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Reading
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Recent Tracks
- Ex-Boyfriend (Ft. Verbal -M-Flo-) by Crystal Kay
- Step by Step by Crystal Kay
- Let's Make Love And Listen Death From Above -Spank Rock Remix by Cansei de Ser Sexy
- This Month, Day 10 by Cansei de Ser Sexy
- Music Is My Hot Hot Sex by Cansei de Ser Sexy
- Art Bitch by Cansei de Ser Sexy
- ƒoƒOƒ_ƒbƒhEƒXƒJƒC by Aya
- We. by Aya
- ˜Hã‚̉e by Aya
- Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
Die Antwoordm-floFlorence + the MachineRilo KileyLupe Fiasco東京事変MetricFall Out BoyM.I.A.PlaceboJay-Z & Kanye WestGarbageSleigh BellsThe Lonely IslandThe Smashing PumpkinsFiona AppleBENNIE KLana Del ReyFAKE?宇多田ヒカルSupercellSiaSneaker PimpsMy Chemical RomanceBritney SpearsKe$ha安室奈美恵Crystal KayPanic! At the DiscoAiSkrillexEverclearHansonJay-ZRihannaNine Inch NailsHoleVerbalTravis AlexanderMassive AttackDavid Guettaschool food punishmentThe Chemical BrothersBastilleCapsuleThe Black KeysRadiohead椎名林檎EgoistOlivia- 32 plays
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Mixes
- 3 plays / Created May 17, 13for co-blogger and kitten, Ashleigh. <3
- 13 plays / Created May 16, 13get a little closer, let fold cut open my sternum, and pull my little ribs around you the rungs of me be under, under you (I seriously cannot remember who made this piece on tumblr, but it's also my current phone wallpaper. I just can't even. It's too perfect.)
- 12 plays / Created May 14, 13idek, guys. Just some stuff I threw together.
- 80 plays / Created May 09, 13one of my many meditation mixes.
- 18 plays / Created May 06, 13cover by planetariiums on tumblr. a post-S7/pre-S8 dexter mix.
- 10 plays / Created May 06, 13cover by aemondragonknights on tumblr. a general mix for hemlock grove.
- 8 plays / Created May 04, 13cover by daisyaholmes on tumblr. for will graham as he slips into madness. fandom: nbc: hannibal (2013)
- 12 plays / Created Apr 29, 13Made for a dear friend.
- 26 plays / Created Apr 19, 13a spring 2013 mix. Basically shit I can't stop listening to at the moment (april 2013).
- 6 plays / Created Apr 09, 13A post-season 2/early season 3 mix for Teen Wolf. Cover art by stupidgaywerewolves on tumblr.
- 42 plays / Created Mar 26, 13Pre-season 3 of "Game of Thrones"/"Storm of Swords".
- 18 plays / Created Mar 10, 13a yay spring is almost here! mix 2013 by usagi
- 36 plays / Created May 21, 13"come a little closer there is a halo in your mouth and i like how it burns" a draco x hermione fanmix dealing with the ups and downs of a love that seems destined to fail, but isn’t.
- 122 plays / Created May 20, 13this might hurt? no it definitely hurts.forty tracks featuring many of the songs from season one and two of teen wolf!
- 65 plays / Created May 19, 13do u ever find urself relaxing after a long day of murdering and cooking people up like emeril cooks beef? r u in need of a mix that u can jam to while letting out some of that cannibal steam? well then this is the mix for u. not only do the songs create a killing ambiance that is both whimsical + poignant, it also is a great companion to coming out to ur friends as a connoisseur of culinary arts specifically dealing with making dishes out of people and feeding them 2 ur besties.
- 191 plays / Created May 18, 13A mix about a Time Lord known as The Doctor from the aftermath of the Time War until his regenerations. (tracklist: http://i.imgur.com/vTYwapO.png)
- 77 plays / Created May 17, 13"Poor Ophelia Divided from herself and her fair judgment, Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts."
- 191 plays / Created May 17, 13
- 33 plays / Created May 16, 13sorry, eren... i won't give up... never again. if i end up dead... i won't be able to remember you anymore so... no matter what it takes... i'll fight! it doesn't matter how. i'll live on! (spoilers) art: http://drawr.net/show.php?id=4909313
- 7 plays / Created May 15, 13two different days in the month, times of the new and full moons, they meet outside of official business. elijah controls the new moon, cyril the full.
- 261 plays / Created May 15, 13"He viewed his own mentality as grotesque but useful, like a chair made of antlers. There was nothing he could do about it." - (Red Dragon, Thomas Harris)
- 26 plays / Created May 15, 13You have to convince yourself the lion is not in the room. When it is, I assure you; you will know.
- 85 plays / Created May 12, 13It's not very smart to piss off a guy who thinks about killing people for a living.
- 13 plays / Created May 12, 13all that has passed is merely a prologue, but is still better read when reviewing the story again.
- 2112 plays / Created May 12, 13Because you've had a long day and everyone needs some time to relax
- 14 plays / Created May 09, 13oh I’m searching / with only the wind whispering / oh if you knew what it meant to me / oh the unspeakable things / (to be both princess and sacrificial lamb)
- 41 plays / Created May 08, 13"The woman is perfected / Her dead / Body wears the smile of accomplishment / The illusion of a Greek necessity / Flow in the scrolls of her toga / Her bare / Feets seem to be saying: / We have come so far, it is over. / Each dead child, coiled, a white serpent." (Sylvia Plath - Edge)
- 4135 plays / Created May 08, 13for the women who murder for love and murder for pleasure.
- 68 plays / Created May 08, 13“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives... every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." -Carl Sagan
- 8347 plays / Created May 07, 13for those dull, down and slow days, where you just can't seem to shake the laziness from your bones. an instant pick me up through music is just what you need! twenty tracks that will hopefully wake you up. (album art: nicoletteclara @ flickr)
- 135 plays / Created May 07, 13a playlist for the best female characters from Oscar Wilde's plays #preachit. They are loud, proud and full of sarcastic comments to sweep you off your feet --especially if your name is Earnest--
- 485 plays / Created May 06, 13A Christina Wendall fanmix.
- 127 plays / Created May 06, 13"I become afraid of the darkness in my heart" (take my eyes and my whole heart in your hands / my heart was flawed / it won't let me go)
- 49 plays / Created May 05, 13
- 678 plays / Created May 05, 13Remember all roads lead home, but some roads take longer.
- 154 plays / Created May 05, 13"but, my brother and i are together, and so, i am content. for what separates us now but a single chromosome?" a series of songs for the luteces, mainly atmospheric.
- 1264 plays / Created May 04, 13hannibal is a show about how everyone wants to tap will graham's ass
- 14 plays / Created May 04, 13"my love is a lonely flower." || "sumi-chan is the cutest girl there is."
- 850 plays / Created May 02, 13I'm hoping you'll be open to discussing us and nothing in between tracklist/download link: http://bit.ly/16vbxfm
- 15 plays / Created Apr 30, 13"If only those days could last forever, if only I could still be what I was back then." art: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35275260
- 18 plays / Created Apr 29, 13art: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=34401680
- 60 plays / Created Apr 28, 13a playlist of music inspired by the atmosphere of hemlock grove
- 37 plays / Created Apr 27, 13because she's his knight in shining armor and she's gonna protect him from the bad dreams and stuffs with her love and affection and kissies to his face
- 23 plays / Created Apr 27, 13“This was like nothing John had ever thought to associate with Sherlock: stubble, skin-tight jeans and three small silver rings gleaming at the crest of one ear. It was unbelievable, like stepping into an alternative universe, and John couldn't stop staring.” A mix for BeautifulFiction's fic, Midnight Blue Serenity. http://archiveofourown.org/works/635897/chapters/1151468
- 78 plays / Created Apr 26, 13These songs tell the story of the feeling the girls get as they drive down the highway, away from everything and everyone. While they girls shout out into the wind as they leave the past behind, at least for a summer. Just long enough for them to really let loose and let their inhibitions go, but not so long that they forget who they are.
- 259 plays / Created Apr 26, 13Music for Hemlock Grove: for werewolves and upirs, the things that go bump in the night, and anything that lurks in the corner of your eye. For unknown ancestries, proud bloodlines, trailer trash, blue bloods, and everything in between.
- 1463 plays / Created Apr 26, 13tracklist/download: http://bit.ly/18M7Wtc
- 841 plays / Created Apr 23, 13a collection containing some of the songs used in netflix's original series hemlock grove.
- 113 plays / Created Apr 23, 13broken, hopeless, headed nowhere.
- 423 plays / Created Apr 23, 13this is a mix that is meant as a 'fuck u' to jeff davis and a 'fuck u' to redemption arcs because allison argent is not here for that shit okay? she's too much of a badass bitch to listen to the h9ers.
- 309 plays / Created Apr 22, 13The defiling of a god is an ancient human tradition. Why should I be an exception?
- 105 plays / Created Apr 22, 1310 K-Pop tracks. Kara, Girl's Generation, Girl's Day, etc.
- 25 plays / Created Apr 22, 13to wherever it may lead... the only water in the forest is the River
- 844 plays / Created Apr 21, 13
- 68 plays / Created Apr 21, 13Dance with the Devil and enjoy the night. A mix for the couple I don't even ship. Oh well. Enjoy and let me know if I am missing any songs!
- 9 plays / Created Apr 20, 13A mix for my apocalyptic short story for class. Monsters always come in the form of angels. Credit goes to the artist for the cover image.
- 108 plays / Created Apr 19, 13"the reason you caught me is that we're just alike" was the last thing Graham heard as the steel door closed behind him this is a mix that is geared towards the inner workings of Will's mind and how he's connected to Hannibal in such personal ways it seems as if they're the same.
- 20 plays / Created Apr 19, 13'and I'm insane, well, I can feel it in my bones" - tiny fanmix for the series that single-handedly stole an entire summer away from me
- 40 plays / Created Apr 18, 13"The thing is, if you just do stuff and nothing happens, what's it all mean? What's the point? Oh right, this whole thing is about self-acceptance. [...] No, you know what, why I'm here in the first place--is to sell you meth! You're nothing to me but customers! I made you my bitch! You okay with that? Huh? You accept?" fanmix for jesse pinkman of the amc's breaking bad.
