fandomhighdorms | First Floor Rec Room, Saturday Morning

Mabel had half a mind, when she woke up this morning, to head down to the rec room to hone her karaoke skills. And when Mabel had half a mind to do something, it often quickly took up the rest of her mind, which was why she was making her way downstairs in her party outfit (http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/rhymeswithtable/53351569/10719/10719_1000.png), ready to start her day on the right foot.

She wasn't actually expecting to find somebody already down there making music. She was expecting even less for that person to be Lucille.

"Good morning," she singsonged, just as soon as the song Lucille was playing was finished. "That was really good!"

... Okay, it could have been better. But it wasn't like Mabel could play the piano. She'd always gotten Candy to do that before.

Lucille, who had been quite absorbed by her playing, jumped slightly at the sound of a voice. Particularly that voice. And the person it belonged to was one she definitely didn't want to be interrupted by, especially since she felt she was getting somewhere now.

She regained her composure and turned her head to look at Mabel. "Thank you," she replied, clearly not meaning here.

"You're welcome," Mabel chirped, hell-bent on being so darn pleasant. It was going to happen. She was going to be super pleasant, here. "You don't hear that kind of music around here much. Boy bands, sure, but the classical stuff? What was that one you were just playing?"

The quest to be pleasant until Lucille's head exploded was at least helped along somewhat by the fact that Mabel was genuinely curious.

"A Nocturne by Chopin," Lucille replied, as if that was obvious. If there was one thing she truly disliked, it was fake pleasantness ~~unless she was the one doing it~~. At least she couldn't see the pig around.

"Boy bands?" It had to be something ridiculous.

"Boy bands," Mabel echoed, as though that were obvious. "Bands made up of all boys, usually five or six of them, who sing mostly really well-harmonized love songs that appeal to girls about our age! The boys are all different, but the same enough to all play in the same group. There's the bad boy, and the innocent one, and the really smooooth one, and the wholesome one you'd like to take home to meet your parents, and the silly goofball one, and the weirdo. There's always a weirdo. It adds spice to the whole ensemble!"

A beat.

"There's also this whole thing with cloning them if one of them doesn't make the cut or if they leave the group, but that's just normal procedure, and a good manager will remember to fix their exercise wheel and give them fresh food and water every day, so it's usually fine."

A beat.

"Otherwise you just have to break right on in there and set them free to roam the woods as nature intended."

"Well-harmonized love songs don't appeal to me." Lucille struck a dramatic chord from the nocturne on the piano. She had no idea what those songs were like, but she didn't exactly trust Mabel's taste.

On the subject of taste, she eyed Mabel's outfit, not particularly impressed.

"And neither does the boys who sing them." Or so she suspected.

"Oh." A beat, while Mabel looked at Lucille thoughtfully. "Well, there are girl bands, too, if you're into that sort of thing instead."

She wasn't judging! She was being helpful!

Lucille hadn't been exposed to the possibility of being into girls, so she didn't quite get what Mabel was referring to. Or, well, perhaps she had, but it wasn't something one would bring up in conversation, and she wouldn't admit to having read about it in a book once. She was, however, aware of the possibility of close friendship between girls, and that was something she had had the opportunity to consider here for the first time in her life.

"I'm not sure I would enjoy the music, but at least that would be preferable."

"They're usually a bit less about love, and a bit more about how awesome girls are, and how great it is to be a free spirit, and independence and all of that stuff," Mabel offered, wearing a kind of hopeful smile. "They have types too, like the sporty one and the posh one and the cute baby one and the kind of scary one and... um... the redhead?"

Was that a type? It was now.

"It's not much like Chopin, though."

"I assume it is loud and monotone," Lucille replied. Her roommate had exposed her to contemporary music, after all. "So, no, it is not."

"Redhead is a type?" She raised an eyebrow, unimpressed,

"If you keep assuming, you'll never find anything new that's worth liking," Mabel replied, exasperated. "Not all modern music is the loud screaming stuff, you know. There's been years and years of classical stuff serving as inspiration to modern artists, too."

It would be a shame if Lucille missed out on something good just because she had a stick up her butt, after all.

"... I'm not completely sure what the redhead was getting at, though. I hear they have more fun, but I don't really know why."

"You seem to think I never explore new things," Lucille replied, trying out a melody on the piano and ignoring the fact that it was a very reasonable conclusion from her comments so far. "I do enjoy contemporary literature." The kind Cassandra had introduced her to.

"Why are you here, anyway?" Now Lucille chose to ignore that the rec room was open to all students. And possibly even pigs.

