My last 5 books: Why read in one language when you can read in four? :P

1. Thin Air, by Michelle Paver. This book was brilliant. Written like an old-fashioned account of events, I originally thought it was an old story, but it's actually less than 10 years old. I've always had a fascination for the explorers of the past - how brave and daring they must've been to venture into the unknown with barely any technology to speak of; early 20th century expeditions into the Arctic and Antarctica, or through the African jungles in the 19th century, or chasing the horizon across the seas for millennia, or climbing that mountain to the top. So this story takes place in 1935 and it's written like it. It follows a group of Englishmen attempting to climb the third tallest mountain in the world; the Kangchenjunga, and they're all in awe of a previous expedition to the mountain in 1907. None of the hitherto expeditions have made it to the top, and the one they're all admiring ended pretty badly. The thin air on mountains make you sick, and mountain sickness messes with your head. All of this adds up to a chillingly brilliant ghost story. 

2. From the Earth to the Moon, by Jules Verne. I'm a big fan of 19th century sci-fi, because the science is dubious at best and ludicrous at worst, but the sheer hope for the future is just amazing to see/read. So what happens in this one is that the Gun Club in the US is fresh out of things to do because the Civil War has ended. One of them proposes that they send a projectile to the moon, basically to just prove that they can, and the entire Club agrees that it's a splendid idea. What follows are a lot of gentlemen hard at work doing calculations to figure out the best time to fire such a projectile, how it should be done, what it should be made of, and how in the world they'll manage to give it the speed required to reach the moon. When the day for the launch draws near by a couple months an adventurer appears and suddenly the entire enterprise changes from "sending a projectile to the moon" to "sending people to the moon". Basically so that they can establish communication with the civilization on the moon. It's kind of fun to read their logical arguments for why there obviously (duh!) is a civilization on the moon, and on every single planet in the solar system. They go on a long tirade about how the supposed civilization on Jupiter is superior to that of the Earth (guess nobody had figured out that Jupiter is basically just gas yet?) This book was first published in 1865 and I had a lot of fun with the supposed science and how they applied themselves to get to the moon with the resources they had. Verne wrote this story more than a full century before we actually placed a person on the moon. Mind-blowing. 

3. Sekaiteki Youtuber ni Natta Tohoku Sonzai no Eikokujin, by Chris Broad. If you have watched every single video by Chris and listened to the podcast then you have a pretty good idea what this book is about. Chris tells the story of how he ended up going to Japan, what brought him there, what his years as an English teacher were like, and how he ended up doing Youtube full-time. He gives his opinions on the Japanese society; what's great and what could be improved. He relates the story of how his channel grew to where it is today and finishes the book by telling his readers about the covid pandemic and what it did to foreigners in Japan and how it impacted him more personally. He ends the book by telling fans how he'd like people to act when they run into him. All in all it's a pretty sweet book. Chris talks a lot about understanding, collaboration and charm and it's obvious from the pages (and his videos) that he genuinely loves Japan and what he does. It's heart-warming to read. It took me forever because I can't read as fast in Japanese as I can in English or Swedish, but in the end I really did enjoy this book.

4. The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton. Read in Swedish. I've had some bad experiences with translations and so I often avoid them where I can, but this translation was beautifully done. This book would have been right up my alley when I was 12-14. Historical venues, family mysteries, hidden places, and strong-willed women were all things I enjoyed reading about at that age, and that was the main reason I decided to pick up this book. For the first part of this book I wasn't convinced, nothing seemed to be happening and the different perspectives showed up seemingly without any connection to each other. But in the second part the different perspectives started to meld together to form one coherent story and that's when I became invested and realized that I still like a lot of the same things now as I did at 12. I thought this would be a book I would donate, but it became a book I'd like to read again. The story follows Nell, Cassandra and Eliza respectively. In her early 20s Nell finds out that she is a foundling and not the biological child of her parents and she spends the rest of her life trying to find out where she came from. It wasn't until she was in her 60s when her father died that the things she was found with were returned to her and following the clues from those things she heads to Cornwall, England from Australia, where she ends up buying a cottage. Circumstances of life later prevents her from going back to that cottage and finding out the real story of where she came from. Her granddaughter Cassandra inherits the cottage and the mystery of her grandmother's origins. After the death of her husband and son, followed by the death of her beloved grandmother, Cassandra decides to go to England to get a change of scenery and also to poke around the cottage. Her initial thought is to sell it, but she gets tangled up in Nell's mystery and goes on trying to solve it. All while Nell and Cassandra follow clues in their respective present day (1975 and 2005 respectively) the reader also gets to follow Eliza from 1900 to 1913 and Eliza's story has some very pronounced effects on both Nell and Cassandra. It's been a great ride and I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. 

