I cleared my throat with a loud roar.

Changing my voice like that wasn’t easy for such a long time. Hopefully it would get easier over time, but I feared the day my vocal cords got too strained for me to continue streaming. Not that that mattered too much, I wasn’t making the big bucks anyway.

Sigh.

Not to break the fourth wall or anything, but I guess I should explain.

I’m Guy. I’m a guy. I’m (a) Guy.

And somehow, I ended up V-Tubing as a buff black lady called Gaia. It’s not blackface though, don’t worry.

You know, how on Twitter there’s art raffles every now and then, where you can win free artworks? I enter these from time to time and ended up accidentally winning one, but, instead of art I got a model rig for a V-Tube Avatar and since I didn’t have any art ready, I used some artwork I once commissioned for my D&D character, who was a girl and so that’s how I ended up here.

Of course, barely anyone knows, except a select few people.

“Be your most authentic self.”

If being my authentic self meant not being myself at all, then sure. I could give this a shot.

I looked up Big-Tuber-San on Google and found a link to her Discord fairly quickly. I joined and was immediately welcomed by the miniscule Big/Gaia fandom overlap. I said hello to everyone and clicked on Big-Tuber’s icon to open the private chat.

Gaia-chan

Hi there, how was the stream?

THE Big-Tuber

Gaia! Fun as always, thanks for dropping in!

Gaia-chan

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Lol, thank you!

You know, I’m not sure about properly joining the contest, but I was wondering about those tips you wanted to offer? Regardless of the contest, I think they might be of some use, if I wanna go professional.

THE Big-Tuber

Well, they’re not much of a tip really. Mostly stuff you can find googling. Like, a fixed streaming schedule, and like, different types of streams. You only do speedruns, right?

Gaia-chan

Yeah, exactly. I started out posting some on my YouTube channel, before starting to stream them as well. That’s how I got off to a good start, because I already had a minor following.

THE Big-Tuber

I assume you do play games, like casually, right?

Gaia-chan

Lol, yeah, I’m a hardcore gamer.

THE Big-Tuber

Then you should keep track of new releases and stream those.

Or just play whatever you want, no pressure.

But if you want to reach your follower goal, you need to spice things up a bit.

Like, yeah, there’s donations, but what about donation goals, or the like.

I could help you set those up.

Gaia-chan

Lol, thank you, but why me?

Feels kinda odd to be the target of affection of a Big-Tuber

THE Big-Tuber

Oh, I’ve been following you with my priv for a while lol

I see your potential, and I thought it would be cool, to see you use it, I guess

Also, I’ve been wondering if you’d be up for a collab-stream ^^

Gaia-chan

Omfg, are you serious?!!! I’d love to!!!!

I’ve never done one though. I’m a single player through and through

THE Big-Tuber

Ya, same.

I don’t really have any V-Tuber friends

Like, yeah, my agency sets me up with my colleagues every now and then, but ...

I mean, it’s fun, but I never really clicked with anyone

Always have to put up more of an act than usual

Gaia-chan

I think I get what you mean ...

My only V-Tube friend would be Crush, I guess (he also raided earlier) but we never streamed together.

We always raid each other though, and occasionally hang out in stream for a chat

THE Big-Tuber

In any case, it’s getting late and I need to go to sleep

IRL’s calling me

But yeah, hmu anytime. We could even go on a call some time, so I can show you the ropes a bit

Gaia-chan

Really, thank you so much. And I’ll def be thinking about a schedule.

Maybe one day, of collab streams a week?

Ahhh, but I don’t wanna bother you ...

After that Big-Tuber went offline. Still, I thought about her advice a bit. Until now, I had been streaming spontaneously whenever I felt like it. Sometimes I ended up streaming three days in a row, like had happened with that Firby speedrun, and sometimes I didn’t stream for a week or longer.

I took a look at my calendar.

Uni was about to start again in two weeks. Was still online though, so that didn’t really matter. I streamed in the evenings anyways.

And I was determined to give this V-Tuber thing a real shot this time.