Alternate Universes/Online AU

<very disorganized. pls clean up>

AU where all the nerds are best friends on the internet!! Surprisingly, Luke and Ethan become the glue in this AU.

## What's Different: They're all teenagers on the internet

### Carson (Mack15)

is a hospital bed-bound teenager in NYC, New York. whose only link to the outside world is the internet. she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at age 14. Carson, the cyber-challenged darling, can't keep up with Sasha and Luke's memeing, and has to ask repeatedly what sort of conversation they're having. "did you actually stuff breadsticks in your purse Sasha???" "i can buy you some breadsticks you know..." Carson types like an old lady on the internet. She uses lots of ellipses and smiley face emojis, unironically. :)

Carson is a less steady person, often finding herself looking to Luke for reassurance and guidance. so much time spent in the hospital, she feels so isolated from the rest of the world. online friends would really help Carson cope with her depression from being ill, so she wouldn't feel like she needs to be a Strong Athletic Person. she'd have more interests than just sports: painting, crochet when she meets Lizzie.

### Lizzie (turtleluvr12)

she lives in the rural outskirts of Cloverdale, Oregon. is a FFN/LJ veteran, writer and commenter on LJ and dA. she does crafting/embroidery/knitting. has a line of adorable turtles and bunnies, inspired by the Tortoise and the Hare. she posts photos of her work on her instagram and dA. Her tumblr is filled with pictures of cute animals and some fashion, lots of literary quotes, and food photography. Lizzie types properly, mostly, but she uses a lot of ellipses... like she's a little hesitant.... She also uses emoticons! She especially loves that turtle emoji.

lizzie began her internet life on ffn, in small book fandoms, shipping femslash rarepairs. she is fond of ASoUE, liked hp, pjo, af, hdm, redwall. when she branches into anime, she liked slice of life femslash eg maria-sama, aoi hana. she also likes webcomics like gunnerkrigg court, and she totally had a homestuck phase with ethan and maybe even luke. she sometimes does rp (luke gets into it too).

she teaches crochet to Carson and Ethan. they're the Crochet Club.

C: is Lizzie just turtleluvr12 everywhere...
E: you can do both! say in canon she uses the same username everywhere, and in online au she has different usernames. that way, you can have your cake and eat it too

### Sasha

is a vlogger on youtube, where she explores her hometown of San Francisco. she also watches anything and everything on youtube. she lapses into caps aLL THE TIME, is the Quenn fo Tpyos, and uses tons of emojis like :3 and 8D and exclamation points!!! she also keysmashes a lot. ~~(instead of roses and skulls, her tattoos are of memes: on her left wrist, a lolcat macro, on her right, a doge macro. on her back, a huge shoopdawhoop. on her shoulder, a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff face.)~~

Sasha is an addict in this AU as well, and doesn't have Luke or Carson to help her through the first several rough years of recovery. she leans more on Luke too, drawn to Luke's bubbliness. ​she takes up photography to help her heal.

### Luke (CoolMcAwesomeDude)

originally from NYC, he moved to Los Angeles, California. he's the guy who keeps going afk for half an hour to explore the web, then comes back to post links to weird things. would luke capitalize at all. for that matter does he know punctuation marks are. maybe he types so fast sometimes in his excitement to show people things that hiswordsallruntogether B) he tried to type in 1337 once, and everyone just said "no stop"

Luke gets to attend school without so many of his brothers' reputation preceding him, which helps him become more self-confident: less self-aggrandizing, has an easier time coping with his anxiety, has a more relaxed but still energetic chill around him. Bubbly smiles, a lot of genuine laughter, he's a Sunny Boy. he also designs surfboards

### Ethan (BuckytheBEARnotwintersoldier)

based in Chicago, Illinois. he is a youtuber with Mia; he does the camerawork, hosts the cooking channel. Ethan likes anime. he prefers more drama and slice of life, not so much action/adventure. while he's shy and reserved offline, when he's finally comfortable with the group chat he's enthusiastic and excitable. He types out his mirth, using variations of "haha" or "hehe" instead of "lol" or "lmao." He keysmashes the most often, on par with Sasha.

he is more sociable and comfortable online than he is offlne. besides Luke, he is the other glue of the group. he is the family cook, hopes to one day have his own restaurant.

