s t r e a m {SAPNAP}

- 1 -

BEE POV
"glad to know that Dream doesn't think I'm an ugly crier"

***

OCTOBER 2ND

I took a deep breath and turned on my computer. I was starting to get discouraged, to be quite honest. I had work, school, and streaming to balance and I wasn't even anywhere close to famous.

I went to twitch and started to set up my nightly bed wars stream.

I was extremely tired. I hadn't been able to sleep recently, my schoolwork was piling up, and my boss had been absolutely kicking my ass with all the shifts he was piling on to me. I was close to breaking down.  In the back of my mind, I told myself that if I just quit trying to stream, all the pressure would be off.

But I worked hard for my 2k followers. I averaged about 600 viewers a stream, and I was so close to hitting 3 thousand followers on twitch.

"No," I muttered to myself as I began the stream, staring at my loading screen. "This is what you've wanted since the Popularmmos days."

Slowly people began to join, saying hi excitedly in the chat. I waited a few minutes, fixed my hair, and then rushed to switch over to my Minecraft and facecam. I forced a smile. Could they tell I was tired?

"Hello loves! I'm back! Welcome to the stream. Before we get started I just wanted to say thank you guys for all the support I've been getting lately!" I clasped my hands together. I saw myself in my face-cam and wanted to cringe.

"It seriously means so much to me! Thank you for taking time out of your day to come watch me play bedwars. Don't forget, I'll be playing with viewers this Saturday on the Hypixel server!"

I loaded up the mini game server and ran right over to bedwars. I'm not going to brag, but I was considered one of the best players.

"FUCK! IT'S BEEN TWO MINUTES HOW HAS HE ALREADY GOT MY BED?" I screeched, wanting to throw my mouse. I held my head in my hands and reflected as my chat laughed at my failures.

As I sat with my head in my hands, my mind started to get away from me. Everything people said about me at school, the things that happened at work, the nasty people everywhere in my life—streaming was comforting but also a chore. I wondered how bigger streamers did it. How do they not get bored, or upset, or mentally exhausted?

A sound signaled and told me that someone had donated. I looked up with glee.

"Thank you Jenny27 for the 5 dollars!" I said, composing myself and logging back into the bedwars lobby. "Ok guys, I promise I won't try to throw my keyboard this time."

My stream today only had about 200 viewers—which I was grateful for. The only reason I'd gotten so many views on my more recent streams was because one of my TikToks blew up. I knew that in a week or so it would go right back down to just barely 100, but I still had two thousand followers and that was good enough for me.

Finally, as the night grew dark I decided that I would get close to ending the stream.

"Ok, guys," I chuckled. "I'll play 3 more rounds and then I'll hop off. I have big school stuff tomorrow, but I'll be back at 4 like promised!"

I started a new match. It was then that the notification came through.

"Holy shit, am I getting a raid?" I said loudly, staring in disbelief as my view count rose. Then, twitch flashed it across the screen.

I read it and shock hit my body.

"DREAM IS RAIDING WITH 57K?! HOLY SHIT—oh my God, you guys, oh my God!! Dream! Thank you so much!!" I wasn't aware who Dream was at all, but I'd heard the name here and there. I knew he was a streamer, but I never watched his content.

My face was an intense shade of red and I could barely focus on the game. My chat was flooded with "dream raid!!" comments. Twitch read out something on my screen.

"Dream donated 100$!"

I wanted to cry.

"Dream—holy shit, thank you so much for the dono and for the raid! You have no idea how much this means to me, I appreciate it so much!! Oh my God.." I wanted to disappear as chat noticed I was crying. "No! I'm not crying, my eyes are just sweating!"

I finished the last two games like promised, and by then I saw that Dream had stopped watching the stream. I said goodnight, read out a few new dono's and then ended the stream. The first thing I did besides check my bank account—where all my donations were automatically filtered into—was go on Twitter and search for Dream.

My eyes popped at his wild popularity. I had an even smaller Twitter following than I did on twitch, but I decided to shout him out anyways.

-BEE (@LIBBEE)
Thank you all for the amazing stream today, and thank you to @dreamwastaken for the MAGNIFICENT raid!! I appreciate you man! And NO! I DID NOT CRY!

I smiled and sent the tweet. I got a few likes here and there, nothing to smirk at.

I started to get ready for studying. It was already nine in the evening but I still had tons of homework to do, and I still had to add my numbers from work.

I brushed my teeth, washed my hair, and threw on a pair of shorts and a sports bra to allot myself the most comfort possible before heading back to my setup and logging into my university's student account.

Music played softly in my room, adding to my ambience of string lights and fairy-themed atmosphere.

I attended the University of Texas at Austin for my computer science degree. I was minoring in psychology, and frankly wanted to do that more, but I would never have the money to get my master's degree.

Instead I was working on a coding assignment, an English Lit essay, and some advanced calculus problems late into the night. Around twelve I finished all the homework I'd had, and picked up a book to read to wind myself down.

Call me a nerd, but I chose The Song of Achilles. It was one of my favorite books and I absolutely loved Greek mythology. I wished I could read the Odyssey for the first time all over again.

My phone buzzed with the occasional notification, but what caught my eye was a reply to my tweet. I stared in shock—Dream had actually responded.

Like I said, I didn't know who he was, I just knew he was famous and had heard thousands of people gushing over him. So of course I was extremely happy to be raided by him—I just wasn't a fan since I'd never watched him before. Huh. Maybe I'm obligated to watch his videos now.

-DREAM (@DREAMWASTAKEN)
You were totally crying. Don't worry ur not an ugly crier. :) keep up with the streaming, people love the chaotic energy.

I faltered. How was I, a small streamer in the middle of Texas, getting noticed by Dream? Maybe my TikTok had gotten to his for you page. Ugh, I don't know.

-BEE ( @ LIBBEE)
Glad to know the one and only Dream Was Taken doesn't think I'm an ugly crier.

I liked his tweet and sent my reply out before turning off my lights and crawling into bed. I stared at my ceiling for a while.

I rolled onto my side as the world came rushing in. I did not remember when I fell asleep, but I woke with dried tears on my face.