suppose it is a little scary if you aren’t used to that kind of thing, but as my lover you should be willing to stick with me no matter what. I know you’re scared, but you made a promise and I think it’s only right that you keep it. I gave you all of my love. Don’t you think you owe me the same?” 

There was a dangerous undertone in his voice. He was angry, but the way he was looking at you made you wonder just how angry he was with you. His hand darted out and you flinched, squeezing your eyes closed in anticipation of pain. It never came. You opened your eyes to see him bending down to pick up your book. He opened it up and flipped through a page or two before closing it with a snap and placing it back on the book shelf. He offered you another smile, this one was devoid of the usual smugness. He was giving you the look of someone that was totally smitten. It looked out of place on his face now. You’ve seen his gleeful expression as he cruelly beat someone that made the mistake of accidentally locking eyes with you. You will never forget the rage in his eyes when someone got a little too friendly with you for his liking. You’d seen that dark side of him before and the image of it was burned into your memory. He didn’t seem to realize that you had already made your plans to leave him long before you found out that he was a Mafioso. 

“I have to admit that I was pretty mad with you when I found out you were gone.” he said, suddenly wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you to him. “I thought you’d abandoned me… but I realized that you didn’t really  want to leave me.” 

You stopped struggling in his hold to give him a questioning look. 

“What are you talking about?” he asked. 

He pointed back to the record player. 

“You probably didn’t even realize it, but you instinctively choose a song about a man who couldn’t stand to see his own reflection because he no longer saw his lover standing next to him. You were thinking about me, even though you didn’t realize it.” he said. 

He ran a hand along your arm until he came to your wrist where he traced his hands along the bracelet you wore there. 

“And here is another reason I know you still have the hots for me,” he said, voice taking on an arrogant, teasing tone. “You didn’t take off the bracelet I gave you, even though you knew it would lead me right to you.” 

Your eyes widened and you pushed out of his embrace. He didn’t bother to stop you, just stood there in an odd pose while he watched the realization flow over you. You lifted your arm to your face and examined the bracelet. Along with the diamonds that adorned it, you were horrified to discover that the bracelet was lined with little mirrors. Illuso chuckled and you looked up at him, dread plastered on your face. He frowned when he saw your expression. 

“Oh, wipe that look of shock off of your face.” he growled. “Stop pretending like you didn’t keep the bracelet on because you wanted me to come after you.” 

“No,” you offered  a weak protest. “I wanted to get away from you! I wanted you out of my life!” 

Illuso’s frown deepened and he closed the distance between you. You tried to back up but your escape was blocked by the wall. 

“Look, babe, I like playing a good old fashioned game of hard-to-get, too, but you’re taking this too far.” he huffed. “You missed me and you know it.” 

He placed his hands on either side of your head and you felt your heart fall. You thought you’d managed to escape him for good this time. You thought you’d been so careful. You hadn’t even looked at the bracelet when he got it for you. You’d been so concerned with pretending to adore it and worrying about the blood money he’d used to buy it for you at the time. You hadn’t considered that it would be lined with mirrors. 

“I have to admit that I’m getting a little tired of the game, though.” Illuso said, breaking you out of your thoughts. “This is like, what, your third time running out on me? Or is it the fifth? Well, whatever, it’s starting to piss me off a little bit. So I think that I’m going to put a stop to it.” 

You looked him right in the eyes when he said that. What did he mean by that? 

“What are you going to do?” you asked in a frightened whisper. 

Illuso grinned in his usual smug way, but you couldn’t ignore the sinister feeling it gave off. 

“I think I’m going to leave you in here, at least until you get over that little running away habit of yours,” he said. 

“Leave me… in here…??” you repeated, not sure what he meant. 

Illuso pushed off of the wall and looked down on you with disdain. 

“Don’t act stupid,” he scoffed. “You saw the writing in the book was reversed. Surely you’ve figured out by now that I’ve pulled you into my mirror world?” 

You gasped in horror. You sputtered words at him, but none of them formed a sentence. Illuso watched you struggle with your disbelief before he laughed and snapped his fingers in the air as if he suddenly thought of something. 

“Oh, that’s right! I never told you that I could do that, did I?” he said. “That’s right, your lover boy can not only travel from mirror to mirror, but I can actually pull others into the mirror world with me. Heh heh, it took me a little while to catch up with you because I had to find this place in the normal world, but I managed. The way you ransacked this place of all its mirrors almost made me think that you actually didn’t want me to find you, but you kept the bracelet on, so I know that’s not the case. Either that or you didn’t think the mirrors on it were big enough. Just so you know, it doesn’t matter what size the mirror is, I can move through it and pull in others. In fact, you’ve been in the mirror world since about three nights ago. You’re a really heavy sleeper, by the way.” 

The way he smiled at you then chilled you down to the marrow in your bones. 

“You can’t keep me in here, Illuso!” you shouted. 

Illuso scoffed. 

“What’s stopping me? You can’t get out unless I let you out, so you can’t run from me anymore.” he said. 

