Next up of our dinner shows was Altered Carbon. The trailer looked cool and so we decided to try it out.
The first season was really good and I really enjoyed the world-building and how the story progressed. The writers kept the storylines so frickin tight that I hadn't figured out who was behind it all until Kovacs told everyone what he knew, but when he did everything made total sense I all the pieces fit together. It was beautiful.
Unfortunately it felt like they dropped the ball in the second season. Mostly because the few subtle hints towards what Elders actually were that they had dropped throughout season one and two had been too subtle and the pieces didn't fit together as well as they should have. Poe carried this whole season. He was the best part of it. Dig helped, but man, I loved Poe. I loved him from the get-go in the first season and figured out every reference to Edgar Allan Poe even before they made it obvious. He's one of my favourite classical authors, so what do you expect?
Joel Kinnaman was great as Kovacs and I also really enjoyed seeing Will Yun Lee as original Kovacs. Anthony Mackie, somehow, didn't bring the same feel to the character. Mackie was less intense, I think, than Kinnaman and Lee, and I guess that's a danger for every show like this where you can switch actors for the main character.
First season was really good, second season was meh.
I started this project in November last year. Then AC Valhalla and Cyberpunk interrupted, so when I returned to Enemy Unknown in Feburary I had almost no clue what I had been doing. But here goes.
Enemy Unknown: This was so epic. I had heard a lot of good about this game and since I enjoy TBS I decided to give it a try. I had a lot of fun with it, even when some of my favourite soldiers died. There were a lot of times where I just reloaded the latest autosave to avoid having anyone killed altogether. It's funny how you can grow attached to characters that have no backstory and basically no personality, but here we are. I struggled a lot with money in the beginning, only to have way too much money at the end. And I realised way too late that I had forgotten to level my soldiers' Will and they kept getting mind controlled and panicked all over the place. So when I already had the Gollop Chamber built I started to level up my rookies with Will hoping to get them at a decent level before I started the final assault. Way too late. But it worked out in the end. The final assault was so epic and it explained the whole backstory of the alien forces and the different kinds of aliens I had been fighting throughout the game.
Enemy Within: Let's do it all again, but better! Enemy Within is an expansion to Enemy Unknown, but it's basically the base game with added features. Enemy Within is so much better than Enemy Unknown. New features include cybernetics (I loved, loved, loved the brain implant that made the soldiers immune to mind control), mec troopers, medals, new aliens, new weapons, new missions and an entirely new threat added on top of the alien threat. I was completely surprised by the sudden attack on HQ and I wasn't entirely pleased with how that played out. There were a lot of reloaded autosaves before I completed that mission, but man was this expac worth it overall. There was so much more going on and I loved the different types of missions and the different story paths that this version offered, that Enemy Unknown didn't. Enemy Within is just... more. It was amazing. Without being deliberate I ended up with a full squad of black women fighting on the front lines. It was pretty cool. My Heavy class soldier got the nickname Big Momma. (The game assigns random nicknames to high-ranking soldiers). My A-team was usually five black women and Shaojie Zhang from the Slingshot DLC as an upgraded Mec Trooper.
The Bureau: This was different from the others. Instead of a being a clear TBS like the others, this was more of a tactical FPS. It gave me strong Mass Effect vibes. The gameplay was a lot like the first Mass Effect game. The story is set in the 60s instead of contemporary times so we have all the macho men and casual sexism. Both Carter and Faulke really bothered me in the beginning due to this, but the more I played and the more I interacted with the characters the more I came to really like Carter. The game is short, only around 14 hours, but the story gets pretty deep nevertheless. I feel like if they had made the game longer the story would've become diluted. Was it as good as the others? I can't compare it gameplay-wise, because it's a completely different style, but storywise I feel like it's up to par. However it was a little janky to see the XCOM HQ filled with those massive 1960s computers and yet they still somehow manage to understand and pick up on alien tech. This takes place before humanity got to the moon on the processor power of a calculator, so how are you even able to use their tech? At the very least; how are you able to use their tech so quickly? It should take months, if not years, for you to understand and implement. Anyway, the story seems pretty straight-forward but there are several twists at the end and the player gets to make several choices that impacts how the story ends. I'm always one for war table missions, so I really liked that I was able to send other agents on missions and have them report back while I was out doing other things. More of that, please!
