#70s nursery

[thegikitiki]

Rainbow Child's Nursery - Bedroom Decor, 1972

"Ah, when you could decorate a child's room in such a manner with a prominent rainbow motif, and the only thought being how colorful and playful it is."

[last-of-the-independents]

THE ROOKIES, S1.E10 - To Taste of Terror (1972)

Starring ANDY ROBINSON as Lee Borden, Kate Jackson as Jill Danko.

[picturebookshelf]

Each Peach Pear Plum (1978)

Story and Art: Janet & Allan Ahlberg

[spoiledstrawberry]

I love this album, bruhhh

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/17/dastar-dly-deeds/#roast-in-piss-sonny-bono

In 1976, Congress set fire to the country's libraries; in 1998, they did it again. Today, in 2024, the flames have died down, and out of the ashes a new public domain is growing. Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate!

For most of US history, copyright was something you had to ask for. To copyright a work, you'd send a copy to the Library of Congress and they'd issue you a copyright. Not only did that let you display a copyright mark on your work – so people would know they weren't allowed to copy it without your permission – but if anyone wanted to figure out who to ask in order to get permission to copy or adapt a work, they could just go look up the paperwork at the LoC.

In 1976, Congress amended the Copyright Act to eliminate the "formality" of copyright registration. Now, all creative works of human authorship were copyrighted "at the moment of fixation" – the instant you drew, typed, wrote, filmed, or recorded them. From a toddler's nursery-school finger-painting to a graffiti mural on a subway car, every creative act suddenly became an article of property.

But whose property? That was on you to figure out, before you could copy, publish, perform, or preserve the work, because without registration, permissions had to start with a scavenger hunt for the person who could grant it. Congress simultaneously enacted a massive expansion of property rights, while abolishing the title registry that spelled out who owned what. As though this wasn't enough, Congress reached back in time and plopped an extra 20 years' onto the copyrights of existing works, even ones whose authors were unknown and unlocatable.

For the next 20 years, creative workers, archivists, educators and fans struggled in the face of this regime of unknowable property rights. After decades of well-documented problems, Congress acted again: they made it worse.

In 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Act, AKA the Mickey Mouse Preservation Act, AKA the Copyright Term Extension Act. The 1998 Act tacked another 20 years onto copyright terms, but not just for works that were still in copyright. At the insistence of Disney, Congress actually yanked works out of the public domain – works that had been anthologized, adapted and re-issued – and put them back into copyright for two more decades. Copyright stretched to the century-plus "life plus 70 years" term. Nothing entered the public domain for the next 20 years.

So many of my comrades in the fight for the public domain were certain that this would happen again in 2018. In 2010, e-book inventor and Project Gutenberg founder Michael S Hart and I got into a friendly email argument because he was positive that in 2018, Congress would set fire to the public domain again. When I insisted that there was no way this could happen given the public bitterness over the 1998 Act, he told me I was being naive, but said he hoped that I was right.

Michael didn't live to see it, but in 2019, the public domain opened again. It was an incredible day:

https://archive.org/details/ClosingKeynoteForGrandReopeningOfThePublicDomainCoryDoctorowAtInternetArchive

No one has done a better job of chronicling the fortunes of our fragile, beautiful, bounteous public domain than Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle of Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Every year from 2010-2019, Boyle and Jenkins chronicled the works that weren't entering the public domain because of the 1998 Act, making sure we knew what had been stolen from our cultural commons. In so many cases, these works disappeared before their copyrights expired, for example, the majority of silent films are lost forever.

Then, in 2019, Jenkins and Boyle got to start cataloging the works that were entering the public domain, most of them from 1923 (copyright is complicated, so not everything that entered the public domain in 2019 was from that year):

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2019/

Every year since, they've celebrated a new bumper crop. Last year, we got Mickey Mouse!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/15/mouse-liberation-front/#free-mickey

In addition to numerous other works – by Woolf, Hemingway, Doyle, Christie, Proust, Hesse, Milne, DuBois, Frost, Chaplin, Escher, and more:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/20/em-oh-you-ess-ee/#sexytimes

Now, 2024 was a fantastic year for the public domain, but – as you'll see in the 2025 edition of the Public Domain Day post – 2025 is even better:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/

So what's entering the public domain this year? Well, for one thing, there's more of the stuff from last year, which makes sense: if Hemingway's first books entered the PD last year, then this year, we'll the books he wrote next (and this will continue every year until we catch up with Hemingway's tragic death).

There are some big hits from our returning champions, like Woolf's To the Lighthouse and A Farewell to Arms from Hemingway. Jenkins and Boyle call particular attention to one book: Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, its title taken from a public domain work by Shakespeare. As they write, Faulkner spoke eloquently about the nature of posterity and culture:

[Humanity] is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance…The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

The main attraction on last year's Public Domain Day was the entry of Steamboat Willie – the first Mickey Mouse cartoon – into the public domain. This year, we're getting a dozen new Mickey cartoons, including the first Mickey talkie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(film_series)#1929

Those 12 shorts represent a kind of creative explosion for the Disney Studios. Those early Mickey cartoons were, each and every one, a hybrid of new copyrighted works and the public domain. The backbone of each Mickey short was a beloved, public domain song, with Mickey's motion synched to the beat (animators came to call this "mickey mousing"). In 1929, there was a huge crop of public domain music that anyone could use this way:

Blue Danube, Pop Goes the Weasel, Yankee Doodle, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, Ach Du Lieber Augustin, Listen to the Mocking Bird, A-Hunting We Will Go, Dixie, The Girl I Left Behind Me, a tune known as the snake charmer song, Coming Thru the Rye, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Auld Lang Syne, Aloha ‘Oe, Turkey in the Straw, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, Habanera and Toreador Song from Carmen, Lizst’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and Goodnight, Ladies.

