Blueby
Personally, I believe a crew is essential for any virtual streamer.
Or if not an official crew, something close enough. Even just the perception among viewers that "those two are really close" would do.
Why obsess over that kind of image?
Simple. In the brutal wilderness of internet broadcasting, the survival rate of an "isolated island" stream is abysmally low.
Just look at the big-agency streamers. The ones who look like they could thrive just fine on their own — every last one of them runs with a crew. Virtual streamers and face-cam streamers alike. They know from experience what efficient broadcasting actually looks like.
A crew is a fence. With one, you escape the isolated-island problem. And what does that mean? Human traffic. Viewers stop being locked to a single channel.
Viewers don't stick to just one stream. When their favorite goes offline, they look for something else to kill the boredom. A crewmate's channel becomes the perfect second home — a place where they can still mention their favorite in chat and get a warm welcome for it.
The streamer benefits too. On a crewmate's off day, you get a viewer pump. Candy donations trickle in. Candy that might have flown off to some random stranger's stream gets kept inside the fence instead.
And more than anything, a crew multiplies what you can actually do. Take games. An isolated streamer is stuck solo-queueing forever. Steam games mean single-player only. Any content idea that needs more than one person dies at the planning stage.
So yes — a crew is basically mandatory for growth. If you can't form one, you'd better have connections and friendships just as strong, or you won't survive this cutthroat industry.
Which is why, before the regression, Lucy's old crew — V-mellodi — was an object of both love and hate for me.
At first I was genuinely happy. Our socially awkward Lucy, who didn't have a single friend, finally had a crew.
I still remember going around to every crewmate's room and dropping friendship-fee donations like some self-appointed chairman, just to boost Lucy's confidence. I let myself daydream. With a crew, she'd get more influx, her streams would take off…
That hope was only half right.
Influx did come. Content got more varied with the crewmates around. But when you stripped it down, there was no real substance underneath.
Here's what I mean. Whenever they did group content, the spotlight roles almost always went to Blueby and Iruri. And to maximize the crew effect, they staggered personal stream times — Mayo got lunch hours, Miho got mornings, Lucy got late evenings. Blueby? She took the golden time slot, when viewers were freest to watch.
Am I the weird one here? Does this sound like paranoid Blueby-bashing? Fine. I've got nothing more to say to people who think that.
Blueby's the leader, so she prepares the most content and handles the most crew business. That level of preferential treatment is fair — that was the Blueby fans' argument.
If it had stopped there, even Mayo's and Miho's rooms would have quietly pushed back. But there was a real, tangible benefit that forced everyone to look the other way: the candy donation runoff — practically everything that matters to a streamer.
Blueby's chairman was what people call a "big whale." Every time the crew ran joint content, he'd drop two or three thousand candy into each room. Five people. That's a million to a million-five won spent every single collab. And he still threw personal donations around on Blueby's own stream like confetti.
Naturally, the other rooms — the ones without that kind of financial backing — had to watch their step. Petty and ugly, sure. But that's society. That's the adult world.
What happens if you cross Blueby's chairman and the candy runoff dries up? A streamer's monthly income drops by at least five hundred thousand, maybe close to a million. Who takes responsibility for that? If you can't, you keep quiet even when it's unfair. If you can't swallow the anger and can't look away either, the only option left is to abandon your favorite yourself.
I wasn't the only one who felt it. Calling them a crew didn't make them equals. The other members were more like handmaidens serving Blueby.
It wasn't a special case. You see the same structure all over the streaming scene — and in real life, too. But the fact that Lucy, in that common setup, was stuck as a handmaiden instead of the protagonist… that was just too sad.
If I'd been richer and more capable than Blueby's chairman, things would have been different. In the end, hating Blueby was all I could do. Pathetic and small-minded. I knew that.
So after regressing, my plan was simple: never get involved with Blueby again. Just her existence was enough to poke at all those old, ugly feelings.
Damn it.
But that plan was already dead. I never imagined Lucy would be this deeply entangled with her — a connection that went back to before either of them even started streaming.
So I hesitated. Even without me, Lucy would transfer sometime between February and March next year. Should I just leave it alone? Bulk up my own weight class in the meantime, then shower her with runoff once she arrived?
I scrapped that option almost immediately. Because a thought hit me: if I did that, how would this Lucy be any different from the Lucy before the regression? She'd still just be receiving one-sided help and runoff — only the source would change from Blueby to me. She'd still be an extra in someone else's story.
