Trans Megathread from August 11th, 2025 to August 17th, 2025
(lemmygrad.ml)
I see I see, I'm very glad my writing was able to reach you then.
Last little bit of self-indulgence: just started a new journal today, trying one of those 5 year phrasebook ones to try to work on my brevity
Oh no, I hope the tears weren't too bad! But thank you, either way.
Thank you, I'm glad I am too. However hard it is, I still feel more alive than I did before.
I swear it was not this site! ~~It was an eggirl meme.~~
Thank you, both for the kind words and the compliments to my writing. Regarding the art this isn't actually the full piece since the file was too big. My pfp is actually just the character study which was attached to it lol.
Yeah, finding new family has been really lovely, though also a struggle for me. I wouldn't be where I am without the help of people I care about, though.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, thank you.
Thank you for the kindness Mega-tan, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It definitely is important, that's why I like to keep track of these little anniversaries.
77
Hello everyone~ I hope you are all doing okay.
If you will permit me some self-indulgence, I have, as of today, been trans for 5 years. It's been an interesting and long journey already, but I don't think I'd give it up for anything. I wrote a lot going through some of that journey as a way to work through certain emotions for myself. It's all quite heavy, and I suspect uninteresting for anyone who is not myself. But I felt I had to, for my own sake if no one else's. Please do not feel like you need to read it if it is too much or you don't have any interest in it. I promise I will not mind at all, I wrote it all for myself, after all.
5 years (CW: Horror, Internalised Transphobia, Identity Collapse, Parental Abuse, Hair)
5 years ago today, a boy sits in an airport lobby, patiently waiting for a flight to take him away from his current home to a new one. The boy is used to this; he has done it so many times that it has become nearly ritualistic for him to abandon everything and everyone after a few short years in any given place. The only company he ever maintains through these upheavals are his direct family. Yet even that thinned as his siblings moved away for school and, temporarily over the next year, his father would be stuck working elsewhere away from the family. So it was that the boy and his mother were the only two who would be boarding this flight and settling at their next home.
The clock is ticking, but it will still take an hour for the plane to arrive. He scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, hoping it will help burn the wick of time even a little bit faster. But not much is worth reading or remembering: the strongest emotions he feels are slight giggles at memes of the current new game, mild anger at bad takes, or simple awe at a work of art. The scrolling continues.
But wait! Young boy, this next post might catch your eye! A simple meme in pink and blue, expressing a simple affirmation for trans girls. Something stirs. This is nothing new for him, he has been reading these memes for months at this point. Yet somehow, despite this familiarity, this random meme has found its mark and pierced his heart. The stirring grows. For months while reading these memes and researching transness he had undergone a probabilistic analysis of himself. His mind has been a flurry of gender confusion for a long time now, though the probability never rose beyond 50%. He had wanted to become a femboy for years, yet never dared try. So why had he been feeling this way these past months? Dread starts to set in. He thinks it may be over 50% now. A silent panic arrests him. The vision of his future self collapses. What will he do now if this probability is true? He can't tell anyone, not his mother who ridiculed him anytime he showed vulnerability, nor his friends online who will be unable to reach him in just a short while when he is on the plane. He is stuck, simply waiting, as a myriad of wordless feelings race to dominate his mind.
He boards the flight. 8 hours go by, and he is completely numb through it all. His mother is next to him, but he is completely isolated in his thoughts, in his wordless fears. The hours pass as a slow dismantling of his identity occurs, parts cannibalised by the newborn which has yet to fully emerge. Anxious and lonely, unseen by all, the stirring reaches its crescendo.
She reaches her new home. The numbness is still there, but at least she can try to rest now that she is somewhere safe. She enters the bathroom to find a dirty tub covered in so much hair one might think it was growing out of some pores hidden by the grime, like a mockery of the dark fur covering her body which she so loathed. She is still too numb to care. She runs the water and sits in the muck as it fills the bath at her feet. trying to wash away the fear of the day. It doesn't work. The muck rises further, high enough now to hide the pieces of him adorning her body. She shuts off the water and lays back. She tries to avoid thinking about it. But she can't deny that the body which he thought was okay now feels like a prison. She realises that maybe it always did, and he was just a mask to hide it. With the porcelain of the mask peeled back a little, the pulsating flesh beneath is vivid and clear, deformed and wretched in every respect. She washes herself quickly, wishing she could feel ignore this again. She never will.
Eventually she gets in bed and, alone in her room, messages one of her friends. Honestly friend is too strong a word, this person is more of an acquaintance. A trans woman who months previous insisted that the boy was in denial of his transness. At the time this insistence simply felt as barbs that pushed him further into denial. The irony was not lost on the girl now. Though nonetheless the woman gloated as though it were. Their conversation continued, the woman offered advice on surgery and DIY HRT, but for the girl stuck dependent upon her family, these were wholly useless. How could she even attempt to afford DIY without a job? How could she get a surgery anytime soon? Why was this woman so insistent on these as the correct and only way to be?
The conversation lulled and so the girl went to look for any other options near her. Surely there is something, anything that she can do. Surely it isn't hopeless yet. An article flashed by. There is a local clinic which offered informed consent HRT! Yet she felt the pang of excitement turn to anguish as she kept reading. It was set to be shut down in just a few days, far too soon for her to do anything. Her face felt wet. The tears she held back would wait no longer.
