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Faculty Meeting (Patreon)

Published:
2019-07-17 21:22:40
Imported:
2023-02

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Howdy, folks! Another TIOS-inspired tale for y'all, continuing the work begun with Sub Notes and Lesson Plans. I won't say much to foreshadow, but hopefully it scratches that "man, but here's what somebody *should* do with TIOS" itch. :)

I think I'm going to work on a few short works here for a bit, catch up on some old ideas, but I'm beginning to get shape of my next Big Project, if I can come up with enough to make it sufficiently appealing. I'll tease it more when we get closer to it becoming a reality, but for those of you who were fans of the old Character Creation series, it might especially be to your liking.

For now, here's more shameless fan fic of my own fic! More to come.

Comments

WDB

Exactly as hot as anticipated, which was *a lot*. Also, Miss Roper? Julie Roper? Julie Roper the cross-country coach? Is this a Character Creation/TIOS crossover?! Worlds are colliding!

Anonymous

This was pretty well-done. I liked it. Jordan continues to impress with his tactics. It’s pretty amazing how much his characterization improved as the story progressed. He went from “Team Rocket” levels of cartoonish villainy to “Moriarty-Lite”. If only Jordan had the benefit of a worthy Sherlock to face off against. Now don’t get me wrong. TIOS was an amazing story for what it was. I just feel that *it could have been so much more*. I still remember reading the epilogue from book one and being super hype about the prospect of Jordan getting access to TIOS. Conner had, up to that point, been fairly inept in his use of TIOS. Not just in terms of (ab)using the program for his personal benefit, but in coming up with ways to prevent TIOS from wreaking havoc on the lives of others. His early attempts at experimentation stopped after he messed up with Angelica and he spent the rest of the book feeling guilty about it (but not guilty enough to lift a finger to help her, apparently). At the time I felt that the introduction of a dedicated antagonist would be just the kick in the pants he needed to get his head in the game. Alas, it was not to be. Conner had his moments, sure, but by and large he was just this kind of mopey “woe-is-me” dude and it was his girls that did the heavy lifting for “team good-guys”. His mother came up with using TIOS to help others. Miss C came up with the counter to Jordan’s “nuclear threat”. Amanda figured out that TIOS could be resisted, to a certain extent. Heather managed to bring Conner back from the deep depression multiple times. Hailey actually managed to turn Jordan into a better person. I mean, not a *good* person but he was better in the end than when he started off. What made it especially frustrating was that, every now and then, there would be flashes of the dynamic I hoped for. Setting up the foursome was a pretty clever move, and once Conner was ensnared with Jordan’s “you don’t go against me” trap he became incredibly creative in coming up with ways to prevent himself from ever doing anything on TIOS. Where was this creative thinking before that happened? In this very story we see Kristy wonder why she didn’t influence Conner to use TIOS for her personal benefit. That’s actually a pretty good question. Why didn’t any of the girls try to get Conner to do anything for them? You would think that, rather than engage in petty squabbles with Kristen, Angelica would realize that Conner could just TIOS all her problems away for her. I dunno… maybe TIOS was never meant to be a story about two guys wielding wonky infinity gauntlets against each other. But I kinda wish it was.

WDB
>>24848127

I think the big disconnect in people's levels of enjoyment for TIOS, and their potential disappointment, comes from the difference between a magical-erotica series that takes place in a high school, or a high school series with magical erotica. If you wanted the former, you were probably let down by the lack of continuous focus on the utilization of TIOS, and the ways the character arcs took center stage. Conversely, if you more appreciated the latter, you enjoyed the way the occasional (but still frequent!) magical-erotica complemented the character drama, and you didn't want the use of TIOS to be a "get out of consequences free" card for the characters. I don't know, that's just my take. Hard to argue that Jordan's schemes aren't worth a round of applause, though. Conner's a sweet boy in TIOS, but in these alternate universe stories he's just one more hilarious, hot way for Jordan to prove his dominance. A full run of these type of stories, where Jordan slowly steals away everyone Conner cares about and uses TIOS like it's going out of style, would be the Darkest Timeline TIOS that a lot of people were hoping for.

icebear
>>24841710

You know, I'd have sworn I threw in a reference to her somewhere else in the TIOSverse, but my search efforts tell me otherwise. Also, way to catch that reference! 10 points for you. :D

icebear
>>24848127

Coming soon in the alternate universe sequel: THIS IS OUR DOOOOOOOM

Anonymous
>>24848127

First off, WDB, thanks for responding to my comments on multiple posts. I’ve gotten a bit spoiled by other Patreon authors having discords where I could discuss stories with other readers and fans on-demand. Going back to the topic at hand, I don’t particularly have a problem with the amount of TIOS focus in the story. I remember firing off an email to Ice Bear after reading some of the earlier books and commenting “this is almost perfect except the characterization for Jordan and Conner are not up to the same quality as the rest of the cast”. To the author’s credit Jordan’s character has really turned things around and quickly become the most interesting figure in the story. As for Conner… well… I struggle to even figure out what the point of his “character arc” was. It certainly doesn’t seem like he experienced any growth. He literally ended the story in the same place he started. But putting aside the apparent lack of progression for now, my main issue with Conner was simply that it was too difficult to paint a coherent picture of him as a person in my mind. Every time I try to puzzle out his character I get a headache from the cognitive dissonance. He gives me this feeling of mental discomfort in nearly all aspects of his characterization, but as an illustrative example let’s look at his attitude towards TIOS. Early on he does some experimentation with TIOS. He quickly figures out that it can affect people physically (Hailey) and mentally (Angelica). He learns that only the EIC account has this power, but anyone logged into the EIC account can use it (Owen). Where does he go from there? I can think of a few coherent conclusions for him at that point: * TIOS is absolutely dangerous. The risk of messing up, even accidentally, is too great. No one should use it under any circumstances. * TIOS is very dangerous. It should only ever be used in dire circumstances by a responsible individual to avert or undo a huge problem/great tragedy. * TIOS is pretty dangerous, but things should be ok as long as it’s used carefully and kept off the “wrong hands”. * TIOS is not particularly dangerous. There’s no reason to be overly careful about using it or making sure other people don’t misuse it. I didn’t particularly care which path Conner chose, as long it made sense. What he chose instead seems to be this mass of conflicting ideals: * TIOS is dangerous. So dangerous that, when I mess something up while using it, I won’t even risk making things worse by trying to fix my mistake. But it’s not dangerous enough to make me stop using TIOS. I’ll keep editing on it day-to-day, putting the entire population of the school at risk with every keystroke. I might accidentally erase someone from existence by deleting their profile, but that is apparently a risk I am willing to take. I also won’t be careful about making sure other people don’t misuse TIOS. When I uncover evidence that its security has been compromised I won’t put too much effort into investigating what happened, or how I can keep it from happening again. I also won’t investigate any further to see if it’s even possible to do anything to get around TIOS on your own, without access to the software. That trick with the photo is more than enough for me. I mean, how messed up is it that it took Amanda to figure out that you could sorta… use willpower to resist TIOS to a certain degree? That implies that Conner never even tried to get around Jordan’s “I won’t get in your way” quote. He was just… content to do nothing and leave the sex ed class to their second period sexual harassment. He was fine letting Hailey get taken advantage of by Jordan. He was ok leaving Angelica with her chemical dependence to Owen. I mean, shit, he was going to *let Amanda die*. So at this point, a more coherent picture of Conner emerges. A picture of an indecisive young man, so afraid of his actions potentially harming others that he would rather let them come to harm through his inaction. This is a picture that makes sense in the context of how the plot unfolds, but it contradicts what the story is directly telling me. Hence, cognitive dissonance. orz

Anonymous
>>24848127

Also, I would argue that a full run of stories where Jordan uses TIOS to its full potential is actually the *best* timeline. (^_-)

WDB
>>24848127

holy shit i love talking about this stuff what's uuuuuppppp I had a comment on a different thread where I talked about how, thematically, I felt like Conner's arc could be described as "a shitty writer learning to be a better writer", and how his growth was defined by being open to other ideas, other perspectives. I don't think it's a coincidence that nearly every main character gets a chance in Book 3 to tell Conner when he's being an idiot, when he's martyring himself by taking on all of the decision-making by himself. It's only as he starts to understand how everyone is as important as him (This Is OUR Story, after all) that he's able to have a happy fulfilled ending. I see what you're saying about his wishy-washy nature, and I guess I'd respond that that's okay? With me, at least? I liked how flawed of a protagonist Conner was, while still being a sweet boy. I liked that he fucked up, that he was contradictory, that he'd judge someone negatively for shit he'd done himself, that he wasn't very good at using TIOS even for noble reasons but could somehow finds his way through to accepting its help in getting laid on the reg. He's a teenager, and he doesn't (and probably *shouldn't*) know what the fuck he's doing. Deciding he'd have to let Amanda die to stop Jordan's rampage is definitely a low point for Conner's character, and the point where I was 100% like, Come On Dude, What The Fuck. But I still couldn't hate him for that, because it was *clearly* a terrible compromise. I trusted he'd figure it out eventually. I'm okay with characters making shitty decisions, because *people* make shitty decisions all the time, and it's totally in character for noble, self-flagellating white-knight Conner to throw himself on a grenade that, with slightly more effort, he could probably disarm. He's a sweet boy, but he's got a ton of flaws. I just felt like those flaws made for an interesting protagonist who made me happy when he'd eventually start to figure himself out. I can't begrudge anyone who didn't have that experience, though.