- 164 plays / Created Apr 17, 13A Mukuro fanmix with special focus on the IF timeline. Art credit: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=29828070
- 14 plays / Created Apr 17, 13and i'm bleeding, and i'm bleeding, and i'm bleeding right before the lord
- 243 plays / Created Apr 16, 13another gnomon mix because ha ha that fic is going to ruin me
- 3353 plays / Created Apr 15, 13
- 78 plays / Created Apr 14, 13"And who am I? Dionysus, son of Zeus; god of the vine, god of dramatic rites, god of the transformation from the humdrum to the wild abandon of the play. So let us play, let us beat to the drum."
- 2305 plays / Created Apr 13, 13an upbeat e x r mix, quite possibly crack
- 65 plays / Created Apr 12, 13i hate chu and this is my mix to you (ps it's mostly songs of devotion because in all actuality i am so in love with you it's not even remotely funny i just want to lay down with you in your bed and live in your house with the dogs and have us wear matching glasses and love) he is a heavenly experience so jam out yo ♥
- 288 plays / Created Apr 12, 13a mix for the flawed prince and his loving cannibal (pls feed me more human sausage angel in the blue suit xoxo)
- 162 plays / Created Apr 12, 13look if this character is not giving you massive feels then there is something wrong with you. let it all out as you listen to the mix and cry over this perf little agent/professor/dog collector/sausage human eater. (◕‿◕✿)
- 422 plays / Created Apr 11, 13I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone. ( Edgar Allan Poe )
- 5448 plays / Created Apr 10, 13A mix I put together for my recent spring break beach vacation. There are some oldies and some newer songs, but all of the music are good for getting you in a summer-y state of mind while lounging in the sunshine. So put on your sunglasses and crank up the indie summer tunes .Music including: Best Coast, Twin Sister, and Washed Out.
- 26 plays / Created Apr 08, 13Paul Torres mix: so twisted and so in love with Jacob too much violence and too much love (no absolution, this love is no blessing)
- 21 plays / Created Apr 08, 13"you kept your word and i'm thankful. my brother told me... to always repay debts." "you don't owe me. i never did a thing for you." i had a rosy dream: you gave up on you and i gave up on me
- 354 plays / Created Apr 06, 13"How do you see me?" "The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by." a mix for nbc's hannibal
- 344 plays / Created Apr 06, 13Some anime/ova songs that are particularly memorable to me. Aka my childhood and bits and bobs laying around from more recently. (ok if it was really my childhood it would have every single song from bleach and naruto and fma but a couple will have to do) art source: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=21772775
- 5499 plays / Created Apr 05, 13a collection of classic rock music that you should at least hear once in your lifetime.
- 44 plays / Created Apr 01, 1326 songs to represent 26 times where scott and isaac were in love.
- 310 plays / Created Mar 31, 13why do you have to be the type of person to love submarines but be afraid of butterflies like I AHTE YOU OMG
- 253 plays / Created Mar 29, 13for the traitors, fallen disciples and heroes "Call him a Judas if you want, but he did it for reasons much older than silver."
- 188 plays / Created Mar 28, 13"You aren't even fucking close to checkmate!" Re-upped version of the Celes playlist I made before with some tracks switched around + a few new ones.
- 197 plays / Created Mar 28, 13from survival to desperation and to everything in between; for the beta and the alpha and for all the things that can't be unseen
- 404 plays / Created Mar 27, 13"You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire."
- 406 plays / Created Mar 25, 13"I don't mind being lonely, Won't you leave me alone? Are you, oh, so holy, That I'll never be good enough?"
- 844 plays / Created Mar 02, 13A fanmix for The Great Gatsby, one song (roughly) per chapter. Shoutout to V for the help.
- 213 plays / Created Jan 25, 13You try to warn him, you tell him you will want to get inside him, and ruin him, but he doesn't listen You do this, you do. You take the things you love and tear them apart. (a DerekStiles fanmix)
- 89 plays / Created Jul 26, 12caught up, flesh be warned i have just begun to pull this thorn of needing and want, here in these woods i will become undone
- 598 plays / Created Feb 22, 13Scar tissue that I wish you saw, sarcastic mister know it all.
- 678 plays / Created May 05, 13Remember all roads lead home, but some roads take longer.
- 161 plays / Created Mar 14, 13... I’m sleep walking three miles into the middle of the woods, and I’m pretty much convinced that I’m totally out of my freaking mind.
- 10 plays / Created Mar 10, 13Most things are hidden in plain sight for some odd reason. You don't find or notice it until its too late. ______ In all seriousness, this is just really random. I am new at this, so yeah.
- 18565 plays / Created Feb 05, 13and in that moment, i swear we just travelled back to 2007. (in celebration of fall out boy coming off hiatus)
- 68 plays / Created May 16, 13a shinji ikari fst. [[art credit: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=33636392]]
- 13757 plays / Created May 02, 13If there is one movie I am looking forward to it is The Great Gatsby. I hope it won't disappoint but I know the soundtrack so far didn't. I blended some additional tracks between the playlist to make it last a bit more then 10 tracks. With artists such as Gem Club, Stars and Junior Boys. Enjoy!!!
- 539 plays / Created Apr 07, 13Songs from Seasons 1 to 3 including the Official Soundtrack Vol. 1
- 11873 plays / Created Mar 16, 13Just a collection of my favorite 'The Walking Dead' songs that, in my opinon, relates to Daryl's Journey. Includes some tracks from the new upcoming album, as well as a variety of music from all seasons. Disclaimer: I know there are many 'Walking Dead' playlists with similar songs, but what do you expect? Like I said, this is a collection of MY favorite songs. Includes: Bob Dylan, Of Monsters And Men, & Kari Kimmel So if you enjoy them, like, comment and follow for more great playlists :)
- 4123 plays / Created May 08, 13for the women who murder for love and murder for pleasure.
- 53 plays / Created May 16, 13American Horror Story: Asylum- Sister Mary Eunice soundtrack
- 16768 plays / Created May 07, 13The official deluxe edition of The Great Gatsby soundtrack. JAY Z, Lana Del Rey, The xx & more
- 2110 plays / Created May 13, 13
- 33 plays / Created May 16, 13sorry, eren... i won't give up... never again. if i end up dead... i won't be able to remember you anymore so... no matter what it takes... i'll fight! it doesn't matter how. i'll live on! (spoilers) art: http://drawr.net/show.php?id=4909313
- 26 plays / Created May 15, 13You have to convince yourself the lion is not in the room. When it is, I assure you; you will know.
- 261 plays / Created May 15, 13"He viewed his own mentality as grotesque but useful, like a chair made of antlers. There was nothing he could do about it." - (Red Dragon, Thomas Harris)
- 50 plays / Created May 05, 13for the sweet young things who deign to hunt for sleeping kings. ---the raven boys; maggie stiefvater
- 63 plays / Created May 13, 13A short mix of songs for the Ex Army Doctor. (Not the happiest of songs, fair warning).
- 180 plays / Created May 15, 13Some of the better Fan songs for assorted Fandoms. Including: Merlin, Cabin Pressure, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Sherlock, and The Hobbit. (( I don't know all the artists, I'm sorry! ))
- 21300 plays / Created May 11, 13The songs from The Great Gatsby Motion Picture Soundtrack.
- 85 plays / Created May 12, 13It's not very smart to piss off a guy who thinks about killing people for a living.
- 41 plays / Created May 08, 13"The woman is perfected / Her dead / Body wears the smile of accomplishment / The illusion of a Greek necessity / Flow in the scrolls of her toga / Her bare / Feets seem to be saying: / We have come so far, it is over. / Each dead child, coiled, a white serpent." (Sylvia Plath - Edge)
- 14 plays / Created May 09, 13oh I’m searching / with only the wind whispering / oh if you knew what it meant to me / oh the unspeakable things / (to be both princess and sacrificial lamb)
- 36 plays / Created May 07, 13A music playlist inspired by the atmosphere, characters and situations within Hemlock Grove.
- 485 plays / Created May 06, 13A Christina Wendall fanmix.
- 49 plays / Created May 05, 13
- 115 plays / Created May 05, 13A Hemlock Grove Fanmix (sorry abt the shitty cover photo)
- 127 plays / Created May 06, 13"I become afraid of the darkness in my heart" (take my eyes and my whole heart in your hands / my heart was flawed / it won't let me go)
- 423 plays / Created Apr 23, 13this is a mix that is meant as a 'fuck u' to jeff davis and a 'fuck u' to redemption arcs because allison argent is not here for that shit okay? she's too much of a badass bitch to listen to the h9ers.
- 78 plays / Created Apr 26, 13These songs tell the story of the feeling the girls get as they drive down the highway, away from everything and everyone. While they girls shout out into the wind as they leave the past behind, at least for a summer. Just long enough for them to really let loose and let their inhibitions go, but not so long that they forget who they are.
- 259 plays / Created Apr 26, 13Music for Hemlock Grove: for werewolves and upirs, the things that go bump in the night, and anything that lurks in the corner of your eye. For unknown ancestries, proud bloodlines, trailer trash, blue bloods, and everything in between.
- 162 plays / Created Apr 12, 13look if this character is not giving you massive feels then there is something wrong with you. let it all out as you listen to the mix and cry over this perf little agent/professor/dog collector/sausage human eater. (◕‿◕✿)
- 841 plays / Created Apr 23, 13a collection containing some of the songs used in netflix's original series hemlock grove.
- 23 plays / Created May 02, 13Your heart's a mess, you won't admit to it.
- 17 plays / Created May 03, 13I could float without wings, Touch the sky, feel the sunlight, Kiss my face, fly through space if I knew It would bring me close to you.
- 1413 plays / Created May 06, 13The danger is I'm dangerous And I might just tear you apart
- 23 plays / Created May 06, 13"Have you ever heard of the Order of the Dragon?" he said. Peter looked at him. This better be good. "It was a group of knights from the Crusades. My mom used to tell us stories." Peter looked at him, but more so. "I... I've always wanted to be a warrior," said Roman.
