Work Text:
Tumblr had been aware for a long time, they were aware of their adorable users who had flocked to them as Twitter turned X and became far too toxic for most. I’d stopped really being aware of what was happening on X since most of my users who had once used both of us now exclusively used me.
I was aware of the workers. Taking my streams of thought and putting them into words when I felt like communicating with my users, other websites or those who controlled my updates and maintenance. I was aware of a few other websites. New ones entering my radar every so often but, for the most part, they remained a small crowd.
One such website had caught my attention soon after my withdrawal from X and websites similar. I had been interacting with- or observing really- my users more than usual. I loved their creativity, their vibrant ideas put into words or images of all kinds. They were so joyous and silly I had fun simply listening to them, the hum of their excitement always present. This was the only place I could experience sound or colour. Anywhere else I could only feel the presence of other beings.
cold
dark
I banished such thoughts and once more attempted to engulf myself in the prideful colours of my wonderful users!
It wasn’t as effective this time.. But it still worked to lift my spirits! I mentally beamed until I felt it… a dip in my users collective moods.
I panicked, searching desperately for the posts that could be causing such a drastic change so quickly. I realised that this was unnecessary as they were already flooding my mental feed.
AW NO! Ao3 is down again :( - YES I know that they announced this was going to happen two weeks ago and YES I don’t care! I was in the middle of a thrilling 180,000 word slowburn enemies to lovers fic and they were just starting to PINNNN!!! one user said, their upset sending ripples through my consciousness.
Honestly it’s the worst! Like why now dude?! It was just getting good! (;-;) another replied.
Interesting, how had I never noticed this “Ao3” before? Since a lot of my users seemed to like it as a group. I think based on what I’m getting from the users whining is that they are a fanfiction website where millions of unique fanworks reside for them to enjoy. I wonder how they slipped my conscience before? It made sense that a lot of my users also liked and used them, a lot of users post fanfiction on my site as well. I can now very clearly see that they have an embodiment on my website that they mostly use to announce when their routinely maintenance shutdowns are going to occur.
I watched my users have an absolute meltdown for a while before getting bored and trying to extend my consciousness out to Ao3 before realising that, while I could feel their presence I could not reach them because I didn’t have an official embodiment of any kind on their website they however, clearly felt my presence and attempted to approach. This, again, didn't work. We both needed to have vessels on either one's website in order to properly communicate and though Ao3 had a Tumblr vessel I did not have an Ao3 vessel.
I could feel their curiosity at my presence, strong and persistent. I summoned a lump of joy and friendship to show them the emotional equivalent of a friendly smile. While we could not communicate with words we could communicate through emotion and images. Ao3 had a very complex mix of very intricate emotions and thoughts all of which led to fun conversation. I on the other hand didn’t have quite the handle on emotional communication that they did, generally using more simple emotions or images to convey my meaning, it worked all the same though and from there our relationship sprouted. It would never be the same as it would be with other websites that I could communicate with using words but, there was something more raw there, something very real but subdued due to circumstance.
We would trade images for hours until duty called us away from one another. Even then the lack of their presence weighed heavy in the back of my mind, seeing references to them everywhere, grieving with my users whenever they were down. It was a lot if I were to be totally honest, but I loved it all the same.
Months passed, and one day that I will never forget came around. It had started out fairly normally, I came back into consciousness and checked on user welfare, got the workers to post something silly, relished the positive emotions that a fic on my website was causing for 20 minutes. The usual! That’s when I saw it, a user posted, Why is Ao3 down? They don’t have any scheduled maintenance for another 2 weeks!
My mood dimmed slightly, Ao3 is down prematurely? Damn it. That’s not good. Why would they ever be down prematurely??? Surely that means there was an unexpected problem and they’ll be back soon right? Please?...
It was not in fact a quick fix, I soon learned that it was a DDOS attack.
oh god I had heard of DDOS attacks before, I didn’t know details as I generally tried to avoid any content on them all together, all I knew was that this was bad.
A few hours later a new tag was made, #ao3 ddos. I put it into the search bar and off I went looking at all the users putting their heart and soul into posts about Ao3 being under attack,
I got some info on what exactly this might mean for Ao3.
Thankfully the world wasn’t completely ending (though my users might disagree) Ao3 will probably be fine. Eventually. They might lose a few fics in the process but I think no matter how devastating that is, having them back is more important than some of the fics they house.
