⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

infold/papergames stood firm that valko was part of the long term plan of their game even after haters sent literal shit to their office and harassed staff… until the chinese news media started talking about the controversy—in particular 731, and valko apparently breaking and entering, and attacking mc. media even edited scenes from the trailer to look particularly condemning. immediately after, papergames did a 180 and put out the statement that the debut was canceled… and went silent.

since then, the media has only continued to run stories about valko/lads. very negative stories. and negative stories/trends keep popping up on weibo/xhs. all the while, silent whispers has been upping their advertising.

from a lot of cn playes’ perspective, this looks like a smear campaign by silent whispers to bring lads down and bring the disaffected fans over to their game. i even saw an add on xhs from silent whispers that was like “want a game like love and deepspace? play our game instead!” suspicious… especially since lads is no longer going to bilibili world… and silent whispers is. even though sw only really seems to have concepts of a game? it’s just been vague trailers of three uncanny valley pixel men staring at the camera? also, interestingly enough, there was a trend on weibo about lads pulling out of BW and leaving players on the hook for all the money they spent on tickets/hotels/etc…like a day before papergames announced that they were dropping out AND reimbursing people. kinda seems like a paid hit piece that dropped a little too soon.

paid trolls, bots, an onslaught of negative news coverage, negative stories and trends on social media… seems like someone is spending a lot of money to see lads fail. and I doubt it’s a group of high school girls who hate a character because they’re too parasocial about their main. does a group of immature bullies really have the power to bring in the media? the government, if rumors are to be believed?

of course, papergames is not free from blame. they have been consistently ignoring players valid criticisms. they are terrible with communication. perhaps if they had treated their players better, so many wouldn’t have been so quick to jump ship… to their competitor.

i do find it odd papergames has been so quiet since. they haven’t put out a statement defending themselves. they’ve not addressed the players who have been vocal about wanting valko back. you would think releasing valko could dispel all those negative rumors about his storyline and make those who wanted him happy. and not waste years of development. and recoup some losses financially. their silence seems so stupid. unless they can’t say anything? are there legal proceedings behind the scenes keeping them silent? Or are they really just that arrogant/incompetent?

yes, this is speculation in part. but it’s born from facts and logic.

i should probably stop caring, but it’s like a train wreck i can’t look away from.

and selfishly i want lads to make a comeback. i enjoyed the game. and i hope lads can learn from this and do better in the future for all its players. i’ve stopped playing, and if they ever release a statement or something changes, i’ll reevaluate. i think boycotting is the right move. they need to know their player base is unhappy, and hitting them in the financials is a language any business understands. and i want valko back! i was excited for his release. so i’ll keep a little spark of hope alive. what is hope going to cost me? some potential disappointment? i’ll pay it.

让小狼回家吧！！！

GPT 5.6 Sol beat Pokemon FireRed and became champion using solely screenshots of the game, and no special harness or help. Fable apparently also did this, but OpenAI have a video.

These things can just play, understand and win video games now.

When are we going to admit that we have AGI? Like, probably not human level AGI. But these agents can apply general reasoning effectively to any presented problem. This is general intelligence - we have independently acting artificial agents that can apply an artificial general intelligence.

I think we're just not seeing and realizing the inevitable consequences of that yet because the rollout is so new and these AIs are not integrated into general life as much as they at some point will be.

the DID part is the feeling like your identity is melting as you learn you're safe

like hmm. maybe things will be alright......wait what who am i....do i even like [interest] anymore.....is this really my hair.....how long have i lived here.......have i always thought about these things......what emotion is this i'm not used to it.....everything is not okay......no it's okay now....this is the most dissociated i've been in a while.....no nvm i feel strangely grounded.....what..gender am i.....😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫--🧍‼️. wait. okay i'm normal now. why do i feel like me but two inches to the left tho

except it lasts a few days. it feels Weird. i felt like a section of myself yesterday. but i'm better now

but the less DID part that comes with feeling ur feelings is. feeling feelings feels (lol) erratic when you spent the past however long suppressing them. ALSO. practicing new habits, especially indulging or being open when you weren't before feels like. it literally just feels like out of character. so then you're like "why am i reacting to things now??? why am i making all these choices i wouldn't before. what if i'm fucking MANIC😰" <-person who has no personal or family history of bipolar.

