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onebizarrekai · 4 years

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v3′s art is comically terrible for a professionally distributed game in a series: a compilation

in this not-essay I will list all of the mistakes and problems I have spotted in v3′s art. don’t worry, it’s entirely for fun and I’m doing this on a whim, so please feel free to not take this seriously but also it’s hilarious and embarrassing how ridiculous this is like what happened did they speedrun the whole production or what

see, there are some things you can take as meta like “they made it bad on purpose to allude to the downfall of tv shows that have been on air for much too long” but I have a very strong feeling this is not the case due to the nature of some of these errors

disclaimer, the more I study this art, the more I fear that the artists were underpaid and underslept, so if this is in fact the case, I am so sorry to all of them but also I’m going to make fun of the art anyway

anyway let’s get started!

if you study this image for longer than 5 seconds, you will see that kaede is the only one fully shaded and keebo is literally just his normal sprite pasted into the image. every other character is just an ordinary ref, hence most of them facing the exact same direction with neutral expressions on their faces. it looks like a bad edit, and is probably one of the worst pieces of art in the game. it kind of gets better from here on, but my roasting will not.

with that out of the way, here’s the problem that officially bothers me the most and clarifies my viewpoint of “this is not meta and an actual lack of company communication”

this freaking cg, which seems normal at a glance, but some wiseass was like “oh, kaede is a girl, so obviously she’s going to be shorter than the Male Protagonist™” ah, that’s funny. because if you look at the character bios, kaede is, in fact, one inch taller than shuichi and not like 6 inches shorter as she is shown here.

also shuichi’s shoulder is disproportionate and horrendous and he looks vaguely like a jojo character, but I wasn’t even thinking about that until right now.

thanks guys, 50% of the fandom who has never bothered to check these bios thinks that kaede is like 5′3 (did the developers really put so little thought into her to the point where drawing her correctly in the game didn’t even matter??)

also I would like to point out that, even though this isn’t related to the art itself, yes, a character kaede’s size being only 117 lbs is unfeasible, but this applies to literally every character in danganronpa ever and it’s not new news that it’s unrealistic

update: someone in the tags informed me that in versions of the game that use centimeters, like the japanese version, kaede is actually shorter than shuichi, which just adds another thing to the list of weird decisions the localization team made for no reason. that said, after confirming this, kaede is 167 cm in the original, while shuichi is 171 cm, which are approximately 5′6 and 5′7 respectively, but one inch is still nowhere near as drastic as it is depicted above. (in spite of this, I would rather depict kaede as slightly taller, so I’m probably going to keep doing that.)

the journey continues!

bro if you want kaede to have shoulder length hair then stick to it to begin with

you can pretend this is at an angle all you want but they definitely committed the shorter kaede sin a second time

wait a goddamn second.

DO YOU SEE THIS

no………… it wasn’t kaede who shrank. it was shuichi who got taller

speaking of which, can we talk about how shady the perspective is in this elevator pic? look at shuichi and kokichi in comparison to kaede. kokichi, who is canonically 7 inches (edit: or 5, if you’re loyal to the original) shorter than kaede, looks taller than kaede. he’s growing too. what steroids are these gays taking

running into the room, electric boogaloo: I don’t think tsumugi is supposed to be the same height as kokichi

gonta… gonta you’re lookin a bit like a jojo character there

I love how kaito’s head looks kind of like it was pasted onto his body. why is he the same size as shuichi? shouldn’t he be high school bully size or something? his torso is teensy

ah yes, white angie.

I love this cg but why is shuichi’s right hand so much bigger than his left hand

I also love how this cg looks like they literally took pictures of trees and pasted them into the background, especially on the left. the shadows are so weird, especially closer to the ceiling, it’s difficult for me to believe they didn’t do exactly that.

return of Enlarged shuichi

puberty update: kokichi is now taller than shuichi in spite of shuichi never missing leg day. what crimes will he commit

I have to mention it, guys. this has to be one of the worst danganronpa cgs. kokichi’s facial proportions look atrocious. look at the way his face sticks out like his jaw is in the wrong place. his scarf is a pasted texture. that’s it. this moment was so iconic but the cg just looks so… so… off. like something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

you know what? let’s get into that ‘pasted texture’ thing.

let’s imagine you’re an artist working on a professional game. you’re assigned to draw cgs of kokichi ouma, who has a checkered scarf from hell. sure, it will be terrible to draw, but you only have to draw it once at a time! plus, perspective is pretty important, right? can you be bothered? nah, actually. let’s just copy paste a checkered pattern into the cg, because I’m sure nobody will notice. it’ll blend right in with the other cgs that someone actually put effort into drawing his scarf in, right?

no. the answer is no and I very much noticed. this genuinely looks terrible and I would understand taking a shortcut like that in fanart or even an indie game but this is a full price pc and console distributed game

(an addition: look at kokichi’s TINY HANDS in that last one)

meanwhile, they straight up forgot to color in kokichi’s scarf in this cg.

dude. I forgot about whatever the hell this cg was. anyway look at keebo please just look at him

lovin kaito’s baby arms

real talk, maybe you could argue that he’s missing muscle because he’s deathly sick, but most of his cgs don’t line up with this, and his arms just look disproportionate to his torso size (granted this is a consistent problem across all danganronpa games and a lot of characters have this weird problem, like hajime, but also kaito is bigger than hajime so I kind of have higher expectations of him) maybe it’s his stupid goatee and the way he reminds me of yasuhiro?? it creates this illusion that he’s older than he is and so I keep expecting him to look more like an adult

oh, also rantaro is missing some of his accessories in that video he made–you know the one–but I don’t wanna go back and screenshot it

also you may have noticed that I’m skipping all of the monokub cgs because I literally do not care about them and I’m not even bothering to check and see if they have artistic mistakes in them

JIMMY NEUTRON???

hey um uh kaito you seem to be missing your neck

hey guys do you like my pregame fanart

so, that done, the sprites are also pretty terrible at times. they’re not as interesting to go through, however, and downloading the full sprite sets for every character and studying every single one of them will drive me insane, so I’ll just sum some of the ones I noticed up. I made things for kaede and shuichi before deciding I wasn’t going to get into it, so here are these.

that said, other mistakes include kokichi missing his purple highlights in all of the sprites encompassing a specific pose, stray pixels all over the place on everyone, and everyone also has heavily inconsistent shading, but literally all I think about is how pregame shuichi is unshaded and two of kaede’s pregame sprites have glaring outfit change mistakes in them

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous ramble. in all seriousness, there’s this looming presence of some lack of communication in the development team, like with all the art and design inconsistencies, pieces and sprites that look rushed, stray pixels, and missing basic proportional stuff. these are the kinds of things that you supposedly have to pretty much have in the bag in order to get jobs in professional businesses, so it’s really weird to me that this game suffers from so many of these problems. it’s like they tried to make the art so much more crisp than the other games, but it fell on its face as they realized it was going to take longer to draw everything and they started to rush. it’s weird, because the coloring itself looks normal–it’s just sloppily drawn, and the proportions are a mess once put into the context of perspective. many of the cgs look like they were drawn by different people, and I’m still not over the fact that half of kokichi’s cgs have his scarf pasted in as a texture.

the moral of the story is that if you’re selling a game at full price that also happens to be in a series that has had 3 very good games in it already the stakes should probably be higher than this. v3 has been out for more than 3 years and it’s still $40 (did it cost more than that before? I sure hope not), and the overarching quality of the game is just not as high as the other games. I’m not saying that the other games don’t have any problems with their art at all, they’re just not as glaringly obvious and every artistic choice in those games feels intentional.

regardless, I had a blast roasting the art at 2am, so maybe you got a kick out of all this chaos.

#god I keep telling myself I'm gonna stop rambling about v3 #v3 spoilers #drv3 spoilers #ndrv3 #random stuff #but making this… it sounded so fun #danganronpa

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amateur-author597 · 3 years

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SERIOUS RISE OF THE TITANS SPOILERS

BUT I NEED TO RANT

SPOILERS ARE UNDER THE CUT I PROMISE

I STARTED ROTT TEN MINUTES AFTER IT CAME OUT AT 5:01 PM AEST AND FINISHED ROTT AT ROUGHLY 10 TO 7

I FINISHED THE MOVIE AND SAW 8 SPOILER POSTS WITHIN 2 MINUTES ON TUMBLR

PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS AND PUT ALL SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT FOR YOUR POSTS AND TAG THEM PROPERLY

FIRST OFF

Everyone who said Blinky would die because of"and blinky" in the trailer

Fuck you

It was very fair but still I was so scared

Same to if those who said Archie died because he wasn't in the trailer

Again fair but I was terrified and anxious as hell

My heart could not have handled if he died or Douxie's grief but I'm still upset about what actually happened

And I wish Zoe showed up so they could give her some characterization

We find out she's known Douxie and been friends with him for over 900 years but she doesn't help with the Arcane Order?

And none of the hedge witches show up to help fight them to defend their home?!?!?!

SECOND!!! THE TRAIN SCENE!!!

YES

LOVED IT

GREAT

Jim you stupid string bean, I love you though

Claire, good job, that was some hard magic

Toby, go duke!

Douxie my husband, YAAASS QUEEN, GET IT BABY

The Police Station

It was so funny

Everything about it I loved

Douxari confusing the officers and being neutrally chaotic

Claire trying to be tough and silent

Toby spilling ALL the tea and the officers not believing him

Archie just being Archie and enjoying the confusion of the humans

KREL SHOWING UP WITH RICKY AND LUCY

YES

OMFG

Keep casually listing just about every spy agency in order

and then just

"And your mum"

What a legend

Literal King 👑

Honestly

Walter and Barbara

Them being engaged and happy

Y E S

Jim being best man

Y E S

Walter DYING before they could get married

N O

H E L L N O

ELI GREW UP!!!!!

MPREG STEVE

Very unpopular opinion

I loved it, so fucking funny

I don't even like mpreg normally

But I loved it as a random side plot cause they probably couldn't find an import part for every character and still give them their deserved screen time

Also, funny!

Krel was way too smug explaining to Steve that he would be pregnant, not Aja

You know how we as a fandom have all decided Krel is Aro/Ace icon or at least Aro spec and/or grey ace (something like that) I have no problem with this and love it, it makes me feel very validated, but what Krel just doesn't want kids and decided it's easier to not have romantic relationships, that's also a legitimate thing a lot of woman do

Does that mean gay guys can have biological kids on Akiridion 5?

