#[2.5/5]

[gothlisteningclub]

Welcome to the goth listening club! I'll post a new album every day. To participate, listen to the album sometime throughout the course of your day, then come back and give it a rating! The idea is for us all to try out new goth music and connect with other goths, so feel free to reblog with your thoughts, start discussions in the replies, and share your own favorite goth music!

submit albums here!

[mikelogan]

just watched pan's labyrinth for the first time and i... im sorry, i didn't really like it :(

[oceanic-recollection]

Do Sideways have over-exaggerated smiles?

<FDM> from the pictures we've seen, it looks like they do, yeah.

<FDM> guess it must be, since my mouth's stuck like this...

[abedsweaters]

Season 6 Episode 5: Laws of Robotics and Party Rights

Outfit 1: Army Green Flannel

Classification: Flannel

Rating: 3.5/5

Not much to say about it, looks nice! The muted colors don’t wow me 

Outfit 2: Green Bi Pride Hoodie appearance #3: reviewed here

Outfit 3: Green and Pink Flannel

Classification: Flannel

Rating: 2/5

Hey community costume department. Come here. I just wanna talk. Can you tell me why you were able to dig up the Annie’s Move t shirt for this cutaway gag, but you weren’t able to find the flannel that abed wore in that episode for it? despite the fact that in the last episode Abed is wearing the exact right flannel or a flannel that looks near identical to it? What’s going on there? Did you think no one would ever meticulously catalogue his outfits and notice the discrepancy? Well I noticed, community costume department. And you should be ashamed.

Outfit 4: Maroon Cardigan 2

Classification: Cardigan

Rating: 2.5/5

I thought bc of the insignia that this was the Brown Cardigan? But it’s not. Idk how i feel about the insignia cardigans they mostly just confuse me.

Outfit 5: Coral Hoodie 2

Classification: Hoodie

Rating: 4/5

Kill me yes this is a new coral hoodie bc the inside is different yes i hate it here

Outfit 6: Blue Red and Black Flannel appearance #2: reviewed here

[jesusofortenau]

Rating: 2.5/5

This one was hard to rate. His face and nose are broader than those of other Jesus I have covered so far, and his hair and beard look weird to me. But his nipples, chest and legs are rather nice, so he has that going for him.

Inscription reads:

"Ich bin die Auferstehung und das Leben. Wer an mich glaubt wird leben obgleich er gestorben ist.

Joh. 11,25"

[its-ashleyreads]

Finished: 13/02/2023

Talk Flirty to Me by Livy Hart

We’re just going to act out romance like we never had one? Like it won’t stir up anything?

Rating: ★★☆☆☆1/2

Summary:

After a run of bad luck finding roles voice-actor, Piper Bellini, comes across the audition of a lifetime doing voice work for a sexy audio book series. The only problem is it’s for a male-female team, and the only man Piper knows outside of her family is Sam O’Shea, her ex-boyfriend/brother’s best friend, and there’s no way he’d want to join her after she publicly humiliated him and caused a riff between him and his surrogate family.

But what Piper doesn’t know is just how badly Sam needs her, or how he’d do anything to have her on his side again.

Review:

When I first read the synopsis for Talk Flirty to Me, I knew this would be the book for me. And maybe it would’ve been if it stayed true to that synopsis but alas, it did not. It sounded so straightforward when I picked it up, but despite the cover and the summary outlining Piper and Sam’s sexy sound booth sessions, there were barely any scenes of them recording anything. Sam’s campaign was more integral to the story than their voice acting ever was. And I was willing to overlook the politics and the being lied to, because of the chemistry between Sam and Piper. But the last seventy-five pages were devoid of even that which is ultimately what brought my rating down.

