Chapter 3: Birth of Female Character Vtuber

Hiro came on time the following day. He put off watching any anime or playing games due to his homework in Veeidol company. After playing with editing software such as GIMP or Photoshop he finally made his masterpiece background for his characters.

He walked confidently and there, he found his senior, Marie. They both greeted each other before walking to the streaming room.

“I have done my homework!” Hiro exclaimed. He excitedly showed his proud work. The blue background with flower petals. Blue was his favourite color. However, to make it more girlish, he put a spinning flower petal on his background. It certainly was not to his taste, however, he needed to act like a female character for this job.

“Huh? Your background looked like windows Xp…” Marie gave a harsh critics right out the bat. Hiro was taken aback at her statement. Hiro is not in a wish fulfillment novel where all of his first work were given green lights and praised to high heaven as extraordinary breakthrough. Hiro, who has never designed before, of course bombed his homework. You could cal it unique or you could call it ugly.

“Don’t say it looks like windows Xp! I am not that old….” Hiro retorted. How did you even know windows Xp anyway? Even I only met windows xp in elementary school.”

https://youtu.be/XatBhzY9iyU

“I am not that old either!” Marie retorted.

“Sorry. So, is my background rejected?” Hiro asked. His face was drained of all color. All of his excitement from yesterday was extinguished by Marie’s harsh critics.

“No. The main attraction for Vtuber is that they actually listened to their audience. Unlike traditional idols whom all connection by fans were managed by their manager or company. Vtuber connect with their fans directly. Your fan will be the one that corrected you. If you have any, that is. Youtuber is a harsh world for beginners. I shall see you grow.”Marie said while smiling.

“I see.” Hiro nodded. “Do I have any targets?”

“No. There aren’t any targets for you to achieve.”

“I see. So, I can stream whenever I want?”

“Ah, but you still need to stream at least once a week or your status will be turned into hiatus and you might lose followers.” Marie replied. “y the way, our company didn’t really care about your followers. All they care is how much you earned.”

“i see.” Hiro nodded. He was a little amazed by her blatant honesty. He heard advice from his mother not to speak honestly. All of his words needed to be shrouded politely and away from self interest. For example, instead of promoting goods so your company could profit, you should promote your goods that benefited customer. Even if you sell a useless rocks. Yous hould speak as if you care for your customer’s well being and that’s why you promote your goods to them.

“I thought you will say followers is number one or we want an active members.” Hiro murmured.

“Well, that’s important too. But, our programmatic advertising in youtube doesn’t really care about your follower count. Onky your view count which tied directly to our revenue.”

“So subscriber or follower is not important? Why all those youtubers begged for subscriber anyway?” Hiro now tilted his head.

“A high subscriber count and positive rating pushed your channel to the front page in certain tags. That’s why, while it is not directly impacted your revenue, some considered it more important than patronage or view count.” Marie answered.

“Okay. Thank you for answering me, I appreciate it.” Hiro nodded.

“Now, let’s do the lore. What will be her name?” Marie asked.

“I have thought about this. Her name will be Lily.” Hiro answered.

“Hmm… how unoriginal.”

“Well I have wondered about unique name. Like Lodewess, or Wareway, or Lichess saint. Hwever somehow, simple Lily stick.”

“Why did you choose that name?”

“I don’t know. I just thought about her this morning. When I slept, I dreamt of a girl from another world. She was a slave who then becomes a ruthless tyrant. People called her the immortal ice queen.” Hiro closed his eyes as he recounted the dream so vividly. Lonely throne, backstabbing underling. She looked at them uncaring when the queen glanced into his direction, an empty eyes devoid of emotion. Like a frozen flame which was cold on the outside but ignited brightly on the inside. After recounting his lore with the ice queen, Hiro opened his eyes.

Marie let out a silent gasp when she looked at Hiro. His demeanor changed. His eye who used to be a loser let out a sharp glint. However, that only lasted a moment and Hiro soon turned back to his loser glare. Marie then coughed a little to ease up the atmosphere and continue her orientation.

