Chapter Text
Now watching: Mugiwara
“I’m bored.” The boy on the small grainy webcam watched what was happening on screen with dull eyes. Not that anyone could see the state of his eyes, due to the low quality picture presented. When he spoke, it sounded almost as if he had his mouth on a tin can.
On screen, his character jumped back and forth between platforms in quick succession, collecting every item visible. Www. Bandicam.com was a glaring eye catcher at the top.
“My friend said it gets better, but sometimes he’s stupid about games.”
The boy, Luffy, had formed his own negative opinions regarding the game based on the fact that he had died seven times during the second boss fight. The few stragglers in his chat had attempted to inform him that the only reason that had happened was because of his piss-poor gear stats. He had bluntly refuted all advice and died two more times before rng luck ended up saving him. When he wasn’t dying to easy bosses, he was exploring the underdeveloped areas and completely ignoring all main quests.
There are only twelve people watching the stream.
Burgalar22: It’s boring because you skipped every single cutscene idiot
NOTBUGGY: if you jump onto the roof from that box over there you can get to the hidden area
Marinefan: this game is stupid lol your right
Hoo_ligan6: it gets better
Luffy looks over at his chat as he picks his nose. “The cutscenes are dumb! If I wanted to fall asleep I’d just watch a movie!” When he yells, a small number of people across the world hastily turn their volume down. More clicking from his mouse. “NotBuggy, I don’t see the box. Where is it?”
He moves his character around. His cursor dizzies around the screen until it lands on a brick wall. There’s a lone crate pressed against it. “Wait, I see it! Secret!”
Marinefan: Cool
NOTBUGGY: LOLOLOL
His character jumps onto the wooden crate and stands over thin air due to the large unchecked hitbox, a haunting premonition for what’s to come. The wall clips a bit as he double jumps higher. His character grunts, he presses hard on the W key, and suddenly all that is visible is a big blue skybox.
“Huh?” Luffy leans in closer to the screen. His character freezes for a moment, and then starts falling in midair, screaming and flailing. “Is this the room? I don’t see anything.”
None of the keys work when he presses them, causing him to frown and look back to chat. “What’s he falling for?”
NOTBUGGY: LOLOLOL
Hoo_ligan6: I thot they patched that lololol
NOTBUGGY: LUL
Marinefan: Luffy I think theyre pranking you
Marinefan: you should report them i am going to
“Haaah?” Luffy furrowed his eyebrows. “So there isn’t a secret room?”
Things seemed to click into place as he watched his character continue falling to no avail.
“Does that mean I lost all of my stuff?”
Burgalar22: Yes idiot and u have to beat the boss again because you never saved
Luffy reads it slowly, and then puts his face as close to the microphone as possible for when he screams in anger. He heaves his keyboard up and then smashes it against the desk. Keys fly everywhere at eight frames per second. It looks more like a stop motion film than a twitch meltdown, but chat flashes by in excitement regardless.
The prank wasn’t worth it to NotBuggy. His ears were bleeding.
—
Now watching: God_Sogeking
“Ahhh, thanks for the bits, Sogefan7.”
Sogeking couldn’t take his eyes off of the game for long. He currently has the most kills of the match and doesn’t plan on dying anytime soon. The eight thousand viewers, die-hard fans of Sogeking, have their notifications set for every stream. The chat is a steady stream of customized emotes, usually depicting Sogeking with a slingshot.
Jajajkkjk: SogeW
Soog: easy dub for God
Keklord: niceeee
NinjaYtfp: 2easy
Sogefan7: No prob
ElbalfWarrior : @Sogefan7 chad
LongnoseBro: lul they don’t kno soge is in the server
Bbabbab: SogeW SogeW
A6myo5fone: fuckkkkk
FriendNinjin: I have to finish my homework bye
77789: that dude ws ass
In the game, Sogeking gets a particularly tricky kill on a player that had been flying through the air. In the game chat, you could see that the player leaves the match immediately after.
CatLover6: new here. Wuts with da mask????
The unique thing about Sogeking, aside from him being pro-level at almost every PvP game he’s played, is that he dawns a handmade yellow mask, shaped around his nose. Sharpshooter goggles are built into the mask so that he can see what he’s doing without obstructed vision.
Sogefan7 : @CatLover6 Don’t ask what u can’t handle
The theories surrounding Sogeking’s appearance span so far and wide that even members of the general public recognize the discussions. Sogeking became a popular icon in both gaming circles and general online communities, for better or for worse.
