Page 31 of How We Play the Game
“What do you mean you changed your mind?” Trieu replies sharply. For all the energy in his words, his delicate grasp on the mascara spoolie he holds a millimeter from my eye remains steady. I don’t know how Trieu knew there were actual dressing rooms in the other wing of the Wizzard Theater. I do know that we’re probably not supposed to be using one as a staging area to prepare ourselves for the academy’s first open lunch—a spectacle wherein selected content creators in theGLRfandom are invited to meet and mingle with us as players. I also know that Trieu does not care if we’re allowed, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, and that as nerve-racking as open lunch sounds, it’s theperfect moment for Ivan and me to hard launch ourselves as aGLRpower couple to the exact demographic of people who care. Or it was, until Ivan apparentlychanged his mind.
“I’m not cut out for the role,” Ivan begins. I feel a flare of heat on the back of my neck. It’s nerves or rage, too early to tell which. Kavi has stopped fussing with her eyebrows, her hand frozen in place by her forehead. Even Cass has stopped spinning on a stool by the door. “I don’t think I can be … or even pretend to be”—Ivan pauses for effect—“a paladin. I think I’m more of a bard.”
Our sighs of relief almost harmonize. Ivan’s mirrored eyes glance toward the rest of us as he laughs. “Just breaking the tension. Feels like we’re about to go to a funeral, not a meet and greet.”
“That was a very bard joke,” Cassius observes. “Motion to reroll Ivan’s class from holy hero to comic relief whose main job is to fool people into thinking he’s serious?”
“Seconded,” I say. “I like that metaphor a lot better.”
“Thirded. Stay still.” Trieu unscrews the lid from a pot of lip gloss and scrapes a clean brush across its holographic, glittery surface.
“If we’re enough of a team where our metaphorical class distinctions matter, then we’re enough of a team to merit a name,” Kavi says.
“Phh-tmmm,” I mumble behind closed lips.
“Party,” Cass translates. “But I agree with Kavi. A name makes it official. Binds us together.”
You know what else bound people together? The One Ring. And look what that did to the Fellowship.
I’m not against giving this alliance a name in principle, but—No, wait. Yes I am. I am so much more comfortable going along with this when I view it from the distance of utility. Hence, convolutedDnDparty metaphors. Teams are composed of people who work together for a group win. Parties are individuals with goals that dovetail until they don’t. It’s a small but crucial difference. If I’m going to win this thing, at the end of the day I’ll have to do it alone.
Two things have me feeling a way about this. The first was the rest of player orientation on Tuesday, which thankfully separated all the five of us into different groups, so I didn’t have to elaborate much on the Ivan Lie. I could tell that some wanted to ask—there were ten players in my group, and one of them was Chaz—but it’s hard to be nosy when a Wizzard intern is leading your group through getting-to-know-you activities that volunteer plenty of information up front. “Where are you from?” “New Jersey.” “What do your parents do?” “Beats me, I live with my uncle.” “What does he do?” “Manages a sporting goods store. Very interesting, I know.”
All the while, I took mental notes on my competition. Chaz liked to talk about himself, but kept bringing up the possibility of co-streaming with two other players in my group. Those players, Payton and Paxton, have an absurd amount of followers on WiTch, but their page is shared. Our new pages made for the academy competition are not. “That’s gotta be rough,” I said to Payton first, then Paxton later. “Are you guys going to try to split your followers or do you think they’ll go with whoever streams first or, you know, better?” I could almost hear the geological crack of a fault line developing in theirfriendship. That oughtta keep them from teaming up, and keep Chaz occupied trying to choose which one’s butt to kiss harder.
Some others in my group were just happy to be there. Three at least, by my count. They’re not in the academy to win; they’re proud of themselves just for getting in, a viewpoint far too psychologically healthy to be a threat to my goals. I belong to theGuardiansseries stan contingent, the deep-cut freaks who have their eye on going pro in the Guardians League or, like me, have their eye on Brian’s mentorship. Those are my real competition. Those, and the four other people crammed into this dressing room.
“Team name, team name. What about … Team Fury?” Trieu suggests, with a cheeky eye on Ivan’s reflection. I smirk at the dig, and Trieu takes advantage of the position to smear cream blush on the apples of my cheeks.
“That’s not funny,” Ivan says flatly.
