Following this, Production Girl pushes Fermeyermasterin-kun down the stairs, causing him to tumble into the hospital's internal sewing room, where another loom subsumes his bandage-mummy body. This scene is so important as it establishes Production Girl's feelings for him, while also exploring behaviours of cyclical cruelty. \n\nYou wipe a tear from your eye, remembering the Tumblr blog post you wrote about this scene and how everyone agreed with the notion Production Girl is individualising the violence of bourgeois-industrialist exploitation of labour, and that this was very empowering probably.\n\n"Great delivery!" You hear the voice director say. "And that's a wrap. Thanks so much, you have no more lines for this show."\n\nIt's 08:31, so you return to the cafetaria to eat food for 4 hours.\n\n[[>>|cafetaria]]

[[<center><big>You're a professional voice-actor, fresh on the job. Today is just another day, but something good might happen along the way...</center></big>|doit]]

"Real hot," says the voice director, who looks like the opposite of an eroge director: overworked and normie, but in that way looks exactly as you'd expect. "We'll take a break and do the climax after. See you in an hour, folks."\n\nYour voice is a bit hoarse from all the moaning and screaming and ad-libbed scraping sounds. There'll be a robot voice-filter on afterwards, but you're experienced enough to know you gotta lean into it to make it more convincing. Let technology support you, be yourself the best you can be.\n\n[[To the cafetaria!\n>>|cafetaria]]

You're getting paid a lot for this, which is great or extremely humiliating depending on how into this you are.\n\nIt's corny, but 'ad-lib' reinds you of the time you and a friend spent an after-school afternoon dubbing over Spongebob clips. They knew how to use Windows Movie Maker and, it was obvious from their suggestion they'd done this before? "Just ad-lib something and we'll make it work."\n\nWithout a script, you dubbed over Patrick's mouth flaps and you ended up giving him a (teenage) adult gangster voice. The clips are on Youtube somewhere, but you're pretty sure no one will ever find them or trace them back to you. A tiny secret, but you're still proud that, looking back, that was your first voice-acting memory.\n\n[[//[during sex]// ''The way you turn my steering wheel is driving me wild!''|3.2]]

You finish your meal - there's opportunity to talk to some folks. Or you can do some scrumptious act (eat a burger, pet a cat, shoot a gun at demons) and pretend it's raised your courage, just like Persona.\n\n[[1) Strike up a conversation with Sophia Sōseki, famous voice-actress known for her frequent roles as stern or commanding women. Her most notable role was Chie in 'My Cute Kouhai Is A Meiji Neo-Restorationist, How Can I Make Him Lick My Boots?'|sophia]]\n\n[[2) THE Ram Siegel approaches you. You feel pretty happy about sharing a table with an industry big shot like him.|siegel]] \n\n[[3) Reenact 'Onani Master Kurosawa'.|yuck]]

Role: Sucre\nMedium: //Boliviashteru: South-America In Love//\nDescription: Lima-chan hasn't talked to you since Chile-san suddenly kissed you. In fact, it seems as if she's been actively been avoiding you. You finally confronted her, on top of the roof overlooking the Pacific ocean, holding her soft hands.\n\n[[<big>//"Lima-chan, I know why you're mad with me. But I promise you, it's not what it looked like. I didn't kiss back - you know why? Because I was thinking of you, Lima-chan. Because... Because I like you! I like everything about you! Your red-white fashion style, your accent, the ceviche you made me for the culture festival. Lima-chan, prom is soon, and... I don't want to go with anyone else!!!"//</big>|thank]]

Instead of a prayer, you perform a series of Naruto hand gestures and utter "itadakimasu" before digging in.\n\n[[Unsurprisingly, there is no one sitting next to you.|cafetaria2]]

hi everyone ruben here\n\nthanks for playing this silly lil text game\n\ni hope you enjoyed it. i enjoyed writing it!\n\nsupport the SAG-AFTRA voice-actor union strike against unfair treatment of industry workers. aid the struggle in humanising the video game industry\n\ni love you, i kiss u\n\nmwah

It was this show that convinced you to enter the industry in the first place. The fact you now get to BE Production Girl's English voice is so humbling and amazing and you only had to leave behind the comfort of friends, family, familiarity, and friendliness for this role.\n\nThis episode has an amazing callback to episode five, 'For You, Production Girl, I Can Hire Ten Others, And I Will Treat Them Just The Same As You, Regardless of How Miserable and Sickly They May Be'. Fermeyermasterin-kun pretended to get his hand stuck in the loom as a prank, which scared Production Girl so much she screamed and pushed him in.\n\nThe voice director raises his hand, counting down from five. The screen turns on and footage from the 178th episode of Disaster of Production Girl from the 7-minute mark blips into view. Production Girl is visiting Fermeyermasterin-kun in the hospital, who's learned how to walk again. She's brought him a bouquet of wilted flowers, the best she could buy with her minimal wage, but he's too busy chasing the nurses around. You hear a bleep, signalling your line.\n\n[["Kyaaahh!! I can't believe you're flirting with girls other than me, Fermeyermasterin-kun!!! You hentai pervert, why don't you metatextually validate my personhood through the misogynist apparatus of male sexual attention...!!!"|1.1]]