It felt like the author had run out of story and was trying to fill her word count goals, rehashing the same tired conflict between Piper and Sam for the THIRD time in under four-hundred pages. We got it the first time, Sam is ambitious and Piper is insecure! But the worst part of all is that the author doesn’t even seem to realize Piper’s insecurity as evidenced by their third fallout. Sam is introduced as, and describes multiple times, his love for being a firefighter and his desire to become mayor. It’s his dream. And yes, once Sam and Piper start recording their audio book he admits to enjoying that job as well, but he enjoys it because he gets to spend time with Piper. When his mayoral campaign is on the rocks because of their audio book production company’s disregard for Sam’s reputation and basic security measures for the copyrighted product, Sam looks for options on how to reduce the damage. Despite the fact that he hasn’t made any actual decisions yet, Piper gets mad that he’s considered dropping out of her career making opportunity for his own. But the thing is, Sam made sure that his dropping out wouldn’t affect her, that even if he dropped out she’d still have the three book deal they’d signed on for, she’d just have another partner. Piper was the one who thought she wasn’t good enough without him. Piper was the one who continuously dragged Sam into more recording deals because it was her dream and she didn’t think she could do it without being sexually invested in her partner. But if that’s the only way she can act, then she’s probably not a very good actor. The story ends with Sam giving up his dream for hers, with Piper not even pretending to support him or his goals because #feminism. She uses him as a crutch and he’s so afraid of her shutting him out and leaving him again that he lets her. You know, romance.

For a light Valentine’s Day romance this book has brought me a surprising amount of frustration and annoyance. It had some good smut, but the pacing and editing overall should have been a lot tighter than what was published. I can’t help feeling like this was adapted from some sort of fanfiction, it just doesn’t come across as something that someone originally intended to be a novel, and if it was adapted from fanfiction, then I think it should have stayed that way…

[bearpillowmonster]

.Hack GU: Vol 1 (Gameplay)

The complete experience is overhauled so that you're not exploring this big open area to find one little dungeon, instead it's set up so that you have "islands" and bridges to them so that you collect specific pieces to unlock the dungeon, bingo bongo, it's that simple. It may sound like a hassle but really, those ones are kind of the dungeon in themselves, you more or less just collect the treasure after that but then there are some regular dungeons that you just spawn in from the get-go, no key necessary (mainly the keywords that aren't main quests.)

The movement speed is much faster in comparison, it's almost like you have a speed charm on at all times, which for someone of my nature who gets dizzy easily, this is not in my favor but it becomes manageable and matches the size of the worlds. I do wish there were a few more movement options though-

Is that-

Unfortunately it doesn't control very well…

The combat has proper combos and specials, if you thought it needed more flash, there you go. It still feels similar in nature with the hack and slash but you don't really do everything from the menu anymore, you can leave your party members to their own and treat them as you would Donald and Goofy from KH. You don't hear their battle quotes as much but that's because you hear those same six ear grating grunts and groans from Haseo, it gets old very very quickly.

But like said, the combat at its core is still similar to Kite's because he's an Adept Rogue but you get an extension later on that allows you to play a bit differently (more like BlackRose would) which is a big shift with going from fast paced small attacks to slow paced big attacks but I also feel like should've been done for variety, it's a toss up.

There's a morale bar, where doing things right such as taking care of your party members, using special attacks and so on and so far will start to manifest the bar to fill up, once it does, you get a team attack, normally a stat boost like a rage factor. Doing stuff like that can net you more exp and prizes after battles so rather than every enemy dropping a chest, they just give the crap straight to you. At the end of a dungeon/your leave, you'll get a ranking which tells you how efficient you collected everything, the better you do, the better prize.

You can block now which I don't normally use but hey, it's better than running around like an idiot hoping you don't get hit with the way the hitboxes were in the past games. Hubs are pretty large, to the point where there are even warps so that's quite handy. Even the dungeons themselves have warps that you can use both to get out at certain points and a rest if you need it, recovering your HP and SP, saving all your items.

With the concept that you were once a PKK, there will be instances where you run into a big blue circle in the middle of a field. This is a player battle which you can choose to intervene in and help to take out the PK. Man, did that climb right up my alley.