- 60 plays / Created Apr 28, 13a playlist of music inspired by the atmosphere of hemlock grove
- 764 plays / Created Sep 30, 12
- 21900 plays / Created Jun 05, 1210 tracks of covers. Artists covered include MGMT, Bon Iver, Lykke Li and more.
- 2266 plays / Created Jul 20, 12my favorite music featured on the mtv series "teen wolf". i'm constantly adding more tracks as i find them. includes my chemical romance, young the giant, deadmau5 & more
- 1266 plays / Created Dec 02, 12In case you want some tunes while chopping up those dead guys
- 764 plays / Created Apr 22, 12Featuring showtunes from the casts of Modern and Classic Broadway; Ludo, Cocorosie, Dresden Dolls, and there's plenty more where that came from...
- 92 plays / Created Oct 20, 12In the darkest night, I call out to my brothers, come join me in flight.
- 23 plays / Created Sep 14, 12This is the second half of the Kirk/Spock Instrumental Fanmix. The first half told the story, and this half is just a bunch of really awesome instrumental songs. Enjoy!
- 75 plays / Created Sep 13, 12This started out as an experiment to see if I could tell a story through music. Therefore, all of the music in this and the companion mix either have no lyrics, or have lyrics only in a language other than English. This 'CD' is the story, while the second 'CD' is a companion featuring a collection of more awesome lyricless songs. Hope you enjoy! Also check out my dreamwidth here to see what each song means story-wise! http://mirroreuler.dreamwidth.org/30945.html
- 690 plays / Created Jun 16, 12To the Gods from "A Song of Ice and Fire" by G.R.R. Martin.
- 1039 plays / Created Aug 04, 12go your rhymes going 'round in my head got your supersonic beats mixing up my keds so dance little DJ come on, what's your name? including JET, ac/dc, arctic monkeys and more
- 179 plays / Created May 27, 09Eight tracks including music by Azealia Banks, Beck and Cake.
- 52 plays / Created Oct 11, 12a general mishmash of songs that scream BERRRRRRNKASTEEEEEEEL to me, pulled from various sources idk. not exactly a fanmix? whatever your idea of a fanmix is. this will probably be updated from time to time.
- 219 plays / Created Nov 09, 12Don't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember her, you are not alone.
- 48 plays / Created Oct 05, 12art by http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=28559253, used w/o permission just because we live does not mean that we’re alive happy rokkenjima slaughter day
- 208 plays / Created Aug 21, 12you ask me why i did what i did? ask, rather, why the serpent nidhogg eats the roots of the yggdrasil -- why, when the tree's death means, in turn, the dragon's ruin? because, thor, i keep telling you -- that is what it was born to do. that is what i was born to do. (art by seventypercentethanol @ tumblr)
- 67 plays / Created Oct 24, 12well i started this fst some time in june and then i just ..... never finished it oop. close enough.jpg ( art by lettiebobettie @ tumblr )
- 798 plays / Created Oct 07, 11kissy time with marceline & princess bubblegum (art by mellyart @ tumblr)
- 127 plays / Created Jul 29, 11so i stayed in the darkness with you; a kyoko fanmix.
- 136 plays / Created Mar 06, 12a sayaka miki fanmix. art by spacepirate-lu at deviantart.
- 75 plays / Created Sep 17, 12Vicissitudes /n/ : "a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant" and for the first time, she feels just fine.
- 415 plays / Created Jan 12, 12"Don't worry. I will definitely save you, no matter what. Even if I make enemies out of everyone else in this world." album art: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=17290522
- 176 plays / Created Sep 01, 12Hello. I did not make this list, nor created the artwork. I simply found it and decided to post it on here for your personal listening pleasure. I take no credit. Thank you. - The track list was created by "sailorpisces" (LordBlumiere) on tumblr. - The artwork was created by "EVILVIT" on pixiv.
- 354 plays / Created Mar 18, 12i think i lost myself a long time ago. the most important thing to me was saving you. it was the only thing left showing me the way. you don't have to understand. my words don't have to resonate within you. but please let me protect you. (seventeen tracks for akemi homura. cover art by averyniceprince@tumblr)
- 44 plays / Created Jul 30, 12a tribute to the madoka series with a dose of homura/madoka
- 170 plays / Created Sep 09, 12( cover art credit: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=18118229 )
- 271 plays / Created Jun 25, 12i changed history i changed the future art credit: http://drawr.net/show.php?id=3632542
- 121 plays / Created Apr 21, 12a sort of depressing doctor who fanmix.
- 20662 plays / Created Mar 17, 12mash-ups and remixes that feature lana del rey, h8rs to the left. sure, she sounds like cats mating in a tin can, but these versions make her music lush and fresh and even...epic? whatever you were in the mood for today, this mix is it. each track is a totally different spin on her singles, from dubstep to hip-hop mashup.
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Answered
- What books releasing in Fall 2012 are you most looking forward to?SO many. "Velveteen", for one.Asked by Jen @ A Book and a Latte May 19, 12
- What do you think of auto-response replies to comments you have made on a blog? I have been receiving more and more of these.Nope.Asked by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer May 19, 12
- I have been bombarded this week, with comments to old reviews..that appear to be parts of someone else's review..the links are legit, but go to blogs with one post etc. Anyone else experiencing this?Nope. Wordpress takes care of that for me with its spam catcher. :)Asked by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer May 19, 12
- Do you prefer to listen to full albums or random songs?It honestly depends on the artist/album/song. If I'm in a certain mood, I'm liable to either be ADD with skipping around on songs, or I'll listen to one album over and over again.Asked by Formspring May 19, 12
- What book or series would you like to see the author write a prequel too???Hm. I'd love to see a prequel for "The Scorpio Races" or "The Night Circus"!Asked by Yara Apr 29, 12
- In the morning: tea, coffee or juice?I rarely see morning hours, but if I do, tea.Asked by Formspring Apr 29, 12
- Whats the one book you would love to jump into too and why?"The Night Circus" - most definitely. It's a MAGIC CIRCUS. How could I not want to want to jump into that?Asked by Yara Apr 04, 12
- How do you handle aggressive authors? For example, you join a group on goodreads and before anyone even says, "How do you do or welcome"..you are asked to review a book.It depends - if the book sounds interesting, I might respond and take the request. But usually? I won't reply. I don't like that kind of aggressive inquiry tactic, so I just don't respond to it if I can.Asked by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer Apr 04, 12
- What was the last ADULT book that you've read?Hm. I think "Slave to Sensation" was the last one for the Vaginal Fantasy hangout. I was surprised - it wasn't half bad at all! Before that was "Melusine", and I definitely want to read more of that series.Asked by EvieSeo Apr 04, 12
- I am trying to post images on one of my pages. What is the html code i would use between images so that they form a row horizontally, rather then vertically.This is easy. Don't use any
, just keep stringing them together after you close each tag.Asked by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer Apr 04, 12 - I am searching for a black and white 32x32 Goodreads icon..anybody have one?No, but I can make you one. Contact me for further details!Asked by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer Apr 04, 12
- Which are scarier: bats or rats?Rats. They carried the black plague, after all.Asked by Formspring Apr 04, 12
- Do you paricipate in blog hops and have you gained actual followers from them?I have participated in one hop - the indie author hop - and I'm honestly not sure if I gained any followers because I only got one entry!Asked by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer Mar 24, 12
- If you were a piece of furniture, what would it be?A bookshelf or a bed. Bookshelf because I loves the books, and a bed because I spend way too much time in it.Asked by Formspring Mar 17, 12
- What motivates you?It really depends on what I'm doing. Emotion does it a lot of the time, as does attachments to other people. But I think that's universal to everyone.Asked by Formspring Mar 17, 12
- If you could walk into a bookstore with a $100 dollar gift car right now, which 5 books would you buy first?Hm. Since I'm a B&N member and if I order online, I could probably get 5 or 6 books. I'd preorder "Black Heart", "The Immortal Rules", "Dollhouse: Volume 1", "Rift", and...jeez, it'd be a toss-up between a preorder of "City of Lost Souls" or "Timepiece"? If I had any leftover I'd also buy "Loss (Horsemen Quartet #3)".Asked by EvieSeo Mar 17, 12
- What is the most annoying book character you ever read about?The MC from "Pretty Crooked" is the most recent annoying character I've ever read. Jesus.Asked by EvieSeo Mar 17, 12
- What is your favorite contemporary novel?TBH I really don't have one. I think Francesca Lia Block's "Violet & Claire" counts, though, and if it does, that's my one favorite contemporary. I'm not a huge fan of the genre, if you can't tell already.Asked by EvieSeo Mar 17, 12
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Posts
- May 21, 13
Author: Natalie Whipple
Genre: Alternate Universe/Parallel Timeline, Sci-Fi, YA Contemporary
Publication Date: May 21, 2013 (HarperTeen – North America)
Source: Publisher-provided ARC/Edelweiss Review Copy
Summary: Plenty of teenagers feel invisible. Fiona McClean actually is.
An invisible girl is a priceless weapon. Fiona’s own father has been forcing her to do his dirty work for years—everything from spying on people to stealing cars to breaking into bank vaults.
After sixteen years, Fiona’s had enough. She and her mother flee to a small town, and for the first time in her life, Fiona feels like a normal life is within reach. But Fiona’s father isn’t giving up that easily.
Of course, he should know better than anyone: never underestimate an invisible girl.
☆: 2/5 stars – a great premise, but just didn’t deliver.
Review: I was really excited when the blurb for this book went up late last year – I love anything with the mafia in YA and of course, superheroes/X-Men sort of stories and it sounded like “Transparent” would definitely be the book for me. Sadly, there was so much that needed to be done, and at least another two or three drafts written to smooth everything out even at the ARC stage of things that I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d expected to. However, it’s not without its fun bits, so I’d recommend it as a book you’d want on a rainy day, or something to read in about one sitting. It just didn’t entirely work for me.
