I Won't Stand for It

A skilled player hiding her true rank.

Or a complete trash noob with nothing to show for it.

Of course it was the latter — but did I really need to explain that?

If I honestly admitted I was such a scrub that even a practice AI could beat me, the reaction would be something to see. And thankfully, they were already leaping to their own conclusions for me.

Being fully honest about everything isn't always a good idea. You shouldn't make false statements, of course — but when you're building a defense, not volunteering unnecessary facts that only widen the issues is a valid strategy. Silence can make for a perfectly serviceable argument.

"I already showed you my tier. Happy now?"

Tsk... Just let it go already.

"I already did commentary today and showed you content."

Ugh. I really didn't want to pull this card — it felt gross — but...

"J-Jinyeong is... she's so tired..."

The effect was devastating. Chat accelerated in an instant, and the faction demanding the truth about my tier was swept far downstream. A stubborn few refused to fold, but the masses were already on my side.

Being in a woman's body made it a little awkward to say out loud, but... I was pretty on the cute side. I never had much occasion to meet people, so it was a subjective call — though in my past life my standards had been fairly high.

Plenty of matchmaking offers had come my way; work had kept me from thinking about marriage, and my ideals for a partner had been set almost unrealistically high. For someone like that to look at this face and think beautiful said something.

And then there was this voice. An absurdly pretty voice. Whenever I couldn't sleep, I used to put on those sleep ASMRs floating around the web.

Soft-spoken book readings, mostly—and a lot of those voices were genuinely excellent. The first time I heard a recording of my own voice, I'd been stunned. It could chew up most ASMRs and spit them out.

Wait — was that too narrow a metaphor?

Anyway. The man I used to be had never wanted to sell something like this as a selling point, but...

...it was too big a talent to let rot.

"I haven't gone anywhere."

"Thank you for understanding."

Friend list: zero.

If my parents had played LOK, I might have added the two of them, at least?

"People can have no friends. Do you guys have a lot?"

The moment I went public with my ID, a flood of friend requests started pouring in in real time. I'd expected that.

Sorry, but we can't be friends.

I answered every last one with the reject button.

"I reject all friend requests by default. Bear with me."

Fine. Keep trying until I hit accept by accident someday.

While I bantered back and forth with the viewers, strange messages suddenly started appearing in chat.

What now? I'd barely gotten things settled.

What was this? Viewer count ballooning again. Roughly a thousand people piled in within moments.

Vtuber Love Gallery? Ah — they'd been throwing around gallery names before. One of those communities, then.

I clicked the link they were waving around and checked it.

Author: anonymous.

"What is this?"

Scrolling down through the post, I found it was about the CCTV segment I'd run today. The author's game nickname and personal details were all blacked out. My Vtuber avatar and name, though? Left right out in the open.

Even a quick look at the content was enough to tell me who'd written it.

Benzopyrene.

I almost said his nickname out loud, then shut my mouth again. This was still only a guess. He'd blacked out every scrap of personal information, so even if the content pointed to a specific person, it was hard to treat it as proof that the party himself had written it. If I named Benzopyrene mid-stream and things blew up, I'd only be handing him unnecessary openings.

Ha. You little shit. I'm still above you, buddy.

"It's hard to confirm who wrote this."

"Looking similar and confirming it's the same person are two different things."

I read the post again, carefully.

"That said, the incident described in the post is extremely similar to the submission we covered on stream just now — that much is true."

"Ah-ah. Tsk. Don't identify anyone based on unclear facts."

Chat was overheating. Time to cool it down once.

"Please refrain from guessing who the author is in chat."

"I'm not protecting him — I'm holding a line."

"If a post is wrong, you rebut it with its content. You don't need to track down the author and attack them."

But these people pouring in from Vtuber Love Gallery... were they this angry just from reading that post? If all you read was Benzopyrene's carefully arranged version, then sure — I looked like a complete bitch. If they kept this up after watching the full video, there was nothing to be done, but it felt like a situation that could be resolved fairly simply.

"Everyone, please calm down first."

"I understand that people who only saw that post could come away with a misunderstanding."

"It's hard to confirm whether the author is actually the original submitter. It's also possible someone crafted the content to make themselves look like the submitter."

"However — the submitter of that footage asked me to review the video and give my opinion, and I received consent for broadcast. That part is clear."

"I said upfront that donations and judgments are separate."

"I also explained the full basis for my judgment, along with the submitted footage."

All that remained was to show the full uncut stream.

"For anyone who missed the earlier broadcast, I'll show the original footage."

Once.

Twice.

I repeated the same explanation. As they watched the footage and heard the reasoning, most of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠new arrivals watched their anger cool into something closer to doubt.

The truth always finds a way through.

But a portion of them had no interest in the facts at all. People who just enjoyed the chaos. No matter what explanation I offered, the response came back rough.

Ha. These fuckers were crossing the line.

