seyrine

Down a familiar walkway as the sky dims and lamp posts lit one by one. It should be bright but for some reason the world have never been so blue.

 

“Ahhh, so it’s still here”

 

When all you can hear is rain and all you feel is the coldness deep down, this place was the haven for the people that has no where else to turn to. Looking above the neon sign flickering read: The Bar.
Peering into those antique frame windows were the stillness of barren furniture and layers of dust in place of memories.  The noticed sign posted on the shut door remains barely legible” Closed until further noticed”, yet upon touch, traces of warmth lingers behind these wooden doors.

Stepping into back alley heading towards the hidden entrance.
Hesitating to slip into darkness once more,
brightening the room with every step as if it welcomes the presence of the guest.
However, the feeling of emptiness remains as the figure that stood behind the counters was no where to be found. Even so, without looking, without words, two pairs of class and a bottle of secretly stash wine are taken from the shelves like clockwork breathing in life into a place that stopped. As per usual, dropping the drinks and glass on the counter and moving into the familiar seat at the counters. Pouring the drink into the glass for two, the blindfolded person sat in thought waiting.

Time has past, accompanying the person was the sound of the endless rain and the glow of the outside light seeping through the windows.

“………”

Memories of a gentle soul was waiting there, patiently waiting for the stories you would tell her. As if to answer her expectation, the blindfolded person began break the silence that filled the room.

 

“Hey… you are there, right? Anni?”

 

Silence answered. Accepting the silence, the person continued to speak into thin air.

 
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Do you remember when you first open the bar? It was grand wasn’t it? Serving drinks and tasty food, enjoying music, listening to people banter, sometimes happy and sometimes sad. Some people came but didn’t have courage to speak, others made a ruckus and a mess making it hard for servers to clean. I was one of the many that came by here. We were all so excited when this bar reached 100 and we were thinking to carry on the legacy that created to 1000, hoping you would drop by again. You promised you would bring cake but that 1000 never came…it was too late.”

 

The person took a sip of his wine, disappointedly, it was the taste of bitter sweet sorrow that left in person mouth. Swirling the glass of wine, the person continued.

 

“I remember walking in for the first time just ordering strawberry sundae just for kicks. Who orders that in a bar right? But your bar managed to do just that. Without knowing many people, to coming out with a bunch of friends.. Honestly, I had many good times in this place, even when my mood was foul, you always manage to make me feel warm.  Always super excitedly welcoming your customers and friends alike. Always scolded me for eating lolis or staring at cute maids and praising me for my doodles and poems… Heck you would even join for drinks on duty. I had fun talking about how you were going to drift the streets while I stand on top of the car or join xinhope’s concert…”

 

Musing at his own words and the fondness of his memories, he chuckles a bit.

 

“After a couple of PM we became good friends and talked outside on skype. Hanging out for hours and hours on call whether it was with iccy and a couple of the gang or just with me. I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed our time together right?”

Gesturing for a toast, clinking the untouched glass sitting on the counter, taking in another sip of memories.

 

“I got to know you even better from those calls. Being able to listen to your bright laughter or talks about pretty much anything from anime, manga, dramas to eating your BF every morning. You man eater.”

A smile spread across the person’s face whose lost in thought,

 

“Shamelessly enjoying talks about love or teasing others was one of the many fun traits of yours that I won’t forget. But that wasn’t all to you, you were always watching out for us, checking in on us, worrying about us in the background. You care for us shows in your action and expression.”

 

Tracing the wooden countertop, the blindfolded figure paused. Putting down his glass for a moment in search for words to continue. Pursing his lips unable to swallow the grief that swelled in his chest. When the lips finally opened, letting out a deep sigh. His voice trembling holding back emotions that will escape at any moment. He continued.

“Even in your toughest moments, even if your grief of loss, even when faced with despair, even when corned in pain, you’ve bravely continue to live on, smiling, being considerate of us. I had always admired you for it. How strong you were despite all that has happened, you were constantly thankful and never gave up your fight.”

 

The sound of the rain covered the droplets that began spill forth from his eyes.

