InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I'm a nice amoeba"

Shelby Morisson (nowhearthis) wrote in beyond_evo,
@ 2009-06-19 17:14:00

Let it rock. [open]
Shelby hadn’t exactly had time to get properly settled in at Xavier’s since she’d arrived. When she’d first gotten here she’d been sufficiently awed by the school and grounds themselves to really pay much attention to anything else. It kind of felt like she was living on one of those reality shows where they put you up in a kick ass place and film your ever move. She had seriously been on the lookout for cameras for a little while. But she’d had other things to do besides go around like a wide-eyed kid in a candy shop or hunting for hidden cameras. Her mom had helped her haul her things to her room and unpack a little before she had to leave to get to work, and not long too long after that Shelby had to do the same. Thankfully there was a bus stop not too long of a walk from the school and she’s already figured out what transfers she’d have to take to get to her destination. In the little bit of time she’d had to explore before heading out to Gamestop, she’d been on a mission that culminated in her stumbling across the rec room. Which held all the gaming consoles she’d been told were here somewhere. Jackpot.

Her shift at work that day was spent with eager anticipation that probably came out as slightly over exuberant customer service. At least they knew she enjoyed her job? It was kind of the ideal for a gamer of just about any type. And thankfully they hadn’t made her wait for her employee discount, so upon return to the school she had been lugging a few bulky boxes that she luckily managed to get in on her own. After dropping everything off in rec room and then running back to her dorm room to change real quick, Shelby was setting up the drum kit, microphone and extra guitar for a good long session of Guitar Hero World Tour. She’d get around to the other stuff later, but to start with she dived right into singly player mode on lead guitar. Shelby was one of those players who got completely into it and within minutes she was completely rocking out, working the whammy bar like nobody’s business as the sweet sounds of gameplay filled the room. Oh yeah, she is so awesome.

[open]

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worthathousand
2009-06-20 01:12 am UTC (link)

Guitar Hero World Tour (and its cousin, Rock Band) is a game that is right up Artie's alley. Seriously, if there was an alley filled with Artie-like stuff, it would be chock to the brim of painting easels, guitars, senseless little games like Katamari Damacy or games where you could pretend you were playing an instrument, and stands selling pancakes. Also it would be very well lit and not at all a creepy alley like most alleys are. In any case, being inherently musical, the sounds of someone rocking out to something like Guitar Hero is basically a magical summoning dance for one Arthur P. Maddicks.

To that end, not too far after Shelby starts in on the guitar, Artie peeks in around the threshold of the doorway, an exclamation point already manifested over his head in bright blue. The great big grin of epic, excited proportions follows a moment later, and then Artie scoots into view, skirting around behind Shelby as to keep from getting in the way while she plays her song. He watches the highway as she goes along, and when the song is done and the crowd is busy waving its hands in the air for Shelby's rocking out, Artie takes the opportunity to point at the drums and look very hopeful.

Artie, for the record, is very good at looking hopeful. A second later, the picture of himself playing the fake-drums appears over his head, for good measure, in case she didn't understand what it is he wants.

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nowhearthis
2009-06-20 04:19 am UTC (link)

There should totally be stands that sell pancakes- and waffles too. That would kind of be pure awesomeness. Shelby is also with him on the hating of dark, creepy alleys. She isn’t exactly equipped physically or powerwise to deal with anything like that and it just fell in the general dnw territory.

Part of the reason for setting up a game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour in the first place was wanting people to join in. Being new to the school and in an unfamiliar environment, Shelby was keeping to that wonderful tactic of sticking with what she knew. Plus you know, having access to every game console available, an employee discount at a game store and some extra cash to make good use of it. That was a big motivation too.

If Shelby hadn’t been so engrossed in the game she would have noticed Artie sooner. As soon as she did notice someone else in the room, there was a startled laugh and she grinned, completely realizing she got caught red handed rocking out. And that’s when she noticed the bubble above his head. Her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open a bit. Like many others, she’d never met any other mutants before coming to the school. Well, besides that one day in the city, but she wasn’t entirely counting that. She’d never met any other mutants on a friendly basis, we’ll say that. And for one of the first mutants she did meet to have a nifty cartoon bubble above his head was a big deal. Realizing she was staring and that was probably not the best thing to do, Shelby shook her head, smile quickly coming back. “Uh, yeah, sure. Totally join in. I’ll start a multiplayer round. Wow.” Her eyes drifted back up to be bubble, reaching up as if to try and touch it then putting her hand down. Again with the possibly rude. Surely this guy’s personal bubble included his…bubble. “Sorry. That’s seriously awesome. Oh yeah, and I’m Shelby!” Way to save the introduction for last there, Shelb.

