My Roommate, The VTuber - nflstreet

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MY ROOMMATE, THE VTUBER Vol 1 nflstreet To Dilano van ‘t Hoff and Anthoine Hubert CONTENTS Prelude—1 The One Chip Challenge—15 FPS—56 The Division of Labor—94 A Reversal of Roles—122 Sponsorship Stream—144 Epilogue—195 CHARACTERS The Narrator/Roomie-chan: The main character. Neurotic homebody that is listless. Loves gaming and motorsports. Likes anime but rarely watches it anymore. Michael/Francis Fukuyama: The Narrator’s roommate. Michael is more known online as the Virtual YouTuber ‘Francis Fukuyama’. Loves tea, MOBAs, and his native West Coast. Moved out to the country so he could be more away from noise. Violet Bridgewater: One of Michael’s fellow VTubers. Works for the same company (AnyClover). Likes to play FPSes, dancing, and singing. While she is probably the same age as The Narrator and Michael, she exudes a childlike innocence that makes her endearing to all those around. The Landlord: The one who rents out The Narrator and Michael’s house to them. Isn’t in the landlord game for the money–has a sentimental attachment to the house which leads them to do most, if not all, repairs for it, even if she’s a multi-millionaire. 1 Prelude I could hear him steaming from outside my room. He was in the kitchen and had what seemed to be his entire streaming setup with him. There was only not one, but TWO monitors next to the oven, along with a computer on an ironing board, a microphone that was clamped onto the countertop, a mouse and keyboard, AND a camera set up. All for one stream–after today’s stream was over, he would pack it all up for next time. To be fair, all he had to do was move everything into the spare bedroom, which was only down the hall from the kitchen, but it still had to be a hassle to move all of that junk back and forth. He had been at it since like 11 AM. Thankfully I already knew this and had my breakfast (a bowl of Froot Loops, a hot pocket, and coffee) ready well before he started his stream. In most kitchens, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but our kitchen was a bit ‘special’. Our microwave was right above our stove, which made it hard for anyone to use one while the other was in use and vice versa. He was currently cooking pancakes for his stream. Somehow he had never cooked pancakes before this–that is, if he was telling the truth to his audience. I was about to go–I had to mentally prepare myself for my upcoming shift. It wasn’t going to be hard or anything…it’s just…was this what I was really put on this Earth to do? What was the point of going to school and getting a degree if this was the best I could do? Was it that I was bad with networking, or was it because most employers realized how worthless a Political Science degree was, and that all it meant that I knew 2 how to read boring books and write boring papers on boring topics? Then again, was that most of the humanities? Maybe it had more to do with the location I was in–unless if I went to law school, which I didn’t want to do, I would probably have to move to Washington D.C. to fully utilize my ‘expertise’, if you could call it that. With five-figures worth of student loan debt over my head, moving to one of the most expensive areas in the country was a stupid move in my opinion. Yes, I was more likely to get a job, but it would more than likely be either an unpaid internship or something that was barely above the living standards of the area. Why couldn’t I had just went to school for enginnering? To avoid spiraling out of control, I decided to go ahead and get a move on. Walking outside of my room, I noticed that my roommate had a virtual version of himself as his computer wallpaper. I’m not surprised, considering his line of work, but it still… *SLAM* “Ahh fuck!”–before I even knew it, I ran my pinky toe into the corner of the wooden dresser next to the living room couch. The pain was so sharp that it made me lose sense for a moment. I fell to the floor in pain, groaning like I just got hit with a baseball bat. After the sensation started to dull, I realized that I potentially made a huge mistake… 3 Really bad drawing of our living room and kitchen. The dresser I ran my foot into is more to the right than in the drawing, but I’m too lazy to fix it. Not drawn to scale. Kitchen is extended to be twice as long as our dining room is seldomly used and not relevant. 4 Looking back startled, my roommate Michael said “Hold on guys, I need to go to the toilet real quick.” Known more famously online as ‘Francis Fukuyama’ (no relation…really, no relation. He doesn’t know about the other guy. Apparently his ‘antis’ labelling his surging popuarity ‘The End of VTubing’ was lost upon him for months)–a ‘Virtual YouTuber’ who was streaming himself making ‘Valentine Pancakes’. If you counted everyone currently in his chat as ‘in the room’ with us, there were thousands that heard my outburst. I was the only one that knew him by ‘Michael’ though. I had enough sense to know that anything from real life was a no-go on his streams. It was the norm for VTuber streams. He had probably disclosed to his chat that he had gotten a new roommate by now, but my existence might as well have been a phantom. An apparition. At least, it was, until my cry of pain leaked through his microphone into the virtual world. — Michael’s–I mean, Francis’s design, all things considered, was fairly basic. His model was a standard ‘bishie boy’. Tall, slender, having semi-long straight black hair, and a relatively pointy chin. Just like in your shoujo anime and manga. His outfit was rather dapper, meant to imply that he was a gentleman. A three-piece suit that was was supposed to look fancy. In my eyes he looked more like a magician than a ‘gentleman’. He seemed to not really put that much effort into playing the role too–the 5 closest thing he got was enjoying his tea when he wanted it. Other than that, he was just himself–a reclusive gamer. Michael on the left and his ‘Virtual YouTuber’ persona ‘Francis Fukuyama’ on the right. I took some liberties with his outfit. I didn’t even try to draw his pants. I didn’t