Cosplay Corner: Wizard World Philadelphia & Chibi-Moon

Cosplay has started to become a big part of my life again lately. (It never fully goes away), but lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time and effort on it, both for conventions and for every day “closet cosplays” because they make me feel good. So, for now, once a week. (Tuesdays or Fridays, depending on Movie Season…) I’ll talk about what my cosplay stuff looks like for the week.

Since tomorrow, I’m heading to Wizard World Philadelphia, I figured today was a good day to talk about the costumes I’ll be wearing there. (I know the con’s been going on for 2 days, but I’m not there yet.)

Since I don’t sew, most of my costumes are assembled from various bought items or things I already own, or stuff I dupe my mom into making. (Hi Mommy, I love you!)

Con Ready Costumes

First up is my new costume of the weekend, Agent Peggy Carter!

If you’re unfamiliar with Agent Carter, I don’t know what you’re doing on my blog, because if you don’t know Peggy chances are you’re not into what I’m selling, but she’s the badass British bombshell who worked with the Strategic Scientic Resever (SSR) during Steve Roger’s training before he became Captain America. She also founded SHIELD alongside Howard Stark.

I’m wearing a take on her military uniform. It’s almost perfect, except for the jacket…but this was a last minute decision so I had to take what I could get quickly and cheaply.

I’ll be in brown skirt I purchased from Amazon, as well as a Khaki shirt and a black tie. The jacket is pleather and was quick Goodwill find, and I really like the way it came together.

My Captain America costume is my laziest of all cosplays, but I love it so much. It’s simply the Her Universe Captain America Dress, a pair of red boots I bought years ago for Supergirl, and the child size Captain America Shield.

Closet Cosplay Of The Week

So, I’ve been closet cosplaying or casual cosplaying a lot lately, and I figured I’d document those. These will be mostly from my already existing wardrobe, and almost always work appropriate!

This week, I decided to channel Sailor Chibi-Moon

I started by putting my hair up in half pigtails, I think that this gets the “bun head” feel a little better than just regular pigtails.

White tee shirt is pretty self explanatory. The pink skirt is a fun Polo skirt made of sweatshirt material and features a tie, to give me that extra Sailor Moon bow feeling.

The thing I was most proud of with this look though, was wearing the pink tassel to represent the Sailor Collar.

Add in a pair of pink ballet flats, and I’m all set to train to defend Earth in the name of the moon!

Over the next few weeks I’ll be pulling out other closet cosplays, and detailing some of my more intricate Con costumes, even if I don’t have a con coming up. (Although, I do…but I’m not putting anything together for Heroes and Villains…) I think this is going to be fun!

 

“Specimen”: Beauitful Men, The MCU and Female Fantasy

As I try to grow as a woman and a feminist and a writer, one of the things that I’ve been trying to pay some attention to is gendered language. I read an essay a while back that talked about the way that we discuss women’s looks verse the way we talk about men’s. Words like “beautiful” as opposed to words like “handsome.” Because of this I’ve tried really hard to use specific words when it comes to describing someone’s attractiveness whenever possible.

And lately I’ve been thinking about men who I describe as beautiful.

Not all the men I find myself attracted to would fit this descriptor. I’d say even a traditionally attractive man, like say, George Clooney is still more handsome than beautiful. The Boston Boys, as I’ve called them many time (Wahlberg, Affleck and Damon) also fit that bill. But I do kind of have a thing for pretty boys.

Specifically here, I want to talk about The MCU, though and how those men, in particular are just, beautiful. It’s a specific brand of gorgeous, they just glow, and while they’re certainly representing a male power fantasy, as nearly all superheroes do, there’s something feminine in the fantasy of these men. One of my very first posts here was about how The Avengers presents archetypes for several different fantasies for those so inclined.

Obviously, “The Chrises” are the best example of this Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and later Chris Pratt are all beautiful, if in a simple specific, WASPY way, but when you place them as Captain America, Thor and Star Lord, you’re creating three specific types, The All American Good Boy, The God and The Roguish Man Child. They are specific fantasies.

