I am the costume police

[crantz]

I went to Winnipeg for a celebration of life of a cousin of mine for what would have been her fiftieth birthday and had pretty good conversations with my father's side of the family who I don't see much of because they view coming to my city two hours away as going to the godforsaken boonies where they will be picked off by forest people and eaten in stew but always expected us to drive to them at six am on fucking christmas morni--ANYWAY BACK ON TOPIC. It was a lovely celebration of life at one of my favourite places (a plant zoo called The Leaf) and I did not expect to show up in so many of the photos they were playing on the display.

So my relationship with this cousin was very much a 'and then we were adults and got along' but the fuller context is that I am the oldest of my siblings and the oldest of my local cousins and sometimes this cousin would come to stay with us for a week and she was ten years older than me and it was the closest experience I ever had to having an older sister or someone who pulled age authority on me and let's just say I didn't exactly handle the situation with grace.

Anyway, I miss her! She was great. I dream of her all the time.

The other thing we did in Winnipeg was go to the anime convention Ai-Kon under the initial idea of seeing a favourite voice actor of mine, SungWon Cho/ProzD before I remembered I have next to no interest in speaking to celebrities (no offence to Cho, he seems very cool but I have no idea what I'd say without a stronger pretext) so what we did instead was wander around in artist alley and go broke!

It was great! I got lots of nice art and stickers and some fun little plush toys.

Mom was determined to get a gift for my brother and all she knew that he liked was One Piece but she didn't know what anyone in that show looked like so she only zero'd in on the words 'One Piece' so I twice had to deter her. Once from buying a statue that was just Nico Robin in a very tight towel (she hadn't looked anywhere but the words One Piece) and the other time a knockoff Labubu of Luffy 'I don't think my brother would like that', I said. She did get a cat Luffy sticker and a One Piece cookbook because I had surrendered by then.

What I DIDN'T like about Ai-Kon was I was minding my own business trying to escape before I spent more money and this person walked right up to me in a fucking Harry Potter costume and much to my horror I made an audible 'UGH' noise that they heard and they looked genuinely hurt.

I'm working through my guilt by reminding myself that they were off topic anyway, as a British Book/Live Action Movie isn't exactly a Japanese Cartoon and I was ambushed. AMBUSHED where I thought I was safe to only have to wrestle with 'is Arcane an Anime? Are these all Genshins?' and a general 'read the room, jesus christ' as one of the things I noticed about Winnipeg is I couldn't turn a corner without seeing pride flags.

Turned out we knew some people with a booth there too! Did some visiting, saw other people we knew, la la la my province has 10 people in it.

Did I mention the other day that in the same breath I complained about Americans sometimes frustrating me about being overconfidently wrong/underinformed about my country (IT WAS ON TOPIC) an American called them Providences at me?

Turns out I can't wither someone to death with my tone, but I can try.

Comments

[ashenmote]

I'm happy that it was a good celebration for your cousin.

(But is a plant zoo significantly different from a botanical garden?)

My niece is also into One Piece and I know as much about it as your mother, even though she made me sit through a few episodes.

Oh no, one morning I felt miserable and put upon by all the traffic and lack of breathable air so I scowled at all the uncaring, noisy cars racing past me. And I didn't think much of it, because for a driver I'm just an invisible piece of potential roadkill anyway and my facial expressions are of no consequence to them. And if they notice, well, they're sitting in their armored vehicle and here I am on the roadside eating their car fumes, so things should be pretty clear and they should know what they did, right?

But then that car with an immigrant family passed me and THEY noticed my dirty looks and suddenly it was an entirely different dynamic entirely.

Intersectionalism is when you want to yell "Wait! I don't hate you for being immigrants! I just hate you for owning a car!*"

Your unfortunate encounter with the lost Rowlingist reminded of that.


*"But not for owning a car while being refugees specifically!!! That part is fine!"



Well, they Us folks would even call their cities Providence, so to them, it was at least a sort of geographical term they misapplied.

[crantz]

Botanical gardens, I am led to believe, are mostly outside? I am not sure. The Leaf creatures false biomes for their plants indoors. There's a tropical and mediterranean area!

Oh NO. I would feel awful in that situation.

I keep reminding myself that the context makes the Rowling person the one more out of line, but I still feel guilty.

I have grown less sad and more aggro over Canada disrespect over the years.

[ashenmote]

Ah yes, they have climate controlled hothouses sometimes, but on principle it's all happening outside.

Yeah. But it was a learning experience that I needed. I felt like that for the first time when I made fun of my oldest brother's nose and realized that I have the power to say things that are hurtful to grown ups. I need to rediscover this from time to time.
Anyway, in reality there is very little hope that you can glare at any car driver and they realize it is about this activity which is only remotely enjoyable if they don't think about what they are doing at all.

Ha! Perhaps your involuntary utterance of 'UGH' backfired on yourself because they were protected by the power of their Mother's loving Love!

Oh yes, now I somewhat remember I made a mental note about being circumspect with Canada disses back in the Journalfen days. I think I found out in the topical vicinity of seal hunting season. I don't think there even was an argument, just a certain way of wording things that I picked up on?

[crantz]

The power to hurt is powerful indeed! I try not to use it often.

Yeah. I learned even then that being OPEN that it bugged me was just an open wound for Americans to dig into.

[tainry]

Condolences re your cousin. ::hugs::

Yaaaay Con! Glad you mostly had fun and yay buying art and stuff! <333

[crantz]

Thank you for your condolences! She was a lovely person. She worked in the revenue service so almost every table I passed was talking about how to file taxes amongst themselves as normal conversation.

The con was fun! I had fun peeking into what, as far as I could tell from the sign by the door, was a maid cafe rave. I did not go in though.

[phosfate]

Oh man, after Mom died, my brother used to tell me, "The road to Omaha goes both ways you know" when I did not in fact own a fucking car.

[crantz]

Your brother was known for his helpfulness by all.

[phosfate]

He could never be arsed to take 60 seconds to email me a joke, so I really don't think I was the problem there.

[crantz]

I email you so many jokes

[cyprinella]

I think an UGH in response to a HP costume is totally allowed in this day and age.

[crantz]

I felt very 'dude, what's your goal here?'

[phosfate]

My bus friend Debbie was in her 60s, straight as a stick, had nothing at all to do with fandom, and spent much of her life in the army (Get paid to live in the UK? Sure!), and was a Potter fan for years because her son was the right age back in the day, and told me straight up, "Yeah, we don't buy her stuff anymore." So if SHE can read the damn room...

[crantz]

'YOU ARE NOT AN ANIME'