Surprise Attack
November 2022 was a truly critical period for me.
It was the only window I had left to get anything done before Rena World opened on December 2nd. On top of that, there were no major issues dominating the scene, which meant an unusually high degree of freedom. In other words, it was a stretch of time when you could try whatever you actually wanted without having to chase the latest hot topic or bandwagon.
A successful streamer ultimately needs their own killer content.
I needed to start seriously thinking about that. I had originally considered taking on the news broadcast I’d tossed to Lucy myself, but I decided against it—it would have been a bit inefficient for me. With my current weight class, I needed to compete in the main time slots. If I left those empty and some other virtual streamer firmly established themselves there, I’d be so bitter I’d regret it for ages.
This was a crucial time to hone a new weapon. Once December hit, I’d be so focused on Rena World that I wouldn’t find this kind of free time for a while.
And one more thing to add: the groups that had left their hometown were slowly starting to return.
Huh? Who were those groups, you ask?
The viewers who had left for the StarCraft scene, of course.
Big-name streamers like Baek-gu, Jamst, Park Bong-sik, Wang-ko, and the rest were one by one leaving the StarCraft scene and coming back. The long StarCraft dominance that had ruled Pangea TV was gradually coming to an end. Viewer sentiment about it was extremely positive. Complaints that just looking at a StarCraft screen made them want to throw up had been rampant, and now they could finally watch other content.
In truth, the viewers hadn’t always been like this. From the start, two of the big streamers were former StarCraft pro-gamers, so there was no reason for their fans to dislike the game or not be friendly toward it. On top of that, the “Star University” concept—a visible-radio style—had been added, and the StarCraft scene had really taken off. Viewers got immersed through the stories the streamers spun via the visible radio. Record-breaking viewer counts and record-breaking Candy donation records were being smashed left and right. The streamers had no reason to stop either. They were making good money and the viewer data looked great, so they doubled down even harder.
But when it went from verse one, verse two, verse three, all the way to full brain-rot levels, the story changed. Viewers who had initially stuck around for the immersion… and later for their affection toward the Star University they were rooting for… once it stretched past a year, they couldn’t take it anymore and rose up in revolt.
Viewers who began fighting to escape the StarCraft occupation period.
The big streamers, who couldn’t ignore that public opinion, started carefully reading the room and dismantling Star University one by one. The fans of the big streamers began cheering. Finally, they wouldn’t have to watch that godforsaken StarCraft anymore. As long as it wasn’t StarCraft, anything was fine. Visible radio, LoL, Battlegrounds, FIFA, MapleStory, Lost Ark… they were ready to accept it all with open hearts.
And so the viewers returned to their hometown with excited hearts. But what awaited them was a completely different world from what they’d known.
[Video] — Sexy Dance
Viewers who had returned to the Pangea TV boards expecting a warm hometown welcome. That was how they met the abyss.
While the Pangea TV boards were descending into chaos with the VTuber versus native wars, I moved quickly.
First, I worked hard on cleaning up the café. Virtual crews have a lot of advantages, but the one I personally valued highest was the existence of a café. Just touring the café could meaningfully fill broadcast time, and sometimes skilled fans would drop unexpected gifts as tribute. Rabbit TV’s Uwakdu fan café was famous for exactly that reason. So after forming the crew, that was naturally where attention went first.
Maybe a golden-hand fan will show up somewhere?
If a golden-hand fan just whipped up a picture for the fan café banner, that would be perfect. With that pleasant fantasy in mind, I checked the membership upgrade applications that were piling up in real time.
Current V-Live fan café membership: 874 people. Freeca had already passed 5,000 and Decrescendo had broken 1,500, so ours looked a little pathetic by comparison. But I didn’t get discouraged. In a way, this was only natural. Freeca had Ssa-yo’s fandom behind it, and Decrescendo had ridden the Wooga-dol audition wave. On top of that, Park Na-na and Baiyo had five years of broadcasting history on Pangea TV and everything that came with it.
Compare that to us. I, the leader, had barely two months of streaming experience. Lucy was a transfer with less than half a year under her belt, and Miho had only just hit one year. Mayo wasn’t much different. For a bunch of nobodies with no backing and no track record to match them from the start would have been unfair. It would mean catching up overnight to towers those people had spent nearly a decade building.
