Room 714: Den of the Nerds

[blastinus]

(Reuben Walters start of school trip)

So this was a hotel room in Washington, DC, eh? Funny, it didn't look that different from a hotel in Tennessee.

When Reuben had first heard of the sleeping arrangements, he hadn't been too bothered by the fact that each room only had two beds. He was a skinny guy. You could just tape him to the side of the bed and he'd fit just fine. What he was more concerned about was whether there would be a sufficient number of outlets. He'd brought his laptop, his 3DS, his cell phone, and his Switch, all of which were going to need charging at intermittent times during the day. He had an electric toothbrush and an electric shaver as well, not that he really needed to use the latter. Hair hadn't quite reached his face yet, despite his best efforts.

Sure enough, a quick scan from the doorway showed two plugs next to the nightstand, four over the sink, two next to the TV. Not a cause for alarm if he was staying at a hotel with his parents. All they'd need would be an outlet for his dad's phone. But Reuben had an inkling about the folks he was staying with, and he knew, he knew very well, that eight plugs in total were going to be a contested commodity indeed.

But what could he say? Better them than staying with the jocks.

Reuben didn't really have what you'd call a deep relationship with any of the guys staying with him, other than chatting them up about games and movies and the like. Lucas and Matthew were really into film and acting, like way more than Reuben even. He'd seen Lucas's magnum opus. Really professional work for a guy his age. Phillip had his clown thing, of course. Kinda weird, but hey, who was he to judge?

Overall though, they seemed like they'd be a pretty harmless bunch, so when he'd heard they were looking for a roomie, he'd jumped at the opportunity. Now to see if he'd made the right call.

First things first, he actually needed to step into the room. He'd taken the lead and the other guys were probably wondering what was taking him so long. Aside from his laptop bag, his solitary piece of luggage was a small rolling bag where he'd packed his changes of clothes and his toiletries. He wasn't planning to take a lot of trips out on the town, and he just rolled it over to one corner of the room, where it would stay until it was time to get ready for bed.

"So uh..." he said to the room, "unless someone else needs it, I'm claiming the nightstand." His laptop in particular was running on fumes. They'd had some opportunities to stop, but nowhere near long enough to keep that baby topped off. It was going to be a long week in DC, and he would need it at peak performance if he was going to put off actually seeing anything.

[MurderWeasel]

"All yours, man, enjoy," Phillip said, bounding into the room after Reuben moved out of the doorway, opening the path.

It had been a long, long bus ride. Phillip didn't mind sitting around for a while, but there was a world of difference between loafing around in his room and being stuck on a bus bench for hours and hours. There wasn't even much space in a bus to lay out cards and get a game going or anything, no steady surfaces. He'd spent a good bit of his time reading through "Magic for Dummies" for probably the hundredth time. The yellow book was old and battered and well-loved, and still every time he cracked it open he found something new to take in or some pleasant turn of phrase to laugh about, even if the content was by this point mostly rudimentary and/or stuff he'd memorized.

It had felt really good to stretch his legs as he made his way into the hotel and towards their assigned base of operations for the week, but that had been enough of that. Sitting in a cramped space was exhausting, and the only cure he could see was to sit somewhere a bit more open.

Phillip had a backpack and a rolling bag. The former held the important stuff, his phone and his shitty old laptop and half a dozen paperback books and three decks of playing cards (one battered, one brand new, one an official set of Insane Clown Posse playing cards in a tin he'd scored on eBay for fifteen bucks shipped) and, of course, the Morton Boulder and corresponding tome. The rolling bag had less exciting stuff like clothes and toiletries.

He whipped the backpack off his back, unzipped it, pulled out his top hat, and snapped it open with a flick of his wrist, then set it atop his head and sank into a chair off on the side of the room, slouching forward a little and letting the brim shade his eyes and steepling his fingers in front of him in a practiced gesture. His stuff lay sort of randomly on the floor, but it was out of the way enough.

"Home sweet home," Phillip said. He'd wanted to come up with something cool or dark or menacing or funny, but it had been a terribly lengthy bus ride. He needed time to get back in gear.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

[LUCAS ABERNATHY - TRIP: START]
((Lucas Abernathy continued from Prom Night...))

