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Commission: Stress Test
🕑 Added 2020-07-29 05:01:03 +0000 UTCSo here we have the so very very long awaited sequel to The Chill Pill. I didn't even realize until it was over that I'd once again given the title internal rhyme (or near rhyme, at least). This takes place a few years after the events of The Chill Pill. Hopefully it's easy enough to imagine the bridge from where his experiments left off in CP 4 and where it picks up here.
Forewarning: This character is dark. Maybe less dark, more just plain EVIL. There are some bits at the end that clarify plot points that aren't explained in the initial encounters that mitigate it, barely, so if you find yourself just so horrified that you can't handle it, I recommend hitting ctrl+f and looking for the word "pawn." Read that paragraph, see if it helps, and then decide whether or not to close down.
There are two attachments. Stress Test is the story, Sean trying out the newest iteration of his biotech he began exploring in Chill Pill. Stress Test - Epilogue is a very short aside that does some very heavy-handed work of tying Chill Pill into Tolerance. I know I'm probably never going to revisit a 3 year old story and try to bring it to completion, but this feels better than simply letting it hang. So if you did give up on Stress Test (and no hard feelings - that guy is a serious prick, even by mc standards), the epilogue is removed from the fuckery and should still be a readable accessory piece to any fans of Tolerance/The Tolerant.
Now, back to Teaching Her A Lesson. Part 14, coming soon!
Comments
Ice Bear
Yeah, "dark" isn't really it, but he's so semi-pointlessly cruel that I could imagine it stressing some people out. (And let's not give Sean much credit for guilt. He's *much* more at the "what would Ashley VanDoren do" end of the Tolerance morality continuum.) In the first draft, the "but then I put the real ashes in the hall closet" stuff was side by side with the bully stuff, but I decided it built the "holy god what's wrong with you" factor more by saving it all for one big "yeah, I sort of felt bad for torturing those people, kinda" at the end.
WDB
Man, I don't know if I think this one is that dark? Not evil, certainly. Chill Pill and most of Tolerant/Tolerance are, like, the progenitors of the Ice Bear school of If No One's Upset Then It Can't Be That Bad thought. The only one here who seems busted up about the proceedings is Sean. This is more in the midrange for me and getting creeped out by an Ice Bear story. I'm way, *way* more alarmed by the New Normal and Losers stories. But that's a different discussion. I thought this one was pretty goddamn funny! "At least she won't be flushed, right?" Killer line, in a story full of moments both devious and delightful. A really fun excursion that's got nothing to apologize for. ...Other than keeping me up late on a weeknight reading a second(-ish) Ice Bear story in a night. Have mercy! I know *you're* not getting any sleep anymore, but think of your *fans*!
