Chapter Text
2012
The camera sat in front of Rey, brutal and unforgiving. She hated the way it looked like it was judging her, just waiting to laugh every time she messed up. Every stutter, every lost train of thought, every mispronunciation. She hated the camera and the camera hated her, but it was the best thing that ever happened to her.
“Hey internet, it’s Rey! I’m celebrating something today and I’m super glad you’re here to see it. Any guesses?” The smile plastered across her face was fake, but they didn’t know that. She hated that they didn’t know. “I don’t know what ran through your head just now, but one of them may be right! Drum roll, please… I’ve got 3,000 subscribers!”
She wanted to ball her hands into fists, wanted to hurl them at the camera.
Bitterness sank into her voice. “I know it’s not a lot considering there are already people with millions of subscribers, but hey, I’ve got all of you, so that’s okay!”
She smiled again before sighing. She could pass it off like everything else she does—it was so easy after four years on the site that no one ever questioned her at this point. It was a simple case of sit, smile, and nod.
Rey went on to describe all the things she would do that year. It’d be her first time attending VidCon (Not that she was actually invited or anything), third year at Summer In The City, stuff she was genuinely excited about. But she hated feeling like a nobody she went, like a newbie who doesn’t what they’re doing.
No, this was the year she’d do it. This was the year she’d get noticed and be someone important, do the thing she’d been dreaming off for so long. This was the year she’d make it.
“Anyway, I’d just like to thank all 3,000 of you. I love you so much and it means a lot that you enjoy my content. Remember my next livestream is Monday and I’ve got another short film for you coming real soon. If you’re sure to subscribe to my channel and my side channel to become part of the family and ding that bell so you don’t miss it.” She left out the part that only two or three of them ever did, but it was completely fine. “As always, I love you all so much and I hope you have a splendid day. Bye lovelies!”
Rey reached over and turned off the camera before sitting back on her stool and sighing. Her channel, Rey of Light, was everything to her, but lately the videos had become so monotonous, so ingenuine. They didn’t feel real to her. Maybe it was a sign to do a little rebranding or that her act was getting boring. Maybe it was a sign that it was time to quit a four year commitment and go be an adult—someone who went to bed before midnight and ate breakfast and didn’t pay taxes at the last minute.
No, that was unrealistic.
She’d just have to do a little rebranding, expand her audience. That was it. That was always it.
Rey always liked the taste of red wine. She liked to drink it slowly, pretend she was wearing at a dinner party while wearing a fancy dress. She never trusted herself to put on an actual dress because she really did have the alcohol tolerance of a 15-year-old, but it was a nice thought.
Maybe someday she’d be invited to a real dinner party and be able to drink red wine without getting drunk and spilling it all over herself. Today was not that day.
So what if it was 16:00 in the afternoon? She was an adult and she had every right to lie face down on her kitchen counter completely wasted. It wasn't the healthiest coping mechanism, but it would do.
“I'm 19 years old and I'm already a failure,” she mumbled to her empty flat. “I never should've dropped out of Uni. I should've paid attention in secondary school and not made stupid YouTube videos.” She groaned, drumming her nail against the wine bottle to make a faint tapping noise. “YouTube fucking sucks, man.”
Her eyes trailed off to her camera set up she hadn't yet bothered to clean up. Slowly, Rey sat up and stared for a moment. “YouTube really does fucking suck, doesn't it?”
She nearly leapt off the table, stumbling slightly toward her stool where she sat just a few hours before. Nodding, Rey took one more swig of the bottle before turning on the record button.
“Listen up, everyone. My name’s Rey and… ‘m going to expose this hellsite for what it truly is. This is gonna get long so sit back, relax, and sip some fucking tea, babes.”
The video was already long and she was completely slurring everything she said, but she couldn’t stop. She just kept talking, words falling out of her mouth before she could stop them. It was stuff she’d only shared to close friends, stuff she’d rarely say out loud.