What got me thinking about this recently was of course Civil War, but specifically Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther in Civil War. I knew from 42 that Boseman was a good looking guy, but as I watched him on the big screen as T’Challa, I grabbed Aless’s arm and gasped, “He’s just so beautiful!” (Her response, a nice little pat and “yeah, hon, I know, but…movie…” Aless is a much more rational human than I am.)

Sooo, beautiful….

So what does this have to do with feminism? Well, allowing for female sexual fantasy is a big part feminism, and allowing men to be seen as aesthetically beautiful is also a good gender parity thing. But I’m not the first person to talk about the female gaze and the Marvel movies, but it’s an important aspect that I think doesn’t get talked about enough. But I talk about this a lot in my everyday life and now I want to talk about it here too.

Because I think talking about beautiful men is important. And also fun. So that’s, that. YAY!

“It Matters Most That We Stay Together”

Happy Movie Season 2016!!!!! As I move into my fourth summer here and my third official movie season (where does the time go?) it really couldn’t have kicked off better than with Captain America: Civil War.

While Civil War doesn’t quite hit the highs of The Winter Soldier (to be honest it will be very hard for any movie to ever hit those highs again.) it’s a really worthy entry into the MCU and proof positive that these movies might be able to scale back their conflicts a little.

Yes, believe it or not a movie that features an epic 10 + minute long melee between 10 superheroes actually feels quite small, because that fight is not actually the climax of the movie. (Though it is awesome.) There are two conflicts throughout the film that eventually converge.

After the events of Age of Ultron The United Nations has drafted The Sokovia Accords, which would put the Avengers under the jurisdiction of, well, now Secretary of State Thunder Bolt Ross. This splits the team in two, Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye and Scarlett Witch on one and Iron Man, Black Widow, War Machine and Vision on the other. Each team also recruits a bug themed guy. (Mans Ant and Spider respectively.)

The second conflict is of course, Bucky centric. Now living in hiding, a bombing during the finalization of the accords that kills the king of Wakanda is blamed on The Winter Soldier. So obviously, the prince of Wakanda T’Challa is out for revenge and Steve needs to deal with that.

There’s a conspiracy, there’s quips, and in my favorite moment, Steve and Sharon finally kiss. (With Bucky and Sam looking on and nodding approvingly.) But the real conflict is far more emotional, torn between his two friends, Steve has to choose and that emotion explodes in the punchy punchy finale. There’s a lot going on and I don’t want to spoil much of the plot which has some fun zig zag moments.

Rankings!

1. Captain America: Civil War

Trailers!

X-Men: Apocalypse

YASSSS! EPICCCC!!!!! SOPHIE TURNER BEING A BADASS!!! OLIVIA MUNN BEING A BADASSS! OSCAR ISAAC STILL SEXY EVEN WHEN WEIRD AND BLUE!!!! STORM WITH MOHAWK!!!!

Jason Bourne

Julia Stiles is back in this one! I am overjoyed by that. I wish that Julia Stiles was in more movies. She’s great. Oh, also so much building jumping.

The Secret Life of Pets

I might be looking forward to this in ways I’m not looking forward to many of the action movies this year. It looks completely perfect and adorable.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

It just looks so good you guys. So good, At-Ats! Just everywhere!

The Next Few Weeks

I have a lot going on right now. It’s all good stuff but it’s been occupying my time and mind. Here’s what’s going on!