Suddenly he pulled you to him, both of his arms were wrapped around you in such a way that your own arms were pinned to your sides. You tried to squirm free but he tightened his hold on you. 

“Quit that!” he shouted, annoyed by your struggling. 

You froze and he smirked. 

“That’s better. Now, I don’t really have anything important to do today, so I thought that you and I could spend some time together. You’ve been gone for so long and I missed you so much. I think we should make up for lost time. What do you think about that?” He said, planting a kiss on your cheek. 

You whimpered pathetically, but said nothing.

[thornybubbles]

The Cat Came Back

NOTE: This is just a blurb based on an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while. I was debating on whether or not to share this because I don’t really plan on expanding on it. It’s not a yandere story, but I could definitely put it in the “horror scenario” category. 

---------

It didn’t take Josuke long to get to your house after you called him. You woke him up in the middle of an after school nap and told him to come over to your house. You didn’t explain anything and just said that it was urgent. He was already worried about you because you hadn’t been to school for two days, but hearing the dread in your voice had him panicking. Whatever was wrong with you was something serious and he could only hope that it was something that Crazy Diamond could fix. If not, then he would do whatever he needed to to help you. You were one of his dearest friends after all. 

It was only a year ago since the incident with Kira and all the stuff that happened before that. He had never wanted you to be dragged into the madness of Stands and Stand users, but you got involved anyway when Kira targeted you specifically during that final battle. Josuke had no idea what you were doing there. You weren’t a Stand user and you would have no way to defend yourself when things inevitably got crazy. You were supposed to be at home and away from all that mess, but you said that you heard the explosions and got worried. Leave it to you to be the only one that would run towards the sound of explosions instead of away from them (you dummy!). Unfortunately, in your haste to check on what was happening to your friends, you ran right into Yoshikage Kira. 

Kira recognized you instantly as one of Josuke’s friends and planned on using you as a hostage until he was able to flee the scene after the tides of battle had turned against him. There was no doubt that once he managed to escape them, he would kill you, a fact that he gleefully reminded Josuke of during the final showdown. If it hadn’t been for Jotaro and Star Platinum’s ability to stop time… well… it’s not something Josuke wanted to think about. 

Josuke finally reached your front door and rang the bell. Mere seconds after, the door opened and you stood there looking up at him with a haggard, haunted expression. He was shocked at your appearance. It looked like you hadn’t slept in days. One look at you had him asking what seemed like a thousand questions at once. 

“Oh my God! Are you okay? Are you sick? Is that why you weren’t at school? Why didn’t you call someone? You could’ve gotten Koichi or Yukako to take notes for you, you know? Where are your parents? Are you here by yourself? Who’s taking care of you?” 

You only answered one of his questions. 

“My folks are out of town visiting relatives.” you said, voice shaky with fatigue and anxiety. “Get in here. We gotta talk about something serious.” 

Before he could say anything else, you grabbed him by the collar of his uniform jacket and dragged him inside. You had him sit on the sofa in the living room. He waited there, impatient and anxious, as you nervously paced the room in front of him. After another minute of watching you imitate a caged big cat, he couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Come on, don’t leave me hanging like this!” he said, voice cracking as he tried to swallow down his building dread. “Just tell me what’s wrong!” 

You looked at him, eyes both tired and manic at the same time. 

“I’m going to!” you snapped, emotions flaring. “I just… I’m just not sure how to even begin to explain this…” 

You sighed deeply, trying to calm yourself enough to say what you needed to. 

“I-I’ll just start this off by saying that… well… I… I don’t even know how this is possible now, but…It happened after school on Monday. I got home and…” 

You took another deep breath and massaged your temples. Your head was pounding and you hadn’t bothered to take anything for it yet. 

“Look. I don’t really know how to soften the blow with this, so I’m just gonna come out and say it… I have a Stand now.” you said. 

Josuke’s eyes widened and he sat looking at you in shock. There were so many thoughts going through his head at that moment. Having a Stand was a double edged sword. On one hand (depending on what kind of Stand you had) you would be able to defend yourself better as a Stand user than a normal person. On the other hand, it would mean that you would be forever destined to run into other Stand users, not all of which would be friendly. This revelation also filled Josuke’s head with even more questions. How had you obtained your Stand? Was there another arrow for them to worry about? Or did you get your Stand without an arrow? If so, why hadn’t you suffered with the near deadly fever that usually accompanied developing a Stand? Most people who were born Stand users either developed them at birth or at least at a very young age. That’s not to say that a user couldn’t develop their Stand at a later age, but…. 

Josuke opened his mouth, preparing to bombard you with all the questions swimming around in his head, but you held up a hand to silence him. 

“Wait, before you say anything, let me just say that it isn’t what you think. My Stand, well, it isn’t… it isn’t actually mine…” 

Josuke gave you a confused look. 

“W-what? What do you mean by that? How can you have a Stand that isn’t yours?” he asked, unable to hold back his questions any longer. 

You let out a cry of frustration. “I don’t know, Josuke!” you shouted. “I don’t have a damned clue, okay?!” 

