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This Was Our Time now live on Amazon! (Patreon)

Published:
2019-07-07 16:50:16
Imported:
2021-02

Content

And here it is, everybody! I hope you enjoy it, as well as the rest of your weekend!

Comments

WDB

Yes, I absolutely *did* cry at the end of this conclusion to a magical-yearbook erotica series. I'll probably have a bunch more things to say about it tomorrow night after I get off of work (good and bad), but since I've just spent six hours reading this book and I've got to go to bed, I'll just say: Thank you for this series, thank you for this book, thank you for that ending.

WDB
>>24517432

ha ha NOPE, can't sleep, thinking about this story. So, SPOILERS, but hopefully not a lot. ... ... I'll start off with THE GOOD: That ending! I'll eventually go into some of the stuff I didn't like (if that's not rude?), but let me preface that by saying that the ending is so good it massively outweighs any complaints I might have. It's a stellar ending, and it earns every moment of the previous books. It's heartfelt and elegiac at the same time, celebrating something that can never truly be left behind by remembering that feeling forever. The main thing I love about it, though, is that it's *not* one of at least four terrible endings I was afraid might see the light of day. Specifically, even though it seemed for all the world to be the inescapable choice, it was not The Harem Ending. Maybe that pissed some folks off, I don't know. I loved that it wasn't that ending, though. I love that it allowed the women of the story to have agency about their choices for the future. It wasn't "the male protagonist gets to keep fucking everyone and they're happy to bask in his overpowering sexual aura". All those women want Conner, but they have goals and dreams separate from him. They aren't willing to abandon those things just for Conner. That's a much, much more challenging ending than The Harem Ending. After spending hours and hours in the heads of Kristy, Heather, Amanda, and more, it was nice that their stories didn't have to surrender to Conner's. Everybody (more or less) got a grace note. The degree of difficulty on sticking that landing seemed insurmountable, but I'll be goddamned if my fears weren't unfounded. *chef's kiss*

WDB
>>24517432

So, and again I really hope this isn't rude to post because I *loved* this book and I'd recommend the series wholeheartedly, there was something that didn't work super-great for me. Again, some SPOILERS but probably not tons. ... ... THE NOT AS GOOD: So, hey, TIOS is an outstanding series with a dozen things to talk about from it. Topics that are sure to be on people's minds. Let's talk about the end of The Tolerant. I imagine folks might bag on the end of The Tolerant because of what happens to Emily, but that's actually not the part of The Tolerant that doesn't work for me. The part that bugs me is the final chapter. Largely epilogue, it's a tour where characters major and minor bend over backwards to let DJ off the hook for his actions throughout the story. It spends what feels like *a lot* of time justifying and excusing his actions, clearly delineating how what he did wasn't bad, how everyone deserved it or liked it or both. It's... it's a bit much. I've read enough mind control and similar dubcon erotica to know that the things protagonists get up to in these stories are not moral (or ethical YES THANK YOU AMANDA). I'm okay with them being immoral. It's maybe part of the kink? For me at least? It feels weirdly unnecessary to excuse a protagonist for everything he does, when the things he does are why we're reading the story to begin with. When a variety of women explain how their dubiously-consented sex acts were A-okay with them and why would you beat yourself up about it, quit being a prude, I squint a little bit at that. When I was finishing "Our Time Was Now" and I had to read Amanda explain that she was the most abused by Jordan, and she was OK, so all the other girls he abused were fine, and that was after Lauren explained that (most of?) the girls in Sex Ed were totally having a good time and he was ruining it by not letting them fuck him, I was squinting *pretty goddamn hard*. I mean, look. Conner exists to be a bundle of neurotic paranoia. I get that he has to constantly second-guess anything that happens as a result of TIOS. He needs to be reassured that he is Good. But Act 2 victims becoming Act 3 willing participants is... I feel like it's an enormous ask. It's handled better in "Our Time Was Now" than "The Tolerant" (if only because DJ is Jordan right up until he's Conner, while Conner pretty consistently does not like when he feels like he's taking advantage of a woman), but, man. Just introducing that trope feels like it's a bad idea. Not a fan of it. But holy shit did the rest of this book work for me. "Heather explains how her slutty tattoos are empowering" is the most cognitive-dissonance hotness. LOVED it. Could read a whole book on that. That little nugget was better than some full stories I've read recently.

icebear
>>24517432

SPOILERS (in case someone skipped the above is only read author comments) Well I am glad you (overall) enjoyed it. While some details emerge in the writing process as I realize who my characters and setting are and let them be those things, that was always the ending I had in mind for TIOS. What's the point of being able to write your own version of your high school yearbook if you can't add in more pages? Yet at the same time, yes, I couldn't bear the thought (nor could Conner) of sucking everyone into some eternal high school hellscape simply because he enjoys it. Part of it came out of one of those 3am conversations I had once with my ex about what our heaven would be like if we could play god, and mine was kind of a thing where the people who go there have an infinite potential number of "clouds" they can go to, and each cloud has its own theme or purpose. So there's like a cloud where you're eating your favorite food, and one where you get to rewatch Breaking Bad like you've never seen it before, one where you nap curled up next to your childhood dog, etc. And you can split yourself as many ways as you want, so you can be on 70 clouds at once if you're indecisive. (It was a very generous heaven, I gotta say.) And since TIOS is largely about playing god, I thought Conner's high school heaven might have some of that flavor of everyone getting to pursue the different paths they might take all at once. And how much of that is happening how and where, who knows. Gotta say, grudgingly or humbly, many of your criticisms are totally spot on. That very factor (the justification of DJ) is why I could never make myself go back and revamp Tolerance for publication, and I kind of dislike it as is on account of the ending for much of the same reason. (And while I could change it, I'd either have to rewrite half the crap DJ does throughout, or let it end on an even darker note than it already does, and who wants either of those things?) As for TIOS, yeah. My big critique in hindsight is that it spends a bit too much time in Conner's head worrying about problems most people would kill to have. And that's after editing some of it out. Still, being stuck in Conner's head a lot of the time is part of the point, if I'm going to be a writer who makes points. While I wanted to leave TIOS to freedom to be a bit enigmatic and unpredictable, one of its general operating functions is that it keeps everyone feeling like whatever it does is *normal*-ish. [insert Joker line: "it's all part of the plan"] Most of the real trauma moments happen outside of TIOS stuff - Jordan pulling a gun on the counselor, assaulting Amanda once she breaks free of his spell, Angelica's and Conner's struggles with her obsession. The stuff TIOS does, on the other hand (e.g. today everybody's wearing nothing but body paint!) get swallowed down without question. Because what is high school but swallowing down what happens meekly without question? (Seriously, we had a bomb threat one day in my high school, and we spent like four hours playing games in the field house while the police and FBI searched and investigated). Like, that was what the teachers and admins said, so... we did it, and it felt normal, and so nobody freaked out. Home for dinner.) At any rate, hopefully not coming across as defensive or anything, and really, an author's intentions matter right up until the book appears on the metaphorical shelf and not a moment after. Only to say that Conner had a lot of growing to do, growing past his sex-negativity and quasi-religious guilt over people who, for the most part, weren't especially unhappy. (Even back in WTN there are moments in which girls are clearly eager participants fr various reasons.) Which is another way of saying magic made a traumatic situation not traumatic, which might be unfair or insufficient. I dunno. :) Anyways, blahdy blahdy blah, I'm glad the rest of the book worked for you, and thanks so much for the commentary. Made my weekend!

WDB
>>24517432

Okay, I'm short on time, but a couple things. First, hey, thanks for the insight on the ending. I'm not completely all "death of the author" or whatever, so hearing what your intentions were is super appreciated. As much as I loved TIOS, I don't think I'd *ever* want to see a continuation with these characters. (A million more Jordan AU shorts, absolutely.) The open-endness of the ending, the reliance on the idea of a multitude of stories happening at once, it all plays so heavily into the themes of the book that giving a definitive "here's what really happened" would tarnish it. Let it be this beautiful gem with a variety of facets. Second, and this might be a bigger concept than I can do justice to in the minutes before I need to take a shower, I understand the reason to absolve (or at least condone) the TIOS results. It's... it's like maybe that absolution and Conner's reluctance makes "Our Time Was Now" less *hot* of a book, but it makes it a *better story*. That need to explore the consequences, and all of the characters' feelings about those consequences, maybe kept it from having an erotic bombshell like Chapter Thirteen from "We, the Nighthawks" (and I'll die on the hill that it was the hottest thing in all three books), but also allowed it to be laser-focused on landing that ending. It's a trade-off, is what I'm saying, the hot/crazy magical erotica or the character-based drama. The more of one that goes in, the less of the other. I'll remember that ending way after I forget some hotter chapters and paragraphs, so I guess I'm saying I'm okay with it. Thanks for delivering on my most anticipated piece of storytelling of 2019!

