#tbh i might redo the video there are some weird things in it

[transpotato5]

IM BACK

[nathank77]

4/28/24

6:32 a.m edited/added to

I gamed until like 4 a.m and I lost a 40 minute video that thank God I didn't save so I can redo it. I was online, sometimes I feel like I'm being sabotaged tbh.. but I'm not allowed to feel that way bc I have psychosis....

It's funny cause most of my best videos when I streamed on twitch would have, "muted audio," I'd have to appeal for copyright and other issues like disconnections and weird glitches. It's the reason I stopped streaming. It was a major problem and I lost many good videos bc of it.

And since I've been recording muted audio for copyright isn't an issue cause technically I can record American dad or something it would just need to be credited on YouTube.

Although I've been recording offline bc I feel like someone sabotages me. I forgot to go offline when i was recording that 40 minute video and bam the video disappeared. Funny how that works if I had saved I wouldn't be able to complete my chapter 5 playthrough of Bully bc it would have been missing 2 missions and I'm making videos chapter by chapter with all main and non-storyline missions complete.

I hate psychosis. I have to say it was just a mishap... but once I started recording offline I haven't had any issues.. I do feel sabotaged.

My trans channel is taking off. Getting hundreds of views a day and if one day that happens to my gaming channel I'll blow up with the quality of my content. Yet I can't believe that being online might be the reason.

I'm annoyed but at least I didn't save and can redo those two missions and piece together my whole playthrough of chapter 5.... I only have like 6 more missions before I can put it together and post the complete playthrough... I wish I could have finished it tonight.

Anyways, the shoes didn't fit any better but I still got to fuck with them a little but I might as well return them. I could use the money and loosening them doesn't seem to do anything...

Also do I believe elise is here? I can't bc of psychosis another reason i Hate it. I can't allow myself to be delusional at all. I need facts about everything..

Anyways- after I gave up on my video and decided to do it tomorrow, I changed all my, "made for kids," videos to adults as I lost that SH2 Maria video due to some uptight parent who reported it and I can't get it back. I have to remake it when I had 20 hours of view time on it... I'm not willing to risk losing any more videos to some stupid asshole of a parent. I work too hard on them between trying to be perfect and waiting hours to piece them together....

The only videos I left as made for kids was the minecraft video cause fuck it if someone reports it for some reason or another. It sucks cause made for kids can really get my views up but I can't lose another amazing video I make. I invested a good 10 hours in that Maria video and its fucking gone. I learned my lesson. Not to mention if I for example get one more community strike I'm not allowed to post any videos for a long time.

Anyways as I was adding tags to my new videos and changing my made for kids videos back to adults only, my hallucination was driving me fucking crazy. It was awful and tbh idk how much longer I can live like this.

If youre here Elise, I noticed something. When I tried to load your Instagram from my Mac it had that, "couldn't load page," thing.. then I tried from my phone and it was loading...

The night I thought you were deactivated as some sort of invitation, I checked many times on my Mac and then my phone. They both said couldn't load page.... and then when I made the post about it, 20 minutes later I could load your page.. so idk if I disrespected you...

I question everything, are you here? Did you really deactivate your account or was it something with safari/google/meta? I can't trust anything bc of psychosis. Until you reach out to me I'm going to write about you until I move on... and I'm going to have no idea if you're really here or not.

[rigelmejo]

march - just some thoughts

i have read more this month than any other month? and its not slowing down its only 3/12 so i have 2/3 of a month to go and i’ve read 26 chapters. even if these chapters are ‘short’ at 10 pages, if i wanna count by ‘20 page’ chunks i’ve still read 13 chunks so far. and i’ve still got more time in the month left. most other months i’ve managed to read ‘a lot’ i read 10-20 chapters. so i’m doing really good.

grammar is a weird thing? in reading i feel like its quite easy now to understand. when listening or watching - same. and yet if asked ‘why do i say/type X’ or ‘why is it written/spoken like X’ i have absolutely no explanation in my head. i could not explain the grammar if prompted. this puts me in a weird place and i feel like i SHOULD go over a grammar guide again just so i can WORD what i’m intuitively understanding.

this is a bit bizarre to me because within the first 6 months of study i DID read through an entire grammar guide just to get an idea of what i was about to look at, and it hardly made sense once actually reading/watching/listening. i understood the guide fine, but actually Seeing chinese i was still confused. i would reference AllSetLearning’s Chinese Wiki on some basic points, then after 6 months i just stopped. now its been what 1.5 years and - reading is so easy, listening is so easy, grammar wise. none of the grammar confuses me. but i no longer ‘explicitly’ have any idea what the fuck the grammar is. i used to. i studied it explicitly before trying to read/listen. and yet now that i can read/listen, i have no idea how to explain the grammar. i can listen to a podcast and i don’t think about what the grammar is i just get it. i read and just know what i’m looking at. its like english - i cannot fucking explain it. Which makes speaking/writing a bit hard. Because when i try to check if i’m right i have no fucking clue HOW anymore - i just say/write what comes to mind and HOPE it makes sense. i have no way to conciously check for errors except ‘does this feel right’? And that’s not good enough for me lol. So I definitely do need to eventually read a grammar guide for explicit explanations again.

