September Writing Challenge - Prompt #1:
Nerd Alert
Full disclosure: I included this prompt because I knew we would be going to Fan X this month.
We decided to splurge a bit and take the whole family. Luckily, ages 10 & under are free because it cost a small fortune. Scotty and Nicky had been before, but the girls and I had never gone. I’ve always been curious, and as an enthusiastic people watcher, it seemed like a great place to go… um… judge people?
I thought Fan X would have a lot of the following:
- Harry Potter
- Star Wars
- Lord of the Rings
- Mario Brothers, Zelda, & other video games
- Stranger things
- Nostalgic movies like Ghostbusters & Back to the Future
- Super heroes
- Minecraft
- Pokémon
- Doctor Who
- Board games & books
There was a little bit of all of that. But mostly it was anime. So much anime. And a lot of it was stuff I don’t want my kids to see - lots of p*rnographic manga artwork. Between that, the revealing costumes, and a bunch of people trying to hand us stuff while walking down the street, it felt a lot like Las Vegas.
I didn’t know what 90% of the costumes were. I was kind of disappointed. Now that I’ve been, I don’t ever need to go again.
BUT…
I looked forward to Fan X. Most of the cast of Back to the Future was there, and oh! How I wish I could have seen Michael J Fox - my first crush! I don’t need to ever meet him, but I would have liked to have seen him from a distance and checked that off my bucket list. Instead of seeing Michael J Fox, I saw the line leading to Michael J Fox and acknowledged the fact that Michael J Fox was technically in the same room as me. That’s good enough. We were *this close* to seeing Christopher Lloyd, but I wasn’t willing to wait around for him to show up.
We did get to see these people - of whom I made a collage since photo taking is strictly prohibited unless you’re willing to fork over $80+.
I was probably most excited about “Newman” and “Dean.” Daisy has been watching Gilmore Girls, and even though she won’t say it, I’m pretty sure she’s crushing on Dean. And it’s just nice to know that Wayne Knight hasn’t fallen completely from the earth.
I wish I could have seen Pauly Shore. He had a strong presence in my childhood - “Hey, budddddyyyyy!” I can pretty much quote A Goofy Movie, Encino Man, and Son-In-Law from memory. His table was empty.
Along with most of the cast of Back to the Future, there were several members of the cast of Scream. I loved Scream when I was younger and watched it all the time! All three original movies (I’m not proud). The only one who was scheduled while we were there was Neve Campbell, but Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, and Skeet Ulrich were also making appearances. Because of this, there were a lot of people dressed as ghostface. There were also a lot of Marty McFlys running around.
Therein lies my nerd alert.
But really! There was just soooo much anime.
So very much.
But let’s rewind to the time where I was excited to go to Fan X and didn’t know that it would be so heavily saturated in anime…
The night before the event, I decided I wanted to make costumes for my family. Last-minute costumes have been a trend in my life. I’ve been known to go to the DI on Halloween to buy components for a costume. Sometimes inspiration hits me late. On Thursday night, I started brainstorming ideas for family costumes. I came up with three options: Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder version), or Care Bears (Scotty would have been Grumpy Bear, for sure). It just depended on what pieces we could find at the DI on Friday morning.
The DI opens at 9:00, so we rope dropped with the hoarders and started our hunt for costume elements. I sent every kid on a mission, and we had great success for our first choice of cosplay: Alice in Wonderland.
Featured cosplayers:
Nicky as the Mad Hatter
Items purchased from DI: green shirt & yellowish overcoat (found in the women’s section) (crappy, old, moth-eaten men’s blazers were $20 at DI! Are you kidding me?)
Items purchased from Hobby Lobby: soft felt (bow tie) and stiff felt (hat).
Items from home: green pants
Daisy as Alice
1 comment:
Those costumes are fantastic! I'm impressed with your last minute work
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