WDB
>>24517432

Before I keep talking about Our Story Was Now, I need to talk about how weird it feels to be discussing this book on the author's Patreon page. It feels like someone invited me into their house for dinner, and afterwards I critiqued each dish, brought up my concerns about the table setting, explained how the flavors combined, etc. That's weird! That'd be a fucking *weird* thing to do! Even if you liked the food, just, like, say it was all good! Don't be weird and analyze every choice! It's not Masterchef! Say thanks and split! But, I *need* to talk about this stuff. Ice Bear's work, short story or novel, usually brings a *lot* of thoughts out of me. I mean, that's why I'm paying money each month, right? It's worth every dollar, and since this is a forum where (I'm assuming) everyone else feels the the same, it seems like a good place to do a deep dive occasionally. I like talking about some of these stories, I hope it'll spur discussion in other fans, and maybe Ice Bear likes hearing what people think of the work. These posts are, like, 50% for me, 25% for other fans, 25% for Ice Bear. Because of that, I kinda have to write these to a faceless recipient. It's for *you*, whoever that might be, fan or author or me. It alleviates the pressure that I'm being an asshole after someone made me a nice meal. Okay, back on topic. I think it'd be a mistake to not release Tolerance/ant on Kindle, honestly. I may not have loved the ending, and as a story it may not be my favorite, but it is hot as *fuck*. I really enjoy it for that! It's absolutely successful at being a hot-as-anything MC story, even if the character work is not as great. And that's okay! I love how emotionally rewarding a series like TIOS is, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that the non-canon Jordan short stories aren't maybe hotter than OSWN. They're trying to do different things, it feels like to me. TIOS is working to make you care about each character, while Sub Notes/Lesson Plans are working to be unforgettably hot erotica. Those are equally worthy goals! It is okay if Tolerance/ant is "only" unforgettably hot erotica, right? And as it's mostly written, and if you could make a few bucks, seems like it'd be a shame to not give it a release. I think it's still a very fun, addictive read. I don't know. I think you might be undervaluing it. (Every single artist I know is like that. It goes- Old Work: Garbage New Work: Could've been better Previously New Work: I can't believe those ingrates didn't see how amazing this was) Thinking about that Tolerance/ant stuff got me thinking about whether "hotness" is compatible with "emotionally rewarding". Like, I thought OSWN was engrossing as a story. Sat down to read it and got up six hours later having finished it. Never had a thought that I'd finish it up some other night. It felt like my heart was coming out of my chest when I was reading those final chapters. It's hands-down my favorite book in the trilogy. But, "We, The Nighthawks" is hotter. The cognitive-dissonance MC I crave is overflowing from WTN: All of the post-dance stuff with Conner and his girlfriends. The Kirsten/Owen/Angelica scenes. Every vague mention of Coach Conrad's class. All of the Pride stuff. Chapter 13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. The setup in TIOS naturally creates moments of people treating absurd, humiliating things as perfectly normal, and WTN *goes all in* on it. But as a result, while the escalating insanity is delicious, it doesn't have the same heart that OSWN has. I'm sure it's largely the difference between a Book 2 and a Book 3, but what this post presupposes is, maybe it's not? Like, I'm wondering if maybe the way MC-style stuff destabilizes things, the way it did in WTN, keep things too crazy to feel like the emotional stakes are viable. I don't feel like it's a coincidence that Conner and Jordan are engaged in a TIOS cold war for most of OSWN. That mutually-assured magical-yearbook destruction allows us to spend more time with their relationships, their goals, the stuff that'll matter once the story ends. If plot points like Lesson Plans occurred within OSWN, and then Conner hits back with his own edits, ad infinitum, there'd be no room to care about what was happening between Conner and Amanda or Kristy or Heather. It'd be a hotter book maybe, but I'd probably get to the end and be like, "I guess there's no more fucking, okay." The Spring Break chapter almost explicitly says "We can't take care of our emotional needs if we're worried about MC shenanigans." The shit they're grappling with is so much bigger than sexy pranks. It was weird reading, at first. I had this version of OSWN in my head, where Jordan would have the gloves off, and things would be insane, but after his first salvo via Heather, he's just... done. Sure, there's Spirit Week and prom (and maybe a small thing or two I'm forgetting), but nothing seismic. Nothing that alters the balance of the book. It's mostly the status quo of Book 2, but with the Amanda mystery and the ticking clock of graduation. But it really feels like that lack of escalation, the emphasis on the relationships we already know and care about, made for a much more satisfying conclusion than some grandiose Jordan scheme. Like, WTN gave me what I wanted, but OSWN gave me what I *needed*. I definitely want to really unpack that last chapter in OSWN, but this is already embarrassingly long, so I'll come back later for that. Sorry for all of these words!

Anonymous

I'm gonna have to read all three again, but I got it on amazon and would like to say congrats on your hard work!

WDB
>>24517432

I was planning on waiting a couple days and then really excavating that last chapter, but then I spent a bunch of time today thinking about various characters, so I guess I'm going to end up doing a few posts about them? Sorry in advance. (This is my main pastime now, apparently, thinking about TIOS during the day and writing about it at night. Please consider pledging for my new book "I Love This Story Like You Love My Dick: An Examination and Celebration of the 'This Is Our Story' Trilogy" when the Kickstarter goes live in October 2019.) First off, Conner. Oh, Conner. You sweet, beautiful, hand-wringing marshmallow of a white knight. You are a very strange protagonist for an MC-adjacent book series. But I cared about you and your struggles, your triumphs, and I'm getting a little misty just thinking about how your story ended. You might not have had the most fun for someone in possession of magical reality-altering tools. You might've spent a lot of time needing to be told you were allowed to profit from your good fortune. But I love for you for all of your flaws, not in spite of them. I crabbed a bit earlier about the way a variety of characters bent over backwards in OSWN to tell Conner that he was allowed to enjoy the things TIOS set in motion, but my complaint wasn't that Conner was constantly pumping the brakes. My complaint was that the story seemed to need to re-enforce that Conner was allowed to enjoy things. Conner needing constant reassurance that he isn't a monster for enjoying things working out for him is, like, 95% of his character traits. (The other 5% is being oblivious about women finding him desirable.) Conner has some very interesting character flaws for an MC-adjacent protagonist. His inability to accept good things happening for him is spotlighted in nearly every book: Kristy spends a bunch of time helping him wrap his head around the fact that, while neither of them planned for a yearbook edit to make her want to have an affair with him, it would make her happy to pursue it; his mom helps him understand that power isn't inherently bad in Book 2; and what seems like every single character in Book 3 (Amanda, Jordan of all people, Kristy again, Lauren, Angelica, basically everyone but Heather) drive home that he isn't an asshole if something unexpected works out in his favor. Conner is a guilty boy. It's a strength of the series, not a weakness, that Conner takes a long time to feel less guilty about having good things happen to him. Similarly, Conner has some puritanical views on sex and relationships. Most characters in stories like this are, if not Jordan, than at least Owen: perpetually horny and ready to stick their dick in anyone who'll give them the green light. Conner seems to view sex in completely different terms. Sex for him is something that he wants, but assumes that his partner is doing as a favor, at least at first. It's Lauren in OSWN who bluntly articulates what other characters have been thinking about and trying to say to him all along, and it's that women like sex too, dummy. It can be funny (and super hot) to see Heather making strident cases for women's sexual autonomy while practically naked, but her points are valid. Conner takes a long time, but he learns some important lessons about women and relationships as the series progresses. Oh, and I can hardly forget his indecisiveness and anxiety over hurting people, put on full display in OSWN. His sitcom-level miscalculation in his three break-ups, his agreeing to stay in town with Amanda and then *immediately*, like, *five minutes later* telling Heather he'd go with her to California... without that people-pleasing need, you'd hardly be able to justify an all-time winner of a concluding chapter. I'd have to do a thorough reread to site every instance, but I'd hazard a guess that three-quarters of the problems Conner faces in TIOS are because he needs to fix things, to make it up to people, for that constant guilt he carries around with him. It's a fine line between heroism and martyrdom, and that line seems to be where Conner lives. Maybe that all sounds pretty negative, but I don't mean it to be. All of Conner's flaws add up to a protagonist that I rooted for, laughed at, chided, feared for, and loved by the end. He's a reluctant, self-sabotaging, anxious magical-yearbook protagonist, but he's an outstanding character. Jesus, I'm misting up thinking about his ending *again*. NEXT: I don't know, Jordan? Maybe Heather? We'll see who I end up spending most of tomorrow thinking about.

WDB
>>24517432

Five minutes after I posted that last one, I was like, "Heather. I want to talk about Heather next." (Also, it's 92 degrees in Chicago right now, and wearing any amount of clothes feels like an incredibly poor decision, so I'm really in the right headspace to think about Heather.) Heather's one of the most major characters in the TIOS series, but by the end of OSWN I felt like the story had mostly left her behind. She's a fantasy object for Conner in Book 1, an on-again-off-again fling in Book 2, and sort-of an afterthought in Book 3. (I laughed a bit at how, when Conner breaks up with all three girls he's seeing, Heather's reaction is the most blase. Even she didn't seem to care that much if she was in the story less going forward. She's got bigger things on her horizon!) Some of it is that, up until Book 3, she doesn't get a POV passage to let us see what she's thinking, but it's more than that. We find out a LOT of information about Heather through the series, so it's not like she's thinly sketched or anything. Her hopes for the future, her desire for equality, her feelings for Conner, the reasons why she's so dedicated to her education, all of that stuff is richly embellished through the series. Heather comes alive as more than just "the crush" very quickly. She's a well-rounded character (are we still doing phrasing) as well as being an object of desire. She's also the main target for TIOS shenanigans, and that's a little problematic when it comes to keeping her relationship with Conner in the spotlight. By constantly having her get hit with TIOS alterations (her absolute belief in Conner, her interest in showing off her boobs, the Pride exhibitionism from Jordan, having her feelings for Conner stoked after the King of Hearts, etc.) it reduces her a little as a character. She's a way to display the hot reality alteration, and frequently that's about it. It's all very, very welcome magical erotica, but it makes it hard to care as much about Heather as a character. *Especially* once Amanda shows up. Admittedly, I'm maybe a little biased? "Leggy redhead" and "hot for teacher" are way more my speed than "curvy blonde", so take this all with a grain of salt. (Amanda and Conner are endgame, though, fight me.) It just seemed like once Amanda showed up, her and Kristy pushed Heather way to the background. Amanda was a POV character, she had awesome "just fuck already" chemistry with Conner, and their relationship seemed to have way more spark to it than the sweet fling that Conner had with Heather. (Kristy's a fav, but I'll talk more about her later.) Storywise, Heather just seemed way less integral to the plot after the first two-thirds of Book 2. I liked her still being around, and I never minded little interludes where we'd be reminded that, yeah, Heather has growing feelings for Conner, but it didn't seem to have as much bearing on Conner as it did back in Book 1. Maybe that's all for the best, because "Heather and Conner end up together" is an ending I might not have loved, and it comes back to how much TIOS changed Heather from the beginning of Book 1 to the end of Book 3. The accumulation of all of Heather's changes create a character that, if she stayed with Conner, would maybe reward some of Conner's uglier decisions through the series. First, unlike Amanda and Kristy, Heather doesn't know about the changes TIOS has made, so her consent is... dubious. Amanda and Kristy can offer justifications for why they'd still be with Conner despite being altered by TIOS (previous affection for him or pursuing happiness, as the case may be), but Heather doesn't get a chance to make an informed decision. Conner knows that, but lets himself stay in a relationship with Heather, anyway. Second, their relationship is founded on and maintained by several breaches of trust. Conner, several times over the series, fixes a major fuckup with Heather by using her unshakeable trust in him to get her to believe a total lie. As a reader who finds shit like that *super hot* and *a main reason I bought the book*, I'm not against Conner using every tool at his disposal to have a fun, sexually-fulfilling final year fling with a girl who (for whatever reason) slowly falls for him. I'm a little less into the idea of him agreeing to continue that relationship after high school. Taking that shit on the road, when any fight can be defused by telling her she's wrong, man... kinda hard to root for that. (That said, one of my favorite things about Heather's relationship with Conner is how up front she is about pursuing her life goals. She *is* going to Berkeley. It *is* going to happen. She is not going to let a relationship with any boy derail that. While the origin of her growing feelings may be hard to define based on the interference of TIOS, 80% of the way through the series, she's still like, "I am leaving at the end of the year, no matter what." If there's any chance of them staying together, *he's* going to have to follow *her*. And he's the one that can alter reality! I really enjoy how much Conner's like, "Yeah, I'd be lucky to hitch my wagon to her meteoric rise.") Overall, Heather's a real mixed bag of a character for me. She's a great take on the "unattainable beauty that becomes attainable" trope in MC fiction, and her relationship with Conner has all of the ups and downs in the first couple books that feel real and vital. I'm just not sure I feel as strongly about her by the end of the series. She's a character that absorbs a lot of really great TIOS stuff (that tattoo idea is white-fucking-hot to me), but it keeps her from feeling as vital a potential partner as Amanda or Kristy might. But, yeah, she's written very, very hot and that's not worth nothin'. NEXT: Maybe Jordan? Or Angelica/Owen? Or Hailey? Amanda? (Feels like maybe Amanda.) Currently undecided. Maybe potentially something about how well the MC framework and abilities supported the book's themes. Dunno! It all depends on what I end up thinking so much about I can't get to sleep!

