Reacting to YOUR Cosplay Horror Stories 

re: story 1: I used to work in special effects and smoke bombs are legally classed as a pyrotechnic. They have an explosive charge that sets off the smoke bomb and they do burn/produce heat, so in the majority of states in the US, you need to be licensed to handle them and you need to be permitted with the local fire department to set them off. So technically not a lie that they were "setting fireworks off". It's still the photographer's fault tho, lol. If he was intending to use those for a shoot, he should have filed a permit weeks before.

Reiterating the safety comment from story 9 (creepo ripping the shirt): Please report these people. I'm a Safety volunteer at several cons and we take this stuff incredibly seriously. I know at the time it can be scary and you may not be able to react like how you would imagine and that's okay, no one will blame or shame you. But when you can, find a safety volunteer or officer and report the person. We will take down your story and find the person and remove them. Zero tolerance means zero tolerance and we will gladly help you

for the poor girl who had her cosplay broken open against her will, why was that assaulter still at the con after that

I was dressed as Fluttershy at a MLP convention I was volunteering at. I took care of lost kids at this con. Everyone's seen that picture of the kid who went up to the Flash and Wonder Woman cosplayers because he "knew" them, and it's true, kids are more likely to go with a helpful stranger to the info booths or registration areas a lot less scared and a lot more calm if the person helping them is a character they know. (I also have a badge that states I'm with lost guests) I am a bigger girl. One person told the person he was with, right in front of me, with a voice loud enough that I think I was supposed to hear, "she's got the right t*ts, but she's too fat for Fluttershy." Different year, same con, I was told I was a bad Rarity because I died my hair purple instead of getting a wig. I already had two wigs to travel with, if I could get away with only two, I was going to. That not-very-good-Rarity helped two siblings find their parents after they wandered into the tech areas behind the showroom, so I think it's pretty good.

The zipper story is SO RELATABLE. I went to fashion school and during the graduation fashion show one of the teacher's jobs was literally to sew models into their clothing if zippers broke- and a lot did because those dressing the models were very rushed. She was amazing and fueled by pure determination....and two glasses of wine

Just got home from a con myself and my horror story is basically having to deal with an unqualified judge telling me my cosplay was for intermediate level when I've been competing as a master for years and won a number of times. He doesn't even SEW.

Mine was a group of cosplayers with me split up to go home separately so I was going home, as I was walking, I felt like someone was following me. That guy then proceeded to follow me all the way till I got to the sky train station, it was a very long way, I even skipped the first station but he followed me, until I saw a fellow cosplayer and tested my luck and said “Hey! There you are! I thought you were at the other sky train station, were you waiting for a while?” Thank goodness they caught what’s going on, pretended and played along. The guy soon left when we were just talking, I thanked them afterwards and then we traded contacts. Very scary situation indeed.

Thank goodness ive always had a gargoyle of a male friend who would stand near me and his wife with yakuza househusband aura and scare the living hell out of weird nerds.

COnvergence 2004. I was dressed as Sadako from “The Ring”. A friend was dressed as The Shadow, and we were vibing around con trading iconic lines from our respective franchises. When we got to Cinema Rex (the movie screening room), this one woman looked at us, freaked out, and ran into the bathroom. We didn’t think much about it at the time, until a member of ConCom came up to us, charging us with bullying an attendee. Turns out the movie that had just ended in Cinema Rex was “The Ring”, and said woman thought we were there to grief people. We almost got kicked out. It took a lot of talking and character witnesses to make them understand it was an unfortunate coincidence.

My cosplay horror story has to be the time I did Mad Moxxi from Borderlands, my first cosplay and my first convention. I happen to have an ample chest and the characters costume is designed to show a lot of cleavage. Almost everyone at the convention was super nice and respectful except this one guy my ex knew. He recognized my ex and used talking to him as an excuse to get closer to me. This guy stood barely two feet from me and didn't even attempt to make eye contact, just STARED at my chest. I was so weirded out by this dude I just froze, hoping my ex (who was supposed to be my handler) would call this guy out for being such a gross creep but he never did.🙃

As someone who has been an event security guard, please tell us if you have any problem at cons or any event for that matter. That is what we are being paid to do. We do everything from tell you how to get somewhere, escorting you to your car if you feel unsafe, removing problematic people from the premises, I have even been a water delivery service a few times. If the security guard you talk to can't do it for whatever reason, we will call someone who can. We probably have been standing around doing nothing for hours so don't be shy, please. We are there to support for you. Remember that.

I cosplayed Rarity from My Little Pony for a year or so and I had a lot of fun and felt so glammed up and beautiful. Kids were treating me like a Disney princess and excited to see me. It was such a new thing to me. It was so nice and I met some genuinely great people through that cosplay. That said, I still think about the dude who came up to me and took a photo an inch from my face and said he gets "candid" photos of women go show how they really are. Or the guy who wanted to run hug me while I was in 3 inch heels and when I took a step back he stopped to say I had lipstick in my teeth and walked away from me. Or the guy who kept wanting to be "my Spike" "where's spike? Are you lonely?" So many stories...

So this is a funny horror story. So not really a horrorstory? 😂 Any way I was wearing a Spider Gwen suit as a cosplay for a convention. The suit was slightly too small, even though it was made to my own measurements. This was the second suit the company sent me, but the entire deal about that is another story. The thing is, that it was too short in the back panel. So it pulled the neck section backwards, so it literally choked me when I was sitting down. So in the car ride to the convention, I was sitting with the zipper open, so I could breath. I do a shoot when we arrive, in point shoes on a concrete staircase in slight rain. Despite the suffering, the photos turns out amazing, the suit is in tact. Great! Then going inside immediately after, I meet up with a person I always help at conventions, because they have moteric issues. I’m a hairdresser, and they need help with their wigs. So it’s a permanent thing I at least help them once through a convention, they just make sure to bring the needed supplies, so I don’t have to carry them. I help getting the wig on, and always do a quick styling to fit the character. Just as I start braiding the hair for the wig cap, bending slightly forward, the butt just cracks… 😫 Luckily I was prepared for the worst, since the cosplay didn’t fit right. So I had a small sewing kit with me and I gave it to my best cosplay friend who was with me. I would then continue braiding the hair, helping the person get their wig on and styling it. All while my friend was sewing my butt together again. This was done in the middle of the convention, from a point lots of people could see. It was interesting to say the least. 🙈

