sCene 49 - ᴍʏ ʟoɴɢ ᴅaʏs

My search for an editor wasn’t going very smoothly, mostly because I had to stay busy. To make up for the time I had been taking off, I was doing longer streams and trying to collab more often. Nai-bu seemed pretty engrossed with trying to find out what she could about magic to help with her scars, so she encouraged me to take my time when streaming. My days just weren’t feeling as manageable lately.

First thing in the morning, when I’m getting ready to stream, I would spend my time reading any comments or threads I could find, while now also still trying to research options for editors. I found some people who were networking, looking for video editing work, but a lot of them were more focused on in-person work, like wanting to help wedding videographers and television. I even tried looking for discord servers where people go for video editing advice, but they had pretty strict no soliciting rules. I didn’t want to privately message someone and it turn out they might report me and get me kicked out.

With no leads, and nothing too exciting in the world of people commenting on me, I prepared to stream. Rarely did I start streaming before noon, even on my long days, mostly because I wanted to make sure I could keep as many viewers in the US and Canada as possible. Who would want to watch me at 9am on the west coast, right? It also was just easier to plan to do like noon to midnight, though often it would be more like noon to 3am. Again, couldn’t leave my friends on the west coast hanging.

Early in my day, my audience wasn’t very active, but many would watch passively. Some would joke about watching me while working, and hiding me when their boss or whoever came by. Almost always Kyle would be there first thing. His username was a reference to the character I played in Forgotten Station, and if that weren’t telling enough, he’d make himself known by trying to claim we were friends in real life. Normally I would take it as a chance to joke that streaming is real life. From what I could tell, when Kyle wasn’t lurking around my house, he was either at school or being weird at home. Supposedly he was going to Jason’s Silver Justice shows now, but I didn’t plan on going anytime soon and bumping into him.

Jason almost never made himself known if he was watching my streams. The most he had ever done was message me during a stream to comment on my makeup. He wasn’t a makeup guru or anything, but he had always taken stuff like that seriously, even when we were kids. To him, showmanship was a big deal, and he treated my streaming like a show. It was sweet of him, even if he could talk about what I was actually doing instead.

I would normally spend the early half of my shift chatting with whoever showed up early, and sometimes browsing reddit and other sites where people might be talking about me or a streamer friend. It would often just be like reading the morning news and seeing if there were any cool announcements for games or anything. Sometimes we would even watch videos, like a warm up and to wake me up.

Around 2pm is when Nai-bu would definitely be done with work, and she would put on my stream before driving home. Even though she heard my voice all the time, she still watched my streams and clips of me loyally. But because I knew she was driving, that’s also when I would normally play first person shooter games. Nai-bu would always take that announcement to spam a bunch of negative emotes in my chat, getting some people to follow after, but mostly everyone to fire back with more cocky emotes. It was a beautiful mess.

I actually started streaming by playing FPS games. When I was still in high school, and had yet to come out to anyone, I would often go home and play in lobbies, eventually streaming just because some of the people I was playing with would. That’s how I met Kage, and why we still play together. Kage was a bit older than me, and had monetized his streaming by then, but thought I was a good player and wanted to banter with me. He’s also the first person I came out to, and he encouraged me to voice train so we could play together on his streams. Before then I was just a silent streamer, the closest to being heard being when Kage would voice chat with me, but not let his stream hear my voice.

After maybe an hour of playing on my own, Kage woke up and immediately wanted to team up. He was always like that: no breaks, always gaming. Honestly one of my favorite things about playing with Kage was that he never wanted anyone to get comfortable just doing one thing. You’re an amazing sniper? Cool. Now only use short-range weapons for the rest of the day. Doing great in a group? Go solo for a bit to see if you can handle yourself. You’d think he was being an asshole, but Kage knew that if you didn’t show an audience that you could improve, and only that you’re good at one thing, they might get bored watching you.

Since Nai-bu had been making dinner lately, I tried to fit in the fashion part of my stream right before dinner was ready. This normally meant unboxing my latest orders, and changing off-camera. Part of the idea was that it was nice to do something a bit more calm before eating, but also then the gaming audience could go raid Kage, while the people who were more tuning in for my personality could get some personal time. If I started early enough, I might play with makeup or paint my nails, but playing with Kage ran late, so I just tried on some outfits. Nothing too exciting, just some summer tops that went on clearance and some jeans, but I would always play it up like I was on the hunt for my new look, even if I would end up returning most of what I tried on. I also knew it was one of Nai-bu’s favorite parts of my streams, so I could give her something to enjoy while she was cooking.

Dinner with Nai-bu was actually a lot more quiet the past few days. She was nose deep in some of Mama’s books, and she didn’t really understand what she was reading well enough to discuss it with me. On my long days, dinners were supposed to be short anyway, so I didn’t mind, but it was sad not talking more. Even when I would try to start topics she would be too distracted to hear everything I was saying. I understood, but we still could have had more fun with dinner.

When I returned, I would do some online shopping, mostly filling my carts to checkout later. I was careful to not put personal information on the screen, and sometimes not even sign in until after I had filled my cart on most sites. Another reason I did something so casual was because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to accidentally transform. Lately when I ate, I would sometimes feel something like an itch to transform, and obviously didn’t want to do that on camera. I had enough mishaps in the past where I almost revealed myself while live, but now that I had a better sense of my body, I could scratch this itch by transforming my feet, or my legs, or even bringing out my tail. It seemed to work most of the time, though when it didn’t, I would end my stream early and try to change each body part like I was flexing a muscle I hadn’t used in a long time.

My late night often consisted of more collabs or just playing browser games. Often I would let Nai-bu have the bed, so I would take a break and move to the living room, and since my better equipment was on my PC, I would do what my laptop could handle, which was mostly browser games. I would typically let myself get tired, and try to do group chats with other streamers to try and stay awake, just to make sure I reached my goal. Often my friends or chat would have to convince me to go to bed, and I had fun pretending to refuse.

While I didn’t have any progress on finding an editor, and would have plenty to cobble together the next day, I genuinely appreciated the life I have. Not everyone could do what I do, or the way I do it, and it really works out for me. Hopefully though I can find an editor soon so I can spend more time with Nai-bu. Mama may have refused to teach me magic, but I still want to help! But Nai-bu is pretty smart, so I’m sure she will be okay.