Goddamn Teenagers (Worm, AU/time travel)

[dc2008]

"Brian being boring and responsible makes sense. Don't see that changing though unless he or me go on a trip somewhere." Aisha said slowly. "But travel and hotels and shit cost money?"

Taylor searched deep in her memory. "Mom used to have these, uh, trainings and meetings and stuff for work? Does the PRT have that?"

"A what now?"

Taylor is wiggled her fingers indecisively. "It was a thing? Mom would go to a place, with lots of other people who did what she did, and work would put her up in a shitty hotel? She would do classes and presentations and work stuff during the day and then at night go out with all her friends from other places who had also got their work to send them?"

Aisha blinked. "Is that normal? For work to do?"

Taylor shrugged. "I don't know? Dad doesn't do it, but maybe the PRT does? They have bases everywhere, so guest rooms and stuff? Maybe there are classes and stuff that don't get taught much in the Bay he could go take somewhere else?"

---

Note:
Considering Annette was in her younger days, hmmm, politically active, and I doubt she was the only such person to go into academia, I wonder what kind of mischief she got up to at conferences?

I also love the idea of Aisha and Taylor sitting there trying to figure out what this "work trip" is, like a couple of anthropologists reconstructing historical events from half-remembered oral tradition…

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Considering Annette was in her younger days, hmmm, politically active, and I doubt she was the only such person to go into academia, I wonder what kind of mischief she got up to at conferences?

Click to shrink...

Obviously, they would sit-up into the wee small hours, drinking coffee, and discussing political theory, as well as how various political philosophers had developed their theories over time.

The phrases 'party hard', 'fancy cocktails', and 'dance till dawn', would in no ways describe anything done. There would also be... no objectification of men, and no... encouragement of their dancing skills using paper money.

Earth Bet has dollar coins, you'd have to use five-dollar bills! Academics aren't that well paid!

 

[grommile]

Obviously, they would sit-up into the wee small hours, drinking coffee, and discussing political theory, as well as how various political philosophers had developed their theories over time.

The phrases 'party hard', 'fancy cocktails', and 'dance till dawn', would in no ways describe anything done. There would also be... no objectification of men, and no... encouragement of their dancing skills using paper money.

Click to shrink...

Hey, if your open-til-7am nightclub doesn't have a coffee machine behind the bar, I'm not going there twice.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Hey, if your open-til-7am nightclub doesn't have a coffee machine behind the bar, I'm not going there twice.

Click to shrink...

That is not the same thing as having a 'room party', in your third-rate hotel, drinking free hotel coffee (that comes with the rooms), with UHT milk in it. Maybe one of you had the forethought to bring a jar of powdered non-dairy creamer! Another a packet of dried-fruit cookies! Luxury!

I have, of course, never attended one of these. Never.

 

[grommile]

That is not the same thing as having a 'room party', in your third-rate hotel, drinking free hotel coffee (that comes with the rooms), with UHT milk in it. Maybe one of you had the forethought to bring a jar of powdered non-dairy creamer! Another a packet of dried-fruit cookies! Luxury!

Click to shrink...

I was reading your suspiciously specific denial with a suitable degree of specific suspicion, especially after the comment on currency

 

[nicoo]

Of course she doesn't. QA has no further interest in her. At all. Just ask Lisa's Power, she'll tell you all about that!

Click to shrink...

Yes, plus she'd never ask other-Best-Host young!Taylor to make some spiders behave for her. :3

 

[dc2008]

I expect that since GM, jaded!Taylor doesn't often find threats to be necessary. Simply a statement of position, possibly preceded or followed by a brief chat from someone else along the lines of "do you know who she is!"

She is very much someone who people work with or around, rather than someone who is often confronted directly. Particularly as her go-to strategy for addressing unsatisfactory situations leans more toward "creative problem solving" rather than direct confrontation.

 

[nicoo]

Hey, if your open-til-7am nightclub doesn't have a coffee machine behind the bar, I'm not going there twice.

Click to shrink...

That is not the same thing as having a 'room party', in your third-rate hotel, drinking free hotel coffee (that comes with the rooms), with UHT milk in it. Maybe one of you had the forethought to bring a jar of powdered non-dairy creamer! Another a packet of dried-fruit cookies! Luxury!

Click to shrink...

Also some Plopp chocolate which every-so-often causes outbreaks of contagious giggling, and a big illustrated encyclopedia of airplanes you got in a random thrift shop in France last year and decided to gift your friend who wants to get licensed to fly aircraft.
Can confirm, those are the best room parties not to go to, and not end up having all the friends come over and not talk about "medium-energy" electrical engineering, animatronics, cryptography, etc.

Though if one ever is at a conference and too dead to go down to the actual event, remember one can make the hallway track come to your room, or at least the subset thereof which you are friends with... and whoever gets dragged in the wake. Very helpful for the professionally gay and tired chronically ill.

