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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Shen Qingqiu lets out a shocked little sound as the door swings open, visibly dithering in some not-insignificant discomfort for a moment before clearly deciding to just this once suspend his dignity. He tucks one hand into his voluminous sleeve and uses it to cover his mouth and nose, giving Jon a disdainful glance with watering eyes, as if daring him to comment on the breach in decorum. "It smells like something died in here," he complains. "Like a...a rat?" No, not quite...The smell is certainly fleshy, but...large, somehow, with the air of having once been meant for human consumption.

It's been nearly a decade since Shen Qingqiu was responsible for the state of his own kitchen, but he suddenly recalls the smell of old takeout containers left to molder and rot, the stinging taste of bile thick on his tongue...

He paces down the center of the shed slowly, eyeing the displayed artifacts with mingled interest and suspicion, but they aren't the source of that foul stench. Finally he reaches the meat grinder, and here again his mask cracks.

"Congratulations, Mister Sims," he says faintly. "Never in my entire lifetime have I encountered an inanimate object with vibes this rancid. At least, I do hope it's inanimate?"

Edited 2024-08-28 13:33 (UTC)

No comments made, though the complaints aren't shared. Is it that bad? Jon isn't sure. Maybe he's gotten nose-blind to it from having to check on it every so often, or perhaps the smell of cooking flesh that permeates the space the grinder sits in just isn't to Shen Qingqiu's tastes. (It certainly does make Jon nauseous if he spends too much time in here, after all.)

"It seems to be inanimate, but, to be quite frank with you, you've just given me a new, more horrible mental image than I'd ever had about this thing," Jon jokes, but it doesn't manage to sound like one. He crosses his arms over his chest, pointedly so, and eyes the grinder with unease and disdain.

"Would it make it better or worse to tell you that it's not only one of the most rancid objects in my possession, but that it is, unfortunately... from my world, and that I'm all too familiar with it?"

"I don't like where my train of thought is going, but that does provide some useful context. Let's split the difference and call it 'marginally better.'" Shen Qingqiu takes a moment to nerve himself up and then places two fingertips on the grinder's metal frame, as if trying to check its pulse -- as far away from both the handle and teeth as he can get.

"Ough, it's wet!" he cries, his voice rising nearly to the point of an undignified squeak as his entire body shudders with cat-like disgust. His long hair even waves slightly against the line of his back. He pulls his hand away, holding it out awkwardly as if reluctant to let it touch any other part of his person. To his senses, it had been as if the entire grinder was coated in a layer of slick, greasy fat, sticky and cloying. "And it's contaminated very thoroughly with something evil," he continues, using the excuse of exposition to try and regain his composure. "Something powerful and...hungry. It doesn't feel as old as the thing attached to you, but...it's the same of sort of entity, isn't it? One of your world's 'Fears.'"

Edited 2024-08-28 13:59 (UTC)

"Wh--- it's what!?"

Jon looks mortified, and steps over to take a hurried look at it. Had someone gotten in and used it? Was it starting to do something new of its own accord? God, was it going to just start fucking creating limbs out of nothing, is that something he's going to have to deal with?

A look and a reluctant touch reveal no such wetness to him, though. Honestly, that makes it all the more troubling.

He shuffles a handkerchief out of his pocket as Shen Qingqiu speaks, passing it over. Even if it wasn't wet to him, there may have been something on it, and considering he'd been the one to invite Shen Qingqiu over to look at the damned thing, it's the least he can do. He listens attentively, even still; it's incredible what he's able to glean, even without having any of the direct contact within his own world.

"One of the very same, yes. They all go by many names, but the simplest one for this is Flesh," Jon explains, turning his back on the grinder (with a great deal of reluctance). "The fear of being and becoming meat, the same as any animal taken to the butcher, but... additionally, the fear of mutilation, your body being changed against your will, or simply being made to resent your body. From what I've come to understand, it only began to truly become a tangible fear when factory farms began to operate on a large scale."

Edited 2024-08-28 14:18 (UTC)

Shen Qingqiu accepts the hankerchief, retreating a few steps back from the meat grinder -- it doesn't really help, but he can trick himself into thinking it's safe to take his other hand away from his face and scrub at his fingertips. He's not going to go all OCD about this, he swears he's not! But the friction does help remove that feeling of dead meat clinging to his skin.