XCOM 2: I enjoyed going "back to normal" with this one unlike in The Bureau. What I didn't like was the Avatar Project timer making me stressed. Stressed to the point that I decided to start up the dev console to gain some kind of control over it. I don't want to be rushed through these kinds of games. I want to take my time and do everything to the best of my ability. Not haphazardly hoping everything will turn out alright because a stupid timer is stressing me out. I only used the dev console once though in the very beginning, soon after that I realised I could control it pretty well anyway by doing the actual missions instead of just hopping around scanning things xD Did I enjoy the game? Yes. At the moment I'm not sure which I liked the most of EU/EW or 2, but I did find myself missing EU/EW sometimes while playing this one, which is definitely in favour of EU/EW. So it's been 20 years since the first game and XCOM doesn't exist in the same way anymore. After the original invasion the aliens came back and settled down, brainwashing the people to think that they were benevolent overlords. Bradford (mission control from the first game) rescues the commander from alien grasp and sets up a makeshift XCOM and starts raising the resistance all over the world. This game was cool. All the new aliens and tech and stuff. I also very much enjoyed all the nods to the first game, and was actually kind of sad to find out what happened to Council Man. XCOM 2 was a wild ride.
War of the Chosen: Let's do it all over again, but better! This seems to be a theme of XCOM's. This is an expansion to XCOM 2 that's basically the same thing as the base game but with added content. This expansion adds three new factions, covert missions (basically a war table - yay!), and three super villains called the Chosen. The Chosen each added another timer on top of the Avatar project timer, but this time, instead of getting stressed about it I realised I could deal with it if I focused on it. If those timers are left to run their course the Chosen will attack and infiltrate the HQ - not ideal. But focusing on the Chosen I managed to defeat all three of them before I even got halfway through the main mission and with time to spare on the Avatar Project timer. I loved the three new factions. The Templars are super cool and I loved seeing my Templar buddy do every single one of her Rends because omg so cool *_* But Mox became my sweetheart. I just loved him to bits and brought him on every mission I could. WotC also added soldier bonds, meaning that soldiers who do a lot of things together get bonuses, which was cool. I really enjoyed getting Mox to the highest bond level with my Reaper buddy because they hated each other in the beginning. WotC also added an energy meter on every soldier. After going on a few missions in a row a soldier usually gets tired and has to rest for a day or two before they can head back out. That was a pretty neat feature imo which forced me to use more than my standard ten soldiers; six default and four backup in case of injury. If I get the urge to play XCOM again after this series playthrough I'll definitely play WotC before I play the original XCOM 2. So much more to do, so much more fun :3
Chimera Squad: This is the most recent game of the bunch and it's obviously a spin-off. It takes place five years after the events of XCOM 2 and instead of playing as XCOM you play as an off-shoot called Chimera Squad employing both humans and aliens (and hybrids) working in a single city instead of all over the globe like previous XCOM games. This game very much feels like a simplified version of the other XCOM games and the campaign is very short and straight-forward. The one thing I really liked was that instead of randomly generated soldiers without background or personality this game has a preset group of soldiers to choose from and they all have background and personality. What I didn't like about this setup was that I was forced to choose only 8 when the game actually has 11 soldiers to choose from. Which means that if I want to play all the characters and get to know them all I'm forced to play through the game at least twice. Because of this I ended up with the same people in the squad pretty much all the time (because why change when I found my style?) Cherub, Shelter, Zephyr and Torque became my default team. All the missions are super short and in the same style and don't offer much room for being creatively handled. It was a surprise to find out that a mission failed and had to be restarted if a soldier died, because that hadn't been the case in all the other XCOMs. When I realised that one time that I wasn't going to be able to save that solider I figured I'd simply get a new recruitment slot. But no. I was forced to restart. The game is cute and has a lot of personality and I kind of like the cartoony comicbook style of the game, but it didn't catch my attention the way the others did and it didn't scratch that itch.
I probably won't be going back to the 90s and play the original XCOM games, but you never know. I went back to the 90s to play the original Elder Scrolls games, just because I love the last four entries in that series.
So last year we started watching Final Space. It's an adult cartoon about a guy named Gary and his crazy life. It's got a lot of humour, especially the first season, and we spent a lot of time just laughing at the absurdity of it all. Second season is a bit more serious but also a lot more epic, but there's still room for crazy antics! Tribore forever ♥
Story starts with Gary in space prison for accidentally destroying a space station. He has five years and his five years are almost up. He's really looking forward to find a girl he fell in love with at first sight just before he destroyed the space station (he's sent video messages to her every day for the past five years and never got a reply), and he's also really looking forward to having some cookies. His only companions in space prison is the ship's AI called HUE and his insanity-avoidance robot called KVN. KVN is hilarious and HUE is so cute. Gary is a hilarious drama queen.
