Don't You Want...

[restingslasherface]

Who: "Slasher Face" Jean and YOU
What: Catch-All & Founding CR! Come get your nugget
When: Early <-> Mid August
Where: Places, mayhaps even locations (check prompts)
Warnings: Jean's out of a cyberpunk horror setting and they think everything in it is Normal so, y'know, casually horrifying shit coming out of their mouth including but not limited to violence, death, organ theft (no really), descriptions or potentially memory shares of mental attacks, and the most brutal corporate exploitation you could ever ask for.



Zwei Association [Around Town]

Here's the thing about Jean: they like people. Here's the other thing about Jean: they don't know that. It's not that they think of themselves as disliking people, exactly, it's that they think they've adopted the City's cool detachment to keep you from Getting Hurt, and, well, they haven't. Y'all might have noticed. But the handy thing about liking people is they've got a pretty good eye for who, like them, does not belong here. The clients have little habits and cultural signs, things they just subconsciously or conspicuously do that the other hires don't, to say nothing of the easy asks like that giant dude in the diving suit.

When you're not actively working at your job you may find yourself approached by Jean, notebook in hand, toothy smile on their face. They explain that they're looking to organize information on the available 'talent pool' to provide to one 'Madam Princess Zelda', both to coordinate information gathered on the task here and in case of emergency ("Disaster planning is good planning!"). Are you willing to talk?

Shi Association [Shops]

After collapsing during the initial festival planning, Jean is trying to take breaks. They are not good at this, but they're better than they were by main force of imagining what their old supervisor would say to their internal complaints about being tired or overworked. Thank the god of your choice that said former supervisor was a good and caring person. Increasingly, those breaks drift towards the various shops. Jean is a window shopper, is the problem. Some of it is just that the technology here is unfamiliar in ways that can be unhelpful, just off what they're expecting enough to cause a problem (to wit: they've never made coffee without a coffee machine, leading to frowning worry outside the general store trying to figure out which of these things Makes The Fucking Coffee, How), but the tailor might be Jean at their most anxious. They're still in the outfit they arrived in, carefully washed every single day, and they really would like to fix this...

...But something about what they're looking at doesn't sit right with them, and it's making them miserable.

Liu Association [Night]

There's an injunction not to be outside at night. Jean wants to know why, and unfortunately for the mods reading this narration that might mean getting a bunch of annoying questions. For the first few nights they stay up observing the streets of the town through their window and noting anything they can observe, though their shit-ass night vision soon indicates to them that this will need to be hands-on.

If you're interested, your character may have been asked to be a lookout for the next phase: Jean, clad in her siren Page and smeared with smoke, leaves, and soil to blend into the colors of night on the town, lurks behind cover after dark, gently flexing her claws. The people here live in fear of these things, and Jean has been hired to lift that fear from them, show them that wins are possible, that being under Jean's aegis places them beside her and not beneath her.

Madam Princess Zelda said Jean had a hard life, and thinking about that still hurts Jean in ways she can't quite define to herself. But if that's true, there's still, hahaha, a silver lining. The beasts of this place are used to frightened and helpless prey, but that's not Jean.

She's a monster too.

Floor of Language

Jean works at the library! Find them here during operating hours, if you like.

Comments

Around Town - Back Alley

[daddy_topside]

‘Madam Princess Zelda’ gets about as impressed a look as you might expect from someone created in an explicitly anti-monarchist evil(er) underwater EPCOT. Not that you can really see that look on Delta’s face, but he’s gotten pretty good at incredibly pointed silences in the short span of time he’s spent in this town.

Jean will have found that giant dude in the diving suit sitting, tucked against the side of an unlit alleyway. The late afternoon fog is condensing on his heavy brass plating, dripping down in slow streaks over his glowing porthole face. The citizens of the town give the alley and that yellow stare an appropriately wide berth.

Delta’s not particularly capable of talking but if Jean manages to avoid irritating him, perhaps some form of communication can be arranged.

[restingslasherface]

Jean has come prepared!

Wait this person is huge. Possibly prepared! Their smile gets sunnier, somehow, in response to Delta's silence. "Please excuse me if this is a personal question but I did encounter someone not all that long ago who needs a bit of help to converse - are you choosing not to speak or would you welcome assistance?"