"Yes, that...that does accord with what I sensed as well." He clears his throat. "Forgive me -- as you predicted, it seems that my cultivational skills leave me...especially sensitive to the aura left by these entities. It's rare to encounter an artifact so saturated in metaphysically volatile energy in my world, positive or negative."

He's not even sure what he can do for Jon, although that won't stop him from trying. "Are you sure it's safe for you to store it so close to your home?" he asks.

"No apology needed. I knew that, by bringing you here, there was every chance that one might be especially unsavoury," Jon admits, casting a side-eye to the grinder. He can't help it - seeing Shen Qinqiu react like that has made the already horrible object feel all the worse. "These sorts of things weren't frequent, but I couldn't say that they were as uncommon as one might like. The fact that only one has arrived is a relief, in and of itself."

There does come the matter of it's proximity to his house, though, and he gestures towards the door of the shed.

"I've purchased this lock system, so I believe it should be as safe as it can be. Though it certainly makes an effort. I don't believe it to be a conscious thing, but if you spend too long near it, you do start to feel... a 'calling,' for lack of better word. I keep the key near my person, so that, should anyone else endure such a call, I can ensure it won't be able to be accessed. ...I'd considered placing this shed elsewhere, but I'm sure you're as aware as I am that our neighbors across the island are incredibly curious. I couldn't trust them not to attempt to break in and find out what it was without a few extra layers of social faux-pas to slow them down."

"It wants to be fed," Shen Qingqiu murmurs. "Like the thing attached to you."

He gives himself a hard, steadying shake and straightens up, saying in a more business-like tone, "That being the case, I suppose the natural next step would be to post suppression talismans on the door and walls of the building, facing the cardinal directions. They would hopefully, ah...'dampen' the compulsion, so you could stop worrying about break-ins. It would also add an extra layer of security over the rest of these things." He gestures at the other artifacts on their shelves -- god, he doesn't even know what they are yet.

He clears his throat awkwardly. "I hope you won't think me too crass if I ask for a little assistance with the cost of materials. It's just that cinnabar is a luxury item here, and --" His voice gets a little more clipped with embarrassment and remembered annoyance -- "I found someone willing to refine it and press it into drawing sticks for me, but the quality just isn't as good as I could get it in my old world so I have to use more of it, and he's still charging me out the nose anyway! And normally I could just use some of my own blood as a cheaper substitute, but!" He laughs awkwardly. "I really don't think that's a good idea here. At all. Even remotely."

Back to business! Jon could practically sigh in relief, and only just manages not to do so, but the ease of his tense shoulders is obvious. Costs, supplies, he'd braced for just about any of that. He was prepared from the moment he called to try anything beyond destroying it, which has already proven completely ineffective. The grinder doesn't even show any of the futile cracks he took at it with a hammer, but this town could only be so lucky to get rid of it that easily.

"Oh, God, no, no blood," Jon gives an awkward laugh of his own. "I think that would just amplify the problem, really. Cinnabar is manageable, though! Short supply aside. If you let me know the cost, I can give you the funds up front--- including for your time, of course. Won't make you stay near it without compensation. Any cost is well-worth keeping that thing away from any careless hands."

He'd really tried to avoid getting into any degree of the meat grinder's sordid affairs, but he can't help it. That particular statement was especially haunting; it's hard not to think about it, even if he would truly prefer not to ever again.

The sudden decrease in tension helps Shen Qingqiu relax as well, a surprised little chuckle escaping his lips. "Don't be so quick to throw your money away!" he scolds Jon playfully. "How do you know I'm not a con artist trying to trick you? I'll write a proper invoice for you once the talismans are finished, and we can review it together over tea. Nice and professional."

He glances around the shed again. "You know, it's a shame we can't uproot the entire building and rotate it ninety degrees or so clockwise, so the grinder would be stored in the north. Běifāng Xuánwǔ would certainly be interested in keeping such a venial device under control, assuming the four guardians have any pull in this world of course."

