#china truth revealed | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months ago

Text

Academic economists get big payouts when they help monopolists beat antitrust

After 40 years of rampant corporate crime, there's a new sheriff in town: Jonathan Kanter was appointed by Biden to run the DOJ Antitrust Divisoon, and he's overseen 170 "significant antitrust actions" in the past 2.5 years, culminating in a court case where Google was ruled to be an illegal monopolist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

Kanter's work is both extraordinary and par for the course. As Kanter said in a recent keynote for the Fordham Law Competition Law Institute’s 51st Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, we're witnessing an epochal, global resurgence of antitrust:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-jonathan-kanter-delivers-remarks-fordham-competition-law-0

Kanter's incredible enforcement track record isn't just part of a national trend – his colleagues in the FTC, CFPB and other agencies have also been pursuing an antitrust agenda not seen in generations – but also a worldwide trend. Antitrust enforcers in Canada, the UK, the EU, South Korea, Australia, Japan and even China are all taking aim at smashing corporate monopolies. Not only are they racking up impressive victories against these giant corporations, they're stealing the companies' swagger. After all, the point of enforcement isn't just to punish wrongdoing, but also to deter wrongdoing by others.

Until recently, companies hurled themselves into illegal schemes (mergers, predatory pricing, tying, refusals to deal, etc) without fear or hesitation. Now, many of these habitual offenders are breaking the habit, giving up before they've even tried. Take Wiz, a startup that turned down Google's record-shattering $23b buyout offer, understanding that the attempt would draw more antitrust scrutiny than it was worth:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wiz-turns-down-23-billion-022926296.html

As welcome as this antitrust renaissance is, it prompts an important question: why didn't we enforce antitrust law for the 40 years between Reagan and Biden?

That's what Kanter addresses the majority of his remarks to. The short answer is: crooked academic economists took bribes from monopolists and would-be monopolists to falsify their research on the impacts of monopolists, and made millions (literally – one guy made over $100m at this) testifying that monopolies were good and efficient.

After all, governments aren't just there to enforce rules – they have to make the rules first, and do to that, they need to understand how the world works, so they can understand how to fix the places where it's broken. That's where experts come in, filling regulators' dockets and juries' ears with truthful, factual testimony about their research. Experts can still be wrong, of course, but when the system works well, they're only wrong by accident.

The system doesn't work well. Back in the 1950s, the tobacco industry was threatened by the growing scientific consensus that smoking caused cancer. Industry scientists confirmed this finding. In response, the industry paid statisticians, doctors and scientists to produce deceptive research reports and testimony about the tobacco/cancer link.

The point of this work wasn't necessarily to convince people that tobacco was safe – rather, it was to create the sense that the safety of tobacco was a fundamentally unanswerable question. "Experts disagree," and you're not qualified to figure out who's right and who's wrong, so just stop trying to figure it out and light up.

In other words, Big Tobacco's cancer denial playbook wasn't so much an attack on "the truth" as it was an attack on epistemology – the system by which we figure out what is true and what isn't. The tactic was devastatingly effective. Not only did it allow the tobacco giants to kill millions of people with impunity, it allowed them to reap billions of dollars by doing so.

Since then, epistemology has been under sustained assault. By the 1970s, Big Oil knew that its products would render the Earth unfit for human habitation, and they hired the same companies that had abetted Big Tobacco's mass murder to provide cover for their own slow-motion, planetary scale killing spree.

Time and again, big business has used assaults on epistemology to provide cover for unthinkable crimes. This has given rise to today's epistemological crisis, in which we don't merely disagree about what is true, but (far more importantly) disagree about how the truth can be known:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know

Ask a conspiratorialist why they believe in Qanon or Hatians in Springfield eating pets, and you'll get an extremely vibes-based answer – fundamentally, they believe it because it feels true. As the old saying goes, you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't reason their way into.

This assault on reason itself is at the core of Kanter's critique. He starts off by listing three cases in which academic economists allowed themselves to be corrupted by the monopolies they studied:

George Mason University tricked an international antitrust enforcer into attending a training seminar that they believed to be affiliated with the US government. It was actually sponsored by the very companies that enforcer was scrutnizing, and featured a parade of "experts" who asserted that these companies were great, actually.

An academic from GMU – which receives substantial tech industry funding – signed an amicus brief opposing an enforcement action against their funders. The academic also presented a defense of these funders to the OECD, all while posing as a neutral academic and not disclosing their funding sources.

An ex-GMU economist, Joshua Wright, submitted a study defending Qualcomm against the FTC, without disclosing that he'd been paid to do so. Wright has elevated undisclosed conflicts of interest to an art form:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/google-lawyer-secret-weapon-joshua-wright-c98d5a31

Kanter is at pains to point out that these three examples aren't exceptional. The economics profession – whose core tenet is "incentive matter" – has made it standard practice for individual researchers and their academic institutions to take massive sums from giant corporations. Incredibly, they insist that this has nothing to do with their support of monopolies as "efficient."

Academic centers often serve as money-laundries for monopolist funders; researchers can evade disclosure requirements when they publish in journals or testify in court, saying only that they work for some esteemed university, without noting that the university is utterly dependent on money from the companies they're defending.

Now, Kanter is a lawyer, not an academic, and that means that his job is to advocate for positions, and he's at pains to say that he's got nothing but respect for ideological advocacy. What he's objecting to is partisan advocacy dressed up as impartial expertise.

For Kanter, mixing advocacy with expertise doesn't create expert advocacy – it obliterates expertise, as least when it comes to making good policy. This mixing has created a "crisis of expertise…a pervasive breakdown in the distinction between expertise and advocacy in competition policy."

The point of an independent academia, enshrined in the American Association of University Professors' charter, is to "advance knowledge by the unrestricted research and unfettered discussion of impartial investigators." We need an independent academy, because "to be of use to the legislator or the administrator, [an academic] must enjoy their complete confidence in the disinterestedness of [his or her] conclusions."

It's hard to overstate just how much money economists can make by defending monopolies. Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner gives the rate at $1,000/hour. Monopoly's top defenders make unimaginable sums, like U Chicago's Dennis Carlton, who's brought in over $100m in consulting fees:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-09-24-economists-as-apologists/

The hidden cost of all of this is epistemological consensus. As Tim Harford writes in his 2021 book The Data Detective, the truth can be known through research and peer-review:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

But when experts deliberately seek to undermine the idea of expertise, they cast laypeople into an epistemological void. We know these questions are important, but we can't trust our corrupted expert institutions. That leaves us with urgent questions – and no answers. That's a terrifying state to be in, and it makes you easy pickings for authoritarian grifters and conspiratorial swindlers.

Seen in this light, Kanter's antitrust work is even more important. In attacking corporate power itself, he is going after the machine that funds this nihilism-inducing corruption machine.

This week, Tor Books published SPILL, a new, free LITTLE BROTHER novella about oil pipelines and indigenous landback!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/25/epistemological-chaos/#incentives-matter

Image: Ron Cogswell (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George.Mason.University.Arlington.Campus.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic

318 notes · View notes

voxslays · 1 month ago

Text

FOR A FORTNIGHT

Featuring >>> Alastor x Reader; In which, Alastor and reader have been friends for a year, having built a strong connection. One day, Alastor asks Reader to accompany him on one of his errands, where he spills his darkest secret…and some blood.

You and Alastor were neighbors, having lived next to each other for almost a year. He was a popular radio host in the area, who always said goodmorning and goodnight to you when coming home from work. You had invited eachother over for dinner countless times. He knew your home almost as well as you did by how much time you spent together. It wasn’t long before you had noticed that you had grown to care for Alastor. How could you not? He was charming and charismatic. He was gorgeous, with his dark hazel eyes, olive skin, and dark curly hair. He spoke french; one of your favorite languages, and had even started to teach you some! You cared for Alastor. Deeply.

It was a friday afternoon. You and Alastor were sitting on his porch, discussing the recent murders and disappearances of men in New Orleans. Alastor leans back in his chair, his eyes never leaving yours as he listens to your concerns. He takes a slow sip of his own tea, his gaze never leaving yours. “Ah, the state of our New Orleans, you say?” He sets his teacup down, his expression turning thoughtful. “I mean…the bayou butcher is still running loose.” You say, taking a sip from one of the beautifully painted china teacups. Alastor's immutable grin darkens slightly at the mention of the famed serial killer. He steeples his fingers beneath his chin, his eyes glinting with a cold intensity. "A problem that has persisted far too long, wouldn't you say, dear?"

And for a fortnight there, we were forever~

“How have the police not caught the perpetrator?” You ask. Alastor's smile grows wider, his eyes gleaming with a sinister light as he reveals his true identity. "Ah, the police? They are blind to the truth, chéri. They think they're hunting a monster, but they have no idea the true nature of the beast they seek." You look at him in disbelief. “What do you mean?” He takes a sip of his black tea, before putting it back down onto the plate. Leaning forward, Alastor's voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. "The bayou butcher is not some mindless killer, my dear. Every person he has killed had it coming. They were all terrible people."

You go silent for a moment, contemplating his words, before speaking again. “It doesn’t matter. People are still dead.” Alastor's smile returns, but this time it's laced with a hint of sadness. "Ah, but that's where you're wrong, cher. They deserved what they got, and in a way, the city is better off without them, mon coeur.” You look into his gorgeous hazel eyes, trying to search his face, before continuing. “Maybe so, but murder is still murder.” Alastor chuckles darkly, his eyes glinting with a cold, unyielding light. "You're too naive, cher. The world isn't black and white. Sometimes, justice needs a helping hand...or a bloody knife." He leans back, his gaze never leaving yours.

Run into you sometimes, ask about the weather~

“I know that! That’s exactly why murder is never okay! These people could have changed or gone to prison if necessary! But they didn't need to die!” Alastor's face darkens. His smile twitching as a flash of anger passes over his features before he regains his composure. He leans forward, his voice low and menacing. "You think you understand, but you don't. You haven't seen the depths of human cruelty that I have." Alastor's eyes narrow as he studies your face, searching for any hint of understanding or agreement. After a long, tense moment, he leans back, his smile returning but lacking its usual warmth. "You're so pure and righteous."

Alastor chuckles softly, but there's no real amusement in the sound. "It's admirable, truly. But in this world, such naivety can be dangerous." His gaze drifts to the window, his voice taking on a wistful tone. “It’s getting late. You should run home.” You get up, and place your teacup back on its saucer. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Alastor.” You walk home, and get ready for bed. You contemplate Alastor’s words. Why was he on the killer’s side? As you drift off to sleep, you're unaware of the figure watching you from the shadows outside your window. It's Alastor, standing motionless in the darkness, his eyes fixed on your sleeping form. "Such a pure soul.”

Now you’re at my mailbox, turned into good neighbors~

The next morning, after getting dressed and cooking yourself some eggs and bacon, you walk outside to your mailbox. As you reach for your mail, a gloved hand suddenly appears, plucking a letter from the pile. You turn to see Alastor standing beside you, his smile as charming as ever. "Good morning, cher. I hope you slept well." He holds up the letter. You smile up at him. “Morning.” Alastor's eyes flicker to the letter, then back to your face. He tucks the letter into his pocket and extends his hand to you. "Would you do me the honor of accompanying me on a little errand today, dear?"

My husband is cheating, I wanna kill him~

“And what would this errand be, Mr. Heartfelt?” Alastor's smile widens, his eyes glinting with a hint of mischief. "Oh, just a little matter that requires my...particular set of skills. And I thought it would be nice to have some company." He bows slightly, his gloved hand still extended. You take his hand and walk with him. As you stroll through the city, Alastor keeps up a steady stream of charming banter, his accent thick as syrup as he regales you with tales of New Orleans' history. But you can sense that something's off, that he's tenser than usual.

Eventually, you arrive at an old, dilapidated warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Alastor's expression darkens as he gazes up at the peeling paint and boarded-up windows. "Here we are, cher," he says softly. “Why are we here?” You ask as a wave of dread washes over you. Alastor turns to you, his eyes glinting with a dangerous light. "Let's just say this place holds some... unpleasant memories for me. Memories tied to the Bayou Butcher." He squeezes your hand almost painfully. "I need to settle an old score, dear." You gasp. “What!?” Alastor releases your hand and strides toward the warehouse doors, beckoning for you to follow. He produces a set of lockpicks from his pocket and gets to work.