CatLover6: 0__0
He’s also just really, really good at video games.
The victory screen appears and Sogeking sits up in his chair in satisfaction. Not as happy of a reaction as most people would have to winning, but the euphoric hollars are reserved for when he feels that there had been an actual challenge. He settles for a cheesy thumbs up towards the face-cam, and his fans clap in excitement. The in-game chat is not nearly as celebratory about the win as his twitch one, and he has to quickly exit out of the match due to the spam of certain ban-able phrases.
Sogeking clicks his tongue as he looks at the camera, laughing deeply. He takes on a superhero cadence to his voice when he says, “Was that supposed to be difficult?”
Now giving his full attention to his viewers, he reads off the donations he’d earned while he was distracted by the game. “Thank you to Ninjin and Keklord for the bits—Oh, hell. Ninjin, uhhh… I’d rather you not spend your mom’s paycheck on me anymore. We’ve talked about this.” He laughs nervously before perking up. “By the way, can someone link the clip of me making that hacker quit? I need to see that again.”
He plays the clip on stream and replays it four times to explain how he’d gotten a headshot from the strange angle he’d been at. On the fifth slo-mo, a strange noise fades into the background.
Due to Sogeking’s high quality equipment, his microphone is able to pick up on the slightest noise. Which means that the sudden muffled banging, and then muffled screaming, are as crisp as possible. Sogeking stiffens up like a board, and his chat explodes.
NinjaYtfp: ???
A6myo5fone: da Fuk is that
8889tees: SOS?
7girlhj: ???????
Jaycerereroll: thats me sorry
Keklord: wtf
H2alflies: ??
LongnoseBro: MonkaS MonkaS
CatLover6: basement is calling
Sogeking recovers quickly and waves his hands frantically at the camera. “T-That’s my new roommate! Remember how I had to move? Yeah. He’s kind of… aughh…” and then without warning, he stands up and walks out of frame. You can hear a clearer knock on the wall.
“Luffy! Can you keep it down?!”
The banging stops, and whoever Luffy is answers louder, but unable to be translated.
Sogeking raises his voice, audibly exasperated. “THAT’S YOUR OWN FAULT! SHUT UP!”
Sogeking comes back into frame and plops down onto his expensive chair. “He said he lost his save progress. Sorry about that. Where were we?”
His chat spams the emote of him with an exaggeratedly elongated nose.
ElbalfWarrior: u were gaslighting us into thinking he isn’t screaming for help
—
Now watching: CatBurglar
The beautiful girl on screen leans forward provocatively into the camera. There’s a cutesy orange layout set up on screen, where chat messages appear and animated stickers of tangerines float. She has cat headphones on, and is pressing red lipstick to her mouth. “What about this shade? Hmm.”
There were four thousand people watching. The chat messages flooded in so fast that it was hard to read the comments individually. The girl, Nami, had no problem picking out the ones worth her time. Which was usually none.
New donations flashed on screen every couple of seconds as she puckered her lips, gaze set in the mirror.
N2miboy: no
J65nJhn: yes
Kkllhh: YES
Reeltape: no
FarfoMolass: Nexr lipstick
Anon333444: cooming
HitoshiFafna: YES
Anon6666: lean forward
J65nJhn: Beautiful girl
NamiNamiNamiNami: gm whatd i miss boys
Mugiwara: Nami
HitoshiFafna: nip
Mugiwara: Nami
Something in chat must have caught her attention, because her eye starts twitching.
Mugiwara: read my messages
She tries not to bite down on her lipstick. The truth was that she thought she’d banned Mugiwara from her channel ages ago. Not for any specific reason, really…. He was just annoying.
Mugiwara: Nami I have a problem
Anon6666: I see nip
Mugiwara: Nami help me
J65nJhn: beautiful girl i only have three beri I will stillgive to you
Mugiwara: Can u tell these guys to Come watch my channel nami
Naimscheeks: NEXT LIPSTICK
Mugiwara: because someone hacked my game and ruined it and I lost my stuff and I wnt ppl to come and watch me now because i need new viewers
FarfoMolass: can a mod shut this asshole up
Reeltape: booba
Mugiwara: your not even playing a game and You have all these viewers can u give mesome pls
FarfoMolass: aaaaannndd this idiots going on the subreddit
Mugiwara: farfo I’m going to kick the shit out of you
Mugiwara doesn’t send another message, because Nami had secretly instructed her mods to ban him. Hopefully for good, this time. She quickly puts her head back into the game, wiping the lipstick off hastily with a makeup removal wipe. “I'm seeing some disagreements. What about pink?”
