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Meticulous or Flamboyant

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The first match in Group C was the game to watch! It was a clash between two titans, a game that guaranteed edge-of-your-seat-almost-shit-your-pants moments! Team Season versus Team Meteor! A battle between North America and Europe. Two of the teams most likely to make it through to the next round. The winner of this game could very well cement their position as number one in the group! The crowd in the Wembley Arena was cheering. The casters were hyping up the game! And Su Xue tried to do the same with her viewers. “This is a super hype game, bois! A Midlaner who’s a King up against an Emperor Support! I really wonder how this game will go!”

Su Xue’s pathetic attempts at building hype fell flat. The viewers on the stream just ignored her. Besides, they weren’t here in this particular stream to listen to her. They were here for Lin Feng. His insights, his breakdown of the game. They knew he saw more in the game than they did. So they waited until he decided to chime in.  Lin Feng shook his head, disagreeing with Su Xue’s assessment. “I don’t think we should see this game as one between a King and an Emperor. The roles that each of them are playing, they’re too different to compare directly. I think. But… uh, let’s see what happens in champion select first, yeah? We can learn a lot from that. Then we’ll talk about who’ll win this game!”

Kings and Emperors weren’t only given the title for sheer mechanical skills. There were many other variables taken into consideration, such as showmanship both domestic and international games and their ability to build plays that substantially impact the team’s performance. Spoon from Team Meteor was Midlaner and a flashy-sort of King. People watched games with Team Meteor just to see him and his outstanding game mechanics! Autumn, on the other hand, was a completely different type of player. It really made no sense comparing the two. Autumn was much more of a team player. He wasn’t really flashy, nor did he ever do anything that focused the spotlight on him. What made him great was his ability to ward the map to maximize vision just where it was needed, the calculations he did to create opportunities for his team, and the plays that he called for his team. His presence alone made his team far better than they could be without him, all while he stood in the background. This skillset is what earned him the nickname of God Support and the title of Emperor.

For this first game of the day, Su Xue and the casters all focused on the idea of a titanic clash between a King and an Emperor, the rest of the players on both teams were afterthoughts. People there to round out the numbers. But Lin Feng thought this was ridiculous. This game was Season versus Meteor. Two strong teams, both talented in their own way. It was a fight for dominance between raw individual skill and perfect teamplay. Of course, this wasn’t to say one had no teamplay and the other no individual skill. They were both among the best teams in the world, skilled in all aspects of the game. It was simply a matter of what they excelled most at.

The two teams entered into Champion Select. It was Season on the Blue team and Meteor on the Red team. Season banned Mordekaiser, a strong Champion in the current meta. There were other meta champions that were generally banned out in every game, like Gangplank, Azir, Darius, and Lulu. These Champions were too strong right now. However, instead of taking one of those Champions off the board, Meteor banned Thresh. Thresh wasn’t especially strong in this patch, but he was a frightening Champion in the hands of Autumn! Meteor showed their respect. They weren’t going to try and compete against the world’s best Support on his best Champion.

The Champion Select ended without any surprises or shocking twists. The teams loaded into the game while the fans and analysts were discussing the picks. More specifically, they were honing in on the King versus Emperor perspective. They couldn’t let this go. Spoon had picked Yasuo in the mid lane, while Autumn went with a support Morgana. One of Yasuo’s skills was a Windwall that could block Morgana’s skillshots. So the analysts argued that Meteor had come out with the advantage in the draft.

“Meteor is farming minions. Season is farming minions. Man, why are these European and American teams always so boring in the early game? All they do is farm and farm and farm even more. I wanna see them fight!” Su Xue complained. To which her viewers were quick to point out that this was just how Europe and North America played the game. They prefered to scale up into the late game and then win it through one big teamfight.

The Jarvan IV from Meteor did try to force a fight at bot lane. Several times, in fact. But the first two times failed miserably. Autumn had warded correctly and spotted the Jarvan IV before he was even close to lane. They backed away to their tower and didn’t even try to fight. That changed during the third gank. Autumn had his Morgana retreat a little, but not completely back to his own tower. There was just enough room to bait the Jarvan IV into jumping at him.

The Jarvan IV flashed forward and then used his flag-toss combo to dash at the Morgana and knock her up. Autumn was ready. He activated Dark Shield on his Morgana, blocking all crowd control effects. She wasn’t knocked up. The Jarvan IV found himself out of position, far ahead of his teammates. The Morgana binded him with her dark magic–Dark Binding! Then she used her ultimate skill–Soul Shackles! Wings unfolded from her back. She unleashed the full force of her Celestial power! Chains of suffering made corporeal latched onto the Jarvan IV, slowing him and dealing damage before stunning him. All the while the Tristana blasted the Jarvan IV with her cannonballs and Explosive Charge. They ended the Jarvan IV’s pitiful existence before the stun ended.

