thoughtformed | 1.) VOICE

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1.) VOICE

All around weird things? Sort of the norm for me. This place takes a whole flotilla of cakes which I'm guessing is what you guys hear pretty much every time there's a fresh face here.

[ So Buffy switches gears. ]

So hi. Freshest face reporting. I'm Buffy Summers and I'm going to be more willing to believe this whole thing the second I get through a nice long talk with Scooby Doo or Harry Potter. Honestly, I'll even take that guy from The Matrix.

Oh, and if anyone sees a wooden stake lying around could you just do me a favor and toss it my way?

[ Not because she thinks she'll be meeting any vampires, but she dropped it somewhere and she'd really like at least one thing to remind her of home. It's not like she had a ton on her when she ended up here. Otherwise she really, really wouldn't ask publicly since she's still unsure about this whole thing. ]

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[Tim raised a hand to flag her over as soon as he saw her come in the door.

So. This girl was a vampire hunter. About his age, blonde, pretty obviously fit, but not exactly what he would have expected. That was all right. Most people didn't expect much of a 5'8" Chemistry major with a gymnast's build, either, so he knew all about being underestimated. Not a mistake he was going to make here.]

[ His hand was up and that definitely got her attention. She headed on over to him, sitting down in the chair across from him and give him a little half-smile. ]

You're either Tim or you're about to take advantage of how really lost I look. I'm thinking it's the first one.

I'm Tim. And I try never to take advantage of girls who use wooden stakes for self defense. Or... anyone else, really. Anyway. Here's your mocha.

[That hadn't come out quite how he intended it. Was he subconsciously channeling Steph when he tried to be cheerful and outgoing? That... wasn't what he was going for.]

Amongst other things. Just what I happened to have up my sleeve at the time.

[ He seemed friendly enough to Buffy, so she smiled and took the mocha, taking a brief sip and looking like she's enjoying it. ]

Different world and a mocha is still a mocha. I can't complain about that.

Personally, I think the coffee here is the single best thing the island has going for it. But I'm biased.

[He leans back in his seat a little.]

Anyway. The coffee shop is also the best place on the island to do a little vigilante networking. Coffee and an overbooked night life kind of go hand in hand.

Not much going on here if the coffee is ranking at top is there? Not that there's anything wrong with it.

[ It's his favorite, so she's not gonna be rude about it. It is good after all. Just.. sounds an awful lot like Sunnydale in terms of "things to do that don't involve stabbing for 500." ]

Coffee's more for the daytime portion for me. Natural predisposition to night. [ Otherwise the vampires would probably have a bit of an advantage. ] Not that all evil waits for the sun to go down. I don't think I've ever networked either and I'm not a vigilante. Vigilantes tend to volunteer.

So you were... conscripted?

[Tim immediately zeroes in on the detail.]

Chosen.

[ Buffy seems to hesitate for a moment, but she figures just going with the exact words are best for this situation. ]

"Into every generation, a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world. She alone will wield the strength and skill to stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness" blahblah. Big destiny, no choice, tends to come with an early-release death certificate as the only way to get out of it unless you want to watch all your friends die and the world end. I tend to not be okay with that.

I wouldn't be thrilled, either.

[Tim's smile is more than a little wry. He is what he worked to be all his life. Getting hauled in by destiny...

Well. Judging by what he's seen of her so far, he respects the way she's been handling it.]

We've only got the one vampire. One zombie. Almost a dozen trolls, but probably not the kind you're thinking of. Two demons, two Norse gods.

Forces of darkness, though? We've got plenty.

Any of them dangerous?

[ Which is probably something that most people don't ask when they hear about all of these so-called monsters being there. She knows better than to assume that everything is bad until the second it tries to attack her though. Especially considering that last bit. ]

Forces of darkness being apparently separate from those guys and all.

The trolls and the gods, definitely, under the right circumstances. But we're all more or less on the same side most of the time.

The real dangers, though...

[He ticks them off on his fingers.]

Mobile exploding plants in the forest. Like walking proximity mines in camouflage. More wolves and panthers and other predators than an island this size should support, too, but they're easier to handle than the plants.

At midnight, time freezes, electricity goes off, most people on the island turn into coffins, and the rest are vulnerable to attack from negative emotions made real, called Shadows. Fortunately most people do the coffin thing, and aren't even aware anything's different. Except when it gets really complicated.

Twice a month, on average, the island goes crazy. 'Crazy' might mean everyone thinks they're pirates, or a meteor on a collision course with the island, or a crime wave, or... a harmless flood of bunnies. Can't predict it, except to say if it's been more than about three weeks from the last one there's probably another on the way.

[ As Tim goes on, Buffy's expression doesn't really seem to change. As much as this stuff does sound really weird, it's... overall not the weirdest kind of stuff she's heard. It's certainly not something she's beyond believing.

Honestly, one of the only things she has trouble believing in are leprechauns. ]

I know someone who would be really terrified about bunny flooding.

[ Yeah, that's all she really has to say. No shock or surprise or confusion here. ]

[Not that he hadn't looked friendly or respectful before, but Buffy's straightforward acceptance of the list raises Tim's opinion of Buffy another few notches, and it shows. That's definitely professional-caliber blase on her part. Only someone steeped in their lifestyle's particular crazy gets so matter-of-fact about a recital like this.]

Everyone's got an Achilles heel, I guess.

