[OPEN] While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now?

[apocryphalarchivist]

Who: Jonathan Sims and YOU!
What: Open prompts for the end of summer!
When: August
Where: Around Marrow Isle
Warning(s): Cursed objects, potential descriptions of gore (More warnings pending)



1. Looking towards the future, we were begging for the past

With a sound of effort, Jon drops the last of the tools he'd been carrying too many of, letting out a winded wheeze as he tries to collect himself.

It's been quite an undertaking, collecting ins and odds from Calloway's Curios before they fell into hands, not knowing what they are or what they're capable of doing. He's not certain of the particular qualities of a few of these things, but he's seen enough things and read about even more to know when something is simply here to cause problems.

Sprucing up the unused shed behind his cliff-side home is proving to be even more of an undertaking, considering he isn't especially gifted at carpentry, but sometimes you've just got to make due.

He's so engrossed in his work that he doesn't notice the presence of anyone outside of Grimmly the Dusknoir, the large Pokemon lingering, watching with what can only be described as single-eyed skepticism. The red eye follows Jon as he moves to collect the scattered metal rods of the lock-system he'd purchased, once again trying to carry all too many things at once.

To say the least, he's far too distracted to notice anybody coming up the short path to his home - especially as, with his heavy carry load, he staggers, stumbles, and topples back, dropping the rods in a spectacularly-noisy explosion of parts around his person.

Grimmly bellows with strange, wavering, ghostly laughter, the mouth on his stomach throwing his upper half backwards, with no regard for the daggers Jon glares his way.

"Oh, laugh it up, you shit, very funny. You could be helping with this, you know, you've got two perfectly good hands!"

2. Well, we knew we had the good things

Amid all the bustle he's been dealing with recently, Jon manages to find time to write and hang a flyer on the bulletin board.

Seeking assistance from the technically inclined for a repair project.

I am in possession of three tape recorders, and need someone who could potentially lend me a hand with fixing the wiring within the machines, as well as potentially making their power sources able to plug into a wall outlet. The tapes are in pristine condition, and I will only need assistance with at least one recorder, though all three being repaired would be preferred. Offering a reward of 200B for assistance.

If interested, please contact me via sending stone or telephone. Thank you.

-Jonathan Sims

With a reward like that, it's clear he's pretty serious about getting these fixed. He'll answer just about any call about them - be it someone who's ready to help him fix these, someone with questions about them, or friends with concerns about the devices. (It may be easier said than done convincing him not to fix them, if one even could, though.)

3. But those never seemed to last (Closed to Neil and Martin)

After meeting Martin on the beach, Jon was in more of a hurry than he'd care to admit to get to Neil and confirm dinner plans. Everything's smoothly in motion, and as ridiculous as it feels, Jon's more excited about this than he can rightly recall having been in a fair bit.

He's never been an incredible chef, but he's gotten a handle on home cooking since arriving in town, and throws together a plan quickly enough to have everything just about ready. It only takes a short trip out to the markets to have the supplies for everything: lemon chicken (the citrus specifically chosen for the occasion), mashed potatoes, and supplies for a light salad, hopefully making for something of an exceptional welcome-to-town dinner.

The sun is only just dipping towards the horizon when he's wrapping up, and judging by a quick glance to the clock on the wall when a knock at the door rings through the house, Martin's at his most punctual that Jon's ever seen him. Maybe he's as excited about this as Jon is? (He surely hopes so.)

Leaning as close to the kitchen's doorframe as he can while not straying too far, keen to finish wrapping things up as quickly as possible, Jon doesn't hesitate to call out towards the front of the house.

"Come in!"

4. Oh, please just last (Wildcard)
Want this guy somewhere, sometime? Shoot me a PM here or on Discord to plot, or just go wild and drop something!

---

[EDITED EXTRA PROMPT]

5. Beneath the Watcher's Eye

The more time passes, the more Jon feels his resolve beginning to slip.

At first, it's simply accidental, compelling people for statements when they're not looking to share. It sustains him, he feels terrible about it, and there's another sore spot to try to navigate around on this cursed island. The more time that passes, however, the few statements that are offered by the call of his bulletin-board posts simply don't provide like they used to. More often, the fatigue hangs heavy on his bones, even without the work to wear him down. Thinking grows difficult, and simple ordeals feel as though they've gained ten new steps overnight.

He tries to fight it off; he really, truly does. The itch sinks deeper into his bones with each passing day, though - no amount of reading old statements or reading books on things that had happened in town scratch it.

