Prologue
“Thank you for tuning in again today, everyone. Let’s meet again when the light snow falls!”
: Ty
: another fun stream!
: You've been streaming every day, though. How much light snow are we gonna get?
: We get light snowfall EVERY day! Figure it out, dude
: Light snow every day, the most gentle weather anomaly ever
Once the flow of comments tapered off, I ended the stream.
“Hm?” It seemed like my PC was frozen. Something must be wrong, I thought. “Come on...” I clicked away at my mouse, but there was no response. I wasn’t great with computers, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to do in this kind of situation.
“Oh?” Though I still had no clue what was going on, it looked like the stream window had closed, at least. Good, good.
With a sigh, I stood up and walked across my apartment, where I lived alone, to the refrigerator. As I did, my mind made the complete changeover from the VTuber named Awayuki Kokorone to the twenty-year-old, unemployed woman named Yuki Tanaka.
Yes, unemployed. I’m not a uni student, nor do I even have a part-time job, so I’m a genuine NEET.
...Please don’t look at me so coldly. I have a good reason for it.
Right out of high school, I’d gone to work for a company that had turned out to be one of those totally exploitative ones you hear about occasionally. Day in, day out, they’d run me ragged. That job had been my first taste of adulthood, and it had already drained all the life from my eyes. The only mental support I’d had through it all had been the gorgeous VTubers of Live-On, now one of the leading VTuber management companies in Japan.
In the chaotic realm of VTubers, every streamer developed their own beautifully vivid world; one look at that realm, and I’d been hooked. I’d started using my already-limited free time to keep tuning in every day. Gradually, I’d become so absorbed that it had turned into my only reason for living.
Still, though I’d managed to hang on with my paltry income, life had been whittling me down. In the thrall of overwork, the light in my eyes had faded until they’d essentially become black holes—when what should have graced me but a piece of news to brighten them right up?
Live-On: Now Recruiting Members for the Third Generation!
Frankly, I’d figured it was impossible. I’d been so nervous when I’d gone for the interview that I still didn’t remember what I’d said to them.
But in yet another bout of divine trickery, perhaps, I’d somehow actually gotten the part.
I was given a new alter ego: Awayuki Kokorone. A poetic name; the first is written with the characters for “light snow” and the last is a combination of the characters for “heart” and “music note.” My avatar was tall for a girl, with straight, waist-length, black hair; pale white skin; and attention-grabbing light purple eyes, suggesting that something more lay just beneath the surface. And—to really make those beautiful, mysterious visuals pop—she wore a noble-style dress whose whites and blues seamlessly harmonized with one another. My manager had told me the illustrator had used me as a model when creating her. I certainly don’t think I’m anywhere near as pretty...
Anyway, after getting into the third generation, I’d immediately quit my job. I was sure a lot of people would say that had been a pretty hasty decision, but VTubers are busy people. Not much choice there, eh?
...That was a lie. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t work in such an exploitative environment for any longer—my shitty mentality just wasn’t strong enough to hack it.
But I’ll do so many streams as a VTuber and I’ll get a ton of fans and bask in the glorious monetization, woohoo! That had, at least, been what I’d thought back then—back when I’d still believed I could make that obviously ambitious dream a reality.
To be perfectly blunt, I hadn’t gotten popular. Seriously, I hadn’t. I’d have to solve that problem before worrying about getting monetized. It had already been three months since my debut, but I had only half the channel subscribers and livestream audience compared to the other streamers who’d debuted alongside me. In fact, the more time went by, the more my numbers dwindled.
I called myself a NEET earlier, and I know some people might wonder how a corporate VTuber could qualify for that title. However! In Live-On, while you, the streamer, receive a large share of the superchats, that doesn’t mean your income is anywhere close to stable. And given my current popularity, the superchat option wasn’t even available to me to begin with. I’d been managing to keep myself afloat with all the money that my penny-pinching tendencies had forced me to save during my days working in my old office job.
“Maybe I just don’t have enough oomph...” My manager was always telling me to be myself a little more, but what did she even want from me? And what does she mean, be yourself? How do you know who I really am? Did I do something crazy during that interview? I got a headache whenever I thought about it all. The impending doom of my savings was mentally taxing enough already.
Actually, I had a second weapon for soothing my aches and pains other than VTubers—and it was hidden right here in this refrigerator.
“I can’t live without it anymore...”
A monstrous beverage, it had been created for the sole purpose of getting you drunk. It would wipe away all your exhaustion in the blink of an eye.
That’s right! Strong Z**o!
I walked back to the desk I’d been using to stream and sent the nice, chilled, fruity chuhai washing through my body. “Phew!” Ahh, I don’t even know if this stuff tastes good anymore, but I’m at a point where I can’t end my day without having one...
And I’d never held my booze that well, so I got drunk right away. It’s super cheap and gets you slammed—StroZero is the best!
Ah, that’s good. Now I’m feeling better. It’s like my inner power is being released, and I love it.
“I freaking love it. I’d do anything for a can of this stuff—even work for an underground empire for unreasonable pay. Kaiji drank beer, but what about StroZero?” I started talking to myself like I had an IQ of precisely three. Awayuki always spoke in a very prim and proper way, fitting for a young gentlewoman, but all traces of her were completely gone now.
I carried on with my nonstop drinking and emptied the 350-milliliter can in the blink of an eye. But my body was too far gone. This wasn’t enough to satisfy it. I already had a hand on the second can I’d brought with me from the fridge. And...
“Whew, that’s the good stuff! God, I love the sound of cracking open a tall one!”
That’s right. In my thirst for booze, I’d grabbed the most devilish of all inventions—a tall can.
More audible gulps came as I, Yuki, downed that one too. It was too bad that I had to be so proper and ladylike all day at work.
“Awesome! Time to tune in to my fellow third-genners, woohoo!” It didn’t take long before I started feeling good, and since today’s stream from Hikari Matsuriya—a streamer in the same generation as me—had been archived, I started watching that.
I still hadn’t ever actually met Hikari-chan, but she’d been super nice to me ever since our debut, even though my lame streams were nothing to write home about. Seriously, she was such a good girl. An angel. I wuv her.
Her character was an energetic sixteen-year-old, fairly short, and had this unique, full-face smile that always made me want to laugh along with her. Plus, her streams were always these explosions of brilliance, every bit as joyful as her appearance—and fitting for the matsuri part of her name, which meant festival. She got a ton of comments too, and the way she laudably committed herself to the VTuber life earned her plenty of fan adoration. At this point, she was like the beating heart of the third gen.
I’d done a few collab streams with her, but... How should I put this? She was like purity and innocence personified, and I’d totally ended up feeling like I was her mother. My face and tone grew super serious as I said aloud, “Yes, I will be her mommy!”
I apparently had a habit of talking to myself more than usual while drunk. Or rather, the words in my brain just ignored all filters and came out of my mouth as is. I was normally shy in front of strangers, and I very seldom drank with anyone else, so while it hadn’t caused me any problems yet, it did make things dicey.
Not that I could stop drinking StroZero even if I tried! I really just can’t do it—seriously!
“Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!” I watched the stream, laughing uproariously throughout, without a shred of class.
Hikari was playing a video game for this stream called Wiener Legend, fittingly subtitled Sexken Densetsu. In the game, you fought other players using wieners stuck on forks as swords. It really gave you a sense for how crazy the developer must be. And, well, the theme of the game being what it was, most of the players had these awful dirty jokes and puns for usernames.
“Holy crap, ‘Cooterjuice’ kills me LMAOOOO that doesn’t even have anything to do with wieners LOL!” I was riding that chu-high, baby, meaning even the stupidest, most vulgar jokes were hysterical to me.
Oh, and the craziest part of this stream was that Hikari-chan was so pure that she’d just say all of them out loud, since she didn’t know dirty jokes at all, except for the super obvious ones. She’s catnip for the kind of pervert who thinks of himself as a gentleman.
“The hell? Why am I so hard?” I laughed. “I’m supposed to be your mommy here, but I’m so hard watching your stream!”
I finished up watching the video, laughing my ass off the entire time. Man, her streams were godlike! And she was just...amazing. I could see why she’d gotten popular. No reason she wouldn’t have.
Compared to her, I’m just...
“It’s getting late, so maybe I’ll just watch Chami-chan’s stream and go to bed.” Reality can really make you sad at two in the morning.
I started up another archived stream from one of the other gen-three streamers, named Chami Yanagase. Chami-chan went in a different direction with her content than other VTubers, mainly focusing on a variety of ASMR streams. And coming from that lady with such a voluptuous, attention-grabbing body and that short blonde hair and those blue eyes, it was amazing.
She kept her soft voice mostly emotionless, which really made me sleepy. I doubted any VTuber could compete with her when it came to putting people to sleep. She’d apparently done one of her ear-cleaning streams today. With how drunk I was, that was definitely gonna knock me right out.
“Ah, crap. This stream is just as addictive as StroZero is...” A powerful drowsiness washed over me almost immediately, and I was fast asleep within moments.
And there I was, snoring loudly, completely unaware that my smartphone was ringing off the hook...
As the scorching sunlight of a clear morning shone on my eyes, I awakened.
“Urgh, urf...” Oh, crap. I think I’m gonna barf. StroZero is fun when you’re drinking, but the hangovers are the worst. I wished they’d do something about that.
Not that I’d ever stop drinking. This was what I woke up to every day at this point. My morning hellscapes had become routine. Changing it up now would be worse for me anyway. Yeah.
If I said something like that on stream, all the comments would be like, “Huh?” That would never happen, though. I put too much emphasis on being seiso—clean and pure—during my streams. I never drank on them.
“Hrr?” Just as I finally convinced myself to stand up and get some water or something, I heard my smartphone ringtone going off. This early?
Apparently it was from my manager, Suzuki-san. She was one of the younger managers at Live-On, going on twenty-four this year. Her straightforward attitude of always tackling everything head-on, no matter how troublesome, was what had landed her that managerial position. Rumor had it she was first in line for moving up even further in Live-On too; she had it where it counted.
She always fussed over my personal life so that I could focus on my streaming; I owed a lot to her at this point. In fact, she had specifically requested to be my manager, according to her. When I’d asked why, her reply had been this:
“Well, I just felt like I’d be the only one who could possibly keep up with you, Yuki-san.”
It was incomprehensible to me. She both looked and acted like an athletic, outdoorsy type of person. Was there something my indoor nature was blinding me to?
“Hullo...”
“Oh! Yuki-san! Thank goodness you picked up!”
Huh? Wonder what’s wrong, I thought. In contrast to my listless grunt, Suzuki-san’s voice was audibly panicked. I asked, “Umm, what’s going o—?”
“Shh! Don’t talk! We can’t have any personal information of yours getting out, so I need you to say as little as possible. And I need you to listen to what I’m about to say as calmly as you can.”
“Huh?” Whatever it was, it had made Suzuki-san cut me off mid-sentence. And if I’d been half asleep before, the danger in the term “personal information” solved that problem quite handily. Wait... Have I done something awful without realizing it?
“Listen to me calmly, all right?” She paused, then finally said, “Turn off your stream.”
Turn off your stream.
Turn off your stream.
Turn off your stream.
The words looped endlessly in my mind.
Forgetting to turn off your stream, at worst, could reveal personal information. It was one of the things VTubers had to be very careful about. But that problem actually hid another, more devilish one. And—for better or worse, since I’d spent way too much time watching VTuber streams—I knew exactly what it was.
You guessed it. Whether or not any potentially harmful personal information gets out, usually when someone forgets to end their stream, the viewers get to hear them out of character. VTubers role-play as their own characters—their avatars—so the audience pretty much never gets to witness how they actually speak or act. Such a rare exposure of my true self could only mean...
...that the viewers would start bullying me and attacking me relentlessly.
An electrifying dread shot through me. Immediately, the problems my PC had been having when I’d tried to end the stream yesterday flashed through my mind. I opened the streaming window on my computer as I broke out in a cold sweat all over. And there, I saw...
: Morning! are you watching?
: Loved your STRONK drinking stream!
: It was so different from how you usually are that it went way past regular gap moe into something totally new
: light snow more like a blizzard lololol
: Great! It's finally time for you and I to be Hikari-chan's mommy and get hard for her together!
: The Girl Who Compared StroZero to Her Genmate's ASMR Streams
: I have witnessed a legend.
: "This stream would later leave its mark in VTuber history."
: why do so many of the self-professed pure and wholesome vtubers end up being like this
: my sides were literally in orbit. you were just acting so genuine I can't bring myself to hate you LMAO
: ^ this! Now I want to drink StroZero with you
“What the—noooooooooo!” The scream came out involuntarily.
Despite the early morning hour, the comment section was scrolling so fast I couldn’t keep up with it. More importantly, my viewer count was way higher than my average right now. In fact, when I looked more closely, my subscriber count was in line with the others in the third gen—actually, with the rate it was increasing, it would soon exceed those.
Ah, crap. This was giving me a headache.
: Congrats on #1 trending worldwide!
: The Girl Who Took Over the World Just by Drinking StroZero at Her Computer
“Number one worldwide?!”
Frantically, I checked the trending rankings on Cheeper, the most-used social media site in Japan. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but there it was: the name Awayuki Kokorone at first place in the world, not even just Japan. With the hashtag #AccidentallyLive a little below that.
Ahh... Well, oh, huh...
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Yuki-san,” continued my manager. “Ever since seeing your interview, I’d always been prepared for when you finally snapped—but I never thought it would be you forgetting to turn off your stream. I should have expected a curveball from you. I’ll redouble my efforts to support you from now on!”
Too much was happening. Suzuki-san’s words didn’t reach my mind.
Ugh, actually, the hangover combined with my head not processing anything was making me feel pretty sick.
“Ugh, urgh...”
Oh, this is bad...!
☆This noise was too dirty to express in writing.☆
Finally, while vomiting, I managed to push the “stop streaming” button.
The stream became a legend, both because I’d forgotten to turn it off and because of the way I had turned it off—it would go down in history as The Stream That Ended with a Barf.
Chapter 1
Solo Stream
Once the incident with me forgetting to turn off the stream was over, I gave Suzuki-san a call back to apologize. Even though my computer issues had been what had kicked everything off, it was entirely my responsibility for having exposed my shameful conduct to the public. If she told me to take a break from streaming, I would understand. I was prepared to correct the wretchedness of the old drunk inside me. I was actually ready to stop drinking StroZero entirely—even though it now ranked alongside blood and water in importance to my survival.
However, the answer waiting for me was the opposite of what I’d expected.
“Oh, well,” Suzuki-san said, “I’d certainly like you to never forget to end your stream again, but drinking is absolutely fine.”
“Huh? Wait. Why is it absolutely fine? You know what I did, don’t you?! This was a huge blunder! It goes way beyond ruining my character! We’re basically talking about Gandhi turning into the king of blood-splattering, flesh-scattering street fights here!”
“Well, given who you are, Yuki-san, that was well within the company’s expectations...”
“Huh?” I repeated. What was she even talking about? The company? Sure, people said most of Live-On’s streamers marched to the beat of their own drums—with some even calling it a hangout or hot pot for some real crazy types—but that incident was “well within expectations”?
“Actually, during your interview when we were recruiting for the third gen, you were nothing like your character,” Suzuki-san replied. “Don’t you remember?”
“What?! What do you mean? Did I do something terrible during the interview?!”
“Huh? You really don’t remember? You landed with such an impact that ever since then, it’s been very strange to see you act so normally...”
But it’s been three whole months since the interview! Why are you only bringing this up now?!
“And I thought for sure,” continued my manager, “that you were acting so wholesome precisely to overturn everyone’s expectations later down the road.”
“I wasn’t!”
“But to me, you’re just as chaotic as Yujiro Hanma and Heihachi Edajima.”
“Great...” I remembered literally zero of what I’d done during my interview, since I’d been so nervous, but to be compared to insane shonen manga characters like that, I must have really done something...
But at the same time, I finally had my answer to a mystery that had been plaguing me ever since I’d joined Live-On—of why I’d been selected at all. Those Live-On jerks only picked me because I was a terrible danger to myself and others and they thought it was funny!
“I, er... I’m just surprised you’d pick such an obvious time bomb...” I managed to reply.
“We actually had to put a lot of time and thought into it, you know. But our selection standards here at Live-On state that streamers must be people who can really shine. And we felt that from you, Yuki-san.”
“I don’t feel like I’m shining. I feel like I’m covered in nasty mud-water.”
“Oh, you’re shining. Your character—Awayuki Kokorone—is the center of attention now. The shock was a bit much, true, and we are seeing a few critical comments here and there, but it hasn’t escalated into flaming.”
That did surprise me, actually. To tell the truth, after all that, I’d done a fearful little search on myself on the Internet. While there was plenty of teasing and making fun, there was a surprising lack of remarks that could be taken as slander. In fact, most people were excited to see my next stream—even if it was mostly a joke for some.
“That means that regardless of what you’re really like,” Suzuki-san went on, “a lot of people are watching you now—because you interest and attract them.”
“Is that...right?”
“Otherwise, they wouldn’t be waiting for your next stream, would they? I’ll be sure to watch all of your streams from now on, and if you ever really go too far, I’ll stop you. So why not try coming out of your shell for once?”
“My shell...”
“I promise it’ll turn out well. And besides, you’re already past the point of no return, aren’t you? If you went back to your pure, seiso character for your next stream, the level of weirdness for everyone watching would pierce the heavens.”
“Urk!” Really hitting me where it hurts...
Our phone call ended after that, with Suzuki-san saying she had to get back to work.
But then... “Eep?!” Not one minute after that call ended did my ringtone go off again. And the one calling...was Hikari-chan.
Oh, great, I thought. This is so awkward. But I can’t just ignore her... Okay. You can do this. “H-Hello?”
“Oh! Good morning, Awayuki-chan! And congratulations! You’re the talk of the whole world! Number one! I never knew you were such a fun person normally! Hearing you act so naturally actually made me start having fun too!”
“Ah, aha ha...”
Hikari-chan congratulated me with the same super-energetic tone she always used. And she was probably sincere too—not just someone trying to be excited for a newcomer. I could tell as much because we’d known each other since our debut. She really wasn’t any different when she streamed from when she wasn’t. She was always bright and optimistic.
Wait. Didn’t that make her, in virtually all respects, my polar opposite?
“A-Also, I was curious about something!” she added.
“Huh? What is it?”
“Well, I got curious earlier and watched the clips from the stream.”
“Uh-huh.” Of course people had clipped it, LOL.
“When you were watching my stream, you said you were really hard. I didn’t know what it meant, so I asked my manager!”
“What.”
“And she told me it meant you were saying I was really, really charming!”
What the hell was Hikari-chan’s manager doing to her?! Having too much fun at her expense, I bet! She must have been smirking when she’d told her that!
“Oh, you! It made me blush. Eheh heh!” she continued. “Let’s collab again soon, okay? Bye-bye!” And with that, after leaving a storm roiling within my heart, Hikari-chan left.
Right. I’d known it would happen, but I still felt disappointed at how all the other VTubers knew about my true colors already.
After that, starting with Chami-chan, I got DMs and calls from the other VTubers of Live-On—both from my generation and from the previous ones. Every one of them shared a sense of amusement and happiness at being able to see me act so naturally.
Now that I thought about it, maybe I’d been alienating myself from everyone else by hiding what I was really like.
Ahh... After thinking about everything, for some reason, I feel like I’ve just gotten permission to live my life freely.
Anyway, owing to all that, right now I was...
“Let’s do this...”
Pshhh! The can opened with that delightful sound.
I couldn’t really wrap my head around anything anyway, so I decided to just leave it all by the wayside!
“We’re starting the stream now, woohoo!”
: She's heeeeeeeeeeeeeere━━━(゜∀゜)━━━!!!!!
: Number one in the world is streaming!
: lmao at "starting the stream now, woohoo"
: Huh? Who's this?
: 110% right from the start hahahaha
: Is this the Strong Blizzard stream I heard about?
: You make her sound like a pro wrestler
: she's literally not sorry at all LMAOOO
The comment section scrolled by faster than I’d ever seen it go before. Ahh, this is sweet! I’d rate this pleasure at about three cans of StroZero.
“Actually! I was pretty sorry about it. Honest! I’ll never forget to end my streams again! I’m really sorry, everyone!”
: Wait, is someone different behind the screen now? I'd know that model anywhere, but she's not the one talking!
: did she get hijacked?
: Oh, she got hijacked. By StroZero.
: I laughed so hard when that one alcoholic viewer calling himself a sound sommelier knew it was a StroZero can opening, and then you made the comment about the underground empire right after
: Wait, so you're not sorry about the booze?
“Well, I planned to stop with the booze, obviously. But apparently management isn’t really mad about it, so you know what? I don’t care anymore!”
: The management must be ill
: Same as always lol. the management is chaotic neutral, so it makes sense the people they recruit are too
: in the end, it's just Live-On being Live-On
: Don't tell me you're ALREADY drunk???
“Huh? What did you expect? Got one empty can here already. I’d never be able to be in front of so many people sober. My courage is absolute shit, and with that, let’s crack open a tall one!”
: don't give us that PSHHH sound lmao
: Absolute shit (seiso)
: she's strong af, i'm convinced
: Hol up, she actually started drinking! lolol
Now that my mind was feeling nice and dull, it was time for the finishing blow. I downed the tall can. “Gulp, gulp, gulp! Nnnghhh, feels so goooood!” Never before has my life felt so fulfilled!
: huh. has she been taking some strange medicine lately?
: In a manner of speaking
: It sounded so tasty when she drank it, but that last part REALLY woke me up
: Unbelievable, huh? This is the first time anyone's drunk on stream except for when she got sloshed after forgetting to turn the stream off
: Give me back my pure Awayuki-chan!
“Huh? What do you mean? I am pure. Just look at how graceful and ladylike my expression is!” I leaned the Awayuki model way in toward the screen. Close enough to actually make people fall for her. In the past, that would have triggered a parade of comments about how cute or pretty or amazing she was. However...
: she's a StroZero addict who thinks of herself as wholesome
: Bet she's got booze breath
: Wasn't this stream for talking in that pretty young lady voice to soothe our weary souls? until like just a day ago???
The comment section was now pandemonium, and it was just too funny to me. Things had been fun in the past, but I doubted I’d ever felt this entertained while streaming until today. Ahh, thank you, StroZero... You’ve not only soothed my soul, but given me fun and enjoyment. I was head over heels. “I’m getting married to StroZero.”
: LMAOOOOO
: huh?
: Huh?
: Is it true a VTuber just said she was getting married on-stream?
: The Girl Who Could Create Only Legends
: Are you gonna explain the whole bit where you said how hard Hikari-chan was making you?
“Huh? Well, I love it when girls are totally clueless. It would have been ruder not to pop a lady boner to that!”
: oh my god someone shut her mouth, every time she opens it a bomb comes out!
: I know I'd pop one. v realistic
: Holy shit my sides hahahaha
“In fact, if a man thinks a woman is charming, he should just pop one on the spot. Women love men who know what they want.”
: She has a point
: no she doesn't rofl
: Then when I meet you I won't hesitate to get a boner and profess my love for you Awayuki-san!
“Do not do that. I will call the police.”
: wtf
: The words are all bypassing her filters
That energy persisted as we continued our idle zatsudan chat. This stream was fully me—unlike all the other ones. It gave me an indescribable feeling of liberation. Gradually, I found myself drawn in, and started laughing from the heart a lot more instead of faking it. Man. After working in that exploitative company and living as a NEET for so long, I totally forgot how much fun it can be to talk to people...
As time went on, we amped up the voltage, and I was fully enjoying myself reading the comments. However, the tides suddenly turned.
: heyo! there's a 2nd-genner here hahaha
“Huh?”
Live-On as a company was huge, now one of the front-runners in Japan’s VTuber management race, still in fierce competition with its rival corporations. But no matter how powerful a creature grows, it always starts out as a weak little baby. Even Live-On originally started with a single VTuber.
Plus, she’d only been born to test out how good they could get the models’ movements to look, and they’d recruited the streamer herself from the employees of the still-tiny Live-On. Essentially, she was a trial product. And so, naturally, she’d been thrown into the seas of the internet with unremarkable character design—a sailor uniform and short black hair, neither of which could be called great design by any means—and janky motions. Going by her appearance alone, she clearly lacked anything she’d need to get popular. Apparently, only ten people had watched her very first stream.
But being a baby didn’t mean she’d had no abilities. Possessed of natural-born talents, she’d quickly overawed her audience. Her singing voice was so powerful and energetic that it shook your very soul—none who heard it would ever forget it. On her zatsudan streams, she showed an incredible breadth of knowledge and unconventional ideas—genius that made you wonder what kind of life she’d lived until now. Meanwhile, her video game streams were full of the worst luck you could possibly imagine, which always plunged her viewers into a whirlpool of laughter—you had to assume the heavens themselves had taken her viewers’ side.
It would not be an understatement to say that all of the VTubers currently with Live-On had been influenced by her a lot. Despite nobody expecting anything from her, she’d sent furious waves through more than just Live-On—she’d shaken the entire VTuber world to its core, and served as the bridge that had guided Live-On to its future growth as a corporation. She was Live-On’s one and only first-generation VTuber, still boasting the highest number of channel subscribers to this day. Her name: Hareru Asagiri.
After she’d spread Live-On’s popularity, though, it had been the three members of its second generation who’d really catapulted Live-On to the top—each of whom were like densely packed bundles of sheer individuality.
The first had straight, crimson hair that reached her waist and a slender body that was over 180 centimeters tall. The horns coming out of her head made her look like a little devil—and her clothing spared no effort in showcasing her bombshell physique. Confronted with her dangerous charms, like those of an evil executive, the viewers had been on the edge of their seats wondering what her personality would be like—and then, on her first stream, she’d revealed that she’d used to be a “sexy” actress who’d specialized in yuri, or lesbian, content and proceeded to baffle everyone by talking about her favorite “sexy” actresses and “sexy” yuri video recommendations. Her name was Sei Utsuki. I had fond memories from back when I’d been drowning myself in VTubers of laughing myself out of my chair at just how fearlessly hard she always went.
The second went all in on the cute visuals—she was a little beast girl with brown, tiger-pattern cat ears and a tail, and her clothes looked like a school uniform from a fantasy anime. However, she loved only the worst of games and the worst of movies, earning her the nickname the Filth Junkie. Her name was Nekoma Hirune. For whatever reason, in a world where both domestic and foreign industries were filled with wonderful video games and movies, she preferred the awful ones, the ones that could only be called stains on mankind’s very history, and she frequently did interesting and hilarious commentary on them while streaming. I remembered one time during her “Try Not to Laugh: #40 (Temporary Title), Playing While Reading with All the Feeling” stream when my sides had nearly split from laughing so hard.
And then came my final senpai, the exceptionally talented Shion Kaminari, who was able to keep the three highly individual characters I’ve already mentioned in check. Shion was possessed of such keen insight that people believed she could literally see emotions. Not only did she always meet her viewers’ expectations, but she always went one step further, with her rock-solid stability and humor basically making her streams virtuoso performances. That was all the more apparent when, during collaborations, she would take the role of master of ceremonies. Although getting multiple Live-On members together usually made for absolute insanity, Shion’s mere presence was enough to set everyone’s minds at ease.
Her character was a shrine maiden with the spirit of a nine-tailed fox within her. Her visuals matched that—she had fox ears, nine tails, mystical shrine maiden clothing, slightly drooping eyes implying just a hint of ephemerality, and black hair cut cleanly at the shoulders. Those natural features, which avoided the excessive, made her burst with an aura that soothed everyone who watched her. Lately people had taken to calling her the Live-On Mom, or Shion-mama—titles she had eagerly weaponized. And with such powerful weapons in hand, she was unstoppable.
That was a pretty long explanation, but basically, what I wanted to say is that my four predecessors were basically godlike beings to me. And now...
Sei Utsuki: The scent of a comrade brought me here.
Shion Kaminari: Turns out you were just as much a part of Live-On, huh...
...these two gods had deigned to descend upon my humble chat!
In the past, I’d received several comments from my senpais who’d wanted to be considerate to their kouhai. Each time, though, I would get so terribly nervous that I’d barely been able to stammer out my words, and it would really slow down my stream. I did at least remember what we’d talked about at the time, though, so while I couldn’t be certain, I assumed that if I went even further beyond that level of nervousness, I’d turn into...whatever it was I’d become during my third-gen interview.
And this time, two of them had visited at once—that had never happened before. Normally, my brain would have gone even further beyond. No doubt about it. But, well...
“Sei-senpai, Shion-senpai, I’ve always loved you lots and lots. Let’s get married specifically so we can have sex.”
At this point, I hadn’t just gone further beyond—I’d pierced the heavens! And the chat exploded into excitement at my sex-based proposal:
: Huh?
: Huh?
: The Girl Who Threw Away Her Impassioned Proposal to StroZero within Minutes
: you're touched in the head...
: You're too seiso to say "sex"!
: Hold on a minute. If you read between the lines, that means she's never had sex before marriage! Doesn't that actually make her pure?
: i always believed in her purity!
Ahh, crap. Now that two of the senpais I’ve always idolized have shown up, I don’t think I could get any more excited. “Oh, come on—two of the streamers I’ve always loved are right in front of me. They gave me the strength to live, you know! Of course I’d ask if they wanted to get down and dirty.”
: QED. Perfect logic.
: All this proves is that this is what happens in the end to StroZero addicts
: if she marries strozero and then drinks it, she's mixing bodily fluids with her waifu, which is sex. Basically she's asking for a polygamous marriage so she can have sex with her waifu while having sex with her two senpais. I think I get it...
: I feel like she's being really insulting toward all life somehow
: I heard someone just invited her senpais to a lesbian three-way right after her legendary stream?
: What a coincidence! I, too, just got some info saying there was a VTuber who got rock-hard with her colleagues despite having a waifu named StroZero and made a pass at them. The story I heard is slightly different, though. Which is the truth?
: Both of them, probably...
: lmfaooooo
: This is what it means to be wholesome in the world of VTubers...
“Come on, guys, quit getting carried away with it. Didn’t I just say girls love honest, straightforward people? I was just putting action to my words!”
: a woman who walks the talk! she really is pure and seiso!
: You really didn't need to put action to those words
: wait, how do the two of THEM feel about it? lololol
: A first-strike sexual proposition deck has the fastest offense out of every kind of deck, but since you stake all your resources on the very start and don't plan ahead, your matchup with the opponent's deck can make it a double-edged sword.
: Now, what's their match-up?!
: gulp...
: thump... thump... thump... *heart beating*
Sei Utsuki: .........blush
: SHE DID IT!!!!!
: I can't believe it was super effective on Sei-samaaaaaaa!
: Are you for real?! Tomorrow I'm gonna go up to the girl I like and pop a boner right in front of her while pleading for her to have sex with me!!!
: hello? police?
Shion Kaminari: What is even happening here...
: Mom is so confused lol
: Would be weirder if she wasn't
“Heh. Now you’ve seen Awayuki’s true power. Time to queue up that one epic Gundam Unicorn theme.”
: How can our StroZero be such a braggart?
