Work Text:
I was brought up in a line
But I seem to walk in circles
It's getting hard to navigate
When every map was never made for me
When Ranboo was 12, he had his first taste of unrestricted internet access. After being raised on VCR tapes and sticking around playing Monopoly with his dad, the idea of having a computer all for himself was... insane. His mom had got it as a congratulations for having not hospitalized anyone for an entire year, and just as a general gift for becoming a teen officially.
And he had started his own little corner of the internet on Tumblr. It wasn't much, but within mere days he had managed to wrangle up a sizable amount of followers who interacted with his every post- whether it be real life experiences phrased as shitposts, or just reblogs off of the biggest memes at the time.
Until he came across a blog that was simply too interesting to ignore. Love poems and little 'imagines' were posted daily, and Ranboo's 12 year old self absolutely ate it all up- reblogging and replying and liking the poems whenever they came across his dashboard.
The girl who ran the blog was in her later teens, around 17 years old from what she posted- and each post waxed poetic about a future husband she longed to have- a bad boy with leather jackets and cigarettes and flannels, or a nerdy boy with geeky shirts and glasses who would write her his own poems, or a funny boy who wore hawaiian shirts and always made her smile, and Ranboo wondered if he'd ever meet a girl who loved him as much as the owner of the blog loved her imaginary creations.
Ranboo himself didn't have an ideal girl. Maybe Sam Puckett from iCarly- she was tough and cool, and seeing her kissing Freddie made Ranboo's stomach get tied up in knots. Or, maybe Wendy from Gravity Falls, since her chill and sarcastic humour made Ranboo crack a grin whenever she appeared.
None of the girls at school seemed to entice him, even when his mom would gush and coo over his new friends that happened to be girls. He couldn't really get the fuss about it all. All the guys at his school were getting girlfriends and dates and first kisses and hitting 'Third Base', whatever that meant. Ranboo wasn't into sports at all.
But when he got home from the bullies at school, he'd make a beeline to his computer, and find that a new poem was posted, and he'd read all the different stanzas that recycled the idea of a boy meeting a girl so perfect for him that the two would run away together, and wonder if the girls at school would like him.
And he'd wonder, that if a girl would like him, he'd find it in himself to like her back.
(He didn't think he could. He didn't know how to love, not yet.)
And I thought it would feel good
To understand why I was different
But my title just talks over me
I never even asked to be this way
When he was 13, his shitpost-filled dashboard had been replaced with one with a bunch of sexuality discourse... and people wanting to fuck the Onceler, a bunch of Superwholock fans, and discussions of DashCon. (If he wasn't so awkward about it, he would have asked his parents to let him go. But he figured they wouldn't let him even if he asked, what with how strict they could be at times, so he let it go.)
Ironically enough, amongst the death threats, mentions of asexuality and neopronouns, Ranboo found himself staring down a label he thought described him:
BISEXUAL.
-sexually attracted not exclusively to people of one particular gender; attracted to both men and women.
He had never formed any crushes in his decade and three years of living, and for a short while he had found himself pondering the label of asexual, but he found himself too enamoured with the idea of finding a girl or maybe a boy, if it ever became legal, and marrying them.
Ranboo was 13 when he found that he was a hopeless romantic, and with shaky hands and a racing heart, he could remember typing in a public ask to the poem account that had lead him to the realization, simply letting her know that her poems had lead him to the realization in itself.
Immediately, his followers flooded him with congratulations and happy asks, and Ranboo found himself basking in the anonymous attention he received. It was amazing to be acknowledged for discovering himself and sharing it online, even if no one knew his real name or face.
Because while online, he was the cool, bisexual shitposter, in school he was the gay kid. Keep in mind, he hadn't even come out to anyone in real life. But every stare that fell upon him as people spat less-than-kind words at him felt like arrows through the heart. Every slur yelled at him in passing felt more and more deserved.
Tumblr said finding a label was the hardest part of being gay, or bi, or lesbian, or trans. Ranboo thought that was a big lie. The hardest part was finding people to accept you for what you really were.
