When I was in 7th grade, I only had a few friends and was extremely shy. I was secretly into anime and manga, and only had one other friend, N, who watched anime. N and I were sitting in the school library in the morning talking about Ouran High School Host Club when this girl decked out in a neon green tutu, a black t-shirt advertising some J-rock band and rainbow leggings walks over.
Before I start, you need to know a bit about me. Even though I’m a Chinese through and through, my surname was one of the rarer ones which sounded a lot like a Japanese word. Hence I’ve had my fair share of people assuming as such.
Classes just changed and there was this new student. He wasn’t shy of letting known his interests in anime and all things otaku, and openly shared it with everyone. It was long before he started spouting nonsense. One of which was how he was of mixed race, and was 1/8 Japanese. No one bought it, but someone had to mention me.
Almost immediately when he heard of my name, he’d started acting aggressive towards me. Every time we’d come across each other he’d give a angry glare at me. Things got more serious when he would approach me and challenge my knowledge on all things Japanese. Slowly it picked at my patience.
The last straw came when he’d loudly and publicly mocked me for my name, claiming “You’re not a real Japanese, I’d bet you’d change your name just to feel like one!”
I snapped back at him “Well excuse me?! I don’t remember giving you permission to criticize my name. At least some people don’t even need to pretend being an Asian! Mixed-Japanese my ass…” The whole class applauded at the moment (he wasn’t well liked). Upset and humiliated, he stormed out the class.
Thankfully after that, he’d started missing classes and eventually we were told he transferred out to another school. We were glad to see him gone. Good riddance.
Apparently some people never grow out of their weeb phase. Even in a senior-level class of a State University.
I’m going to call this particular classmate of mine “V” rather than his full name. V is in the same major program as me, Technical and Professional Writing and Editing. Sounds like a mouthful, right? One that we have to act and write professionally for, right? Apparently not.
This year I went to my first con. It was an amazing experience and I wish I had more time to go. We went on Saturday only, just for a day. I had scraped together my money to by a cosplay. It was Egypt, one of my favorite Hetalia characters.
I will say one thing, I am short, very much so, and at the convention, I told my parents I wanted to explore on my own. They agreed, so I went to explore, I stopped by Artist’s Alley and was looking around when someone tapped my shoulder. It was a girl.
I have always loved French culture; the language, the food, the art, ad architecture. I also happen to have very blonde hair and very blue eyes.. consequently I make a pretty good France. There is quite the stigma surrounding France cosplayers I’m afraid.. but let me assure you that I have never groped or made unwanted contact with someone else.
One day this went too far. At my second ever con i made some additions to my cosplay, including spandex and fake handcuffs for humorous purposes only. On the second night however I was with a group of people i considered friends. I was using my accent putting on the ct and i had my handcuffs. Suddenly several of then tackled and restrained me taking the handcuffs and securing my arms behind my back. Though shaken i laughed along and a small crowd of con-goers gathered.
then one of the girls asked if i was wearing my spandex.. when I responded “yes” she immediately pulled down my pants. I was very panicky at this point and begging them to stop while con-goers cheered, laughed took pictures, and even filmed the event. Derogatory comments were made as if I was still in character.
Is it really so hard to differentiate between ME and the character I choose to portray? Beneath the cosplay there is a person. It takes a long time to recover from public humiliation.. I can tell you that much. All I can do is implore readers to respect others for the person they are BENEATH the costume.
Okay, back in March 2012, I went to a con with my best friend. Let’s call him Matt. Matt and I were both cosplaying as characters from Persona 4. I was Yukiko while he was Souji. Now we were at this one panel and while we were waiting for it to start, a man who was probably around 35 or something sat next to me. He recognized our characters and started talking to us. I’ll name him James.
We were polite and held a conversation with him….Then it got uncomfortable. He started talking about how Yukiko was his favorite girl and he always finished her social link first and was very attracted to her. James then told us about his rule 34 collection. He THEN told us about how he really regrets forgetting his camera and called me “kawaii” and “moe”. Matt and I left as soon as we could…but James followed us around the con… We eventually lost him in the dealer room and we both hope we never see him again.
So I was at a con with my girlfriend about a year and a half ago. We were out of state, waiting to meet up with some friends, but in the mean time we just kind of sat around and got a coffee. While we were waiting a girl comes up to us with a companion.
The girl had on bunny ears and looked pretty damn happy to see me and my girlfriend (we were dressed as John and Dave from homestuck. The person she had brought with her was another Dave, except they had on a collar and leash. She decided to introduce herself by saying, “Hi I’m ________, and this is my BITCH, Dave.”
After that we didn’t really know what to say, kind of trying to be friendly without knowing how to respond. Luckily they didn’t stay around too long, but they continued to introduce themselves like that to pretty much every homestuck.
Hi there everyone, just wanna start by saying sorry for the sporadic updates, parsing long stories is somewhat of an arduous task nowdays (I’ll try to do better!).
Anyway, this blog is dedicated to bringing you a bullshit free weeaboo story experience. Since we started, we’ve kept a strict policy of not talking about ourselves or straying too far off topic. However, I’m making an exception, just this once, for something very exciting. I hope you’ll understand.
My name is Heather Cowie (mintymu on tumblr), and I’m one of two mods running Weeaboo Stories. I’m a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University. Every year to celebrate Chinese New Year, CMU hosts an event called Lunar Gala, a part-fashion-show-part-performance-event. Here’s this year’s promo video
It’s a very professional, impeccably put together affair. It is also incredibly difficult to get into. I am on a team of 4 other designers who managed to make the cut.
Our line, called Siroc, is a fashion line influenced by the films of Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli. We draw inspiration from the characters but go beyond cosplay to merge fashion into the equation.
I started a blog to document our progress, all I ask is that, if you love Miyazaki films as much as we do, you follow us and share our blog with those who might be interested. We will be posting sketches, sewing progress, patternmaking, and even tutorials on how many aspects of our line were accomplished. In the future, we may also begin accepting small donations to offset our costs in exchange for art commissions or other related items like stickers and crafts (we’re a team of art students:) ) If you’re into cosplay, it could definitely be a useful resource.
Anyhow, if you love ghibli films, give us a follow, and I promise we’ll do our best to blow your minds with our hard work! We’re just starting the blog, so there’s not much yet, but there will be!
~>FOLLOW US HERE<~
I came across this, and I don’t believe this link has been posted before, so for everyone here, I’ll just drop this link.
It is essentially a service to inappropriate and also awesome fans who you encounter, willingly or not, while at conventions. Easy to get the message across to people you meet. :)