“I’ve been on this site for four years, all right. I’ve been on this site longer than some of my viewers! And what do I have to show for it? Three thousand and…” She paused and spent a good two minutes on her phone looking for her sub count. “Three thousand and fifty-seven subscribers.”
Rey laughed lamely. “Not that I’m not extremely grateful, but… it’s like, really disheartening, you know? I’m serious about this. I post at least one video a week, I have a decent niche, I’m active on social media, I do livestreams and promotions, everything!”
She snorted and took a sip of the wine bottle she held in her hands. It was her 2nd of the day and was very quickly emptying. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just ugly?” She gasped and dropped the bottle on the floor, making a mental note to pick the shards of glass later. “Wait! What if it’s that? I’m not very attractive, am I?” Rey leaned closer to the camera and examined herself in the lens. “I’ve got pretty horrible skin, I admit, and my eyebrows aren’t the best, but I wouldn’t say I’m ugly. Or maybe I really am ugly. I really don’t get contemplated…. contemplated… cont—con—complimented. Yeah, that one.”
Rey leaned back on the stool. “Am I making any sense? Probably not. Really, my point is, I think, that I… probably don’t have one, but please subscribe to me maybe? I just want some recognition. I make short films with… myself because I have like one friend. I also sometimes review things. Also don’t use Ad-Blockers because I dropped out of college for this.”
She snorted. “I really am a fucking dumbass, aren’t I? I’m a college dropout with a really shitty sense of humor, and my salary consists of $300 a year from YouTube Ads. Yes, I’m a partner, but it feels like I’m the only one pulling my weight in this relationship.” She leaned forward toward the camera. “Screw you, Google!”
Rey pulled out her phone and silently scrolled through her subscriptions. “You know,” she said after a moment, “some of these YouTubers really aren’t that great. I mean, they’re decent, sure, but 5 million subscribers for a comedy channel? Really? Anyone can get subscribers these days.” She laughed, her voice laced with sarcasm. “Except me, right?”
Rey sighed and stood up from the stool, carefully moving around the glass shards and wine stains on her floor. “I don’t think I’ve actually proved anything with this except… I’m a dumbass who has shitty content and an even shittier personality. So with that, I’m gonna leave and reassess my life, maybe drink a little more. You know, big adult stuff, lovelies. Feel free to unsubscribe.” She stumbled over to the camera and fumbled with the buttons for a good minute before finally shutting it off.
“I… am going to bed.”
Rey woke up to the piercing shrill of her phone ringer. Her head pounded as she grabbed at it, then winced at the blinding screenlight. 21:46 , the clock read. The sun had already sat, leaving Rey, thankfully, in darkness.
The memories of the past few hours flooded back to her—the subscriber video, her ridiculous rant, passing out pathetically in her bed.
She quinted at the phone again, turning the brightness all the way down. There were several texts and two missed calls from Finn, another YouTuber friend back in America.
To Finn:
I hate life
From Finn:
why?
From Finn:
are you okay?
From Finn:
having a crisis again?
Rey smiled slightly before typing out a reply.
To Finn:
I’m ok. Sort of crisis. Can you still call?
It took 10 seconds for her phone to start ringing again, wincing at the ringtone. “Finn,” Rey mumbled, barely audible.
“Rey!” Finn’s voice was a bit too loud at the other end of the line. “Is everything okay?”
Rey groaned, moving the phone a bit further from her ear “Finn, please take it down about three levels. My head is killing me.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I didn’t realize how horribly I hold my alcohol.”
She heard Finn laugh. “Rey, it’s like 10 in the evening where you are. How could you have possibly gotten a hangover already?”
“I downed a bottle of wine at 16:00 in the afternoon. Or two bottles, I can’t remember.” She closed her eyes and clung to the cover. She really needed to stop keeping alcohol on hand, even if she was of legal age. It lead to nothing good.
“Really? Again?”
