Simon (
i_can_read) wrote in
bottlecaplogs2026-04-15 10:16 pm
Entry tags:
Simon in April
Who: Simon and YOU.
What: Catch-all and specific top levels,
Where: Around,
When: All of April
Warnings: Horror genre references, body horror specifically, cult/religious trauma, dissociation and emotional issues, so much swearing, etc. Just Simon Things (TM)
A. Yeah my heart it spoke, and the stars replied -> OTA
Simon is easy to find on clear nights. He drops his shields for as long as possible--as long as he dares, because how long? is a question that dogs him, haunts him, taunts him, fills him with fear and forces the stones around him to close up once more--and floats or lies in the grass or rests in the fork of a tree, bathing the nearby area in a red glow.
What's he doing?
Looking at the sky. Specifically, he's looking at the stars--all the many hundreds of thousands of them, spread across the abyssal vault of heaven. Large ones, small ones. Shimmering curtains and waves, clustered scores of speckles barely distinct from one another. And bold, shining monuments to light, standing apart from any neighbouring gleam. He stares up into them with his own swirling pools of light--the pools of light that are his eyes--their radius so large and wide-armed that they almost evoke the galaxies above.
Small, pale, imitations of the miracle that dwarfs him. A tiny, feeble imitation in the lush world below. A world vibrant and verdant with life.
It almost--
It almost.... makes him feel like he was meant to. Like God is real. Like--like maybe this is what God is. This is God, or God's doing. But then, what is he doing here? What is he, Simon, doing? Here? What is he? What's it for? Why? Why--why is he, Simon, here, why him? And for what?
So it's not always a peaceful moment.
Sometimes it is, sometimes the wonder of it all eclipses the grief, the fear and confusion.
But sometimes... sometimes there are sounds. Quiet, muffled sounds. Like he might be... crying?
Don't worry, though--he'll stop the very instant he hears anyone coming. And his voice--sharp with paranoia and danger, or coarse with emotion and suspicion.
"Who's there?"
B. Plant Your Hope With Good Seeds -> Closed to Henry and Parvati
Despite a not-very edifying (or perhaps too edifying?) conversation with Umemiya, Simon is nonetheless undeterred. He's interested in the garden, and he wants...
He wants to do that. He wants to garden. Just a little. He doesn't know how, what with the utter lack of hands... or legs... or any way to carry or dig or bury or plant. He wants it so badly. It's like an ache--or a burn. A compulsion, an impulse, something nudging at the back of his mind.
He's been thinking about it, sitting there in the grass and under the canopy of nearby trees. Sealed up inside his shields, where he can see only darkness and hear the world only dimly. Protected. Encased and isolated, sheltered and solitary. Safe.
Ha. Safe isn't real. But it feels safer.
Bwcause if he stays in there, encapsulated by the darkness and the security of his rock shield, it feels like.... well, like the submarine. And when it feels like the submarine, it becomes easy to defy gravity.
The downside, of course, is that he can no longer even feel vibrations through the ground. And this leaves him completely unaware of anyone walking by.
But that's fine, right? It's not like he's going to drop his shields and scare the bejeezus out of anyone all of a sudden--
Or so he (doesn't) think, dropping his shields suddenly right as someone walks by.
C. Training wheels fell off -> OTA
[Simon still spends most days rolling around, opening his shields to look around and then closing them to follow his planned path.
Or else he's in the air--flying with his shields up like the world's most dangerous aircraft. Because he still navigates the exact same way he did back in the submarine, with the camera. He recognises the irony, but it's... kind of comforting, weirdly. It gives him something to do. And every time he opens his shields, he has a new vantage, a new vista to take in.
It's an experience that never gets old. High or low, terrestrial or aerial.
He just.... he doesn't have the best control while flying, so..... um. Possibly he falls. With luck, it's merely nearby. But sometimes he falls directly onto someone. Or onto a building, or onto someone's current project.
It's a work in progress, okay?]
