This is How It's Done, people.

My eldest's offering for a bake sale.

“To Fangirl” (etymology fr English coll “fan” abbreviated form of “fanatic,” and “gurle,” ME, a young person of either sex) is a verb my daughters use to describe the inordinate delight taken in certain fictional subjects. At its most basic, it is the Squee Instinct. It’s been a thing for a long, long time. The modern young woman fangirls about Sherlock (the BBC show), Dr Who, Loki (or other Avengers/super heroes), and so on. You’ve seen the t-shirts. The litmus test is this: is there fan fiction? Then it’s fangirl territory. The word can also be used as a noun.

Skyward Sword Link and Zelda

Consistency is important to the fangirl. Even if you’re just making stuff up yourself, you have to take every canonical (e.g. actually written by Stephen Moffat) happening into account, and characters must not act outside of their usual mode, unless they are hypnotized by an alien or drugged. And if you’re going to dress up, you HAVE to get it exactly right. And someday, you’re going to find yourself dressing up, so you’d better build up your wardrobe skillz now. And that would be my department.

Around here, we start ‘em young, and we feed them only the finest material. My little ones’ favorites are Legend of Zelda and Avatar: the Last Airbender. I dare not say a word against it, because hey, someone has to play the video game (that would be me), and Avatar is actually a really good show. (I might write a whole blog post about it later.) And the costumes… well, let’s just say I’ve never had to think very hard about what to get my kids for their birthdays.

My latest - my son specified the Season One Prince Zuko.
It should be clear by now where my kids learn their fangirling from.

My first major sewing project ever.
I totally altered the pattern, too,
to make it more like the movie. 

Replication is a skill set in its own right. It’s one thing to go down to the Disney store and buy the approximately-colored dress with the right princess face on it (that is the current way to distinguish between princesses at Disney) and make your little girl happy. That’s just fine. Children are happy at the end. But I got my first taste of replication when my eldest turned 4, and I never looked back...

When my son wanted to be Sheriff Woody for Hallowe'en, I couldn’t just get the costume that was an image of the cartoon representation of the toy of the puppet of the person, silk-screened onto a jumpsuit. Even though there may have never been a Real Person Sherriff Woody before, there is now, and my son was him. Actual blue jeans, a proper shirt, separate cowboy vest, nice boots, and a real bandanna. That’s how we roll. (Full disclosure: I bought the printed jumpsuit for Buzz Lightyear. Dammit Jim, I’m a seamstress, not an engineer.)

 My only real regret is that when I made a Princess Aurora gown, I gave in and made it pink. A Real Replicator would have known to make it blue, like it is for most of the movie, including the whole time she is sleeping. (No, I'm not posting a picture of that one. Bob will eat me.)