These were recent compositions, songs that were written and popularized in the lifetimes of the parents and grandparents who took their kids to the movies to see Mickey shorts like "The Barn Dance," "The Opry House" and "The Jazz Fool." The ability to plunder this music at will was key to the success of Mickey Mouse and Disney. Think of all the Mickeys and Disneys we've lost by locking up the public domain for the past half-century!

This year, we're getting some outstanding new old music for our public domain. The complexities of copyright terms mean that compositions from 1929 are entering the public domain, but we're only getting recordings from 1924. 1924's outstanding recordings include:

George Gershwin performing Rhapsody in Blue, Jelly Roll Morton playing Shreveport Stomp, and an early recording from contralto and civil rights icon Marian Anderson, who is famous for her 1939 performance to an integrated audience of over 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial. Anderson’s 1924 recording is of the spiritual Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.

While the compositions include Singin' in the Rain, Ain't Misbehavin', An American in Paris, Bolero, (What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue, Tiptoe Through the Tulips, Happy Days Are Here Again, What Is This Thing Called, Love?, Am I Blue? and many, many more.

On the art front, we're getting Salvador Dali's earliest surrealist masterpieces, like Illumined Pleasures, The Accommodations of Desire, and The Great Masturbator. Dali's contemporaries are not so lucky: after a century, the early history of the works of Magritte are so muddy that it's impossible to say whether they are in or out of copyright.

But there's plenty of art with clearer provenance that we can welcome into the public domain this year, most notably, Popeye and Tintin. As the first Popeye and Tintin comics go PD, so too do those characters.

The idea that a fictional character can have a copyright separate from the stories they appear in is relatively new, and it's weird and very stupid. Courts have found that the Batmobile is a copyrightable character (Batman won't enter the public domain until 2035).

Copyright for characters is such a muddy, gross, weird idea. The clearest example of how stupid this gets comes from Sherlock Holmes, whose canon spans many years. The Doyle estate – a rent-seeking copyright troll – claimed that Holmes wouldn't enter the public domain until every Holmes story was in the public domain (that's this year, incidentally!).

This didn't fly, so their next gambit was to claim copyright over those aspects of Holmes's character that were developed later in the stories. For example, they claimed that Holmes didn't show compassion until the later stories, and, on that basis, sued the creators of the Enola Holmes TV show for depicting a gender-swapped Sherlock who wasn't a total dick:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/22/lawsuit-copyright-warmer-sherlock-holmes-dismissed-enola-holmes

As the Enola lawyers pointed out in their briefs, this was tantamount to a copyright over emotions: "Copyright law does not allow the ownership of generic concepts like warmth, kindness, empathy, or respect, even as expressed by a public domain character – which, of course, belongs to the public, not plaintiff."

When Mickey entered the public domain last year, Jenkins did an excellent deep dive into which aspects of Mickey's character and design emerged when:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

Jenkins uses this year's entry of Tintin and Popeye into the public domain to further explore the subject of proprietary characters.

Even though copyright extends to characters, it only covers the "copyrightable" parts of those characters. As the Enola lawyers wrote, the generic character traits (their age, emotional vibe, etc) are not protected. Neither is anything "trivial" or "minuscule" – for example, if a cartoonist makes a minor alteration to the way a character's pupils or eyes are drawn, that's a minor detail, not a copyrightable element.

The biggest impediment to using public domain characters isn't copyright, it's trademark. Trademark is very different from copyright: foundationally, trademark is the right to protect your customers from being deceived by your competitors. Coke can use trademark to stop Pepsi from selling its sugary drinks in Coke cans – not because it owns the word "Coke" or the Coke logo, but because it has been deputized to protect Coke drinkers from being tricked into buying not-Coke, thinking that they're getting the true Black Waters of American Imperialism.

Companies claim trademarks over cartoon characters all the time, and license those trademarks on food, clothing, toys, and more (remember Popeye candy cigarettes?).

Indeed, Hearst Holdings claims a trademark over Popeye in many traditional categories, like cartoons, amusement parks, ads and clothes. They're also in the midst of applying for a Popeye NFT trademark (lol).

Does that mean you can't use Popeye in any of those ways? Nope! All you need to do is prominently mention that your use of Popeye is unofficial, not associated with Hearst, and dispel any chance of confusion. A unanimous Supreme Court decision (in Dastar) affirm your right to do so. You can also use Popeye in the title of your unauthorized Popeye comic, thanks to a case called Rogers v Grimaldi.

This all applies to Tintin, too – a big deal, given that Tintin is managed by a notorious copyright bully who delights in cruelly terrorizing fan artists. Tintin is joined in the public domain by Buck Rogers, another old-timey character whose owners are scumbag rent-seekers.

