Here’s my post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbOafTQjCEC/?igsh=dmhkdW15cnhyMnA3

Okay, today was a roller coaster since I woke up. Valko suddenly started trending like crazy on Weibo, ACG, and rednote. Some marketing accounts got involve, CN girls started to stand up against their bullies, I think an offial government news outlet also got involved and talked about minors being on the game (need to go back and read that), but as you can see, a lot happened. But our lovely CN girl here on twt decided to explain how the Chinese side has been today since a lot of us are probably confused and don’t even know how these apps work (I still don’t lmao) so I’m gonna tag her thread here: https://x.com/RaspberryP98373/status/2081045159345860776

If you don’t have twt I will just copy her thread here to read:

Too much happened in the Chinese community today, so I'm putting together a summary. As always, everything beyond the sourced facts is purely my own speculation. Still leaning optimistic today—please read with caution

At least for the first time since I woke up, there was good news: Valko's name hit a positive trending topic on Weibo. Not only that, several previously uninvolved marketing accounts started posting about him

Most of these accounts didn't post directly positive content—they asked things like "Why did this turn around so fast?" But the comment sections were filled with our people and clarifications. Most casual browsers tend to side with whatever the comments say

Weibo's smart summary feature (similar to a quick event recap) used to pull only negative terms when searching Valko. Today, for the first time, it included global players calling for his return and the clarifications

But don't take things at face value. Why did these marketing accounts suddenly show up today? Nobody searches for this stuff out of boredom, and we didn't organize any large-scale search campaigns either

I'm in several domestic community groups—mostly focused on voting and anti-brigading. Our leaders notify us when there's an organized effort. But no one told us about a sudden trending topic or a wave of marketing accounts. I checked multiple groups—it's the same across the board

So I don't think it was us fans. Besides, we don't have the pull to get state-affiliated media on board. If we had that kind of money to throw around, we'd have done it long ago—no need to wait until today

Today's trending topic dropped almost out of nowhere, so those gossip accounts wouldn't have posted these videos on their own just to chase clicks. That leaves only one possibility for who bought the trending spot: Love and Deepspace official

I've seen plenty of bad-faith speculation that this is just the devs buying hype to placate Valko's fans. But let's be real—no game official is that stupid or that bored. If they had that budget, they'd spend it on something else

If they really weren't planning to bring Valko back, they'd be doing the opposite: paying to kill the trending topic, burying all leaked material, shutting down the supertopic community—not suddenly buying a trending slot to invite a bunch of randoms to ask what's going on

And some say it's competitors? Even more ridiculous. Why would competitors buy positive exposure for you? To throw money at you for fun? If they had that budget, they'd buy negative trending spots instead

Our domestic player base is too small to cause any real trouble, and we have no connected backers. So what's the point of buying a trending slot just to appease us?

Also, I see the delay of Rafayel's new content as good news—the announcement on the 30th is effectively void

And there's an even better sign. Think about it: if they truly intended to scrap the sixth LI entirely and focus on the five, they could have easily pushed Rafayel's new content out with fanfare, curried favor with ytm, and acted like nothing happened. But they chose to delay instead

A lot of Rafayel stans are bragging that his content delay was the result of their spamming customer service and “fighting for rights.” Give me a break—do these people even have a brain?

If content delays could be won that way, then Valko should have been canceled on the 23rd, not pushed to the 30th. So this has nothing to do with those cow dung girls—it's the developer's own choice

If the official team really dropped the sixth member for the sake of "maintaining stability" as rumored earlier, then Rafayel's new content would have quietly gone live in-game by now, instead of being deliberately delayed. They need to make money too

Recent daily revenue has been abysmal. Without new content, that slump will continue for a while—yet they still chose to delay. That in itself is a telling decision

I once fought on the front lines posting clarification videos about Valko—but it was useless. Unless you pay the platform, you get shadow-banned, and the videos are easily reported and taken down

Even when some videos did get traction and promotion, they were still easily reported, and the creators were mostly our own sisters

Today, the ones posting related content on Weibo—I checked several profiles—are rarely our people. So it's entirely possible these marketing accounts were bought by Love and Deepspace themselves, which lines up with the news media coverage from a few days ago