: LOL i love how we're not even acknowledging her as human anymore
: well, everyone knows you've gotta fight your own battles
: wait, so like, does this mean Sex-sama and Awayuki-chan are super compatible?
: I want to say "DANGER: DO NOT MIX" but... yeah, that's pretty likely
“Sex-sama” was a fond nickname people had for Sei. Her viewers and genmates used “sama” for her because of the majestic, imposing things she did on-stream, but when the particularly gentlemanly stuff came out, more and more people had started calling her Sex-sama.
Sei Utsuki: By the by, Awayuki-kun, I had something to ask you.
“What is it, Sei-sa—Sei-senpai?”
Sei Utsuki: Oh? You know you can call me Sei-sama too, right?
“For real?! I’m so happy!” In general, after first debuting in Live-On, it was recommended to address your predecessors using the suffix senpai. Until now, I’d been careful not to call her Sei-sama even though I’d really wanted to. But look! Look at this! Drink StroZero, and that problem was all but solved! Why, everyone should fall in love with StroZero.
Actually, everyone should get hard when they think of StroZero. And then StroFap to it.
“Okay! What did you want to know, Sei-sama? My three sizes? My erogenous zones? For you, I’d tell you anything.”
: Is... is it... precious...? ...Tee...tee...?
: Huh... huh...? ...Huh...
: people can't even say it with a straight face with these two being who they are lol
Sei Utsuki: Eh, I'll ask about that off-stream.
: so she's gonna just ask her XD
: sasuga sex-sama
Sei Utsuki: Getting back on topic. My question for you is: what lesbian adult video situation do you like best?
Shion Kaminari: (°Д° )
I replied, “I like it when one of the actresses clearly does not appreciate the other’s lesbian shenanigans.”
Shion Kaminari: ( °д°)
Sei Utsuki: That does it. We're doing a collab. Get your StroZero ready.
“<Yes, Your Majesty!>” I exclaimed in an approximation of English.
: time for the stream of lols
: These two are seriously the best, holy shit www
: Mom, are you alive?
: This is what VTubers are, huh...
The comment section became a jungle of w’s and laughing emotes.
Now that a collaboration with the senpai of my dreams was set in stone, it was getting late, so I decided to end the stream. I was so happy I almost thought for a moment I was dreaming. This, and everything else, was all thanks to StroZero.
So, everyone...let’s all stan StroZero!
Third-Gen Collab Stream
“Ohhhhhh arrrrrgh!” Sure enough, once the night after the solo stream had passed and the booze had completely left my system, I stayed nestled in bed, writhing in agony.
Upon waking up, I’d been groggy—and also hungover—but with my brain trying not to remember the previous night’s events, I’d been able to get myself upright. But after plugging in my phone and scrolling through social media...
Stream Summary
Popped some StroZero right at the startAnnounced marriage to StroZeroSpoke passionately about using her colleague for you-know-what materialProposed polygamous marriage to her two senpais to get a lesbian three-wayWas asked preference in lesbian porn by one senpai, gave a pretty yikes answer, then decided to do a collab with both senpaisStroZero so delicious!Holy crap, this girl is actually crazy
After seeing all that, my mood had sunk like a destroyed battleship. It was already afternoon, but I still hadn’t eaten or drunk anything. Instead I remained firmly in bed, languishing in my suffering.
I-I can’t keep this up. Every time I try to calm down, my tomfoolery from yesterday flashes through my mind every few minutes! Someone save me... Someone release me from this embarrassment...
“Uh.” Suddenly, a solution came to mind—one that would, without a doubt, set me free.
That solution, however, happened to also be a temptation of the devil himself, one which was practically certain to lead into a new, dark chapter of my life. And the sun was still looking at me dead in the face. I couldn’t ever allow myself to lay hands on it at this hour.
Ahh, but I can hear that person calling my name. That beloved person...
Pshhh!
“Awright, let’s go! Time for a little guerilla collab stream, woohoo!”
: She's heeeeeeeeeeeere━━━(゜∀゜)━━━!!!!!
: Pshhh!
: Pshhh!
: omg everyone's opening their cans at once LMAO
: isn't this basically just a drinking party now
“Yeah! Drink up, everyone! Actually, I’ve been drinking since just past noon today, so I’m all ready!”
: Whaaaaa *concerned*
: She really does throw us total curveballs every time huh
: I came here bc I heard a VTuber declared a polygamous marriage to an inanimate object and members of the same sex
: I see. This must be what they call a diversified society /s
: T h e l a w s o f t h e s e i s o m e a n n o t h i n g !
“Sweet! Now that we’re all revved up, I’ll announce who I’m doing the collab with! Here today with us we have Mashiron!”
“Kon-mashiro, everyone! It’s me, Mashiro Irodori, also called Mashiron. I thought I was coming here for Awa-chan’s stream, but now this can of StroZero is here and I’m super confused.”
: lol
: treating her kid as literal strozero lol
: Oh hey it's Mashiron! You've collabed before too. You're good friends, huh?
: hey, mashiron! your kid has turned into a delinquent! she's making all of japan laugh so hard that we're hyperventilating, do something about it!
Mashiron was an illustrator in the third generation, like me, who used the boyish boku as her pronoun. The third generation had four people in it: me, Hikari-chan, Chami-chan, and Mashiron.
Her character was on the short side, with white skin, short silver hair that seemed to sparkle, and blue eyes that practically drew you into them. Her whole appearance, including her clothes, gave her an androgynous beauty—very arousing. Her streams had gained popularity because of how she would talk to her viewers in a relatively low, calm voice—but with scathing words—while drawing pictures. I’d known her since not only our debut, but before it. We’d already done several collabs too, and the comment section was always quite a bit more serene than when the second-genners showed up.
As for why we knew each other so well, it was as one comment before mentioned: Mashiron was also my mother, who had given me my “body.” That’s right! Mashiron was the illustrator who’d worked on the character design for my other self, Awayuki Kokorone! Given her position, we’d naturally become friends, and now we called one another by the nicknames Mashiron and Awa-chan. I couldn’t help being on cloud nine now that I was going to be collaborating with my senpais in the future, so to vent some of the excitement, I’d suggested an unscheduled collab to my longtime pal Mashiron!
“Today my goal is to use Mashiron to release everything I have pent up!” I announced.
“And suddenly I’m being made into a pleasure object. I cannot conceal my shock. Actually, can someone help me?”
: lol suddenly some outrageous remarks
: This girl doesn't even hesitate with someone she's had so many collabs with, all while pretending to be seiso
: First the alcohol, then her two senpais, and now her 3rd-gen friend... She's totally indiscriminate lmao
: One word out of her mouth and the comments turn into an ocean of laughter. practically solving worldwide water shortages here
: was that stream Mashiron's first time seeing her StroZero mode too?
“It was!” said Mashiron. “I was pretty surprised she’d been able to hide it for so long.”
“Well, today is special. Before I would always drink starting at night, once my stream was done. You were already asleep at the time, Mashiron.”
“Ah, right. Still, though, once I actually saw it, it was way crazier than I’d imagined. Since awa means bubble, you’re less Awa-chan and more Shuwa-chan now—like the sound of how fizzy StroZero is.”
“StroZero is very fizzy, hence the Shuwa-chan. Actually, from now on, whenever I’m in this mode, why don’t we call me Shuwa-chan?”
“Hmm... I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before, but... Well, whatever! It’s cute, so it’s fine!”
: Shuwa-chan lol
: you're okay with that??? lol
: Schwa...? what is she now, a perverted muscle-bound macho action hero?
: no, she's a pervert on a high after drinking so much strozero
: I get the feeling this name'll stick
“Well, that’s enough of an intro,” I said. “Let’s do some Castella replies today!”
Castella was an anonymous message-sending service where listeners could write their questions and such as messages to streamers. Viewers were always happy to hear you replying to their questions, and for streamers who mainly did zatsudan streams, they were an especially effective tool for getting things more exciting, so it was one of those win-win services.
“I’m mainly gonna be answering the Castellas that came to me today!” I explained.
“And I’m sure everyone’s excited for it.”
“First message! Woohoo!”
“Woohoo.”
: gotcha!
: so is "woohoo" a thing you say now lol
: Mashiro-chan just gave up lmao
: Mashiron, never lose hope...
Q: What’s the most cans of StroZero you’ve ever drank in one session?
: omg starting out with the strozero questions i see lol
: Actually I bet that's ALL of the Castellas
: Personally picking out the relevant ones, huh...
“Oh, well, I don’t hold my liquor that well, so I don’t normally drink more than three cans in a day. But when I finally quit my job at that shitty exploitative company, I was so happy that I drank one tall can and five normal ones. Total of six. That’s why I’m a NEET right now.”
“LOL.”
: Where do I even start with that one!
: Never heard about you being a NEET before
: Well, she WAS basically streaming every day
: wait that's way too much... are you speedrunning the destruction of your liver?
: Were you okay the next day...?
“No, it was super yabai. When I woke up and tried to get out of bed, I immediately barfed and fell over again. I thought I was gonna drown myself.”
“You’re one yabai third-genner.”
: I know I shouldn't laugh but LOLLLL
: Mashiron is at a loss
: wait, so you not only ended your stream by barfing, you almost ended your life? *concerned*
: The Girl Who Almost Died during a Happy Toast
: The Girl Who Never Stopped Loving StroZero Even After It Tried to XXXX Her
“Actually, Shuwa-chan,” said Mashiron, “that’s like, really bad. And you’ve been drinking since noon today? Maybe you should give your liver a rest.”
“Hmm. Maybe you’re right.”
“You could ruin your health. I’d be really sad if that happened.”
: Her concern is so precious and pure
: they've been through thick and thin, that's probably why she's worried
: you really do love her huh!
: that love-filled warning <3
“Okay, then I’ll give my liver a break for all of tomorrow! That work?”
“But you’re streaming again tomorrow...”
“I am trying to stream every day, no matter what.”
“Must be rough to be a NEET and have nothing to do all day.”
: I feel that
: totally agree
: literally me
: omg you guys ;_;
“Well, can’t you just stream sober?”
“Hmm...” I considered, skeptical.
“You’re funny as Shuwa-chan, but I kinda would like to see Awa-chan once in a while too.”
“Oh, you! If you’re going to butter me up like that, well, I guess I’ll just have to!”
“Aww, thanks! Then from now on, do regular sober streams, okay?”
“Okay!”
“Heh. Just as planned.”
“Huh? Did you say something?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
: she has her right in the palm of her hand lol
: the wise general mashiro!
: can't wait for when she's actually levelheaded
: Protecting her colleague's body from booze, AND laying the groundwork for incredible episodes... what an amazing play
: Hell yeah this means we get more wholesome streams!
“Look, Mashiron! Everyone is looking forward to me streaming sober!”
“Seems like it.”
“I knew everyone really loved me despite everything they say! You guys don’t have to be shy like that, you know!”
“Yes, you’re right about that. Why don’t we get to the next Castella?”
“Okay!”
Q: I’m worried about Awayuki-chan since she’s been drunk all the time lately. Are you okay? Here, you want a StroZero?
“Yes, please!”
“No.”
“Aahhhhhhh!”
: They're so in tune with each other XD
: Mashiron is scarily good at dealing with her lol
: could she be the second mom?
: if she's going to take after Shion, she's going to have to rein in this beast calling herself a streamer
: Didn't realize we were at the circus
: poor mom... F's in the chat for Shion
Q: What did you think of StroZero the first time you drank it?
“It was kinda, y’know, bitter, and kinda blech.”
“Oh, that’s surprising.”
“But... When we met again the day after... I simply couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
“We’re still talking about StroZero, right?”
Q: Is StroZero-chan your only love? You’re not cheating with other Strong products, are you?
“Actually, there were a few times when I thought about trying out other ones.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But, you know... Whenever I tried to buy one, her face would appear in my mind, and I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“I see—the StroZero in your mind!”
: Please forgive us, Professor StroZero!
: Wow, you for real love StroZero
: This feeling—it must be love!
: Love?! (flustered)
Q: How did you actually feel when you realized you hadn’t turned off the stream? lol
Also, I like Awayuki-chan from before and Awayuki-chan now. You’ve come this far, now climb all the way to being the number-one VTuber of all time!!!
“Look, some warm words for you,” Mashiron said.
“Ohhhh...”
“Huh? Wait, why are you so ruffled? Aren’t you happy about it?”
“Well, I was super happy about it, and that’s why I’m here now, but I never got any of this straightforward encouragement before just recently, so I don’t know how to react...”
“You sound like a real entertainer. And wait, you never thought about your responses?”
“I was just so happy that I went with the first thing that came to mind and stopped thinking about it!”
“Just like a puppy...”
: Is Shuwa-chan embarrassed?!
: lol it's like you just got surprised by the Terminator acting like he's figured out how human emotions work
: Why do you sound so much like an entertainer anyway, lol
“Well, I mean, after I forgot to turn off the stream that one time, you know how many Castellas have been StroZero-related? Like ninety percent.”
: Ah whoops sry lol
: So you're the culprit! And so am I.
: then getting a non-StroZero question is the same chance as pulling a 5-star servant??? i can't even hope for it lol
: For Awa-chan, StroZero is like spinach for Popeye, or garlic for Wario! (or so i'm insisting)
“Hey, you still haven’t answered the actual question. How did you feel when you realized you hadn’t ended your stream?”
“Oh, right! Hmm... It felt kinda like I’d slept in way too long on the first day of high school, I guess!”
“I see. That particular hell is easy to imagine. I wouldn’t want to experience it.”
: Ahsdjfghasdjghaskgdj stop it you're opening old scars!!!
: LOL there's people who have experienced that in the comment section
Q: If you were going to mix StroZero, what would you put in it? Red Bull? Monster?
“I’d mix in a different flavor of StroZero.”
“Right.”
Q: If you had all the money in the world, what kind of alcohol would you buy?
“I’d buy StroZero.”
“Right.”
Q: What’s the strongest snack to eat with StroZero that makes you feel like as long as you have it, you could drink StroZero forever?
“StroZero.”
“Right, so StroZero is all the answers, thank you very much.”
: huh... (disturbed)
: StroZero, StroZero, then more StroZero, huh?
: And for that, StroZero, StroZero, and for after that, more StroZero...
: they're so freaking in sync i love it!!!
: She pushes StroZero so hard, but probably won't ever get a sponsorship since the way she drinks it is just too much like a junkie lol
: i mean she couldn't exactly say "nnnnnnghhhh feels so good!" in an official advertisement
: With a name like Shuwa-chan, wouldn't she be great in a commercial where she sinks into a pool of StroZero while giving a thumbs-up?
: She'd probably go down with a full smile on her face
: and then she'd drink the whole pool and come back to life
“Well, being serious here, I’m a NEET, so I have literally no money. I can’t buy any energy drinks or snacks to begin with. But anyway, now that I’m StroZero’s girl, I wouldn’t leave her side even if I had the money.”
“And here I am, my eyes boggling at how the person who needs monetization the most was doing one of those streams that get people banned immediately.”
“This is making me sad, so let’s go to the next Castella, woohoo!”
Q: I’m marrying this girl...
Why?! Why can’t I marry her?! She’s such a good girl!
Whenever something bad happens to me, she’s right at my side to make me forget it all! She’s so much fun to be around!
I can’t be apart from her any longer! If you don’t let me marry her, we’ll just elope!
And, so saying, she left, taking StroZero with her...
Q: StroZero: “I love you too. But I’m sorry. I love so many people that I can’t marry you and you alone! So please, think of me as only ever looking out for myself. I’ll continue to love you all in the future.”
“I couldn’t stop crying at these two Castellas that combined to make a sad story...” I sniffled.
“Hrm...wait, what?”
: omg someone sent an entire short story lol
: Why is a StroZero can talking?
: AHHHHHHHHHH IT TAAAAALKED!!! /spongebob
“Anyway, it’s pretty late, so why don’t we wrap things up?” Mashiron said.
“Oh, gotcha! Then as the perfect capstone to this stream, let’s go to the final Castella!”
Q: StroZero! StroZero!
StroZeroooooooooooowaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Aahhhhhhhhhhh... ahh... ahh-ahh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! StroZero StroZero StroZerooooowaahhhhhhh!!!
Ahhh *sniff sniff*! *sniff sniff*! *wheeze* *wheeze*! *wheeze* *wheeze*! Smells so good... *sniff sniff*
Ngh-ahh! I want to sniff StroZero-tan’s silver can! *sniff sniff!* Ahhhhh!!!
Wait, that’s not it! I want to pet it! Pet its fluffiness! Pet pet! Mofu mofu! Mofu mofu petting the can! Scratch scratch pet pet... squeeeeeeeze!!!
My first StroZero-tan was so delicious!!! Ahhhhh... ahhhh... ahh-ahhhhhhh!!! Hwaahhhhhhn!!!
My second one was good too, huh, StroZero-tan! Ahhhhhh! So adorable! Kawaii! Strozero-tan! Kawaii! Ah-ahhhhh!
I’m so happy the tall cans are on sale too—wait nooooooooo!!! Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Gaahhhhhhhh!!!
Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! I can’t drink the entire tall can?! Ah... Right after the first and second ones, if I think about it...
I CANNOT DRINK ALL THE STROZERO-CHANS? Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
Noooooooooo!!! It can’t beeeeeeeeeeee!!! Haaaaaaaaaahhn! Japan-aaaaaaahhh!!!
God! Dammit! Fine, I’ll just quit! I’ll quit rea...lity...huh?! It’s... It’s watching me? StroZero-chan is watching me from the fridge?
The second StroZero-chan is speaking to me!!! Thank goodness... Not everything in this world has abandoned me just yet!
Yahooooooooooooo!!! I’ll always have StroZero-chan!!! We did it, Super Dry!!! I can do it all by myself!!!
Ah, no, tall StroZero-chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! Noooooooooooooooo!!!
Ahhn-ahh-ahhn-ahh, Green Label!!! P-Premium Malt’s!!! Nodogoshi Namaaaaaaa!!! Clear Asahiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!
Oooh-ooh-oohhhh!!! May my feelings reach StroZero!!! May they reach Japan’s StroZero!
After saving the biggest flood of laughter in the comment section until the very end, we wrapped up the stream. Ahhh, that was so much fun! I’m supposed to not drink for the next stream, right? Well, I’m sure that’ll be really easy for me!
“Oh, Shuwa-chan,” Mashiron said. “Before you hang up, I had something to show you. You got time?”
“Hm? What is it?” I opened the image file that Mashiron had sent me once the stream had ended. “Wait! This is...?!”
“Do you like it? Came out pretty good, huh?”
The file was a rough draft of a new illustration for my character, Awayuki Kokorone.
My usual model wore a dress that scored full marks for class, but Mashiron had drawn her wearing only a T-shirt with “I HEART STROZERO” front and center—and it was so baggy and poor-fitting that it actually kinda reminded me of StroZero somehow—plus short shorts, with her face flushed from drunkenness.
“After the whole thing about you forgetting to turn your stream off, I drew it as fast as I could! It should be ready for you to use in streams soon.”
“This is... This is incredible!” It was terrifyingly well-done—and it fit me to a tee. And, above all... “It’s so lewd! This is so lewd, holy shit! Short shorts! Thighs! Looking very respectfully at those smooth legs!”
“Yes! I knew you’d think so! Seeing someone who normally keeps their guard up so high looking all slovenly is arousing as hell! My artistic talents just ran wild!”
“Ooh heh heh heh heh heh!” we both laughed creepily.
I knew Mashiron was part of Live-On all along!
Idle Talk: The Comment Section After She Forgot to Turn Off Her Stream
“Thank you for tuning in again today, everyone. Let’s meet again when the light snow falls!”
: Ty
: another fun stream!
: You've been streaming every day, though. How much light snow are we gonna get?
: We get light snowfall EVERY day! Figure it out, dude
: Light snow every day, the most gentle weather anomaly ever
: She's really doing her best, huh?
: I hope her hard work pays off and she gets monetized
: ^ this!
: She tends to hold back right before funny things could happen. Maybe she's kinda shy
: doesn't matter! Awa-chan will always be my oshi!
: mine too!
: Mine three!
: she's my favorite vtuber too <3
: potatoes are MY favorite tubers (lol)
: Huh? Wait, isn't it taking her a while to turn off the stream?
“Hm? Come on... Oh?”
: Awa-chaaan?
: that's the voice of someone no longer in streamer mode
: yeah, I do really like that natural voice tho...
: hold on, did she forget to end the stream?
: Oh no. Oh no...
Sigh.
: A sigh...
: sounds like she got farther away
: was about to thank her for the sounds of her normal life but then she sighed so painfully i started to cry
: Maybe she's just as worried as us about not making as much progress as she wants
: She doesn't let on about it during her streams at all, though. She's so brave. I want to feed her.
: Huh? I thought I was the one who was gonna feed Awa-awa.
: Huh?
: wait, shouldn't we contact the other vtubers and tell them she forgot?
: I sent a couple messages, but it's the middle of the night. Who knows if any of them are up...
: Wouldn't Hikari-chan be up?
: Hikarin just did a twenty-eight-hour endurance stream where she wouldn't stop until she got three victory royales in a row. she said at the end of her stream she was going straight to bed today
: wait, she was just streaming earlier after doing that? i'm worried about her
: Hikari-chan does like those endurance streams a lot
: What about Mashiron? ...Actually she's probably sleeping or drawing without keeping an eye on her phone
: the drawing stream she did the other day was really gentlemanly, huh?
: i laughed so hard when she spent 70% of the stream just drawing Chami-chan's chest
: Another one of the girls who looks so normal and yet is very much Live-On
: well, what about chami-chan then?
: She actually goes to bed pretty early, so not hoping for much there...
: and even if she does happen to be up, would she be able to get hold of awa-chan?
: she's super shy, after all...
: i think it's great how she's got such a well-endowed body and yet whenever she gets into a collaboration stream she just totally breaks down lol
: I think she'd rush to help a friend in need, but she'd probably be stuttering like crazy
: Huh? did awa-chan come back?
“I can’t live without it anymore...”
Pshhh!
: Huh?
: Whoa...
: I feel like I just heard her say something I never should have...
: wait, was that the sound of booze I heard? lol
: ah (guessing)
: is it beer?
: No, that sound was definitely StroZero.
: good thing we have a sound sommelier in here
: sommelier? more like booze-obsessed...
: StroZero would be really bad!
: She just opened something even more dangerous than beer rofl
: omg someone stop her holy shit!!!
Gulp, gulp. “Phew!”
: lol it sounded like she enjoyed that a lot
: Her whole character is breaking down!
: w-we're still in the clear! it's normal for adults to drink a little alcohol here and there!
“I freaking love it. I’d do anything for a can of this stuff—even work for an underground empire for unreasonable pay. Kaiji drank beer, but what about StroZero?”
: OKAY BUT THAT'S TOO FAR
: she's actually drinking strozero too lmaoooo
: The Girl Who Resonated with Kaiji-kun
: I didn't even think of that! /hanchou
: LMFAO
: i think i'm starting to understand why Live-On hired her
: ( °Д°) *jaw dropping*
Pshhh!
“Whew, that’s the good stuff! God, I love the sound of cracking open a tall one!”
: lol
: lol
: omg lol
: there are so many lols in chat right now, lol
: and so live-on's number-1 seiso became live-on's number-1 comedian...
: She's so different she's flipping heaven and earth around
: the way she releases her desires is too good! even hanchou would be weirded out
: Oh shit! This girl isn't stopping!
: you're acting like Axis is getting dropped lol
“Awesome! Time to tune in to my genmates, woohoo!”
: She's in a better mood than I've ever seen her www
: seiso? what’s that?
: On that day, humanity received a grim reminder of the lineage of VTuber seiso...
: i can hear the stream through her mic. is that... Hikari-chan's stream from before?
: Wait. i think i remember what she was playing too, and...
: I hate brats like you who are too smart for their own good.
: Nooo don't look at her stream!
“Yes, I will be her mommy!”
: Huwhat?!
: Heard there's a VTuber who said she'd be the mommy of another one in her generation?
: You're getting a new family member!!! Good for you, Hikari-chan!
: STOP
: STOP
: sTOP
“Holy crap, ‘Cooterjuice’ kills me LMAOOOO that doesn’t even have anything to do with wieners LOL!”
: Pfft?!
: we're way past three strikes here!!!
: The Girl Who Struck Out Every Time at Bat
: words that you just wanna read out loud
: Live-On never brings on the wrong people!
“The hell? Why am I so hard? I’m supposed to be your mommy here, but I’m so hard watching your stream!”
: lmao
: there's not enough letters on my keyboard to express how hard i'm laughing
: The Girl Who Got Hard Watching a Genmate's Stream
: "mommy getting hard" is such a power thing to say
: I feel like I'm witnessing the moment a legend was born
: She is definitely a legend, she will go down in VTuber history
: there's never been this many people watching her stream before lolololol
“It’s getting late, so maybe I’ll just watch Chami-chan’s stream and go to bed.”
: huh? why'd she suddenly calm down?
: post-nut clarity?
: i hope not! not after she just made that comment about getting hard!
: Getting a stiffy from a VTuber stream and using the post-nut clarity to zonk out? wait, she's literally me
: But if this is how she really is, then she must really like everyone in her generation
: Tee-tee!
“Ah, crap. This stream is just as addictive as StroZero is...”
: Was that supposed to be a compliment?
: did you hear how delicious she made it sound? definitely a compliment
: oh she went to sleep
: The Girl Who Could Only Speak in Memeworthy Quotes
: Right, so this is gonna be a blast when she wakes up and finds out. Let's hang on until then!
And so, she became a legend...
Chapter 2
Seiso Stream
“Ohhhhhh (etc.)!”
The day after the collaboration stream with Mashiron, I was in anguish in bed, and not just from my hangover. I just couldn’t believe she’d gotten me to promise to do my next stream while sober.
Wait! I’m absolutely certain Mashiron was having fun with me! I was drunk, and she strung me along... Not fair at all!
Still, I was also pretty sure she was worried about my health—when I’d checked my smartphone earlier this morning, I’d found a text from her saying, “Be sure to leave at least two nights a week where you rest your liver from now on.”
No... But what do I do...? I don’t know how I would even face everyone during a seiso stream anymore...
I said I’d do it, though. I guess I’ll just have to figure it out...
Eventually, I decided worrying wasn’t getting me anywhere. Instead, in haste, I asked Suzuki-san for her advice.
“What? Wait, were you planning to drink StroZero while streaming every single night? You’ll end up making your own liver into StroZero-flavored foie gras.”
...But she was appalled. Simply incomprehensible.
“Don’t you at least have any good stream ideas?” I begged.
“Hmm, well... Why not play a video game?”
“Oh, that sounds good! If I pick a harder one, I’ll need to focus enough to forget all about my embarrassment!”
“That’s true! Then why don’t you do that? Do you have any games that fit the bill?”
“Oh, wait... I’m so poor I don’t even have the money to buy video games...” I hung my head, bowed under the weight of disappointment. Through a fluke, I now had enough popularity that monetization would probably get my finances stable, but said monetization hadn’t caught up with me yet. The lack of money limited my options for what to do during streaming. I hope I can figure things out soon.
Manager! Please, watch me!
...But don’t watch my drinking streams and mark them as sensitive content, please.
“Oh!” said Suzuki-san. “I have a recommendation for an affordable game.”
“Wait, for real?!”
“Yes! It’s the perfect game, the kind you’ll get very absorbed in if you want to beat it!”
“Then I’ll read a few Castellas at the beginning of my stream and then play that game!”
“Huh? You’re going to make time to reply to Castellas? Won’t they all be StroZero-related? Will you be able to handle them sober?”
“I’ll make do! My listeners worked hard on thinking of questions to send me, after all!”
“You’re very dutiful about those things, as always.”
Great! I thought. Suzuki-san gave me a good tip! Time to give it my all tonight! Today, I relinquish my seiso! Witness me, viewers!
Wait. Wait, I meant to say “recapture”...
“Good evening, everyone. It looks like another nice, light snow is falling tonight.” With gentle snow now falling quietly in the background, I turned on my Awayuki Kokorone model’s display. The snow matched the somehow ephemeral avatar well, making the scene seem almost phantasmal.
That said, though...
: Huh? Who are you?
: I heard this was where StroZero's familiar streamed...did I hear wrong?
: Oh hey, it's the one who got taken over by her alternate StroZero personality!
: wait, wouldn't the OTHER one be the real one?
: lol
: going back after all that, lol
: the seiso (erotic humiliation) stream is heeeeeeeeeeere!
: I was waiting for this very moment!!!
: The Girl Who Got Laughs from Just Her Intro
: snowing? heh, you might want to get ready for a blizzard in here
...this was how it was turning out!
I mean, I’d anticipated this, but the comment section was full of wisecracks. It seemed my stream had become a place where vaudeville unfolded.
“Ahem! Your comments seem a little different from usual, chat. My number one goal is to have fun spending time with all of you, so I very much welcome change, no matter what it is. However! Please understand that, today, I am seiso.”
: lol
: ok!
: that emphasis on "however" lmao
: Bet she's beet red irl
: it's so obvious from how you said "today" hahaha
: So happy to see the adorbs Awa-awa again
“First, I’d like to apologize for not being able to stream for the past two days. There was no light snow falling, so I couldn’t come and be with you even if I wanted to...”
: huh?
: huh?
: what?
: lmaooooo
: Oh, so that's how we're playing this, got it XD
: What a smooth operator
: Huh? That's weird, feels like I just saw an arrow that was being drawn back for three months finally get released
: I just saw a StroZero that had been quietly ignored for three months finally be opened up!
: You're pushing yourself too far! Are you OK? here, want a StroZero?
: no light snow fell? you must have missed the blizzards!
“Ha, ha ha ha. You all seem very excited, but I’m not sure why that would be. Anyway, for today’s stream, I’ll be reading some Castellas, then doing a Let’s Play!”
: wait, a game? cool!
: What's the name of it?
: you're reading castellas like this? oh, I can't wait...
: i wanna know about the game!
“Hee hee. You’ll just have to see what game I play. First, I’ll go through some Castellas. Here’s the first one.”
Q: .- .-- .- -.-. .... .- -. -..- ... - .-. --- --.. . .-. ---
: huh?
: what is that?
: morse code lmao
: i see lol
“Well, I don’t see. Why would someone need to encode a message they send to me? I tried to decipher it, but didn’t really understand what it meant. Would someone smarter than me please tell me what it says?”
: she really puts her foot down, but still tries to decode it. you're so kind! i love you!
: tsundere awa-awa!
: Tsundere...? Well, she does have the gap part down, at least
: why did you choose that as your first one lmao
“Oh, that? All of the Castellas after this use a word I’ve never heard—StroZero? It’s just so strange.”
: lol
: sticking to your guns lol
: It's just so strange (monotone)
: it was inevitable, don't ask why
: a premeditated crime lol
Q: “A seiso stream? What is that supposed to mean? You couldn’t survive without me!” <-- That’s what the StroZero in your fridge is saying, what do you do?
Q: How many cans of StroZero are in your fridge right now?
I allowed myself a restrained chuckle. “What on earth are you all saying? Straw zero? I’m not certain what that is, but the only things in my refrigerator are vegetable juice and ingredients I use to cook for myself. Oh, and my favorite ice cream is in the freezer.”
