| Star-Lord and Video Games |
| Summary: | Douglock finds Star-Lord in the Game Room. They talk. Peter is introduced to DDRII. |
| Date: | 2016-10-16 |
| Related: | None |
| NPCs: | None |
| Scene Runner: | NA |
| Social/Plot: | Social |
| Players: |
 .. .. |
Location: Game Room in the Xavier Mansion outside of North Salem, NY
Star-Lord is standing at one of the classic games, furiously shooting away at vector-rendered wireframe enemies in "Tempest"
Douglock comes into the room and approaches Star-Lord. ":I trust you found your weapons where I left them for you, Peter?:" the young alien-mutant hybrid asks the twice displaced man as he gets close enough to read the current score on the game.
Star-Lord jumps a little, having been so focused he didn't note Doug's coming. "Crap!" he says in a panicked voice as a swirly enemy escapes back to the center, releasing a pair of red bowtie enemies in their place. One Super Zapper hit later and he's back in control. "Hi!" he greets finally. "Yes, thanks." he turns his head a moment to grin at you before returning to the game. His current score is about seventy percent of the high score.
":You're welcome. The delay was my confirming permission from Jean first,:" Douglock explains. ":And sorry for startling you. Good score by the way. That's a game that existed in your childhood, isn't it?:"
Star-Lord seems now easily able to talk and play at the same time, though his brow remains furrowed, and his voice slightly higher in volume than needed. "Yeah… was surprised they're still popular enough to keep around, but I'm sure not complaining." tappity tappity
Doug nods and watches the game play for a bit before asking, ":Are we missing any games you're desperate to put your hands on again?:"
Star-Lord chuckles, "I'm happy already just to have found these, but I wouldn't turn my nose up at a Stargate machine." the pace of the action increases as he moves from level to level. He doesn't have perfect play, but so far he's accumulating extra lives about as fast as he uses them up.
Inside Douglock's mind he delegates, ("You got that, right?") he asks urRamsey who replies, ("Sure did boss, want the whole console or just the chip?") ("Lets go whole hog on it for him,") Doug says. All this in the the time between the start and finish of a blink of Quill's eyes.
":That's a good one. And you really seem to know this game also, does your time in space actually map to it?:" Yeah, he's curious about these sort of things.
Star-Lord does a double blink at the question, "Hadn't thought about it that way, too busy reliving my childhood. But, maybe kinda? In quick reflexes and that old hand-eye coordination that carries over from combat piloting. Damn!" he says as he has a run of blunders, resembling bad luck but generally just that those very same quick reflexes are finally overwhelmed, increasing the rate of errors. He starts to fill in his own second place high score.
Nodding respectfully at the high score, Douglock asks, ":So, how has the adjustment period been?" and "Is Kitty still angry at you?:" He's been tied up a lot lately and is out of the loop apparently.
Star-Lord leans against the machine and glances slightly downwards at Douglock. "Between you and me?" he asks, but then continues anyway. "Not so much with her words. Maybe it's still hard for her on the inside." he pauses. "If this isn't a weird question, do you usually understand other people well?"
":Honestly? Never really did,:" Douglock says. ":I was always a bit of a nerd before I died and was reborn as an alien hybrid… so, yeah… sometimes I get confused by people.:" He reaches across the room and pulls a chair over to sit in, not that he needs to but because he's accustomed to sitting sometimes. ":Why do you ask?:"
Star-Lord admits, "I'm still trying to understand your nature, so I was wondering if I was answering a question about human behavior, or just gossiping." he grins. "So… you're part human, and part alien, and the alien part of you is what gives you the…" he pauses, waving his hand, not really having a word for the techno-organic appearance.
":Yeah. I was born and raised on Earth. Became friends with the New Mutants here at Xavier's. Found out that they were mutants… me too… when an alien crashed on the campus. He and I became best friends and members of the New Mutants.:" He then literally waves his hand (alright, maybe its more like a flap but…) as he says, ":After a time I ended up dead and came back to life after my best friend's ashes were scattered on my grave. It awoke a techno-organic infection in my eye… it… well, yeah. It gets ugly at that point so we won't discuss that. And I became an X-Man and then slipped into this world a few months ago.:"
Star-Lord takes all that in, and says, "That all actually made sense to me. Maybe I'm getting used to unusual ideas here." this seems to bring him back from what was an extended interruption in his train of thought. "So anyway, Kitty and I, we'll be alright. She even let me rename the ship and move in. Then she started an AI for it, AND is modifying my tape player to something a little more modern. It's been like Christmas." he shakes his head.
