My last 5 books: Mostly YA!

1. Eliza and Her Monsters, by Francesca Zappia. Only reason I decided to pick this book up several years ago is because Hannah of A Clockwork Reader kept gushing about it on Booktube. I went in with absolutely no expectations, but I was hooked almost immediately. I resonate so hard with both Eliza and Wallace, being that socially awkward person in every context. When Eliza described herself in one of the first few chapters saying she should've grown out of it I knew I was hooked. And then Wallace's stepdad saying those absolutely parent things about his writing is so close to everything I've been told myself. And finally Eliza's parents refusing to understand what's going on despite it being clear as day if they made even the smallest effort. Even her parents have brushed her off as "She's weird, we don't understand" and then still claim that they're trying. News flash: you're not, stop lying. This book made me cry on the commuter train. 

2. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, by Mackenzi Lee. This is another book that Hannah of A Clockwork Reader talked about on Booktube. It came highly recommended by her which is why I picked it up. As much as I enjoy historical fiction and as much fun the plot of this book was, it didn't wow me. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad, it just was. As much as I tried to relate to Monty, he mostly just exasperated me and I found myself wishing for more Felicity and less Monty. Percy was genuinely the best character in the book. I did enjoy the alchemy stuff, though, as I find alchemy to be an incredibly interesting subject. I might give the sequel a try since it'll be about Felicity. This is one of few books that actually had me read the author's notes at the end. 

3. The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. I went into this book expecting YA so it was very jarring to realise that this book read like Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's absolutely beautifully crafted and the characters are immensly interesting, but the plot took its sweet time to get going. I think I was around 200 pages in when I finally got to a place where I found the book hard to put down, instead of just remaining mildly interested in where this story would take me. I'm not a fan of the ending. I don't like Isobel. I wish Hector and Alexander were given more room and didn't just amount to "father-figure the young people complain about", because their backgrounds and motivations and personalities are all there, just below the surface, being teased but never properly utilised. There were two shocking moments in the book that had me actually pause and then reread the page. I can't decide if I like this book or not. It definitely has its strengths, but at the same time it just feels very very long. Sometimes unnecessarily so. And getting to the end was very unrewarding. But I really like Celia. In the end I think I liked it more than I didn't like it, but it definitely requires a specific mood to be enjoyed. 

4. Den Tusende Följaren, av Jenny Milewski. Ni vet den där känslan när en vuxen person som inte har en aning har försökt sätta sig in i en grej för att relatera med kidsen och framstå som modern? Den känslan är hela den här boken. Stella är sjutton år och småkändis på Youtube men hon råkar få en stalker/troll på halsen och hennes småtrevliga celebritet blir plötsligt en mardröm. Tycker det är grymt fascinerande att Stella har haft en närvaro online sen hon var tretton år, men aldrig fått en dickpic skickad till sig innan det här trollet kom in i bilden. Hela boken känns som skrämselpropaganda för unga människor att "kolla hur farligt internet är!" Samtidigt ska det här vara en ungdomsbok och huvudpersonen är sjutton, så det skär sig lite med en detaljerad sexscen mitt i alltihop. Dialogen är glättig och uppstyltad. Och på något vänster kommer det fram att storyn egentligen inte ens handlar om huvudpersonen. Den tvisten var mindre uppskattad av mig i alla fall. Milewski's författarskap har hittills varit väldigt hit or miss för mig. Jag har tidigare läst Yuko och Skalpelldansen. 

5. Vita Tigern, av Christin Ljungqvist. Okej så den här boken tilltalade mig inte alls till att börja med. Avalon var en bråkig skitunge, texten kändes hackig med alldeles för många korta meningar efter varandra, och world-buildingen var minimal. Men efter att jag hade lyckats ta mig ungefär halvvägs så blev förbättrades storyn radikalt. Avalon insåg att hon hade varit en bråkig skitunge och tog sig i kragen och blev därmed spännande och intressant att läsa om, man fick veta mer om världen och det blev färre korta meningar och bättre flow i texten. Slutet störde mig dock. Det kändes för plötsligt med så många obesvarade frågor. Och hur dum är Avalon som totalt dumpar Teodor efter att hon får veta att han är "in on it". Borde inte det vara något som för dem närmre varandra?! Ja, han kanske var utsänd att hålla ett öga på henne, men allvarligt? Alla hans intima gester och känslomässiga snedsteg hade knappast med det att göra och Avalon är så dum jag orkar inte. Jag vill ha en uppföljare.

Happy 30th, Elder Scrolls!

On March 25h 1994 The Elder Scrolls: Arena was released and a franchise was born. This franchise has come to mean a lot to me for a lot of different reasons, and because today marks its 30th anniversary I'm going to take you on my journey. 

I started playing Skyrim in 2012. The first mention of the game on this blog is from April 2012. Skyrim wasn't just my first Elder Scrolls game, but my first open world game and my first RPG, and it opened the world of gaming for me in a way no other game I had tried before had managed. 2012 was my first playthrough. 2021 when Anniversary Edition released on the game's 10th anniversary is to date my most recent playthrough and I still come back to it. I have Skyrim screenshots from every year from 2013 to 2021.

