Teaching Her A Lesson, Part 22 (Patreon)

Onwards! I had a great vacation last week with my annual week o' D&D. (And nobody unleashed a malevolent AI to suck me into a virtual reality RPG, so... bonus?) I gave myself a day to settle in, and now here we go with part 22, the aftermath of Canon's termination. Some musing on this installment follows, though I'd recommend reading the new chapter first, coming back to that second, just in case.

MUSINGS

There is still a significant extent to which I am winging this thing. I forgot how fun it is to just let my characters do what they want without pushing them into plot points. Canon and his ladies certainly seem to have a knack for blundering into plot points of their own without my intervention, anyway. Honestly, when I had Abbie ambush him at Gooses, it wasn't until after that I thought, man, wouldn't it be funny if one of his buddies caught it on camera? Then... OH MAN WHAT IF THEY...?! And while it's kind of a dickhead thing to post, I've seen people do worse, so I thought... why not. He's been so fucking reckless, he deserves to be caught by *something*.

Coming out of part 21 (wherein Horen catches the girls in his room and reveals her researches), I was like... shit. Did I just totally fuck up my main character? Like, did I ruin his life on a whim because it felt like that's what that fusspot Horen was always waiting in the wings for? Man, am I an idiot? But then I thought about it procedurally (and spending a week's vacation with my public defender friend helped), and I was like... yeah, maybe not? I don't know. As of this moment, I genuinely don't know if Canon's going to save his job, stay out of jail, or not. There's certainly ample evidence of his crime out there, but will they dig that deep when the counternarrative is so thoroughly corroborated? I honestly don't know how good Shipman is at his job, or if being a good detective translates into an arrest or a lack of arrest.

It's heady. Maybe irresponsible? But I like that it feels natural, and it's fun to let them play. I know there's been many comments about how stupid and sloppy Canon has been, and it's really true. I worked in schools for most of a decade, and you'd have to be a complete idiot to think you can keep crap like this invisible. But then, he's also a guy who never dreamed that his naughty thoughts would translate into naughty deeds, and now that they have, suddenly all those thoughts are possibilities, so... it'd be stupid *not* to live them out, right? (Right?) Sure, the sex is good, but work sex is better -- but it's also a great way to blow a good thing, you fucking moron, you lucky stupid clod and blah I just don't know what the guy's going to be overwhelmed by next.

Anyway, here we are, limitless possibilities, more to come, and happy Friday!