[location- Sanctuary] [The day after Etrigan is summoned]

[personaldemon]

Morning dawns bright and sunny over Taxon. The spring weather is holding, the blue sky is filled with puffy clouds, and oh yeah, there's graffiti over much of the Sanctuary.

It's 'art', if you can call stick figures and vulgar caricatures in spray paint 'art'.

Some, but by no means all, features of this impromptu all-night graffiti session feature the following:

There's a vampire being kicked in the ass by a blond girl. Subsequent doodles down one side of the building seem to involve the use of stakes as impromptu sexual aids.

There is a crude rendition of a woman reclining amid skulls and demons, with an even cruder sidebar of a stick figure stubbly man in a costume apparently fapping away at the sight of her, captioned with a thought bubble saying 'close enough!'.

Two men, one wearing a cowboy hat and an outsized star stuck on his chest, and the other waving a gun wildly in the air, are engaged in very pornographic stick figure sex.

There's an obscenely well-endowed stick figure Catwoman being leered at by a drooling man in a sort-of bat costume, as the kick-off of a sequence that gets less and less G-rated (not that it ever was to start with) and winds up being apparently bondage with a pearl necklace. At least that might be a pearl necklace. (The artist got bored with detail, and the art on this one gets increasingly terrible.)

Not all of the drawings are sexual: there's a cartoonish vampire with an apparent collar of bones that leads back to the hand of a dour-looking figure wearing what might be a suit, who is tossing a (lovingly-detailed) femur and saying Hol, Bruder! in the speech balloon over his head.

Here's a curly-headed man with a vacant smile and a jagged line on his head, hands holding it open to reveal nothing inside, multiple question marks hanging in space above it. At his knees, a long-haired boy is kneeling, mouth open in a vapid, receptive 'O' that seems to be ignored by the man above him.

Here's a skull-- the artist spent time on this one, it's one of the better images on the wall-- with a cartoon heart above it and the words "KEEP TRYING!"

Here's a pointy-eared, long-haired man bent over with a doctor behind him, peering through an exaggerated monocle. Caption: "NO WAY WE CAN GET THAT STICK UNJAMMED, SORRY YOUR HIGHNESS"

A messy-headed, lanky youth uses an oversized magnifying glass to follow, hunched-over, a series of footsteps; he seems on the verge of walking off a precipice, but too caught up in his clews to notice.

A stick-figure girl with a sword walks away from a blob that, on close inspection, might seem to be a swaddled infant.

A dog, perhaps a dog anyway, howls at the moon while scratching at fleas with a hind leg. A collar around its neck reads REMUS.

A scrawny looking dragon snores at the bottom of one 'panel', oblivious to the sexual shenanigans happening above it.

An unkempt man with a fro and exaggerated pot-belly wanders around through the entire multi-character tableaux, with dotted lines showing his progress like a Family Circus strip; ever so often his uncertain progress is punctuated with a "WEED?" speech bubble.

Finally, there's a cheerful doodle of a man with a skunk-stripe in his hair blowing his brains out with a gun.

The artist has not bothered to sign his or her work.

Comments

[skinandbone]

And here is Metody, drifting slowly through the maze of obscenities and making the occasional noise, too stunned to react further.

Which one is her? The woman lounging on skulls and demons is a possibility, but she's got boobs, and no one with eyes is going to draw Metody with boobs. She's practically got anti-boobs.

She hesitates at what is obviously Horst and Johannes, studying the collar and leash of bones. But the thing that binds them is blood, or the debt Johannes acquired from Horst's death and false rebirth, and has nothing to do with her. So that's not it at all.

Oh, second lady, is that - Metody pauses in front of what is undoubtedly Nuada, and makes a tiny chirp of horror. He is going to go absolutely weasels when he sees that. And so she hurries off.

And finds the skull.

She spends a long time standing there, staring up at the heart and really getting to be familiar with the deep, resentful offense she feels.

[imperial_long]

Long also studies the art, with his brows delicately furrowed.

"I am unsure as to the point of most of this," he says aloud; he's probably close enough to Metody for it to be heard by her should she be listening.

[skinandbone]

"Someone desperately wishes us to know that they're a steel plated jackwagon."

That heart. It's really freaking annoying.

[imperial_long]

Long's building frown switches to a sidelong glance over at Metody, one brow arched.

" 'Jackwagon'? I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with that term."

[skinandbone]

"It's an all purpose descriptor that substitutes for a great many curse words."

