Fan the Fame

by Anna Priemaza

  I expect him to hand my phone back, but instead, he holds it on his knee and wraps the headphones cord around his neck as he claps with his left hand against his other knee.

  Maybe I should want my phone back. Maybe I should be reaching for it, because it’s mine, not his. Instead, I feel strangely honored. With Leroy holding my phone like that, paused but not put away, it feels like my video is the real show and the panel is an interruption Leroy’s forced to tolerate.

  I grin to myself as I lean back into my chair and let out a cheering hoot as Team Meister—minus Oz—take the stage less than fifteen feet away from us. Code saunters across the stage, right in the middle.

  Mark leans toward me and whispers, “See that door over there?” He points across the room at a door barely visible around the corner of the stage setup. “That’s where they came out of. So that’s where we have to go afterward.”

  “Afterward?”

  “To show Code your video. They’ll be in there.”

  A LotSCON volunteer stands outside the room like a bouncer. It’s some kind of private space, like a green room or backstage area. “I don’t know.” What if it’s against the rules? “I don’t think they’ll let us in.”

  “Maybe they won’t. But we have to try.”

  I’m about to say no again when the door opens and Shadow steps out, striding across the room to a front-row seat on the other side of the aisle, and I remember how kind she was this morning. This isn’t school, I remind myself. This is LotSCON, where we’re all nerds together. This is LotSCON, where I belong.

  “Okay,” I whisper back to Mark. “Let’s do it.”

  Twelve

  ShadowWillow

  I DON’T KNOW HOW LEGS FIGURED OUT THAT I HADN’T HAD LUNCH, BUT WHEN he returns, he hands me a wrap that smells so delicious I could kiss that boy. But won’t, obviously, since Code is the one I’m trying to connect with. He and the guys have migrated to the chairs by the auditorium entrance, ready to take the stage when needed, so I sit on the couch alone, scarfing down the chicken-and-bacon wrap.

  The older guy who had been on the couch on the other side of Z for a while is leaning against the wall, and when Lainey enters the room after Legs, he pushes himself off the wall and hands her the video camera and tripod he’s been holding. “I believe this is your job.”

  She takes it from him without a word. “Hey, Willow, I’ll save you a seat.”

  My mouth is full of bacon and lettuce and wrap and I can’t respond, but I give her a little wave of thanks and chew more slowly now that I don’t have to rush as much.

  “Me too, kiddo,” wall guy says. “Get me a seat.”

  Lainey heads toward the door without acknowledging him.

  “Hey, Lainey! Did you hear me?”

  She swirls around and gives the guy a sickly-sweet smile. “Why yes, Jimbo, I would be happy to save you a seat even though you’re doing nothing but leaning on your ass. Especially since you asked so nicely.”

  I snort into my wrap, then take another huge bite to hide my grin. Lainey marches out of the place while Jimbo glares at her and mutters something under his breath. I hope I get more opportunities to chat with Lainey. She seems like someone I’d get along with.

  As I eat, I check my notifications and mentions on my phone and check the reactions to the picture of me and Code and Z that I posted. There are a number of responses already, including one “OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG #CODEWILLOW.” I laugh. I hadn’t realized we were a hashtag already. As I stuff another bite of wrap in my mouth, I click on the hashtag and scroll through some of the comments. Most are similar to the first, but then one jumps out at me: “I think Willow’s just using him. She’s such a—”

  I swipe the app closed before I finish reading the comment, my cheeks flushing hot. It’s not the name-calling that bothers me—well, of course it bothers me, but it’s not exactly new. I’ve been doing YouTube for a few years; I’m used to being called names. It’s the other part of it that has my face and neck burning, the allegation that all I’m doing is using him. Because I’m not. Am I?

  I look up at the guys by the door. Code and Wolf are on their phones. Noog is vlogging again. Ben is talking to Jimbo. Z happens to look my way, and his face splits into a grin, which makes me grin. I can’t help it; the guy’s happy energy is infectious.

