Xander|Valichar Background

Val most wants a rat, but he’ll find the city strays and give them pets and food.

The only person from Real Life Xander has spoken to after the Tear is Mrs. Summers and she was visibly weirded out and hasn’t been back—which sucks, because he definitely liked her as a parental figure he’d pseudo-adopted. He’s heard nothing from his parents, which doesn’t surprise him in the slightest. He’s also heard nothing from the woman he’d been dating, but then, he’s not particularly surprised. She’d already started pulling away. She was jealous about him playing games, and he assured her that it was just with friends, but she was convinced that he’d met a woman and was cheating on her. He tried to explain that he just liked playing it because he knew what he was doing, for once, that in games he felt a sense of accomplishment that he hadn’t in real life. She didn’t believe him, but hadn’t been aware she’d been subtly questioning his competence when it came to his classes.

He loves restaurants, little holes in the wall especially, because he likes getting to know them. He likes walking around. He got the latest music player and goes to concerts and stuff. He’ll also send little messages like post-it-notes to make the people he cares about smile. He hates cooking but will do it if someone’s busy and won’t have time.

Scammers tick him off. Sometimes he’ll hunt them down. They’d taken advantage of Jesse, once or twice, and he couldn’t stand that.

It’s not a complete truth to say that Xander has absolutely no contact with the outside world. There’s a research program. Some of the original devs were fired and replaced, so they suspect one of them was the cause of the code that caused the Tear. He’ll go in every now and then and they’ll scan him and run a few tests. It’s not without risk, since they’re poking at his character’s code, and they’ve made a backup but can’t be sure that’ll work if something goes wrong, so he’s given a cred stipend. He doesn’t tell Buffy or Willow (or anyone, really) about it; they talked about the program and Buffy said it was too risky, so she forbade anyone from taking part. He’s just doing it in secret.

He also keeps active in Discord. He wanted to run a youtube or twitch channel but didn’t particularly want to use his face. He’d started contemplating vtubing using Val as his face but then the Tear happened. Fans of the franchise continue to be fans of the franchise, and a lot actually are interested in helping out with research on their end, because it’s not dangerous for them. He does also have some thirsty fans, but luckily a mod keeps them in check and he’s managed to get them to be fairly respectful, even when they log in.

Xander did talk the devs out of giving players trapped in the game anything they might want. It’s still a society that needs to function, he pointed out. Instead, all trapped players get the same amount of cred deposited in their account every week, enough to cover basic cost of living + a little more. It doesn’t really reflect the capitalistic cyberpunk spirit of the game, but it does let them all breathe a little easier.

Val actually does drink at bars, but what he usually does is get one, secrete himself in a corner, people-watch all night, and nurse his drink. He sometimes hears important information this way, but also just gets to know people and know of people, which is important.

Xander didn’t used to care about other people or saving the world or anything. Helping people out, not just his friends, made him feel good. Feel happy. Like he actually mattered. Like he was a good guy. It’s mostly this that makes him think Val is a better person than Xander, even though he knows that’s slightly neurotic and they’re obviously the same person and he’s the only one that thinks of himself and his avatar as different people.