My last 5 books: Gaiman and King

1. Angels and Visitations: A Miscellany, by Neil Gaiman. This is basically a short story collection. There are a few other things in there as well, but mostly a short story collection. I've read most of them before in other collections, and just as before I love the general Neil Gaiman weirdness of it all. My favourites in this collection are the short stories We Can Get Them For You Wholesale, and Babycakes. But his drunken experiment was also fun to read. Wholesale is about a man who wants to hire and assassin to kill his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, but he's pulled in by the bargains the assassin offers and ends up ordering something much larger than a petty murder. Babycakes is almost a poem and it's very short. It tells of how one day all the animals were gone, and instead of using animals for everything that we do, people started using babies, until suddenly, one day all the babies were gone... It's totally morbid, but it gives me chills and I love it.

2. An Honest Answer and Other Stories, by Neil Gaiman. This is three comics. The first one is called
An Honest Answer and is actually quite funny. Gaiman gives an honest answer to the question writers get asked the most: Where do you get all your ideas? And it's hilarious because I can relate. The second one is called Villanelle and it's so short that I honestly can't remember what it's about, but it looks so cool. The third one is called From Homogenous to Honey, and it's scary. Not scary as in horror, but scary as in how true it is. An Honest Answer made me laugh, Homogenous to Honey gave me the creeps. All in all this was a good read.

3. Sweeney Todd and Other Stories, by Neil Gaiman. This is an unfinished graphic novel, which was included in Gaiman's 2015 Humble Bundle. I love the Sweeney Todd legend almost as much as the Jack the Ripper legend. This could've been something very interesting and really good if it had been finished, but in it's current state it's very bland and it has an extremely sudden end. This combination gives it a very low score to me. There is potential, but reading it was kind of boring.





4. Being and Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolous, by Neil Gaiman. This
comic also came from Gaiman's 2015 Humble Bundle. It was entertaining, but at the same time I got the feeling that it was very amateur-ish. It tells the tale of a Roman emperor that no one really hears of anymore, and all the shit he got up to. Entertaining but bland.

5. It, by Stephen King. This is the best King I've read this far in my King marathon. I haven't read It before. I put it off because I'm scared of clowns and because it's so frickin huge. But I decided now that it was time. And it was good. It's slow going, but instead of being boring this slow going just builds tension and I just need to know what happens next. The book doesn't leave my mind and the characters stay with me. And strangely enough, since both books take place in Derry, I kept thinking that Ralph and Lois from Insomnia was somewhere there when all these things happened in It. I didn't even like Insomnia. I was a little bit disappointed by the final form of Pennywise though. I felt like, really? you couldn't think of something better than that? I was surprised that not more of the kids died. I thought it would just be Beverly and Ben left in the end. Richie annoyed me to no end, and I wanted to shoot Eddie's mother. Otherwise I don't really have any complaints :P

Elder Scrolls Online: New Life Festival + Shadows of the Hist DLC

Two weeks ago I started playing ESO again, this time because I knew the New Years event would come around soon. It started last Monday and it's been the most fun yet. Unlike the Halloween event it wasn't exactly grindy.

You bought a free scroll from the Crown Store, which gave you a quest to seek out Breda in Eastmarch, Skyrim. She was a scholar on the New Life celebrations of Tamriel and also the start of  a questline of nine quests. Those quests were hilarious. Much like the Halloween event you got containers as quest rewards (this time looking like little Christmas presents) and these containers contained (lol), among other things, parts of the new Skinchanger motif, new recipes, and collectables. The entire questline was daily so you could complete it once a day, which became necessary to collect all the parts of the Skinchanger style and the recipes and collectables.

But let's start from the beginning. The day the festival started it was insane. Because Breda was stationed in one place and couldn't be summoned anywhere you wanted like the Witchmother in Halloween, her immediate area became extremely crowded. I read in the online chats that lots of people couldn't even go there with their toons without the game crashing on them or them getting unplayable lag. I had no issues, though, so I happily started playing the festival as soon as it begun.

The nine quests consisted in the PC getting to participate in the different kinds of celebrations for each race of the continent.

• Nords: Snow Bear Plunge. Cannonball into freezing water and then warm yourself by the fire close by. To get the achi; cannonball naked.

• Dunmer: Lava Stomp. Go to several taverns in Stonefalls and participate in the dancing.

• Argonian: Go fishing. Three different kinds of fish. To get the achi; catch five of each.

• Khajiit: Pick Three different leveled chests and bring the contents to the woman nearby.