Every day, when he sat down to eat dinner after the realization, he found it hard to stare at his family in the eye.
"You okay?" His little sister asked.
"Mmm... mhm. Yeah." He said. He wondered when he'd be able to say that and mean it.
But to say that I'm a rainbow
To tell me that I'm bright
When I'm so used to feeling wrong
Well, it makes me feel alright
A little later into his teens, he came across the gaming, comedy, and commentary YouTube channels, and promptly fell in love with the idea of it all. He became enamoured with a bunch of adults who'd never know he existed, from Technoblade, to Markiplier, to iHasCupQuake, to CaptainSparklez, Skydoesminecraft, Rosanna Pansino, Ryan Higa, Bo Burnham, Neil Ciciriega, LDShadowLady, Stampy...
But the one he latched onto most, the one who hit him the hardest?
"Hello Internet, my name is Dan, and today, I am going to roast myself with a disstrack."
Danisnotonfire. To be fair, Ranboo was only dragged into it because one of his online friends had mentioned how 'cute' he was in fleeting conversation, and Ranboo had gotten curious.
And his online friend hadn't lied- a fairly young adult with swoopy brown hair and a posh sounding British accent? Ranboo was immediately sold, marathoning his every video- and then, he had been introduced to the hellhole that was the Phandom.
MLM fetishizers with sharpie whiskers and scarring fanfictions. The bright side to it was how accepting (albeit slightly weird) they were about people who were LGBT, and Ranboo once more found himself jn a confusing game of label-choosing.
Now, the label pansexual resonated with him. He wasn't quite so sure yet. He did like the colours of the flag, though.
For the first time, Ranboo had forced himself to change his icon (which had been Dipper Pines for an embarrasingly long amount of time) to an image of Dan with sharpie whiskers.
He had gotten even more followers because of the change, which he welcomed with enthusiasm. He would talk about how he could see himself in Dan and Phil, how as a pansexual guy, finding an internet space like the one that the Tumblr Phandom had that was so obsessed with gay identities was refreshing.
Hundreds of asks flooded his inbox day after day, gushing over new Phan moments, and Ranboo would fight against antis that dared to send hate- but one night, his parents found him angrily typing a reply, and were appalled by his less than decent behaviour, and he was forced to deactivate.
Even if he didn't have an outlet, though, he would lean into the two adult figures that he looked up to so dearly. (And Technoblade, too.)
His parents didn't understand the obsession, and to be completely honest, Ranboo didn't quite understand it either. But what mattered was that they provided a safe space that made him feel a little more normal, when everyone seemed to think he was different.
(And even if it was a little cringe, he'd remind himself to craft rather than cry, when a homophobic insult stung a little harder than it usually would.)
I didn't think it fair
I was not to be trusted
Oh, how can I be proud of
What a million people shout at me? I'm not
By 17, Ranboo would say his life flipped over on its head. All the luck he'd been deprived of as a younger teen came crashing onto his shoulder as he speedran his way into the top streamers on Twitch. It was like Tumblr but amplified, people would flood his chat and spam his notifications, and though it was overwhelming to be placed on such a pedestal, he embraced it with a wide grin.
It had always been a dream of his to pleased to entertain, and he had managed to make a hundred and more connections with public figures and content creators he could have only dreamed of meeting in his dizziest daydreams.
He met Tubbo, too.
And with Tubbo came a whirlwind of new and amplified emotions that consumed his every waking thought, and all the poems he read as a kid on Tumblr started to make sense, and all the love songs sounded like they'd been written about him, and Ranboo was falling hard and quick, and he couldn't help crashing and burning every night, drowning in nothing but his own doubt.
First crush. First real crush. It was everything and nothing like he had expected it to be- though that was probably because everything he'd ever seen online involved the love stories with a princess and a prince and a happily ever after, and Ranboo doubted that it'd be impossible to achieve that now.
