Ah, August. August is my second least favorite month of the year. June and July are still hot and humid, but at least we still get some rain and cloudy days. August is just the unrelenting sun baking everything and everyone. Last night I danced and sang along with a friend to I'm Not Okay and I think that about sums up how the past couple of weeks have gone. I drew a lot in July! I even did 22 attacks on Art Fight. Then something happened at the end of the month and all of my drive just... completely vanished.

In the past week alone, we're dealing with no running water in the house and the landlord ignoring my requests to fix the broken pipe causing it, two pairs of broken daily shoes, and my bike is also out of commission. My bike rides were one of the last things helping me hold it together and now I have to go without them. I still push myself to go outside and take a walk at dusk every day but it's just not as satisfying as my bike rides...

End of July まとめ

Bear and I have been on two kicks lately: X-Men and Chiikawa. Ever since we watched DP&W, we've been watching all of the X-Men movies with Wolverine and eventually plan to end with Logan. Bear is pretty confident I'll cry, and he's pretty good at predicting things like that, plus I'm a huge crybaby already anyway. As for Chiikawa, well my feed on Instagram is pretty much nothing but videos of them and I'm even more addicted than usual. I love these little creatures, I think Hachiware is my favorite...

Pictures of Colossus from when we watched the movie!! Dinner that evening was especially delicious.

End of July purchases: A lonely Parasyte shirt at HT!! And SOS: A Wonderful Life. Bear surprised me with the shirt!! Shinichi, my son... The copy of AWL was at my GS for weeks on end and I told myself it was still there after I finished a certain commission, I would go buy it for myself. And there it still was, waiting for me. I only bought it to marry Muffy (Molly) though. Now that I'm playing it again, I'm remembering why this is one of my least favorite HM/SOS games and a lot of aspects about the remake are actually downgrades. Oh well, I'll enjoy it in the meantime and write my full thoughts on it later once I've gone through the story at least once.

The sauce was pretty good!! I recommend it. The donuts, not so much! Are these just terrible or did not having KK for a year make me realize how bad their donuts are? I have no idea.

Earlier this week, I went out with some old friends from school. I was so happy to see everyone again, and so were they, so much that I got a hug that lifted me off the ground. We ate and then played games at the arcade together. I had strawberry cheesecake ice cream (my favorite!) and didn't win any prizes on my credits, BUT I did have a spooky encounter! No one would have ever believed me if I had witnessed it alone but I saw a mini claw machine move itself, pick up a prize, and drop it into the bin. I looked right at my friend's husband as I retrieved the prize from the machine, a Mamegoma wearing an otter suit. I have enough stuffed animals so I gave it to her. I hope if it's haunted that it treats her well!! Especially since she's a ghost herself.

I really needed it, so I'm grateful my friend invited me (last minute too! I love spontaneous plans). Lately, I've been feeling lonely... Bear and I share this sentiment, that yes we are both each other's best friend, but seeing our friend groups dwindling over the years really sucks. We pretty much only have one friend left that we hang out with together monthly. All of my online friends are either busy or in different time zones that make it more difficult to chat and hang out unlike a few years ago.

Outside of that, I have my comm, but last year I stopped going to meets because of my chronic pain and now I don't really get invited to anything anymore (special shoutout to K and R for being so supportive and always checking on me though, love you ). That and now the comm has exploded with a bunch of new (young!) members and I think I'd rather just stay home. I need a new petticoat anyway, mine is old and deflated, and too big for me now. So many of my things need replacing...

Present from my friend who invited me to hang out!! It's rose scented hand cream and it smells amazing! We hadn't seen each other since 2020 and I FINALLY was able to give her the Christmas present I had been trying to drop off at her place for months. Things just weren't aligning... emergencies happen, messages don't get read until it's too late. That's adult friendships for you, isn't it? Your schedules finally match up and by that time it's been 6 months since the initial plan to hang out.

Yesterday was the day Trigun fans celebrate as Vash's birthday!! He doesn't have an official one, but I think the date suits him. I didn't have enough time to draw him something new, but I did buy a couple of giant donuts to celebrate with my Vash plushies at home.

I had been a Trigun fan since the anime first aired on Adult Swim back in 2003, but it wasn't a huge favorite of mine until I decided to re-watch it in 2020. I had just finished the Gungrave anime, something that had been on my list for years, and I thought "Trigun is the same creator right? I might as well give it a re-watch" since I didn't give it as much attention as other shows back in the day (now that I think about it, a lot of my favorite anime series are ones that aired on AS at some point, what's up with that?). What I didn't expect at all was to be struck with Cupid's arrow, especially so soon after watching GG!

That year, Bear got me the Vash Revoltech for my birthday!! He's still one of my favorite figures because he's so fun to pose. Vash is also one of the biggest reasons I started drawing men! I look at all of my old drawings of him from then and wow, they're absolutely awful!! But he was the perfect first learning experience for me, and the gateway into drawing proper yume art. His charm points? His beauty mark of course!! And the shape of his eyebrows and his soft, seafoam eyes... Oh, and of course how he knows when to be serious. That's what really had me falling, his personality and how he hides his pain underneath that goofy exterior. I consider myself a misanthrope, so I really adore that Vash still loves and believes in humanity despite everything he's been through, though admittedly his pacifist attitude can be a little infuriating at times too!

