#I SHOULD PROBABLY LET MYSELF REST PROPERLY EVEN FOR A BIT BCS THAT'S NECESSARY BUT | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

juupajaa · 5 years

Text

🌋Acts for change:

I chose the erupting volcano for this bc honestly that’s pretty much exactly what this stage is all about. This is the most difficult stage in eds, but also the stage that has the most powerful emotions and biggest character growth. It’s do or die and it’s ugly as hell, but we’re so close to being in the clear, we can’t lie down yet!

Ok it’s time to start a war lads. Acts for change is the worst when you’re in it, but afterwards it will feel like the most badass thing you’ve ever done.

You’re ready to fight back and it’s time to take all those emotions you’ve been shoving under your pillow ever since things first started to go bad and you gotta take them out, and pour some gasoline on them, because we need to burn through all of it before this shit can stop. Acts for change is all about doing things you hate, fear and loathe. You’re going to go through a lot of shame, guilt, sadness, fear, anger, confusion, disgust, discomfort, anxiety yada yada yada. Just every nasty feeling you can imagine, you probably will go through it during this stage.

Depending on how long you’ve been stuck with your ed or how thoroughly the disordered thought patterns have infiltrated every corner of your mind, this part might be relatively easy or near impossible. For some, this part doesn’t need much, just some positive encouragement and a good enough lure at the end. For example, once you’ve pushed yourself out of hope for change and into this stage, you might have been building up a lot of willpower, and your life isn’t at a crumbling point. Maybe you know that something good is going to happen and you are extra motivated to recover for the sake of it.

For others, their life still isn’t looking great and they’ve just barely made it into the acts for change by fear or pressure alone. In such a case, the workload can become overwhelming, and especially since there isn’t “much to look forward to” recovery doesn’t seem very appealing all the time. Needless to say, it is important to establish some sort of a dream for yourself. Anything to look forward to and fight for.

No matter the situation, everyone goes through some horrible days or even weeks during this stage and in general, you might be extremely confused by your mind, since it can pretty much turn upside down in an instant. One moment you’re full of might and you’re eager to get better, the next you’re regretting every step you’ve taken away from your ed. You’re going to be very moody, scared and irritated and that’s normal and everyone has to understand that you’re not yourself right now. Your mind is splitting in two and you’re constantly working extremely hard to save your life. Here are some thoughts you might be going back and forth with:

This is too hard, I will never succeed at this VS I can do this, I’m already doing so much

I wish I could go back to my ed VS I don’t ever want to go back to my ed

I am going to regret this so much VS I will never look back once I get out of this mess

I must have been faking the whole thing VS I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be fighting this hard if I had faked it

There’s nothing wrong with me, I should stop wasting everyone’s time VS I’m still very much ill and I am where I should be

Sometimes you don’t win this war and you relapse. It happens, but it doesn’t have to mean you sink back into the bottom. You can always climb back up to where you were, and every time you come here, you are smarter and stronger. If you do get overwhelmed and resort to going back a few stages, you can climb back up the same way you did earlier. Never think that you can’t climb back up here if you fall down.

This stage requires you to face your fears and it isn’t easy. You can’t get it right on the first try, you’re bound to fail here and there, everyone does, but you have to make sure you keep your eyes to the future, rather than the past. Here are some things you might want to try/focus on during this stage:

Proper nutrition: the easiest way to do this is to get on a meal plan. You can find normal meal plans online. What you want to aim for is regular meals with enough nutrition to keep you healthy. This stage requires a lot of mental willpower and strength from you and you simply can’t beat this without being properly fed. It is such a bitch, because your relationship with food won’t get fixed without you eating normally. It sucks, it’s the worst, but honestly, try to imagine food is your medicine. You can hate it as much as you do, but you have to take it in order to get better.

Keeping external stress at bay: You are already under a lot of stress. If it’s at all possible, put a halt to most of your life. Ideally you could literally not think about anything but getting better for a few months, but that isn’t possible for many, so doing what you can and getting the help you can is a must. If there’s responsibilities you don’t have the energy to do, see if you can’t get someone to help you with them for some time. Keep your screen time very controlled, don’t let yourself see or hear anything that might upset you or make you feel more negative emotions. Surround yourself with things you like and things that make you calm.

Establish a dream, goal, or a future you’re working towards: I already touched on this briefly, but basically, you’ll need all the motivation you can get and sometimes it isn’t even enough. One of your main ways to cope with recovery/losing your old coping mechanism, should be daydreaming. Daydream all day if you like, make up big plans, make up small plans, just get busy and start picturing a life you want for yourself and keep thinking about it and how much you want it.

