NPR.
A lot of us have first loves when it comes to pop culture.
For Alia Piat, hers was Star Wars.
She went to her first ever comic convention in 2014 dressed up as Han Solo.
I had thrifted like a men's blazer and cut the sleeves off and then I just like took an old pair of jeans and like some ribbon and sewed it on the side and then just added the stripes with markers.
That was the start of Aaliyah's journey as a cosplayer.
She's also been towed from Super Mario and Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek.
She once sewed an entire Cinderella ball gown from scratch.
Let's just say Aaliyah knows her way around a hot glue gun.
Every cosplayer, like,
it'll be 3am and you're crying and you're just hot gluing elements on
because you don't want to sew it anymore.
Cosplayers are a huge part of fan culture.
You see people dressed up at movie theatres for big releases and at conventions like Comic-Con.
And often their costumes and accessories are so detailed that they look
like they stepped off the screen.
But there can be a fine line between homage and intellectual property theft.
And corporations like Disney and DC tend to be very protective of their creations.
After all, there's billions of dollars tied up with licensing juggernauts like Star Wars.
And yet, Alia has never been sued or told to stop.