#first video genuinely changed the course of my life in SEVERAL ways

[formulaonedirection]

good boy

[x--sinner--x]

What do you think about my fantasy ? Would you like to be the instigator and how would you start the game ?



The Humiliation Project

NOTICE/DISCLAIMER/ATTENTION***

This is my own sexual fantasy intended for a mature and legal audience. This is as real as life can get and will eventually be carried out someday - it was/is created for a longtime craving fantasy fetish of myself to come true at last.

The sole goal of The Humiliation Project is to permanently, deliberately and completely humiliate myself or anyone else interested with the same kind of degree of desire & passion. I’d really love to be totally degraded on every conceivable known platform and on every possible level of the current social media. The severity of this extreme humiliation will be felt every day with the most ultimate devastating consequences - as it can never be undone in the future… ever, no matter if I want to change my mind later on or already regret my decision after the first second having hit the ENTER button.

It will be forever permanent and irreversible without any discussion about it !!!

Just as I have been planning this all along and want this amazing project to be executed without making even the slightest changes or compromises whatsoever !!!

Exposed Web Male Sluts, or Exposed Women Sluts are men and females whose personal intimate information and full nude pictures have been posted online. Some boys and girls have willingly exposed themselves for gratification while others have not been willing. They are usually found on one or two porn sites - with their entire name, explicit photos, X-rated home videos and sometimes with a completely genuine photo ID revealing their address and many other private details.

The Humiliation Project will offer me the most extreme possible worldwide exposure that I ever wanted and dreamed about for such a long time. I intend to expose myself out of free will in the following way:

1. Two albums on 5 popular porn sites :

- The first album must absolutely include MY FULL NAME in the title. All of the contributors will permanently feed the most explicit and repulsive pics, homemade naked videos of myself (delivered on demand without hesitation or arguing), public confessions about my kinky perverted desires and my naughty obsession to exhibit myself constantly and voluntarily wherever possible in the most compromising and provocative poses possible.

- The second will include MY ENTIRE NAME but this time on every single vulgar picture or uncensored video and thus will also make it harder for me to find them all or try to report them after they have been reposted several times on other porn sites,… That is if I would ever want to change my mind of course ! Not that I have even the slightest intention of doing so or that I even would consider to think about it.

2. A Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account :

All under MY PROPER NAME of course. With every single available personal info provided like : private address, phone numbers, emails (both home and work related) a complete list with all other social media accounts of myself, age, gender, sexual preferences, job function, address of the company employing me at the that moment,… all of this freely available for blackmail and considered public domain from the moment these accounts are online.

Every account will be provided with the current password to give all visitors and potential exposers the opportunity to take over my personal accounts with all full rights to add, change, post whatever they want in order to create a worldwide and global exposure possible.

Which actually means that every visitor can use whatever is available on all these accounts without ever having to ask for my permission. Passwords of all these social media accounts will be shown in the intro so everyone can add, change or temper with my personal available information.

If someone changes the password, he has to publish it for further use by new visitors. I, on the other hand, will never try to take back again the control over my own accounts. The only thing that I want, is to obey to all my exposers and execute every demand posted on these accounts, give my full cooperation, provide as many debasing personal confessions and uncensored intimate declarations, incriminating naked photos, perverse videos…voluntarily and unashamedly.

These accounts will be built up and continuously maintained with perfectly clean, totally recognisable and professional pictures of myself. Everybody visiting these accounts will automatically be accepted as a new contact right away and considered as a close friend, giving total and immediate access to all my personal information and intimate photos without even having to ask for it.

The full frontal nakedness, the defenceless, helpless and humiliating photos, the perverse and vulgar videos provided by myself, will be private at first for those who have not been made friends yet (until more than enough explicit content is available to be made public).

So I will need plenty of vulgar demands and lewd assignments to accomplish in order to get as much sensitive, raunchy information available to be published first. Then it will be up to you to spread all those compromising data all over the internet and continue to ask for more obscene and disgusting material of myself. I’ll happily and deliberately provide everything needed without hesitation, of course.

This uncensored and subversive content will NOT be posted before any of these platforms hit a voluntarily small predetermined growth size (WHICH WILL BE KEPT INTENTIONALLY AS LOW AS POSSIBLE FOR A RAPID AND IMMEDIATE PUBLIC EXPOSURE BEFORE I CAN CHANGE MY MIND !!!).

All new content added by contributors must be immediately available for all. Every visitor is free to download whatever has been published on porno sites (lists where you can find me fully exposed will be available on all my social media platforms and permanently updated), my porn site accounts, blogs, etc. in order to duplicate for personal use, to email to all your family and friends, to repost on new sites.

All without permission and with the only purpose to make my exposure as complete and accessible as possible allover the World Wide Web. All exposers have unlimited rights to permanently and legally expose me in every way possible, as it is my own personal and biggest request…

Therefore I am ready to do everything that’s required and necessary to achieve that goal. Right from the start of this project, I will happily submit myself to every single exposer without any hesitation or arguing. I’ll in no way inhibit, hinder or step back from my total exposure and permanent humiliation.

A detailed declaration to give complete access and control over all my fully indecent pictures, exhibitionist videos and personal private data to be used and shared by my exposers in any way possible and for any purpose they decide, will be provided and pinned at the beginning of each existing and new created account, blog or site.

3. Multiple blog sites : like Blogger, Medium, WordPress, Squarespace, Weebly and Typepad.

Here MY FULL NAME, all of my humiliating selfies, intimate confessions, secret desires and extremely detailed explicit conversations about my own sex life will be posted nonstop. All of these sites will be carefully indexed to MY OWN PROPER NAME. This also means that a google search of MY ENTIRE NAME will reveal these sites one by one and probably a lot more than I wish for.

Upkeep: The Humiliation Project guarantees (I hope and pray they will) to replace everything that gets taken down or deleted with multiple duplicates. Any attempt to take down this content will multiply what is out there. That’s a special request of my own to make sure that I will stay completely exposed for the rest of my life and the exposure will continue to grow as time goes by.

THE RESULTS

Complete and total exposure and humiliation. I will feel utterly exposed, vulnerable and helpless. I will finally experience the most powerful feeling of humiliation. And if my full name and private pictures are forever online, I’ll freely have changed into a webslut at last.

I will no longer be a respectable man, I will have become a vulgar slut and a total whore. The Humiliation Project will solemnly guarantee myself for the full 100% that the entire world will finally know who I truly am !

And I will love every second of it, enjoying to personally reply to all your ugly posts, filthy remarks and comments no matter how degrading they might be. Plus always accept (without any hesitation) every single request. Not accomplishing one request will be punished by having to fulfil two more extra requests on top of the first one.

When being recognised in public by exposers or by a visitor of all these important sites providing that humiliating and disrespectful personal, intimate, sexual and explicit content, I freely accept the fact that I will have to deliver myself to their mercy.

I will let myself be ridiculed, degraded, humiliated in public in front of the many bystanders who will the attracted towards me. I will voluntarily let the people who have recognised me, make me strip completely naked, let them spit in my face and mouth, let me parade slowly and utterly naked through this growing crowd while being photographed, filmed and laughed at.

They will order me to rip my clothes apart, so I won’t be able to cover myself again when they are gone. I will sit on my knees, legs eagle wide spread open, my hands locked behind my head and let them freely use me as a public toilet. Meaning that they are allowed to piss in my face and inside my wide open spread mouth because I literally begged them to use and abuse me.

While three of more guys simultaneously piss inside my mouth while I will try to swallow as much as possible down my throat, others will be offered to piss all over my back and my back ripped clothes.

When the last man has done pissing over my body while the cheering crowd keeps on filming and taking closeup shots, I will kindly demand if there are some men who want to volunteer in letting me clean their shoes with my tongue or interested in a full blowjob.

Each cumload will be swallowed down my throat deliberately and unashamedly while being filmed. If I happen to spill a single drop of this delicious seed being shot straight into my mouth and on my stuck out tongue, I shall be punished by taking cumload after cumload being splattered all over my inner walls of my wide spread mouth until this mixture of warm, sticky, creamy semen is up to the edge of my lower lip before I can swallow this sperm sauce down my throat.

When my stomach is bursting with cum, I will offer everybody all the time in the world (out of free will) to give me a messed up facial and allow the men still able for another round to plaster and spray their last drop of cum all over my chest. Having no clothes to wear, I shall have to walk home or take public transport in the state I am left behind.

Of course everyone will be given plenty of time and space to take as much pictures as they like for proper use or to post them on all the available and known sites that I am already exposed on or for extra material to be posted on all my personal social media accounts for further humiliation and exposure of the secretly total cumslut and filthy spermdumpster that I really am. So that everyone I know and everybody visiting my accounts should see with their own eyes what a disgusting, pervert and vulgar exhibitionist I am in reality.

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR MYSELF AND MAYBE OTHER INTERESTED CANDIDATES*******

If you are already a webslut that has been CONFRONTED by The Humiliation Project you will have two options. You can agree to voluntarily enroll in the Slut Redemption Program (SRP) or YOUR FUTURE LIFE WILL BE COMPLETELY RUINED.

Confronted websluts have been deemed by multiple people to be disgusting and reprehensible.

IN ADDITION to the above exposure, you will receive completely and exactly the same treatment as myself :

1. My friends and family will be sent a list of all the exposing accounts, blogs, sites. Of course always accompanied with the necessary password to enter and alter the content to their liking and flavour. Without asking or being forced, I or any other interested person will deliberately provide the necessary email addresses from my family and friends to the exposures !!!

2. A massive load of emails will be sent to all of my current contacts as well as all new ones added, containing all this uncensored humiliating material. Once again and totally out of free will, I or whoever is interested in this “peculiar project”, shall offer all the needed email addresses to send this abusive explicit evidence at !!!

3. All places of employment will be continually sent the material. I will voluntarily see to it that my private and intimate information is constantly updated !!!

4. Local dating apps will be utilised to send sexually interested persons to my home without having been informed upfront !!!

5. People who remain in contact with you will be harassed until they will .

THE PROMISE :

You will never have a professional career, you will struggle to keep jobs, friend and family will distance themselves from you.

SLUT REDEMPTION PROGRAM :

- 2 month program

- You will create a healthy schedule, short and long term goals.

- You will provide verification that you are keeping to this program

SUBMIT A WEBSLUT

OR

VOLUNTEER

Just like me you then may apply to be a subject of The Humiliation Project and will be exposed in only the three listed way, unless you opt for more humiliation. I can’t get enough of this, the more the better. I want it all,… in all its beautiful, pure darkness.

Being horrifically humiliated in public daily and made a pathetic fool of myself. Used and abused, for that’s the only reason I was born for. Exposing myself on a daily basis in the most horrendous, perverted, compromising, recognisable and disgusting ways. Voluntarily, unashamedly, without hesitation, without arguing.

Be at the mercy of others and no being able to do anything about it, and loving every single second of it. Mocked, ridiculed, exploited, like the perverted and vulgar horny cumdumpster and addicted cocksucker I am. Finally all in the open, on the internet, not just locally but also globally… completely exposed and turned into the obedient, sex addicted exhibitionist…

My ultimate dream finally came true, my utter fantasy reality…at last…

Geert

I find this post truly fascinating and I'm really in awe reading through all of it. I admire how much effort has been put into it, and each aspect of this is truly mesmerising. I would definitely love to be the instigator and start this wonderful game, slutting you out to millions of people from all around the world.

I'll probably be the site manager, making sure to post your videos and paying people to comment a lot of disgusting things about you and also integrating a pay wall for them to access exclusive content.

I honestly don't have much to say, but I'm really curious about this and it really speaks for itself. I hope you get to do this one day, and I'll be a part of it when the time comes.

[cosmic-vacuum]

Introduction.

Heard someone online say this— "The right DIRECTION is actually more important than HARD WORK itself."

The first step to "working smart" is also stepping in the right direction.

Hard work directed towards unproductive and degenerative activities is equivalent to stalemate in the specific field if not further degradation.

HOW SO, DO WE STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

Step 1: Have a talk with yourself about what you really wish to do.

My talks before starting this usually ended up in tears.

I've been failing in life altogether for over two years now and all the cumulative criticism combined with regrets and embarrassments fueled defense mechanisms and avoidance techniques to develop inside me.

The talk was obviously hard, but finally I've opened myself to opinion and change recently— this in itself is the greatest change a human being can have.

It wasn't easy, of course.

I was supposed to fight down my own behaviour and impulsive reflexes to understand words and opinions of the other people around me whilst not being swayed completely by them or even rejecting them completely.

This is one of those things easier said than done.

It was talking to myself more that led to this.

The only person who can reach the inner voice of your consciousness is you. This voice is the most truthful and genuine guide you can find, only, you must know to separate it from words materialised by intrusive thoughts.

Sit with yourself, talk to yourself, ask yourself what you want to do.

It may take a while, but you will surely get response when you try to connect to your inner self.

Step 2: Get into what you wish to accomplish— know more.

Reasearch about your goal. We can't start into something we barely know about.

2024 is a great year to live in but only for the seekers.

You'll find everything you need to know about anything online today, all you need to have is the desire to see.

This is the first step to "Smart Work" too.

[Smart work: works only when applied with hard work. It's not the other way around— you can not replace hard work by smart work]

We will be revisiting this several times in times ahead so don't worry if there are unanswered questions [you can always comment or dm them to me].

Step 3: This is probably the TRUEST of all advise I've heard growing up– You're the average of the five people you listen to everyday.

I have personally seen so many people change for the worse on having bad company surrounding them.

It's easier for people yo pick up bad behaviours rather than good ones so no matter how selfish it would make you feel, cross out bad influences from your life

If you happen to be someone mostly at home and in presence of parents or siblings (like me), try to make firstly, your pwn mind your best companion. When there's problems, talk about it to your own self.

It's magical, trust me.

This takes time to get a hang of but it's magical.

Other than that, fill your ears with podcasts or perhaps you tube videos of people who are wise and/or related to your specific goal.

[I will be sharing a list of thr best podcasts to hear for personal growth later in a separate post.]

Step 4: Have a proper plan.

How you spend your minutes, hours, days, months and therefore the years becomes how you ultimately spend your life.

A— Take either a calendar or just draw out the months which compose your selected "two month" time.

B— Write your goal on a piece of paper and formulate a monthly procedure to achieve it.

If this goal is some sort of skill development for example, divide the procedure into the two months and then further down to weeks. Then, divide the workload per day of the week.

This is also applicable for students preparing for some or the other sort of examination or are just studying in general.

C— People who wish to upgrade their personalities will be part of a more active process which will run alongside the daily log posts.

WHAT NEXT?

Once we've got all we wish to change outlined, we can step into finally starting the process.

This turned out to be longer than I expected so I'll keep it till here. Anything else we need to do will follow in the following posts.

If we wish, we can.

[check out the blog to join the journey]

[gold-pavilion]

If Till and Hyuna died, how DO we go from Wiege to a happy ending?

A Happy End(s) ALNST theory post!

Just as Wiege met us with some potentially very unsatisfying deaths, it brought us two HUGE story elements in the teasers and video itself: cloning (VERY emphasized) and glimpses at AUs.

I'll regard those two first, then talk about the current phase of the story and finally how the new elements might tie in to the next part. BUT BEAR IN MIND THIS IS ONLY IN THE CASE that Till and Hyuna are indeed dead. And also, that it's just a theory that's been bouncing in my head.

Firstly: while we did get allusions to artificiality around Luka before, it was in the teaser phase for Wiege that we got the straight-up confirmation about cloning being involved. (Of course, if more is said about this and how it works "clones" may stop being the more adequate word, but for now it's what I'll be calling them.)

There was material of him and his clones in the MV as well, several shots actually. That + posting about it separately makes it feel to me like it was important for us to know.

For this part of the story, knowledge of this element was intentionally given and highlighted.

Secondly: Wiege is the first instance so far where AUs appear within the series itself. We were shown both HS AU and Actor AU (which COULD be one modified "modern world, normal life" AU anyway).

