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The New Drumellan train station was a graffiti-encrusted building of indefinite shape; it seemed to merge into the surrounding tenements, as the stratigraphy of spray-paint didn't recognise paid no heed to property deeds. Tall, triple-glazed windows punctuated this illicit calligraphy, allowing the crowds swarming outside to see their clones swarming inside. Trains slid noiselessly into the building, dumping their cargo and then sliding back out along the elevated magnetic tracks that burst from the structure.
Fitz, Manda and Tormod trod through the damp snow that was beginning to lie on the concrete of Drumellan Civic Square, weaving amongst the blank-faced crowds of suited council employees and grimy recycling plant workers. They wound their way up to a ticket machine and waved their credit chips at before selecting the cheapest return tickets.
"Whit station d'ye want tae get aff at?" said Fitz, studying the tangled web of a railnet map.
"Ah dinnae know, what aboot Old Buchanan Street? It's right in the middle a the Core" replied Manda, "Whit d'ye think?"
"Aye, I'm easy-ozey, let's go there" said Fitz.
Tormod had wandered off, not particularly interested in their destination. The other two quickly caught up with him, deep in a thicket of legs, and steered themselves towards the train that had just arrived on one of the many lines that burrowed into the heart of the Core. The carriage was grubby from the dirt of a hundred thousand commutes, so they sat down on the cleanest seats beside the window. The carriage filled up with a few more blank faces, then an almost imperceptible movement indicated their departure. The line they were on was not a particularly direct one, so it began by heading west.
Drumellan's hotpotch of tenements gave way to a blurred vista of ancient stone buildings, many without roofs and slowly crumbling. Corrugated iron warehouses slowly rotted as the train sped through the remains of Old Paisley, which was slowly being taken over by the forest spreading down from the braes above the town. The train stopped briefly to take on a few bedraggled passengers before looping rapidly to the north and heading along the banks of the Clyde. The train had been skirting the edge of the sprawl, an area familiar to Fitz, Manda and Tormod, but now it entered the city proper, and they were amazed by the complexity of what they saw. Ground level streets had long been superseded by multi-level walkways, woven together with train lines and antique communication cables. Some of Renfrew's streets seemed to be devoted to selling only ENet peripherals, others to imported wetware, whilst several huge domes were bulk warehouses operated by the Council's Commission on Hydroponics. Queues of hungry people snaked out of these markets, clutching their ration books. As they passed out of Renfrew, the Core became even denser. Ancient sandstone buildings acted as the base for brilliant pillars which burst from their centres. The pillars rose hundreds of feet into the air and joined, forming a grid from which ultra-light carbon spires were suspended. An even denser fabric of walkways, roads and train lines wove around and through these structures. The children had never seen this vista before, and were flabbergasted by the city interlocking with its inverted counterpart three hundred feet up. The light in the core was uneven, as sunlight rarely reached the lowest street levels, so the undersides of many structures were coated with glow-strips. This wreathed many of the pedestrians in an uneven light which rendered them slightly too pale; the shopping dead.
The train decelerated as the view suddenly snapped into black; the train had entered one of the tunnels which led into Old Buchanan station. The vehicle's magnetic brakes hummed as it drew up to the platform. The passengers were vomited into the grand hall of the station.
"Well here we are!" declared Fitz, and set off towards the exit.

