taxonomites | Entries tagged with + aliens

fathertaxmas.livejournal.com

It's Christmas Eve, and for the most part the night is quiet. The city is covered in a blanket of snow, and the festive lights shine on silently in the dark.

Some might hear the gentle murmur of reindeer shaking off the cold, even sleigh bells and footsteps, while others sleep through. They might even get up to investigate; Taxon isn't always the safest place, and strange noises usually bring about a certain level of curiosity. It's understandable, really.

One by one, be it house or spaceship or 'other,' Santa is making his way down his special Taxon list and leaving presents under trees and on nightstands.

A few will get to be delivered personally, and while that contact is generally Against the Rules, this is quite the special case.

[ ooc: HEY GUYS IT'S SANTA!

We're still doing gifts over here, so go ahead and comment with what you'd like your character to get there if you haven't already. This is open to all characters, even ones just arrived, so don't be shy.

How this will work is: tag in and put the name of the residence in the subject line (ex: 'hyperion hotel,' 'frye ranch,' etc.). One of your mods will play Santa for you and anyone else with a character in the same house that wants to participate. So go forth and comment away! ]

undoing.livejournal.com

Angel wonders if he's the first person to notice a certain bleach blonde vampire's absence from Taxon. A quick sweep of the network tells him that yes, he is. Just like Spike to take off (whether it was of his own doing or not, given the aliens pulling their strings and not giving them a choice in matters) and leave him to deal with informing everyone. If this were a year or so ago, he would've scoffed and not said a word, but the progression of time makes for a more civil outlook.

"For those who knew him," he says to the tablet screen, lips pressed into a thin line (and anyone who knows him will be able to tell this is a clear sign of Angel not wanting to do something), "Spike's been sent home."

That done, he turns the tablet off and leaves the hotel to go wander around other parts of Speares. Aimlessly? A bit. He still doesn't like crowds and the holidays have never been something he was very into, but the Extras are dull enough that they leave him alo--

Or. They usually do.

With a huff of irritation, Angel steps around one singing Christmas carols. "Like you even know what a chestnut is."

[ ooc | for tablet trolling / mistletoe shenanigans / snowball fights / general pestering / idk everything but the kitchen sink. ]

allthefunever.livejournal.com

Damon Salvatore doesn't go on walks. Useless hippies go on walks. Stefan goes on walks. In nature, where he admires all the goodness of this green earth then rips something fluffy into a bloody mess and then cries a single, perfect tear over the waste while MCR whines about something atonally in the background. Maybe that stupid Sarah McLachlan song plays instead, Damon doesn't pretend to understand his brother's life choices.

No, Damon-- when he's not lounging-- drives. In his Camaro. Which is now resting comfortably in his garage, while his keys are with Lexi.

Bitch.

So, for the moment, Damon Salvatore does walk. Into the edge of the woods around Old Fell's Church before he hesitates, footsteps slowing to a halt; Katherine's here, lurking somewhere at the edges of everyone's vision like the supernatural stalker she is. No point in torturing himself with memories and ghosts when he'll get the real thing, sooner or later.

Heading back into Taxon proper is like heading into some Hollywood ideal of Christmas on crack, and the Blanks are apparently moving on from simply walking with purpose to disgustingly effusive holiday cheer. "If you didn't taste like cardboard soaked in sour milk, I would eat you," he informs one, and her smile stays wide and plastic as she wishes him Seasons Greetings yet again.

He kicks over an empty donation barrel and then knocks over the Santa sitting behind it for good measure, the childish glee he feels at the destruction curdling when the Santa simply picks himself up with a jolly 'ho ho ho' and immediately sits on his festive decorated stool again, ringing a bell over and over. Damon kicks the barrel further away, his tablet falling out of his pocket with a loud crack and turning on. He picks it up, hoping-- but no. The goddamn thing turns on, but doesn't have the decency to break.

"I hate this fucking place." That-- and the thunderous expression on Damon's face-- is all the tablet catches before he slams his hand down on the effective 'end call' button with more force than strictly necessary.

