Avoidant personality and Cosplay

I am a comic collector (read hoarder who thinks his stuff is worth something).

Was going to Comic cons and having the young women in Cosplay outfits look at me as if I was some sort of pervert if I looked at them. As I love Cons I decided to do something about it. So I built a Heat gun and dressed as Heatwave (Mick Rory) from DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Flash (love Heatwave always did).

Outfit has a great M-65 army jacket. Character is around 100kgs and so am I. Solid build large shoulders etc.

I hate crowds, parties, weddings, birthdays, answering the phone, basically anything that brings me into contact with people I don't know very well. Avoidant personality.

It had been a great day at the Con and I was waiting for the Arthur Darvil panel. Queued for over half hour when someone drops into the queue up ahead. He was very smooth. Wandered up to some people checking their phone while he was checking his, as if they had been holding a spot for him. After a couple of minutes when no-one had spoken to him I realised he was a queue jumper and I thought " why doesn't someone do something about him. Someone should say something. "

Then it hit me. I thought "what would Mick Rory do" .

Next thing I knew I was standing in front of him and it went like this.
Me: " did you just drop in on this queue ... does anyone here know you" everyone shook their heads ..
him: " I thought this was the start of the queue .."
Me: " no .. the start is back there .." jerking my thumb over my shoulder .." get lost"

people were a little shocked , but I said " was channeling Mick Rory" .. did some high fives and back to my own spot in the queue.

The thing is I would never ever have done anything like that. My voice was low, slow and measured. Emotionless. So very not like me.

Love that coat, and the gloves and the welders goggles and the Heat gun (which was in the cloak room at the time)

not sure I am the sort of Cosplayer that will be invited to children' s hospitals, but it was a lot of fun.

Love that coat.

Your last couple of threads have really got me thinking Terry.. so much stuff that I'd pretty much forgotten about.

I'm not good with crowds or parties, weddings, birthdays, answering the phone etc either, and I'm very avoidant. Not sure how much of that is from aspergers, and how much is from the ptsd..

Channeling a different character in the way that you did there, is a really strange thing when you start looking back on it.
Long story but I was homeless once.. spent some time living on the streets in a city.. and it was easier in many ways.. I knew what was expected of me there - so I kind of created a character for myself to get through it.
Weird but i actually loved it - loved the community of it. Sitting there and asking for spare change.. joining everyone at the food van late at night..
I created a character that was tough.. always ready to chat and smile at the other homeless.. but also always looking tough and not about to take crap off anyone.
probably one of the few places that avoiding too much eye contact is accepted.. noone made too much - none of us were friends exactly.. companions for a while - but..

I've kind of lost the point of this i think.. but yep - totally get how channeling a character like you did with your cosplay thing can make you completely different for the while that you're doing it.

I still have no idea how I managed to wear a different persona for so long back then - or maybe i was simply channeling those parts of myself and leaving the rest behind for a while.. but I'm in reality pretty anxious at meeting people, i'm pretty shy and it takes forever for people to even start getting a proper picture of me usually..



Maybe we should have gone into acting.. only problem with that is that I'd probably have no idea who i really am after a while..
xx

I love your story, Terry! Way to be there and tell that guy who he's messing with!

That's glorious. If only there could be cosplay group therapy. I'm sure it'd take some of the edge off at least.