A LOOK INTO KWON HYUNSOO'S MOMENTS.
onward, trailblazers
kwon
kwon
kwon
hyunsoo
hyunsoo
hyunsoo
i'm blue da ba dee da ba di
the day when the three stars rise
there will be a new legend
on the ground that will be drenched with blood
bear the weight of the crown
FULL NAME Kwon Hyunsoo
NICKNAME
OtterChaos - Hyunsoo's streamer ID was inspired by his grade school nickname, Otter (수달). During his pro-gaming career, commentators referred to him as Chaos for brevity. Nowadays, he responds to both Otter and Chaos in chat.
DATE OF BIRTH 12 July, 1993
AGE 28 (29)
BIRTHPLACE Seoul, South Korea
HOMETOWN Seoul, South Korea
ETHNICITY Korean
NATIONALITY Korean
PRONOUNS he/him/his
ORIENTATION straight
LANGUAGES SPOKEN
Korean - Hyunsoo is fluent as it is his native language and the primary language he communicates in on a daily basis.
English - Hyunsoo is semi-fluent due to learning it in school and during his pro-gaming career. He made a conscious effort to learn more than what was required in school after he started streaming on Twitch, since there is a more international audience on that livestreaming platform in comparison to AfreecaTV, which has a primarily Korean audience. He will sometimes challenge himself to do English-only streams, but he is not yet near full fluency.
OCCUPATION Twitch streamer, founder and content creator for GalaxTree, former professional League of Legends player for LS Regals
FACE CLAIM Lee Junho [2PM]
BACKUP Byun Baekhyun [EXO]
APPEARANCE Hyunsoo has raven black hair that he parts off to the side. He has dark brown eyes and his eyebrows are slightly curved. He has thin lips and a pointed chin with no facial hair at all. He has wide shoulders and maintains a fit body through regular exercise.
MEASUREMENTS 178 cm, 67 kg
FASHION STYLE Hyunsoo is at home most of the time, so he usually wears T-shirts and basketball shorts—sweatshirts and sweatpants in the winter—or tracksuits while he's streaming. During shoots for GalaxTree's YouTube channel, he'll keep his athleisure style but will also put enough effort into his outfit so that it doesn't look like he just rolled out of bed—unless that matches the video concept. From time to time, he will wear graphic print button-up shirts and cargo pants—mostly just for Instagram pictures.
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OtterChaos (권현수)
former mid laner for @LSRegals
founder of @GalaxTree
twitch.tv/OtterChaos
PERSONALITY
witty, deadpan, charismatic, cocky, skeptical, blunt, logical, loyal
Hyunsoo is naturally witty, and loves to banter with his friends and his viewers. Jokes and memes are his bread and butter, and he is usually the one cracking sarcastic jokes on camera for GalaxTree videos. When he is streaming by himself, Hyunsoo's humor leans more deadpan and he can easily roast people with a straight face, which adds to the comedic value. Although he is able to amp up the energy in front of the camera, Hyunsoo generally prefers being more laidback on his channel, especially during long Just Chatting streams when he is having a casual conversation with his viewers or intense League of Legends solo queue streams when he is concentrating more on playing and less on entertaining.
Even when he is more mellow on camera, Hyunsoo allows his charisma to shine through and easily keeps his audience engaged with his clever commentary. He is aware of his marketability as a successful, funny, and relatively good-looking streamer and fully utilizes these strengths to net even more viewers whenever he can. As such, Hyunsoo can also come off as cocky to others, especially when he pushes the envelope to farm more reactionary content for views. He takes great pride in being one of the top LoL streamers on Twitch and isn't shy about touting his own accomplishments, since he knows he has the skills to back up his claims. Some may see this as arrogance, which Hyunsoo acknowledges. However, he doesn't let these opinions affect him and fully embraces his audacious persona instead.
Because Hyunsoo has been an online content creator for so long, he has developed a healthy amount of skepticism and does not easily believe wild headlines that his viewers enjoy spamming in chat. He rarely develops preconceived opinions of others and usually waits until he has personally interacted with them first before casting judgment. Hyunsoo is also not afraid to be blunt with people and says what's on his mind with very little filtering, which can intimidate people who don't know him very well. This extends to his viewers as well and he immediately calls out toxic chat behavior whenever he sees it. Hyunsoo has no tolerance for bigots, misogynists, racists, and other close-minded people who might show up in his chat, especially since the LoL community is known for being incredibly toxic. If he sees chatters target each other or any guests on his channel, Hyunsoo instantly reprimands his chat and relentlessly issues bans to keep his stream clean.
One of the reasons that Hyunsoo attributes to his success and longevity as a professional gamer and an online content creator is his inherent inclination towards logic over emotions. He is strategic and sensible, which prevents him from making impulsive decisions, both in-game and in life. Hyunsoo remains ambitious, but with rational and actionable goals that he knows he has the capacity to reach if he plays his cards right. However, this propensity towards logic can make him seem insensitive at times, especially when people expect or want a more delicate response to their heightened emotions. Even so, Hyunsoo is still incredibly loyal to his friends and his community. He will not hesitate to stand up for anyone he feels is being unfairly wronged and does his best to protect the GalaxTree members if any unwarranted controversies arise. The GalaxTree members are his family and Hyunsoo refuses to let them be harmed by baseless rumors, unhinged fans, or underhanded corporations.
runner
raiden, baekhyun, changmo
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BACKGROUND
Ever since he was a child, Hyunsoo gamed as much as possible. He started off playing MMORPGs, such as MapleStory, and spent hours upon hours grinding levels and completing quests. Although his parents highly disapproved of his intense hobby, Hyunsoo spent as much time as he could at PC rooms where he could game in peace. He saved up any money he received during birthdays and holidays to buy hours at his local PC room, and stayed there all afternoon and evening every single day to game and do homework. Even though schoolwork and exams drastically increased in intensity as he continued into middle school and high school, Hyunsoo could not resist the lure of PC rooms and often sacrificed precious hours of sleep to finish up any last-minute studying. Gaming was not only Hyunsoo's favorite hobby, but also the perfect outlet for him to relieve the overwhelming stress caused by his academics and it kept him from slowly sinking into despair like many of his classmates who focused solely on studying.
