The PoP! Fangirl of the Month – March 2009

The PoP! Stars scour all of teh internetz in search of the most Fabulous Females of Fandom. Please keep it in your pants.

Welcome to the premiere edition of The PoP! Fangirl of the Month.  As evidenced by our article on the most “Boobalicious Super-Heroine Costumes” and its subsequent popularity, when it comes to a majority of us Fanboys, the only thing(s) better than a stack of new comics or a mint-in-box action figure are women that won’t run screaming in the other direction, whether they be paper and ink, pixels, or flesh and bone.  We must give thanks to those women who give the Nerd/Geek/Dork community that shot of estrogen it so desperately needs, hence, The PoP! Fangirl of The Month.

For this monumental occasion, the first in a line of many Fangirl of the Month features, I figured, “why go searching?”, when some of the greatest Fangirls the world has to offer are nothing more than a PM or text away.  That being said, I give you the March 2009 PoP! Fangirl of the Month, mainstay at the Wizard Universe Message Boards, and personal friend of PoP!, Daisy, aka darth__frodo.

The Devourer of The Devourer of Worlds

As a member of the WUMB myself, I first noticed darth__frodo as one of the few females to brave the boards in search of info and camaraderie.  I had the great opportunity to meet Daisy (and her lovely husband, Brett) at Wizard World Chicago 2008 as part of a “WUMBer” get-together, and we’ve since become good friends.  Suffice it to say, she was one of the first on my list to feature as FotM, due in part to her charming, laid-back nature and rep for being easy on the eyes.  However, let me stress, I’m not looking to parade my friend Daisy around like a piece of meat, boyos!  Show some respect, she’s a married woman.  Winkey-Smiley.

I shot Daisy a few questions, and here are her responses:

First, “The Questionnaire”!

Name: Daisy

Handle: darth__frodo

Birthdate: March 13^th, 1986 (Daisy turns 23 today!  Wish her a Happy Birthday!)

Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Marital Status: Married (Sorry, boys.)

Favorite Movies: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, MST3K: The Movie

Favorite TV Shows: Heroes, Are You Being Served?, South Park, Myth Busters

Favorite Video Games: Baldur’s Gate:  Dark Alliance II, The Sims:  Bustin’ Out, Star Wars Battlefront II, Mario Bros. II (“I like sequels…”)

Daisy’s Gnome Collection

Favorite Music: Oldies, Classic Rock, 80′s, Disco, Film Soundtracks, The Carpenters, John Williams’ “Star Wars” Score, The Spice Girls, Flogging Molly, NOFX, Bad Religion.

Favorite Comics: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Legend of Drizzt, Witchblade

Favorite Books:  Lord of the Rings, Prydain Chronicles, Anita Blake series, I Strahd: Memoirs of a Vampire

Turn-Ons: Playing D&D, playing video games with another girl, eating cake, cats in general, talking “nerd” with a stranger, going to a comic shop, adding something to one of my collections, vampires.

Str8 Pwning n00bs

Turn-Offs: WOW, smokers, guys that hit on me even though they know I’m married, being denied sweets, sloppy drunks, people that judge things before seeing, trying, or reading them (within reason of course).

Only Headshots Count.

PoP!:  What makes you a Fangirl?

Daisy: I’d consider myself unique, and I have such a wide variety of ‘likes’.  I’m into video games, comics, D&D, conventions, some anime, and just tons of random little things. I’ve always felt like I was just the ‘girl-next-door’.  I hang out with guys more than girls and I’m most comfortable in gym pants and a geek t-shirt.  I’m pretty shy but I open up around other geeks fairly easily, and that surprises a lot of people.

By far, my best Fangirl story is this:  My cousin and I always wanted to play D&D, but no one we knew would play with us.  Then I started dating this guy, and I found out he played D&D with his friends.

I thought that was the coolest thing ever.  He was this little punk-rebel who deep down inside harbored this love for Dungeons & Dragons.  One night he called me and after a while he said something along the lines of, “I’m sorry honey, but I have to go kill a Red Dragon with my friends.  My fellow adventurers need me.”  I wished him luck and after that I knew it was true love. We married about a year and a half later.

PoP!:  How long have you been a Fangirl?

Daisy: Ever since I can remember, my parents were ‘collectors’.  We never had Cable TV growing up because my parents scraped together all the extra money they could to buy me toys.  They wanted to give us the childhood they never had because they both come from such large families. We were definitely spoiled when it came to play-things, but we were also taught to ‘play gently’, because one day our toys could be worth a lot of money.

PoP!:  What did you play with as a kid?

