Farmer Jon Headcanons
I was trying to sleep, but it is Farmer Jon time.
I was thinking about a Jonathan Crane shortly into retirement.
Trying to stay low-key, instead of buying some land himself I imagine he'd take up an offer to help around someone else's farm and stay there for a short amount of time.
It'd be a little family owned farm, maybe a couple with their caretaker, one of their kids, struggling to maintain the farm, seeking more help to mend the land.
Jon stays in a guest room in the house and wakes up before everyone else to get started on feeding animals and cleaning stalls. Some alone time for himself.
The caretaker probably gets annoyed with Jon's seeming inability to wake them or ask them for help, but nothing more than "stubborn old man."
Jon likes to feed all the animals, and became fast friends with the crows that hang around the crops.
The family he stays with occasionally jokes how he does look like a scarecrow in the field.
He takes it in good spirits.
Jon reads in his spare time, however fleeting that has become on the farm.
He operates a lot of the machinery, though, stubbornly, he prefers to manually do many things.
He walks the hay bales up the stairs to the hayloft instead of using the lift because "that's what I've always done".
He uses a scythe and sickle to cut corn, because he's stubborn.
He's surprisingly good at milking cows, and again, prefers to do it manually.
He enjoys the hard work on the farm, it gives him something to do. A way to take his mind off of his history and his, by now, former obsession.
Jon grew on the caretaker and was a quick snare for their parents. They respect his work ethic and adore his straightforwardness and reprieve. Of course, everyone was antsy when The Scarecrow wanted to work their farm--but it was a quick turn around in perspective.
The caretaker was, of course, particularly concerned. Their parents? Living with the Scarecrow? Who in their right mind wouldn't be?
Alas, Jonathan Crane became a genuine friend and confidante. With a history in psychology his advice was valuable and informed.
One of the parents, easily a stubborn farmer through and through, convinced to let the younger, more capable, work the farm via logical tongue and convincing reinforcement--something only a therapist could successfully manage.
Jon is good help and a frankly honest person, a perfect helper for a struggling family farm in an era where farmers wear thin.
A recovering, reassimilating Jon helping around a family farm is just a really cute idea to me. I think the tone fits him well :)
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I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.
I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.
The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...
Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.
I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.
And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?
It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.
To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.
In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.
Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.
So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.
What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.
Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?
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🥀 | yoongi
the sleep deprived series (n.): drabbles that i write when i’m sad and tired
→ vampire!yoongi ft. lots of miscommunication (all because newly-turned yoongi doesn't know how to talk to women lol) | 2.6K words
→ a/n: SURPRISE i am miraculously alive and well (?) back at it again with some weird monsterfucker propaganda... it's been months since i've written a fic so pardon the lacking quality but i Am Trying... also i added ghost!maknaeline bc i think they'd be cute... umm this might become a series if anyone is interested but i think it works as a standalone... enjoy!!!
When Yoongi first agreed to being turned, he never imagined being so tired all the time. Even as a mortal, Yoongi had never been the most energetic soul. He preferred loafing around at home or reading a nice book by the fire. He rarely left his drafty villa, always isolated despite the nearby town. The most cardio he would ever do was when he’d take the few steps needed to get to his piano and play a few soft songs for the ghosts wandering down his halls.
He knew the neighbors liked to whisper about him, liked to refer to him as a local boogeyman to scare naughty children. “Beware the man who sold his soul to the devil,” they warned, though Yoongi supposes their silly rumors weren’t so far from the truth. Although, it was only a month ago that he did “sell his soul,” just not for the reasons that people might have expected.
Still, being a vampire was still very strange and new to Yoongi. He’d known about spirits and ghosts for as long as he can remember, but even he thought that creatures of the night were nothing more than an urban legend. All it took was one high-stakes game of cards and an empty promise to pay back a debt for Yoongi to realize that it probably isn’t smart to make deals with ghoulish-looking men in strange clothing in the first place.
It wasn’t all bad, save for the never-ending fatigue and deathly pallor to his skin. He was still Yoongi, just… worse, if you will.