Lucas was in a pretty good mood all things considered as he strolled his way into his hotel room. The trip had been tiring and he was rather happy with finally reaching his designated room. Why wouldn't he be? This was pretty much a school payed vacation to the nation's capital! There were sights to see, museums to check out, and generally having a good time! Plus the down time of just chilling in a hotel room. A wise person once said that chilling out on the bed in your hotel room watching television, while wearing your own pajamas, is sometimes the best part of a vacation. That's why he brought with him some of his personal collection of films, but in disk and USB form.

His roommates were all pretty good folk as well.

Reuben and Matthew were good pals of his, so he'll never be wanting in a conversation partner if and when the subject of movies is brought up. He'll probably drop a few movie quotes in casual conversation to test them. He had standards after all and they need to meet them!

Phillip he never really interacted with all that much. He knew of him, but couldn't say he knew him personally. He seemed like a chill enough guy. He did have this whole clown thing, though. A bit odd but he wasn't going to question it. Some people thought his obsession with creepy shit was also pretty weird, so he is really not one to judge. Although, when it came to clowns the first things that came to mind were IT and Killer Clowns From Outer Space. He wondered if he would get offended if he brought that stuff up? He kinda knew that those in the clown community thought that films like those gave clowns a bad name.

We all float down here... He thought, smirking to himself as he walked to an unclaimed bed and tossed his suitcase to its surface. He moved to the side of the bed and fell backwards onto it with a heavy impact causing him to bounce slightly before the bed settled. He sighed, satisfied as he placed his hands behind his head.

"There’s no place like home." He said in response to Philip's comment. Classic Wizard of Oz quotes right there. Good flick that one. Pretty scary too. Like, those flying monkeys? Terrifying! Should have brought that one with him upon retrospect. It has been a while since he last viewed it. Oh well.

[Super Weegee]

Ugh, finally.

Matthew let out a sigh of relief when he saw his room. Even with the portable charger he brought, which badly needs charging in of itself, his phone and Switch battery was nearly dead. When the wi-fi wasn't being utterly shit, the websites he was on were draining his battery. One minute, it was on ninety percent while he was reading a long article about a homicide in Tennessee, and it was at fifty when he reached the end of it. He was fairly sure that the site constantly loading ads were the culprit. When he decided to save on his phone usage, looking out of the window got boring fast. There's only so many times he can play 'I Spy'.

But he was here now, and he couldn't be more glad. The capital of the United States. He didn't really know where to go after he wakes up from his long-needed sleep. All he knew is that there was plenty to check out, and when he got bored? He can just hang out in his room, easy. His backpack and rolling bag held all that he needed. Along with the essentials like a change of clothes and a razor and stuff like that, he brought a handful of movies in disk and USB form, his laptop, his Switch, his 3DS, his headphones, and some candy he snuck out from home.

As he was setting his bags off to the side, he heard Lucas mention how it was no place like home...wait a minute...

"The Wizard of Oz!" Matthew said, snapping his fingers upon realizing it, "Nice try, Lucas."

He crouched down and double-checked that he brought the movies that he wanted. Everything was there, like Planet Earth, the Prince of Egypt, The Hunt, Spider-Man Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy, and...what's that?

He picked it up to see what it was, and...

...

...

...Oh fuck.

Matthew couldn't stop himself from gasping as he quickly put it back into the bag. Why the fuck did he bring that?! Scratch that, how the fuck did it get into his bag in the first place?! He quickly looked to his right to see if anybody saw or heard him.

[blastinus]

Reuben smirked at the Wizard of Oz exchange. They'd barely arrived in DC and the movie quiz was already beginning. Kind of a softball this time, but they'd only just finished a grueling bus ride. There was always time for things to start ramping up once they'd gotten settled in.

"Haven't seen that one in a while," he chimed in, plugging his laptop and his Switch into the wall. Philip had given the go-ahead, so he might as well. "Might be worth watching again." The Wizard of Oz had its issues, but as a kid, Reuben had enjoyed the song numbers, and as an adult, he appreciated the technical aspects of it and its enduring legacy to cinema. He was more of a fan of Casablanca, but as long as whoever was watching with him was okay with fast-forwarding the slow bits, The Wizard of Oz could be quite a fun ride.