Fucking what assistance though. Can this personage hold a normal-sized pencil? Think, Jean, think!

[daddy_topside]

Delta's wariness increases in tandem with the brightening smile. He eyes Jean for a good moment before reaching back to pull his slate out from where he'd wedged it between his mantle and air tanks. He plucks a stick of chalk out of a pocket and writes.

don't need

His handwriting is getting better at least.

[restingslasherface]

Don't worry big man, Jean's handwriting is not getting any better at all. Rest in peace to the very patient teachers that they have failed in this matter. The slate gets a bright nod. "Then it's my pleasure to meet you! I'm trying to organize things a little for the Madam Princess to facilitate working together! I'm a bit more used to...being in an organized team...and it worked wonders!"

So, Delta, my friend, child of Rapture, how good are you at recognizing a professional lackey? 'Cause that's what you have on hand here.

Around Town — Shopping Center

[deepbluerevue]

The woman seated on a park bench just a little ways from the center of downtown with a notebook open in her own lap blinks momentarily at the overpoweringly wide grin on the stranger’s face.

“Well, now,” she says, capping her fountain pen and closing her notebook, “I’m afraid I haven’t heard about this… uh, ‘talent pool’. You’re gonna have to explain it a little more to me, mistrum…?”

[restingslasherface]

"Agent Jean! Pleasure to meet you!" So here's the thing. Jean abstractly understands the concept of the handshake as something people in other Districts do, but their go-to for being polite is one arm across their chest and a lil' bow. They're trying to be on good manners to avoid disconcerting their new co-workers! "The Madam Princess has experience with project organizing and I'm looking to assist in this matter! That way maybe we can get the job done a bit better...even if I'm not actually sure that there's a deadline. But! No excuse for shirking!"

Jean offers the notebook out after flipping it to a prior page. Their own information is recorded there, detailing an extensive record of clerical work, scientific work (mainly as a 'research assistant' or 'containment specialist'), and a stunning record of violence that would get sent back to an author as a parody of itself before it ever saw the light of day.

[deepbluerevue]

After a polite nod in return, the woman leans forward to peruse the notebook, eyebrows creeping progressively up her face as her gaze tracks across the meticulous self-report. “You’ve certainly gotten around,” she says, tone almost neutral. “You still didn’t say what ‘this matter’ is, though.”

[restingslasherface]

"Oh! My apologies! The general matter of our employment from the white-haired lady; ending the curse or curses affecting the island, and helping to revitalize its community! The hope is that if we have an idea of what everyone is good or bad at, more effective organizing can help, as well as facilitating the sharing of information." Jean taps their chin with their eraser. "For instance! Agent Kurt, the blue gentleman? He has medical training and can teleport vast distances! And now that you know this you have someone to turn to if you know a person is in trouble far away, or even if you yourself are in trouble!"

Shops

[deaths_head]

"Bitch of a problem, ain't it?"

Someone is used to moving almost silently--and given that the redhead standing about a half step back and to the left of the little individual is sitting on the damn uncomfortable side of seven feet tall, that's quite a feat.

However, despite his dour expression, his demeanor is otherwise easygoing, borderline friendly: relaxed stance, weight on one leg, arms up just to finish pulling his long hair back off his neck because he forgot how fucking annoying it got when he let it get this long as a living man...

"Reckon you got the opposite problem I do, at your size." the Shade muses. "Still the same, though: if you're too damn big or too damn small, you're gonna play hell to find anything decent what ain't custom made. Already tryin' to figger out how much I'm gonna let 'em fleece me for to get some halfway decent boots, much less pants ain't up above my goddamn knees."

[restingslasherface]

"...No, that's not it." Beat. "Actually now that you say it that is going to be a problem. Wow! That's depressing! My liver for a proper Workshop..."

Jean shakes their head and turns, trying on a polite smile. The effect is...not good, but it's earnest at least. "Nice to meet you! Agent Jean, here to help! Well. Not right now. Right now I'm on break! But generally, here to help!"

[deaths_head]

The Shade can't help it: he laughs.

