The Clusterfuck We Affectionally Call 2018

This is the 10th Year Review I'm putting together. That deserves a star.

   We mourn the loss of Johannes Brost, Dolores O'Riordan, Ursula K. LeGuin, David Ogden Stiers, Stephen Hawking, Rick 'Zombie Boy' Genest, Aretha Franklin, Margit Sandemo, Burt Reynolds, Emma Chambers, Al Matthews, STAN LEE (!!!) and William Goldman. 

• I cut my hair shorter again. Stayed green though.
• BOOKS. And COMICS.
• I finally got off my ass and started looking for a new job. Got one! but the search goes on.
• My best friend and I went to New Zealand. Dreamy.
• I got to see Stephen Lynch again.
• I had another great Midsummer's Eve.
• I FINALLY got myself some of that good HBO streaming. So much win.
• My furry ginger roomie Sengir turned 6 years old.
• I cut some more of my hair off. An then some more.
• I reached 70 000 page views.
• I had some epic vacation time with some very close friends.
• Went to the world's biggest separatist music festival for women, non-binary and trans*people.
• I turned 30. And I was lovingly surprised by my friends with dinner! ❤
• I ran out of chlorophyll so my hair turned from green to orange.
• I got a new tattoo.
• I celebrated New Years Eve on my own in my bath tub with delicious champagne.

   I had the unspoken goal to read more books by female authors and I'd like to think I made an effort.

   I also made promises to myself to treat myself to other people, as in: I need to see that I might not be as much of a nuisance as my anxiety-ridden brain would like me to think and wedge myself into other people's lives or rather myself into theirs. In short; I wanted to socialise more. Whether it'd be having coffee, having a PJ party, going out for a drink or whatever... I need to be with people. And I was. To a certain degree.

   I went to the cinema a shitload more than I used to which means I'm keeping up last year's Year Review promise to myself: MOAR FILM PLZ.

Top picks of 2018

 Movies: Black Panther - holy shit! The Shape of Water - wow! Avengers: Infinity War - WHAT IN THE GOD DAMN?! Deadpool 2 was laugh-out-loud funny. Tom Hardy made Venom hilarious.

 TV shows: I finally watched Limitless and liked it, Everything Sucks! was pleasantly nostalgic, Altered Carbon was kinda awesome. I binged the amazing 2nd season of Dear White People in two days, they gave me a new season of Elementary (oh YEAH...!) of which I could only watch half before I got cut off and, whadda ya know, CBS is only available in the US and Canada so fuck me, right?! The new season of Handmaid's Tale was great (AWFUL, but great). Killing Eve ❤ !!! Despite not being a big fan of horror I absolutely loved The Haunting of  Hill House.

 Books: I've read a shitload of books (68!) in 2018 and obviously found a few nuggets of gold in that heap... FEED by Mira Grant felt new and awesome, Queers Dig Time Lords edited by Sigrid Ellis was thoroughly heartwarming, The Road by Cormac McCarthy took me completely by surprise. I fell entirely in love with Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and the follow-up Parable of the Talents, and Richard K.Morgan's Altered Carbon was even more fascinating than the tv show they made of it. The long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers was SO FRIGGIN' AWESOME I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START. Sea of Rust (!!!) by C. Robert Cargill made my brain happy.
 Comics: I need all of you to read Paper Girls and Saga, aight?

 Events: Oscar nominations I could get behind: Get Out, The Shape of Water, Logan... turning into Oscars for Jordan Peele and Guillermo del Toro. And for Coco!❤ The super endangered Black Rhino is moving in to areas they haven't lived in for many years, which is awesome. IRELAND VOTED TO END ITS ABORTION BAN. Sweden approved stricter consent laws, making it illegal to have sex with someone without their explicit consent (ABOUT TIME). Sweden also decided to ban micro-plastics in cosmetics. Researchers have found methods to help reverse damage caused by Alzheimer's decease in the human brain. Scientists have also managed to reanimate pig brains up to 36 hours after initial death, leaving further possibilities to save human lives in the future. Humans now have the power to grow food in space (well... so far it's "just" onions on a space station but... still cool).

