Never Doubt It

The Parallel (VTuber) Gallery was in full swing with its usual chaos.

The Parallel (VTuber) Gallery was once again buzzing.

Didn't you feel anything when you saw the gallery owner singing a slow ballad? I got major bad vibes. Anyone who's watched Fantasia knows Mazia is a hardcore VTuber addict. But she completely ignored all the original songs and covers the other VTubers do and went straight for trot. It's obvious that's her favorite genre. And (smirk.gif) (smirk1.gif) the way she kept trolling the whole time she was singing made it crystal clear. Mazia just doesn't want to sing the songs you guys actually want to hear lol. From the very beginning, she never had any intention of getting our attention. She's a corporate employee, so she's telling you not to treat her like a regular VTuber. Yep.

The Parallel (VTuber) Gallery was still going strong.

Mazia had sung trot without thinking much of it, but there was one fact she hadn't been conscious of. In the Mat-at Daehoe, she had been crowned MVP and put on an incredible performance. If she hadn't done that post-tournament after-party stream, maybe it would've been different. But she went on there and sang. No matter how you looked at it, even if it was trot, that was unmistakably the behavior of a VTuber.

Out of the 250,000 people who watched the tournament finals, the percentage who were Parallel fans? Less than thirty percent. As waves of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clueless new viewers flooded in, the original Parallel fans who had been watching the agency's streams together started getting outnumbered. Naturally, the community was flooded with the same stupid questions and answers over and over.

Wasn't it an office worker RP? It's not an RP! Oh, so it's not an office worker concept streamer? I said it's not! She really is an office worker! People found this exchange so entertaining that it turned into an actual template used specifically to harass the armband-wearing old-timers. Once those back-and-forths got screenshotted, remade, and spread across the community…

Just one day after Mazia sang trot, the viewer count for the staff room stream had nearly doubled. Most of the new viewers were clueless wanderers who had come after seeing her trot clip. The result was collective behavior that looked like one person spamming the chat.

In a way, it was proof that the topic of Mazia's singing ability had become the main piece of bait rolling around Parallel-related communities. But there was no special response. Mazia was busy doing her usual work, cycling through the Parallel members' channels on the main screen.

"There seem to be a lot of people who haven't read the chat rules today."

Back when she was an active manager, Mazia had developed the skill of watching the boss's stream with one eye while hunting for troublemakers with the other, because she didn't want to miss a single second of Momo's broadcast. With Gong Seung-yeon's support from the office added in, it took less than ten minutes for the chat to stabilize. A fair number of people got banned, though. In internet streaming, if you don't follow the broadcast rules, you have no right to complain when the streamer cuts your head off.

"Today I'll have Dora on the main screen. It's auction day, after all."

People who knew exactly where the line was—like Mazia back in her vicious days—were still plentiful. Banning them would be awkward, but so would leaving them alone.

—Please read the chat—

—Is anyone here—

—Gurgle—

—I want to hear anything!! Sing whatever!!—

—Mazia is ignoring us T_T—

—Does this person not look at chat at all??—

As mentioned earlier, Mazia, a former vicious troublemaker herself, knew exactly what these people were thinking. Unlike the ones spamming for her to sing, these types would go quiet if they realized it wasn't working and simply wait for the next opportunity. If she just maintained her usual broadcasting stance of talking about the members and interacting with the chat, they would settle down on their own.

"She'll probably get rejected."

"I think I need to tell Komari to rest her throat for a while. She was screaming her head off."

"I guess Dora's gotten so used to Komari's screaming that it sounds like a lullaby now."

—Makes sense she'd get used to it—

—If I heard it for a whole week it'd sound like a lullaby too lol—

—Unnie! Unnie! Unnie! Unnie! Fuck!—

Especially when it came to topics about the members, she would respond even to one-thousand-cloud donations. The people in the know had long since been happily chatting with Mazia through those cheap donations. Of course, some viewers who still hadn't given up used more clever methods to try to steer Mazia into talking about singing.

"Cover songs aren't confirmed until they're uploaded to YouTube, so we can't give you a definite answer either."

"I like The Curtain Falls and Rises Again. Not the cover version, but the one she sang while crying during the live stream."