4 Years (CW: Parental Abuse, Transphobia, SI, Digital SH)
4 years ago today, a girl lays upon her bed. She is encased by a smooth ceramic prison in the shape of a boy, locked by her parents who threw away the key. The mask which began to show its first cracks a year ago is even further degraded now, letting in more and more hurt, but the lock holds her behind it. Despite this degradation, her parents insist on ignoring the signs, on ignoring her needs.
Months earlier, she tried to pull the vicious mask off before it could mar her body any further. Against her better judgement, she chose a day to tell her mother. A poorer choice could not have been made. On that day, the boy she was introduced the girl she is to her mother. For the next three nights her mother wept incessantly. The girl, feeling a putrid shame and remorse well up inside, comforted her mother throughout it. They both had no one else, after all. Yet no matter how hard she tried, the girl could not change her mother's view. She would forever be a murderer, the one who killed the boy and now possessed his body like a malignant devil. She would be a disgusting mockery of womanhood, ugly and insulting in every respect. She would be the one who became a monster within the family that would tear its last vestiges apart. And through it all her mother was sure to let the girl know of one thing: if she ever transitioned, her mother would kill herself.
During these nights, her mother insisted upon telling the rest of the family. The others all said they would support her. Her brother was foremost among them, and actively argued with their mother to defend the girl, though it helped little. Her sister spoke with the girl in private, to help comfort her. Finally, her father said that they would, upon his return, help the girl get a therapist. These statements of support simply incensed her mother's fury further. She would degrade the girl at every turn, until eventually her daughter put back on the mask shaped like her son. Encasing herself in the porcelain prison willingly to avoid the fire of her mother as much as possible.
But the girl would keep trying in private: She would train her voice so others might hear her instead of the boy, she began to rid herself of the fur that marred her skin, and she would practice styling her hair in private, adorning her prison in ways that hid the mask with herself. Any time her mother caught wind, however, she would lash out. Once, upon catching the girl taking a photo in a mirror, she demanded to know if the evil child was selling her son's body to some pimp. Once, after demanding to know if she was still possessing her son, the mother burned the girl's books.
Through it all, the girl focused on the hope that, once father arrived, she could at least get the therapy that she needed so she might get HRT to fix her continually degrading body. But when he arrived, he never once mentioned the therapy, never once even used the nickname he promised to use. The girl was hurt, but too afraid to mention it herself. She set herself then on possibility that lay on the horizon: her sister's visit in August. She waited and waited for the day, until it finally arrived.
The memories were fresh in her head, but she tried to pay them little mind. She continued to lay on her bed until she heard a car outside. Her sister arrived. The two spoke, quickly connecting again. After a few minutes, they went to the girl's room. There, she pulled the mask of the porcelain boy back a little to ask her sister if she might help the girl speak with father. Her sister refused, insisting that their father would have no problem if the girl asked him herself. But the girl was afraid, she could not do it alone. So she let it go and never tried.
That night, feeling alone and hopeless, she turned on her phone to try and distract herself. She opened sites filled with those like her mother and read what they would say, trying to numb everything. It wasn't enough. She read a post referencing a suicide statistic, then thought of going to the nearby bridge and jumping. Everything was hopeless, after all. No one would ever see the girl as herself, they would either insist upon the cracked mask as the true self or leave the girl to rot on her own. Nothingness seemed a lot better than that. This was nowhere near the first or last time the girl would have such thoughts. But, for a change, the thoughts elicited a new emotion: Anger. She refused to have her entire gods damned life be summed up as a dot in a statistic that would be used to hurt others like herself. She refused to let her mother keep her locked in a porcelain prison. She resolved herself then and there: she would save herself if no one else would. She would break the last vestiges of the mask of the boy.
3 years (CW: Passage of Time related worries)
3 years ago today, a girl sits in an office wearing the mask of a boy. She is procrastinating on her computer by browsing pixiv. As she scrolls through the pictures, she spots an artwork that speaks to her like no other. It is very simple, two girls walking side by side and drinking coffee. But one of the two looks just like the girl, with a slightly square face, light brown hair, and brown eyes. She's even taller than her friend and has a side-braid just like the girl wants to have! The girl's love for it is so strong that she immediately sets it as her pfp.
This feeling, however, has little long-term effect in improving her mood. Time has seemingly stood still for the past year, nearly everything remained the same. But it hasn't; the girl was at university discovering her love of learning and teaching. And now, she had a job. While she continued to hide behind the mask, the first steps towards her reaching HRT were falling in place. Months earlier, she had concocted a plan to receive it: Money was the first priority, then she would seek a psychologist for a diagnosis, then finally she would be able to receive it secretly while still living with her parents until university finished. Yet try as she might, she could not find a psych, and the time limit she imposed upon herself was fast approaching. The lack of progress felt like failure as she watched the candle of time burning near its base. She could feel her body decay more and more into the prison with each passing day, even if she could not see it. Through it all she still worried about how she would look in the future. But she could push past the pain, at least for now. Because the little progress she had made was enough to help her drag on. After all, time hadn't run out yet.
2 years (CW: Facial Hair)
2 years ago today, a girl sat at her desk refreshing a page which tracked her first ever dress. Excitement filled her every cell, to the point where she nearly forgot the mask she hid behind, the ceramic prison encasing her body. She knew, even before putting it on, that the dress would make her happier than anything else. But there was yet more which excited her; she had in fact found a psych and got a diagnosis, and with it she had an appointment to receive HRT which was only a month away. After everything, the mask could finally fall away and let the girl bloom, repairing her body from the degradation it underwent.