  I look back at Code, who’s poking at his phone, face lit up by its white light. He’s not smiling, so his cherry-round cheeks have flattened out, but his perfectly smooth skin looks kissable enough. And I’m not making something out of nothing. We had our spark. The wink last night, his arm practically around my shoulder on this couch. I wouldn’t have drawn Noog’s camera our way if there was nothing to see.

  A LotSCON volunteer pops his head in the room then and tells the guys it’s almost time for their entrance. I shove my last bit of wrap in my mouth, then fish for a piece of gum in my purse. By the time I make it to the door, the guys are already entering to thunderous applause. Legs, though, is still in the back corner of the place, looking at a print on the wall. “You coming?” I call across the room to him.

  He shakes his head. “I’ve seen them on lots of panels. Going to take advantage of the empty room.” He adds quickly, as if I might have thought he meant something suggestive, “Not anything weird, just a bit of quiet. You’d better head in.”

  He’s right about that; the applause is dying down. “Enjoy your bit of quiet,” I say, then enter the auditorium.

  I have to walk across a small open space, past the stage, to the seat in the center front that Lainey’s saved for me between her and Jimbo, and for a moment, I feel fully exposed as my skunk self in front of the jam-packed room of people. But then some other girl in the front row leans over to her friend and whispers something, and her friend looks right at me, and they both grin. They don’t look like they think I’m just using him. And it’s not my fault if simply walking out of a door makes the rumors fly.

  ShadowWillow came out of the same room Code did.

  ShadowWillow was at Code’s panel.

  ShadowWillow and Code, sitting in a tree . . .

  Of course, the rumors probably call me Willow, not ShadowWillow or Shadow. My eyebrows scrunch together as I slip into my seat.

  Onstage, the guy I thought I recognized is introducing himself as Squigglez, a YouTuber I’ve heard of but have never watched, and explaining that he’ll be moderating the panel, and that they’ll be taking some questions from online and some questions from the crowd. They’ve got the stage set up like my panel from this morning. There’s a long table with five chairs—Noog, Ben, Code, Wolf, and Z, in that order—and three mics to share between them, with Squigglez standing to the side at the podium.

  On the floor in the aisle is a mic that people are already rushing to line up at even though Squigglez hasn’t started taking audience questions yet. On the other side of the aisle, there’s a camera operated by a LotSCON volunteer, which is probably streaming this live. Lainey must be taking video for the Meisters to use later.

  As the guys all introduce themselves to more thunderous applause, I look around. We’re in the same room as Legs’s Q&A last night, but it feels bigger now, especially compared to the one from my panel this morning. This one’s four times the size of that one, and every single seat is filled, unlike our only mostly full one from this morning—which is not a surprise considering that theirs is scheduled in a prime slot and we got the filler early-morning slot.

  Suddenly, the panel I was so excited to be on this morning feels like a joke.

  “The first question is a very important one,” says Squigglez with mock seriousness. “Over or und—”

  “Under!” Code shouts before Squigglez can even finish the question, and the whole auditorium bursts into laughter at some joke I’m not in on. An inside joke between Code and his millions of fans. Life goals.

  Maybe someday I’ll be up on that stage, and I’ll shout out, “Avocado sundae!” and the whole place will explode with laughter. Or may
be I’ll keep getting relegated to the girl gamer panels that no one comes to because they’re scheduled at the unimportant nothing times.

  “You have a lot of newer fans,” Squigglez continues. “Can you explain to them how Team Meister originally came to be?”

  Ben takes the mic from Noog. “Code and Wolf and I met on a PvP LotS server a chunk of years ago—”

  “My PvP server,” Wolf cuts in.

  “Right. Wolf’s server. I’m not sure multiplayer even officially existed then, but Wolf had done some hotwiring of the code or something—”

  “Uh, maybe don’t mention that at a Legends of the Stone convention,” Wolf says, and laughter ripples through the place as he gives a guy in the background in a LotSCON shirt a cheesy grin and a wave.

  “Don’t worry, man, if you get carted off to LotS prison, we’ll send you lots of shadowcake,” Noog says.

  “And conjugal visits from an elf!” Code adds, then turns to the same LotSCON volunteer. “You should add that to the game.” More laughter.