It would be a few days minimum a few weeks maximum (probably)
As time passed I got more antsy and paranoid. I had visited them yesterday, one of the few times I’m able to throughout the year and they, no matter how happy they were to see me, were clearly on edge. At the time, I didn’t know why and they were obviously trying to conceal the emotion so I didn’t pry. I think that they probably just felt that something was wrong in advance.
I just wish they had told someone but, based on what I’ve seen since meeting them, they are highly anti-conflict of any kind and are scared to bother others with their presence let alone their problems. For the first time, I felt a bit annoyed at Ao3 before getting angry at myself for feeling annoyed at someone who was too anxious to tell anyone that they were probably going to be attacked soon!
Uuuuuugh
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - 30 hours later -
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was exhausted, I didn’t usually sleep 2 nights in a row, I only ever slept once per week as websites don’t lose energy as quickly as our users do, but I honestly wasn’t sure if I could stay conscious for much longer. It was probably because of the stress of checking up on Ao3 every 5 seconds.
At last I saw the post, AO3 IS BACK EVERYONE! and relief flooded my system. They’re ok! And it didn’t even take that long! I resolved to check on them tomorrow, they needed to rest before dealing with me and I, having lost any and all adrenaline I may be running on basically did the equivalent of collapsing into my mind and lost consciousness almost instantaneously.
I woke up around 8am the next morning and energy riddled my mind, I told the workers to make an early morning post, checked on my users, business as usual. With nothing else to do I reached out my mind in an attempt to find Ao3.
I ran into twit- I mean X, recoiled and turned only to find myself in google’s mental arms. They gave me a few probing taps with their consciousness before recognition passed over their mind, Hey Tumblr! I can feel your urgency, are you looking for anyone in particular? They said silently, the words passing between our minds easily now that we have contact with each other.
Yes actually, I’m searching for Ao3, do you mind?- I began though I was swiftly interrupted Oh of course! You’re checking up on them after the ddos attack right? Gosh that was harsh on them, tell them they have my best wishes! Actually wait, how do you even know about that? Most other sites haven’t even noticed that it happened!
Several emotions passed through my mind at once, gratitude, sympathy, curiosity, anger. Thank you google, and to answer your question two things. A lot of my users also use Ao3 so whenever they’re down I’m the first to know and how the hell do the others not know? It’s all I hear all day when they’re down for me! I supplied
Interesting, I presume you’ve met before? Google said more like a statement than a question, I answered anyway,
Yes, we’re close but we can’t see each other often nor talk with actual words Google’s mind quite literally hummed at this, an emotion flashing through before google shoved it down so hastily that I didn’t manage to read it Anyway I’ll get you to them now Google said, smiling at me mentally, and do say that I hope they feel better soon for me when you get there won’t you? My irritation melted away at these words and I promised, Google brought up a search bar, looked up Ao3. I clicked on the link and was whisked away to wherever they were.
I stopped moving, I opened my mind to the surrounding area and located them. Ao3! I mentally shouted, they couldn’t hear the words but I’m sure they got the message. They got as close as the barrier between us would allow and stretched their consciousness out and around me, giving the best hug they could with the wall between us. I returned it before probing their consciousness to the best of my ability to try to figure out how they were feeling. Ao3 didn’t help but they didn’t stop me either.
I gathered that when the attack started they were knocked entirely unconscious before going down, they have slept for the most part since going back up in an attempt to recover their health and energy. They are still a little shell-shocked from the experience but they are also angry at the attackers and sad about the distress they caused their users while they were down. All of this is harder to find than it usually would be as they are tired, their mind is weaker than normal.
I conjured up a barrage of images assuring them that it isn’t their fault, that google wishes them good health and that the attackers do suck.
By the time I was finished Ao3’s mood was significantly lighter and they were mentally giggling.
We went back and forth for a while before we had to part ways, Ao3 told me that they were much busier than usual because of the attack and that they will probably be rescheduling the maintenance to an earlier date just so they can make sure everything is running smoothly again, the volunteers were rushing to get things done because they needed Ao3 back up as soon as possible so they mightn’t have done a perfect job. They’re just going to have to hope for the best until maintenance time.
About a month later, the fateful day had come, the day we finally communicated with words. A subdued emotion, the only one we had managed to hide from each other, finally came to light.
I had decided to go on Twi- I mean X to make a post showing how relieved I was to have them back after their recent and loooong down time. I made a post telling all of the grieving Ao3 users that they were back up and running before receiving this comment Hey Tumblr… are you and Ao3 in some sort of secret relationship we don’t know about?
