Miscellany Monday – Return to Middle Earth

GWP and my schedules have been really off for the past couple of weeks, so there as been no City of Heroes for us for a while.  No doubt the thugs of Paragon City have been running rampant since Clockwork Guardian and Cyn-ful have been on their hiatus.

To help fill some time, I decided to re-install Lord of the Rings Online and play around with it for a while.  I got into LotRO during it’s beta, and instantly fell in love with it.  I loved it so much that at launch I bought a lifetime subscription to the game.  After launch, I played for a few weeks, got my highest level character up to about level 16, and then kind of put it aside.  Just found it boring.  I was only doing solo stuff, and the kinship I was in didn’t seem to really be working, and I never got in any good fellowships.  It just wasn’a as much fun as CoH.

I was hearing some good buzz about the game, and wanted to see if maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance, or if they had added or changed enough that I could get into it again.   And I have to say, it didn’t.  As I was running around, trying out being a loremaster and a bard and a hunter, I was struck by the fact that, while the enviroments are beautiful, and the world is vibrant, the characters are, well, dull.  Compared to the choices that you have in City of Heroes, both in costume and character/power/ability choices, you seem so limited in LotRO.  I just found it…boring.

I can’t wait for GWP to come back.  I need to get back to bashing Rikti…

Fashion Friday – The (not so) Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” –Oscar Wilde

It is my 8^th anniversary!

Yes, you are right! It has been eight months since I began playing City of Heroes. (applause, applause, applause)

I never thought I would enjoy this game as much as I do and I NEVER thought that is would permeate my pores and my life so much, that I seen and hear CoH in every day things. People walking down the street make me think of the streets of Independence Port as they run from villains. I hear a noise and it reminds me of the sound a glowy clue item makes. I hear or read a word and I am reminded how great that would be as the name of a toon. I am obsessed. When I can’t play, I think about my powers and costume items and the things I have up for auction at Wentworths, wondering if they sold or not. I have withdrawal symptoms.

You may be asking how this post about CoH relates to Fashion Friday. Well, since day one, I have been remarking and keeping mental notes about the other heroes I see within the game and more specifically their names and costume that they wear.

Not many people think of CoH as a great game for fashion designing but I can sit for hours, if allowed, dreaming up new costumes and names to go with that toon. The design I originally made up for Cyn-ful (my main toon) took a while to perfect, but as I received tokens for new tailoring sessions and additional slots, I have revised and revised again. After all a girl, even if she is a SuperHero, can never have too many clothes. In my last alteration I even bid on demonic wings. * cough * (300,000 influence) * cough * This metamorphosis seems to be my favourite of all.

Anyway, I am going to show you The (not so) Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in fashion within Paragon City.

Today I am concentrating on several male SuperHeroes that I have encountered.

DISCLOSURE: If these toons are yours, you have to understand that this is all “in my humble opinion” and you can rebut my analysis in the comment section if you would like.

Meet Edgar Allan Bow…(ignore the fairy behind him)

I like the name because of it’s creativity and along with the cravat and the facial pallor it definitely reminds me of a Poe-esque character, but I seem to picture this toon fighting crime and battling Devouring Earth with a pen and not a bow. The pen is mightier than the bow. Isn’t that the expression? [Edit by HerGeek:  OK, this one made me laugh.  I would totally team up with Edgar Allen Bow.  I think we should come up with a literary super-team!]

Introducing Bear Cub….

I wonder where his mother is because every one knows the mother bear is never far away and she is the strong defender. What is the little cub going to do agains the werewolves? And, I ask, what is with that tiny head?

Queue the music…..

And here, dancing for your pleasure is Klint who appears to be Brokeback Mountain meets The Chippendale dancers. Cyn-ful expected him to either lasso her, grind and strip to a leather g-string, or give her a lap dance.

You may have the same sort of opinions on my toon and I welcome you to find Cyn-ful in City of Heroes and grab a screenshot of her fighting or flying and post about her as well…First Amendment rights apply, but think you will find her as colour coordinated and sinful as her name states.

Happy Fashion Friday!

 

Fashion Friday – Fantasy of Fashion

“Wearing this kind of costume is not something I fantasize about. It’s not natural, it’s not comfortable. I don’t see myself as this. But it gives you dramatic license to do almost anything when you’re dressed as a bug.” –Joan Severance

No. This post is not what you think it is about from the title or the quote. This is not fetish or sexual at all. What it is, is a commentary on the fine line be art, ordinary fashion, and fantasy of comic books and comic books transformed into film.

Last year, my husband and I visited New York City for a long weekend to take in a Broadway show. While there, I convinced, said husband, to go to one of my favourite places in The City—The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I love it there. It is one of my comfortable places—where I feel at home—where I can sit and ponder the detail of the Albrecht Durer, the fluidity of the Titian figure, and feel the broodiness of El Greco‘s Toledo sky.

I was surprised when we arrived and discovered an exhibit that I did not expect to see—The Costume Institute’s Superheroes Fashion and Fantasy. I scoffed, thinking how utterly ridiculous it was to have this type of exhibit there at The Met. I expecting to see the transition from Batman to Batman to Batman and straight forward movie costuming worn by this celebrity and that celebrity. Curiosity made me drag my husband into the exhibit and I found that some of the concepts that I had taken for granted on the runway were influenced and inspired partly by the superhero costume and that those costumes have influenced the designs in the houses of Moschino to Giorgio Armani.

When we first entered there stood a display of Superman, introducing the branding portion of the exhibit, where Rosella Jardini from the House of Moschino plays off the “S” and the pentagon by substituting an “M” and a heart, which Moschino uses within many of their designs. The model rips open his shirt to reveal the iconography much in the vein of Clark Kent transforming into Superman. While interesting and unexpected for a moment the gesture appears trite.

The web design has been layered into many lines of designer fashions in the past, a la Spider man but in the exhibit Spyder, a ski wear company is represented with the spider logo on the calf of the garment and an overall spidey feel with web patterns consuming portions of the garment. These web designs work primarily because of the company name. Also represented were numerous dresses designed by Armani, Gaultier, and Thierry Mugler, with the web theme, which appeared to be too literal in their translation.

The exhibit then devoted a section to propulsion, speed, and agility as represented by The Flash. Included here was Nike’s Swift Suit and Speedo’s Fast Skin, both which have real life applications for swimmers and are in direct contrast designer Huessien Chalayan’s Aeroplane dress. This dress is “built” of fiberglass, metal, cotton, and other synthetic material resembling panels and wings on an airplane.

My favourite portion of the exhibit was where, yes, the costume of Batman was located. This area represented armour and the protected body. Here we saw the imposing Batman costume along with futuristic garments, one of which looked like a S.W.A.T. member wearing a Kevlar vest along with the obligatory aviation shades (government issued no doubt). Interesting were the clothing pieces with the vest, mini-skirts, and leggings in metallic shades of bronze, silver, and black. Both of these outfits could easily transition into city life and I could picture women walking down Fifth Avenue in these two ensembles. The highlight of this section and the entire exhibit, was the piece designed by Gareth Pugh. Part stealth fighter, part deflection device, this dress included protection on the arms that one could imagine tilting and rotating for the purpose of defending against lasers or the like.

Looking back I remember leaving this exhibit baffled and skeptical of its importance in the museum, but now seven months later and well into my own transformation to geek, I can much more appreciate the correlation between fantasy and fashion. I go back and think how some of these designer pieces might even work into City of Heroes and giggle about how I have changed in so short a time.