Chapter Text
The room was silent except for the tap of rain on the window and the steady click of the mouse. Soft, deep breaths could be barely heard over the hum of the air conditioner and the whir of a computer. The tiny room had soundproof cushioning lining the walls and stage-lighting lighting up a ginger-haired man. He was surrounded by three monitors and a camera.
Childe was connected to something beyond this little room. His headset captured him into another world entirely; where music was roaring and alerts were pinging. One monitor was receiving a feed of constant messages from across the world, while another showed the feed from his camera. The centre monitor was the most interesting; it was a game, the reason why Childe sat in this room for hours on end and why he had gathered such a large viewer count.
Some would say sitting in front of the computer and playing the same game over and over sounded sad, but Childe didn’t sit here for the game. He was a streamer; he gained money by providing entertainment to viewers. Childe liked to think that they stayed not for the game but for him; he quite liked interacting with his viewers.
His eyes flicked over to the monitor to the left of him. It was hard to catch whole messages if he wasn’t used to the speed of the chat. “Hello those who are streaming and those watching the VOD. Thanks for watching!”
The viewer count slowly ticked upwards as more joined the stream. He adjusted his headset and smiles at the monitor with the chat. Greeting them one by one as they announce their presence, Childe played around with the game’s client, randomly sifting through the champions he’s played.
League of Legends is a ten-year-old game, and its history is seen through its massive collection of playable characters. Childe’s been playing it since season three, and streaming it since season seven. One could almost say he didn’t choose to stream League, Twitch made him choose LoL. He liked playing other games, but League was one of the most popular games on Twitch because of its set up.
When he first began, he liked playing heavy hitters and unkillable tanks. Now, he preferred the squishy mages. He thought himself lacking in skill with them, so he pursued them with relentless passion.
“Who are you gonna play today?” he read from the chat, “Who knows? We’ll see who we’re against.”
“I want to see you play Aatrox again… come on, Aatrox is last year’s news! No wait, make that last decade’s news. He’s so boring once you get familiar with him.” Childe shook his head and leaned backwards, stretching his arms high above him. A game request popped up on his screen. “Alright, here we go! Wish me luck!”
Unfortunately for him, Childe got first pick. He went with Neeko because it had been a while since he had played her and he knew he wasn’t using her passive as actively as he should be. When the enemy team chose Zed he knew that he was facing against them.
“It’s a fifty-fifty,” he decided. “If we farm well at the beginning and nobody feeds them early, we’ll be able to outplay them. If not, then…” he flicked his eyes over to the chat. Lots of encouragement was flooding through, making him smile.
He spared the chat his attention for a few more minutes, right up until the first wave of minions clashed. Rapid clicking of his mouse was typical noise now; it was a sign of an Iron player if one didn’t keep their champion constantly moving.
There was a lot to keep track of when playing a game of League. While the winning condition was hit the Nexus, there was a lot to do before that. Last-hitting minions was arguably the win condition, but there were a million of other things that factored in. Where you were, were your enemy laner was, how low each minion was, your cooldowns, your champion’s abilities, the enemy champion’s abilities and cooldowns, the enemy jungler, your team’s jungler, ward placements, dragons, Barons, creature camps, wave control, position. Things were generally split into two: there was macro, things that mattered on a larger scale, like map awareness, and micro, how you used your champion to fight another champion.
“Could you explain positioning to me? My friend says it’s my weakest point… Well, Ferrylady, like everything with League, it depends on who you play and who you’re playing against!” He checked his wave and decided it was an alright time to teach. “In this matchup of Neeko and Zed, while it’s good my root goes through minions, Zed’s shurikens do a lot of damage if it hits you first. So while it’s best to dodge it completely, sometimes it’s just not possible. It’s best to stay behind a line of your own minions. That’s why I’m not pushing my wave to under tower; they’re there to protect me.”
He narrowed his eyes at the screen. “He’s level three to my two, so he’s going to come in on me-”
Sure enough, the Zed clone jumped at him. He shot Neeko’s root and landed it successfully on the real Zed, following up with a Q.
“Ok, we won that trade-” he began, only curse as the enemy jungler – Amumu – root his Neeko from the bushes. “Oh no, my ward was dead-”
Zed switched with their clone, getting close enough to use a few auto attacks and set their Ignite to him along with the Amumu. With their combined efforts, even though he got away safely, he was forced to watch as the Ignite stole the last of his health over several agonising seconds.
Childe brought his hands to his face and softly closed his eyes. “That… was a really good play by Zed. Not sure if it was intentional; the Amumu was there right as my ward died.”
His mouth tightened. “Ok. Zed got First Blood gold. Not good. But it's not the end.”
Unfortunately for Childe, the trend continued. Several times Childe achieved some good plays against him, but the Zed continued to snowball from the beginning. At the twenty-minute mark, Childe had to admit that he had lost lane.
“That’s a shame,” he grumbled, frowning at the monochrome screen as the death timer ticked down. He clicked around the map, watching his teammates farm and fight as he waited. “Sometimes it’s just like that.”
He checked his chat. “Zeds such an annoying champion! Hmm, not really. If you know how to play him, then you know how to play against him. I wouldn’t say he’s broken, more just they outplay you.”
“AKA I’m bad – no, no, not at all! When someone outplays you, it’s not a case of ‘they’re good, I must be bad,’ it’s simply ‘they’re good, well done them.’” He sighed. “It’s a good way to stop getting tilted. If they start trash-talking you, then just mute them.”
“Just mute the whole game – sometimes, it does get like that. Well, guys, looks like laning phase is over, let’s see if I can catch up.”