—What a vicious troll lol—

—She picked the most evil one lol—

—But isn't she right though?—

—I'm a Dongle and I fully admit it—

—Anyone complaining about this isn't a real Dongle lol—

But tricks like this only worked on people who could be tricked. Mazia had seen this tactic used countless times on Momo's stream. She ignored it completely, sharp as a knife. The funny thing was that if someone threw out a genuinely funny idea in the middle of all this, Mazia would snatch it up immediately.

"I'm not sure about that. I'll ask the boss."

She usually preferred to wait for content from a fan's perspective, so she normally just asked Momo instead of going all the way to the planning team to check. Besides, she was still a bit awkward with Marketing Team Leader Ra Seung-hyun.

Still, since the thought had come up, she sent Momo a quick message on DingTalk and waited. The reply came back surprisingly fast.

This Lunar New Year was a golden five-day weekend thanks to the substitute holiday on Wednesday, giving them Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off in a row. When holidays are long, people want to relax comfortably and naturally start looking for things to watch. The schedule seemed perfectly designed to target people lying down or sitting back lazily while watching internet streams. The Parallel planning team was really working hard.

But at the same time, another thought occurred to her. Since it was the last day of the holiday, wouldn't quite a few people be too busy with family gatherings and end up forgetting? If they held a small event the day before to remind everyone, it might help boost the turnout for the main event, even if only a little.

'The aggro is already more than enough…'

She didn't completely understand why people wanted to hear her sing, but as always, Mazia was excellent at making use of the attention that poured in.

"Everyone, how about we do a karaoke stream on the official channel during the Lunar New Year holiday?"

—?

—Huh?

—What—

—??

—For real?

—No way??

—Seriously?

The chat that had been heating up fiercely cooled down again after just a few donations.

—Wow I almost fell for it—

—Never doubt it—

—God this evil woman—

(The chat bot has detected inappropriate language)

—Absolutely never doubt it—

Watching the chat window filled with resentment, the corners of her mouth couldn't help but twitch upward. They said they didn't believe her, but just looking at how fast the messages were pouring in showed how honest their bodies were. She immediately contacted the boss.

When a streamer plays a finished cover or original song video in the background and sings along live, it's called an Illegal Duet. It's not about going to a recording studio together to complete one song. The name comes from the fact that they're just singing together however they want. What she wanted to do was a viewer-participation Illegal Duet karaoke session. The goal was to gather bored Parallel viewers during the Lunar New Year holiday and create an atmosphere like everyone had gone to karaoke together with the members.

However, there were conditions. Participants had to thoroughly hide their identities and join as 'anonymous.' This was to prevent certain viewers from becoming too famous and to allow her to secretly join in herself.

Wouldn't it be fine to just sing with your regular nickname? That would be boring.

The boss's reaction was extremely positive. She didn't seem to think about it for long before quickly making the final decision.

It took a while for the next message to arrive.

She had mentioned it yesterday. If the members sang in an official setting, it could diminish the value of their songs. But that was only when they weren't fully practiced. Because official content carried weight, she wanted to show it only after the imitation was completely polished. Even the rapid-fire rap she'd shown during Find the Rain had been practiced for days to achieve perfect imitation.

Anyway, that was the end of the discussion. She relayed some of the organized details to the viewers.

"I talked with the boss, and she said it's fine to do it. I'll let you know once it's confirmed."

—Hmm…

—Hmm…

—Hmm

"You don't have to believe me, but please check the notice on Z regularly. If you complain later that you didn't see the announcement, I won't take responsibility."

People who thought it was going to be a solo karaoke session with just the members might be disappointed. But she was still going to sing at least one song herself. Wasn't that enough?

"No, I'm going to sing the members' songs."

—Riiight—

—Sure sure—

—We'll believe you

Even though she had conveyed her sincerity, the viewers' suspicion didn't fade easily. Maybe that was why donations like this started coming in.

"If you don't donate, can I ban you for the whole day?"

She thought mentioning a ban would make them back down, but boy was she wrong.

—What the hell, should I bet too lol—

—These are some crazy gamblers—

—Geniuses of investment, holy crap—

The number of people saying they would voluntarily accept a ban if they didn't donate kept increasing. …What was this, a bunch of donation angels?