One of those pretentious fuckers responds in kind.

"Pretentious!?" The man behind the keyboard took his glasses off and rubbed his face. Sure, he'd used a twelve-dollar word, here or there, and he wasn't above googling things in order to make his writing better, but pretentious? Pretense implied a desire or an intent to deceive, and he himself was aware of no such motivation. In fact, he'd always considered himself a bad liar. There was no reason to act better than he was, in a world where no one would ever be fooled. Admittedly, he might have leaned into some pretentious writing tropes as a device when commenting on his own stupid poem that one time, but he'd been doing it tongue-in-cheek. Had the joke failed that badly?

Well, if so, it was on him. He'd just have to try harder next time. Really get to know his audience better.

And he was about to leave it at that, and resume the roast, when his hand paused over the Enter key. "Know my audience..." he mused.

Gina was a heel.

As a heel, perhaps she liked pretentious villains in her stories. Could it have been a compliment, in disguise? A sort of 'backhanded insult?'

Yes... now that he looked at some of her earlier roasts through this lens, he could see the pattern emerging, plain as day. Every villainess she'd ever recast in her headcanon as the main character, every demon or monster she'd ever spoken of fondly, what did they all have in common? They all gleefully took what they wanted, lorded their privilege over others, and chewed the scenery while doing so. Just like her. Yes... it all made perfect sense.

"Pretentious, eh? Well... yes, I think that can be arranged."

He rubbed hands together and began to typing up theme song lyrics for Marcie and Gina read CHYOA.

If pretentious villains were what she liked, then he'd be the most insufferable villain she'd ever faced. He believed he knew just how to get under her skin, too. And if he couldn't get the job done, well... there was one person even more qualified to twist this particular knife.

And no patronizing links, this time! No under-estimating her intelligence. After all, she was smarter than the rest of his audience. Right?

With a snap of his fingers, he transformed his clothes into kingly robes. He ascended a dais, to sit upon a throne made of the crushed dreams of Mean Girls. It stank of pettiness, and conspicuous consumption masquerading as a **** alternative to self-expression. But he didn't mind the smell. He inhaled, and let it fuel his creativity. In his left hand, he lifted a crystal goblet of Rich Bitch Tears. In his right, he grasped the end of a long, silver chain, etched with magical runes for containing a monster. It lay slack on the floor, leading off behind his throne. Surely a literary genius such as Gina could already see the inevitable plot twist coming?

He clapped his hands twice. "On with the roast!" he cried. For in this carefully contrived space, he knew that nothing could bring him down--

“The guy can't even spell embarrassment right, Marcie!”

"...FUCK!" He nearly spilled his drink as a pulse of magical feedback shot through the throne, grounding into his ego. Perhaps he hadn't chosen the best building material for this throne, cosmologically speaking.

“And the title sucks too!”

The throne pulsed again, but the he managed to keep the mana flow under control, this time. "What's wrong with the title?" he wondered. He'd always thought it kind of stood on its own, even if the reader wasn't familiar with Log Horizon or Hopeless Hotties.

I despise when writers do this. I am not a fan of show don't tell but this is show and tell. The worst of both worlds.

"It was a bit," he growled, as the throne shot sparks of cosmetic glitter and BeDazzler jewels. Perhaps it didn't seem as funny to him now as when he'd written it. If he had it all to do over again... well, no. The Likes-to-Views ratio was fine. He'd just do better in a future story.

„This is what counts as a chapter for this absolute unit. Where's the fucking narration? This shit feels like something we would write."

"Breaking news: CHYOA chapter short; Area brat Gina Walker surprised; Can't do better"

“I go out on a limp and say if the protagonist was female you would be all over it.”

"Accurate. Also, you misspelled 'limb.' BOOYAH!" He was back in the game.

“As expected, our protagonist is a genius a sex. He is so good at it that he sends Niki.(the muffin cat girl) to an alternate dimension.

"I'm afraid we can't all be a genius a proofreading, like you." He didn't quite get how this line was meant to land. He'd included a link to the Wikipedia page. Of course, Gina was above clicking such links, so surely she realized sub space wasn't a physical phenomenon. Perhaps she'd been being poetic? But that didn't seem like her style...

