任是无情也动人

On home PC. It's been nagging me to do so for a while now, but hadn't done it because TPM wasn't enabled. Finally sat down and figured out where to find the setting in the BIOS. Afterwards, went ahead and proceeded with the auto update.

Most things haven't changed all that much. Just have to get used to the new start menu display.

Sunday did indeed join the Astral Express. Supposedly not as a full member, but rather as a passenger of indeterminate length. But given that we only get one new destination per year, we might as well have gained a permanent new passenger. *sigh* -_-

Well, his fangirls are happy, I guess.

Me, I weep for the future where we'll be getting more of his long and dull and pointlessly faux-philosophical dialogue all the freaking time now.

Also, I gotta say, the dude was in jail for all of, like, a month. The IPC just lets him off for...nothing, apparently. Or I guess it's implied Robin made a deal for his release, but we see her looking fine and...well, not unhappy anyway, so said payment couldn't have been all that. And afterwards, he's pretty much wandering around nilly willy on Penacony in the Dreamscape, using his Harmony powers to mind-whammy people so the plebs won't recognize him as a "fugitive" / political outcast from the Family.

Just... Blah. Aventurine was put on death row for killing a single slave master and had to basically sell himself to Jade for his "freedom" (and we're not sure how free he currently is). Dan Heng had to grow up in jail for the crime of his predecessor, who by all legal and cultural rights he shouldn't have to pay for after rebirth.

From what I can see, Sunday, just like the Stellaron Hunters, don't need to pay anything *concrete* for the wrongs they have done, aside from some nebulous "internal struggle" or whatever.

*sigh*

Gameplay-wise, I've tested the Trial version of Sunday in the same team with Jing Yuan. It's definitely does more damage at a faster rate than normal. But... eh. Going to skip him and see if there's alternative Harmony units during 3.x that can also benefit JY.

In 3.0 there's an upcoming Lightning Remembrance character that I'm also going to consider.

[4.3.19] 快穿开启锦鲤运 by 夜月独一人
Host comes from a loveless family and gets foisted into quick transmigration by system 009, fulfilling wishes of host, eventually becoming an over-goddess after passing all trials.
Links: qidian stocx


( 穿开启锦鲤运 )

I haven't done one of these for a long time now, haven't I? We'll, it is 9.29 in CN, so a happy birthday to Zhou Shen. Once again, I will be crawling out of bed at the wee hours of the morning to listen to his bday livestream. @_@

Today (in CN) also marks the day his second album 《反深代词》"Shenself" is fully released. Woke up this morning to find that Youtube music has updated with all of the tracks as well (for free!). My top favorites of this album are, in order:
1. 《空壳》 "Shen" - Love the melody, love the lyrics. It's a love letter from the singer to his fans, and one can feel the sincerity of his message. *squee*
2. 《嗨》"Say Hi" - Love the melody, very soothing, almost like a lullaby. He's very suited to this retro style.
3. 《请我不改》"Brave Heart" - Very surprising, since I'm not usually into rock. I love love love the refrain portion, both the melody and the lyrics, an absolute 12 out of 10. The main song portion less so, tone too low/gritty for my tastes, maybe just 5-6 out of 10. But when averaged out, it's still something I'll put on loop.

Recently, he's also finished the original set of cities for his concert tour (starting in Shanghai and ending in Beijing). There's still the later added cities of course. But this marks a good point to pause and look back. Lots of great performances, some of my favorites are...

[周深ZhouShen Charlie] 《借過一下》LIVE - 240518【9.29Hz巡回演唱會-上海站】 4K Fancam高清直拍

《我以渺小爱你》LIVE 【9.29Hz巡回演唱會】 4K 13场混剪

As well as others like:
《我在贵州等你》, 《北京欢迎你》
《少管我》, 《嗨》, 《Wala li longla》, 《空壳》, 《请我不改》 (from his album)

And finally, I wanna bring up his various songs in collaboration with CCTV. IMO these are are a cut above in quality compared to the songs from various provincial TV station's musical variety shows, which is why I'm skipping those (and his many OSTs, lol), for lack of space, for now.

