#i saw someone talk about having it and iit might just be that person but i could never imagine

[oli-verwelke]

what the hell i thought athlete's foot was something like a tennis arm, i didn't know it's english for FOOT FUNGUS

[flashdrivegarbage]

I just saw a post of someone talking about how like proud their younger self would be of them and like i didn’t want to add this to their post because uhhh this is very much opposite vibes and honestly mught be really depressing. I just kinda need to write iit out and ttell SOMEONE and i recently realized that i dont actually have any friends like at all and all the people i thought were my friends… just arent. Thats a whole pther story and not the point of this post, I just mean i literally dont have anyone else i can talk about this to and i just want to get this out of my head so i can stop thinking about it.

But like… i think if i had the chance to talk to my younger self… i think they’d be disappointed in me. I’ve grown up in a like super mega religious household and now im not religious at all and im nonbinary and im asexual and im on the aromantic spectrum and im bi. Like. Everything that i didnt want to be when i was a kid. Ill never be able to have the epic love story i wanted as a kid, ill never be able go find the romanticized ‘one for me’, which is still something im struggling to come to terms with because of how much wanting that was a part of me for so long before i realized i was on the aro spectrum. Im never going to be able to have kids in a way that my parents will approve of because the idea of having sex disgusts me. I might end up deciding that my life partner is a woman or another nonbinary person, and even then it still wont be a romantic fall-in-love hallmark style life partner. Ive given up on god and all that shit. And even beyond all of that, ive given up on my dreams in a big way. I want to be a pharmacist now, but for my entire life i always wanted to be an author and one day i just kinda realized i wasnt going to ever be one. I write fanfic now, which i really love and gives me a ton of fulfillment, but im never going to be a published author, i dont think. I have no desire to create my own characters or worlds. But i know that my you ger self would be devastated by this. And, like i said earlier, i have literally no friends. I have people who im kinda friendly with at school. I have people i thought i was friends with. But i honestly dont have any friends. I just… i cant help but feel like if i ever talked to my younger self they would hate that they turned into me. They’d be disappointed that im their future. I dont really know what that says about me.

[g1r1t1n4]

korekiiyo shiingujii ana1ysiis

spoii1ers for ndrv3!

iit’s quiite hard to wriite 1iike thiis wiith autocorrect on, so from the 1iine break be1ow ii wii11 not be usiing my typiing quiirk Σ(･口･)

word count (exc1udiing author’s notes): 1,611 words

tota1: 1,717 words

for siimp1iiciity's sake, ii've done thiis on computer so that there's not a wa11 of text

~*~

"You wonder, "Who is this?" Yes... I shall make that clear first. My name is Korekiyo Shinguji... I am called the Ultimate Anthropologist."

~*~

Hello everyone, my name is Milo, and today I’ll be doing my best to cover one of my favorite characters in the Danganronpa universe, Korekiyo Shinguji. He is originally from the 3rd mainline game, New Danganronpa v3: Killing Harmony. Since I don’t physically own the game, I’m basing most of this essay entirely on the Danganronpa Wiki page for Shinguji. Please read that if you desire a more lengthy look at his actions from an unbiased perspective since this one leans more towards empathy than hatred. Whoops!

We first properly meet him after talking to everyone else inside of Hope’s Peak. He’s in the main hall and standing away from the doors leading out to the courtyard. When he introduces himself, Shinguji goes on to talk about anthropology and the beauty of humanity. This proceeds to creep Akamatsu out.

Alongside that, in Chapter 3, we are unfortunately forced to see his relationship with his sister. It’s weird and only gets weirder if you spend two of your Free Time events talking to him when you first play as Akamatsu. He’s evaluated that all girls present at the academy would be great “friends” for his sister, barring Iruma and Harukawa. This is because Shinguji believes that Harukawa doesn’t believe in the power of love, and Iruma is just… well, she’s Iruma. Hardly the girl you would want to send home to your parents.

This weird incest plotline is unfortunately present in most Danganronpa games, such as Leon and his cousin (though one-sided on his cousin’s behalf; he didn’t like her), Tsumugi in the Love Hotel (if you consider that canon), and Monotaro & Monophanie (which is then implemented into Gokuharu’s execution, killing them both).

His sister’s name is never disclosed in-game or in any other Danganronpa media, so the fandom dubbed her “Miyadera/Miyatera,” which is an alternate way of reading Shinguji’s last name. The miya character - represented as 宮 - and tera character - 寺 - are both present in Shinguji, 真宮寺. For the rest of this essay/paper, I’ll be referring to his sister as Miyadera, and himself as Shinguji.

I’ll be getting deeper into his mischaracterization later on, but I want to talk about his appearance for now. Mainly, his hair, his mask, and the lipstick he wears. From what we see of Miyadera in Shinguji’s execution, if that is Miyadera at all, we can see that she had long hair, and when Shinguji was turned into a ghost, it was the exact shade of Shinguji’s hair. From here, we can assume that Miyadera looks exactly, if not similar, to Shinguji.

His lipstick and mask are results of representations of his tulpa, Miyadera. Tulpa is defined as “a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.” In much simpler terms, it is an object or living thing that was created/imagined through spiritual/mental abilities. Shinguji gained a tulpa by being beaten half to death by villagers shortly after arriving there. When he was in a state between life and death, he saw his sister, who joined his subconscious and took control of his body whenever his mask was off. It’s why we only see him take off his make once Saihara dubs him the culprit of Chapter 3, and why his voice suddenly took a more feminine tone. A quote from Miyadera, which can be found in the game, is, "Sweet Korekiyo, calm yourself... Their words are all hollow. There is no meaning to any of them... You must teach these ignorant children a lesson."

That statement can be interpreted two ways, one; that she’s trying to calm him down and two; she’s repeating whatever she said to him during childhood. It’s implied that Miyadera passed away from disease sometime before Killing Harmony takes place, which is both a good and bad thing. It’s great because then we have some time frame of how she was and how she acted when Shinguji knew her best.

Whenever I read the quote above, or any of her quotes, to be honest, I am filled with a sense of dread, or even, despair. The following quote especially makes me feel terrible; "Calm yourself, Korekiyo. You mustn't raise your voice. You mustn't stutter. You mustn't lose composure. You mustn't become flustered. You mustn't waver. Look at their horrid faces. This sorry lot is not worth agonizing over."

Have you noticed how she’s setting guidelines on how to defend himself? She’s turning Shinguji’s attention away from Saihara and the trial and to her because she knows that Shinguji trusts her even after all these years.

You might be wondering, “Milo, what the hell does that all have to do with Shinguji?” And I’ll tell you plain and simple: he was abused by Miyadera. Shocking, I know. Having Shinguji rave and rant about being in love with her, only to be a victim? Sadly, it’s very true indeed. Shinguji was most likely groomed and gaslighted into thinking that Miyadera loved him when that was not the case.

Gaslighting is defined as, “[to] manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.” From the two quotes I provided, it doesn’t seem to make sense. Miyadera only sounds like a kind, worrisome older sister. Incorrect, I say. She’s emotionally gaslighting him, trying to make him believe that the trial makes no sense and he shouldn’t worry about any of them. I can also bet she used this tactic to control him as a younger person as well.

It’s a well-known fact that children are both impressionable and gullible. If an older sister figure came up to you as a child and told you to do unmentionable things, unfortunately, you might follow her directions. Shinguji states that his sister was a sickly girl who often stayed in the hospital. When she would come home, he’d be at his easiest to manipulate. Why would his dear, sweet, sickly, older sister ever lie to him?

Next, I’m going to be covering his relationships with other students, namely Shuichi Saihara and Rantaro Amami. These will delve further into spoiler territory, so if you didn’t already read the warnings I put in place, here is your extra warning for spoilers for Chapter 3 of Killing Harmony.

To start with, I’ll be exploring his poorer relationships first. Most of the girls fit into this category, namely Iruma, Harukawa, Chabashira, and Yonaga - that means he has a terrible standing with four of the eight girls present at the beginning of Killing Harmony, five if you count Yumeno’s way of dealing with Chabashira’s murder. Shinguji even taunts her once they solve that mystery, stating, “Let me guess, you’ll never forgive me. Himiko, you must hate me so very much right now. Maybe you’d feel better if I was executed by Monokuma…”

Shinguji has a poor relationship with Iruma and Harukawa due to seeing them as “unfit” to be “friends” with Miyadera. He has a poor relationship with Chabashira because he’s a degenerate male, but he still thinks she made a good friend for his sister. His poor relationship with Yonaga is shown in Chapter 3 when Yonaga forms the student council. Once again, I’m making amends to some parts of the characters. I’ll be referring to Yonaga’s god as God, simply because Atua is an actual Polynesian god in real life. Shinguji doesn’t worship any god, and so wants to study Yonaga’s God purely for anthropologic purposes. This displeases Yonaga, who then states that God's business hours are closed for the day. In Chapter 3 when Yumeno brings up Yonaga’s God, he simply asks whether or not they’re done talking about it, cementing his distrust in faith.

Next, I’ll cover his better relationships. Akamatsu isn’t too terribly creeped out by him and instead sees Shinguji as a kind guy who cares about his sister. Akamatsu even apologizes for saying that Shinguji would be into inc*st, this event either taking place in his first or second Free Time event. I’m saving his and Saihara’s relationship for last since I’ll have the most to write about then. Instead, please enjoy the news that in the events of Ultimate Talent Development Plan (UTDP for typing purposes), Shinguji and Amami are actually great friends. In Amami’s first free time event, he tells Akamatsu that Korekiyo has a strong personality, but she’ll be able to understand him plenty if she takes time to. It’s also stated that Amami emphasizes that Shinguji is also the calm and clever type.

Lastly, I’ll be exploring his relationship with Saihara. It’s slightly rocky, if only because Shinguji hasn’t let go of his sister yet, but it’s miles better than his relationship with Chabashira. Slight side note before we begin, I’ll be discounting the Love Hotel scene mostly because I’m a minor and I don’t feel completely comfortable having to watch that simply because I’m writing an analysis. As the game progresses to Chapter 3, Shinguji and Saihara have built trust between themselves. While Saihara still found Shinguji creepy, he [Saihara] never discounted him simply for existing. There was even a point where Shinguji offered to help Saihara communicate with Akamatsu from beyond the grave, though he was turned down.

Korekiyo Shinguji is a misunderstood and somewhat tragic character who usually gets disregarded and uncredited all because people do not like him. However he’s not an “uwu soft twamatized bean <3” either. He’s a strong character who has questionable morals at best and a terrible representation of an abused character at worst.

~*~

thank you for readiing!! p1ease make sure to get a hea1thy amount of s1eep and that you do have a cup of water and some food, you deserve iit!!

sources:

- https://danganronpa.fandom.com/wiki/Korekiyo_Shinguji

- https://www.quotev.com/story/7873923/Danganronpa-Class-Trials/73 (siide note: how fucked up iis iit that ii was on1y ab1e to fiind a transcriiptiion of the triia1 on quotev)

[autisticsupervillain]

Queen of the House

Theme: The House Always Wins ~ The Stupendium

Oh my, how I've been looking forward to this. Vriska Serket is basically a rorschach test applied to an entire fandom in mass. Between all the potential character flaws, interpretations, and sympathetic qualities I could use to make her evil, I almost had too much to work with. Well, make her evil-er at any rate. Or, at least, make her the main antagonist. Because, with the way this is going, I might just make a few sympathizers out of you guys.

So, how does Vriska Serket, fandom darling and author's pet extraordinaire, become the big bad of the story she insisted that she was the hero of? Well, crank up Megalovania, ladies and gents, because you're about to find out~

When the story ended, Vriska had everything she ever wanted.

She had mended her relationship with Terezi and gotten to pursue a proper friendship with her. She had gotten the praise she always thought she deserved, as a savior and a Goddess to Earth C and it's people. And, she'd finally gotten a taste of that little paradise planet that John had given her a glimpse of.

And Vriska found that she really wasn't enjoying it.

There was the part of her that missed the old rivalry that she had with Terezi. The endless cycle of revenge, as destructive as it was, was one of the things the kept her motivated and happy, in a strange way. There was the part of her that felt she didn't deserve all the praise she'd gotten, the part she'd revealed to John after she murdered Tavros. The guilty, humane part of her. And, there was the part of her that didn't enjoy Earth. That didn't want to live a subdued peaceful life. Not when there was adventure to be had and treasures to be won. The bored, bloodthirsty side of her.

Vriska wasn't the other side of Terezi's coin anymore. Vriska's recklessness and selfishness weren't being counterbalanced by Terezi's brilliance and sense of ethics because the two just weren't the same people they were back then. The dynamic was just... off now. Now, Vriska was the coin. Two conflicting sides of pride and guilt that she didn't really know how to address.

See, the Gods put some rules in place to keep themselves from interfering to much with the lives of consorts and carapacians. They're more like celebrities than rulers, the citizens of Earth C are mostly just left to rule themselves. So, whenever a war picks up or politics get divisive, the Gods stay out of it.

