Laying Down the Law

"…I'll change the stream title first."

And with that, I took the title and cut the eve clean off it.

This was not how I had planned to end the eve. No—it was already over. I needed to stop thinking about it. Positive mindset. Positive mindset!!!

"Right. They say failure is the mother of success, don't they? I just have to take this as experience and make sure it never happens again next time! Imagine if I pulled a mistake like this during the one-million-subscriber special. How humiliating, how shameful, how pathetic, how small I'd feel! All I did was sacrifice the present for a glorious ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠future!"

My viewers, of course, were clearly hoping to wring a little more entertainment out of me. Unfortunately for them, I was not prepared to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠accept that.

"…Anyway, things got a little noisy, but we still hit a hundred thousand! And now that we've hit a hundred thousand, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the stream ends here… it does not! Because the hundred-thousand celebration content is ready and waiting."

Time to do what I'd come here to do.

"Seeing you all eat it up like that makes me pretty proud, too. So what's the content! The unwritten-rule segment every NewTuber has to do at least once! Q&A content!!!"

As I said it, I threw the slides I'd prepared ahead of time up on the screen.

"Well, of course there isn't. I never posted one."

How was anyone supposed to read a post that had never been written?

Insane? That was a little harsh.

There was a deep meaning to all of this!

"See, once you start doing Q&A, you get questions that blow way past the line, or questions that ice the whole mood over. I've watched it happen. And if I only pick the okay ones, then you've got a fairness problem, right? That part always bothered me."

But what if I never took questions at all?

"Then I'm not taking questions that wreck the vibe, and I'm not taking questions that violate fairness, either. The second it clicked, I went with it."

"It's fine, isn't it? A surprise Q&A! When have you ever seen one of these? The resistance you're feeling is only because it's your first time. Get used to it and it'll hit completely different. Right now you don't have the slightest idea what question is coming. The unknown is crouched right in front of you! Don't you feel your heart pounding?"

"Just take one bite! I'm telling you, there might not be a delicacy like this anywhere else?! Down the line it might taste so good you'll be going, 'Marchen, when are you doing another surprise Q&A?' I'm telling you!"

I clicked to the next slide as I said it, and the page explaining the segment went out over the broadcast.

"The basic rules are extremely simple! I predict the kinds of questions I think you'll be curious about, and then I answer the questions I predicted."

Whether the viewers were busy condemning me or not, I turned the slide with perfect composure and started reading the first question, drawn from the big data inside my own head.

"All right! Question one!"

"…That's the question that came in."

And just like that, the mood in chat flipped. See? I told them it tastes different once you actually try it, and nobody ever believes me.

"My answer to this question is… the bunny pyon-pyon, I don't know, maybe if I get blackout drunk again, but I have no plans to do it right now. The maid outfit, though—if I end up doing a maid-concept stream the way I did the nun-concept one, I think I could steel myself and wear it at least once. The concept stream got a good response, and I had fun doing it, too."

"Okay, next question! This one's a little more ordinary. I've been really enjoying the original song you put out this time! When you were doing Off the Record, you said you were thinking of posting covers too—are you going with denpa tracks again?"

Hmm. I had no idea who had asked it, but it scratched exactly the spot people would be curious about. A remarkably high-quality question. Surely the person who thought of something like this was considerate, well-read, mindful of others—someone simply overflowing with class?

I lavished that silent praise on the questioner without holding back, and then opened my mouth to answer.

"I haven't firmly decided what I'm going to sing…. If I do a cover, I feel like it might be something that's trending, but I also kind of want to bring in a masterpiece that only the people who know, know?"

Or I could run an anime-song ideal-type bracket and just cover whatever won. That method had the distinct advantage of being able to reflect viewer opinion, at least to some degree. It also came with the perk of a perfectly legal content-duplication bug.

The viewers, however, had locked onto the part about covering a trending song.

"No, I listen to popular songs all the time, okay? I don't know about anything else, but my anime-song taste is absolutely not at a level you can call a hipster pick. They're picks you people have heard at least once?! Hey—do you have any idea how many anime songs I've listened to, and you're out here doubting someone's taste!! Do you know the anime songs I've heard number in the thousands?! This isn't hipster taste, this is depth!! You want me to lay down the law?! For real, you want me to lay it down!?!!!"

…I got way too worked up.

Worked up enough that you could fairly say the Q&A had gone completely off the rails.

…But what was I supposed to do? Doubting my taste in anime songs? That was practically a challenge to my entire career as an otaku. Pile on a little exaggeration and it was no different from being told, You're an anime scrub, aren't you?

So I hadn't done anything wrong. Damn right I hadn't.

"Well, I think the important discussion is over, so shall we get back to the Q&A?"

"Question three! Congratulations in advance on hitting a hundred thousand subscribers! A thousand subs feels like just the other day, and you're already at a hundred thousand—what a feeling! Watching Marchen's NewTube, I always thought this person would hit a hundred thousand no matter what, and could even set their sights on a million. It feels like you showed and proved it in my place, and I'm the one who's proud!"

"Ahem. This question was extracted from big data! If we'd run a real Q&A, this exact question would absolutely have shown up! So I'm going to keep reading. There was, however, one thing I'd been curious about the whole time I watched the NewTube, and I'd like to use this chance to clear that question up. It's nothing other than——"