I HAVEN'T TALKED IN SO LONG, I HAVE WAY TOO MUCH TO SAY.
I guess this part is about my face and my fandoms, ahaha. :'D
SO, THIS IS WHAT I LOOK LIKE, I GUESS.
I always say it took me until the last few years to really grow into my face. Even though I'm not really cosplaying now, I think last year's intensive ARGH, CAMERAS, WAEEEE really helped. I got really sick of staring at my own face and for awhile, slightly obsessed with photoshopping the hell out of everything to slightly strange and terrifying ends. But now I don't care. It's my face, it's what it is.
I still think, in some way, I'd get plastic surgery if the opportunity came up and I didn't have to worry about the pain or the financial aspects. But that's one of the problems with being female - you're told not only that you should be pretty, but you can be pretty if only you change everything about yourself. And this isn't really a feeling that goes away.
I didn't shoot much this year, but here's a few photos from what I did. Nothing took longer than about eight hours to make if I even made it because I am so very lazy.
SOME SORT OF HOGWARTS THING, IDEK. I would have been a Ravenclaw, though.
Instead, I think I'm Pansy Parkinson, being LOCKED IN THE TRUNK OF A BRIGHT GREEN HATCHBACK.
School uniform Karina Lyle from Tiger and Bunny.
That is a glass Pepxi Next bottle because reasons.
Professor Green from Star Driver.
Funny story about this one, where we got kicked out of the underground parking lot where we wanted to shoot in and ended up in a different parking lot under the exhibition centre which had some sort of sporting convention going on. I'm still sad it wasn't SexPo because then we wouldn't have stood out.
School uniform Rei from NGE.
This photo amuses me to NO END /mean
Reiko from Natsume Yuujincho.
Because my dignity comes cheap, there's actually an MV from this shoot. Jesus.
Karuta from Inu x Boku SS
Tongari corn, imported from Hong Kong.
Black Cat
Bodysuit brigade!
Ms Marvel
The best thing about this weekend was the bright red superhero lipstick, no lie.
a stolen Liu Shan costume from DW7
We are actually bao. :3
Bonus!
A formal wear shoot a friend asked me to help out in. ;Db
IDK, maybe I'm finally growing out of needing to be validated by people telling me I'm pretty, while I'm wearing a metric fuckton of make-up and false hair and eyes. Like, really? REALLY? AM I ACTUALLY THAT SHALLOW. (yes. I really am, goddamnit, tell me I'm beautiful.)
The two comic book characters are a vast difference from my usual fare, but Melbourne held a comic convention for the first time in ever and I felt the need to dress the part. Lazily. Black Cat was literally double sided taped together because I could not be bothered using glue and about two sizes too big. Ms Marvel was made the night before, wearing borrowed gloves, and literally fell apart at the end of the day.
I've always said that it's never quite so much about what you're wearing as with the panache that you wear it. And even when I'm internally cringing from my own sleep-deprived face and doing my make-up exceedingly poorly on the train, cosplaying has taught me how to frount like a champ. Why, yes, I am fabulous, thank you very much.
My (male) group leader on the second day actually told me to get out of the costume contest sign up booth and go work frount-of-house, JUST TAKE OFF THE VOLUNTEER'S SHIRT AND GO BE SKIMPILY DRESSED UP AND DOWN THE LINE AND GO DISTRACT THE FANBOYS. Fuck you, misogyny in comics fandom, you're so alive and well.
(see also: Tony Harris' mouth-frothing hatred about female comics cosplayers and one of the better responses.)
This was also the year that I discovered ice hockey, which I love with a true and sincere sadism. People go thud a lot and the gifs that come out of that fandom are beautiful because hockey players are giant potatoes on blades.
Sometimes, the entire NHL forgets how to hockey at once and it is glorious.
There were matches on, in my city (our tiny little semi-pro national league :'D), the weekend of Comic Con and I was told very strongly by pretty much everyone that skipping out on my volunteer duties and showing up dressed as a superhero was not on.
