Not traumadumping, but spoiled for cringe.
When Shiori debuted, I wasn't excited for Advent, I had fallen out of touch with Vtubers and mostly watched clips or kept up with the major events. I had migrated back to anime. I didn't watch her debut from the start, and if it wasn't recommended to me on Youtube, I wouldn't have clicked on it. As soon as I did I was greeted with a story about catsex, so that was funny. I subscribed after her debut but wasn't sure if I would watch her religiously, her next stream concept piqued my interest, so I made sure to watch.
And from there a new world started opening to me, but I was still a passive viewer for the first few streams. It wasn't until she was talking about a subject I'm passionate about that I couldn't hold myself back and commented in livechat, something I've never done before outside of "888888" or "wwwww" back on NicoNico, usually for Utaite long long ago.
She read my comment out, and looking back, that was probably game over for me. From then on I started participating in livechat more. After a few streams I started commenting and by the end of August I was all in. Writing for prompts, checking out her Twitter, watching the whole stream. I usually left when it was time for superchat readings, so I'm glad Shiori integrates them. If she did a pure reading stream it would have filtered me early on, but nowadays I'd watch every second of it.
But of course in the middle of the month we had the first vacation. I was /here/ at the time, and things were rough, but I'm glad you guys were around. I wasn't in too deep by then, so it was easier for me to watch anime and go along with my life. Something that's a little harder now. I miss her very dearly. But I try make do with what she's done, and I appreciate the effort she's put in to making sure we're looked after. Would have been easy to prepare nothing and go full radio silent for a month. I'm very, very grateful she's not doing that.
The next dilemma was when it came time for memberships. Looking at some of the other tiers I was struggling with justifying $25 a month, $300 a year toward Shiori. So when it turned out that her membership was only $10 for Novelknight tier, it was a no brainer. I'm grateful for that, but it's also a smart decision, I'm sure.
I've never understood the people who go gachikoi for a vtuber, I've never understood wanting to give someone else money, transactional mindset and all. I've never understood clamoring to play games with someone. But now, with Shiori, I understand. It's not all been easy, but I'm happy for her existence. I'm happy she's in Hololive. I'm happy this thread exists. My life is objectively better over these last few months than it has been in a long time, and I like that. It's nice.
tl;dr: Shiori Novella makes me happy, very happy. You guys do too. I enjoy my time here.
