How a VTuber Clip Channel Led to a TwitchCon Participation

In 2021, VIL was just another fan and had a small YouTube channel where he shared his favorite VTuber moments. That’s when he came across Ava Lamp’s broadcasts and something clicked.

Four years later, he was kneeling on a balcony at TwitchCon 2025, asking Ava to marry him.

Like many modern romances, the love story between VTubers VIL and Ava Lamp began online. “I liked her personality, content, and model,” VIL told Mashable at TwitchCon 2025, adding that he liked “her way of joking” and her “very slime-girl VTube model.”

“So, I followed her and started trimming her. [streams]and she noticed the clips,” he said.

From there, an online friendship began to grow. They talked more, collaborated, and eventually VIL became VTuber. Before long, the two became inseparable online: “best friends,” as he put it.

He began to fall for her, but Ava was clear: there was no chance of romance. She was a lesbian and would never date another content creator. “But then that changed,” he joked to Mashable.

Two years later, the friends decided to attend TwitchCon 2023 together with a group of mutuals. It would be the first time they would meet in person. They shared a hotel room with another friend and spent the three days side by side, laughing, exploring, and seemingly confusing everyone around them.

Their friends kept asking if they were dating. They would laugh and deny it. Of course not! How ridiculous.

“We spent most of the weekend together and pretty much did everything together,” he said. “You know when you really click with someone? You have that spark? That’s what I felt. And I thought, ‘I can’t not tell you. Because if we leave here, I won’t be brave enough to tell you later.'”

On the last day of the convention, she wrote a note on her phone in the back seat of an Uber and handed it to him. “Please don’t hate me,” he said.

The message, as you remember it, read something like this: “I know I said I wouldn’t date a man and I wouldn’t date a content creator, but after meeting you and seeing you in person, I’m feeling sparks.”

“It was really funny because she didn’t actually ask me out at any point in the note,” VIL said. “It was just her letting out her feelings in this note. As far as I know, this had a zero percent chance of happening. And now, suddenly, there was a hundred percent chance. So they put me on some kind of blue screen.”

In the back of that Uber, they dove straight into the big questions: marriage, kids, moving. They already knew each other as friends, but now they needed to know if they were compatible. Does it work? They were.

Sharing a kiss at TwitchCon.
Credit: Courtesy of Ava Lamp and VIL

There was only one problem: the distance. They lived across the country from each other. So, over the next year, they ran it long distance. They traveled to see each other every couple of months, streamed together, and even wore those bracelets that buzz when the other person touches theirs.

After TwitchCon 2024, they decided it was time. Ava packed her life into a U-Haul and together they made the trip across the country, between two hurricanes.

“Driving that U-Haul was terrifying,” VIL said. “I’ve only driven a truck that big once or twice before. So that, plus all of my partner’s belongings, are in a truck. And I’m the one driving.”

“Nothing bad happened, though,” Ava assured him.

When they sat down with Mashable at the San Diego Convention Center for TwitchCon 2025, the two were fiddling with their hands, both wearing matching silver bracelets with red jewels, replacements for the long-distance ones. Moving in together, Ava said, was a “huge relief” because “we can finally spend all our time together.”

Since all the major milestones of their relationship had aligned with TwitchCon (they met in person at TwitchCon 2023, and after TwitchCon 2024, they moved in together), they knew TwitchCon 2025 had to be something special.

VIL started a secret group chat with all of his friends, everyone except Ava. On the morning of the first day of the convention, Ava was taking her time getting ready while he tried to stay calm.

“I tried to do it really well,” she joked, but the engagement ring, a temporary one until the real ring, made with stones from her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s rings, was ready, was burning a hole in her pocket.

“I was checking it obsessively to make sure it didn’t fall,” he said.

“I saw you check your pocket a couple of times, but I didn’t see what that was. I thought you were just worried about losing your phone or something,” he laughed.

They had brunch with friends, but he couldn’t wait to get to the convention center. I had a plan: a balcony overlooking the ocean. Ava, however, wanted to stop by the merch table first.

“Last year, she wanted merch and it was sold out, and she knew she didn’t want that to happen again,” he said. “And then when she says, ‘Can we get this product real quick? I want to make sure we get it before anything happens.'” In my head I’m thinking, ‘No, we have to go!’ But I also didn’t want the merchandising to be lost. So I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, okay, but can we try to be a little quick?'”

Finally, they reached the balcony. His friends, who were all involved in the plan, asked other attendees to clear the area. Then VIL told Ava to check something on Discord. She opened her phone and saw a commissioned artwork of her VTuber character proposing to her. When she looked up, he was on one knee.

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He doesn’t remember exactly what he said. The only thing he remembers is that he said yes.

“[I love] “How sweet you are and how you wear your heart on your sleeve,” Ava said when asked what she loved most about him. “And you’re not afraid to be emotional. I love how sweet you are and how kind you are.”

Then VIL made her cry.

“I love how shameless you are,” he told her. In the past, people had tried to suppress their joy, he said. “I’m so happy that you can be your whole self and you can just embrace yourself. You love fashion. You’re very alt-goth. You love dying your hair. You love building Gundams, you love Legos, you love Disney. I love you. I love that you are you. And I’m glad that we can be our best selves together. You always encourage me to be my best self.”

They don’t have wedding plans yet, but if Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wants to sponsor it, they’re not opposed.