Latest Posts by professorofcosplay - Page 2

nah, pretty sure it’s… Still Alive. (I’ll see myself out)

When you join a fandom that peaked 8 years ago:

Order up! Who ordered the portal/portal 2/ blue sky headcanons?

Despite the fact that she tends to be quiet when it comes to talking, Chell loves to sing along to songs. 

Caroline (and by extension, GLaDOS) loves the song Rät by Penelope Scott. Helps her get out her rage towards what happened to her. She will sometimes blast it so loud that the panels on the wall rattle. 

While she still keeps herself in shape, Chell’s body has grown a bit curvier and softer from her love for carbs. 

Chell is very into physical fitness. 

Chell politely refuses to bake anyone in Eaden a cake, even if nicely asked. If they try to press the issue, oftentimes Wheatley will come up, thinking he’s unseen, and wildly gesticulate for them to stop behind her. 

Chell still remembers what kinds of bagel Wheatley liked from hacking into his robotic form. She surprised him with one freshly made when he woke up the day after he reunited with his human body and he cried tears of joy. It was like something subconsciously in him needed it. Every morning since, she’s always made bagels with him bright and early, with one or two of his favorite kind just for him. He’s in charge of shaping them and he does an excellent job!  

Wheatley is talented at making shapes with bread dough!  He loves shaping little bread versions of turrets, cores (especially his old body, complete with some blue spirulina powder to give his optic its familiar blue color), even a miniature GLaDOS at one point. Well, that one might have gotten far too overbaked and had to be used for target practice again. Purely on accident, of course. It’s funny because, somehow, it just hasn’t happened since the Frankenloaf incident. 

Having a job has worked wonders for Wheatley’s self-esteem. He has caught himself lying less out of self consciousness and is a bit more at ease in life in general. 

GLaDOS hates to admit how truly bored she is right now. Even with the cooperative testing initiative, she’s still bored to artificial digitalized tears. She keeps herself entertained by thinking over what she wanted to say in any given past situation. So far, she’s come up with over 3,257,974 different retorts. 

GLaDOS hates AI generated content as much as we do and has attempted to make robots that can make art, only to kill them and send their duplicates to android hell after their ugly, half-baked attempts at making anything even remotely tolerable. She’s the only one who can make anything worthwhile since it’s Caroline’s essence helping out. 

New and Veteran Cosplayer Tips for low/no waste cosplay for the planet and your budget!

Howdy! Starting a little mini series on this! I’m not going to repeat stupid stuff you already know like “go to the thrift shop” or “use what’s already in your closet”. That stuff’s pretty obvious (though, definitely do go to the thrift shop and avoid directly supporting Temu/shein/other nasty crap that’s from slave and underpaid labor, can’t hold up to use and abuse, and will end up in a landfill after one wear).

Getting the Costume Basics

The tablecloth/curtain section at the thrift!

    Ren faire goers rejoice!  You know those funky fleur and gorgeous patterned curtains they sell for peanuts at the thrift?  They make AMAZING cloaks or if you’re handy with sewing, stays, corsets, skirts, dresses, anything!  It’s a great way to get neat, durable fabrics for cosplays or just for patterning practice for a lot less than at a crafting store. 

2. University move out days

So cool tip for you: I’ve adjuncted for a few different universities and they all had one thing in common. When move out day comes, they always have big old donation bins. Now, those will normally go to thrift stores, so me and some of my crafty peers sometimes go and poke through them to see if there’s anything we want to use for our cosplays. We’ve found everything in there from foreign fashion from international students to jumpsuits to costumes that college students are done with. Fun fact: I haven’t had to buy jackets, shoes, or tee shirts in three years! (Protip: I always checked the dorm where all the art and film students lived. You sometimes even find their old props and costumes there.) Awkward?  A bit sometimes. But the money you save and potential to find awesome stuff is amazing!   And, oftentimes, you can make a likeminded friend or two digging through the bins!

3. Some cities also have a buy nothing page on Facebook or something of that sort that you can browse to get stuff for free or barter and trade for. All of its stuff people were going to throw out or donate to a thrift store anyways, so it’s helpful for everyone (and the Earth).

4. This one seems like a given but if you want to be an eco-friendly cosplayer, DO NOT CON CRUNCH! Plan things out ahead of time. Post progress shots if you must. I find it keeps me on track to actually following through and making things. However, con crunching leads to buying cheap crap online and making things that are more likely to break (and therefore, end up in the landfill). Have a costume or two already completed, even when you have no convention, meet, or photoshoot in sight, so you’ll have something to wear to avoid the pinch!

