Love Addict's RPG Vol. 2 Ch. 67 (Patreon)

Much shorter one this time around. Still important, though.

Up next I need to take a few days to write my next outline. We've officially covered everything from the first one, so it's time to get on that. We're currently 28.5k words into vol. 2, no idea how long it'll end up being but I guess we'll see.

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After their fantastic catnap, Oliver and Mia played their cozy little Satan game the whole day. They built up their hellages, furnished houses, traded items, and all that other good stuff. While fun, their time together was unremarkable. As the closest thing to an average day he’d had lately, though, Oliver relished every second. He earned no extra affection that afternoon, but he wasn’t getting trapped in refrigerated trucks or joining underground fight clubs, either.

No stress, no worries, no anxieties. There was only the bliss of sharing a blanket with Mia, huddled together on her bed as they gamed. Oliver dreamed of this peace his entire adult life, and here it was. He’d caught his dragon, and things would only get better from here.

He left at 6:30. They regrettably had work the following day, and Mia wanted to do some art before bed. She offered to let him stay while she drew, but Oliver wanted time to decompress, and she didn’t fight him on that, merely seeing him off with a smile and a kiss.

No scary twins were waiting to ambush him on the way out this time. He fast-traveled home and headed straight for the shower, a tranquil smile on his face from obsessively thinking about the girlfriend whose company he'd left not even five minutes ago. Zoe's pervasiveness among his intrusive thoughts was the only thing that slightly dragged him down.

Whenever Oliver wistfully recalled his wonderful day, he'd unintentionally flashback to the few hours Zoe was part of it. He kept thinking about all the fun they had, DokaDon Empire or otherwise. The news of his undeniable crush would likely delight Mia, but Oliver had doubts.

Most were from putting the cart way before the horse, though. Better to just play it by ear and see what happens.

He dried off and changed into some boxers, his chosen attire for the rest of his night. Next, he updated Bradley on today’s activities. Oliver didn’t feel like getting into the nitty gritty just yet, so he sent a brief text covering the rough outline and asked Bradley to come over in the morning so they could discuss things in more detail.

Bradley was as supportive as ever, pledging to be there on the morrow and congratulating Oliver for another fine day on the grind. Thinking about how much more literal that statement was than Bradley could’ve guessed made Oliver blush, but his lewd reminiscence was interrupted by the least sexy thing imaginable; a call from his mom.

It was mercifully short, being a cursory checkup more than anything else. She only wanted to touch base and see how things had been going for him since Valentine’s Day. Oliver lied, obviously. He shrugged the question off by answering ‘same old, same old’, not wanting to have to explain… well, anything about the last eight days, really.

Oliver proceeded to noncommittally dodge the topic when inevitably asked about ‘the girl’. He wasn’t hiding it for any malicious reason. It’s just that his mother would’ve made a massive deal about it.

Not that he’d blame her. She had every reason in the world to throw a goddamn party for the ages to celebrate her formerly blackpilled son entering a healthy, stable relationship. He just didn’t want that party to be now. Maybe in a few weeks when things wound down, supposing they ever did.

Actually, that would be just about in time for-

“All right, one last thing before I let you go, kid. Did you want to do anything special for your birthday this year?”

“Mom, that’s still like three weeks away…”

“It is now, but the fifteenth’ll be here before you know it!”

“I’ll probably just come over, and we’ll grab pizza like usual, or something. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out when we get closer.”

“Sure, sure. Just let me know about it ahead of time if you’ll be bringing any extra guests this year!”

Oliver held back a sigh, then noticed something that bothered him. He knew where it was going, but still. He had to ask. 

“Extra guests?”

“Besides Bradley, obviously. It’s not like we can have your birthday without your best friend, right?”

“…No, we certainly can’t,” Oliver closed his eyes and let the sigh escape him. Not in the mood to dig around and discover what artificial memories his skill implanted into his mother, Oliver said his goodbyes and ended the call.

