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17 Jul, 5 tweets, 2 min read
*KICKS THE DOOR DOWN* Anna Swan??? You mean wife of Captain Bates, mother of the Guinness World Record-holding largest newborn, at nearly 25 pounds?
Captain Bates, by the way, was an extreme oddity in the sideshow world, in that he was billed with a military title... he actually DID HAVE. He was in the Confederate army during the Civil War.

Most sideshow military titles (General Tom Thumb, Commodore Nutt, etc.) were BS. Image
And, ever on my eternal "The sideshow as show business and these people were celebrities" crusade: When Anna Swan and Captain Bates married?

Queen Victoria gave them a matching pair of XL, diamond-studded gold watches as a wedding present.
Like Tomb Thumb and Lavinia Warren, the giant couple made the paper when they married in London, complete with an illustration. Image
They retired in their early 30s, bought 130 acres in Seville, Ohio, and had a custom home built on the site with extra-high ceilings and doors to accommodate them, with average-sized guest and servant quarters attached in back.

They're remembered as "The Giants of Seville." Image

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More from @Iron_Spike

Iron Spike Profile picture
19 Jul
Oh, god. I'm gonna talk about this one, too.

This is a depiction of a kabuki actor, dressed to play a female part in an ancient drama originally performed in the classier, more-acceptable noh theater.

Kabuki was INCREDIBLY popular. Dangerously so, in the government's opinion.
Kabuki was originally started by all-women touring groups, and the stan culture surrounding them was frantic. The fact a lot of these women were also sex workers on the side, & that fans paupered themselves paying for sex, was what got female actors literally banned in the 1620s.
With women banned from the stage, their parts in kabuki were then played by... wakashu. Who I tweeted about earlier.

Who were already considered the embodiment of INCALCULABLY HUGE sex appeal by EVERYONE, at the time.

WOW, who could have foresaw, THIS DID NOT FIX ANYTHING.
Read 13 tweets
Iron Spike Profile picture
17 Jul
....There's.

There's a Kickstarter up.

To fund a documentary.

About Dingo Pictures.

And like... do I back this? DO I?? I DON'T KNOW???

I'm just
And you know Dingo Pictures. You've DEFINITELY seen their work; they specialized in what I like to call the "confused grandma" DVD/VHS market, rushing shit-tier rip-offs of Disney films to the drugstore bargain bins for well-meaning relatives to buy you for your birthday.
They're also responsible for the eye-assaulting meme factory that was "Animal Soccer World."
Read 8 tweets
Iron Spike Profile picture
17 Jul
Had a #dream a fairly-well-known figure in the comics/animation scene made a conscious decision to get into marionettes, under the assumption this was a sparsely-populated hill they could be king of unopposed.

They were they kind of person, y'see, in the dream AND for real.
They uploaded YT bids of themselves playing with/describing acquisitions, one of which was a female version of Frankenstein's monster (no, not Bride of Frankenstein, a female Frankenstein). They just bounced the marionette up and down by all its strings at once, very amateurish.
But I was like, "That's an interesting character," and Googled it.

Turns out, it was an obscure, one-season Nicktoon about a woman who was a mad scientist who made herself a girlfriend, and whose cool cheerleader, Valley Girl daughter thought science was like, SUPER uncool, EW.
Read 5 tweets
Iron Spike Profile picture
17 Jul
I really, really like:
- How often tears are involved
- Comeuppances
- Watching someone's soul get knocked clean out of their body, with them going stiff and just collapsing like a Jenga tower
- Mostly-naked men covered in sweat bear-hugging on the floor
There's a scene in the doc "The Smashing Machine" about the fighter of the same name (NOT to be confused with pile-of-shit "War Machine," another MMA guy) where he loses a bout, goes backstage, and cries, and for some reason I love it.

These dudes can be fragile. FRAGILE.
I used to bodybuild (amateur, I assure you), and a recurring theme in the scene I was hovering at the edge of was how often these walking sides of meat were RIDICULOUSLY delicate. Not in a "I will start a fight for no reason over nothing" way, in an issues-making-eye-contact way.
Read 4 tweets
Iron Spike Profile picture
16 Jul
I admit, I am WAY too amused by that community. Not for condescending reasons, but the rampant fake-it-til-ya-make-it taken totally at face value, even among the influencers themselves.
There are a scant handful of super-duper success stories, and a veritable mob of literal pretenders running off spouse money, mom-n-dad money, friend-vestors, and dayjobs, pretending their palettes and vitamins and t-shirts get them on private jets and seaside mansions.
You can't all be glamorous millionaires (or even hundred-thousand-aires) off the back of Instagram. The math doesn't wash, kids. insider.com/instagrammer-a…
Read 4 tweets
Iron Spike Profile picture
16 Jul
Felt most of the morning feeling sick, and chose to deal with that by watching a 3-hour-and-forty--minute(!?!) deep-dive analysis on the Fred Figglehorn character, that first-wave YouTuber who flailed around in front of his computer with a pitch-shifted voice pretending to be 5.
You wouldn't think there would be nearly 4 hours worth of things to say abut him, but... guess so?
It reminds me of Pee-Wee Herman. Fred, unlike Pee-Wee, was always a children's character, but the jokes started out edgy; he was playing a small child who didn't understand his mother was an addict/sex worker/neglectful.

For some reason, Hollywood decided change that?
Read 5 tweets

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