 

“I thought you were going to make it. I truly thought that you could’ve overcame anything after your first trial and you would get better. We were talking to you just a few months ago. It was naïve of me to think that you would be alright.”

Frustration sets in realising his own powerlessness towards the past. Combing out his bangs he tried to calm his breathing. Taking another gulp of the drink in front of him. He continued is confession.

 

“So when the news came pouring in… I was shocked. I filled with thoughts of what could’ve been. Denying after grieving… your face surfacing on my mind… recalling that voice of yours… It feels like the world as gotten a little darker today losing such a special person. You probably didn’t want to see me like this, wanted to me to remember you with a smile and continue living. “

With a complicated smile, he asks the silent smiling figure from his memories,    

“Anni, if the world is really just made of electrostatic signals from atoms, would you be able to hear me from here?”

A desperate plea for higher power to his wish to be granted, uncertainty pushed away by belief. But deep down, it may be a selfish act to please his own ego. Regardless, his words pressed on echoing into the empty bar.

“If you can here me… if my words do transmit. Thanks, Anni for being in my life, thanks for being this squishy’s friend. Yeah, its not goodbye, If we have a next life, let’s go out for coffee. When I mean, coffee, I mean I just watch you drink that stuff while I sip tea. Haha…You silly girl, you never did remember I don’t drink coffee.”  
 

He laughs meekly imaging her protests and laughter. For an instant, a warm air surround him as if he was hugged. To reassure the her or maybe just himself, he responded.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. You are here with me, forever remembered, so please smile as well.”

 

With a parting farewell, he leaves an empty glass and a daffodil on the counter.

Doc, what are these white scaly patches on my forearms?

Oh, you shouldn't worry too much about those. Just make sure that you have them checked within half a year, or there's a risk that... *checks date the question was asked* Know what, never mind.

So, I've sorta left this topic hanging for a while, mainly 'cause I forget about it all the time and also because it no longer feels very relevant, however I decided to pick up some of the slack today. And I do think the wait was necessary, because the reason for this is that I currently find this question very interesting:
 

Latest brilliant realization that could change your life forever?

Because, there IS something like this. It happened VERY recently, and it has changed my way of looking at myself and at the people around me. I'm partially proud of myself for figuring this out, and partially embarrassed that I haven't done so way sooner. So, buckle up and shut your pie holes, because this one's gonna be long.

The igniting event was at the end of last week, when one of my closest friends found a girlfriend. They've seen each other a bit prior, then taken a pause, but now it's official. Never mind the details, anyway. The point is - this made me a bit upset. "He's how much younger than me, again? And we've been single brothers-in-arms, and now he gets a girlfriend? And what about me? How is this fair?" You get the kind of thought process I'm conveying here. And I knew that I was going to end up this way, because I generally do when my friends experience joy in things that I haven't. And, the fact that I become like this, in itself, agitates me as well. "Why am I like this? Why can't I just be happy for them? Why is it that I can't let people be happy even when I'm not? Am I really this miserably petty of a person?"

This was during the end of the weekend, and it continued Monday. And I'm not even exaggerating - I was a complete mess the entire first half of the workday. It just wouldn't let go. I couldn't fake a smile if I was threatened by my life. I was considering if I could take the day off just for emotionally feeling like shit. My annoyance built slightly on the friend-plus-girlfriend fact, but mainly on the fact that I felt like such a failure who couldn't let things go and just HAD to obsess over petty stuff like when others succeeded and I didn't. This aggravating fact that I was such a sore loser in basically every aspect of my life. And after around lunchtime, I started to get incredibly sick of it, to the point that I went into crazy mode. I dragged up my own faults and flaws, all my prejudices, and slammed them in my own face. "Because I just CAN'T allow anyone else to be happier than me, or better than me at something, or reach certain points in life before me, right? Because I'm so goddamn SPECIAL, right? Because everything I do needs to be PERFECT, because otherwise what's the point, right? Because I'm just a little smidge better a person than everyone else, so everything going my way is only natural and something like this is completely out of the ordinary, RIGHT?"

And after a bit of thinking like this, it just dawned on me... This is exactly how I've been viewing myself.

