"Buying things is fun! You get to pick which thing is best out of all the things and make plans for it and then it's almost never quite that nice actually having it."

'I think I like different things about it, or else I wouldn't like letting people buy their own presents.

Buying things means I can get things, because of who I am and what I do, instead of because someone gives them to me because I am in his collection and neatly organized.'

"- huh. I guess that's also a nice thing about it, though I think most people get pretty nervous that one day who they are and what they do won't be enough to get the things they need."

Nod nod.  'I set up an Easy Toast fund today.'

"Yeah, that's smart."

'If I ever need it I will probably not like buying things in the same way.  It doesn't seem like many humans would have reason to like buying things the same way I do, because even if they are new to having money, they aren't new to buying things at all?'

"Yeah, people start buying things at least occasionally younger than Sesh."

'What other sort of things do people mostly buy?  Food of course.'

"Clothes, games, art supplies?"

'I should get more of those!  Except the animal game is enough game for me now I think.'

"The one Sesh plays? I never saw the appeal personally but I'm glad you're having fun."

'Yes.'

"You'll probably want to try lots of kinds, there's a ton of variety in computer games and you're new to all of them."

'What do you like?'

"I like roleplaying games, ones with lots of complicated dialogue trees."

'What do those words mean?'

"Uh - do you want me to just show you?"

'Okay.'

Leivara produces her device, finds a convenient arrangement for the two of them to sit in, and loads her save of something called "Star Prince*". She controls a character, dressed in a fancy sunset-colors robe with a pointy hat, and directs the character through the fantasy landscape - it looks like it's night, and everything except her clothes is jewel-toned or black, spangled with constellations of white flecks or stars or diamonds or nebula patterns or in a few cases gas-giant-like swirls. It's a sidescroller. She approaches a green-and-purple-and-black creaturepersonthing with starry freckles across its face and a fluffy comet tail, and proceeds through a dialogue tree, answering the NPC's questions with options from a menu and asking her own:

- "You're back early. Did you get all the way to the Vault?"
- "Not yet. I think I might need to run some other errands first."
- "Oh, for who?"
- "For Giond, have you met?"
- "No... I saw her perform once, but from afar..."
- "Maybe one day I'll introduce you."
- "That would be a great favor... but it won't get you out of going to the Vault."

Then the conversation is over.

* This word is gender-neutral; a more literal translation might be "Star Heir" or "Heir to the Stars".

'It's pretty!'

"Yeah! Not all RPGs go hard on the graphics but this one does. So the roleplaying part is that I'm playing this character, and I can make some choices about her personality though I'm limited to what the game developers give me to work with, in the menus for the dialogue like you just saw." She saves the game and quits.

'What other sorts of games are there?'

"Oh, there's task management games, where you're running a restaurant or managing a garden or something like that and have to allocate your time among all the things you need to do; some of those also have limited resources like, uh, cheese or seeds or whatever, I don't really play them, and you have to get those resources by playing the game well. There's puzzle games, a little niche, and there's stimmy games which are like puzzle games but not too hard so you can do them kind of continually and mindlessly if you just need something for your hands and eyes to do. There are games where you mostly just explore and you collect things or take pictures or tame animals in all the locations. There are games that are practically just art mediums by themselves where you build virtual houses or whatever. There are games where you race other players or fight them. There are games where you try to do something at just the right time, usually to music."

'It seems like maybe I only can play one game for now because I am already a task management life and my harp is already a stimmy thing.'

"Ha! Well, nobody's going to stop you from only playing one game for now."