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[center][sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnzLjXMEqtU]pre-stream music[/url][/sub][/center]

[right][sub]Six Months Before[/sub][/right]

[sub]The Salt Lair[/sub]

[center][sub]aka [url=https://i.imgur.com/LIkoRhE.jpg]Tochi's streaming room[/url][/sub][/center] 

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[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/hyQfzv4.gif[/img]

The mark of a good streamer was how long the chat would wait from getting the notification of going live to getting bored and going elsewhere with their time. It was a delicate balance and one smaller streamers surely struggled with; but the Goddess of Salt was not a small streamer. She was, in fact, one of the biggest streamers on the platform and, surprisingly, most of her viewers were not bots. And only a weird handful were weirdos constantly asking her to do hot tub streams. Tochi, which was her online handle and what most people called her - it sounded better than 'Zaniyah Florentine' which was a name she decided upon after a series of mistakes that shall not be repeated but did so involve some of her peers (and not in the streamer sense of the word) - had gotten quite used to entertaining an army of people who, on a good day, communicated more in single image spam and words that made no sense than they did with actual words. 

Already the chat was moving at a blistering speed with the usual suspects first and foremost. The spammers, the people trying to say hello and getting lost in the shuffle, the people spamming bot commands, the people following pre-stream which was always dumb because Tochi never said the name of people who followed or subbed when she was not physically in front of the camera, and of course the mod team doing their best to corral the gang of idiots. There were fewer idiots around today simply because Tochi was not playing a competitive game and hadn't been for the past couple streams. She had opted to try a dating sim called 'Dating Deities!!!' which had the conceit of the player character-slash-narrator being a faceless normal mortal person and the characters to date were all, well, deities. Tochi, of course, had her thoughts on the matter and despite the game not causing her to break a keyboard or hop in team chat and call her team "more useless than a bag of cowshit, which at least contributes to the world by being fertilizer" and then getting into a heated argument whenever her team tried to engage her in a flame war of words, she had managed to make it entertaining for one reason.

She had some [i]thoughts[/i] on the godly characters in the game. 

[color=#e26161][b]"What's up, Salt Miners!"[/b][/color] The pre-stream overlay faded and the shitty, salt-loving little gremlin grin of Tochi greeted her adoring audience, the Salt Miners, so aptly named because they paid the bills for the Goddess of Salt. [color=#e26161][b]
"Welcome, welcome. We'll be playing Dating Deities!!! today, don't worry. But of course the sub goal is in effect so if you weirdos and perverts want me to play anything else then get to fuckin' subbing or gifting. Or, you know, waste your money on something better. Like getting laid. Ah who am I kidding, you guys are watching me play a fucking dating game, none of you are getting laid. Thanks for the follow, SeraphicSapphic, and congrats on having the most obvious name for a dude pretending to be a girl I've ever seen. Either that or you're a permanent heal-bitch which is somehow more pathetic."[/b][/color] 

When it came to Tochi's streams, half the appeal was when she roasted her chat. It was almost a rite of passage. The real fun was when the people who got upset about it tried to start shit in the chat, but fortunately most people wise up to the fact that everyone takes their lumps but no one takes the lumps as much as Tochi herself. Searching her name on any given clip or video upload site and the results are always her either freaking out in anger, rage, ranting, or a compilation of her being utterly humiliated at the 12 Trials from her collab with Hercules. Every day she earned her title and every day she couldn't believe people paid for this. But she gave up trying to understand mortals when they decided that too much salt was a bad thing. Cowards. The lot of them. 

[color=#e26161][b]"Anyway, enough of the bullshit pre-roll, let's get to the game. I forgot where we left off, but we were probably trying to find out how to impress the fucking band geek Apollo. Let me tell you guys, it's really weird how all these "hunky and sexy godly beings want to bang you out" dating games always seem to use Greeks or, worse, the Norse. You ever notice that? You ever also notice that they kinda just ignore how many stories of the Greeks and especially the Norse involve animals and the fucking of said animals? Like...Freyja, you know, the Norse whore - what that's what she is, she literally sleeps with, like, anyone - but like what's up with her and pigs? And what's up with, like, dudes giving birth to wolves? You guys know about that, right? Like I get that some people wanna act like viking dudes and girls are hot but any people who worship a bunch of drunken meat loving assholes that pump out wolves are not my idea of cool."

