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Adjusting the camera, Leah chews on her lip as she waits for it to go live. "KARA! Do you want me to use your real name if I talk to you, or what? No Kim, sorry, I wasn't talking to you. I'll turn the mike down for that. Two minutes, got it."
Leah's sitting at her computer, wearing her Supergirl top and a pair of cat ears for no reason at all. On her second screen are two other people who're doing similar stuff, split-screen going so she can see who she's interacting with. On the main, she's got the opening screen for the new game of the season, Radlands 4.
The right screen, Kim Giles, shows a neat little dark skinned lady with a reputation for tough gaming calls and winning at DOTA. The right, Jimmy Stevens, a podcast announcer who invited them both. Leah's trying not to sweat. "Kara? I'm live in ...sixty seconds here."
Kara Zor-El looks over at Leah. "Well... yeah, use my real name. Why not?" She shrugs. Technically even her 'secret ID name' was the same as her real name. At least the first name. Kara's sitting next to Leah, wearing a 'Leah' shirt. That is a shirt that has the word 'Leah' on it. Also she's sitting in midair, legs crossed. No cat ears. "So basially you're going to just play games... and people are going to want to listen... to you playing games?" she asks, trying to again get her head wrapped around this concept for the 5th time since Leah first mentioned it.
Oh yeah, an Asia's here, what's an Asia, she's little and cute, well behaved, surprising for one so young. She in her bunny jam jams so I guess she's cosplaying a bunny, sure that might work. Asia peeks her head in curiously, hey they girl was probably suppose to be napping, but how can one nap when there is excitement in the air, she stays out of theway there, quiet like a mouse..or well a bunny..quiet like a bunny....wiggling her nose, dreaming of carrots... yep..wiggling her nose..wiggle..wiggle..wiggle..so much magic might happen, you know like in 'Bewitched' but hopefully two Darrens wont show up..if you don't kow what I'm talking about google it...darn children..in my day..wait no quiet..wiggle her nose.
Jimmy says from the speaker, "Pretty much," as he checks the feeds one last time and then hits the 'link' button on his end, starting the show. Which Leah fails to notice, leaning up over the back of her chair and grabbing her soda from the table behind it and starting the show off with her bottom presented to the camera. Luckily she's wearing shorts and not the skirt, but still.
Kim's eyes widen on her screen, and she looks like she's biting her tongue, as Leah comes back down to her seat and finds the 'Live' symbol flashing and Jimmy starting the show. "Hey y'all, welcome back. We're here this morning on Red Rocket, got some new jazz for you like I promised, two of the prettiest faces in gaming today and a couple of guests. Kim Giles, wave to the camera Kimmie..."
Kim: "Hi, feed the homeless..."
"... and Leah of Clover Cosplay. She's managed to get a few friends in on this, say hi to the camera Supergirl and I'm told that her bunny friend's name is Asia. We're doing a first-run through the opening of Radlands 4, nobody here's seen it yet except my wife and she told me it was horrific, so it's probably gonna be good."
Leah opens her mouth to say hi, then grins at the camera and waves when Jimmy keeps right on talking and introduces Supergirl and Asia in one breath. Wow. She leans and gives Asia a kiss on the cheek for being cute on camera. Got to reward the eye candy.
Kara Zor-El was doing a favor by babysitting Asia. Apparently every other person who could possibly do the job was either in some life or death struggle, or on the other side of the planet (Pepper, currently on a business trip to Tanzania, sick (Nico being sick so that Molly couldn't do the job for... some reason?), or one of about 5 other excuses being used. One person even said they were temporarily dead and in a simulation. Kara somehow got talked into it, because despite her superpowers, making excuses was not one of them. She was truly an awful liar, so Asia got to be here for this podcast... thingy.
"You can just call me Kara if you wa-and he's still talking Leah..." she says and trails off as Jimmy and Kim keep talking. So she just waves into the camera.
"Sorry to talk over you Supergirl, Kara you said. If you'd all like to say something about yourself, that's cool. We have an hour and the opening isn't that long, so there's plenty of time." Jimmy leans back in his chair and puts his feet up, surrendering the floor to the feminine cast members with a wave and an ease of lots of experience at this.
