#again zombieish

[postkillclarity]

dumping this here bc i dont feel like posting it anywhere else

[cat124spaghetti]

Drew Draculaura ao ofc i had to draw Frankie too

I changed their design because it felt like those movies about "teens" with 20 year old actors, since g3 draculauras design was dhowing her witchy side i thought frankies design should reflect their personality like how frabkie is nonbinary and i made them green again because why are they suddenly blue??? and i made them more zombieish because i love when frankensteons are made out of different people and you can see that clearly, i also took inspo from the g2 fit because it slays so hard honestly but the small additions like themetal leg and lightning earrings are cute

[girltomboy]

I watched Us tonight. I spent a lot of time reading reviews for it because I was moody and all doomy-gloomy (feeling ill, grey weather, I hate winter, it's pitch black when I finish work, hungry, etc.) and didn't really want to spend my evening watching a slow or uninteresting (to me) movie. However, the reviews were mixed, and I had been curious to watch this movie (especially so after watching Get Out last night) so I decided that the best reviewer is the viewer and watched it anyway. And it was fantastic! It exceeded my expectations.

I loved the setting, the family, the pacing, the twists. I loved the throwbacks at the end and the overall evil zombieish clones vibe of the movie. The Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass kind of story - especially with the white rabbit and amusement park. LOVED the synchronisations and little coincidences throughout the movie, one of my favorite tropes in horror. Another Jordan Peele movie that puts hints and clues in your pocket for you to find later.

I even experienced some of those coincidences myself while watching this movie. While they were walking in the dark around their own house I anticipated that I would get jump scared. And I did, at the same time when my phone dinged. And then I looked at the clock at 22:22 and my boyfriend texted me right as I was thinking of him. Also, I saw the twist coming towards the end when Addy went downstairs in the tunnel world. I just thought they kept showing that scene of her finding her clone as a child one too many times, there had to have been more to it than just the discovery of it all. From there on it was a matter of the twist being revealed, and I sure loved every moment of it.

This movie was also generous with humor, although quite subtle. It's maybe a kind of humor that's mostly prevalent in incredibly ridiculous or traumatic situations. An irony that's just so perfectly timed you can only scoff.

To be honest I liked this movie better than Get Out - and that's saying a lot because I loved Get Out! I didn't expect it, especially with all the mixed reviews of it I'd been reading. But I'm glad I watched it. Also, many people were saying the ending confused them. I thought Peele could not have handed the whole thing more on a platter than he already did. Like all of it is right there, the Real Addy tells the story from scratch, with visual aid and everything. Many were also saying they had to watch it again to catch the small details, and all I can think is those people must not watch horror movies very often. Because most of the time - and Us is no exception - they are waved right underneath your nose. You just have to look and not take the movie for granted, not underestimate it.

Anyway, wow! I'm super excited to watch Nope tomorrow evening. Us was some serious business, and based on how much love I've seen for Nope so far, I can only imagine that Jordan Peele is on a streak of outdoing himself.

[sibillascribbles08]

Distractions? Here are a few: Name your top ten favorite and top ten least favorite Pokemon and explain why, explain each of your favorite video games in the most vague sentence possible, tell us about your favorite obscure animal, and/or ramble about your least favorite book.

god I love too many pokemon unfair, so the ten lists aren’t going to be in any order

Regigigas

All the regis actually

Arcanine

Feraligatr

Starmie

Gengar

Golurk

Heracross

Leavanny

Deoxys

There’s many more but you said ten

Least

LickyLicky (Fuck you)

Tangegrowth (fuck you too)

Clefairy (tiny satan)

Pikachu (overrated please stop being everywhere)

Nosepass (Why)

That one romhack miltank in particular

Alolan persian (why is your design like this)

Gyarados (STOP USING EARTHQUAKE YOU BITCH)

Shaymin (fuck your movie)

Zygarde’s complete form (Remember when you were a gorgeous earth sea cucumber that could have had some beautiful lore behind why you were the third in a balance between one who gives life and one who takes life and they TURNED YOU INTO A MEGAZORG ZYGARDE SWEETIE I AM SO SORRY)

Fav video games

Balloon fights eldritch god

Bear and bird use gold puzzle pieces to defeat the wicked witch and also her corpse

Gay lawyers (or at least not straight laywers)

Farm time

Turn people and buildings into stars

Catch powerful critters and have them follow you and also you have a phone and a radio sorry it’s the best version

Small child was just trying to deliver a sword and now he can turn into wall art

A different but similar small child is forced to confront the process of grieving over losing a friend and there’s a lot of masks

Balloon again, but this time there’s racing

Fav obscure animal??? Idk I love a ton of bugs but idk how obscure they are. Have y’all heard of portia jumping spiders tho? They pluck the threads of orb weaver webs to mimic debris so when the spider goes to clear it out they get jumped. P cool

Least favorite book? There’s a number I’ve seen, a large number, but I personally like to discuss The Forest of Hands and Teeth because W O W that book was agonizing. So many people rec’d it to me too but like ? Fuck that. It’s a post apocalyptic story, kinda zombieish I think ? They never state if they’re zombies. Anyway people lived in fenced in villages and fuck shit and the main girl is just ??? SUCH a drag. Worst narrator. People are dying around her and all she cares about is if she gets alone time with her crush and the rest of the page is her bitching about how everything is terrible and SURE it kind of is terrible but also like ??? can we take a break? Can something nice happen? And at the end of it she’s the only one left alive when she was the only one I wanted to die. How disappointing.

