#comikaze

The Scarecrow at LA Comic Con

Cosplayer: ScarecrowToxin

SETTLE DOWN, EVERYONE, and let me tell you about the time my friend @butneverstoptrying and I experienced the most amazing magic trick ever.

So we’re at LA Comic-Con in 2016, just walking around Artist Alley, as you do.

Now, it’s important to remember for the purpose of the story that I dressed up as Princess Mononoke that year, and in lieu of a wig, I had my hair pulled up in crown braids to give the illusion of short hair. So my hair has been tightly plaited into two braids, and then pinned onto my head with like forty extra-long bobby pins. That hair isn’t moving for shit.

So we’re sort of standing in the middle of Artist Alley, when this guy comes up to me in a very generic purple wizard robe and pointy hat. He looks like every wizard character in a mobile RPG game ever. This guy comes up to me and fans out a deck of cards. No prompt, no introduction, nothing. I look at my friend. She looks at me. She shrugs. I pick a card. He gestures at me to look at my card, and then holds out the fanned deck again. I slide my card back in, he shuffles it, and picks out my card. Pretty standard stuff.

Or so I thought.

He keeps having me pick cards, but his tricks are getting more and more elaborate. At one point, he has both my friend and I pick a card and slide them back into the deck. He shuffles, cuts the deck, shows my card on the top, my friend’s card on the bottom, and then my card in the middle. Keep in mind, this is not just a deck with two types of card. He did several tricks, and each time he had me pick a card, it was a different card.

So this guy keeps doing these amazing card tricks, never saying a word the whole time, never asking what my card is, until finally, he served up his piéce de resistance. He had me pick a card, shuffled it back into the deck, and held up a card. I shook my head. It wasn’t mine. He smiles, reaches for my head, and PULLS THE CARD OUT OF MY HAIR. My braided, pulled-back, pinned-up hair. And I could FEEL the card sliding out from between the strands of hair on my scalp. My friend was watching from the side and confirmed that she saw the card come out from my hair.

I lost my shit. My friend lost her shit. The wizard (because at this point, I’m sure he’s actually magic) smiles, signs “thank you,” and leaves.

A lovely lady cosplaying as The Valkyrie from Marvel Comics.  This was taken during Comikaze 2014 in L.A.  I found the photo while digging through my albums for a family project.