Algorithmic Poet

LARPer. Roleplayer. Coder. Fangirl. Reader. Writer. Foodie. Crafter. Polyamorist. Kinkster. Feminist. Obligatory labels. Highly sporadic bad poetry goes here. LARPfaces and bits here.

[inkskinned]

you know what? fuck it, man. the world is held in the fists of people who like to break things. at this point i’m saying who gives a shit. wear that victorian dress you don’t have an excuse for. dress up like a witch, pointed hat and all. who cares anymore. why worry about it when there’s bigger stuff to worry on. i’m saying. yeah, this lipstick is too dark, wanna share? i’m saying go talk to her, tell her that you like her hair. i’m saying she’s out of my league but i’m still swinging, i’m saying yeah i’m in a ballgown and it’s a pta meeting. what about it. eat the extra brownie, tell her your feelings. i’m saying if nothing matters than we might as well give nothing meaning.

[inkskinned]

#i’m saying if existence is a void at least i’m going down screaming.

it’s been 9 years since i wrote this. i was experiencing 24/7 anxiety so badly that i needed serious medication. these days in the back of my car is an “emergency party box.” when people admit they no longer really celebrate their birthday; i tell them to put the sash on and queue up kesha, we’re going bowling or something. these days i can’t spin around without finding something i am enamored with. these days i list 3 things i’m grateful for before i fall asleep. you’re probably one of them, just by virtue of you existing.

at the time i wrote this, i was suffering through a severe panic attack literally every night. i tortured my brother with constant 2 AM calls just to hear someone else breathing, because i couldn’t be alone in the silence.

i rarely wish i was still 23 even though ironically i had more hope back then. what i can tell you is this: i love the same way, but bigger now. i’ve worn the velvet cape to several business meetings. i spent thursday in a crop top without caring what my stomach looked like.

i told her i like her; i often dress as a witch. i still got glass in my foot this morning. i’ve kissed maybe a thousand people since then and met a million more than that; passing like the shadow of a hammerhead in trains and planes and buses.

i saw you, beloved, there, maybe, on platform in south station. you didn’t speak, but you said: i struggle to give the nothing meaning. the nothing fills up everything. it is just loud and yellowed panicked silence. i can’t stop shaking.

on the roof, birds curl together against the chilled spring wind. the sky outside of the craft store was an iridescent pink. the nothing already had meaning; you are giving it meaning by witnessing.

the act of living, beloved: it’s just decoding how to translate it.

[writing-prompt-s]

Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

[sadoeuphemist]

Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.

“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But - I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”

The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.

“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”

“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”

The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”

Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”

“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”

Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.

“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”

“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?” 

The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.

A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer. 

“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”

“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”

“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”

The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.

And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.

Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.

“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”

“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”

“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.

“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”

“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”

And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.

[sameenbyhat]

Sora found the temple with the bones within it, the roof falling in upon them.

“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.

“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”

Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.

“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”

“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.

“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”

Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.

“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.

“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.

“What?” the god asked.

Sora carefully lifted the skull onto the cloth. “You are the god of Arepo.”

[stu-pot]

Generations passed. The village recovered from its tragedies—homes rebuilt, gardens re-planted, wounds healed. The old man who once lived on the hill and spoke to stone and rubble had long since been forgotten, but the temple stood in his name. Most believed it to empty, as the god who resided there long ago had fallen silent. Yet, any who passed the decaying shrine felt an ache in their hearts, as though mourning for a lost friend. The cold that seeped from the temple entrance laid their spirits low, and warded off any potential visitors, save for the rare and especially oblivious children who would leave tiny clusters of pink and white flowers that they picked from the surrounding meadow.

The god sat in his peaceful home, staring out at the distant road, to pedestrians, workhorses, and carriages, raining leaves that swirled around bustling feet. How long had it been? The world had progressed without him, for he knew there was no help to be given. The world must be a cruel place, that even the useful gods have abandoned, if farms can flood, harvests can run barren, and homes can burn, he thought.

He had come to understand that humans are senseless creatures, who would pray to a god that cannot grant wishes or bless upon them good fortune. Who would maintain a temple and bring offerings with nothing in return. Who would share their company and meditate with such a fruitless deity. Who would bury a stranger without the hope for profit. What bizarre, futile kindness they had wasted on him. What wonderful, foolish, virtuous, hopeless creatures, humans were.

