Page 6 of Level Up
“Uh…” I have no idea anymore.
“Oh!” And she’s already forgotten as well. “I wanted to ask if you’re still up for minding the front of the shop on Monday morning while I have my eye appointment.”
“I told you I would,” I say, taking a sip of myoneglass of wine. I don’t even like wine that much, but it makes me feel grown-up to pretend that I do. Even at twenty-six, it’s one of the few things in my life that does.
“I know, but you usually don’t work mornings, and I’m just making sure you didn’t forget and plan to do something else.”
“I never have anything to do.”
“I know,” she says, and I stare at my chicken, telling myself that it isn’t the saddest statement ever.
Mom is like me, in that way. We’re homebodies. Our social lives in the Before Times were just about as nonexistent as afterwards—lockdowns basically had no effect on us. Besides my weekly coffee date with Victory nowadays, I hardlygo anywhere.
Gram, however, is a different story. She’s friends with every person she’s ever met and has events and meetings and functions every week. I’m not entirely sure that we’re related, except for the fact that I know I want to be exactly like her in fifty years: feeding cats that aren’t even mine and matching my eyeshadow to my blouse every day, with curly silver hair piled on my head like a tornado swept in and I don’t give afuck.
The only difference is that Gram actuallydatesand I, well, don’t.
“I guess that means you don’t have any plans tonight either?” There’s a hint of hopefulness in Mom’s voice that has me wary.
“I’m pretty tired, actually,” I say, before she can rope me into watchingEnola Holmesfor the third weekend in a row. She has a thing for Henry Cavill. “I’m probably just going to try to catch Helmi’s stream and go to sleep early.”
“She’s the one in Finland, right?” Mom asks, and I nod.
Helmi is my first (and only) streamer friend on Play’N, because we started our cozy gaming channels around the same time. She does hers ASMR-style, though, and they usually put me to sleep. In a good way. She tends to stay up late in her time zone so that everything is dark and quiet when she streams, and it works out well for her North American subs trying to wind down at the end of the day.
But she also doesn’t stream on Saturdays. A fact I choose not to share with Mom right now.
Even though Helmidoesn’t stream on Saturdays, I could always pull up one of her archives if I wanted something to help me drift off tonight, but I’m not actually as tired as I claimed to Mom before coming up to my apartment.
It’s already dark out by the time I gethomehome, and Idrift through the apartment, turning on lamps. I never use the overhead lights, if I can help it; I prefer the cozy vibes of accent lighting. The apartment itself is pretty cozy already, though. It’s small, but plenty for just me. It has a separate bedroom that only has a twin bed—also plenty for just me—and a combined kitchen-and-living-room area, with my gaming desk shoved into the corner by the window.
I’ve always liked this apartment, but it was mostly rented out to grad students while I was growing up, and I only got to see it when I helped Gram clean up between tenants. And while I know some people think All Landlords Are Bastards, Gram is actually pretty cool, even when the tenant isn’t her own grandchild. She’s always charged below market rate for rent, since she only needs enough to maintain it—and I’m pretty sure she’s putting half of what I’m paying her into a retirement fund for me, though she denies it every time I confront her. I’m grateful for it, of course, but I worry she thinks I can’t take care of myself.
Then again, maybe I can’t.
I’m well aware that working part-time at my mother’s stationery shop and streaming video games three times a week is not a solid career plan for someone in their mid-twenties, but I have no idea what else I’d want to do. I suppose the streaming would be more viable if I could reach a higher revenue tier on Play’N, but I would need way more subs for that, which probably means streaming every day—or finding a different niche with a wider audience. But I have an image to maintain, a role to play. Which, ironically, doesn’t include role-playing games, as much as I might want it to.
I collapse onto my couch, trying to decide what I feel like playing for myself tonight, but after the week I’ve had, I just want to turn my brain off for a bit. I look down at the giant reusable bag on the floor next to me, containing a million ballsof yarn and a half-finished blanket that I’ve been crocheting for the past two years, off and on. Mostly off.
Before I know it, I’m in my comfiest jammies with a cup of tea and my laptop on the table in front of me while I curl up on my couch and work on endless granny squares. And, for reasons I can’t explain and don’t want to think about, I put on the archive of SconesOfAyor’s stream from earlier today that I missed. It’s a habit I fall into when I don’t know what I feel like watching, becauseSOA3streams are my comfort show, likeGilmore Girlsis for Mom.
I don’t bother paying attention to the chat log while I watch, I just listen to his commentary and glance up occasionally from my project to see what part he’s at. He’s currently on a play-through where he’s doing every side quest in the game, but the character he’s playing is a pacifist and he’s trying not to actually kill anyone. It’s kind of hilarious.
He always does this sort of thing, making a whole character, with morals and a personality that he tries to stick to for the entire game. My favourite Scones character was an elf who intentionally got himself turned into a vampire and then went around exclusively murdering vampires, like a serial killer that only murders serial killers. (And yes, he named the character Dexter.)
You’d think that would be the point of a role-playing game, you know, toplay a role, but most of theStonesstreams I’ve seen from other people, they just play as a generic human male who tries to get the best outcome from every situation. A bunch of them skip through dialogue, even when they aren’t speedrunning. It’s not nearly as fun.
Not that I should find thisfun. Not when I know Scones is just a gatekeeping asshole like the rest of them.
“You know, I’ve wondered that myself,” he says calmly while running through a cavern full of aggressive doomstalkers trying to kill him. I think he must be responding to somethingin the chat, but I don’t bother checking. “I mean, Lord Wunderth is collecting the Stones so he can become the new King of the Gods, right? As if he doesn’t know what happened to the last guy who had that job? Like, the very fact that these Stones exist would be a red flag to me for sure.”
I try not to be amused.
“No, I know, you’re right,” he continues. “They all think they’re special.‘The last seventy people who tried to do this got brutally murdered, but I’mdifferent.’” Scones leans forward to look at something on his screen, and I can see his mouth curve into a smile at whatever he’s reading. So I lean in to my own laptop screen to read the chat log too.
SpacePudding: Watch Scones play this whole game nonlethal and then use the Stones at the end to kill everyone and become a god XD
“You’ve figured out my evil plan,” Scones says jokingly, sitting back in his chair again. “But I could totally get away with it. I’mdifferent.”
