I Lure Them in with Promises of Ponies...

Monday night I was knee-deep in My Little Ponies.

My current Dungeon Master stopped by to hang out for a few hours, kids in tow. He has a pre-teen boy and a younger girl, both being raised in a geek-friendly household. The plan was for him to chill with us for a bit, eat dinner, and talk of inconsequential things. I knew I had plenty to entertain his daughter but was a little worried about the older boy (I shouldn't have; he got sucked into the video game vacuum with the Big B just fine).

The little girl moves at the speed of light, her words tumbling out just fast enough to stay un-muddled. I show her to our "office" aka the dumping grounds for anything and everything, and currently where my large bag of My Little Ponies is stored, along with a few pony buildings and some old cookie tins filled with brushes, clips, blankets, pillows, bottles, diapers and various other Pony accessories.

I can't keep up with the word-storm that is flying out of her mouth, but the gist is that she's excited about all the ponies, especially the kinds she hadn't seen before.

"BOY ponies? There are BOY ponies?"

"You can tell by the feet," I say, pointing out how the male ponies have big hairy feet like Budweiser Clydesdale horses in the commercials.

"Oooh! I like the skinny ponies! This one has sparkles in her hair!"

"These ones come with gems instead of regular eyes," I say while pointing to my favorite ponies. She is more entralled with the fuzzy ponies, however, and goes about systematically picking them all out of the pony-pile.

"There are cats, dogs, birds, a giraffe and a lion pony too," I offer helpfully.

*super-sonic squeal*

"I just LOVE animals! Animals of all kinds. How about we both play all the animal ponies, which one do you want to be, I want to be the lion, no wait, I want to be this purple cat...."

I let her extreme enthusiasm wash over me, remembering how excited I used to get over ponies.

"Which one do you want to be?" I grab Wizard, a pink flying pegasus pony with sparkly dark purple gems in place of painted eyes.

"She was my favorite when I was your age." She nods sagely, understanding how much favorites mean to girls. She shows me her own pony collection she brought with. The ponies are from more recently, but thankfully they are not the fun-house-mirror looking ponies I've seen in the toy aisles at Target. All of her ponies are sporting mohawks, courtesy of a "make over" session with her BFF.

"This one lost it's tail when I gave it a buzz cut," and she displays a tail-less pony proudly. I point out the few ponies that received haircuts from me years ago, but tell her that makeovers are good for one evening of fun, but whereas real hair grows back for more cutting fun, ponies are sadly limited in their ability to grow new hair.

Kids say the darndest things.

We are in the spare bedroom, where I grab the first season of My Little Pony on DVD.

"What's that?" and her eyes shine even more excitedly, if that's possible.

"This is the cartoon, do you want to watch? We can learn how the My Little Ponies came to be," I tell her.

"You mean we can be playing ponies at the same time we watch them on TV?" I nod.

"That's like Live Action Role Playing! I think it's called LARPing."

I should have known better, but I am tickled just the same. How many 9-year olds do you know that would know what LARPing is?

I put the pilot episode in the DVD player and let the familiar tunes wash over me. When it comes time for the sea pony musical number, we grab all the sea ponies I own and I find myself waving them in the air as if they were swimming, the little girl and I making our very own school of brightly-colored sea ponies.

I feel self-conscious at first, thinking how silly it is to be waving plastic seahorses in the air for no apparent purpose, but then I see how bright and shining her eyes are that we are playing together, and I can only smile and remember how much cooler it was when the grown-ups played too.

I apologize if you get this tune stuck in your head...it's insidiously sticky like that.

I think that's why it's invariably the favorite of any little who I've shown it to.

Unfortunately it is a week night, and her Dad comes to collect her to head home eventually. She puts up a bit of fuss but she's a good kid and starts tossing ponies back into the bag from which they came.

"Dad, can we come back sometime? Could we do a sleepover? I wanna do a sleepover."

I tell her I'd love to have a sleepover, winking at Dad and telling him sotto voce "Next time you need a sitter on the weekend or I have vacation during the week, I'd love to."

"How about this Wednesday?" She looks at me. "What are you doing Wednesday?"

Ah, the siren call of My Little Ponies. I knew the lure would work well!