So he painted the sunset with yellow leaves, enticed the worms to dance in their soil, flourished the boundary between forest and field with blossoms and berries, christened the air with a biting cold before winter came, ripened the apples with crisp, red freckles to break under sinking teeth, and a dozen other nothings, in memory of the man who once praised the god’s work on his dying breath.

“Hello, God of Every Humble Beauty in the World,” called a familiar voice.

The squinting corners of the god’s eyes wept down onto curled lips. “Arepo,” he whispered, for his voice was hoarse from its hundred-year mutism.

“I am the god of devotion, of small kindnesses, of unbreakable bonds. I am the god of selfless, unconditional love, of everlasting friendships, and trust,” Arepo avowed, soothing the other with every word.

“That’s wonderful, Arepo,” he responded between tears, “I’m so happy for you—such a powerful figure will certainly need a grand temple. Will you leave to the city to gather more worshippers? You’ll be adored by all.”

“No,” Arepo smiled.

“Farther than that, to the capitol, then? Thank you for visiting here before your departure.”

“No, I will not go there, either,” Arepo shook his head and chuckled.

“Farther still? What ambitious goals, you must have. There is no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, though,” the elder god continued.

“Actually,” interrupted Arepo, “I’d like to stay here, if you’ll have me.”

The other god was struck speechless. “…. Why would you want to live here?”

“I am the god of unbreakable bonds and everlasting friendships. And you are the god of Arepo.”

[corancoranthemagicalman]

I reblogged this once with the first story. Now the story has grown and I’m crying. This is gorgeous, guys. This is what dreams are made of.

[threefeline]

[writing-prompt-s]

This is amazing!

[writing-prompt-s]

A mark on your forehead identifies the god you must worship to stay alive, usually by joining its local church or temple. Your mark is unknown, meaning an old, forgotten god sponsored you. To survive, you must either find an old temple to worship at, or do the arduous task of building a new one

[halcyonhue]

Nobody in your small coastal village has ever seen the Godmark that you were born with. It’s a dark russet sequence of criss-crossing lines, with a vertical arrowhead on the left and a circle on the right, just over where your brow meets your temple. Some of the traders who come down from the mountain say it looks like one of the scripts used in the hinterlands, but not a language that any of them recognize.

“If she’s got the temperament for it, she should try her luck inland,” they advise. “No point her starting a temple here if she’d find her people elsewhere, with a little searching.”

At first, your parents are reluctant to send you away. Though you’re well-behaved and diligent in your chores, you’re a sickly child with no God to worship. And besides, you’ve always been the dreamy type–inclined to lose track of time watching the path of rain droplets chasing down the window, or the fronds of an anemone as it sways in a rock pool.

Instead, they send you to the temple of the Storm to learn all you’ll need for your own God. You are happy there, for a time: making up beds and serving food to the castaways who pass through, keeping vigil at the lighthouse, burning incense and praying with the loyal widows and orphans of the drowned.

One such widow, an old, old lady, touches the mark on your forehead. “I recognise those letters. We wrote this way in the town where I grew up, way off past the mountains.”

Your heartbeat quickens. “What does it say!?”

She squints, eyes engulfed by wrinkles and hidden behind smudged glass. “A… Ar… Oh, I can’t remember how to speak it. I left before I learnt my letters properly. There was a war, you know. But I remember,” she says, mistily, “the most beautiful pink and white flowers used to grow, on the borders of the wheat fields…”

You try to ask more questions, but remembering the war distresses her, and so you speak of other things. When she’s drifted off to sleep, you get to your feet, go home and tell your parents: you are leaving in search of your God.

Keep reading

[two-bees-poetry]

twenty years across the sea

[kiragecko]

[Image shows a poem with a space down the middle. The poem can be read in full, or either side can be read separately. The left side is titled, "penelope", and the right side is titled, "odysseus".

The penelope side reads,

dearest, time rolls on and our son grows taller, and i realize that we were just children when we married. i'm a woman, now- i want to know, what do you look like with gray in your hair? i imagine you still smell like fresh earth. i imagine you're still out there.

The odysseus side reads,

i remember you and your voice is in the sea, and this has been twenty years; playing with love, with fire, going off to war still holding your flowers. a man, a promise. you must be so beautiful; do you have laugh lines? now i hope you still pick flowers- hyacinths, bluebells. you're still waiting. i'm still waiting.

