Kaymyth

Oh, man, this birthday cake that my coworker made has layers of chocolate chip cookie dough in it. This is SO RICH I can't keep eating it, but SO GOOD I can't bear to stop.

I fixed that for you.

So. It was awesome. I won a major Masquerade prize. Pictures in my Cosplay Tidbits thread.

Adding new pictures! (Yes, I already put these into the Random Stuff thread. I know. But not everyone follows that labyrinthine rabbit hole of a thread.) Plus I'm adding a few that weren't in the other post, so there. I mean, how else are you all going to see the foundation garments? For those of you who don't know the background: this is the costume that I took into the Masquerade competition at WorldCon on Friday: Victorian Twilight Sparkle. @ThirdGen was kind enough to provide the narration for my audio; the presentation was done in the style of one of those 50s-era training videos. We even found the perfect cheesy music to set it all to. "Hello, and welcome to part twelve of our series Time Travel in the Human World: How Everypony Can Learn to Study Alien Cultures!" It just got sillier from there, and the audience absolutely ate it up. I wound up winning the Best Performance award in the Novice class; this is major and bumped me up to Journeyman level in costuming from here on out. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to have won a Best in Class award at an International Costumers' Guild level Masquerade. This was huge for me. The rest of the Kansas City Guild did really well, too. A friend* who was competing as a Journeyman won the Best Workmanship award for her level, which bumps her up to Master (and means I don't have to compete against her yet, hah!). Our Master-class folks banded together and won a Workmanship award as well. * In fact, she created a costume based on Kinuko Craft's Cinderella artwork, and Craft was the artist GoH at the convention. She was back in the green room with us. There's this amazing picture out there of my friend with Craft hugging her and looking like the happiest artist on the planet. And now, without further ado, the pictures!

Thank you! But...I probably won't. I don't feel right pestering people for upvotes. You'll have to remember yourself. Heh, I think you looked at it before I put in the second edit and added captions. I managed to accidentally double-nest the spoilers, and now I can't fix it because new code weirdness.

Yep! There are a couple of pulls on the front of the costume that allow me to open them. It's a really simple lever design, too; not difficult at all. Sorry about the double-nested spoiler cuts. I'm still getting used to the new code system when editing.

Pictures! I used the new attachment feature. I hope this works properly and doesn't just throw up a bunch of huge images on the thread... EDIT: Well, not huge at least, but they still needed to be put behind a spoiler cut...

*squeek* I have a TAG! Thank you. This must've been one of the folks from the fan photography session while the judges were deliberating.

I made Tumblr? Really? I can has link? So, um, yes, that was me. I've gotta say that @ThirdGen did an absolutely fantastic job on the voiceover recording for my routine. The audience absolutely ate the whole thing up. (I couldn't see them, but I was told afterwards that there were about 1500 people in there, and even more upstairs watching on the live feed. That was at least a third of the entire convention.) This win, by the way, officially bumps me up from Novice to Journeyman in costume competitions. One of my other Kansas City Costumer's Guild friends won her Journeyman division and has been bumped up to Master, and our group of Masters competed as a team and won Best Workmanship in their division as well. Our Guild is awesome. Other highlights of the con: * Bartle Hall is kind of amazing, space-wise. The exhibits, dealer's section, art show, and a bunch of other things were all in the same ginormous hall. We had NASA astronauts in attendance even! Being on staff, I helped with move-in and setup. It takes an incredible amount of planning to arrange and mark off that much space for things. * After the Masquerade, I was still in costume and ready to head back to my hotel when I ran into some NaNo friends. When they heard what had happened, they insisted on escorting me upstairs into the exhibit hall around the party areas (where people had been watching the contest feed) for a "victory lap". I got all the accolades. It might've gone to my head. * I shamelessly pinned my Masquerade award ribbon to my bag and flaunted it all over the con the last two days. * I chatted with John Picacio on Saturday (I had previously met him at JordanCon), and later that day he recognized me and called me by name. When he was far enough away that he couldn't have been reading my badge. * OMG GUYS I GOT TO TOUCH A HUGO AWARD

You haven't seen the last of her yet. Go switch over to Angel now.