A couple of months ago, you auditioned for a role in the official Transformers datings sim: 'What If Optimus Prime Was A Girl In An Eroge' and you got the gig for Dunebuggy, the robot who can shift into an inconspicuous suburban lawnmower. Today's your first recording day and you're kind of nervous. You've never voiced anything 18+ before, well, not officially anyway (the Undertale fan animations are long forgotten).\n\nThe text is in front of you:\n\n[[//[seductively]// ''Shia, d-do you want to see my engine block?''|3.1]]

Years ago, you went to Japan with your parents, who consciously took you everywhere but Tokyo to wrench you from the fetishistic idea that consumer culture = Japan, so you ended up in a quiet city in Hokkaido. There, at a bar called 'Anime Is For Jerks', you ended up doing shots of sake with a local DJ (you snuck out of the capsule hotel (it wasn't sneaking but your parents didn't know how to open the pods fast enough to stop you)). When asked about the jacket he was wearing, with the mascot embroidered on it, in a drunken haze he stripped and gave it to you.\n\nIt fit you like a glove, or like a jacket that fits you I guess. He looked you dead in the eye and said, "there is a lot of evil in the world, and a lot of stories about these evils. That's just true. But here's what I think: you can only see and hear one thing at a time. Hear only bad, see only bad, you feel only bad. So, what I do in my show, is tell the good stories. Funny stories. Nice stories. About fathers and sons embracing, about dogs returning home, about children finding enough change for an extra can of soda. Evil distracts from the good and the good that we want to tell. So, every morning at 7:00, Kanato Horiike brings you the good stories so you can feel good about the day." He then passed out.\n\nThe voice director talks to you through the intercom: "pay attention, you just missed your line. Let's take it from the top, alright?"\n\n[[>>|hardboiled]]

Role: Kimino Taranara\nMedium: //Deep Sea Dive Ganbatte!!//\nDescription: As the sole inheritor of your mother's ama diving house, you've been struggling to keep it running in the face of overwhelming corporate competition and automatisation. Not only is a piece of tradition being eradicated by capital and cold convenience, the culture of your family (and your identity with it!) is in danger of disappearing! Rally the people who've agreed to help you restore the ama practice to its former glory!!\n\n[[<big>//"Friends... I can't thank you enough for being here. I know it seems bleak, up against the Mako Corporation. They have big ships, the latest equipment, and high-tech technology on their side, and we only have our hands... No... We HAVE our hands! We will curl them into fists and raise them high in defiance! We will open them to collect pearls, and with those pearls, grasp our destinies in our own hand! We will win, because we are holding each other's hands!!"</big>|thank]]

Untitled Story

"It's never too early for a slice of pizza. Some of that 'za. The magnificent margherita. The angel triangle. That tomato trigonometry. That great and good greasy geometry. The precious pyramid with/out the pineapple. The dough you crave some mo'. You got that crust lust. The Italian orgasm."\n\n[[As you said all of this out loud, it's no surprise you are enjoying this pizza alone.|cafetaria2]]

[[You lose two (2) Stress.|hub]]

Back in the recording booth, refreshed and more insightful, you're ready to tackle on the next flood of lines with extra aplomb. The voice director, that hazy figure behind the glass, counts down from five, and you:\n\n[[1) deliver the best megalomaniacal soliloquy you've ever had in you.]]\n\n[[2) declare your love for the craft and promise to improve its working conditions by delivering your best love confession.|lima]]\n\n[[3) support your friends by assuring them that despite their weaknesses and shortcomings, it's okay to fall when you've got their back.]]

You listen to Ram share his experiences with various roles. How much he struggled pronouncing legal jargon when he played Roc Correct in Good Attorney. Or how he had to drink green tea with honey to preserve his voice trying to nail the high pitch of Bear in The Self 4: The Animation. \n\nThe most fun he's had with a role, though, was probably as Germ for Durum Slag-On. The antagonist who later had a change of heart after his duel with Sunglass Boy. Watching the original animation, Ram was overcome with emotion that he carried all the way through into his role. And I mean, who doesn't remember that iconic line?\n\n"For Pete's sake, don't you know who I am?"\n\nThe conversation feels appreciative and affirming, reminding you what it's all for, bringing you closer to your own labour. There's a certain spirituality in hearing peers share their stories - it may be tiring, but there is joy and heart in all of it.\n\n[[You say your goodbyes.|hub]]

