Seriously, I will block u if ur a minor following me or interacting with anything I write or post. I love blocking people, and I block with utter glee.
I occasionally write when bored lol
I think in my heart of hearts, I’m a hateful lil slut.
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I can't sit back and watch this boycott be sabotaged from the inside through toxic positivity and spineless concessions, all under the guise of a false sense of "collective kindness" mainly spread by bigger accounts...
For anyone who still fails to see the sheer magnitude of the damage, here is the exact breakdown:
1. The reaction to anti-fans attacking our tags
The foolish decision: Changing our main hashtags out of fear and immediately blocking anyone who dared to criticize the move. Then, once the damage metastasized and misinformation spread like wildfire, they quietly walked it back while pretending none of it was their fault.
The real result: They destroyed our algorithmic momentum, erased weeks of hard-earned engagement, and severely delayed our visibility on the trending topics.
2. The release of a highly anticipated banner
The foolish decision: Instead of enforcing the most fundamental rule of a boycott (zero pulls), they actually posted guidelines telling people it was fine to pull on the "3rd or 5th day" to "help." Who on earth boycotts on a scheduled spending delay?! Those who were going to spend were going to do so anyway.
The real result: They handed out a psychological free pass. Players who were originally holding the line ended up pulling because these accounts falsely claimed it was "safe for the movement to spend a few days later." That is the exact opposite of a boycott.
3. Cowardice and blatant hypocrisy regarding the JP server
The foolish decision: Japanese players told people not to comment on a collaborator's posts out of fear of "losing future LADS events." In response, people began gaslighting global players who were simply showing love for Valko. They had the audacity to draw a false equivalence between politically sensitive, historical dates in China and some people's selfish desire not to miss out on gacha events. To make matters worse, they paraded charts claiming JP was the "most successful" boycott based on relative percentage, completely ignoring basic math, as JP has one of the smallest total player populations.
The real result: Infold will look at the lack of public pressure, see the event generating revenue, and assume the global community has accepted Valko’s cancellation. All of this just because a privileged subset of players is terrified of losing future events, while the rest of the world doesn't even get regional events and is still on the front lines fighting every single day.
A boycott that doesn't hit a company's bottom line and public image is not a boycott, it’s just performative virtue signaling. Soothing your own ego won't bring Valko back; strategy, unyielding pressure, and financial consequences will. STOP making excuses for mediocre decisions influenced by "leaderships"...
[Translated from Portuguese]
I'm not going to waste any more time stating the obvious, so here goes for anyone who wants to read:
The concept of "coming off as rude" and "the companies won't bring more collabs" IS ONLY NEGATIVE IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT YOUR OWN BELLYBUTTON.
In the end, not consuming anything, demanding the character's return, and not spending with the company is what will REALLY help us.
Infold isn't Japanese, it's Chinese. The way they usually "boycott" companies from their own country simply doesn't work against foreign giants. Gacha companies don't interpret silence as "deep protest," they interpret it as conformism and acceptance.
In fact, Infold will take advantage of exactly that passivity to keep profiting. If Global and CN were to imitate this boycott method, we'd be screwed, so reflect on that—it's not hard... Both CN players and global players are boycotting using the same methods, but you don't want to because you're afraid of missing out on some damn event and coming off badly, when, AGAIN, the game is CHINESE.
We couldn't care less if Inflop doesn't do more events. If they're not capable of solving this problem they caused and RESPECTING THE PLAYERS, we hope they go EOS.
EOS = NO ONE GETS ANY MORE EVENTS, I think you get it now.
this user seriously, perfectly worded exactly how I've been feeling about the toxic positivity that has unfortunately been plaguing the movement. that too in such a composed manner, while on the other hand i was holding myself back from going completely ballistic. not to mention certain people are so quick to deem you as insensitive or disrespectful, or too negative, even when you present them with actual facts.
day by day i feel like I'm losing my tolerance for those who keep dictating us on what to do, while simultaneously posting pictures of themselves playing the game, completely ignoring the basic concepts of a boycott while trying to act like the leaders.
