#(and i almost went there for mike and psmith but i felt it should maybe be saved for psmith and eve)

[incomingalbatross]

Met online asks: the Psmith series, predictably?

I am at long last getting to this! (and what, no, I wasn’t expecting this one at all... :P )

So I think what stymied me here is that... Mike is almost certainly a lurker online. I can imagine Psmith being a Personality easily, but Mike probably spends his time in the internet as inconspicuously as he can. And they need to meet as equals, obviously, so you can’t have just one be Internet Famous at the start...

BUT. Once I started typing, it worked out pretty well!

So here we go:

Mike has Facebook and Twitter and so on, partly for keeping up with IRL connections but mostly to keep up with cricket and his brothers. Tweets almost exclusively about cricket (though also about TV shows he���s currently into), actually has followers who don’t know him IRL because he has Informed Takes

His Twitter account is old enough that it’s not connected to his real name, and he doesn’t identify himself either because he doesn’t like the notoriety of being the Youngest Jackson Brother when he’s not even playing... what do you even call it? Do you call it playing pro cricket, nowadays? You know what I mean. He’s probably still in high school

So yeah his online presence isn’t explicitly connected to the rest of his family’s. His brothers follow him, but they’re not very active on Twitter, and personal communication in the Jackson family is mainly over group text, so the fact that they’re related doesn’t really show

Psmith, meanwhile, has a Twitter account that jumps randomly from topic to topic, depending on whatever the heck he’s thinking about at the moment. It’s constant Psmith Monologuing thrown out into the void, just what the internet was made for

His Twitter display name is Psmith and his handle is something like @ therealpsmith. No one’s sure if it’s supposed to be his last name or if his name is P. Smith or what.

(It feels weird making up Twitter accounts for them in response to an ask from you... but this AU has different goals and so I do need different Twitter presences for them. And I can’t see Mike on Tumblr at all, so that’s not an option)

Since this is an AU, I think they can initially connect over cricket. Psmith follows Mike first, and tends to retweet a fair amount of his cricket takes with his own added commentary. After enough of this (since Mike isn’t so high-profile that he doesn’t notice a new regular interacter) Mike goes and checks out his Twitter

It’s not all cricket and a lot of it is diatribes about whatever’s annoyed Psmith today. But they’re witty and entertaining diatribes, and Mike ends up following him

Before long Psmith starts up a long thread about something Mike’s already been stewing over--a plot development in a TV show they both watch, maybe? Not sure

But anyway Mike starts commenting/retweeting/arguing with other people who disagree, because the thing in question is Stupid and Wrong and the fact that people think otherwise bothers him on a personal level

And then Psmith DMs him like “The cricket connoisseur has come to my aid! I am gratified by your assistance,” and then starts talking to him, personally, about why the thing is Dumb and Wrong

From this they start chatting/interacting more regularly. Mike is, obviously, less loquacious than Psmith, and I don’t think their friendship solidifies quite as quickly as in canon just because they aren’t doing things together, but they still click

At some point Psmith’s bemoaning the fact that he’s so constrained by Twitter’s character limit (unlike Mike, who is “the strong, silent type, admirable suited to the medium”) and starts talking about how to fully express himself he should really have a podcast

Mike: “Why don’t you, then?”

Psmith: “You are right. Why not? Here we see the strength of a true man of action--direct and to the point. Why SHOULDN’T I start a podcast?”

Annnd then he ropes Mike into doing it with him so he’ll have someone to talk to. Mike insists, however, on only using his first name, because he doesn’t want this to reflect badly in his brothers if it goes horribly wrong

So they start a nominally-about-cricket (since that’s their biggest shared thing) podcast, called simply “Mike and Psmith”

(There’s probably a joke somewhere in their eventual fanbase about it being “Mic and Psmith,” since Psmith’s doing 80% of the talking)

Between their dynamic and Psmith’s ability to talk, it’s surprisingly successful--it bounces all over the place, topic-wise, but they’re just fun to listen to

While they’re not, like, Buzzfeed Unsolved levels of well-known, they get a decent-sized fanbase

(There’s a long-running fandom debate over whether Psmith is actually Like That or if the show’s scripted. It will probably never be permanently resolved)

They also start a YouTube channel for playing video games and so on--partly because listeners wanted to see it, but partly because they just like hanging out and doing stuff together

Mike has not told his family about any of this, BTW, because he’s too self-conscious about being mildly internet famous, but one day Margery stumbles across the show. He’s in for a lot of teasing

I honestly don’t know how they meet IRL--I’m torn between A) them just video-chatting eventually, learning each other’s actual names, and meeting up at a cricket match, and B) them meeting coincidentally, in some completely different capacity, and recognizing each other by their voices

Either way, though, once they meet they keeping meeting and eventually end up room/flatmates once they both move away from home (if Mike’s planning to play cricket, would he go to college? Would modern Mike be planning to play cricket for a living? I don’t know these things so I’m leaving that vague)

“Moving in with someone you made friends with online” is not always a recipe for success, but it works out for them. They were already best friends, but now they can actually do stuff together! It really just solidifies their friendship for good

(Not that there isn’t friction--the number of Shenanigans Psmith drags Mike into has vastly increased, for one thing--but it all works out, in the end)

Their podcast is an essential part of their routine, by now. I’m not sure how it develops over the years, but it stays pretty low-key... the core of it is still just two best friends hanging out, and that works

(At some point in the future, the cast may expand to "two best friends and their wives, who are also best friends,” but that’s another story, and one I don’t know well enough to say for sure)