: what?
: what?
: what?
: I mean, StroZero has lemons in it and stuff, so like...by a million degrees of separation, it IS vegetable juice, right?
: ice cream... wait, did you freeze your strozero?
: here's a hint: -196 celsius
“Hee, hee hee, I, um, I think we should go to the next Castella!”
Q: After watching your stream, I think I want to drink StroZero. In a StroZero sense, what would you recommend to other people, StroZero-chan?
“What even is StroZero? This is so strange. Completely unrelated, but I like peaches.”
: she answered it lmao
: i bet she's got the most painful grin irl rn lol
: peach strozero is good!
: s-she didn't say peach strozero! she only said she likes peaches!
: oh. right, sorry
“Urgh... Whhhoooaaa! Let’s, um, go to the next Castella!”
: what the heck are you doing? lol
: probably getting more embarrassed by the second
: i think i know
: lmao thinking about her making a pained grin while her face is red during a stream
Q: SHUWA-CHAN’S CHAT HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT STROZERO!
IT’S TOUGH ON SOBRIETY AND MAKES YOUR AWFUL DAYS DISAPPEAR LIKE MAGIC!
IT GOES DEEP BELOW THE SURFACE TO GET RID OF YOUR DEPRESSION!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
IF YOU CALL NOW, YOU’LL RECEIVE A TALL STROZERO CAN, ABSOLUTELY FREE!
HERE’S HOW TO ORDER!
Q: My body is made out of StroZero.
My blood is made of alcohol, and my heart is made of lemon.
I have overcome countless drunken stupors and have never won.
Not ever knowing victory,
nor ever being understood,
she is always alone, drunk on StroZero at her computer.
And thus, StroZero has no meaning.
Her body was unquestionably made out of StroZero.
“Pff, heh, heh heh hee hee hee! The, uh, the world sure is a big place! I wonder who on earth these Castellas were supposed to be sent to!”
: to you!
: to you!
: to you and you and you!
: look in the mirror
: is your memory confused? are you ok? here, want a strozero?
“Hrrrnh! Humph! Humph! Aaahhhhhhh!”
: lol
: finally her real voice lmao
: her eyes are giving off a way different impression now
: That's not a voice someone seiso should be using, at least lmao
: if she keeps going, she might roar loud enough to destroy our eardrums
: earplugs are a must for strozero-chan, after all
: did she turn into a tigrex?
“Okay, the next Castella will be the last one!”
Q: I really love you for still valuing the seiso side of yourself, Awayuki-san.
I also love it when you get super excited after drinking StroZero.
Please continue taking care of yourself physically and mentally while you stream. I’m cheering for you
“Umm... I, well... Thank you.”
: she's legit embarrassed!
: omg so cute
: and so seiso
: that gundam uc song just started playing in my head
: she's not used to getting compliments <3
: strozero so cute!
: that would be such a gross thing to say to someone who doesn't know lmao
“Ahem! A-Anyway, it’s time we move on to my Let’s Play! I know you’ve all been waiting for what I’ll be playing today, so here it is... Granny Over It!”
According to Suzuki-san, Granny Over It was a video game where you controlled an old-lady character and went rock climbing while avoiding all sorts of obstacles in your path. That seriously seemed to be all the game was about. She’d told me I could play it right away since I didn’t need to learn any difficult rules, which had me excited for a video game for the first time in a long while. However...
: THE JARBAG LMAOOOO
: Oh...
: why would you pick a game that will mentally destroy you?
: shit, shit, shit ptsd flashbacks aaaaaa
Huh, that’s weird. Chat seems to be making a big fuss about it. “Umm... Is there something I should know about this game? My manager recommended it to me, so I don’t know exactly what it’s like...”
: wait. that way lies hell. (speaking from experience)
Nekoma Hirune: Nya-nyaaan? I caught a whiff of a shitty game and came running!
: whaaa?! Nekoma's here?!
: htf did you sniff it out so fast lmao
: she didn't earn her "filth junkie" title for nothing!
“Wait! Wait, what?!” N-Nekoma-senpai?! What’s Nekoma-senpai doing here?!
Like I explained before, Nekoma-senpai was a catgirl from Live-On’s second generation whom fans called the Filth Junkie for her love of crappy games and movies above all else.
Oh my God. She’s seeing this humiliation Mashiron is making me go through... Actually, doesn’t that mean all of the second-gen streamers have visited me now? Ahh, it’s giving me palpitations...
Wait a minute. If Nekoma-senpai is here at all, then... Does that mean this game is kinda...yabai? A chill ran up my spine. I had a bad feeling about this.
And, unfortunately for me, I was indeed correct. “Wait...what? Huh? Why is this older woman in a jar... Huh?!”
The game was thoroughly weird, right from the moment I started playing. My prior information had been right that there was an old-lady character. However, for some reason, about two-thirds of her skinny body was sitting inside a big jar, and she held in her hand something that looked like a pickle.
: omg she's legit confused lol
Nekoma Hirune: Nya-nyaaan! Nekoma can provide the commentary!
: you know this game, nekoma?
Nekoma Hirune: In this game, you play as an old hag in a jar, nicknamed the Jarbag, and you have to climb up into the sky without using her muscles, with only a pickle! And since she's in a jar, she can't use her legs either, of course! The gameplay is actually pretty well put together, so it might not qualify as a shitty game, but it's one of those games that plays very strangely!
“What the f—fart?”
: eep ;_;
: fart lol
: your disguise is slipping
: she's still seiso! i think!
The shock I’d just experienced had been enough to make me dizzy already, but it wasn’t long after starting to play the game that I realized the true depths of the abyss it had waiting for me.
“What... What even is this?! It’s so hard to move around!”
The only way this game let you move was by controlling the only thing you had access to—the swing of the pickle—by very delicately using the mouse, leading the old lady forward. It took a while just for me to get the hang of it. So, as you can imagine, I would fall from trying to climb even the smallest outcroppings, and even if I made it to the top of them, I’d mess up the controls and fall back down again.
“Figure it out, you old bat! Stop falling! Why the heck are you even in a jar, anyway?!”
: pls that's like the whole point of this game lmaoooo
: cause she might be naked inside the jar, you know. it's to avoid content filters
“No matter how much I may love women, even I can’t get it up for a stark-naked old bat who’s way past sixty!”
: talk about a casual coming out XDDDDD
: wait doesn't that mean she's ripe for eating?
Nekoma Hirune: what...
: also isn't she supposed to be our seiso-chan? she's been saying "old bat" a lot...
: someone must have poured strozero into her head
: seis... sei...
: this shitty-ass game is wasting no time infecting her and turning her into shuwa-chan lol
Yes, yes, I understood—Suzuki-san had been right. This was a rock-climbing game where you controlled an old-lady character and had to surmount all kinds of obstacles. Damn that manager! I hope she’s prepared for the consequences!
They say success is built upon a mountain of failures, but it still took so much time for me to progress. Then, though, I came to the most difficult roadblock yet.
The obstacle standing before me was a mikan-laden cooking pot sitting atop a precipice that my chat called the Promised Land. You had to get on top of the pot, then swing the pickle down toward the ground, which would bounce you into the air and over a super-steep hill. But you’d just slide back down if you didn’t do anything after that, so you couldn’t take a break—you had to climb up that hill right away. And the location of that cooking pot you had to jump off of was the reason chat was talking about this so much. Since the pot was on an overhang, if you bounced off but failed to climb the hill afterward, you’d slide all the way down to that nostalgic land where you’d first started. In other words, all the hard work you’d put in up until that moment would be gone.
It was already late at night, which meant it was time to put the pedal to the metal, get over it, and end the stream on a high note.
I’ll be fine. I can do this. Nekoma-senpai and all my viewers are watching. And saying that means I’ll win, one hundred percent! I’ve already won! Now I’ll get ready for bed. Once this battle is over, I’ll be watching all your streams in my dreams...
“Here we goooooooo—ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Bounce! Scrape! Whoosh...
“You absolute piece of jarbage! That was ****ing bull****!”
: holy shit lmao
Nekoma Hirune: LOL!
: and that's the last scrap of seiso, gone
: she's basically a green baboon now lol
: welcome to the meme production factory
: The Girl Who Gets Clipped for Everything She Says
“There. I think this is the perfect stopping point for today’s stream. Let’s meet again when the light snow falls.”
: ty XDDDD
: you are seriously hysterical
: she showed her true colors, huh
: she wasn't seiso, she kinda turned into shuwa-chan, but i'm so proud of her for doing what mashiron said and not drinking
: Same
: She really keeps her promises huh?
I’ll beat this game for sure next time!
Though I didn’t realize I could get so into a video game... Maybe it’s because I never played very difficult ones before.
Offline Karaoke Collab with Second-Generation VTubers
Today I was visiting the main Live-On offices in a certain place in Tokyo for a meeting with my manager, Suzuki-san. Because of how generally annoying getting to and from a meeting was, we normally just did them over the phone. But Live-On’s philosophy recommended that, unless you lived really far away, you should meet your manager face-to-face once a month or so.
The meetings weren’t the stiff and formal type at all—they’d just set a place up for the VTubers to establish a peaceful and communicative relationship with their managers. And the company paid for all of the expenses, including transportation, so even a poor person like me didn’t have to worry about making the trip. In fact, Suzuki-san would always treat me to food way more expensive than anything I could afford. That always got me very excited—probably because of how stingy and plagued by money issues I already was...
“I hear your new character illustration is finished already,” Suzuki-san said.
“Oh, is that so? Mashiron sure does work fast...”
“Wait, are you not happy about it?”
Now that we were discussing the new base standing illustration Mashiron had been creating for me, my complicated feelings on the matter must have made it into my expression. “No, I’m happy to have more PNGs, of course, it’s just...”
“Ha ha. Still haven’t been able to take it totally seriously, huh? Here. I’ll show you the completed illustration she sent me.”
“Okay...”
Suzuki-san turned her open laptop to face me. It displayed the same things that had been in the rough draft Mashiron had shown me before—Awayuki, but wearing only a baggy T-shirt and shorts, her face flushed red from drunkenness. And now that it was complete and thus more beautiful, the clothes gave off an even stronger StroZero vibe...
“Never imagined Awayuki like this until a few days ago, huh?” I said, cracking a dry grin.
“I don’t think it’s a problem. She’s drawn very cutely, I think.”
“She does look cute. But I’m still sort of conflicted...”
“You could do to have more confidence in yourself! The whole office is calling you the ace of the third-generation VTubers. The numbers back it up too.”
“Urk.” It was unbelievable, but yes. My channel subscribers, archive views, and livestream viewer counts were currently at the top of my generation. At first, I’d figured it was a temporary boom in popularity and it would settle down quickly. The numbers disagreed, though—they were still skyrocketing.
Despite the basis for it all, I’d started to think of it in a different way. Maybe, if the viewers were happy, this would actually work. Still, being called an ace? That really put the pressure on. “Do you really want an ace who’s basically walking a tightrope whenever she opens her mouth during her drinking streams?” I asked.
“It would be a problem if it were making viewers uncomfortable. But if they’re enjoying themselves, anything goes—that’s how Live-On works now. And I’ll be there to make sure you don’t fall off said tightrope too.”
“You’re all very open-minded.”
“Live-On has always been open-minded,” bragged Suzuki-san.
This is such a strange company, I thought. Every single time they chose a talent, she was able to shine so brightly. How did they do it? Sometimes it made the company look like they were just screwing around as they pleased, but maybe everyone at the offices was actually serious about their jobs.
Okay! Mashiron put a lot of work into drawing this. I have to work my hardest too. I eventually want to be able to stream with confidence!
“Anyway, since it’s finished, you could use it today, if you wanted,” Suzuki-san said.
“Okay! Thank you so much!”
“Please, save your thanks for Mashiron. On to the next topic. We’re actually planning a big music video project that will include all the VTubers currently belonging to Live-On. There’s been a lot of new VTubers recently, so we feel this will help get the word out about as many of you as we can to as many people as we can.”
“Wait, all of us?!”
“Yes. From the first generation through the third generation.”
This was shocking news. It was, without a doubt, the biggest collaboration project Live-On had ever taken on.
Wait. If she means all of us, that means I’ll be in it too, right? But I’ve never made any singing videos! I’ve never even done singing on stream! “Will, er, I be all right?”
“We’re planning to have it be a single song where all eight VTubers sing different parts, so there won’t be that much for you to sing. But it would always be nice if you were a good singer, of course. So? Are you good at singing?”
“I went to karaoke every so often in high school. I think I sang as well as anyone else, really. But I’ve been so busy after graduating that I haven’t gone at all since then. I haven’t even thought about karaoke places for a long time...”
“That terrible company really worked you hard, didn’t they? Especially if you forgot about entertainment. Well, in that case, I would recommend going to a karaoke place for some practice in the near future. Or...”
“Or?”
“Or we could put you in an interlude or something during the song to make it more exciting. Like, StroZero, pshhh! And then you drink it, and go phew!”
“I’ll practice singing so much it’ll kill me!” That would make me the laughingstock of the song! I could never shame myself like that in such a big collaboration!
“A-Also,” my manager continued, “I know we usually go out for food, but I’d like you to go with someone else this time. Live-On will still cover the expenses. We’re basically done with our little meeting now anyway.”
“Huh? With someone else?” That had never happened before, so I couldn’t help but tilt my head in doubt.
“As it happens, Shion Kaminari-san and Sei Utsuki-san are here at the office for the same reason as you. You decided to collaborate with them, right? They wanted to know if you’d be up for going out to eat and talk about what you’re going to do in the collab.”
“...What?”
Wait. Did that mean...I’d be meeting two of the people I so loved and respected...in real life?
“Yo! It’s me—Seira Kaburaki, also known as Sei-sama. Good to see you!”
“I’m Shiori Ichinose, but you know me as Shion Kaminari. We don’t want it getting out, so call us by our real last names once we’re outside!”
“H-Hello! I’m Yuki Tanaka, aka Awayuki Kokorone! I’m really grateful you wanted to invite me out!”
As the three of us introduced ourselves in the Live-On offices’ lobby, I was already shaking with nervousness. I’d secretly thought for a moment there that these recent chaotic days had toughened me up mentally, but I couldn’t handle this. It was sort of my first time meeting any of the streamers from Live-On in real life.
Most importantly, how the heck were their visuals this good?!
Sei-sama, aka Kaburaki-senpai, had that “prince of the high school girls” look. She was tall—though not as tall as her avatar, of course—and had her smooth hair cut short. Her facial features were pretty sharp too. All she’d have to do was stand there and she’d naturally draw everyone’s attention.
And Shion-senpai, aka Ichinose-senpai! She was...young. She had a very cute face, and so much about her seemed childlike and innocent.
“Hee hee. You just thought, Wow, she looks like a little girl, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Umm... Yes. I’m sorry,” I said.
“Hey! Well, you’re misunderstanding! I just turned old enough to drink last month! ...I don’t actually drink, though. I can’t handle the bitterness.”
“What?! Then you’re twenty, just like me?!”
“Oh, we’re the same age? That’s so nice to hear!”
Oh my God. Live-On’s “mom,” the master at dealing with our chaos, had only lived about as long as I had. Wait. Have I been sensing a maternal instinct from the streams of someone who’s actually my age? Oh, crap! I’m gonna have to really pick it up if I don’t want her to overtake me!
“Hee hee. Are you nervous? Sorry for inviting you out with literally no advance warning,” Ichinose-senpai said.
“Are you all right? Do you want a StroZero?” Kaburaki-senpai asked.
“Hey, Sei-sama! Don’t get carried away!” Ichinose-senpai scolded her. “And you, Awayuki-chan, just try to relax. And you can feel free to talk to us like friends! You have already proposed to us, after all!”
“Eek! I, err, I’m really sorry about that whole thing...”
“It’s okay! It was all pretty funny, so I didn’t mind!” Shion-senpai patted me on the shoulders to try and get me to relax.
Yeah. She’s mom, through and through. Only took me two panels to fall for her. I love you, mom. I love you so much.
Now that we were finished introducing ourselves, it was time to head off to get some grub.
About two hours later...
“Yo! Awayuki here! I’m with Sei-sama and Shion-senpai for a karaoke stream today! Woohoo!”
“Hey, ladies and gents! It’s your girl, Sei-sama!”
“Konmiko, everyone! Our original plan for today was to discuss our collaboration over food, but somehow we ended up starting a totally impromptu collab, which has me very, very confused!”
: Whaaa?!
: Wait, could this be an offline collab?
: It's finally heeeeeeeeeeeeeere━━━(゜∀゜)━━━!!!!!
: ARE YOU FR
: Is this going to be a ritual sacrifice of mom?
: i just know shuwa-chan's gonna be drinking strozero!
: Pshhh!
: Konmiko!
: Eee, it's Sei-samaaaa!
: two total brats who can do NOTHING but worry Shion-mama
: And that was how the legendary night began...
How had things gotten this way? Nothing about the current situation made sense, but it had all started when we’d been looking at the restaurant menu...
Sei-sama said, “If this is gonna be a VTubers’ day out, and we don’t have to pay for it, we’ve gotta go for the yakiniku!” And so, we went to a yakiniku place she recommended, at which point...
Draft BeerSourCola HighballStroZero (highly recommended!)
“...” I said.
“So, Tanaka-kun! Tell me, what will you have to drink?!” asked Sei-sama, not quite hiding the excitement she was clearly feeling right now.
What to do...
“...I’ll have the oolong tea, then.”
“Heh heh... You lack experience, Tanaka-kun. You’re clumsy! You lack the skills to properly release your desires. I know what you really want...is right here,” said Sei-sama, pointing to the StroZero, brimming with confidence.
“Umm, no, I—”
“Just imagine. The meat on the grill... Steaming, piping hot... You must want to have StroZero with it!”
“Excuse me! Could you please tell me what is going on with this menu?! Something is clearly wrong here!” I couldn’t help but vehemently retort, because at the very bottom of the drink section of the menu, there was a piece of tape with “StroZero” scrawled very hastily on it. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “You shouldn’t play tricks with the menu like this,” I complained.
“It’s fine. I’ll peel it off. The restaurant gave me permission anyway.”
“They did?!”
“So? You want one? They actually do have StroZero here.”
“Wait, really?!”
“I mean, it is a yakiniku place.”
“Holy... Yakiniku restaurants are the shit!” To think—yakiniku places had evolved far enough to start stocking StroZero in my absence! Good shit, yakiniku places!
“Aha ha...” laughed Ichinose-senpai hesitantly. “Kaburaki-chan’s parents run this restaurant, to tell the truth.”
“Oh. I see...” With me flailing as I’d tried to get my brain to catch up with what was going on, Ichinose-senpai had graciously spoiled the game for me. “Come on, Kaburaki-senpai! That’s mean!” I whined.
“Aha ha! Sorry, sorry! Still... You want some, don’t you?”
“...Gulp.”
“I haven’t drunk in a while either, so would you like to...drink some StroZero together?”
“I’m having orange juice!” Ichinose-senpai piped up.
Whoa! What a good girl! Well, we knew that from how she’d been such a good sport about us dragging her here.
And so, as we were eating our yakiniku after that...
“Well, I’m kind of worried about this song project,” I confessed.
“Oh? Then do you want to go practice karaoke after this?” asked Kaburaki-senpai.
“That’s a good idea! I want to come too!” said Ichinose-senpai.
“Then let’s throw caution to the wind and go!”
That invitation was the beginning...
“Oh, right. I brought along my laptop to use for the meeting,” remarked Kaburaki-senpai. “You want to stream this?”
“Hrm?” said Ichinose-senpai.
“That sounds fun!” I exclaimed. “Let’s do it!”
“Hrm, hrm?” murmured Ichinose-senpai.
“I actually thought this might happen, so I booked a booth at a karaoke place in advance!”
“Amazing as always, Kaburaki-senpai!” I cried. “I’m so into that part of you! I hope I can be like you one day!”
“Hrm, hrm, hrm? Wait, what about the meeting?” Ichinose-senpai asked.
That was pretty much how the two drunks had dragged a confused Ichinose-senpai into an impromptu karaoke collab.
“Umm,” Ichinose-senpai continued for the chat, “I’ll do my best to moderate, no matter the situation! We’ll be reading Castellas for the first half of the stream, then singing for the second half! Let’s go to the first question!”
Q: To Sei-sama. What kind of girl is your type?
“Hmm. I have a pretty wide range of interests, but if I had to say, it’s girls with perseverance—the kind you can rely on when you’re really in trouble.”
“Oh, how unexpected! You actually have a normal fetish, Sei-sama!” Shion-senpai commented.
“You’re always so biting with your remarks about me, Shion. It’s gonna turn me on, you know.”
“There’s your answer!” Shion-senpai told the chat.
: Didn't expect that
: the fact that she answered for real instead of for appearances was unexpected by itself
: the bias toward Sex-sama never ends
: Huh? wait, haven't I heard of someone like that somewhere before?
Huh? I thought. It’s a little unexpected from my point of view, but Shion-senpai looks pretty surprised. Wait, could this be...
“Hey, could you be talking about Shion-senpai here?” I asked.
“Wait, what?”
“Heh. Guess you found me out. Should have expected as much from the Kogoro of StroZero. Such a detective.”
“Who are you calling Kogoro?!” I retorted.
“Huh? Wait. What?! Are you being serious, Sei-sama?!” It had taken her a while, but Shion-senpai finally understood. She turned beet red and started to panic.
“Heh heh heh...?（´ ω｀ ) ” God, yuri is the best!
: omg that voice...
: what kind of situation is this for "heh heh" lol
: i declare StroZero trapped in the middle of yuri as GUILTY
: that's a way worse reaction than just saying "finally!" or something lmao
“I, er, I apologize. I didn’t mean to make any noise. I will do my best from now on not to intrude upon this yuri sanctuary!” I said.
“Wait! Why are you apologizing like you mean it?!” Shion yelped.
“Shion-senpai, yuri is free. Nobody is allowed to interfere, and, well, you must simply let it grant you salvation,” I explained.
“You get me, Awayuki-kun! We’re really on the same wavelength!” Sei-sama laughed. “I know I said I love Shion-kun, but I’m really starting to look at you in a sexual way too, Awayuki-kun! Both for you on the inside and you on the outside!”
“You heard her, Shion-senpai. Time for that threesome?”
“Even if you jokingly say we’ll make that the after-party, I’m not going! Jeez! This is embarrassing. Let’s go to the next question!”
: best pair... or worst pair?
: we're already this far only one question in? mom's gonna die of exhaustion
: will mom be able to protect her chastity when sandwiched between two real-life lesbians?!
: omg mom is so cute when she's embarrassed
: Shuwa-chan is way more Shuwa-chan than she usually is lmao
: Sex-sama sounds so happy she's found a friend
Q: For Sei-sama. Who would you rather have as your partner in a lesbian porn video: Strong Blizzard or Seiso Awayuki?
“Hmm... That’s a tough one, even for me.”
“...Do you not like girls with two sides to them?” I asked.
“What? No! It's like a two-in-one deal!”
“Hey guys,” I said, “did you know that in terms of human and female VTuber breeding, Awayuki and Shuwa-chan are the most compatible VTubers for Sex-sama? No other coupling comes close to this level of compatibility.”
“Nobody is breeding! Nobody is coupling! And that's not how compatibility works!” cried Shion-senpai.
: omg holy shit my sides
: that is NOT a copypasta anyone who's seiso should ever read lmao
: the brakes in her brain have broken once again XDDD
: thought you were singing, not breeding collectable monsters LOLLL
: from a mass manufacturer of hits to a mass manufacturer of outs
: I'm drinking my StroZero to this. Gonna keep doing it even if you ban me.
Q: I request that you look at mom (in a sexual way) and say something to her.
“I love mommies who are younger than me,” I said.
“Ageplay could work, actually.”
“ ,” Shion-senpai replied.
: Mom, come back!
: that was so simple and so gross lol
: unlimited fetish works
: It's no good. We've gotta do something, and quick!
Q: Shion-mama you're so cute!!!
Q: I want you to be my mom!!!
“Yes, yes! I’m everyone’s mom, don’t worry!”
“Shion-kun was a woman who may have become a mother to me!”
“Shion-senpai? Your mother? Argh!”
“Before they write too much of their little short story, let’s go to the next question!”
Q: To mom:
Thanks for always dealing with these constant record-breakers. I know they probably all exhaust you, but what’s the most tiring collab you’ve ever done? Please tell me a story from that time if you can.
And here’s some stomach medicine too. (StroZero)
“That collab we did with all the first-gen and second-gen VTubers together, before the third generation came along. It was so tiring...” Shion-senpai said.
“Oh, right. I remember Nekoma-kun was introducing a bunch of C-list movies, and then suddenly Hareru-senpai from the first gen romped in. And it turned out she knew all about them too, for some reason.”
“I was watching that one!” I exclaimed.
: One of the greatest episodes of all time!
: Yeah, people still talk about that legendary stream
: I remember Shion-senpai being so out of breath trying to moderate. She could barely get a word in!
: that takes me back
: harerun's eccentricities were on full display during that one lol
“Also, StroZero is not stomach medicine!” Shion-senpai finished.
“Oh? But it’s lemon. Wouldn’t that calm your stomach, actually?” I asked.
“Only for you, Shuwa-chan!” Shion-senpai replied. “Okay, next! Last one!”
“Even the second generation is calling me Shuwa-chan now, huh...”
Q: Question for all Live-On’s VTubers!
Name one thing you would like to see Awa-chan do and one thing you want to see Shuwa-chan do.
“Hmm,” said Shion-senpai. “What do you think, Sei-sama? I’d like to see Shuwa-chan really enjoying her food a lot while she’s drinking.”
“Yeah. I’d like to have Awa-chan watch the first stream she ever did, personally.”
“Oh, come on!” I scoffed. “I was a little nervous, but that would be easy!”
“Really? Then can you promise me, right now, that you’ll do it one day?” Sei-sama asked.
“Yes!”
: Wait, I feel like I've seen this happen before
: she's so easy to persuade lol
: regular godlike streams confirmed
: gj sei-sama!
: confirmed will be on the edge of my seat for every stream lol
“♪—————♪”
Once we finished going through the Castellas, we finally started singing karaoke.
: She's too good!
: stop you're gonna get my ears pregnant!
: her voice is so gd handsome
: where normally she lets that handsome voice go to waste lol
: It's ok, Sei-sama is so cool when she's in singing mode that it brings the average up to plus-minus zero
: why did it need to be zero at all?
: because strozero is right next to her, pulling her toward zero
: sasuga the eternal 0
Sei-sama took the first song, her heartfelt singing voice instantly charming both chat and the rest of the karaoke room.
Hrm. I should have expected Sei-sama to get high ratings for singing too. She was always going overboard, creating this gap that got both me and the chat very excited. Crap. The pressure is really mounting now...
What am I even supposed to sing, anyway? Considering how the VTuber world does things... I have an image of it mostly being popular J-Pop or Vocaloid tunes, or somewhat older anime theme songs.
“Do you want to sing next, Shuwa-chan?” asked Shion-senpai.
“I’m still thinking about it, so you can go ahead, Shion-senpai.”
“Well, all right... Are you bad at singing? Do you not like it?”
“Hmm... I’m not really sure. It’s been a long time since I actually sang anything...”
“It’ll be fine! Even if you can’t sing that well, I’ll sing along with you!”
Oh, baby... This feeling of being mothered... I could melt into it!
In the meantime, Sei-sama finished up her song and passed the baton to Shion-senpai.
“♪—————♪”
: Huh? I can hear an angel's voice. Did I die?
: It's like a balm for the soul
: Basically Ave Maria
: she's not a godlike singer, but I want to listen to her forever
: it's like a big sister singing me a song
: sister??? you mean mommy!!!
O-Oh crap! I was so absorbed in Shion-senpai’s song that it’s almost my turn! No more time to waste on this! I’ll just pick the first song I’ve heard that comes to mind!
Okay! Let’s go with “Lemon”! Yeah!
“♪—————♪”
: oh, this is actually a normal song
: thought for sure it would be something like "Ass N Titties"
: lmao
: how about that boing-boing song from Zatch Bell?
: those are the most hellish song choices i've ever heard XD
: wait, she's kinda good, isn't she?
: Yeah, she's good!
: Are you fr?
: Can't wait for the chorus
“♪—————♪”
: Hwah?!
: She's reaching so far with her voice it sounds almost gross lol
: zero technique but INCREDIBLE power, wow
: cannot believe she can belt out a voice like that when her throat is basically just a commuting route for strozero at this point
: For some reason I feel like she sings kinda like Hareru-chan
Chat was reeling from the shock, and both my senpais’ eyes were wide in blank amazement. And I was just as surprised as them. Why does it seem like I feel better about singing right now than I ever have before?
...Is it the booze?
I’d heard that a lot of people have trouble even getting a voice out—they get embarrassed, partly because they can’t sing well. Maybe the alcohol was loosening my sense of shame until it was just right for me to actually have a good voice. And once I realized how fun and happy being able to sing was, my feelings turned into confidence, and I kept on having fun singing all the way to the end of the song.
“Nnnghhh, feels so goooood!!!”
: lol
: The Girl Who Climaxed from Singing
: are they doing handjob karaoke or something?
: was 100/100 until partway through. but then StroZero came out so 0 points
: even the way she cools down is just like a comedian lol
“I’m so surprised! You sing really well, Shuwa-chan!” Shion-senpai said.
“Guess we’ll have to all sing together now,” Sei-sama agreed.
“Heh heh heh! Witness the power of my StroZero singing technique!”
“Huh?” they both said.
: Huh?
: huh?
: huh?
: you just chilled the room down to absolute zero!
: this -196°C isn't just for show!
For a minute, everyone froze in embarrassment. But after that, we all sang together, clapped along to each other, and generally had a really fun and exciting time. How long had it been since I’d last had this much fun with others?
Another thing I had to thank StroZero for. So, everyone...
Let’s all stan StroZero!
“Oh! I like this band’s song called ‘Zero’!”
“Really? I want to hear you sing it, mom!”
“Okay!”
“Could we sing this one together, Sei-senpai? It’s ‘Butterfly Strong Version,’” I suggested.
“Fine with me! Why Strong Version, though? Why not the original?”
“Hmm... I just figured I wanted to do that one.”
“Hey, here’s ‘Stronger’! It’s a song from overseas I’ve been listening to a lot.”
“...Awayuki-kun, these are all connected to StroZero. Don’t you know any others?”
“...Huh?”
: XD
: lol
: her mind is literally just a field of strozeros!
: So her first song was a reference to lemon flavor lol
: talk about unexpected song choices lmao
: she never betrays expectations huh
Be careful, everyone! Don’t stan me too much!
...Oh, it’s getting late already. I’d just realized we were getting to the end of our planned stream time. So soon too. It’d been so much fun.
Clamping down on our reluctance, we ended the stream—which had been a huge hit—and the three of us left the karaoke place behind us.
As the cold night air cooled my drunken body down and we walked to the station, Sei-sama suddenly asked, “Wait, did you meet Hareru-kun at the office? I just remembered. She was there when the two of us arrived.”