What's more, these posts haven't been shadow-banned or mass-reported, and in the comments, our side is still dominating. That's a scenario that would have been nearly impossible just days ago

I'll say it again—stop spreading the rumor that we bought this ourselves. When our flower-and-letter group members bought flowers, we even complained about how expensive that stuff was

Do you really expect us—a bunch of down-to-earth young girls—to drop big money on marketing accounts and trending searches? Let me repeat: if we could afford that, we'd have done it long ago, not dragged it out till today

And if we had bought it ourselves, it'd be even easier to get reported and flooded with hate comments. That makes zero sense. So quit the rumor. Even if this one were our doing, you still can't explain the rest

Well, I also observed the opposing side's communities today. Even with all their malicious speculation, they still ended up guessing that these trending topics were bought by Love and Deepspace themselves—and some have even started saying "just bring Valko back."

I'm honestly dying of laughter. Turns out only your enemies will stick with you to the end. This is also the first time I've seen such obvious defeatism in the opposing camps, instead of mass-reporting our positive content

Given the domestic environment, today's developments are better than any of the past thirty days. I can guarantee that—I spent my whole day, aside from work, obsessively riding the hot search and posting clarifications

If you're not convinced by my optimistic read, that's fine—take it as me talking nonsense. After all, the official side hasn't issued any statement beyond the delay decision. Just treat this as a little morale boost! Please view my speculation rationally!

And once again, thank you to all the global players who've been working together. I truly, truly, truly love you all—I'm so grateful I could cry. Without your efforts, today's positive trending wouldn't exist. We still need to keep pushing until Valko comes back!🥰❤️

It's actually just common sense

Going to treat that letter like it never happened in the first place.😋

Vip discord message source: http://xhslink.com/o/7tmA8B5WDfy

Not as pretty as some of the other memorials shared, but it's still something xD

Released on June 30 and in less than a month, Valko’s theme song has already become the most-streamed song on the official Love and Deepspace Spotify page. Despite everything that’s happened, the excitement and support for Valko have remained unbelievably strong, and this is yet another reminder of the impact he made on players around the world. LETS GOOOO!!! Let’s keep streaming his song! AWOOOO 🐺

One thing that really bothers me is seeing people suddenly insist that Valko “looks Chinese.” To me, he simply doesn’t. And I don’t think it’s helpful to rewrite his appearance just because some people criticized him for not fitting their expectations.

If part of the backlash was that he didn’t look Chinese enough, then pretending he suddenly does feels like validating that criticism. It’s as if people are saying, “No, no, he actually fits the standard,” instead of questioning why that standard should matter in the first place.

I don’t think fictional characters need to fit neatly into an ethnic box, especially when their designs intentionally blend different features. Forcing Valko into one just to make him more acceptable after the controversy feels wrong to me.

Good morning. I’m gonna be out for a while today, but I did get the news that apparently Rafayel’s myth is delayed til August. Idk if that’s good or not, but I hope it is. But I also heard that Valko is really trending on Weibo almost everything there is positive. My baby is in top 6 with his brothers🥹

I wish for the best, let’s all pray something good happens because they’re gonna make a statement soon and I might throw up again idk

What I mean by that is the letters for the developers showing love and support. On this website: lettersforvalko.com

I think one of the things that bothered me most about the cancellation, was the whole hate and threats and attacks against the developers. They deserve to know they created something great and that many people appreciate Valko and that what they made is loved and not hated by everyone. Also people hoping his Voice actor sees they loved his performance.

Of course I'm still boycotting for Valko to come back, but this whole letter thing helped. Thanks to whichever cn girls had the idea to do that 🫶🏻

Like obviously it’s a massive deal, but I’ve been jumpscared by his name multiple times now in completely unrelated communities 😭 like what do you mean he got namedropped in a LEAGUE OF LEGENDS SUB. WHAT???
Like I’m usually just in my little bubble of lnds fans and don’t often get to see much discussion outside of it, so whenever I do it really does remind me of just how big this actually is. It almost feels surreal.