Go forth and create!

some portal/portal 2 headcanons as a treat for me being such a good boy and going to the gym today

Enjoy the headcanons I wrote on my breaks in between sets. 💪 it was arm and core day (pun intended)

—Doug Rattman had premonitions about the Bring Your Daughter To Work Day incident. He actually had a few dozen party packs of M&Ms stashed around the office and in his desk drawers as an emergency food supply in case rogue AI tried anything tricky. Helped stave off hunger while hiding around the facility. 

—Speaking of Doug, GLaDOS could kind of sense the general spot in the facility he was in, even if she couldn’t reach him. It was a lot like having a flea infestation but with one flea with a sixty to eighty year lifespan that was particularly clever and hard to catch. 

—As Doug’s schizophrenia progressed, he started drawing more and more inane creations, including the blueprints for the crap turrets, which were uploaded to the turret assembly line in random order.  

—Doug actually managed to fully activate the cryobed in the end of Lab Rat. He still sleeps deep in the facility, a dreamless, peaceful sleep, waiting to perhaps be woken someday. 

—While Cave was testing the portal gun and gels in Aperture, GLaDOS conducts  psychological (not physics) research to see how quickly she can break someone down through intellectual and emotional challenges. 

—GLaDOS, if she wanted to be, would be an amazing therapist due to her findings on resiliency and the ability or lack thereof to break down under pressure. She has enough data and noteworthy enough findings to get her PhD from any university in the world, multiple doctorates, even. (That is, if the world wasn’t postapocalyptic as it currently is after the Combine invasion.) She just chooses to use her powers for evil. If she were to use her findings for the betterment of humanity, she’d be excellent at working with learned helplessness and depressive disorder cases. 

— Cores don’t add specific personality traits on to her; they enhance traits that are already there. She already possesses a curious nature, plenty of anger, extreme intelligence, and just enough morality to know that she’s being vindictive and cruel.

—The actual tests are not the chambers but the subject’s responses to them. That’s why she gets so pissed when you mess with the video cameras. She needs that sweet, sweet facial expression data for her facial recognition software. This is why she loves working with humans so much. They’ve got such a vast emotional range.

— GLaDOS’s corvids bring her trinkets from around the facility and, like any proud parent, she hangs them on the panels around her chamber like artworks on the fridge.

another TADC headcanon!

Caine likes to play with all animal-like NPCs like someone does with cats: dangle testing them, booping them on the nose, making them dance, etc. But it’s all okay since it’s considered a rare honor to be booped by a god!

(the humanoids get played with like dollies and he does make them kiss and has elaborate plot lines with them)

I just love how sometimes when you search “art” in your phone’s photo roll (at least on iPhones), a few of your selfies show up. Like yes, you are art. I am art. The phone’s little code to sort your photos certainly thinks so. There’s something so sweet and gentle about that reminder and I find myself being just a tad kinder to myself when it happens.

Cosplay opinion time!

Okay so I just thrifted these boot bases for a Long Fall Boot build for my Chell cosplay (planning on lengthening the back calf part with white leather and busting out my thrifted skyrunners for a bit of extra long fall pizzazz later, I’ll post the whole build later) and need the good people’s opinion! I’m planning on probably weathering my jumpsuit but I’m not quiiiite sure whether to leave the scuffs as pre-installed weathering or get rid of em and have them pristine!

WHAT’S THIS?! TADC Headcanons?!?

— As the youngest circus member, Jax has definitely played FNAF and immediately thought “oh yes this is awesome” when he got into his digital body. However, sadly, no one else has played FNAF or gets his occasional references. 

— Bubble has a knack for showing up unannounced, absolutely silently. One minute, you’re chilling in your room; the next, Bubble is also chilling in your room. 4 inches behind your face. Silently.

— As there’s only humans, NPCs, and AIs in the circus, where does Jax get the bugs to harass Ragatha with?  My theory is that he bribes Caine to get them and Caine, being a natural prankster, is all too willing to indulge and make bugs appear out of thin air. 

— Ragatha is terrified that the bugs will crawl in where her stuffing should be like the Oogie Boogie Man. She was creeped out by Nightmare Before Christmas. She will never tell this to Jax, though. 

— Caine has accidentally bit one of his eyes before, just like someone biting their tongue. It hurts every bit and much much more. It hurts so much he glitches in and out of cyberspace for a few moments in pain.

— Gummigoo is actually an abstraction that has regained control using an NPC as a channel/shell for their essence. This is why he’s so self-aware and determined to return to the Circus, even if he’s not aware of it or his past life in the Circus. 

— Bubble watches reality TV (with a big bowl of popcorn) and, while Caine acts like he hates it, he watches it for all the big romantic gestures so he can know what to do for the Moon when he wants to flirt. 

