Dying in the Desert

Jul. 31st, 2023 08:31 pm
ghoulmouse: ([FF14] Rin)
Just got back from Fanfest 2023! Definitely had a great time overall but I...did also get very sick on Friday from a combination of too much heat, zero sleep, no food, and hormonal migraine. Oops. Saturday was fine though, even though I wore my costume the whole day including the rock concert.

My cosplay turned out super good and I'm very proud of it -- I'll post pictures once I get the nicer ones back from my friend who took them. There was some comically huge furniture in the lobby that made for some great shots where I look extremely small and cute, lol. I was a little sad I didn't register for the all-skill-levels cosplay showcase until I actually saw it, and then realized that stepping onto an actual stage in front of 15,000 people with multiple gigantic screens projecting my face would have caused me to instantly pass away. Lots of people recognized me (and a couple of them even pronounced the character's name right), though someone did address me in-character kinda and instead of saying something really fun and clever I froze up, which made me pretty upset at myself for a while.

They announced the new expansion and a graphics update and everything but the most important announcement of all was that they're adding a cosmetic eyewear slot so you can wear glasses with hats. Very important for those of us who main Scholar and/or roleplay nerds.

Honestly the most exciting thing was the sticker exchange, which was organized by attendees and...well my friend came with 200 stickers printed and gave away ALL of them. I didn't get quite as many because I died halfway through the event on Friday and only had sporadic trades on Saturday but there were still SOOOO many people there and everyone was so excited to share their characters. Since I don't really draw I instead hand lettered my character's IC business card and got it printed and handed that out, which...well, it was annoying to have to explain it was my own calligraphy to everyone but people did seem to like it. One person read it out loud which was...embarrassing but nice, also. It was just a nice show of fandom enthusiasm and friendliness and talent overall -- it's really cute that everyone is so excited about their OC in this fandom. Normally I don't care for other people's OCs, even of the "customizable game protagonist" variety, but there's something charming about how enamored people get over their FFXIV characters. One girl told me she literally learned how to draw JUST because she wanted to make art of her catgirl that badly.

I think it also helps that fear of making a "mary sue" seems to be largely dead. There's a certain level of just not being interesting that infects a lot of fandom OCs (as opposed to just, I guess, regular OCs people make for their own stories/art/whatever) and and I'm pretty sure a lot of it comes down to the ridiculous level of self-policing people used to do in order to avoid the dreaded mary sue label and potentially getting your work slapped up on a "sporking" comm for everybody to laugh at or used as an example in sanctimonious "what not to do" posts for months on end. Especially with the kind of media I'm personally into, though, an OC that's too tame just does not fit in with the story at all.

People are also just like...so much nicer in person than on social media overall and it's good to be reminded of that once in a while.

OmegaMart was...insanely good. I regret only getting to spend 2.5hrs in there, I don't think I even saw half of it. Definitely going to go back and also visit their other exhibits if I ever get the chance! Like I was just completely blown away by the level of detail and creativity. Might make a more detailed post about it but right now I just don't have a lot of coherent thoughts other than "impressed".

My friend also wanted to visit some landmark that was in Fallout: New Vegas (which I've never played) which was cool but it was also like...I think one of the tallest buildings on earth and standing up at the top of that thing WAS kind of a struggle for me. I hadn't been up in an extremely tall building for a very long time, so I didn't realize it would trigger my problem with heights that badly. Whoops. They had some kind of ride at the top that tilted you over the edge of the building and just LOOKING at it made me dizzy lol.

Overall I had a lot of fun and I'm glad I went for the cosplay despite my reservations, but also I really wish it had not been 112 degrees the entire weekend. That is too many degrees.

This weekend is Gencon. I am going to be so tired.
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Thoughts and Prayers for My Self-Image

Jul. 21st, 2023 11:07 pm
ghoulmouse: ([FF14] Doubt)
All that's left of this cosplay for the con next week is the wig. I'm super nervous about styling wigs because, you know, they don't...grow back, if you cut them. And I'm so bad with anything hair related, styling-wise.