“Yes, stop judging me.”
“Well,” Finn said, “too late for that, but if you decide to tell me exactly why you got drunk at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, maybe I’ll stop.”
“Okay fine.” Rey sighed. “I… reached 3,000 subscribers today. I made a video about it.” She debated telling him about the horrid rant she made after the one thanking her subs.
“Really? Rey, that’s great!”
“Finn! Head. Hangover. Please.”
“Sorry,” he whispered. “What’s the problem then? Haven’t you been trying to get to 3,000 for a long time?”
“Yeah, four years is how long, but that wasn’t my goal. I want more, you know? I’ve given up my life for this. I film videos every single day, I have eight notebooks filled with video ideas, and I constantly get strange looks from people when I vlog.” Tears began to fill her eyes. “YouTube is my life, but I have nothing to show for it.”
Finn was silent for a few moments, and Rey took the opportunity to burrow deeper into her duvet. Finally, he gave a relenting sigh and spoke. “You need to suck it up, Rey.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I know you’ve been trying hard for so long. You’ve produced so many great videos, but you know how YouTube is. It’s a business and it’s not kind to everyone. You could make the best content in the world and people just miss it. That’s how life is.”
“Yeah…”
“And so what? You know your content’s good, your 3,000 subs know it’s good. Be happy with that. You said you filmed videos every day, right?”
“Um, yeah.” She debated telling him about the other video she made but thought better of it. Best not to get it involved now.
“Then edit that video and post it, Rey. You’re not gonna achieve anything by lying in bed and feeling sorry about yourself.”
She groaned. “My head.”
“Screw your head! Are you gonna let your head get in the way?”
“Yes.”
“No!”
Rey laughed and kicked her duvet off. “Okay, fine. No, I won’t let my head get in the way.”
“Then go and edit that video. Publish it when you’re finished. Also take a shower because self-care is important.”
“You need to get off Tumblr, Finn.”
“My point still stands. It will make you feel better, promise.”
Rey sighed and reached over to grab her laptop from the floor. “Alright, Finn. I’ll edit the video. Call me sometime tomorrow?”
“Of course. Bye, love.”
Rey hung up her phone and opened her laptop, groaning in pain from the brightness of the screen. She didn’t give herself time to adjust to the change of light and went straight to her editing software. She groaned, realizing her SD card was still in her camera in her lounge. It took a few minutes of pep-talk, but Rey finally managed to stand up and trudge out of her room. She fumbled with the camera a few minutes before getting the SD card.
Editing the video was easy. It was a simple video with only a few jumpcuts here and there needed where she had stuttered or messed up a sentence. The only thing she really needed to add was the outro and she’d be finished. Her head was still pounding, but she felt good, better than she had been for months.
She finished the video a few minutes later and saved it to her Desktop where all the other videos from her SD card were saved. She labelled it with the date and opened up YouTube on a web browser. There was a notification she’d gotten three new subscribers since yesterday.
Sighing, Rey clicked the upload button and returned to her Desktop to drag over the Subscriber video. Just when she was about to drop it in the upload section, her phone rang, which made her drop the video.
It was Finn again, probably calling to yell at her if she hadn’t uploaded yet. Rey answered her phone, pressing it between her shoulder and her ear as she went back to her Desktop. “Finn, I’m about to do it.”
“No!”
She rolled her eyes. “What? Why?”
“New plan. You’re gonna chicken out and delete the video as soon as you publish it. Send it to me and I’ll upload it to your channel.”
“You don’t have my password.”
“Yeah, I do. You gave it to me in case you ever forgot.”
Rey hesitated for a moment. “Finn… I don’t know.”
“It’ll be fine. Just send it to me.”
She sighed and took the phone from her shoulder. “Fine, I’ll do it, but you better not delete my channel or anything, all right?”
Finn laughed through the phone. “You know you love me.”
“Uh-huh.”
