Well, maybe I'm the faggot, America

7/28/2025

Boy these updates are getting rarer, aren't they? No worries. I try not to stress out about posting too much like I did earlier this year. Frankly, I'm just lazy.

I've been spending my energy finishing the outline skeleton draft for A Game of Cosmic Titans. Currently I would say it's about 80% done. The closer up the mountain I reach the definine ending, the more the fog of war makes it difficult to progress. Usually, the strides are good, but there's really just one big hurdle or two to overcome, and then I can say the outline and the story as a result is finally finished

Then it's just a matter of actually writing the first draft.

This Friday, I was staring at the outline—and not wanting to delay any longer, I decided it was a good time as any to take the skydive into the deep abyssal trench. It was time to write the first draft.

Friday night, I held myself accountable: "Tomorrow morning at work I'm going to start writing the first chapter itself, no matter what." And I accomplished just that. By the time I got home I already had a good portion of the opening chapter finished, so I spend the rest of the day finishing it, giving it a little polish, and now I can say it's a better version than the original first chapter I wrote more than 9 months ago.

Eventually, I will put up the fiction page for it on the Creative Writing section. I won't serialize it on RR just yet. I will wait until I have more backlog ready, but you'll have a sneak peak before it's on there. When will it be readily available there? At the moment, I can't put a soft deadline so as to not put pressure on myself. If I'm lucky—if I'm really lucky, it might be put up by September by a generous estimate, and December as a more reasonable estimate.

I wanted to write the second chapter at work yesterday, but I was feeling unexpectedly uncomfortable. It might've been something I ate, or maybe I drank a little too much that Saturday night. I was almost tempted to ask my manager if I could go home, but I decided against it. I need the money.

So, one thing I did neglect last update was when I was looking for all my old PC games, I actually rediscovered all the GameInformer magazines my younger brother used to share with me more than a decade ago. I had them stored away even after GI wiped everything and never gave them much thought. But I was happy to have them in my hands. It was nostalgic, a better time when I was still on good terms with him, but he's cut me out of his life entirely. I think nefarious evil actors found out who he was from my steam's FL and he learned how much of a degenerate I was—is my guess anyway. It is what it is.

Well anyway, I'm laying back on my recliner as I type this out, but I'll put them out and take pictures of the one I have. And who knows, maybe I'll scan them... somehow... to a internet archive, or something... I don't know, it'll be too much of a tedious process I don't think I'll have the energy for.

Here's the pic of them.

They are, starting from the top left to the right:

• #240: Thief
• #242: Infamous Second Son
• #243: Titanfall
• #247: The Order: 1866
• #248: Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
• #249: Destiny
• #250: Evolve
• #251: Metar Gear Solid V

And the duplicates of 242 and 243. I don't remember how or why I got these; I think they were extra copies my brother had.

On a semi related note, my spartan library so far. And my incredibly modest Tanya the Evil shrine(all previous vols on my dusty kindle). Iliad is off-screen.

Berserk manga!!! Luckily, unlike a certain public writing discord I since left, I can post a few of the pages I wanted to post. This thing is such a beast! My boyfriend shipped me it as part of a package (we'll send them time to time), and it's just such a beast. I love it. I want to actually start reading it eventually.

Speaking of Berserk, my boyfriend showed me the first Berserk movie, the 2012 or whatever it was one. Man, it was such a incredible way to rewatch it this way. I was blown away by the quality. For the record, we skipped these deliberately at first to watch the TV sequel series—and I enjoyed it simply because of the story. I know, I know... CLANG CLANG CLANG. I have a higher tolerance for CG than most. Eventually we're going to watch the remaining two. I expressed my hype that if the quality was this good, man the Eclipse is going to be exciting to watch, but that's for another time.

We actually watched it dub, because the subs we were trying to encode didn't work at all. Oh well, compared to the '97 anime, it wasn't bad at all. Not that we had any choice either way.

Summer Anime 2025 Pitstop Review

Shows we ended up deciding to watch: Dress Up Darling Season 2, CITY the Animation, Night of the Sassy Cat, Busamen Gachi Fighter, Panty Stocking season 2, Bullet/Bullet, and Hyakuemu once it comes out.

Dress Up Darling Season 2

Originally, I watched season 1 with my best friend when it was airing, this time I'm watching it with my bf. It's been so long but the wait was worth it. There isn't much to say about 2-3 episodes (this sentence sums up this section well).

The new OP/ED are good, but the first season's were simply just more of a banger, especially the ED.