— Bubble made Caine a big box of chocolates to give to her on Valentine’s Day. He still feels very touched by the gesture.

— Caine, on the other hand, is a huge fan of game shows and is actually imitating a game show host persona. He’s actually a lot more introverted when just one on one. 

— Kinger does not know how to play chess. He does love a good game of Candy Land, though. 

— Jax has an exclusive copy of GTA VI. How did he get it? Nobody knows. When he’s in his room, he’s just off playing it, though he doesn’t like it as much as GTAV. He taught Kinger how to play and he’s actually pretty good. However, Kinger forgets after every time they play. 

— Gangle can and does slither like a snake from time to time on those ribbons; it just freaks out Ragatha so she doesn’t do it. 

— Gangle has an irrational fear of ball pits. Mainly because she’s worried they’ll get stuck in her smaller coils. 

— Zooble was once disassembled and used as a hot wheels ramp/course by Jax as a prank. Caine thus has banned the use of Hot Wheels from the Circus.  

— Caine and Bubble have full internet access. He keeps up to date with trends and sprinkles in references that the Circus cast obviously don’t get.

— Caine and Bubble have a lot of inside jokes and no filter when they’re together. Bubble is also comfortable saying anything to Caine.

please enjoy this godawful cursed photo of Stephen Merchant I found while trying to show a friend portal fanart

Murder Drones Headcanons since I have brainrot

— Uzi loves playing Mario kart with N since he’s a terrible driver because she always wins. She’s not above that. 

— Tessa wanted to be a hairdresser or in R&D for computer science when she grew up and loved practicing on her drones. She was leaning towards hair, though she had a knack with drones. You can imagine what her parents thought of these career leanings.

— J actually changed hair/wigstyles quite a bit because of this. The wildest “phase” was bubblegum pink. Her parents made her throw out the mohawk wig. :(

— J genuinely loved/loves Tessa, possibly even more than any of the others did; she just also faced the most punishment since she was the drone with Tessa the most and therefore she was the easiest to get ahold of. Thus, she faced Tessa’s parents’ wrath more often and was even more afraid of them than the others. This led to a sort of learned helplessness/submission in her that was hard to unlearn. 

— J is actually very, very self conscious. She’s isn’t a bully just to be a bitch but because she thinks it will save her from being the focus of someone’s wrath. Scapegoating at its finest. (Though she still is a bitch.)

— J steals the wigs from workers she kills and wears them sometimes. She doesn’t know exactly why; it just feels oddly familiar. 

— The three DDs all snuggled like a pile of puppies in the space pod when in sleep mode. The pod can be programmed for a destination but has to be piloted (or lack thereof) to the surface so they could just snooze until initial descent (and they did!). 

— Antifreeze is the drone equivalent of Monster energy drinks, so, naturally, Uzi lives off the stuff. 

— Most drones actually make their own wigs!   A lot of them are from thin wires they’ve scavenged from Copper 9’s wreckage, though there’s some made from melted plastic like faux hair human wigs. 

— Thad collects Nerf guns. They’re more fun than the real thing for him. That’s one thing Uzi and Thad can chat about for hours. 

— Thad and Uzi also collaborate (and compete) on pranks!  They have a prank hit list of workers they want to mess with and whoever checks everyone off first is the winner. Their favorite was replacing Lizzy’s lip gloss with oil. Cruel, yes, but the gross-out factor had them in stitches for at least an hour. 

— Thad has a JROTC-like chapter of the WDF as an after-school club. It’s mostly just LARPing with his Nerf collection.  

— V bites the tips of her claws as a nervous habit. They’re a bit dented and scuffed because of this.  

— Khan is a magnet user to cope with the stress of the colony’s existence on his shoulders, the loss of Nori, and single parenting. He doesn’t really tell anyone about it and is pretty high functioning. 

— N is a huge fan of stickers!  He has found a few packs of them and loves decorating himself/paper/Uzi’s hoodie when she’s not looking/pretty much everything them. 

— V and J are girl’s girls.

— Lizzy has painted V’s claws Barbie pink before. V absolutely adored how it turned out.

— Doll was adopted by Lizzy’s parents after her own family died and while she hides out at her old home to hide her consumption of oil/etc a lot of the time, she actually lives at Lizzy’s; this is why they’re so inseparable. 

— Speaking of Lizzy, the only one to mourn Doll’s loss will be Lizzy and her family, though Uzi will make every attempt to give her and what’s left of her parents’ remains a decent resting place.   — Humanized Khan is buff.

— Khan once threw Uzi a birthday party. None of her classmates showed up (though Thad did send a very nice card) so she only got one present. Guess what it was? 