on top of this once you learn to feel feelings you can actually FEEL panic attacks and flashbacks. so like yeah you do feel insane. maybe because of the mental illness perhaps

also. ironically i can't remember if i did this before but the DID blackouts are really blackouting. i keep feeling like i've been asleep for the duration of what i was doing before. like i'm on one app and th--i'm opening the same app.....wait what. how am i opening the app i was just in. what was i doing before this? how has it been thirty minutes

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/27/received-death-threats-abandoning-pro-palestine-movement/

It wasn’t long after Hamas carried out its attack on Israel in Oct 7, 2023, that Taryn Thomas found herself swept up in the chorus of pro-Palestine activists mobilising against the Jewish state.

Even before Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza following the Oct 7 massacre,“I was scrolling through social media, and I only saw support for Palestine,” she recalls. “People I know, whether it was activists or people I look up to, were already posting their thoughts.”

Then aged 19 and studying biomedical science at the elite Stanford University in northern California, Thomas, an African American, was first introduced to the anti-Israel movement at Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, where Palestinian flags were flown by some activists. “I never really understood why, but we were told that in order for us to be free, Palestine has to be free,” she says.

She subsequently helped lead large protests against Israel and, within two weeks of Oct 7 2023, had joined an encampment of activists on campus protesting against Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Like many others, she donned a keffiyeh, the headscarf worn to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians. “I really loved it because of the sense of belonging and the sense of purpose,” she says of the encampment. “It was like an instant community.”

Besides fellow students, Thomas was encouraged by “faculty members like history professors” who “validated the movement”. “It seemed like everyone was a lot more educated than me and very certain and sure of themselves that this is a genocide,” says Thomas, who is now 21. “The only safe position was the more radical one in the encampment.”

‘I was confused by what our mission was’

Thomas grew up in Riverside County, one of the few Republican counties in the otherwise “very liberal California”. That, together with racist abuse at school, influenced her political outlook. “I thought going further to the Left would be the solution to the extremism I was seeing from the Right,” she says.

Huge demonstrations took place at universities across the US in the months that followed Oct 7, with protesters confronting the educational institutions with their demands – including to divest from Israel and cut ties with counterpart Israeli institutions.

While the movement was largely peaceful, some demonstrations turned violent and led to clashes with police. “One of our protests got out of hand, and that kind of made me take a step back,” says Thomas.

This was in June 2024, when several militant students broke into the office of Stanford’s president, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage. “They spray-painted disgusting things, such as ‘Pigs taste best when dead’, ‘Death to America’, ‘Death to Israel’, and ‘Kill cops’,” Thomas recalls.

“I was confused by what our mission was. At what point did the pro-Palestine movement turn into this anti-Israel, anti-America movement? We completely lost sight of the victims we were claiming to be supporting and fighting for.”

Yet those behind the vandalism “doubled down”, she says, and justified their actions, “even though Jewish students said they felt unsafe”. She explains: “They felt like they couldn’t go to their classes, they were getting harassed and doxxed [having personal information published online] and things like that. Essentially, we completely lost our minds.”

A drastic change of heart

Then, in October 2024, Thomas was one of many students who received an open invitation to the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in Los Angeles. Recently opened in London, the exhibition aims to recreate the festival site where 413 people were murdered by Hamas, and many more were injured or taken hostage.

Nova exhibition

The recently opened Nova exhibition in London commemorates the 413 young people murdered by Hamas at the festival Credit: Jeff Gilbert

“Initially, I laughed, thinking, ‘What’s this propaganda?’” Something piqued her interest, however, so she decided to go. “I’d heard about the festival and was curious, but I’d only really heard the reasoning, ‘Well, why would you have a festival next to a contested border? Essentially, they were asking for it.’

“I was hoping it was going to reaffirm my position, that I would find Zionist lies and whatever. I went with a very closed mind.” Three hours later, Thomas emerged feeling “so lost”.

