A Time of Upheaval
I judged that everyone's videos had each revealed their personalities.
So then—what kind of impression would the video I made leave?
Well, I'm calculating, for one. And I like laying plans for the future.
I can sit with an unsolved problem for a long time, turning it over, and I enjoy thinking in quiet atmospheres. But more important than any of that was this: I was future-oriented.
After the regression—after I came into possession of information about what was coming—that tendency only grew denser.
So the video I prepared was always going to look in a different direction from the rest of the crew from the very start.
Generally speaking, a year-end awards show is about looking back on the year that just passed.
That was why the crew members had all poured themselves into editing the broadcasts they'd done since transferring to Pangea TV.
But I…
I was looking at the future, not the past.
What opened the video was the virtual concert I was aiming for in the first half of next year.
What appeared on screen wasn't the VRC-based concert we'd shown during the Wooga-dol audition—it was a map built with a company's proprietary Unity tech, dazzling special effects, and a polished, refined avatar.
Viewers kept gasping as they took in graphics and effects that were, by every measure, a strict upgrade over any VRC concert.
Around now is when virtual-related companies should start taking an interest in Pangea TV. After all, Pangea TV's revenue is rock solid. So they've been reaching out separately to well-known crews and virtuals.
For that same reason, I was already deep in professional talks with one of those virtual companies myself.
The footage I'd just shown was something I'd sweet-talked out of them early as a sample.
When the final subtitle rolled past—Virtual Concert Scheduled for First Half of 2023—the chat exploded as if it might detonate on the spot.
For a virtual, a concert has always felt like the ultimate weapon.
But it was too early to be satisfied with that alone.
There was still a lot left in the video.
What followed the concert—the first act—was Myeolmangjeon, the massive content that drove Pangea TV's League of Legends scene.
My gameplay and Mayo's were cross-edited with surgical precision, and at the end we officially declared our entry into 2023 Myeolmangjeon Season 1.
Once Myeolmangjeon started, it sucked every scrap of attention on Pangea TV into itself like a black hole—it was that kind of mega-content.
Never mind how people felt about League itself; no fan was going to hate hearing that their favorite streamer was stepping onto a stage that big.
Just entering was a guaranteed boost in name recognition.
One more shot left!
A concert and Myeolmangjeon alone still felt a little short, didn't they?
At this point I needed one decisive blow that would hit every fan right in the heart.
And I already knew the answer.
I hadn't convinced everyone yet—but I went ahead and swung for it anyway.
I'd already floated the idea once as a joke during a crew meeting, after all.
And if anyone was fretting about the Red Pill, they could relax.
There were plenty of ways to run an offline virtual fan meeting without exposing anyone's real-life identity.
Of course, hiding it from the members themselves would be harder—but still.
Impossible didn't exist. There was no need to start worrying ahead of time.
A virtual concert and Myeolmangjeon in the first half. An offline fan meeting in the second. Who could possibly hold back that much dopamine?
If you could hold that back, you weren't a streaming viewer.
The video ended, but the viewers—already drunk on oversecreted dopamine—were dazed and chanting my name like cultists.
MayoIsClingyGum has donated 100 Candies!
Drunk on the overwhelming support, I thrust my right arm high and waved it as I spoke to the crew with shameless arrogance.
"Looks like I won, doesn't it?"
"Ugh! Why does your voice sound so smug?"
Repeating the past versus presenting a vision of the future.
Which one the viewers would welcome was an answer so obvious it barely needed asking.
Sure enough, when the vote went through, I was elected by an overwhelming margin.
I nearly doubled second-place Miho—a crushing result!
Wahaha! I was the president of V-Live.
I got elected by vote, so it was official.
"Augh… Mayo really wants to impeach her geosida."
Hah!? Mayo, what kind of talk is that?
Political statements are dame dame, you know.
And so 2022 was drawing to a close.
2022 was a year of enormous meaning for the various virtual crews on Pangea TV.
It was the year each of them began—and a year packed with twists and turns.
First: Mercury (formerly Rena Universe).
As Pangea TV's first corporate faction and virtual crew, they had transferred over in bulk and dominated from the opening stretch.
If various incidents hadn't erupted and the crew had simply been run well, there was a real chance they would have become the uncontested force leading Pangea TV's virtual scene.
They had that much first-mover advantage, and the strengths of a virtual crew with serious numbers.
But by now, they had declined.
Second: Freeca.
A virtual idol crew born through the Wooga-dol audition.
With Pangea TV's various support benefits behind them and mid-tier streamer Ssa-yo as their representative, they aimed outward—toward YouTube and foreign audiences.
Unfortunately, right at the most critical timing after the crew formed—when they needed to surge forward—a member issue locked their hands and feet tight.
Even so, hope still existed.
If anything, that crisis had hardened fan loyalty into something denser, and Ssa-yo's desperate struggle to break the situation open was starting to pay off.
On top of that, as a trump card, they were preparing an additional member audition!
Third: Pocotin.
Ori-koong and Yami, who'd been close since their Rabbit TV days, formed a crew, and later underage Hiyori joined—and early on they threw around considerable weight.
They'd transferred near the front of the pack during the 720p crisis and drawn a lot of attention, and among the Rabbit TV transplants their weight class was relatively large, so it had been possible.
The problem was that their leader, Ori-koong, kept causing accidents one after another.
Layer on the operational mess of the Poko Server, and the crew's growth slammed into a hard brake.
Fans peeled away. Candy donations shrank.
As a rushed fix they recruited Yume—formerly of (old) Rena Universe—as a fourth member, only for Hiyori to suddenly snipe her and Yami to pile on with harsh words, and Yume quit in absurd fashion after just a few days.
A crew mired in pure internal chaos.
Fourth: Decrescendo Crew, currently riding its peak.
They were, for all practical purposes, the protagonists of the year-end.
At first they'd been latecomers—behind not only Freeca but even Pocotin—yet they'd grown bit by bit until, with the Poko Server as the turning point, they seized hegemony over Pangea TV's virtual scene.
From November onward they'd already been famous for overwhelming Candy donations, and after joining Rena World in December, their average viewer counts surpassed Freeca's as well.
Muyo's astonishing individual skill; Elsa, Seol Pyo-woo, and Baiyo—the trio riding the coattails of Kim Hak-do's company.
Candy power still intact, and now their broadcast numbers had climbed to the virtual top—so people thought nothing remained but smooth sailing ahead. Right at that moment!
No one could have predicted it.
How much conflict and emotional warfare had been boiling under the surface.
Yeah. At this rate we're just walking the same rails as before. Dragging it out only burns more emotion. Better to give up early.
December 31st, Saturday.
The last day of 2022.
While the V-Live crew waited for the Bosingak bell in a joint stream and cheerfully talked through their plans for the new year, Park Na-na stared blankly at her monitor and steeled her resolve.
The start of the new year 2023 was almost here.
And Pangea TV's virtual scene was about to enter a time of upheaval once more.