   For 2019 I want more books and comics. I want good cinema experiences. I want more stories by women and people of colour in my life. I want more hugs and good food. Honestly, I want more sex. I don't make promises. I can only hope and strive.

What I'm trying to say is this:

Dear 2018, get fucked.

Lets make 2019 something brilliant.

The little victories

It's early in the day and I've eaten breakfast, and then second breakfast. Not only that, but I've bested the laundry mountain, folded it and tucked it away. I've showered and dressed (!). I've hoovered my flat and, most importantly, the innards of my computer - the poor thing was filled with ginger fur...
Now on to the Christmas shopping!

NEW TATTOO

HEY GUYS. I'VE GOT A NEW TATTOO GUYS. LOOK AT IT GUYS.

JUST LOOK AT IT.

Work by @filthyswede, Liza Nordqvist

Next time: colours.

Feeling the fall

I be orange now. It feels... good actually. Cool.

To be or not to be... an adult

   Now we're just... looking for the adultier adult to ask for life advice. But like... can I just... not be an adult? and maybe... not have to work so much? Because fuck, I'm exhausted. I'm working full time for the first time in... well, for the first time EVER, and I'm feeling the hours. I'm disappointed at myself for not spending enough time with my cat and I LIVE WITH HIM, which means that the amount of time I spend with the people I hold dear is minimal. The pressure to squeeze in as much fun at possible into the weekends is absurd. I feel more stressed about that than work. And work stress me the fuck out. Ugh.

The Hutt Recommends: Sea of Rust

Sea of Rust by Robert C. Cargill

Humanity is dead. Done and dusted. Have been for a long time.
What did they expect when they created A.I. who could process such complicated thought processes as "why am I"?

With human kind lost forever after the A.I. vs humanity war thirty years ago, the robot Brittle is trying to navigate the wasteland left behind. Being created solely for the purpose of being a caregiver for a human forces Brittle to search for a new meaning to existence in a post-human world. In the midst of haunting memories from the last war against humanity, Brittle watches warily while robots turn against robots and open conflict is soon unavoidable. But which side will Brittle find himself on?

I loved it. A lot.

Happy Hobbit Day!

Today is Hobbit Day!
So make sure to sit down to eat all your nine meals properly, read a book and/or enjoy your ale in the lovely company of friends. Celebrate the little things, the hobbit way.

This lil' asshole ❤️

The Hutt Recommends: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
#1 in the Wayfarers series

HOLY FUCK BECKY.
I was blessed with this recommendation as a counterweight to all the male authors flooding my list of scifi I want to read and I had no expectations coming into this.
So again: HOLY FUCK BECKY.

   Rosemary Harper is running away from a troubled past and therefore doesn't expect much when she joins the crew of the Wayfarer as their clerk. She expects a bed, food, a way to see the universe, colleagues she'll keep a safe distance with and if she's lucky she'll find some mind-numbing work.
   But life aboard the Wayfarer is much more exciting than expected. A diverse crew of different species and cultures makes her realise that the importance of chosen family is much greater than that of blood.

It's all of the things I've ever wanted with scifi;
Pro's

• it's feel-good scifi, easy on the brain
• it also feels a bit like Firefly, but you know... well written...
• it's entirely character-driven
• speaking of characters: interesting characters is my jam
• not everyone is straight and that's never a bit deal
• it fucks with the gender binary system, because aliens, and that brings me life
• any one culture seen as strange from an outsider's perspective, even humans'

Con's

• it's entirely character-driven and that's not for everyone
• the general plot is kinda... thin
• there isn't much tension or conflict to speak of which some readers find dull

   I like a good plot as much as anyone but to me it's not a true necessity if there are interesting characters in its stead. The fact that it was built like a tv show with episodes moving towards a general purpose was thoroughly enjoyable. I cried loads of happy tears, and even more loads of sad tears.
   I'll give it a good 10/10, would cross the universe to read again.

