taxonomites | [ visual ] [ castle summers ] shout when you wanna get off the ride

Entry tags:

[ visual ] [ castle summers ] shout when you wanna get off the ride

Taxon goes through phases, Dawn knows that. Other than Kirk, Faith, River, and technically-- if you base it on entrance date instead of longevity-- Dean, she's the person who's been around the longest, so she really knows. Person A goes, Person B enters. Person A comes back, with or without memories. Eventually, Person B leaves too. There's not so much a pattern-- at least, not an obvious one based on anything even resembling time-- but the fact that there are cycles are obvious, once you figure everything out.

It's December again, and last year that meant-- things, things she's not dealing with right now (or ever) thanks very much. This year it means Dawn's unsettled, uncertain. And with so many of the new people actually... doing things, like grown-up police tv things about law and order and trying to figure things out, not just rebelling by stealing your clothes because you're really annoyed with everything. Maybe Dawn is getting complacent. Maybe that's part of the plan around here, grind the people who will just settle in and live down until Taxon becomes normal. Routine.

Well, from now on the hamsters picked the wrong person on that score. Kirk was talking about that guide and welcoming committee, and that Sam guy asked for names... if they can step up, Dawn might as well deal with her emo and restlessness by doing what she does best.

Which means a trip to the nearest hatch to grab new pens and four packs of brightly colored index cards, and on a whim a collection of neon topped push-pins. Time to take a page from Andrew's playbook and make a Board. The kind of board that houses Very Important Information.

When her tablet turns on, Dawn's been hard at work for a couple hours and the sky outside her window is getting dark. The board is mostly covered, index cards with things like "Glitches", "Dates", "Returning Players Part One (With Memories)", "Returning Players Part Two (Without Memories)", and "Hamsters????" written in clear, large letters, the cards crowding in and overlapping each other, Dawn's neat handwriting tidy and small beneath each larger title. One card in the middle only has four names, in numbered order one to four: James Kirk, River Tam, Faith Lehane, Dawn Summers. There's smaller writing off to the side, but it's too small to read from anywhere but up close. Something quiet and recognizably indie pop plays softly in the background and Dawn takes a step back to look at the board with no small amount of satisfaction.

"Okay. It's not translating stupidly rigid ancient prophecies, but whatever. Take that, hamsters." Turning back to her desk to grab a sip of soda, she spots the recording light on her tablet and rolls her eyes, bringing a hand up to shove at the hair falling in her face. "Oh my God, really? Ugh." She takes a long sip of Coke, then offers the tablet a half-hearted wave. "Hi, people randomly catching this broadcast. Sorry about the whole... reality tv slash Pay-Per-View of boring research things, don't mind me. No seriously, don't. I'm in the gathering stage, it's uber-nerdy and boring. Also, I kind of have this feeling the hamsters watch-- anyway. Sorry for being geeky all over you guys, have a nice day." Glancing at the window, she amends, "Night, I mean."

She presses the button to end the feed, shaking her head and already turning back to stare at the board.

[ ooc | in and out due to christmas stuff, but i needed to get this up sob! still backtagging faith and damon i swear. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Every Christmas? Christ's sake. Maybe that ought to be on the welcome pamphlet," Paul says with a groan. A beat, then, "They did serenade me. The aliens, I mean. Does that also happen every Christmas?"

He crooks half a smile at her so-very-teenaged (as Paul sees it) 'Nothing!' response, and spreads his hands in a shrug.

"Aren't we all. It looks- organized, that's the word I'm going for. Which there is a distinct lack of here in the city-- organization, that is."

He debates pushing the point, trying to get more info at the moment versus not wanting to strongarm people this early into his unintentional stay. Besides, she seems like a nice kid. He settles for simply a wry smile back at the girl.

Hell, if he'd been here two years, he might be damn well wary of other people too.

"So far. And since there are only three people who've been here longer than me, my word's pretty good." Dawn frowns. "The creepy townspeople? They carol, sometimes." She missed the singing aliens, so Paul's going to have to catch her up.

"No, I know. It's kind of..." Dawn looks back at the board. "Just me trying to get my head together on everything. Some people were talking about a guide, and it's not like I have a lack of research skills or an abundance of other stuff to do."

Paul's... okay, still a little intense and there was the opening day freakout. But he's older and pretty obviously settling in, and apparently a fan of organization. Plus, she should probably tell him how the tablets are less than safe. Pausing almost imperceptibly, Dawn tries to decide the best way to phrase things. "It's kind of 1984-ish around here when it comes to tablets, by the way. Hence the reticence." She was around when for Gossip Girl, and for the aliens using everyone in Taxon's own words. Anything said over the tablets is fair game for the aliens, as far as she can tell.

