Weeknotes #16 - Cutting down trees that follow me

Published on: Sun Feb 22

Fun things this week

• Worked out a bunch this week💪! Really enjoying getting past the 2 week phase of my body hating me.

• Did some karoake?! I was pretty sober but I got to use a small portable karoake machine for the first time. My friends got heavenly vocal chops!

• Visited my local book store almost every single day for entirely different reasons each day. Book for myself one day, birthday present another, and finally a cute little board game?? The reciepiants of all purchases were very happy :)

• Twas a cold cold week in my city. It’s really hard finding a balance between feeling hot (visually) and not being cold (physically)

Music I’ve been listening to

• Not much in new music this week :0. But!!! A new remix of It’s You by Ninajirachi dropped. With Underscores remixing it?? Like my two favourite artists collabing is a bit of a dream come true.

Other media 🎮📚🎬

• Last week I was snorting that sweet sweet Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire crack and I cannot stop baby. Finished up Beast of Winter, which ruled. Combusting wounds is very broken and helped me kill Neriscyrlas wtih not too too much trouble. Dialogue with the titular beast after was funny too. You can shit talk Rymngard and instantly die. Did a buuunch of sailing around. I’m thinking I’m going to go with the Principi as my faction this playthrough. I really did not jive with the Vallian Trading Company, and Furrante supporting the Crookspur slavers. The Royal Deadfire Company was a bit too shooting crazy for me, especially after the revelations of assassinations in small villages as an attempt to cause unrest before they conquer an area. The Huana, while the only people technically not colonizing, they still treat their people poorly. Their nation built on the grounds of birth determining your station in life till the day you die did not stick with me. The Principi creed with the leadership of Aeldys, while not perfect, at least promised a shaking of the Deadfire’s core after finding Ukaizo. Plus I got a sick ghost ship for doing their quest so how could I not be somewhat interested??? I am a material guy I fear.

  I have also gotten a chance to briefly start the Forgotten Sanctum DLC in Deadfire, so far it’s great! The setting is somewhat eldritchy? Immidiately it implies that bodies like Eothas’ adra giant and Abydon’s skeleton were once common among the gods of Eora which was something I had never really considered. It’s set on top of Wael’s buried body, holding a weirdly large amount of tentacles. Opening of the DLC is great with the circle of archmages taking a pretty major part in it. Llengrath introduces herself with a beautiful dragon, beckoning the watcher to the Hall of the Unseen, where the above is introduced. We run into Tayn who is as big of an asshat as any of the other archmages we’ve been introduced to. Already theres conflict within that circle, and to top it all of Concelhaults skull chimes in to tell the two mages to rot. I am so in love with the dynamic of the mages and can’t wait to see more! Very funny and compelling DLC so far.

• Big movie week for me!

  • I rewatched No Other Choice, liked it even more on the rewatch it’s one of my favourites now!
  • Wathed Drunken Master 2 which is up there with Mission Impossible 6 as one of the best action movies I’ve ever seen. There’s anti colonialism here, insane fighting choreography, and to top it all of it’s funny as all hell??? I was tearing up during moments of it, jumped to some of the sick moves Jackie Chan was pulling, and hated the stinking British!
  • Magellan was an interesting watch. A slow albeit very pretty movie. Many of the scenes felt like renaissance paintings, and much like the theme of the week for me, it was a story about colonization. This time its based off the historical events surrounding the Portugese empire introducing Christianity to what is now known as the Phillipines. As someone with very little knowledge about the story of Ferdinand Magellen, the editing did confuse me a bit, but luckily I watched the movie with people very well versed in this that helped clear up a lot of the movie for me! The ending was apparently controversial as it portrayed what is a very common belief in the region to be a fabricated story to kill Magellan. Overall a good educational movie, but not something that particulary excited me to watch again.

• Finished Pluribus woot woot! Very good show, insane even. Season finally was great, I bought Left Hand of Darkness the same day I watched it, which was funny to me because Carol reads the excast same edition I bought in one of the scenes.

• Read Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb and Ghosts by Paul Auster this week. Assassin’s Quest reread is going good, still love Fitz a lot. Ghosts on the other hand is driving me insane, which I think is the point? Paul Auster is comically post modern in the New York Trilogy and it especially shows in this book.

• Got Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Trick Taking Game! Or LOTRTTTTTG for short! Very cute game that I was able to spend my Chinese New Year money on :) Had a blast playing it with friends can’t wait for more! Also in love with case of this game, the art is gorgeous!!

🏶