With Valentine’s Day just around the corner and after a year of listening to Marc Almond’s heartbreaking classic ditty on love lost and goodbyes, I decided to take it to the opposite extreme: love and all its saccharine trappings. And no other cuts such as The Cure’s “Love Song” or Chris DeBurgh’s “Lady in Red” can compare to celebrate romance again. Aaah. There are days when you just long for the naiveté you’ve had when you were a teenager.
But wait, there’s an oasis – a fountain – if you will, where youth springs eternal. There you can take on a variety of worlds, create new ones and get to know a wide reach of experiences from something as imperial as victories in battles, or something as plain as getting a promotion or finding the perfect partner. It’s a world long known to gamers worldwide. It’s where you can unleash a hidden personality, yet still remain within the comfortable boundaries of anonymity. It may sound perverse to some circles, but it’s paradise for creative minds.
Through the power of the mouse and a keyboard, you’ll be able to control the lives of a host of denizens: make them weep, charge for battle, find missing objects, buy an island and/or even marry. It’s no longer surprising what game designers and software engineers can come up with; even more so when you have a thriving community of fans eagerly getting into their characters’ shoes and in some cases, to tweak game assets to their liking. And in between the conflicts, somewhere, somehow, some way in the alien-ogre-magic infested landscape, players can allow romance to bloom between characters.
Such is the case with Second Life for example. Already credited to be the biggest online community, the site’s premise is simple: it’s a social networking service where people can meet and exchange goods and services (albeit virtually). The difference is that, instead of a static avatar, users create their Second Life identity through the aid of site tools and objects. Like the Sims, another popular role playing game (RPG) – you can virtually wed other characters in your fantasy island. Plus, if you have quite the productive streak – you can create your wedding gown. This could be your chance to dabble in bundles of red lace and ribbons on red satin.
Unlike the music industry where the head honchos are overzealous of rights, people in the gaming industry are not. Granting gamers a full range of tools for modification (known in gaming circles as “modding”, while the created objects or assets are known as mods). In one of the most popular RPGs since the beginning of the millennia, The Sims has won converts merely by encouraging this. With this freedom, gamers have created so many objects (clothing included) for the game. Not only will you find everyday clothes but also an array of clothing for special occasions. Gamers gifted with the patience in learning graphic software have come up with some very interesting motifs. While the typical American population may frown at a red wedding dress, in this virtual world it is most welcome. In fact, the healthy spattering of red and gold seems to be the norm. Precisely because gamers can freely exercise their creative muscles, the game is reincarnated to another vision: one that is according to the sensibilities of the user. Thus, I can have my own creation dressed in a silk wedding gown with delicate Chinese embroidery, perhaps.
In some parts of the world, the gaming community marks Valentine by a ceasefire and getting hitched. In the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), game publishers create a special objects and extras for the love sick. Items such as rings and weapons are quite common. It’d be something new too, if they can have red wedding outfits for the characters. I keep thinking Chrono Cross’s Kid. Her simple attire consisted of nothing more than a necklace, a red jacket and a very short skirt (plus a dagger). If minimalism is your arena, that ensemble would be quite interesting.
Think, too, of intermarriages between Corites and Bellatians in flowing scarlet cloaks concealing heavy armory (though for that statement I fear a series of backlash from game fanatics.) But let’s face it: where is it written that in fantasy land, war torn races are not allowed a day or a week’s respite from the clashes? Leave the struggle for supremacy for another day.
But alas! Romance can be a tricky terrain as well for our virtual identities. Just because they are walking and talking human caricatures it does not necessarily mean they will be together for life. In my experience, I’ve witnessed several of my characters’ promising relationships fall apart. Sure it’s sad but look at it as another reason to garb up your online persona in more vibrant red wedding gowns.
Then again, if marrying your characters off isn’t your type of thing – only for fun – why not get a certificate of you and your beloved’s union in one of those Virtual Wedding sites. You can choose the date, your guests and theme – all without the stress. You can come dressed like Cher receiving an award at the Oscars or go classic with a simple velvety red gown and no one will raise an eyebrow.
The thing is, with so many virtual worlds to choose – we can let our vision run wild and allow for even more diversity. For MMORPGs, an expression of marital bliss between two vermilion cloaked characters is a most heart warming sight.
-Karen Vander, Copyrighted RedHotBrides.com
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