Vriska really wants to get involved though. She feels like these opportunities are the best chances that she'll get to work out all of her conflicted emotions she has about her new life. It satisfies that growing itch for adventure and conflict that she has, that bloodthirsty boredom that misses her life on Alternia and her life in the game. And, it also appeals to that lingering guilty side of her. If she really wants to be a hero, really feels guilty about what she did, shouldn't she prove? Shouldn't she step in and earn all the praise she'd been getting? Actually become a hero?

Of course, every time she does bring up getting involved, she gets shot down.

The reasoning given is that, well, they're gods. If they step in to solve tge people's problems, the people will become reliant on them, which is a bad thing when they're arguably not qualified to do. They're not professionals, they're just traumatized teenagers with no real adult guidance. Winning a war is one thing, but solving poverty? Getting involved in politics? Preventing those wars to begin with? That's not something they have the life experience to do, and, if they get involved and start solving people's problems for them, it's what they'd be expected to do, which is a bad combo.

Dirk, Rose, Karkat, even Vriska herself. They're all people who thought they could handle the weight of the world on the shoulders and, when they couldn't, it had disastrous consequences.

Vriska always grumbles, but she concedes the point. Instead, she tries to find other ways to scratch that itch. She tries to go hunting and adventuring with Jake, but finds she can't stand him. He's far to cheerful, chatty, and oblivious, but, worst of all, there are those things about him that remind her just a bit of John and Tavros. Things that she can't quite put her finger on about him but make her uncomfortable none the less. She quickly stops attending these little hunting trips with him.

Vriska then tries to go to Aradia. She wants in on those little multiverse adventures that Aradia had been going on with Sollux, but Aradia slams the door in her face before Vriska can get three words out. Vriska makes a scene and pounds on the door for half an hour before Aradia opens up again.

Aradia explains that, no, she doesn't hold a grudge against Vriska for what she did. Sollux does.

"iit wa2 2uch a 2pur of the moment thiing for you, wa2n't iit? makiing me kiill her. iit wa2 a petty, iimpul2iive act of 2piite, ju2t liike everythiing el2e you do. ii don't thiink you even thought twiice about kiilliing aradiia untiil 2he beat the 2hiit out of you. but me?"

"ii heard her voiice. and ii heard iit on repeat iin the back of my thiinkpan every niight after ii kiilled her. every niight... untiil 2he came back..."

"2o, no, vrii2ka, ii don't forgiive you, and ii don't know or want two know about whatever bull2hiit you hammered on our front door for. now get out of our hiive."

As Vriska sulks her way out of their hive, she again feels those two conflicting responses coming from her pride and guilt. One part of her is indignant. Because it had been just another night for her. It had been just another shitty thing she'd done to someone who pissed her off. Who was Sollux to complain? She was the hero, she saved the day, it should be water under the bridge. She didn't save everyone by being nice, now did she?

But, then her guilty side speaks up. No. She hadn't saved the day like that. But Tavros sure did.

That thought just leaves her feeling more conflicted, bitter, and guilty than she ever did before. In a huff, she storms over to John's house.

Vriska had been expecting, partially even hoping, for his house to be in ruins. In her mind, John's life before the game had been the ideal human life. She thought a lot harder about how John's life turned out compared to how her life did than she'd like to admit. John was one of the few people who could break through her stubborn egotism, after all. So, she'd assume he'd be pretty tired of this new life too, seeing how it effectively stole his old "perfect" life from him.

But, she doesn't find that. Instead, she finds John... perfectly content with his new lidmfe and completely uninterested in finding new adventures.

John had friends. Close friends who knew what he was going through and understood how hard on him everything was. Jade, Dave, and Rose always took time out of their days to check on him, talk to him, be there for him. Even Karkat did his part to help John take the enormous weight of the world off his shoulders, help him settle down and start over so he could be happy again.

Yes, John was nice enough to take Vriska to some dark part of the multiverse if she asked, but she didn't want that. That ugly, prideful part of her was upset that he wouldn't have to rely on her, yes, but mostly, she just didn't want to be pitied. For John, who'd found happiness, family, and love in this new 'boring' world of theirs to tear himself away from all of that to just give her an adventure, would be nothing more than an act of pity. And, in Vriska's eyes, she just couldn't use him like that.

So, Vriska collapses onto her bed that night, and dreams of a way she could easily fix these weird, conflicted feelings she has. Vriska never knew who she was, that's why she was so bad at confronting herself.

But, she knew who she wanted to be, and that person was Marquise Spinneret Mindfang.

And that's who Vriska saw standing before her as she woke up in the dreambubbles.

Vriska fangirls at the sight of her and Mindfang basks in all the attention. Vriska even lists off exact feats Mindfang performed in her journal, leading her Ancestor to boast that she's preparing for an even grander adventure. One that could decide the fate of Paradox Space itself.... and she wants Vriska to join her.

This is everything that Vriska could dream of. At this exact moment, all that inner conflict melts away. Mindfang, the Dreaded Spider of the Sea herself, the person who Vriska centered her entire life around, is offering Vriska the chance to join her. In that moment, both sides of the coin are satisfied.

Vriska gleefully accepts the offer.

Mindfang explains the problem, stating that the battle against Lord English had left a tear in Paradox Space, a wound that threaten to grow until it ripped Paradox Space apart. In order to combat it, she needs to find some Rogues of Life to heal the wound and seal it back together. Without any way to control where she's going in the dreambubbles, Mindfang wouldn't be able to find any without a lot of luck... which is where Vriska comes in. Mindfang never got the chance to unlock her aspect like Aranea and Vriska did, she never got a copy of Sgrub, so she needs her descendant.

Vriska is both ecstatic to be so important and disappointed about not being called on to battle some powerful supervillain or something. Mindfang reassures her that she'd be more than happy to take her to fight a few dangerous villains after the important quest was taken care of, all while heaping on the praise. I wouldn't waste your time with some 8ooooooooring healing quest. I've seen what you can do. I know my descendant deserves 8etter than that."

So, Vriska uses her luck powers to lead Mindfang to several Rogues of Life, whom Mindfang mind controls each time. Vriska questions this, but Mindfang insists it's more practical to just ensnare them and apologize later than try to convince them to tag along. Vriska accepts this, even as the guilty part of her points out how that Tavros did a much better job at getting people to join him just by talking to them.

After Mindfang decides they've gathered up enough Rogues of Life, Mindfang uses the Rogues to reassurect herself and them back on Earth C, allowing Vriska to wake up and meet up with them. Once that's done, Mindfang takes Vriska aside and thanks her for being so helpful.

Before decapitating her, stating that Vriska wasn't needed anymore.

While Vriska is resurrecting, Mindfang orders the Rogues to drain the life out of Earth C and funnel it into her, killing countless thousands before Vriska recovers and attacks her. Mindfang is amped enough for Vriska to be forced to use her Ancestral Awakening form to defeat her, all while she tearfully demands to know why Mindfang has done this. As Mindfang glares up at her descendant with a look of bloodparched rage, she spitefully spits out her motivation for her actions.

What you need to remember is that Mindfang was just a version of Aranea who grew up in a more hostile, deadly environment, where all her character flaws could fester. In effect, she has Aranea's ego dialed up past ten.

While Mindfang was content to be dreaded, terrifying pirate in life, it wasn't until her death that she saw the true nature of the multiverse.

She saw Vriska's adventure, watched her life from beginning to end, and realized how insignificant her own role was. Vriska was saving the multiverse, traveling between timelines, battling demons. Vriska became a God, one who was worshipped by an entire planet. All while Mindfang held no real relevance. She wasn't even a background character, she was a backstory character. A means of giving Vriska motivation and nothing more.

Mindfang was a dreaded pitate, but only on one planet in one timeline. Which is hardly as speck in the vastness of the multiverse. And Mindfang felt entitled to more.

The problem is, she's effectively Aranea, but worse. While Aranea tried to make a story that didn't involve her all about her, Mindfang decided that a story that didn't involve her shouldn't exist at all.

Mindfang was going to suck all the life force out of Earth C, before using the absorbed energy to destroy the Alpha Timeline. With no Alpha Timeline to hold it together, Paradox Space would fall apart, erasing everything that ever was. It would be the most important act ever committed. No one could be more important than Mindfang if no one else existed.

In that moment, Vriska Serket died.

Vriska Serket, the one who paralyzed Tavros. Who blinded Terezi. Who murdered Aradia. Who created Bec Noir. Vriska Serket, the egotist, the murderer, the manipulator, and the abuser, died.

Every reason that Vriska had to exist was glaring right up at her, wallowing in a defeated pile of spite, pride, and ego.

Vriska stared blankly as Mindfang died, completely lost. Vriska didn't know who she was or who she wanted to be anymore.

Vriska walks the desolate Earth, the lost Rogues trailing behind her now that they had no where else to go. With so much of their energy wasted on amping Mindfang, there's little they can do to repair the damage done to Earth C.

Vriska searches desperately for her friends, to no avail. Most of them, she can't even find the bodies of. In some cases, such as with Sollux and Aradia, that gives her hope. Maybe they weren't on Earth C during the attack, maybe they're alive. Most of the time, though, it just serves to make her feel more hopeless.

Vriska never finds out if Terezi survived or not.

Vriska does find John's body however. Several months into her search, she found John, Dave, Jade, Rose, Jane, even Karkat inside a run down home. Vriska remembered being surprised at how lively it was once.

The bodies are to rotten for the Rogues to heal in their current state, but at least Vriska knew John died happy. The rotting birthday cake on the table was proof enough of that.

Vriska would never find any surviving Gods. But she would find survivors.

Eventually, after several years of searching, Vriska and the Rogues would stumble across a small town of consorts, slaving away at all hours of the day in mines and farms. They were being exploited by raiders, forced to provide for their ever growing gang or be killed. So Vriska decides to confront them.

The raiders are awed to see one of the "Old Gods" still alive and kicking, but they do not back down and bow in reverence as Vriska would partially expect. The world has turned into an empty, rotting place, so everyone is operating under the idea of kill or be killed. While the raiders are clearly intimidated, they're not going to give up without a fight and they make it clear that they will fight Vriska and her group to maintain control of what little resources they've managed to seize.

Vriska could crush these raiders easily. In the past, she happily would have. But now? She just doesn't want to kill what little life is left on Earth C, especially seeing how they'll likely need every hand on deck if Earth C is ever going to be habitable again. She wants to better now. She wants to do good.

So, Vriska challenges them to game. She makes up a card game on the spot and challenges them to it. If the raiders win, Vriska and the Rogues leave, allowing the Raiders to go on as normal. If Vriska wins, she gets control of the settlement, with the Raiders becoming her muscle. The Raiders agree, seeing it as a better alternative to a fight they knew they couldn't win, and they inevitably lose when Vriska rigs the game in her favor with her luck powers.

Vriska spots an opportunity to rebuild Earth C and, using the raiders as her enforcers, sends her forces out in search of more resources and settlements. Her goal is to unite Earth C under one banner so that everyone can pool their resources into making the world habitable again. As such, all settlements found are immediately "persuaded" to join and those that resist are dealt with by Vriska herself, using that same card game scam.

It takes several decades, but Vriska gradually unites the world and makes it livable again. However, she has no interest in returning Earth C to the way it was, as a bunch of different countries with their own worldviews and opinions. She remembers how often wars broke out and how she wanted to get involved but couldn't, so she decides to sude step that problem entirely.

She creates a new world order, centered around the card game scam she used to conquer the world to begin with.

How it works is that, when people get out of school, they immediately go into the work force in order to get enough money to participate in the Gambler's Den. Those who win big in the Den get House Dollars, which is the currancy that allows people to buy their way up into the world. But better homes in nicer neighborhoods, where food is cheaper and taxes are more lax.

Those who manage to get to the top of the Gambler's Den have to challenge Vriska to the game. If they win, they get let into the House. A paradise eerily similar in aesthetic to John's old neighborhood, wherin the citizens have Vriska's ear, meaning they get some say in how Earth C is governed and run. If they lose, they go right back to the bottom again.

Naturally, the whole system is rigged. Not only can Vriska simply decide wether or not she loses with her luck powers, she has the game's rigged. If someone gets far enough to catch Vriska's attention, she had them spied on and looked into. If Vriska likes them, she has the automatic game machines rig the games in their favor and send them straight to her so she can decide whether they go in the House or not. As "Queen of the House", the Housr and the Gambler's Den are rigged in her favor on every level.

Thing is, Vriska isn't trying to be an evil dictator here. She genuinely thinks this is a step up, as it's what the people themselves seem to want. Of course, the people aren't going to argue against anything she does because she's literally their only remaining God and she rebuilt civilization, so it's not like she's a good judge of that. Basically, her two halves are finally working in tandem. She's soothing her conscience by finally giving the people what they "want" and she's appeasing her ego by rigging everything in her favor and convincing herself and the world that she's doing what's best for everyone. Her compassionate side is leading the dance for once, sure, but that's still leading her down the same path.