Anonymous
>>24848127

LOL we should make our own Ice Bear discord… Anyway I am not quite sold on that take on Conner’s arc, but I am willing to be convinced. So the idea is that Conner used to be the type of person to bottle things up and try to handle trials on his own, without asking for help. Later he learns to accept help and advice from others, allowing him to finally overcome his demons and get a happy(?) ending. Correct? But didn’t Conner ask numerous other characters for help and advice throughout the series? At different times he got assistance from Owen, Angelica, his mother, Kristy, Heather, Amanda and Hailey. Actually looking back on the series he barely ever did anything without being told to do it by someone else first. What am I missing here? If anything, I felt that Conner’s main problem was that he lacked any perspective of his own. He couldn’t do a damn thing without someone else spelling it out for him. As for Conner being a flawed individual that makes mistakes, that is not my issue with him at all. Flaws are what make characters interesting to begin with. Human beings have different goals and desires and sometimes those aspects of them come into conflict. Angelica wants to be with Owen but she also wants to hang with the popular crowd. She blew him off at the dance. This was a mistake, but you could see why she made that mistake. You could understand how her actions made sense to her at the time. She couldn’t have predicted that Jordan would do what he did, putting her into a precarious situation with Owen. Now let’s consider one of Conner’s mistakes. He found out about Jordan tampering with TIOS and, instead of trying to fix that situation before his enemy could figure out that he knew, he decided to confront Jordan personally and throw away any informational advantage he had. Why did he do this? What was he thinking? What was he trying to accomplish? What kind of scenario did he imagine playing out in his mind, where such a move made sense? What was his plan? Did he even have one? Why was he even taking any action at all? I mean, Conner’s been a pretty passive character so far. Where was the Conner who spends hours, days and even weeks wracked with guilt and self-pity before some girl takes pity on him and pulls him out of his funk? That was the *one* opportunity where his analysis paralysis could have helped him… and it just sorta went away for that one moment.

WDB
>>24848127

I'm so glad to be back on my "can't sleep from thinking about Ice Bear stories" bullshit. I missed this feeling! "So the idea is that Conner used to be the type of person to bottle things up and try to handle trials on his own, without asking for help. Later he learns to accept help and advice from others, allowing him to finally overcome his demons and get a happy(?) ending. Correct?" That maybe wouldn't be how I'd think of it. My view is that Conner doesn't necessarily hurt for help, but he does hurt for *understanding*. It takes him a series of books to really understand what the other characters are going through, what they need from each other, what he's responsible for, etc. Conner thinks he knows best, knows right from wrong, moral from immoral. It takes him a lot of time to learn that he doesn't necessarily know how everything should be. Conner's a guilty person. He needs permission to do things, not necessarily to have them suggested to him. After Hailey and Angelica and Heather, he feels like using TIOS is a curse. It's his conversation with his mom that helps him understand where using TIOS could be a benefit. It's not that he'd never think to help other people (which he spends a full chapter doing), it's just that he needs someone he trusts to tell him he's not a bad person for, y'know, *fundamentally altering reality*. I mentioned this in the other thread, but I think it helps to think of Conner and Jordan as two different kinds of protagonists. Jordan is an MC (or magical-erotica) protagonist. When presented with the keys to the universe, he wields an unparalleled cunning to get just sick amounts of tail. He sees the power of TIOS and says, Yes, I Am Going To Get Laid. He uses TIOS early and often to depraved, sexual ends. Conner is a teen drama protagonist. When presented with the keys to the universe, he is fucking terrified, as anyone should be. He uses them sparingly, and is mindful of the inherent danger. In the early going, every innocuous thing seems to have an unintended consequence. Sure, he'd like to have more success with the women in his life, but he's not going to just make sexy shit happen. He's a sweet boy. Most of the mistakes Conner makes in the first two books come from him underestimating Jordan, plain and simple. Jordan's a devious MC protagonist, and Conner just doesn't think that way. You or I, reading not only this story but tons of other magical-erotica stories, can see a half-dozen ways Conner could've outmaneuvered Jordan, but Conner lacks the information we have. He never assumes that anyone else had access to TIOS, because why would he? There's nothing to even make him suspicious until the King of Hearts dance, at which point he changes his password to prevent anyone else from using TIOS again. Nothing leads him to directly suspect Jordan, either. When he finds out that Jordan's used TIOS all book, and that he's also slept with Hailey, he's probably *more* mad about the "slept with Hailey" part, which is likely why he rushes to confront him. In the heat of his feelings of betrayal, yeah, he doesn't realize that Jordan would be able to use Amanda's new login to regain access to TIOS, and that maybe a direct confrontation is a bad idea tactically. But the rush to confront someone who hurt the people he cared about (and spurned-lover resentment) is a pretty standard Conner response up to that point, so I can see the character logic behind it. Conner lacking the willpower to break through TIOS in the way that Amanda did doesn't strike me as a weakness in Conner's character so much as it testifies to the strength of Amanda's. Amanda did what literally no one else in the entire series could do. She single-handedly overcame TIOS. She's a goddamn superhero. I can't fault Conner for not overcoming a thing that literally no one but Amanda could overcome. Man oh man, thank you for coming up with things to talk about from this series!

icebear
>>24848127

To throw another perspective in, there's an extent to which some of Conner's behavior is symbolic rather than literal. Like every book about high school, it's a coming of age tale about growing the heck up. Some of it is the super fun parts of growing up, but some of it is that confusing transition from imposed order to confused liberty. We condition young people to be passive in all sorts of ways. Plenty exceptions, sure (and yay for those), but for so many young people, their whole lives are nearly decision free. Schools tell you what classes to take, when to report, how to behave in them (i.e. sit there and shut up unless called upon (and taking initiative to be called upon can carry its own negative stigma)). Parents play a huge role, sometimes an exclusive role, in determining the next steps after high school, so graduates go to college because mom and dad said they would, join the military because that's what mom did, etc. I know for me, the day I was probably 21 years old before I ever questioned the life plan I'd made sometime in middle school. I'd decided to be a teacher (because I enjoyed school and it was easy enough for me, so why leave?), and didn't give it a lot more thought because nothing ever really asked me to. Finally, I realized there were other things I could do, and that the Could Do was getting awfully close to the Am Doing, and I started evaluating my decisions. (I still wound up teaching, as I've said, but it became an informed consent.) Anyway, I wanted part of TIOS to grapple with that, how it's super easy for young people to become passengers in their own car. There we have Conner, the passenger, taking a passive role in his own future as he, again passively, devotes himself to recording the doings of others rather than having doings of himself. He starts TIOS page 1 as the guy who has TIOS fall into his lap through no doing of his own, is pushed into attending an academic decathlon meet through no doing of his own, rejects Hailey because there's risk involved (social, emotional) and why rock the boat. Little by little, he begins the transition from staring out the window at the scenery to actually taking a turn at the wheel, and it's that tumult I found a bit interesting. Having to figure out Big Important Life Shit for yourself can be scary, especially the first time you're asked/made to try. Making decisions is scary, and ten times more so when they affect other people, or when they have lasting repercussions. Entering relationships is scary, as is exiting them, as is even avoiding them, to a degree. So Conner's decision about which relationship to pursue is as much about what his first real adult steps to pursue. There are dangerous choices (Heather, imo), safe choices (probably Amanda), in-betweens. And with the part of him that stays behind at Northside, I hoped to briefly profile a Conner who was no longer content to sit back and have things happen to him, but to start doing things on his own. To deal with bullies (cya J-dawg), to talk to girls and take risks, to consider the role he could play in his friends' and family's lives. As the closing lines put it, to start *telling* a story instead of merely *recording* a story as he did for so much of books 2&3. Certainly any attempt at symbolism took a back-seat to some other considerations, but as a former English teaching colleague of Miss C, I had to try. I did like that, as much as his back and forth How and When Do I Do Things could frustrate, he was slowly learning to coast less and hit the throttle more, for good or ill.

Anonymous
>>24848127

WDB: Ok, so let’s examine this take on Conner: * He thinks he knows best, knows right from wrong, knows moral from immoral… but actually he lacks understanding of what other people are going through. * He refuses to act on anything unless he is first coaxed into action by someone he trusts, because he feels tremendous guilt from what happened to Hailey, Angelica and Heather. Just from reading over the above, don’t the two contradict each other? He’s too confident in his own moral judgement to properly consider the input of others, but he’s also wracked with so much self-doubt that he can’t do anything without running it by someone else first. That’s a strange kind of Goldilocks zone to inhabit. “Mindful of the inherent danger” Was he though? I mean, I feel like we’re throwing Jordan into the mix too quickly here. You said it yourself: “every innocuous thing seems to have an unintended consequence”. Conner doesn’t need to realize that Jordan could seriously mess things up. He just needs to remember that he himself already messed Hailey up by accident and Owen already messed Angelica up on purpose (arguably). Let’s forget about success with women here, and focus on success with the simple goal of not letting TIOS do anymore damage to anyone else. If Conner was really cognizant of the inherent risk of TIOS, why didn’t he take even the most rudimentary steps to lock it down? Was he just… a dumbass? But he can’t be, because Amanda was clever and she’s a female Conner. “He's a sweet boy.” I dunno man… is that really true? Conner was so sweet that he took advantage of Hailey for his own benefit, then dropped her like a hot potato the moment Heather came calling? So sweet that he let Angelica deal with the Owen situation on her own? So sweet that, when he found out that Kristen was throwing herself at Owen because of TIOS, it didn’t bother him at all. Guess she was mean to her friends so that makes it ok.

