this got so out of hand at my local fest that they decided to do time traveller's weekend as a theme. this year we went, and my costume was a cave man who hit his head on a tree branch while chasing a rabbit, woke up here and is amazed by everything
It would make way more sense for Stargate cosplayers to be at a renfaire since every single planet they went to on that series seemed to have villagers at about the renaissance level of technology (gotta wonder, did they have access to a bunch of medieval/renaissance sets for cheap lol?).
Of course, if you went as Stargate cosplayers you would have to basically dress up as para military wannabe chuds who’s personalities revolve around owning useless guns (like sword person who is obsessed with swords but way less fun) and being a bigot. People might not even recognize you are in costume and just assume you are a bunch of losers who express their freedom by going to renfaires carrying around murder weapons and dressing in tactical gear.
sigh
…better to go as the Star Trek cosplayers lol.
You'd never mistake a SG team for the bigots. There are women, and non-white people on the team!
/s
I think they were saying the opposite. The gun obsessed military types you see in public may be bigots. SG characters may look similar bat are various races and not bigots.
haha that is a good one! I wonder if the faire participants mind or feel like it hurts their immersion.
At least at the Faires I've worked at no one cares.
In fact, I have a second-hand anecdote that one faire staff has a screen accurate combadge inside their doublet. When they see people doing stuff like this, they run over and pull them aside. They would whip out the badge and get in their face. "Does the Prime Directive mean NOTHING to you?! This is an uncontacted pre-warp civilization. You are ruining YEARS of undercover research! Who is your captain? I'm going to have your court martialled if you don't get under cover FAST."
I've heard this same story. Third or fourth hand mind you.
Which, honestly, is the best way to deal with these assholes.
God forbid I see some Star Trek cosplayer while I'm watching a comedian crack whips and sing twisted tunes.
I've seen that as well, it's slowly growing. Unsurprisingly the correlation of ren faire goers and trekkers is high.
...considering the term is nearly sixty years old i'd say no.
Edit: exposing myself as an olde farte but in fandom circles back in the day there was a sharp line between trekker and trekkie . Oooh you didn't want to be seen as a trekkie, they were the fans that ...well looking back at it, the trekkies were openly obsessed over the series and had all the fun cosplaying and being free about it, the trekkers were the ones that pretended they weren't mad about trek and thus were allowed out into respectable society. Cringe factor i suppose. Heh. But old name habits remain.
Fair enough, though I'm not too far behind ya there. I suppose it's similar to the dichotomy of geek v. nerd, insofar that the distinction is lost on those outside the group (much to our chagrin/cringe). 🖖🏽
It's also an age thing - I mean every fandom has Those Fans, but in general being a fan of something and buying / wearing merch is now nbd. Nerd's gone mainstream.
Back when those terms were coined? Sooo not the case. Like, it could literally get you beaten. Wild times.
That's what I'm sayin'! It took me so long not to reflexively whip around to see who said "nerd" and would there be a slap fight. 🤪
(FYI: class of '95 was when this was peak for me)
I'm similarly minded. A friend and I have talked about doing this for some time, but it's such an old joke I sorta fear it wanders into the same territory as asking the grocery clerk if the item that didn't scan is free.
have you ever said anything back as a response, like" everything's free if you steal it..." and just kind of pause for a moment?
My favorite, when I was working any last point of contact with customers: "It's only a crime if you get caught. At least, that's what I figured when I wonder why mgmt gets a cut of my pay.", and the deadpan is essential. 🤘🏽
What a perfect comparison. I would agree it's in the same neighborhood. It was funny the first 8 million times.
People at ren fairs are usually in pretty good spirits and good humor. Considering there are people dressed as wizards and elves, I think they'd be okay with Star Trek time travelers.
The Venn Diagram of Renn Fair goers, and Trekkies isn't a circle, but it's close I'd imagine.
I've seen a story where one of the faire participants had a commbadge hidden in their costume, pulled the Trekkie to one side, showed it to them, then told them off for breaking the Prime Directive...