WDB
>>24517432

No work today, so I wrote this up a little early. I'm not sure if that means I'll do a second one tonight. As always, my brain's inability to stop analyzing the TIOS series will determine if I have to keep writing. -- Amanda Carpenter! Where to even start? She's gorgeous, funny, tenacious, brilliant, and doesn't take shit from anyone. She's more powerful than the forces of TIOS and she once screamed "You're not my supervisor" at a boy she liked. She might not exactly be the perfect woman, but she's probably my favorite character in the TIOS series. It's a little weird to think about Amanda's role in the series, considering she doesn't show up until Book 2. She has what feels like such an outsized effect on the story that in retrospect, it can feel like Book 1 is all prologue. It's like the story really starts when she shows up. Right away, she establishes herself as more than just an obstacle or another possible conquest. Those early scenes set an irresistible tone for their relationship, as Conner and Amanda duel over authority, infuriate each other at the drop of a hat, and flirt so hilariously badly that you'd assume they're cursed. But, as a testament to how well Amanda works as a character, I never thought she was anything more than a prickly, natural foil for Conner. There's an endless series of clues that she's not your typical co-editor-in-chief if you reread Book 2 (She's *immediately* evasive when asked where she comes from for basically no reason!) but it's never heavy-handed. She might've been created by TIOS, but she's as three-dimensional as any character in the series. Maybe more so? Amanda's so richly developed to me that I feel like she could qualify for co-protagonist billing. (I am certain Conner would love to hear that.) Equal with maybe Kristy, she's instrumental in resolving several important plot obstacles in Book 3. She's one of the first to break through TIOS mental blocks, and her level-headedness keeps things from going completely fucking bonkers. And, Jesus, her scenes with Conner just crackle. Conner is a quick-witted, funny kid, so getting into a discussion with a female version of himself is bound to be entertaining. And they are! Most of my favorite dialogue scenes are with Conner and Amanda, and it doesn't even matter what the conversation is about. I love them when they're cracking wise, endlessly one-upping each other. I love them when they're puzzling out the solution to a problem, two heads being better than one. I love them when they can't stop accidentally offending each other, and the dialogue could be best summarized as NO, FUCK *YOU*. They are perfect together, two nerds who can make each other crazy because they care so goddamn much. (I think my favorite moment from the final chapter is the visual of Conner and Amanda's future, where they're making scrapbooks. PERFECT. There could not have been a better way to say "they are in love and are going to live their perfect life" than "these two nerds are going to obsessively catalogue the rest of their lives". God help any friends they might invite over to hear about their vacation.) Amanda and Conner, as I said before, are endgame for me. I like all of the options presented, but the equality of the relationship they have (as well as subjectively thinking Amanda is the hottest choice) makes me root for the two of them. In my mind, that's who Conner ends up with. She's amazing. However, I don't know if I 100% know where she came from. Maybe I'm not supposed to? Maybe "who created Amanda and why" is supposed to be one of those endless mysteries, like who her "sidepiece" was. (C'mon, Kristy...) If so, I'm happy to leave it at that. But... It sure seems like we're supposed to think it's Jordan. Conner pretty clearly thinks Jordan did it. Jordan tells him about her being a TIOS creation at the end of Book 2. Jordan's one of the two people who could've created Amanda. I'm just not sure *why* he would. Jordan, to my memory, never admits to creating Amanda. We never see him do it in flashback, like we do every other TIOS change he makes. He had the opportunity and the skill, but I just can't see a possible motive. To distract Conner with a girlfriend? He doesn't think to do that until the King of Hearts, and even then it's Heather he uses. Access to TIOS? He's got Conner's password for a good while, and Amanda doesn't even gain access until the end of Book 2. Just another hot girl? Doesn't seem like he'd create someone like Amanda if that was the case. Making Conner's life more difficult? Maybe,but it seems like that would potentially fuck with his TIOS access, so I can't see it. I just can't see a reason why Jordan would make Amanda. Other than that, though? No complaints about Amanda. Great character with a ton of versatility, and the subject of some elegantly enticing descriptions. (We the Nighthawks, Chapter 11, Amanda enters the yearbook offices, there's your Nobel submission.) I can imagine a TIOS series without a lot of characters, but I can't imagine it without Amanda. NEXT: We Need To Talk About Jordan

icebear
>>24517432

I wouldn't dare spoil the kinds of mysteries that entice, but as for mysteries that confound: where did Amanda come from, and why? (If you hate this kind of spoiler, stop reading now). It turns out Conner is right, Jordan indeed her creator. He started a rumor amongst his compadres on yearbook staff that they were getting a new editor-in-chief, waited to hear someone talk about it, presto. As for the Why of it, that's a better question. For all Jordan often YOLOs his way through TIOS, he had all of winter break to obsessively plot, and for once had a truly multi-faceted scheme. 1) His actual hope was to Weird Science a girl into creation who he could get under his thumb and who had her own TIOS EIC login. She disappoints in that regard, at least initially. 2a) The distraction factor, sure. Not a primary motivation, but since he could hand-pick a hottie, the quote made her "basically a female Conner" for sympatico factor, and their shared job locks them in a room together. 2b) If 2a doesn't work out and people wind up hating someone who's too similar to themselves, she also makes a handy nemesis, which is equally distracting and a much more ripe target for suspicion of illicit activity. 3) Hot redhead to enroll in his class. Maybe Northside is lacking in her type, or she (whoever the model Amanda is made from) simply caught his eye. :) Nice fringe benefit, and let it never be said that Jordan doesn't let his dick do 2/3 of his thinking. It would certainly make sense for this information, or some portion thereof, to be revealed in WTN Ch 13 with all the other machinations, but then it sort of messes with the end wtf note so I let him keep one little secret for a short while longer.

WDB
>>24517432

Jordan is a mastermind, then, and you are a modern-day magical-yearbook Agatha Christie: it wasn't one motive, it was *every motive*. Diabolical! Also, I am doing some pretty rigorous academic work on the TIOS trilogy, and I can't handle this sort of information coming at me at this late stage. Now I have to rethread all of the string that's pinned to my wall of notecards AGAIN. How dare! In other news, it's now *definitely* going to be Jordan who's up next on the block, with the following provisionary roadmap: Jordan Kristy Hailey Angelica/Kirsten/Owen Everybody else, rapid-fire style TIOS as a delivery mechanism for MC-style thrills Themes, the use of TIOS as a delivery mechanism for MC-style thrills to support those themes, and the ending Special bonus post I thought of five minutes ago that is both too appropriate and too stupid not to end on Once again, purely provisional. (I actually forgot about Hailey when I first drew it up. Sorry, Hailey! I'm sure that's not great for your self-esteem!)

Ferrum1
>>24517432

Finished the third book and can agree with a lot of what you say. My only real gripe, I guess, was Conner's constant whining. By the time I got into the third book, it was very easy to simply scroll past Conner's segments simply because it was nothing new. The incessant blather about moral issues is good when establishing the characters and relationships, but after awhile it got tiresome. And I say the same thing when it happens in movies, so it's not a jibe at IB. The heat was there, and it was fun to see the unintended consequences pan out. I wish there had been more heat and more unintended consequences because that's where I really relate to a story. The conflict between the good guy and the bad guy is fun, but it seemed like Conner wasn't really up to Jordan's level and only "won" as much as he did because Jordan misworded things or didn't see something (like the girls at the dance). Conner was always on the defensive rather than the offensive. He was trying to mop up what Jordan put down, but never really went on the attack to target Jordan specifically. That's my take on the relationship. As I try to put myself in Conner's shoes (and Jordan's), I can't help but think there were so many things I'd try to accomplish with the program. Even if it was only for the rest of the school year, what nerdy guy like Conner wouldn't want to be 6'2" and full of muscle just to say they had that experience? To that end, I thought it was a bit jarring that Ms. C didn't bring up these things. As the resident adult with years of experience, I would have expected her to go into that as soon as she was told about the TIOS program. It just seemed a bit incongruous that she's an adult and constantly giving Conner good advice about stuff, but doesn't key on the notion of doing good for people? As bad as Jordan was in the SE class, would it have been really wrong to continue that outside of class in the real world? I'm trying to remember the "rules" of the class, but nothing really bad comes to mind. Certainly nothing that I'd think would make their lives horrible in the real world -- those tattoos being the exception. If Jordan had taught them a lot of stuff, made them enjoy the experience, and see that they could use their lessons with their boyfriends and husbands down the road.... why would Conner be against that? Yea, how they got to that point was bad, but the lessons weren't awful. In the end, the notion that it needed to be "undone" just didn't hold much weight with me. As Ms C and others pointed out, the girls were consenting in the framework of the program. Though, I do understand Conner's difficulty with understanding that because it's so hard to conceptualize. Overall, two thumbs up for IB. He did good. Now I hope he goes back and tells us more about what happens next in Lesson Plan. Or maybe we'll get to see how the girls from the SE class didn't get returned to 1.0 entirely because of a glitch in the programming? Nothing major, maybe, but it's possible that some of the training is still with them.......

WDB
>>24517432

Interesting points. Thanks for bringing them up! "The conflict between the good guy and the bad guy is fun, but it seemed like Conner wasn't really up to Jordan's level and only 'won' as much as he did because Jordan misworded things or didn't see something (like the girls at the dance)." One of things I liked about Book 3 is that it really seemed to say that Jordan wasn't necessarily more clever than Conner at using TIOS, it's just that Conner didn't think about it (generally) in ways that'd help himself directly. Jordan was all about personal gain, so he was quicker to see the advantages all around him. The few times that Conner did try and do crazy shit for himself, like the prom, he showed that he could be a genius at alterations if he didn't feel so damn guilty. (Which is part of a larger use of Jordan as devil-on-his-shoulder mentor for Conner, but that's a later thing.) All of your ideas for spinoffs and follow-ups sound amazing, and a big ol' +1 from me for a continuation of Lesson Plan. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

icebear
>>24517432

@Ferrum1: I am in fact mid-way through a continuation of Lesson Plans as we speak. The originals were commissioned pieces, but I guess it goes to show if you have a fun enough idea, you don't need to bother paying me to write it. :)

Ferrum1
>>24517432

Thanks. I agree that Conner didn't seem to be Jordan's equal, and that was part of the rub for me. While Jordan's living in the moment, certainly, he was at least fairly proactive in getting things done. Conner, otoh, was limp-wristed throughout and never really seemed to take on the mantle of White Knight. As the EIC, I kept waiting on him to have that magical transformative moment when he realizes that he's the E-fucking-IC, by god, and will have his righteous vengeance on any fool who thinks to tamper with his world! And then it never happened. :( Admittedly, I sometimes had difficult separating what happened in Lesson Plans and Sub Notes from the main tale and I think that's flavored a lot of my thinking on the matter. Jordan was working the system, taking what he could get. Conner got a lot of unintentional benefit from Jordan's miswording things, or wording them correctly but not understanding what it would bring about. If Conner had stepped up, or if Conner and Ms C had teamed up to corral Jordan.... that could have been a good conflict. Lets hope that the next installment of Lesson Plans comes soon!

