Author's Notes: A muse hit me after looking at the TGWTG kink meme. This is the final product. (And yeah, when I can't think of a unique title, I just skip to using German.)
It should be noted that this is an AU of the 2010 Nostalgia Critic Christmas Special, so if you haven't seen it, go on the That Guy With The Glasses website and watch it there.
Warning(s): Only been edited once, possible OOCness, slight swearing compared to the canon material, and a self-insert (something that's pretty popular on that fandom).
Der Nostalgia Critic und das Einsames Leben von Hansen
"My God, my God, my God, my God, my God, my God, my God, my God!" the Nostalgia Critic screamed in horror, now on his hands and knees on his living room floor.
Earlier that day, when he had reluctantly agreed to let Roger, his apparent Guardian Angel-in-training, show him what everyone's lives would have been like if he hadn't existed—and thus never helped to found That Guy With The Glasses and given them their jobs as internet reviewers to begin with—he was sort of expecting to see scenes that, at the very least, would have made the Critic feel bad for his colleagues. As far as he had been concerned, everybody that was picked up by the website wouldn't have amounted to anything in the world if it weren't for his intervention. They would have all been nothing without him.
But that was before Roger had shown the Nostalgia Critic that the Cinema Snob would have become one of the most popular porn stars in the world if he hadn't become a (somewhat) success on the site; before he saw, with his own eyes, how Linkara could have gotten the time to buy Marvel and DC Comics if he hadn't been discovered with Atop the Fourth Wall. His expectations were dashed the moment he witnessed the alternate life of the Nostalgia Chick, where she was a famous movie director traveling around the world with her team, and saw that damn Angry Joe somehow get elected as the President of the United States and earned the adoration of the American public by blowing Canada into smithereens.
And then there was Spoony. Spoony, who, if he had never met the Critic, would have ended up baring the title of the Nostalgia Critic himself. Spoony, who would have been a cheery, optimistic host of his web show, one that would be worshipped by everyone who watched him, even by the trolls that constantly caused the Critic neverending grief…
To say that he was now growing hysterical—if not completely mad—from those revelations would be the defining understatement of his life.
He was interrupted from his chaotic thoughts, however, when his felt a hand pat his shoulder, but whatever the murmurs he was hearing were saying were still mostly being drowned out by his uneven breathing.
"…you really are a rotten, dirty bastard. Everyone you've come into contact would've lived a better life if you had never met them at all," the Nostalgia Critic caught Roger concluding to him.
This only helped to make him finally snap.
"Is that supposed to be a pep talk?" the Critic rhetorically asked the dark-skinned angel, suddenly bolting back up onto his feet and fixing his furious, bulging green eyes on him. "'Cause let me tell ya, it's not helping. Pep talks are supposed to be peppy—not make you wanna take a shower with a god damn toaster!"
The outburst seemed to make Roger jump a few feet away from the Critic.
I… I-! I'm sorry!" Roger quickly sputtered out, wide-eyed. "I-It's just… This has never happened to me before!"
The Critic, scowling and clenching his fists, watched as Roger started getting more agitated under his burning gaze. He began looking all over the room except in the Critic's direction, as if trying to look for an escape.
"I mean somebody always misses the person whenever I do this! I mean somebody!" he continued to cry out, his level of anxiety noticeably climbing. "This shouldn't be statistically possible!"
"I just saw Spoony doing my fucking job and being loved by an internet troll. At this point, I think it's fucking possible!" yelled the Critic with rage.
"But there's gotta be somebody. Somebody! Nobody's this uninfluential," Roger was now murmuring frantically to himself while nervously fiddling with his white robe sleeves.
"Roger-!"
"Wait!" he suddenly interrupted, spinning back towards the Critic with what was now obviously a forced smile. "I think I know who to go to next."
"If it's somebody I know doing a better job at taking over Molossia," the Critic began to threaten through gritted teeth.
"No! I'm positive on this," Roger assured him, but still faking his glee. "This'll be a real example of how life is worse for somebody without you. It has to be. I can't believe I never thought of it before. I mean, it should be so obvious to me…"
With that, Roger lifted his arm towards the Critic. When it was made obvious that the Critic wasn't going to grab it immediately, he plastered on what was probably the best encouraging smile he could make, although the intended effect was muddled by his still-widened, scared eyes.
"If this next one isn't bad—"
"Critic, just trust me one more time on this," ordered Roger while nudging his arm in his direction.
The Critic kept looking back and forth between Roger's face and his outstretched arm. After a minute, though, he let out an exasperated sigh and unclenched his fists.
"One chance. Just one," he sternly told Roger, placing his hand on the arm, although he continued to glare at him in order to show that he really meant business.
Roger simply nodded at the unsaid threat before snapping his fingers, making them disappear once again in a haze of white light.