Near the end of Hyunsoo's first year of high school in October 2009, a new MOBA game called League of Legends was released. After trying it once, Hyunsoo was instantly hooked and he found himself logging in more hours than ever before at his local PC room. Since each team needed five players, he roped in his friends whenever he could and they gamed all evening long. However, his friends gradually stopped coming with him to PC rooms, since their parents either forbade it or they personally chose to spend their time at cram schools to avoid falling behind in their studies. By this point, Hyunsoo's parents had given up on trying to keep their son from going to PC rooms, knowing that it was futile. As long as he maintained his grades, Hyunsoo's parents left him to his own devices and Hyunsoo dictated his own schedule outside of school. But most of his friends did not have this same level of freedom that he did, so Hyunsoo often found himself playing LoL with online strangers.
With each game averaging around half an hour, LoL soon took over Hyunsoo's life in a much more intense way than any other game had. However, he still made sure to set aside time in between games to work on homework and study for exams. But a year later, once ranked games were introduced in Season 1, Hyunsoo fully threw himself into playing as much as he possibly could and LoL became his top priority. He loved chasing the massive adrenaline rush that occurred whenever he ranked up in solo queue and before he knew it, Hyunsoo reached Platinum, the highest tier. Pride blossomed within his chest upon realizing that he had achieved this through sheer determination and work ethic, even though his parents would have been aghast that he had spent his time so "wastefully." But to Hyunsoo, this affirmed to him that he was good—great, even—at something and that he had the potential to be good at anything else he tried his hand at, as long as he put in the time and effort.
Rankings reset for Season 2 and a new tier, Diamond, was introduced. Hyunsoo was determined to surpass himself and reach Diamond, even though LoL's player base was now ten times larger than it had been the previous year. However, since he still had his final exams for his last year of high school to finish up, Hyunsoo waited until he had completed all of his exams before throwing himself into grinding ranks up to Diamond. By then, most of his friends no longer felt shackled by cram school as well and they often joined him so that they could rank up together. Hyunsoo usually carried his friends during games and led them to victory, having played against so many high-level players during his time in Platinum the year before. And he enjoyed the new challenges provided in Diamond, since it greatly motivated him to improve his own skills and keep up with those gracing the top of the ladder.
After graduating high school, Hyunsoo enlisted in the military to get his mandatory service done with and out of the way. His parents were very supportive of this decision, mostly because it meant their son would not be spending hours upon hours in front of a computer screen for two years. However, during his military service, to keep his gaming skills as sharp as he could, Hyunsoo spent every holiday and vacation day at a PC room, grinding as many hours possible during these short breaks. During his off-hours at his military base, Hyunsoo spent most of his free time reading and studying to make up for all of the hours he lost during high school. His friends also sent him letters filled with printed out news articles and statistics about LoL and the pro-level tournaments, which allowed Hyunsoo to stay updated on gameplay adjustments and remain competitive when he returned to esports. It was through his friends that he learned about the newest tier, Challenger, which only housed the top 200 LoL players of each region.
As soon as he was discharged from the military, Hyunsoo threw himself back into LoL and grinded his way to Challenger, which wasn't an easy feat. During his two-year hiatus, the game meta had changed with some Champions receiving significant buffs and others getting nerfed, and players focusing more heavily on extremely high-level strategies as esports tournaments gained more traction. However, Hyunsoo was not perturbed by this new challenge and poured hours into researching strategies that professional players were using so that he could keep up with them. Several months down the line, during the preseason period in late 2013, a representative from Level Station Company reached out to Hyunsoo with an offer for him to join the pro-level LoL team they were assembling to begin competing in Season 4. Hyunsoo's sudden jump into Challenger after being unranked and unknown for two years had caught the attention of several esports talent scouts, and Level Station Company jumped at the chance to recruit him as the linchpin player for their first pro-gaming team when they caught wind of other companies discussing whether to sign him as an alternate since they already had established rosters. After several meetings with representatives from Level Station Company to ensure that the contract offer was legitimate, Hyunsoo signed with them and officially became a member of LS Regals.
Level Station Company offered to house Hyunsoo, especially since he was the team's mid lane starting player. It would have been ideal for him to live with the other members of LS Regals so that they could easily scrimmage together and watch VODs of other teams in the South Korean regional league. However, because Hyunsoo was starting school at Korea University in early 2014, he opted to live on campus instead. He also began livestreaming his gameplay on AfreecaTV so that his coaches could tune in to watch him play solo queue and review his saved VODs for gameplay critiques. He soon found himself enjoying the audience interaction provided in chat, even though he still prioritized gameplay over entertainment. After a year, Hyunsoo switched platforms to Twitch, since it had a larger international reach and more potential viewers in general than AfreecaTV did.
During his four years at Korea University, Hyunsoo studied mechanical engineering. His parents had urged him to choose a STEM major, hoping that he would later work at large corporations like Samsung or Hyundai for a stable paycheck. Because he had no idea how his pro-gaming career was going to pan out and he had no strong inclination towards any particular major, Hyunsoo picked mechanical engineering since he was decent at both physics and mathematics. However, juggling school, LoL, and a social life was much more difficult than he had anticipated. At first, Hyunsoo did his best to attend parties and club meetings, and actively met new people whenever he could. But as the season progressed and more schoolwork piled up, Hyunsoo gradually cut out any socialization unless it included studying with his classmates in the library for exams. Because he was unable to play as many hours of LoL as he did before, Hyunsoo's rank began dropping throughout the season, which eventually caused him to be temporarily benched for several tournament games.