[gamingandeducating]

XCOM 2: War of The Chosen

When I bought XCOM 2 (probably 2 years ago) on sale I didn't really know what I was buying. The name carried the weight of being “good” and I didn't even think to watch a video or read a review before buying it heavily discounted via the xbox store. Since then there have been numerous failed campaigns, uninstalls and reinstalls. Soldiers I have fallen in love with, named and then stupidly gotten killed, hence the number of uninstallations. I guess it would be fair to say that my time with xcom was tumultuous and while in my head I adored the permadeath aspect of it, in reality I hated it as every time I was faced with the consequences my response was a trip to the manage game section before I played something else. I would say that every time I played again I felt a little bit more competent than the last, but I would never say that I had any level of expertise towards the game. So why did I reinstall this game again? There was a sale on the expansion of course! At a certain point going back to xcom 2 was boring for me, I would have to go through the same early levels and the same early research projects and the same early VO before I hit anything new and then bounce away as soon as it got too difficult (yes this is a problem of my own making but still). The expansion however meant that I could experience enough new things while making my way through the old and so my playthrough began anew. 

The turn based strategy of xcom is deceptively simple and I have no doubts in thinking that I played it with as much grace as a dog pouring a tea into fine china, but I loved trying to be tactical. Moving my rookies into position before shooting that first shot into the Advent and beginning the chaos. This was made more interesting for me with the addition of the faction specialist soldiers called the Reapers who stay concealed even when they have fired or the squad is revealed. For me an element of the grand tactitian was lost in xcom 2 when the first shot was fired and the enemy got their free move away before the rest of your fireteam could strike. I would have much preferred some system by which I could synchronise attacks while hiding to give that true feeling of a small number tactical operation taking place. The Reapers allowed for this a little more. I also played a lot with a new class type called the Skirmisher which felt underpowered by the midgame because of the equipment that I had doled out to my other members and not Mox the skirmisher, after that point he never stood a chance. There was a third new type but I never played with it because it sounded confusing to hell and I didn't see the obvious benefit and so sunk my experience elsewhere. The addition of these classes made a welcome change to the 4 archetypes that come with the base game. 

While the set story missions were nothing special and the overarching story was also pretty paint by numbers the narrative in this game comes from the story between the soldiers that you send into battle. Its the meta-story that is produced by a missed shot from your sniper leading to their MEC troopers decimating your ranger who gets healed, but the squad is still in a precarious position, but then the sniper who missed the first shot takes aim again and this time his aim is true. While this might mean nothing to most people this story meant something to me and that is why that sniper earned the nickname “Second Shot”. 

The main introduction in the war of the chosen was the 3 Chosen that serve as protectors in certain regions on the world map. They offer some difficulties that make you approach each level in a different way. The computer can be as risky as it wants to be with the alien forces and the chosen because it has an unlimited supply of them, whereas if one of your soldiers takes a hit then it is a real hammer blow for the rest of the mission and might scupper some of your plans for the next few missions. I liked the Chosen specific missions, although I would have preferred some unique factors in each one as they felt pretty samey after the first. As soon as the first Chosen was dropped and I reaped the sweet loot benefits then I made an effort to get all of their amazing and overpowered weaponry that made me feel like a superhero. 

Xcom works best when there is a pressure. When the soldiers send out have worth to them and when the mission timer gets remarkably close to zero. The random missions and mapping heighten the pressure, but once again I felt that there was only so much in terms of variety that I could find here. During the late game I just ignored certain mission types because I was bored by them and I could do so without penalty. In my meta narrative I reasoned this away by saying that XCOM only had certain amount of resources to use and while I was told that this wasn't recommended I never felt penalised. For a game that stresses decision making, it felt like this was an oversight and an exploit that covered up the lack of options for mission types. I will give a shout out here to the Lost Missions. The zombieish, third faction was super interesting to play and the new dynamic of another threat made me reconsider all of my moves. While shooting and killing them granted you another action their ability to bog down advent made them more useful alive. 

I was ultimately disappointed with the finale of the campaign as it emphasises the save the world aspect more than the band of brothers I had created, but truly the last mission sucked, it was nothing more than a trip down memory lane with every creature you’d fought up until that point and three of the bosses from the missions prior thrown in for good measure. This paled in comparison to the sneaky, three man mission that went before that was an incredibly interesting and unique mission.

In my head the problems with the last mission could have been solved by having some sort of b team mission that sets up the final venture and depending on how well your b team does dictates the bonuses for your A-team. I picture it similarly to mass effect 2′s suicide mission. The fact that members of the B team might have to die would really add the drama and motivation that the final mission lacked. 

Xcom 2 has the potential to be played over and over again as I have proven, however the end game feels too grindy and likes the spartan, outnumbered feel of the early and midgame. I would recommend xcom 2 to anyone who wants a backdrop to tell their own stories of war, but warn them that their attachment will only bring them heartbreak. RIP Second Shot