Blog

The audio for Linnea’s voicelines is on the Cn wiki! So it’s exactly what I thought, the audio gets uploaded the patch after the character’s release. I can study her voicelines now

For my next Japanese book, I’m going to finish the ZOO collection by reading the second volume.
Looking at the books I read in Japanese this year, I realise that I didn’t not like most of them. ZOO1 is by far my favourite, followed by Exit 8. But then, there’s a huge gap. 方舟 and ネタバレあり were also great, but they still belong to a genre I’m a bit tired of reading in Japanese: closed circle. It’s a genre I absolutely love, because I find it fascinating to see how people will react when trapped in this kind of situation, and how their true personality reveals itself as they are put under stress. But Japanese novels I read with this mechanic are more focused on the tricks than the characters. 方舟 and ネタバレあり were both excellent though.
And then there’s the other 8 novels, none of them has made it to my list of favourite. I do think some of them were very good, I just didn’t enjoy reading them as much.

I really liked ネタバレあり! I did find some parts in the first half a bit long, but it all pays off in the end. It’s the kind of novel where everything makes sense and everything had its purpose.
To be honest, I have been tired of contemporary Japanese honkaku mysteries lately. I find that they tend to be too meta, too clever, too focused on tricks and how to deceive the reader, and not enough on the characters and the actual plot. The novel itself sometimes becomes a part of the plot, you have mandatory characters like the detective and the author of detective novels, and characters will discuss detective fiction, but in the end, it’s always the same things again and again.
This novel is also no exception, but it’s really well executed, and it renewed my love for the genre. Characters are well written and their personality and motivation are not sacrificed to the tricks. The way the novel is integrated in the story is very well done and doesn’t feel artificial at all. The solution was also very good, and the end really engrossing.

I can’t believe I finished it today!! I devoured the second half!
At some point, there is a shift in the novel, and I thought I would stop there, but I got curious and started the next part. It was so engrossing, I just continued reading until I finished it! The end was truly excellent.
I haven’t been able to read for long periods of time lately, I get tired after 10 or 20 pages, so I’m very happy with my progress today! To be fair, Japanese is the easiest language to me, and this book is also easy to read.

On the one hand, Nicole-Durin is an increase over FFXX for Xiao, on the other hand, it means building more ER. With C2 Xianyun, I can run Xiao with 0 ER no problem, he consistently cleared one stage of SO Fearless without ER (though not recently as there’s too much shill). Right now I have 110 ER because it’s more comfortable and allows for mishaps in rotations, but I don’t want to build more. Also, I do have C2R1 Xianyun… so it hurts putting her aside (I’m not sure, but I do think Faruzan C6 on Favonius is still better?). If only Xianyun would buff all his plunges instead of only 8 ST.
So of course, I did pull Durin and Nicole to have the team available, but I don’t know how much I’m ready to invest into this team.
Oh well, it’s going to take a while anyway, I still haven’t done the Witches’ Homework, and I haven’t farmed the new artifact set for Nicole at all yet.
But building like 130-150 ER on Xiao? I don’t really want to…

They added die Mittsommernacht-Fantasie to the rhythm game!!!
I’m so happy!! I thought this one would never make it to the rhythm game because it was a limited track, but they did add it!!
I must say that overall, this album is really not a collection of my favourite tracks… Can’t complain though!
Chinese title for this song is 仲夏夜绮思.

I studied Nicole’s kit in Chinese. Hexerei characters are called 魔导 módǎo, that’s good to know!
I still can’t believe she can replace my C2R1 Xianyun in Xiao’s team…

I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish 4 books in May…
4 books per month is not really a hard goal, but it’s the number of books I usually can read, so it’s a good measure to see if a month has been a good or a bad reading month.
I am waking up at 4am almost every morning, and I’m so tired during the day, I feel like I’m making no progress at all on my two current novels, even though I love them both.
And I still haven’t started a Korean one. I’m still not sure which book I’ll pick, I really want to choose one that will be easy to read and not too long, but it’s hard to know in advance, though there is a handful of authors I know aren’t too difficult to read on my digital TBR.

I listened to 宗像與鋼筆事件 today, and I’m about halfway through now. I love this short story so so much. So far, I love it as much as the previous one 山羊座的友人.
Also, it’s funny because now I find the audiobook very easy to follow, so I’m glad I gave this audiobook another try (the first time I tried to listen to it I found it very hard and almost gave up).

I love Nicole’s ability to show the direction of treasure chests, but I don’t like that they are pinned on the mini map too, which makes Nicole’s ability feel a bit useless, because you might as well look at the mini map to have a more precise indication.
I don’t like using the compass and just go from chest to chest, I prefer to look for them myself. But I really love Nicole’s ability because it’s a good trade-off: it shows the direction, but not the exact spot. I really wish there was a way to remove the chest pins from the mini map, but I couldn’t find any. So I decided to remove the UI altogether, and I love it!!! I find it so fun! I never tried before, but I love the experience.
I do wish they let us customise it, like for example keeping HP bar and stamina bar… And I also wish we could toggle it on and off more easily that going in the menu every time I log in.
But anyway, it makes exploration even more fun!

I continued the AQ a little bit, and I know I said it already, but I’m so so happy that they’re now allowing us to leave more often
I swear Nod-Krai AQ has completely burned me out, and I haven’t played as much the last patches because of it. I can’t play for hours at a time, I usually just spend 20 or 30 minutes in the game then do something else. I can spend 1 hour for some story content, doing IT or playing TCG, but 4-5 hours in a row was exhausting.
And I really love the story so far
As for Chinese level, I think that now I’m confortable following any Genshin story in Chinese, but I must admit that Sumeru lore is still hard to me. The reason is that I was still playing in English when doing all the Sumeru AQ and the WQ, so I don’t know the terms in Chinese, but most of the time it was easy to deduce from the context.
For example, I had no idea that the Akasha system is called 虚空. Thankfully the way it was talked about in the story made it obvious characters were talking about the Akasha system, but I was surprised by the Chinese name.
And I find Paimon’s notes quite useful!

The only compass I had was the Nod-Krai one. I crafted the others except for Fontaine and Liyue because I’m lacking materials. I have a lot of exploration left basically everywhere on the map, so it will be nice to look for treasures with Nicole.