| Death to the 80s indeed. Through the horrible neon-colored sea comes... well, let's face it, more neon. Despite all suggestions to the contrary, even Elle has succumbed to the lure of 'School Spirit' but not in any way that might be considered actually in keeping with the actual theme. Her jeans - flair-legged, and quite voluminous over the toes of her espresso-colored granny boots - have the outer seams rippled out, grommeted, and then laced back together with ribbons. In this case they're thick silk ones, that run in gradients through various neon shades. And if one were really charitable, they'd count the blue ribbons in the side braid that sweeps from her left temple and back around the side of her skull, where it finishes off in a magnolia flower. But other than that... not so much. Anyway, she's on her way... somewhere. Which happens to pull her past Kelly's current location.
Tabitha will take any and every excuse to play dress-up. Any. And. Every. Her long hair's pulled back into a ponytail, and, from there, it may seem she's neglected the theme entirely. A dark grey sleeveless tee underneath a black tank top with a set of hexagonal dog tags hanging over her flat-chested form. But then her hips bring the neon and some to spare, the arms of an eye-searing orange jumpsuit tied in front of her, the legs of the suit hanging loose, ill-fitting on her, with bright yellow reflective tape pasted down the legs of the jumpsuit. Those familiar with Battlestar Galactica-verse might guess Cally Tyrol, but she's content enough to be a generic knuckle-dragger. And everyone else is probably just writing her off as That Dork In The Orange Pants. She even seems to come out of her shell a little bit, willing to talk the ear off of anyone who has the bad luck to ask her about her costume.
Tabitha gets her eyes locked onto Elle's hairstyle, in the middle of her wandering through the corridor, and finds herself following her, skirting past and then walking backward. "Oooh," she coos. "I love your braiding. It's so pretty!"
An argument could possibly be made for Elle playing dress-up too, but then she usually dresses in some variation of that. Usually sans neon, but hey. It'll be absolutely conspicuous that she's oblivious to the walking orange fashion disaster until Tabitha decides to engage, but that could be said for half or three quarters of the things she's passing. Whatever the little blonde is pondering, it has nothing to do with school halls and posters and whatnot. And so she's maybe a little bit surprised when Tabitha intercepts her and ends up there right in front of her which, let's face it, is hard even for Little Miss Space Case there to miss. There's still a dazed kind of blink, and a reflexive look around as if she were half persuaded somebody else were being addressed. But then a hand comes up to touch her braid, which results in a little smile. "Thanks," she volunteers. "I couldn't think of any other way to wear neon, so."
Tabitha keeps walking backward in step with Elle until Elle recognizes she's there, then she reverses course a half-step, leaning closer to look at the braids. "Did you do that yourself or did you have a friend do it for you? I love braiding my hair, but I can never make it look that good by myself." And presumably she doesn't have many braid-buddies, to judge from the way she's dressed. Pretty much a home run if she's going to a science fiction convention, but otherwise just good for drawing weird stares.
Well. One look deserves another, apparently. As Elle is examined, so too does she examine in return, though there is a subtle dubiousness about her interest in Tabitha's peculiar sort of get-up. "I did it myself. The side ones are easy; it's back braids that are hard. Can't see what you're doing to get started, you know?" Like this is common knowledge, somehow. "That's, um, an interesting choice of outfit. You have to be pretty brave to go anywhere in that much orange." The best part about this is that she doesn't seem to intend it as an insult, merely a polite observation.
Tabitha grins brightly when Elle notes her costume, and she lifts the pecularly shaped dogtags from her chest, jingling them a little bit. "I'm a deckhand from Battlestar Galactica," she explains vivaciously. "I get the vipers into the launch tubes and patch them up after they get shot up by the toasters," she announces, voice nearly approaching a squeaky chirp of girly geekiness. "All the orange and reflective yellow makes sure the pilots can see me when they're coming in for a landing. It's a safety thing, really."to Spirit Week, Bonnie! It's the midmorning rush, between classes, and the hall is a rainbow of awful neon brightness as students range between total support of today's theme and zero support. Elle's contribution to this are the ribbons that lace up the sides of her jeans and in the side braid in her hair, while Tabitha is, well, dressed up. In superbright orange, and stuff. It's this very thing that the blonde is eyeballing; she takes a step backward from Tabitha as she launches into that explanation, a trifle wide-eyed. The mistake may be realized, but it's way too late for salvation of the conversation, and she's left looking a little bit more lost than she was prior. "A safety thing?" She answers. "Um. Okay. If you say so."
