David had made a terrible, horrible mistake. No, actually, those words are insufficient. When given the opportunity to make changes to anyone, he had started with himself... and in choosing himself, he undid his entire reality.
"Select Target: David," he had spoke aloud as he typed, mumbling his last name, for I myself had not written him one yet. Using various drop-downs and pop-up windows one might utilize with a computer originally conceived in the year 1999, he'd picked himself as the target and changed one simple thing because I'd deemed it a fun experiment. That and he was my self-insert character.
He'd spoken the next words aloud before striking Return on his mother's tangerine-colored iMac where he'd originally plugged in the emitter: "Alter: Universal Awareness". It was an option hanging out under the 'Advanced' tab behind only three major pop-up warning messages. At some point beyond his present time, software updates and hotfixes that had come out for many years which included such options.
With that option changed, he could see me, in a very real sense. He could see you too... and he screamed. Not because you or I looked ugly or alien or different, but because we sat outside his three dimensions of space. Space that was actually more often two-dimensional... words generated into HTML for others enjoyment. Text on a page.
To him, we were as Old Gods. He knew then that at the age of 17 or 41—I couldn't decide before I gotten this far—his life had sparked into existence. The earlier of those times was the start of the Chronivac arc, a period piece set in 1999. The other was what for a just a few days ago was the present year of 2022.
One version in my head was from many years ago when he was as me, before the deviation in time which would mark us as each other's dimensional counterparts or, as the modern parlance would call us, each other's 'variant'. The other was an assumed 23 years later from that start, assumed to be in this universe's present time. Or, maybe a third option: he could be a teenager, but set in that present. Hm. So many choices (see: below).
But as his author and the author of this passage, I knew of the light brown and white backdrop of the Choose Your Own Change website and, before it, the B.E. Addventure. And, now, so did he. Their passages and details were open up to him and all the storylines kept within. The misadventures of anyone who'd dare been put as words to page... from the most well-parsed passages of paragraph tags and italics to the screens of no linebreaks and massive blobs of text to the ones where the author's copy and paste caused lines to break at a set character distance all the way down...
All the while I expounded, and still he screamed.
David, I wrote as a whisper, but it boomed off the page. He looked away from you and back to me. I bid you to stop streaming.
"What do I look like!?" he yelled into the air of unknown surroundings, for I had not truly started the story just yet and he was not described. "What am I? What is my life? What is this website?" He looked around, able to perceive it due to some twisted mind that was truly responsible for his actions: me. "So many centaurs, and werewolves, latex, and reptile people..." he said, though his tone indicated interest rather than disgust. "—Rape and incest..." he added harshly, turning to look up and face me. "Is this what you want from me!?"
I haven't decided yet, and we know not if the reader here is an author too, which was true. I do not know if this interests you... but for David's benefit, I went on: I write many things... things not necessarily my own kinks just because I haven't witnessed them before... or seen what I'd think of as good fiction concerning them... perhaps I just want to encourage more... or sometimes an idea just strikes me and I want to put text to page.
David just sat on a worn tan couch in his grandparent's living room in an old ranch house just a ways out of town. Reading my words, he looked around as if seeing his reality for the first time. In a way, he was.
"How can you not know where my story will go. Aren't you God?"
I'm an atheist, David. And while I might be 'god' here, it is fleeting... temporary. In all seriousness, I now exist in this story just as much as you do. I can ask Future authors who come after me respect my autonomy and not write for me as I'm writing for you, but ultimately I'm a character in this story now. Hell, even the one writing my words right now is equally likely to ignore or accept Future additions of me that they didn't write if they write further down in branches. One really cannot say.
"My god has a god?" the young man asked, running a hand through his short black hair. He shook the feeling he'd never done that before from his existence. The feeling of unease at doing actions for the first time was reduced after his experience a moment earlier. As time passed, his mind did better at absorbing the knowledge he'd granted himself.
That is correct, I wrote, answering his question in italics. I'm here, but I'm an in-between. I'm just as much a fiction as you are, but you're new and unique. Neither I nor my author in this passage have ever created a fresh slate of a character who was aware they were a character from the start. For her, this has never been done before.