WDB
>>24848127

"Just from reading over the above, don’t the two contradict each other? He’s too confident in his own moral judgement to properly consider the input of others, but he’s also wracked with so much self-doubt that he can’t do anything without running it by someone else first. That’s a strange kind of Goldilocks zone to inhabit." I mean, yeah, that's pretty much Conner to me. He wants to take a big step because he thinks he knows what people need, but he's scared to take that big step without being told he's not bad for taking it. If there's contradiction there, it creates a friction that drives the character. It's because of the lessons he learns through the book that allow him to trust in himself and others more. "If Conner was really cognizant of the inherent risk of TIOS, why didn’t he take even the most rudimentary steps to lock it down? Was he just… a dumbass? But he can’t be, because Amanda was clever and she’s a female Conner." I guess I feel like he did when he could? Up until the end of Book 2, the only TIOS account was Conner's. He made sure Amanda couldn't get one basically immediately. Kristy, Angelica, and Owen knew, but he (rightly) trusted that none of them would try to use TIOS, and even if they had tried, they didn't have his account password. Much like how Amanda's ability to overcome TIOS shouldn't minimize Conner's (and everyone else's!) inability to do so, I'm not sure Conner can be faulted for the lengths Jordan went through to gain control over TIOS. Jordan, through pure happenstance, overheard Conner describe how TIOS worked. If not for that, Jordan never would've been a threat. From there, Jordan devised what turned out to be a pretty damn bulletproof scheme to keep his actions off Conner's radar. I mean, he held someone at *gunpoint*. That's farther than anyone would think Jordan would go. By the time he does reveal himself to Conner, the quote he places makes sure Conner can't take any real steps against him. Like, Conner got *outplayed*. That, to me, doesn't make him a shitty hero. It makes Jordan a great fucking villain. "Conner was so sweet that he took advantage of Hailey for his own benefit, then dropped her like a hot potato the moment Heather came calling? So sweet that he let Angelica deal with the Owen situation on her own? So sweet that, when he found out that Kristen was throwing herself at Owen because of TIOS, it didn’t bother him at all. Guess she was mean to her friends so that makes it ok." I talked about this in the other thread (gonna have to put that on a t-shirt or something), but, yeah, Conner is a sweet boy. He treats Hailey badly, but he sees that later in the series and attempts to make up for it. (Jordan wouldn't have been able to use the "I'm a real mother fucker" quote if Conner didn't mean it when he said it.) One of the hallmarks of TIOS is "no takebacks", which means even when Conner is aware of what a quote is doing, it's incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to undo it. As such, I look at any attempt to use TIOS to fix TIOS like a doctor might think about surgery: it's a possibility, but it's enormously risky, so let's try everything else first. Is Angelica really being hurt by having to be with Owen? He's a brat about some of it, but Angelica loves his dick and he's letting her get at it, so what really needs to be done? Kirsten may be with Owen because of TIOS, but does Kirsten or Owen seem damaged by it? I don't know, Conner's not perfect, but Conner's perennial reluctance to do harm, his need to help, his growing empathy and acknowledgement of other characters' autonomy... I think those make him a sweet boy. That last chapter *alone* makes him a sweet boy.

icebear
>>24848127

Also, in defense of Kirsten Vaughan (which are words I really, really hate to say), she's the one who pounced on Owen rather than the other way around. Yes, as a status symbol that, an hour before she propositioned him, held no status, but it got her what she wanted (i.e. bragging rights) and she doesn't regret it. Especially since the relationship netted her the side benefit of what she privately wanted, namely a girlfriend of her own. Win/win. I would definitely not categorize her as a victim (aside from homophobia). Man. Just imagined a world in which Kirsten got her hands on a TIOS EIC account. Worse than Jordan...? I dunno. Maybe.

WDB
>>24848127

I guess the other thing about the A/K/O situation, in any of its permutations, is that it's not so much people being forced to be together through magical-erotica trickery as it is a heightened version of the power differentials that exist within *any* romantic relationship. (As Los Campesinos! put it: "I taught myself the only way to vaguely get along in love is to like the other slightly less than you get it in return. I keep feeling like I'm being undercut.") Folks are always going to be able to exercise control over someone who cares for them, or be manipulated by someone they care for. It's not a super healthy relationship when taken to extremes, but real people willingly stay in them all of the time for a variety of reasons. It's regrettable, but I don't think it rises to the level of "why didn't Conner fix this". If anything, it's one more lesson for him to learn that just because he doesn't agree with something doesn't make it bad.

WDB
>>24848127

(One of my favorite things is that with TIOS I can spend a lot of time defending Conner as a sweet boy who does his best, but then I can read these Jordan AU stories and be like, "Yeah, fuck that pud Fishers." Fiction is *amazing*.)

Anonymous
>>24848127

It's starting to look like the motivations that drive Conner might just have to remain a mystery to me for now. He's like a puzzle that I could *almost* assemble in a number of ways, but there would always be one or two pieces that just don't fit. I could rearrange the puzzle to fit those stragglers in, but now different pieces are left over with no place to go. Maybe those paradoxical pieces were meant to make him feel more like a conflicted human being but they're causing my brain to fry in a logic bomb of epic proportions. "I guess I feel like he did when he could?" Like I said earlier, the greatest threat TIOS presented to the student body was actually Conner himself. From Conner's PoV, using TIOS is fraught with risk. By using his EIC account for routine editing work, he was metaphorically waving a gun around in the air with his finger on the trigger. What would have happened if he described an athlete as a "Home Run Hitler" through an unfortunate typo? Now let's think about why he would want to protect his account from other people. We will, for the moment, assume that he trusts Miss C, Owen and Angelica completely. Still... who's to say that a friend wouldn't mess around with Conner's work while he wasn't in the room, as a joke? Conner was lucky that when this actually happened in the story, it resulted in Amanda's transformation into an even hotter redhead. But it wouldn't have been hard for something much, much worse to have happened instead. Conner was the teacher's pet, and everyone knew this. It wouldn't have been implausible for his friends to notice that he was writing about Miss C and then distract him whilst deleting a single letter so she would end up captioned as "a great pubic educator". When I helped out with the school paper back in High School this actually happened all the frickin' time. Everything had to be checked, double-checked and triple-checked to avoid embarassing prank edits from making it to print, and sometimes they still did. So why didn't Conner just use a regular, non-EIC account for day to day work? This always seemed like such a simple, easy precaution to take. "Conner got *outplayed*." To be outplayed would imply that Conner played at all. Team Jordan won this ball-game without the opposing team even bothering to get off the bench, it seems. "it's enormously risky, so let's try everything else first" Everything else? My friend, there were times as I read when I would have been happy if Conner tried *anything else*. Something clever. Something stupid. Something brave. Something dumb. Literally anything. "Is Angelica really being hurt by having to be with Owen?" Not really, but neither were the students affected by the TIOS dress code. Why was Conner so upset over one but not the other? Why does getting some teens to dress provocatively result in a self-pity-party but having his step-sibling become his friend's sex toy not faze him at all. I mean, we know now that Angelica and Owen already had a thing going on prior to TIOS, but Conner wasn't aware of this. From his POV, the only difference between what Owen did to Angelica and what Jordan did to the sex ed class was that Owen was his buddy*. Sure, Angelica directly told Conner that she was cool with her situation. Just like Hailey told him she was happy to be his little slut. Just like Lauren told him she had no issues with sex ed class. Why is it that, in some scenarios, Conner assumes that the targets of TIOS are unable to evaluate their own situation objectively but in other cases he doesn't have the same qualms? ----- *I kinda feel like the early part of the story with Angelica might have worked better if Angelica and Conner's relationship had started out quite a bit rockier. It would have made sense for Conner to not be too bothered about her plight if she spent all her time calling him "Goner" and generally being mean to him. You could still have the rest of the story play out the same way by having Angelica's predicament somehow bring them closer together. I mean, it wouldn't make any sense from her POV to antagonize someone with the ability to alter the fabric of reality itself. Maybe she treats him a little better, if only to increase the chance that he might do her a TIOS favor down the line. Except it actually played out in precisely the opposite way. Weird.

Anonymous
>>24848127

I do have one technical thing I was wondering about. Somewhere in TIOS Kristy is quoted saying "All I ever want is for you to be happy" to Conner. Given the effect of these new commands on her, can I treat this as confirmation that it is possible to override TIOS entries with later entries, even when you can't edit the original?

WDB
>>24848127

Yeah, I feel like it's totally okay to agree to disagree on Conner. My defense of Conner is based on my totally subjective read of the text, my specific life experiences and perspective, etc. etc. I'm only giving my side of things. I wouldn't dream of saying I'm right. For the Faculty Meeting "is it possible to override commands with later entries" thing, I feel like the ending to this story makes that an emphatic "no". And that's one of the best things about it! Kristy isn't under any specific TIOS compulsion at the end of the story. She just chooses her lust over her happiness. She knows that Conner will be unhappy, and that in turn she'll be unhappy, but she goes with Jordan anyway because she's so in lust with him. Super fucking hot ending!

