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madimpossibledreamerwriting while uber is hard, but I'm doing it! so that's something. i think it's better this year
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The scene in the dining hall is...not promising.
Word Count: 1080
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
But no matter how goofy she acts at times, she remembers about the suspicion. It’s kind of hard to forget. She’s honestly not sure if knowing helps or not, really. It’s good in a way, because if you notice you’re not acting like yourself (or someone else isn’t acting like themselves) you can point it out. But it’s also triggering paranoia, a feeling like she constantly has to be watching out for herself and others acting weird, and that almost certainly just makes this all worse.
A quick glance around says that Robin and her son are still gone, but that’s not too weird. It’s not like they’d had any idea how long such a thing might take, but if it’s anything like an onsen, it might be a while. The far more glaring part is that Beefheart, Jotaro, Kakyoin, and Willow are gone. At least they’re gone as a group, so presumably they left as a group or at least in pairs, but it’s still worrying. “What happened?”
“Kakyoin-san said he thought he saw an unusual number of bugs this morning. He only brought it up because one of the other guests asked if any of the farmers were noticing anything like that. And then Jotaro-san asked him if he was sure, and Kakyoin-san lost it.” Papa sighs. “I tried to get through to him that that’s just how Jotaro-san is; he’s really thorough. But he just stormed off and wouldn’t listen. Willow went after him. Jotaro-san looked really unhappy, and I told him he should go after Kakyoin-san, but he just said Kakyoin-san needed his space and decided to go with Beefheart-chan to check out the town.”
“If he had waited, I would have confirmed his observations. I am, of course, not perfectly familiar with this environment, and in any case Paxil is different than any natural biome, but there has been a change.” Giorno glances at a bird that chirps and flies away. If it’s one of his own, well, that’s anyone’s guess.
“That’s a mess,” Johan summarizes, patting her on the shoulder as he enters. He’s definitely looking a lot more relaxed, but then, he’s good at hiding how he’s feeling. “The sweat baths are nice, though I’m not entirely sure it was just incense in that smoke. Good news, though, they’re going to keep an eye out for Rush. I’m not sure it’s going to be enough, but we can take all the help we can get.”
“You told them?” Giorno asks mildly.
Johan shifts. “It was a case of either tell her or come out of it looking really suspicious.”
“She realized we knew Severin Zeppeli. Well, not all of us personally,” Robin adds, protective, and that’s a twist.
“He was here?” Buffy adds suddenly, intense. Seems like she’s still taking his loss personally. She probably couldn’t have done anything to save him, but sometimes it’s hard to convince your heart of what your head knows.
Her son nods, coming to sit down with them for lack of anything better to do. Josie and Darling join him. “Something he did here made him that way. She didn’t say anything specific, though, which might’ve been useful. Just called him a troublemaker. With the trial—don’t apologize again, Buffy, or we’ll be here all day, ‘cause I’ll have to apologize for all the terrible things I’ve done over the years—that was temporary. With the Wolfram & Hart guys you and cugino Giorno ran into, that was temporary. If we mess up somehow here, though, it’s not a temporary state of mind. No pressure.”
“Are you all right?” Darling asks suddenly.
He laughs. “I think if we’re being honest, I haven’t been okay for a while, but also If I just start going out of my mind, I slip into someone else’s.”
Buffy just raises an eyebrow, more used to his antics than everyone else. “You have problems.”
“I know.” He doesn’t even sound a little sorry, the scamp. “I’ve been keeping an eye out, and hey, no eyeballs, so that’s something. But I think we can say for sure that Kakyoin’s affected by whatever this is. Buffy, with you and Willow and Giles—it did wear off, right? Was there a different time period or trigger? Something we could use?”
Buffy considers. “I’d already wanted to smash the stupid mask before you said something, so I’d already been wondering what they were doing. And yeah, before you say it, I know. Unhelpful.”
“I wouldn’t say that, actually.” Johan grins, leaning forward conspiratorially. “You knew something was wrong. Which means actually knowing about this whole effect might just be enough to give him the edge he needs to fight his way out.” He’d been considering the same thing, then. But maybe that’s generally true, considering how Pretender works. Even if he’s not actively remembering their memories anymore, he’s gotten enough insight to be able to effectively read their minds.
“Something else before we go looking for clues,” Robin adds. “We’ve been looking for evidence of gods or worship and not finding any, but there was one in the sweat bath. I think the guy actually operating it was a shaman or similar. He made an offering to an obsidian idol at one point. Just incense, but it’s still more than we’ve seen before.”
“Go team!” Buffy shouts, waving an invisible pom-pom in the air, drawing from what Josie remembers vaguely is actual cheerleader practice, and the tension abates, for now.
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The scene in the dining hall is...not promising.
