#i grew up where we ate noodles chronically how do i not know what a soup mug is

[eteru-roses]

whats the point of a soup mug?

in theory, I could have instant noodles in a mug, but the mug is probably too small

[tyrias-library]

Thought I'd try a different type of alternate universe

The Twitch Streamer AU

Subtitle: One small change can make a huge difference

I’m Kazukoh, and I guess you can say I’m a leynet celebrity. Despite being born with a metabolism-afflicting chronic illness, I’ve managed to blossom in my own right.

I guess you can say much like another prodigy born a season or so after me.

Though outside of my diagnosis, my life was fairly average. My Grandma Miimii was horribly injured during a lab accident, and we thought she wouldn’t make it, but she pulled through. If anything, I owe my success to her for being there for me when Mom and Dad can’t.

Went to college, Dynamics, specifically, did an internship with Terranexic after my graduation, as my revolutionary power source that was my final project had all of the Golemancy Krewe’s eyes on me. I remained with Terranexic after my internship as a lab assistant until a position in a relatively small Krewe opened up.

The Krewe I joined was one that made custom Golems for people who were less versed in Golemancy-or were physically unable to put them together. We occasionally also got bulk orders of standard issue Golems, since we could put together simple ones in a relatively quick manner.

It was on one of those bulk-order days that Golemancer Klikk asked the Krewe Chief if we could use the projection-screen terminal to play some videos in the background, since today’s bulk order was extremely simple. Our Krewe Chief, being the generous leader she is, approved. Klikk navigated to a leynet site called “Stream.Ear”, and put on a Calamity tournament, between a handful of Statics-backed teams. Given that I enjoyed playing videogames in my spare time, I thought perhaps I could do such a thing.

~~~

Headset, check. Terminal, check. Motobox and capture card, check. Layout. Check. Leycam, check. Going live now.

“GOOOOD EVENING, GENIUSI AND GENIUSETTES! Golemella here, coming at you live with Super Adventure Box! Yes, folks, the home edition of Super Adventure Box, with 8 completed worlds-but only normal difficulty! I’m not just going to beat it, I’m going to attempt to beat it as fast as possible!

And beat the game, I did, since I’ve been playing for as long as I can remember. While it wasn’t even close to a top 100 on leynet records, it was a fairly decent time.

“And that’s that! Sorry it’s so short, I’m just here to test the waters, but I’ll be back tomorrow night! May all your games be winners, and may all your theories be sound!”

~~~

I’ve gotten quite into the groove regarding content releasing, especially now that I have affiliate status and can get money from this. While my job with this Krewe has good pay and decent benefits, I often allot most of my paycheck to an emergency funds account, given my medical issues, so there isn’t much left for leisure. I do have time for leisure, my Krewe is off 3 days a week, but which days vary depending on scheduling and tasks, but I stream all 7 days a week because I find it fun. I even have a schedule-at least for 6 days. Fun Fridays are party games with my viewers, Speedrun Saturdays are speedrunning games I grew up with, or have played a ton of-not trying for Tyrian records, but just for personal bests, Storytime Sundays are for visual novels, Mondays…I’m not sure yet, so I mainly just play what I feel like that day, Teamwork Tuesday is cooperative Leynet games, Wildcard Wednesdays I pick 3 random games and let my viewers vote on them, then play that for an hour before the process starts again, and finally, ‘Thunder’ Thursday, which is competitive leynet games.

What I’m about to dictate happens on one of those Thursdays.

A viewer of mine gifted me “Tyrian All-Star Battle”, a PVP game where you play as major figures in Tyria’s history, heroic or villainous…well most figures. One great hero has not enough records of their battle style, and the Pact Commander declined their role. Destiny’s Edge and Dragon’s Watch are in, however, as are many high level Pact members from recent history. I tend to alternate between Taimi, Snaff, and Dragon’s Watch!Rytlock, depending on if we need a support, DPS, or tank, respectively. You play in teams of 6, you have a main and secondary of each role (I often play secondary since my mains can take other roles if needed), and winning depends on different win conditions-either most points after a set time limit, or last team standing after a limited set of lives.

I chose Taimi for this set of matches, since I was playing with a team I signed on with, called Damsels in Dynamics, which is all female Asura streamers whom graduated from Dynamics, and we commonly play a team of all Asura heroes-and we already had a Snaff. My other teammates were Zojja, Warmaster Efut, Agent Zrii, and Steward Gixx. Our first matchup was against Team IGD-Inquest Gaming Division, a meta-team for the meta-krewe, though thankfully this was just six of them. They were playing Kudu, Kuda, Teyo, Tazza, Vebis, and Frizz. Kudu’s player was also a streamer, known as “TheBloodyDirector”, and was pretty much the ‘face’ of IGD. We were completely destroyed. TBD took out all of the Snaff and Zojja players’ lives alone, thanks to Teyo’s player taking out Gixx’s player early on. I was pretty much the only one healing, and since Taimi is not a high tier support, led to Zrii’s player getting wiped fast as well. It was down to me, and Efut’s player. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my chat was blowing up to the point that my own fans could barely even speak. While I was trying to figure out the chaos, my last life was taken. Efut’s player struggled to hold on while I sourced this bomb. It was not a raid at all-TBD’s fans decided to swarm my chat. And he did nothing. This. Means. War.