It was a little after seven, giving him plenty of time before he needed to sleep. Rather than spending his night skill training, Oliver invested in something equally important- intel gathering. He made a quick sandwich to get something in his stomach and then got to work, climbing into bed and whipping out his phone.

Oliver typed ‘LazySlothGaming’ into the search bar and hit go. The net being what it was, it led him down a rabbit hole. He found Zoe’s Tweak account, multiple Me2ube channels, her Xitter profile, an official subplebbit, some… less-than-official subplebbits, and so much more.

It was a lot to take in. He’d never met someone famous enough to have multiple fan-made fart compilations, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. Needless to say, he wouldn’t be paying p/FartingLSG a visit anytime soon.

Instead, Oliver opted to check out Zoe’s Xitter. The first thing he saw was a big, sexy anime drawing of Zoe serving as the banner. This was obviously a Mia original, as evident by the wild expression and sharp teeth. Her profile pic was also Mia’s handiwork, this one being a cute chibi portrait.

Zoe had over ten thousand followers on the platform, and Oliver assumed the skimpy selfies she frequently uploaded might’ve had something to do with that. Though her softcore pics were far from anything you’d see on an actual camgirl’s page, they certainly drew in quite the crowd.

I’m starting to think that making out with Zoe was a bigger deal than I thought… Oliver realized. She’d said she was pretty popular and all, but… damn… a minor e-celeb grinded on my dick today…

He wondered what any of these reply guys would’ve given to be in his shoes. Oliver tried and failed not to smile, knowing that the answer was likely ‘a lot’.

Focusing less on the pictures and more on the captions, Oliver noticed Zoe didn’t bother with a public persona. She acted more or less like she had with him; casual, a little crass, and exceedingly flirty. That said, many of these sounded a little… desperate for attention?

Zoe frequently asked her fans if she looked pretty today, how hot she was, if they loved her, if they missed her while she was gone, and so on.

Oliver had a good idea of what was up. Including a call to action in her posts helped Zoe farm engagement, gaining her favor with the almighty algorithm. The power of lonely, desperate dudes on the internet was a force to be reckoned with, and harnessing it was simply smart business.

Then again…

The way Zoe repeatedly dropped whatever she was doing to respond to her fans stuck out to him, as did her reaction when she found out her phone wasn’t notifying her of new replies. He’d thought her excessive focus on PR today was because of her temp ban, but it was enough to make him wonder.

Oliver decided it was best to move on for now. It wasn’t his place to play armchair psychologist, especially not with someone he’d just met. He was more interested in checking out one of her streams, anyway, so he went to her archives and started channel browsing.

Even though he already knew Zoe streamed for days at a time, he was still surprised by just how many videos there were. She’d seemingly covered almost every major release from the last couple of years, and Oliver had no idea where to start.

He sorted Zoe’s vids by the most popular to narrow things down. At the top of the list were many videos where she played various entries in the Iron Cog Rigid series, but Oliver skipped over those since he'd never played them. It wasn't long until something piqued his interest, however; the first part in her KaneMon Techno Version playthrough.

Mia mentioned the other day that Zoe shared his sentiments toward the current state of the famous monster battler franchise, so he figured, why not give it a go? He cast the video from his phone to his TV, then got comfy as the green-haired girl he’d made out appeared on screen.

Zoe sat on an expensive gamer chair, looking sexy as ever in yet another skimpy outfit- this time, booty shorts and a tube top. Oliver couldn’t see much of her room thanks to her lighting setup, but he really enjoyed what all the LEDs did to her exposed skin as they continually transitioned from blue to pink to purple.

“Heeeeeeere we fuckin’ go,” Zoe groaned, pressing a can of Gamer Gulpies to her forehead. “Another year, another goddamn mediocre KaneMon release. Ugh, fuckin’ gag me. Hope you sick fucks are happy because I sure as hell ain’t!”

Zoe briefly glanced at her energy drink, frustration visibly rising. She let out a sigh and leaned over in a way that purposefully emphasized her cleavage. Oliver heard some clunking around, and when she sat up again, it turned out she’d been rifling through her legendary mini fridge.