WDB
>>24517432

Ha ha, yeah, it'd've been pretty nuts to see something like Conner Unleashed. I'm happy with how moral (or ethical YES THANK YOU AMANDA) Conner stuck to being, even if we as readers are more likely to cheer on someone using magical powers to do whatever the fuck they feel like. That stuff is awesome, and I'm glad for the burgeoning TIOS Extended Universe in which to explore them. (Jordan versus the goth kids starring poor underused Neveah is my fondest wish.) I never really wanted to see Conner go down that route, though. He's a sweet boy! I think it's nice to see someone stay good through a story like this, even if it's just for a change of pace.

WDB
>>24517432

Turns I did have another one in me today after all. Tomorrow is up in the air, so no promises. --- Jordan is *the worst*. He's a bully to Conner, a nuisance to Kristy, and a gaslighting, emotionally-abusive boyfriend to Hailey. He manipulated Heather to be an exhibitionist, and then he practically disfigured her. He spent months using a class of girls as his sexual playthings. He invented Amanda to be a swiss army sex-toy/weapon/enabler. He's basically a monster. Jordan is *the best*. In a series like TIOS that is careful to explore every unintended effect of something as dangerous as altering reality, and constantly asks if what's being done is good or fair, Jordan exists to say Fuck That. Jordan is the rampaging id that is constantly looking for new, amazing ways to make things sexier. Jordan has no time for Conner's bullshit moralizing and self-flagellation. Jordan is going to fuck every hot girl in school, and he'll make more hot girls if he runs out. Jordan is going to take TIOS and himself a goddamn legend. If Conner is an everyman protagonist, Jordan is, frankly, an everyman MC protagonist. (Rereading parts of Tolerant recently, I noticed Holy Shit are DJ and Jordan almost the same character.) Jordan may be a nightmare bully in the first book, but for most of the the second and third books he's the way that sexy shit gets done. Divorced from the reality of the other characters' emotional journeys and self-actualization, most Jordan chapters in the last two books are just A+ MC magical erotica. But if you divorce those chapters from the other characters' emotional journeys and self-actualization, you don't have the emotional resonance of TIOS, so Jordan is an antagonist. Beyond facilitating sexy sexiness, he's also a *really good* antagonist. Like the best antagonists, he serves to reflect the protagonist's fears and weaknesses back at him. Conner cares about people *too much*, so Jordan doesn't give a shit about *basically anyone*. Conner feels like sex is some awful burden he puts on other people, so Jordan proclaims that he's just letting the real sexual desires of his targets out. The Sex-Ed class in particular is a funhouse mirror version of Conner's quest to do good by altering people's lives for the better. It's just, Jordan's version of "for the better" is months of sexual conquest. Mostly, though, he showcases the best attributes of an antagonist in Book 3. The sexiest stuff is absolutely in Book 2, but the main value of Jordan as a character is in Book 3. That's the one where he spends a lot of time playing the "we're not so different, you and I" card. To me, the best antagonists sharpen the protagonist. They force him or her to get better, to not just survive but triumph. The best antagonists force the protagonist to level up, get their shit together, what have you. They, wittingly or unwittingly, serve as a darker mentor to the protagonist, asking them to think long and hard about why they're doing what they're doing. Jordan and Conner have a surprising number of honest conversations in Book 3, and it's fascinating to see them play out. Jordan's arguments are always self-aggrandizing, and rarely show more than a sociopathic need to sustain his own twisted happiness, but he's able to puncture Conner's misplaced martyrdom and unnecessary chivalry with pinpoint accuracy. He despises Conner for his weakness, his need to Be Good, but he also sees a spark of someone whose life could be so much better if he'd stop second-guessing himself. One of the reasons Book 3 works so well is because of the ways Conner and Jordan change each other. Jordan *does* change, and maybe for the better? Hard to say for sure, but I'm leaning towards better. In maybe the most surprising element of Book 3, we get a lot of scenes with Hailey and Jordan. Jordan was sexually obsessed with the mind-shatteringly dedicated Hailey in Book 2, and in Book 3 it turns into... maybe love? Jordan tells her he loves her, and while on the face of it his need to possess her and psychologically isolate her makes that something approaching gallows humor, I actually think he means it. God only knows if a narcissistic sociopath like Jordan Lyons can really love anyone in the ways that your or I might recognize it, but I felt like he cared for Hailey in a serious, honest way. It wasn't a trick. I was floored when I realized he meant it, and wondered if the final book would try and find some way to redeem the seemingly irredeemable Jordan. That turned out not to be the case with two results, one good and one bad. The good result is that it opened up the question of how Jordan could be a monster and capable of loving someone. If he loved Hailey, really loved her, didn't that mean there's some good in him? That he's capable of becoming a better person? And the answer seems to be a very blunt, very realistic No. No, because people hurt and destroy people they love every day. You can absolutely willingly hurt someone you love. Monsters have been doing it forever. Jordan doesn't get a pass from treating Hailey like his own private sex toy just because he loves her. He doesn't get to emotionally abuse her and whittle down her self-esteem just because he loves her. Him being in love doesn't negate him being a monster. The bad result of Book 3 trying to redeem Jordan is that it didn't factor in to the conclusion very much. Beyond the devil on Conner's shoulder, Jordan's quest to keep TIOS running and win Hailey back is weirdly minor to the other events. Jordan's bombshell blackmail against Conner feels a bit misguided for a magical-yearbook erotica story. (I'll dig into it later but suffice to say, the threat of incest may be nightmarish to Conner, but it reads like the opposite of a nightmare on a Patreon where you can check out sexy incest stories.) Besides that, and the character growth that occurs because of Jordan's demands, his newly monogamous life goal of Only Hailey is just sort-of *there*. We spend a ton of time with Jordan and Hailey together, until we just don't anymore. Then they probably break up off camera maybe? It feels a little anticlimactic, especially considering how many pages had been devoted to the evolution of that relationship. So, yeah, Jordan. He's a great way to make Conner a better character (your mileage may vary on that one, I guess), and he's an even better way to make a ton of sexy shit happen in a magical-yearbook erotica series. Jordan short stories 4EVA. NEXT: Kristy!

icebear
>>24517432

Lots of agreement on both the substance style of a quality protagonist, as well as on the distinction between Jordan and Conner. There was at one time a version of the Bear Lake scene in which the encounter between Hailey and Jordan was spelled out more explicitly, but it wound up getting cut. In part, I cut it because that chapter is already insanely long. (It originally included the graduation scene that became chapter 15, too. Yeesh.) Partially, though, I decided that, while Jordan does espouse some limited growth over the series (e.g. moving from "I want to fuck every hot girl" to "I want to fuck this one hot girl"), he's mostly like you said, a sociopath. I can totally appreciate that to him, wanting to fuck someone so badly that you prefer them to the other dozens of girls you're fucking feels like "love," but... just ugh, right? While I was sort of letting the character play this out organically and you've read what came of it, it feels like if they were allowed to play out their relationship as Jordan desires it to play out, he'd wind up just like his father, an absentee cheating prick with his trophy wife holding down the fort and available for when he wants quality over quantity. But maybe I give him too little credit. (Or her? Both?) On the flipside of Jordan's progression, there's Hailey, whose arc leaves her in a much more admirable place. So I originally wrote the scene to give her that moment and let her show how she's realized (or beginning to realize) she is somebody loveable, attractive, worth fighting over (another accidental character growth attributable to Jordan). Ultimately, I opted to do it less directly via chapter 17, so that the focus was less on her breaking up with Jordan and more on her having outgrown him. Maybe Conner too, really. Anyway, I'll shut up before I steal any thunder from the highly anticipated exposition of Hailey McManus: best kept secret at Northside. :)

WDB
>>24517432

There's other elements of Jordan's growth I didn't get into, like his seeming legitimate regret at assaulting Amanda, or the way he seemed content to just focus on Hailey and let bygones be bygones with Conner around the time of Spring Break. Those all did a lot, along with the overall evolution of the series away from Conner's view that Sexy Pranks Are An Existential Threat, to shift Jordan from "malevolent presence" to "just kind of a scumbag". I didn't need him to be viscerally punished or anything, but he didn't deserve Hailey. (There's a weird Team TIOS energy between Conner and Amanda and Jordan in the beginning of the Spring Break chapter. They're all about making a good Spring Break for everyone. It's goofy and friendly and I was like, "What the fuck am I reading?!" I loved it for that. That moment helped along on Jordan's growth.) I'm not sure if it'll fit in an upcoming post about the ending, but you mentioning Bear Lake is a natural opening for me to talk about my favorite part of that chapter. (My second favorite part is, naturally, Heather trying to rationalize her tattoos. "Still not sure how I ever thought 'butt slut' in my tramp stamp slot was going to be empowering. Oh well. Too late now." JESUS CHRIST.) I probably should've mentioned this in my writeup on Amanda, but I loved loved loved that she's the one who goes nuclear on every bully at the fire pit. Could've given that scene to Conner. He's the protagonist, he's the one we've been following all along. He could've gotten the big hero moment, triumphed over the bullies. But even then, near the end of all of it, he's still not the one to yell and scream and tear deserving assholes down. That's an Amanda move. She sees the injustice around her, and by God she's going to do something about it. She earned her co-protagonist title in that scene.

icebear
>>24517432

Yeah, the Spring Break intro was fun. I mean, who wouldn't put a feud on hold for an all-expenses paid trip to a tropical paradise for a week, right? (Or, in Jordan's case, *pretend* to put a feud on hold.)

icebear
>>24517432

And not to get ahead of you, but yeah, the Bear Lake thing. With the big question looming of who's gonna wind up together, I wanted to give each of his love interests a bump of what makes them good. But Amanda resolving the old grudge with the In Crowd from their dickishness all the way back in early TIOS 1... yeah, I love that chick. Can't help it. But as is probably all too clear from my stories, I love almost all of my characters. :)

WDB
>>24517432

Look, if you're trying to bait me into jumping ahead and talking about the way ethical and moral behavior thematically intertwines with the author's empathy for his characters just because I can't sleep at 4am, I see you. I SEE YOU.

