The Wind Rises

It doesn't matter what era you were born into. It simply doesn't. Even if it's supposed to be more or less comfortable or safe than other eras, it's not like you actually lived in those eras, so who are you to try and compare them or decide you'd rather live in one than the other? "It's all the same fucking day."

This has been brewing in my mind for awhile, but I feel like seeing The Wind Rises today really solidified that idea for me. It was a beautiful movie (as one would expect from the illustrious Studio Ghibli, of course), but what I found most striking was the way Jiro didn't let the circumstances he was born into dictate stop him from chasing his dreams. He worked with what he had even if it was often less than ideal and never gave up, and it wasn't even in the obnoxiously preachy way a lot of hero-type protagonists do it because he never considered giving up. There was no scene where the film made a big deal of the disadvantages he faced and how it was nearly impossible--he simply kept going no matter what was thrown at him, and did it with dignity and courtesy to boot.

I dwell on the problems of this era a lot. Perhaps more than is healthy, but I figure that's better than not thinking about it at all. Nonetheless, I have a hard time accepting how little power I have sometimes, and an even harder time accepting the amount of effort necessary to accomplish anything at all. But I think I'm finally managing to actually narrow my focus to the present more than I can ever remember being able to do before. Not that the past or future should be ignored, but they're only valuable in the ways that they relate to the present. Even though I've thought this for a long time, I never really managed to push myself into that mindset like I have right now. It's a nice place to be.

Anyway. Go see The Wind Rises. I've already said why I like that specific movie, plus it's Studio Ghibli, so you can't really go wrong.

Simplify?

It's winter drumline season again, and one thing I've been noticing with drumlines this year is that their uniforms are simpler. For the uninitiated, winter drumlines come up with new uniforms for each show they do (so one per year.) Often times they'll be fancy and related to the theme in some way. Usually stretchy and form-fitting, possibly with extra details that sometimes get changed throughout the show (for example, hoods, which can be pulled up or down to complement a change in mood or help to distinguish between groups of performers within the same line if their show calls for it.) Sometimes the uniforms are homemade, sometimes they're assembled from store-bought parts, and sometimes the entire line has customized t-shirts or sweatshirts. I've been seeing a lot more of the latter than usual this year. One would think that this would detract from the quality of the show, but I'm finding that it seems to be working in the lines' favor--without the fancier costumes and props, one's attention is focused more on the performance itself and the creativity of the writing.

"Adryrn, I don't care about winter drumline, write about something spooky or rant about the Monster so you at least can appeal to my sadistic taste in blogs" says the imaginary reader who accurately represents none of you as far as I can tell but nevermind that o__o. I've been feeling a pull toward more simplicity in my outfits myself lately--or at least "cleaner" outfits. This might be because it's winter and wearing ouji/lolita under my winter coat has simply lost its appeal. I don't know that I'll be able to say for sure until it warms up more.

I'm not as enthralled looking at pictures of others in lolita either as of late. I'm not sure if it's the prints or the overall style. I still feel like it can be streamlined a lot and still be lolita (even though for a lot of people the appeal seems to lie in the opulence), but I'm unsure. I find that design details that stand out like super wide skirts or chunky boots appeal to me a lot more than intricate prints or even things like blouses (lace seems to annoy me more than anything else), and I prefer bold contrasts to intricate color coordinations. I like a lot of what one finds in earlier Gothic & Lolita Bibles, but the fun thing there is that a lot of it edges out of what is considered lolita and more into plain goth territory. At the same time, even those outfits look different from the tradgoth sort of stuff that usually comes to mind when I think "goth", in a very lolitaesque way.

I'd try pursuing these impulses, but at the same time I'm kind of sick of seeking out more pieces/accessories, so I'll probably just work with what I've already got--oh who the hell am I kidding. I say that and then immediately think "well except for those boots I've been meaning to buy since the ones I have are getting worn out and [insert further excuses here]" and "I should wear make-up that stands out instead of curating an eccentric wardrobe" which means I have to buy make-up since I don't really have anything useable except nail polish right now. And then there are all the patches I want to make and buy (and even if I make them I still have to buy material) to stick on the one button-down shirt that used to be part of a Misa cosplay (making a sort of patchy outer layer that probably will work nicely in the summer.) And that altered hoodie I want to re-vamp, although at least I probably won't have to buy anything for that. Even "working with what I've got" seems to mean buying more stuff. Oh well. Maybe this actually will be my last round on the fashion tread mill before I'm finally content.