"Also, why just Greeks and Norse? Like is anyone out there really like...'Yeah I want the fucking messenger god Hermes to fuck me faster than Sonic the goddamn Hedgehog'? Take my word for it, you guys can do better than that. Or what about Ares? This game makes him out to be, like, a jocky douchebag football captain type and how cliche is that? Ares is the simpiest dude I can imagine, dude fought wars because he wanted to fuck Aphrodite as if that was some kind of impossible task. You guys wanna know how you have sex with Aphrodite? You have a pulse and genitalia."[/b][/color] 

The chat was ablaze with people voicing their comments. Some were laughing. Some were agreeing. Some were disagreeing. Some were saying how boring the game was - and those ones had a point as all Tochi was doing was clicking through dialog and reloading if she made a choice that her god of choice didn't seem to like. It was in games like this where Tochi's personality had to do the hard carry, and that meant insulting the ever loving shit out of people who the chat assumed to just be fictional, mythological figures. What they didn't know, of course, was that Tochi was speaking candidly about people she had known for centuries. 

Whatever. She doubted they watched her streams. And if they did? Well, Seattle was going to be awkward as hell. 

[color=#e26161][b]"All I'm saying is that there are better, hotter options than Aphrodite if you could just expand beyond the goddamn Greeks. Like have you guys ever heard of Tlazōlteōtl? No? [i]No[/i]... Lotta nos in the chat. Of course. I say Aphrodite and everyone goes "Wow she's the sexy one, right?" But I say Tlazōlteōtl and I might as well be speaking nonsense. Trust me, Tlazōlteōtl makes Aphrodite look like a nun. Seriously. Love me some Tlazōlteōtl. Anyway, look why is Athena of all people an option in this game? Athena isn't going to put out. She'd much rather want to bore you over a game of fucking chess than score you a glimpse of her fucking chest, you know? I guess when you're said to be smart people just assume you're a sexy librarian type. Librarians aren't sexy! Have you ever been to a library? They're all old women or people whose only source of romance and sex life is reading books with shirtless dudes on a horse on the cover. Actually that probably fits Athena perfectly. You heard it here first: Athena, big fan of shitty female stroke books. Maybe not intellectually stimulating but hey, that's what toys are for, right?"[/b][/color]

[color=#e26161][b]"Dionysus is in the game, I forgot. Oh right they're the theater kid. I mean big ups for the game for trying to be inclusive I guess but if anyone is definitively in the male camp it's that fucking drunk. Like if the creators of this game were smart they'd just have Tyche be the enby but that would require them knowing who Tyche is. No one does. Nothing interesting about Tyche, not like the goth boy Hades. Talk about missing the point. "Oh he's god of the dead so let's make him a weird goth boy" psssssssh, be more creative, game. I got nothing to say about Hades, though, because I'm pretty sure if Hades was real he'd be a real mean motherfucker who totally isn't at all creepy about Persephone. But hey, I'm sure the best relationships are based upon kidnapping girls you find attractive. So fellas and gaydies, don't be afraid to just take your crush and make them into your queen. What's the worst that can happen? She develops Stockholm Syndrome? That's a win as far as I'm concerned."

"I have been informed by my mods that I need to clarify: DO NOT KIDNAP PEOPLE."[/b][/color] 

Tochi had gotten in trouble with websites before for her unfiltered language. Fortunately in today's world the only thing that mattered was the bottom line and places that banned her realized she brought in a lot of money and ad revenue so they were actually financially irresponsible if they kept her off their platform. To Tochi that just meant she was untouchable. A 'twenty' year old with an ego, what's the worst that could happen. 

[color=#e26161][b]"I forgot I'm supposed to be on the Apollo route this playthrough because, you know, get the worst out of the way early, right? Apollo is the kind of person who would make you a Spotify playlist where every song title was a word that, when put together, was like a fucking admission of love or something but you don't even catch it because the music choices are just the worst and you're questioning why you even thought he was cute once. In game, I mean. Obviously. Artemis is cooler anyway. Now I'm not saying I'm gay but I am saying that if Artemis was an option in this game I would pretty much kill my firstborn just to cop a feel. Visually. She's just, like, pretty and cool and pretty cool and we could bathe in mother lake together on the island of Lesbos. Call me." 