Josuke jumped and shied away from you at your harsh tone. Seeing his reaction you closed your eyes trying, once again, to get your emotions under control. 

“Sorry.” you said with a shaky sigh. “Sorry I snapped. This is just… it makes no sense, okay? It really, really makes no sense and I just don’t know how to deal with what’s happening. I always was a little envious of you, Okuyasu, Koichi, and the others because I was the only one that didn’t have a Stand. I thought it would be cool to have one, you know? But… in this case I think I’d rather go back to not having one.” 

A few minutes of silence passed between you. Josuke fidgeted on the couch in anticipation of whatever else you would have to say. He was torn between asking you things or waiting for you to start talking again. 

“I guess the only way you’ll understand what I mean by the Stand not being mine is to show it to you.” you said finally. 

Another moment or two of uncomfortable silence. 

“Okay… Josuke, I’m going to show you my Stand now, but you have to remain calm, okay? Don’t freak out!” 

You took a step back from him and stared at the floor for a moment. Josuke watched you both curious and anxious over what your Stand would be. 

You didn’t summon your Stand in the usual way. You didn’t call it by name, so Josuke assumed you hadn’t given it a name yet. But once the Stand came into view Josuke understood why you didn’t call it by name. You were right when you said that the Stand wasn’t yours. It belonged to someone else… someone who was supposed to be dead. This Stand already had a name and it was a name you probably didn’t want to say aloud, not after what the user put you through. 

Josuke knew the Stand because he’d actually fought the user, but you knew the Stand by accident. You’d bumped into Rohan while he was at the cafe one afternoon and spotted some of his sketches on the table. They were all sketches of Stands and you were fascinated. Though he pretended to be annoyed in the usual Rohan fashion, he’d been all too happy to show you the sketches and explain everything he knew about Stands and Stand users. You browsed the sketches he’d made of the various Stands and their corresponding users: Josuke’s Crazy Diamond, Okuyasu’s The Hand, Koichi’s Echoes, Jotaro’s Star Platinum, and so on. Being a non-Stand user, this was the only way that you would ever know what everyone’s Stands looked like. 

There was one sketch, however, that Rohan seemed determined to keep you from seeing. He snatched the stack of sketches from you just as you got the final sketch, almost giving you a paper cut in the process. He mumbled something about needing to head home to get back to work, but it was already too late. As he was yanking the stack of sketches out of your hand, you got a glimpse of the final sketch. On the paper was the image of a figure you would never forget as long as you lived. Next to the user was the image of a Stand that would now also be burned into your memory along with its name that was scrawled on the space next to it: 

Killer Queen. 

This was the Stand that you summoned; a Stand that belonged to a dead serial killer. 

It took every ounce of Josuke’s impulse control to keep him from jumping up from the couch, summoning Crazy Diamond, and pummeling Killer Queen back into non-existence. But he knew that if he did that, it would hurt you, too. He could tell by the way Killer Queen hovered behind you, staring at him intensely, that it was waiting for you to give it the mental order to attack. You didn’t though. You were nothing like its previous owner and Josuke was not your opponent. But he could tell by the way the Stand stared directly into his eyes in a challenging manner that the damned thing not only recognized him, but still viewed him as an enemy. You shifted uncomfortably where you stood and Killer Queen mimicked the motion, taking on a different battle pose that somewhat imitated your new position. Oh yes, it was obvious that Killer Queen was your Stand now and anything Crazy Diamond did to it would affect you, too. As if it could sense what Josuke was thinking, the corners of Killer Queen’s mouth turned up slightly. It was mocking him. The wicked thing was actually mocking him!

This couldn’t be possible. It shouldn’t be possible! Reimi told them that both Yoshikage Kira and his Stand had been torn apart by the ghostly mass of arms that haunted the hidden alley beside the grocery store. It made no logical sense for Killer Queen to still exist after both it and its user had been ripped to pieces. It made even less sense for it to be attached to you now. How could someone gain control of a dead person’s Stand? Just how was such a thing possible? 

You felt your whole body quiver with disgust as the unwanted Stand pulled itself from your soul and manifested behind you. You stared at Josuke, watching his reaction. You pointedly refused to even glance at the Stand, afraid that you would retch if you so much as laid eyes on it. The shocked and horrified look on Josuke’s face did nothing to soothe you though. A single glance at the look on your friend’s face had your eyes filling with tears. You knew he wasn’t looking at you like that, but you still felt judged. Just having Kira’s Stand attached to you made you feel as if you had somehow become responsible for all the lives he’d taken. It was as if his sins had been passed on to you and it made you feel repulsed by your own existence. 

Sensing your distress, Killer Queen pulled its attention from Josuke to glance down at you. Wanting to comfort its new user, it knelt down and nudged your face with its forehead in a sick parody of a housecat demanding attention. At the sensation of it touching you, you jumped away, staring up at the Stand in terror. Your stomach churned at the sight of it and you actively had to fight against your gag reflex. Killer Queen cocked its head to the side, confused by your rejection. It reached for you and you threw your hands up in front of you as if to place a barrier between you and your own Stand. 