After he's released from prison things don't exactly go according to plan and somehow he finds himself on a quest to defeat the Lord Commander and save the Earth with help from the girl he likes (Quinn) and a Ventraxian called Avocato, while also taking care of the cute and mysterious Mooncake.
Tribore is the leader of the Resistance. What are they resisting? They're not sure.
The third season promises to be really frickin epic.
While we were watching the second season of Final Space, the third season of Disenchantment dropped and so we temporarily left Final Space to watch that. We both loved the first two seasons and the third season was no different. It's still a story about all the messes Bean gets herself into and how she gets herself out with the help of Luci and Elfo, but this time around she grows up a bit and realises that she doesn't just represent herself, but as a princess she represents all of her country. As her father falls ill and her brother is unfit to rule she steps in and takes command. People around her treat it like some temporary solution, but it soon becomes obvious that the king isn't getting any better.
Even with the serious undertone there is a lot of fun to be had in this season and it flawlessly ties together all the different storylines from the first two seasons.
The next season looks to be really good as well :3
After Dark my choice was to watch Lost in Space, which turned out to be such a good choice because every single episode felt like a movie. Every episode was epic and bombastic and had us on the edge of our seats.
I didn't expect to feel attachment towards a robot, but here we are.
So the story follows a family who've all been accepted to go to the human colony on Alpha Centauri. But from the start it becomes obvious that something doesn't add up. The mom is a brilliant engineering and helped design and build the spaceship that would take humanity to a new planet. She built the ship, but not the engine and as far as she knew, humanity hadn't yet created an engine capable of long-distance space-flight. That mystery is solved in season two, but the solution is hinted to already in season one.
Every episode has the family facing threats that could potentially kill them, most of them are natural in nature, but since they're always at alien planets or deep in space, the natural conditions aren't really what we're used to.
Of course there are human things happening, like love and betrayal and friendship and treason (even a good old-fashioned mutiny), but most of this show is about surviving in an unknown and sometimes hostile environment.
The Robinsons are all pretty badass and brilliant in their own respective ways. Poor dad keeps getting banged up.
Toni chose the next show for our dinner with Netflix theme and he chose Dark, which had a really cool trailer but was also talked about as "Stranger Things for intelligent people". It's a German show and neither of us speak German, but slap some subs on there and we're fine.
We both spent the first season in perpetual confusion, but at the same time it was so so good and exciting and interesting that we just kept watching. Every evening it was time for "Jonas and food". However, by the time we started the second season I had figured out how the characters connected and which story thread went where. Or so I thought. The third season turned everything I knew upside down, in a way that actually disappointed me. It seemed like such lazy writing to have the first two seasons be one way only to introduce things at the last minute to kind of tie the whole story together. As a result the third season seemed kind of haphazardly put together and pretty rushed out.
The story is about time-travelling and later on dimension-travelling. It revolves around a small German village called Winden. The kind of place where people all know each other and somehow nobody ever leaves even though they may dream of it as teenagers.
The time-travelling is connected to the nuclear power station in the town, and the heroes of the story want to prevent the apocalypse that will happen due to the power station, and the bad guys want to make sure it happens. Their respective plots stretch through the times from 1888 to 2052.
The first two seasons were brilliantly done, which is probably why the third season fell so flat for me.
But up until the moment they decided to destroy everything they had established over two seasons this show was so so good. Give it a watch. Maybe you'll think differently from me.
1. The Trouble With Peace, by Joe Abercrombie. Holy fucking shit. Like wow. Those twists at the end have me at a loss for words, like... What?!How did I not see that coming? None of it?! I usually figure stuff out! Okay, from the start. Most of this book is about Savine and Leo ending up working with the conspiracists who plan to overthrow the government, and they're both so convinced they can do it. Half the book had me shaking my head at Leo, like what are you doing, you blundering dunderhead of a fool!? The other half had me exasperated at Savine, wishing Stour would die, admiring Rikke, really starting to like Orso, and kind of wishing Clover was my big brother. Then came the battle and through it all I had no idea who would win at the end, the writing was just so expertly done that every time I read about Orso's side I was convinced he'd win, and every time I read about Leo's side I was convinced he'd win. Like damn. O_o And Abercrombie can write battles. He's proven that time and time again. I was actually wincing at the book as I read my way through the battle. I was really sad to see Glokta resign though, that passage (apart from the ends) really hit me the hardest, like admitting he was getting old and I don't want him to die. Don't kill my favourite, please? But those final thirty pages. Savine. Orso. Leo. Clover. Stour. Rikke. Pike. O.M.G. Is the next one out yet?
