Scotland: Year one, act one. Pixels going places

Hi everyone! Delayed Scotland post time. 😀

My main event of this year was once again Scotland!  This is dubbed “Year one” by the organisation and I’ll add “act one” to it. Why? Because last year was the trial and this year there’s two travels to Scotland! I was part of the first Pixel travel group, so “Act one”! With the title explained, let’s move on to my review/diary. 🙂

Saturday: Travel to Scotland part 1

All packed and ready to go, I first played some FF Crisis Core in the morning. Because I woke up way too early. 🙂 Fhant helped me with the game a bit, as he was here to bring me to the boat with my luggage. So till it was time, I gamed to calm my nerves. We still left very early and decided to get coffee and a snack near the boat. It was a good choice, as I struggled to eat later.
When it was finally time to meet up, I was happy to see everyone in good spirits. Fhant and I loaded my stuff over into the camper and van as fast as we could, because I didn’t want to keep anyone waiting. (And my stuff had some pointers on how it should be travelling to decrease the chances of broken stuff. I did bring some repair stuff, but less repairs is better.) And then it was boat time. I dislike boat time. Boat gets warm/hot really fast, the movement kinda sucks and I struggle with sleeping due to the noise. But sacrifices have to be made for good pictures, so yeah.

Sunday: Travel to Scotland part 2

More boat time and then road trip to Scotland! I was glad we took a break during the drive, because my blood sugar or blood pressure was messing me up and I needed a coke (sugar) and some crisps (salt). Praise salt and vinegar, the best flavour to return me to my senses! Well, kinda. It was enough to sustain me till arriving at the house and then I had to sleep to balance out. That sucked and started a week of cold fingers and toes for me. 🙁 It was colder there than in the Netherlands and my body struggled to adjust, even with extra hoodies and socks.

I decided to only unpack the stuff I needed for Monday and go to sleep. Boring, but a solid choice.

Monday: First full day in Scotland

We had an early morning this day, because we didn’t have all day in the castle. I brought my new Fern cosplay and it was worth it! The people working there were so nice and other guests were so kind too! While I did feel very apologetic for being in the way while posing, no one complained. I started the shoot day inside the castle with Patrick Visser Photography and Sabsab4ever. It was a challenge to get started, but it was a lot of fun once we got going. A very silly selfie has been made in the castle. <3 I only had time for one round in the castle and then time’s up. During lunch I asked photographers to shoot with me in the gardens, but I got no replies. And neither did Sab. So we grabbed a fun camera and just took pictures of each other. We can be independent women, if we want to. 😉

Later, when the gardens were found by the others, we met up with Ashley and Patrick and I told them about a location I saw on maps, but that somehow was not indicated by signs here. So I asked if they wanted to join me on an adventure and they did! We were sent off in the wrong direction by Maps first, but we found the location in time to get some beautiful pictures. What was this location? A church/chapel ruin with an old graveyard. We all agreed to watch where we stepped, avoid photographing or modelling on graves and to not share the exact location to prevent it from being run over by other cosplayers.
Gate keeping? Probably. But when I can’t be sure a location is used with respect, I will reserve my right to not share it. (And this is the reason I delayed posting this blog entry. Sorry Scotland group 2, but I don’t want to stress out the organisers.)

Later that day, Misswafflescos and I did our lingerie Tifa and Aerith duo. We laughed our asses off with silly remarks and jokes that could be heard in the living room. What happens in Scotland, stays in Scotland? We decided on this silly duo, because our room was dubbed the “cuck room”. People who know, know. And the more I played through the FFVII remakes, the more I started considering Tifa and Aerith being not straight. So yeah, this had to happen and I enjoyed trying this kind of photoshoot.

Tuesday: Castle ruins with Gwendolyn

On Tuesday, I planned to wear Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere. My biggest project of the year and thus my nerves were through the roof. In the end, that was for no reason. Frosty cosplay helped me getting dressed and she totally understood my choices in construction of the cosplay. This was such a relief for me, that I immediately felt way more comfortable wearing Gwendolyn. Frosty is now my favourite wing-woman, btw. <3

Roland Vaandrager asked me for pictures first and we used the castle ruins of that day very well. Most photographers took some time to shoot with me, which makes me very happy, as this cosplay was a very special project to me. I did this cosplay to compare myself to myself 10 years ago and see if I am happy with were I am now, cosplay-wise. And I do think that I am. 🙂

On the way to the ruins, we saw that there were road works and that the road would be open for 15 minutes every couple of hours. So once we were done here, it didn’t match the time slot to return home easily. Thus we went to some river with nice rapids, except I stayed in the camper. I was freezing my hands and toes off again. I was getting worried about my body here, cause this was now taking longer than usual.