Kim leans forward and says, in her apparently normal businesslike demeanor, "I'd normally leap on that, but I'm curious to know a bit more about Leah. I'm here because I did well at the last tournament in Connecticut. Kara, you're basically Leah's reason for being on, or am I off base here? Leah's geek cred isn't from gaming, it's from cosplay and Kara."
As Leah's currently tickling Asia, she's distracted for a moment, but she turns her head at that last question. "Hey! I geek as well as anybody in this room!"
Kim nods, waving her hand a little. "Not saying you don't. It's a question that's being suggested though, and I wanted to get it out of the way early. By the way. Bunny suit, is ADORABLE." Kim gives Asia a little wave and a slightly melting smile.
It was either Kara or Poison Ivy...Kara won in the Babysitting game. She heads over in the room and blinks at the screen to see Kim, she um waves, and hiding with Kara playing shy, peeking her eye out..she's just playing.
Kara Zor-El shrugs. "I think Leah's got a lot more going for her than just that we're friends. Especially like... she was already doing the cosplay thing even before we met. Actually first time I met her was when she was going to a convention." She gives Leah a one-armed hug. "Plus she's the one who's been turning me onto all sorts of games, like that The Last of Us game. It's really amazingly scary. And I fight supervillains and monsters and alien invasions and stuff daily so.. yeah. Definitely scary. On the tip of my seat scary. Not really sure what game's being played today?"
She smiles. "Oh and Asia here's... well... I'm on babysitting duty. She's adorable huh?"
Leah says, "I'm working on some wings for a costume, actually," tacking that onto Kara's explanation. And wondering if there's going to be some kind of emergency to tear Kara off at some point, because that does seem to be the trend once she's in public. "Worbla is absolutely amazing stuff. Almost said shit there. Wait...you can bleep that out right?" She's blushing a bit, and takes a sip of her soda.
"We're live, Leah," Jimmy says with a grin that's as wide as his viewer list right now. "I'm impressed, swearing on your first cast. So you're both saying that Leah's got the stuff all on her own?"
Kim leans toward the screen a little and says, "You gotta admit, posting pictures of that Lobo guy got you more viewers than your last photoshoot did. Superhero fights are what we pretend to be doing in games. You two get to live it. Not sure if I'm jealous or not, it sounds terrifying. Yes, I admit, it, I follow your feed." She rolls her eyes dramatically.
Asia looks at Kara curiously. "Whas going on why dere people on the tv?" she asks in a sorta half whisper half chatty chat. She peeks from Kara and looks at the monitor again. "We gonna play games? Ah like games, how about climb da building? ah like climbing da building."
Kara Zor-El looks at Asia. "No climbing out the window. No repeats of last time, okay?" She looks back at Jimmy and Kim on the screen. "Yep, Leah's definitely got the stuff. In fact, when it comes to all things geeky, she's teaching me how to upgrade from nerd to full on geek. Leah's like... the Batman of geek cred far as I can see. And I have really good vision." She pauses for a moment to look around at something
Kim nods, running her hand through her long hair on her screen, and says, "No climbing out windows, must be some household. Leah, I'm gonna see how well you do at the opening section, we'll get an idea for ourselves. And Kara? In case I never get to say it again, thanks. From the women of the world, for showing we can be better than our distaff counterparts."
Leah leans and gives Kara a full-on hug, adding, "You know she's never seen Star Wars? At all? We had this big freak-out when I found that out last week. I'm arranging it, original trilogy only. And you're on, Kim. Even if I have no idea what we're doing in the opening yet."
Jimmy takes a paper from his wife, who shows up on camera for an instant and then vanishes just as fast. He looks at it, then says, "Ravioli for dinner and we're set to start any time, so yes Asia, we're going to play games. Your friend Leah gets to prove that she's worthy to sit in that chair."
Leah pauses, then looks at her chair. Loses her bunny ears as she does, and ends up having to go under the desk for them. Bumps her head on the bottom of the desk like it was scripted.
Kim sighs, then says, "She's a real geek. Calm your butt, Jimmy."
Asia looks at Kim curiously and giggles. "Ah like to climb, buh ah can't cause ah'm lil right now, buh when ah get big ah can climb lots of stuf, ah climb da 'tatue of Lib-urty once!" she says happily. She looks up curiously to Kara. "Whas Star wars?" she looks over to Jimmy curiously and grins. "Oooh dinner sounds nummy."