[ ooc | SO OKAY this is. largely for mistletoe shenanigans if anyone wants them-- come one, come all, idc i love horrors-- but also for tablet, or non-mistletoey location shenanigans. post-santa abuse, please! ]

wildflowerstill.livejournal.com

Who knows how long Lexi's been camped out on the porch of Casa de Summers? For those who care, it's been a while, a couple hours at least. To a mere passerby, she looks like a normal resident of the castle coming out for some fresh air. In truth, Lexi's playing security guard. With Katherine in Taxon and on the loose, Elena isn't safe. She's still a baby vampire, no different than her friend Caroline at home. Whoever--or whatever--that's the cause for turning Elena is still out there too. Stefan isn't strong enough to protect Elena by himself, not against Katherine who still seems to have a goddamn hold on him after all these years. Damon is Damon and Lexi wouldn't trust him to piss on somebody that was on fire if it didn't have anything in it for him.

Scratch that. Nobody is safe.

Lexi scrunches her nose as a stiff wind blows by, carrying a few stray snowflakes across her face. The coat, in all honesty, is just for decoration. That much is obvious by the fact Lexi isn't wearing much more than that in the way of winter gear. So are the smoke rings or maybe it's just boredom from having to stay in one place longer than five minutes.

The cigarette's sucked down until the filter and then tossed into the growing pile of butts around her feet. There are remnants of at least two packs down there and another pack of cigarettes is produced from her coat pocket and tapped until a stick slips halfway out only to be picked out with her teeth and lit with practiced smoothness that comes from years of formerly dropped bad habits being revived.

If she was alive, really really alive, her lungs would be screaming for mercy. Right now, only her belly is screaming for a meal in a bottle while her baser instinct is screaming for one particular neck to be snapped. Oh, and some entertainment too.

virtued.livejournal.com

"...a little excessive."

Stefan stood in a room of the Summers Sisters' castle, surrounded by weapons; from swords to daggers, crossbows to axes, and a variety of other things he'd only ever seen in movies. And surprisingly, nothing he recognized from Alaric's arsenal. Which was odd, considering these 'Slayers' sounded like female versions of Alaric. (Though, 'Alaric the Vampire Slayer' sounded far too campy to take seriously.)

There was a pile of wooden crosses in one corner, stakes in another. Only one of those two presented any sort of threat to the secret vampire, and judging from the way he picked up the crucifix without hassle, the crosses weren't it.

With a snicker of laughter and shake of his head, Stefan tossed it back on the pile. "This is ridiculous. Really? Even Laurell K. Hamilton had the sense to tone it down some."

faderbroderson

[ooc: Continued from this log.]

The tablet comes on tumbling and dusted with white before landing at an upward angle, lodging in the snow and knocking off the loose powder to leave the screen clear. Unfortunately it makes little difference, since the only thing that's currently visible looks like some kind of blizzard. The only indication that it's something else is the laughter and yelling; that is, until Godric slows to human speed for a split second as he dodges behind a tree, and it becomes apparent that the 'blizzard' is a super-speed snowball fight. On the other side of it is Eric, who likewise dodges behind a tree before reloading. In the blink of an eye, they're back at it, snow flying everywhere while the two vampires move so quickly they can't be seen, save for the quickest of instances at the tail end of blurs.

One might make the mistake of believing that this kind of behavior is inappropriate for two such ancient vampires, but that would be presuming that the two of them hadn't spent centuries running half-naked around the snowy forests of Scandinavia like a couple of boys without parental supervision. Left to their own devices, with no concerns and no responsibilities, Godric and Eric inevitably end up doing things like this in their free time.

Suddenly, there's a break in the fight as Godric apparently decides he's had enough of fair play. Closing the distance between them, he tackles Eric to the ground and promptly shoves a pile of snow down the back of his shirt. With a yell, Eric retaliates by grabbing onto Godric before he can retreat, returns the favor, and then proceeds to tickle him. Howling with unrestrained laughter, Eric's maker begins to flail in an uncoordinated escape attempt.

