C2E2 - The dream I didn't know I had

I’ve never been to a con before. Why, you ask? The big comic-cons are on the coasts, much too far away. The Harry Potter cons that I thought about going to were always during the summer. All of them are pretty expensive. I always wanted to go -- I was beyond jealous of Suzanne when she made it to the NY Comic-con this year. And yet, when the matter of going to my own comic con came, I was hesitant. I don’t read comics. Would I find anything to enjoy?

Turns out, I needn’t have worried. Three days at C2E2, Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, were some of the best geeky times I’ve ever had. By far the best decision was going in costume. I’d never cosplayed before, and never really dreamed I could. My sewing skills are hopeless, and neither my budget nor my ambitions are big enough to spend the months and hundreds that some people spend gathering together the perfect outfit. So it was a stroke of luck when a wonderful friend, Jorie (who made herself a fantastic Venetian Hooker Dress), offered to make a costume for me less than two weeks before the con. After an evening of brainstorming, we had an idea. A week of late nights of packing and sewing and ironing later, I had a sari.

A TARDIS sari. I rocked it. And my boyfriend rocked the Tenth Doctor suit.

And here is my advice about cons: cosplay. Because there is nothing like people asking to take your picture to make you feel confident and amazing. Over 5 hours on Friday, at least 50 people took our picture. That was before we entered the costume contest, and counting became impossible. And it was equally as enjoyable to admire the costumes that everyone else was wearing. There were plenty of Doctors (Four, Nine, Ten, Eleven), Amy Pond, Craig Owens, and a TARDIS or two (who were not as cool as I was). There was Katniss, Effie and Haymitch, a few Kaylees, a Gandalf, a Princess Tiana, and a Captain Jack Sparrow who looked exactly like Johnny Depp. And those were just the ones that I knew. Hundreds of other people were cosplaying video game and comic characters that I couldn't begin to identify.

But of course, there was way more to this than cosplay.

Why I Love Downton Abbey -- and why there's nothing wrong with that

In spite of its success, Downton Abbey has been maligned by critics on both sides of the Atlantic this year. Some of it is just criticism -- Season 2 had an awful number of poorly done plots. But much of it has been directed at this firestorm of controversy asking -- why do we love such a classist show? Isn’t it a bad thing, to be nostalgic about it? And aren’t we bad for liking it?


I can only speak from personal experience, but I will say that I did not decide to start watching the show, or start loving it, because it was glamorous. Glamor is all very shiny, but it has to have a heart and soul. And however much the cares of the characters at Downton can sometimes feel trivial, they represent something deeper that we all care about. Sure, to change clothes three times a day, to wear a tux or a custom-made dress to dinner every day seems superflous. But don’t we spend a lot of time buying our clothes or perfecting our appearances? Perhaps the Earl and Lady Grantham’s reaction into losing their half their spacious home to soldiers seems overblown -- but don’t we all value our personal space? For the Grantham ladies, fighting the entail is not trivial, it’s fighting an unjust law that regulates their future.

To answer the first question, we love it because it is, for the most part, a really good story. The cast is large, and we manage to care about them each in our own way -- to hope for Gwen’s employment, to cheer on Anna and Bates, to boo Richard Carlisle, to wish for Matthew to stop tormenting himself, to hope for Daisy’s independence, to shake our fists at Thomas’ schemes, to laugh at the Dowager Countesses’ quips.