Not that they'd have time for that on the trip if they were going through the films Matthew had brought along. Reuben cast a glance over and gave an approving nod at the selection. The Prince of Egypt especially was a neat Dreamworks piece that demonstrated that they were good for more than just stories about ogres and dragons. On the topic of Dreamworks animation, but unrelated to Matthew's selection, he was also a fan of the Road to El Dorado, though that was mostly for the character dynamics. Those were really good character dynamics.

He was startled from his reverie by Matthew grabbing something from his bag and then furtively jamming it back in. Reuben raised an eyebrow at that, but without any concrete information, there wasn't anything he could say really. Most likely, Matthew'd brought some porn or something. Everyone had their hidden shames, and it'd be rude to pry. Instead, he just commented, "Hey, you brought Spider-Man. That'll be fun, assuming there's a DVD player..." He hadn't checked the TV when they'd come in, but even if it didn't have a DVD or Blu-Ray or whatever player, all they'd need to do was hook up a laptop with an HDMI cable and they'd be set.

Assuming someone brought an HDMI cable. That'd also be an obstacle to his plan.

[MurderWeasel]

Was that Wizard of Oz reference supposed to be a tricky one? Was Phillip way out of touch with pop culture, to the point that he'd missed the Wizard of Oz somehow falling entirely out of the collective consciousness?

These weren't totally rhetorical questions running through his head; he'd grown up with an old VCR and a bunch of tapes from the twenty-five cent section of Goodwill, and that meant a whole lot of stuff that had been cool roughly half a decade before he was born. Still, all those classic bits about, well, flying monkeys and melting and the lollipop guild and not having a brain and all that, he was pretty sure he'd heard them in a wider and more contemporary context. Or wait, shoot, had he accidentally quoted some bizarre art film from the 1930s he'd never heard of that had worked its way so thoroughly into the minds of the masses that nobody but the major film buffs even knew its origin? Had he kicked off some reference-swap without even realizing? Was that what was going on?

Fortunately it didn't really matter. All Phillip had to do was go, "Mm hm," which he did, hopefully sounding like he was on the same page as everyone else.

Like, which Spider-Man were they talking about even, anyways? They had rebooted that one at least three times during Phillip's lifetime. Naturally, he knew the old-ass version with the Evil Dead guy in charge the best, because that was the one that could be had cheaply anywhere. It was pretty good. Spider-Man was pretty easy to sympathize with because the first thing he did when he realized he had crazy superpowers was go and try to become a professional wrestler, or like an underground cage-fighter or something—Phillip wasn't actually totally clear on precisely what it was that Peter Parker was doing when he went and threw down with that big beefy guy.

He couldn't really see anything going on in the room because his hat was in front of his eyes, but he also didn't care enough to fix that. He was torn between a desire to doze off and a need to burn off energy somehow, the bus ride having left him simultaneously antsy and lethargic.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Lucas shot a thumbs up into the air. "Good job!" He said, grinning. "But that was an easy one. If you had gotten it wrong I would have been sorely disappointed in you, my dude."

Lucas turned his attention to Reuben. "Damn right it is worth watching. Sure it probably hasn't aged too well, but a lot of classics haven't aged that well."

Lucas turned his head to face Matthew, his smile faltering as a expression of perplexion adorn his features as he saw Matt hurriedly put something back into his bag, clearly looking a little embarrassed by whatever it was. He didn't quite catch what it was, but it still made him curious as to what it was to invoke that reaction. Was it porn? Likely porn. Only logical thing was that it was porn. But Lucas wasn't going to press the issue since the poor guy was embarrassed enough as it was to not have people pressure him into revealing potentially sensitive material that he may or may not have intended to bring along with the trip.

Plus, he'd rather not find out what sort of porn someone was into. That shit was private. Your porn is like your asshole, you don't go showing it off to people.

So to spare Matthew he decided to address Reuben. "Don't worry about a DVD player, man. I came prepared."

Lucas sat up and pulled his suitcase closer to him, opening it up and fishing his hand inside it. He pulled out several item: a laptop, a portable DVD player, ten different DVDs, and finally a USB flashdrive. He pulled this items out and laid them upon the bed's surface, a hand waving over them in a dramatic fashion.

