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Nequ gets (mildly) political
11 months ago
It was being trans.
In my last journal, I complained about a story with poorly written politics. It was a story, set in the future, about a trans woman character. The universehas nano machines and she wanted to nano-transition, but she couldn't, because the church had banned it. For reasons I can't remember, if they were even given.
So, an extremely generic parody of the Christian church and conservatism, that somehow manages to be more shallow than your average anime or webtoon evil church.
And that was the church's entire involvement in the story.
They're just a hand wave, a plot device. To quote Filmento, "they're not real".
I know I said I could write a better story by turning down the volume on the political parts, but that wasn't quite right. I think I could write a better story by turning up or turning down the volume.
Either make it so transforming nanotechnology is banned by the government and stigmatized because of some disaster in the past that most people blindly blame on nanotechnology (which could still be a political analogy), or make the church side much more important.
Maybe the glitch that turns the protagonist into an evil nanomachine Queen comes out because of some the banned, including the reason that people shouldn't use it. That way, the generic evil church actually did something to contribute to the TF, directly.
(In the original story, the protagonist just…decides to become an evil brainwashing nanomachine queen (with extra plumbing). Which, um, seems like a bad idea, given the analogy the writer was going for.)
Or maybe the protagonist was bullied or impeded by some people following the teachings and dogma of this church. Maybe the bullying or bureaucrat somehow damaged some important piece of stabilizing technology, that the protagonist needed to use for the nanomachines.
Or the protagonist accidentally programs the machines to make themselves evil, because they happen to think about getting revenge at dinner point during the process. Heck, I did something a lot like this in #Collar And Crown.
Or the conversion powers are just intended for self-defense, but she increasingly uses them offensively.
And after the transformation, when the protagonist goes around to start converting her family and acquaintances (and the hypothetical
bully), some of them actually try to hide behind the teachings of this church, so they can resist.
Maybe the bully tries to convert their devout family, who hold the bully off long enough to let the authorities know. Which also lets the protag know the church now knows.
And, of course, some of the "corruptions" are actually just talking people out of the closet.
What if the church sends some kind of investigator that can effectively oppose the protagonist's actions and special powers? Like the mask dudes in Dishonored? This gives the protagonist a motive to be on the down low, and forces interesting choices.
Especially when the wanted posters start going up. With both the protagonist's old and new appearances.
What happens in the actual story; she waltzes in, talks to a paper-thin "character" for a few minutes, and basically goes "well, that's enough time for the pheromones to kick in. You're evil now."
(And then the target gets transformed offscreen. She doesn't even have to put in effort to get them alone.)
In my hypothetical, maybe protagonist starts off trying to just make small changes to people (and vermin), to improve her community a little, but things keep going wrong and spinning out of control, and she's forced to make larger and larger changes.
(Any similarity to "Worm" is entirely coincidental.)
The protagonist has to figure out how she can escape, convert, or disable the opposition. And in the process she discovers they are hypocrites somehow.
Maybe the investigators all have nanomachine corruption, barely kept in check by horrific "treatments", with an "aide" who will Suicide Squad the Investigator if they get out of line. Maybe the church deliberately lets dangerous nano machine technology get out, in order to justify their own existence in the eyes of the public.
Maybe they secretly use nanos and other banned technology in themselves. Because they think they're the only ones pure and good enough to handle it.
Something ironic.
Also, I think it will be funny if the investigator's badge and/or the church's symbol was a hammer. As in, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
So at the climax of the story, the protagonist has to embrace, truly embrace her evil villainess destiny, in order to stop the bad good guys. And, ironically, become exactly what they feared she would, because of their actions.
Maybe the bad guys bait the trap by threatening a best friend or crush, who turned down conversion earlier because they were afraid, even though they wanted it. ("Whoa, this is too heavy for me. But I won't snitch on you. Bye.") Maybe they were one of the closeted people who accidentally got protagonist into nanomachine transhumanism in the first place.
You could even have the protagonist's cool, "I'm not holding back anymore" speech. Maybe she mass-converted a local gang seen earlier, when she swore she'd make every change of hers personal, artisan, organic, and hand-crafted, so to speak.
She only showed up to stall, so her squad could do the work for her. The Investigator assumed she's cut off from her power, and she can't command the minions, but the Investigator never expected them to be independent, because all the previous nano villains ASSUMED DIRECT CONTROL of their forces.
