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Dani is stressed as fuck. Excited as fuck too, but she's incredibly overwhelmed. Here she is, faced with her community—both of YouTubers and of fans—for the first time. She feels a long fucking way from London here outside the convention hall in Anaheim, California, but she plasters on a grin, smooths her straightened fringe down over her forehead, and heads in.
She feels a bit crazy for coming here alone, but she isn't really alone. There are tons of people here that she knows and know her, even if they haven't met in person yet. Tweets exchanged, Instagram DMs, even video calls with a few people; it is great to have the opportunity to meet everyone in person. That doesn't mean the crush of people isn't anxiety inducing; she slouches as she hustles through the halls, trying to not look like danisnotonfire—although she knows her height and straightened fringe make her pretty conspicuous—looking for the creator lounge so she can catch her breath.
She finds the room and flashes her credentials, ducking inside. It is immediately calmer, space to breath and fewer searching eyes, although the eyes in here are definitely still looking, even creators are fans and this is a networking event for them, everyone's on the hunt for collabs and appearances for mutual audience boosting. She sees a number of people she recognizes, and a surprising amount of people she doesn't. YouTube is a much bigger community than it feels sometimes, pockets of culture allowing it to seem somewhat contained, but that all falls away when everyone is under one literal giant roof.
She nods back at a few of the people who clearly recognize her, and notices with relief the most important thing she has been hoping to find in here: Louise.
Louise is her closest YouTube friends, and one of her closest friends full stop. She's of the few creators she has spent time with in person, they have a similar sense of humor and hit it off over that and the frustrations with feeling pigeon-holed as female creators. She is one of the people who had convinced Dani to finally come out to VidCon, with the promise she'll be around to save Dani in moments of introvert crisis, like right now.
"Oh thank god," she sighs, flopping next to Louise on the couch.
Louise smirks at her, "Enjoying yourself, yeah?"
Dani groans. "I was in the crowd for literally 10 minutes and I'm already exhausted. I don't know how I'm going to make it through four hours of meet and greets." Dani is honestly grateful to have the meet and greets on the first day. It takes the pressure off a bit for the rest of the weekend, if she has already Been Seen people tend to be a bit less feral if they see her wandering around. And the meet and greets are the best parts of this, really, meeting the fans is the point and in the moment the energy from the interactions takes her sky high. It is just the before that is daunting.
Louise shakes her head, "You just gotta turn it on girl. You can do it, I've seen it."
"Well I'm off for now," Dani says, slouching into the couch and pulling out her phone. Let the continuous dash of Tumblr numb away her stress. The scrolling is meditative, she focuses on just finding posts for her queue, too much going on right now to bother trying to get the order right. It is infuriating how many soulmate tattoo posts clutter the aesthetic blogs she follows. The idea of a soulmate tattoo as aesthetic makes Dani's eye roll. It is the exact opposite of an aesthetic: not something you can curate, not something you can control. Just a stain that appears on your skin one day. Dani finds it hard to understand why people find it so aspirational to be held powerless against the universe.
It is an alarming short amount of time before Louise is nudging her. "Meet and greet time, babe." Dani stands, stretches, tries to shake off the last of her languid energy, and turns to Louise giving her the best YouTube thumbnail grin she's got.
"There you are", Louise says, patting her face. "That's my Dani's Not On Fire."
They head out of the lounge; there are a number of creators all with meet and greets starting now so they walk as a pack, flanked by conference security hustling them along. Walking through the meet and greet hall is intense, the fans have already been queuing and the room is packed. The herd of YouTubers is hardly inconspicuous, there are screeches and grabby hands as they push between the queues. Dani is waving, trying to smile and make eye contact with as many people as possible who were looking at her, especially the fans in other YouTuber's queues. Just outreach, anything she can do to make the fans feel appreciated and seen, even if they won't be able to meet her one on one.
