1)  How did you start getting involved in cosplay?

            - Well at first I started to dabble in cosplay for Halloween at the start of High school, but really I got involved in cosplay at my first convention around my sixteenth birthday. The hotel and tickets were a birthday present from my mother and I went with my best friend. It’s been history ever since.

 

2)  What kinds of values shape the cosplay community?

           -I think one of the strongest value is the importance to be yourself. Cosplay is a time when we dress up as characters who inspire us, frighten us, thrill us in some way. The barriers of society, gender where what matters most is that you remain true to yourself. The value individuality and creativity and ingenuity. For being such a large and expansive community we are very inclusive to anyone of any creative skill or age.

 

3) Why do you cosplay?

            -That’s really tough. It’s become such a profound part of my life I can’t imagine who I might be without it. I cosplay because I love the creativity that comes from it, I love the costume work and striving to be in character. I will also say that I love seeing people gush over me when I cosplay something successfully because they love the character and think I look exactly like them, it makes me feel famous. It really makes me feel good about myself, because for a few days I don’t have to worry about homework or taxes or my job. For that time, I’m someone else, with other profound problems and I’m humbled by it. I love contributing to the community that way as well as meeting some amazing people I cannot imagine my life without.

 

4) How do you communicate with other cosplayers in character? Out of character?

            -It really depends on the person. For instance, I usually will try to at least maintain the energy or mannerisms of the character (Ex. If they are quieter or serious I’m usually quieter or more serious, if they are extroverted and animated I am extroverted etc…) However, I also run panels at conventions, where it is required that I play the character I am cosplaying. Just this last September I was at a convention for a QA panel where people could ask me (the character) questions that I would then answer in character and interact with all my group in character as well. It’s a really enriching experience, I’ve seen even the shyest of people blossom in this kind of atmosphere. Often many people only know me by the name of the character I cosplay, it’s kind of funny how easily you learn to react to a different name.

 

 5)  Do you make your own costumes? If so how long do they take to make?

            -I do. Regretfully haha. It really depends on the level of quality and the amount of detail in a cosplay. Usually the saying goes “You’re not a real cosplayer until you’ve bled on your cosplay somewhere” And unfortunately that is often true. I’m a perfectionist so even say the jacket for Yu Narukami from Persona 4 was one of my easier cosplays this last year, it took me and my boyfriend roughly seven or eight hours of sewing, embroidery and modifications. But I at the same time I was working on a cosplay for a character Rhyme Ren from Dramatical Murder which, on my own took me pulling all nighters roughly a week of painting, carving, gluing and sewing where I burned myself about four times and cut myself twice…that cosplay is made from my blood sweat and tears.  People often don’t realize that if you are making your own cosplay it takes an incredibly large amount of work, from cutting, styling and styling the wig, makeup tests before you even touch the fabrics not counting the detail work, emblems or pleats that come with more detailed embroidery. God rest your soul if you have props or weapons. There is a reason we plan our cosplays almost an entire YEAR in advanced.  

 

6) How many conventions have you attended and what is the atmosphere like at these particular conventions?

            -I’ve been to about twelve conventions in total ranging from very small to out of this world huge. I’m not really a person who likes Tumblr or other places were most cosplayers thrive so most of my cosplay experience comes from these conventions and a handful of meetups in the off-season. It’s a very comforting mix but the easiest way you can describe it is...it’s like you’re coming home. Familiar venues, with people you only see once or twice a year are greeted with warm hugs and often-loud joyous screams. Gaggles of friends always mingle in small corners and it’s a very happy atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong, there is a high energy at events like these, I’ve seen my fair share of people crying, but for every crying person at a con there are four or five perfect strangers willing to give them a hug or try to help comfort them in some way. 
Sometimes at the bigger conventions you will have the more elite cosplayers come out, ones that make money on their craft and are famous on most social media sights. There are two sides of this kind of atmospheric spectrum who we would call Weeaboos on the bottom, comprised of very hyperactive, annoying, shrill often younger children and are caught up in the atmosphere that they take the individuality as a way to be loud and a bit too excited. On the other side we have elitists, who believe they are too good at cosplay, or they are too popular to hang around people of a lesser quality cosplay. Wall try to remind one another that we all went through a “weeb” phase when we were little, I know I did with my best friends when I was that young. And elitists are taken at face value, often they are just tired of being hammered by people asking for pictures and have an over inflated sense of self. Usually they are harmless and simply to be admired from a distance. I’m at a unique point on my cosplay life where I have reached an amount of skill where people actually think I would be an elitist and have been too afraid to talk to me for fear I would ignore them, while I am able to talk to people who are of an amazing amount of skill without fear that they might be elitists and have made some wonderful friends and connections that way. 

The cosplay community is a community based on people who in a normal light are social outcasts, of sever introverts and hyperactive extroverts. When we are together it becomes normalized, and often it’s a feeling or experience we only feel in these settings. It’s very difficult to explain to someone who feels normal in an everyday setting how difficult it is to exist day to day without that feeling of normalcy.

 

7) What is one thing you would want people to know about cosplay who know nothing about it?

            -This isn’t the same as dressing up for Halloween. Cosplay and Costume are two very different things. Costume is dressing up like the character but Cosplay you BECOME the character, the very embodiment of that person you strive for in your variations of the characters costume no matter what you maintain the soul of the character. A good cosplayer dedicates hours to hammering in the finest of details that most people won’t even notice in the costume, most people who may even admire the cosplay wouldn’t even care, but that isn’t the point of some of those details. They are important to the cosplayer because they are important to the character. So don’t assume Costume and Cosplay are the same thing, we are so much more.

 

8) What is one thing you learned or gained from being apart of this community?

            -I can say without a doubt the most important people in my life, the most amazing experiences have come from cosplay. I met my soul mate at a convention and three years later we are still as strong as we ever could be. Some of my best friends have come from cosplay, old roommates, brothers. People who I spend Christmas, thanksgiving with. They are my family without a single doubt in my mind. Cosplay has given me confidence outside of cosplay, it’s given me the opportunity for employment, for experiences I would have never thought I would get the chance to do.  Cosplay took a nervous, awkward, hyperactive girl who believed she was too weird to find regular happiness, too weird for anyone to care truly about and transformed her into who I am today, a confident, successful, beautiful, intelligent person who still can’t believe I am as lucky as I am in a healthy relationship with a loving family. 

I’ve seen cosplay save people’s lives, I think on some level it saved mine and I am not exaggerating. Both Theo and I have met people at conventions who suffer from severe depression and have suicidal tendencies. They have told both of us that conventions are the only place they feel normal, in cosplay is the only place they are happy and it’s the people they meet there, the people I meet there that show us that we aren’t outcasts, we aren’t just the quiet nerds and dorks in the corner eclipsed by sports and modern popular media. We are a movement and we are not alone.