#iri talking

[iri-vail]

GIGGLING AND KICKING MY FEET AT THE NEW PERSONA TEASER

[iri-vail]

GIGGLING AND KICKING MY FEET AT THE NEW PERSONA TEASER

[iri-vail]

🚨🚨 it happened 🚨🚨 got asked whose wife i am at the business dinner 🚨🚨

[iri-vail]

Fujo stealthing at the trade show

[iri-vail]

towa's coming with me on my business trip idec anymore

[iri-vail]

Putting this whole thing under a cut because it's ~embarrassing~

...but i need to get this off my chest. I've read over all the docs that I've dragged from computer to computer since about 2013 and like... holy shit I'm kind of good at this. I should be doing this shit professionally. I do do this professionally, in a roundabout way. It's very. Hm. Like objectively a lot of it is pretty bad but also I've written some really, really cool stuff. A few original ideas that are very cool. There's even poems in there that I genuinely kind of adore. Obviously I'm biased and not an objective critic but this was great, this was healing. Also, nice to see a progression in there. My early early spn stuff was pretty normal, then around 2014 got weirdly experimental and incredibly disjointed for some reason, then turned into a pretty cool style I think.

(I don't know what's been going on with me, I might be hitting some kind of manic phase induced by work stress. I feel like these posts are obnoxious, especially bc I don't like saying nice things about myself bc it feels arrogant, but oh well. I'm trying to break out of that thinking anyway. I'm just glad I'm finally feeling a little more creative again. I was getting worried about that.)

[iri-vail]

so i started a new dao run (decided to play through the whole series again as lead up to a 2nd dav playthrough) and some of these dialogue choices are HAUNTING me. you can be such a cunt in this game, i didn't factor that in when i made my character a little goody two shoes lol.

i wanted to play something different from my usual so i picked human mage as origin (still playing a gay man though for Gender Reasons) and decided he would be Andrastian, a little goody two shoes and a coward. this shuts me out from all the funniest dialogue, the tragedy. i hope this playthrough will be fun anyway - i'm hoping to see how many terrible decisions i can get him to make under the guiding principle of believing the best in people. his name is maye and he just wants this blight to bring us all closer together!!! pls can everybody in lothering stop being evil dickheads for one minute!

[iri-vail]

The last few months have been kind of dour, so on a brighter note: I've managed to trick myself into reading again. Ramblings under the cut!

I've been trying to get back into the swing of writing (and I'm restless and nervous for some reason and online oversharing feels good when I feel like that) so I wrote this both in German and in English. Might be a bit weird to get excited about this, but I'm honestly a little astonished that I can read again. Actual books! Is it the meds? Is it the therapy? Who knows. And I need to talk about it. So. Here we are.

I used to read a lot as a kid - like a lot. A lot of different books, any spare minute I had. Stopped sometime during school, I don't know why. I recently realized that I actually struggle to read quite a bit, so maybe it's that? It's easy once I'm in the flow, but getting there is hard. Most of the time when I sit down to read now, I have to force myself to go back and read paragraphs over and over because I spaced out. Maybe that's a lack of practice, maybe I could reach a focus state easier as a child, or maybe my attention span has just gotten worse. Whatever it was, I didn't read anything but fanficiton, online essays and the news for years. Read a lot of those, at least, but no books.

The trick was getting a smaller phone. My last one was so big, so for the next one I decided to spend a little more and get one in a smaller size (for whatever reason only the expensive phones get smaller sizes). Turns out, reading on a smaller screen is harder, who would have thought. Came in handy, because I wanted to ween myself off obsessively reading reddit comments on my commutes anyway, so I started carrying around books again and - tadaaa. Suddenly I'm reading again, even at home! Maybe I just needed to get into the habit again?

Anyway, since I've been feeling chatty recently, I decided to write up all the books I read in the past few months. Not really reviews, just 2-3 thoughts I had.

