The Patent Dragon's Zone of Soul Retraction

So... yeah, been quiet lately. No cosplay progress, the trip down to Yogcon in Bristol is toast (missed the last release of tickets)...

My confidence has taken a bit of a hit from various sides, but I DO have something in mind, to start VERY soon. An exercise regime, intended to control, and reduce my weight. It's been a LONG time since I did anything "formal" about that, but I feel - and can see - the time has come.

On the bright side, I got to go to a midnight showing of AVENGERS: ENDGAME, and boy was it worth it. I have a repeat showing booked locally for tonight, which will be fun.

That's the past and present dealt with - now what about the future? The plan is to attend MCM ComicCon in London in October, WITH Terraxia cosplay. I hope very much to be fit for this, so that I can be truly proud of the result.

Just when the world seems to be going to crap, a ray of light shines through, and remind you things will always get better... and James Gunn is back to direct GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Vol 3.

Take the good times when you get them, and cherish them.

I've been collecting potential materials for my OPERATION SUBTLE EPSILON cosplay projects, and TRYING to make some actual progress... but so far, that progress has been fleeting at best.

For example: My animated Princess Zelda Doppelganger tiara was getting close to completed, but the paint I got for the top metallic coat isn't what I would call acrylic. It was more like model kit enamel, with a strong chemical smell to go with it, rendering my crafting space next to unusuable for a whole evening, AND it seemed to react with the actual acrylic undercoat, spoiling the finish. I'm now stripping the whole piece back to the raw Worbla.



The earrings for "Mirror-Zelda" - I made entirely new earring jewels from molded Worbla, and painted them with model kit enamel. Two coats of matt red, two coats of gloss... and they look great, with the Worlba texture giving them a kind of coral look. Success!

Not such a success was finding the "findings" for said earrings. I got some clip-on backs, but they had absolutely ZERO grip, so those were a bust. I looked online for alternatives, and found something I much later learned were referred to a "ear-screws" - like a teeny tiny vice to screw together on your ear-lobe. The precise kind I needed were VERY hard to find, but I have ordered some. Checking through my boxes upon boxes of useful bits, I did find a SINGLE one of these fittings... a worst case scenario, worse even than looking and not finding...




Waistcoat for Mirror Zelda - I have suitable leather, and even a rough pattern. I will draft a paper pattern and check it out later today!



Terraxia "Choker" - A fairly simple piece, I thought. Faux gold leather over Worbla, fasten with velcro... but noooooooo. I spent a whole lunch-break sewing a "sleeve" to go over my Worbla core, only to poke two holes in it while trying to turn it right-side-out. I've remade the core, more to my satisfaction, and I'm just going to hot-glue the bitch.



Bonus piece: "Formal" Dragon Mask - I'm applying Worbla like modelling clay over a modified blank masquerade mask - the same as the one I used for the base of my "Hachijuku-Chan" mask - to create a draconic head-piece with dragon-like facial feature around the eyes and down the nose, and featuring detachable horns curving back over the sides of the head. So far, it's going well, and I'm hoping to make some progress with the horns and their "sockets" on the main mask. A lightweight alternative to the Big Dragon Mask, with which I haven't made any more progress, but definitely not a replacement.



***sighs*** Yeah, one step forward, one and a half steps back, I guess. My feeling is that I have to count each of these set-backs as a learning experience...

Cosplay plan number two...

( Phase Two... )

Ooooohkay, here we go...

Cross... - as in crossdressing. Yup, I do that, and have done for quite some time, when the mood takes me. I could, at some point, "go career", but now isn't really the time. Am I transgender? Nope - and I don't want anyone taking that to mean I'm "just playing, and therefore making light of other people's lives and difficult experiences".

Bish... - as in "bishonen" - Japanese and anime-speak for "beautiful boy/youth" (https://www.definitions.net/definition/bishonen). This is what I would aspire to be more like, but the reality is still quite some distance from that, and I may never reach that target. This links in with the "Cross" part of things more than anything else.

Draco-Demi... - the "half dragon" thing. This comes about from looking at the world we have today, and utterly failing to feel a connection to what currently passes for "humanity". There are so many screwed-up people out there, and the sanest ones are those who don't seem to be "rooting for either team", so to speak. I may as well call that alienation SOMETHING, right?

And no, I'm not a furry.

The "Agenda": Be who you WANT to be, before it's too late. No-one has any right to tell you you're wrong, or evil, unless you are actually doing genuine harm - physical or mental - to another. Listen, and make sure you're listened to, when the need arises.

You have the right to exist, and enjoy that existence - and others have the same right, too.

Please Note: These are entirely personal rankings, coming from a general opinion that this season COULD, and SHOULD have been better, but wasn't dreadful. Jodie Whittaker needs better writing

1 - It Takes You Away - because it felt like "proper" Doctor Who. Included some interesting new (?) ideas.

2 - The Ghost Monument - see Number 1. Decent Sci-Fi without needing an overshadowing Big Bad responsible for EVERYTHING.

3 - Rosa - because it took a BIG chance, and worked. People WERE actually like this in the pretty recent past!

4 - The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos - see Number 1. Ooooh look - the Earth is in general SERIOUS peril!

5 - The Woman Who Fell To Earth - Season opener, with a lot to do, and let those things happen in pleasing enough fashion.

6 - Demons Of The Punjab - It did something unexpected with its aliens, and in all honesty wasn't preachy.

7 - Arachnids In The UK - because it missed opportunities to hark back to The Green Death, and Planet Of The Spiders. Good FX, but not spectacular script.

8 - The Witchfinders - because the aliens kinda parachuted in from nowhere, coming across as almost an afterthought to fill out the run-time. Rather unsatisifying "and that's that" ending. Allan Cumming waas fun.

