#adding to this actually. life is beautiful.

[bisnes-socks]

I’ve seen these two dudes Karija and Bojan (i think they’re in a band and are from Sweden and Slovakia idk sry) on my dash a lot recently, and I think they make a really hot couple 👀🫦🔥 (I saw lots of hearteyes and Kaerija licking Bohan and groping his butt and calling Bohan his fire and water and love and baby etc so I’m assuming they are??)

I think you might ship them, so can you please share your top 5-10 roman empires about these two that would immediately make a newbie shipper like me fall deeper and then I’d never be free of them again??

Omg I didn't know other people knew about K£$¤£$¤rij£$¤ and Bohan!!!!!!!!! You are right, they are a hot couple and engaged to be married actually!!! 💖💖💖

Did you know that they met in Liverpool during Eurovision, where Bojan basically took it upon himself, as his own personal mission, to protect Jere (that's Kaeaerijae's real name in case you didn't know), who was the favourite to win, from the insane attention he was getting? Did you know he ignored his own interviews and responsibilities and band mates to spend time with Jere? Did you know that when Jere didn't win, Bojan never left his side? Did you know that? Because not a day has gone by in my life since that I haven't thought about Liverpool.

And in that vein, Bojan's steadfast faith in Jere and the admiration he has for him is unreal to me. Unreal. The way he calls him king. The way he posts about Jere's achievements, his awards, his new music, just about him. The way he believes in Jere is like... something everyone deserves but not everyone gets to experience and it's so beautiful 😭 And then every time Bojan comes to Finland and Jere is his only focus and Bojan is Jere's only focus and suddenly they act so ...??????????????? Hello??????

And then sometimes. SOMETIMES. THAT ONE TIME. WHEN BOJAN'S SUOMI ENERGY SOMEHOW GOT HIM AND HE POSTED THIS. ON MAIN?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!? The fact that the hug happened was bad enough but this post???????????????????? UNPROMPTED. Because he missed Jere. Literally who does that?? Am I a bad friend because I've literally never done that??? Or is bojere an unrealistic standard???

(Also literally every single second of Ruisrock. Ruisrock keeps me up at night. What was that. What was it. Take me back there.)

AND DID YOU KNOW THEY WENT ON HOLIDAY TOGETHER. AND THEN BOJAN FOLLOWED JERE TO FINLAND. BECAUSE THOSE TWO WEEKS ADDED TEN YEARS TO MY LIFE.

Ahem. So. I think I simultaniously mentioned like less than five actual Roman empires but also referred to almost every single thing they do, so in conclusion: they ARE my Roman empire. Hope this helps 💖💖💖

[ghost-of-morrowbright]

Ok so I absolutely love everything about this post. I've written about my love for this scene before, so I'll be paraphrasing myself a bit. The moment where Gil-galad glances down at Elrond is actually my favorite moment of his thus far. But first, Elrond.

100% agreed that Elrond is suffering from trauma-induced disassociation here. And that yes, this is certainly his first command of this nature and size; it may well be his first time even participating in a battle of this scale. In addition to the burden of command, he is also carrying the added weight of Earendil's "prophecy" that one day Celebrimbor's life would be in his hands. If he can only hold out until dawn, and Durin's reinforcements, then they will be able to save Celebrimbor and the city, and maybe, just maybe, the lives lost under his command would not have been completely in vain. When dawn comes, he is physically and mentally exhausted after a night of bloodshed, loss, and trauma, but is clinging onto that sliver of hope that Durin will come and save the day. When Durin doesn't arrive as expected, it's the proverbial last straw for Elrond, and he simply.... breaks.

And yes, agreed that Gil-galad recognizes Elrond's break for what it is. Ben Walker has suggested that even though Gil-galad may not know the specifics of what's in his future, he has a general sense that his time in Middle-earth is... limited. I wonder if in that moment he also glimpses what that might mean for Elrond. I wonder if he regrets giving the command to Elrond, that he could take it back if he could, but of course he can't. I suspect he also knows that this will likely not be the last time he sees his herald's heart break. So yes, absolutely he is going to be having more than one feeling about it.