—
Now watching: ThreeSwords
Threeswords has his camera set up in a dimly lit bedroom. Sunlight is trying to fight its way out of thick blackout curtains and failing—But it’s enough to define the objects in the room on camera.
There’s a mattress on the floor. A microwave plugged in next to it. Assortments of weights strewn across the floor, almost as if a tornado had cut through a gym.
The obvious focus of the setup is the man standing center of the array, deadlifting two humorously large weights. He doesn’t say a single word as he lifts them, the only audio being the metallic clink of the weights when he brings them down.
There are zero viewers. If someone were to check the timeline, they’d see that he’d been streaming this for six hours.
—
Now watching: LoveCook
Cooking is not exactly popular on twitch, which makes it even more suprising that LoveCook averages 700 viewers per stream.
If his name wasn't a giveaway— LoveCook loves everything pertaining to food. He takes the camera into his own kitchen, watches cooking related videos, reviews his viewer’s meals, and also plays the occasional video game. The occasional game is almost always food related, but sometimes he boots up a multiplayer game for his friend, which always ends with him cussing a twelve year old out.
As for the fan base that joins these streams, it’s a mixed bag. To really understand the decisive nature of his viewers, all you’d have to know is that he has two separate subreddits dedicated to him. The less popular one of the two posts recipes and helpful advice on how to season potatoes. The more popular one shares screenshots of his social media statements and pokes him with a stick.
The 700 or so people that drop in are a healthy mix of both.
As of right now, he’s reviewing food sent to him by his viewers. His webcam was off, possibly due to a staggering blow to his ego that he had received the previous stream, in which certain fans of his had taken unflattering pictures of his face and spread them like wildfire.
On screen, there’s an email open.
“Now, we have a Dolly17 here who says that she’s just started cooking in the past year and has been following my YouTube videos for advice.” A sniffle. “I’m very happy to hear that Dolly-chan… I hope they’ve been helping. Let’s see. This is her first big meal and she hopes that we enjoy, as it means a lot to her.”
You can hear the sound of passionate fists slamming on the desk. “Of course we will!!! Everyone! Give Dolly-chan your support!!!”
Most of the chat gives their well-meaning encouragements to Dolly17.
Co6fun: clap clap clap
Yxoshi: clap
ChefTex: happy to have you in the kitchen
GHhgvs: clap clap
Ca4rmyBr: clap
Fanbyscale: pepelaugh
Jjj113: feelsgoodman
LoveCock: <3
PowerSrdw: LUL
Don444: Kappa
B48377373: clap
PepperShaker: hope it’s good
PowerSrdw: does he know?
GigaZ0: clap
JjjBasta: know what?
Mik22: LUL
Ca4rmyBr: clap
PowerSrdw : @JjjBasta LUL
Sanji scrolls down to where the pictures are, and they slowly load in segments. The top of the first image looks promising as it appears. Golden seasoned skin of a turkey comes into view, and you can hear Sanji take an excited breath as he goes to compliment it.
Before he can say anything, the rest of the image loads suddenly. The bottom of the turkey is bright pink, uncooked and sitting in a bowl of oil. There’s a bite taken out of it.
The chat erupts in both laughing and disgusted emotes.
This time, the loud thump on the desk is more harsh. Plates rattle.
“I think…” Sanji starts, with barely concealed anger. “That a childish basement-dwelling troll is trying to be funny. Ha-ha. You’re a riot. Is desecrating all that the art of cooking stands for making you laugh? You— Whatever. You aren’t getting a reaction out of me.”
The laughing emotes overtake the disgusted ones.
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “If you aren’t trolling, Dolly-Chan, and you aren’t a hideous ten year old bastard volunteering to be a class clown, we’ll need to talk about this privately. Otherwise, Let’s move on.”
He clicks on the next email.
“This next meal is from a Mr.Cho Con, who is thirty-eight years old. After living his whole life making microwave meals, he’s finally taken the initiative to learn how to cook for his family.”
There’s a distant sound of a lighter. After a pause, Sanji continues. “Mr. Cho should be an example to everyone. It’s never too late to learn how to cook. I’m sure your family appreciates anything you’ve made for them. Let’s give our support.”
Hhhjs: clap
B48377373: clap
Ca4rmyBr: clap
JjjBasta: W family
Mik22: LUL
Jjj113: wholesome
Don444: LUL
PowerSrdw: Cho Con? Really?
