Work Text:
a drag path, but it's the author who never got to finish her favorite fic, and you're not sure but you think it has something to do with the author's note mentioning intolerant family. it's the author who had cancer, and you know she passed a year, five months ago today. it's the author who wrote their heart onto the screen, with the most beautiful prose you could ever read, killed in a war you cannot save them from. it's the kid just learning english and you're so proud of them, but they live in gaza. they live in ukraine. in sudan. they live in the congo, in the corners of the world where violence has found them, and you cannot do anything, so you remember them. you remember them because until the day you too die, they live on through you.
it's the roleplayers who mentioned mental health issues to you two days before they go offline for good. you don't know what happened. you pray it's not what the evidence suggests, and you still tag them in rp plots you think they'd like because you've come to know them, and you may not know their real name but you know their deepest fears and what they wanted to be when they grew up. you know them because you loved them. you still wish that love could have saved them.
it's the fanartists whose friends upload the unfinished piece they were working on before the car crash. it's the fanartist working with a fic writer, and when the writer doesn't survive that car crash, they take it upon themselves to finish both story and art because it's what their friend would have wanted. they live on in the pencil lines and the deleted words and unsure drafts and the determination to finish it for the both of them even when they can't see because they're sobbing.
it's the brother posting that his sister passed away, and that he didn't know this side of her but he wishes so desperately he did - and he clings to anything he can about his sister because he wants her back, and he can't have it. so he asks what readers' favorite fic of hers was so he can, for one moment, feel like she is still in the room with him. she lives on through those who loved her work, and because they loved her work, they loved her. her family may be inolerant, but her brother is not alone in knowing the real her. it's the sister who finds the rest of her sister's fanfic after she died and periodically uploads it so her story is finished.
it's the reader who takes comfort in knowing the author reunited with her grandmother in jannah.
it's the authors whose last author's note mentioned the start of a global pandemic, and their last update was in 2020.
it's the co-author who never logged back in after hurricane katrina, or hurricane helene. i
t's the roleplayer who you know was immunocompromised. it's going to be five years today.
it's the housewife whose husband is abusive and her only solace was fanfiction. she disappeared years ago.
it's the friends who update for the author, apologizing. informing. it's the dm that comes to you in the middle of the night, from their account, and you have hope until it starts "i'm so sorry to tell you".
it's the people who still care ten years after your last post to log into old accounts and search for you. it's the people who still have notifications turned on for you, who still have that app downloaded in the event you ever come back.
it's the bond that forms between strangers over writing, art, songs, headcanons, incorrect quote blogs, roleplay. it's the bond that lives on long after death because someone remembers. not a name, but the truth. they know who you were, who you loved, what you wanted to do. they knew you through love.
and that's the thing. you're going to haunt them for the rest of their lives.
they're going to see you in every literary character with the same name as yours, in every fic that has the same premise as yours, in every artist whose art style feels like yours, in every bit little bit of what you loved. when the source media updates, they're going to wonder what you would have thought of it. they're going to laugh and then they're going to cry and it may be a little too painful to fully enjoy it anymore, but they do it for you. they're going to name their kid after you because of the impact you had on their life, and they're going to be the ones to make sure your account is memorialized and they still send people your way.
you are a high schooler, a professor, a housewife, a carpenter, an archaeologist, a psychologist, a therapist, a cancer survivor, a rideshare driver, a doctor. you are a fan, and you changed the world. your presence is imbedded into fandom, into the internet - it stands as a digital memorial for you and who you were and what you did. it stands as a graveyard to visit in remembrance for everyone who has ever been lost in fandom, as a beacon to those not yet born who will walk in your footsteps, so they know whose drag path they are following. "here is who they were," says the internet. "and here's how much they were loved," say their friends. they aren't truly gone, not when their username is still in rec lists and their email stills gets "someone commented" notifications. they're here, just somewhere around the corner.
you once wrote about a character haunting the narrative. you became the ghost.
and oh, how you are still so dearly loved.