aceslow: (47)
Kim Kitsuragi ([personal profile] aceslow) wrote in [community profile] jigokulogs2022-07-08 01:31 am

JULY CATCH-ALL

Who ⬤ Kim Kitsuragi & YOU
What ⬤ Various July activities! I'll be writing up custom starters throughout the month -- I'd be happy to whip them up for anyone who's interested, so feel free to hmu on plurk or on the CR meme HERE.
When ⬤ Throughout July
Where ⬤ Throughout Jigoku-cho
Content Warnings ⬤ Adult language and subject matter, likely some discussion of the blood rain's traumafest.
eyediot: (letting dreams of fame take over)

Re: for jonathan sims

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-07-08 10:09 am (UTC)(link)
['Archivist Sims' is a new one. At the first word, he feels his muscles tense. Here it comes, he thinks. Confirmation that everyone here knows.

And ...Then it doesn't? There's no derision in the way it's said, no contempt. It's odd, really. So much that the comment of something happening just before he got here nearly passes him by. And he wants to say something, ask for details but the next thing said catches Jon off guard. He looks down at his clothes - the jacket being a mess is natural, he'd gotten used to that, as much as the dirt on his shirt and pants. But the blood splatters across all of him, and the tear in the chest of his shirt he hadn't really properly acknowledged. To do so would mean acknowledging something he's been putting off.]


Perhaps, yes. And a bit of mending. Sorry, you - You said free changes of clothes after what happened last month?

[That's one way to try and ask everything at once.]
eyediot: (cause they chose you)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-07-11 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
[Kim walking in front of him might not see the confusion or the way Jon squints at the floor when he sees the orange blob going down. But he may hear the way his foot missteps and nearly misses the top first step. As well as the barely contained yelp before Jon is able to school it back. He grips onto the railing and starts taking the steps a bit more carefully now that he knows they're there. The Eye leaves him, and he's worse off than he was before. Isn't that just the way?

It's almost enough to distract him from what's being said. 'Cursed', 'unknown source' yada yada. Fairly standard fare. But the mention of 'nightmares made manifest' and strange creatures has his muscles seize up, blood running like ice suddenly. Jon grips the railing hard enough his knuckles whiten as he stares at the back of that bright colorful blob of (he hopes) a person in front of him. His eyes are wide and lips pressed to a thin, hard line.

Does he know? He can't know, not unless he's a great liar. But that means it happened, doesn't it? The Entities got here before him, just barely. And he wasn't here to stop or contain them. How many are there? How many were affected, how many are still affected? How many were injured?

This is his fault. He should have kept a closer eye on the lighter, he should have kept them contained.]


How- [His voice cracks nervously as he steps down the last step of the stairs, eyes focused on the man in front of him.] How was it dealt with?
eyediot: (pic#15776222)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-07-13 10:14 am (UTC)(link)
[That stops him for a moment, staring at the arm offered and trying to decide.

No. No, for now, he has the railing in one hand and both feet on the ground.]


I-i can see plenty. I see you, you're in orange, it's fine. [He says it with a tone of someone very much preoccupied with something else he deems more important than his own eyesight. He can make out the shapes and colors around him, so he's not completely in the dark. Jon isn't entirely sure if that would be preferable or not to the situation at hand.

Instead of taking the arm, he gestures almost erratically with the free hand not gripping the railing.]


Sorry, I just - It's very important I know what happened. If you saw anything in all of that, or, or- [God, how can he explain this? Of course this man probably 'saw anything' if his comment about nightmares was true. How does he explain this? Still getting his bearings, still not sure where Martin is or where Annabelle and the others ended up, if they're here at all.] I'm not making much sense here, um. Sorry, it's. There's a lot. And I would really just. Need to hear what happened.
eyediot: (I am happy on my own)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-07-17 11:11 am (UTC)(link)
[He listens, moving to stand a little closer to Kim. Partly to make sure he won't misunderstand what's being said, and partly to get a better look at the man. He hadn't really expected an older (Asian? Eastern Asian?) man, not with that accent. But it's easy to set aside for the moment and take it as it's given. The world is strange and he's definitely seen the strangest parts.

Not unlike these details he's being given. So resolution and damage control were done separately by teams. God, if only they'd had enough knowledge and know-how to deal with it that way.

