Reader's Discretion Advised

Things that have occurred to me:Why isn't Sin on an antidepressant? We know he's on benzodiazepines for (apparently) the PMD, but supposedly, people with PMD as opposed to NPMD respond less to medication. I can see it being a treatment for the insomnia since it's a hypnotic, but ultimately, it's not an antidepressant so wouldn't have much effect on the PMD. However, benzodiazepines do help (slightly) with depersonalization (but to the extent of helping with the accompanying anxiety and stress as they are anxiolytics and sedatives). Either way, though, unless he's secretly on ECT and we weren't told about it, nothing's really being done to treat his PMD (NIMH says that an combined therapy of olanzapine and SSRI sertraline help...)Another thing:Sin's name. And language, for that matter. Yeah, I realized now that since this IS set 10 years (from now) in the future, a lot can change, but as is, Cantonese is the de facto official language of Hong Kong (along with English, of course). It doesn't really make sense that Sin would know Mandarin to the exclusion of Cantonese. That's not to say there aren't Mandarin speakers. It's just that, at least in Hong Kong, Cantonese is by far the more prevalent "Chinese" language. (Even if his mom neglected him and didn't teach him shit, he should have picked up Canto instead of Mandarin.)Also, if he really does speak Mandarin for whatever bizarre reason, why in the hells is his name spelled "Hsin"? Wade-Giles has pretty much died out and been mostly replaced by pinyin except in historical contexts (=_= I head-desk mentally every time I see Chiang Kai-shek) so the Anglicization of his name probably should be "Xin Liu." (Now that I think of it, his name's even in Mandarin. WTF was his HKer mother thinking?). Anyways, his name should be "Hsin Liu" and not just "Hsin." Chinese isn't like Western languages. There is not real "middle name." Calling him "Hsin" (*shudders at WG) is like only saying half of your name. Like instead of calling someone, for a random example, Lisa, just saying "Li-" and stopping there. It's not even like a nickname because Chinese people generally either create a wholly unrelated nickname or add an appellation to part of your original name. ~sigh. Fine, fine. I guess since it's been Anglicized (almost said bastardized, but I suppose same diff), I'll have to accept that "Hsin" (*shudders) is just his name.Rant against Toby: for someone who actually studied the language supposedly, I'm appalled that he just called him "Hsin Vega." Granted, his family name isn't exactly Chinese so I accept that he's not calling him "Vega Xin Liu" but still. For someone who studied the language, I feel like he should understand "Sino-Tibetan" naming conventions. Now that I think of it, wtf did he mean he knew "some Sino-Tibetan"? That's such an inherently large-ass group of disparate languages that I refuse to believe they'll all somehow condense together in 10 years while Mandarin still somehow magically remains intact. (For that matter, how da faq does Boyd know Sin's speaking Mandarin? Couldn't he be speaking Farsi for all he knew?)Yes, yes. I'm starting to scrutinize too closely now. Well, back to reading with me.Post-reading ETAOkay, there were ups and downs...Part of it got really trite, but I just skimmed over that.New developments, the plot thickens even further, and nonesuch.I'm not quite sure how I feel about all of this yet. It makes sense, yet doesn't. I keep flashing back to The Admin series, about how Toreth's a sociopath and is always going to be one, but it's heavily implied that Sin isn't necessarily always going to be a psychopath. Then again, I suppose I'm trying to draw parallels where they don't exist.I liked how the authors handled the re-intro of Emilio. I called bullshit at first but once I took it in stride, I did appreciate the way they balanced his impact.The Mandarin thing seemed ret-conned to me, but w/e, I guess. I'll just have to live with it.It's interesting and bears some considering, the issues and subtext this work brings up (some of it, not all of it). I even liked the way the authors balanced Boyd's impact, especially at the very end there.ETA:So, Hsin's name still bothered me for a long time.The only thing that I can really come up with that I feel an English speaker would come up with as a name is 流星 (pinyin: Liúxīng), which means meteor. But then... Hsin Liu Vega... that's like his entire name is in reverse, then... O_OMaybe I've extrapolated too far?