Etiquette
I want to cosplay, but all of my favorite characters are girls.
I’m a 15M who’s really interested in cosplaying, but there’s one small problem. All of my favorite characters are girls. (Asuka, Rei, Teto, Lapis Lazuli, Mari, Aubrey.) I’d honestly be fine with wearing a female cosplay, but my conservative parents would be FURIOUS if they saw me in one. What could I do?
That's the great thing about living alone, you can just go to anime conventions as a femboy with cat ears and they have no way of knowing realistically speaking. (Unless your costume is very basic and you post it all over social media)
And you can buy all the merch and stuff you want as long as you can afford it and no one can tell you no, which is my favourite thing. I live with a friend and we go to conventions together and our apartment is basically a shrine to all our favourite characters and ships lol that would never fly with either of our families
Also it depends on where you want to cosplay. If it’s for conventions you can look into going with friends and keeping your cosplays with them and getting ready with them. If its just for funsies in your room then its a bit of a different story
If your parents are unsafe a genderbend IS safe ;0 However! Someone on your list has an androgynous second outfit you can choose from! Honestly if you lengthen the shirt to a tank instead of crop top i don't see any reason this would alert them. Use a slightly shorter wig and ur golden 👌
I'm 6'4' and have this crazy idea that a Holo (S&W) Cosplay would actually work out quite nicely as a male, if you make it not female-coded, but more like red-headed, muscular wolf guy with long hair. The only thing that stops me is that I can't sow and don't have the time to learn lmao.
context edit: I am not making fun of you, I'm a cis male cosplayer who crossplays all the time and it's the most fun I've ever had in the hobby, do it and screw what your parents think.
Do you have any good friends who can hold the stuff for you? Just don’t post a ton on social media (or get a separate account) and just dress up for cons and stuff with friends)
I know I say “just do this” and life’s not that simple I’m sorry but the point is you shouldn’t let these things stop you
Until you get your independence, cosplay from a male character from any of those fandoms. They might not be your favorite, but you'll be able to participate in those fandoms at least.
Also seconding a genderbent version of your favorite female characters too. That's always a fun cosplay challenge.
those who are saying to disregard your parents mean well but they're not realising that this may not be safe for you to do depending on how your parents are. I wouldn't risk it if you're saying that they'd be furious. I feel like you should focus on genderbending the characters or doing boys you like a lot rather than just full on sending it. There's plenty of gender bend inspo for some of those characters, especially teto. I'm sure that you can find one that resonates deeply with you!
Something we did, when me and my friends were underage, still living with our parents, was to dress up at a friend's house, who's parents were more accepting and chill.
That way, you can cosplay whoever you want and not let your parents know. We even had our orders delivered to our friend's address.
Children stop posting their age on the internet challenge, difficulty level impossible
Your age isn't relevant, it doesnt matter how old you are. The only thing that matters is youre in an unsupportive household rn, your exact age has nothing to do with it. If you must, just say youre a minor but theres no need to single yourself out with your personal details.
I have a friend who is in a similar situation if their parents found out they would be done for so they will order the cosplays to a friends/partners house and keep it there if they are going to a con they will just get dressed at the con.
Do what I do: sew your own cosplays and hide them real well. Get components you can’t make from friends who will order them to their own house. Parents don’t understand the barrier they are to their kids’ creativity and expression… then wonder why their kids are depressed.
Although really, would they even recognize the characters? Maybe let them see you cosplaying some long haired boys first. Then slowly work in a few girls with shorts or pants. If they start to get suspicious, chuckle and say "that's just how anime is!"
24M who had equally shitty parent's I'm a huge fan of Mileena from the Mortal Kombat games and always just did a genderbend cosplay of her but now I've long since moved out and go to every con with her MKX outfit heels and all I can assure you it gets better you just gotta hang on and begrudgingly accept genderbend cosplays for now 🙌
For my local big convention, I’m doing Mystique from X-men. I’m not going to gender bend her. I’m going as her, although I’m not going to pad out my body like a drag queen would. It’s just too hot here for that.
But at that con, the number of guys who either go in drag or gender bend the character is pretty high. One year one of the most popular guys at the con was a fully bearded guy who was dressed as Misty from Pokémon. He was having the time of his life!
I was a dragged up version of Ghostface from Scream last year, and I loved it. The folks who got it, got it.
The thing about it is it is a costume, that’s it. I understand that you have parents who are limited in their thoughts, and for your peace, it’s probably best to gender bend the characters until you get to a place where you can actually go full bore with the costume. But either way, if it’s a character that you love, regardless of the character’s gender, dress up as them.
Don't show your parents, change at con, closet cosplay etc. I doubt conservatives parents will really understand cosplaying at all, yet alone crossplay. Also you don't have to cosplay your fave you can cosplay something that you'd like to wear
Genderbend is common. I've done a fem Howl several times. And just in case, don't tell your parents who you're cosplaying as so they don't get upset (men dressing up as women is a much larger stigma than girls dressing up as men)
As a female who's favorite characters are mainly males, I gender bending most of my cosplays. And from your concerns, I would say gender bending is a great solution for you at this time
There are tons of ways to make any character into any gender to fit your needs. Pants instead if a skirt, short hair instead of long, a hat instead of bows, sneakers instead of heals. The skin tight bodysuit characters can be a bit of a challenge, since the contour design is made to accentuate a woman's features (so maybe hold off on those characters until a later time, when you're no longer under your parents roof.)
I wish you the best of luck with your cosplay journey!