A sudden ache flickered in my side. Of course the odds of them actually digging up my personal information were near zero. They'd just swarm some random person and cause a mountain of collateral damage.

And the parents who'd raised me in this life were wonderful people — the kind who'd advanced funds for expensive streaming gear to a daughter who never left her studio apartment (I hadn't told them it was for streaming equipment, of course), and who still sent meal money without fail.

It wasn't fear. It was that my mood had gone completely to shit.

I pulled the mic closer.

"From this point forward, I will sue every single person who crosses the line with defamation."

"Understood."

I hit a hotkey on the streaming software.

Click.

The virtual model on screen froze. Killing the tracking mid-motion left her expression and mouth shape a little uncanny — pupils contracted, staring straight ahead, locked in a smile.

And above the character's head, I typed out red text and put it on display.

Viewers who'd been hurling crude abuse mere seconds earlier vanished into the flood of chat. Too late. You said to go ahead, didn't you?

I can do this with my eyes closed, you bastards.

"I've got the chat logs saved."

Livepia — one of Korea's top three personal streaming platforms. This god-tier platform had a feature that let you batch-save chat from a given time window. What was left? Just the work of picking them out, one by one.

Whenever the chat atmosphere turned weird, I always saved the logs. You never know how the world works. Evidence preservation matters that much.

Sorry to the viewers who were just watching the stream — hang on a moment.

Hmm... they were entertaining themselves better than I expected. Truly grateful people.

Alright then. Attach the saved chat history, then filter the malicious messages... MyPT, handle it.

I wasn't particularly fond of AI, but the fact that work that once would have eaten manpower and hours could now be finished with a single click... I had to admit the convenience.

Time required to sift through roughly ten thousand viewers' chats: MyPT thought for 3m2s — a mere three minutes!

Alright. Let's begin.

"Accounts that, up to this point, have participated in malicious defamation, family insults, and personal-information-leak threats."

I put the number up on one side of the screen.

I attached the neatly documented file MyPT had prepared, wrote up the report contents, and sent it to Livepia's customer inquiry email.

"I've reported all malicious chat to Livepia."

"I sent them the chat content exactly as written, so Livepia can make their own judgment."

"If nothing happens, consider yourselves lucky. If you receive something, just take it as it comes."

A sip of water...

"Ahem. I said 'lawsuit,' but I haven't actually filed yet. For accounts that escalate into real doxxing or threats, I will pursue legal action as needed."

"If I decide to, I can start the lawsuit process immediately — so please refrain from statements that cross the line."

"And don't try to track down who wrote that anonymous post."

I gave my existing viewers a warning as well.

"Don't mention the game nickname of whoever you think the submitter is, and don't go hunting down accounts to send abuse."

"If the other side did wrong and you do the same, you both become perpetrators."

"I will only rebut the content of the post with facts."

"I'll say it again — who the author is does not matter."

I just didn't say it out loud. People who already know, already know.

"I'll be uploading the content video soon as well, so I'd appreciate it if both new arrivals and existing viewers would take a look."

"If anyone has something to say after watching... you know, right? Business email."

"Fact-based discussion is always welcome."

Haa... What time was it?

Whaaat?! How long had I been streaming? My work-life balance was completely wrecked.

Being a Vtuber really wasn't something just anyone could do.

So damn exhausting... too much had happened today...

"Huh?"

Benzopyrene stared at his monitor, unable to hide his shock.

He'd logged into the community grinning, ready to check the real-time sympathy comments racking up under the post he'd seeded. Instead, the comments criticizing Cha Jinyeong were gone — and the entire tone of the replies had flipped completely.

"That's not true!!!"

It was so unfair. Cha Jinyeong had absolutely humiliated him in front of thousands of people. She could have softened it a little. She could have wrapped it up by saying both sides were at fault. Instead she'd gone out of her way to nail him as the one in the wrong.

"Fuck, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she's the one who started this!!"

Posting that thread had been a legitimate protest. Omitting a few details wasn't a big deal. Try being in my position for once, okay?

That was Benzopyrene's rationalization.

But public opinion had long since turned, and comments kept piling onto the post. Whispers were flooding into his LOK account as well. Cha Jinyeong had preserved his anonymity — careful not to leave any openings even while he was sniping her — and yet users who already knew his nickname were bombarding him with endless friend requests.

"Fucking bastards."

At first he answered them one by one with insults, but the numbers kept growing. The community post was still on fire. People digging up his past match history. People posting screenshots of his in-game chat logs. Even a former duo partner showed up claiming Benzopyrene had deliberately thrown games so his team would lose.

"It's... it's all your fault..."

He still couldn't admit his own mistakes. But if he held out like this, even more information was going to surface.

Not long after, Benzopyrene's LOK account became unsearchable, and the community post was quietly deleted as if it had never existed.

Fwooomph.

"Haaaaah..."

After the stream ended, I collapsed straight onto the bed and buried myself in it, thinking.

"I need a manager."

It was a problem I couldn't put off any longer.