12303/Under the (Giant) Tree
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| Under the (Giant) Tree | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 05 August 2022 |
| Location: | Queens Giant Garden |
| Synopsis: | No description |
| Cast of Characters: | Susan Sullivan, Jonathan Sims
|
- Susan Sullivan has posed:
Susan is dressed for the weather in modest shorts and a baggy tee shirt. Her short hair falls just shy of her neck, held back by a headband. She sits on the grass near to the path with her Beauty and the Beast backpack on the ground next to her. Pink flip-flops sit next to her on the opposite side. In her lap is a copy of one of the Phoebe and her Unicorn books, which she is cheerfully reading.
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
Jon came to Queens for entirely different reasons, but a stray thought made him decide to take a walk in the park. He's wearing a sky-blue skirt and Converse sneakers, an emerald green shirt that makes the glowing emerald right arm a little less noticable, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. It's hot, after all.
He's obviously magical himself, but the presence of someone or something not entirely 'normal' catches his eyes and he heads over Susan's way, curious. He clears his throat when he gets near, so that he doesn't startle the woman.
- Susan Sullivan has posed:
Susan is definitely not startled. She looks up and smiles toward him. "Hello," she says. She closes the book, keeping her finger between the pages. "I don't know you, yet. What brought you to me?" She seems friendly and welcoming enough, and she at least looks human...
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
Jon can see and sense magical energy of various sorts; he can't always tell /what/ it is that's going on, but unless something's actively trying to mask he can usually at least suss it out. But he doesn't say anything right off--could just be a metagene thing! Who knows? Could even be nothing.
Instead, he says, with a smile, "Hello. I'm Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. I, ahh..." He's bad at lying. Hmm. "I don't think I've seen that book before." True!
- Susan Sullivan has posed:
"Neither had I," Susan says without breaking eye contact. "Sara name-dropped you. Is this a conversation we need to find somewhere private to have?"
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
"Sara...? Oh! Oh." Jon glances around, and chuckles. "You mean in relation to the Justice League Dark? Well, I don't think there's anyone close enough to hear, and it's not a giant secret anyway. Unless it is for you?"
A pause. "Were you, ahh... interested in joining us?" He quirks a brow.
- Susan Sullivan has posed:
"Not before she got on me about it," Susan says, standing without touching the ground with her hands. "I'm a bit of an exterminator, and she mentioned you all would furnish me with lists of what I exterminate so I don't accidentally kill off one of your pets."
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
Jon raises a brow. "What do you mean, exactly? Exterminator? Pets?" He considers Susan for a moment. "Well, I'd presume you're... a monster hunter, hmm? What sort of monsters do you hunt, exactly?"
For having such a conversation in the middle of a park, Jon seems oddly relaxed. Maybe he's just not really thinking about the fact that not everyone and everything is aware of magic. Or, well--it /is/ nearly impossible to hide the fact that his right arm appears to be something like a Green Lantern construct, if a darker green.
- Susan Sullivan has posed:
Susan, meanwhile, is much more guarded. She raises an eyebrow and hesitates. "I'm sure you're aware of the kind of thing," she says. "Mosquitos that don't handle sunlight well. Phlebotomists that sample their wares."
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
"Ahh, vampires," Jon says with a nod, and a chuckle. "/Now/ I understand. Yes, one of the founding members of the JLD is a vampire--but she comes from a rather different lineage than most vampires. Her clan retains their humanity, and she helped us save the universe a few months ago. I'd absolutely support wiping out /most/ vampires, but, well--as with most things, it's complicated."
A pause, and he adds, "My girlfriend became a werewolf recently, for instance. I suppose plenty of monster hunters would think that means she should be eliminated, but if she can control the change, or be rid of the business altogether, why kill her?" A beat. "Well. Besides the fact that I'd be... /quite/ put out, if anyone tried." He waves a hand. "But that's a bit beside the point."
He fixes Susan with a rather direct gaze. "The Justice League Dark... we don't really concern ourselves with hunting vampires on a regular basis. There are those out there who do so, and certainly we'd take out a nest of the bad sort if we stumbled on them. What we tend to fight, and exterminate--or try to contain--are far, far bigger. Elder Gods, horrors from outside reality. And, more importantly--we're a team. The idea, I think, would be that we'd ask that you not try to hunt a fellow member of the team because she happens to be undead."
He smirks. "I mean--I died and came back to life as well. My body isn't even a human body anymore. We have a literal angel as another leader, a Norse god, three of the Ghost Riders--who are possessed by demons. Several other people who can't die. But, as I said... we're all a team, is the idea. Lydia is my /friend/, not my pet. You know?"