She frowns, tossing her hair out of her eyes. "What cleans off spray paint? I think some of these are going to embarrass people."

[genequeen]

Once Madelyne sees it, she stands where she is in shock for some time. If anyone is nearby, they might notice the occasional twitch of fingers or at the corners of her eyes. The feeling she's experiencing is something between being dumped in ice cold water and having her hands stuck into open flames at the same time and she has a hard time breaking free from the intense emotions.

Once she does, however, she slowly turns her head back and forth as if looking for something.

When you're trying to erase something from a building, a car is a perfectly valid form of eraser, right? This may not be an entirely rational thought or course of action.

[bub_snikt]

Logan has finally seen himself.

Makes him twitch a bit.

And one center claw pops out, and he begins to go about the immediate task of carving that image off the wall. This best not be load-bearing.

[imperial_long]

Mayland Long blinks several times as he observes Logan and Maddy going about the graffiti removal in their, ah, specific and destructive ways.

"....ah.... I might suggest soap and water, but...."

[genequeen]

Madelyne is still looking around for something to throw at the building, since it will make her feel better. Mayland grabs her attention with his comment and she presses her lips together before commenting, "I'm not much in the mood to clean."

[threelivesdown]

At first, Selina's angry about this.

And then she just starts laughing.

"Oh come on. You can't to any better than that? I mean, that's not even shocking." Carefully, she climbs one of the nearby buildings in order to look more distinctly at the art.

"And look, you obviously got bored with your own story here. I mean, am I supposed to take this seriously?"

Visual

[bub_snikt]

"Maybe it ain't shockin', but is it accurate?" Logan asks, with a lighter tone.

Visual

[threelivesdown]

"Not really, no," she says, still looking at the scrawled drawings.

Visual

[bub_snikt]

Obviously, at this point, Logan hasn't seen his own depiction yet, given his smirking demeanor.

"Pearl necklaces ain't yer thing, then."

[loves_bitch]

"Oi! That was a romantic evening and I'll not have it slandered like that," Spike says, once he notices. It isn't so easy to see at night, you know?

He misses Buffy, not that he really wants to admit that to anyone.

[kings_fool]

"Ahhh, romance," Jeremy says, hands clutched dramatically over his heart. "The course of true love never did run smooth...! --although to judge by the art there, lube would've helped."

[loves_bitch]

"Eh, didn't quite go down like that but close enough," spike says with a smirk. That's the expression of a man who has never gone without female company for long. Except, you know, when he did.

Those days are long behind him.

No. Really. Shut up.

[kings_fool]

"I'm sure it was a super-exciting night. Hot-diggety, hot-dog. Who's blondie, then?"

[voice; to Paul]

[hasaheart]

Wyatt knows he's screwed before he's even heard the call connect on the other end. Why?

Because he can't stop giggling. Like a little boy.

"Listen, uh--" oh dear goodness "...just get over here, okay?"

[video]

[smecker]

Paul gives Wyatt a dark look over the tablet at his giggling. "Get over where?" he asks while tabbing through to the map to answer his own question.

Sanctuary. Okay. "Dare I even fucking ask?"

He is, however, moving for the door.

[video]

[hasaheart]

"It's, uh, it's really something." He snorts, shaking his head. "Someone's decorated the Sanctuary with not-quite-loving portraits of Taxon's finest. You'll see."

[video]

[smecker]

"Someone?" Paul echoes with another arched brow. "Alright, try to keep yourself together until I arrive, mister comedy..."

He pops the tablet back into his pocket until he reaches the Sanctuary; Paul takes a moment circling, examining some of the larger-than-life graffiti with a head tilt. Any humor he might find in some of the representations slithers away at the sight of others; some of these, Paul notes, are kinda fuckin' pointed.

Who knows so much, to hit so many points? Who but their captors? Sherlock Holmes knows a lot of shit but not everything.

When he sees himself and Wyatt he stares. It'll be a bit before he finds the humor, if he does; the graffiti is crude but clear, and the moment of his own pose he recognizes; hand upraised to shoot the gun at heaven, join a memory of violence. A street that was years ago now, but like he's going to forget jack shit from that day or any others with the Saints involved.

He's peripherally aware of Wyatt there and Wyatt finding this funny. Paul tries to respond in kind.

"I think I ought to be insulted at the artistic representation of the size of my dick," he says, accordingly, but he's not really smiling.

Hard-ons for justice. Yeah. Ha fucking ha.

[visual > all]

[kings_fool]

"Is that supposed to be me?"