Well, that's what 30 second on a Google search will get you. There are probably better maps out there, but I was in a hurry. I've never owned a car that wasn't an automatic transmission. James, on the other hand, prefers a manual transmission and has thus far always managed to get one. It's getting harder, though; most car companies assume that if you want a manual you either are poor and need a bare bones model or you want a sports car. Just want a normal car with some actual features? Nope, sorry, it's an automatic for you! When James went car hunting a couple years ago, he found that Mazda was one of the few car companies left that offered manual on all trim levels, so he drives a Mazda3 now. Re: windows - Around here, windows totally open, but not generally in the way that European windows do. Ours just slide up and down, and we have screens over the outside to keep the bugs from flying in. Likewise, most American houses have screen doors, so that you can open your door and let a breeze run through the house and keep the biting and stinging beasties at bay.

The Shard membership consists of people from all over the globe. On occasion, I see a bit of discussion that hinges around a misunderstanding and/or general confusion of how people "over there" do things. So I decided that hey, maybe we need a thread just for this! I've seen it done to excellent effect on other forums, so here we go. To kick things off, here's an overlay map of the U.S. vs. Europe. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard about people from other countries coming to visit New York City and thinking they can take a "day trip" to see the Grand Canyon. Good luck with that. (Fun fact, you can fit two entire United States AND two entire Europes into Africa, and still have room to rattle around a number of large islands.) So, anyone have questions about weird things that other countries do? Ask them here!

...if you were one of my RL friends, I'd suggest a casual fling to try and get some of the built-up jumbled stuff out of your system. But this is the Shard, and the majority of denizens tend more towards the conservative side when it comes to relationships, so this advice may be good for you, or it may be terrible for you. I don't know you well enough to say which way it's likely to go.

Heh. Yes, you will. I thoroughly enjoy it when new friends demand to see my ID when I tell them how old I am.

o.O It's not in Columbus, it's in Kansas City. But yes, WorldCon is super-expensive compared to most cons.

I fully acknowledge that I may be the only Sharder going to WorldCon this year (NEXT WEEK), but just in case...anybody else? Anybody? ...Bueller?

Well, there are a small subset of jerks out there who will traipse around and act all judgey and bodyshame people. But they're jerks and should be reported to con staff for harassment.

If you want to go old school, try the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. They're fantastic, up through All the Weyrs of Pern (and OK, I do love Masterharper of Pern, too), but after that her son Todd starts writing and it just sort of reads like bad fanfic.

Can you get additional opinions? Maybe try and find a patient advocacy group somewhere that will help you push harder for a proper diagnosis? Sometimes it takes people who know how to navigate the system in order to get results.

You need to get thyself to a convention.

Heh. Nah, I'm going with Penelope Quill. Straight-out femme!Quill. Because I can. (Assuming I ever work my way down to that costume on my list.) There are male cosplayers everywhere around here. I don't know why they're so rare in your neck of the woods. And I actually enjoy using my costumes as a way to talk to folks at cons. I'm an introvert, so I tend to let myself get a bit lost in the sea of people if I don't have a friend to "anchor" myself to. Wearing cool costumes is a way to get people to talk to me of their own volition and allow me to hide my awkwardness.

Hee. Wrong Captain Jack. Harkness, not Sparrow.

The "have no time" is the only valid argument. Costuming can be learned, and crossplay is totally a thing that happens all over the place. Tons of people take their favorite opposite-sex characters and make them into their own so they can wear them. Hell, I've been pondering making a Femme!Starlord costume someday because it'd be awesome. And while we're talking about costumes - my Masquerade entry continues apace. Tomorrow, ThirdGen is coming over to help write and record my voiceover for the competition. My plans are to do a faux-50s/60s vintage "how to" video entitled, "Part 14 of How Everypony Can Blend In!" Today's subject will be in what the human world terms the "Victorian" era. (Seriously, ThirdGen has the perfect baritone for doing one of those things.)

Ha! In all seriousness, @Quiver, remember this - "Cosplay does not equal consent." No, you're not really required to make out with people. Nobody cosplaying as any character is required to do anything they are not comfortable with doing.