EK’s Star Log

Okay, so if you’ve followed the books these past 12 years, you know that the final volume came out this week, and if you know me, you know I had all ready read it less than 3 hours after it hit the newstands. If you’ve read it you know that everyone lived happily ever after, except as usual Sesshomaru, who for the 7th time in this series has had yet another woman he loves, taken away from from him. Sara died, Kagura died, Rin died twice and he just keeps bringing her back, yo get the picture. Sesshy’s life has been made complete hell in every volume, and this final volume was no exception. InuYasha married Kagome. Miroku marries Sango. Rin is taken away from Sesshomaru and sent to live with Kaede.

As the days go by and more and more people read the final chapter of InuYasha, and I go through blogs and forums reading people’s responses to it (me only being interested in people’s responses to the Sesshy x Rin part of course!), I am finding one thing a bit odd. Most people seem to be reading it as Sesshomaru left Rin behind, forcing her to live with Kaede.

I actually read the ending totally differently… weird… but I guess I’m weird so, yea, it figures, but anyways, the way InuYasha said that Kaede said Rin was to learn to live in a human village (note that he said, that Kaede said it, not Sesshomaru) I took that to mean that Keade took Rin away from Sesshomaru, not Sesshomaru left Rin with Keade… that is what it says after all, that “Kaede said it”…. not “Sesshomaru said it”.

It seems to me that if he had left her, he wouldn’t be coming back with the gifts either; it’s more logical that Kaede took her, thus now Sesshomaru is sticking around the village and bringing Rin gifts, biding his time, until she’s old enough, to take her away from Kaede without Keade or anyone else being there to say she’s too young.

Well, that’s the way I saw the ending as being.

Did anyone else see it this way, or am I the only one who does not think Sesshomaru left Rin behind?

And another thing… why is this bugging me in the first place? They are fictional characters, it’s not like these things really happened anyways, and yet, I’m all riled up over this! I just can’t get this out of my head. Weird.

I need to examine this farther. I don’t think Sesshomaru would do anything he didn’t want to, it’s not his nature, that’s true, but than all the fuss that went into protecting Rin, over a period of what, 460 chapters?, something like that, would be pointless if he suddenly said to himself, “It’s time to leave her somewhere.”

It’d have been nice if Rumiko would have shown us what triggered the sudden, send Rin off bit, because it is so out of character for Sesshomaru to do that willingly. And it’s out of character for him to not fit to keep Rin.

It seems easier to believe that it was Keade who took Rin away, rather than Sesshomaru who suddenly dumped Rin off on Kaede, and yet, his past actions tell us that if Keade did take Rin from him, he would have reacted but lashing her to pieces with his claws, and than walking over her bloody remains to carry Rin away from the village.

Logic tells us that if Sesshomaru suddenly decided to leave Rin with Kaede, that some event had to have happened to trigger such a dynamic change of character for him. The question is, what could have happened to cause him to do a full 360 degree turn like this?

On the other hand, we do know that Kaede has a soft spot for children, and has been seen on countless occasions to be caring for children from the village. We also know that until the death of Naraku, Kaede had no knowledge of the fact that Rin was living with Sesshomaru. Upon Naraku’s death, Sesshomaru and Rin ended up in the village because Sesshomaru was chasing Naraku and Rin was following after Sesshomaru on Ah-Un.

We now that Sesshomaru hates humans, but we know also that of all humans he reviles priestesses the most, esp. Kikyo and her kin. We have heard these words come straight from his lips on more than one occasion. He refers to both Kikyo and Kaede as “that woman”, with a deep tone of disgust and hatred that far outweighs the hatred in his voice when talking about half-breeds or regular humans. His hatred of human priestess is unfathomable. And yet, not only does he leave Rin in the care of a human, but also a priestess, and to make it one step worse Kikyo’s sister! We have a major mega triple whammy on our hands here, one that glares off the page at us like a hand with 20 sore thumbs on it.

If he had left Rin with anyone else, there would not be so many questions, but the fact that he left her with the human, priestess who was the sister of Kikyo, just goes against everything Rumiko has ever told us about Sesshomaru!