WDB
>>24848127

Oh, and at risk of Patreon flagging all my comments as spam AGAIN, one other thing. I always got the impression that, as a result of being E-I-C and the damage TIOS could do, Conner ended up delegating most of the routine data entry tasks for the yearbook to others. Maybe there's something in one of the books that disputes that assumption, but that's what I thought was going on.

icebear
>>24848127

Man, I never considered the possibility of typo-related edits - that's brilliant. Though I suppose TIOS did have some built-in fail-safes to ensure quotes were entered precisely, so I'd think that'd extend to accidentally Home-Run-Hitlering someone? If nothing else, the idea was to insure that TIOS didn't become Master PC and let the editor have complete control of that sort. So he did do a lot of the mundane spread writing, but the oversight given to expository entries was small to none. (I say "small" only because I might technically have alluded to it in some offhand way somewhere.)

Anonymous
>>24848127

WDB: Isn't Kristy operating under two TIOS rules by the end of Faculty Meeting? * Conner's edit controls what she can want (all I ever want is for you to be happy) * Jordan's edits control what takes priority for her (the most important things to me as a teacher is that you get as much out of your time in my classroom as possible, teaching you is always my top priority) So if Jordan had asked her "Tell me what's more important to you." she would obviously pick him. But instead he asked her "Tell me what you want". This implies to me that later edits take precedence over earlier ones. Ice Bear: I always assumed that TIOS only ever corrected quotations, not descriptions. If non-quotes had to be grounded in reality, how would the photo edits and "what happens in sex ed..." tricks work?

Anonymous

I just got the time to read this, and the concepts on reinforcement + Jordan simply, as mentioned, ascending his acts to a higher level, and on Miss C even just blew me away. Great work! I also wondered if too many conflicting edits just simply screw up a person or later edits, as mentioned take priority over older one. Anyway, it was a pleasure to read your exchanges with ukyo, It just makes me appreciate all the more the time and effort everyone, from the writers and other supporters give in order to create awesome work. Thanks for this!

Anonymous
>>24917986

Hey man if you're into puzzling TIOS brain teasers, think about what the effect of this entry would be: "We're cool." - Conner, to Jordan Would it make them friends, while still retaining their personalities? Would it change Jordan's personality so that Conner would like him? Would it change Conner's perception so he would not be bothered by Jordan? Or would it just make them both trendy and popular?

Anonymous
>>24917986

Given how 3IOS ended (without giving away anything), that just leaves room for more potential right? What is the default logic/consciousness that decides TIOS' interpretation? It also leaves to wonder, Who else used TIOS here/before? What about said company that manufactured it? Im just really super interested in the Reality warping aspect of the story because of my Psych degree.

WDB
>>24848127

"Conner was waiting. He’d be so upset if she put him off again. There wasn’t even a valid excuse this time. If she didn’t go down there, it wouldn’t be because she was helping a student, going the extra mile in her job. It would be because she was giving in to her most selfish and depraved instincts." Yeah, Jordan could've played the "I need help with my schoolwork" card, or the "help out another member of the faculty", but he doesn't. He just propositions her, and she goes along with him because she chooses to. And then there's this capper, alluding to her *knowing* that she still wants Conner to be happy (and for her to be happy as well), despite choosing her own need to fuck Jordan: "Perhaps, she thought as he guided her to his car with a firm hand on her ass, happiness was overrated." I really like, structurally, how much TIOS depends on stacking commands. Just in this story, there's four stories worth of stacked commands to start of with, and it makes for super-fun scenes. This one nearly killed me: -- As she turned to walk away from the conversation, though, his voice came after her. “So I gotta ask, one teacher to another.” “One...?” Oh right, she always forgot he was technically a colleague as well as a student. Whoever had lead that search committee should be fired. She hoped he was a better teacher than he was student. It would be hard to be worse. Jordan drummed his fingers on the desk, visibly waiting for her brain to catch up to reality. “So. Do you find being a giant slut to be a helpful teaching tool?” Kristy whirled on him, glaring in spite of herself. “First off, talk to me like that again and you won’t have to worry about teacher-to-teacher dialogue, because I’ll file a report with the union and you’ll be out of a job in a second, understand?” Jordan’s eyes widened in surprise at her tone; he’d apparently gotten used to being able to sass her with impunity. She’d put up with a lot in the name of reaching her students, but sexual harassment from a coworker was way across the line. To think, if he hadn’t reminded her of his new job, she might have let him get away with it! It was a little hard to keep track of, sometimes, how he straddled that line. -- She's under the effect of quotes that keep her from caring about Jordan's abuse, *and* alterations that make him a teacher, and *all of those* are working at once. She'll accept his abuse as a student, but when he identifies himself as faculty she immediately shuts him down. Then she reconciles this bizarre behavior in her head! Just crazy hot stuff, and I *love* how complicated it gets.

icebear
>>24917986

Yeah, I am for sure guilty of not delving into the How of a lot of my stories work. It's not at all because I don't think it's an interesting question. Really, it's because it's *too* interesting of a question. Any sane person, given the kinds of power or opportunities these characters receive -- or even witnessing it being used -- would immediately need to know more. Who did this, how'd they do it, why'd they give it to us, etc. I could always throw in a "we looked into it but it was a dead-end" kind of a thing, but it's probably only slightly less of a hand-wave to simply dodge their curiosity altogether and focus on the story elements rather than delving into the Powers That Be.

Anonymous
>>24848127

Ok, this explanation is a little bit screwy for me because at the end of the day, none of Jordan's edits that we know of have anything to do with Kristy's final choice. They specify a range of situations that she would tolerate, and a variety of behaviors that would turn her on, but they still can't make her *want* anything. Even Kristy's own happiness is irrelevant here. Only Conner's happiness matters. If torturing his women made Conner happy it would be extremely painful for Kristy, and she might hate him for it, but she would still *want* it. She can't ever want anything else. She isn't even able to desire *her own happiness*. That's the rule. Therefore, for the scene to play out the way it did, Conner's edit must have been nullified somehow *or* Kristy's doing it even though she doesn't want to.

Anonymous
>>24917986

J: It's certainly interesting to me that your curiosity stems from your background in psych, while mine comes from my background in IT. To me TIOS is essentially a programming language. I'm always thinking of weird quotes to try out with it. Here's a doozy: “Conner, that’s... that’s a very colorful story. But what you’re saying, that’s not possible. You understand that, right? It’s only software. It’s really good software, but that’s it.” - Kristy

Anonymous
>>24917986

Ice: That's fair enough :) You're still doing an amazing job with this U: I wonder if everything reverts back to normal prior to TIOS or if TIOS shuts down but everything changed will be the new norm

WDB
>>24848127

I guess the way I look at Kristy's story in Faculty Meeting, and TIOS quotes in general, is that the quotes in TIOS can't make you *do* something, but they can make you *want* to do something. The people involved can still choose to do things they *don't* want to do, either through self-control (Amanda breaking Jordan's control in Book 3) or self-destruction (Kristy in this story). Like, let's say I've got a steak and a salad in front of me. I *want* to eat the steak, but I can *choose* to eat the salad. It doesn't mean I suddenly like salad more than steak. (GOD do I not like salad more than steak.) But I can choose to do something I don't really want to do. Kristy's decision at the end of Faculty Meeting is like that, to me. She doesn't *want* to hurt Conner. She *wants* to make him happy. She will be unhappy to see that he's unhappy. But she's going to do it because she's willing to make Conner unhappy as long as Jordan keeps making her orgasm like that. There's no shortage of people who have abandoned loving relationships for sex, and in this story, Kristy's no different. Anyway, that's just my take. I totally get it if you don't see it the same way. (I was just reading an article on Vox about curatorial vs transformative fandoms through the lens of the final season of Game Of Thrones, [https://www.vox.com/2019/7/20/18638718/game-of-thrones-ending-bran-stark-transformative-fandom] and it's got me analyzing my interactions a little bit more. Hopefully I'm not coming off combative or anything! I honestly value different views of these stories.)

WDB
>>24917986

The biggest question that I had at the end of this series was whether or not all of the weird changes Jordan and Conner made are in the actual, printed yearbook. Like, is there a spread on Jordan's Sex-Ed class? Are all of those quotes on that page? Are Mary Buchanan's kids going to pull that yearbook out of a box in the attic 30 years from now and be, like, MOM, What The Fuck? And she just sort of shrugs in a We're All Teenagers At Some Point way?