The next thing he knew, the Nostalgia Critic found himself and Roger in an unknown kitchen and dining room. Immediately looking around, the Critic noted the messy counter full of papers, a water filter, and a bowl of apples and oranges. He glanced over at the nearby window above the sink, although he could barely see anything outside due to how dark it was. However, it was nigh impossible to not hear the loud wind and rain battering out there. He would have believed that it was nighttime if it weren't for the fact that the clock near the fruit bowl said 4:36 PM.
"…Okay, where are we?" asked the Critic.
"We're in Oregon," answered Roger. "Home of two of your fans."
The Critic snaps his head towards him, blinking uncertainly.
"Fans? Why my fans' house?"
"Well, technically, they're not fans as of the present," Roger admitted. "They never even hear about you until the beginning of 2011."
"Why fans?" the Critic reiterated with a barely suppressed growl.
Going wide-eyed again, Roger held a hand up to quell his irritation.
"Isn't it obvious?" he squeaked. "Out of all the people that you touch in the world, the fans are the ones that are often affected the most. And they're fans! Of course that would mean you have a positive impact on their lives."
The Critic continued to stare at him with slight—but well-founded—skepticism, but he nodded at him nonetheless.
"Any reason why you're gonna show me these two?" he questioned.
Roger, surprisingly, just shrugged.
"Not really. We could've gone with any of your devoted followers," he told him. "I mean, we could have visited some of your more beloved ones, like that aunt_zelda woman, or miss emeriin—"
"No no no no no, I'm good," the Critic instantly protested after flinching at the very mention of those particular fans.
"So we're in agreement, then," Roger then stated with a big grin, clapping his hands together. "Follow me."
Roger began walking off to the dining portion of the room, where the Critic noticed that there were two archways leading to elsewhere in the house. While making the short trek to follow him, the Critic glanced to his right and found a calendar next to an old (and also cluttered) piano.
"March?" he whispered to himself in confusion.
"Yes, it's during this month that this one fan would've become a member of your website," confirmed Roger from the room he entered on the right.
His brow furrowed at that.
"'This one?' I thought you said this place has two of them in here," the Critic stated, running into what turned out to be the living room of the house.
"The younger one was the one that accidentally discovered you when she went to look up the world 'Nostalgia' on YouTube. She likes you, but she never obsesses over it. However, it's her older sister, the other one, that we're going to focus on here," Roger calmly clarified before gesturing to a brown loveseat next to the television set and a large shelf full of DVDs.
The Critic did as he asked and turned his gaze in that direction. Kneeling right next to the couch was a young woman, her face completely obscured by unbelievably long, dark hair. Her clothing was all black through and through—black leather boots, black slacks, black pea coat (the Critic wondered why the hell she was wearing a coat indoors), and one black mitten on her right hand, all of it making up one hell of a formal outfit. Meanwhile, her other, very pale-skinned hand was gently petting a fluffy black lump on the cushions.
"Okay, I bite. Who's she?"
"This," answered Roger, "is Naomi Hansen."
The Critic quirked an eyebrow.
"Don't you mean 'Nay-oh-mee?'"
"It's Nah-oh-mee. Say it the other way, and she won't be too cheerful to you," Roger lightly warned him.
"Yeah, 'cause she really screams rainbows and sunshine with that outfit," the Critic sarcastically commented.
"Actually, outside of the internet, she isn't an entirely happy person to begin with," Roger solemnly replied. "Right now, though, is an especially sad time for her."
It was then that the Critic caught movement from the black blob on the couch in the corner of his vision. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that said movement was actually the twitching of little pointed ears. A second later, a pair of brilliant green cat eyes opened, only to seemingly glare at the person petting them. The pet's mouth opened slightly, but if it was trying to meow, the Critic couldn't hear anything coming out of its throat.
"Shh, it's okay, Momo. You're gonna be okay," Naomi cooed with a soothing tone.
Naomi took the time to move her thick hair away from her face. Instead of getting an equally calm expression, however, they were given the sight of a slightly gaunt countenance wearing a forced smile. She began threading her fingers through Momo's fur again, and the Critic was certain that something seemed off with the look in her dark brown eyes that had nothing to do with the bags under them…
"So, any reason why we're wasting time just watching this chick petting a damn cat?" asked the Critic a moment later, although he found that he was actually a bit uncomfortable with saying the question.
Roger blinked at him and let a breath out of his nostrils.
"Critic…"
"Hun, it's time."
Naomi's hand paused in the stroking motions and she glanced up to find an older woman—probably her mother—appearing from the hallway near the front door. The fake smile was wiped clean, and her eyes appeared to freeze in what the Critic was now beginning to believe was something along the lines of panic or desperation.