Superman vs Witcher

YOU SAID WHAT ABOUT MY BOY GERALT??!

Well. Honestly. I don't hate it. Please Netflix, don't fuck this up.

A green hobbit

There. Back to green. Feels like coming home.

VACAY BABY

   Vacation mood. Before me lay four weeks of vacation time. Time off. Time for me. Time to breathe. Do whatever I feel like doing.
   It's been a day and a half and I'm already feeling restless. I really needed this though.

OFF WITH THAT HEAD... of hair

   I got my hair cut off. It's shorter than it's been in six years and I'm enjoying myself. I'll admit it's a bit hard to get used to since it's a lot shorter than I expected it to be, but the feeling was like getting rid of a warm beanie. Or a thick wig. Not at all unpleasant.
    Besides, playing with different expressions of femininity is so much more fun with short hair. Also, I'm lazy bastard and long hair is a friggin' nuisance.

70 000

I'm up to, and beyond 70 000 page views. It's not overly impressive, but still kinda cool.

So... Thank You. Thank you for staying with me or just finding your way here. Thank you for stumbling on to my page. Stay Awesome.

A red fur hat

   Sengir's favourite position is being the fur hat of my computer. As if my computer didn't overheat without him constantly shedding hair into the cooling fans.

Shoot me now

   I really need a vacation. I really need my wonderful, hardened and experienced colleagues to come back from theirs. Soon. Now. Yesterday.

   I have three god damned weeks left until my own vacation and the current mood is that I want to die. But only after I strangle every single motherfucker who tries any shit that could hinder my days from running smoothly. I'm keeping a list and am adding names.
   And until I leave for four glorious weeks off I have to put on a brave face and muddle through. Be the Big Boss and act like an Adult™ just a little while longer.

cooncomic.com

  After my four weeks are done I'm moving on to my new employment. Same kind of job, different area of town. Less responsibility, better pay. Full time.

Books and sunshine

In that order.
   Seriously though, signing up for a Goodreads account is the best thing I've done (after getting sterilised) for my mental health in the last couple of years. I'm reading a lot more and I'm really enjoying it. 
   AND! My favourite thing: I can keep track of what I'm reading, make notes and easily find other works from the same author. I love lists. I LOVE 'EM!

Bernard Black for President

#mood

The Hutt Recommends: Parable of the Sower

Parable of the Sower (Earthseed #1) by Octavia E. Butler

God is Change.
So writes Lauren, the First of the Earthseed.

   Our future world has fallen under human's destructive influence and left are only islands of relative security protected by high walls and armed guards. Lauren grows up in one of theses gated communities outside LA the daughter of a preacher. In the midst of the pollution, drugs, arson, kill or be killed, and theft, her father does his best to keep what semblance of civility and culture he can within their community. To make matters worse Lauren's got what's called hyperempathy; the ability to feel other people's sensations, be it pain or emotions, as she observes them. Not only that but she's also a doubter - a doubter of her father's god and a doubter of how the future will treat the human race. Little by little, she pieces together a belief system she grows to call Earthseed, to comfort her and let her hope for a better tomorrow.

   However, their community is struck by tragedy and Lauren's family is murdered along with most of the other families living with them. Together with a lucky few survivors she decides to head north and maybe, just maybe, get to start anew amidst the dangers of the world outside those collapsed comforting walls.

   I was enthralled all the way through.
   If you've ever, like me, had your differences with what people describe as God you should read this. If you've ever, like me, fretted about what damage we'll do to each other tomorrow you should read this. It's in the same vein as The Hunger Games but somehow more hopeful and definitely more philosophical. I just regret not having read it much sooner.

Clickety-click cont.

My summer reading is here. Don't mind if I do.

An excellent example of money well spent.

