The Easiest Way to Win Over the Crowd
Opportunities like this don't come knocking every day.
For someone with such catastrophic gaming skills to be given a "gaming assignment"—this is truly a miracle that would shock the heavens. Shining Stars, are you surprised?
And it wasn't just any ordinary assignment, either. It was the release of a collaboration character: 'Fervent Follower, Lee Jia.'
It seems the game developers must have viewed my streaming persona very favorably.
Well, I suppose that makes sense.
Objectively speaking, Vtuber Lee Jia possesses a physique that is perfectly suited for Abnormal Hunters, a game overflowing with busty characters. Plus, having the unique trait of being a 'Fervent Follower' rather than a human—even I have to admit it makes for a decent fit as a game character.
If it had been any other Vtuber, they would have likely rejected the collaboration offer, no matter how good the terms were.
Abnormal Hunters is, of course, the most successful subculture game in the country, but... because the game's image itself leans into the absolute darkest of the dark, extreme male-oriented content, it would be a high-risk, low-reward collaboration for a Vtuber, whose image is everything.
If it were a corporate-backed Vtuber, the company would have rejected the proposal. And if it were an independent Vtuber who had already reached a certain level of success, they would have even more reason to decline.
Unless they were looking for momentum to grow their channel, why would someone who’s already made it take such a dangerous gamble?
Well, a small-time, "hako" Vtuber might have accepted it blindly without thinking, but unfortunately, those small-timers wouldn't have even received a collaboration offer in the first place.
In that sense.
As an independent Vtuber pretending to be corporate, and with the "cult leader" image that is the darkest of the dark—I am the perfect talent for this collaboration.
What do I have to lose?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The collaboration offer arrived right around the time I got my partner badge. I replied that I would do it without a second of hesitation.
No matter how I look at it, it’s a win-win collaboration where I have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Naturally, I also sought advice from the Awakened Association.
I am an Awakened. Not an officially announced one, but an unofficial one... yet, surprisingly, I am a "real" Awakened.
To protect the future of my channel and prevent social chaos, I haven't revealed my identity to the public... but now, I’m being released as a collaboration character in a game where I appear as an "Awakened"?
It was a sensitive matter that the Association could have strongly opposed.
So, I consulted with my handler, Kim Junghwan, for quite a long time. The result of that consultation was, "It might actually be better to go through with the collaboration."
There are no eternal secrets in this world.
I believe that one day, my identity will be revealed to the public. If I were to suddenly say out of the blue, "Actually, this isn't just an RP; I'm not human, and I'm an Awakened," the believers who watch my stream, as well as the general public, would feel immense confusion.
However.
What if I subtly plant the fact that I am an Awakened into people's minds now, through the medium of a "game"?
At the very least, it would be better than a sudden, out-of-the-blue coming out.
Furthermore, the Awakened Association's opinion was that revealing my identity subtly like this would actually make it much easier to keep it hidden.
For example, let's say someone writes a post on a community site with proper evidence claiming, "Lee Jia is an Awakened."
If I hadn't done the collaboration, the comment section would have exploded.
But if I have done the collaboration?
...I imagine comments like that would appear.
Well, I had a lot of complicated thoughts, but to be honest, the real reason I accepted the collaboration offer is...
Me, debuting as a character in a game? Honestly, how could I resist that?
After announcing the collaboration news, the chat window was paralyzed for a moment.
Why did the chat have to stop on that specific comment?
The reason the chat stopped was simple. Too many people had flocked in at once.
Current viewer count: 70,000.
That's seven times my average viewer count. I had achieved a new record for peak viewers, but it was hard to just be happy about it... because most of these viewers were likely users who play Abnormal Hunters. Since I was essentially doing an update preview on my stream, all the game's users had flocked here.
Even considering that, 70,000 was a massive number, which showed just how popular Abnormal Hunters really is.
After about five minutes, the chat window normalized again.
The chat had properly gone to hell. As expected.
I wasn't flustered at all. I've said it many times, but Vtuber streaming basically has a massive barrier to entry. Of course, there's an exception like Ayase, but that's only possible because her scale is ridiculously high. The reality is that there are still many people who look at Vtubers through tinted glasses.
Even in my case... although it's not an RP but the real deal, my public image is nothing more than a "Vtuber with a crazy concept." It's only natural that the game's core fans would dislike the news of a Vtuber collaboration.
But.
Once they see the in-game model of "Fervent Follower of the Shining Stars - Lee Jia," I'm sure even the core fans will love it. That's why I'm not worried at all.
I haven't seen the in-game model myself yet, only the illustrations...
Uh.
Yeah.
Well, they did make it quite... bountiful.
Anyway, the existing gamers' reactions weren't exactly favorable to me. It's like they were ready to spit insults at me the moment the in-game visuals looked bad. Honestly, I'm grateful they're reacting even this much.
Abnormal Hunters, the darkest of the dark games. And me, the cult-leading pseudo-religious leader. It's only because the darkness and the darkness intersected that it ended like this. If it were any other game, I would have been cursed at with genuine hatred by the existing users for collaborating with a "weeb Vtuber."
Well, the production team probably aimed for the intersection between the game's existing users and my stream in the first place when they offered me the collaboration.
Trolls in the chat started spamming endlessly, but I continued speaking without a care.
"I'll tell you the order of the broadcast. First, the stream will be live on the test client... and I'll be reviewing the new SSR character, the... uh... Fervent Follower of the Shining Stars, Lee Jia. I'll show you her skills, her skins, and even her in-game motions... Oh, and for your information, a professional voice actor recorded her lines, so you don't have to worry about that part."
My regular viewers expressed their disappointment, but the people presumed to be gamers cheered at the news that a professional voice actor had been hired. Right, how many game companies have been cursed at for entrusting dubbing to influencers?
Rather than recording it half-heartedly, it's a much more rational decision to entrust the acting to a professional.
"Now, now, this is an ad stream, so don't say weird things... I'm logging in right now!"
I don't need to give unnecessary TMI to people who aren't even interested in me. ...Or do I?
Still, it's a collaboration, so maybe I should explain a little bit about the subject of the collaboration so the existing users will like it.
A while ago, the guys at Lee Jia's Worship Place sent me a video.
To summarize the promotional video the Worship Place guys made in one word: it was a video that would likely get deleted rather than demonetized if uploaded to YouTube.
It was suggestive and violent. They had just plastered it with my half-cam videos and "The Price of Blasphemy" to make a total mad movie.
I'm not crazy, and I had made up my mind never to do something as foolish as releasing a collection of my own dark history, but looking at the negative reactions from the core gamers...
...Just like the Worship Place guy said, it seems like I might have to play the video to turn the public sentiment around.
Oh, whatever. It's an ad stream. I have to do my best.
Just play it. Play it and think later.
...
...
...
...It actually worked.