BACK TO STEVE

I wish there was a bit where Steve called Lawrence on the phone calling him "dad" or "coach dad" and being like "Hey, I know you're probably busy, you're at school but I'm seriously freaking out and I need your help or advice" and explaining the whole Akiridion pregnancy and Coach just reassuring him gently and telling him that he and Steve's mum would support him and he wasn't alone and they weren't mad at him.

Douxie figuring out the sigil

Good job baby! Smart boy! I am very proud

You very smart

The Order bringing the Titans with Nari mind controlled

😬

That's all

Numora dying

Why! It's was so unnecessary!

I don't necessarily love her by any means

But still!

Dndndbebhsvehehrdidjbdisbeurbvtisjbsgsneosbsyneyjsosnsjdbdynsvsidbfindbzhndhdushdhushdbudhnm

*key spams in frustration*

This began much irritation that just increased

THE BRIDGE

ARCHIE LEFT DOUXIE HIS LONG LIFE FRIEND AND PLATONIC SOULMATE (NOBODY CAN CONVINCE ME THAT NOT JOW FAMILIARS WORK IDC)

YES HE WAS STAYING WITH HIS DAD AND I RESPECT THAT

BUT GODDAMN IT CHARLIE

CHARLEMAGNE COULD HAVE JUST LIT THE TROLLS FOLLOWING THEM ON FIRE AND THEN FLOWN OUT

THE PORTAL WOULD HAVE CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME

OR THEY COULD HAVE FREED THE TROLLS

EITHER WAY

THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN OUT

WTF HAPPENED THE WHOLE FOUND FAMILY THING THEH WERE PUSHING IN WIZARDS

WHY PUSH A GRIEVING DOUXIE TO ESSENTIALLY GET OVER IT AND ACCEPT ARCHIE AS HIS FAMILY CUZ HE WAS ALWAYS THERE JUST TO GET RID OF ARCHIE ANYWAY

DOUXIE WOULD HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM AGAIN

HE WOULD HAVE JUST SEEN "TELL DOUXIE I SAID GOODBYE" IN THE KRONOSPHERE AS HIS LAST MEMORY OF HIM

*INCREASING FRUSTRATION*

"No More Running"DOUXIE ALMOST DIED BRINGING NARI BACK

I KNEW HE WOULDNT DIE BUT I WAS STILL SCARED

I was sad

NARI AND SKRAEL'S BATTLE WAS PERFECT

CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE I WAS NOT PLEASED WITH NARI DYING

NOR DOUXIE BEING HELD BACK ONCE AGAIN FROM SAVING A LOVED ONE

"Nor more running"

Simple line

Sweet

Shattered me and my very being THE SWITCHING SPELL

AMAZING.YES.ILOVEDIT.

DOUXIE YOU SMART BRILLIANT BOY I AM SO FUCKING PROUD

Douxari was so chaotic and funny and pure in a very weird way

I was sad that THAT screenshot of Douxie and Archie wasn't actually Archie because he looked so happy chddling his familiar but it was still cute

Narxie was so fucking sarcastic when the Arcane Order realized the spell didn't work and I live for it

Walter and Barbara

Them being engaged and happy

Y E S

Jim being best man

Y E S

Walter DYING before they could get married

N O

H E L L N O

ELI GREW UP!!!!!

MPREG STEVE

I loved it, so fucking funny

Krel was way too smug explaining to Steve that he would be pregnant, not Aja

Does that mean gay guys can have biological kids on Akiridion 5?

BACK TO STEVE

Douxie figuring out the sigil

Good job baby! Smart boy! I am very proud

You very smart

The Order bringing the Titans with Nari mind controlled

😬

That's all

Numora dying

Why! It's was so unnecessary!

Dndndbebhsve hehr didjbdisbeurbvtisjbsgsneosbsyneyjsosnsjdbdynsvsidbfindbzhndhdushdhushdbud

*key spams in frustration*

THE BRIDGE

ARCHIE LEFT DOUXIE HIS LONG LIFE FRIEND AND PLATONIC SOULMATE (NOBODY CAN CONVINCE ME THAT NOT JOW FAMILIARS WORK IDC)

YES HE WAS STAYING WITH HIS DAD AND I RESPECT THAT

BUT GODDAMN IT CHARLIE

CHARLEMAGNE COULD HAVE JUST LIT THE TROLLS FOLLOWING THEM ON FIRE AND THEN FLOWN OUT

THE PORTAL WOULD HAVE CLOSED AT THE SAME TIME

OR THEY COULD HAVE FREED THE TROLLS

EITHER WAY

THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN OUT

Titan Nari

I was so scared when Douxie nearly passes out from lack of oxygen trying to save her

Claire did a great job and I like her but I feel like they're overpowering her without developing her

Nari and Skrael's battle was a cinematic masterpiece

Coach Lawrence seriously needs a break

NARI DYING WAS UNACCEPTABLE

DOUXIE BEING HELD BACK FROM HELPING HER WAS UNACCEPTABLE

"No more running" destroyed me

I AM STILL NOT OK

I DON'T THINK I EVER WILL BE

The 9th configuration

FOUND. FAMILY. CENTRAL.

I'M THE CHOSEN ONE BUT I CAN'T DO IT ALONE

YES

The Final Battle

I don't even know what to say

Aja. QUEEN.

RIP Varvatos

Rip Douxie that fall would have really fucking hurt

He definitely had broken ribs from that

I'm surprised he could walk after even while being supported against someone else to stand

Jim should have just stabbed Bellroc instead of talking

Jim should not have been able to walk and run perfectly fine after being stabbed even with all the adrenaline

Toby WTF MAN

GOOD JOB BUT FUCKING HELL

I LEGIT CAN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW IT HAPPENED

THE MOVIE CAME OUT 4 DAYS AGO (IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO WRITE THE RANT DONT JUDGE) AND I'VE WATCHED IT 5 TIMES AND I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW I MISSED IT EACH TIME

HOW DID TOBY CRASH?!?!

ANYWAY

TOBY DYING WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE

JIM SCREAMING OUT HIS NAME AS SOON AS HE REALIZED TOBY WASNT THERE

BLINKY AND ARGH LOOK OF PANIC AND WORRY CUZ THEY REALIZED TOBY DIDNT COME BACK WITH JIM

DOUXIE REALIZING HE FAILED TO PROTECT SOMEONE ELSE IMPORTANT TO HIM (EVEN IF HE DOESNT HAVE MUCH OF AN ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP WITH TOBY, I REFUSE TO BELIEVE HE DIDN'T ADOPT THEM ALL AS HIS YOUNGER SIBLINGS)

"Always was, always will be" hurt my entire soul

The Time stone

This frustrated me so much it took me 3 days to write just this bit

Go back in time and save everyone?

Yes! Awesome!

Go back to the start the start

Also, I love and adore Toby

BUT IT MAKES NO SENSE

JIM GIVING THE AMULET AND RESPONSIBILITIES AWAY WHEN HE HAS 2 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AND KNOWS ALL OF HIS MISTAKES AND HOW TO FIX THEM

WTF

AS I SAID I LOVE TOBY AND I LIKE HIM ACHIEVING STUFF

BUT HES NOT TREATED AS BADLY AS THE FANDOM ACTS LIKE HE IS

AND LOGICALLY JIM MADE A STUPID DECISION CONSIDERING WHAT HE KNOWS

I get that he was tired of being the trollhunter

Largely because he was tired of not thinking he would do a good enough job

But odds are Toby will make some of the same mistakes and they'll be right back in that same position except maybe Claire will die that time around

And if you're sick of the trauma and responsibility of it than why would you dump it on your best friend

Once again I say, it was an illogical and dumb decision

I WILL BE RUNNING TO FANFICTIONS TO ESCAPE THIS CANON

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chidoroki · 4 years

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The Promised Neverland S2EP1

aka: when you scream into the void and it finally answers back, because AAAHHH IT’S HERE! IT’S ALL HAPPENING!! HELL YES!

Here I am, trying my best to breathe normally, and the kids are having just as much trouble doing the same as they run for their lives.. this is wonderful.

“It’s fine! Think of it as a game of tag!” Oh my sweet daughter, I waited so long to hear your voice again.

But wow we’re starting with a wild demon chase right off the bat? No Isabella scene?.. should I be concerned?

OP I waited so anxiously for you, please blow me away.

How they used the flowers and vida to represent the human and demon bodies respectively was real nice.

Ohhh and they used that scene from the “Zettai Zetsumei” ending too!

Wow, they aren’t holding back the idea of children being food huh.

They even teased Norman with a fully bloomed vida flower.. how cruel.

Leslie and Conny aww.

Mujika, Phil and Isabella with her hair down aahh yesss!

Peter? Hello?? Don’t you show up much later?

Emmaaaa!! And her hair is braided already?

Ahh it is! She has the hairclips! She doesn’t get those until she meets Sandy at Goldy Pond though.. Cloverworks, please. you better not be getting my hopes up for nothing, I swear.

I’m surprised to see all the escapees wearing the shelter jackets though. The.. SHELTER! JACKETS! Bunker dad incoming!

Fucking hell girl, why must you be so beautiful??

And my boy Ray!! Yeess!

They left that large space beside Emma as a reminder that Norman is no longer around anymore huh.. ow my heart.

I vibe with “Identity” so much.. I love it. The sequence was beautiful. You’re winning me over so far Cloverworks.

Now that I finally moved on from watching the OP several times.. hello children! And vida flowers..

Haahaha the way Lanni just falls like that from the tree.. I’m dying.

Aw Emma sweetheart, you’re already pushing yourself too much.

Okay, Ray didn’t bonk her on the head with the water but the reaction she gave along with her facial expression was great, so I’ll let that change slide.

Also, my son!! I missed you so much!

“Sorry, Emma.” Bro, his voice was so soft when saying that!

“As long as you’re alive and smiling, that’s all I need.” aaah.. AND HIS FUCKING SMILE AFTER SHE SAYS THAT! OH MY GOD!

“Emma.. I’ll live. I’ll live and protect this family. Everyone in this family, just like you. This time, for sure, I swear. No matter what happens, I’ll never abandon them again.” They really had him say it all. The entire thing.. yeeesss! Character development at its finest btw!

“So don’t bear this burden alone.” *glances at ch180*

It’s been a half hour since I started this episode and yet I’m only 5 minutes in.. help.

“Southeast?” “Between south and east.” “Gilda, I know that much.” I love this little addition between them so much.