• April 22-24: I’m heading down to the shore and then Atlantic City with a bunch of the awesome ladies from my family to celebrate my grandma’s birthday. There will be so much drinking and probably dancing and fun and joy and I’m really looking forward to it.
• April 24: Game Of Thrones, Veep and Silicon Valley are back! I’ve waited FIVE GODDAMN YEARS FOR THESE ANSWERS STAY OUT THE OF MY WAY!!!! I don’t care if they might not be the “real” ones. I want to see Assassin Arya, and find if Jon Snow is dead. (The boy Jon Snow is dead, but the man Jon Targaryen lives. R + L = J people…) Also, Selena might be the president. And what’s going on with Pied Piper, and for the love of god why isn’t Monica in charge? (I’m rewatching Season 2 and it’s painfully obvious that she should be.)
• April 29-May 2: I’m going back to Disney World! There’s a whole long boring soul searching story about this that I won’t get into but it’s happening. It’s the Epcot Flower and Garden festival, so that should be fun, and I’m going to do the Monorail Bar Crawl because I’m on my own schedule and I’ll do what I want. I’m disappointed that the Animal Kingdom night time show won’t have started but I will get to see the Star Wars fireworks!
• May 5: Captain America: Civil War!!!!!!! This is apparently the best movie ever! I’m really really can’t wait to see how it shakes out. Aless and I are going on Thursday night, 8:30 in the city. It’s going to be fun. We’ll probably be drunk. Or at least buzzed. I’m sure I’ll cry.
• May 7: My cousin Tommy is getting married to Leah. They are two of my favorite people and I’m thrilled to celebrate them! Family wedddings are a big deal with my large crazy group of relatives and this is probably the last one for a while. (No one’s engaged at the moment but over the past two years we’ve had 5 family weddings.)
• May 11: Going to see Shuffle Along on Broadway, starring Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell. Pretty sure my brain will explode. Audra tap dances you guys. It’s king of a huge deal.
• May 13-15: ACBC! Really excited for this too! I will be guiding Kristi and Juli through their first Con. I’ve got my cosplays together, my hotel booked and my girls are going to be with me. It’s going to be a lot of fun. (Also, I’ve declared this “The Year of Atlantic City” because I will have gone 3 times in 3 months.)

So that’s what’s going on with me. Watch twitter for pictures of all of this fun stuff! YAY!

 

Hey Underoos!

Alright gang, let’s talk Civil War trailer.

I watched it three times and I definitely cried two of them. And this one barely touched on Steve and Bucky…but when you see Wanda turn her head at the Secovia footage…oof…that’s what got me started. Anyway, as usual with these trailers, I think it’s best if I just do bullet points

• We had a big fight in my house because Mary and Joe are Team Ironman…SIGHHHHHH. This comes less from their actual sympathies and more from the fact that Mary is in love with Robert Downey Jr.
• I am very worried that they’re going to fridge Rhodey. Is it still fridging if it’s a guy? Whatever. I’m worried about him. He’s one of my favorite characters and I love the way Don Cheadle plays him. I don’t know, I’m just super worried about it. But I doubt that they would show us a major character death in the trailer.
• I’ve realized that it’s just going to break me, whatever happens to make Nat choose Tony over Steve. Just…now.
• Black Panther chasing Bucky through a tunnel!!!!!!! BAD ASS! So much Black Panther, you guys, I really can’t wait for it. I wonder if Bucky did some shit in Wakanda and that’s what brings T’Challa in. I could live with that.
• I like that this trailer focused on Tony a little bit more.
• Let’s talk Web Head. I’m into the look of the costume, it’s something different than Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire wore. I’m shocked that they showed him in the trailer. Truly. I really thought we were going to have to wait until May. Whatever, it looks great.

Looks Good!

 

I have my ticket for Thursday night. (I got shut out of the IMAX for BvS, I wasn’t letting that happen for this…) I think it’s going to be a fun movie season. In general, something I’ve noted is that my life tends to change when Captain America movies come out. I graduated from college and realized I didn’t want to work in publishing when The First Avenger hit. I got my job the same week as The Winter Soldier. I don’t know what’s coming in May, but I’m guessing it’s going to be good. and big.

Movie Season 2016: Superbowl Gear Up

The Superbowl last night had me geared up for a few reason.

First of all the Bronco’s won. YAY! Go Peyton! Go Broncos! I’m really excited about that. It was kind of a blow out of a game.

Beyonce and Bruno Mars had a dance off at half time and it was epic. Oh, also Coldplay was there. (Do you wanna know how I know you’re gay?)

And of course the ads were pretty strong this year. But I especially loved the trailers that were trotted out.

Starting with a new Civil War trailer, that, looks pretty bad ass. But at this point they could just show me a picture of Steve staring for three minutes and I’d still be overly psyched about this movie.