Congress buried the public domain alive in 1976, and dumped a load of gravel over its grave in 1998, but miraculously, we've managed to exhume the PD, and it has been revived and is showing signs of rude health.

2024 saw the blockbuster film adaptation of Wicked, based on the public domain Oz books. It also saw the publication of James, a celebrated retelling of Twain's Huck Finn from the perspective of Huck's enslaved sidekick.

This is completely normal. It's how art was made since time immemorial. The 40 year experiment in life without a public domain is at an end, and not a minute too soon.

You can piece together a complete-as-possible list of 2025's public domain (including the Marx Brothers' Cocoanuts, Disney's Skeleton Dance, and Del Ruth's Gold Diggers of Broadway) here:

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/

[prix-zero]

Genesis >>>>> The Musical Box

[zippocreed501]

FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIAL

Union Express - Ring a Ring a Roses (1972)

Using nursery rhyme lyrics may seem like a good idea (less time stuck in the studio trying to compose lines like 'guitar lead gonna choke a teen-bopper, one more riff and the bugger's gonna drop-a.') but not if you use one that refers to a deadly disease. It's better if you stick with something safe, like the Oranges and Lemons.

[midnight-shadow-cafe]

i have never had a Thought of havings kids until cpt John Price and like fuckkk don't do this to me. thank god he isn't real bc i'd be holding a child in my arms and another in my belly. never a man made me so fucking hormonal or somethg like that and i am wishing no irl man will ever do .

Trust me, I’m the same way honey but have this little drabble of the 141 boys with a preggo reader🤭

If I was with any of the fictional men I’ve pined for, I’d be round with like 70 kids by now.

-Masterlist-

John Price:

Price sat across from you at the table, cradling his glass of scotch as he chuckled. “Never thought I’d see the day,” he murmured, the crinkles around his eyes deepening. “You, all broody and soft over the idea of kids.” You glared at him playfully, but he only leaned forward, his hand covering yours. “It’s a nice thought, though, innit? A little one running about, causing trouble. Maybe a second on the way.” The low timbre of his voice and the way his thumb traced slow circles against your skin made you shiver. Damn him. Damn that man for making your hormones scream and your heart ache.

Simon “Ghost” Riley:

Simon had his back against the couch, his mask pulled up just enough to reveal his lips. His head was tilted toward you as he held a sleeping toddler in his arms, the baby’s tiny hand clutching the strap of his tactical vest like it was their most prized possession. You tried not to stare, but the sight had you biting back a grin. “What?” he asked quietly, raising an eyebrow. You shook your head, biting your lip. “Nothing.” Simon’s lips twitched as he shifted the baby slightly, his eyes softening. “Yeah? ‘Cause you’re looking at me like you want one of your own.”

Johnny “Soap” MacTavish:

“Two?” Johnny’s voice shot up an octave, and he stared at you with wide eyes. “One in your arms and one in your belly? Christ, bonnie, you trying to send me to an early grave?” He plopped down beside you on the bed, a playful grin spreading across his face. “Though I gotta admit…” He trailed off, glancing at your stomach with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Little MacTavishes running about? Bet they’d be just as loud as me.” You smacked his arm, but he caught your hand, tugging you closer. “Think about it, love. Me, you, and a brood of tiny rascals taking over the world.��

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick:

Kyle leaned against the nursery doorframe, arms crossed as he watched you cradle the neighbor’s baby. “You’re a natural, you know that?” he said softly, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. You glanced up at him, feeling warmth spread across your cheeks. “Don’t get any ideas,” you teased, though the thought was already planted firmly in your mind. Kyle chuckled as he walked over, crouching beside you. “Too late,” he said, his fingers brushing against the baby’s tiny fist. His gaze flicked to yours, full of something you couldn’t quite place. “Maybe someday, yeah?”

[dhalsims]

Toy Piano Xylophone for The Sims 3

182 polys

Kids > Toys, Nursery > Toys > §70

→ Download (SFS)

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

Bucktommy drunken confessions🤭🤭

Please pick up your boyfriend, Howie texts just after 2 a.m. 

Evan used his day off to help his brother-in-law assemble some furniture for Jee-Yun's new nursery – apparently, she’s outgrown her crib and is in dire need of some “big girl” room. For some reason, their DIY afternoon ended up turning into a boozy evening, and with Maddie on a shift and Howie obviously buzzed, it’s probably best to keep Evan from getting in his car. Luckily Jee-Yun is sleeping at Hen and Karen's tonight, because when Tommy arrives, her bed looks half-finished. The two men, on the other hand, look all the more done. 

Howie's hair is tousled as if Jee-Yun has driven her Barbie truck through it, but he’s tipsy at most – Tommy knows that man can drink. Evan, however… well. Evan presents a lot of his chest; his shirt is half unbuttoned like in a 70s porn – it’s a nasty comparison, but Tommy likes the view. 

“Here comes my boyfriend,” Evan croons, his cheeks flushed. 

A quick glance at the table confirms that the men have switched from beer to tequila. Tommy heaves a sigh. Evan’s not on shift tomorrow, but he’s also not used to Tequila, Tommy knows that from experience. He will have to stay with him tonight - which isn't a bad thing, of course, but there are better ways to spend your time than listen to your loved ones vomit.  