---

Particularly as her go-to strategy for addressing unsatisfactory situations leans more toward "creative problem solving" rather than direct confrontation.

Click to shrink...

And presumably, everyone uptime knows why they don't want her to get Creative.

 

[dc2008]

And presumably, everyone uptime knows why they don't want her to get Creative.

Click to shrink...

Uptime, she's the woman who killed god. Downtime, depending on who you ask, she's either an unknown, the one responsible for exploding the S9, or the one who not only convinced RCB to heavily support mental health treatment, but then later convinced her to willingly retire. Oh, and Valkyrie always takes her calls.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

And presumably, everyone uptime knows why they don't want her to get Creative.

Click to shrink...

Worse, she's missing her emotionally co-dependent Uptime!Lisa.

 

[dc2008]

Note: This is in the same continuity as the last two, but it is not necessarily canon to the main story.

---

"Congratulations," Aisha said, as she set down her mask on the table in front of Lisa, "your dumbassery worked in our favor for once."

Lisa sputtered, as Aisha sat down next in the chair to her.

"I was 'summoned'," Aisha continued, "along with Defiant, to a meeting with your favorite person in the whole world."

"Fucking cunt."

"Yes," Aisha rolled her eyes, "I know. We opened with a discussion expressing disappointment at your 'juvenile' behavior and 'ill-considered attempts at petty retaliation and malicious compliance.'…"

Earlier

"… a perfectly rational decision as to allocation of resources."

Aisha and Defiant shared a look. Finally, Defiant cleared his throat. "She hasn't changed?"

"Of course she has, the number of complaints in the last week alone!" The frustration was palpable, which, fair, Lisa. "As to her handling of this most recent… event, we're lucky we didn't have an inter-planetary incident."

Aisha was too tired for this shit. "Look, toots, she has always been like this. Hell, Tats ain't nearly so bad as when I first met her. It's just, uh, Dr. Hebert found it endearing or some shit and kept a lid on it? I've tried to keep an eye on her, but I sort of have my hands full with all the actual children."

Defiant nodded earnestly. "Despite her idiosyncrasies, Dr. Hebert was invaluable in liaising with Tattletale…"

Now

"I'm not going to sit here and listen to you say things about me," Lisa bit out.

Aisha sighed heavily. "Yeah, well somehow dealing with all the people dealing with your bullshit finally convinced The Mighty One that maybe we weren't talking out our ass about the dangers of letting you or her run around unsupervised."

Lisa blinked, then started cackling, before breaking out into sobs.

"Yeah, yeah," Aisha said as she rubbed Lisa's back. "Laugh it up. You being you finally convinced them to help us get our girl back."

---

Note: Have an early bonus, to celebrate another hundred chapters!

 

[nicoo]

Worse, she's missing her emotionally co-dependent Uptime!Lisa.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, but they don't know that downtime

 

[dc2008]

"So," Lisa asked, "you never told us what your doctorate is in?" She, Aisha and Dr. Weaver were having brunch after the younger girls' morning exercise.

The older woman shrugged. "Technically, I have two, English and Parahuman Studies. Well, and a bunch of honorary ones."

Lisa blinked. She wasn't expecting that, although to be fair she wasn't sure what she'd been expecting.

"Oh, come on," Aisha said. "You can't leave us hanging! Story time!"

Dr. Weaver sighed. "I didn't set out to get any of them. Parahuman Studies was first, eventually older!you and some people at, hmm, call it PRT 2.0, badgered me into it. I'd been writing articles and teaching on an ad hoc basis for years, but we kept running into assholes from alternates who insisted that their one treatise and a fancy title meant they could ignore me."

"Then a few years later older!you," the older woman nodded to Lisa, "as a gift endowed an English department at a new university on Gimel, named in honor of my mother. They awarded me a doctorate and made me honorary chair. At first I was ambivalent, it felt like cheating. Then older!Lisa showed me how she'd taken a bunch of these Tolkien articles I'd written for fun and packaged them up. Apparently people were impressed."

"Tolkien articles?" Lisa asked.

"Sure, many of the alternates we contacted either had his works or a close analogue. As a hobby I had been writing scholarly analyses comparing and contrasting them across alternates."

Aisha laughed. "Let me get this straight. You accidentallied two super-advanced degrees, for fun, while living in the apocalypse?"

---

Note: Oh, the honorary degrees were what my versions of you two thought of as gag gifts.

 

[BethofDeath]

"It was only a Tolkien effort, but it was enough."

 

[dc2008]

Previously

"… then Kaiser said—" the man began.

"Fuck Kaiser," Alabaster interrupted. His men nodded. "He got us in this mess. No, we're getting out, but we're gonna do one last job on the way. Show them what the Empire is made of!"