Thank you again for this beautiful post and your perspective on this scene.

Gil-galad sees Elrond showing legit signs of shock on the field in Eregion.

And I think Gil-galad is about to have more than one feeling about it.

Gil-galad gave Elrond command on the field in Ost-in-Edhel -- fully gave him command of all troops on the field. Elrond led their charge (Gil was right there beside him with an encouraging face, like "you call it, son, whenever you're ready, we go." Gil-galad pulled back during that charge, along with all other troops, at Elrond's command. Elrond was also the commander on the field who negotiated with Adar, general to general - Gil-galad was not involved, was not consulted on that conversation. I get no sense from show-universe that Elrond commanded large groups of troops before he led here. In fact, Adar calls out Elrond's lack of experience — though Adar notes he talks a good game.

This was Elrond’s show because Gil-galad asked him to run it. Promoted him to be there and lead at least 500 elves to battle.

And THIS is the exact moment that Gil-galad starts to see signs of Elrond's potential or growing PTSD*:

"Oh....oh, ope, yep, he's down. Yeah, no, buddy is down. Okay. Stay there, lil dude. Fuckin' Form Ranks, I guess, all twenty of you still mentally with me, let's ball YOLO (sorta)."

Yes, Elrond absolutely can swing a sword like a tank and led effectively and got it done, but that doesn't mean it's who he is and that it won't affect him. Gladriel talks about the sound of singing mocking the battle cries in her ears.

How easily can Elrond live with the choices he had to make that killed many, many elves who entrusted their fates to him? THAT was what broke him on the field, before they were captured or ever walked into the courtyard.

So...how easily will Gil-galad handle this additional pain he may have helped cause in this young man he loves?

*clarification: As someone with diagnosed, active PTSD under treatment, I’m not using the term lightly. Disclaimers of all kinds, as some have come into my blog before and oh-so-helpfully explained to me why I should not speak of my own diagnosis in certain terms. Well, Jan, it might not be the terms y’all use over there, but over here? When we see dissociation, we call it out as a flag. I’m the one with dreams so vivid I’m afraid to go to sleep. For fuck’s sake, Jan.

[girlactionfigure]

He was born on April 16, 1889. His father was an alcoholic, his mother would be committed to a mental asylum. The young boy would spend his early years at a Workhouse and other institutions for destitute children.

At the age of 14, he decided to become an actor. He started doing plays and vaudeville. In 1914, he arrived in Los Angeles. He started working in film, accepting small parts.

For his second role, he decided to dress himself, wearing baggy pants, a tight coat, a small hat, and large shoes. For the final touch, he added a small mustache.

"The Tramp" character was born, eventually making Charlie Chaplin one of the most popular actors in silent film and an international star.

After Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to prominence, Charles Chaplin wanted to address the escalating violence and repression of Jews by the Nazis throughout the late 1930s.

He would make a daring film, his first true talking picture, which would become one of his greatest films - "The Great Dictator".

It was an act of defiance against Hitler and Nazism. Chaplin played 2 characters, one a Hitler parody, and the other a look-alike Jewish barber persecuted by the regime. In the conclusion, the Jewish barber as Hitler would make a speech. It is said that during filming, Chaplin actually drops out of character and speaks his mind, denouncing dictatorship, greed, hate, and intolerance, in favor of liberty and human brotherhood. It would be called one of the greatest speeches:

"I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible- Jew, Gentile, black men, white…

"We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

"Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind...

"We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness...."

In the speech, he urged people to unite, to "fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security . . . To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!"

The Jon S. Randal Peace Page 

[sarioh]

ethubs

shoutout to you and all the other ethubs warriors who have been here with me in the trenches since 2021. we were right about everything ever since the beginning of time but in the worst possible ways and no one can ever take that away from us . amen

[lornasaurusrex]

I miss you Lorna… this is such a mess

This is an old message and I had several other similar messages, but I miss you guys and hope you’re all doing well!! I’m sorry to see nothing has improved.

