~Allergic to capitalism~

I'll hold you as long as you need, it's OK, I've got you, you're safe in my arms if hurting others healed your pain I would bathe you in blood daily

You just gotta remind yourself that just like this deer, you are in the situation (social) where everyone is expecting this situation to occur (social situationing), and many other people may even be expressly looking forward to it (seeing you/the deer). Seeing the deer (you) may be the best part of the situation for them.

Exactly!!!!

and even if it wasn't the sole or only reason they are there, they came KNOWING there are 1,300-1,400 deer (you) free roaming in Nara Park (in social situations) and you're going to be a delightful part of the experience. (As long as you don't bite anyone for crackers. Or headbutt them.)

This is the map of Nara Park area, btw. The bus terminal is literally right on the entrance to the park. Also the city mascot is a sika deer named Shikamaro-kun. The little blue path from the terminal is where I bought deer crackers to feed the deer in the photo on the approach to Todaiji temple. (The deer enclosure I think is Rokuen which is where the sick or pregnant deer are cared for in safety.)

Anyways! The deer are expected and beloved and also protected as messengers of the gods within Nara.

(look at this guy!! Imagine he is the same deer as in the first photo, it's just months later with his antlers grown in more and he's napping in the sun in front of a sign that says deer! he was never out of place, he just needed a sunshine nap!)

Deer (you) isn't actually out place at all! deer is important and appreciated. Also if people make deer (you) feel like you don't belong in their (your) own house, you can tell them to leave.

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.  

OP also invented armsocks.

when we eventually come to know and see ourselves as girls (because this truth cannot be hidden forever), the deal begins to break. so long as we deny ourselves, we can continue to excel, but our breakdown is already underway. for now, we can continue to make beloved art, to be clever, to be quick. but soon enough, it seeps through the cracks in our skulls.

when everyone else sees not just that we are girls (in truth, they have seen this all along) but that we know we are girls, our permission to excellence is revoked. our usefulness is expended and the deal is forfeit. in general, we cannot be great artists or scientists or athletes so long as we understand ourselves as girls. our art is great, but we are problematic. our science is cutting edge, but we are unprofessional. our strength and our speed are against the rules.

we are so very useful to society, as long as we exist in the way that grinds away at our spirit and stifles our heart. it is not as if our ability suddenly disappears when we learn our worth, we still have just as much power to understand and illuminate this world, but to human society we are no longer acceptable, no longer safe. we have always been good tools, but in our own hands now we are weapons, which must be blunted.

Its for a good reason but it's kind of also undeniably funny. It really looks like that.

And who helped me with that? Not people calling for some nebulous revolution. Not people telling me that the system was useless. Not people preaching at me to grow my own food. It was a church food bank partially funded by the state of Texas that some southern hippies donated a bunch of Whole Foods nonsense to.

And you know what? I’m sick and tired of defeatism. What can we get done right now, huh? Are you gonna accept something a bit better to help people right now or are you waiting for your perfect utopia to come to you?

Beetle 🚗

Her breasts are so scared of Silent Hill they've perked up and are trying to escape her body. I'd also love to know what she looks like under the panel.