Anton Shudder (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gistful) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tushanshu_logs2015-06-02 03:00 pm
gistful) wrote in tushanshu_logs2015-06-02 03:00 pm
[Midnight Hotel] June catch-all
Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of June, 2016.
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the month, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!
The Hotel’s numbers have dwindled slightly since last month, but there are some new additions of note – firstly, Jintou, an ex-Snake kedan brought there by Aqua and Akito’s Chihuelan mugger Marcil, the one with a noticeable scar on his cheek, who was recently bargained out of the Snakes’ imprisonment. Jintou, while still skittish, has relaxed enough to start getting bored by being limited to the Hotel, as he’s not allowed out unless escorted. Malcil, on the other hand, is lean and bruised like he came out the worst in a fight and has no desire to leave at all—he barely leaves his room, in fact. Any interrogation will make him clam up and back away.
For the most part both are given a decently wide berth by the other kedan in the Hotel, though the kedan are more likely to recognise Malcil as Chihuelan than Jintou as a Snake and he, therefore, bears the brunt of both dirty looks and intense curiosity.
Another notable newcomer is the unfairly gorgeous man who has been making himself known on the network recently. He can be seen around the Hotel, wearing a frilly maid’s apron and doing some cleaning, with varying degrees of skill but with a magical talent people may recognise as the same discipline as Skulduggery Pleasant – using air to lift furniture to vacuum underneath, conjuring water in his mopping bucket, and so on.
If anyone asks, Anton will just say he summoned a cleaning faerie.
It’s notable that this unfairly gorgeous man doesn’t have a room of his own – he can be seen coming in and out of Anton’s private bedroom. They obviously know each other well, since Erskine has a habit of stroking Anton’s hair given the opportunity. Several times throughout the month Anton will be slightly late for his shifts and emerge with his hair still damp and unbound, only for Erskine to come by a bit later and sheepishly plait it for him while he’s working at the desk.
While there isn’t much physically different about the Hotel this month, aside from the newly settled exit into Sky Sector, Anton himself is more protective. He’s more watchful, more inclined to look up even at minor signs of tension – though he’s no more likely to interfere than before. He will also regularly scout the Hotel's entrance for anyone who seems to be paying undue attention, thanks to Sokka's mugging right outside its door.
Anton's alert, and no wonder given the Hotel is now housing two essential fugitives.
[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.
[Both Jintou and Malcil can be threaded with by request to the mod account, though Jintou will be more open; however, any new information will need to be bought with reward requests.]
Date: Month of June, 2016.
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the month, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!
The Hotel’s numbers have dwindled slightly since last month, but there are some new additions of note – firstly, Jintou, an ex-Snake kedan brought there by Aqua and Akito’s Chihuelan mugger Marcil, the one with a noticeable scar on his cheek, who was recently bargained out of the Snakes’ imprisonment. Jintou, while still skittish, has relaxed enough to start getting bored by being limited to the Hotel, as he’s not allowed out unless escorted. Malcil, on the other hand, is lean and bruised like he came out the worst in a fight and has no desire to leave at all—he barely leaves his room, in fact. Any interrogation will make him clam up and back away.
For the most part both are given a decently wide berth by the other kedan in the Hotel, though the kedan are more likely to recognise Malcil as Chihuelan than Jintou as a Snake and he, therefore, bears the brunt of both dirty looks and intense curiosity.
Another notable newcomer is the unfairly gorgeous man who has been making himself known on the network recently. He can be seen around the Hotel, wearing a frilly maid’s apron and doing some cleaning, with varying degrees of skill but with a magical talent people may recognise as the same discipline as Skulduggery Pleasant – using air to lift furniture to vacuum underneath, conjuring water in his mopping bucket, and so on.
If anyone asks, Anton will just say he summoned a cleaning faerie.
It’s notable that this unfairly gorgeous man doesn’t have a room of his own – he can be seen coming in and out of Anton’s private bedroom. They obviously know each other well, since Erskine has a habit of stroking Anton’s hair given the opportunity. Several times throughout the month Anton will be slightly late for his shifts and emerge with his hair still damp and unbound, only for Erskine to come by a bit later and sheepishly plait it for him while he’s working at the desk.
While there isn’t much physically different about the Hotel this month, aside from the newly settled exit into Sky Sector, Anton himself is more protective. He’s more watchful, more inclined to look up even at minor signs of tension – though he’s no more likely to interfere than before. He will also regularly scout the Hotel's entrance for anyone who seems to be paying undue attention, thanks to Sokka's mugging right outside its door.
Anton's alert, and no wonder given the Hotel is now housing two essential fugitives.
[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.
[Both Jintou and Malcil can be threaded with by request to the mod account, though Jintou will be more open; however, any new information will need to be bought with reward requests.]
no subject
But it didn't change that Anton was right. And Skulduggery didn't know how to answer. He didn't know how to say that he wouldn't be anyone if he managed to let it go. He didn't know how to say that he couldn't forgive himself because he didn't know who he would be afterwards. He didn't know how to explain that anger kept his bones together, kept his consciousness tethered, offered him the lifeline of a purpose and a cause through the wrathful haze he'd been trapped in as Vile. For nearly three centuries, Skulduggery had needed a reason for existing; something to focus on, to strive for, to search for. Redemption was just the latest in a long line, really. An attempt to make his un-life about something other than searching for revenge. If Skulduggery achieved that, and there was nothing left, no reason or focus for his anger... then he wasn't sure his bones wouldn't just fall apart where they stood.
He didn't know how to explain any of it to Anton because he still didn't know how to explain it to himself.
"A little of both, if I'm being honest," Skulduggery answered at last. "But that's a burden I'll happily shoulder until I manage to reconcile them. That's all I can promise, I'm afraid."
no subject
Anton stepped away toward Skulduggery's hat, sitting precariously on the edge of the canal, and reached down to pick it up. "But that isn't how it works." He straightened up, flicked dirt off the hat, smoothed down the brim. "Redemption isn't something you get, it's something you do. You'll rise, you'll fall. Whenever you fall, you make sure you rise again, and you do it over and over, as many times as you must."
He turned and came back, and cast his shadow over Skulduggery's face again, hat in hand and looking down at Skulduggery with an unreadable expression. "Except you've chained yourself to your fear and your guilt. You're unchanging. You plateau. You're too afraid to rise ..." He held out his hand and dropped the hat. "... so you leave nothing in your future but another fall."
The hat landed squarely over Skulduggery's fleshless face, and Anton turned and strode toward the Hotel's entrance.
no subject
It was ludicrous. There was only so high a dead man could go, only so much he could do to overcome being dead. Skulduggery had never entertained any illusions that he was capable of being the man he used to be before he was killed. He'd tried, a long time ago, and fallen flat. Now, he made the hard choices and took the path of moral struggle so that no one else would have to, because there was very little else he was good for.
Maybe that was the problem.
He sighed, sat up, and brushed some more of the dirt off his hat. "I'm glad we had this little chat," he told the empty air where Anton was standing moments before, if only because saying it might make the sentiment true. It did, in a way. Then he made the conscious decision to stop thinking about the struggle and to remember that he was, in fact, an amazingly unique man with a phenomenal sense of style and an ego large enough to keep him upright when nothing else would; and as Anton vanished inside the Hotel, Skulduggery got up and lifted into the air, eventually disappearing over a neighbouring rooftop.