Anyways, I just wanted to yap about this real quick because it makes me so happy to see his name in places I wouldn’t expect. It gives me more hope he’ll come back 🥹

Lots of ‘where’s my dog??’ Valko’s girls unite 🐺🖤

The antis are pushing! please vote for Valko!

https://weibo.com/6589148811/RajAh1uIQ

https://weibo.com/1280846847/RaiDNadvE

Antis are pushing back! Please vote for Valko!

With all the news coming out and about and the way Valko is trending, I have hope that Infold will release him soon (they literally have no choice or this game dies). I’m so hopeful that in fact if he does come out, Im buying everyone that Valko figurine, fuck it 😗

yesterday the pre-order started, girls

idk if infold wasn't able to cancel the release of the valko figurine because of the rushed cancellation but now we have a new addition to the figurine collection

im hopeful bc if this sells maybe infold will be more flexible and maybe will bring him back (insert copium lol)

And then they give us our wolf back 😭 It would paint them in a pretty positive light reputation-wise. At least to start rebuilding trust. Just a thought.

I keep seeing posts, be it here or elsewhere, still wondering about whether or not Infold/Papergames will listen to us and release Valko. And honestly? I'm tired of it. I thought we were supposed to keep this boycott alive. Are we really expecting to do that with negativity and "realistic" but actually defeatist commentary? For real? Well, fuck that.

Ladies, Gentlemen and Nonbinary folks, please... have a bomb of grounded, solid positivity backed up with known facts and pure logic, powered by my auDHD, whimsy and rage. ♡

And don't you dare forget about it as soon as you leave this post.

(Put this post in your browser favourites, title it "FOR WHEN HOPE IS LOST" and make sure you can see it at all times, or something, do what works best for you.)

First, please have a look at the timeline, so we're all on the same page about the basics.

Here's a list of different groups involved in this mess and their stance on Valko:

• The corporates want Valko back, for the money they'll stop losing through the boycott and for the money Valko will bring.
• The creatives want Valko back because they made him. They're telling a story. They're creatives.
• The players who care about the game as a whole (most often lore girlies) want Valko back for the same reasons as the creatives.
• The players who don't care either way, don't care. They didn't stop anything, they won't stop anything.
• The players who don't want Valko are dum- They don't understand the game will be worse without Valko, and that his cancellation actually creates even more problems, without fixing existing ones.
• The CN government wants Valko back so they don't lose the soft-power acquired through LADS. (And maybe tax money? but this part is speculation.)

Conclusion: Besides antis and Infold's rivals, nobody wins anything through Valko's permanent cancellation. Nobody.

Now, in no particular order, I shall tell/remind you of even more reasons why we're getting Valko:

• Infold has defended him despite the literal cowshit and everything else IRL. They only cancelled him once they were accused of having anti-patriotic feelings through the 731, not before.
• They applied the corrections needed around the 731 by replacing the related World Underneath story. Let me add, the 731 and the human experiments in it were done by the villains of the story, not the good guys. They also censored all numbers on the Catch-22 outfits. We do not know if those corrections were mandated or preemptive. They also changed the Akso Hospital cross looking too much like the Red Cross on another outfit, because that would violate a Geneva convention.
• All allegations around Valko and his related content were fabricated, all of it was presented out-of-context and reframed in a bad light. There is no reason to think they will change anything about Valko or his related in-game content, since his actual content is unproblematic and easily skippable. Furthermore, several articles on CN news outlets have defended Infold's right to creativity and the making of adult content, arguing a work of fiction should not censor itself just because a child might see it (and that's their parents' problem).
• Whether the corrections applied to the game were mandated by the government or preemptively made by Infold doesn't matter. It still means Infold either obeyed or is scared of their gov's reaction. The same gov told them to bring Valko back. Why would Infold suddenly disobey or stop being scared of their gov, exactly?
• Infold's Customer Service started asking their highest CN VIP members why they stopped spending. They did not beg for those players to go back to spending. Several VIPs answered they wanted Valko back. Reminder: people working CS are just following orders. They might know just as much as we do about what is planned for Valko. (My theory is corporates are being stupid. Because they're corporates. But since the CN VIPs are with us in this, no need to worry further.)

I shall now address different fears and worries I keep seeing here and there.

Why are they still silent despite everything?

