Chapter Text
When James started streaming, he was fully prepared for the hate – hell, he was even expecting it. He’d seen some of his favourite streamers get bashed for the slightest misstep, as if people had been waiting to obliterate them. Content creation was subjective and there were always going to be people that simply couldn’t be satisfied, no matter what. But James had always tried to keep his content… free of drama, almost. Some would probably call it family friendly, especially his on YouTube — hey, he just liked to keep his videos swearing-free. But he was also making sure he didn’t do any fuck up on stream, so people couldn’t actually cancel him for the dumbest thing.
These days, some people even considered him to be the golden boy – which alright, some people could find annoying, but James couldn’t help it that he was that good. He knew what he was doing — he knew how to appeal the algorithm and what content to put out. He was good at what he was doing; was that such a crime?
Point being, James understood that there was going to be hate. Just not like this.
The clip of it randomly appeared on his for you page, while he scrolled through all the clips and edits he was tagged in (couldn’t a man simply enjoy thirst traps of himself?), liking and reposting. And then he saw it. Saw him.
Well, not really. James could only hear a voice.
It was a clip of a stream that didn’t even have a face cam, not even a VTuber, or a PNG model, just a simple, black background with constellations. And then there was that voice – sharp and cold, choosing his words deliberately.
“You see,” said the voice, clicking his tongue, “I truly don’t understand what people see in him. The content is bland, average – people always tell you that when you’re creating content, you have to put out something new, something exciting, so people even notice you. Especially on such big platforms like Twitch and YouTube. That bloke…” the voice paused for a moment. “What’s his name? Ah, Prongs… Prongsboy. God, what a stupid fucking name. Yeah, I’m not calling him that. Idiot suits him better. So, this idiot simply screams during games and annoys people outside with his IRL streams. Truly stupid, if you ask me.”
The voice kept on rambling about how average James’ content was, how annoying he was, and how idiotic he was. And, as embarrassing as it was, James was downright enchanted. The tone, the pronunciation of the words, the accent… it was so captivating that he wasn’t even too mad that he couldn’t see the voice’s face.
James opened the comments, smiling to himself when he recognised some of his fans, defending him, but that wasn’t what he was looking for – he needed to find the Twitch channel of that person. It wasn’t a need, it was a must.
Obviously, someone commented the voice’s Twitch username, so others could block him, or whatever – Étoilé. Of course, the voice that was complaining about everyone and their mother was fucking French.
James rushed to look up his Twitch channel, blinking in surprise. Étoilé had a much bigger following than he’d expected. The follower count said 141k, and his last stream had almost 51k views. Which… was really fucking good. Curious, he started to scroll through, looking at the categories he streamed. For a moment, James believed that Twitch was glitching, or maybe his phone froze, because there were only two categories: just chatting and chess. Nothing more, nothing less. And in Étoilé’s about section was just a simple description: commentary streams. I hate everyone and everything. he/him
Well, considering that he had an entire rant about how much he hated James, it was understandable. James wasn’t even surprised.
James scrolled through the clips section, watching short videos of Étoilé, complaining and hating on pretty much everything and everyone, commenting on the news within the content creation – either it was someone saying a slur, being genuinely awful, or just a petty drama between two, or more creators. Étoilé had it all.
And while James had never found too many reasons to put out this much hate on the internet, he… respected the dedication. He supposed.
Just as he was about to click out of the app, Étoilé started his stream. And James knew that it would’ve been better to just leave, perhaps even block him, but, instead, he found himself clicking on the stream, sitting down on his bed.
The screen was similar to the one he’d seen in the clips, but this time it said starting soon, while music was quietly playing in the background. James gnawed on his lower lip, almost on instinct – what was he even doing? Watching someone who clearly hated him? Well, hated everyone, honestly.
After a moment, the screen switched to the one with constellations and the backgrounded music got turned down. And then, finally, Étoilé spoke up, “Good evening, everyone,” he said, “or morning, or afternoon. I don’t know,” he added with a sigh.
Chat was already saying ‘hi’ back and sending emotes. People were already subscribing, or sending donations, and Étoilé sighed, “I swear, you’re impossible, all of you. We’ve barely even started.”
Étoilé hummed softly, before thanking all the donations, subs, and new followers — his voice was melodic, and James found himself getting more comfortable and burying himself under the covers of his bed.
“Right,” said Étoilé, clapping his hands, “you were asking me to… well, more like demanding me to react more of that idiot,” he mumbled, a genuine disgust lacing his words. “Apparently, someone shared it on TikTok, so, if there are some of that bloke’s fans, I’m asking you to get the fuck out. You’re not welcome here. This is not a safe space, actually.”
James couldn’t help, but chuckle — despite the harsh words and cold tone, the man was absolutely captivating. Maybe it was a bit embarrassing, just how easy it was to get lost in those melodic words, even when they were just insults aimed at him.
