#lore configuration

[1cebittentwicehigh]

Added a few new pieces to the collection

[kaleidoru]

bane of fallen angels

[briony-tallis]

i love looking at the map of the 13 prewar commonwealths to remind myself that most americans have a deep misunderstanding of their own state-level politics

[x-enocyon]

and for the record since i feel like this might get confusing otherwise, I'm gonna be defaulting to F:NV Avery for the time being and foreseeable future. I've been really enjoying the rewrite. Core things about him, personality traits, morals, favorite snack foods etc, are unchanged but some story and design elements might shift around. Still same ol' Avery at the end of the day. FO:4 flavor Avery isn't so much nixed as he is shelved.

[neathbound-fiends]

copy pasting from DMs and expanding on this a little actually

Thinking abt the fact that Elliott is an unreliable narrator and will just outright lie about things about himself, or twist them so severely that they threaten to break in order to be palatable and not say anything he thinks people won't want to hear. Man who spent a lot of years lying about his family, and upbringing, and sexuality, all because none of it was something someone else would want to hear and he doesn't want to be seen as broken, or a bummer, or to speak ill of the dead. It's better to mangle the truth until it fits whatever narrative you want to spin than it is to say something that's going to horrify someone

[gilliebee]

The Boston Globe | May 20, 1990

[kiwibirdlafayette]

FUCK I FORGOT ABOUT GODSWAP

I had some other drawing ideass but chat. Chat imma be real i forgot em all LMAO

[krokaxe]

Is "Project Revenant" linked to your Fallout stuff or..?

You mean ODE? The designs/hologram posted so far are from an original setting and from meshed lore that @koilarist and I ditz around with together.

However, my independent lore is what I apply to my Fallout snyth/robotics work. I, Chimera's concepts— like the human brain used in a synth unit, red/blue dual sets and other colour coded stuff, regeneration factors, human brains as processors, 'dreamscapes', code as soul etc— came from my lore interwoven with Fallout's own. My fandom work is usually made this way; my OCs come with multi config framework that I use throughout different settings.

I, Chimera is a project I'm reforming. The aforementioned lore and more has been scalped from me personally—the first instalment, Tabula Rasa, started on the 30th April 2022. I have the fic archived/DMs logged about the scalping sources; I'd very much like it to stop before I release anything else from this lore set again, but apparently no dice. I suppose some people have no shame that way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This lore is where Eleanor's synth design came from. This design wasn't the 'final form' so to speak, but I locked the I, Chimera series down when the plagiarism was too blatant to deny— so Project Revenant is connected to my Fallout stuff by lore frameworks, yes, much like all of my work is :3c

[1cebittentwicehigh]

Added a few new touches to the Horror props. DIY'ed the hooks and chains coming out of the Hellraiser cube. Added a few alien artifacts including the Dead Space Marker, the Alien skulls and the Alien Hellraiser cube (with Zombie hand). Last, but not least, the Lemarchand Planchette for the Ouija Board.

Hope you enjoy fellow horror fiends.

[d1s1ntegrated]

Hi!! I love your HCs!! I was wondering if you could write Shigaraki with a s/o who is terrible at video games. I'm talking horrible at them. Like if they're playing a battle royal game they're one of the first people to die, it takes so many tries for them to finish a level of a game cause they suck at it, and when he tells them to press a button they have to ask which one it is again 😭

Thank you sm!!! :)

gamer bf shiggy x noob reader

"okay hit left trigger"

"which one is that again"

"THE FUCKING TRIGGER ON YOUR LEFT"

"ohhhhh okay" *hits left bumper*

"IM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU"

he's def the type to yank the controller away

he gets so irritated at first but if u remind him like, u've never done this before he gets kinda sad

he tries so hard to teach you how to play things like league and ovw but. alas.

you fucking suck.

so for now he keeps you on simple games like minecraft creative mode, point and clicks, and VNs.

when you officially finish building your first successful minecraft house (!!) he is so so proud

"look at that, its not made of dirt!"

always makes fun of u

calls u a noob, a loser, pleb, etc

but when u do start playing online pvp games with him again, he WILL defend u to the DEATH