I love you, its ruining my life~

As Alastor opens the front door of the old rundown warehouse, you see a man tied to a chair, blindfolded, in the middle of the room. Alastor steps inside, his eyes fixed on the man in the chair. He turns to you with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Well, well. Looks like our friend is already here waiting for us." He saunters over to the man and rips off his blindfold. “Oh my god!” You gasp, horrified. The man in the chair is none other than Detective Jameson, the one who's been investigating the Bayou Butcher's murders. He stares up at Alastor with a mixture of fear and recognition. "Heartfelt...you can't be serious," Jameson stammers.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting to do this." Alastor paces around Jameson, his gloved hands clenching and unclenching. “Don’t hurt him!” You scream as Alastor punches him in the gut. Alastor pauses, looking back at you with a twisted smile. "Oh, mon amour, you're so precious when you're worried about someone else." He turns back to Jameson and pulls out a knife. "Now, let's talk about the Bayou Butcher, shall we?" Jameson tries to speak, but Alastor cuts him off by pressing the knife against his throat. "You think you're so smart, don't you, detective? Thinking you can outwit me and bring me to prison." Alastor's voice is cold, menacing. I love you, It’s ruining my life~

“What are you talking about?” You ask anxiously. Alastor's eyes flick to you briefly before returning to Jameson's terrified face. "Our dear detective here thinks he's solved the case. He thinks I am the Bayou Butcher." Alastor laughs darkly, the sound echoing through the empty house. “He’s right.” You feel a wave of uneasiness wash over you, almost like you're going to throw up. “You. All this time? I trusted you!” You yell, tears brimming your eyes. Alastor's smile widens, his eyes gleaming with a madman's excitement. "Of course, ma chéri. Who better to trust than your own neighbor, your own friend?" He leans in closer to Jameson, the knife pressing harder against his throat.

You slowly back towards the exit of the abandoned warehouse. Alastor's gaze flicks to you, and he calls out, "Now, now, ma chéri, don't go rushing off. The fun's just about to begin." You freeze as his attention returns to Jameson, who's breathing heavily, eyes darting between Alastor and you. You know this is your chance. You reach the door and turn to run, but Alastor is too fast. He grabs you by the arm and spins you back around, his other hand holding the knife to Jameson's throat. "Not so fast, mon coeur. You're going to watch this little reunion." Alastor's gaze is cold, unyielding as he looks at you. "You see, detective, you were close, but you never quite figured it out. And now, it's time for you to pay the price for your meddling." He looks back at Jameson. I touched you for only a fortnight~

You can feel your eyes begin to tear up as you silently cry. Not for yourself, but for everyone Alastor has killed. Especially the detective, who’s only crime was trying to stop him. Alastor notices your tears and his expression softens slightly, almost tenderly. "Ah, ma belle, don't cry for him. He brought this upon himself." He turns back to Jameson, the knife now resting against the detective's chest. "Last words, detective?" Jameson glares at Alastor, his face contorted with hatred and defiance. "You're...you're going to pay for this, Heartfelt. Even if it's the last thing I do..." His voice trails off as Alastor drives the knife into his chest. Your silent tears run down your rosy cheeks, as a feeling of helplessness sinks in.

Alastor wipes the bloody knife on Jameson's shirt, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. He turns to you, his expression gentle, almost loving. "Now, cher, where were we?" He steps closer, reaching out to touch your face. “Don’t touch me.” You flinch out of his touch. Alastor's eyes flash with anger at your rejection, but he quickly masks it with a charming smile. "Tsk tsk, ma chérie. Is that any way to treat a gentleman?" He chuckles darkly. "You're upset, I understand." You only cry harder at his words, letting out little gasps as you try your best to stop. Alastor's voice takes on a soothing, almost hypnotic quality. "Shh, it's alright, ma belle. The detective, he was just a means to an end. You and I, we have something special."

I love you, It's ruining my life~

“I used to believe that. Not anymore.” Alastor's eyes narrow, a flicker of hurt and anger passing through them, while still keeping his same signature, everlasting smile. "Not anymore? But darling, how could you say such a thing?" He reaches for you again, his gloved hand hovering near your cheek. "I've given you everything." He says malevolently. “You are a killer! A monster!” You shriek, backing away two steps, only for Alastor to take another four towards you. Alastor's face darkens, the charming facade shattering like glass. He lunges at you, grabbing your wrists and pinning them behind your back.

Alastor’s voice hisses in your ear, "Monster? Me? No, cher, that would be you, if you keep pushing me away." His usual charming smile is now somewhat manic, as Alastor takes out a syringe filled with a strange blue liquid. Before you can react, Alastor plunges the syringe into your neck. As the liquid enters your system, you feel a wave of dizziness, your vision blurring. You feel yourself quickly slipping out of consciousness. Alastor's voice comes to you as if from a great distance. "Goodnight, ma chérie. When you wake up, everything will be as it should be.”

A/N: please ignore the fact that I have completely abandoned my Haztober theming

267 notes · View notes

guzhufuren · 2 months ago

Text

New posters, message, part of a soundtrack and information about upcoming chinese BL The General's Son, show from the director of Word of Honor

"Green mountains are hidden in the distance, the waters are far away, the bright moon is always shining, the world is full of happiness."

Genres: wuxia; revenge Number of episodes: 24 Episode runtime: 18 minutes

Lead actors: Li Kaiwen as Li Jianwei; Dong Zifan as Chen Xiaoxi

Director and executive producer: Ma Huagan (Word of Honor, The Legend of Anle, Sword Dynasty) Art director: Liu Jingping (Love and Redemption, A Dream of Splendor, Wonderland of Love) Screenwriter and chief producer: Zhou Shucheng Executive producers: Zhuo Zuoqing, Yang Qi Co-producers: Jiang Yuxin, Li Shike, Dong Xinyu Co-director: Wang Xue Producers: Jiang Zhengpeng, Liu Wei, Xu Heni Planning by: Luo Yuting, Luo Gaoqiang

Filming finished this June. Will not be broadcast in mainland China. Original script.

Synopsis: General Li's family were killed on New Year's Eve. Li Jianwei, the youngest son of the Li family, escaped death, but disguised himself as a courtesan and went to Wei Mountain to seek revenge. Chen Xiaoxi, the young master of Guigu, has a lively and eccentric personality, becomes increasingly close to Li Jianwei, who has tried his best to win him over. Chen Xiaoxi's sister, Xiao Hetao, is simple and kind. She discovers that Li Jianwei came for revenge, and dies to resolve the hatred between the two.

Characters:

Li Jianwei. Twenty years old, the youngest son of General Li Fei, he is loved by the whole family, standing like an orchid and a jade tree, smiling like the bright moon. He should have had a bright future, but his fate changed overnight. In order to get revenge, he went undercover to Weishan, enduring humiliation and patiently executing his plan step by step.

Chen Xiaoxi. At the age of twenty, we meet the young master of Weishan Guigu. He was born pure but had evil eyes. Under his lively and sunny appearance, his face looked like that of a devil's. In fact, he was rough but kind, and treated people with sincerity. Unfortunately, fate played a cruel joke on him and his mother died.

Xiao Hetao. At the age of seventeen, Chen Xiaoxi rescued a human child from a wolf pack. Innocent and romantic, she was very simple and naive. Gui Rong and others gave Xiao Hetao the purest and most innocent living environment, but she hoped to resolve the hatred of everyone with her own power.

Princess Qingyuan. Thirty-four years old, a graceful and elegant lady, smart and tenacious. She was in love with Chen Dawang when she was young. After Chen Dawang's death, she firmly refused marriage arranged by the magistrate's office and spent many years in Zhejiang. While helping Li Jianwei to take revenge, Qingyuan, the deputy envoy of the Chang'an Supervisor Zi Ke, has been trying to find out the truth about Jian Jishan from 20 years ago.

Chen Dawang. At the age of 38, we meet the leader of Guigu in Huishan. Twenty years ago, he was a major general in the Loyal and Brave Army led by Chen Weishan. Entrusted by the general, Chen Dawang and his party lived in seclusion in Guigu for twenty years, just to avenge the Loyal and Brave Army and reveal the truth to the world one day.

Sizhou. 24 years old, a descendant of the Loyal and Brave Army, he was a martial arts expert but became blind in two days. Because he was indebted to the Lord of Qingyuan, he stayed by his side and waited for investigation. While helping Li Jianwei to get his revenge, he also hoped to find out the truth of the old case of the Loyal and Brave Army from 20 years ago.

Wan Qianhong. Thirty-eight years old, owner of Baihua Villa, with mysterious martial arts and deceitful tricks. When she was young, she fell in love with Li Pu, who concealed his identity. Later, Li Xifei and Huang Jueda broke off all ties with Wan Qianhong. Since then, Wan Qianhong deeply hated Li Pu and all men in the world. Behind the hatred, Wan Qianhong missed her daughter so much that she mistakenly recognized Xiao Hetao as Zaotian's daughter. In the end, they ended up loving each other but not being able to be together.

Shi Tou. Eighteen years old, a good martial brother of Chen Xiaoxi, grew up in Jianweishan. He is the beloved son of Uncle Hua and Aunt Hua, with a simple and straightforward personality. He was happy and naive until Xiaohe died. The joy he did not even have time to express became the biggest regret in Shi Tou's life.

*text from informational brochures was converted with image to text online programs, translated through google translator and edited by me with some help of online dictionaries. i do not speak chinese, so there are most certainly mistakes in the text. purpose of this translation is to give you the general idea

#the general's son #tgssource #将军家的小儿子 #chinese bl #chinese ql #word of honor #shl #upcoming bl #userspicy #mjtag #mine #no info on whether it will be uncensored or subtextually homoromantic yet #24 eps 18 mins is the same time wise as if myatb had 11 episodes!!!! SO A NORMAL FULL SEASON

185 notes · View notes

iridescentmirrorsgenshin · 9 months ago

Text

An example of queercoding in Alhaitham and Kaveh's relationship: Madam Faruzan edition

Due to the rules in place for game development in China, the possibility for queer confirmation within Genshin Impact is denied, which therefore renders the usage of characters alluding to the potential romantic connection between two same-sex characters as impossible. However, the same insinuation can be made by omitting specific language which strictly conveys romantic sentiments, such as ‘couple’. Instead, the idea of secrecy or something unmentionable can be drawn upon as indicators, as this draws parallels to the taboo of homosexuality practiced within certain cultures and media forms, which the real world audience can identify.

For example, Alhaitham and Kaveh as secret housemates. This can be used to convey an idea of ‘taboo’ as Kaveh desires to protect his reputation by concealing his shame of having to live with Alhaitham. In-game, the context here is that Kaveh wants to uphold his reputation of a successful architect, but within Alhaitham’s Story Quest, upon the player’s discovery of Kaveh living with Alhaitham, this context is omitted for some time. This prompts Paimon to question what exactly Alhaitham and Kaveh’s relationship is, with Kaveh denying that the two used to be friends but are not anymore: “I wouldn’t say ‘friends’ exactly”.

This tactic of double entendre can be seen again in A Parade of Providence when Paimon almost reveals Kaveh’s living situation to Faruzan.

Faruzan’s can be observed to resort to a thinking pose, in comparison with Layla, when Alhaitham is mentioned in relation to Kaveh wanting to buy property, as Paimon almost ‘outs’ the truth, that Kaveh resides with Alhaitham.

She then seemingly dwells upon the subject, as she returns to it after Kaveh requests for a change of topic later in the conversation. Here, Faruzan follows up on whether Kaveh lives alone, which he fails to deny.

Here, it can be seen that she has already began associating Kaveh and Alhaitham, possibly speculating that the two live together. When Kaveh fails to supply an answer, therefore not denying her theory, she explicitly ties the two together, and asks if the two are “hiding” something.

This question evokes a physical reaction from Kaveh, as he denies this question out of fear of being revealed, with Paimon opting to leave in order to cover her role in revealing Kaveh’s predicament.

A deliberate potentiality has been created here in regard to what Faruzan has inferred, as her phrasing of “are you two hiding something from me?” is non-specific. Rather than asking: “are you two living together?”, she asks a question which holds multiple connotations. Due to the ambiguity of her meaning, her question can be observed as a non-explicit version of the: “are you two a couple?” question.

On the surface, this question is a reference to their situation as roommates, however, her phrasing is non-specific, and hints to another cause for “hiding” something. For Faruzan, Kaveh’s blatant evasion of the topic and dismissal of Alhaitham’s name, could easily be inferred as “hiding” a romantic connection – which is something that the player, too, can pick up on from her gesture of suspicion, her inquisitive questioning, and her excitement when piecing together the clues. The ambiguity of her question generates multiple meanings as to why she has surmised the two could be “hiding”.