The two sides of the coin are identical. It's a rigged coin. And both sides lead to Vriska justifying her own despotism.

Of course, she's not stopping there. Vriska wants to protect her people from all threats, just as she did when she was rebuilding Earth C. By rigging the Gambler's Den so that her most ideal subjects are forced to join the military, Vriska is able to create an army that she uses the conquer the universe. Meanwhile, the Rogues are sent into the dreambubbles to try and find the ghosts of her dead friends so they can revive them or, failing that, find other God-Tiers who can join their cause.

It's a few years after Vriska discovers a way to cross into other timelines and decides to start preemptively conquering the multiverse that she finds her friends again. The Rogues immediately bring John back to life and Vriska enthusiastically hugs him. The two embrace for a solid minute before Vriska decides to bring him up to speed.

John is... horrified.

After he finally managed to reunite with most of his friends in the dreambubbles, they'd heard tell of an evil empire born out of the main timeline that had begun subjugating the multiverse. John and friends joined the resistance against it... but they never thought Vriska was the one who created it.

Vriska tries to justify herself, but it just leads to an ugly, tearjerking arguement.

"I'm doing this for you! 8ecause I want to 8e like you! 8ecause I want to live in a world like yours. You showed me that I could 8e happy, good even, in a more caring world. It's not my fault the things I have to do to protect this stupid paradise planet! I want to 8e a good person, John! ....8ut... I have to 8e a hero...."

John teleports back to the dreambubbles, distraught that Vriska won't see reason. Vriska, meanwhile, readies her armies for war.

They'll see reason. They all will. Then... they can be friends again. They can be happy... in way Vriska was never allowed to be. But, until then, she had duties to attend as Queen of the House.

[nojaemblog]

NCT 127 reaction to another member flirting with you

Warnings: jealousy, a few swear words here and there, suggestive content

Genre: angsty, with some crack here and there, a little bit of fluff

Requested: yes

Taeyong

Taeyong would be pissed, yet he tried to remain polite. Everybody knew about your relationship. So why would Doyoung even dare to think about you as his? Seeing Doyoung shamelessly flirting with you after you told him no, made his blood boil. You got up from the couch, but your hair was stuck in Doyoung’s bracelet and you let out a surprised yelp as you were pulled back into the couch by the bracelet. Taeyong was in front of Doyoung in seconds, not knowing what happened and he ripped Doyoung’s hand away from you.

 “Are you really that desperate?” he yelled while pulling Doyoung from the couch by the collar. 

Johnny and Jaehyun quickly pulled Doyoung off of him. After he finds out that your hair just got stuck in the bracelet, he’d be very embarrassed and apologetic, but he firmly believes he deserves it after he kept flirting, even if you told him no.

”Sorry for that, I overreacted.” ‘’Asshole”, he thought.

Taeil

 Iit was a party thrown after finishing the promotions of the new album, a way to relax and have some fun for awhile.Taeil was maneuvering his way through the crowd of people, slightly panicked since he couldn’t find you. He searched every inch from every room, only a bathroom was left. When he pushed the slightly ajar bathroom door open, he saw Jungwoo hunched over someone, kissing them feverishly. For a moment he was totally embarrassed and was about to awkwardly close the door until he realized  that someone the person being kiss did not enjoy it one beat.

“Come on, Woo. You are drunk, leave them alone”, Taeil gently yet firm told the younger boy. 

Jungwoo didn’t move one bit, so Taeil tried to push him away to help the uncomfortable person. Taeil dragged Jungwoo by the shoulder, only to see that the person he so forcefully kissed was you.. In shock and disbelief, Taeil grabbed Jungwoo by the hem of his shirt and was chuckling in anger and confusion, stuttering out, “W – what do you think you’re doing?”

 It was obvious that he was completely  wasted, but that didn’t give him any excuse to force himself on someone, especially if that someone is his significant other.

“Do you have a death wish? Get out of here before I make you regret ever laying your hands on them.”

Johnny

You two would be shopping when Johnny decided to drag you into a store so you could try on dresses for the event you will be attending later on this weekend. You both would fall in love with a particularly beautiful dress, but it didn’t match your size, so your boyfriend left to go see if they had an extra one in the back. 

After he left, you continued browsing the other dresses to see if there was anything else you’d like, in case he wouldn’t succeed finding your size.  Suddenly, a dress was shoved into your hands. You saw Jaehyun sitting in front of you. You greeted him and asked him why he shoved the dress in your face, kind of rudely, you thought.

 “I think you would look hot in this dress. Maybe you should try it on for me.”, he attempted to give you a flirty smile, but the smile made you feel even more disgusted by his words.

You looked at the dress and cringed at how much cleavage it showed and how short it was, you were sure it was not going to hide anything. Johnny came back with the dress you both loved in his hands. He gripped the dress Jaehyun gave you out of your hands and shoved it back to him. 

“There is no way my girlfriend would be caught wearing something like that. And frankly, my friend, you have an awful fashion sense. Now, move your legs far away from us, unless you want me to shove this dress up your ass, Jaehyun”

Doyoung

Doyoung is the angry and silent type, whenever he is jealous. He’s trying to control his anger inside when he notices Taeyong flirting with you, playfully laying his hands on you. Doyoung is watching the way you two laugh together and thinking to himself “I can make her laugh more than you, dickhead”. 

He grows very quiet and clenches his jaw, debating on whether or not he should go up and pull you away or be calm and collected about it, before eventually making some sort of excuse to go up and get in between the both of you making it look like he just wants to join the conversation, but highkey wanting to grab your attention away from his group mate. He stands close to you, his arm ever so slightly brushing up against yours while silently giving Taeyong knowing looks.

“Oh, baby! I forgot! We should head back to your place and finish that thing!”, Doyoung suddenly told you, interrupting your chat with Taeyong.

“What thing? I am free for the rest of the day”, you curiously asked your boyfriend.

“The thing Taeyong would only dream of being able to finish”

Yuta

Sichen should’ve known better than to flirt with you in front of Yuta. He really should. There wasn’t a thing about you that Sicheng hadn’t complimented throughout the night. Yuta’s patience was running low so when Winwin started complimenting your body you felt Yuta’s hand quickly make its way on your thigh, making you look up to him with a questioning look plastered across your face. He only smiled at you, so you thought nothing more of it than just a simple act of affection, nothing out of the ordinary. 

But as you opened your mouth to give a response to Winwin’s compliment, you felt his fingers roaming further up and finally making their way under your skirt causing you to tense up and cough. Winwin had asked you if you feel alright, but in that moment you couldn’t focus on whatever he was saying. 

Yuta’s fingers slowly made their way higher and higher, and while faking a concerned look he asked you if you feel alright, but you could’ve hardly miss the smirk on his face after he asked you.

“Sorry, I think we might have to go. My baby isn’t feeling good, and I am the only one that can make her feel good. Got it?”

Jaehyun

Jaehyun walks out of the bathroom and sees you texting somebody. You smile as he jumps on the bed and embraces you. You welcomed his embrace when your phone indicated that you got a notification. Jaehyun looks at the phone and notices that Johnny has been trying to talk to you yet again. He knew that you were Johnny’s type, but he wished that his group mate would have taken the hint that you are his now.

“Is that a snap from Johnny?”

“Yes. He said hi!” you innocently looked at your boyfriend

Jaehyun takes your phone and looks at you. He grabs your hand and pulls you closer to him and kisses you. You kiss him back, yet pull back when you see a flash go off. 

“And now I should press ‘send’.Johnny will know you are all mine!” he smiled at you.

“Babe, that’s rude!”, you frowned at him.

“It was either this or kill him the next time I see him. But if you ask me, I choose the wiser option”

Winwin

Sichen has been sitting on the same spot for what seemed like forever. He was keeping an eye on Taeil that had attempted before to flirt with you. And now it wasn’t any different. Winwin never thought he would ever consider hitting his hyung, but here he was, on the verge of punching Taeil straight in the face if he continued looking at your body like that.

“Hey.. don’t you think this is inappropriate?Aren’t you a little too much?” he hissed through gritted teeth, “I’m right next to you. And y/n clearly doesn’t feel comfortable with your eyes stuck on her ass.”

“What?” Taeil smiled, “(Y/N) is beautiful.. I’m just admiring her. Nothing more, nothing less”

“No, you’re checking her out and I don’t like it,” Sicheng couldn’t understand the audacity of his hyung, how could he be eating you up alive with his eyes right in front of him?

Nevertheless, Winwin took off his coat and came to you, he draped the coat over your shoulders a moment later. And left with you.“I’m not cold. What is this for?”

“I love it when you wear my clothes, so just accept it. For me.”, he smiled sweetly at you.

‘Or more so I don’t break Taeil’s nose’, he thought.

Jungwoo

Jungwoo noticed how Yuta confidently flirts with you, brushing your hair behind your ear and showing you his irresistible smile. Jungwoo is the type of person to smile or giggle when he’s uncomfortable or embarrassed, so that’s exactly what he does. He literally acts like there is nothing wrong.

In his head, he would be screaming that he really wants to go up there and just whisk you away and kiss you, to show the other members to whom you belong to, but he would be too shy and embarrassed to do anything really, so he would just let Yuta finish his moment. 

Afterwards, he would be a little hesitant to talk to you, since he would be concerned that you don’t like him anymore and maybe you actually like Yuta more than him. But when you tell him that Yuta was really creeping you out and made you uncomfortable, he would feel so relieved and think he was silly for being so shy and embarrassed and noted that next time when something like this happens he should just straight up kiss you in front of everyone to showcase your relationship.

“Would a kiss be enough? Or maybe I should just give you marks so that everybody would know that you are mine, baby”

Mark

You hadn’t noticed. You really hadn’t. You were so invested into the movie to notice Haechan’s hand on your thigh. But Mark had. Somehow you have ended up sitting on the opposite end of the couch from Mark while watching the movie. 

Haechan was clearly trying to flirt with you, seeing how you are so engaged in the movie, he took it as a chance to touch while making it look like a friendly gesture. He was naturally on the touchy side and Mark knew it and he knew all of Haechan’s tricks and how he tried to look innocent right now. Mark’s mind was blurry and the only thing he could see was Hyuck’s hand on you.He hardly could focus on the movie now. 

When a scene scared the living shit out of you, Haechan squeezed your thigh in what seemed to you like ‘reassurance’, but it was far from Hyuck’s intentions. Mark couldn’t help but feel jealousy and anger growing in his chest so before he could even think twice about what he was about to say he opened his mouth letting the words slip out.

“Princess come sit on my lap. Now.” 

Haechan

You and Hyuck have went to the beach, enjoying some time alone, when you suddenly hear his phone go off. He untangles his hands from your body and answers the phone. He looks confused as he talks and glances towards you.

“Mark asked why haven’t you called him back”.

“Oh, just give me the phone, I’ll answer quickly”, you moved closer to your boyfriend to take the phone, but he furthered away.

“Y/n said that Hyuckie is her baby”, he cutely said into the phone

“Baby, give me the phone”Haechan gives you a look, but hands you the phone.

“Mark, I’m sorry, Hyuck is being a dork”, hearing this, Haechan rolled his eyes.

“Y/N, tell him that you’re busy”

“I’m not busy”, you told Mark, smiling teasingly at your boyfriend.

Haechan groans, gets up from his seat and picks you up bridal style. He snatches the phone from your grasp.

“Y/N will may or may not call you back. Now she is busy with her boyfriend”.

[khiphop-stories]

One Hundred Ways To Say “I Love You”

22. Christian Yu - “It’s not heavy. I’m stronger than I look.”

Gently closing your eyes, you took in a deep breath before turning the door knob around and opening the door widely. In front of you was your new home, the place you will be sharing with the person you loved the most in this world. You couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear. This was a definitely a huge step for you. Ever since you came to Seoul to finish your studies, you had lived alone. You weren’t used to sharing your bathroom or other things with another person. You were someone who needed personal space, a place where you could retreat to and be by yourself and now you were going to give up all of that. 

You did had you your doubts when Christian first suggested to move in together. You were scared of the unknown, of the problems that would occur if you saw him 24/7 and maybe a tiny part of you was also scared that he might get tired of you. But now that you were actually standing inside of your new home, you couldn’t be any more excited. Excited about waking up next to him every morning and falling sleeping in his warm embrace. You were excited about furnishing the apartment with him, unpacking all the boxes and spending your first night with him in your new apartment. Yes, you were so ready for the future and it was reassuring to know that he would be there by your side through every step. 

“Are you that happy?” He asked you teasingly as he slowly walked up to you. He reached out and hugged you tightly from behind, resting his chin on your head. The arms that held you were soft, yet strong. If you still had any spark of doubt or worry, that was the moment it all vanished into thin air. You felt safe and secure. This was where you belonged. 