D. Wildcard!
[Drop me a line at
railerat or just throw something at me here and I'll figure it out!]
What: Catch-all and specific top levels,
Where: Around,
When: All of April
Warnings: Horror genre references, body horror specifically, cult/religious trauma, dissociation and emotional issues, so much swearing, etc. Just Simon Things (TM)
A. Yeah my heart it spoke, and the stars replied -> OTA
Simon is easy to find on clear nights. He drops his shields for as long as possible--as long as he dares, because how long? is a question that dogs him, haunts him, taunts him, fills him with fear and forces the stones around him to close up once more--and floats or lies in the grass or rests in the fork of a tree, bathing the nearby area in a red glow.
What's he doing?
Looking at the sky. Specifically, he's looking at the stars--all the many hundreds of thousands of them, spread across the abyssal vault of heaven. Large ones, small ones. Shimmering curtains and waves, clustered scores of speckles barely distinct from one another. And bold, shining monuments to light, standing apart from any neighbouring gleam. He stares up into them with his own swirling pools of light--the pools of light that are his eyes--their radius so large and wide-armed that they almost evoke the galaxies above.
Small, pale, imitations of the miracle that dwarfs him. A tiny, feeble imitation in the lush world below. A world vibrant and verdant with life.
It almost--
It almost.... makes him feel like he was meant to. Like God is real. Like--like maybe this is what God is. This is God, or God's doing. But then, what is he doing here? What is he, Simon, doing? Here? What is he? What's it for? Why? Why--why is he, Simon, here, why him? And for what?
So it's not always a peaceful moment.
Sometimes it is, sometimes the wonder of it all eclipses the grief, the fear and confusion.
But sometimes... sometimes there are sounds. Quiet, muffled sounds. Like he might be... crying?
Don't worry, though--he'll stop the very instant he hears anyone coming. And his voice--sharp with paranoia and danger, or coarse with emotion and suspicion.
"Who's there?"
B. Plant Your Hope With Good Seeds -> Closed to Henry and Parvati
Despite a not-very edifying (or perhaps too edifying?) conversation with Umemiya, Simon is nonetheless undeterred. He's interested in the garden, and he wants...
He wants to do that. He wants to garden. Just a little. He doesn't know how, what with the utter lack of hands... or legs... or any way to carry or dig or bury or plant. He wants it so badly. It's like an ache--or a burn. A compulsion, an impulse, something nudging at the back of his mind.
He's been thinking about it, sitting there in the grass and under the canopy of nearby trees. Sealed up inside his shields, where he can see only darkness and hear the world only dimly. Protected. Encased and isolated, sheltered and solitary. Safe.
Ha. Safe isn't real. But it feels safer.
Bwcause if he stays in there, encapsulated by the darkness and the security of his rock shield, it feels like.... well, like the submarine. And when it feels like the submarine, it becomes easy to defy gravity.
The downside, of course, is that he can no longer even feel vibrations through the ground. And this leaves him completely unaware of anyone walking by.
But that's fine, right? It's not like he's going to drop his shields and scare the bejeezus out of anyone all of a sudden--
Or so he (doesn't) think, dropping his shields suddenly right as someone walks by.
C. Training wheels fell off -> OTA
[Simon still spends most days rolling around, opening his shields to look around and then closing them to follow his planned path.
Or else he's in the air--flying with his shields up like the world's most dangerous aircraft. Because he still navigates the exact same way he did back in the submarine, with the camera. He recognises the irony, but it's... kind of comforting, weirdly. It gives him something to do. And every time he opens his shields, he has a new vantage, a new vista to take in.
It's an experience that never gets old. High or low, terrestrial or aerial.
He just.... he doesn't have the best control while flying, so..... um. Possibly he falls. With luck, it's merely nearby. But sometimes he falls directly onto someone. Or onto a building, or onto someone's current project.
It's a work in progress, okay?]
