{"id":237,"date":"2018-04-27T14:39:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T14:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/?p=237"},"modified":"2018-04-28T18:37:32","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T18:37:32","slug":"a-heros-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/2018\/04\/27\/a-heros-triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hero’s Triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Christina Lavinski, a costume is more than just clothing. Although the motivation for costume play, or \u201ccosplay,\u201d differs from person to person, Christina dresses up as superheroes, female or male, to overcome her own personal supervillain \u2014 anxiety. Since first discovering her form of self-therapy five years ago, she relishes transforming from everyday woman to iconic hero. Although her anxiety continues to haunt her, Christina hopes her boots and cape keep her inner demon at bay.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Normally my name is Christina,\u201d said a young woman standing in a convention center turned comic book convention. She then glided her fingers through a head of pure blonde hair, placed her hands on her hips, and exclaimed \u2014 \u201cToday, I’m Supergirl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christina Lavinski, a 29-year-old from Syracuse, New York, is known as a \u201ccosplayer\u201d, which is short for costume player.\u00a0 Costuming as fantasy characters began at science fiction conventions in the United States back in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, people wear costumes from comic books, anime, video games, movies and TV series. For Lavinski, she typically dresses as either Supergirl or Power Girl (an alternate Earth version of Supergirl in the comics).<\/p>\n

For the many people who partake in this nerdism, cosplay offers a sanctuary where people can geek out and meet each other. For cosplayers like Lavinski, they relish in sharing the experience of transforming themselves not only physically, but mentally, into someone, or something, else.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not be fooled,\u201d said Lavinski. \u201cThis is not a mere game of dress-up.\u201d And she\u2019s right. The costumes she chooses to wear bring out something inside her \u2014 an inner hero. For her, that means choosing characters that she identifies with or admires \u2014 and the clothing is a conduit to those traits.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBoth Supergirl and Power Girl are strong, fierce, independent women,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery time I don my cape, I become that person.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this \u201cwoman of steel\u201d has her ups and downs. Being a hero is the easy part. What\u2019s difficult sometimes for Lavinski is simply being normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a typical human being, I\u2019m nervous and withdrawn,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause of that, people just think I\u2019m weird. But there\u2019s so much more to it. Deep down, I live in a perpetual fear that my world is going to end. Like Supergirl, I too have a supervillain that I battle every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, unlike Supergirl who battles physical bad guys, Lavinski\u2019s villain is one that is not tangible or visible. Day after day, Lavinski is plagued by her inner demon \u2014 anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I found cosplay, I thought my life was going nowhere,\u201d she said. \u201cTherapy was okay, but I felt like I was missing something in my life.\u201d At that time, where Lavinski was at her lowest five years ago, she discovered a love for sewing. And over time she was able to heal from her general anxiety disorder in a unique way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI realized that threading needles, cutting fabric and patterns, and keeping my hands busy put me at ease,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I do cosplay, my anxiety just kind of drops and it\u2019s completely calming for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a fundamental level, Lavinski says that cosplaying is about embodying the characters you love. She went on to say, however, that it\u2019s not only about her. Heroes, after all, spread hope to other people.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust showing up in costume brightens people\u2019s day, like Supergirl and Power Girl do in the comics,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me to put smiles on faces, that\u2019s what it\u2019s really all about. Especially when little girls see me, because they do look up to me. It\u2019s important for them to know that every little girl can be Supergirl, as long as they think and act like a hero.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For Lavinski, cosplay saved her life and set her down the right path. rough cosplay she has become not only a hero, but an inspiration. She now gets to help people, just like her heroes.<\/p>\n

And if she ever finds herself in need of strength, she has her tights and cape waiting in her closet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Christina Lavinski, a costume is more than just clothing. Although the motivation for costume play, or \u201ccosplay,\u201d differs from person to person, Christina dresses up as superheroes, female or male, to overcome her own personal supervillain \u2014 anxiety. Since first discovering her form of self-therapy five years ago, she relishes transforming from everyday woman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":663,"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhousemilitary.syr.edu\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}