9 - The Tsuranga Conundrum - because it was basically an Alien rip-off. I actually liked the pregnant male ALIEN.

10 - Kerblam! - because it was SO BLAND. More "Uncanny Valley" androids, felt like season padding...

And finally: PoliticalCorrectness.exe NOT FOUND.

(Cross-posted at aceofthorns.tumblr.com)

Right now, I should be sifting through my ComicCon “footage”, pulling together some kind of after-thought piece on OPERATION FROZEN MUSTANG, but… oh hell, there HAD to be an election in the UK. An election in which I had a wholly unexpected part to play…

I was pretty disillusioned with British politics after the EU referendum, and the 2010 general election where I voted for the Liberal Democrats, in direct opposition to the unemployed-hating Conservatives, only for the LibDems to commit electoral suicide by forming a coalition with the Tories, enabling Tory hate-crimes against the unemployed and the disabled. This time round, I had intended to vote for an independent candidate, rather than let my vote go completely to waste… until Prime Minister Theresa May - who became PM solely by replacing David Cameron as leader of the Tories - started talking about banning internet encryption (making all our communications vulnerable to criminals - AND TERRORISTS) and tearing up human rights laws to get at terrorists (EXACTLY what the TERRORISTS want).

Instead of sitting on the sidelines, I decided to make an active contribution to the political discourse. I voted for the current MP for my constituency.

He retained his seat by TWO VOTES. In an election where the Tories were stopped EIGHT SEATS short of an outright majority.

I, a solitary voter, had made a difference, through my change of heart. I don’t view myself as some kind of king-maker, and I certainly don’t expect any special treatment. Even so, I find myself feeling so much more RELEVANT than ever before, even if just for one shining moment.

To make things even sweeter, the party held two votes short of winning were the LibDems, who seven years earlier sold my vote to the Tories. Payback is, as they say, a bitch.

And finally…

Heh - MARVEL PUZZLE QUEST is my go-to mobile game right now, and I just had some serious luck. Nailed the Deadpool Daily Taco token, which got me 1000 Hero Coins, of which I used some to buy a cut-price Heroic Recruit Token, and out of that came a Power for Marvel NOW! Thor. That 2-star hero is maxed out, and was just assigned Champion status - so that Power earns him a new level, above his normal Level cap... and THAT nets me another Heroic Recruit Token as a reward. Now THAT Token nets me a Power for Ms Marvel Captain Marvel, who I've been desperately trying to level up...

...errrr, not that that'll make sense to a bunch of you, but hey, its news, and has made my day. Smile for me, okay?

I had planned to import my LiveJournal, following the change in the TOS there, but when I tried it, the account access failed. Now, my LJ login doesn't work - I'm locked out...

I think LJ is now illegally hosting my material.

Some tinkering later, it has worked, as you can see.

Right: time for some catch-up. Esssential if I'm going to get back into this blogging business...

Movies: Since last time I reviewed any movies, I saw Interstellar and The Hobbit: Battle Of The Five Armies. Both merit a worthy 8/10. The former had hints of 2001 to it, but they didn't impede the story at all, whilst the latter entertained, but lacked a sense of conclusion - proimarly because it leads straight(-ish) into the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

I actually saw fewer movies this past year than in 2013, partly because some never got to us here, or had decent screenings, and three movies on the list either got postponed (Jupiter Ascending) or ended up with a 2015 release date over this side of The Pond, those being Monsters: Dark Continent and surprisingly Big Hero 6, which could have been a Christmas hit. Guess Disney surrendered to the power of The One Ring...

This year, however, is starting to shape up VERY nicely. There are two Marvel movies, of course, and a Star Wars. There was a "15 Movies To See in 2015" list somewhere, but some of those just didn't "float my boat", or feature on my radar. Oh, there's also a Jurassic Park in there somewhere, which might be fun. I'll throw together a "must-see" list if I happen to have nothing better to post about.

TV: 2014 was the Year Of The Twelfth - Doctor, that is - and Peter Capaldi did a pretty fine job of sweeping aside the "pretty boys" of the past: he really COULDN'T have been any more different (unless, of course, he'd be a Diversity Darling*, of different gender and ethnicity). The scripts had their ups and downs, but there was some really good stuff in amongst it all. Even the Christmas Special got pretty cerebral!

The other Big Deal on TV in 2014 was the return of Agents of SHIELD, for the first half of a second season - and boy did it turn things around! Now that Marvel Studios have Phase Three all planned out, the show can stretch its legs a bit, and grab some much-needed room to breathe - as in breathe [SPOILER] Terrigen Mist [END SPOILER]! The second half of this season will be "must-see" - as will mid-season "special event" mini-series Agent Carter. If the buzz (ahem) surrounding Ant-Man is anything to go by, the "glory years" of SHIELD will have a significant part to play in how things shape up from here!

Also worthy of note:
- Gotham: a different take on the Bat-world. Some liberties may have been taken, but hey, it's been worth seeing just to see where it'll go next...
- The 100: a show that didn't seem to have much potential, but which has since proven me wrong. Season 2 is due to commence on Tuesday, and that cliff-hanger certainly got my attention...
- Homeland: You'd have been justified in querying whether this could go any further after the final events of Season 2, but the recently ended Season 3 actually managed to keep things going... except for the last, and rather anticlimactic episode. I think a Season 4 is on the cards, and I'm happy to give it the benefit of the doubt when the season premiere comes around!

Okay, that was a bit longer than I planned, but sometimes, that's how these things go

* Oooooh, bit risky there, but I do hope that 2015 isn't another year of making creative types feel guilty for not pushing non-males or non-whites to the fore. This is something else I need to address on it's own...