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.