FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Can't really remember the name. It's been a while since I read it.
- Location
- Barcelona, Catalunya, EU (for now)
The only ME/Iron Man xover properly labeled in FFN is:
I'm going to look for the reverse, that is, Iron Man/Mass Effect.
EDIT: Sweet. It seems FFN finally realized that a xover is a xover regardless of the order of the crossed canons.
I'm going to look for the reverse, that is, Iron Man/Mass Effect.
EDIT: Sweet. It seems FFN finally realized that a xover is a xover regardless of the order of the crossed canons.
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FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Maybe it was on Twisting the Hellmouth? BUt that site's mostly Buffy crossover fiction
Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
You broke your link there, BTW.
- Location
- Canada
Or when you have the sine wave that is the Star Trek TOS movies.
1 Suck, 2 great, 3 suck, 4 Amazing, 5 Blows ....
Edit: Oops, this was suggested back about page 193.
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- Location
- Phoenix, AZ, USA
One would almost think that the "Industry" has no real clue as what makes or how to make a good movie or a bad movie. That it is just a random chance if "They" make a suck, great, suck, amazing or blows movie.
- Location
- Barcelona, Catalunya, EU (for now)
There is no "fifth Star Trek movie". The count jumps from STIV: The voyage home, to STVI: The undiscovered country.
Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise with "evidence". THERE. IS. NO. STAR TREK FIVE!
Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise with "evidence". THERE. IS. NO. STAR TREK FIVE!
- Location
- In My Parlour like a Good Arachne
- Pronouns
- She, her
Wait what are we talking about? I remember Star Trek 4 then lose about 8 months of memory then remember Star Trek 6 ...
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
Guys... her husband is Flashbang. Some Tinker could build the BFG to load her in, and have it go off with one of his 'explosives'.
Yeahhh. Was kinda a Dick Move back then, but it was funny!
Shikaze
Mecha-Musume Enthusiast
- Location
- Nantes, France
In addition to those already cited, I'd argue that you can also count both To Aru series (Index and Railgun), since most of the high ranking esper do mental calculation of the supermainframe categories to do their bullshit.
Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
Marvel seems to buck that trend. DC, OTOH, seems to believe good movies are for losers or something.One would almost think that the "Industry" has no real clue as what makes or how to make a good movie or a bad movie. That it is just a random chance if "They" make a suck, great, suck, amazing or blows movie.
- Location
- Usa
Eh, they've been focusing on different media. Ever since Smallville, DC has focused on the small screen. Thus Arrow, Gotham, Legends of Tomorrow, Flash, Supergirl, etc. All have been fairly well received. (YMMV, of course.)
Marvel's been focusing on the Big Screen, and figured out how to make it work with Iron Man (though RDjr helped lots), and have built up since there. And Marvel's TV series have been uneven themselves - Agents of Shield compared to Iron Fist for instance.
Both, of course, have (and have had) absolutely great Animated Series (JL Unlimited, XMen: Evolution, etc.).
I'd love to see them both do everything equally well, but ...
*rolls eyes*
Yeah, Vulcan-logician-as-Gene-mouthpiece, it's ever so much more logical - particularly in a muscle-age society - to force the peasants to labor 14+ hours a day every day until they wear out and drop dead in the fields in their early 50s. Nope, no sociological value at all in a day of rest from physical labor mandated with enough cultural oomph that the local strongman doesn't dare to veto it.
Chapter 70
A girl and what looked like her younger sibling were the first of the others to show up. The older sibling introduced them. "I'm Elizabeth, but you can call me Liz, and the shy limpet is my little sister Mary." Shortly after that a pair of boys showed up. Mathias and Lesley, apparently best friends. Right on their heels were Justin and Samantha, whom even Taylor knew were dating, even if she hadn't known their names.
Once everyone was there they got the safety lecture and got strapped in for takeoff. Ten minutes later they were on their way. They were told they could get up once they hit cruising altitude, which seemed to be the trigger to get them to start talking.
"So what did you guys write about?" Justin asked. "My paper argues that we should be more careful before deploying new tinker-derived vaccines."
"Heh," Elizabeth said. "Mine argues that we need to be less concerned with checking tinker-derived architecture. If it holds up in simulations and the tinker isn't building it and all."
"Am I the only one that didn't include a parahuman bent?" Mathias asked. "I wrote mine arguing that more programs to aid the poor would sap power from gangs."
"I think you were the only one to skip parahumans," Taylor said. "I argued that the power-influence on parahumans is actually a two way street, with the power being influenced just as much if not more than the parahuman at the point the parahuman triggers."
"That sounds heavy," Lesley said, shaking his head. "Impressive-sounding though. Did any of you bring copies of your papers?"
"We have a pile of them over here, actually," one of the PRT officers said, opening a small crate that was sitting near the 'kitchen' area. "We thought you might want to have an opportunity to look at each other's work. There's a good chance you won't be able to attend each other's sessions, after all. Not with fifty or so going on at any given time, anyway." They then started pulling out comb-bound reports, splitting them into seven piles. There were four different colors on the comb binding, and each color was a different size.
"Whoa," Samantha said, going over to grab one of the completed stacks. "Who's got the giant blue one?"
"Miss Hebert went above and beyond the requirements," the other PRT officer said. "Quite impressive, really, given that she got a last-minute offer and only started on the ninth or tenth."
"You wrote more than the rest of us combined," Justin said, putting Taylor's paper next to the other three. "I worked on figuring out research starting in November. How the hell did you pull it off?"
"I want to know why you bothered," Mathias said. "The guidelines were fairly clear."
"I couldn't argue my case in fifty pages?" Taylor offered, shrugging before grabbing two stacks, one for her and the other for Amy.
A couple hours later Taylor found herself finished with and oddly disappointed in the other papers. They made some good points, but their research was lacking and some of their arguments worked just as well for the opposing viewpoint. Then again, she hadn't actually researched any of their topics, so she wasn't sure how much information was actually available. That and they were supposed to use information that others had compiled, so perhaps they would have done a better job if they could have done more direct studies?
Once she was done she pulled out her tablet and started poking around on it, having little else to do while the others read. Eventually she started up 'Angry Dragons'. Which was silly, but a decent time waster. Since she'd turned Bluetooth off she had to adjust the volume a bit, though.
"Is that Angry Dragons?" Mary said, causing Taylor to look up at the girl. Who shied back a little, but had left her sister's side for the first time.
"Yes," Taylor replied, showing her the tablet.
"Can I watch?"