Technically I think “English and Chinese Grammar Side By Side” grammar book would be an excellent one to use. Because i read the first 50 pages of it and it compared it to english (so it explained english too), and it was very easy to understand and started basic then got more involved. 

I’m probably gonna use my very old Chinese Grammar Self Taught by Thimm book instead. Just because I really like that book. Then I guess use another after (probably Basic Chinese Sentence Patterns since its modern and perfect for ‘catch your own mistakes’ study and much shorter than Eng+Chinese Grammar side by side). 

Anyway I’m in a very weird place right now lol. I know i’m understanding grammar that is stuff I never even studied initially in the grammar guide, but unable to explain what it is, and a lot of stuff i did explicitly study in a grammar guide i completely forgot the explanation for. My reading and listening is GREAT, because all my effort only has to go into learning new words lately! its relaxing! Its the only part i need to do! But my writing/speaking i am very concerned about because being able to check myself for mistakes is something i’d like the ability to do.

how grammar is presented really makes a difference in how well i get it. there is some serious benefit to ‘show simple first then build up what you know’ that text books tend to prefer. versus like grammar reference books that may start with some in depth stuff.

i tried to read a japanese grammar guide the other day and 1 it was great but 2 it covered some ADVANCED stuff i never learned in genki 1+2, and so it was Explicit grammar description of stuff i had literally years ago been immersing in japanese and Still not conciously known about. So i felt. Overwhelmed lol. I felt so confused. I feel like I might switch to Tae Kim’s grammar guide primarily just because its structured with basics covered first. and i feel like until the basics are again glued into my brain, seeing even more advanced stuff just confused me so much i had no idea how to remember it. which is funny because? my usual strategy with grammar guides is to just read it and let what sticks stick and what is confusing be moved on from, in the hope i will later see it again and understand it better. so like based on what i usually do i should’ve just been able to read through it (and i’m gonna try anyway lol). but truly japanese grammar just... my mind does not like wrapping around it and remembering it. (chinese grammar is so much easier for me... so much easier....;-; )

i have been tempted to just Restart Nukemarine’s LLJ (Lets Learn Japanese) memrise decks, because I KNOW they worked for me last time really really well. And they include Tae Kim grammar lessons. And I know if i did it then maybe i’d get back to where i was years ago pretty fast.

I tried Earthlingo app. Its a cool idea, I don’t think its worth it though unless you planned to get Rosetta Stone (since Earthlingo is FREE). Earthlingo features 1000 words per language, taught to you by exploring video game worlds as an alien. Its a cool concept, but since all words seem to be nouns then you aren’t even learning the most common verbs/adjectives. And 1000 words is not a lot. And you could learn 1000 quite fast if using srs flashcards like Memrise or Anki (think weeks if you push yourself, and a month or two months if going at a regular pace). Earthlingo you have to slowly explore the worlds so that eats time, you have to choose to test yourself (so you don’t review nearly as often as flashcard apps), and one test includes walking around the world clicking the object which you’re given the word for (takes time to find the right object). All this means a word that might take maybe 15 minutes to study over a few weeks, might instead take much longer to study and learn. I don’t use duolingo because it generally covers so few words (usually 2000-4000 i think which is good for a beginner resource but you have to do the WHOLE course to get to all those words and i take so long on duolingo that could take YEARS for me versus a month on a flashcard app or clozemaster). Duolingo I also don’t use because it very slowly paces learning material (it takes me months/years to get through 1000 words on duolingo - just personally i go so slow on it, i think faster people would find a use for it). Likewise Lingodeer takes me AGES to get through (and i think covers 2000 words nowadays? I’m shocked Duolingo has more words for the japanese course tbh). However, Lingodeer is by far the best ‘app’ for Japanese grammar lessons in app practice form. Even if basically all the apps feel pretty slow to me in how fast they give you new info. Earthlingo is cool that its free, and for learners 12 and under i think it would be super useful as a way to engage them and keep them studying (since what child likes flashcards? whereas as a child i would’ve loved this). But as an adult Earthlingo is sooooo slow on how fast you can learn words, and it does not even offer very many words (1000 is a nice bare minimum but without verbs/adjectives it can only be a supplementary learning tool for beginners at best).