(And the investigator is a minion for a centralized authority that discourages independence. They were tracking protag, but ONLY protag. It's like poetry, it rhymes.- George Lucas)
Want to add some Resident Evil to the mix? The investigator uses nano machines to transform themselves, to stop the protagonist. It doesn't work because the protagonist has more skill at converting and controlling people. Maybe using nanos in some subtle way the investigator can't.
Like the local vermin.
What if the investigator keeps eating their own minions to heal? You could have an everyman local cop assigned to help the investigator, whose faith is finally shattered by that. Or the big RE transformation, period.
During the final battle, the friend/crush gets critically wounded, and when the battle is lost and won, they admit they were afraid and accept the conversion (with a Big Dramatic Kiss?). Also, the church gets publicly exposed, on the news cameras the Investigator ordered to publicize the expected victory, which severely weakens them.
Oh look, poetic justice.
Riots kick off, the center cannot hold.
Ending is protagonist and team standing on a rooftop at night, looking down at chaos below, with her new consort at her side, and vowing to restore order. Her order.
(Money shot description of team.)
…The hard way.
ENDFILE, COUT
Yes, I know writing a 900 word book outline is a lot of work over a random mediocre wish fulfillment self-insert hypnosis story. But these are writing exercises for me. I've read stories like this (EG CHYOA's Contagion 63x, and Growth-XX) that actually had interesting stakes and challenges.
And as you may have noticed in my stories, I prefer it when the bad guys have to actually struggle to transform people. Or the transformee struggles. Someone needs to really struggle, here.
Heck, even if you don't want the protagonist to struggle directly, maybe her less capable squad could actually make things worse while they're trying to make people better. Accidentally do things that let the Investigator or authorities know something's up.
Maybe certain people need more effort, so she has to focus on corrupting them and stop controlling her squad.
Cone to think, this story would have been better if it just went straight up leftist. Break the needle. The authorities are a combination of a fascist state, an authoritarian church, and an evil corporation.
I'm not sure how that works, exactly, but it would at least be more interesting.
As in, actually interesting.
Anyway, this idea is Creative Commons, if an idea can even be CC'd. Feel free to write your own story or draw your own art or order commissions or even write your own book, as long as you give credit.
…I'm not promising I won't start posting my own 25-part epic on AO3.
In my last journal, I complained about a story with poorly written politics. It was a story, set in the future, about a trans woman character. The universehas nano machines and she wanted to nano-transition, but she couldn't, because the church had banned it. For reasons I can't remember, if they were even given.
So, an extremely generic parody of the Christian church and conservatism, that somehow manages to be more shallow than your average anime or webtoon evil church.
And that was the church's entire involvement in the story.
They're just a hand wave, a plot device. To quote Filmento, "they're not real".
I know I said I could write a better story by turning down the volume on the political parts, but that wasn't quite right. I think I could write a better story by turning up or turning down the volume.
Either make it so transforming nanotechnology is banned by the government and stigmatized because of some disaster in the past that most people blindly blame on nanotechnology (which could still be a political analogy), or make the church side much more important.
Maybe the glitch that turns the protagonist into an evil nanomachine Queen comes out because of some the banned, including the reason that people shouldn't use it. That way, the generic evil church actually did something to contribute to the TF, directly.
(In the original story, the protagonist just…decides to become an evil brainwashing nanomachine queen (with extra plumbing). Which, um, seems like a bad idea, given the analogy the writer was going for.)
Or maybe the protagonist was bullied or impeded by some people following the teachings and dogma of this church. Maybe the bullying or bureaucrat somehow damaged some important piece of stabilizing technology, that the protagonist needed to use for the nanomachines.
Or the protagonist accidentally programs the machines to make themselves evil, because they happen to think about getting revenge at dinner point during the process. Heck, I did something a lot like this in #Collar And Crown.
Or the conversion powers are just intended for self-defense, but she increasingly uses them offensively.
And after the transformation, when the protagonist goes around to start converting her family and acquaintances (and the hypothetical
bully), some of them actually try to hide behind the teachings of this church, so they can resist.
Maybe the bully tries to convert their devout family, who hold the bully off long enough to let the authorities know. Which also lets the protag know the church now knows.
And, of course, some of the "corruptions" are actually just talking people out of the closet.
What if the church sends some kind of investigator that can effectively oppose the protagonist's actions and special powers? Like the mask dudes in Dishonored? This gives the protagonist a motive to be on the down low, and forces interesting choices.
Especially when the wanted posters start going up. With both the protagonist's old and new appearances.