Anonymous
>>24848127

The mainline TIOS story itself reveals that the software can make people do things: --- “What are we doing today, Mr. Lyons?” “The same thing we do in here every day – whatever our teacher says.” – Yuri Andersen and Ashley LeBeau --- In any case, I do agree that in all cases where TIOS doesn't specifically prevent someone from making a choice, that choice is still available. For example, Jordan's edits made it a higher priority for Kristy to help him as a student and a fellow teacher. She chose to do those things, even when she didn't want to, because it was her top priority to help him as a student and because she said she would assist in his presentation. It's no different from millions of other people going to work every day even though they might not want to. The problem is, Conner's edit affects Kristy in two ways: * It forces her to want to make him happy * It prevents her from wanting anything else Going back to your steak vs salad example, you might choose to eat the salad even though you want to eat the steak, but you do that because you have some other thing you want more than the steak. You want to eat healthy, or you want to lose weight, or you just want to prove that you can do it. Kristy is incapable of feeling that countervailing desire. The first thing she wants is to make Conner happy... and that's also the last thing she wants. No matter how delicious a food might be, she can't want to eat it. No matter how cool a movie might seem, she can't want to see it. No matter how interesting a book might be, she can't want to read it. No matter how horny Jordan makes her, or how amazing he might make her feel, she can't want any of it. She's no more capable of having those feelings than Angelica is capable of getting enough Owen Cock. So the workable options I see are: * Conner's edit has been nullified somehow * There is something in TIOS that influenced Kristy's choice, that I missed * Kristy somehow thinks that choosing Jordan would make Conner happy (I only thought of this just now) Oh, and pls don't worry about seeming combative. Arguing about minutiae is the *best part* of fandom. You should check out Pan's discord channel where I engaged in a lengthy, spirited discussion with multiple readers and the author himself about why a single character choice made within a 4-book epic doesn't make sense for that character. I was 99.99% in agreement with how the story was written but that last 0.01%... it still bothered me LOL.

WDB
>>24848127

I guess, for me, I don't see the TIOS changes in that sort of immutable way. There're plenty of examples through the series of people overcoming the strictures TIOS placed on them. TIOS makes it seem reasonable to do outlandish things, and it makes it seem horrible, a violation of self to do the opposite. But people do awful, intensely self-negating things all of the time. (Well, maybe not *all* of the time, but I hope you take my point.) "All I ever want is for you to be happy" is a great quote with a ton of narrative potential, but I don't think it of it as being the entirety of Kristy, the alpha and omega of her personality. She's not going to quit her job to spend all of her time with Conner. She's still going to go to work and pay her bills and clean her bathroom and a hundred other things she's doing when she could be actively making Conner happy. She might *want* to make Conner happy above all of her other desires, but she knows she *needs* to do a ton of other things. Conner's happiness isn't all she is. And, like so many other things in the story, I think we're meant to see Kristy's ability to *choose* to ignore her wants as evidence of how thoroughly Jordan has won. He's fucked her so hard and so well that she's willing to destroy a huge part of herself to keep fucking him. Sure, a half-dozen TIOS quotes did the heavy lifting for him in getting Kristy to break a TIOS edict, but if you replace "a half-dozen TIOS quotes" with "exceptional cocksmanship" and "break a TIOS edict" with "cheat on someone she loves" I think it's evident where the emotional truth is in the story. I don't know, I'm probably explaining this poorly. I just think the ending is about Kristy overcoming all the pressure TIOS is placing on her, in the same way Amanda does, but for selfishly-hot reasons.

WDB
>>24917986

"Mom?" "Yeah, sweetheart?" "I was looking through yours and Dad's old yearbooks, and... why is your senior quote that you can't get enough of Dad's cock?" "OWEN MICHAEL GIBSON JUNIOR, YOU GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

WDB
>>24917986

And, as long as we're devising other insane things that can be done with TIOS, let me suggest: ads for local businesses. Most yearbooks have them, it's an additional way schools raise money. Can you imagine what might happen if a program like TIOS, which makes things *incredibly* literal, got ahold of the hyperbole used in modern advertising? "I'm lovin' it"? "Just do it"? Shit, "the hottest deals in town"? How bonkers would things get at every local restaurant, coffee shop, bookstore, sporting goods store, etc? Jesus. Worse yet, what if some devious sociopath decided to hit up local businesses to advertise in the yearbook, and, hey, he'll even design and format the ad for them, no extra charge?

Anonymous
>>24848127

This interpretation directly contradicts the mainline TIOS narrative in multiple ways, though. First it's the opposite of how Kristy herself describes her state of mind to Conner in the end of TIOS1. Secondly it makes Kristy's happiness subplot not work anymore. See... Conner's edit doesn't actually influence Kristy's happiness. It only influences her wants. By limiting those wants to one thing only, obtaining happiness becomes incredibly simple and straightforward for her. You and I have a ton of things we want, and some of those things contradict, so happiness is hard for us. We want to have cake, eat it too, and a bunch of things besides. Kristy only wants one single, solitary thing. That is why she becomes happy. The happiness is real and doesn't come from TIOS. As for going to work, paying her bills, and all the other things she does... she does them because it makes Conner happy. She knows he's feeling guilty over the edit, so she'll make sure he can prominently see that she is doing fine. That makes him happy, which is all she wants. Hypothetically, if her death and torment would make Conner happy, she would hold her breath till she died.

Anonymous
>>24848127

Oh, btw, I have a new theory that might fix this. Can't type well as I am on the train right now but I think it's pretty clever. Will post later.

WDB
>>24848127

It's been a minute since I've read Book 1, so I took another look at the section you're referring to, where Kristy explains how her happiness works. And, I don't know, I guess I'm not 100% seeing it the way you see it? First, I'm not sure we can trust what Kristy's telling Conner. As Conner correctly points out, she's telling him what she thinks will make him happy. (She tells him she'd stop him from 'fixing' her because she'd get mad and then he'd be unhappy, but who knows how much of that would actually happen.) We don't get to see what she's *actually* feeling. Additionally, like Conner's "I just can't get around Jordan's TIOS quote, I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas", maybe Kristy just hasn't been tested enough? Amanda fought through the Sex-Ed quotes through sheer determination. If Kristy was suitably, irrevocably shaken by lust, maybe she could get around her sole (previous) desire? Finally, man, I'm not sure she'd kill herself if Conner said it would make him happy. I don't think I've seen that level of derangement out of her in the stories. Either way, I'm curious what your new theory is!

WDB
>>24848127

Okay, as far as alternate theories go, I could *maaaaayyybbeeeeeee* see my way to possibly viewing the following as an option: Kristy has seen how happy Heather and Amanda are making Conner, more happy than she's been making him, so her being done with Conner might make her unhappy because she genuinely cares for Conner, but it won't make Conner unhappy since he has two hot girlfriends. Conner's still happy, she can fuck Jordan instead of Conner. I can sssoooooorrrrrttttt of see that as an interpretation of the ending.

Anonymous
>>24848127

For Kristy to be lying in that situation, the effect of TIOS on her free will would have to be less than absolute *and* she would have to believe that Conner would be happy if she misled him into thinking that it was. But... the reason Conner is unhappy with the situation to begin with is because he's guilty for stripping away her free will. If there is an incentive for Kristy to lie in that scenario, it would be in the opposite way. Conner would be happier if he believed that TIOS just gave Kristy a little nudge in his direction, rather than having had all her desires hopes and dreams eliminated and replaced with a single life goal. Occam's Razor demands that I assume she was telling the truth because there is no incentive for her to lie, her explanation matches what was written in TIOS, it matches how TIOS has behaved in other scenarios, and there's no reason for me to believe this case is special. As for the willpower thing, I am sure that if Kristy put her mind to it she could get around TIOS (albeit temporarily, like Amanda). But why would she do that? It's a chicken-and-egg paradox. For her to want to go with Jordan, she must first overcome TIOS. But for her to overcome TIOS, she must *really* want to go with Jordan. The second theory sorta works, actually. Maybe Kristy doesn't feel like she can make Conner happy anymore, because Jordan has her wrapped around his fingers and she's been blowing Conner off non-stop. She knows that by going off with his bully, she would make Conner extremely unhappy in the short term but she's hoping that this would also allow him to break away from her and commit more fully to his remaining girls and ultimately lead to him being happier in the long run. It makes the ending a little bit tragic, though. I'm not sure how I feel about a TIOS scenario where the heroine ends up sacrificing herself a-la Brittney from Tolerance.

Anonymous
>>24917986

So... I have a new theory to "fix" the paradox of conflicting TIOS entries. It's a can of worms I opened up in the other comment thread, so feel free to peruse that for the details. My first instinct was to assume the simplest scenario: new edits can override earlier edits. This solves the problem but it introduces a new one. Basically Conner, Jordan and the rest of the gang would have to be complete idiots to have missed this. Maaaaaybe I could believe that pud Fishers never thought to try something so basic, but no way my man Jordan didn't try this and a dozen other possible ways to break free of TIOS influence. He was under the gun from two other EICs and had every motivation to explore what his options would be if they ever teamed up on him. I need a different mechanism that works with all the stories so far, is far enough out of the box for the characters to have missed it, and is not "out of character" for TIOS. My solution is to use its ability to read the user's intent. We know that TIOS doesn't allow EICs to "game the system". They can't just say whatever they want and write those words in as quotes. The entries need to have been authentically uttered. They can't just be something said specifically to put in the system. I now think this applies to "undoing" entries as well. EICs can't delete or modify existing quotes, because that would be them trying to cheat the system. But what if TIOS allowed them to make new entries that indirectly override older quotes, without intending to? Maybe the security mechanism relies on the intent of the user to activate. This is actually a tactic a real programmer might try. It would be really hard to think of every possible way a user might try to get around TIOS and counter every single one of them individually, but since the program can read intent then it doesn't have to. The EIC knows when he's trying to pull a fast one, so TIOS doesn't let him. Something like this: TIOS_Quote_Create(Data, EIC){ if (Data.Exists()){ return ERROR_DUPLICATE_ENTRY } else if (Data.NotRealQuote()){ return ERROR_INVALID_ENTRY } else if (EIC.AntiTiosIntentDetected()){ return ERROR_LOL_NO } QuoteDB.Add(Data) return SUCCESS } Not gonna lie. I'm pretty happy with his. It harmonizes the narratives in a way that makes sense for TIOS and all the characters that used it thus far. It also provides a convenient narrative back-door for the author to undo TIOS entries that become impediments to future storylines. The only potential flaw is that it allows typos to be put into TIOS but doesn't allow those typos to be fixed. However, depending on the specifics of the story this might even prove to be a great plot device. This is good enough for me, and it's how I will assume TIOS works unless Ice Bear directly contradicts me. This exercise has been super fun and I look forward to further discussions on this and other topics as well. I'm not done with the thread per se, but as far as my issues are concerned they have been resolved.

