No Copycats Allowed
January 1st came and went, and the second-generation girls began streaming.
There were three of them—Elia Sironi, along with Inori Kamishiro and Raphae Amane.
As I'd mentioned before, Elia Sironi's concept was a saint, Inori Kamishiro was a pigeon beastman, and Raphae Amane was an angel.
Digging a little deeper: Elia Sironi was a hopeless saint who worked hard on the job but turned into a total slacker the second the workday ended. Inori Kamishiro was a pure, gluttonous idiot pigeon beastman who just loved to eat. Raphae Amane was the angel supposed to manage the other two, only to end up getting dragged around by them instead.
It felt like they'd taken the first generation as a rough reference and given everything a little twist. That twist left first-gen fans with a complicated mix of feelings. It was as if their girls' concepts had been stolen, and yet the juniors still came off as cute. More than anything, the second gens kept showing plenty of respect toward the first gens once their streams started, which was actually pretty nice.
Anyway, I was watching the stream of their leader, Elia Sironi—the one who got tangled up with the first gens the most.
"Hello hello~ It's Elia~"
Viewership was hovering in the four-to-five-hundred range. Thanks to the fanbase the Fantasy Live first gens had already cultivated, their starting numbers were way better than the first gens' had been.
Ruru had spent about three months stuck around a hundred viewers. One of those months she'd been under a hundred. Compared to that, this was a fantastic launch. It made me newly appreciate just how huge Fantasy Live had become. My chest swelled with pride just thinking about it.
"What game am I playing today, you ask~? Hehe~ Whoever guesses right gets a present! And the present is Elia's love~"
Elia had clearly leveled up her streaming skills a lot since our last collab. You could tell she'd studied Ruru and then melted it into her own flavor—something that looked casual on the surface, but piled on the aegyo the second it benefited her. A real little shit of a vibe. Calling her a little shit felt off given how voluptuous her model was compared to Ruru's, but whatever, moving on.
Whether that character work was landing or the viewers were just losing their minds over the model, they were busy guessing the game.
Elia listened to every suggestion with a bright smile and answered.
"The game we're playing today is~! A game that came out quite a while ago! The Witch's Mansion!!"
Elia had brought a horror game, and her eyes were sparkling. Literally—her model was using the sparkling-eyes expression. I could say it with absolute certainty: she'd learned that from Ruru.
Ruru's greatest strength as a VTuber was, without question, her ability to use her model at exactly the right moments. Most VTubers barely managed a blink or one or two extra expressions. Ruru constantly swapped through expressions that fit the situation throughout her streams.
I was completely serious when I said that part of the reason behind her catastrophically bad gaming skill was the brainpower she allocated just to controlling those expressions. Nailing the perfect expression for every moment without a single slip-up was insanely impressive.
I wondered whether Elia had actually managed to learn that level of control too.
Anyway, I watched Elia's stream, hunting for editing points and jotting down timestamps. And the one thing I became certain of while doing it was…
…I just didn't click with Elia.
Elia felt like a mix of Aris and Ruru. Her actual gaming skill was much closer to Aris's, but her streaming style was pure Ruru. She'd clearly learned broadcasting technique straight from Ruru and applied it, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it didn't suit Elia's strengths.
Ruru's streams came from her apocalyptic gaming ability paired with the charm and pure talk skill she used to paper over it. Volunteering as the punching bag was part of that charm too. But Elia? Her gaming was so good that the aegyo and banter just came off as smug self-praise. And she definitely wasn't playing the punching bag.
Something about the whole package was just slightly off-key.
Even so, it was work, so I watched Elia's stream as diligently as I could. And the whole time, my head kept circling back to the same thought: If this were Ruru…
If this were Ruru, she'd have died right here and screamed. If this were Ruru, she'd have solved this puzzle, bragged about every last bit of it, then died to the next trap and screamed again. If this were Ruru, she'd have made the chase scene ridiculously tense, gotten caught at the end, and pretended to cry her eyes out.
…Or maybe she actually would have been crying.
Either way, it didn't matter. The important part was that even while watching Elia's stream, I was thinking about Ruru more.
……If I wasn't careful, people were going to start calling her a Ruru copycat.
Once I finished the edit, I sent a text straight to the Representative.
He'd told me to message him whenever a video was done, even in the middle of the night, so I sent it at this ungodly hour. Exactly ten minutes later, the Representative replied.
No separate feedback? No revision notes?
While I was waiting for that, the Representative brought up something else.
Did I have time? Was he about to call?
I threw on a padded jacket, stepped out onto the veranda, and shut the door behind me. That should keep the sound from carrying, I figured, and sent my reply.
The Representative called right away. The phone rang, and I picked up immediately.
"Yes, hello?"
"Mangjjonku-nim. Or should I call you Jinwoo-nim?"
"Either one's fine."
"Then I'll go with Jinwoo-nim."
Having settled on the form of address, the Representative asked me a question in a very polite tone.
"Jinwoo-nim, from now on, please answer my questions honestly."
"Uh… sure."
Hearing that made me incredibly nervous. Had I made some kind of mistake? Did the edit feel AI-generated or something?
I waited for him to speak, wound tight with tension…
"……What did you think while watching Elia's stream this time?"
The question was nothing like what I'd expected.
"Elia's stream?"
"Yes. Please answer completely honestly. Anything is fine."
In that moment I understood. The Representative was thinking the same thing I was.
"……It felt like she was a Ruru copycat."
"Haa, I knew it…"
Bullseye. The Representative had been wrestling with the same worry—that Elia looked like a Ruru copycat.
"Actually, I once asked Ruru to give Elia a lecture so she could learn Ruru's streaming techniques."
"Ah…"
"But it seems Elia learned Ruru's style instead of her techniques."
From the Representative's perspective, this was a serious headache. Ruru was Fantasy Live's bread and butter, the company's marquee star. And now a second-gen was streaming with the exact same vibe as that marquee star?
It felt like eating yourself alive. Even with some differentiation, identical styles meant a certain amount of fanbase overlap. Ruru's hardcore fans would hate it with a passion. In the worst case, cyberbullying could break out.
I wanted no part of that either. Like it or not, if something like that happened, Ruru would be the one who suffered.
"……Do you happen to have any good ideas?"
"Hmm… Did you watch the video I sent you?"
"The video you sent?"
The Representative thought carefully about my question, then seemed to grasp exactly what I was getting at.
"Ah…!"
"When someone who's always good at something finally fails for once—isn't that the real highlight?"
"Mm… Oooh… That's actually pretty solid. Completely the opposite of Ruru."
"Right?"
"Yes. We'll try fleshing out her character-making more through that angle. If you ever have any other good ideas, please don't hesitate to share them."
"Got it."
"And I'll transfer the outsourcing fee for the video right away. Get some good rest."
With that, the Representative hung up. Not long after, the outsourcing payment came through.
Except…
"……What the hell? Why is there extra money?"
There was extra money. The Representative's only reply via text was "idea fee."
An idea fee of this size? Thank you, thank you, I will serve with loyalty.
With that happy thought, I fell asleep in excellent spirits.
And the next day.
"……Jinwoo."
"Yeah."
"You… didn't watch my stream, did you?"
"………Sorry. I was too tired."
I found myself on the receiving end of Rua's furious glare.
"Well, if you were tired, nothing you can do about it."
That was what Rua said, but…
She definitely seemed sulky.
Hey, you used to tell me not to watch if I was sleepy or exhausted. Why are you sulking now?