His leg kicks out and breaks the trunk of the nearest tree nearly in two with a loud, echoing snap. Still laughing, he manages what can only be a swear word in Swedish as it falls with creaking, groaning protest and lands with a deafening boom.

smecker.livejournal.com

Paul Smecker had had his duties explained to him-- keep the shop and the apartment above it in order, clean, swept, dusted, etc. Cook meals three times a day-- but do not nag if she didn't want to eat them. The use of the in-the-building-hatch to get ingredients for the meals had been explained; he had said he'd just as soon walk to the nearest grocery store; she had shrugged and said it hardly mattered to her as long as things were on time.

And she had gone upstairs, and he had looked at his cleaning supplies, and decided what the hell, get started.

( How much of this was due to a coping mechanism.... )

The next day he cleaned the upstairs, the living quarters. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen-cum-small-dining area. Dusted, swept, windows washed, vacuumed. No sign of Theta. Paul debated with himself whether or not to turn over the Open-Closed sign in the window. If anyone came by, well, he didn't know fuck-all about the clockworks.

On the other hand, the register was fairly straightforward, and the clockworks all had price tags. Paul shrugged, said to hell with it, and put the sign to open again. Bosses rewarded initiative in his experience.

He spent the rest of the morning examining one of the clockworks, out of intellectual curiosity as much as anything else, and keeping an eye out for the return of his boss-- or anyone else coming through the door.

[OOC: Open to anyone who would be passing by Theta's former shop and curious; especially open to any of the characters who were talking about buying clockworks! Paul will still sell them to you even if he has a limited idea of what he's doing...]

Current Mood: confused
Current Location: Theta's Shop

slayersidekick

Willow has not had a good couple of weeks. Buffy's gone. Andrew's gone (still a problem even if she didn't know him that well). Cordelia's gone. Angel doesn't remember Cordelia anymore. So much has been messed up and Willow is sick of it. She's pissed off at Spike for not caring enough, in her eyes, to want Buffy back. She's pissed off at Faith for going all leadershipy and yelling at everyone about trying to bring back what was rightfully Angel's to know. Doubly pissed off at both of them for yelling at her specifically about her magic.

Okay, sure, she's had a lot of it for a long time, but her motives are purely to help her friends! And if Lorne's really right about what happens after people disappear, heads will roll.

Mostly, though, Willow's hurting at the loss of so many people close to her. She's tired suddenly of everything to do with Taxon. And she figures if she can figure out how to bring people back here, she can send the rest of them home. Right now, that's all that matters.

So, she's taken time off the magic shop, told Tara she was going to walk around for a little bit, and headed out to the waterfalls with a few spellbooks and a lot of ingredients. The important part here is that she's going to open a portal to snatch Buffy out of whatever abyss of time and space she's gotten tugged into this time.

Sitting down on the ground, Willow begins preparations, spreading out her ingredients, making the circle, and preparing. It's about when she starts muttering words in Latin that she shifts and the tablet falls out of her pocket. Another shift and a rock nudges it on. Maybe a little help from the friendly aliens. She won't know until it's too late.

"-a... er...? I really suck at Latin, but that's not the issue here!"

She glances around, kicking the tablet further away. Those who are actually paying attention might notice that her eyes? Yeah, they've gone entirely black. This usually means Bad. Things. are happening.

The result doesn't happen until a few minutes later, after the power's surged through her. And then it explodes. Ingredients go flying. Willow's knocked backwards into a tree nearby. And the tablet's blasted back with her.

"Ow! ...ow... that hurt!"

Damnit. Maybe it didn't work...

So, Willow can be found crawling around, bleeding a bit, and generally looking pretty banged up as she tries to figure out WHAT THE HELL happened just now. Every so often, her head will appear in the tablet's view. Her eyes are back to being normal-colored.

