1%

CC is crying.

She said she would stop trying to read isekai to inspire her workd but on this day she found....a translated Villainous Otome girl....with the name "Roselia"!!!!

"I'm A FRUAD!"

*cue the Maria style boohoohoo*

The hamster only looks on, spinning its murderous little wheel.

"Did you even read it?"

"NO"

"The why are you even crying you sod?"

"I didn't even read it, I'm just so upset that I accidentally plagiarized another foreign novel."

The hamster promptly fell out its wheel and twitched.

"YOU PLAGERIZED?!!!"

"I DIDN'T MEAN TO?!!!"

"WHEN?"

"I DON'T KNOW???!

From outside the room, CC's brother walks by to slide CC her morning coffee. Then walks away to ignore the screaming pair of crazy author and crazy hamster.

"Okay, let's think about this like rational hamsters and not stupid hoomans."

CC was busy crying on the ground and readily agreed. The hamster pulled out the board, bc visualization is good. Where did it get such a tiny board?

"1. When did you discover this ...'Roselia."

*sniff* ".....Today."

"Hmmmm yes and what is today in hoooman time?"

*sniff choke* "Like April"

"And when did you start writing your cheap cheesey otome villainess with a generic and overly tropey name variation?"

*sob* "Like a year ago."

The hamster throws a toy ball, hitting CC in the head before bouncing off somewhere. The dog goes chasing after it.

"Then you're fine! Now get to typey typey!"

"But I can't! I'm a fraud!"

For CC gets easily depressed about plagiarism and criticisms. For every 100 good comments, she gets it only takes 1 decently worded one to get her down. Tis the curse of many web authors and content creators.

It is unrealistic and overly demanding of a standard, but writers do not work on normal standards. Otherwise, they never would have started writing in the first place. Masochists, the lot of them.

"Gimmie." demands the hamster, pitter pattering its way over the computer.

"Give you what?"

"The comments. I am the only sense of reason you have. Let me see.....those comments!"

By comments, the hamster was not referring to the 99 of awesome motivation jar contents or the discussions that CC falls in nerd essay writing back with. Rather it was...those...the 1!

"There's no need to MR. Hamster. I am trash and must now go crawl into -"

"Nein!"

Holy moly when did Mr. Hamster turn German? Btw CC as two German dogs so that would make them a set! But the German dogs are very ferocious, and they shed a lot. God damn it it's shedding season

"REveal to me to comments!"

"You should just accept constructive critisism Mr. Hamster. It's no good to deny the truth."

"SHutties up your flawed hooman logic and reveal to me the stupid comments. This is a job for....hamsters!"

Well, it's not like CC has a choice, for it is hamster take over time. Also CC has the bad habit of rereading those comments 100x after seeing them so they were still on the screen.

The hamster takes not even 1 second before making a comment.

"Yo....human....do you seriously take something with this username seriously?"

"But- but...they speak the truth and in actual proper grammar and-"

"Shhh- shhhh that stupid human mouth hole. Just ignore the contents for now. Do you, a brain, take this 'username' at any face value? Just by itself."

"....honestly no."

"Riiiiiiiiight."

"But that's not the point and they said-"

"Sssshh sushuy sushi shsuh. Username? Take seriously or take with lots of salt."

"....Grain of salt."

"Lots of salt."

"You shouldn't judge like that Mr. Hamster."

"We judge books by their cover for reasons. It says something about the taste of the author/editor/publisher."

CC nods, for she had nothing to say to that. Unless it's an old-timey book with no cover, she judges books by their cover. Especially modern books. Like what is the 'vibe' the author is trying to give off and how a story 'feels'. It's not so much the art style as it is the direction.

A rolled-up magazine wacks CC.

"Ahem! Pay attention! I am far from done analyzing and explaining to you!"

Pay attention or don't pay attention. Either way it's pain time, again.

"First- salt the comments- because they have given us EVIDENCE to salt. Now onto content- are these readers fans of "Slice of Life" or "History' and the primary genres you tagged your story as?"

"...how am I supposed to know? Check their reading lists like a stalker?"

*click click*- the hamster already did it before CC finishes that sentence.

Normally CC would yell and cry a bit more, but the hamster laser pointer to a certain part of the screen. It may have also somehow put on tiny professor glasses.

"See here, these users were kind enough to put in 'suggestions' reads for other viewers. Now even if they didn't, take into account some of these books they 'liked' and read. Are they stuff that WE like?"

"...honestly no. I legit hate some of these novels."

"GREAT! We doing a great job making stuff we DON'T hate! Back to the contents- do these readers/viewers feel like the 'understand' or get the point of the story?"

"....I don't know...that's just me making excuses."

"No no no hooman excuses is hamster common sense. Now do these comments reflect the story or characters accurately. OR do things just fly over their heads? Looks at all these off characterization/rationale of the characters, the actions and motivations. They completely missed all the clues and details. Zoom zoom swoosh- right over their heads!"

".....then we didn't do a good job at writing or making things clear..."

"DUM DUM! If EVERYONE instantly understood then that's not the type of story we wanted to make! They gotta use their brains a little, they must want to see and decipher! Make what you want to read! Make it first then get better at it!"

The hamster was making a lot of sense until it squeaked: "If you want to please everyone go make CEO harem smut!"

"The April Fools chapter?"

"April fools every day!!! Until it becomes a part of your soul! Then I leave you for another hooman."

That was fair. Sell out was economically profitable but only if it paid enough for a reasonably achievable amount of work. But the competition there was high and CC would probably be mauled and murdered by the writing hamster for making more of those in the overly saturated market. CC doesn't not understand how people keep eating those things up.

"It's the same! You don't understand their tastes, thus some reader's won't understand yours. Back to the 1% comments- specifically let's look at the works that they compare us too."

"....it's all webtoons?"

"Yessssssss tis webtoons. Different things! Webtoons are simpler in structure, the art is easy on the eyes to intake and much faster in pacing. Even faster than manga."

"I love webtoons, they are easy to read yes."

"Soo hooman, you can't compare! Also look closer hooman. Look at those genres. The tropes. Stuff we said we don't do."

The laser pointer of hamster common sense raved about. A party with one little red dot, pointing out things here and there.

It just could not spell out the main point that CC must accept.

"Since the start- you never said you were making this kind of story. Some of these people want time skips. Some of them want translated stuff. Some of them want to read something easy and satisfying. It's like walking into one specialty restaurant and asking for something not on the menu. It's okay if they thought it was and walk out for hoomans eat too much bu their reviews are often empty and just full of spoiled complaints."

"Ooooohhh why didn't you say so earlier Mr. Hama?!"

Oh well if it's food analogies than CC could understand much better. She doesn't take a lot of yelp/restaurant reviews seriously depending on the user. Seriously who goes to like a fancy sushi resturant and asks for a fork? Or a pizza joint and asks for a plate of steak? Oh oh oh that one lady who went to a chinese spicy noodle house and asked for 'non'spicy.

CC does not exactly feel better, for it is the writer's curse. She does however process better- also she's hungry now.

"Type! It's our day off! Update!"

Ahhhhh writing is hard, it's better to just make stuff you like.

The end for now.