"dont worry about the sweats babe they dont know how it feels to touch a woman. or a man for that matter".

sends you youtube playthrus to help you learn how some games work, lets u watch him play, too

also sends tutorial vids about button and controller configuration cause he's weird

oh and lore vids, he loves. lore. in videogames

he will quiz u on it too, u better study

builds u super cute things in mc, saves the good weapons and armor for u in other games

[elodieunderglass]

hbbHHH i am visiting uk land (cornwall!) and needed a guy to rotate on the train so i watched your horf and also guy run by the train through the window and revisted the killieverse + lore and my heart is bleeding with Love for Them and also Your Writing Skills of Characterization. please take this leaf 🍁 and also i saw you rb'd the oc game request thing (my mind is jetlag soup) so can i request 👶 - drawing killie + charlie as kids? thank you tumblr user elodieunderglass

(OC character drawing meme - Killie and Charlie as children)

As extremely small and premature babies, they co-slept in NICU and were never broken of the habit. Their mother hated this, and claimed it would make them gay, but she didn't want to do the work of parenting them out of it.

Oddly enough, their father and his siblings weren't bothered - themselves having grown up with it being normal to play Musical Beds with your family all night, with everyone waking up in different configurations than they'd gone to bed in - Da on the floor with baby, Ma in the bed with Toddler, oldest kid later discovered bunked down in a horse stall, etc etc etc.

This would distract Helena with the opportunity to have a convenient rant about marrying into a family of peasants, which was a satisfactory argument for everyone to get into instead.

So the twins shared a bed most nights - until long past the age of it being embarrassing.

[nauticaltrain]

is the way you interpret the stex characters, are they robots or a mix? since they don't feel pain, but bleed oil etc. what is the lore? are they built at a young age or are they built into adults? (p.s your art is delicious too look at !!)

ohohoho boy, the lore i have for you, strap in

(brief note, this is all my personal interpretation and is definitely not the word of god lol. I genuinely love every interpretation and believe that headcanon variety is vital to a healthy fandom ecosystem)

So, this is something I have thought a lot about and still continue to think about. I'm pretty sure I've nailed it down but it might still be a little nebulous so bear with me.

In the most basic sense, my interpretation of Starlight Express, and all of its characters, is that they are real world pieces of rolling stock that have the ability to shift between a train form (primary configuration) and a human form (secondary configuration). Not an uncommon idea in this fanbase.

However, I'm an overthinking bitch, and I love going in-depth on things like this, so let's expand a little.

There are three main phrases that I use to define my interpretation (headcanon? au? lore?) and to keep myself on track when developing ideas. Sort of layers, if you will. They are as follows:

Fabricated manifestation of psyche - This is rolling stock's appearance in secondary configuration, or what we see in the musical. Their human bodies are a cosmetic representation of their will. A psychological trick. It reflects their personalities, their jobs, their mental age, the demographics of the region they serve. There about a million different factors that go into how they look, and like us, they can't control it. (well, except for CB, but he's another story) It's important to note that this is a manifestation. They are not Transformers. Secondary configuration is not 1:1. There are certain things that get muddled in the changeover. Wheel arrangements being different, missing certain parts, changed color palettes. You could open one up and see parts but not in any sort of similar arrangement to their blueprints. I mean, who can honestly picture every single part of their body in perfect detail and then reinterpret it into a new shape? (this is in part my answer to discrepancies between the real costumes and my lore shh shh)

Counterfeit reflection of humanity - This is their minds. They are our copies. They experience everything we do. They work, play, socialize, fight, fall in love. You could talk to a piece of rolling stock and have a fully human conversation. They are people. However, the longer your conversation goes on for, you may notice certain...oddities. Gaps in their knowledge, speaking in rhythmic sentences, constant repetitive movement. Someone copied humans and didn't do the most perfect job. Like looking at human culture through a lens. Many a train has pondered the simultaneous existence of being machine and being alive.

