Poor LARPers. Back in 2002, Brunching’s Geek Hierarchy proclaimed the abysmal geekiness of individuals who choose to spend their leisure time dressing up as warlocks and dwarves, acting out campaigns “IRL”. The Shuttlecocks weren’t aiming to be cruel; they were just telling it like it is. LARPers languish in the deep netherhells of uncoolness – lower than tabletop role players, far below video gamers – they are mocked, often and hard. Even professional mockers like X-Play’s Sessler & Webb, aren’t above stooping to take cheap shots at these poor unfortunate souls (see: Wild Larping Kingdom for details). They are the whipping boys and girls of the geek world.
But what about a LARPer’s kissing cousin, the Cosplayer? Strangely, the cultural phenomenon of cosplay (dressing up without intent to perform) doesn’t suffer nearly the same degree of public stigma. Cosplayers are embraced as fun-loving jokers, beloved totems of the creative spirit found at conventions, in high schools and all over the urban sprawl of Tokyo. Recently, Felicia Day and the cast of The Guild made a joyful splash at SDCC by cosplaying as their online avatars.
All this fuss got me to thinking – in my many years of attending cons, I’ve never really dressed up. I found myself wondering who or what sort of video game icon I would choose to cosplay at PAX, if any. Laziness and my hatred of checked baggage instantly eliminated fun-but-bulky options like the King of All Cosmos or a Goomba. My firm refusal to expose my midriff ruled out nearly every female video game character except GLaDOS and Samus (again with the luggage problem). Maybe something subtle, something only recognizable by a rare few, something to weed out the hardcore from the n00bs. Then it came to me – instead of a character, why not dress as a notable girl gamer? Why not be Kate Libby from Hackers?
Please don’t think that I imagine myself hot enough to evoke Angelina Jolie, age 18 (before her stick-figure-hexa-mom phase) without the aid of considerable props. I did my homework and re-watched the film, to see if there was a particularly iconic wearable item beyond the vulcan haircut, hinged gauntlet ring, silver hoops and white or blue nail polish. I was surprised by two things: one, the shocking lack of photos of Angie’s various states of dress in this film (I thought the Internet had everything about celebs already?) and two, what an amazing job the costume artists did of building a self-consistent character with thoughtful wardrobe and make-up choices.
All of Kate’s clothes stay on a limited colour palette of white, black, silver, sky-blue and orangey-red: bright, confident, decisive colours with clear limitations. No blending, no softness, no apologies. The materials and style are entirely geared towards showing aggression, activity, sexuality, and an alien, unattainable quality. Kate wears slinky leather motorcycle gear, tight spandex surfer shirts, oversized hockey jerseys. She has outfits with straps, buckles and zippers in inappropriate places, kimonos and a dress with an obi. She’s basically flipping the bird at Trinny and Susannah.
Given the advent of Ebay and Etsy, I thought it would be easy to track down at least a few of these items. Again, I overestimated the webs. The only item that could be had on short notice is her New Jersey Devils hockey jersey. The red/white/yellow/black Suzuki Icon motorcycle jacket she wears is impossible to trace. I couldn’t find a reasonable facsimile of her black & white raglan shirt with the white-on-white skull & crossbones and legend “Too fast to live / Too young to die”, anywhere. The black & silver short v-necked satin kimono dress with black obi must have been custom made. And Quiksilver no longer has anything like a shiny blue low-turtleneck ladies surf shirt with their logo on the front, with or without a checkerboard flower pattern. I can only speculate as to which brand of club gear made the red and white jumpsuits (Snug? Kitchen Orange? House of Spy? FDCO? Tripp NYC?), or the wide-lapel silver pleather short jacket with long sleeves and exposed seams. Sigh. Better luck next time, Gadget.
In the end, I decided to use Ms. Libby as a muse for my new haircut, rather than as a model of fashion to imitate. Probably for the best – I doubt anyone would have caught the inside joke if I’d shown up to PAX wearing Kate’s club gear: a skin-tight white turtleneck and white pants with white plastic knee-high boots. Even your above-average geek would assume I was just doing a shitty job of cosplaying as a Stormtrooper with no helmet and no armor. Possibly due to my hatred of checked luggage.
Tell me, dear reader: who would YOU cosplay as?
Tags: Angelina Jolie, club gear, cosplay, costume, dressing up, Hackers, Japan, Kate Libby, kimono, LARP, PAX, video games
Posted by pipes on Aug 10, 2009 in
Video Game Reviews To remind myself why I got excited about going to Penny Arcade Expo in the first place, I’m going to peer back through the mists of ancient history and review my gaming track record.