With that, Hyunsoo started putting minimal effort into his studies, just enough to pass his classes, because his professional career was much more important to him. He barely left his dorm room, except to eat and work on group projects in the library when necessary, and often grinded up to ten hours a day if he could spare the time for it. Although his grades suffered greatly, his tournament performances reflected his diligent training and LS Regals began securing multiple wins, which led to several sponsorship deals. And it all paid off when LS Regals qualified for the League of Legends World Championship for the first time in 2017. They were finally rubbing shoulders with the best pro-gaming teams in the world and Hyunsoo had never been more satisfied. By this point, he knew he would never work for Samsung, Hyundai, or any other conglomerate in a traditional sense. And he was perfectly happy with that. Alongside his tournament earnings and sponsorships, Hyunsoo was making steady money through his Twitch Partnership as his channel kept growing.
After graduating from KU in early 2018 with his mechanical engineering degree, which his parents were very grateful for, Hyunsoo moved into the LS Regals gaming house with his teammates. From then on, he was a full-time professional LoL player and Twitch streamer. Now that he no longer had school to worry about, Hyunsoo was able to rebuild his social life and he frequently hung out with various members of LS Regals when he wasn't playing LoL. He also began collaborating with other Twitch streamers more often, especially during off-season when he could afford to spend hours playing games other than LoL. These collaborations allowed Hyunsoo to destress after long hours of training, which had ramped up significantly as LS Regals racked up more and more tournament wins over the years.
In 2020, LS Regals participated in the League of Legends World Championship for the second time and battled their way up to the quarterfinals before getting knocked out. Soon after, Hyunsoo announced that he was officially retiring from the professional circuit and leaving LS Regals once he fulfilled his current contract at the end of the year. He had dedicated over a decade of his life to playing LoL and now that he was in his late twenties, Hyunsoo could feel his body starting to physically give up from spending twelve hours a day every single day on solo queue, VOD review, and scrimmages. Hyunsoo also found himself seeking more variety in his life, since he had given that up in high school and university in favor of LoL. His priorities had decidedly shifted and although it would have been nice to end his career with a championship trophy, Hyunsoo was satisfied with what he had accomplished during his pro-gaming career. He had helped build a brand-new team from the ground up to a top-three team in one of the most competitive regional leagues in the world in seven years and now he was ready to build something new in this next chapter of his gaming career.
Hyunsoo spent the next few months recruiting several of his friends, who were also professional Twitch streamers, to his new organization called GalaxTree, which officially launched in February 2021. All five members now live together in a house and randomly pop into each other's streams for spontaneous collaborations, which their viewers love. The group also posts YouTube videos of them participating in non-gaming activities, such as team sports or cooking challenges. This newfound synergy is nothing like Hyunsoo has ever experienced before and he loves creating fun content with his friends while still getting to play games for a living. Hyunsoo is incredibly excited about GalaxTree's future and he has big plans for the streamer house as their audience continues to grow and more opportunities come their way.
LIKES memes, the fantasy genre, video games, board games, card games, manhwa, escape rooms, coffee, naps, puzzles
DISLIKES alarm clocks, bees, extreme weather, sand, rigid schedules, pickles, boredom, slow internet, nonfiction books, loud construction
TRIVIA
— The starting roster of the LS Regals LoL team is collectively known as "the Royal Five" or 왕족 5인조. During his tenure, Hyunsoo's title was "the Otter King" or 수달왕.
— He mains Irelia in the mid lane when he plays LoL, and his favorite skins to use are Order of the Lotus Irelia, Divine Sword Irelia, and Sentinel Irelia.
— He is a huge fan of K/DA and his bias is Ahri. Whenever K/DA has a comeback, he exclusively plays as Ahri in the mid lane.
— GalaxTree hosts a weekly podcast called GalaxSeed and the tagline is "Sprouting Conversation." Hyunsoo considers it his second favorite achievement as it provides a safe space for him and his friends to speak candidly on various topics outside of gaming and streaming.
— He regularly looks at fanart and retweets his favorite ones. He also frequently commissions artists for digital prints, which helps both sides gain more exposure.
— He prefers DC and the Justice League over Marvel, especially because his favorite superhero is the Flash. However, he wishes the movies from the DC Extended Universe were as good as the ones from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
— Although he no longer plays professionally, he never lets his rank drop below Challenger in LoL out of pride and to also maintain his core viewership.
— He always keeps a bag of sour gummy candy on his desk to snack on, especially at night, since it helps him stay awake and stay focused when he's gaming.
— His fans all know that he has never had a girlfriend before and always spam Poggers in the chat whenever he streams with a girl.
— He hopes to eventually expand GalaxTree to include designated producers and editors, since everyone in the house is currently juggling extra roles to make up for the lack of manpower. Hyunsoo's extra role is the GalaxSeed podcast channel producer and main host. He is responsible for inviting guests outside of GalaxTree, coming up with topics, and guiding the conversation so that it flows smoothly and comfortably.
— The starting roster of the LS Regals LoL team is collectively known as "the Royal Five" or 왕족 5인조. During his tenure, Hyunsoo's title was "the Otter King" or 수달왕.
— He mains Irelia in the mid lane when he plays LoL, and his favorite skins to use are Order of the Lotus Irelia, Divine Sword Irelia, and Sentinel Irelia.
— He is a huge fan of K/DA and his bias is Ahri. Whenever K/DA has a comeback, he exclusively plays as Ahri in the mid lane.
— GalaxTree hosts a weekly podcast called GalaxSeed and the tagline is "Sprouting Conversation." Hyunsoo considers it his second favorite achievement as it provides a safe space for him and his friends to speak candidly on various topics outside of gaming and streaming.
— He regularly looks at fanart and retweets his favorite ones. He also frequently commissions artists for digital prints, which helps both sides gain more exposure.
— He prefers DC and the Justice League over Marvel, especially because his favorite superhero is the Flash. However, he wishes the movies from the DC Extended Universe were as good as the ones from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
— Although he no longer plays professionally, he never lets his rank drop below Challenger in LoL out of pride and to also maintain his core viewership.