But streaming is a place where unfair things like that happen all the time. That’s the dopamine. That’s the fun.
The beginning may be modest, but the end will be magnificent. Someday the day would come when V-Live stood above them.
“Hm?”
Just as I was fully steeling my resolve, my phone screen lit up. It was a call from Lucy.
What’s this about at this hour?
I was a little puzzled, but it was a call from my favorite. I accepted it with a happy heart.
“Seo-a, are you busy?”
“No. Un…ni, the call is fine.”
Even now, every time I attached the word “unni,” my hands and feet curled up in secondhand embarrassment. Hoo. But there was no choice. Until that bastard Ju-ttak turned me back into a guy, I just had to adapt…
“Really? I called because there’s news I wanted to tell you.”
“A call from unni is welcome 365 days a year. What kind of news?”
“Mm. It’s nothing else—Blueby’s debuting on Pangea TV next week.”
“…….”
For a moment my mouth locked shut. It felt like I’d been stabbed right in a vital point. I’d heard talk of Blueby’s debut, but this suddenly? And the fact that Lucy was the one bringing it up first was pretty ominous too. Don’t tell me…?
“So I talked it over with Blueby. I’m starting the news broadcast tomorrow anyway. Hm? Seo-a, are you listening?”
“Huh? Yeah. I’m listening.”
The silence had stretched long enough that Lucy sounded puzzled and checked on me, which finally snapped me back. Stay calm. I wasn’t the president of some tiny hakko streamer’s broadcast who couldn’t do anything before the regression. I was the leader of V-Live, the crew Lucy belonged to, and a regressor. No matter what scheme Blueby pulled, I would meet it head-on.
“I thought about it and talked with Blueby too—what if we help her out?”
“Huh? Us help Blueby-nim?”
“Yeah. You said you got close talking on the phone when you were persuading me about the transfer.”
“…….”
That rotten past grabbed me by the ankle. Back then Lucy’s dependence on Blueby had been high, so for the sake of smooth transfer persuasion I’d bullshitted that I’d built up a friendship—and now that karma was coming home to roost. On top of that, every time Blueby came up afterward I’d had no choice but to be careful. If I spoke carelessly it could turn into badmouthing someone she was close to.
Was my judgment wrong? If I’d been a little bolder… No. With a personality like Lucy’s, that would’ve backfired for sure.
I’d planned to slowly become someone closer to Lucy than Blueby and naturally put up a wall. Before that could happen, Blueby had struck at the perfect timing.
“We cover her as a hot transfer student on the news broadcast. Invite her on Discord and have her say hello. Or we could even give her a whole segment and make it feel like a short collab. What do you think, Seo-a?”
“Ah, that. So, um…”
This was a complete checkmate. Had she advised Lucy to do crew activities for this exact timing? With the weight class Lucy would get from the trickle-down of the crew I’d built, it would be a huge help when promoting her own debut.
Is she trying to keep holding the “close to Lucy” position?
Maybe she was drawing an even bigger picture. Even without being in the same crew, she’d still get a certain level of trickle-down effect this way. My heart racing, I said that a collab was absolutely out of the question.
“Hm? Why?”
“Uh. That, well—ah! The news broadcast hasn’t even properly found its footing yet. If we start collabing already, the content’s identity could get shaken. First we need to lock it down solidly.”
“Mm, really? Then we’ll just connect Discord briefly and do a short introduction. That’s fine, right?”
“…….”
I couldn’t coldly cut Blueby off here. Lucy was under the impression that Blueby and I were close, and without evidence I couldn’t claim Blueby was a bad person either.
Fine. I’ll take this as my decision loss for now. A short debut introduction won’t have a big impact.
Finished with the calculation, I gave up quickly. There was no need to leave Lucy with a bad impression at this point. But retreating stopped here. I massively strengthened my guard against Blueby and issued a “Double Jindo” alert.
I won’t fall for these little games anymore.
The competition wasn’t only the existing powerhouses. A dark shadow was approaching from underfoot.