madimpossibledreamer

swapped reaction: Being tortured is exhausting to the soul. Blake meets the gaze of his cellmate wearily. “Under the circumstances, why should I do anything else?”

( Chapter 355: Feel My Rhythm )

Spike wakes up on a spaceship. He wanders around for a while and thinks he's mostly alone-aside from the cargo of humans.
Then on one of the sweeps he runs into a disoriented, partial-memory loss Captain Xan.

         It’s a little weird and offputting when I wake to the smell of freshly cooked—or heated, whatever—bacon. Normally, my stomach would be dancing a Snoopy Happy Dance of Joy (well, it is, but then, my stomach isn’t as concerned as my brain about potential poison). I could have sworn I fell asleep in Steel’s office, not a kitchen, and even though he’d promised me once he hadn’t poisoned something I’d eaten, he’d worded it very carefully so it wasn’t a “I’d never do that” because it’d probably be an outright lie, and he likes being a sneak finding loopholes.
         “I’m concerned a hungry wizard is liable to start knocking over walls, and these offices were recently constructed,” Steel states smoothly, like he’s reading my mind.
         As far as I know, that’s not a Soul Gaze thing. Unless somebody in his employ clued him into something.
         I'm really, really tempted to keep being paranoid. It’s part of the essence of being a wizard, and there’s a really good reason not to trust him, but also I’m really tired and hungry and my stomach is absolutely my weakness.
         It might be a bit of a warning sign that he’s weirdly smug but it’s not poison; I do have barely enough oomph to cast a small charm before I chow down.

Also I confirmed have BtVS living rent-free in my head because (I think as a coping mechanism) my brain immediately jumped to ‘well, what would vtuber Scoobies look like’, especially with the new Xander being a youtuber.
*Joss Whedon as the owner of the company (because let's get meta)
Xander
*not being allowed to be out as bi; mentioned briefly in a single stream & never again
*generally presented as the ‘nerd one’, which he’s kind of cool with because he can ramble about stuff he likes and cool plot twists in the game he’s playing for hours and people actually listen to him and don’t think he’s a loser
*lost an eye from trying to show off (possibly during career), stuck somewhere between embarrassed because it was an embarrassing move & kind of pleased because he actually finally thinks he’s kinda handsome? until he gets a headache and then is just in a bad mood. It’s not super common, but he has canceled a stream because of it
*community describes him as having “off” and “on” states, because depending on how calm he is he can be really good at puzzles, but if he’s distracted or upset he fails them and eventually just starts randomly inputting answers
*also absolutely terrible at FPS, since his fast-paced hand-eye coordination is practically nonexistent, but will collab if Buffy wants to play. Generally dissolves into a pile of incoherent rambling akin to Markiplier but even less coherent
*often says things without thinking, but when he’s called out on things (& he is called out on things) apologizes, promises to do better, & then actually tries to do better even if he doesn’t always succeed
*admits he’s trying ‘to un-learn problematic shit’ from his parents
*does not always realize things are problematic at first, due to the past trauma, which is why he puts up with management abuse for so long
*Willow helped design his avatar (she was used as unpaid free labor for most of the vtuber models, not that any of them really got that part) and he’s ridiculously proud of it and her for that
*had several toxic relationships, including Faith while Willow had a crush on him he was trying to overlook. Also Cordy, but as per canon that was mostly them just being shitty to each other. (they still kind of lovingly snipe at each other when they run into each other later? But they also 100% have each other’s backs and make better friends, even if most people around them don’t consider them friends; mostly they avoid insults and topics that would actually bother each other)
*hands are tied due to contractual reasons (& maybe recovering from the Eye Incident himself) so he doesn’t speak up when Buffy’s contract is unceremoniously terminated & she’s practically ejected into space
*gets to graduate, speaks in a few vague terms about the matter, wants to collab w/ Buffy again (they go for horror for a ‘more laidback time’, which it is, because neither of them get spooked too often
*misses the old model, but also really really excited about the fact that he gets to gush about “hot guys and pretty girls and everything in between now”
*also is excited because he’d kind of wanted a punk/goth look to his model but that’d been nixed by past management. New management doesn’t restrict him as much.
*went for “a knight who joined an attack on Hell and came out but not unscathed”, trying to decide if he’d go for “demon hyena” here though. We don’t really know anyone’s favorite animals do we
Tara
*was allowed to graduate but basically was never given a chance to succeed; currently taking a break from vtubing right now
*Willow broke up with her when she graduated
*Cordy has extended a ‘behind-the-scenes’ job offer to Tara that she’s considering
Cordy
*practically run out of town, made her own agency & with a lot of hard work has made it work
*It helps that she has an actual management degree & knows what the hell she’s doing
*still streams once in a while with a businesswoman with a bee motif and a whip. Mostly does not have time for this, but she’s still a workaholic.
*she’s the only female owner of a name-brand agency & is proud of it
Angel
*Lost it & started stalking Buffy when they were dating
*went to counseling & is doing better
*Cordy’s holding a seat open for him at her agency when he feels like coming back
Willow
*currently deep into trusting management
*possibly dating Faith? Xander is trying very hard not to think about that and the implications thereof
*mostly she’s hyped up on the fame & glory rn, Xander’s hoping for the best
*and the fact that when she gets an idea stuck in her head, it’s well and truly stuck. Then again, he’s kind of the same way; it took Buffy’s attempted suicide to shock him out of it, but even that hasn’t broken through yet.
*especially enjoys any thinky games or simulators, such as shop simulator games. Occasionally branches out to yuri visual novels because management thinks that’s fine.
*rambles, goes on tangents, sometimes forgets that she’s even playing a game.
Buffy
*was in several abusive relationships that escalated to stalking and one that escalated to cheating; management did nothing to protect her from this
*Loves FPS and action games, though sometimes forgets to even slow down and pay attention to any possible story because she’s having too much fun wrecking shop
*butchers names though half the time it’s on purpose to drive people up the wall
*especially opponents. Particularly when they spend matches screaming abuse at her.
*she refuses to mute her microphone. It’s a pride thing.
*she also pretends none of this gets to her. It does.
*bright, bubbly, likes acting more like an airhead & messing up names if she’s annoyed
*was attacked by a mugger (the Master is now a mugger) once & sent to the hospital. Technically she provoked him a little because she was still feeling bad about Angel but she doesn’t admit to herself why years later.
*the second time was after Dawn joined “as a little sister character” and also her abusive relationship with Spike. Her contract was terminated after this one. She ended up not at Cordy’s agency but a friendly one to that.
*this was also after years of her management gaslighting and lying to her and her friends to try to make sure there wouldn’t be enough solidarity for a security net for anyone in case anything went wrong.