Chapter Text
Caitlyn sets down her laptop on the thick sheets of her designated stream spot, which doubles as her sleeping place. A small fraction of her book collection, sorted by author, is propped up on the sleek white shelves above the headboard. Dressed in her usual casual attire of a sweater vest and dress pants, she pulls her dark silk hair back fastened into an elastic band. She studies her appearance in the reflection of her laptop screen. With her surely perfected look she clicks the “start stream” button of her beloved “Cait’s Literature Review.”
She grabs the warm mug of coffee from her bedside table and sips as her viewer count smoothly ascends to the occasional abbreviated number.
“Welcome back to the stream everyone” she charms as she sets her mug back down. Comments trickle in, quickly overlapping one another.
Literature_Legend: Nice to hear from you, Caitlyn.
caitfan01: Welcome back!
edenscurse : This is gonna be a good one guys!!!!
“As you are likely aware if you keep up with my updates, today we will be covering a new best selling novel, Between Earth and Eden.”
Her soft voice easily draws in viewers, some that do not even think they are interested in literature reviews. Her delicate appearance and accent paired with her expertise in English literature made her interpretations, understandings, and explanations all the more enchanting.
She shows the thick novel to the camera, various color coded tags sprout from the pages like overgrown weeds between bricks. “When I picked up this novel last week, I wasn’t even aware it was an adaptation of an online role playing game. I’m not sure what that might entail, I'm not very familiar with video games. Though, what I can say is that this might’ve been the most thrilling and deep rooted novel I have read this year!”
edenscurse : Curse of Eden lore is so complex it’s amazing
gamerkid : hope the book did it justice
capital.cove : cait in her gamer era??
roachiswicked : lol did u guys see Warwicker’s reaction?
”Well! No use wasting time, I’m too excited to share my thoughts with you all. First, let me address the elephant in the room: Cuphi’s revelation as Middle Earth? My god! I never would have guessed! And usually I’m on top of things like this.”
As she does twice every month, Caitlyn rambles for the next three and a half hours about the most recent novel she read. Whether her audience read the novel or not, her stream is often enjoyed by many.
“Well this was great everyone, I hope you enjoyed this novel as much as I did! As always, this stream will be uploaded on my page as all my previous streams are. I’ll see you all soon! Bye now.” She waves goodbye to her faithful viewers and gently closes her laptop shut.
She rises from her bed with a content sigh. She then gathers her bath items to end her day with the best shower a university dormitory could offer.
Nothing could have prepared her for the flood of comments on her stream page because some big headed gamer decided to embarrass her online.
Vi slumps her book bag onto the floor beside her wooden door. After a long day of painstakingly dreadful classes, she finally has time to unwind. She makes her way to her desk, equipped with a black keyboard, monitor and mouse. She falls back into her swivel chair, grabbing the red headphones to her right as if it were muscle memory. With a simple press of a button, her computer erupts in a bright light, contradictory to her somber room, just as she likes it.
She makes a habit of streaming her gameplay at least every other day. She personally does not understand how watching someone play a game is enjoyable at all. When she tries to watch gameplay content she often gets frustrated and rather do it herself. Although, she does sympathize with the fact that having some background commentary and added enthusiasm to the experience could be comforting in a way. Plus, since people enjoy her content, she has no right to question it.
She opens up her stream page to scroll through any comments that had been left while she was away. The comments vary between tags in some other streams, miscellaneous discussions, reactions and threads. None of this is unnatural for her. She has grown to be quite well known in the community of her favoured game. Her online presence which carries across all platforms and games lives through the name WARWICKER, something distinctive and unique. Though, any person who enjoyed her content, even occasionally, would address her as Vi.
She starts her stream as the game launcher boots up. She’s ready to spend the next few hours sharing her gaming experience as she often did.
warw1ck1e : yooooo vi
fuzzled2.0 : What r u farming today?
proximitzy : VI!!! did u read Between Earth and Eden yet??
She scans through the chat log as messages flood in. She greets her regulars, people whose usernames she can recognize and even remember. “Hey, Mitzy. Yeah, I read it the second it came out.”
proximitzy : lolll did u see that streamers book review?
“No, I haven’t. I’ve been busy, guys! The book was okay, though. I was disappointed with how they handled Cuphi’s revelation. It was sorta cliché honestly.”
freak_cheek replying to proximitzy : the way she hasn’t heard of the game either
“Someone read the book without knowing where it came from?”
doubleup : vi u have to watch it pleaseeeeeeeee
“Is that what everyone was tagging me in a today??” She implores as she pulls up the comments section of her stream page. With a few clicks, she finds the video in question.
The most sophisticated streamer she has seen during her career appears on her screen, looking prim and proper with a cup of coffee in her hands. “Welcome back to the stream everyone.” Vi skips past the first few minutes, soon approaching the actual discussion of the novel.
“Cuphi’s character development was honestly so well done. Even looking back at the notes I made throughout the novel, it was impossible for the reader to suspect that Cuphi was involved in the story of the triad.”
“Her literal ‘Gamer’s Handbook’ description introduces her as the Middle Earth of the triad. She’s always next to Ofaris and Asari too.”
“Especially since the link between Asari and Ofaris’ connection was made so early on in the novel, you’d expect if someone else were involved that the same connection would be made between the three much sooner.”
“Huh?? The whole point of Cuphi being different is that she’s not like Asari or Ofaris. She’s a byproduct of Ofaris’ attempt to resurrect Asari. Obviously she wouldn’t have the same connection. Plus, if she did then there’d be no book. She was chasing them the entire time and wouldn’t have had to if that were the case. This girl doesn’t really know what she’s talking about.”
Vi usually does not bother getting involved with online discourses. Honestly, she thinks anything of the sort is stupid. Yet when it comes to the game that her entire streaming career revolves around, she gets a bit sensitive.
She has gotten into arguments with other players before, hell, even some of her viewers as anyone would. But getting the attention of a streamer whose content is the complete opposite of her own? Now that’d be a first.