I saw I was kindly mentioned by @awesomefringey and some other commenters the other day, so just wanted to log in and say hello and log back out for a few more months. 💕

Sending so so much love to all of you. Take care of yourselves and each other, please.

The video is still on YT.

[fashion-foxy]

As someone who has been in the EAH and Descendants fandoms, here's my perspective:

Point 1) Descendants didn't get EAH cancelled.

Yes, it kinda did. Eah media is a doll ad first and compelling story second. Descendants gets to be a story first and a doll ad second. Mattel (owners of the eah franchise) at the time of the Eah cancellation and the Descendants (2016 and 2015 respectively) the general public was growing more and more conscious of unrealistic beauty standards for women and had a growing resentment towards stereotypically feminine things (like dolls). This was obviously very bad news for a doll ad. On top of this, Eah's much more successful sister franchise, MH, was dropping in sales, leading Mattel to eventually reboot the series and resetting the lore (making Eah even less relevant). Finally, Mattel had the license from Disney to make Disney Princess dolls. During 2015, Mattel was obviously more focused on Barbie and MH than Disney dolls. This led to Disney not renewing Mattel's license and giving it to Hasbro. This, along with MH losing value, made Mattel lose a LOT of money. EAH, at this point, was on life support, but ultimately, the final nail in the Eah glass coffin was (in my opinion) the launch of Descendants. All of EAH's very small market share was very quickly taken up by Disney. When Disney had Hasbro make Descendants dolls, it was all over for EAH, resulting in its cancellation. Descendants didn't kill EAH but it was the final nail in the coffin.

Point 2) The Descendants movies are good.

Very subjective, I'm not going to say you're wrong for liking or not liking any piece of media, but I am ultimately writing an argument in favour of EAH. I will try to be as unbiased as possible, but I'm sure my biases will be made very apparent.

The original 3 Descendants movies were very good at introducing compelling themes, ideas, and characters, but they never could quite stick the landing and make a satisfying conclusion to anything they introduced. Off the top of my head, here are the most obvious examples in semi chronological order:

The Isle of the Lost:

Really cool fucked up dystopian idea! I loved the franchise focusing on villain kids who had done nothing wrong being imprisoned for life. However, the decision to bring down the barrier felt like it came out of nowhere as most of D3 was about Mal having to deal with actually figuring out how to rule and learning her actions had consequences and than the ending was "actually no the Isle is too fucked to keep" I agree with this but I do feel like they should have had SOME plan for if the hundreds potentially thousands of people imprisoned for 20 years decided they needed revenge.

Mal using magic to "fix" girls appearances:

Extremely cool! I love her being a fucked up fairy godmother in an attempt to get close to actual fairy godmother but the ending of the subplot being Jane is so insecure that she steals the wand felt like and empty twist. Also, Mal's apology felt very empty.

Mal spelling Ben into loving her:

Let me preface this with saying I love my boy Benjamin. Love this plot. The first date was sweat, yet it filled me with dread on first watch because I was sure Ben would at least be somewhat upset with her. Then the carriage scene! Him just casually saying he knew! The look on her face! His downright manic laughter! I was so excited! And then Ben said it was fine and he still loved her. All of the excitement instantly left my body. I feel like he should have been a little mad about it, but I guess he was operating under the assumption that she had a crush on him, and she never corrects him?! I guess we kind of got Ben blowing up on her in the opening of D2, but then he instantly blames himself. Like, Benny, no, she tried to erase your memory. This isn't your fault.

Uma spelling Ben into loving her/Ben being kidnapped:

I find it fucking hilarious that Ben is perpetually a damsel in distress with these movies. Something I don't love is that he is way too forgiving! Ben sweetie, no, she also spelled you into loving her. Don't jump into the water! I did love Harry and Ben's chemistry on the ship, definitely otp (not saying much cause I dislike pretty much everyone else). Basically, same complaints as Mal spelling Ben.

