dustyfairywings

[dustyfairywings]

lighthouse ghosties

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Hugo Charlemont - Summer hyacinths (Galtonias), ca. 1901

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hello bloodborne side of tumblr i am here to claim the title of ultimate micolash mutual with the long-awaited Cosplay Reveal:

And of course one of my favorite images ever taken of me, the one I like to call Let's take ibuprofen together vs Give Me Your Fuckign Ibuprofen:

The funniest thing is that neither of us planned to match poses, we just both looked at the camera and the "cosplayer reach" instinct kicked in LMFAO

For those of you that are new here, I made this entire cosplay in two weeks flat, all of the seams are finished (French seams, since I don't have a serger), and I landed my first film job because of it LMAO

More in-depth discussion and detail shots under the cut!

As I said before, I made this costume from scratch except the eyeball ring, the shoes (which are antique), and the pants, which I weathered with a cheese grater in areas of high friction (thighs, backs of the knees, etc.) and near the hem, and painted and stained the hem to show wear. The cloak was a thrifted red bedsheet I dyed black (well, it was meant to be black, but it's more of a dark to medium brown depending on the lighting), and the cord is one of my college honors cords (which is why it's gold instead of white). The undercoat was a set of heavy curtains from the thrift store, the vest was some brand-new red denim lined with an extremely old floral cotton I had lying around, and the buttons were all hand painted and glossed. I handmade and hand-stitched the bias tape around the neck of the cloak, as well as all the buttonholes, and carved the insight symbol to emboss the velvet of the hood from a dense foam floor puzzle piece (like you'd find in a daycare, also thrifted).

I chose florals both for the lining of the vest and for the jacket because they make me think of Byrgenwerth, and the cloak itself has very faint vertical stripes that you can see even through the dye job, which made me think of the Mensis cages. I think the symbolism of the eye buttons, eye embroidery, and insight embossings are self-evident LMAO

The cage itself is a mix of upholstery foam, EVA foam rods and sheets, thin wooden dowels, two plastic chain links from Spirit, googly eyes for the rivets, and coffee grounds and hot glue for the rust and cobwebs. I attached everything with contact cement (reinforcing the wooden dowels with hot glue, both to emulate welded metal and give them extra stability, since it presses against my head in the back and I didn't want anything breaking apart), and needed about four cans of plastidip before I felt it was primed enough to spray paint without the foam getting eaten away. It is actually quite soft and comfortable at first because the block base is upholstery foam, but after six to eight hours at a con you Will have back and shoulder pain and a killer headache the next day LMAO I actually made a mistake in cutting the head hole to my head measurements, without accounting for the wig, so whenever I take it off it pulls the wig off as well. Whoops! The wig itself was an old Sebastian Michaelis wig off Amazon that I cut and curled.

The bottom of the cloak is cut ragged and stained heavily with paint, coffee, and coffee grounds to emulate caked-on dirt and mud; the undercoat and vest both have coffee stains around the armpits and back to emulate sweat stains. Maybe a nightmare corpse sweats, maybe it doesn't, but I wanted to make him as horribly dirty and grimy as possible. He's doing nothing but running, after all. Regardless, I was harangued by wasps every time I went out to paint and stain--they wanted that hot coffee like nobody's business.

(ft. a little Damian cameo! <3 )

I also embroidered and beaded the red panels (made from the same bedsheet as the rest of the cloak, but left undyed) near the top, slowly making the embroidery more ragged as it goes down until it's nothing but long hanging threads, destroyed from the wear. The eyes on the sleeves are functional, serving to make the sleeves look fuller by bunching them up near my elbow since I'd miscut them originally. There are snaps behind the lapels and in the center back of the cloak to keep the costume from shifting as I move, since once I have the cage on I can't see anything directly below me or about two feet in front of me looking down.

All the blood is from Pale Night Productions, my absolute favorite blood brand. It dries looking wet, you can toss clothes with it in the wash, and it doesn't peel off solid or cloth surfaces (it can flake over time, but that's only if you handle things roughly).