my con horror story. last year I was at a summer convention cosplaying as link, and there are two sections of the convention the artist alley, and the pannel rooms, the pannel rooms need an escalator to go down to as they are in the lower level of the convention center. IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT MYSELF! i am a wheelchair user, they had escalators. and nothing. else. the only way to get on the bottom floor with a cart was a rickety service elevator which was LOCKED for the convention and none of the con helpers could open it (even after multiple tries) In malls and such sometimes I will pop a wheelie on my chair and hold onto the escalator sides and it will take me down it works great however, this technique would not work for this convention because my chair was too big to fit into the escalator sides. at this point i'm really upset because there were a bunch of panels and a puppy rescue and all the fighting games were down there and i'm unable to go!! I was about to call it quits and let my friends go down and wait on the upper level alone and stay on my phone. a group of cosplayers overheard me talking to my friends and offered to help carry me and my chair (which is so beyond sweet of them( and that's how I ended up getting carried down a flight of stairs by junko enoshima, sailor mercury and the zelda I was with. Thanks to them I ended up having an absolute blast but without them I would've been able to participate :< this just goes to show that accessibility is so so so soooo important in conventions!!!!!!! begging convention planners to think of us too 🫶♿️

This could be an interesting series. It's so sad that there are people who try to ruin the fun of cosplay for others, but I'm so happy, despite that, that the cosplay community is an overwhelmingly positive group!

on the whole other side of the spectrum. The very first con I ever went to was for a weekend but I only had a ticket for Saturday because I was 16 or 17 and had no expendable money to speak of. Then later that day a girl who had a weekend ticket went around asking if someone wanted her ticket for free because something came up and she couldn't go tomorrow. Not only did this sweet complete stranger give me her ticket for free, which was already super awesome, but her friend group of other super friendly cosplayers let me stay at their rented cabin for free as well and shared their breakfast with me. (with cabin I mean a wooden cabin at a camping field about a 15 minute drive from the place the con was held and it was perfectly safe.) I wasn't even part of any cosplay community and my costume was genuinely terrible but they were just such sweet and generous people. To this day I still associate cosplayers as some of the friendliest people I have ever met.

I have a con buddy, we do like every con in our state together. For one, he was Deadpool. I was King Candy from Wreck it Ralph. A guy who wears poofy shorts over tights. My friend got into a play-fight with a guy dressed as Lion-o from Thundercats. Had a little too much fun and the crotch area of his Deadpool suit split open. He had to wear my poofy gold shorts over his Deadpool cosplay for um... a while. It looked pretty goofy!

I competed in my first (and only) cosplay competition with this cosplay with a big moving wings build that I was super proud of, considering I'd had to almost completely rebuild it from an electronic version to a pulley system last minute before con when both the motors I'd ordered turned out DOA with no time for shipping new ones. (I've since remade them again, with motors, and they're still one of the pieces I'm most proud of, regardless of what this con had to say.) Backstage and then onstage, everything is great, I feel awesome, making friends, and all the contestants get to filter back out into the audience after they go on to watch. They get to announcing winners, who have to walk up through the crowd to backstage to get onstage - and they call my username, but when they see me come running up the aisle, excited as hell, just say for the whole place to hear on the mic: "Oh, not YOU." They'd mixed up usernames and pictures of cosplayers in the judging?? somehow???? and meant to call someone else. 🙃To add insult to injury, since I'd reached the backstage when they said that, I just kind of hid there behind the curtain for a bit to try and collect myself, and a staff member came running up to me to be like "oh the cosplay guest is so sorry hahaha do you want a free T-shirt of our con???" No, I don't want to advertise your con for you after that, thanks. Needless to say, I fake laughed it all off to my friends when they came up to me afterwards, but boy did the waterworks kick in at the hotel later. It's been a good several years and I'm still terrified to enter another cosplay contest, tbh, though I'd sometimes like to.

My cosplay horror story: I was at Desucon (Finland) in 2017, I was in a small Noragami cosplay group, dressed as Hiyori. All I remember from that day is that we somehow got a proper photographer to shoot us for free, with the light reflector thingie and all. Now... I suffer from migraines. It had been a hot summer day, wig and contact lenses on, I was already starting to feel it coming. And when we were shooting, there were multiple poses where I was either looking directly at the sun or pointed the reflection right in my eyes, I didn't refuse because it's so rare to get a proper photoshoot for free. I ended up leaving early to suffer from my migraine in my hotel room, puked and everything. And we never even got the pictures.

Girl the "zipper breaks and they have to sew you in" happened to one of my classmates when I did ballet, MINUTES BEFORE GOING ONSTAGE. Like the show had already started! Luckily she didn't have a quick change. I also did musical theatre and once had to sew a classmate's bra in like 60 seconds because the middle between the cups broke on the song before ours O.O Thank god I'd done ballet for 20 years at that point so I basically came prepared for anything . It was her first time onstage tho TTT

Cons should have big bold signs or something that remind people its ok to report creeps because i myself was once a 16 year old girl being followed around by a weird man who had no idea i could ask staff for help

For my Sundrop cosplay I had a good friend as my handler who cosplayed as a daycare worker, I had one of those kindergartner stuff animal leash backpacks for good measure

