So I make costumes. Not your average fitted attire. I mean I do that too, but not just that. I make BIG costumes. Like with metal and shit. So about October-ish, I contacted a costume making studio that does work with a convention called “Dickens-fair”. Maybe You’ve heard of it. It is a Christmas fair that turns the whole center into a replica of Dickens’ London, complete with actors who represent his characters. I had always wanted to go and was just trying to think of ways to help out.
I contacted the head person for costumes for the actors and I told her I make period pieces and I specialize in weird stuff, but also in turning old thrift store items into period attire. She emailed me back and was like “Come meet me” and so I did. I came out to her studio and was sitting with her folks, showing her pictures of all the stuff I’d done I was proud of. Then she says…”Wait…I have an idea.”
She tells me that every year, Dickens-fair has this one performer who is a fiddling Christmas tree. Like What? yes. A tree…that fiddles. Apparently it’s like the fucking Mickey of Dickens-fair. Only, her outfit was made a few years back from fabric, and kind of looked like a dunce cap with streamers. She told me that this year, the Fiddling Tree wanted a new costume. She says “Can you make a Christmas tree that can fiddle?”
I’m like…no. “If she can fiddle and wear a tree, then I can build a tree that can be worn by a fiddler. Hell yeah.”
And she’s like…”It can’t touch her shoulders, and it has to fit over her normal costume, and it has to be period accurate, so all period ornaments.”
And I’m like…bitch, “I got this.”
She says “Come back in a week and meet her and give us your idea.”
So I designed…because I make costumes and I have Christmas in my blood. My mom always tells this story about how when I was like 4, I was with her at the train station in LA and I saw this man sitting on a bench. Now this man wore blue denim overalls, with a long sleeved red shirt, had a white beard, and carried a wooden cane carved with Rudolph, who had a gemstone nose…He was fucking Santa. Admit it. And 4 year old me was like……SANTA? My mom always says I stared at him hard and then tried to climb in his lap, like for real Tim Allen from Santa Clause style, but he was cool, and pulled me into his lap and had a whole conversation with me about whether or not I was being good…in July. According to my mom, he told her he was a professional Santa and this was something he always got from kids, and that he loved it. He then got picked up by a woman in a convertible and drove away.
My mom has been telling me this story since I was five.
So this year, about 3 years ago, I was like…A Christmas tree that fiddles…I got this.
I mean, I drew this shit. I went to hardware stores and craft shops and I priced out this shit. There were emails about what I could expect to be the substructure. I made a barbie doll scale model with pipe cleaners. I came in with a fucking Plan.
And they laughed and said… “We love the barbie…OK.”
So I had a budget. I had an idea. And I went with it. I made measurements and all sorts of stuff. Let me tell you about this costume…
This woman is 6′2″. She fiddles. She wears, beneath the tree, a full period costume. This means a bell hoop skirt and a corset. I made sure they had a hoop for her that was carved from fucking PVC pipe and a steel boned corset, and I went to work. I had frames…on fucking chains…from MY CEILING. I had the whole thing mapped out.
A lightweight metal skirt in a grid pattern made from chain, linked together in a mesh. gathered at the waist and clipped like a belt. Over the head, a cone-like structure carved out of mesh, mounted on braces that were lashed to the torso with straps bolted into the metal cross-braces. A light aluminum frame. And over this…a cape, made from long dangling chains. Every inch of chain was coated in weatherproofing green paint. Every few links…a limb hacked off a fake plastic Christmas tree. Woven amidst these? A series of handmade and donated ornaments, including fake cookies made from clay, fake candles with a remote control that controlled the flicker. I had paper ornaments, streamers, instruments made of brass, birds, candies made from plastic…I mean I had everything, and all to period. I worked and worked on this for months and had numerous fittings.
The aluminum headpiece came along. I was stressed. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to make this fucking cone mount on her chest so her shoulders would be free. I mean I had ideas – like a cone, but with a back and front piece that came down her torso and to which, straps were fixed that clipped at the sides. This would distribute weight evenly through the corset and allow for freedom of the shoulders. But! I didn’t have a firm plan. I went to the hardware store.
Me. Three months pregnant. All cute and glowy and shit.
And I walked into the section where all the plumbing and flashing is. Now I know my way around. I hate going here because I’m usually hassled by a dude who thinks girls can’t know shit about hardware. But this time…this time it was a nice old man with a snowy white beard, wearing a red shirt and a green apron. I’m like…he’s a Santa…this is fate.
He comes over and says “What can I help you with today?”
And so I tell him the whole story. About the tree, and the odd parameters, the physics, the complexities. I tell him what I’m trying to create, this cone of metal lashed to the chest, and he…
Smiles.
He tells me, “I’m a Santa. I do it every year. I love this project! I want to help!”
As we are brain storming, and he’s showing me all the products that might work, he mentions to me that he isn’t the first Santa in his family.
“My dad did it for most of his life.”
“Man, I have such respect for Santas. My mom always tells this story about me meeting this man who looked like a Santa at a train station and trying to sit on his knee.”
The man got very quiet. “At a train station?”
“Yeah, like he was wearing overalls and a red shirt and had this carved cane…”
“I remember that cane,” he says.
I turn to him… “The one with Rudolph?”
“With a ruby nose. Yeah. After he died I looked everywhere for it, but I couldn’t find it.”
I stopped. Like straight up stopped moving, with like my limbs all cold as snow. “Wait a minute? What? Are you telling me you know that Santa?”