Haunted little dolls though... Stranger? Maybe. That was what started it for him. That fucking Anglerfish statement.]


I think so. I'll ask around a bit more, but. Thank you, it's a good start lead.

...I apologize for um. How out of sorts this seems, there's - A lot was. Happening before I found myself here. And I'm afraid some of what I was dealing with may have beat me here.
eyediot: (in the dark)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-07-23 10:00 am (UTC)(link)
Jacket?

[For what may be the first time, Jon takes the moment to look down at himself. Shirt covered in blood and ripped, his (Daisy's) jacket covered in blood and mud. God, it is a lot of blood, his own and Elias' - the only very real, personal act of violence he ever committed right at the end. Of course it carried with him.]

Right.. R-right.

Um. [Trying not to reel from the fact he killed that man. No, refocus. Maybe there's hope for this place, maybe he's wrong.] It's a bit of a long story. And it's not a very nice one, if you want the whole thing.
eyediot: art by <user name="lamaery" site="tumblr.com"> (pic#15770879)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-07-25 03:38 am (UTC)(link)
[Haniwa? The terracotta figures? Jon looks very seriously in thought at that.

But the mention of clothes and again the glasses. He grips both hands into the fabric of his jacket and shirt, tired and still coming to the realization of what's happened. Martin would agree - get cleaned up and settled before embarking on more investigation nonsense. Martin would be fussing so much, he- God, where is he?

Jon's own expression is starting to go on a journey of distress bordering heartbreak, the realization that he died. Again. That Martin really, really did it, and isn't even here with him now that he can find. It's over. It's over and he's in Hell where he belongs, Martin's not here that he can tell so it's... It's better. Like this, it's better, if they truly fixed the world then maybe Martin is just fine. Or maybe he went somewhere else entirely, but it isn't here with him-

No. No, no, he can't start circling around that now, if he does, he'll break and will never come back. Jon shakes his head gently just to clear his thoughts, tightening his grip on his shirt and jacket.]


I-i suppose there isn't much getting around a change of clothes. Um. Thank you, Mr. Kitsuragi. I can pay you back once I'm able. I do... I do want to preserve these, however, if we can.
eyediot: art by <user name="lamaery" site="tumblr.com"> (pic#15770880)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-07-31 01:37 am (UTC)(link)
[Jon listens, watches as best he can. It isn't too difficult a lie to believe given the state Jon's in. The near shell-shock and distress, his clothes. No, the clerk believes it wholly. Showing Jon to where the clothes available to him. But even with the assistance and whole store laid out before him, Jon feels stalled.

It's a weird feeling. Knowing he can just.... choose. There are no strings guiding him, no wind whispering against the back of his neck where to look. This is all.... Him. He gets to choose something as simple as his own clothes. No expectation of whatever appearances he has to maintain either as an academic or a manager or anything. What does he even like? Has he ever known? Has Jonathan Sims ever known what clothes he likes that weren't dictated by some expectation?

He's fairly certain he was all right with the spare clothes he got from Georgie when he stayed with her. Those were comfortable. A simple t-shirt and sweats... But likely not something to be traipsing around in Hell in. (No, he cannot even let that little bit of keeping-up-appearances go. He has to look presentable, doesn't he.)

Jon finds himself gravitating idly toward what look like some neutral color button downs. Very plain. Unobtrusive and won't stand out at all. He starts to reach for one to check before seeing his own filthy hands and pulls back. The man hesitates before carefully keeping his hands to himself and looking back to Kim, calling out.]



You're sure this is all right?

[Trying to mask his own indecision at suddenly having all the choices available to him, and his own self-assuredness he doesn't deserve any of this kindness by asking more questions.]
eyediot: art by <user name="andlatitude" site="tumblr.com"> (pic#15310268)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-08-05 12:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[A favorite color?

It's the answer that comes quickest of anything Kim has asked, only half a moment's thought:]
Blue.

[Blue like the skies. Of the ocean. The blue of those eyes that looked at him nervous and unsure.

Hey, sorry. You haven't seen a dog have you?

The blue eyes that fussed and flustered, kept looking at him worried when Jon had stopped going to physical therapy too early in favor of returning to work. That were scared and annoyed when he'd handed Jon the can of silver-tipped worms. I just wanted to take a picture of the thing. To prove to you that it happened – you’re always so quick to dismiss these statements and I wanted proof for you.

