Remove ads

CmptrWz's Random Snippets

Reader mode
Remove ads
Use of Snippets
  • Informational
    • As a general note: All snippets in this thread can be considered up for adoption, with a couple of basic conditions:
    1. If you use my actual text, in whole or in part, please credit me.
    2. Please drop a note here stating that you've started a story based on a snippet, with link(s) as appropriate. Even if the site says "there haven't been any posts here for a while..."
    Though as of this posting, people without a sufficient messages count can't bypass the warning on replies. Feel free to message me directly if that's the case.
     
  • Informational
    • FaerieKnight79 said:
    And with it being a known (to law enforcement at least) thing that trigger events are a thing
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It was generally unknown, even amongst law enforcement.

    Well, the ones that might have any influence on public schools, at least. Which probably wasn't the PRT's wheelhouse for some time, and that influence almost certainly wouldn't extend to "replace the lockers" over a school that didn't have a Ward until late 2010.

    And even if they were supposed to be phased out...

    It doesn't mean they were.

    Again, my old HS still had the older style lockers. Plenty of them, in fact, and I know that they were only replaced with smaller ones while I was in middle school as my brother used the old big lockers in his freshman year. And even then, there were still some around as faculty storage while I went there, as late as 2014.

    And I didn't go to some shit school, mind you. I didn't like it, but it underwent several large-scale renovations and expansions while I was living in the area, including new buildings. They had the money to do the lockers when I was in first grade, but they only got replaced years after.

    Lockers are only really updated when they are necessary to do so, why waste the money on replacing metal boxes with different metal boxes instead of, say, expanding an atheltics program or buying new computers to replacing the aging old ones?

    Or, in my school district's case, building a multi-purpose athletics building, complete with two swimming pools and a basketball court.

    Besides, this argument is kinda moot, because Taylor did get shoved and locked into a locker for an unspecified but traumatic amount of time.
     
    Last edited:
    Moving on to something completely different;
    CmptrWz said:
    And I wanted to have you deliberately focus on a couple of things as a test
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    CmptrWz said:
    "She gave telling you an eighty-two something percent chance of making things worse, but that was the general wording. If 'worse' wasn't for Taylor agreeing to join but instead for the results of her using the machine then it could be that your desire for Taylor to push for something specific was going to create a problem."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    CmptrWz said:
    "I'd originally hoped to have you do a 'same appearance, different powers' while trying to focus on what the different powers would be. Obviously we didn't do that."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I wonder what Fiona wanted Taylor to focus on, since it seems likely that that was the main possible problem being circumvented by the group.
    Personally I suspect that it would be something regarding QA's place in the shard hierarchy that would either directly or indirectly cause problems, but the kind of problems could be rather wide ranging, considering Taylor's general Taylorness.
    It is of course also possible (even likely) that there were no plans from the author's side regarding the problems, beyond a vague 'they could have existed, and been bad'.
     
    ShiftingSandLand said:
    It was generally unknown, even amongst law enforcement.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I always thought this was a huge loophole in Worm.

    Given the nature of Trigger Events, and that they mostly happen to teenagers, which leaves you with most people getting powers being poorly adjusted in some manner, the PRT should be the worlds most aggressive child welfare agency.

    Want to stop villains? Prevent Triggers in the first place. Want to attract new Triggers instead of having them go Villain? Have the reputation for being helpful, and coming down like a ton of bricks on the people who cause trigger events.

    Instead there some kind of paramilitary super SWAT cops, which don't do anything to change underlying issues, and are inadequate to deal with the fallout of a Parahuman.
     
    TypoNinja said:
    I always thought this was a huge loophole in Worm.

    Given the nature of Trigger Events, and that they mostly happen to teenagers, which leaves you with most people getting powers being poorly adjusted in some manner, the PRT should be the worlds most aggressive child welfare agency.

    Want to stop villains? Prevent Triggers in the first place. Want to attract new Triggers instead of having them go Villain? Have the reputation for being helpful, and coming down like a ton of bricks on the people who cause trigger events.

    Instead there some kind of paramilitary super SWAT cops, which don't do anything to change underlying issues, and are inadequate to deal with the fallout of a Parahuman.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Ah, yes, the classic "the organisation should do what it says it was created to do" fallacy. The PRT wasn't created to keep a lid on triggers. It was created to be an end-run around people who were creating such an organisation, by Alexandria on behalf of Cauldron, to keep their stupid "maximise triggers" idea in play.

    Also, when was the last time you saw any government agency doing anything to "combat" a problem that actually involved reducing the problem rather than punishing someone for creating it in the first place? "What, reduce crime X? So we're less relevant? That way lies madness! And budget cuts!"
     
    Last edited:
    Mr_Rose said:
    Also, when was the last time you saw any government agency doing anything to "combat" a problem that actually involved reducing the problem rather than punishing someone for creating it in the first place?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The DEA comes to mind actually.

    They'll do international cooperation to try and stop drugs at the distribution step so they never even make it into the country.
     
    TypoNinja said:
    The DEA comes to mind actually.

    They'll do international cooperation to try and stop drugs at the distribution step so they never even make it into the country.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    So they go to the first step they can access (which is NOT the root of the problem) and do VISIBLE THINGS to keep their budget up. And even then, that only is affecting the imported drug chain, things like Cocaine or Opium. Meth, LSD, and various prescription drugs are all unaffected by those actions, despite being equally under the DEA's remit.
     
    Eeffoc said:
    I wonder what Fiona wanted Taylor to focus on, since it seems likely that that was the main possible problem being circumvented by the group.
    Personally I suspect that it would be something regarding QA's place in the shard hierarchy that would either directly or indirectly cause problems, but the kind of problems could be rather wide ranging, considering Taylor's general Taylorness.
    It is of course also possible (even likely) that there were no plans from the author's side regarding the problems, beyond a vague 'they could have existed, and been bad'.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Also wondering what exactly Fiona wanted Taylor to focus on.

