taxonomites | 054 ± [visual / location: langwe & gale's] all our favorites were playing

Glitch is minding his own business, sitting at a drafting table in the workshop, tapping his pencil and...spacing out, mostly. This is not an unfamiliar state for him and so he thinks nothing of it, nor of the music he hears coming in from outside. He taps his pencil and bobs his head to the beat since it's nice and catchy and...getting louder.

Still he thinks nothing of it until he finds himself getting up to stand expectantly, the music so loud and clear he's convinced it's not outside at all but instead coming from all around him. Then comes the realization that this has happened before and--

"Oh no," he manages, and then this happens. It's a little jerkier than his usual dancing, complex and challenging and totally nonsensical, but...

Ding goes the bell on the front counter and he's twirling across the shop floor on a dolly, walking backwards up the steps toward the office and then he's springing and flipping across the floor to perch on a bench and-- oh. Hey. This is actually fun.

Until Glitch finds himself perched on one of the big pulley hooks, hanging on to the ropes as the mechanism lifts him to the overhead catwalks. Gracefully he swings off, lands on the platform, then starts to run with intent to dive off and fly around the shop--

He shouts and stops short, gripping the railing and gasping for breath. The music's gone as suddenly as it started and he shakes his head, thoroughly freaked out.

Once he's composed himself Glitch takes the stairs back to the floor and snatches up his tablet, turning on the visual in order to get the word out. Problem being whatever he'd planned to say vanishes and instead he finds himself singing.

"This is a public service anouncement, this is only a test," he begins, then grimaces and shakes his head again. "Okay, no, everyone...I dunno if it's happened to anyone else yet but that thing that happened a couple annuals ago? With the compulsive singing and dancing stuff? I think it's happening again."

He takes a deep breath and starts pacing as he looks up a particular broadcast, one of the ones he's saved. "I just did this whole dance routine around the shop - not like usual, there was music coming from nowhere. Stuff like that'll happen, and you might find yourself singing about stuff that you wouldn't ordinarily share." Pause. "Like...like this thing I'm linking from last time. Um. So be prepared for that. Dunno how long it'll last so...yeah. Good luck."

And yes he is totally prepared for questions.

OOC: Musical glitch get! Also the shop is open for people coming by later or if they'd been there for his little performance or whatever \o/

Also the line he sings is the opening of Green Day's "Warning", I am so making a hamsterball post to track this stuff.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Dancing," Glitch replies, deadpan. "Really I don't know how...extensive it'll be. They might be changing stuff up from last time, it's been a couple annuals."

"Singing and dancing. That's just... great. Just...." Madelyne rubs the bridge of her nose before looking back toward Glitch.

"Well, at least that explains why all of the Extras are now thinking in musical nonsense instead of just the usual babble. Seriously, it gets worse when they're all rhyming."

Sorry there's not better mews, Mads. Glitch shrugs a little sheepishly, then frowns as she continues.

"Hang on, you can...hear - is that the right word? - them? All the time?"

Interest: pinged!

"Hear works, it is closest to what it feels like, though sometimes it isn't even close," she shakes her head and gives him a small smile, sort of amused.

"Usually it is like white noise. You know, like day to day conversations that happen in the background and the general noise you get in any large city. Except here, there is a weird uniformity... except it is more of an enforced disharmony. Like they'd all be thinking the same things at the same time if they same thing were happening to all of them but different things are happening, so they're not."

And she has /no/ idea if that make sense to Glitch at all but it is as good as it gets right now, "So, while, yes, I can sort of 'hear' everyone in a radius, I couldn't actively 'listen' to anywhere near that many without being overwhelmed. That's one of the biggest problems new telepaths have, is learning how to control that difference. And when everyone started humming or singing or thinking in songs or rhythms, it was a noticeable change in the not-a-pattern."

But this is interesting and Glitch props his chin on his hand to listen, nodding to show he understood.

"Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box. They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe." Pause, blink. "Oh, I like that one. Um. So is it like that with us non-Extra people? The hearing without listening, is it all the time or..."

No accusation there at all, just curiosity. He's thinking back to when he'd sent her to warn Cain about the Witch, and how she'd been able to "hear" him then.

"Not quite. There is a murmuring but there is a sort of critical mass with people where if there are enough of them it gets 'loud' enough that I can't block it all out. There are few enough 'real' people here that I can better ignore the thoughts. Strong emotion, though, tends to make ...." Here Madelyne pauses, realizing that the hearing metaphor sort of breaks down here but then she pushes on anyway.

"It changes the texture of it, it makes it spikey or rough or... something different, so it stands out from everything else."

"That's amazing," he says, grinning. "There are a...people in my world we call Viewers. All of them are psychic to some degree and I wish I remembered more, there might be books in the-- no, wait, the libray's gone."

He'd suggest asking Azkadellia but he's about ninety-eight percent certain that'd go horribly.

"Anyway, there was one that I traveled with a bit. He could see the past, sometimes, and he was very good at reading hearts."

"Thoughts are hard because you get the thought and you understand the thought but you don't always get the context for it. The more different the person, the harder it can be to understand what the thought really /means/. This is why communication with aliens is possible but tricky. Sometimes it is easier to try to speak in emotions and concepts than words if the minds are very different."

Madelyne shakes her head, "Then again, that can be just as bad, depending. Emotions are chemical as well as thought, so they're tricky things. Hearts are notoriously challenging things."

Glitch nods faintly. "Challenging. Yeah, that they are."

Challenging and complex, robust and impractically breakable. He's glad he (mostly) just has his own to contend with.

"Thank you for explaining, maddy, I always like picking up new things. And hey, you didn't sing once!" His face fell. "...maybe it is just me."

"I can hear them. It isn't just you. I'm sure they're just... waiting for the best time for me."

And, of course, by best, she means worst.

"I haven't had anyone interested in learning about it for awhile. It is always interesting to talk it through since people understand differently."

054 ± [visual / location: langwe & gale's] all our favorites were playing

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