I'm not sure if there's a second purpose to this, I've got theories below, but at the very least, these glances are meant to evoke that "they did enjoy some happiness, they could've lived happily if their world wasn't like it is" feeling.

Now, about the current state of the story and where it left off:

I don't think anyone's wrong to feel that Till's death is kinda strange (as it left plenty of his inner journey unfinished, just as he was opening his eyes to things, specially about Ivan) and that Hyuna's was too sudden (from mismanaged rebel fire, no less!).

However, it might be because the story can AFFORD to be "careless" with such deaths.

Because at the same time, we're being told "cloning does exist in this world, remember?" as well as "think about other lives (AUs)".

I mean, look at the order of things at the end of Wiege:

We have THREE main characters who died VERY recently (Till and Hyuna, but also Ivan given the weirdly short time spanned between CURE and Blink Gone),

the protagonist who's next step is to rage against the system,

and the character who brought the cloning element to the story.

To expand on that: Mizi always being at the forefront of official content, being the first focus character (who also opened the story with her monologue on human history and the loss of her love), the one with the from-the-stage-to-rebellion line and the most change / development makes her the story-driving force of ALNST. In other words, Mizi is the slowly-delivered protagonist.

I think that much has been kinda visible for a while. And now, the spotlight is on her all the more.

She will doubtlessly want to do SOMETHING, after all this unfair death.

Hyuna's goodbye speech was aimed to inspire Luka to live on, embrace his humanity and "live with love", wishing for him the same medicine that Hyuna's life outside gave her.

It ought to make him switch out of his compliant, segyein-inclined ways to side with humankind; whether he does so genuinely or just for Hyuna is the same.

So we have Mizi, the protag who NEEDS to do something now. And Luka, the guy who MIGHT WANT to do something now... who just happens to know about the segyein's cloning methods. You see where I'm going?

It's pretty out-there! and doubtlessly kinda nutty!!

But to lay it down explicitly, here's my two Happy End theories:

Theory 1: willingly or not, Luka helps Mizi revive or restore the others in a way that involves the cloning tech he knows.

Till, Hyuna and Ivan's bodies are all at hand.

I thought it was really odd for CURE and Blink Gone to have such little time between them, but seeing now that this fact makes Ivan's death almost as recent, I have my suspicions about it being intentional. His body may be reachable. (I swear to god, if this revival theory turns true and they DON'T include Ivan I'll never recover.)

As for Sua, who died longer ago, I do believe she can also be brought back, just with more difficulty (tbh, fitting for Mizi's first loss to be the last recovery). But since this belief hinges on patreon paid content, I won't disclose it here. Moots n friends with patreon access can ask!

(There's also one patreon post that I have as support for this overall theory that's also paid content and won't be disclosed publicly, but again, go ahead and ask if interested and I'll provide both, so long as you prove you ARE supporting Vivinos' patreon. I don't distribute what I'm not allowed to distribute.)

But that's the first theory. Everyone is recovered, they fight back and live on.

Theory 2: just a vague idea. Instead of a revival route for the characters, the story might take a route that relies more on the AUs they showed us, which is why I said I'm unsure of their purpose.

Maybe it's a route where they DO stay frustratingly dead in the main story but we shift our focus to the AUs? Or a terrible ending is reached in the main story, but it turns out to have been Actor AU all along? I don't lean towards this a lot, but hey, it's another possibility.

(And of course, Theory 3: somehow Till and/or Hyuna survive, the segyein don't really have a good read on people's vitals so they were marked as dead when they're not, and the 4 tough it out the long way lmao.)

As things are now, I think the most about revivals. Cloning and bending life-death have been hinted for so long.

I would make sense both for Luka and Mizi's development to act towards that (Luka switching sides as well as touching upon his individuality trauma, Mizi becoming a bigger and more active force in the rebellion to fulfill her protagonist role against the system that subjected her to all this horror and loss), as well as making the happy ending Vivimeng talked about fully possible.

Let me know what you think!

Again, this is only a theory. But if you've read all of it, thank you!

[icantrememberwhoiwaslastdecember]

hello! you reblogged my post and asked me what sjm has done so I'm gonna give you a list of why sjm's books are harmful to a lot of marginalized communities and why sjm herself, is a horrible human being, in general. this will be a really long post but I've tried to summarize it as best as I can. either way, buckle up.

firstly,

- she is a zionist. she literally has ties to the IDF. she has publicly stated several times that's she proud of her Israeli and IDF ties.

- she used breonna taylor's death to promote her book. the post is literally STILL UP in her Instagram. 25 September 2020.

- she wrote harmful stereotypes and arcs for the characters of colour in her book series.

eg 1: Tarquin (acotar) and Helion (acotar) play into the hypersexual black male stereotype that has been around since Shakespeare in England.

eg 2: the Viper Queen (crescent city) is an extension of the Asian dragon lady stereotype. she's the ruler of an underground drug ring and is heavily associated with snakes.

eg 3: this will be a huge spoiler for the throne of glass series, if you're planning to read it. Nehemiah (tog) is another issue. her character's whole purpose was to die so that the white character would have development.

eg 4: in acotar, the map is laid out to clearly state that the fantasy England are the good guys while the fantasy Ireland are the barbaric invaders. (this is extremely offensive considering the actual REAL-LIFE history between Ireland and England)

also, there's this video that explains how zionism and Israel/Palestine is portrayed in acotar. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSjatvKwC/

eg 5: cultural appropriation. the entire idea of the night court in acotar is cultural appropriation. the way the clothes are described are very, very similar to Middle Eastern/South Asian clothing. the tattoo that feyre has on her hand is pretty much just henna. google it, in case you don't know what henna looks like.

- the way sjm portrays LGBTQIA+ people in her books are just disgusting, especially bisexuals. her bisexual characters are portrayed as people who will fuck anything that moves. that's disgusting.

- her disabled characters magically heals wow.

- she also portrays and romanticizes abusive relationships. for instance, rowan (tog) hitting the female main character upon first meeting her. and don't even get me started on rhys and feyre's relationship ughhhh. you can search it about them, I'm almost positive there'll be tons of videos and posts explaining how rhys is abusive to feyre and how he treats her.

in conclusion, what hasn't sjm done?

lol jk. in conclusion, sjm as an author has pretty much done damage to the book community. her stans are genuinely insane- one mention of all the things she did and they'll go, "oh it's a long time ago!" "she's changed" I find that hard to believe, actually. her stans move like literal cults.

her books and actions hurt people of colour. no matter how many BIPOC readers who spoke up about her, they are still undermined and ridiculed because, you know, reading "isn't political", according to her stans? this also explains why the majority of her demographic are straight white women.

there are a lot more detailed posts that explain specifically about the way sjm writes her characters, though of course, a lot of this post will include spoilers so read them at your own risk.

if there's anything else you want to ask, feel free to do so.

thanks for clarifying <3

it honestly sucks that so many authors these days are so crappy. jkr and (now) sjm, and it's just like- ???

we just want to read GOOD books, we DO NOT want your racial/LGBTQ-related hate/issues in there

but yeah thanks for telling me! <3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I played the last game by myself? to find it-> 🎮👾🕹️

So I [26NB] and three of my friends have been playing this game series for a while now it’s been probably a little under a year at this point that we’ve been chugging through these games (there’s, I believe, five games in total with a spin off and each game has multiple parts/chapters). We’ve been setting aside a day every week depending on our work and life availability to play through it. Normally getting a chapter a night or half a chapter depending on the length. Of course not every week we can do it cause of life and that's totally fine.

A little extra info on the games because I find it relevant. So the first game I actually played by myself cause the other three started without me (this was their thing they planned and invited me into later when I showed interest in the game) and I spent that time working to catch up to where they were in the game so I could join them. I did have a lot of fun playing the game as the game play is just as fun as the story to me and even when I get stuck the walk throughs are really easy to read and helpful. I'm not known for my gaming and actually watch playthroughs for stuff instead of plaything them myself cause I just all around suck at video games but this is one of the few games I like playing personally.

Once I played through the first game I hopped onboard the group plays with the other three to hang out and play together. Two of the friends have already played the whole series (lets call ‘em Lucy and Zeref) and know all the story where me and the third friend (let's call them Gray) didn't know anything at all about the series before we started playing. Part of the joy of these games for the both of us is getting to experience the exciting story in real time. As these games actually have a fairly large following and are pretty popular but some how both of us have gone most our lives with little to no spoilers for the series. This game is also full of crazy twists and turns that are VERY exciting to experience live.

Because of this fact I've also spent so much effort and time staying away from spoilers but still trying to interact with the fandom which is where not impossible just kinda frustrating cause there's a lot of art and fics and convos I'm missing out of because of it. I've even made another friend outside of this small group who ALSO likes these games but we don't talk about them much cause they're afraid of spoiling things for me by accident. Which, while very kind of them, is also in it's own way kinda frustrating.

We are currently on the fourth game and, honestly I've been thinking about just playing the last game and the spin off by myself at this point. There's two reasons for this. The first is that the games are just dragging on far too much to be fun anymore for me. I think it’s a mix of the fact that this fourth game is apparently one of, if not the, longest in the series and also that because of scheduling changes our weekly get togethers are much shorter now. Both of these factors causing us to take much longer to get through the chapters and this game. It’s really making it much harder to enjoy and even my roommate last week said I looked really tired and seemed burnt out during the session. It also doesn’t help that these meetups are online so I also don’t get to physically play the game myself and I can’t just ask to have the controller for a bit cause all of us are states away. 

The other part to this is that, honestly, me and these friends have not been talking as much. Something happened around the time we started the fourth game where I had a bunch of huge life changing events happen to me and I was severely depressed and grieving because of it. Due to some mixed up emotions on all sides and miscommunication, we had a hiccup in our friendship. There was a moment where I was genuinely scared of losing them but we talked it out like adults and things were better. However, ever since then it really does feel like the three of them talk a lot less to me now. I, at first, believed it was just my imagination. I do have some issues with my perception of reality due to mental heath but I always keep a very strong foot on the ground and go to people when I really feel like I can’t tell if I’m being crazy or not. So I chalked it up to me having a Moment(™) and just kept on like nothing was wrong. I even threw myself into DMs and out a lot more to try and make up for it. Instead of hiding away and being sad I tried to get them to interact with me more by really engaging in our friendships and chats. Unfortunately this hasn’t really helped the feeling of growing separation and light (possibly even unconscious) ignoring on their parts and I’m really feeling weighed down by it these days. It’s making these sessions even harder for me because no matter how much fun I have with them it makes the silence outside of the calls even more hollow and gut wrenching. 

A while back I did actually go to Gray and talk about my feelings mostly towards the way us playing the game is taking so long and causing burn out, and even suggested that instead of leaving the game nights completely, just playing the rest of them on my own and still hopping in with them when they do it. Gray was really sad with this cause they really enjoyed how both of us were going in blind together and they didn’t wanna be the only one who didn’t know anything while everyone else did. I understand that and felt really bad so I kept playing with them as a group. But the above feelings just got worse and worse. 

To top it off, Lucy has stopped coming to the game nights all together and I don’t really know why. As far as I’m aware they haven’t said anything at least not publicly in our chat about it and I didn’t feel it my place to pry. They also just haven’t been talking in the chat at all which feels extra bad cause I’ve always felt closest to Lucy and Gray at the end of the day. I’ve been chatting with Lucy in DMs here and there and they never seem disinterested in our conversation or like they no longer wanna be friends or anything. But it’s still really saddening as I am not really the DM type of person and am better at interacting in group chats and the like. So I feel like our already dying friendship is just going down hill faster. 

I just really wanna play the games and get it over with. I miss being able to play them physically and these game nights are starting to just worsen my mood as we go. I’m really not sure what to do cause I know Gray (and probably Zeref a little too) will be real upset if I drop out completely or if I play ahead of them. A part of me almost thought about playing the games in secret and pretending like I didn’t to spare their feelings and still make it fun for them and relieve all this stress off myself which I don’t know if that would be better or worse

What are these acronyms?

[sankatsuka]

My Personal Journey with Project SEKAI: How Haruka Kiritani Changed My Perspective on Life

I recently watched a heart-touching video on Omori, and it inspired me to want to express my own feelings about the special place Project SEKAI has in my heart.

I hesitated to share this because of how deeply personal and depressing it is and would leave a bad taste in the mouths of people who want to enjoy Haruka (and Tsukasa) without the lens of depression. But I really want people to take Project SEKAI's writing more seriously instead of treating it as some trauma complexity competition. It would be nice if this could resonate with some people and give some hope to them.

I don't consider myself a victim of ableism, but my struggle is objectively about ableism - so my personal answer may be triggering and something people would not agree with/be able to live with.

TW for ableism and suicide ideation.

For all my life, I suffered from feeling like everyday was empty and was like dying, but I was never comforted for it and thus came to the delusional view that everyone was the same and going through this. 'All of us are trying to become someone we aren't because the world won't accept us for who we really are, so of course I shouldn't expect comfort,' or so I thought. But there was no story that could clearly express this pain - I have felt it several times in fictional characters I'm drawn to, but it was sadly never the focus of the story. Because of this, I always dreamed of creating a story that could strongly express these feelings so all of us can open our eyes to it and not have to suffer alone anymore, and it's what kept me going for years. That is, until I found Wonderlands x Showtime from Project SEKAI.

When I first read the unit story, I recognized a lot of Tsukasa's behaviours and lit up - this was it. This was the story I had always been looking for.

I thought it was a given everyone would have perceived Tsukasa the same way I did. He was the leader character who was trying to become someone else: the framing of 'chasing stardom = couldn't stand life living as himself' couldn't get anymore obvious than that. These were the feelings that drove me to write A True Star as the seeds were so obviously planted but the writers just weren't sowing them. But the fandom was a wake-up call for me that not everyone suffered the same way and could see it, especially as Tsukasa became more and more forcibly fitted into the comfort sunshine boyfriend stereotype by the fandom. Even the people who were touched by my writing had vastly different views from me. It taught me that people are different and feel things differently, and suddenly I no longer knew what I wanted.

Mafuyu was never relatable for me, because I could never relate to being in so much pain to the point of not feeling guilt when people want to help you. For me, everyday was just dull - I could smile and laugh genuinely along with people, but something just felt missing and it made me feel dead inside. I kept aiming to become good at something so I could feel whole, but the motivation was just never there. But what was most painful above all, was the fact that I felt no one ever took my tears and emotions seriously, no matter how much I tried to express myself. This is what I could only perceive in Tsukasa and WxS at the time, and fuelled me into writing A True Star.

But I started feeling more and more guilty and selfish of my feelings for Tsukasa because of Curtain Call. Given the angst, more fans would probably be wanting to see a focus on Rui instead of Tsukasa. I also believed that the writers should be focusing on Rui, because if it made the fans happy, then they SHOULD write Tsukasa off as his fandom oversimplification so as to not overshadow Rui. Tsukasa's pre-established angst and Rui's apparent angst in Curtain Call just couldn't coexist to me without ruining the message and impact of the other. I decided my feelings were just self-pitying exaggeration and shouldn't be captured, and people who related to me should stop living that way. Because of that guilt, I found myself unable to write and draw the things that used to make me happy. I spent a long time paralyzed because of this, crying and suffering everyday from feeling that the dream I had for the longest time turned out to be stupid and there would never be anything fun for me to look forward to. A day didn't go by without me contemplating suicide. This was why I quit Twitter.

But I still couldn't let go of my feelings no matter how hard I tried to - I wanted to see my dream. I wanted to see it touch the hearts of people, for them to realize how painful it was being this way, that my feelings and those like myself were never an exaggeration.