“Stop!” you shouted. “Don’t touch me!” 

Killer Queen did as it was told but stared at you strangely as if you were behaving unreasonably. 

“Go back!” you commanded. 

Killer Queen tilted its head to the other side, ears going back slightly. It made no move to obey. 

“Go back, Killer Queen!” you commanded again, hating how easily the Stand’s name rolled off your tongue. 

This time the Stand obeyed, but not before turning back to Josuke and staring him down once more before vanishing. 

Josuke glared right back at it until it was no longer in view. 

You could feel it when Killer Queen’s presence rejoined your soul and the sensation caused your knees to buckle. You sank to the floor and started bawling, unable to hold your emotions back anymore. Josuke was by your side in seconds, wrapping his arms around you and doing his best to calm you. You pressed yourself into his hold, soaking his uniform with tears and shaking. 

“Josuke!” you cried. “Please, please, please help me! I don’t know what to do! I don’t understand what’s happening to me! Please help me!” 

You were in utter hysterics and Josuke didn’t know what else to do but hold you and rock you like an infant until your screaming and sobbing quieted. Eventually you tired yourself out enough that you could think somewhat rationally again. 

“I-I don’t want the others to know about this,” you said with a sniff. “Not yet at least. I’m afraid of how they’ll react.” 

“Okay, but I think it’s best that we get in touch with Jotaro.” he told you. “He’s got experience when it comes to Stands and stuff like that, so he may have seen something like this before. He’s got ties to the Speedwagon Foundation and whatever he can’t help us with, I’m sure they can.” 

You went limp in his hold, finally feeling a tiny amount of relief after days of worry and dread. You allowed yourself to relax completely as he held you. 

“Thank you, Josuke,” you said in an exhausted tone. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” 

He lifted your head to look you in your watery eyes. 

“Hey, you know I’ve always got your back.” he said with a small smile. “You’re going to get through this, okay? You aren’t alone. I’ll be with you every step of the way.” 

--------------

NOTE 2: Well that ended on an uplifting note which is unusual for me. I just want to take the time to explain where this crazy idea came from. So, I’ve been slowly “JoJo-fying” my Terraria game and I found a mod called “JoJo Stands” which allows you to have Stands in the game while also filling the world with various JoJo references (of course!). With the mod, there are two ways to get Stands. The most common way is to wait for Jotaro (part 4 version) to show up in your game and get a Stand arrow shard from him. You talk to him and choose the option “Stand Help” and he’ll say something about how you “Seem to be reliable” and give you an arrow shard. If you use the arrow shard your character will take a slight amount of damage but get a buff letting you know that you’re under the influence of the arrow. You then just have to wait a few in-game minutes and a random Stand will appear into your inventory. I do have to mention that when you use the arrow shard there is the rare chance that it won’t give you a Stand and instead kill you instantly with a message that the arrow “found you unworthy”, after which you’ll have to go back to Jotaro, get another shard, and start the process over. 

The other way to get a Stand is to simply be “born” with one, meaning that a random Stand can be assigned to you from the moment your character spawns into the game world. It’s rare to get a Stand this way, however. On my first playthrough of the game after downloading the mod, I was lucky enough to be “born” with a Stand. I was really excited but when I checked my inventory to see which Stand I got, my excitement turned into a deep distress. The first Stand I ever got in the mod was, you guessed it, KILLER FREAKIN’ QUEEN! I didn’t know what Stand I would get, but I was not expecting him! 

I got over my initial anxiety at having such a destructive Stand after I used him in the fight with the Desert Scourge (giant worm boss from the Calamity Mod) and Killer Queen blew it to pieces before it was able to do any damage to me at all. That’s not to say that the Stand was overpowered or anything, as later boss fights proved to be a bit more of a challenge, but having him in boss fights was certainly a boon. 

In spite of how helpful he was as a Stand, I came to realize that I’m not a very responsible Stand user and frankly have no business having a Stand that dangerous. For example, there was the time that I went to pet my cat while I had Killer Queen active and I forgot to set him for Auto instead of Manual. So I ended up petting the cat with Killer Queen instead of my character. Anybody remember what happens when Killer Queen touches things while in attack mode? Yeah, I turned my damn cat into a bomb and detonated it seconds later. Fortunately, my cat didn’t die. It was injured but it fully healed after a few minutes. My sister joked that Killer Queen was jealous and wanted to be the only cat in the house. Very funny. 

Then there was the time I nearly blew myself up. I had just upgraded Killer Queen to the level that I could summon Sheer Heart Attack. For some dumb reason, I thought it was an excellent idea to test SHA’s abilities while standing inside of my house instead of taking it outside somewhere. My stupidity resulted in me nearly destroying my whole room. The explosion took out the whole background wall, some of my furniture, and parts of the floor and ceiling. It also took out over half of my health. It left me with only two hearts and a giant mess to clean up. My sister heard the explosion and came running to see what happened. I explained what I’d done and she told me that I needed to have my Stand License revoked. Very funny. 

