AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-hm?
This story is a sequel to We Three: Hebi No Onna
The Dazzlings are sisters, they've been together their whole lives. Following a mishap with another attempt to repair the gems, Aria thought that time had come to an end.
She soon learns that her sisters are there for her, no matter what.
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Tell everyone, starting with Lemon, about the ghosts. Best case, it might lead to a way of bringing Adagio or Sonata back.
Dare I ask?
Interesting.
Yeah.
No. It isn't.
Wat.
Wat.
So?
You're basically Deadpool minus the healing factor. And Cancer. And 4th wall breaking. And weapons. And insanity. You know this is pretty much falling apart on me as I speak.
No shit, Sherlock.
Oh?
I see.
This is my choice.
If it were me... I would keep it hidden and try and fix the problem on my own, but if others saw me doing something suspicious then and only then I would let them in on it.
This was fast. Wasn't expecting the next story so soon after Hebi No Onna finished.
Anyways, I say tell just Lemon. Aria seems like she might explode at some point if she tells nobody, and Lemon can be trusted to keep things a secret, I believe.
7286775 I second this.
Tell absolutely everyone. In these sorts of stories, keeping something this huge a secret always ALWAYS backfires.
Well, if that's the only choices, I'd go with telling everyone, since the Canterlot High gang is familiar enough with weird magic shit to not dismiss her story out of hand. It's a shame she doesn't trust the Rainbooms enough to know them better, otherwise she could just tell them after making them Pinkie Pie Promise not to reveal what she's going to tell.
Tell only Lemon. She's going to go nuts if she doesn't tell someone.
Tell Adagio to try to posess someone.Don't tell anyone about ghosts.
But wow. When I was wondering what kind of mean things could happen to sirens on your whim, I never thought that brutally murdering them option will happen so soon. First chapter felt like a funeral overall, it's not going to be a comedic story, isn't it?
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I figure it'll be as funny as the readers' choices lend it to be.
Just tell lemon
Hmm. Well, considering Aria's mental state and how alone she is without her sisters (ghost or not), I'd suggest she just tell Lemon. She can always tell others later, and I think this could be one of the best ways to lead to ultimate recovery.
On the other hand, if we're wanting everything to go downhill and end horribly for everyone involved, don't tell anyone. Bottling this up is sure to end well.
Nah, I actually like the sirens. First option definitely.
Also, when I saw this had a sequel, I was not expecting you to brutally off all but one of the sirens, in the first chapter no less. A somber start to be certain, but this format could lead to interesting and possibly morel light hearted shenanigans later on.
Don't tell anyone for now.
Are you planning to stick to the pool of options that readers will be able to chose from, or at some point there will be a possibility to suggest own ideas of actions performed? Prequel Adventure web-comic handled numerous suggestions from readers in a way of main protagonist trying different things (failing most of which) at the beginning of the following chapter.
Didn't expect to be seeing a permanent first-person perspective story from you again, instead of the much more common approach of yours "occasional glimpse into someone's psyche, multiple voices tend to be involved".
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Both to keep things simple and so that no one feels shunted if their ideas are consistently ignored (I can only go with one choice per chapter, after all), I'm just going to stick to three choices and let the readers vote on which they'd like Aria to pick.
I like that approach very much, yes, but (psuedo-spoiler at best, but what the hay) this series is partly a study on the sirens as the Ego, Superego, and the Id, with Sonata being the Id, Aria the Ego (which I feel is represented a little better in first-person), and Adagio the Superego.
This is with the understanding I first heard of the theory; that the Superego is supposed to be about optimizing oneself above base instinct, thinking practically and for the long-run rather than emotional want or instant gratification. However, I've read that, in a nutshell, the Superego is actually supposed to be more like adhering to what other people want you to be, respecting what your local society tells you is the best way to be and striving for that. I don't really see the sirens acting that way, even to be adored, so first version it is.
It's not a perfect fit, and the choices won't always represent this dynamic perfectly, but it felt like an interesting exercise on this series of the sirens dealing with supernatural weirdness.
So, here we'll be hearing from no one but Aria if they don't speak where she can hear them. Aria needs more love anyway, so a story entirely from her point of view might be refreshing, too.
Just tell Lemon. Seems like she should really talk to someone about it, but telling everyone at once might get ugly.
Tell just Lemon, considering how she has warmed up to them. Now I can't help but wonder if Lemon has heard any yurei (ghost) stories from her family...
Tell no one.
If Aria tells anyone at all then the news is going to spread one way or another (unless the person she tells has a really good reason not to); if that's the case, then she would have to tell everyone.
