“Wow, Felicity,” he said. My Internet name was Felicity, after the coolest American girl doll. “I never met someone who knew so much about Harry/Draco before.”
I laughed. “Thanks, Sasuke420, I guess not everyone is as serious as I am about the Classic Ships.” Then I turned on the best song, “Spice World,” by the Spice Girls. I saw his eyes go wide as he got my musical reference. He was a keeper.
“In a while, Totodile,” I said, which is a Pokémon.
“Damn it!” My rival, PhantomLuvR hit her screen in frustration. The only way through to the next level of the Tardis-Maze was by answering the riddle, but — “There’s no way anyone could know all the Backstreet Boys’ descriptions of their dream girlfriends!”
“That would be impossible.” I smiled sagely. “Unless you read Tiger Beat, issue 158.”
PhantomLuvR roared in anger and tore open her Labyrinth T-shirt, which was just a close up of David Bowie’s crotch bulge in those gray tights. What a waste; it was vintage.
I held a piece of pocky in my mouth like a cigarette. “Just so you know — Howie wants a girl with a nice personality.”
I ran a proud hand over the side of my spaceship that was shaped like a Lisa Frank dolphin. I had won it in a bet with my friend Snapewife over how many Pirates of the Caribbean movies there were. Back then, she had called it the Sparkleship, but I wanted a more intellectual, literary name. So I re-named it Astolat, after my favorite fan-fiction author.
“Good luck in there!” said Astolat. She had a voice like Amanda Bynes.
“You villain!” I shouted, as I swung my keyblade. “You’re just as bad as Evil Willow in season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!”
“Please,” my arch-nemesis, Sephiroth But Also A Wolf, rolled her eyes. “The real villain of season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was Buffy.”
I gasped. Could she be using subjective thematic analysis against me, instead of just knowledge of trivia? Unthinkable.
Sasuke420 caressed my face. No, it was real life now, not the CyberNetTube, so I had to think of him by his real name: Keanu Reeves. “So, tell me,” he said. “Who do you think would win in a fight between Superman and Goku?"
I smiled condescendingly. “The real question is, why would they fight when they’re so busy kissing each other?"
He handed me a beanie baby. “You know, I don’t think I ever got to thank you for saving my life, and the world, with your knowledge of the Sailor Moon dub.”
“Please, it was nothing,” I said, blushing. “I couldn’t have done it without the help of my friends: Auron from Final Fantasy X, Inigo Montoya, and literally just an anime body pillow.”
“I find you… so compelling,” he said, and gently rubbed the fake cat ears I was wearing. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
I froze. How could I possibly convey the depth of my feelings? I caught his hand in my own, and said softly, “Rawr.”
“Rawr?”
“It means ‘I love you’ in dinosaur.”
“Have you ever thought about how strange it is?” PhantomLuvR asked. “You know, that the one thing you’re good at is now the most sought-after skill in the world?”
“Nope,” I said, and downloaded a mod to make everyone else on the internet look like Legolas from Lord of the Rings.