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worthathousand
2009-06-21 04:52 pm UTC (link)

This is, and probably will always be, a fairly common response to Artie's mutation. His smile doesn't flag in the least, although he does comically try to roll his eyes up to see it himself. He can't, for the record, because the moment he starts to move his head to focus on it, the bubble goes with it, which ends up with an effect not completely unlike a dog with no tail still trying to chase it. He doesn't pull away when she tries to touch it, however, because everyone tries to touch them, and it doesn't hurt him, so Artie's never really seen the reason not to let them. It doesn't seem to be that big a deal for him.

Instead, he grins, and searches around until he finds a stool or something to sit at the drums with. He futzes with the setup for a second or two, apparently at least fairly familiar with the game drums, and then he looks back up to Shelby, still grinning. Above his head, the picture of a Wal-Mart's greeter badge appears. It says, 'Hello! MY NAME IS: Artie'.

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nowhearthis
2009-06-24 02:41 am UTC (link)

It’s a good thing Artie was one of the first Shelby had met, then, since others here probably wouldn’t have been as keen at Shelby’s inquisitiveness. But it’s not like she knew the social etiquette for all this mutant stuff. While Artie was focusing on the drum set up, Shelby went about quickly clicking through the game menu to start a new session and bring up the song selections. By the time the next bubble appeared, her attention was back on the other mutant, and she was still grinning at how kind of awesome that was. “Artie, that’s a cool name! And oh em gee please tell me everyone here has neato powers like yours. That’d be so…” Not really able to come up with the right word at the moment, Shelby just shook her head, still grinning. In a second here she’ll notice Artie’s lack of talking, but it hasn’t exactly hit home yet.

“This place is so cool already. I mean, seriously, though, this place is tons better than my last school.” Of course, this school did have the unfortunate side effect of putting her in a place all her friends weren’t, but that’s what the internet was for and after everything that happened that one day, things had been a little bit different, anyway. And of course, sadly enough, at some point or another Shelby’s going to learn first hand about the inherent dangers of living at Xavier’s and seriously wonder about this place.

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worthathousand
2009-06-24 02:25 pm UTC (link)

Artie really has no way to tell Shelby about the powers of the others in the mansion, although if he did, he'd very definitely not be telling her that everyone's powers are on the same level of awesome as his. Most of them are far more useful, granted, but not nearly as awesome, which is a fine but important distinction. Instead he simply gives Shelby a bemused little smile, letting the flow of her words wash over him like he does with so many of the would-be chatterboxes in the school. Eventually they stop long enough to take a breath and realize he can't participate in the conversation quite as much as they expected. It doesn't bother him much.

It would seem he's already got a login for this game, which is apparently the illustrious 'rtmads'. It would have been just 'rt' but, unsurprisingly, that'd been taken when he tried to take it himself. This doesn't bother him very much either, but Artie's long been the kind of person that just lets things fly right past him. To the comment that Xavier's was 'tons better' than the last school, however, Artie gives Shelby a dubious expression. His bubble appears again, this time to show a picture of the mansion during the daytime, all light and bright and seeming every bit as awesome as it seems now. Then there is the flip side--complete with cheap Power-point-esque crude animation--where the mansion is dark and terrible, with monsters hanging out of the window and basically looking like a ridiculous farce of something that might have been legitimately scary. You've got to watch out for the Hyde to this place's Jekyll.

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nowhearthis
2009-06-27 01:24 am UTC (link)

It’s definitely an important distinction. So what if some people could level parts of the city? Artie’s mutation was actually cool and interesting, and in Shelby’s book that’s far more important. Granted, she really didn’t know any of those with high destructive powers, but she knew some of them were here. She saw the news after that day in the city just like everyone else.

And you’ll have to excuse her, Artie. Shelby’s still in excited newbie mode. But when she does stop to take a breath, she does notice that the conversation is sort of one sided. Then she’s immediately distracted again by Artie’s cartoon bubbles. He expression turns slightly to a frown, but one of vague confusion. So…the mansion turns into a haunted house at night? She’d been here at night and it didn’t seem that bad to her. But it’s not like she knew everything about this place. “Wait, so it changes here? Is that what you’re saying?” Or not so much saying… “I mean, bubbling? Or- what do you call it?” Just in case there was a proper name that she wasn’t really getting close to here.

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