Proof of Victory
Yesterday's "proof" incident had become an absolute sensation.
This wasn't just empty hype, either.
Christmas Eve was one of the biggest "peak seasons" on the entire streaming scene. Even the corporate mega-streamers had all gone live without exception that day—and with sheer viral force alone, I had climbed to a position that rivaled theirs.
My viewer count alone hit an all-time high of 12,387. Sure, it was a record achieved through an ugly incident, but pulling that many people into a packed Christmas Eve house still proved I had the potential to match it. No matter how sensitive a streamer "snipe" might be as a topic, if the same thing had happened to some nobody small-time streamer with zero name recognition, cracking four-digit viewers would have been a pipe dream.
And the conclusion was crystal clear.
Mist had hastily ended his stream, posted an apology notice, and then gone completely silent—while I, like some triumphant general returning from war, kept right on promoting the V-Live crew. That stark contrast between light and shadow plastered the popular posts on FM Community over and over again.
[Video] — Seo-a vs Mist Neck-Chop Clip
Just post this and free point copy, what are you even doing lol
No, this is only three months since debut???
Three months in, average viewers already hitting 3–400, solid crew leader, and pulling 200,000 Candy in donations every single month without fail—this is a broadcasting monster;;
[Video] — Seo-a switching from jungle to mid
When virtual-related posts started flooding everything, the human streamer fans who'd been grumbling in irritation took one look at the Half-Cam footage and suddenly looked very, very pleased.
Apparently this person wasn't meant to be virtual at all—she was talent that should be doing girl-cam?
Ridiculous people, the lot of them.
I don't really need to lift a finger here, do I?
I took a casual peek at Mist's channel. Public opinion in the communities was one thing, but his channel board itself was in complete chaos. Dozens of posts mocking Mist's attitude and behavior had been written and plastered across the board, and the VOD was drowning in comments—full of curses, demands that he quit streaming, and every other kind of malicious content.
Nothing to be done about it. He brought this on himself.
I had clearly been the one attacked first, and I had still shown him mercy once. Mist had thrown even that away, so there was no room left for reform.
Whether he quits streaming, gets someone to run the reputation laundry for him, or just quietly does solo streams in a corner somewhere—that's his problem.
Either way, unless Mist quit streaming entirely, this incident would be permanently archived on Namu Wiki and follow him around as a scandal for the rest of his career. What people commonly called "karmic debt."
This was exactly why streamers had to be careful two times, three times over. Regular people could mess up and be forgotten soon enough—but for a streamer, it became a permanent brand burned into their name.
"Tsk! Never mind him—are these people even sane?"
The moment I stopped paying attention to Mist, my note inbox, swollen to the point of bursting, came into view. It really did contain every kind of content imaginable.
After yesterday's "proxy" scandal hit the communities, the underground galleries had filled dozens of pages with fabricated smears and slander aimed at me. Among the notes were messages saying they'd captured the posts and materials worth filing lawsuits over and sent them to my email.
The opposite kind flooded in just as thickly. Whether they were Mist fans or not, there were notes cursing me out, people writing solo fanfiction about how the truth would come out someday, and pure unthinking virtual-hate notes as well.
Yesterday's events really had blown up, it seemed. For this many notes to come pouring in…
And among them—though they were an extreme minority—were a few with contents that defied imagination.
No, is this person actually insane? "I can donate plenty, so I want to meet up for a meal date"? There really are so many people who aren't right in the head.
Maybe their eyes had rolled back after seeing yesterday's Half-Cam. Or it could be a trap from the malicious gallery rats who already had it out for me. Send a positive reply to a note, and they'd use it as leverage to blackmail you.
Hmm. Was I being too paranoid?
Still, looking at Mist's overnight collapse, I couldn't afford to let my guard down. The streaming scene was pure wilderness. For survival, you could never let your vigilance slip.