Now, difficulty. I said about how underneath the new skin, it still feels like IMOQ but a lot of it is dependent on difficulty. A lot of things from IMOQ return such as scrolls, fairy's orbs, trading, buying equipment and stuff I found essential to .hack beforehand. Now I'm not one to say that it should be loyal to the .hack games before it but I didn't even find myself using these things, I didn't need to. With some of the items, that was only good for dungeons which past a certain point is no longer the main quest, it's the Arena which items can't be used in and many of the players don't have anything to trade anyway. With IMOQ, you didn't have that luxury of choosing a difficulty and it just started throwing curveballs, causing you to exhaust everything at your disposal, I beat the final boss by the skin of my teeth. But this time you have some lead way even having an easy "story" type mode where you just kick back and knowing the reputation, I picked Normal but I prepared for a battle like I had in Infection and I ended up being ahead of the curve, I'd actually almost compare it to Kingdom Hearts 3's normal mode. On one hand, I want an easier experience than I had with Infection but at the same time, I think the dedication I put into that game put me into a corner because I knew those things and I didn't need anything like that anymore and nothing replaced it so it felt a bit empty. And I didn't skimp, I did all the side missions and stuff which actually ended up being pretty good because some featured characters that don't appear as much in the main story.

This game isn't without annoyances though like Chickie Dadas (yeah, that's what they're called) but having the Hungry Grass to compare it to from IMOQ makes everything seem like it's not worth complaining about. What's weird is that with Infection, I spent about 18 hours getting to level 30 and this one I spent less time and got to level 40, how does that work?

I think someone technically could play this without IMOQ. As far as story, there's a recap in the options if you want it but as far as gameplay goes, it certainly helped to have already played it because I would've been so lost towards the beginning. It was more just figuring where stuff was moved to and how it was updated for me. There's a wealth of information at your fingertips, from lore to instructions to worldbuilding and additional story content to a greater extent than the previous series, it can be a lot to chew on which can be overwhelming at first. And I was already familiar with how .hack works. That and you get a whole lot more out of the game (as if it isn't already vast enough) seeing all the references and connections. I certainly recommend it but at the same time, I understand the novelty of playing it without prior knowledge (as well as much better accessibility).

From an overall standpoint, it improves on almost everything from hack but I still feel it has more potential and will improve. What an ending though, ho boy! Everything leading up to it was meh but the ending got me hype for the next one. For now I'm going to give it a 2.5 out of 5 because of how average it felt for most of it but it definitely had it's moments and I said "for now" because I'd like to look at the bigger picture once I finish the final volume and anime, this was just an appetizer.

[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

Gorgeous Gruesome Faces

Linda Cheng

RATING: 🕯🕯🔥 (2.5/5)

This book, being all of 400 pages, took me nearly a week to get through. It is not my cup of tea. I acknowledge, however, that the level of not-my-cup-of-teaness that it is has clouded my ability to judge how well-written everything is. If the synopsis sounds fun to you, then I do fully encourage you to check this book out. It is just not my personal style.

SUMMARY: After a shocking scandal that abruptly ended her teen popstar career, eighteen-year-old Sunny Lee spends her days longing for her former life and cyberstalking her ex-BFF and groupmate, Candie. The two were once inseparable, but that was then—before the tragedy and heartache they left in their wake.

In the here and now, Sunny is surprised to discover that Candie is attending a new K-pop workshop in her hometown. Candie might be there chasing stardom, but Sunny can’t resist the chance to join her and finally confront their traumatic history. Because she still can’t figure out what happened that horrible night when Mina, the third in their tight-knit trio, jumped to her death. Or if the dark and otherworldly secrets she and Candie were keeping had something to do with it . . .

But the workshop doesn’t bring the answers Sunny had hoped for, nor a happy reunion with Candie. Instead, Sunny finds herself haunted by ghostly visions while strange injuries start happening to her competitors—followed by even stranger mutilations to their bodies. In her race to survive, Sunny will have to expose just who is behind the carnage—and if Candie is out for blood once more—in Linda Cheng’s spellbinding sapphic thriller that will have readers screaming and swooning for more.

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING): I wanted so badly to like this book. I'm not usually one for paranormal horror, but I was very interested in the premise and decided to check it out. I nearly DNF'd it several times, and it had sat at 94% completion for the past 3 days until I finally forced myself to finish it today for the sake of this review.

The development of Candie and Sunny's relationship is not one that I liked very much. I was super excited for more queer horror - but the queerness isn't very... involved in the story, I suppose? It's horror with queer characters, but it doesn't seem like queer horror to me I suppose.