“Why are you talking about him if you don’t like him?” read Étoilé in the chat, before clicking his tongue; he sounded genuinely done. It wasn’t the only message like that, but most of them were promptly deleted by mods. “Honest to God question: are you blind and deaf? At the beginning of the stream, I said that this wasn’t a safe space for his fans. And, second of all, in my bio it literally says that I’m a commentary streamer and that I hate everyone. Is it so hard to understand?”
Étoilé sighed, staying quiet for a brief moment, before speaking up again, “What the fuck do you mean that he is here? There’s no fucking way. Chat, you’re not funny and you know it, so unkindly, stop.”
James sat up as the realisation hit him in full force — he’d completely forgot about this. Everyone could actually see his fucking username in the list of the people that were currently watching the stream. Somehow, in between those 4k people, they actually spotted him.
Now, the wisest decision was to leave the stream, before Étoilé actually checked it out for himself, but instead, James was already clicking on the follow button, watching as his name appeared on the screen.
Prongsboy just followed you!
“You’re taking the piss,” groaned Étoilé. A sound of a creaking chair sounded in the background, and James could only use his imagination to see what was happening — Étoilé probably slumped in his chair, exasperated. Silence stretched for a second, then two, until it turned into a whole minute. James wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
“Why are you here?” asked Étoilé in the end. “Answer before I block you.”
Oh I just wanted to stop by. I saw you on my fyp, James typed in, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
Étoilé groaned again. “And this is why I stated multiple times not to share clips on TikTok, chat. Repeat after me. Don’t—” a clap “—share—” another clap “—clips—” the last clap sounded, before another moment of silence settled. “We have a salty streamer in the chat, great.”
I’m not salty, typed James, I found it funny, honestly. I appreciate your dedication to hate
“You found it funny,” repeated Étoilé.
Yes. You’re funny
Étoilé sighed, “You’re an absolute maniac, you idiot. I’m insulting you, or are you far too daft to understand what I’m even talking about? That honestly could honestly be the main issue here,” he huffed.
I hear you. And I understand you. Loud and clear, love
“Call me that one more time, and you’ll get doxxed on your next stream,” snarled Étoilé.
And James laughed—bright and happy and honest—because who was so quick to threaten someone with doxxing? Étoilé didn’t even seem to think about it, as if it was a natural response to absolutely despise everything around him. Despite that, there James was, giggling like a school girl.
Am I getting banned?
Étoilé was quiet for a long moment, only clicks of a mouse could be heard in the background. The only two moderators in the chat were asking what the next step was going to be — James imagined them hovering their cursors over his name, waiting for the signal. But it never came.
Instead, Étoilé sighed, “Leave him here,” he said, “might as well use a punching bag. Oi, idiot? Just tell your fans that you’re actively choosing this, yeah? This is all safe, sane, and consensual, or whatever.”
You just threatened to dox me on my next stream idk how much of this is sane, typed James, even as he was grinning to himself. You don’t seem that sane to me
“I reckon I should’ve been clearer,” mumbled Étoilé, clearing his throat. It sounded, as if he was leaning forward, closer to his microphone — his voice was louder now, when he spoke up again, “You’re allowed to watch, and that’s it. I better not see any stupid comments. And quite frankly, I’m not interested in reading any of your idiotic quips that I didn’t even ask for.”
James only blinked slowly at the screen of his phone, a small chuckle escaping his throat. This man hated absolutely everyone, or so it seemed. Again, he respected the dedication, because it almost seemed like the man lived purely off of spite and hatred — well, to each their own, eh?
And so, James simply set his phone next to him on the bed, listening to the melodic voice, laced with venom and bitterness. Étoilé soon changed the subject, talking about all the drama surrounding the content creation that’d been happening — either it was about creators taking suspicious sponsorships, someone dropping a slur they couldn’t even reclaim on their streams, or the never-ending double standards of the platforms.
Safe to say, not a single kind word was said — apparently, Étoilé had never been taught to stay quiet if he had nothing nice to say.
“Alright, chat,” murmured Étoilé, “I reckon that’ll be it for the day. Thank you all for the subs and donations and all the new followers. I appreciate all of you.”
Oh. So Étoilé did know how to say nice things.
Despite that, James found himself grimacing at those words — it was such a stark contrast to the harsh words and the venom. Now, Étoilé almost sounded… well, soft. He was keeping his voice low, as he thanked people in the chat; it even seemed like he recognised the vast majority, too.
“I’m going to host Bee, now,” continued Regulus, tapping something on his keyboard, “so you can go and be little freaks in his chat. I know you want to,” he added with a huff. “Okay, bye.”
With that, the stream ended, and James was already getting re-directed to a different one. He closed the app before the screen could even load, and for a minute he only lay there, staring at the ceiling.