Daisy: I grew up in a house full of Hot Wheels, Barbies, Star Wars, and G.I. Joes. Every New Year’s Day, my Dad would set up the Hot Wheel track through 3 rooms in our house and we would race our cars for hours on end.  3 1/4″ Joes always had battles with the Star Wars characters and sometimes WWF Wrestlers or Swamp Thing would interrupt.

Legos were a huge part of my life.  I felt like such a diva when they introduced the pink Legos and I received the little Lego Horse Ranch for Christmas.  My favorites were the castle and pirate Legos, but I always had to have my brother build them because I was still so young and I had trouble reading the directions.

Watch out! Balrogs eat brains!

Of course, I had girly things, as well.  I played with My Little Ponies, Polly Pocket and Littlest Pet Shop.  My Mom still has all of my old toys in storage, and I actually have a bunch of Barbies and Barbie clothes under my bed right now, haha. One of these nights I’m going to secretly pull them out, dress them up, and send them on an epic journey to find the Balrog-God. Then, Pikachu and Totoro are going to intervene and Sylar will kill them all.

Video games were a huge part of my life, too. My Dad was always kicking my butt in Pac-Man, but when the Nintendo Entertainment System came out, he just couldn’t handle the new technology. My brother and I had every system except Sega, I think.  We still have all of our old systems and most of the next-gens.  I inherited a PS2 when I got married but it broke as soon as I bought games for it. Lame. I’m an Xbox girl now, though Nintendo will always hold a special place in my heart.

All your base are belong to us.

PoP!:  Do you have a favorite childhood geek-memory?

Daisy: One of my favorite nerd memories is the time my Mom woke us up really early so we could go buy a Nintendo-64 on the release date.  We stood in line for a good 30 minutes and we were 4th in line.  When they opened the doors, everyone quickly walked toward the Electronics Department except the lady behind us, who broke into a full-blown sprint and passed everyone. My Mom told us not to run because “we were better than that.” We got to the back and were the first people to be told, “Sorry, we just sold the last one.” My brother and I were so upset we almost cried. My Mom, being the coolest Mom a kid could ever ask for, stood there and replied, “Well, you better get on the phone and find the nearest store that has one.”  She drove us to Danville, Illinois, which was another hour-and-a-half away at least.  I don’t know how she did it, but when we got there, an N-64 was waiting for us in all of its gleaming Nintendo-ness. That was one of the best days of my life and a memory I’ll never forget.

PoP!:  What are your current Fangirl obsessions?

The Legendary Christmas 2003 LOTR Haul

Daisy: Lord of the Rings is really special to me because it helped bring me out of a bad time of my life.  The thought of a fellowship of strangers prevailing over evil was a good thing for me.  I joined a Lord of the Rings guild online and met some awesome friends.  Since I was home-schooled at the time, I didn’t have many “real-life friends”, but I knew that out in Texas and California, I had some of the coolest, geekiest girlfriends in the world. We bonded quickly and have been friends every since, sharing our nerd-liness and recommending new movies, books, games, comics, etc.

Daisy's Armory

Collecting LOTR merchandise was simply unavoidable. With my love of medieval/ fantasy things and my parents’ “Collector’s Gene” in my blood, I knew I had to have anything and everything LOTR. It started with the Burger King toys and goblets in early December, 2001. Then I received the novels for Christmas and refused to watch Fellowship of the Ring until I finished the book (3 days later). A lot of spoiled kids get a car for their 16th birthday… I got a sword. Sting is so special to me that I refuse to ever get rid of it.

Vampires are wicked cool and I especially love Strahd from Ravenloft. My friend got me hooked on the Anita Blake novels and I almost peed myself when I found out Marvel was making it into a comic. I own every issue they’ve released so far. It makes me giggle every time I go into my local comic shop and all the guys turn and stare at me. I always think that they are thinking, “A girl?! In HERE?! *panic*”  I love Underworld and Van Helsing, but recently Twilight has become my favorite.  I was a fan of the book series before I even heard they were making a movie.  So, to me it’s just amazing to see it come to life on the big screen so accurately. It was like watching Watchmen for the first time. I got goosebumps a few times because it was just what I had imagined and the script matched perfectly. I’m not obsessed with Edward like most girls are, I just like the story. I can relate to Bella the most; how she felt like a loner in school and didn’t have many friends. She enjoyed her alone time and cooked for her dad. That was me when I was her age.

PoP!:  What is the most Fangirl-ish thing you’ve ever done?