"No, not the Pod People, although they've also been singing at me. This was, as near as I can tell, our Alien Overlords themselves. In a very festive fucking mood." A beat. "Pardon my French."

[You may be the first person in the last five years Paul Smecker has said that to, Dawn. For what little that is worth.]

"I suppose it could also have been fellow citizens pranking me..." the agent shrugged. He cocked his head at her next words, then arched a brow.

"So you're telling me these things are bugged?" A finger flick at the tablet, briefly making his image flicker before steadying again. "I'm in shock. Shock, I say."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Bad Paul. No Sarcasm.

"--no, I appreciate the warning, but... really, does it matter? They've built the entire city from the ground up. If they want to bug us, if they want to listen in on everything from our casual communiques to the sounds of our--" Paul stopped, self-censored, groped for something that was not the profanity he would use around say Greenly, and continued lamely, "--snores in the night-- can we do anything about that?

"I mean, I realize I'm new and you sound like a veteran, so if you have any information to suggest that they can't just listen in on anything that goes on here anywhere at any time-- that they don't have surveillance built into the very bricks-- then I'm happy to listen to it. But at the moment being watched and spied on 24/7 is something I was already expecting to be true. Tablet or no tablet."

"...You mean, the hamsters came to you? Like, one on one?" Dawn's expression makes it clear that as far as she knows, this is new. And new, in Taxon, usually means worrying. "And duly pardoned but it's fine, I think I can deal with an f-bomb."

She shakes her head, vehemently. "No, that's-- I mean, okay, I don't know everyone in Taxon, but... I don't think that's something people would do. Especially not if they've been here a while."

Dawn stares at the board for a long moment, quiet. "I... was kind of working off not dealing with that idea." But it makes sense, in a thoroughly depressing way. "Sorry, I'm just-- usually my kidnappings are way more straightforward than this. 'Come out and die, Slayer, or we rip your little sister's limbs off!' Stuff like that. There's a demand, sometimes gross chains, Buffy kicks butt and we're home for pizza. This is..."

She trails off, shrugging helplessly. "Anyway, you're probably right. But that doesn't mean it makes any more sense to just... hand them stuff."

Paul makes a little grimace, a shrug. "'Came' is a d--" dirty* "-- a strong word," he admits. "They communicated, if it was them, with me on the tablet. It came to life, there was singing, of a very fu- screwed-up Twelve Days of Christmas, filked to be Taxon-related for your listening pleasure."

He pauses, mulling that over. "I wrote down their lyrics but so far I haven't figured out anything particularly... meaningful regarding them. I could tell there seemed to be some infighting and disagreement between the singers, and after, one of them said he wanted to ask me some questions, we exchanged about two sentences, and..." he trails off, shrugs, rubs at his face.

"He mostly seemed to want to know if I thought he'd gotten winter right. He... it... was not exactly... helpful to talk with. But it does make me feel rather like I am in someone's big damn high school science project."

Paul rummages on the counter for his cigarettes, lights one up. A drag and an exhale of smoke before he addresses this surveillance issue.

"Well, I'm not discounting what you're saying," he concedes. "But frankly as far as using the tablets as communication and the risks thereof..." He punches a button on his tablet; the little 'privacy' icon blips right up.

"..I'm more worried about other citizens hearing things I don't want them to."

Agent Smecker cautiously decides he likes this girl. Young she may be, but she doesn't seem stupid, and the fact that she's trying to do something, anything, proactive-- whether it's whatever her notes project is or just being helpful towards new arrivals.... he approves of that.

"That's... not great." Lifting a hand up to her mouth, Dawn bites at her cuticle nervously. "Largely because as far as I know, they've never done that before. And in general, bad guys who switch their patterns are bad guys you need to watch out for. Predictable suck is still suck, but it's better than the unpredictable variety." Mind out of the gutter, Smecker and also try not to wonder why this nineteen year old knows so much about bad guys.

"...It was them." Grabbing her tablet off the tablet, Dawn sits and her desk and grabs a notebook and writes something down, then lifts the pen, chews on the end for a second and sighs. "They're... okay, when the hamsters showed up it was almost exactly like that. Like we were their personal tv show, or something. Or like... large, furry parents scolding their children." She shudders. "I'd rather they be all 'rawr' and face-rippy. Genial evil is creepier evil."

Because yes, when you're from Sunnydale the concepts of good an evil aren't so much things you debate in philosophy class, but everyday, mundane reality. "Locking things works well. So far no one's been able to break a lock, as far as I know."