notice until i was done, but I accidentally made him look like John Travolta’s character in Pulp Fiction. His hairline isn’t as pronounced as it is in my drawing. Perhaps that’s why Michael looks so concerned. I thought that him not ever sticking to the bit would be a problem, but it turns out that most VTubers don’t. Sometimes their ‘persona’ could be an extension of their real-life personality, but in Michael’s case, Francis was really only a face-tuned version of himself. Other than occasionally going a few days without shaving, Michael was also tall, skinny, and had straight black hair. He kept his pretty short though. Not as luscious as well. 6 As for his content, he mostly did ‘variety streams’, which meant that almost no stream was like the one before. His weekly schedule was functionally the same each week–he streamed MOBAs, whatever ‘streamer-bait’ game was hot at the time, ‘zatsudans’, and the occasional ‘hand cam’ stream. More irregularly he did cooking streams, like the one he was doing now. He also did ASMR streams,. You can figure out what that entails for yourself. As his roommate, I didn’t really see the appeal of watching him play games–he could be pretty funny, but watching your roommate’s stream wasn’t all that appealing to me. I’m sure you understand. Not like he needed the support either, since he cracked into the four-figures easily every time he streamed. Didn’t even have to give a sympathy subscription to. — I’d only moved into the house a month prior. Desperate to get out of my mother’s place, I jumped at the first vacancy out there. While my new job at Hobby Lobby paid well, my choices of where to rent were quite limited. You would think that with all of the construction going on, rent would be relatively low. Or at least be stabilized. Guess that’s my fault for trying to use logic when it came to the housing market. Rent from where I was living at was average about $1200 a month–ridiculous considering that Greenville was only a mid-size city. I heard that rent in Chicago was lower, and that 7 place actually probably had non-retail employers that would hire me. Maybe I should’ve moved there instead… I was about to lose all hope when I found this place. It was the best deal around. $600 a month is a steal these days! I get my own master bedroom, my own bathroom, and my own office! Not to mention that it was on a pretty sizable plot of land. Big enough to host any party you wanted to, but not too large. It even came with all of the furnishings. The landlord even bought a new mattress for the bed I was going to be sleeping on…she was a bit eccentric, going on about how often I should wash the sheets and what detergent to use. She was way better than the stereotypical shitty landlords that most people seem to have. There was one caveat to where my domain was though...it was in the middle of nowhere. Well, not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but it’s pretty out there. To put it in one way–the nearest restaurant is the gas station a mile away. Anyways, it took about 15 minutes to get to the nearest town, which was about the same time it took me to get to work. The drive was roughly the same every time, although there were occasional tractors that got in the way. It made for a great excuse whenever I was late for work. Early morning driving can be great if there’s no fog around. Driving around at night was a different story. You always had to watch out for deer. Not that I’ve ever hit one, but there have been close calls. 8 Work was where I was headed. It was 2:30 and my shift started at 3. I was leaving a bit early, but I knew with Michael’s cooking stream I might need to get out of there when I have the time. You see, the way out was by the kitchen. The laundry room, where the back door was, was right next to the stove Michael was using to make his pancakes. I could’ve used the other door, but that would’ve meant that I would have to walk through the grass. Considering that it rained just this morning, I would get my shoes dirty if I walked through the grass to my car. I hated to do it, but I had to interrupt Michael’s stream to get through. It wasn’t the first time I had to do this. Two weeks ago, I had to ‘pause’ his stream to get to work. He was only using the microwave to test every Hot Pocket they had on sale at Kroger, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to squeeze by. This time it would be more difficult though. Michael had told me that he had a plan for cases like this. He would simply pause the stream. It really wasn’t a big deal to him apparently. I guess he saw it as an opportunity to take a breather. That was the way it was supposed to go, but that was before I stubbed my toe at the most inopportune time… — 9 “Jesus Christ man, are you okay?” “Ahhhh…I think so…” I was looking down at my pinky toe, now laying bare on the carpet. You would think that a sock would shield toes from this sort of pain, but apparently not. To be fair, my pinky toe did hit the dresser at full speed. From the blood that was forming around my toe, it was apparent that I would need a bandaid. It would only be sanitary, plus my sock was bloody enough as it is. We had all of our medical supplies in the kitchen, away from where Michael’s streaming stuff was set up. I hobbled there to get the bandaid my pinky toe sorely needed. I found it rather odd how calm Michael seemed to be considering I barged in and interrupted it a bit rudely. “Is it really alright?” “What’s alright?” “Your stream.” “Oh, that.” He looked back at the stove. From the fact that nothing was sizzling, I guess his stream was about to wind down. “I wouldn’t worry about that… 10 “Sure, the chat heard you, but just barely. You scared the living daylights out of me, but my chat only heard you from a distance. I’ve yelled from that distance at mics on stream multiple times. “These mics,” Michael said while pointing to a huge ass microphone that was clamped to the counter “drown out background noise very well. If anything, all this confirmed that you existed.” He did make a good point. It wasn’t like his audience had never heard of me before. The only thing that