A good day for a Song

Today will be Day 3 of Phoenix Comicon for me, and I’m most excited for today. Why, you ask? Because I have my first ever official con photo op (not just a selfie at the guest’s booth), and it’s with the one, the only River Song (aka Alex Kingston)!

River Song is my favorite Doctor Who companion, hands down. I cosplayed her as my first cosplay, and ever since they announced that Alex would be at the con I’ve been eager to get a photo op. I’m debating having her sign the photograph later in the day, because sometimes you get a little bit of time to chat with the guest at the autograph table (as opposed to the photo ops, where they have you move right along to keep the line under control).

I’ll be dressed in my Star Wars/Doctor Who mashup cosplay today, complete with Ultrasabers lightsaber:

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I got a lot of compliments on my costume Thursday evening when I wore it, and I’m hoping Alex likes it. (Of course, being an actress and all she’ll probably say she loves it regardless of her personal opinion on it haha). I could have done a River Song cosplay again, but I don’t have a good wig for it anymore and my hair is shock-straight no matter what I do with it.

If you’re at Phoenix Comicon today and see me, feel free to ask for a photo if you like my costume. If you don’t like it or don’t want a photo, just wave and say “hi” 🙂

The excitement is Con-tagious

That’s right, this afternoon I leave my humble abode for Phoenix Comicon 2016! I’ll be in cosplay the first three days (I’m wearing my Talk Nerdy With Us t-shirt Sunday–shirts available at talknerdywithus.com), and I’m hoping to get photos galore of all the cosplays, as well as live tweeting and (maybe) Periscoping some panels.

I’ll be representing Talk Nerdy With Us as well, with my sweet press badge:

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Official, and flattering lol

So excited to be going to the con as press, and extra excited because it’s my fifth year in a row at Phoenix Comicon. Each year I go I get more and more thrilled to be there. It’s even more fantastic this year because my little sister is coming with. I can’t wait to introduce her to the addiction that is Con Life.

Of course, there will be the blistered feet, the blistering heat, and the unending exhaustion…but that’s half the fun!

See y’all later! I don’t know if I’ll have time to post any blogs this weekend, but I’ll definitely have an update Monday with all the fun I had! 🙂

Fiction: Is It Really Worth a Life?

I’ve posted about rabid fandoms before, and this is yet another one of those posts. If you’re a rabid fan, you should probably stop reading this, because I’m going after you.

Why the hell would you send someone death threats over a fictional TV show or fictional characters from a book series? Why?

I was reading my Twitter feed today and saw a tweet from someone who had received death threats from a fandom. I don’t know the whole story; I don’t know if this person had negative things to say about the fandom, or if they were a part of the fandom that had a different viewpoint than the rest of the fandom. Those types of circumstances don’t matter. Death threats. Death threats. From a fandom.

What does it say about your fandom if the members send such serious threats with such reckless abandon? Do they (or you, if you’ve been guilty of this) not understand that a death threat is no joke? No matter what the fandom, no amount of insult to your idols and made-up worlds is worth even an empty death threat.

The world of fandom has become like one of the dystopian nightmares that have fandoms of their own. Hate is slung back and forth like so many grenades on a battlefield. Minute differences in opinion spark wars that can have literal casualties. Did these fandom warriors ever consider that some people may have difficult lives, that the fandom was their one “safe place” to hide from the torture of day-to-day living? What if that person you’re sending death threats to happens to be on the brink of suicide in their non-fandom life? What do you think happens then?

Fandoms need to calm the fuck down. Get over themselves. The hive mind isn’t the be-all and end-all of life. If you see your fandom going down that slippery slope of verbal attacks, stalking, and death threats, step back. Get out. The cult mindset isn’t healthy, and a world of fiction isn’t worth someone’s life.

Just because they’re a stranger on the Internet doesn’t mean they’re not a real person. Think before you tweet.

Why can’t we be friends?

My husband brought up a valid point today, and it’s one I’d like to address…

Why do pop culture fans these days want everyone to be in a relationship. It seems you can’t go into any fandom without ships, ships galore! Whatever happened to good ol’ buddies? Why are the brotp’s suddenly all bromances? Can’t two people just like hanging out without any innuendo?

Maybe today’s society is so repressed that they rebel by sexualizing everything. Two men being in love is forbidden? Fine. We’ll just decide that these two fictional men who have no romantic chemistry are in a sexual relationship. Take that, Establishment! Or something.

Now, I have no problem with homosexual relationships. You’re attracted to your own sex? Fine. Attracted to both sexes? Neither? Whatever. That’s your deal, and it’s all good. I just don’t get why fans are imagining romances where there are none.

Destiel. Wincest. Those are just two examples of fan shipping gone mad, from just one fandom. Don’t understand what I’m talking about? Well, unless you really want to know, I wouldn’t recommend Googling it. The Internet is dark and full of bullshit. Why can’t friends just be friends? It baffles me.

