EVAUnit4A

(LINKS to the relevant writings on @Filibolt's channel are listed below!  Be sure to read them beforehand, because SPOILERS ABOUND!)

The entirety of "A Perilous Time, Parts 1-3" ended-up being a year-and-a-half of effort, on both of our parts!  It is actually the continuation of an overall story arc for my OC character, Derwyn Tran, during his time in P.E.R.I.L.  As far back as 2022, @Filibolt and I have a long-term arc planned out for Derwyn, but you'll just have to stay tuned-in to see how it plays out!  

However, this time I wanted something other than yet-another clumsy night with Derwyn at the P.E.R.I.L. spa:  I wanted to do some actual world- and character-building, with a deliberate de-emphasis on bumpin' uglies.

In Part 1, we are introduced to Vicente the Octophidius- an original Hispanic hybrid that I came-up with, and @Filibolt rendered wonderfully in his character sheet for that release.  For a while now, I wanted to do a kind of "James Bond"-type scenario, where we see the tail-end of one of Derwyn's assignments (but not enough to dedicate an entire chapter to it), and then the bulk of the chapter would be dedicated to a completely different hybrid.  Part 1 kinda turned-out the way I wanted, but it ended-up being more half/half than I intended; with the other half being in Dr. Cale's office.

As for creating Vicente himself (inspired by a different artist's work off of dA), I simply wanted Derwyn to have a moment of 'this feels too good, and I'm being tempted to become bisexual, but I'm still straight and already have a girlfriend'.

It made sense to have Doctors Cale and Rine collaborate on a snake/cecaelia hybrid, and it allowed for two of P.E.R.I.L.'s most-notorious egos to shine in the same room.  The tension between those two was fun to write, and I had to push @Filibolt to draw-out the questions and concerns that the reader might ask of us.

I'm really proud of the speech I wrote one evening in late-Fall 2022 for Dr. Cale (when he talks to Derwyn alone), because it was my first time embodying one of @Filibolt's characters so well [to his approval].  It sets-up new motivations for Dewyn to stay at P.E.R.I.L. (and are reflected in later Parts of "A Perilous Time") ...while at the exact same time staying within the realm of how Sandro Cale behaves- lying his ass off just to prevent Derwyn from actually leaving.  Not to brag, but the deliberate double-meaning and hidden agenda of his entire speech is just beautiful, and I was really impressed with the end result.

Part 2 is where the overall Chapter is supposed to start, but Part 1 dragged-on long enough it ended-up becoming its own dedicated Part.

The fun stuff for us was coming up with those deliberately-stupid/ignorant questions from the two P.E.R.I.L. nerds.  (According to @Filibolt, the appearances of the two nerds was inspired by a pair of pod-casters that he watches, but I do not know of them as of publishing.)  We had dozens of questions that we came up with, but we ended-up not using most of them.  (Maybe publish them all another time?  Be sure to bug @Filibolt about it!  )

I wanted to emphasize to the reader that, even though she has a skilled and loving touch, Delilah is still many times stronger and faster than Derwyn, and if she wants to go, there's little-to-nothing he can do to stop her.

I also wanted some more-believable frustrations between the developing relationship- both stuck in the hotel, Derwyn's inadequacy to properly condition a lamia to the human world, and Delilah's learning curve being the main points of contention.  It was during this time where the two of us came up with the idea of Delilah shedding being the reason she's so grumpy and unreasonable.  Unfortunately, due to how long it took for Part 2 to come out, @Filibolt ended-up publishing the one-off story "Role Reversal" first, even though "A Perilous Time, Part 2" was supposed to come out first!  So, P.E.R.I.L.-verse readers basically got spoiled by Max the Naga's out-of-character behavior before they saw Delilah losing her cool, and the surprise revelation with that.

With the programmed personalities of all of the hybrids, I wanted Delilah to show visible signs of struggling to eliminate hers during her time in the transition hotel, and her time of shedding merely exacerbates that this time around, to the point where it puts their relationship at risk.

"A Perilous Time" was ultimately created based on what happens in Part 3.