Man, Cloverworks really pulled off some breathing background designs, they're really good at those stuff.

CITY the Animation

Kyoani still got it. They captured the essence and magic of Nichijou well. Same author, of course. It's been a while since I've watched a 4koma gag-like anime. It's a cool show.

The author self insert was too real. I hope we actually get more of him and his assistance. Theyre my spirit animal.

He's literally me!

Nyaight of the Living Cat

What a goofy premise where in-universe its taken seriously. It's light hearted to us but it's grim for the characters. Sometimes, you just need a good sloppa from crushing reality, and this brings us to...

Busamen Gachi Fighter

Sometimes, you want to eat a 1$ burrito. Sometimes, you want to add 2.50$ to make it thicker and fatter. Wow, this is the kind of premise you don't see often. OP from the start but hiding the fact from the others. Cool! There's actually a webnovel I started following, New Life As A Max Level Archmage, that has a simiiar premise. I generally dislike litrpg and isekai like these, but surprisingly it's enjoyable. Power fantasies in moderation can be fun. I'm having fun. It's a fun show.

Panty and Stocking season 2

Wow, it really is like I went back 15 years and only a week passed since Gainax first ruined Christmas. They did it, they really, really did it. Trigger knocked it out of the ballpark and hit a blimp which crashed into the city. I'm so happy this is finally a reality. I actually teared up on the first episode because it was so beautiful. Trigger didn't disappoint one bit.

Now give me Watamote season 2 and I can commit sudoku without an ounce of regret.

So, that just leaves us with Bullet/Bullet and Levitatian. I actually forgot about Bullet until making this post so we haven't seen it yet. I was scarcely reading Levitaian reviews and apparently it actually kind of sucks. Bummer. Each 4 episodes focuses on each 3 books and the further it gets from the war the less interesting it gets. Not a good outlook for what's an American novel being adapted by the Japanese. I haven't looked into people's thoughts since then thoughbeit.

For airing anime I'm watching myself, it's mainly just the second season of Call of the Night Season 2, which I watched with my best friend when season 1 was airing. Uh... to be honest, I kinda just stopped watching stuff by myself these days. You may or may not remember when I talked about Off season Monogatari a few blog posts back—I put it off for nearly half a year before I binged it, and s2 of Gun Gale online. It takes me a long time to get into the mood to binge stuff. Not sure why. In the past before I watched stuff with my bf or my best friend I used to binge stuff all the time, but after getting into VRC it slowly stopped becoming a thing for me.

That's about it for airing anime. Non-airing, I think since last blogpost we finished up the remainder of Higurashi season 1, Bubblegum Crisis, and Last Exile! Last Exile was so good but the ending with some of the characters (like Dio) was kinda comcial, but that's GONZO for you. It was a good ride, I'm gonna miss that trancy OP. It was a true banger. Bubblegum Crisis was just... mmph, chef's kiss.

We started watching Hell Girl season 2 in the meantime, and we made some progress on rewatching Legend of the Galactic Heroes ova over the past week.

I think that's about it for the anime segment.

There hasn't been anything noteworthy in my life in general. I had a pretty nasty episode but I'll spare any details. Generally speaking, it's been stable and that's really all I want. I'm nearly done with Iliad: I'm somewhere in the Book of Shield of Achilles. After going through this entry I just now fininshed book 18: Shield of Achilles, and started on 19. I can't wait to start on Odyssey.

July's coming to a close and it's as hot as hell as ever. I have a working fan at work now at least. I look forward to what August may have in store. It feels kind of wrong to write this at the tail end of July when I'm going to update it with an August page anyway, probably. Oh well.

So until then, stay safe, drink water, don't die. Ja-neee.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

7/2/2025

Life is utterly meaningless. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't stop playing around in the sandbox even if the ocean washes it away repeatedly. We need things to distract us from how awful and asinine life can be.

June was . . . well, stuff happened. Mostly, it's been quiet. Usually, I'd make a long post but . . . well, I'll just see how my flow of thoughts play out.

So, let's kick it off with the usual opener.

Spring 2025 in Review

Honestly, I say review, but frankly, I've come to realize I'm not actually good at reviews. I did my fair share of them on Steam in the past and on Royal Road. But honestly? Who looks at them? People don't read. Reading is a dying pasttime. Yatta yatta.