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The small square in front of the school was half-dark, kept in the gloom by the imposing silhouette of the school, and the local council's labyrinthine offices which loomed from three sides. Despite its darkness, it was filled with hundreds of pupils, with more streaming from the school's doors every second, and then splitting off down the adjoining tunnels, forming writhing distributaries of concentrated boisterousness. Security cameras bristled on the council building, flicking hyperactively between pupils who were suspected of subversive conversation or anti-social behaviour. This didn't deter the inhabitants of Drumellan Sec (officially know as school 192-a), as the city's authorities were widely despised, particularly in the deprived outer Schemes.
Fitz, Tormod and Manda were sprawled over a cracked plascrete bench, planning their escape into the Core.
"What time should we get the train at, Fitz?" asked Manda, staring at the porthole of grey sky that lay above them.
"Ah reckon about four. That gives us an hour tae get hame and doon tae the station" replied Fitz. It had begun to gently snow.
"Ah, sneachd, it's early this year, I thought it didnae start till October normally?" said Tormod, addressing his question to the same square of sky that the other two were staring into. The snow had buried them in a strange ennui, as the first snow symbolised the beginning of the long dark winters that had been the norm for a generation. Snow meant discontent in the Schemes, as people struggled to heat their hab-units; snow wreathed the city in anger at the monolithic Council and its Byzantine machinery; snow meant hunger. Fitz snapped out of this shared contemplative trance. "Right! Let's go and ah'll see youse at the station at four!" he said. The other two responded with nods; the children split and ran in opposite directions.
Tormod ran south, towards the edge of the Scheme, where the city abruptly transitioned into a cold moorland studded with pines. Here, at the underused city gate lay one of the urban Gàidhealtachdan inhabited by immigrants from the Hebrides and Western Highlands. These insular, low-tech communities were found on the outskirts of New Glasgow, and were home to the few fishmongers and shops in which non-hydroponic vegetables could be bought. They were frequented by the servants of richer Coredwellers, who impressed their friends with novelties like salmon and outdoor-grown turnips. Tormod was one of the few children who living in the Drumellan Gàidhealtachd, as city life was viewed with distate by Northmen; he ran into his hab-unit, muttered a greeting to his parents and then shot back out, followed by concerned glances.
Manda and Fitz lived in the same tower block, a dilapidated unit of hab-units build in the 2250s which were definitely beginning to show their age. The walls of the building were streaked with an algal green, whilst the walkways which ran along the side of the building were beginning to crumble in places. Several of the inter-building walkways which spanned the plaza had collapsed altogether, and were now stubby tongues of concrete left to mock the opposite block. Manda's parents owned a small cafe cum ENet hub which managed to turn a small profit despite the chain restaurants which had muscled into the shopping centre and attracted laxity from the council's hygiene enforcement squads. Fitz lived with a mother who relied on a council pension and lived in a state of permanent delusion, imagining a time when his father was still alive. Both kids gave their respective parents a cursory greeting, before dashing off to the train station. =

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Good afternoon /cy/, I've recently began writing a silly little cyberpunk story, and I was wondering if you could give me any stylistic tips. My background is in science with some programming and human geography, so my style is perhaps a bit too literal. My story is set in a future version of the West of Scotland. All criticism welcome. Pic semi related, cafe in Glasgow.

Some of the italicised words may not come out properly.

Scene 1.

It had been a long day at Drumellan Secondary School, especially for the latest batch of first years. They had only been at the school for a week, and had already witnessed fights, illicit CeeD deals, and the arrest of one teacher. The school's lighting and fire suppression systems had also been interfered with by the new class of sixth years, resulting in unpredictable showers of expanding foam and strobing lights. The school had received a rating of 'Requires Improvement' - for the seventh consecutive year - by the Greater New Glasgow School Board.
The first years clumped together, often with friends from primary school, but many new friendships were forged amongst children from different backgrounds. The arbitrary assigment of a seat in a class might result in a lifelong rivalry, but no-one in class 4b noticed this. There was thirty minutes left of their geography and sociology class, and the teacher had resorted to displaying still images from the aged ceiling-mounted projector. The holographic projector's bulb had exploded, burning away any hope of 4b absorbing anything before the final bell. The palpable boredom in the room was most evident towards the window, where three new classmates sat staring at the impressive vista.
Almost the entire length of New Glasgow was visible from this high ground to the southeast. To the unfocused eye, it looked like a sixty kilometre pit bing: a steep sided grey ridge, snaking through a forest of lower-rise Schemes. Closer inspection would reveal an Escheric surface of tangled, interlocking metal and concrete. Huge conduits ferried people, vehicles and data around, between and through the suspended skyscrapers and tightly-packed modular flats. The colour of the city was also deceiving: a distinct green highlighted the outer surfaces of every structure, as trees colonised the older buildings, and hydroponic farms exploited any available sunlight. Every surface hosted some tiny figures going about their microscopic work, and this sight enthralled the three children. They were raised in the lower levels of Drumellan Scheme, a tightly packed community that wavered somewhere between squalid and just run-down, and they had rarely seen such an impressive view.
"Here, d'ye want tae go intae town after school?" whispered Fitz to the boy sitting beside him.
"I would, is math sin, as I've got nothing tae do at home" was the reply, in the mixed language that marked Tormod as a recently-arrived Gael. The two boys had been the firmest of friends for exactly a week.
"Where d'you want tae go? My mum says I'm allowed tae go intae the Core" said Fitz, a hint of a boast in his words.
"Ah'm no bothered, ah don't really know the place."
"Whit're youse talkin about?" inquired the other member of the window-gazing trio, "are youse going somewhere after school like?"
"Aye Manda, ma mum says I'm allowed tae take the train intae the core" said Fitz in response, omitting the stringent and highly specific conditions his mother had placed on this being allowed.
"Oh cool, ah'll --"
"QUIET AT THE BACK!" shouted the moustachioed teacher in a broad Edina accent "ah ken yeh've only got twenty minutes left, but that's nae excuse!"
Suitably chastised, the children lapsed into silence until the final bell rang, and they hurried out and down the stairs.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4275.html#4312