“Hell yeah!” You nodded your head energetically and swirled around in his embrace. You lifted your head, looking up to him straight into his eyes that were filled with so much tenderness. The huge smile on your face still hadn’t disappeared. Seeing you this happy made his heart skip a beat. He was still head over heels for you just like the first day you started dating.

“You’re not worried anymore?” He had asked you gently, before he ran his fingers through your hair, tugging a strand of hair behind your ears so he could have a better look at your pretty face. 

“I still don’t feel comfortable taking a dump when you’re around, but I’ll manage,” you told him in a playful manner, gaining a bright chuckle and an eye-roll from him.

“Just tell me if you need to go to the toilet and I’ll leave the apartment.” “You would actually do that?” You laughed out loud at his ridiculous suggestion, though it would make you feel more comfortable. 

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you,” he released a warm smile. Although the two of you were only joking around, you knew he meant what he said. Those weren’t just empty words and he had proved to you time and time again just how much he was willing to sacrifice for you. 

“We should start moving our stuff,” you said out of the blue when you remembered that you had to return the moving van at six which was two hours from now.

~*~

As Christian opened the door of the van, your eyes grew wider while your jaw dropped open. The van was filled with so many boxes, iit seemed as though there was no end to it. You didn’t even remember packing that many boxes. 

“Uhm…Ian…”

“Yeah?” He hummed in a light tone, not suspecting anything. He jumped onto the van and took one of the boxes.

“Why the hell do you have so much stuff?” You looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“It’s not that much.” “You made me donate so many of my clothes, but you get to keep all of this?” You whined, pointing to his pile of boxes which took more than two third of the entire van. 

“Most of it is equipment,” he explained.

“Oh really?” You looked at him in disbelief. You also hopped onto the van and started reading the captions he had scribbled onto the boxes. “Shoes….shoes....oh and shoes…you don’t even wear them all! You always wear the same pair!” 

“I know, I know,” he let out a sheepish chuckle as he was caught red-handed. “I will donate some of them, but let’s just carry everything inside first.”

“Fine,” you agreed with a short sigh and walked towards one of the boxes, lifting it up.

“Ah! Don’t take that one!” He said with panic in his voice.

“Why?” You asked him as you quickly put the box down again, scared you might have done something wrong. 

“That’s my camera equipment.” “Oh! So you don’t trust me? Are you afraid I might let it fall?” You asked him teasingly. When it came to his equipment, Christian was extremely meticulous. He didn’t mind sharing his stuff, but not his equipment. That was off limits even for you. 

“No, it’s just really heavy,” he shook his head. “Ok, then I’ll take this one.” You chose the box on the left. “That’s heavy too.”

You quickly pulled your hand back as though touching fire and turned to your right, wanting to carry the other box.

“That’s also heavy.” “Ok, then what can I carry?” You sighed out loud.

“Just go upstairs and take a rest. Leave it to me.”

“Oh come on! I’m not that weak.” You laughed and took the box that was closest to you. Carrying it on your arm, you confidently walked towards the entrance. Christian’s eyes were following your every move. He had an uneasy expression planted on his face.

“It’s not heavy. I’m stronger than I look.” You assured him with a wide smile. 

~*~

“Come on! The elevator is here!” You yelled as he was still standing rooted to the spot, hugging the box in his arms tightly. 

Arriving in the elevator he immediately put the box in his arms down on the floor and turned to you, taking the box from you. “It’s really not that heavy,” you protested. You didn’t want to be useless and make him carry everything by himself. You were tiny, but you were actually stronger than you looked. A lot of people underestimated you strength because of that. Out of all the people you knew, Christian should be the one knowing just how strong you were. 

“I didn’t go to the gym today, so this is my arm training,” he said, so you wouldn’t feel as guilty as you did.

“What am I supposed to do then?” 

You really did want to help him, but you also knew how stubborn he was. He didn’t want you to overstrain yourself, since he knew how exhausted you were from work. You didn’t have a proper sleep for the last 5 days as there was always something coming up at work which made you work overtime every single day the past week.

“You can unpack,” he shrugged his shoulders lightly. “But I really want to help you though,” you insisted. “Most of it is my stuff anyway.”

“The I’ll carry mine and you’ll carry yours. Sounds fair?” “Why are you so stubborn?” He asked in a whiny tone. “You’re the one to talk!” “Ok, ok. You win, but if it’s too heavy, leave it to me.” “Deal,” you grinned at him contently, staring at him with loving eyes and then you remembered why you had let your guards down for him so fast. 

Yes, Christian was an incredibly stubborn person, but he always found a way to compromise and make all the people involved happy. He knew how to appease you when the two of you were fighting. He knew exactly which words to say and when to say them. Even when you were behaving absurdly, he never made you feel like you were in the wrong. He took time and effort to understand your point of view. He never let his momentarily emotions take control of him, even when he was outraged. He was someone you could trust. He was someone who always had your back. 

I’m baack...with an incredibly cheesy scenario haha. You guys are probably not used to this, but I hope you still enjoyed it :) Let me know what you think! Feedback is always appreciated!

[uncloseted]

1i am the anon that likes their best friend but made out with another... things changed a bit and now i am even more confused. lets call this guy Alex and my best friend Mark maybe it is easier like that. i saw alex almost everyday but always in the group and it was kind of weird because sometimes he was distant and then suddenly not. i have to say we drink a lot in the group too. and we also went to the club twice and the first time we made out again and he said that he likes it how it is and

2 that he does not want anything serious if that is okay for me and i said yes. but now i am not sure anymore. and it was also a bit weird that night because there were troubles with a friend and his ex girlfriend and alex had to take care of this friend and i of her. and so he mostly ignored me that night. the next day we went out again and it was only me Alex and this other friend and the ex gf and here he ignored me a lot or was just super weird and i don‘t know if it was because of this            

3 combination of this friend and his ex because they fight a lot and that friend is suicidal a bit and hurts him self when something happens and it is just super complicated. so maybe alex was worried if we leave them alone or whatever and was weird to me because of that. idk. sometimes i feel like he can‘t look into my eyes and he always looks at the other people when talking. that has always been this way even before we made out but now i find it even more weird. also that night he was snappin       

4 someone the whole time even though his phone had very low percentage. so inwonder if i am the side chick or something and honestly i don‘t wanna be a second option. i know i said i don‘t know if i even like him but now i wish he would like me more than just whatever. i mean one of his friends said i was his first kiss and this whole thing started like 1 and a half week ago so i don‘t know how fast things can change but i am not happy with this whole situation. even though i like mark i hoped                

5 that maybe i can forget mark a bit with Alex but now i have both stuck on my mind and i am soooo confused. also this thing seems so childish but we are all around 19. i am afraid that Alex has now someone new even though he approached me like a week ago and i am afraid that i will fall for him or that i will get jealous if iit stops now and i see him with someone else, even though i did not think i want something from him. the whole situation is just soo weird and confusing. i liked the         

6 the attention and i kinda wish i had a boyfriend finally. maybe not alex, maybe not even mark, but someone who really likes me. but since i am turning 20 i feel like it will never happen or just not fast enough for me. and since the whole alex thing i hoped something changes finally but now it seems back to normal or even worse.  i am so scared to get hurt. by anyone. but my heart feels already heavy to begin with no matter what, but that scares me even more because i’m afraid i fall apart...              

It sounds like Alex only wants a physical relationship and can’t even really manage being friends right now.  I think it sounds like he’s going through a lot in his personal life and isn’t dealing with it super well, but that’s not on you or really about you.  If that’s okay with you, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing that, but I also think that you need to be honest with yourself about what you’re looking for and what you’re comfortable with.  I would maybe download some dating apps and see what happens.  These guys might have not worked out, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there who will, and I think the more you’re exposed to people who are potentially interested in you, the more confident you’ll feel in these types of situations.

[erraticwriterscanvas-blog]

The Girl on the train - Part 1

Chennai Central Railway station, the biggest of its kind that I had ever seen, welcomed me once again. Honestly it was a warm welcome because the station inside was way too hotter than the streets outside. The bustling crowd that spread over the long trench over a mile was no surprise.

Five days ago, when I began my journey to Chennai, I was really excited about travelling all alone. It was my first experience of travelling alone to a city far from mine, and I was thrilled about the feeling of responsibility I would have towards myself and my luggage, the personal space I would get for myself among the thousands of unknowns on the train, the decision making situations where I don’t have to listen to someone else’s commands to choose what I want. Travelling seemed like fun, but it eventually turned boring. I should have carried few novels to read. And what added to the disappointment of excitement turned to boredom was that there was no sign of a girl in my whole compartment. How could there be no Meenamma on ‘The Chennai Express’ ( Meenamma is the female lead character in the movie ‘Chennai Express’ in which hero meets her heroine first on train). A bunch of Tamilians were my travel companions and I had no clue what they spoke about throughout the journey. A good aged Tamilian uncle cleared my confusion about how to reach my destination in Chennai (The only reason why I felt he was good coz he understood fair bit of Hindi, and it wasn’t hard to communicate).

My purpose of visit to Chennai was something I was really proud of; so proud that I told all my friends about it. I was one among the few hundred chosen to appear for an interview at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (my dream world). I was imagining IIT, when my thoughts were broken by the whistling of train. It had reached ‘The Grand Chennai Central Station’, that I had heard a great deal about. It didn’t look any different from other railway stations at my place, when I stepped out of the coach. I realized how vast it was, when I had to walk ten minutes to make my way through the busy crowd at 5am, and reach the exit. It had 12 stations stretched over one and half mile; and truly deserved to be called ‘MASSIVE’.

I took a breath of relief when I finally got out of that station. A fresh breeze of air felt refreshing, when I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I found myself circled by a bunch of taxi drivers, some trying to grab my hand and my luggage, some cursing each other about who would carry this new boy in town. I didn’t panic because I knew my way to IIT. Firmly holding my luggage, I walked away towards the nearest subway across the road.

It looked a neat city, with clean roads, fast moving vehicles, differently shaped buses, metro rails, restaurants, and obviously busy people. I wanted to explore this city more, but for now I had to go to IIT first. A very polite bus conductor directed me to a bus to IIT. The bus raced on the smooth roads, crossed flyovers and in fifteen minutes I stood before the gate of my heaven that I had dreamt of. A day before I had read an article that said IIT, Madras is 30 cooler than rest of Chennai. I was ready to experience this chill.

The excitement grew every second as I travelled through the roads of IIT. Old rusty buildings hidden behind century-old trees, dense trench of trees where deer and monkeys could be spotted made me think if it was an engineering college or a natural habitat for animals. I told myself ‘may be this is how IITs are’. Instruction boards were at every corner that said interference in the animal’s habitat is punishable. Seriously!! Humans seemed like a worthless creature here compared to animals.

It was 8am when I got down at hostel area and was accommodated into a room, all for myself. I was tired because of last night’s sleepless journey, and my body cried for sleep. But as per timings of IIT, breakfast ended at 9. So I hurried to clean my stinking body. Nothing’s more refreshing than a cold shower in a hot summer morning. I rushed to mess for breakfast.

Unlike my expectations, North-Indian food sucked there. I just stuffed my stomach to quench my hunger, despite the disgusting taste. I stepped out to explore the surroundings. A minute later, I cursed that guy who wrote the article about IIT being cooler than Chennai. It was too humid there. Bathing everyday wasn’t a task of concern, because I got drenched in sweat every hour. I restrained myself from going out and chose to rest in my room.

My entire day was spent in my room, succumbed to my loneliness and boredom, doing nothing. I walked out of my den in the evenings when the place felt rather cooler. Interesting people flocked everywhere (People refers to strictly girls in hot dresses). Most of the students were South-Indian but only North-Indian girls caught my attention for one reason. Hearing a fair skinned girl speak Hindi fluently was captivating. But I couldn’t dare to walk to someone and spark a conversation or the least a formal HeLLO. I was neither as charming as ShahRukh, neither did I have a great physique like Hrithik, nor did I carry my style like Beckham; so there was nothing in me that would make a girl want to talk to me. I had always been bad at starting conversations with God’s favorite gender.

My expectations of this place were going way down, thinking I have to spend my evening just as I spent my morning, bored and alone. But thankfully, I saw something. FOOTBALL!! A bunch of local hostelites were playing football. I got into one of their teams and began the game. Everyone around there was resident of Godavari hostel and majority of them were from Karnataka. Damn, it was hard to communicate during the game coz the only language we both understood was English, and you know that the real emotions are best depicted by the language of my choice; Hindi. We did fairly well, trying to speak and we won the game with our marvelous (totally exaggerated) team effort by 3-1. I bid them bye and promised myself that my evenings are never going to be boring, as long as I am here.

That night, when I lay down on my bed, I felt tired of having done nothing all day. Gazing at the ceiling and the fan, I imagined how my life will be at IIT if I fortunately got in. These hostels, junky north Indian food, vast football playgrounds, world class sports facilities; I would do anything to get here. The next morning was my big day; the day of interview.

