So, I’m at the mall today with my cousin, Elise. She wants to go into Hot Topic, so I agree and go in with her. I’m wearing my red hammer and sickle shirt. I capture the attention of two young women, who just stare at me creepily.

I smile nervously at them and waggle my fingers and notice something: They’re wearing Hetalia t-shirts.

One girl smiles and squeals, “RUSSIAAAAAAA!!!!”  (I look NOTHING like Russia.) She tackles me, and I fall to the floor (which is hard concrete) and am being crushed by this girl. Elise is trying to pull her off of me, but the poor girl is too small and weak to get her off. But that doesn’t even compare to what this chick did next.

She groped me.

Holy fuck. This total stranger GROPED ME. 

Eventually, mall security dragged her off. But my t-shirt was damaged and a bunch of Hot Topic merch was scattered on the ground, which the other girl had to pick up all by herself. The first girl’s parents came over, apologized profusely and gave me money to buy a new shirt. And they paid for all of the merchandise that she broke.

I vow to never step foot in HT again.

For those who don’t know, Belarus is the stereotypical ’yandere’ character in Hetalia who is obsessed with marrying her older brother Russia. I had never ran into weeaboos at a convention before but I met the worst Belarus cosplayer the last convention I went to.

Her wig looked like she bought it at party city and she harassed the Russia cosplayers. At first, when we were all waiting for the Hetalia panel to start, it was all in good fun when she was chasing a fem!Russia cosplayer around. But then the fem!Russia cosplayer legitimately tried hiding from her and told her to leave her alone.

Eventually we got into the panel and I was in the row behind this Belarus. She was pretty obnoxious and kept raising her hand over and over again, even after she got called on to answer a question, when there were people with real questions for the voice actors who hadn’t had a chance to ask anything yet. The question she asked was, in a very poor imitation of Belarus’ voice, “Will any of you come between big brother and me?”

We went to the photoshoot and she was there. There she and another Belarus cosplayer harassed another Russia cosplayer. I felt bad for the poor lad because they were pulling at his coat and hanging onto him and everything and he told them to stop repeatedly. And the main Belarus was like really into character too much. When all the girl characters came together to a photo, I was cosplaying as Hungary, she kept tugging possessively on the back of my dress. 

The next day I talked to the Russia cosplayer and he told me how he was really annoyed and how he hadn’t been playing around when he told them to stop. Anyway, the point of the story is that just because you’re cosplaying a possessive or ‘yandere’ character does not mean you need to act IN character the whole time and you especially should not harass other cosplayers and stop when they tell you to.

Halfway through eighth grade, I moved to a new school. I became pretty great friends with a group of girls, who got me interested in Hetalia. None of us were really OBSESSED, or really classified as weeaboos. But there was this one girl, we’ll call her S. 

S had the biggest crush on Canada (Her DeviantArt favorites were literally all pictures or ReaderXHetalia fics) and it was really just on the verge of being creepy. Then, she found out I was Canadian, and that’s when it got really weird.

I’m not gonna deny it, I’m actually a lot like Canada. I’m shy, introverted, the works. S constantly made ‘jokes’ about my ‘Canadian-ness’ and often called me Mattie or Canada instead of my real name. She also physically did things like hug me from behind, carry me in the hallways, glomp me, etc. which I’m really not okay with because of other reasons. It didn’t help that she has a bigger frame than the rest of my friends, and I’m on the smaller side. She really made me feel helpless, and I didn’t like it one bit. 

Around this time, our group of friends started roleplaying on an online chatroom. My friend H roleplayed as America, me as Canada, and S actually roleplayed herself. 

Yep. Herself.

She also paired herself with Canada, which I really didn’t like at all. But I was too polite to say anything about it, and just let her do what she wanted to him. 

I don’t know if this really classifies at a weeaboo, but all of my other friends were REALLY relieved when she stopped roleplaying with us. She goes to a different high school now, so I no longer have to fear that I’ll get glomped just for having a nationality.

Earlier this year, my parents took me to my first Expo. I had decided to wear my favourite boy-Lolita outfit (which involved ruffled just above the knee shorts, a blouse, binder and a little pirate hat) and the day was going pretty well. My parents decided to go and get food, and left me to wander around with a bit of cash for a while. I was looking at the plush toys for a while, mainly a Ciel Phantomhive one, when I feel someone stroking my (short) hair and touching my hat. I turn around, rather quickly, to see this rather large guy grinning at me, hand still on my head.

“You should get that.” He said, pointing to the plush, “You and Ciel are so alike. You’re both so kawaii…”

More than a little creeped out, I asked him to get off my hair and hat. He looked a little taken aback, and as I bought my plush, I hear him say, “I thought you were a little boy…”

Hastily grabbing my change, I wandered off. I thought that was the last of him.

Nope.

A few minutes later, I was looking at anime/manga t-shirts. And who do I notice a few feet away? The creepy hair-stroker. He came closer and said, creepily as ever, “You should get the Ciel-chan t-shirt…you’d look so (some random Japanese phrase) in that.” I was VERY creeped out by this point, and I walked away without buying anything. He followed me, grinning like mad, and at one point said “I can pretend you’re a boy, and you can still be my Ciel-chan.” I told him to go away, but he didn’t listen.

He only stopped when some random guy (whom I shall call Giggles) cosplaying as Pyramid Head (minus the head/helmet, which he was holding) and said VERY loudly, “Oh, babe, THERE you are! We’ve been looking for you!” and he walked me over to a group of other male cosplayers who, frankly, looked like they’d punch anyone who came near them.