it has gotten to a point where I couldn't care less if people's feelings are hurt, you simply cannot call yourself a boycotter when you're STILL playing the game, logging in, contributing to infold's performance metric. like this seriously should've been common knowledge?
the whole point of a boycott is that you're supposed to be fucking annoying and relentless. you're supposed to be loud on social media, while having absolutely 0 presence in or around the thing you're boycotting, in our case it is infold/papergames' releases. their games. you're supposed to be insufferable about what you want.
you're supposed to be the cold dagger wedged between their ribs; agonizingly painful, but if they dare pull it out with no intention of treating, they'll bleed to death.
so let's keep certain basic things in mind.
stop changing hashtags every other day on twitter, instagram, facebook, etc and stick to only 3, one of them HAS to be #bringbackvalko, and the other two MUST be established and popular. prevents the loss of momentum.
completely delete the game. if you truly want to boycott, just delete it. there will be no pulling for so and so banner on the nth day. it just doesn't make sense.
no need to attack, just be relentless. keep spamming your love for valko, ESPECIALLY under official posts. don't worry about being annoying, the antis didn't care either when they mass emailed infold to delete valko, when they harassed the developers, valko mains, and did all that shit. they are undoubtedly much worse, so why the FUCK would we let anybody guilt-trip us into thinking we're the problem?
stop worrying about there not being any future collabs or events. global fans of all people never even be bothered by this because infold has never done any of the like for us. our boycott is supposed to hurt them wtf stop pitying them🤦remember that whatever happens is all on them, because they broke their promise, they angered us, the betrayed us, they have always been overlooking us. infold will reap what they sow.
and for the love of whatever, whoever you find holy, use common sense, critical thinking, actual knowledge, whatever helps you differentiate facts from fallacies. stop taking random accounts as your leaders just because they have a large follower count, blue checkmarks, more likes or whatever. there is no leader. there is no official spokesperson. there is no hierarchy or social ranking. you are either a boycotter or you aren't. simple as that.
be loud as hell on social media, but a complete void in their metrics. if you want to contribute but don't feel like posting (which is understandable, esp considering how hateful valko antis are) just be the void. delete the game. free your devices from the burden of this heavy ass game.
if we're being annoying that means it's working. stop pitying infold or valko antis, basically the ones who are SUPPOSED to be "bothered" by the boycott in the first place. and please, stop trying to guilt-trip us into thinking we're "policing people" or "forcing others to boycott." because while we're not doing that shit, you seriously can't deny the basics of boycotting while deluding yourself into thinking you're morally correct.
to put it simply, you can't have your cake (a moral high ground, social status as an advocate for a good cause) and eat it too (indulge in the comforts and pleasures of the very thing you claim to be against). it doesn't fucking work like that.
THE CHINESE MEDIA WANTS VALKO GONE (TEBLOG DONT LIKE)
Media outlets are bashing papergames for ruining chinas reputation they’re taking his clips out of context and are saying there’s global backlash but neglecting that it’s FOR valko and since the App Store rating dropped the game MUST be bad Pleasepleaseplease spread word on X and Reddit on how amazing love and Deepspace has been till now and how you’re so disappointed and how the game showed you Chinese culture they’re weaponizing our protests against valko and please don’t rush it lest it should backfire
< in china, other games also want the overseas market. they use the media to accuse infold company of monopoly (which is a very serious crime in our country) and spread rumors to criticize valko's character design. because they also have a character with a similar setting, they don't want valko to be launched, so they hope you can see this and speak out against such unfair competition. we really hope that infold company can bring valko back after getting through this disaster >
< infold is actually a very, very small company in our country, it is not that powerful >
all this time infold stayed silent because the chinese media could very easily take their words out of context and slander the company. they twisted everything
‼️just a disclaimer‼️ i’m not forcing anyone to believe every article i translate here !!
i translate what looks like the truth. to believe it or not is your right :)
from the author ‼️
switching to silent whispers is pure hypocrisy and directly supports those who are trying to destroy lads.
why and how the developers of silent whispers are linked to the valko scandal.
i’ve gathered all the interesting and crucial information regarding tencent.
