As the days tick by you find yourself in the office on a morning like any other.
You and your assistant have been completely engrossed by the social media buzz surrounding Kaiba and her new stream and things seem to be going well.
However, with the stream being this new you’ve been hesitant to appoint any community moderators and have been moderating the livestream chat, the facebook group, the instagram page and various other forms of social media yourself in shifts with Matsui alongside your other duties.
It’s a lot of work, but at the same time seeing the flood of interest about your idol fills you with a sense of joy.
You finally get a break and decide to reward yourself with a warm beverage.
As you walk towards the break room for a cup of tea, you happen to encounter Matsuno Kojiro, one of the other new managers and nephew of the owner, sitting in the breakroom while he’s furiously typing away on his laptop.
He’s surrounded by discarded paper coffee cups and you can imagine that he decided to just sit down here instead of walking back and forth between office and break room.
There’s a deep scowl on the man’s face and it looks like he hasn’t slept.
His hair is messy, his suit is wrinkled.
It might be none of your business, but, whether past experiences or inner nature, you can’t help but take an interests in people.
”Something is clearly wrong,” you say, browsing the selection of tea packets.
Matsuno Kojiro sighs deeply, “I’ve been doing damage control for hours now,” he says.
”It was going well,” he says, “It really was. I managed to use some connections from my time back in sales to get Maki-chan jobs that would’ve been way out of reach for her. Some real high-profile stuff. She was racking up followers or her Instagram by the thousands.”
“So, what happened?” you ask, deciding on a mango-flavour for your tea.
“Well,” he begins, then pinches the bridge of his nose, “A fan recognized her and asked for a picture. Some teenager around Maki’s age. I was with Maki at the time and told her it was a good idea. More exposure and all that. This was the first time she was recognized in public and asked for a picture, so she was excited and got perhaps closer than is usual for a photo like this. The boy said he would post it to his Instagram.”
He rubs his eyes, “The problems came after,” he says, “The boy posted the image on Instagram and tagged Maki in it. No harm done.”
“But then,” he continues, anger slipping into his expression, “Ichihara Riko placed a comment that said: ‘Happy two years to the both of you! xP’ and things just exploded from there.”
You recoil, hand covering your lips and genuinely shocked, “Did you put ou--”
“A statement that the comment was false?” he says, “Of course, first thing I did, but people had already assumed the news was credible since it came from another idol at the same agency. News like that bursts out the doorway and all you can do is play catch-up.”
He sighs again and drinks down the remnants of a cup of cold, stale coffee, “Now I have companies that were pushing her childlike, innocent image blowing up my phone. Fans are raging. There’s even a viral video of a hardcore, day-one fan ripping up his custom-made Maki poster with a mall-store katana.”
You wince, wondering how one off-hand comment could do this much damage.
“Surely, the company won’t let this go,” you say, trying to soothe your co-manager somewhat.
“They won’t,” he says, but the defeat is clear on his face, “Ichihara Riko and Yukimori Kyoden are in my uncle’s office now.”
His eyes soften somewhat and he begins collecting the paper cups around him in a single-stack, “Not that it matters,” he says, “The damage is done.”
A part of your feels bad for your co-worker, but a larger part feels relief that Kaiba at least doesn’t get herself involved in such things.
She has her own issues, sure, but nothing like this.
“I think,” he says as he finishes collecting the last cup, “Ichihara may have ended Maki’s career.”
That hits and in a sudden surge of sympathy you feel your eyes well up, “That’s… that’s not fair,” you say.
“Maki is a good kid,” he says, “But the truth is that her potential as an idol is limited. It doesn’t make sense for the business to invest tens of thousands of dollars and dozens of hours to fight this wave of misinformation. There won’t be a return on investment. Her reputation is shot. Companies are pulling back.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“It’s better to send Maki home with a good severance package and find a new idol,” he adds, “There’s a lot of cases where any news is good news, but a rumour like this will chase her forever.”
He gets up from his seat, slowly and with great effort – further showcasing the depths of his fatigue, and disposes of the cups.
An idol’s career. Destroyed just like that.
“What about Ichihara Riko?” you murmur, partially stunned in disbelief.
“That’s up to the owner,” he says, waving you goodbye, “I’m gonna crash on the meeting room couch for a while.”
