WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Stream as a Hobby ◈
Chapter 7: Year’s End
──────
Wayo, the rising supernova of the streaming world and super-rookie VTuber with an average of 200 viewers, mainly streamed alone.
I was practically a lone wolf, with no real collabs and only my viewers for friends, but that didn't mean I knew absolutely no one in the streaming world.
Back when I'd just started streaming, when my average viewer count barely hovered between twenty and thirty, I'd happened to meet some people and play games with them.
Those people were the streamers Haebin and Seong Hayeon.
These days, I called them Hae the Bastard and Yeon the Traitor.
And for good reason...
-Hae the Bastard next door is entering a tournament...
-Wayo, did you see Hayeon landed a sponsorship?
They'd both been tiny nobodies like me. Then, after joining a few large multiplayer servers and entering streamer tournaments, they'd become mid-sized streamers averaging 1,500 and 2,000 viewers, respectively.
“Do you want a ban for mentioning other streamers??”
-But didn't you all take the Peach Garden Oath back then?
-Life tip) Hae the Bastard and Yeon the Traitor don't count as other streamers, so mentioning them is fine
I trembled.
Those traitors.
It felt like the people I'd studied for civil service exams with in a semi-basement room had gone on to become Grade 7 civil servants, and my hands shook.
Of course, I wasn't all that ambitious about growing my channel, and yes, I was the one who'd turned down their occasional invitations to large multiplayer servers and streamer tournaments.
But the viewers kept comparing us. Seriously.
As someone who'd had no equal among my peers since the age of six, I found this humiliation hard to take. Naturally, they'd become Hae the Bastard and Yeon the Traitor.
Anyway, the reason I was thinking about those two now...
[Hae the Bastard: Pingping, what are you doing for New Year's? If you're free...]
[Yeon the Traitor: Can I call you on Discord during your stream later??]
...was that I'd checked my messages before starting my stream and found messages from both of them.
“Hmm.”
I mulled it over and checked the clock.
[December 31]
Today was the momentous day that marked the end of the year.
And special occasions were even more special for VTubers.
For one simple reason: the more special the occasion, the more important it was not to take the day off.
Special occasion = day to visit a motel with your boyfriend.
Surely we couldn't leave viewers trembling with anxiety when they believed so firmly in that formula?
That was why so many VTubers ran all-night endurance streams from the thirty-first through the morning of January first.
Those endurance streams required plenty of different content. Milking fellow VTubers for entertainment made for great content and clips, so those two had probably contacted me in advance to use me for that.
“Hmm...”
Looking at their messages only deepened my worries.
Oh, to be clear, I wasn't worrying about how to reply. I was worrying about my stream.
Because...
‘I haven't prepared anything.’
Now that I thought about it, I hadn't prepared a single thing for an endurance stream.
I'd been overseas on a business trip, hadn't I?
Besides, things had been a little chaotic since my younger sibling came to stay, so preparing stream content hadn't crossed my mind.
I thought about it a little longer.
Then I just started streaming.
Oh, well. When had I ever worked that hard on stream prep?
I was a variety gaming VTuber to begin with.
I just had to fulfill my calling and play games.
What, a twenty-four-hour all-nighter?
Then I'd go into it ready to play twenty-four games.
[Hitting Diamond to Celebrate Year's End]
With that admirable attitude firmly in place, I started my stream.
If a game had 172 champions and ten randomly matched players, with different combinations making every match play out differently...
Wasn't every match basically a new game?
Besides, Leore had once captured the whole nation's interest. Most viewers wouldn't have much trouble understanding it, and everyone could comfortably...
-Fucking Lel, you asshole
-Is that stream title for real??
-All right, let's head over to Hae the Bastard's faceless cam stream lmao
“...I'll only play two matches. I'm in my promotion series.”
-ok ok
-Exactly two
-Even if you lose, just load up something else
-Open betting too, yeah
“Will do.”
I quickly queued for ranked before the viewers could change their minds.
My position was top, of course.
For a lone-wolf VTuber like me, top lane was the answer.
-Are we hitting Emerald 3 today??
-When are you ever getting to Diamond??
“...”
For the record, I'd been demoted a few days ago. I was currently Emerald 4 with 75 points.
Just two games could take me back to my former glory, Emerald 3, where Diamond was within reach.
So I focused as hard as I could and played two matches.
“Ah.”
[Defeat]
-lmaooooooo
-lmaoooo
-Wow, that teammate luck is legendary
-Everything but top got stomped lol
I lost both in a row.
“...One more?”
-🖕🖕🖕
-You think we'd let you???
-Let's move on to the next game
-Fuck, my points;;
-You long-shot bettors come to your senses yet? lol
“Okay, I'll play something else.”
I'd asked just in case, but they shut me down so firmly that I gave in at once.
Right. Well, I could earn those points back later...
Still, that last game had really been winnable.
Oh, the longing...
I gazed at the Legend of Legends icon for a moment, my eyes moist, then launched another game I'd already installed.
“Now, here's the new game I brought. It's pretty popular these days, right?”
When the game launched, a rough but distinctive pixel-art menu screen appeared.