WDB
>>24848127

More than anything, I think I like the "Kristy chooses lust" ending because it just *feels* like the better ending to a Jordan AU story. "And I don’t mean some mushy lovey dovey gosh-you’re-sweet thing, I mean full-on randy for you. DTF, as you kids say.” The "Kristy chooses lust" ending works for me because of that quote, and how it reflects the choice she makes at the end. Conner is "mushy lovey dovey gosh-you're sweet". That's a loving relationship where both partners respect each other. Jordan is "full-on randy for you, DTF". Jordan doesn't like or respect Kristy, and Kristy doesn't like or respect Jordan, but the sex is just *too damn good*. For it to be a Jordan-as-protagonist erotica story, I just think it's more narratively rewarding if he basically fucks her (and, because it's magical-erotica, fucks *with* her) so well he wins. Some way where he wins without really earning it, where his obstacle (her needing Conner to be happy) disappears or something, I don't know, it would just feel cheap to me. I think Jordan needs to get a clean win. Well, as clean as a half-dozen TIOS quotes can get, at least. Like, I don't know if the math totally checks out on it. Maybe I've forgotten key details from the books that mean I've completely read this ending wrong and it can't possibly work this way. But, when I see other theories, I don't know. "Kristy chooses lust" seems like the most appropriate ending to me. Jordan wins through his own cunning and cuckoldry. It feels like what the story needs to really work. For me, anyway. The closest example I can think of is the ending for Avengers: Endgame. (SPOILERS, I guess, if you haven't yet seen the most successful movie of all time.) Any time you put things like time travel and alternate timelines into a movie, there's going to be a need from some fans for more details, and concrete answers. (God knows that "YouTube videos where people try and explain the time travel elements of Endgame" is currently the 4th or 5th largest industry in the world.) But, that moment where old Cap is on that bench? Or when he hands Falcon the shield? Or the dance at the very end? HUGE EMOTIONS. I don't care so much if every i was dotted or every t crossed, because everything about that ending *felt right* for the story they told. That matters way more to me than the technical details. For TIOS, I like that it doesn't seem to have rules so much as guidelines. I *love* that it doesn't have an operating manual. I want there to be a vagueness, a flexibility. TIOS is unbreakable, until it isn't. It can do anything, but maybe not. I really, really don't mind if we never get more concrete than that. (Also, for me, trying to pin down the specifics of fantasy or sci-fi story drivers eventually starts to feels like this exchange from Red Dwarf: Cat [to Rimmer]: What is it? Rimmer: It's a rend in the space-time continuum. Cat [to Lister]: What is it? Lister: The stasis room freezes time, you know, makes time stand still. So whenever you have a leak, it must preserve whatever it's leaked into, and it's leaked into this room. Cat [to Rimmer]: What is it? Rimmer: It's singularity, a point in the universe where the normal laws of space and time don't apply. Cat [to Lister]: What is it? Lister: It's a hole back into the past. Cat: Oh, a magic door! Well, why didn't you say?)

WDB
>>24848127

I love that I can post a comment where I'm like "I don't want to get too hung up on TIOS specifics at the expense of story" and a few minutes later I'm like "here's a new way of trying to explain how I view the specifics of TIOS". I still think there's enough in the non-TIOS mechanics part of the story to support a "Kristy chooses lust" ending (the author sure uses the phrase 'happiness' a lot at the end), but here's one more attempt to explain my view of how it all works. -- So, breaking through TIOS, and how Kristy could want anything more than making Conner happy. It's pretty well established that the only way to break through TIOS is to be aware of its existence. Owen and Jordan can't see the new Hailey until Conner explains (and demonstrates) how she's changed. Amanda can't ignore Jordan's commands until Conner explains what TIOS is. It takes knowing about TIOS to attempt to choose to ignore the ways it's getting you to normalize things. Okay? So, when Kristy explains how she's been feeling, that feeling is from *just before* Conner explained how she'd been changed by TIOS. She liked the way she'd been feeling and couldn't see why she wouldn't. Her sole desire was making sure Conner was happy. But then he explained TIOS. Now she *could* question her motivations. Oh, she didn't *want* to go against them, but for the first time she could consider them, analyze them. What if that little sliver of self-awareness could be wedged open by Jordan's Lesson Plans/Faculty Meeting changes? What if those new edicts could create space in her mind to want anything other than pleasing Conner? What if she could start to prioritize something other than Conner's happiness? It didn't destroy her desire to make Conner happy (if Book 1 is to be believed, a non-"making Conner happy from TIOS" Kristy would probably cut his balls off, not just feel bad about his unhappiness), but because of TIOS magic, now two competing, contradictory impulses could exist simultaneously. Part of TIOS is being able to make multiple contradictory situations work without negating each other, so why not this one? What if the existence of those two ideas, Jordan's quotes and Conner's quote, created enough leverage for her to *want* to break Conner's quote? To choose to give up the certain happiness of Conner for the epically good dicking of Jordan? Does this explanation work any better for you?

Anonymous
>>24848127

On the requirements for breaking free of TIOS: Hailey was able to see herself in the photo at the party after Conner showed her the way, even though she wasn't aware of TIOS. You don't need to be aware of TIOS to see through it. You just need to be shown how to do it. Knowing about TIOS or not doesn't confer any special meaning. EDIT: Becoming an EIC allows you to detect the changes made by TIOS, which is probably why Amanda was more successful than any other girl. Why didn't this help Fisher? Probably because he was too busy crying a river over making some random teens dress sexy. On TIOS not having rules: Arthur C. Clarke said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I'm sure TIOS has rules. We just don't understand them fully. On "not sweating the small stuff" in stories: I tend to be both incredibly lenient and super strict when it comes to world-building. I give the author free reign to set up any rules he or she might want, no matter how ridiculous or dumb they may appear to be. But once a rule is in place, I don't allow take-backs. Everything that happens after must make sense given what came before. The less a story is able to adhere to its own established world-building, the less real that world feels to me. I mean, if we don't care about the details we can always just say that this is an alternate story set in an alternate world with alternate versions of every character, where TIOS behaves slightly differently. We never got to see all the other scenes in *this* version of TIOS, so who's to say that Conner didn't write a slightly different quote in the yearbook? But then, that feels a little bit like cheating to me.

WDB
>>24848127

I guess this is where we officially hit "agree to disagree", then. I like the mechanics of TIOS, and I think it's fun the speculate about how it all works (it's even fun to have these debates on how we each think it works!), but if I'm being honest I don't "care" about TIOS. I like that it's an ingredient in stories and characters that I adore. I don't get a lot out of something like Faculty Meeting because of the mental trickery that TIOS requires, I get a lot out of it because it's a) super-hot erotica b) with well-written characters c) that tells a compelling story d) with an emotionally honest core. The "how" of it all... I don't know, and this may sound bogus coming from someone who's spent a couple days putting forward his theories of how the ending of a magical-erotica short story makes logical sense, it just doesn't bother me a whole lot. As long as the characters are interesting and the plot is compelling and the magical-erotica action is hot and the ending works thematically, I'm content. Like, I've been reading stuff MC/magical-erotica off of the EMCSA and Kindle and wherever for literally decades. At best, if they were hot, I'd bookmark 'em for later. Ice Bear's stories are the *first time* I've gone on a board and raved about these type of stories, or (in the case of Of Infidelity) just exorcised my traumas and fears. And it's not because of some clockwork mechanism of a MC/magical MacGuffin, it's because he writes stories that *affect me emotionally*. (And because they are incredibly effective erotica! That needs more pointing out, maybe!) That's what I want out of stories, and I get that that may not be what everyone's looking for. Folks did not fall in love with Conner's character like I did, for example, and that's cool. But I found his journey to be compelling above and beyond how hot the book was or how ingenious the plot was. And it was still also both of those things! I am super duper lenient when it comes to the "rules" of a story if I think the themes and the emotions of the story/ending require it. I obviously don't want it to be "a wizard did it", there should be a consistency, but I'm totally down with an ending like Faculty Meeting being more about the symbolism of a person choosing a lustful fling over a loving relationship, rather than a specific Here's How He Did It With His Magic Computer Program. I see where you're coming from if you can't square that circle, though, and it's understandable if my own view doesn't sit right with you. Still, I appreciate your taking all of this time to talk about this stuff. It's awesome that you're a thoughtful fan of a writer who deserves more thoughtful fans, and you've made me look forward to coming back to this page. Thanks!