Blending in while standing out

Although what I wear stands out sometimes, I actually do care about whether it fits in with my surroundings. However, I care because I like things to fit together aesthetically, not out of any particular urge to conform to social expectations (although I would probably recognize the practical necessity of doing so in some situations, such as visiting a country that has stronger and different expectations of what constitutes proper attire than my home country.)

A lot of what I like actually manages to not clash with my campus (which is where I'm spending most of my time right now), although sometimes it doesn't feel quite right inside of the more modern buildings (with exceptions--STSS is pretty nice-looking, for example, although in more of a sci-fi kind of way.) Casual (by today's standards or by last century's standards), comparatively modest clothing works well here. Anything that exposes too much skin is impractical as well as unfitting because they air condition the hell out of the buildings in the summer. Campus is a good place to look civilized, if only barely.

Older urban settings are similar to campus, although not as grandiose. Even more simplicity works well here--things that might be boring in other contexts become interesting to me because they fit in better and act like an extension of the interest I find in urban architecture and decay. In contrast to campus, vicious works about as well as civilized as far as style goes. Ripped clothes, fishnets, and thick eyeliner blend in nicely with the decay of the older and less maintained buildings.

Newer buildings tend to look cheaper, plainer, and sometimes gaudier. Most importantly, they have not had time to decay sufficiently, so they are not beautiful like their equivalent older counterparts. I try to avoid them, or ignore them when possible. The same applies to suburban areas, which in my experience are usually revolting, so I would rather avoid them than try and blend in (not that I always accomplish this).

Supermarkets are the epitome of suburban ugliness with their nasty fluorescent light, overwhelmingly huge enclosed spaces with nothing beautiful to focus on, and redundant products full of weird chemicals labeled as "food". It is possible to find actual food here, but you have to really look for it and be careful to check all ingredient lists. I'd describe places like this as uncivilized except they're actually a pretty good representation of the values of modern capitalist civilization. I'd strike "civilized" in the second paragraph and replace it with "cultivated" or "polished", but the urge to look that "polished" in the first place is a civilized urge. So, campus is the place to look cultured or polished and all the pleasant things civilization brings, supermarkets are the place to look vicious and wear more fishnets and ripped clothes and eyeliner. That, or look viciously cultivated in over-the-top gothic aristocrat-looking stuff. I prefer to find a way to clash with my surroundings because they are disgusting--I might not be able to change them, but just because I'm sacrificing aesthetic continuity doesn't mean I have to submit to the ugliness around me.

Natural settings or older suburbs that have had more time to decay and sprout enough green things to cover up the ugliness are trickiest, which I guess fits since paying this much attention to aesthetics is a civilized thing. Casual seems best--I find last century's standards preferable. Really just about anything that isn't too fussy fits, I guess, but at the same time if it's not beautiful in some way I feel like it marrs the beauty of the surroundings. Muted elegance might be a good phrase for what I'm thinking of. A t-shirt can look good, but the design on it might not. A skirt and petticoat could work, but the skirt with the bustle and miles of lace won't.

Of course this is all extremely subjective, and perhaps you don't obsess over visuals quite as much as I do. Or if you do, you might have entirely different opinions (which by the way would be super interesting to hear, so please post them in the comments if you feel like it.) Trivial as it may seem, this sort of thing does have a noticeable effect on my headspace. It seems a touch ironic that decayed grandiose manmade things interest me the most, but I'm certainly not the only one if Tumblr and the fake ruins at Pfaueninsel are any indicator. Perhaps its an instinctive reaction against the ways the physical and mental environment we humans have built for ourselves contradicts our nature. Then again, it might just be because it's pretty. 

