@stigmasochist - Tumblr Blog

juney-blues

hey i have a bonur is that ok

it's morally gray/ambiguous. healthwise however you are going to die

sapphireh3arts

my evil confession: i want to be touched tenderly and with intention

midnightportals

ouroborosorder

Shoutouts to the time I had a severe fever and took benedryl and wanted to listen to feel good inc but couldn’t remember the name. I think I was crying over this

disgustinggf

you do not miss them btw. you miss the version of them you created in your head to which they never lived up to

trawl

DO NOT BREAK THE WINDOW! he has NO food and NO water, he is listening to his LEAST FAVORITE MUSIC, the HEAT IS ON and the WINDOWS ARE SEALED WITH LIQUID CEMENT. we HATE OUR SHITTY DOG and ARE TRYING TO KILL HIM. thanks!

trawl

yes but he sucks so it’s okay 😊 trust

oursystemblog

bunniope

*tricks you cutely* it's my trick...!

dormitionanddominion

stigmasochist

hips: grabbable

#one more time bc im in sane sound mind rn and goddamn this is just so. wow. im hot?#i forgot.

rabbiteclair

auto immune disorders happen when the immune system ignores regulatory factors and begins attacking healthy bodily tissues, due to what scientists refer to as "sheer love of the game"

junglejim4322

Some of the edgiest queers in the world who constantly talk about romanticizing cannibalism and gore is punk or whatever will turn into the literal pope when confronted with anything realistic having to do with sex like im sorry but people fuck in the park at night sometimes always have and always will and you’re going to have to go about your life without advocating for them to be skinned alive in Alcatraz

hyumjim

And— dare I point out the obvious— the policing of these public areas historically was and still is a huge element of police brutality and discrimination against gay people. Undercover cops frequently patrol areas that are known cruising spots and initiate with men so they can make an arrest when the guy reciprocates. They will also arrest men who are seen looking at each other over the urinals in these spots. Or for peeing while wearing a rainbow wristband.

Federal law enforcement turned a person they arrested in the transit hub directly over to ICE.

If you are going to be squeamish about these facts of public life then you should really be aware of how at odds that is with your “punk” “be gay do crime” aesthetics and how your fears are directly implicated in fascist policing of our bodies

penwiper

So a couple days ago, some folks braved my long-dormant social media accounts to make sure I’d seen this tweet:

And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.

So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years. These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing. They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it. It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face. Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing. And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc. NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.

Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres. What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female. I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one. They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO. If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone. Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered. I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.

I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all. I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole. That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three. And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.

And it changed the face of costuming. People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries. And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.

So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart. This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.

(Oh, and for anyone wondering: yes, I’m over 40 now, and yes, I’m still making costumes. And that armor is still in great shape after 17 years in a hot attic!)