themichigami

[themichigami]

Ancient Cosplay

so, my mom was actually the first cosplayer i ever knew, not that we knew what cosplay was or that she knew she was doing it back then. she had a thing for the Highlander movies (and much later the tv series) when i was a kid, and one day found long coats of the proper kind while we were out shopping, and she circled that rack like a confused shark several times even going from one end of the store to the other and then back to it before finally talking herself into buying one.

This was the late 80's in deep mountain Appalachia, the idea of buying an article of clothing just because it looked like something your favorite movie character wore was not an accepted idea to most people yet. even halloween costumes were horrible plastic masks and a printed plastic bag bib thing at the time, so casual cosplay and closet nerdery as we know them today did not exist. The first few times she wore it, she almost acted like she was sneaking around in it, all super awkward, which confused me at the time. i've since seen the same behavior in cosplayers who wear something to dress like their favorite thing in public for the first time and finally realized what it was. After that, the confidence she gained, she loved that coat and loved knowing why she bought that coat, and that it was like getting away with something in plain sight. Also, it was and still is a really nice coat And yes, I still have the coat, I wore it to college for a long while before i got my blue winter coat, i only stopped wearing it because the blue coat was bought to shut up the person who kept calling me Gambit to make fun of me because of the brown coat and bike gloves thing i had going on for a long while at the time. (also they had heard me not using my "city voice" a couple times and made fun of my accent, i was a bit touchy about it at the time.)

Found the coat again while cleaning through some things I hadn't touched since college, and decided to pull it and some other things out of the box and dress up as late 90's miche for halloween this year. I still haven't had the chance to get those pictures up, but someone recently got me thinking asking stuff about cosplay in the old days, by which they meant 20 years ago when i started doing conventions, but I immediately thought of mom and her ridiculous longcoat that became my ridiculous longcoat, and how expressing fandom changes over time.

Considering its from the late 80's and has been in a box since 2005, it's in pretty good shape. Someday my dumb ass will get the halloween photoshoot pictures posted, but until then, enjoy some weird old geek's nostalgia.

[themichigami]

A story of X-Men husbands in two tweets.

[themichigami]

Finally found some stuff I haven't seen for a decade or so and was afraid got lost while moving this last time. Used to have a massive collection of random figures all over my monitor top and some shelves that got swapped for others every time I dusted except the favorites.

guess i'm gonna have to find shelf space for em now and hope they dont become cat toys. the only thing that can fit on top monitors they make these days is the dust, no more jumbo size boxes.

also, in case anyone wonders, yes i still have gambit's staff and han's blaster, the cat was starting to get curious so i didn't drag them out of the bag the tiny bits and accessories live in for all the other figures in that box too. also also yes han and chewie are the 77 figures, and gambit is from 92 and has a little lever on his back because 90's gimmicky fightin action figure goodness.

[themichigami]

late halloween stuff incoming.

ok, so, bathroom exploded again last week (yay old houses) so halloween picture taking got delayed, couldn't drag out stuff with plumbers around. buuuut, it has happened, photos coming tomorrow probably, and yes, i did dig out the stuff i had in a box from the 90's and 02 including my old bike gloves and bandannas and some of the spandex crap still fit miraculously. soooo, as requested by certain friends who shall probably regret asking for it, the return of late 90's Miche shall be shown, and people shall get to witness why ye olde college roommate called me Gambit for a while til i managed to convince her to stop because annoying. was also gonna do the crow outfit, but apparently all my old stage makeup has gone a little unsafe and dried out over the decades forgotten in storage so none of that. i am gonna wear that jacket again tho now that i found it because 80s black leather jacket i missed you, almost as much as i missed my longcoat, but people look at you funny running around in a big brown fit-for-a-macleod coat all seasons these days.

[themichigami]

Shared Memories- Scary Historical Edition

for halloween this year, I give you an actual scary story so that it might not be forgotten as so many others already have been.