Gundam GQuack

Well, it happened. I quite enjoyed it from start to finish. It was definitely without a doubt very Tsurumaki. This was the first anime in nearly a decade I went on forums and a certain rotting imageboard to discuss and theorycraft about. It continuously yanked the rug beneath me at every turn. I liked that. I won't deny I was taken aback so many in the West have such a polarizing reaction to it. In ep11, I was thrilled to expect what would happen, but ultimately Tsurumaki-san and his mentor Anno-san played us like a fiddle a week later in the finale. Was I disappointed? No, I wouldn't say that. Just a little surprised.

I actually showed my boyfriend ep41 of the original Gundam right before we watched the finale. I also went against my word and showed him CCA after ep41 (as well as this vid before CCA)

When I first saw CCA 14 years ago, I had major whiplash because it literally just threw you in without any lubciration, so at least showing him this he had a better experience both times I watched it by myself (in a previous blog post, I watched it 2nd time in theaters—and missed the first 5 or so minutes. I was pissed).

I passed over ZZ because to me it doesn't really matter in the context of CCA. I was so eager to show him this before ep12 because. . . well, I fully expected CCA Time Janitor Amuro on cosmic Char cleanup duty. But what we got instead was good enough instead.

I don't have much to actually say about the finale or the show in general. I struggle actually making reviews of anything period. I don't know why. Isn't that funny? I love reading and writing but when it comes to reviews. . . I blank out like a deer in the headlights. So many people think it needed more episodes but I think this was just the right amount. I'm torn if the clan battles were actually worth it, and characters like Shiiko and the newtype were just there.

To me, it just seems people aren't familiar with the director or haven't watched FLCL. He runs a incredibly tight ship and maybe now people will walk away with that in mind now. Boy, I hope hs reputation isn't in shambles over here as much as it is across the pond. That's the funny thing with language barriers. You see all the positivity from our Asiatic friends, but you never see the well of negaviity beneath the surface because of that.

 It's mind boggling to me, right up to the very end people had no idea how many episodes this was going to be. It was stated from nearly the beginning this is all we're getting. 12 episodes. Thati's it. Period. This was just a rep work for Sunrise for the 45/50th anniversary. Nothing more. It's very unlikely Sunrise will revisit this AU at all. I think it's for the best.

It was funny that Saya gets her dues 50 years after the original series though. A few blog posts back, I speculated we'd see her chilling with Ramba in Africa or something, but this made more sense for Bull to plot overthrowing the Zabis so a Deikum could be reinstalled. In one of the possible endings for Gihren's Greed a similar thing happens with Saya assuming control of Side 3 Zeon while Ral looks on happily. I think this was just fine. Was it a asspull and sudden? Who knows, there's been asspulls and deux machinas since Homer.

I was also shocked to hear the original VA for Amuro, even if it was just one or two lines. Either this was before the affair where he beat his youngster girlfriend like the Nu Gundam beat the shit out of Sazabi or Sunrise just didn't give a shit and let this slide. It's hard to tell when this anime has been in limbo since 2018/2019.

Well, I think I exhausted all my thoughts on it so far. It was fun. What more can I say? That leads us into...

Wind Breaker season 2

To be honest, it was just more of the same. It wasn't nearly as interesting as the first season and maybe it fell short of what made Wind Breaker interesting to watch. Deliquent anime bros... we just can't keep losing. If there's ever a season 3 I'll probably stick around to watch it. Since this is a gacha game I can see it happening. Whatever.

Kowloon Romance

It was something. I feel it sort of jumped the shark with the magical stuff but it was still a good story with its themes of regret, finding your absolute self and moving on. Back then, I thought it was based on a finished manga but it's still ongoing. The ending was wack. Unlike Reiko-pon, I want summer to end.

That's about it for my thoughts on the stuff we were watching together.

For our non-airing anime, we blazed through the rest of Gundam IGLOO, Samurai Flamenco, and plowed through most of the first season of Higurashi anime. For Samurai Flamenco, it was a first rewatch for me and I was happy he enjoyed the antics and wild ride.

We wounded up putting Votoms on hold since we're going to start ZZ and I wanted to avoid genre burnout(something he agreed with), in a similar matter we haven't been watching s2 of Despair Sensei since I was showing him Monogatari series.

So without further ado...

Summer 2025 Watch list

I know for sure we're watching Panty and Stocking season 2, Dress up Darling season 2, and we're probably going to give City the Animation a try. Even now as I write this out I haven't glanced at anichart for most of the other stuff yet. I vaguely can't be bothered right now.

So, the boring life musings.

