Miss Vee, a cosplayer and a gamer, living her true beautiful self in every way possible.
Miss Vee is a multitude of things: an account manager at a marketing firm, a freelance model every now and then, video game streamer & content creator at certain parts of the day, and a passionate cosplayer at various events.
Definitely, Miss Vee’s life is a colorful timeline of her self-discovery, staying true to her passions, and living day by day exploring what she really wants. And through these fortunate and marvelous experiences, she became the Miss Vee that we all see now.
“I’m just me. I’m a gamer. I’m someone who loves comic books, I’m a comic book geek. I’ve been a gamer ever since. I’m passionate about driving my values, my morals, and of course my rights as a trans person. I’ve always been an advocate of transgender rights, and therefore extension, the LGBTQIA+ rights.”
Like what Albedo from Genshin Impact said: Going out into the world and investigating, turning the “unknown” into the “known” is an absolutely marvelous feeling—a feeling that Miss Vee knows a thing or two about.
Dive into Miss Vee’s world of gaming and cosplaying, and see what the world is like through her eyes.
Everything, Everywhere in the Gaming World
Gaming was a huge part of Miss Vee’s childhood, along with reading. Being introduced to the world of gaming was a core memory for her.
“Ever since I could remember, I was always a gamer. As in parang ‘yung very very first gift that I recall ever receiving was actually a hand-me-down Nintendo 64 from my brother.”
Since then, gaming has always been popping up into the corners of everything that she does: from work, hobbies, and random musings in her life.
Miss Vee graduated college way back in 2018 from Ateneo’s Legal Management degree program. After that, she immediately jumped into UP College of Law and stayed there for a while until she was granted leave of absence.
Amidst the pandemic, she decided to explore for a while and trust the process on whatever happens next. She shared how she absorbed and observed the landscape during the time. Being stuck at home, part of her landscape was the online world. And that was when she was immersed in the Pokemon gaming community.
What Started It All: The Pokemon Community
Miss Vee’s heart is very close to Pokemon. Going into the gaming-verse, Miss Vee joined a community revolving around Pokemon Sword and Shield Generation 8.
Sharing her achievement with pride, she was also featured by Pokemon Philippines as the psychic gym leader, where she accepted gym challenges from all over the country—collecting gym badges like a game.
“Pokemon has always been a part of my life. I started with Pokemon Sapphire Gen 3 tas tuloy-tuloy na ‘yun. I met a gaming community there tapos I got very close to a couple who streams.”
As an extrovert, this was a platform that gave her an avenue to express herself, talk to people, and make friends. She got encouraged to stream games by the support of her friends and fellow gamers in this welcoming community.
“I decided to start streaming on my birthday, September 3, 2020. It was the start of everything.“
She shared that her first stream was still on Facebook: the first step of getting out of her comfort zone and into the gaming stream.
“It was a little game called Marvel Super War. It was supposedly a competitor of Mobile Legends in the Philippines, but it features Marvel heroes, obviously, kasi Marvel fan din ako ever since.”
Eventually she transitioned to streaming another favorite game of hers, Final Fantasy XIV—a MMORPG—something that she sees streaming for the long term.
“For me, that was really an achievement in itself kasi like you know, it was a first.”
After a while, she then hopped onto the cosmos of Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail. For Miss Vee, RPGs (role-playing games) have always been her favorite.
The Dawn of Cosplay Adventures
Miss Vee started cosplaying the same way she started streaming her games: with the support of her friends from the gaming community.
Admittedly, she loves modeling ever since—even when she is tired, she’d be energized by a modeling gig. And of course, being able to bring her favorite characters from the screen into real life is an inexplicable pleasure.
It was Miss Vee marrying her passion for modeling, gaming and performing altogether in one go; immersing herself in a pixelated world and recreating them here in the real world.
“I’ve always been a theater kid. So I love being a performer. I love channeling certain characters into my essence, into my spirit, oh my gosh. So like marrying all those three together [modeling, cosplaying, and performing], I saw na parang perfect tie-up siya in cosplay.”
Not only does she look and feel good when she cosplays, but Miss Vee enjoys being able to be her character—to project herself as Aerith Gainsborough of Final Fantasy 7 or say memorable lines from Mona in Genshin Impact. It’s what she really loves about cosplay.
For her, it was a bit intimidating to start her cosplaying journey because she didn’t know where to start. Undeniably, you would have to consider a lot of things from the costume, the audience, the character, the hours of wearing a wig plus standing up, and many more.
But Miss Vee shared that once you’ve started, it would be extremely fun and fulfilling to continue—everything would just flow naturally, especially if you love what you do.
