This is a pretty big one. Bigger than the roommate one.
This is something I’ve noticed a few times over the past few weeks.
I like(d) to consider myself a cosplayer. I started cosplaying in high school (probably 3-5 years ago now) and I began, embarrassingly, as a Homestuck cosplayer. But I loved it. I loved how my first cosplay turned out. It was unbearably simple, for a cosplay, but it looked good. I was really proud of it, and I fell in love with the instant community that a Homestuck costume got you a free ticket into. I loved being part of something, being admired and accepted into a group of complete strangers based on mutual appreciation of a webcomic and appreciation of my costume.
So, the first few cosplays went really well. I continued to cosplay within Homestuck – which by nature is a relatively easy but somewhat deceptively tricky thing to cosplay (the gray body paint is a true art form, I tell you) – and gradually increased the ambition of my projects until I was creating bodysuits with intricate tattoos, dresses hand altered and painted to look like those in the comic, and even special effects makeup prosthetics. I got decent at it.
Then I quit the Homestuck fandom. I quit for a number of reasons not particularly relevant to this post, but it happened. And suddenly that made cosplay a hell of a lot harder.
Most other fandoms have characters with much more complicated costumes, and this proved to be a very difficult challenge for me. I am no good at sewing – following a pattern, creating one, or even just doing simple stitching. I’m no good at it. Unfortunately, this closes off a large world of cosplay from me that I had previously unexplored because Homestuck, for the most part, didn’t require that sort of thing.
So I did a few non-Homestuck costumes and… they didn’t really go that well. This year, for Dragon Con in Atlanta (which just passed last weekend), I decided to try three more costumes, ones I would be passionate about but that wouldn’t – theoretically – be too hard.
I’m sure you can imagine how well that went. Which is to say… not very well. I had to make a jacket for one of the costumes – not even make it from scratch, just splice a couple of shirts together – and I totally botched it, several times. Coming out of that experience, my outlook is basically… why did I ever think I was skilled enough, good enough, to pull this off.
And this wasn’t the only occurrence of its kind in even the last few weeks.
Something I also like to think I’m halfway decent at is singing. Yesterday, I fancied that maybe I could go out and audition for a couple of my school’s a capella groups! I took singing lessons for a summer once, maybe I’ll be good enough that they’ll accept me!
Only… who was I kidding. I realized today that a skill that tends to be important for musical performance groups is… the ability to read sheet music. Which I completely and crushingly lack. So I didn’t even go to the auditions.
Why do I keep thinking I’m good at these things and taking on, or nearly taking on, projects beyond my skill level? Will I ever learn to stop overestimating myself?
Worries Big and Small 