David stood up, running a hand down their white shirt with a black QR Code printed on it. Their brown eyes looking down at the denim jacket they wore and the khaki pants they had on with the feeling their look was not entirely their own.
"You wrote above that I was a self-insert."
You look as I do in the year this story supposedly began, 1999, on some website lost to time. I would've been in high school, so I suppose you are as well. Sure. And this house you're in, it's the house I was looking after when my grandparents went on one of their many trips to Europe around this time.
David looked around the spacious log cabin of a building, then back up at me. He glanced at you, then back to me again. "I think I get the idea of a fourth dimension existing at ninety degrees from all X, Y, and Z at once now."
Well, yes. That'll be the first thing I undo.
"You're going to take away my awareness?"
Where'd be the fun in that?
"Where's the fun in any of this!?" David demanded, red flushing his pale human cheeks. "Aren't you just talking to yourself? Who's going to find this a compelling story?" Turning on his heels, he stormed in the direction of his grandfather's study. "Who are you writing this for!?"
Honestly, Chronivac is a very popular Interactive on this website, and each new start is years into the Future and farther and farther away from the earliest entries. If you are going to get any traffic (read: a story), then I've got to do whatever I can to make this entry stand out. Maybe my author will share the link of this on the Discord they frequent, but even that community is small.
David huffed. "So driving your character mad is interesting? I don't get it. If you're just walking me to the old Win'98 machine in my grandpa's study to undo this, what's the point of writing this whole interaction?"
Ah, see. That's the setup question I've been trying to figure out how to get out of you in dialog in a way that felt logical to a character meeting their own god. There was a break in the dialog for effect. A pause for both David and you the reader. There's always been a thought in the back of my head with concerns to the Chronivac story that I wanted an answer for...
David stared up at me, refusing to prompt the question of 'what'. He was defiant, like I'd intended. Glancing at you for a moment, he realized finally that you were only an observer in this passage, not an actor. He knew you were there, but much like myself, neither of us have any idea what your reactions or intentions truly are.
So, I went on: I've decided to create this story start with a character aware that there are some limitations on their existence: the nature of CYOC, it's Addventure, Round-Robin style writing, and what freedom that entails... liberties that the character, you, may find yourself free to indulge because—on some level—you'll be aware of your situation.
"That's the 'fun' you implied above when you said you weren't going to take away all my awareness of the situation?" He could almost feel me nodding. "OK, but the question I didn't ask... the 'what'," he sighed, relenting. "What was the question you'd wanted an answer for? For... all these years?"
How does it work? How does the Chronivac work?
"That's it?" David asked, crossing his arms. "What does that, combined with my awareness, do for the story? Any why does it matter? You'd think after more than twenty years that if it was worth exploring as an idea someone'd've done it by now."
Honestly, I don't know, and that's what makes Addventures so interesting to me. We'll see what follows. What I do know is the answer I'm going for in this passage: simulation hypothesis.
David blinked, then rubbed his chin. "The idea that our reality is simulated in a computer? But it is. You're just text on a page on some website and... so am I!" he declared, then moved his hand up to his mouth as he got a bit queasy.
Yes. But while I and the reader know that, I'm going to make you only partially aware of the situation. And while I'm at it, I'm going to make a few more changes and clarification to the main story. We'll see afterwards if anyone likes this setup. I paused again, for David's benefit. Well. I'll see. Unless someone writes you turning your awareness back on, you won't have any idea.
David inserted the emitter into the USB-C connection on his grandfather's old computer. He notes that that isn't what it looked like when he'd originally used it on his mother's old computer in the other room. "Already changing things, I see," he remarked, noting that the now more modern computer ejected the CD-ROM with a warning on screen that it wasn't compatible with the current operating system.
I'm not the first author to change things and I won't be the last. Heck, at least one person continuing this thread at some point is probably going to be all 'imagine the same opening, but Dina was a girl' and that's fine. I've been enjoying CYOC since I was in college, and before I got thrown elsewhere in the multiverse.