was added was a voice–albeit a very muffled one, according to him. None of his ‘fujis’ (what his ‘more enthusiastic’ fans call themselves) had found any of my social media, and the Venn diagram of ‘Francis Fukuyama Watchers’ and ‘Hobby Lobby Shoppers’ was more than likely two separate circles. I see his fans as more of Jo-Ann Fabric’s shoppers. Or perhaps Michael’s. Now that I think about it, it would be pretty funny if they were. Either way, according to Michael, it would be near impossible to pin a voice to a face from what I let slip. That’s good, because it’s in our best interest to not reveal who we are on a stream being watched by thousands of people. My identity being revealed would only lead to Michael’s also being revealed, and from what I’ve read about VTubers, concealing your identity is vital in almost all cases. He could be fired for a mistake like this if it caught back up to bite him. If he was an ‘indie VTuber’, then this wouldn’t matter so much, but Michael was a big league corporate VTuber. He was part of ‘AnyClover’, which was one of the biggest ‘VTuber Agencies’ on the internet. They had enough Virtual YouTubers on their roster to field a football team. 11 Michael was a relatively newer addition, debuting around a year and a half ago. He’d been a VTuber under a different name before, but his legal name was never disclosed. Needless to say, his confidentiality was vital to his employment. I was done taking care of my throbbing toe. I rubbed alcohol on it and had wrapped like three bandaids around it just to make sure no blood leaked out. I went ahead and put my shoes on. The kitchen and the laundry room shared the same linoleum floor, which made it less gross to put them on while still in the house. After the pain I experienced, I don’t know if I’ll take my shoes off ever again. I didn’t care how much dirt I drug throught the house. My little toe can’t handle much more pain. “All right, I got everything sorted. I’ll go and let you continue your stream.” “It’s really not a big deal…I’ve been up here non-stop for about four hours now. I could use the breather.” Yeah, you’ve been at it since like 11. “Well I’m glad I could be in service then. I bet wearing those gloves are a pain in the ass to cook in.” Michael had to wear gloves whenever he did a stream that involved his hands. These were called ‘handcam’ streams. Apparently, it’s sort of an unwritten rule for VTubers for them to never show their hands. I guess for women VTubers, if they had intricate nail designs, they could accidentally dox themselves if they were revealed on stream…well, technically the same could be said for men as well. That issue didn’t matter to Michael though, 12 considering he had ‘regular’ nails. His model had roughly the same skin tone as him, so it wouldn’t break that much immersion. Nonetheless, he wore gloves everytime he showed his hands. Better safe than sorry I guess. He temporarily took off his gloves, his hands looking like they just got out of a sauna. “Making those pancakes has really worn you out huh.” I remarked. He looked back at his creations, “All I can say is that making a heart-shaped pancake is harder than you think it is.” Not really, you just suck at cooking is what I wanted to say, but I held my tongue. “Still don’t see how that takes three hours' worth of cooking though.” Okay, I barely held it. “Well…I’ve been talking with chat for the last hour. The superchats won’t stop coming in!” “Well aren’t you lucky.” I can’t lie, I was envious. He probably made as much in the last hour as I made in a work week. “What can I say? The people love me and my pancakes.” That was Michael’s charm. He could be serious one moment, but then lighthearted the next. I’d say that his ability to not take himself seriously is what made him such a good streamer and VTuber. It also helped that he was typically quick on the draw to drop a 13 joke, which kept the chat engaged. There was also the fact that he was willing to ASMR streams, which thankfully took place in his room, far enough away from me to hear any of it. His ‘fujis’ loved it, but I didn’t personally want to hear my roommate roleplay as my boyfriend. Being relatively a ‘nerd’ myself, I already knew what a VTuber was before I moved in with Michael. I never was really interested in them, but living with one has made me start to watch some clips from YouTube. Many of his fellow VTubers at AnyClover are actually quite funny. Michael can be hilarious himself, but considering I live with the guy I didn’t really watch his content. I got it straight from the tap. I’m not that into streamers in the first place, but I understand why people like VTubers. Altogether, I didn’t regret moving out at all. Sure, Michael can be loud as hell sometimes. That’s the nature of VTubers. But he’s considerate enough to keep it down at night. His usual streaming room is across the house anyways, so it would take a banshee scream to wake me up if I was sleeping. And these types of streams he does where he takes up half the kitchen is only a once or twice-a-month thing at most. It’s not like I cook most of the food I eat anyways. I could deal with an occasional road block if it meant having blazing fast internet and cheap rent. “...Are you gonna go? I do need to come back from the ‘toilet’ soon or they’re going to think I fell in.” He had been away for about ten minutes at this point. Chat probably assumed he got lost on the way back. 14 “Oh shit, sorry yeah. I’m going.” I didn’t want to move, but I had to go eventually. “Alright, I’ll save the pancakes that aren’t eaten for you.” He pointed at the tupperware bowl filled with the pancakes he already made. It was about filled to the brim. He had used a lot of pancake batter, which left a huge mess. I sure hope he was going to clean up after this–I assumed he would, but this was the first time I ever saw him do a stream like this. If Miss Landlord saw her kitchen in this state, then she would probably flip out. “Sounds great.” I said as I finally got off the counter and walked towards the door. I still had 20 minutes to go until I had to be at work, and 26 minutes before I had to clock in, so