Hey everyonnnnnnnne,

Kind of random I woke up from my sleep coma this morning with 5 people telling me I had a thread on Reddit about Victreebel. I think I've been on there once so I had to have someone link me to it to check it out. A friend in the thread brought up why I hate it and I guess I just wanted to address the situation again since there were some bits that not a lot of people know that I want to share, and how I've pretty much finally gotten over it. (Also quick shout out to ~lychee-twist. Thank you defending me and stuff <3) (Also if any of the reddit people that said nice comments come to here, excluding boner ones, thank you very much. They were flattering).

I did Victreebel as a quick costume switch up, since it was right around the time that my first cosplay group let me go and I was just starting to make new groups of cosplay friends. I met ~trendyninja and he told me about the PKMN Gijinka stuff that was going on and how he was making a costume from it. I thought it was an awesome idea, and I wanted to venture into more groups since I didn't really have one anymore. I think I've said before that I originally wanted to do Alakazam (Muh fav PKMN) but due to funds and my inexperience with wigs at the time, I decided to do Victreebel instead because I had a wig, I didn't need to buy shoes, it was another PKMN that was always on my team and I thought the play on her being a "man-eater" was hilarious. I made the costume and I thought I did a decent job, but it was one of my first solo projects without the aid of my mother and I ended up cutting the top lower then I wanted (hence massive boobage) but decided to go with it because I had spent so much time on it.

Being pretty prude and dressing like a boy for the longest time when I was younger, this was right around the time I started becoming more comfortable that I was a girl and had curvy girl bits. This was the first time I had worn something so risque but I thought this would be a new experience for me and wouldn't have negative connotations.

At con wasn't that bad. I was feeling naked and uncomfortable at first but I warmed into it after awhile. I only had two people creep on me, one had grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me away which wasn't cool, but everyone else at con was excellent. I met a lot of people, made a bunch of new friends, did a photoshoot for it that was fun and I was feeling pretty awesome when I got home.

Fast forward to me putting pictures on the internet. I really didn't dig getting sexual comments from people. I had gotten them before from other costumes (White Mage, Miria, Bridget) but not to this extent. It made me feel really uncomfortable and I wasn't too sure how to respond or deal with it. I didn't expect it since I was a pretty underground cosplayer that nobody even knew and expected little to no response about it. But after some talks with my boyfriend, it started to bother me less and I still didn't mind the costume that much.

The real kicker why I hate it that I haven't shared: My mom. She caught wind of it and honestly made me feel extremely guilty for even doing the costume and shared it with some family members who I didn't want to see it. I love my Mom to death and her opinions on the things I did used to really make or break how I felt about them (Not that her opinions don't matter now, I've just grown up and taken them in a different way). Me doing that costume was brought up negatively in every conversation we had for awhile after that and is still brought up still ,in a less negative light, from time to time. What was said did make me feel like a slut and did make me extremely upset. And having it brought up a lot, as you can imagine, will kind of wear on you. I tried to wear the costume again to another con but that all kind of stuck with me and after 5 minutes of wearing it I went and retired it forever. For awhile after that, any sexual comments, even from my friends jokingly, reminded me of this whole situation and made me feel really bad and I thought I was secretly known as a slut. By that point pictures had circled around and I couldn't really set back time and make it so family didn't see them so I just left them up on my various cosplay accounts. I was still proud of my construction on the costume, and wanted my thoughts on why things were the way they were to be available rather then trying to cover them up.

It has taken me a good two years to mostly get over the whole situation. Part of it was because of a blog interview I did ([link] to talk about the construction of what I did made me remember how fun it was to put together the costume and I also got to explain how I felt about the attention I got publicly. Another good part of it was finally having people know me as something other then "The Victreebel cosplayer with the boobs". After I did my Scott Pilgrim cosplays it spread out what people (kinda) know me for in the PNW community. Having a big long talk with my about it evened out the playing field as well and just finally getting it in my head that my bros love me and know that I'm far from being a skanky ho. The people that know me see that I love spending time making costumes and I like to cosplay characters I generally love.

Needless to say I'm pretty much over it now! It happened and I can't undo it. I don't regret doing it at all now, I met tons of people I wouldn't have had the chance to know if not for doing that and I've made a lot of good friends through it. I've even given doing more revealing costumes a shot again (B.Jenet) and I'm not feeling so bad about it this time around. Just don't expect me being in costumes anything less then (or probably even to Victreebel's extent) ever.
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On that end note, life is going well. Working and learning new leather working techniques and back in school and learning Cinema 4D (FUCK THAT PROGRAM IS AMAAAAAAAAZING). Also looking like me finishing school is 100% now with the VA money I'm getting. Yay degrees! I've also started slowly drawing regularly again and I'm not doing half bad!

Mostly been patchily working on costumes for upcoming cons. I have and am doing some easy and obscure Ramona outfits for photoshoots since I've been having Scott Pilgrim withdrawals. Don't expect to see huge dumps of the photos since they were all just for fun and in the intent of recreating the frames from the comic.

ALA is also a go! I bought a plane ticket and am excited to be going to California again. The only new costume I'm making for it is Milk from Pop'n Music and I'm making a new and completely different dress for Fluttershy. Other costumes I'm bringing are Ramona, B.Jenet, and Anaru.

And that's all! Hope you are all doing well and if you went through and read my entire explanation about Victreebel, I applaud you.

-Nukka