What happens in the actual story; she waltzes in, talks to a paper-thin "character" for a few minutes, and basically goes "well, that's enough time for the pheromones to kick in. You're evil now."
(And then the target gets transformed offscreen. She doesn't even have to put in effort to get them alone.)
In my hypothetical, maybe protagonist starts off trying to just make small changes to people (and vermin), to improve her community a little, but things keep going wrong and spinning out of control, and she's forced to make larger and larger changes.
(Any similarity to "Worm" is entirely coincidental.)
The protagonist has to figure out how she can escape, convert, or disable the opposition. And in the process she discovers they are hypocrites somehow.
Maybe the investigators all have nanomachine corruption, barely kept in check by horrific "treatments", with an "aide" who will Suicide Squad the Investigator if they get out of line. Maybe the church deliberately lets dangerous nano machine technology get out, in order to justify their own existence in the eyes of the public.
Maybe they secretly use nanos and other banned technology in themselves. Because they think they're the only ones pure and good enough to handle it.
Something ironic.
Also, I think it will be funny if the investigator's badge and/or the church's symbol was a hammer. As in, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
So at the climax of the story, the protagonist has to embrace, truly embrace her evil villainess destiny, in order to stop the bad good guys. And, ironically, become exactly what they feared she would, because of their actions.
Maybe the bad guys bait the trap by threatening a best friend or crush, who turned down conversion earlier because they were afraid, even though they wanted it. ("Whoa, this is too heavy for me. But I won't snitch on you. Bye.") Maybe they were one of the closeted people who accidentally got protagonist into nanomachine transhumanism in the first place.
You could even have the protagonist's cool, "I'm not holding back anymore" speech. Maybe she mass-converted a local gang seen earlier, when she swore she'd make every change of hers personal, artisan, organic, and hand-crafted, so to speak.
She only showed up to stall, so her squad could do the work for her. The Investigator assumed she's cut off from her power, and she can't command the minions, but the Investigator never expected them to be independent, because all the previous nano villains ASSUMED DIRECT CONTROL of their forces.
(And the investigator is a minion for a centralized authority that discourages independence. They were tracking protag, but ONLY protag. It's like poetry, it rhymes.- George Lucas)
Want to add some Resident Evil to the mix? The investigator uses nano machines to transform themselves, to stop the protagonist. It doesn't work because the protagonist has more skill at converting and controlling people. Maybe using nanos in some subtle way the investigator can't.
Like the local vermin.
What if the investigator keeps eating their own minions to heal? You could have an everyman local cop assigned to help the investigator, whose faith is finally shattered by that. Or the big RE transformation, period.
During the final battle, the friend/crush gets critically wounded, and when the battle is lost and won, they admit they were afraid and accept the conversion (with a Big Dramatic Kiss?). Also, the church gets publicly exposed, on the news cameras the Investigator ordered to publicize the expected victory, which severely weakens them.
Oh look, poetic justice.
Riots kick off, the center cannot hold.
Ending is protagonist and team standing on a rooftop at night, looking down at chaos below, with her new consort at her side, and vowing to restore order. Her order.
(Money shot description of team.)
…The hard way.
ENDFILE, COUT
Yes, I know writing a 900 word book outline is a lot of work over a random mediocre wish fulfillment self-insert hypnosis story. But these are writing exercises for me. I've read stories like this (EG CHYOA's Contagion 63x, and Growth-XX) that actually had interesting stakes and challenges.
And as you may have noticed in my stories, I prefer it when the bad guys have to actually struggle to transform people. Or the transformee struggles. Someone needs to really struggle, here.
Heck, even if you don't want the protagonist to struggle directly, maybe her less capable squad could actually make things worse while they're trying to make people better. Accidentally do things that let the Investigator or authorities know something's up.
Maybe certain people need more effort, so she has to focus on corrupting them and stop controlling her squad.
Cone to think, this story would have been better if it just went straight up leftist. Break the needle. The authorities are a combination of a fascist state, an authoritarian church, and an evil corporation.
I'm not sure how that works, exactly, but it would at least be more interesting.
As in, actually interesting.
Anyway, this idea is Creative Commons, if an idea can even be CC'd. Feel free to write your own story or draw your own art or order commissions or even write your own book, as long as you give credit.
…I'm not promising I won't start posting my own 25-part epic on AO3.
(also looking forward to any 25 part epic you might decide to write)
I'm not sure what FA's policies are about offsite porn linking.