Oh hey, I'm back!

And still hating social media, for sure, but tumblr is sort of coming to my rescue. It's a weird site now, on the whole, that is slowly slipping in ads between everything, and has added a "marketplace" and "live" category, which feels has such a meta/facebook/instagram fuckery flavor to it, like adding a shoe-shiner to a hot-tub.

Do they not understand that instead of trying to be like every other site, they could put that energy into improving the way their site works, which is what we expect and want? I don't go to tumblr thinking I need to "go live" or buy stuff. Nobody did, and yet...? Did they run a poll I don't know about, in which some Gen Z fucknuts said that yes, they need another site to do the same shit?

Whatever -- there is a community of young and older on tumblr for Labyrinth fans, and Pants-Magic-Pants has consistently been a blog with an audience where I can connect with them. They support my cosplay adventures and post absurd memes of David Bowie, along with other cool content, so I'm there for it. 

~ ~ ~

The costume is going well, despite at a snail's pace. The collar and back/inside pleats are what's left of the pattern to figure out, and I have an idea for the pleats that just needs to be tested out on a smaller scale. The collar also has a new draft that can be tested. If both of these work out, I'll have figured out all the problems and can finalize every piece of the outside, inner facing, and lining -- then, begin shopping fabric! Nevermind, I still cannot find metallic velvet to my liking. It'll come... some day... the right material will appear...

Being that I worked out the front and back pieces and sleeves, I was able to cut out the lace for the lapels and shoulders, which will be worked into some of the velvet's seams. It's very exact, you see. lol And since those were figured out, I have the exact boundaries I need within to do the "hot glue shenanigans" as I have been calling them. 

Yes, I have been elbow-deep in shenanigans.

Lookee, here!

 

One cuff, one lapel. I will have to do it twice, of course... so... many more hours left of work to go. It's a labor of love and appreciation of the costumes in this film, I guess. And so, so many other people have cosplayed Jareth, but I don't feel I've ever seen his ballroom ensemble done justice. I've seen incredible attempts by young cosplayers who I'm proud of for being so ambitious, who clearly are taking in the details as best they are capable, but just not something that's really otherworldly level detailed, accurate, and giving it that swampy, organic look that the actual coat has. It's amazing, and I'm going to try my best to replicate it, and bring Jareth to life at the ball later this year.

In other news, I just made the perfect poached egg.

And in other, other news... I'm not writing nearly as much this year as I would have hoped, and getting into a routine of doing it feels as hopeless as my dream to someday get regular exercise.

Well, off to watch the BBC Pride & Prejudice for the millionth time while I paint my nails. :D

-J

*sigh*

Hello hello helloooo...

I had a feeling that once this costume was finished, I was going to feel a gaping hole in its place, and I do, even though I mustn't. There are so many directions to go from here, it was just nice being so obsessed with something. It kept me so occupied, busy, and learning -- plus it boosted my self esteem. Making costumes is a lot of fun.

But those directions I'm talking about: the ones that I should go, I'm dragging my feet about. The ones I shouldn't, I'm more inclined.

Hatter's very first cosplay video was shot last week on this day, and edited a couple nights ago. Most of the footage was bloopers because I was flying by the seat of my pants, but it's so surprising and fun how fleshed out this became in post-production! lol



It'd be so fun to do more stuff like this, show him off, come up with more shenanigans, episode reenactment, build props for him (like his boysenberry phone). My friends seem to like it, too.

John also saw a photo I posted. He wrote "wowza!! and brava!!" and then was gone. Back right into the blue from which he came! Silly man. He's so busy, I know that if he really didn't like it, he would have just scrolled on and pretended not to have seen, so he must have liked it! I tagged him for the video, and I just pray he laughs. Laughter is one of the few things I can give back to him, after all his character (and he too on occasion) has given to me.

~ ~ ~

Anyway, the work week was plagued with migraines, so I took this weekend just to recuperate and didn't do much else. I took a nice, long bath with a cinnamon apple bubble bar. Last night, I had a restless little nap and woke up feeling exanimate. Didn't know who to talk to who would make me feel less alone, or stimulated. I hate when that happens.

Seems every time the holidays roll around, I want to whip out and replay Paper Mario, and sometimes also PM2: The Thousand Year Door. It's such feel-good nostalgia. And now I have memories of replaying it during the holidays which are also pleasant.

