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dreamerstreamer · 3 years

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Slip Up

Pairing: Dream / Clay x f!reader

Summary: One literal slip up leads to another and, well—it isn’t pretty.

Warning: includes depictions of anxiety as a result of exposure

Word Count: 5.0k

A/N: requested by an anon who wanted something about a secret relationship! i hope you enjoy! on a more serious note though, don’t harass your creators and the people they care about. seriously, don’t.

With one last click, Clay let out a sigh, grabbing his headphones and setting them down on his desk. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the still clip on his monitor with a hint of a frown tugging at his lips.

After two long hours, he was officially tired of listening to George’s screams ringing through his ears. Sure, they were funny in the heat of the moment when he was recording, but having to listen to the same screams on loop while editing?

He shivered.

No thanks. He needed a break.

Grabbing his phone, he pushed open the door to his studio and headed for the stairs. I wonder where [Y/N] is, he thought to himself as he climbed the basement stairs two at a time. It’s been a while since I last caught a glimpse of her.

Surfacing on the first floor, he stuck his head into the living room, glancing around for a brief moment only to deduce that you weren’t there. With a huff, he spun on his heel. If she’s not there, he thought, his strides confident and full of purpose, then she’s definitely in—

He stepped into the kitchen, his gaze landing on your figure half-tucked behind the open fridge door almost instantaneously. He smiled. Bingo.

Slowly, he crept forward, slipping around the kitchen island to silently walk up to you. Before you even noticed he was there, he leaned down next to your ear and whispered.

“Boo.”

Letting out a sharp yell, you whirled, your wide eyes practically drowning in the amusement filling Clay’s emerald gaze as he let out a long wheezing laugh. “Clay!” you gasped, holding a hand over your heart. “You scared me, oh my god.”

His wheezing only grew louder in volume as he slapped his knee, still cackling at your distraught expression. Puffing your cheeks in a pout, you turned your back to him, staring back into the fridge. “Meanie.”

Struggling to regain his breath, Clay leaned in to wrap his arms around your waist in a hug from behind. You could feel his chest shaking against your back with laughter, beginning to slowly die down with each passing second. A moment later, he dipped his head down to press a kiss to your cheek. “Sorry,” he hummed. “I just thought it’d be funny to make you jump.” His eyes glinted with mischief. “I was right. It was.”

“Not for me,” you grumbled, and he let out the tiniest of wheezes next to your ear.

“Alright, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, kissing your neck. “How are you doing? I haven’t seen you all morning.”

You relaxed into his warm touch, melting into the feeling of his soft lips on your skin. Sending him a tired smile, you closed the fridge door and focused your attention onto him. “I’m alright, but I’m feeling kind of tired,” you admitted. “You get kind of sick of working on an assignment after the third, you know?”

He snuggled closer to you, smiling into your neck. “Well, I mean, I wouldn’t know, but I understand your point.”

You rolled your eyes at him, leaning back into his figure. “Right, I forgot that you didn’t go to college, Mr. Streamer.”

Clay laughed at your words. “You’re just that much smarter than me, then.” He poked at your cheek affectionately. as he cooed, “Look at you, my super smart college student girlfriend.”

You turned in his arms to face him, frowning at him. “Clay, you say that like you aren’t considered to be one of the best, if not the best Minecraft player in the world. Give yourself some more credit.”

He brushed a stray hair away from your face, his gaze fond as he held you a little closer. “Okay, but only because you told me to.”

You snorted, sinking deeper into his arms. “If your followers could see you now, I’m sure they’d be spamming ‘simp’ in chat.”

He chuckled. “They already do that whenever I hang out with George—I can’t even imagine to what extent it would increase if they knew about you.”

You offered him a smile, but it felt forced. The question had been swirling in the back of your mind for a little while now, and it was just sitting on the tip of your tongue, now. You had to ask now, or it would devour you alive.

“Hey, um, Clay,” you said, your tone shifting as you fidgeted slightly in his embrace. “Do you—do you think we’ll ever tell people and your fans about, well—” You gestured to the space between the two of you. “—about us?”

He paused for a moment, then let out a soft breath. “I want to,” he said. “Oh man, you don’t know just how badly I want to share you with the whole world and show them you’re mine.” You felt your cheeks grow warm, your lips instinctively curling up at his words.

“But I don’t think they’re ready for that just yet,” he added in a wistful tone. He pulled back, sending you a crooked smile. “How about we cross that bridge when we get there? I know that when we do get around to it, they’re gonna love you as much as I do, I promise.”

You bobbed your head, feeling the anxiety in your gut disintegrate. “Okay. Thanks, Clay.”

He reached up to ruffle your hair, cooing at the small whine you let out. “Anything for you.”

Knocking his hand off your head, you grinned at him. “On another note, what have you been up to? Instead of sleeping in late, of course, you lucky butt.”

He swayed back and forth, bringing you along with him. “I spent a lot of time editing some videos that are still in the works. I’m gonna be streaming for a few hours in a bit, though. If you need anything, you know where you can find me.” He grabbed your hand in his, fiddling with your fingers with a slight squeeze. “Are you still gonna be working on your assignment later, or will I be allowed to bother you?”

Your mouth twitched at his pouty tone, and you squeezed his hand back. “I actually might go out to the grocery store. Patches’s cat food is on sale, so I might stock up on that, and I kind of wanted some snacks for studying. Was there anything you wanted while I was gone?”

He hummed, thinking for a moment. “Not really, to be honest.” Slipping his hand into yours, he began leading you to the front of the house. “Here, let me see you off.”

You felt your heart swell with love as he handed you your bag from where it hung on the coat rack while you laced up your shoes. Clay was always so attentive to you and your needs, never failing to make sure you had everything you needed at the drop of a hat. You were really too lucky to have him.

“Do you have your mask?” he asked when you stood up.

With a nod, you fished it out from your pocket, waving it in your hands. “Mhm.”

He smiled. “Awesome.” Opening his arms, he pulled you in for one last hug, inhaling the scent of your flowery shampoo before swinging the door open and watching you step outside, car keys in hand.

“I’ll be back soon!” you cried, waving to him from the driveway.

He waved back, leaning against the doorframe. “See you!” he called back. “Take care out there.”

“I will!”

His viridian gaze trailed after you and your car as you sped off down the road, knowing all too well exactly which radio station you had inevitably turned on. Well, no matter. He supposed it was time to stream, now. Locking the door behind him, Clay strode down to the basement, sliding into his desk chair with his hand on his mouse. Slipping his headphones over his head, he rolled his shoulders and opened up Twitch.

Taking one last deep breath, he grinned and pressed the ‘start streaming’ button.

“Hey, guys!”

You grunted as you pushed the front door open, sliding your shoes off as you heaved the last sack of cat food onto the ground with a loud thud.

And that’s all three. Finally.

Pushing the door closed using your foot, you placed your hands on your hood in determination.

Now, to get them downstairs.

You grimaced, glaring down at the offending bags. This was going to sooo much fun.

Some things never ceased to amaze you. Like how smart Clay was, even as dorky as he could be. Like how fast he blown up. Like how much you loved him.

And like how much cat food Patches managed to eat without getting fat.

Seriously, you thought to yourself with a grumble, how does she still look the same even though she goes through a whole bag of cat food in like... two weeks? It’s just not fair.

“I wish I had your metabolism,” you muttered, shooting a glare at the feline in question. “You suck.”

Patches was perched on the stair railings a few feet away from you, grooming her paws. The moment you spoke her name, she lifted her head to look at you, her ears flicking. You stared at each other for a few seconds before she let out a soft meow, jumping down to rub against your leg.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” you murmured to yourself, your heart swelling in your chest at the feeling of her nuzzling her small head against your calf. “I could never hate you. You’re too cute.”

You turned your attention back to the three sacks of cat food you now had in your possession. Patches’s domain mostly consisted of the basement, where you kept her toys and costumes. Consequently, that’s where the cat food was also stored, albeit out of sight so that Patches wouldn’t get any ideas. Like her owner, she had a penchant for mischief, but you loved them both anyways.

The main problem here was getting the cat food down the stairs.

I’m a strong independent woman, you thought to yourself with a small smile. Also, Clay is streaming, so I can’t ask him for help even if I wanted to. Bending over, you hoisted the first sack into your arms. That’s okay, though. A few stairs can’t stop me.

Taking a deep breath, you trudged toward the basement, carefully taking the stairs one step at a time down. The last thing you wanted was to trip while carrying the cat food of all things.

Unfortunately, it seemed that you jinxed yourself.

Everything went fine for the first two bags, each sack having safely made their way onto their proper spot on their designated cabinet shelf. Each time you tread down the stairs, you would take a quick peek over at Clay’s recording studio, smiling to see him amicably chatting with his viewers while completing another speedrun. With a smile on your face, you climbed the stairs once more to come face to face with your final obstacle.

You grinned despite your arms aching from having done so much heavy lifting. Last bag. Let’s go.

Rolling up your sleeves, you began the same process you had been running with for the past two trips: pick up the bag and head down the stairs, making sure to step carefully.

What you hadn’t accounted for, though, was Patches’s presence.

You were just about halfway down the stairs when Patches darted in front of you. With a soft yelp, you stepped back to avoid her, letting her bounce down the stairs ahead of you. A brief breath of relief escaped your lips, but it was short lived.

Just then, your sock’s grip on the floor gave out, and you felt gravity wrap a hand around your ankle.

Oh, crap.

A shout tore its way out of your throat as as you tumbled forward, landing on the ground with a resounding crash. Beside you, the bag of cat food smacked into the wall and landed with a loud crunch.

That can’t be good, you vaguely thought, your mind fogged up by a cloud of pain.

Just a few rooms over, Clay froze mid-stream, his mouse coming to a halt as his entire body went stiff. Without even thinking to mute himself, he tore his headphones off his head, your name flying from his lips in a flurry of worry as he rushed out the room.

“[Y/N]! [Y/N], are you okay?”

On the ground, you winced, pain shooting up your side as you pulled yourself forward. In an instant, Clay was on the ground by your side—one hand on the small of your back helping you sit up, the other brushing your hair away from your face.

“[Y/N],” he breathed, panic seeping into his face as his eyes scanned every inch of your face for harm, “are you good?” You nodded, but it did nothing to ease the worry in his expression. “Tell—tell me.” He held three fingers in front of your face. “How many fi—”

“Three,” you replied immediately. You offered a pained smile, stifling another wince as you did so.

He leaned in closer to your face, brushing his thumb over your cheek. “How badly are you hurt?”

You shifted your spine, trying to gauge the pain. The ache was dull at most, minimal at best. “Only a little.”

He pressed his forehead to yours, his breathing ragged. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

You let out a small sigh, sending him a reassuring smile. You appreciated his protectiveness, you really did, but sometimes he really did go the extra mile. “Clay,” you said softly, “I’m okay, really. I promise I’m okay. I just tripped and fell.” Then you glanced behind him, letting out a deeper sigh. “The cat food, on the other hand? Not so much.”

The bag must have ripped open when it fell, its own weight having collapsed on itself and tearing a hole right through the bottom. The individual pellets of cat food where strewn all across the floor, littering the ground like pebbles. And of course, Patches was already starting to nibble away. Pesky girl.

Clay stood up, reaching a hand out toward you. “Here, I’ll help you clean up.”

You took his hand, shaking your head as he pulled you to your feet. “No, no. You should get back to your stream.” Your brows knit together. “I interrupted it, didn’t it? Your followers will be waiting for you. You should go back.”

He shook his head, his expression resolute. “Contrary to popular belief, [Y/N],” he said, “you’re more important to me than just one stream. I’ll probably just end it when I’m done here, anyway.” He squeezed your hand, his gaze kind. “Let me help you. Please.”

With your heart fluttering in your chest, you squeezed it back.

“Okay.”

Clay grabbed the two of you a dustpan as you began to clean up the mess of cat food you had made on the floor. You whined about how you just wasted a sale by tripping down the stairs while he poked fun at your frustration, passing you Patches with the request of keeping her away from the food as he swept. In practically no time, you had nearly forgotten what had transpired at all, just happy to spend some time with your wonderful boyfriend next to you.

If only you knew just how much your little fall was going to blow up in your face.

You ran your tongue over your chapped lips, your gaze focused on your laptop screen as your mouse finally hit the submit button. Letting out a sigh, you finally let the stress seep out of your body as a small smile overtook your features.

Finally handed it in. Now, you didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

With a groan, you stretched your arms out above you, cracking your back. You’d been working away for a couple of hours now, but at long last, you were free for the weekend. Humming to yourself, you picked up your phone. You had set it to ‘do not disturb’ a while back, since it hadn’t stopped vibrating at one point. You hadn’t bothered to check why at the time, but you supposed you could spare some time for yourself before dinner.

Swiping your phone open, your thumb instinctively tapped on Twitter, a blue glow enveloping your screen before fading to dark. You hummed as you opened up the trending page, curiosity pawing at your backside. You had your bets on some trend going viral, but knowing the internet, it was probably some weird, random crap.

There were a handful of political memes topping the charts, as well as a #TGIF. You stifled a laugh as you scrolled a bit lower. Twitter sure was a weird place.

That was when a tag caught your eye.

#DreamExplain

Your thumb stopped, hovering over the screen. What? Explain what, exactly?

Then there—just few lines below that.

#WhoIs[Y/N]?

Your heart came to a screeching halt in your chest.

That was your name.

Trending. On Twitter.

Panic shot through your veins.

What the actual hell happened?

With a heavy feeling of disbelief sinking its claws into you, you tapped on your name, watching as hundreds of tweets shot past your eyes.

Who’s [Y/N] and how can I be her

dream explain?! oh mygood what was that !!!!

is [Y/N] Dream’s girlfriend or something

um ??? dream said the name [Y/N] on stream today then went afk for like 20 mins ??? then the stream just ended ???wtf ???

what’s @georgenotfound gonna do omggg nooo!!! his boyfriend!!!!!!

You felt sick to your stomach.

Oh god.

They knew who you were.

You wanted to throw up.

Stumbling to your feet, you made your way toward the kitchen where you knew you would find Clay, your phone clutched in a death grip between your fingers.

“C-Clay?”

He turned from where he was leaning against the counter, a smile lighting up his face at the sound of your voice. “Hey!” The moment his eyes landed on your face, his smile vanished. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Have—” You swallowed, your palms beginning to sweat. “Have you checked Twitter recently?”

“Nope,” he hummed, pulling his phone out from his pocket. “What’s trending this time? Did some politician say something or—”

“I am,” you said ever so softly.

He froze, his phone going slack in his hand. “What?”

You glanced up from your feet. “I’m trending, Clay.”

A beat of silence. “What?!” he repeated, louder this time.

You felt an odd sense of weightlessness sinking onto your shoulders, and you felt yourself begin to ramble. “Crazy, right? Little old me, trending? Wild. Insane. Like, just wow.”

With each new phrase that leapt from your lips, Clay’s brows furrowed further. You could see the wheels in his head turning at full speed. Then, they stopped, and realization set in. Then came the horror.

Oh, dear god.

“[Y/N],” he whispered, taking a step toward you, “oh my god.”

“You’re also trending, by the way,” you continued, barreling ahead as your hands began wildly gesturing. You swallowed down the panic rising up your throat at full throttle. “It’s a shame that I’m not higher than you, but I guess we can’t win them all.”

“[Y/N],” he said again, “this is serious.”

You nodded, your expression still blank. “Oh, I know. I’m—”

Something in you snapped.

You sucked in a ragged breath. “Yeah, I’m—”

And out came the waterworks.

You collapsed to the ground, the sobs escaping your throat in uneven bursts. Clay’s arms were around you before you knew it, his hand cradling your head for the second time that day.

“Clay, Clay, Clay,” you choked out, your entire being dissolving into him. “Clay, they know who I am. They heard you.”

His grip tightened on you, murmuring sweet nothings in your ear. You sobbed harder, your tears soaking into his hoodie.

There was nowhere left to hide.

You hadn’t touched your phone in days. It hardly took more than a few minutes for your Twitter feed to have absolutely blown up with messages about you. Some positive, some negative, some neutral. While you appreciated the kind ones, you only had to read a handful of the not-so-kind ones for you to turn off your phone and hide it in a drawer. It wasn’t like you were going to even use it properly, what with its cracked screen.

The more time passed, the more acutely aware of the public’s knowledge of you became.

Your name was everywhere, supposed drawings of you were everywhere, you—you were everywhere.

You felt like you were suffocating in your own skin.

Clay knew that the slip up had been rough on you, and he didn’t blame you one bit. He had asked you what you needed, if you wanted him to take a few days off to spend more time with you. You had declined, sending him a tired smile.

“I... I think I just need some time to myself to think things over.”

He didn’t push you anymore than that, instead holding you close and pressing his lips to your cheek. For the next couple days, he vanished off of social media—no tweets, no streams, no videos. Nothing. While you busied yourself with class work, he focused on editing and planning ahead for the future. You both knew you were stalling, but right now, you just needed time.

A knock came from your door, a soft voice following just after.

“[Y/N]?”

You rolled over on the bed you shared, your eyes flickering up to see Clay standing in the doorway. The book you had brought in with you laid untouched on the nightstand next to you. You haven’t been able to properly bring yourself to enjoy something without thoughts of doubt seeping into your head.

What do they think of me? Do they like me? Will they approve of our relationship?

You were terrified out of your mind.

Clay approached the bed when he saw you move, gently sitting down next to you. “Are you doing any better?”

He patted the space on his leg, and you twisted your body to settle your head on his lap. “Sort of,” you murmured.

A moment passed as he took in your words. “Have you eaten?”

You nodded, your head just barely moving. “Yeah. Ate some leftover pasta.”

You fell quiet once more, simply listening to the sound of his breaths next to yours. Despite having been hearing next to nothing but silence for days now, you felt better knowing he was next to you.

“Hey,” he said softly, grabbing your attention once more. You turned your head towards him, his hand stroking your hair. His emerald eyes bore into yours, focused and sad. “Tell me what’s on your mind. You seem so distant, right now.”

Your gaze trailed up to the ceiling as you opened your mouth, trying to connect the mess of thoughts in your head into coherent sentences. “It’s just all so overwhelming,” you admitted. “All they know about me is my name and that I fell down the stairs, but it already feels like it’s way too much. I didn’t even spend that much time scrolling online, and I already know that there are more than just a few people freaking out.”

You looked up at him, your sad gaze mirroring his. “I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to have everyone begging you for a face reveal.”

The sadness in his eyes only seemed to grow deeper, and you felt something warm and watery wrap around your heart. “It’s my fault,” he whispered, pressing a hand over his eyes. “I should have muted myself. I shouldn’t have been so reckless. I just moved without thinking and—”

You pulled yourself upwards, turning to sit face to face with him. “Clay, don’t say that.” You reached out to grab him arm, pulling it away from his face. His gaze was watery, and you wished you never had to see him with that expression. “It’s not your fault, not at all. When you heard me fall, you thought of me right away, and I appreciate that.” You held his big hand in between your smaller ones, interlocking your fingers. “That just shows you care for me. Please don’t beat yourself up over what happened.” You offered him a timid smile. “I know that I’m not taking this all too well either, but we’re in this together, right?”

His lips twitched to mirror yours, but his tone was still tinged with a low sadness. “I know, it’s just... I hate seeing you like this, like you can’t live your life normally anymore because of me.”

Your hand reached up to stroke his cheek. “Hey, it’s alright,” you crooned. “Remember, they only know my first name—not even my last name—and that I tripped. They don’t know what I look like.” Your lips twitched. “Heck, they don’t even know what I sound like. I think I’ll be able to live my life just fine. It’s just a little bit... much to begin with.” You shot him a goofy smile. “I might have to use Twitter less, but you know my screen time usage is way too high anyway.”

A chuckle slipped from his lips, his eyes curving into two crescent moons. You felt your expression shift to mirror his almost naturally, but then the smile slowly crept off your face. “And, um, Clay,” you added, fidgeting slightly.

“Yeah?”

“These past two days, I gave what happened some more thought,” you began, “and I think...” You gulped. I think I want to introduce myself.”

His eyes widened, and suddenly his hands were on your face, his gaze focused intently on your face. “Are you positive?” he breathed. “You know you don’t have to do this, [Y/N].”

You nodded, feeling your resolve harden like a stone in your heart. “I know.” You offered him a bold smile. “It’s scary and kind of hard to think about, but I don’t want to leave everyone in the dark. I want to be by your side through thick and thin, no matter what.”

He paused, then pulled his hands away from your face. That sadness in his eyes had returned, and you felt your heart crack at the sight. “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said quietly, almost remorsefully. “I know that being with me is already a huge commitment, and this is just taking another huge step...”

You leaned forward, pressing your forehead to his shoulder. “Clay,” you said, staring down at your knee. “I’ve been here with you from the beginning, and I’ll be here until the end. I’m here with you for the long haul, okay?” You raised your head, shooting him a wicked grin. “You won’t be getting rid of me too easily.”

Just like that, his smile was back. “Oh, alright. Only because I love you so much, though.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair with a weary grin. “Well, if there’s anything that I’m sure is going to happen,” he said, “it’s that my fans are definitely going to call me a ‘simp’ even more than they already do.”

You flashed him a teasing smile. “Are they wrong, though?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners.

“No, they’re not.”

Swallowing, you stared long and hard at the microphone sitting in front of you.

You can do this.

“Are you ready?”

You sucked in a deep breath, feeling your hands shake in your lap.

“I—I think so.”

Clay pressed a kiss to the back of your neck, his left arm wrapping itself around your waist to pull you closer on his lap. With his right, he reached for the mouse. On his screen, he had his stream loaded up, with only a single mouse click standing between you and tens of thousands of viewers.

Feeling his eyes on you, you turned to look at him. With a small smile, he dipped his head down to press his lips to yours in a soft kiss. You wrapped your arms around his neck, smiling back. Pulling back, he leaned his forehead against yours lovingly.

“You know, this is only about half as stressful as when I met your family,” you joked.

He snorted, the rumbling of his chest running along your back and into your thumping heart. “And they loved you just as much as I do. Once the rest of the world meets you,” he murmured just for you to hear, “they’re going to love you just the same. I swear it.”

You let your eyelids flutter shut, breathing in his scent of fresh linen and citrus. “I hope so.”

He shot you a cheeky wink. “Oh, I know so.”

You rolled your eyes at him, turning around to look at his monitor once more. “Cheese ball.” You didn’t have to turn to know that he was still grinning. Snuggling further back into his chest, you said, “Let’s start the stream, yeah?”

With a nod, he clicked the ‘start streaming’ button. Almost instantaneously, thousands of people joined the stream. You briefly glanced at the chat and felt yourself stiffen when you caught a brief glimpse of your name. Almost immediately, Clay’s hand was on yours, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb while you relaxed once more.

Sending you one last loving glance, he leaned towards his mic and began to speak. “Hey, guys! I know it’s been a little while since I last did a stream, and I know you guys have some questions. But first, there’s someone I want you guys to meet.”

His gaze flickered to you, and he gestured toward the mic. Taking a deep breath, you mustered up your courage and leaned forward.

“Hi there. My name is [Y/N].”

You felt his hand squeeze yours.

With a smile and a deep breath, you squeezed back.

“And I’m Dream’s girlfriend.”

2K notes · View notes

solarwonux · 3 years

Text

89. “Just let me finish this level and I swear I’ll go down on you all night.”

93. “Fuck…did we use protection?”

twitch streamer!wonwoo x f!reader

w.c: 3.9k (honestly I think I forgot what drabbles were clearly lol)

warnings: some angst, smut, mutual masturbation, some slight panty stuffing, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex, pregnancy scare, talks about plan b

note: excuse me everyone I literally love gamer and twitch streamer Wonwoo, but not everyone does. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one if you want more twitch!streamer wonwoo let me I will be happy to oblige, I have MANY ideas. Enjoy and please let me know your thoughts.

p.s send me a prompt for either svt or bts or both. I will also happily oblige to that lol

Masterlist || Drabble game

Watching Wonwoo play Zelda was not what you had expected when he had texted earlier asking you to come over. “Just let me finish this level and I swear I’ll go down on you all night.” He whispered against your lips in a half kiss when you walked in through his front door.

