I Am A Cosplayer and I'm Not Sorry

Firstly, I apologize if this comes out in a terrible format because I have never really "blogged" before, so I hope the technical aspects take care of themselves.

As per the title of this post, I can confirm that the area of pop culture that interests me the most is Cosplay. For those who have never heard this term before, it is the combined concept of "costume" and "roleplay," meaning that you not only dress as a character that you like, but you act like them, and while dressed you do your best to fully become them. Now, there are definitely many different levels to this act, as any beginner or casual fan could tell you but that shall remain a topic for another time. I will simply state that I would consider myself at the upper echelon of cosplay, in that I try to make my costume as accurate as I can and do try to speak or act as that character would most of the time.

Myself as Maya the Siren from the "Borderlands" video game series at Boston Comic Con 2015.

Cosplay is important to me for more intrinsic reasons than I could probably count, but the most major reason is that it is very social by nature, there are thousands and millions of others who like to wear costumes to conventions and I just plain love making friends! Secondly, it speaks volumes to my artistic nature; not everyone endeavors or is capable of making their own costumes, but it is an artistic challenge that I thoroughly enjoy testing myself on.

Myself, my husband Nick, and friend Sammy as characters from "Metro 2033" and "Fallout" at PAX East 2016.

As to what I expect to learn - conversely I intend to include the things I know in order to contribute to the amazing discussions we are about to share and I expect to learn more about the things I have likely been avoiding. For instance, I have never been particularly fond of zombies. The original idea of roaming deceased humans is wildly entertaining, but I feel it has become very overrated. The market has been completely saturated with zombie-themed things and frankly, I quickly tired of it. However, I promise to give it another chance as perhaps one of my classmates enjoys that part of pop culture and would be willing to elaborate in order to convert me :)

Myself at Boston Comic Con as Ezio from the "Assassin's Creed" video game series at Boston Comic Con 2015.