I've hardly celebrated Halloween before, but this year I did.
It was also the best excuse to start cosplaying!
Now, given the fact that not everyone would know of what the term means, I shall repeat what many a cosplayers have said over the years...
Cosplaying is dressing up as a character, especially those that originate from the Japanese entertainment industry of animations, comics, and video games. As of late, they have expanded to almost every other genre of entertainment. And it is not limited to Halloween.
I went as an antagonist of the comic(manga) call Hellsing. Basically vampires running about lose in England in 2000 fighting against fellow vampires, and somewhere in there, Nazi's got involved...well, it was all planned out before hand, and badly mutilated from history and fiction.
Note to everyone new to Cosplaying, or lacking common sense (like me): People are still sensitive above the Nazis...so unless you have a really good reason to have the symbol, don't even think about having it! (Cosplaying, even for Halloween, is not good enough!)
I'm not really gonna concentrate on that topic, but I have to say this. The reason that I can tolerate the symbol is
1. I dislike the Nazis, but I can forgive them. I was hoping that 60 years have taught people to learn how to forgive and learn from the mistake, instead of hate and continue hating for the next century to come. If you don't forgive, there will ultimately be a day, whether this life or next or past, where your enemy have asked for help when they need it, and you have denied them of the help from you because you hate them...No wonder there is so much apathy in the world.
2. The Nazi symbol closely resemble a Taoist symbol, which is basically the same shape, inverted/reflected/mutilated. And (ironically enough) I was born under such "accursed" symbol...I swear this to be true. Before I learned about Nazis at all, I always wondered why people reacted with such a repulsive manner when ever I draw the symbol... That symbol was my original religion (of which has faded with my family converting to a more Buddhist approach...and is now changed to a point that our spiritual practice is on the verge of being unable to be described in words.) ANYHOW, I don't see the symbol itself as being the representation of evil, but rather, of misusage. Misusage of power, of knowledge, or opportunity.
3. Hellsing, the manga, has mutilated the Nazi party as so much to basically forget all about world conquest (Historians, please correct my horrible history knowledge at your will), discrimination and prejudice, and being a super power. Their whole scheme in the whole manga was actually to kill the protagonists, that's all. I'll confess though, there is quite a bit of violence and gore involved... given that there are vampires and zombies involved...that was expected.
Points being said though, it was a bad idea to even have the symbol...because there are those who cannot tolerate this, or never knew the anime/manga, and hence I'm never doing it again...Those who hate Nazis, and consequently hate me, feel welcome to throw your socks at me. I'm used to it anyway, being a minority in various aspects, almost to a point where my friends considered getting me a T-shirt saying endangered species. Either way, I hope I'll see the day when the symbol will be seen as a representation of mistakes of humanity, and not a symbol of eternal hatred. And there is so much more on my mind right now, I just want to rant a little more before I say some happy stuff...but it won't help anyway, since hardly anyone but myself can understand the complete duality nature of life, it's oxymorons and ironies, miracles and curses. And considering that I fail epically (even more beautifully than a professional ballet dancer can dance across the stage) every time I try explaining my philosophy, I'll just stop right here and stop the whole deal...
...I want to cry now...humans' and their narrow-scope make me cry...
*Goes off to corner to head bang the wall* but then again, some might argue that NORMAL HUMANS don't have a scope even 1% of mine...I'm too nice...
URG......and now I'm too depressed to type happy stuff...!