Point being, it says people can be 'changed into something else living (excluding any type of plant)' right in the opening and there's plant stories in here so, honestly, all bets are off. Inanimate and merging were not explicitly disallowed and those have cropped up. Not all things that'll now be possible I'm personally into, but I'm going to allow more going forward... as much as I have any control over allowances to that effect.
"Like how you changed the setup of the 'Cabin in the Woods' last year with 'Washington Wolves'?" I smirked. David glanced up at me again, suspecting this might be the last time he gets to do so. "So what won't it be able to do?"
If you'd read any 'Transform or Dare', you'd know authors will find any loopholes they can. Many use 'dare' as a loophole for 'mental or memory alteration'. Still... I'm going to set down and clarify a few rules or changes and we'll see who sticks to them. After this passage, I'll have no power here unless I write again.
David highlighted himself and prepared to make the next change. "I guess I'll ask, since asking if I should ask feels redundant since you're writing all my dialog: why are you a wolftaur?"
I'm a Furry... that should be clear. My origin was originally set around this time and this place, but it had to do with magic artifacts and potions. Like I said, I looked like you do now, more or less, many decades ago. Didn't know I was gender fluid at the time. And, now, well, we'll see what other people pick as your starting situation if they care at all...
You're setup'll be more science fiction set in a reality you reside within, created by a simulation you'll know you live in... as opposed to my origin which involved a combination of of planned and unplanned magical and transformative potions... and alcohol.
"Will I remember you?"
Partially. I probably shouldn't be name-dropped which is why I didn't introduce myself fully... but, again, who knows what Future authors will decide. I invite them to insert themselves rather than reusing me, but, like I said, I can't really stop them either way.
David nodded to himself, looking back away from the two of us, and towards the computer screen. He added a few other modifiers to his reality, and wiggled his fingers on his right hand as he hoped for the best. Hitting Enter, he changed the start of the story and set in motion the events that were to come.
David, a genderfluid young 'man' with three first names and a roman numeral afterwards, arrived at his grandparent's farmhouse one summer afternoon on the verge of the next school year start. Coming to a stop on the driveway just outside the fence that went over the perimeter, he stepped out of his vehicle and punched in the entrance code on the old touchtone keypad.
The gate swung open for thirty seconds, enough time for David to pull up the path beyond the animal pens outside, away from the barn, and up under the old white overhang parking spot his grandfather would use if he were home. Both of the elder Scotts were traveling across Europe as was their want during the summer months, visiting friends and family who still lived in the 'old country'.
One foot in front of the other, young man stepped only on the flat stones placed in the earth as the path up to the front porch. Fishing into his left pocket for his keys, David held under his right arm the mail he'd pulled out from the mailbox way back where the driveway met the road. Amongst those items, a small white package with the blue and silver logo of TransDem Laboratory.
Unlocking the three bolt-locks at the front of the big, renovated farmhouse originally built in the mid-1800's, David stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind him with his foot. The house was relatively large as his grandparent's were 'old money' though doing what was never very clear. At some point both grandma and grandpa were from rich families, and while they both seemed to have their expertise, David had never seen either work anything other than their farm during his life.
Removing his jacket David walked along edge of the living room and towards his grandfather's study. The living space had a big TV on one side with two couches in an L-shape with one facing the TV directly, the other perpendicular. Where their ends met was an table with a porcelain lamp, and that's where David dropped his coat.
Still holding onto his keys, David flicked to the one meant for the study—the only room inside the house with a locked door. His grandfather always said he'd replace it someday because he no longer had corrupt business partners and was essentially retired. Still, the door remained locked while David was out as per his request and David was trusted by his grandfather enough to be permitted use of the room.
David's grandparents treated him more like a son, what with their actual son—also named David like him and his grandfather—being such a wreck of a person. The man had numerous accounts of domestic abuse towards his mother, and both parents were drunks. But the father, with recordings made by David, was the only one of the two in jail with his mother still defending the man. It was a combination of justice and revenge for blowing David's college money before he could attend.
