Video; action?

[allyisun]

[Here's Allison, standing in front of her little café]

So, good news for once? The All You've Got Café is now officially open.

Hurray!

[She throws a small handful of confetti made of a shredded paper napkin into the air, looking less enthused than she sounds and kind of nervous.]

Come get your caffeine and whipcream fix.

[She'll be here, lounging in a chair behind the counter - standing is for people who aren't running their own café - underneath the display that reads "Don't be a dink if you want a drink".]

Comments

Re: video.

[allyisun]

[She has a brief deer-in-headlights look, followed by one of mild horror]

Shit, you didn't have the internet where you come from?

[She feels so sorry for you.]

Um, the internet is, like... the World Wide Web? It's this network, that, uh, connects everyone in the world. Well, everyone with a computer and an internet connection anyway. Um...

[The irony here is that if she had internet right now she could just look up a definition for the internet on Wikipedia.]

video.

[whatdidisay]

So it's like a closed network back home. ( that's simple enough, although his brain trips up over an important part here. ) And you just let anyone access anything they want on it?

( that would never happen on barrayar. ivan knows this. )

It sounds good, but probably wouldn't be practical for the rest of the Nexus. I mean, we still have to physically send tightbeam messages through wormholes to get them from planet to planet.

[allyisun]

I don't know most of what you just said, but... Yeah, you can find pretty much anything on the internet, whether or not it's true. Free information and all.

Mostly it's used for kitten videos and porn, though.

[whatdidisay]

Oh yeah, that would never fly back home. Captain Illyan might actually have a meltdown over the idea.

( before controlling it with impsec's iron fist and making sure there was nothing that happened on it that he didn't see. ask ivan about this, he thinks it's fine and standard operating procedure. ivan has a problem with kittens. it's complicated. )

I guess I get the porn part ( on account of being a sex crazed teenager once. and adult, still. ) but kitten videos?

[allyisun]

What, your captain got something against free speech?

[Allison is very supportive of a free and open Internet. Net neutrality and all that.]

Oh totally. Everybody loves cute cat videos. They might actually be more popular than the sexy stuff.

[whatdidisay]

He's not my captain, he's the head of Imperial Security. And I wouldn't say he's got something against it so much as it doesn't really exist on Barrayar. Uncle Aral and G-- the Emperor have been working on it, it's just not a priority.

( ivan shrugs. )

Can't say I see the appeal.

( says ivan, guilted into owning two small kittens after the disaster of the kitten tree. )

[allyisun]

Seriously? That sounds- [terrible, but Allison realizes insulting someone's home probably isn't the best idea, especially if you don't know how they feel about it.

Swallowing heavily, she seizes a topic change.]

What are you, a dog person?

[whatdidisay]

Whatever you were going to say, you probably couldn't say it back home. ( that much is said with a grin. ) Like I said, Uncle Aral and the Emperor have been working on it. It's just not a priority for them.

( infrastructure and galactic standard medicine are the top ones. and women's rights, such as they are, so long as they don't allow inheritance through the female line. )

Not really a pet person. I had a bad experience with cats, though.

[allyisun]

Jesus Christ.

[Allison doesn't want to know more about your home, Ivan. If free speech is low on their list...]

Huh. Usually you hear about that with dogs.

[whatdidisay]

Well, if someone made a tree with puppies as fruit, I'd probably have a bad experience with dogs, too.

( are they done talking about this?? )

[allyisun]

[Wow no not when you say stuff like that.]

Wait, are you saying you had experience with a... A cat-fruit tree??

[whatdidisay]

Yes? There's a miniature one in the garden here -- it's a lot more unsettling when it's a full sized tree with full sized kittens.

( where did you think the tiny kittens came from, allison??? )

It's a piece of... art, according to the Cetagandans. They're the other multi-planetary empire back home.

( barrayar and cetaganda have a history. it starts with the cetagandans attempting to take over a newly rediscovered barrayar and finding out twenty years and millions of barrayaran lives later that they weren't going to come quietly.

it ends with cetaganda trying to get one up on barrayar two more times and not succeeding. because fuck you, cetaganda, pretty much. )

[allyisun]

[She hasn't seen any tiny kittens yet, she hasn't been here very long...]

Kitten tree...[She looks distant, somewhere between amazed and disturbed.]

Oh my god, suddenly the game makes sense.

[Seriously, that MID game was kind of confusing her.]

[whatdidisay]

Yeah.

( he winces, not liking the reminder of it. thanks, allison. )

I can't believe it followed me here.

[allyisun]

[Sorry, Miles. Kitten tree is too weird to ignore.

And now you're just making it sound weirder.]

Followed you??

[whatdidisay]

I had a run in when I was twenty-two with a full sized version.

( HE DOESN'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. )

[allyisun]

Oh! Oh. So you mean it, like, metaphorically followed you. Okay.

[That's a huge relief, because a cat-bearing tree that also follows people around is just way too creepy.]

[whatdidisay]

Yeah. I think even the Cetagandans would have a hard time justifying giving a plant legs. Although they did make those roses---

( god, that would give ivan nightmares. )

[allyisun]

...Do I even want to know about the roses?

[She feels like she probably doesn't.]

[whatdidisay]

They liked twining up my leg after escaping their owner slash creator.

( in very... lascivious ways, or so it seemed to ivan. cetaganda is frigging weird. )

[allyisun]

[Allison has seen this hentai...]

Nope. Nooooope. Don't want to know.

[whatdidisay]

Yeah. That's Cetaganda for you.

[allyisun]

Remind me not to go there.

[Like, not that the occasion will ever come up. But hypothetically, if the option cam up? She'd rather not.]

[whatdidisay]

Hey, Allison. Don't go to Cetaganda. Any of their eight planets.

( HE THINKS HE'S BEING FUNNY. )

[allyisun]

Thanks Ivan, you're a real pal.

[Is her tone a little flat? Nawww.]

I'd say 'who the hell needs eight planets, but as least it's not 111,111 universes.