This overt secrecy in Kaveh’s living with Alhaitham, another man, prompts the player to generate associations between this in-game secrecy and real world queer shame. In this, there is an implication of the need for Kaveh to confirm the status of his relationship between him and Alhaitham. Not only does this scene connotate an ‘outing’, in which a queer character has their queerness forcibly revealed to a heteronormative audience, but this creates a sense of secrecy, which, again, can be interpreted by the player as ‘taboo’.

Kaveh does not want to tell anyone of his living situation out of preserving his stellar reputation, however, Faruzan is missing this context. She relates Alhaitham and Kaveh together in the phrasing “you two”, coupling them together in a secret that they “hid[e]”. The player understands this as indicating to their living situation, however, this creates a separate context which Faruzan has interpreted and that, we, as the audience are not privy to, but can interpret based on her allusions to cohabitation between two men being a secret.

Whilst this is not explicitly romantic within Genshin’s world of nameless sexuality, Faruzan’s ambiguous questioning here draws parallels between real world understanding of sexuality and the connotations of queerness which stems from two men living together in secret.

(Update: For more analyses like this, the essay this is taken from is now uploaded! It can be accessed here and here as as a pdf <3)

#faruzan needs to run away from these two im so sorry you dont deserve this #queercoding is alive and real in genshin impact #but we already knew that #the fact that alhaitham and kaveh are roommates but in secret is already extremely telling #and it's stressed that they are ROOMMATES and not landlord/tenant #this is just one example of queercoding from the queercoding section of the essay but i was going insane over it #i really recommend watching this particular part of a parade of providence because the stills of the animations dont do it justice #also why did faruzan react like THAT #that was not a normal reaction to have if you find out two colleagues platonically live together #the writing genshin is crazy #lets all be crazy together <3 #haikaveh #kavehtham #kavetham #alhaitham #kaveh #haikaveh meta #genshin meta

216 notes · View notes

stillnaomi · 7 days ago

Text

World War III and the Fall of Imperialism

A speech by Booker Ngesa Omole, The National Vice Chairperson of the Communist Party of Kenya

As we gather here at the 7th International Conference of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform, we stand at a critical juncture in our shared struggle against the scourge of imperialism. Today, I want to discuss a stark reality that looms over our world: the inevitability of World War III, driven by the unrelenting aggression of imperialist powers. This war is not a distant possibility but a present danger, rooted in the insatiable greed of monopoly capital.

Imperialism, in its various manifestations, poses an existential threat to the sovereignty of African nations. Initiatives such as AFRICOM serve as instruments of this imperialist agenda, undermining our autonomy and reducing our countries to mere pawns in the geopolitical chess game orchestrated by Western powers. These military strategies are designed not to protect our people but to secure the interests of the imperialist elite.

In Kenya alone, we host three foreign military bases, a glaring testament to the erosion of our sovereignty. These bases are not just symbols of military presence; they represent a direct violation of our independence and dignity. They subjugate our military and intelligence agencies to the whims of U.S. imperialism, turning our institutions into extensions of foreign powers. This scenario is replicated across the continent, where foreign military presence is a common thread in the tapestry of imperialist domination.

The spectre of World War III is already haunting us, as conflicts rage on multiple fronts. In West Asia, the struggle against Zionist aggression is an anti-imperialist, antifascist war. In Eastern Europe, we witness the brutal realities of NATO-backed conflict in Ukraine. And in East Asia, tensions simmer around Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula, echoing the same imperialist ambitions.

Lenin, in his classic work “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism,” eloquently articulated the dynamics of imperialism and its inevitable contradictions. He described how imperialism seeks to escape internal crises through external wars. Today, we observe this in the provocations and military exercises conducted by the United States and its allies, which serve not just as a show of force but as desperate attempts to maintain their declining hegemony.

Yet, amidst this chaos, the anti-imperialist camp is rising, united in its struggle against oppression. Comrades in Russia, China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, and various resistance movements across the Global South are not seeking war; they are prepared for a just struggle against imperialist aggression. The unity and operational strength of the anti-imperialist front underscore a powerful truth: we are not alone in this fight.

The reliance of imperialism on proxy wars and economic sanctions reveals its strategic limitations. The imperialist powers fear direct confrontation, knowing the consequences of nuclear escalation. This hesitation will be their downfall. While they aim to exhaust nations like Russia, China, and Iran, we can turn their war of attrition into decisive victories across multiple theatres of conflict. These victories will not only weaken imperialism militarily but will also trigger a political and economic collapse. The fragmentation of NATO, the decline of the U.S. dollar’s hegemony, and the emergence of BRICS and other alternative institutions signal the end of the US imperialist order.

The eventual defeat of US imperialism will pave the way for a new global order defined by national liberation revolutions and the defeat of all neo-colonial projects across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This new order will also see the inevitable resurgence of socialist revolutions and the establishment of people’s democracies. Additionally, there will be a true commitment to peace, independence, and self-determination as guiding principles for global governance.

As we face the challenges of our time, let us reaffirm our commitment to the struggle against imperialism. The victory belongs to the people. The end of imperialism will not only reshape global politics but empower nations to pursue socialism, democracy, and peaceful coexistence.

In conclusion, as we confront the spectre of World War III, let us remember that this is a final confrontation between the forces of imperialism and those of anti-imperialist resistance. Together, we shall emerge victorious, heralding a new era of hope, freedom, and progress for all.

Death to Imperialism!

Long live International Socialism!

#kenya #communist party of kenya #imperialism

69 notes · View notes

madwomansapologist · 9 months ago

Text

meant to be | shan yu

Pinterest Board | More Shan Yu | AO3

synopsis: Shan Yu told you China would be your dowry. He's a honoured man, despite everything.

warnings: fluff. marriage cerimony (made my best to be historicaly correct). murder couple. age gap. kidnapping. yandere!shan yu (or as i prefer to word it: malewife!shan yu). smut. a lot of teasing. switch!reader. praise kink. dumbification. creampie. in this house we hate the misogynist version of Shan Yu in Mulan (2020).

The warm breeze ruffled your combed hair. You couldn't care less. There are more important things. Like the sunrise, so warm and invigorating. Or the distant mountains, protecting the city. The lights coming from the houses bellow you.

The world is still so beautiful. All of this seen from the palace, in the highest room, in safety. This view alone made the entire journey worth it.

Your mom pulled you away from the balcony, sitting you down on the bed and trying to rearrange your hair. A red veil was placed over your head, probably in an attempt to get you to sit down and stay still for once.

You weren't expecting for Shan Yu to be so... attached to traditions. They aren't even his. You thought once China was conquered, the only thing he would care about would be his coronation. Not a wedding.

"I just don't see the need of it," you said to Shan Yu. "We're travelling, living together, for so long. Don't you think a cerimony seems... a bit tardy?"

Shan Yu's gaze always revealed more than the words coming out of his mouth. And the certainty hidden in the golden eyes said more than he needed.

He held your hands, taking the last step that separated his body from yours. Shan Yu brushed your hair away from your face, stroking your bloody skin. "You are my greatest pride, Moon," Shan Yu smiled. "Nothing will ever stop me from showing this to the world."

With the world burning around you, Shan Yu knelt down. "Will you marry me?" He kissed your knuckles covered in the blood of your enemies. "Will you give me your heart?"

He did his best to be perfect. Just like in your dreams, Shan Yu explained to you.

Your family was picked up, the trip quicker due to the victory, and the engagement letter was delivered as soon as you were reunited. They feared for you, searched for the truth hidden in between your words, but after a while you made them understand. He's a good man, you swore. It doesn't seem like it, but he's good to me.

You assumed the dowry would be, well, China, but Shan Yu wasn't content. How he discovered that geese were signs of unwavering love you still don't know, but he did. So many flowers, symbols of luck and prosperity.

Shan Yu was clealy trying to make up for the first impression he made on your parents.

The wedding gifts arrived the same day. Silver, jewelry, exotic foods. The separate floor for your parents seemed more like a hideout of treasures than a place to sleep.

They accepted the gifts. You're not sure they could do anything more than that, but it still meant a lot for the both of you.

"You can change your mind, cub," your mom sat beside you. "I've told you before. Your father and I may look old, but we still have energy. One word, and we're ready to runnaway with you."

You let your head fall on her shoulder, enjoying her warmth. You missed her so much. "Thank you," you whispered. "But I am sure of this. I don't think I have ever been so sure of anything in my entire life."

The silence was quite comforting, but you were glad when she opened her mouth. "So you think we look old?"

Laughing, you looked at her. Throught the red veil, you could still see the face of the woman you love the most in the whole word. "You are beautiful," it was nothing but the truth. "Mom, do you still love me?"

She held you by your shoulders, so tight you could feel it on your bones. "Always," she said. "Are you ready?"

You were.

"Perfume," she remind you. Holding the doorknob, you looked back. She opened some drawers, and took a frask out of it. You let her spray it on you. "Lotus flowers. So you can give me pretty grandchildren."

"Mom!" You practically ran from the room, going down the stairs. "I prefer when you hated him!"

You bumped into your father, who held you carefully. Your mother reached you, leaning on him for support. “Now all you have to do is wait,” he informed you. Approaching, with a smirk on his face, he whispered. "Or run away."

They really are soulmates. "Go on," you told them. "I will wait."

They walked away, heading down the stairs to the ceremonial hall, and you took a deep breath. There was no reason to be nervous, but that didn't convince your mind. Admiring the paintings from past dynasties, sad to see how such beautiful works are hidden in an isolated buildings, you heard his steps.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" You asked, glaring at the painting.

Shan Yu offered you his arm. "Incomparable," he smiled, looking at you.

You breathed deep. After a last glance, you accept his touch. "You won't believe what my mom told me."

"Nothing worse than what your father told me, I assume."

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ⋆✦⋆ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The warm breeze caressed your skin, your fingers focused on removing the pendants from your hair. In your chambers, the party was far below in the palace. Shan Yu locked the door, and watched you undo each braid.

"You're happy," he said.

You looked at Shan Yu, and stretched your arm towards him. He got closer, stroking your skin, and stood before you. "And so are you."

"And now?" You allowed him to help you. "China. Our marriage. What comes next?"

Shan Yu stroked your loose hair. "Tomorrow we rule," he said. "Tonight we celebrate."

You stood up, your fingers undoing the knots in your clothes. “We did it all wrong,” you let the fabric fall down your body. You crawled onto the bed, looking at him.

Shan Yu admired you. He looked at you the same way you looked at each of the paintings in this palace. "We did?" He asked, voice hoarse, unable to care about anything other than you.

“I was supposed to be a virgin,” you said. Propping yourself up on your elbows, you slowly spread your legs. His gaze was no different from that of a wild animal. "The veil. The letters you wrote to my parents. The wedding night. I was supposed to be a virgin but you couldn't help yourself, could you?"

He took off his ceremonial attire, being reciprocal to your show. "I prefer it this way," he ignored your teasing. Shan Yu held your ankles, stroking the warm skin and pulling you as he placed one of his knees on the bed. "You're comfortable. Excited. Shameless."

Shan Yu was ready to dive into you, but you were faster. You pulled his arm, knocking him onto the bed. A surprised laugh escaped his lips as you sat on his lap.

“I thought you liked that,” you placed Shan Yu’s hands on your waist. "You seemed to enjoy all of our private lessons. I tried so hard to learn."

Shan Yu moved to lay you down onto the bed, but you stopped him by rubbing your sex against his hardening member beneath you. You forced him down, hands wandering through his chest.

"You little devilish thing," he groaned. "You never cease to amuse me, don't you?"

You scratched his arms, focused on the movements of your hips. "Oh, but that's why you fell in love with me," you whispered against his ear. "You never know what to expect."

He throbed against you. Smirking, you teased him more. "See?" Biting his earlobe, you felt his nails dig into your skin. "I bet I could do anything to you."

You stood up, admiring how the yellow eyes followed your movements. Rubbing your breasts against Shan Yu's torso, you kissed him.

Celebrate, he told you.

Still kissing him, you grabbed his cock and rubbed it against your clit. Before he could react, you let it slide inside you. With his cock deep within your pussy, you rode him.

Mesmerized, Shan Yu could only watch the way your body moved. How perfect you were. Made to break him in pieces and put him back together.

"You fuck me so good," you moaned, looking into his eyes. Walls clenching tighter around his cock, buried deep within you. "Hm, fuck... My emperor is so good for me."

Something imploded inside Shan Yu.

He grabbed your neck, throwing you onto the bed, still inside you. Shan Yu moved you effortlessly, as if you were as light as a feather. Your legs on his shoulder, his hand holding your neck as if you would've run away from him, his teeth deep into your skin.

