Cosplay for the Con

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So by now, you’re sick of hearing about Fan Expo and why I broke my promise to not go this year. Instead, this post is about cosplay.

I made a suggestion to my family not too long ago, joking, mostly, about a potential group cosplay to do for a convention this year.

To preface that, Erik and I have been pretty seriously discussing doing the two half-black half-white aliens from an episode of classic Star Trek, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, but I’m not sure how well it’s going to work. It’s barely 2 months before the convention, and we haven’t even looked at material or makeup. That needs to change, and very, very soon.

But the group cosplay suggestion, which both daughters and my wife agreed to, the girls pretty much instantly, was that we would all dress up as My Little Ponies.

Yes, really.

Now, I don’t consider myself a Brony, though I do certainly ascribe to some of the more obvious general cultural tenets of the Brony movement. Friendship is magic, helping each other is cool, and it’s important to give a crap. Have I seen every single episode of Friendship Is Magic? Yeah, no. Have I seen some episodes? Absolutely. And while I personally find the writing predictable a lot of time, the stories are cute, and they play the emotions very well. The intended audience of young children, and not just girls, although it’s obvious they are the primary target, is well served by the show.

The fact that it’s found a broader audience by being cute and clever, even if predictable, and warm and welcoming, is a good thing. So if I’m not a Brony, I respect the idea. And why would it bother me to dress up as one to entertain my daughters? The answer to that question is that it wouldn’t.

There will be pictures. I’m sure there’ll be many pictures. Most of which will not be taken by me or any member of the family. That’s okay. I don’t care if they’re all over the internet, and if there’s a My Little Pony photo shoot on the day we pick that cosplay, awesome, because that will be an experience that none of us will ever forget.

Experience is one of the most important things about life. If you spend all of your time grinding away at the same things day after day, with never a thought to the people and the world around you or your own personal growth and development, and life really is a waste.

What I really want is for my kids to reach adulthood having had an awesome childhood, even better teen years, and to be fully prepared, well-rounded individuals ready to build their own place in society and their own families of awesomeness.

I may have made mistakes along the way, and I wouldn’t be human if I hadn’t, but I like to think that things are working out pretty well when you look the big picture. I have three incredible kids, who, as I write this, are 15, 13, and 11. Every age has been my favorite for each of them, and I think that will continue for a while yet, but every chance I get, I want to give them something else awesome to remember.

And if my dressing up as a My Little Pony works for that, I’m there.

Of course, if we’re doing any cosplay for Fan Expo, we need to get started. No one really dressed up for Ottawa Comic Con, an only Erik bothered for Anime North and only for one day. He made his own costume to, a character from Deadman Wonderland, an anime I had never heard of until he started working the costume.

But why did no one dress up? I blame myself for failing to get sufficiently excited by the idea. When I asked what people’s plans were, what they might be working on, I got lots of vague, noncommittal answers. I’ll call it a lesson learned. My Little pony idea has at least my daughters’ excited. Amanda is quite fond of the show, and Melanie loved the idea. Erik looked at me, arched an eyebrow, and walked away shaking his head. Not interested, but I’m not surprised. It’s certainly well below a 15-year-old boy’s dignity. I still hope he might change his mind.

More generally, Fan Expo will be different.

I’ve been trying to decide if I just how many of the four days I want to dress for and how many costumes. The ponies will be relatively easy to do. In fact, Amanda has a couple from last year we can probably add to for the girls, just needing completely fresh ones for my wife and me.

If I can get my son’s excitement level up, we’ve got Lokai and Bele for another day. This could be a fun cosplay, probably a first day of the convention cosplay because Erik and I have even toyed with the idea of chasing each other through the con while wearing them.

But can I do more? Should I?

I have some ideas, most of them, unsurprisingly, accounting from classic trek. A couple those of are easy, just costing a few dollars, but a few dollars are harder to come by than a few minutes or hours of time. Financially speaking, it might be better to try to make costumes.

I had been considering the idea of Business Gorn, which seems less attractive now that I’ve seen TuxedoVader. But the basic idea was a Gorn mask, the hand and foot accoutrements for a giant lizard, and wearing one of my lighter suits. Tuck the mask in and wear a tie and I probably wouldn’t even need the body paint the backup.

I also thought of stealing a couple of costume ideas from the episode a mock time. Vulcan ears aren’t too difficult, though robes might be a little harder, though I have some thoughts on where I could get them. A Vulcan priest might be a lot of fun, but I don’t know if I have that much free time between now and then. Of course, there the ears with a classic blue starship uniform, a prop or two to make an easy Starfleet officer. Not Spock, per se, because I don’t have the hair for it, but surely he wasn’t the only Vulcan who ever enlisted Starfleet.

I thought an Andorian might be fun to. The challenge would be the antenna. Blue face paint is probably not too difficult, as long as you buy decent grade stuff. Again, it comes into the idea time to make the costume. And my sewing skills are not the greatest. Who am I kidding? My sewing skills are negligible.

But I do already have a costume in the can that has nothing to do with Star Trek, pulling out my Professor Stein costume from Anime North last year, our group cosplay. Doing that, Mel might dig out her Maka jacket and repair the scythe that is currently in two pieces in her room.

I do need to give it a little more thought, and don’t know if I need to dress up every single day. Especially not if I’m the only one of my family who does. I do have a preference for group costumes if I I can get some of the other members of the family to participate and failing that, anything Star Trek is fair game. And if I’m willing to expand which series I’m looking at for aliens, there is a lot of selection over 700 plus episodes of Trek.Plenty of aliens available, but again it all comes down to time and skill. And participation for my family. But we should have one group cosplay in the bag at least . Beyond that, well, we’ll see.

Be well, everyone.

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