We're back with another round of stories from comic cons and anime conventions from around the country. What you will see is the testimony of con goers who prefer to remain annoymous, but also discuss some of their frightening experiences at conventions. What is suppose to be a safe space can sometimes feel like a burden, especially for women. This round of stories is a bit darker than the first but still need to be expressed.
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"Not really a con but it was Sakura Matsuri 2015. We cosplay there too. I was Lopunny. Mind you although I have a small frame I do have a slightly plump behind. Some scunt came up to me talking about I should use bounce on his “you know what.” I told him how about I use dizzy punch instead you f***ing snaggletooth creep!"
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Forest City Comicon 2015. Got in, all was well. I hung out with one dude who is a good friend of mine. The day went well until a homestuck cosplayer ran up behind me and hugged me around the chest, like, hands on my chest. Now, I was cosplaying prompto, so I had a binder on, and such, so there wasnt much to grope, but the part that really got me was when they let go and decided that it would be good to comment on this. ” Oh….I thought you were a girl???” I didnt speak a damn word cause if I had I feared she would say that oh, I am indeed a girl, when Im not and didnt want to be seen as one ever. So not only was I touched and scared a bit, but my gender identity was slammed as well.
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I was walking around the hallways and someone randomly whispered in my ear, “I would so rape you” and stared at me while walking away. Not much of a horror story, just made me confused and worried.
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Man tried to make out with me while I went up the escalator. Literally stuck his tongue out in my direction and tried to lean in and put it in my mouth.
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At Kamicon 2013 I went dressed as Momo Adachi from Peach Girl with a friend, she was white, who was dressed as a gothic lolita. I had made my cosplay from scratch and was really proud since it was my first real cosplay. As soon as I walked into the con I had one person immediately recognize me and take my picture, so I thought that I was going to have an awesome time taking pictures with my friend who was with me. Boy was I wrong. Every person after that who came up to us only wanted to take photos of my friend. It wouldn’t have been so bad if these people literally pushed me out of the photos and rolled their eyes at me. At one point we had sat down on the stairs near the main entrance when a woman approached us. She started asking questions about the con that my friend couldn’t answer. As soon as I started talking the woman said,”Look, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to her.” The way this woman said it I knew what she really wanted to say. At that point I broke down and became very angry. The whole time I was having people be rude to me, whisper nasty slurs, and avidly laugh as I walked by. I heard people talking about how I shouldn’t cosplay because I’m brown. That super upset me, especially because Momo is brown too! Darker than my skin color as a matter of fact! The experience I had upset me to the point that I have only cosplayed once since then. The second time I wore my Peach Girl cosplay wasn’t as bad, but I still had people not recognize me and accuse me of being a random weeb. This year is the first year in a long time that I will be making it a habit to go to cons IN cosplay.
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It was ACEN 2014 when I went to the rave on my own and decided to dance. This guy asked if I could dance with me and I said sure. We weren’t touching at first we were kinda just jumping around each other than the music slowed down just a bit and he grabbed me pulled me close and tried to finger me. I kicked his foot and left. I didn’t know what to do. Found out later he was Trying the same thing with other girls on the dance floor kid was like 18.
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I think it was sac anime summer of last year me and my friend were walking to the starlight ball and were almost going to be late so walking a little hurriedly and I was wearing a pretty blue loli dress I has just bought the previous day. While we were walking someone a really tall guy kinda blocked our way and he said something but I didn’t hear what he said so I didn’t know whether to say thank you or if he was telling me like something I was wearing fell off so I stopped and said oh I’m sorry what was that you said? And I mumbled again so I was kinda like Hm? And was about to leave because I got a better look at him and he looked kinda sketchy and creepy and then he said loud enough only so me and my friend could hear well I mean just saying I bet you’d look sexy underneath all that crap you’re wearing yknow heh know what I mean? I was so surprised and froze for a minute until I think my friend either tugged on my sleeve or took my hand so we could continue our way to the ball and I said said NOPE GOODBYE a little louder than you would say to someone in front of you the only thing I could think was how rude! My dress was very pretty and anything but crap! And that that was really gross and creepy at the time didn’t know how to respond to/ handle a creepy situation like that. My friend was just telling me Jackie why’d you stop he was creepy.
