Page 28 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

They’re made different.

They need their relaxation time.

When he gets older, he’ll be supporting a family, and you need to know how totake careof one.

What a joke.

Last I checked, my brother was a slob with no work ethic to speak of. But, then again, I reallyhaven’tchecked in a long, long time. So maybe something has changed.

Unlikely.

But maybe.

Somehow, I keep my smile in place for the camera while my thoughts rage. “Guys, please. I know that stats should play a role and I can’t jump directly to any endgame wings. You’re losing the plot.”

My darling DaniBird comments:I just looked up a list, and I am partial to the Flame Wings.

Of course you are, my beautiful arson.

Grinning, I say, “Flame Wings it is!AfterI find the Shimmer, defeat the Wall of Flesh, and isolate the Corruption.”

So much to do, so much to do…

Which means I probably can’t cut this stream short to make sure everything is okay with Ash and Alexios.

See, Mom? Video games are good foreveryone. They teach amarvelous number of virtues. Like, grace and mercy where the haters are concerned, andpatience, which I desperately need help with.

And, another thing, having fun as a girlisn’tbad.

I do wonder if I’ll ever be able to play a game without feeling the press of generational sexism breathing down my neck.

I mean. It’s not like I initially made playing video games into a career because of the guilt that surrounds anything I do that isn’t productive.

Right?

Ha ha.

My heart rate doesn’t want to calm down, even though I’m still just running across calm parts of the map, loosely watching chat, and rambling exclamations at the creatures trying to kill me. I’m at the end of Terraria’s Easy Mode, literally just cleaning up a few more Hard Mode prep things, so I’m overpowered to the max and one-shotting everything I come across.

I should not be stressed out of my mind.

Ilovegaming. Hanging out with people. Letting my mods kick the whiny twelve-year-olds…

It’s great.

But it’s also often like therapy.

Add the baggage of a faerie I barely know, don’t trust, and who isn’t even one year old yet supervising my baby, and it is quite thecharacter-developingsession.

Unpacking all the trauma so it can lay about in my brain isn’t the most fantastic thing in the world, to be perfectly transparent. Practicing emotional repression so I don’t have a breakdown on camera also is not making it to my top ten of most enjoyable times.

Sir, I require some inner peace right now, please.

The goofy Lord decides that now is the perfect time for the undeniable sound of a baby’s cry to make it past the music in myheadphones. My heart hits my ribs as I pull a muff off, freeze in game, and look toward my office room door.

Ash, Alexios, and my bedroom are on the opposite end of the hall.

How loud is Ash crying?

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