Hello Stalkers! I am the merc that was briefly held in Canada last week! I have written an open letter to the community :)
Hello Stalkers, I am the Merc cosplayer that was temporarily held by police last week.
(The first pic is from a photoshoot with my old helmet LOL)
I wanted to make a little letter to the community but first I would like to clear some things up from the incident last weekend.
Also- to the mods, I apologize if this post is inappropriate here, this is just where I would think it would be easiest to have an open letter for stalkers to see. If anyone knows where else I could post this so other stalkers could see it, please let me know. Feel free to share this post around as well.
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So, from the weekend I would like to clarify a few things:
- For those who are not aware, this was a cosplay event in a park. Many cosplayers with all sort of cosplays were present that day. INCLUDING other tactical-related cosplays, some with gear and guns that looked even better than mine.
- For those who are also not aware, despite some coverage saying 'tackled and arrested' neither of those things happened. I was briefly detained, then they let me go.
- Nobody was hurt, Nothing was damaged, I received everything back the next day. Lots of really friendly people came to make sure I was okay.
- Many news publications of this do not mention a very important detail. I have a little cap that sits like a sleeve over my suppressor that covers about half of it. It is covered in bright orange reflective tape, that can be unscrewed and replaced with one without any tape for pictures. This is very common, I have been doing this for years. Unfortunately when the incident had occurred, I was chatting with some people and had not had the opportunity to place it back on.
- I have gone to events all over my city in that cosplay in the last 5 years, both indoor and outdoor events. I have never once had an issue before this point, people think that the reason law enforcement were completely unaware that the event was happening was because during the organization of it, the non emergency line was not called to let police know that there would be weirdos dressed strangely with props in the park. I can not confirm this part, however.
- I have had many conversations with police in the past about cosplaying with fake weapons, and what I was told was "If you are at an event, with other cosplayers, you will be fine as we will understand there is a event" and then I was told many stories of the police getting calls from concerned people in the past during comic con, and them understanding and explaining to them that it was a cosplay/costume/nerd event.
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Now to my open letter to all of you.
This was a very strange weekend, to see the event and videos of it posted all over the place was an odd feeling. Obviously as we all know, news publications and pages on Facebook and Instagram wont always give all of the required context, and may even intentionally write the article a specific way to try and create a specific response. In any case, you cant always believe everything you read.
Sure the event itself was unpleasant, and some of the publications of it were written in ways that make me uncomfortable. None of that was surprising however. What did surprise me was the comments.
I would say a good majority of it was really nice, people wondering if I was okay, people wishing me well, encouragement, funny memes, pretty much everything that you would expect.
But the surprising part of it was all of the hate and gatekeeping.
Now obviously I am not calling out anyone, nor am I wanting people to feel bad or to feel that this is coming from a place of negativity or anger in any way. These are simply my thoughts and feelings after this last week.
Now I would like to imagine that the hate is mostly coming from a vocal minority. I have always felt safe and welcome in this community. This isn't even the first time you all have seen my cosplay either, and on those posts was a flood of positivity and encouragement. So you can imagine I was surprised at the hate and gatekeeping that was being thrown my way. Obviously not by everyone, to those of you who offered positivity, thank you it really did warm my heart <3.
In some ways I do understand the reaction. Can you say that going out to an event like this is silly? Yeah sure, that's totally fine by me, but to throw hate because I don't fit someone's perfect idea of what a merc looks like? That really saddens me. In most of our established media mercs have been blue yes, I decided to go for all black. I never thought this would have been such an issue for people, same thing for the rest of my kit. For people to throw hate because "my kit is trash" or its "just a shitty tactical getup that he threw a patch onto" makes me feel really sad and a bit defeated. If you really felt so strongly about my choices offering constructive criticism is always welcome as I am sure any cosplayer would tell you. "Oh hey cool cosplay! I had a thought about X, I think it would look so much better with Y" Something along those lines. I would have been more than happy to read that, but then again, maybe people assumed I wouldn't see it. I'm always trying new things with my cosplay switching things around and experimenting with different setups, and to me, that's what is fun to me about cosplaying a non-specific character. I get to choose, much like how you ALSO do when you play through the games.