In all honesty, when James started streaming, he prepared himself for the hate that was going to come up. Either it was about his content, his race, or whatever the fuck people were coming up with these days — James was ready for it. What he didn’t take into consideration, though, was the fact one of his most dedicated haters was also… funny. In his own deadpan way. And at the same time, James couldn’t even bring himself to take it personally. Étoilé seemingly had a problem with absolutely everything — really, the bloke seemingly only knew how to be bitter about things.
Point being, James knew he was going to tune in for the next stream.
James sat behind his streaming set-up, watching the starting soon screen — he’d always liked those moments before streaming. It gave him a little moment to collect his scattered thoughts, to bring himself into the moment. He was about to be on camera once again, so he could do something he genuinely loved.
All James had to do was to slip into that specific persona that people had created for him: loud, annoying, energetic, could do no wrong. He had a clean slate, after all. The online persona definitely paid off.
“Hello, everyone. Good evening, or afternoon, or morning,” said James, turning on his camera. He smiled brightly, waving at the people behind the screens. Yes, happy-go-lucky was all he needed to be — a lovable idiot, in a way. Everyone’s comfort streamer.
James tapped his fingers on the desk, pursing his lips, as he read the chat. Immediately, he noticed a few people asking about Étoilé — of course, the update account on Twitter was, well, a little bit concerned. The rest of his fans wasn’t doing any better. “Oh, right. That bloke,” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ah, before you all freak out—because I know how you can get—it’s fine, I promise. I think he’s hilarious, honestly. Like, how can anyone hate people so much, y’know? I don’t really take it personally, he’s bitter about everything.”
And even though, James was trying his hardest to reassure the viewers that it was alright, some chatters took it upon themselves to plan an entire defence squad for him. God, and here James thought that people left that shit in 2016. Apparently, he was sorely mistaken.
“Chat. Chat, please,” said James, trying to keep his voice even, “I don’t need protection. Last time I checked, I was a grown man. Someone, please, clip this and post it everywhere, just so people, who aren’t here can see this. Don’t send hate to Étoilé. I’m not pressed about it. Honestly? I don’t fucking care. I follow him now on Twitch, it’s alright.”
James fought the urge to groan and to cuss out his entire audience. Now, he definitely appreciated his audience — at the end of the day, their support was what allowed him to do what he loved — but sometimes they got so… overprotective of him. As if James wasn’t in his mid-twenties and didn’t know how to protect himself on the internet. Some days, it seemed like they only saw sunshine and rainbows while looking at James. (Well, either that, or some… extremely dominant… something. That was a can of worms he didn’t want to open, ever.)
And maybe it was James’ fault — he was the one playing into the role of the sun for way too long, after all.
James cleared his throat, “Anyway. Today’s agenda, yeah? We’re gonna keep playing the hardcore world we’ve started, and then I’m playing Valo with Marls and Pete. We were supposed to play sooner, but Marls has a date, or something like that,” he added, rolling his eyes fondly, “but we’re definitely getting to diamond tonight, I assure you,” he laughed.
Yes, this was exactly how it was supposed to be — talking to chat, joking around, making light-hearted jabs at those around him. That was how people knew him. How people wanted him. And James could offer them exactly that.
Now, it wasn’t like it was a lie. No, James Potter was a shit liar, anyway, and he hated to pretend more than anything in the world. He simply… exaggerated some parts. The parts that people wanted to see and the things that made him into a comfort streamer. Because that was exactly what people came to him for — for comfort.
And James was here to deliver.
When Peter and Marlene joined the voice channel, James could feel the tension in his shoulders leaving — it was easier to keep up the energy like this. “Hey,” he said, adjusting the volume on Discord.
“My entire timeline is filled with you,” huffed Marlene instead of actually greeting anyone. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” mumbled James, his lip sticking out in a pout. “How dare you accuse me of such crimes?”
Peter’s laugh echoed through the headset. “You’re not gonna believe this,” he said, his voice filled with feign dramatics. “He’s got himself his first hater.”
“Finally!” exclaimed Marlene, clapping and wooing. Peter soon joined her, all while James was sitting there with a hand pressed against his chest, his mouth agape.
“I’m shocked,” gasped James, shaking his head. “My own friends, praying for my downfall. How dare you, both of you!”
“Nah, mate,” said Peter between chuckles. “You’ve just had it easy for way too long, you know? We’re suffering,” he added.
“Exactly. You’ve got that whole golden boy thing going on. The rest of us are in the trenches, y’know? So, you absolutely deserve to have at least one hater,” agreed Marlene. “Who is this hater, anyway?”
“A faceless streamer,” mumbled Peter, “with a French name, on top of everything. I’m thinking about blocking that word in your chat, James, it’d save me and the rest of the mods some time and energy.”
“People did care too much,” agreed James, keeping his voice light — the last thing he needed was to trend on Twitter for being ungrateful, “but I’ve told them that I’m totally fine, it’s not like I took it personally.”
“Honestly, James,” mused Marlene, “do you reckon you have a thing for people insulting you?”