Ranpo Edogawa - Strange Tale of Panorama Island

I admit: I bought this because two anime characters (that I know of) are named after Edogawa and I wanted to know what that's all about. This one was probably not the best suited to finding out why Conan is named after Edogawa haha. I expected a detective novel and it is not that. Definitely interesting: I love doppelganger stories and identity horror so that was nice. Could have used a few less pages of underwater descriptions, but I'll take it. I had fun!

Ren Warom - Escapology

My reading has been all over the place because I've been making my way through all of the books I bought over the years and then never touched. This one was part of my Cyberpunk phase in 2021. Not as intensely Cyberpunk as Neuromancer and the end was almost more fantasy than sci-fi, but I really enjoyed that. Characters and story too.

Hard in Hightown - Varric Tethras

Got this as a present years ago, never touched it. Until Veilguard happened and hardcore disappointed me, sadly. I had my fun with it, but it was shaky, to say the least. But it kicked me back into Dragon Age hell so I grabbed this off the shelf. Very cute little story, I loved the noir vibes. Maybe I want to try writing something like that as well...? I could write the scene where Rook and Varric first meet, they really should have included that in the game... Was the bartender supposed to be Fenris by the way? Very cute Varric!

Terminal Boredom - Izumi Suzuki

Would have fit perfectly into the one Queer Studies seminar I took at uni. Why did I spend so long avoiding sci-fi...? Nothing has made me think this much in a long time.

MDZS - extras

Finally got around to reading the last novel! I read the German translation, since I only started reading in English originally because I wanted to experience stories in their original language, and that wasn't possible here anways, so: German. I thought the translation was very well done, I liked the tone of it. The sex scenes would have probably been a tough read in English as well, but German was extra awkward haha. Hot take though: I don't think the sex scenes were /that/ bad, except for: lube, wwx, lube!!

Oh by the way: The juniors are translated as "Sprösslinge" in German! So basically someone's offspring, or the offshoot of a plant. The word makes me think of the little grass sprout on anime character's heads. It captures the vibe of "ducklings" very well.

I think there was more, but I can't remember any other titles right now. I usually write stuff like this in my journal, but again, I've been feeling like I need to do stuff recently. I've used tumblr on and off for journaling. It's nice, I think? Don't think I'll be doing this often though. Anyhow. Bye!

----

Ich habe als Kind immer sehr viel gelesen - viel viel. Viele verschiedene Bücher, zu jeder Tageszeit. Irgendwann in der Schule hörte das dann auf. Mittlerweile ist mir aufgefallen, dass Lesen tatsächlich ziemlich schwierig für mich ist. Wenn ich einmal im Flow bin lese ich immer noch sehr schnell und lange, aber da hin zu kommen ist schwierig. Meistens zwinge ich mich stundenlang Absätze immer und immer wieder zu lesen, weil ich gelesen habe ohne den Inhalt aufzunehmen... Vielleicht ist das die fehlende Übung, vielleicht komme ich heute schlechter in den Fokus als früher, vielleicht ist mein Aufmerksamkeitsvermögen auch heute einfach schlechter. So oder so, habe ich einfach jahrelang nichts außer Fanfiction und Nachrichten gelesen. Davon immerhin ziemlich viel, aber keine Bücher.

Der Trick war: kleineres Handy kaufen. Mein letztes war so groß, dass es mich nur genervt hat, also habe ich beim nächsten extra auf die Größe geachtet. Und auf dem kleinen Screen lese ich einfach nicht so gern. Plus, ich wollte ohnehin mal aufhören obzessiv Reddit-Kommentarspalten zu lesen... Also habe ich aufgehört in der Bahn am Handy zu lesen und mir stattdessen Bücher mitgenommen. Und seitdem lese ich wieder. Vielleicht musste ich einfach wieder in die Gewohnheit reinkommen? Wie beim Sport: Wenn man einmal angefangen hat ist es nicht so schwierig, im Rhythmus zu bleiben. Setzt man einmal aus, ist es sooo schwierig wieder anzufangen.

