Don't call me sidekick!

aigue-marine:

Following THIS post…

THANK YOU VERY MUCH to everyone who shared my “SPREAD THE WORD” post I published two days ago. I am very, very grateful for your support. Over 7.500 people saw the post on Facebook and almost 1.000 people shared it here on Tumblr! Let’s keep going!

I don’t want this creepy guy to get close to ANY other cosplay girl again and I don’t want and other cosplayer to fall for his scheme like I did. Behaviour like this is anything but okay. Cosplay =/= Consent, Cosplay Girls don’t ask for it and they aren’t stupid to take their clothes off because they are told to. They are actual human beings and not drawn fictional characters on a sheet of paper.

I know this is a very radical step, but since neither “Dave” nor “his girlfriend” who did the interview got back to my messages in which I asked them to set things straight I’d like to ask you to report this man.
Behaviour like his is not acceptable - Under absolutely NO circumstances. Therefore I’d like to ask you to help me ban this man from Facebook so he cannot approach any cosplayers anymore..!

You can find his profile right HERE.

PS: I want to point out that it is not my aim to harrass or bully “Dave Mirra”. I am taking steps against a man who is trying to take advantage of cosplayers which is absolutely NOT OKAY.

aigue-marine:

Today I was approached by an acquaintance of mine on Facebook. He asked me if I was interested in doing a Cosplay Video Interview for his new Facebook page “Cosplay: Not Just A Hobby”.
Having met this guy before I agreed and talked to his girlfriend about the formalicies on Skype - She was supposed to be in charge during the interview which was fine for me.

Doing a Cosplay Video Interview in costume in front of a webcam is nothing new to me, so I dressed up and waited for the interview to start…

First of all everything was alright. The questions were normal “How did you get into cosplay?” “How long have you been cosplaying?”, etc. Everything was completely fine…

Until the “Interview” part was finished and the optional “Quizz” part started in which I had the chance to win a 2.000$ laptop.

I told the host of the interview I had no clue of the games she was going to ask me questions about, but she kindly asked me to give the whole quizz a try… Since I had nothing to lose I agreed and we started the quizz.

And right after I had answered the first question incorrectly the host told me to take a pieces of accessory/cloothing off…

To cut a long story short: I refused to take anything off, to continue the quizz or interview or whatever and wanted to stop the conversion. Which got me into a huge discussion with the host who complained that there was […] “Nothing scandalous in taking off a ribbon or an apron.” […]

Right. There IS nothing scandalous about it. But I’m a professional and I will NOT take off ANY part of my costume in front of a webcam to anybody ever. And WHAT PROFESSIONAL OWNER of a cosplay website would EVER ask an interview guest to do that?!

(At this point the host even pointed out that she wouldn’t record the quizz part and that the stripping - yes, I will call it by its name, stripping - was just for fun. The conversation continued like this:

[22:27:22] : “its not stripping, it’sjust a simple apron to try out the last two questions … -_-
[22:28:20] : and i’m not recording. i don’t need this kind of stuff.
[22:28:49] : because it is just the rule of the quiz, our sponsor doesn’t give free laptops.
[22:29:04] : no, because there is no video.
[22:29:09] : we just make it hard to win it.
[22:29:27] : it is simple, stand and remove the apron and we try a last question. it’s a prize after all.
[22:29:40] : no, i’m just trying to make you win something that has a value
[22:29:57] : just an apron, then you stop.
[22:30:08] : obviously no one is forcing you! i don’t want it :)”

I won’t go on any further… I’ll leave it at that.)

Anyways, at the very end the host left, telling me […] “she didn’t need any else from this attitude, really.” […]
I am extremely angry and ashamed I fell for this whole thing in the first place. Therefore I’d like to ask you:

DON’T ACCEPT INTERVIEWS OF “DAVID MIRRA” AND/OR HIS GIRLFRIEND UNTIL THIS MATTER IS SETTLED.

I have no words for that…but you did the right thing and I hope lots of people will read this post, to know that they have to be more careful!