#[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!

[billysjoel]

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

[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"

[ciggslug]

mcdonalds original

midrange strength, lots of smoke

2.5/5

[dreamofyouandi]

lifeboxd

paced back and forth in my living room while half-watching the rangers lose and desperately trying to keep up with the utterly schizophrenic state of mets offseason news

2.5/5 i can still taste my cream soda from earlier and that’s nice i guess

[slownights]

earthlings by sayaka murata

read: october 15, 2024 | rating: 2.5/5

“magical powers. i have to summon my magical powers. the power of darkness, the power of wind—any magical power will do, but i need something. i have to use my magical powers on my whole body before my heart feels anything.”

when it comes to literature, i’m not particularly squeamish, but i struggle to describe this book as anything but bizarre and grotesque. having quite liked murata’s convenience store woman, i started off enjoying this too, imagining it to be another exploration of an ‘outsider’ of society. and while i suppose it is, it takes such a revolting turn that i wouldn’t in good conscience recommend anybody to read this. i just did not get it.

[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.

[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.

[thebisexualmandalorian]

I made beef stew tonight! It's incredibly good.

I glanced at a few recipes and listened to what the spirits had to say, and came up with this recipe:

Ingredients:

1.5 lb cubed stew beef 4 whole carrots, peeled and chopped into 1 inch pieces 3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed  1 lb button mushrooms, halved Olive oil

2 cups red wine ¾ cup balsamic vinegar ½ cup worcestershire sauce 48 oz beef broth 2 Tbsp minced garlic

⅓ cup flour

Salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, Cholula hot sauce to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450F.  Oil the bottom of a roasting pan, and lay out the beef, carrots, sweet potatoes, and mushrooms.  Roast for 40ish minutes, turning as needed to brown all sides.

Put everything in a large stock pot, then pour red wine into hot roasting pan, scrape off browned bits, and then pour into stock pot as well.  Add other liquids and garlic.  Whisk in flour.  Season with salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and hot sauce to taste.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 2 hours, until sweet potatoes are cooked through.

Serve hot.

[gothlisteningclub]

#18 Pitch After Dark - Dark and Severe

listening links: bandcamp / youtube / spotify / apple music

[dragon-spaghetti]

Shhhhh,, even heroes need naps 💖

(Please click for better quality!!)

[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.

[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.

[saphronethaleph]

Parahumans: A Measured Response

“Hey, L, you’ve got to see this!” Alec called, and Lisa groaned.

“Is this going to be you doing another headshot?” she asked.

“No, no, this genuinely is a big deal,” Alec replied. “It’s a big long video explainer thing, and, uh… I’m like five minutes in and this sounds like a big deal.”

“Fine, fine, whatever,” Lisa decided, thinking about the work she’d been doing for the Boss and how it really could wait for a bit.

Fuck him, anyway.

Besides, if it was some kind of big video explainer, she could get a fun few minutes out of taking it apart.

She locked her laptop and went through into Alec’s room, where he had his own computer on and was scrubbing back through a video.

“Okay, here we go,” Alec said. “It’s past the titles and stuff, this is where the first section starts.”

Lisa glanced down at the video scrollbar, and blinked.

“...Alec, this video is five hours long,” she said.

“Yeah, he’s outdone himself this time I guess,” Alec replied. “But the last one was, like, a hundred and ten minutes about autism and vaccines or something, so this isn’t that long in comparison.”

“It really is,” Lisa muttered, rolling her eyes. “Okay, let’s see if this is worth anything.”

Alec hit the spacebar, and the video began to play.

“Part one,” a British voice said, over a title card. “How do Tinker powers work. Spoilers: They don’t!”

Lisa blinked.

“Is this a conspiracy theory thing?” she asked.

“Shush,” Alec advised her, politely.

“I know, that’s going to immediately make me sound like I’m completely crazy,” the video creator went on. “How can Tinker powers not work when they clearly do? Well, that’s the thing, because Tinker powers are supposed to be about technology, but it’s been clearly and repeatably recorded in experiments going back decades that the technology Tinkers build only works when they build it.”