Now

Rachel looked up sharply. Angelica was in her lap, Wafa and the night's student were playing cards after dinner. Things were quiet.

"Something's wrong," she said.

The student asked questions.

"Can't feel Angelica, power's not working," Rachel said, getting up. Angelica followed her as she headed toward the back door.

"Where are you going?" Wafa asked. "We should go downstairs to the safe room."

The student was making concerned noises about his phone not working.

"Seeing to the dogs," Rachel said, as she shrugged on her fancy armored vest. "And getting a shovel."

As she walked out, she disconnected the generator. The lights went out, which only confirmed what she already knew. Somebody wanted to play games.

Elsewhere

"There go the lights," the man said to Alabaster. "Power's out, and with that Toybox thing only you have powers."

"Let's go," said the parahuman. "It's just one girl. This should be quick."

---

Note: Yep, just one unpowered girl, at her own farm, at night, with no artificial light but what you're carrying.

 

[Emagstar]

"There go the lights," the man said to Alabaster. "Power's out, and with that Toybox thing only you have powers."

"Let's go," said the parahuman. "It's just one girl. This should be quick."

Click to shrink...

At the start of the night: "Ha ha! My power means that I cannot die!" -Alabaster

At the end of the night: "DeAr gOd, my power means that I cannot die!" -Alabaster

 

[MaimakteriAnn]

Yeah, it's weird how people keep wanting to torture someone who can't feel pain by hitting him or similar.

 

[dc2008]

"Boss, there's no one here."

Alabaster swore. "Keep looking." This was supposed to be easy, it was one girl! But the house was empty, everything was too dark, there were too many sheds and shit, and people kept tripping on shit.

"Uh, Boss?"

"What."

"Where's Johnson?"

Motherfucker. "Regroup at the cars."

A few minutes later

Alabaster stared at the cars.

"Yeah, I don't think we're leaving in those," someone unhelpfully said, and they weren't wrong. The tires were slashed. Something smeared on the windshields and lights. Worst of all, the gas caps were off, with unmarked empty containers discarded nearby. Alabaster wasn't a car guy, but he sure as shit wasn't going to be starting either of these with who knew what in the tank.

Elsewhere

"Piggot." Emily said, picking up the phone. She had been enjoying that rarest of luxuries, a quiet evening at home.

"Canary alert for the Lindt farm. Called, no answer, no signal. We're going to full alert, as per SOP."

Emily sighed. "Confirmed, full recall, full mobilization, safety check on all families and dependents. Send a car. And someone brief Dr. Weaver." She wasn't a fan of Ms. Lindt, never had been, but the woman was one of hers now.

---

Note: Remember, boys and girls, it's not an "evil villainous lair", it's the home of an unmasked, non-combatant Ward.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

[Country Living, Part 2]

Click to shrink...

This is 'Home Alone', E88/GDT style, isn't it?

This more reminds me of the (near) quote, 'I'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me'...

Spoiler: Yer Wot?

I recall reading Watchmen (as a graphic novel), and thinking that this is what superhero comics get like when they go non-mythological; the idea that they're modern day Greek/Norse/Celtic/etc. myths has entertained me for a while.

For extra fun, V for Vendetta was out about the same time, and I'd been reading Warrior's Marvelman (later renamed 'Miracleman' because the editor hadn't done their trademark homework...).

While 'Worm' and Wildbow are really impressive, Alan Moore had arguably done a lot that, about 30-years before...

​

Memorable characters...

 

[FaerieKnight79]

Yeah, my belief is that Wildbow was trying to write a superhero deconstruction on the level of Watchmen. But unlike Alan Moore, Wildbow doesn't understand the tropes and settings he was trying to deconstruct. Watchmen works because Alan Moore knew the tropes, knew why they are used, and knew why they work. He'd been working in the industry for a while at the time.

 

[dc2008]

"Boss," a voice sounded out into the night.

Alabaster winced, but an over-looked downside of the tinkertech broad-spectrum jammer they'd brought was that, well... it was a broad-spectrum jammer. Yes, it blocked their enemy's comms, because it blocked all comms. However, it wasn't until he was out here, in the dark, that Alabaster really apprecaited that mean it would block his comms too.

Maybe there was a reason this stuff had just been sitting unused in the back of that stash house.

"Boss?"

"Over here!" Alabaster finally replied. He could hear the sound of boots hitting the ground as someone approached. Murray from the sound of it.

"I found Johns--" Murray's voice began, right before a loud clattering noise erupted, followed immediately by the sound of a person hitting the ground.

Alabaster approached. "You OK, man?"

"Yeah," Murray said, getting up. "Landed right in a pile of dog shit though, Christ. Anyway, we found Johnson, he's unconscious in the back of that barn over there. Got locked in some kind of cage."