Long ago, when I was young and my grandmother was watching tv, some old movie i've long since forgotten the name of, all i remember was it being set in WW2. it had come to a scene of people sneaking out of a town that was about to be occupied and attempting to escape by train. I remember the train part because gramma was very quiet for a long time, and then... "Your grandpap used to have cousins still in old country, back in Poland," she had told me. It was the tone of voice that you get to know means this is not a thing she was comfortable talking about, and since I hadn't heard anyone mention it before it was definitely a thing that needed to be listened to. She proceeded to tell me, between being distracted by the movie and some halting silences to compose her thoughts in places, about Grandpap's cousins that his family used to write to, had invited to come visit in America even, and had lost track of during the war. They hadn't know what had happened to them until a letter arrived one day, addressed to "The American Cousins", and our family name and address, written in a mix of polish and english. The letter was not from one of the relatives, it was from someone who had found letters to our branch of the family in what was left of the cousin's house, and was compassionate enough to reach out and tell Grandpap's family what had happened.

As it turned out, the town had apparently been occupied, and then liberated by russian troops later on. The person was not sure if the relatives had fled, or if they were in the graveyard, (graveyard will be the polite term used for what it was, there were apparently a lot of bodies in the ground in one place and i shall leave it at that.) But a lot of the town had been ruined, and the person who wrote the letter was not entirely sure which had done the most damage as "liberate" and "loot whatever is left behind" supposedly sometimes went hand-in-hand for certain people.

But, at least the family finally knew what had happened to them, and it became a thing that they just didn't speak of like several other troubling things, and faded into family legend and was mostly forgotten as time passed over the generations. Gramma had the letter for a long time, it had been in with Grandpap's things until a relative borrowed it to make a photocopy and it vanished, but she still remembered the story, and I never heard her speak of it again after that one time. If we were lucky and paid attention someone could stumble into a moment of Gramma or her sister sharing half-forgotten stories you might only hear once in a lifetime if you were super lucky. Most often something sad, like the one about watching her mother die in the flu pandemic as a child, or her being rented out as a housemaid against her will as a kid until she was 16, and grandpap forced to work in the coal mines at age 9 because child labor laws didn't exist yet.

This one though I only heard her tell once, and sometimes I wonder what was in the letter to leave such an effect on everyone that they chose to grieve by never speaking of it, but also I find myself strangely glad I will never know its exact contents.

I know its not a rawr jumpscare kind of scary or a woo ghost story kind of scary, but to me then it was genuinely horrifying to go from "oh cool we had Polish cousins?" to "oh... OH... oh no." as the story continued and the reasons we no longer had cousins were explained.

[themichigami]

not enough Gambit!!

[themichigami]

Credit for the instagram post

🚨LENORE ZANN AT THE EMMYS🚨 @lenorezann wore Rogue’s year 3 Hellfire Gala dress to The Emmys! This was @lucianovecchioart iconic design!

🔏Designed by Luciano Vecchio @lucianovecchioart 🧵Seamstress: Rachael Sanderson @luckygrim 💄Make-up and Wig: Chrissy Lynn @mxchrissylynn 📸Professional photographer: Michael Maro @shotbymarom

[themichigami]

Annoying Spoilers from people and thoughts on Gambit (aka Chanbit)

I've waited long enough, so here we go. Sooo, one of my friends calls me their resident hillbilly translator, any time someone has an american accent usually southern they can't figure out they send me a link and ask me to translate. TWO DAYS before the new deadpool movie is out in theaters here, they message me with a link to a thing all desperately "Miche, Miche, what is he saying?!?" and stupidly i clicked it not knowing... and THIS WAS HOW I FOUND OUT ABOUT GAMBIT BEFORE I WENT TO SEE THE MOVIE!

Let me tell you, i have never been more in a state between utter rage and screeching glee and yet both at the same time in my life. The things they heard from me about it before being put on the "we're not speaking til i'm less mad at you" list have not left a miche's mouth in a long time. And yes, i could translate for em, but did i? no.

Did i secretly rewatch that clip to death til it got removed from twitter before going to the movie myself? mayyyyybe.

First off, I do not find Channing Tatum attractive, he looks like my dad, no really. If you find him attractive, good for you, you probably have the same taste in guys as my mom, which is awesome for you but not my thing. That said, i giggled like an idiot with a giant grin every time even in the theater because he actually managed to finally live his dream and get in the costume after a couple decades of trying, and do a decent job of it onscreen.

Also, yes, I'm annoyed about the eyes. Everything else, good, the eyes, minus fifty points, maybe more. Didn't even need full sclerals just some red lenses, full scleral contacts i'd forgive em not using because I've known enough cosplayers who have trouble with em after long hours, just... they used the Diable Blanc nickname but didn't give him his eyes which was the reason he had the nickname. adding the teeny tiny glow to em using the powers, okay you tried but no star sticker.