;n; /sadness
My main new fandom: in a natural progression of my love of jpop for several long and traumatic years (I STILL HAVE SO MANY CDs AND A STRANGE, CONDITIONED LOVE OF CRAPPY ELECTROPOP WITH AWFUL, CONFUSING PVs), this was the year of discovering awful kpop.
I've actually been to Korea before. Just a few days, passing through on the tail end of my trip around Europe (but well, I spend a few days flittering around everywhere because I am that type of person. My travel list reads something like Hong Kong, Australia, China, Japan, the UK (England and Wales), Ireland, Slovenia, Austria, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Turkey, Korea, Macau, the Canary Islands, USA) but it was over the lunar new year when the entirity of Seoul shuts down and I ended on the outskirts of Seoul, up a mountain, at a Buddhist temple, doing zen meditation and eating the New Year's offerings. They gave me cheesecake. I love cheesecake.
I think all of my travels can generally be summed up as "I went here and it was strange but kinda cool, I guess, but I don't know why I did it."
But I wasn't into kpop then, which is probably a good thing because kpop fandom is fucking insane. I really love it but at the same time, I thought being a jpop fan was the height of crazy. No. It's not. You haven't even begun to touch crazy until you cross an ocean because the depths of love there are terrifying. They have a term for DERANGED STALKER FANS because it is so common. Half the male idols think that compulsory military service is a breeze after being out in idol bootcamp which is their years long training before debut. They live together in dorms. Half of them aren't allowed to have phones. It's stipulated in their contracts when they can date (age: 30+) and when scandal hits them, the backlash goes SO FUCKING OVER THE TOP TO THE POINT OF SUICIDE PETITIONS. I MEAN, WHAT. WHAAAT.
The idol industry has always fascinated me from when I was into jpop. Everything is so carefully manufactured and managed. More than Western music, you're really being sold a carefully crafted image and it's flawless, the frounts they present to their fans. The fantasy that they sell more than their actual music, the way they're so completely packaged. It's fascinating in a horrific way. And I know that the personality of each idol differs but, it's as equally unrealistic to expect them to be completely honest as it is to accuse them of being 100% fake.
Though I do kinda think of them as one big soap opera with unlimited amounts of canon material. *___* These humans, they're not quite real to me. THOUGH I DO LOVE THEM FIERCELY, IN A WAY. UH.
I'm going to leave you with some PVs that I feel encapsulate my love of the ridiculousness that is the kpop machine.
B1A4 (considering B2ST is pronounced 'Beast,' this one broke my brain a little trying to figure out how this could possibly be an actual word, but no. They're actually bee-one-aye-four.)
Catchy. But also, objectively awful. If you watch only one thing, LET IT BE THIS: Beautiful Target.
B.A.P (which stands for, no joke, Best Absolute Perfect ♥)
EVERYBODY SAY, 'HATE YOU!' ONE MORE SAY, 'HATE YOU!': Power.
Block B (they had a scandal which ended up with people SIGNING A PETITION FOR THEM TO COMMIT SUICIDE AND SENT ONE OF THEIR MEMBERS INTO THE HOSPITAL FOR A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN BECAUSE KOREA IS FUCKING INSANE)
The song that they wrote during their period of scandal-induced hiatus for self reflection: Nilili Mambo.
The song featuring their signature Gorilla dance and also, shirtflapping: Nalina (+ dance ver.)
EXO (the quintessential supergroup with 12 members, split into two subunits to move twice the volume of cds from obsessed fans)
The best use of engrish ever, bar nothing: MAMA Chinese | Korean
Girl's Day (I find it a little hard to connect with most girl's groups because they're so heavily sexualized that I end up feeling like an exploitative creep. But Girl's Day are actually insane.)
The one with the hardcore dance battle and the catchiest, most ridiculous chorus: Oh my god!
The one where love is a battlefield so it's best to sabotage the competition: twinkle twinkle
/sobs;;
Also, it's nice to be kinda part of a fandom again and start writing even though what I write is utterly terrible and I don't know how to make friends on tumblr. *________* LIKE, WHAT IS THAT THING, HOW DO I DEAL. HOW DO I STOP BEING FOREVER ALOOOONE /SOB
Next post: America~!