In general, I've felt this need while resting around this weekend to pick up things that I enjoyed once upon a time, to see if that same feeling would come back. Like, I remember when I was home on Winter Break in 2012 -- which jfc feels like it could be yesterday -- I would read another couple chapters of In the Shadow of the Dream Child, a Charles Dodgson biography. It was a fascinating read. Then later, I would go download more episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? using the clubhouse internet, then watch them with Jenna. Man, we loved that show. lol It was the perfect way to wind down. Then before I knew it Greg Proops was a character in our AU?!

A part of me thought of picking up that book just to return to that headspace... or rather, see if that headspace was still nestled between pages that have not been turned since that time.

Don't really understand why I want that time back so much. It was stressful in its own right, and there were many things I did without that I have now. I also don't know why I get all these migraines, but doc has finally been more useful and referred me to a neurologist, so we'll see.

The shortest explanation for why I've not updated in a little while is that I've had my nose in a sewing machine!

As I told a friend, it's like I've got a fever! And the only prescription is more cowbell costume sewing. I mean gee, I wish I could be this way about writing: wake up, get right to it, do it all day, make significant progress, go to bed satisfied and already devising my next steps. But that certainly doesn't happen.

( Lots of pretty pictures under here... )


Besides this costume? There is a *chef-kiss* beautiful lack of events in my life, and I have no problem with that. Nothing is going wrong. I'm more comfortable with work and everything that must be done there, I discovered that more CBD really helped, doc has me on a different triptan medication for migraines and it seems to work better, and the Boysenberry... also behaves. I love that car.

The license plates just arrived, too, so in due time, probably after Halloween, I will register for DoorDash and see what all that is about. See whether I can make some extra $$$.

I also got a raise - everybody did.

It's actually Autumn now, and it's pleasantly chilly, and all the delightful foods... Don't judge me, but I just eat the caramel sauce by itself. I bought the apples that go with it, but I find that they ruin the caramel because they're too tangy and watery, and to me it's not a good combination. lol So I eat a slice of apple by itself. Then I dunk my finger in the caramel. It's a thing that I do. I also slice up cheese, and instead of putting it on crackers, I eat a cracker and then a cheese, cracker, then a cheese. fff

Well, this entry is getting stupid now. Tata!,
🧡J

I'm not sure how, I'm not sure whyyy, but for my entire weekend I didn't get any migraines and had a surprising amount of energy. I also had an ability to focus and a genuine passion. Maybe the passion is what gave me the energy.

Anyway, I haven't followed my own advice about getting to projects that might bring me closer to a career. No, instead, I spent three days working on my AIW Hatter cosplay. 'Cause I just apparently really want this to be done by Halloween. Will it be, is another question because so far I've only ordered the fabric for the vest. Spoonflower otherwise doesn't have what I need. 

The work I've been doing, for months, is too much to go over right now, so I'll just talk about this weekend's project: the vest.

( Read more... )

Well, it's August of 2019, the dark before the dawn.

I've already  mentioned that this summer has been very mild, but I'm still looking forward to the Fall, and all the new kinds of inspiration that the season will bring. As far as He's There is concerned, I was wanting to do a photoshoot of the path Lily takes through the colorful foliage, where she finds "Erik"'s first notes tied to a tree branch. And also perfect his handwriting so I can fudge his notes and take some artsy sort of photos of them. One part crafting, one part photography -- both avenues of creativity I don't usually take. Jesse said he would help -- I mean just in general his and my heads are spinning over what we want to do together. We're ready to raid all the Halloween stores and get high off pumpkin spice candles and maybe try to shoot some creepy videos. He had an idea he was telling me about a few weeks ago.

We also cannot decide for the life of us what we're doing for Halloween. We are both people who have gone all out with our costumes before, so we must live up to everybody's expectations. It's just the things that seem most appealing to one are things that the other is lukewarm about. I'm getting the sense he particularly wants to try Count Orlok, and has for a while, and he asked me to be Ellen, and I was like... well... I've closet-cosplayed her before. She's alright. But, Jesse, you do understand how weird it would be for you to be Orlok and me to, well, not be Orlok but be standing right next to you. lmao He also thought I would be an adorable Harley Quinn but I'm not really drawn to cute-sexy costumes, even though I think he could be a realllly hot Joker...

