Paper faces on parade

It makes me sad to say, but this will probably be the last time I see Phantom of the Opera in London, for a good while if not forever. It's not only one of my favourite musicals, it's actually the show that introduced me to musical theatre and made me fall down the rabbit hole. It's one of my favourite stories and I love so many of it's iterations, from the original Leroux novel (I will gladly fight people who accuse it of being "badly written" when they've actually just read a bad translation of a French language novel!! The public domain translation is free for a reason!) to the 1925 Lon Chaney movie (which 100 years later is still the best film adaptation, even with that ending). I love it so much I willingly read the awful (and racist, holy shit) Susan Kay fanfic novel, and went to see Love Never Dies when it first opened in London. So I am dedicated! The last time I saw it was in 2023 when I traveled to Trieste, Italy to see a special limited production staring Ramin Karimloo that ran for only 2 weeks I think? And the last time I saw it in London was in 2022 just before I left to live in Korea, when Lucy St Louis was starring as the best iteration of Christine I've ever seen. So it had been a while, and I was eager to go back. Until I saw the ticket prices, yikes!!

If you read my blog you'll know that I go to the theatre quite a lot, and I'm very aware that ticket prices have increased across all theatres in recent years. What I find particularly egregious in the case of Phantom of the Opera though is not only have some ticket prices tripled, but seats previously listed as restricted view have now had that label removed while the seats themselves haven't changed. I've always sat front row, which is and has always been a restricted view seat - partly due to the stage height as you can't see the back of it, and if you're sat in the middle seats it's because the conductor is directly in front of you blocking the view. In late 2022 I sat in these seats for £45 at full price direct from the box office, so please explain to me why these exact same seats now cost £172 each. That's an increase of over 280%, and the view is still restricted. I know West End tickets are historically a lot cheaper than Broadway but that's partially due to government subsidies to keep theatre accessible to all, and Broadway prices shouldn't be seen as a challenge to be matched, it's insane! Since late 2022 it has made itself one of the most expensive shows in London.

I enjoyed it, it was nice to see one of my favourite shows. I don't want to say too much as I don't want to be mean, but it certainly isn't the strongest cast I've ever seen and there were a few technical issues. And that's exactly how the ticket prices ruin it, things I would normally be happy to overlook now can't help but become magnified because now it matters if the cast has an off night because I can't afford to just come again, and I know the audience around me were feeling the same way. I am glad I got to go one last time though.

The day leading up to the show ended up being a really chill day, and it was nice. I was having a lot of chronic pain issues, so I decided to change my plans and take it easy. I started out at Tate Britain as I haven't visited an art gallery in ages and it's one of my favourites. I also ended up getting a book while I was there, it's called We Need Your Art: Stop Fucking Around and Make Something by Amee McNee and it's full of the kind of advice that in my heart I already know but also need to be reminded of, and I like it's attitude and frankness. I also feel like when I was at my drawing peak I used to read books like this quite a lot, so I'm hopeful!

I wasn't at the gallery for long and decided to sit in Embankment Gardens and read my book fanfic. I discovered these gardens last time when I was wandering around Westminster, and I'm really glad as it's quiet and tucked away, yet also so central I could just walk to His Majesty's Theatre afterwards. I really enjoyed just relaxing, and it felt really good not to be in a hurry with a to-do list and trying to fit in as much as possible. It reminded me that this is how my trips to London used to be when I first started traveling here regularly in 2019, and it felt so good to just vibe and enjoy myself like that again.

Action brings good fortune. Sunset.