Link about Lingodeer having 2000 words in a course. (Since its SO hard to lookup how much vocabulary lingodeer includes :c )

Nukemarine’s LLJ memrise decks (which I’m considering going through again but ToT agh flashcardssssss.... they sure do work though agh)

http://www.chinese-grammar.com/beginner/ - this is the site I read a chinese grammar guide on at like Month 3. I am rereading it now maybe it will help me remember wtf grammar explicitly is. ToT (A tip, read Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced sections). Last time I visited the site you just clicked a section, then saw each fully explained grammar point and clicked ‘next’ it was nice. Now its laid out a little less ideal for me, but its still got all the same nice info! (Also honestly if you are a beginner I really DO like this grammar guide... it introduces basic info first, gradually gets more complex, and i could follow its logic knowing like 200 hanzi and 100 words ToT. its very easy to understand even if it takes a while to apply that info).

im probably gonna read hanshe more today. i’m at the point where either i know enough vocab, or the writers style has just ‘clicked’ idk. but now i just am not getting bogged down by unknown words and am just. speeding through enjoying the plot. Also rip me this novel has 155 chapters and im only on chapter 30.

watching japanese lets plays is really fun! i feel like im 3 years old cause i just see nouns i can learn pretty easy in context cause i know the game well, and hear some vaguely familiar verbs, but its fun! also it helps i know kingdom hearts 2 like by heart so. a lot of it makes me instantly cheerful and nostalgic. roxas’s voice is so cute in the japanese version.

oh i almost forgot: I found a book recently for chinese that for it’s like 10 page grammar guide summary at the beginning ALONE i think is more than worth the 4 dollars it costs to get. It has a ton of compound words and its a reference book in mandarin and cantonese (it has pronunciation for both, all characters are in traditional). I got it initally because it as a bunch of compound words and I’d like to get better at knowing a lot of common ones. But the intro to the book has a page explaining sentence structures in chinese, then examples. Its so straightforward and to the point. I love it. The book is “Understanding Chinese: A Guide to the Usage of Chinese Characters” by Rita Mei-Wah Choy. (There is also a companion book for individual hanzi, which is nice but this book specifically I’m finding more useful).

what i really like about Listening-Reading method, and reading, as study activities: no matter how I do them it is only improvement. I have a tendency to ‘redo’ material i don’t feel i fully mastered, or refuse to move on. So when i have duolingo, flashcards (sometimes i can move on if i ignore reviews/make myself do new stuff), books, grammar guides, self guided classes - i have a tendency to redo the material. over and over. and not progress and challenge myself. whereas with reading - every time i look up a word its useful because its new or something i clearly Need to review (not something i’ve actually learned and can move past reviewing). so whether i reread material or read new stuff, as long as i run into things i find somewhat challenging (feel the desire to word look up), i know i am running into new material i can learn. Same with listening-reading method: whether i finish a book or just skip to random books, any new chapter i do will give me new words to learn/remember (until i’ve reached a point of perfect listening comprehension which is a WAYS away). There’s no way for me to mess it up. I can give up a book im bored with, i don’t have to stick to one resource to the end. 

someone tell me why professionally made chinese audio books almost NEVER line up to the chapters???? whyyyyy ;-;

Even More Notes lol:

So I read so much in Pleco, which auto pronounces, I have COMPLETELY forgot. 得 地 - for these two, when they’re attached after a description like 淡淡 慢慢 高兴 etc, when are they pronounced di versus de???? i’m pretty sure  得 is pronounced de when its an adjective like ‘-ly’. but for  地, i don’t remember if when part of a describer if its pronounced di or de????

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y’know the one thing I hated while I was doing my arts degree, and still hate after having graduated from it, is the condescending statement/belief from people that “oh why didn’t you just do a more useful degree like maths or science???? and not your useless bullshit mickey mouse arts degree, which was never intended to give anyone jobs outside of teaching, anyway!” or some other horrendous bullshit, such as: “why didn’t you just stay with communication & media studies and complete the marketing & PR major???? you would’ve had a job after all of the unpaid internships you do throughout the course!” or whatever. (media and communications is abbreviated to m&cs further down in this post, just an fyi).

but, meredith. do you know that even people with science & maths degrees struggle to find meaningful work that’s related to their degrees? do you know that some of those people will turn to teaching anyway just because they feel like there’s nothing else that they can do??? do you know that some people (mainly me and probably quite a few others) just can’t handle maths past like idk year 6 level??? I would’ve been completely and utterly fucked if I even tried to set foot in first year uni science or maths subjects. even though some of the content did interest me.... (also there’s the fact that my handwriting wasn’t good enough for diagrams etc etc in maths & science- but that’s a whole other topic not for this post).

