Pride Month is celebrated in June and it’s a time to reflect on how far the LGBTQ community has come. It’s also a time to acknowledge how much more can be done to help the LGBTQ community. Certain leaders, like Marsha P. Johnson, are often remembered during June because the modern Pride movement probably wouldn’t look the way it does today without the influence of her and many other LGBTQ and POC (People of Color) leaders.
To celebrate Pride this year, Game ZXC conducted a series of interviews to showcase different LGBTQ talent on Twitch. Next up in the Pride Month Streamer Spotlight is LuxieGames, a Twitch streamer who was once a Disney World and Six Flags character performer. Now, instead of dressing up as Merida, she does TTRPGs and variety game streaming on Twitch.
Inspiration Behind LuxieGames’ Brand
LuxieGames started streaming around three to four years ago. She started her journey on Twitch because she was originally a character performer in Disney, but Six Flags wanted her and moved her out to its park so she would be Wonder Woman. The move put her in a new place where she didn’t really know anyone, and she was in her mid-20’s surrounded by teenage coworkers.
She didn’t have anything in common with her coworkers and knew she wouldn’t be able to befriend them. Luxie always knew about Twitch, and one day it hit her that she both loved video games and was a performer, so she decided to start pursuing streaming. Her love of video games goes way back:
I've always played video games, like my whole family. Like my mom and dad have a Minecraft server together, like I grew up playing Tomb Raider with them.
As for the LuxieGames brand, her username hasn’t always been “LuxieGames.” The moniker she currently uses actually came after she rebranded and many people had started calling her “Luxie” online. Her old username used to have “Lux” in it, so when she rebranded she embraced “LuxieGames.”
My name, obviously, in real life is not Luxie. I guess that's not obvious, but my real name is not Luxie! My name came from my favorite director, Sofia Coppola. She has a film called 'The Virgin Suicides' and the main character is this manic pixie dream girl named Lux.
LuxieGames’ Top Games to Stream or Play Offline
Luxie is still working on her work-life balance when it comes to playing games both on stream and offline, but she has broadened her horizons when it comes to offline gaming. Before the pandemic, she’d never played MMORPGs, but she started playing with her friend AshleyRoboto and ended up max leveling a character in World of Warcraft. They’ve also recently started playing Final Fantasy together.
When Luxie first started streaming, The Sims was one of the games she played regularly. Now, it’s a game she’ll stop playing for months and then come back to. Otherwise, Luxie is pretty much the textbook definition of variety, though she does tend to stick with story-based games above any others. She and AshleyRoboto also have a “long-running ‘Friendship Farm Friday’” where they play Stardew Valley together.
Luxie’s streams tend to be full of different kinds of games, but she thinks her community will call her out in regards to one specific game—Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While she doesn’t think there’s any one game she tends to stream the most, she thinks her community would beg to differ:
I’ve played so much Animal Crossing, it's probably that one. I had two Switches for separate Animal Crossing worlds. So like, they're gonna sit there and be like, "Okay, you played Animal Crossing for 800 hours, let's calm down." Probably that.
How LuxieGames Navigates Twitch and Social Media
Luxie’s previous experience as a character performer, especially in Disney, has given her a unique skill set in regards to Twitch streaming. She’s also much more emotive and expressive than she was before she started working at Disney. When she worked at Disney, her favorite face character on a good day was Merida, but she also enjoyed her time as Pluto.
When we're trained at Disney, we're trained to do this weird interaction where we say, "Hey how are you?" and we bring them over. We don't ask them any questions, we tell them a story, and then we make them leave. And in a weird way, streaming is exactly that but for a long period of time where you just invite people in and, regardless of if you have questions, you're just supposed to entertain them with a long gaming story and then say goodbye to them. So it definitely taught me how to talk about absolutely nothing for hours at a time.
As a smaller streamer, Luxie always thought it was really cool when she’d see different communities have inside jokes, so it’s really rewarding for her that her community now has inside jokes. Being a streamer, especially during the last year and a half, it’s been nice for Luxie to be able to stream different games as an escape from the pandemic and get to connect with her community.
It's not Olive Garden, when we're here you're not my family, we're in a weird parasocial relationship, but it feels like they are, in a way. We get this crazy funny world we get to live in when we're streaming and it's nice that people escape their world to hang out with me, but I also escape my world to hang out with them.
Trolls and haters should be wary of trying anything with Luxie unless they want to end up being roasted like vegetables in an oven. She doesn’t let trolls bother her, and more than anything Luxie gets very defensive of those who want to try streaming because it’s so easy to be taken advantage of and people can be so cruel, especially with targeted harassment aimed at marginalized streamers. She’s also got excellent mods and tends to rationalize any hatred thrown her way by thinking about how sad the person on the other end of the comment must be.
Luxie loves being a streamer, but it can also be a very stressful job. For her, the most difficult part of being a streamer is finding a work-life balance and feeling accomplished as a streamer. She was lucky to get partnered on Twitch as quickly as she did, but being partnered also meant her big obtainable goal was now gone. It’s hard to know what to work towards next when the big goal is achieved.
What is my goal now, to have more people in stream? Better content? It's all of them, when you hit them you're like, “Great, keep going,” and you never have that plateau moment of success where you're like, “Yeah, I did it.”
What LuxieGames Does on Twitch
Being a variety streamer means Luxie fluctuates between a lot of different games, but she did say she’s enjoyed playing Subnautica: Below Zero and playing Raft with her friends because of how much chaos can ensue. Besides gaming, Luxie has also delved into the TTRPG world and participated in quite a few different campaigns with Tablestory. She’s even part of a Harry Potter “minus the J.K. Rowling trash” TTRPG. However, Luxie thinks it would be fun to do a traditional DnD campaign, as she’s never really gotten to participate in one of those.
Luxie can be found on Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram at LuxieGames. Viewers looking for a fun time will find it in Luxie’s streams. However, trolls beware because Luxie will not hold back, and anyone on the receiving end of her rebuttals probably should have considered what they said more carefully.