You're at the convention. You've spent countless hours on your cosplay. Your wig is in place, your props are on point, and you even found the perfect way to wear your convention badge where it isn't too disruptive to your outfit! After three or four cups of coffee and two hours of getting ready in the hotel, you have arrived. The hotel is about a 10-minute drive from the convention center, but was just so much cheaper than the others close by that you just had to stay there. Weapons check went smoother than the leather accent pouches of your battle armor. Your body paint seems to be staying on pretty well, and you packed extra just in case.

The dealers' room is packed, and you're excited to show off your stuff on the floor. Masquerade isn't until much later, but you're sure everything will still be okay in time for your walk-on at 7 p.m.

Then it happens.

A snap. A rip. A jostle in just the right place. Something on your costume is broken.

1. Denial

That totally didn't just happen. It must've been the guy next to you, or maybe it was just some convention white noise in the sea of nerds walking around. You'll ignore it for now; even if it's yours, it probably isn't even that bad. You just keep going and hope it's nothing. It's still a good Con, and you even found that one comic or DVD or piece of merch you've been looking for online for the past couple weeks.

2. Anger

You stop to get some overpriced convention food around 3 o'clock. Really, $7 for just a hamburger? Ridiculous. You're already frustrated because last year they had a Con-suite. Con suite so you could at least get some water or something, but this year they decided that cost too much money or some other silly reason. Someone gave you a tip on a water fountain somewhere in this convention center, but nobody seems to know where it is or if it even works.

You're sitting down at a table with a guy dressed as Sailor Moon and a furry who's taking a break from wearing his fursuit head (who can blame him in this heat?) when you notice your skirt has a huge rip in it. It probably would've been much smaller if you would've stopped and fixed it when it was small instead of pretending it wasn't there. You pull out your emergency sewing kit, but the only thread you have in there is white and your whole costume is black, and it'll stick out like a sore thumb. So you throw a safety pin on it, rationalizing that you can make it back to the hotel to fix it before the masquerade.

You're angry at yourself for not fixing it before and even angrier at whatever asshole stepped on it or got caught on it or ripped it in the dealers' room. The handle of your prop hasn't held up as well as you thought it would, and after a few hours of carrying it, it's in serious danger of falling off all together. You mumble angrily about it to your fellow table patrons, all of whom agree. After all, everyone's had cosplay troubles before.

3. Bargaining

It's around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and the tear in your skirt has only gotten worse. You go around asking friends and con-goers if they have anything to fix it, but most of them are taking a cosplay break before getting dressed for tonight, so they've left their repair kits in the room. You start bribing people with food, merch, whatever you can afford to get them to help you out, but nobody seems to be buying it. If you left now you might be able to get to the hotel and back in time for masquerade check-in at 6 p.m., but it's a stretch. You'd have to pay for parking two times in one day, and even though that's like $15, you think it's totally worth it.

You're trying to rationalize the situation, but nothing's really working. You even pray. "Please, if there is a cosplay god, keep this thing together for one night!" or even, "I promise, no more entering panels after they've started!" You repent for all of your past convention sins, right down to that 18+ panel you snuck into when you were 16 back in your weaaboo phase.

4. Depression

It's 6 o'clock. You sit in line for masquerade check in with your head in your hands. Your body paint is remarkably intact, which was the only thing you actually planned on having to fix. The handle on your prop fell off about an hour ago, but you managed to hot glue it on thanks to a particularly kind group of Klingons who were more than happy to let you borrow their glue gun. Klingons are always the nicest people, you think to yourself as you fiddle with your sewing kit forlornly threading the white thread. You realize you had black thread, but left it back at the hotel. The white was left over from that one time you cosplayed that one thing at that last convention. You aren't even really that angry about it. You're sad.

You spent so much time preparing for this! Now it's not nearly as nice as you wanted it to be, and it's certainly not the impression you wanted to give at the masquerade. You're disappointed in yourself, but not devastated. You managed to find the water fountain a minute ago, and even though the victory was small, it helped a bit.

5. Acceptance

You struck up a conversation with some high school freshmen who are all dressed as Homestuck characters. Their costumes are homemade, and it shows. It's their first convention, and they're excited. One talks enthusiastically about using puff paint to paint on her black t-shirt, and the other chats about how they got their body paint at Party City, but it's held up pretty well. You reflect fondly on how proud you were of your first cosplay. It was all so much fun then! What happened to that?

Then it hits you, it's not the quality of your costume its what you do in it. These kids aren't trying to be the next YaYa Han, they're just having fun and enjoying what they love. In the end, isn't that what really matters?

So what if my costume isn't 100 percent perfect? It's not the end of the world.

The group starts asking you about your costume. They're in awe of how well your body paint has held up and seriously impressed with your prop. It's "pretty rad." You talk to them about how you built it and what materials you used. Things are looking up, and suddenly you're feeling proud of your costume again. It's not perfect, but you made it. You've accepted that things aren't perfect, and that's OK.

Your walk-on for masquerade went great. You didn't win, but lots of people came up to you afterwards and complimented your cosplay. You went out for drinks and even met some new friends. The rest of your night was awesome. Come Sunday, you were sad to go home but happy that you had such a great weekend. On the car ride home you're already planning your next costume.

This article was a tribute to my favorite cosplays. Everything broke at one point or another, but it was still lots of fun, and I'll never forget the friends I made wearing them.