Physical incarnation of industrialism - Now this, is the origin of all of this. The humans did not create trains to be the way they are. Every piece of rolling stock is designed as they would be in the real world: vehicles to transport people and goods from one place to the next. No one designed Greaseball's slicked back hair or big, studded belt, they designed an EMD E7 built for pulling fast passenger trains. My point is, at the advent of industrialism as we know it, the trains manifested their secondary configurations themselves. They are the offspring of humanity, sired by ingenuity and innovation and birthed from the overturned earth of the Industrial Revolution. No one knows how or why, they just are.

So, in summary, they're sort of robots? Sort of a power of the mind situation? Sort of my own self-reflection on the nature of being alive?

Bonus facts!

Indeed, they do not feel pain. In fact, much of their sense of touch in general is limited. It ranges from same sensitivity as human flesh (hands, face, wheels) to just registers contact (shoulder boxes, hip plating, couplers). I have a diagram of the exact distribution somewhere lol

They bleed? Kind of? If parts are pulled off or damaged, they sort of…leak. Also, if their fleshy bits are "injured", the wounds only heal when the actual machinery is repaired. Also also, if you remove a human part (arm, leg, head, etc.) it will turn back into a train part!

Their temperature resistance is notable too. Comfortable is between -10 F to well over 500 F. Anything above or below that, and they start to complain. Wooden rolling stock have a harder time than steel ones.

They're afraid of deep water and tornados.

In addition to their nails being painted in relevant colors (which I believe is a semi-popular headcanon already), their mouths are the same. Some more unnatural colors include, black, yellow, and blue!

Tall! Generally between 12 and 17 feet. Loosely correlates to their height in primary configuration. Some are the same height, some are taller, some are shorter. Really depends on personality. I contemplated once to have their heights be the length of their primary configurations, but that would result in some pretty awkward height differences and they would be too big for their loading gauge.

They always manifest as adults, or at the very least, late teenagers. They kind of age? Sometimes? Momma started out a bit middle aged, but Rusty has spent like 50+ years looking 25. Really depends on the person, workload, environment, etc.

[azure-za-raid]

We start our re-redesign with the most obvious choice of Jim Lake Jr.

Previous design, I had Jim as a human with his half troll form swapped to be a Superhybrid

Depicted below is casual wear and his in-universe version of the Daylight Armor

But now we move to a new design that incoperate the new additions and lore in my series

Jim’s human form remained mostly the same with a few changes to gear and the amulet being incoperate in a different way

In this universe, there is a special Artifact Weapon known as a Multi-Tool, a weapon capable of changing it form into any weapon the user desires. In its default state, it takes the form of the amulet.

Now as for his “troll” form. It has moved away from being a Superhybrid becoming an Anomalous Hybrid, a non-naturally occurring creature created when one is subjected to anomolous energy. It has the capacity to partial rewrite DNA. The partial part being it can result in a hybrid capable of shifting forms

As such with this version of Jim’s case

Something to add to this is I am considering additional images for these designs going beyond just a design sheet

Potentially redrawing screenshots from the show with these designs

Also also, possibly redesign a character that wasn’t in the original line-up (I did the Ninth Configuration, might choose to do someone outside of it)

[forsaken-headcanons]

OKAY OKAY SO yesterday I was playing forsaken randomly and I got on a talkative server. there was a bit of roleplay and all, I main the idiot skin 007n7 (mostly black and white, this is important) and because there were other 007n7 players, there was a bit where the other one said something like "my son" in a c00lkidd round and I replied with "wait. that's my son"

which then led to the c00lkidd calling me a fake and chasing me until I died :[. still importsnt

this led us to a bit where I avoided the killer like wildfire when some people were talking to them in c00lkidd rounds. and then this other survivor comes up to me like "wait. is monochrome 1x1 your son instead"

which then led to "oh damn this is a good lore idea"

so we made lore. infernal (that's the name right) 1x1 is enraged monochrome, and the rest of this is just me ranting because this has led to a lot of lore in my brain esp thinking about my headcanon that all the skins are in the same universe. much ranting below be warned

before 007n7 turned to hacking, probably late teens to early twenties in my lore, he and shedletsky were good friends. shed introduced him to a project he was working on - 1x1x1x1. as a fellow tech student, he both helped out, configuring it, building it, coding it. eventually, it was made.