this is a massive post with a lot of text, but i strictly ask you to boost and share this.
tencent is the largest gaming corporation in the world, regularly involved in high-profile lawsuits over plagiarism, illegal copying, and copyright infringement. the company appears in court both as an aggressive plaintiff defending its franchises, and as a defendant accused of stealing other people's ideas.it’s important to understand: tencent is a giant with immense power, media connections, and the best lawyers in the industry.
the valko scandal: it’s their doingbuying bots, bribing media and bloggers, etc., creating a million fake issues with valko just for the cloutlads makes colossal amounts of money, taking the lion's share of profits from other market giants (including tencent and netease projects).
to shake the leader's position, competitors often use 'water armies'.
the concept of 'water army' and 'business black pr' (heishui)
what it is: in the prc, there are legal marketing agencies that unofficially provide heishui (黑水 — 'black water') services. they manage millions of automated and semi-automated accounts".
tencent or its related entities don’t write hate comments themselves. they hire an agency, give them a brief with key triggers (for example: 'link the character to unit 731', 'promote the topic of domestic violence') and pay to push these tags into the trends of the weibo social network
fanning the flame: the actual dissatisfaction of a small group of radical fans (who simply didn't like the new character) is artificially picked up by thousands of bots.
generating crazy accusations: bot employers use the tactic of spamming absurd 'political' allegations (like what happened with the fabricated hints about unit 731). bots start mass-duplicating these tags into weibo trends, creating the illusion that 'all of china is furious'.
the goal — management panic: the calculation is that gaming companies have very strict reputation kpis, and under the pressure of an artificial 'million reasons', their nerves will crackwhich is exactly what happened: on this wave, infold cancelled valko's releasethe strong accusations were precisely the political topics, and that became the main reason for the sudden cancellationnext will be a summary of lawsuits and competition between infold and archosaur games (tencent).
nfold games filed a lawsuit against archosaur games accusing them of trademark infringement and unfair competition.
the reason for the conflict: infold accused archosaur of plagiarism and illegal use of keywords and elements from its franchises (shining nikki, love and deepspace) to promote the competitor's projects. it was noticed that the creators of silent whispers copied visual elements, fonts, and the interface positioning of games from infold.
tencent's role in the lawsuit: tencent corporation is involved in the case as a third party. this is because the unfair advertising was distributed through its marketing platforms, and tencent itself owns a large share of stocks in archosaur games.the process has dragged on due to legal tricks from archosaur. the defendant (archosaur) filed an objection against the court's jurisdiction, which caused the first hearing to be dismissed, and the process is being artificially delayed. meanwhile, in early 2025, infold already won a similar lawsuit against archosaur regarding their game life makeover, creating a strong legal precedent in favor of the creators of love and deepspace.
regarding sylus's carbon copy and the so-called lawsuit that infold 'won' this year: on the wave of that victory, infold's legal department immediately started the process of documenting violations concerning silent whispers and the character alaric. in china, intellectual property law is complicated: proving plagiarism of a character's appearance and concept before the game's release is legally difficult, so infold is striking from the front of unfair competition and trademarks (the use of love and deepspace and sylus tags in archosaur's hidden advertising.
the outcome: infold won the lawsuit against archosaur over unfair competition, which heavily damaged the opponents' reputation. but the 'sylus cloning' itself in may 2026 caused a new wave of legal claims and a severe public boycott of archosaur by players, forcing the creators of silent whispers to make excuses to the audience.
next will be a summary of tencent's major lawsuits with other games and the final result ⬇️
1. tencent vs moonton (mobile legends) — tencent won (awarded $2.9 million in compensation).
2. tencent vs netease (rules of survival / knives out) — ended in a settlement (netease modified the games).
3. sony vs tencent (light of motiram) — ended in a settlement (tencent completely removed and cancelled its game).
4. nexon vs tencent (qq tang) — tencent won (the chinese court dismissed the korean company's lawsuit).
1. infold games vs archosaur games (with tencent involved as a third party) — infold games won (the court recognized unfair competition on archosaur's part).
