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 Posted: Sun May 04, 2025 12:25 am
Going over to Taiki’s had been the best idea he’d had last night, Vanya could safely say in the light of morning. He’d been able to shower when he got there, after explaining the whole fight with Winston as much as he could.
On the other side of sleeping, Vanya didn’t feel as good about how he’d explained things as he’d felt in the moment? Maybe somewhere in the description of how Winston had completely lost it on Vanya after Vanya had tried to give him food, the way that Winston had seemed to indicate he wanted. Then there’d been some bullshit about some battle that Vanya hadn’t even known was happening, and then the screaming at each other about everything. Everything that had been simmering for so long, especially on Vanya’s part, because Winston barely did anything to help out, especially not getting a job while he expected Vanya to pay for everything.
But he also didn’t know what he’d change about what he’d said. Lounging on Taiki’s sofa with his plush Litten, quietly poking around some of his cinema discussion subreddits on his laptop, Vanya definitely didn’t want to lend any credence to anything Winston had said. Or repeat a lot of the things he’d brought up because……well, so much of what Winston had said last night had been patently false. Vanya didn’t need to bring that up, he didn’t think. He really didn’t need any external confirmation that Winston was wrong about him not letting people tell him that he was awful. Didn’t need any confirmation that actually, Grieve probably did have a point, and so did anyone else who agreed with her.
Not that Taiki would ever say anything like that, but like……maybe with the right prompting, he would have?
Just like how Taiki didn’t seem like somebody who would throw Vanya out as soon as he realized that Vanya was a waste of anything you put into him. Other people had done that before and Vanya had deserved it. So, maybe, someday, Vanya would ruin this. He just needed to enjoy all of this while he could, for as long as that lasted.
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2025 1:47 am
It had been a stressful night. Taiki had been following the information about the Calamitous Hollow, but he'd spent the evening at his Wonder, tending to it. By the time he returned to Earth, it was all over, and he'd gone home to find the power out and the planet saved.
He couldn't say that he was sorry he'd missed the battle. He trusted his fellow Senshi and Knights, and it seemed he had been right to do so.
And in any case, he'd been...distracted. Not at his best. Not after...well.
It had likely been behavior most would find paranoid. But given his...connections, Taiki was not about to take any risks about the people he let get close to him. He liked Vanya. More than just liked him, even--their relationship was different than the one he'd had with Philip, but perhaps different was for the better. And yet, Vanya was ordinary, unconnected to any of the...complications in Taiki's life.
He'd let things go on for far longer than he ought to without properly investigating Vanya's background and connections. And the people he'd sent digging had come back with reports that were...well, "strange" was the least of it.
Taiki had a particular impression of Vanya. Soft-spoken. Unwilling to accept help. Kind, even to his detriment--as the situation with Winston more than proved, and part of Taiki itched to put his lover's roommate in his place.
But apparently, there was another side to Vanya. One that felt entirely incongruous with the person Taiki knew face to face.
Perhaps it was the anonymity of the Internet. Or perhaps the Vanya Taiki thought he knew was not the man he truly was.
So he'd retreated to his Wonder to think, at exactly the wrong--or right, perhaps--time. And then, Vanya had come to him, clearly in distress, and while a thousand questions burned on his tongue, he'd set them aside to offer comfort and a safe place to get away from the conflict with his "roommate" ("leech" was a more accurate word, in Taiki's opinion).
But now, it was the harsh light of morning, and as he came into the living room with his morning coffee to find Vanya lounged on the couch with his laptop, they all came back.
"Vanya," he said, and his voice was soft, but firm, "we need to talk."
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2025 2:18 am
Vanya had been in the middle of typing out a comment. Since he was on his main account, it wasn’t anything crazy. But somebody on r/HorrorMovies was having godawful takes about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on this, Taika Waititi’s Internet. Such godawful takes simply could not be left alone. Vanya had to politely, respectfully tell them that they were wrong—with proper citations and everything.
Like, honestly, trying to come at film criticism from a feminist perspective was all well and good, even as the alleged feminism started seeming incredibly reactionary. But to accuse it of perpetuating female objectification when yes, the victims of the titular massacre were dehumanized, but not in a titillating or sexual way, and definitely not in a way that was unique to the murdered girls? Accusing the whole film of being part of some conspiracy of anti-feminist backlash when, again, the dehumanization of the murdered girls was explicitly a bad thing and linked more clearly to the system of factory farms and soulless nature of capitalism? Tell Vanya you were at best highly susceptible to TERF talking points without telling Vanya that.
But his fingers froze in the middle of trying to tone down the TERF accusations, though (which it felt like a good idea to tone down, since at best, Vanya had only vague suspicions; without more to go on, he’d get downvoted into the ninth circle of Hell for out of pocket accusing the other user of being a TERF). Taiki’s voice didn’t sound completely out-of-character, but……what he was saying with it? Those three little words got Vanya wide-eyed and tense, pale, doing his best not to shiver like a terrified rabbit.