Word Count: 1080
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
Something had been wrong. Everyone had been on edge, of course. The whole situation involved a few too many unknowns, which always had the habit of freaking out people. Before she had left to accompany Darling, Josie had thought that was all it was. People reacting to the situation. On coming back to the dining room and the tense atmosphere, though, it’s pretty clear that’s not all that’s gone wrong, here. Given the exact expression of frustration on Papa’s face, it’s almost certainly some sort of interpersonal thing. He was capable of holding a grudge (for example, he was still carrying on a double-sided feud with Rohan-sensei for some reason or another), but that’s more the kind of exception that proves the rule, since most of the time he finds it easy to forgive, and it’s not like he wears that peace symbol on his uniform for nothing. Watching his friends fight (other than Yukako, but he’s given up trying to understand that one) bugs him.
But no matter how goofy she acts at times, she remembers about the suspicion. It’s kind of hard to forget. She’s honestly not sure if knowing helps or not, really. It’s good in a way, because if you notice you’re not acting like yourself (or someone else isn’t acting like themselves) you can point it out. But it’s also triggering paranoia, a feeling like she constantly has to be watching out for herself and others acting weird, and that almost certainly just makes this all worse.
A quick glance around says that Robin and her son are still gone, but that’s not too weird. It’s not like they’d had any idea how long such a thing might take, but if it’s anything like an onsen, it might be a while. The far more glaring part is that Beefheart, Jotaro, Kakyoin, and Willow are gone. At least they’re gone as a group, so presumably they left as a group or at least in pairs, but it’s still worrying. “What happened?”
“Kakyoin-san said he thought he saw an unusual number of bugs this morning. He only brought it up because one of the other guests asked if any of the farmers were noticing anything like that. And then Jotaro-san asked him if he was sure, and Kakyoin-san lost it.” Papa sighs. “I tried to get through to him that that’s just how Jotaro-san is; he’s really thorough. But he just stormed off and wouldn’t listen. Willow went after him. Jotaro-san looked really unhappy, and I told him he should go after Kakyoin-san, but he just said Kakyoin-san needed his space and decided to go with Beefheart-chan to check out the town.”
“If he had waited, I would have confirmed his observations. I am, of course, not perfectly familiar with this environment, and in any case Paxil is different than any natural biome, but there has been a change.” Giorno glances at a bird that chirps and flies away. If it’s one of his own, well, that’s anyone’s guess.
“That’s a mess,” Johan summarizes, patting her on the shoulder as he enters. He’s definitely looking a lot more relaxed, but then, he’s good at hiding how he’s feeling. “The sweat baths are nice, though I’m not entirely sure it was just incense in that smoke. Good news, though, they’re going to keep an eye out for Rush. I’m not sure it’s going to be enough, but we can take all the help we can get.”
“You told them?” Giorno asks mildly.
Johan shifts. “It was a case of either tell her or come out of it looking really suspicious.”
“She realized we knew Severin Zeppeli. Well, not all of us personally,” Robin adds, protective, and that’s a twist.
“He was here?” Buffy adds suddenly, intense. Seems like she’s still taking his loss personally. She probably couldn’t have done anything to save him, but sometimes it’s hard to convince your heart of what your head knows.
Her son nods, coming to sit down with them for lack of anything better to do. Josie and Darling join him. “Something he did here made him that way. She didn’t say anything specific, though, which might’ve been useful. Just called him a troublemaker. With the trial—don’t apologize again, Buffy, or we’ll be here all day, ‘cause I’ll have to apologize for all the terrible things I’ve done over the years—that was temporary. With the Wolfram & Hart guys you and cugino Giorno ran into, that was temporary. If we mess up somehow here, though, it’s not a temporary state of mind. No pressure.”
“Are you all right?” Darling asks suddenly.
He laughs. “I think if we’re being honest, I haven’t been okay for a while, but also If I just start going out of my mind, I slip into someone else’s.”
Buffy just raises an eyebrow, more used to his antics than everyone else. “You have problems.”
“I know.” He doesn’t even sound a little sorry, the scamp. “I’ve been keeping an eye out, and hey, no eyeballs, so that’s something. But I think we can say for sure that Kakyoin’s affected by whatever this is. Buffy, with you and Willow and Giles—it did wear off, right? Was there a different time period or trigger? Something we could use?”
Buffy considers. “I’d already wanted to smash the stupid mask before you said something, so I’d already been wondering what they were doing. And yeah, before you say it, I know. Unhelpful.”
“I wouldn’t say that, actually.” Johan grins, leaning forward conspiratorially. “You knew something was wrong. Which means actually knowing about this whole effect might just be enough to give him the edge he needs to fight his way out.” He’d been considering the same thing, then. But maybe that’s generally true, considering how Pretender works. Even if he’s not actively remembering their memories anymore, he’s gotten enough insight to be able to effectively read their minds.
“Something else before we go looking for clues,” Robin adds. “We’ve been looking for evidence of gods or worship and not finding any, but there was one in the sweat bath. I think the guy actually operating it was a shaman or similar. He made an offering to an obsidian idol at one point. Just incense, but it’s still more than we’ve seen before.”
“Go team!” Buffy shouts, waving an invisible pom-pom in the air, drawing from what Josie remembers vaguely is actual cheerleader practice, and the tension abates, for now.