My first Vash plush and statue!! I slept with the plush every night at that time, so all of the buttons progressively fell off his coat until I ended up sewing new ones on. He was my company whenever Bear couldn't come over and he re-watched Cowboy Bebop with me. The statue was most expensive piece of merch I had ever bought before my Vendetta Chris statue last year and I had to make an hour round trip in the July heat to pick him up from the post office. Worth it...

Official glasses (the case in which I now have signed by JYB!!) and the boys together with Grave!! I bought Kaiyodo Grave that year as a birthday present for myself because he had been on my wishlist for like 10 years? He was in such perfect condition on arrival and he's still an amazing figure by today's standards even though he's from 2003, really the only thing he's missing are toe joints. It's funny how the games my cousin barely remembers playing are the ones that stuck with me all these years...

Two goofy donut fans together!!

Even though this was only four years ago, it all feels so distant now. I look back on this time of my life very fondly~ I miss the days of sitting down with a drink and reading the manga all over again, learning how to draw Vash, and having the spare time to look for fanart and merch everyday. Maybe it's time to re-watch the anime too! Now, which friends can I rope into watching it with me?

By the way, I ended up not liking Stampede!! I could probably rant about it for a whole page, but maybe the second season will help redeem it even if the new designs except for Meryl are all terrible. At least swearing off all Stampede merch saves me money!

THIS LAND IS MADE OF... LOVE AND PEACE!

It seems that I feel like writing in my diary less recently, so for the forseeable future I'll be lumping two months into one page instead of one page per month. Hopefully it doesn't become even less frequent than that, but we'll see! I've pretty much just done two things this month outside of daily living: drawing and playing TMGS 2/3.

It's been peaceful, maybe even a little boring. I can feel myself becoming restless again and wanting to get out since Bear has been having car trouble (again) but at least we managed to recoup most of that $500 that was stolen from us. At least I have my yearly staycation to look forward to soon, and I can fully relax since I'm not tabling this year.

The stress of killing B.O.Ws just became too much for him...

I've been having so much fun on Art Fight!! There was so much great art of Iris gifted to me which I will upload to her page after the month is over. I've been spending pretty much all of my time so far revenging but I also managed to finish two character references:

The first is a fursona of sorts! I just wanted a simple and cute mascot type of character that anyone could be able to draw. I'm hoping to get her turned into a plush at some point...

The second is the reference for my NMH assassin sona! I usually just think of myself as is when I'm with Travis but I thought it would be fun to make an assassin sona AU. The original sketch has more drawings but I didn't want to spend too much time on a reference right now.

I've also been doing a lot of traditional art thanks to all the Summer birthdays I have, but it's been enjoyable and I've been using my markers more! I also went to an art supply store just a 10 minute walk from my work for the first time, why have I never been here before?! It was the perfect opportunity to stock up on Gelly Roll pens and paper, and also got a starter gouache kit because I've been wanting to try it forever. I'm sure the paint I got isn't good quality, but I don't feel like paying a lot for a medium I just want to try out for now. Man, it makes me so grateful I was able to try a lot of different mediums for free in high school art class. Once you're an adult, all that opportunity disappears and you have to pay for anything you want to learn.

I love to deco my pieces too!! It's fun and also the perfect method for covering up your mistakes, heheh.

I managed to get a new swimsuit!! I doodled Iris modeling my old and new ones for me~ As much as I loved my old swimsuit, it was old, full of holes, and not very good quality! My new one is a side lace-up from Dear My Love. It has everything I ever wanted in a swimsuit!! It's so cute and I can't wait to wear it out, I vowed to go to a waterpark before Summer is over if I can find a coupon...

In the Tokimemo department, I've managed to get Kou and Ruka's separate endings as well as their 3P ending. 3P mode has its upsides, but I think in the end it's just not as satisfying as getting a confession! I took a break from 3 and went back to 2 so I could get Masaki's ending and now I'm almost through with Saeki's route. Once you've experienced the dress-up system of 3, going backwards is kind of painful! Another thing I really like about 3 is how the boys eventually start calling you by your first name, there's a mini event for it and everything. Ahh, I want Waka-chama to call me by my first name too!!

Kou is my type visually, but he's too rough for me!! I can't fully fall for a guy who calls me ばか no matter what. Ruka is much sweeter, and his backstory really won me over. At least Kou learns to like cute clothes on you once he gets closer. I even want to start a new game just so I can re-do Ruka's route all over again and get all the CGs I missed. After getting 3 endings in a row, I went back to GS 2 so I could get Masaki's ending and it was honestly kind of meh? Masaki is cute and he likes horror at least, that Silent Hill cameo was fun. I wanted to scream when I found out the touch mode is in the car though! Don't do that, it's dangerous!!

I still wish I could date Karen too...