The Stumpfs' Mystery Revealed

Exploration in all regions: 100%*. World quests: finished. Web event: done. Local legends: thrashed. Aranaras: found. Free primos: farmed. Dottore's jimmies: rustled. It's time for Snezhnaya, fuckbwoi. We've been waiting years for this shit. Because I get a bigass dopamine hit from trying new cuisines and recipes like I'm some kind of food-motivated gremlin cat, I do this weird thing every time a new region rolls 'round where I get a bunch of foodstuffs and ingredients from the countr(ies) the upcoming region is based on so I can try them. Perhaps inadvertently doxxing ourselves, we live a stone's throw from a European grocery store that has tons of imports, so I picked up some slav staples: pelmeni, pryaniki, plov, a bigass tub of smetana, kvas, mushroom soup, skirt steak and egg noodles for stroganoff, ground beef for Gangut's navy macaroni (no seriously her crew launching a mutiny because there wasn't enough navy macaroni was a canon event), tushonka (gotta try this at least once in your life, they swear by it, apparently it's good stuff), and some misc. stuff like Dosirac ramen noodles and some other interesting treats like these flavored marshmallows that might as well be the nectar of the gods and is taking an incredible amount of self control not to consume all in one sitting. I didn't get vodka because I'm a lightweight and it would knock me right on my ass.

(Crazy Russian Dad voice: Eat like a Soviet!)

Last year's annual physical revealed that I was borderline prediabetic, I said "absolutely the fuck not", and Friday's annual physical revealed that I have successfully healthmaxxed myself into reversing that shit straight back into No Longer Prediabetic. I think this is the proudest I've ever been of myself in my entire life. I'm actually struggling to think of other accomplishments greater than or just as incredible as this one (homeownership probably takes the lead there) so this is in the Top 5 for sure. It's not going to stay there unless I keep eating well and working out, but I got that shit down to an art now. "God is on MY side, not your side, Bowser. Fuck you, King Koopa."

God-or-whoever waited until Anime Midwest began to dump record breaking rainfall on those three days and those three days only. Love it. So, we decided that would be a super casual con - no cosplay, just everyday weeb clothes as we explored the con (which I probably wouldd have done anyway, because plantar fasciitis has my grippers in a chokehold). Also, we need to talk about price gouging at cons because you mean to tell me this figure that was $340 at a vendor is just $150 on AmiAmi? Are you for fucking real?? Every little (and big) thing we wanted in the exhibit hall, we pulled up Goodsmile or AmiAmi to check what they should be going for, and if something at a vendor was market price, that was the only time that we got it on the spot. This included Oberon and Morgan plushies, which are now chilling on separate bean bags in our living room because they canonically can't stand each other. "The plushies have feelings" is an unspoken autism rule in this household.

I weighed 187lbs this morning, which means I'm doing a good job keeping the weight off despite not doing any exercise lately (this is because I only just got the exercise bike assembled). I legit think it's just diet. I've cut so much sugar out of my diet it's not even funny. It's just smaller portion sizes, diet, and cutting out excess sugar. Even when we get Dunkin I've been getting iced coffees with the sugar free vanilla syrup. It's actually incredible how much of a difference that makes even when you haven't been exercising that much (or at all) lately apart from walking around a con for 3 days. Eating well really is half the battle.

Gacha News: FGO - Pulled Arcueid, a dupe Merlin, a dupe Astraea, and Roland on the 9th anniversary banners, then got Ptolemaios in the process of trying to bring home medjed Assassin Nitocris. I still want medjed but I've been advised by my husband to save quartz.

Genshin - I'm starting to get burned out on Nod-Krai. The moon is really fucking cool, but now I'm just sitting here like "OK, can it be Snezhnaya now"? Never mind that this region techically wasn't even supposed to exist, and whille I understand why it had to be implemented, that's still a bit of shortsightedness on Hoyo's part. Also, I'm Columbina'd the fuck out. Hoyo loves Columbina like The Pokemon Company loves Lillie. Here, have a slander meme I found on Reddit forever ago because even if it's probably satire, you're forced to admit it's still accurate as fuck:

Pokemon Masters - dailies only for a while now. Sort of bored with the game lately.

Pokemon GO - again, haven't been as active unless there's something special going on, which there is this weekend. Got two shiny Unowns within like 10 minutes of each other. I'm going to try and get more because shinies are free dopamine. The optics are off.

Umamusume - These aren't horses; they're demons. And I'm making more of them.