"Behold, for I come baring the gift of cinema! Helped paid for with money I got from my commission work." He said, beaming with pride. "I sell to leftists, and rightists. I'd sell to pacifists, but they're not the most regular customers."

Lucas smiled a cheeky grin. Let's see if anyone can guess that one.

[Super Weegee]

Good, it looks like they weren't going to pry as to what he's hiding. God, it's an insult to cinema...

He quickly got his composure together and heard Reuben mention something about him bringing the Spiderman movie. "Yeah, it'll be fun," Matthew said, "and it'll be more fun if you watched the movies before it." It wasn't as entertaining as the Sam Raimi movies, but hey, it could've been like the Amazing Spiderman 1 and 2.

After eyeing the bag again to make sure...that....wasn't in plain view, he saw Lucas being as dramatic as usual, mentioning something about leftists and rightists. Matthew tried to think of what movie he was quoting this time, but nothing came up in his mind. Was the quote him saying that it was the gift of cinema? Better pretend that he didn't look stumped and get his shit charging before it went dead.

He then walked to the bathroom and pulled his electronics out of his bag. "I'm going to charge up my stuff in the bathroom, if you don't mind." he said, pulling the charging cables out in the process. As he was plugging his phone and laptop in, he stopped and waited to see if the others wanted to claim dibs on the plugs and-

It suddenly clicked in him. He leaned out of the bathroom to look at Lucas.

"By the way, Lucas, Lord of War." Matthew said, grinning a bit.

Alright, it's my turn to quiz you now, mister expert.

"Man, I just wanna get in bed and watch Friends all day."

[blastinus]

Lord of War, huh? Reuben wasn’t a big Nicolas Cage fan. He had potential to be a really deep and insightful performer, but most of the time, people just hired him to act like a screaming weirdo. Still, this wasn’t a bad role for him. Better than Ghost Rider, at any rate.

Lucas unveiling his DVD-watching setup drew an appreciative whistle. All told, when the video games were factored in as well, there was absolutely no way that they’d get through all of this in a week, not unless they locked themselves in the hotel room and refused to come out. An interesting idea, but the teachers probably would be concerned. Plus they might get hungry at some point.

For his part, Reuben hadn’t brought any movies of his own. He didn’t tend to buy physical anything if he could find it on streaming video sites instead. All legit, of course. If his parents caught him pirating stuff, they’d throw a fit. Bit of a pain sometimes when it came to obscure media since not everything could be bought legitimately, but such was life. It wasn’t as if he was lacking in entertainment anyway.

Then Matthew got in on the game. Something something watch Friends...it sounded familiar but wasn’t immediately springing to mind. He wanted to say it was in a comedy...some kind of cop movie. Not CHIPS, the other one. The stupid high school cliches one. Or was it the sequel where it was college cliches instead...

“Jump Street...” he thought aloud. “No, uh...22 Jump Street. Forgot the number for a second. Movie didn’t really grab me.”

In truth, he didn’t like buddy comedies in general. It’s just two people bickering and screwing up until they stop arguing and instantly become a cohesive team. No gradual teamwork, just 0 to 100. It seemed really contrived.

[MurderWeasel]

Goddammit, everyone knew all these movie quotes from things Phillip had never even heard of. Like okay, he'd heard the name Jump Street, but he was pretty sure Reuben was off by a number? Like wasn't it twenty-one? Was that that old comedy from the—wait, no, he was thinking of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And wasn't Lord of War that incredibly violent video game about pulling Ares' organs out his esophagus and then shoving them up his ass or whatever? Actually, maybe it even was that and someone said that stuff Lucas had quoted; Phillip had never played the thing.

Truth was, he liked some weird over the top violent stuff but what exact forms of it he had access to was a little limited. Almost all of it revolved around clowns, and specifically ICP stuff or really mainstream stuff like Stephen King. His parents were, if not exactly chill with it, at least understanding. The same couldn't be said for splatterfest video games and honestly Phillip wasn't that sad about that. It wasn't the violence and insanity that drew him to ICP—well, okay, it was in part that—but rather the aggregate whole, the elements of parody and social commentary and the knowing humor behind it all that made it a community thing.