“Wow! Nice! Awesome play!” Lin Feng exclaimed, giving a thumbs up at the camera. The people watching Su Xue’s stream were quick to agree. They flooded the chat.

HOLY SMOKES!!!! if only my support was that good. ez game then

teach me senpai!

what a support play! just goes to show you dont have to play a carry to carry

Did you guys see that reaction speed? Like fk dude. That was fuckign mental!

“It really was a brilliant bait. Autumn knew there wasn’t enough space for a flag toss combo. He didn’t just get the Jarvan to jump at him, but also waste his Flash while doing so!” Lin Feng explained to the chat and Su Xue. “He also knew he didn’t have to worry about Jarvan’s ultimate. That was still on cooldown after the little skirmish Jarvan had with Elise in the jungle a little earlier. There were still at least 30 seconds left on that cooldown. Autumn knew all of this and made the perfect play for it. That really was great to see!”

that’s some great insights lil bro!

see, maid? That’s how you cast a game! You should take a lesson from his book!!

You know so much lil bro! That’s really cool! Thanks!

this just goes to show: LIL BRO >>>>>>>>>>> the maid. GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN WHERE YOU BELONG!!!!!1!

While Autumn was making plays in bot lane, Spoon tried to do the same in mid. To no effect. Season’s Midlaner had picked Lulu, a defensive Champion who was hard to pressure in lane. Then there was the Elise, the Jungler from Team Season, who was also focused on shutting mid lane down and constantly hovering around it. Whenever the Lulu needed any help, she’d be right there to provide it. There was nothing Spoon could do, except farm the minions and stay even in CS with the Lulu.

“Heh. That Spoon isn’t all that great… Is he really a King?” Su Xue asked Chat. She chuckled and added, “Roundy is way better than him! Right, guys? Roundy should take his spot and become the new King!”

Su Xue’s viewers agreed. All of them. Without exception. Because they only remembered the last game. Their judgement was based solely on Roundy’s Hecarim and Riven game and Spoon’s Yasuo game. And then not even on the actual quality of their play, but rather how it looked on the screen. Lin Feng understood this and he knew how wrong they were. He thought for a second about arguing with the viewers over it, but then decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

Spoon wasn’t making flashy plays nor was he getting solo kills on the Lulu. But no one could reasonably expect him to. That just wasn’t how the game worked. Lulu was a strong pick in mid lane because of how defensive she was. It was really hard to get a solo kill on her, almost impossible. To this end, it was rather impressive how Spoon forced the Jungle Elise into mid lane to protect the Lulu. This was a testament to his skill. Something the viewers completely missed. And when the Elise and Lulu would make a mistake, and they would—people always did—he’d be there to make the outplay and pick up the kill. That was the skill of a King.

Lin Feng looked at the minimap, at the icon of the Morgana. It’s just… Autumn is just better. A lot better. Spoon is great, but it’s not enough. He really needs to do something special here, otherwise Autumn will walk away with the game on his Morgana. Autumn is playing super good!

At 14 minutes, the second Dragon spawned. Season had gotten the first. The game was slowly slipping out of Meteor’s hands. They really needed this Dragon if they wanted to stay in it. So they warded aggressively around the Dragon pit and tried to force Season away. It looked like a success. A few skillshots hit and Season retreated into their own jungle, around the edge of a wall. A wall they then used perfectly.

The players from Meteor had to walk around it to chase Season. The Morgana ran at the front of Season’s team, and the Jinx from Meteor at the back of their team. A wall separated them, but they could almost touch hands if it wasn’t there. The Morgana called upon her dark magic. No wall could stop it. She threw it at the Jinx and bound her–Dark Binding! Then she flashed over the wall and cast her ultimate–Soul Shackles! Wings unfolded from her back. She unleashed the full force of her Celestial power! Chains of dark pain lashed onto the Yasuo, Jarvan IV and Jinx, slowing them and dealing damage before stunning them.

The other four players from Season turned around as if they’d been waiting for this exact moment. They were ready and pounced on the three Champions that were pinned down. Yasuo and Jinx were blown up fairly quickly, since they were squishy, and the Jarvan IV barely managed to survive longer than those two. The remaining two Champions from Meteor knew what was coming and were already in the process of retreating. But Season didn’t chase after them. The second Dragon was way more valuable than an Ace.

“Nice catch!” Lin Feng exclaimed. “That was a great play! They got baited so hard! Haha!”

That teamfight turned out to be the one that decided the game. Season grabbed such a large advantage from it that there was nothing Meteor could do to turn things around. Not that Team Meteor gave up. No one ever gave up during Worlds. But they never really had a chance to claw their way back. Team Season methodically played it out, taking down every Red tower on the map. Finally, at 32 minutes, Team Season destroyed Meteor’s Nexus and ended the game.

