When Ayat Salim, a longtime anime and geek culture fan, took the plunge into cosplay, she entered a world of endless possibilities.
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00:00People think it's strange.
00:04It's very childish for a grown person to be dressing up as a video game character.
00:09Cosplay to me is a great hobby.
00:12It's also a fun challenge.
00:15It makes me just glow
00:18and made me happy when I was not able to be happy.
00:21When I dress up in cosplay,
00:23I can feel myself completely transform into another person,
00:26into a different world.
00:28My name is Ayat Selim.
00:30I'm a hijabi cosplayer and I make my own costumes.
00:42Cosplay comes from combining the words costume and roleplay into cosplay.
00:48Anybody can get into cosplay.
00:51It's very accessible these days to find costumes that are cheap online.
00:55For me, the part of cosplay that I enjoy the most is the creation.
00:59One of the unique things that I do is hijabifying the characters.
01:04I take a character who's not necessarily very covered up or modest in her dress,
01:10but I modify the character to fit my belt.
01:15I love the inventiveness of it,
01:17the ability to try and make something
01:20that is sometimes defying physics into reality.
01:25The more limitations there are, the more creative I can get.
01:29It's an amazing avenue for me to explore all of the different talents that I have.
01:35At the end, I can make something
01:37and it kind of gives me a very positive feeling of like,
01:40I can actually make things.
01:45Before I started cosplaying,
01:47I was very shy, extremely introverted.
01:51Just either playing video games by myself or reading books.
01:57But all of that is very, like, individual hobbies.
02:02I was living a very isolated life.
02:06I was always feeling very negative about myself.
02:10I used to feel like I didn't deserve to have friends.
02:14Days and weeks could pass without me interacting with anybody outside the house.
02:19And that was very depressing.
02:23In 2015, when the first big convention was going to happen in Qatar,
02:27I saw it and I'm like, oh, maybe I can cosplay.
02:31I wanted to prove to myself, like, I do have it in me.
02:34I can make it.
02:37I was angry at myself for how closed off I was.
02:43I was very chatty when I was young, a very bubbly person.
02:48I knew that part of me could flourish.
02:52I was really determined to just seize the moment and participate in that event.
02:58Just do it and you may never get another chance.
03:03My first time doing a cosplay competition basically flopped.
03:08But it's giving me confidence.
03:11Cosplay has really helped me come out of my shell.
03:15This is the social butterfly that has been stuck in a cocoon for almost 30 years.
03:21Cosplay really works as an icebreaker.
03:24It opens conversations.
03:26It's just like a signal.
03:27It's like, hey, I'm okay to talk to.
03:29I'm also a geek.
03:31I started seeing a part of myself that I thought was not there.
03:35People tell me, it's like, oh, my God, you were amazing.
03:39Sometimes external validation really heals.
03:44It wasn't like, okay, now I'm cured.
03:47It was like a step in the right direction.
03:51I found my future.
03:55Introducing new events, we start offering a way to connect with other cosplayers.
04:00We have the main event, which is Geekdom, that happens once a year.
04:03Every two to three months, we have the smaller one, which is Geekin,
04:07from the name that happens in the weekend.
04:09We have multiple activities.
04:11We have the board games tournament.
04:12We have the esports tournament.
04:14We have multiple cosplay competitions.
04:16I have been in the cosplay scene for quite a long time.
04:20She competed multiple times.
04:22People, they're starting to look at her, and they started to have the courage to actually participate as well.
04:29I'm really loving the fact that nowadays, more and more people are embracing the possibility of cosplaying,
04:37being able to have the conversation with them.
04:39I learn from them. They learn from me.
04:41In Qatar, the cosplay scene, the geek scene, is still in its infancy.
04:47You can mold it however you want.
04:50Try to gear it towards inclusivity.
04:54Since the community was small, it was a little bit easier for us to manage it
04:58and to give enough attention to everyone,
05:00so we can actually help them to grow and to express themselves the proper way.
05:05We are trying to offer them a face for them to show us their talent.
05:12I know that my craftsmanship level is high,
05:16but I want to go to further competitions,
05:20let loose, and actually just get into character.
05:23I'm trying to work more and more on practicing to get the posture correct.
05:28Try to imitate the tone of voice.
05:32I'm Captain Rose Skyward.
05:34In February, there's going to be the big Geekdom event.
05:37It's going to be my first time doing something on a higher level than anything I've done before.
05:42I want people to see the work that I've done.
05:46I want to prove to myself that what I'm doing is good enough.
05:49It takes a lot of courage to dress up as a character.