I woke up the next morning when sun rays peeking in from the window hit my face. I realized it was only 6am. I sat on my bed erect, and scanned the walls that were scribbled all over. Hand sketches of cartoons, forgettable phone numbers, poems (barely romantic), and hell lot of formulae written on one corner wall. FORMULAE!!! Damn it! I had totally forgotten to prepare for the interview. And in the baffle, before I could prepare something seriously, clock struck 7. I rushed to cleanse myself, masked myself with a strong deodorant that would last all day, stuffed my tummy with slices of bread, and off I go.

Good morning IITM. The morning sun shone bright, while many joggers were returning to their dorms. Group of friends flocked around everywhere, catching up on a morning waali chai, and phone bugs hung around with their phones and earphones on. With a bright smile on face, I got into the bus to find it all empty. Adjusting my trousers and my over sized formal shirt, I struggled to stabilize myself in the moving bus and grabbed a seat. I hated formals, coz I cannot carry them. But you see, these were mandatory for an interview.

In less than five minutes, I was at the mechanical engineering block. What a rusty old building it was, barely visible, hidden behind the trees and little deserted too. I asked myself if I was too early, but it was 8am and that’s when I was asked to appear. I found my way to seminar hall, where everyone else appearing for interview on the same day had gathered. My jaw dropped when I opened the door, seeing that there were no less than 800 students of which only 25 would be selected. For a moment I thought if I had come to the wrong place; may be this wasn’t the place for interview. The instruction plate on the door read clearly “Research interviews, Mechanical Engineering” and my doubt was answered. I looked through people there, some were of my age group and while others seemed to have graduated years ago. To my relief, I heard someone say that Ph.D candidates are also being interviewed on the same day and few of these might be appearing for that. I found a corner seat from where I could have a clear view of the entire place. Only a few were dressed in formals and were trying to not mess up their attire, and clearly they were first timers like me. Others were in shorts and casual Ts.

An hour later, instructions arrived that we had to appear for a screening test before facing the interview. Four hours later, I walked out of the exam hall, with my face doomed in mixed emotions. I flunked the written test. I had least hope of clearing it. Lunch at the cafeteria didn’t seem as bad as breakfast; or perhaps that’s what I felt. Screening test was worse than the lunch served. I ate my food in silence and walked to my dormitory. Dumped myself on the bed, and thought to myself “Was I not good enough for the interview?”. Before I could think of something, I fell asleep, out of the tiredness of the morning.

Evening was same as the day earlier, playing football, stalking at girls around, shopping in the local cloth store, and distracting my mind from the failure of today’s test. A little hope still persisted that I would do better the next day.

Three days flew away in the blink of an eye. I flunked miserably in all three interviews I attended. Actually I did fairly better in the last interview in comparison with the first two. Now it was time for me to pack my baggage and find my way out of this place. In four days, I had fallen so much in love with this place. The peaceful atmosphere here (forgetting the heavy moisture content that made me seat all day), the teaching facilities, students from every corner of the country, unforgettably beautiful and rarely seen north Indian girls; all of it was so alluring that I didn’t want to leave this place. It felt like I belonged to this place, like I always have wanted to be in a place like this. When I got down from the bus at the exit gate, I turned around to have one last glance at the top ranked college of India. That moment I told myself “promise yourself that one day you will walk in through these gates, and never have to leave again.”

Clock tick 6 when I walked into the “Chennai Central Station”. The hustle and bustle in the station added more discomfort besides my disappointment of returning home as a failure. It was peak time and everyone at the station was waiting for Chennai express to arrive. My thoughts were crashed by the announcement of the railway department that the train was delayed by 30 minutes. Karma!! Even the Railways don’t want me to leave Chennai so soon. I had to get myself out of these thoughts of dejection and failure, coz worrying now is no way going to help. And I thought to myself “what could be a better distraction than food”, when my eyes fell on the food truck stationed at a corner. Making my way through the crowd, I reached the menu board.

“Two dosas and a plate of Idlis,” I placed my order.

I was scanning through the menu, looking for something more tasty and spicy, when a girl slammed her hand on the counter.

“Six samosas and pudina chutney. Wait, also add Rasmalai to it. And please make it quick,okay?” She went back to looking at her phone and tapping her feet to the rhythm of the song playing in her ears.

“How bossy!! She could be a little polite. Hogi koi bade baap ki beti” I thought to myself.

My thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the guy at the counter”72 rupees sir. That will be 72 rupeees”

I dug into my pockets for a change, but failed and handed him a 100 rupees note. He gave me 20 back and a five star chocolate, with a smile of gratitude.

“Paise kya tere baap ke ped pe ugte hain. Mann toh karta hai iss chocolate ko tere mooh mein ghusa doon” I thought to myself, but took that chocolate from him, with a made up smile, cursing him within. When I turned, the girl was gone. I turned around but she had disappeared in the crowd. Did she just vanish in a second??

Waiting hall was completely occupied. I managed to find a seat at a corner, and looked at my watch; 6:10pm. What do I do for twenty minutes now? Observe!! Observing people around always had been my best pass time. There were many young people around, in their mid twenties, and they all looked like they knew each other. Everyone was talking to someone around, except me who watched them talking. There was a bunch of girls at the far end, and from their baggage, they looked like they were on a holiday, perhaps on a adventure trip like trekking or camping. Beautiful and rough girls!! Adventure reminded me of the photos I had clicked at IIT, some next to the grazing antelopes, some at the great lake. Never in my life had I shot so many pictures at one place. I smirked thinking “Nature can really inspire you to become a photographer. “

Whistle of the train was loud, and at once the whole waiting hall stood to move. Chennai express had arrived, ten minutes before its delayed schedule time. I picked up my baggage, pulling my trunk; I craned over the crowd to look for the S5 coach.

Coach S5, L 47- Aryan Malhotra; I spotted my name on the reservation chart. I walked in and surprisingly I was the only one in the compartment. Resting my bag, relaxing on my berth, I peeked out of the window to look for water bottle vendor. Adjacent compartments were slowly filling up, but my compartment had only me yet. People of all age group were walking in and out of the coach, and I could hear raw Hyderabadi slang; it felt soothing to my ears to hear Hyderbadi language after so long(four days precisely). But what do I do alone in this empty compartment of mine? Updated my facebook status, tagged a few friends in hilarious posts, wished happy birthday to few others, scrolled through facebook wall, but everything seemed so regular and boring.

A noisy bunch of people entered the coach from one end, perhaps they were a joint family as it had kids, aunties, uncles in their 50’s and a huge huge luggage. One of the kids yelled “45 se 52 wahan hai” and my eyes popped out. No no no,I didn’t want this noisy family in my compartment to ruin my peace. And before I could gulp this fact below my throat, they began filling my compartment. 45,46,48,49,51,52; they filled in all seats; aunties with their heavy sarees were trying to load their baggage on upper birth, while I hardly had place to move my ankle. It felt suffocated sitting amidst them as they tried to figure out seats for each other. Moving out of this family drama, I pulled my bag and sat at the other single window seat, to have my peace time.

“sabko apni jagah milgayi? Aur meri jagah kahan hai?” a girl standing at the entrance spoke.

It was the same girl I had seen at the food court, and who vanished before my eyes. Rude and bossy!! Bade baap ki beti. I turned my eyes to not look at her.

“kahan reh gayi thi itni der? Yahan toh sab baith gaye hain. Tu woh window ke paas baith ja” an elderly lady of the family told her, pointing at the seat before me.

I was moving my eyes looking at the lady and the girl, when she said “Excuse me, will you move your bag please?”

“Sure” I said in a low voice, breaking my eye contact and moved bag on to my lap. Squeezing my legs close to make way for her to sit, I wished that she doesn’t fuss now, asking for more leg space. She sat down comfortably, adjusted her clothes, gulped some water and relaxed, while I was trying to squeeze my legs, so that I don’t accidentally touch her. My bag was heavy, but there was no place to rest it. My eyes were looking for some space and she caught me.

“May I help you please? I think your bag can fit in here” she said, pointing at the berth above her. She took my bag and placed it gently there.

“Thank you” I said in a sweet voice, surprised by her sweet gesture. This wasn’t expected.

She smiled and went back to flipping the pages of the book she held.

At the food court, I had no time to look at her. And from the first impression I had of her, I didn’t even wish to look at her. But this second impression of her was different. She wore a pink top with a creamy brown night pant; a small, tight bun over her head, and moderate sized reading classes. She looked cute though. No lip gloss, no eye liner, no plastic put upon face; it seemed like she had forgotten her makeup box in a hurry. She was so immersed in reading the book that she didn’t look up even once.

“Why am I admiring her beauty? As if I have nothing important to do” said to myself and went back to Facebook.

A minute later, one of the two kids in the family moaned, finding it difficult to sit in such little space. She came weeping to her elder sister, sitting before me.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry but can she sit here? She wants to be with me” asked she, looking at me hoping I would nod at her.

“Bag rakhne ke liye jagah nahi hai,and now you want your sister here” I thought to myself. But before I could speak something, the little kid, moved my leg and found her space between us. I was gaping at her in dumb shock, thinking “Fuck, I better jump off the window than squeal here”

“Thank you, I hope you are comfortable “she spoke again, with that bloody disgustingly sweet smile on face. I nodded, having nothing else to say.

Bored of facebook, I thought of starting a conversation with her. But what do I say first? I never have spoken to a girl myself. The book in her hand was PRIDE and PREJUDICE. This seemed like good way to start things off. But at that very moment, the name of its author escaped my mind. Arthur Daniel, William Leslie; it wasn’t any of these names that passed my mind. Author’s name on the cover was so small, that I couldn’t read. I bent my head to have a better view of the cover, when she saw me.

“Pride and Prejudice, the best seller of its year” she said, showing me the book.

I leaned back, calmly and said “Of course, I know”, trying to sound confident.

“Have you read it? I bought this book a while ago at the stall” she said.

“No, I didn’t. But my friend has, and he said it’s good” I said with a shaky voice.

“Of course. That’s why I bought it” she responded, not sounding very friendly.

I leaned back to my seat and took a breath of relief. Thankfully I didn’t showcase as a fool, before her.

An hour passed and we kept quiet; I, hoping she would look at me and boost me to talk to her, and she, being deeply immersed in reading. Fuck! I hated that book in her hands so much. But I chose to break the silence myself.

“So, where do you live in Hyderabad?” I enquired, to which she raised her cheeky big eyes, hiding behind the large frame of glasses.

“Sultanpur. But we are shifting soon to Gandipet. We bought a new house there.” She grinned.

“Wow, that’s cool. And what’s with the visit to Chennai?” I questioned, desiring to know more.

“Big fat wedding. My cousin got married this week. And our entire family had attended it.” She said, showing me her mehendi.

“Is this all your family?”I blurted out, even before I knew what I had asked. That question was really offensive. I fucked up this good going conversation myself. But to my surprise, came her answer “No, the rest of my family is in the next coach. We couldn’t get our seats at one place. You see, ours is a joint family” she smirked.

That’s a GIANT family.

The conversation got better with time. She was sounding sweet to my ears, friendlier than I would expect a stranger to be (especially a girl), and preferring to talk to me over reading the book she carried. Had the sun risen in the east, or was I dreaming? Never had a girl been so nice to me to have talked to me for fifteen minutes at a stretch. Wow! Fifteen minutes of uninterrupted talk with a girl. That felt like an achievement in my life.

Rage of my expectation usually peaked in fraction of minutes. An introvert like me, had lots of things on his list that were yet to be experienced. Some of these to-do’s were talking to a girl, asking for her number, kissing someone, dancing in public with a girl and etc.

It was soon 8pm, and train halted for few minutes at a station. I peeked out of the window, and saw that more passengers were flooding the train. But our coach still seemed spacious, fairly vacant. By then, the giant family next to me had drooped over their Tiffin boxes, feeding each other, littering the entire seat like uncivilized barbarians. This girl, sat before me quietly eating her food, with her ear phones plugged in, and looking out of the window. She didn’t look like she was a part of this noisy, uncivilized family. She was different.

I was finished with the food I had bought for dinner. Stretching my arms, and yawning, I grabbed the novel in my bag. Before I opened the first page of it, the lights of the compartment were turned off. The family was done with dinner and shut the lights off to sleep in peace, unbothered of my presence there. Surprisingly, even the girl had fallen asleep in just a minute. Damn it, I wanted to talk to her, but I cannot dare to wake her for this silly desire of mine. I usually don’t sleep so early. WTF should I do now!!

Tossing around on my berth, I was looking at the dark sky, in a disgusted mood. I hadn’t caught any sleep since the lights turned down. My watch flashed 11pm and I let out a heavy breath of discomfort. The family was deep asleep, snoring heavily to their pleasures, where as I barely had space to move my legs. Cautious that I didn’t disturb the herd, I tiptoed to the door.