It is completely impossible to believe, knowing what we know about Sesshomaru, that he would ever by himself, come up with the idea of leaving Rin in the care of Kaede.

It would be so much simpler if Rumiko had just added one more page, to tell us why the dessision was made to leave Rin with Kaede. I mean, we all know Sesshomaru would die to protect his beloved Rin. Likewise we all know Rinfights like hell against the idea of either leaving Sesshomaru or worse, living with humans (her worst dreaded fear of all!)

So taking all these facts into consideration, we come to the conclusion that something must have happened in the three year period, something drastic, to change either Sesshomaaru’s or Rin’s mind.

So whose mind was changed and why? Let’s look at what we know and than draw some conclusions:

We see Rin (wearing Kagura’s kimono no less!) happily helping Kaede. Giving that Rin now seems to enjoy living among humans, we can assume that she has somehow lost her fear of humans. We can also assume that she is no longer 100% dependent on Sesshomaru’s protection, and no loner feels the need to run to him for help. In fact her reaction to his presence suggests a tone of indifference. She does not seem to care that he came to visit her, it seems to be just another thing that happens. She is neither pleased to see him, nor displeased. This is out of character for Rin, who normally is overflowing with bubbling joy at even the slightest glance from Sesshomaru. Rin’s outlook towards Sesshomaru has changed, and rather dramaticly.

And why is Rin wearing Kagura’s kimono? How did she get it? If it’s not Kagura’s kimono, than why is she wearing a duplicate of Kagura’s kimono? Kagura being the woman Sesshomaru loved and probably would have taken as his mate had she not died, we must question the change in Rin’s wardrobe and the motive behind it. We know that Sesshomaru gave Rin her golden Noh robes, and we know that he gave you yet another kimono in 558, so we can safely assume that he also gave her this duplicate one that is like the one Kagura wore as well.

Okay, so that’s Rin now, lets look at what Sesshomaru is doing now.

We know how obsessed with Rin, Sesshomaru is, so to see them sepperated, is odd to say the least. Giving that Sesshomaru is still lurking around the village, in spite of his outspoken hatred for humans and his avoidance of setting a foot within a human village, we can assume that he not only still cares about Rin, and still desires to watch over her and protect her, in spite of the fact that she no longer lives with him, but that he is now forcing himself to put aside his hatred for humans, just to be near her. How odd and un-Youkai like of him! To make this whole series of events just a little bit wierder, we now see Sesshomaru flying in to not only visit Rin, but also to bring her gifts as well! Now that is the most, un-Sesshomaru thing to do of all!

Sesshomaru knew that Rin knew he cared for her, and while he knew this, he was not giving her gifts. It seems to indicate now, that Rin is questioning the fact that Sesshomaru cares for her, and he is now overdoing it, by bringing her gifts to prove to her that he does still care for her. If one was to look at the old Rin and Sesshomaru and compare them to the new ones, it would seem that their roles have reversed. Rin is now the cold emotionless one, no longer bringing gift after gift to her lord, while Sesshomaru is now the one bringing gifts to the girl ho no longer seems to care.

Why, is Sesshomaru, bringing her gifts? That part is so odd. Is her afraid that she will forget about him and brings her gifts to keep him on her mind? Is he afraid she will never return to him, and live the rest of her life with the humans, and so is bringing gifts to try to sway her to come back to him? Is she angry with him, and he brings gifts as a way to ask forgiveness? Any one of these things is out of character for Sesshomaru. He’s showing emotion. It’s like the episode of Star Trek, when Mr. Spock started laughing. It stunned everyone because Spock is devoid of emotion. Sesshomaru shows no emotion. Emotions are a thing humans do that make them weak and pathetic… he has said this in the past. Yet now here he is showing emotion, by giving gifts. What emotion is he showing? Love? Fear? Guilt? Does it matter? Either way it’s still an emotion, something that Sesshomaru does not admit to having.

