We win free tote bags at an indie developer booth by answering LotS trivia correctly. (It might be rare, but mutant rabbits can actually do more damage than wereboars in a single hit.)
At the green-screen photo booth, we grab some props and get our picture taken. We get it printed on a background that turns it into an epic scene of the three of us at arms, battling a shadowdragon—well, Mark and I are fighting the shadowdragon; Leroy’s smiling for the camera like it’s school picture day.
Leroy buys a new LotS shirt, and I consider trying to convince him to get it in a color other than black, but hey, if he likes black that much, who am I to stop him?
By then we’re hungry, so we ride two sets of escalators down to the basement and grab a couple of slices of pizza; then I duck into the bathroom to plaster a new Band-Aid on the spot of blood I’ve found on my arm, and then finally we take the escalators back up and get in the long line for the expansion voting.
The line stretches along the back of the hall, the front of the line disappearing into a big tent with opaque black walls. Apparently the only way to even see what they’re planning is to wait in line until you get inside.
“The idea of sky rifts sounds pretty cool,” I say as we join the line. “It’s going to be tough to beat that.”
“No, you have to vote for the building expansion,” Leroy counters. “Assuming it looks good. LotS already has good fighting mechanics. I want microblocks and the ability to paint things. And picture frames. And cactuses should be able to grow in window boxes. It makes no sense that they can’t.”
“I don’t think that would be in a building expansion,” I point out. “It’s more—”
“Leroy! Sam! Look!” Mark interrupts, his voice dropping to a whisper. He’s trying to point but not point, which sort of looks like he’s trying to play rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock but can’t decide what option to choose.
I look in the direction of his not-quite-point, and there, not ten feet away, are Code, Wolf, Ben, and Noog coming out of the voting tent. Wolf says something, pointing back to the tent, which makes Noog shake his head vehemently, which makes Code smack him in the arm, which makes Noog punch Code in his man-boob, which makes Ben look like he’s out with his three unruly children.
“Let’s ask them for a picture,” Leroy suggests. The line went so quickly yesterday that there wasn’t time for pictures.
“Ooh, Sam, maybe Code’ll remember you from yesterday!” Mark says. “Maybe he’s already looked at your channel!”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say. I haven’t told them about what happened yesterday with my makeshift business card—though today it doesn’t feel quite so personal. Maybe he gets a hundred requests to look at people’s channels every day. And just because he didn’t have time to look at mine doesn’t mean I don’t belong here.
Judging by the fact that Mark is wearing a Team Meister shirt for the second day in a row, I bet he wants this picture more than he can admit. “Let’s do it,” I say. I turn to the person behind us in line and ask if they can hold our place, then start to march over to the Meisters, grateful when Leroy’s long legs carry him in front of me to take the lead, because my heart is suddenly pounding. Asking famous people for things is nerve-racking.
In only a moment, we’re standing right in front of them. “Excuse me, we would like to take a picture with you,” Leroy says.
“If that’s okay,” I add.
Code smiles. “You guys were at the signing yesterday, right?”
“We were!” Mark beams as if Code just remembered us all by name and whips out his phone so quickly that I decide not to protest that he’s out of data and won’t be able to send a copy to us until he gets home.
“Sure, you can take a picture,” Wolf says.
“Yes, we were at your signing,” Leroy says as Mark fumbles with the settings on his phone, sweat gathering in a tiny droplet above his temple, as though he’s afraid if he takes too long, they’ll get annoyed and disappear. “SamTheBrave here gave you—”
“I’ll find someone to take the picture,” I cut him off. I’m okay with the fact that my plan didn’t work, but I don’t need to relive it.
“Nah, it’s fine,” says Code. “I got this.” Which for a moment makes me think he’s offering to take the picture instead of being in it, but then he does a full 360, stopping partway to say, “Hey! Lainey!”
And then that girl from yesterday is wandering over from a nearby vendor booth. Today she’s wearing yoga pants and a Hamilton T-shirt.
