Chapter 40: Smells Good
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“You know too?”
All Meng Fan could manage was an awkward laugh.
“Of course, so many faculty members have been sharing in our group chats, I recognized you in an instant.” The administrator chuckled. “This dance is really something, watching it made me very happy. You were really good too, very lively.”
“Even better than trash-talking Er Qing?”
The administrator sternly considered it for a moment. “The happiness gained from these two things are not the same. Trash talking Er Qing is venting negative energy, and watching you dance gives me positive energy!”
“Positive energy? Alright, as long as you’re happy.”
What else could Meng Fan say, he had done the deed, it’d be foolish to judge others based on their thoughts.
Of course, Meng Fan could see the adminstrator was telling the truth, not necessarily making a joke of him.
As for the students in the studio who were looking at him… Who cares about them?!
Finding his old spot, Meng Fan sat down and set up his tools, taking out the phone stand that Zhang Zhou Wei had brought him on behalf of w.a.n.g Ya Nan. He adjusted the position, sent a few notifications to the group chat, and prepared to enter his channel at 19:30 sharp.
Soon, over two hundred people had entered the channel.
“Today is American comics special.”
Meng Fan put the texts into the announcement. Originally, he planned to draw more novel ill.u.s.trations, but his trip to Song Cheng had hindered his preparations, so he switched it to characters from American comics.
j.a.panese anime and American comics were the two leading countries in cartoons, in terms of the manga market, American comics could not rival j.a.panese ones, but in terms of comic adaptations, the American market was far above j.a.pan, especially when it came to movies.
Out of all the movie adaptations, the most famous ones had to be the Marvel and DC universes.
When speaking of animations, j.a.pan’s anime dominated the top half of the animation industry. As for the bottom half, Disney had that covered.
All in all, American animation was on par with j.a.panese animation.
There were many characters and scenes American comics that he could draw, even if he hadn’t finished the books, Meng Fan knew he’d have to draw American comic characters, and one special would definitely not be enough. Aside from ill.u.s.trating his novels, American and j.a.panese animations were also segments of his stream.
Before he began his first drawing, Meng Fan under false pretenses had inadvertently tried sticking his thumb up at his screen several times. The data did not rise one bit, confirming his previous guess.
Online, he could only rely on ‘clicked’ likes, not physical thumbs!
He had already guessed this to be the case, hence Meng Fan wasn’t too disappointed. Besides, he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to complete this [Adoration Fever] task.
A two-point increase was already this bad. The consequences of all six points… Meng Fan shook at the thought.
He collected his thoughts and began to draw.
The first character he drew had to be the first superhero in American history, Superman.
The two characters that followed were Meng Fan’s favorite antagonists, one was the joker from the DC universe, and the second was Hela from the Marvel universe.
The Joker was easy enough. As for Hela, she was the daughter of Loki in the Marvel universe, but in the movies she had been portrayed as the first child of Odin, father of all G.o.ds, basically becoming the older sister of little hammer wielder Thor.
Undoubtedly, Hela’s image in the film had left a great impression, so Meng Fan decided to draw the movie adaptation of her that was beautiful and domineering.
The fourth character he chose was the first American comic character Meng Fan had known, the smurfs.
After he drew Clumsy smurf, Meng Fan felt a wave of inspiration wash over him. He drew an arrow in the paper and wrote the words “After he grew up” on the other end. Beside it, he drew a grown-up smurf.
“Avatar!”
“Hahaha, Mr. Host are you ok?!”
“You’re killing me!”
“Smurfs can grow up to be an Avatar? This isn’t growing up, this is straight-up evolution!”
“Is the blog host also a fan of new-age stand-up comedy? Hahaha, can you please draw super Mario standing on teenage Mutant ninja turtle?!”
“Top line: Eat mushrooms and grow up healthy; bottom line: but stepping on a turtle with a brick on your head will make you live forever.”
“The smurf said to the avatar: When I grow up, I’ll be you.”
“How is everyone on this channel a genius?!”
“I accidentally entered this channel, but after a minute I don’t plan on leaving!”
“The drawing speed of this stream host is too fast! He’s pretty funny too!”
