ghost

Job searching is never easy. Anytime I've switched jobs I've had to apply to nearly 100 and I might get a reply back from 1-4 places give or take. It gets easier as you gain more experience, but that first step is hard. Honestly, job hunting still makes me uneasy after all these years. It's tough finding someone who believes in you, but you just need one person or group who sees your potential. I'm not sure what field you're trying to get into but you just gotta keep building your skills however you can. Most importantly, don't be afraid to ask for help wherever you can find it. No one makes it alone and there's no shame in seeking help. It's tough out there but keep your chin up. Stay positive!

This was an incredibly difficult exercise. Tough to define your music tastes with just 5 artists. I tried selecting artists that cross a lot of genres or have a fairly diverse discography. But I think it can be summed up as: Within just Japanese artists: Dir en grey Joe Hisaishi Kumisolo Nujabes Rina Sawayama All music (thought it was fair to bump it up to 10 artists here): Alcest Charli XCX Dir en grey GosT Igorrr Kevin Penkin Macross82-99 The Midnight Sewerslvt Tyler the Creator

I like it better than Heaven Upside Down. But like others have said, it's lacking a bit in the composition department. The vision and tone is clear from start to finish but it lacks catchy hooks or good riffs. Fairly paint by numbers aside from a few memorable passages. I like the production on this though. Gives me a vibe somewhere between Mechanial Animals, Born Villain and The Pale Emperor. The Pale Emperor is the stick that I measure new Manson albums by. I enjoy it as much as the triptych and felt it marked a good new direction. You could still hear the fire in his performance even if the songs were more laid back and slower. We Are Chaos feels like a more natural progression from TPE than Heaven Upside Down but sounds like it's missing that passion from Manson. He pretty much delivers his lines the same way throughout the entire album (excluding "Broken Needle" which I think he actually performs quite well in). Sidenote, kinda reminds me of "Coma White" from Mechanial Animals. I think this is a well produced album with a pleasing sonic palette but ultimately brought down by Manson's lackluster performance. Highlights for me are "Paint You With My Love" "Infinite Darkness" "Perfume" "Keep My Head Together" and "Broken Needle".

I'm kind of a bit of everything. I'll find myself viewing MH on desktop but also use my phone a short while later. It really depends what device I'm using at the time. I voted "laying down" but we need a d) all of the above option for forms of browsing ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Been thinking about this drawing since the beginning of the year. I've been missing nature: Closeups:

Anyone else here watch Japanese V-tubers on youtube? I'm not usually into really cutesy or idol-related entertainment but these videos have been a constant source of comedy for me lately. I don't really know the nitty gritty but, for those unintroduced, Hololive is an agency that works with virtual youtubers. They're essentially a 2D or 3D character model dawned with a unique personality and character type (e.g. Korone Inugami the dog vtuber with a sweet & playful personality or Houshou Marine the obscene and playful pirate). I've heard people going so far as referring to these personalities as "idols", which, I think is actually accurate. There are a ton of vtubers so I've only watched a few handful of these personalities myself. Most of them just stream games anyways and I usually end up watching clips that other people repost. But the draw of these vtubers for me is that they're supposed to be these pure idol-like characters but they just end up making very obscene and explicit videos and things get crazy REAL fast. But that's enough talking, here are a few clips *Fair warning, very NSFW This should give you good sense of the range of hololive videos and characters These are a few of my favs:

dayyym. Nice job! I really like the execution of your inflections in the chorus. Very clean.

Lucy Lotus

RE2 remains one of my top 3 PS1 games and my favorite in the series (although, I'm biased as this was my first RE game ever). I'm actually the opposite having not played the REmake yet. Curious to know your thoughts! I feel like RE4 doesn't need a remake. At least, not yet. Mechanically, it practically defined how the next generation of survival horror games play (including REmake 2 & 3) so it'll probably play similarly to how it did in 2005. And unlike RE2 & 3, the game is readily available on any platform imaginable. If the rumors are true I hope they have more planned than just a visual overhaul.

Tracked down a reasonably priced copy of Parasite Eve II. Very different than the first one but still pretty fun.

Chrono Trigger & Cross arrangement album vinyl. Windscene is still the best!

