Cosplaying and Motherhood
Mikomi Chan wrote this opinion article based on cosplay and living a healthy lifestyle. We featured her Galadriel cosplay a while back when she was pregnant, and she also wanted to show her latest cosplay as kind of a follow up to the struggle of getting back in shape after having a child.
Have any of you seen a celebrity postpartum picture and thought "Wow it must be easy to snap back after having a child"? I was guilty of this very fallacy, until I had to experience the negative affects of the postpartum period myself. As a cosplayer, I think I experienced the anxiety of body issues more than a normal woman; a normal woman doesn't have to worry what she looks like to the millions of people on the internet, only the people she sees in real life. Because cosplayers have a greater internet presence than ever in recent years, our images are exposed to more and more people, and that can be daunting in such a situation. I constantly ask myself, "What if my body doesn't go back?" or "Will I still be able to cosplay as freely as I could before?". The answer I came up with was I will get back to where I want to be, but it will take a lot of time and effort on my part.
I was not one of the lucky women who's body snapped back immediately after having a child; it took me a good five months to even be able to fit into most of my old clothes, let alone my tight to begin with old cosplays! What you were before you had a child matters little. I was a college athlete in the best shape of my life; I never had to diet or watch what I ate. Then, after I had my son, I had to watch what I ate for the first time in my life, and it sucked. Seriously, dieting is the worst thing on the planet, but it had to be done if I wanted to get results. I had to start making time in my schedule to start easing my body back into a workout regimen. Sometimes, I even had to wake up before my husband left for work in the morning if I wanted to get my morning yoga in before my son woke up. It was really difficult, easily the most challenging experience of my life.
The most difficult thing in this time for me was my inability to attend cosplay events or go to conventions. The entire time I was stuck in bed while being pregnant, I would plan out which cosplays I wanted to do first after I had my son. It was one of the things that kept me positive while I was puking my brains out all day long (other than playing copious amounts of Skyrim). After nine months of agony and constantly feeling like the largest species of whale on the planet, I have the most adorable baby Thor imaginable...and a serious reality check. I barely had time to do anything other than the household necessities, taking care of my family, and occasional laundry, let alone sew a new cosplay! The option of doing a weekend convention was not even on the table for the first six months of my son's life. I had a tea cup human, as Eric from True Blood would say, attached to my hip at all times; there was no time to run around to events in full costume. As a cosplayer, this seriously depressed me because my whole creative expression is formed around designing and concocting these costumes and bringing fictional characters to life. I was suffocating from the lack of creativity in my life.
When I finally got to a point where I was comfortable enough with my weight-loss progress, I wanted my first post pregnancy cosplay to make a stance, so I chose Black Cat from the Amazing Spider-Man comic series. I have loved her character design for years as well as the sensuality that the character exudes. Her outfit is very unforgiving, as I'm sure you have noticed, but it keeps almost everything completely covered. I picked her because I wanted to show the cosplay community that you can have a child and still look good in cosplay, you can still cosplay who you want, and the only limitation you have is yourself. I had a lot of friends from the cosplay community support me through my weight-loss struggle this past year, and without them, I would have had a much harder time of it all. When I finally finished the cosplay, I wanted to have someone cosplay from Spider-Man with me. My friend from college, Kiira, decided to be Mary Jane with me. We've been talking about cosplaying together since we met, and four years later, we're roadtripping to Connecticon with coordinating cosplays! She was one of the most positive people in my life, constantly keeping me motivated with my weightloss, and it was really fantastic to be able to do this specific cosplay with her.
Black Cat cosplayed and made by
Mikomi Chan
Mary Jane cosplayed by
Kiira Kitsune
Photographer:
Darryl Brooks of We Rise Magazine
Follow us on:
August 14 2014