She’d lowered her voice and gotten closer to my ear when she’d said “Hareru-kun,” probably to prevent anyone from overhearing and figuring out who we were. I answered her in a soft voice of my own. “Hareru-senpai? No, I didn’t see her.”
That kind of stinks. Maybe if I ask Suzuki-san, I can meet her.
“What kind of person is she like, from your points of view?” I asked out of pure curiosity.
Shion-senpai offered a clearly pained grin. “Well, she’s...” she started. “She’s like Live-On personified. For better or worse. Like an amalgamation of what everyone thinks of when they hear the name Live-On.”
“Heh heh! You may find yourself overwhelmed at first. Make sure you’re careful around her, all right, Awayuki-kun?”
The way they described her, she didn’t seem to be a different person on-stream than she was off-stream. That set my mind at ease a little.
“Come to think of it, she was talking about you today,” mentioned Sei-sama. “She said you might be the first one to have this much of an impact on her.”
“Huh?! Really?!” I exclaimed in spite of myself. My name came out of Hareru-senpai’s mouth? I guess I should save my jubilation until I find out if that “impact” was good or bad, though.
But, you know, it wouldn’t be weird at all for us to meet each other now. One day, I want to sit down and talk to her for real...
I continued to think about it, even after parting ways with my senpais, as I headed on home.
Offline Collab with Chami-chan
One day, during my stream, something happened.
“Anyway, that’s basically what makes eating food off of naked girls so wonderful... Huh?”
: Can't hear anything
: Shuwa-chan?
: a lot of static
: internet issues?
: I think maybe it's your mic?
I’d been having one of my usual zatsudan streams, but it seemed like chat wasn’t hearing me very well. I tried fiddling with my microphone’s settings, but it only changed how bad the static was. I checked my network cable just to be sure too, but it was plugged in just fine. Finally, wondering if it was a problem with the website I was recording on, I went to look at other VTuber streams. None of them had any issues, though.
Yep. Guess my mic died. I’ve been using it every day since I started streaming. I suppose it was bound to happen. What a trooper.
I couldn’t very well continue the stream like this, so I had to wrap things up for the day. I should have bought a spare mic... Now I have to say sorry to my viewers.
Awayuki Kokorone: It looks like my mic died!
I want to keep going, but I doubt I'll be able to, so I'm calling it for today...
I'm really, really sorry! I'll get a new mic as soon as I can!
Once I’d posted an apology on social media, I decided to behave and just go to bed for the day.
“Ngh...” I yawned. “What?”
The next morning, I didn’t have much of a hangover, so I was making breakfast for myself while mulling over what kind of microphone to buy when I looked at my smartphone and saw that I’d received a private message on social media from Chami-chan.
Chami Yanagase: If you want, I can give you an old mic
Awayuki Kokorone: wait really?! are you sure?!
Someone unexpected had offered to help me out. To tell the truth, even now that my income was stable, past experience was keeping me shackled to my penny-pinching mindset, making this offer a very welcome one.
Chami Yanagase: I actually started getting into microphones during my ASMR streams, and now I have a whole bunch that I don't use very much. In fact I'd appreciate you taking one off my hands!
Well, I thought, she’s offering, so...
“Hello!” I said.
“Welcome! Come in! I’m Michiru Fujita, aka Chami Yanagase!”
Surprise! I’d actually come to Chami-chan’s house!
“I’m Yuki Tanaka, aka Awayuki Kokorone! Thanks for having me over!”
“Hee hee. We’re the only ones here today, so we can call each other by our VTuber names, huh?”
“Yeah!”
Why did this happen? Well, at first we’d figured she could just mail a microphone to me, but it turned out Chami-chan lived in Tokyo too. Then she’d said she wanted me to pick one out and asked if I wanted to come over! And since the stars had aligned anyway, we’d decided to have an offline collab stream too!
Chami-chan is older than me, huh? Well, I’d guessed that much. She does kinda give off those kindhearted big-sister vibes.
Now that we’d introduced ourselves, I went into her house.
“You can put your stuff wherever. I’m gonna go wash my face real quick,” she said.
“All right!” It was a little unexpected, how calm she was being with me. I’d figured she’d be acting extremely shy like she always was. She talks exactly like she does on-stream too... How mysterious.
I sat down for a little while to wait for Chami-chan to come out of the bathroom. When she returned, it was with a box full of microphones. “Now then!” she said. “Here’s all the microphones I have. Which would you like?”
“There’s so many! I can pick any one of these?!” She may have been a VTuber, but that was a lot of microphones she didn’t use very often. And they were all really clean too, as though they were all in “like new” condition. Was she really okay with me having something this good?
“Of course. I could also give you an ASMR mic if you want too.”
“Are you for real?”
“I ended up with so many that I’ll never use them all. It kind of turned into a collection. They’re all good microphones, though, so I want them to be used by someone.”
“I am so grateful...”
“Then pick whatever you like! I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick.”
“Huh? Didn’t you just go?”
“I, umm... When I pee, it’s less like a fully automatic and more like a three-stage burst!”
“What?! What are you talking about?!”
“AnywayI’llberightback!” Then she scampered off and actually did shut herself up in the bathroom.
...I think I know what’s going on.
Thankfully, after that, she let me have two microphones: a normal one and one for ASMR.
“Good, good. Then I’m going to go use the bathroom...”
“What for, if I might ask?”
“Oh, come on! You’re a woman too. You’re not supposed to ask that, Awayuki-chan!”
I stared at her.
“Well, umm, it’s a three-stage burst?”
I stared at her really hard.
“I’m... It’s for some cool-off time.”
“Cool-off time?”
“I’m so nervous that my heart is racing really fast, so I have to calm down in the bathroom a lot.”
“Ah. I see. I thought it was something like that...” I just finished mentioning how calm she seemed, but in the end, Chami-chan was her same old, usual self.
And it seemed like she was really trying to force herself to talk like this too. “No, like, seriously,” she said. “My heart’s about to burst. Would you like...to listen to my pulse?”
“Okay, well, the words were pretty sexy, but the situation being what it is, you’re certainly not making my heart flutter.”
“But...”
“You can’t be back and forth to the bathroom during our stream, can you? They’ll give you bad nicknames, like waste production facility.”
“But it would be your viewers giving me names like that, Awayuki-chan.”
“I am so sorry.”
In any case, I managed to convince her to try her best to remain with me for the time being. Whenever our eyes met, she would quickly look down in embarrassment, but it was pretty cute, since it clashed with her appearance. Ahh, the “shy big sister” type. So good.
Since we’d be starting our stream that night, she—amazingly—ended up cooking me dinner! I could somewhat cook too, so I helped where I could, excited to taste the final product, but then...
“Here you go!”
“...”
Why did she suddenly have a StroZero in her hand?!
“Oh. Chami-chan, do you drink StroZero too?”
“No, I don’t usually drink. And when I do, it’s usually just wine or cocktails.”
“Then why did you take this can out of the fridge?”
“When I checked with my manager before about having you over for an offline collab, she told me to be sure I had some StroZero ready for you.”
“Let’s go up to Live-On’s roof... I haven’t been this mad...in a long time...”
“Weren’t you mad with the jarbag?”
Seriously! Live-On understands me so well it bothers me sometimes!
“Umm... Do you not want it?” she asked.
“Give. Now.”
“So aggressive!”
I couldn’t refuse. Not when she gave me those sad eyes. And honestly, I wanted to drink it anyway.
Tonight’s stream was sure to be total chaos...
“Awright! Let’s get this stream started! Woohoo!”
“Hee hee. Good evening. It’s Chami Yanagase-oneesan, always the one who guides you to the pinnacle of healing, except for today when it clearly won’t happen.”
: It's heeeeeeeeeeere!
: What?! Is that Shuwa-chan?!
: the stream is now contaminated lol
: an offline collab with Shuwa-chan sure isn't gonna be boring
: Chami-chama's virtue is in danger!
: lol we're just treating her as a dangerous substance
: love how you declare defeat before the opening barrage, big sis!
Since we’d announced this collab in advance, we had an insane number of viewers right from the beginning. Awesome! Let’s get this party started!
“Hey, whoa, hold up, everyone! This is an offline collab. I’ve been behind Chami-chan, hugging and squeezing her this whole time! Awesome, right?”
: switch with me dammit
: what are you, one of the saibamen?
: it fits! mentally, chami-chama is a yamcha lol
: please self-destruct by yourself as usual
: I bet Chami-chan is totally in despair, secretly
“Well, you see, at first, I almost passed out,” Chami-chan admitted. “But now it’s actually quite comfortable. It’s been so long since I felt the touch of someone else’s skin... I never realized people could be so warm and calming.”
: i cried
: you say it like you're a tragic heroine trying to win a big tournament
: Keep her warm for her whole life, please
“Heh heh heh... Hey, you know, if sex means putting your bodies on each other, then we’re actually doing it right now!”
“Oh, that’s strange. I’m suddenly feeling very shy again. I’m trembling, in fact...”
: chami-chama, that ain't being shy! it's your primal fear of being eaten
: Shuwa-shuwa is the master of building them up and letting them down
: last time we were lucky that the talented microphone-kun was so embarrassed by its owner that it broke down, but that isn't stopping her this time
: Get away from our wife this instant, please
“Anyway, let’s get started with some Castellas! Woohoo!”
Q: Is it possible to drink StroZero bottom-up?
“I mean, you can all drink Chami-chan’s XXXX from the bottom up, right? It’s just like that.”
“Oh my what?!”
: I get it
: I totally understand
: Calm down! She has no proof!
: this is turning into the staple of her streams lol
: didn't take her long, huh...
: Will you drink Chami-chama's XXXX bottom-up, or look at her from the side? Coming soon to theaters
“By the way, apparently she’s one of those ‘three-stage burst’ people.”
“Oh God, please forget about that!”
The next Castella was written all in English:
Q: <I am the bone of my strozero
Aluminum is my body and alcohol is my blood
I have drunk over a thousand strozeros
Unknown to Death,
Nor known to Life
Have withstood drunkenness to drink more strozeros
Yet, those hands will never hold anything other than strozero
So as I pray, Unlimited Strozeros>
“Huh,” I said. “It’s so strange how even Unlimited Drunk Works sounds so cool just by putting it in English! Except I think it’s basically just calling me a StroZero-addicted loser.”
“How do we have viewers who are this good at English? Awayuki-chan’s chat demographic is a total mystery. I can’t even.”
Q: <hey guys we have a gift for you> Translate that
“Umm, it says, hey! We have a present for you. I think,” Chami-chan said.
: easy peasy for Chami-chan!
: oh, wait a minute... (guesses)
“Oh, I hear that in erotic videos!” I exclaimed.
“Ero—?!”
: her, on the other hand...
: got the exact reaction we expected XD
: it's basically our mother tongue at this point
: chami-chan is hanging on for dear life lol
: she can't do all those improvised reactions to everything like mom can XDD
Q: You’ve done an offline collab with Chami-chan. But have you drowned her in the swamp of StroZero too? Also, are there any other VTubers you want to drown in the swamp of StroZero?
“Actually, I’d like someone to drown me in a literal swamp of StroZero.”
“Huh. I haven’t seen an actual crazy person in a long time. And the answer is no.”
: She'd get in willingly... o_O
: like one of those carbonated baths?
: my abs hurt so much from laughing i feel like i'm literally doing crunches rn
Q: Was it this StroZero you dropped （・ω・）／シ (Lemon)? Or was it this StroZero （・ω・）／シ (Tall Can)? Or was it... THIS StroZeroooooooooooo （_・ω・）_BAM!!! “Box of StroZero”?!
“No, I dropped the StroZero manufacturing plant.”
“Mom, help me... The outside world was so scary...”
: she's 100% despair now
: my sides are beyond orbit. they're somewhere past mars now
: would you say they're going all the way to uranus? ;)
: how dare you make assumptions about my anus
: Chami-chan learning about the world from StroZero
“Phew. Good, good! Let’s wrap up the Castella replies for now!” I said.
“Yes, let’s. We just started, and already I feel so tired...”
: oats
: this comic relief character is gonna make chami-chama die from exhaustion
: Chami-chan always has the mental constitution of a flea, but she's actually been communicating properly. i'm so proud
: hey you're right
: I think this is the first time I've seen her talk this much during a collab
“You know, you’re right,” she said. “How do I put it... I guess I talk a lot more when someone is pulling my shyness through an intense conversation. If we got a bunch of people like me together, it’d be a deadlock! We’d all be totally silent, or apologizing constantly.”
: i kind of get you
: yeah, that happens a lot. when nobody's around to take the reins, nobody steps forward, and everything just stalls...
: And in the end, when you're supposed to present as a group, there's this battle of trying to get other people to do it, but you act like you're just being considerate. literal hell
: You guys are way too familiar with shyness...
: lol
“I see!” I said. “Then I should keep going full speed then, right, Chami-chan?”
“Please stop! Any more of this and I’ll die!”
“Whoaaaa! Let’s get pumped for what we have coming next, woohoo!”
“Not good... It’s like I can see my star of death right before my eyes...”
: Look to the heavens! Can you see it? Your star of death!
: CHING CHING, TOKI! DECIDE THE DESTINY
“Anyway, here’s the subject of my collab with Chami-chan! Let’s begin the Chami-chan Conversational Topic Creation segment!”
“Yeah, yeah! Woohoo! H-huff, huff...”
“Jizz everywhere.”
“All she needs to do to terrify me is say two words...? I-Is this the gap in our communication power level?!”
: Chami-chan, come to your senses!
: that was really cute tbh
: she got too ahead of herself at the start and couldn't keep going
: if THAT'S what you're calling communication power level, then everyone in the world with "normal social skills" needs to be arrested for sexual harassment lmao
: YES i LIVE for these segments
: The hope to live is like a candle flickering before the wind. Be strong, big sis.
“I am so, so sorry,” I said. “Excuse my French, but my boner sensor activated without me realizing.”
“You can’t make everything sound more polite just by saying excuse my French!”
In any case, this “Chami-chan Conversational Topic Creation” journey we were about to embark on was something Chami-chan frequently enjoyed doing during her collab streams. Chami-chan would describe a situation where she wouldn’t be sure what to say, and the rest of us would have to think of good responses. But given how utterly unique everyone in Live-On was, there would always be some incredibly funny things mixed in with actual advice, making it a popular segment.
“Okay! Let’s get started. Chami-chan, describe a situation!”
“Uh-huh. So you’re at a restaurant with a good number of people in it, but there’s no bell to call your waiter or waitress over, and yours is the kind that doesn’t go around checking on tables very much. Isn’t that awkward? Just recently this happened to me, and it took forever just to put in my order with him.”
: i understand so well it hurts
: And you can't shout, because you'd be bothering the other customers...
: so then you start thinking, should I just call the waiter anyway? but then you and another customer might call out at the same time
: everyone's practically got telepathy here
: huh? wait, if i have telepathy, does that mean my thoughts are connected with Chami-chan's? doesn't that mean we're ACTUALLY doing it right now?
: sounds like you've got bubbles on the brain
“Yep!” I said. “Okay, let’s do a little simulation for when you want to order a StroZero in a popular restaurant but there’s no bell to call the waiter!”
“That was a weird addition, but oh well. I’m used to it at this point. It doesn’t change the situation at all, so let’s just go.”
Great! Time to start! Woohoo! “First, I slam my face right down on the table.”
“I already have a bad feeling about this.”
“Then the waiter gets worried and comes over. And then I order.”
“Oh, I see!”
“When I order, I do it like this. Eh, eh hee hee hee! H-Hey, waiter, gimme some of that... You know the stuff—a little bit of it and your head practically explodes! I can’t go on without it any longer! Ahh! My body is crying out! It needs to drink! Bring it! Bring it bring it bring it bring it bring it!”
“If you ordered like that, you’d be getting the police at your table, not your waiter.”
“Aha ha ha ha! Being StroZero, I suppose my life is as good as zero!”
“What?”
: What?
: what?
: what?
“Ah, aha ha ha... Anyway, jokes aside!” I continued. “It’s a difficult problem, since all you can do to really improve your communication abilities is muster your courage. It’s not like building muscle.”
“You’re so right.”
“I didn’t go out of my way to talk to other kids in school very much. When I was working for that exploitative company, sometimes I’d be dragged along on client visits. I figured that if I panicked during every single interaction, I’d have a mental breakdown. So I stopped caring. Eventually, I guess I got to the point where I could talk to other people normally. Of course, in certain special situations—like my interview for Live-On—my shitty cowardice comes out.”
“Oh, I get it. Maybe it’s important to have that kind of push.”
“That’s how I think about it, anyway. It was a drastic measure for me, though.”
“Then would you be that kind of push for me, Awayuki-chan?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I feel like it’s coming naturally for this stream. I was just thinking maybe I could hold on to this feeling and let it push me along.”
“In other words?”
“It’s not hard to understand. I want to be better friends with you.”
“Oh! Well, that’s totally okay with me! Actually, when I think of how much more I’ll be able to experience your body... Gweh heh heh heh.”
“...And maybe I’ll learn some self-defense in the meantime.”
: is this...tee-tee?
: oh, that's good stuff
: she's just never satisfied unless she ruins it lmao
“Cool! Done with the stream! Good work, Chami-chan!” I congratulated.
“Good work to you too. How were you planning on getting back, by the way? It’s pretty late. I didn’t drink at all, so I could take you back in my car.”
“Hmm... I think I’ll stay here tonight.”
“Huh?! Are you sure?!”
“Mm...mm-hmm?” Wait. What? I only said that because I figured she’d refuse. That’s a weird way of refusing.
“I, well, I’ve always dreamed about having a sleepover with someone!”
“I-Is that so?” I stammered.
“You have no idea what I’m even talking about, do you?! I’ve always been shy and alone, so having a sleepover with a friend is the greatest normie thing I can think of doing! I’ve always wanted to have one! A Chameep-over!” Chami-chan, looking at me with stars in her eyes, rattled off her words so fast I could barely make them out. She was visibly more excited than I’d ever seen her before. And the way her excitement seeped into her word choices made her seem kinda like a little kid.
“Wait, but won’t it be a problem if I suddenly decide to stay over?”
“No! There’s no need to worry! I’ve always had a full sleepover set ready for situations like this, ever since high school! It’s got a spare futon, a spare toothbrush, and even a set of pajamas in it!”
“Since high school?! You were so enthusiastic about preparing for it, and yet you never actually had a sleepover?!”
“I’ve vigilantly been making sure they’re always well-maintained! Ahh, the day has finally come!”
That’s way more than a dream! It’s more like an obsession!
S-Still, she’s so happy she might start dancing in a second. And I’m positively bursting with glee at getting to sleep over at a girl’s house anyway. I guess it’s fine.
It’s so nice to see a person who always acts so mature being this purely happy... It’s giving me more of a heart-on than a hard-on. Like, she’s making me want to smile along with her.
“Oh!” she said. “I’ll go heat up a bath, so you can get in first!”
“Huh? Um, thanks!”
“Want to go in together?”
“Eh?!”
“Oh, you! I’m just joking! Your reactions are so cute!”
W-What?! She’s toying with me?! Me, the mighty guzzler of StroZero?! Argh... I can’t get a handle on her reactions! I never thought a shy big sister type could be this destructive when excited!
My heart pounding all the while, we both finished up with our baths and started getting ready for bed.
“I’m, um, really sorry for earlier... I was so happy my dream was coming true that I lost control,” she said.
“No, don’t be sorry.”
Chami-chan would be on the bed, while I’d be sleeping in a futon next to it—a futon she really had been keeping in pristine condition. Now that I thought about it, this was the first time since high school that I’d had a sleepover. I was starting to get excited now too. Maybe it was because I was sober at the moment—I’d drunk during dinner, before taking that bath, after all.
Chami-chan seemed to have snapped out of her trance, and was looking down a little, embarrassed. “Oh, I know! Since you’re here, why don’t I clean your ears for you?”
“What?! What did you say?!”
Maybe she couldn’t endure the awkwardness any longer, because she’d just thrown out an insane proposition. Did... Did this mean Chami-chan, who I listened to every day, was going to give me a real-life ASMR experience?! Oh shit, oh shit... I’m not gonna die tomorrow, am I?
“Come here and put your head on my lap! Also, I know I’ve done a lot of ear-cleaning ASMR streams, but I’ve never done it for someone else before. It might not go as well.”
“O-Okay.” Grateful for her overwhelming angelic sublimity, I rested my head upon her sacred thighs.
“All right, I’m going to start.”
I decided to enjoy this situation to my absolute fullest, to burn it into my mind forever, but...
“Haah... Haah...!”
“Hold on, Chami-chan, your hand is really shaking a lot! It’s totally all over the place! I’m getting really worried about my ears! Just like when Kaiji-kun was playing E-Card!”
“I-I’m sorry! I’m nervous! I’ve never been this close to someone’s face before! Deep breaths, deep breaths...”
Chami-chan truly never betrayed expectations! But eventually, she seemed to get used to the situation, and I entered into that pure bliss you can only get from having your ears cleaned. Seriously, why does ear-cleaning feel this good? It makes me want to close my eyes and not open them again. Within a matter of minutes, my drowsiness level was maxed out.
“Hee hee. You can fall asleep if you want.”
“Mm... I’ll sleep with you, Chami-chan.”
“Oh? Are you sure?”
“I want to sleep with you in the futon.”
Chami-chan looked shocked. “Th-That sounds good! Oh my God, that sounds so normie! Huh heh heh! I’m a true normie now! No doubt about it!”
“Mm... I don’t think a real normie would be calling herself a normie...”
And that was how we ended up falling asleep in the same futon! Heck yeah!
The Mission to Recapture Awayuki Kokorone’s Seiso
The day after thoroughly enjoying my offline collab with Chami-chan, I wasted no time starting a stream to unveil the new weapons I’d gotten at her house.
“Good evening, everyone. Another nice, light snow is falling tonight.”
: Hey, it's starting!
: It's Awa-chan!
: holy crap, she's got as many initial viewers as Harerun does
: she's grown so much
: the true late-bloomer star of the third gen
: More importantly... About the stream title...
“Some of you are mentioning this in chat, but yes—today’s stream will be my big mission to recapture my seiso!”
: lol
: i can already see how this will end
: The Girl Who Choked on a Pie in the Sky
: time to laugh, yall
: even her title is funny. she must really be a genius
“Oh, that’s strange. I was being completely serious with it... There should be zero things to laugh about...”
: Huh? she just said strozero, right? /selectivehearingprotag
: she didn't (but she should)
: The words a person says really change in meaning depending on one's life
: i love you, enlightened chat bro
I mean, I’d known things would turn out like this, but still!
“Lately, a lot of people have been calling me decidedly un-seiso names, like StroZero personified, or a walking barrel of laughs, or a green baboon, or an eternal zero, or saying my brain is packed with testicles.”
: i'm so sorry but i can't stop laughing holy shit
: wait there was a couple i've never heard lmao
: don't say testicles XD
: what the hell would you have to do to earn THAT nickname... (i'm in awe)
“But I am serious today! I will rid myself once and for all of the shadow of that mysterious person named Shuwa-chan! Today, I will be one hundred percent seiso!”
: o-oh. ok?
: are you suuure?
: idk about this guys...
: no, strozero is 9%. if it was 100% you'd die
: if conversations are a game of catch, you're returning a baseball with a soccer ball. love you chat bro
: omg chat is so suspicious lol
: I'm actually looking forward to this
: well, since this is Awa-chan, it's sure to be another legendary stream!
“After I answer some Castellas today, I have a project ready that will knock your socks off! It’s the perfect plan!”
: For real?!
: you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention
: if it's Chami-chama, then we're safe
: Hell yeah!
: love how chat treats Chami-chama and Awa-chan so differently lol
“Let’s start those Castellas like we always do!”
Q: I have a morning ritual that I need to share. I call it “the shuwa-chan.”
First I crouch down beneath my computer desk in the classic “shuwa-chan drinking strozero” pose.
With my eyes closed I crouch there for a minute, visualizing either Shuwa-chan or that other girl from before her (not any other alcohol because they all suck) and I start to vocalize the “pshhh” noise.
Then I slowly rise to a standing position and open my eyes, then go to the fridge for more.
It helps me to proceed through my day as an alcoholic NEET loser. The only problem is if I run out of strozero. It ruins the fantasy.
“Pff, heh, heh heh! Heh, hee, hee hee hee ho ho ho ho! That’s—that’s a funny Castella, isn’t it?”
: omg she's trying so hard not to burst out laughing lmao
: who wouldn't laugh at that one
: man we're REALLY sticking to this whole arnold thing aren't we lmao
Q: Awayuki, tell me... How many more supers must we give? How many more times must I give supers to that Live-On VTuber...? StroZero will not tell me anything... Tell me, Awayuki!
“Why are you turning to StroZero for the answers? The best supers are the ones you can afford to give! If sending them makes you suffer, that’ll only make the streamer sad. At least, that’s what I believe!”
: Well said! That's the true heart of a streamer!
: vtubers gave me the motivation to move up at my job!
: oh, that's awesome!
Q: Which Street Fighter series do you like the best?
“Heh heh! I’m sure you want me to say the Zero series, but I actually like the 4 and 5 series. Also, my favorite character is Karin.”
: aren't you just looking at the characters and picking whichever looks the most seiso...?
: lmao
: I want Shuwa-chan to answer that one at some point
Q: If I hypothetically made a dessert incorporating StroZero...
If I gave you the recipe, would you make it and eat it?
“Wait, then I’d have to make it? But as someone who enjoys cooking, I am very interested in your recipe, so please tell me it.”
: lol taking advantage of the fact that she can cook
: and she's getting a practical recipe for strozero at the same time! what a godlike move
: I bet she'll use StroZero as her side dish and just drink more StroZero
Q: You had fun last night, huh?
“Heh heh heh. It was actually even more fun than what you’re all thinking. I’ll talk about it later!”
: What?!
: NANI?!
Sei Utsuki: WAITING VERY EXCITEDLY
: What?! wtf just happened?!
: chat's scrolling so fast holy shit lmao
: if Sei-sama is waiting THAT excitedly, she might seriously just strip XD
“Anyway, I know you all can’t wait any longer, so it’s time to unveil the secret weapon I got from Chami-chan!”
After all, everyone’s been talking so much about how the line between Awa-chan and Shuwa-chan is blurring! I have to remind them once in a while of how pure Awayuki is! Let’s do this! Da-da-da-daaaa da da dat da-daaaa!
...By the time memes like those come to mind, it’s already too late.
A-Anyway, pulling myself together! “Hee hee. Here’s what I’ll be doing today!”
It was time for my new weapon—the ASMR microphone Chami-chan had given me! I lowered my voice somewhat, blending it with a sighing whisper.
: huwah?!
: *lick*! this is...potassium cyanide?!
: I want to say "no, this is ASMR" but that guy's probably on his deathbed now
: i see, sasuga chami-chan
: I was about to say "wow your breath smells like booze" but this is kinda...wow
: seiso-chan is so cute! hooray!
: voices can do some wonderful things
: My ears have been blessed
: so these are the vocal cords trained by strozero...
“Right! Anyone who complains about StroZero is getting StroZero poured in their ears. The foaming carbonation feels really nice in there, huh?” I murmured.
: eek!
: Rejoice! You mongrels like carbonation asmr, don't you?
: when you whisper something like that into my ears, it literally gives me chills lmao
: sorry mommy! oops i mean sorry mommy. sorry. mommy? sorry.
: Wait, so is there any possibility, any at all, that Shuwa-chan is a result of Awa-chan putting strozero in her ear and getting all fizzy?
: what a new and fun way to drink! i would never have thought of it if not for awa-chan
“Anyway, jokes aside, I just got permission to, so let’s talk about what happened at Chami-chan’s house yesterday. To tell the truth... I ended up sleeping over!”
: WHAT
: I'll give you 3 seconds, starting now. Time's up! What is the rest of the story?
: lmao @ the impatient Muska
: i mean, even Muska will only wait fifty seconds max, desu
: he was a lolicon AND a yuri-lover? big yikes
: What's Awayuki's body made of? Is she virtual, or made out of StroZero? With our limited technology, we have no idea
Sei Utsuki: Hey, you want to stay over at my house too? ;)
“My danger sense is going off, so no thanks for now.”
Sei Utsuki: （´・ω・｀）
: lmfaooooo
: her desires are so obvious
: i love how awa-chan goes all S with sex-sama sometimes
: she did say she was waiting VERY excitedly, it's a natural reaction lmao
“Back to the subject. I didn’t originally plan on staying over. I suggested it just for fun, but it turns out that having a sleepover is Chami-chan’s dream, so I actually stayed the night. I’ll be sure to go into all the details, because I have a responsibility to my viewers to make sure they’re well-informed!”
: you really understand us
: the awayuki who was only talented when it came to women
: one more awful title for the pile lmao
: that's not true! she's super-talented in getting us to laugh!
: maybe she really is a comedian
: Chami-chan probably never had a sleepover before...
: Stay over at her house every night, please
: that's what they call cohabi-gay-tion
: omg that's genius
“I’ll start with dinner. We made omelet rice together! Hee hee. Since I was there, Chami-chan was so nervous she messed up when covering it in egg. It was so cute! Her face got so red, and she was like, ‘Th-This is usually so easy for me! Why today?’”
: chami-chan's so cute, you can always count on that terrible awkwardness
: I'd actually rather eat one of her failures!
: Agreed kinda
: More and more precious episodes described in that whispering voice? I cannot get enough
: awa is god
: Awa-chan is seiso! Awa-chan is seiso! (said like "duh of course she is")
Heh heh heh! Look at chat now! I’ve established beyond the shadow of a doubt that Awayuki is seiso!
Hey! Whichever one of you just said it’s one hundred percent thanks to Chami-chan, you wanna take this outside?
“But when it came time to actually eat, Chami-chan whipped out some StroZero because of her manager.”
: lmao seriously?
: her manager is so talented
: Live-On never betrays expectations
: wish I could give her manager a super for that one
“Umm. So, after the stream, we took separate baths, and once we were done she dried my hair for me! Ahh, it was so silky smooth I wanted to touch it for hours! Then I did the same for her!”
: hmm, did you now? （´ω｀）
: i'm ded from the precious
Chami Yanagase: Could also be that we never leave the house so our hair never gets damaged
: lmao
: She's here too!
: that reason makes me cry on the inside
“Chami-chan! In that case, why don’t we go to an amusement park sometime?”
Chami Yanagase: I'll grab my things
“Wait! Too fast! I didn’t mean now. Calm down!”
: Chami-chan is so happy on the inside lol
: THEY ARE TOO PRECIOUS AAAA
: caps lock is cruise control for cool...
“U-Umm, and then, before we went to sleep, she cleaned my ears for me!”
: WHAT
: i am so jealous rn...
: Real-life ASMR!
: So Chami-chan put a stick inside Shuwa-chan to make her feel good, and they slept in the same bed. That means they ACTUALLY did it, right?
: chami-chan was the unwitting top, shuwa-chan was the drunk-consenting bottom
: man i can't wait for the doujins of this
“I really like ear-cleanings. I used to do them so much it made my ears red. But it sent me to the hospital once, so I only do them occasionally now.”
