Cosplayer? Me?
Halloween and Cosplay and I have a long, storied love-and-hate relationship.
Even as a little kid, I loved people in costumes--excepting clowns, which are ridiculous. I thought it was amazing when people were dressed up as cool characters, and I liked the idea of being in costume. Trouble is, I also usually hate drawing attention to myself--especially mockery.
I've always felt that I would love to have a costume that was properly done... but I'm neither a seamster nor a machinist. I don't like sticks painted like swords; I like replicas. Sticks would do in a pinch, privately, but not in public. Throughout elementary school, I had the same costume every year: a ghostbuster. Why? Because I had a full set of child-sized, plastic ghostbuster equipment. Proton pack, wand, and ghost trap. It looked as authentic as plastic could look, and it was perfect. Eventually I outgrew the straps on the darn thing, and the next year I went as Garfield... An orange sweatshirt with black construction paper sewed on with Mom's help. I felt terribly awkward and amateurish, and from then on out I decided I was too old for Halloween.
One year at Truman, a bunch of anime club people decided to do Halloween dressed up as Naruto characters. A girl offered to do costumes for the folks who don't sew *raises hand* and I was more than happy to pay for materials... but she ended up with four or five costumes to do and was unable to finish any of them.
A later year, another girl created a Hinata jacket for herself. This was in the middle of my outward gender bending phase. The jacket fit me pretty well, and when I'm cleanshaven I make a pretty good girl, if I do say so myself, and she let me borrow the jacket for an hour or two. Now that I think of it, the faux kimono I wore to the Prism dance was a really fantastic costume. (I guess I'm obligated to call it 'fabulous') Again, that costume was primarily put together for me by other people. So, whenever Halloween neared I couldn't come up with any costume that I could reasonably wrangle together on my own--not one that would pass my own high standards.
Stephanie loves Halloween, to my great consternation. Usually I end up dragging her down, which is frustrating to me because I love the idea of costumes in abstract, and I love the idea of Halloween in abstract. I just have so many hangups and issues. A couple of years ago, though, for Video Games Live, she prepared for us a pair of costumes--Cooking Mama for her, and Derek Stiles of Trauma Center for myself. We've always wanted to top that, and we haven't had the idea or the motive. This year, though, we have plans for an amazing matched pair of costumes, and I'm both optimistic and super-excited.
So, how am I doing? Pretty darn well. Stephanie is working for a college now (did I mention that already?) and she's enrolled in free classes. She's in the middle of Calculus I, and I'm the one who is destined to help her excel. Unfortunately, I took AP Calculus in high school precisely so I wouldn't have to do it in college, and so I usually feel as dumb as she does when we hover over the book looking at things I barely remember or misremember.
Videogame stuffs:
This is an 18-minute long medley of Mario music and games for Mario's 30th anniversary. It's Japanese in origin, so there's a touch of Engrish and Japanese versions of character names--and also several surprising English versions. The video is full of crazy animation and attention to detail, just so long as you aren't epileptic. They also picked some off-the-beaten-track games to showcase; look for Mario Tennis, for instance.
And you shouldn't play video games if you are epileptic. :)
Even as a little kid, I loved people in costumes--excepting clowns, which are ridiculous. I thought it was amazing when people were dressed up as cool characters, and I liked the idea of being in costume. Trouble is, I also usually hate drawing attention to myself--especially mockery.
I've always felt that I would love to have a costume that was properly done... but I'm neither a seamster nor a machinist. I don't like sticks painted like swords; I like replicas. Sticks would do in a pinch, privately, but not in public. Throughout elementary school, I had the same costume every year: a ghostbuster. Why? Because I had a full set of child-sized, plastic ghostbuster equipment. Proton pack, wand, and ghost trap. It looked as authentic as plastic could look, and it was perfect. Eventually I outgrew the straps on the darn thing, and the next year I went as Garfield... An orange sweatshirt with black construction paper sewed on with Mom's help. I felt terribly awkward and amateurish, and from then on out I decided I was too old for Halloween.
One year at Truman, a bunch of anime club people decided to do Halloween dressed up as Naruto characters. A girl offered to do costumes for the folks who don't sew *raises hand* and I was more than happy to pay for materials... but she ended up with four or five costumes to do and was unable to finish any of them.
A later year, another girl created a Hinata jacket for herself. This was in the middle of my outward gender bending phase. The jacket fit me pretty well, and when I'm cleanshaven I make a pretty good girl, if I do say so myself, and she let me borrow the jacket for an hour or two. Now that I think of it, the faux kimono I wore to the Prism dance was a really fantastic costume. (I guess I'm obligated to call it 'fabulous') Again, that costume was primarily put together for me by other people. So, whenever Halloween neared I couldn't come up with any costume that I could reasonably wrangle together on my own--not one that would pass my own high standards.
Stephanie loves Halloween, to my great consternation. Usually I end up dragging her down, which is frustrating to me because I love the idea of costumes in abstract, and I love the idea of Halloween in abstract. I just have so many hangups and issues. A couple of years ago, though, for Video Games Live, she prepared for us a pair of costumes--Cooking Mama for her, and Derek Stiles of Trauma Center for myself. We've always wanted to top that, and we haven't had the idea or the motive. This year, though, we have plans for an amazing matched pair of costumes, and I'm both optimistic and super-excited.
So, how am I doing? Pretty darn well. Stephanie is working for a college now (did I mention that already?) and she's enrolled in free classes. She's in the middle of Calculus I, and I'm the one who is destined to help her excel. Unfortunately, I took AP Calculus in high school precisely so I wouldn't have to do it in college, and so I usually feel as dumb as she does when we hover over the book looking at things I barely remember or misremember.
Videogame stuffs:
This is an 18-minute long medley of Mario music and games for Mario's 30th anniversary. It's Japanese in origin, so there's a touch of Engrish and Japanese versions of character names--and also several surprising English versions. The video is full of crazy animation and attention to detail, just so long as you aren't epileptic. They also picked some off-the-beaten-track games to showcase; look for Mario Tennis, for instance.
And you shouldn't play video games if you are epileptic. :)