Those bright blue eyes that had jeered at Jon when he suggested they run together. The skies in those eyes that had been leeched out by the grays and browns, that Jon had never realized he would miss until he'd dragged Martin out of the Lonely and couldn't see the blue anymore.

It's an easy answer to say 'blue'. Had those eyes been blue again when the knife plunged? Likely not. Maybe he'd been imagining it at the end.

He follows the worker to the washroom, just thinking on those last lingering moments before he's presented with the sinks and mirror in front of him. Washes his hands clean and deciding... He really should. Takes some extra soap and water in his hands to give his whole face and neck a wash, splashing it all clean. He takes his jacket off and rolls up his sleeves to get his forearms as well. It's surreal, really. Months of literal hell on earth of his own making only to die, wake up in actual Hell, and it's as mundane as walking into Westfield.

When Jon does come back out, his face and hands are all clean, but the circle pocked scars all over, the jagged line scar across his neck, and the burned hand are more prominent.]


Sorry. Thank you. I think I just needed a moment. That's what you found? [He gestures to the sets Kim's holding.] I think those will do perfectly. Thank you, Mr. Kitsuragi.
Edited (fixed some wording woops) 2022-08-05 16:03 (UTC)
eyediot: (and paying the deadly cost)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-08-14 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
I believe they'll do just fine.

[Jon says it pleasant enough. And he does mean it. He lifts the shirts to look through them and nods with a small - albeit tired - smile before heading to the changing room. He isn't long, changing quickly and asking the attendant for something to wrap the dirty clothes in. A bit of thin paper, but better than nothing. He wraps them carefully, before tucking them into a shopping bag. And requests a second bag, methodically folding the leather jacket into it.

It should be fine. This man has been helpful so far, and if there is some ulterior motive, Jon cannot begin to guess at it. He seems to genuinely want to help Jon. It's an odd realization, and one he won't easily ignore for the time being.

He steps back out, fresh and mostly clean with unspoiled clothes and the two bags. If nothing else he looks more put together and... stuffy academic. But there isn't much helping that on Jon's part.]


Thank you. I think- That should be all. If you wanted to go somewhere quiet to sit and talk further.
eyediot: (and an empty broken heart)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-08-20 09:42 am (UTC)(link)
I-

[Jon stops for the moment it takes those words to really click. Lord. How long as it been since he's been able to just ...go out somewhere? Before the last siege on the Institute, perhaps? Absolutely before they ran to Scotland. He sort of remembers going out at least once after his trip to Ny-Ålesund. It almost feels overwhelming, like the breath in his throat and the way he can still feel the repetitive beat of the heart in his chest.

Feeling normal. What an alien concept. Jon sounds almost breathless when he speaks again.]
I think... A quiet pub would be all right. Anywhere we can sequester off a bit, if that's all right.

[He hasn't forgotten his promise to explain things to Kim. But it will be his first time really laying it all out, and he's still intensely private.]
Edited 2022-08-20 10:02 (UTC)
eyediot: (eyes of yellow scales and feathers)

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-08-31 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
[It's all right. It's quiet, it's not overcrowded, it's not too loud (but loud enough no one will hear his tale). This'll do. He eyes the booth Kim gestures to and nods once.]

A whiskey, if they have anything of the sort. If not, whatever you're having will do.

[Beggars can't be choosers, and in a Japanese Hell, it's best not to assume what is and is not on the menu. But he'll take a seat where he can see the door, and the bar, and the back of house entry. A paranoid man now that he can't simply Know where everyone is and what they're doing. He needs to gather his thoughts, tucking the bags away under the table by his feet. What's relevant to what Kim needs to know about the situation, what won't take three hours for him to tell?

By the time Kim comes back, he's nicked a pen from somewhere and grabbed a napkin to start jotting down key points, words like "Fourteen", "Beholding", "Hilltop". It isn't much, but it's a start of getting his head in the right place.]
eyediot: (I'm gonna be the man who's growin old wi)

1/2 [ anyone backreading this for whatever reason, spoilers for the entirety of the magnus archives]

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-09-08 07:49 am (UTC)(link)
I-it is. A bit long. Sorry. If you’re certain you still want to hear it.

