August Round-Up '25
If you know me, you probably understand that I keep myself pretty occupied most of the time. Well... this month was mind-meltingly busy, but most of it was for very, very good reasons!!
IRL Happenings
One of my dearest friends, EdgeDrive, visited!!!! I'd been hoping for this for two whole years, and it was worth the wait just to hang out together in person. We'd never met face-to-face previously, but we connected with each other just as easily as we do online. Edge is every bit as kind, caring, fun, and witty as I'd hoped for, and an utter joy to be around!! I was lucky to spend a couple days together and meet some of their other dear friends (who I ALSO loved), and had an incredible time being in Edge's presence. We both laughed so much that we actually ended up nearly losing our voices after the first day together! Thank you so, so much for visiting; I adore you and miss you immensely Edge!!!
A dream came true for me this month: I got to visit an official Pokemon Center for the first time in my life!!! Thanks to the Pokemon Worlds Championship happening in Anaheim, Chris and I were able to get tickets for the Pokemon Center and it was MASSIVE. We went the final day of the event - a Sunday morning - and unfortunately scalpers had almost entirely taken all of the event-exclusive merch, but I wasn't really there for that anyway. Just being immersed in one of my favorite things ever made me sincerely happy... plus, we still got a couple of cool things without spending too much! We didn't end up going to the main event (the championships) since it required paid entry, but being among fans who were excited about it all was a blast.
Something that's unfortunately not so great is that I'm going to be visiting the dentist next month... I've been dealing with some waves of pain that I'm hoping isn't too serious. The only reason I haven't gone yet is because some weirdness with my insurance made it to where it wouldn't be active until September. I'm hoping I'll be able to take care of everything without any issue (and without destroying my wallet).
Projects
My friend Event Horizon has a new single out inspired by Miyabi from ZZZ, Lingering Snow! I love the color scheme for this piece, and did what I could to make it look cool (hehe). Give it a listen!
It's been super duper hot so I haven't really had much energy to work on anything else (except for things I can't currently show), but I am brewing ideas for an upcoming zine or two!
Here's a sleepy Serval loaf I saw at the Zoo the other day!
Various Media
I've not been playing many games this month due to being busy, but I have been watching Chris play Pokemon Ruby for his first time!! It's one of my favorite games ever, and an absolute delight to see again after not playing it in many, many years. Chris chose Bibbles the Mudkip as the starter, and seems to be enjoying how colorful and silly the game is!
I'm yet again playing Sonic Racing: Crossworlds during its open network test and maintain a lot of my feelings from the closed network test: not a fan of how they handled the music, it feels like your average kart racer, it's overall okay. I appreciate getting a sneak peek at a single player mode (since that's how I would personally be playing it) and think the character banter is usually charming. Somehow, though, they made the audio even worse - like super compressed sounding?? I really hope they fix that before release! I'm also not personally a fan of how the "Festival" mode plays, it feels like one of those things that's better on paper than in action. Despite my criticism, I'd consider picking it up whenever it reaches a good sale price.
Miku's Sonic Racing outfit is adorable; she's one of the few crossover characters I'm looking forward to trying!
Needing something to fill the lull between currently-airing anime, Chris found Kurau Phantom Memory for us to check out and it was superb!! The story features a female lead who's not only super cool, but strong, kind, and compassionate in ways that feel real despite being a sci-fi show. I appreciate how it showed emotion all throughout the series; hugging someone, telling loved ones you care, even crying... I think of those sorts of emotional displays as normal, but I don't see it represented in media very often in the way they go about it here (especially for the men!). I really like how it felt grounded in how they built the world and that the lore stayed consistent throughout. Major events weren't backtracked on, and the story was engaging all the way to the end.
We indulged in some video-game related media this month in the form of two post-apocalyptic tv shows: Fallout and The Last of Us Season 2. I felt pretty mixed on Fallout - the humor didn't really land for me, the digital effects weren't that good, and the characters weren't all that captivating aside from The Ghoul. My favorite bits of writing and acting were for Walton Goggins as Cooper and Francis Turner as his wife Barb, who had perfect onscreen chemistry and tension.
