Sleepless Dreamer

The camera came uncomfortably close to the face of a man ignoring it. He was very good at it. He was reading a book about, of all things, the history of denim. It was not the sort of book that made it easy to ignore cameras, but he remained stoic.

The caption said helpfully: [been doing this for 30 mins]

“Bruce. Bruce. Bruce. We need to go Walmart. Bruce. I need it.”

“Ask Alfred.”

→→→

“It’s a surprise for Alfred.”

“You can’t surprise Alfred.”

“Bruce, please.”

→→→

“It’s not a matter of permission, I’m saying you literally can’t surprise Alfred.”

→→→

[he hates when i say that]

“Bruuuuce.”

“No.”

“This is bullroar.”

Bruce finally set down his book with an expression of the most profound disgust.

→→→

[oh no now we’ll be here all day]

“—either curse or don’t, just commit one way or the other instead of—”

→→→

The camera took its time panning over a black BMW.

“Can I drive?”

“No.”

→→→

[after this he took away my music privileges]

Bruce was driving, looking stoic again. His face lent itself well to stoicism. The radio played, at high volume, “Sandstorm” by Darude.

→→→

“I’ll play something different this time.”

“You had your chance and you blew it on a meme.”

→→→

[SJGJDH;FUKC 😂😂😂]

“I’m boooored.”

“Hi, bored,” Bruce said, eyes still on the road, and Tim groaned loudly. “I don’t give a shit.”

The view shifted and audio clattered as Tim dropped the phone, barking a laugh.

→→→

The phone was wobbly as Tim followed Bruce into the store. “Can I get a trampoline?” he asked, camera pointed to one outside the store.

“We have three trampolines.”

“But I want that one.”

→→→

They were in the chip aisle. “Have you ever had a Dorito? One Dorito? In your whole life?”

“I am a person. I eat food for people.”

→→→

The camera followed a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos into the cart.

“We’re not getting those.”

“We need to get sour cream, too.”

“No.”

“You’ll love it.”

“No.”

→→→

Tim had put the seatbelt of the cart’s seat, intended for toddlers, around a giant plastic jar of orange cheese puffs.

“I thought you were getting something for Alfred.”

“I’m getting groceries while we’re here.”

“None of this is food.”

→→→

[$3 pickles blowing his mind rn]

Bruce was holding a gallon jar of pickles with an expression of incredulity.

“—costs extra to not waste food?”

“It’s Walmart.”

“Even taking into account the economies of scale—”

→→→

[putting his degree to use in the pickle aisle]

“—it just makes no sense even as a loss leader, unless the goal is to drive the competition out of business and hope they don’t go bankrupt in the—”

→→→

[i think he’s buying a pickle company??]

Bruce had every appearance of furiously texting on his phone, or possibly composing emails.

→→→

[lmao he did]

Bruce was now on his phone, looking impassive as ever as he contemplated the giant jar of pickles.

“—the business itself is perfectly sound. Yes. Obviously. Dead serious. Look, if you—”

→→→

Tim put a gallon jug of ranch dressing into the cart.

“Absolutely not.”

→→→

Tim was in the frozen section, his reflection visible in the glass.

“I bet Alfred would love some pizza rolls.”

“Your lies demean us both, Tim.”

→→→

Bruce was standing in the toy aisle, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I understand the concept of blind boxes perfectly well, thank you.”

“Then why are you acting confused?”

“Why does Thomas the Tank Engine—”

→→→

[🌈🌈🌈]

Bruce was making a face of disgruntled bafflement at a display of baby clothes.

“—disturbed by the amount of aggressive heterosexuality being foisted on these babies.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “What about the gay babies?”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking but I’m unironically concerned.”

→→→

[gotham pride]

The camera panned over a display of hero-themed hats. Most of the Batman hats had sold out, while the Superman display was nearly full. It panned back to Bruce, who was taking a picture with his own phone.

“Who you texting it to?”

“Friend in Metropolis.”

“Metropolis sucks.”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

→→→

[no escape]

The camera peered out slowly from behind a clothing display. Bruce was surrounded by enthusiastic and friendly women. It was impossible to tell what they were talking about.

→→→

[???]