“You must be new? This streamer’s hand speed is no joke. When he wants to be fast, it’s like watching smoke from a firing gun. If he drew a normie, it would surely blow-up, and can make even the best teachers fall in love with it within seconds. Only the national football team can hold out for more than 3 seconds!”
“Meng fatty’s stream is popular today!”
After drawing the avatar—Although he wasn’t an American comic character—Meng Fan began to draw the fifth character. This was one of Meng Fan’s most beloved characters, not from Marvel or DC or Disney, but from an animation by MGM. Tom from ‘Tom and Jerry’!
‘Tom and Jerry’ was the only foreign show that Meng Fan could understand in its original format without subt.i.tles.
Moreover, he had understood it ever since he was young ￣へ￣!
Meng Fan’s rendition of Tom was of him mid-run. After drawing him, Meng Fan left a blank s.p.a.ce below him to continue drawing. This time, the character wasn’t from an American show but Naruto Uzumaki, from the j.a.panese anime. Below him, he drew Nicole from ‘Love – live’, and then added a domineering Mikasa from ‘[The] Attack t.i.tan’ below her. These three were all running in a similar manner, with their arms stretched back like a ninja.
Looking up, Tom was in this position as well.
“Hahaha the founder of the ninja run, Tom!”
“Does he run like that because of the reduced friction (serious emoji)”
“I tried it and fell flat on my face!”
“I tried it too. Before it happened, I was a wholesome bright young boy who loved to laugh, the kind with bright white teeth that reflected light. After trying, well… heh. n.o.body makes me laugh before I get my teeth fixed!”
“Please stop talking, the more you speak of it the more I want to try!”
“Those of you who study animation, let me tell you why you should draw like this—because it’s convenient and lazy!”
“Hey Mr.Host, are you happy toying with us?”
“I was randomly browsing and found this incredible content!”
“Randomly browsing +1.”
“I clicked the wrong b.u.t.ton and ended up here.”
“Clicked wrong b.u.t.ton +1.”
“I like this stream, I’m not leaving this channel for the rest of my life! This streamer draws so fast and is so funny too, plus all the netizens on here are all geniuses, everything they say is hilarious!”
On his seventh drawing, he drew a seductive and bodacious black widow. Meng Fan then realized something was wrong.
At this time, the number of current viewers had reached 3800, creating a new peak record!
And even better, the total viewer count in his ‘mind’ left him even more surprised. 6300!
This had exceeded the amount he’d received on his first day of streaming ill.u.s.trations.
That day, Mr.Sleepy had pulled a lot of people, FlatHeadBro as well. But today, these authors didn’t specifically help to pull people.
“Randomly browsing? Wrong channel?”
Meng Fan suddenly knew the reason. Validation!
The metaphysical attribute ‘validation’ was not only effective in scamming Meng Fan through texts and fraudulent calls but was also useful in bringing traffic to his live stream.
What an absurd attribute!
Not only did his own sense of validation increase, but his presence in his stream channel had also gone up as well!
When this sense of presence is used on the internet, the result was much more exaggerated than it had been in real life.
The internet had a prioritization mechanism. As the number of online users in his channel increased, his ranking naturally jumped up on the front page. This meant his chances of appearing in the recommended section for the ‘Drawing category’ would be higher too, and the more times he appeared, the more people would see him. Under a positive cycle, his validation attributes would increase along with it!
Before Meng Fan ended the stream, his online viewers had reached 6100, and total views. .h.i.tting 9300!
If he could draw a few more, breaking 10,000 would be no problem.
Presently, [Famous Streamer] had about 35,000 total views collected. He wasn’t far from reaching the 100,000 required for task phase 2.
Ding.
Before he logged off the stream, a notification flew in.
Promotional notification!
Next Monday, or tomorrow, at 8:00 pm, the stream channel would be listed in the ‘Drawing Category’ under recommended. This had to be the best time slot in the entire section.
To be on the recommendations list meant more people would watch, and the more people that watched, the faster Meng Fan would complete his task. That meant he would be closer to reaping the ‘charm’ attribute that came as a reward.
He had already decided from the bottom of his heart to reject gaining more ‘validation’ points from the task [Adoration Fever ] as it was a poisonous attribute, but now—Yes, victory smells good!