I’ve been playing video games for a long time. It’s hard to say exactly how or when I started: I think it might have been in 1985, when Oregon Trail appeared on the Apple IIe computers at my grade school. My parents had already bought a Commodore 64 for our home by then, and bought me my first IBM-PC two years later in 1987, but they wanted me to use computers to learn how to type and make spreadsheets, not to shoot squirrels, ford rivers and keep my oxen from dying.
In 1988, at age ten, I changed schools and found a partner in virtual crime – Christie, my best friend of many years. The first clear memory I have of gaming with Christie was playing Rogue in her dad’s office on a computer the size of a convection oven. We boldly explored the Dungeons of Doom together, quaffing potions and battling kobolds on maps constructed entirely out of ASCII characters. Once we’d gotten a taste for character creation, it was on to Wizardry: I can still remember sliding in the 5 1/4″ floppies and waiting anxiously, pencils paused over grid paper, ready to map out levels and show that Mad Overlord who was boss. After defeating Werdna, we were well and truly hooked.
Sierra and Brøderbund defined our pre-teen years with Carmen Sandiego, Myst and King’s Quest, and even an illicit peek at the sexy pixel ladies in Leisure Suit Larry. Trilobyte and MicroProse carried me through the mid-90s with The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour and the original Sid Meier’s Civilization. Eventually Christie got her first console (classic NES) and we fought our way through Mega Man, Dr. Mario and some less-known titles like Disney’s Adventures in The Magic Kingdom.
In university I wanted to study and run after boys, so gaming took a backseat. Bookended by one incredibly epic PC gaming session of Sid Meier’s Civilization II with David in first year and a near-crippling addiction to Bejeweled in my last year, I was relatively game-free.
Then I finished university and moved in with a boy who was a dedicated gamer and who introduced me to the new breed of consoles: the Gamecube and the PS2. I got so excited I bought him an Xbox to round out the collection, and for a year or so went haywire exploring what game developers had been up to while I was busy getting my B.A. I was wooed back into gaming with Fable and Syberia, Shadow of the Colossus and Katamari Damacy, Psychonauts and Time Splitters. When I moved out I decided to leave the Xbox behind, but bought my own PlayStation and spent a lot of money on one of the first hard-to-find Wii systems that I got from a guy who knew a guy (thanks, Petar).
Nowdays I still game, but I have other, far more time consuming hobbies as well so I do it in moderation. The most excited I’ve been in recent memory was seeing Little Big Planet’s world-building capabilities and multiplayer goodness, and of course hearing Stephen Fry’s amazing voice work. Keeping my eye on Dante’s Inferno (though the English major inside me quails at the transformation of that epic poem into poop and vomit battles), and always hoping that Tim Schafer will bring in another home run with his soon-to-be-released Brütal Legend action-adventure game. I mean, it has voice work by Jack Black and Tim Curry, so all seems well, but I do have trouble with loud noises, and I’ve never been a big fan of guitar-based video games. Bongos? Sure. Maracas? Sure. Guitars? Require too much coordination from my flailing limbs.
To close out, some short but revealing lists…
Games I own:
- PS2 – Bully; Burnout 3: Takedown; Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories; The Guy Game; Ico; Katamari Damacy; Odama; Okami; Psychonauts; Star Wars Battlefront; We Love Katamari
- PS3 – Burnout Paradise; Ghostbusters: the video game; Little Big Planet; The Orange Box (Half-Life 2; Portal; Team Fortress 2)
- Wii – Rayman Raving Rabbids; Super Paper Mario; WarioWare Smooth Moves; WiiFit; WiiPlay; WiiSports; World of Goo; Zelda: Twilight Princess
- Gamecube – Donkey Konga; Donkey Konga 2; Donkey Konga Jungle Beat; Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker; Metroid Prime
- Gameboy – Defender of the Crown
- NintendoDS – New Super Mario Bros.; WarioWare
Games I’d like to own:
Bioshock; inFamous; Fat Princess; Grim Fandango (hey, I missed it the first time around); Lego Star Wars; Ratchet & Clank Future; Super Smash Bros Brawl; Wii Sports Resort
Tags: Brøderbund, Carmen Sandiego, Commodore 64, gaming, history, Oregon Trail, pedigree, penny arcade, Rogue, Sierra, Tim Schaefer, Wizardry