2. Storm Front, by Jim Butcher. Amazingly, I have never read a Harry Dresden book before. I grew up slightly preoccupied with another wizard named Harry. Just as well. This book was published in 2001 and I don't think 10 y/o me would have appreciated this book. 30 y/o me very much did, though. It was snarky, sarcastic, exciting, interesting, action-filled and clever. Dresden sounds like a very fun guy to hang around. I kind of envy Susan. And Murphy. This book starts out with two cases, one run-of-the-mill missing husband (probably cheating) and one definitely not run-of-the-mill double murder. Unsurprisingly, these two cases have everything to do with each other and exactly in the way I first figured. The story and lore are cleverly crafted, but I solved the puzzle way before Dresden did and with a lot less roundabout manners. Dresden is lucky he's so cute. "Cute" meaning odd and sweet, not "cute" as the word you use for a puppy. Even if I did figure out where the story was heading way before even the second murder scene, the story was engaging enough and Dresden amusing enough that I didn't mind to read about all the ways he tried to figure things out. Do yourself a favour and don't ever listen to Bob again, alright?
3. The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá. I've known about this comic for years, but it was only after we watched the Netflix show that I decided I wanted to read it. I went in expecting something very similar to the show, but there were major differences. Personality wise they've done a pretty good job in casting, except Allison and Klaus are way cooler in the comic than they are in the show. Luther's body is way different in the comic than in the show. Considering the way he looks in the comic I think that would've been really hard to portray on camera without a blockbuster budget and lots of CGI. Klaus' powers are so much cooler in the comic too! Like he can fly/float and he's telekinetic on top of being psychic! All of them are sarcastic shits in the comic while they're mostly just sad sacks in the show because their lives have been hard. If I try to look at the comic objectively, and if I try to think of how it would be to start reading it without any previous knowledge of the characters or the story, then I assume it would fall pretty flat because it leaves a lot empty spaces and question marks in the story, but I really enjoyed the sarcastic shits and the action-packed superhero thing. Like I always do. I just really like superheroes. And sarcasm.
4. The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá. Yes! This is what I'm talking about! Beautifully crafted threads of story that all come together in the end! For the show I felt that the second season was weaker than the first, but for the comic the second volume is way better and a lot stronger than the first. We finally have Hazel and Cha-Cha and the stupid goldfish. And I love that Vanya isn't the cause of the apocalypse this time around (she deserves a break), but that it's actually a joint effort by Five and Klaus. And Klaus has a baby?! omfg! Nothing in this volume turned out the way it did in the show and so I kept being pleasantly surprised every time I turned the page. This was so good.
5. The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion, by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá. This one disappointed me. I believe it was designed to be the epic climax that brings everything introduced previously to a point and brings back old villains and heroes and there's a huge thing. Kind of like Endgame. But it fell completely short of it. Mostly I think because the villains hardly ever got established. Some of these villains show up briefly in Apocalypse Suite and are then never heard of or from again until this volume. It made the whole epic showdown seem disjointed. It was a lot of wait who are you and do I know you and where did you come from and how do you connect with all this? Vanya's sidestory was a whole lot more interesting to me than the epic showdown, too bad there was so little of it and nothing came of it before the volume ended. Worst part? The next volume isn't out yet. This volume ended the same way as season 2 of the show. Sort of. Same basis anyway. So that's gonna be interesting.
One hundred hours later and I've done every side quest and all endings. I usually luck out on rocky releases and Cyberpunk wasn't an exception for me. It ran pretty smoothly. No missing textures, no falling through the map, no stuttering. Only glitches I found was that sometimes I couldn't pick up white trash loot because it had glitched into the ground. But that was it. And my GTX 1070 autodetected the game on ultra so I was happy about that. Didn't manage to run it at 120hz ofc, but I still had no major stuttering. Hair glitched, but hair never looks great in games tbh... So yay, game worked and I'm happy.
