Interdimensional Cable

[westfallcorndog]

Today in the forum, someone has set up a techno-pile of video gadgetry. At the heart of it is a television, and an old one at that. The screen is large enough, but it sits in a retro wooden fixture that gives it the appearance more of furniture than of an entertainment system. All the better for it to hold the weight of a number of video-playing devices from across the ages and dimensions.

On either side of the pile of plastic boxes and tangled wires stacked on top are a set of outdoor lounge chairs. One, sat up like a chair, is empty. The other, fully reclined, is full of a whole lotta dead dude. It’s Harrowheart, who can’t possibly understand the vast majority of what he’s lying next to, a lit cigarette between his lips and his arms dangling off the chair and onto the grass. His floating hands are hard at work twisting knobs and pounding on the top of the television. Now and then the screen flickers with a hint of a signal.

Without spending the energy to lift his head, Harrow calls out to any passers-by, “Hey! What’s your favorite movie? People keep tellin’ me about ‘em, but I ain't ever seen one. I wanna find a good one and invite everyone over to watch it. Help me pick one out, will ya? And if y’ain’t ever seen a movie either… I dunno, weigh in on someone else’s recommendation?”

(( OOC Info: I want to stream a movie in-character! I love streaming movies, usually it’s a really good time for everyone involved. I’ve never done one IC, but I think this is a great opportunity to start. I’ll take any and all IC movie recommendations (real movies only!) and by next Wednesday I’ll try to decide which one we watch. The better your character talks it up, the better its chance! I’m shooting for next Saturday the 21st at around 8 or 9pm Eastern for a start time, but I’m going to be flexible if people know they can’t make it. I want as many people to be able to enjoy this as possible! If you’re interested in the idea or have any questions shoot me a PM and I’ll PM you back with answers and details and remember to get back to you when the movie and time are decided. ))

Comments

[brave_heart_verity]

Verity remembers him from the ball. She's kind of hoping he doesn't remember her because that scene was embarrassing. The drastic change in appearance should help with that. And the fact there aren't a half-dozen chao trying to climb all over her right now.

"I don't really watch movies, but I can help you with the equipment if you'd like?"

((Very cool idea. I don't think I'll be able to make it, but I'd recommend The Prestige. It's crazy good and leaves you with a lot to talk about even after several viewings. It leaves me with a lot to talk about anyway, but I've got a drinking game for The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and I don't drink.))

[westfallcorndog]

Talk about drastic changes, this time Harrowheart is fully clothed. Samhain ball: Not even once.

His eyebrows twitch when he hears the voice as his mind tries to drum up the memory of where he heard it. He tilts his head up just enough to get a good look at her and raises one arm to shield his thoughtfully squinted eyes from the sun. When he finally looks her over he smiles, and it's obvious he can't place her face. She's a totally new friend to make!

"You some kinda techie, Miss? I'd guess so by the hair. I think wild hair and smarts go hand in hand."

And speaking of hands, one of his beckons her over toward the television. The other stands on top of it, ring finger curled back to give his hand the likeness of a little man. He wiggles his thumb to wave the tiniest greeting.

((The Prestige is such a Nexus movie too. I'll have to keep it in mind! It's been years since I've seen it and it'd all be new to me again. It might be funny to watch The Avengers considering half the characters here are Marvel (I love that btw) Like a documentary night haha!))

What happens at Samhain Ball stays at Samhain Ball?

[brave_heart_verity]

Thank goodness for small mercies. Or larger mercies, in this case, given how scant his costume was.

He can take his time trying to figure it out. It's a relief when he doesn't seem to. "I'm decent with electronics. Don't let the hair fool you, I only had that kind of accident the once." Maybe biting the inside of her lip will keep her from smiling and giving the joke away.

She'll step around to the back of the t.v. and crouch down to see what's up, now that she's been invited over by Thing. If the cables back there are as tangled as the ones up top, she may pull them all out and start over.

((It's such a Nexus movie. And it might get me to finally dust off the unused Olivia account I made in... May? Watching The Avengers would be great. Confusing for the comic versions of people, but great.))

[westfallcorndog]

If the Nexus is a crossroads to other universes, these cables must have gone to the 'headphones in the pocket' dimension. It's a rat's nest all the way down, Verity. Can the powers of Truth, Justice, and More Truth prevail?

Harrow tries to lean to get a good look at the wires, but darn it, the chair's just not in the right position. He's going to have to stand. The things you people make him do. He rises with a very undead groan and joins her at the back of the television. He may not be able to help, but at the very least he can watch and learn from her wisdom.