: lmfaoooo
: so she's NEVER had limits...
: omg lol you're so weak to addictive stuff
: it's asmr! and yet you make a horrifying remark like that? we can just never relax can we lol
: s-she's still totally seiso!
Crap! I was too passionate about ear-cleaning! It made me mess up, and now I’m veering away from seiso again!
But no! It’s not over just yet! “Ha, ha ha ha. A-And to top it all off, we got into the same futon to go to sleep!”
: THERE IT IS
: fr?
: wait, doesn't that mean you're basically married?
: i'm so glad i'm alive
: hmmm? lewd
“The ear-cleaning made me so sleepy that I fell asleep first. But I was the first one to get up! Heh heh. So I decided to make her breakfast. While I was doing that, she woke up, and was like, ‘Awayuki-chan...? Must be a dream...’ And then she went back to sleep.”
: I can't stop smiling
: chami-chama so moe!
: the gap between that and her appearance is amazing
Chami Yanagase: I was so excited to have my first-ever sleepover that it took me a while to fall asleep, so I was really drowsy.
: like a kid the night before christmas lmao
“Hee hee. Once I finished making breakfast, I went to wake her up again. That’s when she realized what was going on. Her face went bright red and she started to panic.”
: so happy i got to hear about the morning after
: welp, she's definitely seiso folks
: excellent work! that's our seiso!
Heh. Looks like things will wrap up with a perfect victory. Why, I think I’ve completely gotten back my Live-On seiso-stream groove! Ooh, heh, hah, haah, haah... Hee hee, ha ha ha ha ha... Eee ha ha ha ha... /paragus
“And that about does it for my report. It’s getting late, so I’ll be ending the stream now!”
: ty
: thanks!
Sei Utsuki: That was so precious I passed out.
: well done! it would have been a loss for all mankind had you not told this sleepover story!
: otsu!
I actually had big plans for tomorrow—it would be a day in my VTuber life that I’d never forget. It was time to prepare for it and get plenty of sleep!
Monetization Commemoration Stream
“Haah, haah...”
There I was, staring at the monitor connected to my PC, about to start a stream like always. My feelings, though, were in a different place this time. My pulse was high and my breathing was ragged. I doubted I’d felt this level of excitement since my debut stream.
Somehow pushing down my impatience, I used my trembling finger to start the stream. And no, this wasn’t because of any taboo StroZero-drinking-related symptoms! In fact, I was sober at the moment! The reason for all this excitement was...
“Good evening, everyone. Another nice, light snow is falling tonight! This stream is to commemorate my getting monetized! It will also feature all sorts of other exciting announcements, like a new PNG that Mashiron illustrated for me!”
: at laaaaaaaaaaaaaast! ￥500
: Pshhh!
: ￥155
: Pshhh!
: ￥155
: Pshhh!
: ￥155
: Monetizing so late? right in front of my salad? ￥10000
: Congrats! ￥1000
: I heard you were graduating from being a NEET in this stream so ￥3000
: oh, we're starting with seiso mode I see!
: ￥155
: a new png AFTER her true colors were revealed...? i think i know how this is gonna end lol ￥800
Yes! Today’s stream was to commemorate my long-awaited monetization!
Ahh, chat’s going so fast I can’t even track it. And so many supers... I can’t! This feels amazing! My finances are on the move!
Some people might get mad. They might talk about how happy I seem to just do everything for the money. But I can’t help feeling happy about it! I used to be a complete failure, sitting around at rock bottom—but this is the moment I rise up! It doesn’t matter what anyone says! I have never felt this level of joy in my entire life! Ahhhhhh... I’m the happiest person in the world...
“Thank you so much, everyone! I’m sober right now, but I keep seeing the term ‘StroZero’ in chat, so I thought I might as well give it a try for the first time!”
: huh?
: huh?
: huh? ￥1000
: yep, pretty standard stuff so far
: yes! she IS pretty! ￥500
: ￥155
“Also, strangely enough, a lot of these supers are for 155 yen. It truly is a mystery to me, but I will nevertheless get down on my hands and knees to thank you profusely. With this, I can keep fighting for another ten years.”
: why IS it 155?
: cost of a can of strozero at the conbini
: lmao
: You seem so happy about it too lol
: the sacred three-digit number
: Let me in on that! ￥15500
“For today, I think I’ll celebrate with a 350ml lemon-flavored one!”
Pshhh!
: Pshhh!
: pshhh!
: Me too! Pshhh!
“All right! Cheers, everyone!” Glug, glug, glug... “Whoo, good stuff!”
: cheeeeers!
: she makes it sound so delicious lol
: lol, it sounds like this might not be the first time she's had a strozero
: this is actually real nice, drinkin' with ya ￥5000
: Flaunting your booze like this should be illegal!
Ahh, wow! Not only is the monetization making my heart feel fulfilled, now I’m also getting that joy from drinking StroZero! A winning combination! Nnnghhh, feels so good!
Now I won’t have to have a sweaty staring contest with the “remaining balance” part of my checkbook whenever I pay rent. And I can buy the video games the other streamers have been playing. Ahh, I feel liberated, like I’ve broken out of the confines of my heart... I think something might be coming up...
I sniffed. “I’m so happy...”
: what?!
: She's crying?! she drank strozero and started crying?!
: huhhh? o_O
: She's like a fish that found water, except now the water is coming out of her lol
: Awayuki is gonna break
: awa-chan is turning into shuwa-chan!
“No, I’m just happier now than I’ve ever been before in my life! I was boring and didn’t stand out much in school, and then working for that awful company destroyed any dignity I had left. But now there’s people who love me this much, despite how terrible I used to be! Why wouldn’t I be crying?!”
: i cried
: Live. You're...funny. ￥20000
: personally, I'd rather someone be this happy instead of weirdly reserved. it makes me happy too, as the one sending a super! ￥5000
: ^ this
: ￥155
: Become even happier, please
I choked on my tears again. “Thank you so much, everybody! I’m gonna buy a whole carton of StroZero now!”
: Huh?
: Wait, don't!
: maybe we should stop sending supers!!!
: if it's for her health, I suppose we have no choice
:
:
:
: there were so many superchats before and now they're all immediately gone lmao
“Waitwaitwait no! I was just kidding! I’ll make sure to leave two nights a week to rest my liver!”
: lmao ￥400
: Is the alcohol getting to her? her head is turning all shuwa-shuwa lol
: god I love how real you are ￥1000
“Ph-Phew! Anyway, now that my first can’s just about empty, it’s time to unveil the new illustration! And after that, I’ll go through some Castellas while others call in! Okay! As I open this second can—it’s a tall can—I’ll switch to the new image! Woohoo!” Opening the StroZero with a pshhh, I switched to the illustration featuring Shuwa-chan wearing just a baggy “I Heart” T-shirt and short shorts.
: Pshhh!
: Since tall cans are over 200 yen, that means she'll be able to see the comments, yeah? ￥211
: oh you right! ￥211
: omg that avatar hahahaha
: yep, that's shuwa-chan all right
: if lols were trees we'd have the Mononoke spirit's whole forest at this point
: but if she were a fujoshi and not a yuri-lover, we'd be calling it the Toxic Jungle for sure. cause she'd be a rotten girl :'D ￥251
Mashiro Irodori: i'm satisfied with the result
: hey, it's mashiron!
“Mashiron! Thank you so much for illustrating it! I love you!”
Mashiro Irodori: me too. grats on the monetization. i'll call in later ￥10000
: So precious!
: Here we go!
: this ship is my favorite
: Their couple name should be Shuwashuwa-Mashimashi!
: lol
: sounds like washing machine haha
“You even sent me a red super... Oh, you! I’ll be waiting very excitedly for you in voice chat!”
Mashiro Irodori: just keep your clothes on, i spent a lot of time drawing them
: lmaoooo
: they're perfect for each other LOL
: lol
“Okay, let’s hop into voice chat and get to those Castellas, woohoo!”
Q: If that one-in-a-million chance—no, that one-in-a-billion chance that they stop making StroZero actually happens, what booze would you drink instead?
“I’d make my own.”
: YO LOL
: moonshine?!
: that's literally illegal lol
“No, I’d start my own business and get a license to make it.”
: her love is too strong hahaha
: it's now or never! fund it, chat! ￥5000
: i bet the strozero in her mind would tell her how to make it
Q: Jarbag: “Hey, u mad bro?”
“You piece of jarbage! Go die in a fire!”
: lol
: XD you can feel her actual hatred
: looking forward to more granny over it!
Q: StroZero: “By the way, have a look at this tall can. What do you think about it?” Wow... It’s so big...
“Oh, my! That’s one big StroZero...”
: oh, my! (so seiso)
: The Girl Who Knew Literally Every Meme
: wait, do different strozeros have different sizes?
: i mean strozero is basically her pet at this point
: what???
Q: Please explain why StroZero is good in at least twenty words but no more than thirty. If you do, then StroZero will descend upon you.
“I love StroZero. Love you love you love you lots. Strongly love Zero.”
: that's not even 20 words!
: LMAOOOO it's a haiku
: STRONGLY LOVE ZERO hahahahah
: XDDDDD
Q: Are there any streamers you use as a goal for yourself?
“Hmm. That’s a tough one, but the first person who comes to mind is Hareru-senpai. She can stand right at the front and pull everyone along behind her. That’s the kind of streamer I want to be.”
: I knew it would be Harerun!
: the royal road!
: i loved her old title from before the third gen: "The Girl Who Added Up All the Second-Gen Streamers But Then Forgot To Divide for the Average"
: if she ever did a collab with shuwa-chan, it would be one for the history books
Q: Has it been rough on you, not being able to be your true self?
“Hmm. Has it been? In the past, before streams, I’d have to kind of brace myself. Now that I look back, maybe I was just really tense about everything.”
Q: I think that even if it makes you look stupid or embarrasses you, you should always
love it as much as you can and have maximum fun. You do go pretty
strong and hard with your drinking, though, so please don’t get banned for having too much Stro
Zero. I’ll still love you even if you have to change course! You might still be too scared to show your true self while sober, but I hope one day you’ll be able to do it without hesitating.
“Thank you! I think I’m able to accept my true self more, recently. I’m definitely not about to throw away the seiso Awayuki, but I’ve started to see this as a new weapon in my arsenal! And that’s thanks to everyone who’s been enjoying my streams!”
: What a nice story... ￥30000
: You're practically the most popular streamer now in all of Live-On, after all
: your character is so extreme, but i can't not love it. live-on really knows how to choose 'em
: I'm so, so glad you were rewarded for it ￥3000
: hint: read the first word of every line
“What?! Wait, hold on, someone just hopped into the call!” Excitedly, I checked the call window. The first streamer to come in was...Hikari-chan!
“Konpika, everyone! The light of the festival is here for all to enjoy! It’s me, Hikari Matsuriya! Congratulations on getting monetized, Shuwa-chan!”
“Thank you so much!”
: konpika!
: hey look it's gen 3's good sense
: good sense...? (regularly doing gaming endurance streams that are over ten hours long)
: Are you okay Hikari-chan? This is the girl who became your mommy and then got hard remember. ￥1000
: ??? did I miss something? (first time viewer)
: sadly, it's exactly what it sounds like...
: I love how naturally you called her Shuwa-chan XD ￥600
“The number of viewers you have is unbelievable... You’re really popular now, huh, Shuwa-chan? Eheh heh, I’m kind of moved, actually! This may sound weird, but I knew you were trying your best every day, so now I feel like a mom being really happy about her daughter succeeding!”
“I was able to work that hard because you were always there for me, Hikari-chan!”
“Oh! Eheh heh... I might cry a little.”
“That’s sort of embarrassing, even on a stream! Also, I’m the one who wants to be your mommy, eheh heh heh!”
: what?
: her shuwa-shuwa brain hit the brakes on that tee-tee REAL hard at the end lmao
: what a degenerate
: Hikari, run for your life, please ￥1919
: agreed /bandwagon ￥810
: and this is how we treat the host streamer XD
“A-Anyway, Hikari-chan! I’ll be able to buy games and stuff from now on, so we should play something together soon!”
“That’s a good idea! I’ve actually been playing Dark Souls with a dance pad. Should we do multiplayer?!”
“...D-Do you have any other games? You know! Because, uh, it’s a pain to plug in a special controller, after all!”
“Hmm. How about we play scribble.io blindfolded, then?”
“Why do you have to make everything so difficult?! If you were blindfolded, you wouldn’t even be able to play scribble.io at all!”
“It’s to train your third eye!”
“Your... Why? What for?”
“I don’t know. Because it’s cool, I guess!”
“Yep. Figured. Classic Hikari-chan...”
: XD
: Hikari-chan on her usual shit lmao
: her ideas are all extremely masochistic
: She loves the insanely hard games after all.
: If she didn't immediately take her up on it, then Awa-chan's personality is still in there somewhere
“I-I’m sorry! I got a little too excited and just chose the things I like! Hmm... Well, is there anything you’d like to play in particular, Shuwa-chan?”
“Hmm. Me? I guess maybe eroge.”
“Eroge? What’s that game?”
“It’s very exciting. In several ways.”
: what?!
: wait but that was a dirty joke!
: i take back everything i said, she's clearly shuwa-chan
: eroge XD
: oh lawd lols comin
: Run away, Hikari-chan!
“I’d love to play a Mikansoft eroge.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of Mikansoft!”
“What...? Um, where?”
“I saw it in a clip. Sei-sama once made a mistake on-stream and opened up a video game. The first thing in it was a voice that said Mikansoft!”
“What the hell was that degen IRL lesbian doing while her stream was on?”
: OIIII XD
: that is NOT a title you'd want to use for a senpai lmao
: Is this the "you're one to talk" thread?
: time for self-introductions?
Sei Utsuki: I love it just as much when Shuwa-chan gets all sadistic.
: omg it's her XD
: she's happy about it? O_o
: oh crap. we've gotta do something about them, quick
: Those two really have gotten friendlier
Because of how late it was, we reluctantly ended Hikari-chan’s call-in there.
After that, Sei-sama—who had been in chat before—called in as well...
“Awayuki-kun, shall we do it? Sabbat, that is?”
“An eroge collab? LOL. Yeah, I’ll do it. Oh, and since it’s basically a regular thing for call-ins now, what color are the panties you’re wearing right now?”
“I’m not wearing any.”
“Are you trying to get me demonetized during my monetization celebration?”
“Huh, that’s weird. All I did was answer the question. Why’s she so mad?”
And then Mashiron came in, just like she’d announced before...
“I think the best part of this new avatar is how the marriage between the T-shirt you’re able to peep inside and the short shorts makes your thighs look like you’re not wearing panties.”
“You really put all your worldly desires into the illustration!” I exclaimed.
“Is that supposed to be a compliment? I mean, you’re right, but still.”
Finally, even Shion-senpai made it...
“Oh, Shion-senpai.”
“Hm? What is it?”
Q: Shuwa-chan. Would you want Shion-mama to put StroZero in a baby bottle and have you drink from it?
“There are a lot of requests like this one. How about it?”
“I don’t even know what that means!”
Sei Utsuki: WIDE AWAKE NOW! ￥50000
“Huh?! What are you doing, Sei-sama?!”
“Now you can’t back down, Shion-senpai...”
“What?! Really?! Wait, are we actually gonna end up doing this?!”
“Looks like we’ll just have to ride this big wave!”
“You two are the only ones riding it! I’m just being washed along! I mean, if you really insisted, I’d do it, but still!”
“Wait. You would? (disturbed)”
I can’t believe so many streamers are coming... Live-On has such comfy vibes...
Wait, there’s someone else!
“Hee hee. Good evening. It’s Chami Yanagase-oneesan, always the one who guides you to the peen—the pinnacle of healing.”
“Yay! It looks like my genmate Chami-chan is here! Now everyone from the third gen has visited!”
: she choked
: hey no worries, she's operating normally
: Her voice is shaking a lot
: Shake your boobs instead, please
: Chami-chama has as much of a gap between her appearance and what she's like on the inside as Shuwa-chan
: she looks so sexy, but her shyness just makes it even worse, huh?
: wait, why didn't you come earlier?! all those bubbles have given this girl the stupid! ￥5000
“Hee hee,” giggled Chami-chan. “I’ve actually been watching the stream since the beginning. But I was afraid of calling in at the same time as someone else, which is why I didn’t come in to say hello until now.”
: ah yes, the classic problem of people with poor communication skills: paying too much attention to those around you and losing your chance
: very relatable.
: on the outside she's mature, but in her head she's us
: b-but when she's streaming alone, she really is a sexy lady!
“Also, I’m so nervous right now that I’ve forgotten all those conversational topics we thought about,” she admitted.
: is it a topic-deck-destroying virus? ￥10000
: lol
: i love you clumsy onee-san!
“Hey, Chami-chan?”
“Hm? Wh-What is it?”
“Wanna get married?”
“Whaaaaaaat?!”
: as always!
: there's the safe play, proposing on turn 1
: safe? seems like a super risky play to me. could end up getting checkmated for life
: Instead of a cum sprinkler, she's a strozero sprinkler
: StroZero comes out her body? o_O
: well, any liquid coming out of Shuwa-chan would be something like strozero anyway
: that's gen...geni... no wait i hate this
“Well, you see,” I said, “I’ve been listening to your ASMR to go to sleep every night recently.”
“O-Oh. Thank you.”
“But now my body can’t get to sleep without you. I can’t live without you anymore, Chami-chan.”
“Wh-What?!”
: lol
: don't you mean "I can't live without StroZero anymore"?
: actually, it's probably both
: Awayuki, the girl who couldn't live without booze and women
: such debauchery XDDD
“So you need to take responsibility for making my body like this and marry me, I think.”
“I-Is that how it works?”
“Yes!”
: Yeah!!! (bandwagon) ￥810
: XD she really seems like she's about to give in
: the easy-to-get sexy clumsy shy onee-san
: so many attributes and so much instability! does that mean she's Alatreon?
: Wait a second! Going by that logic, you have a responsibility to marry us too!
: Yeah!!! /bandwagon
: Yeah!!! /bandwagon ￥30000
: how many people are on this bandwagon at this point lmao
“Take...take responsibility, okay?” I said.
“A-All right, I will! I’ll marry everyone who can no longer live without me!”
“Hell yeah, bruh.”
With Chami-chan having married everyone, she took her leave from the call. Incidentally, on her next stream, she’d be called “Everyone’s Wife” and get really embarrassed about it. Irresistible.
Wait, someone else called in! Oh, crap! At this rate, every single person in Live-On might join in!
“Yahoo! Everyone’s sun has risen! It’s me—Hareru Asagiri!”
My eyes flew open wide and my brain stalled. And for a moment, time stopped...
First Sunrise of the Year
“I, uh, wha, Hare... Oh, I see, I get it! Wow, I’m so happy. Hooray.”
: SHE'S FINALLY HEEEEEEERE
: Harerun!
: Live-On's root of all evil!
: the living subculture
: Why'd you say the end of it in monotone lmao
: Huh? After saying how much she respected her before, I thought she'd be going out of her mind right now...
: Wait a second! That could actually be Nekoma!
: oh, right lol
Indeed! I may have lost my cool at the start, but my cold reception of my beloved Hareru-senpai was because I realized the person who’d called in was actually Nekoma-senpai pretending to be her! Nekoma-senpai’s impressions were all top-tier, and she frequently showed them off on-stream. Still, though. That’s some high-quality imitation for a meme, since she knew I’d figure it out... I couldn’t hear any of her regular voice in that one!
I just had a good idea! I’ll ask her purposely troubling questions to get her confused! And I’ll start with my good-old standby... ♪
“Hareru-senpai, I’ve watched all of your archived and live streams. That’s how much I love you! Will you marry me?”
“Sure!”
“What.” She said yes! Huh? Wait, is this okay? Hareru-senpai wasn’t going to get mad at Nekoma-senpai after this, was she? “...Y-You want to do a song collab together soon?!”
“A singing collab! That sounds great! I’ve actually been wanting to sing with you, Shuwacchi!”
“Really? Then do you want to sing Nihon no Mikata -Nevada Kara Kimashita- with me?” H-How’s that one?!
“Sounds good! That’ll be super exciting! After that, we should sing Ora Tokyo sa Iguda or something!”
Huh? What? Nothing’s working? “...How about eating some crickets together? Want to do that?”
“Fine with me! Let’s spread the word that bugs are perfectly edible! It would be sort of boring with just one bug, so let’s add in some grubs, and some Dubia roaches, and some tarantulas...”
“Eep?!”
: she's invincible LMAO
: shuwacchi XDD what is she Ultraman now XDDDD
: Nekoma... you'll be missed...
: Nekoma, are you feeding bugs to Harerun?
: hmm? is this... is this nekoma? hrrmmm???
“M-My last question is, what color are your panties?”
“I’m wearing sexy black ones.”
“Arrrrrrgh?!”
Once she’d toyed with me until the very last moment, my call with Nekoma-senpai pretending to be Hareru-senpai came to an end.
Wait. Is Nekoma-senpai gonna be all right? Didn’t she just clearly go over the line with what she agreed to do in Hareru-senpai’s stead? That was my biggest worry.
“...Huh?” Wait. Did Nekoma-senpai just call back in for some reason?
“Nya-nyaaan! The scent of StroZero lured me here! It’s me, Nekoma Hirune!”
“Huh? Um, isn’t this the second time?”
“Hm? Oh, that was Hareru-senpai. She was sitting right next to me.”
“...Excuse me?”
“That was Hareru-senpai.”
“...”
“In the flesh, in fact.”
I felt the blood drain from my whole body. Wait. Did I just ask the real Hareru-senpai, the one I’ve always adored, all those crazy things? About marriage, and collabing on strange (famous) songs, and eating bugs, and then the color of her underwear to top it all off...
“She was really excited! Since you got monetized, she knew she had to surprise you,” Nekoma-senpai continued.
“Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!”
“That’s a big LOL.”
And so ended my long-awaited monetization celebration stream, its crowning glory being every single member of Live-On calling in!
Idle Talk: One Day, on Mashiron’s Stream
“Hello and konmashiro, everyone! It’s me, Mashiro Irodori, also known as Mashiron!”
: Konmashiro!
: my life has meaning again
: Ah, what a nice voice!
: yeah! once you hear her soft, androgynous voice, you just can't get it out of your head
As I greeted chat, it started scrolling so fast I couldn’t even read it. I couldn’t remember how many streams I’d done thus far, but even now, this moment always made me feel how many people were interested in me. Hee hee. That brings me back. I remember being so nervous before my first stream that I stayed on a call with Awa-chan right up until it started.
“Today I’m going to finish the picture of Awa-chan that I started drawing on the last stream!”
: Pshhh!
: yay! you could already feel so much love in it even though it wasn't done!
: yeah, you can definitely tell she's not drawing it for work
: she is the mom after all
: The Girl Whose Genmate Was Her Mom
: another nickname lmao
: love how those words have a way stronger impact when it comes to vtubers
“Hee hee. I always put all of my love into whatever I draw. That’s just how professionals operate, I think.”
: you're a model illustrator
: maximum love (but mostly in the chest, thighs, and crotch)
: (in a new light) you're a model illustrator
“I’m a human with emotions, and I’m just honest about them. Let’s start with the thighs here. And about that—I won’t deny I have special feelings for Awa-chan.”
: oh?
: here comes the teetee!
: kimashita wa!
“Obviously I designed her model, but she was the first member of Live-On I ever really had contact with. Oh, I know—Awa-chan says I can talk about anything I want, so how about a little story from our past?” I recalled when we still weren’t used to the VTuber lifestyle. “That takes me back. Awa-chan wasn’t very confident back then, was she?”
: yeah
: I thought at first she was supposed to be the sane streamer
: it's less like she has confidence now and more like she just abandoned all shame lmao
: Nobody could have foreseen her transformation into Shuwa-chan...
“I know, right? But I don’t think she has any less love for VTubers than before. Either Awa-chan or Shuwa-chan, that is. Even when she’s partying hard, you can’t hate her. In fact, it makes you want to cheer her on. And I think that’s because everyone is able to tell how much Awa-chan really loves VTubers.”
: i see
: She did actually cry when she got monetized after all. You can tell she puts her whole life into it.
: and no matter how drunk she gets, she gushes about how much she loves all the other streamers
: She's probably the most knowledgeable person about Live-On's members in Live-On
: And it's kinda like she's carrying through on a promise she made to her audience. love it
I couldn’t say this in front of chat since it was embarrassing, but there had actually been a time when I’d lost my confidence. Awa-chan was the one who’d listened to my troubles the most seriously. I remembered blushing when she’d started bringing up every single little thing she liked about me during her attempt to get my confidence back.
“Yeah, and I mean, I’ve been watching her this whole time, so of course I’d want to cheer her on. She actually cried when I first showed her her model’s illustration too. I’m so lucky as an artist to know someone like her.”
: mom's so proud of her daughter and i love it
: has Mashiron already fallen for her too?
: The Girl with the Momentum to Make All of Live-On Her Harem
: i can't get enough of this kuudere mashiron!
“Well, anyway, that was just a story to show that I love Awa-chan, and that includes Shuwa-chan. My heart always fills up whenever I see her having fun streaming these days. Even though usually when she drinks, she says some crazy stuff that makes me cringe.”
: lol
: yuri confirmed!
: i was about to die from teetee overdose if you hadn’t added that last part
: shuwashuwa-mashimashi forever! yeah!
: i just want to point out how quickly and skillfully she’s drawing those thighs while telling the story
“I just can’t get enough of that squishy look that thighs have when they’re sitting. And also when knee-high socks are squeezing them. I need more.”
: and today was business as usual for Live-On
Chapter Three
Long Fit Stream
Several days had passed since my monetization stream, and I now had the wherewithal to enjoy my streams from the bottom of my heart. This day, however, was a day to rest my liver, so it was time for a sober stream!
As I was getting myself pumped up for it, though, I suddenly heard the doorbell ring. Opening the door, and thinking about how sad it was that visitors were so rare for me, I saw a certain black-cat deliveryman standing there. Apparently I’d gotten a package—and a fairly big one, at that.
I couldn’t imagine what was inside, so after taking it from the man, I brought it in and opened it. I doubted it was anything suspicious, since nobody was supposed to know where I lived, but...
“Wait. I know what this is...” I hadn’t expected what was in the box, but it fascinated me nonetheless.
...Yeah! Let’s try this out for today’s stream!
“Good evening, everyone. A nice, light snow is falling again tonight.”
: good evening!
: oh, seiso mode today?
: Doesn't sound like she's been drinking
: been waiting for you! ￥211
: Out of respect for you building up my first-strike marriage-proposal repertoire--will you marry me? ￥50000
“Whaaa?! Th-Thank you for the red super! As for marriage... I have a lot of wives already! Is that okay with you?!”
: lol
: was so sudden she's already talking crazy lmao
: Seiso (but polygamous)
“A-Ahem! This is the very pure, wholesome, and seiso Awayuki. For today’s stream, after answering some Castellas, I’ll be doing some exercise using a fitness device called Long Fit. I’ve never exercised for a stream before, so it should be interesting!”
: my oshi is so happy and it makes me happy ￥2000
: Become the happiest in the world, please
: wait, do you mean that pole thing?
“Yes, that one! It’s been all over the commercials lately. Apparently Live-On sent one to each of their streamers to fix our lack of exercise.” I gave the Long Fit a trial squeeze. It was a meter-long pole with a small display attached to the middle. The pole was made of flexible material; it probably wouldn’t ever break.
As an aside, when I’d looked it up before, it had turned out this item was very expensive. At least, from my point of view. Live-On was so generous, giving it to us for free like this. They’d even put a nice little letter in the box that said, “Feel free to use on-stream!” As a VTuber who was always worrying about what she’d do every day for stream, I couldn’t have been happier.
: kinda jealous actually
: I've got one. It's the real deal, like srsly. You have a lot of control over how strenuous to make the exercise.
: for sure! i recommend it for beginners, not just strength-training addicts like me
: I heard she was doing it on maximum difficulty? ￥1000
“Oh, it looks like a lot of you have it, huh? I remember it being a big deal when it first came out. I guess it really was popular. And—no matter what—I won’t be doing this on maximum difficulty.”
: a soul of steel! which she used to refuse that guy lmao
: i can see her doing that in the future tho
: Long Fit is pretty tough even if you do it normally, so we're still in for a treat!
: yeah it is. I underestimated it, then couldn't move at all the next day
Hikari Matsuriya: Hi, Awayuki-chan! I got one too! Can I play it on stream at the same time?
“Ah! Hikari-chan! Sure, go right ahead! I’ll watch the VOD later!”
: wait for real?!
: huh? Didn't Mama Shion say she'd be exercising today too?
: fr? it's such good timing it makes it seem like a big collab project
: cool! time to set up my multi-stream
: You'll probably die of laughter comparing them
“Wait, really? Some of you are saying some ominous things, but, umm, let’s just answer some Castellas for now!”
Q: Shuwa-chan, can you cook? And how good are you at it?
“I was always pretty poor, so I can cook fairly well. Heh heh!”
: she probably uses strozero as seasoning
: Ah yes, the good old salt, pepper, strozero
: i'm a little surprised actually.
: she's so cute when she brags
: Is this what they call gap moe?
“G-Gap what now? What does that mean? Incidentally, if one were to use StroZero as a seasoning, it would make the food nice and soft.”
: I just love how she's still answering XD
: Yo, strozero is BOMB with meat
: She'd probably pour it on but wish she was just drinking it instead
: that would be kinda cute tho lol
“Okay, next question!”
Q: Please marry me
Oh, wait, I don’t really drink, so...
I’m sorry...
“Oh, then we should be fine together, right?”
: what?
: huh?
: what?
“N-Next!”
Q: （´ω｀)っ[StroZero]
“...Well, if you’re offering, I suppose I’ll take it.”
: immediately contradicts herself lmao
: Her greed is winning the war against her seiso LOL
Q: You thought it was a Castella? But it was me! Steamed hams!
“It’s a regional dialect!”
Q: After watching Shuwa-chan’s stream, I tried a StroZero (500ml) for the first time.
But it was so big that I could only drink half of it.
For the other half, I’m not sure if StroZero is burnable garbage or not. What should I do?
“Ara ara! You shouldn’t force yourself to drink it all! Completely unrelated, but where do you live?”
: hey!!! lmao
: She's totally up for going to get it herself lmfao
: this could be an intricate trap to get you to indirectly kiss them!
: brb, buying a 5000ml can
: That's way too much XD
“Great! Anyway, let’s switch gears and get started with Long Fit!” Frankly speaking, I hadn’t exercised in a while, so I was looking forward to this. “Okay. It looks like I have to set it up first.”
As I progressed through the display, I came to a window where you set up a bunch of things. Apparently, the device was hooked up to the Internet of Things, and it would use the information to suggest what exercise would be best for the player. I could also share the display with my PC—that way, the listeners would be able to see it as well.
After entering my gender and whatnot...
How much do you think you exercise compared to others in your age group?
1 - I exercise a lot
2 - I exercise some
3 - I don't exercise much
4 - I don't exercise at all
I exhaled, thinking, Ah. I see.