And holy shit I loved this game. The world, the quests, the characters, the aesthetic... Just mwah ♥
As with any game I look forward to I don't watch anything beside the announcement trailer. So Cyberpunk turned out to be everything I wasn't expecting and nothing at all like I was expecting. But in a good way. I was thoroughly blown away.
Any downsides? Traffic was hell, driving in first person was terrible (so I always switched to third person for driving), and it happened way too many times that I accidentally chose a dialogue option when I was just trying to loot and a character started talking to me at the same time. Same button xD But Night City was so darn beautiful.
On a side note I really love that the band Samurai is available on Spotify as Samurai, even though it's Refused that's making the songs IRL. I'd love for Refused to do a world tour as Samurai and bring Keanu Reeves along and then have him appear on stage for every gig in full Silverhand getup. Can we please get on that?
HERE BE SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
So in the order stuff pops into my head:
Johnny was an ass, but a loveable ass. Halfway through the game I was properly in love with the guy. And I really enjoyed every quest where he got to take over and be in control. Those were always a lot of fun. Especially his boys night out xD
I loved Judy- And she was so pretty. Half of my screenshots from this game are just close-ups of her. So I was really sad when I came to the decision to turn her down and stick with River. River was a lot better SO for V. Like seriously. I love you, Judy, but you're volatile.
The side quests became soooo much better in the second act. I managed to play the quest with the crucifixion and the quest with Randy's kidnapping right after one another and I'm not sure whether I was blown away or grossed out, but both of those stayed with me. Because damn. Having to actually crucify a guy... I winced with every hit on the nails...
Losing Jackie in the beginning made me so sad and the memorial with Mama Welles brought me to tears. I used Jackie's bike 90% of the time after that.
I super enjoyed the hidden side quest where I get to fix and then ride a rollercoaster. So much fun! And all the loveable AIs... Skippy and Delamain to name a few. I wasn't happy with how Delamain's quest ended for me. But all three choices had terrible downsides...
And the endings... I played through all five of them. The first ending I chose was the default one which ultimately has you choose whether to surrender to Arasaka or not. I chose to surrender because V would die anyway. Sadness. Second ending I chose was going with Rogue and letting Johnny keep the body. I really liked the way this ending turned out, but that visit to the cemetery... More sad. Third ending was to go with Rogue but keep the body. V is still dying and the relationship is in shambles. Ffs. Fourth ending was to go with Panam and this ending shows the most promise in finding a way for V to survive. But losing Saul... SAD. Fifth ending is the one where V just goes fuck it all and commits suicide. That one broke me and I was trying so hard not to flat out burst into tears as the credits rolled and V's friends' voicemails started playing. Can I get one happy ending, please?! Just one?!?! :C
I definitely need to play through this game again. Once as a female and get Judy and maybe that means she'll go with me when I leave with Panam? She leaves on her own if you don't romance her so probably? And I also need to replay it as a male so I can get in Rogue's pants.
One thing I learned from this game; sex scenes in first-person POV are very strange.
I discovered this show through a meme. A meme in French nonetheless shared on Facebook by my old French roomie from the days in Tokyo. Such a roundabout way to find out about a show! xD
I was curious, looked at the trailer, figured why not and set to watch the first episode. It's Shonda Rhimes so I was expecting all the drama and heartbreak and action from all the other shows of hers that I've watched, and with Grey's Anatomy at the top, it's not like Bridgerton could be bad, right?
And it wasn't. It was really good. I want to say glorious but it's still the first season of what I hope aspires to be a longrunner, so it may have come across as a little tame. I'm smarter than Eloise, I figured out who Lady Whistledown was after four episodes. The end only confirmed what I already knew.
But I'm definitely invested in this show now so I hope there'll be another season. I need it.
I saw that this show featured chess and I was vaguely intrigued so I chose to pick it up. I fell in love with it pretty quickly, because even if it features chess as the one thing the protag's whole world revolves around, the show and story is about Beth Harmon; an angry little orphan who gets addicted to tranquilizers at a young age, discovers chess, goes on to wow the world all the while digging herself deeper into a hole of alcohol and destruction.
It doesn't hurt that I like chess, though. I used to play chess as a child but I was never any good at it and I didn't have the motivation to study and practice and get better. Knowing the basics of chess probably helped to appreciate this show on a different level, but even if you know nothing about chess you'll like it if you enjoy stories about complicated people.