周深、克莱德曼合作中国经典《梁祝 The Butterfly Lovers》 |「2024央视秋晚」

《非遗里的中国》同名主题曲 | CCTV「非遗里的中国 第二季」

And just yesterday's release: 《心同此愿》 - Love the refrain on this one as well.

Finally finished both the main Hoolay storyline, and the subsequent Wardance event quest. Jotting down some first impressions...

The storytelling I think is pretty stable and in line with the quality of the other 2.x chapters. That is, nothing egregrious stood out while playing, and the progression from segment to segment flowed ok. Focus characters of the patch got their moments to shine. The most obvious whys and wherefores were covered for. So, it was pretty good, IMO.

It's a short and straightforward story. We're shown the stuff happening, even where our protagonists are not present. So none of that mysterious speaking in riddles stuff that may or may not pay off shtick from Luofu 1.x or Penacony arcs.

The general online response I've seen so far (aside from the obvious haters and nitpickers), have generally been positive too. The only criticism I've seen from both the EN and CN side is that it's illogical for Jiaoqiu to have come out of the whole thing alive and "merely" blind.

I have to wonder if originally they meant for Jiaoqiu to be a 4 star character and die during this story. But when he became a 5 star, they had to write him to survive. (Because having a limited banner char who gets killed off, and thus no further appearances in future stories, after the banner ends would probably cause the people who pulled him for the design/backstory to riot.)

Now, it's obviously not a great piece of literature or anything like that. And if you want to nitpick, there are a lot of problems that can be found. But then, that could be said about any and all of HSR's stories.

Especially, the details that interact with the worldbuilding and setting setup, especially for what appears to be a complex "work-in-progress" as the Xianzhou Alliance, is an obvious problem area. I am still no clearer as to how the various government departments/factions/titles interact. Huaiyan seems to imply that Jing Yuan does have some sort of "command" over the 6 charioteer departments. But 6 divisions imply that Cloud Knight is one of them, so I guess he's referring to the Arbiter-General position being above them? But then he also seems to imply that this role can also be temporarily handed off to another Arbiter-General, as he was sitting in for Jing Yuan in that role while the 3 generals were splitting their work. Isn't this like the equivalent making the head of state of another kingdom your imperial regent? Bwah?

And then there's the whole stuff with Vidyadhara and Preceptor Taoran. Mentioned that stuff in the comment here.


What I didn't like about the main story is actually the constant switching of POV characters. It was fine in Penacony, because it only happened a few times. But here, it seemed like we're constantly switching POV, and then doing just a few fights, and then switching again. It's annoying, because each time it replaces the first slot of my team, and then I have to change the rest of my team setup. This also results in me losing any technique buffs I had up previously, which leads to using up a lot of technique point consumables. I mean, sure, it's not like I ever run low on this... but it just feels annoying after a while.

Like, I can get behind the fact that it's a good mechanism to let people try out new banner characters in overworld combat. But there's only 2 characters you need to do that for: Feixiao and Lingsha. There's absolutely no reason to force us to slot Yanqing, Yunli, or Jiaoqiu in the team, considering the former sucks and the latter two aren't up to be pulled. -_-

That said, playing Lingsha has confirmed my initial plans not to pull for her (not that I will have the tickets to pull for her next banner). She seems only good for superbreak teams with Firefly (which I don't have). As a generic healer, she can't even match my ancient 1.x Luocha.

Feixiao, OTOH, is pretty nice as a DPS. She's going to be the one I concentrate on building next.


Eh... back to story. The Wardance event story I feel dragged on, even though I think it is probably the same length as March's training event. Most likely the reason I feel this is because... who the fuck cares about Luca? I mean, out of all the Belobog characters, he's probably at the bottom of the list of recognizable names. He doesn't even show up in the main Belobog story, just one side quest. So why is he getting a whole event that might as well be Luca Companion Quest v2? >_<

Yes, I get that his backstory as a fighting ring guy fits with the whole martial arts tournament setup of the Wardance. Yes, I get that Hoyo is trying to tell the story of the ultimate underdog climbing their way up the ranks, and it's hard to cast someone like Seele or Gepard as that much of an underdog competitor, even if they are a whole lot more popular as characters that people likely prefer to see. But. But. Why do you chose now of all times to use logic rather than marketing statistics?