• Bosmer: Mudball Merriment. Throw mudballs at 10 different people, and when you're done throw one mudball at one of the ambassadors of their Alliances. To get the achi; throw mudballs at Queen Ayrenn, Jorunn Skald-King, and High-King Emeric.

• Altmer: Help their temple with either donations or by killing the encroaching wildlife. To get the achi; do both.

• Orsimer: Help prepare a feast by hunting for meat and honey. Eat the food and then show your appreciation by putting your soiled napkin on display. To get the achi; Learn how to make Betnikh Twice-Spiked Ale and then drink one after your fest.

• Breton: Perform at several locations around a castle; juggling with knives, sword-swallowing, and fire-breathing.

• Redguard: Participate in a race and light signal fires along the way. To get the achi; do this in less than 35 seconds.

I loved throwing mudballs at people (you can even throw them at other players!), doing the cannonball into water and the fire-breathing, also the fishing was hilarious when there were so many people doing it at the same time.

I completed all the achis this Sunday night/Monday morning, so it basically took me a week. But the event is on until January 4th, so I could keep doing this just for the lolz. And throwing mudballs at other players may become a general thing to do in ESO - it's that popular!

I also recently, finally, managed to play through Shadows of the Hist DLC. It was a DLC consisting of two slightly tougher group dungeons. Ruins of Mazzatun has a main quest that has you saving enslaved Argonians from another group of Argonians who've been influenced by a corrupted Hist. Cradle of Shadows is full of Mephala worshippers... So spiders deluxe! That quest is a bit simpler. Just kill her followers and clear the place out. Ruins of Mazzatun is by far my favourite of the two. Now all that's left is doing these two in hard mode :P

End boss in Cradle of Shadows. So ugly OwO

Watching old, old movies part 5

It's taken me longer this time. Mostly because the movies have seemed boring to me. Nothing to really look forward to. But on the other hand it did take me forever to actually sit down and watch Les Yeux Sans Visage and that movie was awesome :)

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

13. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
This one was weird, and I don't think it would work today. A scientist is making experiments upon animals at an island. His goal is to push evolution to go faster during his experiments. These evolution experiments turn animals into people (what?), but after a while they always start to regress into animals; physically and mentally. After a completely unbelieavable plot the animal-people turn on the scientist and kill him. Why it wouldn't work today? Firstly, why would evolution cause animals to turn into people? Why wouldn't they become something else? As if mankind is the pinnacle of evolution. Secondly, it's so friggin 1930's that all the people the animals turn into are white. Everything about white people are mutations. White skin, blue eyes, fair hair... All of it are mutations. Evolution, sure, but still mutations. If the animals turned into people those people would logically be black, since that's where we started as people and that's where they would start as people. Thirdly, they have no idea how DNA works. When was DNA even discovered? *googles* "DNA was first isolated in 1869. It's molecular structure was identified in 1953." So basically they have no idea. This movie hasn't aged well, because the science doesn't hold up. If this movie were to be re-made I think they'd have to set the premise in an alternate universe or maybe even in a fantasy or sci-fi world. It wouldn't work in the real world. Bela Lugosi had a minor role in it, so that made it so very slightly better.

14. Peeping Tom (1960)
A man who was abused in childhood by his photographer father, is now a photographer himself. He's obsessed with expressions of fear and thus goes around killing women in slow ways so as to have time to capture their final horrific expressions on film. Ironically his hobby is revealed by his blind soon-to-be mother-in-law. And that's it. That's the whole movie. I guess that from a psychological stand-point this movie was very interesting and I know it caused an outrage when it was released, but to me it was very boring (probably because this psychological view point has been done over and over again in fiction). I kept tapping the screen to see how much was left, and that's always a bad sign. The main character was played by a German actor (Karlheinz Böhm) and his accent was very noticeable, but they explained it in-movie as a kind of pathological speech-pattern in relation to the abuse he suffered as a child. The only thing I actually enjoyed watching was when the actress, who was going to be his next victim, was dancing around warming-up for a scene.

15. The Haunting (1963)
I haven't seen the 1999 remake in years, but I remember that I really liked it. I was hoping I'd like this one too. But just as was the way with Hill House, they couldn't just let a haunted house be haunted. They had to rationalise it and explain it, and thereby completely ruin it. This time it was explained with the main character losing her mind. I liked the characters (I can see why they cast as they did in 1999) and I liked the premise, the setting, and the storytelling. This movie would have been amazing if they could just have let the haunted house be haunted. Honestly smh.