When I was young, I had a very easy time learning. I still do, but it was more noticeable when I was a kid; I learned stuff quicker than friends and schoolmates. I was seen as a bit of a prodigy. And, the brutal fact is this: I eventually took this to an absurd extreme. In older years, I barely studied, I barely paid attention in school, because you know, I made it by anyway. I could get away with putting zero effort into something and still be great at it. I depended on my "special" status. How I was such a genius, how I was a special prodigy, how I was a bit better than the average person.

Except I wasn't.

Am I unique? Yes, I am. Just like everyone else.
Am I valuable? Yes, I am. Just like everyone else.
But, am I special? No, I'm not. Instead, I'm just like everyone else.

Realizing this felt enlightening, as well as embarrassing. I hadn't even been doing this consciously. But I can track down so many of my flaws to this precise type of thinking that I've been doing. Thinking that I'm some sort of key figure, some sort of main character. Sure, I'm the main character - of my own life. On the whole, no, not really. Everyone has their own path. Everyone is their own main character. I wasn't more important than anyone else in this kind of fashion; I just badly wanted to imagine that I was, and this has stuck with me like an invisible parasite. I read a lot of books and saw a lot of movies with main characters with super cool powers, and I so intensely wanted to believe like I was like them. Like I was some sort of Sherlock Holmes-level riddle-solving genius, for example, or whatever crossed my mind. Why couldn't I be? I was special, after all. They didn't put any effort down, and they succeeded brilliantly anyway. Why couldn't I be the same?

Imagine Karma from Assassination Classroom, if you've read it. In particular the arc with the school test, where he overestimates himself because he thinks he's the shit, does no studying and then places way lower than he expected to, just because everyone else put in a definite extra effort, and how this gives him a proper slap on the butt. My kind of thought process coincides very closely with his. The difference is that I'm not even as smart as he is.

This is why I became such a sore loser, too. Perfectionism comes into play. Hey, I'm the main character, so me losing is obviously unnatural, especially if it's something I'm good at. I also very easily become envious of people who are better at stuff than I am. Drawing, music, what have you. Because if I'm not the BEST, then what's the point? Even stuff I have no interest in, like sports, makes me frustrated to no end when I end up losing. However, the simple fact is this: When people are better at something, it's usually for a reason. And that reason is usually that they've put down way more time into what they're doing than I have. I won't automatically instantly be better at something than someone who's spent literally years perfecting something. I've been playing Rocket League with friends recently, and I get so pissy when they own me to hell and back; entirely disregarding, y'know, the fact that they've played the game more than five times longer than I have. It's really incredibly logical, thinking about it. And I've been thinking like a complete idiot, all this time. I've had a very egocentric view of the world. The interesting thing is - a lot of stuff I do, I only partially even do for fun. I mostly do it for recognition. I absorb compliments (and only compliments, not criticism) like a sponge. And I not only want it - I expect it. I do something, and I expect people to praise me for it, and if I don't get enough, I get pouty. Even on this site I occasionally browse my profile to see if people have liked my posts, like the egotistical idiot I am. (I shall, in fact, try to avoid doing so for this post, and for my posts from here on forward. See, observe how I'm already expecting people to suck up to me for writing this long and beautiful thing.) And I've thought all this time that I've been modest, that I've seen myself in a humble light, and I realize that a lot of it has been fake. I've always thought that I was something special, something a bit extra. This has been my actual way of thinking, without my even realizing it, and it's ruined so much for me.

In short?
I'm not special. I'm not a key figure. I'm not the prodigy hero I tried telling myself I am. I'm just like everyone else. If someone's better than me at something, it's likely because they've done something to earn it. If I want to be good at something, I have to put effort into it, just like everyone else.
And in the end, we are all just specks of dust in the wind.
And this realization has made me feel more relieved about myself than I think I ever have before.

So can I accept that my seven years younger friend found a girlfriend before me?

Yes. I can, in fact, do that now. Because I'm not more important than him. I'm just like everyone else.

Phew, that really did get pretty long. And I still don't think I got everything down that I wanted. e_e
 

What's the meaning of life?