    My guess on the problems was that it would have resulted in the duplicate having Khepri-like powers and that really wasn't something they would have wanted to deal with. But I'm not sure what kind of prompt would have suggested that.

    (And I'm guessing that Taylor took up the full use because she already had a 2nd trigger so the machine would have needed to set up a 3rd trigger. But I suppose it could also have been a QA's-place-in-the-hierarchy thing.)
     
    The thing is, the lockers big enough to shove a person into pretty much REQUIRE that the locker be empty. WB posted a picture of the kind of lockers he was thinking of when he wrote that, and the only difference between his and the ones I dealt with in high school was the color. And to be honest, at that point in my life, I matched Taylor's general body description except that I'm male. It would have taken SERIOUS effort to shove me into one of those lockers, and likely would have broken bones in the process. A locker full of literal trash? The entirety of Worm is Taylor's dying dream, because she DIED being forced INTO that locker. (And in wildbow's world? Sophia would have been given a medal for it, probably.)
     
    As a teen (even up until I was 23) I wasn't just a 98 pound weakling. I was a 98 pound soaking wet while wearing jeans, sweat pants, and a wool sweater weakling. No, seriously. That plus a pair of shoes was what it took when I was 20 to weigh in as 100 pounds even. And there's no way I would have fit in even the largest lockers still in use in the 90's, let alone by 2011. It wasn't until I was 30 that I even weighed 150 pounds normally, and by that point I was getting overweight.
     
    FaerieKnight79 said:
    As a teen (even up until I was 23) I wasn't just a 98 pound weakling. I was a 98 pound soaking wet while wearing jeans, sweat pants, and a wool sweater weakling. No, seriously. That plus a pair of shoes was what it took when I was 20 to weigh in as 100 pounds even. And there's no way I would have fit in even the largest lockers still in use in the 90's, let alone by 2011. It wasn't until I was 30 that I even weighed 150 pounds normally, and by that point I was getting overweight.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    As a teen in highschool in the 90s, I weighed in at around 210 pounds, and just over 6 feet tall. I fit in my schools lockers just fine if I crouched a bit. Different schools have different lockers.
     
    DestinyPlayer said:
    My school didn't even have lockers. We just had to lug whatever books and such we were going to need for the day with ourselves all the time.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    As I recall, that was basically what students did anyway. Lockers were just used to hold one's coat and maybe snow boots. Mostly due to there not being enough time between classes to constantly make a run to your locker to get books out.
     
    DestinyPlayer said:
    My school didn't even have lockers. We just had to lug whatever books and such we were going to need for the day with ourselves all the time.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Same here in Italy, lockers in my public education period were a luxury for Universities and the extremely rare in-school gym that had them. And even those were too small to fit anyone bar a kindergartener inside.
     
    IDK why, but for some odd reason, the only students in my high school that had access to lockers were those in the Journalism club... it's been over 20 years and I have never ever thought about that until just now.

    EDIT:
    The provided lockers were too small to hold anyone except a toddler, so definitely no pulling of the same stunt as in Worm canon...
     
    Last edited:
    My High School had four different types of lockers in it and none of them could have fit someone of Taylor's height. One style could have had someone who was skinny and like less then 4'8" shoved in. The second set couldn't have fit anyone in it because they were two separate but connected compartments, one that was sixish inches wide but four foot tall for your coat, jacket, and empty bookbag, and one that was for your books and other supplies. The third type were just large locking cubbies with a more mesh style door. And the last were the gym lockers that were the same style as the first but even smaller because they didn't need to fit a coat or bookbag. The reason we had so many different style of lockers was that my High School had been added onto twice and they didn't try to make things match. The second floor for the building had three different levels for Pete's sake.
     
    I know for a fact there are, or used to be lockers in high schools that students could be shut into... I knew someone who climbed into a locker and had someone close the door on them just to prove they could actually fit into it. I know the dumb things people will do just to prove they can...

    Not that it was a comfortable fit, but they did fit in. I'm also fairly sure that they would not have been able to open the door from the inside as it would have been difficult to get their arms in the correct position to do so after the door was closed.

    Of course that was in a hallway locker not one of the larger lockers they had for sports. I know i would not have been able to fit in the hallway locker, but one of the sport lockers would have been fairly easy to get into and close the door. Of course it was like 2 foot wide and near 6 foot tall so most people could probably get into one of those.
     
    Does this count as rehashing arguments over canon details now?

    Isiri Pudireach said:
    You've got the primary conflict finished, you didn't give a way to take out Endbringers, and since Contessa is their biggest patron Cauldron isn't a problem. Couple that with none of the characters having any reason to go after any of the S class threats, and they just don't have much of anything to do. At best, you could maybe pull a slice of life fic out of it.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    See, I can't help but think the same things could have been said about Mauling Snarks, and, well, look at it. Slice of life is not exactly out of CmptrWz's wheelhouse in general.

    Sometimes, things just don't click.

    -Morgan.
     
    Winslow was a very old school with nothing updated, so the lockers would be old ones easily able to fit a couple of freshman with some effort. Hmmm. What if they shoved someone in with Taylor for trying to stop them?
     
    As I commented in mine, though - wildbow posted a picture of the kind of lockers he was thinking of, and I would not have fit in one of those at that age, when I was built a lot like her, but male. (And ours were the same ones, just beige instead of green like in his photo.) And if it was packed with all that crap that canon says? Taylor was in the hospital for broken bones and stuff as well, because Sophia broke her physically in order to break her mentally.
     
    Can we stop with the locker stuff? It's been half a week and you do not need to get one last word in. Everything about the subject has been said.
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top