By: Annna
[2001-10-31]
Etiquette Question Re: Fake Vampires
they'd all gone shopping at the same ankh store
Originally asked of the RPG.net forum. I didn't get any useful answers, but then again, I don't foresee this particular problem coming up again, so don't worry about the advice-giving too much.
A while ago, when I was new to university and living in the dorms on-campus, I wandered over to the student union in the dead of night. I think I was looking for an ATM, although it could have been a snack machine.
Suffice to say, I was wandering more or less aimlessly through the student union (which most freshmen claim was designed by M.C. Escher). It was kind of late at night, so there weren't many people, mostly grad students curled in foetal balls of book, notes and coffee. There were, however, a disproportionate number of goths.
This made me smile. Whenever I see people who have obviously put a lot of work into wearing their subculture - punks in full studded leathers, goths with makeup accurate to within a micron - I feel warm and happy for them. I dunno. My standard outfit is jeans-and-a-t-shirt, two bits. I guess I'm just vicariously happy that
other people belong. But I digress.
These goths didn't look like they'd been goth very long, though. In fact, some of them looked like they'd been hit in the head with a sack of flour, then tumbled face-first into a pile of charcoal briquettes. It also looked like they'd all gone shopping at the same ankh store.
Ah, well. What did I know? In my home town, there wouldn't be
anyone out this late, whether fake goth, real goth or insomniac speed freak. And where was that ATM?
I turned a corner and bumped into two of the gothoids, one writhing realistically on the floor, one holding his fingers in a "gun" shape and yelling "bang!", and a skinny, bespectacled bearded guy with a grey book in his back pocket watching the two intently.
They all looked up at me with the same expression on their faces: "oh, CRUD." I guess they thought they'd accidentally freaked a mundane or something and I'd call campus security.
Meanwhile, on my end, time was slowed down to that car-accident crawl:
Friday night
ankhs, ankhs everywhere
once-a-week quality goth makeup
goofy hand gestures
+ pocket-sized grey book
-------------------------------------
Vampire: the Masquerade Live-Action!
This was one hell of a first impression for my first contact with the local gamers. Using my keen crime-fighting reflexes, I attempted to salvage the situation by demonstrating that I was "with it" and not about to bring down the hammer.
I put my hands forward, palms out, in a Fonzie kind of shrug,
"Heyyyyy, vampire game guys. 'Sokay. 'Sokay."
And then I ducked around the corner again and skedaddled.
My question to you, if you've managed to read this far, is pretty simple. What would you have done in that situation? Is there any universal I-know-what-you're-up-to-and-in-fact-I-play-RPGs-too
-so-I'm-not-going-to-call-the-cops-or-anything gesture? Should I have stayed longer? Said nothing? Done the
Obfuscate gesture and skulked past them?
Suggestions?
Of course, in an ideal world I would have had my camera with me, in which case I could have taken a flash picture and yelled "Vampires
do exist, and they're running the world!
Mr. White will
have to believe me when he sees this picture!"
In times of manual dexterity such as these, a six kilo Crucifix is useful to be applied, even the more effective if imbedded with some relic such as the eyelashes of Saint Teresa of Avila as she was the only Sister Saint to become a Doctor other than Saint Catherine of Siena who had no eyelashes at all but who went on to become known as Muffy the Werewolf Basher.
Myself, I would have asked them: "Hi, is there by chance an ATM around here?"
Then, after they'd answered me, I would have said: "Thanks. Vampire: The Masquerade? Cool!"
See, this is why I don't ever post any anecdotes from my life: because I handle things in the most artless way possible. Though I think I'll have
something to write about shortly ...
I would like to say I'd have chased one with a stake or said "You're playing that mummy LARP, right?" or done something clever, but I confess my reaction would have been similar to Lou's.
we would usually make some sort of "Oh, look dinner came to us" comment while we were playing. Most people don't know what V:tm LARP is, and even if they knew of it, probably wouldn't be quick enough to piece it together, so we usually don't know to apologize for frightening you, or to "stay in character" and frighten you some more. I mean, if it were really real, I guess you would have been eaten, so I don't know how easily that would work into the storyteller's WoD (World of Darkness).
It's unfortunate that they were all so cookie cutter, normally we try and at least accessorize differently.
