Remove ads

Goddamn Teenagers (Worm, AU/time travel)

Reader mode
FaerieKnight79 said:
Missy, Dinah, and Aisha are preteens, I believe. How many preteens have you met who couldn't be described as brats?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Quite a few, actually. The process of figuring-out how to human, not an easy one, but by 8 or so years, with good support... Some brats, probably, though there's likely better (higher utility) descriptions, some... a lot less fortunate. Civilization, also a work-in-progress...
 
Remove ads
A Reasonable, Proportionate Response, Part 11
  • Threadmarks
    • "Police station actually wasn't too bad," Aisha continued. "No snacks, but Detective lady was super nice to me. Not like when I talked to the police before on the Boardwalk or when a mom boyfriend got arrested."

    "So it's like how the PRT is nicer when people come in with cops?" Missy asked, nodding.

    "Yep! From what they said it sounded like Scarface knew her dad back in the day. She wrote down what I said all proper like. Even asked to see my thing, too, I think she liked it because she asked where I got it…"

    Previously

    "What did you mean?" Detective lady asked. "About notification and recording?"

    "Was wearing a button. After some of the stories I heard, I record meetings with school teachers and principals and stuff. Always wear the button though, know it's important. I brought one with me, you want to see?"

    At the woman's nod, Aisha dutifully retrieved a button and placed it on the table, so the text was clearly visible:

    'WELL I'M RECORDING YOU TOO HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES!'
    Note: Must not laugh. Must not laugh. Must not laugh.

    Button text was seen in Part 7 of this thread.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • dc2008 said:
    'WELL I'M RECORDING YOU TOO HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES!'
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    This is why I like the term 'sousveillance', which I first saw in the (second-half of the) 2000s, though I'm pretty sure the activity well predates that...

    In fanfic, makes me recall Ack's 'Security'...

    EDIT:

    Also, one reason why (read) access to the Internet could arguably become a human right. And, personal write-access, to secure data stores (maybe private one-to-one messaging, in some circumstances with a delay, but not delayed to guardian/NoK/legal support), if restricted from write-access to things like social media.

    Info management is an area society is still feeling-out...
     
    Last edited:
    Ace Dreamer said:
    This is why I like the term 'sousveillance', which I first saw in the (second-half of the) 2000s, though I'm pretty sure the activity well predates that...

    In fanfic, makes me recall Ack's 'Security'...

    EDIT:

    Also, one reason why (read) access to the Internet could arguably become a human right. And, personal write-access, to secure data stores (maybe private one-to-one messaging, in some circumstances with a delay, but not delayed to guardian/NoK/legal support), if restricted from write-access to things like social media.

    Info management is an area society is still feeling-out...
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Reminds me of a thing from the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. One of Earth's colonies is a massively liberal society. Among other things, they are very free with sex, because everyone is mandated by law to get contraceptive implants installed and checked every year starting at age 14, so they pay for their freedom with sexuality with an absolute government-issued padlock on the consequences, because they have extraordinarily limited living space (their planet is an irradiated desert world).

    "It's the first article in the constitution! 'Access to information shall not be abridged.'"

     
    I personally like that colony's system of earrings that openly stated your sexual orientation, relationship status, etc.

    Wedding rings are too limited in what they a communicate and often hard to see.
     
    Last edited:
    A Reasonable, Proportionate Response, Part 12
  • Threadmarks
    • "Can I ask about what you said at the end?" Detective Lady asked, after the recording ended.

    Aisha rolled her eyes. "I was mad, and the office really did smell like, uh, semen. Know that smell way too well what with my mom's boyfriends."

    The detective focused intently on her notepad.

    When no further questions came, Scarface quietly said, "Tell her about the pictures."

    Aisha sighed. "This isn't the first time this lady had it out for me, really singled me out. Since I moved to this school, there aren't many people there as dark as me, so one of my friends who works at the PRT hired a PI. Just to be sure, Brockton being Brockton, you never know, right? Make sure I didn't need to be worried about being in alone in a room with her for detention or whatever." Aisha shrugged. "Didn't expect him to come back with pics of her, uh, playing hide the sausage in her office during work hours."

    The detective's face went blank. "Do you know who she was, um, 'playing' with?"

    "Yeah, and wasn't that a surprise." Seeing the woman's reaction, Aisha added, "oh, not a student, a teacher, a married teacher. He teaches…"
    Note: Well someone just got their cardio for the day.

    Continuity note: In case this site ever gets eaten by wolves, fic is posted in full to SB, SV and AO3. Patreon (free access) gets uploads as they come out but doesn't have the full backlog.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • A Reasonable, Proportionate Response, Part 13 New
  • Threadmarks
    • "So what happens next?" Missy asked, setting aside her empty energy drink.