— He always keeps a bag of sour gummy candy on his desk to snack on, especially at night, since it helps him stay awake and stay focused when he's gaming.
— His fans all know that he has never had a girlfriend before and always spam Poggers in the chat whenever he streams with a girl.
— He hopes to eventually expand GalaxTree to include designated producers and editors, since everyone in the house is currently juggling extra roles to make up for the lack of manpower. Hyunsoo's extra role is the GalaxSeed podcast channel producer and main host. He is responsible for inviting guests outside of GalaxTree, coming up with topics, and guiding the conversation so that it flows smoothly and comfortably.
DAILY LIFE, ROUTINE!
Hyunsoo has a relatively flexible schedule, thanks to being his own boss and the nature of his current professional career. He typically sleeps in until noon, unless he has a sponsored stream in the morning or is specifically streaming for his international followers. On days that he has to wake up early, Hyunsoo stops by Get Well Soon Coffee for a strong dose of caffeine to wake himself up. If he doesn't have coffee in the morning, especially after staying up late to game, he is incredibly sluggish and unmotivated to do anything unless he gets to nap later to fully recharge.
After having breakfast, Hyunsoo goes to a nearby gym and works out for an hour. Once he is back at the house, Hyunsoo attends any scheduled business meetings or calls with sponsors, either for GalaxTree as a group or his individual channel. Eunmi usually attends these meetings with him and helps negotiate any proposed sponsorship deals. Hyunsoo does not handle the other members' individual sponsorships, since they all operate on their own terms for their respective channels.
With all of the corporate work handled, Hyunsoo then orders food to be delivered directly to the house. If other members are free at the same time, they eat together and usually discuss future collaborations with each other or other content creators. But if they are feeling a bit burnt out from work, Hyunsoo tries to steer the conversation towards mindless gossip about either the gaming industry or the entertainment industry.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Hyunsoo hops onto Twitch at five o'clock in the afternoon and usually streams until midnight. On Saturdays and Sundays, Hyunsoo hops onto Twitch at eight o'clock in the evening and streams until one o'clock in the morning. Tuesdays and Thursdays are typically his break days, unless he is doing a streaming challenge or has a sponsored stream. As a variety streamer, Hyunsoo plays all kinds of games and also does Just Chatting streams, usually hosting Q&As with his viewers or meme reviews. However, Hyunsoo does reserve at least one day a week to play solo queue in LoL. Those streams usually have the least amount of chat interaction, since he is hyper-focused on winning these important ranked games. If he is playing duo queue with another streamer or flex queue with the other GalaxTree members, Hyunsoo allows himself to joke around more, but not to the extent of throwing the game or ruining his rank for content. The only games he throws for content are fun multiplayer games that he streams with his friends like Gartic Phone and Draw Battle.
After he ends his stream, Hyunsoo either quietly plays solo queue in LoL for another few hours if he has reached his personal bandwidth for entertaining others for the day or visits his housemates to guest on their streams. Whenever he needs some air or feels too cooped up in the house, Hyunsoo ropes any of his available housemates into going to Hongdae with him and playing in arcades for several hours or going to nearby street food tents and enjoying late-night snacks.
Although he does have a relatively regular streaming schedule, in order to maintain consistency and retain his audience, Hyunsoo is very flexible and will adjust his streaming hours to match his housemates' schedules if they are collaborating and playing games together. Everyone in the house has a different streaming schedule, so they alternate between each member's schedule to keep it fair. The members' current favorite multiplayer and party games are Among Us, Jackbox, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Overcooked, Teamfight Tactics, and League of Legends.
In spite of their different schedules, the GalaxTree members try to keep the weekend free in order to film content together for the group's YouTube channels. Saturdays afternoons are usually when they shoot videos for the main channel and Sundays mornings are usually when they record new podcast episodes. All of them try to be present for as many recordings as they can, since the overall group chemistry is a huge part of GalaxTree's appeal, but some members are missing from time to time due to sponsored streaming commitments or traveling. Post-production for main channel videos takes up to a week, so new uploads usually go live on Fridays at 3PM KST. Meanwhile, new podcast episodes are usually uploaded on Tuesdays at 9AM KST. Because Hyunsoo is rarely awake in the morning, Chaeyeon graciously offered to monitor the podcast channel for the first hour after each release since she is one of the morning streamers in the house. To mitigate her extra workload, Hyunsoo tries to schedule his morning sponsored streams on Tuesdays, especially because anything related to the GalaxSeed podcast is technically his responsibility.
Hyunsoo also occasionally visits the game programming and esports clubs at Yonsei University, usually at Seohee's invitation. He has also been a guest speaker at several gaming and streaming conventions, mostly for LoL and Twitch panels so that he can talk about his experience as a former pro-gamer for LS Regals and a content creator for GalaxTree. Because he still has an amicable business relationship with Level Station Company, Hyunsoo gets invited to their events and has sponsorship deals with them to promote some of their products, mostly their new games in order to draw in consumers through his audience. Hyunsoo also visits the LS Regals gaming house from time to time to catch up with his old teammates.
After having breakfast, Hyunsoo goes to a nearby gym and works out for an hour. Once he is back at the house, Hyunsoo attends any scheduled business meetings or calls with sponsors, either for GalaxTree as a group or his individual channel. Eunmi usually attends these meetings with him and helps negotiate any proposed sponsorship deals. Hyunsoo does not handle the other members' individual sponsorships, since they all operate on their own terms for their respective channels.