I wasn’t in a hurry. I guess Michael had some more superchats to read though. He had only made a few good heart-shaped pancakes, with his other attempts resembling something more of a kidney bean than a cartoon heart. Either way, he only burnt half of them. Nothing syrup and butter can’t fix. He made enough pancakes to feed a whole extended family–I already knew that I was gonna probably be eating breakfast for dinner tonight. I was going to be home at midnight and probably staying up for a few more hours–I’ll be honest, I can’t hide it–I was excited at the prospect of having some late-night pancakes. So excited that it almost made me forget that today is Valentine’s Day. 15 The One Chip Challenge [“hey can you get the mail ? i got my hands full rn”] [“Will do”] I knew Michael was just being lazy, but getting the mail wasn’t a big deal to me. I usually got it anyway. That being said, Michael texting me about it got me to get up and go outside. I needed to see if I got any mail as well. It was around 1 PM, and I had the day off work and nothing better to do. Formula 1 didn’t start for a few more weeks, so I had no qualifying to watch today. There was an Xfinity NASCAR race on later–the NASCAR season was ‘offically’ starting this week, with the Daytona 500 coming on tomorrow. The Xfinity series was like the tier below the main NASCAR Cup series. The minor leagues. That race didn’t start for another four hours though. I didn’t feel like watching anime, even though I wasn’t caught up with currently airing anime by any stretch of the imagination. I could go to the gym, but I’m still reeling from slamming my toe into furniture last Tuesday…that was my excuse for now. The gym was by work, so it made it easy to go after I clocked out, but other than that, it was a bit silly to drive that far just to pump some iron. The walk to the mailbox took about a minute. It wasn’t that bad, considering I didn’t have to walk in the grass any. The road next to our place was basic. Barely a two-lane road. It wasn’t rarely used other by those who also lived here, and the occasional person who got lost. It wasn’t in the best condition, but at least it didn’t have any 16 potholes. For now at least. The speed limit being 25 miles per hour helped with that–along with no 18 wheelers ever passing by. There wasn’t much in the mailbox. At least for me. All I had was another Chase credit card offer. I get like one of those a week. So annoying. Michael on the other hand had a small package from Amazon, which was shoved in between more junk mail. Not too much mail. Michael’s package was extremely light, it had something shaking inside. It must have been related to one of his streams, considering the urgency he had when asking me to get it, instead of waiting until he was free to go outside and get it. Heading back inside, I threw all of the junk mail on the kitchen counter. I was gonna throw all of it away, but I liked to see where the junk was from in the first place. I also found it cathartic to rip up envelopes into pieces. It’s fun. But first, I had to give Michael his package. — Outside of Michael’s room, I knocked on his door and said “Hey, I got your package”. “Come in.” Michael said somewhat listlessly. As if I was his personal servant, I did. Inside, Michael was on his bed, staring at the ceiling. “Yeah, you’re definitely busy huh.” 17 Michael, barely leaning left to look at me, sighed and said “Wow, can a guy take a break every once in a while?” I sighed back. I mean, I was the one who got the mail anyways. Today was no different than other days, other than me personally delivering it to Michael’s room instead of leaving it on the kitchen counter. Looking at his streaming setup, it looked like he had spent sometime setting something up, by the fact that his chair wasn’t tucked in and that there was a box all ripped up on his desk. “...so, what were you setting up?” “A new handcam. It’s been in my storage for quite some time now. It’s supposed to be way better quality than the one I was using before, but it’s been a real pain to set up.” “Let me guess…the driver didn’t want to work.” I’ve had issues with webcams before. I’m sure everyone has. I don’t know what it was about them that made them finicky, but they were nonetheless. You would think that an expensive webcam like the one Michael got wouldn’t have these issues. Michael nodded. Yep, right on the money. As if he was summoned, Michael hopped out of his bed and into his computer chair. Guess he was done with his break. He looked at my hand and said “Oh yeah, toss me that package.” 18 I replied “Sure thing.” Honestly, I forgot all about his package since it was so light. Whatever Michael had gotten couldn’t be that fragile, considering he motioned me to throw it like a fastball. I declined to be that careless with other people’s stuff, only tossing it to him. Once he caught it, he instantly started to open the package. He slid out a small coffin-shaped box onto his desk. All I could see from this distance is that the box had a skull yelling on the front of it. I immediately knew what it was–an ‘One Chip Challenge’ box. The One Chip Challenge was exactly what it sounded like—a challenge where you eat the world’s hottest tortilla chip. The chip was plastered with Carolina Reaper peppers, which from my experience was so powerful that even sniffing it made your nose run. 19 My rough drawing of the box. As you can see, it roughly resembled a tombstone, with a red skull on the front, and a blue tongue, which the chip was supposed to turn your tongue into. Guess that was the gimmack for this years…or technically last year I guess. 