Glorious Towel Day

DP2 - cocaine and baby legs

   Oh, it was good. Not nearly as good as the first movie since the story wasn't quite as thought through. Not at all as tight. It had a great many instances when I laughed out loud but it's Deadpool - if you don't laugh out loud someone fucked up. This time Ryan Reynolds had his handsome fingers nestled in with the script writing, and since we've grown to know little by little that Ryan Reynolds in fact is some sort of AU Wade Wilson I can partly excuse the weak story. But not the first major character death.
   Lots and lots of silly one-liners and poking fun at DC. And Marvel. And just about everything else on the planet.

   A bit in to the movie I thought I spotted a familiar face I needed to check out on IMDB. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Went to Wikipedia and lo and behold! There he was! Sala Baker! Credited as playing the adult version of kid villain Russell Collins. Sala Baker is great. Check out Sala Baker.

EDIT:
This article from the Mary Sue explains my feelings quite well.

Clickety-click

Me: FUCKING HELL I'M SO STRESSEEEEED OUT ABOUT MONEY.
My brain: Buy some more books and comics.
Me: BUT THAT COSTS MONEY.
My brain: So?
Me: I'M STRESSED ABOUT MONEY. THEY COST MONEY.
My brain: But they're books and comics.
Me: Good point. *click* I spent the money.

The Hutt Recommends: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

   Only about thirty pages into this book I was just about ready to put it down and never pick it up again. Reason? I really don't like children. There's nothing like a child to infuriate me into impossible dimensions. They're an inconvenience in any given situation and in The Road whats left of humanity is dealing with a lot of serious post-apocalyptic stuff. However, I did decide to soldier on and continue. I have after all finished much more maddening books.
   Skip forty pages ahead and I was thoroughly hooked.

   In a post-apocalyptic world a man and his child are travelling along a road. Everything is gone. It burned down and there's nothing left. Except the Road. And surviving.

   It's dark, oh so dark, yet just when you think it can't get any worse... it lets you up for air and the sun finds its way through the clouds for just a moment. And that's when McCarthy will pull you under again and bury you under the ashes of his post-apocalyptic world.
   McCarthy is an author of few words - what you get is what you need to make your brain go in all kinds of dark directions.
   It was an amazing ride. 10/10 would go again.

It's party business, precious

   Having been to New Zealand I'm now fairly certain it doesn't actually exist on this plane of reality. I've just spent ten days nerding around the north island and everything feels like it was designed in a computer to be plopped down in the middle of the ocean. Or maybe we went, Bermuda Triangle style, through some portal and ended up in some wonderful Fantasy Land. It was somehow too beautiful to feel real.

   We did Auckland (with a very jet-lagged visit to the Auckland Art Gallery, and Auckland Zoo) - Waitomo Caves - Mata Mata/Hobbiton - Rotorua - Wellington (with Te Papa, Weta Cave, LotR film locations along Hutt Valley, and Martinborough wine country) and it was all great. What will always stay with me though is the tour we took through the Hobbiton Movie Set. It was nothing short of magical. I was right: I cried. Like a fucking baby.

   I've petted a wallaby and an emu, I've seen glow worms, I've had ale in The Green Dragon, I've spent hours in hot mineral baths, I've been to Rivendell, I've talked to a whole bunch of nerds at Weta Cave, and I've had a veritable shitload of great wine. I've cried from joy and from frustration, and I've been surrounded by the most otherworldly nature I've ever laid eyes on.

   But listen, since New Zealand is quite exactly on the other side of the planet it will at its shortest take us Swedes anywhere between 27 and 34 hours single trip to get there depending on layovers and such. It fucking sucks. My butt still hurts. To add insult to injury, my lightsaber key ring kept getting stuck in security and so I decided to leave it behind. Also! Try and be a vegan tourist and see how much fun it is. I'll tell you this much; you have to like coriander.

   Was it worth it? Absolutely!
   Will I ever do it again? Doubtfully.
   Do I want to do it again? Why yes precious, I do...

I'll soon be on my way

I'm so fucking nervous y'all. I'm leaving tomorrow.

My bags are packed and I've gone through the check list about twenty times...