And Anya Taylor-Joy is probably the prettiest person I've seen in ages. Damn, those eyes *w*
Anyway, this show's got so many layers and watching it I couldn't wait to see what Beth would do next. How would she get herself out of her next mess? Really rooting for her to come through this time. Groaning internally as she fell off the wagon again. Rinse and repeat. Even though it's just eight episodes.
The end was glorious. I was smiling like a fool.
If the trailer doesn't convince you then have a look at the Behind the Scenes. There may be some light spoilers, though, but it mostly concerns plotting, casting and wardrobe.
This season takes up where the last left off. Sara now has a detective agency of her own, employing only women, but as women detectives aren't really taken seriously in the 19th century she only gets small cases from eccentric rich women whose servants are "stealing" their silverware. That is until the case of a missing baby is given to her. John is now working at the Times and is engaged to the daughter of William Randolph Hearst even though everyone knows he's still in love with Sara. Laszlo carries on like usual with his Institute.
The case of the missing baby leads to a woman who's mentally deranged from having misfortune upon misfortune happen to her over the course of her life. Her mother didn't want a child but had one anyway because it was expected of her (this season delves very much into doing what society expects of you versus doing what you actually want) and her father killed himself when she was very young. Her father's suicide led to her and her mother losing the family estate and most of their money. She was sent to a mental institute and when she left it she had a baby. Her mother had that baby taken from her claiming that she had tried to kill her. The loss of the baby on top of everything else makes her kidnap other people's babies and take them for her own, but every time the baby acts out or doesn't behave like hers did she kills them for being "wrong". It's a very interesting psychological case and this season is a wild ride from start to finish. Several times you belive the case to be wrapped up and finished only for it to continue.
Laszlo calls upon a female colleague to help with this case since he feels himself inadequate in formulating theories concerning women and children and/or motherhood. This woman later gets an invitation to come work with Dr Freud in Vienna and Laszlo spends the last few episodes trying to decide whether to stay in New York or go with her.
I loved that this season forced the trio to work alongside Byrnes, which made them all bury the hatchet from the first season. I was very pleased with how that all turned out.
I still want Sara to end up with Laszlo, but any kind of spark they may have had in the first season was purposefully shut down in this season. In the end all three of the main characters seem set on doing what they want instead of doing what society wants from them, but at the last second it all goes awry and they end up going separate ways and I'm not okay. Why would you do this?!
Anyway, I got very invested in this show and I just bought the books.
Let's clarify this title by saying that I mean modern movies. Because I watched a fair few of black-and-white old-timey horror movies as well.
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) I watched this movie on my laptop during a pretty dead night shift and it was way better than I thought it would be. I'm not a fan of Jim Carrey; he tends to be too exaggerated imo, but he was pretty good as Dr Robotnik. I grew up watching the animated Sonic series and ofc I have played the Sonic games, so this was also a pretty neat nostalgia trip.
Birds of Prey (2020) This is also a movie I watched on my laptop during a dead night shift. As always I really enjoyed the girl power in it. After everything bad I had heard about Suicide Squad I didn't have any expectations for this movie, which may be why I ended up liking it so much. But Harley has always been one of my favourite DC characters.
Aquaman (2018) We watched this for a date night and it was really good. Better than I thought it would be tbh.
Detective Pikachu (2019) Another date night movie. Both of us grew up with Pokémon and so we had a lot of fun with this movie. Best part was that Mewtwo didn't have to be the bad guy in this one.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020) Another one I watched on my phone during a pretty dead evening shift (there were lots of dead shifts in spring 2020). As a Eurovision geek this movie hit all the right targets. I especially loved that Edinburgh was the host city for the competition (as if the UK would win lol). I was a little bit wary of watching a movie with Will Ferrell in it since he's usually in movies I cringe at, but this movie was just the right level of funny. I loved the song along and all the known Eurovision faces/songs that showed up in that scene. It got all the glittery, gay, tacky, over-the-top bs about Eurovision right. I only recently learned that Graham Norton is the Eurovision host in the UK, but after watching this movie I wish I could tune in to watch Eurovision in the UK every year. I could definitely watch this again. PLAY JA JA DING DONG!!
It: Chapter Two (2019) We watched the first part at the cinema, but then life happened and we somehow missed that part two got released. So we watched this one on Netflix one night. The adaptation is really, really close to the book. And I'm still disappointed about It's actual appearance.