So while most fans are saying that Sesshomaru had a change of heart and left Rin, it seems to me, that the one who changed was not Sesshomaru, but Rin. It looks more like Rin left of her own accord, and while Sesshomaru did not want her to leave, he also does not want to hold her prisoner and so let her leave, but is now regretting that he did so.

Why would Rin leave him? What could Kaede have said that could have gotten Rin to leave? Did Rin leave because Kaede told her to? Or did Rin leave and seek refuge with Kaede? Is it possible that Sesshomaru some hoe scared or hurt Rin, to the extent that she no longer felt safe in his care?

What could have happened, I suppose would be affected by how you view their relationship: Master/servant-pet; father/daughter; or lolicon, being the three most commonly accepted theories.

The whole gift-giving thing, completely throws out the father-daughter theory, because, lets face it, how many dad’s go out of their way to buy gifts for their kids for no reason at all? Fathers have a hard time remembering to buy gifts for Christmas and birthdays, and rely on the mother to buy the gifts for them… it’s not logical that Sesshomaru would be buying gifts for Rin if he thought of her as his daughter, though it is logical to believe that Rin did look up to Sesshomaru as though he was a father. I think the father-daughter theory, would only hold true in Rin’s mind and not Sesshomaru’s.

The master-servant or master-pet theories are so similar that I’ll call them one and the same. It is this theory that I personally felt held true for this couple, throughout the series. Rin clearly looked up to Sesshomaru as her master, and obied his every command without question. His fierce protection of her, is no different than the protection one gives to a beloved house-pet. He protects her, keeps her safe, kept her feed and healthy, and pretty much did nothing else. When a dog runs away or gets lost, you look for it, and when you find it you are so filled with joy that you shower it with gifts and treats. This seems to hold true for Sesshomaru’s actions. He has lost his beloved pet to a new owner and is trying to convince her to return to him, through the bearing of gifts.

Than there is the lolicon relationship, which I have already read posts from fans who are pointing the dreaded lolicon finger at Sesshomaru. Actually, as much as I hate to admit it, this does seem to be the most logical and highly likely reason for this unexpected turn of events. Weird, I find myself agree on this point, because until now, I had never actually believed that the lolicon theory was even possible. It just seemed to unlikely and out of character for Sesshomaru. The Sesshomaru gone lolicon was a theory that I pointed at and laughed. However, after reading 558, I can see this being a distinctive possibility, and one that could have gone one of three ways:

One, Sesshomaru, did as most fans suggest, and sent Rin away against her will to live with Kaede. For this to be true in the lolicon theory, we would have to assume that Sesshomaru no longer trusted himself and sent Rin away to protect her from himself.

Second would be that, Rin left of her own accord after a lolicon confrontation between herself and Sesshomasru left her scared to live with him anymore.

Third would be that Kaede, accused Sesshomaru of being a lolicon and took Rin away from him. This one could go one of two ways:

One Sesshomaru is in fact lolicon and Kaede somehow found out and took Rin away.

Two, Sesshomaru is not lolicon, but Kaede just assumed that he was, and took Rin away.

Reading 558, I actually got the impression that the later was true. Kaede, saw Rin and Sesshomaru together for the first time, after Naraku’s death, and was not aware Rin lived with Sesshomaru, before that point (chapter 552). InuYasha said that it was Kaede who said Rin should prepare to return to a human village. (558). So we know that Shortly after Kaede discovered that 7 year old Rin was living with 700+ year old Sesshomaru, she told them that Rin should live in a human village. The question is, how did Kaede convince Rin to come with her, and why did Sesshomaru let Rin go?

We do know that more than once Sesshomaru has told Rin, she could leave if she so desired, so we can assume that it was Rin who decided to leave Sesshomaru, otherwise, I can see no way he would have let her go. He would not have sent her away. He would not have allowed anyone to take her away. The only way he would let Rin go, is if, Rin, left of her own accord. But why would Rin leave?