“Autumn was amazing! He was really amazing! Wow! That was crazy! Did you guys see it? Can we see a replay? I want to see the replay!” Lin Feng couldn’t get enough of Autumn. From start to finish, he played a perfect game on his Morgana. He showed the world why he was the second Emperor and proved himself worthy of the title. He played like a machine, and didn’t make a single mistake.

Lin Feng stared at the screen, but had stopped watching what it showed. Watching this Autumn play made him recall his old Support. These two were polar opposites. One played meticulously. Like a machine. The other played full of style and passion. They were completely different approaches to the game. And both worked, when coupled with the right ad-carry. He grinned. The perfect bot lane. A duo that complemented each other’s plays perfectly into a tango. That was something special. Season showcased it this game, and he’d seen the Support and ad-carry in his old team do the same. His old teammates, they were great. Every single one of them. He smiled wistfully and rubbed his eyes. I miss those guys.

How I Met Your Translator/Editor

So we’re doing something a bit different for the thought today. You guys have seen us joking around with each in the thoughts, on Discord, etc. But you don’t know the story of how we met each other and how we became friends. So this is our origin story, told from our individual points-of-view. There’s more to it, obviously. But this got pretty long, so we’ll talk more about our first impressions and old stories another time.

How I Met Sietse and Dev (Shanks POV)

I met Sietse when my previous editor on Rebirth Thief stepped down, and I was looking for a replacement. I think I’d gone by 50+ editor applications by then and rejected them all. Then a friend messaged me out of the blue and recommended Sietse to me. I gave him a shot and I liked his work. He was the only editor beside my original editor to make actual meaningful edits instead of doing minor fixes and changing stuff for the sake of changing it. And when I say “meaningful edits”, I don’t mean anything grand like rewriting entire chapters, rearranging scenes, etc. Not like what we’re doing today. No. I just wanted him to rewrite any really awkward sentences and make the reading experience a bit smoother for readers. That doesn’t sound hard, but it was actually really tough to find that out of an editor back in the day. I can’t say it’s too different today either. But beyond that, though, I thought he was someone I could grow along with. Basically a partnership where we’re both equals and doing our best to improve together. And I was right. He became my exclusive editor on Rebirth, and we developed a rock solid relationship, to the point that he knows me better than myself.

Truth be told, I forgot how I met Devshard. To me, he just appeared in my life one day, and then remained a permanent fixture. Isn’t that just the darndest thing? Having a friend you’ve known for so long that you completely forgot how you two met. We’ve been together ever since and had our share of really stupid fun. There was a period of time though, where Devs betrayed me for another translator. The bad boy type. Decided I was too bland. Like Vanilla. But then that didn’t work out. And he came back to me anyway. Sort of like Forrest Gump.

Jokes aside. When Sietse introduced me to Devshard, I was really impressed by his editing skills. It’s a shame that most of the advice he gave me flew over my head and still does. But I was just really happy to make a friend that shared the same interests as me. He was cool to hang out with, and just an overall funny guy to be around. Eventually, we started talking to each other every day and we became best friends. That said, I didn’t have any hope of him becoming an editor of Rebirth Thief, and I didn’t want him to be. He was too good for that, and it would be a waste. I was just happy to receive the occasional help he did give us. But a few years later, I somehow roped him into helping me with Rise. And now we’re here.

How I Met Shanks and Dev (Sietse POV)

It all started on a rainy day when I decided to become LittleShanks’ nemesis. Back then I happened to start working on Realms of the Firmament for Xianxiaworld, while Shanks was trying to translate the same novel on his WordPress. Now, I didn’t actually know him. I just heard stories about him. The general gist was that we had the supreme translation and that he was just terrible (we were terrible). Fortunately for us, Shanks gave up and went on to translate the masterpiece we all know and love as Rebirth Thief!

Several months later, I was approached by someone telling me Shanks was looking for an editor. I knew of him from the stories, but I was assured he was an awesome guy and not whatever the negative stories made him out to be. So I did a tryout for Chapter 113 on Rebirth Thief (Don’t know why I remember that). He told me that there were issues with my edits. My thoughts went, “Oh crap. I’m getting turned down.” Then he added that he also really liked the direction I was going in with other edits and that if I could do more of that he’d be happy to work together with me (while also not forgetting to mention he’d already turned down like 50 people applying for the position). I felt fucking great! Super special. So I did my best. I worked my hardest. And I tried to make good edits and not “Valici” edits, as Shanks and Devs call the less than stellar edits I used to make back in the day (and sometimes still do). Since then, I’ve worked together with Shanks on a near daily basis for the last four years. Through the good and the bad, he’s become one of my best friends.