But that degradation would stick with her, too. A few months prior, she began to need to shave on a daily basis to keep the appearance of a clean shave. This final symbol of her prison held her down, a stake rammed into her hand that would bolt her to it. It horrified her as she watched the prickling hair crawl out of the seams of her face to cover it all. Every morning routine now served as a reminder of her failure to go quick enough. A sting akin to a cut that would never go away.
The girl got up. Worrying about this would do her little good. She walked over to pick something to eat, yet as she did so she caught a glimpse of someone in the mirror. The immediate trait that jumped out was the person's long hair. So she thought, briefly, that the girl in the mirror was pretty.
She didn't realise until she returned to her room that the girl was herself.
1 year (CW: Parental Abuse)
A year ago today, a woman sits on her floor in an elaborate dress. In front of her is a cup of tea with a tart that she had made herself. There is no mask on her, though she keeps the discarded husk of the boy she once was around, both for when it is necessary and as a memento to remember where she came from.
The family the girl was once so beholden to is no longer holding her down. Months prior, they had learned of her plans and began to abuse her yet again. Now both mother and father insisted upon her inevitable ugliness, the mistake that she was making, and how she would be gone to them. Matters were not helped by the cousin who visited and was treated as the ideal child by her own mother. She lost count of the days she would cry herself to sleep or the times that she would need to chant some phrase to avoid thinking about her mother's threats of suicide.
One night, while she was still awake, her mother came to her, and began to yell how she needed to get out of the house, how she wants her to be homeless because she is not her son but simply some devil possessing him. The girl didn't budge, but the worries began to creep that night.
The next day, her father told her directly to prepare to move out. The girl had an indeterminate amount of time to get a new home and job to pay for it lined up. Alone. She quickly found a cheap apartment, and as soon as she had the tour lined up her father declared that that day, the day of the tour, would be the day she would have to leave. She did not even have confirmation she'd get the apartment in question, nor a job at the time. The girl packed her bags over the next few days between bouts of crying and a difficulty breathing which she had never felt prior.
While this was occurring, she also finally received her HRT. The first pill felt like a tingle as it slowly dissolved, and immediately she felt the fog that always obscured her mind clear, but with it the emotions came crashing down harder than ever before.
Over the next days, as she left her home, she was in a dazed, zombie-like state, simply going through the motions to set herself up. She had the luck of having friends offer their places, but the transition to her adulthood was rough nonetheless. Through the next months she would move 3 more times to different places, and gradually have to become more and more independent before eventually, she could no longer consider herself a girl.
But through it all, she reached a happiness she never felt before. The woman who took the place of that scared girl is content with where she is; she is pretty, independent, and can finally be who she is. No pain in her past can change that.
Today
Today, a woman sits at her desk writing a short autobiography of her transition. She is on the verge of tears. She continued to go further, become more independent, and more content with herself. There has been other pains, but it does not change the lovely feeling of watching herself bloom into the beautiful woman she imagined all those years ago.
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Small talk is not manipulation, the other person is not forced to reply. You are not the only person with agency in that interaction. The other person is under no real obligation to reply. It is a way to fill a void of silence, something which a lot of people feel is itself awkward (Apparently, I myself like silence though).
Further, talking about mutual interests is frankly past the small talk stage. If someone is replying to you about a mutual interest, chances are they actually like talking about that mutual interest. They aren't doing it because it's a social obligation, they do it because they want to. And if two people talk about mutual interests enough, they start to understand and know each other and become friends.
Yes, I have seen someone fail at conversation like that, she was myself in fact. There were many years where I actively spurned any attempts to make connections or failed to make any myself. I have several friends who've done the same too. But speaking for myself, I forced myself to make connections with others even though I still find it incredibly hard and painful even today. Anytime I give anyone a glimpse of my actual inner self I am beset by worries that they'd throw me away; I often have been, right down to my own gods damned parents. But I also keep trying because otherwise I'd wallow and drown in that same pain.
Fawning is a shitty method, yes, but the reason fawning is bad is because it's a neglect of your own needs in order to try to make the other person like you. But small talk and discussing interests are mutual, if it's a shared interest both of you should be able to enjoy talking about it, and meeting and trying to learn about other people is, for a lot of people, nice in and of itself. You should ask for stuff because that's how you make the relationship mutual and not simply one-side taking and the other giving. Quite frankly, the people who hurt you like that were probably shitty people. They were used to the friendship being primarily about them taking and you giving, so at the first moment where they had to give in return they were uncomfortable. And they are pieces of shit for doing so. But having said that, that's also the danger of fawning, since it produces that sort of one-sided give/take dynamic more often than not. Which is why I'm so insistent on trying to make mutual connections, because while it's not your fault that you were hurt, trying to build more mutual relationships will gradually and marginally make it less likely to repeat.
I know that this is a hard thing to do and that it feels impossible. But no one is ever going to be able to fix you if you do not at least try to fix yourself. I'm not saying that you need to do everything on your own because that's bullshit and unhealthy in its own ways, but you have to do something. It's not some fucking switch that you just turn on or off to make your brain work, it's a long and difficult process to gradually improve yourself in small ways one at a time, just like anything else. Start with something tiny like trying to reply to someone on the mega who has an interest you share, or make a general post on the mega asking about something transition related, like maybe how to pick out a cute skirt. I reply to those sorts of fashion questions all the time because I enjoy doing it.