November favourites 2016

Books: I read 3 ½ books in November, which is kind of good considering that two of the books were 900 pages, one was a really short e-book, and the half one was another huge book of over 1000 pages that I haven't completed yet. Although, right now the book I haven't finished is the most promising one out of the four, I'll choose from those I did complete, and from those Angels & Visitations was the best one. Hands down. Go Gaiman! :D

Music: When November started I filled my iPod with bands I have less than 10 songs by, and then I mostly listened to Spotify on my phone anyway. I discovered a bunch of new bands (I've heard the names of most of them before but never really listened to them): Silent Elegy, Dark Sarah, Xandria, Amberian Dawn, and Eluveitie.
• Area 11 - "Shi no Barado" & Gyaruru - "Boom Boom Meccha Maccho!"

• Silent Elegy - "Valkyrie" & "Never Meet Again"

• Eluveitie - "Call of the Mountains" & "A Rose for Epona"

• Dark Sarah - "Save Me" & "Memories Fall"

• Xandria - "Nightfall" & Amberian Dawn - "Magic Forest"


Games: This month I've played Fallout 4, Assassin's Creed, Baldur's Gate, Dishonored 2, ESO and Skyrim SE. Best game, I think has to go to Dishonored 2, although I haven't played much of it yet.

TV shows: This month it's been The X-Files, Grey's Anatomy, The Vampire Diaries, Once Upon a Time, Westworld, The Walking Dead, The Big Bang Theory, Agents of Shield, Allt för Sverige, and Historieätarna. Once again I have to say The X-Files, although Historieätarna comes at a very close second!

Other: It was my birthday this month! And I saw Fantastic Beasts! :D

The Harry Potter love is back!

The past week (+ a few days) have been very Harry Potter-centered for me. It started on Sunday 13th of November when I bought the special edition magazine for Fantastic Beasts. It's published by Aftonbladet which is an evening paper and half of their articles feel like "I'm 16 years old and I'm studying high school journalism". But generally I liked reading the magazine. Some of the things felt weird because I haven't dealt with a Swedish translation of anything Harry Potter related for over 10 years. Of course I discovered faults in the text. The whole "Things you didn't know about Harry Potter" failed to provide things I didn't know, as per usual. I've been doing this since 1999. Try giving me some material I haven't already found! ;) But towards the end, came most things that bothered me. First was the whole discussion why Rowling didn't out Dumbledore in the books. Because she wrote the story almost 20 years ago! If she had had an openly gay character in a childrens book during the 90s all hell would've broken loose. It wouldn't have become as popular as it is today, even more publishers wouldn't have wanted to touch it and if they did it would probably be banned in a whole lot of places. Society's view of inclusion of homosexuals have changed a lot in the last 20 years. So that's why. Now deal with it. The second part was basically dealing with why there weren't more muggle technology interested wizards in Harry Potter. Mostly because, as Rowling has explained on Twitter, electronics surrounded by magic tend to form their own mind. Like the Weasleys's Ford Anglia. Basically: technology + magic = AI. And then the girl writing the article went on about internet and mobiles, and I'm just sighing. The books take place in 1991-1998. Internet wasn't even half as mainstream as it is today back then, and not everybody had mobile phones. The fact that Dudley has a computer in 1991 is kind of amazing. Home computers weren't all that common back in the early 90s. Do you see how this whole technology discussion is moot? So some of the articles made me exasperated, which happens a lot lately because people tend to forget that times change and 20 years back the world was a very different place. But mostly the magazine was either very interesting or made me smile in all the right places, and left a huge feeling of nostalgia. Which I filled by using my Harry Potter colouring books ^^;

Then on the 18th we went to see Fantastic Beasts :D I dressed up ofc, with a Ravenclaw t-shirt and my Ravenclaw diadem, and my wand in my boot. The movie was amazing! I was originally quite sceptical to both Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts. But Cursed Child was really good and after I saw the trailer of Fantastic Beasts where they used a snippet of Hedwig's Theme I became a lot more excited for it. In the end I looked forward to Fantastic Beasts a lot more than I did the other Potter movies. Mainly because the Potter movies were based on the books and there were always so many things changed or wrong that it bugged me. With Fantastic Beasts I had nothing to compare to, and it was amazing! Absolutely wonderful! We're thinking of seeing it again :P

My last 5 books: Fifty Shades of King (and some vampires on the side)