Have I gotten anywhere with all of this? No. But at least I got it off my chest and now I’ll let someone else unravel this mess and figure it out. I’d love to hear how other fans are taking this. Me? It’s safe to say that I am very upset over this and not taking it very well at all, otherwise I would not have spent the last 3 and 1/2 hours sitting here typing up this rant about it.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Well, I went ahead and built a inner skeleton structure for the Mokomoko just too see what it would look like and to see if it was possible to use inside a costume tail, and has decided go ahead and use it. I also came to the conclusion that an 8 foot Mokomoko is not big enough, and am now making it 12 feet long instead.

Here’s how I did it in case any one else wants to try it:

I took a 12 foot phone/internet cable, and ran it through 8 feet of galvanized electrical conduit cable (which is quite heavy and made of metal, but is very springy and moves like a real tail.). I taped the cable in place to the conduit so that the ends meet at the base, but the cable is 4 feet longer at the end.

My next step was to wrap the entire thing in polyester quilt batting: first a 1/4″ x 8″ x 12′ stripe tied down with DMC crochet cotton. I tied it into a knobby look, by tying at 3″ intervals.

Next I put in on, in order to measure where the shoulder line would be, than marked off a 3 foot section, and wrapped that with a another layer of quilt batting: 1/4″ x 2′ x 3′, stiffing it with teddy bear stuffing, which is a supper soft, very squishy type of polyester stuffing. Again tying at 3″ intervals.

Overlapping that section by 4″ I added another layer of quilt batting, and stuffed it with only half as much stuffing as before. Again tying at 3″ intervals.

From that point down I wrapped again, this time with no stuffing added.

The end result it a 12′ long conical taper shape, with the first 2 1/2′ left wrapped only once, so as to be able to wrap the tail, and some how attach it which I have not yet figured out how to do.

Well, that’s where I am at right now. It took me just under 2 hours from start to finish.

My next step with the Mokomoko is to buy some eyelash fringe fabric, to make a cloth cover for it. That will be the base to which I will hand sew (latch hook-stitch) real fur to, to create a real fur tail. I have yet to decide on the type of fur I’ll use, but at this point I’m leaning towards Beige Alpaca Fleece.

The Mokomoko aside, I still have quite a ways to go on the Court Robes. The cloth was cut out and the pieces pinned together, so that I could hand draw (in pink tailor’s chalk) the giant lotus blossoms, and butterflies (in blue chalk). The butterflies are being done tone on tone, the same color as the silk, so can only be seen up close. I ran out of floss today, so had to go the Micheal’s to buy more.

Right now I am working on the collar of the kosode, which has butterflies along the edge, and the partial piece of one of the pink flowers at the shoulder. Starting at the lower left side and working up to the top and down to the right, I am right now, 3/4 to the top of the left side. Each butterfly is approx. 2″ x 4″ and takes 3 hours to fill in using the satin stitch and the long & short stitch. I have been sewing approximately 1 1/2 butterflies per day (that’s me hand sewing 4 1/2 hours per day!), so I’m guessing that my original estimate that it’ll take me 3 to 4 months to embroider the entire kimono, was pretty darned close! I just started my 7th butterfly today.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

ATTENTION MEMBERS OF FANFICTION.NET!

Story challenge! Stories wanted for new C2: Sesshy x Rin after chapter 557
New c2 looking for new stories, dealing with the new light shed on the Sesshy-Rin relationship!

http://www.fanfiction.net/community/Beware_Flying_Demons_Bearing_Gifts/59495/

This C2 is devoted to all stories that answer the question: After reading the final chapter (558): Why do you think Kaede took Rin away from Sesshomaru? And will Sesshomaru take Rin back?

I got to agree with the fans who call Sesshy a lolicon, at least to the point that I think Kaede thinks he is, cause I can see no other reason for her to take Rin away from him like that.

I’m miffed over Kaede taking Rin away from Sesshomaru X( but, seeing how 3 years have gone by, and Sesshy is still visiting Rin, we can hope they get together once she’s grown up. Looks like Rumiko is not going to be telling us either way , so I’m going to assume they will and be happy with that.

I now have a new motto: Beware of flying demons bearing gifts!

