pleasehelpmecosplay is a great blog and we definitely want to signal boost their content. we get quite a lot of messages as it is, and find it difficult to answer every single cosplay advice ask - here’s a blog that could help you better!

and thank you to the makers of pleasehelpmecosplay for their blog :3

Hi, guys, I was just wondering if you could take a minute to go to this page and report it.

The page has recently been putting up photos of Avatar cosplayers (like the one pictured above….cosplayer unknown because the page failed to give her proper credit), then telling everyone to rate the cosplayers “yay” or “nay”. Most of the people who comment don’t give a damn how beautiful or intricate the cosplays may be….if the cosplayer isn’t Asian, or is not the right size, they put “nay”. As someone who cosplayed Katara and had “Katara ain’t white!” spat in her face by some punk chick at NYCC back in 2010, this hits a nerve. While movies should have actors who fit specific guidelines, I don’t give a flying f*ck what ethnicity a cosplayer is. If the costume is made well and the person can emulate the character, then it’s a good cosplay. Cosplayers do not deserve to be treated in this manner….they have spent a ton of money and effort to pay homage to a character they love.

Since this page is all about cosplaying regardless of who you are, I hope you don’t mind that I’m bringing this to your attention. I just feel that when people are hating on cosplayers because of their race, it needs to be made aware of and stopped.

getting on cosplayers because m. night fucked up the avatar movie is really crazy…. i have a feeling this person’s really bitter! 

we also hope you stay safe and have fun this new year! i will be reblogging a resource post in a moment for all of you who are gonna go to parties, so you can stay safe :3

however…

when you go out and have a photoshoot, please be respectful to the property you are on or dealing with. it is not your property (i’m talking about if you’re out in public or something, not on your family’s land etc), you are only there to use it. throwing items on the floor, even with the store’s express permission, isn’t an ok thing to do. that item you threw down could quite possibly end up out of the store’s hands soon, and belong to someone else. you were disrespecting not just the store, but the potential customer who buys the item.

the same thing goes for cosplayers in public places like restaurants, parks, even places of worship. please do not go and harass the people who work there, because they won’t appreciate it. don’t deface property, make a mess of things, or as i mentioned above, don’t make people uncomfortable by getting in their grill or being disruptive. 

i’m sure some of you remember the hetalia photoshoot where a germany cosplayer and some-other-country cosplayer were making “gun-hands” (excuse my dumb term, for lack of a better one) and pointing them at the synagogue (? iirc). the caption was, once more iirc, “die jewish scum” or something. how is that appropriate? it is disrespectful, and i cannot think of an instance where it’s alright, ever, to do that. if you wouldn’t do it out of cosplay, don’t do it IN cosplay for the sake of being the character.

that’s all! 

i hope you all understand that this blog is COMPLETELY submission-based in picture content, so if you want more of that content, you can deliver it. we have far more GOOD cosplay in our inbox right now than bad cosplay, and the designated BAD cosplays that have been submitted are not always that bad. out of 100 submissions we maybe post 30.

we have lives, which are actually very hectic right now! so we don’t even have as much time to manage the blog :’( 

it’s not that we don’t appreciate the submissions, but they don’t have the material that we are looking for. 

that being said….

PLEASE SUBMIT THINGS! if you’ve got a problem with the content, you can literally take that into your own hands and give more of what you think we lack!

GOOOOOOOOOO FORTH AND SUBMIT

thank you so much for bearing with us all this time! 

also, we will not be replying to asks that are already addressed in the FAQ. gonna add a disclaimer in our sidebar momentarily, as long as a few other things! check it out in a few!! :3

much love!!

… so we will not be posting them, but thank you still! we appreciate your concern and kind words. we also know that there will be people out there, always adamantly supporting binding otherwise! we know! contrary to popular belief, we also do, in fact, know what we are talking about when it comes to body dysphoria! so before writing us off as just passing on “propaganda” (wtf?) take a moment to consider that we actually give a shit about you cosplayers and your health, and that we do know what we’re talking about. 

and since the same person who said our post was propaganda wondered if we work for a company that sells binders, we are in no way affiliated with any company that sells binders. 

just clearing some things up before we get to queueueueueueueueueuing!

There’s only one ‘you’ and nobody wants you to get hurt.

I understand you just want to cosplay or live your life as who you are.
I’m sure you all have very legitimate reasons.

-But please be careful and take care of yourself.

There is no situation where binding with ace bandages or anything other than a binder made for binding your size of chest is safe or recommended. Do not do it. This is not opinion. It’s dangerous. 