WDB
>>24517432

Kristy's a great character, and she holds an interesting place in Conner's... "harem", I guess? Heather is the crush, the girl that Conner feels like he won. Amanda is the flinty one, the girl who he's just as likely to argue with as fuck. But Kristy, she's the one who *improves* Conner. Kristy's main character trait, a teacher who cares for students and wants them to succeed, doesn't change a lot through the series. Nor should it, realistically. While all of the other characters are high school (or college) students, navigating their way through adolescence into adulthood, Kristy is 25 years old. She's an adult with a career. Her personality and goals are pretty set when TIOS opens. They're just, y'know, a bit amplified. TIOS is able to take Kristy's desire for a student to be happy to sexy, sexy extremes, but different from the other women. Kristy isn't in love with Conner to start with, she just wants him to be happy. She wants that more than her own happiness. Really, his happiness becomes her happiness. Unlike a Heather who'd be (briefly) furious at Conner for mistreating her, or an Amanda who'd absolutely call him out on being a shithead, Kristy is willing to do unethical (or immoral YES THANK YOU AMANDA), potentially illegal things if it results in Conner's happiness. She'll dress sexier since she knows Conner likes it, sure, but she'll also manipulate another student's grades to allow Conner a chance to shine. It's dicey stuff, but since she seems confident that a) it'll all be for the best, and b) no one's going to suffer long-term, it doesn't feel villainous. It's especially hard to take offense with any of Kristy's actions since she's the best in the series at articulating why her actions aren't cruel or harmful. Her conversations with Conner about his use of TIOS sharpen Conner, in a similar way to Jordan's attempts at getting through to him, in that he's forced to listen to reasonable counter-arguments to his knee-jerk "I'm enjoying this, I must be bad" mentality. It could have ended up being a longer form of seduction, where her altered mental state wears down Conner's resolve, but her TIOS-enhanced care for her student allows her a form of tough love, where she can be stern in the short term to make Conner better in the long term. Conner's a better, more thoughtful character after every scene with Kristy. She's an educator all the way through, even when she's a sexual partner. And, oh my God, when she's a sexual partner? It's some of the hottest writing in the whole series. The sex scenes with Conner and Kristy are hotter because she's a *woman*, not a teenage girl. Conner's sex scenes with Amanda and Heather are a lot of I've-never-tried this, or what-if-we-tried that. (Even the Hailey scenes are marked by a lot of very enthusiastic, incredibly graphic experimentation.) Kristy is a grown-ass woman, though. She's had a variety of partners, and the sexual history that goes along with it. She knows how to get Conner *hard*, and she knows how to get Conner *off*. There's a confidence to her actions that every other character lacks. More than that, though, the way his happiness becomes her happiness means she is, uniquely among the women he dates, solely focused on his enjoyment. The other women fall in love with Conner, but Kristy's affection approaches something like devotion. (Spell-check saw that last sentence and flagged "women", and I'm like, "I'm pretty sure I spelled that five-letter word correctly, but let me see what they suggest it should be." The suggested correction was "woman". Spell-check, you clearly don't know what magical-yearbook erotica series I've been writing about.) That devotion is a little weird, maybe, but it's not like it's totally outside the boundaries of a normal, fulfilling relationship. Conner's time with Kristy is largely covert, because, duh, it would be a shitstorm if anyone found out, but we get a few peeks in Book 2 at what a post-TIOS relationship would look like. It's very sweet! Super domestic, but still very sexy. A young couple. I feel like Conner ending up with Heather would be problematic, and Amanda is (to me!) the obvious pick, but Conner and Kristy together has a very appealing sweetness to it. It wouldn't have the growth or adventure he might have with a girl his own age, but Conner's already a bit of an old soul, so maybe that'd be okay. Kristy, like a lot of other characters in TIOS, takes what could've been a stock erotic trope and makes it so much more. "Hot for teacher" is maybe the lowest-hanging fruit of a magical erotica series set in a high school, but the slow burn of her growing attraction to Conner, coupled with the fact that she never loses sight of her need to help him improve, makes for a hell of a nuanced character. In some slight fairness, "hot for teacher" is already pretty tough to fuck up. It's a classic for a reason! NEXT: Most men treat Hailey poorly. I'll try to do better.

Anonymous

So I finally finished the book and, overall, I liked it a lot. I thought that it was paced really well, the twists were pretty clever, and the right emotions were suitably evoked at all the right times. The girls were all really fleshed out and they really felt... real. The conflicts felt appropriately frustrating, and the ending gave the appropriate amount of catharsis. Oh, and the sex scenes were pretty good too LOL. That said, it wasn't a perfect package. At many points it felt like characters were subjected to a kind of "teens in a horror movie" level of contrived ineptitude in order to move the plot along to where it needed to go. These people seemed hell-bent on not establishing basic communications with each other so that minor misunderstandings would balloon into huge catastrophes. It was weird how Conner's moral compass bristled at any mental manipulation to any girl... except for Angelica. (from Conner's perspective Owen essentially did to her what Jordan did to the seniors). None of the TIOS EIC users ever tried to really study its effects and learn more about how it works. Everyone seemed to be primarily worried about how their personal lives would be affected by TIOS, despite its vast apparent power. In some ways it was akin to me being handed the Infinity Gauntlet and using its unlimited power to get ahead in the office. At the end of the day TIOS was still great. Excellent, even. I'd give it a solid 8.5/10 if I was being objective, but I'll go ahead and bump that up to an even 9/10 because Kristy is a great character and even if the rest of the story had been bad it would have been a worthy read just to get to know her.

WDB
>>24517432

I don't want to get too into it right now, because I'll have a lot more to say about it later, but one of the big themes of the TIOS trilogy is "stories". I mean, it's in the title, right? Specifically, the way teenagers are still writing the story of who they are. TIOS takes this literally as the characters are forced to directly grapple with things they've tried to avoid, thanks to magical-yearbook interference: Heather's fear of losing her drive with a relationship, Angelica's feelings for Owen, Conner's need to fit everything into his worldview, etc. The idea of changing stories comes into play through relationships, as well, as characters like Jordan and Conner (again) find out more about themselves as they begin to fall for someone. Everyone is trying to figure out what their story is. And then there's Hailey. Hailey is the first character to get affected by TIOS, as Conner accidentally makes her hot in a way only he can see. Because of that, Conner starts a relationship with her, bungles it, and watches as she starts a relationship with Jordan. Hailey is constantly told that they find her beautiful and desirable, but Hailey won't let that be her story. She's always been told she's unattractive, and she's internalized that abuse and turned it into shame. That shame keeps her rooted in one place, convinced that, despite anything the men she's involved with might say, she's ugly. She's Hefty Hailey, and that's it. It's only a matter of time before they stop teasing her with compliments or until they wise up and she'll be alone again. She can't bear leaving the comfortable, reliable shame of being Hefty Hailey. That's her story, and she knows it by heart. The two men she's involved with, the ones who could maybe change her mind, both end up treating her terribly. Conner's a sweet boy, and he cares deeply about other people, but he's just awful to Hailey. He ends up treating her mostly as a way to fuck Hayleigh's body, dazzled by the abilities of TIOS. He makes her feel cared for, but then drops her as soon as someone better comes along. (That ol' Conner Indecisiveness...) He keeps her as a side fling, despite knowing how much she actually cares for him. When he finds out she's been having sex with Jordan, he takes it personally, despite the two other women he's been regularly seeing. For someone who tries to help people, he sure fucked her up. Jordan's not much better. (The fact that he's maybe slightly better than Conner is more damning for Conner than anything.) Jordan sees her as an endlessly devoted sexual plaything that also happens to look like Hayleigh. He's casually cruel to her, letting her know how contingent his approval is on her ability to dazzle him sexually. While he falls in love with her, it's mostly that he falls in love with what she'll do for him with her gorgeous body and filthy mind. His need to possess her, and his need to steal her from Conner, is bigger than any actual affection he might have for her as a person. It's ironic that the two characters in the book capable of seeing through TIOS to Hailey's stunning new exterior don't ever really *see* her. They see a sexy body, they see a willing participant, but they don't see her at all. Hailey's treated by the two male leads as either a sex object or a prize to be fought over. Neither of them really know her, or care to get to know her. They're happy for the sex, and they don't care much if they're keeping a sad girl in a mental prison of shame and self-loathing. Hailey talks a lot, and she likes sex. If you were listing character traits on a whiteboard, those'd have to go up as 1 and 2. The thing is, those two traits are the result of one problem. The problem Hailey has is that she sees herself as unworthy of attention. She's Hefty Hailey, social pariah. No one likes her, no one loves her. When Conner shows her some attention, she can't stop talking to him because she's afraid that every conversation could be the last. She doesn't know how the stars aligned to have a cute boy stop and listen to her, but she's going to pack every word she can in before he's gone. She ends up treating sex the same way. She likes sex, for sure. (No one who dislikes sex could be as good at it as Hailey. She is a goddamn innovator of intercourse.) But she knows that Conner and Jordan, for some bizarre reason, want sex from her, so she's going to give them all the sex they want, as often as they want it. It's the only reason they spend time with her. She only knows intimacy as being physical. Her only feeling of worth is through sex. More than anyone in the book, more than Conner or Heather or Amanda, Hailey deserved a happy ending. For a minute, it seemed like that happy ending might be with Jordan. She didn't love him, but she felt cared for, and maybe she'd be okay with that. Thankfully, she got more. She got to see that she didn't have to be Hefty Hailey anymore, that there was *literally* a beautiful person inside of her. She could believe in herself. She could see herself as someone who deserved happiness. She could find someone that didn't see her as only a way to get themselves off. She could be loved for everything she had to offer as a person. Hailey's mistreated by both the nominal hero and villain of the series. She's shattered emotionally and built back up as a sex toy. But in the end, Hailey made it the farthest. She wrote herself a better version of her story. NEXT: Four characters, in order of their importance to the TIOS trilogy - Angelica/Kirsten/Owen's Dick/Owen.

WDB
>>24683496

I think the Infinity Gauntlet is a good way to think about *why* most characters didn't try to do more with it. What if you fucked something up? No do-overs with TIOS, so I understand why Conner (a sweet boy who didn't mean to do most of the shit he did) and Jordan (pretty happy just to get laid, DEFINITELY did not want Conner to find out until he had a safety net) don't do more with it. Also, teenagers are not smart. Just not the sort of people I'd hand a suite of reality-altering software to unless I wanted to watch everything go to shit.

Anonymous
>>24683496

I can understand why Conner didn't do too much with TIOS, but I still wonder why he did so little to stop other people from messing with it. As for Jordan, his sex ed thing... it was so... small-scale? Reminds me of... https://youtu.be/ZhHQezXh2g0?t=338

WDB
>>24683496

Ha ha, for sure. Jordan could do so much more, but there's all these hot girls *right here*. Metatextually, I worry that a larger-scale Jordan would just be The New Normal at GHS, and we've gotten plenty of stories for that franchise already. For Conner, I assume that in Book 2 he didn't think anyone had access, and when he did he changed his password. In Book 3 he can't think of a way around Jordan's quote because he's not as good as Amanda, so he's helpless to stop him. Thanks for posting your thoughts!