I have to get Lucy transferred as soon as possible and put her in that audition.
That was the only way. The only path to putting her on something close to equal footing with me.
The problem: to push Lucy's transfer, I needed Blueby's cooperation. Lucy leaned on her for broadcasting decisions more than I'd expected.
"Hah. This is so annoying."
Better to take the hit first. I swallowed the irritation trying to claw its way out, sent a friend request to the Discord ID Lucy had given me, and called.
Discord's distinctive ringtone filled my ears. A short wait. Tension coiling tight. My head crowded with half-formed strategies. What argument would actually persuade her? The straightforward pitch — how much of an opportunity land Pangea TV was right now? Or should I go straight to a backroom deal?
"Hello?"
"Ah… yes. Hello."
"I heard the short version from Lucy. You're streaming on Pangea TV, I take it."
A slightly haughty voice. A slightly haughty way of speaking. I was surprised. The Blueby I remembered had a younger-sounding voice, bouncy and bright. This one had a clear gap from that memory.
Is she using a voice changer? …No, doesn't seem like it.
I'd have caught a program instantly. Real voices and modulated ones have differences you can't fully hide.
"I was told you had something to say about Lucy's transfer."
"Ah! About that — right now Pangea TV is having a virtual boom, and—"
"No. I don't need that explanation. I have questions of my own."
"…"
Stronger than expected. Still that same dictatorial leader energy. Ugh. The pre-regression memories were giving me PTSD. She'd jerked Lucy around just like this back then, too. I wanted to push back, but I was the subordinate party here. I shut up and listened.
"I saw the avatar you use. And the one you're offering to hand over to Lucy — the quality is quite good. Which artist did the work?"
I'd given Lucy permission to show Blueby the avatar when she asked for the contact info. Blueby was looking to convert from dullahan to virtual herself, so I'd figured a high-quality avatar might make good bait. That call had landed perfectly.
"A very skilled artist. And not widely known yet, so the schedule is relatively open, too…"
I deliberately trailed off. Nothing's free. Want an introduction to the artist? Pay for it.
"Is that so? Honestly, I've been thinking positively about transferring to Pangea TV myself. I'm just fine-tuning the timing. Existing virtual streamers can jump over right away, but people like me and Lucy have a lot of prep work to do."
She casually bundled Lucy and herself into one package. Then she made sure I understood: for two former dullahan-style streamers to break into Pangea TV's virtual scene, they needed good avatars.
She's good. Really good. Are they actually the same age?
From my pre-regression memories, Blueby was twenty-four at this point — same age as Lucy. One year older than Seo Min-ah. Fresh out of college, barely starting adult life, and talking to her felt like dealing with some hard-nosed client-side account manager.
Still, I can see the opening. She's making it very clear what she wants.
Strip away the old hatred, and Blueby was someone who knew how to deal. So I made my offer: I'd introduce the artist — if she completely cut ties with Lucy.
Blueby let out a short, dry laugh.
"I can't do that. We're friends, after all."
She called them friends, and still didn't call out how rude the proposal was. Shrewd. Exactly the person I'd always thought she was, before the regression.
"Then how about this. Transfer as soon as possible. But if you start weirdly talking her into delaying it on purpose, don't expect me to be amused."
"You worry about the strangest things. If a friend does well, that's good for me too. Well… fine. Let's do it that way."
I didn't want to talk to her any longer than I had to. I hung up and sent Bebe-ttang the artist's contact info by message. I'd already cleared it with Bebe-ttang beforehand — someone I knew might reach out with a commission. All the premium work I'd thrown her way over the months must have helped; she gave me a cheerful okay.
"Hoo."
A deep sigh slipped out before I could stop it. Relief that the deal had gone through? Or the sour taste of cutting a backroom deal with someone I'd always hated? I didn't know. A mess of feelings I couldn't cleanly name was swirling around inside me.
But one thing is certain…
If pre-regression history repeated itself, Blueby would definitely make a name for herself on Pangea TV's virtual scene. Not big-agency level, maybe — but top ten among virtual streamers, easy. A reputation built by sucking the talent and effort out of gifted crewmates, one by one.
Which is why I made myself a promise.
I would become a more successful virtual streamer than Blueby. No matter what.
I would make it happen.