In case it needs to be simplified. Do not bind with things not made for binding. Especially ace bandages and duct tape. I can not stress this enough.

Attempting to convince us and others that binding with things not made for binding is putting them at a very high risk for fractured ribs, breathing problems, fainting and a whole plethora of other issues.

Do not bind unless you’re using a binder.

Edit: Apparently this wasn’t clear enough for some people. 

Do not use anything other than a binder for binding.

Investing in a thirty dollar binder that you can reuse would even out to the same expense as using ace bandages, sports tape or duct tape and is a much safer alternative. If you can’t afford that well, someone said something in a reply that summed it up rather well.

“If you can’t afford a binder, you definitely can’t afford the visit to the doctor’s when you fuck up”  

Furthermore, do not buy a binder too small for you. Regardless of what you have heard, it’s very dangerous. You can layer up by wearing a size too large and then your actual size over it, but do NOT wear a size too small.

Compressing your chest is something that should not be done without caution. Please, for the sake of your health and well being, do not view it lightly. 

Edit 2: I’m just going to keep editing this post just for the sake of saving space and having a good solid post about binding. 

Someone left us an ask, asking how binders were different. If you’ve ever seen one used or held it, you would know. Binders are made for compressing breasts. - And even then I only recommend you wear it for a few hours, at most. 

Ace bandages are NOT made for chest compression at all. In fact, they’re probably the worst thing you could use. Ace bandages are made to be wrapped around sprains to compress swelling. As you breathe you push the bandages out and they compress tighter and tighter. This leads to cracked or broken ribs. You can also become very short of breathe as it constricts around your upper body and faint. 

This is something very dangerous that’s common practice amoung both transgender individuals and cross players.

If you’re looking for binders that don’t cost and arm and a leg and are, from everyone I’ve heard, very comfortable as far as binders go. You should go to underworks.com.

Edit 3: As for open chest binding. Open chest binding isn’t exactly safe either, especially if you’re pron to embarrassment.

It’s not nearly as bad the other ways of binding simply because you don’t have an ace bandage compressing your ribs, but it’s still very harmful to your breasts and body in general to tape yourself up.

Not to mention pulling your breasts to the side and taping them there, keeping them taught, can still make it hard to breathe and from what I understand it’s also just very uncomfortable to treat your breasts that way.

Yes, you most likely won’t be going home with cracked ribs, but you’re in for a world of back trouble and very short breathe and a lot of nicks and things from tape. That could get nasty infections from sweat and such.

Also, every open chest bind I have seen in real life has resulted in at least one ‘nip slip’ (which is weird because pasties are a thing) and let’s be honest, the vast majority of open chest binds just look terrible. 

That’s why I strongly recommend that transgender individuals and crossplayers just stick to characters without open chests.  If you’re that desperate to cosplay a character with an open chest, then the only thing I could recommend would be to air brush a binder or talk to someone who knows what they’re doing.

And, on a final note, bras are a grey area. If you’re wearing a bra and if it’s enough to flatten you out, then that’s great! But even with sports bras, please be careful. Don’t layer up too many. Don’t wear one too tight. Just be safe. If you’re over a B cup, I’d recommend not even trying to flatten yourself with a bra, but if you decide to try please please be careful.

Edit 4: We’re getting a lot of messages.

Some are horror stories about people having to be rushed to the ER. This is the exact reason why we’re pushing safe binding. Here’s a few of the less ‘triggering’ stories that still point out the very damaging effects of binding with the wrong materials.

Some are people telling us about how they were fine after using ace bandages for binding. We’re not judging you and we’re not giving you a hard time just for the sake of cosplay. We want you to be safe.

The thing about ace bandage binding is that, yes, you could be fine after and it could’ve worked out great for you! - But the risk level is still very very high.

I played in traffic once. I didn’t even get a scratch. That doesn’t make it safe and it doesn’t make it something you should do. 

alrighty!! im going to hopefully be doing a picture tutorial for MAKING BREASTS for a cosplay.

binding is one thing, because in many cases, it’s easier to take away than to add on. but i am gonna make a tutorial showing an easy and inexpensive way to make breasts, assuming that your character isn’t gonna be showing too much cleavage. 

i’m also gonna try to get one of my IRL male friends to help me out with it, let’s hope there’s a “willing victim” lol. but if not, i can try to make a tutorial just with words.

let’s see how it goes!! not sure when it will be out, but yeah, it is in the works.