“I withhold my judgment until later, but I do believe this first sex scene should have been drawn out longer. As it is, there is a bit of a disconnect.”

"Hmmm. You know what? That's fair. I'll take that. That's fair criticism. Thank you, Marcie. I was actually kinda trying to illustrate one of Shiroe's weakness as a character. Namely, that his deeply-buried regret over what he perceives as past failures caused by his own arrogance and hubris has caused him to become overly-cautious and overthink things, even when there currently isn't a problem? But it didn't land. So that's on me."

“So, the author is a sissy ass bitch, you say?”

"You know? If only you'd said 'protagonist' instead of 'author,' here, you had the chance to 'be right by accident.' Swing and a miss, Gina."

"Do you have any complaints?" he said.
"Fuck you."
"Not here. You might get crabs."

„!“

„No, Marcie.“

„But you do have to admit he has a pretty refined sense of humor.“

“Yeah, repeating the same joke within the span of 10 chapters sure is the height of comedy.”

“But, Gina, that is the joke.”

“Well the joke sucks!”

"I don't really have much to say about this one. It's low humor. I don't even think Shiroe would make this joke to anybody but Niki giving him lip during a teachable moment, because her wit begins and ends with "fuck you" when she's angry. I've got no defense here. It's a bad joke that I enjoyed making. Presumably, my treatment of Shiroe feels the same way. It doesn't even work in Japanese, probably. Gods, I'm such a fucking fanfic author..."

“You know, I know what he means but I still can't help imagine him shoving an entire pair of glasses up his nostrils every time that sentence pops up.”

"Heh heh heh..."

“Please contain your nose picking fetish for once, Marcie.”

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

“He wrote embarrassed erroneous again in chapter 34.--

He took a deep breath, and let out a sigh.

"Real talk here? I spell that specific word wrong every time. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. No idea why. On a good day, I actually notice the red underline and right-click on it to let the computer fix it. But, here I am, like an idiot, trying to write a story about three or more characters with embarraraaressesmentt fetishes."

--Is it wrong that his inability to spell this particular word right is turning me on?”

He leaned forward on his throne and smugly adjusted his eyewear.

"Yes, Marcie. It is completely wrong. That's why you're embaressed about it. It's not the first embaressing thing you've ever admitted to, but somehow, this embaressment hits different. You're right to be embaressed about this. You're a bad girl. Heh." He sat back in the throne and folded his arms."Stay embaressed, Marcie."

Some people people stared at him. Other people hid what they were doing, or even fled when they saw him coming.

“Ah yes, the people people who like to watch people.”

"Nothing like people people people watching." Shit, he'd tried to say 'people people watching,' there, as a deliberate joke, but somehow he'd flubbed his line.

“Repeating words is definitely this authors weakness. Have some more examples on the house.”

Tirra stopped pumping her her mana into Amara's ritual,
you can lean on each other for the strength that you would normally normally draw from me."

"No! My one weakness! WRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYY!!! (Disintegrates in a flash of light.)"

"Seriously, though. This type of error is particularly insidious, since it's not a spelling mistake, so the computer computer can't detect it. I think maybe it's caused by copying and pasting parts of sentences to get them to flow better during editing? Not sure."

“Like the two fuck bunnies. I wanna see more about them!”

"I was still going through the motions of FifityFifityFifity's original story this is based off of, at this point. It was starting to de-cohere and take off in its own direction, though. Xylyra's arc is where I burn the original story to the ground and start actually writing something original..." Had it been original, though? He'd find out the name of that half-remembered game when a fan called him out on it, not before. Then he could google it to his heart's content, give it credit as a third inspiration for this mashup, and see if the similarities in the plot and structure were really as bad as Scumbag Brain occasionally woke up and insisted they were. But that was a digression for another piece of meta-commentary.

“This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives the whole story a certain slice of life quality. And I do believe these plot threads will eventually pay off.”

Pffft. "You're dreaming."

“You know what doesn't pay off? The sex to story ratio! And then this asshat, this absolute piece of garbage has the audacity to introduce a succubus and give us a sex scene with her, described entirely in a fucking POEM!!!”

"Dammit. I'm torn. On the one hand, this is the most upset I've ever seen somebody get about the low intensity of that scene. But on the other hand, it's fucking Gina. I want to make my writing the best it can be.... but I also want Gina Dianne Walker to suffer! What's the play here? How do I pick just one!?"

