#HK Pop

[tranquildr3ams]

Music Obsessions - October 2023

Music Obsessions - October 2023 #Cantopop #HK #Music #KellyChen

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions. Continuing on the Cantopop journey, this month we’re looking at Kelly Chen Wai-Lam who had been referred to as the “Diva of Asia”. While the past decade or so, she has shifted her focus to her family, she is still a worthy singer to talk about. While her start was in 1995, it took a couple of years to establish herself as a popular singer in East Asia and…

[yurious-george]

For those of you who don’t know anything about Hollow Knight or its upcoming sequel, Silksong, there is some drama of astronomical potential that is going to be hilarious to see how it shakes out.

Three things. First, as you may already know, Hollow Knight is one of those hardcore games that attracts a certain type of cishet “gamer guy”: I’m sure you know the type. They can be more or less overtly bigoted, but either way, they’re all kind of That Guy. Second, Princess Hornet is one of the major characters in Hollow Knight, and the player character in Silksong. Third, every character in the Hollow Knight world is a bug, and aren’t depicted as having sexually dysmorphic traits that humans have: there are no insects with tits in this game, despite being bipedal and anthropomorphic. (Despite that, Hornet is frequently drawn with tits anyway, because the aforementioned demographic is outrageously horny for her. This is important later.)

In Silksong, Hornet is strongly implied to have a rival/deuteragonist, Lace! Not much is known about Lace, except she’s described as sadistic and set up as Hornet’s rival. And gamer dudebros hate her.

Maybe not full on hate, but they don’t like her. “Too mean and dislikable,” if memory serves. If I had to guess, they’re subconsciously picking up on the subtext and being homophobic about it: Hornet is the waifu of many a gamer bro, and between the subtext and Lace’s implied importance in the narrative/sadism/independence/backhandedness, Lace does not have a lot of love in that half of the community.

(As for the other half of the community, the player character of Hollow Knight is canonically agender. There are two canon gay couples within the game, and while not required, completing their side quests is essential to 100%ing the game. Despite being a couple of Cishet Male Gamers themselves, the Hollow Knight team is gracefully supportive of the LGBT+ community, and much of the fan base is LGBTQ+!)

But back to Lace: Lace and her subtext. Lace has insane amounts of wedding and romantic subtext despite only having 2 trailers and a demo’s worth of content. Off the top of my head:

association with white & gold, particularly white roses

Lots of church imagery, especially an emphasis on ringing bells

Lace’s and Hornet’s VAs are both Japanese, and Lace is straight up wearing a Japanese wedding garment while dressed head to toe in white

Visual design and presentation wise, Lace is framed as an equal and opposite to Hornet. Lace is likely to play the rival-won-over role that Hornet had in Hollow Knight, to the point of leaving the arena the same way as Hornet when her first fight ends

Calls Hornet delicious when first introduced. Then says she likes her when Hornet tells her to fuck off

Strongly implied to have saved Hornet in the opening trailer

And, last but certainly not least: the original Silksong announcement, with Lace’s introduction, came out on February 14th.

And that’s just off the top of my head!

I don’t want to get my hopes up, much less expect anything and get disappointed, but in my heart I am hoping gamer bros take the BIGGEST L when Silksong comes out. I hope Lace is complex and engaging and still sadistic. I hope Lace is the Vriska of Silksong. I hope Lace and Hornet have so much subtext it’s practically text. I hope the good end is locked behind a lesbian wedding.

I don’t hope for that last one specifically, but just imagine. Go on, pair off the one character that cishet male fans go “hhhurngh… female character” and draw with massive balloon tits to the character they hate the most. Do it. I believe in you

But seriously: The main character of the most wishlisted game on Steam confirmed in a wlw relationship, effectively alienating half or more than half of the fan base. Hollow Knight: Silksong has the potential to be the funniest lesbian W in the universe and I cannot wait to see how it all goes down.

[primsheep]

Old silksong art from liek 2021?? Reposting tgem on tumblr bc I still think these r bangers

[sgt-roach]

tried to make my own gijinka for PV

[angeliccynthious]

Hornet and her mini-me clone of a child she spawned into existence (Hera) <3

[penguin-arts]

This knight sure is hollow

[banyun-gong]

許軼 (Rejena Simkhada) Day@Collar

[hallow-nest]

little hornet and pv for the soul

[tranquildr3ams]

Music Obsessions - September 2023

Music Obsessions - September 2023 #JoeyYung #Music #Cantopop #HKpop

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! After a long struggle in deciding who to pick in the Cantopop focus this year and going through a bunch of my faves, I decided to go with Joey Yung who has been pretty active in the Mainland China scene lately but still makes up a great part of my Cantopop days in my teens. Having made her debut in 1996 at fifteen after winning a singing contest, she…

[czaneavecg]

aw man I love this game so much

amazing PoP experience

[basilthymee]

everyone should be mean to him, just a bit.

[warlordfelwinter]

ok obviously you can tell from the one hit i do take that i have invicibility on but this is still One Hit Hornet which i am going to be proud of

[weheartstims]

Hornet from Hollow Knight with clay cracking stims would be wonderful, thank you!

Hornet (Hollow Knight) with clay cracking!

🔴|🔲|🔴 🔲|🔴|🔲 🔴|🔲|🔴

[beautifulabsurdities]

subconsciousness. 🩻

[tundraplateau]

The thing about Godseeker x Grimm is that despite not feeling like a rare pair, it is absolutely a rare pair.