2. tencent vs netease (honor of kings vs onmyoji) — ended in mutual lawsuits and closed out-of-court settlements.
3. tencent vs map creators in eggy party — netease / the map authors won (tencent paid hidden compensations for copying locations).
4. pubg corp. / tencent vs netease — ended in a settlement agreement after years of litigation in the us.
with this whole valko scandal topic, here is what infold has in its favor:
- shanghai officially sided with infold because they bring in unreal amounts of taxes.
- tencent didn't expect this kind of reaction from the global fandom. they were sure everything would die down quickly and infold would cancel it fast.
and all the noise happening right now is literally the salvation of lads and infold. we, the fandom, are acting as infold's shield.
that's why the police and infold's department are so deeply involved with each other right now. it was never about the haters, it was paid bots from the very start and a brutal war.
financial blow: infold's love and deepspace revolutionized the market, becoming the highest-grossing 3d otome game in the world and taking billions of yuan out of tencent's pocket.
tencent's failure: revenues of tencent's own mobile projects for the female audience (such as light and night) began to drop rapidly. tencent's attempts to create new games or promote projects of friendly studios (like archosaur) failed. destroying valko is an attempt to disrupt infold's most crucial update and stop their market dominance.
that's exactly why switching to silent whispers and supporting this game is pure hypocrisy. you are supporting the aggressor with your own hands. this is exactly what tencent bought tons of bots for. those who leave for that game, thinking they are escaping toxicity, are actually sponsoring the very people who created that toxicity to destroy love and deepspace.
also from the author:
let me clear something up. first of all, i’m not defending infold. lads has plenty of problems, i’ve never denied that and i’ve always talked about it. but what we’re dealing with here is specifically a cyberattack. my video post is not fake, it’s just simple analytics of everything going on right now and what happened before. media manipulation, coordinated harassment from bloggers, botting views and inflating pre-registrations — all of this is already obvious. read my replies in the comments, there are way more proofs with numbers and facts. trying to justify sw while closing your eyes to plagiarism is just pure denial of reality. honestly, i don't really care whether you play sw or not. as someone connected to art and gaming, i will always protect copyrights. plagiarism is absolutely always bad, and it can never be justified. i can't force you not to play. my job is to deliver the core message and the facts that have already been proven. your job is to accept it or just pass by.
Yeah fuck archosaur games and Tencent. It wasn’t enough that archosaur had previously plagiarized PG, which is why they were sued, but they also tried to bring PG down by using underhanded tactics.
You have to be real insecure over the game you’re currently developing, and with your developers skills to do all this crap.
i just finished watching a theory video by a russian blogger and decided to share her insights with you guys. i really hope this comforts you a bit.
1. but let's just look at Infold. the first and most terrifying thing for them right now is the competition. the competition with silent whispers. [...] the love & deepspace banner at the festival (the bilibili world festival) was the biggest and most massive one; naturally, they spent a very long time preparing for it. but this whole situation forced them to pull it down. and who is the main shark at the festival right now? silent whispers
2. another thing i want to point out is that there's a discussion going around about alaric being just a carbon copy of sylus. didn't you find it weird that teren, the little wolf... well, we had the silent whispers announcement back in winter, yeah, i made a breakdown video about it. it’s highly possible that valko was at the peak of his development cycle at that time, because one way or another, Infold is constantly dealing with leaks.
3. back in winter, another wave of gossip on chinese platforms predicted that Infold would go bankrupt around july 6th. honestly, this whole thing feels like the Infinity Nikki situation, where a game just dies out, and that's it. it feels like love and deepspace is also heading toward some kind of dead-end, but a game of this scale can't just be shut down over a single misunderstanding. just look back at how much hate and drama there was when sylus and caleb were added — and they still survived that.
4. plus, some girls are mentioning that when caleb and sylus were added, the "coming soon" sign in the character menu temporarily disappeared
5. overall, there’s a theory that these haters never actually existed. never. they were just paid bots hired by competitors to fuel the hate, all to steal Infold's fan base and lure them over to silent whispers.