"No, because the deck is pretty much different colors of grey, and when you're moving a bunch of vipers and raptors around the deck and they're coming in for a landing, you've really got to stand out in bright colors so everyone knows where you are, right?" Tabs takes an easy step forward as Elle steps backward, perhaps mistakenly believing that Elle is totally into what she's talking about. "See, the Battlestar Galactica and its fleet is carrying the remnants of humanity after the Cylons came back and wiped out the twelve colonies, and when the Cylons show up Galactica has to scramble all its fighters to keep the Cylons busy while the fleet prepares to jump away to a safe location. And the deck is where all those fighters are kept and cared for and where they launch from and land, so it can get really chaotic."
Bonnie makes a decided entrance into school. If she could've driven a motorcycle into the lobby, she would have. She stomps her way into the school, her long red hair tied in a long braid running over her shoulder and down to her chest. Instead of her bubbly neon-colored self, see's a seething ball of black. A black tunic-like blouse covers her form but does nothing to compliment it. Black slacks are worn, fitting to form without being indecent. Black combat boots adorn her feet while she's covered in a black windbreaker with a gold Mockingjay pin on the lapel. She completes the look with a heavy pair of black sunglasses.
Poor Elle. Her expression continues to change, and as Tabitha comes at her it shifts over now to something rather like that of a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Rather than trying to retreat further she freezes. "What?" If ever there was a wrong thing to ask the average geek about some favorite thing of theirs, this may very well be it. "I mean. Um. Okay?" It should be quite obvious that she actually has no clue at all what is being spouted at her, but since when does that matter?
Tabitha is, of course, happy to explain. "Man created Cylons to do the jobs that nobody wanted to do, but then kept them enslaved once they'd gained sentience, until they rebelled and there was the first Cylon War and then the Cylons left and there was a treaty but the Cylons were really-- uh," Tabs hesitates for a second, "You should really see the miniseries. I have it on DVD, maybe if you want to you can come over to my house and we can watch it sometime." A meek little smile is offered up along with a sort of hopeful look.
Bonnie passes by the girls, not even paying attention to all the work that poor Tabitha had put into her outfit. As she finds a security camera in a corner, she looks up at it, pulls her sunglasses down to the bridge of her nose, and flips it off before she returns the glasses. She then pulls some papers out of her backpack and begins to slide them into the vents of some of the lockers.
Elle is fairly oblivious to some things at the best of times, so Bonnie's 'clandestine' papering campaign is kind of overlooked in favor of the necessity of trying to figure out how to deal with Tabitha. A wiser soul would see this break in her train of thought as an opportunity to leap off and run away, but she doesn't reach that same conclusion, sadly. Maybe it's the smile that does her in. Maybe it's that hopeful quality. Maybe she just doesn't know any better about the dangers of being accosted by geeks in the halls? Maybe the anti-Homecoming campaign efforts would be better spent in that venue? "Um." And then, "Okay..?"
Tabitha's eyes widen, and her little hopeful smile peels into a grin. "Awesome! We can marathon watch the miniseries and like order a pizza or something. My mom can probably come pick you up, but I'll have to ask her. What are you doing tomorrow, ninja or pirate?" she wonders. Tabitha just made a new friend. Someone mark the date. The rude gesture draws her attention briefly to Bonnie, and, "Woah," she murmurs. "Someone really doesn't like neon colors." She reaches up to snag a flier from one of the lockers (not hers, but she doubts whoever's it is won't mind) to see what it's all about.
Bonnie nods seriously in greeting to the two girls and makes her way to the cafeteria.
Clearly, Elle clearly still has no concept at all of what she's gotten herself into. "I hadn't really thought about it..." She begins to answer as Hurricane Tabitha sweeps off to go claim a flier. It's only then that she spies Bonnie, whose all-black Hollywood rebel look gets a blink and then a little shake of her head, but no actual comment. She -finally- spies Kelly, lurking over yonder all by his equally drab self, and he wins her first real frown of the day, but she does not yet break off to go in that direction.