"... I live here?"

Just upstairs, Lucille. This rec room was, in fact, part of the building that Mabel currently called home.

"I was going to come down to hone my karaoke skills, but since you're already playing on the piano, I guess I'm not. Maybe I'll play a video game or something. It'll be less disruptive if it's on mute."

Because Mabel might have iffy fashion sense and questionable taste in music, but she could also be thoughtful!

Even Lucille had her limits. She had no idea what karaoke was, or video games, but she replied: "I'm sure we can share this room. Please, do whatever you want. I don't mind."

At least the pig wasn't here.

Mabel was going to take Lucille not minding as a small victory, since Lucille seemed like the kind of person who sort of minded everything.

"... Well, if you're sure..."

There were some 80s feel-good rock hits that Mabel had been dying to sing, lately.

Of course I'm sure." She wasn't the kind of person to change her mind on a whim, after all.

Clearly, Lucille had never heard Mabel sing. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RidW8C-7eS4)

"Okay!" That was Mabel, perking up and making her way over to poke at the karaoke setup. Because she had permission, now.

Fear.

Lucille didn't know what she had just done.

She returned to playing the nocturne, pleased to have gotten rid of Mabel's annoying attempts at conversation.

That would be right about the time Mabel hit play on the karaoke machine, which she still had turned down fairly quietly.

Fairly quietly couldn't entirely tune out the 80s-est, most crowd-pleasingest song that the karaoke setup had, though.

"Don't start unbelieving! Never don't not feel your feeeelings!""

Oh. Lucille drew a deep breath before shouting:

"TURN THAT DOWN!"

She had to make herself heard over the racket.

Aw, come on, Lucille. It wasn't that loud.

Mabel glanced Lucille's way, gave her a bit of a shrug, and then turned the music down a little bit more.

It could still be heard, because there wasn't much point to doing Karaoke without the accompanying soundtrack. And Mabel was hardly going to adjust her own volume if she was going to be yelled at even after telling Lucille her intentions and then getting permission to do it, sheesh.

Of course, given Mabel's singing voice, the musical accompaniment was probably a mercy.

"Disco girl
Coming through
That girl is you
OOH OOOH, OOH OOOH!"

Closing her eyes briefly to regain her composure, Lucille decided to play something that could at least be heard over that horrible singing, and which expressed her feelings a little better.

Oh, this meant war. Lucille didn't like boy band music? Mabel was picking out her favorite song by Sev'ral Timez, and she was turning that volume back up again.

"Oh, girl you got me ackin' so cray cray
CRAY CRAY
You tell me that you won't be my ba-bay
We're non threatening, girl
Yeah!!!

Of course it was war. Lucille felt she had the upper hand here, as that noise was not in any way comparable to Beethoven.

Of course, she didn't have the advantage of being able to turn up the volume, so she had to compensate by opening the lid to the piano and playing those chords with such force that the instrument was shaking.

Which, really, meant that Mabel was going to have to roll her eyes - yes, Lucille, your pettiness had prompted an eyeroll from Mabel - before she reached for the volume knob and cranked it up as high as it would go.

Instead of singing, she was sort of just yelling into the poor microphone, now.

"C'mon baby won't you fly away with me
Take my hand it's destiny,
We don't need nobody if we stay together,
Girl, just take my hand and it can be forever!"

Now Lucille understood that she had entered a battle she couldn't win. It wasn't a question of musical quality, all that mattered was modern technology and its ability to drown out everything. That, and Mabel's voice.

She finished the first movement of the sonata, then shouted:

"HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED SINGING LESSONS?"

Oh, that was the last straw. Mabel wheeled around on her heel to face Lucille, turning off the stereo system as she did so, and pointed the microphone accusingly at Lucille.

"HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED NOT BEING A CONDESCENDING BUTTHEAD?"

Sick burn, Mabel. Sick burn.

Lucille, regaining some of her dignity, let her voice return to normal level as the music was turned off.

"At least I am not a silly little girl with a pig for a best friend."

"I'd rather be a silly little girl with a pig for a best friend than a cold, mean person who judges people based on nothing and does her best to have no friends at all," Mabel said, giving an indignant sniff and crossing her arms over her chest. "My pig and I are happy. So are my actual, real, human being friends, too, for that matter. You don't know the first thing about me, stop acting like you're so much better!"

"And you know nothing about me," Lucille replied, "So I could say the same."

Not the part about being happy though, sadly.

