okay let's try to answer this in parts. i'm not very good at the spending money part of the river, so i'll just answer what i can and someone (shu) can handle the rest (i say shu cause shu is the one who answers all of /my/ questions about these things ashdkfsjl)

regarding first elim goals, i think you're referring to first prelims. there's two preliminary results before the actual ssk iirc, so some less popular xox might set a goal to be within top48 for the first or second prelims, such as yjw who has a top48 first prelim goal. i'm not sure if there's any benefits from this, other than for trainees who are not newcomers such as pyq (and guoshuang last year) who need to be within the top48 for second(?) prelims to be promoted to a full member. if the xox isn't in this scenario, i assume that a first/second prelim goal is just a benchmark to get fans to spend a certain amount because whatever rank they are in the final ssk (regardless of whether the xox is in top48/66) will translate into their position during gongyans when they redistribute stage positions based on ssk results

sdp are star dream points. they're used to vote for things like bp and all of that and i think they can count towards ssk but i don't know what the conversion for that is. i will have to get back to you on that

kofi is set up by intl fans, usually those working with the yyh i think but not always, as a do/nation point for other intl fans. because as an i-fan, if you don't have verified accounts, alipay, qq, etc. it might be quite hard for you to vote on your own or contribute towards the yyh's pk. the person who runs the kofi will either vote on your behalf (probably under the name of intl [xox fandom name]) or convert and send the money to the yyh on your behalf. the issue with kofi is that they take a small % of what you donate, then the person running it still has to convert it to rmb and so on. bit of money leak along the way, but majority of it will still go towards whatever the person running the kofi said its for (for most, that's ssk votes. for xyyz, that's mvp)

thanks anon !! i was thinking that i would translate that properly, and then the link loaded... nope i am not reading all that (at least not right now). but you're right, she does say that she liked to sing since young and wanted to stand on a stage to perform for everyone to see (literal/direct translation) (which makes sense, i can't believe it slipped my mind about her singing). she didn't really know anything about snh48, but since she passed the audition and was chosen to debut, then it must suit her right? but after a while she realized that being introverted (that's putting it mildly yiyi ;-;) made it quite difficult for her to shine in the spotlight and she worried about engaging the audience, doing good MCs etc. so that's something she worked on (my translation is getting rougher and rougher sorry)

i (try to) tune into one gongyan a week, but most of the time i'm splitscreening it with work or even having it as a background tab. and i skip over mcs or mentally tune them out if i'm multitasking. so honestly i basically just listen to the gongyan setlist once a week in shitty audio quality. which probably explains why i'm not sick of the performance or anything. but actually even if you watch properly every single week, personally i wouldn't be bored since you can see the tiny ways that the xox do things differently each time, especially during team songs they have tiny interactions with each other. actually i really liked watching the first few songs for trigo functions for this reason. i'm sure the ones that've been running the same stage for a while are tired, but i think it's a bit similar to being an actor where you put on the same show over and over, that's the nature of your performance. having regular (weekly) performances is such a key part of snh anyway that i think the xox have to either be okay with or make peace with that fact. not to mention the bulk of the gongyan is mc3/4 for them anyway, which varies week on week. mcs aren't always good but it's interesting to zero in on specific members and just study what they do and how they interact with others. that's just how i view it at least? i mean i'm also autistic and snh (h2) is my special interest so that might explain why i'm content to watch the same thing over and over

it feels like one of those things where, if something comes into light about jiwoong in the future, it will feel like the evidence has been right under your nose the whole time. i rewatched the videos again and the other members' reactions is really whats throwing me off here. i wouldn't think too hard about it otherwise but the fact that they feel the need to (attempt to) interfere, that's a bit weird isn't it

that's not to say that oh jiwoong is inherently a bad guy or whatever, he might just being doing too much accidentally. but i think people should be talking about this tbh? you said "probably in case it gets bigger" so that makes me think other people do find this a bit odd but they're trying to protect him? which is worse. if he's not doing it intentionally, i think people should let him know. it's not a big deal this way. but downplaying it sort of makes it a bigger deal if/when it blows up. once again, i'm completely assuming the situation here but those are my thoughts anyway