like I had to totally skip out of psychology/sociology and even the PR major, bc they required you to do statistics subjects.... where no matter what level of study I would’ve/could’ve done for those subjects, i would’ve still failed them spectacularly because my mind really struggles with processing and working with numbers. but that’s besides the point.

hey earl, do you know some people simply do not suit particular fields of “real world” or “practical” study areas like business subjects? trust me. I tried that one sem of marketing 101 and intro to management/ business communications in first year. and you know what I found? that my mind just could not take the complete and utter dryness of the content of marketing theory and, again, numbers. and that’s despite the earnest encouragement of my tutor, who thought I had a knack for marketing. i literally almost fucking died in that business communications subject... even though the lecturer seemed to like me as well. but as i thought further ahead into my degree in comms & media, i dreaded it. I absolutely fucking dreaded it. the PR stuff sounded as equally dry & boring (besides the point that every project was group work lmao) and so did upper level marketing subs in advertising/marketing strategy/various fields of marketing etc etc. i couldn’t stomach that lmao. and besides the point, the analysing of media just bored the fuck out of me too, for some reason. I just didn’t like the subject. hell, even my advanced diploma in marketing from business college was a fucking hard slog for me.

but when i sat in my english, philosophy, (kind sorta) history and -further down the track- creative writing subjects.... I fucking loved them. I was writing like I’d always wanted to. okay yes I did get pretty dismal marks in most of my philosophy and english exams or assignments. but I don’t fucking care. I was there doing what my mind was built for. if id tried another business subject, like intro to economics or even gone back to redo that “intro to management”/“business communications” (or whatever it was called) as an elective/as electives, i probably would’ve dropped out of either of them in the first 2 weeks. whenever i read those subject descriptions, they literally put me to sleep.

also, for the media and comms point. do you know that there’s loads of media & comms students that don’t get jobs because there’s just such a HUGE intake of students in those courses??? do you know that that the most popualr field in that degree stream (at least when I started that degree at my local home uni in 2015) was journalism & professional writing??? where literally EVERYONE was aiming to be a journalist????

I was one of the very, very few people when I began in media and comms, to outwardly say that she was there to do marketing or maybe the marketing & PR double major.... and everyone looked at me as if I was insane. “why don’t you want to be a journalist? I think journalism is so cool and that I’m more likely to get a job in that than you are in marketing or PR. you actually engage with real people in journalism and do meaningful stuff with the community!” was one of the utterly dumb responses I sometimes got from people in that course, when I told them the above. but you know what kelsey, or, trent? neither one or any of us are “more likely” to get jobs in media & comms... when you’re both competing against people with “proper” straight journalism degrees who might have more media experience than you- if you didn’t do an internship or do some uni newsroom/magazine or whatever.... or maybe more streamlined (if that’s the right word) media &comms degrees.... as well as generally competing against each other, in the same field, for the fucking same exact jobs. while im competing against commerce students doing marketing and PR and people doing the PR & marketing major in m&cs.

also in relation to the above, doing multiple unpaid or even severely underpaid internships in journalism, or even marketing, probably won’t fucking secure your chance of getting a bloody job, adam. just shut the fuck up. those internships may have helped you. but they most likely won’t help most people, theresa. because there’s only a tiny freakin chance that the place that they worked for will actually give them a guranteed job at the end of their internship’s timeframe or at the end of their whole degree. it’s a fucking scam lmao.

and plus, (not to be as rude as you were to me).... but why the FUCK would you want to go into journalism.... when it’s been debased so fucking much by media outlets like buzzfeed; writing nothing but clickbait bullshit listicles.... and is polluted by internet virality.... so much so, that more than half of the people my course had the career goal of being a viral youtuber or an instagram influencer???? like i’m sorry. this is a dumb asf course, no matter the field you’ve chosen to study.... and there’s no way that a single one of you will be a successful viral youtuber or an instagram influencer???? what on fucking earth led you to believe that????

like no offence. but there’ll only be a lucky, lucky, lucky few who get to be the next jennamarbles, ray william johnson, pewdiepie, lily singh, tanya hennessy, jeffree star, james charles, etc etc.... or hell, even friendlyjordies (if you want some satire & politics). and for instagrammers.... idek know them. someone list some instagrammers lmao. but my point still stands.

being an influencer or youtuber- both with huge followings- is a fucking pipe dream- as much as me being a hugely successful author is. it only goes to the insanely lucky, lucky few who have the right connections and the right digital savviness/finesse to grow to be uber successful.... or who started super early, before it was even considered a job title (like jenna mourey/marbles and ray william johnson listed above, and several others not listed who have big fan followings on here) and eventually grew to be the first original titans of the youtuber job title.

