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

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

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/ ]

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That earns a genuine laugh out of him, even if there's a dryness that lingers on it.

"Fair enough, you've got me there. I wish that even remotely uncomplicated things to any degree."

Jonah shrugs. "If I were you, I'd talk to him. Even if it all blows up, you're gonna drive yourself crazy wanting if you leave things as they are now. But hey, I'm just some dead guy."

"Second-most opinionated dead guy I've ever met," Jon snickers. "...I think you may be right, though. If I let it fester, it's likely to cause cracks in things, anyhow. Nothing can ever just pass easily, can it?"

"Second?! Damn. Always the bridesmaid, aren't I?" Jonah chuckles.

Jonah's happy to spend the rest of the day with Jon, meandering around the docks and then telling adventure stories in the woods, until at last the sun rises, and it's time to say goodbye.

The ease of the life among the dead doesn't last, and though time is feeling the most fake for him that it ever has, Jon enjoys his day. Jonah's good company, and he's going to have to find a way to commune with the restless dead to keep in touch, at some point - he isn't exactly looking to make a habit of dying, after all.

Waking to the world of the living feels like a blink out of reality. One moment, he's standing on the beach, enjoying a moment's of peace and quiet...

And the next, he hasn't quite woken back up for.

Dropped in a remarkably uncomfortable position, Jon has been left seemingly haphazardly at the top of the Oak & Iron's stairs. He's causing a great deal of inconvenience to the comings and goings of people leaving for work or returning home to their rooms, but no one's bothered to get him out of the way.

One resident seems to have gone through the trouble of throwing one of the light spare blankets over his lap, instead of properly getting him out of the way. For now, he's none the wiser. He's going to be tense and sore when he wakes up, but at this very moment, he sleeps peacefully.

And it's around this time that Martin Blackwood emerges from Room 210.

At first, he doesn't even see Jon, yawning thickly as he exits. His door is around the corner from the stairs. But as he makes for the bathroom, he reaches the junction in the L-shaped hall and catches sight of a familiar mop of prematurely greying black hair.

"Wh--- Jon?!" Fretting, he hurries over, kneeling beside the unconscious man. "Hey! Jon! Are you okay?"

"Mmngh?"

Jon's response isn't elegant, but hey, cut him some slack, he was completely dead-asleep. His eyes open, blearily, and he's clearly struggling to reel himself in. He's not even entirely certain he's awake. What a weird dream this is.

Even if it is a dream, though, he sure does recognize that voice.

"Martin...?"

"Jon, what are you doing here? This is--- You have a house! Why are you--- Oh, Christ, come on." Martin uses the blanket already on Jon to bundle him up and take him back to Martin's room.

"Wh...? Ugh."

He's starting to come to, just a bit, but he's so exhausted, it practically feels like he hasn't slept in days. No wonder the last few times he's died, he's slept in to lengths he'd call severe.

"Just got back from being dead, I'm alright," He mutters, but he's not exactly cognizant enough to not follow being led along, lifting a hand out of the blankets to rub his face firmly. (If he were fully awake, he'd likely have steered clear of mentioning that.) "Where'd it put me this time...?"

"Wh--- dead?! How--- What--- what even--- How did----" Martin sputters helplessly. "I mean, I'd heard the dead don't stay dead here, but---"

"It's alright, I'm fine," Jon assures him, moving the hand from his face to give Martin an uncoordinated pat to soothe his terrors. That's the best he's got right now, with sleep ever-threatening to reclaim him. It's way good. "Just got to figure out where I put my glasses...?"

He glances behind them, squinting. He doesn't really need the glasses to see, not anymore, but it'd be a shame to lose them after everything.

"They're, ah--- Oh." Martin stoops to pick them up off the floor before snuffling Jon to his room in earnest. Once there, he guides Jon to the bed. "How---- How did you---"

"Die?" Jon finishes the thought, and it takes very little convincing to get him into the bed. He sits down slowly, pulling a bit of a face as he tries to sort out the wording.

"It was, ah... disagreement between monsters. Crossed family lines? I don't know," He mumbles, a bit incoherent. "Not quite so bad as the one with the rock. But I really... I should be..."

He falls short of managing getting home, stating loud and clear that he's probably in no shape to make that trek.

Martin looks utterly mortified. "Jon, how many times have you died?"

He squints, thoughtful. "...Three?"

Martin pinches the bridge of his nose and groans. "Yeah, that sounds like you. Okay, hang on."

He reaches for his sending stone, a piece of smoky quartz inside a braided bracelet, and calls Laios.

"Hey Laios? Can you do me a favor and let Tasha know I'll be late this morning? A thing came up."

Laios' voice only takes a moment to pipe up, chipper as ever.

"Oh, yeah! I'll let her know. Everything okay? Do you need any help?"

Jon, meanwhile, takes the moment to rub his face more deeply, tuning out and doing anything he can to try to wake up fully.

"Oh, yeah, all good. A friend of mine just respawned from death on the stairs, apparently? I'm just helping him get his bearings," Martin explains. "Be down before too long, no worries."

"Oh! I saw him, that's a rough place to get stuck. I put a blanket on him, I hope that didn't get him tripped over or anything. I'll let you go, though, see you then!"

The call ends. Jon does all that he can to cover up exasperation. Of course that's where the blanket came from. Why is this guy so fucking nice?

"Oh, that answers that question. I can take it back to him later," Martin mumbles. "But, ah, I should--- probably get you some water, or maybe some tea?"

"You really don't have to go to all the trouble," Jon gives an awkward chuckle. "I mean, you've already... literally peeled me off the ground, like I'm some sort of drunkard, I couldn't really go asking you for more."

"Oh, come off it," Martin fusses. "I've already called in work late. The least you can do is let me make you a cup of tea."

Jon huffs another laugh - this time, a more genuine one. Martin always did manage to push just the right spots to get him to back down from the get through it on the bare minimum knee-jerk reactions - he'll never understand how he manages it.

"Alright, alright, fine. But I will be returning the favor, at some point."

"Yeah, yeah." Martin has a little woodburning stove in his room, used to keep it heated and make warm water for his washbasin. There's a kettle on it, already with some water inside leftover from his own morning cup of tea. Martin keeps a few teacups in his room for convenience, a strange habit gained from living in a tavern room, and is able to put together a cup of tea right there. "Here we are."

Martin's prepared a rich black tea with just a bit of sugar. There are also dried strawberry pieces floating in the cup, slowly rehydrating due to the tea.

It's an effort to continue to keep himself upright, especially with the room only growing cozier by the minute with the addition of the smell of brewing tea. The quiet while Martin works is comfortable - yet another point working against him.

He comes back to attention when he's approached with the cup, though, and takes it gladly.

"Wonderful, thank you."

He only gets a better look at it when he starts to lift it, and he pauses for a moment. Gears need an extra moment to turn, but the tea is instantly recognizable. It's not the usual that Martin makes - instead, at one point in Jon's life, it was an entirely different usual. A footnote of time mentioned offhandedly in their letters, and then subsequently forgotten.

He lets out a little breath of a laugh, surprised but no means displeased. The sentiment's clearly struck him deeply; he struggles to articulate it.

"Martin, is this---?" He fails to ask clearly, but offers him a small grin even still, equal parts excited and perplexed.

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Joined thread bc we're lazy. There's no way Jon doesn't have full AC lmao

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god forgive me for my one-liners

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