monochrome 1x1 was the prototype. they released it to see how it would work, and it went loose. 007n7 tried to keep it maintained for several years, all the while trying to work and help shedletsky with the next prototype (he wasn't giving up on the project, he would rather die), he even modeled a party outfit for himself so he could matched, based off of a computer virus (idiot skin), but it was fruitless. one day, 1x1 angered the wrong people, and a hacker sent them far away.

shedletsky was mad. 007n7 had constantly said everything was fine, everything was under control, but now it clearly wasn't. he yelled at him for hours, on how 007 wanted everything to go wrong, and how he wasn't allowed to help with anything any more, or even speak to him, because he was just a worthless criminal, a hacker, who wanted the world to go to waste.

007 was left with no support system, no contact or friends. in, albeit a cliché, he turns to hacking. he has nowhere else to go. he has hit rock bottom but he's destroying all the drills - he refuses to go lower than he is. so he just turns to the only place he can to make his life any better. maybe he can hack up a few friends, who knows.

he kept the costume in his closet though. hoping 1x1's prototype would find its way back.

during some rounds, when monochrome or infernal 1x1 is the killer, it seethes. it asks 007 why he left it. and though 007 tries to explain, 1x1 denies it. it knows 007 was a hacker, despite not knowing when he started.

1x1 will kill him. every time, every round it can.

🌙🧭

Good lord. 1x has TWO horrible fathers. They just can't win.

[croded]

Hopefully Mostly Accurate Translation of the Link Click Art Book Interview with Director Li Haoling

thank you very much to @yingdu-lover for the initial post+tag and also the interview!!

I made a chinese transcript of the entire interview and goddamn it was 4 Google doc pages long 😭this is going to be a long post but let's go :)

Blue text=interviewer, white text=Director Li (small text=little translator notes. don't worry they won't pop up too often :))

About the production team and production process

Q1. The main production team of Link Click is an internationalised lineup, can you introduce the members of the team and their usual responsibilities to the readers?

---About Link Click's main production team's structure, I am the screenwriter and director, the executive director is (Zhang) Yuxia, his position is equivalent to the assistant director. Our work distribution is I mainly work on content creation and overall control; he leans more towards communicating, interacting and executing the created content. The members in the country (China) also include Studio LAN, who have overall control of the production process. Their work includes Chief Producer, original design, mid-term character modeling et cetera. Besides, there are also our colleagues in the Japanese branch taking part in and leading the post-production work.

As for the pre-production process of the show, INPLICK-laoshi* from Korea was in charge of the character design. She is a very well-known illustrator. On the art aspect, since we have previous cooperation experience with Shinkai Makoto-laoshi's* team, the process was quite enjoyable, and we established a long-term cooperation relationship, so this time we also invited Tanji Takumi-laoshi* to help with the art supervision and design; whereas Tenmon-laoshi* is in charge of the music. This is roughly our team configuration.

*In the original interview, Director Li added -老师 to the ends of the names of these other creators. Much like Japanese's sensei, this is used as an honorific, used to indicate respect. I don't think there's an English equivalent for these honorifics, so I kept them in rough Pinyin 🥹 I'll keep it like this for the rest of the translation too

Just now you said the assistant director was Yuxia-laoshi, is this the same person as Yu Xia from episode 2, "Secret Recipe"?

Correct. Actually there are a lot of character names in the show that are the same as our friends at work. But in the real world, Lin Zhen and Yu Xia are two guys. They're college classmates.

*Director Li says 工作里的小伙伴 in the part that says "friends at work", and 小伙伴 directly translates to "little partner", so it's like a bit cuter? lol :') also noodle lesbian name lore?!?!

Q2. Sounds like the team atmosphere is quite relaxed, can you further introduce how the usual work atmosphere is? And how is the state/condition when communicating with overseas teams?

---Because Link Click is an original donghua, so there is a higher freedom in the creating process. Like the part with using the names of work friends as character names, I also think it is more relaxed this way, and more meaningful. As for communicating with overseas teams, because we have a greater experience in cooperating with overseas teams, the process is quite smooth. For example, we have had several indirect cooperations with Tanji-laoshi from the Shinkai Makoto team. At the time, we mentioned that we wanted to do some new challenges and content, and they were willing to take part in it, they also thought it was something new and were very interested. The more novel it is, the more enthusiasm they have to give it a try.