Practice mindfulness and consciousness: Yuck, I hate this shit. I’m too much of a hardass to feel totally composed regarding these exercises, but sure enough I have to do them at therapy every week. It does help, not gonna lie, but I don’t like it one bit. Some do, some find these things calming and enjoyable, but I mostly just start nervously twitching and squirming whenever I have to stay still and think about a happy place or to consciously tell myself that “I love myself and I wish good health for myself”. These exercises have helped me to stop running down my old disordered thought patterns everytime something bad happens to me and they help me to deconstruct those disordered thought patterns, but oh my god I hate doing these exercises, I just can’t calm down and relax.

During this stage, you are working to deconstruct the thought patterns that your ed has created for you. It is slow work, it is hard work, and it will feel like you’re stuck and not progressing at all, but trust me, you are making progress. Everytime you don’t do something you ed tells you to do, you’re undermining the thought pattern. Everytime you think something your ed makes you think, but add your own new recovery-flavoured addition to it, you’re undermining the thought patterns. Even if you don’t believe a word you’re saying to your ed when you’re trying to convince the both of you that this is the right thing to do, you’re making progress. These things are like picking up blades of grass with tweezers from a golf field. One at the time, slowly but surely.

This stage can last for months, you might slip backwards a few times, but rest assured, your progress won’t be undone. Just climb back up the next day, try again, and again, and again. Little by little you’re getting better and closer to the last stage of your ed (SPOILERS: it’s pretty good).

Let’s talk about treatment options, yeah? During the acts for change, you are extremely vulnerable to falling back into your disorder, for the negative emotions and discomfort are bound to be high and you are so used to using your disordered behaviour to compensate those emotions.

This is why inpatient/residential is the most effective treatment option, because it relieves you of a lot of responsibility over yourself, while also removing you from you daily life and the stress. You are in a safe place where you can be as weak and miserable as you truly are, and someone is always there to help you through the hard moments and making sure you stick to your recovery. Inpatient isn’t the only way though and often not necessary. The only time inpatient is absolutely necessary is if your physical health is deteriorating and you need medical care. Being severy under or overweight, malnourished, or suffering from health complications might make inpatient needed, but in general, inpatient treatment is not necessary, unless you want it or can’t recover any other way. I went inpatient for my fourth episode with me ed. I was underweight and badly malnourished, but there was no medical emergency, so inpatient wasn’t exactly necessary, but I had the option to go and I took it.

Outpatient treatment, such as talk therapy sessions can be just as effective as inpatient, although it requires a lot more strength and willpower from you yourself. Outpatient treatment can be for example talk therapy, group therapy, regular check-ups with a doctor or a nurse, physiotherapy or seeing a nutritionist. The most effective way to make outpatient work is to make an outpatient team that communicates with one and other, and together you decide how to proceed each week.

Recovering without professional care is possible, but it is definitely the most difficult way to go about it and it can leave you unprepared for possible relapses. I’ve recovered on my own three times and each time it required me to sacrifice something in order for it to work. Usually I had to quit school or move back to my mother’s, so I could focus on what was important. I ate my mother’s food and didn’t do anything else until my disordered thought patterns had faded into oblivion. The support of family and friends is very important in every option, but especially if you don’t get professional care.

I live in Finland and we have a really good healthcare system that didn’t absolutely bankrupt me and my family when I got help for my ed, but I know that’s not the case everywhere. However, even if you assume that you can’t afford care or don’t have options, I recommend confirming it from someone who knows these things. There are lots of ed centres online that you can contact and ask for advice if you don’t know what your options are. These places usually have some sort of crisis chat or number where you can talk to professionals, usually free of charge, if you feel like you’re about to lose your shit. Taking any help you can is key in recovery and trust me, you need it and you are absolutely worthy of it. These people get paid to do this, you’re not bothering them and they’re doing their job.

Acts for change lasts as long as it needs to and the shift to the next stage is gradual. It is the worst bullshit you’ll ever go through, but hey, you’re so close to being in the clear, you just gotta get through this one last stage and then it’s all going to fall into place and you’re gonna finally get to relax.

5 notes · View notes

jazzarray · 6 years

Text

Riju Production Post

So I’m mostly doing this for my own references (and as a reminder to take more pictures while working on costumes for proper progress posts/threads), but I just wanted to take the time and put together a post on my process and methods while working on my fave cosplay to date, Riju from Breath of the Wild!

