2 November 2008

Cosplay at Impact Comics collides with reclaim the night

| johnboy
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[First filed: November 02, 2008 @ 01:38]

Poptop has been kind enough to send in photos from Friday night in Garema Place.

In the course of a weird night the cosplay contest collided with reclaim the night.

I leave you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions.

(Slideshow below)

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Granny said :

Those windcheaters sure did last … *chuckle* … I reckon I must have had mine for about ten years at the time!

And all those fugly olympic ring looking things in the logo … *bleah*

mal lee’s “educating for the 21st century”. now there was a good slogan…

Those windcheaters sure did last … *chuckle* … I reckon I must have had mine for about ten years at the time!

And all those fugly olympic ring looking things in the logo … *bleah*

Granny said :

In the first place, I wasn’t dressed for the job. Sneakers, Copland College windcheater ….

Are you saying that I shouldn’t be able to walk alone in my own city because I am female?

no, but wearing a wind cheater called cop land wouldn’t have been good either. (when i was at copland, some american friends thought it was a police academy, especially with all the cop cars parked there)

everyone has the right to walk alone in their city. unfortunately, now that civic is so dismal and dark, anyone approaching me that i don’t know won’t get long to speak, I am off.

and the guy in the sailor moon costume – how funny is that??

I’m just stirring for an argument from the Pro-Cos crowd…

I’ll give credit where credit is due though, Final Fantasy X was the most eye-candy packed interactive movie I’d ever seen.

The Sydney Anime Cons appear to involve a lot more Lycra. 8D

Skid – there are also hot ones, this usually makes up for everything.

Or perhaps unhappy that he hasn’t got to spend any time with the girl in that photo.

I think Skidbladnir is just jealous that he’s missed out on playing as much Final Fantasy as them.

I found them to genrally be a courteous and interesting bunch of [mainly] adolescent people with a slightly offbeat hobby. They didn’t exclude we mundanes, were supportive of each other and cheered wildly when the littlest Naruto took out one of the major prizes.

Infinitely preferable to drunken Emos or the generic terminally bored adolescents, IMO.

Back ontopic:
So, cosplayers really are just a bunch of freaks trying to justify to themselves\their billpaying parents the months of alone couchtime, the endless need to buy DVD boxed sets and posters, or just the far too many hours of Final Fantasy…

hah! I caught the bus twice! And the subway too – although that was a lot safer as there were lots of transit police around harassing homeless people.
But none of it as terrifying as driving in LA at peak hour, on only my second day of driving on the wrong side of the road. Now 16 lanes bumper-to-bumper is traffic and I swore if I lived thorugh it I would never complain about Canberra traffic again…and I haven’t (it’s been four years)

Everyone I know who’s been to L.A. has absolutely hated it: ‘world’s biggest parking lot’ is a phrase I’ve heard uttered more than a few times.

A lot of areas of the States sound great, but some of the stories you here don’t do much to inspire confidence. For example, a buddy of mine is quite a nice bloke – works a very responsible job and very career focused, etc. He went to work over in California and ended up in some place I can’t remember the name of. He said the ‘uniform’ for casual-wear in the area was a polo-shirt, slacks and ‘nice’ shoes, anyone wearing anything different was immediately cast with suspicion. He walked down the street wearing a metal t-shirt and jeans and people were crossing the street to avoid him.

It was also just after Crocodile Dundee had been released. They knew I was Australian alright. It was the best time possible to be an Australian in the US.

*chuckle*

I did take the bus once. But basically I pretty much had no money for a lot of the time. It’s a long and complicated story. I could buy a slice of pizza from Chicken Delight for less than a dollar. I walked a lot. I lost a lot of weight.

From my experiences in the US, many people didn’t really notice the accent or if they did just assumed I was from upstate New York or some other weird place. The idea that you might be from another country is not something that most USers think.

Males walking alone get subject to abuse too, albeit a bit different – in downtown East Lansing people would drive past and yell out, “Get a horse!”. Walking alone, or in company in LA, is a bad idea – the only worse thing is taking the bus…when you get on a bus in LA it’s just like a scene in a western where the hero walks into the saloon and everything stops…

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy1:45 pm 03 Nov 08

VY’s had another sex change operation…

I’ve shaved my butt and had breasts grafted onto my back, so if I walk backwards I look like a bit angry emo lesbian. Then, by walking forward again, I magically change back into a smart-arse.