There are different types of relationships besides sexual or romantic relationships. There are friendships and partnerships, brotherhoods and sisterhoods. There are families, cliques, posses, and gangs. People can be close to one another emotionally without being sexual. Is it that hard to understand?

Then I start to wonder: Is this a reflection of the fandoms’ personal lives? Maybe they aren’t too repressed…maybe they’re hypersexualized. Maybe every relationship in their lives is a sexual/romantic one, and they don’t know how to have healthy non-sexual relationships. It’s certainly possible.

It’s also possible that they’re all batshit crazy. Get your own love lives and quit trying to force them on fictional characters. Let the romance happen, and if it doesn’t, then let that happen too.

T-minus 8 days

That’s right, just a little over a week until Phoenix Comicon! I am almost completely done with cosplays…one little strap to do, but I need a buckle for it so it’ll have to wait until Friday when I can get to the craft store.

There will be much ironing and helping each other into our costumes when we get to my in-laws’ house. We’ve done what we can, but considering it all has to get smooshed into one garment bag there’s going to be some wrinkling. Going to pack safety pins and possibly bring along my craft/sewing bin in case of cosplay emergency that needs to be handled before we get to the con.

I’m of course excited for Comicon, but I’m also excited that I get to introduce my sister to this wonderful world. I know she doesn’t get out much and doesn’t like crowds, but neither did I when I went to my first con, and that first con got me hooked. She needs to get out more and meet new people, so hopefully she enjoys this experience and opens up a bit…plus, there’s the added bonus of being able to potentially meet some celebs that interest her. I know there are usually a lot of voice actors and artists from different animes and mangas she likes, and there are usually panels about manga and anime art that I know she’ll have fun with….it’s just a matter of getting her to go to them.

I’ve been practicing Periscoping so I can get a few live feed shots of the con for Talk Nerdy With Us. I keep forgetting to look at the camera–and when I do, I keep looking back at the screen to see how I look. Derp! Oh, well, I still hope people will enjoy my tweets and Periscopes.

Off to get ready for work!

Crunch time

It’s now exactly 3 weeks until Phoenix Comicon, and I’m still not done with all the cosplay stuff I need to do–in fact, my list is growing every day!

I have to:

  • finish my husband’s Gaara coat
  • work with my husband to make our Sand Village shoes
  • make the Gaara vest (and put a pocket inside it for keys/phone/wallet)
  • make the Gaara belt and leg strap thingies
  • paint Gaara’s symbols on the gourd
  • make a belt for my Jedi TARDIS cosplay so I have a place for my lightsaber
  • add belt loops to the bag I made for my husband’s Sith Time Lord cosplay (so he has a place for his keys/wallet/phone)
  • add a snap on his tunic so it stays flat in front
  • maybe make another couple of straps for my Temari obi

I’m sure there are other things I’m forgetting, but those are the major things. So yeah, 3 weeks for that, and I work a lot in those 3 weeks.

I think I can do it. I’m telling myself I can do it. I just need to buckle down & bust my butt. Once I get the Gaara coat and vest done and the Sand Village shoes for our Naruto cosplays, that should be the majority of the sewing stuff. So beyond that it’s little stuff. The painting shouldn’t take too long…the symbols are simple enough, just need to sit down & paint them. That’ll be, what, an hour or so? So yeah, not too bad.

The worst part will probably be making the vest for the Gaara cosplay, because I have no pattern for it. I have to 100% make it up from scratch. And I’m no Project Runway contestant.

I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. (If I make this my mantra, maybe the positive thinking will make it true lol)

Oh…and think up interview questions for any interviews I get with the con guests.

I can do it. I can do it. I can do it……

May the Fourth Be with You

Yes, it’s that day again: the day when the nerds come out of the woodwork to proclaim their love for Star Wars.

I’m one of those nerds. I love the movies (well, most of them), and if I wasn’t a bigger Doctor Who fan I would probably have been getting a Jedi Order tattoo yesterday instead of a TARDIS.

I guess I’ll let my Star Wars/Doctor Who mashup cosplay make up for it. I have less than a month to lose enough weight to comfortably squeeze into it, though I can still fit it. I’d just like the corset a little less…tight. Like, really tight. I mean, I know corsets are supposed to be tight, but this one is homemade, not professionally made. So I’m hoping there aren’t any wardrobe malfunctions at Phoenix Comicon.

Anywho, happy Star Wars Day to all, and May the Fourth be with you!

I have nearly conquered the pants

Just a little bit more! I have almost finished the pants that have been plaguing me for what, a week or more now? Anywho, I just need to slipstitch the waistband & then hem them & a couple buttonholes, a few buttons, and BAM! Pants.