In that same period of time, when I was begging my body to move and do something productive and not be like this over a fucking fictional character, going to counselling and reading all sorts of self-help articles to get over it - I briefly recalled Haruka's story. I finally understood how she felt: being unable to do what you love as you can't help but feel you're just an unwanted burden to others. Even if there are people out there who enjoyed your works, it doesn't matter because you're a fake and there are other better people out there who have more meaningful things to say than you. But even so, you can't let go. She gave me the answer to my dilemma in Painful Hope: to forgive yourself for being different and needing comfort in your own way. Even if it's not a big deal to others, it most certainly is a big deal to you.

Haruka Kiritani surprisingly broadened my perspective on life. I had never understood her character at the start, thinking she was just the stereotype of a responsible girl. I always thought I was a certain way - exaggerated like Tsukasa, but in reality I was far more simpler and pathetic than that. I just felt overly responsible for everyone's emotions for how painfully sensitive I am to people and my surroundings, that I never thought enough about expressing myself. That if I made someone unhappy, something bad would happen. And the big problem was, I believed I always made people unhappy for being different.

Wanting to be saved by the dream of the entire world acknowledging your suffering and being there for you? I only then realized how delusional it was and how it just made me look farther away from myself and worsened my life. How about using those strong senses to just be present and appreciate every moment of being human and alive instead? Enjoying the happy times with all your heart, letting yourself just feel the pain when someone hurts you, live everyday looking forward to more encounters that would enrich your life... Maybe along the way, you may even miraculously find something that completes you. (I LOVE YOU IF!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CHANGING ME YURRY CANON AND HARUKA KIRITANI!!!!)

It isn't about discarding your suffering, it's about acknowledging reality: there are so many people living in the world, it can't just be the way you need it to be for your happiness - but you can change. You just have to live for something that you can attain for sure, like facing the pain and emptiness of everyday for what it is and having hope for happier days. (My favourite anime of all-time Gintama captures this sooooo well, delusion vs reality, how both of them are equally important - please watch it. Now don't get me started on how strongly similar Project SEKAI and Gintama are--).

Besides, I wouldn't want people to change for me. I love them for who they are, and I was just blinded running away thinking no one would ever want me around as me. But now, I live trying to face the reality that there will be people who care and want me to be happy. I'll live with the pain of people not caring about me so I can fully experience those happier times when they come. And just because people don't care doesn't mean they're terrible people - the world is huge, there are too many options and choices for people to make.

Even if life is always so painful, there are times it's still so fun. I just can't let go after all.

Haruka Kiritani is the reason I stopped entrusting my ridiculous dream to Tsukasa and I'm not in as bad a place mentally anymore. I was just delusional like Tsukasa was, thinking achieving your dream would change everything and make you finally feel wanted and enough (lol, the meta is crazy). I'm grateful the scenario writers didn't give me what I wanted right away with Tsukasa - because then, I wouldn't have noticed the beauty in Haruka's writing. I'm pretty confident that WxS is definitely going in the direction I dreamed of (the same message I wanted to convey in A True Star), but it doesn't really matter much to me anymore now.

I can't go along with dreams of being saved anymore. I understand wanting them, I really did. But right now, what's more important to me is the love people have for me in the present, even if it's imperfect, flawed and hurts so much. I don't ever want to be saved if it means turning a blind eye to people who want me around and failing to respond to them as I've been doing up till now. I'm still not fully understood, which is why it hurts - but as long as I respond as seriously as I can, things might hopefully change someday. I've always been loved, and I want to cherish that. It's because of that I can no longer muster the emotions and anger to write A True Star anymore.

I slowly started realizing more and more similarities in Haruka too. There was such a small detail in Towards The Dream of That Day (Focus 3) that meant the world to me: the small moment where a young Haruka expresses discomfort with the crowd. Can you imagine that this sensitive girl who gets tired from crowds is now a top idol?

"...But there were so many people, I think I might be a little exhausted."

It didn't even hit me when I read that part, but I had a memory just like that with my own mother which slipped my mind. It's probably happened so many times my family had to take care of me in crowds in the past. But I had been so immersed in the delusion that I could overcome anything, that I completely forgot I was always the shy, fragile young girl to my family.

We have both always been loved and seen by people around us, but we just don't feel good enough that we end up trying to become someone else. It also doesn't help when your family thinks you can grow out of it - but if they love you, they will try to understand and you will feel that love if you're present. This is a big reason why living in reality is now so important to me - to properly respond to my loved ones, so that we can someday see eye-to-eye. And not to forget, to be able to smile and have fun with all my being once again.

More recently, it finally sunk in that I have always been terrible at smiling. I hated taking photographs because I could never get it to look the way I want it to, because no matter how hard I tried to smile, it just couldn't turn out natural. My mother has always pointed it out ever since I was young, but I didn't acknowledge it because I knew I could smile more naturally if I was in the mood - which is true... it isn't even autism, because when I'm talking about or doing something I love, I would be smiling and laughing so hard that my friends and family take notice. Just like Haruka and penguins, and when idol activities and times with her friends are genuinely exhilarating and fun.

A big problem we likely have is a form of neurodivergence that makes the normal world too boring and understimulating for us. And it's really a struggle - constantly being understimulated to even hold normal conversations, and then there's how most of our loved ones wouldn't get it because of how different we are.

And finally, there's Haruka in Precious Memories.

(I... can smile like this too.) (It seems somewhat different from when I'm at work...)

"...Thank you for giving me such wonderful memories, Saki."

How she realized she should cherish and preserve every moment in her life from Saki is so, so important to me. Even with friends, even if she's not always fully happy, she can have times she would find herself smiling so happily without realizing it.

It hammers in the realization I came to because of her character. After all, I ended up like this, unaware and self-hating, because I kept taking my own emotions and people's emotions towards me for granted. I was already happy just spending time around family and friends, but I couldn't fully immerse myself in it because of how hard I constantly was on myself. And the cycle of anger went on as people couldn't understand why I was so hard on myself. This is the power of Project SEKAI, just because she too couldn't move at all at one point - Haruka Kiritani helped me understand myself so much better and navigate life in a healthier, wholer way, embracing both the joys and pains of life. (Well... I still do run away, but I'm working on it...)

Shiho also became an incredibly important character to me because of the message in Stick to Your Faith that supplemented Haruka's character. I never thought to think of it that way, that there were things you couldn't let go of but it's okay to care about people's feelings at the same time. As someone with unique interests and who takes things a little too seriously, it was the words that I really needed to hear. I don't think we are similar enough to share even the same motivations though, but Shiho's values have definitely lit a way forward in my self-discovery. It's embarrassing to be so impacted by a story that isn't serious to most people. But truly, to Colorful Palette, thank you for writing Haruka Kiritani. Honami, Shiho and Tsukasa were all equally as important in making me realize the true weight of emotions and their impact on you. Project SEKAI made my dream come true in MORE MORE JUMP, in a far different yet better way than what I expected. I hope that this post would make people realize that Project SEKAI characters are more human than tropes. I was once blinded by tropes too, which made me miss out on how beautifully written Honami was - it really, really takes time to grow out of it. I'm tired of people attributing angst and depression only to Niigo when that's just a part of life and everyone has at least experienced it once. The sudden shift in atmosphere in No Seek No Find? A song about life and death in Kashika? Utsuro wo Aogu literally meaning 'looking into the void'? The constant themes of escapism in Emu commissions?

Each character is so strongly human in nature, that you can just understand the emotions they're feeling in the moment and why they feel that way. The narrative won't spell it for you, the characters are all unreliable narrators - you need to immerse yourself in both the story and the commissions and understand it yourself. You need to read all the unit stories to understand the writers' approach to emotions. Even if it doesn't make sense to you, it might start to make sense the more you learn about yourself and the people around you - because the writers have put in their actual emotions and experiences into writing and planning the character.

That is the beauty of Project SEKAI to me. I hope someday, instead of a cringey angsty teenage story, people could come to appreciate the human love and care put into its characters.

Finally, I end this love letter to Project SEKAI with one of my most favourite lines in If:

"Singing won't save your life or anything. But I want to sing for your sake."

"Even if this life of mine has no worth, the world is still beautiful. So let's live."

[starry1avender]

Why I Don't Like the Idea of An Eclipse Redemption In SAMS Canon (Opinion)

Spoilers for today's SAMS episode "Eclipse has a PURPOSE in VRCHAT"!

"If I'm so 'lonely', what should I do then?! It's not like anyone's gonna accept me back" god I fucking hope not-

(Rant about why I don't want an Eclipse redemption under cut)

(Please note that of course, you don't have to agree with me at all or take it too seriously. Everyone has different standards when it comes to who they can and cannot forgive, and who they believe deserves a second chance. It's perfectly fine to feel bad or pity him as well. Hell, I do at times. At the end of the day, I'm just some goofy ahh teen ranting about why I think a character from a FNAF roleplay shouldn't be vindicated, so really everyone loses-)

I'm just going to say it now: As much as I like Eclipse as a character and as much as I enjoyed seeing this side of him, I really hope that they aren't trying to set up a redemption arc for him or to have him be spared and just let him get away with everything. I really don't. I don't care if he feels lonely or even a bit of remorse for his actions, he doesn't deserve redemption or a second chance or any sort of mercy by any of the cast. It'd just be...Kinda yikes. Doesn't help that I'm sick of the whole "It doesn't matter what you did or who you've hurt!1!1!1!11! As long as you're willing to change you can be vindicated!!!1!1!1!!11!" Trope a lot of media pushes out, which is a whole other can of worms I won't open today.

First of all, the obvious atrocities. He's literally abused and tortured the main cast, changed the ENTIRE UNIVERSE'S MEMORIES, sent Sun and Moon to life-threatening dimensions to try and break them mentally, killed people directly and indirectly (Bloodmoon), and October speaks for itself. Eclipse has severely fucked up so many lives on so many levels and that should not go unpunished. Furthermore, the fact that he does all of these things ON-SCREEN and that it’s portrayed in a (naturally) negative light does not help my pathos as a viewer when the idea of a redemption appears. Eclipse is an abuser, manipulator, and overall war criminal who deserves nothing less than death, even if he genuinely wants to change or has any regrets, it’s too little too late.

Eclipse has also had CHANCES to change. Sun and Moon have repeatedly given him the option to make a deal with them. Mainly in the beginning, They gave opportunities to just stop and come to a mutual agreement. Every single time, he rejected out of anger and pettiness. He’s had a choice this entire time. He’s not like Moon, who was heavily under the influence of his programming (the Kill Code) or Lunar who didn’t know any better due to being under Eclipse’s command. Eclipse has had a conscious decision in every action and knew damn well exactly what he was doing. It’s been almost 500 videos of this and only NOW, When he’s already caused so much pain and suffering, is he finally having second thoughts. Once again, too little too late. That sentence pretty much sums up my entire thoughts. His arc just needs to be done and over so we can move on to the next thing.

In conclusion, Eclipse has done too many horrendous things to the cast despite several opportunities to stop to make him redeemable in my eyes. He’s gone too far too many times, and once again: Too little too late.  In my opinion, the ample way to end off his arc is to kill him for good. Be it through his own means or others, I’m not too picky. Just please for the love of fuck-

[leastdatablebracket]

ROUND 2, MATCH 18

Propaganda under the cut!

Cameron Conner

Propaganda

very religious and judgmental about the witches in the town - especially because the playable character is a witch

Shane

Propaganda

He is absolutely rude to your character, for like a looooooong time. And when you finally romance him, his room that he adds to your house is a alcoholic hellhole filled with empty cans. You cannot get rid of this room, it is there forever.

Man is literally a severe alcoholic when you meet him. He needs therapy not romance… 

Beer

Alcoholic 

His room is dirty, he goes back to being an alcoholic, and he's not attractive

he hates you until you start dating, will call you ugly, looks like he smells

I just think he's overrated 

ive got personal beef with this man i married him once on one of my save files and it was the only time ive ever divorced a character in stardew valley

HIS ROOM WHEN YOU GET MARRIED IS LITERALLY THE WORST. IT'S A DIFFERENT WOOD GRAIN FROM THE REST OF THE HOUSE, THERE'S DIRTY FOOT STEPS IN THERE CONSTANTLY, AND HE HAS A SPILLED SODA CAN ON A CARPET. 0/10, I HATE HIS ROOM.

more propaganda for shane as one of the submissions notes he is implied to have become an alcoholic again after you get married or he at least has enough random lines about drinking alcohol or plans to drink alcohol to make it seem like thats what's happening which doesnt pair well with his 14th heart event which intentionally makes the farmer and marnie think that hes drinking again n the reveal is that actually hes just been playing video games but legit he will still say stuff that comes across as him having a drinking problem after the event (divorced him cause i kept getting those lines after i got his 14th heart event n it genuinely just made it seem like he was lying to his spouse and marnie about his drinking problem) also throwing stones from glass houses cause shane ALSO kisses the farmer unexpectedly during his 10 heart event the main difference is that you're allowed to be uncomfortable when elliott does it while with shane it just assumes you'd be fine with suddenly being kissed n then has the farmer kiss him back elliott's 10th heart event is sucky but that doesnt change that shane's 10th heart event also involves him kissing the farmer suddenly its just portrayed positively

Anti-Propaganda

YEAH, HES KINDA RUDW AT FIRST, ITS CALLED DEPRESSION (AND HE APOLOGIZES LATER IN THE STORY TOO). He pushes the player away beacuse he doesn't want to get attached, he's an alcoholic bcs his life is pretty shit. He takes care of Jas, who's not his kid but I think he's her God father (I'm really not sure, either way, he's her legal Guardian) beacuse her parents fricking died. Literally the only job available in this horrible town is JOJA MART where let's be honest, he's treated like trash, additionally If you go with the community centre route, you take his job away from him. AND HE DOES GET BETTER WITH DRINKING. In his 6 heart event you find him next to a cliff, drunk, where he tells you how his life is a (quoting) pathetic joke and why shouldn't he just roll off this cliff right now. Afterwards he asks you to get him to a hospital, next day he comes to apologize for the whole thing beacuse in his mind It was embarassing, even though he doesn't remember most of it, and tells you that HE DOES GET THERAPY, he got himself a therapist! All he needed to change was a bit of your support, its not that you fix him either, he's the one that chooses to go to therapy, he's the one that chooses to stop drinking, after marrige he almost completly replaced alcohol with soda, which, yeah not the best, but its a step in the right direction, people don't change overnight. I have nothing in his rooms defence, I hate it with burning Passion as well. Of course I don't expect It to be clean, he's still a person with depression, but the alcohol dialogue is unnecessary, feels like the game kinda forgot abt his arc, but that's rlly the only bad thing in my opinion. I feel like most people who hate him don't understand depression and character growth.

[kiddphel]

HI it's the same anon from earlier, just got back from the cinema. The movie was so good, I was losing it the whole way through. I'm a huge Vulture and Spot fan so I feel fed. I said hi to Miguel as promised. I do kind of wish I had gone in with no preconceived ideas of him, because the internet has made up a whole different guy. The way you talk about him seems far more in-line with what was actually on the screen. His actual reasons for being an antagonist are interesting, and it raises questions about how fate and destiny actually work and whether there are any true 'accidents'. Sorry if this is a lot to put in an anon message, but you wanted to hear my thoughts 😅. Overall, enjoyed the movie a lot, really looking forward to the second one.

YESSS IM SO GLAD YOU ENJOYED. The Vulture was SO COOL in this, the way he looks like he's made of parchment is amazing, when I saw it for the first time I gasped. And I LOVE how goofy the Spot is, he's endearing while also being a real, genuinely terrifying villain it's great.