    Aisha shrugged. "Detective Lady, she gonna get the video from the school. If Mr. Handsy was caught on camera, she said it would be simple. Just in case, though, we need to ask around, quiet like. See if anyone else saw, or if he did it to anyone else."

    "Got it," Dinah said seriously as Missy nodded.

    "What would happen to him?" Missy asked.

    Aisha made a face. "Because of his age, if it's just me he'd probably get some thing where he does classes and community service and it stays off his record." She adopted a pensive expression. "If it was just me, I might actually be OK with that." She grinned. "Fucker is already the dumbass who went and got stabbed by a girl, and if he gets busted by the fuzz the school couldn't just keep calling me a liar."

    Her face fell. "If there were other girls though…. I know it's not my fault and the dude is just a shit, but the first times it happened to me I did think it was my fault and it was awful. I know better now but learning sucked and other girls shouldn't have to go through that."

    Missy and Dinah didn't have anything to say to that.

    "It's tough though," Aisha continued, "especially if it's he said she said, and the schools don't keep video for long because money."
    Note: Something something systemic structural issues something something barriers to justice.
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • Threadmarks
    • Remove ads
    Insectile Escalation Train New
  • Apocrypha
    • dc2008 said:
    "It's tough though," Aisha continued, "especially if it's he said she said, and the schools don't keep video for long because money."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    "Apiary?"

    "Yes, Lilac?"

    "Under... certain circumstances spiders with really good eyes could... help out bees, couldn't they?"

    "Lilac. You'd better explain yourself, a bit more."

    "Well, a school is a bit like a bee hive, but for humans. And, spiders... helping a school out... by carrying teeny, tiny, video cameras, to help them deal with... holes in their video coverage of public areas? Might be possible?"

    *sigh*

    "Bugging. Let's sit down, and you tell me the full story. With all the bits you plan to leave out, so I don't get upset. Then I decide if I'm going to help you. Or, we both need to sit down for a... chat, with our... mutual mentor."

    *gulp*
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • Apocrypha
    • dc2008 said:
    Munchkin Taylor is so much fun…
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    "I'm worried. They've already gone conceptual. What's next? Going meta???"

    "Yup. It's too late, to get away, just by abandoning the universe. Prepare to Abandon Multiverse!"

    (Uber and Leet, examining the results from Leet's "Time To Run Away?" Reality Breakdown alarm system.)
     
    Last edited:
    FaerieKnight79 said:
    There's a Kid WIn who's tried that. It didn't work.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I really don't know what/who you could be talking about...
    (*cough* The Return of Alt-Chris *cough*)

    ((When building a 'Get Away From Taylor' World Jumper, it might be best not to have 'Worlds With A Taylor' as part of your target-world logic... Just saying...))

    (((Also. Lizards. Nuff Said.)))
     
    Still better then the Clockblocker from (I think) Queen of Blood who ended up capturing the S9 while trying to get away from his world's Taylor Hebert. That might have been omakes though.
     
    Dimensional Triage New
  • Threadmarks
    • "… pockets of material were shifted chaotically," Dragon said to the impromptu dimensional working group. "Few at ground level, so we didn't notice them initially."

    "Did anything come through?" Dr. Weaver asked intently, as the carefully selected off-world observers whispered amongst themselves.

    "All indications are that the transfer was unidirectional," Dragon replied, "or if a swap did occur it was either for vacuum or to a sterile Earth."

    "I have some instrumentation that might help," Dodge added. Although he had joined the video link, he was using a generic avatar image, no doubt due to his age.

    "That would be appreciated," Dragon replied. "Unfortunately, in investigating we found something troubling. There are indications that at least one underground facility was transferred in its entirely, and from the readings something present may have exacerbated local effects."

    "Whose was it?" Director Tagg asked.

    "We don't know yet," Armsmaster said. "It is under federal land, and depending on system shows as under DOE or Army. When asked, each thought the other had it. We don't know yet if this is the usual bureaucratic issues, or something more nefarious."
    Note: Why, yes, these career civil servants do find it entirely possible that an entire underground facility got lost in the system. government bureaucracy is a hell of a thing.
     
  • New
  • Threadmarks
    • dc2008 said:
    Note: Why, yes, these career civil servants do find it entirely possible that an entire underground facility got lost in the system. government bureaucracy is a hell of a thing.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    it's probably the 'Initiative'! (From BtVS; or what left off their underground base after Sunnyhell fell down a (dimensional) sink-hole.)