The Cosplay Cosmo and its Creative Process
There’s a lot of creativity and collaboration that comes with cosplaying. And Miss Vee, being the empowered woman she is, is not easily swayed by societal norms and pressures.
She shared that in choosing the characters that she would cosplay, she doesn’t consider if it matches her skin tone, facial features, body structure, or whatnot.
“Cosplay is half-modeling, half-roleplaying, half-enjoying. Because it’s you being a character that you love with all your heart, immersing yourself with all of these other people who experience the same situation because obviously, they’re also cosplaying characters so they love with all their heart. But at the same time, it’s you also embodying the essence of that character,” Miss Vee shares.
“It’s just not you dressing up, it’s you being that person, you channeling how much you love that character, your passion for that character, and being able to share it with all these other people.”
She chooses a character that she likes—a character that she likes to see herself in.
But of course, on the practical side—she can’t deny that she also thinks about her target market in conventions. She also wants to share the joy she gets from cosplaying to the people seeing her cosplay.
As a person who is fond of people and at the same time acts empathetically, it’s important for her that whenever she cosplays, it would be a two-way street.
Her choice of characters, ironically and amusingly, are on the extreme sides of a spectrum. But here, you’ll see how versatile and passionate she is with both modeling and cosplaying.
“I’m very very edgy. I don’t like smiling. As in hindi talaga. Kasi my aesthetic has always been, especially with my figure, it’s very much into high fashion, editorial, edgy. So that is one side of the type of character that I like cosplaying.”
And yet, Miss Vee is fond of cosplaying characters that are bubbly and soft like Aerith from Final Fantasy VII.
“At the same time, I like playing cute characters sometimes. Like for example, si Aerith, you will never see Aerith like very edgy because she’s very bubbly. She’s like a flower girl, ‘di ba, she’s a white mage. So parang may mga ganung characters din na gusto ko i-cosplay because like, they’re just fun. I actually play them.”
Miss Vee also shared some of her memorable moments in cosplaying. One of which was her first cosplay ever. She went as Scarlet Witch from Marvel Legends Multiverse of Madness. She didn’t expect the overwhelming number of people who approached and took pictures with her.
And that’s when she discovered how much she likes cosplaying—everything that comes with it, especially the process. Hopefully one day, she would be able to experience her dream of collaborating and meeting with international cosplayers abroad.
The Marvelous Power of Games and Cosplaying
Gaming and cosplaying have really been anchors—and also wings—for Miss Vee. An anchor in a sense that these helped her stay grounded and authentic; it helped her survive difficult times.
The game that really resonated with Miss Vee is “Dragon Age: Origins”, a role-playing game released in 2009. Miss Vee always says that this is her go-to game because she loves the freedom of being able to create a character from the ground up.
Imagine being able to combine your favorite characteristics, personalities, and aesthetics into one character—it must be really empowering for someone to be able to do that.
On the other hand, gaming and cosplaying are like wings for Miss Vee in a sense that these were the things that made her show her true self, channeling her true passions, her true self.
It made her fly in a way that she feels the transformative power of sharing her passion through the screen and embodying a character that other people relate to.
“Stress reliever ko na siya at this point [gaming and cosplaying]. Before I saw it as like a job when it was just me doing it. But then now that I also have a day job, parang ‘yung streaming…I see it na rin as an escape.”
As an avid reader of books and graphic novels, she really has been a fan of story-driven types of content. That’s why a comic book series that also made an impact on her is the Phoenix Saga of X-Men, where her favorite storyline and character is the entire journey of Jean Grey.
“Even though she’s [Jean Grey] overpowered because of whatever, pero kasi yung you also see the humanity [in her]. And I like that aspect, yung parang super powerful siya but then there’s a human aspect. So yun yung favorite ko, Dark Phoenix saga talaga.”
And certainly, all of these influences have helped shape who she is today. Because of these, Miss Vee was able to create her own multiverse of marvelous madness: a world filled with her passions and interests.
And with this, she tells us another advice about cosplaying—but is also applicable to any aspect of loving our own craft:
“Not everyone will understand it. But as long as you know why you’re doing it and as long as you enjoy doing it, it should never stop you. Because everyone will always have something to say. But the only voice that matters is yours.”
At the end of the day, this is how she came to be: a gamer, a cosplayer, a content creator, and most importantly a simple but shimmering woman, Miss Vee.
Check out Miss Vee on her Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Twitch for more cosplay and streaming updates.
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In Partnership with
Production Credits:
Photography by Enzo Santos {@enzosantosx}
Styled by Maxx Macalinao {@michaelamaxx}
Makeup by Jia Achacruz {@jiaachacruz}
Hair by Mharhea Banting {@mharheabanting}
Executive Produced by Isa Lim {@isaaa_dalawatatlo}
