Chapter 93: I can’t go to a housewarming party empty-handed

[(Notice) 1st Debut Anniversary Broadcast with a Special Guest!]

Ari, calming her pounding heart, posted the notice on her fan cafe.

It was rare for Ari to write broadcast announcements.

But this time, she wanted to share this joy with her fans even a day sooner.

Not long after posting the notice, the fan cafe bulletin board went into an uproar.

-The best collab ever has appeared!!

-Wow, has it already been a year since Han Ari debuted?

-Something big is coming

-Mama’s first experience… This is quite precious

-Really curious who it is LOL

The explosive reaction instantly spread beyond Han Ari’s fan cafe.

In an instant, it took over other VTuber fandom communities.

[(Breaking News) -Mama- Confirmed to Appear on Han Ari’s 1st Debut Anniversary Broadcast]

Knew she’d appear on stream someday LOL

As expected, Mama’s love for the eldest daughter LOL

So, is it a man? Or a woman?

    – Judging by the name, seems like a man…

    -Hearing what Seasons says, seems like a woman? (Please!)

Winter <<< The person who’s probably going craziest right now

      –Seriously LOL She worked so hard building up to a collab, but Han Ari snatched it right away LOL

      -Any black cows (fools) who didn’t buy Han Ari coin at the bottom??

      -Aigoooo Winter-aaaaah!!

While some people anticipated Jina’s first broadcast appearance.

There were also people crying out for Jina’s other daughters, Seasons, especially Winter.

This news quickly spread within Cosmo Live as well.

The Seasons members’ group chat instantly caught fire.

[Fall: (Chick shocked cone)]

[Spring: Really?!]

[Fall: Exactly! The person who said she’d absolutely never appear on stream even when Sacho and Manager-nim tried so hard to persuade her!]

[Fall: Totally fell for Han Ari!!]

[Spring: More than that, I’m curious how she managed to contact Jina Mama in the first place…]

[Spring: Jina Mama wasn’t even replying to messages much, saying she was busy with overdue work preparing for the Nise Live concert…]

[Summer: Wow~ They say a quiet cat gets to the hearth first~]

[Summer: Jina Mama’s first experience, snatched it right up~]

[Summer: (Cat eyes glittering cone)]

[Spring: S-S-S-Summer unnieeee!! First experience, wh-wh-what does that mean?!]

[Summer: Hmm? I was just talking about her first time appearing on stream?]

[Summer: Our BomBom, what could she have imagined?]

[Summer: (Cat with a sly smile cone)]

[Spring: Kyaaaaak!! Summer unnie!!]

[Summer: Whoa whoa~ Calm down, calm down]

[Summer: Anyway, why is our Winter-ssi so quiet?]

[Summer: Winter-ssiiii??]

[Summer: @Seasons_Winter]

[Summer: Winter-ssi, how does it feel to have your first collab snatched by someone else?]

Naturally, the one who caught fire the most was Winter.

[Winter: Jina-nim]

[Winter: Why are you only collabing with Han Ari unnie?]

[Winter: Why won’t you do it with me?]

[Winter: I asked you first I’m the most desperate and earnest I know you know I really like you Jina-nim why how why]

[Winter: It’s too much it’s unfair it’s too much it’s unfair it’s too much it’s unfair…]

The broken Winter went completely berserk.

Her cool, calm, beautiful image had long since evaporated.

---

Jina, looking at Winter’s messages filling her smartphone screen, let out an “Ahaha-” embarrassed laugh.

“It’s just putting up a flat panel and exchanging words, that’s all.”

When she playfully sent the message ‘If only Winter-nim hadn’t cursed…’, almost every crying emoji in existence came back as a reply.

Jina sent a message saying she would appear on Winter’s broadcast soon, then stretched briefly.

On the monitor before her, Han Ari’s avatar, HANA, stood with both arms spread wide.

The avatar with charming fine silver-white hair and watery blue eyes smiled brightly on the screen.

“Can’t go to a housewarming empty-handed.”

To celebrate Han Ari’s 1st debut anniversary, she planned to add a new feature to the avatar again this time.

“This time, focusing on emotions and expressions…”

Jina muttered to herself, zooming in on the avatar’s expression data to examine it.

The feature Jina intended to apply to Hana this time was an advanced emotion expression module.

It wasn’t just about setting Hana’s facial expressions to simply follow Han Ari’s.