or again, they already have some type of other successful media career (like tanya hennessy is an aussie radio announcer. jeffree star had a short lived myspace music career in the late 000s mostly, and made cameos in emo music videos and LA ink at the time also, for example) so that they can successfully fund their youtube channels and/or instagrams as side projects or whatever, as part of their media portfolio.... and they also know how to engage and grow follower bases etc. because they already have an existing one. so it’s twice as easy for them.

tbh i actually entered the m&cs course bc of my use of this hellsite and all the weird trends it had and stuff.... but I eventually got over that as I realised that I just did NOT fit into that field of study. I realised I was too shy... and I also just hated the fact that I had to learn how to use twitter and wordpress and probably eventually snapchat & instagram 😂

i had also gotten sick of follower counts and “growing a following”- considering that by 2015, I’d hit over 3,000 followers on here, I think.... and I realised just what energy and time it took to build this blog.... and my followers.... that I just didn’t have the energy to expend on other platforms for the same thing lmao. like it seemed like more wasted time. I was tired. in addition to that, i also realised that i didn’t want to waste my whole fucking career on the internet worrying over a business’s/company’s multiple corporate social media channel follower counts and image etc.... when i’d done enough of that for myself on this hellsite lmao. doing that stuff with other students in the m&cs course seemed fake asf, especially when it came to giving feedback comments etc lol.

but do you know that one place where you don’t have to give a flying fuck about followers, post views/comments, and blog views? philosophy and english. lmao 😅. no one gives a fuck what you say. unless, of course, you have the evidence and the force of argument to back your pov up. that’s what I was about and am still about. I loved reading and analysing the many books I had to read (contrary to the complaint posts that I made on here lmao)- whereas learning about media and who owned what and how media is manufactured- just made my brain freeze. and although I didn’t do my readings in philosophy (lmao)- i enjoyed a good bulk of the content I had and the issues it involved. doing media & journalism subjects in the m&cs degree, on the other hand, terrified me, bc it meant I had to get in front of a camera and speak- which also scared me bc i look & sound terrible on camera lmao 😂. but I didn’t have to do that almost throughout the entirety of my arts degree (im obvs not counting class presentations in this lol). but do you get my point???

and also the teaching comment. don’t get me wrong, i know a good bunch of people go into teaching after their arts degrees... including many of my friends; and a load of the people I was in my arts degree with. but that is mainly because with other degrees like journalism or media & comms or whatever other fields that they overload into uni arts departments- have taken our job titles away, in a sense....

so, then you’re practically forced to either go into teaching, or go into something outside of your expertise; like idek human resources management/a MBA via a masters.... or, again into something like librarianship via postgrad study- so, that for the love of fucking god- you have a job title to whack next to your name-!!!-instead of just “arts graduate” or “english major” or “philosopher” that all mean fuck all. and that’s because those labels sound vague, unhelpful, undefined and useless; as that’s opposed to something like “teacher” or “librarian” or even “information specialist”. all those titles/labels sound defined, and have actual useful concrete skills: like coding, database creation and maitenance & information retrieval (amongst other things), for a librarian/an information specialist, for example. these skills are then translated into something that you can physically demonstrate to people.... unlike with philosophy and english where people perceive that it’s just “all in your head” and “doesn’t produce anything worthwhile” bc of your very obvious skills that everyone has of communication and writing. like idk. anyway.

anyway here’s my rant for november.

[amiafairyprincessyet]

Alright...  Don’t say I didn’t warn you...

Here it is: the exhaustively detailed breakdown of my 1920s costume/outfit for the interactive theatre event I went to!  I’m posting this 60% because I can’t shut up about historical fashion, 30% because it’ll be fun to re-read years down the line, and 10% because hey maybe you’ll find it interesting.

Let’s start with how I built the outfit and started to form the character for it!

The two most important pieces for this outfit were the dress and the hat, and I can’t quite remember now which one I bought first.  It looks like both purchases hit my bank account on the same day, so that doesn’t clear things up.  I think maybe it was the hat?

Alright, so let’s start with the hat.  Now, see, I love the 1920s but they really don’t love me back.  The main problem I have is with the popular silhouettes of the clothes, but I also have a serious issue with the hats--I’m allergic to wool.  Cloches are the stereotypical 1920s hat and almost ALL of them are made of wool.  I can’t do it!  But, sometimes, you can find ones made of straw.  I’ve been meaning to buy a cloche for ages (tbh it’s ironic I didn’t do it until I had long hair) so I’d been planning to buy a straw one.  Now that I had an occasion, I was ready to make that leap!  I searched for straw cloches on Etsy, found tons of cool ones, and then drastically reduced my options when I started paying attention to sizing.  (My head is both literally and figuratively big and I have A Lot of hair.)  I finally settled on this one from itbecomesyou.