"Naomi isn't a very trusting girl," Roger explained. "She learned early on in middle school that there was pretty much no chance that anybody would share the same interests as herself. Couple that with her issues of being anything close to outgoing and you've got a person who has problems with making friends."
"How is that supposed-?"
A sharp breath was let out by Naomi, effectively ending the Critic's prodding. Turning his attention back to the scene in front of him, he watched the young woman make gentle but quick work of scooping up the oddly docile cat and putting it into a bundle of blankets in the mother's arms. Looking closer at the feline, he couldn't help but see that even with its fluff for fur, the cat was very thin.
"Wait," Naomi suddenly piped up. The simple crack in her voice made the Critic involuntarily cringe at the sound of it, and his throat suddenly felt hard to breath through. Luckily for him, she said nothing else before running down the hallway that the mother had recently come from.
"That cat of her's has cancer, and Naomi's made the difficult decision to put her down," continued Roger. "Unfortunately, little Momo there is also what Naomi considers to be the closest thing to a real friend that she has. Her pet was somebody she could talk to without any fears of rejection, and now she's going to lose that."
Before the Critic could make any sort of comment, Naomi came rushing right back into the living room, now with a digital camera in hand. He tensed when, as she was passing his invisible self, he spotted her eyeballs with a glazed effect over them.
"Hold her still, please," whispered Naomi, her voice now trembling perceptibly while doing her best to hold the lens of the camera towards the sick cat in front of her. With the piercing gaze she directed at Momo and how her lips were tightly pinched together, the concentration that she was trying to obtain with her task, despite her obvious distress under the mask, was pretty clear.
But it was then that Momo, who had appeared to be sleeping again before that, seemed to decide to poke her head out of the blanket, squint at her owner, and let out one of the most pitiful meows the Critic had probably ever heard.
That one little act, and the Critic was forced to watch as Naomi became undone right before him.
"Honey," the mother started to tell her.
"Forget it! J-Just go already," Naomi choked out before falling into sporadic, gagging sobs. Even though her face was again hidden behind her hair, the Critic didn't have a hard time imaging the waterworks going on.
The mother, getting teary-eyed herself, did as Naomi said and headed to the front door, leaving Naomi to collapse onto the floor, her entire body being rocked by her pained wails.
"Okay, that's it!" screamed the Critic furiously. "I don't know what you're pulling, but if you're trying to blame me for that cat's cancer-!"
"That's not the point of this," Roger bravely cut him off.
"Well then, tell me. What the fuck does this gotta do with me?" he pointedly questioned while striking Roger with a fiery glare, pointing accusingly at the wrecked fan.
"It has much more to do with you than you would believe, Nostalgia Critic. You see, after this occurs—" Roger gestures to Naomi, still on the ground crying (the Critic couldn't imagine how she wasn't getting tangled in the hair that was now all over the place) "—Naomi tries to take solace by going onto the internet and looking for anything that could make her feel good again. You know what it is that makes her laugh that day?"
The Critic wasn't a complete imbecile, no matter what anyone believed—it clicked for him the moment Roger asked him the question, but he still shook his head just in case.
"It's your future review of The Neverending Story III," Roger told the Critic, a grin forming on his lips. "After she watches it on YouTube, her spirits are immediately lifted. She relearns the fact that even after the death of a loved one, she has a resilience to her spirit that's strong enough to let her bounce back, that there is a time after the sorrow where she can freely laugh and smile again. After watching that review, Naomi is almost completely back to normal.
"And you," he kept going, now pointing directly at the Critic, "are the main cause of her rebound. In fact, she becomes so grateful for you for helping her in her time of need that she finally goes over to your actual website to see the rest of your videos, and on the very next day, on March 23, soon-to-be seventeen-year-old Naomi Hansen makes herself an official member of That Guy With The Glasses."
At that, the Nostalgia Critic could only find it in himself to try gulping with a dry throat, the odd tightness from it moving instead to his chest.
"And it turns out that's not the only time you help her out."
Before the Critic could really even register what Roger said, he had a foreign hand planted onto his forehead—
Naomi was in a crowded classroom, possibly an English class based on one of the walls filled with bookshelves. Everyone was in groups, critiquing each other's works. It was clear that out of all the people in Naomi's group, she was the only one that actually had any idea of how to correctly edit her classmates' essays. Her expression was blank, except for the hardness in her eyes that formed when she was given a paper that was so illegible that there was no way it could be considered English in any form—
She was sitting in a hallway, quietly eating a ham sandwich. Technically, she wasn't alone—the two people that were closest to being considered her good friends were there also, but they were too busy animately chatting with a few other people that she only vaguely recognized. Naomi was used to this happing half the time, so it was easy to ignore. At least, that's what she appeared to tell herself—
Then there was a science class. Naomi was in what the Critic was learning was her usual "stoic state" while trying to pay attention to the teacher's lecture on the discovery of DNA, even though the obnoxious boys she was sitting at a table with were incessantly trying to flirt with her. It was amazing that the pencil that she had in her hands didn't snap from how much pressure she was putting on it—
It was back at Naomi's house after that, and both of her parents (the father was surprisingly dark-skinned for having such a pale daughter) were making their disappointment in her grades well-known to her. (Looking at the grades, though, the Critic couldn't understand why they were mad at her getting a B- in two of her classes.) Even then, she kept a calm exterior, but her gaze was misty, like she was paying attention to everything except for what was right in front of her—
The hand was removed from the Critic's head, and the visions ceased.