"So why don'tcha watch movies, Miss? From the way folks talk 'em up, I figure that's half of all anyone does on most worlds. It's like readin', except it's –"

He stops abruptly and scoff-laughs at something. "Hey, wait a minute! That was a joke! You meant electric shock kinda wild hair, didn't you!" Even if she didn't he's totally laughing. He nods and smiles at her humor and elbows her lightly in the side. She's funny! And if she's not, he's going to pretend she is.

((Let's get all the Avengers together and make them watch a Justice League movie. Or: Watchmen. Critique how amoral and naked all these other heroes are. I didn't know I wanted this until now.))

[brave_heart_verity]

Verity is patient, careful, and very much not her brother. She'll do it, and she won't have to cut anything. It's going to take a while, so here's hoping he'll enjoy the show. First step: make sure all the power cords are unplugged.

She's just awful, isn't she? Being back there working on something she's not even going to enjoy and not doing it in a way that's entertaining from where he was sitting, the unmitigated gall. He should file a complaint.

He gets a smirky kind of grin when he gets it. "That was a joke," she confirms. "I don't have a suspension of disbelief, so I don't watch movies or read novels very well. They don't make sense to me."

((They could always go old-school...))

[notalldead]

"Oh man!"

Jesse is excited. He hurries over to look over the selection of devices made for playing media. Making sure there's the usual stuff like VHS and DVD, maybe Blu-Ray if you're fancy, Laserdisc if you're old and weird.

"I don't even know where to start. I love True Grit, an' Unforgiven, an' Good, Bad and The Ugly and pretty much anything with Clint Eastwood in it except for Gran Torino cuz what the holy hell was goin' on with that movie? Tryin' to tell us we can learn valuable lessons from the ol' racist next door? Git outta town and take a bus."

[westfallcorndog]

Harrow knows that voice! He doesn't even have to lift his head to know who's there. He pumps his arms in the air and chants, "Jess-e, Jess-e, Jess-e!" Zombros!

He does sit up eventually, if only out of respect for a good country guy in a good country hat. But as soon as he's ready to listen, Jesse's saying all these mystery words and he's already lost. There's that look in his eyes of a foreigner struggling and failing to parse the language.

"The only valuable lesson you can learn on my planet comes from racists. The lesson is racism! It's good where I come from." Found the Gran Torino fan. "So what're all those movies about? True Grit sounds good, bad, and ugly!" These are words we use to compliment film, correct?

[notalldead]

"Aw c'mon, son, fuck a buncha that. Racists couldn't find their own ass with both hands. They were part o' what was wrong with our world before it went to hell 'n back, and now it's still knockin' around with how the living treat us." For a supposed southern guy, Jesse's pretty uncool with racism!

"True Grit though! That's a great flick about this girl who's out fer revenge, right? An' she gets this guy named Rooster to help her track down the varmint who done killed her pa. There's the old version with The Duke from the 50s, an' then there's the newer one which ain't so bad. Think it won an Oscar or somethin'? I don't remember. But they're both decent! I love 'em both."

[westfallcorndog]

Harrowheart lowers his eyebrows. First his racism was insulted, and now he's being movie-jargoned at? He crosses his arms over his chest. "I'll find your ass with my boot, that's what I'll find. You ever met an orc, Jesse? How about a troll? They'd crush you into paste sooner'n look atcha. You think bein' not-racist against somethin' like that's gonna get you anywhere?"

He doesn't want to stay mad at Jesse, though. Jesse's too cool for that, and besides, he's the only other undead around. They gotta band together and defend each other from racism vitalism, which is a totally different and very bad thing.

"The fifties are ruled by a duke? I oughta tell Steve, 'cause he's from the forties, and if his world's gettin' taken over by a duke I think he oughta know. But... What's an Oscar?"

[notalldead]

Wait, wait, we can't talk about movies right now because is this really happening? Jesse, for his part, at least looks confused but amused, pulling the cigar from his mouth to tilt his head like a curious dog. "Y'all bein' serious right now? Racism ain't a good thing. Maybe bein' leery of people who done oppressed or done you wrong, that's one thing. But just bein' unkind to another cuz of what they was born as is horse apples.

"I mean, naw, orcs 'n trolls ain't real where I come from. But I'd feel like a real shitheel if I was rude to one strollin' through the Nexus. All sorts show up here an' y'all gotta be accomodatin', right? Otherwise, people would be chasin' us out first of all, you'd think."

At least Jesse keeps his tone conversational and friendly. He's not looking to pick fights with his fellow undead!

Someone set us up the... Blu-ray?