Generally, when I wear a costume, it's one that allows me to break free of the expectations that come with being female, so I can be attractive in other ways, ways that men get to be attractive. They have a lot more options, and I feel a lot more freedom. Living as a woman is... just downright annoying sometimes, and my costumes are a little break from that. Jesse doesn't entirely wrap his head around this because he has never been a woman. lol He loves my costumes, though. It's just he also thinks I'm hot and wants his hot girlfriend being hot on his arm - I get it I get it. It's not like my ideas aren't putting him in the "hot boyfriend on my arm" position. I wanted him to be Gomez Addams. hahahaha To which he responded "ah."

On the subject of costumes and cosplay...

Man, do I lament that my wallet was hit so hard this past year.

+ My work informed me I didn't have dental insurance and couldn't apply a couple months early, so I spend $1700 on a root canal.
+ My Airbnb in Japan cost $1000, round trip plane tickets $700, general spending while I was there $500.
+ It also cost $1700 to get a new generator among other things for my car.

(Some of this, my mother paid for, with the expectation of me paying her back. Hell no, I was not sitting on over $5,000 in my bank account.)
It was already looking bad, but the car needing fixed is what really had me concerned and sad, that I would be making such competitive rates where I work and still hardly be able to save back up. Doing the math, I realize that I've been spending a bit more than I make each month. So my cosplay is on the back-burner, I haven't gotten my hair done, and sometimes I'm guilty just for buying food. (Looking at the receipt, I'm just like WHY were my groceries so much...?! This isn't even a lot of stuff!)

The bottom line: it costs money, sometimes, to be creative! And nobody is commissioning me. I did order business cards, though! Will post pictures when they arrive.

Hm... anything else I failed to bitch about? Plotting for HT is taking a long while. *nods*

-J

I may just have to accept that I don't have the attention span to journal the way that I used to. I will be the type that disappears, reemerges, disappears, reemerges... but I do enjoy my time here. :) It's not a chore at all.

Oh! It looks like I only was gone for 20 days, though -- that's not so bad. Really, life has just been a continuation + a realization.

The continuation part:

Still a lot of Twitter, kanji study, digital and traditional artwork (like I'm actually surprised my art supplies are being used again.) I got back to my sewing machine and actually finished a great majority of one of my Kurama cosplay costumes!

(Low quality snapshots for now)

Crazy to think this is a 90% clothes cosplay, and I have no wig or contacts, even if the over-exposure made me look radioactive? ahaha Anyway, the costume: it's a Chinese dress that was altered and added trimming. It took a few weeks to finish, and I kept getting headaches + having my ongoing fatigue problem. So, with all complicated projects, I have to chip away with patience and forgiveness to myself. There are pictures of my Kurama taken with my Canon Rebel t5i (which Twitter & Tumblr have enjoyed! Bless them!) but I think I will save posting about that for another time soon. My friend Evie has agreed to take some photos of me this weekend, outside! Amongst the flowersssss. God, I hope those turn out well. I don't know how well she handles a camera and I'm nervous about going outside and been seen in my cosplays! lol

Anyhooooo, all the Japan peeps had their Yuuhaku Only event which seems to have been epic and geeky. All the Yu Yu Hakusho love. <3 <3 <3 Tomoko went alone and was nervous about it, but it turned out she had a lot of fun and seems to be devising a possible comic she can share at the next event (in November.) She also made some nice acquaintances, it looks like, which is good because I was starting to worry that she was living kind of isolated, despite wanting to make friends. She's so sweet.

Her manner online and in person is so different, though. I lost my shit when she posted a little video the other day. She is supposed to be 40 next month, looks and sounds like a brooding 16-year-old boy, and has a pretty flat speaking style, yet online her communication style is so warm and bombastic. I tagged her the other day in a post and it was like she'd crashed through a window so we could spray heart emojis at each other. ;DDD

Also, I sent her back a package, yesterday! For ridiculous shipping prices that I don't want to talk about! It cost her the equivalent of $2 to ship me a small package through Japanese services -- that is not what it cost me through greedy American services, let's leave it there.

She was trying to ask me about it last night, though, and after a long day working and having to do adult things (EW, post offices and grocery stores!) I found that I just didn't have the vocabulary to explain details about shipping / looking for shipping, and it lead to a little snag in an otherwise good conversation. My foreign language skills and ability to react just go down the drain if I'm not energized, so I told her I could sense how limited my responses seemed (although she disagreed and seems to always understand me!) I also said that it was frustrating, to be thinking a lot of stuff in English that I can't yet convey in Japanese. As a writer, I don't like pruning my thoughts down to nubs: I like to be on-point, detailed, nuanced, etc. She kind of took it as maybe I wished my Twitter friends could just speak English, and told me that she wondered what it could be like if she could speak English, and I was like "nooo no noooo, the last thing I want to do is speak English with my Japanese friends." The fact that I can't is why I've grown, I just want to grow faster and communicate at higher levels. I don't want her to feel like she's talking to a child. It's also gnawing at me a bit that I can understand a lot more than I can say, yet I'm not retaining grammatical structures that make sense while reading so I can use them for myself. Do intelligent people retain more of this by now?