What the hell is a “mopo”????

Oh god, sexist “humour”.

Much funnier on a mopo than an open forum.

Women should stay at home and cook dinner for their husband – it’s much safer, except if you burn yourself on the stove. 😉

In the first place, I wasn’t dressed for the job. Sneakers, Copland College windcheater ….

In the second place, why should he have refused to help me even if I were a sex worker?

In the third place, my Australian accent might have given a clue to the fact that my story could, just possibly, be true.

And lastly, it was not just one street on one night. I would be walking down the street, minding my own business, dressed as described, and men would just start walking with me or leap out at me and wave money.

It was terrifying, and certainly not the direction I believe that we should be heading.

Are you saying that I shouldn’t be able to walk alone in my own city because I am female?

If you walked up to people and asked for directions to Sunset Boulevard, you did kind of just ask people “Hi, there’s this great big wide road, 35 km long, thick with corner crack dealers, three deep with whores of all varieties, and I just want to go there. Don’t ask why, but its not because I want to drive along it, because every sane person knows that you just follow one of the newer, wider, more traffic friendly toll roads. Besides, I don’t have a car. Do you know anyone who can give a girl like me a lift…?”

A female walking to Sunset Blvd = crackfiend working girl assumption would be pretty easy to make.

It’s a very long story. Basically, if a woman was walking alone it was assumed that she had to be a sex worker. After all, why else would she be walking alone? Well, I didn’t have anybody else to walk with.

It was one of the more terrifying experiences of my life, and nobody would help me when I was lost and alone late at night, because they assumed I was a prostitute. Even the service station attendant sneered at me when I told him I had to get to Sunset Strip or Sunset Boulevard or whatever it was. I thought, “I’m going to die tonight. I’m never going to see my three little kids again.” And then, by some miracle, I found my way.

But the fear was constant the whole twelve weeks I was there. People would come up to me and say, “You know, gangs drive by and shoot hookers,” and it didn’t seem to matter that I wasn’t one. They already knew I was because I was walking alone. Day or night, it made no difference.

If society accepts that as a truth it becomes one. It’s really important to say, “Our women and children have the right to walk in freedom and safety, and when somebody violates that right we will come down hard on that. And if we can do something to help when they’re in trouble then we will.”

It’s because she is black.

Granny said :

Well, I didn’t have that right in Los Angeles and I will never forget that.

What’s the story?

Well, I didn’t have that right in Los Angeles and I will never forget that.

Gungahlin Al11:52 am 03 Nov 08

VY’s had another sex change operation…

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy11:38 am 03 Nov 08

As a woman, I completely agree.

It’s never going to be totally safe for either a man or a woman to be out alone, whatever time of day or night. The main difference is that men don’t get blamed for it if they are assaulted.

Whilst common sense is important, I feel strongly as a woman that I should have the right to walk alone if I choose.

I remember one night walking my dog and this drunk guy swerved right off the road towards my dog to give me a fright. I was really angry and I started yelling at him WTF!

His wife came out of the house and said what’s this all about, and I said I reckoned that as a woman I should have the right to go for an evening walk down my street with my dog if I wanted. She was basically like, hell yeah, get inside, and boy was he in trouble!!

I wouldn’t call Cosplay a weird fetish..

Furries that is a weird fettish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_fandom

I had no idea what cosplay was until I just read the wikipeadia article (ok, I had a pretty good idea). I love it when weird fetishes reach the status of sub-culture and get their own name.

Rofl @ the kid dressed up as Sailor Moon.

i always thought that ‘reclaiming’ the night was bit far fetched – when was it last ‘claimed’? has it ever really been safe for women to wander about all the same places with the same blitheness as men?

good sentiment, a linguistic hump for mine for the name…

ah, truly a sign that gone are the days of LJ.

Reclaim the Night was a bit of a surprise, but a pleasant one.

If you’re interested in following Cosplay in Canberra you will need to be a Facebook member and then keep an eye on Cos I Can.

bugger, I forgot about it.

“We” did hear about it … see http://the-riotact.com/?p=9424

Looks fun…how come we only hear about the good stuff after the event…

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