Exclusive Rights to An Online Voice Actor - Chapter 85
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Chapter 85

Chapter 85

TLC: Lilies

Editing:

unedited

There are two types of face-slapping in the world.

One of them is to slap ruthlessly, with no restraint, inciting their immediate rage and causing them to turn hostile right away as they burst into curses.

The other type was one that didnt use much strength so it wouldnt hurt as much, yet strong enough to make the slapped person boil with anger, but unable to snap back at you or throw a punch in retaliation.

And

Longbow

was a perfect example of the latter type

Heh

By the time he realised that point, a mocking laugh escaped Qi Jings lips in a moment of carelessness.

He didnt regard himself as a mean person, he wouldnt laugh at other people getting humiliated. But today, he really couldnt hold himself from scoffing out loud.

It was the first time during an official competition for a judge to apologise for miscalculating the score.

If one also took into account

Longbow

s identity as the spokesperson of the organisers, then this situation had all the makings of fine gossiping material.

But at this point, Qi Jing couldnt care less anymore. Since he got involved with

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

in the Trap audio drama, this ID of

Dont ask for my return date

was already been forced into the centre of all kinds of gossips within the voice acting circle despite not doing anything. At first he found it ridiculous to the point of being hilarious, then it gradually became a burden, but he had no way to run away from it, so he could only turn a blind eye and deaf ear to it. And now, the idea of stepping into the spotlight of his own accord has actually crossed his mind.

Because the stronger the light, the clearer the shadows.

As for whose shadow was straight and whose was crooked He believed that the people with a discerning eye would see that clearly enough.

Still, people with a discerning eye were often not too quick to judge, and those who rushed to make a racket would usually be those who are selectively blind, or actually blind.

Audience 1: What is this judge implying? What does he mean by stripped of points? Does he intend to overthrow the previous score? = =

Audience 2: He wants the score to be recalculated? On what basis?

Audience 3: Hehe, Dont ask for my return date sure is treated well, enjoying the privileges other contestants cant. ()

Audience 4: Hehe, he lost and still bribed the judges, I really dont know what to say. Turns out a certain XX is just this unreasonable~ ()

Audience 5: If judges dare to change the score, then I will go and complain to the game developers!! ()

Audience 6: Just as the one above said!! I will refuse to accept this kind of unfair treatment!! ()

I never intended to change contestant No.16s score. That was

Longbows

response in the face of the ridicule in the chat, his explanation fair and reasonable, My criteria for judging all the contestants before contestant No.25 were all the same If I were to change it now, then it would be unfair to all of those who had already performed.

Indeed. Not only Qi Jing wasnt disappointed, he also approved of

Longbow

s way of handling this matter.

If his score were to be changed, it would surely incur the discontent of the other contestants present. Although he wouldnt mind going under the spotlight to get compared with

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

for everyone to see, but that was something between them, it wouldnt be fair to make others suffer due to their personal conflict

Longbow

s decision was indeed quite wise.

As expected, with just these words, all the people who would previously cry that the competition is unfair, or the judge is foul were now nowhere to be seen, the effect instantaneous.

At that time,

Longbow

suddenly spoke once again, Still because contestant No.16s and contestant No.25s performances had a lot of similarities, I wanted to discuss them alongside each other.

Qi Jing started to really admire

Longbow.

This round of slaps, no matter if it was their strength or skill behind them, could all be only described as wonderful. He could almost hear the sound of

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

face getting slapped.

And so Qi Jing listened happily to that sound of a face getting smacked while still paying attention to

Longbow

s evaluation.

But he was caught by a surprise, unlike his usual style of opening in a more veiled manners,

Longbow

went straight to the point this time, As a professional voice actor, I cant deny that during the stage of honing the basic skills, we would also imitate our senior voice actors actingmany in fact had started out like that.

A single sentence made the atmosphere on the spot suddenly tense up.

Even Qi Jings smile disappeared.

He would never expect

Longbow

to be so blatant and use the word imitate; he thought that

Longbow

would maybe phrase it in a different way to leave

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

a bit of dignity But his tone right now was that of proclaiming the already confirmed, undeniable truth.

Qi Jing wasnt at all afraid of the truth getting revealed, because ultimately, he would not be the one who would be disgraced.

What he was worried about was

Longbow

s stanceif imitating was a normal occurrence in the voice acting circle, then wouldnt that indirectly imply that imitating was reasonable, and the imitator shouldnt be condemned?