Long Live the Halflings!

Today, the 25th of March, in the year of 3019 in the Third Age of Middle Earth Frodo finally reached Mount Doom in Mordor. After a brief battle with the creature Gollum the One Ring was finally destroyed and with it the Dark Lord Sauron.
Long Live the Courage and Strength of Hobbits!

Alone at last

Me, the minute after my family's left when we've had a family dinner at my place:

BOKREA; my favourite time of year

The Big Book Sale.
   That yearly event marked down in every Swedish bookworm's calendar.
I've scored a healthy amount of 17 books this year which would put me somewhere just beyond slightly over budget but not quite heavily into dept.

   As always, I do most of my BOKREA-shopping at Science Fiction-bokhandeln (Sweden's own Forbidden Planet).

GUILLERMO FUCK YEAH

   GUILLERMO DEL TORO DID IT AGAIN! THE SHAPE OF WATER DID IT! IN FOUR FRIGGIN' CATEGORIES! YAAAAAASSSSS! Categories being Best Picture, Best Director, Best Production Design and Best Original Score.

Guillermo checking the receipts.

   Also, as the first black man EVER Jordan Peele won Best Original Screenplay for Get Out and that just warms my soul. Well deserved.

   I'm obviously a bit disappointed about Logan not getting an Oscar.

The Hutt (kind of) Recommends: What's Eating Gilbert Grape

What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges

(rereading this after... 'many' years, and it's surprisingly neither scifi, fantasy, nor supernatural in any possible way)

Looooong before John Green was accused of over-using the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope (which he did in Paper Towns but entirely unmade by the end of the book) there was Becky in Peter Hedges' What's Eating Gilbert Grape.
   Gilbert Grape lives in Endora, Iowa, with what remains of his family.

'Endora is where we are, and you need to know that describing this place is like dancing to no music. It's a town. Farmers. Town square. Old movie theater closed down so we have to drive sixteen miles to Motley to see movies. Probably half the town is over sixty-five, so you can imagine the raring place Endora is on the weekend.'

   There isn't much that Gilbert doesn't hate and even less that he enjoys. He's twenty-four and just about everything in his life is gnawing at his dead insides -  his lack of experience, his fat and ever-growing mother, his servile big sister, his desperate little sister, and his mentally disabled baby brother are only what he has to deal with on a daily basis.

'She turns off the light and says, "You must have been having a bad dream."
"Huh?"
"A bad dream. You were having a bad dream."
"Oh," I say, "Is that what I'm having."'

   In the middle of all of this there's suddenly Becky on her bike, riding in circles around Gilbert and speaking words of such hope about life Gilbert hasn't been able to feel in years.

   This is a soul crushingly painful story.

   It's sexist, fatphobic, ableist, sexualises a 15-year-old, but it's also all of these things because Gilbert doesn't know where to direct all of the hate he harbours for himself. He watches idly while his family and life slowly shatters all around him. He does not stop this. Just as he can see his fat mother slowly wear down the floor underneath her own feet toward a literal crash he can sense his own life metaphorically crash in on him in slow motion. There are so many things in his life that he hates that he's completely lost his ability for love, whichever way it would be directed. Waking up and seeing the same unchanging surrounding is killing him. Yet he doesn't change. Listening to people telling him how much he looks like his father, the same father who committed suicide in the house he built for his family, brings Gilbert further into darkness. Is that to be the family future?

   Well written. Dark. Disturbing.
   I still like it as much as when I read it the first time. 

Be fine Valentine

Don't let anyone get in the way of you loving yourself this year Valentine. 

Perform radical self love. Treat yo'self.

You're amazing.

a Green Mess

Woke up like this. And then stayed in my PJs all day. Because fuck it.

Nerdy decorating

Harry Potter-themed display case.

   One of the few perks with my job (apart from, you know, being able to pay the rent with the money I earn through my blood, sweat and tears) is that I can get my stubby hands on fancy wooden wine boxes. So obviously I use them as display cases for my nerdy stuff.
   I have one LotR-themed and I just finished the Harry Potter-themed box with the much needed help of Prof Minerva McGonagall's wand.