There comes a point with all itches that you've simply got no choice but to scratch it.

He adds his flyer to the bulletin board once more, crisp and neat. Sending stone calls are acceptable, events that have happened within Pumpkin Hollow are valid pieces of information to offer, and anything of any magnitude will be heard. The net is as wide as he can possibly cast it.

Waiting for the net to fill is an impossible task, however. Despite himself, he begins to hunt.

His search doesn't have the physicality or brute force of a Hunter seeking prey - but in energy and approach, they're shockingly alike. He's patient, calculated, and mindful. He stays out late during the nights of shore leave from the Mipha's Grace,, finding new haunts to insert himself into. Restaurants, taverns, bustling public events, and coffee shops are his most frequent targets; if he finds the perfect candidate outside of one of those spaces wearing marks that are heavy enough, though, he won't be picky.

Once he finds scars adequate enough, he sinks into action. The approach is simple and polite: if there's too many people around, he'll ask to step aside. If it's a quiet space, he'll move to stand near, to sit across from, to linger by whoever he's got his eyes on.

And then, he'll speak. The supernaturally inclined feel static begin to build in their ears, and even those who aren't get a sensation of their own, unnatural and tingly, something akin a sleeping limb beginning to wake up.

"You have seen something great and terrible, something beyond comprehension. Tell me your story."

[Extra notes: this is my general prompt for Jon taking statements! You can play this any way you want to. If you want their CR to stay positive, your character can show up at his house and deliver their statement normally, talk afterwards, whole nine yards. For anyone who'd prefer negative CR, though, or want to have Jon take a statement but have characters who would keep that to themselves, put him wherever your character might be and have him compel it out of them!

Additionally, closed to close CR: characters are welcome to bust him compelling statements out of someone! He is doing it fully intentionally this time, and while he'll generally see himself out while emotions run high from the person he took it from, he can be caught by someone who knows what's happening. He won't target people he's friends or generally friendly with intentionally, but it can happen accidentally. Hit me with anything! \o/ ]

Comments

BY TRADITION -

[restingslasherface]

"...You live alone, Comrade Jon. In one week, what do you do - no matter how small - to sustain that, and separately, are you any good at it?"

[apocryphalarchivist]

The question catches him off guard, thick brows furrowing. He considers it genuinely, though.

"...Well. I wake up, I shower, I tidy a bit," He starts, uncertain of where to go with this. "I read, I cook, I go to the market. Depending on the week, I visit the docks, check in with our crew... check the mail, garden, take a walk or two, tend to my pets, take out the garbage..."

He trails off, and in doing so, leaves the more unsavory parts out of his explanation.

"I suppose I'm... alright at it. Better some parts than others. Never do manage to do as much of it as I plan to."

[restingslasherface]

"You do far more than that. You clean, for example. A thousand little tasks, so second nature that you do not think about them, mastered through a life of practice." Jean closes their eyes. "...Manager Kora ordered me to relax more because she understands something I am only now seeing the shape of. If I ever want to drop my sword, I have to learn how. A peaceful life is not a destination. It is a skill."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Jon lifts his brows, and at first, he doesn't know what to say. The notion catches him off guard. He isn't even sure he believes it at first, really - which then comes with it's own strange guilt, denying the understanding of a Goddess. (Especially one of the ones that personally saved his life.)

"...What do you do, exactly, to refine that skill, then?"

It's beyond him how sad it might be, to ask someone how to be peaceful.

[restingslasherface]

"I'm not entirely certain. Manager Kora gave me specific notes, on the voyage back here, and I am...under the impression that they were places to start," they muse. "Relax some. Try things one enjoys. Push work away from the mind, though, hahaha, for me work and violence are the same thing, inevitably. My fear is not that I can't learn this skill, but...that I will, inevitably, misjudge when it is time to become the destroyer. And perhaps that is a team effort. For all the City taught me that is deeply wrong, I don't think I can fault it for teaching me to pay careful attention to the advice and expertise of others. Captain Zelda...she has had a life of peace, at least for a time. Perhaps you can ask her?"

[apocryphalarchivist]

"Maybe she ought to hold a class. If we're both struggling with it this much, who knows how many other people are who haven't quite figured it out?"

He's half-joking. Only half.

[restingslasherface]

Zoom in further on Jean's icon.

No, further.

Further.

You're going to want to go all the way into the pupil and then go further. Further. Further still. You heard me, further. You're all the way in?