Once the creeper had gone, Giggles told me that this guy had been following boy-lolitas and Ciel cosplayers all day.

I didn’t tell my parents when they got back, I just got on with the rest of the day and fortunately didn’t bump into the creeper again.

I went to a con near the beginning of summer as Dave Strider. I was at the Homestuck fan shoot (so no staff was there). While I was waiting for my character to be called, the cosplayer behind me, who I will call Dirk, introduced himself. He seemed friendly enough, and asked questions here and there. No big deal, it got creepy pretty fast after we had been talking, he started making perverted comments, saying I was a loli-con and ‘moe’.

When dirkdave was called up for the shipping part he forcibly grabbed my arm and pulled me up with him, though my group’s Dirk cosplayer was the one I was supposed to be with at the time, and proceeded to pose provocatively with me against my will. Mind you, I am a minor. After the pairing was done, I told him calmly and quietly that I was a minor, to which he replied “So?” and I followed it up with the fact I am not interested in men. He followed me around for the rest of the con, mostly from a distance, and in one instance tackling me in a hug when I was meandering without my group.

When I was in high school, there was this guy (I’ll call him Jay) that had a tremendous crush on me. Jay was indeed an huge weeb, two years older than me, and a lolicon. He called me his “loli”. I’m a very petite, flat chested, skinny korean girl, that fit into his perverted lolita fantasies. Sometimes he would ask me if he could dress me up in different skimpy maid costumes and show me some of the loli hentai he had with him. At other times, he would sit next to me at lunch and pull me away into his uncomfortable embrace, saying “no! my loli!” while I was talking with some friends.  I brushed it off at first thinking it was nothing. Long story short, I got annoyed and I told him upfront that I didn’t like him, and he ended up crying and breaking a few boxes. Because of Jay, my interest in cute anime things, along with watching and reading anime died. I couldn’t get back into it as much cause it reminded me of him so much.

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When I was in middle school, I rode the school bus with a boy a grade ahead of me who I’ll call Pants. Pants was obsessed with the Sonic the Hedgehog series. And not just a little bit obsessed. Pants was obsessed to the point where he insisted vehemently to all of his classmates that he was actually a hedgehog, and that in a secret lab experiment, he’d been given the capability to speak and take on human form, as well as super strength and intelligence. He was so insistent that part of me thinks that he actually believed this about himself.

Pants had a massive crush on my best friend at the time, who I’ll call Sally, who was, as you probably guessed, wasn’t at all interested. At one point, he got into a physical fight with another guy over her. When she rejected him after this, he responded by curling up in the fetal position for the rest of the bus ride.

Another bus ride, there was a horrible smell, like rotting cheese. Since middle schoolers tend to be mean, a lot of the other kids on the bus started teasing Pants about it, saying that the smell was probably him. He responded by saying “Actually, you’re probably right.” and pulling a random chunk of rotting cheese that he’d been carrying for some unknown reason in his backpack.

When I was in 8th grade, I rode the bus home with my friends (whom I will call Mike and Mark). There was always a kid that showed up, but it wasn’t a while before I recognized him as someone I met in summer camp and invited him to sit down with me. (I’ll call him Dave.) It turned how he was a pretty big anime and K-Pop fan and he seemed like a cool person.

Shortly after he got off the bus, Mark ranted about how much he hated Dave and how Dave made his life a living hell by driving away every friend he ever had, claimed to be “half-Japanese,” and made people sympathetic for him every time he got in trouble because he was a “poor, orphan boy adopted from Korea”. He also took note of how Dave was known for sexually harassing Asian girls at his previous schools and was even expelled for poking one with a pocket knife. I thought to myself, “He’s only a kid, there’s no way that’s for real” and brushed it off. Which I really regret.

Dave sat next to me quite often and sure enough told me he was “half-Japanese” and adopted from Korea and constantly called me “onee-chan” (which irked me, because I’m Taiwanese, not Japanese). Things started getting especially creepy when he would start stroking me, rubbing my leg, and even attempt to grope me despite me constantly telling him to respect my personal space. I had had enough by this point and punched him in the mouth, kicked him, etc.

That did not stop him from stalking me in between classes and actually “glomping” me in the classroom. Somehow he found my Facebook and messaged me creepy things like, “I love you, onee-chan. I’ll dress in lolita for you if you forgive me.” Eventually I found out that Mike’s girlfriend had undergone the same sexual harassment by Dave and that it was starting to her AGAIN, and we were both uncomfortable and frustrated about it.

Eventually Mark and Mike reported Dave to the principal. Dave was expelled, but he made some stupid claim about Mark and Mike bullying him and they were punished as well. To this day Dave keeps making accounts to find me on Facebook and going off about being “a quarter Japanese” and posting hentai and yaoi all over. He’s currently blocked, but I have a bad feeling he’s somehow going to find me again.

This happened during a photography class last winter. We were in groups shooting portraits in two different studios. My girlfriend and I were in one studio while our friend Alex was shooting in the other. Alex pays us a visit and tells us about what had just happened in the other studio. He tells us that he was approached by our classmate, Laura. 

He tells us that while they chatted she told him that he could totally pass as a gay man. He broke the news to her that he was “Very gay”. My girlfriend and I were just a little thrown off by that since Alex doesn’t do anything to hide his sexuality from anyone. Its pretty obvious.

What he tells us next is what really knocks us off our feet.

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