Work Text:
Halloween belonged to him. Halloween was his month, his event. Halloween was his debut, the rise of Antisepticeye...the rise of fear and a new era on the channel.
His, and his alone.
Except...then there was him . The newcomer with a chipper smile and a bowler hat and a mustache, smiling at the camera and carving a pumpkin on the day that was meant to be for him . He had come out of nowhere and immediately stepped into his role as a fresh new character, a little confused about his own existence at first (though hadn’t Anti, too, been a little lost when he’d first come to life?) but it didn’t take long for him to steal the spotlight as if he’d been born to do so. He was smiling, laughing, silently entertaining the masses with so much personality...and Anti? He was being forgotten.
Fuming, boiling, the glitch watched from behind an invisible barrier as this new ego took the fame that was supposed to be his today. Glitches and electricity sparked through his being, his eyes flashing in a blinding rage.
No.
No, this couldn’t stand. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. This was his world and he was in cOntRoL!
Before his eyes, the new ego pricked his finger on his carving knife, drawing blood. The overwhelming positivity in the room stuttered and dissipated for the briefest of moments - but that was all Anti needed. He crawled in through the cracks, fought his way into existence. He latched onto the newcomer’s consciousness and sunk in his claws, digging deep and pulling the strings.
They needed to see, needed to know , that he wasn’t gone...that he wasn’t about to step aside and let some weak puppet take the stage in his place.
Anti was s͊t̮i̹l͗l͕ he᷊re. St̫ill᷄ wȧt᷅c᷁h̳iṇgͅ. And he wouldn’t let anyone forget.
The new ego was putting up a fight. Though he couldn’t possibly be aware of just who Anti was yet, he knew something was wrong...and he was fighting back. So Anti let him go. For now. His message had gotten across just fine, and frankly, if he let himself go any further he might just kill the poor bastard...and it would be so boring without his new toy around to play with~
Anti had not foreseen the insane popularity that the Dapper ego would gain. It was almost impossible, how rapidly the love for the new character mounted in the aftermath of the Halloween upload. He didn’t even have a name! Pathetic. Weak. Puppet .
...and then he did.
A name. A real name. Jameson Jackson. JJ for short.
Of course Jack would welcome him to the “family”, and of course he’d even go so far as to mention him alongside both Anti and Chase at PAX. The confirmation of his canonicity sent the fans reeling with excitement, spawning art and stories and theories . Ah yes, the theories.
The viewers weren’t nearly so oblivious as to miss the signs. They knew. The correlation between JJ and Anti and “puppet” became the only thing anyone talked about for a while, and oh how accurate the theorists were.
Jameson didn’t know. Jameson wasn’t aware. Marvin, Jackie, Chase, the rest...nobody knew. They laughed and brushed it off, because of course Jameson wasn’t under Anti’s control! He was a friend and a friendly face and he could never betray them!
Which, to be fair, was true. Jameson wouldn’t. Anti would.
The puppet strings had been tied, had been sewn, into the very fabric of Jameson Jackson’s soul, into the core of who he was. Granted, were one to become aware of the ties, it would be possible to reverse what Anti had done in JJ’s first moments of existence...but no. That wouldn’t happen. Because Anti wouldn’t let anyone become aware.
He would lie in wait, patiently anticipating the perfect moment for him to pull his little marionette back under his skilled control.
He could wait.
And when his moment came, they would never forget A͓ñti̙se͝p͆ti͑c̦e͚y̼e̔ again.
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