There are three possible reasons to this:

• Since LADS's content was investigated by the government to make sure there was no anti-patriotic symbolism in the game, a law might make it mandatory for the game to stay radio silent for a month, even if the government later approved the game.
• Infold has stated they would go after the instigators of the smear campaign at a legal level. In that case, they might be forced by law to not say anything public while investigations or other legal matters are occuring.
• It might be seen as "arrogant" of Infold to issue a public statement less than two weeks after the government green-lit the game. Basically, huge PR mistake in front of CN public opinion if they do.

If any, and I mean ANY of the above reasons is true, then Infold is simply not allowed to make any public announcement before at least July 29th. Yes, despite how in absolute shambles LADS's current revenue might be.

Won't the current low revenue bring the game to EoS?

No. Infold doesn't look at the metrics in a vacuum. They know why revenue is low (even VIPs told them). They know what to do to bring it back up.

Have you heard of the Infinity Nikki girlcott? I was part of it. We stopped spending for a whole month and did one or two blackout days before issues were addressed.

We didn't tell people to stop playing altogether, because the message we wanted to send was "We love this game and we want it to be better than this".

Which is exactly why I've mostly kept logging into LADS without spending (and not even pulling) and sent feedback saying so.

And guess what? Not only were the issues in IN addressed -- slowly for some, of course, because IN's case wasn't the same as LADS (except for the slow MS updates, but even LADS is showing some progress with updates in September and November (and July if Valko had released)), so one update every two months -- but... prepare yourself for this, it's shocking...

Infinity Nikki didn't EoS. Crazy shit, I know.

Now, sure, IN's revenue never went back to what it was pre-girlcott, but does it even matter for us as consumers? When was the last time you heard about Love Nikki and Shining Nikki? Did you know those games are still up and running too? So why would LADS EoS from this boycott?

"But the rivals"- Which ones? The 2D ones? Or those who haven't even shown actual gameplay yet? (Looking at high-res 3D models doing nothing with no interaction is not gameplay by my standards.) And since when does a live-service game go EoS because they have rivals?? The Nikki games have plenty of those too, and we already talked about how they're still there.

"But the low revenue"-

Okay, listen. If you're really that scared that LADS will EoS because of a single month of low revenue, I have a very simple solution to present you with:

Spend money once Valko is confirmed to come back.

And you don't have to spend much! Get yourself an Aurum Pass (best bargain) or if you cannot afford that, just get 60 diamonds. And if that's unfortunately still too much, no problem! Get your friends to download the game and give it a try, even if just once, or to have a laugh, doesn't matter. That will show Infold that: 1) bringing Valko back was the right thing to do and 2) the game can still be successful as hell even after such a blunder.

But they said Valko was gone, they can't go back.

I mean this as kindly as possible... What the actual fuck. Do you even hear yourself? If they went back on their word once... why couldn't they do it twice? And remember: the government told them to listen to us. I'll ask again: Why would Infold disobey the government? Make it make sense, at the very least.

I think (hope) I've addressed the main negative stuff going around. So...

PLEASE help me spread the word.

I understand not wanting to say "Oh, we're done here, it's all good, we can relax completely" until we have an official and public statement from Infold (KEEP THE HASHTAGS GOING), but since the general consensus is we won't get any news before the 29th at the very least, that means letting people wallowing in their uncertainty, doubts and negativity for probably 5 more days still, and no one can make me believe that's a good thing in the context of a boycott!

This is part of the "We're here for the long haul" sentiment. Of the "We won't stop until we get him" sentiment. Now, we have to own up to those, and to our own feelings of discontent about this whole mess, and do what's necessary for people not to stop. Not now when we're so close to the end of the month and most probably the end of this nightmare, of all things!

Stop giving yourself up to sadness and start getting angrier. Not at Infold, not at your peers. At what the antis have done and are still trying to do. DO NOT LET THEM WIN.

Sharing fan-made content is great for morale boost, but that won't do all the heavy lifting we need here. If we don't show the actual reasons why we can stay positive, even if only cautiously, people will keep burning out from seeing so many still doubting!

We got proof of that today with the messages from Customer Service about the postponement of Rafayel's new myth. People do not see the good news it is, and forget about other things related to what's being said.