“I think that was my dad. He is exactly as you say. He worked on the railroad as a conductor for most of his life, and when he retired they gave him free travel. He was always taking trips, and he always went as Santa, because after he retired, he did that full time.”
“Did your mom own a convertible? Like a sleek one?”
“Yup.”
I lost it. I’m in the middle of fucking Ace Hardware, talking to Santa, about my Santa, the one I can’t remember, but always knew existed, and that man is this Santa’s daddy. And here I am…shopping for parts to a fiddling Christmas tree. I cried like a little kid. He hugged me. I apologized and told him I was in my first trimester. He said it was fine. He gave me his card. Told me he was glad to hear his father had had such an impact on kids. He helped me pick out my tree pieces and then checked me out.
I built the best fucking tree you ever saw. I wove metal. I bent aluminum. I used riveters. I worked with saws, and vices, and paint, and glue, and fucking plastic clay. I did everything wearing gloves and a mask because of baby. I did it all like I had a fire under me, because fuck that…I’m not letting Santas down.
And this is what I made.
This was the dry fitting, the trial run. We fluffed it out with more limbs, added bits here and there, or planned for more. I strung this fucking thing from my rafters on a mannequin and we had a tree decorating party, putting ornaments on it like it was a real tree. Then we had her put on the whole thing, and we watched her play “O Tannenbaum”
And it was the best Christmas moment ever, for me.
That year, I had free tickets to Dickens-fair. I went and caught sight of my Christmas tree fiddling around, playing songs for kids and spreading the spirit. Then later I saw the fiddler dancing in Fezziwig’s ball, with her tree skirt still on over her dress. It was awesome, seeing this 7.5′ tall tree gliding around, this thing I made, with help from My Santa’s Son.
I was Santa that year. It made my holiday.
So the next time you meet a Santa… it might not be the real guy… but you needed to meet him. And if you are a Santa… this is what you do. This is your legacy.
There’s a lot to unpack here.
+the flexibility to get in that pose
+the balance to stay on the skateboard
+the strength to pull back a bowstring with your toes
+the dexterity to hit a target while moving
+the coordination… not hand-eye, but foot-eye
…I don’t know what to do with these things now that I’ve unpacked them…
Because tumblr isn’t a book of mine. It’s, at its best, a community, which includes a number of things, and sexuality is one of the things it includes.
I’ve got about 400,000 people following me here, and I’ve never stopped to investigate what any of them are or what they like. But sometimes I’ll click on the tumblr of someone who’s asked a good question or reblogged with an interesting comment, and found myself in very NSFW places.
long story short bethesda accidentally doxxed people who complained
in case you missed it, the chain of events is roughly as follows:
1. fallout 76 launches. it is entirely online. there are a lot of bugs. a whole lot of bugs. people report countless bugs, many of which are game-breaking. bethesda’s communication leaves a lot to be desired. fallout 76 officially has a no refund policy, but due to the large number of people requesting refunds, many refunds are issued.
throughout the following events, they are largely vague in regards to patches, support, outreach, and the fallout community is split between defending or criticizing their actions.
2. people begin to realize that the $200 collector’s edition, which promised a canvas bag, came with a low-quality nylon bag. bethesda claims it was too expensive to make the canvas bags and that they cannot possibly honor their $200 bundle, despite promotional material listing the canvas bag as part of the bundle up until release and until shortly after.
3. bethesda offers 500 in-game atoms (game currency) to individuals who purchased the collector’s edition. to receive the atoms, players must submit a support ticket with personal information, images, and proof of purchase. it is worth noting that these 500 atoms are worth approximately $5 USD, and cannot even purchase an in-game canvas bag.
4. after significant backlash, bethesda begins producing the promised canvas bags. to get the bag, people have until january 31st to submit a support ticket proving they purchased the collector’s edition. again, this requires submitting a ticket with ample personal information.
5. at some point, everyone’s support tickets became viewable to people who submit their own support tickets. meaning, the full names, usernames, addresses, phone numbers, emails, proof of purchases, and partial credit card details of everyone who submit a support ticket for any bethesda product were viewable. it also allowed anyone to open or close anyone else’s support tickets. bethesda effectively doxxed the most hardcore of their fanbase – the ones who spent the most money and were most likely long time fans. the long time fans who may have been inclined to defend bethesda up until this point. following this leak, a huge chunk of even the most hardcore fans have stopped defending bethesda.
the status of the leaked data is currently unknown. it is also unknown how long the leaked information was visible. several people took screenshots, meaning that it was possible for all of the leaked personal information to have been collected, scraped, or otherwise saved with nefarious intent.
summarized by a screencap from the linked article:
The casting call for Artemis Fowl described him as a boy with a “fun-loving, open heart” so you knew before they even landed their eyes on the first mediocre white person the movie was irretrievably fucked
The casting call described him as what now
last i checked back in 6th grade, artemis was a fuckin dick of a child
“emotional intelligence” artemis fowl literally would rather die than express an emotion
im pretty sure he actually has on multiple occassions
im reblogging this again because i just remembered that artemis fowl hates being a Human Being With Feelings so much that he emotionally and mentally devastated *several* psychologists so badly that they gave up the profession, just because he didn’t want to admit that his father being declared dead and his mother falling into severe untreated mental illness such that she couldn’t recognize him on most days might, maybe, have upset him a little.
He literally found a way to kidnap a fairy and hold her for ransom in order to use half of said acquired funds to buy his mother a cure so that he wouldn’t have to admit to anybody that his mother’s mental health actually made him feel sad. You know, like any fun boy with a sense of humor.
I'm Still Kicking 