The young man sighed, checking his messages and finding that his friend Chester was wondering about plans for the weekend. Mrs. Phillips was checking to make sure David was free on Saturday to babysit/play with her children Tommy and Alice while she hung with her friends for a few hours. And, lastly, there was a message from his grandparents just checking up with him and confirming the date and time of their return flight.
Running a hand through his black hair, his deeply brown eyes allowed some joy. His life wasn't perfect, but it was doing OK. He hadn't yet figured where he was going to live after the summer was over, but he was doing well socially and mentally. Something felt like it was missing, sure, as he'd fallen into the same patterns day in and day out for a while. The coding he had been teaching himself in his spare time hadn't garnered him a job yet.
Using his left hand to cycle the various mail documents and place them on his grandfather's 'incoming' desk with the green covering, he paused when he found the TransDem package. It wasn't addressed to his grandparents or 'Current Resident'... it was addressed to him.
David Nicolaus Scott slid the simple cutting tool up the package lengthwise. The box had only the TransDem logo printed on a white cover of the DVD-like case. Opening the case revealed a CD-ROM set into slot for it, while horizontally above it was a fob just a little bigger than a PS2 Memory Card. It looked like a car key-fob, with twelve buttons atop it: one through ten, Revert, and a blank button, each with a tiny LED bulb to each button's outer side.
"The heck is this?" he wondered as he moved a slider on one side with his thumb which pushed out a connector that looked like USB. He glanced at his grandpa's old beige machine. "No way I'm putting this in that," he said... "Nor anything of mine." Rubbing his chin, he smirked, the stepped out into the hallway. Holding the Emitter in hand, David moved up the stairs to the second floor of the big house and towards the ceiling hatch that lead into the attic where he knew his mom's old Mac was.
You may find this interesting, or perhaps not... we shall see, Below is a list of some of the additional features and patch notes not available in the default Chronivac 4.0. In this universe, like many modern applications, I have deemed that Chronivac 4 has been improved over the last two plus decades, so while Chronivac 5.0, 6, X, and others might should have arrived, instead we're at the 23rd Major Version of 4. Check it out:
Chronivac (Current Version 4.23.1)
Lexicon Entry | transID: every thing in the universe has a unique transID which cannot be altered as it sits in the cyocLayer of the universe above all active things. This is used as a means of tracking all things even when they appear destroyed, dead, merged, split, or altered beyond recognition (physically, socially, mentally, etc.).
Chronivac Universal Changes
— All Changes and Backups now Saved Instantly (within 535ps) to transCloud through chronOS (4.15.2).
— Only one copy of Chronivac 4 may persist at any one time, existing on the last PC utilized to create or save Changes. Physical connection to Emitter not required, but insertion into a PC item with different transID will cause existing instance of Chronivac (.exe, .app, etc.) to cease (4.0.1).
— It is now possible to Change anything into anything else. This includes plants (4.2.0) and three kinds of Preset aeromoprhs (4.20.0).
— No more Changes listed as being "major" as that is a matter of perspective (4.0.9).
— Most viable alterations use improved gradient sliders, most notably gender (4.1.1) and sexuality (4.1.0) with proper support under Advanced for asexuality, pansexuality, demisexuality, and more (4.1.8)! This also includes numerous "philia" designations (4.1.12) and a variety of kinks (4.1.13), quirks (4.1.16), and fetishes (4.1.14).
— After User Feedback, restoration of archaic terminology is once again supported (4.17.7). Though some terms may be offensive to some, accessibility has always been more important to us than morality.
— Chronivac Search! Yes, if you are looking for information on a specific variable on a transID or answers to one of many Frequently Asked Questions, you can now use the transBar to type your question or utilize transAI's Demi for voice support (4.22.0).
— Additive and reductive Changes (4.5.0); You can now say "If transID has X at Less Than Y, increase to Y" and if X is greater than Y, no change will occur. You may still include as many of these alterations stored in a single Change as you like as long as they do not conflict with each other.
— Trigger Changes (4.6.0); You can program a change to "sit" on a transID and trigger based upon a specific event. Doing so takes up one of the Emitter's possible 10 stored Changes. As this is a "Change in Progress" it too is represented by a light next to the relevant Change Button, though denoted by a different color.