“Hi again,” I blurt out.
To my relief, she smiles just a little. “Hi again.”
“You know these guys?” Code asks her.
She bites her lip, like she’s trying to figure out how to avoid telling him something. “I—uh—gave them stickers yesterday.”
Code’s gaze falls to Leroy’s pants, which are either the same baggy gray sweatpants he wore yesterday or he’s got multiples, and his grin falls off his face. “Are they the elevator—”
“Did you want me for something?” Lainey cuts him off.
Wolf jumps in to answer. “Can you snap the picture on this guy’s phone? You ready, kid?”
Mark nods, hands his phone over to Lainey, and explains where to tap. Then we all huddle up in a group and grin for the camera.
“Want to check it to make sure it’s okay?” Wolf asks once Lainey hands Mark’s phone back, which is awfully nice, considering how much of their time we’ve already taken up. Mark flips through his phone, stares at the picture, and gives a big thumbs-up, so we thank them profusely and wave goodbye and they head off to do whatever superstars like them do, while we lean over Mark’s phone to stare quiet and starstruck at the picture.
Which is why Code’s voice reaches us as they walk away: “Great, another set of stalkers rewarded for their efforts.”
“Stalkers?” Wolf echoes. “I thought you loved our fans.”
“Not the nerdy ones who look like they’ve never left their mother’s basement!” He’s joking, but there’s an edge to his voice, like he means it.
“Nerdy? Yeah, because you’re such a jock,” Wolf jokes.
My hand drops from the scab on my wrist. Opa’s words from last night come back to me: There are bullies everywhere. Just ignore them. “So, what should we do next?” I say loudly, hoping that Leroy and Mark didn’t hear.
But clearly they have. Mark shoves his phone into his pocket and wraps his arms around his pudgy belly, shoulders sagging. His Team Meister shirt is tucked into his pants along one hip, hanging out over the other, like he’s caught somewhere between wanting to listen to his mom’s “Tuck your shirt in” and the world’s refrain of “Don’t be a dork.”
Leroy slips his own hands into his sweatpants pockets. His right arm is scribbled in blue ink with player stats and schedules.
These are the guys who gave me the courage to talk to Code in the first place yesterday, the guys who made last night’s livestream so much fun. These are my friends.
“So Code’s a jerk, apparently,” I say. “I sort of want to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Don’t.” Mark shakes his head. “We’re used to it.”
There are bullies everywhere. Just ignore them.
It’s the “we’re used to it” that lights the fire inside me, like a dry piece of kindling thrown into a lava-filled rift. Because I’m used to it, too. Used to the taunts, the shoves, the words that tear into my flesh like my fingers. When people look at me, they see the pimples, the hair, the scabs that dot my arms and face. They see my skin and my fat and my mental illness. They don’t see me.
Even Opa, who’s family and is supposed to love me for me, refuses to see past it all.
There are bullies everywhere.
That part is true, I’ve realized. There are bullies at school; there are bullies online; there are even bullies here, in this magical world of nerd-dom.
Just ignore them.
Maybe that’s good advice for home, where Opa is O
pa—my family, my grandfather, who I’m never going to bring myself to talk back to. It’s probably even good advice for online and at school.
But here, in this one place where I’m supposed to belong, where the same person has almost ruined the magic for me two days in a row—how can I keep silent in the face of that?
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Leroy and Mark. And then I whirl around and march after Code.
The four of them have been stopped for autographs just inside a corner vendor booth by a couple of girls a few years older than me. His production manager, Lainey—or whatever her role is—holds up a camera again as he freezes with his pen in hand and grins happily for a picture. Apparently it’s only dorks like us who he’s embarrassed to be in a picture with.
“Hey, Code!” I say, and he turns slowly, movie-star grin still on his face like he’s expecting to be asked for another autograph by a hot girl. Instead, he’s getting me and my hot rage, which admittedly is starting to cool into fear. I force the words out before I lose the nerve. “I heard you call us dorks who you’re embarrassed to be seen in a picture with. Which sucks to hear. This is the one place I thought I’d be safe from comments like that, but you’ve stolen that from me. You’ve made even LotSCON unsafe!”