“Team Z-TICK?” Cass supplies. “It’s our initials.”
“That’s pretty good.” Kavi nods. “If we want to sound like we’re selling bug spray.” Even though her makeup has been done since this morning, she’s preening like a bird in the good dressing room light, touching herself up after this morning’s academy presentation.
That presentation was the second reason I know I have to keep my distance. A senior Wizzard writer named Sarah gave a speech on how the core purpose of games is to create and sustain the player fantasy. In the team gameGuardians League Online, that fantasy is to protect the spoils of an intergalactic gold rush from thine enemies. InGuardians League Royale, it’s being a savvy space survivalist and dunking on sweats who can’t shoot. Everything else—the action, theworld, every scrap of text and visual effect—exists to keep that fantasy going. I’d never thought about games that way, as concrete pillars of code supporting something as weightless as an idea. My mind was blown.
After the presentation, someone asked the question I think all of us wanted answered: how did Sarah get started writing for Wizzard? I could have guessed what she’d say: she was a Brian Juno mentee. His first, to be exact, and the reason he started picking one aspiring game writer out of the ether to champion them for the rest of their career. If I play my role right for the next five weeks, I could be Sarah within the next five years. I hold the image of her onstage in my head and imagine myself in her place while Trieu dabs at the corner of my mouth with his pinky finger, removing an errant glob of lip gloss.
“What about Team Fantasy?” This gloss doesn’t feel as heavy on my lips as I thought it would be, and it smells delicious. I poke my tongue out to see if it tastes as good as it smells. The answer to that question is no, it does not. Bleh.
“Sounds like an underwear campaign.” Trieu sees me try to eat the gloss and gently shakes his head. All right, note taken. He worked hard on my lips, and like most products of artistic endeavors, it’s considered rude to lick them.
“I like the concept, though,” Ivan says and pulls his phone out of his pocket. That’s almost like he’s agreeing with me. Feels weird. “It should be something aspirational, something forward-thinking. Something that shows we have—”
“Done!” Trieu exclaims suddenly. He steps back from my chair and swerves from side to side, testing how the light hits my made-up face from different angles. “She was a babe to begin with, but when I’m good, I’mgood.”
Trieu spins me a quarter turn toward the mirror, and my reflection, bright, brown, and beautiful, bounces back into my disbelieving eyes. Which is strange, because I don’t look all that different. I expected Trieu to go all out, with flashy eyeliner, fake freckles, and everything else I’ve seen makeup tutorial streamers do on their own faces, but that’s not what he’s done for me. It’s my own face but glowy, like my skull is made of gold that shines through where the skin is thinnest. My almost-black eyes stand in higher contrast, with whiter whites and curling lashes that make me feel like a cartoon bunny, but not in a terrible way. I blink at myself a few times and feel the slight tickle of my lashes against my eyelids. I smile at Trieu, who smiles back. Then, on an instinct I should really do more to suppress, I check to see Ivan’s first reaction.
“Vision,” he says, both eyes trained on me. “Team Vision.”
“I like it,” Cass replies, and I’m not sure he’s talking about the name. “Team Vision, I mean,” he clarifies, though no one asked him to. “Name good.”
I can only nod my agreement; I’m busy getting acquainted with the lady in the mirror. Her face looks capable of things I’ve never tried to do. Like being coy, for one. I flutter my eyelashes, just to test the theory.How did Ivan and I meet? Ask him, he tells the storysomuch better.Needs work, but with a little practice I think it could be convincing. How about a cheeky smile?Oh, Ivan, you are incorrigible.That’s not as hard since it’s true and he is. Now let’s try humble surprise: eyes wide, brows up.Of course I’ll be your mentee, Mr. Juno!Not bad, not bad at all.
Before my silent face journey can get awkward, Trieu’s phone blasts out the staccato opening beats of the siren disstrack fromHades 2.What’s the name of that song again? I’m about to ask Trieu when he starts scooping up all the makeup he spread out on the dressing room counter. “That’s five, let’s get a move on.”
“Thank you, five.” Ivan’s attention predictably returns to his own reflection for one last futzy moment involving the way his bangs fall over his forehead. I stand up and shake my own hair out—Trieu can do makeup, but it’s more than I can ask of a Vietnamese stylist to learn how to do Black hair in a week, though he did offer to try.