Together they read,

dearest, i remember you and time rolls on and your voice is in the sea, and our son grows taller, and this has been twenty years; i realize that we were playing with love, with fire, just children going off to war when we married. i'm still holding your flowers. a woman, a man, a promise. now- you must be so beautiful; i want to know, do you have laugh lines? what do you look like now with gray in your hair? i hope you still pick flowers- i imagine you still smell like hyacinths, bluebells. fresh earth. i imagine you're still waiting. you're still out there. i'm still waiting.

It's signed two.bees.poetry

End ID.]

[foxes-in-love]

[homunculus-argument]

I think the funniest dynamic for arranged-marriage royalty would be a queen who came here 100% prepared to murder her future husband and rule as a widow queen in her own right, only to discover that the king is autistic as hell and responds to her wish to rule with "oh thank god please do, I don't want to be bothered by these people. I can just tell them to go bother you instead, if you really want that. I've got beetles I wanted to study."

[stele3]

"I'm really not good at it," the king admits with horrible, aching grief. The country is in disarray. Peasants go hungry. Nobles trade power amongst themselves with impunity.

So the queen takes over and ruthlessly sets things to rights. Fires several generals, hangs nobles, redirects wealth to the peasantry. It isn't long before the first assassination attempt, which she expected.

She did not expect her docile, beetle-obsessed husband to go absolutely feral and fling himself at the assassins wielding a pair of sharp knives.

[stele3]

Also, the beetles are intended to attack and kill a certain type of invasive worm that has been killing off the gourd and potato crops for decades. He’s been trying since he was a child to crossbreed several native species to be hardier and better diggers. When he finally gets it right it’s all over for you bitches (“you bitches” being mass starvation of subsistence farmers).

[inkskinned]

in the time loop the only way out is to leave her there but you don't ever leave her there, never in the roughly one thousand years you have been in the same day. it is probably like "50 first dates" but you haven't stooped so low as to watch "50 first dates" yet. (but who is to say what another thousand years of the same media will bring to you, maybe you will develop a new taste).

you spent about 200 of these years sulking in a bathtub or on the couch or staring at the seaside. 300 of them have been spent slowly mapping the geographical distance you can actually get before the time loop restarts. you have a list of favorite places: one library in Western Massachusetts called "The Bookmill", which has weird hours and has never raised an eyebrow to you arriving out-of-breath and panting, asking to see a specific book on a specific shelf. There is one beach without a name in North Carolina; it is an accident of geography and ownership title disputes - and it is pristine, untouched, warm and cozy. you've taken her on a lot of picnics there. Acadia National Park. One specific birdhouse in the mountains.

you were stuck in the time loop with the money you entered it with: not enough to rent a private jet. you've robbed a bank a few times, you don't like the way it ends. maybe next century you'll get the hang of it. you don't like the look on her face when you say hang on i have to stop at the bank.

you just have to leave her, and you can go back to being a person again. you took 5 years just catching a flight and sitting in the Grand Canyon. if there's one thing you regret more than anything, it's that you hadn't gotten your passport renewed before this fucking time loop. maybe you should spend some time learning forgery - but also, like, you look like an english teacher. nobody is going to be cool about you asking to see their paper printing machines.

the world is very big. that is one of the things groundhog day gets wrong. there are no consequences, so you have literally all the time (or none of the time?) in the world. in groundhog day, he does a lot of very cool things, but in reality - your muscle memory never gets better. you can't necessarily learn how to play piano or sculpt ice, because your hands never remember the practice. but hey - maybe you'll try violin next. drums. synth.

you can open any door and walk into any conversation. money isn't really an object. you can try every meal off every menu, forever. take her on helicopter tours and into every museum and on every event that is happening right-now at-this-moment. parades and funerals and calligraphy classes.

but you are somewhat trapped by the limitations of your body. if you were reading a book, you still need to get up and go back to the library and find that book again when the day resets. (thank god for the internet). it still takes like 2 hours to board a plane, and then takeoff and landing and traffic. you've gotten off to run around on the freeway. one of the little thankful things: since your brain isn't actually developing (it's a muscle too), the days thankfully don't feel shorter to you. that would be agony.

all you have to do to leave the timeloop is let that man get away with it. that's all. in every version of yourself - forever - you have stopped him.

the problem is that this experience has convinced you of the existence of the human soul. after all, how else are you forming memories? your very cells reset. information has to be transferred somehow. and if timeloops are real, you can convince yourself other magic exists. so you have two choices here: this hell, or the next. there might be a millennia where you have been worn down to the point you can accept fate's decision. this is just not one of them. ironically - she is the one thing you have left.

and besides! if you can't always find something new in your partner, aren't you failing them? there is something new about her, every day with the same morning. every brutal day with the same orange sunset.

after all, you wanted to live with her in heaven, in eternity, and, well - isn't this second-best.