The costume is Extremely warm and heavy, I'd say it's anywhere from seven to ten pounds of fabric for the main garments and then another two to five for the cage. The white collar is a sleeveless tank from Forever 21 that I got when I was sixteen (which I intend to eventually replace with a dickey), which means that without the coat and cloak Micolash is entirely sleeveless. It's very cursed LMFAO

Now, onto the glamour shots!

And these photos are from when I'd freshly restyled the wig; I like it much better now:

If you got this far, thanks for reading! Have this madman's knowledge as a gift before you go. <3

[dustyfairywings]

The Desolation of Scorch

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Chen Xue photographed by Ren Hai Hua for Vogue China's July Issue

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What's a party without a renga?

So I've been hosting renga parties on discord, and I'm going to start sharing what we create. This week, @dustyfairywings and @kiraman wrote a rengay together!

So a rengay is a modern, simplified version of a traditional Japanese renga, consisting of six verses, and composed by two or three poets. You can read more here: https://www.graceguts.com/rengay

The theme this week was erotic, since Japan has a rich history of erotic poetry.

Pretty sure this is the first Mizukemi fan poem...

If you're interested in joining the next renga party, lmk!

#hey look at that #i did one half of a thing #my writing #collaboration

[dustyfairywings]

Inky paw prints presumably left by a curious kitty on a 15th century manuscript.

From National Geographic.

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when you get cleared of regicide charges in the middle of HW

[dustyfairywings]

This world has magic if you look for it. I found this paddle cactus on a hike with an amazing hole in it. It made me think of a witch's stone so I had to paint it with the magical dimension you could see by looking through it 😍

Watercolor, 8x10

[dustyfairywings]

prince of the gate indeed ✨

— wyll as regé-jean page in that one pic posted by Valc0_ on twitter

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This is where I’d like to point out the countless video essays about the Dark Souls trilogy and other Fromsoft Souls-like games extolling the virtues of the experience of playing those game. A lot of people explicitly point to the sheer difficulty of enemies and the opacity of the world’s lore that DEMANDS total immersion as the most transcendental aspect of the game.

I’ve watched SO many essays discussing how the act of overcoming the challenged of a Souls game helped them crawl out of whatever shitty depression hole they were in.

From my own experience, playing Elden Ring and watching my partner play are two totally different experiences. I can appreciate the sense of accomplishment and exhilaration my partner felt first discovering the Lands Between as a spectator. I came to truly understand and share in that when I played for myself. I remember beaming with confidence and self-esteem when I played and overcame those challenges on my own wit and skill improvement.

The phenomenon of people consuming games through streams or, even worse, short form vídeos, has led to people seemingly forgetting that mechanics are a part of the game.

If you only watched a stream, you don't know the game. If you only watched someone else play, you don't know the game. The nature of interactive media is such that you, the player, is am active participant in the development of your experience. Mechanics are also a narrative tool. There is a metanarrative element that is the story of what YOU, the player, chose to do. Your perception of a game element you personally engaged with is going to be completely different than the one you get from watching someone else do it, even if the text of the work is exactly the same.

You don't get to have all those strong opinions on a ludonarrative experience when you have only experienced one half of it.

#nothing quite like your first time defeating a Souls boss #i should play elden ring again

[dustyfairywings]

I can’t stop getting emotional about how tenderly a shepherd caresses his dog’s face on this marble sarcophagus from the third century

The dog’s face is just so lovingly crafted and it’s much more finely detailed than some of the other animals in the piece. The expression is pure contentment and devotion. This scene is a tiny portion of a huge elaborate sculpture but I really feel like the artist was trying to capture a specific emotion with these two. The way that you feel when you look at your dog is thousands of years old.

[dustyfairywings]

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Qi Baishi

Chicks and a Grasshoppers

The work is on display at the ’: From Carpenter to Master’ exhibit at the Seoul Arts Center.

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Drew a tweet

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(if you don't know the character just go off of vibes)

[dustyfairywings]

Jupiter in Ultraviolet from ESA/Hubble