I have two sequels in mind, one that takes place directly after At The Cabin (but it'd take place in Azure Rocks, not on the cabin, and from what I understood, henrytemp's idea have the cabin and the park as a setting), and one in the future starring the sons and daughters from Zack and the others. However, if the story map is really proving to be an issue, I believe I have a solution. A few days ago, I was thinking about creating a story called "Tales of Silver Lake", where I would use just the Silver Lake scenario and its cabins to write a few short stories with different characters, but I guess we could also use it to accomodate branches from At The Cabin that stray a little from the more traditional approach, such as henrytemp's horror story idea or my own absurd alternate plots. What do you guys think?
Eh, it's what I studied in school, but I don't have any kind of professional resume behind me. I have more literacy in the field than passion for it. Right! I can't find it, but I think there was a government official who gave World War Z a glowing review for exactly that reason. The early chapters are supposedly a perfect picture of what goes on behind closed doors when a real crisis is evolving. Oooh, I have a copy of that and still need to read it. It reminds me, though, of an excerpt from The Lost City of Z. At the end of the book, the author is shown the ruins of a massive pre-Columbian structure in the Amazon that's been covered with vegetation and mistaken for a hill. There used to be massive cities in the Americas before European settlers arrived, but the native populations were wiped out by new diseases and their homes reclaimed by nature so quickly that we're still discovering they ever existed in the first place. Go for it! It sounds like a lot of fun! I can see where Zingiber's coming from, but I'd say it's up to you regarding a spinoff. It's outside the normal tone for the story, but we are veering into the "Bad Ending" branch, and the erotophilia branch feels spooky to me at different times, so it's not a huge departure either. "Tales of Silver Lake" does sound like an elegant solution. If you wanted to keep a certain distance from the Ravers cabin, you could always say certain stories aren't what's "really" happening there. Instead they're what other people are gossiping and imagining about the crazy eight teenagers.
I'm thinking this "Tales of Silver Lake" being about some cabins near Ravers' Cabin, with smaller groups of characters, and of course, a few crossovers might happen. Then I can place a few threads to set a hook for new branches of At The Cabin, as I said on my last post.
Ah, gotcha. Same with me in psych and now medical training. I worked at a nursing home for a time, but it mostly for the nursing program I'm in. Outside of that, no work experience for my chosen field. Damn, oh I believe that. The chaos, the uncertainty of information you're getting, your choices in how you respond to the threat -- and their consequences if you don't do your homework beforehand. Hell, I think we saw that just recently with the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the panic over Thomas Eric Duncan in Texas. There's nasty stories in the HIV/AIDS epidemic too. Although it's exaggerated in several respects, the movie And the Band Played On highlights the mess in how the United States responded to the first outbreaks and the stigmatization of the gay community in the States and entire countries like Haiti abroad. Contagion is damn scary too -- it's a bit exaggerated as well, but the final scene is spooky because it shows exactly how a new virus is born. Human deforestation forces bats to flee and set up shop on pig farms, where said pigs are exposed to bat droppings and whatever viruses they carry. Some transfered genes later and a little luck of the replicative draw, and bam, brand-spanking new and lethal strain of flu, or coronavirus (SARS from China in the early 2000's, or the new MERS from Saudi Arabia), or hemorrhagic fever (Ebola). Art imitates life too much some times. I have an unhealthy obsession with epidemiology. Oh wow. That's insanely amazing! See, Europe was a craphole for such a long time, especially like in the 12th and 13th centuries, and I know places like China were flourishing in much better conditions. The Aztecs and Inca had great cities I know too. I think it's rather arrogant to declare certain things about history when not all of it has been uncovered. Who knows what's lurking out there in the Amazon or the Congo or Indonesia, waiting to be discovered -- or, really what's beneath our feet. Wasn't Richard III just found under a parking lot in rural England? Sounds good to me too! I like the idea of a thread focusing on the rangers too -- I can imagine Jennifer, Colin, and Ryan investigating whatever horror that pervades Silver Lake in a thread.
Yeah I don't mind putting that idea in a new story or whatever. I'm nowhere close to writing about it but I'm a horror movie fan, and with a bunch of horny teens at a camp, of course my mind went there
Also a big horror movie fan, so I'm very excited to see what you've got. But then I'm taking my own ghost story idea and repackaging that as its own thing. I haven't seen And The Band Played On, but I'm gonna look for it now. Contagion occupies that terrifying space between a horror movie and a documentary. Honestly, even if we're talking purely in terms of public health, Europe was a craphole into the 20th century. They were still dealing with bubonic plague outbreaks into the 1950s. But then I guess it's hard to keep your people healthy when you're locked in an unending cycle of poverty and war. I thought you were joking when I first read this, but no, that is an accurate summary. Isn't it great-slash-terrifying how short our collective memories are? Even in a society with a centuries-old history and literary tradition? That's what's scary about apocalypse to me: it's not that society breaks, it's that everyone forgets how you rebuild society.