BUT I GET WHAT YOU MEAN ABT MIGUEL. I didn't have Any interest in him until I saw the movie BECAUSE the way the internet was treating him and characterizing him was uninteresting and now I see it's just blatantly WRONG. he's a fascinating character and I think the movie did a great job keeping what makes him great and nuanced in the comics. Even in the comics and the video games, he's the one who has to keep protecting the future and timelines. He has to be the bad guy who stops people from protecting loved ones because it can change the course of reality, and since Miguel is from the future... It can change his life. So he's always had to be the strict "we have to be careful with what we protect from anomalies and outside forces" but even then he would be lenient. But here? Him having lost his happiness by tampering with what didn't belong to him adds SO much more to why he is the way he is. He says several times that he is the "only one" protecting the multiverse, when literally no one asked him to do it alone. He's flawed, he's hurt, he's not sure what to do. And him calling Miles an anomaly, a mistake, is interesting when you know Miguel in the comics has NONE of the "canon" events. He is NOT bitten by a spider, which makes him different. He doesn't have an uncle Ben. So I'm so excited to see how they explore this in the next movie. But he's fascinating to me for all of his faults and strengths and aaaaa now I'm rambling JDSHGJLDSHG

BUT YES THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME YOUR THOUGHTS I LOVE TO HEAR IT, it makes me happy :3

[hrk4]

The year that was...

In the Mahābhārata, there is a brutally honest verse that says, “In the great ocean, two wood-logs come close to each other and then drift apart; human relationships are pretty much the same!”

From the time I first came across this verse about a decade ago, it deeply resonated with me. However much we may try, it appears impossible to reduce the fragility of relationships. Akin to coasting on the waves of the mighty ocean, we become close to some people and move away from others who were hitherto inseparable from us���often owing to circumstances more than volition. At school, I was eternally in the company of a few friends; by the time I came to college, it was a totally different bunch—and by the time I started working, it was another group. It is not like I have lost touch with all my friends of the past. But the strength of the old bonds are directly proportional to the memory of one’s childhood and youth. Some people remember their past and some others strive to forget it. Furthermore, people change—some for the better and some for the worse! And so, when we deal with life as being a dynamic equilibrium, we become more accepting of change, and make the necessary course corrections with lesser effort. Truth be told, the moment we acknowledge that all relationships are ephemeral, we learn to value the existing connexions with people—and that paves the way for inner peace.

This is not to say that I had a gloomy year in any way—in fact, right at the start of 2024, I turned forty and my close friends threw a surprise party for me. I was showered with their affection and gifts, making my fortieth a special one. It was a moment that made me realize how fortunate I have been.

It was also a year of immense learning – from attending Dr. Prasad Bapat’s workshop on Cosmology to the Education Retreat during the January 26th weekend (the experts who spoke, the audience, and the organizers were all from our friends group); from the weekly meeting with Dr. S R Ramaswamy where a variety of topics are discussed to the remarkable opportunity to interact with eminent personages – noted painters G L N Simha and Chandranath Acharya; scholars across generations, all of whom I was meeting for the first time: Dr. T V Venkatachala Sastry, Dr. P S Ramanujan, Dr. R N Iyengar, and Raj Vedam; D V Gundappa’s nephew R Chandramouli, who regaled us with several anecdotes from the polymath’s life; and the art historians R G Singh and H S Dharmendra of Ramsons Art Gallery.

With Sri R Chandramouli (center) and his wife

My musician-friend from Chile, Cristian Vega Encina wrote to me earlier this year to inform about the death of Maestro Millapol Gajardo, whom I had the great pleasure of meeting twice—in 2006 and in 2015. He was a multi-instrumentalist who played the bansuri and the tabla, among others. He visited Varanasi in the 1960s and spent considerable time in India, learning Hindustani music. When I first went to his house, which was located in an older part of Santiago, I felt like I was entering an Indian house. He had a huge library with innumerable books about India and Indian culture. He made authentic masala chai for me and we had a lovely jam session—Millapol on bansuri, me on violin, and Cristian on tabla. Then he showed me a video from a Jean Renoir movie that featured Varanasi. He pointed out to the television screen and said, “That is my city!” with his eyes just a little moist. To see the genuine love for Bhārata and Bhāratīya-saṃskṛti ten thousand miles away deeply inspired me.

Maestro Millapol Gajardo (bansuri) and Cristian Vega Encina (tabla)

In 2024, I had the pleasure of addressing the audience at the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), post-graduate medical students of the JSS College, and the devotees of the Radhakrishna Temple at Sanjaynagar, Bangalore. Praveen Nair invited me to be a part of the Prāna Stories Podcast, where I spoke about the universality of Sanātana-dharma (Part 1 and Part 2). The Gītā guru, Sri K V Shivaswami sir and the indefatigable Shilpa Sharma of Seattle were responsible for convincing me to conduct a full-fledged Bhagavad-gītā course covering all 700 ślokas (from March to May). Later they convinced my co-author Dr. Koti Sreekrishna also to teach a Gītā course. Both these courses were well received by the participants and it was inspiring to see the dedication of people across ages, who showed up day after day for the classes. Upon the insistence of my good friend Vikram Phadke, I appeared for a few minutes on a Kannada television show.

In my day job, I was able to work on a few books and also facilitate others in their book-writing journey to some extent. I have given a long list at the end of my reflections.

I tided past a health scare and consolidated my finances—with the hope that in 2025, I don’t have to worry about time or money and can focus on things that I truly desire to pursue. I also lost a decades-old bet with my student/friend, M R Jayasimha. Years ago, when he was learning the violin from me at the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts, he had told me that I would buy a car some day in the future and I had wagered that I would never have the need for one. Some fifteen years later, it turns out that I was wrong!

On the family front, my mother and grandmother spent a successful year after shifting from our ancestral house in Halasuru to a flat in Malleswaram next door to me; my father and brother make regular trips to spend time here. Earlier this year, my cousin Arun got married and in December 2024, my niece Mahathi gave birth to a baby boy, which I think gives me license to enter into retirement!

Mark Twain famously wrote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” This year, like many earlier ones, took me to different places—Chennai, Chittorgarh, Coimbatore, Dhar, Dharwar, Ellora, Honnavar, Jodhpur, Kalale, Kanyakumari, Kimsar, Kothagiri, Krong Siem Riep, Kumbalgarh, Melkote, Mysore, Pandavpura, Preah Vihear, Ranakpur, Sriperumbudur, Thiruvananthapuram, Vellore, etc.

The last week of the year, which I spent in Chennai, was particularly memorable: witnessing an iconic concert of my guru Dr. L Subramaniam and Ud. Amjad Ali Khan, spending time with cousins, attending two concerts of the legendary Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam (Bhagavad-gita and Jaya Jaya Shankara), and being a part of the 42nd Natya Kala Conference that was brilliantly curated by my good friends Nirupama and Rajendra.

As for 2025 goals, I suppose I will not make them public like I did last time because much of it remains undone!

From a geo-politics perspective, 2024 was a year of a great deal of churning. The task cut out for the heads of State in various corners of the globe is daunting to say the least. We will have to wait and watch how 2025 pans out—one can only hope that the life-negating forces of death cults of the deserts may be silenced just a little more.

Thanks for reading this far, and with this I wish you and your family a wonderful new year! I hope it will be filled with joy, good health, prosperity, and moments to cherish. May your dreams come true!

—

Books of 2024

· A R Krishnasastri’s The Essential Katha·sarit·sagara (translated by Arjun Bharadwaj, Srishan Thirumalai, Raghavendra G S, and Hari Ravikumar) · Bhāsa’s Svapna·vāsavadattam (curated by Srinidhi Ramachandra and Hari Ravikumar) · Chaman Lal’s ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ತಾಯಿ ಭಾರತ (translated by L V Shanthakumari) · D V Gundappa’s Art Gallery of Memories – Vol. 7 (Some High-minded Exemplars) · D V Gundappa’s Art Gallery of Memories – Vol. 8 (A Miscellany of Memories) · D V Gundappa’s Jīvana-dharma-yoga (translated by Raghavendra Hebbalalu and Sreelalitha Rupanagudi) · Dharma-vijaya – edited by Kashap N Naik · Raga Harmony by Dr. L Subramaniam · S L Bhyrappa’s Dharmashree (translated by L V Shanthakumari) (Here's a short talk on the novel.) · S L Bhyrappa’s Niraakarana (translated by L V Shanthakumari and Arjun Bharadwaj) · S R Ramaswamy’s Silhouettes of Excellence (edited by Hari Ravikumar and Vedavyas M G) · Śatāvadhānī R Ganesh's Ānanda Sūtras (adapted into English by Harish Kumar N and Arjun Sharma) · The Essential Ramayana by Arjun Bharadwaj · ಕಡಲ ಅಲೆಗಳು by L V Shanthakumari · ಚಿದಾನಂದ by Neelakanth Krishnaji Kulkarni · ವ್ಯಾಸರ ಬಿನ್ನಪ by S R Ramaswamy · ಸ್ವಧರ್ಮಯೋಗಿ – edited by Kashyap N Naik · ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತ ನಾಟಕ ಕಥೆಗಳು by Motaganahalli Subrahmanya Sastri

[tiredelirium]

D.14

This is the near halfway mark where this task of self journalling begins to feel like a chore. A selfmade target with a pointless trajectory. Still honestly surprised I’ve been able to keep this up so long.

A part of me knows nobody will ever read any of these entries. They’ll never be picked up by an algorithm thanks to my limited tags, or reblogged for any particular reason as theres no real meat behind each entry.

These words are, as I’ve tagged them, scattered thoughts written out loud, alongside a handful of meagre stories of my past. Maybe I’ll write something about my present sometime in one of these entries, but it’s an unlikely thing. My present isn’t very thought provoking, interesting, or available in any way.

Pretty soon I’ll be a third of my way through a life that I haven’t accomplished much in. There are things I want to do, of course, but a lack of drive and motivation to get to action has always been my biggest character flaw. I’ve mentioned before about this. They say disinterest is a big part of depression. But I don’t think it would be possible for me to have been depressed since I was 12. Maybe that is a possibility, and it was just something that came with puberty alongside anxiety and isolationist habits.

I want to write a book. I’ve made several attempts to start ones in the past, both fantastical and modern. Though I can never get past the first few pages. It always hits me after that point. The disinterest. The apathy. The lack of drive or motivation.

If we were ever taught as children how to motivate ourselves in life I must have missed that lesson.

I want to travel the world. I’ve been to places in the past, but very rarely of my own volition and choice. Family holidays to sunny climates, and school trips are truly the only ones. I’ve been to the far east of Europe, borderline Russia. I’ve been to New York. I’ve been to the Mediterranean, to little islands in the middle of seas. And i’ve travelled across a tiny fraction of the UK, namely England and Wales.

At one point I seriously considered, and briefly looked into, joining a crew and attempting a ship faring life. I was talked down from the idea by my parents. One whose father was a sailor and an arsehole, the other who didn’t want to lose contact with me for months on end with no idea if I would be safe or not. The second wasn’t overprotection, but just genuine concern. The seas are unforgiving after all, and I’d be a rookie before I was ever good enough.

I want to make a game. Not necessarily a video game though that would be a fun project and there’s lots of engines and facilities out there these days to try and make one. I’ve made a ton of homebrew dnd content for my own enjoyment, from specialised subclasses and unique items, to monsters and large scale settings. Currently, in my spare time, I’m working on a Horror based TTRPG setup. A kind of one and done game, that, unlike DND, wouldn’t be a module that could run for 50+ sessions.

It’s a fun project so far, but the disinterest will hit me eventually. Maybe I’ll get distracted with another project idea. Maybe I’ll simply hit a wall of non-creativeness, where ideas just don’t hit as good. Or maybe I’ll get frustrated and think the project is dumb and pointless.

I wish my mind wasn’t this way, but it’s not an easy thing to change a method of thinking. Especially when you don’t know where that thinking originated or why it still persists, even against the things you enjoy.

I’m greedy.

[cisthehuman]

Cis Ramble #11--Halloween Tunes 2024

Howdy! It's been a while! I've been enjoying my little hiatus! I actually did some fun planning and completed this years Halloween tunes *before* Halloween! I'm very proud of this one--so proud I wanted to chat about how it was made! Come on down let's delve deeper into these tracks!

Which by the by, the way I make tunes is through soundtrap. I use their music loops and fit them together to make these songs! I have no music bone in my body, but I love listening to music, so I've been going by ear on how to create these songs. In soundtrap you can find different sounds and voice clips. It's a bit difficult because I usually have to search by a general word like 'scary' or 'poetry' to find something usable. I was genuinely surprised how I was able to find a lot of clips using the same person for this. It felt so on purposely cohesive when it was purely luck!

Track 1: Cold Blooded

Believe it or not, this was the last track made. At this point, I was honestly burned out from putting my entire brain into the other songs. When most songs took maybe 3 hours in one day, I worked in smaller amounts of time over the course of several days. It was interesting because this was one of the tracks I was looking forward to, but it turned into a hard puzzle to crack.

As I wanted this song to convey the vibe of the rest of the songs, I wanted to include certain things--strings, guitar, some music change ups, and possibly an outro. The first iteration was very messy and felt very forced. There were too many moving parts and changes. When things get messy, I usually make a new file so I can start on a clean slate. However, I couldn't do that this time. I really wanted to keep the 'Let me out!!' sound clip, but I couldn't remember what words I used to search for it so I kept working in the same file. Since I couldn't restart on a fresh file (and you can't duplicate songs you make on soundtrap) , I went back to my thought process that worked for the previous songs--what's the story?

I've said this before, but my main background is writing! And when making these little tunes, especially the Halloween themed ones, I try to picture a music video and have the music follow the video playing in my head. With that in mind, the story we follow is essentially 'person is walking around a grave, gets kidnapped by a witch, and gets a spooky cast spell on them'. Very easy to piece things together--especially when I was able to find so many spoken clips of the witchy character (which you hear more of throughout other songs). Despite being a mess at the beginning, I think it turned out really good in the end! A good opener!

Track 2: Lurking in the Deep

This was fun! And I believe one of the few songs that doesn't have any spoken voice clips. This song was the fifth one completed, for those curious.

The main conceit of this song was 'weird monster in the ocean that's chasing you'. I imagined this playing during a chase scene or something similar.

One of my favorite things is the sound of the monster. That consisted of two different monster noises I found. One of them is a growl and the other is gurgling noise. I changed the effects of them to make this creepy monster noise. I find weird gurgles scary and uncomfortable, and I think really sells the idea that this being is otherworldly.

I'm also really proud the 'underwater' section. I love when a scene shows characters interacting with music. For example in Brave Bang Bravern, when Bravern first appears his theme music is playing. At first you think it's just a directional choice in the show, but then it's mentioned it's actually playing in real life from his speakers. I wanted to do something similar to the track where the music sounds like its muffled underwater because the person is literally underwater.

Track 3: Come Alive

I wanted to make a fun club like track LOL

So some context, I make characters for these little albums I make. The character here, BATTY, currently has the most albums since Halloween comes around every year and I'm always inspired by the holiday. The first album was really fast paced and dance-y, and I wanted to make another dance-y song.

This song was one of the ones I made in 3 or so hours in one sitting. It was a fever dream. I don't even know if I have much to say about it. This one came together pretty quickly. It was the seventh song made, and is partially the reason I had some burnout when trying to finish Cold Blooded as I put the last bit of my brain into making a Halloween club song.

One thing that I find interesting is there are so many loop that sound spooky. A lot of the trap loops in soundtrap lend themselves to a Halloween-esque sound. I will say, a part of me kinda wants to make an extended version, but I'm not sure. I can be easily convinced though LOL

Track 4: Bloodsucker

This one is a personal fave. I play it all the time lol

It was the sixth song completed, and at first I was a bit lost at what to do, but after I found the main voice clip (I don't remember what I searched for it--I think vampire?), I got a game plan.

I believe the voice clip is a poem focusing on healing mental illness (at least that's what I think), but I found it kinda compelling as a comparison to a vampire settling with their newfound monstrous side. (It also would be good for a Jekyll/Hyde metaphor!)

Props to the guy who recited this poem, he really gets emotional in it. I really love it. His voice reminded me of the guy who speaks in Thriller by Michael Jackson at the end of the song. Really cool. I think the 'Insomnia' vocal clip (a soundtrap loop) is a nice juxtaposition with it. The idea of pairing them together was to perpetuate the idea of being able to settle with the good and bad parts of ourselves. As humans, our ignorance causes us to be bad people at times, but we still have good in us and we can nurture it to live alongside the bad.