YAY! Kaede can’t stop him from bringing gifts to Rin and regardless of what he says about hating humans, and in spite of Kaede, he certainly isn’t going to let Rin forget about him. I want Rumiko to write the rest of this and tell us what happened to cause Kaede to take Rin away, what happened to Rin (and Sesshomaru) during those three years, how do they handle being away from each other now, and what will happen to them after chapter 558?

Well, since Rumiko isn’t going to tell us, that means it’s up to the fans to write their own versions of what happened/will happen. That’s where you come in! If you have a story that deals with the Sesshy-Rin relationship and how it was affected by the events of InuYasha chapter 558, submit it here, cause we want them all!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Okay, last fall I had this problem, and now it’s doing it again. I don’t often check the front page here, since I write a post and post it, than assume it shows up okay, but I was just looking at my front page here, and several of the posts are here twice!

I came here to check after posting a comment on someone’s blog and the comment showed up, and than some 5 minutes later the same comment showed up again!

I’m assuming it’s a WordPress glitch or something, but why is it happening? It’s not like the post double posts, because if that was the case the times on both posts would be exactly the same. These double posts however are always 5 to 10 minutes apart! Like it saves the post in que than publishes it a second time, but why does it keeo doing that? It’s so weird.

WHAAAAAAA!!!!

My fave series has ended!

I want more, Inu stories…. I’ll have to settle for fanfic now.

*crys* no more new stories about my Sesshy

Oh… love the ending though! Jumped into the future… weddings, babies and all! YAY!

Mad at Keade, GRRRRR, I do not agree with her. *fumes and throws poison venom at her*…

…seems Sesshy don’t agree with her either…. cool! *rushes off to write fanfic about Fluffy visiting Rin* We all know he doesn’t want her going back to a human village, or he wouldn’t be there, willingly being surrounded by all those pathetic humans! Sesshie’s glare at Kagome’s new title for him = Priceless! LOL! LOL! LOL!

I’m miffed over Kaede taking Rin away from Sesshomaru X( but, seeing how Sesshy is visiting Rin, we can hope they get together once she’s grown up. Looks like Rumiko is not going to be telling us either way , so I’m going to assume they will and be happy with that.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Plagiarism Update: Sent Report To WordPress

I have just sent a report on this evil thief’s activities to WordPress. I urge anyone with the sewing related WordPress blog to look at the thief’s blog and see if your posts are being stolen. If they are, please send a report to WordPress as well. If there is a way to identify this plager and send them to jail, let me know, because I will pursue that course of action. As an author I take plagiarism very seriously, and so should you. Well, at least they chose the right name for their blog: Scum Bag Clothing. I can’t think of anything that makes a person more of a scumbag than being a thief.

Here is a copy of the letter I sent to WordPress:

Posts off of more than 30 different WordPress blogs (all sewing topics) are being copied and posted word for word, picture for picture, on someone else’s blog!

I use CopyScape on my posts, and CopyScape notified me that my posts were being copied and distributed on someone else’s blog without my permission, so I went to their blog to check and CopyScape was right. They copied everything, word for word, picture for picture… even the CopyScape plagiarizing warning gif!

Because they are copying posts off of my sewing blog, so I started checking all the other posts on their blog, and they’ve plagiarized every single post on their blog, by stealing posts and pictures off of other people’s blogs! I’ve only checked the posts for Jun so far, but so far I’ve counted over 30 different WordPress blogs from which they are stealing posts and hotlinking images from!

Here is their blog link:

http://www.scumbagclothing.com/category/dressmaking/

I don’t know how to stop them. I’ve been trying to find a way to notify their blog host, but so far have not had any luck. If you know of a way to stop them from stealing the posts off of our blogs, please let me know, cause I don’t like them claiming that they wrote the articles I wrote. They are even displaying my drawings on their blog and claiming they drew them!

Sorry for the rant, but I thought you’d want to know that they’ve been stealing posts and passing them off as theirs.

This is so frustrating. I put so much work into writing my articles and drawing my artwork, and I know other folks do as well. It’d be one thing if they were linking back to our blogs with a review or something, but they are claiming that they wrote all of these posts and drew all of the art and took all of the photos themselves!

