11017/Retro Movie Classics

Retro Movie Classics
Date of Scene:	08 February 2020
Location:	Rec Room - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Bean and Ellie have their usual pop culture movie night.
Cast of Characters:	Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Samuel Morgan

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Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
Friday night and almost 10pm. The youngest kids have been sent to their rooms which means the rec room is safer for PG-13 and even the rare R-Rated channel selection at this point.

Ellie is curled up in an arm chair like a spiky angry catm her phone in her hand as the movie she queued up starts to play.

It seems the punkgoth went really retro.

The opening scene of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World starts to play on the biggest TV in the Rec Room. Pure retro 8 bit Universal Studios logo cutting to -Not so long agoo i nthe mysterious land of Toronto Canada...-

There are chips, salsa, and popcorn set out on the side tables, a bowl of pretzels in Ellie's lap.

At a pause as a couple other students are talking Ellie glances over and squints and they scamper off.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There are many ways to gain an education. As someone once said, your brain gets smart, your head gets dumb. And in the case of one student, music and pop culture are in fact mandatory parts of his personal educational journey. It's a lousy job, but someone's gotta do it.

    Movie night is starting to take on something of a sacrosanct nature these days, and Bean hasn't missed one in months. He's probably the only student here that's sometimes taking surreptitious notes of things to look up later though. And, as it had been pointed out, you can't relax unless you're wearing comfortable clothing, so the severe outfit had to go. Which leaves him sitting in a comfortable hoodie, comfortable sweatpants and comfortable thick socks in one of the couches.

    Well, not sitting exactly. By now, his posture is, dare we say it, positively relaxed. He's nearly /slouching/.

    Next to him, half laying on Bean's lap and half on the rest of the couch, lays Bear, that trusty German Shepherd, looking just as keenly at the screen as his human.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Okay Bean... this one is probably going to really mess with you. It is definitely along with the manga it is based on a pulp culture touchstone." a grin as she sips some energy drink.

"I mean.. this is simply a tripy show... reality bending effects and powers.. lot of odd cuts. Pretty sure the protaginists are either all mutants or it is all taking place in Scott's head... "

Her foot bounces a bit as she relaxes. "Definitely curious what you'll think of this one."

Yeah Ellie has actually started to enjoy putting really odd retro movies into the circut for movie night.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    For his part, Bean seems to positively enjoy the odder selection, the ones that seem to be the birthplace of the majority of memes and quotes that are being flung around nearly constantly and which to the teenager might just as well be an alien language. Trying to crack it like a code hadn't worked, so... on to study the source materials.

    Which is always more enjoyable in company, although he will admit he doesn't see a lot of most people in the school. "When you say trippy... are we talking 'Inception' levels of meta-plot? Or is this more of a 'Oh brother where art though?' kind of odd?" One thing is for sure... odd requires some kind of food and drink to go with it. He's still on the popcorn stage, but at least these days he occasionally puts something on them. Small steps...

    "Thanks for letting me stay, by the way. I know you like your movies."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Hmmm" she says thoughtfully when compared to those movies.

"No this is more about a guy in a band who meets a new girl... and things get very strange. Like bending the laws of physics strange." which about when the girl says of course she is in his dreams, he has a conventient subspace highway through his head she uses as a short cut alot.

"So.. yeah... he is going to need to fight all her evil ex's and reality bending powers they have. so yeah either he is crazy or they are like mutants or something..." she pops a pretzel into her mouth.

She thinks about the last bit there. "Well.. someone needs to educate you on popculture and social media..." which is her way of obliquely saying she likes watching movies with him.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    A slow nod, and some thought goes into the plot of the movie, even as he watches the events unfold. Music, seven exes, romance, mutant powers... quite the combination. "So, it's basically a romantic quest battle royale?" Four words that should never belong together, and yet...

    There's an actual, honest to whatever deity one may subscribe to, smile on his face after a short while. "It's always a privilege to be tutored by experts."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
Ellie seems to be dividing her time between social media and watching the movie. She has definitely seen this movie before by the amount of attention she pays it. Enjoying it true but....

Then again the way she seems to be able to multitask with her phone and almost everything, god knows she probably does this at premiers if phones weren't banned from theaters.

"Hm.." then tilts her head. "That is actually a really good way of describing it. I mean it will get to it but it actually has some pretty sharp moral messages what is truly important which is a nice change vs. standard rom coms.. which are abomination.

There is a grin. "You're welcome grasshopper."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    For a moment there's a look on Bean's face that's very reminiscent of a certain Avenger, and he looks like he's about to blurt out 'I got that one' with a level of slightly misplaced pride, but Bear gives him such a *look*. Not now human, pay attention to the moving lights. Moving lights make you happy.