There are a few parts of the Wardance story that I liked. The bit featuring the Caretwheel Temple. The appearance by Mr. Tails. Even the somewhat friendly/antagonistic relationship with Topaz. Just...not the main part with Luca.

And, like, I get the obvious Olympic memes and stuff in the Wardance. Hoyo overplaying with memes is nothing new. BTW, reading CN player responses to the story... it seems like people are drawing ties with the early day CN participation in the Olympics? Em. Have to wonder if that was what Hoyo was trying to get players to emphasize with? I mean, CN is currently contender for #1 spot in the Olympics. Yes there is discrimination, with regards to drug tests and stuff. But it's really hard to say CN is still the underdog. Do people still see themselves as such? Honestly curious.


Anyways, regarding the tie in between Belobog and the Xianzhou... I realize this was probably set up from the inception, since the coincidence of both places having major crisis events around 700 years ago is too much to be coincidence from a narrative point of view. But, it still gives me the feeling of "what a small world we move in". Though, honestly, I guess I should've been used to this, considering how much a lot of characters get reused all over the place to save designing new NPCs. (Poor Argenti, the brick that keeps getting shoved everywhere that needs a deux ex machina.)

Along with that, specifically regarding Jing Yuan, I feel like the poor guy has been relegated to background exposition tool for the whole update. Yes, this is because this patch is specifically meant to sell Feixiao, and thus she needs to have the limelight, and thus the other two generals, as her only equals, thus must be far from the limelight...

His part in the main story, is understandable, since he is the only one who can give a lot of the backstory and politics on what happened with Hoolay's original capture and incarceration. But at the end of the Wardance event, where he talks about his buddy the ancient hero from Belobog is... eh. Feels a bit shoved in there.

(Also, I want to make a note here. There's nothing in the story that states Igor whatsisname is Luca's ancestor. Jing Yuan used the term "descendant/后代" once, and clearly he's referring to a very general, generational inheritance sense. There's nothing that confirms an actual biological relationship with Luca. They just look similar and both just happen have a bionic arm.)


Anyway, 2.5 ended with us supposedly leaving the Luofu. But earlier in the main story cutscenes, it showed that Ruan Mei had arrived with Tingyun. I am not sure if 2.6 will involve flash backs to what happened there with our protagonist involved. Or if it's going to be just POV change of stuff that happened without our protagonists present. Or maybe we'll come back for them in 2.7?

The limited banner for 2.6 is confirmed to be Rappa, and the setting Penacony. The banners for 2.7 are most likely going to be Sunday and Tingyun (unknown in which order).

Personally, I am waiting for Aventurine to come up for reruns. As well as Dr. Ratio, because I want to get his lightcone. Whether or not I will have enough pulls by then... eh. We'll see.

The official release info for the next patch is starting to come in. Today was the livestream, and in the next few days we should be getting PVs for Feixiao. (Will update this post as they show up.)

Currently relevant are the upcoming banners:
- First half is Feixiao + the trio of Kafka, Black Swan, Robin
- Second half is Lingsha + Topaz

Poor Ratio got skipped. Fingers crossed that he comes up together with Aventurine in 2.6 patch.

Kafka is the first character to have a 2nd rerun, skipping Seele, Jing Yuan, Luocha who came before her. Topaz is the fastest character to have a 2nd rerun... she just had her first rerun two patches ago. -_-

My current plans are to pull for Feixiao and Robin. Then Feixiao's LC. We'll see if I am lucky enough to get all of these with the pulls I have saved up. *fingers crossed*

Not much info in the short trailer we got. But it does seem like we've got Vidyadhara preceptors showing up as villains and taking credit for Hoolay's jailbreak. (BTW, huge difference between the CN and EN livestream, since I guess the EN VA for Feixiao couldn't make it, so her character was replaced by Guinaifen in the EN version.)

New map is a refurbished Xianzhou battleship now serving as the martial arts tournament set.