But sure, maybe these are too hard for you to start with still, given everything I wouldn't be shocked if they were, but you need to set yourself towards at least trying to find a solution instead of just waiting for some perfect person to show up and save you. Yes, you will almost certainly fail some or even many times, but if you don't set yourself up to learn from your failings you're just going to repeat them or drown in your gods damned sorrows.
Frankly, you've been doing this for months at this point with practically no change in either your behaviour or statements despite people continually talking to you and trying to get to you where you are. Again I don't expect instant changes overnight, but you have had a long period to reflect on what people have told you and yet if anything you've become more insular, internalising the advice and attempts to help as proof that you are fundamentally broken instead of as proof that you can change even if it is a slow and hard process. Have you even considered that Terminal has been doing the exact thing you are constantly asking for, trying to understand your point of view and genuinely help, for months and months and months? And yet I don't think I've seen you even once try to talk to her outside of these despite the fact that she has done exactly what you asked for several times. I can't speak for her, obviously, we never even interact outside of the occasional post on the megathread, but I've still read the things she's been saying to you, the things you've been saying, and consistently she has been nothing but kind and trying to understand and help. Going straight to your Deep Down like you want. And she's never once lost her temper at you; she's not an asshole like I am, as evidenced by this very post. Sure, it hasn't built a friendship, but that's because of what I was trying to insist, healthy, good friendships cannot be built upon a foundation of only pain. But nonetheless, no one would be doing this for you if they did not at the very least want to help you hurt less. I hope you'll be able to see that someday.
77
Hello everyone~ The megathread is very eepy this week so I am being very quiet and not posting a whole essay as that might disturb their rest. The megathread does a lot of work for us after all, so they deserve to rest a little. Our regularly scheduled effortposts will continue next week.
Nonetheless, I hope that you (yes you!) are doing well, whenever it may be that you happen to be dropping in. I wish you all the best~
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As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.
Also, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It's for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.
Here is a screenshot of where to find the spoiler button.
14
๐ Sery's Dressposting #8 ๐ Touhou Edition
(lemmygrad.ml)
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6854518
Welcome back to Sery's dressposting~ We are taking a look at Hoshibako Works' collaboration with Zun to produce Touhou Project lolita dresses, specifically the Alice and Marisa ones since they're my favourite characters. As I do so, I'll go over how lolita coording should try to capture the essence of a character without simply cosplaying them. This is also a special issue where I am coping with the fact that I cannot afford these dresses despite really really wanting them. I'm sorry for the mess you are about to read.
Before we begin, some context for what the hell a Touhou is and why I care. Touhou Project is a Japanese bullet hell video game series developed by Zun that has a pretty huge cast of basically entirely female characters and some pretty incredible music. While I can't go over this series in much detail here, I'll be giving little explanations of these two characters before I delve into their dresses so as to contextualise them and I will be drawing from official art to compare to.
I really like these games. I suck at them, but I find them very fun. Plus I have a pretty strong attachment to the cast and a not-insignificant amount of the music I listen to on a daily basis is doujin-band covers of their OSTs.
So, beginning with Alice Margatroid. She is the Seven-Coloured Puppeteer, a magician who controls dolls as her primary gimmick power to fight other people and do daily chores with. You can even see a replica doll in the background of the photos of her dress! (Though unfortunately I don't think it's available for purchase or else I would get one as a cope) As a character she's generally a bit of a loner and a bit blunt towards people, but generally still caring. Essentially a cold exterior, but she warms up and opens up to some people, becoming more vulnerable and showing that she's got a little bit of a cowardly streak.
Design-wise she has been pretty set-in-stone when it comes to the official look: She has a simple blue dress over a white short sleeved blouse, with a white capelet on top. Then as accessories she wears pink: a ribbon around her waist, a scarf tied into a bow, and either a lace hairband or bow in her hair. And all of these details barring the shirt have some amount of spiky lace. Occasionally in some other official media like manga she swaps the short sleeves out for long ones and a few other minor alterations, but generally this is how Alice looks.
It's a design which, frankly, is basically almost a lolita coord as it is. All that it is missing is a petticoat to get the right shape language. (notice how it doesn't poof out that much on the skirt, instead it mostly follows her shape. Although some artwork of her does give it sufficient poof.) Yet Hoshibako Works didn't simply replicate the actual design for this collaboration, instead they made some pretty key changes.
The biggest and most notable being the capelet. Rather than have it be just plain white cloth with a lace trim like the character art, they made the entire thing lace and gave it a very lovely rose motif. Why would they do this? It's because a good lolita coord isn't meant to be 1 to 1 accurate to the source material. The goal is to capture the feeling of a character without actually copying them. And ultimately as a design, Alice's capelet is the most striking part which your eyes will be drawn to. But when translated to the real world, if it were accurate to the game it would become a lot less striking compared to the rest of the outfit. This is for a few reasons. The first is that the pure white of the capelet, regardless the black outline, would blend into the white and, in this design, long sleeves. This would leave that looking like a block, and while that can certainly work for a look, it would also draw attention away from the capelet itself which would be a mistake when trying to represent Alice. The second is to do with detail. Many of the smaller areas of lace such as around the waist would draw a lot of attention due to being the most visually interesting spots. By making the capelet fully lace, we solve both issues by making it both not solid white and also the area of the highest detail by far on the whole dress. It becomes the focal point, and captures the most important parts of Alice's design super well.