6. right now, this is my stance. just wait and watch
7. right now at bilibili world, the biggest booth of the festival belongs to silent whispers. plus, they say the company's influence is so massive that they even own shares in WeChat
8. ireally mean it when i say that we 100% don't know what's going on behind the scenes. and i am highly confident that there is much more happening there than we can ever imagine. no one has let Infold off the hook yet.
9. infold’s decision to stay silent in this situation is completely understandable. it’s like they can’t afford to draw any more attention to themselves right now, especially given how incredibly shaky their position is in every possible way. and i am 100% sure that a bunch of haters with manure can't just ruin a massive company like this or stand in their way on that level. im positive there are people involved who have way more power, because i truly feel bad for Infold. they are taking massive losses right now.
we hate them, we despise them, and we condemn them. we have every right to be angry because we are human. we have every right to be disappointed because we had expectations.
10. just like many other creators in the fandom, i will continue to make content for this character. not just because he is still a game character to me—even though he is—but because valko has become the face of this entire situation. honestly, this whole thing is highly revealing and massive in scale.
people are talking about this situation in many fandoms that aren't even related to love and deepspace. and i believe that while we are watching all of this unfold, we shouldn't stay silent. truthfully, if i were in your shoes, i wouldn't leave the game just yet; i would simply wait and see what happens next.
well, i really hope these thoughts brought you a little bit of peace of mind.
someone posted a weibo calling out the company, accusing them of hurting the players, ruining the reputation of chinese games abroad, and damaging the country’s cultural export and global expansion projects—and it got a ton of likes... i hope the company realizes the terrible impact they’ve caused and gives valko back. we were being very gentle before, but it didn't work. now that we're taking a harder stance, i really hope they finally listen to us
translation ⬇️
unfortunately, this is a war where everyone loses. no matter who is pulling the strings behind the scenes, and no matter what your stance is, you have completely and utterly lost. unless you are a literal traitor who despises seeing china do well. i took a quick look at twitter (X), and the overwhelming amount of comments are split: half are bashing papergames, and the other half are bashing china itself. are you happy now?
as an overseas chinese, let me tell you clear as day: japan has anime, south korea has k-pop, and the only thing from china that currently holds any real popularity among young people overseas is gaming. genshin impact, black myth: wukong, honkai, wuthering waves, and then papergames' otome titles—specifically the nikki and deepspace series. but now, foreign players' trust in chinese games has completely collapsed. you can find endless comments everywhere saying they will never touch a chinese game again.
the cultural propaganda and global outreach projects that our country worked on for so long were destroyed by you in a single week. you relied on throwing around accusations of 'rh' (insulting china) just to force caleb's voice actor out, and you've left love and deepspace looking half-dead. but let me tell you: the person who truly doesn't love the country, the one who is actually 'rh', is YOU. you utilized tragic historical events just to pressure a game company, all because you wanted to remove a character you didn't personally like. you are the ones who truly disrespect our martyrs.
you can keep rewriting history and acting like nothing happened, but the fact is, your idiotic actions have dealt a massive blow to the overseas markets of all chinese game developers. not that your bird-brained heads care, because all you can say is, 'chinese games must cater to chinese players first, domestic games must survive domestically first.' i truly wonder if the people shouting this crap every day even own a passport.
love and deepspace's cultural export and global expansion projects were heavily supported by the state. if the government didn't value cultural outreach, why would they back it? these people went abroad carrying a mission from the higher-ups, and you completely ruined it for them, haha. the performance metrics of the staff involved are now completely gone; they probably absolutely despise you right now. in the end, you created a scenario where the entire country suffers a total defeat, yet you guys just casually move on, living your peaceful lives and pulling for gacha cards. no wonder lu xun said medicine couldn't cure the chinese people back then—your brains are truly terminally ill and beyond saving
🖇: cr. shumaarr [twt]
rh stands for 'insulting china' (sinophobia) in the context of geopolitics and foreign policy
also I don't think parents "these days" are uniquely terrible, I just think neglect is showing up in new ways as technology progresses. today's ipad kid would've been wandering around in a ditch alone all day and night before. parents not wanting to have to deal with children is not a new phenomenon.