Lovely Summer Solstice/Father's Day we're having around here, eh? Nonstop rain from morning until about 2 am tomorrow. I WAS going to make sun tea and maybe go for a little walk, but I guess I'll just get shit done around the house. About a month or so ago my dad floated the idea of driving up here to visit for Father's Day, but now he's laid low by walking pneumonia, and my dad-in-law doesn't want to do anything either because his cancer treatments have him feeling like shit. Dutifully keeping tabs on both of them as I think "just as well, we ended up having shite weather today anyhow". Funny, that.

It's normal for your legs and feet to be absolutely killing you after tromping around an anime convention for three straight days, but mine kept hurting weeks afterwards, and on Thursday I got diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. Orthotics are covered by insurance, and in lieu of walking around playing Pokemon Go I have to stay off my feet and find another way to keep the weight off. That comes in the form of a cheap little exercise bike I recently ordered, so I guess I'm not doing shit this week until that arrives on Monday. I could do arm day...?

A friend of mine did a Midsommar tarot reading for me. This shit's wack. The highlights: - What have I spent a lot of my time on? (The Devil - earthly pleasures [gacha games?]) - Where am I seeking fulfillment? (5 of Cups - disappointments are preventing me from dreaming big) - How can I best fuel my passions? (5 of Swords - think outside the box?? Isn't this one more like "I've won, but at what cost"? I dunno about that one chief) - What in my life is growing/expanding now? (The Fool - confidence to go full Leeroy Jenkins) - How do I support this growth? (2 of Coins - save money and get some much needed rest) - What in my life can I be grateful for? (The Tower - ?????? Uhh?? I don't know about this one either fam; they explained it in sort of a cryptic way that in this context it's more like 'you can't exert control over everything so just be grateful for what's going well' wtf man) - How can I show my appreciation? (Knight of Pentacles - Hard work and responsibility will allow you to conquer any task that you've set out to)

It's finally summer - my favorite season. Arsenal are the champions, I've lost 10 lbs, my flowers and plants are growing beautifully, preparations are underway for Anime Midwest, and all is right with the world.

Despite traffic being an absolute clusterfuck thanks to Pokemon GO Fest, a Cubs game, a Sox game, and the US vs Germany game at Soldier Field, the dude and I visited the Genshin pop-up shop on Milwaukee Ave. yesterday. A decent amount of their inventory was cleaned out because the shop had already been open for about a week or so by that point, but we still got some good shit. Didn’t go crazy spending because a bunch of bills had to be taken care of first, but I got a few things including a new playmat for my desk:

(No I didn't buy all the cutouts lmao. Even if I wanted to or could, Miko's wand was broken)

On the subject of Genshin, I'm all up in my feels after the end of this latest event because it's relatable as fuck. I used to draw all the time when I was younger, and now that I have a full-time office job and also have to manage the estate on top of it, I've lost any and all desire to make art anymore. It's a multifaceted problem: I was never that serious about the craft (I pretty much only loved to draw whatever I was hyperfixated on at the time and had no intention of learning to draw anything else because the way ADHD works is if you try to force your brain to learn about something it's not interested in, it gives you the error message "could not copy files because no"), I was under pressure to find a job that would actually make money (I did, but at what cost), and I just don't have the time for it as an adult. One of my homies felt similarly and described the event's impact on them thus:

"When she talks to her old imaginary friend (Popcorn the pig) saying she must be a failure in Popcorn's eyes for not achieving even one dream, Popcorn responds by asking if she can eat as much tempura as she wants, day in and day out, and if she can buy her favorite light novels and mangas, without asking an adult for it, to which she says yes, since she can make her own money and buy anything she wants, and so Popcorn says Homura is an amazing little adult in his book. Now I'm not really working or anything; just doing errands and helping my family out with stuff whenever possible, but I am also helping in more important stuff like managing the budget for food, and lately, it's become difficult to save any money for myself. (...) things got a lot more stressful since. (...) But things are slowly improving now for me and my brother and his girlfriend, like we got a new car, got new ACs and dad's still here with uncle's assistance to help us out with things. I guess this pep talk in the game got me thinking like, as long as I can sustain myself with what I can do, then I'll be alright. Even more so with my family and friends supporting me."

I don't think I ever had the proper mental fortitude to be a real artist and that's a dream deferred for multiple reasons, but that doesn't mean I'm entirely unsuccessful in life. I have a job that I'm good at enough to get multiple outstanding annual reviews and actually don't hate most of the time, we have our own house, I'm getting to be a pretty good cook, I genuinely love being married to my best friend and going on little adventures together... objectively, my life is incredible. I didn't become an artist, but I still became a successful adult despite AuDHD, LD, hyperlexia, anxiety/depression, and a myriad of personality disorders.