"Sure."
Taylor had ended up letting Mary play Angry Dragons for a bit, before they had to buckle up for landing. Even then Mary had stayed next to Taylor and was still playing the game, actually.
"How did you pull off writing all that?" Lesley asked after everyone was buckled in. "I mean, you even used a smaller font size than Mathias did."
"Er," Taylor said, thinking. "It's easy when you get along with the voices in your head?"
Elizabeth facepalmed as Amy broke out in a giggle-fit. The others didn't seem to know how to take that one. A few minutes later they had touched down and checks were run.
"Final checks are complete," the pilot's voice came over the intercom. "Allow me to welcome you to Las Vegas and the Hero Memorial Hotel and Convention Center. Guides will meet you as you disembark to show you to your rooms. Enjoy your stay and we'll see you Sunday for the return trip."
The group got up, Mary pouting when Taylor reclaimed her tablet, and grabbed their suitcases. As they exited the transport they found five guides waiting for them.
"Welcome," one of the guides said. "Each pair of you will be sharing a room, except for Mister Pavone and Miss Miller. You two will each be sharing with other individuals. We apologize for not being permitted to give you a room to yourselves, nor could we accommodate your request for a single bed."
"I can't believe they actually passed that on," Justin admitted. "I marked that down as a joke."
"It was amusing. Now then, let's get you all inside and to your rooms."
The eight of them were quickly split amongst the five guides and led into the hotel to be shown their rooms. On the way they were informed that the first round of defense sessions would start just after breakfast the following day, running until dinner with a break in the middle of the day for lunch. This would repeat on Friday, and then possibly continue Saturday morning if they hadn't gotten everyone in by then. Saturday afternoon there would be a small awards ceremony. They'd be departing around ten in the morning on Sunday.
Once Taylor and Amy were in their room Taylor sighed.
Taylor: Well, this might be an annoying trip.
Amy: Why?
Taylor: There are over a hundred snarks in my range right now. Pretty much all of them are likely staying in the hotel. I assume most of them are partnered with students participating, and thus people we may randomly run into.
Amy: Oh. Should you start poking all of them so we don't get distracted?
Taylor: Probably. I don't think we're concentrating on much else for the evening.
Taylor spent the rest of the night carefully going through the 'light introduction' method she'd taken to using with all of the snarks, even as she unpacked some of her stuff. Amy admitted near the beginning that the process was fascinating, and that she'd have helped if she could.
Thursday Taylor and Amy were woken up by their phones, which had been set as alarm clocks. They got up and got ready for the day, ensuring they had everything they should need, before heading out of the room and for the elevator. Breakfast was being served downstairs the entire trip, to 'encourage socialization'.
Their first shock of the day, however, was the elevator dropping into 'express' mode and bringing them down to the basement.
"Our apologies for the interruption," a security guard said standing right in front of the door said as it opened. "But the sensors in the elevator have determined that a gun is present outside of a locked case."
Taylor sighed. "I have a permit for that. Do you need to see it?"
"Out of state permits aren't valid here," the guard said, looking at Taylor. "Which means you'll need to return the gun to the locked container it obviously arrived in."
Taylor grumbled and pulled out her ID cards, removing the concealed carry permit and showing it to the guard. He visibly blinked in surprise, and then pulled a scanner device of some kind from his belt. He took the permit and scanned it with the scanner.
"My apologies Miss Hebert," the guard said after examining the scanner's screen, looking mildly annoyed for a moment before visibly forcing himself to relax as he returned the permit to Taylor. "I didn't realize you had a Federal permit. I will ensure that you are cleared in the system so that you aren't interrupted again."
"Thank you," Taylor said. "And don't worry about it, you were just doing your job."
"It still shouldn't have happened, but for some reason the scanner in the elevator didn't pick up on the permit. That is why I didn't think you had one. Just in case I'll be flagging your gun's serial number as allowed for your bio-signature, so that this hopefully won't happen again."
A couple minutes later the elevator had let the two out on their actual destination floor, and they made their way into the convention center cafeteria for breakfast. Which was a loud affair, with a lot of students from all over the country. The two ended up getting into the breakfast line behind a group of boys chatting in what Taylor thought was Spanish.
Amy: So do you have any idea why the scanner missed your permit?
Taylor: Probably because I had most of my IDs in one of the expanded pouches. I dropped them in one of the normal ones afterwards, so hopefully that won't happen again.
Amy: I suppose that could do it. So, are there any familiar snarks around?
Taylor: Three, so far anyway. A couple tinkers I recognize from the Vancouver fugue, plus Dauntless. None of them are in here, though. I suspect they're playing security.
Once the two had collected breakfast, Taylor getting a couple of odd looks for how much she'd grabbed, they looked for a place to sit. They actually found Elizabeth and Mary with a few empty seats across from them, and sat down with them.
"Hello you two," Elizabeth said. Mary was trying to hold onto her sister and eat breakfast at the same time. "I can't wait until my aunt gets here to help with Mary here."
"Hello," Taylor and Amy said, before Amy continued. "So why'd you bring Mary along anyway?"
"Dad's in the army and my mother had to make a sudden trip to take care of my grandmother in Pennsylvania. Mary coming along only got decided last week, since my aunt's out here and can help keep an eye on her for a few days. My brother was unhappy that he didn't get to come, but we couldn't leave Mary alone."
"At least she's easy to keep track of," Taylor said, grinning.
"I still don't know what got her to approach you yesterday. She's usually a lot more shy around strangers."
"She only wanted me for my games. Such a sad state of affairs."
"So I apparently got a slot this afternoon. You know when you're defending yet?"
"I'm apparently supposed to be sometime tomorrow afternoon, but they're juggling a few things due to some travel issues so they didn't have an exact time."
"Excuse me," a boy said from behind them, causing Taylor and Amy to turn to look at him. "Are you Taylor Hebert?"
"Yes," Taylor replied, raising an eyebrow.
"That's so cool," the boy said, bouncing a little. "Is it true that you know a bunch of capes in Brockton Bay?"
Taylor looked at Elizabeth, who was snickering. Then she looked at Amy, who was giggling. She then looked back at the boy. "Yes, I do know some capes from Brockton Bay."
"Awesome. I don't know any of the capes in Houston. Though the girl that's been collecting and training the strays doesn't bother with a mask. I think she came from Maine? She doesn't seem to attend school though, so maybe she's older than she looks."
"That must be Rachel. Does she seem to be doing ok?"