Similarly, an Alice by accuracy would have to contend with the way her design switches between scarfs and bows depending on the exact artwork. Here they decided to go with the bow, and it makes sense. It allows them to make a much more elaborate look (just look at how many loops it has) and, more importantly, it's a much more distinctly lolita appearance, allowing the overall outfit to stay in that realm of lolita design.
Of course, this is also an outfit, so the capelet is removable. And by god it is such a beautiful and simple dress underneath. I love the way that it's laced up so much. I'm not too keen on the fact that it seems to be an OP when Alice's dress is clearly a JSK and blouse combo, but I also don't mind because this is such a pretty one that it works anyways.
The last thing of note is then the bow tied at the waist and it's just, so, so pretty. I don't have anything to say, I just love it.
Moving on now to Marisa. She is an ordinary magician whose main gimmick is using love-coloured star magic. Big gremlin energy, I love her so much. Her entire thing is being a little menace who goes around solving issues, stealing books and just hanging out. She's also my main character in these games and has been on the banner of my account ever since I made it.
(As a small tangent, she and Alice are tied for my favourite character, I can't really pick one. Marisa is the one I get more joy from and I try to replicate her aesthetically (side braids go brrrr) but Alice is more me-coded in terms of both aesthetic and personality, or at least I feel she is.)
In terms of design, Marisa actually differs a lot from game to game. Unlike Alice, she is one of the main playable characters and so she will get new art every game. Her basic outfit is very set, it's a black witch outfit made with a black skirt and vest, with a white blouse and white apron.
The accessories are where it mainly differs, as she will usually have a bow on her hat and braid, but the exact colour of the bow changes in every single game and she will occasionally add extra accessories like scarfs, capelets, or pendants depending on the game. Plus her actual outfit will occasionally change slightly with things like embroidery being added.
Much like Alice, the dress based on her differs quite a bit from any of these depictions. Among the official ones I looked at the closest I could find is this one above, which comes from the artbook Who's Who of Humans & Youkai - Dusk Edition. This is mainly because it's the only design that includes this particular victorian style of collar which the dress itself replicated. Of course on the other hand the vest here is absolutely not the same as the dress's, but still.
(Tangent, while I was looking for official Marisa designs I discovered this one which Zun illustrated for the old official site and honestly I love this, I kinda want to make a coord based on this specifically. The capelet especially looks so pretty and I want something similar. Although the skirt is kind of a mess on this illustration, oh well, I get the idea and it's cool to me.)
So, now to look at the dress itself! Like Alice, it matches the basic design but differs a lot on details. A particular choice which I find very important for this dress is that they decided on plaid black and white for the accent colour used by the bows. This is really interesting since it's not one which has been used by an official Marisa design before and I think it's actually really pretty. It makes it striking and unique for her character while still entirely fitting in the realm of things she'd wear, and it helps to avoid the problem of picking a specific game's design only to have weirdos (me) critique it for not being their favourite. (Phantasmagoria of Flower View's purple btw, it's the one I included a photo of earlier.)
Construction-wise I'm... kind of confused more than anything else. I think it's an OP? But if so that's a huge shame because I'd have much preferred it being separate pieces for the blouse and skirt. At least the apron is removeable, since it's just tied at the back. But idk, I could have absolutely seen myself (in the world where I could afford it) using the skirt or blouse separately for coords but as is they're stuck being just for this one look which will always feel very Marisa-ish to me. It's just a small shame.
Similarly, with the apron, I'm not really convinced by the pockets. It's something which certainly fits her character, she'd love to have easy places to hide small trinkets she steals or ingredients she's collecting, but I'm not sure it's really doing it for me aesthetically. I have warmed up to it a lot since I first saw the dress though, so maybe I'll come around to it eventually.
Going back to the full outfit, the details are incredible. The collar has some lovely little embroidered stars on it,
and those motifs are continued down with the buttons.
This use of the stars as a detail continues down even into the lace and it's so adorable.
It's a really lovely way to, once again, bring in the feel of Marisa without being 1 to 1 accurate. She's a star-based magician, so giving her star themed detailing is the best move and brings in a lot more of her character than you'd be able to if you just replicated her in-game outfits.
50
๐ Sery's Dressposting #8 ๐
(lemmygrad.ml)
Welcome back to Sery's dressposting~ We are taking a look at Hoshibako Works' collaboration with Zun to produce Touhou Project lolita dresses, specifically the Alice and Marisa ones since they're my favourite characters. As I do so, I'll go over how lolita coording should try to capture the essence of a character without simply cosplaying them. This is also a special issue where I am coping with the fact that I cannot afford these dresses despite really really wanting them. I'm sorry for the mess you are about to read.
Before we begin, some context for what the hell a Touhou is and why I care. Touhou Project is a Japanese bullet hell video game series developed by Zun that has a pretty huge cast of basically entirely female characters and some pretty incredible music. While I can't go over this series in much detail here, I'll be giving little explanations of these two characters before I delve into their dresses so as to contextualise them and I will be drawing from official art to compare to.
I really like these games. I suck at them, but I find them very fun. Plus I have a pretty strong attachment to the cast and a not-insignificant amount of the music I listen to on a daily basis is doujin-band covers of their OSTs.
So, beginning with Alice Margatroid. She is the Seven-Coloured Puppeteer, a magician who controls dolls as her primary gimmick power to fight other people and do daily chores with. You can even see a replica doll in the background of the photos of her dress! (Though unfortunately I don't think it's available for purchase or else I would get one as a cope) As a character she's generally a bit of a loner and a bit blunt towards people, but generally still caring. Essentially a cold exterior, but she warms up and opens up to some people, becoming more vulnerable and showing that she's got a little bit of a cowardly streak.