Otherwise the night was really good. My mom and I nearly fell asleep watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She just HAD to know what happened past the cliff-hangers so before we knew it we had watched four episodes past her bedtime. Meanwhile, I had a matcha latte and sushi for dinner. ;D That was fun. 

So yeah, that's the continuation part. But I've got two sections to my life: my actual life and work. And yeah, I don't see my work as part of my life. It's like my life is on hold there; it's a significant chunk of time I wish I could sleep through or otherwise fast forward.

The realization part: 

I don't want to keep doing what I'm doing, the way I'm doing it. Time has already slipped by since I graduated. I'm getting complacent living what would be my worst nightmare back when I was younger. I hella respect people who are in food service, and I understand that for some it is very meaningful to work with food and people, but that's not me. What I care about and am good at it isn't being nurtured at work, it's just mind-numbingly boring, to the point I'm sneaking my tablet into the department so I can play Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery in between tasks. I only really look forward to a few social interactions. 

After a particularly frustrating shift that started with migraine auras, I sat down and did the math. I have recently gotten a raise, and I wondered what I would be making if I worked only four days a week. My mother decided out of the blue that she wanted to pay back the rest of one of my loans which had a very high interest rate. I had also been hearing from coworkers that they would be all about it if I started an art blog, that they had shown people my art who were interested in commissioning me if I ever was open to it... I came to find that after all of that I could work four days a week and only need to earn an extra $60 a month in supplement income. I've made more than that doing a single illustration. 

So I asked for four days! They made sure to warn me the hours I give up might not be available again if I change my mind (which I question because of the turn-out rate in our department recently), but whatever, I can't keep doing what I'm doing. I'm ready to blow my brains out, here. Anyone I've talked to about this thinks it's a good idea. Al and I already brainstormed little business cards and having a corresponding portfolio website. 

It's my only little way of doing something I love for a living. No film studio will hire me even to make coffee runs. My BA with honors is meaningless. I'm too tired to finish this bloody book because by the time I've rested and run errands on my weekends, it's back to the work week. 

Man, I talk a lot. There's the scoop. I will let ya'll know if my request is actually granted soon on the new schedules. 

ALSO, I NEED TO MAKE AN ART POST? 

-J

I must admit that I'm very behind with my friends list here, but will go on posting anyway. The funny thing about LJ is that one can love it and love being in the habit of engaging with it, but it's also daunting because of the effort and time that goes into doing just that. My only way of getting back to journaling like I want to right now is to ease in, so I start with actually documenting my life, then I will get back to keeping up with all of yours!

This certainly can't be true, and after being tested numerous times I know it isn't, but sometimes in these last few weeks I have felt that I could skip my antidepressants and feel just fine. Still, I wonder how easy it would be to find an article backing the concept that being consistently creative and satisfied with what you create releases those chemicals that us depressed folk are so lacking most of the time. Having something to work on and obsess about sort of affects my whole day, too -- I mean I was a rockstar at work yesterday. I keep getting complimented for putting in my all and having a good attitude. I don't like when people mind my attitude, but it's still nice to hear that it's good vs. that it's too bitchy (which I have heard back when I was deep in health issues and not being acknowledged for that...) I get things done a little more often. I fold my mother's laundry since she hates doing it.

I'm in this weird little standstill at the moment, though. All on the same day, a bunch of important things for my cosplay came together -- three people I had been waiting on for items I couldn't find anywhere else wrote back to me!!! - and now I'm waiting for them to either be produced or shipped. I finally found the perfect shoes, but they're needing to be sent from China. I found a good tuxedo shirt, but it runs so small that the one I got didn't fit so we've been in the process of exchanging. I found the closest possible vest to Joker's but the man is taking his time to ship it out. The bow tie shop on Etsy somehow never received my first message but has now gotten all my information about a custom order and will start on it soon. I forked over $200 for a replica cane that will take 3-4 weeks.