WDB
>>24517432

It's time to talk about everyone's favorite toxic polyamorous triad: Angelica/Kirsten/Owen! Of the three, Angelica's the most well-developed. She's a POV character, and we mostly experience A/K/O through her eyes. She's the least in control of anyone in the group, thanks to TIOS, but she's probably the most integral. Kirsten tolerates Owen, but *wants* Angelica. Owen enjoys fucking Kirsten, but his heart belongs to Angelica. Angelica's the one who first sees that Kirsten's denying her real sexuality, and Angelica's the one who can hurt Owen the most. She's the focal point, and after three books of being subject to the whims and desires of others, she's finally the one who gets to define how things play out for all three of them. Her arc, going from victim of Conner and Owen's TIOS experimentation to healthy, fulfilled relationship with Owen has a lot of fun bumps in the road, as one of the more ostensibly mature members of the student cast is also *fucking terrible* at articulating her feelings. A lot of the the wrinkles in the A/K/O dynamic are down to Angelica's choices, and her happiness and contentment were the ones I most hoped for out of that group. (When I was reading the first book, before I really saw the tone and scope of the story, I was certain Conner'd end up fucking Angelica. Dead certain. She's his stepsister, which in Kindle terms is a huge fucking loophole that indicates upcoming incest erotica. It's like Chekhov's Stepsister. If there's ever a stepmom or stepsister in a Kindle story, there *is* going to be a sex scene with them and a non-blood-relation. To my surprise and eventual relief, nope! Conner would NEVER do that, so she gets to avoid any potential reader's incest squick.) Kirsten's a little stock, the "megabitch tamed by MC shenanigans" character. If that'd been all she ended up as, she'd hardly be worth talking about. But no, like nearly every character in TIOS she's got additional layers that deserve attention. Kirsten's latent, denied attraction to women, and Angelica in particular, is a welcome twist. She's a monster of a character, cruel and manipulative, but there's such a sweet moment after the prom when drunken, nearly passed-out Kirsten calls Angelica her girlfriend. She wants that, and could never bring herself to say it otherwise. Her quest for popularity and status is a gilded cage, keeping her from going after what she really wants because of What People Would Say. She's as awful a bully as Jordan, and hilariously becomes an LGBTQ-equality bully in the aftermath, but part of me still wanted to see her happy and honest. I don't know that I wanted *anything* for Owen. He never made much of an impression on me. I joked before that Owen's Dick was a more important character than Owen, but it's not that much of a joke. More than any other main character I can think of, Owen instigates almost *nothing*. Things pretty much just happen *to* him for two-and-a-half books. He kicks off Angelica's obsession and re-enrollment, but that's about it. After that, Angelica defines the terms of their emotional relationship. Kirsten declares herself Owen's girlfriend, establishes his social circle, and locks down the circumstance of the A/K/O triad. He's hurt by Angelica numerous times in the story, but it's up to her to bridge that gap and put things back together. You could probably replace Owen in the story with a dildo glued to a cardboard standup and things would progress about the same. ("A lot of people happen to think this dildo glued to a cardboard standup is really good-looking, dammit! If it wanted, it could have its pick of girls!" - Angelica Buck) Owen exists to be a friend and sounding-board for Conner (especially in the early going), a romantic interest for Angelica, a piece of leverage for Kirsten, and a source of TIOS erotica for readers. But all he does is *exist*. In a series full of richly-developed characters and a variety of fun twists on classic MC-erotica archetypes, just existing doesn't cut it. Overall the A/K/O story made for a fun parallel to Conner's story. TIOS happens, it makes for sexy relationship dynamics, folks learn about themselves, then a happy ending. A/K/O had a smaller scope (no one's worrying about magical-yearbook-armed sociopaths or disappearing love interests) and a more definitively resolved ending, which meant it was always going to be a subplot to the sprawl and the (thematically appropriate!) open-ending of Conner's story, but it was a *really good* subplot. NEXT: Rapid-fire thoughts on non-main characters, a grab bag of short anecdotes, and an ode to Neveah Kinslan, resident big tiddy goth.

icebear
>>24517432

Come on, why are we not calling them A-OK? So much better for their brand!

WDB
>>24517432

Counterpoint: Owen deserves to go last, and always did. It should've been KO! Isn't being a knockout a better brand than just being okay?

WDB
>>24517432

Happy One-Week Anniversary of "Our Time Was Now" being released on Amazon, everybody! I checked Google, and it looks like a traditional one-week anniversary gift is "a lot of words". So, I hope you enjoy this wordy post about a book you enjoyed and a bunch of tangentially-related stuff that you probably won't care about. -- As I get older and become (thankfully) less relevant to the lives of teenagers, I feel a little grateful when an adult shows up in a teen-driven story to remind a teen and young-adult cast that their bullshit is not unique. In that spirit, I really enjoyed Conner's mom's scene near the end of Book 3. She gets a few minor moments here and there through the series, but it's nice to see her deflate the typical teenage secrecy and melodrama by her having already figured out basically every non-magical-yearbook element of the story. She experienced breakups and flings and bullies and all sorts of shit when she was a teenager, so none of this is that mind-blowing. Every adult was a teenager once, which is something teenagers historically don't consider. It's fun to see them learn that at the end. -- A couple days after OSWN dropped, and so a couple days into thinking about it way too much and writing about it obsessively, I was asked to participate in a project by local journalism students. (I think it's some sort of teenage summer study program, but I didn't really care enough to ask.) As a local business owner, they filmed an interview with me about my business, the industry I'm in, and the community. I've done dozens of these over the years for all levels of media, and they're a breeze. But as they're setting up and I'm killing time, I had this brief, sudden flash to the early part of Sub Notes, which I'd reread in the aftermath of OSWN. It was this palpable fear of, "Wait. Wait. What are these goddamn kids up to? Is this a trap? Is this interview just a cover to extract some reality-altering quote from me? Do I need to watch what I'm saying?" Like, no, obviously I don't. Sub Notes is a story, it's not real. But it's like saying Candyman in the mirror. It's 100% not going to summon a monster. But as you get to the final repetition, there's this tiny part that's like, "Am I tempting fate? What if?" So, yeah, those kids picked the worst fucking time to want to interview me. (It all went fine, they got a bunch of good footage, it was over in a snap.) -- I mentioned it before, but the idea to hinge Jordan's blackmail, and his final attack on Conner, on making him have sex with his mom? Weird. WEIRD. I get how Conner'd find it abhorrent, but, like, read the room, dude. It's not as though the TIOS series had built up Shannon Buck to be some sort of unattainable beauty that we as readers would be cheated by her not falling under the sexual sway of TIOS, but I don't feel like a lot of people would've minded if she had. As threats go, it felt like not a huge one? I went along with it as a reader, since a) I was invested enough in Conner to care that HE cared about it, b) it's not like it hung as a cloud over a big chunk of the story, and most importantly c) it gave us a really great scene with Conner and Jordan's stepmom. (As further ammunition for the Conner Doesn't Use TIOS Enough crowd, it was, of course, Kristy who had the idea to subvert Jordan's threat in that way. Conner's a sweet boy!) Maybe it's for the best that there wasn't a more legitimately terrifying quote for Jordan to use? Like the tension of that might've overwhelmed the finale? I don't know. It was just weird, the dichotomy of how Conner took it versus how (I assume) the readers took it. It's like Jordan threatened to put "I get free ice cream whenever I want" - Conner Fishers into the yearbook. You sick fuck! -- I've been watching the new season of Legion since it came back on, and it makes for an interesting response to some of the mechanics in TIOS, specifically when it comes to informed consent. I won't bore you with a ton of details, but in the previous season the male lead, David, used his mental abilities to alter the memories of his then-girlfriend Sydney, at which point he has sex with her. I say "then-girlfriend", because once she figures out the he essentially MC-roofied her, she calls him out on it and demands that he pay for his crime. He goes on the run, feeling persecuted. The week before OSWN dropped, there's a scene between David and Syd, the first since David went on the run and the previous cast started hunting him. David tries to apologize, but Syd doesn't care. He tries to justify his actions, to minimize them, but Syd doesn't care. He assaulted her. That's it. The end. He can't talk his way out of it, and he can't make up for it. When he tells her that he's planning on going back in time, erasing the assault so that it never even occurred, she tells him that going back and undoing it would just be "another trick". He *did* this horrible thing. He can't ever really undo *the decision he made to do it*. So, all of *that* may have been rattling around in my head as I got to the end of OSWN and the ladies of Sex-Ed tried to tell Conner how okay they were with the whole thing. If I'd been reading OSWN in a vacuum, I'd've probably been willing to roll with it, but I kept coming back to Syd from Legion, and her insistence that there was no way of changing the decision David made. She was this phantom rebuttal to the premise of TIOS. It really made me think about what was happening to these characters in way that I wasn't planning on. Rachel Keller's a compelling actress, y'all. -- Olivia is around all the time, but I don't even think I can visualize her. She's this, like, presence that is always around Kirsten. If any character in the book is pure comic relief, it's got to be Olivia. There's a sweet, sad moment where she confides to Angelica about how to stay in Kirsten's good graces, but otherwise? It's just Olivia acting as Kirsten's sycophantic hypewoman, debasing herself to make Kirsten look good. Between the weird ways Olivia tries to make Kirsten look good, and the frequent petty ways Kirsten humbles the spineless Olivia, it's a relentlessly entertaining dynamic. I imagine we'd've gotten a more three-dimensional Olivia had the book just been about A/K/O (deal with it), but I was always laughing at what we did get. -- Holy shit, do I not like Patreon's commenting system. It may be a smooth process for creators, but it's a woefully incomplete experience for fans. If a creator drops a new piece of content, there's room for comments on the post. That's great! I'm using the shit out of that functionality! If someone responds to your comment, you get a notification, but that's all. You can't subscribe to a thread. If someone posts a new comment on this post, sharing their thoughts about the story, I only know if I happen to revisit the post. I can't follow another patron. If someone is posting stuff I agree with, I'll only ever know if I happen to stumble upon it. It's so haphazard, and it means if you're not constantly monitoring a post, it might as well not even exist. It's even worse for older content. If you're commenting on a post that's more than a couple posts deep on the page, the only one who's ever going to see it is the creator, since they're the only one who gets a notification. The only patrons who'll see it are future ones who might stumble across it as they trawl for missed content. Part of the reason I'm writing so much so quickly is that it's going to virtually disappear in a few more days. Next thing you know, OSWN isn't going to be the new hotness. Soon we'll have a sequel to Lesson Plans, or possibly Friends Far From Home, a new Friend Zone story where a vacationing Todd meets a group of girls who are staying at the same European bed-and-breakfast that he is. (Sure, the masses might prefer the bombast and huge cast of Friendgame, but *real* FZU fans know that it's the cathartic epilogue of Friends Far From Home that actually concludes the latest phase of the Friend Zone Universe.) Once those stories hit, what good is there trying to spark a discussion on OSWN? It's time-consuming to follow any sort of discussion as a fan, so why even try? I wish there was a way to have a more robust fan community on Patreon. Something less transactional, more continuous. Believe it or not, writing about TIOS is not the entirety of my fandom. Those other fandoms, though, have incredibly useful sites and message boards that make staying in the fandom super easy. You can create online friendships that make your enjoyment of something even greater. It sucks that Patreon doesn't have a better system in place. It'd be more enjoyable for fans, which could only help creators. -- There's a few tiers of characters in a magical-erotica series like TIOS. You've got your main characters, like Conner or Amanda or Jordan. They're point-of-view characters. They've got character arcs. They're likely why you'd want to read all the books in a series. Then you've got minor characters. They've got names, and they pop up a bunch, but they're usually only in the story to support another character. Conner's mom Shannon, Kirsten's lackey Olivia, that kind of thing. But in the genre of magical-erotica, you've got another class of character. This character type may or may not have a name. They've probably got one attribute to them. They're extras, really. They have no arc, no interior life. They exist in the story for one reason: to get fucked. They exist for a main character to have sex with. They are extras for sex. They're sextras. Mary Buchanan is the definition of a sextra. She's got a name, but you may not even remember it. She's got one attribute, and that's "ridiculously attractive but chaste religious girl". She's in the story because Jordan's Sex-Ed class needs disposable characters who can absorb his depravities. Sextras are super useful in a magical-erotica series, doubly so when it's as empathetic as TIOS. Sextras, again, don't have an interior life, so you don't have to feel bad for them when they're the subject of TIOS alteration. They don't have an arc, so you don't need to consider how a sexy scene might alter their character. They don't have anyone in the cast who cares about them, so them getting sexed by a main character isn't going to trigger any other plot points. A magical-erotica story needs erotica, and sextras make for an endless supply of erotica. It's not the same as a scene between main or minor characters, but sextras help fill in the rest of the space. They're a side dish, a quantity-over-quality. You couldn't make a meal out of them, but they can make a regular meal a banquet. -- Now that "This Is Our Story" is over, maybe you're looking for some other Ice Bear stories to check out. Here's a few you might like: -"Tolerance" and its sequel, "The Tolerant", are a good read. They're the most obvious antecedents to TIOS. Imagine if Jordan was the only one who had access to TIOS, and Kirsten was his girlfriend/partner-in-crime. -For those who wished that Jordan got even more control over the school, might I recommend "The New Normal at GHS"? It's basically Jordan's Sex-Ed class, but the entire school. A little too extreme at times for me, so only check it out if you like your erotica harder-edged. -If you want a more romantic tone, "My New Girlfriend" is for you. A slow burn, like TIOS, with a lucky-ass protagonist who's actually a pretty deserving guy. Very sweet stuff, but with a much smaller cast than TIOS. If TIOS had never happened, Conner would absolutely have grown up into Drew. -Finally, if you're more in the mood for the hot-flash Expanded Universe stylings of Lesson Plans or Sub Notes, check out "Technically Not a Story". Super hot and very in-line with those recent two shorts. -- I don't usually "fantasy cast" with books. I don't try to imagine what celebrity might play a character in a story. But, this time, the description of Heather Blake had me definitely envisioning Natalie Alyn Lind, from Fox's late, decidedly-unlamented series The Gifted. I don't know if it was intentional, but that girl is the poster child for "curvy, stacked young blonde woman". -- If you're already an Ice Bear superfan and you've read everything he's done, here's a few non-IB suggestions to scratch that TIOS itch: -"The Affection Multiplier", a choose-your-own-adventure story over at CHYOA. Specifically, the threads by Fantasy. You can find 'em at https://chyoa.com/story/The-Affection-Multiplier.22075 . It's a sweet "one boy at an all-girls school" magical-erotica series. -Over at the ol' Erotic Mind Control Story Archive, check out "Billy's Bully Blitz Backfires" by Kris P. Kreme, and its sequel, "Bully Blitz - Chet's Chaotic Conquest" by webb025. If you wanted a version of TIOS where Jordan becomes Ultimate Jordan, these two stories are what you've been asking for. -- Everyone's got a type. TIOS, as a series, is full of people's types. Curvy, stacked blonde. Athletic, gorgeous brunette. Leggy redhead. Instagram thot. Petite sex bomb. The list goes on. TIOS is a big tent, and it serves all types. But no tent is infinite, and there's bound to be someone's need that goes unfulfilled. Folks, for me, that unfilled need is named Neveah Kinslan, resident big tiddy goth. One of my favorite Ice Bear stories is "Neighbors From Back When", a goddamn scorcher of a short story. It's the one that opens with our hero DJ being propositioned by Tabitha (but now it's Tabby), a goth dream girl. It's a great short regardless, but Tabitha's initial appearance (and glowing description) had me thoroughly engaged. I'm not crazy about the GHS series (mostly the later stories, which are a little too dark for me), but "The New Normal at GHS" has a brief section that is etched in my brain. It's about Stephanie, a "goth freak" (how dare you, Blake) who gets magical-erotica'd into being a compliant, ditzy sex toy. It's maybe a page or two long, but it's unforgettable. So imagine my disappointment that Neveah Kinslan, the "resident big tiddy goth" of Northside, goes CRIMINALLY underused over two books of "This Is Our Story". Shit, underused? UNused! She's mentioned a couple times, but I'm not sure I remember a single hot anything with her. She's just *sitting* there, in every Sex-Ed scene. WASTED. People can crab about Conner never trying to make his life sexier, or Jordan never seeing the full potential of TIOS, and I'll defend the version of TIOS we actually got. But if people want to use Neveah's lack of attention as their argument that TIOS needed more sexiness? With that argument, I'd have to agree with them Justice for Neveah. NEXT: Whoof! That was a lot of words for a post that was supposed to be *the short one*. Jesus. Now that all of the characters and miscellany are cleared off, it's time for the concluding posts, starting with arguably the most important topic of the whole series: TIOS the operating system, and the magical-erotica it generates.