Ooh, fans pointed out that the villainous Preceptor Taoran is the same dude that talked to the journalist in the previous Dragons PV. Hm. He looks and sounds younger in the current trailer than in the PV (different VA too)...but if he had rebirthed in between, he shouldn't be using the same name still. Also, what's up with the horns?
( Suspicious... )
Found another lore fragment mentioning Taoran. He definitely seems to be a contemporary of Dan Feng. Doesn't seem to be a proponent of the Preceptor council seizing power permanently from the High Elder position though. At least at the time.

My recs page for youtube, bilibili, etc have been bombarded lately with the new 黑神话：悟空 (Black Myth: Wukong) game.

Been watching various videos, and I have been entertained as much by the cool cutscenes/storyline as by the hilarious reactions of various "journalists" about the game and the various gamering influencers responding to those journalists.

Addendum: After reading a lot of comments, speculation, analysis, etc. (on chinese sites that is), I feel like this video is relevant - 22000字解析：不聊黑神话，我想为西游记解读正本清源

It does seem like the narrative of the game is using an edgy 阴谋论 interpretation of JttW. That said, I think it's not really a big deal for the game to do so? Like, JttW itself was an interpretation of existing folklore based on the POV of the scholars of the Ming/Qing era. That Black Myth as a modern interpretation that is leaning into a lot of modern sentiments (like anti-feudalism, anti-divine, anti-authority...) seems par for the course to me.

And for people worried about foreigners being misled by "incorrect" mythology... em. Really, is it going to do worse than DBZ? Honestly, the real step is to get foreigners even interested in listening to infodumps about chinese myth/history. Whether how accurate it is (a nebulous thing given myth and folklore as a genre) is pretty insignificant. If people are really interested, they'll bother to do the research on their own.

Anyway, not planning on playing it or anything. It's waaay too skill-oriented for my taste.

Though while I was browsing through the linked recs on youtube, I also saw ads and trailers come up for the next GW2 expansion (already?). This would be the 2nd expac I've skipped. The previous one was for the wizard's tower. This one is for Janthir Wilds.

Skimmed through the trailer and it looks... meh. Really. Yeah, nothing to attract me back. -_-

So far, here's my score for the current endgame MoC dungeon, and the results from the last version which just finished when the patch rolled over. Comparing the two, overall cycles have decreased for the same level, so I guess my overall char-builds & team-building have improved.

Also, for the current run, I actually did better for lvl 12 than lvl 11! And 13 cycles is just 3 away from getting all 3 stars (and if I get 3 stars on lvl 12, it will automatically give me the missing stars on lvl 11). So, that's something to work towards...

( MoC results )

Next, a couple more "graduated" characters. They're at a stage where their gear and stats are good enough that it's not worth it for me to specifically grind for more.

Of these, Luocha and Fu Xuan are my earliest 5 star sustains, so they've helped me through a lot of tough content. Although Luocha has been severely powercrept by later healers, I can still get by with him, so I haven't pulled for any other 5 star healers (and currently not planning to pull for Lingsha either). Fu Xuan is also not quite fitting the current meta (which is headed in the way of lots high speed mobs). I do plan to pull Aventurine when his rerun comes around, but that's more for the slash factor. :p

Ruan Mei is definitely a linchpin of the current Break meta, and I don't regret pulling her light cone and E1. Tingyun is one of the best 4 stars in the game and has managed to remain relevant all the way since game launch, which is a pretty incredible feat.

( Luocha, Fu Xuan, Ruan Mei, Ting Yun )

As to my currently focused works in progress...

Generally looking to build March up in time to be Fei Xiao's support DPS. There's about a month to go for that, so plenty of time to level the traces and finalize the gear. Her speed is already pretty high, so looking to get some appropriate Firmament set of belt ornaments for her. Once I have her built, I can have the protagonist trio viably on the same team for exploration of the new map! XD

I am still looking to get the Harmony!MC speed to 145 to meet the reqs of her belt ornaments (she's at 144 speed right now >_<)

Jingliu is...almost done? Will need to finish leveling her belt ornaments to max and see if the stats are ok or need any adjusting. But not sure if I want to continue farming EQ pieces for her since my luck on that set is awful.

Asta is at 159 speed, just 1 short of the 160 breakpoint, and that number is driving me nuts. =P Will be on the looking for more speed on her.