Kara Zor-El looks back at Asia. "It's this movie that Leah really wants me to see and..." She pauses again. "Um.... I need a minute or so... emergency. Be RIGHT back I promise, Kim, Jimmy..." She looks at Leah. "Honest, need to do something quick."
Then in a blur of motion, Kara's gone. She's back in about a minute, with some sort of dust in her hair and some char-marks on her shirt. "Sorry... had to catch a meteor that was about to hit Paris. Well... more like punch it. It was going pretty fast to just catch." She pauses. "Please continue? Where was I? Oh yeah um... anyway, Leah's definitely worthy of every bit of geek cred she has. I wish I was half as up to date on all this gaming stuff."
Leah nods and smiles as Kara says that she needs to go, and then turns back to the camera where the tough tournament-winner Kim is making faces at Asia's picture on her screen and asking Jimmy why we can't have more babies on the show. She's a melty puddle of mush under the tough exterior.
"We're having greek salad and shrimp I think, go ahead Kara. And nobody spoiler, I don't want to ruin the experience." She pauses while Kara is gone to look at the chat, and says, "Okay, that's anatomically impossible but not a spoiler," about something someone has typed. Little headshake and she lets Jimmy talk for a moment.
Jimmy says, "Thank god, I wish someone had let me watch it without babbling when I saw it." He looks at the screen, frowns, and says, "Emergency?" just as Kara re-appears.
And after she talks, both Kim and Jimmy are sitting there with their mouths hanging open. The feed is really quiet. The chat is going berserk.
Leah just leans over and squeezes Kara's hand like it's just another day for her, and gives Asia a sip of her soda if she wants it. "I'm hoping to get good at League of Legends too. But I bought a skin and people expect anyone with skins to be good already, and blaaaah."
Asia shakes her head at the soda. "No tank yew ah don't dwink pop." she says before crawling into Leah's lap and cuddling against her. She nods to Kara about Star Wars the plant toddler hasn't seen nor remembers many movies, music seems to stick with her, but as we all know plants love music. Then Kara blinks out and then back, Kara is pretty fast, and that's cool, but she's use to it.
Kara Zor-El nods a little. "It should be on the news I guess." she says to Jimmy and Kim. "Well actually probably it's on right now and I think they're watching the news right now Leha..." She pauses and taps the camera. "Hello? Guys? It's okay, I stopped the meteor. Any pieces left probably burned up in the atmosphere. Jimmy? Kim? So... um... what's the video game for this podcast thing anyway?" She pauses again. "Hello?" She looks over at Leah and Asia
Leah shrugs a bit as she accepts Asia into her lap, hugging the rugrat warmly. "It's okay," she starts to say to Kim and Jimmy as the two of them start talking at exactly the same time.
Kim: "YOU WHAT? Meteor, Paris, what?"
Jimmy: "God freaking damn holy what the hell on my show you did what now?"
Kim: "and I'm sitting here being pissy about a video game I got for free and you're just calm and like it's nothing.."
Jimmy: "I can't even look at the feed, I looked at the feed, I think we broke a record, is everyone okay???"
Leah claps her hands together, loud, in front of the microphone, causing enough static to get the two's attention. "Hey! Have you all met my roommate? This is Supergirl. And professionals here, we get it. Kara, I'm starting to think you're making me a little jaded about all this stuff you do."
Jimmy's voice, quieter, "Oh...ya think?"
Kim just snorts.
For a rugrat, Asia is well very cool. Well yes we know she's cool, but what we are really talking about is body temperature. Asia is well room temperature..so probably unexpectedly cool. She does takes the hugs happily. She waves too. "Ah'm a woom'mate!" she says happily. "Well for ta'day! Ah'm being Babysat! Cause I'm" she holds up her hand and puts her fingers together like you do when talking about something small. "I'm itty bitty teeny weeny, buh no bikini, or pokie-dots, ah'm green though,"
Kara Zor-El gives Asia a little kiss on the head. "You're adorable." Then looks back at Jimmy and Kim on the screen. "It's okay guys... I do this sort of stuff a lot." She then thinks. "Well... I don't punch meteors a lot, but this one wasn't that big anyway. It was like maybe the size of a city block. There was one the size of Texas that the Justice League took care of a few months ago. I mean... don't worry, it's actually a much more rare event than you'd think." She looks back at Leah and smiles. "Well you've been around me in how many supervillain attacks now? Remember the days when you were impressed by a truck hitting me?"
