I'm thinking about cosplay competitions and competing in masters and the way we're always told "a person who won best in show once made their own shoes" and the way that like... Has this effect of pushing people to come up with new, unique challenging skills for every costume

Rather than like, practicing and honing the skills we already have. And I know the reality of competitions may not really be like this but it's difficult to continuously come up with a new, impressive "angle" for every costume I want to compete with

And like while it's really cool to continuously push myself to try new skills, I do get a little unhappy with the results bc in reality it's a particular skill I'm a beginner at but sometimes it feels like you get more points for trying more skills you're not great at rather than

Doing a few things at an actual master level. Idk! Just some thoughts!

REGARDLESS I'm sure there are people who judge contests who follow me who don't judge like that and many more out there, I'm just thinking about how this mindset is spread in competition environments