That had been over an hour and three completed levels ago. It was an empty promise long forgotten as he kept himself immersed in the game, talking enthusiastically about his day and random things his brain would conjure up on the spot. It was like you didn’t exist, and for the most part to his viewers, you didn’t. It wasn’t like you were his girlfriend or anything. Even if you were, you valued your privacy more than anything in the world. You preferred to work on your own things in the background away from his camera whenever you were over. This was something the two of you had mutually agreed to.

Casual hangs and casual sex.

Lately, your relationship had become the product of most of your stress. You never knew where you stood with Wonwoo. Sometimes he would literally invite you over to keep him company while he streamed only to kick you out the second he finished. “I’m too tired, you should go.” He would say pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, “I’ll see you later.”

Of course, those moments were overshadowed by the soft touches he left imprinted on your skin. By the sweetness of the words he shared with you and only you whenever he wasn’t working. It made you want more. More of him, more of his attention, and more of whatever was going on between the two of you. But that was something you refused to bring up afraid that the only one harboring feelings for the other was you.

Heartbreak was not in your plans for life, at least not for a while.

You sighed, throwing your phone down onto the couch. Your patience was wearing thin. Maybe it had to do with the fact you were already having a bad day, and Wonwoo’s indifference towards you wasn’t helping. When you had gotten his text earlier, you couldn’t help but feel all giddy inside. The two of you hadn’t seen each other in a few days with work schedules being all over the place and not aligning. It was something to look forward to, not necessarily because of the sex--which was always amazing. But you really just wanted to talk to him. Lay down with his arms wrapped around you while you complained about work and how frustrating your coworkers were being.

By the looks of it, you weren’t going to get any of that, not even what he had promised when you had first walked in. You were tired, your clothes were starting to annoy and you wanted to cry. If it wasn’t for the fact that his front door was in line with his camera, you would’ve left already.

Wonwoo could sense something was wrong with you. Every time you sighed it felt like you were punching him in the gut. He really meant what he had said when you walked in earlier. He also meant the quiet I love you he mumbled underneath his breath when you walked past him and into the living room. He wasn’t sure when he had fallen in love with you, just that months ago he had woken up and you were the only thing he could think of. Every time he held you in his arms the three little words bubbled up in the back of his throat, wishing he could bring himself to finally say it, but his fear held him back. Afraid that you didn’t feel the same way.

“Alright, you know what I think that’s enough for tonight.” Wonwoo smiled into the camera, trying to keep up with the chat as they begged him not to go yet. “I have to go, my girlfriend is over and I want to spend time with her. Anyway, same time next week Monday guys.” Wonwoo nodded, stopping the stream. Once he was positive that he had turned everything off he felt his shoulders relax and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes for a second before opening them again, the panic surging through his veins was unbearable. He turned around in his chair meeting your equally shocked face.

He royally fucked up. He just confessed to his audience without meaning to confess. He had told his audience that you were his girlfriend and he hadn’t even asked you yet. The surprise and speech he had worked on all week, the reason he took a break from streaming until tonight, was for nothing. He had gotten ahead of himself and he didn’t know what to do now. Or how to fix it.

“G-Girlfriend? Wait you have a fucking girlfriend?” You stood up from his couch, blinded by anger. “What the fuck Wonwoo, when were you going to tell me? Before or after you fucked me?” You shouted, your heart was beating fast as you turned around to gather up your stuff.

Unbelievable. Here you were distracted, thinking about how cute he looked while he blamed his failure on his character. The pout that had formed on his lips as he pushed his glasses up his nose and blew out a raspberry, moving aside the strands of his newly dyed blonde hair. The frustration you had felt earlier, forgotten, replaced with admiration. Only for it to come back after what he had said, this time fiery red and ready to burn everything it touched.

“Stop, no wait, I don’t have a girlfriend. At least not yet.” He spoke fast, his words blending with one another as he quickly made his way to you. He grabbed hold of your laptop and held it against his chest.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better, did you just call me down to ignore me and then fuck me one last time before you called it quits!” You said in disbelief reaching over for your laptop.

Wonwoo turned around facing away from you. “No that’s not...that’s not what...fuck, calm down please and just let me talk.” He pleaded as he sat down on his couch, your laptop still clutched tightly in his arms. It was your prized possession, it held the first three drafts of the novel you were working on. He knew you well enough to know that you hadn’t backed anything up no matter how many times he told you to do so. So, he was positive that as long as he held onto it like his life depended on it (because it did) you wouldn’t leave without it.

You crossed your arms in front of you ”I am calm, but I don’t know if I want to listen to what you have to say.”

Wonwoo cringed, he was more nervous than what he had intended to be. He had an entire speech planned. Wrote it down, even got Jihoon to proofread it. He had performed it in front of his bathroom mirror every morning and night. He thought he had it in the bag, pumped up his chest a few times before opening his front door to you earlier. Yet, the second he saw you, he forgot everything he had planned to say. This is mainly why he had spent such a long time streaming. Hoping that the distraction would somehow help him remember.

It didn’t.

“Wonwoo, I swear if you don’t start talking in the next five seconds I’m leaving and suing you for holding my laptop hostage.”

Wonwoo sighed and slapped his forehead lightly before turning to look at you, “okay, I don’t think that’s allowed bu-”

“It is if I say that you stole it trying to steal my work, I don’t know I’ll find a way.” You shrugged, earning a glare from Wonwoo. You knew he hated whenever someone interrupted him while he was in the middle of saying something. It was something you would do to him out of spite, but in your humble opinion this time he really did deserve it. Though, it didn’t make you feel as good as you had hoped, “fine sorry, you can continue.” You sighed and sat down on his coffee table.

Wonwoo put your laptop down and leaned over his elbows taking your hands in his. “I love you and I want you to be my girlfriend. I know we agreed to just keep this casual but I can’t help the way my heart literally feels like it’s going to fall out of my ass whenever I’m with you. So yeah, I don’t have a girlfriend yet, because I haven’t asked you to be my girlfriend yet. But there’s no one else, only you, and I’m so-”

Wonwoo was cut off when he felt your body land on his, knocking the air out of his lungs. You hugged him, straddling his hips and burying your face into his chest, giggling. It felt like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders and you felt awful for assuming the worst and jumping to conclusions.

“Ask me ask me ask me ask me.” You bounced on his lap like a child. He groaned doubling over in pain.

He placed his hands on your hips to keep you from moving, “No now I know you’re actually trying to kill me.” He smirked and left a sweet kiss against your lips. A low chuckle running past his lips as he took in your pouting face, “fine, my love, my baby will you please be my girlfriend?” He cocked his head, his hands playing with the hem of your t-shirt.

“Yes, but only if you give me my laptop back and keep the promise you made me earlier.” You smiled innocently, playing with the hair on the back of his neck.

Wonwoo smirked, his hands made their way underneath your shirt. “No to the laptop, you work too much and I’m determined to back up everything on a hard drive later.” He rubbed his thumbs over the skin of your hips, slowly inching closer to the button of your jeans, “not sure I remember the promise I made earlier though, can you remind me?”

You kissed him slowly, tugging on his shirt, “you said you would finish a level before going down on me all night, and it’s four and a half levels later and I’m still waiting.” You whispered against his lips, before pulling away and bringing his shirt over his head, taking it off, throwing it behind him, aiming for the laundry basket, missing it completely, making you sigh.

“Well you didn’t give me enough time to answer, but that can be arranged.” He pecked your lips, pushing your shirt up and over your head, throwing it behind him. “You’d have to step into my office though.”

“Wonwoo, baby, don’t ever call your room your office.” You rolled your eyes and got up from his lap.

He chuckled, shaking his head and stood up, “oh no that’s not what I meant, room comes later. Tonight we start in my office.” He says cheekily, pointing his thumb towards his gaming setup. Your eyes grew wide as saucers, only making him laugh harder while he pushed you towards his gaming chair.

“Wait, you’re like not going to turn the camera on are you?” You said as he pushed you down to sit in which you obeyed. The colorful lights from his gaming setup kept you distracted as Wonwoo got down on his knees in front of you.

“Nope, I’ve just always wanted to eat you out while you sat on my gaming chair. But maybe one day in the future if you want. You can take over my stream and play animal crossing while I secretly eat you out on camera.” He smirked, the evil glint behind his soft eyes sent shivers down your spine. The little exibitionist in him coming out. You’d be lying if you didn’t find the thought of it exciting.

“One day.” You breathed, lifting your hips, helping him as he pulled down your pants.

Wonwoo sent you a wink pushing your thighs apart with his hands, “We can also play overwatch together. That cute little vibrator you keep hidden in your bedside drawer, stuffed inside your pussy.” He placed his index finger over the wet patch that had formed over your panties, pushing in slightly. “And everytime you die I up the speed, see how long you can last before you have me begging to turn off the stream so you can cum.” Wonwoo kept pushing his finger in you, your panties sticking onto you like second skin.

You threw your head back, digging your nails into the arms of his leather chair. “F-Fuck how long h-have you thought about this?” You lifted your hips as he added another finger.

“Right now, or maybe a few times when you’re not around.” He leaned down kissing your mound lightly, “but seeing you like this, sprawled out, wet and waiting for my mouth is reinforcing those fantasies.” He worked his fingers diligently, pushing the thin material of your panties inside of you. He couldn’t wait to stuff you full with his cock later.

You let out a whimper as his mouth traveled down to your clothed entrance. He removed his fingers licking up a stride, before taking one of your lips into his mouth and biting down on it gently. “W-Wonwoo please I want to feel your mouth.”

“You are, aren’t you?.” He looked, staring at you through the rim of his round glasses before repeating his actions again making you whimper. “Take your bra off, play with yourself for me.” He left a chaste kiss in your inner thigh and sat back on his heels. He palmed himself over his black tracksuit pants as he watched you slowly unclasp your bra, letting the straps slide down your arms. You were teasing him, he knew this but he didn’t care. Seeing you get undressed for him was one of his favorite past times, especially because you always went extra slow for him.

You threw your bra, not caring where it landed. You rolled your palms over your nipples, soft sighs running past your lips as you kept your eyes trained on Wonwoo. “Want to feel your hot tongue fucking me Woo.” You spread your legs even further pinching your nipples. You moved your hand down your body, your index finger playing with the seam of your panties. “Is this one of your fantasies? Me touching myself, sitting here?” You said, tilting your head to the side, moving your hand into your panties and running your index and middle fingers over your clit slowly.

“Yes.” He hissed, pushing his hand into his boxers grabbing onto his cock. “God, you make me so hard.”

“Let me see please.” You arched your back, your fingers getting faster. Wonwoo nodded, wasting no time to free himself, his hand wrapped tightly around his length. His index finger connects with the small bead of precum that had formed, showing you how sticky and ready he was for you.

“Want to taste?” You nodded letting out soft moans as you lifted your hips, into the palm of your hand, sticking your tongue out for him. “Fuck.” He cursed getting up on his knees, bringing his index finger up to your mouth. You closed your lips around it, swirling your tongue over the tip, savoring the salty substance.

You pulled away with a pop, taking your fingers out of your panties and bringing them up to his lips. He took them in, moaning around them. “Do I taste good?” You said taking out your fingers from his mouth, moving them over his lips, wetting them further.

“I’m going to have to take a closer look.” He said lowly, pushing your panties down in a haste. He spread your legs, licking up your slit, teasing your hole with his tongue. Being in between your legs was his second most favorite pastime. He savored every moment of it. Sometimes he would prolong your orgasm, keeping you on edge, so that when you came, your sweet substance would coat his lips, spilling down his chin and neck. It was the most beautiful site, one that only he had the privilege in witnessing.

“Mmm, your tongue feels so good Wonwoo.” You pinched your nipple while tugging on the roots of his blonde hair, pushing his mouth closer.

He moaned, slurping up your juices like you were his last meal. He wrapped his mouth around your clit, pulling it between his teeth before letting it go. “I want to be here forever but I don’t think I can last any longer without being inside of you.” He pushed two of his fingers inside of you. The feeling of your wet walls wrapped around his thick calloused fingers made his cock twitch.

“B-But I-I want to cum.” You pouted, arching your back away from his chair, pushing your hips further into his hand. “Please, I’m so close already.” You pant, the knot in the pit of your stomach threatening to break.

“Oh honey, you will. I’ll have you coming undone more than three times tonight.” He stated with determination and brought his mouth down again, closing his lips around your clit. He sucked harshly moaning sinfully. He fucked you faster with his fingers curling them upwards, reaching the soft mushy skin inside of you.

“W-Wonwoo f-fuck don’t stop I-I’m so close.”

Wonwoo let go of your swollen bud, slowing down his fingers as you clenched around them. “Look at me, I want to watch me while you cum.” You agreed with a pleasure filled sigh, watching as he pushed back his glasses. The sight almost had you coming undone.

He put his mouth on you again, increasing the pace of his fingers. Babbles coming out of your mouth as you pulled on his hair, motivating him to go faster. The squelching sounds coming from your wet, hot pussy sounded like music to his ears. He bit down on your clit lightly, sending you over the edge, your cum coating his fingers, while you moaned his name in a sweet sinful prayer. His eyes burning holes into yours, the sight was award winning, his cock begging to be milked out.

Wonwoo continued, riding out your orgasm. Until you felt the oversensitivity overcome your body “W-Woo, s-stop please.” You pushed his head carefully with the palm of your hand.

He kissed the inside of both of your thighs before sitting up on his knees, taking your face into his hands. “You always look so pretty when you cum.” He pecked your lips repeatedly, before wrapping your arms around you hugging you tightly. “I love you so much.” He kissed your temple.

“Why do you always get so mushy every time you make me cum?” You laughed gently, running your fingers down his back, making him shiver.

“You bring out in me, I can’t help it, stop complaining. I’m giving you time to recover before I bend you over my desk.”

“Not complaining. I love it.” You kissed his cheek. “And I love you.” You whispered in his ear, taking his earlobe, pulling it between your teeth.. He groaned, swallowing hard, his getting tighter around you.

“My desk, then my couch, then my bed, then the shower, and then my bed again.”

The sun had started to rise. It was five in the morning and your body was suddenly overcome with sleep, when Wonwoo pulled out of you one last time. He had kept true to his promise, literally fucked you the entire night, christening his apartment, except his kitchen. “If we have sex in the kitchen, the only thing I’ll be thinking about while I’m cooking is your mouth around my dick.” He said as he pushed you into the wide window of his living room, making you laugh.

“Do you have to work today?” He placed a delicate kiss against your collar bone, laying his head on top of your chest.

“It’s Saturday, why would I have work on Saturday?” You smiled sleepily, running your fingers through his hair. He sighed happily, pulling his sheets over the two of you and cuddling into you further.

“You’re always working, I just wanted to ask.” He shrugged, raising his body enough to leave a chaste kiss against your lips. “Take a break today and I promise that by the time you wake up again I’ll have all of your files backed up into the harddrive I bought you.”

You shook your head, placing both of your palms against his cheeks, squishing them. “Do you know how sexy you sound when you talk about computers.”

“Nope, but you once told me to divide you in half when I was explaining finances to you. Now that I think about it, that statement can go both ways.” He smiled laying down on his back, bringing you along with him. Your eyes growing wide when you felt it running down your thighs. You sat up in panic, removing the sheets of your body to see if your silent hypothesis was correct.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, confused.

“Wonwoo, fuck...did we use protection?”

Wonwoo pushed the covers away with his feet, sitting up quickly. He looked between your legs, his eyebrows furrowing in concern, “You’re on the pill still right?”

“We changed my formula, I had to stop taking it for a few days.” You threw yourself down on his bed covering your eyes with your hands. The tears pooling against your eyes. You felt the bed dip next to you. Wonwoo took your hands in his, revealing your tearful eyes to him making him sigh.

“Baby, don’t worry.” He kissed your cheeks repeatedly before sitting up again, “I’ll run down to the convenience store, get a plan b while you go take a bath. I’ll join you when I get back.”

“W-What’s happens if I take the plan b and still miraculously end up pregnant, it’s only ninety five percent effective.”

“Then I’ll be with you every step of the way. I meant what I said earlier, I love you so much and I plan to marry you and have kids with you one day. Don’t worry.”

Your heart felt full. The butterflies erupting in the pit of your stomach. Wonwoo and you had shared many intimate dreams and desires before, but this one felt different. This was a dream the two of you shared and it made you feel at ease. “Okay, okay I will, just hurry up please.”

Wonwoo scoffed, getting up from his bed, slipping on his sweatpants and sweatshirt. “Baby please don’t underestimate me. I’ll be back before you know it.” He leaned down giving you one last kiss before jogging over to his front door. “I love you.” He shouted, opening the door.

You laughed sitting up on your elbows shaking your head, “I love you, now hurry I can feel your child cooking in me.”

“Impossible, it takes roughly twenty four hours for my sperm to fertilize one of your eggs, and it’s literally been thirty minutes. Therefore you wou--”

“Wonwoo shut up just hurry.”

“Okay I love you.” He said while closing his front door. You laughed shaking your head falling back on his bed. Your entire body was aching and though you were a little scared, given obvious circumstances. You had never felt so much warmth and happiness in your life.

#kpopscape #kdiarynet #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen smut #seventeen x reader #seventeen fanfic #seventeen drabbles #seventeen scenarios #seventeen wonwoo #wonwoo fanfic #wonwoo scenarios #wonwoo smut #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo imagines #wonwoo fanfiction

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imaginethathaikyuu · 4 years

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hi, lovely! im unsure if my ask went thru bc my wifi sUCKS. it was abt kenma getting distracted by his s/o (who was just doin normal stuff behind the camera like reading or smth) during a twitch stream and he’s super needy for kissies and maybe a lil horny 👀 and thinking abt dry humping for some reason. i think it was smth like that? sorry for disturbing u!! hope u have a nice day bb mwah ilysm

i havent been able to stop thinking abt this request since i got it so here u go, thank u sm!

gender neutral reader*mild nsfw*

Ever since you started keeping Kenma company while he was live streaming, he started enjoying work even more. Not that he ever disliked being a streamer, but having you in the room sitting next to him - far enough away that you weren’t in the camera shot, but close enough that he could reach over and put a hand on your knee - was comforting for him. Even after years of doing this, he still managed to have a bit of stage fright when the camera was on. You helped take that away.

He was in the middle of a stream that was taking a lot out of him; he wasn’t doing particularly well at the game he was playing, and he didn’t really want to be playing it, either. His mind was elsewhere.

While you were typically more of a security blanket, tonight you were a distraction.

For some reason, he just couldn’t stop glancing over at you. You had your eyes glued to a book, so it wasn’t like you were doing anything purposely distracting. But you just looked cute with your bottom lip between your teeth and one of his beanies on your head and wearing a t-shirt that was hanging dangerously low, and he really didn’t want to take his eyes off of you. And your foot that was situated in his lap was only adding to his problems. He kept waiting for you to look up and catch him staring, but you never did.

And he was going to use you as his excuse for losing again rather than his lack of skill at the game.

Kenma rubbed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“Okay. Time for a break.”

He looked over to the stream’s chat box to see what his viewers were saying and he let his hand drop down to his lap, resting it on your leg.

Someone asked, “is y/n with you?” Kenma read the comment out loud and then looked over at you, smirking. “Are you?”

“I am,” you replied, smiling at him.

He nodded, “yep,” as he sank a bit further down in his chair, getting more comfortable. He pulled his headphones off his head and sat them on his desk a bit too haphazardly - they were really starting to hurt his ears - and he found himself wishing you could come closer to him.

Kenma was frustrated, to say the least. Tonight’s stream hadn’t gone even almost well - he swore this would be the last time he let his viewers vote for which game he played, and he was serious this time. Kenma hated playing games he was bad at, but his fans seemed to love to watch him lose.

It was even worse that you were always in the corner of his eye and your foot was always sitting innocently in his lap. And it was innocent - you weren’t distracting him on purpose, and you definitely weren’t trying to get him all riled up. But your shirt was hanging so low, and every time he looked at you he could see the bite mark he’d left on your shoulder just the night before. A small part of him felt bad for leaving a mark like that - a bigger part of him wanted you to get on his lap again so he could give you another.

He groaned before suddenly realizing he had been quiet for quite some time, but he was struggling to come up with anything to say. This wasn’t like him, he should be focusing on work.

But the more he tried, the more he wanted to clock out early.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “I think I’m gonna call it a night…”

As usual, comments flooded in, everyone telling him not to go. He wasn’t going to listen to them.

“We’ll make next time a longer stream to make up for it…”

He really didn’t sound like he meant it - maybe because just the thought of streaming again any time soon tired him out.

While doing his typical sign off to the stream, he couldn’t stop thinking about how badly he just wanted the cameras to be turned off, and what he’d do after. He secretly hoped you’d pounce on him the moment the stream officially ended, because you could just tell how frustrated he was and you had the perfect thing to relax him. You’d straddle his lap and your hips would rut into his and you’d let him bite your neck as he moaned for you; all of the frustration that had been building up would just melt away, Kenma would finally feel better.

Or maybe he’d be the one who pounces on you, kissing you as well as he knows how to before pulling you up from your seat and leading you to the bed. He’d settle between your legs while you undressed him and instead of thinking about the stress of winning a video game, he’d be thinking about nothing but his need for you, and maybe he wouldn’t even bother hiding his moans. Maybe he’d want you to hear them this time.

Or maybe…

“Kenma?”

He looked up at you; your book was closed and your shirt was finally pulled up into place. He pouted a bit at the sight.

“Hm?”

Somehow in the midst of his daydreaming, he had managed to finish the stream and go offline. He wasn’t sure how he did it.

“You okay? You had at least an hour left, babe.”

He gave you a quiet nod, not knowing what else to say.

Of course nothing he thought about was going to happen. It just wasn’t realistic, was it? Pouncing on each other wasn’t really something the two of you did - hell, you probably thought what the two of you did last night would hold Kenma over for the next month.

“Kenma,” you hummed, poking his thigh with your toe.

“What?” he sighed, and he’s sure he’d sound grumpy to anyone else but you.

But he was right. Those things he’d spent the last few minutes fantasizing about weren’t going to happen tonight. And he knew it for a fact when you pulled your foot out of his lap, and then sank down onto your knees in front of him on the floor.

“Let me help you feel better,” you said with your cheek resting against his knee; he shifted to sit even lower in his chair, eagerly waiting for what was to come - even if it was something he hadn’t thought about happening. “I can tell you need it...”

Kenma was glad you knew him as well as you did.

#kenma kozume #kenma kozume x reader #kenma x reader #not family friendly #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #scenario

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lilmissbeanie · 3 years

Text

Navigation Haikyuu Masterlist

Tetsuro Kuroo x F!Reader. Fluffy Word Count ~ 4.3k Happy very late birthday to a dear friend of mine, I hope you had a great day girl!

KozumeKenma is going live!

The girl grinned at the notification that flashed up at the top of the screen of her phone. Her favourite streamer who she had been watching since he started streaming, she had just randomly found him playing some Minecraft years ago and decided to watch, she had been a loyal follower since that day, his streams always made her laugh and she loved how relaxed he was, she would often pop up in the chat, commenting on the game. Kenma had recognised her as one of his top fans, she had VIP status on his streams and he always said hi to her. Y/n had noticed that he was looking a little more run down recently, so she would often pop up telling him to hydrate or go get some food. She often used buying a treat for Kenma through streamer treats and he would often scold her for another pizza or ice cream Sundae, but Y/n knew he didn't mean it especially when it was her favorite pizza, she had been sending water with them too as the boy seemed to live on soft drinks.

Opening her laptop she turned it waiting for it to load up, it usually took a little while now, she needed to get a new one, this one had to be about seven years old now so it was starting to get a little slow now but it still did the job for now anyway. While she waited, her fingers tapped against keyboard on her slightly cracked screen of her phone,

Snowy Bluewolf: Happy wednesday! How are you?

