Article text originally published in the Pittsburgh City Paper. Look for our interview with Berpl on next week’s Peepshow Podcast.
In 2014, Princess Berpl was working full time as a nurse and would come home from work only to start her side hustle: making independent amateur pornography clips and working as a cam model. After about two years into these double shifts, she had an idea.
Berpl, who is also an avid gamer, thought it would be fun to play one of her favorite characters from the game Overwatch, D. Va, during a video. “She is a sassy gamer girl that kind of is full of herself and really into playing the game,” Berpl explained. “D. Va has this entire persona that is kind of adjacent to making porn and the cam world; she is a model actress and professional gamer. I really liked her style and I felt really passionate about recreating her.”
But Berpl was creating porn, so she had to do more than just play the game as D. Va. She says, “I just came up with this really amazing idea based on the game. I thought, ‘I just really want someone to come on bubble gum.’” She dressed as D. VA, blew a bubble with her gum, had her co-star come on it, and then she ate the bubble gum and made a peace sign. And she had fun doing it, too. “The gum tasted good after,” she recalls. “Like a slightly musky watermelon.”
Compared to her work since, the bubble gum clip seems fairly basic. “It was gonzo, it was obvious I shot it on a webcam,” she says. “I feel like if I look back at it, it would be kinda cringy, but at the time it was the coolest thing I had ever done.” And people seemed to love it. Portions of the clip are featured in tons of YouTube compilations and it helped to catapult her cosplay porn career.
Matching Game
Princess Berpl takes her business so seriously, in fact, that she has been known to have custom dildos made that match the theme of her costumes!
As a treat for our readers, we have created a matching game. Try to figure out which dildo goes with which costume. And let us know what your favorites are!
Today, Berpl is a well-established cosplay model. She supports herself entirely with her pornography career, has played dozens of different characters (she lost count at 25), and is widely recognized as the top of her field, having won ManyVids Fetish Star of the Year 2018; ManyVids Cosplayer of the Year 2019; XBIZ Cosplay Clip Artist of the Year 2019; and ManyVids Gamer of the Year 2020.
As her work has evolved, so has cosplay porn.
“When I first started, it was hard to find costumes, you either had to make them yourself, or you had to commission them,” she says. Now, not only are they easier to find, but a fanbase has grown around cosplay models to help fund these projects. “As much as I am the cosplay star or artist, the fans that support it have made it as popular as it is. Without them, cosplay would be a really expensive hobby.”
She sees herself creating fantasies her fans can connect to. “The people who view my stuff want porn that has a beginning and an end and a story. They know who the character is, and they want to see all of these different aspects of them. It is pretty much fan fiction.”
Creating and acting these stories out for her customers is a lot of fun, but also a challenge. She is quick to point out how much work goes into it.
“Anyone who watches porn thinks that it is easy to masturbate on camera. But it is also spending an hour getting ready; a day’s worth of putting together a costume; and three hours of anal prep every once in a while.” And if that isn’t clear enough, she says, “Imagine wig hair poking you in the head over and over again, and you still have 20 minutes of fucking yourself in the ass while looking over your shoulder!”
Cosplay porn is serious business.
Answers: 2B = 4. Exotic-Erotics, Asuka Langley = 1. Exotic-Erotics, Samus = 8. Frisky Beasts, Tohru = 7. FckBuddies, Jessie = 2. FckBuddies, Bulma = 5. Made by Berpl, Princess Leia = 3. Bad Dragon, D.Va = 6. Exotic-Erotics
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