Putting the BUL(L) in Militant Bulstrode?

At Infinitus, a Harry Potter conference in July 2010, I attended a lecture on “Living the Harry Potter Lifestyle.” The couple that presented it lived their lives like the characters they loved. They called each other by the character names, adopted wardrobes and speech patterns of those characters, and used little things to make their lives more magical (calling the post office the owlery or their favorite bar The Hog’s Head). One of the activities they had us do was to pick a character that we identified with or who we saw strength in and then find a way to incorporate an aspect of that character into our daily lives.

I cosplay Dolores Umbridge so she was an obvious choice. She’s one of my favorite characters and I knew it would be very easy to incorporate some kind of Umbridge “power item” in my daily life. In the books she always wears a bow or a headband, and I had actually collected a couple of headbands at that point.

After I got home from the conference, I kept thinking about that advice and decided to use it to my advantage. 2010 was a really horrible year for me and being able to have a sort of talisman to draw from made my life a lot better. Umbridge is a powerful woman and wearing a headband (or a headband with a bow on it!) really helped me tap in to my inner power (I sound like a moron, but this is the only way I can think to describe it). After a while, wearing headbands wasn’t about Umbridge, but about me. I wear headbands and bows and try to be a strong, confident person.

So what does this have to do with derby?

Well, we’re getting there. It’s just going to take a little longer…

Another fun thing to know about me is that I really enjoy caricatures and I have had several done.



My brother and I (2005) / Slightly lopsided (2006)
Weird skinny neck (2007) / Zombie!Shae (2007 – done at Dragon*Con)


And here’s a giant secret that I’m about to reveal. There is one that was done that I do not have and that I refused to buy. Actually, just thinking about it is making me feel sick to my stomach. At the time I was wearing my septum ring. I’ve had my septum pierced since 2006 but I always wear it up in my nose with a septum retainer with only about 20 exceptions during the last 6 years (I’ve always worked in office jobs, so wearing it out has never been a thing I could do on a daily basis). The worst part about having a caricature done is that you’re just sitting there while the artist is working and you have no influence over which traits they choose to emphasize. The part the artist decided to emphasize was my large size and the fact that I was wearing a septum ring, which some people call a “bull-ring piercing.” I’m sure you can see where this is going. I ended up looking like a flabby bull with all of these neck skin wrinkles (sort of like in the photo of the bull below)



At the end the caricature artist does the big reveal (which is about 30 minutes after you originally sit down) and my stomach sank to my toes because I was so stunned by the finished piece. This is how strangers see me? Was I walking around looking like a flabby, disgusting, bull and no one bothered to clue me in or put a bag over my head? I am not exaggerating when I say it absolutely annihilated my self-confidence. I have worn my septum ring out maybe twice since it happened. It’s hard to admit something like this at all. I can’t believe that a picture that some art school dropout did almost 5 years ago still affects me, but it does. There have been so many times that I’ve put a fun septum ring in only to take it out again because I think it doesn’t suit my face at all (and hey, it might not suit my face but that shouldn’t matter if I want to wear it out).

So here’s where this post gets to be about derby. Since I came up with my name, Militant Bulstrode (based on a character named Millicent Bulstrode), I’ve been toying around with wearing my septum ring out to emphasize the BUL(L) part of her name; Like I was a rampaging, heavy hitting bull out to get the jammer. I almost did wear it to the Santa vs Elves scrimmage before I took it out at the last minute and I had it in my gear bag when I went to the Cats vs Dogs scrimmage but I didn’t put it in then either. I didn’t even bother at our first bout because I knew I would chicken out.

99% of the time I feel amazing and great about myself, but when it comes to wearing my septum ring I seem to be a chicken rather than a bull. I want to be a bull. I want to wear my septum ring with pride and use it as a Millicent Bulstrode talisman that will give confidence to Militant Bulstrode both on and off the track.

Tomorrow I think I’m going to go buy a new cute septum ring and wear it for the rest of the weekend, just to prove I can.