taxonomites | [accidental visual] i'll give you my all

Entry tags:

[accidental visual] i'll give you my all

No one really knew why the dead remained in the land of the living, whether it was by choice or simply an unfortunate fate, just as much as no one really knew if there was really a place to go after life. Mabel certainly had never seen any evidence of it, although she knew better by now to discount it's possible existence. Whatever it was, or could be, she doubted the streets were paved with gold and only good could be found. The same thing went for what the dead actually wanted in their haunting; problem was, sometimes they didn't want anything. They were just there, and at least to her that was a comfort. There was only one theory about ghosts that really seemed right to here, one she kept in mind when dealing with them.

They haunted minds.

There were minds to haunt in Taxon, and yet none of the constant presence of the dead she was so used to. At least, none so far that she had seen. Vampires were a kind of dead, but not the kind she looked for, and she still hadn't run into any of those anyway; her method of dealing with her kidnapping was to avoid actual contact with her fellow inmates. They weren't, anyway, the kind she spent her life trying to help. It could be because so few of the people here were more than just a strange sort of program that the dead did not come with. She didn't buy that.

There's no telling where the room is located, illuminated by a single light source in the form of a light-bulb hanging from a chain. It sways gently, casting strange shadows around the sole occupant of the room. The walls are covered in what looks to be white paint, swirling symbols and jerky stick figures exposed with each movement of the light.

Mabel sits cross-legged on the floor, arms bare and covered with the same kind of swirls that can be found on the walls. She's not quite meditating in the same way that the symbols don't quite have any meaning - she's learned long ago to use such things she could put her own power into, rather than something significant to a different kind of power. Her face is covered with a plain white mask, obscuring everything but her eyes. The swaying light reveals in brief moments that there's nothing but black emptiness where her eyes should be.

She's breathing, but that appears to be all that she's doing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[so leave it to J to interrupt her] Uh... hey, you okay there?

Her head tilts slowly towards the tablet, like one possessed. Then she blinks, and her eyes are back to normal.

"What the goddamn hell? Those aliens ever hear of a thing called privacy?"

[at least he has it in him to sound wary] Ah, sorry 'bout that. Guess you weren't expectin' company, eh?

Oh, Lord, the hot guy now knows she's actually a freak; thanks a bunch, aliens.

"Not of this particular kind, no." She leans her cheek against her hand, smiling ruefully. "Didn't work anyway."

[don't worry, he's seem a heck of a lot more freaky business] What were you tryin' to do?

"Uh." She already looked crazy, she might as well come out with it. "I talk to ghosts. That's all I'm good at. I was trying to find if there are any here, 'cause they tend to be more open about crazy shit than other people can be. No dice, though. If people died here, they don't stay."

You all right, there?

Her concentration thoroughly ruined now, her eyes back to normal, she gives the Doctor a vexed look.

"I'm fine."

Christo. [Though it cant be seen, Ruby recoils and winces with pain as she speaks the word.]

"Jesus Christ, what?" Perhaps irritated anger is not the best response to these things, but Mabel had been listening for the dead. The living she had enough of already.

She shows, at least, no effort or pain in invoking the religious name.

Aww, was this an exclusive VIP members-only seance? Sorry, these tablets are just so finicky...

She raises an eyebrow slowly. "It must be pretty hard to walk around with such a huge stick in your ass."

Screw you, I'm as stickless as they come. Nice contacts, by the way.

"Do you got an actual problem, or do you just like to say shit just 'cause you like laughing at your own jokes?" Mabel would like a visual of whoever the hell she's taking to, but a few moments of frustrating searching of the tablet leaves her empty handed.

"First you evoke religion at me, then you call me a fake. It's great and all you can be edgy enough to do that about something you don't even fucking understand, but I got better things to do than listen to your sass."

Ruby flips her tablet over after watching the other woman flounder for a bit. "Hmm, no problem. Just a little bored, saw something interesting on here for once." She rolls her eyes at the continuing tirade and sighs.

"Oh please. If you didn't want to be interrupted, maybe you shouldn't have fucking left your tablet a few feet away. Maybe you should remove your own stick, Cherry Pie." Ruby's smiling though, like she's enjoying it. Probably because she is.

"Thanks for showing me your face so I know who to avoid! It's so nice of you, since you seem to like picking pointless fights and all!" Mabel replies cheerfully. With a grin and a little wave, she turns her tablet off.