Even though my insides have turned to jelly, the words come out loud and confident, and for one full second after they leave my mouth, I feel strong and brave, like Sam in real life is the same person as my avatar, SamTheBrave.
But then Code’s eyebrows furrow together under the edge of his blue toque, and he stalks toward me, and even though he is only an inch or two taller than me, once he’s within arm’s length away from me, every inch feels like a foot. “You’re kidding, right?” he says, his breath smelling like peppermint. “Unsafe? You think you’re unsafe?” He lets out a single, breathy laugh. “I’m the one who’s unsafe. I’m the one who has to worry about dorks like you who reek of BO and have zero sense of personal space, who follow me into elevators and all the way to my hotel room. Have you ever had to worry about that?”
“I—uh—no.” Dorks like me. “I’m sorry. That sounds stressful. But I would never—”
“So don’t talk to me about unsafe!” He pivots on his heel and starts walking away, leaving me standing in the corner of the vendor booth, wondering how the bully somehow turned himself into the victim. Wondering why I feel worse, not better. Wondering if Opa was right and I should have ignored him.
No, he’s not right.
“I’m just saying that maybe you should be more careful with what you say!” I shout after Code.
He’s already at the edge of the vendor booth, about to disappear into the river of people. “It’s a free country!” he shouts back over his shoulder. “I can say what I want!” He whirls around and lowers his voice so it carries across the booth to me, but no farther. “Now get out of here, fatty!”
I stare after him, after the words that follow him.
Mark and Leroy appear on either side of me as Code disappears into the crowd. Lainey mouths a “Sorry” at me, then scurries after him, camera still in hand.
“You were awesome!” Mark says.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to call people fat,” Leroy says.
“I’m starting to think that Code says a lot of things we would never say,” I say, thinking of Lainey’s hypothetical from yesterday that’s starting to feel not so hypothetical.
Before I can say anything further, Wolfmeister appears from around a wall of Funko Pop! dolls and steps toward us. “Hey, buddy, I’m so sorry about that,” he says to me. “Code shoots off too much at the mouth sometimes. We were happy to have our picture taken with you guys.”
“We are very photogenic,” Leroy says.
Wolf’s laugh is kind. “I believe it.” His face is tall and thin, and when he smiles even a casual smile, it stretches all the way from one edge to the other.
“You’re my favorite Meister,” Mark spits out, like he’s been holding it in all weekend and can’t hold it any longer. “By far. I mean, I like all the Meisters, but you’re the very best.”
Wolf’s grin practically spills off the edges of his face. “Thanks. That means a lot. I’ll be bragging to the guys about that for months.” Then his face grows serious again. “I really am sorry about what Code said, though. He’s a good guy with a big heart who loves his fans, but who doesn’t always look to see who’s around before he makes his dumb jokes. But I’d like to make it up to you. Is there anything I can do?”
He looks us in the eye one by one, like he’s genuinely sorry, like he genuinely wants to do something. But his words play back in my head. Apparently the main thing Code did wrong was not wait until we were gone before he talked smack about us to his friends.
Mark puts his hand on my shoulder. “Well, Sam does have a Twitch channel that—”
“That is doing fine,” I say, cutting Mark off. Maybe Wolf didn’t mean it that way, and his words simply aren’t coming out quite right. But what I’m learning this weekend is that there are worlds within worlds. And if there are places in this big, nerdy online community where people are put down instead of built up, where a friend’s hurtful comments are excused as a dumb joke, then I want nothing to do with those places—even if it means I’m giving up on promotion and maybe even all hope of fame as a result.