They also included Don and Gilda into this scene with the pen.

And the pen actually has a map now? It was Ray who figured out how the number/letter sequence worked in the manga in terms of location but here Emma just touched the screen and a map appeared.. hmm, I’m conflicted.

The younger kids are watching all this now too.

“I miss Norman.” Aww Alicia.. and everyone else is adorable too.

Ahh the new soundtracks hit different.

They really are including the other kids into the story more.. for a while it was usually just Emma & Ray figuring stuff out.

“And we’ll find more allies, then go back for Phil and the others!” *deep sigh*

Honey, I’m begging you, please take a moment to relax!

Hey there demons.

No wonder they get chased so soon, they have their lanterns lit at night making them such easy targets.

Ah, so this is the scene where that screenshot of Ray & Emma came from.

Oh yeah, y’all better fucking run.

Cgi demon looks odd, but then again demons aren’t supposed to look normal regardless, so it’s okay.

They changed how they introduced the snakes of alvapinera huh.

Hold up, we’re already on ch42? Right now? Okay wow..

“Who’s the better one at tag?” “You are.” Aaaaha.

Aw man, I thought Ray was finally going to start a fire once he threw that lantern and having it break.

Ah, and that’s where the blood splatter from the preview came from, the GF demon slaying the wild one.

“The others are already dead.” Look at his smug face! I LOVE HIM!

Aww Jemima is worried about our boy.

Rossi, you’re such a sweet child.

I’m sorta glad they didn’t show her completely passing out, but EMMA!!

Oh sweet lord, Mujika! We’re meeting you already??

They did a great job making this scene have an eerie feel though.

Aw, the scarf!

Goddamn, they made Ray look so out of breath and winded.. nice!

Okay, but the way he fell though.. sorta prefer how determined he was to try and take another step despite him struggling to do so in the manga rather than having him just.. fall over like that.

But Sonju coming in clutch!

Are we for real already at ch45 and gonna get the Rayemma hug? oh my god.

They’re gonna end the episode with Ray questioning our demons friends, aren’t they..

My poor boy is spooked.

LOOK HOW RELIEVED HE IS WHEN SHE FINALLY WAKES UP!

THE DAMN HUG! IT HAPPENED! SOMEONE HOLD ME I FEEL SO SOFT RIGHT NOW!

But why no head pat though hmm?

I’m surprised they actually remembered the bell.

He held out his arm out to shield her.. aww.

This music.. sounds good. Anndd it just got better.

Yup, figures they would end the episode there.

Okay ending song, make me emotional.

Oh? We’re seeing more of the outside world alongside Sonju & Mujika?

Wow, and hello to all the kids being shipped out.

And some quick glimpses of the sisters and mothers too.

I really like the art style they have going on here.

Interesting.. also, no Isabella scene? At all? Oh no..

And I just realized they completely left out the entire snakes of alvapinera scene.. hm.

But yeah, this is going way quicker than I originally thought.. I don’t want to get my hopes up in case GP doesn’t happen, but at this pace, hey, who knows.

I can’t believe I got three of my favorite demon forest scenes in the first episode.. fucking wild dude.

Now I can relax.. by finally diving into the tags and consuming every bit of good food available! Finally aboard the hype train!

#the promised neverland #episode reaction

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babyboy-bangtan · 5 years

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By Chance Chapters 9-10

A misunderstanding gone viral puts you on BTS’s radar, which leads to a series of events that finally culminate with you meeting them for the first time.

✚ Pairing: Sub!BTS/Female Reader ✚ Word Count: 2.8K ✚ Rating: M ✚ Warnings: None. ✚ A/N: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Read on AO3 / Chapters 1-4 / Chapters 5-8

Chapter 9: The Guests

"Do you already know which artist is performing that day?" Your friend asks over the phone while you eat your toast with one hand and hold a script with the other. Reading it doesn't need your full attention, and based on what this movie seems to be about it doesn't look like it deserves it anyway.

"No, not yet." You reply absentmindedly, taking another bite of your toast while seriously contemplating just giving up on this script halfway through reading it. You doubt it's redeemable at this point. "It's in like a month anyway. They said they would tell me first before announcing it, though."

"This is so exciting!" She almost squeals, and you close the script before throwing it in the trash. You lost count of how many times it was written that the male protagonist couldn't keep his eyes from your cleavage. "I can't believe you're hosting again. I've been waiting for this to happen for years!" You can't help but laugh at her dramatics.

"It feels as surreal as the first time, honestly." You eat the last bite of your toast and pour yourself another glass of orange juice. You did enough freaking out to last a lifetime when you hosted the show for the first time a couple years ago, so this time you're excited but definitely not on the verge of a nervous breakdown like last time.

"Who do you think will be performing?" She asks, and you realize that you hadn't thought about that at all. "Oh my god what if it's BEYONCÉ?" She damn near screams that last part, and your brain immediately screams NO at that. You're still embarrassed at what happened last year, and you don't know when you'll be able to face her again without feeling mortified.

"Who knows?" You quickly reply. "Maybe it'll be like Ed Sheeran or something."

"Maybe." She responds, way less excited than when she thought Beyoncé was a possibility. "Anyways, tell me when you know, okay? My break is almost done so I gotta go."

"Will do. Bye, love you!"

"Love you too, bye!" You hang up and stretch your arms over your head, already feeling stressed.

What if it was Beyoncé? It would be the third time you see her and even though she was incredibly lovely when you apologized and explained what happened the first time you met, that did nothing to erase the embarrassment you still feel today. You don't really think she would perform in a regular episode with you as the guest either, but now you can't help but feel anxious about it.

They said they were going to tell you who the artist was in the next few days, so for now all you can do is wait and try to not overthink too much.

Easier said than done.

Three hours ago, taking a nap because it was raining and the temperature had dropped just enough for it to be perfect for sleeping had seemed like a great idea. It's not the first time you do it, the day called for it, and since you didn't have to work today it was okay to relax and rest for a bit considering that in a couple days you'll start shooting again.

Completely harmless.

Except it wasn't.

You wake up thanks to some very loud thunder, and you snuggle deeper into your covers to continue sleeping. Another thunder disrupts you again, so you decide to look at the time and see if it's even worth it to try and sleep some more. But instead of being greeted with the time once you turn your phone on, you're greeted with 50 missed calls and texts from over 30 conversations.

"What the fuck?" You mumble to yourself, rubbing your eyes to try and see a little better.

Around 30 of the missed calls are from friends, and the rest are from your publicist and agent. You scroll down the conversations until you reach the message you got first, and the name makes you think you might understand what happened.

SNL Producer.

2 hours ago.

Hello [Y/N]! I'm just writing you to let you know before we post it on social media, that the musical guest on your episode will be BTS. See you soon!

Well, now you have no doubt that's definitely it.

You read through the messages as fast as you can and manage to reply to several before you're interrupted by your publicist calling.

"Hi, sorry. I was taking a nap." You quickly say.

"Don't worry, I just wanted to let you know that the internet exploded two hours ago."

"Because of BTS?" You ask, pulling the covers off of you and sitting on the edge of your bed. "That's not news, it happens every other week."

"Well, yes, true—" She agrees. "—but we don't care about those times, we care about this now because it involves you." She pauses for a second. "Check what I just sent you." You remove your phone from your ear and put her on speaker before opening the message notification.

It's the screenshot of an Entertainment Weekly tweet.

Exclusive: @BTS_twt and [Y/N] will finally meet and we couldn't be more excited

4,5K replies, 190K retweets, 380K likes.

"How the fuck did that get so many likes?" You blurt out, eyes wide. Your hear your publicist laugh heartily.

"It's more now, actually. The screenshot is from 10 minutes ago. And it's because BTS retweeted it."

"Oh, right." You say, shaking your head at yourself. You should've known. "That makes sense."

"It would be even better if you had a twitter account yourself so you could retweet and even send them someth—"

"My mental health." You interrupt her, rolling your eyes as you fall back again on the bed. You've lost count of how many times she's tried to have you make new accounts already. "Remember how I had to start taking antidepressants because of social media?"

"Right, yeah. The mental health thing." She sighs. "You could always have someone manage them instead of yourself, you know."

"Yeah, and then I'd be constantly checking what's been posted and what people have replied to every post." You hate talking to her about this, because even though she's great at her job and mostly understanding, she still complains about what a loss it is that you're not on Instagram and Twitter.

"Fine. I'll drop it." She pauses for a second. "Anyway, the reason why I called is to know how much do you know about these guys."

"I know a bunch of their songs. I've been listening to that song they did with Nicki, Idol— it's so catchy and the video is so random but so great." You conveniently leave out the detail that the reason you like the video so much is because they look beautiful in those suits while simultaneously looking like the cutest human beings on Earth with their other colorful outfits— especially in those sweaters with cartoon characters and the ripped jeans. "I actually watched a bunch of their music videos back when the whole behind the scenes stuff happened." Moments from their Blood, Sweat and Tears music video pop into your mind, but you immediately redirect your thoughts elsewhere. That video makes you feel way too many things that you should not be feeling while talking to your publicist. "They're so talented." You quickly add, sincerely. "I was thinking about watching some interviews soon to see what they're like. I haven't really watched any of that."

"Good! I was going to tell you to do that. These guys are like a publicity machine. If they approve of you, their fans will like you."

"Weeell..." You say, grimacing a little. You're not so sure about that. "Either that happens or they see me as a threat to them and decide I'm not good enough to be near them, and get a hashtag calling me a demon trending first worldwide."

"Well, based on the replies to that tweet I think many of them are excited. The international fans at least, I don't know about their Korean fanbase."

"And also, do not call them a publicity machine. They're actual people, you know." You sigh. "And that's not the reason why I will try to know more about them. It would be disrespectful to meet them without knowing anything about them. And please, stop seeing artists as only publicity opportunities. I told you I hate that!"

"That's literally my job, love. And whatever your good person reasoning is, I don't care. Just do that." She pauses. "And now I have to leave you, because unlike you I actually have to work today. See ya." She hangs up before you can say anything, and you take a deep breath.

She can be a goddamn handful, but even when she acts without emotions she always does things the way you want them and is very accommodating. She's good at her job.

You finally get out of bed and walk to the kitchen, where you left your laptop. But before you can do anything, you have an incoming FaceTime call from your best friend. She must've just read your reply to her 50 angry texts because you didn't tell her who the guest artist was going to be on your Saturday Night Live episode before the rest of the world found out.

"Heeeeeeey." You say innocently once her face appears on screen.

