We shared good times and bad times and leaks and mold and incompetent management companies. And decorating for the holidays and our usual table at Yang Chow. And pets and card games and Ali graduating law school and "Oh my God, Ashley bought a truck!"
We shared each other's lives in the way that you do when you live so close that when you need to share your joy or your pain or your excitement, these folks are just a doorbell away.
And then we all moved away.
And the only thing Ali and I really share now is Marvel movies. We've been going to Marvel movies together at Arclight Pasadena ever since we lived within walking distance of Arclight Pasadena. (We even won a drawing for free "Captain America" crap when we saw the first "Captain America" -- she kept the cap and I kept the T-shirt and I fucking love that T-shirt.) And neither one of us lives there any more and now Ali is "Ali and Jonathan" and we STILL meet up at Arclight Pasadena for the opening weekend of every Marvel movie. And it's good that we still have this thing, because we had so many things before. And it's even better that we have this thing with Jonathan, now, because it's good when things evolve.
(Also, Jonathan can fill me in on the comic universe, and doesn't get judgy about my ignorant questions -- like some comic nerds do.)
And before we saw ... musta been "Black Panther," we were grabbing some dinner and we talked about the 50 for 50, and they selected "Cosplay Somewhere."
And we thought LA Comic Con would be a good place to do this.
(Yes. In the space of two years, I have gone from "no cons since the early 90s" to Comic Cons in three cities, plus D23. I'm not entirely sure how this happened.)
A couple weeks ago, I asked if we were going to do a group costume. Given the Marvel movie thing, I had assumed we'd do something in that direction. (Besides, I have an Agent Carter costume in the closet. I figured I could wear that, and Jonathan could be Cap, and Ali could be Black Widow. And that would work, right?) And Ali says she's doing "Punk Eleven" and Jonathan is doing Chief Hopper -- and all of a sudden I realize I am not going to get away with reusing Agent Carter but I'm gonna have to make myself a "Stranger Things" thing. And I think that I really freakin' SHOULD, anyway, because if this 50 for 50 is intended to get the complete cosplay experience, maybe I ought to actually make something.
I consider a Barb (but where am I going to find a Trapper Keeper on such short notice?) or a Joyce... and when I'm thinking that Joyce really needs the alphabet wall, I start googling for pictures of the alphabet wall and --
-- I wish I could take credit for the idea, but someone had it before me, so thank you brilliant anonyous cosplayer who realized you could just DRESS UP AS THE DAMN WALL. And once I discovered I could get a string of LED Christmas lights with a little pocket-sized battery pack, the whole thing ended up being within the very narrow range of Things I Could Do (or, more precisely, Should Be Able To Do), and when it was all said and done, this happened:
Yeah, you can't see the letters unless you're looking for them, and the Christmas lights don't show up great at this angle, either, but it worked well enough in person that people got it, and dug it, and we got many compliments on the group and I even got a handful on the dress itself. (Some dude gave me a thumbs-up and called me Joyce.)
Here, this solo shot came out better:
My parents asked me why people actually cosplay. I'm a little cautious getting too far into the psychology of this thing, because I'm still pretty new at it. But I'll take a shot. Setting aside the professionals who do this for, y'know, money and fame and stuff, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say people do it because it's fun.
(That's why we did it, anyway.)
When we stopped for lunch (they have food trucks -- a great idea, but an insufficient number of trucks for the number of attendees), Jonathan observed that a bunch of the cosplay here involved people crossing gender lines, or being blind to race or ethnicity. And while the three of us were definitely cosplaying within our gender and racial identity, I agree that part of the appeal of cosplay is the non-judgmental premise of it. Which is to say, you don't "have" to cosplay your gender, race, age, body type, or disability status. Cosplay whomever you want. (Footnote: Except blackface. Don't use blackface. Greenface OK. Seriously, man, I saw a Shrek & Fiona.) So, in addition to the "fun" part, cosplay just gives you an opportunity to be who you're not; or who you are deep down inside but nobody gets to see.
And speaking from the experience of someone who has been to a surprising number (being as it is non-zero) of comic cons this year, I can now add that another thing cosplay does is identify you as a member of the Geek Community. My Lyft driver dropped me about a block away from the convention center, and while I was walking over, I joined a bunch of other people walking over, and a few of them were in costume, too. When I had walked to New York Comic Con, I followed the cosplayers in what I mentally called "the parade of the nerds" down to the convention center. I joined the parade, but I wasn't in cosplay. Today, I was. In New York, I followed them, because they were my people and I knew they were going my way. Here, my costume TOLD THEM that I was one of them. Proud self-identification as a member of the clan.
Later in the afternoon, I split off from Ali and Jonathan (they went to some panels) and a couple people complimented me on the dress and a few asked for photos and I was flattered and smiled and said "of course," and they took the pictures and they said "thank you," and I said, "thank you," and that TOO was cool -- because I'm no supermodel and when has a stranger EVER wanted to take a picture of me? And my favorite was when a father asked if he could take a picture of me with his two kids and I looked at them and was all, "Of course!" and it was kind of perfect so he offered to take one with my phone, too, which is why I have this now.
And I should probably note that I never Never NEVER let anyone else hold my phone. Because it's my damn phone. (And handing someone your phone while it's unlocked to take a picture risks that they're going to run off with your unlocked phone and THEN you're well and truly screwed, aren't you?) But dude's kids were dressed up as Eleven and the Demogorgon and we are sharing this moment of both having put in time and money to go out in public dressed as characters from THE SAME DAMN SHOW and of course I'm going to trust him.
Cosplay is the secret handshake. Except it isn't so secret.
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