starmark | IC Inbox | rubycity_rp

i know but you knowing what i meant doesn't mean i shouldn't say what i meant too

people deserve to hear me say i'm sorry sometimes even if they know that's what i mean

also before you start i want to say something about secrets, ok

everyone has them and that's something i accept by now because that's just how it is and it's not like that's going to go away

but i believe that when something is your secret then you're the one with the right to decide who does and doesn't know it, always

so i guess what i mean is

i don't care about fair when it comes to secrets. tell me your secrets because you want me to know them. not because you think you have to. ok? that's what i want.

[Joseph actually takes a moment to think about this. Because on the one hand, it's not exactly something he wants to hide. That doesn't seem right to him, anyway, to want to hide it. But it's also not exactly something he can hide even if it means it'd spare potential hurt or upset feelings. Not long term. It's complicated. As always, it's just complicated.]

its not something i want to keep a secret and its too complicated to keep a secret anyway i put a lot of thought into it jotaro because i can't just think of myself with something like this ive had to think about everyone else that it might impact

so trust me when i say i wouldnt be bringing it up if i hadnt thought about it first

ok

i'm just saying, for all secrets

that's what i'm trying to live by. ok? so.

what's going on, jiji

ok

[Okay. Here it goes. Sorta. He needs a long moment to consider what he's written before he sends it because he doesn't want this to be like how things went down between him and his mother. He knows there's probably no real perfect or "right" way to say it, but there's definitely a wrong way and he wants to avoid that at all costs.]

i don't want to beat around the bush about it, so i'm just going to say it.

things between caesar and me have moved past just being friends. it's been that way for a while for me at least, but i didn't do anything about it until i really thought about it the consequences. and i know one of the consequences might be that it feels like a betrayal to you and your mother. i know that might seem like i don't care because i went for it anyway, but it's not as straightforward as that. i won't get into all of it though unless you really want to know because maybe you don't want to hear it and that's okay.

what i think you should know though is that i'm not going to ask either one of you to like it or not be pissed at me for it. i just don't want to hide it from either of you because regardless of how you feel about it, you should find out about it from me directly instead of down the line when it comes out eventually anyway.

...i figured out a long time ago that this isn't something i can take sides on, jiji, because i like everyone involved.

what i mean is that i like caesar and i know you're the one who makes him happy. i knew him when he was here before you got here, and he's different now than he was then. he's happy when you're near him. even i can see that.

but i like grandma suzie too. and i like mom, and i like you. there's no way i can pick "who's right" in a situation like this. because what i want is for no one i care about to be miserable, and i care about everyone who's on every possible side of this.

...

i'm going to have a daughter someday. i want her to exist. i worry a lot, all the time, what that means about the choices i've made for myself now. and about kakyoin. because what it comes down to is...having to be someone for someone else, regardless of who you want to choose to be in the here and now.

i'm not pissed at you. i don't really know what i am, but it's not pissed.

ok

just so you know, i haven't told your mother yet. i'm going to the next time i see her.

[Because Joseph's fairly certain what works for Jotaro — that is having the conversation via text — isn't going to work for Holly. She's the one he's most worried about though because there is the question of Suzie. It's not really a question in Joseph's mind. What he feels for Suzie isn't diminished just because he feels something for Caesar, too. But he barely understands it, so he doesn't hold the expectation that anyone else will.]

you know as long as the timing's okay. i don't know how she's going to take it, but i don't want it to come at a bad time where she's already upset about something else.

[...And one more thing.]

i met your daughter when she was here. she's a pretty cool kid, jotaro, but she put her stand up my nose. that's fucking weird.

i don't really have advice for you and it feels like i should. so i guess what i'll say is, my mom is a lot less delicate than she seems like, but also that what you're talking about is

i don't know, i'm trying to imagine my dad coming home from a tour and telling me that by the way he has a guy he's in love with and i know that's not exactly the same situation but all this time shit makes everything stupid. we get stuck having conversations we shouldn't have to have because this damn time shit is so stupid.

anyway i'm not going to tell you not to hurt her or anything because you don't need to be told.

i think i screwed up and my kid hates me in the future

so for what it's worth you're already doing better than i am i guess

[He sure doesn't. There's probably really no way of telling Holly that won't hurt her some, but that doesn't mean he won't do everything he can to minimize it as much as possible. But that's not really the part that stands out all that much to Joseph.]

it's not up to you to have advice for me, jotaro. (or for anybody, but least of all for me.) it's between your mother and me in the end and it's up to me to figure out.

besides, i'm still older than you even if it's not by as much as you're used to. so even if it feels like you should have something for me, you really don't. it's supposed to be the other way around. alright?

what do you mean she hates you??