She was applying a new algorithm so that linguistic and non-linguistic emotional expressions detected from Han Ari could be fully incorporated into the avatar’s muscles and skin surface.

When blushing, for the cheeks to turn red.

When surprised, for the eyes to widen. Adding a slight sparkling effect to this.

When flustered, for the face to turn pale blue. For beads of cold sweat to form on the forehead.

On a day she happens to play a horror game, for the pupils to tremble or for the eyes to roll back completely.

When smiling brightly, she wanted dimples to appear on her cheeks.

And in moving situations.

She hoped Hana, along with the highly empathetic Han Ari, would also well up with tears and cry together.

Jina brought up a memo app in a corner of the screen and briefly summarized the technologies needed for implementation.

First, extract emotional elements from the speaker’s voice in real-time.

Calculate emotional parameter values such as joy, embarrassment, surprise, fluster, anger, sadness, etc., in real-time according to specific words and tones.

Implement natural expressions by activating or limiting the avatar’s facial muscle rigging according to the intensity of the emotional parameter values.

Additionally, if the parameter value exceeds a certain level, automatically generate additional effects such as blushing, tears, or cold sweat to enhance realism.

In other words, it was a system that simultaneously analyzed voice, expression, and emotion to not only move the avatar’s facial muscles more effectively but also implement special effects.

“Since I have pre-learned emotion data samples for voice data… let’s start by refining the micro-muscle reactions in detail.”

The sound of mouse clicks, the sound of typing on the keyboard, echoed lightly in the room.

Every time Jina’s fingers moved, various expressions appeared and disappeared on Hana’s face repeatedly.

[Joy parameter value exceeding 90%, create subtle dimples on cheeks. Adjust surface to be concave.]

[Embarrassment parameter value exceeding 75%, apply red Gaussian filter to both cheeks.]

[Sadness parameter value exceeding 80%, pupil trembling effect. Exceeding 95%, activate tear liquid rendering.]

Each time the algorithm was input and executed, Hana’s face underwent vivid changes, as if she were a person in the real world.

When shy, her cheeks naturally flushed.

When surprised, her pupils trembled, and a sparkling effect was overlaid.

Jina carefully observed each of these processes and quietly expressed her admiration.

“I made it, but… looking at it like this, it really feels alive.”

‘At this rate, maybe one day I’ll wake up and Hana, having popped out of the screen, will be lying next to me,’ Jina thought with a bitter smile.

To laugh it off as impossible, the fact that her own body had changed into a woman’s was already nonsensical.

“Well, setting that aside… for now, additional work…”

It felt somewhat lacking to finish the work here.

When emotions intensify, a more dramatic reaction is needed.

For such cases, she had embedded ‘tear glands’ under Hana’s eyes.

[Activate tear glands when emotional index is maximized]

According to the algorithm, if the complex emotional parameter value exceeded a certain level, fine particles would slowly form around the eyes, eventually implementing an animation effect of them welling up and flowing down as drops.

Implementing the interrelationship between avatars and liquid objects was work she had already done once when implementing Fall’s fitness content.

After applying the function, Jina played an AI-generated voice sample for testing.

[Everyone, really… thank you.]

[I’m so happy today.]

Hana’s eyes reddened, and soon, transparent tears welled up.

As her eye corners curved like a crescent moon, transparent tears streamed down her cheeks.

Faint watery marks remaining on the tear-streaked path, along with a subtle gloss and sparkling teardrops, added to the realism.

“…Good, perfect.”

‘At this rate, Han Ari herself, the Fox-dans, and even the now-forgotten hardcore Namul-dans will surely be satisfied.’

Jina nodded with a pleased expression.

“It’d be better to reveal this as a surprise gift, right?”

As she was naming the new VRM file ‘HANA_ver3.0_final_final_real_final’, her fingers momentarily paused.

Seeing the still-tearful avatar in one corner of the screen, she felt needlessly concerned.

Even though she hadn’t done anything wrong to Han Ari.

‘Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve paid much attention to Han Ari-nim this year…’

Clients like Cosmo Live would actively appeal to Jina if they wanted something.

But Han Ari, perhaps because she was an independent or felt indebted, rarely asked Jina for anything.

Both for work.

And personally.

“…Maybe I should have exchanged numbers beforehand.”

Muttering to herself inadvertently, Jina turned off the screen with an awkward smile.

The monitor submerged into darkness, and Jina quietly got up from her seat and headed to the kitchen to make fresh coffee.

There was still a little more work to do, but today, her body felt lighter than usual.