Time, an example, and a vicious kick in the feels

Oh no, inspiration. Well-timed inspiration. Anyway, I'd already been pondering what it is about vegans and veganism that puts so many people off as well as how to get along with people regardless of what they eat--it's not like veganism is the only radically different value that I hold, after all, yet nothing seems to wind people (including me) up as much. (Not to imply that I've gotten into a ton of conflicts over it--most people are very accepting, and I'm good about keeping my mouth shut more often that not.) And then along comes this post from Marla, which fits into all that very nicely.

In a way, it doesn't matter how heavy or significant the facts behind veganism are because facts alone are not convincing. They did not stop me from becoming an omnivore when I was six or convince me to knock that shit off, so I really shouldn't expect them to help me much when interacting with others. At best, they help show open-minded people that I'm not some extremist who's putting a frankly-not-so-effective-by-itself attempt at living by one altruistic principle ahead of their social life, their happiness, and their health.

I suspect that everyone who makes any kind of long-term, life-altering decision that isn't necessitated by their own immediate needs probably has some sort of moment where something lights some sort of emotional spark under their ass (or at least turns on a lightbulb somewhere in their headspace) and convinces them to change. Here's what changed my mind (skip to the third-from-last paragraph if graphic fantasy violence triggers you or you're in a dire emotional state.)

The foundation was laid when I was in fifth grade and I saw the video for Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" on a big screen in the Hard Rock Cafe. The actual message of the video flew right over my head, but the people in cloaks and masks getting tipped off a conveyor belt and falling into a meat grinder disturbed the fuck out of me. Even now, it is probably the single most disturbing thing I have ever seen. It took me a long time to be able to hear even the first several seconds of that song without panicking and smashing a button to turn it off or running away from it. I still feel uneasy when I hear that song. But I never quite connected the sight of what was meant to be ground-up humanoids to the chicken nuggets in front of me as I cried.

That kind of imagery still disturbs me, though. Fast-forward ten years to Berlin in 2012 when I saw the movie Cloud Atlas. It looked like (and was) an incredible movie--it was complex and pretty enough to keep me entertained, but unlike a lot of things I enjoy it wasn't just dealing with creepy and violent things in an aesthetically pleasing way--it could be as brutal as it was beautiful at some points, and one of those points was the slaughter ship from the Neo-Seoul storyline, where human clones were "recycled" into food for the clones who were still in their prime (unbeknownst to any of them except for the protagonist.) The clones were told they were being set free after years of slavery, but as soon as they were out of the sight of their fellows they were systematically killed and transported to the recycling part of the facility on meathooks. I covered my eyes, but I'd seen enough and could still hear enough to figure out what was going on, and it plagued me for at least a month afterwards.

I couldn't help but draw a parallel between the clones in the film and livestock in our world. And since there have been instances in our not-so-distant past of humans being murdered in the millions by industrial means as well as treated as livestock, was the predicament of the clones of Neo-Seoul really so farfetched? Humans might like to think of themselves as separate from nature, but we're still animals and we can still see that even as we tell ourselves we're different--how else do we become so attached to our pets, regardless of species? And when we systematically murder and abuse animals and make use of their corpses and the byproducts of their bodies so often that we come into contact with those products on a daily basis and think nothing of it, can it really be possible that it has no effect whatever on how we view our fellow humans?

I'm not suggesting that omnivores are the same as murderers, or that they take anywhere near as icy-hearted a view towards their fellow humans as the people of Neo-Seoul in Cloud Atlas. But I can't help but think this widespread and systematic mistreatment of animals and the way most people refuse to really think about what they're helping to perpetuate when they use animal products (let alone take any kind of action to put a stop to it) has some kind of effect on how we view all animals, even the ones we like and consider to be people. And there is no way that effect could be positive.

The above is not by any means the only or even a particularly good reason to go vegan--it's just what convinced me. I decided to cut out meat entirely two days after seeing Cloud Atlas, and the only reason I didn't immediately go vegan (not to mention quit buying leather, used or no) is because it took me awhile to fully discard my omnivore filter. I didn't feel ready--it felt like too big a step (and now that I think about it it's kind of ridiculous how fast I was able to forget what that felt like), so I assumed I was doing enough by avoiding meat and didn't really look into the facts behind at all. It took about ten months plus another nudge in the right direction (which came in the form of Davey Havok's outspoken vegan streak) to convince me to take this as far as I can.