Wednesday: Can’t go to Scotland without buying whisky

Wednesday or whisky day? I joined the excursion to Deanston Distillery with DmvdBerg, Patrick Visser Photography and Tante Arjan (if he ever reads this, he might be a little mad at me, but I don’t know what alias he prefers. Sorry!).
Due to roadworks, we arrived earlier than planned (to avoid being too late) and thus we went for a walk through Doune. A little bit of a hike, a little bit of Doune castle (where we were in 2025 with Scotland year zero) and a quick snack run in the local supermarket to avoid people having a drink on an empty stomach.

The distillery was very pretty, and even as a non-drinker, I enjoyed the tour. The guide was very enthusiastic and all the machinery was very impressive. (I do like machines. Did you ever guess that?) I was investigating and looking how these machines could inspire me.
The tour came with whisky to bring home, but I decided to give mine away. I mean, I bought Fhant an expensive bottle anyway. Which should be more to his liking. I did buy myself a cappuccino and a blondie and that cafe really had good stuff. I felt some warmth in my body again, but that didn’t last long. 🙁

As we timed our return trip in accordance with the roadworks, we had a smooth trip back. However, due to some miscommunication, the distillery group was told that the shopping group would be returning over an hour late. Which made me very unhappy, as I had planned to shoot 10H on Lawers Dam that day and the time-frame to do so, was very small. In order to try and make it anyway, I started getting ready immediately when we got back to the house. I decided against wearing heels today, because my body was cold again, and heels would restrict the blood flow to my toes. So I didn’t look the way I wanted to, but I am too old to care about that specifically. I just wanted to try something outside my usual cosplays and I had set my mind on that.

The shoot did happen, with a messy start. It was windy and cold, but Misswafflescos and I braved through that for less than an hour to get our shots. Frosty was, once again, the best wing-woman I could ask for, helping me with the cape and feathers for example. Misswafflescos and I had agreed on some poses that only would happen with prior consent, and I do think those turned out really nicely. We both froze our asses off and now it was really starting to get to me mentally. The cold bothered me every day so far. 🙁

Thursday: Scottish breaking down noises

On Thursday, I was asked to assist with Misswafflescos and DmvdBerg Photography’s shoot. It was a bit of a ride to get to the location and I struggled with the stones and water, but I enjoyed being able to help. I didn’t start in an outfit because of this, and changed into a fantasy dress later.

When I was finally dressed up (after making sure MissWafflescos was warm again), I stepped outside and both available photographers didn’t want to shoot with me. Which is something they are allowed to do. I just started feeling like shit due to that, the cold still lingering inside my body and being very insecure about my self-image in fantasy dresses. I mean, everyone else who was in a fantasy dress was immediately asked by a photographer to shoot, I felt ignored whilst wearing one and I could hear my mother mocking me in my thoughts. Do note: I was getting a very bad brain here. This is all how it felt, not how it actually was. Probably. My brain just started spiraling and I couldn’t contain it anymore at this point. Anything in italics is feelings past this point and possibly not true. It’s an insight in how my brain works.

After some time, Ashley and Patrick were done with their shoot and came to pick me up for some pictures. We went down to the water with some big rocks. A slippery adventure in a big dress and somehow I didn’t fall. Instead, Patrick did and it looked pretty bad. This didn’t help with my bad brain. I felt so darn guilty. He tried to help me and then gets this. 🙁 I tried to hide my feelings during the shoot, which Ashley and Tante Arjan continued to do. But when I was finally in position, we were told that lunch was ready. Great. No way for me to get up there without risking more falling. And I was up there less than 20 minutes ago. Why wasn’t I informed back then that lunch would be served soon? I ended up not having lunch that day. When I got back to the camper, everyone was ready to leave, so I just changed back in my normal clothes and sat down for the ride back home.

