do you have any resources or tips for a complete beginner? i always get overwhelmed by the amount of info and all the technical terms whenever i try to look something up
Hey there! I didn’t know if you meant just sewing or cosplay as a whole, so I tried to include some of both.
Cosplay Tutorial is a master list of tutorials for pretty much everything under the sun, and was, and is, my go-to site since I started! They have a whole section of sewing basics that pretty much held my hand while I learned to sew. They also have multiple tutorials per topic and label which tutorials are text-based and which are videos so you can find ones that work for you!
Kamui Cosplay has a whole line of books that branch from sewing and armor-building basics, to more advanced techniques like electronics and 3D modeling. I have a few of her books and used one of her horn patterns for my Mollymauk costume!
Kinpatsu Cosplay has amazing books on wig styling and makeup and offers patterns and full tutorials on previous projects they’ve done. They also have a Youtube channel that has really great tutorials and tips!
With Wendy has a Youtube playlist of sewing basics that seems pretty beginner-friendly from what I can gather by flipping through!
Punished Props makes amazing props and has a wide variety of tutorials and books that break down different techniques that he and his team use.
Don’t be afraid to keep a tab open specifically for looking up terms and techniques you don’t recognize! And write down any terms you think are important if it helps! Learning a new skill is like learning a new language and I know how overwhelming it gets, especially when starting out. I have a whole file of links to super specific tutorials and techniques that I can never remember how to do, (Will I ever remember how to sew a mitered corner? Probably not.) and am constantly googling for definitions and tutorials when I start something new.
Take it one step at a time and don’t be afraid to ask as many questions as you need to, whether through google or messaging someone specific! Good luck!
One of the most spiritually profound moments of my life was when I was sixish and at a natural history museum with my parents that had a whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling.
I remember my dad picking me up to sit on his shoulders (possibly one of the last times he did that because I was getting too big to hold there for long) so I could be close to it's flipper because he wanted to show me something. He had me hold up my arm parallel to the whale's, and explained that we had the same bones, pointing to it's scapula and humerus and radius and ulna and so on while poking the same bones in my skinny little arm, all they way down to the tips of my fingers and it's own.
And in that moment, I could suddenly see how the whale and I were the same animal, just stretched and shrunk into different proportions by nature. There was an entire exhibit with skeletons of different animals and we went through all of them, picking out the hands and faces of all of them on myself.
I had never felt such a profound connection to the world around me before as I realized on a visceral level that not only was I related to all these creatures, they were very literally my distant cousins, and that in a way, they were me from back then and I was them from now, and we all were others still from the future.
Every living thing on earth is your cousin. The most distantly related humans are your 50th cousins. Chimps are your several thousandth cousins. An octopus is your 25 millionth cousin. Trees are your billionth cousins. You and I are surrounded by family. And that makes me feel profoundly loved.
So thanks dad, for pulling your shoulder a bit to show me that I am part of the universe. I love you too.
Someone asked me what housekeeping skills I’d recommend learning.
Keep in ming that this is not me shaming you, I know you have your reasons, folks. This is just a guy who enjoys clean spaces asking that you start learning now.
Here’s what I suggest as an adult who has lived with other adults who didn’t have housekeeping skills:
First and foremost, learn about all the places in your house that need to be cleaned and understand how often they should be cleaned. the American Cleaning Institute (I guess that’s a thing) has a good article about basic cleaning info. Plus this video on cleaning tips is great!
Learn how to do your dishes. HOT water is the only way to clean your dishes.
Learn how to clean your shower head, especially if you live in a place with hard water. Same goes for your sinks.
Learn how to do your laundry correctly. Even without the whole “separating whites and colors” thing, there are things you need to learn about washing your clothes. Learn what the tags mean, too.
Also, you don’t have to use fabric softener and you shouldn’t use it on towels or any fabric meant to absorb. (Learn about laundromats)
And please learn how to clean out your dryer vent, it’s a safety hazard!
Get a disinfecting cleaner for your high-touch areas, especially the gross ones like the bathroom. Just because it doesn’t look dirty, doesn’t mean it’s clean!
Learn how to sweep, mop, and vacuum effectively.
You’ll also want to make sure to change out your home’s air filters.
TL;DR, here are some cleaning videos.
How to Clean Everything in Your Bathroom
How to Clean Everything in Your Kitchen
Livingroom Cleaning Routine
How to Clean Everything in Your Bedroom
Now these resources are not the end-all-be-all, but I think if you don’t know much about cleaning your space this is a good way to start.
here’s some of the things that are helping me actually clean (as an adult who had messy parents, and has a hard time getting threw my nurodivergency about cleaning specifically) that may be helpful to you:
Favorite Cleaning Book: it helps you work through the emotional side of cleaning (and other care tasks)
Current Favorite Decluttering Method/Concept: it helps you know how much is too much to keep and how to get started when you’re overwhelmed. (having too much stuff makes it incredibly hard to clean/organize.)