James slowly blinked, looking directly into the lens of his camera. “Pardon?”
Marlene cackled, “You know, like, sexually?” she asked.
James could only stare in front of him, all while his chat was going absolutely wild — his poor mods, honestly, they were the true heroes. “Marls,” he said, clearing his throat, “this is a family friendly stream.”
“Well, I’ve never been a family friendly streamer. And I’m also streaming right now, so deal with it, golden bitch boy,” muttered Marlene — she was absolutely rolling her eyes at that point, James was sure of it.
Oh, this was going to be a long stream.
When Barty first discovered streaming, he wasn’t planning on doing it, because he wanted to be this big streamer (he did), or do some extremely big change within content creation (eh). No, he started to stream for one reason and one reason only: to absolutely piss off his father.
Honestly, it was a great idea. His father, a stuck-up responsible officer of the National Crime Agency, known across the country, who had a streamer for a son. It was both great and hilarious, in Barty’s humble opinion (there was nothing humble about it).
And the best part? It paid really fucking well. So well, actually, that Barty was able to actually move out. Sure, he didn’t have a big mansion, but he could stay far away from his father. Which, honestly, made it all so fucking worth it.
Barty could easily be independent, all without having to be bound to a boring nine to five, doing what he liked the most: talking and talking and talking. And people loved it — they listened to every word, clipped most of the moments from the stream, and praised him even on social media. What else could he possibly need?
“Chat, chat,” huffed Barty, his gaze flicking to the second monitor. “Ah, Étoilé blessed us with a raid, I see. Welcome, raiders, you don’t have to behave here.”
Barty immediately noticed a message from one of his mods in the chat, begging people to behave. He only smirked in response, looking back at the screen before him. “Right, raiders, we’re playing Until Dawn, since I haven’t had the time to play the remake, and I was just telling everyone that I am… disappointed? Almost? I mean, don’t get me wrong, the graphics are ten and out of ten, but I expected some changes in dialogues, honestly. This feels way too 2015, I’m actively dying on the inside. I might start dying on the outside, too — just for you, live on twitch dot tv.”
Barty leaned back in his chair, holding the controller tightly in his hands — the last thing he needed was to mess up quick time events, especially now. “I don’t know, chat, I’m not sure how to feel, honestly. I just hope we’re getting a sequel, because—” he cut himself off, his eyes flickering to a YouTube notification that lit up on his phone:
[Nave is live: get in here]
“Oh, we might be ending stream early tonight,” said Barty, a smirk tugging on his lips. He paused the game, watching messages flooding the chat — some of them were confused, but those were new followers, but most of the messages were essentially groaning and metaphorically rolling their eyes. Well, at least his mods didn’t have to keep the chat in check, any more.
“Oh, come on,” chuckled Barty, “we all know the drill at this point. And I bet most of you follow him, too! So, don’t blame me. Don’t even try that shit with me, we’re all on the same boat—” a pause “—I just might be slightly unhinged about it.”
Barty hummed softly, as he switched out from the game screen, eyeing himself on the screen of the monitor, before his gaze landed on the time. In all honesty, it was probably a good time to end the stream; he’d been streaming for way too long. Almost seven hours, his new record.
“Alright,” said Barty, clapping once, “I’ll see you probably tomorrow, and if not… well, I’ll appear on someone else’s stream. Or a video. That’s for me to know and for you to find out. See you!”
With that, Barty turned off the stream — checked again if he’d actually turned it off — before opening Nave’s stream, getting more comfortable on his chair. There was still only a starting soon screen, so he hadn’t missed anything.
He remembered finding this bloke almost a year ago, on a complete accident, too. It was one of those night, when the YouTube autoplay kept recommending him more and more videos, losing the initial plot completely. And somehow, Barty found himself watching taxidermy videos at three in the morning, all because this bloke had a nice voice and extremely hot hands. (Barty was a simple man, unfortunately.)
While he patiently waited for the stream to start, he scrolled through Twitter, snorting loudly, when he noticed that the update account had already tweeted about him being in Nave’s chat — cheeky, quick bastards.
“Hello, everyone,” said Nave, turning on his streaming screen, with a small PNG model in the right corner. A drawing of a cartoon frog, sitting comfortably on a lily pad. For someone doing taxidermy as his main content, Nave could be adorable.
Barty grabbed his phone, already opening up the donations section in the chat, clicking on it immediately to send out 25£, just to start lightly.
[2B donated 25£!]
“Oh my god,” groaned Nave. There was a thud in the background, and Barty wondered if he’d banged his fist, or his head against the table. “Not you again,” he muttered.
And Barty grinned at those words.
Quite frankly, he had absolutely no idea how this had even started. When he first started watching Nave, he lurked in the chat, simply letting the other man’s voice wash over him, while working on other things — apparently, the taxidermy videos weren’t enough, any more. Eventually, he’d started sending messages in the chat, every now and then.
