“I think it’s like boiling water,” I say.
He glances up at me, then back down at the toaster, then back at me. “Oh, hi. Yes, um, no one was supposed to see this.” He tries to hold my gaze, but his eyes keep sliding back to his toasting bread.
“Supposed to see what?”
“My epic toaster battle. It—aha!” he shouts, and I jump as he leaps at the toaster, jabs the eject button, and yanks the two lightly browned pieces out onto his plate. “Take that, you jerk!” He picks up a spoon and points it at me. “The toaster, not you, obviously.”
I laugh. “Toaster troubles?”
“Burned yesterday morning’s to a crisp. Last night’s too, even though Noog’s turned out perfectly. Can’t help but take that personally, you know.” He side-eyes the toaster as he spoons a wad of grape jelly onto his toast.
I shake my head but can’t help grinning. My disappointment is gone. After all, Code might not be here, and Z might not have as many subs as he does, but he’s got more than me, and he’s on Team Meister, and here I am hanging out in the same house as him while he jokes about toaster battles. Maybe it’s just because prioritizing my channel means I turn down most party invites and don’t get out much, but at this moment, it feels like life doesn’t get much cooler than this.
“So, how does this work?” I ask. “I paid for my share of groceries, so can I just sort of eat whatever?”
“Oh, yeah, have at it.” He waves his spoon around, and a little ball of purple goo drops onto the floor. “I wouldn’t touch Wolf’s energy drinks, and don’t eat that packet of dried bugs on the counter, but otherwise, help yourself.”
“Um . . .” I wander to where he gestured while he wipes jelly off the floor with his finger, and sure enough, there’s a packet of enormous dried beetles on the counter. I pick up the corner of it with two fingers and hold it up. “. . . why?”
He looks about to lick the floor jelly off his finger, but at the last minute, he thinks better of it and washes it off in the sink. “Noog’s planning to challenge VintageBeef to a bug-eating contest.”
“Right.” I set the package down, wondering how many subscribers I could earn if I ate that one as big as my thumb, with long pointy bits sticking out the front like ears or claws. “Is there yogurt?”
“Yeah, in the fridge. Orange juice and fruit and stuff, too. It’s a good thing Ben does all the shopping, or we’d probably just live on bacon and hot dogs.” He bites into his toast and jam.
I don’t actually watch a whole lot of Team Meister, but I watch enough to know that Ben—Deadmeister—is kind of like the dad of the group. At around thirty, he’s almost a decade older than most of them.
I grab a yogurt and a kiwi from the fridge, and Z points out the cutlery drawer. “Why do you guys call him Ben instead of Dead?” I ask as I grab a knife and cutting board. My dad thinks it’s so weird that I call my gamer friends by their usernames when I talk about them at the dinner table, but I find the opposite strange. How, exactly, do you go from calling someone by one name for hours or days or years online, then at some point switch to something else?
And how, exactly, do I get Code and his followers to stop calling me Willow? I’m ShadowWillow, or just Shadow! Isn’t it standard to shorten names to the first half, not the second? Apparently not.
Despite his username being Deadmeister, Ben is Ben to everyone—his followers, too. Not that he’s got that many followers compared to the rest of the team. I’ve almost surpassed him—which is a completely bizarre and giddy-making thought.
“I don’t know,” Z says. He opens the garbage so I can toss my kiwi’s peel in. “He’s always been Ben to me. Maybe it’s because it’s weird calling someone Dead. ‘Who’s your friend?’ ‘He’s Dead.’ ‘You’re Dead, right?’ ‘Hey, Dead, did you grab some toilet paper at the store?’ Actually, I take it back. That all sounds pretty great.”
I laugh again. I haven’t watched many of Z’s videos, but I think I’m going to have to start. “So, where are the guys?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
“Does that mean I’m a girl?”
My face burns. Foot, meet mouth. Baby skunk, meet box of baby kittens. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, that’s great. That means I get to wear girl clothes, right? I’ve been dying for a pink Team Meister shirt. Did you know that you can’t get men’s shirts in pink? Like, on the site we use, it’s not even an option to offer that. I mean, maybe it’s for the best, because Code and Noog would probably veto it, and some fights just aren’t worth it, but still.
