Blog

I’m not completely out of my reading slump, but at least the three books I’m currently reading are all great. Zoo 1 especially, because the stories are short and easy to read, so I tend to pick this one whenever I feel like reading - or rather, when I feel I should make some progress on my books.
錯置體 looks to be very great too, but I’m still at the beginning, and I feel it’s going to take some more pages for me to really get into the story. And 얼굴들 is the most difficult to read, not because it’s particularly difficult, but simply because it’s in Korean.

On the one hand, the AQ looks really great and I’m looking forward to playing it, on the other hand, I hate how long the AQ has been this version, and I’m kind of stressed out just thinking that the next one might again be a 7 hour long story. They did say players will now know when they can stop the story without losing progress, but knowing it won’t be useful if we effectively can’t get out of the story like it was the case for previous chapters. If I’m forced to play a 4 hour chunk in one sitting, knowing there’s a save point just after taking back control of the characters won’t be that useful. I really really hope they added more spots where we can actually leave the story. I don’t care about breaking immersion, I just want to enjoy the story at my own pace and not burn out.

The biggest surprise of the whole SP to me is Nicole’s burst animation. It’s so beautiful!! Nicole was my least favourite design from all the version cast, but because she can be a potential teammate for Xiao paired with Durin… I had decided to pull her in spite of her design. But now my opinion is completely changing, her animations are sublime, I’m really starting loving her now and I’m looking forward to playing her. And given that I am really behind in my exploration progress, her special ability will be very useful too.

The 速摄快镜 event is so weird. I thought each stage would bring more freedom of expression but we’re back to just walking in line today? And the result is not even what we shot, I tried turning around and walk in zigzag, but the final film didn’t show any of that. So it feels like what we do doesn’t even matter, it’s just pick a character and then watch a pre-made animation of them walking in line… what?!

So I thought I’d go watch some films from my friend list (which turned out to be equally boring). First video I saw was the NA one, and it was Zibai wielding Prototype Rancour?

Edit: Oh, I think Prototype Rancour was on trial Zibai! They really didn’t even try to make this event feel real hahahaha!

I finished the third short story, So-far そ・ふぁー, and it was so depressing and so good at the same time. Such a unique idea, I found it really fantastic, but it was quite sad… Similarly to the first two stories the end was really really great.
Now I’m wondering if all the short stories of the collection are going to be so powerful, this would be crazy. I’m also not sure if it’s going to be a common theme for the whole collection, but so far protagonists have all been children or teenagers.

Read a little bit today, the plot becomes more and more interesting.
I have a weird bug on Readmoo where I can’t change the font anymore, and the one by default is a pain to read (lines are too thin so the characters do not show well imo).

I finished chapter 3 of the story, and it was so great! Even though I found the story very predictable, and even though what happened was what I expected, it was still very good. I loved the main NPC’s story.
To be honest, I haven’t been a big fan of the last two events stories (the Mondstadt one and the Dragon Spine event), so I’m really glad about this one.

I’m progressing very slowly, but I did study one more short passage. It was pretty easy, almost no new word apart from 嗅觉. I was surprised I never saw this word before! I do think I have a solid vocabulary basis now, but then sometimes I come across basic words that I didn’t know at all, and it always feels weird.

I know I haven’t played a lot of Genshin lately, still haven’t explored Dornman Port nor did the World Quest, and it’s true that I haven’t gone very far in the last Nod-Krai expansion… but running out of encounter points still feels like shock TT

I didn’t read as much as I wanted, but the beginning is very engaging! And we have author self-insertion, I like it!

Completely unrelated to the book, but because the name of the first chapter is 孟婆汤, and I didn’t know this word so I looked it up, I came across the song by Taiwanese singer Chris Yu called 孟婆汤. I believe it’s from 1999.

喝下這碗解藥
忘了所有的好
所有的寂寥

Here 孟婆汤 is seen as a blessing to forget everything after a heartbreak.
(Oh and by the way, I’m not super familiar with Mandapop, I do listen to a lot of music on YouTube, but I do lack the basis. I never heart of Chris Yu before…)

Finally starting 錯置體!

I finished Seven Rooms, and wow, this short story was so intense! Very suspenseful and almost suffocating, difficult to put down. I think that good horror stories are not necessarily scary, but they have that moment when the reader realises something (either before, after or at the same time than the characters) that sends a cold shiver running down your spine. It’s not just about fear, but the realisation of what is truly happening, or that something horrible is going to happen. This short story gave me exactly that feeling.

Liangyue’s team is complete! I love Cheng Heguang’s I2! I also loved his role in the story, but I mainly pulled because he is a dedicated support for Liangyue.