20 Looking at the box, his mood instantly improved, saying “Awesome, now everything is set up for today’s stream.” Hold on. What? “Wait, you’re eating that today?” I had to check to see if I wasn’t making things up. “Yep” he replied nonchalantly. “Are you sure? That’s one strong chip.” The Carolina Reaper pepper is the hottest in the world if I recall correctly. “I’m very sure.” He wasn’t flubbing or backing down in anyway. “I’m just telling you right now, I once had a friend do the challenge. He only lasted two minutes and was bedridden for the next day.” It was true–he did it over Discord, and after that, he didn’t go on his computer for a full day. “No offense to your friend, but I’m one hundred percent sure I’m more prepared than he will ever be.” I had no idea where the sudden burst of confidence was coming from. Was he trying to fake it until he made it? Did he think that ‘confidence was key’ when it came to eating hot things? Who knows, but my warnings were not getting to him. “Yeah whatever man, have you ever even seen anyone else do this?” 21 “No. Don’t see why I would need to. Besides, I’ve been eating spicy food all of my life. I’m not your friend.” Yeah, you’re being a total fucking moron right now. “That’s not the point…you know what? I don’t care. Go ahead. Eat it.” His arrogance kinda annoyed me. Even if it was his own funeral. “In fact, if you want. I’ll be in the room while you stream it. Just so you can have ‘proof’ that you actually ate the thing.” Michael suddenly perked up “You know what? That’s actually a good idea…are you sure you can spare the time to watch me ace this challenge?” “Well, I mean I got nothing better to do.” I really didn’t. The Xfinity race would be going on, but that wasn’t that important for me to watch. “Great! The stream is starting at 6, but you can wait until about 6:30 to come.” I’d get to catch the first half or so of the race, depending on how many cautions there were. “Cool, I’ll be here then. Do you want me to bring what’s left of the milk in the fridge with me?” “Don’t see why I would need any. I already have my water right here, and something a little extra in case the challenge goes wrong. Besides, you know that I hate milk.” No, actually I don’t. I’m not your mother man. 22 I started to say something to the effect of ‘you know water isn’t gonna help you’, but then I realized–this could be ‘peak content’. No, this WILL be peak content. “…Okay. I’ll be around then.” My annoyance at Michael’s flippancy toward the chip subsided after thinking about the idea of him literally eating his words later on. Of course, there was also the possibility that he could actually take on the challenge and ‘pass’ it. I mean, it was true that he did eat spicy food often. Well, at least he ordered it when he got DoorDash. Nothing on the level of the Carolina Reaper though. I still didn’t really know what the ‘challenge’ was, truth be told. All I knew was that when my friend took the challenge, he lasted about two minutes before he gave. He drank about half a gallon of milk, which did nothing to help him for the better part of an hour. After that, he was rendered asunder, not wanting to move from his bed. The ‘side effects’ of the chip, according to him, included the worst stomachache of his life and a loss of appetite. I felt bad for him, but it was funny seeing his face go from white to bright red in a matter of 30 seconds. Michael’s viewers wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing this, due to the nature of VTubing, but I would have a front-row seat. All they would get is the face his model freezes on when he gives. I knew in the back of my mind that he was going to regret ever doing this after it was over, but also knew that the chat would love it. Plus, me being there would increase the ‘validity’ of the challenge. The chat already knew of my existence due to my outburst a few days ago. He technically couldn’t prove he ate it with just a handcam, but me 23 being a witness to it added an extra layer of plausibility. Truth be told, if the challenge went anywhere as bad as when my friend did it, the chat would know that Michael wasn’t faking the challenge. You can’t fake that pain. — I spent most of my free time pondering the events that were going to go down later that evening. While Michael’s streams usually started right at the beginning of the hour, it tended to take him a while to get to the main event. He usually spent some time talking to his viewers before he got started—up towards to an hour for some streams! Some would call this stalling, but in reality I understood why he spent so much time talking to his chat. Without them, he wouldn’t be able to do this for a living. If the superchats kept coming in, then there was no reason for him to continue. That’s my interpretation anyway…there’s a reason why he’s the entertainer and why I’m not. Anyways, the thirty-minute time limit he gave himself would hopefully give him enough time to talk to his fans and get prepared for today’s steam. One of the ways I managed to drain the five-hour wait was to go on social media. I’ve never been a huge fan of social media persay, mostly using it for news and to talk to close friends, but lately I’ve been finding myself lurking on there more. Mostly it was due to the fascination I had about Michael’s following. Along with being extremely talkative to his fans in the chat (Apparently, streams that were dedicated to conversing with the chat were some of the most popular out there. While it was questionable if they would 24 see your message or superchat while you were playing a game, it was without question that they would see it if yo were doing a ‘zatsudan’.), he also spends a good amount of time on Twitter posting about his daily life and chatting with his fellow VTubers and fans. There was a little bit of embellishment on the part of Michael when it came to posting about what he did outside of streaming, but nothing that was an outright lie. I was on there looking to see if Michael had posted anything about today’s stream. The last post on he made, from this morning, was talking about the ‘special surprise’ he had in store for tonight’s stream. The way he was hyping his ‘surprise’ made me wonder if he actually did knew how powerful the chip was, considering it was billed on his weekly schedule as a ‘surprise stream’. Then again, considering that he didn’t even want me to prepare him some milk, he was still showing a massive amount of arrogance that was going to bite him in the ass a few hours from now. It also made me wonder: What would he have done if his chip didn’t arrive today? Was Michael mastering the concept of ‘just-in-time content’? That was highly doubtful, considering that relying on the United States Postal Service being on time would be a world-class bozo decision. But, one thing I learned quickly, is that you never know with VTubers. Part of me just wished that he would tell his fans what he was doing, but I knew that would majorly spoil the fun of him when he realizes the chip's ‘power’. Other than that, he was retweeting fanart of his Francis, his model–most VTubers do this, but Michael has had a massive influx of fanart ever since last week. Apparently, a lot of fanartists have been drawing his model with ‘Roomie-chan’, which was me. VTubers having roommates wasn’t a new thing, but I’m guessing this was the first time ‘Roomie-chan’ had a speaking part in a stream. While I 25 originally thought that it would be kind of creepy to see myself drawn, in practice, it was hilarious, since ‘Roomie-chan’ didn’t look anything like me. First off, I do not have straight blonde hair. Second off, I’m not 190 centimeters tall. I think that’s like 6’6”. If I was that tall, I would be hooping right now instead of planning my day around seeing my roommate eat shit due to his hubris. ‘Roomie-chan’ was so different from me that I didn’t feel any discomfort seeing what was basically my likeness. It was basically a Jon Dowd situation. They made me look like Leon Kennedy. It was funny how Michael’s fans so quickly came to a consensus about what they thought I looked like. It had to be wishful thinking on their part. I didn’t mind, because it meant that I was pretty much able to stay anonymous. It also confirmed that I haven’t been spotted at work yet. Michael is pretty secretive about saying where he’s located, especially since this area is pretty rural. Either way, I didn’t blow his or my cover when I had my ‘yabai’ moment a few days ago. Me and what Michael–I mean Francis’s fans think I look like. 26 If he was also trying to hide the fact that I was going to make a cameo later, he was doing a poor job. Most fans probably assumed that my appearance was the surprise at this point. Considering my first appearance was only four days ago, it wouldn’t be that much of a ‘surprise’. More of ‘cashing in’. At least it wasn’t ‘selling out’. Pondering this, I went to the kitchen to grab a quick snack–it was around 3 PM. I should just eat lunch, but I was too lazy to heat something up. Going to the fridge, I grabbed the carton of milk for the bowl of cereal I was going to make. In the pantry, we had Raisin Bran Crunch and Froot Loops. Today I felt more like Raisin Bran. Looking at the gallon in my hand, I noticed that there was less left than I originally thought. After pouring the amount of milk necessary for my cereal, there was only enough in there for about one or two more cups of coffee. This usually wasn’t really a problem, considering that Michael didn’t drink milk, but considering the topic of today’s stream, this might end up being a predicament. Well, a predicament only in my eyes, since Michael wouldn’t ‘need’ it, or even want it. I was going to go by Kroger after work tomorrow anyways, so it wasn’t really a huge issue. He’s more than old enough to make his own decisions. It’s his own funeral. — After eating my Raisin Bran, I checked Twitter once more. I saw that Michael finally made the announcement on his account that ‘Roomie-chan’ was going to make an 27 appearance. I figured that most people could already see that I was going to be there, since he retweeted like a dozen pieces of fanart of ‘me’. Nonetheless it would be good to get that out of the way before I actually come on his stream. It wasn’t like I was going to have any other role than just being there. While laying in my bed, I thought about ways I could contribute to the stream without having a second yabai moment. As far as I know, there wasn’t a precedent for this, so I would have to get creative. This should be Michael’s job, I knew, but considering he just announced I was going to be on, I assumed he didn’t have any plans for me. Thinking about it, I came up with an idea. I could always write notes and show it to the chat through Michael’s handcam. That way, I could talk without actually talking. I didn’t have the best handwriting, but it wasn’t like I was gonna write a thesis on sticky notes. There was a zip-lock bag full of medical gloves in the kitchen, so I could wear those as well so I didn’t reveal my hand in the flesh. God forbid if any of Michael’s fans saw my pale fingers. The gloves were blue, which would differentiate myself from Michael and the black gloves he wore. After my short brainstorming session, I sent Michael my idea for tonight's stream. About two minutes later, I got a response that was just the thumbs-up emoji. He must be playing something if that’s all he’s gonna send me. It annoyed me that he didn’t even send me a ‘sure’ or a ‘that sounds good’, but I wasn’t going to badger him more. It was his stream anyways. If he had any better ideas he could bring them up to me in the meantime. 28 Laying on my bed, I made an executive decision to take a nap–I know it’s bad to sleep right after eating a meal, but I had nothing else better to do for the next two and a half hours. Thankfully (or unthankfully, since this nap is likely to mess up my sleep schedule at least a bit), I fell asleep right as soon as my head hit my pillow. — Waking up at 5:30, I still had some time to kill before Michael attempted the One Chip Challenge. After turning on the Xfinity race, I decided to go on the Paqui’s (the company that makes the chip) website on my phone. Looking at the ‘#onechipchallenge’ tab, I watched a video promoting the challenge. As expected, most of the thirty-second video was people grimacing after eating the chip. I’m sure most of you have already heard of the One Chip Challenge, but I’ll sum it up for those who haven’t. The chip of the One Chip Challenge was of the large tortilla variety–it is filled with Carolina Reaper Pepper and Scorpion Pepper, both some of the hottest peppers in the world. This year, the catch was that the chip made your tongue turn blue–something Michael couldn’t show anyone but me. The