I giggle and her dad says that we'll work it out for the future. He takes out his phone to take a picture of her pony-land creation just before we start to pick up, all the ponies painstakingly set upright in their dwellings with others hanging by their chubby little legs from the drawer handles of my craft-station.She makes a goofy face and demands a picture with our cat Gizmo, the scary monster for the ponies and by her proclamation the "coolest cat in the world" (I showed her how he plays fetch, and I'm sure his recent haircut was a big factor in this decision as well).

They leave and bed calls...

...but this morning the strains of "Shoo-be-doo, shoo-shoo-be-doo" are running through my head as I shower and I can't help but allow the big grin to surface, thinking how much fun it would be to have a sea pony with me, smiling at me with her horsey-smile and twinkling eyes.

And Here I Thought I had Left Downtown...

Lately I've been daring myself to answer differently when approached on the street by someone who wants something.

Like the next time I get asked if I have spare change, I dare myself to say, "Sure, if you'll just take on my student debt, we'll call it even!"

Or something appropriately smartass-y.

Or my newest dare obsession, to make them tell me the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to them and I'll judge their story for truthfulness and their story-telling skills for humor and then decide if I should bestow what they want on them.

I'd double what they'd ask if they actually made me laugh.

Or at least charging them a quarter for a cigarette. That's a fair price...and will help me to buy stuff from the vending machines in the afternoon when the sleepies hit.

Somehow, however, I never work myself up to it or my plans fly right out of my head when the time comes and the word "No, sorry" comes tumbling out unasked.

The "sorry" part really bothers me, after the fact.

What do I have to be sorry for? I blame my Minnesota upbringing. It's not my fault I don't keep "spare" change on hand to give out to those who ask.

Yesterday took me for a turn, however.

You see, working downtown in one of the Twin Cities, I am used to being approached for things while outside or walking through our marvelous skyway system. So when I was approached twice yesterday by people hoping to score free stuff from me, I took it in stride.

Last night, in the comforts of my own home, curled up on the couch with my sister watching our premium-channel show addictions (woo hoo Nurse Jackie & Trueblood!), a soft knock was heard.

I share a panicked look with my sister before jumping up to answer the door. The Big B was in the kitchen, diligently cleaning up previous cooking messes and did not appear to have heard the knock.

I open our front door with a healthy-tug and see a tanned white man on our front steps, a random assortment of stuff piled up neatly on the sidewalk behind him.

At first glance, he doesn't appear scary or cracked out. I take in his shirt which says something about hardwood floors, and mentally I'm already preparing my answer "We have very nice hardwood floors, thank you anyways" but he surprises me by going another route.

"I'm hoping you can help me, you see I'm in a bad way and need to get somewhere and I need cab fare--"

here he stumbles and quickly recovers with

"--I mean bus fare...would you want to buy any of this stuff?" and he gestures behind him to the previously mentioned random assortment.

My neck bends of it's own accord to take a closer look. I see:

1. An orange extension cord
2. Two metal car supports
3. A long silver metal flashlight
4. Some other stuff I couldn't identify

The ever-present shopper in me pipes up and says, "You can always use another flashlight and heavy-duty extension cord!" but I shush it before it can gain control of my tongue.

The Big B will KILL me if I say yes (not that I really want to, not really) especially since he's convinced I possess the commen sense of a gnat. I flash back to when I allowed two neighborhood boys to mow our lawn for $20 last summer, thinking at the time that he would appreciate not having to do it, but instead I got an earful for spending money on something we can perfectly well do ourselves (my arguments that it was worth it to encourage youth to be responsible and earn their own money in lawful ways fell on deaf ears).

I won't get get into the cigarette incident of 2010 here, but perhaps tomorrow...

Instead, I shake my head in a (I hope) kindly fashion and tell the man we're not interested.

My sister wants to know if he looked like your typical homeless/crackhead/down-on-his-luck guy.

"He looked perfectly normal, like a construction worker," is all I can say.

At least he had the decency to offer something, instead of trying to get something for nothing. And he was very tan.

Demona!

I had a vision just before sleep on the last night of Convergence 2010, and I was determined to do it.