Tabitha returns to Elle before she can make a proper escape, reading over the flier and then handing it over to Elle to read, as well. "I don't get it," she confesses. "Are we staging a mutiny? I was going to do a ninja outfit tomorrow, but if there's a mutiny afoot I'd better run with some pirate gear."
Bonnie returns from papering some area of the school and overhears Tabitha. A roll of her eyes behind the sunglasses and she walks over to explain. "Homecoming. It's a farce. They want to parade us in front of the student body as if we're tributes waiting to be slaughtered. It's all part of Their game to keep us docile and controlled. *I* won't be controlled. *I* won't be paraded, and if you know what's right, neither will you. If people boycott Homecoming, then they'll have no choice but to listen."
"She was nominated for homecoming queen," Elle adds in here somewhere, right around the time that Bonnie stages her return. It's all the explanation that she has to give though, before she offers the page back to the Girl On Rebel Fire. "Isn't that a little bit dramatic? I mean, tributes? Slaughter? It's not like the candidates have to get up there and fight to be the last one standing, or something. It's actually kind of democratic..." There is not a lot of passion in this. To be fair, she looks even more wary of Bonnie than of Tabitha, previously.
"Though that would probably be a lot more entertaining," Tabitha considers a world in which homecoming queens have to fight to the death for the honor, losing herself in the idea for a moment before she returns to the conversation. "I guess you could see it as a kind of social fight to the death, though. He who dies with the most facebook friends, wins, and all that stuff. I just like Homecoming week because we get to dress up and nobody thinks it's weird." Yeah. Yeah, Tabs, nobody thinks you're weird today.
Bonnie shakes her head. "It's not about actual death, it's about control. And it's democratic as long as you consider popularity to be democratic." She looks.. "Weren't you nominated as well?"
In a real fight to the death, Elle would probably be the first one down, precisely because of these moments of freeze that she has. Like the one that comes now, when Bonnie fixes her with that question. "I guess I was," she admits before shrugging, like it really just was not all that important. "I don't think it matters though. Isn't Isabelle Dalton kind of a lock on the win for that?"
"Democracy has always been about popularity. That's how come almost every Athenian leader who got too popular ended up ostracized from the city," Tabitha points out helpfully, one finger lifted in a smart-kid gesture. Nerd. "Who else is running for the thing?" she wonders. She's not gotten her hands on a ballot, at all, seems like.
Bonnie shrugs to Elle. "Quite possibly.. She's got the Rich Snot Vote. But still.." She sighs, her anger softening. "I mean, if you want it, then I hope you get it. I just.." She shrugs.. "It's a farce. It's a joke. They parade this around for alumni to see so they can get more donations coming in. It's practically pimping us out." She looks for a clock. "Isn't it time for class yet?"
Bonnie looks to Tabitha.. "Um.. Jena.. I don't know who the other girl is.." She just nods at the Athenian comment.
"I just hope we get the Masquerade theme. I've got this awesome steampunk mask and really want to costume up with it," Tabs hugs herself, making a little squeaking noise as she dreams up her ideal homecoming dance costume. Who cares that she'll just end up standing in a corner by herself all night. Heaven knows no boy is going to ask her to the dance, nor does she expect one to. The fun is in the dressing up.
Elle shakes her head. "I'm not particularly interested in winning. I have a sneaking suspicion that you might end up with more votes than me, just because of all the effort you're putting in to the exact opposite of that." How exactly did she arrive at this concept? It's probably for the best not to ask, or to think about her logic processes too very deeply, because they may not run in straight lines. Her next mistake will be glancing sidelong at Tabitha. "That's kind of the only good theme that made it on the ballot. I mean, the beach thing? Aren't there beaches all up and down the whole right coast here?" Clearly she has never actually put her toes in the Pacific. In December.
Tanner has arrived.
Bonnie grumbles. "Unfortunately you may be right." She says to Elle. She turns to Tabitha. "I don't know what the theme's gonna be. All I know is that I'll be outside protesting." Bonnie is speaking with Elle and Tabitha. It's Neon Day and Bonnie is protesting by doing her best to look like a red-headed Katniss, with the long braid and all-black clothing.
Tanner views the room carefully.
"That's what happens when you remind people how fun it is to do the opposite of what people are telling you to do," Tabs giggles aloud at the paradox Bonnie's created for herself. Then, hooking her thumbs into the tied-off arms of the eye-searing orange jumpsuit that're tied around her waist, "Hey, we're going to get together at my place to watch the Battlestar miniseries and have some pizza. You don't want to come, too, do you?" she asks Bonnie. Slumber party at Tabitha's!
