More Burblings About Cosplay, Proper...
Jan. 3rd, 2009 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fangrrl_squees(As staring at the clock doesn't make it move any faster to 5:35 GMT...)
I know that I've said in the past that, in so far as how I define the term cosplayer, I don't consider myself one.
A cosplayer (again, in my personal lexicon) is someone who roleplays - to some degree or other - the character who's guise they have donned. Me? I just walk around in a costume.
Several pals of mine have made comments along the lines of "But, fangrrl! You've been playing live-action RPGs for even longer than you've been sewing silly costumes for them! Surely you'd love to actually "be" the character you're dressed up as?"
Weeeeell, yes and no. Sure, that could be fun if I thought I could pull it off and didn't feel like a great big, self-conscious dork whilst doing so.
Yeah. The LARPing costumer has self-consciousness issues. This is one of the reasons I didn't pursue acting. Well, that and the fact that whilst I had a slight knack for it, that left me far behind the folks with talent, courage, dedication and more perception that I'll ever know - but that's material for another entry.
However, like many ideas that I at first dismiss as untenable, I threw it into the stew-pot that is no hurry, think about it when you can section of my brain and have left the notion there to bubble and the flavor of it to, er, seep into the brain like a funky kind of mirpois - that's enough of that metaphor, I think.
I will concede that cosplaying can add another level of enjoyment to the wearing of the costume. Quite a significant level, in some cases.
I will also concede that, fer Crissakes, no-one is expecting a BAFTA level of performance from a cosplayer.
And there is the undeniable fact that I frequently whinge about the lack of LARPing in my vicinity - because I've dropped such things to make time for fandom activities, such as costuming.
And, recently - very recently, in fact - the noisy wanna show off part of me has taken to clipping the self-conscious bits around the (metaphorical) ear and saying Get over it, lass!
I suspect that the recent interest of costuming Romana I has something to do with it. Hers is a character that I think I could pull off with reasonable success - unlike ol' Femmy Ten - and you don't even want to know what my brain has been chirruping about re: Lucy!Master...
However, the notion does still leave me feeling a bit uncomfortable. I think part of it is that they aren't my little darlings. Whenever I've RPd, it's always been with original characters and so to pick up someone else's character (someone else's darling, so to speak) and to play with them feels rather like theft. I know, I know, it's homage and hardly a situation that has the copyright lawyers salivating in anticipatory glee but it still feels awkward.
But less awkward than it did.
I suspect that, come Gallifre One, I'll have chilled out, remarkably.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go hit refresh obsessively over on bbc.co.uk's news site...
I know that I've said in the past that, in so far as how I define the term cosplayer, I don't consider myself one.
A cosplayer (again, in my personal lexicon) is someone who roleplays - to some degree or other - the character who's guise they have donned. Me? I just walk around in a costume.
Several pals of mine have made comments along the lines of "But, fangrrl! You've been playing live-action RPGs for even longer than you've been sewing silly costumes for them! Surely you'd love to actually "be" the character you're dressed up as?"
Weeeeell, yes and no. Sure, that could be fun if I thought I could pull it off and didn't feel like a great big, self-conscious dork whilst doing so.
Yeah. The LARPing costumer has self-consciousness issues. This is one of the reasons I didn't pursue acting. Well, that and the fact that whilst I had a slight knack for it, that left me far behind the folks with talent, courage, dedication and more perception that I'll ever know - but that's material for another entry.
However, like many ideas that I at first dismiss as untenable, I threw it into the stew-pot that is no hurry, think about it when you can section of my brain and have left the notion there to bubble and the flavor of it to, er, seep into the brain like a funky kind of mirpois - that's enough of that metaphor, I think.
I will concede that cosplaying can add another level of enjoyment to the wearing of the costume. Quite a significant level, in some cases.
I will also concede that, fer Crissakes, no-one is expecting a BAFTA level of performance from a cosplayer.
And there is the undeniable fact that I frequently whinge about the lack of LARPing in my vicinity - because I've dropped such things to make time for fandom activities, such as costuming.
And, recently - very recently, in fact - the noisy wanna show off part of me has taken to clipping the self-conscious bits around the (metaphorical) ear and saying Get over it, lass!
I suspect that the recent interest of costuming Romana I has something to do with it. Hers is a character that I think I could pull off with reasonable success - unlike ol' Femmy Ten - and you don't even want to know what my brain has been chirruping about re: Lucy!Master...
However, the notion does still leave me feeling a bit uncomfortable. I think part of it is that they aren't my little darlings. Whenever I've RPd, it's always been with original characters and so to pick up someone else's character (someone else's darling, so to speak) and to play with them feels rather like theft. I know, I know, it's homage and hardly a situation that has the copyright lawyers salivating in anticipatory glee but it still feels awkward.
But less awkward than it did.
I suspect that, come Gallifre One, I'll have chilled out, remarkably.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go hit refresh obsessively over on bbc.co.uk's news site...