Every day I would check his channel, and it seems he streams on Mondays and Thursdays, but only plays competitive games on Thursdays (Mondays seem to be clearing single player feats in said games). Every Thursday, I’d rally viewers to help defeat him as one of the matches/games of the night. And every time, I would fail. The closest I got was 4 members defeated before I, as the last one standing, was wiped out, and yes, this was in Tyrian All-Star Battle. That seems to be the game we usually battle in, though we’ve occasionally duked it out in others.

~~~

Another Thursday, another battle. I checked TheBloodyDirector’s stream…and turns out, he’s not streaming today. Instead, he’s hosting another Inquest member. I didn’t catch her name, but she’s advertising doing something called a ‘mukbang’…but she’s just slowly eating a single cup of instant noodles while doing paperwork. I then looked up what a mukbang really was….and immediately hit paydirt. People watch others eat monstrous amounts of food? Sign me up! Now I know what to do on Mondays!-well that, and social eating, depending on my funds during the week. But for now, I’ll just play some casual competitive matches with my viewers.

~~~

Monday came, and I had some extra money stored up, so I ordered 25 family sized buckets of Metrica Fried Moa, sides included, some curtains to obscure the hospital related things in my room, and a fancy leycamera. Hung up the curtains, my multipurpose Golem (A project from my spare time that transforms into various mounts, a hoverchair, or a Scruffy-like Golem) carrying the food, and I installed the leycam, running a quick test with it. The test was perfect, let’s go.

“GOOOOD EVENING, GENIUSI AND GENIUSETTES! Golemella here, and now I know what I’m doing on Mondays. Every Monday is food related! Normally this’ll be social eating, but today I’m doing something special. Some days, like today, will be mukbangs.” I then pulled each and every one of the buckets and sides closer. “I’ve got 25 buckets of Metrica Fried Moa here, and I’m going to eat ALL OF IT. RIGHT HERE. ON STREAM.”

I was shocked. People were HYPED in chat. Some people were worried that I’d fall ill, some others were concerned about my appearance, but nobody was mean. Most people were hyped up to see me eat all this food, and I sure gave them such. I ate ALL of the food on stream, engaging with viewers all the way. However, if anyone asked how I could do this, I kept it a well-guarded secret.

~~~

TBD wasn’t streaming this week, so I organized a spontaneous tournament between myself and a handful of my viewers in Tyrian All-Star Battle. Rest of the week was uneventful, as was Sunday. Monday on the other hand, was my first normal social eating stream. I sent my Golem out to bring back takeout-this time from the Canthan place near Mom’s lab-I moved out and into an apartment owned by the hospital out in Soren Draa, but visit often-and then started up the stream.

“GOOOOD EVENING, GENIUSI AND GENIUSETTES! Golemella here, we’re doing social eating tonight! I won’t be eating as much as I did last Monday, but it’ll still be a sizable amount, since there’s more focus on you, the viewers, my intellectual fans.” I smiled, waving at the camera. I began to interact with everyone, and things were going well. At least, they started out well. The food hadn’t come yet, and I was starting to grow hungry. I kept speaking with fans, answering questions, engaging in conversation, but it was not to last. My stomach growled. Loudly. And the mic picked it up. My face went dark purple and I was completely silent…but the chat. Alchemy’s Catalyst, the chat! Someone made a BETSEAR emote and uploaded it, and the entire chat was spamming it. That did get a slight chuckle out of me. The Golem soon arrived, with food, and I dug in, profusely apologizing as I did. But they didn’t seem to mind, thankfully.

~~~

I started feeling horrific after work one day, but I felt I was still up to streaming. Thought I’d do a Just Chatting stream since I didn’t think I could play a game, either competitive or otherwise-thankfully it wasn’t a Thursday.

“Hey, everyone. Sorry for no game today. I haven’t been feeling the greatest today, so I’m just going to take it easy. But enough about me, how was your day?” I asked, my voice still on the weak side. Questions and answers didn’t go super fast, unfortunately, as my vision started blurring a bit, and I was growing more and more confused.

The next thing I noticed was I was in my bed, hooked up to IVs, and there was a bowl of soup being placed in front of me, atop a tray. I glanced over to the terminal as I ate, and the stream feed was off, but the chat, there were people constantly asking if I was alright. I didn’t get a chance to even let them know what happened until a few days later, since I was resting, not working or streaming, and was under care of a new doctor-one whom watched my streams.

~~~

Even despite everything, I still practiced and practiced, getting better and better at Tyrian All-Star Battle. I was determined to beat TheBloodyDirector at his own game. Loss after loss, some completely wipeouts, others just close. Until that fateful day, where I decided to try Zojja out. I’ve found another hero I love to play. I got into a 1x1 match…against TheBloodyDirector, as, you guessed it, Kudu. And yes, he was streaming this day. Someone suggested in my chat that we hook up, and I was shocked. I heard him splutter over voice comms as well, so I suspect he got the same suggestion. No, random viewer, not happening. But despite this, the match was HEATED. And it was CLOSE. We were neck and neck, if he killed me, I’d kill him shortly after. And given that this was a time match and not a stock one, it was tense. But finally, the timer was up…and I had won. By one kill. Finally…sweet victory against TheBloodyDirector.

(A/N: You thought I was some random writer, but it was me, Kazukoh, this entire time!

Also I'd like to thank ProtonJon, StephenPlays, and Wahnthac for (unintentionally) showing me how Twitch works, and @lewn-acies for the idea for this AU!)