For safety’s sake, he hadn’t told anyone about it. He was a bit embarrassed, to be honest. If his brother found out, he’d surely get an earful (or a stake through his heart, though Yoongi hopes his Seokjin hyung would remember all the good times they had together). Most importantly, he could absolutely NEVER tell you about his turning. That would be absolutely humiliating.
You were a witch doctor he had met just a few weeks prior to his turning. You had just moved into his sleepy town as a “pharmacist” who could “magically” make any ailment disappear. You had decided to move there on a whim after being exhausted from the high-paced nature of the big city.
You had spotted a small line of ghosts trailing after him on the night you had moved in. He had been on the way to the convenience store for a caffeine fix, and you had been on the way there to grab a couple of toiletries you had forgotten to pack.
You were so sweet, shyly approaching him under the guise of asking him if he could reach for a snack on a high shelf. But he could see your worried gaze fixed on the three spectral children climbing on his back, though he did nothing to shoo them away. After all, they had no mass, so as long as they didn’t lick his neck or something weird, he was fine with letting them be menaces.
When he had his back turned away from you to grab your snack, he could hear you quietly telling the ghosts to get off of him. They only laughed in response, their giggles always sounding a little muffled and distorted.
Yoongi plucked the bag of chips from the shelf and turned back to you, catching a glimpse of your annoyed expression before you could school it back into something more neutral.
“Is something the matter?” Yoongi asked smoothly, handing you the bag. He amusedly watched as your brows furrowed, not even hiding that you were glaring pointedly at the little gremlins making faces at you from his shoulder.
Jungkook, the youngest of the three ghosts, climbed on Yoongi’s head before proceeding to pull down his pants, mooning you with his spectral ass.
“Uh, nothing,” you eventually said, huffing indignantly as you stomped away. Yoongi caught you discreetly poking your tongue out in annoyance before you turned to another aisle.
Thus began your cautious attempts at exorcising him without trying to “alert” him to it. It was amusing to watch you try to “save” him from the three little ghosts that decided to cling onto him, and it was even more amusing to watch you fail repeatedly every time.
Yoongi made no comment when you were suddenly bumping into him everywhere he went. There was always a terse grin on your face as you performed as many anti-ghost spells as you could, but none of them ever seemed to work. The truth was, ghosts could only be exorcised if the haunted person in question wanted them to leave, but Yoongi had found himself a little fond of these stupid little kids. They might be slowly sucking the life force out of him, but Yoongi didn’t really care. They were just kids, and he’s always been too soft for his own good.
Your many encounters with him created a subtle friendship of sorts, one that Yoongi found himself enjoying. He was never been one to foster friendships with living beings, but perhaps your sweet attempts to save his soul might have defrosted his little grinch heart. But he wouldn’t ever tell you that, of course.
Plus, it didn’t hurt that you were very pretty, for that matter. He certainly would NEVER tell you that as well.
Was he feeling guilty for not telling you about his ability to see ghosts? Slightly. But was it cute watching you trying to outsmart three little ghost babies to no avail? Very much so.
So, Yoongi stayed quiet and enjoyed your company, even if you had no idea who he was or what type of things he was capable of.
That was until he got into that damn bet with the stupid bloodsucker.
Probably shouldn’t call him that, given that I’ve become one myself, Yoongi groaned internally. He’d been hiding in his house for a month now, and your “random” visits were surely on the horizon. He wasn’t sure if you’d immediately clock that he’d turned into a vampire, but he wasn’t going to risk it. If you found out, then you’d find out about everything, and that wouldn’t be a good impression.
Yoongi knew he wasn’t great at interacting with people, let alone people he had a crush on. But at least he knew that lying to someone for extended periods of time was probably not in his favor.
Little Jungkook fluttered close to him, his smoky form twinkling from the moonlight streaming through the living room windows. “When is the pretty witch coming to visit?” he asked, a little forlorn. Among the three ghosts, Jungkook was the one who’d grown attached to you the most. “I miss playing with her…”
Yoongi sighed, rubbing his face. “Hopefully never,” he responded, voice muffled by his hands. He peered through his fingers and saw the two other kids floating by his doorway.