She heard Kenma chuckle, of course she was the first to message the chat. “Hey there, as always you are straight in the chat Wolfie.” Kenma gave a smile seeing her username, Snowy Bluewolf. “I’m good thank you, how is your lock down wednesday going?”

Snowy Bluewolf:: Ah you know the usual, I got out of bed, moved to the couch to play on the ps4 and haven’t moved since unless to get food or another drink.

“Ah, what have you been playing today?”

Snowy Bluewolf: Just some bloodborne, still terrible at the game

He chuckled, “It is a hard game wolfie, the offer still stands, anytime.” She smiled, she had told him she had started playing bloodborne over the lockdown and that she was finding the game incredibly difficult and he had offered to help her out if need be.

Snowy Bluewolf:: I heard orphan is a bitch to beat so I will give that one a few tries and then I may take you up on the offer! Thanks, Kenma!

“Okay, the rest of you, stop being jealous, you all know Wolfie has been here since day one and she is super loyal follower so of course I’m going to talk to her!” Kenma rolled his eyes playfully at the jealous messages in chat, Kenma looked dead in the camera with a playful look in his golden eyes as he teased the rest of his followers “She is also one of my mods so watch it.”

The girl laughed, she had never abused her power as a mod in his discord or in the twitch chat she only kicked those who didn’t obey the rules. She also was friends with Kenma. On discord they were quite good online friends now and they do play games together in private and they do have quite a laugh together.

“Right let’s get on with the stream!” Kenma said getting straight into the game.

Y/n had gotten her laptop all set up and ready now, she lounged out on the sofa, getting comfy for the Animal Crossing New Horizons stream. She would lurk in the chat making sure that everyone was behaving, she rarely had to time out anyone, but she liked to keep an eye making sure everyone is behaving, over the eight years she has been a part of Kenma’s streams and been a mod she had only have to ban about a couple hundred people though she had timed out a lot more than that, she reckons she has hit over the thousands or more.

She smiled as she watched Kenma update his island, trying to make it five stars, he had built his orchard, a zen garden and a flower garden, it was looking quite stunning so far. Had been streaming about an hour and half when she noticed he had yet to have a drink.

Snowy Bluewolf: Oi, Kenma! Hydrate would you, have some H2O smh

“Ergh, Wolfie you are starting to sound like my friend Kuroo.” He sighed, grabbing his water bottle, and having a drink. “Always telling me to drink something...” He tightens the cap on the bottle.

Nekomasbestcaptain: I heard my name? What shit are you saying about me now?

Y/n giggled at the fact his best friend had been lurking in Kenma’s stream this whole time, Y/n knew of Kuroo his best friend but had never spoken to him even as a mod all these years. “Nothing Kuroo, just saying Wolfie is as bad as you, reminding me to hydrate.”

Nekomasbestcaptain: Wolfie? Oh, you mentioned her before. One of your mods, right?

Kenma glanced at the chat quickly, before replying, “Yep.”

Snowy Bluewolf: @Nekomasbestcaptain hi! I am the one making sure he stay’s hydrated and that he eats

Nekomasbestcaptain: @Snowybluewolf haha thanks he does forget like all the time.

For the rest of the stream Kuroo and Y/n chatted and flirted back and forth, Kenma rolling his eyes at his two best friends.

To: Kenma From: Kuroo Sent: 04:14pm Dude, how can I talk to wolfie other than through your streams?

To: Kuroo From: Kenma Sent: 08:17pm Discord.

Kuroo had never downloaded an app so quick in his life, he created his account, got Kenma’s discord tag added to him then begged him to allow him to join his discord server before tracking down Y/n and private messaging her.

The months of lockdown flew past, Y/n and Kuroo bonding over the course of three months, they had gotten to the point they would video call in bed usually with Y/n falling asleep while they chatted which he found super cute.

Nekomasbestcaptain: Hey, Y/n seeing as lockdown is finally over, did you, maybe fancy going for dinner?

Kuroo sat at his desk in his home office as he chewed on his lip as watched her name pop up at the bottom of the chat bar in discord, before disappearing and reappearing again.

Snowy Bluewolf: Sure (*ﾉ▽ﾉ) I would love too. Rather than going out for now, maybe we could have a stay at home dinner, like we each cook a course and share one?

The grin was spread across both their lips as they stared at their phones, the crushes they had developed over the past few months had come clear and they had slyly admitted it to one another and Kenma hated how they were with each other yet loved it cause they both deserved to be happy. Kuroo’s eyes sparkled as he read the message.

Nekomasbestcaptain: Sure, who’s place shall we do it at? I don’t mind travelling to yours.

Snowy Bluewolf: We can do it at my place and I’ll pop out and buy the food for the mains if you don’t me doing that course.

Nekomasbestcaptain: Sounds like a plan. I'll make the starter and we could have a cheese board for dessert?

Snowy Bluewolf: You are talking my language rooster boi! So, friday?

Nekomasbestcaptain: Friday is perfect, 6?

Snowybluewolf: 6 is perfect, I’ll send you my address on friday

Y/n couldn’t help but squeal she had a date with this beautiful man, it may be a home date, but she had a date. Kuroo flopped back in his desk chair, he had done it he had finally asked her out.

Friday rolled around in a flash both arguing over who was buying the cheese, in the end Y/n won to buy the cheese and crackers but Kuroo said he would be buying the wine. Y/n decided to make a sushi from scratch, Y/n wasn’t going to admit it, but she did want to show off a little. She had all the equipment she needs to make sushi at home she had just never used the sushi kit she had brought.

Kuroo had spent days trying to work out what he would make for the starter, he finally decided on tempura. He wanted to make a mix of vegetables and fish. He knocked on her door, with a few bags in hand.

The door opened shortly after, he was met by a h/c haired girl, her e/c eyes peering up at him, with a shy smile on her face, “Hey rooster boy.”

“Hello Chibi-chan,” Since he discovered she was the same height as Kenma he had begun to call her Chibi-chan, he loved how a light blush covered her cheek bones. He smiled at her leaning down pecking her forehead, not chancing more yet seeing as this was the first date. Biting her lip, she stepped back gesturing for him enter, trying not let the blush erupt over her cheeks from the feeling of his lips against her forehead. It was a small innocent gesture that caused goosebumps erupted over her skin as she knew the small peck had a deeper meaning behind it. The pair had become comepletely and utterly smitten with one another.

Showing him into the open plan kitchen sitting room “Can I get you anything to drink?” She asked leaning on the counter, “I brought some wine with me” Kuroo grinned pulling a bottle of wine out of one of the bags. Y/n smiled in return, opening the cupboard by the fridge pulling out to large crystal-clear wine glasses, while opened the bottle with the corkscrew. “What have you planned for starters?”

Tetsu gray orbs met hers as he poured them a glass each, “I was thinking of making Tempura. What are you doing for mains?”

The girl took a sip of the wine and sighed, her eyes widening at the smooth taste coating her tongue and the velvety texture running down her throat, “Well I was goinf to make sushi but I’m thinking screw the starter and mains and let’s just have a cheese and wine night, Tetsu this wine is delicious what is it?”

“Cabinet Sauvignon by a California vineyard called dark horse,” Kuroo swirled the wine in his glass before smirking “and I won’t say no to a cheese night.”

Y/n emptied out the carrier bags taking everything that needed to go in the fridge and placing it there, before giving him a playful look with raised eyebrows at the 3 other bottles of wine she removed from the bags. “Tetsurou are you planning to get me drunk this evening?”

“What?” Elongating the word, “No! Whatever gave you that idea?!” He gasped, placing a hand over his chest struggling to keep the fake offended look on his face, before they both cracked up laughing, the pair relaxing in each other presence for the first time that evening.

“So, cheese and wine night?” The nod of Kuroo’s head joined with the twinkle in his eye was all Y/n need to grab one of her wooden chopping boards, the crackers from the cupboard before she pulled the fridge door open and snatching the selection of cheese, she had brought earlier that day from the fromagerie, the strong-smelling shop contained a wide variety delicious French cheese.

Y/n wasn’t sure what kind of cheese Kuroo would like she got some milder ones as well as some strong ones, the milder ones being those like brie, camembert and cantal, a cheddar like cheese, the stronger ones like Roquefort and stilton. She had gotten quite a mix of hard and soft cheese too. Taking all the cheese out of their respective wrappings before placing them on the wooden board.

Kuroo watched each of her movements carefully from his seat at the breakfast bar, she did everything so gracefully and he was awestruck by how beautiful she was, he already thought she was when they video chatted but seeing her in person was a whole other ball game. He watched as she stood on her tiptoes, reaching into the cupboard to get down two small side plates, her flowing red blouse riding up slight allowing him to catch a glimpse of her smooth looking s/c skin of her waist. The way she bent over as she rummaged through the fridge looking for something, gave him perfect view of her arse in her skin-tight dark blue Levi's over the rim of his wine glass as he took another sip. He glanced away as she straightened up, turning around with some chutneys in hand, making it seem like he was admiring the apartment rather than the owner of it.

“Did up want to sit here or move to the sofa?” She asked gesturing towards the dark blue loveseat with a pair of matching armchairs that was placed opposite a flat screen TV on that was mounted to the wall with a light oak sideboard under it, he could see through the glass of the doors that it contained a PlayStation four, Nintendo switch and a range of games and DVDs, separating the two was a coffee table that matched the sideboard, light oak with a glass top. “Sure, the sofa sounds good.”

Kuroo grabbed the two glasses wine and made his way after y/n to the sofa as she made her way over to the coffee table with the wooden board with the cheese on before they both when to grab the condiments and utensils.

“Hey, google, shuffle wake up and smell the coffee.” Y/n called out to her google home which sat on the side board under the TV.

“Okay, I’ll shuffle the Spotify playlist wake up and smell the coffee.”

The gentle strumming of the guitar of Comethru by Jeremy Zucker played threw the Google home. The pair got comfy on the loveseat, letting the music flow through the apartment, they both snacked on the cheese and biscuits chatting and talking about their days at work. “It’s nice to not having to go into the office that often yet I do procrastinate while I’m at home.”

“Oh god I am just the same and Kenma is not helping when he streams when I am trying to work.” The girl laughed as she sipped at her wine enjoying the smooth texture.

“I have Kenma’s streams playing as background noise these days myself.” Kuroo added with his own deep chuckle as he watched the girl drink her wine and the way the tip of her tongue darted out over red full lips, temptated to kiss them to discover how soft they are , “This one is nice.” Kuroo said grabbing another cracker with some brie with the fig chutney, Y/n hummed agreeingly in response as she had her own mouthful of blue cheese and cracker, taking a sip of her wine before responding, “The fig chutney does go well with brie, try the blue cheese with a sip of wine.”

He did as she suggested and his eyes widened at the mixture of mouth-watering tastes, “damn that’s good.” He grabbed another chunk of the blue cheese, placing it on his plate and grabbed another cracker. The cheese board didn’t last long between them even with the six different cheeses they keep eating until there wasn’t even a crumb left.

“Whoa, I’m stuffed.” Kuroo sighed as he flopped back on the cushions of the sofa, they had finished a bottle of wine and began the next. Copying his movement, Y/n made herself comfy on sofa, the music still softly playing in the background, 1994 by Alec Benjamine harmony filled the room. “God, I love cheese nights.”

“I have decided, this,” He gestured to the empty plates, board and the bottles wine “Shall become our first tradition. We will have regular cheese nights.” Kuroo said, nodding in agreement with his own decision with a proud smile. A gentle smile crossed her rosy lips again, the look in her jewel-like eyes holding a matching look, nodding in agreement with his idea. Their first tradition, Y/n was filled with giddiness and tried not to squeal at the fact he wanted to start making traditions with her, “I’d like that.”

His grey eyes watching as she curled her legs up under herself, her left elbow resting on the back of the couch, her chin resting on her on the palm of that hand and in her right hand held the wine glass which rested on her knee. The small ball jumping up on the sofa between them broke him out of his trance of checking her out. His eyes landed on the black kitten whose large blue eyes were briming with curiosity. “Oh, there you are Luddy.” Sitting up slightly, the h/c leaned forward enough to gently pet the kitten, the second Y/n fingers met the top of his head, Luddy began to purr, his blue eyes closing in contentment.

“Did you have a nice sleep baby?” Y/n cooed to the bundle of fur starching behind his ear making him lean into his touch, Kuroo was in awe as he watched her coo over the small creature. “Do you want some dreamies?” The kittens eyes seem to fly open at the word dreamies as if he understood what his own had said, he looked at her and gave her a small meow. Y/n giggled placing her glass down on the coaster before standing up.

“Okay you make friends with Tetsu while I grab the dreamies.” Starching the back of Luddy’s head, Y/n gathered up the plates and knifes an placed them on the wooden board along with the chutneys and taking them to the kitchen, leaving Kuroo and a kitten staring at one another, molten grey eyes staring into inquisitive sapphire blue ones. In the background you could hear dishwasher being loaded and the opening and closing of cupboards as Kuroo gently reached a handout allowing the small cat to sniff his calloused fingers, from all those years playing volleyball, before Luddy rubbing up against the man's large hands purring, he stood up walking over to Kuroo sitting down on his lap, allowing Kuroo to continue to pet him, purring happily at the affection. Y/n watched the interaction from the kitchen smiling, before shaking the bag of dreamies, causing Luddy’s ears to prick up and turn to look where the sound came from, he jumped over the back of the sofa trotting his way towards the sound of the treats. Kuroo watched as Y/n opened a ball with a few holes in it, pouring the treats in, shutting it and placing it on the floor for Luddy who ran up to it and batted the ball across the room causing the treats to fall out of the holes. Y/n walked back over to the sofa, grabbed her glass of wine off the table, taking a seat next to Kuroo, whose arm was resting across the back of the sofa, where she was sat it looked like it was placed around her shoulders. Trying his luck, he placed it around her shoulder and tugged her into his side, “Come ‘ere.” To which she responded to his tug by curling into his side, head resting on his chest while he drew gentle circles on her shoulder happily relaxing into the sofa with her curled up to him.

It was peaceful as the pair led there on the sofa curled into one another, the only sound in the room was Luddy’s ball rolling around and the music still quietly playing, “This is nice Tetsu,” Humming in agreement, he kissed the top of her head allowing his lips to linger inhaling in her soft scented shampoo. He could get used to this, ruining the perfect scene was a loud ringtone going off.

"Is Kenma really streaming at this time?” The girl sighed untangling herself from Kuroo to get her phone from the kitchen counter where she had left at the start of the evening. “Ya know, he only lives around the corner,” Y/n turned to look at Kuroo confusingly as her eyes met with his that held a mischievous glint, “and I have a key.”

Y/n confusion turned into a smirk as she caught onto what Tetsuro was planning, her eyes brighten up and nodded in excitement, this would be the first time she was meeting her favourite streamer and she would gate crashing his apartment with his best friend. “Can we stop and buy food and drinks for him? I bet he hasn’t eaten.”

Kuroo couldn’t help but be just as enthusiastic as her, seeing her excited was contagious and made him just as excited. “Of course, we can” He smiled pulling on his shoes and jacket as Y/n did the same. “Luddy be good while we’re gone. Mummy loves you baby.” She blew a kiss towards the kitten who was sat on the sofa looking at the pair with a bored look in his eyes as they stepped out of Y/n apartment door. They made their way to local convenience store fingers entwined together as they searched for Kenma’s favourite soft drink and a few bottles of water before going to the pizza takeaway and order the largest pizza they could with Kenma’s favourite toppings. Y/n couldn’t believe how close they lived together, Kenma live barely 2 streets over, they had the same local takeaways and supermarkets she was surprised they had never bumped into one another before.

Kuroo entered the code to Kenma’s apartment building, saying hi to the kind looking receptionist who knew him very well with how often he visits his best friend, Y/n sent a wave to the lady behind the desk who returned it with a smile. “Back to see Kenma I see Kuroo, and who is this?”

“Hi, yep!” He popped the p “This is Y/n she is my girlfriend and actually I met her through Kenma streams she’s one of his mods and he decided to stream during out first date so we thought we would come and crash his stream” The lady giggled and nodded, noticing the blush that exploded over h/c girls cheeks as she heard Kuroo tell the receptionist that she was his girlfriend. “Pleasure to meet you Y/n have fun crashing his stream.”

“pleasure to meet you too. And thank you we shall.” The girl replied with a smile as Kuroo tugged on their entwined hands towards the elevator, he hit the button for the eighth floor and watching the doors close as the pair made their way up to his floor, Kuroo fished his set of keys out of his pocket, “So we’re going to sneak in and sneak to his stream room and throw the door open and yell at him to hydrate right?”

“That’s the plan.” The girl nodded bouncing on the balls of her feet. She was so excited to do this. The bell ding in the elevator signalling they had arrived at the eighth floor, stepping out the made in along to apartment 803, Y/n took the carrier bag from Kuroo’s hand as he slipped the key into the lock carefully turning it to unlock the door quietly, they slipped inside stylish modern apartment, they both took there shoes and jackets off, placing the bottles of water and one of his soft drink bottles on the counter, before sneaking there way towards Kenma’s stream room.

Showing three fingers Y/n began the silent countdown, She knew the whole stream would see this as Kenma had recently moved his stream room around so his back was now facing the door.

3...

2...

1...

Kuroo threw the door open “YO KENMA! HYDRATE!” The pair yelled at the same time, they watched as the streamer jumped five foot in air out of fright and the stream chat was moving at a mile a second asking what was going on. Kenma pulled his cat ear headphones off his head placing them down on his desk slowly turning around in his desk chair to find Kuroo leaning against the door frame one arm around his date and in his other hand was his Kenma’s drink while Y/n was snuggled into his side with the pizza box in hand. Both of their face held large cheeky grins.

“Kuroo? Wolfie?” He questioned, Kuroo was the first to speak between the couple, “This what you get for crashing our date with your stream”

“Oh, so now I have to plan my streams around your dates?” Kenma sassed them. The h/c cocked an eyebrow before replying, “Yep, you do.”

Kenma laughed at her response, watching as the pair stepped into the room, Y/n thrust the pizza box into his hands “bet you haven’t eaten yet tonight so here it’s your favourite.” Before she pushed his chair with him in it out of the way and crouching down to be eye level with the webcam seeing herself in the video, of the stream managers on Kenma’s second monitor, “Hey chat! It’s me, Wolfie! You best be all behaving while I am not there to mod you” She winked into the camera, noticing Kuroo making his way over to her kneeling down behind her, he was still taller than her, he placed his chin on his head, reading what the chat was saying.

It was exploding with laughter over how they made an entrance, to how pretty Wolfie is and how handsome Kuroo was. “He is handsome isn’t he but hands off he’s mine.” Y/n replied sticking her tongue out at the chat.

“This gorgeous girl is mine so back off lads I can see yall eyeing her up.” Kuroo growled out playfully.

Kenma just sat in his chair chopping happily on his pizza while shaking his head at his two best friends who had just stolen all the limelight of his stream, which had gone from a Bloodborne stream to just chatting in a matter of seconds, with a gentle smile on his face glad they were happy together.

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annakie · 4 years

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I never at all understood the appeal of watching streamers play video games at ALL (like, cool if that’s your thing! But it definitely wasn’t mine!) before Among Us. It started out with me just wanting to understand the memes so I went to Twitch and just started watching the first Among Us stream that came up on the front page... but now I kind of get it. I liked the guy I was watching and his friends, I understood the game and some strategies after awhile, at least enough to understand the memes and what the kids were talking about. I bought a few bucks worth of bits and tipped the guy I watched, and he thanked me on the stream and I was like “OK, yep I felt a bit of a dopamine rush there. I get that.”

And then I watched AOC’s stream the next day (was busy that night) while working and it was fun and kind of relaxing and often very funny. I’m definitely not going to be like, watching people stream regularly but I have spent a few more hours watching that original streamer I watched play Among Us (he plays with a group of other streamers who are all also entertaining to listen to). It definitely turned watching streamers from “I don’t understand why people do that but you do you.” to “OK, I could maybe see why this is so popular for people, even if it isn’t something I am going to do regularly” to me.

Also I bought Among Us but still haven’t played it but... uh... first of all I don’t wanna play with randos so I need to seek out a community, and second I’m also working like a lot of extra hours right now with my new job... which should hopefully let up at the end of this week. Though I will be working basically all weekend. The few free hours I’ve had for non-D&D gaming (or watching CritRole) have been for Solastra and BG3 -- both of which I’m enjoying VERY MUCH.

#personal post tag thingy

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lxiewrites · 4 years

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hey there ghouls, it’s ya boys

Ao3

Summary: Keith and Lance try to contact the dead... and it kinda works?

Thanks to @gigili-jiggly for letting me ramble about the boys and ghosts and @bleusarcelle for being such a STICK IN THE MUD with Halloween! Xp

Lance laid on his back, rhythmically throwing this little stress ball he found in the air. It was in the shape of a star and spun when it reached its highest point. He more or less tuned out Pidge and Hunk's scientific ramblings or whatever they were doing, he had no idea what they were talking about anyway. He was in the zone with throwing and catching the squishy yellow star, up and down, up and down. It actually was pretty soothing.

"What are you guys doing?"

...Aaand soothing relaxing time is over.

He scowled over at Keith, tummy turning over. What was he even doing here? He didn't think that Keith would be the type to stay after school. Probably thought he was too cool to join a club or a team. Always a broody lone wolf, with a giant stop sign over his face saying 'don't talk to me'. Okay, something is weird with those metaphors but whatever! It's his own thoughts! He can do what he wants!

"What's it look like, Mullet?"

"Lance," Hunk admonished before turning to Keith with a smile, ignoring how Lance threw up his hands in a massive 'what?!' gesture. "We're just here for robotics club, we're, uh, a little shorthanded right now but you can join if you want?"

Keith's brows furrowed, eyes darting across the three of them. Hunk with his big smiling face hands fiddling with wires and a thing to strip the color from them. Pidge with their smarmy little grin sitting in a circle of discarded parts giving him a short salute and… Lance. Obviously the most brilliant and handsome and charming of the group who's obviously supervising from his position on the couch but whatever. Details.

"This is the robotics club?" Keith drawled, eyes going directly to him.

Instantly something inside Lance prickled, stomach all spikey and annoyed. "Yeah, got a problem with that?"

He could hear Hunk using that mother-hen tone with him again and he knew for sure Pidge was rolling their eyes and he could look over and throw the star at them or something, take the prickly pressure off of him, but he kept his eyes locked on one Keith Kogane. Watching how those weird purple-blue eyes--honestly it really depended on the lighting (not that he spent a lot of time wondering at the color of Keith's eyes or anything)-- narrow, head tilting as those indigo (the lighting wasn't the greatest so it was closer to indigo) eyes flickered around the room, no doubt taking in the cobwebs and black and orange streamers. "No, but... isn't this the art room?"

"Technically," Pidge piped in, pushing their glasses up their nose. "But it's not being used for anything today and the shop room is being used for a car or something. I don't know but it's a mess."

"Oh."

Keith shifted a bit on his feet, almost squirming under their stares, his thumb running over his knuckles wrapped around the strap of his bag.

"If you want you can join us," Pidge said. They looked around and shrugged. "It's a little messy but you could probably find a space."

"Yeah!" Hunk agreed, "Just sit anywhere, dude, we're pretty chill."

Hunk looked over at Lance, eyebrows raised, trying to communicate via facial expression. Which Lance pointedly ignored. They specifically left the couch alone and he called it and he was having a nice and relaxing time with his--oh fine!

He sat up, moving his legs over to give Keith room, embellishing the move with a wave of a hand.