I actually wasn’t planning on buying a dress specifically for the occasion--I have one or two things that I could fudge a little and it’d look okay.  (Certainly better than, like, a cheap Halloween costume, which is what some people were wearing.)  But I was right by the thrift store anyway, so I popped in and looked around.  The green dress was almost the first thing I spotted, and I got my hopes up right away.  I could tell that it would fit loosely and have a low waist on me, even if that’s not how it was intended to fit--it’s actually from eShakti so it was custom made to someone’s measurements!  That person also clearly donated more than one dress, because there was another dress there in the exact same style made of chambray--I’m wearing it as I write the first part of this post, actually.  For some reason, I think the chambray one is a little smaller, but that’s not relevant.

The dress definitely isn’t perfect--I think it’s kind of obvious that the waist is elastic, and it’s still way too defined.  The skirt is also a bit short.  (Skirts in the ‘20s weren’t as short as popular culture would have us believe!!!)  I figured it was supposed to be the late ‘20s (specifically ‘27) and the skirts got to the shortest point around then, so the length was forgivable.  But the waist?  Iffy.  Like... with the full skirt it’s ALMOST got a bit of a robe de style silhouette going on but it’s not really all the way there, either.  It’s a very confused dress.  (Or it’s really just meant to be a more fitted style for someone a size up from me.  Whatever, I like loose clothes and I’ve already worn it a bunch of times!)

When I was initially planning, I was originally going to put my hair in a low updo rather than a faux bob.  That would actually be period-accurate--a lot of women who didn’t want to cut their hair did it!  They’d often do a lot of work to keep their length while faking or imitating the look and shape of a bob.  So I figured that with my long hair and my not-quite-boxy-enough dress I would just be unfashionable and poor, newly arrived to the city.  Especially because this is clearly more of a day dress than an evening gown.  My hypothetical character wouldn’t have the means to buy a dress just for going out in the evenings, and she’d maybe come straight from work (as a secretary, since that’s my actual job and I wanted to keep it simple) without changing.

As for the rest of my clothes...  Well, between the hat and the dress I could see I was going in an earth-toned direction, so this was the only cardigan I had that would work.  I have NO IDEA if it’s period-accurate or not.  The scarf wasn’t really planned, but I thought I needed something with a bit of pizzazz, or else even my dowdy and plain “poor, rural secretary” outfit would be too boring.  My compression stockings are obviously a) medical gear that I kinda just have to work around, and b) not at all accurate.  Pretty sure in the ‘20s they still wore thigh-highs (sort of) that you had to hold up with straps.  My shoes are okay, they’re character shoes from a musical I was in, so they’ve got a much thicker heel than most modern heels do.  The shape of the heel isn’t quite right but like... I don’t think anyone’s looking THAT closely.  (Okay, maybe I am.)

As for hair and makeup, well, my makeup isn’t as dramatic as you might think it should be for the ‘20s.  Like I said in the makeup post, I shared that misconception too, up until pretty recently.  Most of the standard misconceptions of 1920s fashion I already knew about, because I am. a nerd.  But I thought that the makeup was pretty heavy!  I re-watched Karolina Żebrowska’s video on the ‘20s and actually paid attention when she talked about the makeup this time.  I was kinda relieved when she said that the makeup was much lighter than you’d think, because this outfit would look pretty weird with heavy makeup, since it’s a casual/unfashionable day look.  I didn’t do any particular research other than glancing quickly at the examples of “normal” makeup that she showed because I was being lazy.  Also, don’t come for my eyebrows.  I like them and I refuse to do anything to make them look super-thin.

On to the hair, which is probably the most complicated and most important part!  Like I said, I was originally planning to just do a low updo instead of a faux bob.  However, when I got the hat and tried it on, I realized that a low updo wouldn’t work with where the hat sat on my head/how it fit me.  A faux bob would also mess with the fit, but my hope was that it would be a bit better.  I didn’t practice at all before the day of the event, I just kinda decided that It Would Definitely Work.  So here’s how I did it:

Pincurl hair the night before

Wear hair down in pincurls the next morning

Humidity deflates curls within an hour, wear hair in improvised updo for rest of day

Try to redo pincurls in the afternoon

Oh shit it’s humid they’re still wet

I don’t own a hair dryer

OH WELL

Take top section of hair, sticking fingers in and parting so that you’re separating out the section in front of the ears

Go up to top of head in inverted V shape, so that a lot of the hair at the back of your head is not in the chunk you’re holding (how much depends on how thick your hair is)

Clip that chunk up; look ridiculous

Braid the hair that’s down--my hair is super thick so it made five braids

You want a LOT of your hair to be in these braids

Pin braids flat to the back of your head--similar to what you do to fit hair under a wig cap

Let down clipped up hair

Sigh over the fact that it’s barely wavy at this point

Make sure side part looks clean

Take back-most chunk of loose hair and grab a decent section, maybe an inch wide?