Leah wiggles her fingers in front of Asia, being the cute babysitter and putting cat ears on her. Which looks kind of silly with bunny ears too! But Asia can pull it off. "You're a roommate, that's right. Too many, Kara. Trust me, one supervillain is plenty for me." She seems a little tired, which comes across on screen. But hopeful.
Kim coughs, then says, "Um. So. I need to pee, sec." She dashes off screen for a moment, for no reason at all.
Jimmy shakes his head as he tries to get things back in gear, and says, "The fact that you just sit there and go on with your life. Lives. Right, I have so many questions you have no idea, but I need...you have no idea how much it hurts me to say this, but I need to get us back on topic. Thank you Supergirl for saving the ENTIRE CITY OF PARIS! Wow. Jesus."
Leah looks awkward, reaching for her controller. "I didn't mean to make this all about Supergirl, sorry about that. If you all need a five minute break or something? I'm good, aside from being hampered by the babeh." She gives Asia a squeeze and then motions to Kara. "Help?"
Asia grins at the second set of ears and she gives Leah a thmbs up. "Ah got mah Stark card for da rent." she says. 'its in mah bag." she grins and looks over to kim curiously. "Ah guess she need new pants cause dats wha happens when ah gotta pee." she says matter of factly. she giggles at the squeeze. "Wha we playin? Ah'm good at Legos ah like Legos.' she says. "Oh and colors ah like ta color."
Kara Zor-El plucks Asia away from Leah and sat Asia on her lap as she again sat down in midair. Because that looked like a job for Supergirl. "Yeah um... I'm sure we can talk about that some other time. But this is for playing a video game right?" She pauses. "I promise we can do a podcast in the future where you can ask me questions. Right now... serious stuff. Video gaming. Leah needs to school everyone in her... video... gamery."
From Kim's screen, some guy's voice calls out, "Kim, you're on," and she can be heard calling, "Just...second!" She appears on screen shortly afterward, as calm-appearing as ever though her heart rate is up a bit as she nabs her controller and says, "Rush job, don't judge me."
Jimmy just raises an eyebrow, then answers Leah. "We appear to be good. Hey, that's not a bad idea, we could do Star Wars Lego next week. Asia, you're invited."
Leah says, "She's talking about actual lego. Coloring books. Crayons. Which she eats sometimes."
Jimmy grins, and says, "Taking you up on that, Kara. Hang around after the show, we'll talk."
Leah sighs, wondering if she's ever going to get the spotlight. But she gives Kara a smile. Worth it. "Just tell the viewers what we're doing, and we can ...holy crap, we've used up over half the show!"
Jimmy blinks, then says, "SO anyway we're here starting Radlands 4, and it's time to get it on! Let's ....Rock it!" And nothing seems to happen save that Jimmy hits a button, but he says, "Hit start. We're on."
Leah hits the go button on the game.
Asia looks to Kara as they both float in the air, she likes this and then frowns. "Ah do not eat crayons!" she says. "SHe's tellin a fib!" she calls out to the screen, she has to keep her intergity after all, absurd... Asia eating crayons..play-doh on the other hand..let's just say we don't judge journeys here.
Kara Zor-El watches as Leah plays the game, and grins at Asia. "Shhh.... Leah's playing. Oooh look! Giant crabs. Why are there giant crabs in radiated Nebraska. There arent even lakes there that have crabs."
Leah gets through the opening video. She doesn't move forward immediately, turning to Kara while Kim is halfway through making her character. "Did you have robots like that back home? The little guy, doing the hedges." She flips to a female sexed character and takes a moment to really explore the options, while Kim has taken the base male template with no alterations and is rushing through everything.
The chat is already noting the completely different playstyles of the two players, and Jimmy is being quiet. Kim's screen is ALREADY evacuating her player to the vault, and Leah hasn't even started moving yet. "Hey! She's kinda cute. Okay, so we have a husband and a baby. Huh."
Kara Zor-El tilts her head. "The graphics are really nice. I bet you'll be having holographic games any time now." She pauses. "So when you click on that button, everything slows down and you - oh Rao did his head just explode?!"