The problem is no one can see Adagio or Sonata, so even if the Rainbooms believed Aria they would have to take all of this entirely on faith (which is a problem, since this is a semi-ex-villain we're talking about). More than a few people would probably think she was just trying to generate some sympathy, which wouldn't help her standing.
Or people might think she'd gone insane. If Lemon's involved, then this story is taking place after Sci-Twi nearly destroyed CHS and everyone in it, and I doubt the student body would appreciate having another magic-wielding maniac running around.
Therefore, it's probably for the best that Aria keep quiet about the ghosts for now; she can always open up later, if the situation demands.
Tell just Lemon
If Aria fully explains what is happening and tries to give some viable proof in the form of her gem or information that only Sonata or Adagio could know, I can see Lemon buying it, even if she is still a tad sceptical.
Telling the Rainbooms, at least at this point seems like it would likely get her put under surveillance a lot. Even if they did believe her, they would likely keep close to make sure no more magic is used to try and counteract the effect (unless its there magic which is all harmony and light and junk) or end up trying to go super friend to compensate for Adagio and Sonata's incorporeal states.
Tell just lemon, because aria is lonely.
I vote new outfit. It will make things interesting
As much as I love Aria's outfit, a lot by the way, I think it would be interesting to see what she comes up with for a new outfit, so I'll vote for that.
Offer human sacrifice1. Wearing her old clothes are 'vanilla' options, because they will not bring any additional attention to Aria and will just move plot further.
2. Wearing some elements of wardrobe of the other 2 sirens may generate some unexpected reactions, perhaps will lead to some additional, always useful, pity-points. Of course there is a chance that it will cause some kind of controversy or even a disaster. Which is always fun.
3. Skip an opportunity to rummage through Adagio-men-are-icky-Dazzle's and Sonata-I-can-only-touch-my-sister-now-Dusk's stuff, and all the hilarity that goes with it? So much fuel for additional development of their personalities.
4. Putting new outfit together with other 2 sirens floating around while offering their opinions and advices is an opportunity for comedy gold.
So 3rd option it is.
First choice Hoodie and Jeans
While seeing a new outfit would be fun, Aria is now in a position in which she doesn't want any attention on her until she has a better grasp on how to deal with her ghost sisters and having magic back. If she grabs too much attention, the Rainbooms will notice and they may be more drawn to her now fixed gem that they overlooked before.
Staying in her usual withdrawn uninteresting clothes means she can hide herself a bit and give a subtle display of not wanting attention. This is likewise why her flashy dance outfit would also not be a good choice.
Hoodie and jeans, at least for now.
Hoodie and jeans- we dont want to draw attention right now, the more nondescript the better. Also, a hoodie can be drawn up to hide the face if she needs to talk to her sisters in class.
Nothing like a smell of the safest route in the story that's confirmed to have a happy ending.
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A happy ending doesn't mean there can't be any mishaps or painful consequences along the way. That's not to say anything short of playing it as safe as possible will lead to misfortune, but every choice will (if I do this right) carry its own ramifications somewhere down the line. Even the 'safe' ones.
I hope that makes sense, I don't want to give the impression that Aria is completely safe and/or screwed no matter what she does, but with some of the choices I have in mind for later chapters (unless prior choices end up nullifying them somehow), things may be kind of bittersweet by the end. Or not. I guess what the choices really amount to is exactly how happy the ending is, for lack of better words. This story is an experiment, and I'm certainly learning plenty.
It might be neat to make a full choose-your-own-adventure thing out of it for a wider (and darker, if the reader is so inclined) range of possibilities, but I've got other stuff to write, so sorry if any part of this turns out to be disappointing.
I'ma vote new outfit. Also, judging from the theme, and, well, honestly depending how this goes, if their is a third story, I'ma guess Sonata's gonna be running the reigns in it. :P
Magic is at least somewhat logical, but i always find funny that some lines on the ground would have magical properties.
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There's a bit more to it than that, but I chose not to bore the readers with speculative technobabble.
If by 'dance outfit' you mean the costume Aria wore in the final concert of the Battle of the Bands, then probably not. (Though I can imagine it would get an interesting reaction. :)
But if you're talking about Aria's 'regular' costume from Rainbow Rocks, then that's my pick for this chapter. My primary reasoning for this is that the costume speaks to who Aria is; it's as much a part of her as her voice and her powers. A point could be made that a new look would be good for her, but Sunset (since the subject was brought up) changed her look because she'd had a profound change in how she viewed herself and the world around her; the new look Sunset had externally mirrored those internal changes. As far as I can tell, Aria hasn't had such a change (yet) and is still at her core pretty much the same person she's always been, so she would likely choose her old clothes. (And she also looks like the one of the Dazzlings who wouldn't care a bit if people thought she was backsliding a little; she'd just tell them off or something.)
