How Did BFDI Cringe Ships Become A Trend?

Everyone knows the rules of fake dating: No catching feelings. And definitely no falling for the guy who once wrote your perfect twin sister love letters he never sent. I’m Olivia Carter: the unloved twin, the spare, the one who got dumped so my ex could marry my sister, the one currently fake-dating Rowan Parker, captain of the Ice Hawks, just to make Caleb choke on his own wedding cake. Rowan needs a girlfriend to scare off puck bunnies until playoffs. I need revenge that tastes like his mouth. We’re professionals. This is business. Except he’s looking at me like I’m the only person in the room, and I’m starting to forget the word “pretend.”

To pay off my student loans, I started doing spicy streams online. I never thought I'd actually blow up. Every night, my audience floods the chat, fawning over my face and my body. I love the attention, and I work hard to give them what they want. Until I was dropped into a horror game. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a rotting corpse. And for some reason, my livestream was still running. When the game’s Boss told us all to pick a weapon to die by. The other players all chose to die of old age, or peacefully in their sleep like a baby. I turned my phone to face the boss. "My fans think you're hot," I stammered. "They want me to be killed by... well, by the weapon between your legs. They said 'deeply.' Is that... an option?" The other players whispered among themselves. “This woman must have a death wish.” “Just watch. The Boss is about to tear her to shreds.” But no one expected the Boss to blush.

I was in the office bathroom stall when I heard them trash-talking me. The intern I'd trained for three months whined, "She's a heartless witch—like a robot with zero brain cells." I was about to swing the door open when another voice jumped in, laughing. "Documents incomplete." "Receipts don't match." "No signature? Denied." "Seriously, we've all memorized the freaking rulebot's script!" Once they were gone, I headed back to my desk. The intern stormed in and slammed a fat stack of reimbursement forms in front of me. "Don't go on another power trip and block everyone's claims." I skimmed the obviously fake receipts. Normally, I'd tear into her. But this time, I just smiled. "My head's killing me. Can't read the fine print."

Every year on the day the SAT results are released, I spend the entire day kneeling at my mother's grave. Three years ago, I fell for a phone scam and transferred all of the tuition money she had saved through years of diligently saving up to the scammers. Unable to take the sudden blow, Mom suffered a fatal heart attack. After she passed away, debt collectors began showing up at our door. Only then did I learn how much money she had borrowed just to keep us afloat. I have no choice but to give up my admission offer from Jaloria College. Working five jobs a day, I finally repay every last debt today. On the subway ride to the cemetery, I suddenly come across a streamer whose voice sounds strangely familiar. She blabs, "How do you teach kids the value of earning money? In my experience, extreme circumstances work the best. I deliberately created a scenario for my daughter where both her parents are supposedly dead, and she inherited a million dollars of my debt. "She's almost finished paying it off now. Tell me, can your kids do that?" Someone in the comments section questions her methods, saying it is too insane. She only grows more smug as she gloats, "So what? She's the one who was stupid enough to get scammed. I was just teaching her a lesson. As a reward for doing so well, I'll tell her the truth on her birthday five days from now. Any sensible child will understand their parents' good intentions." As she gestures animatedly, a crescent-shaped birthmark on her wrist comes into view. It's identical to my mom's. My hands tremble as I create a new account. I switch the profile picture to a man in a suit and change the background to luxury cars and mansions. Then, I send her an expensive virtual gift. While she excitedly thanks me, I leave a comment. "You're absolutely right, ma'am. If only I had a smart woman like you around to help me raise my children."

The three of us got dragged into a horror game. My handsome CEO husband, Adrian Chase, tore through dungeon after dungeon and shot straight into the top four on the player leaderboard. Then we entered an SSS-level dungeon, and he and our son decided I was deadweight. They left me behind in a monster-filled zone. The chat instantly blew up: [Adrian Chase is so hot! He should've dumped that deadweight forever ago!] [Theo's only ten and already this strong? Total mini-Adrian.] [Adrian and the number two player, Mollie, are perfect together. I ship them so hard!] I was crouched in a pool of blood, zoning out, when a shadow dropped over me. The stream chat lost it: [Holy crap! That's the SSS-level BOSS!] [Did she freeze up?! Run!] I looked back— The boss who had the entire server terrified dropped to one knee without hesitation, silver hair spilling across my lap. "Master, you haven't spent time with me in three days..." I shoved his stupidly handsome face away. "Not now. I'm busy." Viewer chat: [Wait, WHAT did we just hear?!]

Anomalies were descending on the world when I got thrown into a horror dungeon. The problem? I was a hopeless romantic. An even bigger problem? The dungeon’s final boss turned out to be more of a lovesick idiot than I was. The moment he saw me, he practically begged to be my personal simp.. Me: Wait… we’re doing that already? The barrage of comments exploded: “Look at him. The mighty final boss is willing to be the third wheel.” “Sorry, sweetie, but our girl already has two anomalies in line. Even if he’s the boss, he still has to take a number.”