"I know you've been a complete jerk since you showed up on the island," Mabel pointed out, shaking her head and gathering up her karaoke supplies. "And that's way more to go by than whatever you've decided you know about me. What do you think I am? Some backwoods country girl who can barely write her own name? What is it that you convinced yourself you're so much better than?"

"Well, aren't you?" Lucille raised an eyebrow. "All I know is that you force your idea of fun on others, regardless of whether they are interested or not, and now you try to assume the higher ground by being.. what? The annoyingly chipper one?"

"I grew up in a city," Mabel ground out. "I have a twin brother and we go on adventures together and I won Waddles while I was on summer vacation and there's nothing the matter with him, either. And any time you said you weren't interested in something, I talked about something else! That's called sharing, not forcing! But then I ask about what you're playing, and you act like I'm not even worthy of the answer! If you don't want to have friends while you're here, just say so, but don't tell me I'm aiming for the higher ground just because I'm happy! I'm a happy person! I get happy about things! That's what happy people do!"

Except for right now, when apparently she was very highly annoyed.

"This place is my home, just like it's yours and everyone else's, so stop treating me like I deserve to be here any less than anyone else! If you don't care about anything I like just because I'm the one who likes it, fine, you don't have to like anything at all."

"If you're so happy, why are you bothering me? Why are you rubbing your happiness in my face? Does it make you feel even happier?"

Yes, to Lucille that reasoning made perfect sense, sadly.

"... Rubbing it into your face?"

No, Lucille, now you weren't making much sense to Mabel at all, and she was sort of squinting her eyes and tilting her head at you.

"What, no! That wasn't what I wanted to do at all! Is it 'rubbing it in' when people are happy near you, or just when they're happy at you?"

"Is there a difference?" Lucille asked, clearly considering this an obvious question.

"Of course there is! You can't police when people are happy! People are going to feel how they feel no matter who's around," Mabel protested. "I mean, I can stop being happy at you, but if I happen to be in a good mood and you're nearby... I'm not exactly doing that on purpose."

Okay, Mabel had gone from angry to just straight-up bewildered. Did Lucille just not understand how people worked? At all?

... That was kind of sad, actually.

Lucille just wasn't used to people being happy at all, not that she was going to tell Mabel that.

"Aren't you?"

"Of course not!" Mabel ran her hands through her hair. "I mean, I have plenty of reasons to not be happy. I'm stranded here, I don't know what happened to my great uncle or anybody else in Gravity Falls and we can't contact home and all sorts of things have just been weird for the past few years for my brother and I. But if I let all of that get me down, what would be the point in trying? So I'm happy about the little things. I have good friends, I have an awesome pig, I have hobbies that I love and there are little things that I can take pleasure in, like stickers and meeting new people and singing stupid songs, even if I can't sing. But that's not because I want to make other people upset! That's because it's what's good for me. Haven't you ever done anything just because it's good for you?"

Nothing she would be willing to share with Mabel, and even then the 'good' part was questionable.

"I was trying to play the piano."

Until Mabel showed up.

Edited 2016-01-17 16:47 (UTC)

"And then I waited until between songs to give you an honest compliment-- it was good. I liked the way it sounded." Mabel ambled over to the nearest couch and sat herself down on it. "Then you said I could do whatever, even after I offered to do something quiet, and then you yelled at me for doing what I'd come here for."

So, clearly, Mabel was not welcome to do whatever. Hence her annoyance at the whole thing.

"So... can you maybe see how I'm getting the impression here that I'm welcome to be whatever, just so long as that whatever isn't me? There's something wrong with that."

It struck Lucille that perhaps Mabel was being truthful. Perhaps she really was happy and honest and... what else? Trying to be kind? As if the world appreciated kindness. Lucille shrugged. The girl was still annoying.

"Do you really expect to just be you wherever you are? No, wait, I don't think I want to know." Lucille picked up the sheet music and assumed a dignified posture. Smiling unkindly, she continued: "Please, return to your singing. I will come back another time."

Mabel frowned, and shook her head, but didn't try to stop Lucille from leaving, either.

"I've tried to be somebody that isn't me before, because somebody like you went out of her way to make me feel small," she replied. "And all it did was make me feel smaller still. So I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to pick up my microphone," she slid off the couch and re-claimed it, "and turn the music back down so I don't blow the speakers. And then I'm going to sing, no matter how badly people think I sound, because that's what makes me happy, and I have just as much right to be here and to be happy as anyone else who lives here. Including you."

Having nothing more to say, Lucille gave Mabel one final look of disdain before she left the room.

At least she hadn't brought the pig.

First Floor Rec Room, Saturday Morning

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