We heard you.
... Language!
Huh?
Clever. And I think it's more Lady Snake.
Nobody would be fooled.
Guess it worked.
Agreed.
Wait wut?
Good question.
Hmmm...I agree that Aria should not try to use her magic in school. Plus, some other things could come up to distract her from studying, making the act pointless
So, I vote use Adagio for information. Aria's trying not to draw too much attention to herself, so if she does decently-ish (or at least as well as she's done before), she probably won't get the Rainbooms breathing down her neck.
I agree that using magic as of right now is senselessly risky, but I'll be going with "Give it her best on her own": Aria is trying for a normal life (and for her that doesn't include good grades until now), and both Adagio and Sonata have been (indirectly at least) encouraging Aria to be a bit more independent. (This option is the second most likely to attract Rainboom attention, but whether that's a bad thing or not depends heavily on how that attention is gained
).
I say to go for it on her own. I wasn't really sure until I read 7343106's comment but I really like the idea of Aria taking the opportunity to be more independent. That combined with the risks that singing has right now really only leaves the bite the bullet option. Besides, even if she does terribly I'm sure the Rainbooms wouldn't really bug her about it under the circumstances.
Adagio giving her the answers
Using magic is a really risky choice right now, especially as she hasn't even tested that she can enthral someone (just getting her voice back does not mean the now clearly altered gem is working accurately again) and even if it does go off without a hitch, it might still screw her over in the long run if the Rainbooms catch wind of it. Whatever role they end up playing later will be tinted by shades of distrust due to use of mind control magic.
Adagio was right that there is a risk with giving Aria the answers, however Aria does in fact have a believable excuse. She just lost her family and needed to find something else to focus on besides her grief. A lot of people throw themselves into their work to avoid their feelings, and Aria is certainly believable as someone who doesn't enjoy feeling sad or weak with negative emotions. If she gets a higher grade, this can be passed off without suspicion.
I vote B.
Also...
I think something got cut out there.
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That it did!
Will fix that, hopefully what I missed doesn't prove terribly important for anyone making their decision, but votes can always be changed before the next chapter starts.
Show Harshwhinny the ‘disappearing pencil trick’.I find a bit odd how sirens are seemingly so accepting of the idea that Adagio and Sonata died and turned into ghosts. It’s as if saying that in previous story Aria and Sonata died and were reincarnated as snakes. Therefore the whole Aria’s “I’m trying to live a normal life now” thing while her sisters are literally floating around and are perfectly capable of communicating with her is, once again – a bit odd. It’s like trying to have a “normal sex life” while your parents will be watching and making sure that everything is alright and offering occasional advice during the process.
Perhaps it’s a situation where Adagio and Sonata know more about what’s going on and for reasons unknown they don’t want or simply can’t share that info with Aria.
Anyway, regarding options:
1. Trying to use magic, knowing that “good guys” are providing you with their additional attention atm due to recent events, is not a wise idea, especially considering the fact that gem changed color, which may produce unexpected results. Also, it a freaking history test, it is not worth the effort. No idea why Aria is so worried about failing that. Small theory – magic in the amulet is using Adagio’s and Sonata’s life force as a fuel.
2. Bulletproof option, unless plot happens.
3. Making your first try at independence in a subject that is all about raw data memorization and nothing else is not a good idea. Since she wasn’t prepared for test, she will either get lucky or fail completely, which is not optimal and she gains nothing in the process, other than a bad score (which suddenly became important to a potential world dominator).
Therefore, 2nd option it is.
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I know it's pretty screwy, but in addition to Adagio and Sonata having roughly explained that the feel they brought this on themselves in a previous chapter, the sirens have pretty much lived from one bad situation into the next in this iteration, and one of few things that stayed stable for them was the notion that they had to keep moving forward no matter what.
Having her ghostly sisters following her around is strange, but if it wasn't evident by now, the sirens have always been a little odd themselves, and to Aria, what she's living with now feels pretty manageable. Things took a shift toward nonsensical the moment the magical DnD manual turned them into a snake-lady, but I hope bizarre happenings don't shift the tone too much. I know normal people might very understandably be a bit more upset about what's happened, but it's not as if these three haven't had their lives destroyed/uprooted/drastically altered before.