[He hesitates, really thinking of how to talk about this. It isn’t something he’s even had time to process, the story’s end happening just moments before he found himself here. Jon takes a breath, a sip of his drink. Something about it does calm as much as surprise him - he can taste it, for one. ]

It started when I was promoted to the Head Archivist position at the Institute I worked at. [If he wanted to be truly honest, it started when he was eight, with that damned spider book. But it’s not the important starting point here, nor is it something he feels comfortable sharing. As understanding and patient as Kitsuragi has been so far, Jon still wants to keep some privacy after everything.] I was tasked with making audio recordings of the statements people left us of their experiences with the supernatural. They were… odd. A lot of them. While most recorded easily as digital recordings, a handful of them would distort and only be able to be recorded on an old analog tape recorder. So I started. And it… [His hand trembles for just a breath.] It got bad.

We started being attacked. First by a living hive. A woman who had given herself to a Power, of Corruption, and all sorts of… things started to use her body as a hive. Worms, mostly. They attacked the Institute en masse, and we did all we could to stop it. [And it’s strange if Kim looks now, how all the little pocked scars marking Jon all over are just about the size for worms to crawl through.] After that, we found the body of my missing predecessor in the tunnels underneath the building. Detectives came ‘round, started asking questions. I thought- [He sighs, shaking his head once, hanging it low for a moment even with his shoulders.] I thought I was helping their investigation, but they had suspected me. Were investigating me when I wasn’t with them. Even after all the evidence provided proved my innocence, they still treated me like a criminal most of the time.

After that, I began my own search, was suspicious of my assistants until I was able to prove Tim and Martin were innocent… But. But my third assistant, my friend, Sasha. She wasn’t…. Right. It wasn’t until too late I realized some thing had killed her months before and taken her place. I don’t-

[He stares down at his glass, his voice quiet and miserable:] I still don’t remember what the real Sasha looked like. That … thing. It messes with your memories. All you know is what that thing made itself look like.

[Another breath, another sip of the sweet warm liquor.]


I found a man living in the tunnels as well, and brought him up to get answers. He knew more of what was going on with the Institute and the strange happenings. He told me a bit. That. That there were Entities, gods of Fear that lived just on the edge of our world. Everything we’d been seeing were bits of them seeping and slipping into our reality. Vampires, werewolves, spirits, all of them were part of these gods trying to get in. They fed on our fears and terrors, they were our fears and terrors. And our continued fear was gradually making them stronger.

It was a lot. Too much information, so I stepped out to have a cigarette. And when I came back, he was a bloodied murdered mess in my office. So I… I ran.

[Jon debates just how much he should tell of the rest. How much of his own involvement, how much he should say of his slowly losing his own humanity. He’s getting too personal. Too caught up in the small details of trying to paint the picture of what happened to really get the story across.]

I spent the next few months in hiding. The police definitely suspected me of both murders given all the evidence, as did my- [‘best friend’ is on the tip of his tongue. Would Tim mind if he called him that now? Probably.] assistant, Tim, did as well. I was given hints and clues to go investigate to find evidence to prove what was happening as well as my innocence of that second murder. I-

I saw… a lot of things. And while I was in hiding, other… things came looking for me. The detectives were still looking for me as well. [He hesitates, feeling like he’s overheating with the warmth of the liquor and rubs at his neck nervously before his third degree burned fingers land unconsciously at the jagged line across his throat.]

From there it sort of… Kept going. Proven innocent, and then sent out to find information about these Entities and stop rituals of their followers trying to summon them into our world. Successful for the most part for all that it mattered. And. And then I-... I died. Sort of. An explosion that killed my best friend, lost one of the cops, left the other cop in a state of eternal distrust of everyone, and I was… In a sort of coma. No heartbeat, no breathing, but active brain activity. Woke up after six months and everything was worse.

[For someone hearing these atrocities even in this scarce detail, it’s hard to see how it could have been worse. But for Jon, it was… horrid. Another breath. Another moment to get his composure.]
eyediot: <user name="ggracee" site="tumblr.com"> (and yet my only inhibition)

2/2

[personal profile] eyediot 2022-09-08 07:50 am (UTC)(link)
All the while, M-martin. My last assistant. He… He’d been there from the start. And always… Believed me. He never believed I murdered anyone, and he just… I found out later he’d always spoken out in my defense. He was so-

[Worried. Fussy. Kind. Protective, hopeful.]