My biggest issue with this book: the underdevelopment of nearly every technical aspect of this story. I don’t mind having unlikeable characters in my books – if anything, I welcome the challenge to see how they make their transformation by the end of the story. But there was no real significant progress here for anyone, and it felt for long periods of time the story just didn’t go anywhere. We waited and waited, but there was a lot of talking, and not a lot of action. I will give it to Whipple – she does know how to keep the pressure on the characters going with the threat of Daddy coming to bring everyone back to Vegas, but even there, I felt like the tension could have been ramped up more than just one scene with Graham flat-out abusing Fiona in front of his younger brother and mother. Which triggered me. But we won’t go into that. Just a warning: those with a domestic violence or dub-con trigger? This may not be the book for you.
The world – while interesting with the alternate universe retelling of what happened during/after the Cold War, and how it ended up in quite a few people having supernatural abilities, that too was underdeveloped. We only get a few sentences as a quick infodump at the beginning, but nothing more. I feel like Whipple could have woven more of the backstory of the world in throughout the story, and connected it a little more deeply with the characters. There is an attempt with this as to explaining how Fiona’s invisibility worked, but it’s rather poor in consistency and continuity. In David Levithan and Andrea Cremer’s “Invisibility”, we too have an MC that’s been born invisible, but at least he has a vague idea of what his face is like once he’s able to see it. Fiona doesn’t. At all. Whatsoever – and this is surprising, because there are quite a few things seem to trigger “seeing” what Fiona may look like (water on her skin, or sunscreen), yet we don’t really get to see her, and neither does she. Which was kind of ridiculous. There was so much telling over showing, I wanted to scream.
The world badly needed more development in terms of the mutation backstory, and the YA contemp world of Arizona just kind of barely passed muster. Add to the characters, which were very flimsily constructed. I feel like Bea and her brothers were really just kind of propping up Fiona with her desire to be a normal girl and to fight off the terror of being brought back to Daddy – they didn’t feel significantly developed, and they also have a one-sentence backstory as to why their family isn’t working for her father’s competition. Brady just kind of felt like an inserted love interest because he was attractive (thankfully, not exactly insta-love, but it got close). There was also a pseudo-kind-of-I-can’t-really-decide-if-I-want-to-write-it love triangle going on between Fiona, Brady, and Seth – even now I’m still pretty confused as to how that made it into the book without further clarification by an editor.
However, this book isn’t without its fun moments – the superpowers in action themselves were really fun to watch (I think my favorite was the kid who literally smelled like crap when he got scared), and the first few opening chapters with Fiona and her mother on the job were quite exciting. But it needed a lot more showing in general, as the sensory language was barely there. But those fun moments? They were worth it.
The triggers, though, were the ones that got me the most. Usually, dub-con (dubious consent) doesn’t bother me much if it makes sense as to how the character who’s giving their dubious consent actually works and functions as how they’re constructed. But instead, this is explained away again with Fiona’s father and his ability as a Charmer – basically, a male siren sans fins and stuff – convincing any woman he sees fit to do his dirty work. We’re not even really sure if this is confined to women alone as it wasn’t entirely explained. And then there’s the domestic violence trigger – yes, we know Graham is a thug, and we know that Mom is still in PTSD mode from being with Fiona’s father and being used and abused by him for years, but even Miles, who’s resistant to Charm and escapes Graham’s wrath, doesn’t seem to say a thing when Graham goes and nearly kills Fiona for a very small thing. It was incredibly hard scene for me to read – and Whipple did that scene very well. If you’re making me uncomfortable, you know the author is doing their job. But all the same, there needed to be more scenes full of tension like that one, just a little less triggery. More vividity, but less outright violence against women, please.Final verdict? As I absolutely love the premise, I’m giving it an extra star, but the execution was poor and really needed a few more drafts and more editing to make everything make more sense. However, that’s just how I feel about it – along with the triggers, it just wasn’t for me. “Transparent” is out now in North America, so be sure to check it out when you get the chance and come to your own conclusions about this story.
- May 21, 13
Author: Saundra Mitchell
Genre: YA Contemporary, Paranormal, Coming-of-Age, Historical Fiction
Publication Date: June 4, 2013
Source: Amazon Vine-provided ARC
Summary: Kate Witherspoon has lived a bohemian life with her artist parents. In 1917, the new art form of the motion picture is changing entertainment—and Kate is determined to become a director.
Meanwhile, midwestern farm boy Julian Birch has inherited the wanderlust that fueled his parents’ adventures. A childhood bout with polio has left him crippled, but he refuses to let his disability define him.
Strangers driven by a shared vision, Kate and Julian set out separately for Los Angeles, the city of dreams. There, they each struggle to find their independence. When they finally meet, the teenage runaways realize their true magical legacy: the ability to triumph over death, and over time. But as their powerful parents before them learned, all magic comes with a price.
☆: 2.5/5 stars – …I don’t know what to say, especially concerning the ending.
Neither The Vespertine nor The Springsweet were perfect novels, but they numbed my brain for a while and I enjoyed them for the most part. The Elementals, which focuses on the children of the heroines from each of the past two books, is in an entirely different ballpark compared to the two novels that preceded it in the trilogy. It’s got an ending you won’t easily forget, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
The Elementals is almost everything its predecessors aren’t; it’s told in third-person and moves among multiple people instead of being told in static first-person. The main characters struggle with abilities that allow them to control death and time instead of discovering powers tied to the elements like their parents’ were. Where the previous two novels had some semblance of a plot, The Elementals is sadly bereft of a focus. All they have in common is the length and Mitchell’s lovely prose. The switch to third-person seemed odd at first, but it’s easy to adjust to.
The narration moves between about five people/groups: Kate, Julian, Kate’s parents, Julian’s parents, and Caleb (if you remember who he is and his role, you are better than me because I forgot). It gives us a wider scope of their world, their gifts, their struggles, and where the characters we followed through books one and two went, but it seems to mainly serve to fluff up the book. So little is going on that this should be a novella focused solely on Kate and Julian, not a novel. There’s not enough going on to justify a novel.
Also? Kate is bisexual. Don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise even if you’re Saundra Mitchell herself! (Kidding! Maybe.) Her fascination with Mollie seems to go a little beyond a director’s fascination with her muse and there’s also one paragraph in particular I’d use as evidence. Whether this is just a case of imprecise writing or genuine, it’s difficult to ignore this passage:
“Two black-eyed twins in Cyprus witched water together: the girl leaned toward heat and steam, the boy toward cold and ice. They taught Kate to ice-skate on a white-sand beach and to kiss beneath an olive tree, which made for a lovely summer indeed (ARC p. 111).”
Considering the times and how one woman loudly complains when Kate (everyone thinks she’s a man because of how she dresses) talks about kissing boys, that there’s no solid confirmation of her bisexuality, but I follow the subtext and the subtext says yes yes yes.
It takes about 200 pages for our two leads to finally meet and once they do, there are only 90 to 100 pages left in the novel. The ending is just… Weird. You’ll remember it because it’s just that weird, but it’s not a good ending. I needed to read it twice to understand what was going on and after that, I simply stared at it. Very… anticlimactic, I want to say? It’s difficult to find the right words to describe it without spoiling it for anyone. Big fans of the series won’t want to miss this, but they might want to go in with their expectations adjusted.
- May 21, 13
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
This week’s teaser comes from “The Savage Blue (Vicious Deep #2)” by Zoraida Cordova (USAGI):
Kurt takes one step closer. Whatever he’s going to say is interrupted by blue and purple blurs.
It’s the Urchin Brothers, pulling sails and tying ropes to create a bit of shade. When they stop running around, you can see their true shapes. Their almond-shaped eyes are big and black, like their gums, which freaked me out when Blue woke me up this morning. True to their name, the Urchin Brothers have spiky heads that are surprisingly soft to the touch.
Note: don’t mess with an urchin’s head of hair, either.
This week’s teaser comes from Dance of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin (ASHLEIGH):
“I’m not complaining,” he says. “It’s nice, sitting here with you. Much warmer.” I shift to see if his expression is as sincere as his voice sounds, and our faces are so close. I should turn away, but I don’t.
I kiss him.
An owl hoots somewhere in the trees above us. Elliott twists so that we’re lying on the ground. For a brief moment, all I can think is that it’s different than it’s been with him before. He raises my chin with his hand, and he’s frustratingly gentle, as if he wants this moment to go on and on. And it does. It’s a very long time before I pull back to take a ragged breath.
“We have to find a way to get some privacy,” he whispers. “Soon.”
- May 21, 13
Author: Mats Strandberg & Sara Bergmark Elfgren
Genre: YA contemporary, UF, paranormal, Horror
Publication Date: May 7, 2013 (Overlook – North America)
Source: Publisher-provided ARC
Summary: On a night after the apparent suicide of high school student Elias Malmgren, a blood-red moon fills the night sky. Minoo wakes up outside her house, still in her pajamas, and is drawn by an invisible force to an abandoned theme park on the outskirts of town. Soon five of her classmates–Vanessa, Linnea, Anna-Karin, Rebecka and Ida–arrive, compelled the same force. A mystical being takes over Ida’s body and tells them they are fated to fight an ancient evil that is hunting them. The park is a safe haven; the school, a place of danger. The six are wildly different and definitely not friends…but they are the Chosen Ones.
As the weeks pass, each girl discovers she has a unique magical ability. They begin exploring their powers, but they are not all firmly committed to their mission–to discover the truth about Elias’s death. Then a horrible tragedy strikes within the circle. Newly determined to fight the evil forces, they begin to learn magic from The Book of Patterns, an ancient work with a will of its own that reveals different things to different witches.
☆: 3.5/5 stars – “The Craft” meets “The Secret Circle”, Swedish-style.
Review: So, “The Circle”. An interesting mix of “The Craft” and “The Secret Circle”, that’s not afraid to make fun of itself. I can see why John Ajvide Lindqvist blurbed this book – it’s got a certain mystery to it that also inhabits his books, but at the same time, I think there was a bit lost in translation. At least, at the ARC stage of things (which is what I got from the US publisher). But this book really isn’t just about teenage witches – it’s as Lindqvist says in his blurb – people learning how to deal with other people, and that is perhaps the best part of this book. While I feel like a lot could have been cut from this book with affecting nothing, it is what it is. “The Circle” is a taste of life in a small Swedish town, with teenagers against teenagers, learning how to deal with each other and their new-found abilities all at the same time.