"Why didn't you tell me?! I had to find out on Twitter!"

"Okay, to be fair, you found out before I did. I was dead asleep when the producer texted me." You leave the phone standing against a glass of water and open your laptop. "So I had no chance to tell you before they announced it."

"Ugh, fine." She groans, rolling her eyes. "Anyways, are you excited?"

"I haven't had a chance to feel anything. I woke up to a thousand texts and calls and then my publicist called me." You open Youtube and start typing BTS to see what suggestions pop up first.

"Oh right, cause you went viral again. People on Twitter lost their shit over it."

"Yeah but they always do when BTS does something so it's not like it's new." You reply, a bit distracted.

BTS on crack?

"Okay, yeah. That's true." She agrees. "What are you doing?"

"Homework." You reply, scrolling through the endless results you got after clicking BTS on crack.

"Alright then, keep your secrets." She jokes, shaking her head. "I have to go anyway, I'm going out tonight." You blow a kiss in her direction.

"Have fun!"

"I always do! Bye!" She hangs up as you open a video titled "bts being crackheads for 5 mins straight".

You only need to watch a couple minutes to realize what type of videos these are. You have seen a couple of yourself that are edited similarly, but they were titled "[Y/N] being chaotic in interviews" and another one about you being extra— and you'd thought they were very funny.

A recommended video catches your eye, because it has hundreds of thousands of views.

RUNBTS 1-23 Best Moments

You have no idea what it is, but judging by the amount of views and the tiny amount of dislikes, it must be something good.

Time to start watching.

Chapter 10: The Surprise

"Do you think he will be angry at us for keeping it as a secret?" Hoseok asks, ear pointed at the bathroom door. He's doing his best to listen if the shower is still running, which means that Jungkook is not coming out just yet.

"No, he'll be too excited to be angry." Namjoon replies, waving his hand dismissively. "Jimin, don't blurt it out as soon as he comes here." He warns him, and Jimin looks completely shocked, not to mention offended. He searches for the support of the other guys with his eyes, but he finds that they're all looking at him the same way Namjoon is.

"What? Me?" He asks, pointing at himself. "Why me?"

"You're a terrible liar when you're excited about something." Taehyung says, and Jimin just stares at him with an angry pout.

"I'm not." He says, crossing his arms.

"You are." Namjoon, Yoongi, Hoseok and Jin say at the same time. Jimin refuses to dignify that with an answer, so he just stays silent with his angry pout still in place.

"The shower stopped." Hoseok says suddenly, craning his neck to listen better— and everyone goes silent. Not too long after, they hear it opening and Jungkook comes out drying his hair already dressed for bed.

"What's going on?" He asks, stopping suddenly when he sees them all standing there in the most suspicious way possible.

"Nothing!" Jimin suddenly says, way more excited than they had told him he was allowed to look.

"Jungkook, when did you say [Y/N] was going to be on SNL?" Hoseok asks, trying to not give himself away with the tone of his voice.

"April 13, why?" He continues to dry his hair, looking at the boys with narrowed eyes. He doesn't know what they're trying to do, but based on that question it seems like it has something to do with you. Maybe they want to watch the episode with him, since they're going to be in America by the time it airs anyway.

"So, we didn't tell you this before it was truly confirmed because we wanted it to be a surprise..." Namjoon starts, and Jungkook stops his movements.

They can't be telling him what he thinks they're telling him, right?

There's no way.

"But we'll be performing on SNL on April 13." He finishes. The towel drops from Jungkook's hands, and he just stares at them with no clear expression in his face.

"I thought he'd be more excited." Taehyung whispers in a confused tone to Namjoon, who lifts up a finger in response, signaling for him to wait.

"Give him a sec—"

"WHAT?!"

After a lot of happy screaming, a half an hour long videocall to his parents and a big glass of warm milk to calm him down, Jungkook is finally sitting down on the couch with the rest of the boys so they can explain how things went down.

"Jimin-Hyung, I can't believe you didn't tell me." Jungkook says, shaking his head with a surprised smile.

"We wanted to keep it from him, too." Yoongi says. "But he listened to us talking about it and we had to let him in."

"It was really hard to keep it a secret!" Jimin complains. "Because I was so excited. But I did so well, didn't I?" The rest don't really pay attention to him, except for Namjoon, who nods and gives him a thumbs up. Jimin isn't pleased with so little praise, but he takes it anyway. It's better than nothing.

"Ah, I'm so nervous." Jungkook says, unable to stop himself from grinning even though his face already hurts from smiling so much. He brings his knees up to his chest so he can hide his face in them, suddenly blushing. Even after he explicitly heard you talking about them, you still feel so far away from them that it almost doesn't feel real that they're going to meet you in a month.

"She already said she wanted to meet us—" Jin adds casually, and Namjoon has to hold back a sigh of relief because he's finally talking about you without getting nervous two seconds later. "—so you've got nothing to worry about."

He's come a long way since his confession a few months ago— even if Namjoon and Yoongi are still the only ones who know about his secret— and that lifts a huge weight from Namjoon's shoulders. It means that it's less likely he'll become instantly flustered the moment they see you for the first time, because if Jin gets nervous because of you in front of the cameras, everyone will notice and then talk about it— and Namjoon is sure that is the last thing Jin wants.

It doesn't take them long to realize it's futile to try and talk about the logistics of their performance with Jungkook right now, because he's barely paying attention to them. His grin has remained steady and unmoving from the moment they told him they would perform on the same day you're hosting, and they know it's going to continue that way for the next few days.

He'll be able to focus again once the initial shock passes and he finally realizes that yes, this is actually happening.

They are going to finally meet you.

Long after everyone has gone to bed, Jungkook lies still awake in bed, fully aware that he's not sleeping any time soon. He's still feeling giddy with happiness; he can't believe that they're going to actually meet you, and in a place where they will actually get to spend time with you, at that. He will get to talk to you, to actually be close to you and maybe, if he's lucky and brave enough, he might even get to hug you.

He'd fantasized about maybe seeing you in an awards show one day, but this is so much better than anything he could've imagined.

April 13 can't come soon enough.

Thank you so much for reading! Comments, asks, whatever you like is more than welcomed!

#sub!bts #sub!idol #bts x reader #kim namjoon x reader #kim seokjin x reader #min yoongi x reader #jung hoseok x reader #park jimin x reader #kim taehyung x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #my work

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lost-in-zembla · 4 years

Text

On Metamodernism

It’s tough to grasp metamodernism as an artistic movement but most of us live lives strongly affected by the concepts of metamodernism every day. You’re having a serious conversation with your friend about her mental health; simultaneously, you and your friend are part of a groupchat where you are currently making fun of the very friend you are supporting. This isn’t necessarily disingenuous; you are witnessing two different instances of a person and those two instantiations of you happen to be different depending on context and medium. In part, metamodernism is a kind of acceptance of our multiple selves, our tendency to oscillate between states or even inhabit both in a sort of human superposition.

I taught my friends about metamodernism in our groupchat as my friend Jarett consoled me via one-on-one text after the sudden implosion of my five-year long relationship and the fact that my life is generally unbearable—a fact that is more embarrassing when one considers how easy I have it. It’s sort of a shame feedback loop.

As I was explaining metamodernism for my own satisfaction, I thought that I might actually make an okay professor. I could teach American literature. Maybe.

So I get a job teaching at the local community college and my life slowly comes back together like a cut that heals. I am relatively respected by my students and I have some abstract sense purpose, the cracks in the surface of which are only visible if one spends a long, existential period of time contemplating the practical or, god-forbid, spiritual uses of an education in American literature what with the reality of a global climate catastrophe and the approaching drumbeats of right-wing strongmen leaders reaching positions of power all around the world.

But things are pretty good.

I get a parking space. I get an apartment that looks bad, then looks better. I start to open the curtains. I don’t want to hide so much. A year or two down the line I lease a practical car and people treat me with a bit more respect when they see me step out of it. I smile at people in the grocery store. At this point I can see peoples’ mouths when I go outside. When I see their mouths, they’re smiling. They can see my mouth. I’m smiling.

I get to know people and people think I’m lovely. The faculty all look up to me. How young and handsome and intelligent he is! He’ll sure go places, they say. And I do. I quickly earn a raise and then I’m head of the department. And so young! When I’m not inspiring awe I inspire smoldering jealousy. Women? Naturally. And I treat each of them with utmost respect. I value these women for more than the thousands of hours of hot naked ecstasy they provide me. I buy more fresh produce. I throw none of it out.

I single-handedly save the English department at the community college. Funding comes pouring in. Eventually, it becomes one of the premier colleges for literary studies in the Midwest. They rename a building after me. I just turned thirty. Before long, I’m offered a job at the prestigious private university in town, with nods toward a proverbial shoe in the door when it comes to tenure. Unheard of! But he’s just that good. My wrists and forearms become perceptibly thicker. People cross the street in front of traffic to shake my hand. I learn what the fuck “ketosis” is.

Then there I am one day in my cushy office. Rows of leather-bound books fill the shelves around the ample perimeter of the room. I’ve read them all, naturally. My hair has started to grey in places but damn if it’s not as thick and lush as the heart of the Amazon. A knock on the door. My office hours ended at one. I answer and it’s, oh, Claire from this semester’s modern American literature course. Of course I’ve noticed her in class. How could I not? But I’d always maintained a professional and appropriately avuncular demeanor in front of her. She’s twenty-eight, French, gorgeous. Naturally.

We discuss her essay on Light in August and I say to her, you know, Claire, it was the French who were among the first to notice Faulkner’s genius. She puts her hand on my thigh. In her accent that itself somehow resembles a beautiful naked body she says, The French notice lots of things. I slide my attractively thick forearm over the crowded desk space and knock the books and pens and everything onto the floor and—well, let’s just say that my life of success and talent has enhanced me in other ways. And it’s hot and insane and weird and papers fly everywhere. And it sort of just goes on like that for weeks and then months—the relationship, not that particular sexual event. At my age, after all the sex and drugs and joy and tragedy, sometimes I think that it’s the clandestine nature of the thing that really gets me off. Like I need more and more secret or shameful shit to fire off those tired old neurons. I start to become cavalier in front of the students. I begin to, perhaps, show my hand.

I get another knock on my office, sometime in the Spring. Bill, I say. Come in. He sits down and we engage in a tense discussion where every syllable is laced with a double entendre because he can’t just say it out loud, for Christ’s sake. That’s just not how these things are done. He’s old school, but firm, Bill. She’s graduating anyway, and something tells me when we can finally be together publicly then the thrill will already be gone.