“good. It seems like everything is in order. You may practice using that background on this room. Practice your debut. Remember, you need to practice as a female character.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Do you have any social media account?”

“Nope. I have no single social media account.” Hiro answered immediately. His decisive answers speak for itself as a proof that he has no friends.

“Sorry. That doesn’t matter as everyone need a new social media account for ther characters anyway.” Marie apologized at the miserable statement by hiro.

“Why did you asked, then?” Hiro, with his keen sense of being slandered asked her.

“We usually asked our new members to implicitly mentioned their new characters in their social medias as a form of advertisement.” Marie answered. Hiro’s shoulder sagged as he further realized he couldn’t get very far in life without friends.

“So, the company won’t help?”

“We will help of course. Our company’s profile will mention you and our advertisement corner would also mention you. Do’t worry. Just don get your hopes up compared to your recent coworker.”

“Alright.” Hiro nodded.   He never wanted to be number one. He simply wanted to be good enough in this company. It was impossible to compete against people with former experience and beautiful girls with fashion sense like Marie anyway.

“Your debut will be in a week. Practice hard for your debut ok? I will forward your homework to our artist. Maybe he can tweaked your avatar a bit.”

“By the way, I have seen the company’s profile. Who is the new members you mentioned? I didn’t see them. All the members were at least one year old except Ana.”

“Yes, we have three new members who joined last month. they will also debut next week.” Marie answered. Her answers raised hiro’s eyebrow as he questioned his recruitment.

“Is the recruitment last month? Why am I recruited then?”

“Let’s just say David was interested in you who came not from our official channel but from advertisement. The click through rate from that usually below 0,1% and almost none actually filled the form.” Marie sighed. She and David promised never to use such form of advertisement ever again. It was expensive and useless.

“Will I get to meet the new members?” Hiro asked.

“Of course. You will meet them officially in three days. And then, we can play some games to strengthen our bonding” Marie smiled.

“Alright!”

“Ah, by the way, you are the only male members in our group. Please be polite alright?” Maire dropped a bomb right off the bat. This shook hiro greatly. He didn’t expect that he will be the sole male members form the group.

“Huh? There aren’t any male members? But aren’t there male vtubers in your company?”

“Yes, we don’t have English male members yet. We only have four Japanese male vtubers.  By the way, remember, you are a female character.”

“So, am I the only one who has different characters and real life genders?” Hiro asked something that shouldn’t be asked. Curiosity killed him.

“Yes.” Marie answered decisively.

“Why?” Hiro couldn’t believe that he was the only one. He was an anime fans and there were a lot of gender bender or traps in it, so why aren’t there any guy in real live or GIRL vtuber avatars? He understand that vtubers were still in their infant stage. It was only started two years ago. However, he was bewildered that there was no attempt at all.

“Well, a long time ago there was an indie vtubers a long time ago. He was a man, and then, his software accidentally revealed that his cute catgirl was a man….” Marie gave a thousand yard stare as she reminisced the horrifying experience the unfortunate vtubers are in.

“Then?” Hiro asked. He was intrigued by the fate his predecessor.

“Then his followers was split into two. One was disgusted and angry for his trickery, while the others praised for his success.” Marie sighed. Then. She stared at Hiro. “Do not repeat his mistake ever again, okay? If you got exposed, it will not be your only problem. It might even affect the entire company.”

Hiro nodded decisively. His heart raced both with fear and excitement. It has been a long time since he felt this way. He now knew why he should hide his secret. If he was exposed, it would be his social suicide and possibly the company.

“Ah, please come back tomorrow. You could meet new members that way.”

“Huh? Isn’t it supposed to be three days later?”

“That was official meeting. Vtubers ould meet each others unofficially. And such behaviors are encouraged. Our fans like it if we get along together afterall. And while you need to remain absolutely silent, you could even watch your seniors, or ‘senpai’ working from up close.”

“Alright. I will come tomorrow.”

“See you!”