Try as many vegans might to spark similar emotional kicks in the pants with disturbing slaughterhouse footage and info dumps, I think most people have to encounter that moment on their own, because everyone has different weak spots, and it's often next to impossible for an outsider (or even the individual themself) to predict what will be effective. In the mean time, any outside attempts to create that spark will probably irritate the fuck out of most people and create mental scar tissue more than anything else. Regardless of what I think other people should do, there's no effective way for me to get them to do that. Not that I've really done much of that--any half-hearted attempts that may have seemed like that were more snark resulting from the frustration of dealing with omnivorous dietary customs in restaurants and gatherings or people questioning my painfully obvious reasons for cutting out animal products than anything else. (And yes, I should be more careful about that. I'm working on it.)

Anyway. TL;DR: I've realized that most people need time, at least one example, and a potent kick in the feels to go vegan, and the latter may be something they never get and is almost certainly something they won't get from anything I say. Mine is described above for anyone who's curious.

Making Ideas Material

I find myself with loads of ideas for not only cosplay, but also general outfit or garment concepts that look awesome in sketch form AND feel like they're within the realm of possibility as far as actually constructing. Everyone who's ever come close to actually making these sorts of ideas material knows the materials cost money. But I'm finding that even more than the money (it's easy to pretend I'll get the money for pretty much anything under five hundred dollars at some point), I start to worry about what I'll *do* with the things once I've made them and photographed them and maybe worn them to some sort of event.

One thing that I tend to keep in mind is doing a photoshoot or even a video, which I may try some day and even be satisfied with. But that still leaves me with the garments. Taking up space. Garments that reflect a reality (or perhaps just a world view) that aren't quite on the same frequency as what I actually live and perceive. I like eccentric or even whimsical looking-clothes, but no matter what they look like they start to lose their aura when I wear them in situations that don't quite conform to them and go from magical to cumbersome, and I'm unsure what to do about this. Do I keep refining like I've been doing and make all my clothes reflect some sort of synthesis of the inside of my head and my surroundings as I perceive them? Do I work on altering my perception so it suits my aesthetics better? Do I make more efforts to change my actual surroundings? Go somewhere else when wherever I am disappoints me?

My surroundings often lose their aura the same way my clothes do. I love my home city, and I think my university is beautiful whenever I stop and look at it (cloudy days help--it's a moody place. The sun makes everything look the same, the clouds complement and expose the beauty in the buildings.) Traveling helps, especially when I'm awake enough to take everything in and I'm not freezing my ass off. Maybe that's the trick--keep moving so everything stays fresh. And even if I wear the same outfit for a month, it becomes my adventuring outfit and therefore inherently appealing (and that's starting from an already appealing baseline since if I'm going to be wearing it for so many days in a row, it had better be pretty awesome to begin with.)

Or maybe winter is the culprit here. I'm coming to despise tights--they feel like too many layers under bloomers, a petticoat, a skirt, and a shirt. Even my velvet blazer becomes unappealing when it's shoved between a sweater and my winter coat. I apparently have an optimum layer level--no layers and it feels boring, too many layers and it feels bulky as well as boring since everything is hidden under my coat (which I generally don't take off unless I'm at home.) To be happy, I need no more than two inner layers and one outer layer that I can wear in a way that exposes the inner layers. It's a shame, because the outside world looks beautiful with the snow.

The truth is my wardrobe doesn't need that many pieces as long as they all look good together. I've got most of what I need right now even though I've still got so many ideas. Part of me wants to keep experimenting, but that costs money and takes up space, and in order to disentangle myself from the Monster I need to stop using money for so many things. Easiest place to start there is with the things I do for fun. And even if money weren't a concern, I grow more and more uncomfortable with owning stuff I don't use regularly. Objects are burdensome to me, and clothes I don't wear often are no exception.

But my brain won't quit. Although when I see people in casual but distinct and expressive outfits who look fantastic in them, it gives me hope. Not hope that I'll be like them (because really their clothes aren't that different from mine and I'd rather be me anyway), but that I'll find a way to adjust my headspace so that I won't get bored wearing such outfits because I'll find such fascinating things to obsess over that I won't have any energy left for getting fed up with clothes.