In my experience, you might annoy the "hardcore" ones, but most people won't be bothered. Hell, people may honestly join in, so long as you aren't causing any problems.
A lot of the Faire folk I have met are just happy people are participating and having a good time, and if you put effort into a costume, even better.
Considering what goes into the more hard-core outfits, they deserve respect for their dedication. And there are lots of outlets for that too, which is great (e.g. SCA).
However, if someone gets their tabbard in a bunch because some sci-fi cosplayers ruined their sense of immersion, at what is arguably a pay-to-enter medieval-themed shopping mall, they may deserve what they get.
A lot of the Faire folk I have met are just happy people are participating and having a good time, and if you put effort into a costume, even better.
These people are the backbone of every Faire. Huzzah!
I wear a TNG uniform to my local ren fair every year - it almost exclusively generates excitement and high fives.
I was at a ren fair earlier this year wearing my MST3K shirt and several people in real cosplay stopped to tell me how much they loved my shirt.
Also, there was a guy wearing a shirt that just said "This is my ren fair costume." Respect to that guy.
I use it as the only public event I will wear my JNCOs to. That and my "Fuck yeah, swords." shirt.
I try. Believe it or not they are still the same pairs I had from when I was 20. Honestly some of the best jeans I've ever owned.
I'm jealous! My highly religious parents wouldn't allow me to get those when I was in highschool in the 90s. They were definitely high quality jeans.
Still available too! https://jnco.com/
Kikwear is still around too. Though their store isn't showing many products right now. There's a brick and mortar near me that carries them.
My highly religious parents wouldn't allow me to get those when I was in highschool in the 90s.
Which southern state are you from? lol
I like how the male models on that site are just the same picture of two different dudes with the clothes pasted over them.
The Star Trek cosplayers don’t bother me… it’s the fucking furries. Like no judgement, you do you, but how is a full pink fur suit even slightly on theme?
The furries I saw at a ren faire recently had theme appropriate attire for their fursuit. I was jealous that they had two costumes!
I mean someone is already cosplaying some romanticized ideal of someone 200 years ago is it really that much of a stretch to have someone dressed as an anamophized dog-man?
What a coincidence: just yesterday I rewatched the warehouse 13 episode where they're at a civil war reenactment LARP and someone complains about the fucking trekkies always crashing their party as RPG time travelers.
It was hilarious the first 500 times. I know some fairs have soured on it and want people to stop
Understandable. Plus, the landing team would usually dress incognito so as not to violate the prime directive anyway, right?
So what are they doing dressed in their usual uniforms?
Depends on the situation. Sometimes they only find out that the planet they’re beaming down to is actually a 1920’s mafia planet or a Nazi Germany planet after the fact once they get there, and then it’s like, “Bones, Spock, and also random Crewman, we’ve just beamed down to a mafia planet, we need to get some proper clothes before we’re spotted. Oh no, we’ve been spotted, beat these mafia guys up and steal their clothes quick before we’re spotted again.”
Although to be fair those sorts of episodes actually didn’t involve time travel, since they were other planets that for some reason or another became entire planets of mafiosos and Nazis, but the prime directive still applied.
Maybe they got thrown back in time against their will, versus being a normal away mission?
My friend who used to work at a ren faire says it's a lazy overdone joke and the people who do it tend to be dicks.
It might not be an away team, but instead they got thrown back in time type of situation, which in that case they would just have their normal outfits.
Someone needs to coordinate an S.C.P. containment team cosplay to crash the Ren faire
I’ve never been to a ren fair in my life but I can feel it in my bones that this is one of those eyeroll inducing things where a million of people have done it but they all think they’re the first.
Same probably goes for Doctor Who.
Apparently it's pretty common for ren fair people to wear a starfleet badge hidden somewhere and if this happens pull them aside in character, subtly show the badge and rip into them for violating the prime directive.
have done it but they all think they’re the first.