"Alright, alright! I figured it'd be too small a town to pull a scam like that," Jon jokes, the irony of him going through that same town with a supernatural hunting spree not at all lost on him. "I don't know that we could do much rotating, but I could feasibly put it on a northward shelf...?"

He lifts a hand, scratching his jaw softly as he contemplates it, before glancing back towards Shen Qingqiu, thoughtfulness giving way to curiosity.

"What exactly are these four guardians? I'm not sure if they reach here, but if they're deities of sorts, I know the goddesses seem to be on decent enough terms with others...?"

And there Shen Qingqiu goes, laughing into the back of his hand like Jon just said something hysterical. "What," he asks breathlessly. "Don't tell me they don't even have anime in your world? Not even Yu Yu Hakusho or that shoujo where the girl traveled into a book? How sad." He still doesn't sound like he thinks it's sad, he sounds like he thinks it's funny. And like he suspects anime does exist in Jon's world, actually, he's just been living under a rock for the past thirty years.

"The four guardians are representations of the four largest constellations in the night sky, according to Chinese astrology," he explains. "They also oversee the cardinal directions. The Azure Dragon of the east, the Vermilion Bird of the south, the White Tiger of the west, and the Black Tortoise of the north, Běifāng Xuánwǔ. Although if you were a weeb you'd probably know him as Genbu."

He reflexively pulls his fan out of his sleeve, waving it idly as he explains, "Usually Xuánwǔ is represented as a tortoise or a snake and a tortoise coiled around each other, but there's a particular legend which positions him as an ascended immortal, a former prince who entered the heavens. He wanted to leave his mortal life behind, but because he had already eaten the food of the material world, his innards could only ever be human. So he cut them out and replaced them with organs made from the substance of divinity. His stomach turned into a tortoise and his intestines into a snake, and together they terrorized the mortal realm until Xuánwǔ brought them back under control. Now they serve as his generals."

Jon balks, quite frankly too caught off guard to tell him that there was, in fact, anime in his world. God, that tone is so distinctly reminiscent of his college days, getting derided for not watching one thing or another. How the hell was he getting hassled for not watching anime here, of all places, by a man who he'd assumed was from a world closer to Concord's own than his? (When will he have peace for not bothering to watch Yu Yu Hakusho? Not even in death, apparently.)

"I... see," He finally speaks, still sounding a bit baffled. "Nothing I'd watched included any of that information, so--- thank you. If you think Xuánwǔ's influence has a chance of reaching this place, I'll move the grinder. Even if we haven't got a way to find out if his reach does or doesn't extend this far, it may be worth doing for good measure."

"I'll help you move it, of course," Shen Qingqiu says immediately, grinning at Jon over his fan. "It looks heavy." He absolutely doesn't want to touch that horrible, greasy thing again, but sometimes being a good cultivator requires doing things you don't want to do, for the sake of others. It's in the manual or the by-laws or something.

"What about the rest of these" he asks, gesturing at the shelves with his fan. "Do they have freakish little curses too?"

What's with the grin? Is he... being made fun of right now? He does still look a bit noodly, all things considered, but he lifted it home! He doesn't make any accusations, however, nor let the potential offense sting too deeply. Shen Qingqiu wants to touch it again? He's entirely welcome to. "Excellent. I'll move the others for you, in that case."

Speaking of the others...

He steps over to the other shelves, making a non-committal wiggly hand gesture. "They're... mildly cursed? Nowhere quite so bad as the grinder, as far as I'm aware. The scissors stain your hands with blood upon use, the pendulum merely has an awful energy to it, and the coin is... ostensibly just a coin, but the other object bearing a 'Lot' title was of a fairly hefty consequence, so I thought I'd hold onto it, just to be safe. Everything else seems mostly fine, but not trustworthy enough to keep inside a home, but it shouldn't pose too many issues to move all of it."

It's nice that they're starting to get along so well, Shen Qingqiu thinks cheerfully. Jon will be more likely to come to him for help in the future if they have an existing rapport. He studies the cursed objects carefully, lingering for a moment over the coin. "These came from other worlds, didn't they? Not ones quite as cursed as yours, but...there's evil on them too. It doesn't feel local."