    So it is with rapt attention, the occasional fuss of Bear's ears and fur, and the consumption of a nearly unwise amount of popcorn that Bean gets introduced to Scott Pilgrim, nearly laughing out loud at the 'The comic book was better' remark. After all, his mental search through the internet found a reference to a Scott Pilgrim comic. Technopaths... the only mutants that can be looking at their phones while they're still in their pocket. "Apologies, if this is obvious, but... there's one thing that's just not making any sense."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
Ellie looks up at her phone and then at the screen then back at Bean then at the screen. "Only one thing that isn't making sense?"

I mean this movie is literally full of reality bending and generally seems to chock full of video game references.

"Okay .. lay it on me?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    On the whole, it seems remarkable that only one thing seems to be standing out to Bean as utterly incomprehensible. There's a long list of things he needs to check further already appearing in some mental back-alley, joining the list of bands to listen to and music to explore.

    "Scott is already dating. From anything I can see, his current girlfriend is far more compatible for him than the platonic ideal he's chasing, no to mention the whole critical indicator of a large amount of ex lovers, all of whom appear to be irredeemably evil. And yet he does chase, rather than take stock of his current situation and forego a series of confrontations that might cost him his life and which will, inevitably, end up in disappointment. So... Why?!"

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Good questions. I mean... his current girlfrined isn't actually that great for him. He is dating her for the ego boost of dating a high schooler in catholic school. That worships him. They only held hands. It was the rebound from his horrible breakup with his Ex who got super famous with her band."

Another pretzel is eaten. "Romona is also ...well she is messed up from her exs.. they aren't that far apart. That said.. remember I said moral lessons and the movie really drives home a lot about unhealthy relationships and what is truly important."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Another slow nod, and Bean is pensive for a moment until the Vegan Police arrive. The smile is back within moments of that and even Bear lolls his tongue happily at the sense of joy he's feeling around the room. Moving lights are good for humans! Good moving lights!

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"I just like thinking it isn't some crazy kid but rather mutants..."

She sprawls watching along until it gets to the final evil EX final show down... when Scott learns important Lessons.

The Lesson of Love.

Still loses the fight.

Then with his extra life the Lesson of Self Respect.

That may be the lesson she mentioned.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Boom. Blink. That was... deeper than expected. And coming from a source so comedic, probably well aimed at getting the message through to the audience.

    Bear looks up to see what his human is thinking of, responding to a sudden change in heart rate and blood pressure. Bean sits there, watching. Thinking. Idly reaches down to reassure his canine friend. Finally, at long last, he can make a comment.

    "I was... not expecting that."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Yup. Which is why it is a good movie."

"Lures you in .. then bam... message.. but not like stupidly delivered."

"So yeah... go ahead live your life.. be yourself.. love yourself.. then love others.. treasure your friends and don't betray them..."

Another pretzel. "But like.. still room for sarcasm and comedy."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "It's a good movie." Bean agrees, nodding as he does. By now Bear has settled down again, especially because both of his human's hands are busy scratching the sides of his neck. Hmmm... that difficult doggy life...

    Is now the time to dissect the premise? To talk about the cross-cultural importance of the core message, and the significance of the medium of its delivery being an indication as to the state of the society into which it's being injected? Probably not. His hand stops fussing Bear for a moment and reaches for more popcorn, only finding an empty bowl. "I'm really glad you shared this movie with me."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Next week will be go into the way way back machine and watch. The Crow." she streeetches and uncoils from her chair. "We should probably order pizzas next week... though I will have to fight off wild scavengers at that point to defend our largess."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There is an unwritten rule about animals laying on your lap. Never, under any circumstances, should you stand up or move them while they're there. For the moment, Bean is pinned by Bear's mere presence, a state of affairs neither of them seems to mind much.

    "Anyone coming in here to steal our pizza and disrupt movie night is in for a bad time." A mere glance from either Negasonic or Bean was usually enough to drive off all but the most foolhardy. "Should I do any preliminary reading on that movie?"

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
Ellie considers that. "Good question really. It is a way back classic from 90s... the star died making it which many think is a tragedy because he was considered one of the best martial artists around and following in Bruce Lee's footsteps in movies... he died in the 70s..."

She sips her drink. "So yeah... since the movie is about a guy who literally comes back from the dead to punish the wicked... the fact someone died making it ... that means super hard core goth fan base and instant cult classic."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Somehow I think I'll enjoy that movie as well." Even despite all that. Or possibly because of it? Bean can be hard to read sometimes. And since they're on the subject...

