The Washington Convention Center hosts all kinds of gatherings but few as colorful as Awesome Con.

It's a festival that attracts over 70,000 fans to celebrate every conceivable genre and subgenre of pop culture.

Shady Haze from Northern Virginia is an Awesome Con celebrity guest who attends conventions around the country.

There was, like, tens and thousands of Facebook groups in the DMV with different niches.

So there's DC Comics, there's "Star Wars."

Maybe there is for, like, LGBTQ geeks.

Curry: One niche represented at the convention is cosplay, combining costume and play to inhabit a character from a work of fiction.

Roquois Clarke is a fan of anime, a popular genre of Japanese animation.

Roquois Clarke: "Sailor Moon" is one of my favorite anime, and it just literally shaped a lot of who I am, and so when I cosplay Sailor Moon, I become Sailor Moon.

I am running around, trying to make everyone feel good, and just bring a lot of that "Moon" magic.

Curry: Among the events at Awesome Con is the cosplay competition for people who make their costumes by hand.

Candace Birger, known as Plexi Cosplay, is one of three judges at this competition.

She's a veteran of the cosplay scene, having won major cosplay competitions, like Baltimore Comic-Con, New York Comic Con, and TwitchCon in Amsterdam.

People come to compete because they put a lot of time and effort and probably money and sweat and tears and probably some blood into these costumes.

And so they don't want you to just take a glance at it and say, "Go prance on stage for me."

They want you to pick apart their costume.

Cosplayer: Yes, I can.

And they go over my glasses.

Birger: Oh, they go over your glasses!

Birger, voice-over: For me, as a craftsmanship person, someone who's really focused on making really cool stuff, I want to see, did you spend the time to do it right?

Did you really take time to develop your skills and give us the best that you've got?

Curry: Cosplay competition judge Black Crystal Cosplay has been in the scene since high school.

I graduated high school in 2013, and in 2012, they had a Spirit Week.

So I said, I'll just dress up as Korra from "Legend of Korra," because she was my favorite character at the time, and I love super strong femme protagonists.

And so when I wore it to school, everybody was like, "I love your cosplay."

I really was like, "What the heck is a cosplay?"

I didn't go to my first convention until 2014.

That convention, I believe, was Katsucon at the National Harbor.

That was when I really started.

Like, 2014, I was like, "I gotta do it, I gotta do it!"

Birger: With your goggles on... Curry: Candace Birger first got into cosplay in 2016 and quickly got involved with high-level competitions.

I didn't really know what cosplay was, and I really discovered that I felt more comfortable in a costume and I felt like I belonged somewhere.

I enjoy the craftsmanship.

I enjoy the ambition, building new things, meeting new people, and networking, and I've made it a big part of my life.

Once you start competing in really high-level competitions, it's time to give back.

So, this is my way of giving back to the community with really good, experienced judging and in a way that I know that I would want to be judged.

I would want to be judged by somebody who really looks at the details.

I want to be judged by somebody who's positive, optimistic, accepting.

[Cheering and applause] Hi.

Curry: Brionna Walker is competing as Belle, the title character from an anime released in 2021.

She's hoping to repeat her first-place win at the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival in Washington, DC, which took place near the Capitol on the last two days of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Brionna Walker: I sewed these patches on and then did all the gems, and I bought the corset for the outline, but then I jeweled all of it all around, and then I jeweled the sleeves.

And I also jeweled my crown.

The crunch time was about 80 hours with five hours of sleep.

Black Crystal Cosplay: The contest, they have different tiers of it.

So they have, like, the beginners.

Sometimes they have the juniors for the kids.

Sometimes they'll have, like, the super-super advanced ones, where people all over the world will come out and showcase these huge props and, like, LED lights and, like, the smoke machines and everything.

[Announcer speaking indistinctly] If you don't look like what a character would look like in the comic, you can still dress as that character because we're judging your costume.

We're not judging the way you fit into it.

We're judging the craftsmanship of what you brought to the table.

I loved making my Halloween costumes, loved it, but always felt Halloween's not enough.

It's something about cosplay that I really feel that none of my problems are here right now.

♪ Curry: Clarke founded Plus Ultra Entertainment to increase attendance by cosplayers who are Black or people of color.

Clarke: What I realized about a lot of convention events, I never really saw enough people that looked like me.

The local cosplay community, it's big and diverse.

Black and POC cosplayers are here.

We are in numbers, and we have so much to offer not just the cosplay community, but just the nerd and entertainment community in general.

Curry: In a room off the convention floor, Shady Haze is hosting a panel about queer representation in pop culture.

In the community, a lot of geeks are also gay.

So, I got a bunch of friends, and I said, "Let's do a panel about LGBTQ cosplayers and representation in media."

I love cosplaying characters that are male characters, like Cyclops, Superboy, Danny Phantom, Poe from "Star Wars," and I get a lot of, "Oh, you're not representing the characters accurately."

You know, "You're Asian."

"You're small."

"You're a woman."

You know what?

It's fine.

I'm cosplaying the character however I want.

My friends support me, the community supports me, and I do a great job doing it.

Ha ha!

Black Crystal Cosplay: The more of a following I received and when it started to hit certain social media platforms, I started seeing the slurs pop up.

Sometimes it does get hard to continue to navigate these spaces, and there are days where I'm like, "I don't think I even want to do this anymore."

But what I like to do, I just like to prepare other people for it.

"Here are some ways that you could block this out."

"Here are some other ways you could be positive," just to make sure that you're protecting your mental at all times.

I have ups and downs with the community.

Sometimes I deal with racism.

Sometimes I deal with sexism.

Sometimes I deal with colorism.

And so sometimes it can be discouraging, but then I also have, like, friends who I cosplay with, and they make me feel better.

Curry: Walker and the other finalists meet on the main stage for the cosplay finals.

[Cheering and applause] Walker: It's very nerve-wracking because you don't want to sell yourself short and get onstage and be like, "Oh, this person's costume is better than mine," or, "This person's armor is better than mine."

So you just have to take a deep breath and just say, "Well, if I don't win, at least people saw me."

Announcer: ...jewels by hand.

[Cheering and applause] Curry: The competition in the intermediate category is fierce.

This time around, Walker doesn't place.

Reporter: How are you feeling?

I'm--I'm OK. Just seeing the crowd, the interactions, doing my little poses, that's always a win for me whether I win or not.

Curry: Whether or not they compete, at an event like Awesome Con, a cosplayer can find like minds.

What makes the community special to me is feeling like I am not alone.

I might reference an obscure anime, and somebody will be like, "Ha!

I get it."

And I'm just like, "Ah!"

It's that feeling of, like, "Yes, you get me!"

Being in a community where you feel so safe, to just have that in the back of my mind and, "Oh, my gosh.

So many haters.

"Why can't this fictional character be personified as a brown-skinned woman?"

When I'm in my Sailor Moon cosplay and I see little brown girls run up to me: "Oh, my God.

You're so beautiful.

I love Sailor Moon!"

I'm just like, "Yes.

Now you've seen someone "that looks just like you.

You can do the same thing, too."

Black Crystal Cosplay: It's OK to be weird.

It's OK to dress up as long as you're having fun.

If it gives you confidence to do that, like, when you're at a convention, it'll give you more confidence in your everyday life.

Curry: Awesome Con takes place in April, but you can find cosplay events year-round throughout the DMV.

Large conventions include Otakon from August 8th through 10th at the Washington Convention Center and Anime USA from October 10th through 12th at the Hyatt Regency, Crystal City.

Be on the lookout for other local events by following Black Crystal Cosplay, Shady Haze, and Plus Ultra Entertainment on social media.