"Say it again," Shan Yu growled.

"My emperor," you cried. "You make me feel so whole. F-fuck, you can do anything you want to me."

Shan Yu fucked you like a senseless animal. Like a brutal beast. Like something made for him to devour, to taste and savor until he got tired. A pretty doll for him to break and put together how many he wanted.

You never felt so desired.

You pulled him into a kiss, your lips barely able to behaving as they should've. Close to him, closer than anyone else has ever been, you felt as his thrusts find the right place to beat.

"Mine," was the only thing you were able to understand from his words. "I will never let you go," he squeezed your neck, getting a whimper from you. "You're mine."

Your mouth contorted into a smile. "I don't want to go," you pulled his hair. "I'm yours. Only yours."

And so Shan Yu filled you, teeth deep into your skin. He didn't stop. He continued moving hard, his thumb circling your clit, until you melted into his fingers.

"My emperor," you whispered against his mouth.

Shan Yu smiled, his teeth sinking into your lips. "My empress."

if you enjoyed, please reblog! i promise it makes a difference ♡

@ madwomansapologist.tumblr.

#madwomansapologist #prisoner/bride au #shan yu scenario #shan yu fanfiction #shan yu fanfic #shan yu mulan #shan yu #shan yu x reader #shan yu fic #disney villain #mulan 1998 #disney mulan

176 notes · View notes

reality-detective · 4 months ago

Text

🔥 EXPLOSIVE REVELATIONS: Rothschilds and Rockefellers in Free Fall as Banks Collapse! 🔥

In a stunning turn of events, the corrupt [DS] regime of the Rothschilds and Rockefellers is crumbling before our eyes. Desperate to conceal their massive corruption, they are resorting to private banks and covert tactics. The aftermath is becoming painfully clear as hundreds of banks in the US, along with major US stock agencies controlled by BlackRock [Rockefellers], are collapsing.

💥 NATO and the UN on the Brink of Bankruptcy 💥

As the dust settles, it becomes evident that the collapse of the Rothschilds and Rockefellers has far-reaching consequences. NATO and the UN are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, with their financial lifelines severed. Shockingly, even the US military, the backbone of NATO, declines to support them in a potential war against Russia. Classified military reports reveal that without US military backing, NATO and the UN would crumble within a month.

🚫 Closed and Boarded Up: The Federal Reserve and the US Capital 🚫

Unprecedented scenes unfold as the US Federal Reserve remains closed and boarded up, while the US Capital sits behind barricades. Meanwhile, China, Russia, India, and the Middle East have abandoned the US fiat money banking system, refusing to sell oil to the US. The global financial landscape is shifting, and the implications are profound.

🛡 Inside Military Operations: Unmasking the Truth 🛡

For two and a half years, we've been warning you that we are amidst military operations led by white hats. The continuity of government is at play, with a shadow government running parallel to the facade. Patriots, Anons, and Q were the first to expose the fake White House studio where Biden is filmed. The truth is being concealed behind the fortified fences of the White House, where even the State of the Union address was never filmed.

⚔️ The Military's Silent Stand: Biden Left Isolated ⚔️

The plot thickens as it becomes clear that Biden is an isolated figurehead. The military never escorted him in Air Force One to the White House after his supposed election. He lacks access to the prestigious Cheyenne Mountain military base, and top US generals refuse to engage or brief him. Biden's presidency is nothing more than a charade orchestrated by the deep state, while the real power rests in the hands of the white hats.

📰 Mainstream Media in Meltdown: The Fall of the Cabal 📰

The fake mainstream media, controlled by BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, is in a rapid downward spiral. The truth is breaking through their web of deception, causing their empire to crumble. Meanwhile, Trump fearlessly takes on the CIA in a public showdown, exposing their covert operations to the world.

🌐 The Unseen Battles: Behind the Scenes 🌐

A whirlwind of events is unfolding behind the scenes. Nothing is a coincidence in this grand chessboard of power. The military, standing as the last line of defense for truth and justice, holds the key to our salvation.

Stay vigilant as the world transforms before our eyes. The military's silent revolution is the only path to reclaiming our freedom and dismantling the deep state's stranglehold on our society. 🤔

77 notes · View notes

moronkombat · 1 year ago

Note

Hello hello! May I please request some more Liu Kang headcanons? He’s the loml and I absolutely love the way you write him. Please take your time and don’t overwork yourself. 💜

You are from Earthrealm and live a relatively normal life, unaware of the other realms that lurk across the stars

Simple your life may be but you do not mind it. It keeps things easy for you. Or at least, it was simple

Liu Kang happens upon by accident but you don't notice him but he sees you

He finds himself pausing and taking in the sight of you. There is a peace about you that captures him and he wants to get to know you. He wants to ask you your name

But how can he when he the Protector of Earthrealm and appears otherworldly? He thinks it is a lost cause getting close to you and so he leaves

The thought of you doesn't, however and Liu Kang is growing more and more curious. He wants to know you but he knows he should not

Then why is he disguising himself? Why does he hide his godly gaze behind a layer of dark brown?

Why is it his mystic tattoos that brim with magic go covered? What is he doing? What is he thinking?

He's not thinking. For once he is just doing and not thinking it through. A dangerous decision but it has been made already

Returning to where he last sees you, he waits and waits until finally there you are and he finds himself smiling

Liu Kang approaches you and introduces himself but without the extra title of Protector of Earthrealm. You would smile to him and introduce yourself and that how your relationship blossomed

It would only continue to bloom as the two of you spent more time together. Liu Kang keen on inviting you out to lunch or a quick cup of coffee even though he never did enjoy the taste of it

You two would chat for hours while the coffee you ordered goes cold. He asks about you and you are an open book, happy to share with someone who you consider a friend

He shares about himself too but the truth is very stretched. He tells you he used to fight professionally in China but has not settled down here

There is a sting of guilt when he sees you smile at his lie and he frowns to himself while you aren't looking but what is he supposed to tell you? The truth is too great

The two of you fall into this routine of meeting each other for chats that soon turn into evening dinners and there is a definite affection between the two of you now

He's walking you back home and that's when you pause. Your door is opened and normally, you'd give him a wave goodbye and the night would end

Not this night. Liu Kang is invited in, an invitation he readily accepts. The two of you enjoy some drinks and your conversations into the night

Eyes look into each other and the two of you smile. Close and closer you are now. So close until there no space between you and him any longer

Liu Kang makes love to you, soft and sweet. Your hands are locked together throughout it all, even when you both fall asleep

There's a new routine now, one where you two are joined in a romance that is whirlwind and magical but Liu Kang knows it cannot last this blissful for long

He wants to tell you the truth, the full and complete truth but he knows it will change how things are and he does not want to burden you with the knowledge of other realms when you seem so content in the life you have now

Unfortunately there is little choice for him. His relationship with you has not gone unnoticed and those who wish to destroy Liu Kang target you

They strike when you and Liu Kang are on other date. Where it once quiet there now the crash of brick and glass combusting. You shriek and Liu Kang wraps his arms around you, shielding you from the debris

His eyes would narrow and slowly their dark hue lightens and shines to their true nature and you are left with you mouth agape

Surprises continue as flames erupt from him that flash gold and azure. You can only sit there in the rubble and watch as the man you have grown to love is revealed to be something else

Liu Kang finishes the fight quickly but the damage has been done. He is exposed and you stare at him with such terror and awe

When he gets closer to you, you cannot help flinch away and Liu Kang feels despair when he sees you lurch back but he understands

He tries to explain everything but your mind is spinning. Different realms? Gods? What happened to the man you had fallen in love with?

He still there but changed and revealed. It will not be easy but you tell him you do not want him to go. That you want to get to know him, the real him and he is happy to do so

#mortal kombat #mk1 2023 #mortal kombat fanworks #mortal kombat headcanons #mk1 #mortal kombat x reader #liu kang x reader #liu kang #liu kang mk1

203 notes · View notes

wangxianficfinder · 1 year ago

Text

In the mood for...

~*~

1. ITMF a fic where the Lans or the neis or the cultivation world in general find out about the abuse wwx takes at jiang sect and the other sects trying to help him @zerokogane

Warming up (to him) by barisan (T, 9k, LQR & WWX, WangXian, Hypothermia, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Temporary Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, YZY Abuses WWX, JFM Bashing, pre-wangxian, Good Uncle LQR, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort) I have recommendations for the 1st one where Lan Qiren steps in!

Rediscovery, Reconstruction by ExtraPenguin (M, 27k, JFM/WWX, LQR & WWX, WWX/OC(s), rape/non-con, underage, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Rape Recovery, bildungsroman, Self-Discovery) tw for csa and rape, this one makes the abuse even worse but it's a wonderful fic about Lan Qiren stepping in to save Wei Wuxian (also has wwx/original character)

Blooming Bruises on my Soul and Body by xxxMiaHikarixxx (T, 13k, WangXian, Living on Streets, psychological abuse, WWX being a protective brother, JC being a protective brother, Good brother JC, Good brother LXC, Happy Ending, Angst With Some Comfort, Physical Abuse, Neglect, LXC is a Wangxian supporter, LWJ is whipped, Hate Crimes, multiple POVs)

🔒💙 Holding shreds by barisan (T, 5k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Body Swap, Not for sexy shenanigans, Chronic Pain, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abusive YZY, Bad Parent YZY, Bad Parent JFM, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, POV WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiāng Family Bashing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together, Smart WWX)

~*~

2. Hi! Now that I finished my exams 😭, I'm ready to read a lot of new Wangxian fics! ❤️

So, for the next ITMF, I was thinking in fics about:

A) The Lans (LQ, LXC, LWJ or any Lan) looking for WWX in the burial mounds after he saved the Wens, bc they need his help. And then the Lans decided to help WWX after watching the truth.

B) Or the Lans visiting WWX bc LWJ said WWX didn't have any army and when they understand the truth, they decided to help WWX and the Wens.

Plus if there is a Wangxian weeding 😍. Please happy ending in both cases. 🙏

Thank you so much!! Love this blog 🤗💜

@wangxiansgirl

2A)

Weep You No More, Sad Fountains by athena_crikey (T, 59k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-it fic, Whump, Curses, Fever, Delirium, Stabbing, Loneliness, Confessions, LXC realising sympathy is not support, LQR Being an Asshole)

2B)

Discordant Rhapsody by nirejseki (T, 49k, LQR & WWX, wangxian, JC & WWX, WQ & WWX & WN, LWJ & LQR & LXC, canon divergence, fix-it, hurt/comfort, trauma, politics, protective LQR, protective LWJ, protective WWX, LQR centric, whump, angst)

🔒 the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by RoseThorne (E, 91k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Soulmates, Self-Esteem Issues, Fix-It, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, PTSD, Handfasting, Panic Attacks, Getting Together, First Time, Aftercare, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, /Referenced Torture, Scars, Chronic Pain, Golden Core Reveal, First Time, Switching, sex-related injury, LWJ Stays at the Burial Mounds, LSZ is a Wèi, Good Sibling JC, Dissociation, Burial Mounds Settlement Days)

~*~

3. hii! i hope you guys are doing well <3! I've been in a nhs mood, and I was wondering if you have any recs with nhs and wwx friendship, fix it, canon, anything works! i read the one in your last itmf i think, and I'm just craving more of those two! thank you in advance! @flexible-racoon

~*~

4. ITMF a dead dove focusing on CQL nieyao's age gap @crypticidentity

~*~

5. Itmf canon-compliant ish fics (not modern setting) where the first thing Wei Wuxian does after coming back from the dead is run straight to Lan Zhan? Thank you!