The OctoUma vs. DragonMal fight:

I was so hyped! Then Ben jumped in the water. No epic fight, and Uma just swam away. Missed opportunity.

D3 Audrey:

Love her being a villain. Don't love that she has no consequences for her actions.

Audrey cursing Ben:

Ben, did you not fucking apologize?! I get he was spelled but wtf man! At this point, just give up with women it's a lost cause, my dude. Same complaints with Audrey as Mal and Uma.

Overall, my rating of the original 3 Descendants movies is 5/10, definitely a crashed landing, especially with the 'Yay Girl Power' shit they were trying to do, which just made it so Mal, Uma, and Audrey didn't have to deal with consequences of their actions.

Point 3) Descendants Copied EAH

I think, at best, for Disney, they used very similar concepts and ideas. However, this never went to court, so I can't legally say Descendants is just straight up a copyright infringement. But the case MGA vs. Mattel, I believe, is relevant because the United States uses a thing called case law, meaning that the result of old cases can influence the result of new cases (extremely simplified explanation) . About the actual case, basically, the extremely simplified version of this case is that MGA had extremely popular doll line Bratz, Mattel saw that and said "yeah let's do that, but like Barbie," and made myscene MGA saw this and sued Mattel. Main talking points include:

- 4 characters all of different races (very weird argument makes a tad more since when you look at the dolls)

- Stylized bodies. For example: big lips, big eyes, small waist. (Basically true, Mattel straight up just made Barbie Bratz dolls)

- The fashion. (I mean, yes. Mattel doesn't dress dolls to look like teenagers. Especially not popular teenagers. This is Mattels only line where they look very much like popular girls. While MGA dolls are filled with pop culture references)

MGA lost the case. Which I take to mean that if it would go to court it'd be a similar situation where Descendants I'd different enough it legally wouldn't be an issue but fucking look at this:

Also Merlin Academy is reconning old Descendants lore to make it have basically the same destiny system as EAH. Also, not an especially big piece of 'evidence' but in the song Love Ain't it, the QOH says "...and fear is more important if we're gonna rule for centuries" which is similar to when the EQ says "it's better to be feared than forgotten." Both in the context of evil mom telling good daughter to take over the world with them. But who knows! It's just a serious of very similar concepts. I do ultimately think that Descendants was at least inspired by EAH as early Descendants' concept art is vastly different than what we got.

Point 4) EAH is not lacking in content

Very hard disagree. Our show got cancelled after a significant twist was revealed. Darling Charming and Apple White were revealed to be destined lovers after they kissed. I seem to recall a cut kiss between Harry Hook and Gil (check the actors Instagram) at least our show can have a queer kiss take place! "Just write fanfiction!" Is ignoring 1) we have and will continue to, and 2) we will never get a proper conclusion to the story. But I suppose this isn't something that you would get mad about since no Descendants movie has ever had a proper conclusion. (As I've established above.)

TL;DR - 1)Yes, it did. 2)Not really. 3)Depends on your interpretation of copyright law, but I think yes. 4) Eah got cut off after a major twist, so we are missing at least a warp up.

Nah cause why are EAH fans literally incapable of enjoying the show without bringing another film down?💀 “Omg I can’t believe they cancelled it for descendants—“ buddy, no they didn’t. There were no official statements of EAH being “cancelled”. Also, the descendants movies are good? And no, just because they share similar concepts DOES NOT mean that descendants was “copying” EAH. And idk why the EAH fandom is acting like they’re lacking content as if they don’t have, what, 5 whole ass seasons of the show? Also, if you’re “lacking content” so badly, then just make it yourself? Make edits, write fanfiction, draw fanart. You don’t gotta bring down a show that other people love just because you don’t know how to enjoy media without comparing it to other media💀

[ashleeofjupiter]

Yeah, okay.

I just finished Life is Strange: Double Exposure and, despite my apprehension in the lead-up to its release... it's safe to say that I'm back on my LiS shit.