Nobody ever meant anything good when they opened with We need to talk.
“………Okay?” Vanya said, because there didn’t seem to be any other option. Not when refusing to talk would only be seen as an admission of guilt. He even closed his laptop and set it aside so he couldn’t come across as not paying attention, then folded his hands in his lap. “Wha……what do we need to talk about?”
Several different ideas screamed inside Vanya’s head simultaneously. The wildest one felt like Oh no, what if Taiki looked up Jacob Renault and Ritka Bulgakova-Renault?, but at the same time……like, whatever? Vanya hadn’t seen them in almost a decade.
On top of that, what of interest was there to say about his parents? Jacob was a doctor, though how he managed to maintain his medical license with his drinking problem had always mystified Vanya. His family could trace their roots all the way back to French traders who’d come to the New World when Louisiana had been a French colony. People in certain circles whispered about how fortunate it was that Jacob was a second son, since he hadn’t married Creole. Ritka had been a beauty queen in her prime and used various surgeons to keep looking young despite her own egregious drinking problem. Her family was involved in the Russian mob. Her father shared a personal and family name with a famous Soviet novelist, but the patronymics (Nikitovich vs. Afanasyevich) revealed them as different people. Last Vanya had known, his grandfather had also mostly stepped aside from any of the mob business, handing it over to his eldest son instead.
Uncle Grisha would’ve been the most interesting person, if Taiki had learned anything about the family, but like……that didn’t feel very likely. Like, what, was Uncle Grisha trying to open up a Creole or Russian restaurant in Destiny City under his guise as a plain, simple businessman? Yeah, Vanya doubted it.
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2025 12:37 pm
Vanya looked so nervous. It did sort of make Taiki feel bad, but there it was, again, the intense dissonance--if he was just slightly more of a paranoid man (he would not pretend he was not moderately paranoid), he might have thought he was being lulled into a false sense of security.
But it seemed so earnest.
Ugh.
Taiki took a sip of his coffee, and walked over to one of the armchairs, sitting down and then setting it on the side table next to the chair. It was difficult for him to know where to begin.
So he started at the beginning.
"I had some contacts look into you," he admitted. "Some of my...business interests are complicated, and I have to be aware of who I'm bringing into my life." Who he was bringing close to his family. "They were able to track your origins, but given that you've had no contact with anyone from Shreveport in years, that isn't really my concern. We don't choose our families, after all."
And didn't he know it.
"What does concern me is something else they found. Or several someones else, as it were." He took a breath. "transbianwinterfalcon. blessedmama1139. sisternotcister. eddiesdicebag. Mikayleigh, Mary-Elizabeth, Kaitlyn, and Beck. None of them real people. All of them, you."
The names barely made sense to him. The arguments, even less so. But he could follow the threads, and it wasn't as if he was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of internet trolls. It had just always seemed like such....pathetic behavior, to him.
"You know I'm not very...online, as it were. I don't understand the nuances. And so I would very much like for you to have an explanation that makes all of this make sense with the person I see in front of me--who is kind, and soft-spoken, and thoughtful, who is passionate about movies and records, to whom I have trusted so many things. But I struggle to see one. So, Vanya: why?"
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Posted: Sun May 11, 2025 9:21 pm
Vanya tensed up further, as Taiki answered him, which—well. He didn’t feel good about it? Especially when Taiki was being so gentle about this? Admitting to something both more advanced than Facebook stalking someone but also infinitely more understandable, yet handling Vanya with the sort of care normally reserved for small animals having panic attacks. Part of Vanya felt like he owed it to Taiki to calm down, or at least fake it as though he got anything helpful from the deep breaths he forced into himself.
But at the same time, Vanya didn’t know what in this situation would have helped him to relax.
Briefly, Vanya basked in the hope spot of Taiki agreeing that they didn’t choose their families. He considered interjecting to say that, even when he’d lived in Shreveport, he hadn’t really known anything about his maternal family’s line of work. Much in the same way that the Renaults looked down on him for only being half-Creole (and with maternal heritage from a “new money” family, at that), most of the Bulgakov family had looked down on him for only being half-Russian. The most Vanya had ever been told boiled down to “When stupid people make problems for the family, Uncle Grisha makes them go away. Nobody will believe you if you tell the truth about your parents but telling them might make problems for the family regardless. Do you really want to put Uncle Grisha in that sort of position with his favorite nephew?”
But the problem with hope spots was that they didn’t last.
When this one crashed down on Vanya, bringing with it the realization of what Taiki really had on his mind, Vanya would have preferred something literally crashing on his head. At least a cartoon anvil or a heavy vase or something likely would’ve outright killed him, or done enough brain damage that he wouldn’t remember what he was, much less this conversation. With a heavy, deathly chill dropping into his chest, Vanya drew his legs up to his chest, one by one, then hugged himself around the shins. Maybe it didn’t make him any smaller or safer but maybe he didn’t deserve that second thing in the first place and he’d probably taken up too much space in Taiki’s life for way too long.