I wanted to really cosplay this time, not do something fun but half-assed like in previous years.

80's nostalgia...Rainbow Brite and a Care Bear!

My Little Pony, Apocalypse Pony...making you pay for your sins!

 

My Shaggy didn't last very long at this party

No, this year I was going to cosplay Demona, and I was going to do it right, because I would have a chance to meet Greg Weisman, the creator of the Disney TV show Gargoyles. I wanted him to see it and tell me I did good.

I researched body paint and makeup, bought fabric, and confused several well-meaning Home Depot employees with my esoteric requests. I enlisted the help of a D&D buddy and learned how to thread and use a sewing machine for the first time. I was on a severe budget so I had to skimp and get creative in places, which was okay!

I went through a LOT of posterboard, it being my go-to medium for making patterns for everything from the wings and wingbones down to the tail. Afterwards, the house looked like a Con-bomb had gone off, with scraps of fabric, thread, posterboard, duct tape and other construction materials littered throughout the house.

My roommate Makai was back home to attend Con and helped me with the construction of the wings. I had bought several likely materials at Home Depot but wasn't exactly sure how I was going to tackle the problem of getting wings that would both open wide when I wanted but fold in so I could navigate the Con fairly easily.

I bought several things at Home Depot:

1. Flexible plastic plumber's tubing in two sizes, one of which would fit neatly into the other and stick together
2. Rigid small-diameter PVC plumber pipe
3. Tubular black foam insulation (again for your pipes)
4. String
5. Back brace
6. A couple of pulleys
7. Wooden dowel rods that would fit in the larger flexible plumber tubing

I had been wavering between going with something rigid that would keep the wings spread unless I exerted force to close them, or having ones that were collapsed by default but would flex open when I tightened and pulled some strings threaded through the structure.

We decided to go with the first option (much easier). We broke the wooden dowel rods in half and encased them in the larger of the flexible plastic plumbers pipe. We used the smaller pipe as a small hinge between the two pieces.

We decided that one of my sports bras would work as a wonderful harness once the poles were cut down.

Once we had the angle right, we duct taped the SHIT out of the entire thing and cut off the extra pieces, leaving little nubs that would fit into slits cut into the elastic band on the bottom of my sports bra to hold it in place.

I took the black foam insulation and traced a rough pattern so I would know how big to cut and sew the fabric that would eventually go over the wings.

We encased the entire "arm" part of the wing structure in the black foam insulation to give it more thickness than the leading edge, since in a gargoyle like Demona, the wing "arm" is what provides the most support for the wing and is therefore larger than other wing bones. My roomie suggested we pad the pieces that were crossed in the back for my comfort later, and I'm sure glad we did because it ended up being VERY comfortable to wear, even after many, many hours.

The more rigid plumbers pipe was used for the outer leading edge of the wing. We left a piece of the black foam insulation sticking out past the end of the sheathed dowel rods so that the leading edges could be poked through at an angle which I then held in place with more wonderful duct tape.

I traced the wing claws onto more posterboard and left them open so that they could be placed over the exposed part where the leading edge of the wing joined the wing-elbow joint. A piece of the rigid pipe from the leading edge was inserted into the middle claw for each wing-hand.

For the tail I simply cut a triangular pattern and sewed it straight, then stuffed it with padding and shoved a wire hanger down to the end and curled it so that my tail would stick out properly. I left pieces of the fabric loose so I could safety-pin the tail to my pants or a pair of bikini bottoms when I was doing the full rig.

Demona is depicted with a dark blue outer wing color and a dark purple inner-wing color so I made sure to buy fabric as close to her coloration as possible. I ended up using regluar cotton broadcloth for all the wing pieces (not only was it cheaper, but it always seemed to have the exact color I wanted). I knew I would make a ton of mistakes while constructing this so I made sure to buy plenty of fabric (that didn't stop me from having to buy more as I was constructing, however).

The centerpiece ended up very messy, but that was okay because it was covered by the one-shoulder tank I wore. I constructed the loincloth/skirt and tank out of some stretchy and pre-wrinkled cotton that looked appropriately ragged.