At some point I started speculating on the idea of a person developing a Stand only to find out that the Stand not only used to belong to someone else, but it used to belong to a really evil villain. So that’s where the idea for this little blurb came from. Like I said before, I don’t really plan on adding anything more to this as I haven’t planned anything beyond this initial premise. So consider this a one shot. Keep an eye out for more stuff in the near future! 

[thornybubbles]

"Kinder Than Love" is complete! The epilogue is ready to read now.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[thornybubbles]

You Give Love a Bad Name (Yandere Diego x Backstabber Reader)

NOTE: I didn’t write anything for the entire month of October and I feel awful about that. Imagine me, a lover of horrifying JoJo fanfics, not writing anything for the Halloween season! Unforgivable! So I’m gonna try to make up for it all this month starting with this story. Please accept this as part of my apology! 

NOTE 2: I don’t know why I keep pairing poor Diego up with criminal Readers. It's an aesthetic, I guess. 

Warnings: YANDERE, possessiveness, very dark themes and implications, degradation, violence towards Reader, threats, and other forms of unpleasantness. Also Reader is kind of an asshole. I head canon that yandere Diego is a lot wilder and meaner than regular Diego (not that regular Diego was nice). No smut!

Diego hated himself for letting you into his heart. He wanted to hate you, but he couldn’t muster the proper level of emotion. He loved you. He loved you dearly, and that was the problem. You had somehow wormed your way into his heart. You were so sweet to him the day the two of you met. He’d been injured and you showed up out of nowhere wanting to help him. He shooed you away, his pride and distrust of other people preventing him from accepting help from anyone. You insisted and he bellowed at you, demanding that you leave him alone and mind your own business. You started bawling then, not because of him yelling at you, but because, in your own words, 

“I can’t bear to leave you like this! You’re bleeding so badly! Please, please let me help you!” 

He sneered at you telling you to just shut up and aid him then. Anything to stop your infernal squalling. How your demeanor changed. You were so happy that you’d been allowed to help him, smiling sweetly as you bandaged his arm. You looked so cute that he couldn't stand to look at your face. You didn’t ask him questions about how he got injured or pry into his personal affairs. Instead you talked about how you’d been a long time fan of his and had followed as many of his achievements as you could. You told him that this was the first time you’d been able to actually watch a race that he was in and you were so excited about that. 

Diego was used to having fans that adored and worshiped him, but you were something else. No other fan could point out maneuvers that he used to achieve his victories, but you did. You didn’t just adore him for his achievements alone, you actually studied his methods. You told him that you became a fan because you wanted to watch him succeed. Never in his life had Diego felt so… supported. Others had been lured to him for his looks, charm, and achievements alone, but you seemed drawn by merely adoration of him as a jockey and your joy at watching him win. 

It flustered him and he hated that. Diego Brando was the one that flustered, not the one who got flustered. 

How dare you make him feel like this…

Thereafter you became an absolute pest. He saw you nearly everywhere he went and he didn’t know how to feel about it. He jokingly accused you of stalking him and the shocked and ashamed look on your face had him laughing. Finally he had made you blush, and it was the loveliest sight he’d ever laid eyes on. You had him, fully and completely, and he found himself looking forward to seeing your excited face in the crowds. Seeing you like that, waving at him from among the rabble, it never failed to have him smiling. You were like a rare jewel shining through piles of trash. Your very presence made him feel uplifted. Even when he wasn’t doing well in the race, you were there to offer your support. 

“So what if you lost your place!” you said. “You’re Diego Brando! You’ll do what you have to to regain your spot in the race and gain five more places in the process! Nobody can keep you down!” 

Then you’d hold your little fist in the air and cheer and another crack would form in the shield that Diego had put around his heart. 

Some time after that, you confessed to Diego. You told him that you’d had a crush on him since you first saw his picture in the newspaper, but meeting him in real life and seeing his feats for yourself, actually getting to speak to him in person… it turned your crush into full blown love. Many women confessed their attraction to him before, but it was always limited to his looks or fame. Other than his mother, no one had ever said they loved him before. It shattered the shield around his heart completely and he went weak in the knees. 

He confessed his own love for you that day, unable to hold back his feelings anymore. He’d given up on ever feeling loved again after his mother’s death. He’d given up on love in general. Love was a weakness after all. It made people do foolish things. Made them sloppy and stupid. Love could destroy a person’s life. How he wished that he’d remembered all that later… when you betrayed him. 

It happened not long after he obtained Scary Monsters. He was so eager to go and show it to you. He longed to see your shocked face become an expression of amazement and adoration. He wanted to stand in place and watch as you marveled at his new power. He wanted to see the glimmer of tenderness in your eyes as you stroked his face and whispered words of encouragement. 

“Look at you, Diego! My God! You’re unstoppable now!” he imagined you saying. 

