These pages were created with AI assistance and then manually edited/adjusted by me, so it is a mix of AI-generated material and my own hand edits/post-processing.
The Freak Circus and its characters do not belong to me.
Summary: It’s your birthday! He really hopes you will like his gift, but don’t ask him about it.
A/N: This is a standalone short story featuring Maksim, a love interest from "The Man of My Dreams", a free to play visual novel that will be released on the 1st July. Please support us by playing the demo!
Although well versed in the intricacies of magic and science, Maksim is new to desire.
He stares down at the rows upon rows of flowers. Were you the type to be enthralled by roses? Or maybe you prefer the bright colours of tulips. Is it too cliche to buy you flowers? Would it hurt to buy a bouquet, and maybe some dessert?
Maksim recalls your gift to him. A pair of binoculars, sky blue with golden embellishments. The lenses, beautifully polished and of high quality, perfect for his bird watching escapades. Heat rises up to his ears at the memory of your bashful expression as you offer him your wrapped present on his birthday. He didn’t even make it past a “Thank you” before you flew off into the sky on your bike.
Now that your birthday has rolled around, it is time he returns the favour.
Perhaps, a more personal gift would be to your tastes. He buys a bouquet of white roses and although he is in no rush, he lightly jogs towards a hardware store. Maybe it’s the vision of you beaming up at him with a new set of screwdrivers that makes his heart race, or the urge to see you fawn over a new toolbox that causes him to move faster. He wonders if you yearn to watch him use the binoculars you gifted him the same way he wants to watch you hard at work, eyes bright with passion and hands tinkering away with whatever diabolical contraption you occupy yourself with at that moment. In his defence, Maksim has never been known for his patience outside of birdwatching, but even this level of frenzied searching is below him.
His eyes land on a lovely new toolbox, one with too many screwdrivers and bolts for him to comprehend what they could possibly be used for. It’s a far cry from what you might have had in your damaged workshop, but using Emilio’s basic toolkit definitely isn’t viable for a complex invention such as a flying machine.
Without even looking at the price tag, he buys the toolkit, his heart racing with anticipation. His heart flutters all through the afternoon, his ears tipped the same hue of pink that now bleeds into the serene evening sky. Maksim’s blood rushes so rapidly that he can hear it, so loudly that he barely registers the fact he’s knocking on your door.
“Oh, hello Maksim what brings you-”
“Happy Birthday.” He interjects haphazardly, thrusting the bouquet and toolkit into your arms before trundling off at such high speed that even your mechanical wings would not catch up with him.
As promised, here is a not-so-brief synopsis of the dating sim I'm working on!
Lend Me Your Heart is a visual novel in which you are a transfer student going to a new university (thanks to your old university for axing your major program, sigh). Your new university puts you in the upperclassmen housing they offer, so you don't have to worry about getting an apartment, but the building you were placed in is rumored to be... Cursed. People say that the basement is haunted, that you can hear screams coming from the rooms, that people lose their minds when they live there. The basement also happens to be where you're moving in. Which is... Fantastic.
You're the last person to move in on the floor, so you're able to get to know everyone right away. They all seem nice enough, not without their quirks, but nothing off-putting (and they're all quite attractive). Where, then, are all of these rumors coming from? Everyone else is also new to the basement this year, so maybe the curse was broken the year before? You hope for that, but strange things are already happening...
Less story-like description of the game + content warnings under the cut!
Lend Me Your Heart is a yandere dating sim, in which you live in a dorm surrounded by characters who become completely and utterly enamored with you. Enough to do some horrible things to keep you safe.
The game has five main love interests, with two or three non-romanceable, but important, side characters (currently). Each character has a different path of study in school and different... Methods to their madness. Which you learn about the further you progress on their routes! It's a visual novel, so your agency is based on dialogue choices (which may have more relevancy than you think no matter which ending you plan to get!)
If you like the handful of yandere imagines I wrote on my imagines blog, you'll probably like this.
Some more non-story stuff: You can choose the pronouns you use, it doesn't restrict you from getting any routes. If you choose not to input anything for pronouns, the game uses he/him by default. The current love interest options are all men, and have canon appearances already.
I'll introduce the characters (featuring some of my very messy sketches of them) soon!
Right now I'm making it in RenPy, but that may change if I need things that I can't do in it! (Although honestly given the games created by RenPy in the past, I think it may work fine for my needs)
What you will encounter depends on which route you focus on, so this list will definitely get expanded upon as the game gets closer to having some kind of release, but generally speaking:
Content Warnings:
Yandere trope (especially obsession)
Stalking
Blood/Gore (written descriptions will often be more detailed/potentially gruesome than visual art) (I can't draw gore well)
These pages were created with AI assistance and then manually edited/adjusted by me, so it is a mix of AI-generated material and my own hand edits/post-processing.
The Freak Circus and its characters do not belong to me.
The first love interest of The Man of My Dreams! He is a mechanician, has a warm temperament, helps everyone in need and can always be seen smiling ! He might be too nice though, you can’t help but wonder if there might be something more sinister underneath…Nah, it’s probably nothing! He will go ahead and prepare you some delicious food. You won’t even remember what you are worrying about <3
Reality is boring, uniform and often disappointing...
...So why not meet the man of your dreams instead?
Who we are:
Hello! We're the devs of the indie game, "The Man of my Dreams"! A free VN following the story of you, the player, getting isekai'd into your favourite visual novel "Echoes of the Skies", where nothing bad will happen :)
We're releasing the full F2P game on July 1st! Interested, but can't wait to see what's in store? We gotcha! You can access the demo here.
What is this blog about?
Our tumblr is to share short stories and head canons of our game so far, so there won't be any untagged spoilers so please feel free to browse at your leisure!
Here is our masterlist!
Where to find us:
Want more?
Find memes and more about our release on: Twitter!
Sneak a peak at our countdown till release on: Bluesky!
And find some gameplay on our: TikTok!
Rules for asks:
For now, our asks are open! You're free to inquire or send in head canons of your favourite characters, or to ask the team any questions you may have! We do ask that these asks are SFW and not discriminatory, but other than that, go wild!