They make it to the back of the room, each creator having a little zone behind a screen for water, snacks, piling gifts. Dani cracks the water at her table and nods at the volunteer who has been assigned to help her through this ordeal. She takes a scan around, trying to get a feel for the layout and—oh fuck.
AmazingPhil is at the booth immediately next to her. And Phil is already looking at her, a half smile on her face. "Hi Dani," she says with a wave. Well okay, apparently Dani isn't going to be able to get away with pretending they don't know each other today.
Dani and Phil had been close for a short while a long time ago. Back before Dani was creating on YouTube she was a fan, and a fan of AmazingPhil especially. It was almost idol worship that she felt for Phil back then; Phil was funny, creative, nice, hot, gay—she seemed to have a life she enjoyed. Dani interacted a lot online, desperate for attention if she was being honest with herself. Popping up in YouTube comments and tweets, friendly and flirting, and eventually Phil took notice back. The internet was different back then, smaller. A creator didn't feel like a big distant entity, they felt like a person, a person you could befriend. And so Dani did.
It was a lot, really fast. They talked constantly: Twitter, to MSN, to cell phones, to Skype. They joked and laughed and flirted and did a lot more than that on Skype eventually too. Dani was so caught up in it, this fantasy of something other than her life, one where she could be happy like Phil, with Phil. And so they had made plans to meet up, Dani even bought a fucking train ticket. But when the day came Dani just couldn't, she panicked. She couldn't let the fantasy world fall apart so she destroyed it herself. She had at least had the courtesy to text Phil that day, told her not to bother at the train station, but that was the last they ever spoke.
Phil had tried to reach out a few times after that, friendly, just checking, but Dani could never handle the shame she felt when she thought of what she had done, how she had handled it; she never responded. Every time she didn't respond made the next response even harder, and eventually Phil had stopped trying.
She had kept tabs on Phil since then, of course she had, she was still a pioneer on YouTube and a huge inspiration to Dani, and apparently Phil had kept tabs on her too, at least enough that she recognized her here today.
Dani is a different girl now than she had been back then. She has made it, gotten the fantasy life by some miracle. The hero worship for Phil is gone, just professional admiration and respect, and a little bit of longing was left.
Still, when she had seen Phil it felt like a zap to her stomach, a tingle across the skin. The 18 year old with the crazy intense crush—yearning at pixilated blue eyes through a screen—is back inside her now five years later when she is actually meeting AmazingPhil for the first time. Of course she had known there was a chance they'd run into each other at VidCon. She just hadn't expected Phil to be shoved in her face like this.
"Phil, hi." Dani gives a half wave back.
"Do you mind if I," Phil takes a step forward, motioning.
Dani shakes her head, no, and Phil walks over, past the gaps in the screens that are the informal barrier between creator spaces.
"It's so nice to finally meet you," Phil says leaning in for a hug. Dani returns it, it's awkward. Phil's hands are cold, and neither of them seem sure how tightly or long is appropriate. They break apart and step back, Dani fidgets with her fringe.
Phil continues, "Crazy that we both had to come all the way to California to make it happen." She laughs, tongue sticking out from between her teeth.
Dani winces. "Yeah, Phil, I'm really sorry about what I—"
Phil waves her off, interrupting. "No worries. It was a different time back then. Can't exactly fault a girl for not wanting to go meet a stranger off the internet."
Phil hadn't been a stranger, they both know that. Dani takes the kindness of the excuse regardless.
"Anyway," Phil continues, "You didn't need me for anything after all, look at all this, huh?" She motions out to the crowd, the ambient buzzing of hundreds of conversations. "You really made the YouTube thing happen."
"It is still thanks to you," Dani says, words spilling out of her mouth before she could second guess them. "I mean, you were the inspiration. I learned so much about what made a good video just from watching you." She scratches at her neck, "and those things you said back then did make a difference. I don't think I would have had the courage for the first one if it wasn't for you."
