#elastic droid

You logged onto Twitch, getting all your mood lighting turned on and putting on your headphones. You started your stream and played your current favorite song while the intro screen was still up, taking this time to grab some water and apply some vaseline. Once you people start to flood in, and one of your mods sent out your live announcement in the Discord. You finally switched to your camera being full screen, greeting your viewers.

“Hey, everyone!” you wore a soft smile, “I missed y’all. What should we do today?” You sipped your water as replies came in, reading through the different answers. “Hmm, I was thinking we could make a bit more progress in Fallout today…” You trailed off, still reading the chat, seeing one suggestion repeated that caught your eye, “or we could work on our Stardew save. Mods, can we get a poll?” As the poll ran, you queued some more music, letting it play softly while you opened Steam. “Hey Droid,” you did your best not to smile too wide when you saw your boyfriend’s name pop up in your chat. You need to be normal even with him being here, you think to yourself.

“Stardew won, huh? Well, the people have spoken, and I’ll never complain, I love getting up to chaos in the valley,” you giggled, opening Stardew and switching the screen so the game was fullscreen and you were in the upper left corner. As you began opening the save, you chatted about where you left off, “Did we get those four carp for Willy’s quest yet?” Nodding as chat reminded you there was a new quest to take care of, “Oh right, I’ll grab that from the chest before we take care of the animals.”

What you were NOT saying was any acknowledgement about the numerous chatters who were hurling insults at you over your choice of game. Not only that, there were a handful of other chatters who were offended that you even mentioned playing a Fallout game. Only one of your normal mods was in the chat, and you knew they had a big exam coming up and likely were not seeing every mean chatter. You did not want to take the time to pause the game to time them out, but their rude words were starting to get to you, and you did not want your regular chatters starting to pick a fight with them. Before you could even open your inventory to pause the game, you saw Droid start mass timing them out and ban a few of the more offensive ones. Chat all started cheering that the mods were taking them out, as they were getting on everyone’s nerves.

You were having a slow stream day just chatting for the most part, but when your childhood best friend sent you a message to join his Russian Roulette lobby, you couldn’t refuse. He said something about wanting to throw it together, and he just needed one other person, you. 

“I know that TwitchCon and VidCon are coming up soon, and I might go,” You mindlessly talked to chat. “Is that something you guys would be interested in, or am I talking out of my ass?”

Immediately, your chat of just over 500k exploded in responses. Most were encouraging you to go to both of them, practically begging you to go by saying that would be the only reason they buy tickets.

“Okay, okay, okay, guys,” You chuckled, going to your other monitor to pull up some stuff to look into later regarding tickets, hotels, and logistics. “I’ll look into it, and I’ll see if I can get a group to go.” Just as you say that, you got a discord notification from Puffer.

“Russian Roulette. Pull up.” You couldn’t help but laugh out loud for a second, causing a flood of comments to roll in.

“Guys, I think I’m about to die,” You chuckled as you sent a quick message back to Puffer.

“The game right?” It only took him a few seconds to respond.

“No shit, get on.”

“How do y’all feel about Russian Roulette right now with a really random person I’ve never actually done anything with?” You asked to no one in particular, as you were already loading the game and changing the category of your stream. “I honestly don’t care what y’all say, but it’ll be fun.”

You loaded the game on your stream and joined the discord channel that Puffer sent you. You joined the call that had Puffer and two of his friends already in it.

“Well, well, well,” Puffer said as soon as you showed up on the call. “Look who decided to show up.”

“Okay, first of all, fuck you,” You laughed as you entered the code o join his lobby. “Second of all, I was in the middle of a heart-to-heart with my chat. Trying to figure out if I go to TwitchCon or VidCon this year. Last year was ass.”

“Wait, is that who I think it is?” One of the guys on the call shouted.

“Maybe, this is the childhood friend I told you about,” Puffer said nonchalantly.

“Yeah, hi, I’m Puffer’s friend,” You introduced yourself and your stream name, waving at your camera.

“You’re not ‘just Puffer’s friend,’” The same guy mocked and you looked over where his camera was on to see his jaw dropped as he stared at the scream. “You’re like one of the biggest streamers that still streams.”

“Thank you!” You blushed, but played it off, “I’m dedicated to the grind and a paycheck.”

“Arent we all,” The other guy in the call groaned. “I’m Grizzy, by the way.”

“Wait, you know Fitz and them, too, right?” You immediately recognized that voice. “I feel like I’ve met you before.”

“Yeah,” Grizzy dragged on. “When would I have met you?”

“If you went to PAXAus or were in some of the CS:GO videos,” You started listing. “I was in a few with Smii7y, and I bullied him a lot. I was also faceless back then, and I’ve rebranded since then.”

“Wait, I do remember you!”

“No way you guys already know them. I literally watch all of their content!” The other guy complained.

“You sound like this one guy that I watch,” You spoke up as your brain finally started putting the pieces together. “I’m blanking on his name right now, but his outro song is bbno$.”

“That would be that guy,” Puffer said, leaving the floor open, but the other guy was like a fish gasping for water. “Are you gonna say anything?”

“I am in shock,” He replied in a strained tone. You looked at his video and saw that he was breathing heavily as he held his chest, but he was smiling.