Jimin, the older twin, nudged Taehyung forward to speak. “Y-Yoongi… I think she’s coming soon,” Taehyung whispered, a tinge of excitement evident in his tone.
“You can’t keep hiding from her forever… She's sure to find out anyway,” Jimin warned, uncharacteristically stern.
Yoongi stretched his tired limbs, his aching back cracking as he pushed himself off his sofa. Time moved weirdly ever since he turned into a vampire. This month had felt like a day, so it was hard to tell how long he'd been sitting so still. His creaking bones gave him an idea though, that's for sure. “I know… how much do I have to bribe you three to scare her away?”
Jungkook giggled, floating over to sit on Yoongi’s shoulder. “Nothing. We do that all the time for free,” he snickered.
Taehyung nodded in agreement. “It’s true… but she never seems to go away even when we do.”
“In fact, I know she thinks we’re cute,” Jimin said, and Yoongi couldn’t help but agree. Your cat and mouse game with the three idiots was probably past the point of annoyance and more towards the territory of playfulness. You likely noticed how they weren’t exactly the malicious ghosts that people feared, so you humored their antics.
(Yoongi hoped that you stuck around for him, too.)
“How much longer ’til she gets here?” Yoongi asked, walking to his bedroom. The air was stale inside the room, not having to use the bed as much as he once did. He opened his closet, trying to find some better-looking clothes than the threadbare robe he had decided to live in. He plucked a nice button-up shirt, before thinking better of it.
Am I really going to look like a stereotypical vampire when I meet her? What’s next, a cape?
“She’s a few blocks away,” Taehyung responded. The ghost paused, looking at the shirt Yoongi had put back. “No, wear that. She likes it when you wear that shirt.”
“She thinks you look regal in it,” Jimin agreed, grabbing his only pair of slacks. “These, too. She likes your butt in them.”
If Yoongi were still human, he’d probably blush. “I told you boys it’s rude to eavesdrop on her thoughts,” he scolded.
“You like the reassurance, though…” Jungkook muttered, but Yoongi ignored him.
“Two minutes away…!” Taehyung reminded him before disappearing. The two others followed suit, likely going to meet you before you arrived. Yoongi sighed, a headache slowly forming by his temple.
As promised, after two minutes, there was a knock from his front door. As Yoongi reluctantly approached and reached for the doorknob, he could hear you arguing playfully with his little friends.
“Taehyung, no pulling! I just got my hair fixed,” you whined. Despite your words, Yoongi could hear the affection in your voice, plain as day.
“You look really pretty today, noona…” Jungkook giggled, and Yoongi could imagine Jungkook placing a chaste kiss on your cheek in greeting. “Are you finally gonna tell hyung about your crush on him?”
“What are you talking about?!” you yelped. Yoongi heard something fall, then a string of curses from you. “Oh gosh, the food! I hope nothing spilled…”
“Don’t worry, noona. I doubt Yoongi hyung is hungry,” Jimin giggled slyly. “Unless you count how he’s hungry for you…”
Before you could reply to Jimin’s out-of-pocket comment, Yoongi swung open the door, an alarmed expression on his face. “H-hey, Y/N,” he began, a little awkwardly. He cleared his throat, trying to appear as if he hadn’t heard anything at all. “What do I owe this pleasure?”
You froze when Yoongi suddenly appeared. You were in the midst of rearranging the plastic bags of take-out food with your jaw agape, likely about to chastise Jimin for his rudeness. You floundered for a second before straightening up quickly. Your cheeks were a cute shade of red.
(Yeah, maybe he was a little hungry…)
“Yoongi! Oh god, sorry, I was just…” you stumbled for a moment, trying to figure out a way to explain yourself. Behind you, the three stooges grinned evilly, full of satisfaction.
“Do you need help?” Yoongi asked instead, bending down to gather your bags. The smell of take-out Chinese wafted into his nose, and he had to hide his growing smile. His favorite food, you had remembered. If he could eat, he’d be salivating.
“Yoongi hyung is salivating for a different reason…” Taehyung muttered, reading his thoughts. Yoongi and your eyes widened in alarm, causing the three kids to guffaw in response.