Keith made his way over, carefully avoiding small parts and pieces scattered over the place. They definitely did some rearranging before they completely took over. The tables were all shoved to one side of the room, pressed up against the wall displaying the best work and portraits, nearly impossible to work at unless you wanted to sit on top of the tables. And while he's all for anarchy those tables have been around since the eighties he did not trust sitting on one of them. They left the paint-splattered couch in the back alone to actually sit on while Hunk and Pidge scattered their work across the floor. Delicate pieces of machinery and wires laying out where anyone could step on them along with tools and various nuts and bolts.

Keith finally made past the minefield and the way-too-old couch sagged under his weight. Lance shuffled even more to the side until his arm brushed against the art cabinets, fiddling with the stress star in his hand.

"What are you doing here, Keith?" Hunk asked as conversational as ever.

Keith shrugged. "My ride isn't coming until later. I didn't think anyone would be here."

"Ah, sorry for interrupting your alone time, dude. Do you come to the art room often?"

"Sometimes."

Eloquent as always. He peeked over, noting how stiff he was. The couch was old but it was comfortable and plush, but Keith looked like a statue, backpack on his lap like a shield. He was going to wear through the straps with how much he was rubbing the course fabric between his fingers. Silently, Lance tossed him the stress star.

Keith fumbled, lips pulled into a small frown and turning to look at him. Lance was carefully keeping himself sitting forward and occupying himself with his cuticles, biting off a section of dead skin. He fought down a satisfied smile when he heard the backpack hit the ground.

"Well, it's a nice place.” Hunk continued, oblivious, hands and mind preoccupied with the device in his hands. “My friend Shay comes here a lot. She's really good." Hunk nodded to the artboard barricaded by all of the tables.

Pidge scoffed, "Yeah, sure, friend." Their hands leaving their robot part to put up air quotes.

"She is!"

Lance laughed as Hunk sputtered, his deep rich brown skin turning ruddy and red. "Buddy, you went on and rambled about her for, like, an hour."

"I just respect her as an artist!"

He could feel Keith relax into the couch, back slumping, hands rhythmically squeezing the star, tracing his fingers around the letters printed on the side... He could even see a little smile.

"Maybe we should make a truth detector," Pidge teased, hazel eyes glimmering, smirk in place.

Hunk groaned, "Guuuyyyss, I'm serious! She's just a friend!"

"For now!" Lance had to add, just to see his friend blush so hard he could almost see the smoke burst from his ears.

"What are you guys working on right now?"

Lance turned to see Keith star at the different parts scattered around the linoleum floor.

Pidge lit up, brandishing her piece into the air like how Rafiki did to baby Simba. "My greatest creation!"

"It's going to be a recon offline virtual encryption radar or ROVER for short. It's basically a droid."

"It's way cooler than that!" Pidge insisted, glaring at Hunk for his betrayal of their creation. "It's going to be able to scan a surrounding area and break any encryption code that might be present. It's going to be able to send signals into space and pick of distant radio chatter and…"

This is usually the part where Lance tunes them out. They start getting into the details and using terms he doesn't know. All he knows is that it might be slightly illegal and probably could've helped Nicholas Cage steal the Declaration of Independence. The more technical mumbo jumbo and his brain decides to vacate.

He could practically feel his eyes glass over as they start feeding off of each other, looking over to Keith to see if he got anything from their ramblings to find him staring at him with a confused look on his face. It almost struck Lance at how much... cuter he was? Instead of a permanent frown and a 'don't mess with me or I'll punch you' attitude he looked a lot softer. One eyebrow higher than the other, mouth softened into something that wasn't a smile but it wasn't an angry scowl, his head was even tilted to the side like a confused puppy.

Deflect, deflect, deflect. He cleared his throat and shrugged with an 'I don't know' sound.

They looked back at the two on the floor who somehow got to arguing about some sort of thing and doing it once or twice? Whether it was safer or unneeded? Listen. He doesn't know crap about robots or what they're talking about he's just here to test stuff out.

God. He could just feel the awkward descend on them. Should he say something?

He shifted, the silence uncomfortable and heavy in the air, he blurts out, “So what are you doing for Halloween?”

Keith’s brow furrows when he looks at him, “Halloween?”

“Y’know, trick or treating, pumpkins, costumes, ghosts?”

Slowly Keith shakes his head, brow still furrowed in confusion, like Halloween isn’t this national holiday that is beloved by all. “I don’t really celebrate Halloween, it’s kind of… boring?”

Lance reared back like Keith just bitch slapped him. ”Boring?” Lance turned to face Keith fully, he looked mildly suspicious but otherwise impassive as Lance smacked himself in the chest. “Halloween is my lifeblood. How dare you.”

Keith’s lips twitched, scooting around to rest his arm along the back of the couch. “It’s just another holiday that’s capitalized by the candy companies.”

Lance stabbed a finger in the air between them. “You earn that shit. It’s in fun shapes like fangs and eyeballs and you go around in costumes and scare the shit out of your friends.” Both hands come up, clenching in the air like he could grab the spirit of Halloween and shove it in Keith’s face. “It’s hanging out with your friends and getting candy, and it’s watching scary movies and all of the spooky stuff.”

Keith is completely unconcerned by how Lance is so close to tackling him and shoving candy corn down his throat. “Yeah but you can do all of those things at any time of the year. The candy is just candy but in different wrappings, you can technically wear a costume at any time, and all the spooky and scary stuff can happen any day of the year. Ghosts and hauntings can happen at any time not just Halloween.”

“Okay, point, but the aesthetic. All of it is amplified by Halloween and ghosts are more likely to come at Halloween because that’s when the veil is thinnest and they have an easier time coming to Earth or something.”

“You guys believe in ghosts?” Pidge scoffed, face scrunched up in amused disbelief.

Lance gave her a funny look. “And you don’t? I would’ve thought out of all of us you would.”

They chocked on their laugh. ”Me? Why?”

“You know, like, like,” he waved his hand in the air like it could physically keep his thoughts going, “all that energy has to go somewhere, so the souls or whatever become ghosts or spirits.”

“Lance,” Pidge said, “there is no scientific proof of a soul. And if the argument is energy then it would just be the electricity in the brain keeping vital organs alive until it runs out. No ghosts.”

“Okay, but there are so many weird things that happen with no scientific explanation. Why can’t here be ghosts?” Keith chimed in.

“Can we just, like, not talk about ghosts? Is that a thing that can happen?” Hunk smiled a queasy smile, shoulders shuddering.

“Hunk! Not you too!” Pidge cried.

Lance leaned forward, an evil smile creeping across his face. “Our school is built on an old cemetery you know.”

Keith leaned forward; eyes gleaming smile tugging at a corner of his lips. ”Really,” he said, not quite a question.

He grinned. “Years ago the old cemetery was too full and there wasn’t enough room. So they decided to move it but they only moved the headstones, not the bodies.” He tapped his foot on the floor. “Corpses are rotting under us right at this moment.

“LALALALALA,” Hunk shouted, fingers in his ears. “Nope! Nope! Nuh-uh, we’re not talking about this.”

“Oh my god, there’s no such things as ghosts!” They shouted over Lance’s laughter. “Ghosts aren’t—“

The lights turned off, shrouding them in darkness.

“—real.”

Lance’s heart jumped when he heard a scream, matching it with his own, two more joining his. Leather wrinkled under his fingers, as he blinked his eyes to adjust to the dark. He could just make out the shape of Hunk’s hands covering his mouth. He relaxed his grip. “Hunk!”

“Sorry! Sorry!” His hands waved in the darkness. “My bad!”

“Can I have my jacket back?”

Lance jolted at Keith’s voice right next to him. As in right next to him. “Fuck, uh,” he released his hold on Keith’s jacket, haltingly smoothing it out, “sorry.”

Lance didn’t hear his response, or if he made one in the first place because Hunk decided to screech again, sending the hairs on Lance’s arm straight up.

“Oh god, I felt something brush against me!”

Lance felt his pulse in his wrists and his cheeks, his nerves getting twitchy as adrenaline started pumping. “Hunk, please tell me your joking.”

“I’m not, man! Something brushed against me! And it felt cold!” A dark shadow that he was hoping, praying, that it was Hunk stood up. “What if it’s a ghost?! What if it’s one of the people in the cemetery that really doesn’t like art or robots or something?!”

Lance stood up, squeezing his hands into fists to get rid of the unsteady feeling in his limbs, heart starting to pick up. “Okay if there is a ghost I say we just book it.”

He felt Keith stand up next to him. “If it’s a ghost they probably need help, to, like, move on or something. We should try to communicate with it and help it.”

Lance turned to look at him, only wishing that Keith could see the incredulous look on his face. “Keith, buddy, I don’t know if you have seen any horror movies but that never goes well.” He punctuated the syllables in never to drive the message home.

He winced at a bright light that blinded him, blinking away the black spots that appeared in his vision.

“Yeah, except it’s not a fucking ghost you dumbasses,” Pidge said behind their phone light their tone the definition of “done”. “It’s probably a short fuse, c’mon, Hunk, we’re the only ones that are gonna be able to fix it. I don’t trust these two yahoos.”

Hunk whined, head tipping back. “But there are ghosts. And we shouldn’t split up! That’s just spelling disaster in horror movies! We’re going to be picked off one by one!”

“Would you rather sit in the dark?” They rolled their eyes at Hunk’s whine, moving behind him to push him to the door. “Come on big guy, I’ll protect you. Ghosts can’t hurt those that don’t believe in them.”

The last thing Lance heard was Hunk whining down the hall. A fading, “They’re the first one’s to go!”

“Why are they going to fix the fuse?” Keith said behind him, making him jump. He almost forgot he was there the guy was so quiet.

“The maintenance guy, Coran, is sick or something. I think he said slipperies but I have no clue what that is.” He nodded to where his friend’s left. “They help him a lot. I don’t think the school even knows, pfft. That good ‘ol school funding!”

He felt a little shot of pride at the little huff of laughter but immediately tensed when something crashed. A scream in his throat he whipped around, eyes darting around in the darkness seeing nothing.

His muscles jumped, throat closing, when a hand wrapped around his upper arm, a bright beam of light illuminating the wall before them. His arm hurt where Keith’s fingers dug in, his lip nearly white from how hard he was biting it, eyes intent as he looked to see the source of the crash.

Lance drew closer, arms brushing but Keith still didn’t let go, eyes settling on a brass corner sticking out from behind one of the tables. Relief came but it didn’t stay, muscles still poised in fight or flight, heart pumping and insistent against his chest. “It’s fine,” he croaked. “A painting just fell.”

“Did you mean what you said about the school being built on a cemetery?”

“Maybe,” Lance cleared his throat, ignoring how it cracked, “My older brother Marco told me, he had to move to this school when they rebuilt it here, like, twenty years ago.”

“Maybe the ghosts need help moving on, like, if they receive closure on their resting ground being disturbed.” Keith’s voice was just above a whisper, hushed.

Lance’s skin fucking crawled. He whirled on Keith, his dark, dark eyes wide and serious. “How do you supposed we do that?!” A harsh whisper that scraped through the air like nails on a chalkboard.

“We communicate with them,” Keith whispered back, not nearly as harsh. It was actually annoyingly even. “An Ouija board. We can write it out on a piece of paper and use a necklace or something to hold above it as a pendulum or cut out a circle.”

“How do you even know this?!”

“…I watch a lot of paranormal videos.”

“Jesus Fuck.” Lance scrubbed his hands against his face. “How do you know we’re not going to contact a demon or something?”

“I don’t.”

“Fuck, fuck, no.Absolutely not. Not happening, nuh-uh, no—“

Ten minutes later he was sitting on the ground in a little circle of discarded robot parts—were these parts like… body parts of robot pieces? Ugh, okay, no thinking that—across from Keith, a piece of paper between them and Keith’s phone light next to the paper casting shadows across their faces.

“I hate this. I want you to know I hate this.”

Keith only gives him a noncommittal hum, finishing cutting out the circle with safety scissors they found. At least if they’re killed by a poltergeist it won’t be by overly sharp scissors.

Keith slaps the circle on the paper, eyes narrowed and determined. “Are you ready?”

“No.”

But he sets his hands on the paper anyway, fingertips brushing Keith’s as they start to slowly slide the improvised Ouija thingy over their improvised Ouija board. They aimlessly slid it around the letters, the paper sticking to itself slightly.

It was silent between them. Which was new. They’re almost never quiet with each other, someone—usually Lance— saying something. It felt heavy. Weighed down. Like another presence in the room. Like a gho—

There was a lump in his throat as he tried to ignore the silence. His attention expanding all at once like someone turned the dial in his brain up to an eleven. And somehow that was better and worse than the silence. Every tiny sound from the wind rattling the windows to the minute creaking of the room, amplified by the silence between him and Keith, loud enough that it was distracting. The darkness so black there was color.

He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on the soft shh shhhof the paper. Ignoring the shuffling sounds in the walls his brain conjured up. Focusing on the soft huffs of breaths between them as his heartbeat took center stage as a rapid beating drum in his inner ear. Reminding him of how all those victims in horror movies could hear their blood pumping as they died. Pushing down that voice in the back of his head reminding him of all the stupid horror movies he watched like Paranormal 3 or The Ring or The Conjuring—

“So how are we supposed to contact them or whatever?!” Lance said, a little too fast, a little too loud, trying to drown out the voice and images flashing across the forefront of his mind.

“I don’t know, don’t you just shout at the spirits to make contact and they… just… do?”

“Why are you asking me?!” His heartbeat was loud as he looked at Keith, fuzzy with black at the edges as his eyes adjusted again.

Keith’s jaw and eyes were tense, little lines creasing at the corners as he stared down that their hands. “I don’t know! I don’t like this any more than you!”

“You know, if we were smart we would just leave.”

“Yeah, but that wouldn’t fix anything!”

“We’d be fixing our lives, Keith!”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“You know,” Lance brought up his hands, clapping them together, mouth pressed in a straight line, “this is a bad idea. We should go and leave and come back in the morning.”

“Fine. You go, I’m staying.” Keith crossed his arms, mouth firm as he stared at Lance.

Maybe another time Lance would have left. Shouted something at how he was just being plain stupid. Which he was! But he could see the rapid pace of Keith’s jugular in his neck. How pale he was, his fingers rubbing together. His normally pink and plush bottom lip thin and white as he bit it.

He sat back down.

He really wanted to find his friends and leave, and while he knew somewhere deep down they were not being haunted a bigger and louder voice was telling him there was a chance. A slim chance but there was this big, gaping possibility. And he would never forgive himself if Keith got his guts ripped out by a ghost if this possibility happened to come alive.

“Fuuuck, I hate this.” He glared at Keith who looked at him with relief, the tension between his eyes a little less stressed, his shoulders relaxed away from his ears. Lance could feel his heart kick up a notch and he didn’t think it was because of ghosts this time. He intensified his glare. “I hate you.”

Keith smiled at him. “You ready to contact the dead.”

Lance shook his head. “Jesus fuck.” Put his hands back onto the paper circle.

“Spirits,” Keith called out, eyes darting to the corners of the room. “Please. Let us help you.”

They waited a beat. He doesn’t know what it’s supposed to feel like to use an Ouija board, if there was supposed to be a pull or a tug or, hell, an electric shock or something. But he was getting zip. He looked at Keith who just shrugged.

Keith called out again. “If there’s anyone here, please say something.”

This time Lance closed his eyes, who knows maybe the ghost was shy or something. He let his hands slide side to side with Keith’s, not feeling a particular pull but—

Fuck

Lance shot his eyes open. Heart beating fast and this time it definitely was not because Keith had a cute smile or pretty eyes. He heard something.

That shuffling from before. In the walls. It wasn’t in his head but he could hear it. In the room. Around him. And once he heard it heard it he couldn’t un-hear it.

“Keith,” he whispered. “I think I hear something.”

Keith looked at him with wide eyes, so wide he could see how his purple-blue-indigo irises were nearly engulfed by fear, the pupils only leaving a thin rim of color surrounding them.

“What,” he whispered back.

The sound traveled. Started at the back, right behind him and the couch and moved. And if his body wasn’t fucking paralyzed it would be shaking because that’s how his insides felt. Organs trembling as the rest of it locked up tight.

He didn’t look, didn’t want to look. Looking only makes it real; he’ll see whatever is there and get his face eaten off by a fucking demon. But he could still hear. Hear how that scrabbling turned to scratching. And by now, with him being so quiet, barely breathing, Keith could hear it too.

They locked eyes, both hearing it. Adrenaline starting a slow course through his veins, muscles twitching, heart jumping. He could see how Keith’s eyes slowly slide from his and he squeezed his fingers bringing them back to him.

He mouths, “I don’t see anything.”

Lance squeezes his eyes shut until colors flash in a kaleidoscope behind his eyelids, the scratching sound even louder, getting closer. Nails on a chalkboard, nails at his throat.

It was a ghost. It was a fucking ghost and he and Keith were gonna die and their corpses were gonna be found in the morning because of course Halloween was on a school’s day—

He felt a ghostly hand brush against the small of his back and he fucking leaped—

Straight into Keith's lap screaming. Keith’s hands fisting in the back of his shirt shouting in his ear so loud it was going to be ringing the next day— if he lived.

Heart in his throat he waited for the ghosts to do some shit where they pried him off of the newfound lifeline he had grasped in his arms, pulled around the room and shook like a doll.

And all of a sudden it was bright. Bright, bright, bright, bright. And all he could think of was ’do ghosts glow?’before he heard.

“What the fuck is wrong?!”

He shot his eyes open, black dots and bright light blinding him for a second before he could see Hunk and Pidge in the doorway eyes wide with panic.

Throat sore, he stopped screaming Keith quieting down soon after though both of their chests heaved as they tried to catch their breaths.

“What. The fuck. Is wrong?!” Pidge shouted again.

No ghost. The light was on. His friends were here. He dropped his head to Keith’s shoulder and breathed. Arms tightened around him.

Not looking up, he declawed his hand from Keith’s back, waving it at his friends. “Wanna explain, Keith?”

He felt a similar press of a forehead against his shoulder, the sigh fanning across his collarbones. Keith murmured something into his shirt.

Using his body he shook them both. “Come on, Keith, tell them what your idea was.”

Another sigh. “ We tried to use an Ouija board to contact the spirits.”

“Eh, eh, eh, it was Keith’sidea! All his! I wanted to leave!”

“You would’ve left without me?” Hunk said, pouting. He placed a hand on his chest. “Buddy, I’m hurt.”

Lance reached a hand towards him. “No, no, buddy! I would’ve found you first and then booked it!”

Hunk thought for a moment before nodding. “Accepted.”

“I told you guys there were so such things as ghosts,” PIdge said, exasperated.

Keith finally let him go to turn around. “But we did make contact with the ghosts!”

“Yeah!” Lance nodded, fervently, backing up what Keith was saying. “There was a ghost and it touchedme!”

Pidge squinted and looked between them while Hunk’s face screwed up in horror. “How did this hypothetical ghost make contact?”

“There was a lot of scratching noises, like it was in the walls and, again, it touched me!”

Pidge's suspicion fell from their face, expression blank. They smacked their lips together and looked at Hunk. The big guy losing the horrified look on his face, lighting up in relief and understanding. Pidge blinked slowly before bringing up a hand to rub at their forehead, pointing their other hand toward the cabinet doors. “I found your fucking ghost, morons.”

As one, Keith and Lance turned to look and found a little mouse cowering in front of the cabinet. It paced in front of the doors, little claws scrabbling at the wood, trying to find its way in.

Lance felt blood rush to his face and shared a look with Keith, who was also red from the tips of his ears to where it disappeared under the collar of his shirt. He cleared his throat, tearing his eyes away from Keith to look at Pidge and Hunk sheepishly. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“It’s a good thing you got the lights going,” Keith piped in, cheeks still red.

Hunk’s nose wrinkled. “Actually, we didn’t.”

“What do you mean?” Lance asked.

“When we got there everything was fine. Nothing looked out of place and we didn’t know what to fix, so we just left and were going to tell Coran in the morning.”

“The lights came back on when we were walking back and heard you yahoos screaming,” Pidge finished.

Lance took a deep breath. Nerves fried and muscles sore from being so tense. That entire fiasco might have been a mouse but no. Just no. He’s not risking it. He got up and helped Keith up, a single-minded mission to get the fuck out of dodge.

“Okay, we’re all leaving.” He grabbed their backpacks and tossed them to their owners and started shooing them out the door despite Pidge’s protests and Hunk’s comments about cleaning up. “Let’s go.” Next to them another painting from the art wall fell. “NOW!”

A/N: okay, yes, it might be a day late for Halloween but in my defense I got sick and my body snuck up on me and hit me over the head with a club

#lexwrites #klance #keith #lance #ghosts #spoopy #Halloween #supernatural #high school au

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whenemmafallsinlove · 4 years

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pos-hour! I started off my morning by making some hot chocolate and then I spent the early afternoon watching my favorite streamer on twitch. It was nice to just take it slow today and relax for a bit!

that’s lovely!!!!!! i’m glad today seems like it was def relaxing and chill

SEND ME POSITIVE THINGS! POSITIVE HOURS ON MAIN!!!

#allthekingdomlightshine #emma has mail #poshour #poshourday219

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misbhaves · 5 years

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neko twitch stream log; the final entry.

2018, FEBRUARY 3rd 04:07 AM.

11.

The room was mostly dark, were it not for the neon lighting bathing itself across the walls, the cupboard, the bed in the corner and the silhouette of the petite hooded figure sitting bow-legged in a chair far too big for her. Between the length of her bangs that were falling into her eyes and the mask stretched over the lower half of her face, nothing was visible, but the feminine posturing and avatar seemed to do the job because not even ten minutes in and no words said and the number of people watching the stream had already jumped up to twenty. The first exhale she released was shaky, and her hands trembled around the XBOX controller in her hands. The viewer count went up and down sporadically as she tried to psych herself up, before, finally a soft voice began speaking: “K-konnichiwa, minna-san.” the girl gave a small bow with her head, the light washing over her concealed face creating shadows over the mask that almost indicated a facial expression. either a smile or a nervous laugh. “I-I’m Neko-chan. Pleased to meet you. Um. I’m a little shy, but I’ll do my best.”

After the first few encouraging comments poured in, her shoulders appeared to relax and her expression, too, or what was visible of it anyway.

2018, AUG 21st 14:21 PM.

67K.

There was certainly something to be said about popularity, although all her peers repeatedly claimed it wasn’t that important. It was certainly a phrase Neko was guilty of saying, and often, in both languages. Even as she thanked her followers for each milestone she passed from her humble beginnings. Unlike the shy manner with which she had carried herself in her first few videos, she now opened her videos with more fanfire and open excitement. She hadn’t grown comfortable yet to take off her mask, but as she inched closer to the 500K follower mark, she had already decided to change that soon.

“I-D-K how I feel about the Gamerscom trailer for DMC5. Personally, I’m not sure I really pictured Dante the way he’s been looking in the hyper-realistic rendering of his character,” The girl rambled, pausing only to give herself a sip of the gargantuan soda she had by her side, having to push the mask slightly upward over her mouth to do so. “Show my face?” She said, nearly choking on the soda in the process. “Just like Dante, I feel like the live-action is not going to live up to the anime drawings, you know?”

There was a voice off-camera, seemingly stealing her attention. “What, already?” She whined, before turning back to the camera. “Gotta run off for an IRL sidequest,” She huffed apologetically, setting aside her controller already. “Neko signing out. Ja ne!”

2018 SEP 2ND 16:45 PM.

127K.

“A-Ah, I’m nervous,” It was said daintily, her head ducked and voice shaky for the first time since her early days on the platform. There were already words of encouragement pouring in. Others were impatient, reminding that she had, in fact, promised that today would have been the day. An anxiety she didn’t know the birthplace of always knotted in her chest when it came to the prospect of allowing herself to be judged my others. It was strange. A sharp ache that felt defensive somehow. As if her body was shielding itself based on a previous rejection her mind could not remember.

Shaking hands came up to the tight cotton straps of the mask curved around her ears. “Um. I just want to say uh, I’m sorry if any of you are disappointed.” She mumbled quietly, breathing out shakily, painfully, before slowly unhooking the straps and lowering the mask off her face.