"I'd thought the same thing. Some have seemingly practical uses, others are... uncertain as to what they'd ever been used for, but the impression I got at first glance still wasn't good," Jon mutters, eyeing the objects skeptically once more. He gestures vaguely to the basket with the fruit. "And some of them are just--- fruit filled with blood. I don't know why I bothered with those, but they're here now, and they never seem to go bad, so I suppose there's no sense in throwing them out...?"

"Isn't there a friendly vampire in town?" Shen Qingqiu asks, picking up one of the fruit to study it more closely. "One of the, ahem, ladies and gentlemen of negotiable virtue." He turns ever so slightly pink, although he's working frantically to pretend he's not. "You should give them to him, if you don't think they'll drive him into a frenzy or something."

He puts it down again, turning back to smile at Jon. "It was a good idea, keeping these things consolidated and locked up. Now we just need to make sure they don't do you any harm, either."

Jon watches Shen Qingqiu's face flush, and thinks long and hard back to the comment of alleged heterosexuality. That still seems to be panning out exceptionally well for him. Definitely so very, truly unbothered by Erik and his well-known profession. "I may do just that, honestly. I doubt it's a good idea to keep things full of blood so close to the grinder, anyhow."

The praise does come as a surprise, though, and he'd turned to move the basket of blood fruit, just preoccupied enough to let that surprise rise to his face. The smile he offers back is tentative in that surprise of his, but no less genuine. All this time later, and he still gets fluffed up by being told he's had a good idea.

"I intend to expand it and continue to monitor Calloway's stock, but I'm glad you agree that they need to be contained. I've kept my contact limited with them, but your help is invaluable, thank you. The last thing any of us needs is any of the trouble I've gone through undone by a fit of cursed-item-induced madness."

"...Huh," Shen Qingqiu says thoughtlessly. "You look younger when you smile."

And then, because that's such a normal thing for a heterosexual man to say to one of his male acquaintances, he immediately moves on, commenting, "Calloway...why does that name sound familiar? Did someone mention him during that shared dream with the cult?" He gestures at his own temple, saying sheepishly, "My memories of those events are a little scrambled, I'm afraid."

Edited 2024-09-08 07:17 (UTC)

Even if Shen Qingqiu pushes past it so easily, that doesn't make Jon balk at it any less, nor does it help that dark flush that dusts his face. Compliments shock him at the best of times, and maybe it's just that he's so very used to getting called "old looking," but something about the inverse of that catches him so completely and utterly off guard.

It leaves him fumbling to catch up after that thoroughly-stunned beat of shocked silence, and he clears his throat, only looking more embarrassed as he reels himself back, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully.

"I've heard bits and pieces of that shared dream, but it wasn't one I was a part of, I'm afraid, so I wouldn't know. It wouldn't shock me if he had some involvement, considering. He operates a shop, ah... Calloway's Curios? You might have heard tell of it as the Shady Merchant by the locals? Apparently he just comes into these objects from other worlds. Charges just about as much as he can get away with for them, as well."

"Very odd," Shen Qingqiu says slowly, tapping his now-closed fan into his open palm. "I suppose he's been secretive about his source? It might be worth looking into him further, I'm sure I heard someone discussing him at the cult meeting."

"Well," he continues, smiling at Jon, "I think that about wraps things up here. I'd like to get those talismans set up before we try moving the grinder, just as a safety precaution."

"If you take a look into it, let me know, and I'll see if I can't find anything out as well." Look, he's signing himself up for little research projects! That's the real start of friendship right there.

"That sounds like a perfectly sensible solution to me, though. Let me know when you've got everything you need, and we'll take an afternoon for it," Jon agrees, offering him a small smile right back. "And thank you again, truly. There's every chance this could have found a way to go and blow up in my face, as it currently is."

"It's technically my job, to stop these things from blowing up in people's faces," Shen Qingqiu points out. "But it's a job I'm quite happy to do. Thank you, for accepting my help."

Yes, he thinks to himself cheerfully as he leads the way out the door. Horrible meat vibes instead, this turned out to be both a productive and surprisingly pleasant afternoon. He finds himself hoping Jonathan Sims will invite him around again. Or perhaps he should think of some way to reciprocate, hm...

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

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Wrap, with a new situation for them soon? :3c

sounds perfect!