It's not unkind or mocking--it's not even wholly amused. It's the quiet, unexpected chuckle of simple pleasure because this little critter ain't so different from the imps around the Vale, right down to the stilted way of talking. Imps don't get anywhere near Heaven, they get treated like garbage in Hell, but they do okay for themselves around various cities in Purgatory like Gehenna. The ones in Limbo, where the Vale was carved, make their home there because they hear tell of the Shade, and he hardly minds. They're sharp as tacks, violent as hell, and when treated fairly pass for loyal easy.

So he hunkers down into a crouch to get closer to the critter's level--Jean, this one's got a name--and offers his hand to shake.

"Well, knowin' I can catch you when you ain't on break? Big help, so much obliged. You can call me the Shade if you're feelin' formal, or plain ol' Joe if you prefer to be friendly. Pleased to meet ya--though I'd advise 'gainst tradin' any human livers 'round here. Way I hear, you ain't gonna find any goin' free off the dead."

[restingslasherface]

"Nah I can just buy a new - wow! I can't do that here either can I! Fuck me!" Jean facepalms and drags their hand down their face slowly. "...Literally how does medicine even work here..."

Their manners catch up to them in a minute here, and they shake the Shade's hand with enthusiasm, looking just a lil' embarrassed. "Jean, nice to meet you! My apologies for being a downer, I'm currently very frustrated! The fashions here seem...very gendered, and unfortunately I am not a tailor! Yet!"

Shops - tailor!

[prise_de_fer]

"Prrrretty, arrren't they?" Someone beside Jean purrs, her r's over exaggerated. Mo'rtajha's been on the prowl today, too. With some extra brass in her pockets the miqo'te's seriously thinking about splurging on some finery for herself, but hasn't made the leap just yet. Instead she's wrapped in her cloak that does little to hide her long, bushy tail but does conceal the top of her head for the moment. She, too, is still wearing her newcomer's clothing, the shirt is tied up to reveal the tanned skin of her stomach, pants rolled up to her knees to stave off the heat.

"Is aught amiss? You look as if a coeurl took off if your lunch!" She adds with a hint of concern. They do look a bit miserable...

[restingslasherface]

Jean's head turns to look at the owner of this new and very attractive voice.

Their head turns away and then back to make sure they're seeing this right. The urge to say 'you're kitty' is stronger in their mind right now than any of the voices from E.G.O. equipment ever have been. Oh gosh. Oh wow. Hopefully they're not blushing.

(They're blushing. They have skipped past 'I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me' directly to the awakened thing setting up its own room in their mind and raiding the metaphorical fridge.)

Okay. Here's what they'll do. Step one, turn back to the display. Step two, gesture in Various Directions at it. Step three, talk.

Step three, talk.

STEP THREE -

"They are quite pretty! They're just not...or rather they're very, very gendered. I've been up and down this strip looking for something a bit more like home but even the suits are just a little bit off! And that's odd to me! I'm not sure I can do what my old co-worker did and just wear a women's cut suit, he only pulled it off 'cause he was a bit of a manly man, it worked for him - but even if I wanted to try all the suits are men's cut! Why! This?"

That might be a little too much of step three.

[prise_de_fer]

Mo'rtajha doesn't help matters at all. Noticing the pause and how they seem to fluster, she turns up the metaphorical heat by swaying her hips slightly, tail flicking dangerously close to Jean.

"Gendered you say? Ah, yes...by that you mean the dresses and the like, no?" She can roll with step three for now, just fine.

"Would you prefer a suit? I'm no tailor, but ah...I have a keen eye for how fabric can hug one so! In that perhaps, I could be of assistance? I wanted to look for myself so why not look with some fine company~?"

[restingslasherface]

Oh no. They're in danger. The blush only deepens and for a good long moment all this cat is getting is the fish-like expression of someone trying to talk and absolutely failing to. Jean's weird eyes complete the effect of making them seem like a mouse pinned beneath a predator's gaze.

"I-it's...the fashions back home are a bit - they're - I would love to, yes -"

Did they already agree to learn tailoring with Mister Shade? Yes. Will they be mentioning this? No.

