Dragon Con 2021 Photos #2: A Cosplay Sampler

A round of applause for those 2020 MVPs, the Hygiene Theater all-stars! Flanked on each side by a pair of…uh, RocketDoge?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In 2019 my wife Anne and I attended our very first Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. We returned home to Indianapolis with a plethora of new memories, hundreds and hundreds of photos, and a shared suspicion that we’d return someday. Not every year, but someday. In the year of our grand pandemic 2020 we attended exactly zero conventions for easily guessed reasons. In 2021 several cons made their comeback plans, but Dragon Con stepped up hardest and made us some offers we couldn’t refuse. We didn’t have to think long or hard before accepting the special rules under which this pandemic-era show would be held…

To our surprise and delight, thousands of cosplayers showed up in full effect to showcase their sartorial talents and represent for their fandoms, despite the mandatory masking protocols. Some used plain masks to make them easier to overlook; others chose accessories with matching elements or incorporated them into their costumes. The rules were very specific that attendees couldn’t simply throw on a Ben Cooper plastic mask or a Latex Halloween head and consider themselves compliant. The masks felt and looked odd in a convention setting for about six minutes until we all remembered we’ve been staring at masks, masks, and more masks for over a year now. In a world where everyone’s doing mask cosplay, they were just more visual blips that blended in to our kaleidoscopic surroundings.

Anne and I attended more panels than usual at this show and consequently spent less time wandering around cosplayer stomping grounds. We were never the most outgoing photogs under ordinary circumstances, but after a year spent even more isolated from human contact, it was harder than ever to approach strangers and ask favors of them. It doesn’t help that the older we get, and the fewer new intellectual properties we attach ourselves to, the fewer new costumes we recognize. We do try.

The following gallery represents all the usable pics we took of the cosplayers in our path throughout our Friday and Saturday at D*C. They represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total talented masqueraders we saw across the multiple buildings and their connective trails. This gallery does not include all the wonderful participants we saw in the annual Dragon Con parade on Saturday morning, which will receive its own entries next, if and when I can make the time to sort, edit, label and post all of those. We took a lot. Like, A LOT a lot. I promise I’ll get to them if life will get out of my way.

If I’ve mislabeled anyone here, please let me know. I do enjoy learning about new universes. Thanks in advance. Enjoy!

WALL-E, the most prized quarry of many a Jawa.

Nuka T-51 power armor from Fallout 4‘s Nuka-World add-on.

PBS legend Bob Ross, apropos of our visit to his happy little studio last May.

The Blackhawks, DC Comics’ own flying legends.

For the Tarot fans out there, Baba Divina is an original cosplay creation.

Totoro with a guard entourage. Not pictured; its button that reads “Totoroki for President”.

Suffragists, still ready for the call to action.

…Super Troopers?

A Colossal Titan from Attack on Titan doing one-handed push-ups…

…including that advanced showy move where he’d clap between pushes.

Bender’s very stabby nemesis Roberto from Futurama.

“Tale as old as time / Song as old as rhyme / Marie Antoinette and the Beast!”

George R.R. Martin took so long to write this sign, that next book’s been pushed back another six years.

Whether a Jedi, a Sith, or that wishy-washy third category they made up on Clone Wars, the Fed Ex is strong with this one and his little shrine of con-goers’ litter.

Over at The Hub at Peachtree Center — i.e., the main food court — Cari Bou the Caribou Coffee corporate mascot says hello to fellow kids.

You’ve heard of Elf on the Shelf; get ready for Schlub on the Nightclub!

Sleestak panelist at the Land of the Lost Q&A.

A lineup of Chibi-headed Nicolas Cages walked down a narrow hallway…

…where it was impossible to ask the “Cage Crew” to stop and pose…

…but Anne did her best to immortalize some of their immortalizing. Remember when he was an Academy Award Winner ages ago?

The beloved Jurassic Park cast, scoring bonus points for its rarely cosplayed baby Triceratops.

A deep cut for Trek fans: Our Heroes’ baseball team uniforms from the Deep Space Nine season-7 episode “Take Me Out to the Holosuite”, complete with players’ names on the back.