“Chase you to the end of the world…”
2025 wasn’t a great year for me.
It wasn’t the worst – not close – but it just wasn’t great. Specifically, it was an onslaught of company restructurings, sort-of-redundancies (it’s complicated when you’re a freelancer), eviction notices, and personal problems.
I’ll not bore you with the gory details, but given the general gist I’ve given you so far, I’m sure you can tell it won’t exactly be among my greatest hits. They can’t all be winners, I guess.
But, there was one thing – or really, several small things, in sequence – that helped brighten up my day-to-day a little, in the form of endless escapism. (I don’t change that much, after all.)
Sometime in the spring, my partner and I pivoted our watching habits massively. Where we once watched almost exclusively films, we were suddenly instead trawling through tonnes of TV. Episode by episode, we introduced ourselves to bizarre casts of characters and became totally immersed in curious worlds we hadn’t even heard of before.
It started off as an attempt to watch as many shows including trans and otherwise gender non-conforming characters as possible. But, before long, we started to exhaust the list and expanded outward to anything else that caught our eye while flicking through streaming services. If I listed everything we watched, I’d be here for days (and you’d be bored shitless), but let’s just say that it really screwed up my Letterboxd Wrapped.
Among the long, long list of stellar shows we watched was one that I believe left a special mark on me: a time-travelling show called Link Click, or Shíguāng Dàilǐrén (时光代理人).
What is Link Click?
Link Click’s premise is fairly simple. Two boys, Cheng Xiaoshi (Su Shangqing/Alejandro Saab) and Lu Guang (Yang Tianxiang/Zeno Robinson), run a photo shop together with their best friend, Qiao Ling (Li Shimeng/Suzie Yeung).
Except, the trio’s photo studio isn’t just a regular place to get your film developed. It’s actually a front for a time-travelling side hustle.
Throughout the series, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang work together to leap into the past, Quantum Leap-style, through photographs provided by their clients. One takes over the body of a photograph’s subject, effectively jumping back in time. The other stays in the present day, keeping a lookout with his own powers of temporal foresight. They each strive to change as little of the past as possible, leaving behind no trace of their little stint in time.
As the series progresses, their gigs become increasingly high-octane, as they uncover– well, I’ll not spoil it for you. But it’s a lot, I’ll tell you that much.
This supernatural, time-bending drama is directed by Li Haoling and animated by Studio LAN, CMC Media, and Haoliners Animation League. You might already know of Haoling, who was also responsible for bringing the first series of the iconic queer Danmei Heaven Official’s Blessing (Tiān Guān Cì Fú; 天官赐福) to the screen back in 2020.
The donghua is slick. Its animation is constantly compelling, and is at least matched in quality by the direction and storyboarding. Besides the odd janky frame here and there – which I can forgive, since animation is basically witchcraft to me anyway – Link Click‘s looks consistently set it apart from its peers. I found it hard not to fall in love with its visual beats, and of course, its character design.
Besides being a treat for the eyes, the writing is also deliciously challenging, grey, and consistently strives to avoid relying on predictable twists and outcomes. Specifically, the narrative mostly manages to avoid any completely out-of-the-blue twists by sneaking in plenty of subtle hints without beating you over the head with clues. In a sea of shows following in the footsteps of the likes of M. Night Shyamalan, I can’t help but appreciate that more than I should need to.
Link Click gave me an escape right when I needed it
TV and film is a lot more than escapism. Art exists to reflect and to explore ideas through various lenses, perspectives, and approaches. Link Click is absolutely no exception here. While time-travelling photography and future-seeing gigworkers don’t exist in real life (as far as I know, anyway), it’s very obviously shining a light on real, societal issues. I’ll keep it brief, so you can find out for yourself, but the show pulls absolutely no punches around its subject matter.
Despite that, the sheer amount of layers offered by Link Click’s narrative provided me with almost bottomless hours of mental playtime and psychological gymnastics. It wasn’t just me, either – my partner partook in as many time-travel-related backflips as I did. And, I think in a challenging year, it was exactly what we needed: an imaginary world that kept us guessing and considering all kinds of potential outcomes.
One of my resounding memories of summer 2025 was of the pair of us sweltering in a heatwave, fighting to cool down our Xbox – which doubles as our entertainment system – enough to stream the last few episodes of Link Click: Bridon Arc. Dreading the show’s end, we alternated between soaking our feet in tubs of cold water, chasing ants out of our then-living room, and furiously debating plot points over Twister lollies. Or plot twists over… Other lollies. Or something.
Sometimes, when you’re lucky, you come across a piece of media that you know you won’t experience in the same way again. They come along rarely, and tend to have a particular reputation with them – as they should. But sometimes, when you’re even more lucky, you stumble across it by total accident.
I wouldn’t turn back time to any point in 2025 – not even to experience that again. But, if I did, it would probably be to go back to the exact moment I felt that way. Ants and all.
(It was while watching the episode Three Stories, in case you were wondering.)
Where can I watch Link Click?
You can stream Link Click online. It was first aired on Bilibili, and is now available to watch dubbed over on Crunchyroll.
Watch Link Click’s season three trailer here
Link Click season three is set to land in October 2026.
Toni Oisin H.C. is the Head of Audio at QSO Media. Read more of his writing here.
Trans Aid Cymru is a mutual aid group supporting trans, non-binary, and intersex communities across Wales. You can support their work here.
Enjoy QSO Media’s content? Support alternative LGBTQ+ journalism by buying us a Ko-Fi.
QSO Media 