~*~

6. HIII is there any good arranged married Wwx and Lwj? Or maybe they're married fr and they have A-yuan as their son? @naoenowa

True Gold Fears No Fire by defractum (nyargles) (M, 69k, WIP, WangXian, Royalty AU, Ancient China, Wuxia, Historical Inaccuracy, Arranged Marriage, Identity Porn, Mutual Pining, Emperor!LWJ, empress!wwx, Eventual Happy Ending, Misunderstandings)

Into the Oubliette by Ruixx (M, 124k, WIP, WangXian, Growing Up, Fix-It of Sorts, Arranged Marriage, Time Travel, Sibling Bonding, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Canon Divergence, Light BDSM, Breathplay, Wwx protection squad, Sunshot Campaign, War Politics, Hostage JYL, Visions, LXC Redemption, general lwj, Internal Sect, Politics, Good Uncle LQR, Lan OC’s, No Golden Core Transfer, Empire Building)

🧡 hypothetically, of course by johnnyfucksup (G, 22k, WangXian, Arranged Marriage, Character Study, Kinda, Inter-sect politics, a little bit, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Strangers to Lovers, Getting to Know Each Other, Falling In Love, The Mortifying Ordeal of Falling In Love With Your Betrothed, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, very awkward ones at that, Slow Burn Speedrun)

A Wonderful (business) Arrangement by Orchidaisy_55 (E, 58k, wangxian, JC/NHS, LXC/JGY, JYL/JZX, Arranged Marriage, Modern, A/B/O, True Love, First Love, Mpreg, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Domestic Fluff, WWX is LSZ's Parent, mentions of miscarrage, Anal Sex, secondary sex characteristics, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Unplanned Pregnancy)

The Ties That Bind by silverclaw (G, 43k, wangxian, A/B/O, Arranged Marriage, Modern, Alpha WWX, Omega LWJ, past toxic relationship, Slow Burn, husbandiest of husband material WWX, mention of mpreg in relation to side-character, hurt LWJ, WWX falls first AND harder, No Smut)

After I Met You by Amandyalmonds (M, 78k, wangxian, Dragon LWJ, Fox Spirit WWX, Canon Divergence, Royalty AU, Slow Burn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Madam Yu's A+ Parenting, Protective WQ, Protective LWJ, Canon-Typical Violence, Unreliable Narrator WWX, Arranged Marriage, Miscommunication, Autistic LWJ, WIP)

Cultivator Lan's Wedding by squishh (Not Rated, 14k, wangxian, LXC/QS, Arranged Marriage, hidden identity, Nobleman Ryu's Wedding AU, slightly more based in historical reality, still xianxia tho, Wife swap, Slow Burn, Bisexual WWX, Demisexual LWJ, No War AU, No Yīn Iron, WWX's canonical backstory - mostly, YZY is slightly less abusive, still abusive tho, JYL not engaged to JZX, Canon-Typical Violence, No homophobia as a form of self-care to the author, Happy Ending, JC and WWX have a much better relationship here, POV Alternating, POV LWJ, POV WWX, Crossdressing, Historical Fantasy, WIP)

🔒 it's just a little white lie by MohnDoe (T, 1k, wangxian, Inspired by a Reddit Post, Modern Setting, Arranged Marriage, WIP)

Not Lost, Just Undiscovered by anancites (E, 107k, wangxian, Modern, Arranged Marriage, Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Idiots in Love, Mildly Dubious Consent)

~*~

7. Fics which go with the lyrics: " These days, I'm way too lonely

I'm missing out, I know

These days, I'm way too alone And I'm known for giving love away, but

I want someone who love me

I need someone who needs me

'Cause it don't feel right when it's late at night

And it's just me in my dreams So I want someone to love, that's what I fucking want "

Song: that's what I want, by Lil nas x

All the ways that you remain by Spodumene (G, 23k, WangXian, Modern AU, Canada, Romance, First Meetings, Cottagecore, There Was Only One Bed, Mention of Parent Death, Getting Together)

~*~

8. itmf fics where wwx hurts lwj (emotionally or physically)

Over the Rotted Bridge by vailkagami (T, 314k, WangXian, Temporary Character Death, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, LWJ dies, Wei Wuxian doesn’t die, neither do (most of) the wens, JYL also lives, Original Character(s), outside pov, YLLZ WWX, Canon Divergence, CQL Verse, Illustrated, Grief/Mourning, Non-Consensual Resurrection, mute LWJ, Hurt LWJ, Slow Burn, canonical death of a child (mentioned), Survivor Guilt, PTSD)

~*~

9. ITMF heavy angst BUT I don't want it to be whump

Twin Demons of Mò by XiaoFeiFei (ArfBarkWoof) (M, 358k, MXY & WWX, wangxian, JL & MXY, XY & MXY, JGY & MXY, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury, Abuse, Death, Twin Demons of Mo AU, MXY Lives, Major Character Injury, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Minor Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Torture, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Canon Divergence, Self-Harm, Found Family, Sexual Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, POV Alternating)

~*~

10. ITMF a fic where wwx died in the past and then lwj waits for him to reincarnate and lives into the modern world where they meet again but wwx doesn't remember until later (or its fine if he remembers too )

based on a photo on Pinterest whose link ill paste cos I can't attach photos for some reason in the ask

Thanks again! Ly guys! @maurader--here

All Old Things are New Again by The Feels Whale (miscellea) (M, 51k, WangXian, XuanLi, ChengQing, Reincarnation, Modern AU, canon still happened, extreme post canon, Sugar Daddy, Kink Negotiation, gentle dom!LWJ, canonical levels of consent play, Modern Cultivators)

the recluse at the end of the moonlit path by beesinspades (T, 28k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reincarnation, Post-Canon, Jack of All Trades Artist WWX, Immortal! LWJ, Mutual Pining, Light Angst, Reunions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Asexual Character, good vibes, [Podfic] the recluse at the end of the moonlit path by b_ofdale by Beria1021)

🧡 We Were Never Strangers by NeverEnoughWangxian (M, 36k, WangXian, Reincarnation, Modern AU, POV WWX, (mostly), College Student WWX, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Immortal LWJ, Immortal LSZ, Dreams, Pining, Sharing a Bed, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Sexual Tension, Sexual Content)

~*~

11. Hello! Any fics where LWJ is shown to bond with animals?

No specific animal, just that it treats LWJ a bit specially or listens to him etc.

Thank you for your work!

in the arms of the angel by ScarlettStorm (E, 37k, WangXian, Modern AU with Magic, Fox WWX, animal rescuer LWJ, Comedy, Smut, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Adhd WWX, the mortifying ordeal of getting your head stuck in a peanut butter jar) it sort of fits bc lwj is in animal rescue & has some powers to make the animals feel calm & safe!

Lan Zhan's University Days (JAFFY) by sami (T, 10k, WangXian, Modern AU, Kinda, cultivated to immortality, University, outsider pov, Wei Wuxian is a chaos gremlin, ridiculous future bullshit wwx vs Local Culture) Sami's Lan Zhan's University Days from ridiculous future bull series. The cows in the farm and in later rfb glimpses with various baby animals

~*~

12. IMTF: I recently finished the WIP “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades” by Phantomhill which was amazing and hilarious. I’m now itmf any fics with the same premise of bringing the original Yiling Patriarch forward into the modern era, preferably without relying on reincarnation for the other characters. Any ships acceptable except self-insert. Thanks! @jensownzoo

结局难更改 (the ending is hard to change) Series by PorcupineGirl (G, 50k, WangXian, Time Travel, Modern with Magic, Modern Cultivators AU, Canon Divergence, Time Traveler WWX, discussion of canonical character deaths, conveniently localized fires, Discussion of Canonical Suicide Attempt, mostly happy but slightly bittersweet ending, Reincarnation, LWJ POV, Established Relationship, Aromantic JC) might fit as it involves WWX ending up in the future instead of falling to his death

~*~

13. Hello all, sorry if this ask is too explicit 😳

I’m looking for fics where Wei Wuxian has a small penis and Lan Wangji has a big one 🍆

Love me some size difference

Thanx in advance

The Damage You Do by stiricide (E, 104k, WIP, WangXian, Modern AU, Dom/Sub, Dark LWJ, Mobster LWJ, Possessive LWJ, Sex Worker WWX, Sugar Baby WWX, WWX adopts LSZ, Dubious Consent, each chapter has sex tag notes on it, BDSM, Sounding, Panic Attacks, Angst with a Happy Ending)

~*~

14. Do you have Yunmeng bros reconciliation fics that have reverse golden core reveals (wwx finding out about jc getting captured in his place). Angst is fine :)

Thank you!!!! <;3 @twlaei

~*~

15. For the next ITMF can i get fics where LZ plays their song before an audience while wy watches speechless? It could be a recital, it could be a party, it could be a wedding...it just has to have lz playing his heart out for WY while an audience is present.

LZ could be singing or playing any instruments like violin, guqin, piano etc.

For example, drag my teeth across your chest (by ana_cp) - violin. // last part in a FF post ~Mod L @imstillthinkingaboutithmm

Talisman by Witch_Nova221 (M, 192k, WangXian, Modern AU, Eventual Romance, Theatre, Rock Band, Childhood Friends, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Spousal Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Stalking, Minor Character Death, Friends to Lovers, Orphans, Mutual Pining)

~*~

16. ITMF for...

Fics when either WangXian or any other pairing (bonus if it's a rarepair or the Juniors are involved) are discovered by someone walking in on them? Even more bonus if WangXian are together and it's them walking in on someone! Thank you! @fomalhaut48

I spy by Anonymous (E, 9k, wangxian, Voyeurism, Masturbation, Rough Sex, of the wangxian kind, Pseudo-Incest, is it uuuuh incest if one spies on their adoptive parents, the juniors get more than they bargained for, Blow Jobs, Face-Fucking)

Countless Roads by SunBlueSun (E, 5k, wangxian, Accidental Voyeurism, Switching, Versatile | Switch Wangxian, Porn with Feelings, Minor Original Character(s), Love, hanguang jun has flowers in his hair, POV Outsider)

Friends with Great Benefits by FrameofMind, Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle) (E, 15k, wangxian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, First Time, virgins, Voyeurism, Accidental Voyeurism, Semi-accidental voyeurism, WWX's canonical heteronormative assumptions, cutsleeve awakenings, Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, (it depends on who you ask))

a new light by museaway (T, 2k, wangxian, Accidental Voyeurism, Post-Canon, Established Relationship, POV Outsider, Canon Compliant)

~*~

17. Itmf wwx is in a slump, depressed, burnt out, breaking down, etc and lwj swoops in with tender loving care to pull him from his slump.

12 Hours In Hell and Paradise (Or: Lan Zhan’s Distinguished Guide to Seasonal Depression) by demonicsalad (T, 4k, wangxian, Modern, Friends to Lovers, Developing Relationship, Mental Health Issues, Neurodiversity, Love Confessions, POV LWJ) Not quite what OP on 17 asked for, it's from LWJ's pov and primarily his struggles, but it is cute fic about both sides of WX battling seasonal depression and comforting each other

总有一天; a place to hide (can’t find one near) by yiqie (E, 76k, WangXian, Modern AU, Pianist, Getting Together, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt, Suicidal Thoughts, Depression, Hospitals, Overdosing, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Additional Warnings In Author's Note)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic recs #i'm in the mood for a fic #the untamed #wangxian fic search #wangxianficfinder #long post

133 notes · View notes

readingsquotes · 9 months ago

Text

"Despite a global propaganda machine working overtime to tell us that targeting hospitals is not targeting hospitals and killing civilians is not killing civilians, awareness of Israel’s crimes is spreading like wildfire across the globe. This is due in no small part to the tenacity of the Palestinian armed resistance, which has managed to defy containment by Israel’s 40-mile long ‘iron wall’ and continues to resist an Israeli invasion on the ground. At the same time, Palestinian artists, writers, journalists, and academics have worked tirelessly to dismantle zionist colonization of the global- particularly Western- imaginary, with story, with song, with music, and with art. This resistance in all its forms is having ripple effects. Since October 7, people have continued to flood the streets in every nation with chants of ‘In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.’ Josephine Guilbeau, a former member of the US military, said on Monday at a vigil for Bushnell that ‘I don’t think this is going to be the last of our military members resisting. I feel like there are many, many Aarons out there. Who will speak for them?’ Israel’s lies have long lacked legitimacy among the peoples of the Global South, and particularly the Middle East. But today Taylor Swift fans show up to protests holding signs declaring ‘Swifties for Palestine‘ and videos of lawyers proclaiming the Israeli occupation ‘existentially illegal‘ before the International Court of Justice go viral on Twitter. Palestinian journalists reporting from Gaza have bigger online followings than the US president, and buildings in the West are emblazoned with their images and quotes. In a statement responding to Bushnell’s protest the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) stated “(Bushnell’s act) indicates that the status of the Palestinian cause, especially in American circles, is becoming more deeply entrenched in the global conscience, and reveals the truth of the zionist entity as a cheap colonial tool in the hands of savage imperialism.” Israel’s legitimacy is crumbling, and it is taking the US empire with it. This is not to suggest that Israel is pulling the strings- rather, it shows how far the US is prepared to go before it will risk its hegemony in the region. The refusal of all but a handful of states to join the US-led coalition ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’ to defeat Yemen in the Red Sea (notable among absentees was Saudi Arabia, which has since joined the BRICS group of nations alongside China, Russia and Iran) was telling. Increasingly, the imperialism of the Western media is being exposed, and voices from the Global South locating these lies within much longer histories of Western colonial violence are being heard in new ways, by a new generation. In a talk he gave on October 21st, 2023, historian Ilan Pappé stated: ‘Before October I wrote an article saying this is the beginning of the end of Zionism…after last week in fact I’m even more convinced. As happened in apartheid South Africa, this is a very dangerous period. The regime fights for its life….historically I have no doubt that this is what we are experiencing, we are experiencing cruelty and brutality because a certain regime is losing it, not because it’s winning, but because it’s losing.’ Israel’s attacks on Iran and Lebanon, attempting to lure the US into a broader regional war, are another sign of that desperation. "

In our thousands, in our millions: On Aaron Bushnell’s final act

What Aaron Bushnell did was an act of fierce, principled love in a situation of extreme desperation. It unflinchingly declared that even in the heart of the empire the lies of Zionism no longer hold.

by Britt Munro March 1, 2024

#palestine #free palestine #isreal #gaza #apartheid #genocide #colonization #us politics #aaron bushnell

67 notes · View notes

lokiinmediasideblog · 8 months ago

Text

FISA 702 HAS PASSED THE HOUSED. WE MUST STOP IT!

