Apologies if my words are unclear. The main text starts from paragraph eight.

BGM here: Rebirth of AC-tan

Last night around 9pm a classmate from the network admin department was BG-ing①, so I skipped dinner, showered early and went out for BBQ. About twenty-some people showed up, and then we did the usual eating, chatting, and playing games②.

While chatting, a female colleague MM③ started egging me on to sing④, and the bros joined in too.

In the middle of all the egging-on, HJ⑤ asked why they were calling on me to sing, and she got this kind of answer: “Fuyun⑥ sings really well!” “It’s all been posted online!” “Tons of danmaku!”

HJ looked very excited: “Which danmaku site did you post it on?”

Before I could answer, someone else answered for me: “ACFUN!”

HJ then had that “I get it” look on her face, looked at me and smiled: “Oh, AVFUN~”

I smiled back and asked her: “Do you go on AC?”

HJ (laughing)⑦: “I hang out on B-site.”

Me: “Yeah, B-site is also a great danmaku site.”

After that we chatted about other topics for a while, then with me singing a few songs in between⑧, and playing some games, the conversation came back to danmaku sites.

HJ (to the female colleague MM I mentioned earlier): “Send me the video link when you get back.”

Female colleague MM: “His videos have a lot of danmaku!”

Me (weakly): “Nah, there’s an upper limit to that…”

HJ (happily): “Fuyun let me tell you, the reason I really love B-site is because the danmaku is so much fun!”

Me: “Yeah!”

HJ (seriously and proudly): “Recently I’ve been watching Game of Thrones on B-site, those spoilers feel so good to read! Things like ‘High energy reaction ahead’.”

Me: “……⑨”

Me (muttering): “Now even the elementary schoolers are picking on me!”
Bros (chuckling quietly): “Haha……”

HJ (continuing): “And the danmaku often have those godlike comments!”

Me (agreeing): “Yes yes yes, that’s true.”

HJ (giving examples): “Like ’this is unscientific’, ‘you’re opening it the wrong way’…”

Me (awkwardly): “Those are pretty mainstream, godlike comments actually refer to those particularly distinctive comments on very characteristic plot points…”

HJ (after letting me finish): “Actually is it ‘opening it the wrong way’ or ‘opening it the wrong position’?”

Me (scientifically): “Both work.”

HJ (covering mouth and laughing while talking): “We argued about this for a long time, and as we argued we ended up opening Uncle Meow⑩…”

Then there was another stretch of boundlessly cheerful conversation.

HJ: “Hey, on B-site they’re called ‘up masters’, what do they call them on A-site?”

Me①①: “On A-site they’re also called up masters.”

HJ (curious): “Actually what’s the relationship between A-site and B-site?”

Me (thinking for a bit): “Let’s put it this way, danmaku sites originally started with Japan’s niconico. ACFUN can be said to be the first influential danmaku site in mainland China. Later as a tree grows tall there will always be branches, so for a while ACFUN’s environment wasn’t very good. So an anime fan originally from ACFUN named Jiubishi went and founded a website, which is the current bilibili.”

HJ (in a questioning tone): “I feel like A-site has a lot of trolls…”

Me: “How to put it, well… broadly speaking, B-site has a better anime atmosphere than A-site. As for A-site, lots of folks from ZZ and JS forums come hang out there. B-site has stricter speech control, posting comments or danmaku that are a bit harmonious-deficient gets you banned easily, while A-site is relatively more relaxed, so you see trolls running around all day. Actually I think trolls are pretty cute. Like there are these two kinds of people on danmaku sites: one is the type like me, who laughs out loud when they see something they like, and most of the time I won’t post a danmaku saying ‘I love this part so much’; whereas trolls always have their hands on the keyboard, and the moment they see something they don’t like they resentfully post ’this part sucks’ or ‘I don’t like this part’ or ’they post stuff like this too?’. Actually once you understand them you find them pretty cute!“①②

After that the topic turned to other things and never came back.

Below are personal reflections, feel free to skip. After the divider are the footnotes.

We can’t think that we are right and the world/the times/AC is wrong. I hope AC remains a niche site forever, but I also hope my friends can understand AC and love AC-tan. On AC, some people only go to the article section, some are anime otaku, some like me are Kichiku Music MAD fans, there are also music lovers and many more I haven’t mentioned. AC-tan has to receive all kinds of people every day!

In my heart I think the internet should be as beautiful as the 2D world. Personally, I never expose any negative or excited emotions in front of many people①③. What I want to say to others, what I want to influence others with, is all what I feel are positive emotions, like “happiness”, “jokes”, “joy”, “warmth”. Although I also very much agree with those who expose dark realities and proclaim the truth in their hearts, I always believe that for someone’s worldview to be changed by speech there must be facts to support it — we argue with red faces①④, why not smile and appreciate the beautiful things in life?

I like AC-tan, I love her getting more and more beautiful, more and more lovely!

Finally, I wish you all good health, goodbye!

① BG, forum slang, mainly meaning “to treat someone to a meal”.

② From my pitifully limited experience, the games people play at gatherings are mostly punishment games — things like guess-the-number, word-chain games, basically losers get embarrassment-play of some sort… Of course yesterday I also learned a new game called “How Many Horses”…

③ MM, forum slang, means “little sister” or “pretty girl”, an out-of-date way of calling. The modern way should be “meizi” (girl), but I personally don’t like that term.

④ Sha Po Lang and stuff, was discovered by the bros and posted in the group. So when some people in the 3D world found out, they said “Wow, I always thought you were a quiet introverted person…”

⑤ HJ, the senior sister at the network admin department, known as Sister Hong, abbreviated HJ here for convenience.

⑥ Fuyun is the OP, real name replaced here, won’t explain in the following.

⑦ I can’t fully reproduce the scene at the time, the expressions in parentheses are from my recollection today. The atmosphere when a group of people are eating together is pretty cheerful, so most of the time everyone was smiling, I won’t make special notes about it below.

⑧ In front of others I still don’t dare sing in dog-ear mode, can only sing properly.

⑨ At the time I was actually very seriously considering whether HJ was joking or joking, but HJ’s serious expression and subsequent words and actions all indicated that what she said was actually the truth.

⑩ Uncle Meow, a colleague from the network admin department, the type who has knowledge and is gentle.

①① Actually HJ should be the kind of naive and cute danmaku site audience, maybe people like her are the biggest contributors to danmaku site traffic.

①② There were several places in this paragraph where HJ seemed to have things to say… but I really couldn’t help it and just blurted it all out in one breath, didn’t give HJ a chance to cut in. Looking back now, this probably wasn’t the right thing to do.

①③ Of course there are also times when I pour out my hard life to 2D-world friends…

①④ Here I thought of a joke:
One day the animals smelled something very stinky in front of the Guan Yu temple.
The snake said: “I’m so small, I couldn’t fart something this stinky, must be the cow.”
The cow said: “I eat grass, I wouldn’t fart something this stinky.”
The pig said: “Whoever farted must have a red face.” Suddenly Guan Yu charged out and smacked the pig flying, saying: “How many times have I told you, my face being red is just how I was born.”

(Fin)