Bruce was holding a dress up against himself. The women around him seemed delighted and were nodding their approval.

→→→

[i’ll strike while he’s distracted]

Tim dropped another two four-movie collections of Shrek on top of the considerable pile he’d already amassed. He panned up to check that Bruce had not caught him before grabbing another.

→→→

[busted]

While Bruce put DVDs back on the shelf, Tim surreptitiously grabbed a Shrek coloring book.

→→→

[he’s gonna get a fish]

Bruce was frowning at the wall of fishtanks in silence. Finally he said, “These fish are very unhealthy.”

→→→

[HE’S BUYING ALL THE FISH]

The man attempting to help Bruce looked baffled. Bruce gestured to the entire display of fish with a nod. The man shook his head. Tim brought his phone close to a betta, blue and red with a tattered and graying tail.

“We’re here to save you,” Tim stage-whispered to it.

→→→

Bruce was now engrossed in conversation with multiple employees.

“—if I bought some tanks — they’re much too small but as a temporary measure — we could transfer them directly and it might be less distressing for the fish.”

“Maybe I could get one of the big dolly carts from the back?” one young man suggested.

→→→

The low camera angle suggested Tim was trying to be surreptitious.

“—for trying to unionize is completely against the law,” Bruce was saying, his voice low. He was helping three other employees transfer fish into large plastic tanks.

“At-will employment,” one woman said.

“We’d have to prove that was why they fired us,” someone clarified. “Otherwise they can say it was for no reason.”

“You’re shitting me.”

→→→

“—fucking with my hours hoping I’ll quit.”

“What? Why?”

“If they fired me, they’d have to pay unemployment.”

“That’s why they won’t let me work full-time.”

“What the fuck.”

→→→

[omg he’s stealing the employees now]

“—in Gotham, but there’s more opportunities outside of manufacturing if you’re willing to move.”

“Wait, so do you mean like for management?”

“No, no, that’s the starting wage for someone working assembly, quality control, that kind of thing. We’re all unionized, none of this at-will bullshit.”

“So if I—”

→→→

The woman from earlier was showing Bruce her phone while the others continued moving fish.

“You painted this?” Bruce asked. She nodded. “That’s fantastic. Are you showing it anywhere? I know a guy with a gallery — actually I know pretty much everyone with an art gallery in Gotham. I think I have a friend who’d really love this, if you don’t mind me making some calls for you.”

→→→

Four more employees had joined the menagerie.

“—almost always hiring in Gotham. People are always moving to cities with fewer evil clowns.” Everyone laughed. Tim snorted. “Employee insurance totally covers acts of supervillainy, though.”

→→→

[trying to crush the revolution]

The employees had not dispersed. In the distance, someone managerial was talking to Bruce. He looked much less amused than Bruce did.

→→→

[THEY CALLED THE COPS]

Tim had switched to the selfie camera, his face pure glee. He turned bodily to show the employees wheeling out tanks of fish out of the store, police lights in the parking lot.

“The manager tried to make Bruce leave but he insisted on paying for his fish and he wouldn’t stop giving people better jobs so the guy said it was corporate espionage and threatened to call the cops and Bruce called his bluff so he did it.”

→→→

[WE’RE BANNED FROM WALMART FOREVER]

Bruce was laughing with the police officers about something. The manager from earlier had been joined by men in suits. None of them looked happy. Some of the employees from earlier were yelling and flipping them off. One man pulled off the shirt of his uniform and started setting it on fire.

→→→

Bruce was on the phone in the parking lot.

“They’re small, most of them are tropical. You can figure out what they are when you get here. How is that racist? I’m not suggesting you already know them, I’m well aware you don’t personally know every single fish—”

→→→

“Either you take these fish or I toss them in the sewer and Killer Croc can eat them. It will be a merciful death compared to what they were getting. It doesn’t matter where I found them.”

→→→

[i’m not allowed near toxic waste]

Tim held the betta from earlier in front of his phone, bringing it dangerously close to Bruce’s face. Bruce had hung up, but seemed to be dialing another number.

“I’m keeping this one,” Tim said.

“Fine.”

“If I drop him in toxic waste do you think he’ll get powers?”

