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Flashback - My four hours as a giant cat mascot
badideasinaction 07/28/10, 12:20 | 
7 | Obligatory pun subtitle: My four hours in a giant hot wet pussy.
Apparently I'm suffering from digital hypergraphy, so I'll share some moments in the past. Mascots and fursuits seem to be one of the symbols of fandom gone wrong, so I'll share with you my brief outsider-experience wearing one. It was a professionally made one for corporate promo, but it was for an anime con, so I guess that's close enough to the real thing.
Prologue:
It's a Sunday morning, a little different than usual because I'm situated in a forest, having just finished a shower and recovering from a fairly pleasant set of drinks the night before. Things are peaceful when I get the text from S:
"Hey, you wanna help with the mascot for a Japanese fashion designer next weekend at the convention?"
S gets me into strange situations from time to time. In fact, she kinda revels in it. It's a nice day, I'm sorta well-rested, the sun is shining, so active apathy kicks in. Active apathy is dangerous - while passive apathy is "meh, I don't know, so no", active apathy is "I don't see why not". Active apathy always gets me in weird situations.
"Hey, I don't see why not... sign me up"
The event:
Fast forward a week, and I'm meeting the reps from the fashion/music label; pleasantries are exchanged and I meet two other volunteer folk - one's about a head taller than me and 100 pounds heavier, mostly for the wrong reasons, and the other is a head smaller than me but probably my weight or heavier, also for the wrong reasons. They introduce themselves, and when asked about doing this before say that they're fursuiters from the southern US. Well, um, okay then. They were instructed to wear long pants/sleeves, while I wasn't, so I get assigned the job to be their spotter, since apparently this is better for the suit, not to mention the health of the occupants.
Japan-based rep passes us off to LA-based rep, and the original plan goes out the window - instead we're supposed to rotate, and the "for an hour" changes to "for four hours". Okay, I'm puzzled by the breakdown in plan, but hey, it works. The idea is one person is a minder, one person is suiting up, one person is wearing then we rotate on 15 minute intervals. This plan doesn't involve me being only a minder, so now I'm wondering about the whole swapping sweat with fursuiters in mascot outfits. At least they seemed to have normal hygiene as fas as I could smell, but still, I mentioned that I might only have an hour before S needed me for *invent fake event here* in case I want to bail instead of bathing in another man's sweat.
Both fursuiters are ready to rock (one can only hope not aroused if I have to wear that next), so we strap the big one into his outfit - he's dressed as a giant girl cat wearing a gothic lolita dress, and the thing only barely fits him, with the dress covering up the last four inches of zipper. The other fursuiter is told to be the minder, and the Japanese rep points at a suit and says "get in" - I mention that I was supposed to only be the minder and he shrugs.
Okay, why the hell not.
Thankfully, these were clearly professionally cleaned - no smell. From neck to feet you've got basically a windbreaker-nylon material covering your body, then about 3-5 inches of stuffing, then funfur, then clothing. In short, you're sweating before you've even finished putting the body on. Hands are covered in mittens (thankfully designed with cheater holes so your hands can poke out to do stuff, feet are a lot bigger. Over the fur is some black and red striped outfit, kinda your standard hot-topic goth-punk look. Well, it's a bit better than me in a black lacy lolita dress. Initially I thought I wasn't going to add cross-dressing to the list of new things done this weekend, but turns out said mascot was a she, and I was sporting a very fashionable black pleated. Really, it's kind of a drop in the bucket in terms of looking silly.
The other guy returns, his giant head is removed - he's bright red and sweating buckets. I should add that it's probably close to 100 degrees with the humidity, and the expo centre is only moderately air-conditioned. They start peeling the costume off of him as a giant cat head is placed over mine and a chinstrap is secured...
...I now have a globe enveloping my head - it smells vaguely of styrene, probably from whatever epoxy it was made from. The edges of the head are at least 8 inches from your face, so you can breathe in, but you're not drawing in outside air. A mesh-covered nose about 3 inches around serves as air intake - there had been a fan, but that had broken. The character has an eyepatch, but instead of using black mesh they opted to paint over it in black. The other eye is a plastic bubble, about 4 inches forward, six inches up and to the left. meaning my entire field of view is what I can see up and to the left and nothing else. That bubble immediately fogs up, but frankly, I can't see shit with it anyway.