- Susan Sullivan has posed:
"Yeah," Susan says, "if you're not standing on pretense, the exterminator thing doesn't really flow." She shakes her head. "As for most of that, it's whatever. I know things are complicated. But--" She looks around. "--okay, so it's not really much of a secret to anyone who has the tech to listen to us right now that I used to be undead myself. My goal is to exterminate vampirism from this planet. Not the people, the disease. It IS a disease," she insists. "And yeah, if you can be rid of it and are yourself, then control yourself until you can get rid of it. I mean...even though I didn't like that part of the movie, Beast turned into some goofy-looking guy at the end." She furrows her brow. "Though, I'm not really up to fighting elder gods...like, by definition."
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
"If it's a disease, it's a disease that's been around for at least four thousand years. The Pharaoh Hatshepsut was--is--a vampire, herself. I suspect it goes back further." Jon shrugs. "I'm not precisely an expert on it myself. I do know, as a medical doctor, that trying to eliminate disease often leads to worse things--but I can hardly tell you not to follow your life goals."
He glances at the backpack. Then he says, "I've never liked the implication that the way to not be a Beast is to look conventionally attractive. I rather preferred Shrek's take on things. The key is accepting a person as they are, with flaws and faults, while still having healthy boundaries. Belle loved the Beast for who he was, inside, not what he looked like. I think I'd have preferred if he hadn't changed back, in the end. Had learned to accept himself as he was, now. People do change, after all." He twitches the fabric of his skirt, idly, with his left hand, and shrugs. "But that /is/ the traditional story."
He smiles at Susan, then, and says, "Well, we /do/ take care of other things--but many of our members have no magic at all. I don't want to obfuscate the scale of what we're currently dealing with, however. Our first action as a team was fighting the angels that invaded Manhattan, saving reality from Saint Michael trying to reset it, and stopping the Old Ones from siphoning souls to their realm. Now, we have a base on the Astral Plane, and we're dealing with the Old Ones trying to stop us from, I believe, stopping /them/ from poisoning the dreams and imaginations of mortals. It's... heady stuff, admittedly. But it's the sort of thing anyone with the will and determination can face, and /have/ faced."
- Susan Sullivan has posed:
"Let me get back to that last point," Susan says. She circles her index fingers around each other. If they were on a bicycle wheel, the wheel would be driving in reverse. "Rewind a bit," she continues. "I never saw Shrek," Susan admits, "but I know the plot. I like the fact that the girl ogre turns into her actual real self." She shrugs. "I mean, in Star vs the Forces of Evil Miss Skullnik turns into a troll, and it's cool people accept her for that, but even if she's happier, it sends a weird message."
She huffs out a breath. "Look, I know things are weird. People want to be things they aren't because people have made them feel bad about being what they are. I want people to be able to find strength enough to be happy as they are without feeling ashamed or like they have to change." She shakes her head. "Nevermind. It's not a popular viewpoint."
Susan puts her hands on her hips. "As to your last point," she says, definitively accepting the change in subject, "Honestly all that sounds like a cool movie and a terrifying reality. I'm just a girl who learned how to manipulate the flow of qi. Do elder gods even have qi?"
- Jonathan Sims has posed:
"I mean, presumably, since qi is mostly found in living things--I would think not. But some of their servitors might." Jon shrugs, again. "As I said--several of our members have no supernatural abilities at all. I don't know what you were told before, and I will grant you that things have changed in the last few months. But if you'd like to join us and try to help us--even just as a sometime ally--I can give you the contact information, make sure you're able to come to our base, things like that."
They smile, a bit, then, and says, "The thing about Shrek--I don't know the other--is that Fiona, in the end, always /was/ an ogre. That's her truest self." They gesture down at their clothing. "I spent years lying about who I was, worried about what others would think about me, until I embraced the idea that I'm not truly a man. I never was. It's not /me/ that changed--it's others' perception of me. Lydia thinks it's fate that she became a vampire. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it's what she was always meant to be, and all that's truly changed is the outer shell. I /will/ say that if you can't accept that Lydia embraces what she is now--that others do as well--things might be... well... awkward, at best."
A pause, and then, "It may be best for you to come by and see how you get along with the others? We /are/ a team, first and foremost. Everything we're talking about is rather academic if you don't directly know a person. Or, well--perhaps it's not a good fit, and that's fine. Were you interested in joining before?"