So. That's the big picture. Networking's in the details. If you're interested in keeping up patrolling or anything like that while you're here -- and that's completely your call -- there are a few things I can do to help. Also your call.

[ Actually getting a choice in whether or not she can do that. That's something big for Buffy. She's never really had a choice in this before. She's tried to-- she did, so many times. When she was 15 and her first watcher was killed and she moved to Sunnydale. It kept happening and she had to keep doing it or someone like Willow or Xander was going to get themselves killed. Before she fought the Master, too, because she didn't want to die. After she killed Angel. When she nearly had the opportunity because Faith wanted to do it before she turned out to be a crazy person. All of those times she tried to take that and either people died or nearly died or she got pulled back into it.

Even if she was the one in charge of everything that she did before, answering that call was never her call, just her calling. Having that choice now was something new and for some reason she didn't quite understand why she wasn't ready to just say she quit, resigned her post, if there were others here they could handle it. Buffy couldn't do that, even if she had the opportunity, even if she wanted to just let herself lead a normal life like she'd wished for again and again.

It took her a few moments to answer him after that, but the words came. It was better to be prepared than to try and quit then someone gets hurt, especially if this place was just as weird as home. Buffy couldn't let the world fall apart around her when she had the power to at least chip away at it, even if she couldn't ever stop it. ]

Blueprints and maps, particularly of cemeteries, sewer systems, schools, and government buildings, and someone who's really good at making older weapons. Crossbows, swords, pointy sticks, axes-- that sort of things. And the locations of any really shady bars. Any idea where I can get those?

Actually, I was going to start with a smartphone app.

[He held up his device with a smile.]

There's a bit of software that patches you in to island surveillance, and lets you send and receive encrypted transmissions from other vigilantes. Beats the Hell out of a walkie-talkie. Blue prints, maps, locations of shady bars -- those it could get you. And I might have a couple leads on a crossbow. But the rest... that'd be trickier.

A smartphone app?

[ Color Buffy confused. ]

Okay, real fast confession. The most recent technology I've used is a pager and you're telling me there's some kind o phone that can have al that stuff on it?

Yes.

[Tim holds up his phone, tapping the touchscreen and starting an impromptu demo.]

When you're from, then, they've probably got laptop computers, right? Big, clunky things. And people are probably talking about how the Japanese can miniaturize anything. basically, people are right. This phone is a better computer than those laptops. And a phone. And a video camera.

I know they give you the phone during their welcome to the island talk, but they don't tend to do more than show you how to text or call with it. It... does a little more than that. And you can write software that lets it do even more.

So basically they're just putting everything in a little flimsy piece of plastic now?

[ Flimsy because... Buffy will probably break this more than once on accident.. ]

Believe me, I can't write software for it. Willow, maybe, but she's not here. I think. There's no one named Willow here is there?

[With a couple taps on the screen of his phone, Tim calls up the directory of 'fictionals,' holding it out so Buffy can see. No Willow.]

If there's something the phone can't do already, and you need a program to do it, you can come to me.

You're being pretty generous. Not that I'm complaining, but you're asking a lot of questions so fictional or alternate dimensions or whatever theory you're working on, I'm a complete stranger. I'm sure good guys aren't the only ones who ever get pulled here.

[ It's not that she doesn't trust him of course-- but she's absolutely certain she can handle herself against anyone who doesn't have superpowers. Practically having everything from a choice to actual help offered to her besides a library of books is a little weird, especially when she just got here. ]

Why?

There are a lot of answers to that.

The simple one is, I'm trying to be a better people person.

The complicated one is that one way or another, you're worth keeping an eye on. If you're working on your own, that's hard. If you're part of the network, it's easier to check in and make sure you're on the up-and-up.

No offense.

None taken. I just have this weird issue with groups of people offering me assistance in exchange for keeping an eye on me and making sure I don't act outside of what they want.

[ They usually don't care about anything that she wants. Even if having a choice and things getting made easy sounds really nice, it sounds a little too close to a watchers' council that isn't across an ocean. ]

No offense.

[After a moment of being caught off-guard, that actually brings a smile to Tim's face.]

God, that sounds familiar. And if I was making this offer last year you might not be far off. But my new leaf is already turned over. Look...

[He blew out his breath, slowly, then took a deep breath, held it, and met her eyes again.]

I don't want to pretend to be your boss, or to call the shots, or even to have the high ground. I just want to do my best to make sure that when there's trouble, somebody who can help is nearby. That's what the network's about.

The fact that I can use the tracking data to check up on people if I don't trust them is... kind of a fringe benefit. And I see why that doesn't exactly inspire warm fluffy feelings in anybody else. All I can say is, it doesn't give me any right to order you around, and it doesn't put you under any obligation to listen.

The fact that you want to help is borderline fluff-inspiring helps even out the Big Brother attitude. But even if you're not planning on playing at that, it still leaves the issue that I don't know who you're working with here or how well you'd be keeping a cap on that kind of thing. Considering how many things that go bump in the night really want me dead, I'd really rather not have you accidentally giving them a leg up on that.

I appreciate it, though.

Well. The offer will stay open. One way or another, you'll probably bump into the local vigilantes, but it shouldn't pose any problems. And if you ever need back-up, even without the network, you can still call me.

[After a moment, he mustered a smile.]

So. Is there anything else I can do to help you get oriented here in town?

['Settled in' was usually a dirty word, and he didn't use it. Nobody wanted tot hink about how long they might be stuck here.]

1.) VOICE

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