Shopping, for Blue Jeans

[therichremember]

Jean is also looking at the clothing in the shops; he doesn't have the brass in pocket to buy anything new yet, but he is considering how he wishes to present himself once he does. First impressions are already dashed, but who will he be once he's at home?

Noticing the other, less manly Jean...well, there's a couple blinks in quick succession and then a casual commiseratory upnod, the kind that (he damn well hopes) transcends cultures to be a universal sort of gesture.

[restingslasherface]

Manly Jean you have not yet even begun to comprehend the levels of genderfuckery this corporate chicken nugget is on.

However, the upnod is indeed a mostly universal gesture, and Jean gives one back without thinking much of it...until they catch back up to their eyes reporting a Completely New Person, at which point they double take and produce a notebook.

"Good afternoon! Hi! Hello! Pleasure to meet you - Agent Jean, Pumpkin Hollow Recovery Task Force. Do you have -" The notebook opens, pencil poised, "- a free moment?"

[therichremember]

"You can't be Jean, I'm Jean. Jean Tannen, out of Camorr originally." Jean offers a polite bow, but not his hand to shake.

[restingslasherface]

"Afraid I am in fact Jean, born and raised!" Jean Corporate Edition returns the bow in a particular fashion; one arm over their chest, hand gently resting on their shoulder. And then it's back to the notebook. "Nice to meet you! Two names and everything, that's fancy."

Shi Association

[skeletonkeay]

As Gerard is perusing the clothes himself, trying to figure out how to work his distinct clothing preferences into this Victorian vibe, he spies someone else doing the same. But they seem nervous.

Ah. He knows that look.

Stepping in to help strangers with monsters and fear gods was one thing, but stepping in to help with something so personal... He silently waffled for a long moment before coming up beside the other person.

"Y'know," he muttered, "just because you don't see anything that looks quite how you want doesn't mean it can't happen. That's... what tailors are for, right? Sewing things. Making stuff custom. Just sayin'."

Re: Shi Association

[restingslasherface]

"I've been informed! And assisted, actually..." Jean may or may not have made some purchases already, their existence is in a quantum superposition that depends on if Mort gets them to blow their Brass in the above thread. "No I'm sorta...thinking."

Jean turns, trying to go back to a more neutral expression which quickly becomes one of delight when they take in Gerard's Everything. Now that's a look more like the City! Everyone here's so fucking Gendered it's god damn bizarre. That look of delight only highlights Jean's almost cartoonishly pointed teeth, but those aren't this Hunter's weapon, are they, Gerard? They're not the tools of butchery that drive their clockwork Hunt, ordered and ordained by others high above the stage.

Oblivious to their absolutely shitty Vibes, Jean continues to beam. "I love the look! Wow! Oh, wait, no, hahahaha, my manners - Agent Jean, pleasure to meet you!" They offer that odd little bow of theirs; one arm crossed over their chest, hand on their shoulder.

Re: Shi Association

[skeletonkeay]

The absolute tidal wave of Hunt energy that came off of this person as they faced Gerard in full was almost overpowering. It took everything in him not to recoil as if having smelled something foul. Not to mention the subtle Web influence underneath. This weirdo might as well have had a mouth full of blood and a head full of cobwebs as far as Gerard was concerned. But he was well practiced. He did not waver.

Gerard nodded his greeting. "Gerry Keay," he replied. "And thanks. I had a bit of help from the River Walker on the rips."

[restingslasherface]

Beat.

Beat.

Several beats.

"I really would sell a kidney for a proper weapon. You encountered the creature?" You ever see someone manage to be both excited and genuinely concerned at the same time? Jean's worried but also, oh boy, oh fucking boy, data!

Suppression Request: Brutok

[restingslasherface]

The arrangements are made, Neil has the containment unit ready, and all that's needed now is to actually hunt and capture a brutok for study. Jean has arranged to meet the occultist at the edge of the woods, and has very much chosen to dress in Cobalt Scar. The new claymore Jean has left at home, instead favoring a lasso to hopefully reduce the potential lethality to the target. It's a smash-and-grab.

They're not easy about Neil being here, but Jean's job is to protect people. Hopefully the researcher knows when to fold 'em.

...Also hopefully he brought better restraints. Abnormalities rarely take to mundane chains.