We've officially begun preparations in advance to adopt a cat (or two!), Arsenal are champions if Citeh draw/lose tomorrow or they win Sunday's match, and ACEN was a smashing success. We bought some seriously cool stuff, got autographs from our favorite voice actors, and the Umamusume cosplay meetup was, well, umazing. Pics from the con will go in separate posts as usual.

Out of the two of us, I'm usually the only one who cosplays because the dude has a lower tolerance for discomfort in costume due to sensory issues (in general, he just has more sensory struggles than I do, not a dig at him I promise, just stating fact) but he came up with an idea he wants to do that's really freaking cool:

At some point he says he'd love to make this as a cosplay. It's gonna be extremely difficult and involve a lot of money and almost surely getting parts specially ordered/custom made, but he really vibes with Shimo and this aesthetic, and he'd love to turn it into something he can rock at cons without being too uncomfortable. (Jordie: I have no idea how I'd ever pull off the ice crystals on the back of her cape, and I'd probably have to get her signature weapon 3D printed somewhere. There's people out there who do 3D prints of video game guns/weapons but I don't know how expensive it is.)

Currently oscillating violently between Arteta In and Arteta Out. Can't fully commit to Arteta In yet. Let's see if he wins the Gunners a title first.

ACEN 2026 is in a week and I'm pretty much ready. Not being able to consoom as much is a bit frustrating, but the dragon's hoard is getting so big that I'm now hard pressed to think of things I don't have yet or that I really want. I don't have much Uma merch though, so that'll probably be the priority if I'm able to find anything good.

Brazilian Miku started out as a joke cosplay idea, but now we're actually taking it seriously and I've started buying stuff for it. I'm thicc and tan, and... that's about it really, but it's a meme cosplay, so as long as we've had legends like Man-Faye and Sailor Bubba knockin about, I can unironically trot out my middle-aged figure in booty shorts and a Brasil shirt. I'm committed to the bit.

Convention season is upon us again, and I'm re-using last year's cosplays because 1.) everybody loved them and 2.) it saves money. By all means, we probably shouldn't even be going to conventions this year because it involves spending money we probably don't have for shit we probably don't need, but we have to get out of the house occasionally even if the economy has rendered it prohibitively expensive to do anything but occasionally go out to dinner at something slightly more fancy than Chili's. I feel like walking around a huge convention center in cosplay takes a lot more out of me at this age than it did when I first started going to conventions in my mid-teens, although I won't deny that I'm not in the best shape anymore which probably complicates things. Do they (whoever 'they' is) still say 40 is the new 30? I never got the memo. Tell that to the spondylosis. One thing I do like about getting older, though, is that if you were somewhat of a pushover or a doormat before, even the most diehard people pleasers with a pathological fear of being disliked are suddenly inspired to do a mass purge of all the superflous shit in their lives and put up impenetrable boundaries. A friend goes "I know you don't like kids, but we have some good news to share! Here's an ultrasound pic"? Bye, bitch. One of the YouTubers you've followed for like a decade posts a video reacting to Instagram memes, bitches about all the cat videos, brags about how much he hates cats and talks about hurting them? Unsubscribe. Gram-gram wants you to reconcile with your crazy ass mom? She's getting BTFO'd like the old granny in the Wayans Bros show intro. Part of preparing to hit the big 4-0 involves a collective purge of all the things -and people- that no longer serve me. It's not the same as surrounding yourself with ass-kissers and yes-men, it's just learning the art of saying no even if it hurts others' feelings. You have to accept that's part of the package. It's like ripping a Band-Aid off. You're going to be the bad guy sometimes. Laugh manaiacally and play One-Winged Angel if it makes you feel better. Trust the process.

Vidya stuff:

Fate/GO: god I hated that last event. I was not familiar at all with what it was based on and the goofy ass bird was the only entertaining part. "There's a swarm of monsters nearby!" FUCKING WHERE? Oh Christ, Aoko's dead again.

Genshin: Currently trying to 100% all remaining unfinished regions before Snezhnaya drops later this summer. I also have a surplus of Crowns, so I decided fuck it, we're going to triple crown all the Harbinger and Former Harbinger characters because that's also part of Fatui glazing. (Mr. Dink voice: very expensive.)