In terms of melody I guess I was more fixated on some other areas like Kyo's added melody lines in the 2nd verse and Toshiya's bass lines in the bridge. I agree though, the chorus has even less melody in the guitars. That's what I think attritubutes to the chorus coming off more "emotional". The active guitar lines in the original drove the chorus forward, but in the new version it sounds more like a shoegaze or ballad part jammed into a metal song which I found to be ill-fitting. Didn't mean to say that there is more or less melody in the song persay but rather that it seemed that there was a greater focus on pushing melody and/or making the song more compositionally diverse which I thought took away from the hard-hitting nature of the song.

There's too much focus on melody in the re-recording imo. The original was a straight hard hitter but the new version opens up into more emotional or melodic sections that just sound out of place. The Japanese lyrics were a nice surprise.

People have talked in great depth about the musical and listening aspect of turning from VK so I'll speak from more of a collector's perspective. For me the 2 main parts of collecting VK music that made me lose interest in the scene in recent years is boredom and exclusivity. 1. It just got boring collecting CDs over the years. Bands always had very predictable releases, your typical type-a or type-b for singles and regular/limited editions for albums with either bonus tracks or a PV DVD or something. The bigger bands put out more luxurious deluxe editions but those are usually just a giant box filled with stuff I never really cared for (like photo books) and I don't want to spend close to $90 for something I feel just lukewarm about. The last CD packaging I really got excited about was the GazettE's Dim limited edition but that was 10 years ago. 2. The live limited/fan club limited releases got old really fast. The first few times was exciting because who doesn't want to own a super limited and rare CD. But bands just kept pumping these out and that's when I folded. Regular/limited edition releases are already $40-$60 apiece and to have to shell out $60-$80 for a live single that I have to use a service for just didn't make sense. Sure, exclusivity isn't limited to just the VK scene but by this point I wasn't really invested in the music to want to go the extra lengths to collect exclusive items. I understand there's a lot of decisions made related to catering to fans, using practices that are proven to work or financially makes sense, or trying to pack live performances that result in band's/label's decisions to release something a certain way, but it just isn't for me anymore.

Kisou's sounds honestly never really bothered me. It sounds thin to me and sometimes sounds like it's playing through a plastic tube, but I've always thought that was a stylistic choice. At the very least it has personality and has a diverse sound palette. TIW sound has the character of a deep fried piece of mozzarella dipped in stone cold marinara. Every track sounds like it's a radio rip or something. I'd take a rain soaked copy of a La:Sadie's demo tape over TIW's sound any day.

Yeah, I feel the same. It certainly far from his worst, but very average. Although, I will say I dig the production this time around. Say10 felt like it lacked some punch and didn't hit quite as hard as it could have. He'll probably have a few heavy hitters in there. At the very least, I feel like there's always 1-2 tracks that are really good. Agreed on the album cover. It's up there with the triptych artwork for me. Glad he moved away from using a simple studio photo of himself (although Pale Emperors cover was pretty good) Haha isn't it just the most terrible things you've seen? His earlier work is definitely something special. Sadly, It's unlikely that we'll get anything like that now though considering he no longer works with those past members and just his stage of life. Say10 felt like it was trying to capture that same energy in some ways, but imo it just sounded tired and out of steam.

Anyone else listen to the new single? It's.....well, it's out. Pro tip: Save yourself a blinding and just listen to the audio.

I'm IB positive. In all seriousness, I don't know. Wish I knew tho!

9goats black out. I wouldn't say the bands that the 2 active members went into are bad, but they're just not the same. I don't enjoy them nearly on the same level that I did with 9goats.

Loving the Jacob's Ladder vibe. This is the best album art they've ever done.

holy heck @beni you're baaack To stay on topic, interesting concept for a reverse-horror game where you play as the monster terrorizing people. Definitely picking this up for switch:

Added tons of photos and some new items: Dir en grey: Missa (First Press, East West Japan version) - $12 KR [Cube] (First Press, +sticker) - $7 Glass Skin (LE) - $7 The Unraveling (Deluxe Edition) - $30 DVD Gauze-62045- (First Press w/ special box *no obi) - $50 Osaka Jo Hall (First Press w/ special box) - $60 Average Psycho 2 [Blu ray] - $20

I'm going back to my old address for the next 2 weeks and I'm putting my collection back up for sale. Feel free to ask for any photos and ask any questions. International shipping outside the US will vary but expect around $15 for 1 CD and $25 for 2-3.