I've struggled like crazy with my sketchbook for the longest time, since 2021 I think? After I finished my illustration degree in 2018 I had art block for a while and started to doubt if I even wanted to pursue illustration anymore. But it didn't last long and from about October of that year on wards I'd already come out of it and was making some of the best art I've ever drawn, stuff I still look at and feel amazed that I actually did that all these years later. I stayed in this groove up until Covid, and during these two years I managed to complete 4 sketchbooks that I'm still really proud of - especially considering I'd never completely filled even one sketchbook cover to cover before that! I think Covid killing my motivation was coincidental rather than the actual cause. I was living in Japan and we never went into a full lockdown like the rest of the world so I continued working the whole time, but there were still a lot of limits in place for what to do outside of that which left me with a lot of downtime in which to ponder. And I think this pondering was my downfall, because when you've studied an illustration degree and are happily drawing every single day without a single ounce of art block and are really happy with your style, I think it's kind of natural for your mind to immediately drift to turning it into your career after all. So I spent my time looking up social media strategies, building a portfolio, the kinds of things art directors are looking for, and learning what kind of stuff I should be doing instead of what I wanted to be doing - and suddenly I had art block again.

Because I had been drawing so much I had a good amount of completed work to share on social media, but because of everything I'd read and been instructed to do for engagement (🤢) I scheduled those posts up instead of posting them organically like I normally would, and that actually had a negative effect on my social media that I'm still feeling the knock on effects of today because it made it something performative and passive rather than something I was actively engaging with. I also shared my completed sketchbooks that I was so proud of, and I regret that to this day as it turned my creative, private, practice play space into something performative that had to be created for consumption.

There's a quote I've always really liked from the short story The Body by Stephen King, and I know this might seem out of left field but please trust me, it's relevant:

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understand what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it.”

Although it's about writing it applies to art as well, and that's how I felt sharing my sketchbooks, they were full of my important things that lied too close to where my secret heart is buried. They may look like silly little drawings to most, but even drawing fan art of characters that mean the world to you is an act of love, and can feel incredibly vulnerable to offer up to whoever's looking. When you look at my artwork you can't see what I see because you don't know what I was trying to convey when I drew it, you can only project and infer your own meaning. And that's great! That's whats powerful about art! But it's also what makes being an artist feel incredibly vulnerable because there are people who just won't get it, so you get cagey about the things you do share to make sure it's palatable and won't be misunderstood and has broad appeal. And suddenly my sketchbooks couldn't be something personal or even silly, they had to be books of completed art that looked perfect on every single page (but not too perfect as it still has to be relatable!) that I could share up to the masses afterwards. And I never completed another sketchbook again after that, as not only was that kind of pressure completely paralysing but unsurprisingly my passion had entirely vanished with it.

Ever since I've kept starting sketchbooks and then abandoning them as I hate what I've done as it all feels so forced, or I just can't relate to it anymore as the breaks in-between each page are so long. And I realized that it was all stemming from my perfectionism which is what's been paralysing me, so instead of starting another new sketchbook I just taped the old pages together in one big clump so I don't have to look at them anymore and having that imperfection right at the very beginning of the book has been strangely motivating! Like the book is already 'ruined' so I may as well just draw whatever.

So I drew Papa V Perpetua over the weekend in ballpoint pen. It's not great, I didn't even bother to finish his hands as they're metal and reflective and I was losing the will to live after all of the detail in his outfit. I was going to put a sticker over that bit, but I realized it doesn't even matter. It's my sketchbook, it doesn't have to be good so long as I have a good time drawing it, which I did. It just feels so good to have started something again, and I can't explain why but it does feel different this time and I think having 'ruined' the front of the sketchbook is a major part of why. Only time will tell I guess, but I absolutely won't be sharing my whole sketchbook this time beyond a few pages I photograph here and there!

Behold a dream, the dream is gone

Back in 2022 I did a full year of One Second Everyday, or 1SE. You can watch it here if you'd like. I'd been trying to do 1SE for years but could never build the habit of turning it into an actual daily activity. The closest I got was when I lived in Japan, but it was also peak Covid so finding novel ways of capturing each day was hard and seeing so many blank days was demotivating. By the end of 2022 I was ready to be done with the challenge, as proud as I was of it. I hadn't intended to do a full year, and I think that's why it worked for me. I happened to be walking around the reservoir near my parents house and I knew my life was going to change in big ways that year (I moved to Korea!). It was literally January 1st and I made the snap decision to use the app and see how much I could capture - and it ended up being every single day.