Like I said before, this is the third album under BATTY, and I kept thinking about his first one where it was kinda 80s inspired with some of the tracks. I wanted to bring the techno vibe back and I think it fit with this song a lot!

Track 5: Lucifer, Fallen Angel

This is where we get to my artistic fascination with the devil. Ol' Luci is an interesting character and I wanted to make a song kinda describing his descent into hell.

This song was the 3rd one made out of the group! And it was made as a pair to go along side Hell.

Here you get to hear the witchy voice again! It was only on a relisten that I noticed that she's heard here and in the following track, Hell. Accidental cohesion there. It kinda adds a layer of 'maybe the speaker who was kidnapped by the witch is going through a bad trip or something through the spells' to everything. Imagine to your heart's content what the overarching story is!

One thing that was cut out from this was a sound clip of like a metal scream of 'SAAATAAAAAN!!!'. I was going to use it during the metal section of the song, but I was afraid it was going to be a bit too hokey LOL Maybe next year I'll use it. I love making metal songs now since soundtrap finally added TONS of guitar loops

I was unsure of adding this one at first, as I thought it didn't sound Halloween enough. But then I said fuck it and kept it in LOL

Track 6: Hell

Whoooo!!! Let's give it up for the track that set the tone for this little collection of musiccc!!! Whoooooo!!!

That's right folks, this was the first completed song. It made me so pumped. I love intros that build up, and this one has like an over minute long intro.

This one probably has the most sound clips used. I just love all of the demon clips I was able to get. After piece them together, I thought 'ohhhh....I could do all of the songs like this'.

Piecing voice clips together actually came from a previous song I worked on that I'll use for my new stream opening. I know, I'm on hiatus and I'm working stuff for when I inevitably come back lol That song was like my trial run, while Hell was the like proper execution of the skill if that makes sense.

And we have an outro!! I never really made outros too much, and I just listened to KNOWER's song Nightmare that has a fun little outro, and I thought 'I gotta make an outro for people to groove out to'. I'm kinda obsessed with outros now because this one was so fun. I'm really happy with this one, and I'm glad I finished it first because I didn't have a direction when making tunes this year and this totally put me on the right track!

Track 7: Rest in Peace

This was the second track to be completed! And originally the final song.

After the high I had on finishing Hell, I jumped into making this one the day after. The voice clips of the first girl is actually the same in my new stream intro and outro music lol, she has a lot to pull from.

This turned into a very uplifting song. This and the last song, Ashes to Ashes, are my exploration of death. Death is a major theme in Halloween, and one I often avoided for years. This song didn't touch on my thoughts with it too much as the next one does, but I was surprised how calming it ended despite the strong intro.

And there's an outro! I told you I became obsessed with them after I finished Hell. What was cool was this particular music loop pack had a sample of the main melody in two different ways. So I could start and end with the same melody but with a different tone. lol it makes me seem more masterful than I am.

Track 8: Ashes to Ashes

Ahhh the namesake of the album, and another high key favorite.

This was the third song completed, and it made me very reflective.

I mentioned this several times of my little blog, but I lost my father suddenly three years ago. It has made my relationship with death much closer than I thought it would be, at a time much earlier than I thought.

I was never someone who liked talking about death even when my dad was alive. My dad on the other hand talked about it as if he was just talking about the rain lol that's just the kinda guy he was. At first I was a bit scared to do this song, as I believed it would make bad memories come up. The more I found sound clips and pieced everything together, I felt this wave of calm come over me.

It was very weird. I felt more and more at peace with everything. It was a bit of a full circle moment. I saw a post online of an ignorant person who talked about a celebrity who's personality is grieving her partner, and it made laugh. I don't wish ill on that person at all--in fact, I hope they remain ignorant. Grief is a body altering thing. It's something you won't understand unless you experience it, and I genuinely don't want anyone to experience it for a long time. Trauma changes everything about you, you turn into a different person, your brain acts differently, your body changes.

Rebuilding yourself from the ground up takes so much work. I've come to terms with not being able to be at 100% anymore. I'm happy I can make it to at least 60% every day.

With that being said, yes, I'll keep talking about my grief. It's only because my grief led me to making music and streaming as an outlet.

I know I didn't really share any tidbits about making the song with this one, but I think its more important to share how I felt when making it. I hope it makes you reflective as well!

And that's it!! Whoo!! Thanks for reading and for listening to the tunes!

I'll try to have more music out--I know I have a huge backlog lol

Either way, enjoy the spooky season!!! I'll see you on the next oneeeeeeee

[screamingatanemptyroom]

Please Fix the Story Pt 19 - Sci Fi

The new part is here. I've struggled with this story a little bit recently, but I wanted to continue this, to share it with you.

Master Post linked here

Enjoy!

_________________________

“Bel…”

“BEL!”

The world around me was pitch black, empty except for voices I didn't recognize, shouting a name I couldn't remember. I blinked, trying to clear my vision without success.

“Hello?” My anxious shout faded into the nothingness around me.

“I have to do it, Bel. It’s how the story goes.” A blurry figure stood in front of me, his facial features unclear behind his blond hair, but his tone contained frustration and regret. “You know what happens to a world when the story is incomplete. Sacrifices have to made.”

“Who are you…?”

“That’s our fate, we just have to accept that.” He faded away into the darkness, leaving me alone again.

“Come back! Explain what you meant!” I screamed at the disappearing figure. “WHAT SACRIFICE? WHAT FATE?!”

"YOU MUST ACCEPT YOUR FATE."

“Are you lost?” A new voice spoke up, strange, yet completely and utterly familiar.

I spun around, but there was no one behind me. “I’m… I’m lost.”

“No matter where you go, who you become… I’ll find you, Bel. I promise.” The voice was a whisper in my ear. “Fate can’t tear us apart. I won’t let it. Even if I have to destroy fate itself.”

“But I can’t find you. I don’t remember who you are!” I was crying, my tears disappearing into the surrounding mist.

“I’ll find you.” The words were quieter, as if the owner of the voice was fading away.

“DON’T LEAVE ME!”

“I promise.”

“NOT AGAIN!”

"You must accept your fate."

"Bel..."

"You must.."

“…I promise…”

_________________________

“LIAM!”

I woke up, screaming a name that disappeared from my mind as soon as the sound as faded, tears and sweat staining my cheeks.

I curled up into a ball, my head resting on my knees, trying to catch my breath.

Who am I?

Finding no answers, I eventually steadied my nerves, getting up, showering and changing. I looked up at the clock on the wall, wincing as I realized that I was running late for class.

Great, now I’m going to miss breakfast, and I'm starving.

I put on my uniform jacket, lamenting silently my lack of time to fill my empty stomach. As I left my dorm, however, my eye caught something sitting on the floor right outside my door. It was a small plate with a peeled apple and a note with Alaira’s name on it.

I thought Alaira was supposed to be loner… This has to be a trap, right?

It had been several weeks since I woke up in this strange world. It couldn’t be more obvious that she didn’t have any true friends or allies. No one who would care enough to send breakfast, definitely.

Maybe it’s from whoever has been following me around?

Since the second day, I had noticed a shadowy presence following me at a distance. Whoever it was, they never attempted to try to speak to me, or interfere with me in ay way. But it was always nearby, always watching.

So now they’ve upgraded to leaving me food?

I picked up the apple, looking around, and scanned it with the personal computer on my wrist, which showed no drugs or other abnormalities.

Well… I am hungry, which outweighs the possible grim outcome of death by poison, I suppose.

Shrugging mentally, I took a bite. The taste was sweet. I sighed with satisfaction and took another bite. As I chewed, a thought occurred to me, confusing me all the more.

How did they know I like peeled apples?

As far as I could remember, Alaira had never liked apples. It was considered an ancient fruit, more of an oddity than a dietary staple. She had tried it once or twice and hadn’t been impressed.

But I liked it…

I liked apples a lot… but only peeled ones. It was something almost instinctive I had felt whenever I thought about the fruit. But… I hadn’t eaten any apples since I woke up as Alaira.

So how do they know? Does this sci fi story come with mind readers?

I took another bite, feeling confused.

_________________________

“Why the hatred for the apple peel?”

The young man seemed genuinely curious from his tone of voice as he handed me a freshly peeled fruit.

I shrugged, taking a bite. “You try living as a princess in a lower fantasy realm. I bit into a poisoned apple once and the inside was glowing green.” I shuddered. “Ever since then I can’t stand to bite into an apple with the peel still on.”

The man had already started peeling another fruit, and paused in his actions. “Did the prince have to kiss you to break the spell?”

“Why, are you jealous?” I grinned.

“N-no… I’m just asking.” His head hung down, as he seemed to stare intently into the apple in his hands.

I patted his head. “I took an antidote ahead of time. Didn’t fall asleep. Instead, I beat the crap out of the witch.”

He laughed at that. “Didn’t you get in trouble for changing things?”

“Of course. But it was so worth it.”

_________________________

I stared down at the partially eaten fruit in my hands, feeling overwhelmed at the memories surging through my mind.

I keep seeing these memories, but I can’t connect them to anything. What are these lower realms? Is that what I’m in right now? Who is this person I keep seeing?

I felt incomplete, a large part of my memories, my emotions, were missing. What was worse, I wasn’t even sure what was gone, what I should be sad about losing.

I grabbed my bag and walked out the door.

“Alaira.” A voice called out, stopping me in my tracks. Turning, I sighed with odd sense of disappointment at the person standing before me.

Who was I expecting?

I forced a grin and made a rude gesture. “Hey Chris, how awful to see you this morning! Terrible of you to stop by.” I checked my personal communicator and shrugged. “Fortunately for me, I’m running late and have no time for your nonsense. So we’ll save your annoying ranting and raving for a later date, okay?”

He ignored my words, stepping closer with an excited look. “Have you heard the news?”

“Even if I say yes, you’re still going to tell me, right?”

“Don’t pretend, it’s not fooling anyone!” He glared at me. “You’ve been hoping to trap me as your Connector since the match results came back!”

I sighed. “At this point, it’s not even funny anymore. What can I say that will possibly convince you that that is NOT the case?”

“You won’t be able to stop my dreams, Alaira! Next time I’m going to win!”

“Yes, you’re the absolute greatest.” I rolled my eyes. “I cry myself to sleep each night over the fact that we aren’t partners, and I will never feel anything in this life but anguish and despair… now can I go to class?”

He looked ever angrier at my sarcasm. “Just wait until the next match. You’ll see that I’m good enough to be a Guardian. Because I’ve got…”

“Okay, buddy. Sounds good.” I interrupted, walking away.

“Wait, you didn’t finish listening…”

“Yep. See you next match.”

I left him behind, ignoring his rage induced sputtering.

Met an idiot first thing... but hey, at least I'm not hungry anymore!

_________________________

A few days later, the next round of mock Mech battles began.

As the winner of the prior fight, I was slated to go first, completing the first four battles with relative ease. As the day wore on, however, the drain on my body from using the Mech was increasing exponentially. Fortunately I was on my last scheduled fight of the day… even if this was the hardest so far.

A light headache was throbbing at my temples as I scanned the field around me. The arena stood as a large stadium, featuring a high-class barrier shield that extended up to twenty stories in the air. Hundreds of seats surrounded the fighting field, all equipped with holo screens that played the footage taken by the referee bots floating around the fight.

The excited screams from the audience were slightly muffled by the protective screen, and the remaining noise was filtered out as I focused on the fight ahead of me.

My opponent this time was a third year A level Guardian, an experienced fighter, who fought along side a D level Connector. Alaira had faced off with them multiple times in the past, and she had always struggled to win despite the difference in strength of abilities.

There was no denying the advantage that a Connector brought to the fight.

I grinned, ignoring the draining sensation of operating my Mech, the headache and weakness that quickly came on each time I made the Connection. The pain was severe, like a knife stabbing through my eye, but I forced myself to ignore it. As I fought, I couldn’t help but feel bitter.

It’s not like I haven’t been looking for a Connector.

Each day I went to the Matching Center. Each day I endured the laughter, the stares, the whispers and pointing. Each day I was faced with the same words: “No match available.”

Do I need to come up with a different plan? But I can’t fight the Hive without a Mech, and I can’t operate a Mech without a Connector… unless I want to slowly destroy my mind like Alaira did.

I sighed, not seeing any easy answers, and focused on the fight ahead of me. Although I had Alaira’s memories, and operating the Mech came as almost second nature with my S level alpha waves, I had run into an unexpected obstacle:

Alaira’s weapon of choice had been dual wielding energy pistols.

What a waste of the cool looking sword on my back. My physical body was suspended in the Connection chamber, a shielded globe filled with suspension gel. Although the Mech was controlled through alpha brain waves and the Connection, the closer I was to the Mech, the easier that control was. Thus the space for the Guardian was always in the center of the Mech.

I wore helmeted mask monitoring my vitals such as oxygen saturation and heart rate, adjusting the air composition and breath volume to accommodate my body’s stress reaction during battle. A skintight silver suit covered me, interacting with the gel to provide me physical feedback that the Mech would feel. My vision was shared with my Mech’s video system; I looked down and saw the pistols resting in the robotic hands. It was strange, I was obviously inside the robot, but the sensation of the ground beneath my feet, the guns in my hands, was all too real.

The physical sensation made it easier to fight, but it had an obvious drawback, which was that I felt any blows that my Mech sustained. During the fight I was the Mech, and it was a part of me. I tightened my grip around the energy weapons, feeling tired.

Something felt off about using these as my weapons.

I still had no memories about my past, but as I had practiced with the Mech these past few weeks, I had noticed a familiarity with fighting and battles, even more than what Alaira had in my memories after a lifetime of training at home with her father and then in the academy.

Am I some kind of warrior or something?

It didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t explain the comfortable sensation of judging my opponent and fighting with them. But that comfort and familiarity did not extend to dual wielding pistols.

I just wasn’t a great shot.

We had already been fighting for ten minutes. My headache had worsened and I felt tired, but I had only managed to score a few hits on non-vital areas. The only benefit was that the opposing Mech had only been able to strike me twice with the energy-enhanced spear he carried.

“You seem a little off today, Alaira, everything all right?” My opponent’s voice came over his speaker, shocking me. It was technically considered bad etiquette to talk during battle, but it was hard to fault him, as he seemed genuinely concerned about my less than ideal fighting state.

I shook my head, raising my pistols once more. “I’m fine, let’s continue.”

I rushed forward, taking advantage of my superior speed and maneuverability to get closer, trying to make it harder to miss my shots. The opposing Mech jumped backwards, but it was too late. Its hand was within my grasp. Turning and using its significant weight to my advantage, I flipped the robot over my own’s shoulder put the barrel of my gun against the metal head.

My final shot through its temple destroyed the key mechanisms within it, rendering it immobile and finishing the fight.

That was too close… I’ve been practicing with the pistols since I’ve woken up in this strange world, and seen no improvement… what am I doing wrong?

As the referee called out my victory, I backed away, letting out a sigh of relief. It had been a harder fight than it should have been, but at least it was over.

I need a nap.

“I WANT TO CHALLENGE ALAIRA!”

An extremely annoying voice spoke up, causing my already bad headache to worsen.

... Why me?

I turned towards the speaker. “Chris. Didn’t we agree that we were going to avoid each other? … Or was that just my wishful thinking?”

His all white Mech landed in front of my own, holding a large, oversized sword. He swung it back and forth, and although I couldn’t see his facial expressions, the smug tone of his voice through the Mech’s speakers were enough to make me wish I could make my Mech roll its eyes.

“Surely the legendary S level Guardian Alaira isn’t SCARED to fight with a mere D level Guardian such as myself, right?”

“Guardian Chris, please retract your challenge. Guardian Alaira has already finished five consecutive mock battles, and needs time to recover.” The instructor’s face was stern on the holographic screens around us, leaving no room for disagreement.