But you weren’t there. He couldn’t find you at the checkpoint. He searched the inns, saloons, shops of the town, but you were nowhere to be seen. He started asking the other racers if they’d seen you. No one seemed to know who he was talking about. Dread filled his heart to bursting. Where were you? Had something happened? Were you ill? Injured? Lost? Had someone done something to you? He’d bloody murder anyone that laid a hand on you!! Desperate, he started asking the townsfolk in hopes that one of them knew something. Fortunately, most of them seemed to know who you were, but the looks they exchanged with each other when Diego mentioned your name told him that something was wrong. Very wrong. 

The townsfolk had a very interesting story to tell about you. Con-artist. That was the word they used to describe you. They told him about all the other men that you had warmed up to, how they all found themselves in the same predicament he was in. They told him about how you would seek out wealthy, famous, desirable men and make them fall for you. Then, when they least expected it, you would rob them and leave them with empty wallets and broken hearts. Diego could have massacred the entire town right then and there. He didn’t want to believe that they were talking about you. Not his sweet, innocent darling! Not the angel that was always there for him, uplifting him, encouraging him, loving him… He wouldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. He ran back to his hotel room and searched through his belongings. It wasn’t true! You wouldn’t do that to him! Not to him! 

Half of his money was missing along with the necklace that he’d bought for you. You’d been kind enough, at least, not to rob him completely blind. How had he not noticed that his money bag was lighter than usual? When did you even have time to do this? You must’ve snuck into his room when he was practically tearing the town apart looking for you. You must have been lying in wait, watching for the moment that he left his room so that you could slip in and help yourself to what didn’t belong to you. Diego searched his bag again, hoping beyond hope that he’d just miscounted his cash and misplaced the necklace… and he found the cute little message you’d left for him,

“It’s been fun, Diego, but I’m afraid it’s time for me to head out. No hard feelings, handsome! Don’t be too mad at me!” 

It felt like the room had fallen away, leaving him in a black void and the only thing he could see was the letter he clutched in his trembling hands. His mind was racing with all manner of dark and murderous thoughts. It had all been a lie, a cruel, hateful lie! He never meant anything to you at all. He was just another mark for you, wasn’t he? Another notch in your damned belt! He should have known. He should have been able to see through your act. He’d imagined you to be some kind of jewel amongst filth, but he forgot that ALL humans were filth! Well you certainly reminded him of that, didn’t you? Diego’s fury-fogged gaze dropped to the bottom of the letter where you had the utter nerve to leave a mocking lipstick print on the paper. 

You sealed your fate with that little stunt. 

Diego held the note close to his face and breathed deep of your scent. He hadn’t fully grasped all of Scary Monsters abilities just yet, but he did know how to utilize its heightened sense of smell. He could smell the oil in your lipstick and the hint of your breath still lingering on the paper. You’d had tea instead of coffee that morning. He also caught a whiff of your perfume. It was the one that he’d bought you, imported from France and very expensive. At the time he thought you were worth it…

…Your scent was fresh. Very fresh. You were still in town. You hadn’t left yet. 

Diego slammed the door to his hotel room open, startling a young woman with a cart full of food trays. He sniffed at the air frantically, looking for all the world like a wild dog on the hunt. The woman started to speak to him, to ask him if he needed anything, but when he turned his yellow-eyed gaze on her, the words caught in her throat and she could only let out a tiny peep of surprise. His expression was that of a feral beast and he was panting ragged breaths as if he’d been running for miles. He sniffed the air a few more times before rushing past her. The woman pressed herself against the wall, barely avoiding being knocked down as he rushed down the corridor. She stared after him in confusion. She recognized him of course. Most of the hotel girls knew of the famed Diego Brando, but she was fairly certain that his eyes weren’t yellow. 

Was it even possible for humans to have yellow eyes? 

-----------------

You sighed as you climbed into the stagecoach that was to take you out of town. You felt a little guilty, you had to admit. Diego seemed so enamored with you, much more so than you expected of him. Watching his haughty, bitter demeanor melt into something soft and loving kinda had your heart pounding. It was a shame you just didn’t feel the same way. You would never forget that story he told you about his mother. You really wished that he’d never opened up that much to you. Poor Diego. He would be devastated at your betrayal, no doubt. Knowing that would eat you up inside, but you were sure that the fat stack hidden in your bag would ease your heartache. 

“Hello, dearie.” 

You were not expecting to ever hear that voice again. You looked up to see Diego staring at you with a blank expression from the seat across from you. When did he get into the stagecoach with you? Was he already in there waiting for you? 

“Diego!” you said with a start. 

“I got your note,” he said, holding up the note you’d left him and giving you a joyless smile. “I couldn’t let you leave without saying goodbye in person.” 

Your eyes darted around the inside of the coach, looking for anything you could use to bend the situation into your favor. Diego kept talking. 

“I was so worried about you, sweetheart.” he said with a mock pout. “I couldn’t find you anywhere. I was afraid something awful happened to you.” 

Your eyes fell on the bandages on the sides of his face. Was he injured? It didn’t matter. It was something you could use. Show him sympathy. Make him forget his anger and remember how good your hands felt against the skin of his face. That’s usually all it took for most. 