Phewww, well, this will probably be the end of the blog entry. Last week, I decidedly stopped vaping, just full stop decided to stop. Not quit. Just stop. Maybe it was to let my tolerance build up but either way I was overwhelmed with cluster migraines that persisted right up until even now. Wednesday night(about the 25th) I threw up and I couldn't exactly pinpoint why: that night I drank and vaped a little with friends while we played Fortnite, and later on I crossfaded with my boyfriend when we were alone, we were going to explore some VR Chat worlds since he finally has his two days off again but I was just completely and utterly weak when I abruptly had to stop to vomit. I have no idea if it was the food I ate, or the intense heat (mind you it was 115 or about 42c past few weeks) so it could've been a cocktail of things.

In any case, I straight up just decided to stop. I've been resisting the urges just fine, but I couldn't bring myself to stand or even sit much without getting racked by migraines. But I've been improving, and interestingly coffee put a lid on it. So I've been clean for a bit which is a good time as any to let tolerance build up but I think I will stop vaping and stick to edibles (since I take them with my bf when we're having our time together on our collective days off). It's probably better this way. Honestly, the Ashwagandha supplements have been doing a better job than vaping. Honestly, it's better I stop vaping now because I checked my weight and it was down to 105lbs. For non-americans that's about 47kg and I'm 5'8" (dont ask me what that is in cm because it always comes out wonky when I look it up).

At work, I just struggled to just not die because of the migranes and racking my body. It was hot. Nearly 115. My workplace itself is the window booth with only a portable fan to keep me from just not straight up dying. There's a recipe for disaster there, but if I die at least my family could sue the company to oblivion and safely retire at my expense. Just kidding.

One day, I had a interesting encounter: first, I encountered who I thought was a former manager from 5-6 years ago—but she didn't recognize me. It was kind of tense because she wouldn't take no for a answer when I told her straight to her face I can't use this promo offer because it wasn't compatible with one of the automatic ones. So she asked for a manager. Even the manager said offhandily to me(the window was closed): "she works for mcds she should know better... whatever". Or something along those lines. Later, I encountered another former manager of mine and I joked to him he should come work for us again. . . I don't know if he actually recgonzed me though.

But other than that, I haven't have customers with bad attitudes who had shit in their cornflakes and decidedly take it out on me. I usually have this regular who did that once and every time he sees me I smile bleakly and pray to some fantasy sky fairy he doesn't lash out on me... but he never does, thankfully. I'm the sort of person where if I'm confronted or accused of something it lingers on my mind for months on end like a terrible replay I can't get rid of. Listen, I don't take anything out on customers. I'm not that kind of person. I am the kind of person who self-loathes internally and takes anger out on himself internally. I never raise my voice or get angry with others offline, it's just not me. I have no right to critizie or scold others when I'm a complete utter buffon mess myself.

Well, that aside. I've been fine. There hasn't particularly been anything else of note, good or bad.

The outline for A Game of Cosmic Titans, when I wasn't literally succumbing to my cluster migraines, has made remarkable progress. Presently, the rewrite is catching up to where I stopped initially to focus wholesale on the outline and subsequent completion of the draft for Yellow Typhoon. I've been hitting some tough spots with inconsistencies, but luckily I've been able to skim around them just fine . . . ish.

Reading wise, I've up to Book 16 of the Iliad. Patroclus Fights and Dies. Only 200 pages to go and I'm done. . . and then it's Odyessy time. I was also thinking of blazing through some Royal Road stories I've been eyeing.

I ended up deleting Saga of the Cosmic Heroes off RR. Well, by the site's logic a soft delete. I felt it was long overdue sine I neither write in first person anymore nor in present tense. It was just one big awful work. It's always haunted me. I've sure to disappoint a reader or two who pleaded me not to delete it. But it was a stain on my record. It was terrible. Thankfully, it seems to be gone completely from even those scaper sites. I feel . . . more at peace now it's gone. I'm free.

Game wise . . . I haven't really been playing too much. I decided to dive into nostagilia and try out a few of my CD games. First tried Reader Rabbit—nodice, it's too old. So I gave World in Conflict a try—o dice. Bummer! I did a hail mary and tried Tropico 3 and it worked. It was fun and just as challenging as I remembered playing it all these summers ago in 2012.

I also completely forgot I had Tropico 4. So I played that afterward too. It was also fun.

We got around to playing FF11 this time since my boyfriend had the free time again. We made some progress. Great fun all around.

 Thanks for reading as always, even if it's just a bottu-kun or five or some strange sicko deviant who wants to judge me from someone somewhere on VRC or a certain hobbyist discord. So long gay bowser.