[over-sleep]

繕い　　(；ﾟДﾟ) ﾅﾝﾄｫ Mending a sweater

（Reddit:r/oddlysatisfying u/thegupeeman）

[strangesequitur]

I fully understand everything that is going on here and could probably do it but it would take me like three hours and as such I’m calling Witchcraft.

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[maze-on-jars]

[detectivehole]

what's that one thing where they asked how ripely from alien was so realistic and believable as a female character in scifi for once and they were like "well we just took the dude from the original script and made him a girl and changed nothing else. it works bc men and women are the same?" and people were like "woah no way" and then didn't learn anything from that for 20 years

[classysushi]

[starrypuppygirl]

"or monsterfucker w/ her mom later" WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY I SWEAR TO GOF

[vaspider]

There are 50K notes on this post and every variation of this response makes me very proud of myself as a writer.

[schlarklezyaoi]

we have GOT to kill tiktok/twitter self-censorship i just witnessed a grown adult say the word “smex” out loud to our professor

[schlarklezyaoi]

my poor professor was SO confused that she asked them to repeat themselves and they went “you know, like, blank . . .” and kept just vaguely gesturing until she somehow connected the dots. i fucking hate art school

[schlarklezyaoi]

god i wish i was making the shit i witness at this place up. my life would be so much easier if i didn’t have to deal with my classmates seriously arguing about fandom discourse in the group project chat

[schlarklezyaoi]

the price you think you're paying by going to art school: tuition, supply costs, etc

the price you're actually paying by going to art school: having to put up with the most brain-rotting terminally online discourse imaginable in real life

[prince-of-the-moths-deactivated]

I had someone argue with me that it was problematic for me to have watched Frozen with my niece because I was encouraging her to become an emotionally abuse codependent sibling. I'm a senior and I've had someone else doing their senior thesis ask, genuinely, if she was problematic for doing her thesis on domestic abuse, because sometimes domestic abuse effects rich white women and they're privileged, so therefore her doing it on that is racism apologism. I've had to sit there and watch people say "unalive", "SA", "PDF file", and my favorite, "marital relations" (it only happened once but it's really funny) to professors who look at them in total despair.

Hamlet didn't unalive himself, he killed himself. Our Crime Prevention class is discussing sexual assault and pedophiles. The implication of this paper we're reading in Intro To Africana Studies is not about white settlers marrying and having gentle loving monogamous funtimes with slaves, it's about rape.

I genuinely do not see how I'm supposed to take the people around me seriously. How am I supposed to believe you have incredible insights into something you can't bring yourself to say? How am I supposed to look over your rough draft and not cross out the euphemisms and write grown-up words?

And I DO NOT go to art school! I go to Montana State! I'm in redneck country - remember when redneck meant tough enough to at least say words?! Not anymore!

[sew-birb]

Do you know how stupid I feel that I couldn't figure out that "PDF File" was supposed to be censorship slang for "paedophile"

[kbkarma]

This is so stupid. This is so so stupid. This is like people censoring their tags, so they write something like #r4pe, which doesn't fucking help people trying to not see posts about rape! The fact that certain social networks require people to do this so their posts aren't removed or censored or whatever the fuck those sites do, which partially results in this, is just gross. Whether people doing this in real life are doing so to avoid hurting people they haven't met, or because they think the words are taboo, that is an entirely different kettle of fish

Listen: you are going to hurt people. You can't avoid it by saying "unalive" or using cutesy euphemisms for things. What you have to do is apologise, learn, and move on. The world is full of bad stuff, and being unable to talk about it doesn't make it go away, or make people feel better - it just makes you feel better, which really isn't the point.

I think I've rambled on and lost track of the point I was making. So, in summary: stop fucking taking around topics and not using the correct words. You're hurting people more than by being frank. Also, fuck TikTok.