“I……? ……I don’t know,” Vanya said softly, then dropped his head, burying his mouth in his knees. He tightened his hold on his legs, arms trembling. This was it, wasn’t it? Vanya had always known some day like this would come. He hadn’t expected what he did on the Internet to be the reason why everything crumbled down around him, but it probably made as much sense as anything else. “……Maybe it just doesn’t make sense? Or maybe you were wrong about me. I don’t—?” A soft hitch of the breath. Vanya curled one hand up in his sweatpants, white knuckle tight. “What do you want me to say?”
As though that would even help. As though this ended with anything but Vanya alone again, as always, because when you got past whatever bullshit he always spun to make people believe otherwise, he was nothing that nobody in their right mind would want.
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Posted: Thu May 22, 2025 11:59 pm
Taiki exhaled. None of this felt good. Seeing Vanya this distressed made him want to set all of this aside, wave it away, decide that it wasn't relevant. But it was. He knew that, deep down. Knew that there was something here he desperately needed to understand, before anything moved further with Vanya.
"I want you to tell me the truth, Vanya," he said, and his voice was gentle, but firm. "I want to know why you do this. What you get out of it. And if you cannot answer that, when you spend so much time on it--so many profiles, multiple sites, all very active, on top of your ordinary Internet activity--then perhaps that's something else you need to think about."
Honestly, Taiki almost wished that what he had found was worse, somehow. Maybe he would understand it better, then. Maybe it would seem less ridiculous and unfathomable.
Alas, that was not the case.
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Posted: Fri May 23, 2025 8:11 pm
“I don’t…… It’s not like…… I’m—?” Vanya shivered as he took a deep breath, which he’d read was supposed to help keep someone grounded in the face of anxiety that tried to swallow them whole.
That deep breath didn’t help him any, though. Subsequent attempts proved equally unhelpful. The grip on his sweats and the feel of fabric against his skin mostly felt like clinging to a security blanket while handcuffed to a bed that was literally on fire. Looking around at the little concrete details of Taiki’s apartment didn’t help Vanya orient himself in the present moment so much as it provided a reminder that Vanya didn’t belong here—or anywhere in Taiki’s life—and never had: high-quality furniture and decor, a cleanly elegant aesthetic, understated Japanese art pieces because Taiki belonged to the tax bracket where people didn’t need to flaunt how much money they made but could live secure in the knowledge that everybody knew how rich they were.
And he needed to say something. He needed to say something. Taiki was waiting, but Vanya couldn’t think of anything to say that would salvage any of this. Maybe he needed to just go away instead.
“Doesn’t it make perfect sense, if you think about it, though?” The words burst out of Vanya without his full consent, pushed forward by a mix of tension and desperate need for this conversation to just be over already. Why even explain himself? Weren’t they both aware that everything between them was over now? Vanya couldn’t salvage anything by explaining himself, he knew it as well as Taiki surely had to know it, but since they were dragging this out instead of simply cutting to the part where Taiki told him to leave—
“People always say Internet trolls are pathetic losers who don’t have anything going for them, right? They just make other people miserable and jerk them around because they’re bored with their own lame lives, and they know they’re no good for anything else, and maybe they wish they were? But wish in one hand and spit in the other because ultimately, they really aren’t. And they know that they’re no good for anything, and making people on the Internet hate them is just, like, correct?”
Which honestly felt like more than enough talking for the rest of Vanya’s life. But at the same time, one of the accounts Taiki’s people had found stuck out as something he didn’t want to let stand on its own “merits.” Something that Vanya needed to speak on because letting it speak for itself would be even worse than admitting:
“I don’t actually believe anything the Kaitlyn account said……sisternotcister, I mean.” Sullenly looking down at the floor, Vanya ruffled his fingers through his hair. “I don’t believe basically any of what any of them said. But that one especially, I just………I always hope one of the TERFs who get trolled with that account will, like? Realize that Kaitlyn is full of s**t and call it out, or try to distance themselves from her, or something? Because I’m always typing things that I think sound like, yes, the logical extreme end of what those people actually believe but also so far exaggerated that they would never outright say it and should at least try to go ‘Girl, what, stop it.’ But then like……”
Vanya shrugged. “Hasn’t happened to Kaitlyn yet. It’s happened on other accounts I’ve used to troll them before, but not that one. And sometimes, it really feels like ‘Okay, wow, what even is the point here’ because I’ll say something that I think is totally outlandish and then like two days later? Some genuinely expressed hot take from an actual TERF will go viral among them and it’ll be, like, ten times worse than whatever Kaitlyn said this time. It’s like, how can you even satirize these people when they not only believe the s**t you say to make them look like the unhinged, bigoted ******** they really are, but then constantly one-up you in their willingness to go full mask off? Seemingly without realizing that they’ve done it.”
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