Then, with one of her hands, she went ahead and pushed her bangs out of her eyes, too. “Konnichiwa, minna-san,” She said, mirroring her first ever greeting, comfortable with her mother-tongue. “It’s me. Neko-chan. Nice to meet you.”

Her cheeks were stained a deep red, her gaze averted so she wouldn’t be too tempted to look at the chat. “A-Anyway, I’m going to play Yakuza-0 first,” She said, fumbling for her controller. “I hope you guys enjoy.”

2019 APR 20TH 20:07PM

45K.

The video opened with royalty-free 8-bit music playing in the background of a dark room bathed in neon pink lighting. sitting cross-legged and hugged by a gaming chair a little too big for such a small person. Neko - a video-gaming streamer of some influence greeted her viewers with a classic ‘v’ sign.. “Hey demons, it’s ya girl, Neko, back at it again with a cringey youtuber intro. First off, good evening to all of you and special greetings to the moon which is out here killing it after the sun was way too hot today.”

The girl fanned herself dramatically, “Today, I was going to go out to see what new games I could buy, but since it was too hot to wear a mask, I just stayed home and continued playing Yakuza all day long. But then like an hour ago, it hit me that i was being a doofus and should at least let you guys play Yakuza with me. So, here we go, minna-san. just a girl, her bunnies and some sweet Japanese gang action.” Her nose wrinkled. “I already don’t wanna know what the chat is gonna be like after that poorly worded statement.” The camera jerked slightly as the girl moves closer, knocking her knee into something underneath the desk and making the desk shake as she jumped in place. “itai... sorry...” She was mumbling, one eye squeezed shut, then louder and more cheerfully, she continued, I fell down the stairs earlier today and I think I might have hurt my ankle, but it’s okay as long as I don’t touch it. an’ I accidentally kicked the CPU.” The screen split then, showing live-action gaming footage. “I-R-L is looking pretty crazy lately, guys. every time I go outside it’s like, I see someone else being collared and taken into a van. america land of the free, home of the brave my ASTEROIDS. What’s brave about going up to people with weapons that render them totally powerless and shackling them without giving them the chance of a fair fight? And like, for what crime anyway? For being born? No wonder so many of you Americans are always raving about going to Japan, because let me tell you, I know plenty of people - some very close to me - who are mutants and nobody cares.” Her fingers continued to rapidly tap away at the controller in her hands, her eyes focused on the game as she spoke.

“You know what I think? I think the mayor of this city is just intimidated. he’s too scared and insecure in his own ability to control a city where some of his civilians are stronger, or faster or smarter than he is.” With an uncharacteristically humourless laugh, she continued. “Boo hoo, Virgie, everyone in the world has to deal with the fact they’re inferior to someone else. It doesn’t give them the right to commit genocide. For Hitler , it was art school. who wants to take bets on what Virgie’s big old justification is?”

“Maybe he was bullied in school, or like a mutant stole his girlfriend, or - wow, what if like, he auditioned for the school play and a mutant stole his role and the guy of his dreams? You know... like Sharpay Evans, who deserved better. whatever it is. It doesn’t matter, because people go through bad, horrible things every day and they still make the choice to be good. I make the choice every day, that even if I’m capable of hurting the people who hurt me a hundred times worse, I won’t do it.”

Her voice was then accompanied by the sound of automated grunts and groans as she concentrated momentarily on the in-game killing she was providing her audience. “And I won’t let you do it either. So, if any of you out there are scared, don’t be. Find others like you and take shelter, because the more unified you are, the less power he has over you.”

After a pause, the girl giggled. “Or something like that. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, sorry. Um, moving on... did any of you guys play the latest Yakuza? what did you think of it, I personally...”

2019 MAY 25TH 22:17PM.

11K.

The steam begun with uncharacteristic silence, bereft of the tinny music the girl had been opening her streams with for the past five months, if not more. The room was the same, as was the chair, but there was something about the girl seated in it that seemed different. Haunted almost. The bruises on her youthful face had almost entirely faded, but they were enough cause for alarm amongst her fans, most of whom had flooded in after seeing her go live for the first time after a nearly month-long hiatus.

“Hi, everyone,” She greeted in English first before repeating the same in Japanese. “Been a while, huh?” She folded her legs up onto her chair, spinning to and fro. “I haven’t been home in a while. There’s been a lot going down in the city I live in and... I haven’t been dealing with it well, honestly.” She reached up, pushing her hair behind her ear. “You know, I used to think that being a hero just meant doing the right thing, or saving the day.

43K.

Her nose wrinkled slightly. “But recently, I’ve come to realise it’s not that simple. Sometimes being a hero means not being able to save the day, but being able to send a message.” She cleared her throat, her fingers clenching around her knees. “Yesterday, there was a rally, in which dozens of mutants of various ages were kidnapped. Chained and carted away like cattle. Some of these people are my friends.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

67K.

“And I have failed them.” She continued. “By being born someone privileged enough to have my status swept under the rug.” She bit into her lower lip. “While people like me rot in ... these pseudo-military bases and get tortured and prodded and experimented on as if it’s the second world war and we have learned nothing.”

113K.

“And just like me, if you’re sitting at home and you’re doing nothing while this happens even though you have the power to do otherwise,” She continued, voice strained. “Then you’re just as bad. Just as cowardly.” With a shuddering breath, continued. “The time I’ve spent here, with you guys, will always be the happiest memories I’ll ever have. And maybe one day, I’ll come back and make some more. But, for now, I guess...” She shook out another sigh, reaching up to catch a traitor tear that slipped down her pale face. “I’ll have to be on this hiatus indefinitely.”

130K.

“Because even if I don’t know how this fight is going to end... and even if I’m scared I,” She reached off-screen for something, and when her hand drew back it was holding a porcelain mask, shaped in the traditional Kitsune shape. “I can’t wait around expecting for things to just... get better.”

“And I can’t keep relying on friends or family anymore either, because in the end...” She trailed off, something about her expression breaking. “You never really know a person, do you?” Resolutely, she fastened her mask onto her face. “I can’t wait to be saved anymore.”

“I’m sorry, dad. But, in this story, the princess rescues herself.”

And just like that, the live stream ended abruptly.

#—aki's streams of consciousness.#☆*:･✧ i want to exhale stardust and create my own constellation | aki.

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thispabulum-blog · 2 years

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Welcome to Greendale!

What's the Tea? Tuesday

Alright, let’s work on getting up to date a bit. We'll talk about some nice, fun things, for the most part.

This is gonna be long, because halfway through I decided to do 4 weeks instead of just 2. Let's goooo, as the kids say.

Week 3 (Feb 27 - Mar 5):

If you're a long-time reader and/or a person who knows me well, you'll know I have this admittedly overly-hubristic idea that I'm able to read people very well and that I can make good choices. Clearly this is not true, and it's amazing I haven't been murdered yet, or even been in what I thought was serious danger (since Pickle Guy, at least).

Because my current living situation is a little more communal and a lot more Conservative Republican than I'd prefer, I try not to have too many guys over.

As a result, Weeb Dude and I decided the best plan for our first date was to get a hotel room on a Sunday so that we could watch a bunch of anime together without scandalizing anyone ("Sorry for being brown," he said). Is this a smart decision, safety-wise? Probably not.

Don't do this thing.

It was fine, though. He's not any more (or less) awkward in person than he is over text, but he paid for both snacks and dinner and we had a really great time.

We had Popeye's delivered while we tried to figure out how to hook up his laptop to the tv (we could not, and therefore had to abandon our plan to watch all of Kaguya-sama: Love is War), then watched a movie on his laptop before exploring Netflix's anime catalog. We stayed up all night watching shows, eating chips, and intermittently paying attention while cuddling.

If you're curious: we watched the movie Your Name, a few episodes of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Senpai, a bunch of episodes of Komi Can't Communicate, and almost the entire first season of Attack on Titan. Not much sleep was had until 5 or 6 am - hot, I know.

10/10 though, would Weeb Dude again. It's a hard thing to define, really. I don't think we've had a serious conversation ever, and I know very few personal details about him, but he's amazingly good and relaxed company, does not pressure me, and gives fantastic massages. I wanted to be able to wash his hair, but hotel rooms are not super conducive to that kind of thing. I also came home with a baseball-sized hickey on my back that reminded me of hanging out with The Octopus.

I got a message on Tuesday from a guy that I don't want to doxx but I'll call him Swipe Right. He's a Twitch streamer, has since turned 30, and streams different games for about 4 hours every weekday, so I watch him a lot. It's an interesting way to get to know someone from a distance, I've found.

He likes doing the voices when he reads dialogue, and he's really funny. He also has the coolest selection of retro t-shirts. He’s really open about his mental health struggles, and it’s nice to be able to see him interact with his online friends and audience. This feels like less of a romantic connection and more of a new friend, and because neither of us have houses we can hang out at, we've mostly just chatted.

And then! I got a nice message on Wednesday from a guy we're calling Cuddlebug.

He was really talkative, interesting and interested. He dove in very quickly to the good topics (turns out he’s a journalist; it all makes sense now): poly life, board games, spreadsheets, and disturbing cinema. Quite extroverted, 26, very competitive/argumentative, a little bratty, mildly obnoxious.

I was in a weird place mentally that evening and asked if he could just ramble about something for a while to take my mind off things, so he spent the next 30 minutes talking/ranting about marijuana legalization (he doesn't smoke but has strong feelings about drug laws) in an intelligent and passionate way that was interesting and super endearing.

I think we both have a similar philosophy where we make up our minds about people really quickly and we're either not very interested or we’re literally down for whatever, and it seemed like we both hit that point very quickly where we felt comfortable enough with each other that it was just a given that we’d go out soon.

Luckily for me, he's got a very open schedule and doesn't mind driving, so we made a date for the next week.

Week 4 (Mar 6 - 12):

Most excitingly (and also chronologically), I had my date with Cuddlebug (my first real first date since 2014!) on Sunday!

We'd been texting a lot and talking about going to get Thai food and then somewhere we could hang out and play board games, and I lamented that I didn't get to take enough of the good board games when I moved out.

Cuddlebug: Wait, wanna go around to half price books today per chance? We can find cheap board game

Me: Ooh I'm kinda down for that.

Cuddlebug: Yoooo it's lit. Food, half price, then vibe check after we hit a few half price books?

Me: Yesssss

Cuddlebug: Sick :D

He's…a dork, and he talks like a gamer (because he is one). We went to this Thai food place near me that I hadn't tried, which ended up being great. Good conversation, and he didn't mind when I told him to be quieter.

Cuddlebug has three volumes: Loud, Louder, and Holy Shit Bro Why Are You So Fucking Loud??

We ended up going to two different Half Price Books where we bought some board games and books. Lots of driving around and car talking, which I’ve previously discussed how much I like. He only talked about Rick and Morty a little bit.

I realize I’m making him sound terrible and obnoxious, so let me throw in some of the nicer stuff.

We were both super up-front about being really cuddly people, but he let me know how strongly he feels about energy-matching and that he would not make the first move until I had confirmed that I was comfortable.

As we were walking around the bookstore I kept trying to get close to him, but I wasn’t being forward enough about it so he kept just moving out of my way to be polite. At one point he went by the info desk to ask them to look up a book for him, and I put my hand on his lower back while he talked to the employee. That was apparently the Green Light he’d been waiting for, and it was all hands on deck after that, so to speak.

Once we were done shopping we decided to hang out at home and watch Community (which he had not seen!) and cuddle, and this is where the nickname comes in because good fucking God he is the cuddliest human.

Texts from the next day's debrief:

Cuddlebug: Now that I'm comfy with you, I will be even more cuddly; I'm super stoked about hanging with ya

Me: There's a More Cuddly setting?? You already seemed like you were about to dissolve into a cloud of cotton candy and unicorn jizz.

Cuddlebug: Ya, that was like the 8/10 cuddly setting. But ya, I was 100% melting with you. :3

After a little while of watching Community and playing with his hair, I told him I was going to change out of my date clothes into comfy clothes, and when I came back he was like “OMG you look so cute and comfy!” in the most adorably genuine way imaginable. Dude just really likes comfort.

Before he left, he set up another date with me for the same week, which I see as the ultimate sign of a successful interaction! More on that in a bit...

An odd thing happened this week on Wednesday. I got a message from a guy I'll call Bible Camp, perhaps a bit unkindly. We started out having a very normal conversation that seemed like it was going nicely. And then it kinda veered off in a different direction. He disclosed that he was very interested in the fact that I date other guys - which, fine. He wanted to talk about it a lot, though, to the extent that like…we weren't really talking about me anymore? There was a lot of conversation about the guys I see, and very little about me.

I asked him if he was into guys (again, no judgment. I'll talk about this at some point, but most of the men I'm attracted to are into guys to some extent), and he said no. But then he kept talking about the guys I go out with, and - god, I don't want to make this blog super explicit so let me see if I can be vague about this - but there were very specific things regarding body parts and fluids that he was interested in talking about, seeing, and getting in his mouth.

I suspect him of being in denial or ashamed of being more or less attracted to men - and expressed to Cuddlebug that he looks like the kind of guy who would have fooled around with guys at Bible Camp and never told anyone about it. We'll circle back to that later.

Later Wednesday, I got to meet some of Cuddlebug’s housemates and friends and cats when I spent the night at his house. He's very chill and unbothered by most things. We watched some weird and random stuff on YouTube, I roasted his sparse decorating choices to all my friends (his is truly the bedroom of a 19-year-old and he is 26), complained about his exactly two bed pillows which were very flat, and honestly had a really great time. He even took me to his favorite restaurant, where I had the opportunity to tell him The Pickle Story, which he greatly enjoyed.

He is the sweetest and melts super easily at any kind of physical contact or positive energy. He's got a super cute smile, and his body is bonkers. He is also an excellent communicator, big on consent and comfort, and is capable of giving (and receiving) very direct feedback. He will frequently check in to make sure I'm comfortable/happy/having fun, and reminds me that I can always let him know if he's being too annoying or if his teasing goes too far. These are all refreshing and excellent qualities in a human being, and especially in a romantic partner.

I did have another hookup on Friday with a guy we’ll call Rancho - a short (5'5") and very cute 21-year-old Latino guy with long curly hair (noooo I definitely don't have a type, Idk what you're talking about...). It went so much better than my first foray into the genre. We chatted most of the day, we met up and got to cuddle, we watched a movie, we did other fun things that everyone enjoyed, and then we just didn’t really talk after that.

One thing that I never experienced before, though...I was preoccupied doing that thing that I particularly enjoy doing, and looked up to see this dude...vaping. That was definitely a first. Didn’t detract from the experience, though. Had he messaged me at all after that point, I would have been okay meeting up again.

And then Baymax.

Things were going super well and some very deep infatuation was happening, and we stumbled upon a bit of luck in that his parents were going out of town for the weekend. He’d had a rough week with his job and dealing with difficult family stuff, and he really wanted my company.

At 5 am on Saturday, this puppy dog of a human being drove an hour and a half across several towns to come make pancakes with me and my best friend, eat breakfast with her family, and then take me back to his house to spend the night.

We had a really great time! This is not gonna be the level of detail that I'd normally go into, but: I got to meet a friend of his, we went grocery shopping, we attempted to watch his favorite movie (Big Hero 6, of course) twice and I fell asleep both times. There were good cuddles and lots of nice touching, and we both took turns being emotional disasters and comforting the other. The next day I made French Toast, he played piano for me (the boy is incredibly talented), and then he drove me to Cuddlebug's house where the three of us melted into a cuddle puddle on the big couch until he had to leave.

I'm getting impatient at being behind, so let's keep going.

Week 5 (Mar 13 - 19):

Sunday was Baymax dropping me off at Cuddlebug’s house and watching Community. The two of us also watched Moon that evening at my insistence, which he really enjoyed.

He cooked for me, which may have been the hottest thing to ever happen. I got to sit in the kitchen and watch an Italian man make carbonara at midnight.

Let me turn down the lights while I tell you about it.

“Are you interested in cheese?” he dared to ask me.

I answered in the affirmative, and before my lusty little eyes he sliced a piece of baguette, poured some olive oil on top of it, a bit of black pepper, and set down a chunk of Manchego next to it.

My death.

Also the pasta was delicious or whatever. We ate it with chopsticks because there were no clean forks.

The next morning I hung out at the house while he went to a bakery, and when he came back he interrupted a tarot reading I was working on by throwing Korean pastries at me - acceptable.

Then we watched this movie Nine Days that he suggested (so good! highly recommend) and tried to watch Oldboy but couldn’t find good subs so we ended up watching Funny Games instead. He had strong feelings about that movie, as most people do, but he really liked it.

We quickly found this comfortable dynamic where we enjoy spending time together, but we're also 100% fine doing separate things. He was very clear that he understands I'm an introvert and that if I ever need to fuck off and be alone (especially when we're in a big group, as is often the case at his house full of loud, rowdy gamers and their guests) I'm more than welcome to do so. I appreciate this so much. I'm also fine entertaining myself while he gets on his computer and plays TFT for four hours or whatever. It gives me time to write blog posts and watch Drag Race!

On Monday, Baymax was in a car accident. He was mostly okay and didn't have to be hospitalized, but it was rough on him physically and mentally and he let me know it might be a while before he could drive again. This came only a week after one of his sisters was in a car accident and ended up in the ICU, so it was a rough time.

Late Thursday night I messaged a guy on Tinder saying "I wanna put my hands in your haaaaaaaaair!" because I'm great at pickup lines and I'm really into dudes with long, curly hair right now. He responded positively and we'll call him Little Caesar - apologies for that. He works full-time and also his entire family lives with him and also his parents don't know that he dates. So I'm not sure how much this is going to happen, but he's nice.

Friday night Item 9 and I had planned on going out to an arcade, but early that morning he was ALSO in a car accident. Mostly he just banged up his car in an annoying way, but it had to go to the shop, so our date was a no-go. Because of kids and other partners, scheduling is tricky, but we're adults and capable of patience.

Week 6 (Mar 20 - 26):

Cuddlebug came and picked me up on Sunday. We ran out of gas on the way to his house (I swear if one more person has car trouble…), but were able to coast to a gas station so it ended up okay. We hung out a lot, he loudly (ofc) read me an article he wrote about Super Capitalism, and then he drove me to Whataburger at 1 am so I could get food. A gem, this one.

The next day we went with a couple of his friends for lunch at this nice sushi place I'd never been to, which was amazing. Then we got home and it was storming and everyone was full of sushi, so we all fell asleep on couches for a few hours. I stayed that night and went home the next day. More Community was watched, and he showed off some of his Warhammer 40k figurines. I love nerds.

Little Caesar and I found a night (Thursday) that he was more or less available for a few hours, and he picked me up at 1 am to go to IHOP for pancakes, and then we drove around and talked about life and relationships and stuff. We may or may not have made out in the parking lot of a restaurant that was closed. He’s definitely cool and interesting and I’d like to see him again, but because of scheduling and living situations, I’m not gonna hold my breath on that one.

Bible Camp got back in touch, one-track mind still on that same track. He's also been a little cagey about sending me pictures of himself that don't seem like catfish pictures (I did reverse image search them and not come up with anything, so it’s possible they’re just old pictures, or even just kinda bad pictures). I discussed with Item 9 that I don't know if it's just that he's embarrassed/ashamed of the things he's talking to me about, or what the deal is. Honestly, though, even if he's not the dude in the pictures I've seen, I still don't mind talking to him. I believe him when he says that he's never been able to talk to anyone about this interest of his before, and that it's nice having someone who supports it. And I'm all for helping people discover and explore their interests. You do you, boo.

Eclipse and I were going to finally go out Friday night, but he woke up with a 102⁰ fever (COVID test negative) so he had to stay home.

I spent the evening chatting with Item 9 instead, and ended up breaking the news to him that we are not strangers.

Me: Can I tell you something I was kinda waiting to tell you in person?

Item 9: Sure.

Me: So like. Idk if you remember this, but we have actually gone out before. It's just been getting increasingly awkward for me to not say anything about it.

Item 9: ...did we see Jaws?

Me: Aww, you do remember! Haha

Item 9: So when you talked about a virtual date, I thought about this one girl I had a few with, which was you haha

Me: I've been trying to throw hints thinking you'd catch on and say something.

Item 9: God, I'm an idiot haha

Baymax ran into some trouble. This is gonna be vague because I don't have a ton of information about what actually happened, but the gist is that his parents were starting to get suspicious, so we weren't able to talk much.

Then his mom discovered some evidence that there had been A Girl in the house (*gasp*) and poor Baymax spilled his sensitive little guts. His parents, being the controlling conservative Christian Republicans that they are, were absolutely livid (because of me being in the house while they were gone, and the possibility that their 20-year-old adult son may have had sex, and the age difference) and insisted that he return my things and block me. So, fun fun, I guess things are just over.

I truly am the worst at taking my own advice: "Never get over-zealous about someone. You never know when they're going to run off with your parking sticker."

He didn't take my parking sticker, but he does still have my brown suede jacket and my Star Wars Monopoly game.

I was more upset and disappointed than I expected, but both Cuddlebug and Item 9 have been super supportive and it’s starting to get a little easier.

Speaking of. I invited Cuddlebug over on Saturday night so I could cook dinner for him and so he could meet my best friend and her boyfriend and sister. They talked about anime over my head, argued about sandwiches, and we swapped horrific online dating stories while he resisted the urge to yell about how awful men are.

Then I went over to his place for the weekend. There was mild drama involving his housemates, but nothing that was directed at me specifically. We also watched more Community, and engaged in truly degenerate amounts of cuddling, as always.

This was a lot, but we're getting closer to present day!

Come back tomorrow and I'll show you the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me, in the form of a message I received. There may not be a literal fedora involved, but there's definitely a spiritual fedora involved.

#dating #okcupid #poly #online dating #first date #Spotify #quality time #physical touch #relationship #partner #relationships #love #dating apps suck #polyamory #polyam life #long #long reads #long post

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Biggest Geek Culture Moments of 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains a spoiler for The Mandalorian Season 2

2020 has been a wild and unpredictable year for most of us, but it also brought with it a ton of key cultural incidents and shifts that kept online news and trade outlets pretty busy at their keyboards. As we finally grind toward the end of a very weird 12 months, we’ve been looking back at some of the more stand-out moments in geek culture, which we’ll recap with you here.

You may find that these cultural markers aren’t listed in chronological order. That’s because in 2020, time ceased to exist in its previously understood form. Wednesday rarely meant anything, Monday was still technically the worst but couldn’t be trusted either way, Saturdays were no longer reserved for the notion of relaxation, and any given Tuesday might as well have taken place in a different universe, such was the obliqueness of its concept. Is it December right now, or July? No one really knows anymore.

But things still happened in 2020! Things and stuff definitely happened, we’re almost sure of it. Here are some of the things and stuff that probably happened, several of which you’d struggle to explain to a past version of yourself without the board from Chernobyl and scheduled breaks…

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson Get COVID-19

Shit got real on March 11 when beloved Forrest Gump actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson both tested positive for COVID-19 while filming on location in Australia. 63-year-old Hanks, who has Type 2 Diabetes and a stent in his heart, was fairly sure he was in a high-risk group, but at the time we still knew very little about the virus.

Hanks’ updates on he and Wilson’s recovery were little lights in the darkness over the next few weeks, and when the pair appeared to have made it through the worst, there was a sense of relief that 2020 would – at the very least – not steal him, but Hanks said he was way more relaxed than us about the whole thing. “I’m not one who wakes up in the morning wondering if I’m going to see the end of the day or not,” he told The Guardian. “I’m pretty calm about that.” He’s since become a strong advocate for social distancing measures. – KH

Tiger King of the World

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness debuted on Netflix globally on March 20, becoming the first quarantine binge of the pandemic. A problematic series from the get-go, there was comfort to be found in its existence, as it became apparent that even if things were really quite shit at home, at least you hadn’t been fed to a tiger yet. Or sent to jail for arranging a hit on your nemesis. Or had accidentally shot yourself in the head. Or, etc and so on. – KH

The Snyder Cut Rises

They said it would never happen. And by “they” I have to confess, I mean “we.” But it’s true, Warner Bros. actually is spending tens of millions of dollars to let Zack Snyder finish his Justice League movie as he originally intended it. And the fans who have kept hope alive since the disappointing Joss Whedon-helmed theatrical cut of the movie are getting even more than they bargained for, since the no-longer-mythical “Snyder Cut” isn’t just a movie, it’s a four hour long miniseries event headed to HBO Max.

