TIOS Recap (Patreon)

Howdy, everybody! Thanks so much for all of your feedback since this past weekend's publication of This Was Our Time, the TIOS version of End Game. (Lower cultural impact, sure, but consider the budget for each.) Anyways, I've gotten a couple suggestions that I should do a recap, for folks who don't want to re-read the first two books but have done some Life-ing in the interim. So I'm gonna do that below.

Also also, friend and fanatic WDB has been off the rails with commentary and insights, so I wanted to explicitly invite any- and everyone who has thoughts to feel free to do the same. Not that I think anybody's quite so bursting at the seams with TIOS thoughts, but for those of you who have stuff to say -- analysis, critique, Nobel prize for literature nominations, whatever -- please do feel free. I read it all and love hearing what y'all have to say.

So, without further ado, a recap (and take a deep breath, 'cause it's as short as I could make it but that still ain't short):

TIOS I:
The story opens in the middle of fall semester at Northside High School which has recently received a copy of software named eponymously for their yearbook title, This Is Our Story. After covering an academic decathlon meet in which "Hefty" Hailey McManus flirts pretty hard, disinterested editor-in-chief Conner Fishers tries out the new software, casually switching Hailey's picture with that of "Hottie" Hayleigh McKnight. He subsequently realizes their likenesses have switches 4 realziez, only nobody seems to notice. Conner soon decides to give her a shot, both of them awkwardly navigating their first deeply sexual relationship as they realize the heights of her submissiveness and borderline nymphomania. Conner confides in his friend/neighbor Owen, who, after having the proof shown to him, gets Conner's stepsister Angelica to say she "can't get enough" of his cock, and so the two soon begin a hot and heavy affair of their own. Meanwhile, as Conner increasingly feels he is taking advantage of Hailey because, despite the sex, he doesn't feel a chemistry with her and continues to pine for Heather Blake, his crush of many years. He gently breaks up with her. After he seeks solace from his yearbook teacher, Miss C (Kristy), she gives him some advice and assures him she just wants him to be happy. The incidental inclusion of this quote instills in her a far deeper desire to please him. Likewise, a quote from Heather about how she trusts Conner leads to her coming to believe everything he says. Near the end of the year, Conner asks out Heather and faints when she rejects him and bully Jordan Lyons reveals this fact to their whole class. The next day (the final day of the semester), Hailey reaches out to Conner out of pity, and he impulsively asks her to go out with him after school. However, in last period, Conner discovers Miss C has given Heather a low grade on her final exam, costing her a shot at her potential inheritance; he intervenes with his teacher and convinces her to go easy on Heather. She reveals that she set this all up to let Conner be a hero to earn Heather's affection -- which he does, setting up a date for that evening. After school he confronts Miss C about her benevolent intervention and she reveals just how much his happiness means to her by seducing him. Conner realizes he has inadvertently done this to her and explains the cause of her feelings (using the technique he developed with Owen to show her the real Hailey/Hayleigh), but to her, the feeling is too good to change course. In the epilogue, we discover that not only did Hailey catch Conner hooking up with an unknown someone in the editor's office (Kristy, though she assumes Heather), but Jordan, ordered to apologize for humiliating Conner, also witnesses the spectacle and sticks around long enough to realize not only who Conner is fooling around with, but also hears his whole explanation of what TIOS is capable of.

We, The Nighthawks
Conner's attempt at wooing Heather crashes and burns over winter break as she doesn't want to get into a romantic entanglement only to have to leave it behind when she goes to college in the fall.  Dejected, Conner resumes sleeping with Hailey, though insists it's nothing formal; this leaves the window open for her to soon after begin sleeping with Jordan as well. On a snow day the first week of school, Jordan visits Conner at home ostensibly to work on a yearbook project, surreptitiously stealing Conner's TIOS password. Much of Jordan's actions occur in the background, as he uses various techniques to hide his edits in the system so that Conner won't discover them. After Heather is humiliated by being called to account over the school's dress code, Conner tries to white knight things by getting rid of the dress code altogether; Jordan, however, meddles in his plans and makes it so that nobody cares what anyone else wears, regardless of its propriety. Heather's feminist protest against the dress code is likewise altered, and she and her fellow protesters begin wearing shockingly scandalous attire (though as before, their fellow students are numb to their squawking). Conner is perplexed, but most of his attention is occupied by the new arrival of Amanda Carpenter, an editor-in-chief newly arrived, who Miss C says she is powerless to demote. Jordan ambitiously abuses TIOS to make himself the teacher of a "sex ed" class full of the hottest girls in school, slowly making the girls compliant and tight-lipped about their activities. At the King of Hearts dance, as Jordan is hooking up with one student after another from his class, he becomes paranoid Conner is wise to him and hastily attempts some distractions. First, Jordan uses TIOS to cement (albeit unnecessarily) Heather's attraction to him, but accidentally does the same to both Kristy and Amanda as well. Further, Jordan tries to redirect Conner's suspicions that something is amiss at Owen, using Owen's own words in the program to give him his pick of girls, which super-hot bitch Kirsten Vaughan immediately acts upon while Owen is feeling glum over Angelica's rejection to date him publicly. Perplexed, Conner rushes to the yearbook lab to see if Owen had done something and nearly catches Jordan in the act. Horrified that his account has been compromised, he changes his password. In the weeks ahead, Conner resumes dating a newly re-interested Heather as well as having an affair with Miss C, all while continuing to fool around with Hailey. As Jordan fumes at being cut off from TIOS and Angelica is drawn in as a silent third partner in Owen's relationship with Kirsten, Conner compensates for his guilt for sleeping around by using TIOS to perform some kindly minor (and not-so-minor) miracles for his classmates, fretting that his deeds will yield only short-term results since the trial period for TIOS expires at year's end. Amanda, however, explains she's worked to extend TIOS (not realizing what all it's capable of), largely as a favor to Conner. Guilty for how he has misjudged and mistreated her, Conner assures her from then on they will be equal partners, and upgrades her user status to editor-in-chief. Before he can explain to her what that entails, he makes a disturbing discovery, namely that Hailey has been sleeping with Jordan on the side. Conner confronts Jordan, trying to see if he somehow saw through TIOS, but Jordan convinces him he's nothing more than a man-whore who happened to discover Hailey's an awesome lay. Mollified, Conner promises to stay out of his way, only to have his suspicions redoubled the next day when no one is willing to talk about Jordan. The behavior tips Conner off to check more thoroughly in TIOS, where he finally sees all that Jordan has done. As he and Amanda prepare to discuss her new TIOS privileges as well as their growing feelings for each other, Conner pauses for a second confrontation. There,Jordan tells Conner he has used Amanda's TIOS access, taken from her during his sex ed class, to prohibit Conner from getting in his way. As a final blow, he directs Conner to Amanda's student profile, where a quote suggests that the transfer student was in fact created by TIOS using a rumor Jordan started.

WHEW. Lots going on in there, and I probably missed a bunch of stuff, but that's the very broad strokes. So again, you're invited to leave comments if you like, or you can simply enjoy in happy silence. More to come!