The students already know. I’ve seen the screenshots. I’ve been memed. Things are tense in class and they can tell that I’ve given up. The fire in my eye that led to my meteoric rise has dimmed to a pathetic ember. Sometimes I take my Audi out on a dark highway outside of town and I press on the accelerator until I can’t go any faster. I have to stop myself from shutting my eyes.

One day in class, I look up from my papers and all the students are out of their desks, standing over me. They’re holding pencils and yardsticks that have been modified into edged weapons. What’s the meaning of this? They use my Tom Ford tie to tie my arms behind me and to my chair. They put me in the center of the room. I knew they would betray me. I’d always known. For years this notion has haunted the deepest recesses of my mind: these people, these kids, are going to be the ones to put this old dog down. Is this because of Claire, I ask. They laugh. They laugh because they think I’m an old fool. I am an old fool.

No, professor, Shellie says. She seems to be the leader. It’s much more serious than that, she says. O life! Everything I’ve ever done. I’ve stomped on people all the way to the top and now it’s all coming back to me, some sort of holdup in the karmic clerical system that led to forty years of consequences all delivered at once. Things were so easy for so long, so fun, that I forgot what it was like to live a life with consequences.

Shut up, she says. You’re here for a reason. What could she know? How did she mobilize all of these students? When did they make the weapons? How many questions could I possibly pose in sequence?

Professor, she says, we have one question for you. Anything, I say. And answer truthfully, she says. And I say of course, of course I’ll be completely honest. Okay, professor, she says, do you consider yourself… a historicist? At this very moment I know it’s over for me. Well, I say, it’s not so simple, Shellie. The mob is in an uproar. A fair bit of verbal sparring ensues. Shellie and the other students in favor of the transcendent nature of literature—whatever that means—and me in favor of a more context-based approach. Sure, if I thought that novels were a good way to learn about history then I’d deserve this. I’d deserve all of this.

How can you read these works outside of their historical context? What about Light in August for God’s sake? The mob lashes out again—not Faulkner fans, go figure—but Shellie shushes them until the classroom is as silent as the dusty hills of Jerusalem. Literature, she says, is timeless. And this essentially breaks me. I begin weeping openly. You might as well kill me, then, I say. They set upon me like a pack of hyenas.

A moment or an eternity after my head is pulled off my body like the Bacchae in that Euripides tragedy, I hear waves lap against the rocks. I feel in my face the salty breeze of the ocean. I open my eyes to find a beautiful Mediterranean island. It feels neither hot nor cold. The breeze from the ocean feels perfect, as though there were no storms to be found in any corner of the Earth.

Behind me, inland, I hear the sound of approaching footsteps. I turn around to find Vladimir goddamn Nabokov of all people. It’s perfect. So I tell him the story, how I was murdered by my students over two reductive and non-mutually exclusive schools of thought in literature—two schools of thought that are both perfect lenses through which to view Nabokov’s work. When I tell him he laughs his big Russian laugh and slaps me on the shoulder, and I laugh. Then he hands me a butterfly net and we skip through pleasant hills in that vast and timeless place forever and ever.

No. What’s happening? It’s all slipping away from me now. All the memories, the moments, the time, leaking out of my mind to become something ghostly, an image half-developed, a thought unspoken. I lift my head and look at my hands and there I am, lying on a couch in a high school faculty lounge. My hands are unwrinkled. My body is young. There is no Humanities Wing in my name, no tenure, no Audi. No Claire. Was it all just a dream? Could it all have been just a dream? Is it within the realm of possibility that such an absurdly bad trope could have manifested into my life naturally? Or am I the subject of a cruel and untalented god who simply bats me about and writes hack narratives for me to tumble through like some Sisyphean Rube Goldberg machine? Coffee. Need Coffee.

It’s all silly, anyway. Nabokov and myself cavorting through some weird Elysium? Ridiculous. If that was what the afterlife had in store for me, then Nabokov would probably be hanging out with Pushkin and Tolstoy while maybe Dostoevsky and I build a sandcastle. Maybe. But then, in all likelihood, Nabokov, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and the other cool kids would kick sand in my face and walk off with whatever beautiful ladies happen to inhabit this weird Russian-literary Elysium that I’ve somehow ended up in. I haven’t thought this out very well.

What was this all about, again? Metamodernism. Easy. Let’s think.

Okay.

As I write this now, behind my computer, watching Youtube videos about sushi, wondering how the sushi will make its way into my writing through mental osmosis (not subtly, it turns out), I look at these instances of me, with the meteoric success or the banal day-to-day life, and I wonder who exactly I am. I am a thousand selves. I am nothing. I am trying to remember into the future who I am. I am a metamodernist—no, I’m not.

#metamodernism #literary criticism #my writing #vladimir nabokov #william faulkner #teacher #professor #teaching #teach #writing #writers on tumblr #writer #creative nonfiction #nonfiction #fiction #i don't know what i'm doing

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irumaupdates · 4 years

Text

FAQ

If you’re dying to know why chapters 123, 139, and 147 are up on some sites, or you’ve ever been curious how fan translations work, or you’re just sick of seeing people asking about either of those things, we now have an FAQ page! It’s also under the cut for those on mobile!

Fan Translation FAQ/ Missing chapters of Mairuma, EXPLAINED!!

So if you’ve been reading the manga on certain websites, you might have noticed big gaps in the chapters available in English:

like this.

In a nutshell: Chapters 123, 139, and 147* were translated by a different team, one unaffiliated with anyone currently working on the manga. These chapters were translated out of order, with no regard to the progress of the English translation. The gap chapters are not available in English (yet).

*94 and 107 as well

Read on to find out why!

But first, in order to understand this, you’ll need some background knowledge on how fan translations of manga work. (Skip to point 4 if you know all this already or just want the short version.)

Let’s start with the basics:

1) Nobody works for the website! I’ve seen this misunderstanding surprisingly often - the sites you read manga on are a bit like Reddit or Livejournal or any forum-type website, in that all of the content is user-created. Which leads me to:

2) Nobody gets paid! All that manga on mangadex is the product of many many individuals who just love manga and want to share it with others. These individuals form teams or ‘groups’ and work on one or more manga they like.

3) Groups are needed because flipping a manga chapter from another language into English…is hard! There are a few main positions:

Translator: this is self-explanatory. Translators are a coveted resource because it takes years to develop the necessary language skills, and most manga are absolutely chalk-full of wordplay puns, cultural references, and country-specific memes. The background knowledge required to localize stuff like this is extensive.

Proofreader: also self-explanatory, the proofreader proofreads!

Cleaner: This person takes out the original text and makes the manga look like it was always on a digital platform. This is a job of manual image processing to make each page go from grainy garbage to a nice, clear picture. The tricks to this are something that takes a while to learn, and you need some kind of photoshop-y program to do it.

Redrawer: Imagine trying to mimic your favorite art style, but you have to also contend with halftones/screentones and also it’s in the original manga. It’s hard T_T and it can be very time consuming. It’s how you get from point A to point B here:

Typesetter: This person sets the translated text into the manga. Sounds easy! Is not. What’s the best font to use? Capitalization? Alignment? Line spacing? Where should you break a line? What’s the best shape for the text? How can I mimic this weird text effect from the original manga? How do I deal with this goddamn bubble?!

QC: Makes sure everything looks good, makes changes as necessary, and polishes the final product. This team member is usually the most experienced with the entire process and helps make sure the newer team members don’t screw everything up make too many mistakes 😊

Finding someone who can do two or more of these jobs isn’t uncommon, but it’s very rare to find one person who can do them all. And even then, teams of 4+ are much faster and more likely to stick with a project, since splitting this between just a few people is back-breaking work!

4) Sniping (or, why you came here in the first place)

So like, why the gaps though!?

Short answer: Because the uploader was a jerk, that’s why!

Long answer: Every community has its trolls. When a group starts translating a manga, it is generally accepted that they’ve written their names on it, so to speak. It’s pretty rude to start translating a manga that already has a group working on it (rather than just asking to help lol). It’s just a dick move to translate a chapter 50-90 chapters ahead of the English language translation to give everyone spoilers. Unfortunately, that’s what happened to Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.

SSSSS (SSS?), the group responsible for all 3 of those chapters in the picture, is a somewhat notorious “sniping” group, which means they like to randomly translate chapters wildly out of order and context just to screw with the fans. (Note that they do this without contacting the group that is currently translating.) Chapters 123, 139, and 147 are examples of chapters that were sniped. If you look at the dates in the screenshot, 123 was uploaded 7 months ago, when the English translation had only reached…chapter 67, and Misfits Scans was nary a twinkle in anyone’s eye. Luckily, since Misfits organized and started regular updates, not many more of these sniped chapters have gone up.

So, when will the gap chapters be available?!!??!?!

Misfits Scans has been doing their best and working at breakneck speed to catch up to the Japanese release, but those gap chapters are going to take a while! At the current pace of 2 chapters/wk, you’ll be able to safely read chapter 147 in early September. But we do love our surprise extra releases 😉

Read on to find out why we’re so far behind in the first place!

Chapters of Mairimashita! Iruma-kun come out weekly in a magazine called Shonen Champion (It’s like Shonen Jump, but different). The original group decided on a considerably slower schedule than Misfits, releasing just one chapter per month. They did this from March of 2017, when the manga premiered, until enough fans got impatient because of the Anime in… about September, 2019. There was a big battle of the groups for a while in the fall, since being almost 100 chapters behind on such a popular manga was frustrating for the influx of anime fans. The original group gave up, and eventually a steady, much faster crew settled in to grind out the chapters we were missing. How the misfits formed is a heartwarming story of people the world over coming together through various roads and bonding through the long toil of fan translation…a story for another day!

#not an update #I might add an 'About the Team' page later #?#there I fixed it

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henrikvanderswoon · 4 years

Text

THE SILENT SPY: Live Reactions

Hello, lovely people! I just finished dinner and I have two whiteclaws and a jar of chocolate sitting next to me and I’m ready to cry about Nancy and Kate and make cookies for the rest of the night. 👀👀

Definitely making this a read-more because it’s gonna be long.

Okay, I’m at the menu screen and I just have to say, the music in this game is so good. The notes of one track are incorporated in others (though the tempos and length of each note are altered slightly) and it’s so satisfying to hear. I dont think that made a lot of sense but I’m not great with musical terms as sad as that is 😔

Kudos to the person who wrote all these Cathedral documents, tho. I fuckin LIVE for this kind of shit.