I haven't done it since. Last year you may remember I wanted to take a photo every day, but it dropped off around the time I moved house and I realized how much harder a photo a day is over a second. A second of a video is nothing, it's gone in a flash. But a photo needs to stand on it's own, and that's harder. I loved looking back over my 2022 video, so I decided on a whim to try again this year. Unfortunately it wasn't so serendipitous as to be on January 1st, it was a random day in March, but I figure any time is a good time to start anything. I kept the challenge to myself for a while so I didn't build myself up for failure, but I've not skipped a day yet so here's May and June!

Looking back through 2022 made me feel so nostalgic. I've actually found myself missing and romanticizing my time in Korea a lot lately, not to minimize the painful moments which far outweighed the good but I can recognize that there were also pockets of happiness there. Traveling into central Seoul for the day and buying cute stickers for my journal from Hot Tracks. Walking home from the train station late at night. The two elderly Korean ladies who went out of their way to tell me they thought I looked beautiful in my Emily Temple Cute dress. Going to the stationery store after work. Eating a bulgogi burger at MaccyD's (🤤) I've been reminiscing like this for a while, and at first it confused me until I realized that although I may not have been happy there, I was at least living a life more closely aligned with my values. Now I'm more comfortable, but my life feels emptier and the anxiety is more persistent. There's a lesson there. My time in Korea will always be tinged with sadness, but that doesn't mean I have to give up on my adventures.

All of the discourse around Labubus and Pop Mart has enhanced a lot of these feelings too. I hate to be all 'I was here before it was cool', but literally!! I discovered Pop Mart when I was in Korea, there was a huge store in the basement of a mall I used to frequent but it was the Robo Shop vending machines that I loved the most. You can see some of my collection from then here, I was mostly focused on the Disney boxes but I also had a few Labubu and SkullPandas. I've never bought a lot, and always only boxes where I'd be happy with any design so I'm never disappointed, but I've always been a trinket girly (just look at my shelves in the back of my outfit photos!) so it figured I'd always love this stuff. I particularly love Labubu as they have a similar mischievous energy and art style to Moomin, which is something I grew up with and my favourite series of absolutely anything.

It made me really happy at first seeing them gain more popularity and become more mainstream, but it's really turned into contempt with the way it's all progressed. From adult men assaulting Pop Mart staff to get Labubus just to resell, to people's weird attitudes towards collectors. You can't talk about Labubus or Pop Mart at all now without someone clapping back about 'landfill', 'overconsumption', or trying to make it weird that adults are buying them like grown adult men haven't been collecting Lego, Star Wars toys, and Funko Pops for years. And that's what gets me, the blatant sexism of it all. I think there is absolutely a conversation to be had around micro trends and there's a subset of people going nuts over Labubu right now that can apply to, but it's also become just as much of a trend to hate on it and be mean just to try and feel morally superior. The growing lack of empathy people have in general feels like a much more pressing issue to me, with much more far reaching consequences than a few toys. In the current climate if a plush key chain makes someone feel good, just let them? It's not hard to be kind, and it's really not that deep. Just let people be happy. I'll be glad when it's all died down and I can enjoy my collection in peace again!

But nobody cares if you're losing yourself

I realize that what I'm about to say might sound ridiculous to some. Not everyone sees fashion as self expression and identity and that's okay, but I very much do and that's also valid. But a big part of why I wanted to see Ghost again was when I was in London I hated my outfit, and even on the day as soon as it was too late to do anything about it I realized that I should have worn my Moitie dress. I even said it in that entry. It kind of touches on why seeing BabyMetal was so emotional to me, but I've always been very much othered and excluded from music spaces because I like to dress girly and cute which apparently doesn't fit. And whilst I normally don't care whether people like my outfit or not - you have to have a thick skin to wear lolita for as long as I have! - I've also spent a big chunk of my life being bullied, and when it comes to things I care about, like Ghost, feeling rejected yet again really is no fun. But what that London show actually ended up teaching me was that it's even less fun to feel self conscious, so utterly unlike yourself that you don't even feel like you. Add to that the internal shame I felt at trying to fit in in the first place because I'd prioritized making the people around me more comfortable than prioritizing my own comfort, I spent most of the show feeling completely alienated from myself and my body. And whilst it sounds stupidly frivolous and superficial to think "I want to see Ghost again so I can wear what I should have worn", I realized afterwards that what I was actually doing was stopping the experience of seeing one of my favourite bands from getting tangled up in yucky feelings, and replacing that memory with a new, better one, where I felt powerful and authentic, and I think that's a big part of why my whole trip to Copenhagen felt so momentous to me and helped me get out of my anxiety so much. And maybe that isn't silly or superficial at all actually.