Chris laughed mockingly. “Oh, I thought she said that even with all the advantages and luck she could still beat me? I guess it was just empty arrogance.” His Mech shook its head. “With such a weak personality, no wonder you can’t find a Connector to match you. Who would want to endure such a woman?”

“…”

CLANG!

My Mech’s foot connected with the other’s crotch, and I heard a high-pitched squeal of pain. Ha, shared sensation with the Mech comes in handy sometimes.

“How dare you?!” His pained shout made me grin.

“Less talking, more fighting. I accept your challenge, Chris.” I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the feeling of my head splitting apart, as well as the light ringing in my ears. I had reached the limit of how long I could safely operate the Mech.

But the sound of his smug satisfaction infuriated me.

Every night, I was haunted by nightmares. Sometimes it was fragments of memories of unfamiliar worlds and people. Most nights, however, I dreamt of Alaira’s end. Alone, broken, terrified, a horrific death for a lonely girl.

And this idiot had watched it happen.

It might not be smart, but I just really want to beat him up. I took a stance, brandishing the pistols, feeling off kilter once more at the light weight in both of my hands.

In the meantime Chris had recovered from his inconvenience, and had resumed his taunting. “Oh, yeah, you ran away so fast the other day, I never got to share with you the good news:” He paused for what I assumed was dramatic effect. “I matched with a Connector earlier last week.”

He obviously meant this to be a huge blow to me, but Alaira’s memories had already warned me this would happen. A beautiful young woman, one of the many who competed for Chis’s affection. This one is a princess… Ilene, I think?

Unbidden, my mind was filled with the thought of the serious, quiet Prince William. I hadn’t seen him since that first day in front of the matching center. So he would be her brother?

I felt a moment of concern at his absence, and then confused, I shook my head, dismissing the thought. I had no reason to see him. Why would I worry about a stranger? Shrugging, I waved casually to Chris’s Mech.

“I welcome the princess to the battle. Sorry you’re on the losing team!”

“…”

There was a moment of shocked silence. “You already know?!”

I winced at Chris’s ear piercing shriek. “Know and don’t care.”

“But… I have a Connector.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“So I won’t be YOUR Connector!”

I sighed. “We’ve long established that. Look, buddy, it’s been a long day and I’m really tired, are you gonna keep talking about your boring personal life, or are we gonna try to crush each other with massive robots?”

“... Fine then! Keep pretending you don’t care!” Chris seemed really upset at not eliciting a bigger reaction from me, but fortunately turned his attention to the battle as well.

As the hologram around us signaled the start to the fight, he raised his sword and moved towards me, but I had already moved behind him.

BAM!

A shot hit his shoulder, blowing large metallic pieces into the air. I frowned, frustrated. I was faster and stronger than him, but my shots just weren’t going where I wanted them to.

Chris ‘s Mech turned around to face, me, the oversized sword’s momentum swaying the robot from side to side. His movement accuracy and speed had tripled from our last encounter. Clearly, he and his Connector were well matched, well over the required 50%.

But I was still faster.

I ducked under his blow, aiming upwards at his elbow and firing another couple shots.

BAM! BAM!

I missed. Cursing, I recovered, dodging another blow as I increased the distance between us.

Stupid guns.

_________________________

A young man threw up his hands, clearly frustrated.

“Why are you so stubborn? Every single world you insist on using a sword. We were in a laser battle for goodness sake!”

“Swords are more dependable.”

“Oh come on…”

“Plus I’m a terrible shot.”

He sighed. “Fine. But what if one day you don’t have me watching your back?”

“It will be fine.” I grinned. “Don’t you love saying that everything is according to fate? Maybe a sword is just mine?”

“... It doesn’t work like that.”

_________________________

A brief memory flashed in my mind, confusing me.

During my distraction, Chris’s Mech tried to strike again. With no time to dodge, I raised my gun, blocking the blow with the barrel. The weapon cracked under the edge of the sword. I pushed him back, relying on my superior strength and jumped backwards, throwing away the broken weapon in my hand. Glancing down at the remaining gun I had, I felt a warm liquid drip from my nose. It was bleeding, a sign of the increasing strain of the Connection.

I was breaking down. I wouldn't last the rest of the fight.

I had to surrender.

Screw that!

I holstered my remaining gun, drawing the large sword on my Mech’s back. As I held it in front of me, I suddenly felt at home, completely comfortable, as if I had held a sword many times before. I stared at Chris’s Mech, feeling excited.

Now, this feels like a fight!

I raced forward, swinging my sword in a horizontal strike.

_________________________

I was standing in a group of zombies, my sword cutting through the neck of the closest monster.

_________________________

Chris dodged, stumbling backwards. I used the momentum of my first swing to smoothly transition into a downward slash.

_________________________

I was an elf, dancing in the forest, my blade striking down shadowy creatures in the midst of a large battle.

_________________________

THUD!

A robotic hand fell to the ground as I cut it off at the wrist. Chris let out a moan of pain, cut short as I controlled my Mech to kick him in the face, knocking him on his back.

_________________________

I was a vampire, holding a sword made of darkness, fighting humans with elegance and grace.

_________________________

Chris tried to stand up but my foot on his chest prevented the movement. I rested the tip of my sword at his Mech’s throat.

“Do you surrender?”

_________________________

“Surrender?” I smiled as I spoke, staring down at the man on the ground. I couldn’t see his face clearly except for his dark blue eyes, which stared at me without a hint of embarrassment despite his defeated position.

“I surrender.” His voice was warm. “You’re pretty amazing with a sword.”

“After all the realms I’ve fought through? I would have to be.” I shook my head. “Don’t you use swords when you travel?”

“I’m not permitted to travel anymore.” He grinned. “I keep refusing to play my role.”

_________________________

I blinked, focusing on the partially destroyed Mech in front of me. Not hearing his answer, I dug the tip into his neck slightly, only stopping when he let out a groan.

“Do. You. Surrender?”

“I surrender.” His answer sounded like it was forced through gritted teeth.

I could hear muted cheers from the crowd behind the shield as the holographic screens around us displayed my name as the victor.

“Good.” I moved my sword and turned away. My body felt drained, every muscle screaming in pain. I tasted blood in my mouth, my head hurting worse with each passing second.

“I’LL BEAT YOU ONE DAY!” Chris called out behind me. “I’LL GET STRONGER, AND I’LL SHOW YOU!”

“Tell it to someone who cares.” I didn’t turn around, and left the arena.

At least I won. Now if my head would just stop hurting...

As soon as I reached the docking area, my legs crumpled beneath me, and my world faded into darkness.

_________________________

Where am I?

I woke up in a white room, on a plain, clean bed, wearing a hospital gown.

This isn’t a different world, is it?

I carefully searched my memories, but didn’t feel anything different. I sighed, realizing I must be in the school infirmary. In my memories of her life, Alaira had helped bring her fellow students there in the past, but had never stayed to be examined. Deep down she had known that without a Connector she was breaking down, and was afraid the school would prevent her from fighting.

It might have saved her life if she had.

I sat up, rubbing my forehead tiredly. It was still throbbing.

“Are you okay?” A soft voice spoke up, startling me.

I jumped, looking to the chair beside my bed, where a dark haired young man sat. His dark blue eyes studied me carefully, his face expressionless.

“…Prince William?”

“…” After a long silence, he nodded slowly.

“What are you doing here?”

He stared down at the floor silently, and just when I thought he might not respond, he reached out, handing me a peeled apple.

I took it, feeling dazed. “Umm… thanks.” I took a bite, and after swallowing, asked the question on my mind. “Were you the one leaving food outside my dorm room then?”

“…hmm.” His gaze never left the ground.

What the heck kind of answer is “hmm”?!!

“How did you know I like peeled apples?”

“…” A look of genuine confusion crossed his face, but quickly disappeared as he shrugged silently.

“Okay. Well. Thanks.” I pushed myself up, trying to swing my legs to the side of the bed.

He stood up, his face concerned. “Wait. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, my head hurts, but otherwise I feel great.”

“…You should rest.” He frowned as he looked me over.

“It’s just strain from a prolonged connection.” I sighed. “I’m used to it.”

“You haven’t matched?” He seemed mixed, as if happy and disappointed at the same time.

“Nope. Not for lack of trying though. ” I looked him over. “Are you a Connector? Have you matched yet?”

“I…” A look of agony distorted his features.

“He can’t. He’s broken.”

A young woman stood at the door of the infirmary, a mocking smile on her face.

I studied the newcomer carefully. She had long black curls framing a heart shaped face, and large blue eyes that looked down on me with pride. Given the similarities in features to Prince William next to me, it wasn’t difficult to figure out her identity.

“I’m assuming you’re Princess Ilene?”

She ignored my words, walking closer to her brother, whose face had become expressionless once again.

“He can’t Connect. His mental barrier is too strong.” She stopped a few feet away from him and raised her hand, knocking on what looked to be empty air. It made a solid noise, her hand stopping at the same invisible point. “He can’t put it down even if he wants to.”

I thought back to the first time I met him, remembering people being pushed aside.

“A useless Connector who can’t make the connection. A Guardian who can’t match. Two failures together.” She smiled at me. “Sorry I took away your only possible chance at matching Chris, but you needed to see the reality of the situation. He’s a better Guardian than you.”

“…Remind me again who ended up flat on their back at the end of the last fight?”

Her eyes narrowed in annoyance at my comeback. “At least he will be around a long time to help fight the Hive. You, on the other hand.” Ilene pointed at her head and turned her finger in a circle. “You have no future. But on the bright side, at least my useless brother can keep you company while your mind slowly breaks apart.”

BAM

William stood up, angry, and with the loud sound of an impact, Ilene was pushed by an invisible barrier out of the room. Her face enraged, she slammed her fists against it while her mouth made motions as if she was shouting. I stared at her, confused as to why I couldn’t hear her.

“…I sealed her out of the barrier.” William whispered. “Her voice can't make it through either.”

“Oh.” I nodded with satisfaction, watching her shout silently outside the doorway. “Thanks.”

“I can expand the barrier… but she’s right… I can’t drop it.” His eyes dropped down to the floor again. “I can’t Connect… I can’t help Guardians… useless…” His voice slowly dropped in volume, until it was barely a whisper.

“Well, you’re helping me out right now, and I’m a Guardian. So I’d say you’re a pretty useful guy.” I gave him a thumbs up. “I know that not hearing her is already making my day better.”

He stared at me silently for a few moments. “… Are you hungry?”

“Kind of. Why? Do you have more apples or something?”

William shook his head. “No… cake.”

“Please tell me you are serious.”

He solemnly set a container with a piece of cake on the table next to me, along with a napkin and utensils.

I stared at it in shock, motionless.

“… Do you not like it?” His nervous tone broke me out of my stupor. I quickly reached out and held the container close, grabbing the fork and taking a bite.

“Oh, this is amazing… totally worth passing out after my fight.” I took a few more bites, noting him relaxing visibly as I showed my enjoyment. “…Why are you being so nice to me, anyways?”

“Why?” William blinked, looking shocked as if he hadn’t considered it before.

“Yeah. As far as I can tell, I haven’t met you outside of running into you in the hallway once. Why go out of your way to leave me food and sit by me in the infirmary?”

He finally looked up, his dark blue eyes staring into my own. “…I’m not sure. “ He shrugged. “Whenever I see you, I feel happy. I want to help you.”

I leaned back against the backboard of the infirmary bed. “Well… I guess I could always use a friend.”

“Friends?” A trace of a smile crossed his face, before it disappeared into expressionless once more. “Really?”

“Yeah. So let me introduce myself officially, Prince William.” I started to reach out a hand to shake, but remembering his barrier, I pulled it back. “I’m Alaira. Level S Guardian but unable to match, and your new friend.”

He stared at my hand with a look of regret before looking back up. “I’m a Level S Connector… but can’t connect. I’m your new friend… “ He hesitated. “Can you call me a nickname instead?”

“Sure.”

“Then call me… Liam.”

_________________________

“Are you lost?” I woke up in a strange world to the sound of an unfamiliar voice, laying on my back, confused.

“Seems a good description for my current situation.” I stared into a pair of dark blue eyes, smiling despite the dizziness. “Nice to meet you, Stranger.”

He grinned, reaching out a hand to help me up. “Call me Liam.”

“Nice to meet you, Liam.”

_________________________

I blinked away the memory, smiling at the timid young man in front of me. “Nice to meet you… Liam.”

[ikeromantic]

Rhythm in Kind

A Nobunaga Oda fanfic, approx. 2700 words of fluffiness, featuring a bellydancing MC. Inspired by a conversation with @scruffymctee ^_^

It was mid-afternoon and Nobunaga was having trouble focusing. He’d taken Hideyoshi for a walk around the castle to calm his restless spirit.

Hideyoshi was trying to engage him in a discussion on current patrols. He was doing his best to keep the conversation alive, despite getting only the occasional nod or grunt in response. His voice fell into rhythm with his footsteps as they walked Azuchi castle.

Nobunaga let the words wash over him as his mind wandered. It wasn’t like him to be so distracted, but for the last several weeks his mind was not on his goals. His thoughts insisted on drifting toward the odd, brazen woman that saved his life. She was beautiful. Unpredictable. And breath-takingly honest.

“My lord?” Hideyoshi was frowning at him.

“Yes?” There was no way he would admit he’d missed the question entirely. He stopped and turned to face Hideyoshi. This turned out to be a mistake.

The door behind Hideyoshi was open to the room beyond it. Warm sunlight spilled through the windows, bathing the room’s sole occupant in a golden glow. It was her - the girl that claimed she was from the future. And she was . . .

Hideyoshi turned to see what caught his lord’s eye. He let out a strangled sound as if his breath couldn’t decide whether to move in or out. His mouth hung open and his body froze in place.

Nobunaga barely noticed his friend. His attention was eaten entire by the girl. His little fireball. She’d tied her kimono strangely, the obi sitting at her hip with a large bow at the side. Her arms were held at a low angle, eyes closed, and her hips were moving, up - down, a shiver, then her chest rose and a serpentine wave rolled down her belly.

The girl didn’t notice them. She was humming something, a strange melody. And she was moving to it, flowing across the room with delicate steps.

This was some sort of magic. Nobunaga was certain of that. A human body - even a woman’s - didn’t move like that. Flowing, graceful, with little staccato gestures layered atop the sinuous motions. It lit a fire in him, one that spread from his chest to his loins. A heat more intense than the fires of Honno-ji had been the night he almost died.

“She . . . is . . . possessed,” Hideyoshi stuttered. His face was bright red.

Quite suddenly, Nobunaga didn’t want his friend there. Didn’t want him to see the girl. To be . . . affected by her. He wanted this for himself. His desire grew in leaps and bounds.

Her legs flashed through the gap in her kimono. Thigh and calf tense as she rose and then with languorous sensuality, rolled her hips.

“You may go.” Nobunaga dismissed Hideyoshi.

“My lord, you can’t be alone with -”

“Go!”

Nobunaga’s raised voice broke the moment. The girl’s eyes flew open and her cheeks flushed a deep red. “Y-you!” She sounded half angry, half distressed. “You spied on me!”

Hideyoshi looked at his lord for a heartbeat. His body was tense as a bowstring, jaw set in firm, harsh lines. He was wise enough not to say anything as he turned on his heel and left.

Nobunaga waited for his steps to fade. His eyes were on the girl as if there was nothing else in this world to see. In that moment, there wasn’t.

She stood there, back straight, fists balled at her hips. Staring defiance at him despite her embarrassment. There was so much fire in her. Was it any wonder, Nobunaga thought, that he felt the heat?

“Why are you staring at me? What do you want?” She made the words an attack. Clipped and short.

He entered the room, slid the door shut behind him.

“I already finished my work today!”

Nobunaga smiled.

“Are you going to say something or just creep on me?”

“Please. Continue.” He gestured toward her.

Her cheeks went an even deeper shade of red. “I - No! I can’t . . . not with you - you watching!” She crossed her arms.