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[tattooedzombigirl]

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

[reallyndacarter]

I would enjoy some good luck from the potato.

[colleendoran]

I need some luck right now, so all hail the Lucky Potato. Do your magic, Potato. I respect you so much I am capitalizing the "P" in Potato.

[algorithmicpoet]

I just really love potatoes. 

[kristina-meister-deactivated202]

I want to tell a story about a Santa and a fiddling Christmas Tree.

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.

Keep it up.

[natisnothere]

Hi! Person who works the Great Dickens Christmas Fair here. I have seen this tree about in our fake London and I was always so in awe of it. I can’t stress this, the women who wears this literally looks like a Christmas tree and it’s magical and I was always like ‘that’s crazy and definitely Fair, I love it’.  You’re a joy and always welcome at the Fair :) I would love to give you tickets for this year and/or future years. You’ve made our fake London more magical and for that I can’t thank you enough.

[kristina-meister-deactivated202]

Wow that’s so sweet!!!!

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be there this year as I’m traveling literally the entire time the fair is on, but I might just take you up on this in future years if you’re game! I love going to this fair and wearing my period costume I made. Really a fun fair. Thank you so much for the offer.

[simonalkenmayer]

Ah bell hoops…

Are you wearing bloomers also?

That is a very fine gown.

[constance-mcentee-deactivated20]

True Story: I’m dating the Fiddling Christmas Tree.

[voidbat]

oh my god every single part of this was magical but then i get to the end and THE TREE IS YOUR GIRLFRIEND this is the best thing ever.

[afrodesiaq-deactivated20250629]

why do we have 567898475 hallmark christmas movies about some bland woman being shown the magic of christmas by falling for an equally bland man when we could have generational santa magic inspiring intrepid costumers to bring fiddling trees to life? a Travesty

[kristina-meister-deactivated202]

Hey if you wanna reach out to Lifetime network, that’s totally fine with me.

[simonalkenmayer]

Touched By A… No. Let me think through this again.

[primarybufferpanel]

Fiddled By A… nope

[charlemane]

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) is fantastic bc if you try hard enough it can really be about anything.  It’s about capitalism.  It’s about the horrors of the medical-industrial complex.  It’s about the ways fathers fail their children, and how their children can grow past them.  It’s about all the bizarre and self-destructive ways people get by in a world where human bodies, living and dead alike, are reduced to marketable commodities.  It’s about ripping that guy’s spine right out.  It’s about legacies of trauma.  It’s about the importance of giving Sarah Brightman a sick-ass solo.  It’s about self-determination and the struggle for bodily and moral autonomy in a corporate state.  It’s about what happens if you give a bunch of goths in 2008 an $8.5mil budget.  All of these interpretations are true and meaningful, but above all, you must always remember that Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) is stupid as fuck.

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

Heyy, you mentioned in some tags that accepting denny's did years of damage, could you elaborate on that?

back in the early/mid-2010s, denny’s did a lot of marketing on tumblr and was basically a prototype of the Quirky Relatable Brand shit you see all over twitter these days: staying on top of all the trendy memes, making #relatable jokes, generally being extremely “how do you do fellow kids” (but in such a way that the people running it were clearly pretty familiar with the site’s culture)

people on tumblr embraced it because that sort of online brand marketing wasn’t quite as ubiquitous at that point, and even if it was cringe, mid-2010s tumblr in general was pretty cringe (affectionate)

the success of denny’s on tumblr led other brands to try doing the same sort of shit on other platforms (the wendy’s twitter was a big one), and before we know it, we had marketing interns making obnoxious clapbacks, circlejerking each other, and aping depression to hawk fruit beverages

like how the Great Porn Ban caused a lot of the more obnoxious tumblr people to move over to twitter in late 2018, the brand marketing shit generally died down on tumblr as the ad agencies realized that the remaining userbase was there out of spite and generally not amenable to conventional internet marketing techniques

but now that everyone’s favorite techbro manchild seems hellbent on crashing twitter with no survivors, advertisers are getting skittish about twitter and will likely start testing the waters on other platforms - if/when they start posting on tumblr again, it’s important that people do not engage in any way whatsoever (even if it’s ridicule or silencebrand.jpg or kung pow penis) if we don’t want this sort of thing to happen again

[aquilacalvitium]

Okay fuck it if this post reaches 666k notes by the end of 2023 I'll practise basic self care

Why 666k? Because it's funny and impossible so good fucking luck

[lizluvscupcakes]

Well, OP, I’m officially invested in this shit. Your whiny ass is doing self care if I have to drive to your goddamn house and do it for you.