“Anyway, the guys are still sleeping,” he says, moving on before I can find the words to ask why Code would veto it. “We were up excessively late streaming. Well, they were. I sorta fell asleep on the couch partway through.” He grins sheepishly. “At college—it’s my first year—I’ve discovered I can sleep absolutely anywhere, even right through my professors’ lectures. I mean, not all of them, but my philosophy prof has this voice that could hypnotize a squirrel on speed, so it’s really not my fault. So yeah, I fell asleep and they did not, so now they’re asleep and I’m not.”
“Right,” I say. I’m fully aware how late they were up streaming, because I was up late watching, wondering if Code would mention anything about me, and just marveling in the fact that everything I was seeing on my screen was happening right downstairs. Bananas. Triple bananas. Triple banana split with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and seven maraschino cherries on top.
I wore headphones so I wouldn’t disturb Lainey in the bed next to mine, who got all quiet when we got to the house, and then conked out almost immediately. She disappeared this morning while I was in the bathroom erasing the bags from under my eyes. Thank goodness I’m way too keyed up about everything to be tired.
Code didn’t end up saying a thing about me, annoyingly. I glance at the time on my phone. I can’t hang around much longer before I head up to the center. “Do you think they’ll be up soon?”
“Nah. Our first thing isn’t until after lunch. Your panel’s this morning, though, right? Mind if I come with you? I’ll just, uh, change out of this mess first.” He looks down at the wrinkled clothes that he’s probably been wearing since yesterday, then heads toward the door. “Hey,” he says, turning back, “do you have anything pink I could borrow to wear? No? Too bad.” He grins, then rushes down the hallway to get ready.
I finish my breakfast in the quiet, empty kitchen while I wait. If Code’s wink meant what I want it to mean, I guess I won’t find out until later. Which is fine, because in the meantime, I have my first ever panel to keep me busy!
It takes longer to get to the convention center than I remember from last night, so by the time we find the right hall, the rest of the panelists are already there, hanging around by the makeshift stage that’s set up with a podium, a long table, and a series of mics. It’s a smaller room than last night, but if all these chairs fill up, that’s still a decent crowd.
Z walks right in with me, then rushes ahead to one of the girls—GrayscaleRainbow, I think—and basically smothers her in a hug. She squeals, and once he releases her, she reaches up and tousles his unruly hair, which he did absolutely nothing to when he got dressed. She’s as short as he is tall, with dyed black hair in a pixie cut that highlights her prominent cheekbones, a black shirt with a colorless rainbow on it, and gray sweatpants that gather into thick elastic at her ankles.
Not too far away, the two other panelists, IsabelPlaysGames and Emmaleie, chat with our moderator, Aureylian. They’re all in their thirties, though they don’t feel a million years older like Meister Ben does, probably because they aren’t going gray early like he is.
All of us—the panelists, the moderator, even our friends in this room, actually—are white. Did the organizers not think to try to get a woman of color on the panel? It feels isolating, sometimes, to be a girl gamer in a world where the big names—PewDiePie, Markiplier, even second-tier big names like Codemeister and the rest of his team—are almost all
guys; I can’t imagine how much harder it must be to be a person of color on top of that.
Beside GrayscaleRainbow, a girl I don’t recognize with long burnt-orange hair and big eyes turns around. She’s in impressive elf archer cosplay, complete with brown leather vest, pointy ears, and a shimmering gold bow. “Z,” she says, emphasizing his nickname with a nobleness that makes it feel like she’s calling him King George Henry Percival the Fifth, instead of a letter of the alphabet. “Hello!” And then the hug smothering happens all over again.
How many conventions have they all been to together? How many video collabs have they done together?
I slip my hand into my purse and run my fingers over the Sharpie that I’ve already used over a dozen times. And I haven’t even had my autograph session yet.
This little skunk belongs here, folks!
I march toward them, trying to exude confidence (as opposed to exuding skunk stink).
Just before I reach them, Z spots me. “Willow! Have you met Gray?”