“You would deny me?” Nobunaga raised one eyebrow. There were few people willing to say no to him in Azuchi. Fewer that were women. Perhaps, just this one. “Most would be pleased with my regard.”

“I am not most.” If she could have struck him dead with a look, he’d have died in that moment.

Nobunaga nodded. “I know.”

For a long moment, neither of them said anything. She waited to see if he would back down and he wanted to see if she would give in. Finally, she sighed.

“Look. I don’t dance in front of people, ok? This is just . . . something I enjoy. For myself. I’m not some kind of professional. I can’t entertain you.”

He considered her words. Did she think he saw her as a performer? How interesting. And that was a dance of some kind. “I have never seen dance like that. What is it called? How did you come to learn it?”

His questions seemed to please her. Some of the tension bled from her shoulders. “It’s called bellydance. Though-” she laughed, “there are a lot of different kinds of dance that people call bellydancing so this is just my version.”

“And how did you come to learn it? Is it very common in Japan?”

She shook her head. “Not really. I have a dear friend that bellydances. She is much better than I am at it. She taught me some. Some I just . . . try to copy what the girls in the videos do. I’d show you what real bellydancing looks like if my phone worked here.”

“I only want to see you dance.” Nobunaga’s lips twitched up in a small smile. “I do not know this kind of dance, but I think you are very good. You should be proud of yourself.”

Something in her gaze softened at his praise. A crack in her fiery armor. “I - no, you only say that because you haven’t seen anyone else.”

“I say it because you are beautiful and talented. Now. Will you dance for me?”

He could see she was thinking it over. Reluctance warred with something else in her expression - an emotion he couldn’t pin down. Nobunaga wanted to take her by the chin and run his thumb down the line of her jaw. To meet her gaze and pierce the wall she’d put up between them since that first night at Honno-ji.

“If - and only if! I agree to dance for you, I’d have some . . . requirements.”

Nobunaga gestured for her to continue.

“I need some music to dance to. And noone else can watch. I don’t want an audience. People here already look at me strangely. And it can only be one time. Just once. I don’t want to have to dance for you whenever.” She gave him a meaningful stare.

“Done.” He didn’t want to agree to that last requirement, but perhaps she could be persuaded to change her mind later. Nobunaga was a very persuasive man.

She watched him with some suspicion but agreed to perform for him. After some discussion, they set the date for three nights hence. They would meet in his tenshu. The musicians would meet with her ahead of time so she could explain what she needed - a process she was clearly nervous about.She insisted she was no musician herself, but that she could hum the melody and give them the beat - if this was enough. Nobunaga was certain it would be. After some debate, she was satisfied - or at least, less nervous.

Then she left and Nobunaga set about planning. Azuchi had several accomplished musicians. Players of fue, drum, and koto. Even his warlords could play, as music was an important part of their education. Nobunaga just had to find a musician he wouldn’t mind sharing his little fireball with while she danced . . .

The day of the performance arrived and Nobunaga still hadn’t decided on a musician. The idea of anyone else seeing her dance displeased him. That beauty was for his eyes only, and he couldn’t bear the thought of sharing it. He’d considered and tossed aside several solutions. A screen the musician would stay behind. Putting them outside the room. Blindfolds.

Every option had a fatal flaw. The girl would know the depth of his possessiveness. His . . . interest. And, of course, there was no fool-proof way to keep someone present from peeking. So even if he were willing to reveal his own weakness where she was concerned, it would be a pointless gesture.

In the end, Nobunaga realized there was only one solution. One he should have decided the moment he came upon her dancing.

******

The chatelaine arrived in Nobunaga’s tenshu at the agreed upon time. She wore an oversized haori, hiding her clothes under the heavy silk. She was barefoot, her nails painted red, and her skin was dusted with gold, glittering in the lamplight.

“You came.” Nobunaga smiled. He’d known she would, yet it was a pleasure to see she did not continue to resist him. At least not in this.

“I said I would.” She stopped just inside the door and looked around. “Where are the musicians? I need at least a drummer . . .”

He nodded. “And you will have a drummer.” He took out a shimedaiko from one of his shelves. Until today, he hadn’t touched the drum in years. He preferred to listen to others play - those with genuine skill - but today, he would have to do.

The girl’s eyebrows rose. “You?”

Nobunaga sat and placed the drum into position. “Give me the beat and I will play.” Her skepticism only made him more determined.

She shrugged. “Alright. The rhythms are split into two sounds. A deeper Dom and a lighter Tak. This one should go . . . dom-dom tak-a-tak dom tak-a-tak.” She mimicked playing with her fingers against her thigh.

It didn’t seem a hard rhythm to play though it took him a moment to follow. Nobunaga played it for her and after a few moments she nodded.

“Ok, I can dance that.” She took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. “Just try not to speed up ok?”

“I will.” Nobunaga watched as she closed her eyes, clearly remembering some other place and time. He felt a little jealous that in her world, she must have danced like this many times for all sorts of people. Her friends. Perhaps a lover. Was that what she remembered? He might have asked, but she chose this moment to shed the haori and when she did, he found himself unable to make any sound at all.

Beneath the heavy silk of the haori, she wore a kimono that she’d . . . altered. It fit tight through her chest and flared at the hips. The sides were open to reveal the smooth skin of her legs. And she wore some tasselled scarf around her hip that swayed provocatively even before she began to dance.

Nobunaga took a sharp breath as her hips lifted. Then she was moving, her legs flashing, hips swaying. Her chest rose and dipped to the rhythm he played. Tremulous waves rolled from her chest to hip, and up again.

His heart was racing and his face felt hot. It was all he could manage to continue to play the beat she’d provided. There was a connection between them in this - a bond. He didn’t want to break this spell they wove between her body and the music of his hands.

She opened her eyes and for a moment, their gazes met. Her lips were parted in a sensual breath, her cheeks were pink, and in her eyes there was a languorous heat. Her hips rolled forward and dropped, then she turned and he couldn’t see her face. Only the sinuous roll of her hips as they shook, the tassels swaying.

Nobunaga could not have looked away if his life depended on it. He wanted her dance to go on forever. And he wanted to put the drum down and pull her into his lap. Kiss her gold-dusted skin from those soft pink lips to her innermost places . . .

His thoughts colored the rhythm of the drums. Though he kept the general beat she’d asked of him, he found his hands slowing, sliding over the taught drum-skin as they would caress her flesh. It turned the sound to a sensual one. Less staccato and more glide.

Her body followed the changes, moving in slow, tense circles. She danced around Nobunaga, letting the edges of her skirt brush against him. Every touch sent a shock of need through him, a desire he’d never felt for any other woman.

The air between them was hot, crackling with shared passion. Nobunaga felt he would burst if it went on, but he couldn’t bear to stop. The fires in his heart flowed to every limb. He burned for his fireball. He ached.

She knew the effect she had on him. Her lips were turned up in a small, pleased smile. Teasing, she shimmied her chest, bending, dipping just out of his reach. Or so she thought.

Nobunaga could resist her no longer. He stopped playing and reached for her. His delicious little fireball. She squealed as his fingers curled around her waist.

“Wicked girl,” he said hoarsely, barely trusting himself to speak. He wanted to kiss her.

“T-this wasn’t part of the deal,” she gasped.

“Do you always look so delicious when you dance? Or only when you dance for me?” Nobunaga’s fingers trailed down her shoulder. The thin fabric did nothing to disguise the heat of her skin beneath.

The girl squirmed as if she would like to escape, but only wound up with an arm over his shoulder, and a leg around his waist. “You! What? I - I don’t look . . . “ Her pleasure at the compliment warred with her anger at being manhandled.

Nobunaga simply held her loosely, enjoying the way she moved against him. “I cannot decide if you tease me intentionally and I should be wary of you, or if you are simply this adorable.” He stroked her arm, though he wanted to do so much more. He knew she would resist him, run from him, if he did. Patience was the way to make this little fireball his own. Force would only extinguish her flames.

Her lips opened and closed as if she’d been about to say something, then changed her mind.

“When we are alone, you can say whatever you will to me,” he told her.

“Well. Well I don’t intend to be alone with you! Lecher!” She pushed against his chest and he reluctantly let her go.

Nobunaga watched her as she straightened her clothes and shrugged the haori back on.

She glared at him.

“Thank you for dancing for me. I will count the days until your next performance.” He would have her here every night, he thought.

“No. No. This was a one-time deal. Besides, I told you! I’m not an entertainer! I dance because . . . because it reminds me of home. Of happy times. It makes me feel beautiful and strong and . . .” She looked down, unwilling to meet his gaze.

Nobunaga stood. He put his finger under her chin and lifted her head to face him. “You are always beautiful and strong.”

Her eyes were wet with tears she refused to shed. He hadn’t realized she missed her home so very much.

“I cannot-” He paused. Nobunaga hated admitting he couldn’t do something. “I cannot give you back your home. But I will do all in my power to see you safe and happy, here.”

She flung her arms around him and pressed her face to his chest. He could feel her tears soaking the cloth of his kimono. Though comforting was not his best skill, Nobunaga wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back as she cried.

“I . . . I miss my friends. My m-mom,” she wept.

Nobunaga kissed the top of her head lightly. “I would be a friend to you. If you let me.”

She took a shuddering breath and looked up at him. “I - I will. Under all that scariness, you aren’t so bad.”

“Scariness?”

The girl laughed softly. “Yep. And . . . I guess Hideyoshi can be my Sengoku mom. He’s not really scary either.”

Nounaga wiped her cheek with his thumb, removing a tear drop before it could fall. “He mothers us all.” This earned him a brighter smile.

She lifted up on the tips of her toes and brushed a light kiss across his lips. “Thank you.” Then she was gone. Out the door and down the steps.

Nobunaga still felt the warmth of her against his chest. And the petal-soft touch of her lips.

[bbrandy2002]

Fool’s Rush In

Chapter 20

Book: TRR

Pairing: Liam x Riley

Warnings: Language and mentions of weird sexual stuff

**Thanks @burnsoslow​. for pre-reading and “The Army” girls for snippet reads.

-------------------

“An email from the Countess?” Ana questioned curiously, just before hitting the video attachment that came with it. Her plush lips soon curved into an enchanted grin when it became apparent who the subjects in the video were and precisely what they were doing together. “Looks like you’re about to get your hard-hitting royal news after all.”

Having finally retrieved his phone, Donnie situated himself upright in the bed and began playing the same email attachment as his lover. By the sounds of the grunts and groans coming from Ana’s phone, it was apparent to the ace-reporter what he was about to watch -- even if the occasional horse neighs were a little confusing. 

Within seconds of hitting play, the man’s jaw dropped wide open as he took in the content. 

“Holy shit, dude, Is that …?”

Ana's intrigued gaze tore from her phone screen and raised a brow at Donnie. “The King’s head guard dressed like a cowboy spanking Lucretia Nevrakis and licking another woman wearing a horse mask in a barn?” She shook her head. “Yes … and did you just call me ‘dude’?”

Ignoring her question, the couple resumed watching for a few more seconds, their facial expressions morphing from one of intrigue to utter disgust when finally Lucretia went full-frontal, nudity before the camera, then spreading wide for Bastien. “Oh, God! The hell?” Donnie grimaced as Ana slapped a hand over her mouth next to him and turned her head away. “I can’t watch this shit.” He lamented, quickly shutting his phone off.

After Ana followed suit and powered her cell off too, the pair sat in uncomfortable silence, simultaneously staring blankly at the same wall across from them, neither knowing what to say or think about what they had just watched together. Eventually, Ana lifted the satin sheet covering her waist up a little higher over her breast, a sense of sleaze and uncleanliness rooting itself and sprouting throughout her body. “I … I don’t know what part was worse: Mystery horsewoman with the guinea pig in Bastien or Lucretia’s wrinkled tramp-stamp with ‘Connie’ written inside what I can only assume is a dick.”

Donnie pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let’s be clear: there was no worse part. It was all worse! What the hell was that, anyway?”

The Trend editor just shook her head slowly with a glazed-over expression in her eyes; she finally spoke, “I … I think I’m going to go now.” 

“Ana! Don’t let this ruin our night.”

Her expression turned remorseful at his pleading; it had been a great night. “I’m sorry, Mr. Brine. I need to be alone.”

Neither one could look at the other. Ana slowly raised from the bed, gathering up her scattered clothes from the floor, tearing her bra from the doorknob, and then slipped on her heels. Why the Countess sent that video to them, she’d never know, but as she and Donnie exchanged a timid wave of goodbye, Ana left knowing she would never forgive Madeleine Amaranth for ruining the best night of sex she ever had.

This had to be some kind of bizarre and insane mistake.

And usually, Donnie Brine would call this “hard-hitting” new’s story into the station and scramble for the nearest camera to report on it. 

This was not something he would ever share with Cordonia, nor would the duo realize what they just watched was not the video the Countess intended to send them.

---------------------------------

A baby. My baby. I’m going to be a father. Those words were all Liam could think about as he rode through the glittery neon boulevards of Las Vegas toward the hospital. At that moment, the clear blue heavens above him could open wide and strike him down with a bolt of thunder, and he’d swear he wouldn’t have felt a thing. The King was riding a wave of euphoria unlike anything he’d ever experienced; Riley loved him and was carrying his baby. Nothing in all the world mattered anymore.

Before taking off, it was clear that Bastien likely escaped during the brother’s brawl in the front yard of Riley’s home and apparently took the keys to the Escalade they arrived in with him. The neighborly Burt, who moments prior had a shotgun aimed at the royal duo, reluctantly agreed to drive into the city to drop them off at the hospital on his way to pick up his daughter on the east side of town. He gruffly mentioned, "my girl never learned not to kick her customers in the frank 'n' beans and steal their shit," but neither of the brothers paid much attention.

Riding in the back of a truck while sitting on a spare tire through sunny downtown Vegas wasn’t the way Liam intended to get there, but he was dead set on finding his Pussycat by any means necessary. And, of course, Leo called shotgun but was nice enough to offer his little brother the opportunity to “ride bitch”.

Liam unequivocally declined.

During the bumpy 25-minute ride to Valley Hospital, Liam wondered how it was possible to get everything he ever wanted in such a brief span of time. Literally, his entire heart's desires were being gifted to him one by one; it was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. All he ever wanted was to find happiness, a chance to love, and have a genuine family of his own -- Not an arrangement that would guarantee him a life of misery at worst or of mediocrity at best. When he stepped foot in Sin City several weeks ago, depressed and hopeless at the prospects of his impending marriage to Madeleine, never did he expect life and fate would throw him a twist in the tale. All it took was a weekend bachelor party, an awkwardly shy woman mistaking him for her Tinder date, and a ton of hard booze shared between them to change the entire trajectory of his life. 

Once the rusted-out truck came to a stop at the emergency entrance, Liam wasted no time climbing over the truck’s wooden rail sides and rushing through the revolving doors. Leo’s heavy footsteps could be heard racing behind him. 

Liam’s heart pounded as the seconds -- which seemed liked hours -- ticked by. Not since he was a young boy waiting on his mother to return from her trip in Auvernal had he been more excited to reunite with someone.

Escorted through the long, winding hallways by hospital security to the radiology department, Liam was led inside a room, where his breath instantly hitched at catching his first glimpse of Riley in two-and-a-half days.

Sitting at the foot of an exam table, dressed in a hospital gown, slender legs bare and swinging freely over the side, Riley’s head snapped up at the sound of the door opening. “Liam,” she whispered, relief dripping from her eyes before sliding off the table.

“Pussycat,” he breathed, unable to contain his emotions as she nearly sprinted the short distance between them and into his waiting arms. “I have missed you terribly, Love.”

Riley held onto him tightly, afraid to let go. “I’m so sorry, Liam. I’m so very sorry,” her strangled voice choked out. “I never should have listened to Madeleine.”

