Sorry, but It's Canon

[Laurels]

"Goddammit. Not again."

"What is it this time?"

"Somebody drew Williams like the Slenderman. "

"For real?"

"Yeah. It's not even a good drawing."

"It doesn't have to be good, Mace. Someone just has to introduce the idea, and then some more idiots on Tumblr will form a fandom around it."

"Still, Slenderman? Really? I thought Marble Hornets drove that shit into the ground."

"It's better than the version where they drew Aurora kids as fucking Homestuck trolls. How does that even make sense?"

"No idea."

Mason Monaghan leaned back in his chair. He brushed a hand through his shaggy, brown hair and closed his eyes. By his side was his younger sister, Jessica. Jessica was crouched on one knee, looking over her brother's shoulder as he browsed the #SOTF tag on Tumblr. The last few months had been hell for their household. First, the plane their sister was on went missing. Then they learned she was actually captured by terrorists and forced to fight to the death with other students from her class. To their dismay, they learned that she had perished when some other girl stabbed her to death.

Mason and Jessica had each secluded themselves from the hype around the game once they learned she was on it. Their dad had volunteered to keep an eye on the news to see if Claire had died or not, so they tried to steer away from anything involving the game. For the most part, they had tried to distract themselves with Netflix and whatever else they could think of. Unfortunately, they couldn't escape the fact that their sister was dead.

Mason had made the decision to finally expose himself to the game after they learned Claire had died. He had a lot of free time being on summer break from college, so he locked himself in his room and browsed the internet. Jessica had come in to see what he was doing, only to see he was flipping between multiple tabs. Most of what he found was footage and still images from the game, but he did find the weird section of the internet that was treating the kids as characters on a TV show.

He and Jessica had spent the last fifteen minutes looking through fanart of the game on Tumblr. This had mostly involved Jessica letting out a few groans, while Mason quietly clicked away until there was something that elicited a reaction.

"Let's see..." Mason said, clicking the down arrow.

He stopped and let out a sigh. He then pointed at the computer screen.

"Someone actually did it," he moaned, looking at his sister. "They did a crossover with The Matrix Fairies."

"The fuck?" Jessica asked. "The Matrix Fairies?"

"Yeah, it's a dating sim from Japan."

Mason rubbed both his eyes. Jessica leaned closer to get a better look at the photo. It was five girls all wearing a mix of science-fiction and cyberpunk outfits, all posed like a sentai team. Jessica raised an eyebrow at the picture.

"I've never heard of this. Is it like School Days or something?" she asked.

"Naw, it's even dumber," Mason replied.

Mason spun around in his chair, and faced his sister.

"It's like this. You're Taro Whogivesashit, a generic Japanese male protagonist. You live a normal life in some normal Japanese town filled with cherry blossom trees and girls who say shit like 'ugu.' Suddenly, there's that abnormal day you're walking to school and a truck nearly hits you and your vapid, catchphrase-spewing female friend. You push the girl out of the way, but it goes to white before the truck hits."

"This sounds like The Five People You Meet in Heaven."

"Yeah, if Mitch Albom was into making fetish work. Anyways, the guy wakes up surrounded by these five chicks. They reveal they're fairies who are behind some computer program that controls humanity to protect them from some cosmic force, or something. Y'know, like The Matrix. The fairy chicks woke you up because you're special, or something, and they need you for missions in the fairy world. Along the way, you seduce them and one ends up your wife, or girlfriend, or something at the end."

"What happened to 'ugu' girl?"

"I think you find out later in the game. I think she's one of the fairies' ancestors or some other bullshit twist."

"Uhuh. So why would someone compare dating sim characters to people getting massacred?"

"I dunno. You know how it goes on fandoms: you take a bunch of characters from your show or book, then you dress them up in other settings and try to show the world how clever you are for seeing the connection before someone else."

"And someone found a connection between real, dead girls, and fictional fairies?"

"Yes."

Jessica rubbed her forehead.

"Wow, this is shitty. Okay, so explain it to me. You clearly know this game, so tell me why they picked these five."

"Alright. Oh, and just for the record, I only have read about the game on Wikipedia and TvTropes. I don't have this game-"

"Whatever. Just explain the picture."

Mason turned back to the picture.

"Alright," he began, "so the fairies are pretty flat as characters, but that's how dating sims work. You have a personality type, and you try to conquer it. We've got five fairies to choose from: the cute and funny one, the smart and serious one, the angry and tsundere one, the quiet and shy one, and the tough, adventurous one. They each have their own stories and whatever, but the idea is that in your attempts to understand this new world, you bond closest to one and that unravels one of five story lines in the game with multiple endings in each story. Oh, and there's uncensored porn scenes that pop up throughout the game."

"Of course there would be."

Jessica looked closer.

"Crap. I think I know who these characters are all supposed to be."

"You do? Who are they?"

Jessica began to move her finger across the screen.

"That's Mirabella Strong. That one's Naomi Bell. Then there's Alda Abbate, Rachael Langdon, and Mallory McCormick."

Mason nodded along.

"Yeah. Here's the deal."

Mason pointed at Mirabella.

"Cute girl."

He then pointed at Naomi.

"Serious girl."

His pointer finger moved to Alda.

"Angry girl."

Then to Rachael.

"Shy girl."

Lastly to Mallory.

"Tough girl."

Mason leaned back. Jessica shook her head.

"So basically, the artist wanted the world to know that these were the five girls he would fuck out of all the girls in the class?"

Mason shrugged.

"That's one way to look at it. Maybe he just thought they were the best in a cyberpunk fetish setting. Frankly, we should just be glad no one has tried to fetishize Claire."

"That we know of," Jessica added.

The two fell silent. Mason turned back to the computer screen.

"I think we should stop here," he said, closing the browser window.

"Agreed," Jessica said, standing up. "This can't be good for us in the long run."

"I don't see how it could possibly be good."