“I experienced a lot of cognitive dissonance – what I was seeing versus what I’d been told. It was like I arrived a year too late to a funeral. I had so many questions, but I really had no one I could talk to about this. All of my friends were from the encampment. I’d never met an Israeli or talked to them about their experiences – I was fluent in the state’s sins, but I was illiterate in its people.”

Seeing pictures and footage of the young festival-goers hit home for Thomas. “They were kids my age, just dancing, and then fleeing for their lives the next moment. I could see myself in them. I could have been sending a last ‘I love you’ message to my mum. I felt so much empathy and sadness.”

One element in particular changed everything – an audio clip of a jubilant Hamas fighter phoning his father to let him know he’d killed 10 Jews. “My heart sank because these [were meant to be] our martyrs. [This was] the resistance we were claiming we wanted. When we called for any means necessary, I didn’t realise that’s what it meant.”

Months later, Thomas was invited on a trip to Israel organised by a group combatting anti-Semitism on campus. “I knew if I was going to continue to speak on this, I needed to see it for myself,” she says.

During the 10-day trip last March, she met with Israelis, Ethiopian Jews, Palestinians, Druze and Bedouin. “I was shocked at how much diversity I saw – I didn’t even know Israel had black people,” she said.

On the fourth day, the group had to take cover during a missile attack. “Our guide told us to get on the ground, and I put my hands over my neck and prayed. “I thought about the irony of how I’d called for the divestment of the very system I was praying for,” she says. “It [the missile] didn’t care about my politics or what I posted or any of that. I was a target, a body on the ground, and I felt utterly useless.”

Fortunately the missile was intercepted and the trip continued, but the experience left Thomas shaken. She says it made her realise “how cushy and comfortable a life” she had in America, and that she’d not realised the “real consequences” of what she’d been calling for.

‘It felt like being stoned publicly’

Back home, she posted a picture of her trip online – a decision that cost her dearly. “My best friend of three years asked, ‘Is this in Israel?’ I said, ‘Yeah, do you want to talk about it?’ She immediately blocked me. I hadn’t even expressed anything. I literally said I went. Period.”

Her post opened the floodgates. “I lost every single friend”, while her classmates “posted really disgusting things”, including labelling her a “genocidal apologist”. Thomas says she was doxxed, and received death threats and racist abuse – and that her family was also targeted. “It was like a crusade and felt like being stoned publicly.”

She now takes a dim view of the encampment atmosphere. “It completely insulates you in this echo chamber and indoctrinates you. If you had any questions, you’d lose your social belonging – the last thing you wanted to be called was a Zionist.”

She adds that the protesters’ “attention turned into this hatred” and there were constant calls for the “normalisation of violence”. Some activists, for example, celebrated the assassinations of Charlie Kirk, the Right-wing political activist, and Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, she says.

The mental toll had become so heavy on Thomas that she stepped away from her studies late last year. What helped get her through this tough period is the new friendships she has formed, including some with Jewish students.

“They knew I came from the encampments and they engaged with me, intellectually argued with me, disagreed with me, but we still broke bread on Shabbat,” she says. “I learned from my [now] best friend that she was doxxed because of people within our movement. I know I have to repair some of those damages.”

‘Open your heart and put down those megaphones’

Thomas says her family are not politically engaged in the issue of Israel and Gaza and she has faced questions from her mother about her involvement. “She was just like, ‘Why are you doing this? It isn’t your burden to shoulder.’ She just wants her family to be safe and protected.”

But Thomas hopes that by sharing her story it will encourage others to experience the Nova exhibition. “I hope the people who are protesting will come – I just want them to go inside,” she says. “None of this is political. Just look and learn the stories – you don’t have to agree. Come in with an open heart and an open mind and put down those megaphones.”

As for Thomas, she hopes to return to university in September, but in the meantime, she is determined to do what she can to increase cross-community understanding. “A lot of us on the pro-Palestine side were recruited through empathy, so I think we can be reached through it too. Because of this unique perspective I have of what changed my heart, I think I can hopefully change other people’s.