Grasp one small subsection of the hair in that section

Tease all the hair of the section--you don’t need to go overboard

The one piece you held onto should still be longer and straighter than the rest

Curl that bit around your finger a bit and then pin it up under the braids right at the back

Repeat for all but the two front-most sections of hair on either side of your part

Don’t tease these, just try to make the waves look nice with some subtle pinning and then pin the bottoms up

Oh shit you don’t own hairspray better hope this stays

Shove hat on top, DO NOT take it off for the rest of the night

I had a hilarious conversation about my hair with one of the actors, who was in character as a ~mystical flapper~.  It went something like this:

me: Yes, I know it’s all the fashion these days to bob your hair, but I just couldn’t bear to cut it!  Really my hair is this [gestures to top of chest] long, but I’ve got it pinned up.

actor, in character as someone in an era where “toxic orange” is not really a feasible hair color: That’s your real hair!?

me, with no hesitation: I’m Irish.

actor:

me:

me:

me: That’s... orange.  It’s orange.  That’s why.

actor: :O

I then rolled with my ~brilliant improv~ and introduced myself as Bridget Kelley for the rest of the night.  To be fair, I am almost certainly related to someone with that exact name.

The other bit of characterization I came up with (which I never really got to do much with) is that Bridget was a serial killer?  I have no idea why I decided this, but I actually chose it a couple days ahead of time.  I think I just had Chicago on the brain, since it’s set in the ‘20s.  I also made her socially awkward but kind of the opposite from me where she was intense/focused/non-fidgety/interested one-on-one and shy as hell in crowds.  I’m generally a fan of crowds as long as no one tries to socialize with me, because I can just hang out anonymously.  I like being one-on-one or in small groups with people I like, but with random strangers I absolutely hate it.

And that’s basically it!  I had a lot of fun at the event and I was really lucky and caught a ride home with an acquaintance I didn’t even know was going to be there.  We got “raided by the police” at one point, and I also spent a decent chunk of time in the corner sewing.  Good times!

[skeletonbuddycos]

pyrrha nikos update 7/8

this costume has been a journey, but i’m super happy with the results so far (ღ˘⌣˘)

i started with the skirt & sash, because i figured those would be an easy start to this soon-to-be shitshow. i used this pattern from jalie (i wanted a skort instead of a skirt because skorts are basically the real world counterpart to monty oum anti-upskirt technology). i altered the pattern to take out the side panels & overall shortened it. for the sash, i used a pattern i came up with a few months back to get that wave/fold that pyrrha’s has. i like the end results, but the sash isn’t quite as long or full as i hoped it would be, so i might remake this.

i’m ridiculously proud of the belt, mostly because after a few days of staring at my corset, wondering how i’d fix the binding (more on that later), i finally had something go right. i based this belt off something i saw on labinnak’s instagram story, with a little help from this video from zonbi. i hotglued a bunch of 1 1/4″ strips of craft foam together (two strips to give the belt some sturdiness), sewed a long tube of fabric (using the same fabric as my skirt, shoes, & gloves so everything matches!), then pulled the tube over the foam. i then added a buckle i picked up from the the craft store that i spray painted a while back with the same spray paint as my armor & punched in some grommets. it’s not super sturdy since it’s just craft foam & hot glue, but i don’t plan on this belt actually holding anything up, so i think (hope) it’ll be okay.

the gloves are just cheaters gloves, with an added flap on the thumbs so i can use my phone while wearing these

the boots are......not my proudest accomplishment. i’m quite pleased with the (currently unfinished) boot cuffs, but the boot covers.....yikes. i’ve never made boot covers before, so let’s blame it on that. luckily, these are just shoes from goodwill, so i’m not upset over ruining them (& they’re actually half a size too small, so i might just get another pair & redo these before dragoncon). the red paint on the soles is also a hot mess, because the plastidip i bought to seal it didn’t actually seal it. tbh, i wouldn’t be upset if these shoes met a horrible fate & had to be replaced.

now the corset. holy shit, the corset. pyrrha has such a distinctive top & i’m a perfectionist asshole when it comes to costumes, so i’m going all in on this. one thing i noticed while planning this out is that pyrrha’s corset is probably made out of metal & the 3 panel design of it doesn’t translate well to fabric. i wanted something fitted & supportive, so i started looking for commercial corset patterns (i actually tried to make a custom corset pattern first, but that was its own separate disaster). i finally decided on simplicity pattern 8201, which i think is supposed to be.....a star wars thing? i dunno, but this pattern has a few features i was looking for, including being a generally basic but fitted pattern, having a seam straight up the middle, & being designed for ridiculous fabric. i picked it up at the craft store with some muslin & got to work.