Stalker has always been a series that has been really close to my heart. It has been a series that encapsulates the beauty of loneliness. It's always made me enjoy the melancholic bittersweet moments in life, and helped me get through times when i felt alone, because I knew that many other stalkers felt the same way somewhere. So as you can imagine my heart has been aching over this recently. The community always been a place I felt that I could belong, and I have it to thank for helping me through tough times, helping me grieve loss, and connect with other really wonderful people.
To those that wanted to throw hate my way: So what if I want to wear black instead of blue? So what if I want to use specific belts and pockets in certain places? Or use certain weapons? Cosplay is about creativity, about taking an idea and making it your own. I would have thought that would be something that we are all familiar with as stalkers. I also see lots of hate and negativity being put towards other cosplayers and fan films (like Evan Royalty's Shadow of the Zone film which I adored) So what if people do something differently? I would think that is something to be celebrated. The same goes to fan made creations like Anomaly and Gamma, I see people justifying their comments on many posts by saying things like "Oh I bet they've only played GAMMA" as if that was a negative thing that someone found the fandom by playing a fan project first.
So many game communities out there would KILL for fan games, so to ridicule someone for playing one is silly, we are very fortunate that people love the community that we do, enough to go out of the way to create more experiences to enjoy. Whether you hate these fan games or not, I feel that is something that we all should be able to agree on. I enjoy Gamma and Anomaly, but I also do love the original trilogy so much. I cant even count how many times I have played Shadow of Chernobyl, and even if I had ONLY played a fan game, so what? I am still finding enjoyment in something we all love. It may not be the way that YOU enjoy it, but it is still no less valid, and I think GSC would agree.
Making things work for you, going down your own path, making your own choices. Everyone's journey in the zone is just as important. These are all things that perfectly encapsulate what stalker means to me. So when people are rude and disrespectful because I had a CRAZY idea to have a little bit of artistic freedom in MY cosplay is really disappointing. Do you play every run of stalker the EXACT same way because you feel it's lore accurate? Maybe, but I can almost guarantee that you have tried a new weapon or armour that your faction wouldn't wear at least once.
Obviously we are not as big or well known of a community like COD or many other games. I think it would also be fair to say we are a little more niche than a lot of other communities, especially around where I live. So in a smaller more intimate community like this can we really afford elitists that try and dismantle each other? Can we really afford people that push each other out and invalidate each other for simply wanting to enjoy something that we all love? OR gatekeepers that try and bar the enjoyment of others simply because you decided to make a decision they wouldn't? You don't know the lore of my character, maybe there is a reason he chose all black, or the weapon and gear he uses specifically. I would also like to point out, as many before me have, that if mercs went to a real 'zone' there IS a chance they would look similar to me, but that's just a thought.
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In any case, STALKER has always meant a lot to me, and to see so much negativity when we should be celebrating each other, breaks my heart. We should all celebrate the community we have, the creations out there- fan and official, and each other for being here together. I sometimes think that other IPs or media would more or less still be the same without their fanbase. But I do truly feel that STALKER would not be stalker without each of us here, and in that way, I think the best thing we can do would be to encourage each other, to spread positivty and to not devolve into gatekeeping and elitism. I know that most of us are keeping that positive spirit alive :)
I'm sorry for the long post and how I jump around from topic to topic, Ill try and clean it up and add things when I feel I left something unsaid. I am also more than happy to chat in the comments and answer questions.
Thank you for reading my REALLY LONG post, and have a great day 😄
EDIT 1: Spelling correction LOL
EDIT 2: I forgot to mention in the body of my post but I would love to hear what people think of the cosplay. I could certainly use the encouragement after this week LOL
EDIT 3: Added another clarification
EDIT 4: Added TLDR
TLDR: There was lots of bad press and incorrect information to make the situation seem worse than it was, but I mainly wanted to talk about all of the hate and gatekeeping I experienced, and how it has affected me. I think as a community like this it is important to encourage each other, rather than discourage and spread hate. We are a little more niche than other mainstream games out there, but there are so many dedicated people out there that love stalker. We should allow people to experience the games/fan games in whichever way they want, and the same goes for cosplay too.