X-Men: Age of Apocalypse continues to hook me everytime I see an ad for it. I’m so excited for Olivia Munn as Psylocke and Sophie Turner as Jean. And of course Oscar…even if he’s blue and evil…

Independence Day: Resurgence should be good. I want it to be good. I love Independence Day, it’s just a pure shot of 90’s awesome, like Top Gun is for the 80’s. I hope that Resurgence can live up to it. It probably won’t.

New Bourne movie. Good. New TMNT, um, I still haven’t seen the first one, but this one has Steven Ammell as Casey Jones, and I mean, that’s hard to say no to.

Jungle Book, really does look spectacular and I’m going to need to see it multiple times if it’s any good at all. Jungle Book is tough material to screw up though, it’s such a solid story and Favreau is kind of a genius when he’s got solid material to work with. (See Elf, Iron Man) I’m obsessed with the casting, particularly the little kid they got to play Mowgli.

Overall, I’m excited to go into Movie Season this summer, and as it creeps closer and closer (With two quick early check ins, Deadpool this week and Batman V Superman in a month.) I find myself getting psyched up, the same as I do every year. As usual Movie Season begins with the Marvel stuff.

We’ll check in this week again, as I’m sure a few of these trailers before Deadpool. (Which again, if you live in a bunker is coming out this week. Aless and I are hitting it on Thursday night.)

“He’s My Friend,” “So Was I”

GUYS!

The Captain America: Civil War came out, so let’s all squee with joy about it.

Bucky is good again…mostly.

Sam is still kicking ass and keeping Steve honest.

There appears to be brooding and guy love out the butt.

Oh right, and Black Panther!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he looks like a badass. So excited to my T’Challa on!

Basically, it looks like it’s going to be everything that we love about the MCU, and the Captain America movies, and just everything.

And I am worried about Tony. I mean not overly, because I don’t think RDJ is going anywhere.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that this is going to be good.

Because OMG THREE WAY FIGHT BETWEEN CAP, IRON MAN AND WINTER SOLDIER!!!!!!

I can see the fanfic now.

(You know, where they have sex instead of fighting?)

(I wrote this post on the fly at work, can you tell?)

Guys, YAYYYY!!!!

Have you heard of me? You probably haven’t heard of me

OK.

I can admit when I’m wrong.

I can admit when it’s time to let go of my preconceived notions and think something that I previously thought wasn’t going to work is actually really really freaking great!

And Ant-Man, is really, really freaking great.

OK, from here on in we’re into spoiler land.

You have been warned.

Ant-Man opens with a CGI younged up Michael Douglas as Hank Pym walking into a half built Triscallion in 1989 to tell Howard Stark, Peggy Carter and some other guy that they can’t have his tech.

Oh, and John Slattery is back as Howard.

And Hayley Atwell in old makeup.

Right, so, if you were worried, at all, Peggy Carter is in this movie.

We jump forward in time and see Scott Lang getting out of prison. Scott’s an expert cat burglar, but he’s planning on going straight for the sake of his young daughter Cassie. He gets sucked into one last score by his old cell mate, but it turns out to be a set up by Pym and his daughter Hope, who want Scott to stop Pym’s former protege from creating weapons tech from the shrinking technology Hank created back in the day.

Paul Rudd is great, Evangeline Lilly is great, Michael Douglas is great. The guys on Scott’s crew are amazing. A fight sequence between Scott and Falcon (yup!) is stellar. All of the ant stuff is awesome.

The movie is great in a way that we haven’t seen from Marvel in a while. It’s fun the way Iron Man was fun, but is also not at all like Iron Man, if that makes any sense?

Go see the movie!

Rankings

1. Ant-Man
2. Mad Max: Fury Road (You had a good run, may you ride shiny and chrome, you live, you die, you live again.)
3. Inside Out
4. Tomorrowland
5. Jurassic World
6. Avengers: Age of Ultron
7. Minions
8. Terminator: Genisys
9. Entourage
10. Pitch Perfect: 2

Trailers

The Walk: I look forward to watching this on HBO some day. Aless is annoyed because the documentary about this was already great. I’m inclined to agree.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Alright, ok, I’ll go.