  “I’m pretty sure you can find that on the internet if you know where to look,” Noog says.

  “Annnnnnyway,” Ben says, which makes the room fill with the most laughter yet. Once it finally dies down, Ben tells the rest of the story of how he and Code and Wolf discovered they were all fledgling YouTubers and decided to form a group, which they called Team Meister for reasons none of them can remember, but which Code and Ben both claim was their idea, and which Wolf says he had nothing to do with, as he would’ve come up with something better. They added Oz shortly after forming, then Noog a while later, and then Z.

  “You’re one of the few gamer groups that require members to change their names to a team name,” Squigglez says once Ben’s done his story. “Gavin M from Twitter wants to know: was it hard to give up your individual identities and become a Meister?”

  “No! I love my Meister bros,” Noog says, and Code reaches down the table and gives him a fist bump.

  Z takes the mic from Wolf. “It wasn’t an easy decision for me, actually.”

  “Dude, this”—Code points at himself—“is always an easy decision.”

  Z chuckles along with the crowd before continuing. “I mean, I love these guys. They’ve done a lot for me, and they’re like family. But you do give up a bit of yourself by joining a group like the Meisters. I mean, this isn’t like Hermitcraft or Stoneworld, with a shared server and occasional collab. The Meisters are tighter than that—they give more than that, but they also require more than that, which is mostly epic and awesome but does require some compromise.”

  “You regretting joining us, Z?” Noog jokes.

  “I only regret joining you, Noog,” Z says, which makes Noog snort with nasally laughter. “I don’t regret joining the group,” Z continues, refusing to get derailed from his serious answer, which is reason #7,391 today why I need to start watching his channel religiously. “I did need to give it some serious thought before I agreed, though. I had loyal viewers, and I was worried how it would impact them if I was suddenly no longer answering to myself and to them. But ultimately I decided that I could grow more as a person and a content creator if I had this group of talented guys pushing me and holding me responsible for Meister-worthy content.”

  “And the chance to grow your subscriber count,” I mutter under my breath, feeling a stab of envy.

  “Plus, who’s going to refuse the opportunity to see Wolf’s brilliant tactics up close and personal,” Z adds, punching Wolf in the arm.

  “Get a room, you two,” Code groans, scrunching his nose in disgust, and the room fills with laughter again.

  Squigglez opens the floor to questions then, turning to the long line at the mic that they’ll never get through. Their first few answers devolve into more and more silliness, and I’d be rolling my eyes if I wasn’t busy taking in the way the whole crowd ripples with laughter at every inside joke that flies over my head. I want this. I want this so badly it hurts.

  The next question comes from a short white guy in impressive dwarf cosplay, with huge silver shoulder pads and a shield that looks just like the LotS logo shield. “My question is for Code,” he says, his high-pitched voice shaking with nervousness. “My name is Morgan. I don’t know if you remember me, but a couple of years ago I gave you a watercolor of you searching in a dozen different caves for the diamond.”

  “Dude! Morgan!” Code jumps in. “Of course I remember you. That watercolor was amazing! I’ve got it up on my wall in my office!”

  I stare at Code in awe. He has millions of subscribers. He’s probably been given hundreds of pieces of fanart. Does he really remember this one guy, this one piece of artwork? But there’s no trace of lying in his face. His dimpled, round, suddenly-looking-very-cute face.

  “Morgan, my man, what’s your question?” he asks.

  “Right, um, I was just wondering,” he stammers, though he’s beaming. “Is there anyone you’re hoping to do more collabs with?”

  “Good question. Collabs are my favorite! There are probably a dozen people I want to do more videos with, but right now, probably . . . Willow!” Code says, and it takes his arm thrown in my direction and all the people around me suddenly staring at me before it sinks in that he’s talking about me. Someone in the crowd wolf whistles, and my face flushes hot as titters pass through the crowd.

  “Are you dating?” someone in the crowd shouts, and I assume Code’ll just ignore it, but he leans in to the mic and says very seriously, “No comment.” Then winks at me. On camera.