Mik22: Kappa
Sanji scrolls down, and this time, the dramatic effect isn’t present. The image loads instantly.
It’s a wide shot of a cup of applesauce sitting on the counter, with a metal spoon in it.
There’s a loud crack of something technological snapping beyond the screenshare, and then the stream ends abruptly.
—
Now watching : 125392829bb
The camera is pointed at an antique grand piano. The piano is visibly well taken care of, sleek and polished, with the lamp light in the corner casting a warm yellow shine onto it. It’s a weirdly intimate set up, with books and mugs slightly obscuring the camera.
The real focus of the stream is the skeleton man sitting at the piano bench, pressing into the keys passionately. It’s obvious that he’s deep into the song that he was playing, bobbing his head and raising his shoulders at every fast-paced segment.
The only problem with the stream, despite just being odd, is that nobody could hear the music. It was muted, and Mr. Bones does not seem to be aware.
When his silent piano recital finishes, and the skeleton gets up and leaves, someone watching would promptly realize that Mr. Bones does not even know that he is streaming.
How that was even possible, nobody would ever know. There hadn’t been a single viewer, outside of a brief drop-in six hours into the stream.
Mugiwara: i think ur pianos broken brook it’s not makin any sound
—
Now watching: CyborgFranky
On screen, there was some sort of vehicle construction game being played. Despite being played properly, and by someone who obviously knew what they were doing, the vehicle being made was as ridiculous as possible.
“YOW! How do we feel about adding more wheels?”
There are seven thousand people watching, and it would be made apparent to a skeptic as to why if they were to join for even a second. Curious passer-by’s get sucked in and stay for the ride, while long time fans wait patiently at the scheduled times.
It’s obvious that the cyborg making funny poses at the face-cam is a natural born entertainer.
In the game, a humongous colorful bus is lurching over to one side. There were fourteen wheels already placed, and the chat was begging for more. Frankly obliges, and the game's frame rate drops minimally at the amount of models loaded in.
“How’s she lookin’? Are we good? Should we set her out to sail?”
Cybgrty: YES
Mozu: NICE 1 BIG BRO
2Robot_NProb: yep
Jj5Neice: GO
The chat is ready for the test-drive, so Franky dutifully names his creation “COLA-MOBILE” and sets it free in the empty test world. “LET’S DO THIS!”
On another screen, he chooses a shitty cover of a popular rock song, and then switches back to start driving the bus over the terrain. She starts off good, sailing smoothly on the flat ground, and since nobody wants to watch that, Franky ups the speed and drives her onto a more complicated patch of land.
Chat sends nervous emotes.
As she makes her way up, she teeters dangerously on prodrudences but otherwise stays grounded. A particularly jagged bout of land almost has her lose the battle to gravity, but she uprights herself just enough to make her way to the other side. On the way down the slope, she gains enough speed to coast over a hole in the ground. Franky hollars in excitement. Chat shares the sentiment.
After a bout of nerve-wracking donuts, Franky drives the bus down a broken bridge and stops her at the very edge. At this point, the music has stopped. Leaving only the atmosphere of the in game sounds. “Shit. Dead end.”
Joop77: Cry
Goodbyejoa: feelsbadman
J_Wavwn: cry
LaughablyTen: Cry
7millsonme: NOOOOO
Kiwi: COLA WILL SURVIVE
Googoo: he has something up his sleeve MonkaS
2Hhh2: cry
Szzzd: end of cola adventure
Haha_Tenmiles: sad
Cybgrty: feelsbadman feelsbadman
Franky sighs forlornly, and then starts to back up the bus. Before she can make it back to land, Franky smirks. “Just kidding.”
Then, he presses on the gas and sends her flying over the edge.
Casual viewers would lazily blink at seeing that, seeing as it's a classic video game staple that everyone’s tried once. As for anybody that watches CyborgFranky regularly, they know his biggest gimmick: he’s never crashed a vehicle.
Szzzd: ??!!
GGFucker: WHAT
Joop77: IS THIS IT
2Hhh2: MonkaS
LaughablyTen: MonkaS GOODBYE BOYS
Mozu: BRO!!!!!!
Haha_Tenmiles: I WAS HERE
Kiwi: DONT DO IT BRO
Cola-Mobile goes flying into the dark void, and all hope of making it to the other side is lost. Franky’s perfect record of keeping his creations spotless seems to disappear in the blink of an eye.