But what changed everything was when Barty decided to subscribe to Nave. His username lit up on the screen, and for a moment, Nave stayed quiet — the silence stretched and stretched and finally, he said, “Fuck you.”
Barty still hadn’t figured out why he’d provoked such strong reaction in Nave, but he still hadn’t been banned, so he took it like a good sign.
always lovely to see you, dear Nave, Barty typed in the chat.
“You’re so bloody annoying,” huffed Nave, heaving a deep sigh. There was a moment of silence, before Nave clicked his tongue and spoke up again, “Anyway, for today’s stream… no, chat, I’m not doing taxidermy on stream, shut the fuck up.”
not even for a subgoal? Barty types, grinning to himself, when Nave huffed loudly. For someone, who claimed to absolutely hate Barty’s guts, he always noticed what he was typing in the chat.
“Not even for a subgoal,” mumbled Nave, clicking something on his keyboard, “but we’ll have to figure something out. We’re getting fucking close. You’re all fucking insane, I don’t even do anything interesting on my streams.”
Barty wanted to argue, almost immediately. The streams were captivating, no matter what Nave tried to tell them — many people tried to lean into the persona of a comfort streamer with this soft, positive energy, but Nave was doing a complete opposite. His voice was deadpan, he got aggressive with the chat, whenever they were being absolutely stupid (or unhinged, in Barty’s case), and he mainly talked about his future taxidermy projects.
In Barty’s opinion, Nave was the most enchanting creature on the internet. And, quite frankly, he was also Barty’s biggest parasocial crush out there. Was it sad? Was it pathetic? He didn’t even care — his entire audience was aware of this fact.
[2B donated 35£!]
tell us more about taxidermy
Nave scoffed, staying quiet for a long moment. “Do you really want to hear about it?”
Barty laughed quietly to himself. In all honesty, he was willing to listen to about anything that Nave had to talk about. He’d always been a sucker for a person with strong passion for something, no matter how weird it was — and Nave was one passionate motherfucker.
[2B donated 50£!]
yes
“Alright,” chuckled Nave, “so, what I do is a traditional skin-mount, which is incredibly basic, honestly. I love it, because it’s easy, and I got really good at it, but the first few attempts were… something,” he mumbled, sounding a little bashful. Barty smiled at the tone — how fucking cute. “Oh! Maybe I could show you my first attempts for the subgoal. How does that sound?”
The chat was immediately on board, spamming ‘yes’ and ‘do it’, Barty included.
“Fine, we have a subgoal, then,” said Nave, clicking something on the keyboard. Then, in the upper left corner appeared a simple text: subgoal: show old taxidermy photos. “Right, back to the taxidermy talk. Like I said, the type I do is really basic, but I really wanted to try a freeze-dried mount, which is used on reptiles and birds and small mammals. I think that one’s fucking cool.”
Barty leaned his cheek against the palm of his hand, looking at the screen in front of him. The only thing he could see was that small, stupid frog in the corner of the screen, moving anytime Nave talked, and yet, there he was. Fucking swooning.
Parasocial relationships were dangerous, and all that, but Barty had yet to find fucks to give about that whole ordeal.
“You can’t be serious.”
Barty looked up from his phone, stopping mid-step on his way to a small kitchen. Regulus was standing in the middle of the hallway, looking as unimpressed as ever. “What did I do this time?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
For a moment, they were both quiet, having a stare contest, instead of actually talking. One of the perks of knowing someone for majority of your life was reading each other’s minds, communicating with raised eyebrows, scrunched noses, and twitching lips. The worst part? Being constantly in each other’s brains. It got exhausting from time to time.
“What didn’t you do?” mumbled Regulus, rolling his eyes. “Bee, your parasocial crush is getting embarrassing. Stand the fuck up, mate.”
“And yet,” said Barty, walking up to Regulus, “you know exactly what was happening, so that means you were also in the chat.”
“I’m just a lurker,” replied Regulus, shrugging his shoulders, “and I’m making sure you don’t do something stupid. Like accidentally doxxing yourself.”
“You and I both know that I’m the one with higher IQ between the of us,” noted Barty, his lips curling up in a smile.
Regulus swatted at Barty’s shoulder. “You’re a genius, sure, but you’re also an obsessed idiot. Those things can co-exist. You’re the living proof of it, I fear,” he huffed, his expression twisting into a scowl. Barty idly thought about buying Regulus some anti-wrinkles cream, he was definitely going to need it. “People are quite intrigued by this dynamic you have with this bloke. What did you even do to make him this mad?”
“Nothing!” exclaimed Barty.
Regulus raised one unimpressed eyebrow.
“I promise you that I didn’t do shit,” huffed Barty, crossing his arms over his chest. “One day, I subscribed to him—Tier 2, mind you—and he suddenly got… like that. Hating me out of nowhere, for no reason.”