The early 2021 release of the Director’s Cut of Justice League (which now appears to be its official title) will mark the culmination of five years of fan demands, and will finally put a bow on Snyder’s original vision of the DCEU, completing the trilogy he began with 2016’s Man of Steel. Hopefully it lives up to everyone’s expectations. – MC

Next-Gen Gaming Breaks the Internet…Literally

2020 turned out to be a very important year for gaming. Not only did it see the release of many highly-anticipated titles, such as The Last of Us Part II, Cyberpunk 2077, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Ghost of Tsushima, but it also ushered in a new generation of gaming with the arrival of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 as well as new PC graphics cards from NVIDIA and AMD.

Unfortunately, when it comes to next-gen gaming in 2020, all other topics of discussion are eclipsed by just how difficult it’s been to actually buy any of these new consoles or GPUs. From the moment pre-orders opened, getting one of these next-gen products has been a nightmare. Retail sites like Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop went down almost immediately on day 1 of pre-orders for both consoles, and have remained generally low in stock ever since, servers shaky at best. And the scalpers who used bots to buy up consoles and graphics cards to flip for exorbitant prices certainly haven’t helped.

If you got that next-gen gaming experience you wanted for Christmas this year, count yourself lucky! – JS

Trolls World Tour Starts a War

Universal’s Trolls World Tour was the first major movie to properly break and go straight to go streaming in 2020. Whether this was a movie you’d have personally sought out or not, it would have made a ton of money in a non-pandemic year. After that, eyes turned to the big studios, as we waited to see whether the likes of Black Widow, Bill & Ted Face the Music, or Mulan would follow suit.

Warner Bros., who had strenuously backed Christopher Nolan’s Tenet for a theatrical release, did a handbrake turn late in 2020 when it announced – to much industry outrage – that its full schedule of big budget movies, including Dune and The Matrix 4, would see a “day and date” streaming release on HBO Max in 2021 after Wonder Woman 1984 would do the same on Christmas Day. Disney has so far refused to match this gambit, but there are big changes and repercussions afoot for the theatrical release model, even when this is all over. – KH

Disney Doesn’t Throw Away Its Shot

While the first couple of movies to crack the theatrical window such as Trolls: World Tour and Onward were treated as relatively low stakes and aimed at a younger demographic, no early release came earlier, or made as much noise, as Hamilton going to Disney+ over Independence Day Weekend. The filmed version of the original cast performance dropped on the streamer a full 15 months ahead of its planned theatrical release, and it was by any measure a roaring success, finally enabling millions of people who had long been enamored with the soundtrack but been shut out of ticket lotteries and prohibitive Broadway pricing to experience Lin-Manuel Miranda’s history lesson in the comfort of their own home.

Early data suggests that his was the biggest direct-to-streaming release of the year, which should surprise exactly nobody. – MC

Of course, the success of Hamilton emboldened…

Borat 2 Sex Lawyer

Donald Trump’s most visible lawyer Rudy Giuliani already had a bad rep, but in late October he was literally caught with his hands down his pants in a New York City hotel room after being tricked into comedian Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat sequel, Subsequent Moviefilm. During one particular scene, Borat and his ‘daughter’ Tutar (Maria Bakalova) tried to seduce Giuliani.

“Rudolph was Donald’s best buddy in the whole world,” Borat narrated. “And also very dignified statesman of the highest order. This would not be easy.”

If you’re really serious about legally challenging the vote you don’t send your two worst kids and the Borat sex lawyer.

— Ned Hartley (@NedHartley) November 6, 2020

It was in fact very easy, and he reportedly thought she was only 15. Still struggling with the knowledge that Giuliani got away with it? You and everyone else, pal. Still, at least he might go down in history as “the Borat sex lawyer.” – KH

Timthetatman’s Fall Guys Twitch Gauntlet

Timthetatman’s August quest to win a crown on Mediatonic’s smash hit battle royale knockout game Fall Guys was a supremely satisfying highlight of the year. Streamer Timothy Betar, who can typically be found playing slightly more ‘grown up’ games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on Twitch, simply got a bee in his bonnet about not being able to win at Fall Guys. Betar spent nearly two weeks playing the game for long stretches of time as his audience grew exponentially, almost always failing at the very last moment, while a huge chunk of the gaming community trolled and encouraged him in equal measure – including the official Fall Guys Twitter account.

In the end, almost 340,000 viewers were watching Tim live on Twitch as he finally snatched a single Fall Guys crown, giving those of us trapped at home a chance to experience a single vicarious moment of pure exhilaration. Truly wonderful. – KH

“Crisp Rat”

It was a big year for Chris Pratt on social media, despite the fact that he didn’t really do much of note except have a baby and finish filming Jurassic World: Dominion. The fallout from 2019’s accusations that the actor attends an anti-LGBT church was the blood that pumped through the veins of Twitter’s 24/7 cancellation machine, refueled by Pratt’s non-appearance at Joe Biden’s virtual fundraiser alongside other MCU castmates.

Some saw this as “evidence” that the actor was deserving of a cancelation, and he was dubbed “the worst Chris” in Hollywood. Robert Downey Jr. and other Marvel stars jumped to his defence, declaring Pratt “a real #Christian who lives by #principle” and who has “never demonstrated anything but #positivity and #gratitude”, but Twitter had made up its mind, and it was soon recasting Jack Black in every role Pratt had filled to date. – KH

His Name …Is Grogu

It’s rather surreal to think that The Mandalorian’s powerful pop culture impact was mostly attributed to a character who had no proper name, only officially referred to as “The Child,” and colloquially—for lack of a better term—dubbed “Baby Yoda.” However, this year’s Chapter 13 would see Rosario Dawson’s debuting live-action version of animated favorite Ahsoka Tano use the Force to child-whisper the name of “Grogu.” In doing so, fans, Star Wars-driven SEO, and the Disney merchandising apparatus received an early Christmas present. However, even with the emotionally evocative Season 2 finale in the rear-view mirror, breaking the habit of calling him Baby Yoda is going to be a process as tough as worrying about his safety, especially given his new destination, and with whom it will likely have him come into contact. – JB

Tenet-cious C

Christopher Nolan was the butt who wouldn’t quit in 2020 as he sought to Save Cinema with his highly anticipated blockbuster about time travel, heists and many guns going pow-pow-pow. Whether it was his intention or not, he seemingly encouraged punters to ignore escalating scientific evidence to avoid indoor public spaces and trot along to their local theatre to watch the film. Nolan’s heart was probably in the right place, but it was a bad look for the director overall, compounded by Tenet’s eventual release on streaming, when the majority of keen audiences finally got a chance to clap their eyes on what turned out to be …well, let’s just say “not exactly a masterpiece.” – KH

Actual footage of people responding to Nolan’s pleas.

DC FanDome

Fandom has collectively been at a loss as far as how to replace the convention experience during the pandemic. And so far, attempts by heavy hitters like San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic Con to replicate the buzz of a weekend packed with fan experiences and big news drops were tremendous disappointments. Pre-recorded Zoom panels don’t excite when all we do all day as a society is stare at that cursed app, buggy launches make it worse, and the fact that studios/networks/publishers didn’t really help put their best foot forward didn’t help.

But then along came DC FanDome.

What many (including this writer) expected to be a weekend-long infomercial about DC Universe intellectual property and how wonderful new corporate overlords AT&T would be for all these juicy brands was instead the slickest, most exciting, and yes…even newsworthy virtual event of the year. Rapid fire announcements from the big screen debut of the Justice Society in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam movie to concept art from the long-awaited Flashpoint film were only the appetizer, with Warner Bros. unveiling a stunningly cool trailer for The Batman, and delivering the equivalent of a Saturday night in Hall H to fans who have been mostly confined to their homes since the spring. – MC

Meet Elliot Page

In a year when so much of the news was bad, joyous announcements felt that much more sweet. This was the case for Elliot Page’s sharing that he is trans, and uses “he” and “they” pronouns.

“I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life,” the 33-year-old Canadian actor, who is perhaps best known for their work in Juno, the X-Men prequel films, and Netflix’s Umbrella Academy, wrote on Instagram in early December. “I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey. I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self.”

While it was a moment of celebration and affirmation, Page also used the opportunity to educate the public on the ongoing epidemic of violence against Black and brown trans women in particular, at least 40 of whom have been killed in the U.S. this year. Page wrote: “To all trans people who deal with harassment, self-loathing, abuse and the thread of violence every day: I see you, I love you and I will do everything I can to change this world for the better.” -KB

The Diamond Monopoly Breaks

Diamond Comics Distributors has for years been a uniter in the comics industry for years. It didn’t matter how much DC or Marvel heads would be at each other’s throats – when a damaged box with only 70% of the comics your shop ordered rolled in a day late, everyone agreed that Diamond was terrible.

Until April, when, in the middle of the pandemic, DC backed two new distributors. Then, a contingent of fans couldn’t rush to Diamond’s defense fast enough.

Lunar Distribution and UCS Comics Distribution were new comics distributors created by DCBS and Midtown Comics, respectively, and stood up by DC to create competition against Diamond’s not-technically-but-really monopoly. This was an enormous shift decades in the making, and coupled with DC’s move to a Tuesday NCBD, represented the biggest change in the comics industry this century. – JD

Dr DisRespect Gets Kicked off Twitch

The live streaming community was rife with controversies this year, especially when it came to Twitch: misconduct allegations lodged at many of its most high-profile streamers, a reportedly toxic and abusive work environment within the company, and a DMCA fiasco that saw streamers’ content disappear over night. And then there was Dr DisRespect’s exit from the platform.

Booted from Twitch at the end of June despite a hefty multi-year, multi-million dollar contract, the streamer, whose real name is Guy Beahm, suddenly found himself completely erased from existence, his channel and content deleted from the service. But why? At first, many in the industry assumed the worst, especially since it came just as Twitch was beginning to address misconduct in its community.

But despite the high-profile break up between Twitch and one of its key stars, we still don’t actually know why Beahm was kicked off the platform all of these months later. All Twitch has said on the matter is that Beahm “acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service,” while the streamer himself has remained largely silent on the matter. For now, Beahm’s exit from Twitch remains one of the streaming community’s biggest mysteries. – JS

The Depp-osition

In the #MeToo era, it is still incredibly rare for powerful men to be held accountable for the abuse of their power, but there are signs that this is beginning to change. The November announcement that Johnny Depp had been asked to resign from the Fantastic Beasts series was one of those signs. The announcement, via Depp’s Instagram, came only days after a U.K. court ruled that British tabloid The Sun was not committing libel when they described Depp as “a wife-beater” in 2018.

While the decision by Warner Bros. to fire Depp is an important step forward, it could still be described as a baby one. Depp will still be getting his full $16 million salary for his Fantastic Beasts 3 role, even though Mads Mikkelsen has been recast in the role of Grindelwald, because there was no morality clause in his contract. (It should be noted that Depp’s contract for the third film was finalized well after allegations against Depp first came to light.) Following the announcement, Amber Heard, Depp’s ex-wife and the survivor in this “wife-beater” scenario, has had to face a wave of online harassment that includes a petition to have her fired from her role as Mera in the DCEU.

The whole thing demonstrates just how ill-equipped Hollywood is as an industry and we as a culture still are when it comes to dealing with abuse. Let’s hope, in 2021, we do better when it comes to holding alleged abusers accountable and supporting survivors. – KB

The Last of Us Part II Leaks

Arguably the most highly anticipated game of 2020 (and our Game of the Year), The Last of Us Part II faced a mountain of seemingly insurmountable expectations. Could Naughty Dog not only follow up one of the greatest games ever made but top itself? Many fans learned the answer much sooner than expected when the game leaked weeks before its release in June.

Despite rumors that the leak was the work of a disgruntled employee, the security breach actually turned out to be courtesy of a hacker, who published most of the game’s cinematics and story beats on the internet for all to find. All of its big twists, reveals, and emotional moments lay bare before we were really ready for them. – JS

Marie Javins Becomes Editor in Chief of DC Comics

After a year of massive changes at DC Comics – which saw long-tenured co-publisher Dan Didio fired, a new new comic book day established through new distributors, and a merger with AT&T bear bitter fruit – DC’s year started to turn itself around when they pulled off the only successful online convention with FanDome.

And hot on FanDome’s heels was the historic announcement of their new EIC: Marie Javins, a longtime comics pro who worked her way up from colorist to become the first woman to serve as DC’s Editor-in-Chief since Jenette Kahn. Javins’ keen eye for talent and long history in the industry inspired a good deal of confidence in DC’s future, and the new talent lined up for DC’s Future State initiative and beyond have only reinforced that. – JD

George R.R. Martin Jailed in Theory

George R.R. Martin’s self-imposed deadline for finishing The Winds of Winter passed in July, and with it came the knowledge that he could now be jailed for his lackadaisical approach to completing the long-in-gestation addition to the A Song of Ice and Fire series. See, ol’ George had previously told Game of Thrones fans that they had “formal written permission” to imprison him “in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid” until he was done writing, should he not produce his manuscript by July 29. A little bit of fun was had online that day, as people threatened to frogmarch Martin straight to jail. We were pretty desperate for something to do at that point, tbf. – KH

Cyberpunk 2077 Is a Disaster

CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 went from one of the year’s most anticipated games to a title that had fans genuinely begging for refunds when it was finally released in December, after they discovered it was virtually unplayable on PS4 and Xbox One, riddled with occasionally hilarious bugs, missing big features, and packed with potentially offensive characterizations and broken AI, leading to an online meltdown from gamers that didn’t even really compare to the similar release troubles of titles like Anthem and No Man’s Sky. What a mess.

Whole game is going to be a meme.

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) July 2, 2018

They really called it. – KH

Chris Evans Posts His Dick

If you’ve ever accidentally posted something online that you definitely didn’t mean to post online, you’ll know the pure, heart stopping panic that Chris Evans must have felt in September when he shared a screen-recorded video to Instagram that he’d forgotten to crop, revealing his personal camera roll. Yes, the Avengers: Endgame actor had indeed just shown a rabid fan base his (surprisingly thick) cock, and there was no going back, because so many people took a screenshot at once that the collective noise probably triggered a spike in seismic activity visible on the Richter scale.

Evans removed the video and likely cringed so hard that he collapsed in on himself like a dying star forming a black hole, but took it on the chin and used his eventual response to encourage people to vote in November’s election. – KH

Now that I have your attention 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️…. VOTE Nov 3rd!!!

— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) September 15, 2020

Rick Moranis Attacked

Ghostbusters and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids star Rick Moranis – by all accounts a total sweetheart – was randomly attacked near Central Park at the start of October. The formerly-retired actor was punched in the head and knocked to the ground by a man wearing an “I Love NY” hoodie who was later apprehended and charged. Violence on the streets of New York isn’t exactly unheard of, but when the geek community heard of the attack on Moranis, it went full on Taken in under a minute. “I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.” How DARE. – KH

John Boyega’s Black Lives Matter Speech

On May 25th, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black father, grandfather, son, and brother—a human—was killed by Derek Chauvin, a white member of the Minneapolis Police Department, as three other policemen stood by. Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for 9.5 minutes as Floyd begged, “I can’t breathe.” The video of the killing launched a wave of Black Lives Matters protests across the United States and world, aimed at eradicating white supremacy in all of its forms.

George Floyd was neither the first nor the last Black person who died at the hands of a police officer in 2020. (Say Their Names is an ongoing, work-in-progress list of all the Black men, women, and children killed in the U.S. by police and civilians.) And there is not just one moment or human that has defined the ongoing Black Lives Matters movement in 2020, which is made up of many people, including the many activists who organize within the decentralized movement. One of many moments, however, came when John Boyega took up the megaphone to give an impromptu and emotional speech during a Hyde Park demonstration about the death of George Floyd in early June.

“Black lives have always mattered. We have always been important. We have always meant something. We have always succeeded regardless. And now is the time. I ain’t waiting,” said the British-Nigerian actor and producer, who was visibly holding back tears, to the other protestors gathered.

Boyega has continued to use his celebrity to speak out against racism in the industry and beyond, all while knowing that it could affect his career. In September, Boyega did an interview with GQ in which he spoke about the unequal narrative treatment he and other actors of color got in the Star Wars franchise compared to the white actors in the film.

“You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything,” Boyega said. “[But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are, and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up … You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all.” – KB

Quibi? I Hardly Knew Ye

“Is it better to burn out than fade away?” could have been a question knocking about in the heads of Quibi’s founders during 2020. The newbie streaming service, which developed content as “quick bites” consumable in 7-10 minute increments, ended up being a flash in the pan as it struggled to rustle up subscribers in a year very much not suited to the concept of “I don’t have time to watch anything”.

Quibi had initially raised $1.75 billion in pre-launch funding and had more than 175 shows and movies lined up for viewers, but none of it was enough to counter the madness playing out behind the scenes of the hopeful, and ultimately hopeless, platform. RIP to a real one. – KH

Whedon Under Fire

It’s safe to say that the one-time King of the Nerds has not had a pleasant last few years, and that’s even before COVID-19 struck. But much of Joss Whedon’s troubles seem increasingly to be of his own making. As if the disapproving response to his version of Justice League wasn’t enough, Whedon was accused by actor Ray Fisher (Cyborg) of fomenting racism and toxicity on the set – a claim indirectly backed up by co-stars Jason Momoa and Gal Gadot.

The fallout, true or not, seems to have landed close enough for Whedon to depart his upcoming HBO fantasy series The Nevers, a project he created but won’t see through to its launch after three years of work. The Whedon-produced Pippa Smith: Grown-Up Detective was also quietly scrapped at Freeform. – DK

pic.twitter.com/e3N00xCr5i

— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) December 10, 2020

Patty’s Squad

At the moment, the future of Star Wars would seem to be on television. The success of The Mandalorian and the galaxy of spinoffs (more on those in a moment) announced by Disney and Lucasfilm would seem to indicate that. But Star Wars is far from finished on the big screen, and when it returns in 2023, it’s going to make history, with Patty Jenkins finally shattering the glass ceiling of Star Wars directors with her take on the fan favorite Rogue Squadron concept.

Jenkins is, of course, no stranger to big franchise projects, having helmed both Wonder Woman movies for Warner Bros. The announcement of a coveted director taking on a big franchise competitor coming in the wake of WB’s troubled relationship with talent after sending their entire theatrical slate to HBO Max for 2021 sure feels like a victory for Disney, even as Jenkins is still confirmed to direct a third Wonder Woman film for WB. Regardless of studio politics, Jenkins promising to deliver “the greatest fighter pilot movie of all time,” albeit one set in the Star Wars galaxy is a wonderful promise, and we’re looking forward to seeing how she keeps it. – MC

Disney Goes Even More Franchise Crazy

Disney’s December investors call didn’t produce the kind of announcements expected – there were rumors that a global 18+ streaming element was in the wind and that Black Widow would go straight to Disney+ – but the Mouse House tried to make up for it by revealing a fistful of new projects that included ten (10!) new Star Wars series, a bunch of new Marvel series and movies, a Toy Story spinoff film called Lightyear and a sequel to Enchanted. That’s not even the half of it, though, as the reveals just kept on coming, to the point where even a dedicated Disney fan felt downright exhausted, and prompting many a “how much is too much?” think piece. – KH

This is by no means an exhaustive list! Feel free to share your own big geek moments in the comments.

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shortqueershakespeare · 3 years

Note

Do all the asks! Hope you had a good Christmas!! <3

In ausOkay here goes, all the asks from the end of 2020

1. How many lockdowns did you go through until now?

I actually can’t remember if I was in one or two in the UK, because I barely changed my habits, I stayed in my house throughout lockdown and non-lockdown. But either 2 or 3.

2. Ever been quarantined? (contact person, waiting for test result or positive test result)

Yep, right before the start of UK lockdown one because of possible symptoms in my household and once in Austria now.

3. Ever taken a Corona test?

Yup, I took one, a gargle test.

4. Have you lived together with someone during lockdown?

Yep, lockdown in the UK with my dad and sister, in Austria with my flatmate.

5. Something you enjoyed about lockdown?

Spending more time with my sister and also seeing my puppy grow up.

6. What bothered you most about lockdown?

Not being able to hug my mum when we lost our rabbit and not being able to hug friends.

7. Which change, e.g. home office, would you like to keep once it´s all over?

Teaching from home wouldn’t be bad to keep, also normalising wearing masks and distancing when ill.

8. Been to any Corona related demonstration?

No.

9. On a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (completely), how well do you stick to government´s rules? Explain.

In the UK I would say 10, and I did more than stick to them, I rarely left the house except for walking the dog. In Austria 7 or 8, we don’t really have the concept of bubbles here but through lockdown we had our friend in our bubble. I did also accidentally break curfew at one point.

10. Favorite lockdown activity?

Sleeping, frankly.

11. How did the lockdown affect your work/education?

The end of my year at uni was done at home, with take home exams and now my work is going to be distance teaching again. And of course masks and distancing at in person teaching.

12. Any new hobbies you tried out during lockdown?

I taught myself to sew and cross-stitch!

13. Any new subscriptions you made due to lockdown?

Disney plus!

14. Anything new you tried to learn during lockdown?

Sewing, a few new recipes.

15. Any old hobbies you took up again during lockdown?

I started writing a lot more again and did a lot of crafting.

16. How did you keep in touch during lockdown?

Zoom calls, skyping, postcards.

17. Favorite mask you own?

My rainbow one!

18. Favorite online conferencing tool?

Teams for teaching.

19. Any new technologies and technological tools you tried out due to lockdown?

Zoom, google meet, MS teams and a few online games.

20. Have you been able to go on any holidays this year?

No.

21. Are Christmas markets allowed in your country?

Sadly not:( It was part of what I was looking forward to about my year abroad and I’m genuinely gutted about it.

22. How are you going to spend Christmas in this situation? (or whatever you are celebrating!)

I spent Christmas with my flatmate, we did polish dinner on the 24th, British Christmas on 25th and then called my family on Christmas day. I managed to make all of Christmas dinner all by myself which I was really chuffed with.

23. Any small business you support?

Yeah, plenty of local shops.

24. Any small artist you support?

When I find people on instagram or tumblr i try yeah!

25. Favorite online shop?

I am in a very bath having mood so bomb cosmetics.

26. Dumbest impulse buy?

My terrible Christmas hat.

27. First thing you bought when the shops reopened?

Quite literally no idea, but I would assume something food related.

28. Been to the hair dresser this year?

Nope, but I’ve been cutting my own hair for 2 or 3 years so that’s not unusual.

29. Got a new tattoo or piercing this year?

Nope!

30. What did you only start to appreciate because lockdown took it from you?

How easy it was to meet new people.

31. Favorite book that was released this year?

Contacts by Mark Watson or Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh.

32. Favorite book you read that year?

The same as above.

33. Favorite movie that was released this year?

uhhhhh bold of you to assume that I paid attention.

34. Favorite movie you watched this year?

101 dalmatians, a classic but gave me a lot of comfort.

35. Favorite series that was released this year?

Staged or the Goes Wrong Show.

36. Favorite series that you watched this year?

Same answer.

37. Favorite podcast that you listened to this year?

Cryptid Cape or I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha.

38. Favorite artist this year?

Taylor Swift.

39. Total minutes on Spotify this year?

I don’t have spotify!

40. Favorite album that was released this year?

I can’t separate folklore and evermore.

41. Favorite album that you listened to this year?

Again, folklore and evermore.