i think it might be her visuals. she's very skinny in a way that conforms to the beauty standards currently for models, if i'm not wrong. (also just a side note that wangyi is someone who struggles with trying to gain weight, as in she's trying but she can't really.) if she catches your attention enough to tune into her kdfj and zhibo, she's also very, very sweet which might make people who were originally there for her visuals stick around. imo it's still the CP though. there are people who might have paid attention initially due to the CP but ended up paying more attention to wangyi than zsy so they become her solos. or at least right now her CP is the biggest selling point so people might discover her via her CP activity but whether they like it / also like zsy after a while is a different thing. there's also a thing with popularity snowballing. right now wangyi ranks well (she is top2 afterall) which means by right she gets opportunities and screentime and lines and all of that which allows more people to discover her and become her fans. there might also be a portion of the fanbase who project on wangyi and assume her success as theirs, so they'd definitely be drawn to someone who is popular and considered successful

idk personally i guess i'm more of a wangyi solo than yzg rn because i don't have enough time to pay attention to zsy (since i mainly watch h2) but 4781 was definitely what drew my attention at first

there's a combination of things. at a very surface level, we can consider how she doesn't have a strong cp which matters a lot in the river rn (also her bp4 partner left the river, while her maybe-gf is graduating soon). but she's been here for a long time, so it runs much deeper than that. she's not popular because she rarely gets opportunities, lines and screentime, and that is born out of not ranking (and when she does, her performances are not consistently outstanding). but why isn't she ranking? because she's not popular. sys doesn't have the sort of personality that easily catches others' attention, but this is born out of her destroyed confidence. why was her confidence destroyed? sys knows that she isn't the best performer, but she tries her best. however, despite her best efforts, she wasn't able to learn as fast as the others and the more she fell behind everyone else, the less confident she felt. this has been an issue since her bej days, but has gotten significantly worse since then. back in bej, she felt that she could still have fun even if she's not that good, but she doesn't have the same confidence to put herself out there anymore. i think it's getting better though and her performances are also getting better (so please pay some attention to her!), but there's also this thing about how she gets no opportunities and is always in a corner, which means people don't really pay attention to her and it's hard to gain popularity. contrast this with other h2 xox who might have successful cps or confidently put themselves out there on stage, it's easy for sys to fade into the background. so yeah, maybe this whole answer kinda boils down to "sys isn't popular because she isn't as good as everyone else" which sounds unfitting of someone who is her fan, but i'm saying it as i understand it. i won't pretend she was born a stellar performer or anything, but i want to say that she's someone who works hard and really loves the stage, so she is as deserving of recognition as the others

so anyway tl;dr is that my girl has not graduated from nugudom in her life. she just basically never experienced a break which resulted in enough fans (to help her rank, etc.) to attract more fans

to cast votes, you'd want to follow this: https://weibo.com/6013301829/NrCS7jFqE
1. first you need a the http://user.48.cn account (doesnt need to be real-name verified) as well as the codes from number one required for voting (buy from taobao, look for 点歌计分卡)
2. and log into https://b50.ckg48.com/web/songs.html and enter the codes (the website should be navigatable in google translate on desktop, if you need that)
3. then pick the song afterparty and pick yyq (袁一琦 )sys (孙语姗) and zym (张月铭) for h2, zjy (左婧媛) for teamx and xcw (徐楚雯) for teamz
4. afterwards, make sure you pick the exact positions (if not your vote will be void)
💛1号位 袁一琦 / #1 YYQ
💛2号位 左婧媛 / #2 ZJY
💛3号位 徐楚雯 / #3 XCW
💛4号位 张月铭 / #4 ZYM
💛5号位 孙语姗 / #5 SYS
5. then input the number of votes you want to spend on this and submit

this probably isn't a very good guide so you can also check the pictures in the weibo post linked above
if you have any issues with voting, you can also contact the yyh (https://weibo.com/u/6013301829) via dms on weibo or join 590043147 on QQ

hopefully this helps, once again thanks so much !

