Sadly, Cosplay Without Bigotry Still Remains The Final Fantasy

One of my friends has the nickname “Tifa” — from “Final Fantasy VII” — for the fact that she owns a bar, works the bar, and knows how to throw one h*** of a punch when the need arises.

One Halloween, she hosts a cosplay night at her bar. Some other friends and I come by, garbed in cosplay for ourselves, and find Tifa dressed up in the leather suit of her namesake.

That is all well and good for decent people. The problem — at least as far as the a**hole in the Goku (“Dragon Ball”) cosplay is concerned — is that Tifa is as Black as Black gets. There’s also my male friend in a Samus (“Metroid”) cosplay — not the androgynous Power Suit, but the skin-tight Zero Suit — and me in a Team Galactic uniform (“Pokémon”) WITHOUT the grunt hairstyle.

Goku: “What the f*** is wrong with this place? I thought it was supposed to be cosplay night.”

Samus: “You’re surrounded by cosplay right now.”

Goku: “The f*** I am, you [transphobic slur]. Why didn’t you pick an actual guy to dress up as instead of pulling this bulls***?”

Tifa: “Okay, I’m refusing you service. Varma!”

At this bar, “Varma” is the staff’s code word for an abusive customer — a signal to the bouncers that someone needs to be thrown out.

Goku: “F*** is your problem, b****? You’re the [racist slur] who thinks you’ve got any business wearing—”

It’s at this point that the bouncer — a giant mountain of dude who’s done up to look like a Goron from “The Legend Of Zelda” — grabs “Goku’s” shoulder and turns him around.

Goron: “You have about one minute to get out of here before I put a boulder up your a** and call the knights. Er, cops.”

Part of me almost wishes “Goku” had chosen to resist, if only because he had the musculature to make the cosplay work. But faced with someone who looked like he could lift something large enough to be called a boulder, “Goku” decided to book it. 

The Goron got a drink on the house before he got back to work. The rest of cosplay night was thankfully issue-free.