Is there a law enforcement agency I can contact about this? I was told that the FBI had an identity theft division that handles online predators that steal other peoples identities. Should I contact the FBI about this? I mean who ever is running this blog is claiming to be me, by saying they wrote those articles, so that’s identity theft as far as I can tell.

What should I do?

Is there anything that you can do about it, since they are stealing posts off of WordPress blogs?

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail… namely for Lord Sesshomaru’s Mokomoko. aaaahhh…. I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox on LJ and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko’s manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days… weird.

Hey, it’s a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I’ll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don’t say I didn’t warn, you… I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go… let’s see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!

The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman “in love”. Over this altered picture was the words: “Fear me, damn it!” followed by: “But you’re so cute and fluffy!”.

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with an 8 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion’s mane.

If you’ve never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you’ll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the “edited” tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

Chibi Art and The Mokomoko:

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko “tail thing” attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it’s usualy shown.

And than again, there is Chibi art showing him wearing a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ’s manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn’t wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy’s Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn’t bleed!

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I’ve never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice (well, not including that picture above… she really did great work on that tail).

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it’s not some shawl or cape thing he’s wearing, in fact he’s not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he’s got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I’d like to see you animate a shawl into doing that… deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn’t bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I’ll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don’t know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my eariler post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me.

oh my… I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it’ll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment on my blog and share your views! http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Well, I searched for info on Sakura Wigs, but all that came back was wigs for a character named Sakura and nothing about the wig company called: Sakura Wigs, so I’m starting this post to ask about them.

I was thinking of buying a Sakura Wigs unstyled wig and styling it myself. I was wondering, though, before I do this, has anyone here ever bought an unstyled wig from this company? If so, what could you tell me about them?

How does the fiber quality compare to other wig companies? Are they any easier or harder to style than other companies?

I’m planning to buy two or possibly three of their wigs (each a different color: B05, B06, W01) and using one as a “base wig”, and the second and third wig I’ll be cutting the fibers out of, and using to blend with the fibers of the first wig. In other words I’m essentially taking the two wigs apart and making one wig out of them, more or less making my own wig from scratch, so to speak. Has anyone ever tried using one of these wigs do do anything like this before? If so, how did that work out?

Or, I may just totally disassemble all three of them and make my own wefts and build the whole wig from scratch, not using any of these as a base at all.

If anyone has bought any wigs from this company, could you share any experiences you had with the company? (Good or bad.) Fast shipping? Slow shipping? Customer service? Communication? Can you think of anything else to tell me about this company and their wigs, that I didn’t think to ask?

I want a super pale nearly white, icy blue wig, and I think I can make the look I want by using the three wig color blend they sell. I have looked and looked, but I just can’t find 50″ long wafts in the shades of blue I want, except for in these wigs here, which is why I plan to buy the wigs and disassemble them, unless of course anyone knows where I can find wefts in those colors that are long enough. (This wig is for my Lord Sesshomaru costume and his hair is 50″ - 60″ long… so far the longest wefts I’ve seen are 48″, so I’ll have to settle for making his hair shorter.)

Here is what I am making, and thus the color mix I’m trying to achieve:

This one shows how long it needs to be, or as close to as possible:

Also has anyone ever made a super long wig? If anyone has any advice on making long wigs like this, or on making Sesshomaru’s big pouffy bangs, I’d love to hear that too.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Articles from this website are being plagiarized and posted on this blog!

While I’m pleased that they have chosen to feature one of my costume making articles on their blog, I am a bit disturbed by the fact that they copied the entire article, without a single link back to my original blog or website from which they took this article, nor did they credit me with haven written it.

I corrected that matter by including the link to my website from which this article was taken here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume and the blog from which the article originally appeared is here: http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/ on their comment box.

As you can see from the article, CospyScape caught their plagiarisms and notified me that my article was being posted on another blog without my permission. I’m assuming that all of the other posts on this blog are stolen as well?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

I had what is probably a weird thought about a wire in the tail, but a real tail would have a row of bones running down through it, I wonder if I could find a way to mimic that? I thought of this after looking at my cat and realizing that his tail has a skeleton in it.