    "Can I ask your opinion on something? It's not movie related, but I would very much value your input in this." When in doubt, always come to the experts. Bear tilts his head again...

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Yeah don't see why not. I even promise not to give you >too< much shit depending on what it is about." and yeah Ellie is keeping half an eye on Bear's reactions. The dog seems to have a very good bead on his person after all.

She sets her phone down on her leg looking to Bean.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Bear seems to have many uses. Not the least of which is keeping Bean sane, but also seems to serve as a very good indicator of his human's mood, a kind of furry early warning system. He listens with half an ear and observes with one whole eye, just in case. "It's about being... being a hero, I suppose."

    "I mean, Negasonic Teenage Warhead has to be the best name I've heard, and I'm planning to take a more active role in protecting mutants. I'm sort of... struggling with an identity. I'm Techno in the New Mutants, but I don't want to drag the team into it." He reaches down to ruffle through Bear's fur again, although the Shepherd does start listening with the remaining half of that ear. "It's been made very clear to me that we're not supposed to go out and look for trouble. But after the incident with the Steel Serpent society, I'm just... I can't sit around and do nothing anymore. I was thinking about 'Gauss' as a name."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Like a Gauss Rifle?" she pauses "Can you shoot projectiles like that?"

To be fair Ellie has been so busy training in the Titan's danger room that frankly she has been neglecting the New Mutants trainings. It isn't like they are allowed to go out and do cool shit and fight bad guys much around Xaviers what with the X-Men.

shhh it is a secret.. or something....

"I mean techno is a good namewhether or not you go out and just look for trouble or you obey the rules... I mean shit Bean... I am on The Titans now and still New Mutants... I mean Titans definitely fall into the go out and look for trouble bucket of the equation even if we are mostly teens." she considers "Also two more years and I'll have to shorten it to Negasonic Warhead..."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Keep the initials, change it to Negasonic Titan Warhead? Plenty of thermonuclear devices got called Titan, or got delivered via a Titan rocket." Encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry of mass destruction, thy name is Bean. And he does feel the need to elaborate on the name.

    "Like Gauss Rifle. I'm ehm... I'm working on a prototype portable railgun." That is almost certainly a secret of some sort. "And I've been training with extra weights for the costume I'm planning, mostly layers of kevlar and AR-500 steel. Point is, I'm... how to say this..." Bear now sits up and nudges his human, daring a lick to the face that gets a hug in return.

    "I'm not at liberty. As in, if Techno become known as a vigilante, and the faculty here knows me as Techno, it won't be long before a nondescript black sedan or a van without windows pulls up on the drive and one agency or another takes me away again for breaking the terms of my parole. I need to do this on the quiet. On the quiet, or in a sanctioned team."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
Ellie slow blinks and then nods a little bit "Shit.. that is really good." chewing on it in her head now. "Thanks Bean."

"That reminds me of the time I put an airsoft gun on a drone I built... I'm trying to learn more about engineering really from McKoy .. want to go into that in college I think." she studies Bean. "Hey .. are you like.. good with costume and armor.. because.. I've been really trying to figure out how not to get shot as easily as not just .. .blowing them all up first." she is musing and nods. "No breaking parole and being carted off for sure.. so on the downlow it is. Gauss is a good name."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Thanks." There's a genuine smile on Bean's face, and it only widens when he starts to realise that Negasonic might share his interest in all things mechanic and electronic. "At the moment... probably not. I'm doing a Bachelor's degree in Physics through remote classes at ESU, aiming for a PhD from MIT eventually." Why? Because why not, that's why. "Probably picking up Robotics and possibly Nuclear Chemistry on the way. When you're a technopath, it just... make sense, I suppose. But Shannon's good with a needle, Kevlar's not that expensive, and cutting AR500 isn't too hard with the stuff we have in the garage. Especially not with that custom arc welder Alek and I built." In short? He's got ideas to spare, probably needs to work on the skills a bit.

    "I've spent most of my life wearing body armor, so... I can probably help you with the not getting shot. Or, you know, the getting shot but in the armor rather than the fleshy bits."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Yeah that is very true... and I'm pretty good at dodging and using cover but .." she considers "I could also ask Robin about it. The gear the Gothamites wear on the team are absolutely ridiculously state of the art. Starshine is better but hers is alien in origin and Ravens is some sort of magic.. so those are sort of cheating."