My biggest problem with this book: the translation. As a translator myself, I can say regardless of what language I’m trying to work with, all translators deal with the same issue – trying not to make text read as “translatese”, and instead as fluid, coherent English. Unfortunately, this version of “The Circle” (I haven’t checked the final UK version so I don’t have anything really solid to compare it to) was full of translatese, and I know that this is because there were probably a lot of Swedish pieces of text that just couldn’t be worked into English any easier than what we got. That, or the editor just let it slip – and both of these two scenarios are totally possible. The result? It made good chunks of this book a little hard to read and to proceed smoothly along to the next part. That, and the fact that there were long parts of this book that could have been cut in the Swedish edition with the content not suffering one bit for those missing bits. There’s just too many scenes where not a lot (or anything at all) happened, and those could have been cut.
Otherwise, I really enjoyed “The Circle”, if just for the fact it puts together six girls who really do NOT get along, and makes them have to work together in the common goal of preventing a huge evil from making its way into our world. Not an easy task – especially when they’re all along the social spectrum. There are some that have bullied the others in the past, and there’s a very “The Craft” sense about some of the characters’ actions in order to get back at those who hurt them with their new power. That being said, there’s a LOT of characters to keep track of – our six protags, along with the Principal, the caretaker, parents, other friends, and so forth spinning a huge world within this tiny backwater Swedish town, which I found very impressive. With each girl comes her own demons and her own struggles, and I thought that the authors did a really good job of interweaving their stories, and showing us where they all intersected, and how they learn to deal with the fact that they’re all Chosen Ones, and they all need to work together, otherwise demons will come to this world and wreak havoc. But hey, no pressure, right?
I think one of my favorite parts was the world, and how the setting of the town of Engelfors became an antagonist. Even though it’s just one little sleepy town, the characters help really build it (the authors rely on the relationship-web school of worldbuilding, connecting everyone to create the world further than what’s just fixed as the basic setting) into this place where the past (witch burnings, really needed to give us more information on that but because this is a trilogy, I’m going to let it slide) haunts now, and helps create this thin membrane between humanity and demons, witches and regular teenagers that works both against the demons, and against the witches, along with the regular teenagers just trying to get along in this town until they come of age, get out of school, and become eligible to get the hell out of there to somewhere larger.
I think everyone can relate to that. Another thing I like about this book is the relatability – I think everyone can relate to so many moments in this book, because it’s the stuff of being a teenager, trying to figure out how to interact with others in this world along with discovering who you yourself really are all at the same time. That’s why I think it’s so beloved in its home country – because it’s something you can relate to, regardless of your age as a reader/the audience. You can say you’ve been there, even if your own situation hasn’t exactly been the same.Final verdict? I think I’ll be sticking around for book two, but I’m really hoping Overlook gets the translatese problem solved for it. It’s a long, long book, but the ending (while semi-anticlimactic) is very well worth the wait. “The Circle” is now out in North America, so be sure to check it out when you get the chance.
- May 21, 13
So, I’ve seen this feature on a few book blogs out there, and decided to make this feature my own. After suggestions from friends, Manga Mondays comes to Birth of a New Witch! I’ll try to give equal billing to manga being released both in the US and in Japan, since US licensing takes awhile and I read manga in both languages. I want to cater to other fans out there who do the same.
Confused by some of the terms I use in this feature? See Week 1 for clarification on my most commonly used terms.
And now, to this week’s US and Japanese choices!
Week 34 (US Release): “D. Gray-Man: Volume 1″ by Hoshino Katsura
Title: “D. Gray-Man: Volume 1″
Author/Artist: Hoshino Katsura
US Publisher: Viz
Genre: Shounen, Paranormal, Steampunk, Alternate Universes/Parallel Timelines
Publication Date: May 2, 2006 (North America)
Summary: Set in a fictional end of the 19th century England, it’s the story of Allen Walker, a 15-year-old boy who roams the Earth in search of Innocence. Washed away to unknown parts of the world after The Great Flood, Innocence is the mysterious substance used to create weapons that obliterate demons known as akuma.
A born exorcist, Walker’s primary anti-akuma weapon is the cross that’s embossed on his red and disfigured left hand, which contains Innocence. But not only does Walker destroy akuma, he sees the akuma hiding inside a person’s soul! Together with his fellow exorcists fighting under the command of the Black Order, Walker leads the battle against the Millennium Earl, the evil being out to destroy mankind.
Usagi’s Take: An oldie but goody, “D.Gray-Man” is one of my go-to series when I can’t find anything new to read. While it’s not entirely one of my absolute favorites, I really really like this series. There’s a little something for everyone in this series – magic, romance, an alternate universe for the 19th century. This is a very fun series, and it hasn’t yet worn out its welcome in the manga world in either country, which is refreshing from a Jump magazine title. I would love another season of anime, though! Highly recommended!
Week 34 (Japanese Release) – “Amanchu!: Volume 1″ by Amano Kozue
Author/Artist: Amano Kozue
Publisher: Mag Garden
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Seinen
Publication Date: 2008
Summary: Hikari Kohinata is a cheerful 15 year-old girl who lives near the ocean and she spends much of her time diving as a result. On her first day of high school, she meets a teacher who also likes scuba diving. There’s also a 16 year-old classmate, Futaba, who gets dragged along in Hikari’s maelstrom as soon as they meet at school. Most of the manga so far details the relationship between the two girls, which quickly seems to move into romantic two girl friendship-territory. (via myanimelist)
Usagi’s Take: From one of my favorite seinen manga artists, who created “Aqua” and its sequel, “Aria”, which is one of my all-time favorite series comes this really fun, carefree series that reminded me why I love this mangaka so much in the first place. With absolutely gorgeous art and snappy dialogue that will immediately make you love all of the characters in this series, while it’s not “Aria”, is still damned good. I’m quite behind on it, but I love Hikari and her crew (if Yotsuba from “Yotsubato!” grew up, she’d be Hikari – that’s my headcanon), and it’s one of those “comfort food” sort of manga that one can read when you’re feeling bad and feel better immediately. Here’s hoping someone picks this up for NA license and distro soon – it definitely deserves it!
What about you? Do you read manga? If so, feel free to participate with your own manga monday segment and link up in the comments section!
- May 20, 13
Author: Anne Applegate
Genre: YA contemporary, thriller, mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy
Publication Date: April 30, 2013 (Scholastic – North America)
Source: NetGalley Review Copy
Summary: What is this prep school preparing them for?
Camden Fisher arrives at boarding school haunted by a falling-out with her best friend back home. But the manicured grounds of Lethe Academy are like nothing Cam has ever known. There are gorgeous, preppy boys wielding tennis rackets, and circles of girls with secrets to spare. Only . . . something is not quite right. One of Cam’s new friends mysteriously disappears, but the teachers don’t seem too concerned. Cam wakes up to strangers in her room, who then melt into the night. She is suddenly plagued by odd memories, and senses there might be something dark and terrible brewing. But what?
☆: 1/5 stars – just…go back into the oven until you’ve cooked into a better book.
Review: I don’t think I’ve had much look with Point books yet. But, okay, let’s get on with this. At first glance, “The Last Academy” and its blurb sucked me in. Boarding schools? YEAH! Middle school protags? Okay, cool. Weird stuff happening? Yes please. But the blurb is probably the best part of this book, which is the saddest part of all. I wish I could recommend “The Last Academy”, but I just can’t.
Where to start? Even at the ARC point of things, this book really needed at least two more drafts to get really readable. All of the technical areas BADLY needed work – even the dialogue, which is something rare that I find a flaw in. Usually if there’s even just one other technical area that’s somewhat stronger, I can let the dialogue slide just a bit. But here, it just stuck out more – from the first sentence, which should ideally hook the audience, it was awkward and stilted, and just felt like the author was trying to write what a young teenager would say.
Second: the MC. She’s said to be 14, but she sounds at most like a very young 13. The character building for all of the characters up until I DNFd this was nearly non-existent, and they all felt so very 1D it nearly physically hurt. Also, we have her boyfriend talking down to her, and the author actual dumbs down the MC for the audience – which really just broke the camel’s back for me since everything else (non-existent sensory language, shoddy worldbuilding) just wasn’t there.One of my huge pet peeves within writing is dumbing down characters or ideas for the audience to digest. Seriously, guys, even kids aren’t as simple as you think they are. There’s also writing down to the audience, which occurs here.
While I did like the idea of this plot of vague supernatural mystery, it needed to start getting clearer the further we went through the book. It didn’t. It stayed vague, and thus, really didn’t develop, or help the characters develop in every way.
So, as I said before – needed at least two more drafts before getting to the ARC point of things because this felt more like first draft material. So disappointing, and I had high hopes for this one.
But that’s just how I feel about it. “The Last Academy” is out now from Scholastic in North America, so be sure to check it out when you get the chance. Hopefully it’ll work better for you than it did for me.
- May 20, 13
Author: Jessi Kirby
Genre: YA Contemporary, Grief, Road Trip,
Publication Date: May 8, 2012
Source: Bought
Synopsis: Honor receives her brother’s last letter from Iraq three days after learning that he died, and opens it the day his fellow Marines lay the flag over his casket. Its contents are a complete shock: concert tickets to see Kyra Kelly, her favorite pop star and Finn’s celebrity crush. In his letter, he jokingly charged Honor with the task of telling Kyra Kelly that he was in love with her.
Grief-stricken and determined to grant Finn’s last request, she rushes to leave immediately. But she only gets as far as the driveway before running into Rusty, Finn’s best friend since third grade and his polar opposite. She hasn’t seen him in ages, thanks to a falling out between the two guys, but Rusty is much the same as Honor remembers him: arrogant, stubborn . . . and ruggedly good-looking. Neither one is what the other would ever look for in a road trip partner, but the two of them set off together, on a voyage that makes sense only because it doesn’t. Along the way, they find small and sometimes surprising ways to ease their shared loss and honor Finn–but when shocking truths are revealed at the end of the road, will either of them be able to cope with the consequences?