Here is my original post about Sesshy’s tail, this post is continuing from that one.

A real tail, actually is quite thin, just skin over bone, and the rest of it is all fur. I’m trying to go very realistic here, which is why I’m looking for such long fur, and as little stuffing as possible, because in order for his tail to be that fluffy, it’s got to have some really long fur on it.

I’m thinking I should try some thick cable wire, (like for phone lines or electric fences or some other such wire of that type… a home phone cord maybe? that would mimic the vertebrae coils… not sure yet) and use a wrap and tie method of attaching stuffing directly to it (like the way a doll skeleton is made…I make cloth dolls when I’m not making costumes), and than wrap that in a fake fur, and than cover the whole thing with a real fur, that is sewn down to the fake fur.

Fake fur for the backing, yes! That’ll work. I think I’m going to make it out of a fake fur, and than go over the whole thing with a “top layer” of alpaca wool. I just keep thinking about that alpaca wool I looked at at that farm, and that stuff is so perfect. The alpaca wool is about 6″ to 9″ long and I don’t think I can find a fake like that.

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I’ll probably use something that looks like these:

Most likely I’ll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I’d really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

It’s just an idea I’m throwing around at the moment, no idea if it’ll work or look the way I think it’ll look or not.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

I’ve been making costumes for years, but this is my first time doing anything with fur fabric or a tail, so I’m a bit new to fur sewing. I’m making a Lord Sesshomaru costume, which is not a fur-suit per say, but does have some fur on it, namely he’s got an 8 foot long tail, called a mokomoko, which I have to make.

Well, I had a few questions about how to go about making the mokomoko, and I figured, I’d ask you guys in case someone reading this knows anything about working with fur and tails and such.

First off, I’m making the manga version of Sesshomaru. The anime version has him wearing a 4 foot fur boa, but in the manga it was a 8 foot furry tail, and it looks quite a bit different in the manga from the amine. Here’s a photo reference, of the version I’m making:

As you can see, it’s HUGE. Because the tail is so long, he’s got it pulled up through his kimono and than slung over his shoulder, and it still drags on the ground quite a ways. I need a lot of fabric.

I was wondering, if anyone could recommend where I can get the fur to use for this? I’m looking for something that looks like real fur, possibly an arctic fox tail look or a mongolian sheepskin look or alpaca wool or possibly yak hair . The pile is quite long and very fluffy and the color is a ecru or cream color.

I would prefer real fur, but only if it’s sheared and not skinned. I tried Googeling for this, but all I could find was either skins (ICK!) or bags of sheared wool. I had heard that yak hair, mongolain sheep wool, and alpaca wool are sometimes sold knitted or woven into a fur fabric, used for making fur costumes in movies (the Grinch was said to be made like this, using yak hair dyed green). I would really like to find a place that sells this type of fur fabric, but so far none of my searches have turned up anything. Does anyone here know where this type of fur can be bought?

If I can’t find it, I’ll settle for fake, but I want it to look real, and so far all the fake fur I’ve looked at, looks too “shinny” and well, fake. Do you know of a good source for fur that looks real?

Here is an anime shot, for color reference:

Okay, moving on. I have a question about actually making the tail, once I finally find the fabric. I’ve heard people say that Sesshomaru’s tail should be stuffed, to make it stand out more, like it does in the pictures. Looking at the two pictures above (these being the ones I’m using as my guide to make this tail), would you say I should do that or not? If so, what would I use to stuff it, and how would I keep the stuffing from shifting and bunching all into one end?

Secondly, I’ve been told that I should put a wire in the tail. On the other hand I’ve been told not to use a wire in it. I’m not sure wither I should use a wire or not. What would you recommend? Also, why would one want to put a wire in a tail? I’m not sure what the reason for doing this is. And if I should use a wire in it, what type of wire do I use? How do I put it in the tail? And how do I stop it from poking through the fabric?