For her leg and arm jewelry, I used golden jewelry wire from Michael's and shaped it myself. I had to adjust the arm-band often, however, so I think if I do this again I will make something more sturdy and a bit thicker.

I already owned a black belt (my only gripe was that the buckle was round and silver, not square and gold like hers...again something I'll fix before I wear her again) and I did have a pair of hoops for my ears, again silver not gold, but they ended up getting covered in blue body paint anyways so it didn't matter much.

I found a cheap $15 wig on Ebay that worked perfectly. I forwent the crown she wears in order to do steampunk goggles instead, but alas! One eager fan who hugged me ignored my "gently, gently!" warnings and smooshed them to pieces right away my first night out. *sniff sniff*

Unfortunately I ran out of funds before Con to get the teeth and ears that I wanted, but since you couldn't really see my ears in the wig anyways, I wasn't too worried. I'll save and get the really nice fangs for next time.

I went with Aquacolor water-activated cake makeup body paint from Kryolan because the costume store sales clerk assured it me it would cover well, was easily to apply for a newb like me, and wouldn't require hours and hours of scrubbing to get off at the end of the night. I used Ben Nye Final Seal once the paint had dried to help prevent rub-off and melting from sweat.

The end result....

The first night I wore only the tank and a pair of boyfriend jeans rather than the skirt. It took about 1.5 hours to paint my top half and my calves & feet.

Second day of painting I had to do my upper half again

as well as much more of my legs. That makeup was COLD

while it was still wet!

I wish I could say my eyes were glowing

like that for real...but sadly it was just the flash

Finally all done! I could do most of the painting myself except my back, but luckily a girl has a nerd herd to help out with that.

Old roomie was running scared!

 

My favorite pic!

 

Uhhh....don't ask me how Demona was out in the sun as a gargoyle.

It's fantasy, okay?

That's a little better....If you like what you see here, check out my buddy's photography site, CBM Imagery.

He does excellent work and has art for sale if you like what you see.

More from CBM Imagery

 

My good buddy and novice photographer is on the right--he took a few of the really nice shots for me.

Ryan is a friend I met through Corry who normally resides in Duluth but I've seen him for Magic the Gathering nights at Corry's. He also borrowed me a sealable cup to drink in the rest of the night because while I remembered all my costume stuff, I forgot a drinking vessel!

From left to right: Radiation surviver (Makai, roomie), Demona (me), Matrix/Gorton's Fisherman (Bret) ManPurse (Mikey) and Rennaissance/Steampunk Lady (Rachel)

Her Rainbow Brite outfit put mine to shame!

(you can also see my broken steampunk goggles, sad!)

I had a lot of fun taking pictures with different poses with my wings

Roomie! You lost your survival suit!

I wish my friend who had taken these pics for me had used the flash.

Hot Riddick again!

 

The second day the wings were a bit droopy...the first night I could hear the dowel rods cracking as I folded in the wings to make my way through doorways and the crowd. The following day, we tied fishline from claw to claw and that helped a bit...but it was even funner to use the fish wire for other things, such as levitating my pencil during a d20 modern game run by Bret (he's also the one who loaned me the sewing machine and taught me to use it).

My nephew Alex, who just graduated from high school, was at Con and I was glad to run into him. He even agreed to take a picture with me (my other, younger nephew Ian was more recalcitrant). Alex was dressed up as Goku from Dragonball Z in his Super-Saiyen form.

Demona the gargoyle isn't afraid of Mr T!

Well, Demona was originally from Scotland...

This Wonder Woman really WAS an Amazon! By all rights I should have been taller.

Yum! Alcoholic cherries.

Friend Bret doing his karaoke rendition of Disturbed

The other karaoke goers

Roomie (and my engineer!) chilling in the karaoke room

The nose had started to wear off a bit by near the end of the night

Not sure what was going on here...

Ever play air guitar...on a gargoyle's wing?

These two were terrific dancers.

Radiation survivor...aka Makai and my engineer!

Makai's costume was pretty rad...it was a working gas mask with an air pump attached that inflated a little piece of something on his back and came with a little tinny-sounding speaker. It was hard to understand him through it but I think he liked it that way.