“Diego, what are those bandages for? Did you hurt yourself?” you said, giving him a pitiful look of concern. 

You reached up to him, hands coming up to touch the bandages. Your fingers had barely grazed the gauze of each bandage before Diego uttered an inhuman growl, 

“Keep your filthy, thieving little rat claws to yourself!” 

You pulled your hands back as if he’d tried to bite you, and held your arms to your chest to protect them. 

“Diego, please, you don’t understand…” you began but he sharply cut you off. 

“Oh, yes. Let’s hear it! Tell me all about what I don’t understand! What sob story will it be this time? Will it be the one about your dying aunt who was like a mother to you? Will it be about how you want to pay off your father’s gambling debts? Or will it be the one about you needing money to send your younger siblings to school? Or maybe it will be the one about buying shoes for orphans? Does that cover everything or will I be getting a new story this time?”  

You gave him a pleading look and tried to think of something, anything to tell him. You didn’t know what to do or say. Most of your victims were too busy wallowing in heartbreak to bother confronting you. Diego was the only one that went so far as to track you down. It was unexpected, but it wasn’t a scenario that you were completely unprepared for. 

“Floyd, Fleetwood, The Allman Brothers, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young…” he listed off the names of some of your previous victims. “Do those names ring any bells? Including me, was that the full list of your targets or am I missing some?” 

He was, actually. He left out Morrison and Dylan, but you weren’t about to correct him. While he fumed you reached into the hidden pocket on the inside of your shawl and grasped the grip of your pistol. 

“How did it feel to know that you got one over on the great Diego Brando?” he asked. “Did it give you a little thrill? Did it give you your adrenaline fix? Did you have a laugh or two at my expense?” 

“Diego, please. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t needed the money!” You pleaded in a last ditch effort to sway him. “I’ve fallen on hard times!” 

“Hard times?” Diego scoffed. “I doubt that you’ve experienced any hardship more serious than deciding what to have for breakfast in the morning!” 

His eyes darted to your throat for some reason. He thought he saw movement there but he wasn’t sure. He tried to focus his blurred vision on the glimmer of something around your throat. Ah. You were wearing the necklace he bought for you. He smiled bitterly at the sight of it. 

“The necklace looks lovely on you, dear. I was trying to keep it a secret from you until I was ready to give it to you, but it seems you’ve gone and spoiled the surprise. It goes well with that new outfit though. Blue was always your color. Tell me, did you buy that with my money?” 

You drew your pistol and aimed it at his chest. 

Diego’s instincts kicked in at the sudden movement. He saw something shiny in your hand, but couldn’t quite make out what it was. Though that newly awakened, primitive side of his brain was screaming at him that what you held in your hand was a weapon and he was in danger. 

You didn’t want to do it, but he’d cornered you, and cornered rats have a tendency to bite. You barely had time to cock the gun before Diego slapped it out of your hand with a speed you hadn’t expected from a human being. The gun flew out of the window of the coach and you heard it clatter against the ground a moment later. It’s a wonder it hadn’t gone off. The state of your gun was the least of your worries as Diego swung backwards with the same hand that had knocked the gun out of your hand and backhanded you across the face. You let out a yelp of pain and shock and shrank in on yourself, curling up in the seat and shielding your head with your arms. You could feel your hair dangling down in your face. Diego had slapped you so hard that your hair came undone. You could feel blood trickling out of one of your nostrils and you really hoped he hadn’t broken your nose. Your face stung like hell. 

You felt yourself being grabbed by the shoulders. You shrieked as Diego yanked you up to face him, pulling you out of your protective ball. 

“D-Diego! Please! Don’t h-hurt me!” you begged. 

“Hurt you?” Diego said, voice suddenly sounding deep and distorted. “Hurt you? After what you did to me, I should KILL YOU!!” 

His voice came out in a roar that shook the coach and vibrated throughout your entire body. 

You were crying now, sobbing and pleading for him not to kill you. Diego just stared at you with wild eyes. The color of his eyes seemed off and his pupils looked odd. You don’t know if what you were seeing was the result of the abject terror that Diego had instilled in you or if there was something strange going on with his face. The corners of his mouth seemed to shift under the bandages and stretch up the side of his face far further than they should go. His lips, and patches of skin around his face and neck seemed oddly scaly. And his teeth… Why did they look so long and sharp? 

“W-what’s happening to y-you?” you asked. 

He didn’t answer your question. He was too busy panting like an animal and being hypnotized by the trickle of blood coming from your nose. 

“Does it make you feel accomplished, knowing you humiliated me like that? I can practically hear everyone laughing at me behind my back. How they’ll look at me when I pass by and whisper to each other about how I fell prey to a con-artist and then they’ll snicker like schoolchildren. I won’t allow it. Do you hear? I won’t allow you to add me to your lists of conquests! You won’t place me on your trophy shelf! What’s worse is that you have the nerve to pull a gun on me! Were you thinking of adding murder to your list of crimes? I’ll kill you first! Love, you have no idea how hard it is for me to keep myself from biting your pretty head off…” 

You sobbed as you listened to his mad rant and watched at his face and body continued to contort into something monstrous. 

