The Tuesday may come when I fail to update the Secret Files - but it is not THIS Tuesday!
Not that I have much.
Did some work on Pierced, but not as much as I would have liked. Was hoping to have it for this coming weekend but that's looking unlikely at this point. It's tough to have the energy to write smut in the evening when you work all day and then spend your evenings helping your subsidiary unit with homework or shuttling it around to sporting events. I just want to sit down and watch some Home and Garden channel followed by falling asleep to whichever of Colbert, Kimmel, or Fallon has the most interesting guest on.
Yes, it's a thrilling life here in Tabico-land!
I'll note that my colleague Dollmistress has produced another fantastic illustrated story, available over at her Deviant Art gallery, which you should investigate if you haven't already.
(How can they call it "Deviant" Art when they specifically disallow anything naughtier than nudity? Talk about misleading nomenclature. It's a good thing Telsis put up that other page.)
Anyway.
I'm a huge fan of these enslavement/transformation scenes - obviously - and this one has again gotten me thinking about how to build a story around something similar.
I'm thinking some sort of base or facility which is dedicated to human to sexy mindless slave transformation. Our protagonists have to raid it, a la 'Rouge' - we'll get to 'why' in a moment.
Of course, the other immediate question is whose facility is it? I rather neatly solved that in 'Rouge', if I do say so myself. Dollmistress has established the Enthasans, an alien race of mind controlling Mistresses, and aliens are a solid choice for this sort of thing; it lets the author use 'technology' not readily understood by the characters.
(I have something similar going on in 'M&A', if I ever decide to finish that one and release it to the public, though it's all modern real-ish world stuff, no aliens at all. In fact it's in the SCUniverse and Diana Snowden makes an appearance. And Neil Arundsen a phone call. But enough about the back burner.)
So, enslavement facility. I'm gonna start with 'aliens', though I think I'll go Far Future and.... ooh. Now there's an idea.
So. Race of aliens that like to enslave and convert humans. Said race is more powerful than the humans, although there are many solar systems' worth of humans and they're not being totally overrun so much as plucked like fruit.
Fortunately for the humans, there are yet other races who don't go in for enslaving humans - because why would you? I mean, you'd just wind up with all these... humans milling around - and said other races also do not like the Enslavers. For whatever reason.
So those folks and the Enslavers have had a war. And the Enslavers lost (to an indeterminate but significant extent) and have been rolled back. And the humans are now returning to territory which the Enslavers had taken from them, because the victors in the war either don't want it or enjoy being vaguely patronizing towards lesser races.
Thus we have an Enslaving facility, on a former human world. A team of soldiers/scientists goes into it with multiple aims - rescuing anyone not converted, if possible, but also securing Enslaver technology, and confirming that the place is "safe" - and, well, this being Tabico talking, you can guess what happens next.
They find, and turn on, the power.
Mmm.
Also I was considering, based on DM's recent ventures, some still-nebulous way of working audience participation into the story. Sadly, I have yet to crack the mysteries of 3D illustration. But I can write purty. So what I was postulating was writing more or less scene by scene, filling in the plot as dictated by my vision but then larding the thing with delicious naughty conversion scenes by taking a vote on the preferred mechanic for each scene as it arises.
Let me elaborate. So I'd write the intro, which would go long enough to insert the protagonists firmly into the facility and turn on
- Chemical / drug
- Biological / parasitical
- Mechanical / implant / MC machine
- Subliminal / subtle
- Hypnotic / interpersonal
- Memory / personality erasure
Whaddya think? Interesting idea? Unworkable? The Internet would discover the poll and make every poll result "Hitler Did Nothing Wrong"? The story's no good if they're all going to end up enslaved anyway, because what's the point you know how it's going to end?
I like this type of tale when there is:
ReplyDelete1. Plenty of fodder (female that is).
2. Diverse methods of control/change. And diverse speeds and acknowledgement/awareness.
3. At least two types of change. A-'dollification' (per se) and B-corruption.
4. Betrayal of some type of trust. By this it could be a mother selling out her daughter(s) whom she previously would have died for. Or a supervisor/leader/teacher giving up their protege.
Ok, so I just put my thoughts on every type of MC story out there. So sue me.
I love the idea of 'turning on' the facility. Even though there is only one character in this story it's one of my favorites for what you are describing to set up- http://mcstories.com/Goldilocks/index.html
Can't wait to see what you come up with.
Also are you very far along with the writing for the next issue of Core?
Drat - had another point I can't resist posting.
