ConnectiCon 2009 part 1: What I Saw

I’m going a bit off-topic tonight, but it’s for a good cause. Saturday, I went to ConnectiCon, an annual local convention in Hartford, CT devoted to comics, webcomics, anime, and video games. Tomorrow, I’ll get into the things I did, much of which is on-topic for the BW Media Spotlight. Tonight, however, I thought I’d show some of the cosplayers which dominated the convention. They made most to all of their own costumes, and they’re darn good.

Also, this is a rare occasion where I can try out WordPress’s “gallery” feature.

To try and swing this on-topic, what some of you may write off as just a bunch of kids playing dress-up when they could be doing something “more important” with their lives–and you make me sad if you’re among that group–is really a testament not only to the creativity of the cosplayers, but to the people who create the characters these young people devote so much time to portraying. (Young people. Like I’m that old. Yet. I just have the spirit of someone 10 years younger. I hope he doesn’t want it back.) They really put a lot of time and effort into this.

Play is something “we” (not me) keep trying to not only breed out of “adults”, but also out of kids, and this upsets me. When you play, you imagine. When you imagine, you dream. When you dream, you become inspired. When your inspired, you can change the world. It’s time to push the darkness away from our world, and bring back a sense of fun, in both fiction and reality. I think they did an amazing bit of work on this, as did the people who put this event together, and while I may have been somewhat out of place (being only a demi-geek), I had a good time just marveling at the imagination and hard work they put into these costumes. Who knows? Maybe someday they can use these talents to better the world, even if it’s only to make play more fun and inspire others. Sometimes you need to be someone else, if only for a little while. And if you take some of that back with you into the real world, life becomes much easier to handle.

Whoa. That was kind of deep for this blog. Tomorrow, what I saw, and what I brought back with me. Sadly not hugs or pretty girl’s phone numbers, but some pretty cool comics and a toy collecting holy grail obtained, so not a loss at all. (Besides I didn’t go there to just babe watch.)