At least, until the unmissable stock missle sound effect is heard from the depths. Rising from the darkness, Cola-mobile shoots out from her grave and into the sky with two large rockets retracting from her doors.
Franky grins and his sunglasses fall to the bridge of his metal nose.
Szzzd: Kappa
GodFun: HES DONE IT AGAIN LADS
GGFucker: MonkaW
LaughablyTen: MonkaW
55odTake: WHEN DID HE ADD ROCKETS??!!
Metal_smile: MonkaW NEVER DOUBT HIM
J_Wavwn: that’s it I’m done you win
God_Sogeking: WTF
Joop77: Frankygasm
Mozu: GO BIG BRO
Cybgrty: FRANKYTRAIN NEVER STOPS BABY
Ckroach: why is sogeking here
Franky laughs enthusiastically at the reaction, and then flies Cola-Mobile over to the other side of land. After he sets her down, he ends the test, and puts both of his arms in the air. “YOW! COLA-MOBILE NEVER DIES!”
When he puts his arms back down they accidentally bump into his web-cam, and it tumbles down into his lap. “Ah, shit! My bad! You guys okay?”
He lifts it up to see if there’s any damage, and it’s only when he sees chat start to go by so fast that it has to load itself in segments does he realize what he’s accidentally done.
“Crap.” He says, and then slowly points the camera away from his speedo.
—
Now watching: 666666666
The woman on screen has a book open in her hands. She’s reading out of it in a professional lifeless manner, like someone would in a movie when reciting some sort of spell.
There was nothing extraordinary about this set up. Just a woman reading a book. There were only twelve viewers, but they all seem to be more consistent conversationalists than most livestream chats.
AquariusSatchel: I find that passage interesting. I’m not sure what the writer meant by blue suns
622211112: his poetry is more relaxing than D. Caravans there I said it
Bathe2Skull: The end wasn’t as good as I thought it would be what happened to the dead baby
JaneDoe5: @AquariusSatchel possibly referring to a fictional type of angler fish in Oharian mythology that would stay close to the surface
MannysHistory: cool story
AquariusSatchel: @JaneDoe5 thanks haven’t heard that one before
622211112: the dead baby was just a figment of his imagination remember
The woman takes her time reading the messages, and then puts the book down. “Yes. His poetry is nice.”
She picks up another book from the pile to her left. “Someone mentioned this one on my most recent message board. It’s not my favorite, but they had it in the library, so I decided to give it another chance.”
She opens it up and begins to read. If someone were to stumble in at random, they would be instantly lulled to sleep by her words. The members of ‘Void Century Anonymous’ watching were too invested in the stories to close their eyes, but they did have their respective appreciation for her monotone voice.
In the middle of the sixth chapter, she pauses to say, “This is the only part worth reading.” And then continues on with the passage. The section that follows is about the protagonist's dead body being cooked by the sun and subsequently eaten by twelve mythical beasts, ending up with each of the beasts exploding from the inside at random spots on the island. One could guess why that is her favorite part.
Bathe2Skull: I’ve always wanted to find that island
10_1277: They say that the trees that grew where the beasts died are where devil fruit came from
MannysHistory: this one is important but definitely more fictitious than some of his other books
JaneDoe5: @10_1277 theres too much evidence to refute that for it be believable the earlier recorded DF was on a large land mass
AquariusSatchel: this is a great part
The woman takes a moment away from the book and reads the discussions with interest. “I’d prefer if this was the origin. Human manifestation is so boring, isn’t it?”
Before she could go back to finishing the story, the sound of the door opening is heard.
“Excuse me. Robin?”
Robin smiles, and turns to look down at whoever had called her name. “Yes, doctor?”
“Franky called your phone a bunch of times so I went ahead and answered— He sounded upset. He said he… finally did it?”
Robin freezes for a moment, and then her grin widens. “Oh my.”
There’s a slight nervous shuffling.
“Robin, What does… what does that mean? That he did it?”
Robin tilts her head sideways and closes the book in her hands. “I’ve warned him many times that he would regret not wearing pants while filming.”
“Oh… Oh! Oh no! Poor Franky!” The one responsible for the tiny voice peaks over the table in his fretting, a reindeer-human with a big pink hat.
“Yes, poor Franky.” Robin repeats, but she sounds like she’s finding something very funny.
Robin seems to remember that she’s live, turning to the camera and leaning towards her computer. “It appears I’m needed elsewhere. Goodbye.”
The stream ends. The viewers do not panic. Robin will inform them on the message board of her next live reading.
—