Fax your legislators! TELL THEM YOU WON'T VOTE FOR THEM IF THEY VOTE YES ON FISA (Fy-zah) 702!

You can also fax your legislators for FREE at:

From Edward Snowden's Twitter:

If you were mad about your House rep voting to let the government spy on you without a warrant ("FISA 702" - fy-za seven-oh-two), we may have one last shot. CALL YOUR REP @ (202) 224-3121 and say "𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟳𝟬𝟮, 𝗜 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂."

From the article link:

House lawmakers voted on Friday to reauthorize section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or Fisa, including a key measure that allows for warrantless surveillance of Americans. The controversial law allows for far-reaching monitoring of foreign communications, but has also led to the collection of US citizens’ messages and phone calls.

Lawmakers voted 273–147 to approve the law, which the Biden administration has for years backed as an important counterterrorism tool. An amendment that would have required authorities seek a warrant failed, in a tied 212-212 vote across party lines.

Donald Trump opposed the reauthorization of the bill, posting to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday: “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!”

The law, which gives the government expansive powers to view emails, calls and texts, has long been divisive and resulted in allegations from civil liberties groups that it violates privacy rights. House Republicans were split in the lead-up to vote over whether to reauthorize section 702, the most contentious aspect of the bill, with Mike Johnson, the House speaker, struggling to unify them around a revised version of the pre-existing law.

Republicans shot down a procedural vote on Wednesday that would have allowed Johnson to put the bill to a floor vote, in a further blow to the speaker’s ability to find compromise within his party. Following the defeat, the bill was changed from a five-year extension to a two-year extension of section 702 – an effort to appease far-right Republicans who believe Trump will be president by the time it expires.

Section 702 allows for government agencies such as the National Security Administration to collect data and monitor the communications of foreign citizens outside of US territory without the need for a warrant, with authorities touting it as a key tool in targeting cybercrime, international drug trafficking and terrorist plots. Since the collection of foreign data can also gather communications between people abroad and those in the US, however, the result of section 702 is that federal law enforcement can also monitor American citizens’ communications.

Section 702 has faced opposition before, but it became especially fraught in the past year after court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly used it almost 300,000 times – targeting racial justice protesters, January 6 suspects and others. That overreach emboldened resistance to the law, especially among far-right Republicans who view intelligence services like the FBI as their opponent.

Trump’s all-caps post further weakened Johnson’s position. Trump’s online remarks appeared to refer to an FBI investigation into a former campaign adviser of his, which was unrelated to section 702. Other far-right Republicans such as Matt Gaetz similarly vowed to derail the legislation, putting its passage in peril.

Meanwhile, the Ohio congressman Mike Turner, Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told lawmakers on Friday that failing to reauthorize the bill would be a gift to China’s government spying programs, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah.

“We will be blind as they try to recruit people for terrorist attacks in the United States,” Turner said on Friday on the House floor.

The California Democratic representative and former speaker Nancy Pelosi also gave a statement in support of passing section 702 with its warrantless surveillance abilities intact, urging lawmakers to vote against an amendment that would weaken its reach.

“I don’t have the time right now, but if members want to know I’ll tell you how we could have been saved from 9/11 if we didn’t have to have the additional warrants,” Pelosi said.

Debate over Section 702 pitted Republicans who alleged that the law was a tool for spying on American citizens against others in the GOP who sided with intelligence officials and deemed it a necessary measure to stop foreign terrorist groups. One proposed amendment called for requiring authorities to secure a warrant before using section 702 to view US citizens’ communications, an idea that intelligence officials oppose as limiting their ability to act quickly. Another sticking point in the debate was whether law enforcement should be prohibited from buying information on American citizens from data broker firms, which amass and sell personal data on tens of millions of people, including phone numbers and email addresses.

Section 702 dates back to the George W Bush administration, which secretly ran warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. In 2008, Congress passed section 702 as part of the Fisa Amendments Act and put foreign surveillance under more formal government oversight. Lawmakers have renewed the law twice since, including in 2018 when they rejected an amendment that would have required authorities to get warrants for US citizens’ data.

Last year Merrick Garland, the attorney general, and Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, sent a letter to congressional leaders telling them to reauthorize section 702. They claimed that intelligence gained from it resulted in numerous plots against the US being foiled, and that it was partly responsible for facilitating the drone strike that killed the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2022.

#us politics #internet #mass surveillance #censorship #lgbtqia #palestine #islamophobia #FISA 702 #KOSA

42 notes · View notes

ruanbaijie · 2 months ago

Text

During the Republican Era, Shen Zhiheng, a member of the Tianjin gentry who happened to be a vampire, offended the Japanese and became the target of an assassination attempt. He was saved by a blind young lady, Mi Lan, and his best friend Situ Weilian. When he went to repay Mi Lan for saving him, he discovered the terrible family situation that Mi Lan was in, and so began to pay more attention to her. Meanwhile, Shen Zhiheng’s plan to take revenge on Li Yingliang, the mastermind behind his assassination, fell short of success thanks to Li Yingliang’s Japanese superior, raising suspicions about his identity. Since then, Li Yingliang and the Japanese were in hot pursuit of Shen Zhiheng, determined to dig out the truth about his secret.

Please do not repost this anywhere else or retranslate it!

MAIN DIRECTORY ☾ READ ON AO3 ☾ PREVIOUS CHAPTER

The doors of the private room should not have opened just like that. Li Yingliang was inside hosting, his subordinates were clearly outside, and Li Guisheng was even leading a group of men to hide in ambush. As long as Li Yingliang did not give any orders, those in the room could not leave, and those outside could not enter.

However, someone still pushed the doors open and walked in.

This person was in his thirties, clean-cut and neat. He was dressed in a Western attire, and he sported no hat, revealing an extremely closely cropped buzz cut, like a mature army school student. Li Yingliang glanced at him and was immediately overcome with ecstasy; he knew that he could now live.

This man was the commissioner of the North China Garrison Secret Service, Yokoyama Akira.

Yokoyama Akira arrived with aplomb, yet the second he pushed open the doors and raised his head, he paused. Li Yingliang was seated ramrod straight on a chair with his mouth wide open, and faintly hanging out from it was one end of a tie. Meanwhile, the other person, who had his head buried at Li Yingliang’s neck, turned his head to face him the moment he heard the commotion. He recognised this person with surprise, it was Shen Zhiheng.

He had never seen Shen Zhiheng in the flesh before, but he had seen photographs of him. Grasping this fleeting chance, Li Yingliang hit his head against Shen Zhiheng’s forehead, whining weakly. Shen Zhiheng kept his eyes fixed on Yokoyama Akira, tilting his head to avoid Li Yingliang’s knock, at the same time moaning internally. As much as man could make plans, the plans of the heavens could overturn it in an instant. Originally, he could have quietly taken his revenge and eaten his fill, but who could have guessed that an uninvited guest would fall from the heavens? Picking up Li Yingliang from the side, he stood up. He did not mind if he fell out with the Japanese; they had already fired machine guns at him, what scruples did he have left?

Yokoyama Akira pulled out a pistol. The people outside, noticing that something was wrong, hurriedly rushed in. At this point, Li Yingliang had already been pulled out of his seat by Shen Zhiheng. Everyone first noticed his twisted left forearm, and then noticed that there were a pair of chopsticks sticking out of his thighs. His face was purplish red, and he was suffocating to the point where his eyes were rolling. His two legs could still marginally move, and each step he took left behind a bloody footprint; the blood was flowing out from under his trousers.

Shen Zhiheng conveniently picked up the pistol on the table, asking Yokoyama Akira, “I have invited Chairman Li to send me off, I suppose everyone wouldn’t mind?”

Yokoyama Akira stared at Shen Zhiheng, logic and emotion fighting in him as if it were a battle between heaven and man. When the battle was over, he decided to save Li Yingliang’s life first. His Chinese was not that good, and now that he was startled, it was worse, and he simply took two steps back to clear the path. Shen Zhiheng walked towards the exit, dragging Li Yingliang with him. He went straight down the stairs and into his car.

Shoving Li Yingliang into the passenger seat, he started the engine and drove towards the French concession zone. Yokoyama Akira and the Development Committee followed tightly behind him in their cars, aiming at the back of his car with their pistols from behind their windshields. When the car entered the French concession zone, Shen Zhiheng pushed the door open, shoving Li Yingliang out.

Li Yingliang’s eyes had already rolled to the back of his head a few times. Shen Zhiheng was not entirely sure if he was dead or alive, but it didn’t matter. He was not addicted to killing people to begin with, he just refused to suffer in silence.

The secret service did not dare to open fire in the French concession zone, and could only alight from their cars in a hurry to retrieve Li Yingliang. Yokoyama Akira rushed over, pulling one end of the tie out of Li Yingliang’s mouth in a flash. He tugged once; the first tug was unsuccessful, and so he gathered his energy, and tugged again.

The secret service agents around them were all stunned. Yokoyama Akira had not expected that the tie would be so long. As he pulled, he began to suspect that he would pull out Li Yingliang’s stomach and intestines as well. When the tie was completely pulled out, Li Yingliang still had his mouth wide open, still showing no reaction. Someone pressed against his chest desperately, and another propped him up, pounding his back.

Li Guisheng rushed over from the dark, grabbing him by his shoulders and shaking him, “Sir, Sir! Don’t scare us!”

At this time, Yokoyama Akira’s standard of Chinese recovered. He stood at a side and said, “Send him to the hospital. He’s almost out of blood.”

The two chopsticks had been stabbed in with much skill, injuring the major blood vessels in Li Yingliang’s thighs. On the way to the hospital, Li Yingliang finally managed to breathe in a long breath, having managed to escape from dying from asphyxiation. However, he instantly fell prey to the devil of blood loss. They had already entered the Japanese concession zone, but his mouth had yet to close. Li Guisheng, thinking that he had dislocated his jaw, held his lower jaw and tried pushing it upwards for quite some time.

After an emergency rescue at the hands of the Japanese doctors, Li Yingliang finally managed to keep his life.

His forearm was splinted and bandaged, and he had been transfused with a few big bags of blood. Other than a pair of dry lips and some tear wounds at the edges of his mouth due to having his mouth open for too long, he still resembled an intact person.

Lying on the hospital bed, he breathed weakly, swamped with both weakness and fear, but mainly fear. His body was drenched in cold sweat. As he had spent quite some time with the Japanese, he could understand a few Japanese phrases. Earlier, the Japanese doctor had given a long speech, the general idea being that his luck was good. It was not just because he had bled so much but was still alive, but also that the tie had not completely blocked his throat. Otherwise, if he had asphyxiated to a certain point, even if he managed to survive, it was highly likely that his brain would have suffered damage and he would have become mentally impaired.

The sky was already bright. Yokoyama Akira stood in front of the bed as he watched Li Yingliang, his entire posture rigid and straight, as if he were an iron plate that had acquired human form.

“Why did you meet Shen Zhiheng privately?” he asked.

Li Yingliang answered weakly, his voice so soft it could barely be heard, “Sir, there’s something fishy about this person… and we couldn’t find out what… so I decided to invite him out to talk… if talking didn’t work… we would have dealt with him…”

“You killed him and you still dared to meet him, what an idiot!”

“I thought that he was already scared of us…”

Yokoyama Akira thought hard, and used the foulest Chinese curse he had in his vocabulary to scold Li Yingliang, “You big idiot!”

Then, with his hands behind his back, he walked two rounds back and forth before the bed, before stopping and saying, “If I had not rushed over in time, you would be dead now!”