WDB
>>24517432

What would a magical-erotica high school series be without magical-erotica? I mean, Riverdale, I guess. I don't watch a lot of teen dramas. Is that one where they can fuck? Let's say Riverdale, then. Anyway, more importantly, a magical-erotica high school series without magical-erotica would be awful. Luckily, we've got the TIOS operating system to provide all of the magical-erotica we need. But how good is it at doing that? In any magical-erotica story, short or long, you need a solid vector to deliver magical-erotica and you need the style of magical-erotica delivered to be a turn-on for readers. Put simply, you need a good system and a good result. A system can be any of a number of things. The Friend Zone stories use guided meditation and hypnosis. My New Girlfriend uses chemical conditioning. The New Normal at GHS uses a sonic device. Character Creation uses a goddamn Dungeon Master's Guide. A system can be nearly anything. The system for TIOS (the story) is TIOS (the operating system). It's a piece of yearbook editing software that somehow edits reality. It can alter photos that in turn alter people, and it can make any inputted quote into literal, unshakeable reality. At least as far as the three books in the series go, that's about it. Oh! And it can re-enroll people in high school and completely create a living, breathing person from basically thin fucking air. Mostly, though, it's the photos and quotes that are the main sexy uses of TIOS in the series. The incredibly tight restrictions on TIOS are easily the biggest boon the story has going for it. There are plenty of Master PC stories out there, stories where a magical piece of software allows some nerd to live out every one of his fantasies. They make themselves into ripped supermen, they turn every woman into horny goddesses, they usually reference being able to do every martial art from The Matrix. (This comes up staggeringly often.) The ability to do anything, though, makes everything feel too easy. There's no challenge to anything, it all just falls in their lap. TIOS is not easy, though. It takes a lot of maneuvering for Jordan to do sexy things with it, and all the planning in the world can't keep Conner from accidentally doing sexy things with it. The effort expended, in either direction, makes the inevitable sexiness all the better. By Book 2, I imagine every single reader was, like me, analyzing every piece of dialogue for the nugget of sexiness that TIOS would latch onto, and getting a big, Jordan-style shit-eating grin on their face when they saw it. That moment was always so rewarding. Equally rewarding was the use of photo manipulation. From swapping Hailey and Hayleigh in Book 1, to Amanda's jaw-dropping makeover in Book 2, up to my frequently-cited favorite use in Book 3 of redecorating Heather Blake with pornographic tattoos, the photo editing uses were always a clever way to juice sequences. So, that's the system of TIOS. It's got a small number of options, but some fiendishly clever uses of those options. The characters have to work at it, so any success is immensely satisfying. Now, let's talk about the result. The result is usually separate from the system. A result is the style of erotica that the story runs on, the way the altered characters behave that makes it sexy. That result could be bimboification, like in Alice's Smartpartment or Oopsie. It could be total worship, like in Amazonia or On Pleasant Street. Or it could be cognitive-dissonance, like in many, many of Ice Bear's stories. (Top of my head: Every Friend Zone story. The Tenant. Roommate Agreement. Fiend's Tongue. All He Wants For Christmas. Huge chunks of Tolerance/ant. Group Project. I'm sure there's more.) And, like, I'm not mad at that! Cognitive-dissonance, where someone believes that the absurd, humiliating, sexy thing they're doing is totally normal, and they have a ridiculous justification for doing it, is maybe the main reason I'm an Ice Bear fan. I remember reading Fiend's Tongue, where every boastful lie a character tells becomes reality, and being blown away. I needed to know who this writer was, and I needed to read everything they'd written, because this shit was as hot as *the sun*. So, your mileage may vary, but I found the ways every victim of TIOS explained away its effects SUPREMELY hot. I've already quoted Heather Blake on her tattoos, but the way the Sex-Ed class became complacent participants in their own sexual subjugation? The way they'd go along with the most insane request of Jordan's? The way they'd drum their fingers in boredom while fulfilling those requests? Yep, yep, and double yep. Totally hot. Even hotter, and maybe my favorite use of cognitive-dissonance, is when you can see it from a POV character. Characters like Lauren and Ashley showcasing the changes made is one thing, but when a POV character like Angelica gets a chance? SO much hotter, in my opinion. Just those little moments, like when she casually refers to Jordan as Mr. Lyons in her head when she thinks about Sex-Ed, or the way she explains away her inability to disobey Mr. Lyons as being because there must be some huge punishment that she'd receive but she just can't recall what it is right now. Those frequent expressions of TIOS' power, how subtle and unbreakable it is, I just find that type of thing *incredibly* appealing. For me, the TIOS operating system is an all-time great magical-erotica concept. The very fact that it's supported three great novels and a growing list of Expanded Universe stories should be proof of that. It's strict enough to make a story develop, instead of a procession of easy-mode sex scenes. But it's also deep enough to create an endless array of outcomes. And those outcomes are, without fail, hot as *fuck*. NEXT: Themes.

icebear
>>24517432

Yeah, Neveah was always one I wanted to have more of a use for, but she didn't have the kind of empathy needed to do what Lauren wound up doing. Kind of a "I'm dtf but I'm not going to hold your hand through this" thing. Would've been totally nice to get her in there somewhere, but whatcha gonna do at this point, eh? Fwiw she was one of the few auxiliary characters who had her own reference model, so I was at least considering using her. Which is to say, for major characters I generally use some sort of model to keep myself mindful of appearance details and the like, help flesh out the scene in my head. I'd provide examples, but for one, it's probably inappropriate, and folks may well prefer their own mental images. Still, your suggestion of Natalie Alyn Lind for Heather is pretty close to the mark for sure. And yes, you have me pegged as a big fan of cognitive dissonance as a tool of eroticism. I always feel like all those stories where someone flips a metaphorical (sometimes literal) switch and the character becomes X, they just don't do as much for me. It's one thing if they character still has a semblance of their original self in there, so they might try to fight the changes and (of course) inevitably succumb. Basically ever Limerick story. Love 'em. But I think that the character (and all the personal traits being a character ought to entail) is what makes it hot at least as much as the control mechanism. Take Courtney in My New Girlfriend. (Not like that. She's a married woman - shame on you.) Sure, there's a nice fantasy element to a beautiful stranger randomly falling into one's lap. But for me, it was having Courtney retain much of her original self that makes me invested in her and what she's doing. That chapter where they visit Drew's mom for the holidays. She's a person who could read the dynamic between Drew and his brother, read some of the quiet angst from those years when he was Conner's age, and could use her own creativity, empathy, initiative - rather than just sitting around waiting for Drew to tell her where he was going to fuck her next. There's a place for the where-do-you-want-me-to-fuck-you-next girl, but I like a lot more meat on her personality bones. For those happy folks following this thread (and I can't believe it never occurred to me that yeah, I'm the only one getting updates - that really does suck! I passed on the feedback to Patreon): I am expecting to finish my draft of the next TIOS side story tonight, edit tomorrow. That's the goal. You'll know as soon as I do!