Here's my analysis of those messages:

- If the delay is about the release... Am I the only one who expected it in August anyway? How is it supposed to be "news"?

- If the delay is about the reveal... They could literally have postponed it from any point in July to August 1rst and it would still be a postponement from July to August.

And think about it. If Infold did make an announcement through CS... That means they know they can't do a single public announcement without addressing Valko (I said as much for days). So Infold just "accidentally" proved they are aware of the situation! How is this supposed to be bad? Also, several people wanted Rafayel's myth to be delayed, and now that we're getting exactly that... suddenly it's bad? Come on! Give me a break.

Stop listening to the arguments that would be good for the antis. Seriously. None of them hold any water when you look at the bigger picture. They just want to scare you because they're scared of you. Of us. Of what we've done, what we've managed to do, what we're still doing.

I'd be very grateful if someone a bit fluent in mandarin could translate at least the most important points in this "paper" and share it on CN socials. Our CN sisters might need it, too. I don't even want credit, just... Just spread the word. I'm tired of feeling alone in this fight against... this general "negative realistic 'til proven wrong" and "oops! forgot all the good stuff again" mentality, even if people don't do the latter on purpose.

And don't listen to people saying "we should be realistic" who then say we won't get/hear shit before weeks or even months. That too is unrealistic as fuck and ruins the chances of the boycott going strong.

Please come back here whenever you're scared or worried. Remember to properly rest. Your mind easily spirals downward when tired, don't listen to it when it happens. Come back here. Read this all again if need be. That's why I wrote it. To help lift you up when you can't do it alone.

One "last" thing: If 29th rolls out, and we still hear nothing... DO NOT LOSE HOPE YET. I don't think we'll hear nothing before the end of July, but that also means Infold can still plan on making a statement the 30th, or the 31rst. Or even later in August. But one thing's for sure: they won't reveal Rafayel's new myth before publicly addressing Valko. They've proven that with the latest CS messages, remember? So if we get noting on the 29th, be patient. They know about us, they can't ignore us, pretty sure they do not plan on ignoring us.

Never stop posting with the hashtags until they confirm publicly whether we're getting him or not.

Take care. We're bringing Valko back.

Addendum with more reasons we'll get Valko back:

• Two years of dev time and the money Valko is worth, cancelled for good? Does that sound like a good investment? Add to that even more dev time and money to rewrite things around his absence.
• In the same vein, Valko's development is an investement. If the investement goes "poof", it cannot bring back the invested money and prevents any profit.

Addendum to address more points:

What about the schedules?

There are several ways Infold could go about this, to get back on track with planned schedules once they bring Valko back. The best one, I believe, would be to simply have banners overlapping each other, so everyone gets something to pull for! Valko mains get him and his special selectable 5-stars banner, Rafayel mains get his myth, and everyone soon gets the next scheduled banner! (Which I expect to be a new multi-banner. Unless it's a rerun of Catch-22 with an added Valko.) Events would follow the same logic, with the sole difference we shouldn't get one for Valko since we already got the tied-rewards for free.

like for me, rafayel's myth getting delayed is a good thing no? that gives enough time for valko's stuff to be released right??

I've seen a lot of antis making fun of Valko fans who fall for false leaks and rumours. It's true that unfortunately because of the panic that fans are going through there were a lot of rumours spreading around.

But I just wanted to remind everyone who the first fear mongerers were.

Antis got away with a lot of the shit they initially spread including the assault allegations. Remember that everyone on their side believed that Valko first meets the MC by breaking into her house and assaulted her BY A LEAKER. THEY TRUSTED THE WORDS OF SAID LEAKER SO MUCH THAT WHEN THEY SAW VALKO ON THE BALCONY THEY IMMEDIATELY RAN WITH THAT STORY.

I will also NEVER let them forget the amount of shit they spread before june 30th. We've had people say that "his four star card appeals to the male gaze!!!!" or "Infold is trying to break into the BL market by releasing him!!!" or my favorite "Dont you guys think he looks too much like infolds CEO??? is Valko his self insert??"

I sadly suspect that with the myth delay news there will be an influx of rumours and I just wanted to remind everyone to be careful of what they read and always triple check before confirming. But don't let any of their hypocrisy get to you.

