Not sure if anyone was talking about this at all but Selen Tatsuki was invited by Nocturnal to participate in the Apex Rising Tournament, a charity fundraiser for AIDS research and prevention hosted and organised by a former pro and current ALGS shoutcaster, Falloutt.
The standard of play is much higher than V-Saikyo as each team comprises of at least Diamond players, but spearheaded by pros like Hal, Sweet, Snip3down etc. Unlike V-Saikyo, too, there were 40 teams and it was a double elimination format.
Nocturnal's team of him, Selen, and a female challenger indie streamer called Ashwie_ came 1st in Group A, and then qualified for Grand Finals by finishing 9th in Winners Bracket. They unfortunately finished 16th in Grand Finals yesterday, but this is the least interesting part of the streams.
Selen was invited as a last minute entry as someone else dropped out, but the chemistry between her and Noct quickly led to them becoming the most-donated team and blowing past the $5,000 goal. Amazed by this, Falloutt called them on stream to thank them, and cited Selen as the main reason this was happening. They explained that they had established stretch goals at $5k, $7.5k and $10k to order each other cursed pizzas, and Falloutt said that he'd join in too at $15k.
Amidst all this, someone told Nocturnal about Ouro Kronii blending a subway sandwich and he blocked her Twitter live on stream. Despite this, NiceWigg - a former pro, Noct's friend and official commentator for the tournament - was watching Noct's stream at this time and told Noct that they'd drink a blended subway sandwich on their podcast. Both of them ganged up on Selen and told her she'd be invited to the podcast to join them in the act.
The tournament ended and Noct's team finished 1st in overall donations at about $18k. Falloutt was blown away and fired up a second stream of him discovering V-Tubers (which is sadly now mostly Lost Media, as in the same stream he also drove around his neighbourhood looking for pizza which was a doxxers' wet dream). Fans introduced him to V-Saikyo and, believing he had the facilities to assist ShibuyaHal in some kind of overseas collaboration, reached out to him on twitter.
The giggling purple dragon has somehow stumbled her way into blowing the wall between JP V-Tubers and the EN Apex pro scene wide open. Though I suppose you could also say that, if V-Saikyo suddenly has massive overseas presence, it's because Axel fought to give Selen her opportunity to snowball and network.