u/throwawayfornothing3

sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but i thought since it's about vocaloid it might have a specific answer

i've been trying to make covers of vocaloid songs, but the only instrumentals i can find are often very low quality. however, there are so many people whose covers sound identical to the original in terms of the background music! is there a specific place to find better instrumental tracks?

i've been working on a character for a while, but can't decide on what her name should be. all i know is that it should be chinese in origin, as she's half chinese and half italian, and that her last name should (at least in part) translate to "black" due to being the relative of an existing character with that same trait. my placeholder name for her is yexiao after the character in shining nikki, but it really doesn't fit her personality at all.

background of the character: she was born in 1958 and is 29 when we last see her. she has an alternative sense of style (closest to punk, but nothing too specific tbh), and although she's chinese by descent, she considers herself italian and has lived in sicily since she was 15. she's very tough but sweet, often acting as a big sister. most importantly, her family (on her mom's side) was very strict and traditional, and essentially cast her out after she rebelled too much for their taste. that's all i think should be relevant, thank you!

i've asked a few times, and right now the best i can find is archive.org, but i'd love to get more v6 (or really any) voicebanks as a mac user, especially gekiyaku and kazehiki. if there are any good sites that have mac (.dmg) files, please let me know! i have a torrent tool but every torrent file i've found leads to an .exe unfortunately, and i'm not able to run wine or a similar tool. thank you!!

i can't really find a conclusive guide on tiering, and in the past i thought it was just autoplaying hitorinbo envy until bonus runs out (which i just found out is absolutely not a good song to do for points...) furthermore, i am a ftp player and plan on remaining one unless some insane paid set comes out.

for context, i plan on tiering for mizuki's upcoming world link when it comes to global (aka over a year from now) and will probably save materials until then, but consider this an ongoing guide.

thanks!

after the 2026 event >!in which groups didn't end up switching!<(spoilers for 2027 global april fools), i feel like anything could happen in future events. so what if we finally got covers for songs without any? it can be either existing groups or a mixed one, though i only did existing ones since i'd have the same people in every group lol... here are my picks!

- life will change: l/n, i'd love to see more english covers from other groups (though i believe an's actress literally has a license to teach english so i get why vbs gets most of them) and shiho especially would be incredible, i think miku is the obvious choice

- retry now: mmj, it's the obvious pick but it's popular for a reason! as for the vocaloid, i think luka would work well, the song is obviously on the mature side and luka has this cute essence that the other (presumably) adult synths don't really capture imo

- brain fluid explosion girl: vbs, this is heavily influenced by raise a suilen's amazing cover (essentially bang dream's equivalent to vbs) but an's voice would work so well in this song. meiko feels the best choice here, but miku could work too

- matryoshka: wxs, the chaotic instrumentals work well with the unit's sound and i think if kenshi was still hachi he'd be commissioned for sure (if he doesn't take jackpot sad girl to heart...) for the synth, miku or len have a fittingly energetic feel

- meltdown: n25, i love it when dark songs are covered by the other units but i feel like i couldn't hear it from any other unit. i think rin is the only option for synth, meltdown is just such an insanely iconic song for her and it'd feel wrong being sung by anyone else

i feel like every post related to macos in general (that i can find) has no comments, deleted comments, or links that no longer work, aside from ones using emulators which i struggle with a lot. again, i am not good with this stuff, so if it's beyond clicking a few links, explain it like i'm 5 if possible! (also, let me know how to download banks for the respective crack, i'd especially like to use luka's english, and if it's 5 or 6, gekiyaku and kazehiki)

thanks in advance!!

i don't know if this is valuable to anyone, but i thought this could be a nice perspective to have. i'd love to know if these thoughts are common and how you felt around this point in the series. here are my ramblings halfway through season one!

i started off poorly. within the first 5 episodes, the translation of katsura's "anti-foreigner" attitude made me worry that this was going to be an unfortunately nationalistic, if not xenophobic, show. in light of issues happening currently, warning bells were going off. i came here and asked about it. i'm so glad i did. i was immediately told of the historical context of gintama (of which i knew absolutely nothing about) and that the amanto are not immigrants so much as they are colonizers (although that became clearer with time), and now, my opinion on katsura has completely changed. he's now my favorite, albeit tied with toshi.