[rekindledtitan]

“…The hell is this?” Oh, she heard the question, but Blaze is over here for all the wrong reasons. There are few things more suspicious to her than ‘mystery electronics + scent of dark power’. Her gun hand isn’t just itching: her gathered Light is spilling into sparks that crawl and jump over her gauntlets. You know, lest her mood be somehow subtle.

Her Ghost is nowhere to be seen; it’s hiding and monitoring the situation uneasily while the robot marches in to sweep a burning glare over the set-up. And the floating hands. But most of all, the dead man in the recliner - who is not one of Jesse’s people, she’d have noticed before now.

“Who are you?”

[westfallcorndog]

Woah, woah, woah! This crazy enchanted armor lady is cruisin' for a bruisin', and it looks like he's the one who's about to get bruised. Harrow startles at the sight of the extremely judgmental bot and her crackling Light. He knows that anything that looks like Light usually ends with undead reclining in chairs as a pile of ash. It takes a second for him to remember the anti-violence field, but it's no great consolation. How does he know it works? How does he know this lady isn't the one who set it up? As with all things, the only thing he knows for certain is that he knows nothing.

He sits up on the chair with his legs bent and ready to bolt if he's got to. His hands draw near to his body and he tries his best to force a smile. It doesn't look very genuine.

"Har–Harrowheart. Y-you some kinda guard? Am I – I'm not breakin' any laws, am I?"

[rekindledtitan]

Poor Harrowheart. She’s been patrolling around just waiting for any signs of Darkness creeping into this innocent dimension (go with it, okay) and now here you are with the mystery machine. Yeah, she can see it’s been rigged from bits of every damn thing. But her enemies do the same thing all the time. You should see the giant hacker-bots they put together out of old junk.

On the other hand she frowns at his machine for a whole minute and it doesn’t show signs of working particular evil. Or doing much of anything actually. So. Uh. She’s going to keep staring at you, Harrowheart. Good luck.

“…I’m a Guardian," she says slowly. He should... not need that clarified. Probably shouldn't even care. She eyeballs him a second, and then pursues her suspicion right ahead, never mind the shaky ground she's on. “I don’t, uh- what is this? Why are you hooking all these data readers together?”

Why does he look nervous? Confusing enough that he’s clearly a former human and that’s throwing her off badly. Everything about this is weird.

In an alternate dimension where an undead corn farmer is confused for a brilliant cyber-hacker...

[westfallcorndog]

Harrow answers almost immediately. "Wanted to watch movies with my pals!" Because that's an innocent thing to want to do, right? "I ain't got movies on my planet. All my friends – good folks! Steve Rogers, and... and Jesse u-uh..." Does Jesse have a last name? Does he even have a good reputation? Hell, for all Harrow knows, Jesse could be a villain around here. Maybe that was a regrettable name-drop, in hindsight.

"Anyway, they... They told me movies're good and cool! And movies come from all the little boxes. And then the big box with the screen, it shows off pictures and makes sounds!"

So basically he's transmitting mind control signals from across the multiverse. This guy's high caliber criminal scum.

what if he's using magic though. :o You can hack anything with enough sorcery, it's a fact.

[rekindledtitan]

...Yeah, he's stopped her cold there. She's met evil undead in several forms and they don't- well, they don't make friends or try to watch movies with them. For a start.

"You're friends with Steve and Jesse?" Good names to drop. If nothing else they seem to have derailed her completely. Even the sparks have died down. She gives the assembled gadgetry a hard, puzzled look. "Ghost. Check it."

The palm-sized machine of Light and metal materializes beside her and floats over to make the requisite scans. Blaze keeps her optics on Harrowheart. "What are you?"

[smartass_captain]

"Hey Harrow." Oh look it's everyone's favorite Starship Captain, decidedly not in uniform today. By the looks of it he is very much taking a day off. "That's a hell of a setup you've got going there."

[[OOC: Personally, I"m a fan of comedies? Space Balls, Clue, Monty Python--that sort of thing.]]

I'm going to have to make an 'oh no it's Jim' icon at this rate

[westfallcorndog]

Oh no. It's stupid sexy Jim. It's too late to play dead, he's already been seen. Sure is a good thing Harrowheart can't sweat, but really that only makes it weirder when he wipes his forehead with his arm.

"A-hahah! JIM!" His lips purse and his eyes widen and he stares for a second until he finds the willpower to look instead at the television setup. A little too loudly he says, "Yep, that's my thing! I did that! You know me, I'm a super-smart nerd who loves technology!"

Good thing Verity's in another thread right now.

He sits up on the recliner and, without looking at Jim, asks, "They got movies when you come from?"