D. Wildcard!
[Drop me a line at

no subject
And it is helpful, sometimes. This child has read more books on more subjects than Simon has, obviously. Or--at least he's retained more of it. Simon can't remember a lot of things. Emporio seems to remember everything.
In any case, if there is one thing he wishes Emporio would really stop, it's--]
NO, WAIT--
no subject
[Just in case Simon is about to drop those shields, DO NOT-]
It's, uh, feathers!!!
[That mass migration's good for something anyway.]
no subject
[Simon has just enough time for incredulity before he lands--with an explosion of multicoloured feathers and still the heavy Krack-KLANG of solid stone hitting the bottom of that poor cart.
But he caught him!!!]
no subject
The feathers, fortunately, don't explode out from the cart for the most part. If anything they just...
Fall back down.
...Is that a good thing actually? That might not be a good thing.]
Uhh...A- Are you okay? Did the feathers help..?
[Probably? Maybe. They are at least soft, so maybe the fall broke at least a little??]
no subject
[He's, uh. Surrounded by rock.
He sits there in the cart for a few seconds, recovering his wits and steeling himself before he drops his shields.]
Oh.
[... the feathers feel really weird on his light-body. He's. He's not sure he likes it. Fuck. Fuck, that's weird, it's weird and no, he doesn't like it--
Distress is a great motivator, though! He rises up out of the cart quickly, rotating wildly in several directions like a lunatic gyroscope in a desperate bid to shed the scores of fluffy, colourful objects.
This also disorients him, and he falls again--this time diagonally, bouncing off the back of the cart and onto the ground.]
Fuck--
no subject
[He doesn't know...] Oh- Oh geeze- [Well the shields drop, and up Simon goes, feathers...everywhere. Absolutely everywhere-]
Oh geeze- Simon..! It's just feathers, it's okay! They're like...uh...They're like weird hairs, bird-like Pokemon shed them over time..!!
[The pingpong ball is pingponging.] Simon-!
no subject
[He mutters it to himself in a tone of absolute disgust.]
That's gross. That's disgusting.
[Maybe describing feathers as 'bird hair' was not the best approach, because Simon is getting the creeps and the instinctive urge to recoil from them just thinking about it. Then again, maybe there was no salvaging this.
He rolls around on the ground, furiously working to get the last remaining feathers off his star-shaped form.]
Ugh. That's bad. They feel... urgh, ffffucking horrible.
no subject
[Okay so they're...CLEAN feathers. Maybe. Somehow. But-]
They do seem to be getting stuck really easy...I'd say we could probably get them off with water but that would probably just hurt. Maybe a strong enough gust of wind though..?
no subject
[Simon growls in frustration as he rolls around again, spinning and scraping a couple more off of him.]
I don't fucking care about that! I want them off me!
[This is not a hygiene issue, Emporio!! Focus!!!]
no subject
I'm a Ground type Pokemon, I d...I don't...
I don't really have moves like that..!!
no subject
You have fucking hands!!
[You know who doesn't have hands, Emporio? Simon! Simon doesn't have any fucking limbs at all!]
no subject
[Okay, well, if that's how Simon's going to play it-]
And how do you think THAT feels if feathers are bad enough then!? [He shouts, swiping at the feathers in the same motion. It's only for a motion, but needless to say?
BAD. Emporio is a Ground type. He's got scaly, dry skin, even if he is mammalian.
And it. Feels. BAD.]
no subject
Quite the opposite, in fact--he spins almost in place, rotating out of Emporio's reach before recycling the momentum to hurl himself at the boy in a full-bodied rage-fuelled Tackle.]
Then DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME WITH THAT!!
no subject
And extra fortunate for both, is that he's seen some tempers. Green Dolphin had some characters.
After the loud thud lands though, he peers over to fix a glare.]
Maybe, [He says quietly, voice far colder than it's ever been so far,] If you're going to demand I do something...Don't snap and attack me for DOING IT, [the boy hisses back.]
I'm trying to think of what can help, but shouting at me doesn't fix it- as you literally just found out!