...yeah. i think i get it, jiji. what you're saying, i mean. it's "my decision, my responsibility", right?

anyway the thing with my daughter is that i've been trying to fix some shit that's wrong with me, i mean like shitty things that i do that i shouldn't do. but i guess she remembers me as a person who didn't fix those shitty things, so she remembers a shitty person.

and i get that i'm not that person but i won't take her experiences away from her either. so it's complicated. i don't want to be the person she remembers but i can't excuse that in her memories, i was.

something like that

[When it comes to Jotaro's problems with Jolyne, Joseph tries to be thoughtful about it for a moment because it sounds... Okay, well, it's not just like Joseph's situation (or Polnareff's), but it's sorta close? It's just the opposite where Jotaro's been told some not so great things, or maybe had them implied to him, and now he's trying to reconcile who he's becoming here with the person his daughter remembers. It's similar enough that Joseph feels confident that he could give similar advice he gave Polnareff and yet is questionable as to whether or not he's taken it himself. He just has to be careful not to touch on Polnareff's situation with Giorno or his own situation with Jotaro and Holly. The latter being especially important because the last thing Jotaro wants to do is add that to Jotaro's plate when in reality, it's up to Joseph to manage it.]

you know i was pretty angry with lisa lisa when she told me the truth. i was mad that she never even tried to tell me the entire month we were training on air supplena, that she told me she'd tell me her connection to my family after our fight with wamuu and kars, and that she was practically forcing me to guess at it when she tried to talk about it here in the city. i was mad that i'd been lied to about what happened to her and that she left me behind, but i hated her a little for that part because i could have had a mother at least if she hadn't lost her cool after my father died or maybe she could have done something else that didn't involve running away and faking her death. but i had some time to think and i realized that she was scared that something bad would happen to me because of her. so she had to leave and she had to lie to me to keep me safe. i don't like it, but i get what she had to do now.

the point is, i think sometimes it's hard for kids to see it from their parent's perspective because the fact they didn't get what they wanted from them hurts a lot. it's easier to be angry or even hate your parent in that situation than to feel hurt about it.

you did some shitty things and made a lot of mistakes with her, but i don't think you were really ever a shitty person, jotaro. i think that's jolyne still struggling to understand you, just in the meanwhile it's easier for her to hate you or hold it against you than to think about there being a reason behind whatever it is you did or didn't do.

maybe it's that you need to not become that person, you just have to be able to think better than the person she remembers and make better choices that allow for a little compromise between what you have to do as her father to keep her safe and whatever it is she wanted you to do instead. you'll probably still make some mistakes with her because you're only human, but i think she'd probably understand you a little sooner rather than later or never in that situation.

so, try not to beat yourself up over it too much, yeah? when you get to that point in your life, you'll do better. just worry about being who you are right now and the rest will fall into place.

yeah.

[And now it's his turn to think a minute, because this kind of opening up isn't always something he's good at anyway, and the part about Lisa Lisa lying and keeping Joseph guessing strikes a particular chord, as well. But it's not about Jolyne; it's the juxtaposition of his knowledge of how much his young grandfather hates being kept in the dark about things, with the knowledge that there's still at least one thing being kept from him that there's simply no reason for him to have to deal with here. Of course if Josuke were to come back, things would be different, but even Josuke had lied all that time, and it was because the absolute last thing he'd wanted was to cause trouble for his father's family. He'd wanted to protect them; funny how that tendency had shown off his Joestar heritage just as much as the birthmark on his shoulder had.

People are supposed to be the masters of their own secrets. That's a belief he's had to cultivate by necessity, after everything that's happened in this city. There've been too many secrets, too many dilemmas; he couldn't possibly play moral arbiter of what's right and what's wrong to tell. So right or wrong, at least there's a standard: people get to keep their own secrets, and share them as they like.

But still he wonders if someday that will change. Maybe someday he'll end up telling Joseph this additional piece of his history, too.

Even so, keeping it feels like protecting him, now. And especially so in light of his choices with Caesar. Hard enough, for Joseph to arrive at his decision to love someone like this once; he doesn't need to be saddled with the necessity of wondering what might make him do it again. If something changes, then it changes. For now, he doesn't need that.

He hopes, quietly and inwardly, that if it ever changes, then hopefully they'll have an understanding between them, too, like the one they're discussing here.]

there's one thing, though. i'm not arguing with you or saying i don't appreciate it. i just want you to understand, because you're...family. you're two kinds of family, jiji, the blood kind and the kind that was there that night in egypt, even if you don't remember it yet.

i do think i was a shitty person. i know i was on track to be. i don't think i was evil or had bad intentions but i was fucked up and i wasn't...nothing was ever going to get me to try to change that.

i think the me of right now needs to be honest about what i was once, because that's the only way i can see what i am now. so when it seems like i'm holding on to that memory and refusing to let it go...that's why. because i need it with me so i can see how far i've come. sometimes it doesn't feel like it's been that much, that far, until i look at that guy and see it for myself.

[It's fair. It's really and truly fair, and a sound explanation. It doesn't mean that Joseph likes hearing it though because in his mind, there's really nothing that Jotaro could say or do that'd really put him in the category of being a shitty person. The Jotaro he knows now might not have been the Jotaro he knew in the 80's, but he can't imagine that Jotaro to have been such a bad person. Making a lot of mistakes just doesn't make someone shitty.]

[But he can't argue against it. Not entirely.]

you'll let him go eventually, jotaro. maybe not today or anytime soon, but that person won't matter anymore and you'll have forgotten all about him by then because you'll be too happy with things and there's no chance he'll ever come around.

but whoever you end up being and whoever you are now, you're still and always will be my favorite grandson.

IC Inbox | rubycity_rp | I

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