Pokemon Masters: God, the game itself really is ass, isn't it? I'll admit that outright. It's really not a good mobile game, but the way it handles character lore and incorporates that into the overarching Pasio story is pretty damn good. Also holy shit the Subway Bosses are finally available to chat with in the Lodge LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOO that took long enough

Umamusume: Fuck yeah Golshi week. Gibs-me-dats in the form of thousands of free carats that I'm probably going to blow entirely on the Matikane SSR and Summer Golshi. Are you considered a normie Uma fan if Golshi the meme horse is still unironically your favorite after all this time? I guess I make up for it by also being a fan of who is probably the least popular Stay Gold member and by that I mean has the least nsfw art of her haha I mean what

I spent most of the week burdened by a mild but annoying bout of viral gastroenteritis, which is funny only because the day before it kicked in, I was bitching about the holiday weight I've gained. I've now lost 5 pounds of it. Great! I'm not even mad. Really.

The unprecedented success of the live-action One Piece series needs to be studied. I'm three episodes in and this shit's absolutely mogging the nostalgiaslop live-action remakes that Disney's churning out these days. Here comes The Rock looking like a raceswapped Fabio, meanwhile the guy who plays Usopp is a legitimate stunner. Bizarro world. I've come to detest the word "whimsy" (despite being an elder millennial quirk chungus with a home full of plushies, figures, posters, wall scrolls and god knows how much other weeb shit that does indeed make my home and lifestyle quite *urk* wHiMsIcAl), but what makes the live action One Piece series work is that it knows exactly what it is. It IS whimsical. It's goofy as hell, it doesn't take itself too seriously, and other ill-fated live-action remakes accidentally made themselves cringe by trying to avoid being cringe, like that one quote goes: "A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it." OPLA embraces cringe and transmutes it into a command for the viewers; embrace the rules of our world, because this story doesn't play by the ones in yours. OPLA is nothing short of a miracle, and I really do hope they decide to completely commit to the bit and see it through to the end.

You know what? I kinda fuck with Trackblazer (sorry, Make A New Track). Sure, it's subject to the same retarded RNG as everything else in the game is (in fact, I'd even argue that bad shop RNG could make or break a MANT run), but I do like having full control of when to race, when to train, when to rest, going full send it on training during Summer Vacation and actually getting S- to S+ Rank umas as a result. People were ragequitting the game over this mode? Yeah, I can understand that, especially since it takes upwards of an hour even if you're fast-forwarding through all the dialogue, but if you have the time to spare, and you get items from the shop that mitigate bad statuses and restore energy, having full control over the schedule is a nice option. It even got to the point where I went back to doing URA or Unity and I'm like, dude where's my shop? I think reading up on it well in advance of its release helped me prepare for it, and now it's almost my preferred mode of play.

Baking, cooking, cleaning, decorating... all on heavy rotation for the past few weeks. A few notable home improvement projects:

Michael's had a 70% custom framing deal going on, so I took the Kancolle Italian Navy poster (the one with Pola, Zara, and few of the Italian destroyers, all holding stuff like a bottle of wine, pizza, etc) over there to be framed/mounted. I know that's a lot of fuss over a poster, but I love how cute it looks in our kitchen and I wanted to do something extra with it. I also got some fake olive branches to drape over the top of the frame once it's up on the wall - I was inspired to do so by seeing how a local Italian restaurant decorated their walls when we went there to celebrate a friend's b-day a few years ago. The price before discount was over $700 (!!!), and afterwards, just shy of $300. Like I said, I know it's a lot of fuss over a poster, but this is an idea of mine that my brain just wouldn't let go of. I'll post pics once it's up!

We have this singing bird wall clock that recently started doing really weird shit (most notably, the birds would start singing randomly instead of at the top of every hour), so I contacted a local clock repair shop to see if they'd fix it. They said it would probably be cheaper to just replace it, so I went over to that shop earlier today and they gave me a pre-owned one, even took the courtesy of putting new batteries in it and everything. ...Except on this one, the birds don't sing at all. So now I have two bird clocks that don't work. On Monday I'm going to call them and let them know this one doesn't work, and that they can either refund me, get a new one, or repair it. Fucking hell man I JUST WANT A FUNCTIONAL BIRB CLOCK AGAIN!

Typical run-of-the-mill spring cleaning. Gathered up a bunch of old clothes and dropped them off at Goodwill, deep-cleaned the carpets and rugs, replaced the air filters, gave the car a much-needed car wash and cleaned out the interior of all the stuff that had piled up over the winter, stuff like that.

We did it, everyone. We saved bikini bottom survived another Chicago winter!

...and now we're at war. Boy, Pokemon Day straight into global conflict sure is emotional whiplash, huh?

The dude got a new car! After going from used car to used car and suffering through his fair share of car problems for far too long, he's $9,000 lighter but now the proud owner of a lovely new Honda Civic. They're great lil reliable cars, Civics, and it's a lovely blue lagoon pearl / seabed blue pearl.