In fact, this whole movie geekery exchange needed a little more of the clown touch to it. Phillip didn't really mind being sidelined, and he was all for having fun with whatever weird things were your jam, but they'd moved into this so smoothly and perfectly that it was wigging him out a little, and also he'd had enough time, finally, to think about it and catch up and figure out how to step in and contribute to the proceedings. All these hipsters had no idea who they were messing with. He was gonna blaze through the room like a hurricane, leaving everyone scattered and dazed in his wake, unable to do anything but bow, mouths agape in awe of his magnificence.

"Okay, okay," Phillip said, "okay. Try this one on for size. Okay, so," and his voice took on a slightly nasal, haughty tone as he reached up and tilted his hat back, raising his chin and affecting an air of exaggerated dignity, "so, 'When knowledge is all one has to trade, but the fool who mans the well does not want it, then shall the wise dry up and blow away on the desert wind.'"

He leaned forward, grin spreading across his whole face. Yeah, he was more awake now, this was fun after all.

"Who was it who said that? Give it your best shot."

[TheLordOfAwesome]

"Dammit, beat me to it..." Lucas grimaced as Reuben beat him to the punch about guessing the 22 Jump Street quote.

Oh well.

These things happen. Part of the fun with quote guessing games is that anyone could chime in and guess. It took him a few seconds to think of the quote's origin but he was still late with trying to say it. In any case, Reuben had himself a point in this impromptu game, Matthew with 2. Lucas was standing at zero points. Damn shameful. Absolutely shameful for someone who was as knowledgeable on the subject as him. Still this was quite a bit of fun! It was fun on par with doing trivia with Tonya when they hanged out occasionally.

But it seemed like it was Philips turn to chime in with a quote! Lucas didn't figure him as a movie person, but maybe he would surprise him!

"When knowledge is all one has to trade, but the fool who mans the well does not want it, then shall the wise dry up and blow away on the desert wind."

Lucas frowned. The hell was that quote? It wasn't from a movie, at least not one Lucas has seen and he has seen a lot of movies. It was really more of a proverb if anything. Not fair! Proverbs were out of his wheelhouse! Maybe it was a video game quote? If it was he could use his girlfriend as a life line as she was more knowledgeable on that stuff than he was. Or maybe it was a quote from a real person? But who? Socrates? Plato? He didn't know philosophy either.

This was not fair.

"I don't fuckin' know." Lucas shrugged. "Is it a Socrates quote?"

[Super Weegee]

"...What?" Matthew said, frowning a bit, "Is it from the Ten Commandants or something?"

He couldn't begin to even take a guess on where that quote is from. The way it was worded had to be religious, but that was honestly his weakest area. Was it from the Bible or something? Was God saying it? Who the fuck knows. For someone who didn't seem like the movie type, Philip was giving even Lucas a run for his money.

Well, you know what they say. You can't win them all.

Matthew found himself getting a tad bit bored with just quoting the lines of the movie. From the way they were going, this whole game might be reduced to just quoting the most popular lines of a movie. Sure, that Lord of War one was a bit difficult, but come on.

Time to add some variety to the mix.

"How about something slightly different? What was that movie where a character named Edward runs around a town punching women, terrorizing small children, and stealing bikes at gunpoint until they get their revenge?"

He thought about including the part about the bees, but that would've made it too obvious. Sure, someone might know a movie based on a quote, but how about when the movie is taken out of context? Matthew had to suppress a grin at that and waited to see if anybody knows it.

[blastinus]

Reuben had to admit, he was stumped as well. Philosophy and poetry weren't his strong suits, and it didn't sound like something he'd recognize from one of the classic poets like Dickinson or Frost. No, it was plain to see that Phillip had pulled out something that was darn near unsolvable unless you were in the know. Quite the devious move. Immensely so.

"Guess you got us, Phillip," he huffed, scratching his chin. "I have absolutely no clue where to start."

If it was some comfort, nobody in the room seemed to have any idea what Phillip was talking about either, so there was no reason to feel like he was just too dumb to get it. For all he knew, Phillip could have pulled a fast one and just made up a quote on the spot. Not that he'd accuse him of it without proof, but there was a very real possibility. He'd flipped his laptop open and tried typing it in now that he'd given up, and absolutely nothing was arising from the prompt, even when he'd written it entirely. It must have been something so obscure that even the internet didn't care about it.

