Fan Art Crackdown

Nothing particularly special happened after that. I retook the one-star mission I'd failed, then rode the momentum straight through the two-star and three-star ones as well.

Honestly, none of it was all that hard. Aside from the kind of failure I'd made at the very start — the kind that comes from not telling friend from foe — nothing out there could stop me.

According to the viewers, the five-star missions were supposed to be genuinely difficult, and I'd been ready to give those a shot too. Unfortunately, Ririyang said she had to head out for the day, so I called it there.

I could have kept going solo, sure, but once the person you'd been playing with peels off, the air kind of goes out of it. The battery on the VR headset I was wearing was also getting uncomfortably close to empty in more ways than one.

I left a note that I'd play again sometime — no idea when — and quit the game.

And so, roughly five hours into the stream: Ririyang had left, and I'd already gotten my gaming in for the day. The sky had gone dark, and I was just about to start wrapping things up.

I hadn't even gotten the first syllable of "ending stream" out of my mouth, and a viewer had already sniffed it out with supernatural precision and dropped a massive donation.

The amount alone was one thing — the timing was so perfect it felt like my innermost thoughts had been completely exposed.

"Ahem… should I?"

"Don't compare me to other streams… but don't I go live often enough already? I've streamed more than five times just this week."

The moment I muttered something about maybe going back to my roots and only streaming three times a week, the chat window suddenly accelerated.

"Anyway, I'll stick around a little longer. I'm not tired or anything. In the meantime… maybe I'll check out the café."

The fan café was doing its job faithfully.

I'd set it up with fairly loose restrictions so pretty much anyone could post, and with the membership numbers being what they were, the board was regenerating posts at a serious clip. Whether I was live or not, it was a nice place to kill time when I had nothing particular to do.

I clicked on a post with a title that caught my eye.

"AI, huh…."

Below the post, a whole stretch of academic write-ups and news articles had been neatly compiled.

I'd heard for years that AI technology was advancing at a rapid clip. Recently there'd even been AI programs that learned in real time and could hold conversations with people.

I knew the broad strokes, but this was the first time I'd seen anything analyzed this thoroughly, and there was a fair amount I found genuinely interesting.

"Yeah, AI art has gotten so good lately… it's hard to even tell it apart from hand-drawn work."

It had been about three months since I'd started streaming. The fan art I'd received for the first time back then was now pouring in on a daily basis — so much of it I could barely keep count.

Beyond just the viewership climbing and the audience growing, the advances in AI technology had to be part of the reason.

Unlike before, even without any real artistic talent, as long as you could operate a program a little you could feed it a decent prompt and knock out a finished piece in no time.

"Speaking of which, want to check out the fan art board? If anyone wants to post fan art, this is where you upload it."

The fan art board I'd set up alongside the café just a couple days ago.

Like weeds that spring right back the moment you turn around, the board — which I hadn't visited in about three days — was already overflowing with new pieces.

That said, the fan art coming in was all a little on the steamy side.

For some reason, every single piece of fan art that came my way was like this. Part of it was that Camilla as a hero already had a perfect face and figure to begin with — but things had really peaked once my real appearance went public.

After that, the line between fan art of streamer Kayak and fan art of Abyss hero Camilla had completely vanished. If anything, the pieces that claimed to represent both only kept multiplying.

The real problem, if you could call it one, was that none of it seemed particularly malicious. I wasn't exactly in a foul mood about it either, so cracking down felt awkward. A little embarrassing, sure — but as long as it didn't cross a hard line, my default policy was to just let it slide. I also knew that fan art ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and drawings like this tended to lean a bit revealing by nature.

"Okay, but this one's a little much, isn't it…?"

I was carefully looking through the fan art when I startled and scrolled back up in a hurry — the thought that if this stayed on screen I might get banned myself.

"You've got her completely, completely stripped bare. Yeah, uh… you should at least put something on her that qualifies as clothes."

"No matter what, this is way too much. Go cool your head. One-week ban."

I deleted the post and handed the uploader a one-week activity suspension. It was the first penalty I'd issued since opening the café.

I'd put up a rule that said please don't post anything too explicit or too violent — anything that even you, looking at it yourself, would think is a bad idea — but apparently that had been hard to follow.

I was starting to feel like I'd been too lax and hands-off with the moderation, and as I ran into another piece of similar intensity, I found myself wondering how exactly I was supposed to manage this board.

"That's a good idea."

My viewers weren't the type to ignore instructions, generally speaking. This had only happened because there hadn't been a clear standard ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the first place.

In the end, all I needed to do was step in myself and show them — draw the fan art about this far — and set a reference point.

"Hmm… looks like the person who made this really likes armpits. There's no real reason her arms need to be up like that. Spiciness aside, the pose feels way too deliberate — like they're going out of their way for it — and that kind of kills it for me. If you want to show the armpits, it'd work better if you set a pose where she's tying her hair up or something."

Right — that last one hadn't been a crackdown so much as pure art appreciation. At that level, I could look at it without any discomfort and just think, yeah, that's pretty.

"Please draw around the spiciness level of that last person's piece. That feels about right."

I went through a few more fan art pieces after that, leaving comments as I went. The ones that felt excessive I deleted; for a few others I asked for adjustments.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, a question came in.

The underground. The underground, huh.

It wasn't something I hadn't seen coming at all. Back when I was still active, I'd already looked up dozens of Camilla-related pieces myself — and now that Abyss had become a god-tier game, I didn't even need to look to know how things stood.

The answer to that one was already decided.

"I don't think I can stop that. For one thing, it's not even clear whether it's fan art of me. I'll just stick to cracking down on what gets posted in my fan café."

Even back in the days when insulting the king would get your head cut off, people still cursed the king anywhere the king wasn't. There was no way I could control everything.

As long as it didn't wander into my field ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of vision, I planned to leave it alone. If I didn't go looking for it myself, I'd never run into it anyway.