5. Mondo et autres histoires, by J.M.G. Le Clezio. This is one of the books I saved from when I studied French at uni, to read later without the pressure. Le Clezio's language is beautiful and he writes fantastical stories in a pretty magical way. I can see how pretty they are, and I feel the magic when I read them, which is why it's so frustrating that they don't engage me. It was a chore to pick this book up. I read it on and off for almost a month without really making much progress, and in the end I decided to DNF it. I really wish I'd enjoy this book because it's so beautifully written. But I just didn't. 

Locke & Key S03

This season was probably the best yet. The stakes are higher, the adults are in on it, and both demons and echoes are aplenty. 

I didn't really like the addition of the Timeshift key. Time-travel usually just mess things up, but it did create a means for one character to return, and it also made it possible for the emotional reunion at the end. So I guess I'll take the good with the bad. 

This season was very final in a lot of ways and they could comfortably end the show here. But then there was that one thing at the end that makes the entire finality of this season very open-ended. So if they want to do more they can. 

I'm only sad Josh didn't get to be in on the whole thing. He had such a large part to play in this season and they didn't let him in on their secret.

The Sandman S01

Oh how I've been looking forward to this show! I love the comics, and after the announcement that it would be made into a show I just kept thinking "don't fuck this up". And I'm happy to say that they didn't. The comics are from the 80s and honestly progressive af for that time period, but they work so well in a modern environment too. 

The story is about Dream a.k.a Morpheus a.k.a The Sandman. He's one of the Eternals along with his siblings Death, Desire, Destiny, Destruction, Delirium and Despair. Death, Desire and Despair all make appearances on the show. 

The show is basically the first two volumes of the comic. It starts off with Dream's imprisonment and his subsequent escape and how the world is affected by his absence. Everything that happens in the show is a direct consequence to Dream's imprisonment. 

Hob's story is one of my favourites in the comic and they did it so well in the show.

The extra episode added just two days ago also features two of my favourite stories from the comics. 

The only realy complaint I've heard about this show is that it's a bit slow, and yes, the beginning of the story, even in the comics, feature a hell of a lot of world-building. But it's such an incredible world. And there's plenty of action. If David Thewlis doesn't get an award for the diner episode I'll riot. 

Fallout 76

First time I played this was during a free weekend some years ago via Bethesda's own launcher. This was before the game was even on Steam so it was pretty new. Then it released on Steam and in one sale or other I bought it and played it for around 25 hours (this was in May 2020) before Toni said it'd be fun if we played it together. So I stopped playing on my own as to not discover everything about the game by myself and waited to pick it up until we decided to play it together. After Generation Zero this became our new co-op game. 

Both of us loved Fallout 4 and 76 is the same engine and same style so we both expected to really love 76 as well. But it has been a kind of a roller coaster. It nails the Fallout vibe, which we both love, but the gameplay leaves some things to wish for.