being an early-2000s japanese show, i expected a lot of things to not age super well. however, for the most part, it seems to be a lot more diverse than i had initially expected. something that stood out was the massive amount of different nose types (and facial features in general), which was shocking to me. of course, there were many things that didn't stand the test of culture (namely the donut lips), and for some reason episodes 88 to about 95 felt like they were sort of going backwards, but overall i was pleasantly surprised by how the show handles serious topics.

as part of my personal taste, i'm not sure if this is super controversial, but i much prefer the less serious slice-of-life episodes to the serious ones, especially long arcs. i enjoyed the shinsengumi crisis arc, but at the end of it i couldn't help but be relieved that things would be light-hearted again. with that being said, it can't be all silly stuff, and i think it just puts things into perspective for the rest of the series. i saw someone claim season one had the best outlandish moments, and i kinda hope that isn't true, since that's the main reason i love the show. regardless, i have nothing but hope for the rest of the show.

as for questions i'm excited to see answered in the show, there's really only one: >!who is elizabeth, really? will we ever know whose hairy legs are hiding under there? or is elizabeth's species just a cloth attached to limbs? i love seeing her so much...!<(minor spoilers for episode 15, kind of?) though, i also wonder if >!short-haired katsura!<will make a comeback (also minor spoilers for benizakura arc, episodes 58-62 and movie)

final thoughts: this is definitely one of my top shows, despite its flaws. i will likely be getting a katsura nendoroid. fun fact: he is also on my tomodachi life island, and is married to melone from jojo's bizarre adventure, although they might be getting a divorce soon... speaking of which, i'm also shocked there's only been one reference to jojo so far, considering how reference-heavy the show is.

sorry if this whole thing is poorly written, it's the middle of the night (or really, the morning) for me and this is just off the top of my head. i'm excited to see how things go!

i said i'd be back, and here i am! i'm watching episode 45 right now, and they happened to reference the popularity polls (in which kagura ranked 7 and shinpachi ranked 8). where could i find this poll, and if there were more, the other ones?

p.s. a bit ago, i made a post misunderstanding one of the core parts of the series, and you all helped clear it up. thank you all so much, i'm really glad i stuck with it--now i think i'm loving zura as much as the rest of you... maybe even more...

although i've seen some "dream game samers" posts, i hope that the worst part (and the fact that it's more recent) makes it unique enough!

this does include things that have had game samers, but not >!rulette as it seems like it'll be in the new season!< (spoilers for season 8 based on the trailer) or anything that cannot be replicated, meaning episodes that got spinoff shows like make some noise and crowd control or episodes based on a specific event/concept like is this thing on and don't cry.

i'd love to see a lot of the season 3 (online season) concepts revisited and remastered in person, especially ham it up and next slide please. i feel like the ideas are pretty simple compared to modern game changer episodes, but i think it's possible to reinvent them to fit today's standards, if that makes sense.

as for the worst, it's a lot harder to pick one considering how amazing they either could be or already are, but i think the bachelor is one that i feel doesn't really meet the insanely good bar set by every other episode.

(my main question is in the title, but this part's mostly a vent/context)

i didn't think it was a full-on phobia, but i really think it's too severe to be a fear. i'm sorry if this isn't taking things seriously enough, i could just be overreacting, but i thought i might as well try. i really don't know. i've been really scared of bugs for a while now, but not my whole life. i actually loved them as a kid. the worst part is, for some reason, i'm just fine looking at them on a screen, and can actually like seeing them. i really like them on paper, too. i appreciate them deeply. but when i see something, even an ant, i'm horrified. i either freeze entirely or run away. i'm an adult now and i'll probably be moving out soon, and one of the worst bugs for me (centipedes) are incredibly common in the area. just now (the reason i'm posting this) i was just going to grab something for a headache, and as i was coming back to bed, i saw something really big on the stairs, like a giant mosquito. it looked like the insect from this one movie i keep seeing clips of online, where it buries its way into a guy's leg and the doctors have to pull it out, i think it was a comedy or at least had comedic elements (that's not important though, i only realized as i was typing this). i was using a flashlight to see, so it must've just been the angle, because it turned out to be a centipede. i didn't get another look at it or anything, i just woke my dad up to take care of it (another reason this life isn't sustainable for me, i'm a grown ass woman asking my dad to help in the middle of the night???), but as he was getting up, i was really nervous, asking him to put on a jacket and thick shoes and everything so if it was something venomous he'd be fine, and the whole time i was horrified something would happen, despite us living in a place that would never have that as a concern at all. i really hate it and i don't know what to do.