Alabaster resisted the urge to scream. What was supposed to be a quick in-and-out was becoming significantly more complicated.

"Here's what we're going to do. Here are the car keys. There are bolt-cutters in the trunk of car 2. Get them and then meet me over at the barn. We'll figure this out."

"Sure thing, boss," Murray said, heading toward the cars.

10 minutes later

"Murray," Alabaster said, approaching the cars, "where the fuck are you? I've been over there waiting forever--oomph."

Picking himself up, Alabaster turned to see what he'd tripped on now. Fumbling with his phone, he turned on the light to find Murray, face-down and bleeding from a head wound. A quick search revealed that his gear was gone, his pockets were empty, and even his shoelaces were cut. Struck by a sudden premonition, Alabaster approached the cars slowly. The trunk was open, although he could tell the interior lights had been shut off, and as he shone the light in, furry blobs zipped out of his cone of vision. Examining more closely, he found some sort of animal feed had been tossed into the cab, the spare tire was slashed, and the toolkit gone.

 

[dc2008]

A single gunshot split the air, followed by the chatter of return fire, then screams. Finally.

Shortly Thereafter

Alabaster was shot, for the first time that evening, as he rounded the corner of the farmhouse.

"Motherfucker!" Alabaster said, as he reset.

"Sorry, boss," a voice said from the darkness.

It took Alabaster longer than he was comfortable with to regain control of the situation. While Benoit, Cohen and O'Neill were all adamant that they didn't fire first, they'd somehow all wound up shooting each other in the darkness. None were in danger of bleeding out, but they weren't going to be good for anything else.

It took him longer than it should have to realize that he was the only one who had responded to the shootout. Garcia and Klein were missing, leaving him as the only one left conscious, accounted for, and uninjured.

---

Note: Not gonna lie, had fun with the names. European fascism was a truly cross-cultural affair, and the tent has only gotten bigger with time.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

It took Alabaster longer than he was comfortable with the regain control

Click to shrink...

'the' should be 'to'?

---

This is a nice set-piece. I like how you are using environmental conditions to make this work. Lots of authors (and DMs/GMs/refs) seem to assume because they can 'see' what's going on, their characters can, too. One reason why (character) knowledge of an area, and/or having enhanced senses, should be so useful.

Fear and doubt can be fun!

 

[dc2008]

'the' should be 'to'?

---

This is a nice set-piece. I like how you are using environmental conditions to make this work. Lots of authors (and DMs/GMs/refs) seem to assume because they can 'see' what's going on, their characters can, too. One reason why (character) knowledge of an area, and/or having enhanced senses, should be so useful.

Fear and doubt can be fun!

Click to shrink...

Fixed the typo—thanks!

Environmental factors are critical to making a memorable encounter. It's something I learned to really focus on when running ttrpgs and LARPs. I knew I was succeeding when the aggressive min/max types started spending XP on things to help them deal with adverse environmental conditions, and to help them run/jump/climb/swim.

Here, Rachel has very good local area knowledge, is in good shape, and has a lot of recent experience living rough, and not all of it in cities. In a more conventional indoor engagement, or in an area where both had comparable area knowledge, the fight would go very differently.

 

[dc2008]

Alabaster frantically rooted through the kitchen drawers.

The entire operation had been a disaster, half his men were down, none dead thank god, and the other half were entirely missing. He'd given up on the girl or the PRT, now he just wanted out. Preferably with at least some of his men.

He wasn't Kreig, he could learn, and it was pretty goddamn clear that wandering off through the countryside was only ending one way. He needed some fucking wheels. While his cars were fucked, that girl had a truck right there, if he could only find the goddamn keys.

Finding nothing but kitchen shit, Alabaster ripped out the drawer in frustration and threw it across the room. Fuck it. There was a shed. There were too many sheds, one of them would have a toolkit. He'd just hot wire the damn thing.

He took one last look around, but no keys appeared. After kicking the fridge a few times and flipping the table, he opened the freezer and stomped out the door.

As he re-entered the yard, he stepped on a piece of dog shit because of course he did, not a dog to be seen but shit was still appearing everywhere. Bending down to scrape off his shoe, he stood up sharply at a sudden movement, only to see a dark shape rapidly approaching his head.

---

Note: Alternate titles for this sequence: Country Girls Have More Fun, Doing It Country Style, An American Welcome, An American Farm, This One Time At Dog Camp.

Also Note: Forgotten, Forsaken is updating! Very different tone than this (cw: sad/feels/hope), but yay! Knowledge of the other side of the cross is not needed and if anything discouraged—I was sad to find out how much of the world-building was original to the fic and not innate to the setting. Forgotten, Forsaken (Post Canon Worm/Kantai Collection)