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News of the event slowly bleeds through the company as does the news about the repercussions for Ichihara Riko.
After a heated conversation with the owner, she was tasked with broadcasting a public apology.
Word goes that she meant it as a joke and never expected things to turn out like this.
Her manager, Yukimori Kyoden, confirmed that she had been full-on bawling during their conversation with the owner – tormented by guilt and shame.
She promised that she would never do anything like this ever again.
Furthermore, she has been hit with several social media restrictions and is not allowed to post anything on her official account without approval from her manager or the marketing department.
She used to post a dozen of times per day, at minimum, but now barely posts once every two days.
Those posts are always some incredibly formal endorsements of a product or service.
Ichihara Riko’s actions were ultimately chalked up to youthful ignorance.
[https://assets.legendkeeper.com/91698144-8a14-4dc6-8a88-b59b3f769235.jpg]
Maki Sumi has been let go, but received a generous severance package of $15.000.
This money was taken from Yukimori’s manager budget.
You were there on the day of Maki’s “Graduation”, which is an idol term for retirement, and you’ve never seen a young girl so thoroughly crushed before.
So hopelessly empty inside.
In the absence of an idol to manage, Matsuno Kojiro has been granted the opportunity to attend a course on idol management until the next round of auditions.
People say he’s grown thoroughly jaded and his responses are now short and blunt.
----------------------------------------
Several days pass by.
Kaiba has kept some distance from all the internal developments and has been spending a lot of time on her new vlog – which she seems to be enjoying a lot.
Although talking to a camera by herself like that was initially strange to her and became harder once she noticed how many people were watching, the pressure lightened once she got some experience and figured out how to hide the viewer count.
As time passes she doesn’t even require you to be in the room anymore.
She’s even been getting some donations after that feature was enabled.
Nothing major, but the very idea that people support her fills her with confidence.
Honestly, you almost begin to wonder if she’s beginning to conquer her gloomy-ness.
[@BlueOcean123: (Donated $5.00) Kaiba-chan, fighting!]
[@SkullsSkullsSkulls95: (Donated $10.00) Goth cosplay soon?]
[@Okir99: (Donated $0.50) For future ramen. :) ]
[@DarkFlightXx: (Donated $100.00) Ah~ Kaiba-chan! Kaiba-chan! I made you a fan club!]
[@Idolmaster33: (Donated $0.01) BoobaEmote BoobaEmote BoobaEmote]
[@Keyszz1: (Donated $5.00) 7777777777777777777777777777777777777777]
[@Keyszz1: (Donated $1.00) please enable TTS]
[@NikoPanda87: (Donated $20.00) Win, kaiba-chan! Your stream always cheers me up!]
They mostly seemed to be minor amounts, so you told Kaiba that she should just pocket these donations herself or invest it back into her vlogs.
Considering you have acting practice scheduled for Kiaba, you decide to tease Kaiba and ask if she really wants to practice her acting or if she just needs something to vlog about.
The joke is lost on her, panic clear in her face, and she becomes incredibly defensive and says she’ll continue to work hard on becoming a better idol.
Ah, well. Not quite so confident yet, it seems.
> META
>
> Rolling
> >2 - Have Kaiba train on her ACTING using an outside trainer / consultant (50 energy, Cost: $10,000, +10 modifier to the roll)
>
> Kaiba Energy: 50/100 (Spend 50)
> Budget: $90.000 (Spend $10.000)
>
> Need a 1d100+10 roll
> DC to beat is 37. If successful roll a 1d6.
>
> Rolled 24 + 10 (1d100 + 10) - Failure
> No skill increases.
[https://assets.legendkeeper.com/47d1e4a1-0d39-4ee8-a3e4-f09f054d1029.png]
Kaiba spend the week with an acting coach, but things didn’t seem to click.
Perhaps it was because the instructor was a bit too forceful causing Kaiba to shut down.
It feels bad to lose $10.000 like this, but you can’t keep having wins.
The live-vlog following that training had been interesting though.
What should’ve been a music stream ended up with Kaiba spending almost the entirety of it with her head on her desk and breaking herself down.
The chat was nothing but emotes of dark, little thunderclouds with a sad face on it – they called it 'Gloomposting'.
Some people tried to cheer her up, but most were caught in Kaiba’s depressive spiral.