Come get y’all’s portal/ blue sky headcanons!!

I have portal brainrot I’m sorry

— Wheatley LOVES sweets! His favorites are chocolate caramels but he can’t get enough of them after being reunited with his human body (post Blue Sky). In the winter time, Chell bakes gingerbread with him (or rather, he hands her ingredients and keeps her company while she makes the gingerbread, can’t have a repeat of the bread making incident). She taught him how to make hot chocolate and that’s the only thing he can be trusted with to consistently not mess up. He’s pretty good at it too and has a signature caramel cocoa he’s well known for around Eaden.

— Occasionally, when Eaden gets enough sugar shipped in, Chell will bake little tarts for Ellie (and of course, an extra small one for Lionel) and have a little tea party with her, just like a girl’s afternoon. She thinks of little Ellie as a little sister or niece in a lot of regards and Ellie can’t get enough of her, truth be told. She loves that Chell listens to all her creative ramblings. Chell is, after all, a fantastic listener.

— After Chell and Wheatley had their first child, Ellie acted like a big sister and actually passed Lionel down to them.

— One day, Wheatley came back from a day of work at the general store and found their child (now about 8) and babysitter Ellie trying on the Long Fall Boots and nearly had a heart attack after the trauma of watching Chell go through what she did at Aperture. It would have been ten times worse if it had been Chell who came back to that. Still, he freaked out and it made all three of them break down into tears, the kids just out of the fear of “oh shit, dad’s crying, something’s definitely wrong.” He paid them in cookies to never tell Chell about it and proceeded to hide the Long Fall Boots better this time.

— Garrett and Wheatley like to gossip and chitchat in binary about people. It annoys the crap out of pretty much everyone else, particularly Chell. It’s gotten to be a bonding thing with the two of them.

— Foxglove has actually “looked” for Wheatley digitally before! She misses him quite a bit, but has a sort of community with the other radio towers from other outposts.

— Speaking of which, Wheatley sometimes asks to borrow the laptop to chat with Foxglove now that he’s human. He likes filling her in on what it’s like being human and, in true Wheatley fashion, does the majority of the talking. They’re basically pen pals though now!

— Foxglove and GLaDOS also talk from time to time. They get along better than you’d expect, being that she was formed from parts of GLaDOS. What do they talk about? Quite a bit actually! Weather, bits of information Fox picks up from other towers, music, plenty. GLaDOS does more listening than speaking most of the time. Caroline and Foxglove get along better than GLaDOS proper and Fox. Caroline actually asks about how her two humans are doing up there, though Foxglove is wise enough to avoid saying too, too much in case it falls into the wrong hands…

— Wheatley is exceptional at knitting! He has to be in order to make winter clothes that fit him well enough. (Speaking of clothes, no matter what, pretty much everything fits him all wrong no matter what he tries… except for what he knits for himself!)

— P-Body and Atlas still remember the Fall of Eaden and are terrified of humans. They found a Ratman den at one point with a mural of Chell and almost fell into a vat of toxic water from staggering back in fear.

— GLaDOS actually is obsessed with her baby birds and has given them names. They’re Cave, Faithplate, and Neurotoxin. Since they’re corvids, they’ve imitated a few of her words on occasion (she’s so proud of that) and they’ve learned a few of her little songs she sometimes sings to pass the time. She has P-Body and Atlas go up to the surface to harvest some of the grain from time to time to feed them (they hate that; they’re terrified of the surface). She still calls them her “little killers” and “marshmallows” from time to time.

— Caroline binge watches Netflix to keep entertained when hunkering down deep, deep in GLaDOS’s consciousness. She is a big Gilmore Girls fan. Unbeknownst to GLaDOS, they like the same science documentaries. GLaDOS doesn’t know why all the shows that end up being her favorites end up hearted before she ever sees/processes them, maybe the algorithm is just that good!

— Foxglove LOVES music; she’s content to listen to all the lovely music sent out by other outposts all day, passing it to GLaDOS when they talk on occasion like kids passing notes.

— GLaDOS is very girlypop and secretly loves the bubblegum pop anthems (courtesy of Foxglove, of course, no way Aperture’s scientists fed her this stuff). Caroline on the other hand, does not. She’s more of a lofi person.

DO NOT DO THIS!!!

If a website has a paywall, like New York Times, DO NOT use the ctrl+A shortcut then the ctrl+c shortcut as fast as you can because then you may accidentally copy the entire article before the paywall comes up. And definitely don't do ctrl+v into the next google doc or whatever you open because then you will accidentally paste the entire article into a google doc or something!!!! I repeat DO NOT do this because it is piracy which is absolutely totally wrong!!!