I also forgot to get spirit gum REMOVER for the elf ears, just the adhesive, so...YOLO, I guess. The ears are comically huge but that's a feature of the character and hopefully it'll look cute.

I am like SICK with nerves though. It's been so long since I've cosplayed and the outfit isn't as accurate as I could make it (I am just handwaving the shoes and I genuinely just skipped the embelishment on the back of the jacket. I did this with my previous cosplay too, funnily enough, but that character was also wearing a scarf that completely obscured the design unless you happened to be standing in such a way that the scarf fluttered in the breeze) and I'm just. I dunno.

I've posted essentially this exact same complaint a million times but it keeps not going away.

Me and my friend are going to Omega Mart before the con though and I'm ultra hype about it. Omega Mart seems like the distillation of all the stuff I like about theme parks but not attached to a monolithic corporate IP behemoth. There's something about fictional environment crafted in real life that I just love -- I get SO excited about even the shittiest walk-through haunted house (although I AM sad that so many of them are zombie-themed these days...like I get that it's popular and the costuming/acting is pretty easy but "zombie apocalypse" stuff leaves me so cold. It's hard being SO invested in "undead" as a concept and also hating 90% of the modern interpretation of the topic lolsob). I would just love to see more fun locations to play around in that aren't Halloween pop-up operations (as much as I love Halloween pop-up operations, one time I legitimately started crying in a Spirit Halloween because the vibes were so good) and aren't megacorp-funded machines to drain the wallets of parents with 5 year olds.

Playing Octopath Traveler a little more, progressing stories and getting party banters for the first time and: yes! I love these! there need to be more though. Also I feel like they should take place in a location instead of in a black void but. I dunno, I'm torn between being disappointed by the low level of interaction and fully understanding on a bone-deep level how much WORK it would be to add more, so I'm reluctant to complain. Even a completely linear RPG with zero variables has a truly insane amount of text in it. The rest of the game is just SO good, though, that it makes that one flaw more glaring. Like, the game looks great, it's maybe the best designed turn-based game I've played in god knows how long, I'm really enjoying the character's stories...it's just that one thing.

Cyrus/Therion was my first shipping instinct, which I chalked up to personal biases regarding thieves and scholars, but actually it appears to be the second most popular pairing on AO3 which is. Interesting. It's also funny how just starting with a different character seems to change your perception of the story -- skimming summaries it seems like there are a decent amount of fics that involve Therion breaking into Cyrus's office in Atlasdam, which I initially considered some kind of AU until I realized that if you STARTED as Therion and recruited Cyrus later rather than the other way around, that would be like...a pretty reasonable thing to have happened.

Meanwhile I am obsessed with the fact that in MY playthrough, Therion apparently talked to Cyrus at a shitty bar in Boulderfall and was like "Hey, you wanna help me break into a house?" and Cyrus, who I have to stress is a history professor on sabbatical*, apparently was like "Oh, absolutely."

Cyrus as main character is just like, down for anything to an almost comical degree. Gotta respect a man with zero qualms about helping a sex worker commit murders though. A true feminist ally.










* he is also a wizard but you know, RPGs
  • Current Mood: anxious
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Ishgard's Okayest Tailor

Jul. 9th, 2023 06:36 am
ghoulmouse: ([FF14] Rin)
Think I've finished all the actual sewing parts of this costume -- now all that's left is the "metal" ornamentation and the wig. Which I'm scared of. But at least the character's hair style has kind of a "I cut my bangs myself" kind of vibe.

Oh, and I need to find spirit gum out of season :x For the ears.

Every time I do this I think about how basically all clothing in the whole world is handmade to this day and I go insane.