“Shhhh. You have nothing to be sorry about,” Liam assured, his hand threading and kneading through her bountiful hair comfortingly. “I watched the security footage, and I saw the way Madeleine confronted you. The way she grabbed you, the way she -- hurt you.” Liam’s face tightened before he kissed her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Riley answered meekly, “Because she threatened to release an old video of me being intimate during my first marriage. She told me if I didn’t leave, that video would get out and that it would look bad on you, and the council would likely strip you of your crown.” She squeezed him tighter. “I had to protect you.”

Liam looked down at his wife affectionately, placing both hands on the sides of her face, his thumbs wiping away the tears desperately clinging like morning dew to her eyes. “Sweetheart, look at me. The only thing you ever have to protect when it comes to me is my heart. I have guards -- although not the best -- to protect me physically. I have tradition and a birthright to protect my name and crown and a military to safeguard my country. But you, Riley ... you, have the power to destroy me. You’re the keeper of my heart. The one who makes it beat. Without your love to keep it going … well, let’s just say I  don’t ever want to know what that kind of pain would feel like.” They kissed once more as if it were their first and last one ever. 

Plucking out a blade of grass from his hair, Riley smiled brightly for the first time in days. “I’ll guard it with everything in me, Liam. I swear it.”

“You bet your sweet ass you will,” Liam smirked mischievously, grabbing a handful of her backside, causing her to belt out a laugh. “Besides, you took a drunken vow at the Graceland Wedding Chapel before Leo, Mongo, and Pinquee Kittee to love me tender, love me true; that’s about as sacred and binding of an oath as it gets.”

Riley chuckled. “I did. And we all know how those three are the greatest examples of loving and committed relationships.  Even if Mongo did try to steal you away from me.”

“Which worries me considering he’s apparently our ‘son.’” Liam said it tongue-in-cheek, but it instantly reminded him of the other reason he was in such a rush to get to his queen. The playfulness in his mannerisms tapered off, and he became more serious. Liam leaned down, pressing a kiss to her forehead before working his way lower to the tip of her nose, her lips, and further to Riley’s chin. Slowly sinking to his knees, sliding his hands down her body until he had a firm grip on her slender hips, Liam rested his own forehead on Riley’s lower tummy.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?” Riley asked softly.

Liam placed a lingering kiss onto the thin covering over her flat tummy and glanced up into her gleaming eyes, both filled with ceaseless wonder and rapture. “How you can love someone so much that you’ve never met.”

Riley blinked away a tear, her tiny fingers tracing feather-like trails through his hair. “I know, and yet somehow I’ve been asking myself that question since I met you.”

Liam’s eyes crinkled with a tender smile. “Me too.”

--------------------------------- 

Pacing languidly up and down the hallway outside the room where Liam and Riley were reuniting, Leo let out an exasperated huff before halting his steps to take a quick gander through the long glass window of the door. Leo smiled at watching his brother and sister-in-law embrace and seemed thrilled to be with one another again. And the prospects of -- in his mind -- becoming an uncle “again” was cool and all, but he was bored as hell. Liam was adamant about the former prince staying put and giving him this time needed to speak with Riley in private. Usually, Leo would pay no attention to what Liam asked of him, but maybe, just maybe, it was time for him to get serious and act like the adult he was. Read the room. Respect boundaries. Know when to quit.

Or maybe not.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he headed back in the direction that he and Liam had been led from moments ago, looking for something to kill time.  Strolling leisurely past a set of double doors that displayed “Emergency” in big red letters next to them, a thought suddenly struck, and he took two gliding steps backward. Leo lifted a speculative brow; there was something in the inner machination of his chaotic brain that told him to follow his gut, head inside, and he wouldn’t be sorry. Never one to ignore an instinct or impulse, Leo punched the large metallic button on the wall, causing one of the automatic doors to swing open. 

After stepping inside, he meandered around for a minute, not exactly sure what he was looking for but hoping he might catch a glimpse of a hot nurse walking around without a top on who would want to do naughty things to him. Or perhaps, a naked lady doctor with a nice ass who would manhandle him out of the emergency department, but who he’d eventually win over with his impeccable good looks and god-like sex appeal. He could pretend to be her patient, and if he were lucky, she’d have a bad bedside manner.

Passing a row of draped exam rooms, Leo noticed one curtain pulled open and a young brunette, with part of her thong showing, crouched on the floor, peeking stealthily through the blue drapery that divided the area from the patient on the opposite side.

Curious now to what this woman was so interested in from the next exam room, Leo crossed his arm and stared downward at the floor, lightly whistling a tune, as two doctors walked past him. When they rounded a corner, Leo edged closer to the curtain to listen in.

“Mr. Walker, do you feel any pain when I do this?”

“Ow! What the fuck do you think?” 

At hearing Drake’s irascible voice, Leo’s ears instantly shot up. “No way,” Leo mumbled in astonishment to himself. “Walker is here?” The last he knew, Drake was supposed to have headed back to Cordonia the day before. He leaned in closer.

“You pinched my dick with a pair of damn tweezers. Yeah, you could say there’s a little pain there. Shit!”

Leo clamped a fist over his mouth to keep from busting out. Of all the places his naughty gut had ever led him to, knowing Drake was here and having transplanted dick problems may have been in his top 100 --Nothing would ever beat running with the bulls in Barcelona with Kanye and a very stoned Prince Charles. Leo smiled fondly at the memory before shaking his head and getting back to business.

“We’re just making sure you have feeling in your penis, Mr. Walker.”

“Then touch it with a fucking finger. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people? You wanna take a jackhammer to my knees next and see if they feel pain too?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Leo overheard the doctor tell Drake. “I expect you’re going to be fine, Mr. Walker. I didn’t see any major discoloration aside from a deep bluish hue to your testicles --” Leo snorted out loudly, causing the doctor to turn his head briefly to the disruption outside the curtain, before clearing his throat and continuing, “A hearty ejaculation or two should clear that right up. When was the last time you --”

“I’ll take care of it,” Drake hastily interrupted in a peevish tone, not wanting the physician to finish the question.

“Very well then. You should be fine. I’ll have the nurse get your discharge papers together, and you can be on your way … And, sir ... try to avoid getting ninja smacked by hookers in the future.”

“I’ll see what I can do …. asshole.” Drake snarled under his breath.

Feeling spunky, an impish grin crossed Leo’s lips as he strolled away undetected from Drake’s doctor leaving his room. “The Drakesters not going anywhere just yet,” he snickered, heading toward a cart with blue scrubs that he passed earlier. “Paging Dr.Wolfshitz to trauma room one. Stat.”

--------------------

Still peeking inconspicuously into the next exam room, Alyssa’s gaze followed Drake’s doctor and a nurse as they exited to work on his discharge. She remained motionless and quiet, barely breathing, fearful she’d get caught. Why she hadn’t looked away yet was beyond her. What was only supposed to be a little looksie at the man, to quench her gnawing intrigue over what was below his belt, had now left her drawn to him.

And while Alyssa saw for herself that everything was normal down there, -- humungous, actually -- it was the sadness and hurt in his deep chocolate eyes that kept the perky, petite woman in spy mode. 

“You can stop hiding behind that curtain, Riley’s friend,” Drake grumbled.

“Eep!” Alyssa yelped at being caught and took a quick step back, nearly toppling clumsily over her feet. He couldn’t have been talking about her. He wasn’t even looking in her direction when he said it. She had been so careful to remain hidden. But who the hell else could he be talking to? Alyssa held her breath, hoping another one of Riley’s friends was hidden on the other side.

“I saw your little beady eyes watching me. Might as well come out from behind that curtain and laugh in my face … you wouldn’t be the first one.”

There were no doubts he was talking about her now. Frozen in panic and unable to move, Alyssa’s cheeks burned, and her heart raced at getting called out. She wondered why she couldn’t have just left well enough alone. If curiosity killed the cat, Alyssa just spent all nine of her lives.

“That’s how it's gonna be, huh?” Drake called out to her again in a snarky tone, yet Alyssa didn’t dare move. “That’s fine. I know I’m just a big joke to everyone now.” He lowered his voice just slightly in self-pity. “Maybe in some ways, I always have been.”

That stung. Alyssa couldn’t discern whether he was actually upset with her about snooping on him -- he probably was -- or as the nagging feeling in her gut was telling her: he just needed a friend. Taking in a deep breath, she skittishly slipped the curtain aside, avoiding eye contact and forcing only a diffident smile. “I’m … I’m sorry.”

He smiled back. “I’m not. I’m Drake.”

---------

With Riley discovering she was pregnant, the E.R. attending opted to forego continuing with the ordered x-rays, believing she had nothing more than a bruised tailbone from her fall, anyway. With the pain she experienced since the encounter with Madeleine, the doctor wanted her to have an ultrasound to ensure everything was fine with the baby and date the pregnancy.

Riley laid back on the exam table, feet planted and legs separated. A technician gingerly moved around an ultrasound probe under the sheet draped from her waist to her bent up knees. Riley and Liam vigilantly watched the screen, anxiously waiting for the black-and-white image to produce the first glimpse of their baby.

Flashing a timid smile, Riley glanced up at Liam, who was hovering over her with his eyes transfixed on the screen. Noticing her unsure look, he leaned down and whispered, “Everything okay, love?”

She shook her head almost imperceptibly and answered meagerly with all seriousness, “What if … what if our baby has a beard, Liam?”

The bewildered king puckered his forehead, unsure what to say. “Wh--why would the baby have a beard, pussycat?” He squeezed her hand reassuringly before she yanked it away and covered her eyes in embarrassment.

She sucked in an unsteady breath, impervious to the prodding continuing below. “Because my Aunt Clem’s firstborn came out with a tiny goatee like that munchkin from the Lollipop Guild,” she began to whimper in increasing frustration, plucking at the tip of her chin.

Liam’s eyes widened as he blew out a huff of air. “Then … I suppose … we’ll stick him in a carnival or something.” He chuckled despite himself. “Or get him one of those top hats and a cane.”

“It was a girrrrrrl,” Riley cried out, covering her face again. “My dad’s family is from Kentucky … there’s gotta be inbreeding somewhere in the past. Our baby will come out looking like a mini Chewbacca, and it’s all my fault. Oh god! What have I done to our child?” She sniffled through her rant, “If you want a divorce, I’ll understand.”

Normally able to keep a stoic demeanor in any kind of situation, Liam just couldn’t do it in this instance. He turned his face away to prevent his wife from seeing the giant smirk on his face and to take a moment to regain his composure from wanting to bust out at her theatrics. He didn’t know what the hell he married into or why this woman he loved so much all of a sudden had forgotten she was adopted. 

It would be an interesting nine months.

Riley frowned with a simper, “You can’t even look at me. I’ll have to raise this little hairball all by myself. They’ll have us in the ‘weird things’ section of the National Enquirer next to Drake.”

She was correct: he couldn’t look at her -- she was being completely ridiculous. Liam’s shoulders bounced against his stifled laughter. “Dear God, Riley. You’ve got to stop.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

Unaware of the pair of eyes at the foot of the exam table, glaring between the couple in absolute confusion, the technician performing the scan cleared her throat to break the tension. “I hate to interrupt … this.” She nodded between the two.”But, here’s your baby.” She tapped her fingertip on the screen to a small oblong shape on the monitor with a tiny white form in the center. Riley lowered her hands from her teary face and whipped her head around at the same time Liam did, both wholly captivated. “It’s too early to tell if there is a … goatee. But this little flicker right here --” She pointed out. “-- Is where the heart is beating.”

Feeling his wife’s hand grip his tighter, Liam stood motionless for a moment as he watched the tech pause the screen to get measurements before sucking in his lips and dropping his head onto Riley’s shoulder. “Did you see the heart beating, my love? That’s our baby. Our perfect baby.”

Blinking back a tear of joy, Riley turned her head toward her shoulder to meet Liam’s adoring eyes. “Thank you for not covering your lizard.”

-----------------------------

Blushing from head to toe in guilt and embarrassment, Alyssa took a step inside of Drake’s room, letting the curtain fall back behind her. Twirling a section of hair around her finger, she continued to apologize, feeling it was the right thing to do. “Again, I’m really sorry, Mr. Walker --”

“I told you my name is Drake. Mr. Walker was my father’s name. Please, just call me Drake,” he insisted in a softer tone that took the awkward-feeling Alyssa by surprise.

“Drake,” she repeated as she picked at the cuticle of her thumbnail, “I shouldn’t have been watching you, and I know I invaded your privacy. I swear, in spite of what this looks like, I’m not some creeper. I just thought … “ Alyssa looked away bashfully, twisting on her feet. “you’re really handsome.” It was true, even if she knew damn well that’s not why she peeked in at him.

Drake cocked a brow, calling her bluff. “Really?” he replied skeptically. ”That’s the only thing you were looking at?”

Dabbing at her increasingly perspiring forehead and feeling the blood drain into her feet, Alyssa declared, “I think I’m going to pass out now.”

Sensing she was serious, Drake quickly tapped the rolling chair next to his bed and insisted she sit down. Walking on wobbly legs, Alyssa finally plopped down on the chair and fanned her ashen face with one hand. Drake quickly twisted the cap off an unopened bottle of cold water one of the nurses had given him and offered it to Alyssa. She gratefully took it and guzzled a giant swig from the plastic container. Soon her breathing normalized, and the color in her face started to pinken again.

Drake stared at her in concern. “Do you want me to yell for the doctor?”

Alyssa shook her head insistently. “No. I’m better now. I just got a little anxious, is all, but I deserved it. I shouldn’t have looked at you.” She paused for a moment before offering a genuine smile. “By the way: I don’t think you’re a joke, and I would never laugh at you. I really do think you’re handsome.”

He could tell what she was saying to him was true, and for the first time in weeks, it felt nice to have someone to talk to who didn’t want to discuss a certain medical procedure he’d recently undergone. “I appreciate that … Alyssa, right?” She nodded her head. “You have beautiful eyes --”

“I hate to interrupt this party, -- ay,” A doctor in blue scrubs, a surgical cap, mask, and a horrible Canadian accent came strolling in gleefully, almost out of nowhere. “It’s time for your surgery, Mr. Walkersan -- ay.”

Drake shot straight up in his bed, glaring at the man. “What?” he screeched. “I’m getting discharged. That other doctor said I was fine.”

“Oh no, no, no -- ay. Doctor … Pepper … Stein, sent me down here to wheel you at once into surgery. Your test results showed a lot of icky stuff that needs to be taken care of at once lest you lose your manhood again. Ay.”

Narrowing his eyes, Drake shot back. “What bad stuff?”

“Uh, let me see here -- ay,” Leo began flipping through a makeshift chart he was holding in his hands and pretending to scan over a particular page. “Oy me. There seems to be … algae overgrowth in the upper ... sphincter of the … Dua Lipa -- ay. And thees muy crabs have set up a colony on the Los ballsackos.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Drake asked incredulously while Alyssa patted his arm comfortingly. “What the hell is a Los ballsackos?”

“Es los ballsackos is los ballsackos.” Leo hastily scolded as he eyed Drake sternly. “We shan't have no time to waste. Das ist Viener schloggin … we remove the viewer and then the scloggin or there be little la cucarachas crawling everywhere -- la vie en rose, amigo.”

“No one’s removing my viener, or my scloggin!” Drake protested.

“Excuse me,” Alyssa rose to her feet, knowing there was something off with this sketchy acting doctor. “I speak fluent Spanish and French, and I can tell you, almost none of that made sense. Not to mention the fact that I believe part of that was German and ancient English. ¿De dónde sacaste tu título, doctor?”

Leo’s bright blue eyes dulled with uncertainty as Alyssa crossed her arms, awaiting a response. Scrambling for an answer and wishing he’d paid more attention during his language lessons, he ultimately replied with a shirk, “Eh … Despacito?”

“Despacito?” Alyssa challenged before glancing over at Drake, who was still glaring a hole into the perceived physician, then returning her gaze back to a cow-eyed Leo. “Who are you, really?”

"Who am I really?" Leo replied with a smug grin as he lowered the surgical mask that was hiding his face. "I'm Dr. Wolfschitz, baby."