His mind, understandably, was reeling, to say the least. He blinked repeatedly and gently shook his head to clear his mind. It took him a while, but eventually, he was able to put his thoughts back together in a vaguely coherent form.
Roger seemed to know when the Critic was alert again also.
"Naomi's still a teenager, and you know how hard it is for them to keep everything together at that age. Sure, as you saw, she's usually pretty good with keeping her emotions intact and regulated—she's certainly more mature than most of her peers.
"But she's not your human's Wonder Woman. Naomi gets stressed all the time. She's just better at hiding it. She would drive herself nuts if she didn't find a way to cope for the long term, if not forget. You, Critic, become one of the main outlets for her. You become her escape from the world, where she can just let go for thirty minutes—or more—of her time and laugh at the movies you review that make up stories worse than she does.
"You also indirectly give her something to adore in place of her cat."
"What do you mea-?"
Next thing he knew, the hand was back on his forehead.
"Wait-!"
It was now summer, the Critic figured, mostly due to the sunlight shining down on the dining room and the fact that Naomi was now wearing a black t-shirt and blue capris. She was at a large desk in the corner of the room, wearing one of those crappy Apple earphones and watching some kind of special on the website. Seeing the title card on the video, it was clear that it was supposed to be the third year anniversary video, Suburban Knights. Naomi laughed at the antics of the Critic and many of the other contributors on the episode, some of whom the Critic vaguely recognized due to only hiring them recently.
What he didn't expect to see, though, was her reaction when Film Brain popped up. Or, more accurately, when Film Brain got snubbed by the Nostalgia Critic in favor of Luke Mochrie.
Naomi was still howling, but she now had her mouth covered by her hands, and she was looking back and forth uncertainly around her, as if feeling guilty for doing so.
"Oh my God," Naomi said between fits of laughter, although it was muffled. "I don't know who you are, kid, but I feel so sorry for you now."
Before the end of the scene, though, she seemed to get over her pity, which seemed to be replaced with what the Critic recognized as a smirk. One that he liked to call a "fangirl" smirk.
"Ah, but don't worry Film Brain," she cheerfully whispered. "You and Luke will be boyfriends in no time."
The Critic came back to consciousness, and he had a faster time with recovering that time.
"Great, she's another one of those crazy slash fans," he grumbled.
"Hey, give her some credit. At least she usually acts 'sane' when it comes to her pairings," Roger tried telling him in order to show some kind of comfort, but it went in vain.
"Yeah, sure, 'sane' indeed…"
"Don't forget, though: It makes her happy," Roger reminded the Critic. "But seeing that doesn't just give her a new slash pairing to adore: After seeing the entire special, she begins branching out to a lot of your other contributors, and she ends up loving them also. It gets her curious about things she didn't know much about before then, like gaming and exploitation films, and it turns out to be very enlightening for her to be exposed to all of these new ideas that they end up showing her. You can imagine that, for someone who's in love with knowledge as much as Naomi is, it gives her pure joy to have that available to her. And it all comes back to you. If it weren't for your existence, Naomi would've probably never had that kind of chance."
This time, the Critic couldn't deny the water building up in his own eyes, or the strange warmth tingling in his entire body that Roger's words had given him. The Critic had known before then—whether it was the real truth or just his ego talking—that he was an important figure to the world. To realize the real impact that fact made on others, to see what it really meant, though, was nothing the Critic had imagined in the slightest compared to what he was feeling now.
"And just think."
The Critic, snapping back to Earth, looked back at Roger, who had a kind smile directed at him.
"This is only one fan," he stated. "Imagine how many people you might've touched—all over the world—in the same way."
The room went dead silent. (Even the sobbing of the alternate-Naomi went faint to the ears.)
The Critic wasted no time in grabbing Roger's arm again.
"Take me back! I have fans to cheer up and have worship me!" he triumphantly told him with high amounts of glee.
"Yes! I'm finally gonna graduate and get my wings," Roger happily said to himself, although the Critic didn't catch it.
With that, Roger nodded with vigor, and eagerly snapped his finger. With a flash of bright light, they made their way back to the present.