ReplyDeleteMaybe structure the thing like a Bioware game, except with (let's say) three primary protagonists instead of just one.
What I mean is, you follow the Bioware playbook thus:
1) Protagonists defined, stakes and situation defined
2) Reason why the protagonists are so important/special defined via a big early reveal
3) Protagonists go on an adventure, broken down into simple steps and/or locations
4) Along the way, a limited number of new protagonists can be collected by the cast
5) Each additional cast member (plus the originals) can be lost at predefined story points
6) Each cast member has a "backstory sidequest" that can be undertaken and completed, completing their personal "arc"
7) At some point, a bigger bad appears to increase the stakes
8) Throw in: a kidnapping/prison, a traitor, a humourous story point, a love story, and a sacrifice
9) Along the way, whether/how each cast member's "backstory mission" was completed determines how and why they meet their end (you can't get the best ending for everyone!)
10) During a big finale, a limited set of earlier decisions come into play deciding who lives/dies and the final outcome
11) Don't forget the twists! You need an obvious one, plus a genuinely surprising one! :D
If you go ahead with the facility idea, then I suggest Dead Space, Alien Isolation or the original Resident Evil are handy templates (i.e. where "chapters" consist of progression from one sub-location to another, including occasional backtracking).
Hiya Tabs - DM here :)
ReplyDeleteIf you go ahead with the interactive story then I suggest you plan the whole thing in advance and limit the number of choices the readers can make, with the branching occurring within chapters where at the end of each chapter no matter which choices are made the general story still reaches the same place.
Otherwise I think everyone's brains will explode from the complication, quality could degrade, people leave in protest when their desired choices aren't in the majority and you'll run the risk of becoming unhappy with the story yourself.
If you run the thing as if you're the Gamemaster of a tabletop roleplaying session, or a poor video game RPG where meaningful choices are very limited, then it just might work. To minimise negative feedback, I suggest mostly offering choices that have no clear consequences (e.g. instead of things like "does Sam or Jane get enslaved next?" you ask "do the heroines use the elevator or the stairs?" with plans for the results of each) and conserving your own efforts/imagination by having any skipped events simply happening at a later stage. That last point might sound like you're cheating, but really no one besides you is ever going to know that Jane being enslaved via plant monster at story branch 6B was originally planned as 2A but was skipped because people chose 2C instead.
Also remember that you could always set the whole thing up as a simple RAGs game or an online "choose your own adventure" story using a free website like Tripod and simple page linking.
As a final point, I'd suggest always allowing people to make their own completely original suggestions - you can ignore all the Hitler did Nothing Wrongs whilst benefiting from inspiring new ideas to drive things forward.
But do at least plan the overall size/shape of the story beforehand - there was a good reason I only had six characters in Interactive Processing :)
p.s. thanks for another mention!
Drat - had another point I can't resist posting.
Maybe structure the thing like a Bioware game, except with (let's say) three primary protagonists instead of just one.
What I mean is, you follow the Bioware playbook thus:
1) Protagonists defined, stakes and situation defined
2) Reason why the protagonists are so important/special defined via a big early reveal
3) Protagonists go on an adventure, broken down into simple steps and/or locations
4) Along the way, a limited number of new protagonists can be collected by the cast
5) Each additional cast member (plus the originals) can be lost at predefined story points
6) Each cast member has a "backstory sidequest" that can be undertaken and completed, completing their personal "arc"
7) At some point, a bigger bad appears to increase the stakes
8) Throw in: a kidnapping/prison, a traitor, a humorous story point, a love story, and a sacrifice
9) Along the way, whether/how each cast member's "backstory mission" was completed determines how and why they meet their end (you can't get the best ending for everyone!)
10) During a big finale, a limited set of earlier decisions come into play deciding who lives/dies and the final outcome
11) Don't forget the twists! You need an obvious one, plus a genuinely surprising one! :D
If you go ahead with the facility idea, then I suggest Dead Space, Alien Isolation or the original Resident Evil are handy templates (i.e. where "chapters" consist of progression from one sub-location to another, including occasional backtracking).
That's too bad, I am certainly looking forward to more 'Pierced!' I've posted the first two chapters of my story this week, and I plan on posting the next two next week!
ReplyDeleteDollmistress is on fire lately, her latest offering is certainly lovely. :)
Hearing about your back catalog is so much tease! Hopefully you will grace us with some of it at some point!
I think your interactive enslavement story idea would work fine, despite the usual Internet trolls. I like the idea, and would surely like to participate. :)