Joker (2019) This movie was amazing. I'm going to assume everybody has felt like they're going to go insane by society's expectations at some point, which is what makes this scarily relatable but also so so good. Probably movie of the year for me.
Venom (2018) We like superhero movies so it was a given that we would watch this at some point. We talked about seeing it at the cinema in 2018, and then talked about watching it all of 2019, and then we finally did in 2020. Good things come to those who wait? Meeeh. This movie was pretty meh. Entertaining but probably in the bottom tier of the movies we watched in 2020.
Enola Holmes (2020) I made us watch this. I was excited for this movie. I really liked this movie. It was upbeat and fun and just the right amount of girly. Toni felt it was very very meh. I want to watch it again. Sometimes we commit to the stereotypes. (Very rarely).
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) For Halloween week we decided it was time to watch a scary movie for date night. I looked up a bunch of trailers on Netflix, pitched the ones I liked the most to Toni and then we decided on this one. Both of us are kind of wary when it comes to horror movies, because they usually follow the same pattern and end up being just thoroughly disappointing. This one was actually good. We both liked this one. First scary movie we've watched in years and we both enjoyed it. Thanks, Netflix.
Annihilation (2018) With the previous success we decided to watch another horror movie. But this time we didn't do the research. The trailer for this looked good when we were scrolling through Netflix. It started with so much potential and ended up being really... dumb. And that's what we both dislike about horror movies. They start out so so promising and then they just fall flat on their face. Like this one did. Even with Natalie Portman in it.
Before I Wake (2016) The last movie of the year continued the horror theme, but this time we did the research. Or rather I did. Same procedure as for Scary Stories. And this one was also really good. Not as good as Scary Stories, but it didn't fall flat and we both enjoyed it. The premise has been done before, but not to death, so that was a nice change. I loved the ending. Which was also a nice change for a horror movie.
1. Overwatch Anthology 1. I have a few friends who are reaaaaally into Overwatch and I was talked into joining them in a few games. Which I did. And had a bunch of fun. But I really lament the lack of a story mode in the game and so I started researching the characters, watched the Overwatch cinematics on Youtube and bought the comics anthology. I would've liked the comics to be a bit longer. They were all a bit on the short side. That said I did enjoy the comics starring Ana, Soldier and Reaper. The OG. I also had a lot of fun reading the comic about Torbjörn and Bastion, mainly because of the signs and headlines in Swedish (and actually grammatically correct Swedish unlike Brigitte's name and the fisherman outfit in the game). I'm a big fan of both Reaper and Tracer in the game and I also liked Tracer's comics in this anthology, especially her origin story. I hope there'll be a second anthology, but until that happens, I guess I have to read the rest of the comics on Blizzard's website.
2. Whispers Under Ground, by Ben Aaronovitch. Really getting into this series now and it's starting to get interesting. Different kinds of magical folk, new kinds of magic and a sinister plot that we're only just beginning to uncover all dolled up as a common police procedural? I'm all for it! I love how Peter is basically just throwing his secret around and Nightingale is wincing at every turn over his lack of respect for the secrecy. The dynamic between the characters is half the fun of this series, along with all the references to Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings. Just like the last book was all about jazz, this one was all about art and specifically pottery, but I enjoyed this subject a lot more than the jazz. Especially so since it offered a deep-dive into London history. In this book we have a proper murder investigation going and the victim is American so the FBI gets brought into the mix. I had a lot of fun reading this book and I'm tempted to get the rest of the series in one go and read them all in succession. But my reading backlog would hate me if I did.
3. King of Scars, by Leigh Bardugo. I love, love, love the Grishaverse! The majority of this book was bittersweet nostalgia from the Shadow & Bone trilogy, but it was also peppered with references to Six of Crows. This book is probably the first time I've enjoyed reading about Nina. I loved Nikolai already in the first Grisha trilogy and I loved him when he showed up in Crooked Kingdom and I still loved him in this book. After five books in the Grishaverse, as a reader you feel pretty confident that you know how it works with the powers and the Saints and everything, but in the second half of this book Bardugo turns it all upside down and makes the reader reevaluate everything they think they know. I really appreciate when authors do that and when they do it so that the reader's preconceptions have to be reevaluated at the same pace that the characters' do. I really didn't see the end coming and Rule of Wolves promises to be very interesting. The ending had me actually filled with dread and anticipation of what's to come, and at the same time I'm super excited because Rule of Wolves promises the return of one of my favourite characters from Shadow & Bone. I'm stoked!
4. Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo. At this point I'm willing to read anything Leigh Bardugo puts her name on. This book was way different than the Grishaverse books she has written before, for one it's an adult novel; not YA, and for another it's urban fantasy. It did take a while to get into and the timing of the plot was a little bit confusing to begin with, but once I got to around 70-100 pages the rules of this new world had settled and things started to make sense. The most profound (and also feminist) quote of the book is: "Did she seem depressed? She was distant. She didn't make many friends. She was struggling in her classes. All true. But would it have mattered if she'd been someone else? If she'd been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she'd been a straight-A student, they would have said she'd been eaten alive by perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died." There were always excuses for why girls died. This one sentence is the basis for the whole book and it matters in ways I couldn't even imagine in the first half of the book. Heck, those words' meaning for the plot didn't become obvious until the last fifteen pages. The way the pieces of the puzzle come together is beautiful. The story is compelling. I loved this book.
I'm probably the last person to the party when it comes to this game. But I've never been one to keep up on trends quickly.
I have a few online friends who are really into this game and have been for years. I met two of them for the first time in September 2019 and after that I bought the game, although I didn't play until May 2020.
It's not a game that I pick up to play alone, but playing it with friends it's great fun. I like how quick a match is and how fast and intense the gameplay is. Although that was a challenge for my first few games because I didn't know the maps and everyone was just so much quicker than I was.
I'm not great at shooters, any kind of shooter, be it single-player or multiplayer. But when a match is so quick it doesn't really matter as long as you're not playing comp and I doubt I'll ever set my foot in comp.
This far I've played the game five evenings of 2020 and mostly I've had a lot of fun. I've experimented with Soldier, Tracer, McCree, Genji, and Ashe, but I always come back to Reaper. Anybody surprised that my fave is the edgyboi? No? Me neither =D
I won't say that I'll never sit down to play this game on my own, but it seems like a game that's better suited to play in good company. Too much salt otherwise.
I've been falling behind on my reading challenge on Goodreads this year so figured I'd do a spurt consisting mostly of comics to finish the year on top. Here's what I've read:
1. The DC Universe by Neil Gaiman. This is a compilation of the DC comics written by Gaiman. I am a Marvel girl at heart, but I've always had a soft spot for Batman simply because his universe is so damned detailed. I love it. So out of the stories in this compilation my favourite has to be the final one Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, but I also really enjoyed the Penguin origin story and the little tidbit called A Black and White World where they pretend that the Batman and the Joker are just characters played by people and they're complaining about the daily grind while acting out their scenes. That was a pretty neat spin that I really liked.
2. Cinnamon, by Neil Gaiman. One of his most recent teeny tiny children's books. I rarely read children's books for small children, save for when Gaiman writes them, because I love his ability to fit lots of story into small spaces. My favourite is still The Wolves in the Walls, but Cinnamon was very sweet. I just wish there was more to her story so I'm hoping we'll get more Cinnamon at some point. Like we got more Chu. Pretty pictures, sweet story. Definitely a thumbs up.
3. Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman. I've been putting off reading this for so long and I don't know why. Guess the cover didn't really call to me or something. But I finally did and I loved it. I loved the spin on the Norse mythology and I loved how Chris Riddell almost certainly was inspired by John Bauer's trolls for the Frost Giants. It's also very fitting reading this now when I only recently finished playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla and my head is stuffed full of Viking stuff. This story was just really my speed at the moment. It's a classic fairytale of talking animals and gods and magic and happy endings, but it also has all the adult hints that children's stories usually do about love and alcohol and wanting things you can't have even though you're old enough. I could definitely read this over and over again.
4. A Study in Emerald, by Neil Gaiman. Sherlock Holmes meets Lovecraftian horror and it's brilliantly done. It starts out as the first Sherlock Holmes story; A Study in Red, but soon turns Lovecraftian as it becomes obvious that it's common knowledge that all the royals of the world have green blood. A few pages more and it's obvious that the ones they call the royals are in fact the Old Ones who returned from the deep 700 years earlier. This is absolutely brilliant and incredibly well done. And that twist at the end? Wonderful.
And I still didn't manage to complete my reading challenge for 2020. I fell short on three books.