SO, THIS IS WHAT I LOOK LIKE, I GUESS.
I always say it took me until the last few years to really grow into my face. Even though I'm not really cosplaying now, I think last year's intensive ARGH, CAMERAS, WAEEEE really helped. I got really sick of staring at my own face and for awhile, slightly obsessed with photoshopping the hell out of everything to slightly strange and terrifying ends. But now I don't care. It's my face, it's what it is.
I still think, in some way, I'd get plastic surgery if the opportunity came up and I didn't have to worry about the pain or the financial aspects. But that's one of the problems with being female - you're told not only that you should be pretty, but you can be pretty if only you change everything about yourself. And this isn't really a feeling that goes away.
I didn't shoot much this year, but here's a few photos from what I did. Nothing took longer than about eight hours to make if I even made it because I am so very lazy.
SOME SORT OF HOGWARTS THING, IDEK. I would have been a Ravenclaw, though.
Instead, I think I'm Pansy Parkinson, being LOCKED IN THE TRUNK OF A BRIGHT GREEN HATCHBACK.
School uniform Karina Lyle from Tiger and Bunny.
That is a glass Pepxi Next bottle because reasons.
Professor Green from Star Driver.
Funny story about this one, where we got kicked out of the underground parking lot where we wanted to shoot in and ended up in a different parking lot under the exhibition centre which had some sort of sporting convention going on. I'm still sad it wasn't SexPo because then we wouldn't have stood out.
School uniform Rei from NGE.
This photo amuses me to NO END /mean
Reiko from Natsume Yuujincho.
Because my dignity comes cheap, there's actually an MV from this shoot. Jesus.
Karuta from Inu x Boku SS
Tongari corn, imported from Hong Kong.
Black Cat
Bodysuit brigade!
Ms Marvel
The best thing about this weekend was the bright red superhero lipstick, no lie.
a stolen Liu Shan costume from DW7
We are actually bao. :3
Bonus!
A formal wear shoot a friend asked me to help out in. ;Db
IDK, maybe I'm finally growing out of needing to be validated by people telling me I'm pretty, while I'm wearing a metric fuckton of make-up and false hair and eyes. Like, really? REALLY? AM I ACTUALLY THAT SHALLOW. (yes. I really am, goddamnit, tell me I'm beautiful.)
The two comic book characters are a vast difference from my usual fare, but Melbourne held a comic convention for the first time in ever and I felt the need to dress the part. Lazily. Black Cat was literally double sided taped together because I could not be bothered using glue and about two sizes too big. Ms Marvel was made the night before, wearing borrowed gloves, and literally fell apart at the end of the day.
I've always said that it's never quite so much about what you're wearing as with the panache that you wear it. And even when I'm internally cringing from my own sleep-deprived face and doing my make-up exceedingly poorly on the train, cosplaying has taught me how to frount like a champ. Why, yes, I am fabulous, thank you very much.
My (male) group leader on the second day actually told me to get out of the costume contest sign up booth and go work frount-of-house, JUST TAKE OFF THE VOLUNTEER'S SHIRT AND GO BE SKIMPILY DRESSED UP AND DOWN THE LINE AND GO DISTRACT THE FANBOYS. Fuck you, misogyny in comics fandom, you're so alive and well.
(see also: Tony Harris' mouth-frothing hatred about female comics cosplayers and one of the better responses.)
This was also the year that I discovered ice hockey, which I love with a true and sincere sadism. People go thud a lot and the gifs that come out of that fandom are beautiful because hockey players are giant potatoes on blades.
Sometimes, the entire NHL forgets how to hockey at once and it is glorious.
There were matches on, in my city (our tiny little semi-pro national league :'D), the weekend of Comic Con and I was told very strongly by pretty much everyone that skipping out on my volunteer duties and showing up dressed as a superhero was not on.
