generation loss oneshots

Fan Favorite

based off of matpat's theory that ranboo was in on the whole thing

Ranboo felt bad. But only a little bit. This was THEIR project, and it was going amazingly. It was being received so well by their viewers! They couldn't just pull the plug!

However, every time they looked at Charlie, and how genuinely terrified he was, they couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt. Charlie really, truly believed that everything happening was real.

Well, at least when he was supposed to.

There was that one time he broke out of the fog keeping him in fantasyland and unintentionally felt Ranboo tearing into him. But Ranboo couldn't feel that bad about it, it got them so many views. Especially since the faceless viewers thought the whole thing was acted out and started praising Charlie for his amazing acting skills.

They didn't know that it was real.

It turned out alright though, Charlie had forgotten about it anyway, thanks to the wonderful technology Ranboo was working with.

But every time Charlie's character died again, Ranboo wondered if they should just tell him what was going on and let him go. He had been on the show for so long, clearly a fan favorite. Then again, there was the fact that he was a fan favorite. The views might go down if there was no longer a character portrayed by Charlie, even if Ranboo managed to find a replacement. They had plenty of friends that were good at improv and acting, but none of them were Charlie.

That, and their friendship would be at stake. Charlie would most definitely hate Ranboo forever and ever if they told him what was really happening, especially if they let him remember everything that had happened from the cabin and beyond. There was no way that they would remain in contact.

Though, that was probably the least of Ranboo's worries. It was just the last point on a very short list of reasons covering their predicament.

Ranboo dreaded the next scene they had to act in, not because they were in any danger, but because to progress the story, Charlie had to die again. This time was guaranteed to be the most painful death of the bunch as well, though probably not more painful than having his guts ripped into.

Ranboo hoped that they would be able to control the wire monster enough so that it wouldn't hurt Charlie too much, but the way they had designed it made it hard to tame.

Oh well, they supposed the show must go on. Charlie would live anyway, and then they could use him in the second installment.

He was, after all, a fan favorite.

***

Charlie felt his breath die in his throat as he and Ranboo walked into the dark, warehouse-like room. It was darker than he would have liked, though the middle of the room was illuminated. As he approached, he realized that the thing that needed light was actually some sort of set. It looked like someone had taken the first floor of a small cabin and cut it right in half. The other half was missing, obviously, because this was a set.

Why did it seem familiar? Had he been here before? Charlie could hardly remember, the feeling he was getting was like deja vu wrapped in a dream within a dream. The faintest, tiniest little smudge in the back of his mind. Small enough to hardly go noticed, but large enough that he couldn't help but realize it was there.

"Where are we, Ranboo?" Charlie whispered, his voice weak as he tried to figure out why this place seemed like somewhere he had been.

Something about this place was off. Like, obviously, there was the whole part about how they were stuck in a mall but now it looked like they were on a small movie set, but there was something deeper than that.