Booth Experience
"Anyway, I kept the roulette punishment. I cosplayed and came to G-STAR. Doesn't this count? You want me to do it over because it's not cosplay? Yeah, no. This is cosplay."
After going back and forth with her viewers for a while, arguing about what counted as cosplay, Nikang glanced our way and mouthed something. Roughly translated: Can you come on stream right now?
We'd already talked it all through beforehand. When Nikang went live, we'd show our faces on her stream too.
She'd said she'd split the donations that came in exactly half with me and Ririyang. When I asked why half instead of a third, she said she was the one who'd dragged us into cosplaying, so pocketing any of the money herself would leave her conscience too guilty.
Honestly, I'd kind of wanted to try it at least once, and she'd prepared the outfits and wigs and everything for us — if anything, I was the one feeling guilty. But Nikang's face was so stubborn about it that I let it go. There's only so many times you can refuse free money before it gets weird.
Ririyang, after we'd finished talking stream logistics, had already posted a notice on the train telling her viewers that if they wanted to see her, they should head over to Nikang's stream.
I didn't post anything. Not because I was lazy — a surprise is just more fun.
Stuff like this is best when you give zero warning and drop in out of nowhere. Ambush is the current meta anyway. Ambush protests, ambush worship, that whole vibe.
It wasn't like I'd given them nothing at all. I'd mentioned on my own stream that I was going to G-STAR, so the sharper viewers would either already be at the venue or hopping between streams until they landed on Nikang's. Lately my viewer count had ballooned enough that even when I showed up on someone else's stream, they found me pretty fast.
"Anyway, it's G-STAR. I was genuinely planning to just rest at home and stream this year, but then the roulette hit me… Am I here alone, you ask? Heheh. I've been waiting for that exact question. Of course I came with someone. Have you ever seen me go anywhere alone?"
Nikang's stream seemed just as freewheeling as mine — maybe even freer. There was basically no line between streamer and viewers. It hadn't been this bad last time I'd watched; things had clearly escalated since then.
After more back-and-forth with chat, Nikang gave the signal, and Ririyang — who'd been waiting — stepped into frame.
"Special guest Ririyang!"
"Hi hi. Hello everyone, I'm streamer Ririyang~."
Nikang's room currently had about three thousand viewers. For a time slot that wasn't even lunch yet, that was a solid number.
Those three thousand packed-in viewers erupted into excited chat the moment Ririyang appeared.
The chat window was going haywire, and scanning through it message by message made one thing clear: most of it was pure praise for Ririyang. The kind that elevated her by comparing her to the stream host, Nikang.
Sure, the room's baseline culture was roasting the host as banter — but half of it was probably sincere. Ririyang's outfit did have a bit of skin showing, after all. Put bluntly, the viewers preferred Ririyang's cosplay.
Theodora was a classic holy knight hero who used divine power along with a sword and shield. So Ririyang was wearing armor, with a long prop sword hanging at her hip.
Looking at it that way, there shouldn't have been any room for exposure at all. Armor is armor — its whole point is covering every vulnerable spot.
But Abyss was a game that casually ignored that kind of common sense. The game itself was pretty shameless about it. Just looking at the hero illustrations, you couldn't help thinking it was a male-oriented weeb game.
The recently released Snow Queen Camilla alone made that obvious. It had toned things down somewhat after becoming a god-tier game and going mainstream, but the fundamentals hadn't changed.
Which was why Theodora — a holy knight concept — wore armor full of strategic gaps.
The chest plate was roomy enough that the upper part of her chest naturally showed, and under the skirt she wore stockings that went up to the knee. It was less traditional holy knight and more warrior woman — a valkyrie look, basically.
Some holy-knight-loving players would protest to Ionix that this wasn't a real holy knight, but the overwhelming majority of players loved Theodora exactly like this, so it stayed.
"Ahaha, thank you everyone. Yes. Today I'll be walking around G-STAR with Nikang and streaming."
"I'm a little hurt, chat. I styled Ririyang and everything. Why the cold shoulder only for me…."
Around the time Ririyang finished showing off her cosplay and wrapping up her greeting, Nikang shot a quick glance my way as a signal, then kept talking.
"Actually, there's one more person who came with us besides Ririyang. Who could it be, everyone?"
With an expectant look on her face, Nikang gestured — and I immediately leaned into the camera.
"Hello, I'm streamer Kayak. Nikang asked me to cosplay with her, so here I am."
Honestly, the reaction caught me off guard. My cosplay had about as little exposure as Nikang's — basically zero skin showing. The only visible parts were my neck and a sliver of collarbone.
And yet the response was positive enough that I was a little surprised. Donations were pouring in with praise about how nice and pretty it looked. I'd fully expected them to start demanding Snow Queen Camilla on the spot.
Of course a few of those types existed, but the overall mood leaned friendly. Had I been thinking of my viewers too one-dimensionally? Or was it just because this was Nikang's stream?
"I'm so glad Kayak cosplayed with us. Otherwise I would've come alone and lonely in cosplay. Ririyang came because Kayak invited her too."
As Nikang said that, Ririyang made a V-sign with her fingers beside me. The chat, already warm toward me, got even warmer. Comments about how major streamers were just different, how unlike the host I didn't half-ass it — praise so secondhand-embarrassing that I turned my head slightly away.
"So what do we do now?"
We'd gone live and done a quick intro without moving yet, just standing by.
So when I asked Nikang something along the lines of now what?, she pointed ahead and spoke.
"Want to walk the booths and try whatever looks fun? We'll take turns filming. Honestly I only went live to keep the roulette promise, so I could end it right now — but people probably want to see us, so let's wander a bit more before we cut."
Chat immediately started praising Nikang, and she basked in it looking very pleased with herself. Whether she'd planned it or not, excellent crowd control.
"Want to check that out? Looks like they're running some kind of event?"
That was when Ririyang pointed ahead, and we followed her gaze.
She wasn't wrong about the event. A man and a woman who looked like hosts stood in the center, both holding mics and talking about various things, while a screen above showed gameplay footage of users playing.
"FPS?"
People running around with assault rifles made the genre easy enough to figure out.
Watching them blast away freely made me want to try it at least once. I was a gamer, after all.
"Want me to film you two? You go first?"
"What about you, Nikang?"
"If the screen spins around too much I get motion sick, so I'll just watch from here."
Since we were already here, I was leaning toward trying it myself, and Ririyang felt the same.
From what the hosts were saying, the previous game looked about to wrap up.
Leaving the stream with Nikang, Ririyang and I started walking toward the booth.