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WTFriday: Silent Hill. Star Wars. No. Words.

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where we find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what we normally do every day of the week.

So. Fanart. Like cosplay, fan fiction, and an unwholesome love of tie-in knick knacks, fanart is a common pastime for media fanatics. Often times, as our own Nadia Oxford has noted recently, videogame fanart can be quite good. Talented artists love games too, dontcha know.

Like koala bears, who appear to be adorable little ragamuffins until they reveal themselves to be heartless, savage killers of the most deranged kind, fanart has a hidden and terrible dark side. One most only type a scant few words into Google’s image search to discover it.

This, though. This goes beyond anything else I’ve seen.

This Functional Game Boy Costume Will Show Us the Way

Video game cosplayers, take note. We've seen enough of that smelly Cloud costume that gets dragged out of the closet year after year, convention after convention. The cardboard sword is sagging, and a moth ate through the crotch of your pants. I don't know what continuity you're honouring by letting Cloud go commando, but either way, the fantasy is dead and the children are frightened. Give it up.

Cosplay has long been the Internet's equivalent of that guy who sits above a dunk tank at a carnival. I have nothing against this particular perched gentleman, same as I have nothing against cosplayers. I just can't resist taking a shot.

In fact, everyone jabs cosplayers now and then. There is an ancestral instinct that causes us to mock men in tights; it's how our forebears protected themselves from bards. But it's a petty person who won't recognise true costume-design talent when they see it. I've seen some fantastic costumes in my (regrettable?) years of anime con attendance, but there hasn't been anything quite like the functional Game Boy who waddled around Ohayocon 2009 and graciously put up with people playing Tetris on his chest.

A video of the costume in action lies under the jump.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.