>>4287
TrackMeNot

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/721.html#4311 >What color is your phone?
black
>What color is your laptop?
black with stickers
>Are your sun glasses way cool?
black
>Do your pants have enough pockets for all your gear?
yes
>Do your pants keep your gear from getting wet?
no but my houlder bag
>Do you have 1 good pair of boots/boot-like shoes?
yes
>Do you look like shit to protect your gear?
no, punkrock!
>Or do you just look angry enough to die for your gear?
yes :3

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4309 >>4307
Also so long as you warn people thoroughly that there ARE naughty bits. A lot of us check this site from work. :p

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4308 >>4307
What I meant was 'we can't have them displayed on the site.' Linking to a documentary/article about them is ok so long as it's pertinent to a thread :3

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4307 >>4306
> A documentary is not pornographic imo. We just can't have boobs, dicks, vaginas.
There are vaginas in this documentary, that was entirely my question. If you think that's OK, well here it is:

http://vimeo.com/9924049

Delete this post if you must but please don't ban me :( You have been warned. It's worth the seven minutes though.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4306

Oh, maybe I have got the terms backwards! Whatever, I think people know what I'm saying, the difference between perception of feelings, and perception of consequences. A kid or an animal knows it feels bad when you slap it, but doesn't think further than 'must not be hit.'

>>4302
tbh, we're pretty ok with linking to something like that if there's an obvious reason. A documentary is not pornographic imo. We just can't have boobs, dicks, vaginas. More to do with the web host, though I think it's good for keeping out some of the derp as well. Sounds like a good documentary actually.
As far as I was aware, Australia passed the law about breast size, btw. I can't say for sure, but the insanity of Australia really knows no bounds... I mean they had a city offer jobs and support to 'any woman, no matter how ugly' because a town was becoming depopulated and just filled with men.

>>4305
I agree with you entirely. Load up the sterility gun. We're visiting 90% of the people I have on Facebook first.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4305 >>4303
My entire point is, most thirty year olds still shouldn't be allowed to breed.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4304 >>4303
The common age of 18 is more commonly used for education standards...in America, you're usually finishing up highschool at about 18. It's not there because of any sort of emotional or physical maturity. It's for education.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4303 >>4301
"Aware" in that definition means "gets input from senses", not "knows the ramifications of".
I agree with n33t, I just think he got the terms backwards.

The age limit is not "arbitrary" - until we come up with a machine that can read your mind and tell whether or not you're ready for sex, it's reasonable to designate a time past which most people are able to understand what sex entails and go about it responsibly.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4302
But now the porn industry trims them in photoshop to make them look more "discreet". Same government that was trying to pass a law a while ago banning flat chested women from porn because it encourages pedophilia enforces another law that suggests women should look like prepubescent girls down below?

It gets worse. Boys who've grown up never seeing a naked woman except on a screen see these edited pics and think it's normal. Women see these same edited pictures of "discreet" labia and think there's something wrong with their own. So they opt for labiaplasty to conform to a beauty standard. They also get breast implants, etc. Our concepts of beauty have less and less to do with reality and more and more to do with spectacle. To tie it in with /cy/ I guess my ultimate point here is, we are already making designer bodies in small ways. At some point our concepts of beauty become simulacra, then we forget reality and the simulacra seem real to us. What does that mean in a world where we could edit our bodies, or trade them in, or spend hours or days in virtual reality fantasies? We're living more and more inside our own heads.

As for the video I mentioned, its quite graphic and I won't link to it because I don't want to challenge the rules as I respect this website and won't link to NSFW material but it's @ vimeo # 9924049 if you want to look for it. You'll find it.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4301 >>4300
Actually, the reason you can't screw children or animals is precisely because it is viewed that they are not aware enough of the world around them to give informed consent.

Which has always struck me as funny, because if the actual requirement was understanding and not arbitrary age, there would be some ten year olds that could legally screw, but about half the thirty year olds would be banned from the practice.

]]> http://www.megachan.net/cy/res/4128.html#4300 >>4296
Wait, isn't it the other way around? Sentient means conscious and aware, sapient means wise.
So everything with brain cells is sentient. I don't know how far you would extend sapient, though. Depending on the definition it could include things like dogs learning from experience, or only ourselves and corvids solving puzzles that they've never encountered before.

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