Just as everyone held their breaths in anticipation,

Longbow

finally went to the main point, So A person who chose to imitate others is usually either a beginner, or someone who is aware of their lacking fundamental skills.

A beginner

slap.

Lacking fundamental skills

slap.

So thats how it was.

The listeners in the chat burst out with laughter before Qi Jing could even do it himself.

Audience 1: Hahahahahahahahahahahaha A certain someone probably had his face slapped silly? Does it hurt?

Audience 2: Hahaha, Teacher Longbow, youre actually a natural airhead with a sharp tongue, arent you! I laughed so hard my tummy started to cramp up!!

Audience 3: ~\()/~ All of a sudden I started to feel that Teacher Longbow is so cute!!

Audience 4: ~\()/~Such a cutie!! Such an airhead!!

Audience 5: Oh Yeah!! Just like this!! As a Return Date fan, Im kneeling down for Teacher Longbow!!OiJust now it was so aggravating to silently watch those fans bouncing around all over the place!! And now Ive finally recovered!!Teacher, no need to stop now, go on~

Audience 6: Huhuhu, I just knew that Teacher Longbow would have a clear view of this. As for stuff like copying thats ultimately something underhanded. Only real emotions can move people! Good luck, Dont ask for my return date!

Putting the scores

Longbow

gave Qi Jing and

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

side by side to compare, it wasnt hard to say who, in his eyes, was copying who.

If someone was to come out and try to distort the facts now, it would only result in them appearing less and less credible the more they would argue.

The people who were trying to shift blame onto Qi Jing, bombarding countercharges against him, saying that it was him who was a copycat, disappeared without any trace, and the public chat suddenly cleared up.

There are plenty of outstanding seniors in the voice acting community, I wont introduce them one by one, but everyone can look up the related materials online if youre interested.

Longbow

spoke in a steady voice, Among those seniors, many have something special to their acting, so theres always plenty of people who like to imitate them. Still, a person will always have their own understanding, so imitating those seniors may help you discover the good points of their technique and by comparing, contrasting them, it can become the means to better your own skillsbut it cant become yours.

Rather than going straight to commenting on Qi Jings and

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

s voice acting, unhurriedly elaborating on his point first, talking about it in more detail.

Pu Yuzhi liked to start from the details, but

Longbow

was the opposite, and liked starting from the big picture first.

I believe that everyone has similar experiences in your daily lifea borrowed item isnt as handy in use as ones own, and thats also how it is with voice acting. Contestant No.16 When he got to that point,

Longbow

hesitated for a moment before muttering, When I listened to contestant No.16s performance, I would imagine the movements of the character while listening and those images would link perfectly all the way until the end, with no interruption.

Maybe that was exactly what it meant to become immersed in a character?

Although

Longbow

said it in a different way, what he wanted to convey was probably a similar thing.

His imagery wasnt interrupted, which meant that during that time, there was not even a moment for the listener to extricate themself from the experience. Qi Jing always regarded immersion as his main objective whenever he voice acted, so recognition and approval from a veteran professional voice actor suddenly made his heart surge with feelings.

Contestant No.16s rendition of Emperor Chang was a bit different from the standard I had imagined, but aside from the sense of age being slightly off, I feel like No.16s overall skill is very high-level and unique in style.

Longbow

chuckled softly, I had already said that when I commented on the previous contestants actingmany of you focused on the wrong aspects, emphasising the conventional imperial bearing or conventional rage of a foolish emperor But Emperor Chang is different from the emperors in typical novels or movies, so simply knowing he was a poor emperor without understanding the cause of him being an inapt ruler is simply not enough.

If we looked past the title of emperor in this character, what kind of person would we see? What was the state of the courts during his reign? What were the stakes between the emperor and his ministers? A person who doesnt understand those details would be unable to act out the changes in this characters emotional state.

At that time, he brought the topic back to Qi Jing.

No. 16 still has room for improvement in the way he handled some of the details, but his grasp of the character settings is very accurate, making a breakthrough in the acting style after the numerous contestants before him, which was a nice breath of fresh air. In a competition this big, doing something completely different than so many people before you requires plenty of courage and confidence, since people tend to primarily seek stability when voice acting on the spot. Ones like No.16, who try to make a breakthrough, truly leave me amazed

Thats because my voice isnt as suited as the other peoples by nature, so I can only try and make a breakthrough through my acting skills. Qi Jing answered with a smile.

This audition was a bet between him and Shen Yan, as well as a bet he made with himself.

There is always a risk to a gamble.

If you lose, you lose hard, and if you win, you win hard.

The voices of agreement started to also appear among the audience.