That long-term plan I mentioned earlier that @Filibolt and I have for Derwyn Tran-?  Well, one of the steps along that road was "Cindy Rook", who would eventually have to be addressed once she learned that her lamia lover, Delilah, had been bought a while ago.  The miserable, petite thief had been neglected in the P.E.R.I.L.-verse for a while, and was in need of an update anyways.

The original concept for what would become "A Perilous Time" was based around the idea of Cindy getting into an FFM threesome with "D & D" while at the hotel.  We had several options before we started writing:

• Derwyn comes back from P.E.R.I.L., to find Delilah and Cindy in each other's arms

• Cindy breaks-in to the hotel while Derwyn and Delilah are in each other's arms

• Delilah comes back into the hotel after a medical examination to find Derwyn tied-up and Cindy standing over him, then they end-up in each other's arms

But then, when we remembered that Cindy is a man-hating lesbian, I pointed out that she would never allow Derwyn to lay even a finger on her in the sack.  So, there went that idea!  We still had to deal with Cindy, but any sex involving Derwyn was absolutely out of the question.

As we wrote Part 3, I got the idea in my head that Delilah should be the focus of the reader for this chapter, and that she should be forced to ultimately choose between Derwyn and Cindy.  Adding-in Delilah's shedding making her emotionally unstable gave us a convenient-yet-useful excuse for them to 'fight' over Delilah without actual bloodshed, and to have some time alone without the lamia in the room, so that they could talk it out between themselves.

EDIT:  I forgot to mention Dril the Jellyfish from Part 3!

The idea of Delilah reconsidering her entire outlook on being Outside of P.E.R.I.L. was part of the plan, because we obviously wanted her to stay with Derwyn!  However, having her do this entirely on her own didn't make a lot of sense, because she would have had plenty of time to do this when Derwyn was gettin' busy in P.E.R.I.L.  So, we figured an outside influence might be needed to tip-the-scales in the direction we wanted.

Because the hotel is the last place the hybrids are seen before they are scattered-off into the human world, I asked @Filibolt if he had any single characters that he had no more plans for, to use as a sacrifice-play.  In response, he brought-up Dril the Jellyfish- an uncomfortably borderline-shota hybrid he'd made just one story out of, and then deliberately forgot about.  Originally a mischievous grade-school boy in his own story, I could easily understand @Filibolt's reluctance and even regret.  And so, for his final appearance in the P.E.R.I.L.-verse, I adjusted Dril into something more of an impish Baby Herman [from the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?] character- frustrated that no one would mate with or buy him, yet still just as horny as any other hybrid.  Combined with hanging around with the fabulous blue-and-yellow cecaelia, Madame Octavia, in order to provide some much-needed maturing for his diminutive size, some of her wisdom would be passed-on to Dril, who could then coincidentally convey it to Delilah in his own way.

Ironically, as I played the role of Dril for his scenes in "A Perilous Time", I unexpectedly became attached to him, and now I regret that this will be his last appearance in the P.E.R.I.L.-verse, because now he was refined enough to be justifiably used in other stories!

(PS:  I was also the one who both named Dril's new one-off master, and created the backstory of how he came to be adopted.)

As with the previous chapter in Derwyn Tran's story ("Romancing the Slug"), a number of deliberate seeds have been planted in "A Perilous Time" that we hope will come to fruition at a later time, and we already have a broad idea for what the next chapter will contain.

That said, I am really pleased with how "A Perilous Time" turned out, and I hope that all of you will enjoy it too!

I deliberately never spoke about this online except to a select, trusted few.  But, given what I'm about to say, you'll understand why in a moment...

In early-2022, I was approached in a Discord group by a young woman, and she told me that she had a crush on me.  At first, I didn't trust her, because, well... the Internet is filled with many scams and ill-intended people!  Additionally, when she approached me, I was not [deliberately] broadcasting that I was single and looking; she came to me on her own.   But over time, I came to trust her, and our long-distance relationship began in-earnest.  I was 39 at the time, she would become my first romantic relationship!  (I had flirted with a girl when I was a senior in high school, but that never went anywhere, so I don't really count that.)

