>I stare sideways at the TV screen ahead of us. The little knight dude has been doing pretty okay so far... until he gets flattened by a big fat guy with some cartoon hammer.
"HOW THE FUCK IS THAT FAIR! I ROLLED!"
>Olivia screams from below me, the back of her head pushing into my tummy. She's sitting on the floor of the Paynes' residence as I lay on the couch.
"Olivia, language! Vinny's home."
>A grumbling whine comes from the gator.
"...Sorry, auntie..."
>A worried look comes over my face. I've rarely seen her get as... vocal as when she plays this thing.
"Hey, 'Liv. If it's making you so angry, why don't you try playing something else?"
>Black-on-silver-on-yellow eyes glance up at me.
"What? Nah, I'm having fun.
"...If you say so."
>She turns her attention back to the screen as her own character, with her own comically oversized cartoon hammer, reappears on screen at a little campfire. Wait, why is she running straight to the big boss guy?
"Hey, don't you have to talk to that shopkeeper again?"
>She doesn't look up from the screen as she responds, but her character does slow down a little.
"Huh? Oh, nah. The game autosaves."
"Then why'd you start from the campfire again?"
"Those're like checkpoints. If you die, you just go back to them. Everything else gets remembered though."
"But all the enemies are ba-"
>I'm cut off by another swear from Olivia, and another reprimand from Sophia in the kitchen, as the distracted gamer-gator gets stabbed in the gut by some gaunt, skin-colored pterodactyl thing - as if to make my point for me. Her tail slaps the couch next to my face. Aiming isn't so easy when she's focused on something else.
"Thanks for distracting me, jerk! The enemies come back, but not any of the other stuff. It's like, they - (shit!) - they want to punish you for making mistakes, but they don't want it - (fuck!) - to be a slog where you gotta do all that other maintenance work over again."
"...Huh."
continued