This post will be really photo heavy. And text heavy. Just heavy overall, so watch out on mobile (sorry ahead of time) -

WARNING for hand closeup in the last image, scopophobia,

First things first, I gathered as many reference images as I possibly could. I went into the game itself and used nintendo’s handy dandy screen shot feature to take some pics. I also lurked around online in various boards and things to see if anyone else had taken some good detail shots of things I had missed. Here are some that i found the most useful:

Full body shots are always necessary. This one also gave me the bonus of being able to estimate how many coins to put on her skirt as well as a reference for the print inside of the skit

Much needed detail shots of the armor she’s wearing. I wanted to nail down the shape and dimension of everything as much as i could

And, since I love a good Prop, I had to make the Thunder Helm. The construction seemed maybe not simple but not ridiculous enough that I felt I could confidently reproduce it

Then I decided to do something I had sort of done before, but not to the extent that I did with Riju. I needed to draw everything out, write what materials would be used and where, how much I would need, the techniques I would use, etc. To save space, I’ll link to the post where I uploaded the four pages of breakdown I did for her --> here

I started on her probably later than I should have, around late Feb, March of this year (the con I debuted her at was in May). And then I messed around and didn’t get started on her as soon as I could have even after all my materials were bought. Speaking of which, let’s do a quick materials breakdown and where I got stuff

I bought about 3 yards of a slightly see-through, light weight black knit from Joanns. I was also able to find a heavier cotton blend printed fabric that, from the wrong side mimicked perfectly the pattern on Riju’s inner skirt.

I drafted my own patterns. The top was essentially a slightly bigger sports bra. The skirt I think I just kinda wrapped the fabric around myself and had my sister cut the angle I wanted. I used that piece to cut the inner lining of the skirt.

I hand painted the design on the top with 3d fabric paint. Some of the colors had to be mixed, particularly the gold. And i had to mix them multiple times bc I couldn’t finish it all at once lol. That was a pain.

JSYK, you can mix fabric paint with regular acrylic and it’ll still be just as flexible.

I stretched out the top on a cutting board I had and held it there with wonderclips lol. Bootleg, but it worked

This was also my first time working with bias tape! It’s kinda rough in some sections but it gave the top a really nice finish, i think. I also added some lil shoulder straps on with the rest of the tape I had, just for added support.

Jewelry, Belt, Armor, etc Everything not fabric was craft foam of varying thickness. Everything was either primed with glue/water or was coated with a few layers of plastidip. The detailing on the chest and belt pieces were done with 3D fabric paint

The only pieces not foam or fabric are air dry clay and hot glue casted gems. I made my own silicone mold with pure silicone + corn starch + a bit of baby oil. I think I used oven bake clay for the negatives and just filled those babies with hot glue. Sanded down the sides to get the defined lines I wanted and painted them with nail polish.

The air dry clay pieces coming off of the chest armor were strung together with more invisible thread and kinda shoddily held together with hot glue. But It Worked, Okay?

Everything that needed to be put on that wasn’t clothing (chest armor, jewelry pieces, belt, the petal sash looking thing) was strapped purely with velcro.

The shoes were just a thrifted pair of black heels and I painted the lines on with Angelus brand leather paint (this stuff is godly and a little goes a long way)

Here’s the base of the front of the helm unpainted.

I used 8mm eva sheet foam and 8mm dowels the from TNT Cosplay Supply as well as some basic 2-6mm foamie sheets from any store with a craft sections (I think i got mine from michaels? and some backup 2mm sheets from walmart)

The helm was a bit odd to pattern. I spent a lot of time doodling out shapes in my sketchbook. I made some v elementary templates out of poster board and had a Lot of re-working, especially with the slightly curved base of the front of the helm, the actual mask part. I knew it had to be two pieces because trying to make it one would make the curves at the top wrong potentially. It also gave me a good guideline for the midline of the helm itself for coloring.

Everything was held together with contact cement and shaped with a heat gun. I learned with this project just how pliable even 8mm thick craft foam can get when it’s hot. I reinforced some of the curves by scoring the curves and gluing the cut section back together.

I primed this all with glue/water mix and everything was spray painted that base gold.

I....completely freehanded the non gold sections. I painted the brown of the front of the helm first and then remembered the gold sections going down. I think I tried to sketch out the lines at first and then just went “fuck it” and free handed everything. Took a lot of careful brush strokes and correcting but I think it turned out well.

if you look closely at the pieces with the half question marks on them, you can see where I attempted to correct some lines with hand mixed acrylic and didn’t exactly get the color right lol whoops. It’s only noticable in closeups tho.