With all of the corporate work handled, Hyunsoo then orders food to be delivered directly to the house. If other members are free at the same time, they eat together and usually discuss future collaborations with each other or other content creators. But if they are feeling a bit burnt out from work, Hyunsoo tries to steer the conversation towards mindless gossip about either the gaming industry or the entertainment industry.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Hyunsoo hops onto Twitch at five o'clock in the afternoon and usually streams until midnight. On Saturdays and Sundays, Hyunsoo hops onto Twitch at eight o'clock in the evening and streams until one o'clock in the morning. Tuesdays and Thursdays are typically his break days, unless he is doing a streaming challenge or has a sponsored stream. As a variety streamer, Hyunsoo plays all kinds of games and also does Just Chatting streams, usually hosting Q&As with his viewers or meme reviews. However, Hyunsoo does reserve at least one day a week to play solo queue in LoL. Those streams usually have the least amount of chat interaction, since he is hyper-focused on winning these important ranked games. If he is playing duo queue with another streamer or flex queue with the other GalaxTree members, Hyunsoo allows himself to joke around more, but not to the extent of throwing the game or ruining his rank for content. The only games he throws for content are fun multiplayer games that he streams with his friends like Gartic Phone and Draw Battle.
After he ends his stream, Hyunsoo either quietly plays solo queue in LoL for another few hours if he has reached his personal bandwidth for entertaining others for the day or visits his housemates to guest on their streams. Whenever he needs some air or feels too cooped up in the house, Hyunsoo ropes any of his available housemates into going to Hongdae with him and playing in arcades for several hours or going to nearby street food tents and enjoying late-night snacks.
Although he does have a relatively regular streaming schedule, in order to maintain consistency and retain his audience, Hyunsoo is very flexible and will adjust his streaming hours to match his housemates' schedules if they are collaborating and playing games together. Everyone in the house has a different streaming schedule, so they alternate between each member's schedule to keep it fair. The members' current favorite multiplayer and party games are Among Us, Jackbox, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Overcooked, Teamfight Tactics, and League of Legends.
In spite of their different schedules, the GalaxTree members try to keep the weekend free in order to film content together for the group's YouTube channels. Saturdays afternoons are usually when they shoot videos for the main channel and Sundays mornings are usually when they record new podcast episodes. All of them try to be present for as many recordings as they can, since the overall group chemistry is a huge part of GalaxTree's appeal, but some members are missing from time to time due to sponsored streaming commitments or traveling. Post-production for main channel videos takes up to a week, so new uploads usually go live on Fridays at 3PM KST. Meanwhile, new podcast episodes are usually uploaded on Tuesdays at 9AM KST. Because Hyunsoo is rarely awake in the morning, Chaeyeon graciously offered to monitor the podcast channel for the first hour after each release since she is one of the morning streamers in the house. To mitigate her extra workload, Hyunsoo tries to schedule his morning sponsored streams on Tuesdays, especially because anything related to the GalaxSeed podcast is technically his responsibility.
Hyunsoo also occasionally visits the game programming and esports clubs at Yonsei University, usually at Seohee's invitation. He has also been a guest speaker at several gaming and streaming conventions, mostly for LoL and Twitch panels so that he can talk about his experience as a former pro-gamer for LS Regals and a content creator for GalaxTree. Because he still has an amicable business relationship with Level Station Company, Hyunsoo gets invited to their events and has sponsorship deals with them to promote some of their products, mostly their new games in order to draw in consumers through his audience. Hyunsoo also visits the LS Regals gaming house from time to time to catch up with his old teammates.
NAME Baek Goeun (26)
FACE CLAIM Yoon Bomi [Apink]
R/S housemate, friend
OCCUPATION Twitch streamer (Dolfin), GalaxTree member
Baek Goeun, more commonly known as Dolfin, is one of the founding members of GalaxTree and a professional Twitch streamer. She and Hyunsoo are both alumni from Korea University, where they met and became friends. They both attended an MT organized by the College of Engineering and immediately hit it off due to their shared interest in gaming. When Goeun first expressed wanting to start a Twitch channel, Hyunsoo built her a new gaming PC and helped organize her stream set-up. They often streamed together whenever Hyunsoo took breaks from practicing, usually playing duo queue on LoL with Hyunsoo's smurf account so that ranked games were less stressful, especially since Goeun had no desire to compete with pro-level LoL players in Challenger. They also streamed Pokemon Showdown together, since Goeun is a huge Pokemon fan.
Because of her immense love for Pokemon, Goeun has gained much of her popularity through streaming various main-title Pokemon games on her Twitch channel. She often streams randomized Nuzlocke runs, for the added chaos, and involves her chat in naming her Pokemon to keep the streams interactive. And as an ardent anime fan, she regularly discusses her favorite shows of the season in her weekly Just Chatting streams. When Genshin Impact was released in September 2020, Goeun began primarily streaming that and Honkai Impact 3rd, since she loves miHoYo's anime-inspired art style and character designs. She regularly cosplays her favorite anime and miHoYo characters as well, which has greatly expanded her audience on both Twitch and Instagram.
When Hyunsoo first began planning the creation of GalaxTree, Goeun was the first person he invited to join the house and she immediately accepted the offer, no questions asked. She ultimately found the house that GalaxTree ended up being based in when she went house-hunting with Hyunsoo in Seodaemun-gu before the group was officially established. Within the house, Goeun is currently GalaxTree's content strategist. She works closely with Changwoo and Hyunsoo to coordinate ideas and scheduling for videos on both the main channel and the podcast channel. She also takes point on managing GalaxTree's SNS accounts to improve the group's SEO and increase audience engagement.
NAME Jung Changwoo (27)
FACE CLAIM Kim Myungsoo (L) [Infinite]
R/S housemate, friend
OCCUPATION Twitch streamer (Mordread), GalaxTree member
Jung Changwoo, more commonly known as Mordread, is one of the founding members of GalaxTree and a former professional PUBG player. He and Hyunsoo were both part of the LS Regals roster, but for different games, so their early interactions were quite limited as they were both hyper-focused on training for their respective tournaments. They did not become close until the two of them collaborated for a project that showcased a handful of LS Regals members trying to learn how to play competitively in games they did not specialize in. Both Hyunsoo and Changwoo spent a week each on the other's livestream, attempting to master PUBG and LoL, respectively. After that first collaboration, they continued to frequently guest on each other's channels and also began hanging out together off-camera.