Silence brooded over the whole coach, as everyone was fast asleep. Finally there was some peace in the darkness of the coach. Cool breeze of air brushed my face as I stood at the door. Train had caught its full speed. Little lights glowed at a distance, and the feeble cry of cattle could be heard. I always wanted to live my life in a country side home like these, where peace wasn’t scarce. I sat down at the door, to live that moment for a little longer.

“You wouldn’t die if you jump off, instead would end up with broken limbs and disfigured face” I heard a voice from behind.

I turned around, and to my aghast it was her.

“What are you doing here?” I asked horrified.

“You surely don’t own this place. Do you?” her reply slammed on my face.

“I mean, you were asleep right? You lay motionless so long, so I thought you were fast asleep” I retorted.

“So you were stalking me!! “She probed doubtfully.

“Uhh…..” I fell silent. She caught me in the act.

“Chill…. So what are you doing here?” she enquired.

Tumhare family ne mujhe sone kahan diya. I let go off my disgust look on face and turned sweet, to answer her “I couldn’t sleep. I’m not used to sleeping so early.”

“Hmmm….” She exclaimed, sitting down next to me. She looked gorgeous as her hair flew over hair, and she pulled them across her ears.

“So what’s your story?” She asked, looking straight into my eyes. I was jolted by her question. My story!! What does she mean?

“I don’t have any story” I retorted.

“I mean, what brought you to Chennai?” she cleared.

“I was here to attend interviews at IITM”, I answered facing the fast moving trees outside.

“I thought IIT was a college, but not a company. What did you attend interviews for?” she pondered.

“It was for the post of research scholar. It’s for those who wish to do research” I explained in not more than a line, assured that she had no freaking idea of what it was.

“That’s cool” she exclaimed, but with an ironic expression. “Nerd” she whispered in silence.

With passing minutes, she made herself comfortable sitting next to me, leaning on the door for back rest, and closing her eyes now and then. Silence brooded over. I had started to feel little uncertain about how to initiate the talk, though deep within my mind wanted to spend the night talking to her.

“I didn’t catch your name”, I said timidly, trying to sound cool.

“I never told you my name” she replied in an imperious tone, with her eyes still closed. I was awed about how quickly she switches from being sweet the-girl-next-door kind of person to being bossy, egoistic brat kind of person.

I refrained from snapping back at her. Insecurity was driving me now.

“I mean, what’s your name?” I asked, not looking at her.

“Aisha….. Aisha Gujraal is my name. What’s yours?” I heard her question, while I was still gazing outside.

I turned to her, with a smile, but noticing that she still had her eyes closed, I retorted in despair “Devansh Awasthi”.

“Tum toh naam se hi nerd lagte ho”, she blurted out laughing to herself. But silenced, seeing my grave expression. Damn her senseless jokes.

“Sorry yaar, but I’m not used to talking to nerds. This is my first time” she said and giggled.

Offended to the limit, I turned, moved an inch away and went on to enjoy my own company.

“So, what do you do?” she enquired, pretending to be sweet again. I didn’t bother to respond back.

“Hello, I asked what you do” she raised her pitch to make herself audible, amidst the noise of the train.

“Graduation…. Pursuing B.Tech now.” I replied in mono-syllables. Who damn cares to answer her anyway? I dislike her already.

“Oh, I study Commerce, and I totally hate it.” She uttered in a miserable tone.

I already had heard this a million times from many. I wasn’t bothered by her reply, and kept my eyes glued to the view outside.

“I said I hate commerce” she yelled at her highest pitch, assuming that I hadn’t heard her the first time. Damn! Why does she want to be heard always? Why is she here to ruin my tranquility?

“Oh..” I muttered, not knowing what to respond. “so what do you wish to do, if not commerce”

“Fashion Designer!! I wish to be a fashion designer. This one time, I saw a movie in which the lead actress is a wedding planner, and since then, I have been obsessed about it” she said delightfully.

I had the faintest idea of this career choice. I had never heard anyone pursue it, but it surely sounded interesting.

“And how do you think of getting there?” I asked in amusement.

“I haven’t thought of it yet. But I will find a way” she said with a pleasant smile. She seemed certain about her choice of life. I turned towards her, and now she was facing me. It seemed like the perfect moment to start a conversation, now that we both had a pleasant expression.

Clock ticked 12, and I was puzzled about where to begin. The awkward silence, that crept in, amidst the pleasant smiles on our faces, had to cut down.

“Tell me about you. Where do you live in Hyderabad ?” she broke the hush.

And with that began our never ending talk. We were comfortable talking to each other, though we were complete strangers a few hours ago. I didn’t know the reason why? Perhaps it was because of the serene, tranquil night with its clear sky and dazzling star, that worked like magic.

Two hours passed, and we hadn’t stopped. I had never felt time fly so easy, and never had I talked to a girl for so long. I have to ask for her number. I don’t know how. Before I could utter the next word, I heard a voice from behind us.

“Aisha, what on earth are you doing here, at this time?” It was her aunt. She was horrified, seeing that we had been sitting for more than hour at the train door. To me, she looked nothing less than hungry lioness, ready to hunt me down. Her eyes blazed with anger, and in the flash of light that fell on her face, she looked like a blood thirsty vamp.

“ Chachi,main toh bas……” and before she could finish, she was shushed and dragged away by her aunt. I sat there baffled, thinking about what I could have said to avoid this from happening. But then, I felt Acha kiya jo kuch nahi bola, warna aur bura ho sakta tha. Perhaps we were meant to get along this far. I convinced myself that there was no coming back of her, and it was in best interest of me that I rested my eyes now. Less than two hours were left for the sun to hit the skies.

I woke up the next morning, not because of the sun rays peeking in from the adjacent window, but because of the chaos in the compartment. The GIANT family had woke up, and now I was seeing them, gravely staring at me. Instinctively I covered myself, fearing I might be in an obscene posture or was uncovered. Few seconds later, it struck me that the reason was what happened last night. I rolled my eyes around to avoid looking at them, but from the corner of my eye, I could still see Vamp Aunt explain them the scenario of last night. Embarrassed, I moved out to other compartment to avoid any further humiliation, and glued my eyes to my phone screen. A few minutes later, Aisha woke up. She seemed normal, unaffected and walked to washroom. She didn’t even notice me sitting by the window side, ready to smile at her if she looked. But she didn’t.

In less than 20 minutes, the train halted at Hyderabad station. The jostling crowd, waiting for 9am train to work, covered the entire platform. It wasn’t unusual. I grabbed my bags, and got down the train. As I was scanning through the crowd, I saw her family get down too. I stood at a distance, hoping that she would at least look for me. A minute passed, and it turned harder for me to stand there in despair. Finally, there family walked past me. I was still gazing at her, desperately hoping that she would turn around to look at that guy she spent the last night talking to. But no, it didn’t happen. Soon they disappeared in the crowd, and I was left there thinking “This was how it’s supposed to end. When did anything start in the first place? We only had a conversation for a few hours last night, in seclusion, which by no way means that we would see each other’s faces the next morning. I am a total jerk to have thought that the conversation mattered to her. She must have had thousands of such conversations with thousands of strangers…. But it certainly mattered to me, coz it was my first time.”

Soon, we parted our ways amidst the bustling crowd, and disappeared in the busy streets of Hyderabad, my home.

[thatinnerfeirygoddessphoenix]

Dreamworld

So after I ranted online about where my insanity originated I had a dream about my first actual best friend. An ex best friend.

Sure, my female friend S has been my friend longer, but we were never as close as I was with J. He was the one who taught me to drive, got my licence, took me to my first concert, gave me a place to love when my parents kicked me out for the second time, and brought me out of my shell.

He made me believe that people could do anything if they just tried. That it didnt matter how they were born as long as they knew the right people and took charge when the time came. I believed in him.

He was also the one who made me start doing drugs. Which I was highly against. Didnt even try cigarettes. Though, I was never against weed. Even though i didnt smole iit at the time.

It was fun at first. Or else why would I care? My first real friends who actually liked me. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to know how they were so cool and confident. (Little did I know how wrong I was about that. )

So pills was the start. Cough medicine. It made me feel connected to the stars and the universe. Like I could do anything. Like my life wasnt a small town waste. I felt more alive and awake than I did sober. We pushed the limits. Making sure it was safe with a certain website. I think the most ive taken was 40 at a time. Possibly more.

Eventually my body was unable to handle them or something. I would throw up every time. Didnt matter, because after i was done puking, the high would start to get intense.

Then I did inhalents. Dust off. Computer cleaner. That one just made the person retarded. No brain, no cares right? After my friend Jos almost died by having it freeze his throat J got angry if i did it. Which seemed hypocritical to me.

Unfortunately he started me off on harder things. Meth. Yeah, i cringe just writing it. Ive always been a low energy person. Always tired. It gave me energy. Gave me motivation. The art I created was phenomenal. I was under the delusion that it made me a better person.

It might have been true for a little while, even. I worked, went to school AND was able to socialize. I could keep up with him finally. He was always so high energy, i couldnt understand where he got so much.

I took my freedom too far. Too much of anything is bad for you. Extremely true when it comes to drugs. I became emotional. Reckless. Ashamed to say sex was a part of my addictions. If they dont want me as a girlfriend I will just use them like they use me. Just leave them before they find out im not worth anything.

Low self esteem ruins relationships faster than the herp.

Anyways, I quit a few years after starting. J didnt. He evolved to heroin when I left town to help my family out. I tried visiting, tried not to judge, but he had become something else. I cant forget when I visited, he said "i know you dont like heroin, so I got you some meth." I didnt know how to react. I just laughed and said I didnt do that either. I felt simultaneously offended and yet I knew he was just thinking of me. In his own way...

I was pulled down into that kind of world willingly, but left him there as I pulled myself out.... do I feel bad? In a way. I wish I could have helped him, but I knew the only way to quit was to make the choice in yourself.

The way I quit... i simply saw who I was, and where I was heading, and said it needs to stop. I haven't even wanted any since then.

When I quit something I mean it. The same went for our friendship. I was living in another town, he called and texted, but I was in a depressive slump. Unfortunately for me, being that unhappy makes me lash out and be uncaring towards people. Particularly my friends.

We had talked on the phone and he said "I love you" like he always does. Now, something about me not many know, is that I CANNOT tell someone I love them unless I really feel it. He was offended because I replied with "ok, bye." I get it, in a way... but that started a ridiculous argument. I told him he was acting like a bad possessive boyfriend when we were just friends.

Then he said " fine, I wont bother you anymore. I'll unfriend you on everything and not talk to you anymore." So i said fine. Simple.

He was true to his word, and even though he had been there for me through EVERYTHING, I was relived when this happened. I was tired of being a part of the underbelly of the world. Drugs and bad people. Hes done some prerty messed up things to me as well. I dont need to go into detail, because of the shame.

I blame myself for the things Ive been through. Part of it was my fault, yeah. I cant let that shame rule my life though. I was sick of being human trash. He put himself down there, when in the beginning he had the potential to do some great things.

I dont know what hes doing now, or if hes even ok. I tell myself not to care.

In that dream, so vivid like I was really there... trying to be the friends we were before. Making me comfortable in his house. But i knew he had just done some heroin. Literally falling asleep while standing. When his mom knew I was there she yelled something mean to me. So I called her a fat ugly cunt. He got violent for a moment. I decided to leave.

There, I felt like we could possibly be friends again, but he ruined it. He was trying, and that's all Ive ever wanted was for someone to TRY FOR ME.

Im not worth it though. Obviously. Im too angry and bitter. I dont even know what my problem is half the time. I just know that I want to be alone sometimes. Because if im alone I cant hurt anyone.

What if i was the killer all along? The mean one. Gaslighting myself.

[destinyduke]

RWBY: Chronicles of Vault

Chapter 1: A New Dawn

When Cedar had woken up that morning, a part of him was convinced he was still dreaming. That, as he stood there gazing up at the vast mechanical aircraft settled into the docks, marvelling at its sheer size and scope, he was still in his bed with his head stuffed between too many pillows. It had taken a good few pinchings of his cheek and a couple rounds of rubbing his eyes to assure himself that, yes indeed, this was no dream.

And that left him with the sinking feeling that he may be horribly out of his depth.

It had been three months since he’d graduated combat school and passed his final exams. And another two months and a half til he received a letter of invitation to the academy. He’d been so astounded he’d gotten it he ended up crying slightly, just out of happiness. Though some of his friends had taken it that he’d been upset… that was fun to explain to them. His parents had been a little bit more pensive, suggesting he just be home schooled or find a job a more low key and safer. But no, getting that letter had been assurance to him, that this was what he wanted to do. To become a huntsman and to protect the people…

And so, here he stood, feet resting on the white stone ground of the docks in the bright morning, the wind tugging at the thin white scarf around his neck and making him pull his jacket on a little bit tighter, his two fox ears atop his head blowing back from the gust, a rather plain bag in one hand carrying everything he needed. People were moving past him of all creeds, colours, and as he saw a curled tail slink past him, even species too, all into the huge airship that would be carrying on the chosen students to their new home in the academy beyond.