To start with it has the most unintuitive multiplayer ever for a multiplayer game. We can't just both start the game or we'll end up in different instances. One of us has to load into the game and then the other person has to go through the Social menu to join that person's game. When we do that we are not automatically in a group (which would make sense since we're actively joining in on each other). We have to invite each other to group even though we just joined each other's games. And even with that grouping seems to have mostly been designed for Events and Daily Ops (dungeons). Questing together is mostly not together. A big chunk of quests have instances that you can enter as team leader or join someone else in your group who's already in, with the caveat that only the team leader gets the quest progression. So if you want to play those instances together you'll have to do it more than once. Each player has to enter as team leader and have the others join to get quest progression. With the result that we mostly solo those places. So even when playing together the game doesn't allow us to play together. I remember that these areas weren't instance-locked the first time I played during the free weekend on Bethesda's launcher and my only guess is that they implemented this change so people wouldn't have to wait around for spawns. Which would be a stupid attempt to solve a problem that every online RPG ever has - other players. 

Daily Ops (dungeons) allow you to be as small groups as two people, but as such a small group it was also pretty damn impossible to complete. At least without using up all our ammo and stimpaks, and dying several times and having our armour parts break...

And that's another complaint we both have: the enemies are too bulletspongy. Legendary class enemies will use up an absurd amount of ammo, and they'll kill you in 3-4 hits so better put your stimpaks on the quick access wheel. But even when they aren't legendary class, some enemies just require too much ammo, both with VATS and without. Super mutants, Yao Guai, Deathclaws, FUCKING ROBOTS... 

We're both trying out builds and mixing and matching perk cards to help with armour/ammo/damage, but the entire level system past level 60 is just way too limiting. I don't need another five cards if I don't have the means to add them without losing something else. Legendary perk cards are too few and far between. Level cap should be at 80 instead of 60. 

I like guns that shoot fast and have big mags so I'm running a Commando build. Bf likes to do a lot of damage so he's running a Shotgunner build. That said even at level 75 I'm running around with three different kinds of automatic rifles, that use different kinds of ammo + a melee weapon as backup should I run out of ammo in THREE RIFLES. Because it has happened. I have also run out of stimpaks on more than one occasion. 

We start every session in good moods and happy to get back into it. But every session is marred by some annoyance. 

One thing that always annoys me is how you can't fast travel anywhere in this game without getting slapped in the face with a Daily Quest when you arrive. Stop throwing them in my face! Just put a fricking exclamation mark on the map like everyone else. FFS. If I'm going somewhere it's probably because I have a quest pointing me there. So I'm already on a quest. Usually a quest that I can't do an infinite amount of times and so I will prioritize that. Just stop cluttering my journal.

Another annoyance is the imbalance between resources and the appalling scarcity of some constantly needed resources. Ballistic fiber is rare af and required for basically every repair ever. Lead is required to craft the ammo I need. Bf needs plastic for his ammo. And modding requires adhesive. So we're running around a post-apocalyptic world picking up every pencil, duct tape, glue, toy, and plastic plate (and fight over the few pieces of ballistic fiber) that we can find, until we're overencumbered. Which doesn't take long and we spend about 80% of every session as overencumbered. 

We don't hate the game, either of us, but it would be a massively improved experience if we didn't have to get annoyed each session. And we will continue playing it at least as long as there are quests to do (not dailies; actual quests) and maybe it will get better as time goes on. But if SPECIAL is capped at 60 then it shouldn't take until level 100+ for the gameplay and mechanics to become good. Usually online games struggle with endgame, but in the case of 76 it seems to be all that matters. Everything before endgame is just a struggle.

Both of us gave in around level 80 and bought Fallout 1st because our stash boxes got filled up with crafting mats and more legendary weapons and armour from events than Murmrgh and the legendary scrapper could manage to deal with (a daily cap on vendor currency is pretty crap tbh), and we needed the Junk Box to shove all the mats in. Both of our CAMP vendors were filled to the brim with stuff we wanted to get rid of (why isn't it possible to send excess ammo to vendors?)

Launching our first nuke was the first sign that we approached the end of the game and boy did the game turn that into a FUCKING GAUNTLET. Robots upon robots upon robots upon robots... I now have a burning hatred for sentry bots and assaultrons. 

