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dreamerinsilicoSo DragonCon's coming up in a month. Some of you might already know that's my big Nerd Family Reunion, Absolute Must-Go Event of the Year (and if you didn't, you know now!). This will be year number eleven!
Some people I used to attend with have burned out on it, which always makes me sad. I convinced my best friend to attend once, a few years ago, and she was so overwhelmed by the scale of it that she doesn't intend to go again. It's made me reflect often that I'd be in the same boat if I hadn't started going when I did - when there were only four con hotels, and it was an event with "only" maybe 10-20k attendees. I learned the ropes in 2008, when you could still feasibly just kind of feel your way around, and I'm so glad I did, because if I'd gone for the first time in the last handful of years, I almost certainly would not have been able to handle it.
While I have interest in attending other major conventions, the thing that I've always loved about Dragon is that it is intensely fan-organized and fan-led, without a lot of lines between participants and guests, in most cases. While we do get a fair number of Big Names, these days, there's no celebrity red carpet, and there's an absolutely enormous amount of opportunity to interact with and learn from creators. My long-time favorite fantasy author (who also arts) let me look through her sketchbook one year. I got to sit around having drinks with David Gaider one year right after the con. I discovered one of my current favorite authors because he was on a panel I attended on a whim and he mentioned handling conservation of mass with respect to a shapeshifter character. (I was, at the time, in grad school at Georgia Tech, and it turned out he got his PhD from there as well!) A prolific voice actor does a yearly event where he + audience members do dramatic reading of erotic fanfic involving his characters. A friend of mine runs DragonCon TV, and another, the Science Track.
In short, though it's absolute social and sensory overload that more or less incapacitates me for days after, it's the most wonderful time of the year.
Cosplay's been a big part of the con for me since... 2011? I think that's right. That was when I debuted my Morrigan (Dragon Age) cosplay and found the Bioware Con Fandom Family. I ended up dating someone I met there, when, a year later, we were both doing Legend of Korra cosplays and resolved via Facebook to hang out in costume together. That relationship, while disastrous, resulted in me meeting one of my closest current friends, and several other people who are still con-friends to this day.
I have always loved the McGuyver-esque challenge of making something that looks real from a video game or cartoon template. (My only ambitions toward cosplay of a character from a live-action movie or TV show never got off the ground. One of them - Cersei Lannister - I'm too bitter about the show to ever contemplate, much as I'd love to make one of her dresses. Jareth will probably still happen eventually. He's kind of Required, because Labyrinth, and also because I can actually contact juggle.) But the complexity of the effort of making... basically everything but the Korra cosplay... has been prohibitive for me in the last few years. And the last two years has added body issues on top of it, as for a while in grad school I was in the best shape I'd been in since high school cross-country, and since then I'm... uh, not. (My experience with body and gender dysphoria probably deserves its own post at some point, but for present purposes, it probably suffices to say, the higher my proportion of muscle to everything else, the less uncomfortable I am.)
Anyway, last year I wore my old Briala cosplay because at least it still (barely) fit, and I have developed a strong sense of cosplay-as-participation in context of the con - not wearing cosplay feels like lurking in a fandom and never writing fic or meta, basically. I'd promised myself that this year I'd get my act together and at least finish Jasnah, if not also Aloth. But Jasnah still feels too uncomfortable, and the leather for Aloth would be Fucking Expensive (I'm a leatherworking snob, courtesy of my Serana cosplay a while back), and I really don't have the money to burn right now.
My enthusiasm for Dragon Age has waned to a point where I don't really want to do Briala again, even though I'm insanely proud of that one. Serana still fits and looks good, but it's a massive pain to get into and wear, and no one else I hang out with is doing Skyrim this year. But I think I've settled on a compromise I'm surprisingly happy with. On a whim last Halloween, I dressed up as Death of the Endless, from the Sandman comics (already had an appropriate wig and the clothes; just had to buy the necklace and do the makeup, really). I hated most of the pictures that resulted, because I was trying to do the classic waifish look with the tank top, and I've never been able to quite pull off "waifish," let alone now. But the makeup was great and the character feels good to me. So this year what I'm planning on is just, a range of Death looks. Fancy!Death from one of the Endless Convocation scenes (I have to find the exact issue for a reference and that's currently driving me nuts; that one's going to be the most work), and various casual!Deaths. I might buy another pair of black pants and some new boots, but otherwise, I've got the wardrobe to make a series of distinct Looks that work for her.
Not the rarest or most technically difficult, but definitely fun, and I honestly don't remember seeing *any* Endless at Dragon before (I'm sure there have been plenty, but it's not like certain superhero types where you see 100 different iterations on any given year), so I'm satisfied with the decision. And I'll be a hell of a lot more comfortable than I have been most years!