He ended up taking a position as the new Institute Head’s personal assistant. And I rarely saw him after that. Not.. .Not until the end. He was taken into a…sort of …partial reality. The Lonely, one of the Entities. It had a small domain that he was taken to. A… desolate, gray beach with no light. No warmth, no color. I followed because I… I had to. I needed to, I needed to know he was- [He hesitates, the reminder of that empty, cold voice. I really loved you, you know? from the fog.] And I brought him back. We ran together. Away, as far as we could manage. The Institute was under further attack by hunters and other monsters, and we hid.

It was nice. For a few weeks. And… [God. God, he hates Jonah Magnus, more than he ever thought he could hate anyone or anything.] After a few weeks, I was… used. My boss, the man who’d done everything to us, used me. And ended the world. All the Fears, all the nightmare Entities, all of them were brought into the world through me. And the world became a living hell, nightmares unending. The entire world’s population suffering their worst phobias and fears, the screaming terrors never stopped. Even if you thought someplace was quiet, it …it wasn’t. I knew... and could.. Could feel how much they were suffering even in the silent places.

[A slow shuddering breath. He tilts the glass this way and that with one hand, watching the liquid move in the bottom of it.]

Martin and I, we walked. From the safehouse we were in back to the Institute. I know in normal distances, it was over seven hundred and fifty kilometers, but… It didn’t really feel that way throughout the domains. Time and distance didn’t work right. And we faced every horror you could imagine.Gardens of living people’s bones, a processing plant meant to harvest the meat of its human victims at their own hands over and over, endless warzones of zombies. Hospitals made to torture and not heal. [It sounds awful. But the tone in his voice makes it almost sound like he found beauty in it. A quiet fondness for it all.] I think the worst was the …blackened darkness that kept the children running in terror from a monster they could never see, that never tired nor slept.

We made our way back. Found others who had managed to escape their own horrors to find refuge in the tunnels underneath the Institute. And had a plan. T-to fix it. It was… Simple. Just kill our boss who had taken seat as the orchestrator of it all. And… that… wasn’t quite what happened.

[He runs a hand down his face, covering his mouth and feeling the light five-day-old stubble that had been there for months. There’s so much he’s left out. So many of the finer details of what happened to him that he’s kept to himself, tucked away in a place only he can ever know, too scared to let those moments loose.]

One of the Entities. The Web. The Spider, Mother of Puppets. It’s the only one of the Fears that can truly see a larger picture, can plan, manipulate things into place the way it wants. It knew… Eventually the humans feeding them in that apocalyptic horrorscape would die out. And then they would starve as well. So it had started a plan, long before I joined the Institute.

See, there is a place just north of London. A house where, in the basement, there is a crack in the world. In my universe. Things could unintentionally step in through it… or out. And the Web had started a plan when I was a child. Before my voice was fully grown to what it needed. And it wanted them all to go through that crack, using the recordings I’d made of those statements. My voice would lead the Fears out of my universe and into another, where they could do it all over again. And keep cycling through universes, ostensibly forever.

I didn’t- [His entire body tenses now, muscles tight and eyes focused down but his voice is quiet, not wanting to dare speak this into existence. He knows, beyond a doubt, if he says it out loud then it will be true.] The others with me wanted to do it. Follow that plan and get the Fears out of our world and maybe put things back the way they were. And that’s… What happened. Martin, in the end, he- Th-the voice they were using and had kept them contained had to be broken so they could go. Martin was the only one who could do it, sever that thread tethering them to our world. [He can’t help unconsciously reaching to his chest, where the previous filthy shirt had had a large splotch of blood and a tear over his heart. He hadn’t wanted it to happen, if his halting speech is any indicator. He had desperately wanted some other plan.]

And I think- [He looks up to Kim, genuine sorrow and apology in his eyes, wishing for all the world he could take everything he’s said and stuff it back down. Make it so none of it happened here to the people in Jigokucho. His skin is paler now, reliving even just these small moments of his life the last few years telling such an abridged version to Kim, unused to not having the fear fed back to him from the Eye. He’s barely really touched his drink, having forgotten it as anything more than something to occupy his hands.]

I’m terribly sorry. But I think they beat me here by just a few weeks. If what you’re saying is true, then it. It sounds like them.

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