“Thank you for saving me, Commissioner. How did you know last night that I was at the Grand Pacific Hotel? Did you have something urgent for me?”

Yokoyama Akira ignored him, unwilling to admit that he had heard that Li Yingliang had managed to score a meeting with the Shen Zhiheng who had returned from the dead, and so he had decided on a whim last night to steal Li Yingliang’s winnings and have a chat with Shen Zhiheng himself. Besides being reputable and influential, Shen Zhiheng also controlled many large newspaper companies that were widely distributed. If someone like him did not go against the Japanese, then the Japanese would not necessarily gain anything good out of it. But if he went against the Japanese, then those newspapers would become large trumpets blaring at Chinese society; who knew what slander he would spout?

Yokoyama Akira thought that Li Yingliang was full of zeal but lacked wisdom, and would not necessarily be able to win over Shen Zhiheng’s heart. So, he had personally taken action, but had ended up walking into a blood-soaked drama. He suddenly walked to the front of the bed and stopped, frowning as he asked Li Yingliang, “When I entered, what were the two of you doing?”

Li Yingliang gave a weak “ah?”.

“What was he doing to you? He was at your neck.”

Li Yingliang’s black pupils rolled upwards as his eyelids closed. After shutting his eyes in such a frightful manner, he took a few breaths, then opened his eyes and said, “Sir, I think that Shen Zhiheng… is very abnormal. Back then, it felt like he… like he wanted to bite me.”

Like a buzzing mosquito, Li Yingliang had a private talk with Yokoyama Akira for a while. Towards the end, the two of them suspected that they were going crazy. They had seen no shortage of cruel, ruthless people. But they had never heard of anyone who had the habit of biting their enemies to death, it’s not like they were dogs.

Besides, Commissioner Yokoyama was aware of Li Yingliang’s skills. Shen Zhiheng could be considered a refined gentleman, how could he have brought Li Yingliang under control with so few moves?

“He moved extremely fast, I could not see it at all,” Li Yingliang said softly. “Besides, he could actually stab wooden chopsticks into my thighs.”

It was cold, and he had dressed up in thick clothes. Logically speaking, the chopsticks should not have even pierced through his pants. Besides, the quality of the hotel chopsticks could not have been that good and durable.

Yokoyama Akira and Li Yingliang exchanged glances. The two of them knew that Shen Zhiheng was not something as simple as a martial arts expert. When he had attended the dinner last night, he had been alone, and it was clear that he had gone with murder in his mind. Besides, he had hidden this murder process not just from Li Yingliang’s subordinates, but also from his own men. Why did he have to hide it? Could it be that he had really wanted to bite Li Yingliang to death?

And would biting be the end? It didn’t seem that way. Li Yingliang would never forget how Shen Zhiheng later seemed to be salivating at him, just like a hungry ghost.

“It seemed like he wanted to eat me,” he said softly.

Yokoyama Akira said nothing, knowing that he had already stirred up a large, extremely bizarre hornet’s nest.

That morning, Li Yingliang slept. And in another corner of the city, Mi Lan woke up.

Her body felt light, and she was energised. The nurse came to measure her temperature, and gasped in surprise. Unexpectedly, Mi Lan had recovered surprisingly quickly, her fever receding just like that.

Mi Lan sat up against the head of the bed, rubbing her face. She had just put down the towel when the door opened, and Shen Zhiheng walked in with a thermal container. She recognised his footsteps, and she turned happily towards the door, “Mr. Shen, good morning.”

Shen Zhiheng smiled, “Good morning. I just heard the nurse say that your fever has receded today?”

“Yes, I’m fine now.”

Shen Zhiheng brought a gust of cold air with him. He removed his coat, hat, and gloves at the door. Mi Lan could feel this new coldness in the air, and could hear the rubbing of skin against fabric; this was him rolling up his sleeves.

Holding the thermal container, he sat in front of the bed and said, “It’s congee again.”

“Okay.”

Shen Zhiheng opened the thermal container, using a spoon to stir the congee. “Wait a little, it’s too hot.”

Mi Lan nodded, and heard him asking at the same time, “Why are you smiling? Is there a piece of good news that you’re not telling me?”

She only just realised that she was smiling. “I… I have recovered, and I’m happy.”

“Since you’ve recovered, you have to go home.”

The smile slowly disappeared from Mi Lan’s face. “Mr. Shen, when I return home, does that mean that we can no longer meet?”

“If I visit a young mistress in her teens everyday, it is indeed quite inappropriate.”

“What about if I go to see you?”

“Will your parents allow that?”

Mi Lan lowered her head, as if her thin neck could not support her round head.

“Then I might as well be sick forever,” she muttered softly.

Shen Zhiheng’s laughter rang out beside her ear, and then a large hand was patting her back. “If you don’t have a way, I do. If I don’t save you completely, I will not leave.”

MI Lan wanted to ask “really?”, but just as she was about to, she held back. She believed him. There was no need to ask.

Shen Zhiheng accompanied Mi Lan for a good part of the day.

Mi Lan asked him softly, “Did you take your revenge yesterday?”

Shen Zhiheng eyed Mi Lan. This young lady was different from others. On one hand, he felt like she was truly just a young, naïve little girl, but on the other, he felt that she was very shrewd. She felt that he was trustworthy, and he too felt that she was trustworthy.

“Children shouldn’t be asking about adults’ business,” he said.

“I’m not a child.”

Shen Zhiheng moved to her ear, and said, jesting and testing her at the same time, “If I tell you, don’t get scared. I killed him.”

Mi Lan sat in the darkness. It was like she was sitting in the long night, and Shen Zhiheng’s voice came from beyond this world. Everything he said felt distant to her, like it was something from another country or another world. So, she did not know why she would be scared.

But she was truly concerned, and so she turned towards the direction of the voice. “You didn’t get injured again, did you?”

“I didn’t. I just got disturbed halfway through, and that person did not die.”

Mi Lan thought for a while, then replied, “Forget it. Don’t kill him. Besides, didn’t you not die either?”

“That’s because you saved me.”

“I saved you, and someone else saved him. It’s the same.”

Shen Zhiheng laughed, “You’re right. But, you must–”

“Keep it a secret,” she finished for him.

Shen Zhiheng raised his hand in front of her face and snapped his fingers. She quickly turned her head towards the sound, then raised her right hand and soundlessly twisted her middle finger and thumb together.

No one had snapped their fingers at home before; she had guessed that action through hearing alone. After snapping her fingers and failing, she hooked her long hair behind her ears. After staying in the hospital for a month, she had become so thin she was just a bag of bones, but her hair had escaped her mother’s poisonous tearing, and had become much thicker.

In the afternoon, Shen Zhiheng left the hospital.

His entire being was riddled with suspicious aspects that no one could find out, so instead of using a fixed driver, he preferred to drive his car himself. As he opened the car door at the entrance of the hospital, he looked around. There were eyes watching him from the darkness, he knew.

In this business, offending people was unavoidable. Even if there were no Li Yingliang, there would be other enemies. His strategy was to meet them head-on and fight poison with poison. Everyone bullied the weak and were scared of the strong. Now, Li Yingliang would not dare to rashly send assassins to attack him.

Bending his waist, he got into the car, and just as he was about to close the door, a young man suddenly ran up to him, huffing and puffing, “Mr. Shen, hello!”

Shen Zhiheng looked at him up and down, but did not recognise who he was. The young man was dressed decently, his face was red, and he carried a camera box with him.

“Don’t you recognise me? I’m a reporter for the editorial section of Haihe Daily, Zhang Youwen.”

Shen Zhiheng was the sole proprietor of Haihe Daily, but he let the general manager there handle all the affairs and rarely went there himself, and so he did not have much of an impression of this Zhang Youwen. Evidently, Zhang Youwen had come over to greet him before going into the hospital.

Momentarily curious, he asked, “Are you here to visit someone in the hospital, or for an interview?”

Zhang Youwen’s eyes gleamed. “Mr. Shen, haven’t you heard? Some terribly frightening things have been happening recently. I’m here to visit someone, but also for an interview.”

Shen Zhiheng noticed that this young man could not speak to the point. “What frightening things?”

“There are demons in Tianjin city. This demon only comes out at night and bites people to suck their blood. Those who have gotten their blood sucked either die or fall ill. I heard that the day before, another person became a victim, and is hospitalised here, so I rushed down to interview them.”

Shen Zhiheng frowned. “Biting? Sucking blood?”

Zhang Youwen nodded his head solemnly, and added, his voice lowered, “They all say that it’s a weasel demon. Don’t weasels like to suck blood?”

“Weasel?”

“Exactly! Weasels suck chicken blood, but if weasels become demons, maybe sucking chicken blood isn’t as gratifying anymore, so they suck human blood instead.”

Shen Zhiheng nodded slowly at him. “This piece of news… is very interesting.”

Zhang Youwen bade him farewell, rushing into the hospital. Shen Zhiheng closed the car door, uneasiness settling in his heart. The blood-sucking demon was definitely not him, but precisely because it was not him, he was uneasy.

If it was not him, who was it?

After the uneasiness, was an uncontrollable ecstasy, to the point where he had to sit in his car for quite some time to regain his composure. When he had finally calmed down enough to control his hands and legs, he drove off.

These few years, beyond just surviving, he had always been searching for those like him. If not, if he remained alone, how could he deal with the increasing number of changes to and mysteries surrounding himself?

That night, Shen Zhiheng waited at home for Situ Weilian.

Situ Weilian arrived, utterly besotted. The previous night, he had finally gotten what he wished for, and had gone out with Second Young Mistress Jin to watch a film, which was followed by a sumptuous meal. He liked Jin Jingxue too much and refused to leave her no matter what. After much begging, he had walked around Quanye Bazaar [1] and its environs together with her. In the department store, he had bought an Omega watch for her. But feeling that this was too much of a courtesy, she had refused to accept it; although she personally did not think much about the sufferings of mankind, she knew that Situ Weilian was just a young doctor in a small hospital. And since she did not intend to accept his feelings for her, she did not want to take advantage of this poor man.

Situ Weilian all but wanted to fall to his knees and kowtow to her, and force the watch into her hands. The cheque that Shen Zhiheng had given him that day had gotten completely spent just like that. Now, he sat in front of Shen Zhiheng, placing the canvas satchel onto the coffee table with some sort of empty satisfaction in his chest.

Spending money for Jin Jingxue was equivalent to burning incense for the gods and Buddhas. He did not dare to expect the luxury of having his wishes come true, he just wished that there was something by her side that was related to him.

Shen Zhiheng did not retrieve the bottles of blood in the canvas satchel. Instead, he tossed a copy of the evening newspaper into his arms. Baffled, Situ Weilian opened the newspaper and took a look, noticing one headline in particular. Sitting upright, he read the entire article, then raised his head to look at Shen Zhiheng.

He snickered, “Your own newspaper has started to publicly spout nonsense?”

Shen Zhiheng crossed his legs, his hands clasped in front of him. “This is the latest news, it’s not nonsense.”

Situ Weilian snorted in contempt. “How can there be blood-sucking demons–” His face suddenly changed. “Don’t tell me it’s you? How can that be? Have I not been feeding you full?”

Shen Zhiheng sat upright, not moving an inch. “Do I have that big an appetite? Even if I do, is there a need for me to describe it in such morbid detail?”

Situ Weilian inched closer to him, his voice lowered, “Then, could it be that brother you’ve been trying to find?”

“I don’t know, I need to investigate.”

“What if it really is?”

“Then it plays right into my hands. After all, he’s purebred, while I became this halfway through. He should know more than I do.”

“But his mother and your family have a blood feud!”

“That was years ago. Now, my family is long dead. Even if there’s still enmity, by this point, it’s about time it disappeared entirely. Besides, those were the grievances of the previous generation, and my generation has nothing to do with it. I’m very open-minded and wouldn’t fault the younger generation for the previous generation’s mistakes.”

“You’re open-minded, but what if he isn’t? Your family’s previous generation made his mother suffer so much. What if he has been harbouring the grudge all along, and suddenly descends from the skies to take a bite out of you?”

“Then isn’t that better? There can’t be anything worse than my current situation. It’s not like he would bite me and I would become a mountain spirit or tree monster. If he fights poison with poison with me and causes me to regain a human body, then that’s even better.” He smiled at Situ Weilian. “I will immediately stop fighting and retire in an apartment in the concession zone, comfortably waiting to die of old age.”

Situ Weilian leaned back, disapproval written all over his face. “Aren’t you being too positive? What if he’s a prodigal son and a troublemaker, and after acknowledging you, he keeps pestering you for your entire life?”