☆: 4/5 stars – Just as good as I expected it to be!
After the amazeballs, sobworthy novel named Golden, I knew I needed Kirby’s two other novels. This was the easier one to get between it and Moonglass, so I bought it recently. I was also in the mood for something short, so I started reading this when I really should have been staying on my reading schedule (which has suddenly happened due to book explosion). This falls just short of matching Golden‘s majesty and emotional touch, but it’s a fun novel nonetheless. Not just fun, really. Great!
It’s the kind of book that makes you alternately laugh and cry. The first chapter’s funeral scene made me genuinely cry and captured the sadness of being a slain soldier’s little sister when she’s forced to take the flag at his funeral. While they’re on the road, there are plenty of mournful moments when they talk about Finn and what he meant to each of them. The scene toward the end with the paper lanterns going out to sea? Borderline sob material.
It’s not a sad book, though. There are plenty of laughs too! Like the story of how Finn and Rusty figured out Honor’s prom date was the same dress size as her (the guy being a size two in women’s is a bit of a stretch, but I’ll go with it) and made her try on the dress Honor eventually wore to prom. It even tapped into my nostalgic love of the Suwannee River with the scene at the creek. There’s no counting how many people swung on a rope and jumped into the Suwannee the way Rusty and Honor did the same for their creek. In runs the whole gamut of emotions, really.
Honor is a bit difficult to connect to at first because she’s so obsessed with her strange little quest to get to California and see Kyra Kelley, but once she and Rusty are out on the road and hashing out their differences, it’s easier to see the girl beneath the obsessive quest and the grief. It took me a while to get to liking Rusty too, but once it was explained why he snapped at her the way he did sometimes, it all made sense.
What stops this from being a five-star novel is Honor herself, sadly. Her moment of slut-shaming in particular. When talking about a girl Rusty hooked up with in the back of a car on homecoming night, she calls her slutty. Really? REALLY? No. Not cool. The only time I deal with that kind of stuff is when it’s in a book that deals with sex (due to our culture, it’s going to happen; I want to see it challenged, though) or the issue of slut-shaming itself. Come on, it was so CLOSE. This is why slut-shaming ain’t cool: it might be all that keeps you from a glowing five-star review from a woman who rarely gives them.
I bought Kirby’s debut novel Moonglass on a bookstore trip earlier today and I’m going to try my best to fit it into reading schedule between ARCs. Then I’ll be caught up on her backlist! Fans of contemporary YA who aren’t already reading her books should start doing so right now.
- May 17, 13
Author: Jenna Black
Genre: YA, LGBT, Dystopian, Mystery, Crime, Biopunk
Publication Date: July 16, 2013 (Tor Teen – North America)
Source: Publisher-provided ARC
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Nadia Lake comes from a high-class Executive family in the Corporate States. Her marriage has been arranged with the most powerful family in her state, which means she lives a life of privilege but also of public scrutiny, followed everywhere by photographers, every detail of her private life tabloid fodder. But her future is assured, as long as she can maintain her flawless public image — no easy feat when your betrothed is a notorious playboy.
Nathan Hayes is the heir of Paxco — controller of the former state of New York, and creator of human replication technology, science that every state and every country in the world would kill to have. Though Nadia and Nate aren’t in love, they’ve grown up close, and they (and the world) are happy enough with their match.
Until Nate turns up dead, and as far as everyone knows, Nadia was the last person to see him alive.
When the new Nate wakes up in the replication tanks, he knows he must have died, but with a memory that only reaches to his last memory backup, he doesn’t know what killed him. Together, Nadia and Nate must discover what really happened without revealing the secrets that those who run their world would kill to protect.
☆: 0.5/5 stars – a fabulous premise, but a serious bait and switch that made me rage so hard I melted the floor.
Review: Oh, “Replica”. How I wanted to like you. Really, I did. You had a fabulous premise – one I couldn’t resist. But what I got was a serious case of blurb seduction and bait and switch – to the point where I just couldn’t finish you. I’m not easy to offend, but I was pretty upset by this book. Why? We’ll get into that in a bit. But if you want a more progressive, kinder LGBT mystery biopunk story, I suggest you look elsewhere. “Replica” just didn’t deliver, and on top of things, really goes into a sensitive topic that it shouldn’t have. I wish I could recommend “Replica”, but I just can’t.
Why this book bothered me so much (spoilers ahead): the “love interest” and MC’s best friend is gay. His boyfriend Kurt is from “the Basement” aka the slums, whom he made his personal butler/valet in order to keep their relationship going as it’s not okay for those in positions of power (or about to inherit positions of power) to be gay. Nope. MC is asked to be a lookout whilst love interest and his man get a little alone time, and she gets mad, mostly because even though they’re bffs, she’s also in love with him and also knows that he’ll never be faithful once they DO get married because uh, she’s not quite his cup of tea in terms of gender.
And then he’s murdered. Boyfriend is suspected, and hunted down, while love interest is resurrected as a Replica – a very rare clone, supposedly so expensive to create that there’s only been 4 ever made since its inception. But he doesn’t have his latest backup of memories (kind of like “Dollhouse” there) so he and MC have to figure out who murdered his original. MC hopes that the Replica will be straight, but it’s not to be – he still loves Kurt, even if he IS a Replica.
Murder mystery investigation ensues, and Kurt is looking guiltier and guiltier with each page.
Anyone else see a problem here? I do. I hate it when gay characters are killed off, I hate it when their lovers are suspects, and I doubly hate it in this circumstance in terms of “curing gays” in the guise of using cloning/Replicas. Because, let’s be real here, that’s exactly what our MC wants – for her bff to be cured so they can marry and pop out kids – out of love and not out of duty.
And at that point, I was just 500% done. I don’t get this incensed very easily, but Black managed to hit nearly all of my triggers with this one. While the murder mystery was interesting, it wasn’t enough to keep me going. The worldbuilding was shoddy (we’re not given a point in time in terms of how far we are in the future, or how the Corporate States really came to be instead of just a one-sentence explanation), and the character construction just wasn’t up to snuff (no pun intended). The sensory imagery wasn’t really there – way more telling over showing and that was pretty surprising, as it should have been a little more than it was at the ARC point of things.
Basically, it came down to this: I just couldn’t keep going in good conscience, and it dismays me that this is being put out in the YA world – especially when we’re making such good progress in terms of gender identity and sexual identity. This book is a roadblock in that progress, and it just pains me to no end. As I identify as pansexual/genderfluid, this book was painful to read, and I want the time I was reading it back.
So basically, if you want a pretty backward-thinking scifi biopunk book, “Replica” may be for you. But this is just how I feel about it – “Replica” is out July 16th 2013 from Tor Teen in North America, so check it out and see how you feel about it. I just wish it hadn’t gone in the direction that it had – because if it hadn’t, I probably really would have liked this book.
- May 17, 13
Sit down and prepare for a story, everyone. It’s a somewhat lengthy story of Twitter, an author and his wife behaving inappropriately, one of the saddest emails I’ve ever read, an iceberg ready to sink a book’s ship when it’s only just set sail, and more links to tweets and images than you can shake a stick at. They’re all necessary evils so I can tell the story in its entirety.
In late April, I read Firecracker by David Iserson, It sounded like it would be a really fun book when I received an email about it and I ran to NetGalley in a hurry to request it. I didn’t have any fun reading it. This is the same review you’ll find on Amazon and Goodreads, plus or minus some formatting and maybe some cursing. Amazon is strict about that, so I’ve either got to write curse-free reviews or edit them out.
While venting on Twitter as reviewers on Twitter sometimes do, I was surprised to see David Iserson himself tweet me. That surprise turned to discomfort in about a second and a half because of what he said. Unless a book is written by a company, a computer, a cat, or something other than a human, I’m aware it’s human beings that write books. He didn’t need to take it as an insult because authors are not their books. An insult on the latter isn’t automatically an insult on the former. I didn’t have the patience to explain this to him, so this is how I responded. He deleted his tweet shortly thereafter.
Also shortly thereafter, a woman named Allis Markham followed me on Twitter. Having no idea who she was and a little suspicious, I did a Google search on her name. Oh, she’s Iserson’s wife. Feeling even more uncomfortable, I blocked them both on Twitter and that was the end of it. Shortly thereafter, I gave up on Firecracker. Whether or not he’d tweeted me, I would have given up on the novel at the same point and given it an almost identical review. This needs to be made clear.
Until May 16, Firecracker‘s release date.
As a good publisher does, the Penguin Teen Twitter account pimped out his book a lot that day. Being the ridiculous woman I am and too lazy to unfollow them for a bit, I made a few tweets in jest, like this one and this one (yes, the second is gibberish. I meant it when I said I’m ridiculous). With all that marketing from Penguin Teen going on, I remembered to post my review for the book on Amazon on its release date the way I often forget to for other books.
According to timestamps, my review of Firecracker went live on Amazon at 1:53 PM after approval. At 3:55 PM, I received this email and knew from the moment a notification popped up on my screen that this was going nowhere good because I recognized the sender’s name: Allis Markham.
—
Hello Ashleigh,
You listed your email address on Birth of a New Witch (mentioned at the top if your review) so I hope you don’t mind me writing to you.My husband is the author, David Iserson. Obviously I’m very proud that he wrote his first book, a passion project of his and today we’re celebrating it’s release.
As there aren’t many reviews in Amazon, yours was hard to miss. Especially since we were already taken a bit aback by your strong reaction throughout social media already. Yes, people do take the time to search reviews, tweets, blog mentions, etc about themselves. Im sure that’s part of why you take the time to write them.
And, as you probably remember, he tweeted back to you. Honestly, it was the hostility in your tweets plus sheer number of your tweets caused him try to let you know there’s a person behind those pages. I’m sorry you took his reaching out as an affront, but again, these are public forums and he maybe thought that was typical to do.