Thanks!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

I was just searching the forums for “Sesshomaru” info, and came back with lots of various posts and comments that made me cringe. I am seeing the same comments being said over and over again, by every single CosPlayer who has done Sesshomaru, which basically boils down to this:

They walk through the door, get mobbed (or rather tackled the way some of them are putting it!) by fangirls, who with in seconds ruin the entire costume.

YIKES!

At first I started worrying about my costume getting damaged, because, this thing is setting me back a couple of thousand dollars, and I’d really hate for it to get ruined. It took me 3 months just to locate the antique silk I’m using to make the kosode.

Than I started to thinking, the one I’m making, is not only very expensive, but it’s more or less historically accurate: real silk, real embroidery, real fur, and…. real armor, with real metal spikes, which, I’m not to concerned that a fan girl could damage my armor, but it occurred to me, that if what these posters are saying is true, than if a crazed fangirl made a mad dash to hug me, she really could end up with a punctured lung… literally.

That sudden thought worries me, and got me to wondering, has anyone here ever gotten hurt, from glomping someone or being glomped by someone? or ever seen someone else get hurt?

Is there some way to keep people from glomping you?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

When it comes to picking, creating a persona, creating a costume, wearing a costume, and acting out your character, what is it about costuming and CosPlay that you like the most?

For me it’s all about making the costume. I love the thrill of the challenge of doing a harder costume than the last one, and drawing up the patterns, and hunting down the supplies. I esp love it if I have to hunt down some rare hard to find item, even more so if it sends me to antique shops to look for it… it’s like a scavenger hunt, trying to find just the right item!!!!.

I love hand embroidery work and bead-work, so I always look for projects that need a lot of both.

As a general rule the harder the project is, the better, and if it’s not too hard to do, than I’ll find ways to change it and make it more advanced and harder to make, just for the sake of giving myself a bigger challenge.

Historical accuracy is my thing I get all hung up on. I can not make a costume, until I have first done a massive study into the character… their fictional cannon history, and than the history of what they SHOULD have been like had the been real and not fictional.

Than I write up an essay detailing the life history of the fictional character vs how they should have been in real life, and lastly I start designing the costume by combining elements of the fictional character, with elements of real historical figures. When I get done I have a costume for a fictional character that is also historically accurate, though for some characters it’s a bit more difficult to pull this off… but just because people tell me it can’t be done, doesn’t mean I’m not going to go ahead and make a darned good attempt at it. In fact… the more people tell me that what I am doing can not be done, the more I’m going to fight to prove them wrong! LOL!

After all the work that goes into my costumes, I do not always end up wearing them. Some of them, I have put so much work into that I end up treating them like museum pieces and never wear them, at all!

It’s not so much important for me to have an item to wear so much as it is for me to be able to say: “OMG! I can’t believe I actually made that myself!!!”

I guess you could say, that for me it’s all about the journey and not the destination.
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What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

A few years ago, I made a humanized version of Scrooge McDuck (I just couldn’t get into the whole feather and duck bill thing), which at first, everyone mistook as me just being a Victorian gentleman, and giving my having already done all the women from Sense & Sensibility, every one thought I was now making the men, but than after the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie came out, everyone thought I was Willy Wonka. As it turns out the only time anyone ever gets this costume right is when I’m shopping at the Disney Store… the workers recognize it as Uncle Scrooge instantly.

My Uncle Scrooge costume is my most worn outfit, and the one which most locals recognize as my “signature look”, as I’ve been wearing it as part of my daily street wear for some 5 years now.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

It depends on what I’m doing. Most average at 1 to 3 months. Simple things can take as little as a week or 2.

For my current project, I’m planning on 9 months to 3 years, because besides sewing the basic parts of the outfit, it involves hand embroidering 4 different kimono, each of which I’m also hand sewing, plus making leather armor, and casting the metal spike plates that go over the armor, and than since I can’t find the wig I need, I’m going to have to make one myself.

Yesterday I hand drew the embroidery designs onto the silk for one of the kimono… that took 8 hours to do, and I’m still not finished with it. (I’m copying the designs off a real Noh kosode from the 16th cen., so it’s an over all embroidery pattern, covering nearly every inch of the kimono)

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru’s garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin’s Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.