It's not about the first, it's about the best.
I mean it kinda seems like there’s exactly one way to do it. They’re not elaborate costumes by any means, and they’re uniforms so you can’t exactly get creative with it.
I mean it kinda seems like there’s exactly one way to do it. They’re not elaborate costumes by any means, and they’re uniforms so you can’t exactly get creative with it.
Not with the costumes maybe, but with the acting, you definitely can.
The immersion? I've been to some and people dress up as like fairy's and elves and all sorts of fantasy shit.
Same. It used to be a lot more of historical reenactment, and a lot of the performances and stuff still reflect that.
But the last few times I've gone it's mainly been a themed craft show with corsets and tunics, and yeah, people with wings, steampunk hats, and Cloud's buster sword, or tails hanging out of their pants. :|
Renaissance times must've been wild, y'all. Lol
IDK man, the more historical Renaissance fairs still exist, with people a bit more strict about dressing period-appropriately. The ones you're talking about are basically a whole separate thing, it's basically a fantasy-inspired comic-con, and attracts a whole different audience.
I don't think there's anything wrong with either. I think it's awesome that there's places for people to sell their niche handmade goods while sporting the fashions of 17th-century France or whatever, as well as places where people can dress up like fantasy creatures, tails and all.
Oh sure I agree! The slightly confusing bit is the one here is called "Age of Chivalry - Renaissance Festival", but could just as easily be "Medieval-themed fantasy con and craft show" ...maybe wouldn't be as catchy.
...but hey I got some sweet custom dice there ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Imma be honest. I don't get the whole LARP scene. It's weird AF. Happy for people finding something they like but damn.
There's a great book on the LARP scene called "Leaving Mundania" by Lizzie Stark that's a really easy, entertaining read. It helped me really empathize with the hobby and the people behind it.
She kinda had the same perspective but approached it with curiosity to figure out what the fuss was about.
(Up until that last chapter on "Nordic LARP"... it's been ages since I read it but that stuff got weeeird.)
It's one of those things that would sound like a ton of fun to me, going all in on pretending to be some fantasy character and everybody else is in on the bit, but there's some combat rules to prevent "invincible OC syndrome" so you're actually moving playing pretend instead of plopped in a chair for 6 hours for a tabletop game.
In any case, it looks like a good way to escape playing "Bills & Bosses", a game that is near-universally reviled. hahaha
Unfortunately it's just very geo-dependent and cost intensive I'd think haha.
It depends on the event and the event holders.
"Ren Fairs" in the US are more likely to be put on for fun. Go hear a guy in tights play a lute, eat a roast turkey leg, etc. I think convention cosplay culture is starting to leak in.
If you want to see Americans take period costume seriously, go to a "reenactment." You'll find folks who are very serious about history, many of them are professional historians, archaeologists or museum employees performing for the education of the public. Probably the biggest community is the one around the American Civil War. Go watch the movie Gettysburg. Sure there's the main cast of Hollywood actors, but then there's hundreds and hundreds of extras. They're war reenactors, who showed up with their own personal uniforms and equipment.
going by your username Im gonna assume youre german. you see all kinds of costumes and clothings at the MPS for example and imho noone is bothered by it
A not insignificant number of guests are usually dressed like regular modern day people. Ren faires are for everyone, and most people don't own period costumes. It's usually encouraged for guests to dress up, but it absolutely is not required.
Is everyone dressed up at these fairs?
I don’t see how a few people in trek costumes would crush immersion if plain clothes people don’t either. It’s both or neither, not one or the other.
It sounds like it's basically the same. My understanding is this type of thing actually started in the US and was exported to Europe, ironically enough. But yeah, many (most) guests are not in costume. I don't see how some guests in Trek costumes would harm anything.
Wouldn't the time travelers try to fit in and adapt their clothes so they do not disturb the culture?
A Foundation MTF exploring a temporal anomaly would also work, though I think less people would understand.