POST CREDITSSSSSSSSSSSS

Seriously, I don’t want these spoiled for anyone at all. They’re that good. In the “mid-credits” as it’s been called, we see Hope and Hank, a large bit of the tension in the movie comes from the fact that Hank doesn’t want Hope shrinking, as her mother, Janet VanDyne was lost in the micro world. But he finally understands that he needs to let her go, and shows her the Wasp Suit. Hope smiles and says, “Well, it’s about damn time!” To which Aless and I shouted, “HELL YEAH IT IS!” About damn time for The Wasp, about damn time for another female super hero in the MCU, about damn time for all of this shit. 

And then it got even better as the credits faded out, we see Sam walking down a dark hallway and greeting Steve, they walk over to another space and there’s Bucky, glaring at them and breathing heavily, you know, like you do when your best friend and his new best friend have you chained to a thing, probably because you were brainwashed to kill them, or whatever. So BUCKY ALIVE AND FOUND, and then Steve says, “We can’t tell Tony, we don’t know what he can even do because of The Accords.” Sam looks at Steve and says, “I might know a guy.”

WE SEE YOU ALL AT CIVIL WAR! (I’m freaking out. Seriously, we were squeeing all over the place.)

‘S Wonderful, ‘S MARVEL-ous

Holy CRAP y’all! What happened yesterday? Did we all just fall asleep and end up in a crazy Marvel dream world, full of drunk Avengers trying to lift Thor’s hammer, multiple movies for The Infinity Gauntlet, Jackie Robinson as Black Panther and an official release date for Captain Marvel?

No it wasn’t a dream, you guys. It really happened. Marvel fans and press descended on the El Capitan theatre in LA for a mystery announcement. Which, since the DC movie slate was announced at a GD shareholders meeting, already had the one up on showmanship, if not professionalism.

There were some obvious ones.

Doctor Strange has been pushed back a year, and Benedict Cumberbatch was NOT officially announced. But it’s probably him, right? Why else push it back if not to deal with his inordinately convoluted schedule of filming 3 episodes of a TV show every five years or whatever. You can check out my facebook to see how I feel about that particular choice of casting. I am neither here nor there about it.

Captain America: Civil War, will be coming, and will feature both Cap and Iron Man, I assume fighting one another. Also, it will feature the first appearance by Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, before you know, BLACK PANTHER!

I really like Boseman. I really liked 42, and think it’s hugely underrated. I really like the idea of Bosen as Black Panter, particularly in this universe full of funny guys. He’s a magnificent straight man. And the idea of T’Challa as a straight man to the rest of the Avengers and their wackiness is one that works for me.

Guardians 2, duh.

Thor: Ranganok, fine.

Infinity War Parts 1 & 2, great. And then the big one.

Captain Marvel. Guys, we’re getting a Captain Marvel movie.

Badass

And just to clarify, this isn’t Mar Vell, this is Carol Danvers. As in, on July 6. 2018, unless I’m in a coma, you all know where I will be. I will be watching Captain Marvel at least 4 times. I will also spend every minute of every day until they announce who’s playing her speculating on who’s going to play her, I do have some people in my head, that I would like to see. I won’t specify beyond that.

Just that this, could translate well…

To this!

Now, that scene, you know, the one that was during Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last night? How great was that? Again, if you want some fun, you should head to my facebook. Literally, this scene is Ultron being a buzzkill. The Avengers are chilling in Avengers Tower (Stark Tower, whatever it’s called at this point) getting drunk, taking turns trying to lift Thor’s hammer and razzing each other. (Also, Rhodey is there, which makes me SO HAPPY!) Then Ultron hobbles out and starts rambling about how they aren’t worthy of anything. Then we see a new trailer.

There was also an Agent Carter preview, which was basically just, Peggy being really sexy and then shooting a gun, which is fine.

All in all, yesterday was a very, very good day for Marvel. Very good!