Daisy: I stood in line at midnight to buy The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and again for Return of the King on DVD. Last year when Halo 3 was released, I bought pizzas and Halo Mountain Dew and my friends and I played the game non-stop until we beat it. Then there was the time when I was 16 and my cousin was 19 and we figured it would be the last time we could go trick-or-treating, so we made costumes and dressed up as Elves from LOTR. It took me a month to sew my dress and cloak. The best part is when we went to Wendy’s for supper and we forgot we were carrying real swords under our cloaks. No one saw the swords but we got a lot of comments about our pointy ears. It was pretty awesome.

I go to conventions and see all these people dressed up and I’m always so jealous. I want to be like them but I never have good costume ideas. This year is different. I have my costumes planned for Wizard World Chicago, and my roomie and I are gathering ideas for Gen Con. So far the most fan-girlish thing I’ve done at a convention is carry around Trevor the Travel Trout (myspace.com/trevorthetraveltrout) in my Cowboy Bebop backpack, and one day for Gen Con I wore the Father hat from Azumanga Daioh that my brother-in-law bought me.

Left:  Daisy with Trevor the Travel Trout and Rook the Hyena @ Gen Con

Right:  Rockin’ the “Father” hat

Wielding Balrog's Sword

PoP!:  What has been your biggest Geek-Out Moment?

Back in 2003, one of our local TV station anchors was going to interview Peter Jackson (director of Lord of the Rings) for a small segment, but she wanted to make it special by letting viewers ask some of the questions for her.  All you had to do was send her an email with your name, location and the question. Three questions ended up being chosen and one of them was mine!!! I was at work at the time but my mom recorded the segment for me because she knew I wanted to see Peter Jackson being interviewed by my favorite TV anchor.  I couldn’t wait to get home to watch the VHS.  I plopped down on the floor in front of the TV and pressed play. The anchor said, “Daisy from Lebanon wants to know, ‘Do you think fans will be upset when they see certain scenes cut from Return of the King?’” and PJ (that’s what I call him, because I’m cool like that) replied, “I think Daisy has a very good point…”  I screamed and yelled at my mom to rewind the tape, and I think I even had a tear run down my cheek.  It was such a small thing but I felt like a celebrity!  To this day I’m still thrilled at the fact that PJ said my name on TV.  And of course, I still have the evidence. ^_^

PoP!:  How has being a Fangirl affected other aspects of your life?

Daisy: I love to bake…but sometimes I want geek it up a bit and make Lembas bread. I’m trying to find some good D&D recipes and the best I’ve found so far is for “Initiative Rolls,” which are rolls with cheese inside. I want to serve them with “Lizard-man” Stew or “Leg of Kobald” and “Gelatinous Cubes” (Jell-O) for dessert.  I like sewing, but instead of just trying to make pretty tops, I want to sew cosplay costumes now.  I’m a decent artist too. I started out drawing cats and birds but now it’s Lord of the Rings, video games or D&D-related material. I’ve been playing piano for about a year but I spend more time trying to learn songs from Star Wars or the Zelda dungeon theme than the songs I’m supposed to practice.

Daisy:  Ticklin’ Tha Ivories

Lord of the Rings also inspired me to write my own fantasy series. I shouldn’t say series…I’m only on book one and have been for 5 years.  Not writer’s block, but lack of time. If I could do anything in the world it would either be full-time author or comic & toy shop owner.

I just can’t get away from the geek in me, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

PoP!: Here are just a few of my favorite darth__frodo moments, thanks to the Survivor: WUMB Island game. Daisy currently reigns as the Season 2 Champ, thanks in part to her efforts in the challenges Swede Emotion and Eat Your Heart Out, featured in the below videos!

darth__frodo swedes Cast Away for Survivor:  WUMB Island, Season 2.

(Keep an ear out for The Incredible Hulk Theme Song playing over the end credits, played via piano by Daisy herself!)

darth__frodo’s entry for Survivor:  WUMB Island, Season 2 Challenge, “Eat Your Heart Out”

Warning:  This will give you the dry heaves.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, an in-depth look at our first Fangirl of the Month, Daisy aka darth__frodo. A big thank you to Daisy for all of your help!

Daisy can be contacted via her Facebook and Myspace.

Are you, or do you know a geek with lady parts that you think would be a a good PoP! Fangirl of the Month? Let us know!

Email jknize@panelsonpages.com, or visit us at the PoP! Forums and drop us a line!

–Knize

Filed Under: Fangirl of the Month • Features • Headlines

Tags: D&D, Daisy, darth, fanboy, fangirl, frodo, LOTR, N64, Peter Jackson, Vampires, XBOX