Elle is the only one of the three who is not wearing a costume. She's only really just barely wearing neon at all. Her jeans - flair-legged, and quite voluminous over the toes of her espresso-colored granny boots - have the outer seams rippled out, grommeted, and then laced back together with ribbons. In this case they're thick silk ones, that run in gradients through various neon shades. And if one were really charitable, they'd count the blue ribbons in the side braid that sweeps from her left temple and back around the side of her skull, where it finishes off in a magnolia flower. "I was actually planning to just stay home until a couple of days ago," she confesses after a moment. Then comes the trainwreck distraction that is Tabitha's 'party' invitation, whereupon she's made to look wary. Again. "I don't even know what a Battlestar Galactica is, so."
Tanner is dressed for neon day. He's wearing bright purple skinny jeans and a yellow Vneck Tshirt covered by a bright blue, puffy vest. He laughs when he sees the others, and he immediately points at Bonnie, "Whoah! Black day's totally tomorrow. You need me to spray paint your jeans, B?"
Bonnie laughs.. "You're not getting near my jeans." She takes on a more stern tone. "I'm protesting. If they want neon, I'm giving them black." She stomps a combat-booted foot onto the floor. "Down with the patriarchy!"
"That's why you need to watch it," Tabitha grins at Elle. "Seriously, it's an amazing series," she begins to get ramped up on the subject again before Tanner shows up and Bonnie begins to protest in earnest. Timidly, at first, she begins to lift her fist into the air, "Three word chant," she starts softly, then, louder, "Three word chant. Three word chant!" Will it catch on? Probably not, but we can see.
System: Tabitha rolls charisma+performance @ DIFF (6) = 4
This'll be about when Elle tries to make her escape again. That is, she takes a little step backward, away from both Tabitha and Bonnie. This worked SO well for her last time.
Tanner laughs again, and chants for a moment, "Three word chant! Three word chant!" He smiles, and gestures at Elle, saying to the other two, "Dudes, look out, she's getting away!" And with another laugh, he turns to Bonnie, "You know, if you really wanna damn the man, you'd go with me to homecoming." He winks at her, "Just sayin'."
Bonnie blinks slowly.... Was she just....asked...... Her eyes go wide, much like Elle's, and a whimper squeaks out of the girl before she runs away to class..
All it took was one of the popular kids to pick up the chant, and within two or three more iterations the whole hallway is engulfed in a reverberating chorus of THREE WORD CHANT. THREE WORD CHANT. THREE WORD CHANT. Nobody even hears the warning bell to get back to class, and the chanting continues, fists pumping into the air, protesting emptily against nothing in particular. THREE WORD CHANT. THREE WORD CHANT. A passel of administrators stream out of the offices, and Tabitha... well, she's gonna go hide, now. The fact that she's wearing scads of neon doesn't count against her, much, since everyone else is, too. Except Bonnie.
System: Tabitha rolls dexterity+stealth @ DIFF (6) = 4
Tanner shouts after Bonnie, "Okay! We'll talk about dress color later!" With another laugh, he looks around as the chanting has began to fill the hall. This seems to empower him, and he runs over to the bench near the door and hops up onto it, now higher than all of the students around. Lifting his arms in the air, he leads the chant even more, yelling it as loud as he can, "THREE WORD CHANT!!! THREE WORD CHANT!!!" That's when the vice-principle emerges from the office and quickly assesses Tanner's at the center of this. He begins pushing through the students towards him. "THREE WORD CHANT!!!"
Tabitha never meant to start a riot. Even as she finds a convenient corner to nestle herself into out of the direct line of sight, her eyes are wide as saucers as the chanting only grows louder. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, her lips wavering at the corners uncertainly before she just gives one short bark of laughter and skitters down the hallway to class.
As Tabitha slips away, the chanting reaches its loudest, and then from the crowd, the vice-principal grabs Tanner, yanking him from his perch. As he's pulled down, Tanner shouts, "DAMN THE MAN! DAMN THE MAN!" As he yells it, the chanting becomes applause and the scowling vice principle just leads Tanner back into the office. And a moment after that, things seem back to normal, and kids begin to head on to their classes once more.
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