"Rachel? That sounds right. She's doing fine, she's collected a lot of the strays. Wait, you've met her?"
"Briefly, yes." Taylor thought he looked like he might start hyperventilating with excitement.
"Do you think there are any capes here? Oh, sorry, you couldn't tell me even if you do know, damn. It's nice to meet you, but I should go get something to eat and all, maybe I'll see you later. Bye!"
The group watched the boy leave, as did a number of other people. Taylor then sighed and went back to her breakfast.
"You have no idea how happy I am that you're being recognized," Amy said, grinning.
"That was hilarious," Elizabeth added. "Tunnel vision anyone?"
"Maybe the next one I'll actually point your way," Taylor said, giving Amy a look. Amy just stuck her tongue out. Damn it, she would be somewhat used to it anyway, wouldn't she?
Taylor and Amy were sitting in the back of a lecture-hall like room as a student's thesis on how Scion was acting like a depressed widower was torn to shreds by the panel. It wasn't quite as interesting as they'd hoped.
Taylor: Looks like they've figured out my talk with parahumans schedule.
Amy: Really? When do you start?
Taylor: Looks like they want me to tackle the first one in an hour.
Amy: Do we know what I'll be doing then?
Taylor: Not a clue. But the meeting's in the hotel, so we shouldn't be in danger of being forced out of range?
Amy: When will things have settled anyway?
<BA: Data>
<S: Elaboration>
<BA: Agreement>
Amy: Ok, hadn't thought of asking our snarks.
Taylor: I'll drop a message into the PRT system saying we should be good by midday tomorrow at the latest.
Once the presentation was complete they made their way out of the room and started working their way back towards the hotel itself. They could likely sit in on one more session before Taylor would be otherwise occupied. As they walked along, though, they didn't see any that looked like they wanted to attend.
"Angry Dragons is Dragon's attempt to relieve the stress caused by the Dragonslayers stealing her tech?" Amy read from one of the boards outside of the lecture hall areas. "Really?"
"It's a wonderful theory," Taylor admitted. "Too bad Dragon didn't make the Angry Dragons game."
Eventually they made it back to the hotel itself. Taylor had been asked to go to the second floor meeting rooms, and they were met by a hotel security guard.
"Hello Miss Hebert, Miss Dallon," the guard said. "We understand that a tinkertech accident has resulted in the two of you needing to remain somewhat close to one another, so we've opened up the entertainment area in room twelve for Miss Dallon. Miss Hebert, you'll be briefed across the hall in room eleven."
"Thank you," Taylor said. She could tell that there were two other parahumans on the floor, though she didn't recognize either of them.
The two made their way down the hall, finding rooms eleven and twelve were pretty much right in the middle. Amy made her way into the 'entertainment area' as Taylor entered the room she'd be briefed in.
Amy: Good luck.
Taylor: Thanks.
"Good morning Miss Hebert," the only occupant of room eleven said as Taylor entered.
"Good morning Alexandria," Taylor said, a little star-struck.
"I'd like to thank you for remaining discreet about the number of parahumans attending this event. Did putting you in the middle of the eighty or so help with that?"
"Er, yes, but there were over a hundred in my range last night, and I've picked up an additional ten or so since then?"
"I'll let the Protectorate teams know. It's likely that there were just unknown parahumans in the student set, but better safe than sorry. Now then, We'd like to run you through eight different parahuman therapy sessions. Two this morning, two this afternoon, two tomorrow morning, and two tomorrow afternoon. Each of these sessions will be remotely monitored and recorded for later review. This morning we're starting with two Wards who were already going to be here. We'd like you to take no more than thirty minutes in each session."
"Alright. Is there anything else I need to know?"
"A PRT officer will be assisting you once I leave, but before I do I'm wondering what my, er, snark wants from me."
"Ah, give me a moment to check."
Taylor: Hello.
[Query]
Taylor: Yes, I am talking to your human. She's curious if there's anything you'd like her to do?
[Excitement. Query]
Amy: Wait, what?
Taylor: You want to know how she flies?
[Agreement]
Taylor: Isn't that something you do for her?
[Negation. Elaboration]
Taylor absently noted that Amy had collapsed backward into the chair she was sitting in, apparently in a state of shock.
Taylor: Huh. Anything else?
[...Data]
Taylor: Oh, and you're hungry. Well, I think I can help with that a little.
"Your snark is hungry," Taylor said even as she felt her own snark starting the energy transfer. "I'm feeding it some energy now. But, well, it apparently has been doing everything it can to figure out how you fly? But no matter how much of your thinking it takes over it can't figure out how you release yourself from gravity."
Alexandria was visibly startled by that. "What do you mean? Doesn't it grant me flight?"
"It claims that you have internalized the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing, and that all it does is let you control yourself once you've done that. Apparently the latter was intended for use on the ground? It just adapted it for use when you've released yourself from gravity."
"I...huh. I have no idea, though that does explain why it took me so long to figure out the trick. And probably why my memory and such started to improve drastically once I did. I originally thought it was just something wrong with how I was viewing my powers, or that it was taking time to adapt or ramp up or something."
"If you stick around for a few I'll let you know when I'm done feeding your snark."
"Thank you. Now then, your first 'patient' is down the hall, I'm sure you can find the correct room easily enough. They're expecting you."
"You're welcome." Taylor made her way out of the room, and would swear that she heard Alexandria muttering 'I do what?' to herself.
Upon reaching the door that the other parahuman was behind Taylor paused, taking a deep breath. The person in the room didn't know she was a parahuman, which meant this would be a first for her. Hopefully she wouldn't screw it up?
The dark-skinned woman looked over the current glowing piece of 'corpse'. It matched what they'd expected.
"I suppose this means that we'll have to tell David," she muttered. "Maybe the day of the girl's power testing? Wouldn't want him to barge in to confront her in public, after all."
A little over an hour after she'd started, Taylor led Amy back into the main convention space.
Amy: I think we need to coordinate schedules in the future.
Taylor: So you find the therapy sessions as distracting as I find your healing sessions?
Amy: Yep.
Taylor had worked with the two Wards, one boy and one girl. The girl had gone first and had been having issues with her tinker specialty, which was upgrading things instead of constructing them, specifically to add unrelated 'utility' features. She also needed to figure out if she wanted to date or kill the boy that had triggered with her. Taylor had pointed out that doing both was probably a bad idea.