1. The Decided Ones, by Laura Hrastar. I picked this book up ages ago. What mostly interested me about it was that it was a vampire novel set in my home town of Malmö. And on top of that written by an American. It was so out of the ordinary urban fantasy bubble that's usually in America or the UK or if it's in Sweden it's mostly in and around Stockholm or even further north. Having something set in surroundings that I'm 100% familiar with was a novelty. And while it was really cool having the characters go to all these places that I know, the book itself was unfortunately not very good. It started off in the generic way: young woman who's sort of isolated in her job and who likes to read books, meets very attractive young man. Attractive young man turns out to be a vampire. Here's when I first started to dislike the book. When she found out about his nature her reaction was completely sub-par. Summed up it was basically a shrug, telling him she's ok with it and then moving on. Like, this is the real world - aren't you gonna be at least a little bit surprised by the fact that vampires exist?! Then we go on to the danger surrounding this guy because he's a vampire and she isn't and it's dangerous for her to be with him but they still want to be together bla bla bla. Can I please have a vampire novel with realistic reactions and something that hasn't been done before? Then we get to the end where she inevitably and expectingly becomes a vampire, but for some reason she gets webbing between her fingers for swimming as a vampire. Luckily, that was the end of the book, which was good because I was so done. I gave it two stars on Goodreads mainly because of the setting.

2. The Dark Half, by Stephen King. As a teen I read several of King's books and really enjoyed them, so I was excited to read them as an adult and find out if I still liked his stories. This one was alright. I expected horror going in, but this book was more of a murder-mystery with a supernatural twist. I wasn't a huge fan of it in general, but it was one of those books that I just couldn't put down so I finished it quite quickly. Despite not being my general cup of tea the story pulled me in and I wanted to find out what would happen next. But there was no true ending! That bugged me for weeks afterwards. So they defeat the bad guy with some supernatural help. But throughout the book there's talk of supernatural things always having their price, so when is Thad going to have to pay the price? What is the price? Also, the ending definitely doesn't explain if and how Thad got out of being the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Congratulations you disposed of the real murderer - a man no one believed existed. How is this going to help Thad save his future and not end up in prison for life?! The word of one single smalltown police man probably isn't good enough for the FBI tbh. So why are we all so happy when nothing is resolved?!

3. The Bachman Books, by Stephen King. Reading lots of King now. This was a compilation of three of the five books he wrote under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man. I really enjoyed The Long Walk. When I was reading that part I just couldn't put the book down. It was a really simple story essentially, but it was also amazing. 100 boys participating in the ultimate competition in a dystopian future. The ultimate competition being a 450-mile marathon, where if you drop down under a speed of 4 m/h for 30 seconds you get a warning. Three warnings and you're unceremoniously shot and out of the competition (and life). This story was a sort of psychological thriller, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And then came the fact that once again there was no true ending. Ofc the main character is the last man standing (no surprise there), but at the end he just runs off. Does he die? Is he caught and later dies? Is he caught and rehabilitated and somehow survives the ordeal? No idea. I was so annoyed at the no-true-ending trope that King seemed to be having that I didn't pick the book up again for several days. Then came Roadwork, which was hilariously bad. I guess it was supposed to be psychological, but to me all it was was reading about a man who slowly ruined his life and then killed himself. Thoroughly boring and thoroughly depressing. At least it had a true ending. Gold star for effort. Finally there was The Running Man, which I had read before, but that was about ten years ago and the only mental picture I had left from the story was of the main character's guts hanging out of his stomach and getting stuck on debris. The Running Man has some similarities to The Long Walk in that they were both set in dystopian futures and the main character enrolls in a gruelling competition that means either death or fame. The Running Man was the first book in my King marathon where I actually liked the main character; resourceful, cunning, glib, and completely defiant of authority. This book was a sort of action thriller, which I really enjoyed re-reading (and that scene with the guts was still as gross as I remembered it). What struck me twice during the read of The Bachman Books was that both The Long Walk and The Running Man were sort of Hunger Games where ordinary people from outside the game savoured the savagery and cheered when people died or were injured. Hunger Games made the dystopian game show into a YA thing and mainstream, but it was far from the first novel to toy with the idea.