Audience 1: (**)Aaah Teacher Longbow hit the nail on its head! I feel like No.16s style is completely different from the contestants before him, so listening to it got me really heated! And the difference in his acting didnt come from nowhere, it made me feel like it got so much closer to the character himself than any of the performances before

Audience 2: (**)The fan of the original Order to End the Heavens novel here to say that Emperor Chang from the novel isnt your conventional emperor character~ As the saying goes, the hateful people all have their pitiful side. When I read the novel, I had a lot of pity for this character and I feel like it was the environment he was brought up in that made him become like that With No.16 paying attention to that contradiction, it made this character much more lifelike~

Audience 3: That one phrase from Teacher Longbow, Those images would link perfectly all the way until the endI cant agree more!! I had no problems imagining a neurotic junkie emperor!! Eh Return Date-sama, thats me praising you, really

At that time,

Longbow

shifted the focus to

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

, To my surprise, this style of performance actually Appeared once again among one of the later performances by another contestantIm talking about No.25 whose acting I found similar to No.16s.

As expected, before he could even finish talking, there was an immediate criticism from the

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

s fans.

Audience 1: Why the hell it has to be No.25 being similar to No.16, and not No.16 being similar to No.25?? The line-up is decided randomly, its not like the VAs themselves decided upon it!! Even if they decided upon how they would like to perform, the contestants who are further towards the end are still at a disadvantage!!

Audience 2: Exactly!! Deciding who is copying who on the sole basis of the order of performing is too arbitrary, too unreasonable!!

Audience 3: I have no prejudice against Dont ask for my return date, I just cant watch some people keep bullying Bronze Sparrow-sama again and again Everyone present knows about Bronze Sparrow-samas level of skill, Ive worked with him before on a certain audio drama, and his voice acting was superb, and he himself is so considerate and courteous, so I dont know why he needs to get slandered? Hes already well known in the circle, why would he go out of his way to copy a voice actor who is far less popular than him?

Im indeed not as popular as him. Qi Jing smirked coldly, But isnt deciding who is copying who on the sole basis of their popularity arbitrary and unreasonable?

Of course, the fans couldnt hear that.

Its just that Qi Jing couldnt help himself from making a snarky comment to make himself feel a bit better, thats all.

But

Longbow

who currently had the access to the mic could answer directly, Im not saying it only because of the order of the performanceswhat led me to thinking so is the flow of acting within the 120 seconds allocated to each contestant.

The so-called

flow

is an abstract idea.

Still,

Longbow

explained this abstract concept with a concrete example. Its the same thing as when we listen to music. When I was listening to No.16s performance, it was like a consistent melody from start to the end; I might have not liked the melody completely, but it was very smooth, with no places that would appear incongruous in it. And as for the No.25 It was a weird-sounding tune, there were some parts that got close to No.16s melody, but there were also some parts that included different instruments. From what I was hearing, it sounded like there wasnt much harmony between the scenes and the whole piece appeared as if it was patched together.

To be more specific, for example: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were all outstanding composers, no matter whose piece you would listen to on its own, theyre all classics. But if you took one part from each of their pieces and put it together, the final product wouldnt necessarily sound all that pleasant, even if the parts you chose were the most outstanding ones from the original workand thats because those three pieces put together dont have much coherence.

As someone who had already spent nearly ten years doing professional voice acting, I think that flow is a very important aspect, especially in such a lengthy work as Order to End the Heavens. When theres a large amount of lines for a character, a good flow can guarantee the unity of the characters image, as well as increase its logicality and credibility.

Longbow

s tone was serious, without even the slightest hint of joking.

At first, Qi Jing just wanted to hear how he would slap

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

s face, but now he was truly focussed on what he had to say, listening to him intentedly.

He didnt even feel as angry later when

Longbow

gave

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

a leeway.

In fact, to be able to notice the shortcomings of No. 16 and improve on them, as No. 25 did, its not something one can do without a fair amount of skill But as I said just now, an item borrowed from someone else isnt as handy as ones own, so its easy to make mistakes, and the final product can suffer greatly.

This way,

Longbow

indirectly explained why he gave

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

such a high score for the foundation points, but took away so many for the charisma criterion.

I have something to tell, not only to those two contestants, but to all of you. He said, Only emotions coming from your own heart can live through your voiceI hope that everyone will try and experience the characters on their own, sculpting those emotions by themselves.

For a moment, Qi Jing sat dumbstruck before the screen.

Despite

Longbow

s words being clearly encouraging to him, he couldnt help but knit his brows.