### Mia (SoulofSwanLake)

based in Chicago, Illinois. has a youtube channel with Ethan. minor celebrity musician on youtube, plays harp. she is also a watercolor artist on deviantArt. she suffers from Artist Anxiety. mia's words are all lowercase except for her 'I's and the first letter of each sentence, and she doesn't use punctuation unless she's upset. she doesn't use abbreviations unless Luke and Sasha are having another zany conversation and she only knows how to respond with "have no idea wat ur talking abt".

one side of Mia's bedroom is covered by a mural. her and Ethan's parents are more supportive of their children's artistic passions.

### Blair (DarkInkWitch17)

lives in Seattle, Washington. she made up her username at age 17 ok no laughing!!! Blair is a poet crossposting on LiveJournal and deviantArt. She types very properly, with perfect punctuation, capitalization, everything.

not much different from canon, but perhaps a bit more acerbic without the influence of the others. since she doesn't really have any friends irl in this AU, she is even less good with words as she is in canon. she doesn't know when her teasing and sarcastic remarks go too far, when she realizes a soft word is better than a biting retort, etc.

## What's Different: How they meet

1. Ethan and Mia are fraternal twins. They live together. That's still the same.
2. Carson and Luke are classmates/teammates/friends offline (in NYC) until Luke moves (to LA); they keep in touch via chat messenger (AIM?). [age ~13] [chat: Carson, Luke]
3. Luke meets Sasha and Ethan on neopets at age 13. Luke likes taking care of his pets and Sasha likes collecting. because he and Carson are childhood friends, and he knows Carson doesn't have many friends after being hospitalized, and he likes his online pals a lot, and maybe she'll find it easier to open up online... Sasha and Ethan join the chat group. [chat: Carson, Luke, Sasha, Ethan]

1. 1. Ethan brings Mia?? [chat: Carson, Luke, Sasha, Ethan, Mia]
2. Blair writes fanfic poetry on LJ. Lizzie is a reader, also lurks on her dA
3. Mia meets Blair on deviantArt; they do collabs with their watercolor paintings and poetry. they mutually promote each other [age 12-13]
	1. Mia wheedles Blair about joining the chat, fails. curmudgeon.
4. Lizzie is introduced to Mia's watercolors via Blair's promotion. she makes a dA account just to comment on Mia's work. Mia gets a lot of comments on her artwork but she tries to read all of them and thank people and she notices her Regulars and Lizzie eventually ends up as one of said regulars.
	1. Lizzie eventually works up the courage to send Mia and Blair PMs, to which they respond. they become friends, promote on their pages?
	2. Mia gives Lizzie and Blair group invites. they join the group but initially mostly lurk. occasionally you can see a msg from them in the odd hours of the morning/night.
5. Carson clicks a link to Lizzie's Etsy, buys a cute bunny keychain, follows Lizzie's instagram where she posts photos of her WIPs and sometimes herself holding them [age 14-15]
6. everyone is friends!!! [chat: Carson, Luke, Sasha, Ethan, Mia, Blair, Lizzie]

## The Group Chat

the rest get lost sometimes from Ethan, Luke, and Sasha's excited chatter. Blair goes to bed one night after saying goodnight to just those 3 since they're the last online, and wakes up the next morning to 314 msgs in the group chat.

Ethan loves to talk about the plans he has for his and Mia's channel! and the equipment he uses as her cameraman. Sasha loves talking about her vlog and asking Ethan for advice on equipment and such, since she's a burgeoning camera gal.