Design-wise she has been pretty set-in-stone when it comes to the official look: She has a simple blue dress over a white short sleeved blouse, with a white capelet on top. Then as accessories she wears pink: a ribbon around her waist, a scarf tied into a bow, and either a lace hairband or bow in her hair. And all of these details barring the shirt have some amount of spiky lace. Occasionally in some other official media like manga she swaps the short sleeves out for long ones and a few other minor alterations, but generally this is how Alice looks.
It's a design which, frankly, is basically almost a lolita coord as it is. All that it is missing is a petticoat to get the right shape language. (notice how it doesn't poof out that much on the skirt, instead it mostly follows her shape. Although some artwork of her does give it sufficient poof.) Yet Hoshibako Works didn't simply replicate the actual design for this collaboration, instead they made some pretty key changes.
The biggest and most notable being the capelet. Rather than have it be just plain white cloth with a lace trim like the character art, they made the entire thing lace and gave it a very lovely rose motif. Why would they do this? It's because a good lolita coord isn't meant to be 1 to 1 accurate to the source material. The goal is to capture the feeling of a character without actually copying them. And ultimately as a design, Alice's capelet is the most striking part which your eyes will be drawn to. But when translated to the real world, if it were accurate to the game it would become a lot less striking compared to the rest of the outfit. This is for a few reasons. The first is that the pure white of the capelet, regardless the black outline, would blend into the white and, in this design, long sleeves. This would leave that looking like a block, and while that can certainly work for a look, it would also draw attention away from the capelet itself which would be a mistake when trying to represent Alice. The second is to do with detail. Many of the smaller areas of lace such as around the waist would draw a lot of attention due to being the most visually interesting spots. By making the capelet fully lace, we solve both issues by making it both not solid white and also the area of the highest detail by far on the whole dress. It becomes the focal point, and captures the most important parts of Alice's design super well.
Similarly, an Alice by accuracy would have to contend with the way her design switches between scarfs and bows depending on the exact artwork. Here they decided to go with the bow, and it makes sense. It allows them to make a much more elaborate look (just look at how many loops it has) and, more importantly, it's a much more distinctly lolita appearance, allowing the overall outfit to stay in that realm of lolita design.
Of course, this is also an outfit, so the capelet is removable. And by god it is such a beautiful and simple dress underneath. I love the way that it's laced up so much. I'm not too keen on the fact that it seems to be an OP when Alice's dress is clearly a JSK and blouse combo, but I also don't mind because this is such a pretty one that it works anyways.
The last thing of note is then the bow tied at the waist and it's just, so, so pretty. I don't have anything to say, I just love it.
Moving on now to Marisa. She is an ordinary magician whose main gimmick is using love-coloured star magic. Big gremlin energy, I love her so much. Her entire thing is being a little menace who goes around solving issues, stealing books and just hanging out. She's also my main character in these games and has been on the banner of my account ever since I made it.
(As a small tangent, she and Alice are tied for my favourite character, I can't really pick one. Marisa is the one I get more joy from and I try to replicate her aesthetically (side braids go brrrr) but Alice is more me-coded in terms of both aesthetic and personality, or at least I feel she is.)
In terms of design, Marisa actually differs a lot from game to game. Unlike Alice, she is one of the main playable characters and so she will get new art every game. Her basic outfit is very set, it's a black witch outfit made with a black skirt and vest, with a white blouse and white apron.
The accessories are where it mainly differs, as she will usually have a bow on her hat and braid, but the exact colour of the bow changes in every single game and she will occasionally add extra accessories like scarfs, capelets, or pendants depending on the game. Plus her actual outfit will occasionally change slightly with things like embroidery being added.
Much like Alice, the dress based on her differs quite a bit from any of these depictions. Among the official ones I looked at the closest I could find is this one above, which comes from the artbook Who's Who of Humans & Youkai - Dusk Edition. This is mainly because it's the only design that includes this particular victorian style of collar which the dress itself replicated. Of course on the other hand the vest here is absolutely not the same as the dress's, but still.
(Tangent, while I was looking for official Marisa designs I discovered this one which Zun illustrated for the old official site and honestly I love this, I kinda want to make a coord based on this specifically. The capelet especially looks so pretty and I want something similar. Although the skirt is kind of a mess on this illustration, oh well, I get the idea and it's cool to me.)
So, now to look at the dress itself! Like Alice, it matches the basic design but differs a lot on details. A particular choice which I find very important for this dress is that they decided on plaid black and white for the accent colour used by the bows. This is really interesting since it's not one which has been used by an official Marisa design before and I think it's actually really pretty. It makes it striking and unique for her character while still entirely fitting in the realm of things she'd wear, and it helps to avoid the problem of picking a specific game's design only to have weirdos (me) critique it for not being their favourite. (Phantasmagoria of Flower View's purple btw, it's the one I included a photo of earlier.)
Construction-wise I'm... kind of confused more than anything else. I think it's an OP? But if so that's a huge shame because I'd have much preferred it being separate pieces for the blouse and skirt. At least the apron is removeable, since it's just tied at the back. But idk, I could have absolutely seen myself (in the world where I could afford it) using the skirt or blouse separately for coords but as is they're stuck being just for this one look which will always feel very Marisa-ish to me. It's just a small shame.