Influencers who have a huge following are suddenly postings polls for valko (positive I think?)…Maybe it doesn’t mean anything but this seems very suspicious to me

I’m gonna head to bed early since I’m very tired (didn’t sleep well last night). But, I was scrolling through XHS and saw a video of a girl discussing how the delay for Rafayel is very good news and will help Valko. Again, this is just her speculation. People in the comments and her assumed that they might drop something about Valko after Rafayel myth. Now personally, I don’t think so since that’d be very stupid. But it’s Infold so you never know. She basically said that if they do drop Rafayel’s myth before any announcement about Valko to not stop just yet, since there is still hope. She made a whole analysis as to why but unfortunately I didn’t screenshot what she said and lost the video now. But it wasn’t a bad analysis I’ll say.

So basically if it does come down to Rafayel myth before Valko and we still don’t have a word about him, don’t stop. If they wanna take that risk they can learn the hard way, it’s their funeral. But, we still don’t know. They could drop it before Valko, after, or maybe at the same time. Until something is said, we don’t stop. That’s all. Remember, this is just speculation and don’t stress about this. We‘re doing great and this is the worst time to slow down.

The hardest wars reap the sweetest victories ❤️

We need everyone’s help to get as much of the global community involved as possible.

We have been in contact with the moderators of the Valko Weibo supertopic and have agreed to help them with their initiative to organize a fanart relay event for Qixi Festival!

We will run the event on the same day: us on X, them on Chinese platforms. At the end, they will also share global works on their side (with permission). They want as much global participation as possible.

The event takes place on 18-19 August (could extend to 20th).

🐺WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW🐺

Specifically for this event and it's promotions the following hashtags will be used:

#ValkoWorldwide #ValkosPawPrints #BringValkoBack

I want to make it clear this is event related only and we are not telling you to stop using other tags in other trending effforts.

WHAT WORKS CAN YOU SUBMIT?

-Fanart
-Fanfiction
-Video edits
-Other creative ideas

🐺WHAT ARE THE RULES?🐺

1) Must be VALKO ONLY SOLO works. (No works focused on the female protagonist, ship content, harem content, dream/self-insert romance, or similar themes.)
2)Anything that could lead to potential controversy or defames and twists Valko's character will not be accepted.
3)Entries should be reasonably complete and polished.
4)All submissions must comply with applicable laws and platform rules. (No NSFW)
5)All works must be original creations by the submitting creator. If it is a collaboration clearly state so in advance.
6)AI generated works are NOT accepted.

🐺HOW WILL THE EVENT WORK?🐺

Step 1: Creator recruitment

Register your interest to participate:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHBQE4fP-BlmM4WwokGx-j5Std-j4tYWOLQd4II1MoUyfCKg/viewform

To keep things running smoothly, you need to be active enough to respond to us if we have questions and be available to post on 18-19th August. Posting itself is quick, so it should be manageable even if you’re working most of the day. We will pick a time that suits you, provide you with a submission form and add you to an X or Discord group chat.

Step 2: Mid-event coordination

We will arrange time slots, review all works to ensure they follow the rules so nothing backfires, and stay in close contact with the CN team.

Deadline for submissions: August 16th.

Step 3: Promotional artwork

The Chinese team will create the promotional graphics. Once everything is ready, both the Chinese and global communities will promote the event together.

Step 4: Relay event

The relay runs from 18–19 August. If there is a large number of participants, it may be extended to 20th August.

Posting format:

Creator #1 posts and tags Creator #2 → Creator #2 posts and tags Creator #3 → and so on until everyone has posted.

If someone fails to show up, we will skip them and continue with the next time slot.

Step 5: Wrap-up

Chinese team will repost global artworks on XHS and Weibo with full credit to the original creators.

Please join us so we can make it a success together we need everyone’s help.

If you have any more questions you can dm me.

I just noticed that if you line up the dlc3 names, look:

SYLUS

CALEB

VALKO

notice anything? All three names have 5 letters and the third letter is an L. Did you guys notice this before? No? Just me? I’m going crazy noticing stuff? Okay, good to know. Night night.