So the sweat is already starting to form and I have zero visibility. Imagine being led blindfolded through a crowded convention centre to meet your adoring public and pose for photos. In clown shoes. And since the minder's job was also to help the other person suit up, sometimes you were left on your own. It's an interesting experience in Zen being in your own little world while being pretty much cut off from all visual input, and most auditory; I could hear people if they were about 6 inches from me or less. Pretty much the only thing I could see was camera focus/metering lights, so I could at least orient a bit towards the camera and wave.
Time passes, but it's hard to really tell how long, temperature raises. Everything is a muffled echo and a wall of polystyrene is all you see. Arms pull me in for hugs, handshakes, photos. A distant voice tells me to clap if I'm doing okay, and I oblige. I get shifted over. Then shifted again. Hands adjust my clothing, the giant spiked collar, my tail, and again, it's all okay. I am a leaf on the wind. A giant, sweaty cat-shaped leaf on the wind.
A hand escorts me somewhere - for all I know I'm being kidnapped for ransom. Head comes off, bodysuit comes partway off to my waist, I try and chug water and energy drink (I was grabbed before eating, big mistake). The girl is now in the lolita outfit, being led by a very tall sweaty guy and the first hole in this plan is starting to show - the minder is going to look like hell if they're also in the suit. I haven't swapped out yet and the mascot unexpectedly comes back, and the costume is being hastily zipped up again. Apparently the towel she'd put on her head (both of them had one, mascot thing apparently) fell down over her face and she couldn't see anything. I don't think that would have made much of a difference, but whatever...
...and that's how I went from "mascot minder" to "rotating in and out of mascot" to "Dressing as a hot-topic punk catgirl for four hours". Also helped that it fit me perfectly, whereas the girl was a bit small. Girl ended up being stuck as minder, and I was brought out for 15 minute rotations over four hours.
People were generally good - they'd ask for hugs or interpret my wave as a high-five. A few hugs were uncomfortably long, but I could see the pre-flash going without the flash, so that may have been camera. Some hugs were accompanied with a "oh God you must be dying in there you poor bastard" or such. A few hugs from squealing girls. Nobody tried to cop a feel, and if they did I'd probably not notice. Reactions (from what I could hear) and hugs were enthusiastic, which is weird... I mean, they know it's just some person in a suit, right? Sadly, didn't get to shatter any guys' illusions by talking to them in guy voice.
Things learned:
The mascot walk - when you can't see anything you want to telegraph every move you make. You end up doing the exaggerated cartoon walk just to make sure your path is clear. Big movements, full shoulder/hip swing - think the Bugs Bunny walk from cartoons. Embrace the fact you can't see shit and just start walking, hoping your minder is clearing a path.
The mascot dance - you really don't want to just stand there and wave; hot, disorienting and mostly stationary are a recipe for a trip to the floor and lala land. That, and if you're not moving, your personal space bubble basically shrinks to "contact" - people seem to start seeing you as an object when you're in one of those things. They crowd you, treat you like a pylon and will bump you without a second thought. Stay moving - dance like a retard to music only you can hear while you wave and pose and you get to keep your personal space and equilibrium. You're already dressed up like a fool, really, run with it. Occasional goth clubbing has taught me all I need to know about not feeling like an idiot while dancing.
How to cut weight for a fight - even while chugging water between shifts, I could see the difference in my appearance from the water loss. Sadly I didn't have a scale handy to get a number. If I ever land a career in the fight game I'm wearing that to cut weight.
Aftermath:
I'm rather heat-acclimated (my wearing long pants/sleeves in Vegas in August led to me being frisked by casino security and general disbelief that I was from Canada), and the blindness/disorientation wasn't a big deal - hell, when sweat was getting to be an issue I had my eyes completely closed and was still dealing with the public. Four hours later, I slipped off the now-soaking suit and headed back to my hotel room - I didn't want to think about the poor bastard who had to wear that the next day for the fashion show. I didn't look so much "sweaty" as "someone who had been swimming with his clothes on". Two bottles of Gatorade and a nice shower got things back to normal though. The reps were friendly, and we were chatting on and off the rest of the weekend when we crossed paths. Apparently I did a really good job, so I have that to fall back on if this computer programming thing is a dead end. The girl who botched her attempt ended up wearing my suit for the next show, so she got her fursuit time in as well. Happy ending I guess.
So yeah, I survived four hours crossplaying in a fursuit; I didn't get an erection and as far as I can tell I don't feel the need to hump animals or anything, so I guess furry isn't some sort of virus you get from wearing one. As far as staff jobs at a convention goes, it's probably more fun than many of the jobs, so it's got that going for it. I had fun, and hey, I do these things and write about it so you don't have to. | | Next | Reply - Reply With Quote | | | | |
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