So this is what I wore to see Ghost in Copenhagen, and I absolutely loved this outfit. My hotel room wasn't big enough to take pictures in (and I went there alone so a selfie wouldn't have worked) but this is an exact replica of the whole coord. And far from being othered I had girls running up to me to tell me they loved my outfit - being yourself works!!

Dress & nun collar - Moi-même-Moitié // headdress - Baby The Stars Shine Bright // necklace - Ghost merch

Having learned my lesson, I didn't mess around going to see BabyMetal, or even let the extreme heat dissuade me. And really if you're not going to wear lolita to go see a Japanese band, then just when are you! I was also very proud of myself that I managed to fit everything I needed for the show into my Usakumya bag. If you've never seen one in real life, you have to peel off her hood and open the top of her head, and then squeeze everything through her neck which is half the width of the rest of the bag. Because of that they're usually just used for decoration and not much else, but I managed to actually make her functional for once and didn't need anything else - I didn't even have a pocket!

Dress & headbow - Moi-même-Moitié // Usakumya - Baby the Stars Shine Bright // shoes - Angelic Pretty // socks - Marble

Floating down, the sound resounds

I went to London at the weekend to see BabyMetal, quite a last minute decision (again!) but I saw it being advertised when I saw Ghost at the o2 and thought it would be fun if nothing else. I had an incredible seat, it was in amongst the VIP tickets although I didn't pay those prices and I suspect had been held for some kind of media purpose before going up for general sale (as it was not a re-sale). I'm starting to think these last minute tickets are the best! In the past two months I've been to more concerts than I've been to since 2020, which feels good actually and I feel like I've found a way of going that feels more accessible to me than previous concerts have. An exciting development!!

I'm not that familiar with BabyMetal, I know them obviously but they're not a band I really listen to or would list as a favourite, yet I ended up getting really emotional when they came on stage for some reason. I wasn't sure if it was because it reminded me of my time living in Japan (they are a Japanese band and perform in Japanese), or if it's because they're 'cute' women taking up space in the metal scene and I've always been made to feel like such an outsider in both and feel like I have to separate sides of my personality a lot of the time (and BabyMetal have faced a lot of their own backlash for that too!) Maybe both, either way I absolutely did not expect to be crying at their show but they were happy tears and I'm so glad I went. The only drawback were the cameras and drones which were really obnoixious, and you can see in the videos as they were everywhere and blocking literally everyone's view. It's because they were livestreaming the show to Japan.

I stayed the night in London, which I didn't really have any purpose for doing other than wanting to elongate my time and have a proper trip to try and recreate the energy of when I went to London to see Ghost and Aaron Tveit last month. So trying to think of things to do, I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Barbican Theatre the following day. I'd never been to the Barbican before, it's a huge brutalist structure containing many different businesses and entertainments (art galleries, the theatre, a cinema, etc) set across many different levels, and trying to find the theatre was an absolutely bewildering experience as apparently I entered from a weird direction so it was like a maze. But I enjoyed the show itself and I'm glad I caught it as it's a really limited production, I think it's only running for 6 weeks.

