#theres a secret second version of hologram au which is less scarian-centric and more grian pain-centric

[definitelynotshouting]

Idk if ur still doing writing prompts but even if ur not I would absolutely love to hear any crazy brain thoughts you might have to add onto this cus I’ve been brainrotting it hard and I have a great need to share: scarian forbidden love angst HEHE >:)

im not currently doing writing prompts atm but oh god oh fuck i have THOUGHTS about this one

So like obviously we have some well trodden routes we could take here.... but who am i if im not making shit crazyinsane for kicks. this is making me think HARD about my hologram au, actually, which is lowkey inspired by localwheel's desertduo buzzcut season pmv (for the love of GODS watch this if you havent already, im insane out here)

Hologram au is essentially my tribute to the concept that sometimes if you play games they can come with unexpectedly serious consequences /lh

Or, in plainer terms: the life games are just that-- games. Specifically, they're like VR but you're living inside the game for a brief period of time while you play¹. All the lives, all the deaths, all the damage taken and betrayals etc etc? Thats just the life participants hardcore larping for fun. They arent actually feeling pain or death, it's all a hologram. None of it is real.

Except during the first game, Grian ends up committing to the bit a little too hard and catches actual feelings for Scar. The games become a mask-- he can do things he wouldn't normally do under the pretense that these actions arent real and don't have actual meaning attached to them. And then it becomes a cage: the games become the only place Grian feels he can display his feelings, where he's allowed to act as hopelessly in love with Scar as he actually is. Something something the soulful ache of buzzcut season's i live in a hologram with you that makes me want to pour hot lead down my throat [insert discord crying emoji]

So while it's not a forbidden love, per se (no outside forces are stopping it from happening), it's still treated by Grian as one. In the games he can act out and channel all that helpless love into a narrative, where it's safer to contain. Outside the games, though, that safety net comes tumbling right back down, and Grian ends up trapped between his role as Scar's platonic friend and the very romantic feelings he's developed during something that, in his eyes, has no business being taken so seriously. Maybe not a ground-breaking dynamic but the circumstances around it are very funky to me (and also realistic. who hasnt² accidentally developed a crush on somebody for incredibly arbitrary reasons, yknow?)

¹ i have never seen ready player one

² exempting arospecs, ofc, who are the most powerful of us all