i first made a mockup of the original, unaltered pattern in my size to get an idea of the shape & look, then i started figuring out what should be altered to get to pyrrha’s corset. i don’t have a dress form, so i found it easiest to (badly) draw on myself what i was going for.

then i transferred the pattern onto paper, added my alterations, & made a mockup of that. my alterations included cutting the center front pattern piece on the fabric fold so i get one piece instead of two, extending the top line of the front & side front pieces for the tabs, extending the side back pieces so the corset can lace up (the original pattern calls for a zipper in the center back), & adding a modesty panel. (pyrrha sticker on my phone is from @binch-queen‘s redbubble!)

it took a few tries to get the tabs to lay right, but i finally managed to get something i liked.

i finally started on the actual corset, but because i’m a baby, i started with my inexpensive lining fabric instead of my pricier outer fabric. i fused the fabric, a woven fabric i found at the craft store that happened to match my knit fabric for the skirt perfectly, to heavy weight fusible interfacing, then sewed the pieces right sides together. i wasn’t sure how exactly i wanted to do the center gold panel, so i didn’t sew that lining piece to the rest. i then sewed my boning channels onto the lining seams.

the lining went well, so i finally started on my outer fabric. i looked around online for some faux leather fabric, but couldn’t find anything i really liked. however, when i went to joann to get fabric for another project, i found some upholstery vinyl that had the perfect faux leather look & color & i knew it was meant to be  (ღ˘⌣˘) (side note: while looking up that link, i noticed the fabric is flame retardant, so if any cinder cosplayers try to fuck with me, i’ve got that going for me) i did the same to the outer fabric as i did the lining, fusing the heavyweight interfacing & sewing right sides together, then topstitching along the seams to get everything to lay flat. then i placed the outer & lining right sides together, sewed along the bottom & the lower 2/3 of the center, flipped it right side out, then topstitched again to get everything to lay flat.

i added a lining for a few different reason, the first being that the inside of the corset will (probably?) be visible with the tabs, so i didn’t want the ugly wrong side of upholstery vinyl to be on display. i also didn’t want the boning channel stitches visible on the outside, plus the additional layer of interfacing makes the whole thing a lot sturdier. sewing the whole thing together was a nightmare & i’m pretty sure my sewing machine was screaming at me at more than one point, but it looks much neater & more professional.

i was on a roll with the corset at this point, but the gold panel & binding quickly derailed me. my original plan was to spray paint the same vinyl fabric gold, fold the binding over the top edge, & sew it down, but i ran into a few different problems. the first was that vinyl doesn’t just fold over like normal fabric, the only way you can get it to lay flat is to topstitch it, which i was planning on doing after folding it onto the fabric. i also couldn’t pin the fabric down without putting in a bunch of permanent holes, so i started to tacky glue the binding onto the corset to hold it in place while i sewed, then discovered when i removed my clamps that the paint pulls up & transfers onto pretty much anything it comes in contact with. my shiny gold accents were now looking quite worn. i tried a clear polyurethane to seal the color, but it also had a sticky surface, so it had the exact same problem as the unsealed paint. i kept gluing & clamping out of denial, but the binding just looked bad. i put my corset aside for a week & started on armor while i tried to figure out how to fix this.

i eventually started looking up sealing spray paint on vinyl (apparently pinterest moms love to upcycle vinyl chairs), but most blogs didn’t give any detail on how they sealed the paint, & the only blog that did mention it used an expensive wax that you can only get from specialty retailers. i tried another clear spray paint, one specifically designed for sealing, & got......whatever those bumps are, plus a really ugly color (although to be fair, that’s the same vinyl binding that was currently being painted for the 4th & 5th time). i shared my dilemmas on reddit, got some tips for helping the color actually stick to the fabric, & discovered that the clear plastidip that betrayed me on the soles of my shoes actually sealed the color without discoloration, weird bumps, or stickiness. i still haven’t stress tested it, but this process is looking much better now than it did yesterday morning.

another thing i disliked about my original binding was how it looked on the inside, which would be somewhat visible. the only way i could get the binding to lay flat on the opposite side would be to cut slits in the fabric, which would be visible. i ended up digging up a vinyl binding tutorial from december wynn that i considered when i was first patterning the binding, but decided against because i thought i wouldn’t like it. i tried it out on some scrap gold fabric, & holy shit, it’s infinitely better than my original plan. don’t do my original plan, it’s terrible & will cause you nothing but pain.

i’ve also been working on armor the past few weeks, but this word vomit is long enough so i’ll save that process for another update. i’ll be starting on a commission for amon & a hylian hood this week, so those updates will start soon. thanks for reading! if you found this useful or just enjoyed it, please consider buying me a coffee (ღ˘⌣˘)