actual ‘challenge’ was to see how long one can last without eating or drinking anything for relief. My friend made it about two minutes in before he broke and gulped down a whole glass of milk. According to the Paqui website, that meant he was ‘powerless’. If he would have survived for eight minutes more, then he would be ‘powerful’. For thirty minutes, he 29 would be ‘supercharged’. And if he was somehow able to last a full hour, he would be declared ‘invincible’. I haven’t ever tried this challenge, and I don’t have any plans to after seeing the pain my friend endured. I don’t think anyone had ever lasted an hour–if they did, then they weren’t showing it on here. Paqui did also sell ‘regular’ spicy chips–something that may be worth trying, unlike the chip Michael would be eating later. If they put as much effort into the taste as they do to inflicting damage, then their chips have to be pretty good. Checking back on Twitter, Michael had tweeted out a link to today’s stream. Most VTubers, and especially ones affiliated with large corporations like Michael, had weekly schedules that they stuck to by any means necessary. Having to postpone or delay a stream wouldn’t make you persona non grata, but it would give viewers an opportunity to watch someone else. The number one objective of every VTuber, hell, every streamer, was to keep eyes on them. That meant that there were no days off for most VTubers who stream for a living. If you weren’t streaming that day, you were more than likely making preparations for future streams–or in Michael’s case, having meetings with management or appearing on other VTuber streams. Michael had always had a weekly schedule up–this schedule gave his fans an opportunity to know in advance when and what he was streaming. The fact that people out there were scheduling their day partially around you streaming had to be a weird feeling, but I’m sure Michael was used to it at this point. 30 Funnily enough, if you checked the Twitter accounts of his coworkers, their schedules and his combined for an almost 24/7 nonstop loop of content. I don’t think anybody does that though. Many VTuber fans tended to have a favorite (who they call their ‘oshi’), and only rarely watched other VTubers. To be fair tho them, there was only so much time one had to watch streams. Work, school, and life in general would get in the way. There were definitely those who had like seven ‘oshis’, but at that point, you either have them on all the time, or are fibbing a bit to when it comes to which VTubers you like the most. That being said, Michael and the other VTubers at AnyClover often collaborated together, however, creating a sense of community that expanded out to their fanbases. Even if you didn’t watch a certain VTuber, you would most likely know something about them if they collabed with your ‘oshi’. AnyClover had ten current members in its English branch, Michael being one of them. I haven’t had the opportunity to meet any of the other nine yet, but they all seemed to be nice people. At least going by the interactions I saw Michael have with them on Twitter. Clicking the link in Michael’s tweet led to the ‘waiting room’ for today’s stream. The surprise still wasn’t revealed, with the thumbnail being a throwaway one that I’ve seen him use before. There were already over one hundred people in here, even with the stream not starting for another fifteen minutes. Most of them probably had the stream open while doing something else, but there were also people in the chat talking to each other. It was strange how I was now actively playing a part to a role in this community now. I’ve never participated in his chat, even as a random bystander. I never considered getting a membership to his channel. I already knew what he did for those ‘member 31 streams’. He mostly did movie watchalongs and zatsudans and all of that. I’m not that interested in that when I could do the same thing with him in real life. Funnily enough, I got gifted a membership to one of Michael’s genmates about two weeks ago. It was one of his female coworkers, named ‘Violet Bridgewater’. She was streaming RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, which is a dear game from my childhood. Although I only watched for only about twenty minutes, I was one of ten lucky people to get gifted a sub during that time. I felt bad for not saying ‘Thank you’ in chat, but I didn’t know it was proper etiquette at the time. It was a good stream, but I haven’t tuned in since. From her streaming history, it seems that she’s more into card and fighting games, both genres that I don’t know that much about. She also seemed to stream ‘classic games’ from time to time. By ‘classic’, I mean PlayStation 2 games. I do hope she streams more RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 soon. I subscribed to her and all of Michael’s other streamer friends in the AnyClover EN branch. If anything else, I could know what he was doing if I also kept tabs on the other members, as it seemed that they all hung out with each other mostly off stream as well. I wouldn’t say that they were the closest of friends, but there was no drama within the group–at least not that I heard of. Michael occasionally had some shit to say about someone he knew, but never about anyone in AnyClover. The funny part is that when he did talk to me about another VTuber in his group, he always referred to them by their VTuber name–never by their birth name or what they went by outside of VTubing. It was a weird dichotomy, since I only really knew him as ‘Michael’, while everyone else knew 32 him as ‘Francis’. Of course, I assumed that his coworkers knew his actual name and vice versa–it was just easier to refer to each other as what they went by on-stream. I closed out of the stream since I had no intention of watching it–why would I have it up if I was going to be on there? There was only one other AnyClover member on–they were streaming some mobile game that I had no interest in learning about. It was surprising that there was only one other person on, considering it was the weekend and around prime time. Michael has told me that they