Oh my Gosh I wish I knew you were doing this I have the perfect cosplay horror story!!!! I'll tell it here. I'll do my best to keep it short but I always ramble hehe Back in 2018 I became obsessed with the song Gaikotsu Gakudan to Riria and in the Project Diva games Miku has the most beautiful dress and I decided to make it. This dress, Etoile Miku, has some really crazy skirts. It's worth looking up (in fact I highly recommend it because it's crucial to the story), but basically they're almost like a tutu, but instead of 20 layers of tulle it's four layers of solid fabric. I made mine with a wire hoop going around the bottom because there was no other way to keep them lifted up high enough to get the right look. Nothing was underneath the skirts either and the hoop was really wide so my thighs were decently exposed and it was stupid easy to sneak a panty shot. Now, I was 18 when I made this costume and was kind of a morron because I completely forgot that undershorts are a thing, so I was walking around this whole convention with nothing covering my underwear. It wasn't visible from a standing position but a lot of people like to sit in the hallways and you better believe they got a fat eyefull of my crotch. Escalators were also very horrible, but this isn't even the horror of the story. You see, I was in the cosplay contest. On a stage that's really tall. In front of a massive audience. You might be thinking, "but surely only the first few rows saw anything. At least most people didn't see". That's where you're wrong, my friend. Because this year my convention did something different with their cameras. Usually they just have one camera in the back and the feed is projected onto two large screens beside the stage, but this year and this year only, they decided to have an extra camera at the bottom of the stage to get a bottom-up view of the cosplayers. My underwear was broadcast on two giant screens in front of an audience of hundreds, maybe even over a thousand idk. A couple of cosplayers had unfortunate shots from this stupid camera set up but mine was undoubedly the worst. Like this was one of those anime scenes where the running girl trips and her skirt completely flips up. I can see why they didn't do that again in subsequent years

I was testing out a pattern I made for a custom xiao maid outfit while watching this video. It’s the first time I’m every making my own cosplay so it’s been an interesting experience

I cosplayed as Juvia Lockser from Fairy Tail in her debut outfit. I checked the weather and it was fine but 3 hrs of travel later I got there and it was raining. By the time I got to the venue I was soaked through and my wig that I spent a week gluing the giant curls were falling loose. I couldn't help but laugh as in the manga, when you meet Juvia it's always raining around her. Needless to say it was devestating to see my wig fall apart but after an awful patch job I had a good laugh at the irony of it all and laughing with everyone blaming me (well, Juvia) for bringing the rain to the con.

My cosplay horror story was my first ever cosplay I did for my high school's spirit day where you were supposed to dress up as a character. I made a 707 jacket from mystic messenger. I spent all night hand sewing a bunch of yellow circles onto a black hoodie. It was honestly really shitty but i was super proud. On the day of during the morning announcements, I noticed a person in front of me taking a video of me while giggling with their friend. I didn't have the most self-confidence back then, so it really ruined my whole experience and put me off cosplay for a long time.

I feel so sorry for all these cosplayers! The 24 hour trip to Ohio sounds like an absolute nightmare! Sometimes I complain how long I have to travel to reach cons in my country but that's a piece of cake in comparision to such a long trip xx My cosplay horror story is more like a con horror story. Friends and I wanted to leave the con but our car got stuck in the snow on the parking lot. It was late in the evening, still snowing, bitter cold and most of us still wearing our costumes. (I was wearing only a skintight bodysuit😬) It took us an hour to free the car. An absolute nightmare. 😣

Not something that happened to me, but the story of how a local convention cracked down on physical contact rules (this isn't a creep story ftr) . So this was at an old but mid-size Canadian convention right when Homestuck was really big, so, VERY different convention culture but right around the time a lot of modern convention rules were being solidified. One girl in particular (friend of a friend type deal you know how fb groups got word around back in the day lol) was going to a convention in cosplay for the first time. She'd been a couple times but this was her first cosplay and she really wanted to blow it out of the park, so the story goes she basically took a year to make her cosplay as detailed as possible. Her character was Aradia Megido, who for context has a big pair of ram horns. She spiced the costume up with a lot of little details (for those in the know IIRC she was fancystuck derse Aradia but it could have been God Tier this was 10 years ago forgive me.) One of the things she did was make very solid, detailed horns. Much as paper maché and foam are brittle this story is the reason I always caution people against making really solid horns out of clay or plaster. I don't know what exactly she used (there may have been an armature?) but they were rather realistic and reportedly VERY heavy. They looked fantastic though. Anyways at one point on the Saturday a much younger and less experienced congoer (think 12 year old, first convention, they bring the energy but sadly have no concept of boundaries yet, etc) essentially "glomped" her, aka a tackle hug. It used to be an accepted thing, but the Aradia unfortunately wasn't prepared and didn't notice the youngun coming. And with really top-heavy horns she fell over and the inward-facing horn she was wearing pierced her temple. An ambulance was quickly called, ALLEGEDLY it was kind of mayhem because a TF2 meet up was happening nearby so cries for Medic were confusing people but I think that's probably someone embellishing in the facebook after the fact lol. Anyways she was wheeled out, she had to get stitches in her head but thankfully that was the worst of it. It did sadly make her too nervous to cosplay again and she soon left the conventions fb group and potentially the fandom. Which is unfortunate. Nowadays that convention has MUCH stricter no-touch rules, the ppl who run that show have done it for 20+ years and are pretty quick on the draw so to my memory they basically implemented new policies by the next year. I feel bad for everyone involved tbh, I mean I was once a 12 year old first-timer turned loose by my mom too. Before stricter rules were enforced you kind of learned the laws of the jungle in practice (remember yaoi paddles, anyone?) I get WHY it happened and I think the best thing to come out of those early 2010s conventions was a real solidifcation of cosplay culture.

As most cosplayers know, the con crunch is one of the more stressful times in a cosplayer's life cycle. Initially I setting aside a month to work on a 1920s style flapper dress, but due to unexpected illness, my time was quickly shortened to a week and a bit. Time would be tight, it was managable. However, that is not why I bring this up as a horror story - the true reason was when I started working with rhinestones. Now I had designed this dress with an intricate rhinestone pattern across the front and back, and I had never worked with rhinestones before. I was also very new to sewing and was unfamiliar with practically any methods of attatching them to fabric. So, thinking nothing of it, I got the craft stick on rhinestones and carefully, over four hours of work, place over 500 rhinestones onto the dress. It was not until the next day that I noticed that more than half had fallen off the dress form. I was running out of time, so in my desperation, I tried using SUPER GLUE to hold them to the dress. Not only did this not work, but it clouded the stones and created stiff, bold dots all across the dress. Thankfully, I was able to contact a seamstress who pointed me in the direction of helmar 450, but at that point I'd already placed the rhinestones two times over, and I was exhausted. I was able to finish the dress and it looks amazing, but I clearly haven't forgiven or forgotten.