4. Insomnia, by Stephen King. This book took me forever to read, mainly because it was so boring. When I realised that the main character was in his 70s I originally thought it would be really cool and interesting to have a main character who wasn't young or young-ish. Instead the book was a chore. Halfway through nothing seemingly important had happened, and it wasn't until I had read about two-thirds of it that things started to get underway, and what King had done then was allowing the supernatural powers the main character had recieved to regress his age. Suddenly he was 20 years younger in body and spirit, and if that's the case it doesn't matter if he's really 70, because he isn't really anymore. Things started to get underway after two-thirds but it was still slow going. Not much action, and even when there was King described it in a way that took all the excitement out of it. Something action-y and exciting happening right now? Let me make this character sentimental for something that happened 40-60 years ago and describe it in detail, because this is what he's thinking during the split second this thing happens. Completely took all the excitement out of it. Maybe it's realistic, I don't know, but it wasn't entertaining to read. Extra credit for the plot twist in the end that I didn't see coming. And a gold star for a true ending. But the overall grade is poor. When I had finished reading it I was actually glad to put it back in my shelf and it probably won't stay there for long.

5. Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy, by E.L. James. Yes. I did it. I read the whole trilogy. I bought it as an eBook in August last year, mainly because I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about but I also didn't think it deserved to be a "real" book and I most definitely did not want to let people know I was reading it on the train or while waiting for the bus. I read the first few pages when I first bought it, but then I didn't pick it up again until about 6-8 months later. Since this Spring I've been reading it on and off when I have nothing better to do - waiting for the bus, waiting for work to start, can't sleep... Things like that. And I finally finished it yesterday evening. I don't really know how to review this book. If I review it as a novel then it's utter trash. Entertaining trash, but still trash. If I review it as the fanfiction it is, then it's really well-written fanfiction. Mainly because there's a lot of fanfiction out there that makes me wonder if the writer stopped attending school at age 10. Throughout reading it I had the same relationship with it like I do with fanfiction. It's easy entertainment. Something to do when I have nothing better to do, or when I'm too tired to do something worthwhile. I understand how it became mainstream, I really do. Nothing about Fifty Shades, and I mean absolutely nothing, is unique from a fanfiction point of view. All of it has been done before and I can point out several Harry Potter smut fics with the same story if you want me to. But this type of sex and relationship in a mainstream novel? Oh-la-la! That's a novelty! I'm not getting on the hype train for this series, it isn't amazing. You know what this is? It's a modern Harlequin novel that has enticed young people because of the elegance of the characters' world and the forbidden-ness that this book's BDSM-inspired (but not really BDSM) sex represents. But basically it's an old lady book. Don't get me wrong I've laughed along to this book a lot. Ana's subconscious and her inner goddess were hilarious as well as the email banter, but what really kept me coming back for more was Christian. That's basically the only thing I thought was well-done in this story; how Christian evolves as a character. In the entirety of the first book he's this bastard asshole stalky freak billionaire. Then, in the other two books, we get to know about his past and slowly, slowly in baby-steps he learns to come out of his shell, learns to be vulnerable, learns to trust, accepts that he actually is unconditionally loved despite his flaws, and slowly learns to love and accept himself and that's beautiful. So yes, I admit I liked this trilogy of books. I enjoyed it. But in no way do I think it's deserving of all the attention it gets.

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Not a lot of positivity there.
Still waiting for the horror part, King! Can you show me how you became known as the Master of Horror?

Fallout 4 DLCs: Contraptions, Vault-Tec, and Nuka World

Next game on my list was the last DLCs for Fallout 4. Like I said in my last Fallout post; I'm not a fan of the settlement thing, but I want the achievements.

Contraptions Workshop

This DLC had three achievements. The first one was to assign a settler to a pillory. Easily done since I already had the materials. Put it in Sanctuary and assigned Mama Murphy to it - she wasn't doing anything productive anyway. Next one was to display a weapon, an armor and a power armor on their respective racks. Easily done. Just built each rack and then put some random stuff on them. Then I had to produce 100 objects from my builders. This was the most tedious one, but it was over pretty quickly. I chose Starlight Drive-In for the builder. Then I produced 20 Teddy Bears, 20 Jangles the Moon Monkey, 20 Toy Aliens, 20 Toy Cars, and 20 Giddy-Up Buttercup. Done. Let's move on.