Phil smiles at her, it is slight, but feels genuine. "Well then, I'll add that to my resume. Kickstarted the career of one the greatest YouTubers the platform's ever seen."
Dani blushes, looking down at her Converse.
"Hey," Phil says hesitantly. "I don't want to overstep, but it would be good to get to talk to you again, catch up for real? I assume you're here for a few more day?"
Dani nods, "Yeah, I am."
"Could I give you my number then? Just to coordinate events and stuff. It's a busy weekend, I know, and I'd be sad if the time ran away without us getting to catch up." She seems nervous to ask. Dani hates that she made Phil feel like she wouldn't want to be her friend.
"Yeah, of course," she hands over her phone, lets Phil type in the number to a contact. It just says "Phil =)". Dani corrects it to "Phil Lester" and texts the number.
this is dani, from the internet
"Thanks," Phil seems relieved. "Well, good luck with the meet and greet! I'll catch you around."
"Yeah," Dani nods, "One hundred percent."
The meet and greet is a blur, it always is. A slide show of faces, and letters, and camera flashes, and hugs. She'll read through the letters later, way later, when she's back home and feeling the crash from the post-conference high. She's tired all over by the time they're done, running a whole forty-five minutes over the slotted four hours. Her feet hurt, her cheeks hurts. Her eyes hurt. She wants the biggest caramel macchiato she can find and a nap, but it's only 3PM and there is genuinely a lot she wants to see, so she settles for just the coffee and heads out for the rest of the afternoon. She sits in on panels, gives more "hi"s to more fans on the floor, appears spontaneously in the vlogs of about twenty other YouTubers, big and small.
It's fun, its exhilarating, but by 9PM she is totally exhausted and begs off the evening's party to go crash. She drags herself into the hotel room and collapses face down on top of the duvet. Only ten minutes like this, god she desperately needs a shower, but the concept of being vertical right now feels impossible.
She manages to get up after her allotted face-plant time, turns on a scalding shower, sniffs at the hotel soaps—intensely jasmine. For as difficult as it was to get in the shower now it feels like the best thing she's done all day: relaxing the muscles in her neck that had crept up unconsciously, soothing her stiff calves from a day of standing and walking.
She towels off and grabs the hair dryer. She likes to try to dry it as flat as she can to save the GHDs some work. She can't be bothered to put her pajamas on yet so she lets the towel fall away in front of the bathroom mirror and what the fuck is on her—
Oh no. Oh no no no. Oh shit.
She's half crawled onto the bathroom counter, trying to get closer to the mirror. She pokes it. It doesn't feel like anything. She scratches at it. It doesn't move. She licks her thumb and scrubs at it, insane she knows, she just got out of the shower. Her skin turns red with friction, but the black mark doesn't move. Like it's permanent. Like it's a tattoo.
What the fuck.
Dani has her soulmate tattoo. Her soulmate tattoo is on her body, at the top of her ribs, just under her boob. It's some sort of fucked up d20, way more than 20 sides, just black line art. It looks almost like The Resistance album art just without any of the fun. Well what the absolute fuck is she supposed to do with that.
She's pacing, she can't help it. Nude in her hotel room just walking back and forth. Soulmate, my ass, she's never felt more alone. How the hell is she going to figure this out? There is one other person on this planet, likely also currently in Anaheim, California, who has a weird ass 3D shape on their ribs. One other person who may or may not know by now that they have a soulmate. What a fucked up place for a tattoo. If it had been on the back of her hand at least she would have noticed when it appeared. This could have popped up any time today. Or yesterday? Dani can't for the life of her think of the last time she observed that part of her torso. She had noticed it right away today, surely if it appeared before she wouldn't have missed it. So we'll go with the assumption it appeared today.
Okay, so one other person is out there with the same tattoo. What, she's gotta go around lifting the shirts of random people to check? Dani laughs out loud, it sounds manic but she feels manic, so fair enough.
