Kuro/Profile

Kuro

Story

Profile

Quotes

Career

The CM.SL is a streamer Doll that was specially developed by Cyber Media to capture the streaming media market. Instead of the sweet-looking and gentle hosts that were popular at the time, Cyber Media opted for a different approach and insisted on a straightforward and realistic personality design for the CM.SL during the early stages of its development. The CM.SL featured the latest in linguistics acquisition modules founded on a high-end affective computational model, allowing it to quickly acquire popular Internet slang and terminology and engage in friendly banter with netizens.

In 2058, after several months of negotiations, Kuro was sent to Project Neural Cloud as a rare example of a livestreamer Doll. Supposedly, the hardest part of the negotiations was convincing Kuro to accept the experimental NDA, which included a "no streaming" clause.

Doll Profile 1

After the great success of their idol project, Cyber Media quickly set their sights on the streaming media market. They established the gaming-oriented Project Streaming plan, with the objective of producing a star stream host. As the vanguard of this plan, the development team invested a great deal of funds and effort into the CM.SL Doll, furnishing it with powerful AI computation ability, high-precision mechanical fingers and an adorable appearance to produce a tremendously skilled girl gamer. In addition, they sifted through massive amounts of Internet terminology and produced the most powerful livestream interaction algorithm they could manage over the course of several months of machine learning and installed it into the CM.SL before it was rolled out. They fervently believed that with this algorithm, the CM.SL would become the stream host who knew her audience best, bar none.

However, these hardworking researchers were utterly stunned by the first words uttered by Kuro upon her activation.

"What the f**k are you looking at! Get me my clothes already!"

Doll Profile 2

Perhaps it was because she had learned too much net-speak through her algorithm, but Kuro's speech patterns were very abstract. In order to address this, her manager put her through a series of "etiquette trainings" in order to correct her actions and way of speaking.

After some effort, Kuro was finally able to stream for a full hour without swearing and learned some generally applicable forms of greeting. Following an internal risk assessment, Kuro hosted her first stream. However, the feedback for the stream was not satisfactory and subsequent events were also not well-received. The audience had long since grown tired of cookie-cutter stream personas like this and the Cyber Media corporate brand only served to draw more flak for her. In less than two months, Project Streaming had incurred severe losses and its future was in doubt.

Kuro herself faced twofold pressure from both her company and her fans. She was forced to affect a contrived way of speaking and fake a smile, while she was drowned in mocking danmaku comments from her viewers. Finally, it all came to a head. Perhaps her patience had reached its limits, or perhaps it just so happened that her manager was not by her side—either way, she suddenly revealed her true nature when subjected to a barrage of danmaku from her haters, giving rise to what would be known as "the Legendary Night" in game streaming history...

#CuteStreamerGirlSuddenlyBlowsUp #FlipsOutAndStartsSwearing #TraumatizedHerTeammatesIntoBecomingNEETS #ToppedTheChartsBeforeBeingBanned...

Doll Profile 3

The banning of her stream led to the termination of the project, and Kuro the "failure" was due to be sent back to the drawing board to be rebuilt. However, her manager sensed an opportunity from the explosion of controversy surrounding the incident, bought Kuro, and left Cyber Media. Not long afterwards, Kuro made her debut once again, this time as a freelance streamer.

Drawn by the aftershocks of the channel ban incident, netizens came in droves to watch her. Some of them were curious about her, some of them had malice in their hearts, while others were driven by strange fetishes... Regardless of their intentions, Kuro faced all the provocations and doubts they threw at her and gave back as good as she got.

Strangely enough, these highly-antagonistic interactions ended up building a strong fan base for Kuro, and they helped carve a niche for her in game streaming circles. Over time, Kuro ended up with more fans than some of Cyber Media's official streamers. This incensed Cyber Media's higher-ups, who ordered a technical analysis to figure out the secret of Kuro's popularity.

"Although Kuro appears to be trading insults with people, the truth is that she is providing these netizens with the attention that they crave. In addition, the insults she uses are quite innovative and varied, delivered in a continuous stream of zingers which make close reference to current events in a relatable manner, the net effect being to create a feeling of freshness and authenticity in the minds of the listeners..."
— Excerpted from the "Popularity Analysis Report of the Streamer Kuro"

The analysis was every bit as abstract as Kuro's streaming interactions, and thus nobody dared adopt its findings casually. For this reason, Kuro's success has not yet been replicated to this date.

Doll Profile 4

Whereas Kuro's straight-shooting and pull-no-punches attitude has become her trademark style, it has also led to certain problems which other hosts do not have.

Kuro counts quite a lot of anti-fans among her followers. While most human streamers would be crushed by the sheer amount of harshly-critical danmaku, dishonest opinions and baseless rumors directed at her, their effect on her is like punching a soft pillow; the force of their words is dispersed, leaving her completely untouched.

Is a Doll's heart truly that resilient? Kuro has never once spoken about her true feelings in a public venue, so that will remain a mystery.

"The truth is, those guys aren't bitching at me, but rather, the oppressive world that they live in. Similarly, I'm not hitting back at them, but this lame-ass life of ours. The truth is, we're just tired of it all, and we're letting off steam by taking shots at each others' online personas."
"That said, I need some healing too—"
—Audio log from a scheduled conversation with her manager

#HostAccidentallyChangesProfilePicToPopularIdolsIcon
—A certain top search that was drowned out by other news an hour later

Doll Profile 5

While she often "fights" with her fans, the truth is that Kuro values them highly. Perhaps it's because she has so many anti-fans, but it makes the true fans who genuinely support Kuro and attempt to spread their enthusiasm about her to others that much more valuable. They are the ones who give her confidence and allow her to believe that she's more than just a clown to entertain the masses, that she can give joy and happiness to people like a more conventional idol.

Kuro is currently trapped inside Magrasea and has lost contact with her fans, but she has not lost hope as a result. After all, this place also has people who understand and support her, which makes her feel that much happier. She believes that one day, she will make her glorious return to reality at the head of the new fans she has made in the cloud server—

"I'm giving you special permission to lead my fan club, Professor! You'd better make sure you spread the word about my upcoming livestream!"
"Hehehe, soon, the name of the great Kuro will resound throughout all of Magrasea!"