[aquilacalvitium]

By Talos this can't be happening

[oysters-aint-for-me]

reblog this everyone i wanna see what happens when op’s reverse-hubris forces them to practice basic self care.

why? because it’s funny and completely possible actually so good fucking luck op

[tungsten-moon]

I figured out roughly how many notes it's been getting per day and multiplied that by the number of days left until the end of 2023

If we keep it going at this rate we'll be far past 666k

[aquilacalvitium]

IMPORTANT

Okay so clearly I've underestimated y'all

So how about we make this more interesting?

I will practise self care if this post reaches 666k BY THE END OF 2022

[moonlarking]

Op you have fuckethed with the devil this post has gained 30,000 notes since I reblogged it last night

[catgirlcaliphate]

OP I hope you are ready to practice some self care because if there's one thing the gremlins of tumblr love it's a challenge.

[saint-batrick]

i normally hate these "oh noo don't give me a ton of notes" posts but this one? this one i love.

posts that have 666k notes TO ME. and hopefully to you, too, OP. 💜

[solarmama-plantsareneat]

Let's all practice self care if this post hits the magic number…

[purpleblobfrompluto]

Yes

[purpleblobfrompluto]

YALL HELP US

@bigfootshonkers @dollopheadsandclotpoles @gwaine-the-rock-johnson @hannahhook7744 @knightofwoodsbeyond @reality-schmality @thirteenthedoctor @yoursassybookwormfriend if you want to of course @fuckyeahsnackables

[purpleblobfrompluto]

Op telling us we'll never make it to 666k by the end of 2023 (only having to make it 2022 after all):

Us:

[aquilacalvitium]

I was going to wait until y'all hit the mark, But I feel like I should say this now

When I made this post, it was supposed to be a joke

I mean, none of my posts ever get more than 20 notes if I'm lucky, so what are the odds of one reaching 666k? Impossible, haha

But then, something happened, something I didn't expect

People actually began to... like it? And... reblog? And comment?

Before I knew it, my notifications were swarmed with comments after comments after reblogs after comments all on this one post

Then, still in the mindset of this being a joke, I realised I'd made the goal too easy, so I upped the stakes

But... the notes just got more frequent from there

And it started to hit me just what was happening

For a while, I was overwhelmed with a feeling

A feeling I wasn't used to

It was like... all of a sudden... I mattered...

My existance was actually noteworthy

People actually... cared?

It wasn't a game anymore, it was a race to assure a stranger on the Internet that they were actually worth something

Hundreds of people all gathering in one online place to help out

Leaving messages and well wishes

Making me smile

Making me laugh

Funny comments

Jokes

Fun facts

Even simple comments

It all suddenly felt so real

This was never a joke to you

This was important

And I won't let any of that go in vain

So... stay tuned I suppose

I'll look after myself, and I'll post proof of it too

I'll catalogue every time I put my health first

Physical and mental

I'll acknowledge my bad days and celebrate my good days

But most of all

I won't forget this

Any of this

Ever

(Tagging all the people in that screenshot)

@deepsea-bathyna @royalsampaguita @timeturnerturns @twerkyvulture @reblogspamletsgoooo @gender-crisis-time @obsidianstrawberrymilk @shana-rosee @thefandombringer @sunshinedarlingiloveyou @bregee13 @moonlarking-blog @arcan6yo @crazyw3irdo @xinea @ghastmaskzombie @killthestairs @abalidoth @leesbian42

[kittydesade]

THIS ONE. REBLOG THIS ONE. LET’S GO SELF CARE 2023

[maximumsunshine]

This will hit goal by the end of the day tomorrow (Tuesday) but I'd like to see something happen. I want to see this hit 1 million notes before it's even a month old. Why stop at 666k. 1 million is a statement. I want everyone to see this and i want everyone to know that anyone could have this outpouring of care. Op was the one to make the post, sure. But everyone needs to self care. There are people invested in the survival of everyone.

[cipheramnesia]

I bet it can hit 1M before the end of 2022.

[naamahdarling]

Let's go.

[kbkarma]

It's reached its goal. Let's keep it up.

And, whoever's reading this: look after yourself.