And fuck, how the hell is she supposed to narrow down who the person could be? Dani hasn't been waiting for this day but of course she has thought about this day. She had thought it would happen in her normal fucking life, a day where she doesn't leave the house and sees one delivery person and then it's easy pickings to figure out who her soul mate is. Of course this would happen on a day she meets thousands of people. Of course because it would happen to her like that, and also she guesses technically it was statistically more likely to happen like that.
Fuck. It was not even a thought in her mind that this could happen today. What the fuck.
She grabs her phone and opens Twitter.
amazing day today, great to meet so many of you! i feel like my life was literally changed today, anyone else feel the same?
Is it too subtle? Fuck it. She's not going to tweet "so who's my soulmate" and deal with a bunch of weirdos trying to fake it.
She refreshes and refreshes and refreshes. The favorites climb, hundreds then thousands. Replies coming in too.
"So true"
"loved meeting you today, best day ever!"
"my life will change once i get the chance to meet you"
"dannie girlies rise"
Nothing that seems telling, no other winks to the absolute freight train rammed into her and some stranger's lives today. Oh, she's spiraling. She does the only thing she can think to do.
She calls Louise.
It's loud as hell in the background when Louise picks up, "Dani? Hi girl. Are you here?"
"No Louise, I'm at my hotel room. Can you come? I'm having a crisis."
"Dani, it's a party! There's free drinks! Fucking Smosh are here!"
"I know Louise, I'm sorry. I just—I really need someone right now. I'll do anything to make it up to you. Do whatever you want tomorrow."
Louise pauses. "Anything?"
Dani's pleading, "Yes, anything, I swear."
Louise sighs, "Alright, be there in 20 probably."
After Louise hangs up it occurs to Dani she should probably put some clothes on. Pajamas now on, she sits on the bed and doom refreshes her twitter notifications, flipping between replies to her tweet and DMs. Nothing. Well, there's tons of shit, there always is. But nothing like "Hey, look at this weird ass polygon that appeared on me today, did you get one too?"
A text from Phil interrupts one of her refreshes. It startles her, silly butterflies taking flight in her belly making it feel just like 2009 again.
Hey Dani, it was good meeting you today. I'm so glad it finally happened. Let me know when's good to meet up, I really want to talk to you again.
Fucking hell. If there was ever a reason to get over this ancient crush on Phil, this would be it. She's got a soulmate somewhere out there, the person she'll spend the rest of her life with—allegedly. There's no reason at all to be hung up on a stupid crush that hasn't seen a speck of life in the past five years.
She doesn't respond to Phil, she's sure that's what Phil would expect from her anyway.
Louise arrives and Dani drags here inside.
"What was so important that—Jesus Christ, Dani."
Dani has hiked her shirt up, half flashing Louise in her rush to show her the tattoo. "Look at this shit!" she says.
Louise's mouth drops; she comes close, pokes it. Rubs it. Makes the same conclusion that Dani had. That's a fucking real soulmate tattoo.
"Oh boy."
"Yeah, no shit."
She flops back onto the bed dramatically. "How the hell am I supposed to figure this out, Louise?"
Louise sits next to her, runs her hand through Dani's damp curls.
"I have no idea, babe. Genuinely."
Dani rubs the heels of her palms into her eyes. "The one fucking thing that the universe is supposed to take care of for me. The one thing that is decided by fate and just happens and it hands you this lovely thing on a silver platter. And the universe has given me a wild goose chase."
Louise snorts.
Dani's head snaps over to glare at her. "It's not fucking funny."
Louise is still laughing. "It's kind of funny."
Dani groans, and then joins her. She can't help it, Louise is right. And that's one topic for "Reasons Why Dani's A Fail" sorted. At least it's something on a silver platter, the consolation prize of a YouTube video.
The girls calm down finally and Louise asks, "So what are you going to do?"