Q3. Going back to Link Click, what was your (Director Li's) original intent during the creation of Link Click?

---At first it was because I saw a photo one time, that time I thought the people in the photo were particularly happy, but the person looking at the photo was not that happy. At that time I felt that photos were quite a unique thing, through a piece of paper, it connects two different worlds, different states of yourself. Because of this feeling, I got the idea of using photos as a base for a story's script, and then from there, I thought about if I could go back to a certain scene or time in a photo, what kind of feeling would I have. I took the thoughts I had while trying to figure out this kind of feeling and expanded them further, and it slowly formed into Link Click's overall story.

Q4. The impression that photos give us is mostly warm, so how come you thought of using a theme that carried some suspense to fill in each episodic story?

---If we're talking about only setting an ability that can enter photos, I imagine there definitely isn't a shortage of similar themes, so I wanted to include an even more interesting setting.

Take the point of entering a photo to change the past and save the future for example, there are actually many ways to travel through. When setting the plot, my first thought was to separate/disassemble this ability. The more imperfect the ability, the more it can create changes and plot conflicts. Like how we see that even though Cheng Xiaoshi can enter photos, but he doesn't know what will happen in the photo, so him inside the photo will become an unstable factor; whereas Lu Guang is outside the photo, he can see what is about to happen in the photo, but he has no way of completely controlling Cheng Xiaoshi's actions. Both of their abilities are imperfect, so they must cooperate to sufficiently utilize each other's effect. I expanded the later plot based on this point.

Additionally, about returning to the last through photos, that itself already carries many elements of suspense. Everyone probably has had this experience before: you're all smiling when the photo is taken, but the you at the time might not actually feel like smiling, deep inside. In that photo, everyone looks very happy on the surface, but maybe there are different thoughts in everyone's hearts. It's actually quite interesting. To me, this is also a kind of suspense - what's the real meaning behind the photo?

So a conflict between appearances and the inside?

That's right. What's truly beneath those appearances, the process to unearth this in itself will carry suspense, I suppose this is also a main point that I abided by when I designed the story to go towards suspense. This is one of the reasons. Another point is that there are very few donghuas in the country (China) that use a suspense theme, I wanted to try to break through, and do a fresh theme.

Q5. Link Click is in the form of an episodic show, with every episode having a different story, what is your original intent when picking stories? What is your starting point?

---Some stories were already thought out, but actually every story was not "picked out", but instead expanded from several angles. For example, the story of "Farewell" (s1e5 T_T) first had a narrative inspiration: everyone says going back to the past is to change the future, but if you went back to the past and made changes, only to find out in the end that nothing had changed in the future after all? I will assume this situation: it changed, and yet it didn't. As long as there is this hypothetical, there will be a lot of plot conflicts. The emotional level will also be very high. I think this is a plot core for having something interesting happening, and the story "Farewell" sprouted from this point.

Let's take another example of the special episode, "Marrying by Contesting". It originated from a story I read before. At that time there was a news report, saying that in a certain place, a girl was banned from something by her family*** and gave up her whole life. After reading, it left a deep impression on me, something like this actually happened, so I used it as a main theme to create. And the episode about kidnapping, "Aunt May" as well, I hope that through this donghua I can not only show entertaining content, but also embody some social value.

***GUYS IM SO SORRY for this part, the word was NOT eligible in the picture of the interview log 😭the closest (and only) thing I could think of when I saw that blob of pixels was the word 锠, but the phrase 禁锠 had no meaning. I looked it up. Nothing. 禁 means ban, so the general meaning of the sentence is that the girl's family banned her from something and she gave up on her life. I don't know what they banned her from 😭 so sorry once again

Q6. From the OP and ED, we can see that Link Click's art style is quite intense, how did you think of using this kind of style to make a donghua?