[ooc: still tagging around Willow's other post, but with our new Buffy's arrival, this needs to get up now to progress things! For right now, all she's done is attempt to bring Buffy back. Angel's memory attempt will be later on, but feel free to assume she did that, too (LOOKIN AT YOU FAITH) Open to anyone, seriously. Have at :3]

Current Music: Three Days Grace - Never Too Late | Powered by Last.fm

aworldenchanted

Having Willow in Taxon has really been better than Tara had allowed herself to hope. She had missed her girlfriend so much, and she felt a bit guilty about getting to skip all the issues they'd been having, but mainly she was just glad to have her around. Now, she reflected, add Miss Kitty Fantastico and it'd be almost like home.

That was a bit of a scary thought, in its way. But with the fake sun shining and a date with Willow to look forward to, it was hard to care too much.

Not that everything was perfect, of course - things with the Doctor were still a bit shaky, and Piper was clearly very homesick and Tara wished she was more help with either. Kara'd been down, and Tara thought she really should talk to the other woman more. And she hadn't seen almost any of DG or Glitch since he'd been glitched.

Still. On her way to the shop, she couldn't help feeling a bit of optimism. Maybe Taxon wasn't so bad after all. (If you could ignore the stories of a dead city under your feet.) At least not all the time.

[This is mainly for Tara's chat with the aliens about her item petition and/or the Master to drop into Tamper and Trick. But feel free to consider this an open post to bump into her while she's out too.]

taxcollectors.livejournal.com

Later in the day (though who can really tell, at this point?) the Aliens have managed to get their act together. At least partially.

Those in Old Taxon will find themselves suddenly back home, in the lobby of the Sanctuary, as the barriers snap back to life and the VWOOMTSSSHH of life support coming back online can be heard. But that's all that snaps back to normalcy for now.

Slowly, over the course of a few minutes, there is beeping. Low, tonal beeps coming over every tablet and every speaker all over the city, testing volume and pitch until they're all close to blaring.

Then it stops and a voice takes over. It sounds grandfatherly, almost. Kind and apologetic and worn carefully with age. Trustworthy, like Morgan Freeman.

"We're so sorry you had to see that," it says slowly.

"Mistakes were made in the past. We've learned from them, adapted our program, and we will never let what happened below befall you."

His words come with reassurance, a code leak meant to wrap the people up in a feeling of safety. To let them get on with their lives without dwelling. It may work, it may not, but they are trying what they think will be best.

After a pause to let the code work its way out, he continues, "The systems failure was accidental, of course, and we're working on the repair now. Don't worry, citizens.

"Things will get better."

The last is said with the sound of a smile in his voice before the transmission cuts out, leaving no room for replies or answers to any questions.

taxcollectors.livejournal.com

[ At around noon, all residents of Taxon receive the following message flashing across their tablet screens - an alarming and brief burst of code that disrupts all other signals. ]

a("#s{.s!!}!<.c|y|}&|.ro#o."$!us.w|rs|#wtwsr<.a}$!qsM.===.¶
W|%ozwr<.Q}{{s|qs."v$#r}&|.~!}#}q}z<.c|wrs|#wtwsr.s!!}!<.`s~ow!M.¶
S{s!us|q(.!s"s#.w|w#wo#sr<.

[ It quickly disappears without a trace, a momentary blip on the radar, but the tablets now only function in voice mode. Apologies for the inconvenience. ]

a-pretty-fire.livejournal.com

There were a lot of things that Drusilla didn’t like about Taxon, but the silence was the thing that she hated most of all. The stillness. It didn’t matter that the playground – the trees that swayed slightly in the breeze and the swing that creaked slowly backwards and forwards – was bathed in soft silver moonlight. It didn’t matter that the city seemed to be singing. There was nobody for her to hunt and nobody to hunt with her.

It was all wrong. The wrong Slayer, the wrong Spike, the wrong Dawn Bird. They’d taken her daughter and the wonderfully wicked chaos mage. It was all wrong and it wasn’t fair.

Sitting beneath the trees that fringed the playground, Drusilla buried her fingers in the soil. The words were hers, though she didn’t choose them. The music seemed to be coming from inside the soul she didn’t have.