Smecker is quickly winning Dawn's esteem. He's... weird, a little, but he doesn't treat her like a little kid. (And okay, the trying to cut out the swearing is... kind of endearing. In a weird, warped way.)

Oh, Paul's just mentally blocking off how someone below, he suspects, the age of majority knows so much about 'bad guys' because Dawn lost him somewhere back on Slayer and chains and limb-ripping. He's getting really good at compartmentalization here as a survival strategy. Taking the weird in small manageable doses.

"'Hamsters'," Paul says, and holds up a finger in a 'wait-a-moment' gesture. "I've heard them called that several times. So you mean like actual... hamsters or what, help me out here, Veteran Summers. They showed up in furry bodies?"

He nods slightly at the 'locked' comment. "I tend to prefer straight-up jackassery to the kind that pretends it is your friend as well," he offers with a shrug, recalling several spectacular Bureau backstabbings over the years.

Sometimes, compartmentalizing is the only way to keep from going completely and totally crazy, this any Sunnydale citizen knows. (Seriously, regular barbecue fork accidents? There needs to be more than any small town's fair share of self-delusion floating around before that flies.)

"Giant, talking hamsters to be more upsettingly specific. I mean, it's pretty clear they're not actually hamsters and they just... don't want to come forward as whatever they actually look like for whatever reason, but hamsters works better shorthand." Dawn shrugs, rolling her eyes. "They're kind of annoying, for values of 'kind of' that equal 'very'."

Ben and Doc pop up in her mental Rolodex of horrors before Dawn shoves those thoughts firmly back where they belong, in the corner of her brain labeled 'things we don't talk or think about', and she just nods. "It's easier to deal with a bad guy you know is a bad guy. The stealth bad guys are worse."

"The worst is the bad guys you personally like," Paul Smecker says distantly, his expression miles away for a moment before he stirs, takes another drag. "Anyway. Yes. The stealth ones are pretty damn annoying."

He exhales the smoke somewhere not-in-the-direction of the screen, silent a moment as he thinks. After a tick he says, "I don't think they think they're the bad guys.

"...and yes, I know, most bad guys rarely do, but I mean... I don't... I don't believe they are holding us here with what I would have once called 'intent to harm', in saner days. That doesn't mean they haven't harmed us, obviously, but--"

He wrinkles his nose at how incoherently this is coming out, stubs his cigarette out forcefully in the ashtray he's found. "It's a game to them and they can't understand why we're not having fun too. That's the vibe I get."

Dawn's not touching the idea of bad guys you like with a ten foot pole, because Spike is recently gone and she's still dealing with that. (And with the lingering anger at him, even if Buffy forgave him herself.)

She taps her pen against the desk and sighs. "Okay, so. This is going to sound kind of bitchy, so sorry in advance. But honestly I don't care if they think they're not the bad guys. No offense, but you're new here. It's... you haven't been around for the really bad parts." Angelus. The city below them, filled with dead copies of them all. Losing people she loves, over and over and over and not being able to do anything about it. "I'm pretty sure just about every crazy dictator in the history of ever thought they were just having fun, too. It doesn't really matter, as far as I'm concerned. Outcome outweighs intent, in this case."

Dawn realizes she's clenching her fists tight enough her nails are digging into her palms painfully, and she forces herself to relax. "Sorry, I just have a year and a half of bitter built up, I guess."

"No, no," Paul says absently with a wave of his hand, dismissing her sorry and her 'bitchy'.

"No, I'm not arguing that this isn't still Sh-" ~~Shitville~~ "ssuuuure somewhere I don't want to be, and they've apparently f... udged up a lot of lives here. Outcome does outweigh intent. Not arguing that. Even if, as you correctly observe, I am the new kid on the block."

Paul pauses. He's absently wondering which of the just-mentioned twink brigade he would qualify as. Probably Joey. He does not say this revelation aloud. The girl probably has never heard of the New Kids on the Block.

Moving right along...

"...but I'm thinking of it because if they are, apparently, willing to open some lines of communication-- however Dada Surrealist those lines may be-- with us-- then the more we know about how they perceive the situation, the better."

Paul doesn't really know what to say to 'year and a half'. If he were a different person he'd say something like Jesus, I'm sorry kid. But he's himself, they're all in the same fucking boat, and the last thing she likely needs is pity from someone who just got here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ visual ] [ castle summers ] shout when you wanna get off the ride

Re: [ visual ]

[ visual ]

Re: [ visual ]

[ visual ]

[Visual | Locked starting here]

[ visual | locked ]

[ visual | locked ]

[ visual | locked ]

Re: [ visual | locked ]

[ visual | locked ]

[ visual | locked ]