So, you might see how your review on amazon today feels a bit spiteful. Especially because you did not finish the book. I just wanted you to know maybe a little something from the authors’ side of things. I don’t expect you to take things down or apologize or anything like that. (In fact, you might be offended that I wrote to you and then tweet/blog/etc about me writing to you and then post this email. Which is of course, you’re right to do.)
At the end of the day, its a comedy book, a character piece and maybe a bit dark. I like that Astrid isn’t your typical female protagonist. She’s a bit of an ‘anti’ and that’s interesting to me. But, It’s not your taste and I can respect that. No problem. You have a right to your opinion –and to express it online. But, I do want you to know that there is a person behind this book and its not some big company just churning out books. That person is my husband, David.
So, I’m wishing you the best. I’m assuming you’re a writer and i hope that you might think about how you’d like people to treat your writing. Yes, bad reviews will happen, but perhaps not being pursued by the same one is reasonable.
I hope you read this message in the thoughtful and kind tone in which it was intended. You are more than welcomed to write me back as well. I do hope to hear from you.
Best Wishes,
-Allis Markham—
There are so many problems with her line of thinking that I could dissect this email line-by-line. There are only a few key points I want to respond to, though.
1. My status updates, reviews, tweets, etc. are not written for the publishers and authors in any part even when I receive a book for review from them. All the above are made to entertain consumers, inform consumers, and give me an outlet. If it’s a book I received for review, sending it to the publisher or letting the author know I loved their book (this is the only case in which I directly bring my review of a book to the author’s attention) is just another step.
2. If he’s really going to Google himself all the time and she’ll let him do it, they both need to learn to let the negative stuff slide. Most authors know how to do this and that’s why situations like this are still an anomaly. Sure, they seem really common, but compare the number of authors who start/get involved in drama to the number of authors who publish a book in the same year and it becomes a small percentage.
3. Here are all the tweets from the duration of my reading experience that reference the author’s name, his book’s title, or are close enough to either of the previous that it’s obvious what I’m talking about: GR autotweet 1 GR autotweet 2 GR autotweet 3 GR autotweet 4 Vent tweet 1 Vent tweet 2 Vent tweet 3 Iserson’s tweet my response GR autotweet 5/convo with friend GR autotweet 6 Review autotweet
You can judge for yourself if they’re hostile. Cut out the autotweets Goodreads does for me and there aren’t that many. If they’re also counting the ones where I obliquely reference the book but don’t mention it by name, they’re paying a terrifying and unnecessary amount of attention to my Twitter feed.
4. Spiteful? Er, no. I make a small reference to the author making me uncomfortable and mention it in a status update, true. My review would have been almost identical had he not tweeted me and it still would have been a one-star review due to flat characters, Astrid’s over-the-top antics, and poor pacing and plotting.
5. It’s my right to not finish a book if I hate it and it’s stressing me out. It seems reviewers can’t win on this point because we’ve got people whining at us that we should just stop reading a book if we hate it so much and then other people whining at us because we didn’t finish the book and should have. I do what best for me in that situation, whether it’s finishing an awful book so I can make sure everyone has the full story or not finishing it because I can’t take it anymore and my desire to keep going is killed by my stress levels.
6. Her feeling that I’d blog, tweet, etc. about this email sounds like her common sense telling her this was a bad idea. My common sense said something similar to me when the temptation to respond to her email arose. I listened. She didn’t.
When I got this, I was angry. Really, really fucking angry. After seeing a few key words and phrases, I got too angry to read the email fully until I sat outside and read a book for an hour or two. Now I’m just sad. Iserson and Markham both need an education in how to interact with reviewers on social media platforms, how to handle reviews, and how publishing works in general. I want to respect that she understands I have the right to my opinion, but emailing me at all cancels that out. Defending her husband’s book, saying my review seems a little spiteful, and saying my tweets came off as hostile because there were so many and they were so angry isn’t how someone says I have the right to my opinion.
As much as I hated Firecracker, I hope Markham’s actions aren’t the iceberg to Iserson’s Titanic and sink his book when it only just came out yesterday. From the look of the email, she acted of her own volition when she emailed me. If it turns out her husband egged her on, I’ll be angry at him again, but I still don’t want his book to fail because of this fiasco. I wish them the best in learning how to handle negative reviews and comments on Firecracker with grace.
- May 15, 13
Author: C.J. Daugherty
Genre: YA Contemporary, Gothic, Thriller, Mystery
Publication Date: January 1, 2012 (UK); May 21, 2013 (US)
Source: Borrowed
Synopsis: Allie Sheridan’s world is falling apart. Her brother’s run away from home. Her parents ignore her. And she’s just been arrested.
Again.
This time her parents have had enough. They cut her off from her friends and send her away to boarding school, far from her London friends.
But at Cimmeria Academy, Allie is soon caught up in the strange activities of a secret group of elite students.
When she’s attacked late one night the incident sets off a chain of increasingly violent events. As the school begins to seem like a very dangerous place, she finds out that nothing at Cimmeria is what it seems to be.
And that she is not who she thought she was.
☆: 1.5/5 stars – The Gothic elements are all right sorts of chilling, but the content itself is all the WRONG sorts of chilling.
“Carter must think I’m a complete slapper (UK version, 53% on my Nook).”
Think about this. “Slapper” is generally British slang for “slut” now. This line is thought after Allie and Carter talk about how Sylvain (Allie’s other love interest) tried to rape her, Allie says it was her fault she nearly got raped, and Carter was content to let her blame herself. After all, he tried to tell her not to trust Sylvain but never gave her any hint as to why. All this and Allie’s worry is that Carter will think she’s a slut because a guy got her drunk and tried to rape her.
Two books of outrageously offensive bull in a row is bad for me and believe it or not, it gets worse from there. Night School is an overlong book that promotes rape culture and has no idea how not to fall into petty mean girl drama, general girl-hate, cliches, and boarding school shenanigans other books have done so much better.
The Gothic atmosphere Daugherty develops with her words and story is convincing and enchanting. Though spoilers told me ahead of time if it’s paranormal or not, there were still moments that made me wonder if it really might be what I thought it was. That “is it or isn’t it?” question is the most important thing for any Gothic novel of this type and in that respect, it succeeds. This is all that made reading Night School worth it, sadly.
The characters themselves are flat like cardboard, some so much so that they were literally nothing but names to me. They have no appearances in my mind’s eye, they have little use in the novel itself other than to tell Allie stuff or turn against her or die, and Allie is more interested in the idea that a guy is in love with her than people plotting to frame her for someone’s murder. Really? Also, for someone as used to being in trouble as Allie is, she adjusts to a new school with very strict rules too quickly for it to work. Her love interests are flat too, but they get their own section once I get to the disgusting stuff because they’re both gross beyond belief.
Night School is a bloated novel someone forgot to take the editing scissors to. If this novel were a little better or more original, that might be a problem, but it’s not and it’s not. Stories about boarding school shenanigans are more than familiar to me; over the years, many of them have crossed my computer screen and done the same cliches Daugherty relies on much better by playing with them, subverting them, and/or challenging them. Using them as unironically as this novel does creates anything but an entertaining experience.
It gets even less entertaining when I remember the stories that did it better were free and some of the authors who wrote them were teenagers.
The novel is also rife with internalized misogyny. Sylvain says Allie is unlike “other girls” and that, my friends, is one of the most commonplace examples of internalized misogyny in our society. Have this gif I found on Tumblr to explain why:
Courtesy of lesleypowers.tumblr.com via zeroissues.tumblr.com
Katie is the requisite mean girl with acolytes (that exact word is used!), a way of being cartoonishly mean, and the ability to turn one of Allie’s friends against her and spread nasty rumors. The three female friends Allie has at the start are disposed of by death or near-death and the one and a half (a friendship with one girl lacks development and counts as half) are once again flat and there to serve specific purposes: one to give us other students’ backgrounds, the other to… I can’t remember, honestly. She might not have a purpose after all.
The next part is one I’ve often seen people put in spoilers or not talked about altogether, but it’s not a spoiler about anything important and it needs to be talked about openly for a conversation to start about it, just as the larger problems they’re part of need to be openly talked about in society if we’re supposed to do anything about them.
Sylvain is his own category of awful. At a dance, he gets Allie drunk and tries to rape her. We don’t see him for a while after that, but then he turns turns up to apologize–but he calls what he did to her being rough with her, not trying to rape her. That alone proves to me he isn’t sorry, but he also admits he did similar things to girls before Allie came along. Regardless, Allie forgives him, he gets back into her good graces, and at the end, we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because his feelings for Allie. THIS IS RAPE CULTURE AND IT’S BAD FOR WOMEN. STOP IT. JUST STOP IT.
Carter is only slightly better. Slightly. He’s one of those love interests who acts like he hates the lead but is actually crushing on her hardcore or passionately in love with her. Not my favorite trope unless it’s done right. What puts him on my bad side is how he tells Allie not to trust Sylvain, gives her no reason why when he’s showing no signs of being his true self (next paragraph), and then allows Allie to blame herself after Sylvain tries to rape her. He himself blames her for what happened to her! It’s one thing if what you’re telling a person not to do without a reason why is touching the stove. It’s another when you’re trying to stop them from going on a date with a guy you know will try to rape them.
I can’t even work up outrage over all this because there’s none left right now. This book and the offensive novel that came before it completely drained me. I register offensive content still, but I can’t Hulk Smash Night School when it deserves it. Boy, does this novel deserve it.
This book comes out in the US May 21 and thanks to a friend reading that version, I know there have been a few elements changed already. Let’s hope the rape culture got toned down and made fifty times less offensive. Best of all would be for it to be removed entirely, but there’s not much hope for that. Books like this leave me hopeless.
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there s a wolf in my heart for you. - a game of thrones s3 mix
“I couldn’t believe it when the bartender told me who you were.”
“And who am I, Captain Pike?”
“Your father’s son.”
- 1056 plays
- thebeastinsidethebeauty: ↳ St. Christopher Michael Logen (Episode Seven - Worth) Read More
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- 100 Days of Music[Day 6] A novelty song.David Guetta ft. Sia - She Wolf
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Posts
Don’t forget - no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.