Vault-Tec Workshop

I originally thought this would be like any other wkorshop DLC - build a bunch of stuff. I was  looking forward a bit more to this than the other workshop DLCs. Primarily because I thought it would be like Fallout Shelter, but incorporated into Fallout 4. I was wrong, though. Vault-Tec Workshop wasn't just about building stuff, it had a complete little quest line, along with its three achis. The quest was unlocked when I listened to the radio broadcast from Vault 88. I went down there and found a half-finished Vault. They hadn't had time to finish it before the bombs fell. In the Vault I found a bunch of feral ghouls along with one ordinary ghoul - a woman who would've been Overseer if the Vault had been completed. She tasked me with doing different things. First off was to clear out the feral ghouls after it became clear to her that they were vicious towards humans. Then I was to build a settlement broadcast to make settlers come. While we waited for the settlers I was allowed to explore the rest of the would-be Vault and unlock the rest of the workshops. I explored every inch of the place and unlocked all the workshops (Ding! Achi!). Then the settlers arrived and I was tasked with equipping one of them with a vault-suit and a pip-boy (Ding! Achi!). A settler named Clem became the unfortunate victim of the Overseer for her Vault-Tec experiments.

She tasked me with everything, but I undermined every single one of her experiments by making them pleasurable for the settlers. Despite all my efforts one of the settlers had enough and left. Then in the end I convinced the Overseer to leave the Vault and make me Overseer (Ding! Achi!). But I felt bad releasing the Overseer to the Commonwealth and so I shot her, which surprisingly made the few new Vault-dwellers hostile towards me and so I had to kill them too :P Just one more empty and failed Vault.

Nuka-World

This was the main event. I answered the radio broadcast and went to the transit terminal to Nuka-World. I disposed of a few raiders and then got on the train to Nuka-World. As soon as I entered the park the game tried to have me killed. The raiders at the park had set up some sort of trial they called the Gauntlet. Turrets, traps, rabid animals, and feral ghouls deluxe! I managed to get through after a stubborn over-usage of stimpaks. Then I was pitted against the current Overboss in a rigged battle that (with some help) I got through with a squirt gun xD So I became the new Overboss of the place and the three gangs of raiders living there.

Next job was to clear the other areas of the park from creatures and give out the new territories to the gangs. In the meantime I ran jobs for the raiders in the Commonwealth (which accidentally ended with me making a graveyard out of Goodneighbor). Then came the time to establish the groups of raiders in the Commonwealth. Since I had taken all the settlements before this became an issue of me driving my own settlers from their lands so that my new raiders could go there. After 12 jobs and 8 settlements I got the two corresponding achis and moved on with the story. The least favoured group of raiders had turned on me, and I now had to "deal with them". Meaning I had to kill them all. I did and got the power turned on for all of Nuka-World. Beautiful! And that was the quest line.

I had assigned one settlement to the group that betrayed me and so I had to go there and kill them off. Unfortunately that quest is bugged and can't be completed :( But it didn't bother me much. I had two achis left at the end of this. First one was to kill 40 Nuka-World exclusive creatures while under the effect of a Nuka-World exclusive Nuka-Cola mix. I ran around the entire world looking for DLC exclusive creatures, but since this area for some reason doesn't respawn I resorted to console commands and spawned 40 bloodworms and just killed all of them. The other one was to redeem 100,000 ticket at the Nuka-Cade. I did try to do this one honestly. I had picked up every ticket I had found in the world and even played several rounds of the arcade games in the Nuka-Cade. Still I was only at abour 11k at that point. I refused to play several hours more just to grind tickets and so I once again resorted to console commands to get all the way to 100,000.

And then that was it. Fallout 4 is 100% completed. I almost feel a little sad.

October favourites 2016

Books: I only managed one and a half books in October. Tbf both of them have over 900 pages, so I'm cutting myself some slack. The one I'm currently reading is mind-numbingly dull, and so I have to say the other one, though that one's hardly a favourite either.

Music: I haven't listened to much music this month. But here are a few songs that I remember:
• Alice Cooper - "Wicked Young Man" & "Salvation"

• Nightwish - "Crownless" & Within Temptation - "The Heart of Everything"

• Morning Musume - "I WISH" & Buono! - "Rock no Kamisama"

• Hollywood Vampires - "School's Out/Another Brick in the Wall" & Marilyn Manson - "The Gardener"


Games: This month I've played Dragon Age Inquisition, Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition. Out of those I'm going with ESO, just because I had so much fun during my last turn there.

TV shows: So many shows. I'm watching all the current ones: The Big Bang Theory, The Walking Dead, Westworld, Agents of Shield, Fear the Walking Dead, Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, and The Vampire Diaries. On top of that I've also watched some X-Files, and the latest season of a Swedish reality show about Americans coming to Sweden to find their Swedish roots and compete to meet their living relatives. Out of all of those shows I'm currently the most excited about X-Files.

Other: Nothing much has happened this month. Most exciting things I guess were the Fantastic Beasts live event, and the temporary Harry Potter shop at the central station in Stockholm.