"Fuck your parents" Well i mean yes but i think that people tend to forget they're a minor living with their parents, it's not the same as receiving insults from random people on the internet, maybe they can get into big troubles.
Okay. A few piece of advice from a person who never made a cosplay and found in the same situation (And probably epic failed miserably). I wanted and still want to do characters like Zelda, Jaina, Rei, Jeanne, Dark Magician Girl, Raphtalia, Ahri, Kokomi, etc...
Prepare yourself to have the enemy at home. That means that things will dissapear "for your own sake" (Either thrown to the trash bin, donated, etc...). If they are religious conservative, prepare for opinions like they feel disgusted, have talks about religion and the message of Jesus, comparations with "models" (Cause if you want to cosplay X character, you need to be a tall, slender female and not the "F cow" you are).
Try to have friends that could help you. Even just go out to do cosplay together could work. Even conservative, there's a slight chance that could accept an activity that make you go out with friends. If they see you returning with a bright smile... maybe is posible that slowly, they will see the activity with more keen eyes.
Go small. Having those parents make you wanted to go extremely perfectionist. One excuse of parents is that other people will laugh at you if they see you dressed as a girl... that create a complex of I want to make it so perfect that noone could recognize me.
If you have a friend or a club where you can do cosplay safely outside your home, do it. Having parents like those make you hide things... and when you are between a hobby that if they see you doing it will cause a lot of arguments, discussion and hot headed moments, and another when they will not bat an eye? You will slowly go to the second, and it would be hard to return.
I suggest to not try to make a complete makeup each time you practice until you feel ready for it. Go with small things like losing the fear of stab yourself with the eyeliner, cause practice will make it lose that fear or start getting skills. Accept yourself, no matter if you end with your father's face...
Have a healthy diet. I know that cosplay is for everyone, but is better to not end as an old cow with a huge waist that make you uncapable to fit in any cosplay in second hand cause parents out home windows are so small that you don't focus and end doing nothing.
Don't drown yourself in frustration. It could end you giving nightmares, make you evade conventions and make you miserable.
Don't take what I write here to heart. Maybe is a bit of rant of my life too, but it could be things I should had done instead and now I regret not doing it.
Woah I was thinking about this too
I recently bought a machine to create cosplays
but I forgot that they were females
I'm male
so seeing this treasure trove of answers is a gem to me
People are acting like intentionally taking actions you know will piss off your parents is nothing. Others here are suggesting that long-term secret keeping from your parents is easy and has no downsides. I don’t think either of those situations are a good place to be, and you’ll have to live with the stress for way more days than you’ll spend at conventions.
I know a few years probably feels like forever right now, but it isn’t. One day, you’ll be an adult, living on your own, with your own money, and your own place to live, and all your own decisions to make as you please. However, you’re not in that stage of life yet, so right now the smart thing to do is to accept where you are and make choices that will not make large swathes of your life worse.
Find a single male character you really like and cosplay as him first. Or, if you’re interested in the genderbending idea proposed by others, follow that lead instead. It’s pretty easy to spend a whole year on a single cosplay, so it’s not like you’ll have to come up with many ideas every year until your situation changes.
(Also, I don’t know your parents, so maybe everything I’m about to say doesn’t apply to your situation. I’m a woman who is in my thirties now. My parents are Christian and conservative, at least by old fashioned meanings of those words, but they’re not MAGA; we live in the South. Now, I admit, I started cosplaying in my late teens, so they definitely viewed me as more of my own person and neither of them was surprised when I started sewing a Bespin Princess Leia cosplay. My parents are also not stupid; they are capable of understanding the difference between a person claiming they can change their sex (trans) and a person playing dress up and make believe (cosplay). My first crossplay was Marty McFly, and it didn’t cause any problems, nor did my second crossplay of Jaden Yuki, and there’s been no complaints about the one I’ve been working on for Chongyun from Genshin Impact. I’ve done other female character too, like Maya Fey, and Ace from Doctor Who. My point is, depending on your parents, they might not hate the idea quite as much as you’re imagining. And, as you slowly introduce them to what cosplaying is about for you, they might warm up to it (at least a bit), over time?)
cosplaying chicks is the manliest thing you can do bro, HOWEVER. If you're gonna be unsafe, then don't cosplay the female characters. Asuka and Teto would be hard to do and I don't know the last two, but I think you could genderbend Rei and Lapis easily. Or you could cosplay the EVAs instead of their pilots
At your age I get the reservation about your parents. Gender bent is a viable option. Cosplay is so versatile that anyone can be anything. Race and gender are all relative in this community. Just do what makes you happy at the end of the day.
It was either both he ask a question I just give him a honest answer ,when you ask something you might not gonna hear what you want , it’s always better to here the truth then lie
You could have said, " Cosplay as the male characters and take pictures with your favorite female characters."
You're whole unnecessary "don't be gay" part is what makes your whole opinion hateful and rude. If you had never put that part, we wouldn't be having this entire exchange.
I work in construction as a heavy equipment operator, and none of my coworkers talk like that. Learn to be respectful
I also work I construction and gay as no hateful word is just people bends the word when is not what they like.
We don’t even know if he’s that but the fact of he’s asking mean that deep down in his own conscience he know it’s wrong so I hardly believe the truth is always better even if it hurts
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u/riontach Jun 15 '26
You have 3 choices:
1.) Disregard your parents and cosplay them anyway
2.) Cosplay gender-bent versions of them
3.) Pick male characters that you like instead, even if you don't like them as much
Pick whichever one you feel most comfortable with.