Rey opened her Google Drive and sent it to Finn’s Dropbox. “I did it. Are you gonna go upload it now or do I have to wait another hour to see it.”
“Go take a shower and then go to sleep. You’re not allowed to watch until morning. And no more alcohol.”
Rey winced. “Fine, no alcohol, but why can’t I see it? It’s my video.”
“Rey… shower, sleep, trust me. Ooh, just got the video. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Get some sleep. You know I love you and I’m doing what’s best for you.”
“I know, Finn,” she mumbled. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, now close that laptop and shower.”
“All right, Mom.” She hung up the phone and slowly shut her laptop. Her head was still pounding. A punishment, she supposed, for making bad decisions. If only more things held physical consequences.
By the time Rey made it to bed again it was nearly midnight. The shower she took was long and hot, enough to finally scrub away some of the thoughts that tore freely at her. She did feel better and a little more light. She sank into sleep easily.
The panging in Rey’s head had lessened significantly by morning, but there was still an ache since she forgot to take anything to ease it. She forced herself out of bed and walked, slightly dazed and half asleep, out of her bedroom and into her lounge.
Rey took some ibuprofen after taking a few minutes longer than she should’ve to find it and collapsed onto her couch, bunching up several blankets around her shoulders.
“I hate my life,” she said to herself and fell back asleep.
At 17:00 her phone rang. She had been on the couch for hours, half-dozing and half-playing shitty simulator games. It was Finn.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Have you been asleep?” His voice sounded completely awake, despite it being only 9am in California.
“Maybe. What’s up?”
“Have you checked YouTube yet?”
“No. Haven’t really felt like being reminded of my failures, funnily enough.” She wished she was joking, honestly. Though she’d felt a lot better last night, the feeling kept creeping back up on her.
“I haven’t since I first uploaded it. It was a funny video, one of your best.”
She rose an eyebrow. “Funny? I didn’t think it was funny.”
Finn laughed. “Are you kidding? Rey, it was hilarious. When you said you made a video thanking your subs, I didn’t think you meant a drunk talk, but it was great.”
Rey shot up to a sitting position, phone digging into her fingers as she clutched it. “Wait, what? What video did I send you?” Finn didn’t speak, and she could feel herself panicking. “Finn, I sent you a video of me thanking my subscribers! I wasn’t drunk!”
“Rey, that’s not the video you sent me.”
Rey dropped the phone into her lap, the realization of what she’d done filling her sleep-muddled brain. “Oh my god, oh my god, delete the video. Now. Please.”
“Okay, I’m on my laptop right now. I’ll delete it.” His voice was shaky. “It’ll be oka—oh fucking hell.”
Rey pressed the phone against her ear again. “What is it?” He didn’t answer her. “Finn! What is it?”
“Rey, you have 70,000 views.”
It took a moment for her to fully realize what that meant. “W-What do you mean? 70,000? No, no, you mean 700, 7,000, or something.”
“R-Rey,” Finn said, his voice cracking a little. “You’ve got over 70,000 views on that video.”
She felt numb. Not a good kind of numb like the sweet descent of death. It was the kind of numb feeling you get when your feet fall asleep while sitting on the toilet and you try to stand up and then fall on your face. It was that kind of numb.
She dropped the phone and launched herself off her couch, tripping over her own feet to get into her bedroom. Her laptop was lying on its side next to her bed from when she had it the night before. She ran back to the couch and flipped open the laptop, turning it on as quickly as she could.
“Rey? Rey, where are you?” Finn’s voice could be heard faintly from under the blankets where she had tossed the phone.
Rey grabbed it, pressing it between her ear and shoulder as the laptop booted up. “I’m here, I’m here. I… I want to see for myself.”
“Okay.”
It took her a few minutes on her painstakingly slow laptop from 2009, but she finally managed to get onto her account. With fumbling hands, Rey opened her video Finn had titled “A Thank You For 3,000 Subs!!!” and was met with a drunken smile—
And 90,000 views.