Jeremy sounds less offended than amused, maybe even in some weird way flattered to have a place up on the Big Wall of the Cool Kids, or at least the more impressive Taxonians.

His tablet shows not him, but the mural: he's moving along, tracking the caricature of himself as it winds a wobbly and uncertain path through the other citizens.

"Awww man, they even drew me with a plumber's crack! Should I be offended? I'm offended. Hey, Dali, I'm offended! I didn't sign a release for you to get to use my beautiful face! Or my beautiful buttcrack!"

[voice] [unlocked]

[somelittleinfamy]

Getting deluged with open transmissions from the rest of Taxon seems to be a part of Taxonian life, albeit not one of which Johannes is particularly fond. He's got no reason to suspect this one is more important than any other: it's from the jabbery American, the friend of Metody Green and the jabbery Englishman, and he's jabbering about something. Johannes is curled up in his armchair half-dozing with his feet tucked up in drugstore slippers when he hears Jeremy's call; for lack of anything better to do, he blinks and tunes out whatever it is the man is saying as he peers at the screen. He's been getting his sleep in short bursts and long naps, weary today from the virus and from staying up late talking to his brother.

More vandalism. How nice. None of this appears to be in blood or other vital fluids, though, and none of it is really comprehensible to him in any meaningful way, so he's nearly on the verge of hanging up the nuisance call when he catches sight of German words. He blinks and stares. The image is gone after a moment, but it doesn't take a full moment to interpret it.

His tablet hits the wall with an unsatisfying thnk when he lobs it overhand. Now he's just going to have to get up and retrieve it, he thinks, but first tugs the blanket over his head and makes an ugly face into it.

Well. Can't hide forever. (Oh, can't you, now? -- Hush.) Johannes growls an incoherent obscenity into his new favorite polar fleece comforter and then gets up to cast a spell.

Horst hasn't taken his blood in a while, anyway, not since he's been sick, so at least he's got some to spare. He spills it into a basin of water and leans over to peer into it: and pronounces, carefully, with considered American vowels, "Je-re-my Fisch-er."

A blurry, flickering third-person image churns itself into being in the still water. Perhaps that isn't Fischer's full name, or scrying just doesn't stick to his soul; either way, it's clear enough to give a decent overview of the scene--yes, there's Fischer, filming away, and a large mural, if you could call it that. Not much more helpful with the detail, though.

He sighs and picks up his tablet. "Telefonieren," he says. "Ja. Nein." Then when the call goes through: "Mr. Fischer? May I trouble you to provide us with a clearer panoramic view of the wall?"

[voice] [also unlocked]

[kings_fool]

"Yo? Oh, uh, sure-- gimme a second--"

He's studied film. (If by studied, one means, taken two classes, one of which he dropped out of halfway through.) He can help you out, Germanbro.

Jeremy backs up (bumping into an Extra, saying an auto-apology) until he has a better view of the wall that boasts most of the graffiti.

"This thing has a pretty bitchin' zoom function," he narrates incomprehensibly cheerfully. "I don't even want to try and guess what sort of megapixels we're talking. I dunno if there's a stitch function but it seems like there would be, with all the other stuff it's got. Okay, so, here's the whole thing!"

In panoramic glory, yes. "You want me to zoom in anywhere?"

[voice] [unlocked]

[somelittleinfamy]

"Not yet. One moment, please."

Fischer does know how to handle the device, so at least there's that, and worth noting for future reference. Not bad for a fat, street-busking ne'er-do-well. Johannes isn't certain he'd be able to do the same successfully. He peers at the screen: yes, that's certainly him, and clearly meant to be Horst, although it looks considerably more like Varney the Vampire.

This is the politest he's ever considered being to Fischer. It's not malice, per se; it simply hadn't occurred to him that Fischer of all people might be of any use to him. Maybe on another day, or with another man, that would be cause for self-examination, but--Johannes wrinkles his rosy nose at the obscener graffiti and looks back at himself and Horst. It could be worse, anyway. It could be considerably, substantially worse.

The skunk-striped man catches his eye. This could be incriminating, but it's worth the risk: "Let me see Mr. Blood, please," he says. "I think that's him. Thank you." Johannes mouths silently to himself: shit, again, but there's no camera to see it. Jason Blood. Of course. Is he dead too? And this ridiculous tramp, like everyone else, ambling around merrily with no idea?

"I see," he says after a moment. "Thank you." He disguises the telltale overbrightness in his voice with a cough into his sleeve.