Anyway, the action to take now would obviously be to draw up a character, visit www.camarilla.org OR www.nwregion.org (you are up in the northwest, right?) and join in the merriment (ok, so maybe that's my recruiting mentality talking...)
Don't feel to bad, you play in public places, you deal with the public.
I think that probably the reason they all looked so goofy was that I wasn't even
noticing the folks who were dressed normally and therefore blending into the crowd better, just the people who looked like they'd eaten black crayons.
I wasn't scared, though, I was just kind of embarassed. That and I felt bad for the guys, who did look terrified for a second or so.
Yeah, I wish my crime-fighting reflexes were a little
less keen; I would have probably just said, "Vampires! Waugh!" and that would have been an end to it.
Or "Vampires! Waugh! I am losing 1/1d3
SAN!" Which is in itself an explanation of why I would prefer not to join a
White Wolf LARP group.
do tend to stand out in a crowd, especially with all that colored waxy drool around.
Most of those übervamps are the guys who don't have many of the commonly held social skills that people tend to need to interact in day to day life (hence the being a dark and spooky vampire), and were probably startled and in shock at their close proximity to someone of the opposite sex. In LARP, women are both worshipped and tormented merely because of their gender. (I guess like alot of the gaming world)
And don't worry, mixing RPG metaphors and goobing out loud are two things that tend to creep into any situation involving LARPers.
Maybe a flagon of hotdog water to spritz them wampyrez
It easy Annna, you just look them strait in the eye hold up your right hand and say "Comence I too walk a dark path and so will not disturbed your shadowy gather"
I think they'd like that anyway
Anybody playing a Vampire LARP whilst dressed ineptly as a goth is taking the Masquerade and feeding it through a wood-chipper, before jumping up and down on the pieces. Thus, in order to help the LARPers with that oh-so-important sense of veracity, you should have immediately called the police, gaining extra bonus points if you actually manage to get anyone arrested.
... the Montezuma's Revenge LARP. Conquistadors, stand aside!!
personally, i would have just sighed heavily and pityingly but then again i'm not all too accepting of goths or geeks any more. the only LARP i've ever played was a prisoner one at a con, it was a mystery solving game pretty much, fun stuff.
I like goths. I've recently learned (firsthand) of gravers (goth ravers) though, and that just boggles the mind.
goths sort of bug me. they're just as bad as the hippies and the punk rockers and the indie kids and the girl's volleyball team and anyone else with a complete lack of individuality or whatever insert generic first-the-point-the-finger sentiments here.
only problem is that when you try hard to avoid anything and everything that is trendy or popular with other cliques or fads you're eventually left with nothing.
I like to think one can be part of a subculture without being a product of it. If, say, 85% of people are dumb, stands to reason 85% of goths will be dumb, 85% across the board, all of the little scenes, for the most part. Metal, punk, hippie, whatever.
Now, granted, ravers, rockers, mallrats, &c will have a higher incidence of dumbness, but even the most respectable clique is still human, and therefore most people in it will be unimpressive. Doesn't mean it should be avoided by someone it appeals to, it just means friends should be chosen wisely. As always.
The exception is thingsihate.org readers, of course. Not a dumb one in the bunch. :D
85% is a very generous estimate.
is clearly to offer them either
a) dark and unexpected plesures not often knowen by mortal man, and/or
2) Rabbit meat.
I've recently started LARPing. it invloves beating people with large latex swords, and is theraputic. According to the sytem I'm on they should have shouted "Walker!" and frozen until you went away. This is what we do to little old ladies walking dogs (which is of course, the best social group/clique to belong to)
I would in your situation have simply smiled then puled my own finger gun and shot "bang"...(but then again I am, hmm... as you put it one of the gothoids) you would be best of apologizing for the interruption then stated what you were looking for If you had happened upon myself and others playing games etc. would have probably laughed at your startled expression and offered you help to find your missing snack machine. Goths and vamps. Are not normally cruel an evil unless you are going to insult them, if you keep an open mind good and manors you will be kindly respected and welcomed. As for the shopping at the same ankh store, many covens have a ankh that symbolizes the coven they belong to be it RPG or the real thing so all having the same ankh same coven...
Dark