Top left: Oldrim. Top right: Special Edition. Bottom: Anniversary Edition

After I played Skyrim I became interested in the other Elder Scrolls games and I played both Oblivion and Morrowind in 2013. As a skybaby my first foray into Morrowind didn't go at all smoothly, but with some tips and tricks from an online friend on Steam I managed to play through the game and Morrowind became one of my favourite games of all time. I also tried my hand at Arena and Daggerfall around this time, but didn't complete them. 

Top left: Arena. Top right: Morrowind. Bottom left: Oblivion. Bottom right: Skyrim.

Having played all those games in the same universe I got a little bit curious about lore and started reading about the different races of the world. Especially the extinct races caught my fancy. But I didn't delve too deep into it at that time. 

Because in 2014 Elder Scrolls Online released and for the next few years I was stuck. In 2016 I joined a guild called Masters of Eternia where I met a bunch of people who later formed the Guild of Adventure in 2017. These guilds are what prompted me to join discord and through these guilds I met a lot of people who've become close friends. Some of whom I've even met IRL now! 

Left: Cradle of Shadows in 2016. Right: Victory in Halls of Fabrication in 2017

I was a guild officer for both guilds until I left MoE in 2017 and GoA in 2020. I'm still in contact with a bunch of the guildies though! Joining discord for the guilds prompted a whole new era of Elder Scrolls for me. In 2019 I joined the server for this youtuber and quickly became a staff member of that server. Via this server I joined the r/Skyrim server in 2021 and once the youtuber server era came to an end (for reasons I don't need to go into here) the Skyrim server became my main server on discord. I joined the staff team there on April 2nd 2022. Turns out a lot of the Elder Scrolls related servers on discord share members so via the Skyrim discord I joined a whole bunch of other servers (most notably the r/Oblivion server) and now spend most of my days with other TES fans. Via all these servers I've gotten to know so many people and many of them I consider real friends. 

As for the games... In 2017 I played Legends, the card-game spin-off, which didn't impress me much back then but I might give it another shot. Last year I started playing Blades, the mobile RPG, and this year I started playing Castles, the Fallout Shelter TES replica, as soon as it was released in Sweden. 

Left; The Elder Scrolls: Blades. Right: The Elder Scrolls: Castles

Last year I also started to delve deeper into the lore. As they say in Doctor Who: it's bigger on the inside! I'm having a lot of fun learning about the history, cultures and metaphysics of the Elder Scrolls universe and love seeing how all these things connect both in-universe and with RL inspirations. The lore is badass and messed up and wonderful. Have this amazing fan video of Pelinal as reference:

As for fun things that have happened over the years I've been involved in the games/fandom:
• In both 2017 and 2018 GoA did madness runs of trials (12-person dungeons), completing them with severely underlevelled characters.
• We accidentally started the cult of dagothwave on the Skyrim server and to date the dagothwave song has been played over 2000 times. Listening sessions are called "wavin". 
• I discovered a total overhaul mod of my favourite Total War game, placing it in Tamriel rather than Europe, and played that extensively. 
• Last year was the first year I bought an advent calendar since I was a kid, and only because it was Skyrim. 

The Elder Scrolls have given me so much enjoyment. Not only in the terms of hours of gameplay, but also in the form of shenanigans and hijinks, intellectual discourse from lore stuff (so much comparative religion omg), and so many friends. I'll be forever thankful that I decided to try Skyrim that day and that it opened the world of gaming and TES for me ♥

Today, as part of the 30th anniversary celebration, Bethesda released two announcements. Both of which reference the next Elder Scrolls game, and I'm hopeful this means we'll see a new TES before the 20s turn into the 30s!

Let's end this massive post with a song (one of the best version of this song that I've ever heard):

Game completed: The Outer Worlds (twice)

Been hearing lots of good about this game so I picked it up. It's been a fantastic ride! One of my favourite games for sure. Only complaints are basically that it's too short and there's no romance (Maaaaaaaaaxxxx ♥♥♥♥)

So for my first playthrough I went in completely blind and without any clue what the game would be and how it worked. Lockpicking took me a while to figure out: how the magpicks and the skill levels worked together. I was on the regular edition but with both DLCs. I played through Murder of Eridanos before I even met with Sophia Akande and was stumped when max level turned out to be 36. What kind of arbitrary number is that? I was level 36 before I even started the Gorgon DLC and it kind of ruined the game a bit that there was nothing more to be gained really. No more growth left. So I decided to finish up the story on the regular edition and then play the game again on the Spacer's Choice edition that released last year where they scrapped the level cap. This decision made me rush a bit through the rest of the game. 

So for my next playthrough on Spacer's Choice I decided to focus on the Stealth, Tech and Dialogue skills and let my companions bring the fire power. No lock or speech check could stop me. I explored every inch of every map and ventured to unlock as many achievements as I possibly could. Which included separate saves so I could get all the achievements for branching story paths. Ultimately I made some different choices on this playthrough than I did on my previous one. I saved as many people as I could.

As for the companions everybody loves Parvati. But while she's very sweet she's also so awkward that it hurts. Her banter with other companions is just all fluster and nerves and I eventually stopped bringing her because I couldn't stand her stammering. Ellie and Nyoka were a fun combo and I really like them both. However, my favourite companions became Max and Felix and I brought them along for basically everything all the time. Their banter is priceless. 

My favourite areas to explore were Eridanos and Terra 2. Edgewater even brought a Morrowind vibe with that volcano and big mushrooms. Although Groundbreaker was a really cool place and I love the effect of entering it for the first time. It's so pretty. 

Can I have a sequel, please?