Kate’s song literally makes me cry every goddamn forsaken time I hear it and I just *clenches fist* when I tell y'all I teared up coming up with lullaby lyrics for it the other day IM SERIOUS (one day I’ll finish it and record it maybe… GOD).

The transition from the photograph of Kate in the station to Nancy actually being there is so great 😫👌🏻

Ewan ending his sentences in intonated “commas” really just 🙃😂

The fact that Cathedral “invites” Nancy to Scotland and then tells her Revenant actually lured her there… UGH, it’s like she has two fucking giant enemies at once using her for their own gain and I HATE ITTTT. But it does make the ending and the fact that she comes out victorious so much better.

I love how Bridget tells you to come outside and then walks in the opposite direction of the elevator… did she take the stairs? Good for her getting that exercise. Get on her level, Nancy.

Zoe does a much better job faking a Scotish accent than Dwayne did at his Jamaican one. Get on her level too, DWAYNE.

I know we all say this, but the attack really was so freaky and amazingly um… believable.

Reduce the masses, make the people easier to control. Make them reliant on the goods you can give them when they need it most. Fucking Christ. Which is REALLY crazy because my friend and I have been working on a book series that follows this exact theme and we started the idea even before this game came out. FUCK.

It’s been a project in the making for a LONG time, but we only have a few chapters left of the first book to write 👀

…….

ANYWAY.

The COOKIE GAME. I fucking love this game so much, I dont even know why. I know we’re timed for tips but it so relaxing! I once sat down and did them till I Nancy reached like 1000 pounds in one setting and I was still not satisfied xjdbjsnsjsnsks

So, um… I just realized the cookie game is not as easy to do when you’re tipsy.

Whoops.

That “eerie tone” our phone just MAGICALLY makes somehow never ceases to make me shit my pants.

Youd better believe Nancy is gonna buy at least one of every souvenir in this fuckin train station let me tell you. She’s just gonna put the t-shirts on one right after the other and clip on those pins until she’s a glorified Scottish Michelin Man. ✌🏻

“I’m gonna pretend this is for a wedding. Hehe… what else could it be for?” NANCY, IT COULD LITERALLY BE A TRAP THAT LEADS A PERSON TO THEIR UNTIMELY DEATH BUT OK

Alec talking about Moira hitting him and admitting he instigated it just a little bit…. goddammit Alec dont make me fall in love with you. You stop that, now.

Nancy and Carson’s back and forth in this thing really just gives me life.

They just had this big argument and then end the phone call like, “Goodbye 🙂” “Bye!”

I just realized I’ve been fucking around so long I havent even tried meeting Ewan. WHOOPS.

Nancy is also about to buy and eat everything there is, multiple times, at this food stand…. that is, she will after I play the cookie game again.

You mean to tell me, that I can make Nancy eat over 200pounds worth of food, and she DOESN’T GET SICK?? WHAT A LET DOWN. I’ve never felt so betrayed… now I gotta make more cookies cause I’m legit broke now. Thanks a lot, Nancy. 😒

The idea of little Nancy purposefully and gleefully smashing the tea cups fills me with so much unbridled joy and the photo of Kate kissing her baby makes me want to dig a hole in my backyard and climb in.

I’m about to take this record that plays the menu screen track for The Deadly Device and just sit here listening to it…. I have no idea why I love this track so much but I do.

This fuse puzzle is… uh… okay, I guess.

Oh my god I just realized I still haven’t met Ewan in person. I’ve been playing for almost two hours. *lies down*

You know what??? I think this is as good a time as any to uh… stop for the night cause I have some screenshots I want to make posts about too becxhdbsjsjjsjskaka UNTIL NEXT TIME.

#nancy drew #cluecrewplaythrough #spy #the silent spy #playthrough live reactions #long post #nd games

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katecarteir · 5 years

Text

LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING [SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF]

pairing: eddie kaspbrak/richie tozier chapter count: 1/5 summary: eddie kaspbrak runs an advice blog online, and he finds that maybe he’s starting to develop feelings for the cute, regular anon he gets gushing about their crush. meanwhile, richie tozier opens up his heart about falling in love to an anonymous advice blogger. read on ao3.

Eddie wondered if it was a little sad how excited he got when the message in his inbox started with a little purple heart emoji. Because his little heart definitely jumped in his chest every time he saw it at the front, and that message always got instant priority over whatever else was in his inbox.

omg cute boy did the most perfect thing today. i dont even have a genuine question here, or anything i just need to express how perfect this tiny human is and i think all my friends are tired of hearing about gfhdlgfhakjahsjlga i wanna hold his stupid tiny hand.

Eddie smiled to himself, clicking on the reply button. The past few weeks, Eddie’s spur of the moment advice blog had suddenly gained a ridiculous amount of popularity after a screenshot of one his posts had made its way onto a Buzzfeed article. With all the new followers, a great influx of messages had come along as well. Including this specific purple heart emoji anon, who seemed to be completely and utter smitten with somebody who worked in the same place as he did. And Eddie well, maybe Eddie was a little in love with how in love his anon was. Or maybe he wanted somebody to love him that much.

“Good moooooorning, beautiful!”

Eddie startled, quickly slamming the lid of his computer down. His advice blog was a top secret of his, the only person who knew he did was his best friend from high school, Mike. They’d both made blogs back in the early years of high school, and Eddie had clung to his as a perfect escape from the bullshit of the real world. He didn’t think Mike still used it, but he was the only person who knew that Eddie used his. And what he used it for.

Richie worked at the Starbucks across from Eddie’s store in the mall, and he’d seemed to latch onto Eddie on his very first day on the job. They were both college students trying to make ends meet with part time jobs when they weren’t in their classes or sleeping, and Richie had declared them kindred spirits. That had been almost two years earlier, and Eddie had officially been selling skinny jeans and sweaters to teenager girls for way too long.

“Sure slammed that shut pretty quick,” Richie commented with a small whistle. He raised his eyebrow and cocked his lips up into half a grin. His small overbite was barely obvious from that smile, but it was still annoying adorable. Eddie supposed that must things were annoyingly adorable about Richie Tozier. “Are you looking at porn on the job, Kaspbrak? Or do you just have deep dark hidden secret out there on the Internet?”

Eddie flushed. “You’re not supposed to be behind the counter.”

Richie held his hands up in defense, each one holding a Starbucks cup and rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll just take your iced coffee back over to work and dump it out then.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Eddie cried, flopping forward in his chair to make grabby hands at smaller cup. Richie let out a laugh and handed the drink to Eddie, tucking his own empty hand into the back pocket of his jeans.

Eddie took a sip of the drink and let out a loud sigh. Richie had perfected his drink to the point where Eddie wouldn’t go to Starbucks if Richie wasn’t working. On the nice days when Richie’s shift started before Eddie’s, Eddie wouldn’t have to get up and get it himself at all. “Are you done now?” Eddie asked, glancing at the clock on the wall behind him. It was a little after noon, a bit early for Richie to be finished his shift but he knew that Richie did like to take shorter shifts during exam season.

“Nah. Not done until three.” Richie said, sipping at his red-coloured, syrupy iced drink that Eddie was never brave enough to ask what was in it. “I’m going on my break. Want to go see the outside world with me and remember what it’s like to be free?”

Eddie clucked his tongue, and turned on the chair to look at his coworker, Kay. “Is it okay if I go on my break now?” It was a little early to Eddie to take a break, and he knew he’d probably regret it later when he had to move through the last several hours of his shift in one go, but he was still going to jump at the chance.

Kay looked up from the binder of the summer sales that were coming in, and smirked as she caught sight of Richie standing with Eddie. “Yeah, we’re completely dead,” Kay replied. “I’m not sure why Barb insists on scheduling two people in the middle of the day when our entire target audience is in school.”

“K thanks!” Eddie jumped down from the chair, sticking his tongue out at Kay as Richie turned around. He supposed that his raging crush on the lankier guy hadn’t exactly been subtle over the last year or so, but it was subtle enough that Richie hadn’t seemed to notice and that was what mattered in the long run.

He remembered how annoyed he’d been when he’d realized that he’d fallen for the stupid barista boy like a goddamn internet cliche. But then again, Eddie had never claimed to be anything more than an Internet cliche, so what the point in fighting it? He’d let himself fall full forward into liking Richie, and found that he enjoyed Richie even more than he’d originally realized. Once he stopped fighting his crush, and let himself genuinely find Richie funny and amusing, life became so much lighter.

Richie jumped up onto the curb stop once they’d gotten outside, and swung his leg around while drinking from the red drink of death. “So... are you going to invite me to Mike’s party this weekend?”

Eddie raised one eyebrow, a challenge. “I’m assuming that since you’re asking about it, that Mike has already asked you.”

“Well, yeah.” Richie huffed, but he was still smiling. “But you didn’t ask me, Eddie. And that hurts. I thought we were lovers.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, but he knew that he was blushing. “I don’t know whatever gave you that idea, Richard, but I’ll have you know that I didn’t invite anybody to this party. Because it’s Mike’s party, for his weird fuckboy boyfriend. I just happen to live in the same house as that party. I’ll be spending it in my room, probably watching re-runs of the Office with Chinese food.”

Richie jumped off the curb and landed in front of Eddie. “Well then- invite me to that.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “You want to spend your Saturday night sitting alone with me watching the Office?”

“My favourite show with my favourite boy?” Richie reached out and pinched Eddie’s cheeks. Eddie swatted him away with a grumble. “Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do on Saturday. It’s not like I’d be drinking anyway.”

Eddie nodded, knowing all about Richie’s long and poor history with alcohol that had peaked the year before they’d met. Still though... parties seemed like something Richie enjoyed, as somebody who thrived on social environments. “You're welcome to come over and watch the Office with me,” Eddie said with small smile. “And I promise I won’t be offended when you ditch me for the music and chatter of half the school in my tiny living room.”

Richie tossed an arm around Eddie’s shoulder and pulled him into him. “I would never ditch my Eds!”

xxx

“I swear,” Richie said, gesturing towards Eddie’s small bedroom television set. They were both laying together, Eddie’s small enough that they were pressed together from top to bottom. It wasn’t the first time they’d been seated in Eddie’s bed like this, but it made Eddie’s heart race everytime. “It takes Pam and Jim longer to get together every time I want this show.”