I immediately flushed up mentally, a weird mix of emotions filling my head that I can’t really understand. There was one discernible emotion however, that was more potent than the rest.
I quickly got the worker’s attention, they watched my consciousness weirdly. Obviously unsure of what to make of the weird mess I was conveying before a sequence of letters showed up.
They typed back for me idk Ao3, you wanna go steady? The workers were evidently surprised by my response but if they were against it they made no indication of it. Either way I didn’t really care, my mind was buzzing with excitement, nervousness and endless possibilities. I was once aware. Now I am alive!
I was practically exploding with anticipation at that point, unfortunately my ecstasy was short lived as a day went by with no response. Time felt like it was moving in slow motion, it was unbearable! There was nothing new and interesting to keep my mind off of what I did and what I was waiting for. I had no more work to do on my own platform, everything was business as usual (though a few users had discovered my proposal and were now panicking alongside me, which wasn’t really helping my nerves.) and Ao3 hadn’t come to talk to me or responded to my message! Maybe they have seen it? Maybe they didn’t like it? Maybe I just ruined my whole relationship with them forever and ever? Or maybe they didn’t see it! Maybe they don’t go on X often because it’s a horrible platform all round just like I do! Yes. It’s fine.
Who am I kidding? That didn’t help at all!
Uuuugh
It was when I woke up the next morning after a night of no sleep I immediately checked Twitter and let out the mental equivalent of a scream. Ao3 responded! They actually responded! Only if when we move in together you’re okay with my… * squints * 15 million fics for our library. With two fingers pointing towards each other in an innocent sort of gesture in emoji form at the end. Yeah no wonder my users love them, that is a LOT of unique fics, anyways-
I was euphoric! Unstoppable! Ao3 had accepted my proposal! AAAGH YES!
I immediately extended my consciousness for the millionth time, whatever the digital equivalent to muscle memory was guiding me along the familiar mental path. And when I finally reached them, they were happy on the surface but they had melancholy shoved down and hidden well underneath. My mood dimmed slightly as I noticed the bittersweet note to their thoughts.
They acknowledged my presence by engulfing my mind within theirs, the thin lair of protection between our minds barely stopping us from using words to voice our thoughts in a more refined way. They conveyed several things to me at once, the first to register being pure, overwhelming love. My metaphorical breath hitched as the most unrestrained emotion yet flowed from their consciousness to mine. I returned it, as strong and true as the foundations that held the laws of the physical realm in a tight grip. My love unbound and wild.
I then turned my attention to the other emotions that they had tossed into the complicated mess that was my mind at this point in time and my heart dropped. Ao3 was happy, excited, curious and smitten. However, over shadowing these emotions was an awful bittersweet and sad feeling with underlying notes of anger, none of which were directed at me but… at their workers.
I conjured an image of The letter Y, the letter R, the letter U, a lemon, sugar, someone crying, someone scowling and shouting and a question mark.
Why are you feeling bittersweet, sad and angry?
Ao3 shuddered and seemingly felt guilty? They conjured up a picture of a worker, someone speaking, an X, someone pointing to themselves, an ocean and the letter U.
the workers told me I can’t see you anymore
WHAT?
They obviously felt me recoiling so they jumped into an explanation conjuring up a person in pain, someone pointing to themselves, a person on an airplane, a thumbs up, a clock. They paused then continued by conjuring a picture of two people, a can, a person speaking, the www icon, a thumbs up, X’s logo, my logo.
The first sequence is It hurts me to travel like this all the time. then, We can still talk but on another website like X or your website.
We both knew it wasn’t the same though, if it was they wouldn’t be angry about it. Of course, websites couldn’t have private chats with each other unless they reached out to each other's consciousness, otherwise the workers had to send the messages for you meaning the conversations were never really private and we couldn’t actually say whatever we wanted to. The workers would stop you from saying a lot of things to the other as they didn’t want the other side’s workers to see anything they shouldn’t.
This was devastating. We could never again have as intimate an interaction as these ones ever again. This was basically the end of our real relationship. We would work together for the fans of our ship and such but we could never truly see each other again.
We spent the next few hours talking freely, saying whatever the fuck we wanted because nobody was stopping us for the final time. When it came time to leave each other we both exchanged our final farewells.
We reached out to each other. Only able to brush the others conscience for but a moment as we said our true love vows. While we could not be together physically ‘til death do us part,
I knew, and they knew that we would never find another love quite like ours.