":That's great,:" Douglock says, hiding any emotions he is experiencing on the subject behind the semi-artificial sound of his voice and hoping that Peter - with Quill's lack of familiarity with him - won't notice the absence for a moment. He then asks, ":So, what was the last movie you saw and has Kitty exposed you to any since you got back?:"
Star-Lord lets that question hang for a beat, and says, "Now I know I'm getting used to weird when a normal idea like that throws me off. It hasn't even come up. Movies, yeah, obviously that's still a thing. Something we should see?" he asks you.
":Primer and The Man From Earth,:" Douglock says without a pause. ":Both were small budget movies but they are both well worth it. The first will hurt your brain… the second is a good date film. At least in this nerd's opinion. Kitty may have seen them both already but I think she'll appreciate the suggestion to watch them again.:"
Star-Lord seems to be making a mental note of it. "I'll see how that flies, then." he angles to a slightly different topic, "So, the X-Men, I've heard that a few times. Nobody's really sat down and explained it, but I take it that it involves some of the more seasoned talents here putting their abilities to use out in the real world?"
Douglock nods. ":Yeah, basically, but it didn't start that way,:" he says. ":The first X-Men were just kids with powers following the lead of their mentor. But over the years, yeah, they became experienced fighters for justice. Mutants fighting for mutants and baseline humans alike.:"
Star-Lord finishes, "Because of all the trouble over mutants." speculatively. "Marie described a little of that to me, and I was able to study up on some recent history." he gestures towards the games. "You got any scores on these?"
":No, I don't touch them,:" Douglock says, ":Too easy for me to just interface with them and tweak the programming. Not that I'd do that but people wouldn't trust my scores because of the risk.:"
Star-Lord scoffs, "Is it that big of a deal? Heck, Kitty could program her name into one of these in no time, sometimes you just gotta trust each other." he looks around and sees one with multicolored floor pads (a DDR machine) — "What's that one?"
Douglock Shakes his head, ":You don't get it, I can interact with it real time." Then the DDR game is indicated and he smiles. ":Ah, you'll like that, stand on the platform and press the player button,:" he says as he leans against the game and visibly sends tendrils from his hand into it. Inside the machine he sets it so that it will play Thriller by Michael Jackson no matter what song he actually chooses.
Star-Lord walks onto the suggested spot, and pauses, looking at the techno-tendrils doing things to the machine. "That's… wow, ok. Um, ready." he presses the player button. As the music starts, he sees arrows start to fly across the screen. Thinking quickly, he glances down and realizes what he's supposed to be doing.
Douglock's tendrils are pulled out of the device before the game play actually starts (and after setting his programming tweak to remove itself as soon as the game play begins). ":Some people use this as a form of exercise as well as entertainment,:" Douglock says, ":There's a whole line of dancing games for various gaming consoles actually.:"
Star-Lord proves rather adept at this one, his feet hitting the targets on time, and even managing to do a facsimile of the hand and shoulder movements associated with the song. "Ok, I think this one's going on my new player."
":You should see its music video. At nearly fourteen minutes it was, hands down, the longest of its era,:" Douglock says as he watches Star-Lord dance on the game console.
Star-Lord's hands come up of course in the zombie claw moves. "Ohh I knew this one. How do you think I memorized the moves?" he grins. "So do they still have MTV now? Did video kill the radio star?" laughing a little.
":MTV is mostly about reality television now, unfortunately,:" Douglock says. ":Radio outlived it I fear I must admit.:"
Star-Lord works on the final moves. Again, not perfect, but he's having a lot of fun doing it. As a new player, he's spending a little too much time watching his feet instead of the screen.
":That's really good for your first time playing. A lot of people have problems figuring out the interface at first so you'll likely get better as you get used to it,:" Douglock says about the game.
Star-Lord finally steps off the pads, and says "Thanks, I'll work on it. Hey, if you are interested in the AI project, I'd be a fool not to let you collaborate."
Douglock nods. ":It would be interesting to work on an AI that wasn't one of my Forks. And perhaps my experience making them could help,:" he says. ":Is Kitty okay with the collaboration?:" he asks.
Star-Lord shrugs one shoulder, "Can't speak for her on that one. But I'd bet she'd be interested."
":Well, you both know how to find me,:" Douglock says after nodding. ":I don't want to butt in on her project without your having discussed it with her first.:"