Childe rolled his shoulders and got on with the game.
That match ended in a loss, but Childe made up for it in the next game. The stream continued for hours, and by the end, Childe was pretty happy with how he had performed that day. Once he had said goodbye, Childe stood for a few seconds to stretch his legs.
He wasn’t done for the day just yet though, so he settled into his chair once again. Opening his emails, he found that Ekaterina enquiring about his upcoming schedule. Childe didn’t just play League, although his page was heavily focused on it. He liked playing all kinds of games, mostly only ones with fighting systems like League. He did enjoy other games though; he liked Untitled Goose Game to play it on stream several times, for example.
He was feeling that drive to play something else than League for a bit again; he’d mentioned it to his part-time manager, Ekaterina, and like the brilliant mind she was, she was chasing up on it.
What would he play? There wasn’t anything new trending, so maybe he’d visit an old favourite that he hadn’t touched yet.
He was still pondering on it as he opened Discord and checked his team’s server. Childe had joined a pro gaming group called the Fatui, and was considered one of their best players. He had recently been invited to join the Harbingers, a special team from the Fatui that played pro several times in the past.
The daily notifications checked and a little catching up with fellow Fatui members done, Childe went to close the application and get a little snack from the kitchen only to be interrupted by a DM from a fellow Harbinger – Signora.
Tartaglia
He sighed, watching as the notification slide away. The moment he clicked on her profile he regretted it.
Yes, Fair Lady?
He didn’t like how Signora always enforced the idea to use in-game names. Tartaglia was an old username he didn’t particularly care for anymore; even his Twitch name was Childe.
I checked your recent plays.
Childe winced. What was the bet she had only seen the first game?
Why do you insist on playing champions you’re not good at? You’ve shown time and again that you’re best at top, not champions like Neeko.
I play who I want to play.
Keep that up and you might not be included in the next comp
Ok, and? I’ve still got my stream. I don’t rely on competitions.
Childe chuckled darkly to himself as he sent the DM. The Harbingers saw themselves above Twitch and streaming, believing that once you played pro, streaming was beneath them. Childe never saw the point of that – he got a far steadier stream of money compared to them.
Speaking of your stream
Yeah, he definitely hit a nerve with a swerve that hard.
A birdie told me you were asking for game recommendations
‘A birdie’ could mean anything from chat logs to DMs to a different Harbinger. He quickly went through some major chat logs and his memory – it had to be Scaramouche, the bastard.
once again, what is your point
If you’re going to continue with the streaming, moving away from League is the most idiotic choice
your viewers are there for your League content, not you playing Animal Crossing
don’t be an idiot, Tartaglia
Childe took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair and swung away from the chat. He marched through his tiny apartment to the kitchen and stared at the open fridge for a while. Taking a tub of ice cream as a reward for dealing with Signora, he returned to his desk.
Thanks for your opinion 😇
He closed Discord just as Signora began to spam his name, opening Twitch again. He clicked on the Just Chatting genre and several of the ‘soft’ games into new tabs, resolved to find the game that would annoy her the most.
There were several people trending and being promoted, Twitch always trying to shove new streamers into viewer’s faces. He cycled through the live feeds of several streamers. ‘ChefXiangling’ in Just Chatting was standing in a kitchen, a dog that looked like a red panda capturing the hearts of her viewers. ‘ExorcistChongyun’ was standing next to a blue-haired man, face screwed up as his friend applied makeup with a smirk to the camera.
He’d seen them around on Twitch before, as they lived in Liyue Harbour like him. Sometimes people tweeted at him, asking if they knew each other. In fact, there was another person that was quite popular –
There he was - ‘Zhongli 钟离’ – with nothing to show except a cute dragon mascot that was recently made into a 2D model. He was quite popular in Just Chatting, but Childe didn’t find him until he crossed over to the Animal Crossing tab.
He opened up his stream along with the other people he had mentioned. He knew they played games most of the time and were quite popular for it too. Eventually, though, he closed their tabs. They were too bubbly for him right now, in such a dark mood.
The first thing that jumped to Childe’s mind when he started Zhongli’s stream was oh my god his island is cluttered. It wasn’t even the perfectly, well-placed clutter of someone with a brilliant sense of aesthetic. Items were placed everywhere, with no regard to sets or even colour. Unmuting the stream, Childe was introduced to one of the foremost reasons why everyone loved Zhongli’s stream: his voice.
A very deep, chocolatey voice vibrated through Childe’s headset. It was smooth and very slow. He could see himself falling asleep to it, but he could also see himself listening to it for a very long time.
Amused, Childe paid attention.
“…I quite like the variations in the traditional tea set. The one with the brown case has pink floral designs, while the golden case has a blueprint that is reminiscent of porcelain. This is a style that comes from Liyue. It was first produced during the Tang dynasty, where many iconic cultural pieces come from. It is made from kaolin, a specific type of white clay. Porcelain is alike in that…”
Childe rested the side of his jaw on his palm, watching as Zhongli slowly moved from item to item, talking about the real-life inspirations. It was a very different type of stream to his; Zhongli kept a constant stream of commentary, whereas Childe had long periods where he focused entirely on gameplay.
Zhongli’s voice continued in the background as Childe brought up his email, opening Ekaterina’s once more. While he wasn’t going to play Animal Crossing, Childe was definitely going to play a game that was softer than normal.
Signora had been getting more and more annoying recently, and Childe was all for getting on her nerves. He typed out an email to his manager and sent it.
Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair, picking up the ice cream tub and spearing it with his spoon. The ball had just begun to roll.