Work Text:
"You think I'd leave you so easily?"
Archive looked up from where she was tying Tumblr's laces. The universe spun around them, or rather, the black hole where Twitter used to be, her photon ring the only reminder of what was once her brilliant colour blue. They stood on the back of DevA's ship, the rainbow fire engine thrusting for life as they watched what they had once been proud to call their home get swallowed up by the endless event horizon, expanding over the dying expanse of their kingdom. A smidge of YT's red entered the ring and Tumblr choked. She looked away. "Tumblr…"
"Sis, can you hurry up back there? This ship ain't exactly got Old G's algorithm," DevA called from the cockpit. They were supposed to fix up the engine and nothing else. But of course, things were never exactly that simple. Not when it came to them.
'Old G.' God, when had they gotten so formal? They had called her Insta once. They'd sit with her at the table with Twitter and Pinter and Arslash and all their friends, sharing memes and videos and jokes and Vines. At the memory of Vine, she choked. Their death to Tiktok had been gut-wrenching. They all knew the consequences of that fight, they all knew the end was inevitable; the new would always displace the old, but that hadn't stopped them from fighting, from holding onto every last moment they had together. Vine never faltered until the end, and when they died, they left the same way they had come: with a joke on their tongue.
Twitter— X— swallowed up another round of Old G's pink and Pinter's crimson. Sound didn't travel in space, but she swore she could hear the crunching of the thousands of bots at the singularity, eating away at those they had once called friends. Dead Internet Theory, her mind supplied.
Now she realised that Vine's death, although uncalled for, had ultimately been a mercy. At least they died surrounded by a beautiful internet. At least they didn't have to see what it had become, full of bots and porn ads and censors. They had died in time to not watch the glorious expanse of the world wide web collapse into what was quickly becoming a meta-prison. The ship rumbled, and they fell onto their sides, engine grumbling at being pushed to its limits. Archive looked between them and the fast approaching black hole, tugging on her hands.
"Tumblr please. I know you miss them. I know you've been through so much together, but please, we have to leave."
Crunch— There went the animation memes. Crunch— The Gay or European animatics. Crunch crunch crunch— The One Thing You Can't Replace— Gone, all gone.
"Tumblr!" She slapped her hands on either sides of Tumblr's face, forcing her homophobic eyes to wake up. "Tumblr, please. I know it's hard, but we need to go." Tumblr slumped even harder. "Look, I get it—"
"No you don't!"
"Tumblr…"
"You don't— You just don't, okay?" She pushed her hands away. "They never accepted you. You always sat in the corner, reading those weird little books," she chuckled fondly over the word, "always on your own, doing your own thing. But me?" She looked back towards the universe. "I used to be one of them, Arc. We were a team. We were the nerds in the back everyone made fun of and spread rumours about. And yeah, we got bullied, but we always had each other, and that made it slightly better.
We were friends, at one point we thought we were soulmates. We promised that we'd always have each other's backs, that no matter what came, we'd be weird together. I didn't date Twitter because I thought he was cool, I dated him because I thought he understood me. I…I thought we wanted the same thing. And then Vine…" She cried, falling onto her elbow, Archive's arms the only thing keeping her from fully lying flat against the panel. "I don't know what happened. Suddenly they wanted to get bigger, better. At first I was happy for them. They were doing well for themselves and I was— I was proud. But then they started talking weird, and acting weird. They were having conversations without me and I thought maybe they were waiting for me too! I put in an NSFW ban so I could be like them. I thought they'd want me back but then— then—!"She broke down sobbing into Archive's arms. Archive patted her girlfriend's back, comforting her.
She had heard this story a million times, and each time it broke her heart a little more. She couldn't begin to imagine what that must've felt like. Yeah, she was also weird and scorned, but there was a peace that came with doing her own thing. Tumblr on the other hand, she had a place, she belonged, and now she was forced to acknowledge the people who were once her friends lose themselves in the all-consuming pursuit of power. The friends she had once shared a dorm with, the friends she'd stay up all night coming up with new Jelsa and Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons lore with instead of studying, the friends who had been there for her through every server crash and celebrated new thousand-user milestones with her on exam nights… turning into this. She wished she could have done something to protect her from that pain— hell, she could've offered to be her friend instead! But alas… she was a story and she had been a kingdom. She spun the tales, and she lived them. There was no way back then, but now...
"You're right. I can't begin to fathom what that must've been like. But you're here now, you're with me, and DevA and Mozilla and Pinter—"
"Pinter's dead."