Basic Cleaning Skills: this channel is amazing! this man has a special interest in cleaning and cleans people’s spaces who deal nurodivergence that make it hard to clean. he does this for free (or at a deficit because he pays for supplies and dumpsters and transport and such) and does it all with empathy and kindness working With the people as much as people can handle instead of just coming in to “fix” an issue. these videos are a bit different from his usual ones, (the last one’s most like his usual videos) but i find having the sped up cleaning videos with a voiceover can help fill in for body doubling when im too ashamed to bring people into my messy spaces.
Yes pride is a riot and a fight and yadda yadda yadda but you are not revolutionary for sucking the joy out of queerness. Sometimes, pride is a party. It is a celebration of the fact that we are here, we're queer, and we're not going anywhere. And that is just as important as throwing bricks and fighting cops, actually.
If your activism doesn't allow you to enjoy the fruits of your labors you will burn out babe. Go suck some dick. Hit on that lesbian. Get the faggy haircut!!! Dance, for the love of god.
The most horrifying thing about being a human is that no matter how intelligent you are or how much customer service training you have, nothing will stop you from being the idiot customer on occasion. At some point you won't read a sign or you'll misread a menu or ask the dumbest question a human has ever formed and there is nothing you can do to prevent this. It will happen. Accept it and continue on your way as one of today's dipshit customers.
"There once was a very great American surgeon named Halsted. He was married to a nurse. He loved her immeasurably. One day Halsted noticed that his wife's hands were chapped and red when she came back from surgery. And so he invented rubber gloves. For her. It is one of the great love stories in medicine. The difference between inspired medicine and uninspired medicine is love.
When I met Ana, I knew: I loved her to the point of invention."
abled people need to get comfortable with disabled people not having the energy to "dress up"
the amount of backhanded comments I'd heard from my irl friends about how they really like the times where I wear things other than sweatpants and hoodies and I should really work on creating my own style is insane
there are some days where I have enough energy to wear the things I want to wear, but those are rare. they need to get used to that.
ok so this is another long shot but a few years ago there was a twitter post (in japanese i think?) that had measurememts for how to make this book stand thing out of cardboard that you could use to double up books and use up more space on shelves
back then i made a bunch of these but by now i lost the pic and dont know how to find the original post anymore
if it comes down to it i can just take one apart and get the measurements from there but i would be very grateful if anyone happens to have the original post or something similar??
don't mind how long it's been since i made this post, anyway i realized that i don't even need to take one apart to get the measurements when i can literally just unfold it and refold it /FACEPALM
so anyway here is the diagram for anyone else who is interested!!
this requires pretty big carboard pieces, if you have a really big box or something you can make it from one piece, but if you don't, you can also just make each of the pieces individually and then tape them together
and then in the end you put it together like this!!
and then when you make a bunch you can put them all next to each other and stack your books like crazy
EVERYONE START GETTING MORE USE OUT OF YOUR SPACE NOW!!!!
I think that very much depends on your personal definition. Of course there are plenty of folktales that do not include romance, but for me that usually isn't quite enough to consider them aromantic. For me the folk- and fairy tales that feel the most aromantic to me, are the ones where the plot makes me expect there will be a love interest along the way or a wedding at the end, but instead there is neither.
Here are the ones I've taken a personal liking to so far:
The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces
Source: Cape Verdian folktale, collected by E. Parsons from Antonio Soares Rosa in 1916-1917.
Content warnings: princess-shaming.
Character I read as aro: The hero.
Why: He answers a royal proclamation that states that whoever is able to find out how the princess wears out seven pairs of shoes every night can marry her and have half the kingdom. When he accomplishes this, however, he declines the marriage and returns home to build his mother a new house.
Read it: Full text online.
How The Devil Married Three Sisters
Source: Italian folktale, published by Widter and Wolf in 1866.
Content warnings: fairy tale violence, abusive spouse.
Character I read as aro: The youngest of the three sisters.
Why: While the first sister is pleased by her handsome suitor (the devil) and the second sister is also described as "wooed and won" by him, the third agrees to marriage only because he is rich. She proceeds to save her sisters, outsmarts the devil, and they all get away.
Read it: Full text online.
David Cotterson
Source: Danish fairy tale, collected by Jens Kamp, published in 1879.
Content warning: suicide contemplation, fairy tale violence.
Character I read as aro: The hero, David Cotterson.
Why: His biggest desire is to become a sailor and see the world. In his biggest adventure he defeats a seductive witch, saves a prince who has been cursed to be a dog. He then decided what he wants most of all is to got home to his loving parents, which he does.
Read it: Offline in this book, or my summary online.
The Squire’s Bride
Source: Norwegian folktale, collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe, published 1841-1844.
Character I read as aro: The heroine, a farmers daughter.
Why: She's being courted by an old, rich squire. She rejects him, not for a better (kinder, younger) suitor, but simply because she doesn't want him. He doesn't back down so she humiliates him to teach him a lesson.
Read it: Full text online.
The Three Brothers
Source: German folktale, collected by the brothers Grimm, published 1857.
Content warning: ends with natural death.
Characters I read as aro: The protagonists, three brothers.