Sasha tries to coax Lizzie and Blair into actually chatting. she will randomly say:

* "hey Lizzie/Blair"
* "i know you're reading this"
* "come out"

Blair will just suddenly pipe up "gonna go see The Graveyard Shift 2". doesn't matter if the conversation

consisted of Luke talking about how he wants to "Fast Lane" or Ethan wanting to see an upcoming romance movie. Blair will mention something about a supernatural, horror, or dark media. Luke takes his chance of his usual running gag: "ok Blair is this your way of telling us you're a vampire" "because it's cool if you are, we love you no matter what." Blair blatantly ignores him. "i thought i saw someone type something but nope, i guess i'm just imagining things" Luke's response,,, "you didn't say no!!!" at first they wonder if Luke seriously believes she's a vampire,,, eventually they're not fazed by it at all, they just keep talking about their current conversation while Luke tries to get a rise from Blair, meanwhile Blair teases Luke with constant "saw a new msg but there was nothing, must be a ghost" it helps drag Blair from the shadows!.she starts ribbing with some of the other kids, Ethan and Mia are receptive and joke with her often

Lizzie is endeared by Ethan mostly. he's talkative but not as talkative as Luke and Sasha, and excitable but in a calmer way. warm but not bright burning hot like Sasha and Luke. like a big brother,,, she mentions one day about how neat it is that Ethan knows so much about filming. he gets excited and starts talking to her about it and she feels shy because "you're so smart about all this tech stuff. i just knit eheh"

and Carson, who has been lurking while watching another fitness youtube video, jumps in and talks about how amazing Lizzie's craftsmanship is and how adorable her works are and links Ethan her Etsy and dA. and Carson and Ethan proceed to babble about how cute her work is. Lizzie gets so flustered,,,

Ethan starts asking her about technique and materials, really wanting to learn about the details and Lizzie is so very flustered but at the same time so giddy and they seem to have a genuine interest in her hobby and business? she spends that night talking about her favorite needles, her favorite yarn and colors, and beginner's crochet patterns.

they set up Sewing Sunday,,, Ethan and Carson want to learn how to knit because Ethan wants to make cute plushies and Carson hears it's good for anxiety. every Sunday they show Lizzie their wips,,,

## Carson's visit

All the nerds arrange a trip to visit Carson at the hospital for her birthday ♥

i like to think Lizzie and Carson's relationship would be especially tender in this au... when they all visit Carson, while the others are off exploring NYC, Ethan, Carson, and Lizzie all have their crochet time. after visiting Carson on her birthday the first time, all of the gang always saves up money to visit her during the holidays if they can too. but i like to think that, because she's intrigued by Carson's gentle personality and her paintings (oil, pastel, acrylic), Lizzie gets the idea of visiting Carson by herself, just once she tells herself... just once to go across the country. but Carson is gentle and sweet and soft-spoken and being with her is so much better than being at home, with her aunt and uncle and cousins

she's brave and scared at the same time because wow it's an entire country she's crossing by herself but she can't stand being in that house anymore and she and Carson get to talking about if they could live anymore they'd like, what type of place would it be? what country? what landscape, what house?

Carson hates the hospital, hates how faraway she feels from everyone - looking out the window and just seeing ppl enjoy their lives, not feeling like she's really living at all. she wouldn't want a white house - something with wood, a wood-designed interior, a warm and cozy place. sometimes she'd like a house by the sea, or a cabin in the woods - sounds different from the whir of hospital machines or the smell of clean white spaces.

Lizzie thinks Carson's idea for a house sounds nice and eventually their talks of "what type of house would you like to live in?" turn into "what type of house would /we/ like"... Lizzie would like a garden on a windowsill, for fresh herbs, Carson would love a sun room for where she can do her paintings.

they are all now artsy fartsy children... slowly tenderly falling in love...

all of them share a big bed and all snuggled up to each other. Blair complains it's too warm sometimes at night but she never moves to her own room. Sasha, who tosses and turns constantly sleeping on her own, falls instantly asleep when she's with the others. Mia is surprisingly clingy, Luke once commented that he almost had to get a crowbar to pry her sleeping form off him once. Ethan secretly loves being the lil spoon, and Sasha like to hug Ethan like a teddy bear.

the bed is custom-made, they all pitched in to have it made. everyone has their own custom pillows, designed and made by Lizzie. she also makes them custom onesy PJs