“A bit of earth,
She wants a little bit of earth,
She'll plant some seeds.
The seeds will grow,
The flowers bloom,
Their beauty just the thing she needs.
She'll grow to love the tender roses,
Lilies fair, the iris tall.
And then in fall, her bit of earth
Will freeze and kill them all.

How can she chance
To love a little bit of earth?
Does she not know
The earth is old
And doesn't care if
One little girl wants things to grow?

She needs a friend.
She needs a father,
Brother, sister,
Mother's arms.
She needs a home.
She needs so many things
They cannot give.
Instead she asks
A bit of earth
To make it live.”

The silence that followed the song seemed emptier than ever.

OOC: The song is a modified version of ‘A Bit of Earth’ from The Secret Garden musical. A great big thank you to Spy for introducing me to it! ♥

taxcollectors.livejournal.com

Midday in Taxon, there is a special arrival.

Two very exceptionally large hamsters stand on the platform of the Sanctuary's arrival room. One, pale caramel with white underbelly and gray stripes, takes immediately to unconsciously preening itself before squeaking out triumphantly, "Oh! It worked!"

The other, white with exceptionally long white fur about its head to go with its exceptional height, claps its little forepaws together and smiles a bright hamster smile. "It did! Fully synced?" There's a moment of hesitation before it realizes that, yes, it did just think and speak at the same time. Then, with a squeak to go with its fellow's, "...Fully synced!"

"Oh! Oh, yes," says the first as it approaches the tablet, ready for its big moment, "Hello citizens! Hellooo!" It waves cheerily as it speaks, "So wonderful to see you!"

"Yes! Wonderful!" The other follows the first, with a happy shake of its long fur.

( LONG WINDED HAMSTERS ARE LONG WINDED )
"Question time now! Can't wait to hear from you!" The second appears almost giddy, bouncing lightly on its hind-paws as it addresses the city. "You're such wonderful personalities, aren't you? Do hurry, can't stay long!"

The first pipes up with a squeak, "Limited time offer!"

---

A short time later, when all their little conversations are not quite done, but as finished as they'll ever possibly get considering, they wave a little sadly at the tablet.

The second pipes up with a squeaky hamster sigh and shake of its long fur, "Hate to leave!"

"Oh," the first agrees, sounding happy but tired from all the excitement of talking to the citizens they've watched for so long, "we do! But we must!"

"Toodles!"

With the tiniest little shiver in the holo display, the two of them disappear from the arrival chamber, still waving to the citizens.

taxcollectors.livejournal.com

The second day is much the same as the first. Calm, normal, and quiet all things considered, save that pretty ringing from the tablets.

You see, they haven't gotten to everyone yet, and they need a much larger sample size than the ones who answered yesterday. Quotas to meet, questions to ask, all in a day's work. They're really quite friendly! Bit disjointed, yes, and a little weird, but they mean no harm at all.

Just a moment of your time, citizens. A few questions, both asked and answered, is all they need.

[ooc: Day two! Just to keep things organized (and keep your mods from tearing our hair out; we don't look good bald like Moby does) comments are off on this one and you can direct all answered-tablet threads to yesterday's post.]

taxcollectors.livejournal.com

All throughout the day, tablets across Taxon will be ringing. The chime is simple, a four part melody that's pleasing to the ear and completely unique compared to any other signal the tablets have sounded. Just a simple little ditty, effortless and pretty. The tablet's screen reads thusly, with font a bright and calming blue:

--VOICE COMMUNICATION--

;4JA7097<DPBQ:&;FDP8D:.@91uRH<.5=DN85<,@A9EB@Ls

THANK YOU!

Pick up, it seems to say, all cheery colors and bright ring. It's time we had a chat, and that feeling is eerily familiar to the niggling in the back of one's mind when they just know it's an old friend on the other end of the line that they've been missing lately.

Pick up, citizens. Your keepers are calling.

[ooc: So begins part two! Posts like this will also be up tomorrow and Friday. All communication from the aliens will be [voice], and characters will get either a male or female sounding alien asking them questions when they tag in. Feel free to have them ask questions back to the aliens, as well. Have fun!]