Coming to terms with yourself and cooperating with people. That's what I think it is. Also, I suggest considering the spiritual; I believe everyone has the need to believe in something, in their life. They might just not be aware of it yet.
 

Why does this thread not have more questions?

Because people haven't asked any more questions in this thread than the ones that are already here. *adjusts wiseguy monocle*

Renowned heh heh heh

gimme ~200 moar likes, I need to catch up ;-;
 
btw I suggested this one o:

It says there are new member ranks but I'm still a couch potato :<

5000, 10000, 15000

 

god of lol is the only one I know of with that reputation title, no easy way to do likes search

Why do you have more likes than me :<

(◕‿◕✿)

Heyy that's pretty good though.


in the meantime, I start working tomorrow and drew a touhou before i never get to draw again.

STATS!

The changes has taken place on October 23rd and has now been a week. And this is how the site stats has changed so far:

 

• 20,000 registrations have been made since the announcement with peak of 3639 registration in 1 day on 25th. And about 1800 registrations per day and continuing as of now.
• Despite not actually implementing any serious security changes, we're still hovering at about 1/3 less load on our servers simply from change in how our site works. So, if the load avg per server (lower the better) was 3-4 before, it is now 2-2.5.
  Side note: About 5-6 load for us is when all people will start to feel the slow down of the site. So, if the avg is 3-4, peaks often reach into 5s.
• Loss of users: The most feared aspect expected by all. As of first 2 days, we have had no visible loss beyond daily flux. As of now, we seem to have roughly 10% less people than usual and holding steady. Last 3 days have been mostly a flat line.
• Sustainability of site: Is more stable than before as operation costs relatively dropped more. Which was the primary objective of the change.

 

Reader URLs (once you have them) are still public and have no membership requirement. I'm pondering if further protection is even required as of now due to slower rebound of bots than expected. But will see and change accordingly. Gonna get me some more stats!

Me in this thread.

 

I just had a genius idea; how about Re:Translations tries to have a steadily release schedule instead of espreading all the people in even more projects? You can do that when everything is in it's rights place, everyone knows what to do, and you can search for a team for one new project or have it as a side project for some people of the old team. As things are I believe that Re:Translations is waaaaaay too stretched. No ill feelings here. Just a random leecher opinion.

 

Hi random leecher we dont give a fuck about.

 

Tensaiz has been searching for a Web Novel to ease out into after TNS Volume 01/02 for a change of pace. So I recommended this one. 

But if you really want to know, translators translate whatever they want to get tranlsated, meaning, its their own choices. Still dont get it yet? Good, then forever bang your head into a wall.

 

As for staff, I think it was mentioned a few posts ago but here's a summary.

 

Solistia (Head for Yuusha Party, Shinka no Mi, Jashin Tensei... and Manga works + her team) is currently writing a sort of novel (original) on her own. She'll get back to translating those novels as soon as her writing rage dies out.

 

Indra (Head for Slime Tensei, and 2 other novels mentioned...) is currently job hunting.

 

Laverdy (Used to be on re:Monster, now works on Gun-Ota with Ronald and Max) is slowly translating due to work.

 

Xz (The dude who is listed under Spirit Migration, did 2-3 lines.) is zooming around and waiting for a chance to work with laverdy or koutaro

 

Koutaro (ex re:monster translator) has emailed me that he'll be stopping for a while after the PROzess rant, so he can become better in translating. and also writing eronovels.

 

Sumguy (ex re:monster translator) is working on EC, still helps around, but never for re:monster. Why? Leechers. Leechers who beg. Leechers who worship fucking machine outputs of Google/Bing and w/e. He still helps around other novels though, mostly on Soli's.

 

Tensaiz/Honor (Head for Tsuyokute New Saga) like i said, they picked up Spirit Migration seeing as its a complete novel, and its shorter than TNS in terms of chapters.

 

Tom (current re:Monster translator) has been translating re:Monster in his basement and pretty much drops by from time to time to give us a very very badly formatted translations of re:Monster. (One of the reasons we dont have editors that stay too long. '-' )

 

Blesser (Project Head for Master of Monster) has been re-working the earlier chapters of MoM so its streamlined to his quality. There is still someone translating, just not as fast as he does.