“That’s still hard to believe,” noted Regulus, passing by Barty to walk to the kitchen. Barty followed him, catching up with him almost immediately. “I mean, honestly, didn’t you just piss someone off? Someone was talking about it on Twitter, I’m pretty sure.”
Barty waved his hand dismissively. “That was different, though,” he mumbled, opening the fridge — empty, to no one’s surprise. “I did that on purpose. But I didn’t do anything to Nave!”
“Oh, I didn’t do anything to Nave, I’m innocent!” said Regulus, feigning dramatics. He even put one hand over his forehead, that twat.
“You’re such a fucking cunt,” huffed Barty, pulling out his phone from his pocket, opening up the food delivery app. “What do you wanna eat? We need to get groceries tomorrow.”
Regulus hopped on the counter top, swinging his legs from side so side, before shooting Barty a wide smirk. “Are you sure you still have enough money? I saw you sending quite a lot to your dear Nave.”
“Oh, please,” dragged out Barty, rolling his eyes. “At least I’m not the one constantly running my mouth about this poor streamer. You see, you usually only talk about someone once, unless they’re a shitty person, but this bloke? You seem quite fond of him.”
Regulus immediately ducked his head, biting on the inside of his cheek. “I’m going to smack you,” he hissed.
“Easy there, kitty,” chuckled Barty, taking a quick step back, when Regulus swatted at him. “So violent, honestly. Did I strike a nerve?”
“I want a new roommate,” muttered Regulus, shaking his head. “Just order the damn food, you massive prick.”
“It is quite massive,” agreed Barty, nodding his head solemnly.
“For that alone, you’ll be paying next time, too,” hissed Regulus.
“Hey!”
Lily had crafted her own type of content over the years. While most people looked at the sphere of daily vlogs and just chatting streams as something that was oversaturated, she’d always believed there was a way to change things, add a little bit of spice, almost. Because every content, in its own way, was oversaturated — gaming, skits, vlogs, arts and crafts… it was all about people, who were making this content.
And Lily did that.
She created her own way of making content to stand out in the midst of other creators, who were doing the exact same thing. People were drawn to her fierce personality that could be detected even through the screen. Her authenticity, too.
Over the course of years on YouTube, many people lost themselves to the content — Lily wasn’t any different, per se, but she found her way back. She started doing what she liked, instead of what the fans were craving. Because it was her content and her life she was essentially documenting through all these vlogs.
But, for the past few months, people started asking questions. No, no. Not even asking questions — they were demanding answers. It was easy to delete comments on her YouTube videos, or ask mods to delete the messages in the chat, but social media were full of it.
Did you call off the engagement with James?
Are you and James no longer dating?
Why aren’t you making videos with James any more?
All of a sudden, it seemed like her content had no value any more, if she was purely on her own, or simply with her girl friends. People, in a way, viewed her as a way to see more of James and James only. Her content wasn’t good enough, if there wasn’t a man they could thirst over, or ship her with.
That was all Lily was — a tool to see more of their favourite male streamer. They didn’t see her for her, because God forbid that a woman wanted to do something on her own. Wanted to create a content that didn’t involve other people, let alone men.
When Lily started making content, she wanted to create something she hadn’t seen before — authenticity. Quite frankly, she was getting sick of the perfect lives and overexaggerated personalities. Why couldn’t she be angry? Why couldn’t she be messy? Why couldn’t she be… imperfect?
Over the years, so many of her fans put her in one giant box that said ‘Miss perfect. James’ girlfriend’.
Lily couldn’t stand it any more. Because she was so much more, could do so much more. Lily Evans was her own fucking person with her own fucking life. But before she could do that, some things needed to be addressed.
Lily watched the starting soon screen, gnawing on her lower lip. She had an explicit permission to do this, but even then, she checked her phone again, just to re-read the message over and over. It was going to be fine, she knew that. (She was ignoring, though, for how long she’d sat in front of the streaming set-up, hesitating to click on the ‘go live’ button.)
“Hi,” murmured Lily, turning on her camera. She swallowed around the lump in her throat, smoothening out the non-existent wrinkles on her shirt — she did it a few times, just to give her brain something else to focus on, while her eyes were glued to the chat. Some of the messages were normal, just a casual ‘hi’ and ‘how are you?’, nothing out of ordinary.
But, of course, because Lily couldn’t catch a fucking break, some of the messages looked like this: is James joining you? we haven’t seen James in a while!
Yeah, neither had Lily.
“I really wanted to talk about something,” said Lily, tapping her fingers on the desk, “I already asked my mods to clip this, so I can post it on my Twitter, preferably my Instagram, too, since a lot of people stay away from Twitter — I don’t blame you,” she quipped, licking her dry lips. “Uh, a lot of you have probably noticed that James and I stopped… making content together.”
Lily shifted her gaze towards the second monitor, watching chat, trying to gauge the energy — it seemed like a lot of people were about to guess where this was going. She also noticed that a few messages got deleted. Bless her mods, honestly.