Losing might be karma, because I did yield and go against my will when acting once before. After all, he did compromise for the first episode of Trap. Once he thought so, he suddenly felt that this kind of ending was also pretty adequate, at least it could serve him as a sort of punishment. With this, he could feel the stifling feeling in his chest gradually dissipate.

If he got another chance He would have stuck to his thought process, to his understanding of the story.

Either way, he had already offended the great god once today, so he was no longer afraid of repeating his offence.

Qi Jing smiled with reliefbut his smile had yet to disappear when suddenly, he suddenly heard an urgent notification sound that interrupted his thinking.

A QQ notification.

An icon flickered in the lower left corner of the screen, and coincidentally, it was precisely the one for the Trap production crew.

But it cant be this coincidental, right? Qi Jing slowly sucked in a mouthful of breath, hesitating whether he should open the QQ messages. He knew that if there was movement from the production crew at this time, then it was without doubt related to the competition.

The two main cast members had a falling out while competing for the same role and were even pointed out by the judge during the feedback section with a clear bias towards one of them, yet the other one had an invincible fanbase and unbeatable appeal. If the staff members of the production crew happened to listen to that competition, the results would be horrific.

As an individual, Qi Jing could say at ease:

Today made me furious, I dont like Bronze Sparrow Terrace and his conduct.

But as just a part of the production crew, he couldnt say anything too harsh for now.

A personal grudge was one thing, but he shouldnt involve the innocent staff members into it. As a voice actor, he could voice his personal opinion freely, but as for the right to make the final decision about the internal affairs of the production crew remained in the hands of the producer.

The producer of Trap was the type who wouldnt step in until she had to.

The first one to speak up in the chat would always determine the course of the events, but unfortunately, this time this person was none other than the loyal fan of

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

their sound designer.

Sound designer

A Lifetimes Lock

: Dont ask for my return date, you there? Come out and explain to me, whats your relationship with that judge? You guys stirring shit up like that is disgracing our entire production crew, do you know that?

Qi Jing took in a deep breath.

Its not like he expected things to go this way. And to take a step back and think honestly, didnt

Bronze Sparrow Terrace

also not consider how his actions would influence the staff?

Longbow

still carried on with his feedback, and it was hard for him to reply by typing a message on QQ, so he hardened his heart and didnt reply.

But even without him replying, the bad atmosphere in the chat continued to escalate along the course of the conversation.

Xiao Qiao of Bronze Sparrow Terraces harem

: Dont ask for my return date!! Show yourself!!

Da Qiao of Bronze Sparrow Terraces harem

: Ill just scoff and not say anything.

Sound designer

A Lifetimes Lock

: Dont you think that you can do whatever you want since Bronze Sparrow-sama isnt added to the group! Were still here! Dont ask for my return date, it doesnt matter if youre lurking or playing dead, youd better show yourself ASAP and give an explanation, otherwise I will quit the production, forget about me doing the remaining two episodes!

Scriptwriter

Puppet Show

: Whats wrong, what is happening

Sound designer

A Lifetimes Lock

: You go and ask him yourself --

Xiao Qiao of Bronze Sparrow Terraces harem

: You still dare to ask what happened!! Dont ask for my return ganged up with the judge and bullied our Sparrow before so many people!! Unforgivable!! ()

Sound designer

A Lifetimes Lock

: ( |||)Wha, what judge?? I have no idea what youre talking about

Xiao Qiao of Bronze Sparrow Terraces harem

: The Order to End the Heavens voice acting competition!!

Scriptwriter

Puppet Show

: Oooh, that one, uh Im not really keeping up with that, what happened??

Seemingly annoyed by the out-of-the-loop scriptwriter, the sound designer didnt feel like explaining and just tossed a single sentence.

Sound designer

A Lifetimes Lock

: Either way, theres no use telling you Dont ask for my return date, mark my words, youd better apologise to Bronze Sparrow-sama

pronto

, only then might this situation be salvageable.

T/N:

Lucilla: Just as we got some crumbs of satisfaction from LongbowQAQ

And way to mess things up, gals @[email protected] (Although I feel like Big Return Date is just a walking magnet for all kinds of messy dramas, should we blame him? After all, when in doubt, blame the cat :3 *am deliriously spreading the catboy Qi Jing agenda to cope*)

Lilies: I saw a comment on JJWXC that perfectly expressed my thoughts about

A Lifetimes Lock

: . Just because your brain looks like a large intestine doesnt mean it can be used to hold shit, little girl.