 

Did i miss any project?

Oh right.

 

Eh!? Heibon desu yo!? - Vidar - Currently waiting for his monster PC so he can really up translation releases. If you haven't checked, he finally uploaded Chapter 01 of Heibon, that's from the Light Novel. He doesnt want to go back to re:Monster due to reasons.

Souen no Historia - Endo - Is currently crying due to his laptop dying. He's currently translating from his phone. He also translates Arifureta too. (Or so i've heard from him.) And i'm currently editing his earlier chapters (and also proofreading them). He still helps in proofreading Gun-Ota and Master of Monster

 

Is that a good enough status report?

 

Please tell me if missed any of our projects so that your feeble mind can understand. 

 

so tl:dr :

 

We translate whatever feels good/great to translate. Or challenging in terms of Sumguy and Vidar.

mod Mvirus

 

mvirus you've been upgraded XD

- Nomination period have ended. -

Thank you for all your participation in the nomination process. 

 

Results will follow soon after. 

I..I.iii forgot..to..vote .........

took this pic a while back when my car windows were frosted over.

 

Been a while. Sorry for the enormous size. I'm using the URL from my site since I'm too lazy to upload it somewhere else.

 

 

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actually im not wrong at all. When you think of the word smut you think its of a sexual act happening and if there is none at worst its borderline H or mature but oh no you want go with the broader term that is just doesn't work.

 

here you go its noun of http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smut

baroner, as your link points out, "smut" is a broad group of fungal diseases of plants. The negative, "tainted" connotation comes from the damage those diseases do to maturing grain in moist summers and human exposure to infected grain. As many of those fungi release black/dark spores, which get all over light-colored clothing if you handle the mature fruiting bodies, the "taint" of smut appears to readily spread to the unwary. The English word itself is derived from the German word for dirt.

 

Usage of the word for obscene material was slang that eventually made it into the regular language. At the time it became part of English, common standards for indecency in most Anglophone countries were much more puritanical than now (or over the past 40 to 50 years). Smutty writing was risqué but something citizens actually encountered, as opposed to explicit porn, which was completely banned at the time. Thus "smut", as applied to published works, originally referred to material much less explicit than "pornography", let alone hentai. Yes, it can refer to porn now, yet it came into the language to refer risqué pictures of pin-up girls and to then controversial works like Lady Chatterley's Lover, which are hardly porn by today's standards. 

 

Sorry about your appeal to intuition. I'm old enough that when I think of the word smut, I think of the somewhat risqué material called "smut" back in the mid-20th century. In those works, sexual acts might be implied or described, rarely if ever shown.

 

Over the past couple decades, scanlators of works marketed to Japanese girls and women adopted the term "smut" for risqué material appearing in works primarily about relationships and romance. The "smut" tag on Manga-Updates and on Batoto, follows how scanlators use the word. In the case of Batoto, usage of the tag follows how it is actually used in the scanlated manga files hosted here. This also happens to reflect historical use of the term in the English language.

 

You are welcome to your own opinion about what the words "smut" and "obscene" mean and to what works they apply. After all in the U.S., the Supreme Court eventually gave up trying to define was and wasn't obscene using words and precedent, and adopted a "community standards" approach for assessing the legality of obscenity enforcement actions. (Most of the works tagged with "smut" on Batoto would meet the U.S.'s "artistic merit" exemption for enforcing laws against pornography in any case.)

 

Anyway, on Batoto you are part of a community and you're stuck with tags that reflect the way the international manga fan community uses the words--even if that seems counter-intuitive or objectionable to you. I recently lost an argument about use of the "romance" tag on just those grounds.

