Gamer Girl Problems

Level 3 ✧ Terrible Oath Keepers

"Another stealth defuse?" I exclaimed, jumping out of my chair. It landed with a loud thud from behind and I winced.

"Jesus, Bridget. Calm down," Hudson said, flinching at the sound.

Hudson, Gavin, and I were all at my house, catching up on missed episodes of Recoil Madness, or "RM" as we dub him for short. He uploads at least one video a day and, after being a huge fan of his for the past two years, I've already started to pick up on his upload times (he usually uploads videos at around 3pm Pacific time). My favorite series are his Minecraft ones. They're around twenty minutes in length and he posts an episode every Friday.

On Monday, he uploads Battle Ground gameplays, which are around three to five minutes. Tuesday is "Nintendo Day" where he'll play the Nintendo game his viewers most voted for. On Wednesdays, he plays Grand Theft Auto—which is freaking hilarious and always makes my day. They make up their own storylines and improvise as they move freely around the world. Thursday is "Back to Retro," so he'll select a game from back in the days and play it, which makes me think that RM could also be someone in his thirties, because what even is Galaxian?

Anyway, the weekends are free days—he'll post any video of any videogame of his choice. So sometimes, it might be another Battle Ground gameplay or perhaps some game that he was promoted to do. RM receives a hell lot of promotion, which is not surprising. Any game he plays, most of his viewers will play as well. He really knows how to advertise. Videogame companies would be stupid not to recruit him. However, there's a higher chance that RM will post gameplays of Indie games he's found online or was recommended to do. I enjoy those episodes, because it's a way for me to get connected with other games, too.

Thanks to RM, I have a growing game collection in my room. Aside from an Xbox, I also own a PlayStation (my parents gifted it to me last year, although I don't play many games on it), Nintendo 3DS, GameCube, and Nintendo Wii (the original).

My friends and I made it a tradition to hang out every day after school on Mondays and Fridays to catch up on RM episodes. We have this oath where we're not supposed to watch any of his videos until Monday and Friday, but I shamefully admit that I have broken that oath many times. I watch Recoil Madness on days besides Mondays and Fridays, too. I know, I'm a terrible oath keeper (and friend), but a day without Recoil Madness is like a day without video games—and I can't live with that! I need my daily dose of Recoil Madness!

I have a feeling Gavin knows I watch RM episodes without them, because every time we watch a video, according to him, there's this "twinkle" in my eyes that practically shouts, "Oh, I so know what's going to happening next!" Also for the way I mock gasp I give when something astonishing happens because I already knew it would happen beforehand. I can't believe Hudson hasn't caught on.

Thankfully, Gavin's very understanding and he doesn't bring it up around Hudson, and I'm thankful for that. If Hudson knew, then I'd be in deep shit. He's already on my case about breaking promises, because I once joked around him and promised I'd buy him ice cream if he beat me in Battle Ground, a game he and I both knew he was crap at. But as luck would have it, Hudson really did beat me, but I didn't have any money that day, so I wasn't able to buy him any ice-cream...and to this very day, I still haven't. I would if he asked, though!

"That's, like, the fifth stealth fuse, though!" I exclaimed. "How is this possible? Either these kids really suck at Battle Ground, or Recoil Madness is just a god."

Gavin rolled his eyes. "I think it has to do with the fact that over half of the other team is gone." He grabbed the computer mouse from me and paused the video at time 1:45, where there was a shot of the scoreboard. Sure enough, Recoil Madness had eight people on his team while the opposing team only had five.