(See? GrayscaleRainbow shortened to Gray? That’s the proper way to do things.)
“Hi!” I stick my hand out. “I’m ShadowWillow. You can call me Shadow.”
Gray smiles brightly and shakes my hand. Her skin is absurdly soft. “Hey, Shadow.”
If Z notices the change in my nickname, he doesn’t say anything, just gestures toward the other girl—who, I’ve just noticed, has the elven crest, a circle of woven vines, stamped into her leather vest. Perfection. “And this is Marley,” Z says.
“My girlfriend,” Gray clarifies, slipping her baby-soft hand into Marley’s. Marley scrunches her nose at Gray, who scrunches hers back, like some kind of adorable mating sign they’ve learned from fluffy bunnies.
Marley turns to Z. “So, Z, are you on this panel with Gray?”
Z shakes his head sadly. “No. I tried really hard to get on it. I mean, I told them, ‘A panel about girl gaming with only girls on it? That’s just not fair. You’ve got to give us white dudes a chance. Equal opportunity!’ But they said no, those bigots.”
We all laugh. I have really got to start watching Z’s channel.
“Nah,” he clarifies, “I’m just here to support Gray and Shadow.” He twists his wrists out to point his thumbs at the two of us.
Just then, the LotSCON volunteer from last night—Lorne, I think his name was—pops into our little circle. “We’re going to start letting people in, if you want to take your places up on the stage.”
“Thanks, Lorne,” I say, and his grin tells me I got it right.
“Let’s find a seat,” Z says, threading his scrawny arm through Marley’s.
“Don’t go stealing my girlfriend!” Gray calls over her shoulder at them as we head up the stairs to the stage with IsabelPlaysGames and Emmaleie, as well as our moderator, Aureylian.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not her type,” Z calls back.
It’s not until we’re settled onstage and the crowd is in their seats that I realize: Z called me Shadow.
I don’t have time to dwell on it, though, because Aureylian dives right in, introducing us with her usual entertainer’s charisma. If I were to ask for her autograph after this, would I seem like a hack who doesn’t belong on this stage? I’ve watched a lot of panels on YouTube, and I’ve never seen anyone moderate with as much poise and charm as she does.
I’ve watched a lot of panels, but I’ve never been on one before. Until now! Dear brain, please stop ogling Aurey’s talent and take in the fact that YOU ARE ON A STAGE AS PART OF A PANEL! Triple banana split with a dozen maraschino cherries!
I grin out at the crowd with a broad smile that’s hopefully friendly, not creepy, because there’s no way I can reel it in.
It’s a smaller hall, but almost all the seats are filled. People are holding up their cameras, taking pictures or video, and some guy with a LotSCON shirt is operating a very fancy camera, which I’m pretty sure is streaming this to Twitch.
I run my fingers quickly through my hair, glad I spent the extra time covering up my eye bags this morning.
“You’d think, what with my being an openly lesbian gamer,” Gray is saying in response to a question from Aurey, “that I wouldn’t have to worry about things like guys sending me pictures of their dicks, but apparently guys think they can ‘fix’ me.” She makes air quotes with her fingers around the word “fix.” “But guys, let me tell you a secret.” She leans in close to the mic. “If there was a way to ‘fix’ me”—air quotes again—“it wouldn’t be by sending me a picture of your floppy, hairy junk.”
The laughter is thunderous. It’s the right crowd for that kind of joke, apparently, which makes sense; it’s the kind of crowd who’d get up early on a Saturday morning for a panel on girl gamers.
“What about you, ShadowWillow?” Aurey asks. “What’s one of your pet peeves as a female gamer?”
We got the questions ahead of time, thankfully, because my brain is still nomming on that triple banana split and would never be able to answer that from scratch.
I lean toward the mic. “There’s this moment that happens sometimes in Battlegrounds, when I’m playing pairs with strangers. You can hear it in a guy’s voice just after the audio clicks in, when he says hi, and then you say hi, and then you can just tell: he’s super bummed he got paired with a girl. I mean, being a girl means I obviously must be a noob.”