Some thoughts on my Kendra-Taylor thread. Really I started this because I'd hit writer's block on my main thread and these were some scenes I'd been thinking about for a while. While I wrote Taylor-Shawn, the real reason I started the thread where I did as opposed to building on Patzo's bad decision thread (more on that later) is that I wanted a Zack-Kendra storyline. There are two ways I've thought about how it would play out. One would be for Kendra to blackmail Zack, Victoria to catch Zack in the act and that would push her to Shawn. The other is to make this about Kendra getting revenge on Shawn. I'm leaning toward the latter. The reason I had him throw out the line about her breasts is that in the next scene you'll find out she came back in time to hear that. Him fucking around is one thing, but insulting her to Taylor is quite another. I haven't completely figured it out but having her way with Zack could be revenge on both of them. She could also screw up his chances with Vicky. Now a big reason I'm leaning that direction is Patzo's bad decision thread. I really like that thread and want to see where it goes (and maybe contribute). And so I don't want to repeat the possibilities that that thread may produce in regards to Shawn and Victoria. One last thing, it's funny how restrictions can push creativity. I went back and read all of Duskford's posts building up to Taylor-Shawn. One, to figure out who was wearing what clothing, and two, to make sure I stayed true to the details. The sleeping pill Taylor gave Zack was one roadblock. I thought about Kendra fucking a drowsy Zack but decided to go the blackmail route instead. The other one was the comment that Shawn's cock was the only one Kendra had had and wanted. This forced me to build up a reason to have her look elsewhere.
I've got to admit I'm very curious about this Zack/Kendra storyline, henrytemp, seeing as she's a very different character if you compare her to the other girls. I wonder how it's going to play out, as I imagine that Zack will be pissed at her, both for the kiss on the night before and the coming blackmail. It'll be interesting to see if Zack will get over his hate for her and if Kendra will forget about her revenge, enabling them to have a real relationship. Don't know if you plan to write it that far, though.
Yeah I don't know how far of a relationship they could have. But this is how I'm kind of seeing it from this thread. I'm not a big country music fan but I know enough from being around it from fans in my life. For Zack, in this spin-off thread I see Heather as Shania Twain, Victoria as Faith Hill, and Kendra as Jennifer Nettles. Now what I'm about to say is my feelings toward them, not necessarily their actual personalities. Shania is beautiful and gorgeous and everything you could want in a woman, Faith is beautiful as well but maybe a little too formal. Jennifer is pure sex. Not as hot as the other two but you want her anyway. In this thread that's how I envision Kendra for Zack. She's almost as much a drug for him as Shawn was for her. That doesn't build anything for long-term I know.
I think you could run both. I think it makes sense she'd want revenge on Taylor for ignoring her feelings about Shawn, and she'd take it out on Zack, and revenge on Shawn for treating her like dirt and exploiting her feelings. She has enough fire in her to interrupt a blowjob and point out the holes in his plan. And if she does push away Victoria, she can point out that Shawn can't get other girls without her help: even Taylor only succumbed because seeing Kendra blow him turned her on so much. Happy to have been any kind of inspiration, especially since I think you're doing a better job with the details than I did. Shawn denying Taylor his dick even after she wants to fuck him, and Kendra taking the picture of a sleeping Zack, are brilliant choices. To my chagrin, Taylor's bad decision branch keeps getting shuffled behind other threads I'm writing, so don't worry about stepping on my toes: I eventually want to take a look at Kendra/Zack myself, but you seem to be going there by a very different route. The way I saw it, Kendra would lie and tell Zack that kissing him was Taylor's idea to get rid of Victoria, and because Taylor does like Heather better than Victoria, Zack doesn't need much convincing. Yeah, that is one of the fun things, right? Being able to take someone else's previous "continuity" and spin it in a new direction, do something unexpected and bold with it. It's certainly paid off. That Kendra thread is fantastic, she holds a lot of power now and doesn't have Shawn holding her back. I'm excited to see what she does next!