: deep breath LMAO
: 4
: 4, right?
: you did say you were a neet lol
: Sweating makes the alcohol evaporate! It's just taking care of your body, duh
: wait, so is she a person or is she strozero???
“Wh-What are you saying? I’m still energetic and lively. In fact, I exercise every day to maintain my beautiful figure. It should be about a two.”
: what?
: you meant to say, fizzy and drunk, right?
: If that's a lie then you're gonna be in a lot of trouble with 2!
: Just be honest for this one!
“Huh? Is that true?”
: If you want to experience hell later, then go ahead and choose 2
: long fit will destroy you if you underestimate it
: please choose the best one (which is 1)
“I’m sorry, I lied, I’m choosing four, four please, by the way I promise I’m not chubby.”
: okay okay lol
: I'm so proud of you for being honest ￥10000
: she's not great at exercising?! can't wait for the sensual sounds ;)
: btw Hikari-chan said she exercises an average amount and picked 1 without even blinking
: never betraying expectations
“Okay, next is...”
How challenging do you want the exercise to be?
1 - Extreme
2 - Intense
3 - Moderate
4 - Casual
“...What should I pick?”
: she's actually starting to worry about it lol
: You can change that one later
: btw Hikari-chan (etc)
“Wait, really? In that case, I’ll choose three, for moderate.”
What would you estimate your weight to be?
1 - Answer now
2 - Answer later
I let out a long breath. I’d forgotten, but of course something like this would be in there.
: now that was a realistic breath
: my body is ready
: Ok! Go ahead! ￥2000
: The Girl Who Was Funny Even Just Setting Things Up
“Hmm...” Click! Click! Clack clack clack! “I’m 49 kilograms!”
: huh? lol
: did i just hear her typing something on her keyboard lmao
: spare us the jokes!
: is that light?
: She's supposed to be tall, 165cm. That's pretty light
: Hey! 49kg with 165cm height is like a model's weight!
: LOL
: shuwa-chan would have weighed her strozero
: lmaooooooo
“Aha ha! That was obviously just a joke. I’ll input my weight later.”
: a prelude to the traditional art of accidentally exposing your weight?
: clear #1 on the list of streamers most likely to expose their weight by accident
: btw, a certain first-gen streamer tried to put in the weight of the sun but it wouldn’t let her. 1.989x10^30 kg
: I can't tell if that makes her smart or an idiot...
Okay, next up was...
Next we'll calibrate by measuring your power.
Oh! Finally, something fitness-esque! It looked like it measured you on a scale of zero to one hundred. Whatever number you got would determine how stiff the device was, and then you’d twist it and stuff to exercise.
Twist the Long Fit with all your might.
“Here we go! Hrrmph!”
50
“Whoa! How was that, everyone?!”
: stop bragging about how shit-tier your physical fitness is lmaooo
: yep. figured
: Are you ok? Do you need to borrow StroZero's power?
“What? Okay, fine. Watch this! Oraaahhh!!!”
63
: Hey, you got better!
: That voice...
: 0 resistance to provocation
: The Girl Who Abandoned Her Seiso for Power
: omg that's so cool (brain turned off)
Wow, I’m... I’m really tired just from setting it up. But now it looks like I can finally play the actual game...
: Time to compare streams!
: same here!
Judging by the chat, there were a lot of listeners starting to compare our streams. Right! Time to do my best not to lose to those two—either in fitness or as a streamer!
Twist the Long Fit and hold it.
[Shion Kaminari’s Stream]
“Hrrrmph! Ooh, haah, haah, this, this is pretty hard, huh...”
: WHAT
: Thanks for that one ￥30000
: such a sensual sigh
: nighttime exercise ;)
: If you look away from the screen it just sounds like she's making dirty jokes lol
[Hikari Matsuriya’s Stream (Maximum Difficulty)]
“Grah! Hee hee. This is pretty difficult, isn’t it? Clearly, this is a big wall that’s out of proportion to my own abilities. But who am I if not someone who breaks through those walls?! What is life if you’re not breaking through walls?! Gotta live life bold and fulfilling, right?!”
: What the heck is she saying LMAO
: is it from a shonen manga?
: Who on earth is she talking to...
: If she's having fun, then all is well! ￥1000
[Awayuki Kokorone’s Stream]
“Huh? I heard the rumors, but isn’t this a little overboard?! Ah, guhhhhh, haah, haah... Eearrrgh!”
: WHAT XD
: it was so ecchi until the end...
: the last grunt was totally Howard Dean
: you really aren't good at exercising lol
: seriously, don't go so hard you throw up or anything!
Squats
[Shion Kaminari’s Stream]
“N-No! No squats, please! Wait. I have to? Nooo... Oooh... ah, oooh... ah!”
: This makes my sadistic brain very happy
: Getting real turned on by this actual gasping
Sei Utsuki: ￥50000
: what? sex-sama?!
: oh my god, giving an empty super in this situation, noooo lmao
[Hikari Matsuriya’s Stream (Maximum Difficulty)]
“Ha ha ha! This is great! Only in the heat of battle can Man truly revive his latent combat instincts!”
: How can she laugh through this pure masochism...
: it's over. she's a combat-crazed cyber newtype, and nobody can tell me otherwise
: i love how she is so serious with every game
: Too serious, I bet her eyes are bloodshot atm
[Awayuki Kokorone’s Stream]
“Vwraaahhhhhhhhh!!!!! Hooooooohhhhhnnnnngh!!! Fooooonnnghhhh!!! /supersaiyan”
: STOP YELLING!!
: huh? did the stream audio just cut out?
: no that was your eardrums
: seiso...
: H-Hold it! /phoenixwright She's just shouting! So she still is seiso! Somewhat! Right?
Planks
[Shion Kaminari’s Stream]
“Ahhhhhhhh, no more! Hurry! Please end it!”
: HAA...!
: Phew...
Sei Utsuki: Shall we talk about the beginning of the universe now?
: YO XD
: the post-nut clarity lmaoooo
[Hikari Matsuriya’s Stream (Maximum Difficulty)]
“Life exists to be thrown away. I now go to my death.”
: yeah you know what this IS bad
: Toki???
: nagi!
: Have this. Take it when you can't endure the pain. (strozero)
: Wait, what is that... *cringe*
[Awayuki Kokorone’s Stream]
“Oh, oh-hoh! Ngggh! Ahhh! Oof, oof, ah, ahh heee!”
: ok this is just excessive
: Is this that water breathing thing I've been hearing about?
: no, it's ZERO breathing
: is this a nukige?
: and Awa-chan falls apart as usual lmao
“Haah, haah, I’m so beat...”
I ended the stream after that since my stamina had hit rock bottom, but I was still dripping with sweat and breathing heavily. I had wanted to complain about why the exercise was so much harder than I’d initially imagined, but on second thought it was probably just right for a fitness tool. And it didn’t feel bad, working up a sweat for the first time in so long.
Everyone, let’s all stan exercise once in a while!
Incidentally, the next morning, my muscles hurt so much that I couldn’t get out of bed.
Animal Kart Stream
“Welcome!”
One late afternoon, I visited a game shop called Gao. Now, side by side with children, I was staring at the video games. The reason was obviously so that I could buy one—but this time, it would be a much bigger game than the jarbag one. I was finally starting to have some wiggle room in my finances after being monetized, so I’d come here to Gao thinking about getting a somewhat more expensive game to play on-stream.
How long had it been since I’d last come to a game shop, anyway? Even if I wanted to play one of the latest video games, I either never had the money or never had the time. Before I knew it, we’d drifted apart.
Just a short walk through the store was rekindling that childish sense of excitement in me. I wouldn’t have minded sticking around to really mull over my choice, but I’d already decided on today’s purchase. I picked the game up, then briskly walked over to the register...
Pshhh! Gulp, gulp, gulp! “Whoooaaa yeah! Shuwa-chan here, and my tank’s full of gas now!”
“And Mashiro Irodori here, also known as Mashiron. I’ll be playing some Animal Kart with Shuwa-chan today.”
Animal Kart was a world-famous racing game franchise that had been going for a long time now. The actual title we’d be playing was called Animal Kart 8 SE. In the game, players chose from a variety of cute animal characters and raced for a position between first and twelfth while using items and other such things. I had fond memories of playing past titles a lot at friends’ houses.
: Pshhh! ￥211
: I don't think I've ever seen so many comments laughing right from the first remark lmao ￥211
: hey now... what's with... the silly voice, ride...
: Holy cow. I thought it was actually a car engine
: So low it could make the earth shake lmao
: You see, the key to victory in this race will be Shuwa-chan becoming the kart.
: refueling (on strozero)
: hey, I heard this was gonna be one of those endurance streams where the rest of us have to endure massive abdominal pain from laughing so hard?
: Here we go!
: A masterpiece game at last, huh? Even an old man like me used to be so passionate about playing it with friends when he was a kid
: i don't have any friends, so i've always just played it on my own
: wipe your tears, friend
“After answering a few Castellas, we’re gonna be tearing up the road! Look forward to it!” I said.
“Saying you’re going to tear up the road means it’ll be a premeditated crime, right? By the way, Shuwa-chan, do you have your license?”
“Nope!”
“Well, then even though this is a game, I wonder how many laws you’ll break by the time the stream is through. Driving without a license, driving under the influence...”
“Then count my crimes!”
: i thought kamen rider was supposed to tell you to do that... o_O
: Judging from past streams, she'll probably commit multiple crimes within seconds
: always knew you had it in ya, shuwa-chan! always doing everything the rest of us can't like it's nothing!
: What a thrill! What a thing to never ever aspire to! ￥1000
: lmao
“Obviously, none of you should ever do any of this while actually driving! You have to promise me!” I lectured chat.
“Rules are rules. Drive safely.”
: okay!
: yeah, you right
: Naturally
: yes that's right /bandwagon
: say hello to my little friend! *shows license*
“Great, you’re all good boys and girls! Let’s get on with the Castellas! Woohoo!” I exclaimed.
Q: If you married StroZero, would that make you Strong Awayuki? Or would StroZero end up being Kokorone Zero?
“It would make me Strong Blizzard.”
“Both your first and last names changed, LOL.”
“Actually, Kokorone Zero is a really cool name! It sounds strong!”
“Start your brain back up, there. Calm down and think. Kokorone means ‘the music notes of your heart,’ right? Kokorone Zero would mean you’re basically dead all the time.”
Q: what’s your fetish?
“Girls are my fetish,” I said.
“Guess you’d like a heaping helping of everything with that one, huh?”
“I’d help myself to you, Mashiron!”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, you! You’re gonna turn me on, talking so coldly to me! You better watch it or I’m really gonna get a lady boner!”
“Oh, so you stopped yourself? I’m so proud of you. Also, give up.”
“The only ones who should pop a boner are those who are prepared to have a boner popped for them.”
“How long have you been waiting to say that? And wait, does that mean you’re not prepared for me to pop one?”
“No, I am! However... The real question here is, will you be able to pop one for me? Heh.”
“All right, next.”
: what they're saying might be normal for us now, but if anyone else heard that whole "marrying strozero" thing, they'd do a double take, wouldn't they?
: "kokorone zero" is a traumatizing term after a certain game she played, so pls no...
: omg i LOVE mashiron's sadistic voice ￥500
: Mashiron and Shuwa-chan's Super Sadistic Abuse Voice Pack! Now on sale!
: Oh, yes, hello, this is dog. Is it possible to mute just one of them?
: fapping to shuwa-chan just makes you feel like you've lost somehow, so it doesn't work, according to my son
: When you’re as high-level as me, Shuwa-chan is the only thing that turns you on anymore
: addicted to a strozero-addicted person? this is getting confusing
Q: Question for StroZero-sama.
Can I take the sounds you make when you open a can:
“Gulp, gulp, gulp! Nnnghhh, feels so goooood!”
and make an hour-long version of it?
I actually already did.
I’m pretty happy with it, but I haven’t uploaded it since I was worried you might get angry.
Can I have your permission for it?
“Yes! In fact, do more of that.”
“That’ll probably be the most miserable For 1 Hour video in the world.”
Q: You’ve been playing Long Fit, but have you exercised in the past at all? Also, do you need any StroZero to keep you hydrated?
“I did a little ballet in middle school, but that was about it. Oh, and yes, please. Lemon-flavored, if you have it.”
“StroZero for exercise? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. That’s the kind of workout where you’d just start barfing all over the place. How was the ballet club, by the way?”
“Full of girls! Literally heaven!”
“Oh, okay. I was actually asking about the ballet part, but sure.”
Q: I am the spirit of this spring. Did you drop this “Seiso Awayuki”? Or did you drop this “StroZero 500ml 24-pack”?
“It was the StroZero 500-milliliter 24-pack 24-box.”
“Please! Please, I wish you would have just said both, if I’m being greedy.”
“You already have the pure, seiso Awa-chan! As Shuwa-chan, I just want to live up to my nickname as much as possible!”
“Talk about convenient lore.”
“Isn’t it, though?!”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
: I think I'd go insane if I had to listen to that euphoric, boozy voice for sixty whole minutes...
: strozero for your listening pleasure
: Dumping all your points into StroZero LMAOOOO ￥2000
: Even in junior high, it was already too late for her...
: the gap created by mashiron's deadpan retorts and shuwa-chan's insanity is just too fucking funny LOL
“All right, I think that’s enough for the memes. Let’s start the game,” Mashiron said. “I’m about to show the online lobby’s room code, so if any of you in chat want to play with us, come on in!”
“I’m shocked, Mashiron! You want them to do lesbian play with us?”
“Would we happen to have any ear doctors in the chat?”
: I'm an ENT physician, and I desire lesbian play ￥3000
: Doctor, check your own ears before you look at others' ears, please
: i will participate in this even if it kills me
: oh boy talk about competitive entrance rates
: You're shocked? Are you sure you don't mean "delighted"??? lmao
“This is going to be a general no-judgment, no-holds-barred race,” Mashiron told chat.
“I’m shocked, Mashiron! No genital-judgment among girls? As if I’d ever judge anyone for what’s in their pants! So what I’m saying is, let’s get star—”
“The rules will be 150cc and normal items.”
“She didn’t even let me finish! I’m so frustrated...! But I’m really feeling it... Twitch, twitch...”
“All right, well, it looks like this booze-head is an extreme masochist. So if you find her, please attack her with everything you have.”
“!” I said.
: she's being more shuwa-shuwa than usual today
: !
: wonder how many clips this stream is gonna have
: mashiron has streamed this before, so we know she can play fairly well. but what about shuwa-chan?
: She just set up her gaming environment, right? She's probably a beginner
I groaned angrily. “I may have just started recently, but I did plenty of preparation for the controls and courses! I’ll be fine!”
“I asked her before and she said she played for eight hours straight before the stream.”
: holy crap, calm down girl!
: hikari-chan? is that you?
Hikari Matsuriya: I see you've finally come to terms with how wonderful endurance gaming is!
: Of course she'd be here LMAO
: whenever topics like endurance or anything ascetic come up, she gets here as fast as Nekoma sniffing out shitty games lol
“Well, it’s just been so long since I’ve played a big masterpiece like this,” I explained. “I got really absorbed in it!”
“That’s fair, to be honest. What are you going with for your character and kart?”
“I think I’ll go with the elephant. They have huge dicks, after all.”
“Shuwa-chan, that’s not a reproductive instrument. It’s a nose.”
“Also very lewd.”
“What? What on earth about Elephant gives you Eros vibes?”
“Come on, Mashiron. Just look at what she’s wearing! Very salacious.”
“Huh? Okay, whatever. I’ll go with Giraffe, then.”
“Giraffe, huh? Another lewd pick.”
“Wait. Are you saying all this because the animals are naked? Shuwa-chan, when you go to a zoo, is it more like Seiran Island for you?”
“I’m surprised you figured that out! You’ve taken another step closer to getting on my level!”
“I can think of no greater dishonor.”
: holy shit, did not expect that name to show up! now that's a deep cut
: What's Seiran Island?
: A southern paradise that's all about freedom and liberation! (it's from nu**tashi)
: oh wow that's such a recent reference
: Not a land of dreams, but a land of sex
: A land for Sei-sama?
: more like a land of total carnage
: LOL
: lmao @ deciding on a character with your crotch instead of your brain
: she could probably link anything in the world with lewdness
: Sounds like a middle school boy
: Giraffe is pretty tall and has a good figure. Not surprised she thinks the character is lewd
: Tall? More like Captain Tsubasa size jfc
: They haven't even started racing yet and Mashiron has already put in an obscene number of witty retorts LOL
“Okay, let’s decide on a course?” I said. “I wonder what it’ll be! I can’t wait... ♪”
“Smooth Slider. The ground is slippery here, as the name implies.”
“I love Smooth ’n’ Flat too.”
“Nobody asked.”
“You’re smooth ’n’ flat, huh?”
“Thanks for that casual insult. Not that I’m denying it.”
“It’s all right! Small boobs are a status symbol! Valued for their rarity!”
“Not making me any happier here.”
: I love DFC
: i get you
: I love Mashiron too
: i get you
: I really love Mashiron and how she is self-conscious about her flat chest
: i REALLY get you ￥50000
: omg guys XD
“Enough of the short stories—the race is starting.”
“I can’t believe this entire surface is all slippery. It’s like they’re demanding we get down and dirty with some soap play,” I pointed out.
“Seriously, stop. The publisher is going to get angry.”
This franchise of racing games featured an awfully lighthearted, cheap-sounding ditty whenever races started that went dudu-dududu-dududu-dududu-du!
“What... What is happening... I’m starting in last place?!” I exclaimed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone start complaining before the race even started.”
“Here we go! Gonna get that starting boost! Woohoo!”
“Woohoo.”
All at once, the karts started moving. Even though I’d started in last, I got a good boost off the starting line and got ahead of Mashiron, who had started in eighth, into the midfield.
“Mwa ha ha ha! Did you see that, Mashiron? Looks like I farted harder than you did!”
“Could you not compare that starting boost to farting? People are gonna start bullying you, saying you must have the loudest farts ever.”
: lmao
: Farted right into your own grave on that one
: Stop it. Get some help.
: conversations so dirty you'd never know they came out of VTubers' mouths lol
: It's time for the comedy race straight outta hell!
Now that the race had begun, we reached where the first item boxes were—they were one of the game’s most unique traits. A single item could vastly change the standings in this game. The further you were from first place, the more powerful items you got. I was still in the middle, so I wanted to get speed-up items to get further up. I didn’t have much to base my impressions on other than what I’d played of the game before the stream, but it seemed to me that the most dangerous place to be in this game was in the middle of the pack. Items of all kinds were just flying all over the place here, making it extremely likely you’d get hit by something.
As an aside, it seems like the video games you have a hard time putting down, including Animal Kart, mostly have some kind of random luck feature. Depending on what course you got, you could stick to the back and get a really strong item, then overtake everyone right at the end. I wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the game yet to really know, though. So instead, my goal was to run away with first place!
But the item I got was a green missile—an attack item that flew in a straight line and then exploded. A red missile would have homed in on the next kart in front of me. “Hmm,” I mused. “I guess that means the green missiles are unmanned. Mixed feelings on that one.”
“Stop implying that the red missiles have pilots in them. It’ll make me not want to shoot them.”
: the implications XD
: Mashiron is a good person
: why DO red missiles home in like that, anyway?
: because their pilots are skilled. QED, proven
: The only thing you proved is that the whole thing is stupid lol
“Ah!” Great. Just as I’d thought would happen, I got hit by an item from the person in front of me and fell down to almost last place.
“See you later.” Mashiron had apparently used a banana—a speed-up item—to get into the front of the pack. Argh!
The ground on this course was really slippery. But I’ve been doing good with the controls and drifting, so it shouldn’t be that much of an issue! This race is just getting started!
Unfortunately, the viewers we were playing with were pretty skilled in their own right. I hadn’t gotten hit by anything since the start, but for all my steady racing, I couldn’t quite get higher in the rankings. And then I came to another item box. What I got was...the Diamond, which sped you up for a short time and made you invincible!
Yes! Lap 1 is over, and I’m in the middle!
And my next item was a triple banana—for three boosts in a row! That would get me to the front! “Even a Horoyoi can get out in front depending on how you use it! An item’s abilities don’t decide a race’s outcome! I’ll teach you that!”
“As far as I know, there isn’t any alcoholic item in this game, though...”
: Horoyoi LMAO
: I get it, it's 3% ABV for the triple banana LOL
“Oh, crap,” said Mashiron. “I don’t think I can make this turn! I’m gonna fall off.”
“Wait, you fell, Mashiron?! Does that mean you’re absolutely covered in squishy lotion now?!”
“Rhinoceros happened to come by and bump me away, and then fell down instead. I’m fine.”
“Sorry about that, Rhinoceros, but I had to punch you at least once. Wouldn’t feel satisfied until I did.”
: Rhinoceros: ?!
: i feel so bad for rhino-kun. gets knocked off the edge, then punched
: a reason so ridiculous it makes Eva's story look tame, lmao
: wouldn't feel satisfied (sexually) until I did
A bunch of stuff happened, but we were finally on the third and final lap! It was time to run away with my victory! And since I’m on top of the world already, it’s time to take a shortcut!
“What?” I shouted. “Okay, whichever one of you took my item on the shortcut, show yourself! I’ll wreck—”
“Oh, that was me,” said Mashiron. “It was right there, so I grabbed it.”
“—your dry skin by slathering you with lots and lots of lotion, eheh heh heh heh heh!”
“Would rather be wrecked, I think.”
“Huh? Have I persuaded you into being a huge masochist?”
“See you later.”
“She ignored me... Looks like I was the huge masochist here! Ahh, I’m twitching with pleasure!!!”
: what is a vtuber? a miserable little pile of kinks
: shuwa-chan is even more on her shit now that her friend mashiron is here
: When another streamer says it, it counts as an amazing idea! But how mysterious! When Shuwa-chan says it, everybody bursts out laughing!
: Live-On's resident comedian
: isn't she basically their comedian already...?
: LOL
Anyway, this wasn’t any time for fooling around. The race was nearing its end, and I was almost in last place. The last item box! Please, give me something to turn this around!
Th-This is...!
“Hey, I’ve seen this Powerful Banana-san more than my own parent’s!”
This special banana, which allowed you to keep boosting for an entire period of time, gave me just one chance! And there was a shortcut on this track right before the goal! It was a little tricky to pull off, but if I boosted through it just right, I could even get a higher position! Yeah! Let’s do this! Woohoo!
“Then you’ve gotta look at your parent’s powerful banana more!” blurted out Mashiron.
“Huh, wait, Mashiron, that was—that was really dirty...”
“Huh...? Oh, sorry ’bout that.”
“Ack! No!”
: She got so confused she messed up the shortcut and fell off LMAOOOO
: THAT WAS SO CUTE ￥10000
: We got to see Mashiron being cute! Hooray! ￥10000
: that was genius!
: you did it bruh ￥3000
: good work, Shuwa-chan ￥2110
: shuwa-chan has been spouting dirty jokes the whole time and yet we react like this to mashiron doing it once lol
“Ninth place...” I said miserably.
“H-Hee hee hee! Third place! Just according to keikaku!”
“Liar!”
Still, I did get to see Mashiron actually being embarrassed, so I essentially got first place! Yippee!
We did a whole lot more races after that. Given how the first one had gone, I was a little worried. But from the second race on, my practice bore fruit, and I started getting higher rankings that I was actually pretty satisfied with.
Time-wise, this next race was going to be the last one.
Still, I gotta say, this game is seriously fun. Chat loves to watch it too, and I’m into it myself. I should plan to stream this again. The game is always changing things on you, and it naturally makes me react to it. Fun for the viewers, fun for the player. It’s awesome!
“Let’s all stan Animal Kart!” I exclaimed.
“Whoa, what’s this? I don’t think you can flatter the publisher now. Not after saying all that. Also, you’re actually pretty good at this. I’m an experienced racer, so I’m surprised we’re basically fifty-fifty against one another.”
“Ever since I stopped being able to buy games because I had no money, I’ve been constantly watching VTuber streams. I pretended to play their games using my phone as a controller! I’m basically an experienced veteran too!”
“We should definitely do a big competition with all of the others sometime.”
“Wait, that’s weird. The way you’re talking—it’s gentler than usual. Oh! Wait, is this my chance? You should have sex with me next time!”
“Wonder what the next track is gonna be.”
“But why?!” I exclaimed without missing a beat.
“Shuwa-chan, you’re not seriously trying to become a comedian, are you?”
: abc! always be comedian! ￥1000
: Mashiron is a saint! ￥3000
: i'm competitively excited for a competition among these competing streamers
: I'm worried that Hikari-chan, even though it's a tournament, will do that thing again where she starts one lap behind and doesn't stop until she gets a 1st place
: the genius of building us up then letting us down
“Oh, we got the track!” I said.
“Rainbow Galaxy, huh? That’s perfect for the last race.”
Yikes. Looked like we’d gotten one of the hardest courses in the game. It was a fantastic course, where you raced through space on a rainbow-colored road, but it was super easy to fall off, and the turns were all really tight. I wasn’t great with this track. It’s probably fun if you get used to it, but I’m not that experienced yet. I hope I do okay...
Time wouldn’t wait for me to think it all through, though, and soon enough, our karts were lined up and that strange ditty started playing to mark the start of the race. No point worrying about it now! I’ll just start thinking about something else to take my mind off of it!
“You see Lion?” I asked. “He’s right next to me. If you imagine his mane as being a whole bush of pubic hair growing around his face, isn’t that really freaking funny?”
“You just have so much fun with life.”
: i spat out my tea
: wtf lol was not expecting that ￥500
: don't people usually put their pubic hair where people can't see it...?
: I have no idea what kind of brain you'd need to think of the mane as pubic hair
: and I have no idea htf the chat for a vtuber is talking about pubic hair now
“Awright! Let’s go! Woohoo!”
“Woohoo.”
Hrm. I’d gotten the starting boost just fine, but these curves were just way too tight. I’d started in fourth place, but I was going down the rankings now. And it was so easy to fall off the turns...
Yep, there it is. Mashiron knocked me off the track. If Owl hadn’t been around—he’s the one in charge of putting you back in the game—I would have died instantly. “I see. So that’s the kind of person you are, Mashiron. Very well. Then glied is what you shall have.”
“Isn’t the word there supposed to be krieg?”
“I sincerely request a naked association.”
“I’d be fine with that if it was Hikari-chan asking.”
“Why not me?!”
“Because my danger sense is going off.”
“But... Actually, maybe watching the two of you flirt while naked would be some good shit too! This is what they call NTR, right?”
“You make it sound like I’ve already slept with you, so please, stop.”
“Sumima-sorry.”
“Though I’d get in with Awa-chan, I suppose.”
“?!” I exclaimed.
“Hey, you fell off again.”
“Y-You promised, got it?!”
“Yes, yes. If we get the chance.”
: What? Huh? Fr? EH? ￥12000
: *thud* (honorable death) ￥2000
: Huh? She just said a naked procreation, right?
: What a convenient mispronunciation
: little devil mashiron suki suki ski resort ￥1000
: I love how shuwa-chan is weak to mental attacks too ￥1000
“Ack!” cried Mashiron. “Someone just bonked into me from behind.”
“Bonked you from behind?!?!”
“Whoa! You surprised me. Why do you suddenly sound like a wild animal? Someone just ran into my kart.”
“Sorry! It’s just that you suddenly started talking about taking it in the butt.”
“Nobody said anything like that. You are seriously word-hunting right now.”
“Hey, male giraffes fight each other for the females, right? Apparently a lot of the males actually mistake the excitement of the fight for sexual excitement and mate with each other instead. And since you chose Giraffe, I think the excitement of the race just turned me on.”
“Why do you know so many useless sexual facts, Shuwa-chan? Also, I’m a female anyway.”
“C-Calling yourself a female?! Wait, you’re trying to seduce me after all, aren’t you?!”
“Since we’re playing a racing game, you can floor the accelerator in your vehicle, but please put the brakes on your lust.”
Argh! Just when I’d gotten back in the game, she befuddled me into falling off the course again. Going into the second lap, I was almost last place. This was starting to look pretty bad...
“Hey, Owl! Bring me to the finish line right this instant. I’ll give you StroZero.”
“Stop blatantly trying to cheat the system. Also, you’re the only one who that offer would work on anyway.”
I needed something big to get myself out of this mess...
That’s it! This course has a shortcut near the end you can take without needing an item, right?! I’ve only seen it in a video, and I’ve never practiced it before. But if I don’t do it, I’m sure to stay this far behind.
My back’s against the wall! I’m pulling out all the stops! “I’ll show you the driving technique I trained by watching Initial D!”
“You trained without actually driving? An amusing mistake.”
“TEHY! HIYAH!”
“Wait, you passed me!”
I did it, I did it! I succeeded, everyone!
: Whoa!
: awesome!
: Can she get to the front?!
: 8888
I rode that momentum straight into third place, while Mashiron finished in fourth. That was the last of our stream for the day.
Awesome! I’m gonna play way more before the next time I stream it and surprise everyone with how great I am, woohoo!
“Good work, Shuwa-chan. You turned off your stream, right?”
“You too! Don’t worry, I’ve been making extra sure I do that ever since the incident.”
“LOL, I love how you can just say the incident and every VTuber would know what you meant. Oh, I had one last thing to tell you about. Have you heard about all of Live-On’s members getting together to make a song video?”
“Yeah, my manager told me about that!”
“I see, I see. Well, it looks like things are getting rolling with that.”
“Really?!”
“I guess you hadn’t heard that bit, then. I think you’ll get word of it in the next couple days or so.”
Oh, crap. I’ve gotta be careful I don’t have multiple days in a row where I’m too excited to fall asleep...
Let’s Watch Everyone’s Streams
“All righty then. What should I do for my stream today?”
I generally streamed at night, so my routine was, I’d use the morning and afternoon to figure out a stream idea, then make a thumbnail for it. Now was no different—I was in the middle of drinking some after-lunch tea while thinking about a topic for the stream. Streamers aren’t doing nothing the whole time they’re off-stream, you know!
Hmm... I thought. I’ve been doing a lot of hyped-up streams lately, like offline collabs and video games, so maybe I should go with something a little more casual.
Oh, I know! To tell the truth, I’ve been so busy recently that I haven’t been keeping up with my oshi streamers as well as I’d like. Let’s take advantage of that!
“Oh! Why, hello, all you good little boys and girls! It’s your big sister in StroZero, Shuwa-chan!”
: She's here she's here!
: Good evening!
: oh she's drunk, i'm sure of it
: stop using your first move to mess with us lmao
: please, don't remind me about those cursed children's shows...
“We’re not having any guests today, so I figured we could all put our feet up and watch the other Live-On members stream!”
: im into it!
: OK
: I actually like these casual streams a lot
“Don’t worry, I’ve gotten permission from them already, of course! I wonder who’s streaming right now?” After searching the streaming site, it looked like quite a few people were in the middle of their streams. Good thing too—otherwise my whole plan would have fallen through. “Oh hey, Hikari-chan is streaming! You’re first up!”
Now then, what would she be streaming at the moment?
Umm, “Hikari Matsuriya wants to become a godlike artist!”?