After the 2020 LoL World Championship, Hyunsoo and Changwoo discussed their remaining schedules for the year. That was when Hyunsoo revealed his plans to leave LS Regals once his contract was up in December. Changwoo, who also had two months left on his contract that year, was intrigued by the idea of GalaxTree but did not outwardly express his interest to avoid violating his contract with LS Regals. He had grown tired of the hyper-competitive environment within the professional gaming industry as well and eventually decided that the 2020 PUBG Global Championship would be his final pro-level tournament. A month later, Changwoo chose not to renew his contract with LS Regals and officially parted ways with them. Now a free agent, he contacted Hyunsoo, who instantly recruited his friend to GalaxTree.
Although Changwoo no longer plays professionally, he still mainly streams PUBG on his Twitch channel and often does educational streams on his smurf account for newer players. He also streams horror games for fun, like Phasmophobia and Outlast. Within the house, Changwoo is currently GalaxTree's main channel producer. He collects ideas from the group and fully develops most of them into fun videos. He works closely with Eunmi to plan each video's budget and set up the equipment and props needed for each shoot. He also assists Sunghoon in sectioning the collected footage and approving the final cut.
NAME Kwak Chaeyeon (26)
FACE CLAIM Park Sunyoung (Luna) [f(x)]
R/S housemate, friend
OCCUPATION Twitch streamer (MRLD), GalaxTree member
Kwak Chaeyeon, more commonly known as Emerald, is one of the founding members of GalaxTree and a professional Twitch streamer. She became popular on the platform through her CS:GO livestreams, snarky commentary, and edgy style. She initially went viral due to her incredibly accurate shooting abilities, rarely missing her targets in-game. Many people clipped these moments and shared them on YouTube and Twitter, causing a huge spike in viewership that put Chaeyeon on the front page of Twitch several times and she soon became one of the most consistently watched CS:GO streamers for several years. She also dabbled in Overwatch during its first year before moving back to CS:GO. When Valorant was in development, Chaeyeon was invited to the alpha play test with several other prominent CS:GO and Overwatch streamers, and was given beta keys to distribute to viewers during the closed beta period. She now primarily plays Valorant as a Jett main on Twitch.
When he was assembling GalaxTree's lineup, Hyunsoo reached out to Chaeyeon through a Twitter DM and invited her to join the group. He was greatly impressed by her exceptional gaming skills and her consistent growth as a content creator on Twitch, so she was one of the handful of streamers on his short-list to invite to GalaxTree. Since she was looking for a new place to live in at the time, Chaeyeon met Hyunsoo in person to learn more about GalaxTree and his plans for a streamer house. Soon after hearing his pitch and getting reassurance that it would be a safe space for female streamers, Chaeyeon agreed to join the group and immediately moved in once her previous housing contract ended.
Within the house, Chaeyeon is currently GalaxTree's music producer for both the members' individual Twitch channels and the group's YouTube channels. Due to Twitch and YouTube's increasingly strict guidelines on using copyrighted music, Chaeyeon creates original melodies for the members to use so that they can avoid receiving copyright strikes and demonetization. She often does Just Chatting streams to deconstruct her composition process for any newly released GalaxTree music. Chaeyeon also teases short snippets of any songs she's currently working at the end of these livestreams and releases the official versions a day earlier to her Twitch subscribers through the GalaxTree Discord server. She works closely with Sunghoon to build and maintain a music library for him to pull from whenever he edits videos for the main channel. She also regularly collaborates with other Twitch musicians and streams music reviews with them.
NAME Seo Sunghoon (28)
FACE CLAIM Lee Kikwang [Highlight]
R/S housemate, friend
OCCUPATION Twitch streamer (SorenSky), GalaxTree member
Seo Sunghoon, more commonly known as Soren, is one of the founding members of GalaxTree and a professional Twitch streamer. He specializes in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but also dabbles in the other SSB titles and fighting game franchises like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, and mains Fox. However, his initial audience before joining GalaxTree was relatively small compared to his current housemates, since SSBM is comparatively less popular in Korea than it is overseas. Gaming culture in Korea favors PC games over console games, especially with the prevalence of PC rooms throughout the country, so Sunghoon already knew he would be targeting a niche crowd when he first started streaming.
Even so, Sunghoon managed to grow a big enough audience to be invited to several pro-gaming networking events, which is how he met Hyunsoo. They were both invited to G-STAR in 2018 for a Twitch panel and became friends afterwards. From then on, the two streamers frequently collaborated, often playing Nintendo party games with other streamers like Goeun. And when Hyunsoo left LS Regals to start GalaxTree, he immediately invited Sunghoon to join the house. Sunghoon readily accepted the invitation and moved in with the rest once the housing contract was finalized.
Nowadays, whenever the group plays Nintendo party games together, they always gang up on Sunghoon because he usually obliterates them all, especially in any version of SSB. Within the house, Sunghoon is currently GalaxTree's main channel video editor. He cuts and compiles all of the footage of their house shenanigans into fun videos with dynamic edits. He works closely with Changwoo to develop each video's overall storyline, and implements Eunmi's graphics and Chaeyeon's music into the final cut. Sunghoon also edits the GalaxSeed podcast videos, which luckily take much less effort than the main channel videos do since he only needs to add the opening slate, the segment transitions, and the ending card.
NAME Han Eunmi (29)
FACE CLAIM Stephanie Hwang (Tiffany) [SNSD]
R/S housemate, friend
OCCUPATION Twitch streamer (Chrysalis), GalaxTree house manager
Han Eunmi, more commonly known as Chrys, is the house manager of GalaxTree and a professional graphic designer. She primarily does IRL streams in the Art and ASMR categories. She first began streaming on the side while working as a graphic designer for Hwang-Ok E-Commerce's marketing department. She wanted an avenue to create her own designs without any restrictions laid down by a corporation and streaming gave her that freedom. Eunmi eventually found interest in ASMR, due to its calming qualities, and her audience on Twitch greatly increased after she added ASMR to her streaming schedule.