“We’ve already had this discussion.”

→→→

[the pettiest man in gotham]

Bruce was on the phone again, looking out at the empty field beside the Walmart parking lot.

“Yeah, just buy the whole thing. Yeah. Absolutely sure. Green Market’s doing good, we’ll build another one of those. Can we put up a billboard while it’s under construction? A really big billboard.”

→→→

“First of all, if it’s in writing, it’s libel. Second, figures taken directly from their report to shareholders aren’t defamatory. What’s the most they could even sue me for? See, that’s nothing. Bad PR for them, good for us, it's—”

→→→

Tim had switched to the selfie camera again, and was using a sparkling purple filter that made his eyes look huge. He backed into Bruce so that Bruce’s face would be in the shot. “Bruce, look! You’re a pretty pretty princess!”

Bruce raised an eyebrow as he looked at his face on the screen. “I’m always a pretty princess,” he said seriously.

→→→

[he picked the music this time]

Bruce was driving again. He was listening to 100 Little Curses without any apparent irony. This did not mean there wasn’t any irony.

→→→

[i named him wally]

And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.

So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years.  These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing.  They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it.  It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face.  Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing.  And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc.  NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.

Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres.  What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female.  I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one.  They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO.  If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone.  Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered.   I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.  

I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all.  I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole.  That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three.  And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.

And it changed the face of costuming.  People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries.  And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.  

So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart.  This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.  

Now, through the efforts of so many wonderful people, Renegade Bookbinding Guild has developed out of the Discord server I originally created just to answer questions about paper, fonts, printers and such. I figured there would be no more than 15 people joining. We have surpassed 3000.

I hope in another 20 years time my little tutorial still be kicking along out here, my bad photography and potty mouth sitting forever at the foundational level of an exploding practice of radical generosity and community, preserving the best of fanfiction from the ravages of time and digital threats and censorship, and giving authors the best thank you I know how to give.

Dangers of working on a set.

he would spend multiple days walking overland to locations in full pack, sword, & armour when everyone else was travelling in trucks

refused to use any prop swords that weren’t actual steel

basically lived in the forest in-costume, sleeping rough under the sky, even fishing & foraging for his food when possible

often spent hours in the barn just bonding with the horses. He adopted the horse he rode, Uranus, after filming ended

repaired all his own gear by hand, which was often since he never took it off

had a tooth knocked out during filming but had the crew simply glue it back in place so they could keep filming

the instructor who taught everyone swordplay said Viggo was the best swordsman he had ever trained

carried his sword literally everywhere & practiced non-stop, resulting in the cops being called when locals reported “a wild man swinging a sword around his head" outside a gym in Wellington

an orc actor fucked up & accidentally threw a dagger directly into Viggo’s face, but Viggo just deflected it with his sword. They kept that shot

infamously broke 3 toes kicking that helmet but stayed in-character & sold his very real scream as part of the scene. They also kept that shot

Viggo insists on doing his own stunts; in The Two Towers where Aragorn is unconscious & floating down the river, the strong current pulled him underwater for so long that a rescue team had to go in to save him. Viggo survived by grabbing a boulder on the riverbed and pulling himself to the surface

THEY RELEASED THE COYOTE VS ACME TRAILER !!!!!

WE WON !!!

We don’t have any of the large predators we used to (black bears, mountain lions, or gray wolves) but still retain large deer populations. If nothing is removing animals, they’ll quickly overload the carrying capacity of the environment and have massive losses to starvation and disease that can also pass on to livestock. Human hunters replace the large predators that our landscape can no longer support.

It’s kinder to euthanize an un-releasable hawk rather than try to find it a permanent home with humans. Wildlife rehabs have extremely limited space and resources and are usually run entirely on donated money and volunteer time. Only a few are large and stable enough to care for permanent residents long-term, and those spots are few and far between.

An invasive species poses a danger to threatened native wildlife. I will admit- Australian possums are adorable. But not in New Zealand, where they’re an invasive species that eats the eggs of ground-dwelling birds that previously had no such predators. The landowners I worked with replanting native bush, all native Maori, had no qualms about setting the dogs on them.

thread too old

needle is bent or dull and needs replacing