I wasn't aware that this was part of a series (or intended to be) when I chose it, and based off of the ending, I see where the author has set up for a series, but I will not be checking it out. Given how much I disliked the way the workshop was written, I don't think I'd fair very well with the two of them on a roadtrip.

I can't really explain it, but this book just felt so flat and bland to me. It had all the makings of a story that I'd love, in a subgenre I don't check out very often, but everything just fell short for me. I probably couldn't even explain to you what happened at the workshop except for the end where it was revealed to be a cult, and I was going to list off one of the severe student injuries here but I can't recall any of them with any level of certainty.

All in all, getting through this book felt like a chore. I only got so far in originally because I thought that it just had a slow start - I've read books that I ended up loving that started slow and I had to force myself through until things got good - if my memory serves, namely The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay. Unfortunately, this was not one such situation.

I hope that someone else can find this book and love it much more than I could.

[slownights]

the premonition by banana yoshimoto

read: july 4-6, 2024 | rating: 2.5/5

“but for whatever reason, i’d always been very fond of my eccentric aunt, and there was also a small incident from the past that was still a secret just between the two of us.”

this book genuinely left me scratching my head. the premise was so compelling to me, but it fizzled out into not much and was, at times, honestly just... bizarre. the writing was pleasant, yes, but i really wished to see more between the protagonist, yayoi, and her aunt, yukino – that was what i had been expecting the meat of this story to be. moreover, the positive portrayal of some very questionable relationships was baffling. i recall the reveal of the worst one being delivered like a cute tidbit of information, making me double take and hope that i had read it incorrectly.

[spinebuster]

🦐

emoji for a playlist!

somebody that i used to know, glee cast

gosk, blawan

cool people, chloe x halle

dolla sign slime, lil nas x ft meg thee stallion

infatuation, SOPHIE

[wrestlingatthemovies]

The Company of Wolves

A highly stylized gothic retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood fairly tale about a girl why becomes the prey of a wolf on whilst visiting her grandmother.

World of Sport veteran Leon Arras appearance as the father of a boy who'll go to any lengths to woo the young heroin.

Featured Wrestler:

Leon Arras/Brian Glover as Amarous Boy's Father

Wrestle Rating:

2.5 out of 5 werewolves

A very stylish movie with lots of very artistic flourishes and the inclusion of werewolves instead of the traditional wolves is a nice addition. However, it's fairly dull and plodding. The Man From Paris steals every scene he's in as ever but its a relatively small role so alone isn't enough to entice people to watch.

[gothlisteningclub]

#18 Pitch After Dark - Dark and Severe

listening links: bandcamp / youtube / spotify / apple music

[lowkeyren]

the whole 2.5 was a wild ride ngl

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Honda Rafaga 2.5 S, 1993. A sports saloon sold through Honda's Verno dealership network powered by a longitudinally mounted 2.5 litre 5 cylinder engine driving the front wheels (very Audi-like). The Rafaga (Spanish for "gust" or "blustery") only survived for one generation.

[kroosluvr]

spare bento [ you are here! / part 2 / part 3 ]

"... well, was there anything about the bento you didn't like? so i can fix it for next time?" "there won't BE a next time."

[komsomolka]

One important impact made by the GDR and the socialist world is often overlooked, and that is the positive effect they had on social policies in the West. During the life of the GDR, it was often noted by trade unionists in West Germany that when negotiating with employers the GDR was invariably an important but invisible presence at the negotiating table, i.e. there was always an awareness on both sides of what was happening in the GDR in terms of workers’ rights.

There is little doubt that the establishment of the welfare state in most western European countries was largely in response to the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution. The ruling establishments feared socialist revolutions in their own countries and realised that only by offering working people an amelioration of their conditions and granting increased rights in the workplace would they be able to head off more revolutionary demands. This was reinforced after the defeat of fascism in 1945 in alliance with the Soviet Union and the widespread desire for more radical social policies in the post-war world. [...]

It is also no coincidence that the large scale attacks on the welfare state in the West have coincided with the demise of the socialist world. Now there is no concrete alternative on offer, the capitalist world has taken the gloves off.

Stasi State or Socialist Paradise? The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It by Bruni de la Motte & John Green with Seumas Milne (Contributor), 2015.