We got past level 100 before we decided that we were done with FO76. At that point we had finished all the main quest lines from base game and DLCs and the majority of the side quests and we were basically just running around doing events and challenges. When I got past level 90 I was finally at a place where I could dump both my melee weapons and two of my three rifles and only run around with my favoured rifle, because I finally had enough resources and caps and perks to be able to comfortably acquire and craft the correct ammo. Enemies were still spongy (seems to be that way for everyone that doesn't have a legacy weapon) but it was mostly manageable. 

So yeah, Fallout 76 was a wild ride with both of us ready to throw in the towel more than once, but instead we persevered and got to the endgame where we found a lot of things were mostly repetitive. 

Still... Would I consider going back sometime? Yes. 

After all this complaining did I still mostly have fun? Yes.

Fuck you, 76. I enjoyed you against all odds.

Elder Scrolls Online: Deadlands DLC

The conclusion to the Gates of Oblivion season was lackluster. The Fargrave zone reminded me a lot of the Clockwork City zone and while it was cool it got very restrictive and very repetitive very fast. The back and forth between the city of Fargrave and the plane of Oblivion became a whole lot of loading screens. 

I did enjoy the wandering horrors though. They reminded me a lot of the wandering horrors in the Imperial City, but without the risk of accidentally killing a player from another faction since Fargrave is a pure PvE zone. 

Eveli was the highlight of this DLC. Most other characters fell flat and even recurring characters from Blackwood didn't seem to have the same feeling in Fargrave. 

The final fight against Molag Bal was really cool though!

Nothing more to add, really. This DLC felt like an intermission. 

Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood chapter

Next up on catching up with ESO was the Blackwood chapter. I had been idly curious about this since it was announced since it kind of incorporated the events of Oblivion into ESO. Was it super nostalgic to go back through Oblivion gates and run through masses of daedra? Yes! 

I had a lot of fun with this chapter and it served as a great reminder that the ESO community on PC-EU is absolutely great. I wanted to do all the world bosses before finishing the main quest. So I waited patiently at one of them for people to happen to run by. They didn't and I tried it myself a couple times without success (sometimes it works alone) so I shouted in chat asking if anybody wanted to help me with this one boss. I got six randoms joining me and we ended up doing all of the world bosses on the map with each of us providing the corresponding daily quest. 

A similar thing happened on the group boss in one of the public dungeons where I tried it myself a few times, because usually I can manage them alone with some focus and hard work. But this one was just too overwhelming to do alone. So I resigned myself to come back and do it later and left the area where the boss was. When I got out there was another player just outside killing some mobs and when he was done he just casually asked if I wanted to do the group boss. I said yes as I had been trying it myself several times. Went back in with that player and he took the time to explain every mechanic of the boss to the point where I actually had to tell him to stop because I had figured out the mechanics in my several attempts, but it was so sweet. So we started the boss and just naturally, without any special communication, ended up being me on adds and activating mechanics and him on damaging the boss. I threw some heals his way and helped damaging the boss when I could, and in no time at all we had defeated the boss. 

Blackwood was a haven for public dungeons, because not only were there the two usual public dungeons that are present in every big zone, but every Oblivion gate counted as a public dungeon. And these gates were a lot more fun to run through and complete than the original Oblivion equivalents. 

Blackwood introduced companions, which is a NPC that follows you around and helps you fight. They also have personalities and different things they like or dislike and you can raise their disposition towards you by doing things they like. As they grow to like you more they will also offer quests for you to do. You can find equipment for them and they level up just like your own character and you can assign skills to them and decide how they will behave in battle. Need a tank? Your companion's got you covered. Except I was as per usual max level when I got to Blackwood and my lowbie companion was brand new and so squishy I decided to just keep them as dps. Do what you can, little guy. Since Blackwood is a starter zone I imagine the companions are more useful for a new character where they level up alongside you. For me, and seemingly for a lot of high level players, the companion was just a sidekick that spent more time lying passed out on the sidelines of the boss battles than actually contributing anything :P

As for the story it reminded me of a detective/mystery story, where the player had to follow clues to find the Ambitions. Extremely powerful weapons according to the legend, that Dagon would use to enter Tamriel. All the new characters in the story were well-written and I ended up pretty attached to more than one of them. I'm happy there was no major character death in this chapter (looking at you Dragonhold and Markarth).