Some people I used to attend with have burned out on it, which always makes me sad. I convinced my best friend to attend once, a few years ago, and she was so overwhelmed by the scale of it that she doesn't intend to go again. It's made me reflect often that I'd be in the same boat if I hadn't started going when I did - when there were only four con hotels, and it was an event with "only" maybe 10-20k attendees. I learned the ropes in 2008, when you could still feasibly just kind of feel your way around, and I'm so glad I did, because if I'd gone for the first time in the last handful of years, I almost certainly would not have been able to handle it.
While I have interest in attending other major conventions, the thing that I've always loved about Dragon is that it is intensely fan-organized and fan-led, without a lot of lines between participants and guests, in most cases. While we do get a fair number of Big Names, these days, there's no celebrity red carpet, and there's an absolutely enormous amount of opportunity to interact with and learn from creators. My long-time favorite fantasy author (who also arts) let me look through her sketchbook one year. I got to sit around having drinks with David Gaider one year right after the con. I discovered one of my current favorite authors because he was on a panel I attended on a whim and he mentioned handling conservation of mass with respect to a shapeshifter character. (I was, at the time, in grad school at Georgia Tech, and it turned out he got his PhD from there as well!) A prolific voice actor does a yearly event where he + audience members do dramatic reading of erotic fanfic involving his characters. A friend of mine runs DragonCon TV, and another, the Science Track.
In short, though it's absolute social and sensory overload that more or less incapacitates me for days after, it's the most wonderful time of the year.
Cosplay's been a big part of the con for me since... 2011? I think that's right. That was when I debuted my Morrigan (Dragon Age) cosplay and found the Bioware Con Fandom Family. I ended up dating someone I met there, when, a year later, we were both doing Legend of Korra cosplays and resolved via Facebook to hang out in costume together. That relationship, while disastrous, resulted in me meeting one of my closest current friends, and several other people who are still con-friends to this day.
I have always loved the McGuyver-esque challenge of making something that looks real from a video game or cartoon template. (My only ambitions toward cosplay of a character from a live-action movie or TV show never got off the ground. One of them - Cersei Lannister - I'm too bitter about the show to ever contemplate, much as I'd love to make one of her dresses. Jareth will probably still happen eventually. He's kind of Required, because Labyrinth, and also because I can actually contact juggle.) But the complexity of the effort of making... basically everything but the Korra cosplay... has been prohibitive for me in the last few years. And the last two years has added body issues on top of it, as for a while in grad school I was in the best shape I'd been in since high school cross-country, and since then I'm... uh, not. (My experience with body and gender dysphoria probably deserves its own post at some point, but for present purposes, it probably suffices to say, the higher my proportion of muscle to everything else, the less uncomfortable I am.)
Anyway, last year I wore my old Briala cosplay because at least it still (barely) fit, and I have developed a strong sense of cosplay-as-participation in context of the con - not wearing cosplay feels like lurking in a fandom and never writing fic or meta, basically. I'd promised myself that this year I'd get my act together and at least finish Jasnah, if not also Aloth. But Jasnah still feels too uncomfortable, and the leather for Aloth would be Fucking Expensive (I'm a leatherworking snob, courtesy of my Serana cosplay a while back), and I really don't have the money to burn right now.
My enthusiasm for Dragon Age has waned to a point where I don't really want to do Briala again, even though I'm insanely proud of that one. Serana still fits and looks good, but it's a massive pain to get into and wear, and no one else I hang out with is doing Skyrim this year. But I think I've settled on a compromise I'm surprisingly happy with. On a whim last Halloween, I dressed up as Death of the Endless, from the Sandman comics (already had an appropriate wig and the clothes; just had to buy the necklace and do the makeup, really). I hated most of the pictures that resulted, because I was trying to do the classic waifish look with the tank top, and I've never been able to quite pull off "waifish," let alone now. But the makeup was great and the character feels good to me. So this year what I'm planning on is just, a range of Death looks. Fancy!Death from one of the Endless Convocation scenes (I have to find the exact issue for a reference and that's currently driving me nuts; that one's going to be the most work), and various casual!Deaths. I might buy another pair of black pants and some new boots, but otherwise, I've got the wardrobe to make a series of distinct Looks that work for her.
Not the rarest or most technically difficult, but definitely fun, and I honestly don't remember seeing *any* Endless at Dragon before (I'm sure there have been plenty, but it's not like certain superhero types where you see 100 different iterations on any given year), so I'm satisfied with the decision. And I'll be a hell of a lot more comfortable than I have been most years!
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Date: 2019-08-07 09:57 am (UTC)And yeah, since we've started getting more Actual Celebrities I just... avoid that. I really am not there to stand in line for an autograph. I guess my perspective is I see photos from shit like SDCC and go "thank goodness we're not doing *that*, at least!"
GenCon's something I've wanted to attend for years and years; maybe I'll actually make it one of these days.
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Date: 2019-08-07 10:22 pm (UTC)There was one guy I knew from a local cast who was also a serious Star Wars cosplayer and went to a lot of major conventions. He had access to equipment to do his own plastic molding, and sometimes he'd show up to our cons as Boba Fett or a Stormtrooper, just because he could. He definitely stood out among all the fright wigs and fishnet stockings. :)