For a lot of people, dressing like their favorite character and hanging around other people also dressed as their favorite characters is one of the most fun activities imaginable. I am one of those people. I have been cosplaying ever since I was about 15 years old. I remember my friend Kim getting me to go to a local convention called Shadocon. We cosplayed a black and white, human version of Lifty and Shifty from Happy Tree Friends. I was Shifty.
This was the first time I had cosplayed and gone to a convention. This wasn't my first time cosplaying, but it was the first time I cosplayed and called it cosplay. I dressed up all the time when I was little, but back then I just called it dress up.
I had so much fun when I went to Shadocon. I took pictures with people dressed as my favorite character, I made some new friends and I got some cool new stuff. It was a great new experience and I wanted to do it again. You better believe I did again.
Months later, July came by and a convention was that month. It's is a big one for Florida called Metrocon. I was very excited, but I found out about it so late I didn't really have the time to go out and put something good together, so like Shadocon I made a simple cosplay based on items I already owned. I decided to go as a gender-bent Tobuscus and called myself Girlbuscus. My friend who took my to Shadocon went as Cryaotic. She put in more effort than I did though and made his mask herself. Now, at Shadocon we didn't get any pictures taken of us. No one really knew who we were. Metrocon was different, though. We actually had people come up to us and asked for a picture. It felt wonderful seeing people's faces as they saw we were dressed as people they really looked up to. They were so happy, and it made me happy in return.
That is one of the biggest reasons I love cosplay. It makes not only yourself happy, but others as well. I know every time I see a character I really like, I rush over to get a picture of and with them. At my first Metrocon, I ended up making a really good friend who I still talk to on Facebook. He was dressed as PewDiePie and his friend that he was with dressed as Tobuscus. Needless to say, we hit it off. I ended up hanging out with them for almost the entire rest of the night. It was wonderful. I got Pewds' number and we stayed in touch. One of this friends even had me record the Tobuscus vlog outro on her phone, which was very flattering.
Skipping forward a year to the next Metrocon, I had decided that I wanted to put in more effort and get three full cosplays done and go to Metrocon every day that weekend. I knew it would be harder, but I wanted to try it. I decided to go as Joey Wheeler from Yu-Gi-Oh! on Friday, Black Hanekawa from Bakemonogatari on Saturday and Ib from Ib on Sunday. I spent months getting stuff together, I had a friend who gave me his old duel disk, I put together a Joey Wheeler desk that lacked a Red Eyes Black Dragon (which I now own), I did a lot. In the end, it paid off. Though just about all pictures of me as Joey have somehow disappeared, I at least have my memories. I remember a lot more people than I expected coming up and taking a photo and it was truly amazing.
Once again jumping ahead, let's talk about last year's Metrocon. This time, I finally decided I was going to put a group cosplay together. For anyone who's either new to cosplay or have never put a group cosplay together, it isn't easy. I had been trying for at least a year, but finding dedicated people to go was really hard. I finally managed to pull it off, though. Five Nights at Freddy's was a big thing at the time, so I got my boyfriend Colin and my friend Hutson together and we did a FNAF cosplay. We did have a fourth person, but she couldn't go on the days we went, so we lost one edition. I decided to go as Chica, Colin went as Freddy, and Hutson was Foxy. Our friend George went, but he did a venom cosplay that he does at every convention he goes to, which is always a hit.
That was one of the greatest times I have ever had at a convention. We were a hit. This was the most successful cosplay I had ever done and it took the most effort out of all of them. I had people of all ages coming up to me, even when I wasn't with my group. There was a time where a little girl even came up to me with her dad and asked for a picture with me. We had a point where we were just stuck standing and posing for a minute or two because people kept coming up to us after we posed for one person. I ran into Kim, who I had not seen for a while until then, we met a group of FNAF cosplayers who had the Bonnie that we lacked, while we had the Freddy that they lacked.
By the end of the day, we were exhausted, but so happy.
This is why I cosplay. Cosplay brings people together because of a common interest, it creates fun memories for you and your friends, and it makes you and others feel great. I hope that my story has encouraged you to maybe give cosplay a try for yourself. It's a lot of fun and hard work that pays off every time.