He threw up his hands, waving a sheaf of paper. “And I was as skeptical about this as you probably are, but I actually looked at the studies. The first one is by the British government, which did it in partnership with Oxford university, and – I know, but, listen, they sometimes do good research besides just coincidentally having one of their literature professors accidentally invent an entire genre…”

Lisa glanced down at the video bar again, which had barely moved, then frowned.

Her power hadn’t given her anything.

Well? She thought, gingerly poking the part of her brain that usually resulted in insights.

...section title is not incorrect, her power informed her, reluctantly.

“...Alec, what are the other section titles?” Lisa asked.

“You’re interested now, huh?” Alec asked, pausing the video, and showed the description.

“...part three: I might get black-ops’d for this,” Lisa repeated. “...the fuck? The leader of the PRT is a parahuman?”

Alexandria, her power stated.

“...fuck,” Lisa muttered. “Well, that’s not good… okay, unpause it, let’s see how bad this is going to get…”

Fortuna hit pause.

Two seconds later, the door opened, and Rebecca leaned in.

“What. The fuck?” she asked, then her gaze flicked to the screen of Fortuna’s computer. “Is that the video?”

“Yes,” Fortuna replied.

“How exactly could you let this happen?” Rebecca asked. “Have you seen what this video is about?”

“Yes,” Fortuna repeated. “The section titles make it quite obvious.”

“Yeah, the section titles make it obvious, all right,” Rebecca replied. “Section One: How do Tinker powers work, spoiler, they don’t. Section one point five, how does Dragon’s power work then. Section two: Wait, is Dragon an AI!?”

She pronounced the interrobang very well, and Fortuna looked up.

“Do you have a point?” she asked.

“Of course I have a point!” Rebecca said. “And I know you know that – you’re a precog, why are you asking?”

“Path to a productive end to the conversation,” Fortuna answered. “The next bit is that you continue listing off the section titles for rhetorical purposes.”

Rebecca’s eye twitched.

“Part two point five, why has nobody before figured out Dragon is an AI!?!?,” she recited, from memory, naturally. “With a bracketed subsection. We don’t count the Dragonslayers because they’re nutjobs. Part three: So I might get black-ops’d for this. Part three point five: Why has nobody before figured out the leader of the PRT is a parahuman? Part four: I absolutely will get black-ops’d for this.”

Rebecca paused, and glowered at Fortuna.

“Why was he even allowed to upload the video?” she asked. “Now that he’s uploaded it, then to… black-ops him is just going to make it obvious he was right.”

“Honestly I think it should be quite clear why by the time you reach the end of the video,” Fortuna replied, nodding at her screen, which showed that the pause bar was somewhere in the middle of section seven. “Though there may have been a flaw in Path To A Really Good Online Video.”

“You don’t say,” Rebecca muttered. “Didn’t it only come out half an hour ago?”

“Path to the Most Immediately Relevant Bits,” Fortuna answered, reasonably enough.

“You do realize he’s exposed us, though?” Rebecca went on. “Not just me, us. At least, I assume that’s why part five is called It’s a melting pot of every conspiracy, get it?”

Fortuna smiled, mysteriously.

“Stop it,” Rebecca grumbled. “And no, I’m not angry about part six, even though it’s called The Illuminati are really bad at conspiracies. Or part eight which is begging us to hire an eight year old as an advisor.”

“Part seven is actually the most relevant bit, for us,” Fortuna said. “So far he’s outlined three solutions to Scion which would be better than any plans we had before.”

Rebecca blinked.

“...are you sure?” she asked.

“That’s why part seven is called Apocalypse Soon,” Fortuna pointed out. “You should watch the video.”

“It’s five hours long,” Rebecca protested.

“Yes, which is why it’s fortunate that you’re going to have a lot of free time soon,” Fortuna replied.