There have probably been four or five of these in my drafts since April, when I last updated, maybe more, nearly fully written, but a combination of things has taken my attention away from finishing editing. The Knicks in the NBA playoffs and winning the NBA Championship, the weather is finally getting warmer, and my carpal tunnel in my right hand is acting up. So in the different sections, I’ll give a brief summary of my April through June before I get to the main events of each section. I’m writing this one somewhere else rather than in front of my computer, which sometimes helps me focus through my ADHD. Let’s hop right into it before this becomes another draft I don’t publish. It’s been so long that I originally got the volume number wrong.
Books – In Between Several Books
Summary – Shadows of the Daemon Realm manga, from the author of Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa, is excellent, though I’m only on Volume 5 so far. I got all my cohosts to read The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson; they enjoyed it, and we’re going to do an episode on it, to my delight. I have an ARC copy of The Thrice-Bound Fool by Christopher Buehlman I’m working through, and it’s nice to have Kinch as the main narrator again even though I loved Galva in The Daughters’ War
I’m usually reading two books at once, but besides The Thrice-Bound Fool, which I’m making through slowly, I’m actually in between books. For my birthday, I was gifted a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time manga just in time for them to announce the remake, so I’m thinking of starting that. It’s always interesting to see how game stories are changed in manga versus how they stay the same, such as in the Persona 5 manga adaptation.
Also, since Alecto the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir’s publishing date is nowhere in sight, we’re starting our series on the Green Bone Saga for the podcast, so I’m excited to do a close reading of Jade City and the rest to really get into the nitty-gritty of that series, which is far different from A Chorus of Dragons and The Locked Tomb. It also allows me to read the special editions I bought last year that are so nice. I am expecting some big book mail this summer from Backerkit and Kickstarter so I’ll probably post about those as soon as I receive them. The whole *gestures to everything happening in the world* of it all has delayed a lot of that stuff but I’m hoping it comes soon.
Wrestling – A Kenny Omega Summer
Summary – Despite my misgivings of Darby Allin’s promos, person, and character work, he had an excellent title reign with some of the best AEW TV matches. I usually switch between Knicks in the playoffs and AEW TV the last couple of years, sometimes watching both of them at once, but this Will Ospreay and the Death Riders story and MJF’s third title reign has been so fucking boring to me that I skipped most of the Dynamites and Collisions before Forbidden Door to watch the NBA. The Swerve/Ospreay interactions were the most I’ve enjoyed Ospreay since his return. Despite all that, Double or Nothing was an all-timer and Forbidden Door was an excellent show, as most AEW PPVs not named World’s End are.
Kenny Omega, The Cleaner, The Belt Collector, The God of Pro Wrestling, and The Best Bout Machine is once again AEW Men’s World Champion and it feels so good. I woke up the next day bright and early for someone who works overnights and was productive the whole day. You can probably thank Kenny Omega for winning the Men’s World Champion for this post right now. Let me be perfectly clear, I do not like MJF and probably never will again, and will not waste time with the details of why. However, he was excellent in this AEW Dynamite main event, keeping a lot of what I normally find frustrating with his matches now to a minimum. The idea of having this match here rather than on AEW Redemption has opened up a lot of possibilities for a Kenny Omega defense there that I’m excited for. I saw Rich Latta of One Nation Radio and the Social Suplex Network post an idea I can really get behind.
I think the match from All In: Texas was great, but it didn’t quite reach the heights I thought the two of them could, so the idea of running it back with a Kenny Omega victory in Canada sounds good to me. My ideal defenses if Kenny is going to have a short reign before dropping it at Wembley Stadium to Ospreay would be Kevin Knight, Andrade, and Bandido. We’ll see what happens, as I often say about wrestling.
On top of the Kenny Omega win, we got the Willow Nightingale return from injury after she had to drop the TBS title and bounce from the Owen Hart Tournament which was disappointing. Now she’s won the Casino Gauntlet and is going to face Thekla at AEW Redemption. It’s time to give Willow that big top star babyface push. That’s right, I think not only should Willow Nightingale beat Thekla at AEW Redemption but she should then go on to beat Mercedes Mone at All In. I can see the pathways they might be heading towards, Willow having the same struggles she had as TBS Champion. She wins the big belt, loses to Mercedes, then gets her redemption later on, and if they go that way I won’t be mad or upset because I do think Mercedes is up there with Manami Toyota as one of the best women’s wrestlers of all time, but lets switch it up with Willow as the victor before we eventually put the Women’s World Title on Mercedes.
Games – Deltajune becomes Deltajuly
Summary – The Wind Waker and Tears of the Kingdom are still excellent. I think I like Tears of the Kingdom even more now than when I originally played it in 2023 because that year was so stacked with games that I felt I had to finish it before all the other games came out. The Wind Waker is still my second favorite Zelda of All Time and having never experienced the HD version on the Wii U I’d be willing to pay for it on Switch 2. Star Fox (2026) adds a lot of great character development to the main characters, not in the original game, plus Star Fox 64 has always been excellent, hope this leads to more Star Fox games in the future. I’m really excited for the Ocarina of Time remake and Persona 4 Revival, but I want to see more of the Ocarina of Time remake.
Deltarune‘s Chapter 5 has been released one year after Chapter 3 and 4 and it is equally excellent. It has some of the best gameplay in any chapter yet. Emotionally, it doesn’t quite hit as hard as Chapter 4, but to say it has none of those hard-hitting story beats would be lying. Some of the reveals are devastating, but Toby Fox really sold this as the Fun Gang’s (The $!$? Squad in my save) So we’ve finished watching a movie, show, wrestling, etc and I ended up streaming the end of Chapter 3 to them one night. It was compelling enough that my friend wanted to see it from the beginning. So that’s what I’ve been playing in July, allowing them to choose most of the choices that Kris will get, which has led to me seeing scenes and dialogue I’ve never seen before, as I tend to make the same choices over and over again. Hearing the excitement about the story from someone else has been so much fun. We are at the beginning of Chapter 4 now, my favorite chapter, and I’m looking forward to them seeing even more of the game. I’m ready for Chapter 6 to wreck me with heartbreak, and if I have to be devastated, so do they. Until next time.
FourofFiveWits 