FacelessVixen

So I've given it the weekend to think about whether I really am done with the club or not... and yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm making the right move. The short version is that I don't fit in with the group for reasons that are more than just my taste in music and that I'm better off looking for new albums to listen to by other means.

...But here's the long version for context:

No, I'm not bailing and making a thing out of it just because Jam didn't like Kamelot. I know that the conventional "normal" persona isn't going to mess with most genres of metal, so I've made my peace with that. What I'm not okay with, specifically, is the notion of using my interests as an ongoing experiment for getting into metal music, despite voicing various criticisms and not having a connection to it. I get the a point of the club is for everyone involved to try to branch out and listen to things that are outside of everyone's respective comfort zones. But there is a point where that can be done to a fault, or in other words in case you're actually reading this, Jam: There's a point where you're just trying too hard, and maybe it's better to just stay in your lane; because frankly, if a more entry level group like System of a Down didn't catch much of your attention when you were younger and you regard growled vocals as a gimmick, then most likely nothing in my wheelhouse of technical death metal is going to resonate with you, so it would just be album after album with a moth or two of waiting just to get a "Nope" every single time. That's not fun to me. That's just a test of my patience. So, as for as activity and discussions go, you might want to rethink you black and white view of listening to and commenting on every album being "good" and skipping albums being "bad", and instead shift to a nuanced perspective because every album isn't going to be worth everyone's attention in terms of listening to and writing about it.

Another grievance I have is the "calling out" thing between thatpinguino and I with Vildhjarta and how that played out. That really didn't need to be a thing. It's not like I was going out of my way to seriously get at him for bailing on the album. In essence, I was reacting to a prediction I made shortly after Rivers of Nihil and got a laugh out of it turning out to be true. I don't have the exact words anymore, but let's be real here: Me saying "I knew he would bail on the album" was a light jab at worse, all things considered, so how that played out by him trying to make it a rule to not mention other people, and you, Jam, going on some spiel about sensitivity, empathy and some other shit after the situation was resolved at the moment... I mean, look; I'm aware of the negative stigma that comes with "internet discourse," but I still think you two were being oversensitive, and frankly, that type of attitude is one of my red flags when dealing with people in general. I know that you both want to have a pleasant community, but you two also have to know when to let things slide and not make mountains out of a molehills; or at least not take the passive-aggressive route as if speaking to me directly would have brought the situation to its worst possible conclusion, as if I'm an unreasonable person who hasn't grown out of 4chan.

Also, who is actually leading the group? Sombre came up with the idea and started the server, but Jam has been taking the reins and getting things going. I get that real life things happen and matter more than some online music club, but Jam should really be in control of the server since Sombre is preventing new channels from being created; including one that could have been used to keep track of the selected albums and whatnot instead of doing it externally though Google Docs. Not to be too much of a dick knowing what's up with him, but it doesn't change the truth of the situation.

And lastly, most of the albums have been pretty mid for me in terms of leaving a lasting impression. My only major takeaways were The Twilight Sad for being a relatively bold and unique departure from the more mainstream selections, PassCode for similar reasons along with being surprisingly good despite my negative view of J-Rock, and Kylie Minogue for me already being familiar with her. Nothing else has really latched on to me, which to me is another indication that I don't fit in with the group's core taste in music or how the group consumes music. As good as some of the albums were, I've only stuck with them during that week and moved on, as opposed to when I find something that I really like and stick with it for multiple weeks, months and years; basically, quality over quantity. Besides, I did predict this possibility back in July.

So, with all that said, good luck with the club. Hopefully the issues around participation and leadership can get sorted out. As for me, at this point, I've become becoming more and more done with this site/community since Vinny, Brad and Alex formed Nextlander, so this might double as my "Goodbye" for Giant Bomb when I find some greener pastures.

@unclejam23: Well, you're gonna have to do it without me since I'm not interested in cock and ball torture.

As someone who wants the games but not the console, the PS5 is just an unnecessary expense for my intents and purposes. I mean, sure, a PS5 is technically less expensive than a graphics card that can either match or exceed the performance of my 2080 Ti paired with a 9900K, but mouse and keyboard controls, mods, and 21:9 have really spoiled me over the years, so I'm willing to wait a year or two for those timed exclusives to get on PC either though Steam or Sony's eventually launcher. So I'm glad that Sony mentioned that they are being more open to putting things on PC so that I'm not in the same situation I am with the PS4 where most of my PS4 collection eventually got ported to PC. It really is a first world problem, but I'm still not to keen on the proposition on having to re-buy some games so that they're on my preferred platform and take advantage of the previously mentioned quirks and features of playing those games on PC. I mean, sure: How was I supposed to know for sure in 2019 or 2020 that God of War (2018), Horizon: Zero Dawn, Marvel's Spider-Man, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Persona 5, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, The Last of Us Part 1, and Dissidia: Final Fantasy NT would eventually make their way to PC when buying a PS4 Pro in 2019? But here we are in 2022, and I wish that I only bought the controller since I've used the DualShock 4 more than the console it belongs too. So, me getting a PS5 would just net me higher frame rates, which is admittingly tempting for Killzone Shadowfall, Bloodborne, and other games where a higher frame rate would be appreciated. But, I'm more focused on seeing how low I can go when re-buying my PS4 collection, keeping an eye on the GPU market, and making peace with the games that may not get ported to PC.

Like the other album that I could have forced you all to listen to, The Autumn Effect by 10 years, The Black Halo is another album that I listened to pretty often during my teenage years, specifically my senior year of high school in 2007 when YouTube was becoming a thing and I spotted a Devil May Cry 3 video of some performing various high-level combos as Dante and Vergil and When The Lights Are Down was used as the background music. This album along with two of Kamelot's previous albums, Epica and Karma, along with Once, Dark Passion Play, and a little bit of Wishmaster by Nightwish were in rotation during my formative years of metal before getting into more extreme/heavier genres with Chuck Schuldiner, Michael Keene and Christian Münzner. Not that I was necessarily going for accessibility by switching my second album pick from, originally, Violence Unimagined by Cannibal Corpse to The Autumn Effect, and eventually switching again, last week, to The Black Halo, unlike the nu-metal and metalcore groups that I listened to during the mid and late 2000's, I figure that Kamelot is a both a lot less challenging and a less cringe band to listen to, so I'm hoping that this is a decent compromise between taking it easy on the group, but still going with an album that I still give a shit about.

Just finished Saints Row: The Third for maybe the third time since it first came out. What a fun game. Games were really fun back then.

Sonic Frontiers, for actually being a good Sonic game.

I'm not sure if 32GBs of 2666 DDR4, a 9900K and a 2080 Ti counts as being "more powerful than a PS5", but 21:9 (3440 x 1440p) has spoiled me.

Yeah, I'll wait. ...to buy a new graphics card because more PlayStation games are coming to Steam, and I don't want to buy the same games multiple times because I'm already doing that with PS4 games that got re-released on Steam.

This ain't it for me, chief.

As a normie with a basic-bitch Samsung smartphone... I don't feel comfortable enough recommending one specifically since I can't at a glance tell if they're only for emulating old consoles and handhelds or if they also can connect to Google's app store. But I feel as though this was covered a few times in various LTT videos hosted by Andrew (and Linus), so that might be a good place to start.