The boy, on the other hand, had been easier to figure out. He had some lingering issues with dogs from his trigger event, but he was dealing with it with the help of the west coast therapists. The only issue he had with his power was that he was only using part of it. Sensing every canine in the area didn't help if all he did was avoid them, he needed to use the 'tap into their senses' bit more often.
Amy: I still can't get over your talk with Alexandria's snark.
Taylor: I'm doing my best to not think of it. The implications are odd.
"So," Taylor said. "I think a session on not relying on parahumans to heal people is coming up. Want to see if we can sit in on it?"
"That sounds interesting," Amy replied. "Which room is it in?"
Taylor was getting more nervous about her own 'thesis' by the time they were heading back towards the hotel for her second set of 'therapist' sessions. So far every single 'defense' they'd sat in on had been metaphorically torn apart by the 'panel'. The only saving grace was that just under half of them had been given a good review by the panel afterwards. She just wasn't sure she'd be able to handle the pressure.
"You'll do fine," Amy said, rolling her eyes. "Have they narrowed down your timeslot yet?"
"Nope," Taylor replied. "But given that they're shuffling others around due to delays with sessions that ran over a little I guess it's understandable. I was a last minute addition as well, and they've been trying to cycle actual experts in for everything."
"Oooh," a girl said as she stopped and turned to catch up with them before they actually made it out of the convention area. "Are you Jacob's niece?"
"Yes, I am," Taylor replied. They had some time, but this was starting to get weird.
"My name's Claire, your uncle is awesome! He helped some of our capes out recently."
"Good to hear it, but that is kinda his job."
"Well, yeah, but it's still awesome. Shows that even those without powers can help those with them and all. I'm studying parahumans to hopefully be able to do the same in a few years."
"Good luck to you, then. I have to get going."
"Oh, right, sorry! Have a nice day."
Taylor watched the girl rush off, then shook her head. "You can stop grinning, you know."
"No chance," Amy said. "It's quite nice being the one nobody notices for a change."
"Let's just get going. I do have things to do."
"Right, lead on."
The afternoon pair of parahumans had been older, apparently part of the event security. One of the was a thinker, who specialized in spotting patterns in things. Taylor had ended up recommending that she also work at hiding patterns, because her snark was bored with just looking for them. The other was a brute, who didn't exercise her ability to anchor herself to stone often enough. Concrete and pavement apparently didn't count.
"So what's that?" Amy asked, pointing at a large display off to the side. They hadn't wandered this way earlier, so hadn't seen it yet.
"A drawing-rigging contest?" Taylor said. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Let's take a look."
The two made their way over to where a small group of students were poking at the large machine. A sign indicated that all of the students and their guests would be entered into the machine on Saturday, and five names would be picked by it for prizes. But the machine was being left out so that people could attempt to rig it in their favor. Any successful rigging would be rewarded with a cash prize, as the goal was to see if new potential methods of cheating could be defended against before they went into use.
"They actually have a moped listed as being 'just like the one Jacob gave to his niece'," Amy said, looking over the prize list. "Just without the security features."
"I bet I could rig this so you could get the moped," Taylor said, looking at the machine. Her tinker snark telling her all kinds of things about how it worked. She couldn't build it, but she didn't need to. "Unless you want one of the other prizes instead?"
"Being more self-mobile would be nice. And I bet I could get some of the security stuff added afterwards. But do you really think you could pull it off?"
"I think so."
Taylor: They specifically say that thinkers and tinkers are allowed to participate, and my power is telling me that the other attempts so far are unlikely to work.
Amy: Really? What's already been tried?
Taylor: Several attempts at adjusting the config files in memory, but if the machine is turned off at any point those will be wiped. I don't think anyone's considered trying to change the primary memory chip, but apparently it has a checksum verification so if they did things would fail outright.
Amy: So what would you do differently?
Taylor: It has ten slots for lists, so I just need to arrange to be able to populate and switch to a secondary list.
Amy: Wouldn't that also be wiped if they restart it?
Taylor: Not if I do it during the drawing.
Amy: And how would you do that?
Taylor: By adding a little extra hardware, and hoping nobody spots it?
Amy: You know what? Go for it. Maybe we can make it incredibly obvious that the other four prizes were rigged too?
Taylor grinned, and moved around the back of the machine where none of the other students were right now, all of those currently looking over it poking at the code through the ports in the front. She was sure that those running the competition would notice something attached to the outside, but that wasn't her only option. She slipped the knife from her thigh-sheath and abused it as a screwdriver, popping a maintenance panel off. Right where her power said things were was a secondary serial connector, intended for an internal control unit that wasn't present.
Seeing that everything looked like she expected it to, she slipped her hand into one of her deeper pouches and came out with a small device she had intended to hook into switches on lights or similar at some point. The important part was the Bluetooth serial controller she had used as a toggle for the relay. She extracted that, then pulled a bandaid out of a different pouch. She slightly loosened a couple of screws, then wrapped the Bluetooth board in the bandaid and carefully slid it under the main board of the machine. Some careful positioning of leads allowed it to interface with the serial port on the bottom of the board.
A couple more wires slid carefully into place for power and everything was in position. She pulled out a phone to check the connections, running the tests her power said were used to test connectivity to the system in the first place. All of that worked, so she used some liquid bandage to keep anything from coming loose, then tightened the screws down again. She did frown at her knife, she really needed a proper toolkit. And probably a new knife.
Thinking about it some more, she decided to rig things in an obvious manner as well. She had a spare of the little serial boards in a second device where it connected to an IR module she'd intended to use to change channels on TVs. It was trivial to pull that out and attach it on the top of the board, mirroring what she'd done underneath. Hopefully if they checked they'd find the obvious one and miss the one she'd hidden.
With that in place and tested she slipped the maintenance cover back on, and then moved around to the front of the machine. There she decided to run more quick tests. She used the hidden serial link to input five names into list three, switched to list three, and even remotely hit the 'pick a name' button. A moment later one of her five names came up, so she cleared the list and set it back to list one. She then disconnected that one and used the not-so-hidden link to do the same, but with list seven and only one name. That name came up as well. Even better, none of the others appeared to have noticed as she hadn't walked up to the controls.
She considered that there was a good chance that someone would find both of her little hardware hacks, but only time would tell, right? Besides, when she was done the inside looked identical to when she'd started, as far as she could tell, at least once you removed the obvious serial unit. So a quick check of things would hopefully not give the real trick away.
"You done?" Amy asked.
"Yep," Taylor replied, even as she checked the PRT store. She built an order for more serial boards and extra connector cables, as well as a new knife. She considered things, and then added a bunch of other cables, a couple of proper tool kits for at home and in her civilian kit, and spares of all the little Bluetooth boards available. Checking it over, she smirked and submitted it.