42. Favorite song that was released this year?

I’m gonna go with dorothea.

43. Favorite song you listened to this year?

dorothea or rainbow by dodie or Sad Girl Summer by Maisie Peters.

44. Favorite Corona related song?

So Will I - Ben Platt.

45. What do you do to prevent yourself from going insane during lockdown?

Sat outside and watched the stars at night listening to songs, took my dog for a walk, did some writing.

46. Describe a typical lockdown day of yours.

I mean I’m in a kinda weird position of living with/being a kind of key worker. When I was in the UK, I would wake up at 9 to look after the pup, take her for a walk, do uni work or plan for my year abroad. Cook or help my sister cook dinner, play as a group with the puppy, then chill in the living room with family, play animal crossing. In Austria It’s been waking up half an hour before my first class, teaching, cooking and chilling.

47. Something you did during lockdown that you´ve been putting off for way too long?

Had some proper heart to hearts with my sister and organised my year abroad.

48. Trying new baking recipes or new cooking recipes?

Yeah! I made profiteroles and some new curries.

49. Netflix or Amazon Prime?

Prime because you can buy stuff too, it would be netflix but my dad keeps forgetting to tell me his password.

50. Did you get Disney+?

Yeah, I share it with a few friends.

51. Any new social media you started using during lockdown?

Not sure actually!

52. Any trends you fell for?

Not that I can think of?

53. Did you achieve more or less than in a normal year? Explain.

Frankly, since November 2019 life has been utter hell so if it was less I wouldn’t be shocked but I think the tail end of the year has been pretty successful, I moved countries, signed my first rent contract and am supporting myself for the first time. But it’s kind of a mixed bag.

54. Did you start therapy this year?

Nope.

55. Books or audio books?

Both but I find reading really relaxing but hard to get into. I’ve read a shit ton of fanfic though.

56. Audio books or podcasts?

Podcasts mostly.

57. Twitch or Youtube?

Youtube.

58. Attended any online concert?

Tessa Violet’s “the something to look forward to” tour

59. Favorite stream/streamer this year?

I really enjoyed Mark Watson’s Watson-A-Thon and also Broadway Jackbox, the Evan Hansen one.

60. Most used social media this year?

Either twitter or tumblr.

61. Yoga or long lone walks?

Long lone walks.

62. Did you get a pet this year?

Yeah! My puppy!

63. Did it snow where you live this year?

Yeah It snowed in Vienna for one day.

64. What were you doing when you found out about the announcement of the first lockdown?

I think I was in quarantine, looking after the dog.

65. Did you panic buy anything?

No, I don’t think so.

66. Ever ran out of toilet paper?

Yes.

67. Favorite lockdown comfort food?

Something with gravy.

68. Selfcare tips for lockdown?

Be gentle with yourself. Try to give yourself structure but don’t feel guilty for not being productive.

69. Did you use delivery services this year? For what kind of food?

God yes, supermarket a few times. And also meals, kebabs a fair bit.

70. Any weird coping techniques you developed during or after lockdown?

Not especially I don’t think.

71. Favorite game you played this year?

Animal Crossing!

72. Favorite drink this year?

Pornstar martinis.

73. Favorite food this year?

Christmas Dinner.

74. Favorite App this year?

Puzzle Page! I’ve enjoyed doing crosswords and stuff a lot.

75. Favorite memory of this year?

Drunk dog walk with my sister in the pouring rain.

76. Any plans you had for this year that you could realize?

Wait what does this one mean?? Any plans I COULD do? My year abroad I guess. Any plans I couldn’t - interrailing.

77. Do you even plan anything for next year?

I still have the rest of my year abroad plan.

78. Did you find new (online) friends this year?

Yeah - one at my uni who I didn’t know so that was nice!

79. Did you go through a break-up this year?

No.

80. Did you get into a new relationship this year?

No.

81. Did you do something creative this year? Tell us about it.

Yeah, I cross-stitched a bee, a snake and a butterfly and I also did lots of writing and a few doodles on my writing blog (lovenliterature).

82. Favorite blog you found on tumblr this year?

A bunch of wolfstar or ballum ones - I really like @aeternumregina and @shanastoryteller too.

83. What did you buy way too much of this year?

Take out and alcohol.

84. Did you win anything this year?

Nope.

85. Did you drastically change your diet this year?

Not especially, I tried to have more fruit though and I started drinking coffee.

86. Did you move to a new home this year?

Yeah! I now live in a flat in Vienna.

87. Did you do something this year that you never did before?

Signed rent and work contracts in another country. Also got corona.

88. Celebrity crush of the year?

Ben Platt or Andrew Scott.

89. Most expensive thing you bought this year?

My phone!

90. Been abroad this year?

Yep, I moved abroad.

91. Favorite tumblr trend of this year?

Just fucking waiting for more Destiel news.

92. New Years Resolutions you broke this year?

I didn’t make any this year tbh.

93. NYRs you kept?

Same answer.

94. NYRs you have for next year?

Just be nicer to myself and remember to renew prescription/make doctor’s appointments sooner.

95. How are you going to spend New Years Eve?

Drinking with my flatmate in my flat.

96. Will you get your fortune told in any way around NYE?

No I don’t think so.

97. Any new shops (online or real) you discovered this year?

Billa, our supermarket lol.

98. Any food you tried out for the first time this year?

Polish Christmas food!

99. How did you celebrate your birthday this year?

It was in Feb so had friends round and had drinks.

100. Was this ask game better or worse than 2020?

Better

#personal #personal post #personal posts #ask game #ask games #anons #answering questions

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soitmightgetweird · 7 years

Text

Happy Birthday, Captain!

Steve x reader

Summary: it’s Steve’s 99th birthday!

Warnings: a couple swears, as usual

Word Count: 2674

A/N: enjoy :) I also tagged a couple people at the end that I’ve seen say they don’t mind if people tag them in fics. Hope that’s alright! Let me know if you don’t want the tag and I’ll lay off next time

—

The sound of approaching footsteps caused to you snatch the piece of notebook paper from the counter top and stuff it into your back pocket. You tried to assume a casual position and hoped it didn’t look like you were up to something. As soon as Tony and Nat entered the kitchen, you relaxed a bit and propped your elbows on the island in front of you.

“Hey, totally random question but you can see the fireworks from the roof, right? There’s not another building blocking them?” you asked.

“What kind of billionaire would I be if my tower had sub-par views?” Tony quipped.

“Cool cool cool. Okay, unrelated question: can I have the contact info for your party planner?”

“Sure, if you can convince me that those questions are actually unrelated.”

A corner of Nat’s lips lifted in a smirk as she grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and turned back around to face you. “Planning something for Steve?”

Dammit, Natasha.

Your eyes widened instantly and blood rushed to your cheeks as you tried to regain control over your expression. How did she do that? You didn’t think you’d ever been obvious about it and you’d only talked about it with two people…

Oh yeah, spy.

In the three months since you started working for Stark Industries, you’d moved from the marketing department to a sort of assistant to the Avengers. You honestly never would’ve expected it as it just sort of happened. Within two weeks, somehow you had attracted the attention of one Tony Stark and he started dragging you around the Tower for various other tasks. Your supervisor was a little peeved at first, but did he really expect you to say no to the boss man?

You almost tripped over yourself the first time Tony brought you around his team. You’d been staring intently at the folder in your hands, flipping through logo designs for a new organization within the company when suddenly he was introducing you to a group you didn’t know you’d walked into.

You’d become fast friends with Wanda and so you spent a lot of your free time with her and, by extension, sometimes the rest of the team. And sometime during the meetings and movie nights and company gatherings, you’d become close to the pair of super soldiers as well.

You crashed back into the moment when Tony chuckled softly. “Ooh. Got the hots for Capsicle? Bummer.”

Your gaze flicked to Tony. “Bummer?”

He lifted a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “Always a shame when beautiful women are off the market.”

“Off the- oh come on, Tony. That’s not… He doesn’t-”

“It’s cool. Your secret’s safe with me,” he added.

You narrowed your eyes as you watched him draw an X over his chest with his finger. “Okay one, you’re terrible at keeping secrets. And two, there’s no secret.”

“What makes you think I’m terrible at keeping secrets?”

“I am Iron Man.”

His lips twitched as he tried to hold back a grin. “Valid point. But the sentiment still stands. Listen, if you’re going to throw a party, do it yourself. Keep it to those of us usually around the tower–people he actually interacts with. Avengers plus the strays plus those of you that hold down the fort behind the scenes. He’ll be more comfortable.”

“Oh my God, Bucky, what the hell was I thinking?” you sighed as you marched into his room and flopped straight onto his bed.

He turned around in his desk chair and raised an eyebrow as he looked you over. “What’s the problem?”

“I can’t do this!” You knew your voice was muffled because you were face down on his bed but you couldn’t bring yourself to turn your head.

“Gotta be more specific.”

You started to talk again but the response got lost in his comforter.

“Doll. Move your face.”

You shifted just enough to angle your face in his direction and took a deep breath of fresh air before continuing. “I dunno what I was thinking. He’s gonna think my present is lame and by extension that I’m lame and I… I’m always just gonna be the girl who does marketing-slash-whatever else Tony decides he needs at the moment and… I dunno why I think Steve will ever be interested in me-”

“I told you I’m pretty sure he is-”

“No, Buck, he was just flirting with that new girl from the September Foundation and-”

“Okay, calm down. First, breathe. You’ve been non-stop since I asked you to elaborate. Stevie can’t flirt his way out of a paper bag so I guarantee it was all her.”

You simply groaned and rolled over, curling onto your side with your back to your friend. “Fine. Well she’s still gorgeous and I’m-”

“Nope. You’re not doin’ that.” You heard the chair creak and a couple quiet footsteps before the bed dipped down behind you. “Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart. Steve thinks you’re great. Trust me, I hear it often. ‘She looks beautiful today. D'you think she likes to dance? God, Buck, her laugh is perfect. We have the same favorite dog.’ I swear, he’s like a damn teenager.”

You couldn’t stop the snort of laughter as you listened to Bucky imitate his best friend. When your giggles subsided, there was a beat of silence before you spoke again. "I’m nervous as hell.“

“He’ll love it.”

–

You couldn’t move from in front of the mirror in Wanda’s room. You tried but your nerves had sprouted roots you were sure had no intention of releasing their grasp on the ground beneath you. But hey, at least you felt cute as you stood there imitating a statue.

She had all but thrown your current outfit at you a couple hours ago before leaving to finish decorating. Your white shorts were paired with a flowy shirt that was blue with white stars near the collar and red and white stripes at the bottom. It reminded you a bit of Steve’s uniform; that was probably why she picked it.

Finally, you shook out your arms and took a deep breath to calm your nerves. “FRIDAY, where’s Steve?”

The AI answered a second later. “In the common room. He won’t stop asking for the team’s location.”

After a quick text to Wanda to let her know you were on your way with the birthday boy, you slid your phone into your back pocket and left your room. You found the Captain standing behind the couch in the main room with his arms folded across his chest.

“Something’s wrong with FRIDAY, she won’t-” He stopped short when he turned around and saw you. “Hi.”

You smirked. “You’ll catch flies if you keep your mouth open like that, Rogers.”

His mouth clamped shut as a blush covered his cheeks. “Sorry, um… something’s… FRIDAY’s not being very helpful. Do you, uh… where is everyone?”

“I think they said something about getting ready for the fireworks? It’s Independence Day!”

His face fell slightly. “It is, isn’t it?”

You tried to keep a smile on your face even though you felt a twinge of guilt at letting him think that was the only reason you considered the day special. Squaring your shoulders, you crossed the room and held your hand out to the man in front of you. He briefly hesitated before unfolding his arms and placing his palm in yours. You wasted no time in intertwining your fingers and pulling him along behind you as you made your way to the elevators.

Neither of you spoke as the elevator climbed fifteen floors to the rooftop patio. You squeezed his hand as the doors slid open, and you’d only taken a few steps out when he stopped walking, bringing you to a halt as well. The balloons and streamers were visible immediately, an overload of red, white, and blue around the open space. There was even two giant silver balloons in the shape of 9s. That must’ve been Tony’s idea.

The moment you looked back at the super soldier, you heard a shuffling noise before the rest of the group walked into the open, yelling “happy birthday” to the stunned man behind you.

Bucky was the first one to walk up and engulf Steve in a hug. “Here’s to the last year of your nineties, punk,” he said with a laugh.

Steve chuckled too, clapping a hand on Bucky’s back as he embraced him. “This your doin’, Buck?” he asked as he pulled away.

“Nah, she’s the party planner.”

Steve’s eyes widened as he turned to you.

“Surprise,” you said, doing a little wave with your hands. Well, with one hand because Steve still had a hold of the other.

You were sure he was about to respond but Tony swooped in and threw his arm over Steve’s shoulders. “Alright, old man, you can’t let these two hog you all night; you gotta mingle with everyone else too.”

Your eyes were glued to Steve’s back as he walked away, mesmerized by the way his muscles shifted beneath the dark blue t-shirt and jeans he wore. It wasn’t until Bucky let out a laugh next to you that you realized you were staring.

“I dunno why you think you’re subtle about your crush,” Bucky said quietly.

You couldn’t stop the huff as you reached out and smacked his chest. “Shut it, Barnes.”

–

You were beyond pleased with how the afternoon played out. There was a constant flow of easy conversations, no one ended up hammered, there were no arguments. They played a couple rounds of beer pong, which Steve was surprisingly good at. There was even a long round of embarrassing childhood stories that you surprisingly willingly participated in. That was probably courtesy of the alcohol.

A little before nightfall, Tony captured everyone’s attention to give a little speech celebrating Steve’s birthday. He finished it off by announcing that Steve needed to open his gifts before the fireworks started.

Steve glanced around the space then turned back to Tony with a raised eyebrow. “I know I’m old, but I’m not blind, am I?”

“Oh!” Tony snapped his fingers and pointed to you. “Take the Captain to his gift, yeah?”

“Just me?”

“We can’t bring it up here and it’ll get crowded if we all go down there, so yeah. Scram.”

–

Your heart hammered against your ribs as you and Steve entered the elevator again. The nerves were much worse this time. Before, you’d just been showing him that his friends didn’t forget his birthday. This time, you were showing him something that took more planning. It was much more personal. Questions flew through your head and caused a little seed of doubt to plant itself in your mind. What if Steve didn’t like your gift? What if it was too much? What if it was just too much from you.

The ride felt much longer this time too, despite only descending two floors. The hallway to your destination looked just like the rest did on the higher levels–clean lines, polished concrete floors, light gray walls, and a few scattered stainless steel doors. All the rooms had been empty until you asked to use one for the gift.

Steve walked silently next to you as you went straight for the end of the hallway. You asked him to scan his fingerprint on the pad beside the door, and it slid open with a soft whoosh.

The lights were off, showcasing the darkening cityscape through the floor-to-ceiling windows in front of you. You took a moment to take in the warm colors of the sunset and breathed in deeply to calm your nerves. Reaching out to a light switch, you revealed a brand new art studio.

You heard the breath leave Steve’s lungs in a quiet gasp.

The room wasn’t huge–maybe twenty by thirty feet–but there was clearly more than enough room to work on multiple projects at once. The light beige walls and dark floors were much easier on the eyes than the sterile feel of the hallway and a few strategically placed lamps eliminated the need for the overhead florescent lights. There was a tall, metal cabinet on the left side of the room, next to a couple shorter units with thin drawers for storing smaller items. A sink finished off that wall, giving him a place to clean paintbrushes. Two easels stood on the opposite side of the room beside a comfortable looking sitting area where he could relax. A large table sat in the middle of the room, providing a decently sized, flat workspace.

“Suprise! Again! So um. I thought that maybe you’d want a studio? You said you usually paint and draw in your room but it gets kinda messy and crowded so I asked Tony if he had an available room–preferably with an awesome view. And I’m super jealous, by the way,” you said with a smile as you stood in the middle of the room.

His eyes darted around the space. But he was still silent so you kept talking.

“Buck and I put together those cabinets and everyone bought you a bunch of supplies. Paints, canvases, charcoal pencils. Clint actually made this table. You can tell FRIDAY who you’d like to have access up here–if you want anyone up here at all. Um. I know you like records but I bet it’s distracting having to flip them every now and then, right? So FRIDAY also has access to all your music and you can control it with that panel right there; I’ll help you figure it out if you need. Oh! And those pictures on the wall are from Pe–uh they’re from Spider-Man. I asked for some really cool pictures of Brooklyn-”

Another huff from Steve broke your train of thought. Glancing to the side, you saw the look of pure adoration on his face.

“Is it… do you like it?”

“I love it,” he breathed.

You absolutely couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across your face and the little happy dance you did at his admission. You were just about to voice how ecstatic you were when he stepped closer and pressed his lips to yours.

You used to scoff at people when they told you they saw fireworks during a kiss, but you understood it now. Assuming you hadn’t been gone too long and those weren’t the actual fireworks.

His large hands cupped your face as the kiss continued. Heat bloomed out from the center of your chest and you just knew if he backed off at that moment, he’d see the blush covering your face. This was all you’d wanted for months and wow, your little daydreams did not come anywhere close to the real thing.

You were the first to pull away for air. He pressed his forehead to yours, your exhales intermingling between you. It took you a couple moments to realize you’d been gripping the front of his shirt. You looked down with a soft laugh and tried to smooth away the wrinkles.

“You’re amazing,” Steve said quietly. “Can’t believe you did all this for me.”

You smiled as you lifted your eyes to his again. “Everyone deserves something special every now and then. Though I’m afraid I’ve set the bar pretty high now for personalized gifts…”

He laughed. “True. No one else gets to thank you the way I did though,” he said as he leaned down for another quick kiss.

“Aw, but Nat’s birthday’s coming next!”

You were sure Steve tried to keep his expression neutral but a shade of pink still broke out and covered his face and neck.

You giggled. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist; I like it when you blush.”

He simply shook his head. “You’re somethin’ else, doll.”

You placed a kiss on his cheek before grabbing his hand once more. “Happy birthday Captain. Now c'mon, let’s go watch the fireworks.”

Tags: @bovaria @howlingbarnes @brighterlights

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve x reader #avengers x reader #avengers imagine #happy birthday cap

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thelostbaka · 4 years

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So, the lack of work I have been putting in for myself & my channel

So, a couple-ish months ago, I moved in with my mother and had to quit my job that was located near my father because of distance. I said to myself that I would try to find better employment in the area to try something new and unique. That’s till I remembered that I have surgery to extract my wisdom teeth the day after Christmas. I have no idea HOW I forgot that existed, but hey, I remembered. So, I said to my mother that I was not gonna find a job till the extraction was over and she agreed that my decision was a smart one. So, I said to her that I was gonna try to be a streamer for a platform called Twitch, and my mother thought that it sounded like a good idea because of my previous success of an old YouTube channel that was taken away from my father for his and my siblings’ own gains. So, I was thinking of how to do everything and I was thinking of a schedule and how to stream after school and after family time at night. I had a thing in mind and tried to keep with it, but there was a few things that was keeping me from it... 1) My brother talks loud on the phone and I do not want him to get all hissy at me and yell for my mother

2) My head has been hurting on and off for a while and it’s possible it’s a result from my wisdom teeth

3) Tiredness

4) Lack of willpower

5) Financial downsides To talk with #1, I have got a new microphone that I invested in that can cancel out my brother but I still feel uncomfortable of streaming when he’s in the room, so I’m still trying to figure out that. He has recently got a job at a medium-end department store and he goes to the gym every night, so I’m free for an hour or so till he’s back home and yelling every 20 seconds. How fun! #2 problems (yay), recently my head has been hurting worse and worse in the past few months and it usually happens when a front or a severe storm moves through the area, but this seems to be worse than what I remember. I know I have a former co-worker that follows me on this platform and I think I would complain to her about my head (no idea, correct me if I’m wrong) and that would affect how I work in the long term. That does apply to me streaming on Twitch or making highlights for YouTube. My headaches and migraines does affect me from working on what I want to do. That makes me sad because I really want to do this but my head is preventing me to do so... I hope when my wisdom teeth are out that these headaches stop. I also got new glasses (thanks, Mom and Grandma!) that has blue-light protection on them, so I hope they can help with my problems as well~

#3 (it seems like all I do is complain about this to my friends, but here we are), I have been extremely tired after I get done with the day. I do have a sleep disorder and it wakes my body out of REM sleep every half-hour to an hour, limiting that 7 hours to like 3-4 and I just feel like I drag on with the day. When I sit on this computer, I feel like I should sleep and not do anything. Just relax with some friends and play a video game or watch a video. Something like that. However, this has been getting worse because I would be nearly falling asleep on a call with my friends and them telling me to go to bed because of it and I feel REALLY BAD about that, and I don’t want to be caught falling asleep on stream as well, so I don’t stream when I’m tired... This has been a normal occurance and I feel bad to myself and to some people who may want to watch me stream. I am getting this slowly-but-surely resolved by getting bloodwork done this Monday to hopefully figure out what I need to balance my sleep and I have been taking naps in the middle of the day to get my body rested up for that several hours I have left within my waking day.

#4 is kinda a weird one (and probably the shortest rant I have), but sometimes I have the lack of willpower to stream? Now, this can be due to many things. It can be related to everything I have been explaining to you right now but it could be also life things. The biggest one of that is StreamLabsOBS not working with me and crashing every 20 seconds while I try to set up a game. I just give up and not stream for several days in hope that it will fix itself, but that just steals from time I could be streaming. However, I’ve been working with this lack of willpower issue and have been trying to think of a better thinking method to take this problem, and not the whole “well, I give up” thing that I’ve been doing for 18 years of my god-forsaking life. #5 is kinda the begger help one, but it’s about finances! As I explained, I quit my job and with that is a lost of a lot of money into my pockets and the first couple weeks had been nothing but spend, spend, spend. I think I spent nearly $800 to get everything resolved against my father. This was mainly phones and cell service to get that away from my father (and no one else had money for god-knows why) but that has put me into a more conservative stance on buying video games that I know I can handle on SLOBS and my computer and what I can do on a daily basis. I do get a form of an allowance from the government, thanks to SSA, but that’s not enough to handle what I want to do with streaming in general. I do want to save up for a new gaming laptop so I can stream better games like Cities:Skylines, Transport Fever 2, or even some GTA V without the funny glitches caused from it. I was hoping that streaming was able to get me like $1 a day, because that dollar helps a long way, but I don’t like to promote it because it sounds too needy. I also have a Ko-Fi page that I used to support my friend when I had my job that I want to promote but can’t due to the same reason... It’s also hard to justify the reason why I go on my computer at night without that financial gain. That sounds so greedy and I HATE THAT but, it’s kinda the truth.... I’m now going to do some promotion links on the bottom, but before I do, I want to say this. I want to say thank you to EVERYONE who has and still is supporting me on what I want to do, it means a lot to me. Without you guys, I would be lost in this adventure of being a Twitch streamer and I will keep everyone updated on what I’m doing and planning on doing on Twitch and YouTube through Twitter or on this here Tumblr page~ Now, here’s some promos... <3 <3 <3 Twitch Website (it’s where I accept donations on stream) Ko-Fi Twitter Discord

YouTube

#life update #update #twitch #youtube #ko-fi donations #ko-fi link #ko-fi promo #life things #explanation #bakablurps #thank you for listening

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alexpricewrit1133porfolio-blog · 7 years

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Research Essay

Introduction:

Online entertainment is becoming a huge part of leisure time for a great deal of people. Whether it’s people relaxing and watching netflix, hanging out and chatting online, browsing social media, or watching cat videos a ton of people spend most or even all of their free time on the internet. Of this time spent, two rapidly growing pastimes are Youtube videos and for some, livestreaming. Almost everybody knows Youtube. How could you not? It’s the second most visited site on the internet behind google. Recently content creators have taken video making to the next level. Live Streaming is becoming a massive online phenomenon. Essentially instead having people record things and post them for you to watch afterwards, you can watch them do it live. You can also hang out and chat with other people watching the same thing, and interact with the person livestreaming. It’s crazy how popular this is becoming. There are a lot (not just a few) people livestreaming full time as a career. Some of these people make millions of dollars every year doing nothing but livestream.