Although I live away from the city now, I am originally from London so when I'm there I often have the mentality of 'ugh, tourists'. There's whole entire parts of London I've never even been to despite the city being my home for half of my life because 'ugh, tourists'. When I was in Copenhagen and figuring out what to see and do I saw people posting the usual disdain of "I want to do what locals do", which strikes me as strange really. Like, you wanna go to work? Because speaking from experience most people who live in cities are just trying to survive as unless you're mega wealthy living in a city is a hard lifestyle to maintain. You go places because they're cheap, because they're on your route, not necesserily because they're the best. When I go somewhere I want to do the tourist stuff because it's popular for a reason. And that prompted an 'oh!' not just because I'm right, but because I should be adopting that mindset when I visit my own city! I don't live there anymore so I don't need to hustle and keep my head down and just run errands like I usually do. So I visited Westminster, a place I'd never been to before, and you know what? I had a lot of fun! I saw Big Ben in the flesh for the first time ever, Westminster Abbey, walked past Downing Street (not that I'm a fan of the government, but you know, history). I didn't plan myself too well and my chronic illness was really illnessing in the morning so I didn't get to do as much as I'd have liked, and I'd like to actually go inside places like the Abbey sometime, but it's not like I don't go to London often enough and it's nice knowing I have a lot to explore in the future.

Wandering and dreaming, the words have different meaning

I feel like all I post about are events lately and that's not the type of blog I want this to be, so let's talk about my Filofax. Journaling is one of my special interests, and it's taken me a really long time to land on a Filofax as my main book. I've journaled online in some form or another (hello LiveJournal and Tumblr!) for most of my life at this point, but it was during covid when I wanted to cling to my most special Before memories that I started to retrospectively turn those moments into a physical bound book I could hold in my hands and flip through. There's always been something almost magical about that feeling to me, like it makes those memories more tangible and real, and late 2018 up until early 2020 (ie covid) was unarguably the best period of my life so far and something I wasn't ready to let go of in the scary new world I found myself in.

I was living in Japan during this time and discovered Hobonichi, a journaling brand that's since really blown up on social media, and I've struggled to force myself to use Hobonichi for years but I've accepted this year that it just doesn't work for me. They have beautifully aesthetic books filled with beautifully soft paper, but I am just not a journal everyday kind of girl and I end up feeling like my journal takes over my life. It's so much effort, and really how often am I even going to look back on that? The good memories get surrounded by so much daily filler that they become hard to find, and it all starts to feel very demotivating. I've tried other journals: Moleskine, Travelers Notebook, Stalogy, maybe just about everything at this point, but after so much trial and error it's been Filofax where I realised the magic lies for me. I don't use a Filofax in a traditional sense, and the inserts it arrives with are the first thing to go in the bin. I'm not interested a bit in organisation or productivity! And it was for this reason that it took me a really long time to get on board with Filofax, but as soon as I realised it was literally just a binder and you could put anything you like in it my journaling life transformed.

I've always used Personal size, but while I was in Copenhagen I realised that all of the precious ephemera I was collecting was going to have to be cut up to fit and I did not like that (I haven't properly traveled since I started journaling so this hasn't been a concern for me before!). So I ordered an A5 Filofax from Amazon literally while I was in Copenhagen so it would be waiting for me when I arrived back home and I could jump straight into it, and I can't begin to describe to you how much I love this thing already. I always figured A5 would be too big and unwieldy, but it's actually perfect for me. Big enough to not feel constrained, small enough to not feel lost on a page, and as usual with Filofax my greatest joy is in decorating it - filling the pockets, adding charms, and hole punching anything. Because you never have to worry about a Filofax getting too fat and chunky for the binding and breaking the spine, that's the magic of it. And I love so much that this journal now begins with what felt like a truly transformative trip for me. A fresh start in the truest sense.

The Filofax I'm using is a Malden in Burgundy, and to be honest it's not the original binder I ordered while in Copenhagen. That was a Norfolk, which I quickly abandoned despite loving how supple it was as it was too fat. The rings are huge on that, I photographed a comparison of the spines to give you an idea, and because the rings are so huge it made it feel awkward to flip through. I just thought I'd mention that incase I've swayed you towards maybe getting your own Filofax you know what to be aware of. There's a sweet spot between big but manageable and holy shit, and the Norfolk fell into the latter category for me. It's definitely more of a businessman's binder to spend it's life laying open on a desk where it doesn't matter, rather than being thrown in a rucksack and taken to a cafe. I love my Malden though, 10/10 recommend!!