We saw Umamusume: Beginning of a New Era at the Streets of Woodfield AMC yesterday. There was actually pretty decent turnout, and a few people even showed up in cosplay. I loved how someone in the audience would occasionally make a happy little sound whenever their oshi appeared on screen (including us, we are not exempt), and we all sang Umapyoi together during the ending credits. As for the movie itself, it was a fuckin' blast. The animation studio that made the movie is famous for really trippy, weird animation sequences, and there was a lot of that in there, which in my opinion made it an even crazier watch. Imagine watching a sports anime like Eyeshield 21 on an acid trip and that about sums up the experience I had. Even if you’re not too familiar with the cast of characters, it’s an absolutely thrill-a-minute movie. Super colorful, super dazzling, totally out there. It’s a wild ride. Go see it.

It's Fool's Spring! For those of you who don't live in the Midwest, this is that glorious handful of days where, for whatever reason, the temperature floats up into the 50s-60s range oh so briefly well before meteorological spring -usually sometime in February-, which briefly triggers a sort of post-hibernation euphoria in Midwesterners that inspires them to find any excuse to go outside before the temperature plummets again. I myself am also susceptible to this. I woke up early to watch the Arsenal game and once the score hit 4-0, I thought "OK, it's in the bag, time to go run some errands. I think I'll pop by HomeGoods for Year of the Honse things and pick up a few things at the store". I think I'll also go for a walk later, because the holiday weight I gained isn't going to lose itself.

Year of Honse things (and I put my Golshi figure with them because I must):

The dude & I had a humble little Valentine's day. We each got each other a smol card & gift and then went out to dinner at a cozy local family restaurant where we got entirely too full to do anything else but park our asses in front of our computers and get the rest of Genshin's Lantern Rite event done. Since that took literal hours, that ended up being a sound decision.

On the subject of Genshin: C4 Illuga, absolutely no Neuvi copies for his constellation (I got Jean'd). But I did get that Melusine drip. Now it's time to stockpile for the disaster himbo, because Mondstadt is our home and we represent till we die.

We've been to the Wilderness resort a bunch of times before (we usually make it a point to go at least once a year), but this trip was exceptionally good. A few highlights and other things worth noting: - We kicked things off by trolling the local populace. Strolling into the park all decked out in full Bears merch the day after the Bears beat the Packers got a few Wisco-accented snarls directed at us. That's exactly the kind of reaction we were hoping for, and we got it. - The first thing we noticed is that they tweaked the water temperature of the lazy river and play areas to be a bit warmer, while the "hot springs" (a glorified hot tub) was dialed down a bit. However, being able to sit comfortably in a hot tub for two hours does not mean you should, and I damn near passed out. Sitting in the cooler waters of the Wild West area's swim-up bar to stave off heat exhaustion while watching reruns of Mama's Family has cemented itself as one of the stranger memories of the trip. - We rented a cabana in the Wild West area and ordered some pizza and pop to enjoy while we listened to the Chelsea vs Arsenal game. Arsenal won that game, which made the whole experience even better. - The downtown Dells is nearly dead during the winter --nearly all the shops are closed, the Ducks aren't running, etc-- but we still pop down there on the warmest day of the week whenever we make winter trips up there (and every time we hit up Swiss Maid Fudge for treats). We noticed a few of the old attractions both inside and outside the Dells area proper have been torn down, including some of the random smaller motels along the drive toward downtown, and the lazy river and slide outside the Polynesian (which looks like it's gone through some considerable downsizing). The Kalahari also looks like it's getting some huge expansion tacked onto it. What caught our eye was the new resort that's being built right across from that huge sandstone wall with all the chain restaurants like Dunkin and Culver's sitting in front of it. It's apparently called the Dellshire Resort, and this thing looks straight outta Mondstadt. We're already considering plans to go there for our next trip, whenever that is. ColossalCon is also a maybe since that's right in the Kalahari. - That Aquavia Lumina thing is like something out of the Pandora area of Disney World's Animal Kingdom. They did a fantastic job on that, especially with the interactive areas. My inner bird nerd was endlessly delighted by the Great Horned Owl hoots, Mourning Dove coos, Whip-Poor-Will trills, and Loon giggles. (I was still half expecting blue cat people to jump out at me from among the seas of LED lights right through the mist generated by the fog machines.) - The wave pool area was closed for renovations almost all week except for the last two days we were there, and we were glad to finally get in there even if it stunk of chlorine AND paint.