“I should probably get going soon,” Hunter said.

“Aw. That’s not very poggers,” Mel said. 

“I know but I have work tomorrow,” Hunter said. “Unfortunately we live in a society.”

“We do?! Oh noes!” Mel said. “Cringe. Well, maybe you can come visit again sooner rather than later.” She turned to stare at Hunter, trying her best to look cute/sad.

“I will when I get a chance! Or maybe we could voice chat on Discord? Or maybe I’ll try playing this game, although I’m still scared by how many hotbars you have on screen at once,” Hunter said, gesturing to FFXIV open on Mel’s monitor. “I’m not gonna be a catgirl, though. I refuse.”

“Oof, good luck with the queues if you do try,” Mel said. “Also, what’s wrong with catgirls? Nya~.”

Hunter rubbed the back of their neck. “I was thinking about trying the new bunny boys, actually.”

“Huh. Interesting way to come out to me as a bottom.”

Hunter audibly exhaled through their nose. “I actually don’t really know that much about my preferences in that regard, to be honest. I’ve had one girlfriend before and that relationship didn’t last very long.”

“Well, I’d be happy to help you figure out more!” Mel said. “Sounds like a lot of fun, honestly.” She wiggled her eyebrows again.

“Maybe?” Hunter said. “Honestly, I don’t know how interested I am in sex in general.”

“Well, I’m always down for a good cuddle. No pressure. Oh, also, before you leave, I had a great idea!”

“Yes?” Hunter asked.

“You should change your name to Gatherer.”

Hunter threw a pillow at Mel. “I’m leaving.” They went over to Mel, who stood up from her computer chair to receive a hug.

Mel followed them to the door. As the door swung open, Hunter realized just how long they’d been hanging out. It was dark now, with a cool breeze blowing towards the ocean.

As they stepped out the door, Hunter turned back and said one last thing. “Hey, Mel… Do you want to be my manager?”

Mel darted forward and gave them one last hug. “Absolutely!”

***

“Hey, guys, welcome back to the stream!” Hunter said. They spun a little to reveal their new outfit of a black, embroidered top and a denim skort. “Some updates: I got new clothes! Also, Mel is now officially my manager! Oh, and I’m trying out they/them pronouns, if you could try and stick to those in chat.”

Mel frowned as she rapidly deleted the comments of and then blocked some guy named MisterPwn88. “Fuckin’ yikes,” she muttered to herself. Under her desk, Pickle made a weird sound. “Pickle, no! Wires are not food!”

Hunter glanced at the chat before continuing. They were a little stressed about how people would react to the new pronouns, but it generally seemed pretty chill.

 

yaoiMaster69: poggers

yaoiMaster69: good for them!

yaoiMaster69: has anyone coined themboy

trans_rites: I called it!

trans_rites: My transceiver is flawless

trans_rites: Anyway I can and WILL ban any transphobes in chat

melsalvia: oh fuck sorry i had to keep a kitty from electrocuting himself

melsalvia: oh chat seems chill though, thanks chat

melsalvia: and thanks other mods obv

melsalvia: <3

 

Hunter tore their attention away from the chat and got back into streamer mode. “So, today I’m going to be working on the girl voice. I need something to say so instead of the text-to-speech voice I’ll be reading your donations myself! Although I won’t be reading anything too weird or objectionable, so try and keep things reasonable.”

A moment later, an alert came in for a donation. “Rites! Thank you for the donation! ‘Trans rights are human rights’. Absolutely!”

After waiting for a few seconds, no other donations seemed imminent. “Well, chat, I guess we should have something else to do between donos. Any suggestions?”

 

melsalvia: play the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV

melsalvia: lol

melsalvia: no idk maybe minecraft?

yaoiMaster69: try on more outfits?

eastlySnipes: BotW randomizer?

eastlySnipes: lowkey fiending for some Zelda content

 

“Breath of the Wild randomizer sounds good! Maybe I can read item descriptions as I get them. Let me just change the stream title real quick.”

They quickly edited the stream title to “Breath of the Wild Randomizer + Girl Voice”

Before they’d even left the Shrine of Resurrection, another donation rolled in. This one was… less than great, though.

“This stream is getting too political for me. I just wanted to watch a chill guy play Nintendo games. I don’t know what all this stuff with gender is. No offense but I’m unsubbing.”

Hunter frowned. “Well, I don’t see why those need to be mutually exclusive? I mean, I’m playing a Nintendo game right now.” They tried to return their attention to the game but remained a bit perturbed. What if their new look and pronouns drove off other older viewers? Maybe leaning into this had been a mistake.

As they played, they kept forgetting to read item descriptions as they got them. “Hmm, chat, I’m not sure I can multitask that well. I keep either getting too into reading things out loud and dying, or I get too into the game and forget to read things.”

 

melsalvia: i just had an idea

melsalvia: it might be big brain!

melsalvia: or maybe it’s a little derivative

melsalvia: uh speedrun but every time you forget to do girl voice you have to reset

 

“Huh. Sure, I guess I’ll give that a try?”

A few hours later, Hunter was feeling incredibly frustrated. They were upset that they kept slipping on the girl voice, and they hadn’t even managed to get off the Great Plateau. And they hadn’t gotten nearly as many donations as they’d been hoping. “Sorry, chat, I think I’m gonna end the stream here. I know this wasn’t the greatest stream but I’ll try to work on refining the format. Maybe I should just practice the girl voice off stream. We’ll see. Anyway, thanks for watching!”

They stopped the stream and went to flop back on their bed. Glancing at their phone, they saw they had several missed Discord messages from Mel.

 

melsalvia: hey 

melsalvia: don’t stress over the girl voice thing too much
melsalvia: you don’t need to do it if you don’t wanna

melsalvia: shit is hard

melsalvia: that’s why i never did it lol

BigGoron5: ?

BigGoron5: you sound like a girl to me

BigGoron5: did you just start out sounding like that?

melsalvia: idk i think context does a lot

melsalvia: i think my voice is kinda in the androgynous range

melsalvia: but if people see me they take it as female

melsalvia: lowkey i hate phone calls tho

melsalvia: main time i get misgendered but even then it’s not super common

BigGoron5: huh

BigGoron5: Good to know

melsalvia: i think my voice used to be, like, lower in my range back when i was trying to present as Guy ™

BigGoron5: Whoa, you used to be Guy Fieri? Amazing

melsalvia: thats right

melsalvia: mayor of flavortown right here baybee

BigGoron5: Mel you’re very silly

BigGoron5: I do feel a little better now though, so thank you

BigGoron5: <3

melsalvia: no problem cutie

melsalvia: i am going to send you a bill for this therapy session tho

BigGoron5: Oh no

melsalvia: don’t worry, you can pay in cuddles

melsalvia: we also accept bitcoin

melsalvia: jk fuck crypto

BigGoron5: Based

BigGoron5: Specifically, coinbased

melsalvia: hmm

melsalvia: I’ll accept it

melsalvia: but i thought i was in charge of the bad puns

melsalvia: you know, as your manager

melsalvia: oh that reminds me! I set up a youtube channel for u

melsalvia: what do you think would be a good first video?

BigGoron5: I’m sure you could look through the vods

BigGoron5: Maybe it would be better to start with some of the older content?

BigGoron5: Or to have separate channels for gender-related stuff versus Zelda stuff

BigGoron5: Not sure, I’ll think about it

BigGoron5: Thanks though Mel!

melsalvia: no problemo

melsalvia: *finger guns*

BigGoron5: Dork <3