My favourite sidequest was probably the one involving Alchemy from the Summerset chapter, who has returned in this chapter alongside their travelling band of performers. It was a really cute sidequest about following your dreams and being whatever you want to be. But you can never go wrong with Lady Laurent and Stibbons and they both showed up again in this chapter :3 Poor Stibbons keeps getting in trouble. 

Eveli was a welcome return. She was first introduced in Orsinium and I loved her back then. I loved her even more after this. 

Next up; Fargrave!

Elder Scrolls Online: Markarth DLC

After two long years I suddenly find myself back in Tamriel and I have so much to catch up on! They've added a bunch of new features and entirely changed the champion point system. 

When I started I first spent a couple of hours putting my character back together since they had reset all the CP and all the skills ^^; Trying to remember what skills I favoured was an uphill battle, but I got there in the end. 

Then I did the prologue quest for Markarth DLC with Gwendis and then got going on the DLC proper. Time to finish the Dark Heart of Skyrim chapter :3 In my first post about this chapter I was hoping that Verandis would make a return. And I absolutely called it!!! :D

I confess I might be a bit too attached to Verandis, and I may like him a bit too much, but I was running around the later half of the DLC main quest mumbling "if you do Verandis like you did Tharn I'll be so upset". And for a minute there I thought they did, but only almost... I'll take it! Stop with my favourite characters already. 

Overall this DLC was amazing. I loved finding out more about the Reach and the Forsworn. Even finding out the backstory for Rada al-Saran and how he connected with Verandis, was almost like finding out Vanus Galerion's backstory at Artaeum and how he connected to Mannimarco. I just really liked this story. 

Harrowstorms are still a lot of fun. 

There were a lot of cool places in this DLC, I especially appreciated the slip of land that had been severed from Coldharbour. The final fight against Rada al-Saran was really cool and the area where it was was very plane of Oblivion-esque, but so very fitting. 

Markarth is the City of Stairs. 

My favourite side quest was probably the one with Eslyn and Madearn and the clan feud that they were asked to solve by getting married. It was a fun quest that didn't end in a way I expected it to. I also liked the one where you helped Adusa-daro recruit someone to the Ravenwatch clan. 

Dark Heart of Skyrim has been the most fun I've had with a chapter since Morrowind. Maybe because I absolutely love the vampire theme, or maybe because it's Skyrim. I dunno. But getting to Markarth and Solitude and immediately knowing my way around was a nice change of pace from trying to find my way in every other city in ESO :P

Time to go to Blackwood :3

And since it's been so long since I've been in ESO here are my other ESO related posts from newest to oldest:
• Greymoor chapter
• Harrowstorm DLC
• Dragonhold DLC
• Elsweyr chapter
• 5 year anniversary
• Guild trial madness run number 2 - level 5 characters in MoL, AA and CR.
• Murkmire DLC
• Summerset chapter
• Guild trial madness run number 1 - level 15 characters in SO
• Clockwork City DLC
• Horns of the Reach DLC
• Morrowind chapter
• Morrowind CE unboxing
• First ever Jester's Festival
• When housing first came to ESO
• First ever New Life Festival + Shadows of the Hist DLC
• First ever Witches' Festival + Dark Brotherhood DLC
• Thieves Guild DLC and Orsinium DLC
• When I joined my first proper guilds
• When I returned after ESO made the sub optional
• First post after initial release in 2014
• Imperial Edition unboxing
• Post-beta post

I've been around from the start and at this point whenever I start the game it just feels like coming home.

Elves (Nisser) S01

This show was my pick. A creepy-cosy Christmas story with murderous elves. Sounds good for middle of summer, no? xD 

So the there were two kinds of elves in the Nordic folklore. The farm elves that make sure your farm is prosperous as long as you take care of your elf and bring it food every night. If you fail to take care of your elf it will bring the farm to ruin with disease, fire and economic ruin. The other kind were the forest elves that were tricky and cunning little bastards who protected the forest at all costs. If you didn't ask permission to take something from the forest then you'll suffer for taking from it. 