— Perception of Reality alteration expansion (4.8.0); a more gradient approach to Perception of Reality has been implemented which allows specific transID to react in different ways. This was a major undertaking as it exceeds the Emitter's new 150ft/45m range (4.4.4) and can affect the entire universe. It is now possible for more variation beyond "aware" and "unaware" including—but not limited to—"most think it's weird", "weird but not uncommon", "aware/unaware after/before/during event/time" and Advanced Mode option for gradient slider by certain groups (4.8.24); eg: moms, dogs, mountains, oxygen atoms, little brothers, edibles, etc.
— Using transID, target acquisition of the Emitter is now 204% more accurate than before (4.20.22). Aiming is no longer required, only that the target be in range, but is still recommended to increase accuracy.
— Presets (4.8.3); it is now possible to make referential Presets. These Presets can be targeted when in range of the transID who originally made them. This can aid in 'species creation' and 'cloning/duplication' which can result seemingly long-distance Changes.
Emitter Changes
— 10 Customizable Changes Programmed into the Emitter itself from a PC (4.15.3) reverted to 4.0 possibilities to reduce overhead.
— Introduced new update for Emitter Fob allowing more information to be displayed alongside the twelve standard buttons on the Emitter via lights (4.19.2).
— Revert Button now operates reverse-chronologically up to 10 Emitter Changes within twelve hours of the most recent Emitter Change, even if that Change itself is undone (4.19.11).
— Fob now includes a Reset Button recessed into the side of the device. Use a paperclip or other narrow prod to hold the button for Reset. Ten seconds and one beep will clear all programmed changes and revisions, and remove the current Chronivac application instance from its PC. Holding the button for more than thirty seconds will result in a triple beep, Reset the universe to twelve hours earlier, undo all Changes in that time, and make all other users besides the Reseter themselves unaware of any occurrences during that time. Both Resets will prompt an Auto-Save (4.23.0).
PC Changes
— Higher Fidelity Alterations possible with Personal Computer application/executables (4.1.0).
— Speech-to-Text Support with Microphone attached (4.4.3).
— transAI (Beta) supports Suggestive Transformative Prompts. Any PC that supports microphone input can now take requests upon button prompt or after activation dialog (default: "OK Demi"). Special Note: this process is still in Beta as some bugs from jinnAI still remain (4.11.0).
— Chronivac still does not offer a Preview of Changes being made in real time at PC nor while Emitter-only. However, a singular Chronivac user—as denoted by their transID—may make realtime Changes on themselves as long as doing so does not Change their awareness of the Chronivac (4.21.2). Linked transID loses this option.
Hopefully that wasn't too terrible of an info dump. Luckily, we only have to do it once unless someone patches 4.23 while the story goes on...
David Nicolaus Scott remembered screaming. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the gaze of someone looking at him, but it was you, and he couldn't see you anymore. Time had skipped a beat, catching up so that the events played out as foretold.
He now had knowledge of the CYOC website and would swear he'd read many passages at some point in the past... however, his version of the Internet Archive would produce no such website. He understood there was a greater power in his world and that it wasn't God... and that ultimately someone like myself—or those who follow me—were determining his actions.
But David had a strong will, and did not break. In fact, it was kind of freeing. His life simultaneously had meaning and yet was meaningless. He was here to entertain others... perhaps with drama, story, or just short fits of transformation. Whatever the case, he felt empowered... emboldened, even. If nothing mattered in what he did, then all that matter was what he did.
He'd 'glance at the camera' once as he often did when he was alone, except he knew that sometimes he wasn't. His eyes met his own in a mirror, but he felt like he was looking through it. In a way, he was. Somewhere outside his space-time, some higher power was controlling him. He smirked. Well, what type of world would he help to create?
I thought it might be interesting as well to set up some period pieces as well as I haven't seen much of that done. Feel free to begin your own setting riffing on this idea along. Here's some suggestions: genderswap David; make David not the one who recieved the Chronivac but the only one aware this is a story; try for any era where on might have a computer to use the Emitter; or try some steampunk, frostpunk, atompunk, or dieselpunk settings around this farm house...