I am a gay man who likes to play with the feminine side of myself and if I do make up the right way, im a spitting image of my mom. I was dressed as Sailor Mars at a con on year with some friends. Corset, silicone inserts in a bra, legs were shaved and in good shape, wore a skirt with shapewear underneath. From behind and the side, I looked like a woman. But obviously, stare at me from the front for a bit you can tell that I was a man dressed up. Anyway, I was by myself just leaning against a railing to rest and i felt a hand right on my outer thigh. A grown man...thought I was so good-looking enough...to sexual harass. I pushed him off and in the deepest voice i could muster asked what the fuck he was doing. Dude backed off and luckily security was near and over heard so he ended up getting kicked out. Learned to always have a friend by my side if I do any fem cosplay

I saw a video of a kinkcon where they had a "chill zone" for when creeps think costume is consent, there's probably chill zones at some cosplay cons to? (idk), but now I kinda just wanna go to cons just to set up chill zones for getting away from creeps, calming con anxiety/exhaustion , and use dressing curtains to quick fix cosplay mishaps.

14:30 for a handler, I’ll always need one. As a type one diabetic and cosplayer who loves doing cosplays and going out in them whenever I possibly can, I need a handler for when I go low, because the first convention I ever went to was with my mom and brother, and I was lucky and only had 1 or 2 low blood sugars, but when I did they were really bad because, 1, I was walking around a LOT, and 2 because it was super humid and hot in there with all the people

The only con problem I’ve had was recently at a small con. I was my oc mando and I had a baby rodian in a satchel and some lady come up and grabbed it without me knowing and start saying how cute it was and I just stared at her confused like wtf are you doing(context I was talking to a friend when she snuck up when this happened)

I have another reason u should always participate in compositions!!! I somehow re-became friends with my kindergarten bestie that I hadn’t seen in ELEVEN FRICKEN YEARS and we didn’t know till a month later and our moms laughed at us all cause we ended up in the same section in the green room😂

My cosplay horror story isn't actually mine. I am just a side character. So, London comic con a few years ago. I’d been planning to go and had a costume planned but ended up not able to since my nephew chose that weekend to be born. Anyway, gone into London to meet the new guy and see the family and my train home lined up with the cons doors closing so I was surrounded by cosplayers and con survivors. Naturally they all ended up hanging out together and I gravitated towards them to hear some of the con stories. We’d been on the train for over an hour, about half the group had gotten off at their stops and the train had arrived at a station when one of the cosplayers looked up and said something like “I don’t remember going through this station.” A few questions later it turned out she was on the wrong train. She grabbed her costume bits, her bags and rushed for the doors, not quite making it before they closed and the train pulled out of the station. Some checking of the internets later it turned out that not only had she caught the wrong train but there were no connecting trains that would be able to get home that night. Cue many tears. But cosplayers are awesome. She got about a dozen offers of “you can stay on my couch/in my spare room” tonight and a quick whip round got her enough cash to pay for the next days ticket and a hotel room if she wanted.

Story 9 was horrifying, but story 7 was just as bad for that poor creator who lost a whole costume. Obviously it wasn’t the submitter’s fault in the slightest; that girl would have somehow found a way to cause trouble even without that particular excuse. But that there are even people out there who would do that out of greed? pride? makes me so sad.

My "You have to sew me in" moment was what convinced me double circle skirts are inherently evil. I hand stitched my entire skirt, tea length double circle skirt that I had been hand sewing for about a year because I have motor issues and struggle to make stitches work right. All I had left was the closure, I was going to sew in a zipper salvaged from a pair of boots that had fallen apart (sadly the boots were supposed to be for that cosplay, luckily I had another pair of boots that worked well enough) Now because I'm not great at hand sewing and didn't have a machine at the time, I didn't have the zipper finished. I intended to quickly slap it in in the room since I wasn't going to wear it until the second day. We get there and I start pulling my stuff out of my bag and disaster strikes. The zipper is in separate pieces, and I can't find the pull tab at all. I debated quickly switching to a single button and ripping it out of a different skirt, but quickly give up on that idea because at the time I didn't know how to make button holes and I was not emotionally prepared to ruin this skirt. The second day comes and I still haven't managed to find the rest of the zipper, and the safety pin that I had detached from an accessory on my day 3 cosplay to use as a temporary closure was just, gone. By this point it's just me and my boyfriend struggling to fix this and eventually I turned to him and just went "You're gonna have to sew me in, I'll buy a new zipper when we get home" I never did wind out buying a new zipper for that skirt, as the fabric got caught on someone elses costume and ripped and I just. Was not willing to put more energy into that skirt. I vowed never to touch a double circle skirt again because honestly I'm pretty sure that thing was cursed. I ran into problems constantly while making it (running out of thread even though I'd bought a new spool like a month ago, initial zipper from before the shoe catastrophe getting bent out of shape, somehow I managed to sew the waistband on inside out three times) I've still not made another one and it's been almost six years, I did finish the pleats on a skirt I'm making just for fun right before starting this video though :D

I had a seizure and had to go to hospital. In cosplay. None of the medical staff knew what cosplay or conventions were so I was just lying there in full drag. It was awkward

I took my star guardian soraka cosplay to Sakuracon a long time ago and it was the first cosplay I felt confident enough in to go to the LoL photo shoot. I was talking to friends and waiting for the photographer to call over the star guardians, but when I looked up, they were already getting together! I ran over as they started counting down and my long wig got caught on an Ari’s tail. I ended up face planting in front of everyone as the count down hit zero. Everyone took photos as I hit the ground. I’m hoping one day I can see one of those photos haha