Dani shows her the tweet, the responses. Explains the plan that if she gets a wink and a nod she can reach out, ask questions, try to really figure it out.
"But otherwise, I don't know. Just keep going about my life I guess. Hope I'm wandering around VidCon and overhear someone else complaining about a soulmate tattoo but no soulmate."
Louise nods, squeezes Dani's hand. "Well, I'll be with you tomorrow, we can have two sets of ears out." She stares a line through Dani's pajama top, to where the tattoo is underneath. "Maybe we need to get you into some sluttier outfits to try to show that thing off."
Dani swats at her, and they laugh it off. Louise heads out, claiming she needs rest for a "big night out" tomorrow, giving Dani a wink.
When Dani gives a last check to her Twitter notifications she sees that Phil has replied there too, a black heart. Fucking strange, Dani is supposed to be the emo one. Maybe Phil's trying to dampen down her brightness to not scare Dani off. Dani ignores it too, she can hardly favorite a tweet while she ignores the text.
As she falls asleep, Dani tries to let the slide show of faces from today play in her brain. One of those people may have been her soulmate, one of those people she might spend the rest of her life with, surely one face would stand out. None of them do, none from the meet and greet.
***
The next morning Dani feels like a zombie. She's sitting at the hotel breakfast, American pancakes and watery eggs on her plate, ignored while she chugs down coffee and scrolls through Twitter again. She's looking at meet and greet pictures from yesterday, looking for—she doesn't know what. A magical glowing orb behind one of their heads? She sighs. If nothing else, maybe she should keep an eye out for these people again today.
Another text from Phil comes in.
Hey! Good morning, hope you had a good nights rest. I've got plans to meet up for lunch with some other UK people, let me know if you want to join and I can send you the deets <3
She's probably not going to have time for that today. Dani's on a mission, and that mission is running into anyone and everyone she met yesterday. She texts Louise.
headed to the conference center, meet you there
It's a day of prowling. Yesterday she was hiding in corners and back rooms, today she's running through crowds, grabbing anyone who as much as makes eye contact with her. She develops a script.
"So nice to meet you, wait, did we meet yesterday?"
If no:
"Oh, sorry, you reminded me of someone. Want a selfie?"
If yes:
"Great to see you again! How was the rest of your day yesterday? Anything else exciting?"
She sounds like an insane person. She doesn't care.
She hears story after story about run-ins with so-and-so, a great meal in town, dancing at the party. She doesn't care. As soon as it's over she quickly disengages, looking for the next set of eyes.
She had promised Louise anything, and there were some panels she had wanted to sit in on, so Dani joins her but pays no attention to the topics being discussed. She scans the room, looking for anyone looking back at her, makes a mental list of them to grab after the panel is done and before they can escape out of the room. Checks Twitter again in the down time. Nothing still.
Every conversation: nothing, nothing, nothing. Every response: nothing, nothing, nothing. At least it's been a great day for fans, Dani doesn't think she's ever talked to this many people in a day. It's draining, its frustrating, but Louise is not letting her get out of the party.
"Nuh, uh. You said anything. I'm holding you to that."
Dani is sitting on Louise's bed. She flops back with a moan. "I'm tired, Mom."
Louise glares at her. "I don't give a shit. You're six years younger than me, you can rally. And you're not more likely to find your soulmate hiding in your hotel room than out at the party. Now get over here and put on some fucking makeup."
Phil had texted her about the party too, at least she assumes it's the same one. She didn't actually know any details, just following Louise around like a lost lamb.
Sorry we missed you at lunch! Are you going out tonight? Not really my thing haha, but I'll join if you are!
Dani's not going to convince Phil to come out just to ignore her all night. She leaves it again.