I liked The Last of Us Season 2 much better overall: great visual effects, much more interesting writing, and a story that looks at post-apocalyptic events in a different light than how Season 1 did. Bella Ramsey does an incredible job as Ellie, their acting top-notch with believable anger, grief, joy, and everything inbetween, with other lead Pedro Pascal as Joel giving a phenomenal emotional performance with every instance of their characters together. I'm a little bummed that it left off how it did since I'm so invested in seeing how the story ends and we won't be getting Season 3 for at least another two years, but I know art takes time and I'd prefer to finish it out with the TV series over the video game.
On Odaiba Memorial Day (AKA Digimon Day, on August 1st), we watched the redub of the original Digimon movie that was released last year. It was... not super interesting!! I missed the unhinged humor that I love the 90's Digimon for, and far prefer the original version of the English dubbed movie which mashes the first three movies together. I'm still curious about the redub for the original iterations of the second and third Digimon movies, but don't really expect much after watching this one.
Last month I watched most of the Jurassic Park films to lead up to the latest, Jurassic World: Rebirth, which I was able to watch this month! I liked it more than most of the other films in the "World" series (much of which I attribute to a certain actor not being in this one), but that doesn't really say much considering that the other films were really only okay thanks to the cute dinosaurs. This film's main story was at least a bit more engaging than the previous entries (emphasis on a bit), but that's okay because there were even MORE dinosaurs of many kinds!! The action was fun overall at least.
Due to wanting more dinosaurs in my life, I watched the first 7 - you read that right - films of The Land Before Time in succession... do not do this. It's not worth it. The first film is great (and surprisingly short, just a bit over an hour), but the following direct-to-video sequels are not engrossing nor well crafted. I like the little Tyrannosaurus Rex AKA "sharptooth" Chomper (who I named my very first Pokemon partner, Totodile, after!), but otherwise there's no need to see past the first one. Maybe someday I'll watch the last 7 (YES, seven more) films in the series, but I don't have much hope for them getting any better.
I watched the latest Pixar film, Elio, and I enjoyed it much more than I expected. To be fair, I went in with pretty low expectations - I'm not a fan of the previous few years of films (aside from Turning Red) - but I loved how creative the alien designs and color palettes were for this movie. The story behind the making of it sounds like a mess, with the original director stepping out and there being many overhauls to the characters and story (one of the biggest changes being Elio's outward expressions of Queer-ness), but in the end I think the final two directors were able to bring everything together in a very sweet way. It may not be breaking any mold for its story, but the emotional aspects of it still hit.
I saw The Secret Life of Pets and The Secret Life of Pets 2 back to back just for funsies. I had low expectations, but I thought they were cute! I think the first film's a little better than the second, mostly because the second has far too many story threads than necessary, plus I like the variety of animals/pets in the first one. My favorite was the teeny lil' budgie named "Sweet Pea" and his sweet owner!
Chris and I are typically fans of director/producer/screenwriter Wes Anderson's films, so I was excited to see that Anderson's latest movie - The Phoenician Scheme - had hit digital to where we could view it. Stylish as always and a great cast, but I thought it was only alright overall; I tend to prefer storylines that aren't quite as political intrigue-focused (a ruthless industrialist tries to get the most out of his relationships by cheating everyone from their wealth, so most of the dialogue is fast-paced deal-making), and I felt like this one didn't hold my attention as well as the previous films? I did think it was funny how the gift the main character shared with every meeting was a "spare" grenade (pin in, of course).
Coming Up Next: September!
I already have so, so many things planned for this upcoming month... more happy things, among medical visits that are very important. I've already decorated for Halloween as of yesterday because I am READY for Fall despite it being in the 90s temperature-wise for the forseeable future... hopefully the sun can finally give us a break!! I wish you all a lovely start to your month, and thank you very much if you read all of this!
Thank you CreeperBoy90 for this awesome fanart of my character Choux!!!