Someone I know thought for the longest time I made up the story about how I met someone who, and I quote, said "You can't play videogames, that's for guys only, so you're lying" when I told them I was a huge fan of Final Fantasy 8. That person still didn't believe me even when I went into detail of the ENTIRE plot of that game, its characters, and the full list of Junction and how to "cheese" the game early on if you play your cards right (Metaphorically and literally, because of the card game Triple Triad that's in it). Well... I run into this person who said that, and wouldn't you know it they're a close friend of my fiance (This person was in my school way back). My fiance literally had been talking to them about Final Fantasy games and said he knew someone who loved FF8 as much as himself and this dude... Then my fiance introduced me, who at the time was wearing a FF8 inspired outfit and I had a replica gunblade my fiance gave me as a gift. The dude thought it was a joke and made that same old statement, but now that I was older I had a better way of handling the situation. I proceeded to outright tell the guy, to his face, how to make every character OP beyond belief mid-game and where to find an easy to miss Summon that shows up EARLY in the game. He wasn't just mad, he was furious and embarrassed and went to try and deck me (I'll admit I was being a jerk about it but I long since grew past the point of letting that kind of comment just slide). Instead of hitting me, my fiance held ME back as the other friends rip this dude backwards and hold him. My fiance held me back because I actually taught HIM how to fight and knows I can choke-out someone bigger than me despite how fragile and harmless I look (Deceptively innocent looking with a mean right-hook he has told me... Look up a scene from Assassination Classroom, the scene is "Nagisa's Clap Kill move", that's how my fiance describes it). Ruined their friendship, and my fiance apologized (I told him he didn't need to, because I wouldn't have believed me if I heard that story). Dude was his best man too, so my younger brother is our best man instead and his niece is my bridesmaid. His friends learned two things that day: 1. I only look harmless, but I was taught by my older brother self-defense... My older brother was in the military and taught me how to take down people stronger and bigger than me. 2. I can make a mean stew from scratch (I always cook too much and we never have leftovers when his friends are over). Context: None of them are sporty, they all love games like me and are huge Renfest goers (Love the time my fiance's one friend tried on a corset and had actors bidding for his hand like a fair maiden's suitors... Greatest time with them all).

Not me finding out through this video that contact cement needs to be used outside 🤡 I’m over here like a shrimp with the contact cement close to my face LMAO

COLOSSALCON mention!!!! That was my first ever con in 2012 & have been going every year since (with the exception of 2015 bc basic training). But yeah, trains are super slow to take, and especially from Colorado to Ohio (yikes). And for those who don’t know, the Kalahari books up disgustingly fast - I’m talking milliseconds when the link drops bc people use bots to monopolize the rooms - so I’m not surprised that this group didn’t have a Kalahari room. I’ve only had them a few times myself, and failed to obtain one this year sadly.

I'm gonna be making a cyno cosplay for katsucon and your videos have inspired me to get back into making my cosplays again. Gonna dust off the ol sewing machine for this one lol

I have a few, but I remember, unfortunately, a couple Sakuracons ago, I was cosplaying Ganyu from Genshin Impact. My friend and I had entered the artist alley, and just began to start walking around. I was stopped by this guy who wanted a photo, and I usually never refuse photos, so I said yes. It was normal until he put his arm around me and, in a low voice, said 'Ganyu is my favorite waifu!". I was completely embarrassed, but did end up finishing taking the photo, and then darted off. I will remember that for the rest of my life 😭

watched this while i’m making my oc for my first ever dnd campaign!!! it’s a magical girl dnd campaign and im literally beyond excited lol i loved this vid and i love story time and talking vids!!!

My cosplay horror story: It was the night before the 2nd day of a 3 day con and I managed to lose my wig cap earlier in the week. At the time, my hair was long enough to reach my mid back and bright red. I was doing separate cosplays for each day and I was fine on the 1st day because the character had long black hair in a ponytail and I was able to discreetly hide my hair by wrapping it inside. The 2nd day however, I was cosplaying Yoosung from Mystic Messenger, a character with very short blonde hair. The night before day 2, I tied up my hair, grabbed my sewing scissors, and cut it all off. With some strategically placed bobby pins, I was able to hide my now very choppy and haphazard pixie cut. That's not it though. It ended up raining the 1st and 2nd days of the con so I put on my coat for each day, even still I ended up getting soaked on both days. Unbeknownst to me, the fake blood that had absolutely covered my 1st cosplay had leached into the padding of my coat. So I get to the hall on day 2 and go to check my coat, and when I take it off, my top is drenched in fake blood. I run to the bathroom and take off my top and start rinsing it in the sink so it doesn't stain and while I'm able to get all the fake blood out, no amount of holding my top under the hand dryer helps to dry it out. So for the rest of the day I just walk around the con in a soaking wet sweatshirt, freezing cold cause it's April and they're not gonna heat an entire con hall in the spring. To no one's surprise, I caught a cold lol.

This is a story of why a con has a "no peanut butter" cosplay rule. Mind you the time frame this took place was in early years of the con (it was founded in 1979.) Someone wore only peanut butter as a hall costume. (I think something covering the nether regions was worn, but nothing else.) As you can imagine, it got everywhere. As it warmed up to body temp it would drip off, leaving a trail of peanut butter on the floor. It would transfer to other con goers or the walls if the person brushed up against them. The hotel and other con goers were pissed. The following year, they had the "no peanut butter" rule in place.

i wasn’t working on a cosplay while this was playing BUT i cleaned out my car while listening to it so thanks for helping me be productive :3

Kinda a different horror story. This was late 90s for context and glamping was a thing. I was at AWA with a group doing the Turks from FF7. I'm over 6' tall and dressed as Reno. We're posing in a main hallway and I hear someone yell Reno! And turn to see an American McGee's Alice. Covered in fake blood and wielding a kitchen knife running full tilt at me like I was a cheating EX caught in the act. I don't remember anything beyond the pain of impact but my friends insist I managed to catch her and stay standing. I don't see it nearly as often now but please. Don't touch random people. Especially welding a weapon and covered in something messy like fake blood. I blacked out from the shock and I had to find a drycleaners.