I hope you enjoy it when you get the chance Patzo. It focuses a lot on Gaetan Dugas, the flight attendant who had multiple partners, primarily gay and bi men, and who the CDC treated as Patient Zero for the first outbreaks in New York City, but that was definitely for storytelling purposes. Eventually they discovered that he -- like so many of us -- exaggerated his personal life (he did say he slept for over 2500 people -- I mean, come on), and later analyses showed that HIV/AIDS filtered in from Haiti after it had filtered in from Western Africa after teachers brought it back with them. That's really the major break from reality there, but the social effects in the gay community and the squabbling among HIV's discoverers over how the disease spreads and who should receive credit are spot on. That is very true. Measles and polio too, none of that would go away until economic development rebuilt the infrastructure and new vaccinations became mainstream. Of course the United States would have its seasonal outbreaks of polio too. Seeing hundreds of kids in iron lungs from the 1930's and 40's definitely puts things into perspective. I know right?! Archaeologists aren't still quite sure how the Pyramids of Giza were built, because it used now forgotten technology. There's a great part in World Without Us I read the other day too -- stainless steel and ceramic cookware may last hundreds of thousands of years and may short circuit eons of development of whatever takes our place, or it may frustrate them because they can't replicate whatever technology we used to create it. Imagine finding a ready-made set of tools in the ground, but have no way to make more. What is easy and common in one civilization is confusing and precious to another. I agree with Patzo on this that you could play both motivations here. I get the feeling Kendra is far more conniving than Shawn ever could be, and that Shawn preys on that too. It could be that he is only as powerful as those he tries to keep under his thumb, and that may be one reason he tries to keep Kendra around. As soon as she sees past Shawn's control, she has the capability of doing so much -- and possibly quite a bit of damage along the way. Like this for instance! Oh totally. It really helps me flesh out motivations for whomever I'm writing about right then too. Given a certain personality in certain restrictions of a certain environment, how does that transmute into action? How would the character react and how would others react to the character's reaction? Half the time, I punch that into the story itself, usually the character's thought process and I can use that to keep the story flowing. That's the best part of writing collaborative/interactive fiction in my opinion. Too much of an open world can stall story development because of an overabundance of ideas, but when granted a smaller environment, lots of creative ideas can unfold.
Adding to the analysis on Shawn: he only does what he does because he sees women as servants to men and because he likes to make people miserable to inflate his ego knowing that he was the one to do it. Kendra plays a big part on it, Shawn knows that she's way smarter than him, but due to her devotion to him, he keeps her around to tap into that intelligence and use it to further his plans. I've always meant for Kendra to break free of Shawn's corrosive influence later on my main story, the only question was who was going to help her, Dustin or Kurt. I think Dustin has the better story potential on this case, being Shawn's brother, he could show her that she doesn't need to stray too far from the tree to find a better apple. On henrytemp's thread, Zack makes more sense, because it has a bigger rippling effect, due to Kendra's amazing quick thinking on taking that picture; she can tell him that Taylor put her to kiss him, driving a wedge between the siblings, then blackmail him into fucking her in exchange for telling Vicky the truth, all the while Shawn would be already working to get Vicky (maybe even with Kendra's help, once she gets over the fact that he doesn't care about her). On another note, I'm putting the finishing touches on the first plot for the spin-off "Tales of Silver Lake". I should submit it soon if nothing goes wrong.
This is why I see Kendra having battered partner's syndrome in an extent, in that Shawn has kept her down by suppressing her self-esteem, and that's the angle I chose to go for in the orgy thread. But I feel she's only controlled with great effort by Shawn, hence his tight leash. I think henrytemp's characterization plays into that very well, because as soon as she's left to her own devices, her independence and intelligence -- not to mention her deviousness -- comes roaring out. Shawn isn't an idiot in regards to that, but is arrogant enough in his own abilities -- something which I think will be his undoing in the orgy. I've always thought Kurt would be a better match in this sense. Maybe Zack or Dustin could be a brief fling to bite back at Shawn, but I've always thought that there are qualities in him that attract her to him -- perhaps assertiveness or a strong sense of self -- despite his horrible treatment of her. Kurt has these too, but in a more palatable or, in the case of reformatted Kurt, respectful package. And I've always gotten the feeling Kurt would be happier with an intelligent and powerful equal to him -- that's why Heather is a natural choice, but for the less incestous crowds, Kendra is a good alternative.
For the record, this discussion has given me just what I need to articulate the next orgy thread. So go team. As far as I'm concerned this is now super canon. Agreed. Kurt and Shawn have a lot of overlapping qualities, except that Kurt is someone you can actually hold a conversation with while he's hitting on you. (My favorite example is Kurt using a scientific justification for "opposites attract" to hit on his black lab partner. Even he thinks, "Yeah, it was a terrible line, but it worked.") Like, Kendra never fucks Shawn, it's always Shawn fucking Kendra. But Kendra could fuck Kurt, and Kurt would be just fine with that as long as they got to switch off once in a while.
Toying with the notion of a thread where some folks take a break from the LOUDNESS by going outside and get caught in a rain squall. As I commented, you're leaving me in the dust, and that's fine with me. The notion of rotating threads gives me stage fright rather than motivation, but I'm hoping to jump in eventually. It also seems like there are enough characters and things going on that people might not actually step on each other if there's some parallel work.
Going back to the orgy for a bit, I've thought of a way to keep Shawn in the story, but keep him out of the orgy and possibly humiliate him. Basically, have him attempt to set off the orgy with an aphrodisiac, but have some adverse effect happen to him, such as either a reverse effect (him not being able to get hard at all) or make him drowsy.
I like this idea, it can be a possible trigger to the orgy, but maybe it falls on the same consent-messing category as excessive drinking. Any thoughts, guys?