By the penultimate stanza, we've passed through scene-setting, metaphor, innuendo, and explicit orgy, finally arriving at the devastation left in the wake of her ravenous feeding. But again, it's ambiguous which lines are literal and which lines are sex puns. Her attack fades as mysteriously as it manifested.

„This fucker is so up his own ass, holy shit!“

"Seconded."

“Explaining your own chapter in a fucking comment? What kinda pretentious fuckwit does that?”

"Okay, I'm starting to see why Gambio said reading this was like looking into a mirror. And you know what? I'm here for it. Repent, Gambino. Repent for all all your embaressing Writing Sins!"

“The author also likes to link certain words. As if I didn't know what Wabi-sabi or a Prince Rupert's drop is! Please, don't insult my intelligence like that, author. My mind could run circles around yours.”

Here it was. Her first mistake. Time to capitalize on it. One of them was going to beat a redemption arc out of the other, and it all started now.

"I lost track of which one you are. Is this Gina? If so, you're the heel! I will insult your goddamned intelligence whenever I fucking feel like it! That said, I use a very simple litmus test to decide when to include a link. If I want to include a cool thing in my story, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering the details right, I Google it. If the result of my Google search surprises me, I assume I'm writing above my intelligence level, and I link to the support material. On a good day, some reader at least as dumb as me learns something new. On a bad day, some fictional character that audiences love to hate with ten times my clout loudly screams into the void about my work. Which turns it into a good day."

“Xyly is my favorite character! I want to see more of her.”

"D'aww... I wrote something that Gina liked! I feel so accomplished as an author. Somebody's fangirling! Heh heh. I own you now."

“The whole demon realm as explained in the story is such a highly intriguing concept, which is why I find it such a shame that we are demystifying it so quickly. I wished the author would have let it simmer for a bit first. The story sets up a very interesting dilemma for Xylyra and I think exploring it from the sidelines while the focus was on other things would have been the better choice here.”

"More good criticism from Marcie! I'll take it under advisement. you know, I've actually been powering through a lot of stuff in single sentences throughout this story that could have been turned into short scenes. Like a whistlestop tour... that is somehow also a slow burn?"

Wait. At some point, had he and they both stopped judging this as a CHYOA , and start judging it as a story?

“Ah yes, the sex. Shiroe is interesting as far as porn protagonist go, because he is almost the anti thesis of them.”

“Well no shit, at one point he invented a spell to literally make people less horny. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“He isn't averse to sex, but he only uses it as a means of control. But not in the regular sense either. He is more like a stern father, disciplining his unruly children. And if they behave he is going to make them feel good as a reward.”

"Oh, Marcie. Honey. I thought you'd read about sex. You were so close! He's a Dom. They're brats. Look it up. Just make sure you get your information from an actual BDSM community resource, and not from porn. There's a lot of bad information out there, peddled by mostly well-meaning people who respond to the aesthetics of BDSM, but don't dig deep enough to grasp the underlying emotions of the participants." He'd link to it himself, but... well, you know.

“I'm still not convinced this story isn't just a giant troll..

"It definitely is, and you fell for all my tricks, haha you fools."

The amount of fakeouts is insane. Just gimme some sex damnit!”

"Phrasing..."

“To be fair, we certainly have covered stories with less sex. On that subject, managed to masturbate to this one, Gina?”

Pffft. Yeah, right, as if--

“I fucking hate myself for it, but yes.”

A chuckle started deep in the back of his throat.

“Oh my, I knew you where into tickling!”

“That's not it! The fucker cheated! All this time all we do is talk about muffins and satisfy the authors perverse tickle fetish and then suddenly there is this really nice scene where the girls are having fun while Shiroe was watching like the cuck he is. That was hot and my hands just started to move on their own, ugh! It was like a fucking sex ambush! Fuck you, Curvy!”

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

He took a long, leisurely drag from his goblet of Rich Bitch Tears.

"Not here in the roast response Chapter."

Rule of Threes, baby!

“All in all I would say I can give it a rating of quite adequate.--”

"And that's still literally a higher rating than I thought it was possible to get in a roast! I'll take it."

