Not Interested Entertainment

1. What is your name, and where do you hail from?
My name is Lind­say and I hail from Mass­a­chu­setts, born and raised near Boston. How­ever, I pride myself on hav­ing no Boston accent what­so­ever haha. Also, there is no park­ing in Har­vard Yard, it’s a pedes­trian area.

2. Tell us a lit­tle about your­self. Do you have any inter­est­ing hob­bies out­side of cos­play?
I’m very big into hoop­ing and psy­trance which sort of par­al­lels cos­play­ing. They are very dis­sim­i­lar in that hoop­ing is a non-compete hobby, where peo­ple come together for the com­mon goal of con­nect­ing to music and each other through an uncon­ven­tional means. Psy­trance is a genre of music that is very PSY­che­delic and is a mem­ber of the TRANCE fam­ily. Hence: psy­trance heh. A lot of it is very dance-y and fun. It makes me want to move. Per­haps the most inter­est­ing of my “sports” is the lyra/aerial hoop. My boyfriend, Nick, and a few friends are going to help me build my own aer­ial rig for next year so hope­fully that works out well!

Along move con­ven­tional lines I’ve also been a fig­ure skater of 16 – 17 years, a dancer for 12 and a here and there gym­nast. I trained hell ponies for a while for a sum­mer camp and I’ve been a sta­dium jumper for about 5 years as well. Horses are stun­ningly amaz­ing crea­tures that I love so much. Rid­ing is such a serene expe­ri­ence that allows you to learn so much about your­self. Beyond that I’m a fre­quent archer and use a Winn and Winn Pro riser, re-curve bow. Over­all, I live on the prin­ci­ple that if it’s strange I want to try it. Con­ven­tional sports haven’t ever done much for me haha.


3. How long have you been cos­play­ing?
I have been cos­play­ing for about 7 years. I started in 2003.

4. What ini­tially drew you to cos­play?
I was told about Anime Boston 2003, it’s first year, about a week before it hap­pened and decided to go for a day. It was totally amaz­ing and I knew I absolutely wanted to be one of the peo­ple in the pretty cos­tumes. It was a split sec­ond moment that made me a cosplayer.

5. What was the first char­ac­ter that you cos­played?
The first char­ac­ter I cos­played was Kagura from Inuyasha. My mom bought me a machine and fab­ric and she sent me on my way. I used that same machine for 5 of the 7 years of my cos­play­ing time. I still have it. That cos­tume was a train wreck though, it was just awful! But live and learn, right? Haha.

6. What is your favorite thing about cos­play?
Oh god, there is so much I love about this hobby. You know, “hobby” is so the wrong term for cos­play­ing, it’s so much more a lifestyle. You see the world dif­fer­ently when you life you life in terms of the next con­ven­tion and the next cos­tume hah. It’s so much more than just a hobby. I think my favorite thing about cos­play is group cos­tum­ing with my great friends and that first moment you put on a fin­ished cos­tume and you just think “wow. I made this. This is my cos­tume.“

7. What is your least favorite thing?
Oh boy, the drama. There’s so lit­tle to say on the topic because we all know about it. It’s the lit­tle black demon is the cor­ner, you know?

8. What was your most enjoy­able cos­play expe­ri­ence?
I think it might have been a tie between the Ten­ta­cle Hen­tai skit at Kat­su­con 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRZbJRSo6M4 or the A Day in your Nin­tendo DS skit at Anime Boston 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-xx9strPeo. The for­mer was just thrown together at the con, it was so much fun with amaz­ing peo­ple and doing that skit was so fun. I laugh every time I think about it. Then there’s the DS skit that was a lot of danc­ing I learned in about 20 min­utes and prac­ticed for hours with one of my best friends through cos­play, Renee (Umis­ter). She is such an amaz­ing per­son and that skit brought us so much closer together than we were before. We are the friends we are today because of that amaz­ing expe­ri­ence. Not only did we have an amaz­ing time and look great, but Renee won Best in Show for her skit which was so well deserved. Both skits were shin­ing moments in my time line of cos­play hah.

9. And your least?
World Cos­play Sum­mit 2008. End of story. Between the trip to the hos­pi­tal with my part­ner because she was hav­ing heart pal­pi­ta­tions from an energy drink she had to the not eat­ing or sleep­ing for 48 hours and hav­ing the stom­ach flu the week before it was the worst week­end of my life. Hah, it was just one thing after another!

10. What is the last event at which you cos­played, and what did you cos­play?
The last time I cos­played was at Dragon*Con 2009. I cos­played Aleera from Van Hels­ing, Vic­to­ria from the movie Star­dust, Baroness from G.I. Joe, Power Girl from the Adam Hughes Women of DC art, Aqua Girl from Jus­tice League Unlim­ited, and Wash from Fire­fly. It was an amaz­ing con­ven­tion filled with so many cos­tume. Dragon*con is by far my favorite convention.

11. What is the next event at which you plan to cos­play?
I will be cos­play­ing again at a small con­ven­tion in New Hamp­shire called Another Anime Con­ven­tion. I am mak­ing Sub­aru from .hack//SIGN, Tatiana from Last Exile, and Kotoko from Chobits. I will also be rep­re­sent­ing Anime Boston there so if any­one is plan­ning on going they should come by the table and reg­is­ter while it’s cheap!

12 What do you have in the works for upcom­ing con­ven­tions or events?
I am try­ing to have one more year of intense cos­tum­ing before I devote myself entirely to staffing and indus­try work with FUNi­ma­tion. Work­ing for FUNi­ma­tion is com­pletely amaz­ing and I meet the great­est peo­ple through it, but I am not done being a devoted cos­player so 2010 will be an intense year. I really want to make pretty much every cos­tume from Lin­eage II and Shu­unya Yamashita’s work hah. I also want to cos­play from Per­sona 4 which is one of the best SMT games ever. I hope to work­ing more intently on prop work as well as that is a lack­ing part of my cos­play reper­toire right now.
That was Lind­say, and here is one final part­ing photo of her in cos­play.