Help Minxy Cosplay promote!

Hello everyone! Minxy Cosplay here. I'm trying to move on from a little over 300 followers to the big time. I've been cosplaying for 10 years and although I'm happy with what I've accomplished as a cosplayer, I want more. I'm tired of seeing girls who have started a little over a year ago and have tens of thousands of fans, I want to move up and I want to better myself. With this money I'll be buying my first table at a convention to help promote Minxy Cosplay, along with business cards and some prints.


Please help me put my mark on the cosplay world, help me to encourage young cosplayers, help me to show others that you can be kind, respectful, positive, high energy and that your hard work WILL pay off.


Cosplay started as a positive outlet for me, a way for me to express myself. But over the years it's become much, much more then that.... it's kept me going. It's given me something to look forward to. My life changed overnight when I was 15, my father up and left on January 14th, 2009. Between January and December my father had one of my drug addicted uncles stay with us, and when he went on a rage and pulled a gun on us, i asked my father for help, i called him for help. His response? "What did you do to piss him off?" I hung up and the cops were called, everything was cleared out with no help from my father, the man that i thought would be there for me my entire life, the one who said he wasn't 'abandoning me'. Months passed of it just being myself, my mother, cats and dog. Over that time period my fathers girlfriend had found me on facebook, claimed that we could be BEST friends and that she had absolutely no part whatsoever in our situation and where we currently were. When I posted something she didn't like, she flagged me for abuse and harassment and had my account suspended indefinitely. We did what we could to get jobs, we tried to support ourselves. But at least we had a home that was being paid for, right?


Wrong.
Dead wrong.


We received foreclosure papers around the same time as my parents divorce was coming to an end, we had already packed up and had everything in storage, just in case of something like this. You could say it was the first time that myself and my mother had thought ahead for a while. I found out about his girlfriends pregnancy. (The woman he left the family for was 22 years old. Half his age. they met while she was in jail and he was doing a job there. She also has a beautiful record full of DUI's, also a stripper and alcoholic, fantastic choice for a mother.) I called my father, finally deciding to stop biting my tongue and started to yell at him, scream, the frustration after holding it back for months finally coming all out, finally i was able to yell and cry and curse all i wanted to. His response was chilling, a quiet 'do you want to cross this bridge?' i questioned if he was threatening me. and again 'do you want to cross this bridge?' I hung up.


The next day we received word that he had pushed the foreclosure papers forward after telling the bank that no one lived there. We were kicked out, and he believed it was onto the streets since as far as he knew, we had no where else to go other then my grandparents house (Keep in mind, my grandparents wouldn't allow our pets, myself or my mother to go out to events or conventions, nor was i allowed to have my friends over to visit. They'd also control what I wore and said, control internet.... It's like a prison)


Our back up home isn't the best, but its a place. it's in one of the worst parts of town. i can't really walk outside without spotting a hooker or a drug transaction. I've also formed a few painful memories in this house, like losing my best feline buddy after 9 years after not having the money to pay for his surgery. But through all this it's showing me that with determination, we've been able to stay strong and survive. We're moving on, we're making our own choices and directing our own lives now. And the one hobby that's stuck with me through all of this has been cosplaying. It's kept me sane, given me a creative outlet and it's helped me to show my true colors through all this pain. It's helped me be the person i want to be.


Please help me continue to be this person.