“Come on,” he says, ”I'll put you to bed.”

“Awesome, get ready for something!”

“Ew, I don't want to hear that,” Howie says, but Tommy just grins. “Don't worry, I don't think that's going to work today.”

“I don't want to hear that either!”

Tommy has a hard time getting Evan into the car and half expects him to fall asleep after he's forced him into the seatbelt. This man can sleep anywhere and in the most uncomfortable positions, and he always looks incredibly adorable. Even drunk, like now. But he doesn't fall asleep. He looks at Tommy with that amorous gaze he usually gives after other activities, and out of the blue, he goes, “Did you know that koalas are much lazier than sloths? They sleep almost 20 hours a day!”

Tommy threads his way into traffic, which is never really light even at night in L.A., replying, “No, Evan.”

“They eat eucalyptus...”

“I knew that,” Tommy interjects.

“Yeah of course, you’re clever,” he praises. “But koalas are the only mammals that can live off eucalyptus alone, it's poisonous to other animals.”

“Fascinating.”

It's not so much these random facts about koalas that he finds fascinating. It's just Evan, sitting there with that slightly glazed look on his face, completely relaxed. Knowing that he creates this relaxed atmosphere for this man, that he’s the one where he can be himself and let go… that’s a valuable treasure.

Evan goes on babbling for another fifteen minutes, including a dozen thank you’s for picking him up, and Tommy just enjoys his voice like a pleasant background noise. Every now and then he throws in something that always makes Evan's eyes light up. They’re almost to the loft when Evan says, “I love you,” in such a matter-of-fact tone, it makes Tommy almost wrench the steering wheel.

“That's lovely,” he answers, and he means it, but all he can think is tell me again when you're sober. Evan is too drunk to really understand what he has just said. It's something Tommy’s been dying to hear, something he was too afraid to say himself. 

They somehow make it into the elevator, but as they stand in front of Evan's door, Tommy has to unlock it. Evan trips over his own feet, he almost crashes into the door. Tommy just shakes his head. His back will regret it in the morning, but he shoulders Evan without further ado. His boyfriend squeals with delight, even when he puts him down on the couch - there's no way he'll make it up the stairs with the man on his shoulders, and the bathroom is down here anyway.

“Oh man, I'm d-dizzy,” Evan sighs.

“I'm sure you are. Lie down, I'll get you a blanket.”

Tommy wants to get up, but Evan holds him back.

“Wait,” he says, suddenly with as much seriousness as a drunk can muster, “you didn't say it back.”

“What?”

Tommy thought he’d already forgotten, but this is Evan, he should have known better.

“I said I love you, but you didn't say anything, so maybe you don't love me, that's fine, I guess,” Evan rambles. “Anyway, I'm glad I said it, because it's true.”

Tommy couldn't even resist those Bambi eyes if the man asked him to run into a burning building without any protection. It's unreasonable and irrational, but he's head over heels for Evan, and he knows it. And then, suddenly, there's nothing holding him back, even if he only says it because he can convince himself that his boyfriend will forget about it in a few hours. 

“I love you too, Evan.”

“Oh my God, really?”

Evan jumps up from the couch with a vigor as if he hadn't just said he was dizzy, and he sprints - not very elegantly - into the kitchen. He’s back in the blink of an eye, after pulling open a drawer and rummaging around in it. He pulls Tommy onto the couch, practically sits in his lap, looks at him with those doe eyes and says in a solemn tone, “Give me your hand.”

“Evan...”

“Give me your hand!”

Tommy’s learned early on that it's easier to give in to this whirlwind of a man, so he holds out his hand. Evan pushes something on Tommy's ring finger, having to do so three times before he finally hits. 

“What are you doing?”

Tommy squints at his hand. It looks like ... a keyring, without a key of course; Evan has a junk drawer in the kitchen where he keeps things like that. 

“It's a promise,” says Evan. “One d-day, Thomas Kinard, I will marry you. Just don't forget that!”

Tommy grabs the ring and replies dryly, “Don't worry, I won’t. It's so tight, I don't think I'll be able to get it off.”

“Got a ring cutter for that.”

He smirks, and Tommy can't help his lips to curl into a fond smile. He’s already aware of the ring cutter, even if he was surprised the first time he found it. 

“Main thing is for you to say you'll marry me,” Evan says with his Bambi eyes, “one day, with a real ring. In a sh... a tchu... well, a church.”

He looks like a man proud he got that one word out right, but at the same time, he looks as serious as a drunkard can be. It doesn’t seem like something he’ll actually have forgotten in a couple of hours, rather like it’s been on his heart for a long time. It's a big deal, and Tommy doesn't want to answer lightly just to appease him. His own heart has long been far from casual, concerning Evan. 

“But,” Evan continues, waving his arms, ”if it's really too tight for you, we'd better cut the thing open quickly. I’ve seen a guy, finger swollen as big as an eggplant, couldn’t get his wedding ring off his finger.”

He struggles to get up, but this time Tommy holds him back. 

“Leave it,” he says, looking at the ring. 

It’s just a simple, brass-colored keyring, but at the same time, it’s way more. As Evan had said: it was a promise. A promise did not necessarily have to come true, but it was still something to cling to. Something to look forward to. 