Elder Scrolls Online: New DLCs, Update 12, and the Halloween event

The new DLC for ESO was next on my list of games to play and originally I was supposed to just get in there and play the DLC, then get out again. Instead I played it for a month :P

When I started playing I did everything but the DLC. Did a bunch of dailies and some dungeons with people, but most of all I tried to complete the PvE elements in Cyrodiil (the PvP area). And I did basically everything there. I only have a couple of delves left, but I'll get them at some other time. Something else I did was that while I was in Cyro anyway I decided to check out the Imperial City DLC. Because my goal was to do the PvE, I had chosen a campaign with low population, it was also the middle of the night on a weekday, which helped. Imperial City is like a group based public dungeon with PvP elements. Mayhem. Two ordinary group dungeons also came along with the DLC and I haven't checked those out yet. I picked up the quest for the public dungeon part and went exploring. The mobs in there were no problem, but then came the first boss of the quest, and while I did manage to get the boss's health down a bit, it was way too hard to do alone (at least on my current build - maybe when I get my new one I can manage alone?) So I moved on from the Imperial City for a while.

While I was busy with Cyro, Update 12 came around. Major update, which changed the game from the base up. Where before you could only see people from your own alliance in the world (except in the PvP zone ofc), you can now interact with everybody from every alliance everywhere and anywhere in the world. Which suddenly made the world a lot livelier! Not that ESO was dying before, but the zones are so friggin big that you don't run across so many people randomly in the world, but then you come to a city and there are people everywhere. Absolutely everywhere, even before the Update - so you can imagine the chaos when the Update came around and the amount of people tripled! xD Another thing they did in Update 12 was to introduce duelling, which I watched a lot of, but didn't participate. I didn't join in on the action, mostly because I've been working on a new build and most of that "working on" is "waiting for my character to research enough traits so that I can craft the armour I want". Because I didn't have the build I wanted, I also didn't do as much damage as a lot of the others, and I don't want to duel at all until I think I have any chance of winning :P (I don't think I will, but I want the chance). They also made all the world bosses into actual group events, where you have very little chance to manage them alone. (I did all of them solo before and as I've said my build isn't the best).

Another major change with the Update was that they completely revamped the adventure zone Craglorn, and made the main quest line there solo-able. So as soon as I got online after the Update I started working on completing the main quest there, which I did - for the first time since Craglorn launched in 2014. With the Update, Craglorn came alive again and suddenly there was no trouble at all finding people for the daily quest lines there. For a while there I was busy completing the Craglorn zone.

Then came ESO's first ever event! The Witches' Festival came around while I was busy in Craglorn, and this event sent me farming for the first time ever in the two years I've played this game. Basically you did this little quest for the witch, which gave you the ability to summon her cauldron and drink from it. This turned your toon into a skeleton with some buffs. And then all you had to do was kill bosses; world bosses, anchor bosses, public dungeon bosses, group dungeon bosses, delve bosses... Any boss! When you killed bosses you had a chance of finding a Plunder Skull, which you could open in the hopes of getting parts of the new Hollowjack crafting motif, collectables or spooky recipes. This event would be around until November 1st, which meant there was a time limit to get all the stuff and all the new achievements. So I dedicated myself to this. After a few delves I spent most of my time going through all the anchors and then all the public dungeons, which meant I finally went through the public dungeons in Orsinium DLC that I didn't do before. The Dwemer one was really cool! I finished the event on Sunday, after having collected over 40 skulls on Saturday alone. All in all I think I collected 110 skulls.

After I finished the event I decided to focus on the new DLC; Dark Brotherhood. I had picked it up and started it before back when it was released in early June, but I didn't start playing it until now. If there is one thing I've learned from other ES games, it's that when you play the Dark Brotherhood quest line - get ready for betrayal. The DLC takes place on the Gold Coast, an area of Cyrodiil which was previously in Oblivion. I enjoyed coming back to Anvil and Kvatch. The story of the Dark Brotherhood mostly evolves around the fact that someone has been killing members of the family, and we know that this murderer (a murderer of murderers, lol) is somehow connected to the Order of the Hour; worshippers of Akatosh. The investigation takes me back and forth between Kvatch and Anvil and also on a trip to Black Marsh. The DLC ended with an awesome boss battle and with my character becoming a member of the Black Hand. This was honestly the best DLC yet. I loved Thieves Guild while I was playing it, but holy hell this was a lot better. The zone had a few quests as well, that weren't part of the Dark Brotherhood quest line. They were all a lot of fun and gave me the opportunity to re-encounter Crafty Lerisa from the Daggerfall Covenant zones, Raynor Vanos and his sister from the Ebonheart Pact zones, and Captain Jimila fromt he Aldmeri Dominion zones. But also, and they are my favourites, Naryu Virian from EP and Razum-dar from AD. When I ran into Raz I couldn't stop smiling. He's my favourite character in the whole game :3 Naryu is number two. Favourite side quest of this zone was no doubt the last one: The Sweetroll Killer, which included a lot of investigation, puzzles, and choice-and-consequence.