...okay but did this thing REALLY have to be this big?! How many new students were getting on this thing?! Were they all from the town? Had they flown over from other kingdoms? Were any of them going to be expelled on the first day like he’d heard stories of at Atlas academy? His mind buzzed with the angry hornets of doubt and uncertainty, so much so he got distracted from his surroundings and ended up walking right into someone. He sprawled on his back and held his nose from where it had connected with the other person.

“Sorry, sorry!” He said quickly, trying to look at who he’d bumped into. “I was totally distracted, didn’t see you, hope I didn’t hurt you!” He rambled, only to be silenced when a gloved hand reached down to help him up. The hand belonged to the copper haired girl he’d bumped into, her hair in a fishtail braid slung over one shoulder, her eyes bright and her smile even brighter.

“Hey, no worries! Let me help you up.” Cedar was surprised as the girl managed to heft him right back up to his feet. He was oddly reminded of a time he’d been fishing and had been pulled into the water by a very big tuna. “It’s alright to be nervous, i’m kinda nervous too!” the big girl admitted. Cedar couldn’t help but glance over her biceps and notice how toned and strong they were. He felt briefly inadequate.

“So i’m not alone huh? That’s a relief.” Cedar chuckled nervously, then realising he was still clutching onto her hand. He attempted to play it off by shaking it quickly. “My name’s Cedar Glade, nice to meet you.” That seemed to work out, judging by how her wide smile grew yet wider. “Lariah Marine, nice to meet you too.” She replied, releasing his hand from her firm grip. “Come on, we should probably get onboard or it’ll leave without us!” And with that, the copper haired muscle girl ran on ahead, leaving him in the dust…

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to follow, it’s that his feet were glued to the spot. He was honestly finding it hard to take those steps to get onboard. It took honest effort to finally get himself moving, as the crowds began to peter out around him. His ticket in hand and his feet dragging across the ground, he made it into the ship.

Now he was faced with his next big problem. Finding a seat.

Thanks to his concrete footed walk into the ship, most of the seats around had been taken. The interior of the ship was simple enough with wood panelled floors and leather cushioned metal seats set up in rows, the windows spanning all around the ship’s exterior. Cedar wormed his way between the seats and finally found one to slip into, right at the end of a row, barely even paying any mind to who was sitting next to him.

Right as he sat, there was a sudden lurching in the machine around him, causing the students to shift in their seats. The great mechanical vessel’s engines roared into life, its mighty fans spun up and slowly lifted it off of the docks, a great wind blustering from below it. With the horizon ahead, the great ship set off, iit’s precious cargo of young hopefuls safely contained within. It left the town behind and soared out over open land and into open sky.

After a few moments of tightly gripping his seat’s armrests, Cedar relaxed a little. He wasn’t a huge fan of flying, but at least he hadn’t made a mess of himself like when he was seven. Some of the other students had stood up and were walking around, talking to each other. Cedar decided to stay seated and so did the guy sitting beside him, who turned to speak to him.

“Howdy? Y’doin’ alright there?” He inquired, a warm smile on his round face. He was a particularly large boy, and unlike Lariah, he was large in the other sense.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sorry.” Cedar felt his ears wiggle slightly atop his head. “I just haven’t flown in a while is all.”

“I see.” The young man nodded slightly, the leather stetson covering his head wavering slightly. “Must confess, i’m a first timer to flyin’ too. Usually go by land.” That off put Cedar a little bit. The guy hadn’t even flown before and here he was all calm, collected, friendly. It put him to shame.

“Well uh, you sure handled it well.” Cedar nodded, maintaining his composure. “Cedar Glade by the way, you?” When in doubt, always introduce, he thought.

“Isaac Carbon. Nice to meetcha.” A large hand patted Cedar on the back and almost sent him stumbling out of his seat. “Here’s hopin’ for a smooth landin’, huh?” He chuckled, though coming from him it sounded more like an odd rumbling noise.

“Mhm, definitely…” Cedar nodded quickly and got to his feet. “I’m just gonna go look around and stuff.” He left the conversation on that and decided to go to the window. The sight quickly made up for any nausea he may have been initially feeling. The ship was flying gracefully over the land below, the rivers rushing by in silver streaks of light, the ground a mere blur of imagined lines and anyone down there just a brief sight on their journey to the academy. Cedar couldn’t help but press his hands against the glass to get a closer look at it all. Everything seemed far more beautiful from above.

He briefly wondered if that’s what she thought when she first took this craft to the academy…

“Um, excuse me?” A quiet voice got his attention. It was only now that Cedar noticed a girl had been seated right next to where he was looking out, shrouded in a big hooded raincoat with slight streaks of oddly coloured hair poking out. She’d exuded such a small presence, Cedar hadn’t noticed her at all, and given his height that was saying something. “Could you move, please? You’re um… kinda weirding me out.”

“Oh sure, sorry.” Cedar backed up. Ouch, that one hit home… they hadn’t even gotten to the academy yet and someone thought he was creepy. And she was cute too, damnit! I mean it was weird she was wearing a raincoat but… no, she was cute, voices like that only belonged to cute people. He frowned and ruffled a hand through his hair before slipping them into his pockets. Maybe he should go hang out with Lariah, at least he’d already met her.

Lariah seemed to be talking to some big guy with spiky blonde hair, big in the muscular sense, not in Isaac’s sense. Cedar wanted to interrupt but their discussion seemed oddly intense and to be frank, the blonde guy’s angry looking face scared him.

“So many interesting faces.” A voice alerted Cedar to a girl standing behind him, having somehow snuck up on him. Said girl was dressed in a flowery yellow dress, her face showing a slightest smirk. “I wonder if we’re already seeing the flowers of romance taking root.”

“Um… excuse me, what’re you talking about?” He blinked in uncertainty, his fox ears flattening slightly atop his head. The flowery girl giggled slightly at the sight.

“Pardon my thinking aloud. I simply wonder who will be pining after who in the coming days.” The girl commented, a sly eye overseeing the soon to be students chatting with one another.

“Okay that’s totally normal.” Cedar nodded slightly, passing it off. “Um, my name’s Cedar Glade?” Stick to the basics, he thought to himself.

“Yasmin Ginshi.” She replied, suddenly opening a silk fan and covering her mouth with it, giving her eyes a considerably more alluring look. “I’m sure we’ll get to know each other well, if we survive the entrance exam.”

“...survive?” Cedar felt his stomach do a somersault.

“Well you know what hunting academies are like, I’m sure there’s some big test of great danger awaiting us. They can’t just go accepting everyone you know.” She tapped her fan on his forehead. It might’ve irritated him if his mind wasn’t now conjuring up terrible images and ideas of what the entrance exam might consist of.

“I hear that, over in Beacon?” a dark skinned girl with blonde hair leaned over. “They shoot the new students out of a cannon to see how they land and ditch the ones who go splat!”

“That’s just stupid.” A grey haired boy snorted, rolling his eyes. “They probably just make them fight to the death in some big arena. Or maybe they’ll just let us walk right in, they probably take in all the dregs anyway.” He chuckled snidely.

None of these thoughts were helping Cedar at all, who was just standing there and taking it in, his imagination conjuring scenarios of fighting nightmarishly strong kids to the death, or flying through the air at nine hundred miles per hour and splatting like a fly on a window. They wouldn’t really do that to new students, right? They couldn’t just expect that out of them on day one… right?

He’d find out pretty soon as he felt the ship starting to descend. The other kids piled back into their seats and Cedar followed suit as the vessel touched ground and came to a slow stop. Then the doors opened and everyone rushed to get out first. Cedar waited, he wasn’t in much of a hurry anymore.

When Cedar finally did walk down the platform and onto solid ground again, his eyes were met with the splendour of the academy grounds stretching out before him. A white stone path split the land in two from the docking area, leading further into the area. On either side, patches of lush ruby grass grew, a unique specimen not found in many other regions outside of their kingdom’s semi volcanic soil. Peeking up from the crimson grass, tall trees of white and black stood tall and proud, their leaves in a similar shade, bearing yellows and oranges of all kinds, mixing in a colourful tapestry of nature that fluttered slightly in the breeze.

Further up the grounds, winding white paths split off from the main path akin to the branches of a great tree, some leading to peaceful looking ponds pitted into the landscape, the area also dotted with large white stone lanterns, currently doused and dark in the sunny day. Even beyond that, the path became a large circular area with stone and wooden seats situated around the outside, all surrounding a grand fountain flowing with sparkling water, featuring four tall white statues of hunters in various poses.

And even beyond that, stood the main building of the academy itself. The entire thing was one vast complex surrounded by a square wall of sleek white and silver metal, black gaps between the great panels and huge turrets sitting at each corner, one right at the end of the path and two more splitting off on either side. The main building stood inside, more strong metal and vast square constructs, a work of modern art in the form of a solid, fortified building, seeming almost alien amidst the crimson beauty of nature, yet also somehow so perfectly at home in it. And behind it all, the ocean and the sky met to provide a shining blue backdrop to it all.

Cedar barely even realised he was walking as he observed the campus, he was so lost in the beauty of it all. It truly felt like a great combination of everything the other kingdoms had to offer when this place was built, a collaborative effort to create something both beautiful but also steadfast and unbreakable. He was so entranced in the view, he walked straight into the back of a boy with copper hair.

“Oi!” He remarked, turning to look at him. “Watch where ya going, eh? Use yer eyes!”

“Sorry, sorry…” Cedar withdrew quickly. “I just… I got lost in the view.”

“Well it is pretty bonzer, mate.” The boy’s attitude suddenly flipped as he beamed at him. “But hey, we can admire it when we move in, eh? Don’t wanna get left behind on the first day!” and when Cedar actually looked around, he did realise they were lagging behind the other students. He quickened his pace to walk alongside the other boy, hoping meetings like this wouldn’t become a habit.

Soon they passed through the great doors of the main building and into the main hall. The floor was covered by diagonal white tiles, leading up to the walls in similar shades. Hanging from the walls were great red and gold banners, flying the familiar grey symbol of the shield, their kingdom’s symbol. There were chairs set out for them to take a seat on, sitting before a large wooden stage. A podium stood at its centre and behind it, several other figures were seated, watching the students enter. Cedar presumed they must be the faculty.

He found himself sitting between the girl in the raincoat from earlier, who shied at his presence, and the copper haired boy who quickly rested one leg on his knee and kicked back in his seat. Once everyone was seated, one of the adults stood up and took the stage. She was a curly strawberry blonde haired woman in a white blouse, matched with a floral brown dress with a wide skirt, an ornately decorated scabbard also hanging at her side. She stood at the podium and cleared her throat, clearing her throat.

“Welcome, everybody, to Lustre Academy!” she announced, her voice full of energy. “I’d like to thank you all for attending our little welcoming assembly. Now, before we go any further with today, your new headmaster has some words of wisdom for you. Please welcome, Mr Billeous Birchwood.” She then stepped down as another of the adults took her place.

The man in question was an old looking gentleman with a stern, crinkled face. He had receding white hair, still sticking out around the sides of his heat and a white goatee beard on his chin. It was also worth noting he had a pair of grey ram horns curled at either side of his head. He was dressed rather plainly in grey robes covered by a darker green kind, his sleeves long and the robe reaching his feet, covered by old wooden sandals. In his left hand he held a T-top wooden cane, looking every bit as ancient as he was.

“Thank you, Miss Lariet.” He said, glancing back at the blonde teacher before overlooking those seated in front of him. As Cedar watched him, he got this strange intense feeling emanating from him, locking him into place in his seat. It wasn’t just him, either. The copper haired boy was no longer lounging and the shy girl beside him was leaning forward a little.

“Now, before we go begin, I’d like to dispel some rumours that you may have heard.” He said, spitting out the word ‘rumours’ sourly. “Since Lustre Academy is, presently, the youngest of the academies across Remnant, some may think that we offer an easy pass to those that attend, that we will take even the worst possible students just to fill up our places.” He lifted his cane up and pointed behind them. “Any of you who believe this to be true, I ask you leave immediately. Because I am dispelling those rumours, right now.” He moved his cane back and suddenly struck the stage with it, the resounding clack of wood on wood making some of the others jump in surprise.

“Lustre Academy is not of a lower standard than the other academies. We drill our students especially hard, to make them the best they can possibly be for the world outside of these walls. We take the unrefined talent of young hunters and we school them in everything a hunter needs.”

His cane hit the stage again with a resounding CLACK!

“Discipline.” CLACK! “Decisiveness.” CLACK! “Durability.” CLACK! “And dexterity.” He paused a moment, resting his cane back into a comfortable position at his side. “We ask only two things of our students. Firstly, that to have respect, you must show respect. You will be treated as responsible adults within these walls, as long as you in turn respect your faculty and your fellow students. And secondly, we ask you display the best of your abilities. That is the only way this academy will forge you into the kind of person who protects the innocent, stands up for those in need and earns the right to be called a hunter. If you can adhere to those two practices, Lustre Academy will make you a goodly hearth and home and we shall show you equal resolve in forging your destinies. That is all.” The headmaster stepped down from the podium, leaving the hall in silence.