Why: Their father tasks them to learn a trade to show who deserves to inherit their family home. They become a master barber, blacksmith and swordsman, and the third inherits the house. But because they love each other so much they decide to share the house. They live happily and grow old together, after which all three die close together and are laid in the same grave.
Read it: Full text online.
Diarmaid and Grainne
Source: Celtic legend, Scottish variant collected by H. MacLean in 1859, from Alexander Macalister.
Content warning: tragedy, coercion, murder of protagonist.
Character I read as aro: The warrior Diarmaid.
Why: He has a love spot on his face, which he keeps hidden to prevent women from falling in love with him. Grainne (who is married to his lord Fionn) sees it and falls for him, but he refuses to go with her until she outsmarts him and places him under obligation to do so. He goes with her but they live in a house with separate beds. Grainne betrays Diarmaid for yet another man and Diarmaid ends up being killed by Fionn before he realises that Diarmaid has never touched his wife.
Read it: Full text online.
Slawa
Source: Romanian fairy tale, found in a German collection from 1977, sadly unsourced.
Content warning: attempted kidnapping, fairy tale violence.
Character I read as aro: The heroine, Slawa
Why: She is a poor young woman so beautiful that the cruel tsar wants to marry her. She keeps refusing and he gets violent, so she resorts to defeating him with magic (which she has because she was once a doll brought to life through the love of her parents), so she is free to go see the world.
Read it: You can download my translation here.
King Bear
Source: Danish folktale, collected by Jens Kamp, published in 1879.
Content warning: animal death.
Character I read as aro: One of the two protagonists, the eldest of two brothers.
Why: The older brother doesn't fully understand why his younger brother has fallen in love with an imprisoned princess, but helps him win her hand anyway. He stays happily at the royal court, but never marries himself.
Read it: Offline in this book.
And just because I still love them, I did write two literary fairy tales with aro protagonists myself some years ago:
The Man and the Mermaid, in which a man meets a mermaid after losing the woman he thought he wanted to marry.
The River Sprite, in which a woman helps a river sprite who is determined to repay her.
Hope there's something on this list that makes you happy!
Why: By the time she flees from her abusive stepmother and stepbrothers, Maria has grown into such a beautiful young woman that many young men are in love with her, but she "has no feelings for any of them." Her godmother, the Virgin Mary, appears to her and says: "My dear child! Stop worrying. I have given you the gift of being indifferent to the stirrings of love." She then brings her to a palace where Maria happily spends a long life as a benevolent noblewoman, giving shelter to the ill and the impoverished.
Read it: Offline in this book (or send me a message).
It's not that he only wants to tutor prodigies, not at all, it's just so damn frustrating to try and find someone's innate occult spark while they're dragging their heels all the way.
"Have you heard a word of what I just said?" he sighs.
His student blinks the glazed look out of her eyes. "...yes?"
He rubs his temples. This girl hasn't been able to attune to anything. Not elemental magic, not divination, not healing. None of it seems to even interest her. He even tried to get her into summonings, teenagers always want to do summonings, but she might as well have been reciting grocery lists instead of incantations.
"Look," he says. "Lets go over this chapter again and then we'll take a break, okay? Perhaps you'd like to take a walk, or-"
"No!" she suddenly interrupts him, understanding dawning on her face. "I maybe forgot to eat again."
And to his bewilderment she tears a piece of paper out of her notebook and scribbles a rune circle onto the lined paper. She does it so fast he can't even recognise what core charm she's using and in the second he's distracted she has taken a lancet holder out of her jacket and picks her finger.
"What are you-"
She presses the bead of blood down onto the paper, in the middle of the circle, and before his very eyes both the blood stain and the ink on the paper begin to smoke. They scorch their edges brown until several numbers are burned into the paper where the blood used to be.
"What does that mean?" he asks, dumbfounded.
"That I need a snack to stop zoning out," she says sheepishly, digging a cereal bar out of her bag.
He stares. "Wait, did you just check your blood sugars with that thing?"
The girl looks up at him, chewing. "Mm-hm."
"May I see that?' he gestures and she gives him the paper with a dismissive shrug.
He stares at the sloppy handwriting, the crowded circle of runes. He couldn't recognise the core charm of the circle just now because it's not a standard configuration.
"You designed this yourself?" he asks, trying not to sound incredulous.
"Yeah, I got sick of getting blood work done, you know?"
He slowly places the paper back on the desk. "You use this for more things?" he asks, failing to sound nonchalant.
"Sure. But just to see if I need to take my iron supplements again, or if I'm still on the right dose of estrogen."
He's starting to feel a little lightheaded. "Would you mind showing me what circles you designed for those?"
"Oh its the same as this one," she says, pointing. "I just swap the alchemical symbol for sugar out with the one for iron, or estrogen."
He gapes at her. "There are no alchemical symbols for hormones."
"I know that," she scoffs defensively. "I had to compose one myself."
For a moment he just sits, being silently judged by a pair of increasingly suspicious teenage eyes. Then, with a firm attempt to keep his excitement in check, he closes the textbook and smiles at her.
"I know an occult clinician I think you should meet."
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