Amy: So, how badly do you want to rig things?
Taylor: Were there any other interesting prizes?
Amy: A trip for four to Florida, an autographed Triumvirate poster, one of Dragon's new tablets, and a voucher for asking the Think Tank five questions.
Taylor: Think I should drop Mary in for the tablet? I bet we could have Angry Dragons on it with plenty of time before we head home.
Amy: I bet she'd love that. What about the other three?
Taylor: Dunno yet. Maybe we'll be inspired, or maybe I'll see if anyone else has gotten anything working.
Once everyone was there they got the safety lecture and got strapped in for takeoff. Ten minutes later they were on their way. They were told they could get up once they hit cruising altitude, which seemed to be the trigger to get them to start talking.
"So what did you guys write about?" Justin asked. "My paper argues that we should be more careful before deploying new tinker-derived vaccines."
"Heh," Elizabeth said. "Mine argues that we need to be less concerned with checking tinker-derived architecture. If it holds up in simulations and the tinker isn't building it and all."
"Am I the only one that didn't include a parahuman bent?" Mathias asked. "I wrote mine arguing that more programs to aid the poor would sap power from gangs."
"I think you were the only one to skip parahumans," Taylor said. "I argued that the power-influence on parahumans is actually a two way street, with the power being influenced just as much if not more than the parahuman at the point the parahuman triggers."
"That sounds heavy," Lesley said, shaking his head. "Impressive-sounding though. Did any of you bring copies of your papers?"
"We have a pile of them over here, actually," one of the PRT officers said, opening a small crate that was sitting near the 'kitchen' area. "We thought you might want to have an opportunity to look at each other's work. There's a good chance you won't be able to attend each other's sessions, after all. Not with fifty or so going on at any given time, anyway." They then started pulling out comb-bound reports, splitting them into seven piles. There were four different colors on the comb binding, and each color was a different size.
"Whoa," Samantha said, going over to grab one of the completed stacks. "Who's got the giant blue one?"
"Miss Hebert went above and beyond the requirements," the other PRT officer said. "Quite impressive, really, given that she got a last-minute offer and only started on the ninth or tenth."
"You wrote more than the rest of us combined," Justin said, putting Taylor's paper next to the other three. "I worked on figuring out research starting in November. How the hell did you pull it off?"
"I want to know why you bothered," Mathias said. "The guidelines were fairly clear."
"I couldn't argue my case in fifty pages?" Taylor offered, shrugging before grabbing two stacks, one for her and the other for Amy.
A couple hours later Taylor found herself finished with and oddly disappointed in the other papers. They made some good points, but their research was lacking and some of their arguments worked just as well for the opposing viewpoint. Then again, she hadn't actually researched any of their topics, so she wasn't sure how much information was actually available. That and they were supposed to use information that others had compiled, so perhaps they would have done a better job if they could have done more direct studies?
Once she was done she pulled out her tablet and started poking around on it, having little else to do while the others read. Eventually she started up 'Angry Dragons'. Which was silly, but a decent time waster. Since she'd turned Bluetooth off she had to adjust the volume a bit, though.
"Is that Angry Dragons?" Mary said, causing Taylor to look up at the girl. Who shied back a little, but had left her sister's side for the first time.
"Yes," Taylor replied, showing her the tablet.
"Can I watch?"
"Sure."
Taylor had ended up letting Mary play Angry Dragons for a bit, before they had to buckle up for landing. Even then Mary had stayed next to Taylor and was still playing the game, actually.
"How did you pull off writing all that?" Lesley asked after everyone was buckled in. "I mean, you even used a smaller font size than Mathias did."
"Er," Taylor said, thinking. "It's easy when you get along with the voices in your head?"
Elizabeth facepalmed as Amy broke out in a giggle-fit. The others didn't seem to know how to take that one. A few minutes later they had touched down and checks were run.
"Final checks are complete," the pilot's voice came over the intercom. "Allow me to welcome you to Las Vegas and the Hero Memorial Hotel and Convention Center. Guides will meet you as you disembark to show you to your rooms. Enjoy your stay and we'll see you Sunday for the return trip."
The group got up, Mary pouting when Taylor reclaimed her tablet, and grabbed their suitcases. As they exited the transport they found five guides waiting for them.
"Welcome," one of the guides said. "Each pair of you will be sharing a room, except for Mister Pavone and Miss Miller. You two will each be sharing with other individuals. We apologize for not being permitted to give you a room to yourselves, nor could we accommodate your request for a single bed."
"I can't believe they actually passed that on," Justin admitted. "I marked that down as a joke."
"It was amusing. Now then, let's get you all inside and to your rooms."
The eight of them were quickly split amongst the five guides and led into the hotel to be shown their rooms. On the way they were informed that the first round of defense sessions would start just after breakfast the following day, running until dinner with a break in the middle of the day for lunch. This would repeat on Friday, and then possibly continue Saturday morning if they hadn't gotten everyone in by then. Saturday afternoon there would be a small awards ceremony. They'd be departing around ten in the morning on Sunday.
Once Taylor and Amy were in their room Taylor sighed.
Taylor: Well, this might be an annoying trip.
Amy: Why?
Taylor: There are over a hundred snarks in my range right now. Pretty much all of them are likely staying in the hotel. I assume most of them are partnered with students participating, and thus people we may randomly run into.
Amy: Oh. Should you start poking all of them so we don't get distracted?
Taylor: Probably. I don't think we're concentrating on much else for the evening.
Taylor spent the rest of the night carefully going through the 'light introduction' method she'd taken to using with all of the snarks, even as she unpacked some of her stuff. Amy admitted near the beginning that the process was fascinating, and that she'd have helped if she could.
Thursday Taylor and Amy were woken up by their phones, which had been set as alarm clocks. They got up and got ready for the day, ensuring they had everything they should need, before heading out of the room and for the elevator. Breakfast was being served downstairs the entire trip, to 'encourage socialization'.
Their first shock of the day, however, was the elevator dropping into 'express' mode and bringing them down to the basement.
"Our apologies for the interruption," a security guard said standing right in front of the door said as it opened. "But the sensors in the elevator have determined that a gun is present outside of a locked case."
Taylor sighed. "I have a permit for that. Do you need to see it?"
"Out of state permits aren't valid here," the guard said, looking at Taylor. "Which means you'll need to return the gun to the locked container it obviously arrived in."