The accent, having known a couple people from down that way over the years, yeah not bad that's a damn hard accent to do and it varies all over the place so no one accent covers, could be worse. People are so used to the cartoon version's deliberately fake so that it's easier to understand accent that any attempt at the real thing which is hard as hell to understand already to other people sounds weird, and they were playing it up to be worse for the joke in the movie.

Also, for those who don't know the ancient lore, at one point during the original 90's cartoon casting, they GOT someone with an actual Cajun accent to read for Gambit in the beginning, then decided kids and casual viewers wouldn't be able to understand it so they had another actor IMITATE a watered-down easier-to-understand version of his accent for a test, and decided to go with that idea instead when they cast the final actor.

Buuut, long post is long, so I'll sum up by saying, he may not be the best but he did decent, and i'm slowly no longer ignoring the friend who was a dumbass and spoiled it for me. Also, no, I am not from the south, but get used as the weird accent translator because i am originally from so far deep in the mountains of Appalachia that i had to have several years of speech classes to get rid of the worst of the hillbilly noises i myself made. I still slip once in a while when tired or distracted, but the "city voice" has been in place for around 25/30 years now. One of my first college roommates actually called me Gambit because of it for a few months before i managed to get them to realize I considered it really rude since i was actively trying to hide my own accent at the time. (might also partially have been the fondness for wearing a brown trench coat and bike gloves for most of the late 90's at fault there too)

[themichigami]

plan B nothing, that is plan A life goals, live in a way that makes you happy and make every day an adventure even if its just a run to the local walmart find something to enjoy in it. if someone else wants to tag along in your life adventure, awesome, if they want to tag along forever more awesome, but find happiness, this life is too short to be miserable.

[themichigami]

Just a pixelart i did of a minecraft sniffer having a picnic because of a joke conversation on the server i play on.

[themichigami]

A Man Who Lost Four Fingers Has Built Highly Articulated Prosthetic Fingers, All Controlled By Wrist Movements.

Engineer Ian Davis built his own mechanical prosthetic when his medical insurance did not cover the cost. His prosthetic functions without batteries or electricity. In early 2019, Davis lost four digits on his left hand due to a work accident, prompting him to create the prosthetic

[themichigami]

oh look, a link to the place to throw money at the things I make. Also, If you are interested in one of the large scarves like the Dr. Who ones, they take me around a week to make, so ordering one over the summer in readiness for convention wearing, autumnal comfort, and seasonal gift giving is an excellent idea, because the queue starts to get backed up no matter how many I make ahead of time by the time autumn gets here and people start sending in orders for the winter waitlist.

[themichigami]

It still makes me happy to see this making its rounds yet again.

Happy Pride!

[themichigami]

How it started vs How its going. I decided to copy over the lineart stage of the cloth poster project I sized up from the comic coverart onto a plain shirt and painted it with acrylics mixed with a fabric paint medium. I quickly discovered that the cat has had enough of my shenanigans and he tried to lay on the face while it was still wet, causing the eyebrows to smudge and bleed and the more I tried to fix it the worse it looked, so this version just has a derpy eyebrow now, I give up. This is as done as it's getting. There may still be a final version of the poster size made later for my wall with some corrections and improvements, but for now this version can hang on my wall after surviving a day out of wearing at the local comicon this weekend and I'll be happy with it.

As always with this project, may Larroca forgive me my sins against his art for they are many and horrible, but it makes my heart happy to see this finished at least as it is.

[themichigami]

Remy naming his cats after these particular Disney films has punched me right in the feels:

Oliver - a kitten that gets abandoned and has to grow up on the streets.

Figaro from a film about a puppet desperately trying to prove himself to be a brave, truthful, and unselfish, in order to fulfil his dream of becoming a real boy (and have a dad).

Lucifer after a film about an orphaned child looking for their happily ever after.

[themichigami]

Weird brain things...

My brain has done a weird thing. I discovered while reading that apparently it has decided on its own that "younger" or the usual clean-faced regular depictions of Nightcrawler sound like the 90's cartoon voice actor (but with a better accent), and the "Older"-looking aka bearded version sounds more like Docm77 of minecraft and youtube fame. No, I don't know why, but at least Doc is actually German and has a nice voice so I guess that works out? But... Weird brain things, yo, super weird.

[themichigami]

GAMBIT. WILL. BE. A. HORSEMAN!!!!!