-Give it her best on her own.
With her back to the wall, Aria might gain from the experience - regardless of the outcome.
Hmmm...
The smart thing to do would be for Aria to simply take the test as she is, no cheating; she'd be keeping her secrets longer (especially the trump card of her renewed powers) and she'd feel better about herself in the long run. And as she says, there aren't very big stakes here, so why risk it?
If Aria uses her singing, it'll likely get back to the Rainbooms somehow and then they're all going to come down on her hard (not to mention what will happen if the rest of the school finds out that she has her powers back). There's also the fact that she's not sure if the gem is actually repaired or not; there could be some...'interesting' side-effects. And then there's also the possibility that Aria would be tempted to use the gem to sing her way out of more and more situations; if she does that, she's definitely going to get in trouble.
The option I'm going for, though, is having Adagio and Sonata feed Aria answers during the test. No one can see or detect them (that Aria knows about) so she'd be tempted to use them, and it sounds a lot more in character for her to use a 'cheat' like this (especially if she can convince herself that it isn't a cheat). And as for consequences...I'm thinking the Rainbooms would be a lot more forgiving about Aria cheating on a test with the help of her deceased sisters than they would Aria using her siren powers again.
See now, this is why i voted for the hoodie, we can't really sell the ''grieving'' thing with conspicuous clothes. Voting for 2, with the caveat that we go for an average grade and don't just copy answers verbatim from others sheets, as the ghostgirls would need to do since they can't open a book or interact with a computer
Option B. Not like she really cares about cheating since she's EVIL.
Well, one of the questions was what clothes to wear.
I figured the impact would increase over time. Give us some warm up choices... then keep making them bigger and bigger.
Well, last chapter's "lousy option that almost no one picks" made quite a bit of sense to me just as I was hitting 'Post Comment'
; just by making me pause and think about them I feel they're useful.
As for today's menu, I'll go with "Silly antics ahead" since that's the group least likely to react negatively to any slip-ups Aria might make (even if it's the group most likely to make her slip-up). The Rainbooms should be supportive, but trying to acquaintance/befriend them all at once, the conversation will go fast and hard towards the pendant (and will go downhill even faster if Sci-Twi has her magic meter on hand). And Vinyl/Octavia/Trixie's group has two possible cons: 1) Does Trixie know what really happened during the (semi)finals? That would make for quite the 'awkward' conversation
. 2) Aria getting close to Vinyl may make some Rainbooms (*cough* Rainbow, maybe Pinkie *cough*) paranoid ("She's trying to get cozy with one of the keys of their defeat! That screams 'sinister plot!'").
(As far as entertainment value of each option tho, that list is in increasing order
).
It's one of those cases, when even smallest action can cause a huge change for a story direction. Going back to the choices of the 2nd chapter, picking out gray hoodie as an option would have allowed Aria to skip test and not to speak out loudly to Sonata in the middle of the class (whatever future consequences it will have). But then you could have taken it in another crazy direction, like Aria wears a hoodie, notices it has a ripped sleeve, goes to a mall to get a new one, gets there in time to become a hostage of an armed robbery with a bunch of criminals wearing very similar to her's attire. Police arrives, starts shooting, a mix up happens, Aria runs off with a gang, etc.
When it comes to current options, if I am to classify them it would be
1) Funny
2) Odd
3) The one that will get plot moving.
But then again, silly antics of the trio from the first option can cause a disaster by gem reacting weirdly to Photofinish's camera (Aria's new outfit); trio of performers and musicians from the second option can notice some changes in Aria's voice, figuring out that the gem is fixed and siren magic is back; in third option M6 and Applejack can notice something odd in Aria's behavior, with her having to fake the notion that her sisters are fully gone. Or she can even bump into Brad on the way to whoever's table and the whole story will suddenly go for a romantic comedy genre.
So, the answer is "yes, it does feel that the choices matter, but doesn't give a feeling of a reader being in a full control of the plot". Personally, I'm happy with it.
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Hm... That helps a bit, thank you for your thoughts!
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Sorry if it wasn't clear, but I meant the 'lousy option' to be hypnotizing Harshwhinny, because no one picked that at all.
In the chapter before, it looked like the least appealing option was keeping her old outfit, though results for the first choice were a bit more varied, which is what I'm hoping for. Not that I want people to disagree a bunch, but I can't help feeling like I'd be doing something wrong if everyone picked the same option all the time.
Then again, maybe I just have mostly like-minded readers?
I say sit with Ditzy.