Taylor grumbled and pulled out her ID cards, removing the concealed carry permit and showing it to the guard. He visibly blinked in surprise, and then pulled a scanner device of some kind from his belt. He took the permit and scanned it with the scanner.
"My apologies Miss Hebert," the guard said after examining the scanner's screen, looking mildly annoyed for a moment before visibly forcing himself to relax as he returned the permit to Taylor. "I didn't realize you had a Federal permit. I will ensure that you are cleared in the system so that you aren't interrupted again."
"Thank you," Taylor said. "And don't worry about it, you were just doing your job."
"It still shouldn't have happened, but for some reason the scanner in the elevator didn't pick up on the permit. That is why I didn't think you had one. Just in case I'll be flagging your gun's serial number as allowed for your bio-signature, so that this hopefully won't happen again."
A couple minutes later the elevator had let the two out on their actual destination floor, and they made their way into the convention center cafeteria for breakfast. Which was a loud affair, with a lot of students from all over the country. The two ended up getting into the breakfast line behind a group of boys chatting in what Taylor thought was Spanish.
Amy: So do you have any idea why the scanner missed your permit?
Taylor: Probably because I had most of my IDs in one of the expanded pouches. I dropped them in one of the normal ones afterwards, so hopefully that won't happen again.
Amy: I suppose that could do it. So, are there any familiar snarks around?
Taylor: Three, so far anyway. A couple tinkers I recognize from the Vancouver fugue, plus Dauntless. None of them are in here, though. I suspect they're playing security.
Once the two had collected breakfast, Taylor getting a couple of odd looks for how much she'd grabbed, they looked for a place to sit. They actually found Elizabeth and Mary with a few empty seats across from them, and sat down with them.
"Hello you two," Elizabeth said. Mary was trying to hold onto her sister and eat breakfast at the same time. "I can't wait until my aunt gets here to help with Mary here."
"Hello," Taylor and Amy said, before Amy continued. "So why'd you bring Mary along anyway?"
"Dad's in the army and my mother had to make a sudden trip to take care of my grandmother in Pennsylvania. Mary coming along only got decided last week, since my aunt's out here and can help keep an eye on her for a few days. My brother was unhappy that he didn't get to come, but we couldn't leave Mary alone."
"At least she's easy to keep track of," Taylor said, grinning.
"I still don't know what got her to approach you yesterday. She's usually a lot more shy around strangers."
"She only wanted me for my games. Such a sad state of affairs."
"So I apparently got a slot this afternoon. You know when you're defending yet?"
"I'm apparently supposed to be sometime tomorrow afternoon, but they're juggling a few things due to some travel issues so they didn't have an exact time."
"Excuse me," a boy said from behind them, causing Taylor and Amy to turn to look at him. "Are you Taylor Hebert?"
"Yes," Taylor replied, raising an eyebrow.
"That's so cool," the boy said, bouncing a little. "Is it true that you know a bunch of capes in Brockton Bay?"
Taylor looked at Elizabeth, who was snickering. Then she looked at Amy, who was giggling. She then looked back at the boy. "Yes, I do know some capes from Brockton Bay."
"Awesome. I don't know any of the capes in Houston. Though the girl that's been collecting and training the strays doesn't bother with a mask. I think she came from Maine? She doesn't seem to attend school though, so maybe she's older than she looks."
"That must be Rachel. Does she seem to be doing ok?"
"Rachel? That sounds right. She's doing fine, she's collected a lot of the strays. Wait, you've met her?"
"Briefly, yes." Taylor thought he looked like he might start hyperventilating with excitement.
"Do you think there are any capes here? Oh, sorry, you couldn't tell me even if you do know, damn. It's nice to meet you, but I should go get something to eat and all, maybe I'll see you later. Bye!"
The group watched the boy leave, as did a number of other people. Taylor then sighed and went back to her breakfast.
"You have no idea how happy I am that you're being recognized," Amy said, grinning.
"That was hilarious," Elizabeth added. "Tunnel vision anyone?"
"Maybe the next one I'll actually point your way," Taylor said, giving Amy a look. Amy just stuck her tongue out. Damn it, she would be somewhat used to it anyway, wouldn't she?
Taylor and Amy were sitting in the back of a lecture-hall like room as a student's thesis on how Scion was acting like a depressed widower was torn to shreds by the panel. It wasn't quite as interesting as they'd hoped.
Taylor: Looks like they've figured out my talk with parahumans schedule.
Amy: Really? When do you start?
Taylor: Looks like they want me to tackle the first one in an hour.
Amy: Do we know what I'll be doing then?
Taylor: Not a clue. But the meeting's in the hotel, so we shouldn't be in danger of being forced out of range?
Amy: When will things have settled anyway?
<BA: Data>
<S: Elaboration>
<BA: Agreement>
Amy: Ok, hadn't thought of asking our snarks.
Taylor: I'll drop a message into the PRT system saying we should be good by midday tomorrow at the latest.
Once the presentation was complete they made their way out of the room and started working their way back towards the hotel itself. They could likely sit in on one more session before Taylor would be otherwise occupied. As they walked along, though, they didn't see any that looked like they wanted to attend.
"Angry Dragons is Dragon's attempt to relieve the stress caused by the Dragonslayers stealing her tech?" Amy read from one of the boards outside of the lecture hall areas. "Really?"
"It's a wonderful theory," Taylor admitted. "Too bad Dragon didn't make the Angry Dragons game."
Eventually they made it back to the hotel itself. Taylor had been asked to go to the second floor meeting rooms, and they were met by a hotel security guard.
"Hello Miss Hebert, Miss Dallon," the guard said. "We understand that a tinkertech accident has resulted in the two of you needing to remain somewhat close to one another, so we've opened up the entertainment area in room twelve for Miss Dallon. Miss Hebert, you'll be briefed across the hall in room eleven."
"Thank you," Taylor said. She could tell that there were two other parahumans on the floor, though she didn't recognize either of them.
The two made their way down the hall, finding rooms eleven and twelve were pretty much right in the middle. Amy made her way into the 'entertainment area' as Taylor entered the room she'd be briefed in.
Amy: Good luck.
Taylor: Thanks.
"Good morning Miss Hebert," the only occupant of room eleven said as Taylor entered.
"Good morning Alexandria," Taylor said, a little star-struck.
"I'd like to thank you for remaining discreet about the number of parahumans attending this event. Did putting you in the middle of the eighty or so help with that?"