“The fucking game mode did nothing at all, you fuck!”

Ah, yes. The Game Mode. The quintessential CHYOA newbie mistake. What compelled so many authors to activate Game Mode when they didn't need it? Was it an onboarding problem? A UI problem? User error? Human Nature? He'd given his feedback in the forum, but he suspected if there were a simple solution, they'd have found it by now. The developers of chyoa dot com had shown themselves to be surprisingly adept at herding cats with the rest of their design decisions.

But that was shop talk for other writers. Right now, he was more interested in addressing characters. And if it was a game that Gina Walker wanted...

"Hark, the grand arrival of the righteous debutante,
The vanquisher of rivals and deliverer of taunts,
To rise to the occasion, and impress everyone?
Or suffer crass abrasion as your plans are all undone?"

Xylyra's voice echoed throughout the stone hall and throughout Gina's mind as she spoke the words of the poem. It was an impressive feat of stagecraft, considering her posture. For as the succubus emerged from behind the throne-- of course the silver chain had been connected to an enchanted collar around her neck this entire time-- she emerged crawling on her hands and knees.

This woman knew how to crawl, though. She crawled like a deadly jungle predator, more cat-like than any catgirl in her world could ever hope to be. She made eye contact with the reader-- not every reader. Just one reader in particular. And as she stared into Gina's eyes, staring deep into her soul, she saw everything that was in the woman, her pride and shame, her hopes and fears, while her own eyes revealed nothing at all, save for the smoky allure of mystery, and a slight twinkle of mischievous anticipation.

"Will you surpass the trials of Boldness, Wit and Fame?
Will you see through my wiles, and so prove your vaunted brain?
Beware the thirsting animal reflected in the pane
For to become dynamic is by far the greater pain."

As she spoke, she crawled up onto that horrible man's throne, and perched across his lap. She wiggled her ass enticingly, her eyes on nothing but Gina the entire time. He slowly began to spank her, emphasizing sting, more than thud, and with every swat, she let out a tiny little performative gasp, delayed a bit so it could be heard after the sound of the impact. Her expression changed with each slap, pantomiming shock, then outrage, then nearly orgasmic pleasure, before she opened her eyes and smirked knowingly at Gina.

"The Bold may speak unfettered by concerns of Wit or Fame
The Witty temper Boldness for the the Fame they seek to gain
The Famous use their Wit to make Humility their game
Next better-solve this paradox, lest as you are remain"

She endured the remaining slaps without moving a muscle, smugly staring into Gina's eyes the entire time as her ass turned lightly red. Then she calmly reached over and put her hand on back of the the would-be king's neck. He froze, suddenly, his face losing all emotion as his eyes began to glow blue.

Xylyra lifted her own crystal goblet, a mirror of the one he'd been holding all this time. It slowly filled with a magical, shimmering blue liquid.

"The one who owns the succubus in your world must you seek
The one with endless power though appearances are meek
For only they are qualified to be judge of this test
And only they are qualified, because they know you best"

And here, Xylyra reached out of the reader's screen-- not every reader's, just one particular reader's, and longingly caressed Gina's cheek. She extracted nothing, demanded nothing, and needed nothing... her other hand already held a goblet full of Potential, after all.

"The judge will never help you cheat, for they want you to better
The judge will never break these rules, in spirit or in letter
Pass through the Magic Circle; So doing, become Famous
And prove yourself dynamic, though you never will be blameless."

The succubus climbed up onto the top of the throne, wrapping the silver chain around the King's neck. She stood with one foot on either arm of the chair, and pulled the chain taught. She pantomimed pulling with all her might, though the links of the chain lay slack against his skin. She shrugged, smirked, and dropped the chain.

"Then ask to meet their succubus, though you are but a mortal
You may then look, but may not touch, though silver Planar Portal
Consider carefully what the judge wishes to hear
Describe the judge's fearsome pet, Boldly, without fear"

The succubus climbed cup onto the top of the throne, and reclined across the King's hunched back, dangling one leg lazily over the side.

"And finally, dear Gina, you'll have but won this game
The final step is then, with Wit, to simply say my name
For you'll have proved yourself elite, and overcome this troll
When you unlock the secret of just who is in control."

Xylyra and the King clinked glasses, and they both drank heavily.