Similarly, with the apron, I'm not really convinced by the pockets. It's something which certainly fits her character, she'd love to have easy places to hide small trinkets she steals or ingredients she's collecting, but I'm not sure it's really doing it for me aesthetically. I have warmed up to it a lot since I first saw the dress though, so maybe I'll come around to it eventually.
Going back to the full outfit, the details are incredible. The collar has some lovely little embroidered stars on it,
and those motifs are continued down with the buttons.
This use of the stars as a detail continues down even into the lace and it's so adorable.
It's a really lovely way to, once again, bring in the feel of Marisa without being 1 to 1 accurate. She's a star-based magician, so giving her star themed detailing is the best move and brings in a lot more of her character than you'd be able to if you just replicated her in-game outfits.
44
๐ Sery's Dressposting #7 ๐
(lemmygrad.ml)
Hello and welcome back to my sporadically updated lolita dress blog~ I finally have a bit of a break from assignments and after a particularly nice late night in trachat yesterday I found a couple dresses that I liked enough to inspire a new post.
Today's dress is Elpress' Double Rose Petal JSK! Like with dresspost #1's fish scales, I was mainly drawn to this one through its interesting way of using layered transparent fabric to replicate the look of, well, rose petals. Compared to the fish scales this one is certainly better executed, although I think the scales were a more creative application of the technique. Regardless though it's a stunning effect, and I love how it looks across all three of the colour options for this dress.
The flower motif of the dress is obviously quite strong, but I particularly love the "sash" of flowers that go across the chest. It is a bit busy, but I think it's a very lovely look. It's actually not a sash at all too, but rather a two clips, one at the shoulder and the other at the waist. They're simply shaped and placed in a way to appear like a sash. This gives the entire dress a huge amount of versatility in its exact design, since you can choose where to place these two clips. The shoulder one in specific is also meant to double as a hair clip which is nice, but unfortunately none of the photos of the dress have it being used as such.
Since these flowers are detachable, it means that the JSK on its own is actually deceptively simple; it's just the rose petal skirt and two bows with a fishbone corset. But this means the entire dress is actually usable in a lot of different outfits. Thanks to the rose petal skirt, however, it will always bring some of that flower-y flair into any coord you might make.
And this is an aesthetic that can work with many different themes! Among the model pictures here you can see two common ones with the fairy style for the pink model and the pure flower focus of the purple one. But there are other options too, the blue one for instance doesn't particularly fall into either of these camps, and I could easily see myself trying to create some sort of flower witch coord with this if I had the right hat. Or hell, moving outside the realm of lolita a bit, an elven princess-knight cosplay.
And on the note of hats, this one is very lovely. I believe based on some of the other photos that at least one of these bows is detachable, as some had them placed upon the wig's braid. Each of the colours is slightly different in its exact flower arrangement. Personally my favourite is this one, I find the double pink roses to be quite striking compared to the others which have colours that don't pop quite as much. In general the pink is my favourite of these dresses. I'm also very struck by the colour transitions and contrasts of the blue one. The purple, meanwhile has a lovely lavender subtlety to it that I quite love.
38
๐ Sery's Dressposting #6 ๐
(lemmygrad.ml)
It has been a little while, school has been keeping me busier than I expected so I couldn't do the once a week posting I was planning, but I finally found the time to write this up. Unfortunately in the time it took this dress ended up filling its ressrvation slots so you can't buy it anymore, but that hasn't stopped me before.
This dress is Avenue Denfer's Return to the Darkness! Like a lot of the ones I've been covering lately, it comes in two versions, a OP or JSK and blouse combo. Both are utterly lovely so I'll be covering both individually after I go over the shared details I like. Starting with the colour, both versions are in green or purple. I like the purple a lot more here, it's a lot more gothic and so it better fits the intent of the dress. But I think the green might have a lot of potential as a classic if you wore a white blouse instead of the black ones, and green and white is one of my favourite colour combos. Unfortunately the set blouse is only in black, so there's no example photos of this idea.
Next up is the jacquard patterning on the main dress. Both colours and versions use the same design, and I love how it brings in butterfly, candelabra, and other gothic motifs while remaining very subtle thanks to being a jacquard weave and not, for instance, a print. I like the butterflies the most, especially due to how they tie into...
The butterfly brooch on the bow! I love this, it's so cute yet still very gothic feeling, it's the exact thing I love so much about lolita in general. And since it's only the one part of the dress, it keeps it still feeling classy overall while bringing in that cute little focal point.
Beyond the butterfly, this photo is also an excellent segway onto looking at the OP version of this dress. And what a good segway it is, I adore the lace on this one. It's so pretty. I overall prefer the OP of the two versions specifically because it uses the lace so much and so well.
In particular I love the little lace sleeves on top of the actual dress sleeves. It looks fantastic and brings in the draping which is both pretty and effective at deemphasising shoulders. It's the stuff that I love in capelets, although not to quite the same extent.
On the JSK version of the dress meanwhile, the blouse adds a ton to the look, particularly with the jabot on top of it. And due to its nature as a JSK set both the blouse and dress are usable for other outfits. And this works in its favour since they are both very versatile and could be used effectively for a lot of different looks. Like the white and green I was thinking of earlier, but one could also mix the blouse with a blue dress or whatever else one might dream up with it. It's all up to taste.