Trying to decide which to do next: The kimono for my Temari cosplay, or continue with my husband’s stuff–the coat and vest. I think I’ll do the kimono, partly because I want to switch to something easier and less stress-inducing, and partly because I’m too lazy to change out the thread on the sewing machine. (The kimono is the same color as the pants.)

Today my husband and I started the paper mache on the gourd prop for his Gaara cosplay. It was predictably messy and slightly stressful, as he got annoyed with me trying to give instructions. I was trying to make things more clean and efficient, and I guess I didn’t take into consideration that he might just be wanting to do things his way. I suppose I just assumed I’d be taking point on the project. It’ll be okay, though. Tomorrow we’ll have some more time to work on it, and we have plenty of time before the con to get it finished.

My fighting fan prop may not happen before the con, though. We have to buy it because making it is just too time-consuming and complicated, and our budget might not allow for the purchase until after Phoenix Comicon. That’s fine, though; I mean, we’ll have plenty of time before Dragon Con, which is a bigger con anyway.

I feel good about being nearly finished with the pants. Onward to the next project!

It begins again…

I’m back to it starting this afternoon: more cosplay!

I was going to start this morning, but I woke up kind of late (for me, anyway) and didn’t feel up to pinning and cutting fabric just yet. I’m going to tackle the pants for my husband’s cosplay first, then my kimono.

From what a friend of mine (who has more sewing experience than I) says, the coat is going to be a bitch. Oh well. I managed the complicated pants for the Sith Time Lord cosplay, so this will hopefully be okay. It’s not a Simplicity pattern so there’s no guarantee that it will be something I can do, but I’m going to give it my all.

The good thing is that even though my husband wants all this done by Phoenix Comicon, I have made no promises that I’ll be able to finish. I honestly don’t know if I can, but I’ll do my best.

My hopes are to begin pinning and cutting–hopefully on my lunch break–today, then the task of sewing. We’re buying the fabric in stages, so the coat will not need to be started until the end of the week when we get paid. Also at the end of the week comes more work on the gourd prop for my husband’s cosplay. We’ve got two big bouncy balls from Wal-Mart duct taped together in the general shape of the gourd, and on Friday when I’m off comes the start of paper machĂ©-ing over the balls and tape to make it more gourd-ey. Once that’s done and dry comes the painting.

Oh yeah, and I need to sew the cosplays. Hubby’s getting a wig for his and we’ve bought a headband for me, but I’m divided on whether or not I want to get a wig or try to style my hair for it. It’s going to be difficult to style my hair, but we’ll see. I might be able to swing it, or at least some reasonable facsimile.

Here’s to more cosplay!

When Fans Go Too Far

It’s great when you find something that you love enough to become a fan of–a movie, TV show, book, band, etc. You can meet others who share your love of it, you can interact with actors, writers, artists, musicians … But is there such a thing as loving something too much?

When it comes to fandom, the answer is yes. The members of fandoms in today’s pop culture are becoming increasingly unstable and aggressive. If anything happens to the fans’ obsession that doesn’t fit with their ideal view of how that obsession should play out, the claws come out and the taunts, slurs, and threats begin. It’s a scary thing to view, and sadly it shows no sign of slowing.

Take, for example, TV shows. Seasons are reaching their end, so of course showrunners and writers are trying to amp up the drama. Favorite characters are dying, and fans are in an uproar. Producers and writers are receiving vile messages and death threats on social media. Even the actors whose characters get killed off (often because the actor has chosen to leave the show for a different opportunity) have been targets of the rabid fans.

Is this what we’ve come to? Fans throwing nasty hissy fits every time things don’t go their way? Crying, screaming, typing hate messages and Tweets? What in the Sam Hell made fandoms go so wrong?

Now, I’m a fan of several TV shows and movie franchises. Do I flip out when they kill a character? No. Death is a part of life, and unless you’re going to write a TV series where no one ever dies then characters are going to die. It happens. I don’t take it as a personal affront when a show kills off a character that I like. I may gripe if the way it was written or directed or acted was terrible, but I certainly don’t go into full-on Exorcist mode, becoming possessed by hate for the thing they once loved.

I just don’t see how someone can rationalize that kind of behavior. Is it just that social media makes us feel invincible, or is there a more disturbing reason for the downhill slide of fandom’s mental stability as a whole? I mean, how could a mentally stable person send death threats to a writer or producer or actor for just doing their job?

Fandoms need to take a serious look inside themselves and straighten out their priorities. Is it worth it blowing up Twitter and Facebook with nasty comments? Are death threats really necessary?

Wake up, fandoms. Life doesn’t always go your way, and characters die. It happens. Actors may grow tired of their current role or they may get a new, exciting opportunity to move to another show or movie franchise. Things are going to happen that you don’t like. Just chill the fuck out and get used to it now. It’s not going to stop just because you want things to stay status quo.