(( Monty Python's Holy Grail would be such a good movie to watch for all the characters from fantasy worlds! Yesssss ))

It's hard to tell if Jim is aware of this or just thinks Harrow is always this energetic.

[smartass_captain]

If Jim notices Harrow's nerves he doesn't seem to show it. Jim's already looking over the stack of old technology Harrowheart has managed to cobble together.

"They do, yeah. I wasn't much of a theater kind of guy, but it's pretty fun if you're with the right sort of company. Hell, I didn't think they had anything like this in your world. That's seriously impressive." He seems to mean it too, as he moves to inspect it closer.

"What sort of stuff do you want to learn about? There's a bunch of classics from the 'Golden Age of Movies' a ways back, but I think Clint's probably a better expert on 20th century films than I could ever be."

[westfallcorndog]

Harrow stands and joins Jim by the television. He crosses his arms over his chest and hooks his thumbs into his pants pockets.

"We don't got anything like this," he says. "I rented all this stuff and read the manuals. I had all night to do it. Not sleepin' kinda has its perks." This guy reads the manuals, Jim. He's Starfleet material.

"I don't know if I wanna learn anything. I just wanna watch my first movie. See what things're like on Earth, y'know? Do you got a phone? You should use it to summon Clint. Then we can ask him about Earth movies together." Summon. Yes. Because Clint is a demon of dark and infinite knowledge on the subject of pop culture.

[smartass_captain]

He's going to give Jim hell for that forever, isn't he? Is it so bad that Jim doesn't want his Nexus-friend to be captures, turned over to a government facility and experimented on/with by the same people who woke up Khan? No, but Jim you're not explaining anything to him, he probably just thinks you think he's dumb.

Which is stupid, because idiots don't build...whatever this is. Jim is impressed.

"Good thing about renting stuff from another world, that basically means it's yours now unless you plan on f=visiting wherever again." Jim snorts and looks down at the remote thoughtfully. He does not want to admit he has literally no idea how these old things work.

"So, a romance flick? Girl chases guy wins guy over gets guy? A horror movie? They tresspassed where they shouldn't and now monster from beyond is gonna hunt them down and jumpscares. Action movie where things blow up every other minute? There's a lot of different types."

[protolawyer]

"Happen to have a file with one of my favourite flicks right here!" Shark gladly hands over a datachron, which basically is some kind of fancy tablet with way too many features. Even just a normal one would probably baffle a resident of Azeroth, and now here's this one from another MMO another planet ready to blow Harrow's tiny podunk mind.

"Got it all ready for you there, bubba. Hit that flashing button with the screen image and it should project onto your antiques over here." The lawyer wanders closer to the set-up to look with sneering uncertainty at the tech already coming together. It belongs in a museum!

If this isnt a naughty skin flick I'm gonna be at once relieved and disappointed

[westfallcorndog]

Bubba push butan. It's easy enough, right? He doesn't need to know what this video might turn out to be, he doesn't need to know what motivates this little pickle demon. All he needs to know is movies. He is already a 21st century man.

you know how i roll

[protolawyer]

The datachron makes a pleasant little jingle at having the movie file activated and blinks a series of strange, alien symbols. The same show up on the TV! Guess whatever future-tech this is, it's compatible with old-school tubes. Shark leans on the arm of Harrowheart's seat, folding his black-gloved fingers together and smiling.

Well, the title of the movie is still in the same weird alphabet as before, but the images are pretty clear what this shit is about. There sure is a lot of skin showing. And nipples. And other unmentionables. What even is that guy? The lady's human-looking enough, not including her gaudy taste in earrings, but her gentleman friend has a tail and horns. And purple skin? Good lord.

"Got a hell of a third act, I'll say that much without spoilin' anything too soon."

You're going to get me banned from this good and wholesome rp community, u knave

[westfallcorndog]

"Woah, woah, woah!" Harrowheart hurries forward and attempts to cover the screen with his body, arms, and floating hands. He hugs the warm television, closer than any one person should be to some raunchy pre-recorded Draken action, and turns his attention on Shark.

"There could be kids around here! What if Verity came by with the Chao? She'd bite my head off! You can't just show stuff like this out in public!... Not for free, anyway."

He lifts one of his hands just enough that he can get a peek at the screen. Aaaaaand he's totally watching it. He doesn't even have the good grace to feign offense.

"Guess it's kinda comfortin' knowin' humans everywhere like... interspecies association."

[westfallcorndog]

(( Just as a heads up: I'm postponing the actual stream date. This weekend was short notice and I know some people couldn't attend, next weekend is American thanksgiving. The first week of December might be easiest. If you've got preferred available times/dates I'd love to hear them! ))