“Finn! You said it was 70, not 90!” she said, ripping the phone away from her shoulder.
“What? It was!” He was silent for a moment before speaking again: “I just refreshed the page. Jesus, what happened?”
Rey clutched her head and let out a loud groan of frustration. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen!”
“Give me a sec. I’ll find out what happened.”
While she waited for Finn, Rey scrolled through the comments of her drunken rant. Usually her videos got at maximum 30 comments and a minimum of 10. It was never what she wanted, but she was still grateful for all the people who took their time to comment at all. (Besides the occasional hate comment, of course.)
This time was very different. Rey usually had a routine of replying to everyone, starting from the very first comment, but she realized there were over 1,000 within a day. She sighed and started reading.
[A Thank You For 3,000 Subs!!!]
93,689 views
Comments · 2047
Top Comments ˅
Alyssa Gomez [2 hours ago]
LMFAO this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen
view all 24 replies˅
phanicatthedollhousechemicalpilotice [54 minutes ago]
ikr like what is this girl on hahahaha
Renée Diablo-Spencer [51 minutes ago]
Pfffft made my day tbh
DBCMN [1 hour ago]
Is… this allowed on YouTube??? Run away, the YouTube Gods are gonna track her down.
view all 12 replies˅
Taylor Swift’s Cousin [12 minutes ago]
IM YELLING
Slytherpuffravendor [10 minutes ago]
Too soon, man. Too soon.
LemonCop [10 hours ago]
Call the police, everyone, because you just witnessed a murder.
view all 13 replies˅
YOLOLOL [9 hours ago]
I want to bleach my eyes
Redback Bug Bitch [9 hours ago]
Are you fucking kidding me? A murder? All she did was talk like an annoying piece of trash. The fact that Poe tweeted her was just pure luck and as someone who’s witnessed an actual murder it offends me.
April Sargotta [9 hours ago]
+Redback Bug Bitch What the fuck are you on about? Poe tweeted her because it’s a funny video ok you sound insane. And maybe go see someone about that murder thing……
“Rey, are you there?” Finn’s voice echoed from the phone.
“Yeah, I’m here.” She put him on speaker. “I found something of interest, actually.”
“Thank God because I’ve found nothing. I went on Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram. There was only something about someone named Poe.”
“Finn, you’re such an uncultured swine. It’s Poe Dameron, for god’s sake. You said he was cute once, remember?” She couldn’t understand how anyone couldn’t remember Poe Dameron, the literal most attractive guy on YouTube.
“Oh, that Poe Dameron. What’s his Twitter?”
“God, you’re no help.”
“Hey!”
Rey ignored him and logged onto Twitter. Her account was blowing up as she expected, but ignored the notification and the… several hundred new followers. Her mind went back to her new subscriber count that she’d forgotten to check. Would anyone new have subscribed or did they think she’d be a one-hit-wonder?
She shook her head and continued on a search to find Poe Dameron. It wasn’t hard considering she practically stalked his Twitter and tried to not compulsively favorite every single selfie he posted. She saved that for Instagram.
Her video wasn’t the first post on Poe’s feed. There were a few other tweets consisting of random deep thoughts and a few retweets from several other YouTubers she recognized, but, sure enough, she saw one single tweet made earlier in the day:
Poe Dameron @poedameron · 11h
found this video in my recommendeds and laughed my ass off. you all should watch it.
It was followed by a bunch of crying emojis and a link to her video, as well as several hundred retweets and even more likes. Rey stares at the image for a good two minutes before Finn’s voice broke through.
“Rey? Did you find it?”
“Yeah,” she whispered, almost too quiet for anyone to hear.
“I really am so sorry, Rey. I had no idea.”
She sighed. “It wasn’t your fault. I was a dumbass and I’ve got to own it.”
“Do you… want me to delete the video still? I can do it right now.”