Anyway: Ich hab in letzter Zeit irgendwie Mitteilungsbedürfnis und wollte auch noch mehr Schreiben (nicht nur fanfiction, sondern auch original und nonfiction), deshalb dachte ich ich schreib einfach mal auf, was ich so gelesen habe!

Ranpo Edogawa - Strange Tale of Panorama Island

Ich geb zu: Hab ich mir gekauft weil mehrere Anime-Charakter nach diesem Autor benannt sind und ich rausfinden wollte, was es damit auf sich hat. Strange Tale of Panorama Island war aber vielleicht nicht das beste Buch um zu verstehen, warum Conan nach Edogawa benannt wurde haha. Ich hatte einen Detektiv-Roman erwartet, das war's aber so gar nicht (oder nur erkennbar in der generellen erzählerischen Qualität). Die Geschichte mochte ich sehr gern. Ich liebe Doppelgänger-Geschichten und Identitäts-Horror. Die 4 (?) Seiten Unterwasser-Beschreibung hätten kürzer sein können, aber insgesamt: hat Spaß gemacht!

Ren Warom - Escapology

Die Bücher die ich im Moment lese sind thematisch wild gemischt, weil ich einfach alles lese, was ich über die Jahre gekauft und dann nie angefasst habe. Escapology ist ein Überbleibsel aus meiner 2020er Cyberpunk-Phase. Die Cyberpunk-Elemente fand ich im Vergleich zu Neuromancer recht oberflächlich, aber die Story und Charaktere mochte ich. In vielerlei Hinsicht kam das Buch mir mehr wie Fantasy als Sci-Fi vor, was ich ziemlich interessant fand. Nicht ganz was ich erwartet hatte, aber sehr interessant.

Hard in Hightown - Varric Tethras

Vor Jahren geschenkt bekommen, aus dem Regal gezerrt nachdem Veilguard mich ziemlich enttäuscht hat. Im dritten Akt hat das Spiel etwas die Kurve bekommen, aber der Anfang war...holprig, mindestens. Jetzt bin ich trotzdem wieder im Dragon-Age-Hype, und deswegen: Hard in Hightown. Schöne kleine Story, ich mochte die Noir-Atmosphäre. Sollte Fenris der Bartender sein? Sehr süß Varric :D Jetzt hab ich Lust, auch mal was in dem Stil zu schreiben... Vielleicht schreibe ich Rooks erstes Treffen mit Varric? Das hätten sie echt ins Spiel aufnehmen können...

Terminal Boredom - Izumi Suzuki

Hätte sehr gut in mein eines Queer Studies Seminar an der Uni gepasst. Warum habe ich so lange gar kein Sci-Fi gelesen? Lange hat mich nichts so zum Denken angeregt.

MDZS - Extras

Endlich den letzten Band gelesen! Ich hab die Bücher auf Deutsch gelesen, weil ich ursprünglich angefangen habe auf Englisch zu lesen um Geschichten in der Originalsprache zu erleben und das war hier ja ohnehin nicht möglich. Also: Deutsch. Ich glaub die Sexszenen wären so oder so ziemlich hart gewesen, aber auf Deutsch war's schon echt schwierig durchzukommen. Aber hot take: Sooo krass weird find ich die Extras gar nicht. Bis auf: lube, Wei Wuxian, lube!!

Insgesamt fand ich die deutsche Übersetzung ziemlich gut gelungen. Fun fact: Die "juniors" werden als "Sprösslinge" übersetzt! Richtig süß, und kommt an den vibe von "ducklings" ziemlich nah dran finde ich

Ich glaube, ich habe noch mehr gelesen... Aber es fällt mir jetzt nicht mehr ein. Irgendwie bin ich in letzter Zeit etwas rastlos, deshalb dieser Impuls zur Ausnahme öffentlich, und nicht in einem Notizbuch, zu journalen. Irgendwie komisch, auf Deutsch im Internet zu schreiben.... naja. Hier sind wir.