“Please don’t kill me…” you sobbed. 

Your plea seemed to snap him out of whatever daze he was in and his eyes lifted from the trail of blood from your nose to your tear-filled eyes. 

“I can’t…” he whispered. “I should. Believe me I’m angry enough… but I don’t think I could ever live with myself if I ripped you apart like I want to. And prison’s too good for you. You wouldn’t stay there long anyway. You’d just flutter your lashes at the nearest gullible guard and you’d be back on the streets in no time without ever going to trial. Isn’t that right?” 

“Diego… you’re hurting me…” you said in a pained gasp. He was gripping your shoulders so hard. 

“Oh poor thing.” He mocked. “Well you hurt me first, you lying, conniving little harlot and, believe me, you’ll pay for it! I’m not letting you go… I still want you. Damn my own foolish heart, I still want you. So you’re going to stick by me just like you used to. But you’re not getting out of your punishment. As much as I love you, I won’t let you get away with what you did to me. I want you at every checkpoint singing my praises louder than ever before. I want you throwing yourself at my feet even if it means kneeling in filth. I want you to do it where everyone can see you, so you can see what it feels like to have everyone laughing at you. You’ll be at my beck and call, my personal servant. If I can’t have you as my lover, then you’ll be my dog! You’ll grovel before me, beg for my attention, and my kindness, and I’ll give you none of it until I think you’ve earned it! That’s right, there will be no more perfumes, jewelry, or fancy clothes for you. From now on you’ll have to earn that, too. I’ll show you exactly what it means to fall on hard times!” 

This couldn’t be happening! Not to you! You were supposed to be on your way to the next town and the next poor sap to con. You weren’t supposed to be here now in the clutches of a madman who seemed to be turning into a monster. 

“Don’t think for a minute that you can run either.” Diego continued. “Try to escape and I’ll find you. I’ll hunt you down just like I did today, only when I find you again I will kill you! I’ll kill you and anyone you try to get help from.” 

“Please, Diego,” you sobbed. “I can pay the money back! I can--!” 

“This isn’t about the damned money!” he thundered. 

You cringed at his tone, afraid that he’d hit you again. 

“I can make it up to you! Please, Diego! I’ll do anything!” you said, hoping beyond hope that he would listen to reason. 

Diego grinned revealing rows of jagged, animalistic teeth. You just stared at them, unable to believe what you were seeing. 

“Good. Glad to hear it.” he sneered. “You can start by giving me a little kiss.” 

You stared warily at his mouth and wondered if he could actually bite off your head, like he’d suggested before. 

“Well?” Diego growled, impatient with your hesitation. 

You leaned forward and planted your trembling lips against his. The skin there felt rough and leathery. You didn’t have time to think about it as Diego abruptly dragged his tongue across your face, lapping up the blood from your nose. You groaned in disgust and Diego chuckled. 

“Again. Kiss me again and this time do it like you bloody mean it!” 

You obliged, pressing your lips against his and his mouth all but engulfed you as he turned the simple kiss into a full on make out session. You whimpered pathetically the entire time. 

Diego pulled away, his face back to normal. 

“Well, that’s a start.” he quipped. 

------

Diego walked out of the stable after putting Silver Bullet away. Like clockwork, you shoved your way out of the crowd and landed on your knees at Diego’s feet. He turned, giving you a blank look. You didn’t look up. You didn’t want to see that triumphant look in his eyes. You also didn’t want to see the looks of disgust and pity on the faces of the crowd. It was bad enough that you could hear the things they were saying about you. 

Pathetic.

Desperate. 

Filthy.

Annoying. 

At every checkpoint, Diego had you playing the part of his pitiful little fan that followed him everywhere he went, desperately seeking his attention. It was beyond humiliating, but you didn’t have a choice in the matter. Diego warned you that if you wanted to eat today, you’d better put on a good show like the obedient little dog you were. 

“You were wonderful out there today, Diego!” you said, using the tone you’d always used on him back when you were trying to win him over. 

Laughter erupted from the crowd and your face heated up. You lowered your gaze even further so that you were staring at the mud that stained your knees. Diego ignored the crowd and tenderly grasped one of your hands. He pulled you up from the dirt, earning a murmur of adoration. 

How kind he was to give that filthy street walker even a modicum of his time. 

“You don’t look like you’ve eaten in a while,” He said in a soft tone that had tears forming in the corners of your eyes. 

He was horrible. The living definition of a monster. How could anyone buy into this act of fake kindness he was putting on? He used a thumb to wipe the tears from your eyes, smearing some of the caked up dirt on your cheeks. 

“Don’t cry, now. Let’s get you fed.” 

He pulled you along and you followed behind him, head lowered. Diego had ruined you. The days of holding your head high were long over. You would never get your dignity back after this. The only thing that concerned you now is whether or not Diego would let you sleep in a hotel room or stick you in the stables tonight.