When I built my 6’ diameter Kuchi Kopi mascot, I had no idea if it would be able to squeeze through my front door until it was completed finished. I spent 5 weeks & $750… the whole time low-key terrified that I might be crafting a giant fuzzy green ship-in-a-bottle. Wednesday before DC my bf & I wrapped him up in a tarp (looked like a massive body bag) and carefully compressed and shoved him through the door. Success! Except then I learned that hotel room doors are narrower than standard front door doors… so more anxiety as we drove downtown and bf dropped me off alone at the Marriott with KuchiKopi. Luckily friends were already checked in, and able to meet up & help. First, the elevator, which we basically filled. It was easier and perhaps kinder on the mascot to pull it in from the inside than push from the outside, so I hopped in it and my lovely handlers guided me to the elevator. I pulled in the front & back (like Kuchi was sucking in his gut) and shimmied in sideways. Anxious evermore as we finally reached our room… I don’t remember the exact measurements but I seem to recall that he was roughly 2x the width of the door… we tried the same maneuver as the elevator but it wasn’t enough. Also, I really wanted to be able to supervise from the outside as I had spent quite a lot on the custom dyed Antron fleece AKA Muppet fleece and I was worried about snagging it as we shoved. We ended up flipping half of his belly concave (the only way I can think to describe this is when you fold up a foam bra and you flip one cup the wrong way… I’m sure I’m not the only one who does that…) AND SUCCESS! I was glad we got in early so I could relax and just enjoy debuting my first ever mascot. We got very good at elevators and it was extra fun to see people gawk at us and doubt that he would fit. I remember one person behind us in the elevator queue shouted “it’s not gonna fit, bro.” Not sure if he was just making an dirty joke or just annoyed that we took up so much space, but it was really gratifying that the whole team knew exactly how to push & pull and get us all on board before the elevator buzzer would start beeping. So other than my weeks of looming dread… not actually a cosplay nightmare. Though I was very sad that I didn’t get to meet up with you until after he was packed up 😢

I have actually been making whilst this has been on in the background! I've been making a headpiece and a staff for a Druid version of Perfuma from She-Ra. Lots of fake flowers and hot glue, plus real bark and moss. It's been fun! I hope everyone avoids the creepos at the next con, and doesn't get more fuel for more con horror stories!

When I was new to cosplay (and hated sewing due to having to use my mom’s broken machine), I decided to cosplay a character who wore black knee high boots that were covered in paint splatters (Sabine Wren from Star Wars Rebels). Of course I didn’t want to ruin a pair I owned and wore regularly, and I couldn’t find a pair I could add the paint splatters on my budget (I was a teenager with a very small allowance), so I had to improvise. I thought it would be a good idea to take some old canvas flats I didn’t like, and attempt to fake boot covers with duct tape. The problem was, I didn’t think to wear them for any length of time before the con, and the duct tape didn’t want to stick to the shoe base. As if on cue, the minute I got to the convention, the tape finally gave out. I didn’t think to bring more duct tape in case something like this happened, so I had to shuffle very carefully to the con’s official cosplay repair booth in the middle of the vendor hall. I’ve never used duct tape to make boot covers since.

Mine is definitely when I was at katsucon, in one of my first cosplays - Rikku from FFX2 - and a photographer stood at the bottom of an escalator snapping upskirt photos of me but ran away before I could get to the bottom of the escalator and confront him 😐

I want to be a cosplayer when I grow up I would cosplay as creepypasta/horror characters!

The dramatic you have to sew me in killed me💀💀

i have sewn myself into a costume before and then had a panic attack ripping open all of the stitches to get out lmao

Magnificon has the best stories lol It's one of the memeiest and drama filled cons in Poland and I have a shitton of stories about it

We were literally gluing feathers on my brother's Hawks cosplay all night the night before and the morning of Missouri Con, and I whip stitched the snaps on minutes before we walked out the door. At some point during the con, one of those snaps failed, and he had crooked wings for the rest of the day. 😅

I had decided earlier this year to create an entire archon venti cosplay completely from scratch including an ENORMOUS pair of wings that could easily detach for easy transport everything was going well at home and at the hotel for the wings even the stressful and straining car ride to the con they survived until I’m pulled aside for a photo with a random girl who loved my wings and cosplay and the wings (which weren’t even touched ) suddenly broke and wouldn’t reattach themselves so I had to be Dutch taped to these wings to keep them from falling apart

Story 4..... I felt that. I had something similar happen last year and now I have a half of a duo cosplay that I spent $150+ and probably about 3 months working on it. I ended up having to take our content off of my page to avoid some real life problems with a 3rd person involved in our falling out. Sucks. 😮‍💨 I still wear it from time to time because I really like the character and how the cosplay looks on me. It makes me feel really pretty, just sucks that I don't get to share that with the person anymore because they decided to make not great life decisions.

Thank you for putting the warning out there regarding contact cement

I was going to Sakura Con in Seattle. It was my first big city con and I went as Ahri from League of Legends. I had seen a deviantart picture someone did of Ahri in a Lunar Revel design (a skinline she's not part of) and it looked incredible, so I got to work on my own Lunar Revel Ahri cosplay. Everything was going great! I had a great wig, a gorgeous red Chinese dress, passable fox ears and got one of those Walmart rubber balls (the ones with the marble pattern) for her magic orb. But because I was working on two other cosplays for the con at the same time (Luna from MLP and Sans from Undertale) I ran out of time on the tails. Ahri is a nine-tailed fox and I had originally planned on making and stuffing all nine tails and using wire for them to hold their shape. Didn't get to the part about how to wear them. I had the perfect fabric and access to a sewing machine, but no time to assemble the pieces. My friends from our college's crafting club (who were also going to the con with me) went out with me and helped me buy some plush white yarn, thinking we could compensate the width by braiding strands together multiple times until we got the desired thickness, but we didn't buy nearly enough yarn. The result was three rat tails that I couldn't even braid around the wire without it being weighed down by the bulk. I cried from frustration the entire time I worked on them. Made the apparatus to tie the tails around my waist and wore it at the con. In hindsight, I should've forgotten about the tails and not worn anything at all. I could've made an excuse that this was a more human version of Ahri without them. While wearing the outfit I ended up purchasing a better set of ears (one of mine fell off from its headband) and after my friends and I took a picture together in our cosplays, I felt pretty beautiful in mine. My makeup was on point, the orb just matched perfectly and I started strutting my stuff confidently like I WAS Ahri. I didn't even worry about or give a second thought to the rat tails that were hanging limply behind me until someone passed me in the vendor's hall and said "Nice Ahri attempt". Attempt. That word alone crushed the confidence in my cosplay. I've never worn Ahri since then. The original fabric I had for the tails sits unused in my garage somewhere. I know I could do her justice if I wanted to, but I just don't think I want to anymore. I don't think the guy that said it meant to be demeaning in the slightest. I think he was genuinely trying to compliment my efforts. But the word "attempt" made me feel like an imposter in a sea of talented cosplayers.