He told me that whenever he was in the elevator you could hear the breather whirring, and if he took a deep breath it would kick into a higher gear and the other passengers would look alarmed. Then he'd startle everyone by saying "It's okay, it's supposed to do that" out of this little speaker.

Of course the highlight of my cosplay was getting to attend a Q&A panel where Greg Weisman would be talking about the show.

Yeah, that's actually him! *insert nerd flail* What a great guy!

The highlight of my time at Convergence, of course, was attending a Q&A panel held by Greg Weisman, the creator of Gargoyles himself.

I waited outside the room for the previous panel to finish, bouncing with anticipation. I wanted to get a seat right up front. Lots of other attendees wanted pictures, and I obliged at first until I saw the room filling up. I felt bad but I wanted to get that seat! so I dragged a few with me up front to finish up. I was like a celebrity, it was very heady stuff, my own little gargoyle-geek papparazzi.

The room held a lot of people--I'm horrible at estimating but I'd say between 100-200 chairs and not many were empty. Greg said early on that he was surprised to see so many people, making a little joke about how he had expected like six to show up--after all, it has been sixteen years since the show aired!

The room was freezing and all my nervous energy and excitement didn't kill the goosebumps on my painted flesh. FINALLY Greg arrived and sat down. I was a little disappointed when he didn't say anything to me at first. How could he miss a blue person with wings and bright red hair?!? Then his face turned as he scanned the gathering crowd and when his eyes came across me he gave a little jump and a blink.

"That's amazing! Wow, stand up, let me see that, outstanding!"

*internal nerd flailing and fan meltdown occurs*

I got up shakily and spread my wings and did something but I don't recall what, maybe a turn or a courtsey or possibly a snarl, then sat back down.YES! I did it! He likes my costume. I did good and the creator approves! I was grateful for the blue makeup, because my cheeks were redder than my wig underneath the blue pigment.

The panel then got started, and at one point when Greg was explaining how Demona's character came about he had me stand up and show the audience (SO COOL!). A lady asked whether she should stop holding her breath for more comics to come out, and Greg said, "I don't want you turning blue...YOU can be blue [pointing to me]...but I don't want you to do that."

OMG he made a JOKE and involved ME in it!

*SQUEAL*

It was great to listen to the questions and hear his responses. He talked about the Shakespearean influences that are evident throughout the show--like Demona's arch nemesis and coincidentally the person she shares immortality with is MacBeth, and one of my favorite episodes involves Puck, yes, Puck! and a mirror that grants wishes...but like all wishes, you must be very careful how you word it. He talked about the bummer that was the 2nd season DVD release (HALF the season, with the second half never released...but it was cool, because he gave us all permission to find bootleg copies of the non-released episodes, knowing that true fans like us would buy them if they were available).

I didn't ask any questions...the other attendees were asking great ones and I was honestly a little shy (not sure how you can be shy when you're wearing a bright red wig, huge wings, and covered head-to-toe in blue, but I was) but once it was over, I tried to contain my goofy geek beak grin and nabbed a picture with Greg. He praised my costume again, and I managed to tell him how much the show meant to me and how much I loved it without cheesing out on him too much.

The sky was shading to pink behind us, signaling that our fun was done

Of course the cats had to claim this the minute I set them down

Nothing lasts forever, unfortunately, and eventually we had to concede defeat and end the night. I had been up for two days straight, from early Friday morning until I finally collapsed into bed Sunday morning around 7:30am. It didn't take me as long as I thought to wash off the makeup each morning although my toenail polish still has a blue tint to it. I was in costume for 14 hours straight Saturday but it still went by like *that*.

I received many compliments on my costume and a surprising number of people knew who I was, and more knew what I was if not which character. I enjoyed being a mini-celebrity for the day, although I was a bit of a liability to any of my friends traveling with me, as we were often stopped for pics.

My previous toe-dabblings in cosplay (if you can call it that) were nothing compared to how much fun I had doing Demona (that sounds dirty, heh heh). It was as if I had fulfilled a desire I knew nothing about, but was there nonetheless, lurking just under the surface of my fondness for craft-y arts and love of Halloween dress up.

Now that I've had a taste I want more.

And I WILL get more. I promise you that!