"Huh," he muttered, "even Google doesn't know..."

Reuben looked up when Matthew suddenly piped up with a new prompt. Was that allowed? He figured the rule was that the person giving the prompt got to go again or something. But in all fairness, this wasn't a game set in stone, so who even cared, really?

Interesting change of pace with the prompt actually. Reuben had a pretty good idea which movie Matthew was talking about. There weren't too many films where people remember it for a guy punching women in the face, after all. However, much as it'd be simple to just rattle off the answer, he figured he'd hand the softball over to Lucas, since he hadn't gotten a point yet and it didn't seem fair to hog all the glory.

"Hmm...not ringing a bell," he lied. "You have any idea, Lucas?" It was to Reuben's advantage that his voice was so monotone that sincerity and insincerity were essentially one and the same. Didn't matter if they made fun of him for missing something so obvious. It wasn't as if he had any pride to lose anyway.

[MurderWeasel]

Nobody got the source of Phillip's proclamation, which was the first phase of the plan, but then everyone just sort of shrugged and moved on, which was not the second phase. They were supposed to, he didn't know, at least be curious or something? That was how he'd get to gloat. Granted, maybe it was good that they'd breezed on past the reveal, because sometimes people got a little pissy about being tricked and Phillip had played a good trick indeed, a pretty basic form of misdirection but clever nonetheless. He was especially proud of the bit where he made it seem like he was poorly imitating someone specific, lent the whole thing real verisimilitude.

See, in riddles, especially the lateral thinking sort of riddle, the key to success lay in coming to understand what was actually being asked and what was merely an assumption based upon unspoken norms, which were worth the paper they weren't printed on. In this case, nobody had explicitly said it was the movie quote game, or even the famous quote game. Phillip had asked who'd said what he'd said, and laid out in so many words it was, he thought, pretty damn obvious what the solution/punchline was.

"Socrates and Moses wish they were on that level," Phillip said. "I said it."

A wink. A tip of the top hat. A finger gun. Then time to move on. Reuben had punted Matthew's question over to Lucas but Phillip was gonna just slip right in there and take a swing at it first, to make himself look a bit like an ass but not of the "hole" variety because he was like eighty, ninety percent sure he was wrong which would help ease the sting of having totally outwitted everyone here.

"And that sounds like Twilight, right?"

He was pretty sure he was wrong but he also had no idea what else it could be, no movies with any Edwards coming to mind except Edward Scissorhands and if he punched a woman in the face Phillip was pretty sure that would've been memorable enough to stick with him.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Lucas frowned, and then his frown deepened in dawning realization that he lost the quote guessing game. Philip cheated with a made up quote and then Matt decided to switch up the game. This was unfair. He was suppose to be good at this! Why does it have to be like this?! He hung his head in defeat, maybe a little dramatic but fuck it. Still not all hope was lost, he could play the new game Matt was doing.

But before that, one last quote.

"I know what it's like to lose," He said, picking up the USB and inspecting it. "To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless." He slid off the bed and stood up with the USB still in hand, beginning to walk slowly over to Philip. "It's frightening, turns the legs to jelly. But I ask you, to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now, it's here. Or should I say..." As he reached Philip he held up the USB, smiling wickedly. "I AM."

With his free hand he snapped his fingers, the sound sharply and loudly reverberating through the hotel room, and pointed at Matthew.

"The Wicker Man, released on September 1st in the United States and Canada and September 2nd in Germany back in 2006, written and directed by Neil LaBute and starring Nicolas Cage." He recited this information with the quick efficiency of a super computer. If there was one thing that could be said about Lucas, it was that his memory for remembering details about movies was second to none.

With that out of the way he handed Philip the USB.

"Guess this movie guys: a pair of wizards travel to the future to look for a princess, they get into a street fight with some thugs, and they find the villain's lair by tracing a licence plate number." He smiled cockily and moved back over to his bed and took a seat. Assured that no one here could even remotely guess the movie. "The answer is on the USB, by the way. So if you give up you can check it."