;n; /sadness
My main new fandom: in a natural progression of my love of jpop for several long and traumatic years (I STILL HAVE SO MANY CDs AND A STRANGE, CONDITIONED LOVE OF CRAPPY ELECTROPOP WITH AWFUL, CONFUSING PVs), this was the year of discovering awful kpop.
I've actually been to Korea before. Just a few days, passing through on the tail end of my trip around Europe (but well, I spend a few days flittering around everywhere because I am that type of person. My travel list reads something like Hong Kong, Australia, China, Japan, the UK (England and Wales), Ireland, Slovenia, Austria, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Turkey, Korea, Macau, the Canary Islands, USA) but it was over the lunar new year when the entirity of Seoul shuts down and I ended on the outskirts of Seoul, up a mountain, at a Buddhist temple, doing zen meditation and eating the New Year's offerings. They gave me cheesecake. I love cheesecake.
I think all of my travels can generally be summed up as "I went here and it was strange but kinda cool, I guess, but I don't know why I did it."
But I wasn't into kpop then, which is probably a good thing because kpop fandom is fucking insane. I really love it but at the same time, I thought being a jpop fan was the height of crazy. No. It's not. You haven't even begun to touch crazy until you cross an ocean because the depths of love there are terrifying. They have a term for DERANGED STALKER FANS because it is so common. Half the male idols think that compulsory military service is a breeze after being out in idol bootcamp which is their years long training before debut. They live together in dorms. Half of them aren't allowed to have phones. It's stipulated in their contracts when they can date (age: 30+) and when scandal hits them, the backlash goes SO FUCKING OVER THE TOP TO THE POINT OF SUICIDE PETITIONS. I MEAN, WHAT. WHAAAT.
The idol industry has always fascinated me from when I was into jpop. Everything is so carefully manufactured and managed. More than Western music, you're really being sold a carefully crafted image and it's flawless, the frounts they present to their fans. The fantasy that they sell more than their actual music, the way they're so completely packaged. It's fascinating in a horrific way. And I know that the personality of each idol differs but, it's as equally unrealistic to expect them to be completely honest as it is to accuse them of being 100% fake.
Though I do kinda think of them as one big soap opera with unlimited amounts of canon material. *___* These humans, they're not quite real to me. THOUGH I DO LOVE THEM FIERCELY, IN A WAY. UH.
I'm going to leave you with some PVs that I feel encapsulate my love of the ridiculousness that is the kpop machine.
B1A4 (considering B2ST is pronounced 'Beast,' this one broke my brain a little trying to figure out how this could possibly be an actual word, but no. They're actually bee-one-aye-four.)
Catchy. But also, objectively awful. If you watch only one thing, LET IT BE THIS: Beautiful Target.
B.A.P (which stands for, no joke, Best Absolute Perfect ♥)
EVERYBODY SAY, 'HATE YOU!' ONE MORE SAY, 'HATE YOU!': Power.
Block B (they had a scandal which ended up with people SIGNING A PETITION FOR THEM TO COMMIT SUICIDE AND SENT ONE OF THEIR MEMBERS INTO THE HOSPITAL FOR A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN BECAUSE KOREA IS FUCKING INSANE)
The song that they wrote during their period of scandal-induced hiatus for self reflection: Nilili Mambo.
The song featuring their signature Gorilla dance and also, shirtflapping: Nalina (+ dance ver.)
EXO (the quintessential supergroup with 12 members, split into two subunits to move twice the volume of cds from obsessed fans)
The best use of engrish ever, bar nothing: MAMA Chinese | Korean
Girl's Day (I find it a little hard to connect with most girl's groups because they're so heavily sexualized that I end up feeling like an exploitative creep. But Girl's Day are actually insane.)
The one with the hardcore dance battle and the catchiest, most ridiculous chorus: Oh my god!
The one where love is a battlefield so it's best to sabotage the competition: twinkle twinkle
/sobs;;
Also, it's nice to be kinda part of a fandom again and start writing even though what I write is utterly terrible and I don't know how to make friends on tumblr. *________* LIKE, WHAT IS THAT THING, HOW DO I DEAL. HOW DO I STOP BEING FOREVER ALOOOONE /SOB
Next post: America~!