Bruce doesn't say anything or initiate a connection with their tablets, but he watches for a bit. If she happens to inspect the device while everyone else is fussing at her, she's free to notice. He'll move on in a moment.

Her attention is on the tablet now as she attempts to find a way to turn the visual off. Turning the whole thing off meant missing out on important things (like alien hamsters), but she didn't need everyone spying on her.

"If you're gonna say something," she comments once she notices Bruce's connection. "Go ahead and say it."

"Just checking for signs of life," he says easily, apparently half-busy with something out of sight. "These things like to play tricks on people."

"What, no questions about what I'm doing? Not even a sign of the cross?" She leans her her chin on her knuckles, since she's already sitting down and watching the tablet from the floor. "You guys are kind of a disappointing bunch."

"Didn't somebody already yell 'Christo' at you?" Whatever.. that does. He sounds skeptical. "And we're in an alien snowglobe, this is hardly the weirdest thing being broadcast. Why, what are you doing?"

"Depressingly common, yeah." She doesn't sound too depressed by it. Taking her hands, palms out, she brings them together to show him the circle drawn across them. "Ever play the game of Telephone when you were a kid?"

He watches, expression mildly interested - he's very good at this whole 'listening' thing even in a not creepy context, isn't that nice. "Mmhm."

"The whole point is to figure out how the message changes when it gets to the last person, right? Well, that's kinda like what the living and the dead are like, one big game of Telephone. The message doesn't get through even if they're standing right next to each other." She may have forgotten to mention her whole dead people schtick, oh well.

"Thing about places with history is that there's always gonna be dead people in them. If it exists, people've died there and somebody's probably left something behind. Except there's no dead people here, none that I can find. Nobody's picking up on the Telephone line, in other words."

It's cool, he's observant.

"That doesn't surprise me, actually."

She snorts, leaning back in her seated position. "It cuts my effectiveness in figuring out what the hell is going on to nil, except to point out that this place seems to have got no history. What else doesn't surprise you?"

"I think it's worth noting that the setting we're in denies 'the beyond' and yet permits things like supernatural abilities. Like it's a facade." He shrugs shallowly. "There's been some debate as to whether or not people who vanish die or not. You seem to have garnered some evidence to suggest that they're merely removed, mortality notwithstanding."

Mabel looked ill for a moment, as if the idea of people disappearing meant the aliens decided to just kill them off hadn't occured to her (it hadn't).

"If it's a facade, then what's the point?"

"The point is we're some kind of experiment. Ant farm seems to closest facsimile. At this point I'm more interested in the how than the why." A beat, and his voice is a little dry at the next bit: "Did you see the hamsters?"

"I seem to have missed it," she replies, equally dryly. "I've learned my lesson about turning the tablet off since then. You know, the thing about ant farms is there's always gonna be that kid who comes along and shakes it to see what happens."

"I can send you a transcript if you want." ... Bruce, you creeper. "I think that's what 'glitches' are."

Her eyebrows go up a little more (mental note, watch for Mr. Wayne's presence more often). "Like that weird house shit?"

So he records everything in a terrifyingly Big Brother-esque fashion. It's for science. (The science of getting the fuck out, for the record.) "Yeah. Like that."

"Funny, it don't seem big enough." She frowns, shifting her position again as she thinks. "I'm gonna make it all worse saying so and hell, I ain't an expert, but wouldn't these be more like little tests? Seeing how things go until you turn the whole thing upside down?"

"I imagine if we don't stop bombing each other they won't need to," he says wryly.

"I ain't too fond of being some alien's fourth grade science fair project either, but I ain't about to do that." She pauses. "Or condone it."

Bruce gives her a faint smile. No, he's not going to rant or rail about The Incident, though to anyone who pays close enough attention, it's clear he's significantly less than pleased by the entire thing. "Sometimes punching a problem into submission works. But only sometimes."

"Well, I do got a baseball bat, it works pretty well. You need a partner in the whole punching jerks business, you can ring me up." Mabel may just like hitting things.

"I'll keep that in mind, Mabel." He doesn't quite laugh, but it looks like he might - pleased, not mocking.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[accidental visual] i'll give you my all

[voice]

[visual]

[voice]

[visual]

[voice] /attempts to stop failing

[visual] /same

[voice]

[visual]

[ voice ]

[visual]

[voice]

[voice]

[voice]

[visual] - as was the previous reply, adkfdj

[visual] - i'll be nice and bandwagon that visualness

[visual]

[ recording button on? ]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual]

[visual] why am i so slow this week