I Became One with Raider!!
I'd originally meant to sit on the New Outfit content a little longer. Sometime around when the weather turned crisp—that was the plan. I'd roll it out once, with the feeling of getting ready for winter, and if it happened to overlap with four hundred thousand subscribers, or five hundred thousand, I'd even pictured folding a commemorative broadcast into the same stream.
Honestly, a short-sleeve tee and track shorts in the dead of winter feels like it spits in the face of the season, doesn't it? As one gamer among many who looks forward to swimsuit skins in summer and Santa skins in winter, seasonal atmosphere was a serious matter.
But word about Loe had gotten out, and right now everyone's attention was piled into a single place. I had to steer the eyes fixed on me all the way into YouTube subscriptions. And when it comes to steering subscriptions, nothing works like content that's wickedly sharp and flat-out insane.
From the instant I declared to my manager that I'd be streaming on Thursday, I racked my brain trying to squeeze out something wickedly sharp—and ended up hauling forward content I'd meant to save for later. Once you're wrung out into a dry rag and not one more idea will come no matter how hard you squeeze, a person has no choice but to make that kind of call.
And now, with my own two eyes, I could see that the call had been the right one.
Whether the New Outfit content had pricked people's curiosity or not, the viewer count I'd thought had already peaked the moment the stream began showed no sign of dropping, even with restrictions clamped down on the chat. If anything, it kept climbing, steady and relentless. The Märchen YouTube subscriber count I'd floated on one side of the broadcast was rising at a pretty brisk clip too, as if it were synced to the viewer count.
At this rate I'd clear three hundred thousand subscribers before I ended the stream, no question. Thankfully, at least.
…Then again, a little time had passed since the broadcast started. Surely the nastiest trolls had all dropped off by now? In that case, maybe I could ease the chat restrictions a little. Just for a day. Gently….
"…Whoa."
ASCII art. Immediately.
I restored the restriction I'd just lowered.
"…Fine. Let's see who wins!"
Lifting the chat restrictions could wait for next time. For now, I had a stream to run.
"This custom-ordered T-shirt I'm wearing has, auspiciously enough, established itself as a trademark symbolizing the streamer known as Märchen."
I said it while giving the collar of the shirt I had on a light tug—the collar of a custom-ordered tee that felt all too familiar by now.
But I always had to remember: stagnant water rots. Not losing your beginner's heart matters. Chasing innovation and novelty, though, matters every bit as much.
"That's right. This New Outfit production segment is content for forging a new trademark—one that symbolizes the innovation and the novelty of Märchen's stream…!"
Ah. Was I not kind of cool just now?
…Or not?
First I had to swat down that donation—written as an inner-thoughts translation, read as a smear.
"Hey now, quit the slander! My love for Raider is as strong as ever! Hold on…."
With that I stepped out of the broadcast booth and sprinted to my room, then came back carrying the custom-ordered zip-up hoodie that was mine.
"Behold! Even after seeing this zip-up hoodie I prepared for when the days get chilly, can you still doubt my love?!"
I threw the custom hoodie on over my clothes and turned my back on the viewers just like that.
"You're telling me you can look at this and still have doubts?!"
"…It's that bad?"
Watching condemnatory chat keep flooding the window, I couldn't pretend I wasn't a little thrown.
In the end I peeled the hoodie off and checked the back one more time. Printed huge across it was a masterpiece photo into which I had poured every last drop of my Photoshop skill—a photo of me fusing with Raider.
It didn't quite reach the level of finish of the Märchen movie poster Eunha had shown during the room-reveal segment… but I was confident that, in fun at least, it was in the same league. Honestly, at this point, didn't it deserve to be called a work of art? Not only the photo. The line I'd set beneath it was excellent too.
I'd come up with the line myself, but it was genuinely killer. Wasn't this the stroke that finished the dragon?
"It's good, though, right?"
"The point is, I'm not doing New Outfit content because my love for Raider has cooled! Everyone clear on that? …And to the Raider staff—I'm always sincere, you know?"
With that, I draped the hoodie I'd taken off loosely over the chair.
"All right! Then we'll officially begin the New Outfit production content!"
And I played the eye-catch I'd grown far too used to.
Bringing up a piece of dark history that would sail into the semifinals no matter what, if we ever held a Märchen Dark History World Cup…. But I wasn't about to fall for a scheme that small, and I parried on the spot, smooth as anything.
"Dragging relics of the past into New Outfit production content, whose core values are novelty and innovation, is a bit much…. If the chance comes up next time, I'll think about it then."
Yeah. That performance really is something else.
Thinking that, I opened Notepad.
"…Then first, I'll explain the important elements we have to honor for this New Outfit."
And I started typing, one by one, the points that absolutely had to be kept when we settled on the outfit.
Once I'd finished through number five, I nodded.
"Roughly that much. So first, we'll use the dress-up game from when I gave that lecture on styling an autumn reading dress, lock in the broad framework, and then—"
No. Wait.
I'd gone to the trouble of benchmarking the way VTubers reveal a New Outfit, hadn't I? If I was benchmarking, I ought to lock in and benchmark it properly.
Before a VTuber reveals the outfit, they reveal the silhouette first. Viewers predict the New Outfit from that silhouette, and the VTuber takes time to savor those predictions. They'd folded a kind of viewer-participation segment into the reveal itself.
…That's what I'm benchmarking.
"—picking the outfit that way would be fine too, but for a three-hundred-thousand celebration it feels a little plain, doesn't it?"
The moment I said it, I opened a brand-new board on the fan cafe. The Märchen New Outfit suggestion board.
"If you think an outfit like this would work! If you've got an idea like that! Post it on this suggestion board. I'll look through them, and the good ones I'll use as reference while I make the New Outfit!"
If I stopped there, the ratio of shitposts was only going to swell….
"And for the people whose posts actually get referenced—fried chicken… feels a little lacking. Right. I'll put pizza on top of the chicken, and throw in ice cream for dessert!"
And just like that, Märchen's New Outfit production content abruptly evolved into Märchen's New Outfit production viewer-participation content. Content with a prize on the line.
"I'm sorry, but my broadcast booth is not a swimming pool? And more to the point, a bikini is summer wear through and through! What am I supposed to do about winter!"
"I was wondering why this one hadn't shown up…. I'm exercising my veto on the bunny maid. …I still haven't forgotten how I felt the next day, after that stunt, when I saw the KakaoTalk from my maternal uncle, you know? Honestly, the fact that I even did a maid-concept stream recently practically counts as a triumph of the human spirit. For real."
"Naked apron…. If it weren't an otaku's greatest dream, that would've been an instant purge. You correctly identified the otaku need, so I'm letting you live this once. Live righteously from now on!"
Of course, hanging a prize on it didn't make the shitposts disappear.
"Then the next post is…. Oh, this one's actually pretty decent?"