Livestreaming is primarily focused on two websites. Twitch.tv and Youtube.

Interestingly enough, even though Youtube has much more traffic than Twitch, Twitch has much more livestreaming related traffic. This is because Twitch did it first, and Twitch is focused purely on livestreaming, while youtube is primarily a video watching website. So knowing all this and spending a lot of time on these websites, there was only one thing I didn’t really know. What are these people’s (videomakers and livestreamers) lives like off camera? How much work goes into what they do and how does it affect their lives beyond the job? Obviously, this is a big question. So I decided to look into it. Do you know what I found? Nothing. Nothing at all. There was a lot of research about how to make content, how to monetize your content, the different ways to get payed for your content, and almost everything there was to have on the content, but practically nothing on the people behind the content. Needless to say I was pretty shocked. Something this popular, and nothing on the people who do it? This was a golden opportunity. During my personal research, I focused on all the things that weren’t a part of my lit review and my secondary research.

Lit Review:

As it stands there is a very small amount of research on content creation as a whole, and an even small amount on Youtube video makers and Twitch Livestreamers. This does not mean research on these topics does not exist, simply that it’s scarce. However, amongst the already scarce research done on Youtubers and Livestreamers, research about the people behind the content is practically nonexistent. There is a lot of research about the companies and their business models, research working to understand why these models are successful, analysis on different parts of these models and explanations of how the sites function. But there is almost nothing on the people behind the content. How do these people make a living, is content creation their full time job? If so, how is it possible for them to run a successful career doing something that seems so simple? What goes into becoming and maintaining success? How do they acquire their income? How does much work is there off camera? How does the job in general affect their day to day lives off camera? How is the job different on different platforms? Is it easier to get started on one platform if you have a following on another? If so, how much easier? There a million questions one could ask about the people working in content to creation. This proposal will explain what we already know, and offer questions I would like to answer.

To ensure my task is appropriately completable and maintain a proper attention to detail, I will be focusing primarily on two of the biggest content creation websites: Youtube.com and Twitch.tv. You may or may not have heard of Twitch.tv. If you haven’t, it is a website where people can quickly and easily create and watch livestreams. Anyone can livestream themselves doing anything they want, and though the site primarily focuses on streaming video games, there is something for everyone. Twitch is the 50th most trafficked site on the internet (Alexa.com) and has even reached 4th most during peak hours (Egger). Twitch has over 34 million unique viewers a month (Hamilton 1) Twitch is already one of the biggest content creation websites and continues to grow rapidly, but is also unique because livestreaming is obviously different than video making and other forms of video content. Because livestreams are much longer than Youtube videos and other things (a livestream will easily span many hours while a Youtube video is almost exclusively less than one) Twitch functions a lot differently than many other content creation websites, making it particularly interesting to research. Finally, Twitch is a very new website with very little research, making it a great research opportunity.

Theme 1: Understanding Twitch

First and foremost, we need to understand what a Twitch stream is. Twitch streams combine a live video interface with a text based chat channel (Internet Relay Channel). Viewers watch the video and participate in the chatroom, talking with other people that are also watching the video. The livestreamer can also read and respond to the chat as he or she streams. In fact, much of stream content isn’t just gameplay, many streamers spend a significant time interacting with their viewers both in and out of game.

In my research, I will look at things primarily through a video game lens as it makes things easier to compare. Even though Twitch has a variety of content is remains gaming focused, and it is easier to examine through that lens. Youtube branches out more but still has a huge gaming section that functions very similarly to the rest of the website, while Twitch’s other sections function differently. First, we need to know what about gaming attracts people to media. This is a complicated question with many different possible answers, but most researchers seem to agree that these sites succeed because humans tend to be social creatures and on sites like twitch, William Hamilton said “people engage in live streaming for two reasons: they are drawn to the unique content of a particular stream, and they like being interacted with and participating in that stream’s community.” Thomas Smith provides a list of the nine most common personas of people who watch live streams, covering both of the above reasons for watching. This is fascinating because it’s a huge part of understanding livestreaming and livestreamers and covers a big part of potential research on the subject) Here is a list of them:

“1. The Bystander – There are two forms of Bystander, the uninformed and uninvested. The uninformed lacks knowledge of the meaning of in-game acts. The uninvested have a basic understanding of the game but they are spectating by accident, they have “stumbled” into being a spectator. 2. The Curious – This persona is interested in filling knowledge gaps they have with the game. 3. The Inspired – This persona is keen to play the game after watching a match, perhaps attempting strategies they saw or purely because they are interested in the game. 4. The Pupil – The Pupil is very similar to The Curious persona but they are focused on turning what they have learnt into practice and develop their skills. 5. The Unsatisfied – This persona sees spectating as a weaker form of playing but watches because it is still more interesting than not consuming the content at all. 6. The Entertained – The Entertained is more or less the opposite of The Unsatisfied; they find watching entertaining in itself, not as a weaker form of playing. 7. The Assistant – The Assistant impacts the game by helping a player, for example this could be in the form of pointing out information the player may have missed. 8. The Commentator – This persona is a spectator who is also a performer to a larger group of spectators, much like a traditional sports broadcast. 9. The Crowd – The Crowd persona details the delight in spectating as a group.” (Smith 4)

Beyond this, there is a 10th persona. The lurker. The lurker is essentially a viewer that views the stream just for the content, often as background entertainment (similar to how many people leave the TV on while doing other things) and has little or no interest in the community aspect of Twitch. (Georgen)

Theme 2: Understanding Income

Both Youtubes and Twitch streamers can and do make full time jobs and careers using these websites. In fact, some Youtubers and Twitch streamers make over a million dollars a year doing nothing besides creating content. (Kachroo-Levine) However, creating content is not as easy as some people make it out to be. Many Youtubers spend hours creating videos shower than 10 minutes long, and most full time livestreamers stream more than 40 hours per week. Creating and maintaining a schedule is a huge part of a content creator’s life, and deviating from this schedule can have harsh repercussions if done repeatedly. It is also important to remember that most content creators income is wildy inconsistent, but tends to reflect the amount of work they put in. This is especially true on Twitch because most of livestreamer’s income is based off viewer generosity, and one extremely generous viewer can double a livestreamer’s income in an instant. (Egger)

Let’s examine each site separately. Profiting from Youtube is simpler and more consistent than Twitch because the bulk of your income comes from advertisements the beginning of your videos. Usually viewers are willing to watch a 30 second advertisement before a video begins. Assuming the viewer of your video isn’t using an adblock program, this will make the creator money. Youtube tallies up the total revenue, then splits the money with the video maker. This is where the bulk of revenue comes from for most youtubers, and is calculated on a per video and per view basis. The going rate for this type of ad is about $1.50 per 1000 views. (Kachroo-Levine) As you can imagine, when youtubers like pewdiepie have over 15 billion views on their videos, this adds up pretty quick. Interestingly enough, the revenue from these adverts tends to vary significantly depending on what type of videos the youtuber makes, because the viewerbases of different genres tend to use adblock at different rates.

Next up is sponsorships or sponsored advertisements. This is where a company pays a youtuber to make a video or videos advertising or at least endorsing their product. Because Youtube doesn’t take a cut of the revenue, the youtuber tends to get a much better margin than standard adverts. (Positgo)

Finally, some youtubers create a patreon or a gofundme page. Essentially these are simply options for viewers that enjoy their content to donate a little extra money to the Youtuber. Unlike Twitch, these sites generally make up a very small portion of a youtubers income. In order, Youtubers usually make the majority of their income from the pre-video advertisements, the second most money sponsorships, and just a little bit of extra income from generous viewers donating money.

Twitch is a much more complicated in terms of income for the livestreamer. First and foremost, it is important to understand that a huge portion of a twitch livestreamers income comes from viewer generosity. If one is not well versed in live streaming and live streaming culture this may seem weird. However, it is very common for viewers to donate (sometimes also referred to as tip) money to the streamer. In exchange, the streamer will usually read out the donators message on stream (almost all the donation platforms have a feature that allows this) and respond to it live. Often the donator will request a song to be played on stream in exchange for the donation, which most streamers are happy to oblige. In general, a livestreams income can be broken down into 4 different parts: Subscriptions, Advertisements, Bits, Donations, and Sponsorships. To gain access to most of these things a livestreamer has to first be a twitch partner. Becoming a partner is fairly difficult task to accomplish. Nobody really knows what Twitch’s requirements for partnership are, but many speculate they are based off the following: Concurrent viewers, total views, follower count, amount of donations, potential for growth, most commonly played game or streamed section, popularity on other sites (Youtube and other social media) and much more. Becoming a twitch partner gives you access to three major things, and a variety of other smaller perks. These things are sharing revenue with Twitch advertisements, access to subscriptions, and access to bits. A twitch partner also had a higher chance of landing sponsorships. Let me break each of these things down one by one.

Let’s begin with advertisements. Compared to Youtube, a very small part of a twitch streamers revenue comes from advertisements. Twitch streamers have a lot of control over what type and how many advertisements are run during their live stream, but most run very few advertisements and many none at all. Every time a user opens a new stream on Twitch an advertisement is played. Beyond this, advertisements are completely in control of the livestreamer. A livestreamer can play an advert whenever he or she wants, and can chose the length of the ad as well. A livestreamer can play as many advertisements as they like, but risks alienating some of their viewers of they play too many. Beyond this, there are many ways for viewers to get around watching adverts. The most common of these is an adblock program, it is estimated that 75-80% of twitch viewers have an adblocker. (Egger) Beyond this, subscribing to a streamer’s channel prevents users from getting ads on that channel, and access to Amazon Prime prevents viewers from watching ads site wide (Twitch is owned by amazon). Even though a streamers viewcount may be quite high, odds are most of these viewers won’t see the advertisements even they are played. Overall, advertisements represent a very small part of most livestreamers income, and pale in comparison to other forms of revenue.

Next up is subscriptions, a subscription is a monthly $4.99 payment a viewer can opt into to support a livestreamer. According to the twitch website the benefits of subscribing are as follows: Directly supporting the broadcaster (50% or 60% of the subscription fee goes directly to the livestreamer depending on their contract with Twitch), no adverts on that streamers channel, a chat badge letting other people in that channels chat know you are subscribed to the streamer and for how long, access to emoticons unique to the streamer that can be used in any chat on Twitch, ability to chat during subscriber only mode (a togglable chat mode a streamer can turn on where only subscribers are able to chat, most commonly used in big streams to reduce spam.), and an immunity to other chat restrictions such as slow mode (a mode where users can only send a certain number of messages per minute). Subscriptions make up a huge part of a livestreamer’s income. Even though most viewers have less than 1000 subscriptions, some of the biggest livestreamers on twitch have an enormous. amount of subscribers. Currently one of the biggest streamers on Twitch, Jared Lazar (more commonly known by his twitch username Summit1G) has over 24,000 subscribers. At $3 a subscriber, he makes over $500,000 a year off subscriptions alone. Subscribing is a very popular method of supporting livestreamers on Twitch, and is a huge part of what makes it possible for twitch streamers to make a living and stream as much as they do. Subscribing is popular because it is extremely easy to set up, has benefits visible to other users, and is not very expensive. (Walker)

For a long time Twitch did not have a donation feature built into their website. Eventually they realized how much money they were missing out on and added bits, an onsite donation feature. In addition to subscribing, almost every livestreamer of note has a donation link under their stream. If viewers are enjoying the stream, or simply feeling generous, they can send money directly to the streamer. The viewer usually has an option to add a message to their donation, which the streamer will usually read out on stream. As mentioned previously, often viewers will link a song they would like the streamer to play, which since the streamer is getting payed to do so, usually happens on all but the biggest streams. Donating to streamers to support them is another very common practice. Most big streamers stream more than 40 hours a week without receiving any direct compensation, it is only fair for them to get something in return. Beyond this, many viewers are motivated by the increased respect they get in chat. Everyone wants the streamer to succeed but not everyone wants it badly enough to part with their hard earned money to make it happen. Recently Twitch came out with bits, which are a virtual currency on twitch. Bits can be used to donate to livestreamers directly through twitch, and have the advantage of being quick and easy to purchase and use. Viewers also receive a permanent chat badge when donating to a streamer using bits, letting other viewers know what they did. The main disadvantage of bits is the fact that Twitch takes a much bigger cut than third party donation sites do, meaning a viewer has to spend more money to benefit the streamer the same amount. Standard donations and bits are used in fairly similar quantity, and both are common forms of income for the streamer. (Walker)

Finally, there are sponsorships. Twitch sponsorships function very differently to youtube sponsorships, and are significantly harder to obtain. However, sponsorships can be very lucrative. Twitch sponsorships are similar to sports sponsorships. In NASCAR the driver’s jerseys are covered with sponsors logos and advertisements. On twitch sponsorships work in the same way, a passive advertisement on the broadcast or in the broadcasters room letting viewers know they support that organization or company. (Addiktz) A couple other examples include a livestreamer being payed to drink certain energy drinks on stream, or payed to wear a watch on stream. To obtain a sponsorship you usually have to be quite a big streamer, but obtaining one is a substantial boost to his or her income. Another popular streamer, Adam Lyne (more commonly known by his twitch name B0aty) averages about 5000 viewers a stream, and publicizes details about his sponsorships. He has two different sponsorships, and each pay him out about $3000 a month. While this may seem like a very large amount, it is important to remember that one must be a very popular streamer before they start receiving sponsorship offers, so even though the numbers seem quite big, sponsorships usually do not represent as big a piece of streamer income as it may appear. (Addiktz)

Theme 3: Understanding the life of a content creator

As it currently stands, there is very little information on what the life of a livestreamer is like on a day to day basis, and what goes into the life of a livestreamer behind the scenes. In fact, I could not find a single scholarly article on this topic at all. As described throughout the rest of the this review, there is a great deal of information on livestreamers, how they make their money, and how their streams affect their viewers, but nothing on the livestreamer him or herself. The information on the lives of Youtubers is similarly limited, though not quite as barren as when searching for Twitch. Due to the barrenness of research and information currently available but the interest in the topic not only personally but also publically this is the topic I would like to research. As likely seen throughout this essay I would like to focus primarily on livestreamers with a secondary look at Youtubers as well. I plan to make my research applicable to other websites too, but due to the differing nature of various websites out there and what goes into them this may be limited in scope. I personally find this topic fascinating and know many other people do too making this a great research topic.There is a lot of knowledge to be gained here.

Methods:

Now we come to my own research. To conduct my research I did three different things. I will divide these up into separate parts but they include a survey, an interview, and personal observations. Let’s start with the survey. My survey was taken XXX times, giving me a decent amount of data. I used my survey mostly as a tool to get some information about how much people know about Twitch and Youtube. I had questions like have you heard of these websites? How much time do you spend on these sites a month? After a few preliminary questions I asked a bit about what people know about the people behind the content. When asked if they surprised that some these people made 7 figures a year, most people were very surprised.

Next up are the observations. When observing I looked into a few different things, including how streamers interact with their viewers and how they respond to donations and subscriptions on twitch, as well as Youtubers responding to comments on their videos and on other videos. Even though it may seem as if it would be extremely easy to find things that could help you out, due to my focus on the people behind the content it was harder. That isn’t much out there that you can see and draw tangible provable conclusions from, so some of it was a bit of a reach. However, as long as you don’t take my observations as gospel, they should still stand you in good stead.

Finally, my interview. This was by far the best part of my research, as I had access to someone who could give me information I couldn’t get anywhere else. I interviewed a full time livestreamer Jon Wilson, more commonly known by his Twitch.tv “Zulu”. Interviewing someone professionally I could get his point of view on what he does, instead of just what he produces. This ended up being very beneficial, as he had insight I couldn’t get anywhere else. With him I focused more on more personal questions, but kept them mostly related to his job.

Results/Discussion:

Let’s start with the survey. I found that everyone who took my survey had heard of Youtube, but only one third of people had heard of twitch. This isn’t surprisingly as not only is Twitch a relatively new website (4 years old) it also focuses primarily (but not exclusively) on video games and related content. Recently it has started to branch out but for a long time now that's all they offered. Recently Twitch has branched out by adding new categories to livestream under, including things like “IRL” and “Social Eating”. While these have become popular pretty quickly, a lot of the growth seems to come from Asia. However, ⅓ of the people I surveyed knowing Twitch is still quite a lot. If I had to guess two years ago that number would have probably been under 10%. Twitch is growing very quickly, and more and more people are learning about it in the western world.

Of these people, 71% said they were curious about how much money Youtubers make. I know a lot of people that have wanted to of have made youtube videos in the past, and a natural part of that is wondering if you can make money for doing so. Also, if you are one of the 36% of people that spends more than 4 hours a month on Youtube or twitch, it is natural that you’ll be curious about something you spend a lot time doing.

However, for most people this curiosity does not translate into research of education. Even though 71% of people said they curious, less than half of these people actually knew anything about the money behind youtube and twitch. When asked if they knew that there were a fair number of Youtubers and livestreamers that made over a million dollars a year, most people were very surprised. That’s a ton of money, and it’s crazy to think that people can do this sitting in their basement for a few hours a day.

However, the truth of the matter is, very few of the people who do it full time sit in their basement for a few hours a day then move on with their lives. After interviewing Jon, I learned that there is a ton of work that goes into being a content creator for a living, even beyond Twitch and Youtube. To begin, I asked him how hard he thought it was to break into Twitch and become a livestreamer. He told me to break into Twitch (and Youtube to a lesser extent) you needed something to bring in viewers even before you started. For example, you needed to be a extremely good at a game, or do something nobody else has done before. If you just went out and started making videos or livestreaming with the hope of being entertaining, you would almost certainly fail, regardless of the quality of your content. Beyond that, becoming a Youtuber or a livestreamer has a lot to do with advertising and getting yourself out there, especially when you just start. You have to ask your friends or other youtubers to shout you out, and you need to be creative when you get your name out there. Sadly, becoming a content creator has very little to do with your content, that's just what will keep people coming back. You either need to get very lucky, or you have to work really hard to get started. After that it becomes a lot easier he said, all you really have to do is continue making content and do it consistently and on a schedule. A schedule is a huge part of Youtube and an even bigger part of livestreaming. If you miss a few days people will stop coming back. To succeed, content creators have to stick to their schedules like glue.

Next I asked him where most of his revenue comes from on Twitch. He told me almost all of his revenue comes from donations. He has a consistent revenue from subscriptions which is enough to rely on (based on the number of his subscriptions this is probably about $1500 a month) but he said that about ¾ of his income comes from donations. So day in and day out he goes live, and makes a completely different amount of money every day. He also told me that he has one huge donor that has donated him almost half of his total income from livestreaming in the past 4 months. It’s crazy to think that if this one person hadn’t found his livestream, that he may not have quit his job and gone full time. He says it’s really weird at first relying on other people’s generosity to succeed in life, but that you slowly get more and more used to it. It’s a very weird way to live, but he wouldn't change it for the world.

So next I asked him what his day to day life was like, and what he had to do for his livestream when not live. He told me that there was a lot of work that goes into it, but not so much that it compares to the time he spends live (Jon is live about 6 hours a day for 6 days a week). The biggest part of it is setting up the things that he will do when he goes live. He has to make sure that when he goes live he has content ready to make sure everyone who tunes in is entertained for the entire livestream. A lot of the time, depending on what he’s doing, this takes preparation. He says it’s not unusual for him to spend an hour or two before each stream making sure he has enough to do while he is live. Also, he tries to make sure he gets at least one Youtube video out a week, and makes sure that in every video advertises his livestream. He says for a 15-20 minute video it usually takes him about two hours to put together, but he knows that some people put a lot more time into it than that. It varies hugely depending on what your videos are like. He also noted that even though it wasn’t consistent he spends a lot of time working with Twitch on various things relating to his livestream and things twitch does. As twitch is constantly evolving, he has to do a lot to keep up. Finally, he added somewhat humorously, that doing his taxes was a nightmare. The government obviously doesn't have a ton of experience working with professional livestreamers and Jon has to jump through a lot of hoops to satisfy both him and them in relation to how and how much of his money he hands over.

Finally I asked him if he ever has trouble balancing streaming with his real life. He told me that though he personally doesn’t (he works about the same as a normal full time job) he knows some streamers that do. Some streamers spend 60-70 hours a week live and this really affects their ability to do other things. He also said he thinks it’s easier for him because he streamers in a later time zone and doesn’t go live until the late afternoon that it is probably easier for him, as he still has a lot of the day to get things done before he goes live.

Conclusion:

During this research I faced a few limitations. These include: extensive background knowledge potentially leading me to form opinions without enough evidence proving them. A limited sample size (64 survey responses and 1 interviewee). In regards to the interview specifically, while extremely informative, life as a content creator changes significantly based on how big your following is. Having interviewed a livestreamer of only one size may have colored my results. Finally, it is important for anyone reading this to realize that the content creation on the internet, in particular Twitch.tv, is an ever changing landscape. If you read this essay some time in the future, it may no longer be 100% accurate.

In conclusion, being a content creator is not an easy job. It requires a lot more time and effort than one might expect. This research was just the a foot in the door. With proper time and funding it would be possible for a much more comprehensive look at these people the academic community knows so little about. This is an ever growing industry that a great number of people are interested in. Understanding it would benefit us all.

Works Cited

From Lurking to Participatory Spectatorship: Understanding Affordances of the Dota 2 Noob Stream. From Lurking to Participatory Spectatorship: Understanding Affordances of the Dota 2 Noob Stream. Indiana University.

Egger, Jay. “How Exactly Do Twitch Streamers Make a Living? Destiny Breaks It down.” Dot Esports. Dot Esports, 16 Mar. 2017. 04 May 2017.

Hamilton, William A., Oliver Garretson, and Andruid Kerne. “Streaming on Twitch.” Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ‘14 (2014).

“How to Get Started Making Money by Streaming on Twitch.” ADDIKTZ. 04 May 2017.

Kachroo-Levine, Maya. “How Do YouTubers Make Money?” Bustle. Bustle, 02 Feb. 2016. 04 May 2017.

Postigo, Hector. “The Socio-technical Architecture of Digital Labor: Converting Play into YouTube Money.” New Media & Society 18.2 (2016): 332-49.

Smith, Thomas, Marianna Obrist, and Peter Wright. “Live-streaming Changes the (video) Game.” Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Interactive TV and Video - EuroITV ‘13 (2013).

“The Top 500 Sites on the Web ” Alexa Top 500 Global Sites.04 May 2017.

Walker, Austin. “Watching Us Play: Postures and Platforms of Live Streaming.” Watching Us Play: Postures and Platforms of Live Streaming (2014). ProQuest.

Appendix A

Survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RMQF6TK

Have you ever heard of Youtube? How about Twitch.tv?

I have heard of neither

Youtube Only

Twitch Only

Youtube and Twitch

2. How much time do you spend on these websites per month?

Less than an hour

1-2 hours

2-4 hours

4-10

10 or more hours

3. Have you ever been curious about how much money Youtubers make?

Yes

4. Did you know that some Youtubers and Twitch livestreamers make over a million dollars each year?

Yes

No, but it doesn't surprise me

5. On a scale of 1-10, how much does this surprise you?

Appendix B

Interview Questions:

How hard do you think it is to break into livestreaming? Do you think most people would enjoy it?

On Twitch where does most of your revenue come from?

Do you think this is a normal spread for a livestreamer? How much does it vary between bigger streamers and smaller streamers?

You are a full time livestreamer, can you describe to me what your day is like each day?

What do you have to before and after every livestream to make sure everything goes smoothly?

I know you stream a lot of hours a week, do you ever find it hard to balance livestreaming with your personal life?

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writalex-blog · 7 years

Text

Essay D1

Introduction:

Livestreaming is primarily focused on two websites. Twitch.tv and Youtube.

LIT REVIEW

Methods:

Results:

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