Confessions of a Bella Swan Cosplayer: Prologue

It started like any other book I enjoyed. I read a couple of chapters and was sucked right in. My boyfriend (now husband) had been living in Austria for the past couple of months and I had missed him terribly. FaceTime didn't exist and texting internationally was a sick joke let alone an actual phone call. Email was the only form of communication... when his internet connection decided to work. I couldn't help but picture him as Edward Cullen... and with that, my enjoyment became obsession.

I started to piece together what the inside of Bella's closet may have looked like, paying attention to descriptive details Stephenie Meyer had given us. I began to fill my drawers with all the familiar things...admittedly ignoring all mentions of Khaki...

As I finished the books, I had learned Twilight was being released in theaters in only a couple of weeks...and then recalled actually seeing the trailer in theaters about a year prior, and even remember commenting how cheesy and dumb 'that movie' looked... Little did I know I would be seeing that cheesy and dumb movie in theaters ten times in a row. I have no idea where I got the money for all those movie tickets but I can only assume my mother probably saw that bill on her credit card statement...sorry, mom.

After studying the trailer and then seeing the movie, I had decided to ditch the clothing I THOUGHT Bella would wear, and focus on trying to find the movie's version of Bella's style. Its funny to think back on that moment, mainly because I really didn't have a style of my own. I just wore clothes...whatever I was feeling...one day I'd be goth, the next I'd be punk, and the next I'd be some five year olds interpretation of what they wanted to wear when they grew up. No joke. I have pictures.

Bella's style in the movie was one style I had never tried, and it immediately stuck. It was easy and comfortable...but now that I had some clothes that looked like hers... I was hoping people noticed...but why? that was such an odd thing to feel.

Twilight had truly brought out the worst in some people. It was that movie that you either loved, or loved to make fun of. Unfortunately, just about everyone around me was on the hate wagon. I