PCK CL: SC vs. JG (Just Chatting)

For half a year I had never shown my face on stream. The first time that face went public was in the Project A Newbie Guide video.

It was uploaded to Rioat Korea's K-tube the very day we filmed it, and the thing was such a hit that it crossed a million views in a single day.

Set that beside the other guest episodes, which barely scraped past two or three hundred thousand in a day, and it was a smash. Nothing else to call it.

The video blowing up dragged my own broadcast up with it, until the channel sat at a weight class you could call a major corporate stream without stretching the truth. Before the upload, average concurrents had hovered between ten and fifteen thousand. Overnight they jumped to forty-five thousand — roughly triple.

Not that it was all good news. More viewers meant more people I had to keep in line.

Trying to manage that many of them, I found myself remembering a conversation I'd had with Geonmo-oppa back in my pro days.

I hadn't really understood it then. Now I did.

Once the audience got big, everybody wanted something different, and there was no way to satisfy all of them. The viewers who'd come in through the Newbie Guide and the ones who'd been watching me from the start were quietly at each other's throats, and keeping the peace between them wore me out more than I liked to admit. Most of the Newbie Guide crowd, especially, had shown up because of the face I'd revealed back then.

Donations demanding a face cam were more than half of what came in.

I had posted about the face cam more than once, and I had said it out loud more than once.

"...I already put a notice up on the fan cafe about the face cam..."

Two weeks had passed since the Newbie Guide video went up, and people like this still showed up every single day. Which, I supposed, only meant the video was still a topic. I was glad the episode I'd been in had done well. The flood of these questions was exhausting all the same. They weren't even doing it out of malice. They were just asking something they were curious about.

The problem was that I had already heard that question dozens of times. Once or twice, I could smile and walk them through it. Answering it one by one, dozens of times over — even I got tired of that.

Oh. Right.

"Since we're on face cams, I've actually got a bit of good news for all of you."

"I talked with my manager last night about a fan meeting, and it looks like we'll be able to hold one sometime next month. She seemed pretty positive about it."

The day after the Newbie Guide video went up — the day I came back from a three-day rest stream — people had asked the newly revealed me whether I had any plans for offline content, not just online. I'd said that if the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chance came, I was willing.

Of everything the viewers recommended, the one that felt most right was a fan meeting. I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠never actually seen a fan of mine in person, and I was curious. As a pro, sure, I'd met them right after matches and signed for them. As a streamer, I had never once come face to face with a fan.

Wait. Now that I thought about it, had the server I'd met at Wall-X Galbi been a fan too?

Mm. Still, I hadn't known they were a fan, so that one didn't count.

"Anyway, I'll tell you the exact date as soon as it's locked in. Nothing's fully decided yet, but I think we'll be selecting about fifty people, and personally I'd like to start with the ones who've been watching for a long time."

It was a first fan meeting, so I didn't think we could throw anything grand. I'd only been broadcasting for half a year, and I wasn't sure anyone yet deserved to be called a loyal viewer — but I still wanted to give at least that much of a privilege to the people who had stayed a long time.

Ah. No, that wasn't it.

"No. I'm not saying I'll fill all fifty with longtime viewers only. Some of the fifty will be drawn just from people who've watched past a certain point, and the rest from the whole audience."

I wanted to give the longtime viewers a privilege. I had no intention of slighting the people who'd come in later. Either way, both of them mattered to me.

"Nothing's confirmed yet, so don't get your hopes too high. Honestly, I'm not even sure all fifty would show..."

As if my worry had been for nothing, the chat swore they would be there no matter what. Even if it was only talk, it made me glad.

"You all said you'd come, right? If there's even one empty seat when we actually do the fan meeting, I'm never holding another one."

Someone might have to miss it for reasons they couldn't help, so the threat was about half a joke.

The viewers didn't take it all that seriously either.

We kept talking — how the fan meeting ought to go, how I wanted it to go — and the time slipped past before I noticed.

"Oh, already? Time really flew..."

I had turned the stream on and sat there waiting for five in the afternoon, and I hadn't even realized it had arrived.

"Hup—"

Hands that knew the motions by now set the broadcast layout, and I switched the feed off the background with the character art so my monitor was what went out.

Was I about to play? No. Preseason still wasn't over. And today I had other content I was supposed to run. I opened a browser, went straight to Kwitch, pulled up the official site, and typed PCK into the search bar.

Today was a PCK CL match. SC versus JG.

"Should change the title, too."

The opener — a debut for the SC players — had been a shocking 2–0 loss to CLC. That did not mean SC was finished.

It had only been the first match. Prepare the other eight properly, and there was no problem at all. Later in the season they would feel, down in their bones, how precious a single win could be. For now, aiming at a win still ahead of them was a far better choice than dwelling on the one loss already behind them.

And SC had made that choice. One loss in the opener, then three straight wins, and they were still sitting second in the league.

Watch their matches, though, and the weak points still showed. Pola's mechanics falling short of an entry's job was one thing. Worse was the chronic habit, on defense, of hanging everything on Nebula's calls. That still hadn't been fixed.

It wasn't only weaknesses. If they'd had nothing worth putting forward, they wouldn't have been second. Leaning on Nebula's calls had, in reverse, pulled SC's movement into one shape. In a word, the team synergy was good. In a second division where a new player landed on the roster and another vanished almost as often as the matches themselves, good synergy was an enormous advantage — and on the back of it, SC had strung together those three wins.

So. Worth expecting something from.

"Ah. The map veto's already over."

I'd had too many ideas about the fan meeting, and too much to say to chat about them, and somewhere in the middle I'd forgotten that five o'clock had already passed. By the time I found the official broadcast, the map veto was done. The match itself hadn't started, so commentating from here would do.

Same as last time: Pola on main entry, Nebula on initiator. They had already taken this setup all the way to a four-win streak, so there wasn't much reason to change it. Today, though, the opponent was a little different.

"JG, huh."

The Project A pro scene after I became a woman hadn't changed much from the one I'd known as a man. The players were the same. The teams were the same. The only thing that had changed was a player called KZ Galaxy, replaced by KZ Foxy. The world-class powers, the domestic rankings — none of it was different from when I had been a pro.

Which meant a team that had been strong in my day was still strong. And the JG that SC was about to face...

"Why is JG in the second division?"

In my memory, JG had been a first-division side. Upper-middle of the pack.