Levelling wise, was originally planning to ascend Dr. Ratio to 80 next. But since there's been no leaks on when Aventurine's rerun will be, and the upcoming bosses next patch are not quite friendly to him, I might hold off until his other half comes around. In that case, I will probably level Argenti next, since upcoming bosses are more likely to be weak to physical (due to pushing Yunli banner), and might switch over to farming physical damage gear.

Finally, looking into switching Gallagher from Messenger + Passenger gear to Messenger + break dmg (either Watchmaker or Thief) gear. Especially if I can find a way to push his speed to 160 as well (he's currently at 152). Though since this will require swapping/farming multiple sets, it's gonna be lower in priority.

My visiting family members from CN are back from the East Coast for a weekend layover til their flight back to CN tomorrow. Yesterday, they rested and sorted out all the souvenirs they bought to see how everything will fit on the trip back.

Today I played chauffer and guide for a one-day tour of Silicon Valley.

Started off at Facebook (now Meta) HQ this morning. Though this place is pretty average looking and not very photogenic, IMO. So we didn't stop for too long. Parked at one of the random parking lots (at least the parking here is easy) and took some pics. Then drove a circle around its campus.

Then we moved on to Stanford University. Had a leisurely stroll through all the touristy hot spots there. Had a quick lunch at the food court south side of campus. They spent some time deciding on buying souvenirs at the student store. Then strolled back north and looked through the Cantor Arts Center. By the time we were done it was already near 4 PM (meaning we spent around 4 hours there -_o...)

After that, went to the Google Metroplex. Parking was a pain to find, and we ended up parking at the Google Store short term parking lot. Took some pics of the Google Store... doesn't seem like the Metroplex itself is too photogenic...at least, we didn't find the "front door" with the Google lettering on the building.

Next up was Apple HQ. It's a much smaller campus. Parked across the street from it at another company's empty parking lot. Took some pics of the rounded building. Though couldn't find an Apple logo to include in shots.

After that was Intel HQ. Again, this campus was even smaller. But very photogenic in that the company name is prominently displayed on the building. XD

Last stop was Nvidia. Interesting building, but no parking (its underground visitor parking lot was closed) and we ended up parking at a nearby business' lot instead. Pics could capture some parts of the interestingly shaped building, but the company logo was blocked by some tall grass (it's too low!)

Didn't have time to make the last stop on the wish list, Adobe, as we had plans to drive back and have dinner with some other relatives here. But we did get most of the items on the list done. Tomorrow I'll be seeing them off to SFO!

So I've been doing some reading on this pairing (理砂 in CN). Both because it's much more prolific than JYxDH... and because surprisingly the stories I've read so far are surprisingly of a more healthy relationship (though it may be me being lucky so far). And this is despite Aventurine having the more in-your-face sob story background.

I guess it's because to write JY pairings well, you have to go into CN societial mores and even feudal culture. That's a tall order for most writers who are in it for the fluff & kinks, apparently. So more than half the time, you end up with AU or semi-AU/OOC works which might as well have nothing to do with Star Rail, and they just slap the familiar names in to have give the OCs a face.

Ratio & Aventurine, on the other hand, their relationship resides in a very much modern day academic/work context, which is easier to write, I guess, and thus not as much reason to go all whacky AU/OOC.

I am considering pulling for Aventurine when his rerun comes around... I already have Ratio, though not built (because I have a great Imaginary attacker already in DHIL so it's not high up on priorities).

BTW, found this "translation" of their in game dialogue. No matter how you look at it, Aventurine and Ratio must've had a long time partnership from before the Penacony mission. They read each other quite well, and actually trust each other a lot for all they can put on a convincing act of mutual distrust.

“几块石头罢了”（基石不止一个）
“所以你的办法是什么”（计划）
“没必要说的太清楚”（将计就计）
“合作的重点是互相信任”（谁来干）
“所以你信任我吗？”（你主导）
“这取决于你的态度”（我怎么做）
“所以你也不信任我，这不就行了”（背刺我）

( some recs: )

Gameplay cutscene from Sept update of AP featuring Phantylia matchmaking for our boys (lol)