I have so many thoughts and feelings fja;vnrisfjkd;

[hopecomesbacktolife]

thinking of rereading the entirety of HoME again. for my health

[thecoolerbrother]

i think something moonage daydream was really good at doing was capturing a vibe

[punksalmon]

chim takes eddie to a gay bar because eddie you're about to marry the first guy you've got together with! you have to see the sights! like he's planning on speedrunning eddie's gay years. of course chim has never gone to one before either, and while eddie is too busy being drunk and flustered, hiding his face in his hands and drafting a thousand messages to buck (they have so much bulge. i proomise i didn't look too cloes. yours is the only one ot mhe. i miss yog) chim's eyes shine like never before... he gets sent a whisky from a VERY very nice bartender and goes ohhh sorry i'm married (shows ring) just taking my buddie to his bachelor's haha thanks anyway. and the bartender goes nothing bad about appreciating the view ;). and four hours later when he gets home to maddie he goes i think i'm bisexual.

when buck and eddie go to get married chim takes care of eddie's bachelor's party and hen of buck's, and they schedule them to happen in the same day, same hour, because otherwise buck and eddie (co-dependent kings) would otherwise just attend each other's. buck wants to have their bachelor's party just be one bc he wants to do everything with eddie 4ever and hen goes. buck. that's not how that works. are you kidding me. and buck just cries and goes but i'll miss him :((((. and hen says FOR FOUR HOURS??? YOU'RE GOING TO LITERALLY BE WITH HIM FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. but buck is sighing and huffing like a little hurt dog 😔. buck voice i miss eddie all the time. and hen (thinking she'll have to deal with That for a whole party) contemplates murder.

[bmpmp3]

I NEED BEAUTIFUL WOMEN TO COMFORT ME i forgot to put rum extract in the (extremely modified) mennonitte scrambled eggs until i was 2/3rds of the way through the batter

[satellite-blossom]

I'll never make fun of Americans for being obsessed with grilled cheese ever again.

That shit slaps, I've spent everyday in New York craving a grilled cheese and coming up with new recipes.

[donttakemehome]

How to tell if you're in a historical Chinese drama:

(Inspired by this classic!)

Someone offends you unforgivably by calling you by your actual name.

You are preparing for a bloody battle in the rain. Your boots are made of exquisitely embroidered silk duchesse.

Everyone you know is god-tier beautiful. You ignore this.

Significant tea is being poured.

Your soulmate tells you in plain words that they love you. You comically misunderstand what they said, and will keep doing so, because the plot is not over yet.

The only thing more elaborate than the villain's cunning plan is the engineering of your man-bun.

Duels are scored like gymnastics routines. To beat your opponent, try a triple-twisting double tucked salto.

You have been married for thirty years. You have never seen your spouse's wrist.

Sometimes peasants and servants are killed horribly in front of you. It's a normal part of life. The other peasants will presumably take care of the practicalities, such as burial and being upset.

Any injury, including a broken nail, makes you vomit blood.

The year is 400 AD. French tips have been invented.

You're on a moon bridge and you are yearning.

[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/

[wolf-tail]

Socialists, get into fat liberation theory right the fuck now. I am speaking as a fellow dirty commie, DO IT.

You all like to lump fatness into either the category of "product of bourgeoisie decadence" or "side effect of capitalism forcing us to eat bad food" when neither is the actual case.

Fat people exist in all social classes and all walks of life, often regardless of individual choices.

Fat people are victims of capitalist exploitation at the hands of the multi billion dollar diet and weight loss industry that pushes eating disorder behavior and unnecessary surgeries on to us all in the name of profits.

Fatphobia ties into beauty standards that capitalists use to manipulate people into hating their bodies so they can be sold beauty. Think about how many of the ads you get every day are for weight loss.

[ratstuckinamarble]

BREAD??? I'd be honoured. Thank you ๑ï

5 am is the best time to get the drill out and hang stuff up because it's when the walls are at their softest