---About the style of the OP and the ED, the earliest intention was to create a sense of trendiness. I invited many teams to work together with, like INPLICK-laoshi, her art style can give people the impression of trendiness. Aside from characterization, the backgrounds were also considered to be stylised a bit, and not just done in a realistic style, because a realistic style will make it look heavy and serious. I hope that the backgrounds can be made to have more personality, more tactile, with a more artistic effect, so I discussed it with Tanji-laoshi and the artistic design done with this target in mind had a stronger drawing sense.

Q7. In the episode "Marrying by Contesting", a quote by Edward Weston appeared, and we understand by communicating with the team that there is a quote in the beginning of every episode, what is the purpose of this setting?

---Because we're making a theme based on photos, so I hoped to take the quotes of world-famous photographers and pick appropriate quotes for each episode, it's mainly an expression of form.

When I saw that line I felt quite moved, I was touched.

Yes, we had this intention. The intentions of animators making animations are the same, people who like the content often have this kind of empathy, we all hope to unearth the differentness of the world through our content. Just like how war photographers are willing to give their lives to document reality, to be able to capture that moment in time with your own life, that spirit is quite a great thing.

Q8. We heard that the donghua had been accepting fans' commissions since it began airing, and the donghua also showed everyone's submissions and story collections, like the Time Photo Studio really exists, can you talk about the purpose of this setting?

---This was the first thing we thought of. We could really open a Time Photo Studio and find real-life stories, restore them, help people complete their commissions. I think this is rather romantic. We have also been doing this continuously, collecting everyone's stories, be it in the mini-theatre series (it's The Daily Life in Lightime chibi series!) or in the later plot, we'll show them in future parts. The saying of "breaking the fourth wall" might be a little cliché, but it does indeed have the feeling of breaking "the fourth wall".

About the characters and the setting

Q9. This question may have been asked quite a few times on other occasions, how did you (Director Li) decide on using a double male protagonist setting like with Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang?

---As I mentioned earlier, I wanted the powers of the protagonists to be imperfect. The abilities must be split into two halves and be distributed to two separate people. This is the first point. Secondly, we had discussed at the time, if it were a male-and-female setting, putting the two characters together will have one problem: should we give them a romantic storyline or not? Later on we found that this problem was too complicated/troublesome, and couldn't be resolved well no matter how we tried to do it, and there were things to consider in every aspect of the matter. So in the end, we ended up with the double male protagonist setting that we have now.

Regarding Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang's personalities, I mentioned it earlier as well: Cheng Xiaoshi is an unstable factor, since he can enter the photos but doesn't know what will happen next, whereas Lu Guang is a stable factor. The two of them must partner up and complement each other, then only can they utilize their abilities perfectly.

Q10. About this female character Qiao Ling, how did you (Director Li) adjust the character relationship between them and the interaction atmosphere?

---The audience has always cared a lot about Qiao Ling. Although she doesn't get much screen time, her existence is still very important. To express the kinship* between two boys, this isn't much of a problem, but to make these two boys open their hearts to each other is not as easy. I want to set a link that allows there to be emotional communication between the boys, such as Lu Guang wanting to know how Cheng Xiaoshi sees "me" (Lu Guang), Cheng Xiaoshi wants to know how Lu Guang sees "me" (Cheng Xiaoshi), how is Cheng Xiaoshi's thoughts towards "me" (Lu Guang), how is Lu Guang's thoughts towards "me" (Cheng Xiaoshi), all these thoughts can be converted and conveyed through Qiao Ling.

*(sorry in advance for the long tl note) this "kinship" might be more of a "tacit understanding", which is 默契 in Chinese. I don't think there's an English equivalent that sounds as good, so basically 默契is where people work together so well they don't even need to talk to each other to do something together. Think something like maybe you and your best friend turn around to high five each other at the same time without looking, or when you do the same action (e.g. tilting your head a certain way, saying something, closing a book etc.) at the exact same time in the exact same way. That's 默契 :) in cxs and lg terms, it's them passing the ball around to each other flawlessly and dogwalking the rest of the court without even really looking at each other or communicating verbally. They just do, and they work together seamlessly without even trying. 默契 babyy

Is it equivalent to Qiao Ling between them balancing their views towards each other, balancing the relationship between the two of them?

It isn't balancing their relationship, but rather she is a path for their communication. The communication I mean is core communication between hearts.