“Sorry, I was on the phone with somebody and the bags slipped,” you coughed, quickly grabbing the rest of the bags. In your haste, your hands accidentally touched, making you gasp in surprise.
“Gosh, Yoongi! Your hands are terribly cold! Are you alright…?” you asked, trailing off. When you tore your gaze away from his pale hand, you slowly turned to face him fully. Due to the uproar caused by the kids earlier, you hadn't been able to look at Yoongi properly since you arrived.
Yoongi braced himself, a terse smile on his lips.
You observed him silently, a mysterious emotion flitting through your face. Yoongi saw the way your gaze shifted to the injury on his neck, which he had recklessly forgotten to at least try to cover up. The dots were connecting, and Yoongi waited for you to make the first move.
To his surprise, you started by staring inquisitively at the kids. “Did you guys…?” you asked, suspicious. This was the first time you had openly addressed them in front of him, and Yoongi was shocked. Not only for that, but for also potentially thinking that they were to blame, somehow. Didn’t you trust them by now?
Jimin looked affronted, scoffing at your train of thought. “Us? Of course not! Why on earth would we do that to hyung?”
Jungkook huffed, wrapping an arm around your waist with a sad pout. “Yeah! Why would we hurt hyung on purpose? You don’t think we’d do that, right?” he asked, eyes watering with hurt tears.
Immediately, your expression softened. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean…” you trailed off, sighing. As if remembering where you were, you snapped back to reality, staring incredulously at Yoongi as if he’d grown three heads. Well, or turned into a vampire, he supposed.
“Yoongi! What on earth happened?” you asked, terrified for him. Or perhaps, terrified of him? Yoongi knew he should be feeling guilty, or embarrassed, or maybe a little ashamed, but all he could see was your worry for him, and his dead little heart would have skipped a beat if it still could. God, he was pathetic.
Instead of answering you truthfully, Yoongi chose to run away from his problems, like he always did. “It’s just a mosquito bite,” he explained lamely. He rubbed the very conspicuous marks in question, wincing slightly. It might have been a month since he turned, but it still felt as tender as it did the day it happened.
You stared at him, unimpressed. “In the middle of winter? When you rarely step out of your house?” you asked sarcastically. You gave him a steely glare. “Be serious with me for a second, Yoongi.”
But Yoongi couldn’t. He couldn’t tell you, or else he’d literally die a second death, from embarrassment or heartbreak, he couldn’t tell.
“I… I don’t actually know,” Yoongi lied. It was sort of true. He didn’t know that the stupid bet would actually mean he’d give up his soul to pay for an impossible debt. He had been swindled, that was it. He still didn’t understand how he could’ve been so stupid.
“He didn’t know he was stupid… what a joke,” Jimin murmured, causing the others to giggle in turn. You and Yoongi ignored them.
When he didn’t explain further, your shoulders slumped, defeated. You likely didn’t believe him one bit, but you were never the type to push. You were probably as shy as he was, which had caused its fair share of misunderstandings in the past. Most of the time, those misunderstandings helped Yoongi, though he often wished that he didn’t need them. One day, he’d be honest with you, but for now…
“May I come in, Yoongi? There’s something I have to tell you…” you started, eyes shifting behind you. The kids hovered closer, watching you with curiosity.
Yoongi felt the air turn colder, though he wasn’t sure if it was just him, the wind, or the ghosts doing it. Or maybe it was you.
Yoongi opened the door wider, gesturing for you to come in. “Please, make yourself at home…” he whispered before closing the door gently.
Outside, the three boys didn’t make a move to come in.
“Now… we wait,” Jimin whispered. The other two nodded, faces determined. They floated to the second floor of Yoongi’s villa, still keeping their ears to the floor. As much as they wanted to interrupt, they knew this was an important development for the two of you. They wanted to give you a false sense of privacy, but they could never stop themselves from hearing the gossip. God knows that these rascals would be bored without their daily dose of real telenovela romance.
In the living room, Yoongi took a seat as far away from you on the couch as possible. He laced his hands with an iron grip, forcing himself to stop any fidgeting.
Breaking the silence, you sighed tiredly. “So… where do I begin?”
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