I slept as much as I could during the ride back to contain my bad brain. But when we got home, it had grown out of control and I had a full CPTSD flashback. My body acted up heavily, my brain told me stupid shit and I wouldn’t be able to break out of it alone. When I realised what it was, I walked towards Ashley and asked her for help. I knew she has some experience with similar stuff, so she was my best bet. And she was a tremendous help. Thanks to her and Patrick for staying with me and asking the right questions, I was able to get back to about 60% stress instead of 100%. This way, I could sleep.

Friday: Stress management in Scotland

I woke up with 70% stress, because I hadn’t heard anything about the plans for this day. My brain told me I was excluded because of my breakdown and that I would lose everyone again. Great start of the day, brain. I tried to eat a light breakfast, but I struggled and ended up with just a cup of tea.
At some point Kjeld came to talk and I grabbed that opportunity to tell him what was plaguing my brain and that I know my perception was off, because I knew my brain was living in four timelines at the same time at that point. I did my best to explain my feelings without blaming anyone, and I hope that came through properly. We decided that I would take a break, try to heat my body and get back to feeling 40% stressed. I went to get dressed and freshen up before joining the group to their next location. Never underestimate the power of getting dressed up properly!

This was the Outlander location. In 2025, I wore my White Mage and the Outlander outfit there. I originally wanted to wear a fantasy dress there this time. Instead, I decided to stay in the camper, soak up some sun through a window and warm up in my body and mind. Kjeld was working on some admin stuff and I did my best to not be a nuisance. By sitting there, I was also trying to show that I was not mad at anyone, but only at myself because of my CPTSD. It did work for me and lowered my stress to about a manageable 25%.

When we got back home, I felt a lot better and managed to get dressed as Coven Ahri for one last Scotland shoot with Patrick Visser Photography. We moved quickly and got some shots before it started raining heavily. Weirdly enough, my feet were the warmest they had been this week, after I dipped them in a stream. This made me happy in a silly way. 🙂

We went to a restaurant on Friday evening, but I sadly wasn’t able to eat or even feeling hungry. Still some side-effects of my breakdown. I did try, but my body didn’t cooperate. This scared me, because it looked like something that prevented me from eating normally for over a year. And I never found the cause. Even with professional help, that I have for many years, I only had my own guesses. But it seemed that I knew what the problem was this time, but let me tell you: I hate it.

Saturday: Travel back part 1

Since I made sure to keep my stuff organised, I only had to close my suitcases to be ready to travel back to the boat and leave Scotland. I do know how to take care of my stressed ass. Sometimes I just need help with my brain, but I am always making an effort to not burden others.

Once my stuff was loaded onto the camper, we started driving back to the boat. There was one more stop at a Tesco to grab the last things needed (a cherry coke, chocolate oranges and pocky for me). I really did my best to avoid another blood circulation issue and succeeded this time. 🙂

This time, we arrived plenty early at the check-in for the boat. But we had to wait for a long time. After a while, we understood that there were extra security measures. No idea why, but that’s fine. The camper boarded a lot earlier than the van, so we were a little nervous about getting separated. We decided to just be silly about it with some “only vans” jokes. (Y’all remember the pocky game? It was played in the van.)

When we all were on board, we found out that the weather would be bad. Not as bad as the year before, but still bad. This, in combination with other factors, tensed up my body again, so Tante Arjan offered to go to an outside deck with me to see if I would be able to breathe more easily there. We took our time, talked and I was able to breathe more easily. This was enough to make me able to eat a light dinner, which perked me up.

After dinner, I walked around with Roland. At some point we picked up an Ashley and went to the bar to get ourselves some mocktails. They were decently priced, so I didn’t feel like I was overspending. We talked about some serious life things that we felt like sharing and enjoyed the music. When our drinks were finished, I went to bed.

Sunday: Travel back part 2

I woke up later than intended, but it was fine. Everything was packed in no time and for breakfast I had enough with just a glass of orange juice. Then it was time to leave the boat. Still there was heightened security and thus Fhant had to wait a bit longer for me (and his whisky). He was happy to see me (or the whisky, not too sure) and we first hugged for a long time, before unpacking my stuff from the camper and putting it in Fhant’s car. Then it was time to say goodbye and drive home.

And then I prepared for Monday. Which was day one of my new job. That could have been planned better. Or not. I signed the contract a while back and already started later than I could have.

Keep on crafting! But I’ll take a break <3
Amirine