Is it the more sentimental/emotional part?

Yes, for example episode 10, where Cheng Xiaoshi possessed Xu Shanshan and listened to Qiao Ling talk about how Lu Guang saw him at the time. This kind of trope can only be conveyed and converted very well through her.

Q11. Among all the characters, who do you (Director Li) like the most?

---This is like asking which of your children is your favourite, it's kind of difficult to choose. You ask which one I like, I can only say I like them all; but saying I like them all, this answer seems kind of boring. I'll be honest, I still like them all, they each have their special characteristics.

Then let's talk about the points of the three main characters that shine/stand out.

Cheng Xiaoshi is righteous, and he's very genuine. He's a very naïve person, and naivety is commendable. In the current society, naivety is becoming increasingly scarce.

Lu Guang is calm, knowledgeable, and very smart and mysterious. He's a rather perfect male image.

Qiao Ling cannot simply be said to just be a "girl next door", instead she has more of a big sister image, and can hold the trio. While she has a rational, strong side, she also has a very soft side, the future plots will also bring out these virtues of hers.

Q13. You (Director Li) seem to have a soft spot for the word "light"(光), what meaning does the word "light" represent? Outside of the donghua, what does this "light" repose?

---"Light" is a symbolic hope, or maybe energy, giving people an uplifting feeling. Personally as a practitioner of animation, the reason I chose such a difficult job was because this job could bring people some direction and light. I also think I'm a little delusional* when it comes to this aspect, the people watching animations usually aren't very old, planting a little bit of light in the hearts of children, I think this is the lovable part of animation and the value of its existence. So at the time I kept bringing up "light", including many characters' names have something to do with light, the theme is also related to light, it all comes from this kind of thoughts.

*he says 中二. which is basically chuuni, for chuunibyou (中二病) and is usually known as "delusional disease" or "8th grade syndrome" but the gist of it (though I think yall know what chuunibyou is 😭) is that he's calling himself delusional here lmaoo

Q13. During the process of creating Link Click, what were the parts where you felt the happiest?

---The happiest part is still the good overall creating atmosphere. The creation of Link Click began in 2019, at that time I had the rare chance of creating without much concern, purely creating for the sake of creating. So Link Click getting everyone's approval in the end is partially because that time the conditions for creating were good.

Q14. Can you reveal some details about Season 2, some details that everyone wants to know.

---Season 2 is mainly suspense. The storyline of pursuing the culprit was a very large tension/cliffhanger in Season 1, Season 2 will definitely go through this tension/cliffhanger till the end. I saw a lot of viewers wish to keep some things from Season 1, such as the episodic stories, and some portrayals of real-life stories. So I'm also thinking of a way to satisfy the condition of Season 2 being suspenseful and following a main storyline while also adding these elements into it.

Will it be more angsty* than season 1?

As the audience, are your expectations wishing for it to be "angsty*" or not "angsty*"?

It's hard to say, this mentality is quite dilemmatic.

Personally, I think a lot of Season 1's content was real-life things, so its "angst*" is an "angst that hits close to home*", akin to the regrets in real life. But in Season 2, since it has a storyline of pursuing the culprit, so some parts with emotional concentration will be different from Season 1, the feeling of "angst that hits close to home*" will be weaker.

*(hoo boy this will be a long one) so the words they are using here are Chinese internet language/slang: 刀, which means knife/blade, is used to mean something that makes your heart hurt when you read it. Yknow, like cxs dying! Chen Bin falling! Chen Bin's wife walking down the funeral hall in her wedding dress! S1e5 in general! That kinda stuff. That's 刀. It makes you cry, it makes you hurt, it makes you sad. So I ended up using "angst" with the definition of the fanfic term here since that was the closest thing with that meaning. With the "angst that hits close to home" part, he used "贴肉刀" which directly translates to "knife that sticks to meat" and like... basically it's blade that cuts you deep (emotionally) because it's something you've experienced? something like that? the closest thing I could think of was "hits close to home" :') sorry this particular section is so confusing. its like 50% chinese slang

Q15. One last question, say something to the readers that are eagerly awaiting Season 2, increase the anticipation.