So now I'm just waiting for all these awesome things to arrive in the mail, meanwhile struggling to figure out how to overcome the biggest problems with my cosplay: how I'm going to hide my hair, whether there's a quality and accurate wig I can purchase after all, and how I'm going to hide my eyebrows effectively. So far the way that I do it looks like crap in person. Liquid latex is on its way; I'm gonna try that soon. Also, I have a wig shop lead.

I must say, I feel weird focusing so intently on this with the year heading towards its final months, a time when I thought my second draft of HT would be finished. When glancing at Sierra Boggess' instagram, which I have neglected to keep up with, I also see that I could be using it as motivation right now, if only I had the drive and vision to keep writing. She has moved to Paris. She is learning French, learning the musical in French. The woman's fearless and has poured so much of her life into playing Christine, and now there she is soaking up the story in the language it was written, in the language the characters spoke it in. It's pretty cool.

Yeah... I don't know what to do. Maybe when I get home from school today I will go marinate in all her posts and try to find that special trigger that gets me back. It was her that started all the writing earlier this year: maybe she can do it for me again. ;)

But yes! School! I GO TO SCHOOL AGAIN NOW. Gotta blowdry my hair and get out of here!

♥,
J

Hey ya'll,

I'm so neglecting my LJ, and if not to you then I must apologize to myself about that. I guess the things that I want to talk about lately just aren't well portrayed on this site, or I know they wouldn't be interesting to anyone but the Suicide Squad fandom. Still down that rabbit hole and will not be coming out any time soon. lol

I've made a lot of improvements on my cosplay, went on a few shopping adventures, and spent more money than I'd anticipated, but I still can't figure out why. It's already a given that the character I'm cosplaying has been hacked up by editing and mostly left on a cutting room floor, so is my blind passion and headcanonning (yes, I'm turning that into a verb) really propelling all this effort? I especially wonder this since Orlok never made it past the effort needed to show him on a low resolution webcam.

Here's my guess: this is how I would have been with Orlok, if I hadn't been swamped with schoolwork and living financial aid check to financial aid check. I was poor, stressed, and depressed. I could throw in that the Nosferatu "fandom" is not alive and kickin' like the Suicide Squad one is, but we all know I put astronomical amounts of care into things that will be covered in cobwebs in due time *coughcough*The AIW website*coughcough*...

No, but really, it's been fun. Maybe that's what I'm spending the money and time on: having a mission and feeling supported in it. Having little increments of success come your way because you worked for it and were patient and dedicated. I think I will shock myself and everyone else when this thing comes together, even if my progress is on tumblr for all to see. There are close to 170 followers now; that's pretty cool. And they're all nice and encouraging. New stuff is still surfacing so we are always excitedly passing it around. They released a collector's edition of the film score, Margot Robbie is hosting SNL in a week, and she is also creating a spinoff film about Harley Quinn which means probably MOAR JOKER! :DDD

But, as to be expected, I did get my first anon hate... I was asked why I choose to cosplay an abuser. I had many responses running through my head. I wanted them to answer their own question. I wanted to point out that discouraging me from doing something I enjoy that isn't hurting anyone is worse than anything a fictional character does to another fictional character. I also wanted to post a bunch of pictures of awesome cosplays of villains or monsters, with variant questions. "Why would you cosplay Jafar, someone who turns himself into a genie and enslaves the world?!" "Why are you Dracula? He's always killing people!" "Of all the characters, you had to choose Austin Powers? HE'S A WOMANIZER. I GUESS YOU SUPPORT WOMANIZATION." But I didn't say anything because I do not believe in spreading negativity, and I think that anon's mind was closed. Nothing I could say would get them or anyone similar to act with more respect. Plus, I think as your site traffic grows, you... you don't exactly owe anything to anyone, but you have more of a chance to cheer people up and inspire them, which I bet members of this fandom need, given how often they are criticized, and how often it's insecurity that fuels their obsession for the characters... I don't want to remind them that there are discouraging assholes out there, and I especially don't want to have/be seen having my feathers ruffled by them. They don't deserve to see that I noticed them. I want them to see me having a rockin' time doing something I'm good at.

Anyhoo... that's where my head is right now... I wish I could say that I could split it into two subjects, but He's There is just lying around, and whenever I go to work on it, I reread what I wrote, find problems with it, and then am too tired to actually write new scenes. It's a vicious cycle. A really stupid and lazy one, too.

*shrug*

♥,
J