When Hyunsoo was solidifying his personal branding, separate from the LS Regals branding, he commissioned several custom Twitch emotes and artwork from Eunmi, who was recommended to him by Seohee. They kept in contact afterwards and Hyunsoo regularly recommended Eunmi to anyone he knew that wanted custom artwork. She was also one of the first people he reached out to when he started developing GalaxTree's brand identity. By that point, Eunmi was quite disillusioned with corporate life and craved more of the freedom that streaming gave her. However, her audience was not yet large enough to completely sustain her. Hyunsoo decided to bring Eunmi into GalaxTree as a salaried employee, thus providing her with a financial safety net as she continued to grow her Twitch channel, in exchange for her artistic and marketing expertise.
As GalaxTree's house manager, Eunmi oversees the group's living operations and sets up the main channel video shoots. Since she does not appear in videos as often, Eunmi is also currently the group's camera operator until they can hire someone specifically for production. She works closely with Hyunsoo to manage the group's finances and utility bills, ensuring that none of their payments are late. Eunmi also maintains the members' individual and collective business meeting schedules with sponsors or other content creators who wish to collaborate with anyone from GalaxTree. She keeps records of the house's inventory and runs errands to restock whatever is needed, like supplies and groceries. Eunmi also designs all of the GalaxTree merchandise and manages the group's online store. She packages and ships all of the orders from the house, and works closely with Goeun to promote new items on SNS.
NAME Nam Seohee (29)
FACE CLAIM Kwon Nara
R/S former manager, friend
OCCUPATION MBA student at Yonsei University, assistant manager in Level Station Company's operations team
Hyunsoo and Seohee met five years ago when Seohee officially joined Level Station Company as an employee. As part of the operations team, Seohee was assigned to help develop LS Regals and manage the players. Since LS Regals was still a newcomer back then, in comparison to the heavy hitters like SK Telecom T1 and Samsung Galaxy, Level Station Company poured a significant amount of resources to train and develop their players to the highest caliber. As one of the team's managers, Seohee was in charge of LS Regals' promotions and sponsorships. She helped the players prepare for interviews and scheduled scrimmages with other pro-gaming teams.
Because Hyunsoo was still living on campus at Korea University at the time, unlike the other members who lived together in the designated LS Regals gaming house, Seohee often texted him to make sure he was eating and sleeping properly in between all of his school assignments and LoL practice. By that point, Hyunsoo was notorious for skipping class to squeeze in extra hours of solo queue and his grades were falling drastically. But because his rank in LoL was steadily increasing and he was able to lead the team to win most of their scrimmages, Hyunsoo saw no reason to change his habits and continued to focus solely on LoL. As an high-performing overachiever herself, Seohee couldn't bear to see Hyunsoo sacrifice his education like this and had several talks with him about prioritizing his schoolwork. Hyunsoo was resistant at first, since LoL was all he cared about and he felt like Seohee's advice would interfere with his performance. However, after a particularly long week of scrimmages and his department counselor putting him on academic probation, Hyunsoo finally sought out Seohee to ask for her help on how he could achieve balance between LoL practice and his schoolwork.
Since then, Seohee and Hyunsoo have maintained a close friendship. A year after Hyunsoo moved into the LS Regals gaming house, Seohee stopped managing the team since she had taken on more responsibilities in other areas of Level Station Company. After the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Level Station Company exploded in growth and other managers were hired to take care of LS Regals. Although they no longer saw each other on a regular basis, Seohee made time to drop by the house every few weeks and check in on the players while Hyunsoo set aside one of his lunch breaks every week to visit the company and eat with his former manager. When Hyunsoo first began formulating his post-LS Regal plans, Seohee helped him work out a viable business plan for GalaxTree so that the streamer house would be able to survive after its first year. Taking all of her advice to heart, a stark contrast from his immature university days, Hyunsoo has maintained a positive relationship with Level Station Company and garnered several long-term sponsorship deals for GalaxTree that were negotiated with Seohee's help. Nowadays, she visits the GalaxTree house whenever she has free time to hang out with Hyunsoo, Changwoo, and Eunmi.
memories
life direction
When he was a child, Hyunsoo never envisioned becoming a professional gamer and an online content creator, especially since such careers didn't even exist back then. Gaming was an intense hobby, one that consumed all of his free time and then some, but a hobby all the same. One of the main reasons his parents disapproved of him gaming so much when he was younger was because they saw it as a huge waste of time, and believed that it would lead him to poverty and homelessness. As such, Hyunsoo always assumed he would lead a more conventional life after university, working a 9-5 and going through the repetitive motions of adulthood like most others his age.
So with all of the opportunities he has been granted over the past decade, Hyunsoo recognizes how lucky he is to get to play video games and entertain people for a living. He's reached his dream job, his dream life, and is making more than enough to fully support himself through channel subscriptions, viewer donations, stream advertisements, and sponsorship deals. He eats and sleeps whenever he wants, he doesn't have a boss or corporate leaders to answer to, and best of all: he gets to be around his best friends and play games with them all of the time. Life can't get much better than this.
But just like every other career that exists, there are downsides to streaming, even though it may not seem like it to viewers and others who are not professionally involved in streaming or online content creation in general. To them, it's all fun and memes for Hyunsoo. It's not a real job. And to be fair, most days, it doesn't feel like a real job to Hyunsoo and he loves entertaining his viewers on stream for hours on end. But there's more to being a Twitch streamer and content creator than just playing video games all of the time. At the end of the day, GalaxTree is technically a startup business and multiple young adults' livelihoods depend on its success. The members of GalaxTree can't live off of memes alone, as much as they'd like to.