    More seriously, future-Taylor's initial arrival might have caused... dimensional disturbances, including in databases that describe what is where, and who to blame? Would this just be the first that's been rcognised? If so, the lost base would in some way be Taylor-related?
     
    I used to work at a well known bank. There had been mergers with other banks over the years along with branches being closed. There was someone who *should* have been made redundant, but as they were being moved from one department that was closing to another department they weren't, but the department they were moving to had their entire office closed, so the person was transitioned to a different office building. BUT everything the department they were moving to did got shifted to other departments. They turned up to work every weekday, went into their office at the start of the day, which was little more than a slightly out of the way large storage closet with filing cabinets, a desk, PC, chair etc. Went to the canteen every day for lunch then back to their office. Clocked out with everyone else at the end of the day. Did Absolutely Nothing for the company every day. Just read books or played card games etc. and got paid for it. This went on for YEARS. Eventually someone asked someone in management what the guy did, and person in management didn't know, so they went to their boss to see if they knew; they didn't. Meeting was called with all senior management for the building and the question was asked about what the bloke did for the Bank. No one knew. He eventually got made redundant with a fairly decent redundancy package. They couldn't just fire the bloke 'cos apparently the person had actually tried to get it sorted via memos and phone calls etc but kept getting stonewalled or told they'd need to talk to someone else. Person eventually gave up trying but kept the records from doing so and just kept turning up to work.

    So, yeah, government forgetting about an underground base or 2 I can totally see happening. Wouldn't surprise me if they had people turning up there to work every day or entire regiments stationed there getting paid to do absolutely nothing bar keeping the place ticking.
     
    Last edited:
    In a similar vein, we have the T28/T95 Super Heavy Tank. Generally thought of a Hide and Seek champ, having hidden in an open field behind a bush for a few decades before being rediscovered by a civilian hunter. Officially speaking, it wasn't "lost" or "missing." Apparently documentation exists clearly indicating that the vehicle was being left in that training area rather than being moved back to where ever it was normally stored. It's just... after a few decades no one was probably around to remember that it had been left out there, or perhaps where to look to find the paperwork. Also, supposedly both vehicles of that design were scrapped at some point prior to that, IIRC.

    So yeah, I can see some sort of paperwork whoopsie plus passage of time causing confusion between the two depts regarding the base's ownership.
     
    Phht said:
    So yeah, I can see some sort of paperwork whoopsie plus passage of time causing confusion between the two depts regarding the base's ownership.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    This is why, past a certain point, you need people who have a talent for... asking the awkward questions. If they are in the right place in an organisation then, normally, they can be doing R&D. Not annoying the heck out of managers.

    But, if someone 'smells a rat', then you need them to start cross-checking things, find out if someone(s) has found a way to 'game the system', or, something has failed in the data flows/someone's done a stupid.

    No system is, by definition, perfect - it's a 'model of reality', and fidelity issues, and/or drift over time, will mean actual reality don't match. More effort you take, more nines - 99.9% is best you'd normally expect, 99.999% ('5 nines'), that's NASA-quality of thoroughness (and, hideously expensive).

    (Lot of systems, in day-to-day life, run on the 2% rule... 98% of stuff is automatic, human common sense is required to handle the other 2%.

    Bad news? You run into a 'jobs worth', who says 'the system is right, so you are wrong', and you can't kick things up a level to someone who understands nothing is perfect...

    Really bad news? Someone automates the 2% rule system. With no provision for handling the common sense side of things...)
     
    Last edited:
    The Shape of Things to Come, Part 2 New
  • Threadmarks
    • "Come on!" Alec said mischievously. "You know it would be fun!"

    Amy gave him a full-power, 'what the fuck Vicky', disapproving glare.

    It had no effect.

    With a sigh, Amy replied slowly. "Even if 'these cool bugs Taylor told you about' can bodyjack critters, that doesn't somehow mean I can make a 'sneaky shitbug' to crawl up a Nazi's butt and puppet him."

    "It would be fun! Just get a few different bugs or critters or whatever and hit them with hammers and then heal them together! Like they do for legs in Asia or whatever."

    Goddamnit, Taylor. Worst of all, Amy's power really did seem vaguely interested in whatever the fuck madness this was…

    "Ohhhhhhh!" Alec said with a grin. "Yeah, light up pretty nerves. You know you want to do it!"

    "Even. If. I. Could. Which I can't. I'm not making a bodyjacking abomination for you to use on people."

    "Of course not," Alec said earnestly. "That's why we'll use it on Nazis."

    Amy nodded slowly, before catching herself.

    Thankfully, the arrival of Dr. Weaver saved Amy from having to respond.
    Note: Alec is helping!
     
    Last edited:
  • New
  • Threadmarks
    • Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top