show yourself, coward. I will never log off.

[Dr Adjective]

On screen, big friendly pink letters proclaimed Stream Starting Soon!

In front of it, the streamer, fidgeting in her chair while she waited for the regulars to appear. People didn’t just immediately appear as soon as the notification went out that she was live, after all. Gotta leave it a minute or two. So she twisted a few degrees back and forth, absent-mindedly wiggling her shoulders in time to her background music. On stream was some royalty-free lofi music well-suited to waiting on hold, but quarantined to her own headphones was last year’s Croatian Eurovision entry Baby Lasagna with Rim Tim Tagi Dim, from amongst a playlist of her favourites from the song contest. Fun song, she remained on the hill arguing that it should’ve won over that Swiss tune about being an enby the juries favoured. Couldn’t relate, LK was binarymaxxed and (quite literally) girlpilled. That or Europapa, but Joost went and got himself disqualified, so… but hey, at least he got to meet Chiitan afterwards.

Where was she?

Oh right, in limbo, not really doing anything. Stupid sexy Flanders? That was the problem with the dead air between going live and actually starting, it gave LK’s mind plenty of time to wander.

The distinctive bleep of Discord’s notification sound cut through Marko Purišić‘s oddly charming lyrics, interrupting his hope that his cat would meow back to him. Looked like Mona had responded to her message from earlier. LK shot back a quick reply that she was going live shortly, but kept the window open on her second monitor whilst she set herself up for solo queue in advance of starting the stream proper. Vi jungle, as ever.

The song rolled on towards its outro, and chat seemed to be getting suitably lively. With the slightest regret, LK hit pause just as The Rasmus’ Jezebel started playing next, and wondered idly if Mona would want to come watch that year’s final with her… maybe she’d ask later. The starting soon message faded out to a live feed from LK’s primary monitor, with her in the bottom right corner, the slightest hint of her plushie-laden bed visible in the background. Covered the map, at least that way an unlikely stream-sniper could only screw her and not her whole team. LK took a moment to admire her facecam, adjusted her hair and headphones a little, then turned on her performance voice.

“Gamers, we are so back! It’s Challenger Chewsday,”

She affected a truly atrocious impression of her dad’s native accent for the bit.

“Got my bo’o’a’wo’a, and we’re getting outta Diamond 1 this time for sure! Every other time I said that it was just a bit, but this time for real, we’re locking in, we’re balling out, we’re playing with Vi’s jungle god I wish, let’s fuckin get it.”

LK hit the button to hop into the queue.

“Reckon I’ve got two or three of these in me, then we’re hopping on Helldivers with the top goblins.”