As for Devs. Well. I wasn’t happy with my edits, and rightfully so. They were awful. I can’t spin it any other way. Something needed to happen, because I worried Shanks would dump me and I was really enjoying working with him. So that couldn’t happen. Around this time, the NovelUpdates Forum was quite big, so I browsed for advice and tips on how to make substantial edits instead of just correcting typos. There I noticed this one guy who posted a lot of messages, all of them in coherent sentences. I hadn’t seen anyone type English so fluently. He also claimed to be an editor, a real world editor, not a hobbyist like me who barely spoke the language. About four months after I started working with Shanks, I slid into his DMs asking for some help. Basic questions I hoped he would take a second to respond to. He did. He actually took the time to write an essay on the ways I could improve. What I had to do to make my work better. It started through a DM exchange on NUF and quickly evolved into constant conversations on Discord. Well, almost four years down the line and I still don’t really understand all the stuff he’s talking about. But it’s fun to learn and maybe one day it’ll all make sense! Until then, I have found a good friend who I spent everyday with. Just the other day, he missed me so much when I was gone for a few hours that he called me on my phone for a quick chat during my date. If that isn’t brolove, I don’t know what is!

How I Met Shanks and Sietse (Dev POV) 

I was into the whole CN Webnovel scene for a while, ever since my old roommate in college introduced me to them. But I didn’t find out about NovelUpdates or the NovelUpdates Forum until 2017. The site for one of the novels I was reading went down, and I was trying to Google what happened. So I found the NovelUpdates Forum through that and then signed up. Started posting, shooting the shit, doing my usual Devshard bit. Started to get a lot of DMs from people asking for me to look over a chapter they did, asking for editing advice, and looking to hire me as an editor. Then I got a message from a guy with the name ‘Sietse Valici’ asking for editing advice. I responded with “advice”. But at the time I responded, I knew nothing about the behind-the-scenes stuff with webnovel translations or how the production process worked. My advice was professional advice from one editor to another. Looking back on it now, I realize that he understood absolutely nothing of what I said.

Eventually, we added each other on Discord and started working through chapters. I also had no understanding of the WW website’s backend in those days. I just assumed it was a big wordpress website so I didn’t think there were any issues rapidly submitting changes to chapters. I wasn’t on the Google drive then. So I’d be looking at the live version of the chapter on WW, talking to Sietse about rewrites and changes, making him put those changes into the website, and then refreshing the page to see how it looked. We took down WW like 3 times before I figured out that we shouldn’t be doing that. Talking to Sietse back then was a mind freak though. I was talking to him about narrative construction and he was sitting there going, “Wait. We’re supposed to do more than just look for typos?” But he was a cool guy and he really wanted to learn how to edit, so I kept talking to him and kept teaching. Days turned to weeks turned to months turned to years. We became friends, then good friends, and now I spend everyday talking to him. Literally. He’s the last person I talk to before I sleep and the first person I talk to when I wake up.

Shanks… I met Shanks through Sietse. So the two of us, Sietse and I, were working on a chapter of Rebirth Thief together. There was a paragraph that wasn’t clear, and Sietse had no idea. So I told him to drag his translator into the conversation on Discord. He added Shanks. I asked Shanks the question, Shanks answered, and then I went back to talking to Sietse and teaching him how to edit. Or so I thought. Literally five seconds after I went back to editing with Sietse, Shanks started DMing me. First it was questions about me, and I answered to be polite. Then it was about my hobbies and he got super excited that we were both into comics. Then he talked about comics for like an hour. Then he started showing me paragraphs that he was really proud of on Rebirth and asked for my opinion. He looked a little needy and insecure, so I was polite and gave him some positive reinforcement. Now, three years later, I’m still doing that. Honestly, if I’d just told him the paragraphs were shit back then, I feel like I would’ve been doing other things with my time today. But no. I had to be nice to the needy Asian boy with self-esteem issues. Now he’s imprinted on me and I can’t get rid of him. I’m actually not joking guys. Shanks wore me down and forced me to become his friend through sheer persistence and force of will. In the month after I first spoke to him, literally an hour did not go by without Shanks messaging me about something. A comic book, a movie, asking for help on a line in Rebirth. Always something. He turned into such a constant presence that I actually noticed when he wasn’t messaging me. Now we’re super close friends who still spend way too much time talking to each other.


Since you guys made it this far down and we shared very personal stories and details of our lives with you, it would be super helpful if y’all could go to https://www.novelupdates.com/series/rise/ and drop us a rating. It would be even more helpful if you wrote us a review. No pressure or anything like that. It’s just that we’re mining our lives for content and we just dropped a huge amount of content. We’d look stupid if we didn’t include some sort of call-to-action after that. So like we said, no pressure. Don’t feel like you have to. We’re literally just including this so we don’t look stupid to the rest of the content creator community… and saying that might have defeated the purpose. Oh well. C’est la vie.

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