The party is fine. It's mostly really fucking loud. She's talking with Anthony Padilla and hardly sure of what she's agreeing to, but ends up with another drink in her hand and a selfie of them taken together. She grins at him as he hugs her and moves on. The drinks are helping. She's been frantic for over 24 hours now, and the slowing of her thoughts feels lovely. She doesn't really care that she's standing here alone, no one to talk to. Just at the edge of the room, watching, enjoying feeling connected even tangentially to this world. There are people making out on the dance floor that she never would have imagined even speaking. Crazy. Maybe she needs another drink.
On her way to the bar an arm grabs her, she flinches.
"Dani! Jesus, I've been looking for you."
"Phil?" It's a good thing she's got a grasp on Dani's arm because she feels a little tipsy, literally. "I thought you weren't coming."
Phil looks at her, "I wasn't, but Anthony posted on Instagram."
Dani's confused.
"He posted a selfie of you two—whatever. Listen, I really want to talk with you, can we go somewhere quieter?"
Dani sighs. "I'm sorry Phil. I know I'm the worst. I fucked it up then, I'm fucking it up now. But it doesn't matter anyway."
Phil's tugging on her, "Shut up, I don't care. Please can you just come with me and listen?"
Dani nods, "Wait, gotta text Louise."
im leving now, sotry but had fun. thnks for invite. going wuth phil
Louise texts back.
Phil Lester??
Phil's dragging her along. They leave the party, into the empty hallway of convention space. All the events of the day are over now other than the party, so the hallway is deserted. Dani's ears ring from the sudden quiet. Phil pulls her around a corner and into an alcove.
"Listen, Dani, I really need to talk to you about yesterday."
"I'm sorry Phil," the vibes from the party have fully crashed now, Dani feels shaky and sad, like she might start crying. "I should have texted you back its just—"
"No, I don't care I—"
"No! You should care! I was rude and you don't deserve it. But I found out yesterday I have a soulmate and I—"
"That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you—"
"It's not fair of me to keep talking with you because I like you and my soulmate deserves better even though I don't even know who they are yet."
Phil grabs her hand and sticks it up Phil's shirt. Well that sure shuts Dani up.
Dani gapes at her, god Phil is pretty this close up. "What are you—"
"Look!"
Phil hikes up her shirt, exposing her side and just under her bra. There's a dark mark there. A tattoo. Some sort of fucked up d20, with way too many sides. Dani blinks.
"Dani, please tell me what your soulmate tattoo is."
"It's that." Dani's voice is a whisper. "It's exactly that."
Phil's fingers are digging into Dani's hand but she can hardly feel it. She thinks she's shaking a little.
"Can I please see it?"
Dani pulls up her shirt as well. Phil reaches out, rubs a thumb across it. Dani's not wearing a bra so Phil's fingernail scratches at soft flesh on the underside of her breast. Dani shivers. Phil's staring at her, blue eyes searching, searching. She's not sure for what.
"Dani." Phil's voice is a whisper now too.
"Yeah?"
"Can I please kiss you?"
"Yeah."
Phil does, leans in and closes the gap. It's softer than Dani would have expected. Almost tentative. Phil's lips are so soft, and her hands cool on the sides of Dani's face. Dani kisses back, lips moving slowly. They're stood in the hallway of VidCon, her and Phil, and they're kissing. Dani was expecting fireworks, magic, sparklers, the opening of heaven's gates. There's none of that, it's a kiss with a pretty girl. But it is so, so lovely. Feels a bit like coming home.
Things move fast after that. Dani moves in basically right after they get back to London. She hated her flat anyway, and it's cost effective to share. They start doing everything together, it's easy, feels as natural as breathing. They even start up a channel together—for gaming, they're not fucking couple vloggers. Everything is so, so easy.
Phil doesn't let Dani get hung up on the wasted years, even though Dani's thoughts creep there sometimes. "It happened when it was meant to happen," Phil always says with a kiss. "I'm just happy we get the rest of forever."
Dani's happy too, happier than she ever thought she would be. That fantasy she burned down five years ago is dead and gone, but this new reality is so much better anyway.