Young Writers Society

Lordy scoffed hearing Jerica subtly throw shade in his direction.

"Listen here, there are few people that can say that they've been graced by my presence on the dance floor. You should be PROUD to have shared that stage with me."

Lordy rolled his eyes then turned to Carter, "Was it really that bad?"

Carter flashed Lordshire a look of empathy. “I’m sorry to say it really was. I could not even be convinced to imitate what you did up there, but... Lordy, you flopped your arms. Like noodles. And then shook your lack of ass.”

The human Mel simply drank. This was not in the same vein as the other humans, since they had broken rules and earned punishments for it. If she drank voluntarily, would she still receive the same negative side effects, such as tuba penguins and a dance rave? The conclusion: inconclusive.

Simon needed to remind himself why those were punishments to these humans, despite their lack of similarity to the strange "memes" Simon had heard rumors about on the internet.

But despite the oddity in the calculation, and the distinct lack of dialogue to process alongside Mel's action, it did not seem unreasonable. This aligned with her trend-setter trait, and it seemed that every other human so far had also drank. This was the exact same as the pie conundrum. He must drink.

If Simon was capable of sighing, he would have. But he did not have the capacity to exhale.

"Are we drinking?" he asked. His other hand, which the glass was conveniently tailored to fit into, moved slowly towards where his mouth projection was. He had never attempted to ingest liquids before, at least not in the ways humans did.

To his shock, when the glass hit the white globe serving as his head, a bit of the sparking liquid shrank and an electric current ran through his entire body.

He did not feel right.

Simon had asked Mel a simple question: "Are we drinking?"

Mel stared at him for a second, but then burst out laughing because he just said the funniest joke ever.

... Simon! A joke!!!! SO FUNNY!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAH

Wait, that wasn't right. He didn't say a joke.


Mel stared at him for another hot second, her eyes narrowing as the man looked like he got electrocuted... Haha ELECTROCOUTED! HILARIOUS!!!! Suddenly she couldn't stop giggling again, and when she looked over at the animals still walking the stage, she laughed even harder, sounding like a wheezing hyena trying to breathe.

"You drink?" she said to him through a wheeze, and then raised her glass again for him to clink. "Toast?!"

"The dancing, definitely," said Hildegarde in a rather belated reply to Jerica. She'd gotten rather distracted watching Mel getting all giggly onstage. She could almost understand the desire to drink voluntarily, at this point, but gods knew what was in those drinks. Hildegarde certainly wasn't planning on finding out. "I'd hoped our horrible host would have that much mercy. But I'm starting to think that was foolish of me."

The glass full of electrically charge but somehow not currently shocking his hand liquid sloshed around just inches from his face as Simon's limb froze where it was. His head had slightly jerked back after the shock, an interact with electricity he had never once encountered before. Or probably hadn't encountered before because he was trying to access his memory bases and he was getting some kind of block with error error error error error error error...

ERROR: Unusual amounts of electricity found in neural circuits. Undefined behavior may begin to occur if action is not taken immediately. Please power off to drain all excess charge from the neural port and...

Since when were his error sensors blue and not red?

Simon's visual sensors were trained on Mel as she howled in laughter. His memory was split into too many pieces to properly analyze what the response was, but Simon's expression automatically changed into a smile. For a moment, he could imagine himself in another body, made of flesh and blood, and think about the way his lips would curve as he smiled.

ERROR: Unusual thought patterns detected. Please power off power off power...

The second time Mel burst into uncontrollable laughter, Simon doubled over to join her. He couldn't laugh in the traditional sense, still not possessing the mechanisms to excess air, but he could telepathically communicate the same sounds a human would make while laughing.

And laugh he did.

Mel then offered her drink, still snorting, and Simon unable to control his neural impulses anymore cried out, much louder than any of his previous speech, "Where do we get a toaster???" It was interspersed with giggles as he moved his head to look at the glass hovering close to his face again.

He was not even sure if he was understandable anymore, let alone if his generated speech was appropriate for the situation. His neural nets were fritzing.

The last instruction in his brain was still "He must drink" and his self-preservation circuits were being completely overwritten by the errors flashing over his vision.

Or maybe those errors were the self-preservation circuits. He'd never needed them before, he didn't think. He still couldn't remember well.

"Should we drink more??????" he asked, the same robotic inflection. The question was unnecessary, though, before he had already touched the glass to his head again.

At that moment, the fashion show seemed to come to a halt, and a table of judges popped up out of nowhere. Both Simon and Mel happened to be seated at that table, as judge two and three. Just as they took their second drink, the final fashion show contestants walked down the catwalk.


There was a stuffed animal cow in a tutu and a horse in a cowboy hat. But the most promising seemed to be a cat in a chaotic patchwork dress.

The only other judge at the table happened to be K.K. Slider, who was holding up a panel that read "5" as a rating for the tutu cow. For a moment, everyone looked expectantly to Mel and Simon for their ratings, as they also had numbered panels in front of them to lift up. But unfortunately, neither of them had a chance to vote before the two of them slumped in their chairs and fell forward with their faces on the table. Both of them were out cold.



K.K. looked at them disapprovingly and shook his head.

"I think this is humiliation enough, don't you think?" he asked the audience, who exploded in laughter. With a smile, K.K. hopped up on the judge's table and held a mic that appeared out of nowhere.

"I guess that's it for these two folks! What a short-lived round! Who would've thought they were so desperate to subvert expectations!"

With another laugh from the audience, the lights on the stage flashed, and in a moment, the fashion show disappeared, the stage was cleared, and Mel and Simon's unconscious bodies were scooped up by their respective chairs - which then carried them back to the lineup of contestants, where Simon and Mel slowly started to return to wakefulness.

Mel remembered howling in response when Simon made a toaster joke and asking if they should drink more. The moment she saw that he ignored her toast and was about to drink without her, she shrugged and decided to take the drink with him.

And after that... something-something more fashion, something-something K.K. saying something about humiliation? Everything was funny one second, and then it was black and empty the next second.

By the time she woke up, everything was blurry and deafened. She squinted and could see her fellow contestants nearby, with Simon directly next to her.

"Did, uh..." she began, but then groaned as she sat up straight and closed her eyes. Her head was spinning. "... we drink...?"

Did she have to keep talking in questions? Probably. She didn't want to risk losing.

"I've been asking myself that for the last ten minutes my child." Lordy responded to Mel's question, "You also did put on quite the show. Are you still going to laugh at everything?"

He tilted his head and scratched his beard looking at Simon, "And I knew you were odd, but I can't even explain what I just saw from you."

Mel slouched back on her chair and then scrunched up her hair, already feeling it frizzing. She squinted at Lordy to see him be his usual snarky self looking over her.

"It depends," she said as her head slowly started to stop spinning and aching. "Are you going to say a funny joke?"

"Do you ever find his jokes funny?" Jerica asked, wanting to roast Lordy but still afraid to stop speaking in questions. "Or is he simply funny looking?"

Mel laughed a little too loudly. It hurt her stomach, but it didn't stop her. "Hah!" she said over to Jerica, putting out her fist for a fist bump. "Good one."

"That's funny coming from you, Madam Dance-a-lot," Lordy rolled his eyes, "And you too, Miss Giggles."

Jerica smirked and reached out to complete the fist bump, then turned back towards Lordy and raised an eyebrow. "Is that the best roast you got?"

"I think we witnessed enough roasting on the stage, my dear." Lordy thought back to the player from the first round who was taking a world record length bathroom break, "Both literally and metaphorically."