Because this was my first real venture into forming a more mature relationship with someone else, it was not perfect- there were speed bumps, mistakes and misunderstandings made by both of us, but we continued to work through them as best as we could.  She wanted to marry me, wanted kids, and more times than I can count she told me that she loved me.  She was also the first person to ever make me cry tears of happiness; I didn't think that was possible for someone like me.

Remember when I mentioned in June 2023 that "a friend" had changed my mind about seeing the live-action version of Disney's The Little Mermaid-?  Well, she was that friend.

She spent months working to relieve my tensions, anxieties, fears, concerns and prejudices before the movie came out in theaters in late-May 2023, and she succeeded in completely changing my mind about the movie... for which I will be grateful for the rest of my life, and grew to respect and trust her even more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU9ilveSBeU

She was also the "friend" who I watched all three 2-D animated movies with for the first time in decades at that point.  A portion of our relationship was built upon our mutual admiration for Disney's 1989 classic, which was important to both of us during our respective childhoods.

In August 2023, she told me that she was saving-up money to buy a plane ticket to see me- we were going to go on a three-day date!  She told me she was anxious and excited to finally be in-person with me, and I said the same to her.

The day after Thanksgiving Day, she was off of work, and I said this would be the perfect opportunity to do some scheduling and planning for her trip to Washington State.

I never heard from her ever again.

Over the course of two weeks, I sent dozens of messages- text and voice- asking, wondering, begging, pleading for her to reach-out to me again.  I know she saw them... but she never answered.

The day before she was scheduled to fly-in, she deleted both her Discord and deviantART accounts, because she knew that was the only way that I could contact her.  No phone number, no physical mailing address.  I was- in the modern Internet parlance- "ghosted".

Last night (February 10, 2024) her former boss/friend/confidant got in contact with me, and we talked for hours about a variety of things (including TLM, because he too was a long-time fan like me).

He told me that, on January 4, 2024, Julia Renzetti (26) had committed suicide.  She had laid naked in her bathtub, and slit her own wrists.  Police were called in on January 5, and they notified him that same day.

Julia left behind an emotionally-beaten mother, a mentally-disabled younger sister, and the asshole father now hiding in Italy who'd abused her across her entire childhood.

I never told Julia that I loved her- I was hoping that I'd finally be convinced to tell her just that this last December.  But I did tell her that I would do my very best to show her a love that her own family never gave to her.

Remember Llama Badges?  Remember when those were a thing on dA, and we were all in on the joke, and passed them around with a knowing grin on our faces?

Something else that dA forgot about was sending out a silent, automated notice to all of your subscribers that your birthday had come around once again, and you would suddenly see your Inbox filled with a flurry of best wishes and nostalgia.

Pepperidge Farms remembers!

Yeah, I miss both of those...  I guess I'd have to subscribe to Core and fully embrace ECLIPSE (the hell does that mean anyways- to deliberately cover such an important things up?) to get that tiny, humble treat again.  Y--no, not gonna happen.  (Besides, I'm mostly a lurker anyways, so what the hell would I need a Core account for?)

Coincidentally, because of a scheduling conflict, our annual Oktoberfest got moved-up a few weeks, and we're having it today, on my 41st birthday!  So, while I claimed last year- at the mellow end of my youth- that no party was held in my name (and I never asked for one either), this year it's a bit busier and a bit livelier on the 23rd of September than it has been in quite a while.  Ironically, I still couldn't think of anyone to invite over, save for online-only friends thousands of miles, and thousands of dollars, away.  (And among those, still no girl to call my own... yet.)

As I look forward (in my limited autistic way), I see little hope for the future, little to hang my hat on, little to celebrate...  But, I shall keep charging on as best as I can for another 364.25 days, and hope that my next birthday will be a bit brighter than this one (which is currently overcast and raining as I type this).

I am now officially a living meme.  Never thought I'd hear myself say that 24-ish years ago, but, well, uhh... here I am.

I've never been a party person, and tonight's 40th won't be any different- dinner with the folks, no poppers, no music, no banners, no friends to invite over.

I've reached the peak, I did it!

And now:  for the long, slow, cautious, agonizing trek downwards...