Anonymous
>>24848127

I don’t even see it as “agree to disagree”, necessarily. At least, in terms of the technical details of TIOS. My message was “some changes need to be made to our understanding of TIOS for this ending to make sense given what was written before”. Your message was “this ending doesn’t need to make sense in the larger scheme of TIOS for me to enjoy it”. Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. Well, I guess we did agree to disagree on Conner. You see him as a nice kid thrust into a situation way out of his depth, wracked with guilt over the unintended consequences of his prior actions and unable to move forward out of a fear of making things worse. I see him as an amorphous blob of contradictory thoughts and actions, a little too incoherent to be believable as a character. I’m sure we’ll have more discussions in future story updates. Looking forward to it!

WDB
>>24848127

So, we can both agree that Conner was a marshmallow, even if we give that phrase different context. Consensus! WE'VE FOUND IT ON THE INTERNET! Ukyo_rulz, I will see you in Oslo when we pick up our Nobel Peace Prize.

icebear
>>24848127

To go back to a prior point: without getting into what a physical copy of the 2019 Northside High School yearbook looks like, I definitely gave some serious thought to smuggling in a few pages at the end filled with white text on white background, featuring all the doesn't-belong-in-a-real-yearbook quotes. I only stopped myself because I wasn't sure if it would remain an Easter egg on someone kindle or if it would be immediately obvious and just really confusing after the conclusion. Plus, it could well have added days to the editing process, and I was too eager to get it done. Still, totally LOVE the notion of Mary Buchanan's kids (or husband!) finding that thing. Love it.

Anonymous
>>24917986

Man, I just read this comment after a week and I've got to say it amazes me that people are so invested on Ice Bear's works for different reasons (for example, you and Coding, me and the psychology of screwing with reality) I guess its a credit to how much thought Ice Bear puts into his work. This whole thread is simply a great read from a great side-story!

Ferrum1

Read through it twice just because I could. Overall, solid stuff. Somewhere along the way, I got the idea that the story was being rushed just to get it done and keep the ravenous fans at bay. Also, I'm not sure how I liked the interaction between Ms. C and Jordan being contained to just them. In the OC, we saw Jordan using casual comments from third-party students to better his situation. Half the fun was in how those seemingly innocent comments could be taken out of context or taken literally, depending on how TIOS was feeling that day. Instead, we see Ms. C practically hand herself to Jordan on a silver platter. No hunting, no near misses, no moments of pure luck where Jordan overhears juicy comment he can use to his advantage. All the mention of the tensions between Conner's women had me hoping that some of them might come into play, if only with a snarky comment that Jordan could then use on Ms. C or the rest of the class/school. In the end, Faculty Meeting was a good read that was over far too soon. The upside is that means we can get started on the next installment. :D

WDB
>>25273016

Yeah, I think it's a testament to how good these TIOS shorts are that a 29-page nearly non-stop magical-erotica-fest can feel like not enough was done with it. I think folks would *really, really love* to see Jordan just keep picking off the other women in Conner's life. And, y'know, after three killer shorts, I guess I'd agree. If I can ask, do you feel like the way Jordan uses TIOS in this, the more on-on-one scenes with Kristy, was it too obvious what he was doing for you? Do you like it when he's more background in his quote collecting? Or were you just looking for other characters to be complicit in Kristy's downfall? I'm curious how people want Jordan to operate. I think it's pretty interesting.

Ferrum1
>>25273016

WDB, I'm a big fan of the psychology involved in a story. Watching the changes from the person's perspective, how their inner dialogue helps to create a sense of what they're going through and how they perceive things.... that's hot. On top of that, unintended consequences and unforeseen "oooopsies" are my favorite thing because they tend to make the story more believable. The happy ending where everything is resolved and nobody bears any scars.... that's so unlike life that I have a hard time getting into it. I liken it to Lord of the Rings where Tolkien made sure to have well-developed and beloved characters killed off, and spent a good bit of time talking about how the world was changed irrevocably even thought the good guys "won". You can win every battle and win the war, but you're going to change in the process. Some good. Some bad. But change nonetheless. I like Jordan as a character in general. I thought he was realistic. I think we all knew a guy like that somewhere in our history, even if not from school days. He's arrogant, selfish, myopic, crude..... and willing to go the extra mile to get something he wants. About the only thing I thought was unrealistic about him was his refusal to use the TIOS system to enhance himself. The only exception was his stamina, which I thought was a bit unrealistic for a high school senior. Yea, maybe to give himself a big dick, but there was so much more he could have accomplished. This was especially problematic for me because he showed such a willingness to experiment on the girls in the SE class. He would have known that it was safe to tweak his own body, especially in small ways. I do like when there's more background in his quote collecting. In all the other tales, we saw other students inadvertently helping him out and that made it rather fun because you never knew what was going to be quoted and how it was going to change Jordan's plans. If nobody said something along the lines of what he was hoping for, he had to shift to Plan B or continue hunting for the quote. I like the idea of other characters being complicit in Kristy's downfall, but only in the sense that they would be unknowing participants in Jordan's plan. If you'll recall from Lesson Plans, several of the students saw Kristy being spanked and/or sucking Jordan off. Yet, sadly, none of them made a snarky comment about Kristy being Jordan's whore, property, slut, slave, skank, etc. You would have thought at least one of the girls would have sniped at Kristy just out of a sense of disgust for her breaking decorum, right? When you add in the extra bonus of this competition amongst Conner's girls since the dance, it seemed like there was always a hint of a rivalry between them.... but it went nowhere. It was brought up several times, then left to die on the vine. The girl could look at Kristy with a smug grin as she left with Conner, but never scoffed at Kristy, saying, "You're with Jordan now, so I'll keep Conner for myself." Throughout FM, Kristy might have been led on by Jordan, but she still delivered herself on a silver platter. It came across as easy because there wasn't any real conflict. Conner and the other students were entirely removed. While that allowed for the relationship to develop, I felt like there could have been more tension and worry, and talk about the negative ramifications from how Kristy was acting. And that wouldn't necessarily have to be with Conner and his girls. If the other teachers and admins had gotten involved outside of the meeting, it could have been rather hot. Jordan obviously loves degrading Kristy, and the staff in the meeting obviously weren't pleased with her behavior, so you have to wonder what's next on the agenda for her. The fallout we didn't see in this tale might be something that's inline for the next installment.

WDB
>>25273016

That's *fascinating*. I really appreciate the detail in what you're looking for from a story like this, and I *love* how much you're thought you've put into it. Thanks! For me, I enjoyed how much Kristy's responsible for her predicament. Like, for TIOS, as Jordan mentions in Book 3, it's always a stronger effect if it's a first-person quote, and that's usually when these stories work better for me, too. It's just a juicier story to me if we can see Kristy inadvertently supplying Jordan the weapons that bring her down. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with it the other way, like when Jordan compiles demeaning quotes to alter the Pride, but I really do find the one-on-one scenes electric. It's like watching a trap being sprung in slow-motion, you know? Thanks for getting me thinking about this again!

Ferrum1
>>25273016

WDB, what made me sad is how one quote could so dramatically change the dynamic of the relationship/character. As we saw in Sub Notes, it just takes one offhand remark to completely reshape the person.... and then it's pretty much a cascade failure after that. Consider in this tale that Kristy's verbiage while up on the stage, if entered into TIOS which was never made clear, now makes her a veritable slave, but she doesn't know it. Is that fun? Is that hot? Where's the conflict? Earlier, we saw the same thing happen with the other quotes, like the one regarding doing whatever it takes to teach one of the guys, however degrading. While the quote was hot because the reader knew what it entailed, I never got a sense that Kristy knew what it entailed. For her, it was just another day at work. If she felt degraded and humiliated, it just didn't come through. And by not really including any other students in the mix, it seemed to give Jordan all the power right off the bat. If Kristy will do whatever it takes to teach one of the boys in her class, Jordan really doesn't need any more quotes for TIOS. Of course, this is doubling down on the rest of the quotes he has from the story. In the next installment, I wonder if Ice Bear has worked himself into a corner where there just isn't anything he can do that'd be realistic in the universe. The one-on-one scenes are good, and I like seeing the relationship develop as much as you do. Part of me wished this was the main canon simply because it's far more fun than with Conner in the mix. What's next for these two? Will Jordan find a way to get Kristy servicing the whole school? Will Kristy know it? How will they make it so Conner is okay with the whole thing? I really hate waiting, especially when there's no telling if another chapter is even in the works. :(

WDB
>>25273016

I see what you're saying about the way one quote sort-of starts a landslide against a character. Once Jordan gets a foot in the door, it's impossible to keep him out of the house. I feel like the overall speed of Kristy's descent was just down to the page count of the story, not any particular shift away from the TIOS style of storytelling. Like, for it to be a compelling short story, Kristy's going to have to get altered early and often. Otherwise, she'd have like one thing happen to her and we'd all be, "Why didn't Jordan do more with her?" While this may lose some of the intricacy of the slow-burn TIOS changes, I can't fault this short for not doing enough with the premise. When it comes to Kristy not feeling "degraded or humiliated", I *really* like that that's the case. One of my favorite things in MC erotica, and in TIOS stories specifically, is where a character doesn't feel any shame or concern about their (okay, her) graphically inappropriate behavior. (I wasn't as huge on the end of Sub Notes as I was on the beginning, since the story shifted more towards Lizzy's shame and embarrassment. Where's that sexy impotent rage that I loved so much?) I *loved* how in stride Kristy took her debasement, how she felt only vaguely inconvenienced at Jordan using her as a sex toy in class. For me, that's *the stuff*. (Although, Jordan getting Kristy to treat his disgusting come-ons as panty-melting poetry is *THE STUFF*.) For a follow-up? I really hope Jordan just keeps Kristy for himself. There're probably a lot of fans who'd love to see her slutting it up all over Northside, but I find it more fun when Jordan doesn't share. There's a, I don't know, precision to it? Like, making her a slut would be easy, but making her *his* slut would be rewarding.