Eddie let his head lull to the side, crinkling up his nose. He, personally, could barely hear the show over the raging music from the party outside the walls. Mike had promised to try and keep it down for them, but Eddie hadn’t really expected much. “They get together in the same episode every time.”

“Yes, Edward.” Richie rolled his eyes, letting his hand come down and start to fiddling with the rainbow pride rope bracelet that Eddie always wore on his left wrist. “In my old age, I just find myself a little less tolerant of all this slowburn. They’re obviously soulmates, why must we sit through so much bullshit when they should just have gotten together at the start?”

Eddie chuckled, hoping Richie couldn’t feel his blood rushing under his hold on his wrist. “I like the slowburn. It’s interesting, you know? Two people who obviously right for each other but had to the get the timing right too. That’s the whole part of it. I think Jim and Pam wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting and powerful as couple if they’d gotten together right at a beginning and never had to like... really go through it together.”

“I just don’t think love should always have to be such a struggle.” Richie said, moving on from playing with Eddie’s bracelet to simply rubbing at Eddie’s wrist. “Why can’t just once I see a couple get together and then nothing bad ever happens, the end.”

Eddie smiled softly. “Why, Richard Tozier, I didn’t know you were such a closet romantic.”

“There’s lots you don’t know about me, Eds.” Richie tilted his head back down and smiled at him. Eddie blinked sleepily at him, letting his smile turn slightly confused. Richie let out a sigh. “Like, uh... I probably never told you this, but I think the best decision I ever made was going over to talk to you that day when you surrounded by all those preteens that were freaking out that you guys were sold out of those new Kardashian jeans.”

Eddie groaned, head falling into Richie’s neck. He told himself he imagined that Richie’s seemed to jump underneath him at the pressure of Eddie’s body.“Oh my God, that was the worst fucking day.”

“Wow,” Richie chuckled, moving Eddie’s body with his. Richie had always been a touchy feely friend, but Eddie didn’t think they’d ever been this close. “Guess I’ll just die.”

“Obviously the only good part of the day was the big gangly losers coming over and handing me a coffee even thought he’d never met and wasn’t sure how I even took it.” Eddie laughed, shifting so he could look at him, chin resting on Richie’s chest.

“Hey.” Richie waggled his eyebrows. “I made a wicked iced coffee that day.”

“It was edible.” Eddie said dryly. “But I think I was so high on anxiety, you could have handed me hot piss in a cup and I would’ve drank it without a second thought.”

“That’s disgusting,” Richie laughed, leaning in to press a quick kiss to Eddie’s forehead. “I thought I was supposed to be the disgusting one.”

Eddie’s entire face flushed. “You’re not that disgusting.”

Something odd and soft came over Richie’s face, and he was leaning closer... closer... Eddie took in a shaky breath, closed his eyes...

A loud crash, followed by Mike swearing, broke them apart. Eddie rolled his eyes and paused the show. “Want to help me kick some ass?”

“Every single person in that room could kill me with one punch,” Richie replied, smiling cheekily. “But I would happily die in a fight for my Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Oh my God, fucking gross, how many times do I need to tell you not to call me that?”

“At least once more, apparently.”

xxx

After Richie and the party guests had all gone home, Eddie quickly logged into his blog and clicked onto his ask box. Right at the top was a message from the purple heart.

fuck i almost kissed the cutie today! he seemed into it but this stupid party interrupt it and now im like??? do i try to kiss him again or was i over thinking it? ah ah ah pls send help. i need a whole army of strong men to carry me through this.

Eddie frowned.

#reddie #reddie fic #my writing #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #lmtys #:D

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naylar-draws · 6 years

Text

She Giggled: Meta-textual Shit About That Time Merlin Flirted With an Underage Girl

So anyways, y’all know that scene? The one people really hate where Merlin flirts with Claire? When I first saw that scene, it made me really uncomfortable, and I had a hard time pinning down why. So I was thinking about that instead of sleeping and now I’m writing this instead of sleeping.

Disclaimer: This isn’t Merlin hate discourse or some shit. I know there’s been discourse about the hate train and this whole rant/analysis has nothing to do with it. I do my best to stay out of fandom discourse and I ain’t gonna ruin my streak because of a crusty old animated dude. If you’re looking for hate, it ain’t here. If you’re looking for analysis on a particular scene in the context of Trollhunters being a fictional text created by real people, then welcome friend. I also know this is an art blog, but I have other hobbies too dammit.

Anywho here’s my humble opinion/analysis on the scene and why it failed: (roughly 1300 word rant/analysis under the cut)

Objectively, it’s gross: an old man flirting with an underaged girl, referring to her as a “lovely creature”, touching her in a non-platonic way etc. these are behaviors that, in real life, shouldn’t be acceptable. These are behaviors that I can say from personal experience are not pleasant to be on the receiving end of. These are also behaviors that women experience regularly and are often told that they have to put up with. Stay with me I’m going more in depth.

So why is the scene within the show unbearable? I’d say because of the in-text reaction to it. (Now I don’t have Netflix this month so I’m going from memory and can’t pull up screenshots bear with me) The response that draws the most attention is Claire’s giggle. She giggles in response. She appears shy at first, Merlin walks up to her and gently lifts her chin, and her response is positive.

Now, one could assume that she was laughing out of nervousness. I could relate to that. The times when I was underage and being hit on by significantly older men, my first reaction was to giggle or chuckle politely, do nothing to upset them, and then extricate myself from the situation however I could. However that’s irl and my being uncomfortable existed with or without any external observation. Trollhunters is a fictional text whose job is to communicate everything it wants to to the viewer. Anything it does not communicate does not tangentially exist. That means that if the creative team indeed intended to have Claire’s giggle be one of discomfort, it would be their job to communicate it to the viewer via cinematography, her body language, dialogue, or an extra scene where she discloses her feelings on Merlin’s actions, that she did feel uncomfortable. All it would take would be a nervous side glance and a brief close-up shot of her face or something of the like. However, the scene only displays her reaction as a surface level giggle, which portrays a positive reaction.

The other reactions in the scene are Jim, Toby, Aaarrrgghh, and Blinky’s. The issue here is that they don’t react. None of the characters bat their eyes at this. Now there’s that screenshot that I’ve seen going around where Blinky is looking at Merlin with indignation while the wizard is ugh caressing her chin. The point being made, partially in jest, is that Blinky’s angry about it just like the viewer. But that screenshot is actually slightly out of context. During that part, Blinky was reacting to something Merlin had said that was entirely unrelated to the inappropriate behavior. Someone could say that maybe the Trolls don’t know about such human customs and that’s why they didn’t bat an eye, and Toby and Jim are uncomfortable but don’t feel like they’re able to speak up or some manner of such. But, again, nothing in the text shows or says this. Again, all it would take would be a shot of a nervous glance. If you assume that one of the characters did indeed feel discomfort, then feel free to assume it, idc. But at that point it’s a headcanon. And headcanons, while they can make canon more fun, are by no means a way of dismissing canon of the roles it failed to fulfill, or absolving it of issues with its content.

Okay, but maybe someone would say that you don’t need characters to tell the viewer what’s right or wrong. Obviously, the scene was meant to show Merlin as the unsavory sort and somehow also comment on society’s intentional obliviousness to the lighter forms of sexual harassment. To which I would respond by saying that if that were the case, then the creative team would have to communicate that message if not by the characters, then by the cinematography. For instance, a change in shot composition, lighting, camera movement, or by the sound design or the background music. To which that scene has none of that. It is something that happens and then is immediately forgotten about, no significance whatsoever is added to the part where Merlin flirts with an underage girl in the context of the episode or overall show.

If the creative team intended to comment on Merlin’s specific actions of flirting with Claire, then they failed, and it did not make it into the finished product.

People might also say that it’s fine because Merlin, a fictional character created by a group of people, is from the middle ages, and during that time Claire would have been considered an adult. This is an argument I have multiple problems with that I will not get into, but first of all, the show does not communicate this. If they really wanted to address the social changes Merlin has to adapt to, the creative team would have had Toby and Jim onscreen explain to Merlin that 18 is now the age of adulthood, slavery is no longer okay, and equal rights are a thing. Also on a storytelling level, they would need a way to juxtapose Merlin’s way of thinking with another character’s or by cinematography to show that the characters who grew up in modern times don’t think underage flirting is okay like he does. Which I’ve already established did not happen.

So at the end of the day, what does Trollhunters have to say about Merlin, an old man, flirting with an underage girl and, urk, gently lifting her chin like a goddamned creep if in its text all it has is non-reactions, no commentary, and a single positive reaction? Well, perhaps not an endorsement of, but most certainly an unintentional normalization of such an action.

And you know what, who cares? Right? Its just a random kids show. Why did I write all this down? Well, partially because I’m a film buff who over-analyzes fictional texts on my free time. But also because this is just a minor example of how fiction reflects even the less than savory aspects of our society. The creative team of Trollhunters probably didn’t see an issue with Merlin flirting with an underage girl, or if they did, it wasn’t a large enough one that is was removed from the finished product. And also, because this is a very good example of the greater issues of the show. Specifically why Merlin breeds so much hate: because the text of the show does not do enough to comment on his moral ambiguity (he is framed as a morally gray good guy who “looks at the bigger picture”, but not all of his eh, less than savory actions are addressed and it leaves viewer feeling as though some of those behaviors are then seen as normal which can leave a really icky feeling [see the Philadelphia Story to get more of those nasty feelings]). Also the fact that while the show is not overtly sexist, it is most definitely filtered through a, eh hum, slightly uninformed male gaze. Only uninformed males (and maybe some females with internalized sexism) would assume that an underage girl would have a positive reaction to an old man calling her a “lovely creature” and gently lifting her chin and leaning over her so the old man is effectively looming over her and ugh why did it have to be like that. (If people are interested I’ll do an analysis on Trollhunters and gender ‘cause boy do I have things to say about gender and sexual dimorphism in this show)

PS to anyone who says that the creators are just waiting to address these issues in Wizards, no film maker worth their salt would intentionally do that, what the heck? who wants to deliberately make a children’s show and add an underage flirting scene and then just leave it unaddressed for years like jesus mcfeezus I would worry about more than their capabilities as a showrunner

#Trollhunters #tales of arcadia #analysis #trollhunter analysis #claire nunez #merlin #essay #words? on my art blog??#I actually really like this show #like i know i just spent too many words criticizing it bu that's love baby #ask me why strickler should have died (like from a storytelling standpoint)#so yeah in depth analysis is just like a thing i do

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haila-wetyios · 5 years

Text

Raiding

Since it became a pretty long post, Imma just throw this under a Read More. It’s not about current tumblr drama fashion. So no popcorn scene for you peeps. Just my experience as a whole and to finally let go of a few feelings that kept weighting on me for a good while until my current team took me in.

