Iceni

You've got a wife too, I've just got my imagination and a couple of socks...

Some rave crap that the bastards in my apartment apparently want to listen to while they toke up and drink. I want my bloody amp back, that thing was like a musical amulet to ward off evil...

'Resurrection' by Pagan's Mind.

OK then. Are they similar to Transcending Bizarre? I was kinda disappointed by that group...

I'd post the picture of St. Wanker on here but predictably it's got a stiff willy so it's not allowed.

'Mother Machine' by Delain. A gothic metal band making an effort, so a very nice change.

I'd be interested in anyone's recommendation as to best albums. I'm listening through The Great Mass just now and will try Sumerian Daemons later. Should I alter this plan?

Somehow this thread has simultaneously gone nowhere and yet gone too far.

I looked this up on Urban Dictionary. ...I want my innocence back.

'A Fragile Mind' by Zero Hour. Reminds me a lot of Futures' End, which is good.

A substantial risk, considering you listen to Khanate.

'Returning to the Source' by Persefone. The last two songs were crap but this one really does make a lovely apology.

'Inner Fullness' by Persefone. Good song, part of the album 'Spiritual Migration' - yet another album lyrically chock full of pseudo-Hindu codswallop, but mercifully this album has the musical proficiency to compensate in spades.

Crap, so now I have to alienate you all over again?

'Resist and Bite' by Sabaton. I...I cannot stop listening to this song.

'The Subterranean' by Zero Hour. Boy here's a band I should have checked out sooner. Very nicely done vocals, even the indulgent techy stuff is still corralled into a decent song structure.

'One Last Caress' by Divine Ascension. One of the few cases of Nightmare Records hype being almost entirely justified. I am loving this. Or maybe he just uses his washing machine a lot.

Both of my parents like Russkaja and I'm slowly getting my dad into Sabaton, so making some progress on that front.

Ugh. How many more f*cking stories do I have to hear from my rich-kid coworkers about them getting drunk and causing trouble? I'm fed up to the back teeth of this behavior, it bugs me more than I can express without cursing a blue streak. I hate how they think this makes them mature. Maybe somewhere along the lines I'll quit bursting blood vessels over these people and just laugh with sardonic schadenfreude at their mean lives. Drink and sex are the roots of your vitality, your source of joy in this world? How mean must your lives be if this is what you have to do to entertain yourselves? What a wretched existence.

'After the Fall' by Seven Kingdoms. I can't decide on this, really. It's solid but not really grabbing me just yet. I seem to remember them being like mid-period HammerFall (back when they weren't embarrassing) and I can hear that, but the drumming is bugging me.

Bran Barr, ...And Oceans, Lengsel, Agalloch, Antestor, Lo-Ruhamah, Extol, Holy Blood, Crimson Moonlight, Renascent, Drottnar, Carach Angren, Diabolical Masquerade, Voices and Kekal are all ones I like. Immortal is good as well.

Oh lovely. Is it middle-aged people you work for? They're the bloody worst, just old enough to believe they're entitled to ass kissing from everyone, but not old enough to make the mature realization that nobody cares what they do for a living or what they've accomplished.

I can't think of what disappoints me most with the anime, so I'll just list a couple of my biggest bugbears. First, some general problems: - Recycled plot points; Elfman, Gray and Leo all have essentially the same arc - which is bad because Gray's arc comes first and it is easily the best one. - Lack of deaths. It irritates me that almost nobody in this anime ever actually dies. That fact makes the level of suspense and investment significantly lower. - Less humor. I miss the levity of earlier episodes, there was some hysterical jokes early on. There's a lot less humor now and it makes the show come across as pretentious rather than entertainingly melodramatic. - Imbalance of fluids. Too much crying, and no blood! Very rarely does the show invest us enough to make us cry when the characters do, so it comes off as a cheap ploy for emotion rather than a natural character reaction. - Very little character development, as you said. This story is one based on the strength of its characters, but they can be pretty flimsy sometimes. Juvia in particular was a huge disappointment, I think she's pretty cool but the show keeps making her very one-note and flat. She's better in the English dub though, she comes across as entertainingly melodramatic. Laxus is also kind of lame, he comes off as a petulant brat and we don't see him change. To his credit, he's one hell of a lot better than Jellal since he is actually a badass, but he doesn't seem to get much development. I'd like to see him develop, there's potential there. - Almost no danger. I enjoy watching the arcs, they're good at building suspense, but they would be better if there was a genuine chance of the bad guys winning at least partially - say, by having one of the main characters die, as they did in the Phoenix Priestess movie where it was very effective. - Lackluster fight animation. The show's lovely visual design and initial fights all gave me hope for well-animated fights, but oftentimes they're just a lot of yelling and speed lines. Erza's fight with the 100 monsters was pretty badass but it should have been a lot better. The new series' fights seem to be better though - Mirajane's beatdown of Kamika, Yukino and Lucy vs. Uosuke and Natsu's fight with Kama were all good, and the three-way brawl between Minerva, Kagura and Erza was excellent by any measure, so there is hope on this front! Those last four would probably be the biggest complaints I have. If they were fixed the show would be on an entirely different tier. And some specific complaints: - Elfman sucks. Seriously, I don't think he wins a single fight after he beats Sol. I think he should have been more like Knuckle from HunterXHunter - a guy who's so physically strong and capable he almost doesn't need magic, but can use magic extremely effectively. - Lisanna sucks. I don't think she wins any of her fights. Also her ability is kind of stupid, unless she can turn into a Zoid or something. She also has almost no personality. - Jellal sucks. This guy also has essentially no personality. Ostensibly he's done loads of really cool sh*t but we never see him do it, and the rest of the time he comes off as a mumbling, insincere, spineless cad. If the author is trying to make his relationship with Erza more of a sibling-like affection, then good for him - but I can't help but think that he'll just go back to making it a romance since all the brainless fans like them as a couple for some unfathomable reason. Maybe they can relate to Jellal's self-centered and mopey attitude. - Lucy's incorrect interpretation of the Key of the Starry Sky. A girl with a knack for literature and exegesis somehow misses the main plot point in a children's story, a plot point so obvious that even a seven-year-old picks it up? - The whole Edolas arc. Boy was that a huge disappointment. Here I was thinking we were going to get a complex three-part conflict between Fairy Tail, the Exceeds and the monarchy, and suddenly the show asks us to support the Exceeds (even though they kidnapped thousands of children and abandoned them with no explanation, justification or protection) and Mystogan, who might just be the biggest prick in the whole series. - Erza in the Tower of Heaven arc. She comes off as weak-willed, indecisive and idiotic, especially when she decides to merge with the tower, without knowing whether or not this will bring back Zeref! Her revelation about her own potential death is stupid as well...so what, people are crying at her funeral? That's not a massive surprise, people always cry at funerals. Also, having her get saved by Natsu seemed like a real low point for her as a character. - Natsu as this story's equivalent of Lucy Pevensie - a character that never does anything wrong. He is also pink-haired Jesus because he has to save literally everyone on his team multiple times, and yet never has to have his own ass bailed out (except maybe in the non-canon Dragonoid arc, which is why I liked that one so much). We never get to see what exactly the guild does for him. It's a very one-way relationship - and he has personally beaten basically every major villain in the series. He's not even an S-Class wizard and yet still he seems to be able to beat foes that S-Class wizards can't, which sort of makes that appellation pointless.