Finally, she looked back in front of her. “James and I are no longer together,” she said, her throat clicking loudly, when she swallowed.
There was this very funny thing about being a content creator. People were sometimes much more opinionated and pressed about issues than the creator themself. Truly, it was the funniest thing — fans were getting attached to old flats and houses, where creators grew up, or got incredibly upset, when creators eventually stopped making some type of videos. And, of course, it also involved relationships.
No one—not a single person—seemed to care that Lily just… didn’t care that much. That she wasn’t upset. That she wasn’t crying. None of it mattered, because for them, Lily was just an actor. An extension. A tool. She couldn’t possibly be a real human, right? She couldn’t possibly be allowed to feel, or not to feel certain way.
Lily was supposed to follow the script. But she wasn’t. Because she wasn’t bawling her eyes out, or trying to talk through sobs. No, instead, she continued talking, rather calmly, too, “We broke up on good terms, and we’re still friends. We just need to have some space for a bit — we were together for a while, so…” she trailed off, looking back at the second monitor.
It looked just like she’d expected — a lot of deleted messages, lots of heart emotes, and a lot of people being sad on Lily’s behalf. And, obviously, way too many people demanding to know why. Because, of course, they were entitled to every fucking detail of their lives.
That was one of the things that Lily didn’t take into consideration when she started making content online. The first one was just how many people were going to ask her to make an OF. The second was just how many people were going to recognise her in public (she’d never expected to get that big, alright?). And the last one was just how parasocial some people were, acting, as if Lily was their friend.
Lily appreciated them — she couldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for her fans. They were the ones actively paying her bills, of course, she was grateful, but many people seemed to push the line between them. In a way, they were probably hoping that somehow, some way, they were going to be friends with her.
While cute (to some extent), it was also incredibly creepy.
“I’m pretty sure that James will talk about it, sometimes soon, maybe on his Twitter,” added Lily, leaning back in her chair. She was trying not to look at the chat too often, because she knew she was going to see the same over and over again. Couldn’t anyone—just one person—say that it was alright? That it was no big deal?
Because it wasn’t. People broke up all the time, and rarely anyone cared.
“We broke up on good terms,” repeated Lily, trying to ease the inevitable storm, “we just realised we weren’t that compatible any more. People change, quite a lot, and we’ve been dating since we were eighteen. We have different goals and ideals for the future, you know? It’s not—it’s not like we’re never going to talk again. We just didn’t work as a couple. And that’s alright.”
Lily made a mental note of turning off notifications on every single social media platform, because the last thing she wanted to see was the shitstorm that was going to happen — or was already happening.
“I understand that you’re upset, or sad,” added Lily, biting the inside of her cheek. Why was she even consoling them? Again, this wasn’t the end of the world. “I’ll keep making content like always, so don’t worry about it. Ah! I actually have a few vlogs planned — Marlene, Mary, and I are planning to go to Denmark, so I was thinking about making some content there.”
Change the subject. Deflect a situation. Give them something else. Distract them.
“I think it could be a lot of fun,” continued Lily, picking at the skin around her nails. “We haven’t had the chance to go anywhere for such a long time, since Marls had that whole subathon going on. Oh, and tickets are really cheap these days.”
The chat was even worse, somehow. Some chatters were desperately trying to calm down the situation, but they were doing the exact opposite. Then, of course, there were people, who were still demanding more information on the break-up, as if it was a reality show. And between those two categories of people, Lily found a few chatters that were genuinely interested in the trip, wanting to see more content of the trio.
Alright, so calmly explaining the situation wasn’t good enough.
“I feel like these days,” began Lily, taking in a deep breath, as she met the lenses of the camera head-on, “you guys see me only as James’ girlfriend. Well, now, I’ll be known as his ex-girlfriend. But I’ve done content without him before — my channels weren’t created to show my relationship with James, it’s never been about that. No. My channels were about me. And my life. Sure, James was part of it, but he isn’t any more. And that’s alright.”
Lily could already sense the tweets and posts and videos that were going to be done on this situation. Some were going to accuse Lily of using poor James for the fame, only to throw him aside a few months after their engagement, some were going to defend her, and some people were going to be desperately out of loop.
“And, honestly,” added Lily, letting out a dry chuckle, “we don’t really owe you an explanation. I could’ve left it at ‘we broke up’, but I reckon I wanted to give you a little bit more. Because the last thing I need are speculations about my person.”
Lily closed her eyes for a brief moment, trying to gather her thoughts. She couldn’t get too emotional right now — she really should’ve done a video, but she had so many exciting things planned for today’s stream! — because she last thing she needed was for something to get clipped out of context.
When she opened her eyes again, she noticed that her chat was set to emotes-only. How bad did it get, while she wasn’t looking? “I had more things to talk about on today’s stream, but we’ll leave it for Friday, alright, chat? It seems like we all need some time to process this,” she added, not even caring how done she sounded. She really was done with the whole situation, with all these parasocial fans.