Ferrum1
>>25273016

You make a good point about the overall length of the story. Sometimes it's hard to remember that this is supposed to be a one-off short story and not a chapter in a much longer tale. It's got to be rather trying as a writer to get the heat worked into a story when you only have a few thousands words to do it in. Better IB than me!! One of the story arcs that I really enjoyed in the Main Story was how Conner's step-sister seemed to be getting corrupted a bit and was fully aware of it. There was some hot inner dialogue going on as she realized she pretty much had to do whatever Owen's girlfriend wanted of her if she was going to get her prize. When she was first made aware of TIOS and what it had done to her, I thought it was very neat that she was so accepting of it. I was expecting a big blowout fight, but she took it like a very reasonable person who knew she was screwed and just had to make the best of it. Then Conner showed Owen how to get her to do more.... which was, again, hot. She knew she was being trained, but her need overwhelmed her anger at the situation much like it would later with Owen's new girl. I like seeing what's going on in the character's head as they are slowly twisted into doing more and more unusual things. Justifying their tattoos or behavior in the Sex Ed class was fun because we knew what was going on with them. In this short tale, I can't say I was horribly disappointed. It was a good read and had some heat. I would have liked to see someone acting as a foil for Jordan, or pointing out things to Kristy like happened in Lesson Plans when they caught her being spanked by Jordan or sucking him off. No complaints or snarky comments from the other students was a bit of a let down, but certainly nothing that makes me curl up in a ball for a good cry. I can only hope that there's a third installment soon. Like you, I wasn't too enamored with the ending of Sub Notes. It felt like it wasn't the ending and I kept looking for the next page. And, honestly, it was a little too dark and hateful for my tastes. I don't know why I can get along with how Ms. C is treated, but that poor substitute teacher's suffering at the hands of Jordan seemed a bridge too far. He's not exactly nice to either of them, so why does one seem okay and the other didn't really do it for me?

WDB
>>25273016

Yeah, I kinda wonder which is a trickier story to tell in MC erotica: a longform story where you've got tons of space to sell your premise but you need to make sure all those pages are useful, or a short story that crams in as many hot twists as it can but doesn't have room to explore the characters as fully. Like you said, I'm glad I can toss that football to Ice Bear. One of the things I think is interesting about how MC erotica works is, who's deserving of empathy? Why is some manipulation hot, while other manipulation is too far? I talked about it a little further up the page, what with the ending for I Am So Bored, but I can see how Sub Notes is another good example. I think the big difference between Lizzy in Sub Notes and Kristy in Faculty Meeting is that we're seeing everything through Kristy's eyes, and we're seeing her rationalizations. She's bummed at losing her time with Conner, and she's frustrated at Jordan's recalcitrance (what up vocab), but she's never really ashamed or embarrassed by how she's behaving. Not in any damaging way. With Sub Notes, it's all from Jordan's perspective, so when Lizzy seems like she's mortified and hating her experiences, there's nothing for the reader to think other than that she's mortified and hating her experiences. Kristy eventually enjoys what's happening to her, while Lizzy never does. In fact, the *point* of the ending of Sub Notes is that Lizzy hates it. I guess that's the other thing, the way that Lizzy's misery is the whole point, rather than a side-effect. Like, the things that happen to Kristy are links in a chain, leading up to (from my reading) her decision to choose her lust for Jordan over her love for Conner. Similarly, Kirsten getting abused by Jordan in Book 2 of TIOS is a scene I didn't hate (didn't love it, though) because I knew it was going to get us to a quote like Kirsten's "You can do anything you want to me!" If that sort of character damage is necessary to advancing the plot or setting up a hotter scene in the future, sure, fine. If it *is* the plot, like at the end of Sub Notes, I'm a lot less on board with it. But y'know, that's just me, I'm sure there's fans who much prefer that type of control to the more humorous or romantic kinds. There's all types of Ice Bear fans!

Ferrum1
>>25273016

Not seeing anything through Lizzy's eyes likely contributed to my thoughts on the story. It was abusive, but without any redeeming qualities. There wasn't that stoic resignation like in TIOS. There was no happy compliance like in the Sex Ed classes. It was just straight up mean and hateful. Now, if that substitute teacher had been someone from the main story who we already had some interaction with, understanding their character a bit, that would have changed things significantly. Maybe. If I look back through the whole universe, I think my main kick comes from the hunt for those quotes, getting the right wording that will fit with your plans. If it's something handed to you on a silver platter, that's rather boring unless you can really capitalize on it in ways that are unique -- something the reader didn't see coming. We can only hope that Kristy's adventures aren't over.

Anonymous

Amen to Kristy's adventures not being over. I remember that line in TIOS1 where she told Conner she "convinced" the valedictorian, and I was like "yup, this is one interesting and hot as hell character" XD

WDB
>>25534175

Does Kristy have the hottest scenes in all of the various TIOS-verse stories? I hadn't thought she had, but looking back to the the three novels and the two short stories, I think she might. Her seductions of Conner, the way she manipulates Heather for him, the entirety of Lesson Plans and Faculty Meeting... is Kristy the hottest character in TIOS?

icebear
>>25534175

You know, I've pondered along those lines before, why I sometimes find Kristy's scenes all-around hotter. It's definitely not some deliberate effort on my part, and I can't even take credit for using her in the spin-off stories, as that was the idea of the original story commissioner (who basically just said "moar cris-T"). For my money, what I think does it for me is that Kristy is much more self-aware of the fact that she is a fantasy, and to a degree, Conner-as-student is a fantasy for her. She embraces the fetishism of it, the sexy teacher seducing her innocent young student, the older woman with her boy-toy, and invites Conner to do the same. Heather, with her similar potential as long-standing-dream-girl-suddenly-turned-interested, doesn't do much with that beyond a little tit indulgence. Amanda only marginally occupies a fetishy niche (hot co-worker, kind of, or maybe the whole Weird Science made-for-you thing, if that's a thing), and likewise, is mostly just a cool hot girl Conner hooks up with. Kristy's a walking Penthouse letter, and she knows it, and she capitalizes on it. At least, that's my best rationale for this phenomenon.

WDB
>>25534175

Is it just that a more knowledgeable, active participant inevitably makes a scene hotter? And that gets amplified by the eternal adolescent boy fantasy of "hot teacher introduces a teenager to sex"? Is that combination just unbeatable, in a 'hot scenes' measurement? I wonder. I think some of it is also the realities of erotica, and maybe the particulars of MC erotica. Like, I can't speak for everyone, but to me, sex scenes on their own are not *nearly* as hot as sex scenes where we can see a slower build-up, a little fantastical element, some hot foreplay in the dialogue, what-have-you. The scenes Conner has with Amanda or Heather, as romantic and entertaining as they might be, are largely between characters who are (as I mentioned elsewhere) "mostly grateful just to find a quiet place to bang wet parts together." The Kristy scenes tend to have a ton more lead-up, and more of a seductive quality, which (to me) makes them hotter and more memorable. Or, alternate theory, Ice Bear's right, it's not like Van Halen ever did songs called "Hot For College-Minded Crush" or "Hot For Abrasive Co-Worker" (jk amanda you know you my bae), so I think we can all say which is the most compelling character trait.

Anonymous
>>25534175

Well, I pretty much agree (With Kristy being the hottest/best scenes for my preference and the fact that the teacher fantasy is pretty much universal). I guess for me the added fact is also the way she was written, she's not mindless, in fact she's pretty smart. Her internal monologue to justify her actions dives deep into her character's ideals and desires. She also is "the older woman" but, as she tries to make it clear "not too old". If I may, she's in the goldilocks level of everything being just right. And right now TIOS is slightly better for me than the Friendverse (which comes in at a close second) I also have this theory that part of what makes it work is that, in a world where men are expected to be macho and dominant, there's bound to be a string in a lot of men wherein the professions where the female is the one caring, for them (Teacher/Female Doctor/Nurse/Masseuse etc) just seems to click. Not too dominant for femdom, but not too motherly for incest. Did I just make sense? its great discussing this with y'all, esp Ice being such an interactive author.

WDB
>>25534175

Oh, man, excellent point. The way a caregiver role can get fetishized by making the 'care' into sex, yeah, that's a big part of "hot for teacher" as an archetype. Also, the way certain professions have women in authority, and then that authority is subverted and used primarily to bring a man pleasure, yep, that's a pretty common kink. How much porn is there about women doctors, women cops, businesswomen, etc?