Wolf turns to me. “You have a channel? I’m happy to—”
“No, thank you.” It’s not that I suddenly don’t like Wolf. Like everyone else, he’s a complex human with strengths and weaknesses, and the fact that he came over to apologize to us when his friends are already long gone still means a lot. It’s just that this world with LotS and Mark and Leroy and Dereck and Jones and BlastaMasta742 and my tiny but joyful streams—this is my world. And whatever world Code and Wolf and their friends are living in—I suspect it is not. “I’m pretty happy with it the way it is.”
Mark narrows his eyes at me like he’s trying to see into my brain, then shrugs and nods.
Leroy, on the other hand, simply says to Wolf, “Well then, do you have stickers?”
Twenty-One
ShadowWillow
“THERE IT IS! YOUR SIGNING TABLE! WITH YOUR NAME!” THERE’S NO MOCKERY in Z’s voice as he points to the plain wooden folding table with “ShadowWillow Autographs 1 p.m.” printed on a plain white piece of paper and taped to the scaffolding above it. He is legitimately excited for me, and at this moment, I love him for it.
I’m excited too. It’s my very first signing, and I’m determined to enjoy it, so I’m forcing myself to shove away all my worries from last night and my argument with Lainey from this morning.
“This is bananas. I need to take a picture.” I whip out my camera and snap a shot.
“Want me to take one with you in it?” Z offers, holding out his hand for my phone.
“Can you take one once I’m actually signing?” I ask, then grab his forearm as the fear strikes me. “What if no one shows up?”
He pats my hand good-naturedly. “Then I will get in line and get your autograph fifty times.”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“It’s not pity. In a year, I’m going to sell them online for a million bucks apiece. You’re going to fund my retirement.”
I let go of his arm. “Your retirement? You’re looking awfully good for your age, old man.”
He slides a hand through his unruly mass of hair. “Thank you. It’s the avocado toast I eat for breakfast every morning. But hey, look, you’ve already got a fan waiting.” He points not at the table, but toward a nearby vendor booth.
We’re in the huge vendors hall on the top floor of the convention center, and though the hall is bustling with people, the signing tables are at the far wall, where the crowds are thinner. The guy monitoring the booth has his head buried in a comic book. His only current customer, a young red-haired teen girl with her back to us, browses the wall of merchandise, which includes everything from shadowdragon mugs to an enormous plush muta
nt rabbit.
“The mutant rabbit? Ha ha, thanks,” I say wryly.
“No, the girl.”
I glance again at the red-haired girl, who’s maybe fifteen and is wearing a TARDIS backpack, and who most definitely has her back to us.
I’m about to snark at Z again when the girl glances over her shoulder—not at us, but at the signing table.
“Have you noticed? She checks out your table approximately every ten seconds,” Z says, and sure enough, a moment later she does it again.
“Oh my gosh, I love her.” I feel a rush of mushy-heartedness for this girl who clearly—I see it now—is waiting for me to show up. “Can I go hug her? No, never mind, that’s creepy. Let’s go set up, so she can come wait in line instead of straining her neck muscles.” I grab Z’s arm again and pull him toward the table.
When we get there, Z heads a few tables down to grab chairs, since the ones for this table are missing, and I plop my shoulder bag down on the table and start unpacking the postcards I had made for the convention. They display a big-eyed, purple-haired cartoon version of my avatar, dual-wielding guns and taking down an army of all sorts of baddies from different video games. I had a cartoonist I found online design it, and it’s pretty much the most badass thing I’ve ever seen. Boy, do I hope someone wants one.
As I study the cartoon, a tiny drop of melancholy muddies the waters of my excitement. This is what I wish my fans were most excited about—me being badass, not me potentially dating the Sleazemeister.
I think of Lainey’s accusations from this morning, her disbelief that I’d cash in on fans’ Codemeister-ShadowWillow excitement when I’ve learned that Code is—well, a Sleazemeister.
But I’ve worked hard to get here. I’ve put up with so much crap. Just this morning, I got another comment asking whether my boobs are real. I simply ignored it, like I ignored every other comment like that, because what else am I supposed to do?
Fan the Fame Page 21