Was Lily ungrateful for thinking that? She really didn’t know.
“Alright, bye, chat,” said Lily, waving at the camera, before turning off the stream. She slumped in her chair, letting out a loud groan.
For a long moment, Lily simply sat there, staring at nothing in particular. Perhaps, it was her own fault to put so much faith in her audience and to believe in their competence to be mature about a situation like this — now, she was aware of the fact that were a lot of kids watching her, but she expected the adults of the community to act, well, like adults.
Couldn’t Lily catch a fucking break?
When Lily finally dragged herself out of the room, she walked down the hallway, only to see Mary sitting in the living room of their shared flat. Immediately, Mary shot her a wry smile, patting an empty spot next to her on the sofa.
“Well, that was awful,” said Lily, sitting down. “Tell me why I expected people to act normal?”
Mary shrugged one shoulder. “You can’t have high hopes, dear, especially not when it comes to relationship between content creators,” she mumbled, pursing her lips. “Especially you and James. People thought of you as their internet parents. They feel like they’re children of divorce, or something like that.”
Lily dragged her hands across her face, not caring about how smudged her mascara was going to look — the last thing she had in mind was going anywhere tonight. “How bad is it?” she asked.
Mary grimaced, dodging Lily’s look. “Don’t worry about it, really. Uh, why don’t we talk about something else? Anything. I’m even willing to talk about weather, honestly.”
“Mary,” said Lily through gritted teeth, “how bad is it?”
With a sigh, Mary slumped her shoulders. “Really fucking bad. People are divided into two camps, even though, James had already posted on his Twitter,” she said, her eyebrows knitting together. She unlocked her phone with a quick precision, already handing it to Lily.
Carefully, as if it was going to burn her, Lily took the phone, looking at the screen. James’ main Twitter account was looking right back at her, including the tweet on top of the screen.
James! @prongs_boy
Just like Lily has mentioned on her stream, we’re no longer together. BUT we’re still friends! We just need some time to process things and recover. I love Lily as a friend, and I hold her dear. I ask all of you to be respectful, as there is no bad blood between us. Love you all
“Process things and recover,” mocked Lily, almost throwing the phone back at Mary. “I’m not fucking recovering. He is!”
Mary only nodded, not speaking up — this wasn’t the time for observations, or logic. And Lily was simply happy that her best friend understood that.
“People were essentially demanding sadness from me! How fucked up is that?!” exclaimed Lily, as she started to pace around the living room. She brought one hand to her mouth, harshly biting on her nails. Fuck, she’d just painted them. “I don’t like James, any more. Not like that. Probably never liked him like that,” she added, harshly biting on the skin around her nails. That way, she was going to save at least some of the nail polish.
“Comphet, you said, right?” asked Mary, carefully choosing her words.
Lily took in a deep breath, trying to get at least somehow calm down the fire happening deep inside her. Well, it wasn’t even inside any more — it was quite frankly everywhere around her, burning down everything and everyone. Of course, only behind the closed doors, because she couldn’t afford to go off online.
“Yes, comphet,” mumbled Lily, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the coffee table. And there she hoped that she was going to quit smoking sometime soon. She opened the balcony door, stepping outside and letting the cold air soothe her. “Where’s Marlene?” she asked, after a moment.
Mary swiftly joined on her, snatching the pack from her hand. She put one cigarette between her lips, letting it rest there for a moment, before lighting it up. “In her room. She told me she was going to block all the variants of James’ name. No one is getting past her,” she chuckled.
Lily laughed, shaking her head fondly. Not only had Marlene been her oldest friend, she was also her very first mod, when she started streaming, too. At that time, Marlene had been streaming for almost two years, navigating through the horrors of live broadcasts. So, of course, she was ready for all the variants of the name.
“It’s gonna be alright,” said Mary, blowing smoke above her, watching it slowly disappear. “People will calm down eventually, and if not… well, it’s always nice to get some new fans, eh? Think of it as a cleanse.”
“A cleanse?” asked Lily, tilting her head.
“Yeah!” said Mary, nodding her head. “Sometimes, there’s a need for follower cleanse, especially after things like these. Those, who don’t stay, have never been here for you, anyway. So, who cares about them?” she asked, shrugging one shoulder.
“My bills,” deadpanned Lily, rolling her eyes.
“You don’t live alone, though,” pointed out Mary with a smile. “You’ll be just fine, Miss Evans, because we’ve lived through worse.”
“And there will be worse,” added Lily.
“That’s one way to put it,” mumbled Mary, sighing. She put out the cigarette in a small ashtray, before Lily did the same. “Point being, you can do this. We’ll be deleting messages and comments and banning people left and right. I assure you, you’ll be fine. No more stupid men in your life, yeah?”
Lily smiled, bright and happy, nodding her head. “Alright, I believe you.”