"Er, yes, but there were over a hundred in my range last night, and I've picked up an additional ten or so since then?"
"I'll let the Protectorate teams know. It's likely that there were just unknown parahumans in the student set, but better safe than sorry. Now then, We'd like to run you through eight different parahuman therapy sessions. Two this morning, two this afternoon, two tomorrow morning, and two tomorrow afternoon. Each of these sessions will be remotely monitored and recorded for later review. This morning we're starting with two Wards who were already going to be here. We'd like you to take no more than thirty minutes in each session."
"Alright. Is there anything else I need to know?"
"A PRT officer will be assisting you once I leave, but before I do I'm wondering what my, er, snark wants from me."
"Ah, give me a moment to check."
Taylor: Hello.
[Query]
Taylor: Yes, I am talking to your human. She's curious if there's anything you'd like her to do?
[Excitement. Query]
Amy: Wait, what?
Taylor: You want to know how she flies?
[Agreement]
Taylor: Isn't that something you do for her?
[Negation. Elaboration]
Taylor absently noted that Amy had collapsed backward into the chair she was sitting in, apparently in a state of shock.
Taylor: Huh. Anything else?
[...Data]
Taylor: Oh, and you're hungry. Well, I think I can help with that a little.
"Your snark is hungry," Taylor said even as she felt her own snark starting the energy transfer. "I'm feeding it some energy now. But, well, it apparently has been doing everything it can to figure out how you fly? But no matter how much of your thinking it takes over it can't figure out how you release yourself from gravity."
Alexandria was visibly startled by that. "What do you mean? Doesn't it grant me flight?"
"It claims that you have internalized the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing, and that all it does is let you control yourself once you've done that. Apparently the latter was intended for use on the ground? It just adapted it for use when you've released yourself from gravity."
"I...huh. I have no idea, though that does explain why it took me so long to figure out the trick. And probably why my memory and such started to improve drastically once I did. I originally thought it was just something wrong with how I was viewing my powers, or that it was taking time to adapt or ramp up or something."
"If you stick around for a few I'll let you know when I'm done feeding your snark."
"Thank you. Now then, your first 'patient' is down the hall, I'm sure you can find the correct room easily enough. They're expecting you."
"You're welcome." Taylor made her way out of the room, and would swear that she heard Alexandria muttering 'I do what?' to herself.
Upon reaching the door that the other parahuman was behind Taylor paused, taking a deep breath. The person in the room didn't know she was a parahuman, which meant this would be a first for her. Hopefully she wouldn't screw it up?
The dark-skinned woman looked over the current glowing piece of 'corpse'. It matched what they'd expected.
"I suppose this means that we'll have to tell David," she muttered. "Maybe the day of the girl's power testing? Wouldn't want him to barge in to confront her in public, after all."
A little over an hour after she'd started, Taylor led Amy back into the main convention space.
Amy: I think we need to coordinate schedules in the future.
Taylor: So you find the therapy sessions as distracting as I find your healing sessions?
Amy: Yep.
Taylor had worked with the two Wards, one boy and one girl. The girl had gone first and had been having issues with her tinker specialty, which was upgrading things instead of constructing them, specifically to add unrelated 'utility' features. She also needed to figure out if she wanted to date or kill the boy that had triggered with her. Taylor had pointed out that doing both was probably a bad idea.
The boy, on the other hand, had been easier to figure out. He had some lingering issues with dogs from his trigger event, but he was dealing with it with the help of the west coast therapists. The only issue he had with his power was that he was only using part of it. Sensing every canine in the area didn't help if all he did was avoid them, he needed to use the 'tap into their senses' bit more often.
Amy: I still can't get over your talk with Alexandria's snark.
Taylor: I'm doing my best to not think of it. The implications are odd.
"So," Taylor said. "I think a session on not relying on parahumans to heal people is coming up. Want to see if we can sit in on it?"
"That sounds interesting," Amy replied. "Which room is it in?"
Taylor was getting more nervous about her own 'thesis' by the time they were heading back towards the hotel for her second set of 'therapist' sessions. So far every single 'defense' they'd sat in on had been metaphorically torn apart by the 'panel'. The only saving grace was that just under half of them had been given a good review by the panel afterwards. She just wasn't sure she'd be able to handle the pressure.
"You'll do fine," Amy said, rolling her eyes. "Have they narrowed down your timeslot yet?"
"Nope," Taylor replied. "But given that they're shuffling others around due to delays with sessions that ran over a little I guess it's understandable. I was a last minute addition as well, and they've been trying to cycle actual experts in for everything."
"Oooh," a girl said as she stopped and turned to catch up with them before they actually made it out of the convention area. "Are you Jacob's niece?"
"Yes, I am," Taylor replied. They had some time, but this was starting to get weird.
"My name's Claire, your uncle is awesome! He helped some of our capes out recently."
"Good to hear it, but that is kinda his job."
"Well, yeah, but it's still awesome. Shows that even those without powers can help those with them and all. I'm studying parahumans to hopefully be able to do the same in a few years."
"Good luck to you, then. I have to get going."
"Oh, right, sorry! Have a nice day."
Taylor watched the girl rush off, then shook her head. "You can stop grinning, you know."
"No chance," Amy said. "It's quite nice being the one nobody notices for a change."
"Let's just get going. I do have things to do."
"Right, lead on."
The afternoon pair of parahumans had been older, apparently part of the event security. One of the was a thinker, who specialized in spotting patterns in things. Taylor had ended up recommending that she also work at hiding patterns, because her snark was bored with just looking for them. The other was a brute, who didn't exercise her ability to anchor herself to stone often enough. Concrete and pavement apparently didn't count.
"So what's that?" Amy asked, pointing at a large display off to the side. They hadn't wandered this way earlier, so hadn't seen it yet.
"A drawing-rigging contest?" Taylor said. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Let's take a look."
The two made their way over to where a small group of students were poking at the large machine. A sign indicated that all of the students and their guests would be entered into the machine on Saturday, and five names would be picked by it for prizes. But the machine was being left out so that people could attempt to rig it in their favor. Any successful rigging would be rewarded with a cash prize, as the goal was to see if new potential methods of cheating could be defended against before they went into use.
"They actually have a moped listed as being 'just like the one Jacob gave to his niece'," Amy said, looking over the prize list. "Just without the security features."
"I bet I could rig this so you could get the moped," Taylor said, looking at the machine. Her tinker snark telling her all kinds of things about how it worked. She couldn't build it, but she didn't need to. "Unless you want one of the other prizes instead?"