Even so, I did gain a lot thanks to Mist. It's not like I took any real damage. Farewell, then, you tiger of the plains.
From the very first Purge Day, Mist had handed me massive viral heat. In round two, he'd gifted me 12,387 viewers outright. And in front of that entire crowd, I'd promoted our crew's Christmas carol video dropping today—how perfect was that?
Not even Decrescendo or Pocotin had ever enjoyed a luxury like this.
With that boost, I'd love to hit two or three thousand viewers on the public stream…
Before I knew it, December 25th—Christmas—had arrived in full stride.
Now only we remained.
Freeca, the former Rena Universe, Pocotin, and Decrescendo had all already released their Christmas carols. The Pangea TV virtual-related galleries were already in a state of pure chaos.
Posts bragging that Freeca's video had the highest views even though it went up a day late. Cascades of curses and snide comments underneath. Since it wasn't a real-name system, you couldn't even tell if the person who posted was actually a Freeca fan. No—it was more likely a fan from a rival crew wearing a mask and deliberately farming dislike for Freeca.
Every crew's Christmas carol video was steadily racking up dislikes. In Pocotin's case, the numbers had eventually flipped, but early after upload the dislikes had outnumbered the likes—that's how extreme the fandom war cups between crews had gotten.
The funny part is that this might actually be the better era. The moment Decrescendo crew disbands, the real gates of hell open.
Even now, people on FM Community were shaking their heads and calling the underground galleries complete garbage dumps—but that was only because they didn't know the future. This was still the relatively mild age.
Ironically, Decrescendo had been running first place in every category and playing the role of international police. Like the United States of America, so to speak.
Freeca was the exceptional crew treated almost like a public enemy, and the former Rena Universe, after losing its power, was routinely roasted as washed-up has-beens. Pocotin was kicking consecutive own goals, running self-deprecating gags that were even sparking internal rifts among their own fans.
In that landscape, Decrescendo had broken free of their brief dark age on the Poko Server and was riding high again. Muyo in particular, writing an all-time legendary story arc in Rena World, was casually pulling four-digit average viewers the moment she logged on. Elsa and the other two had joined Kim Hak-do's subordinate company and were catching enormous trickle-down benefits.
So their momentum had been sky-high. Other fandoms had even started saying it out loud: you had no choice but to acknowledge Decrescendo.
Explosive short-term growth. And on the surface, none of the operational weaknesses that plagued Pocotin or the former Rena Universe. Veterans like Park Na-na and Baiyo, with overwhelming streaming careers, gave the sense of holding the balance. Their activity on FM Community was so vigorous that other crew fandoms had no choice but to watch their step—plenty of people had the experience of getting dogpiled by a Decrescendo fan swarm after catching the wrong kind of attention.
That was the era when Decrescendo had the Pangea TV virtual scene in the palm of its hand.
But I knew that end was not far off.
When a powerful hegemonic nation disappears, an age of chaos inevitably unfolds.
Ironically, the moment Decrescendo—the crew everyone had been tiptoeing around—vanished, the virtual galleries would spiral into an uncontrollable free-for-all. True hellscape. Split into individual fandoms, spinning the daily roulette wheel and indiscriminately trashing and cursing whatever virtual streamer happened to land that day—that would become the content of each and every day.
I only stuck to Pan-beo-gal because I didn't want to watch that mess.
Anyway, as someone who remembered those chaotic days, I wanted Decrescendo crew to go out with dignity before they disappeared. Honestly, once Decrescendo was gone too, it would feel like only Freeca and our V-Live were left for a while—and climbing to the throne by looting an empty house just didn't sit right.
That was why the Christmas carol video we were about to release mattered so much. At the very least, I wanted to leave behind a meaningful victory as proof—before Decrescendo crew was gone!
"Everyone ready?"
"Yeah!"
"Mayo's been ready forever, geosida."
"Alright then—going live!"
The V-Live crew's Christmas collab stream began.