“Fine, we can do it tomorrow,” Evan slurs, just before he leans against Tommy - to fall asleep on his shoulder. 

“Let's do it tomorrow. Or maybe I'll keep it,” Tommy whispers into Evan's curls. 

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - December 22-28

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles for 50% off this month only! Starting in January, I’ll also be posting 5 extra news links to Patreon each week (for free since they aren’t my work)

1. These countries all scored major wins for LGBTQ+ rights in 2024

“Consensual same-sex activity became legal in Namibia [and Dominica…, c]onversion therapy was banned [in Mexico…, Greenland] made LGBTQ+ discrimination illegal […, and] same-sex adoption and same-sex marriage became legal [in Greece.]”

2. After trial and error, Mexican fishers find key to reforesting a mangrove haven

“So far, the project has planted more than 1.8 million mangroves that have a 92-94% survival rate, Borbón estimated. [… M]angroves can prevent coastal erosion, store carbon and provide a nursery for all kinds of fish and crustacean species.”

3. ‘Britain’s wildlife safari’: baby boom in Norfolk as seal colonies flourish

“More than 1,200 seal pups were born […] in November, and 2,500 more are expected to be born before the breeding season ends in January. […] “Mortality seems to be much lower than in other colonies[….]””

4. Barcelona's metro trains are helping to charge the city's EVs each time they brake.

“[…T]he energy from the underground trains' brakes is used to power the trains and the stations themselves, while the remainder is sent snaking through cables to the surface to power plug-in stations for privately owned vehicles.”

5. Scientists thought this whale could only live for 70 years – turns out it's double that.

“The data [from repeated “photo identification of individual”s] revealed that Southern right whales can live for more than 130 years, with some speculated to reach the grand old age of 150.”

6. Rural Power Co-Ops Gain $4.37B in Latest US Clean Energy Funding

“[… A power co-op in Florida] will use its funding of more than $1.3 billion to develop 700 MW of utility-scale solar and battery energy storage projects in rural areas, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 3.5 million tons annually[….]”

7. Fish-friendly dentistry: New method makes oral research non-lethal

“[… T]he researchers successfully performed the procedure on 60 fish with no fatalities. […] "This new approach researchers to track tooth replacement and development [in living] rare species or museum specimens that can't be damaged."”

8. These Brooklyn Homeowners Couldn’t Afford to Go Green. Then Help Arrived

“The program aims to repair and retrofit 70 two- and three-family homes […] in the span of two years. […] EnergyFit staff work as case managers to help homeowners navigate the complicated technical and bureaucratic processes, coordinate with tenants and set them up for further upgrades down the road.”

9. 2024 was a fantastic year for energy storage

“[… California] became the first state to pass 10 gigawatts, back in April. [… In Texas and California,] when extreme weather events hit, batteries were able to shore up the grid and lower energy costs for customers.”

10. Amid concern over microplastics, a Maine company creates a kelp-based laundry pod alternative

“"The slurry we're creating is similar to that of paper milling, and […] with Maine there's a lot of old infrastructure from the paper industry [… which] can be applied to our process here[….]” If all goes to plan, Dirigo Sea Farms' first batch of 10,000 kelp-based laundry pods will be ready for online sales by next spring.”

December 15-21 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[v-akarai]

References in Servamp

Arabian mythology

Jinn. Ch. 16

Greek mythology

Elpis. Ch. 75

Moirai. Ch. 108

Pandora. Ch. 130

Pygmalion. Ch. 123

Pandora's Box. Ch. 97

Japanese mythology

Gashadokuro. Ch. 129

Kitsune. Ch. 3

Raijin. Ch. 85

Norse mythology

Baldr. Ch. 39

Bifröst. Ch. 88

Brunhild. Ch. 88

Fimbulwinter. Ch. 40

Freya. Ch. 65

Frey. Ch. 131

Gleipnir. Ch. 101

Hati. Ch. 91, 131

Hod. Ch. 39

Hliðskjálf. Ch. 96

Idunn. Ch. 65

Loki. Ch. 15

Mimir. Ch. 29

Mjölnir. Ch. 53

Ragnarök. Ch. 101, 122, 131

Sigurd. Ch. 101

Thor. Ch. 41

Yggdrasil. Ch. 42

Biblical references

Abel. Ch. 8

Adam. Ch. 128

Boaz and Jachin. Ch. 42

Eden. Ch. 21

Eve. Ch. 1

John the Baptist. Ch. 122

Judith. Ch. 147

Lucifer. Ch. 135

Noah. Ch. 145

Nod. Ch. 29, events

Hinduism

Asura. Ch. 57.5, 89.

Tarot

The Fool - Mahiru. Ch. 50

I. The Magician – Night trio. Ch. 41

II. The High Priestess – Mikuni. Ch. 42

V. The Hierophant - Shuhei. Ch. 77

X. Wheel of Fortune - Junichiro. Ch. 53

XII. The Hanged Man - Tsurugi. Ch. 50

XV. The Devil – Shamrock. Ch. 72

XVI. The Tower - Touma. Ch. 47

XVII. The Star - Iduna. Ch. 73

XVIII. The Moon - Yumikage. Ch. 69

XX. Judgement - Mikuni. Ch. 144

Literary references

 "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" Lewis Carroll. Ch. 3, 4, 7, 19, 98, 122. Misono, Lily, Dodo, Mitsuki, Yamane, Hattori, Mikuni, Bad B and Good B.