  It’s so obviously theatrical, but still, I find myself grinning. Because superstar content creator Codemeister winked at me. Because his fans—who will hopefully become my fans—will be talking about this for days. And because can you really be using someone if they’re using you right back?

  @LumberLegs: Heading to a bookstore to grab a book or something for my mom’s birthday. Any suggestions?

  [1.1K likes]

  @LumberLegs: NO, I’M NOT BUYING MY MOM FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY! SHE’S MY MOM!!!!!

  [2.7K likes]

  @LumberLegs: Okay, that’s it, you’re all cut off from the internet. You’re awesome and I love you, but internet privileges officially revoked. :P

  [2.6K likes]

  Thirteen

  Lainey

  WILLOW BLUSHES WHEN CODY WINKS AT HER. AND SMILES. GROSS.

  I could make a whole big thing of it on camera, turning to catch her reaction beside me before zooming back in on the stage, but there’s no way I’m playing into their little drama. I keep the camera pointed at the stage and that’s that.

  Honestly, I’m not even sure I caught the wink on camera. If not, Cody’ll probably yell at me later when he finds out, but if I remind him that I walked all the way back to the Meister Manor just to get him his vlogging camera, maybe he’ll get over it.

  I have to give Cody credit for one thing, though: he really does have that guy’s painting on his wall. I’ve stood staring at it before, because it’s so atmospheric, with a huge lava-filled rift and Cody’s LotS character in a dozen different places, searching for the diamond.

  And that’s not the only picture Cody’s got on his wall. He’s got one wall in his apartment that’s completely covered in fanart—from impressive paintings to crappy sketches that look like they were done by toddlers. He values every single one.

  He doesn’t just care about his subscriber count; he cares about his subscribers, period. If his subscribers would speak up, would he listen to them too?

  And just as important of a question: if his subscribers knew what he was really like, would they even speak up in the first place?

  The panel finishes not long after Cody’s disgusting wink, and when the applause finally dies down and the guys are off the stage, Willow turns to me. “Do you need help?” She gestures to the camera and tripod. Her teeth are so perfectly straight that she could be in a toothpaste commercial, but her smile still feels genuine. She’s as nice as Canadians are stereotypical
ly supposed to be, so why isn’t she as progressive, too? Why is she blushing at someone as misogynistic as my brother?

  Though maybe she hasn’t seen that side of him yet. Apparently he’s able to hide that side of himself from his viewers, so maybe he hides it from the girls he likes, too. Maybe he’s been throwing on the charm for her. Maybe they simply haven’t spent enough time together yet for her to see.

  I ignore her question and replace it with one of my own. “How well do you know my brother?”

  She looks over her shoulder to the VIP room door the guys have disappeared into, then back at me. “Not very. Why?”

  If I told her right here, right now, what a jerkwad Cody can be, would she believe me? Probably not. She barely knows me. Better to let her see for herself; Cody can’t hide that part of himself for long.

  “No reason. Never mind. I’m good. You head back and join the guys.” Which, after offering to help one more time, she does.

  It doesn’t take long to bundle up the camera and tripod and head toward the VIP room, but by the time I get there, Willow and the Meisters are all back inside, and three dorky Codesters are talking to the LotSCON guy, trying to convince him to let them in.

  “We don’t have to go in. Just ask him to come out,” the Asian guy says.

  When we were at PAX, a Codester with Cody’s face printed big across his chest spotted us getting into our hotel elevator and went sprinting across the lobby to hop in just as the doors closed. He rode up eleven floors with us, oversize shirt reeking of BO (come on, man, I don’t care whether your clothes fit, but can’t you at least remember to put on deodorant?), and recited to Cody every scene in the last video Cody had posted and his corresponding feelings.

  Cody tried to be patient with the guy, saying, “That’s cool, man,” from time to time, which surprised me, even though I know how much he loves his fans. When the guy got off the elevator on our floor and started to follow Cody to his room, though, Cody finally snapped, like he’d just learned for the first time what it’s like to have an elastic band inside. He yelled at the guy to F off, and when we finally got free of the guy and back to our room, Cody was shaking with some combination of rage and possibly fear.