Not when everyone was watching his every move. Silently, he wondered if this was how Dan and Phil had felt, before they had both come out
(Ranboo remembers being 16 and finding the notification for a fateful video known to mankind as 'Basically I'm Gay', and sobbing at how much it had resonated. And now he's 17, and the words are just that much more impactful now that he's a real content creator.)
Luckily, everyone's respectful. A bit too respectful, but it was appreciated nonetheless.
It didn't change the fact that Ranboo was hiding, though. Realistically, he knew his fans weren't expecting any solid confirmation in terms of his sexuality, not when they couldn't even confirm his timezone or his age, but with every tweet calling him straight, or unlabelled, or sus, he felt the unreasonable urge to come out without any prompting.
In an ideal world, he would- and he fantasized about making his own Dan-esque video, 40 minutes long and personalto his own experience. Maybe a throwaway tweet mentioning his sexuality on the first of June, start off pride month with a bang.
But he figured coming out would have to wait until he himself could choose a label to come out with. Over the years he found himself bouncing from label to label, each with different realizations connected to them, until it felt as though Ranboo was constantly realizing new things about himself.
For now, he liked the queer label. He wasn't straight, that's for sure, and the idea of being able to reclaim a label that had been used against him was something he found to be empowering.
Tubbo seemed proud of him for it when Ranboo mustered up the courage to tell him- it had gone something like this:
"Hey, Tubbo," He had said casually, "I'm queer."
"...Like the Q, in the acronym?" Tubbo asked, the sound of his keyboard stopping for just a short moment.
"Mhm. Exactly that." Ranboo confirmed.
"Okay. Cool. I like boys." Tubbo revealed.
"I guess Tommy's the token straight guy." Ranboo joked, letting out a deep sigh of relief. On Tubbo's end, the keyboard began to click again.
Ranboo was here. He was queer. And as he tiptoed around the topic of his own sexuality while congratulating people on discovering theirs, he could easily sat that he was filled with existential fear.
So please step inside my soul
I'd love to watch you gasp
You'd understand in minutes
And I'd like to think you'd miss it
'Cause so would I
"...Mom, dad?"
"Yes?"
"What is it?"
"I'm queer."
"..."
"Your father and I, we need a minuteto talk about this..." Two blurry figures stand and walk away, the beginnings of an argument starting to brew in their anger-stricken tones.
His little brother smiles from across the table. "That's cool. Like the Crystal Gems."
"Yeah. Just like the Crystal Gems. So don't listen to what mom and dad say." His little sister chimed in- she was 15 now, and she'd be damned if her 5 year old brother grew up with skewed morals. "When did you figure out?"
"I... constantly am figuring myself out." Ranboo shrugged. "And... that's okay."
So say that I'm a rainbow
And tell me that I'm bright
When I'm so used to feeling wrong
Well, it makes me feel alright
Getting his first boyfriend was supposed to be a magical experience. For Ranboo, it was painful. (But in a good way, of course.)
It was a mix of yearning and banter and late-night calls that were filled with one too many painstakingly intimate jabs and Ranboo couldn't get enough of it.
They weren't official. They hadn't even met in the flesh yet, despite their rigorous planning to do so. But Ranboo knew that the moment he would step into the U.K., he'd ask his cheeky brunette crush to be his official, exclusive boyfriend.
It felt right. Every 'I love you' and playful pet name that fell from his mouth felt natural. Every time he'd send a goodmorning or goodnight message, a fond grin would spread across his face.
He was in love. And no matter what anyone would say, there was nothing wrong with it. No matter what anyone would think of it, nothing would change the fact that two boys were in love.
Ranboo relished in the amazingness of it all, and he wonders if his 12 year old self would have been proud of him for finding a love worthy of a million poems and then some.
Oh, so say that I'm a rainbow
And tell me that I'm bright
When I'm so used to feeling wrong
"I love you," Ranboo breathed out in the dead of the night. Next to him, Tubbo let out a small laugh.
"Dick." Tubbo snorted, "I love you too. Kiss me already."
Well, it makes me feel alright.