“Are you good, man?” You chuckled softly just as Puffer started the lobby. “Are you gonna be good to play?”

“I, uh, I’ll be fine,” The guy stuttered out. “I just…I’ll be fine.”

“He’s starstruck,” Puffer poked. “If I knew you were gonna be this nervous around them, I would’ve asked someone else to join.”

“No, I’ll be fine, just give me a minute,” He replied, muting himself and turning his camera off for a second. 

“What was that about?” You asked to Puffer and Grizzy. “Is he always this nervous?”

“No, it’s just you,” Puffer chuckled, amused at the situation.

“Me?” You gasped, “What did I do?”

“Exist,” Grizzy said simply. “He’s had like a massive crush on you for the longest time, and you just admitted to watching his stuff, so he’s probably crashing out.”

“He’s the guy?” You questioned as your eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. “I don’t remember his name, but It’s like ED or something, right? I remember a joke about erectile dysfunction, and I was fucking dying!”

“No shot you remember that stupid joke,” The guy said as he rejoined the call just in time to hear your comment. “Can we just start the game already? I might need to my Russian Roulette IRL if we keep talking about this.”

“Wait, give me a second,” You shouted even though Puffer started the game. “It’s Droid, right? I don’t remember the E part.”

“Elastic,” Puffer coughed into his microphone.

“ElasticDroid!” You screamed, and you saw his character flinch in the game. “That’s you!?”

“Yeah,” He replied back quietly as his face grew fifty shades of red. Whether it was embarrassment or the fact that his long-time parasocial crush watched his content, he couldn’t tell you. “That’s me.”

“No way, Puffer! You should have introduced me to your friends earlier!” You complained as it was your turn to pull your trigger. Thankfully, you lived to see another round. “Actually, this would be really cool. As of about 30 minutes ago, I decided I wanted to get a group to go with me to TwitchCon and VidCon. Would y’all go with me?”

“That would be like the biggest crossover ever,” Grizzy chuckled before he shot himself in-game. “Fuck! That was my first bullet!”

“Sweet! Puffer, send my number to Droid,” You said winking at the camera as Droid’s head snapped to the side. “I’ll text him to coordinate everything.”

“You just want his number, don’t you?” Puffer voiced your plan, but you weren’t going to fold that easily.

“I’m asking you to give him my number,” You shrugged, “It’s his choice if he wants to give me his.”

You had barely finished your sentence before your phone was sounding with a notification from an unknown number. 

“Of course I want you to have my number ;)”

~~~~~

“I’m telling you, Heath Ledger Joker is god tier,” Droid and Puffer argued over the discord call. You assumed it was Puffer at least because you were sat off to the side watching them play Mario Party while drunk after Grizzy’s birthday dinner. “He’s the best joker of all time.”

“I beg to differ,” You muttered, taking a sip of your water with a smirk when Droid’s head snapped to you.

“What the fuck!?” He shouted, gesturing to you to come on the camera. “Tell the audience why you have such dogshit opinions.”

“It’s not dogshit to say that I don’t think Heath Ledger was the best joker,” You laughed in disbelief as you sat on his lap and unplugged his headphones, so you could hear the other guys. 

“Wrong,” Puffer said immediately, “Heath Ledger as Joker is the GOAT.”

“It was not even memorable to me,” Grizzy tried to say but got cut off by everyone. 

“Listen guys, Heath Ledger’s Joker was good, don’t get me wrong, but it was too dark for what the character is,” You explained. “I just always think the best is the original.’

“What’s next? You’re gonna say Christian Bale was the best Batman?” Droid asked in disbelief. 

“No, god no,” You cringed, turning to look at Droid. “What part of ‘I think the best is the original” do you not understand?”

“Ew, so you think whatever his name is -is the best Batman and Joker? That’s crazy,” Droid laughed.

“First off, what’s with the ew?” You asked, glaring at him. “Second, it’s Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, you uncultured swine!”

“I agree Michael Keaton was a good Batman!” Grizzy shouted. “Thank you, Grizzy!” You shouted back as you leaned into the microphone. “You guys can’t talk shit if you’ve never seen the OGs. The OGs build this company!”

“But Heath Ledger put it on the map!” Droid argued back, pulling you back into his chest. 

“Don’t EVER say that again,” You jokingly threatened before leaning toward Droid’s ear, “I’m not talking shit on your boy, so don’t talk shit on mine.”

“Sounds like you’re talking shit,” He whispered back with a smirk.

“No, I’m admitting that Heath Ledger was good, but you’re not even mentioning Michael Keaton or Jack Nicholson,” You pointed out.

“I need to watch the originals,” He admitted. 

“Good to know you finally see some sense,” You joked as you left a kiss below his ear before leaning back and taking to the rest, “So I’m making Droid watch the original Batman if y'all wanna join. Not tonight, but like tomorrow or something. Not when you’re drunk.”

“I might be hungover, but I can do tomorrow,” Grizzy answered after a beat.

“You’re gonna be hungover, no maybe about it,” Puffer laughed loudly, “If it’s later, then yeah I’m down.”

“Are we streaming it?” Pezzy asked.

“I wasn’t planning on it, but if y'all are that desperate for content, “ You teased.

“Shut the fuck up,” Droid laughed. “Free content is free content.”

~~~~~