I'm still trying to figure out if I am going to post pictures, and where...I am at least happy that a mask will hide most of my face, both for "feeling weird about my appearance" purposes and for like, not having to do any makeup except my eyes and the forehead scar (which is so cute and actually looks like a scar and not a perfectly smooth anime line, unlike literally every other scar in the whole game for some reason). I went in to look at Honoroit's actual model and did you know he's wearing lip gloss? Incredible.

My friend wants me to go to this meetup where people are exchanging stickers of their characters. Sounds cute but god FFXIV fandom on social media is insane so part of me is nervous.

Also, of course most of my favorite characters in this game come from the Snowy Place and are largely dressed for the weather, when I'm going to a con in the DESERT. I have been to a con in the desert before (Tucson mid-July to be specific) and had to help a cosplayer to her room after she literally passed out from sun/heat (she was fine after a bit of rest so that's good) and I'm afraid this time it's gonna be me.

Nonconathon deadline has passed and I've shaken my gift and now I can't wait to read it X_X And I still need to get on posting some doodles for Multifandom Doodle. It's...hard.

I do really wish it wasn't running on AO3, which is like the worst place to view art, but I don't know what the other options are that don't involve hand-matching with a spreadsheet (there are none, probably).
  • Current Mood: stressed
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A Gentleman of Unassailable Principles

Jun. 25th, 2023 06:44 am
ghoulmouse: ([FF14] Rin)
I'm getting...close to done on this costume, which is the first one I've made since I got embarassingly obsessed with a fighting game joke character in 2014. I was really worried about it for various reasons -- the character is a willowy teenage boy and I'm kinda...not; the character is someone I've written r18 fanfiction about which I'm sure a lot of people would find objectionable; my craftsmanship is not professional tier and I feel like I hardly ever see photos of cosplays actually at conventions anymore, it's all photoshoots and the kind of stuff you can put on for an hour spent posing is quite different from the kind of stuff you can wear all day at a convention. I already got some shitty comments on my previous costume because I wasn't sporting a five foot tall prop, which I'd left off because I'd 1) run out of time and 2) could not figure out how to comfortably attach it to my back and still be able to like, navigate a dealer's room. In the game, because it's a video game, it just kinda floats there. Sadly I can't do that in real life.

My worry about the craftsmanship is sort of a general sense that the bar for sharing your creative work has gotten insanely high, but I also saw a post on Twitter that was like "I love the 'just guys being dudes' vibe of original Trigun cosplay!" accompanied by a photo of some guys at a con in 2002 dressed as Vash and Wolfwood, clearly just kinda made using whatever materials they could get ahold of and some minimal sewing skills. And I was like...that's because it IS just some guys! They just made those costumes because making things is fun and hanging out with your friends dressed as anime characters is fun! Is this a foreign concept to people now?? What the hell!

But I guess the more I work on this jacket, the more I just kind of stopped caring. I like making it. My seams aren't very straight, it's not perfectly sized, and it's largely made out of curtains I found at Goodwill, most everything EXCEPT the jacket is a little half-assed because sorry I'm not going to MAKE thigh high riding boots (why does everyone in Ishgard dress as though they might be called upon to do dressage at any second?), but. It's just satisfying to shrug yourself into a piece of wearable clothing you made.

It IS really dangerous to make a costume with so many white details when you stab yourself with pins hard enough to bleed approximately every half hour while working, though.

Honoroit is not a major character by any means so I doubt anyone else has ever cosplayed him, or ever will. But, I mean. Long-suffering valet of a relentlessly insecure and sheltered fop. Adorable teenage boy who inexplicably talks and behaves like a grown adult with a PhD. Spends a significant amount of his screentime verbally destroying his master but still super devoted because he's seen a side of him nobody else has. In one quest he promises your character that he will under NO circumstances allow his employer to get laid, making him perhaps Eorzea's greatest unsung hero. Of COURSE I'm obsessed.

I used to roleplay him which was delightful fun but also a bit stressful, as in order to be properly in character practically every sentence out of his mouth had to be an absolute banger.
  • Current Mood: satisfied
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