Leah shakes her head, saying, "Asia, this isn't real. It's just a picture, like the tv," as she makes her way through while actually exploring things. Looking in corners, taking the time to enjoy the game, and commenting as she does. "Oh! Hey, this guy's house is like my old apartment...holographic games? Gonna get all over THAT when it comes out. I think we're pretty close, with the Oculus already shipping. Love to live-feed that."
Jimmy says, "I can set you up doing that if you want, once you've got it running," speculatively. He can see how much more charismatic Leah is than Kim, who's barely said a word since the start except to comment when she makes a kill. And her kill-count.
Leah's actually laughing at things.
"And, pause!" Jimmy kills the video feed and goes back to room discussion. "Let's look at how it went."
Leah immediately reaches for her soda, which is empty. Dangit. Got lost in the game. "Graphics were really nice, I'm impressed."
Asia seen things, heads exploding don't bother her...hey Supergirl remember that time there was a whole town of zombie clones that Asia's mom made and that forcefield that was tough for you to get through..yeah Asia and Supergirl has seen some stuff...yep...stuff.
Kara Zor-El nods. "Yeah. Definitely great graphics. I'm a bit confused about the storyline though. So ... it's like... an alternate Earth history where there was a nuclear war in ... I'm guessing probably around the 1940s or 1950s... and this is like.... hundreds of years after that?"
Leah claims Asia, if Kara doesn't mind. She likes the hugs and the game's not really traumatized her at all. "Looks like, I'd have to read up on it a bit. It builds on the last games, which set up in ...yeah, exactly what you said. It's a kind of steampunk derivative that's really popular right now."
Jimmy nods, adding, "Radlands is set in the 22nd and 23rd centuries. They were a little loose on the details."
Kim looks up from her notepad and nods, then says, "45 kills. Twenty rooms cleared, finished opening scene in eighteen seconds. Who cares about the setting? In your face, Leah!"
And Leah blinks, then looks at her screen. "I forgot it was a contest." Hugging the baby, she looks a little bit stunned.
Jimmy, giving a shrewd glance at the chat, smiles a bit. Then says, "Kara. Who won? I'm betting you saw all the stats and you're smarter than you look."
Asia grins and hugs, the funny thing about Asia... she's not afraid ... of anything... at all... which ya know is kinda why she needs a babysitter so she doesn't like hurt herself or set herself on fire. She smiles and smoochies Leah's cheek and watches what's going on, and starts humming to herself... a sixties soul song... probably 'You Can't hurry Up love' by the Supremes or if you must that cover by Phil Collins in the 80s.
Kara Zor-El looks at Jimmy's... sort of compliment. "Oh... Yeah Jimmy. Thanks. That's real nice of you to say. Glad to know that I'm smarter than I look." she says raising an eyebrow. She then says, "Well... from what I noticed about the game progression, Kim was getting further into the game earlier, but also was missing a lot of the powerups which, and this is just what I'm assuming based on a standard progression, she would find to be vital later on in the game. Might be really hard for her to move forward very fast once the game difficulty increases. Leah's method... well it just seems like her late-game is going to be easier with the powerups she got early on. Then again I could be wrong. It's always bad to underestimate someone."
Kim pouts and crosses her arms, then sticks her tongue out at Supergirl on-screen. "I'm used to go fast, kill everything, get the expeez and kill something else. Maybe I did miss some, but I make up for it in sheer kill xp."
Jimmy says, "Sorry, Kara. I really didn't mean it that way, but that was my fault. No excuses." Raising his hands, he bows to her and tries to use the puppy-dog eyes that have worked for him in every video so far.
Leah, she just smiles and says, "I had fun. Look, I can be hardcore if I have to be, but the designers made details to be looked at. This game has no level cap, so you actually can't reach a top-end. What's the rush?"
Kim blinks, then starts shuffling through her game notes and says, "What?? They didn't put that in the press release!"
Leah shrugs, and shows her celphone. "I googled."
Asia watches them play thigns slides her thumb in her mouth and cuddles.
Kara Zor-El looks at Jimmy. "Okay... okay.." Then watches as he keeps doing the puppy dog eyes. "Seriously okay! All's forgiven." Then says to herself, "Rao... good thing Abomination doesn't do that look."
Leah laughs.
And with Kim ruffling through her papers and trying to find the quote that Leah already found, the chat proclaims Leah to have out-geeked her. And with Asia in her lap, a Kryptonian on her arm, and a win under her belt, Jimmy cuts the feed.
Gnite folks.