The front and back pieces of the helm were held together via velcro. I wanted them to be able to come apart, especially since I knew I was going to travel with it. The whole thing is rather Rigid so it needed some way to be more travel-with-able.

Close up of the Helm. It was extremely light weight, if only a lil awkward to tote around. I made it way too big so it couldn’t even be worn properly lol.

Weirdest snail I’ve ever seen

Base wig was Buttercup in Rust Red by Arda . I also got a bunch of their long wefts in the same color as well as their red jumbo braids. I used their tutorial on how to style a Rapunzel wig as the basis for how to do the braid.

I ruined my first pack of jumbo braid hair and had to order more last second. The wig was one of the last pieces to get done.

As in the rapunzel method, the braid is separate from the base wig and attached with hook/eye closures. It was still really dragging the back of the wig down, but I managed to braid in most of the base hair of the wig into the braid to hide the worst of it. It was so long, it reached all the way to my butt, i was so happy

The styling of the front of the wig was....mostly me winging it again. I knew theoretically what I needed to do -- tease the front bang a bit, add on wefts so that the hairline looked natural. But when I started doing so, I got impatient, like I normally do. To be fair the wig turned out way better than i thought it could given how much of a rush job the hair line and the bump + pinwheels were but hey

Everything got a generous helping of got 2 b glued spray

the side loops were completely separate pieces. I initially intended to sew them into the wig, but it was easier to put on and take off when they were separate

these were fabric hoops i stuffed lightly with pillow batting and, in another rush job, glued some wefts onto the loops. The gold rings were also just craft foam

Aside from the lipstick, I didn’t do the best with my makeup as I could have lol

I didn’t properly plan out what to color my eyebrows with. And covering them up was a serious rush job -- I didn’t practice before hand like I should have so I didn’t get them as smooth as I wanted

I also used....regular lipstick as the color, not even a drying matte, so anytime my hands went near my face (which was often bc of the helm, I had to whip out my mirror to do a smear check

The eye makeup was lipstick as well, but a matte one! It’s colourpop, I can’t remember which shade. The lipstick actually on my lips was a cheap drugstore brand I found at a beauty store.

First pair of ears were i think from Aradani?? I can’t 100% remember; there was a booth at Katsu this year....

Second pair, bc i lost the first pair somehow, was borrowed from a good friend lol

Now I know how to make my own latex ears so that’ll be what I do in the future

Contacts were from Alice and Rabbit’s Shop

I’ve got a decent amount of (what I would/could have done betters)

I need to figure out a better strapping method for the jewelry. The velcro I used was pretty thick and i found multiple scratches where they rubbed against me all day (a couple of em briefly scarred lol)

I wasn’t able to isolate a good enough image for the sand seal emblum that’s actually printed on her skirt. I might just hand paint it on if I can draw a decent enough template

The back piece of the helm, the band that connected to the circle, was...a pain. Since I was in the heat, it lost its shape pretty quickly when not attached to the front part and having to reshape it caused it to crack quite badly.

The aforementioned circular piece also wasn’t as securely connected as it could have been (i’m still trying to figure out what I could have done better. Maybe pins or something through the foam?) and I had to rush to the cosplay repair booth when I got to the con to make sure it didn’t completely rip off.

I found two pairs of black heels and neither of them fit well enough to walk in all day! so I would up taking a bunch of photos in the wrong shoes bc I had switched them out and forgotten to put the actual shoes back on lol.

Practice the makeup!! Practice, practice practice. Especially eyebrow blocking bc mine are pretty thick and bushy and it Did Not work as well the first time lol.

And last but most importantly: GIVE YOURSELF ENOUGH DANG TIME TO NOT RUSH

i was so hesitant to cut into anything, especially the foam, that i wound up working on things down to the wire, aka friday night before I was set to wear Riju.

Take time,especially when doing new things you’ve never done before

don’t be afraid to think outside the box and even reach out to someone, even if they’re a non-cosplayer, for help and ideas because they will probably save your ass (thanks dad)

So here is my little love letter to my Riju cosplay. It’s...admittedly in shambles kind of now. Half of my armor pieces had some bumps or breaks that are repairable but not a priority. The wig is a mess because the back kept tangling on my armor pieces. The band/back of the Helm is also a wreck, cracked to hell and back.

But!! I want better pictures of her, so I want to try and fix her up so I can at least do a decent photoshoot somewhere. I also wanna make a patricia plush! Maybe enter her into a contest??

Only time, patience, and a Lotta Money will tell lol

#jazz says shit #jazz takes pics #cosplay ramblings

7 notes · View notes