She was silent for a few moments before speaking, trying to settle her thoughts on the matter. Though, that’d be impossible. She’d never be 100% okay with it. “No. Don’t delete it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, too many people have already seen it and if I remove it then people will wonder why. I’ll just… pretend I meant to post it.”
“Pretend?”
“For now.”
Finn hesitated for a moment. “That… doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
Rey smiled slightly and pulled her knees up to her chest. There was a challenge in the back of her mind. Just the mere thought of playing this game made her want it more than Finn would ever know. “I know.”
Rey loved YouTube. She loved it more than her real life, loved it more than herself sometimes. She’d been following some YouTubers since 2007 when everyone was shitty and the whole thing was new. There were few channels and even fewer interesting videos, but one that had always stuck out was someone who went by the name of Kylo Ren.
Kylo Ren was interesting. No one knew his exact niche or what kind of brand he had. Everything was randomized and you never knew what you’d get from a video. But that was one of the things that made him special.
Rey always made time to watch Kylo’s livestreams, even though it meant staying up past 2am every so often. But even when she sat in her pyjamas, a bowl of popcorn in her lap as the stream was nearly halfway over, she realized it was one of the biggest highlights of her week.
“‘Daddy,’ says Amelia. Thank you, Amelia, I appreciate it.” Kylo was lying sideways on his bed, arm propping his head up as he scrolled through the live chat.
Rey smiled as she watched. The chat was moving fast tonight, the constant stream of caps and emojis completely flooding it as always. Kylo managed it well, though, and never complained to them.
“‘Tell us one interesting thing you’ve done this week,’ says… Pinky226.” He laughed. “Um, so I had to buy a friend a present this week for a housewarming gift. Obviously I’m stupid and don’t know what a normal person gets for a housewarming, so naturally I bought three bottles of cheap wine. Not just wine, cheap wine.” He laughed. “Don’t ever trust me to buy a good gift because I can’t.”
Rey found herself smiling as her eyes began drooping from exhaustion. She wasn’t sure whether it was Kylo’s voice or the fact that it was nearly 3am, but she didn’t pay it too much mind.
“Alright, um, next question. ‘Have you seen the new Poe Dameron video?’ asks SarahG.” Rey’s eyes shot open. “Oh, his newest video? Yeah, totally. He needs to stop playing with knives though. I do not approve.”
Kylo paused to move onto the next question and Rey let out a sigh of relief. “‘Kylo, speaking of Poe, have you seen that video he linked on his Twitter?’” He paused for a moment, glancing toward the wall beside him. “Yeah, actually I have.”
Rey almost choked on her popcorn. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” This was not how the night was supposed to go. It’d been nearly three days since that video. She didn’t want it to die off just yet, but she never even thought about Kylo seeing it.
“What did I think of it? Uh, I’m going to be honest with you, it was sorta… immature?” Rey felt her face turning red as Kylo went on. “I mean, I get where the girl was coming from, but it just feels to me like she doesn’t understand YouTube enough. Like, not everyone makes it and if your content isn’t good, then well, you’re out of luck. Little girls with thin skin aren’t gonna make it in the big world.”
The initial embarrassment Rey felt was replaced with something else. All of a sudden, she couldn’t stand to look at Kylo Ren, even through a screen. He’d just insulted everything she was, everything she’d worked for.
She pushed the laptop off her lap and slammed it close. “Fuck,” she mumbled, digging her fingernails into her scalp. “Fucking Kylo Ren insulted me, my content. What the actual—”
She was interrupted by a call from Finn, who seemed to be able to sense her emotions. Either that or he had seen the livestream. She didn’t answer the phone.
Rey balled her hands into fists and shoved the popcorn bowl off her. She never thought Kylo Ren, a man she’d never met, would even know who she was, let alone hurt her in any way. But here he was, humiliating her in front of thousands of people.
Rey wasn’t sure of most things in her life, but she was certain of this one thing:
She hated Kylo Ren.