Cedar was rooted to his seat. The headmaster’s words had quelled his buzzing doubts about this place. The rumours were indeed something he’d heard around town… but this headmaster sure didn’t fit the bill of the meek old man he’d heard of. His words inspired him, lighting a flame in his core that almost made him eager to prove he was worth being here, especially considering the headmaster was a Faunus himself. Everything was coming back now… this was why he wanted to be a huntsman. To prove he could stand up and prove he had the qualities of a huntsman, that he wasn’t a coward who’s turn tail and run… he wasn’t a coward… he wasn’t.

“Now then.” Miss Lariet, the blonde teacher took the stand again. “We’ll now be proceeding with the entrance exam. Everyone, please follow the path around to the side of the school grounds where we will begin the test. Please leave your bags beside your seats and bring your weapons with you.” She directed them back to the doors as she walked down off the stage and led them outside.

The other kids got up and headed outside after her after rummaging around and pulling our various mechanical contraptions, chatting amongst themselves. Cedar followed suit, taking out his weapon too and holding it steady. He also took out the hip quiver he’d need and slipped that onto his belt before he rushed out after the others. Cedar noticed in particular the grey haired boy from before was looking a touch worried, hanging beside the hulking blonde kid as the group walked along the path.

“That speech was awesome!” Gushed the muscular girl from before… Lariah, wasn’t it?

“Sure was!” The copper haired boy agreed, looking equally excited. “I’m pumped! I feel like I could cave in a Beowulf’s face right now!”

“Tone it down, pardner.” Isaac chuckled, walking beside them. “There’ll be plenty o’time for that soon, I reckon.” “It’s Ozzy, not pardner.” The copper haired boy replied quickly.

Cedar hung behind everyone else, near the shy girl from before and an equally quiet boy with silver hair and grey looking animal ears. He wasn’t quite sure if they were fox ears or not. They followed the pack along the path, leading around to the left side of the academy, well, left if you were coming out of its great gates.

After a little walking, the pack split up as they seemed to reach for something set into the ground. When Cedar got close to it, he felt his stomach do another somersault at the sight of it. What he was looked into seemed to be a great pit descending into the ground, strange grey vapour lingering around its top, akin to clouds on a stormy day. Large circular platforms, mechanical in nature, jutted out around the lip, many in number and only just wide enough for a person to be able to fit upon them. Cedar twitched in uncertainty as renewed fear and uncertainty welled up within him. The others began to take a step onto the podiums and stand upon them. Cedar followed suit, stepping onto a circular platform and immediately being hit by a sense of vertigo, gazing down into the swirling abyss beyond the lip of the cliff.

“This.” Miss Lariet addressed them, standing on the lip with a device in hand. “Is your entrance exam.”

[martechadvisor-blog]

Venkat Nagaswamy, CEO MarianaIQ talks Martech Skills

Venkat discusses the combination of left brain and right brain being essential for marketers today, the need for understanding tools to fetch data from multiple sources for favorable customer journeys and lateral thinking

Ginger Conlon:

Hello and welcome to MarTech Advisor’s Executive Interview Series. I'm Ginger Conlon, a Contributing Editor to MarTech Advisor and joining us today is Venkat Nagaswamy who is CEO of MarianaIQ and Venkat and I are going to talk about the skills that marketers need to succeed in marketing today. He’s got a great perspective, as a CEO he hires marketers but he also works with a company and runs the company that works very closely with marketers. So, welcome Venkat, thanks for being here today.

Venkat Nagaswamy:

Glad to be here.

Q- Ginger Conlon:

So, before we dive in, I’d love to hear a little bit about your journey to becoming CEO of MarianaIQ.

A- Venkat Nagaswamy:

So, before starting this company I used to run enterprise marketing for Juniper Networks which meant that I was head of lead gen, demand gen solutions marketing for enterprise business for Juniper Networks which is a 1.8 billion dollar business and as I always say, that gave me the background, I’ve worn the shoe of a marketer and developing tools right now for marketers it's with the experience of being a marketer myself and having led marketing teams. Prior to Juniper I used to be at McKinsey, I was a consultant serving high tech clients for the most part in sales and marketing but in other strategy matters as well.

Prior to that I started another company, I used to sell plastics back in the day in the automotive industry for GE and Detroit. By background I’m an engineer, I went to IIT Madras in India and I was doing a PhD in what we today call as High Performance Computing at Georgia Tech, when I bailed out with a Masters when I realized that research was not for me and I also did a Business degree. So, in terms of my background, I've been a salesperson, I've been a consultant and I’ve been a marketer and by background I'm an engineer. So, when I got brought into the marketing team at Juniper I came in with a slightly different background than your typical marketer and having been a marketer, now we’re building tools that would help marketers.

Ginger Conlon:

That’s such a great background for a broad perspective on what it takes to succeed in marketing today.

Venkat Nagaswamy:

Yeah, I hope so!

Q- Ginger Conlon:

So, first question. Hiring marketers has been a part of your role, you were a marketer, what do you see as the key either skill or trait that you need to succeed in marketing today, specifically as a marketing leader?

A- Venkat Nagaswamy:      

Absolutely. So, for this I have to, again, go back to my own experience in terms of when I got brought into marketing, my then boss, Lauren Flaherty who was a CMO of Juniper, she's now the CMO of CA, she brought me into marketing to bring more of a structured process into marketing, this was about five or six years ago, much before most people were thinking about analytics and being far more rigorous, at least in the B2B world when it comes to marketing. She saw that we need to bring in more of analysis and analytics into the picture, even though she has a more traditional marketers background, she saw the need for bringing more of these things. So, anything I say now is based on the vision that she saw, so, I’ve got to give her most of the credit.

So, in terms of hiring marketers, one of the big things that's happened in the past 10 years is, as everybody knows, the profession has become more and more analytical and more and more technology heavy and with it becoming more and more technology heavy, we’ve got a whole bunch of pitfalls that we could fall into that we need to be careful about. So, in terms of the skills that we look for when it comes to marketing, and in fact one of the first hires that we did was a marketing person, she comes in with a communications background from NYU but we are adding more and more of analysis and coding skills to her to develop a modern marketer.

So,

a modern marketer has an ability to understand numbers, delve into numbers, understand what they mean within the context of the strategy that they are establishing and, of course, still having the creativity and the energy and passion that a normal marketer has

One thing I should note on the side is that with the rise of AI one hopes that a lot of routine numerical things that people are doing now with respect to data, hopefully those things will go away and marketers can come back to focusing on creativity and so on and so forth. But for the most part today you need this combination of left brain and right brain even though I personally don't like that analogy of left brain and right brain.

Q- Ginger Conlon:

So, if you are say mid-level in your career in marketing and you need to get a better analytics background and what have you, so you can take a leadership position, what are some steps that you can take to achieve that? Spend more time with the data analyst, take some classes, get out there in the market, get a mentor, what advice do you have?

A- Venkat Nagaswamy:      

So, I would say two or three things. Tools have got much better today than what they were six years ago. So, six years ago if somebody had asked me this question I would have said, first step, go learn Python to go get the data from the source and do the analysis yourself. However, in the past six years or so, with the rise of tools like Looker, Periscope, Domo, Tableau and so on and so forth, the ability to use these tools to bring things together has become more important. Of course, learning Python and knowing Python is an important thing but I would say that's the second step.

The first step I would say is to learn tools like Looker and Periscope and all these things because one of the key things in terms of understanding analytics is being able to get data from multiple sources, keeping it in one place to try and draw lessons in terms of what are the customers looking for, what is a journey that's going to appeal to them the most, the questions have remained the same, it's a question of pulling the data and figuring out the answers that's changed. So,

in terms of first step, it's being able to get all these data from different sources and then integrate it in one place to analyze. So, that's number one and allied with that is understanding Google Analytics which is right now mainstay of a lot of websites, Google Analytics or similar things like Adobe and Sitecore and so on and so forth

Secondly, I would also add other tools like Marketo, Pardot, those two things, website analytics and marketing automation analytics, knowing those tools is super important and a new breed of tools that have come up now more in the ABM space, that will become more and more critical as time goes by. But right now I’d say focus on Looker, focus on tools like site analytics and marketing analytics and once you master those then you can start messing around with Python to get further detail than what these tools can help you get to today.

Q- Ginger Conlon:

Excellent, thank you. So, like you said, there's so much data and there all these new marketing technologies and it's changing the marking landscape, along with skills like having a better understanding of analytics, is there anything else, any new skills that you're seeing coming up that marketers should be thinking about?

A- Venkat Nagaswamy:      

So, a couple of things that we see lesser of in B2B marketing that we see more of in B2C is more understanding about social and specifically around paid social as a tool. I mean, if you look at the percentage of dollars that whole of marketers in B2B spend on digital as a whole is much smaller, even as a percentage, than what B2C spend and even when B2B spend on digital most of it is spent on Google AdWords and banner ads. One of the things that we believe is an important channel is paid social and how do we become deeper and deeper into that. So, that's something that we don't see as much as in B2B than we see in B2C.

So, that's one thing that people need to look at and the other thing that

I would want to emphasize is not a new skill, human beings have known about it for 4000 years, it's just being able to write

One of the biggest constraints that we have today is in finding someone who can understand the numbers and understand the math but can still describe it and write an article or a blog or what have you that brings it to life for people who might not be as numerically inclined. So, at the end of the day it comes back to basics I guess, reading, writing, arithmetic, those are not new skills but those are things that I would emphasize, writing is something that I highly emphasize when it comes to our neck of the woods.

Q- Ginger Conlon:

How about traits? So, skills are learned but there’s certain traits that I think as a marketer you're maybe more inclined to succeed than others, what are you seeing and what do you look for also when you hire? Any specific traits, you mentioned creativity but anything else?

A- Venkat Nagaswamy:      

So, with marketing, especially in B2B marketing, with the tools being as separate as they are, as siloed as they are, bringing on data together is important so on and so forth. Along with that is just persistence. The tools, even ours included, don't perform the way they are supposed to and having a lateral thinking in terms of being able to figure out how to properly leverage the tool, it's not a question of using tools, it's more a question of persistence and grit and having lateral thinking. These are skills again that educators have been talking for long time, but those are the kinds of things that are more important today in marketing because it's not as if, I'm going pick some example, unlike, let's say, tracking your expenses using Mint which is relatively easy, in marketing tools haven't come to that place where it performs the way you need it to and which requires the user, I’m sad to say this as a guy who is delivering tools, but it takes the user to think in terms of how the developer might be thinking, though it should be the other way, but, nevertheless, those are some of the skills that people need to be able to leverage the tools appropriately and to make sure the stuff works the way we want it to. So,

it's perseverance, grit and lateral thinking and things of that kind that we need in terms of your inherent qualities than specific skill sets

Q- Ginger Conlon:

Right. So, along with creativity and speaking data, so to speak, this kind of lateral creative thinking, anything that you see that over the long term will just continue to be an essential marketing skill or trait? It's something that’s always been important, like writing that will continue, no matter how many crazy changes there are.

A- Venkat Nagaswamy:      

So, the way we break up any process is into three buckets. So, it’s sense, decide and act and this, by the way, is what people used to talk about automation and robotic process automation and so on and so forth. So, this framework called SID, sense, interpret, decide and act frameworks have been around for quite some time but when you think about it in this way, and lets fast forward to a future where the existing types of AI tools have reached their maturity, let's say in five or ten years' time, so, the ability to gather data and understand people is far better.

So, even in that world what I would see is there would still be a certain amount of restrictions in how AI can draw lessons out of this but when it comes to deciding and acting or at least in terms of being able to create the assets and so on, the creativity and ability to tell a story still remains. With my wife being a writer, I have a vested interest in hoping that AI will not take over telling stories and having more imaginative writing, basic kinds of writing have already been automated but that kind of telling a story the grabs the people, that I think is going to remain a human endeavor at least for another five to ten years.

But there's nothing by the way, maybe over time that will get automated as well but at least so far as I know today. So, that kind of creative skills are still going to remain, ability to tell a story will still going to remain but you can tell a story that grabs the people only if you understand people, only if you understand who they are, who are the people you're trying to appeal to, what do they want, what is the journey that they themselves are going through so that you can tie what you’re doing to that. So, this understanding people and telling a story, understand people while a lot of this will be done by AI, but AI is going to augment human beings in being able to understand them and then, of course, using that to tell a story, those are the two pieces of the puzzle that we believe a certain element of it is always going to remain human and we need to keep looking at it as the time goes by.

Ginger Conlon:

Absolutely. Venkat, thank you so much for all the great insights today and I want to thank everyone who has joined us watching the video, and also, Venkat and I had a great conversation about account based marketing in another video, so, hope you’ll check that out as well. So, thanks again for being here today.

Venkat Nagaswamy:

Thanks a lot.

This article was first appeared on MarTech Advisor