"As You Like It" William Shakespeare. Ch. 10, 38.5. Mikuni's spell.

"My Fair Lady" English nursery rhyme. Ch. 10 Mikuni's spell.

"Dracula" Bram Stoker. Ch. 12, 30. Hugh.

"Romeo and Juliet" William Shakespeare. Ch. 23, 34. Hyde, Ophelia.

"Faust" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Ch. 29 Johannes.

"Through the Looking-Glass" Lewis Carroll. Ch. 29, events. Mikuni, Johannes.

"Julius Caesar" William Shakespeare. Ch. 23, 84. Hyde.

"Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" Robert Stevenson. Ch. 23, 37. Hyde, Licht.

"Macbeth" William Shakespeare. Ch. 24, 31. Kuro, Saint Germain, Mahiru.

"Night on the Galactic Railroad" Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 26, 142. Higan, Tsubaki.

"The Little Prince" Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Ch 30, 67. Kuro, Mahiru, Sloth demon, Gear, probably Jeje.

"Hamlet" William Shakespeare. Ch. 33, 34. Hyde, Ophelia.

"The Phantom of the Opera" Gaston Leroux. Ch. 36 Licht and Hyde technique.

"Peter and Wendy" James Barry. Ch. 44, 56, 74. Tsurugi, Touma, Mahiru.

"Ring a Ring o' Roses" nursery rhyme. Ch. 53 Junichiro's spell.

“Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens” James Barry. Ch. 53, 75. Tsurugi, Touma.

"Death in Venice" Thomas Mann. Ch. 55 Gilbert technique.

"Total Eclipse" a play by Christopher Hampton. Ch. 55 Rayscent's technique.

"The Morning of the Last Farewell" Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 57.5 Tsubaki.

"Spring and Asura" Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 57.5 Tsubaki.

"The Catcher in the Rye" Jerome Salinger. Ch. 62 Shuhei.

"Four and Twenty Blackbirds" Agatha Christie. Ch. 62 Shuhei's spell.

"Metamorphosis" Franz Kafka. Ch. 62 Shamrock technique.

“The Nighhawk's Star” Kenji Miyazawa. Ch. 62, 76. Shamrock technique.

"Rock-a-bye Baby" an English lullaby. Ch. 70 Touma's spell.

“Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein” lullaby. Ch. 70 Touma's spell.

"Who Killed Cock Robin" an English nursery rhyme. Ch. 70 Yumikage's spell.

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" Lyman Frank Baum. Ch. 70, 88. Tsukimitsu brothers’ spells.

"Daddy-Long-Legs" Jean Webster. Ch. 74. Dark Night Trio, Touma.

"King Lear" William Shakespeare. Ch. 86. Hyde.

"The House of the Sleeping Beauties" Yasunari Kawabata. Ch. 86. Iori.

"The Divine Comedy" Dante Alighieri. Ch. 118, 120, 121. Niccolo, Ildio, Gluttony demon.

“A Brute's Love” (人でなしの恋) Edogawa Rampo. Ch. 122 Mikuni, Lily.

"Coppelia" ballet Leo Delibes. Chapter 122 Mikuni, Lily.

"Salome" Oscar Wilde. Ch. 122, 147. Mikuni, Lily.

"Turandot" opera by Giacomo Puccini based on the play by Carlo Gozzi. Ch. 129, 136. Lily.

"The Tempest" William Shakespeare. Ch. 131. Licht and Hyde.

"The Old Man and the Sea" Ernest Hemingway. Ch. 134 Hugh.

"Flowers for Algernon" Daniel Keyes. Ch. 135 Hugh.

"Jane Eyre" Charlotte Brontë. Ch. 136. Hokaze.

"Madama Butterfly" opera by Giacomo Puccini. Ch. 136. Lily.

"Hansel and Gretel" the Brothers Grimm. Ch. 140. Faust and Otogiri.

"Girl Hell" Yumeno Kyusaku. Ch. 147. Mikuni, Noah.

Music

"Für Elise" by Ludwig van Beethoven. Ch. 34

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" by Johann Sebastian Bach. Ch. 125

Sonata No. 17 "Tempest" by Ludwig van Beethoven. Ch. 131

Movies

"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). Ch. 131

"Life is Beautiful" (1997). Ch. 131

I believe this list can be expanded. Somewhere I’ve written only chaps when some reference was mentioned for the first time and omitted all further mentions.

Special thanks to hello-vampire-kitty, joydoesathing and passmeabook, because some works wouldn’t be included in the list without their observations.

[covid-safer-hotties]

COVID is still a problem, and we need to do more to stop it - Published Nov 1, 2024

By Kevin Kavanagh

Prevention of COVID-19 is of utmost importance. For several years, many in our society largely based their COVID recommendations on a one infection and done strategy. We now know that many are coming down with multiple bouts of the disease. We were told that severe outcomes were hospitalization and death, otherwise you had a mild disease. Now we are faced with crippling long COVID which has ravaged many in our society. In the United Kingdom, long COVID affects as many as 33.6% of healthcare workers. At the same time, we were assured our children are safe, they will almost never get severely sick from the virus. However, we started seeing long-term effects from COVID-19 in some of the children we know, and hoped they were outliers. Some of us even believed that children could not spread the infection.