i was split-screening with my work so i might've missed something but there were two really weird penalties during mc04. the first one involved zhy (the 07-liner newbie) doing that move from i think helishikong where they kneel on the ground. zym was saying that "she's just a kid" and saying that she's born in 2007 so she shouldn't do it, but they ended up going through with the penalty. the other one involved touching/rubbing someone's legs? it's really uncomfortable and i'm thinking that even if all the members involved in the mc are full grown adults, that's still a really weird penalty where they had her stand in front of the curtain while they were behind it and just touched her legs with their hands. and i don't want to think about if zhy had to do that penalty as well, whether they would change it or do that to her because that is VERY weird, bearing in mind that this is also all on stage in front of an audience you know. and i want to emphasize that this isn't just about "don't corrupt the kid" because she is sixteen which is one year younger than me and i'm sure she already knows stuff, but it's very, very different when it's being asked (insisted) of her by her seniors (power imbalance) in front of an audience

snh48 is naturally gatekeepy in the sense that there's a steep learning curve, even if you understand chinese but don't follow c-ent. to be very honest, i don't think snhtwt is unreasonably gatekeep-y because when someone shows interest in snh48, i feel that there are always people who are willing to point them to resources and try to answer questions. milan even has a whole glossary which helps immensely with navigating the 132745840693 different acronyms and you can just pop into people's ccs to ask "hey how does this work". but snhtwt does talk a lot about how we need to gatekeep more etc etc and we're really protective of our xox, which is where the gatekeeping can be seen i guess. the thing is that a lot of people are just looking to fetishize the xox or to find out about river scandals without any genuine interest in being a fan or finding out about snh48 properly, which makes us river fans protective i guess. 路人 like to pass judgement and talk about things they don't actually understand, so it's understandable imo that we want to keep these sorts of people from finding out more about the river. but i think that if someone is genuinely interested in learning about the river, there will always be people willing to help them out ^^

it's probably got to do with stage positions, i think? i might be wrong but i think they won't re-record until stage positions are officially switched (not sure what that entails tbh but you know how stage positions will be adjusted based on ssk or b50? i think it might have to do with that. although one ssk has already passed with smy gone) h2 is also fairly flexible with units right now i think? they shuffle around sometimes as they wish. while it hurts seeing the empty stage during yaoyao's parts, i think i'll also be really upset when they re-record because i'm used to hearing these versions and hearing her voice. i think they also don't have to re-record because smy's contract with siba still stands so they probably have the rights to her voice

I've explained this to someone before but can't find the messages now. it was roughly something along the lines about how I really do like all of h2. however, to me I feel like SYS gets the least (in terms of attention for her effort, given how long she's been here, etc.), and that makes me want to give her more, if that makes any sense? and as I became busier with school this year, I ended up paying attention to her over the other xox when I don't have time. I guess on twitter, being her fan has also become my brand and again, I don't really see other people talk abut her, so I'm going to do that. with other h2 xox, there (generally) exists some account somewhere who will talk about them, post their photos and show them appreciation, but SYS doesn't get that. and that's why I pay more attention to her I guess. I do still consider myself a team push, but I won't deny that I definitely have SYS as my top currently. I think it's natural as well that when I find out more about her and pay more attention to her, I will naturally care a bit more about her than the others. but I hope that I'm not just SYS fan to everyone but also a huge h2 fan who likes all of them

oh this is such a good question because you'd think that, like any other 48-style group, snh48 should appeal to a (het) male fanbase right? my short answer is that snh48 is too gay. don't get me wrong, het men definitely love to fetishize wlw relationships, like isn't that a whole porn category? but the issue with snh48 here is that a decent% of them aren't into men and don't hesitate to show that they don't care about their male fans (they tend to straight up forget that they might have male or heterosexual fans tbh). so they (generally) fail to attract that demographic of straight male fans looking for a parasocial relationship because it's apparent that they don't stand a chance. yes, the nature of river cp is a performative but the illusion breaks when you know, it's not two women doing hot shit for men's viewing pleasure but two women who are dating each other. so that's why with the current river you really don't see as many male fans = mostly female dominated