You enter the recording booth. It is about 8:30 in the morning and your third coffee is already cold. \n\nYou are wearing:\n\n[[1) a t-shirt of your favourite anime, a slice of life set in 1800s London, spanning 544 episodes. It's kind of fanservicey but in a cute way. 'Disaster of Production Girl and the Sordidity of the Rapid Industrialisation of England.'|1]]\n\n[[2) the jacket with this cute cartoon cat on it, the mascot character of this very small and local radio station in Hokkaido. It's licking its paws and smoking cigarettes and firing arrows. You promised you'd show it to the canteen lady. She's not into anime or Japanese culture, but she mentioned once she'd like to know more.|2]]\n\n[[3) a comfy gray hoodie, the one you always wear for recording sessions. It's got one of those weird slogans like "''EUROPE 1973 CARS STAY IN THE GARAGE, I'M ON THE FREEWAY IN THE NUDE''". It's covered in glue stains from when you tried to stencil Doraemon on your wall.|3]]

She sighs.\n\n//"They're afraid of the slippery slope, you know? That once we get proper labour conditions, that everyone else in the industry - anime or games - will demand them, too. Editors, programmers, animators, coders, the whole shebang."//\n\n//"Super messed up we have to demand these things to keep our voices."//\n\n//"Even more messed how they hire rookies like you - no offence - to pick up the projects. They're making the ship run on fumes and you're the coal."//\n\nShe waves bye, dragging herself off to another extended negotiation. It's something to think about: the voice industry - Japan, USA, UK, France, wherever - relies on range, skill, and, mostly, recognition. Producing stars everyone knows and loves means they need to be everywhere.\n\nBeing everywhere, in the entertainment sense, means being ground to the bone. It pays like shit, too, so it's no choice but to take on as many gigs at the same time. And the social dimension of work (never forget about this!) means always competing, always coming home late, always being tired. That's the standard, and that's unaccepable.\n\n[[Enough discourse. Time to go!|hub]]

[[Oh okay, you fucking normie.|cafetaria2]]

Role: Vezard Laleth\nMedium: Chart of the War Angel\nDescription: All-powerful wizard whose motivations is to bone down the main character. Give him the voice of a horny graduate student who can summon a meteor storm: angry virgin who stumbled into godhood.\n\n[[<big>"Soon the door to a new world will be opened. Until then, you can ponder the extent of your powerlessness! Oh, you absurd, pitiable fools... Does your folly never end? You are the first blasphemers to defy the new god of this world! Ye shall burn in the fires of hell for all eternity!"</big>|thank]]

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Anonymous

The cafetaria is slightly crowded when you arrive. Industry professionals, rising stars, and voice-nobodies are scattered over the various tables. People that inspired you to always be the best, and more practical people that give you handy tips how to achieve this: voice exercises, throat medicine, how to convincingly sound angry instead of drunk.\n\nYou greet Lakshmi, the canteen lady, and order:\n\n[[1) a big slice of pizza.|pizza]]\n\n[[2) a little box of salad.|salad]]\n\n[[3) some ramen noodles.|noodles]]

You take an embarrassed shot of coffee and gurgle your throat to add the gruff, deep growel you need for that iconic noir narration. \n\n//Bleep//\n\n"Rain pours from clouds like whiskey, except it's water. Neo Noir Dark Noir City is always like this: a dead, distilled mess, with tears flowing from the pipes. I saw a sad thing today. It was on the internet, a dog had a cactus needle stuck in its paw. I cried, I cried, two turbulent streams straight into my coffee mug, the stress hormones turning the dark roast into a mocca. I drank the coffee and it was good. I published the recipe on SadCoffeeLovers.net and moderator 'The_Last_Australian_Barrista_Who_Will_Return_Coffee_To_That_Godforsaken_Desert_Pit_Some_day' gave me a thumbs up."\n\n//Bleep//\n\n"Okay, that'll do. Next up is some character lines from Faberge, The Illegal Egg so we'll continue narration later."\n\n[[To the cafetaria!\n>>|cafetaria]]

//"So, how's the strike coming along?"// You ask her, encouragingly.\n\n//"Well, we've had a couple of meetings with company boards which went nowhere. I explained all our demands and room for concession for probably six hours and all they came with was a 2% rise in pay."//\n\n//"That's... not great."//\n\n//"RIGHT? All these intersecting contracts boil down to too many hours, serious health issues, and just exhaustion. I've had a month this year where I can't have a phonecall with my dad because I'm worried I'm not fit enough for recording. Hell, I don't even talk with my girlfriend - we use texts, face-to-face!"//\n\n[[You give an understanding nod, hesitantly touching your throat.|sophia2]]