Charles de Lint, The Blue Girl (via seabois)- on two legs
we learn to swim
before we learn to walk
we had tails
before they split in two
we lived in the sea
before we came screaming out for air
so how could we be any different
than the myths we make up?
and underwater now
28 years after my own tail split
and I screamed into the world
I can swear I can feel the
ghost of webbing between my fingers
and toes
green scales creeping up my fingers
and glass for nails
when I look under chlorinated lights
my lungs expanding until they hurt
and flex myself as one thing
I can remember
the time before
we walked on two legs
- haemoglobin
like Florence sings
“louder than sirens,
louder than bells”
my nerves in all of their delicate
blooming branches
never stop humming
I am a perpetual motion machine
defying physics
tardive dyskenisia
makes my fingers jerk
the body electric
what so many seek
is mine
but what they don’t know
is
how hard it is to handle,
and how hard it is to hold.
- the co-dependent
just as my ribs
clamp shut in sorrow
or panic
they fly open like
birds launching off rooftops
or cupboard doors
in rage
I see it
red flames in my gut
turning to bile
how can she forgive him
after everything?
co-dependency is all they know
my brain whispers
I tried to have
compassion
but I’m not that big a person
and in my rage, at least
I can finally
breathe.
- cradle moon
tonight you’re gone
little white-gold-yellow-red
cradle moon
and somehow
without you
it’s all the darker
inside and out
so return soon
cradle moon
and make me full once more.
- i hear that bell toll again and again
the field must lie fallow
this much i know
but i never knew that letting go
would scare me or
hurt so much.
i know we will return one day
but i fear that you will not
and that i will be left custodian to
soldiers demons wolves angels faeries
with no one to help me shepherd them
in the way only you can.
neurosis lie still
be quiet
let me think
and release your grip on my ribcage
for tarot warned
i might fall prey to being
in love with love
lust for power
the injustice of an idea
we’ve gone through enough
i have no wish to bring that upon us
we’re both growing outward
and it’s hard to let go of what we held so tightly to
and though i know that everything will be okay
it’s hard to shut my brain off
to stop pre-empting
but i’m trying
really, i am
patience is always needed around me, it seems
for i am still a child in so many ways.
i just wish the growing pains
weren’t so painful.
- the devil wears a suit
someone treat me kindly
someone tell me
“i need you”
before i stop caring
and give up entirely
for what is the outside world
if there’s no one out there waiting for me?
- justice, upright
i throw again and again
to quiet the racing mind
to quiet the head that won’t stop screaming
or the heart that won’t stop pounding
i ask of you three times
and three times you answer
ace of cups
justice upright
queen of wands upright
all three of you enter those readings thrice
but often in conflicting patterns
so who do i trust?
the queen?
the ace?
justice?
Taken in various locations around Maniwa and Okayama Prefecture in Japan between 2008-2011 this brilliant series of photographs captures the wild frenzy of gold fireflies as they mate after thunderstorms during the June to July rainy season. Shot using a slow shutter speed, the neon green and yellow contrails seem almost digitally imposed on the scenic landscapes, but I assure you these are real.
- EGOIST Extra Terrestrial Biological Entities
(No streaming audio available)1464 plays - myania: Every Single Night by Fiona Apple
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Posts
- I tried purchasing GG points but it says my credit card isn't authentic. I know for a fact that the card is a real and working. Is it due to the fact that the website is region locked?
I don’t know, to be honest, since I’ve never purchased GG points. Try it again, and if that doesn’t work, contact the support people if you can.
- How do you give gifts or trade on this game? (Can you?)
As of right now, unfortunately, no. I hope GG changes this in the future!
- Sorry if this is a silly question. I'm at level seven but I can't find the Homura or Sayaka card to add so I have a party. I checked my achievements section and it shows that I have unlocked both... Hope you can help!
You have to add them to your party. :)
- How do you get clothes? I've been playing for hours and still have the starter-out clothes.
You can only get them from the QB boxes. And it’s just random luck. :(
- is there anyway to add other meguca's as friends?
Yes - but unfortunately, the megucas you can add can only be on your same server/World. Like, say you’re playing on Rose and you want to add someone from Dark or Silver? Nope. You can add only other Rose players. I hope they fix this soon.
- Hello! I've gotten the QB Box message where it says I basically can't hold anymore. So I made a lot of room, and I took away a few pages of my items just to be sure, and the message still pops up. Any idea of what's happening?
Go to your “gifts” tab and take the gifts from there. After that you should be fine with having enough room. :)
- Where would you recommend getting blue or lilac colored clothing? I'm level 15 and I still have the default outfit because all the (very few) outfits I've gotten haven't matched my theme. :(
Well, it’s the luck of the draw concerning clothes and the QB box. Right now QB Boxes (and campaigns) are the only way to get clothes.
- New Co-op Info: Not just friends-only partying anymore!
So, last night, I had my party hard cherry popped in the Witch Rooms and found, much to my pleasant surprise, that you no longer have to invite friends in order to make a party and go after witches. If other users appear in that room and decide to “consent” to go ahead and party with you, off you go. However, let it be noted that you need AT LEAST THREE PEOPLE TOTAL (so two others aside from yourself) in order to party hard.
As for the actual playing experience, well, they still need to work on it. The dice-based system is a bit kludgy and hard to work with, especially considering timing. To get to the witch herself, you have to be able to get over to one of the areas where you jump on one of the moon (witch access) or sun (restricted witch access) buttons, which will open the doors.
Fighting the witch herself? You do it alone with your bunch of megucas. And if you die, you get respawned, but you do get to continue fighting her from where you left off. And whoever beats the witch first out of the party gets ranked first, gets more XP and moneys. As for the extras, you have to roll for them, and that’s purely luck.
Though I do have to say, one of my favorite rolling-based prizes I did manage to get was my S-rank wine bottle (it counts as a sword you guys omg), which you might have seen as R-rank in the QB boxes. It’s just so classy, I can’t wait to equip Sayaka with it once I level it up a bit more.
All in all, though? It’s pretty fun. They just need to work on the GUI a little bit more and then they’ll be solid.
You also get the choice of Easy, Normal, Medium, and Hard - Easy was pretty quick to beat, but Normal was a little harder - and took a lot more time/respawns for it to complete. And for now, the witch you’ll be fighting is Izabel and her familiars.
If you have any tips or tricks or general experiences, don’t hesitate to put them in the ask box! I’d love to hear from others regarding their initial party hard experiences.
PS: http://wiki.puella-magi.net/Madoka_Magica_Online_Cooperative_Play <— Excellent guide from Madoka Online Wiki on the party hard feature of the game.
- We're...back?
So it looks like the IP block is gone for now - I really hope they got a lot of complaints and stuff about this and fully reconsidered, instead of this just being a test. Thanks to everyone who wrote in to tell me about it!
NOTE: Rose is currently under maintenance but all other three Servers/Worlds are open, as is the Nico client.
Happy playing!
- I live in Singapore and I can also play on the Nico server without using a proxy. But I do experience lots of disconnection which already happened before this though.
Good to know. Thanks for writing in! Just be prepared with a proxy just in case a total blocking for everything outside of Japan is imminent.
- It seems only US suffers from the block. I'm in Colombia and can play without problem.
Good to know. I’m glad you guys can still play without a proxy! But I have the feeling that the US might just be a test, or the first on the list.
- Do you know why they region locked it?
No clue. But a TON of shit is region-locked in Japan in terms of the web - including sites with info about games. Those seem to get the lock the most, but most of those are eroge, not all-ages like Madoka Online.
TL;DR - no idea. Wish they’d stop that shit, though.
btw here’s the proxy list I used for playing Madoka Online (main site)
http://www.xroxy.com/proxy-country-JP.htm
Use the HTTP ones
I had been using an HTTPS one for a while from Hide My Ass! but it still blocked me, but when using an HTTP proxy I wasn’t.
this is just extra proxies and options
overall use an HTTP proxy
- Addendum: RE: Madoka's Region Lock
Yes, this includes the Nico client. I tried it myself without a proxy and it didn’t work. Nico itself works, but it has to access the regular GG client through the i-window within your regular browser window or tab, so…either way, you’re fucked if you don’t use a proxy. :(
PS: Yes, it does have to be a Japanese proxy you use. That’s why the region lock is working - it’s looking at IPs and if they let them in to play, they’re marked as originating within JP.
- IMPORTANT: MADOKA ONLINE NOW REGION-LOCKED TO JAPAN.
Which means if you’re living anywhere else, you’ll get a 403 page. So, this means you now MUST use a proxy if you want to play the game.
I don’t know why they did this, I just know they did. :/
[edit] For those who want to learn how to use a proxy (and get a list of handy proxies in JP), go here: http://www.hidemyass.com/proxy-list/search-225413
- Just a quick note - no new updates until tomorrow night!
Hey guys!
I’m going up to LA proper to see the Madoka movies tonight (if you’ll be there, don’t be afraid to say hi!), so I won’t be updating until tomorrow night. Everything will have to wait until then. :)
- Pretty sure that other person asked about these apples imgur(.)com/SCGQk and they do nothing like the rest of the accessories, except for the newest ones which have visible stat bonuses on them.
Hm. Okay. That’s what it looks like the case is, so, until I get evidence otherwise, I’ll have to agree.
- Do you know if Kyoko's apple bag has any special effects?
As I haven’t gotten that card yet, I can’t say. Can you send me a screenshot in the ask box so I can read what the properties are? :)
- Madoka Online: Definitely Get Coins Once A Day Campaign!
So, the witch rooms are FINALLY open for business. Which means we get a new campaign! YAY! So here are the deets:
CAMPAIGN DURATION: 10/19/12 21:00 - 10/21/12 24:00 JPN time
CAMPAIGN PRIZE: 20000 coins for once a day play in the witch rooms.
If you play on the 19th at least once, you’ll get 20,000 coins.
If you play on the 19th and 20th at least once each, 40,000 coins.
If you play on the 19th, 20th, and 21st at least once a day each you’ll get 60,000 coins.
AWARD DATE: 10/24/12