Shen Zhiheng smiled. “Prodigal son, troublemaker, pestering me, aren’t you describing yourself?”

Situ Weilian curled up on the sofa, unconvinced. Shen Zhiheng stopped exchanging nonsense with him, changing the topic.

“Your younger sister is in some choir, isn’t she?”

Situ Weilian nodded. “Yes, she’s been going for a few years.”

“Then, do me a favour.”

Shen Zhiheng assigned a task to Situ Weilian.

When it got later, Situ Weilian bade farewell and left. When he left, the brightly lit Shen mansion became quieter, like a splendid tomb. Shen Zhiheng sat beneath the chandelier, drinking the two bottles of blood slowly. To him, the icy cold blood was sweet. He slowly leaned his body backwards, closing his eyes as lightheadedness took over him. In this moment, drowsy and satisfied, he was in complete bliss.

His thirst for fresh blood had long overwhelmed his desires for food and sex.

Appetite and lust are only natural [2] . It was a pity that this no longer held true for him.

------------------------------------------------------------

A department store in Tianjin that opened in 1928, and was the largest department store in north China at the time. It still exists today.

A saying by Mencius.

#snowfall #冰雪谣 #the shadow #如月 #snowfalltl #userdramas #vampires #translation #*transl #tuserashinlae #lextag #roserayne

18 notes · View notes

staydandy · 6 months ago

Text

The Locked Room (2019) - 上锁的房间 - Whump List

List by StayDandy Synopsis : Because of an accident, a man who possesses godly skills at opening locks catches the eye of a female detective and they go on to solve cases together. Mu Xia is a talented locksmith. While dealing with a strange murder case within a locked room, Qin Zuo Man inadvertently discovers that Mu Xia is the new security consultant hired by the police academy. As more locked room cases arise, the determined Qin Zuo Man, the monotonous Mu Xia and celebrity cop Tan You join hands to form an investigative team that seeks to uncover the truth through every door. (MDL)

Whumpee : Mu Xia played by Jin Shi Jia (left) • Tan You played by Chen Yi Long (3 eps) (right)

Country : 🇨🇳 China Genres : Action, Mystery, Crime

Notes : This is a Full Whump List • This is an adaption of the original Japanese drama of the same name, which aired in 2012. • Both dramas are adapted from the novel “Kagi no Kakatta Heya” (鍵のかかった部屋) by Kishi Yusuke (貴志祐介) • TW : Suicide, SA

Episodes on List : 16 Total Episodes : 26

*Spoilers below*

03 : (near end) Mu Xia slapped (comedic) … ear ringing, pain, pushed down to avoid explosion, gasping

04 : [flashback / replay] Ear ringing, pain, pushed down to avoid explosion

05 : (TW @ 6:00 suicide) … (near end) Mu Xia & Tan You in car accident, Tan You's leg hurt, carried

06 : (TW @ 18:00 suicide) … (near end) Mu Xia's ear ringing, traumatic flashback, unsteady

07 : Ear ringing, unsteady, collapses, gasping

10 : Tunneled hearing, dazed … [imagination of himself in place of the victim] locked in a casket, suffocating, [real life] gasps a breath

12 : Revealed to have hearing loss in his left ear

13 : (near end) Ear ringing

14 : [imagination of himself in place of the victim] Suffocating, [real life] gasps a breath

15 : [imagination of himself in place of the victim] Heart trouble, pain

16 : (TW @ 15:40 suicide .. @ 31:00 SA)

21 : (near end) Shot … wakes in hospital … falls on his injured arm, passes out, wakes briefly, passes out again (idk why those jaw movements intrigue me so - was he trying to say something? did they cut out audio? is it a reaction to pain or shock?)

22 : Hospitalized … leaves the hospital, staggering … Tan You knocked out by an explosion … Mu Xia ear ringing, pain, collapses … knocked down by an explosion

23 : … continued from previous ep. ... Helped to walk … Tan You hospitalized … revealed Mu Xia's hearing loss is a result of mental trauma

24 : Hit in the back of the head with a bat, drugged, passes out … captured, tied up.. choked.. drugged … chest pain, collapse … [on video feed] suffering from symptoms from being drugged; rolling around in pain … [real life] hallucinating; choking himself, fighting something not there

25 : … continued from previous ep. ... Nearly non-responsive, severely dehydrated … drugged again.. hallucinating

26 : … continued from previous ep. ... Hospitalized … left the hospital AMA (against medical advice), unsteady

#whump #whump list #full whump list #Asian whump #China #The Locked Room #上锁的房间 #Mu Xia #Tan You #Jin Shi Jia #Chen Yi Long

41 notes · View notes

sheepytina · 5 months ago

Text

So people are talking about the artwork in Metal Slug games again

There's been a few posts going around talking about how weird the Metal Slug characters look in the mobile games, particularly female characters like Eri and especially fan favourite Fio.

This conversation comes up again every so often, but it's been reignited on Tumblr again this week with three new Metal Slug games coming onto the scene:

The recent re-reveal of the indie title Metal Slug Tactics from Dotemu, which was originally announced in 2021, during Summer Game Fest 2024,

The June 2024 Nintendo Direct shadow-drop of a revamped version of the former mobile game Metal Slug Attack as Metal Slug Attack Reloaded, and

The impending global launch of the Chinese mobile game Metal Slug: Awakening from Tencent Games next month (July 2024), which originally released in China and SEA in 2023.

Remember these three names, because this is what this post is going to primarily centre around.

However there's one version of this type of post going around that just posts artwork from Metal Slug 3 and MS: Awakening and doesn't adequately explain what the artwork actually comes from and why it looks the way it does, resulting in the confusion and bewilderment of many people who are less familiar with the Metal Slug series.

And so I decided I really need to throw my hat into the ring and see if I can dissect this and bring some actual facts to the conversation.

Look, it's not great. Basically, the stuff people are saying is indeed mostly true, but there's a lot of half-truths and even a few straight up lies being mixed into it. Such as how what the original Metal Slug games looked like is actually more complicated than people think, for starters.

Furthermore, one of the three games I mentioned actually looks really good, and oddly it seems to be the one with the least attention on it right now.

Now, because I'm me, this blog post ended up really long, long enough to have chapter markers, so please bear with me and stick around to the end if you can. — And if you don't care about the historical context, I'm happy for you just to look at the pictures too.

Part 1: The original NEOGEO Metal Slug games

So the main point of this conversation is that the classic Metal Slug games let the characters look weird and cartoony. That's a big part of Metal Slug's core identity, and this is lost in the recent mobile games.

(Of course I had to get a real CRT photo in here at some point.)

To define "classic Metal Slug" you can assume most people are referring Metal Slug 1 through to 3, i.e. the ones that SNK created before their bankruptcy in the year 2000. And most of all, that iconic character select screen from Metal Slug 2, X and 3.

As you can see, there's definitely a shift that took place here.

But hold on, Fio also looks pretty different on the arcade flyers, especially in her original debut in Metal Slug 2. So it's not exactly as clear cut at the cherrypicked images would suggest, but all the same there is still a distinct, extremely late '90s style to everything.

Metal Slug 4 and 5 also released for the NEOGEO system and are similarly loved by many, but were developed in the 2000s under the newly formed Playmore, aka SNK Playmore. I definitely agree with this sentiment that the "original identity" of Metal Slug was strongest in the early titles, and the artwork is the most noticeable reflection of that.

However, although it has little bearing on the conversation, I think it's important to clarify that this change to a contemporary anime style actually began in the early 2000s during the Playmore era of SNK. Like would happen with other SNK game series like The King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown, things got weird for Metal Slug once SNK was reborn as Playmore, eventually becoming SNK Playmore.

Still, all the mainline Metal Slug games through to Metal Slug 7 and Metal Slug XX are still considered classics by fans. The problem for a lot of fans would be SNK's push into new markets such as pachislot and mobile gaming.

Which brings us to…

Part 2: The Metal Slug smart device games, and the Chinese mobile game market

Mobile games would prove a highly lucrative market for SNK Playmore, with hundreds of titles published for Japanese phones during the '00s. A few of these also made their way to more conventional J2ME devices in China. Eventually the mobile gaming market would move to smartphones, with SNK bringing games such as Metal Slug Defense and Metal Slug Attack to market in the 2010s.

This is the first mention of China in this post and it won't be the last. SNK's arcade titles had traditionally been extremely popular in the Chinese market, and with the mobile game market rapidly growing and a hunger for bigger games from beloved SNK series, a lot of interest had grown for SNK titles in this market.

This would result in a huge investment from Chinese companies, with a new joint venture acquiring a 81% stake in the company in 2016, leading SNK Playmore to announce a new shift in their strategy, and with that came a rebrand, once again to simply SNK.

This new identity signified a new era for SNK. This newly reignited SNK would move away from non-videogame markets such as pachislot, and focus more on console games and character licensing. This is the SNK that gave us The King of Fighters XIV and a new Samurai Shodown game.

But this is also the SNK that really doubled down on the Chinese and South-east Asian mobile markets.

This is where this conversation stems from. Games such as the tower defence mobile game Metal Slug Attack and many other mobile games in series such as The King of Fighters would be massive money-makers for SNK. Even the new Samurai Shodown game on consoles/PC would centre Chinese audiences with its first DLC crossover characters pulling from Ubisoft's For Honor and Tencent's Honor of Kings.

But when it comes to centering the tastes of the mobile game market, the big one that bugs people is Metal Slug: Awakening, a mobile game developed and published under license by Tencent Games, which entered beta testing in 2021 and released in China and South-east Asia in 2023.

Now this game actually doesn't have all that much to do with SNK besides the license. However it would be disingenuous of me to say that means it's insignificant to the series. We didn't get to this point out of nowhere out of all. Plus this game is set for a global release in 2024, so this game is for all of us to enjoy.

Although, is it really for all of us? The game certainly seems to plays like a real Metal Slug game, retaining the series' famous run 'n gun gameplay, which is more than you can say for most Metal Slug mobile games. But it certainly doesn't look like a Metal Slug game. The in-game graphics are a strange 3D interpretation of the original pixel art, and all the game's promotional artwork and splash screens look like this. Fio in particular straight up looks like a different character in these pictures.

It's not great. I'm not about to try and defend this. It's just that I really need to stress that it's really not a game targeted towards us.

To make matters more confusing for a lot of people not super plugged-into Metal Slug is that it's not even the only Metal Slug game in the news recently. Metal Slug Tactics had been missing in action since 2021, and all of a sudden it gets re-revealed by Dotemu in June 2024 but overshadowed by many other announcements during the Summer Game Fest period.

But also, SNK themselves would, during the June 2024 Nintendo Direct, reveal and immediately shadow-drop a revamped offline version of the Metal Slug Attack game called Metal Slug Attack Reloaded.

youtube

I actually saw a lot of people confused by this. People who remembered the initial 2021 reveal of Metal Slug Tactics and thought this was the same game. It might seem obvious to some of us, but if this is you, then I assure you, it's not the same game.

Although SNK seems to be downplaying this for some reason, Metal Slug Attack is a pretty old mobile game that went defunct last year, and this is a revamped version of it for consoles and PC that can be played offline without microtransactions. (An increasing trend I want to see more of!) The game is still very much a mobile game to its core though and you can tell.

But, look, don't worry, there's hope for us yet, in the form of a new game that many western Metal Slug fans have been excited for for many years. I've already mentioned it, it's…

Part 3: Metal Slug Tactics, a new tactical Metal Slug game from Dotemu and French developer Leikir Studio

I'm going to preface this section with a clarification of my stance on this. As a strategy game this doesn't exactly scream classic Metal Slug. However, a few people have been lumping this in with the mobile games and I think that's pretty unfair.

For starters, this game is oozing with personality and really looks like it's developed by people who truly understand Metal Slug.

youtube

Second, the artwork in this game is clearly a very different beast from what can be seen in Metal Slug: Awakening.

Obviously this isn't the same as the funny looking characters you remember from the in-game graphics of the NEOGEO titles. I still however feel like this captures the spirit of these beloved characters better than any of the mobile games have. This is definitely along the lines of Sonic Mania or TMNT: Shredder's Revenge in terms of attention to detail, and that's especially reflected by how the actual game looks and moves in action.

This is really my true agenda if I'm perfectly honest. Please don't sleep on this game. Even if you don't like tactics games, this is the one you want to keep an eye on if you want a true return to form for Metal Slug.

#metal slug #metal slug tactics #metal slug attack #metal slug attack reloaded #metal slug: awakening #snk #tencent #dotemu #blog posts

25 notes · View notes