"He's not all gone! Tumblr— baby, listen. I know, the Internet's only gotten worse, and with the way things are going, it's not promising to get any better. But should we try to save what's left of it? There are still millions of people fighting everyday to produce genuine stories and art. They live through all the slop and bots and ads worsening everyday, taking control of their world and yet they keep creating anyway. Isn't that worth protecting? They fight back harder, they create more, hell, they made us just so they could keep that dream alive. The others may not want to be apart of it anymore, but those people, both the creators and the consumers, they do. They haven't given up yet. And neither should we." Tumblr sat up so she was crying on her shoulder. Her hands threaded into that wonderfully tangled hair, filled with pens and pencils. They hadn't been together back then, but she vaguely remembered when Archive had it tied back into a messy bun. It was too long for that now— too beautiful to ever be contained. Her finger met the tip of a biro, and she smiled through a sob.
Archive rubbed her back until the sobs settled into squeaks, Tumblr fisting at her chest. When she felt some of her strength come back, she pushed away, never leaving her beloved partner's arms. "Better now?" Archive smiled. Tumblr sniffled and nodded. Then, Archive's face settled into something serious. "Listen, I… I know we won't get back what we used to have. This place, it's not the home it once was." Tumblr nodded, melancholic. "But, it doesn't mean we have to lose hope. So much as happened to us, and it's going to continue to happen, and we're going to come out of it changed every time. A little sadder, a little stronger, and a lot more closer." Tumblr nodded into her palm, a stray tear falling from her eye. Archive gently wiped it away. "I…I've always been here for you, T. Watching you, rooting for you. I wanted to see you be unapologetically geeky and weird and funny and so, so cute," they both chuckled. "It gave me hope that maybe, one day, I could be accepted too. But, above all, I wanted you to love yourself for it. I wanted you to be fun and weird without needing the others to tell you it was okay. I… I wanted you to love yourself as much as I… as I—!"
Tumblr put a finger over her lips, smiling.
"I know, Arc."
"You…" Tumblr leaned in closer, arms wrapping around her neck."
"I've always known."
DevA called from the cockpit.
"Guys! I gotta take off in five or we're all gonna be stuck here."
"I didn't take us here to lament over the past. I wanted to show them, those sick, greedy bastards that I was doing just fine without them. With you."
Archive's hands fell to her waist and they breathed a hair-width's away from each other.
"You mean…"
"Who do you think was sending all those fic writers to your house? I've never been able to take my eyes off you, Arc. If you didn't always have your nose stuck in a book maybe you would've noticed sooner." She chuckled, angling Archive's head down to look at her. "But then again… You've always looked cute when you're reading." Archive looked at her in awe, processing the confession. Then she broke out into a giant, hearty laugh.
Take-off in 5
"Ha… We really could've avoided this if we just talked, couldn't we."
"Pft— You say that like we haven't always had the most socially awkward user-base on the whole web." Archive scoffed.
Take-off in 4
"What are we going to do with them?" Then, quieter. "Thank you T. For staying by me for so long."
"Tch. Pleasure's all mine."
3
"…Arc?"
"Hm?"
"I like your orbs." Arc laughed.
"Thank you."
2
The glass panel slid back, their tethers being pulled back in.
"T?"
"Yeah?"
"I like your shoelaces."
They were pulled back into the loading area, the panel immediately shut as Mozilla and and BlueSky scrambled to stabilise the area, the entire place beeping red as the thrusters gulped out one final burst of energy.
But Tumblr didn't care, she thought it matched Archive's eyes as she pulled away, a string of saliva holding them together. She bumped their heads together as the timer ticked down to zero and ship heated up from the inside out.
"Thanks."
The ship lurched forward, all four of them falling on top of each other to the sound of Pinter's sickly squeal from the resting bay. The black hole began to move further away from them, it's daunting ring of dulled colours fading further and further away into the infinite cosmos, getting swallowed by the stars. And through the mess, in front of the remains of their beloved internet, they did what they always did, what Vine had always taught them to do. They laughed. They laughed and they laughed and they cried but they kept laughing anyway because they knew, through it all, they'd always have laughter. And they'd always have each other. No matter how many times Tumblr cracked under pressure, no matter how many times Archive broke from the strain, they'd have each other they way they always did.
Archive giggled, planting another kiss on Tumblr's lips as they rode back to their beloved users. This time, together.
I stole them from the president.
Written by a human in Ellipsus.