I really appreciate how consistent you are about communicating the dangers of using certain materials, both to you and your pets, and offering ways to work with safer materials (see: Giant Fork of Awesomeness).

New to your channel and enjoying it so much! I grew up watching anime before it had really hit the states and was mesmerized by cosplayers even back then. Now it's so popular that it's almost more intimidating to start trying. Thanks for showing that there are some pretty cool people in this community and that I don't have to be as nervous. :)

I have one, its not that scary but I think it counts! I was cosplaying with my friends outside my house, just vibing and taking pictures. My neighbor decided she didn't like it though, and called the police saying "we were causing a desturbance." Once they got to our house, the police understood, and one of them complemented my cosplay! (we were in matching LOV cosplay and I was Toga!)

As an animal person I appreciate your being protective of the furkids' respiratory systems 🐈‍⬛🤗

I work on my cosplays whenever I watch you, and it really motivates me to keep going even when I mess up!

I really need more of these stories because I like the way you express them

I watched this while working on the very- VERY frustrating part of Purahs skirt from TOTK. it doesnt NEED this much detail, but its for a competition at fan expo chicago. Thats my horror story- I gave myself 4 days to finish this entire cosplay (no where near.) I always love your content!!

I had to stop wearing blue loop earrings when I cosplay as Link (from Legend of Zelda) for Halloween because it's hard to remember to wear earrings every so often so the holes don't close and it started getting to the point the holes would get infected so I stopped wearing earrings altogether (Also last Halloween I completely forgot to turn my phone case into the Shiekah Slate like I did the year before)

Sooo i got one for ya So me and my best friend decided to cosplay Sundrop and Moondrop from FNAF: Security Breach to Beaumont Comic Con 2022 and we had decided it'd be cool to make the masks we were gonna wear spin and light up with my fathers help. We spent about a week just trying to make the masks work. Well con day comes and everything is working, it all looks super cool and we take like three steps into the con and her mask just falls apart. The lights havent fallen out yet but the mechnism to make it spin fell off so were in the lobby of the con trying to ductape this thing to at least make it wearable and by the end it was covered in duct tape but you couldnt tell in pictures. We got tons of photos and it was all super fun regardless. Moral of the story BRING DUCTTAPE also don't make your cosplay harder than it needs to be

It's funny you mentioned at the end, to say if we were planning or working on a cosplay while watching, because as I was watching I reached out to a friend, who does amazing princess lolita stuff, and suggested we could try and enter a cosplay comp next year. :) I hope we get our gear ready in time! Thanks for your vids

STORY 9 OMG WHERE WERE THE ADULTS WHO WOULD STEP IN?! When I was a teen at NDK, I had so many older cosplayers and con goers who's main goal when on the floor was to step in when shit like this happened. THIS POOR GIRL

I found your channel, and I LOVE watching you make these amazing cosplays!! I love your amazing strawberry miku cosplay. it's just great!!

Super enjoyable and got straight into each story without dilly dallying! Thanks

I watch your videos while I work on my own cosplays. I have a convention starting tomorrow, and your videos tremendously help me pass time and not go insane while I work. Thank you so much.

Your pretty good at telling these stories! And I find cosplays interesting so I may have to watch more of your channel! And it baffles me how many creepy and weird people are at conventions

Your vibe is impeccable and I am subscribing.

Kinda my own horror story about the first convention I went to alone. Originally, it was gonna be me and my dad, but he had to cancel last minute. This was going to be a trip to visit my younger sibling as well as they live in the city I went to the convention in. I planned to fly there and my sibling helped me book plane tickets. This was my first time on a plane by myself as well. It went well at first, but then my flight got canceled. My sibling and I rearranged for another flight the next day with help from an employee (who also used to be a classmate of ours back in high school, so she understood why I was so upset). However, the second flight was cancelled later that night and my sibling had to arrange another flight to get me there that day and I ended up missing the first day of the con. On the bright side, I got to meet a ninja turtle VA and my sibling took me on a mini tour of the city, including showing where they were going to university.

Also I freaking love watching these videos while I'm sewing my clothes!

Bruh I have so many stories. I've been in the community since 2008 unofficially, 2009 since I've been physically going to cons. So much drama. So many broken props at the fault of other people. So many stolen wigs/cosplays. So many awkward moments and panic attacks in large crowds. Dating drama. Friendship drama. "That character is MINE" drama. Drunk 420 hotel suite room drama. And of course, broken or ripped cosplays. I've since moved out of state a few months ago and I mostly only do gyaru and historical fashion now, but I do have a few cosplays I want to finish.

Love the crochet top ;) I've already noticed you crochet because of your mic cover, but I'm really happy to see cosplayers crochet!!

I have way too many convention horror stories to begin with.. But one was relatable to the 5th Story at Colossal Prime. I will NEVER go there again, & I won't ever have any good things to say about any Colossal convention. Majority of people I've run into every time I gave it a try/second/third chance, either drink too much & pressure you into doing the same, want to try & force themselves onto you in a s*xual way, or both. & I've had a friend banned all because she was trying to stick up for one of her friends being s*xually harassed in one of the women's public restrooms.

this video made me smile haha, i loved the stories

The train story is a good example as to why trains in the States should really only transport items and not PEOPLE

Please someone report that creep who assaulted that girl. She obviously has his info. Police need to know.