These beliefs, many of which were perpetuated by some of our leaders, have placed our children in peril. It is almost impossible to find a vaccine for very young children due to lack of demand and far too few settings frequented by our children have instituted COVID mitigation strategies, such as clean air.

The gravity of this situation has been driven home by a recent NIH study which found that “20% of kids (ages 6-11) and 14% of teens met (the) researchers’ threshold for long COVID.” And our children keep becoming reinfected which increases their risk of severe damage. Damage which can affect the brain, cause heart/lung disease, diabetes and lower one’s ability to fight infections. Viral persistence, as can be seen in mononucleosis, herpes and AIDS. Evidence is emerging that this may be taking place in 43% of adult patients who have long COVID with heart, lung, musculoskeletal, or neurological symptoms.

Children less than 6 months of age are at a particularly high risk for severe COVID-19, but can be protected by maternal vaccination, allowing transplacental transfer of antibodies.

Similar to other respiratory spread diseases, children are germ magnets. In Sweden, 70% of non-healthcare COVID-19 outbreaks were associated with elementary, grammar, or nursery schools. A study from Boston’s Children’s hospital also found that 70% of household COVID transmissions started with a child.

Childhood vaccinations can help. COVID vaccinations have been observed to cut childhood COVID-19 hospitalizations in half. And research has found that vaccinations can decrease the chances of a child developing long COVID by 35 to 42%. And yes, vaccinations are not free of complications, but they are a much better plan than getting the disease.

Clean air in school buildings supplemented with HEPA filtration and UV-C germicidal lighting is a first step. Keeping children home when sick is also important as is being up to date with childhood vaccinations, including COVID-19. Other steps may involve changing the school year, so breaks are scheduled during the peaks of respiratory diseases. And to be tolerant of masking. Masks have been shown to decrease the spread of diseases in schools in multiple studies, and their banning, as proposed this fall in the city of Louisville, places all at risk.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Oil is Thicker Then Blood (Part 69)

It seemed like the moment Tera got her fangs she became obsessed with using them.

It had been multiple weeks of wrangling her to let things go, to not utterly destroy every blanket, pillow, toy, or random chunks of metal she found. She was like a puppy, using her fangs as an extra hand to feel out the world with her mouth.

Both Uzi's and N's hands were covered in tiny bite marks, Tera would never truly try to bite either of them, but that didn't mean she didn't nibble and knaw at their hands whenever she got the chance, like love bites, only slightly more painful.

It didn't help that Uzi's mood was already on an extremely short emotional fuse. She was constantly tired, her back ached and she was utterly sick of getting sick. More was coming out of her then she was putting in, and yet she was still gaining weight.

Month two of her pregnancy was looking to be a worse rehash of month one, where she was decidedly less worried and emotionally vulnerable and much more pissed beyond measure.

V was also sticking around more.

It was weird.

They lived side by side, so they'd always seen quite a bit of her, even if it was only passing conversation as they went to and from wherever they were going. But now V was inviting herself over. Offering to help with Tera, or asking if she needed oil, or something to eat, or just… being considerate.

Uzi wasn't sure what exactly was going on with her. But V also refused to take no for an answer. So… she was just hanging around, mostly dozing off on the couch or lazily playing with Tera, who's favorite game was now ‘tug of war’.

“Are you gonna tell me why you suddenly want to be here? Or are you just going to keep me guessing?” Uzi finally asked after the third day that week V had miraculously gotten into the apartment without her knowledge.

“Nope.” V hummed back, the ‘p’ popping as she went back to playing with the newly energized solver kit, tugging on a rope toy made for dogs.

Despite V's normal antagonistic behavior, her presence was actually incredibly… welcome.

Taking care of Tera, doing the household chores. And trying to decipher what the hell was up with Doll, before had been no problem. Was starting to get a little difficult, in part because of Tera's new penchant for destruction, but her core felt heavy and sluggish, stuttering as it used quite a bit of power to combine her and N's code together. Her core was even lighter now, becoming a light shade of lavender instead of a deep violet.

And having someone around to help, even if Uzi couldn't decipher the reason why, was not something she was going to complain about.

At this very moment though, she was washing bottles in preparation to refill them, while also replacing the rubber caps, as now they were full of bite marks and rips.

“Sooo where do you get the oil?” V asked, for the first time genuine curiosity in her voice. And Uzi didn't even turn around to answer as she scrubbed the inside of another bottle.

“Uh… the nursery?”

“No. Not the oil you drink, the oil she drinks. N was saying something about her oil needing to be filtered or, whatever.”

“Me?”

“… Do you like… prick yourself?”

“What? No. I have a side pannel that opens… did you not know?” Now Uzi turned to look at her, finding her holding Tera up in the air with one hand, away from the rope toy.

“No. Why should I know? I didn't pay too much attention to who I was killing.” V always had the tone like she didn't care or wasn't interested, but it really wasn't fooling Uzi anymore, if V truly wasn't interested, she wouldn't have asked.

“Yup. Every worker drone has a side panel, has a oil port, a charge port, everything we need to take care of kids. N doesn't have one, we checked. So you probably don't either.” She explained, thankful that it's the last time she'd have to explain this.