There was another DLC released: Shadows of the Hist. But this DLC only consisted of two new group dungeons and group dungeons are rarely on the top of my to-do list in ESO. Some other time.

Watching old, old movies part 4

This isn't gonna stop any time soon...

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

10. Pyscho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock retains his reputation even to this day so of course I had heard about this movie, although I had never seen it. It was kind of straight-forward all the way to the end, when the twist about the murderer was revealed. The only big surprise was when the girl who I thought was the main character was killed off halfway through the movie. And when the twist was revealed and one of the detectives casually called the murderer a transvestite I just said "He's not a transvestite! He's a cross-dressing man with multiple personality disorder. I don't need a degree to know that! You loon." to the screen. But from what I've gathered through Mad Men and old books and movies; psychology and the workings of the brain weren't such well-known facts for the most part of the 20th century. I wouldn't call this movie horror, though, there weren't many horror elements in it. Apart from the classical shower scene and the corpse reveal towards the end, this was a kind of straight-forward heist-mystery movie. I liked it, though.

11. The Black Cat (1934)
I had been looking forward to this movie - Bela Lugosi (Dracula) and Boris Karloff (Frankenstein/The Mummy) in the same movie! Based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe nonetheless! It was bound to be good. And it was. It really, really was. The only expected and obvious letdown (for me, anyway) was that the women in the movie had barely any lines at all and were basically there just to look pretty. But Lugosi and Karloff were so good together that most of the time I didn't even care. So Lugosi is vaguely creepy as a character and on his way to what he says is "an old friend" (Karloff's character). After a road accident he brings the honeymooning couple with him to this friend because the woman has been hurt and his friend's home is close to where the accident happened. Turns out this is not a friend at all, but a fellow ex-soldier who left him and the batallion for dead as he ran off. For 18 years Lugosi's character was a POW, while Karloff's character became renowned as an amazing architect and lived a good life - with Lugosi's wife and daughter nonetheless! Karloff's character is later revealed to be the leader of a cult who sacrifices women to the moon. Women who Karloff later preserves to be able to watch their eternal beauty (like som necrophiliac creep). Lugosi's character is revealed to actually be a good guy with a bad past, but when he finds out what Karloff's character did to his wife and daughter he goes ballistic (understandably). This whole movie was a joy to watch, and actually quite scary. It was disturbing even by today's standards.

I love this whole scene. Lugosi looks demented and Karloff looks properly scared shitless by the end.

12. Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960)
The first non-English movie I've seen on this trip through black-and-white. While Nosferatu is German, all the text cards were in English in the version I saw. This movie is French (why couldn't we watch this kind of movie in French class?!) and it's creepy as hell. The title means Eyes Without a Face. It's about the daughter of an amazing surgeon who loses her face in a car accident caused by her father. Her father goes on a personal quest to give his daughter a new face, experimenting with full facial transplants (a full 50 years before it was accomplised IRL). His secretary helps him by tricking young women into going with her. Their faces are then used for experimentation, and their dead bodies are later dumped. Christiane, the daughter, begins to lose hope and faith in her father's ability, but for a moment it looks like he may have succeeded. But (as expected from my side) the tissue grows necrotic after just a few days and has to be removed and Christiane is back to wearing her mask. Throughout the whole movie she has very few lines and she's almost always wearing her mask. She moves around quietly and gracefully, with nothing but her huge eyes visible of her face. The way her character moves and looks is the most creepy thing to me. It was worse than when they actually filmed and showed the doctor removing a face (why did they have to show that?! it hurt my face to watch!). Of course the surgeon and his secretary gets the police on their trail, but Christiane has had it and stabs the secretary with her father's scalpel and then sets the caged dogs on her father. When they're both dead she helps the latest girl escape and then she goes out into the world again - for the first time in months. This movie was so good. It didn't leave my head for days. The French should do more horror. The melancholy they love to have in their movies really works in horror.