"Being more self-mobile would be nice. And I bet I could get some of the security stuff added afterwards. But do you really think you could pull it off?"
"I think so."
Taylor: They specifically say that thinkers and tinkers are allowed to participate, and my power is telling me that the other attempts so far are unlikely to work.
Amy: Really? What's already been tried?
Taylor: Several attempts at adjusting the config files in memory, but if the machine is turned off at any point those will be wiped. I don't think anyone's considered trying to change the primary memory chip, but apparently it has a checksum verification so if they did things would fail outright.
Amy: So what would you do differently?
Taylor: It has ten slots for lists, so I just need to arrange to be able to populate and switch to a secondary list.
Amy: Wouldn't that also be wiped if they restart it?
Taylor: Not if I do it during the drawing.
Amy: And how would you do that?
Taylor: By adding a little extra hardware, and hoping nobody spots it?
Amy: You know what? Go for it. Maybe we can make it incredibly obvious that the other four prizes were rigged too?
Taylor grinned, and moved around the back of the machine where none of the other students were right now, all of those currently looking over it poking at the code through the ports in the front. She was sure that those running the competition would notice something attached to the outside, but that wasn't her only option. She slipped the knife from her thigh-sheath and abused it as a screwdriver, popping a maintenance panel off. Right where her power said things were was a secondary serial connector, intended for an internal control unit that wasn't present.
Seeing that everything looked like she expected it to, she slipped her hand into one of her deeper pouches and came out with a small device she had intended to hook into switches on lights or similar at some point. The important part was the Bluetooth serial controller she had used as a toggle for the relay. She extracted that, then pulled a bandaid out of a different pouch. She slightly loosened a couple of screws, then wrapped the Bluetooth board in the bandaid and carefully slid it under the main board of the machine. Some careful positioning of leads allowed it to interface with the serial port on the bottom of the board.
A couple more wires slid carefully into place for power and everything was in position. She pulled out a phone to check the connections, running the tests her power said were used to test connectivity to the system in the first place. All of that worked, so she used some liquid bandage to keep anything from coming loose, then tightened the screws down again. She did frown at her knife, she really needed a proper toolkit. And probably a new knife.
Thinking about it some more, she decided to rig things in an obvious manner as well. She had a spare of the little serial boards in a second device where it connected to an IR module she'd intended to use to change channels on TVs. It was trivial to pull that out and attach it on the top of the board, mirroring what she'd done underneath. Hopefully if they checked they'd find the obvious one and miss the one she'd hidden.
With that in place and tested she slipped the maintenance cover back on, and then moved around to the front of the machine. There she decided to run more quick tests. She used the hidden serial link to input five names into list three, switched to list three, and even remotely hit the 'pick a name' button. A moment later one of her five names came up, so she cleared the list and set it back to list one. She then disconnected that one and used the not-so-hidden link to do the same, but with list seven and only one name. That name came up as well. Even better, none of the others appeared to have noticed as she hadn't walked up to the controls.
She considered that there was a good chance that someone would find both of her little hardware hacks, but only time would tell, right? Besides, when she was done the inside looked identical to when she'd started, as far as she could tell, at least once you removed the obvious serial unit. So a quick check of things would hopefully not give the real trick away.
"You done?" Amy asked.
"Yep," Taylor replied, even as she checked the PRT store. She built an order for more serial boards and extra connector cables, as well as a new knife. She considered things, and then added a bunch of other cables, a couple of proper tool kits for at home and in her civilian kit, and spares of all the little Bluetooth boards available. Checking it over, she smirked and submitted it.
Amy: So, how badly do you want to rig things?
Taylor: Were there any other interesting prizes?
Amy: A trip for four to Florida, an autographed Triumvirate poster, one of Dragon's new tablets, and a voucher for asking the Think Tank five questions.
Taylor: Think I should drop Mary in for the tablet? I bet we could have Angry Dragons on it with plenty of time before we head home.
Amy: I bet she'd love that. What about the other three?
Taylor: Dunno yet. Maybe we'll be inspired, or maybe I'll see if anyone else has gotten anything working.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Really, Taylor? That seems a bit like cheating at cheating.
- Location
- Michigan
If your not cheating, your not trying hard enough.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
If your not cheating, your not trying hard enough.
Ah yes, but she is cheating by not explaining that she can cheat in other ways! Ways she uses to cheat past the normal cheating measures with an extra-dash of cheatery that cheats the normal laws of how things work! She's put a cheat in her cheat...
So...
Alexandria has a non-Snark derived power...
I think everyone's mind just got blown to pieces.
Imagine what happens if her snark finally figures out 'how' Alexandria does it, and tells BA/S how, so they can tell Amy and Taylor.
Alexandria has a non-Snark derived power...
I think everyone's mind just got blown to pieces.
Imagine what happens if her snark finally figures out 'how' Alexandria does it, and tells BA/S how, so they can tell Amy and Taylor.
BlackLantern2814
Hello darkness my old friend.
- Location
- Earth
*helpless laughter* That's hilarious! Oh that silly panel. :lol
Nice chapter.
- Location
- <CLASSIFIED>
Did UMR pick up some tricks from Upgrade? 'Cause that and what Taylor did doesn't quite fit under understanding, maintaining or repair in my opinion.
I fail to see the problem. Maxim 31 is there for a reason.
- Location
- Home
Wait, so Alexandria's actually an exalted character?
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
Amy is absolutely loving having Taylor as a partner.
Also, people are apparently REALLY desperate for non-parahuman Celebrities apparently if so much crap is being shown about Jacob and Taylor. XD
Also, Congratulations Rebecca, in your efforts to fail at life, you somehow succeeded to fly. In such a way as to make even your own snark gape in absolute awe and push its own limits as much as possible to be able to see if it can figure out how you do it.
Who else has succeeded in missing the ground completely when they throw themselves at it after all?
Also, people are apparently REALLY desperate for non-parahuman Celebrities apparently if so much crap is being shown about Jacob and Taylor. XD
Also, Congratulations Rebecca, in your efforts to fail at life, you somehow succeeded to fly. In such a way as to make even your own snark gape in absolute awe and push its own limits as much as possible to be able to see if it can figure out how you do it.
Who else has succeeded in missing the ground completely when they throw themselves at it after all?
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Literally the whole point is to see what creative ways people come up with to cheat so they can be defended against.
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
Nothing that Taylor did is actually Tinkering.
You could replicate what she did with parts from Radio Shack. No Snark Bullshit needed.