As per staff request,

Kopytka (sometimes called 'kluski leniwe/leniwki', but officially that's a different thing)

Ingredients:
- (lots of) cake or coarse-grained wheat flour (the latter is better, but usually moar expensive; you can use the former for 'maintenance' stuff like adding flour under/over the dough as anti-sticking measure)
- water
- salt
- cooked potatoes
- 1-2 eggs

Tools:
- a pastry board
- a grater
- a big kitchen knife
- a pot
- a wooden spoon for stirring
- some plate or other thing to move stuff from pastry board into teh pot
- some sieve or holey spoon for taking stuff out of teh pot mid-cooking if you don't have a big enough pot to cook everything in one go

Difficulty: low

Preparation time: ~24 hours
Actual time: probably around an hour, depending on teh amount of dough you get and how fast you can knead and slice it
Cooking time: few minutes

How to get cooked potatoes:
- Peel teh potatoes
- Wash them
- Put them into teh pot with water, add some salt
- Cook them
- pour teh water out of teh pot (use the pot lid to keep potatoes from falling out)
- let them cool down
- put them into teh fridge or some other cold place
- leave them there for teh next day (freshly cooked ones are not good)

Actual preparation:
Grate potatoes onto the pastry board using the grater side with small holes. Form a crater/hole in the middle and add egg(s) there. Add lots of flour and knead it into a dough.
When you get it into a dough, it'll be rather sticky, so keep kneading it and adding more flour regularly until it gets to "hard and consistent enough, not very sticky" phase (it should form one somewhat firm mass, don't leave folding marks after kneading and don't stick to everything it touches).
Kneading 101: Push it outwards with your palms at ~45 degree angle, pull the farther end upwards with your fingers, repeat; fold it inwards if it gets too long. If the dough at some point gets too big to knead it comfortably, cut it into two and leave one half for later. Keep a thin layer of flour on the board to keep the dough from sticking to it.
If you ended up cutting the dough in half, finish kneading the other half now (if you ended up with way more dough than you planned / you're preparing it only for yourself, you can pour some flour onto it, put into a plastic bag or wrap with plastic wrap and then put into the fridge to use later - it should stay good for at least a few days; it'll get all sticky again, so remember to knead more flour into it when you take it out).
After the above step is done, cut the dough into some smaller chunks.
You should start boiling the water in the pot somewhen around now or after you finish the step below (add around the same amount of salt as you'd use for cooking noodles), depending on the amount of dough you have.
Form each piece into long cylinder/snake shape with your hands (first squash it a bit, then roll inbetween your hands, then smooth it by rolling it on teh pasty board). Personally I prefer making thin rolls (thumb/finger-thick), but any width will do. Sprinkle some flour onto finished rolls.
Slice each roll with a knife (if your dough is too soft or sticky it'll be harder to slice them because tearing and stuff). Flatten the end of a roll a tad with your index finger as you cut it. Slice size is up to personal taste; my suggestion is, somewhere between 2 and 5 mm thick. Keep the slices from sticking to each other by sprinkling small amount of flour onto them.
All-steps-in-one pic, because:

The amount for 2 to 5 people, depending on how hungry they are (the board has 60x40cm):
Lower teh flame on the stove (or do whatever you do to electric stove or any other cooking device you use to keep stuff from boiling over/burning).
Slide all slices you want to cook onto the plate, then slide them from the plate into the pot.
Cook them for a few minutes. Keep them from sticking to the pot by stirring them.
If you have more slices waiting for cooking, take out current ones with sieve/spoon and put the rest into the pot. If all of them are already inside, just pour them into a sieve/colander/whatever.
If you cook too much, you can keep part of it in the fridge for a day or two (or in the freezer for much, much longer) to fry later (use very little of oil for it). If you're desperate for food, you can eat them cold too.
Final effect:

 Bonus grease thingy:
Ingredients:
- an onion or smoked kiełbasa/sausage or these mushrooms
- oil
- salt, pepper, etc.

Tools:
- a cutting board
- a knife
- a frying pan

Preparation time: few minutes

How to prepare:
- (wash and peel teh onion/mushrooms)
- pour some oil into the pan (in case of mushrooms only a little).
- turn the stove on
- chop the onion / slice the sausage / slice mushrooms or cut them into small pieces
- add it into the pan
- possibly add any spices you like (if you use mushrooms add some salt and pepper)
- fry for a minute or two
- add onto the main dish
The sausage version with missing actual sausage (that got eaten somewhen earlier):>.>