We didn't arrive at the outdoor location until 3:30 in the afternoon, right when the sun was at its most blistering. The moment I slipped into this ensemble, beads of sweat started pouring down my cheeks, and by the time we wrapped, I was so deliriously overheated that I could barely string a coherent sentence together.
Let's break down the details of today's kit. While everyone admires the oversized purple brimmed hat in the photos for its mystical flair, only the person wearing it knows how suffocating it truly feels. The golden crescent moon and red gemstone crest on the front carry considerable weight, straining the neck muscles, while the inner brim is lined in reddish-brown with black patterning and the exterior is dotted with white diamond stars. For hair, I picked a long, straight purple wig infused with fine shimmer glitter, which glistened beautifully under direct sunlight; however, the heavy bangs plastered against my forehead, and paired with the blue contact lenses, my eyes dried out within ten minutes. The grey faux-fur trim along the collar was an absolute heat bomb—yet for the sake of canon fidelity, I had to grit my teeth and power through. The golden star pendant across the chest and the long black gloves were all accounted for without compromise.
The first shot is a medium half-body portrait: resting one hand lightly across my chest allows a clear look at the hat, cape, and collar construction—this was arguably the coolest moment of the entire afternoon. The second image is an intimate facial close-up, mainly meant to highlight the lenses and wig texture; the bangs framed my face nicely, and my gaze retained a hint of the Astrologer's calm composure, though in reality I was melting away with my brain already powered off. The third frame stands as concrete evidence of Tuzhi surviving the day with me. Sporting round gold-wire spectacles and a lightweight short-sleeved top, she looked like she belonged to an entirely different season compared to my heavy loadout. Trapped in the woods between buzzing mosquitoes and stifling heat, our smiles when posing together were noticeably stiff, running purely on sheer willpower.
To be brutally honest, I vastly overestimated my heat tolerance for this Outdoor cosplay. I initially assumed the trees would offer adequate shade, but the woods were muggy, stagnant, and windless, which quickly drained my stamina when paired with the full prop kit and heavy fabrics. As gorgeous as this costume looks, it severely restricts mobility, and prolonged sun exposure not only melts makeup into patches, but causes loose wig glitter to stick stubbornly across the skin. This outing taught me a hard lesson: I am definitely not cut out to be a hero under the sun. For heavy prop costumes in the future, I will obediently stick to indoor studios where air conditioning and iced drinks can keep me alive. Immense gratitude to Tuzhi for assisting throughout the shoot, and kudos to myself for braving the scorching heat to finish. The process was unglamorous, but the resulting photos are well worth archiving.