She considers "That.. is an amazing classload. I just want to probably get an electrical engineering degree and .. well Robotics would be very cool."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "It's quite challenging." Bean agrees, as he taps his own head. "But it all seems to fit for now. I'm not used to being challenged intellectually. It's keeping me on my toes. And trying to become a robotics engineer for a company like Stark-Fujikawa or LexCorp is better than my original idea of joining the Marine Corps." One name stood out from that list, however.

    "You know Robin? He was supposed to get in touch with me but never did. Mind you, that was when everyone thought Batman was dead, so I guess he was pretty busy."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Yeah the whole Batman thing definitely caused a lot of issues with the Gotham crowd. I still can't believe Superman went nuts like that." she frowns. "Robin and Red Robin are on the Titans with me.. also Kestral. Nightwing stops by a lot.. sort of like alumni I guess."

"Not that I plan to graduate.. then there is Vorpal and Beast Boy.. also Zach Zatara... Danger is a sentient AI.. was their old danger room gone sentient.."

She sets the empty pretzel bowl down. "Oh and Kian.. he is a winged .. sort of bird wings like Angel but an Alien."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Of course! The sentient AI, how could he have forgotten that encounter? But back then everything odd was new, and these days odd is utterly normal. "I think I've met Danger once. She got curious about what I was, and I can pick an android out of a crowd without even trying. Was a pretty interesting talk." Cue the Bladerunner jokes? Add that to the list of movies, most likely. Maybe then he'll finally understand all those Voight-Kampff references he's had to listen to.

    "They sound like a good bunch of people. So are the New Mutants, of course. But if they ever need someone on tech support..."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"good to know... and I mean nothing says you can't be aligned with more than one team or group or set of interests... I'm still on the New Mutant Rosters... hell Rogue is an Avenger."

There iss a shrug. "Danger is odd... haven't seeen her out of her room in weeks though."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "I think I'm already there." That requires Bean to give Bear a bit of a hug around the neck before he can continue. "I'm at a point where the Punisher let me borrow from his armory. That's... probably a sign we've run into each other a few times too often to be considered neutral anymore. And then there's this guy who runs a dojo who's the avatar of some kind of immortal dragon... It's getting weird. Weird to the point I'm considering the Gauss identity to stop myself from being thrown back into the concrete box they kept me in for two years."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"I .. probably wouldn't even remotely get tangled up with the Punisher if I was honest about it. I'm saying this and I'm from Genosha .. and I'm friends with some of the Brotherhood... so yaaaah..." she just trails off.

"The dragon guy sounds pretty awesome though and someone I'd love to meet. Does he turn into a dragon or... what?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "He's a bit intense. Even for me." And that's saying a lot, really. If half of the rumors about Bean are true, he's certainly no stranger to violence. "Keep getting caught in his crossfire. Literally, a few days ago. Long story." As stories involving the Punisher invariably tend to be.

    "Dragon guy is called Danny, he's something called the Iron Fist. Does Kung Fu, teaches it too. Really hard to get lessons out of him though, especially now that he's gone off to Tibet to drop off someone claiming to be the avatar of something called Shao-Lao The Undying, or something close to that, at a hidden village for a fate worse than death." He actually rolls his eyes at that last bit. I mean, really... "So glad I didn't pay him in advance."

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
"Dang.. .. wait.. Danny Rand of the Rand Corporation... I mean that guy is Iron Corporatist rich... not Bruce Wayne rich but damn... why on earth would he teach kung fu and how did he end up being a dragon?"

She shakes her head "Our lives are very strange."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Wait, he's that Danny?" Yup, until just now Bean hadn't realised. Certainly hadn't connected the barefoot, somewhat world-strange man with surprising Kung Fu moves and the temperament of a good natured giant panda with the rich corporate mogul. How could he have?

    "He mentioned something about protecting a secret village that's one of the gates of heaven or something. To be honest, it all sounded a bit like Buddhist philosophy, so I switched off. Wonder if someone else is going to teach at the Dojo now..."

    Strange? If their lives were any Stranger, they'd be wearing capes and hopping dimensions.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead has posed:
Well it isn't too late to put on capes and hop dimensions. They could probably get an assist from Magick on that one.

"Well .. I mean maybe.. how many Danny Rand's actually live in NEw York City?" she flips her phone back over and does some googling "Is this your guy?" turning it to show Bean. She knows he can probably just .. know what she found on google but for appearances.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    On the whole, Bean prefers not to look at someone else's device unless they give him good reason to. It's a matter of courtesy, really. So he looks at the picture and nods, slowly.

    "Minus the suit, add a bit more beard, but yes... that's the same Danny." The very same Danny that he traded blows with and which soundly kicked his ass. Now there's a story... "I'm going to negotiate such a discount on his lessons now."