have a significant amount of fans in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia. A lot of this, according to him, was due to many members having roots in that region. Some VTubers even did streams in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog (which recently I learned ISN’T pronounced ‘tag-along’. My bad.), etc.), which further endeared them to fans from that country. Needless to say, the Virtual YouTubers of AnyClover had an international audience. The sun never set on The AnyClover Empire to say the least. Looking at the clock, it was around six–the start time for Michael’s stream. I could go in there right now, but it would be very early to do so. He still had to talk to his chat–well, technically he didn’t have to, but it was his style to do so. Especially with the number of superchats and subscriptions that flooded in at the beginning of a stream, it would be rude not to thank those that support you. The Xfinity race, which was called Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner 300 funnily enough, was going well for drivers at this point. A ‘big one’ hadn’t happened yet, and the racing was orderly enough to where I pondered if “It’s What’s” was the proper pronunciation. Think about it–”It is what is for 33 dinner”–sounding it out like that, it sounds awkward. Is there really a need for a second ‘is’? Personally, I thought “Its What’s For Dinner” would be more grammatically correct. “Its what is for dinner” rolls off my tongue better. Then again, I’m not an English major, and English has very stupid rules for stuff like this. I’m sure the Beef Lobby would have known if it was grammatically incorrect before rolling it out how many years ago at this point. Grammatically correct or not, the fact that I was thinking about it meant that the marketing was working. That being said, the stereotypical person who watched NASCAR was probably already a heavy beef eater, so it was really an exercise in branding rather than trying to enter an unknown market as far as I see it. Like Gatorade sponsoring something related to the NFL. Feeling kinda peckish from all of this beef talk, I went to the freezer and grabbed a tiny ice cream cone. Containing a part of the cow, but not the one I was being marketed to me. Score one for ‘Got Milk’. One of the pleasures of being an adult was being able to ruin your appetite on your own terms. With the cereal earlier and the ice cream I was having now, my diet today was rather lacking in everything other than fiber and dairy. Well, I had a particularly fast metabolism, so it didn’t really matter that much. The troubling part was that I grabbed the last one, meaning I would have to get some more tomorrow. Another reason to stop by Kroger after work. Michael enjoyed these too, which meant these were a hot commodity in the household. Maybe I should tell him that there’s milk in it so he doesn’t eat them anymore. 34 — Thirty minutes passed. The race still was relatively clean for a Superspeedway race. Entertaining nonetheless. Right at the 6:35 PM mark, Michael messaged me [“you can come now”]. The funny thing is that we use Discord to talk, and he uses his VTuber account to message me. I’m not sure if that’s against the rules or not, but I’m not finding out. I would probably look schizophrenic if I told people that the person I talk to the most only exists ‘on the internet’. Entering Michael’s room, I saw him preparing to change over to the setup for today’s stream. He was still in his default setup, which was his VTuber model sitting in a room that was way more Victorian in design than his actual room. He was putting on his black gloves that VTubers always wear when doing handcam streams. Turning to me, Michael said “I’m muted.” I was free to talk. Sitting in an extra office chair that was in his room, I watched him pull out a small dry-erase board. 35 “You can use this to talk once everything’s ready to go.” he said while handing the board to me. This was a better idea than my sticky note idea–also seeing as I forgot to bring them, I’m glad Michael had another idea. Putting on the gloves I got from the kitchen, Michael said “Oh good, the only other pair of gloves I own are my backup pair of these.” holding up a pair identical to the ones he had on. Did he even read the text I sent him earlier? Wondering, I asked him “Do they know about today’s stream?” “Oh yeah,” pointing at his chat “they already knew you were coming.” “No,” sighing “I already knew that, I’m talking about the chip.” “Wait? How did you know that?” He look puzzled, like I didn’t personally deliver the damn thing to him mere hours ago. “I saw it on Twitter.” “You follow me on there?” 36 “Well...yeah. I have to keep up with what you’re doing somehow.” The guy had like half a million followers on Twitter, so there’s no way he could have noticed me following him. All I do on there is lurk anyway. Getting back to the point, I asked again “So, they don’t know about the chip?” Gesturing to the chip, Michael stated that he was waiting for me to arrive to show the big reveal. This was getting a bit convoluted for what was essentially a tortilla chip unboxing and review, but being a streamer, you have to build hype for your streams. A necessary evil I guess. While we were having our short conversation, I noticed that Michael’s VTuber model, Francis, was still moving around, as if he never muted himself. This was a regular thing, but it was quite absurd to see happening in real-time in my face. Noticing that I was looking at his monitor, Michael said “Go ahead and roll your chair so I can continue.” Settling in, Michael un-muted himself and told everyone in the chat that ‘Roomie-chan’ arrived. The chat was too far away for me to see, but I’m assuming most people were saying hi or something of the sort, seeing how fast it was going. In order to prove that I was actually there, I wrote “hello” in marker on the dry-erase board, then handed it to Michael who then showed it on his handcam. “Come on chat, you know Roomie-chan is obligated to stay silent on stream. It was in the lease agreement he signed!” Some of Michael’s chat wanted me to have a more