København

I got back from Copenhagen on Wednesday! It's taken me a while to collate everything to make a post, especially as I wanted to physically journal about it all first while it's still fresh in my mind. I was honestly so anxious before I went that I was almost tempted not to go and cancel the whole thing, and I don't mean to be dramatic but I feel like I've come back transformed. I often get too caught up in my own head, and being reminded that there's a whole big world out there does me wonders. I almost dread coming home as it's the fear of slipping back into old habits, but I feel more determined than ever to try and prioritise experiences and travel rather than spending all of my money on material objects. It's just not the same dopamine hit. The last time I went anywhere was Trieste (Italy) in July 2023, which was a month after coming back from Japan where I'd escaped to after being traumatised in Korea and unsurprisingly I did not have a good time in Trieste as I was still mentally unpacking everything that had happened. So this is the first real trip I've been on since 2020, before I moved to Japan, and I do feel like it's put me back in touch with the more carefree mindset I had back then. Let's hope I can hold on to it!

I only really went to Copenhagen to see Ghost, and figured I may as well have a few extra days to make a proper vacation out of it if I'm paying to go there anyway. Ghost were incredible, I preferred it to London (and I liked seeing them in London a lot!) The Royal Arena isn't as big as the O2, and I somehow got a really good seat. I think some were released last minute because when I was trying to figure out which country to go to the seats in Copenhagen weren't looking great until all of a sudden they were so I booked it quick. I was seated but first row and literally right next to the stage, and because the seats are on a platform so more level with the stage I'd argue I had a better view than the people standing at barrier and I didn't have to queue all day for the privilege. That was my biggest issue with London, I was so far away that it felt difficult to be immersed and I didn't have that problem at all here. I like being able to see the performers expressions (as much as you can with Ghost anyway), the details on the costumes, actually being able to identify the bassist over the guitarist, stuff like that. It feels more personal. There really were a lot of foreigners at this show too - Swedes, Germans, Brits, and Dutch were just the ones I heard, and even Tobias said that we'd "geographically fucked up his plans" as he'd assumed he was performing to mostly Danes.

I didn't really have any plans for what to actually do in the city otherwise, other than booking a ticket for Tivoli Gardens for one of the days. I'm a big theme park nerd and was quite excited at the prospect of going to Tivoli, one of the oldest theme parks in the world. When Walt Disney visited it inspired him to create Disneyland, and it has one of the oldest operating wooden rollercoasters in the world (which of coarse I went on!). It's really not a very big park and I knew this before going, you could easily get around the whole place in just a few hours and that includes going on all the rides. I still spent the whole day though, as honestly it was nice to just vibe in the gardens and read my book. I've been in a reading slump for ages and I read more on this trip than I have the entire year so far and it feels good! (I'm reading Conclave by Robert Harris as I saw the movie and was curious. I haven't finished it yet but I'm really enjoying it a lot! It's not the type of book I'd normally gravitate towards either which excites me and makes me wonder if I've boxed myself in too much with what I read which is what lead to the slump. But that thought is overwhelming too, as how on earth do you pick what to read from millions of books if you don't box yourself in at all!)

The robot lawnmower is dressed like a rabbit 🥹 I love whimsical details like that

For the other days I pretty much just wandered around on foot, and discovered some things by accident on my way to somewhere else. I looked up walking tours online, took a map from the tourist centre, and circled the bits of the walking tours that looked interesting to me and made my own routes. I looked at a lot of Hans Christian Andersen stuff as it's kind of everywhere, but also as an illustrator his works have always been a big inspiration to me (for my BA degree I illustrated a full book of The Snow Queen). It made me realise that I should try and do this stuff for British authors too, there's loads for AA Milne and Lewis Carroll and I just don't take advantage of it like I do when I'm away somewhere. I'm going to London next weekend to see BabyMetal so I'm already planning what I've missed there!