It was Teamfight Manager 2.
You became the coach of a professional MOBA team and slowly built it up, starting in the third division.
The ultimate goal was to win the world championship and make it the best team...
-You goddamn Lel junkie
-A real Lel-brained girl lmao
-Is this really how you want to spend New Year's Eve??
“...Then what am I supposed to do?”
I stuck out my lower lip.
Honestly. I brought a game, and they still complained.
For the record, yesterday I'd found an actual new game that wasn't Lel.
It was a Korean RPG Maker game. Two hours after starting it, I'd gotten yelled at for bringing such a shitty game.
Wasn't that exactly why I played Lel every day?
At least with Lel, I got called a Lel addict. I didn't get told I'd lost my touch by bringing a boring game.
-Let's play horror, yeah
-How about Zomboid?
-Ideal Type World Cup, go go
-Yeon the Traitor is doing a faceless cam stream. Aren't we doing one...?
“Hayeon's doing a faceless cam stream?”
While I was carefully reading the chat, looking for something worth doing, news of my former fellow VTuber's faceless cam stream caught my eye.
Haebin had originally streamed on camera without showing their face before becoming a VTuber, so that was one thing.
But Hayeon had only ever done hand cams. Had that changed?
“...Should we just take a quick peek?”
Feeling strangely bitter, I opened CHZZK.
-go go go
-Gotta see what there is to see lmao
Honestly, I was curious.
We'd played games together back when we were tiny streamers, but we were strictly online friends. We didn't even have each other's phone numbers.
This was a chance to see what that friend really looked like, even if their neck wasn't in the shot. I quietly searched for Seong Hayeon.
-?? This asshole isn't even following lmao
-Didn't even follow because they're rivals...
-Searching the name to get there is so lame lmao
“No, I just don't follow people.”
I brushed off the viewers' pointless nitpicking and hit Enter in the search bar.
“Uh...”
My mouth fell open.
“W-wait.”
The first surprise was the viewer count.
A full five thousand people were watching, twenty times my number.
The second was...
-Wow lmao
-Daaamn lol
-Ohhh damn
-Hayeon stonks!!
-Sorry, old man...
-Fuck, no wonder this is a big-league streamer
“That outfit...”
In a bold move, my internet friend was wearing a bunny-girl-style outfit.
“No, this won't do. It won't.”
Once the brief shock passed, I pressed a hand to my forehead at my friend's fall from grace.
-???
-What won't do?
-I see nothing but good things
-You too, please
Good grief.
When I'd heard “faceless cam,” I'd expected a little upper-body footage. But Hayeon had even prepared an outfit for a proper live-action stream.
“If all the VTubers start turning on their cameras like this... there's no end to it. This is a race to the bottom.”
As someone in the business, I could only mourn.
First just the hands, then both arms, and then the upper and lower body.
How was that even a VTuber anymore?
If you showed everything but your face on stream, you were just some young person who wouldn't show their face.
Of course, I'd also started as a VTuber because I didn't want to reveal my face...
But as I kept going, I learned that this whole VTuber thing had a history of its own, and RP was more than just playing pretend.
I'd come to feel fairly satisfied with being a VTuber, yet everyone was trying to outdo each other in this race to the bottom.
If turning on a camera for special occasions became a VTuber's ultimate move...
VTubers would no longer be able to exist as VTubers.
And above all...
-Can't you just do a faceless cam too??
-Please, I'm begging you
“...I can't. I'm Bowsette.”
-Ah...
-Don't bullshit us, we saw everything
-Princess Bowsette, please let Wayo out
The important thing was that this wasn't an option for me.
...If you're a VTuber, just reveal a new skin for special occasions.
Don't turn on a camera to inflate your viewer count.
“Haa.”
-lol
-lmaooo
-Upvotes for jealous Wayo lol
“...That's enough watching.”
For now, I quickly closed the stream I'd been restreaming.
-??
-Ah
-Please
-Can't we watch a little longer??
-What was that stream called again??
For one simple reason: I couldn't let my viewers get siphoned away.
How could I let a VTuber using such dark arts steal the viewers I'd gathered little by little?
...It did look like a few dozen had already been bewitched and vanished, but that was a price I could afford to pay for my curiosity.
-You got caught restreaming lol
-Hayeon's asking if it's okay to call you on Discord??
“...It's nighttime already.”
I turned my gaze toward the window.
I'd started streaming in the evening and played two matches, and it was already getting dark outside.
Well, winter nights did arrive quickly.
Winter mornings, on the other hand, liked to sleep in and arrived late. The year's final night and the new year's predawn hours would stretch on for quite some time.
-What's with the escape attempt lmao
-A big-league streamer is calling and you're ignoring it??
-Wayo, is this okay when the viewer count is twenty times yours??
Ignoring the incoming Discord ringtone, I stared out the darkened window.
...Next year, I'd get my average up to around four hundred viewers too.
* * *
The next day, I signed a formal fashion brand contract with Andel as planned.
Footnotes:
The Peach Garden Oath is the famous pact of sworn brotherhood between Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Bowsette is a fan-created princess version of Bowser from the Mario games.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
