Adventuring in the Land of Fantasy

(Sam)

Spoiler : So I got the end of the flashbacks already written I just have one no two more chapters to write that are in between them...

I am also pretty sure that these stupid boring chapters are more important to the story then they may appear...just so you know.

Right after the visit my sister my ‘deeda’ decided that it was time to shake things up. We stopped watching random videos and switched to other media. My sister introduced me to the land of web novels, fanfiction and translated literary works.

I liked these new mediums more, for while videos tended to only be most fun when she was there to keep me company, as well give someone to compare reactions too. With these many stories of different varieties it was a more solo event. It was easier for me to enjoy during the many times that she wasn’t there because of school or her ‘work’.

Instead of ending up bored because I had nothing to do or had done what I had too much, I found myself in a situation where I actually felt that I had not enough time. The downside was that I started leaving my homework to the last minute.

It also opened me to the idea of looking for things I could like on my own and letting myself experience them. Before I had always made the excuse to myself that I didn’t have enough time for reading fantasy novels and such, but the truth was although I was indeed busy there would be many times during the day where I would find myself with nothing to do. This would lead me to adding more projects and activities onto my already mostly packed schedule.

The contrast between the times I was busy and the rare periods in which I had ‘free’ time were so great that I would feel more extremely, and thus decide to add more things to my schedule to prevent the free time from appearing. Eventually I would have to drop some things or be overwhelmed but when I did that I would eventually find myself with free time. It was quite the vicious cycle.

But because of my sisters nonjudgmental attitude and encouragement I opened myself to the possibility of activities that weren’t as ‘active’, that didn’t require my active work and participation. I started to find such things as reading, relaxing rather than a waste of time like I had before.

When eventually I had too much of a good thing and started to get bored she would break up the monotony for me. Sometimes she would bring her hand held game devices and let me borrow them to experience the concept of RPG’s personally.

Other times she would play next to me while I watched. The handheld sometimes but also she would often bring her laptop and play computer versions. When the game was more complex she would also bring a guide book and have me read it to her.

At these times she would call me her ‘navigator’ and would calmly and quietly follow my commands without question. The feeling of someone being completely and truly obedient to me rather than just tolerant of my position, or expecting me to be the subordinate felt so refreshing it was almost euphoric.

It also let me see a side of my sister I never would have believed existed. Even though I had learned to handle her, no matter what she would always be questioning me, almost argumentative. But when I directed her through video games she would rarely question and the few times she did it was always for clarification rather than the inquisitive ‘why’ she would almost always disturb me with.

It wasn’t long after she allowed me to become her navigator that she revealed to me one of her secrets. It turns out that it was one of many of her ‘lazy’ ‘passive’ solo projects that I had always seen her working on, even as the rest of us many our parents would chide her for not getting out more.

She was actually a published author. She didn’t make money off of it, and in her opinion she wasn’t that popular but she was a published author all the same. Her pen name was Disconsolate Star.

“Swanson Turquoise Ashari Ramona”

She said to me when I asked her where she got the idea for her name.

“Last name first like some of the weby novs, the acronyms make ‘Star’ and ‘Disconsolate’ because I am a neg.”

I think I understood the reason for disconsolate because although I never quite understood why she was kind of proud of and tended to self-identify by her negative personality. But what in the world is an ashari? I asked and got.

“Eh…it’s kind of complicated but maybe I will try to explain to you later…maybe if I feel like it…it is kind of embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing how?” I asked intrigued.

“Well…”she said hesitantly “…It is sort of along the lines of that 6th no 8th? 8th grade syndrome?”

“chuunibyou” I grinned at her.

“Well…yeah…” she admitted begrudgingly.

Though I was desperately, curious now that I had received that telling hint about what an ashari was, I didn’t really get any more information out of her on the subject but I did get another clue though I soon found out unfortunately I could not yet see it.

“I will explain all about the ashari in my webnovels…I just haves not gotten to that point…”

Of course this made me want to read her novels even more, but out of embarrassment she refused to tell me how to find it and since she never left her laptop unlocked in my presence I had to get clever.

Since the fanfic site she was most often on was woldofwebfics I created the hypothesis that she probably published her stories on it. If not, then she probably had her own website and I didn’t have too high of hopes of finding it without her help.

I used my own barely used in the past but recently seriously used laptop and browsed around the site. After not finding any mentions of asharies in the fiction titles of the directory as I had expected. I suddenly had the obvious realization that I should use her pen name. So I typed in “Disconsolate Star” and was delighted to see several results.

The author “Disconsolate Star” had written several fantasy stories, and each one had the same main character Euda Talrune.

I read some and soon realized that Euda’s personalty was quite similar to Romona so much so that I briefly suspected some degree Self-Insertion. But the more I read the more I realized that other then some shared traits in personality Euda and Ramona no Disconsolate Star were definitely different people.

Whether or not Disconsolate Star was really Ramona there was not complete certainty but either way I knew one thing, I really liked their work. I had read a few fantasy novels in the past and more recently I had read various original, inspired and translated work, and in my opinion Disconsolate Star topped them all.

I think it was the way that they breathed life into the characters. It was like this person Euda really existed and really was out there somewhere in a different world going on adventures. And in order to accompany her and see all the exotic sites and exciting events that always eventually appeared just at the right moments all one had to do was read.