---Just like the creating process I mentioned earlier, I wish to be able to tell a beautiful story in a quiet, peaceful condition. I also hope the viewers can be more calm when treating/regarding this work, whether everyone likes it or dislikes it, I accept it all, but sometimes the feelings of the audience becomes a form of pressure on the work. The original intent of this work was to present it in a quiet, good condition, so I still hope that in the future, everyone can maintain a level head towards Link Click.

Thank you, Director Li. Thanks for all your hard work.

-interview end-

that's the end of this VERY long post! :'D translating is kinda fun ngl

I tried my best to keep it as accurate as possible, forgive me if there are any mistakes :') (especially the "girl was banned from something by her family" one... ooh. I am on my knees apologising for that one I am cringing at myself)

and also sorry for the longass translator notes in the middle of some segments... I hope it didn't disrupt your reading too much 🥹

[murderenjoyer]

Imo if an rpg has a definitive min-maxing optimal build (between race, class, stat distribution), it is a poorly designed rpg.

Every race should have distinct, useful traits or strengths. Every class should be quality in its own unique way and handle its own particular niche. Every stat configuration should lend itself to combat/gameplay style.

If you can consult a guide that instructs you step-by-step what class to choose, what race to choose, and what stats to distribute at what specific level to create the inarguably best build, the devs have failed to make a truly engaging and flexable gameplay system.

Someone once asked on r/dos2 what the #1 optimal min-maxing configuration was. Everyone replied that it doesn't exist. Every configuration has positive and negative aspects to account for during gameplay, so just choose what seems cool.

This person argued that that's nonsense, every game has an optimal build. That it is impossible not to. They got downvoted into the pits of hell lmao and everyone kept trying to explain to them that dos2 is such a tightly designed game that such an oversight simply does not exist.

There is no One Best Class, there is no One Best Race, there is no One Best Stat Distribution, there is no One Best Party Configuration. Everything has positives and negatives to account for.

I feel like that guy played a lot of bad/old rpgs in his time. And more than likely a lot of them were mmos.

Before bg3, basically any list of "best crpgs" had dos2 sitting at #1, and it was there for a reason. Larian fucking tore it up designing that game.

Which race to choose? Humans are economical, lizards are persuasive, elves provide otherwise inaccessable lore, idk what dwarves do I never play one lol, undead change up gameplay fundamentally. And that doesn't account for storytelling aspects.

Which class? All of them have their own strengths. Elementalists are squishy as fuck but they dominate surface effect control (extremely important in this game) and mass damage/crowd control. Rogues are also squishy and do pretty low damage, but their single-target debuffs are lethal. Summoners can't do a lot on their own but once you hit summoning level 10 (especially if you have gear to push it even higher) your summoned creature can carry entire combat scenarios solo. Inquisitors can absorb massive damage and they have superb crowd control. Necromancers can summon, debuff, and heal. Don't get me started on hybrid classes and skill synergies. And oh my lord if I talk about home-brew class creation I can be here all day.

Stat distrobution? Depends entirely on your gameplay style and personal preferences. Wanna get rich? Points into bartering, thievery, and loremaster. Not really a combat guy? Persuasion (you can literally tell the end-game boss to kick rocks and win the game without a single strike if you play it right). Want lore and puzzle hints, especially pertaining to the entirely optional side-plot around the squirrel/cat skeleton pair that follows you through the game? Petpal. Wanna hit stuff harder? Warfare. Tanking? Constitution. Crit-focused? Scoundrel. I could go on.

Always get Morning Person tho lmfao it'll save your sorry hide early game.

Which party members? Because all of their classes can be changed without any interruption to narrative flow and cohesion (unlike bg3, which I've posted about in the past), its simply who seems the most interesting. You have a little chat in the starting zone, they give you a quick taste of their basic story and personality, and you simply pick whoever seems the most interesting.

I forgot where I was going with this post ngl. Something something Larian are masters of rpg game design. Dos2 is a masterpiece. Bg3 is a glorified dos3 with a dnd coat of paint. I want to give Larian 80 billion dollars simply out of appreciation for their craft. I'm waiting with bated breath for dos3 proper.