“How can you tell that’s what he’s thinking?” Aurey asks, in a “please carry on with this fascinating story” way, not in an “I don’t believe you” way.
“Because he’ll usually say something right away like ‘So do you even know how to play this game?’”
“Oh, brother!” Emmaleie says.
“I hope you utterly destroy in the game when that happens,” Gray says.
“Uh, no,” I admit. “I, um, usually crash our vehicle into a tree or set off a frag grenade and get both of us blown to smithereens, then say, ‘Oops.’” I say the “oops” in the girliest, singsongiest voice I can manage, and the place erupts in laughter.
It’s official. I adore this crowd.
I adore this panel.
I adore my life.
I want this to be my life forever. I have to make this happen.
We answer a couple more preplanned questions, and then the floor is opened to the audience.
“Please please please,” I silently wish into the universe as people line up at the microphone in the middle of the aisle, “let one of these questions be for me. Just one.” With Aureylian and Gray, long-term powerhouses with devoted fans, beside me on the stage, it seems unlikely that the questions will go to anyone but them, but I can hope. Maybe, just maybe, I could have a few fans of my own here.
A fourteen-or-so-year-old South Asian girl with perfectly straight hair rocks back and forth from her toes to her heels as she says, “My question’s for Willow.”
“Shadow,” I want to correct her, but my annoyance is replaced with sudden joy as it sinks in: her question’s for me. The very first question is for me! Thank you, universe. You’re pretty badass, sometimes.
“So, are you and Code dating?”
“Are Code and I dating?” I parrot back, and the girl giggles. Her Codester T-shirt, which has a cartoon of Code’s avatar standing atop an enormous diamond, jumps out at me. She’s a Code fan. Of course.
I refuse to be disappointed. After all, this is why I’m here: to turn Code fans into ShadowWillow fans. And she still rushed to the front of the line, just to ask me—me!—her question.
The answer, of course, is “No,” or at least “Not yet,” but she doesn’t need to know that, so instead, I put on the most “I don’t know what to say; I’m so awkward and frazzled” voice I can muster and say, “Uh . . . I can’t answer that, sorry.”
Which sets the girl off on another small fit of giggles and sends a wave of whispering through the crowd. If questions about Code send excited chattering about me through an entire crowd, then I’ll happily answer those questions all day lo
ng.
Gray rolls her eyes at me, and I shrug in a hopefully-can-be-interpreted-fifty-different-ways kind of way. I want Gray to like me—I want everyone to like me—but I’ve got a lot more to gain from Code’s millions of subscribers than from her half a million. And he did wink at me last night.
The next question is for Isabel and then two for Gray.
Then a sixteenish-year-old guy steps up to the mic. He’s got a bit of a potbelly and he’s clearly entrenched in an ongoing battle with acne that, judging by the spattering of scabs amid the pink dots, he’s losing, but his eyes shine bright from under his mop of naturally blond hair, as though he’s a kid at Disney World. This time, I spot the Codester shirt right away, so when he looks at me, my heart leaps with anticipation. It’s going to be another question for me!
And I’m right. He opens his mouth and says, “Shadow, I have watched your video where you drop through the roof and slaughter the entire opposing team with a single 360-degree turn probably . . . a couple dozen times. It’s badass. So my question is: how did you become so brilliant at first-person shooters?”
It’s not a question about Code or about shipping. But it’s still for me. I blink at him a few times as I play back the question in my head, then my stomach twists in knots as I realize that he’s looking at me—like, really looking at me. He’s not just Code’s fan, he’s mine.
As I find my voice and start to tell him about how I’ve been playing video games practically since I was in the womb, and how my earliest memory is of the whole family gathered around the TV playing Smash Bros. or Mario Kart, the words spilling out of me without planning or forethought, for a moment I let myself imagine a world where these are the types of questions I get from fans. A world where every tenth comment on my videos isn’t about my boobs. A world where I have hundreds of thousands of fans of my own who don’t care what my relationship to Codemeister is. A world where I’m on a big main panel and not just on the girl gamer panel that’s first thing in the morning in what suddenly seems like such a small side room.
Fan the Fame Page 6