I would have posted an extra pic to end this off but I hit the limit and don't feel like waiting to add another pic. Needless to say I like the dress and it's very pretty. I hope anyone who read this enjoyed it or maybe even felt a bit inspired by the look!
54
๐ Sery's Dressposting #5 ๐
(lemmygrad.ml)
So so far I've covered a few different styles of lolita dresses. I started with a sweet, then did a classic, but I haven't done a gothic yet, let's change that.
This issue's dress is Lingxi's Nightmare Lilith. It's a rose-themed gothic, as made obvious by its incredible collar. Seriously if I could get just the collar I would. It's perfect for basically any gothic rose coord. The thorns add so much to the rose which is a pretty common motif.
The collar isn't the only rose themed part of this dress though. The skirt has an printed rose motif. It's in almost the same black as the dress itself, so it's relatively subtle, but it adds a lot. Especially thanks to the pop of red behind it which adds some colour into the otherwise pure black dress. (Which, speaking personally, is very important for any gothic lolita in my eyes. Pure black can look good but I much prefer gothics that use dark reds, purples, and navys in their scheme since they add some visual interest. White too but white is tricky and not every dress pulls it off. But ultimately I'm not a gothic I'm a classic, colour is just part of my aesthetic in a way it isn't for a gothic.)
The dress has two sleeve variants, regular sleeves and bell sleeves. They're both lovely, I'm honestly not sure if I prefer one or the other.
Of the three model coords, I like this one the most for its use of prayer beads. It unfortunately gives up the witch hat that's part of the set (which I love, witch coords are so cool and I want one), but the new headpiece is beautiful and I adore how the spikes on it accent the rose collar's thorns.
So that's the dress! I didn't really have as much to say this time, like I said I'm a classic not a gothic. I just really loved this one's collar and rose theme.
31
๐ Sery's Dressposting #4 ๐
(lemmygrad.ml)
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5430764
Hello and welcome to the fourth of my silly little rambles that people apparently like to read, only this time it's a post! I spoke with a few people over on trachat and the consensus seemed to be that making this a full post would be better, so from now on I'll be posting them here and crossposting to traa.
Jumping right into it, today's dress is Long Ears and Sharp Ears' Morning Glory. Unlike the other dresses I've covered so far, this one is available as both a OP and a JSK with blouse.
As you can see the JSK is a lot girlier and cutesier, while the OP has a nicer more mature and elegant look. Of the two I'm drawn more towards the white versions OP, but both are really lovely! I think however that the coloured versions of the dress work better as the JSK, particularly this purple version. I'm just personally drawn towards pretty white clothing in general.
I was mainly drawn to this one by the chiffon and tulle fabric, in particular the metallic tulle hexagon pattern that covers the entire dress is really beautiful and adds a nice shine without being overwhelming. The white versions of the dress show it off particularly well I think. It makes the entire dress glow in the sunlight, hence the name, and it is utterly gorgeous when it does.
As has become a theme, I'm also in love with the smaller details too. In particular this collar is gorgeous and I adore all the little bows on the JSK version. The mix of purple, blue, and green that you can see here is really difficult to get right but I think it works quite well here!
I honestly don't have much else to say about this dress really, it's a bit simple but I think quite effective and I really like it. I already quite liked LnSEars as a brand for their more elaborate fairy-themed pieces, but this one has shown me that they can do a decent variety of looks and it makes me want to get one of their pieces again. LnSEars are also a good brand for taller women, since you can custom order their dresses to match your sizes for only a slight price increase. ($10 extra for a skirt length increase, $15 for a full resizing)
22
๐ Sery's Dressposting #4 ๐
(lemmygrad.ml)
Hello and welcome to the fourth of my silly little rambles that people apparently like to read, only this time it's a post! I spoke with a few people over on trachat and the consensus seemed to be that making this a full post would be better, so from now on I'll be posting them here and crossposting to traa.
Jumping right into it, today's dress is Long Ears and Sharp Ears' Morning Glory. Unlike the other dresses I've covered so far, this one is available as both a OP and a JSK with blouse.
As you can see the JSK is a lot girlier and cutesier, while the OP has a nicer more mature and elegant look. Of the two I'm drawn more towards the white versions OP, but both are really lovely! I think however that the coloured versions of the dress work better as the JSK, particularly this purple version. I'm just personally drawn towards pretty white clothing in general.
I was mainly drawn to this one by the chiffon and tulle fabric, in particular the metallic tulle hexagon pattern that covers the entire dress is really beautiful and adds a nice shine without being overwhelming. The white versions of the dress show it off particularly well I think. It makes the entire dress glow in the sunlight, hence the name, and it is utterly gorgeous when it does.
As has become a theme, I'm also in love with the smaller details too. In particular this collar is gorgeous and I adore all the little bows on the JSK version. The mix of purple, blue, and green that you can see here is really difficult to get right but I think it works quite well here!
I honestly don't have much else to say about this dress really, it's a bit simple but I think quite effective and I really like it. I already quite liked LnSEars as a brand for their more elaborate fairy-themed pieces, but this one has shown me that they can do a decent variety of looks and it makes me want to get one of their pieces again. LnSEars are also a good brand for taller women, since you can custom order their dresses to match your sizes for only a slight price increase. ($10 extra for a skirt length increase, $15 for a full resizing)
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Seryph
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joined 2 years ago
This is true (there's a reason I use blooming and flower metaphors for transition beyond it just being pretty) but it loses the pun ("an egg opens revealing a chick") so it is unlikely to replace egg as the go-to term.