This show is a twist on the latter kind. 

Josefine and her family arrive at the remote Danish island of Årmandsø. They live in the Copenhagen area and are always busy so they decided they'd rent a house out on the countryside and just spend time together as a family over Christmas. A family get-away. 

Their visit starts off badly as they hit something with their car. The something runs away and the family shrugs it off while Josefine is concerned for it. Despite her parents telling her no she returns to the place where they hit the thing and she takes it with her to care for it and nurse it back to health. Soon enough her brother gets involved and when the girl he likes tells him about the island's history and what the big ass fence is for, things start to get a little bit dangerous.

The elves are creepy and extremely dangerous, and a whole lot of people will die before the season is over.

Each episode is only 20-25 minutes long so it's a quick and easy watch. Toni grumbled a bit because it was in Danish and he'd have to read the subtitles :P Tbh I had to read the subtitles too. I usually don't have a problem with understanding Danish but a lot of the time they talked quietly or murmured or slurred or talked crazy fast so even I had trouble keeping up. Didn't have that problem with The Rain. 

Both of us agreed that this wasn't the best thing we've watched, but it wasn't bad either. I enjoyed it, but it never got to the point of omg I need to find out what happens next. It was just an easy and enjoyable watch. 

Game completed: Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Dawn of Ragnarök (+ Mastery Challenge pt 2)

I finally got around to playing this. I started with the second part of the Mastery Challenge because I figured why not do everything I can in the real world before I head off into a fever dream? 

Challenge stuff isn't my thing in any game, but finishing quests is and since these challenges come with a quest I needed to do them :P The challenges themselves seemed easier this time around, got a lot more silver medals in this batch than in the previous one. The final fight was really cool. I wonder if there'll be more things featuring Hildiran in future content, because I feel like there are some question marks that still need straightening out. 

But on the the main part! 

It took me a while to get into the story, mainly because I find Havi to be unlikeable whereas I love Eivor. Of course, knowing the actual legend I figured out what Baldr's fate would be even without playing the game lol. And knowing Baldr's legend I also knew what would come after... 

As soon as I was given free reign I started to explore the world rather than do any main quest, as per usual. I picked up all the wealth, mysteries and artefacts, fully upgraded the Hugr-rip, completed all the fishing deliveries, and did the two side quests before properly starting work on the main quest. 

I was so sad to discover there was another hut with more fishing deliveries in Svartalfheim. I put so much work into completing the ones in Ravensthorpe and I was so proud when I did it. First I decided to not do them, but then I managed to get on every single infuriating Monolith and figured the fishing deliveries couldn't be so bad, so I did them too. The powers of the Hugr-rip took a while to get used to but once I did I used them all the time. Eivor looks really cool as a muspel. 

I did enjoy all the glimpses into stories from the Nordic mythology.

Then I got moving on the main story and Havi does get better with time. I really liked Eysa. Every fight with Surtr and Sinmara was tedious, but the fights against Sinmara's Chosen were cool. And going through the portal to fight Riekr was also really cool. The sequence when you run across the bridge to reach the tower while being chased by Surtr and muspels was a lot of fun. I want to know more about the elves. 

The end is everything I thought it would be and it also hints toward another DLC for Valhalla...

After I finished the entire story (including the cutscene back at the Hodda shelter) I went to Kara the Valkyrie and did all the stories with all the boasts so that I could get enough tokens to buy every single reward from her. And then I returned to Ravensthorpe to get the final cutscene there too.

Afterwards I just walked around the town to see if there was anything I had missed and also changed some of the decorations to things I had found in Svartalfheim. As of now, the only thing I have left to do in the game is upgrading the Armory, which would require me to do more River Raids, and I'm not feeling up for that. 

This expansion was really cool once I got into it. 
Also I never noticed before how absolutely Swedish Ivaldi's voice actor is xD