Shivers

I have a new fancy obsession.
I think you should share in my obsession and listen to this:

The Hutt Recommends: FEED

FEED by Mira Grant
First book in the Newsflesh trilogy.

   In 2014 both the common flu and cancer are eradicated by dedicated scientists, the antidotes easily distributed like airborne viruses to the populace. So far, so good. What the scientists didn't count on was how the two antidotes would react once they had to coexist in a living host. Not well as it turned out. The antidotes blended into a new kind of virus and anything with a body mass above that of a medium sized dog would upon death be turned by said virus into a flesh-eating corpse. You lived, you died and then you returned.
   They call it the Rising.
   In the near future when zombies are a real threat and people are mostly isolated to areas with strict security measures, running and tending news blogs with material from outside your own safe zone is the new daredevil profession. Georgia and Shaun Mason are two such daredevils dedicated to finding and delivering the Truth. Now hired to do the biggest job of their careers following a presidential candidate around the country they happen upon information that could answer crucial questions about the Infected.
   They decide to stay devoted to the Truth.
   Even if it'll kill them.

Some spoilers ahead:
   I skimmed through a few of other people's reviews of this book before writing my own and something that people have reacted to is the lack of zombies in this supposed zombie novel. Well... that's what the critics said about The Day of the Triffids; a supposed science fiction about alien invasion that didn't have all that many triffids in it... The point I'm making is that I don't really care about the zombies. Couldn't care less. I care about the people coping with an existence where zombies is something one needs to be worried about. It's the characters that make the story interesting. Therefore, I enjoyed this book. It's about people. Not zombies. Though there are zombies... You get it.
   Do you know something else I appreciated? NO ROMANCE ❤️ Well, there is some background romance going on, but nothing that necessitates more than a few sentences at most (as is the descriptive "they like each other and are now dating and getting it on" kind of sentences).
   Georgia never uses her "feminine wiles" to get to information. She doesn't even consider it. The one male character that doesn't respect her simply because she's a woman is supposed to be seen as a despicable human being.
   All female characters have their own arcs. They're there for a reason more than decoration.
   The story makes sense. From the virus to the politics.

   Maybe the fact that I'm not very used to being thrilled about the portrayal of female characters in books skews my perception a wee bit, but I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Still thrilled. Still a good story.
   I spent the last 70 pages crying my eyes out. Because OF COURSE people die in books with zombies in them. Especially when it's been hinted at throughout.

All in all:
Read FEED.

I AM THE NIGHT

I've got new PJ's and feel more not-really-an-adult than I've felt in a long while. It's great.

Crybaby

That would be me.
   I've started listening to The Lord of the Rings again so that the trilogy will be fresh in my memory when my best friend and I get to New Zealand in April. Though before I got started I figured I needed to brush up on my Middle Earth history, so I dove head first into the appendices and suffice it to say I didn't get very far before I was crying.
   Have I gone soft? (Yes. Yes, I have. Emotions everywhere. Much better.)
   Is it normal to feel so proud over fictional characters? (Oh Samwise... )
   Well! Back to the books.
   Lets get this Fellowship to Mordor! (We'll walk, it'll be great.)

Behold...

...the glory that is Taika Waititi. 

   

This strange kiwi.

   I used to think his kind of humour and entire personality was a bit 'too much' and waaay too awkward for me. He felt weird and narcissistic. But the man is... well, fascinating. As an introvert I was strangely drawn to finding out more about this complete opposite of me. Suddenly it struck me that I have several friends who are just like him; loud, confident, odd, creative, ridiculously goofy yet passive-aggressively politically aware. I love it. Now that I know why I was drawn to him to begin with I can thoroughly enjoy his work.
   Chaotic good.

   I wholeheartedly recommend What We Do in the Shadows. See it.

Also see Thor: Ragnarok.