WDB
>>24517432

That chapter in "My New Girlfriend" is pretty great, and your mentioning it made me realize how close the dynamic of Drew and Courtney is to Conner and Kristy's. Kristy, like Courtney, is experienced and adventurous, significantly more than her partner. Kristy's ability to role-play and lead Conner through scenarios, it's *way* more advanced than the fumbling teenage activities of the rest of the cast, who are mostly grateful just to find a quiet place to bang wet parts together.

WDB
>>24517432

I don't have a great way in to this post, so let's just talk about the themes of TIOS. (I am astonishingly tired for some reason, so please excuse me if this is even less focused than usual.) TIOS is a magical-erotica series set in a high-school, with predominantly teenage main characters. As such, the themes it's dealing with are largely the same as any other teen romance: self-actualization, empathy, and communication. These are the things teenagers deal with as they transition to adulthood, so any story that has teens with character arcs is going to hit those themes. What's interesting about TIOS is how those themes are wrapped in the larger concept of stories. It's fitting for a series called "This Is Our Story", right? Take Heather. When the series starts, she's going to Berkeley and she's going there alone. She doesn't have time for a romance that's only going to end in a year. That's the story she's written for herself. But then the TIOS program works its magic, and a new story is written from her quotes, and suddenly she's in a relationship with Conner. Her story stops being about her goals for college and starts being about her affection for Conner. TIOS has written her a different story, and she has to decide which story is her: accomplished student? Or Conner's girlfriend? Nearly every major character has to deal with what their new story is once TIOS gets ahold of them. Does Angelica hate Owen, or is she falling for him? Is Hailey a despised outcast, or an overlooked gem? Is Kristy a beaten-down public educator, or is her devotion to her students greater than she knew? And on, and on. Most characters, like Kristy and Angelica, know what's happening, so they get to exercise control over their stories. Angelica even gets to toss in a few key quotes, to give her and Owen the happy ending she's decided she wants. Kristy gets to thoroughly contemplate how her story has changed thanks to TIOS, and through that contemplation she commits to her better, happier story. Some characters are in the dark about TIOS, and they don't know that their story could be different. Hailey lacks the self-esteem to consider other possibilities, choosing to believe her story only ends one way. Likewise, Kirsten doesn't want to risk her predictable story for the unpredictable one that Angelica represents. The biggest examples of story as theme are Conner and Jordan. They see the scope of TIOS, and how it can make anything real. Every piece of dialogue is leading to a new story, and if they can accumulate the right ones they can make the story they want. But more than "story", Conner and Jordan better represent the other major theme, and that's "storytelling". A lot of TIOS, to me, was about writing. It was about writing, and how to avoid doing it badly, and the value of empathizing with your characters. When TIOS opens, Conner represents a shitty writer. He's diagrammatic: he knows where the story of the yearbook is going, he's going to do it himself, everything's going to fit just right. (He even says in Book 3 that he was afraid that This Is Our Story would just be his story.) But over the series, his intractable nature slowly gives way to an empathetic need to listen to his characters, to let them have a say in where the story goes. In Book 2, with the introduction of Amanda, we even get to see Conner directly interact with what is essentially *a character in a story*. He has to directly consider what she wants, instead of what he thinks she would want. Most of Book 3 is Conner trying to figure out how to land the ending of TIOS, and how to make sure every character is happy with the ending. He cares about how the characters of TIOS feel about the story they're in, and it makes the story of TIOS better as a result. Jordan's a shitty writer when he starts, too, but in a different way. He's all self-insert Mary Sue glorification. He only cares about the characters in TIOS if they can make him look good. He's intricate with his plotting, but there's no heart to his storytelling. It's hot but, fittingly for Jordan, nothing anyone would want to talk about. It's only when he finds a muse, a character that he can concentrate on, that he becomes a little less shitty of a writer. (He's absolutely still a shitty writer at the end, though.) A lot of the charm of TIOS as series comes down to how much thematic stuff is going on under the hood, intentionally or unintentionally. I never in a million years thought there'd be a magical-erotica series that would have me analyzing its themes instead of just bookmarking the hottest parts, but I'm glad that TIOS is a series where I can do both. NEXT: The ending of the book, but not the end of these posts.

WDB
>>24517432

Man, I gotta write a whole bunch on a series ending I really loved after reading a new TIOS-spinoff that's hot as hell? Shit is getting tricky on the ol' patreon dot com tonight! -- Endings are difficult. The arc of a three-book series, and the needs of each book in the series, can be best compared to flying a plane. Book 1, the plane *has* to take off. It can be quickly, a rocket launch into the air, or it can be a slow, steady climb off of the runway, but it's got to take off. Book 2, as long as you stay in the air, you can do whatever you want. Risky, thrilling maneuvers? A constant, easy heading? Whatever you want, just keep it in the air. Book 3, *you have to land the plane*. It doesn't matter how much aerial acrobatics you've done to that point, or how steady you've been on the controls, but if you crash that plane, that's all that matters. No one's going to want to talk about anything other than the fireball at the end. That may seem a bit hyperbolic, but I vividly remember people talking at the end of Lost and they were *not* willing to be merely unhappy with the ending. I heard people say that they hated the ending so much it *retroactively* robbed them of any enjoyment they'd derived from the series. All of it! If they'd enjoyed episode 8 of season 3? Now that hour was *negative enjoyment*. It's all come around again with Game of Thrones. People take endings VERY seriously. So, if endings can be so bad they render the entire story, for however many years, a waste, can the opposite be true? Can an ending be *so good* it papers over any perceived flaw? Can it thematically tie together the story *so well* that complaining about any one thing is missing the forest for the trees? I don't know. But I do know that the ending of TIOS, the final chapter in Our Time Was Now, made me love the whole series more. It was like a multiplier to how much I thought the rest of the series worked and delivered. I love stories. I've cried at stories from books, from comics, from movies and TV shows and video games and so many more. I get invested in characters, in their worlds, and when the stories are well-told, I don't want those stories to end. As I realize those characters have run out of pages, their narratives completed, there's a melancholy that hits me. I love what they've accomplished, but I don't really want the story to end. Thankfully, Conner feels the same way. Like most good ideas Conner has, we can thank Kristy for motivating Conner. (As tonight's non-canon Faculty Meeting amply demonstrated, she is an exceptionally motivating educator.) It's Kristy who brings up the idea of the yearbook as a way to keep stories forever, to brush away the present and relive the happy memories of the past. That idea, along with a half-dozen things Conner's been hearing from the people around him, creates the best ending a story about the value of stories could ask for. The ending, as we're walked through Conner's gift to the cast, was something I found enormously touching. It's a celebration of everything the cast has learned about themselves over the series, a reward for the struggles they've faced, and a refusal to leave on an unhappy note. We're treated to ideal versions of Owen and Hailey and Amanda and all of the rest as they exist within a bubble of TIOS, becoming the best possible versions of themselves, living the stories they've written for themselves. We get a glimpse into a myriad of possible presents as Conner ends up with Heather, or he ends up with Kristy, or he ends up with Amanda. It's a story, Conner seems to be saying. What do we *want* the ending to be? That little section, six paragraphs long, about what the non-TIOS version of Conner might do with his life? Fucking WRECKED me. I still can't reread that passage without misting up. It's a gift to readers. It says, come on, it's all going to be fine. Don't worry about them. It's that recurring empathy, that *kindness* that elevates the TIOS series above so many other erotica series. The ending of Our Story Was Now made me see the rest of the story in a better light. It gave me a chance to see the cast as I want them to be, and a dream that they'd also be out there, somewhere, happy. And if I ever miss them, I can always reread these yearbooks. NEXT: One last small indulgence.

WDB
>>24517432

Good morning, fellow patrons, Ice Bear, Patreon employees, and any government surveillance that may have stumbled upon this post by mistake. Has it already been twelve days since Our Time Was Now was released on Amazon? Since I started obsessively cataloging and examining every last element of the series? I can hardly believe it, either. It feels like it was either yesterday or a month ago. Either way, it's been a length of time, and that time has run out. This is my last planned post on Our Time Was Now. I might respond to a response, but this is it for structured ("structured") writing. After this, we might not see each other as much. Some of us will move on to things like Faculty Meeting or The Tolerant and Tolerance post, commenting there. Others will go back to lurking in the shadows, happy to see a revitalized author doing good work of which he can be proud. Maybe a lively discussion will take place on the Community page. I'm just kidding. No one ever looks at the Community page. (hold for laughs) Seriously, though, while our future may be stretching out in front of us, let's never forget the lessons we learned from Our Time Was Now. First, it's that the name of the third book in the TIOS series is called Our Time Was Now, not Our Story Was Now, even though my brain will reflexively type Our Story Was Now without fail. Second, there is no such thing as being too much of a fan a of a book series. I hope, anyway. Patreon started flagging my posts as spam, since they were coming so frequently, so maybe there's a limit after all. Third, Neveah Kinslan was robbed, in every continuity that exists for TIOS stories. Finally, whatever we're paying Ice Bear is not enough, as I've wrung twelve days out of a $8 purchase. That is absurd value for my money. It may not be the same, as we move on from Our Time Was Now, but we'll always have these posts, this entry, to come back to. Part of us will always be the person we were in the comments of a post about the release of Our Time Was Now on Amazon. Thank you all, and Go Icicles!

Anonymous
>>24683496

Personally I wish there was a little more on Jordan's antics with the sex-ed clas, but I did like the bigger changes he made and how no one but him and Conner knew about the changes. Also what is "The New Normal At GHS", does it show some issues with making it on a larger scale?

Anonymous
>>24683496

I agree that the updates to Jordan made him a lot more interesting as a character. He still had some issues but overall it was a huge improvement. "The New Normal At GHS" is another Ice Bear story. It's also set in high school, but the mind control in it is more pervasive than in TIOS. I think the issue WDB referred to was that if Jordan had used TIOS more effectively then the story would have become too similar to GHS.

Anonymous
>>24683496

Ahh I see, thanks for the clarification! Do you know where I can read that story?I don't see it on Amazon.