So it becomes a game in itself to keep GalaxTree balanced as a fun yet functional business, even though none of the members actually studied business in university. Seohee's help and advice during GalaxTree's inception were instrumental to its successful launch, but Hyunsoo knows that he cannot rely on her forever and that it is his responsibility as GalaxTree's founder to keep the organization on an upwards trajectory. But juggling both the business and creative aspects of content creation is more difficult than Hyunsoo expected, especially since he still has to fit in at least 30 hours of streaming every week to fulfill his Twitch contract. It feels like every waking moment he has, Hyunsoo is solely thinking about what kind of new and interesting content he should produce and showcase on both the GalaxTree and GalaxSeed YouTube channels and his own Twitch channel. There is virtually no work-life balance when his work is his life and it's a never-ending race to stay relevant. The Internet is a fickle beast, especially since more and more people are trying their hand at streaming and online content creation, and public opinion can turn in an instant if he's not careful or starts stagnating. Hyunsoo is lucky enough to have grown a decently large fanbase during his pro-gaming days, but that also means he has tens of thousands of people scrutinizing his every move on camera.
Sometimes, Hyunsoo wonders if he's bitten off more than he can chew with GalaxTree. It's his pride and joy, but maintaining a successful streamer house isn't easy. That's why they are so few outside of the pro-gaming scene, where corporations finance and manage everything so that streamers can focus solely on content creation. Hyunsoo not only has to take care of his individual numbers, but he also has to boost GalaxTree's numbers as a whole. And this developing hyper-fixation on view counts and subscriber counts begins taking precedence over producing content that he truly enjoys. It also doesn't help when everyone—his friends, his viewers, even the old lady who owns the nearby egg bread stand—harps on him for still being single and people ship him with every female he stands next to. Hyunsoo has no idea how he can fit romance into the equation or if it's even possible due to his unconventional lifestyle as a streamer, especially when he has next to no dating experience.
When everything finally comes to a head and he feels like he's about to implode from everything he's juggling, Hyunsoo finds solace in what he knows and loves best: gaming for the sake of having fun. Relinquishing the restrictive expectations set by Twitch and YouTube's abysmal algorithms, corporate brands, and his viewers, Hyunsoo focuses once more on doing what he enjoys and making content that he is proud of instead of needlessly following trends or sacrificing his own sanity to churn out content like a machine. Even if there's a dip in engagement, Hyunsoo knows that setting healthy boundaries for himself is the best course of action; he refuses to continue obsessing over numbers and allowing these metrics to determine his and GalaxTree's worth. And he knows that he can rely on his friends and fellow members to help him keep GalaxTree steering in the right direction: onward and upward. He's yet to reach the highest level with GalaxTree and he won't give up until he's accomplished his objective.
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interview
HELLO, IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU. NOW, BEFORE WE START, CAN YOU INTRODUCE YOURSELF?
Yo, what's up, my name is Kwon Hyunsoo, but most people know me as OtterChaos. I stream on Twitch and I started a streamer house called GalaxTree with a bunch of my friends. If you follow the pro-gaming scene, I used to be a mid laner in League of Legends for LS Regals. I recently retired from playing professionally, but I'm still friends with the current Regals roster and other pro-LoL players.
WHAT ARE YOUR CURRENT GOALS IN LIFE? DO YOU HAVE A LIFE MOTTO OR PRINCIPLE YOU LIVE BY?
Right now, I'm trying to hit one million followers on Twitch and one million subscribers on the GalaxTree YouTube channel. We only started our channel this year, but it's been growing pretty rapidly thanks to all of us sharing it with our individual followers. As for how I live my life, I'm all about trying new things and having new experiences. One of the main reasons why I stopped exclusively streaming LoL was because I was getting bored, to be honest. Transitioning to being a variety streamer has made my content way more interesting, in my opinion, and I'm having a lot more fun in general nowadays.
WHAT ARE THREE WORDS YOU IMAGINE PEOPLE DESCRIBE YOU AS?
Giant galaxy brain. Lots of wrinkle. Oh, wait, that's six words. Just kidding. My serious answer is funny, creative, and chill.
HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED LATER IN LIFE?
Honestly, I'm just trying to make fun content with my friends. If people enjoy watching our videos and streams, that's enough for me. A lot of people tell me I should've stayed with the Regals, especially since the team has a pretty good shot at placing top three in LCK this year, based off of the current summer split. And I could've established myself as a top-tier LoL player if I continued playing as much as I did before. But I honestly think it'd be cooler to be remembered for something I actually created and GalaxTree is my brain child. It literally doesn't get more galaxy brain than that, pun intended.
ANY LAST WORDS BEFORE WE END? IT'S BEEN GREAT HAVING YOU.
Here's some shameless plugging, 'cause your boy's gotta eat. Follow my Twitch channel at twitch.tv/OtterChaos for dumb memes, and subscribe to youtube.com/GalaxTree so my friends and I don't starve. Or not. That's cool too.
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dear love interest,
scroll right
open
ending credits
LUV_KERO. EMILY. 10/10.
COMMENTS Here is my first of three! :D I had so much fun getting to create a meme lord streamer, since I've wanted to do that for a while now. :D I have been very inspired by Disguised Toast and OfflineTV, so this was the perfect story to expand on the plot bunnies that've been running through my head as of late! I also realized how uncreative I am when it comes to names, because it took forever to make stream IDs for everyone, LOL. ^^; Feel free to pair him up with either another character or one of the GalaxTree members, or keep him single! His love life is in your hands, HAHA. :') And you have full creative control over Hyunsoo's overall life direction! What I've written is just how I imagine it, but I'm open to being surprised and seeing his life go in a different direction if you think it makes more sense! ^^ Anyway, definitely let me know if some things aren't consistent or correct and I'll fix them right away! Okay, I shall work on my next character now! :)
SCENE SUGGESTIONS None at the moment
PASSWORD Nam Seohee
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