Vikki Blake (Vixx)

@vixx.bsky.social

3637 Followers 1666 Following

Reporter. Novelist. Critic. Unfashionable music fan. Guardian. Spartan. Silent Hillian. Legend. Little Sister. High Chaos. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (She/her) 👻 Horror specialist. 15+yrs writing about games, currently @ IGN, Eurogamer, GI.biz, & Mobilegamer.biz. vikki-blake.com

The social media post Trump made about Robert Mueller’s death saying he’s glad he’s dead, but Mueller’s name has been crossed out and replaced with Lindsey Graham
A snip from a Substack in which the author writes "I was intrigued by the very purple sentence ending in a typical ChatGPT rule of three..."
Good news you missed! May 20 - May 27 Decades after commercial whaling ended, Antarctic whale numbers are rising The SU just agreed to ban AI tools that generate sexual deepfakes Study find electric vehicles are already reducing air pollution After 65 yrs, Mongolia's native wild donkeys are coming back Teenage pregancy rates have dropped in almost every part of the world India's internet access jumped from 15% ro 70% in just one decade
Golden lab with his nose in the air, enjoying an ear scratch.
Box files containing dozens of magazines that I have contributed to over the years.
A highlighted YouTube comment: “did anyone shout, Donald Duck”
Teams with an annoying notification flag that cannot be found
A list of all four variants of the Oasis Live '25 book, Opus, ranging in price from ÂŁ65 to ÂŁ12,000.00.
What appears to be an AI-generated images of a "historic" painting with strange figures on horseback, some of which melt into the bodies of the horses
An email receipt from Grammarly confirming an annual renewal. A green box in the centre states "Goodbyes are hard" and the "hard" is in a blue tearshape, which is fitting, because I felt like crying when I saw what Grammarly had done to my peers in games/tech journalism
Koalas in Capes by Terrie Chilvers
An empty theatre and the title of the movie on the screen - Return to Silent Hill
A screencap from Mythic Quest lying and saying “there’s no such thing as a 40-year-old woman in gaming. That’s a fact”.
A golden lab laying down next to a Christmas tree. A present, with the name Corvo on it, is directly in front of him
A cosy living room with a Christmas tree to the right, a candle burning on the table, and a few Christmas items dotted here and there 🥰
Screenshot of my phone which indicates I had 4 hours 50 mins sleep last night.
Headline: Streeting says police should focus on ‘streets not tweets’ and calls for law change after Graham Lin*man’s arrest
Golden lab lying on the ground, asleep, with his head propped up on a coffee table
An internal thermometer showing 31.1C
Oasis playing Principality Stadium. Black and white backdrop with Liam on screen
A drone display of Oasis’ logo over the Principality Stadium in Cardiff
A spread of gifts on an unmade bed. The Art of Dead Space book, a book called The Year I Stopped to Notice, The Traitors board game, a book called Queen Mary’s Dolls House, a book called The Nightmare Before Christmas Full Script, a Jack Skellington Funko, and in the corner, a pair of extremely cool Portal bookends
Joel’s mug from The Last of Us Part 2 being held by someone who desperately needs a manicure
A screenshot of my Duolingo achievements list, commemorating my 1199 streak
The golden Labrador sitting on my lap in the garden
Radio X Oasis: Non-Stop Supersonic Anthems
The two variants of Laced Records' Silent Hill 2 OST on luscious vinyl
Front cover of Sonic the Hedgehog art book showing a pencil-sketched Sonic on a blue and yellow hardback cover
The opening section of the OG Portal game, only now it's wrecked and abandoned. Oo-er.
Me, on someone else's post: "Thanks so much for sharing your time and expertise with for me this! <3" Them, John Swayer: "Silent Hill 2's remake is not deserving of love. Its disgraces the game it is based on. Stop misleading people and do your job better please." Them, again, for some reason: "This involves editing or removing the clickbair article 'other horror games' as if they aren't better."
Headline: Stalker 2: Heart of Chronobyl's second major patch adds 1700 improvements and fixes Strap: Total e-fix of the Heart.
A screenshot of America on Google Maps, where Gulf of Mexico has been labelled in brackets as (Gulf of America)
1100 Duolingo streak
"The godfather of AI predicts whether it will take over the world" "AI is already conscious"
“Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am going to have to cancel our appointment on Thursday evening (30th Jan), please accept my apologies. We start sessions on the next scheduled session on…”
A Nazi being blown up
A tweet from @RyanS_UK that says: “the traitors ep 3 with no context”. There is a pic of a Viking boat from Charlie and the Choc Factory, medic murderer Harold Shipman, two women - they seem to be related - slugging it out on X Factor, and a photo of a rail replacement coach.
A text message that says: “if you get chance pls buy sellotape! We’re nearly out x”
Christmas gift with bright wrapping paper sealed with ugly brown parcel tape
Panoramic shot of the O2 arena from the Pepsi Deck, back centre
“Something went wrong! Please try again later or contact support if the issue persists” pop up in front of a message that says “earn triple xp in lessons for the next 26 mins”
Dead Space 3
You’re a top 0.1% fan and you spent 1,103 minutes together
Your top song was Fingers by Chinchilla
Text says “Thank goodness for the BBC. I don’t pay my TV licence to see filth like “mother” on the telly” over a screenshot that says “Why you keeping me here? You fucking ******fucker.”
Maria caresses James’ face in OG Silent Hill 2
Moomin and straw-chewing pal sit on a bridge as water trickles past beneath and birds fly past overhead
I Am Your Beast squares up with four angry looking military targets with ominously red glowing eyes
A screenshot of a BlueSky account purporting to be Elon Musk. Bio reads: “I spent $44bn to buy Twitter and now everyone has left ☹️”
Shows current Duolingo streak is 1017
A Zoom attendees bars. Left says "Vikki B." Right says "Vicky Blake"
A screenshot showing feed options
At Valnet, a network of similar scale to Gamurs, things are just as bad. Features writers for Game Rant tell us they're paid $19 for 1000 words, while writers tell us "flash news" posts pay $5 for 250 words or $10 for 500. A "long guide" of over 1200 words pays $25, while an interview of 1500-2500 words also pays just $25. Hardcore Gamer, another Valnet site, reportedly pays similarly: $10 for news post (around 400 words), $20 for guides (500-1500 words), $30 for longer guides (1500+ words) and $30 for reviews, previews and interviews.