{"id":38288,"date":"2022-10-01T00:40:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T05:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/?p=38288"},"modified":"2022-09-30T11:46:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T16:46:28","slug":"cosplay-for-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/cosplay-for-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Cosplay for Charity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As a child, Angela (Fae) Mullens enjoyed playing dress up. By junior high, she was altering thrift store clothing and sewing costumes. Fae was a married adult before she learned about the cosplay (costumed play) community, but now, she\u2019s turned her hobby into a community service, recreating beloved characters to entertain at charity events or provide atmosphere at parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so rewarding, because I love being able to see magic come to life when you walk into a room as the character someone loves,\u201d Fae said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is a Costume Party!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fae\u2019s early charity experiences included attending movie premieres with the local JediOKC group, and she\u2019s been a mermaid at the Medieval Fair in Norman, OK since 2001. \u201cThe mermaids are purely magical creatures. We give out gems from the sunken ship playground. Our tails are fully functional in water, though, so I\u2019ve been to a number of swimming pool parties, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Fae, attending parties is rewarding. \u201cIt\u2019s always worthwhile. I never regret it. Last week, I visited a two-year-old going through chemotherapy. Then, I went with my superhero friends to a Sweet 16 Party for a girl with special needs,\u201d Fae said. \u201cThis beautiful girl decided to donate all her gifts to the Real Okie Superheroes charity group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fae is involved in many cosplay charity groups. In addition to JediOKC and Real Okie Superheroes, she\u2019s active with Oklahoma Charity Cosplay, Heroic Inner Kids, and the recently disbanded League OKC. On weekends, Fae is often at New World Comics \u201cSuperhero School,\u201d where kids meet a superhero through a story, skit, and costumed characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She describes the cosplay community as a tight-knit group. \u201cWe enjoy visiting conventions together, but if the message goes out that somebody needs Spiderman or Princess Moana for a party, we jump into action to see who\u2019s available. If I have a costume available, I try to help,\u201d Fae said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clothes, Makeup and Wigs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After years of character creation, Fae feels she is not \u201ctype-cast,\u201d because she\u2019s open to being any character. She was once the creepy Weeping Angel from Dr. Who, she\u2019s been a Valkyrie, various anime characters, Harry Potter characters, and many superheroes. Fae is currently developing Nightwing from DC Comics, and she\u2019s working on an elaborate photo-shoot that brings a forest to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sewing costumes by hand, for which she\u2019s won many awards, is Fae\u2019s hobby, but she\u2019s a hairdresser and cosmetologist by trade, working as the owner of Pin Me Up Salon. She also enjoys the creativity of finding thrift store wigs and giving them a \u201cstyle and dye,\u201d so that they have new life for costumes. Recently, she did a commissioned wig for SoonerCon, in which she dyed a beehive wig \u201cswamp green.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to sew your own costumes. They can be purchased. It\u2019s all about using imagination and recreating a character that resonates with them,\u201d Fae said. \u201cIt works well with kids, but also adults, especially if you are the book or movie character they love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Too Old to Cosplay?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now that Fae is part of the over-40 cosplay set, she gets questions like, \u201cWhen are you going to grow up?\u201d or \u201cAren\u2019t you a little old for this kind of thing?\u201d Fae answers by saying, \u201cNo. If you feel too old to dress up or enjoy a character, then you\u2019ve lost your magic. Look inside, find your inner child again, and suspend reality for a few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occasionally, Fae sees grown adults become like kids again when they see their favorite character. Children, on the other hand, can be a skeptical audience. \u201cI just don\u2019t break character. But overall, there are so many moments when children think you really are that princess or superhero–and that\u2019s magical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI once dressed as Frozen\u2019s Elsa for a Christmas party attended by kids who had witnessed or been victims of terrible crimes,\u201d Fae said. \u201cIn the eyes of one little girl, I was Elsa. She held my hand, we danced, we read books together\u2014I was her best friend. It broke my heart when she said, \u2018I know you miss your mommy and daddy. I miss mine, too.\u2019 It was a moment where I knew I\u2019d made a complete difference in her life. She believed in that character, and it provided her the comfort she needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to satisfied audiences, Fae admits that cosplay appearances also benefit the performer, because, \u201cIt\u2019s amazing for your mental health to step away from reality and do something that brings joy to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, visit the individual charity organizations, @PinMeUpSalon or @MrsFaeMullens on Facebook and Instagram.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a child, Angela (Fae) Mullens enjoyed playing dress up. By junior high, she was altering thrift store clothing and sewing costumes. Fae was a married adult before she learned about the cosplay (costumed play) community, but now, she\u2019s turned her hobby into a community service, recreating beloved characters to entertain at charity events or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":38251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"Issue":[397],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38288"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38291,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38288\/revisions\/38291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38288"},{"taxonomy":"Issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edmondoutlook.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/Issue?post=38288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}