That one with the beading is why I always try to sew each bead on individually or in very small sections. It's horrible to watch one thread snap and all your work fall apart!!!!

whilst i was watching this i was making a vaggie cosplay! its my first time ever making one, i wasn’t doing anything special i was just picking a size for the buttons on her shirt 💀

My name is Serenity and I can’t even say it half the time so the little slip up when saying “Serenity dress” was so relatable 🥲

I’m 7 months late but I turned this on while styling a wig, I cosplay princess peach, and I wanted to recreate her flowers from the Mario movie but put them in her hair (from the wedding scene) and it looks so good and the story’s were so good too😊

I entered exactly one costume contest in my entire life, and I will never forget it... I have little to no experience with creating costumes and had just made a humble Bob from Tekken get up. It was mainly made of hot glue and some Value Village leather pants I cut up. Keep in mind, I was in my early years of high-school at this time. I was not planning on entering the contest, I was just going because two of my friends were going. When my friends were signing up, I was with them, and the person behind the sign up sheet suggested I sign up too. I was reluctant at first, because my skills are certainly amateur and I was especially shy at the time. But I was told repeatedly that it was just for fun, that everyone was amateur, and that it cost nothing. So, unfortunately, I accepted. There were no separate categories, so every age and skill were lumped together. There were about 1-2 dozen of us (including some literal elementary school children) and it worked by each person being called up by name one at a time, given a minute or so to introduce their costume and show off with some mild riffing from the judges. The judges were a group of three men in their 30s I think, and it was clear they thought they were the funniest people on the planet and that this entire contest was beneath them. From what I understand, they were part of a podcast or something, and were handling a bunch of the shows, so this was just one stop on their comedy tour. When I came up, I was not taken seriously, (even more so than the others) with the riffing being especially harsh. They asked if I was a lumberjack, I think on account of my suspenders. None of them knew about Tekken or Bob, so my entire time was just explaining what he was about. I was then sent to stand at the back of the stage with the others that had already come up. However, before the next person was called up, one of the judges showed his phone to the other judges and said, "That's Bob, I guess." One of the other judges then said something I will never forget: "Well, he got the weight part right." The judges laughed, the audience laughed, and even the cosplayers standing beside me laughed. And I'm just standing on stage in my shitty costume wishing I had never agreed to this. It would still be a few minutes before either of my friends got on stage, so I was totally alone for this. Once everyone had been introduced, they gave some obligatory lines about how it would be difficult to pick a winner, only to then follow that up by saying something along the lines of: "But at least we know where to start cutting." Without being called by name, me and a few others were motioned to for us to leave. Thankfully, one of the others getting kicked off started crying (In her defense, they had already asked her if she was 'Fat Princess', which I can understand being difficult to just brush off), so all the attention was on her storming off in an absolute fit, and the judges laughing and playing it off ("It's not like there's a cash prize."; something like that). So, I was able to just sulk off unnoticed. Both my friends remained on stage while I left the venue and texted my mom for a pick-up. While waiting for my ride, I heard someone call out: "It's the lumberjack." I turned to see a group laughing, with one of them taking a picture of me. Somewhere out there is a picture of a high-school me sulking by myself in a parking lot, dressed like, of all things, Bob from Tekken.

Yep! I was sketching out my zip (Fpe) au cosplay and making some bracelets for it! :D

I wish I could still go to colossal con. I live in Ohio but the con has kinda gone downhill because of the security or lack there of after the pandemic. I relate way to much to that person hope that they find a better con to go to and have fun in the future!

Once a guy how wanted to take pictures of me said his gonna upload the pictures on "diverse pages" and I was like "what pages?" And he was like "just divorse pages". And I was like "can you send me a link before you upload them". And than he was like "okay than not". Wtf

Atlanta PD is crazy! Great video as usual

I went to a cosplay convention as Hatsune Miku, when I was 15 and some random guy that looked to be at the age of 26-29 came up to me and asked if he could take a photo with me and I said yes bc I wanted to be nice, but when I stood next to him he put his arm around me and tried to slide it down my skirt😭 my friend who was with me at the time ran over and grabbed his hand and dragged me away. He kept following us the rest of the day and it was so scary! I haven’t went to a con since. This was my first and last conversation.

I cosplay Alphinaud without an Alisaie (twins), and people ask me about her ALL THE TIME at a con. It's almost the only thing they say to me (usually yelling it at me from a distance?), and I've gotten to the point where I ignore them half the time.

I have had SOOOOOO many dudes speak to me like that at the very end of the video. Why? Because I was on a robotics team in high school and worked at Gamestop out of high school. One dude in my team consistently spoke with the 'm'lady' thing. The rest of the team was fine, but on other teams, I ran into it frequently. Mind you, I was the only female on mine out of 20 dudes, Females in the pit for the contest were about a quarter of the bodies there, a huge percentage coming from an all female team. At Gamestop, I frequently was flirted with and was asked my number a lot too. I AM NOT PRETTY. I actually think I'm quite ugly. I'm just a female who worked at Gamestop and once got a stalker because of it. The first night I worked there, the midnight launch for Destiny, I was shoved into a wall and that customer got banned. And I once had a long conversation about pokemon. He eventually asked me what my favorite pokemon was with a smug look, and I said crobat. He asked why. I went over its stats, I went over its speed specifically, I went over the range of moves it has, I went over everything, and ended with talking about how its been my favorite since I was 5 and I think its adorable due to that. And he slapped the counter, pointed at me and declared, "There it is! You just think it's cute." I never wanted to drop kick someone so hard.

If you're at a con and unsure about going to the staff, find the artist alley and find a buddy, 90% of artists will help!!!!!!!

I love watching your channel. I have a lot of questions about cosplay and have no idea how to get started. I really like the costumes you make. Congratulations on your win. Any advice would be appreciated.