Going by the title, she was probably streaming some drawing using her pen tablet. Which was unusual. I was pretty sure I’d never seen Hikari-chan making drawing the central focus of any of her streams.
Oh, but I had heard from Mashiron recently during a call that she’d been teaching Hikari-chan how to draw. Maybe that was the connection! She probably wanted to show off on her stream how much she’d improved. Great, then let’s go give my genmate’s time in the spotlight a look!
When I opened the stream, I saw Hikari-chan drawing an illustration of her own character, and it was almost finished. The corner of her screen said, “List of Members Drawn,” with only the text “Warming up” underneath it, so it didn’t look like it had been long since she’d started streaming. Still, I had to say that she had gotten better at drawing. She was a far cry from a “godlike artist,” of course, but her illustration was cute, and had a bright, pop-y feeling to it—just like her.
“...Huh? Shuwa-chan is here?!”
It looked like someone in chat had told her I was here watching. That gave me an in! Time to comment! Umm...
Awayuki Kokorone: your drawing is so cute!!!
Good stuff!
“Really?! Eheh heh, it was just a messy little warm-up, so I’m kind of embarrassed... But thank you! Oh, I know! Since you’re here, I’ll draw you as the first one!”
Seriously?! I think I got here at the perfect time!
Hikari-chan promptly made a new canvas and started drawing the outline. My heart was singing.
“Umm, Shuwa-chan looks pretty mature, so I’ll want to keep her softness and charms in mind...”
About twenty minutes after she’d started drawing, Hikari-chan had produced what was definitely me on her canvas, drawn in line with her own tastes.
“That’s good! That’s great, actually! I’m so hard! I’m popping a boner for myself! Is it not the goal of any true masturbator to be able to lust after their own body and to release that lust upon their own body? Don’t you think so? Chat, you better be taking notes.”
She’d probably drawn me in a short time out of consideration for her stream’s pacing, but I was already perfectly satisfied—and in absolute delight at what she’d drawn already. But it seemed like she wasn’t quite happy with it...
“Hmm... It’s not bad, but something’s missing... What could it be?”
That just went to show how serious she was about drawing me. I couldn’t have been happier. That was, at least, what I thought right before this happened.
“Shuwa-chan has more of this, umm, destructive impression... Hm? Destructive? If she’s destructive, that means she’s powerful... Is power what this picture is lacking?”
H-Huh? I thought. Did I just hear her say something odd? Is this going to end well?
“I got it! I finally realized something really important! There’s a complete lack of power here! It would be rude to Shuwa-chan if I left it like this.”
“Huh?”
“Power means muscles! First, I’ll redraw the arms...”
“W-Wait, what are you doing?!”
My arm muscles were now, suddenly, five times larger.
“And her chest is too small as it is.”
Oh, thank goodness, I thought. Has she come back to her senses?
“Something more like this...”
“No! No, those aren’t boobs, they’re man-boobs!”
After repeating that process a few more times, the resulting illustration featured something vaguely Shuwa-chan-like with beefy arms that were sleek as steel, pecs that looked fit to explode, and thighs that went beyond “plump” and straight into “rock-hard” territory.
“There! I think I’ve drawn a pretty good picture!”
“I don’t even know what it is anymore.”
: It's Arnold Shuwachanegger!
: Her arms and legs are ripped!
: ora ora ora! even the statue of david would cower!
: Bet she's mastered the Demon Face technique too
: holy shit. is this what training with strozero will get you?
“Phew. I finished one drawing, so I’ll take a quick break from my invisible chair. My legs are screaming!”
“I’m sorry?” Wait, what was this about? Had she been sitting on nothing this entire time? I was confused until I saw this text near the edge of Hikari-chan’s stream:
Whenever I'm drawing I will be doing invisible chair!
“But these screams are proof of my growth! Everyone, look at me! Hikari shall exceed her limits!”
But why though? What was she aiming for? I thought and thought in the hopes that I’d come up with an answer, but there was no way I’d be able to understand it. Instead, I sent a comment and stopped thinking:
Awayuki Kokorone: thanks for the awesome picture!
Live-On really was full of completely nonsensical characters!
“Who should we go watch next?”
: sex-sama is streaming!
: Oh you're right lol
: Sex-sama please!
: She wasn't planning to stream tonight, but as soon as she heard you'd be coming...
: lol she was so happy about it
“Greeehhh...”
: that voice clearly didn't sound happy though LOL
: what even was that voice hahaha
: What's this?! Sex-sama looks over as if she wants us to join her party!
“We’re talking about the same Sex-sama, yeah? She can’t possibly be streaming anything normal.”
: What an impression hahaha
: I want to call it a prejudice. but she's right, so.
: M-Maybe she planned a seiso stream just for you, Shuwa-chan!
: yeah!
: your lips say no, but your heart really loves sei-sama, doesn't it?
: tsundere AND a scathing tongue? i love this version of strozero
: It's not every day you have two streamers who are such good friends even though they're from different generations
“...All right. I’m gonna believe you! I’m gonna trust that she’s streaming something normal, and we’ll go watch her stream! I’m seriously trusting you on this, chat!”
Here we go! Click!
“And with that, allow me to introduce my first eroge recommendation—this game called Yellow Loveriche, and man this game is whoaaaaaaa!!! Riaaaaaaa!!! Ahhhhh!!! Ria Ria Ria Ria Riaaaaaa! Ahaaaaa, Riaaaaaaa—”
Click.
“All right. Whose stream should we go watch next?”
: holy shit lmao
: LOL don't close it after two seconds!
: can't blame her. after all, it's ria-chan...
: her voice ACTUALLY sounded disgusting at the end, and I love her for it
: Yellow Loveriche is a good game
“Wait, but that was just Sex-sama as usual!”
I knew this would happen, but still. I knew Sex-sama wouldn’t be doing anything normal. But still! I figured it would take more than two panels...
: sumima-sorry!
: i won't ask for forgiveness
: Just one more time!
: Please!
: Just the tip! Just to see how it feels!
“All right, all right, fine. I was always planning on watching her anyway.”
: so you ARE a tsundere!
: you DO like her
: they're very similar after all
“Apologies. My memories of playing it came rushing back to me. Let’s pull ourselves together. The next game is called X Channel, and this game is...”
In perfect sync, Sei-sama and I screamed, “‘Uwaaaaaa!!! Taichiiiiiii-aaahhhhhh!!! Taichi, Taichiiiii! Friendship! Doesn’t! Ask! For anything in return! Ahhhhn!’”
: omg STOP YELLING!!!
: SHUWA-CHAN LOSING IT TOO LMFAOOOO
: surprised to hear Shuwa-chan played X Channel too lol
: Thanks i hate it
: A rare catastrophe in this day and age
: wait, i'm actually surprised sei-sama goes for games with plot and not only porn
: i think it's because if she was TOO passionate about the porn stuff, she'd get banned
“Now then. This third game asks, what’s a flat-chested person to do if she happens to live in the village of a nukige?”
“Huh? What was that? What’s an alcoholic VTuber to do if they happen to have a dependency on life-ruining cans of liquid like StroZero?”
: your ears are drunk on strozero!
: yes, and i'm sure you're just asking for a friend
: so you're aware of it...
: What ARE you supposed to do...
: s-she assured us on Cheeper that her alcohol dependency has gone down though!
: I'm just happy she's making a meme out of it. If it was actually bad, she wouldn't be able to do that (source: me)
: be strong, commenter above me... you can do it
“Wait, Awayuki-kun is here?!”
Oh, looks like the jig’s finally up. Wait! Is that Sex-sama calling me? “Uhh, hello?”
“Hello, Awayuki-kun! I’ve missed you so much!”
“If you wanted to see me, then I wish you’d lay off the H-game talk.”
“Certain creatures are attracted to rotten and foul things, right? It’s like that.”
“Are you—no, you’re definitely insulting me!” I swear, I thought. But now that I think about it, we talk a lot over Cheeper, but it’s been kind of a long time since I talked to her directly like this. Can’t deny that I was looking forward to it. Won’t say it, though. “Anyway, here I am, intruding on your stream. What should we talk about?”
“What’s your favorite genre of eroge?”
“Do you want me to punch you in the gut? Hypnosis ones are some of my favorites.”
: LOL HEY WAIT
: so you're answering after all!
: a seiso character liking hypnosis situations... wow...
: indeed! (satisfied)
: Without Shion-chan here, there's nobody to stop them...
“Ah, I like those ones too. Especially when the hypnosis accidentally wears off and you get to see their reactions.”
“Wears off? I personally think it’s much better when they stay hypnotized the entire time.”
“What?”
“What?”
“...What?” we both said simultaneously.
After that, we had a passionate discussion of our favorite situations, until we were both satisfied. Now that our hearts were completely open to one another, it was like no-defense boxing with our words. And once we had poured our hearts out to each other...
“I’ve gained some new perspectives today. Thank you, Awayuki-kun. I should have expected no less of a pervert on my level.”
“And your wondrous abilities do justice to your title, Sex-sama!”
...we’d become better friends!
Later on, this discussion would come to be known as the Fetish Sermon.
: Okay this is just... all sorts of insane at this point
Once my noble discussion with Sei-sama came to an end, she decided to go to bed, and I decided to look for another streamer. Sei-sama hadn’t originally planned to stream today, but she’d made time for me. I was so grateful to her. I’d realized lately that though she was crazy, she was also caring and warmhearted. No less a pervert, though.
“Oh, Hareru-senpai started streaming! Let’s go watch! Come on, Internet, connect!” Great! This is gonna ramp up the excitement!
: Hareru-senpai, oh boy! Our victory is assured! (famous last words)
: the difference in reactions from Sex-sama lmfao
: oh no, another person with the warning label "DO NOT MIX"
: Perverts are naturally attracted to perverts after all. Sono fetish no sadame
: Was that a motherfucking JoJo reference?
: JoJo part 0?
Judging from her stream’s title, she was playing Magicverse. Magicverse was a digital card game that had been popular lately. It was very similar to real-life trading card games in that you would construct a deck of forty cards from a vast library and pit it against your friends’. It made full use of its digital nature too, and you could have battles over the internet with people you’d never met. I’d never played it, but it was famous enough that I knew the rules.
Oh, she’d started! It looked like she was doing online battles tonight. I’d come in right as she entered her next match, so it was time to be the peanut gallery. Let’s watch the first match from the grandstands, woohoo!
First, each player was given a starting hand of three cards.
“Two ten-cost cards, and one nine-cost card. I see, I see...”
“Oh, yikes.” In this game, as the turns progressed, you could use cards with higher and higher costs, meaning that at the beginning, cards with a one, two, or three cost were important. Her starting hand was a disaster, with all three of her cards being close to the ten-cost maximum.
“I’m pretty sure I only had two ten-cost cards and four nine-cost ones in this deck... Oh, well. I’ll mulligan all three of them. No need to panic!”
Fortunately, the game also let you redraw your starting hand one time in order to prevent disasters like these and start you off on a better foot.
“Why the hell are all three of these nines?! Who the hell coded in a descending sort for my deck?!”
But it looked like she’d struck out. Her rage on full display, she slammed on her desk. The chat began to fill up with laughter.
“Ack! I got too excited and hit my hand on the desk! Boo-hoo, that hurt Harerun...”
: hurt more than just you, girl
: Give your desk a break? :thumbsup:
: thumbs up lmao
: oh! this is that theory of relativity thing, right? she didn't hit the desk, the desk came up to meet her hands
: yeah
: it is?????
As expected, her opponent overwhelmed her in the beginning, and she lost. But it was just getting started! Let’s watch the second match, woohoo!
This time, her starting hand was normal, and as they entered the late game, she was still looking good. Had she pulled it off?
“I’ve got a pretty good board here, don’t I? Oh, wait, but this could be ruined if they use Meteor Rain... Nah, that would never happen. In this format, you can only have one of those in your deck to begin with. I can do it!”
Yup, yup. It looked like she had this match in the—
“Nooooooooo! Why does it always have to happen at the very end! Shiiiiiit! (slam slam!!!)”
But it looked like she’d struck (etc.). Her rage on full display, she (etc.).
“Oh, I’m so sorry! The bodybuilder living in the room above me dropped their favorite 3.5-ton dumbbell through the floor!”
: ton...?
: lol she finally started blaming it on total strangers
: Actually, after hikari-chan's stream, someone like that might actually exist now
: Was this part of the Arnold Shuwachanegger joke?
: Shuwa-chan, please go easy on the muscle training!
They seemed to be making it out to be my fault for some reason, but anyway! Let’s watch the third match, woohoo!
“Y-You know what? Let’s take a break and open a pack! I’ve gotta disrupt the flow. I can open ten, so I’m sure to get at least one good card, right?”
Oh, that was a good idea. Opening packs meant that even Hareru-senpai would be able to—
“Keeee! (slam slam slam!!!!!)”
But it looked (etc.). Her rage (etc.).
“What on earth is even happening...?”
: a catastrophe caught live on stream!
: That really was a catastrophe...
: She was a total wreck even before Shuwa-chan went to watch lol
: she has such shitty luck that she's ascended to inimitable, godlike levels
: did she pull morinphen?
“LOL. Hareru-senpai’s funny!” The way I said that made me sound like a certain apple-loving shinigami. I could only assume that the gods truly loved this senpai of mine.
“Oh, Shuwacchi! You’re here? For real? Perfect timing. I’m worried about my desk accumulating too much damage, so I’m going to give Magicverse a break for today. Instead, I’m going to make Shuwacchi into her own card.”
“What?”
“Awayuki Kokorone. Race: StroZero. When you use ‘Booze Approaching Zero’ on this card, evolve it. When evolved, this card gains Female Assault, Outrageous, Cosmic Horror, and Living Legend. Flavor text: ‘I love females. I love booze. I love everyone!’”
“Did she just make me into a card without asking?!”
: cosmic horror made me lol
: with Living Legend added in, it's like she's a creature from a certain mythos
: I mean. I really don't think anyone would doubt her being called a "living legend"
: She'd probably get along with Cthulhu
: low-key loving the flavor text
Right up until the end, it was a very Hareru-senpai-like stream.
Maybe it’s time to wrap up for tonight. Streams like these are nice once in a while!
Still, even though I was uncertain when Sei-sama said I made a big impact on Hareru-senpai, she did make me into a meme, so I guess her impression of me wasn’t a bad one. That’s such a relief...because if you go all the way back, Hareru-senpai is the reason I’m here. I owe her a lot.
I hope I get to meet her soon...
Chapter Four
Live Start
♪♪♪ (smartphone ringtone)
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hello, Yuki-san. This is Suzuki. Do you have time right now?”
“Hello! Yes, I’m fine on time.”
“I wanted to talk about an upcoming project.”
“Do you mean the song collab?”
“Oh! Yes, I do. You knew about it?”
“Mashiron just told me it was getting off the ground, that’s all... Should I not have heard about it?”
“No, not at all! As long as it stayed between two of our streamers, there’s no problem! I think Mashiro-san was doing her recording a little earlier than you, which is why she got contacted with an explanation before you.”
“Wait, we’re doing the recording separately?”
“Yes. The studio we’re using can’t fit all of you in there at once. You’ll be recording separately.”
“Oh, I see. All right.”
Just as Mashiron had said, in the afternoon of the day after I’d collaborated with her, I received a phone call from Suzuki-san to explain the project. To tell the truth, when I’d first heard about it, I’d been just itching to know more, so it felt like my time had finally come. This would be the first collab that every streamer in Live-On would be participating in. Obviously, I was excited for it, but I’d have to rein myself in to make sure I didn’t mess up or anything.
“Regarding the recording schedule, how does this Friday at three p.m. sound to you?” Suzuki-san asked.
“That sounds totally fine!”
Even though I had income now, I almost accidentally said, I’m a NEET, so my hours are perfectly flexible, if nothing else, but we’ll keep that a secret. It might sound like I’m tooting my own horn here, but I really have grown, huh... At this point, I could call those days of struggling and suffering but a fond memory. Yep! Overcoming my harsh past had instilled confidence within me. It was time to carry that confidence forward into this collaboration!
“All right, then get to the office ten minutes beforehand on the day of,” Suzuki-san told me. “We’ll send you to the studio in a car. I have work to do at the studio, so I’m not sure who will be driving you just yet, but it’ll be someone from the company.”
“Okay!”
“Oh, and I’ll send you the demo audio for the song, so give it a listen.”
“I’ll loop it all day long!”
“Ha ha. In that case, I’ll see you on the day of.”
That was all the business we had, so that brought our call to an end.
Great. It would suck if I had a hangover and couldn’t sing, so I’m not going to drink today!
And so, Friday came...
“Oh! Tanaka-san, right? I’ll go call the driver now, so please wait just a moment,” the Live-On receptionist said.
After eating lunch out, I arrived at the office at the scheduled time—exactly ten minutes before recording. There I was, waiting for the driver who the receptionist said she’d go get, feeling a little nervous, when...
“Sorry for the wait! Hello, Awayuki-chan!” chirped a new voice.
“Huh?” I looked around. The receptionist had come back with a small girl. “Uh, um...” I stammered.
“I’m Hinata Mogami, your driver. Pleased to meet you!”
“What?!”
Driving? Her?! This girl couldn’t have been more than 145 centimeters tall, and that baby face... Shion-senpai had seemed fairly young too, but this girl’s face was on another level. No matter how I looked at her, she was a middle school student... A variety of emotions assailed me, like confusion and surprise, as I looked over to the receptionist for help.
“Aha ha. No need to worry—Mogami works here,” the receptionist said.
“W-Wait, really?”
“And she’s older than you, Yuki-san.”
“What?!”
“Heh heh!” Mogami-san puffed out her chest in pride, but it was so flat that I still couldn’t believe it...
But if the receptionist said she was an employee, then there was no doubt about it. For now, I followed Mogami-san out to the car.
“Sorry for the cheap old car. I wish I could have gotten a niftier one,” she commented.
“O-Oh, no, not at all.”
“You know, like a tank truck.”
“I think we have two totally different definitions of nifty!”
Mogami-san was playing with me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. She seemed to be having a lot of fun as she deftly prepared for our departure. Once I’d settled into the passenger seat, we set off—but my brain still hadn’t caught up to the fact that this person was actually driving a car, so I just stared at her.
“Since I look like this, I get stopped a lot by patrol officers wondering if I actually have a license.”
“O-Oh.”
“So I thought about just getting my license blown up, printed out, and tacked onto the entire car, but even I couldn’t do something like that.”
“A driver’s license itasha! But that would be giving away your private information!”
“Also, it’s been a pretty long time since I got my license, so I don’t need the clover mark for beginners. They always doubt that part too.”
“Ah, I can see that happening.”
“So I made an itasha with huge clover marks all over it!”
“You actually made one?! I doubt I could come up with a more ludicrous itasha than that...”
“I thought it was pretty nifty, actually. I had a thing for it. But driving it around really drew attention, and I’m not even a beginner anyway. I started wondering why I was trying so hard to make everyone think I was, so eventually I figured I’d practice some self-restraint.”
“You liked it! And you actually drove it!” Wh-who the heck was she?! I wasn’t even sure any of Live-On’s streamers would come up with something that ridiculous!
But despite unsettling me with the occasional crazy-person episode she’d suddenly tell me about, she drove safely and skillfully, and we reached the studio in no time at all. I’d been sitting in the passenger’s seat, but for some reason I was already exhausted...
“Oh! Heyo, heyo!” she called out.
“Hm?”
A woman had come to greet us as we got out of the car. Her hair was dyed blue, and although I didn’t know much about fashion, her outfit seemed like the kind you’d see in Harajuku. It was flashy, the direct opposite of mine—but she was probably either my age or slightly older. Who could that be? I felt like I’d have remembered such a unique person if I’d ever met them before.
As I tilted my head in confusion, Mogami-san ran up to her. “Rinrin! You’re still here?”
“Mm-hmm. I figured that since I’m here anyway, I might as well listen to the others recording too. Unfortunately, I’ve got plans after this, so I have to get going.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Also, Mogamoga, is that girl...?”
“That’s right! Live-On’s very own Dio Brando—Awayuki-chan!”
“Look at me! Swilling it down! Nothing but a drunken fool!” Rinrin quoted.
“Who are you calling Dio?!” I cried.
Reflecting on how it kind of seemed like everyone had settled on Awayuki in her seiso mode being the “bullied character,” I was able to make a pretty good guess from the conversation who this woman was. She was most likely a Live-On streamer herself, on her way back from finishing her own recording. Her name was...
“Come on, Rinrin, you have to introduce yourself first,” Mogami-san prodded.
“Oops, silly me! Nya-nyan! I’m Rin Suzunari, aka Nekoma Hirune!”
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Yuki Tanaka, aka Awayuki Kokorone. I thought you must be Nekoma-senpai. Wait—should we be saying our streamer names at the studio?”
“Don’t worry about that,” replied Nekoma-senpai. “Security’s pretty tight—there’s only people related to Live-On around here! But let’s keep it down outside, at least.”
“Gotcha.”
Yep—from that unique, bouncing intonation she used, she could have only been Nekoma-senpai. I’d thought this back with Sei-sama and Shion-senpai too, but it was kind of unreal, seeing people who had always been so unreachable standing right in front of me. The feeling it gave me was a very strange one. I hope one day I can be a senpai too...
“Mashiron-chan and Hikari-chan are just finishing up their recordings now,” Nekoma-senpai continued.
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yep! All right, see you!”
Did that mean I’d be actually meeting my two genmates after this? I’d done numerous collabs with them in the past, but this would be our first time meeting offline. I started to worry that I’d be too nervous to even walk properly... In any case, though, since Nekoma-senpai was so busy, that was where we parted ways.
“Okay, Awayuki-chan. Let’s head in,” said Mogami-san.
“Right!”
And now, at last, I followed Mogami-san into the studio. Inside, we saw several people hurriedly handling equipment and documents. Suzuki-san was among them, like she’d promised. Although it looked like her hands were full, she still bowed to us when she noticed us enter.
The two girls that drew my attention stood out from the rest. They were making light conversation, in that relaxed state of mind you slipped into after you’d finished your work, getting ready to go home.
“Good work! I was really nervous!” one of them said.
“Good work to you too. Were you, though? You looked like you were really belting it out,” the other replied.
“It’s true! But you did everything pretty flawlessly, Mashiro-chan.”
“Did I? I’m glad it looked that way to you. And relieved.”
Yep, those two had to be Mashiron and Hikari-chan. They’d probably been the pair who’d come in for recording before me.
“Oh, just go over there already!” Mogami-san insisted.
“Whoa?!” I yelped. As I’d hesitated a little, Mogami-san had given me a strong push on the back, which propelled me right in front of the two of them.
“What’s this? Who might you be?” asked Mashiron.
“...Could you be Awa-chan?” ventured Hikari-chan.
“Yep. Pleased to meet you,” I replied.
“Whoa! It’s the real Awayuki-chan!” exclaimed Mashiron.
Arrrrgghhhhh, this feels sort of awkward!
Meeting her for real like this, Mashiron’s height was short, like her model—but in real life, she was slender, and somehow ephemeral. Hikari-chan, on the other hand... The only words I could come up with to describe her were “the bright, cheery character.” The aura she exuded was practically making her sparkle.
The latter giggled. “What’s wrong, Awa-chan? You don’t have to cower like that.”
“No, I just... This is, like, my second time saying ‘pleased to meet you,’ so I don’t know how excited I should be...”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Since we’re here and all, let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Haku Sakurabi, aka Mashiron.”
“I’m Natsumi Sasaki, aka Hikari Matsuriya!”
“I’m Yuki Tanaka, aka Awayuki Kokorone.”
For a moment, there was silence...
...then all three of us burst out laughing together. The situation was just too funny—introducing ourselves like that, even though we all knew each other so well.
Yeah. Now that I’ve heard their voices for real, it doesn’t feel that strange anymore. I’ll be fine now.
“I’d love to have a conversation, but we don’t want to make the staff wait, so get going, Awa-chan,” Hikari-chan said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed.
“The three of us should talk more next time!” Hikari-chan added.
After leaving the two of them, it was finally time to record my part.
Suzuki-san and the composer first told me where I’d be singing and how to sing it. The composer for the song was a huge name in the anime song industry. Live-On really put a lot of money into strange places sometimes...
Apparently, I’d be singing a part before the first refrain. I’d listened to the whole thing so many times, so I knew it perfectly. Let’s do this thing!
“Phew.”
At first, my voice had been shaking out of nervousness, but I’d managed to finish the recording without too much trouble. They’d instructed me to sing with Awayuki-san’s seiso nature in mind. It had been a new experience for me, dialing back the power and paying more attention to the mood of the song.
Ahh, I was so relieved it was over that I felt all the energy leaving my body. I flopped down onto a chair like a soft-bodied creature of some kind. Time to get ready to go home. You know, thinking about it, I recorded my part by myself. I wonder why?
“Great! Now that Awayuki-chan’s recording is over, it’s time for me and Shuwacchi to record together, woohoo!” Mogami-san announced.
“Huh?” The words made me doubt my ears, and my face very, very quickly jerked over to where her voice had come from.
For some reason, Mogami-san—supposedly a driver—was standing there at one of the two microphones, calling me up...
“Wait... Hrm?” I couldn’t figure it out. It felt like my brain just got a flat tire.
“Awayuki-san, it’s time to record,” Suzuki-san said.
“Wait. Suzuki-san, I thought I was done recording.”
“Yes, Awayuki-san has finished—so next it’s time for Shuwa-chan to record.”
“Wh-What?!” Finally understanding what the staff members had been saying this whole time, I lost my cool. Were they counting Awayuki and Shuwa-chan as separate people?! Was I getting two parts when everyone else got one?! Like, true, I was basically a different person when I streamed like that, but this was not what I’d expected at all. “B-But... Wait! What about the booze? Even I can’t drink in the workplace like this...”
“You won’t need to!”
“Huh?”
The strong reply had come from the other source of the absolute chaos in my head—Mogami-san. That’s right. Why is a Live-On staff member standing in front of the mic...?
Hold on. A Live-On staff member... That was definitely how they’d introduced Mogami-san to me.
But they hadn’t said she was only a Live-On staff member, had they?
In other words, it was possible she was both a Live-On staff member and a VTuber. If that was true, then there was no problem with her being at one of the microphones.
And there was only one streamer in Live-On with a history like that.
W-Wait wait wait wait wait!
“Mwa ha ha! So, you’ve finally figured it out, have you, Awayuki-chan? It’s me—the sunlight in everyone’s hearts, Hareru Asagiri!” Mogami-san said.
“Sunlight...? And here I thought you were Live-On’s root of all evil,” Suzuki-san commented.
“Hey, Suzuking! Don’t be a wet blanket!”
Ahh, yes... Why hadn’t I picked up on it by now? Her voice, her outlandish words and actions, her calling people by weird nicknames... She was the very person I’d always yearned to be just like.
I see. At last, I understand. I’m supposed to be recording alongside Hareru-senpai, my idol. Got it.
Oh, shit. I’m so nervous and shocked that I’m starting to get dizzy.
Wait. Wait a minute. I feel like this has happened once before...
Right—I think it was when I was doing the interview with Live-On...
“My time has come! To fulfill three thousand years of dreams!” The words burst from me.
“Well, doesn’t this bring back memories?” remarked Suzuki-san.
“Oh, right,” replied Mogami-san. “Suzuking, you saw her like this during the interview, didn’t you? Shuwa-chan going too far beyond her limits? This is my first time, so I’m excited.”
This feeling of liberation—my head might have even felt better than when I drank StroZero right now. “Nnnghhh, feels so goooood!!!”
“All according to plan.”
“You seem to be having fun, Mogami-san.”
“Of course I am, Suzuking! I was the one who wanted to have Awayuki-chan and Shuwacchi both record separately, no matter the cost. But forcing someone to drink alcohol would have been out of the question. Instead, I thought back to how Awayuki-chan transformed into Shuwa-chan during her interview without actually drinking. I used my own presence here to force Shuwacchi to manifest.”
“You’re treating her like an Eva, here. Making her go berserk, like.”
“Aw, shucks.”
“That wasn’t a compliment. Couldn’t you have just told her she’d be doing two parts to begin with instead of making a whole song and dance about it?”
“Oh, come on, Suzuking. That would have ruined everything! The surprise is the most important part!”
“You never change.”
What surprised me was how short Hareru-senpai actually was. Her height had impacted me so much I’d never realized who she was. “A legal loli. A permitted taboo, created by the gods. A living miracle. A deep mystery of life.”
“Hey, Shuwacchi, stop babbling! Time to record!”
“Okay! Hm? Hold on a second. Voices are just vibrations of your throat. If you look at it from a broader perspective, all noises you create are vibrations of your throat. That means a singing voice is the same as a moaning voice...? Doesn’t that mean I’m actually about to do it with Hareru-senpai?”
“There it is! Shuwacchi’s famous ‘actually doing it’ logic!”
By the time I finally reverted to Awayuki after transforming into Shuwa-chan upon learning that Mogami-san was Hareru-senpai, I was already back at home. I contacted Suzuki-san, but apparently the recording had all gone fine. When I pressed her for details, she told me Hareru-senpai had played us all. She really was a person who exceeded expectations.
I very much wanted to meet her and talk again, but she’d probably just toy with me again. And even if I was Shuwa-chan, things would be too chaotic—they’d need to slap a do not mix label on us.
Well, that all aside, the song video we’d completed was eventually streamed. The song’s title was Live Start. Aside from Awayuki’s part right before the refrain, Shuwa-chan had apparently done a back-and-forth in the C-part with Hareru-senpai, and just that made the singing way too powerful. The comments said things like:
: why are they boxing with their songs?
: A brawl of voices lol
: Why is this part of the song SO MUCH DIFFERENT
: holy shit shuwa-chan and awa-chan had separate parts lmfaoooooo
: live-on never betrays expectations!
It was a storm of witty retorts, really, but the video itself was extremely popular, getting one million views in no time at all, making it a knockout success.
Incidentally, according to Suzuki-san, the two of us had actually been singing back and forth with bloodshot eyes, which had scared her to death. And now I felt bad...
Ah, well. All’s well that ends well, right?
Epilogue
A fair bit of time had gone by after the incident had started me climbing up the path to VTuber stardom. Despite how subservient I’d used to be, by now, I’d gotten a handle on my individuality and transformed it into laughter. Now I was able to use my streams to entertain a great many people.
An unexpected event had completely turned the tides. You really never know what life is going to throw at you next. And all of it was thanks to my genmates, senpais, Live-On staff members, and everyone who tuned in to watch my streams.
As for why I was currently feeling so reflective, Live-On had recently unveiled major news.
Live-On: Now Recruiting Members for the Fourth Generation!
There is only one requirement: to be able to shine!
Are you ready to flip the switch and begin your most radiant life?
And today was the day that the new fourth-generation Live-On members would have their debuts.
For a long time, I’d figured this day would come. But now that it was actually happening, I couldn’t help but feel my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. I was finally debuting as a senpai! I’d have kouhais now! Who wouldn’t be excited?! I was about to have newcomers who would respectfully call me senpai!