Good, a new universe is being born in there.

"Bring it up to her at your earliest convenience, Comrade Jon. I don't, hahaha, I don't think I can try to without accidentally coming off like I need love and care...which I do! I do! Constantly! But it would not be conducive to communicating the concept."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Jon goes to respond, and stops. Tries one more time. Stops again. The loading wheel in his brain turns visibly.

He can't help but get a little bit sheepish, and tries to mask it with mock-offense.

"Oh, so you're going to going to make me waltz my way into her office and make it seem like I need love and care, then, are you?"

Which he does. Constantly. As if there were any question. But he sure hasn't gotten to the point where he's letting himself receive that without putting up some resistance yet.

[restingslasherface]

"She won't kiss your forehead and thereby obliterate all capacity for conscious thought."

[apocryphalarchivist]

"She may just very well give me that concerned look and take me to tea to discuss my wants, needs, and feelings, though. I know you're well aware of the risk there."

By tradition I declare: damn OCs and their one-liners

[restingslasherface]

"Well I'm not sending Don Quixote to do it, who do we know that's emotionally stable for up to one hour at a time?"

RIGHT BACK AT YOU!! [NON-OC EDITION]

[apocryphalarchivist]

"...Who isn't Zelda? Slim pickings."

[restingslasherface]

"..."

Jean stands suddenly. "COMRADE WE'RE MORONS - NEIL!"

[apocryphalarchivist]

Jon blinks, processes the idea, presses a hand to his face, and lets out a jokingly exasperated sigh.

"Neil. God. He's literally right there."

A beat.

"You have to be the one to ask, though. Same problem as before."

[restingslasherface]

"That I can do! I'm not certain if Neil likes me at all but I'm comfortable characterizing our professional relationship as healthy. We seem content to collaborate without...entwining personally." That gets a thoughtful frown. "...I do hope that's not offensive to you, it sounds strange now that I said it out loud."

[apocryphalarchivist]

"No offense taken," Jon lifts his hands, a brief, defensive-yet-casual gesture. "He's got plenty of colleagues of varying levels of closeness. He's got a great deal of pots on the stove, so I hope it's not offensive to you if he hasn't put much time into remedying that. Though there's nothing wrong with a professional relationship staying as-is."

[restingslasherface]

"I'm not sure how to understand our distance," Jean admits, a little uncomfortably. "I...often feel like the odd one out, in the Ocularum. The others have an erudition that I lack, you included."

[apocryphalarchivist]

"What?" Jon huffs a laugh, looking genuinely a bit shocked by the notion. "I hardly see that. I mean... you've furthered the town's understanding of the demon situation by great lengths. I've sometimes felt like you're the one among all of us getting the most done, really. If you're the odd one out, the rest of the lot of us should probably be looking your way to adjust."

So much of this section of the thread is one-liners but it be like that sometimes

[restingslasherface]

"...What??"

one-liners are a tasty little treat for a thread they love it

[apocryphalarchivist]

"Do you need me to repeat it fully, or...?"

[restingslasherface]

"I want you to explain your logic to me as if I grew up without any more education than was needed to compare the price of stolen organs to my rent."

[apocryphalarchivist]

"Well, I mean, no one else has literally breached the Infernal realm, for a start. Your findings have permanently shaped the town's defenses against the demons, less people suffer each time something happens, you're constantly doing lengths of community outreach I couldn't imagine doing, myself, and---" Pause. "...Wait, how comparable are those prices?"

[restingslasherface]

"If you get a clean throat cut and have a big enough freezer you only had to kill three people a month in my old neighborhood." Jean sighs. "So realistically, seven. But..."

...Is there a but? Jean's not sure. They slowly sit back down, looking at their coffee with such a look of intense concentration that if they were telekinetic it would be obvious right about now.

[apocryphalarchivist]

Hm. That's a horrible concept that fits neatly into everything else Jon knows about the City. He decides to push past that, after giving Jean a moment with their thoughts.

"Something eating at you?"

[restingslasherface]

"Do we ever really know everything that preys on us? I'm lucky that most of mine have names." Jean frowns; that sounded more flippant and confident in their head. "...But I think there's a...a dissonance between what you're saying and the methodologies that Doctor West founded his organization on. Regardless of any moral value placed on my skill set, I am, at best, a research assistant and an extremely skilled and active killer. There's a gap there, right?"

For those keeping score at home Jean just said those words with that vocabulary and didn't even blink while accusing themself of being uneducated and lacking in intelligence.