Gone was Zoe’s energy drink. Now was apparently the time for vodka. Oliver had to admit her comedic timing was pretty good, and the gag scored a big laugh out of him.

Zoe continued ranting after a swig of the good stuff, saying, “Fuck, dudes. I could be playing anything else right now, but nooooo! You all wouldn't shut up about wanting me to suffer through GameCreep’s latest fuck-up, and who am I if not a crowd-pleaser, huh? Nothing, that’s what! So. Here’s what’s gonna happen; I’ll give this stupid baby game a fair shake, I'll hate every second of it, and my tits’ll probably jiggle whenever I get mad, which will probably happen a lot. Sound good? Yeah? Yikes, you guys need to touch some fuckin’ grass. Go on. I’ll wait.”

And she actually did, staring deadpan at the camera for an entire minute in total silence.

“Welp, I tried. If you're still here, there's probably no hope for you, so... mods, can we get a poll going? I'm thinking we’ve probably got a good twenty minutes of unskippable tutorials coming up, plenty of time for you fucks to pick my starter. Cast your votes, everyone; it’s time to watch a grown-ass woman drunkenly lose her shit over a game made for literal toddlers!”

Oliver hadn’t planned on watching the entire stream, but her intro hooked him a lot harder than expected. It helped that Zoe was not, in fact, a titty streamer. She showed off the goods, sure, but she was an entertainer more than anything else. One who really came to life under the spotlight.

Not only was she skilled at engaging with her chat and making everyone feel welcome, but her constant commentary was equally funny and insightful, showcasing her unique sense of humor, a surprisingly intimate understanding of game design, and legitimate passion for her career.

Oliver lost himself watching Zoe do her thing, laughing at her stupid jokes and pondering her many interesting observations until the video stopped and autoplay started queuing up the next one.

“...Wait, what the fuck?” Oliver checked his phone, horrified to discover he’d just been released from a two-hour trance.

It wasn’t like his usual compulsive blackouts. He still vividly remembered every little thing about Zoe’s stream, but somehow, that just made him feel even more awkward about it. He didn’t just like Zoe’s content. He loved it.

She was just so passionate about gaming, so full of insight, so adorable when she cackled like a drunken goblin at her own dumb jokes, and-

“No, no, no! Too fast, dumbass. Too. Fast. You just met her, Oliver. We’re not fucking doing this.” Oliver closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and steeled his resolve.

There, that was better. Oliver was glad he nipped that in the bud before it got any-

“Whew. All right, losers… I think that’s about as much of this shitty game as I can fuckin’ take, so we’re gonna call it a rap on part two for now-”

“Part two?” Oliver panicked, checked the time, and shut off his TV. “God fucking damn it!”

So much for gathering intel.

Zoe stole the last four hours of his life while Oliver just sat there smiling like a vapid dumbass. All his efforts earned him were a wasted evening, an even bigger crush on Zoe, and a sudden understanding of why live-streaming appealed to so many people.

"The all-consuming power of parasocial relations, I suppose..." he sighed.

Oliver shrugged off his disappointment regarding his instant transformation into a simp and focused on the positives. This weekend was gonna be great. As soon as he got off work tomorrow, he’d get to hang out with Mia and Zoe for two days straight, and there was a chance Rebecca might enter the mix on Saturday, too.

He had no idea what would happen when Mia visited her family on Sunday, but maybe it’d be an opportunity to get closer to Zoe? Oliver certainly hoped so. He was eager to raise the streamer’s affection further and solve the tension between the two roommates, no matter what.

Having managed to salvage his mood, Oliver went to bed after indulging his libido. Becoming sexually active with Mia really hadn’t calmed him down at all. If anything, he was hornier than ever, and he barely even tried stopping his intrusive fantasies of Zoe from joining in on the fun.

He got off imagining a vividly detailed mental threesome, only feeling a tiny bit guilty upon finishing. It quickly cleared up after shutting his eyes, and Oliver fell fast asleep as eager thoughts of the future blanketed his mind.