...Wait. They’d respect me, right? At least one of them would respect even a StroZero-addicted self-professed double-personality real-life-lesbian dirty-joke-lover sex-so girl, right?
Wait. No, there was nobody who could respect that. Definitely not. If I met someone like that, I’d run away as fast as I could! I was basically the seven deadly sins, if they got up and started walking.
Sniffle. I’ve managed to do some major damage to my own heart, but I’ve gotta pull myself together. These were precious new members, and this was their big moment, after all. I wanted to welcome them in with a smile.
The announcements would be a relay of ten-minute-long self-introductions hosted on Live-On’s official website. All of Live-On’s current members were partying it up in a group chat right now, excited to see the streams. The reason we were so excited was that aside from Hareru-senpai, who was also a staff member, none of us had any idea who the fourth-gen members were, other than that there were three of them. We didn’t even know their names.
We were all full of excited ideas, letting our imaginations run wild as we waited for the streams. I’d been so curious about it that I’d barely gotten any sleep the night before. Hareru-senpai had told us they’d gotten a nice bunch who were perfect fits for Live-On, so I figured it was okay to be hopeful. Live-On was the greatest under the sun, so there was no need to worry!
...Wait, but hold on a second. Live-On had chosen awful people for its third generation, like me. I... I was suddenly starting to get a bad feeling about this!
“Oh, the stream’s starting!” But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about stuff like that! Everyone had taken a day off from streaming to make sure the new members were the stars of the show. Great! Are there any girls who will respect me in the group?! Lemme have one!
“Phew... Oh! Has it started already?!”
The screen displayed a girl wearing a school uniform of a rather chuuni-style design—it looked like a military uniform, almost—and her hair was pink and short. She had an undercut on just the left side of her head, with the hair flowing back behind her ear. It was both a cute design and a cool one. Her height seemed to be about normal.
Ohhh? Heh heh heh. That character designer did a pretty good job on her, I’ll tell you what!
A loud exhalation came through her microphone—she’d probably taken a deep breath. Her eyes were wavering. Ah, how fresh and innocent. And nostalgic! This was reminding me of how, at first, my heart rate had gotten up to some pretty dangerous levels.
“Right, sir! It’s a pleasure to meet you, sirs and ma’ams. My designation is Alice Soma! During daylight hours, I attend university, and during the night, I participate in an idol group called the Resistance. This uniform happens to be standard-issue in that group.”
: this is kinda good...
: great! i like it!
: I'm cheering for you!
: she has a nice face
: and she talks like a certain high-school sergeant lol, i love it
: she's an idol! we haven't actually had any yet, huh?
: One of those cool idols, judging by the clothes?
Oh, and chat was excited too! I liked how she was a pretty straightforward type of character! I knew that bad feeling was just all in my head!
“I’d actually like to use this time to deliver an important message. In fact, it is the reason I wanted to become a VTuber in the first place.”
Oh? What was this? Her voice had suddenly turned really serious, and the chat started buzzing. Some people in chat were actually saying that since she was part of something called the Resistance, she could be declaring war on her senpais. B-But that couldn’t be right, could it? Live-On was certainly full of crazies, but rebellions were out of the question, weren’t they?
“Awayuki Kokorone-dono!”
“Huh?”
Had she just said my name?
Why? Why’d she say me specifically?! Could she actually not even stand the sight of me for being famous as one of Live-On’s few perverts?!
Ahhhh, I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll do anything! Yeah, that’s right—I could handle this with my can of legendary StroZero Triple Lemon! It’s not even being sold anymore! It’s my treasure!
Waaaah! All I wanted was a kouhai who would look up to me! That’s all! Why is this happeni—
“I request that you make me your woman.”
...What? I thought.
Was it just me, or had she just said something crazy?
Afterword
All right. How did you like the book? I’m the author, Nana Nanato.
I originally began submitting this story to a novel submission website called Hamelin on June 22, 2020. It was a little bit before the announcement of a certain famous VTuber company’s fifth generation. Currently, I’m also submitting the story to Kakuyomu.
Those who have read this far might be thinking how different this novel is from most others around at the moment in its genre, contents, and writing style. All of it is pretty aggressive, so I think you might not have seen something like it before.
Even I, the author, was sure that nobody would ever make this into a physical book, but then Fantasia Bunko contacted me about that very notion. A haiku popped into my head at the time without me thinking about it—Fantasia Bunko / Inside my head right now is / a Fantasy Land. When it was announced that it would be made into a book, I think that was the first time the readers ever truly doubted my sanity, LOL.
Many of the Castella questions that appear throughout this novel and certain comments were selected from ones submitted by actual readers on the web version. Just as VTubers entertain through the support of their watchers, so too does this novel entertain through the support of its readers. If you’d like, Castella submissions are always open, even now, on Hamelin, so I’d be so happy if you were to write whatever you like there without stressing.
Also, this novel is constructed out of a love and respect for VTubers and StroZero, both of which are deeply connected to its contents. If any of you haven’t experienced one or the other yet, why not take this opportunity to try it out?
I’m looking forward to seeing you all again for volume 2, should the stars align. Thank you so much for purchasing this book!
Nana Nanato
* This book is an expanded and revised version of the story submitted to Kakuyomu, VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream.
Short Intro
Hey everyone! Alice here (handle alice_in_translation), and I was the translator on this series. You’re welcome, and I’m sorry. I already had one foot caught in the VTuber rabbit hole, but this book sent me plummeting into its depths. Suddenly I’m constantly watching cute anime girls play video games and calling myself a Deadbeat, a Krony, AND a Hooman. Please. I need help.
As someone who considers herself a veteran light novel translator, this book presented oh so many difficulties. The reason? It’s chock-full of Japanese-only memes and references, as you may have guessed already. My editor Alexandra and I were unfortunately forced to replace the more obscure ones, which prompted a weekly post on the J-Novel Club forums where I explained all the memes, references, and things we had to take out—along with some VTuber lingo along the way. Alexandra gets a lot of the credit here for researching a crapton of English-language meme replacement options.
I’d also like to thank several forum users for helping me out with some of the really tough ones: saffire, Haruoki, Weasalopes, Riaren, and Blanc1. A bunch of the friendly translators at J-Novel Club helped me with yet other memes as well, so thank you all too!
In any case, I hope you enjoy it! Please note that this will dive into decidedly un-seiso territory, though I suppose the rest of this book contains some mature content references, so. Yeah.
Alice’s “I Researched All the Obscure Japanese Memes So You Didn’t Have To” Corner!
References are broken down by chapter and sub-chapter.
Prologue
underground empire: Reference to the first part of the second season/part of Kaiji. Highly recommended! (Japan memed this part of the show a lot.)
Wiener Legend: Reference to Sausage Legend, made famous (in the VTuber world) mainly by Oozora Subaru, as far as I can tell. Unlike the original game, this one has the subtitle 性剣伝説, which is basically "Seiken Densetsu" with the "sei" for "holy" replaced by the "sei" for, roughly, "sex." This isn't really a meme, per se, but interesting nonetheless!
Cooterjuice: The original reference here was actually a name that did show up on one of Subaru's streams of the aforementioned game. The Japanese is 卍ル武社亜, which doesn't mean anything, and is actually just one of those things where you need to read it aloud to know what it's saying. It uses kanji that are easy to read one-by-one: "manji", the katakana "ru", "bu", "sha", and "a". Together, it roughly means "pussy juice spray."
Gap Moe: For those unsure of what this is, gap moe refers to when you see a character, and expect one thing, but get something different, and that "gap" is very cute. Or when the character’s personality has another side to it that runs counter to how they normally act.
Cheeper: Originally "Katattaa", which meant, very roughly, "speaker" (instead of Twitter, obviously)
Chapter 1 (Solo Stream)
Yujiro Hanma and Heihachi Edajima: From Grappler Baki and Sakigake!! Otokojuku respectively. The former, nicknamed the "Ogre," frequently engages in ridiculously absurd displays of strength. The latter is the headmaster of the school the main characters go to and is equally absurd in terms of his strength and energy levels. I kept these two in because they're pretty raw references, despite Otokojuku not being anywhere near as popular in the West as it is in Japan.
That one epic Unicorn theme: Specifically the song "UNICORN" from the Gundam UC soundtrack. It gets used in memes a bunch in Japan as a kind of "epic" song. Can listen to it here: https://open.spotify.com/track/7q1pK4BgyC0H2Y8t9rh6Qh?si=6ffa495a67404808
Tee-tee: A common piece of lingo in the VTuber world, usually used when two girls are being really cute with each other. Comes from the word "toutoi" which means, essentially, "precious", and is used a lot for gals just being pals.
Chapter 1 (Third-Gen Collab Stream)
T h e l a w s o f t h e s e i s o m e a n n o t h i n g!: A reference to Final Fantasy V's final boss, Neo Exdeath. This message appears in the battle before he uses the attack Grand Cross. The Japanese meme uses full-width spaces between words and only hiragana, which I've rendered with a space between every character.
Castella: A reference to Marshmallow, a platform VTubers commonly use to take viewer questions.
This feeling—it must be love! / Love?!: A reference to one of Gundam 00's most famous moments between antagonist Graham and main character Setsuna.
Sinking into a pool of StroZero while giving a thumbs-up: Reference to the ending scene in Terminator 2. Not a Japanese meme but figured I'd include it. It's a spoiler for the end of the movie, but easy enough to look up on Youtube.
AHHHH IT TALKED!: A reference to that Japanese McDonald's commercial with the little kids and the spongebob toys. This meme has somewhat made it overseas, though the line probably wouldn't have made sense to most without the /spongebob tag, haha. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5PbBX5ZDF0
That last Castella: This is a reference to an infamous The Familiar of Zero (Zero no Tsukaima) copypasta from a highly...passionate...fan directed toward the character Louise (frequently called the "Louise Copypasta"). People will swap out names and such to fit whatever they're simping over.
Most famously in the VTuber world, however, is when Natsuiro Matsuri sent an audio clip over Twitter to Shirakami Fubuki that was this copypasta, and she gets really, really into it. Headphones only! You've been warned. https://twitter.com/natsuiromatsuri/status/1048810611981701121
Green Label, Premium Malt's, Nodogoshi Nama, Clear Asahi: All names of various common alcohol sold in Japan.
Idle Talk (The Comment Section)
I didn’t even think of that! /hanchou: Another reference to part two of Kaiji, specifically to the main antagonist’s reaction to Kaiji’s ultimate trick.
you’re acting like Axis is getting dropped: A reference to Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, where the main threat of the movie was the giant asteroid base Axis being dropped on Earth.
On that day, humanity received a grim reminder: A reference to Attack on Titan, which should be fairly well-known to both audiences, so I left it as-is.
I hate brats like you: A reference to a line in Full Metal Alchemist.
You’re getting a new family member!!!: This is a reference we opted not to replace from an adult manga called Koro-chan. It’s one of those incredibly depressing-slash-disturbing-slash-rapey manga. This meme is always followed by people saying “hey, stop it.” You’re welcome to look up more about it if you really want to.
Chapter 2 (Seiso Stream)
Morse Code: Did you know that Japan invented a version of Morse code using the iroha system? I didn't! It explains why Yuki-san had some trouble deciphering it. I've "translated" it into standard English Morse Code.
-196 Celsius: The temperature at which Suntory freezes the fruit they use to make Strong Zero.
Billy Mays copypasta: Originally this was a reference to Suiso no Oto! It's a copypasta originating from an infomercial for a brand of hydrogen water called Suiso no Oto. Roughly translated, it's something like this, minus the StroZero references of course:
“Awayuki-san, have you even been doing anything to watch your health lately?”
“Oh! Yes, I’ve been drinking StroZero.”
“StroZero!”
“Look!”
“Huh?!”
“Look, right here! Amazing, right?! It’s practically ready to burst, huh?!”
“Whoa! Look at that tall can! It’s on a whole ‘nother level!”
“You want to open it, don’t you?”
“Yes! Please!”
“Then here we go!”
pshhh!
“Ahhh! The sound of StroZero!”
“How long can you stay drunk on one of these?”
“Ta-dah! With this one can, I can go a full half a day!”
“Half a day?!”
The StroZero version is almost word-for-word the same as the original. The enthusiasm of the actors gets me every time. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itqKMmMlV-0
There's even a choral arrangement of the dialogue here, for your listening pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP8LQ0Z4ZWQ
UBW Chant: The version used here is a more literal translation of the Japanese version of the famous chant from Fate/stay night. You might just have to wait for the jank version... :eyes:
To you and you and you: Omae jai! This is--
Alright, so before I go any further here, I have to say upfront that a whole bunch of the memes in this book originate from a famous (among Japanese internet-goers) low-quality gay porn series called Babylon, and many are from a specific episode called (in English) A Midsummer Night's Lewd Dream. Apparently it had plenty of good one-liners.
I'm not personally super comfortable going in depth with these ones. Big thanks goes out to my editor for helping out with this stuff. Anyway, I'll be pointing them out where they do show up, but just as like a, "this is from Babylon" sort of thing.
Unfortunately, because of their relative obscurity here in the West, and the difficulty of "translating" what essentially amount to very commonplace lines spoken in a funny way with "ze" or some such on the end, we were kinda forced to change them up.
Tigrex: Monster Hunter monster with a distinctive roar. This is more of an obscure-ish reference than a replaced meme, but thought it would be nice to give the meaning of this here. :)
Granny Over It: Obviously a Getting Over It reference. Legally distinct! You play as an old lady in a big jar instead of a dude in a big pot, and use a pickle instead of a sledgehammer. And it's a mikan on that one cliff, not an orange. Heh. That whole bit is straight out of the original (Orange Hell). (Made by one "Bennifer Foddy", which made me laugh. Thanks TheGrimLich.)
Green Baboon: Very angry Yu-Gi-Oh monster. Not sure what the significance here is, if any, aside from it being similarly rage-y.
Chapter 2 (Offline Karaoke Collab)
The Vaporeon sex copypasta: This was a replacement for an even dirtier--literally and figuratively--copypasta from Japan. Said copypasta has a rather long history and involves some guy's gay scat experience with a homeless man and a construction worker on a riverbank, which he described in detail on 2chan. The sheer ridiculousness made it into a meme.
Anyway, we've replaced it with a reference that's almost as dirty. It's okay to be with Shion-senpai on this one though.
I'm drinking my StroZero to this: In English, this is a reference to the hog-squeezing meme. In Japanese, this was the "ja-in" (邪淫) copypasta, which attempts to coyly explain what "lewdness" means, something like:
You see, "jain" is, well...
...For example...!
When you touch...
the place where you pee...
and it feels good, maybe...
(etc.)
Essentially, the commenter had replaced the "in" for "lewdness" (淫) with the "in" for "drink" (飲).
Ass N Titties: Originally referred to a song called "Orion-za no Shita de SEX," a song video made by Yuta Suzuki. The song is actually hysterical. Basically every single line ends with a high-pitched falsetto "SEX" as he insists, over and over again, that he wants to have sex under the constellation Orion. PLEASE PLEASE watch it here, even if you don't know Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiHHZ8gPRlc
For real, it makes me so sad that those who don't understand Japanese can't fully enjoy this meme. (Another one from this guy actually shows up later, too...)
The boing-boing song from Zatch Bell: I know this was a bit of a meme back when this show was around, so I left it in. (It was one of the few I recognized right off the bat, too, haha. Thank you, childhood friend, for getting it stuck in my head a long time ago.) Very suggestive and was censored in the US release. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDzt-oEL4i8
Chapter 2 (Offline Collab with Chami-chan)
Eating food off naked girls: A reference to the practice of nyotai-mori, traditionally eating sushi off of naked women, which has received a lot of overseas criticism. I'll refrain from criticizing it myself here; there's plenty of info available on the internet.
Let's go up to Live-On's roof...: A reference to an ASCII art meme that goes something like "Let's go up to the roof... This is the first time in a long time... I've been this mad..." Originates in a gag manga called Chin'nyuu Shain Kintarou.
Saibamen/Yamcha: Dragon Ball Z references, from this part of the Saiyan arc.
UBW Chant: Here's the jank English version from Fate/stay night! It should be obvious now why I decided to save this version for this part. Enjoy.
Was it this StroZero you dropped?: A famous (in Japan, at least) story from Aesop's Fables. Woodcutter drops axe in pond, Hermes (on a bet) offers a golden axe and silver axe, woodcutter says nah bruh I just dropped the plain one. Hermes gives him the golden one anyway for his honesty. (Random note—my first encounter with this story was actually Fire Emblem 4, back when we didn't have anything more than NES and SNES Fire Emblem games)
Sides beyond orbit: This was more grass puns. It originally went something like, "past grass, now it's bamboo" -> "reforesting seems to be going well (even in the comfort of her own home)" -> "that bamboo forest is unauthorized"
oats: English slang for "otsu" (said as a thank you for end of streams/videos and such, short for otsukaresamadeshita)
Star of death: Fist of the North Star memes, specifically from the arcade version. These lines relate to the character Toki, and the last comment ("CHING CHING TOKI!") is a reference to Toki being OP in the fighting game and that being the sound of someone scrolling to that character and choosing them. I think.
Excuse my French: Not a meme or anything, I just thought it was a clever translation of her putting the respectful prefix "go" onto the word "boner sensor"
E-Card: In Kaiji, during the E-Card arc, there's a part where he has a tiny drill machine positioned next to his ear that would go into his ear if he lost too badly. Very good story arc. If you haven't watched Kaiji, you definitely should.
Chapter 2 (The Mission to Recapture Awayuki Kokorone’s Seiso)
/deafprotag: Specifically, this is meant to refer to one of those main characters who always somehow misses/mistakes the girl's profession of love
you had my curiosity: Nah I inserted this one on my own. Gotcha.
Morning ritual: Originally this was the "I think I might literally be Kirito" copypasta, also known as "Ikirito". It's not known in the West, so we decided on a different one that plays into the Terminator references instead. Here's the original copypasta, translated:
"Maybe I literally am Kirito ww
I don’t think so, but everyone always says I look just like Kirito www
Just recently, I got wrapped up with some dumbass, and the next thing I realized, all I saw around me were people covered in blood lying around www
and by the way my gf looks like Asuna too (though I know you didn’t ask w)"
How many more superchats must we give?: A reference to the famous Heero quote in Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, "How many more lives must we take, Wufei?"
Waiting very excitedly: Originally the pun here is on the phrase 全裸待機, which literally means "waiting completely naked"--the idea is one must remove one's obstructive clothing before being able to fully enjoy media with all of your body. I went more with a "really excited" angle to make the clothes-removal part make sense.
Da-da-da-daaaa da da dat da-daaaa!: The Final Fantasy victory theme. Originally, though, this was a different song: a tune from Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song that I don't understand the meme of.
seiso-chan is so cute! hooray!: A meme based on Ninja Slayer--at least, something posted on Twitter. Kawaii yatta!
I'll wait 3 seconds: A reference to Muska in Castle in the Sky telling the main character he'd wait 3 minutes (but it's only like 50 seconds in real life). The last comment there is also a reference to something else he says in the movie
cohabi-gay-tion: OK, this is literally my magnum opus. The original pun here was on the word "dousei", which can mean both "cohabitation" (same-living) or "same-sex".
duh of course she is: Originally a meme meaning, roughly, "it's your responsibility to be happy" (which is such an obvious statement it's like a "duh" thing)
caps lock: Originally, the comment immediately preceding this one had an old meme in it (アーッ!), to which the next chatgoer remarks "wow that's an old meme". I replaced it with a different old meme, this time on the part of the replier.
/paragus: Look up Paragus's laugh from the original DBZ Broly movie. Seriously, do it. There's a 10-minute version on YT and everything.
Chapter 2 (Monetization Commemoration Stream)
Monetization so late? right in front of my salad?: Originally a meme originating in gay porn, once again, though I don't think most people know it is: ososugiruppi! ("too slow" with the silly "ppi" ending) We tried to go with an equally obscure Western one that kinda fits the same bill.
yes! she is pretty!: Originally this was a pun on the loanword "template", which more or less in JP means something that happens every time (kinda similar to English), where the second commenter says tempura. Just thought it was interesting.
With this, I can keep fighting for another ten years: A quote spoken by M'Quve in the original Mobile Suit Gundam to show how excited he was about the Odessa mining base and its potential contributions to Zeon's war effort. Sucks for him how it turned out, though, I guess.
Live. You're... funny: A reference to a famous quote from Princess Mononoke that Ashitaka says to San. (Was "beautiful" in the original)
spirit forest/toxic jungle: I think the pun comes through here with the whole "rotten" fujoshi thing, but we felt we needed to spell it out this time. (In Japanese, the forest spirit is named Shishigami. Just a little trivia)
sounds like a washing machine: Originally a reference to a kind of ramen called washiwashi-men.
Hey, u mad bro?: Good old Yuyuuta Suzuki again, this time singing what is basically an equivalent to "u mad bro" in Japanese for 10 minutes straight on the piano. It's meant to rile a person up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnB9gipG2Mc
By the way, have a look: A meme from a short manga called Kuso Miso Technique, a, uh, another gay porn, which is apparently the source of several memes. It's where Yaranaika and that one super famous facial expression come from. We kept it how it is as a little treat for those who got the reference. (We know it's a deep cut.)
scribble io: References skribbl io, but originally this was a reference to Oekaki no Mori, an online drawing game that used to be pretty popular among VTubers before other apps such as Gartic Phone came out. Unfortunately GP was released after this book was published.
wanna do it together: A yaranaika reference.
Mikansoft: A reference to Yuzusoft, a maker of eroge. (They replaced the fruit name.)
Sabbat: A reference to Yuzusoft's eroge Sabbat of the Witch. It's on Steam! And the reason the author picked them manga has to do with Sakura Miko of Hololive accidentally opening it on her stream—more than once, actually.
Such comfy vibes: Originally a reference to a quote from the Fukumoto manga Saikyo Densetsu Kurosawa: "So warm..." (attakee)
given this girl the stupid: Originally a joke about how her brain is a happy meal.
Alatreon: A dragon from Monster Hunter; I wrote this out a bit more to hammer down the multi-attribute reference. I don't really know much about MH.
Hell yeah bruh: Another gay porn (possibly Babylon again) reference: "nashitogetaze" ("I pulled it off/did it"). Didn't bother trying to retain similar origins this time. Just not worth it. Shoutouts to Bae.
Chapter 2 (First Sunrise of the Year)
The name of this chapter refers to Hareru’s name meaning something like “morning fog” and “clear skies.”
Nihon no Mikata: A Japanese song sung by a group of drag queens. Very famous in Japan; it comes up on a Youtube search, and many VTubers have done covers/karaoke of it as well. They have very deep voices, which is why the suggestion is comedic. I guess.
Ora Tokyo sa Iguda: Another famous Internet song, this one older. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%=UzRVEQDxiOo
what is she Ultraman now: "Shuwacchi" comes from the sound Ultraman makes when he does cool stuff, like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDhHWYR6_Q
I think by this time in this part, we were just so tired of finding similar memes that we kept a bunch in.
Idle Talk (One Day, on Mashiron’s Stream)
getting with the yuri already: This is the "kimashita wa" meme that originates with Strawberry Panic, and is a thing said whenever any yuri/girls love scenes/situations are happening. It actually has a KYM entry, but we decided it wasn't well-known enough: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kimashita-wa
kuudere: Cool + dere. They play it cool (kuu) when it comes to their mushy feelings (dere).
Chapter Three (Long Fit Stream)
“Long Fit” is obviously definitely not Ring Fit Adventure, in case you were wondering.
But it was me! Shijimi!: In the original Japanese, this was a combined meme--on one hand you have the classic Dio meme, but on the other hand is a meme from a TV show spoken by a former tennis-player-turned-video-creator named Shuzo Matsuoka. He was once on-location at a lake, and said, roughly: "At this negative-10-degree location, you can catch shijimi (freshwater clams), and I'm doing my best!" The "toreru" for "can catch" became "tururu" in the meme for some reason, so the Japanese meme turned into just "shijimi ga tururu!" Awayuki really flexing her all-encompassing meme knowledge with this one. You can read more about it at the KYM page: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/shuzo-matsuoka
Howard Dean: The maybe-not-so-famous scream by a politician back in 2004 that turned into a meme. Originally, this was referring to a video called "Nittaidai Call" that became a meme in Japan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D-bUhc59UI0Q
(extremely vivid): A reference to Mejikara-senpai, which you can look up on your own time if you wish.
Life exists to be thrown away: This, and the comments after it, are more references to the Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) arcade game and Toki quotes from the manga.
nagi: The meme of what everyone mishears Toki's ultimate attack quote in the game as.
Have this. Take it when you can't endure the pain: Another Toki quote from the manga.
water breathing technique: References a technique in Demon Slayer.
nukige: A type of eroge (dating sim with porn in it) that is made mostly just to fap to, with little attention paid to the actual plot.
Chapter 3 (Animal Kart Stream)
Again, Animal Kart 8 SE is definitely not Mario Kart 8 DX.
GAO: A reference to PAO, a small-ish video game store franchise in Japan.
hey now... what's with... the silly voice, ride...: A reference to a scene very late in Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans. Won't spoil it. I had to tweak it slightly to fit.
Then count my crimes!/the comment after that: The main character of Kamen Rider W's catchphrase is "Now, count your crimes!"
say hello to my little friend!: Originally a meme from good-old Midsummer Night's Lewd Dream that goes something like "If you want to see it, I'll show you"
Heaping helping: Originally this was a pun on Mashiron's name ("mashi-mashi")
hello, this is dog: Originally another meme from Babylon. "Yes, hello, this is Kinoshita."
No genital-judgment among girls: This was a rough pun to translate. The original text was something like "Hey, Mashiron! Gachinko play between girls (deep meaning). In other words, futanari play right so yes please--" Gachinko is "competing in earnest" but also has "chinko" (dick) in it.
Seiran Island: A super deep eroge cut from a game whose name is generally shortened to Nukitashi. https://vndb.org/v22899 It was so obscure that we added a couple pointers in the comments to it.
Captain Tsubasa size: Captain Tsubasa is very well-known for having some absolutely ridiculous anatmoical proportions.
Stop it. Get some help: Originally a Midsummer Night's Lewd Dream meme again that goes, "What was that? (said threateningly)"
Animal Kart items: It should be fairly clear what these items are for anyone who has played Mario Kart. MK8DX really is a masterpiece of a game, tho.
Hoyoroi: A Suntory alcoholic product known for its 3% ABV.
Sorry about that, but I had to punch you at least once: A reference to Evangelion, early on, when Touji punches Shinji.
what is a vtuber?: Originally the quintessential Japanese meme "kore wa hidoi" or "this is awful".
Powerful banana-san: A phrase/meme from around 2013. Awayuki obviously uses it here to mean dicks.
We got to see Mashiron being cute! Hooray: The same "kawaii yatta" meme from Ninja Slayer that came up previously
you did it bruh: The "nashitogeta ze" meme from Midsummer Night's Lewd Dream (I think I mentioned this already...? I can't even remember at this point)
"But why?!": Originally the classic "nandeyanen?!" that the tsukkomi manzai role uses a lot.
abc! always be comedian!: I'm not sure we were actually able to figure out the original meme. But here it is if any of y'all know it: "生きろって言ってんだYO!" (It might have been Kamen Rider?)
Then glied is what you shall have: A riff on the famous speech from Hellsing. While the original speech uses "krieg", as Mashiron points out, "glied" I guess can mean penis. We had some trouble with this one. In Japanese, he used the word for "war", which is pronounced "sensou", which Awayuki then mispronounces as "sentou", which means "public bath."
Suima-sorry: Same as sumimasorry, which is also an English meme. I love it when memes transcend cultures.
naked procreation: Originally, the commenter "misheard" the word "tsukiai" (association/fellowship/company) as "tsukiai" (ramming each other).
suki suki ski resort: I think we came up with this meme replacement on our own, but I don't remember. The original meme combines the Internet slang term for "suki," which is "suko," with the word "scottish fold" (a kind of cat).
"TEHY! HIYAH!": Originally this was NOT actually a reference to Link in OoT, but a reference to Athrun Zala's funny grunting noises in Gundam Extreme Versus (in Japanese, of course).
8888: Another quintessential Japanese internet slang that is just clapping, since "8" and "clap" are both kinda pronounced "hachi".
Chapter 3 (Let’s Watch Everyone’s Streams)
All righty then: No, the Ace Ventura reference is not in the original. heh.
Please don't remind me of those cursed children's shows: Originally, this was specifically a reference to cursed children's shows on NHK, but it's pretty general even in Japanese. (It's the whole "good boys and girls" line)
ora ora ora: Originally "hey hey hey", which is a reference to a very popular Japanese variety show called Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ.
Demon Face technique: Reference to Baki.
Everyone, look at me!: Ironically, probably NOT a Marth reference. But you never know, I suppose!
What’s this?! Sex-sama looks over as if she wants us to join her party!: A reference to Dragon Quest games that let you recruit monsters into your party.
Yellow Loveriche: A riff on Golden Loveriche, the name of an eroge. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1277940/Kinkoi_Golden_Loveriche/
I figured it would take more than two panels: This is a reference to meme 2-koma comics (I think this came up before). Basically something happens in the 1st panel, and the big turnaround is in the 2nd panel.
Just the tip!: Interestingly, this meme exists in both languages! Hooray.
X Channel: A reference to a classic dating sim called CROSS†CHANNEL (https://vndb.org/v66). The quote they both say afterwards is a famous line from it.
Thanks I hate it: Another "kore wa hidoi".
yes, and I'm sure you're just asking for a friend: Originally this went "Don't say it like a sofa that ruins people." This is a Japanese turn of phrase, where something is so comfy you don't ever want to move.
Sono fetish no sadame: The funny part here in Japanese was that the first person goes, "sono seiheki no sadame dayo" ("it's the fate of their fetish"), which the next commenter ran with. "Part 0" is obviously a StroZero joke.
Magicverse: A riff on Shadowverse, a very popular digital TCG, even among VTubers.
Morinphen: A Yu Gi Oh card that is widely considered to be one of the worst cards ever made. A bigger meme in the OCG, but to my knowledge western players would still know about it.
A certain apple-loving shinigami: A reference to the shinigami Ryuk from Death Note, and the weird amusement he gets from stuff.
The card description: This isn't exactly how Shadowverse cards are formatted, but hey! Creative license.
Chapter 4 (Live Start)
Itasha: A common term in the West as well, referring to one of those cars plastered with anime girl illustrations.
Clover mark: In Japan, new drivers place a clover sticker onto their car to inform everyone they're a new driver.
Look at me! Swilling it down! Nothing but a drunken fool!: A JoJo reference--specifically, it's a Dio quote that's more of a meme in Japan than here.
My time has come! To fulfill three thousand years of dreams!: Originally, this meme--a reference to something Gym Ghingham says in Turn-A Gundam--is just the "my time has come" part, but in Japanese it is a somewhat lesser-used phrase that's easily associated with him. We decided to add another little quote to drive home the reference.
And here is the coup-de-grace—Houshou Marine of Hololive actually did a sponsored collab stream with “Awayuki Kokorone,” who was voiced by Ayane Sakura. You can watch it here in all its glory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxw5Bq_xN2k