“Huh.”

Then there was silence again, Uzi trying to get a particularly stubborn stain off a bottle and going to town at it, growling slightly as if that would help scare it away.

When her head suddenly felt like lead.

She leaned over the sink as the feeling of extreme dizziness washed over her, her core skipping beats as her vison went blurry and her hearing faded into muffled sounds.

She dropped the bottle and it clattered against the floor, bouncing away on the tile. And gripped the side of the sink, feeling herself becoming unsteady as her legs wobbled and her stomach turned exactly once.

Then she began to fall to the side, unable to keep her balance, vison blinking out, bracing to hit the hard floor with what little withering control she had over her body.

Only she never did, something had caught her halfway down, cradling her gently and purring softly, she almost thought it was N, with how gentle they were, but he wouldn't be home for a couple more hours.

When her head stopped spinning and her core went back to its normal tempo, the first thing she felt was the plush texture of the couch, not the cold tile of the floor. And the feeling of a warm hand on her forehead.

And when her eyelights opened, she realized it was V. Holding her head to check her temperature.

What. The Fuck.

“V?”

“Oh good, you're fine.” She immediately removed her hand, but still hovering over her as V looked down at her, looking as blasé as ever.

“Why are you being so nice?”

“Why are you complaining?” V quipped back, putting a hand in her hip as Uzi sat up, and shook the lead from her head.

Uzi sighed, grumbling as she truly, honestly, did not have the energy to argue with V over her weirdness, but she guessed she shouldn't complain, as he had just been saved from hitting the floor.

“Oh whatever, thanks for catching me… I guess.” Uzi went to get back up, but V pushed her back into the couch with a decent amount of force, dropping Tera into Uzi's lap before walking over to the sink herself.

“Mmmhm.” Was all V said, before beginning to finish cleaning out the bottles herself.

With another long-suffering, confused sigh, Uzi took V's previous position of playing tug of war with Tera, letting V do whatever the hell she wanted.

Next->

[nordica-sims]

NORA - nursery, kidsroom & playtime

This part contains 70 new meshes:

furniture: dresser, toddler bed, bunk bed, crib, changing table, desk, office chair. high chair, shelves, storage & more.

decor: growth chart, toys, storage boxes, plushies, playpen. easel & more.

wallpaper: 12 swatches

.. and enjoy gameplay with functional objects!

Early access - available for public april 23.

Download here (patreon)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Misioo ballpit is available to download for free already now.

Original mesh by simmerkate

I finally managed to make a functional version of simmerkates ball pit, all credits to her for the original mesh & thank you so much for giving me permission. I made some changes in the mesh & size. Download here (SFS - free) Download original deco version by @simmerkate here

[megsiepoo]

UNHOLY ALLIANCE THOUGHT DUMP

Spoilers below cut

So admittedly I haven't been able to pay coop yet so my thoughts are purely from a single player standpoint and stem mostly around new additions to preexisting mechanics and the storyline of the game.

The final touches they placed on the bishop storyline brought them to what I consider a satisfying conclusion. I appreciate that while the Lamb healed the bishops, it wasn't in a way that removed their injuries and in the process the consequences of their actions. It felt like a peaceful conclusion when the Lamb was gathered with the bishops and Narinder and that while the whole cast had their differences, everyone was able to accept what happened in the past and find peace in the present. I especially love that Narinder got a special bishop trait at the conclusion. While it doesn't seem to affect his actual in-game character, it feels a bit like an ode to his role as the Lamb's devine the Lamb became the last god in the lands of the Old Faith. Also the small design touches to the healed bishops were very nice.

Obviously I also haven't been able to actually use all the new tarot cards/relics yet, but they seem like great additions based on description alone and the few that I have used were very fun. My biggest complaint is that outside of the coop unlocks, everything that's new from relics to tarot cards to decorations has to be unlocked through the Mystic Seller. Frankly, I hate that so much of the post game is based around a glorified slot machine, and not everyone is going to go into the update with 70 god tears because they were previously trying to complete Purgatory. It's a small annoyance, but I feel like they could have found a better way for players to access these things. If it had only been the decorations, I don't think I'd personally find it as annoying.

Onto the new buildings, there are two! The nursery is rather self explanatory, though the baby will leave it at a certain point before reaching adulthood. The knucklebones table is very neat though! I don't use it a ton just because it's not a huge appeal to me, but I love that your followers will play against each other. The Narinder in my save seems to have a bit of a gambling addiction lol

The new fleeces are cute! One is purely decorative. The cowboy fleece is very fun though. And I've definitely developed more appreciation for the blunderbuss after Purgatory kept throwing them at me.

Lastly the Goat! It took me a minute to unlock them just because it didn't register at first that I'd have to commit die during a crusade to access them without coop. The cuts cutscene for it was very cool though and leans a lot into the energy of the initial teaser trailer. I was kind of hoping they might have some sort of special ability once unlocked, but I suppose that would defeat the purpose of them essentially being a dark doppelganger. Regardless, I can't be mad because they're just so gosh darn cute.

Overall, I'm enjoying this new update! I'm excited to eventually drag someone into coop with me. The new mechanics look very fun. Would love to hear everyone else's thoughts as well!