"Who else is in this game? Headmaster Hera? Who gives a shit. See this is my problem with these single pantheon dating sims. The Greeks are boring. Boring gods, boring foods, boring language. And they never pick the cool ones. Like why doesn't this game have Pasithea? You telling me the game can't dedicate time to putting in someone who would be the absolute godqueen of yoga pants? Or what about Hebe? Actually better not. We had to read Lolita in school and I assume people who make video games missed the point of it and would do the same with Hebe. We don't like that in this house. Deimos and Phobos could be a threesome if you wanted to never enjoy pleasure again. Oh what, what's weird about them being siblings? Have you guys ever deity dated before? If they aren't fucking their kids and siblings then they're fucking cows and shit. We've been over this. Look, gods are hedonistic assholes, they're just built different. It's fiction, guys, it's fine if it's fiction and I know a lot of you weirdos in chat have done the stuck in a washing machine gag. So don't even pretend."

"I lost my train of thought. Whatever. This game fucking sucks. I'm bored. You guys want me to play Apex or something?..."[/b][/color][/center]

[hr]
[right]Seattle
The Olympic Club[/right]

[center]As far as her audience knew, Tochi was in Seattle for a video game convention, but she had no intention of doing a stream at the convention because of NDAs so they would have to settle for her doing an irl stream eventually. Of course this was a cover for the truth, but she figured they didn't need to know that she was going to be attending a little gathering of people she took joy in ripping to shreds a few months ago, eating an Apple, then being told by the prudish ones of the bunch that she has to act like her mortal age which meant not even getting to enjoy the fancy bubbly drinks that were everywhere. Whatever. If they didn't let her drink then she would just make sure all their drinks tasted like someone had dumped an entire carton of salt in every glass. Hell, it would probably improve the drinks anyway. 

The grown ups had been talking and scheming and plotting or whatever it is the adults did when they got together - which always was "pretend Tochi wasn't there" because if they acknowledged her they might have to come up with some excuse to remove themselves from the conversation. No one was really equipped to deal with it when Tochi went on about...what the mortals called memes or whatever the hell it was. For Tochi, these gatherings were a necessary evil and a chance for her to do some goofing around; for the others, it was like bring your daughter to work day with Tochi. Unfortunately, the shattering of glass and the falling of corpses was better than any prank Tochi could have reasonably come up with. 

As there was panic in the air - because what other response was there to corpses crashing the party - Tochi was busy being Tochi and making the finger sandwiches and other assorted food take a visit from the salt mines - the next person to eat anything, assuming they had the stomach, would probably wish for another corpse to save them from the horrors of a massive sodium intake. 

Tochi grabbed a sandwich, one she had coated in that fine white substance, and bit into it. Succulent, salted meat, tomato - which was disgusting - and lettuce. Delicious enough. However, when she was mid-bite of her second bite she turned towards the commotion and, given her incredibly short size, couldn't tell what was going on. She tried jumping but that didn't help. All there were for her to process were murmurs, sounds, screams, shouts, panics, nerves. A whole range of emotions that must've meant one thing: whatever happened was fucking mental. 

Tochi did what she did best. Meddle. She elbowed the body next to her with a cheeky grin plastered over her face. [color=#e26161][b]"Some party, right? Better than last year."[/b][/color]

[color=#DDE2E1][b]"Bad luck. That's all it is."[/b][/color] [url=https://i.imgur.com/aRh6Z3Y.jpg]Tyche, the elbowed figure,[/url] ignored Tochi's prodding and stepped away from the scene, her expression blank yet there seemed to be a hint of jealousy in the slight twitch of her lips, the little flicker in her eyes, and the gently elevated heart rate that caused her breathing to be a bit more rapid. Tochi didn't understand what had caused Tyche to have such a reaction until the arbiter of luck stepped away and Tochi was able to see the blood on the ground, the glass, the bodies, and the sandwich in her hand fell to the floor in response. 

[color=#e26161][b]"Fuck...would I get banned if I streamed this? Eh best not. I hear mortals don't like it when you show them corpses. I'd have to go quiet for like six months and make a whole Twitlonger. Not worth it."[/b][/color] She was speaking aloud, but mostly to herself. She tended to do that, years of talking to a camera for hours on end had an effect even on her. [color=#e26161][b]"So, like...same time next year?"[/b][/color] 

What else was there to say? This was a bit unprecedented and if Tochi didn't make cracks then she might actually have to process what she had seen, and that was not something she was able to do. It would be too much. Even for her. As her words fell on ears too occupied with more important matters, all Tochi could do was darkly chuckle. To keep her grounded. 

[color=#e26161][b]"Fuck."[/b][/color][/center]