The first time I ever advertised on a PF that I was seeking a raid team, was during the final months of ARR. I was a complete scaredy cat, anxious of whether I'd be good enough to work on a team that required more coordination than pugs to get things such as extreme primals or savage raids done. Off I go as a SMN main, panicked as my raid leader of that team joined my party for a brief interview. Afterwards though, during our first joint team efforts for HW content (Ravanna and Bismark extreme at that time) I discovered that I wasn't as bad as I thought. On the contrary, I was too perceptive of everything to the point I would rush to do mechanics assigned to our newbie healer who after several explanations would still not do the thing. Despite my huge insecurities of probably not doing the relevant rotations down to the last skill, my ego started to rise a bit when parsers started to take more and more of conversations between static members. And although I would never ask about my numbers directly, I would celebrate in silence when reading the overall party dps the moment I realized mine had been at the top even with a ninja and a dragoon in the party. That should have been a flag to me now that I look back for being a caster that was doing more damage than the melee. But I didn't know any better, and stayed with my group regardless throughout the entirety of gordias savage. Every week would be the same pummeling against the horrifying Faust dps check, then the first turn's boss, then the second turn until we finally hit the wall of jigglyman and disbanded. I didn't have much complains, despite how tiring it was, I had long since given up on those clears and instead turned each night into 'training to see how long I can last the moment shit hits the fan in any given fight'. And boy did I get a ton of experience down that lane.

The next times I started looking into content once more, I could only play the part of a sub for any group of people I trusted due to life and time issues. But I still took pride in being that one stable sub that could support any group on any extreme primal through HW. I still lament that I was never able to go through Midas and Alexander savage when they were relevant and merely watched from the sidelines.

Then SB came up, and I merely stood aside once more for the first Tier with Exdeath. Except this time, the frustrations of not having been there while I watched all my friends start doing EX's and savage content had finally gotten to me. And lo' and behold, suddenly I was back on square 1, trembling in fear while waiting on my PF announcement that I was looking for a group for Sigma (Kefka times). Nearly died the moment I had two people with interesting names join in my party and just grab me on the spot. I had no idea what I was getting into, they mentioned they just needed a caster slot for the new rag tag group they had built, but at least I had a team! Then the first day of raid came up, and right off the bat I was terrified at the fact that our raid leader was missing, being replaced just for that moment with the FC leader instead. Turns out my entire group save for the ninja, were a raiding FC with multiple groups going in through the week. And what was the first comment of the night pray tell? Well "No one should be here with X ilvl gear." Who was it aimed at? Well, to the only potato that for the first time was slightly outdated in 2 pieces of gear for not being active before the patch dropped. That was the moment that marked my spiraling down a rabbit hole that I wish I could let go of easily but still has a tight grip on me to this day.

I felt like crap, I fought my best and did research on how to be a better caster. Other than the FC leader's comment, no one berated me or spoke about me on a negative light. But it still left a mark in which I kept trying to prove myself and be useful. Suddenly I would find myself cursing at my skills. Hating how no matter how hard I tried with everything, I would never be able to even pass the goddamned Stone, Sky and Sea for savage raids. But we were still getting things done. Two new savage turns down in a single week of release? That felt incredible and also bittersweet. Because any time that my party members celebrated their purples and golds in fflogs, I would be in a corner, self destructing with greys. I kept trying and trying, until my coping mechanism ended up being "I'm just a fill in. But if I'm just this, I'm damn going to do a job stable enough to have a place here." Then things started turning out easier to deal with. I had noticed the goofiness of a lot of the members despite the numbers that dictated their runs, I gave up on my grey numbers and focused on getting their asses up if someone made a mistake. To support the healers as much as possible with mana shift and such. I started putting my experience of keeping the party alive to more use while I slowly tried to recover the confidence I had lost when starting the tier. Granted, they didn't care for the group as much as I did. No amount of hanging out after raid times or helping was enough for the few in charge to announce when we were done raiding after months of being together. They just stopped one day until their FC leader asked me if I was aware of the 'disbanding'.

Then it was time to switch gears, for the first time I thought my work had bore fruit when I was recruited into the FC leader's group instead, and all was well.... Until it wasn't, we kept having to replace members left and right, specially healers and tanks. Progress was slow, sometimes we’d clear Chaos and Midgarsormr, and others it would be a mess depending on the random team comp we had for the week. Things should have been better by the time we made it to Omega, half the party had cleared with their mains after all. Except that it was the point where everything went south in the background.

We had gained a good White Mage, who would complain about random jibber jabber every now and then, but that was fine, no biggie. Then they brought in their former co-healer from their previous static, a Scholar, and all was supposed to be fine. But then something happened that slowly started to wear us all out. For some reason, we suddenly were struggling some more with Midgarsormr, and then Omega.... Boy, even if we had previously cleared, suddenly the three days with 3 hours of raid time each went on on that goddamned turn, and then the final 15 min would go for Omega Male and Female and the reason was hard to tell at first, we were doing the same old after all. It wasn’t until nearly a month of wiping that probably the group had started to realize what was wrong. Our Scholar wasn’t exactly pulling his full weight.

This is what caused probably something that I should have seen coming and that stuck with me for a long while until now that I found this draft I worked on when the wound became fresh again from just thinking about it. It’s just frustrating, sad to a degree and I brought part of it on myself for trying so hard to be useful to no one. What happened? Well, the leader didn’t want to get involved into any drama by only kicking the Scholar because they were friends with the White Mage, so a disbanding was supposed to be the better way to end things. Except the leader decided to do it in a different and up to date still a very shitty fashion.

Right after we’d finished the last raiding night for the week, he posted an announcement about how people, aka his FC members were tired of constantly bashing their heads against Omega with little success and so they were gonna reform. By kicking the only outsiders of the static team. The White Mage, the Scholar, and me. There was no further explanation, no messages to me, nothing. I was just tossed like that after +6 months of knowing this FC and having raided and hung out with a good chunk of their members. I’d sacrificed so much for them. My time, my confidence to a degree, I had been a slave to their parsers more than a few occasions each time I heard them celebrating or complaining about their numbers. All because I wanted to feel like I could stand on the same levels as them. And I did to a good degree. I reached a point where I knew that my abilities weren’t as bad as the greys on my numbers showed me. But it meant nothing to any of them in the end. No message from the leader that up to that point had kept communication with me for raid times and other stuff. No reaction from the peeps I’d raided the most with.

The most ironic part that I still respect? The only person to apologize, the only one that actually took the time to send me a message after the whole group ‘disbanded’ was the dragoon that I had only ever heard speak about their golden parses and nothing else on discord. We hadn’t even talked up until then. But he still cared more than the people that had known me for longer in that group. Granted, I did get to throw at least a cent in the raid channel about what I thought before getting kicked, so he probably wanted to come out clean on that.

I am glad to no avail that I will never have to see them again, because the server splits sent them to a different data center. But it still left a deep mark on me when it came to XIV. I stopped logging in to do any content for a while, focused more on screenshots, on shady flower lady times until I could learn to love the game again. It probably took longer than I would have liked because all of this happened at the exact time that my friends from my crew had dived into raiding at a deeper level. I got to see them celebrate clearing the final omega. Then server transferring to be with their static before the great split or quitting. And then with Shadowbringers hearing “We’re not looking for a dps caster slot.” Each time anyone needed a fill in for their group.

All this left me at an odd spot, being the veteran that keeps up groups or dungeons on normal modes, but having a hard time trying to get back into my niches in the game. My way of getting through raid had been to think of myself as being replaceable or worthless, but still trying to keep my hope that I’m actually valuable. Getting through all of it alone is not the solution now that I can let go of that bitterness of not being appreciated even as a person. I just happened to get a random chance to try out filling in for a group for a friend. But it wasn’t that what helped me the most both to be back on raids and to have finally built back my confidence. They probably didn’t think that I would check, but I’m the curious kind. Specially when you join a discord that has brief mentions of you on the recent chat. And seeing them mention me, and then vouching over my skills as a player, and how I was their first friend in the server? Well, despite having trouble expressing any feelings myself most of the time, when I get to think of it, you have no idea how much it meant to me.

I managed to get back on what I like and enjoy most of what I do after deciding to take another leap of faith and join this group despite my stigma. Granted, mentions of parses and all will always be there. But not letting them define you, and believing in what you can and can’t do in content, I think is the best choice you can make to have a healthy experience and enjoy yourself as much as possible.

#personal #FFXIV #Raiding can be fun or leave a bad mark on you depending on how you go about it #long post #When I first wrote this it looked more like a rant so off it went to drafts #But its really just my experience overall now that I re read it and added two more cents in it

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almaasi · 5 years

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reaction post typed while watching SPN 14x17 “Game Night”

this was not 45 minutes of Dean playing Twister with Cas :/

04:22pm

if this isn’t 45 minutes of team free will 2.0 having a happy time in the bunker with all their alive hunter friends and family, playing board games, everyone whistling and whooping when cas takes off his coat to play twister with dean, i will be sorely disappointed

HOWEVER

/checks

it’s meredith glynn

so maybe it won’t be the pure, fun, gay plotless fantasy that i have in mind, but it’ll probably be well-written and emotional, which is aaaalmost as good

04:30

DEAN’S PLAYING MOUSETRAP

OKAY

04:31

[distant “soN OF A BITCH”]

yeah mousetrap is like that

we have one exactly the same, it’s from the 60s or something, it sometimes functions but mostly doesn’t

when the ball hops into the bucket and rolls down the slope, that’s my favourite part

04:37

WHY ARE THEY HAVING GAME NIGHT and drama WITHOUT CAS

WHERE IS CAS

THIS IS TOO MUCH

04:38

ahhh thank you ms glynn for immediately answering my question

she knew!!! she knew the only question everyone would be asking at that exact moment when nobody mentioned cas is WHERE IS CAS

and then she’s like “here have some cas”

thank

04:39

i want a gag reel of danneel and misha trying to do this scene

we don’t have anywhere near enough content of them together, interacting

04:41

cas getting earrings for anael/sister jo is so intriguing to me and i really like it for some reason

“lightly cursed”

jsdfd

04:43

paused and screenshotted because in this exact moment she looks uncannily like my doctor