#and they show you things you don't really see in the novel

[khaopybara]

I think Kant would have gotten far less criticism or hatred if KantBison were not being shoved into our throat. Like, clearly the showmakers want us to root for KB, everyone from Style to Cop Chris saying how Kant has fallen for Bison yada yada but at the same time Kant casually talks about Bison, the supposed love of his life, getting shot dead or spending his entire life in prison....without any sign of pain in his voice or face...like he's talking about mildly uncomfy weather.

This is clearly a narrative problem but it does make viewers frustrated and Kant's character has to bear the brunt of this narrative folly. I am very sure if the narrative made it clear from the start that KB are not, under any condition ending up together, the situation would have been different....but of course gmmtv has to sell their cp (by which I mean cp merch and stuff). The showmakers already have a pair (FadelStyle) that are hitting all the right spots for how a romantic pair should be and they can be easily shown to be having a happily ever after. Ideally they should have kept KantBison 'lovers to enemies' actually ending up as enemies...but well....cp 😒

i'll start this by saying this is the one and only ask with hate for kant/kantbison that i will answer because from your oh so many words, i can already tell you fit into the exact category of people who already made up your mind about the character and nothing i say will change your perception. but bc i'm not feeling like being the bigger person, sure, you wanna talk about this, let's talk about this.

first of all, i wanna talk about your apparent hatred for cps (or maybe it's just fk, we never know) and gmmtv's system, and you know, that's so funny because that's, and i know it'll shock you, their thing😯. so maybe if you didn't want to see that, you shouldn't have started watching the show, even after knowing that the two couples would end up together in the end because guess what, this was advertised as a romcom. and we what do we get with romcoms? exactly, happy endings. a travesty.

i find it so funny when people say fadelstyle are hitting all the spots for a romantic pairing, because that's what's supposed to be (again, a romcom), they are the more traditional romantic storyline (or as traditional as you can get with a killer and a guy who only started hitting on him and continued to do so because he wanted a car) so they are supposed to be hitting those spots. it's their storyline.

see, kantbison hooked up that very first night they met, clear attraction, kant was besotted by his one night stand and was calling him a ghost because bison up and ran before they could wake up together. their first interaction together and it had nothing to do with the police, or lying or manipulating, so maybe it's not a narrative problem that kantbison are "being shoved down our throats" maybe it's just a you problem if you didn't notice what they were being set up to.

and many people have talked about this already, and if you cared to read either liz's or lauren's meta about kant, you wouldn't have come to my inbox complaining about kant not being expressive when he clearly can't let himself feel the things he wants because his priority will always be his brother (just like fadel will prioritize bison always) in contrast to style who doesn't have to carry the responsibility of raising and caring for a younger brother on his shoulders.

and darling, if you started this show thinking at any point, from the trailers, pilot or official, promotional photos, osts, novel, press, anything, that kantbison would not be a thing, again, it's not on them, it's on you and your poor observation skills. there are plenty of people way more qualified than me to talk about this and how kant actually cares for bison, and how he's torn between his heart and his brain, but you don't really care, so why bother.

[vidavalor]

I have a very specific question! I have been rewatching and noticed the parts you were talking about where they're speaking their language in front of people who don't know the other level of what they're saying. Crowley is totally doing this when he explains the plan to get Maggie and Nina to vavoom to Jim. Do you agree? If you do, then please help with what weather is in their cant. Saying it in front of Jim means it's got to be funny but I can't quite get it. Thank you!!!!!!

Hi there! 💕 *shares sea salt caramels* Thanks for reading & for the ask. Yeah, I agree that Crowley is using the cant in that scene and I can help with weather.

First and biggest rule of the cant, based on the keys I've found throughout both the novel and the series, is the one I've mentioned about the opening shot of the first episode of Good Omens. It's the word war shown to us and then quickly shown to really be part of the word warning. This is suggesting that we look at the words that are contained within the words being chosen in this story.

So, let's do that with weather.

What words live inside the word weather?

Amusingly enough, three words do that, in this rare case, actually also form a phrase when you put them together:

"Haven't done we eat her in ages."

From the passage describing Crowley in the novel:

"He can do weird things with his tongue."

Weird, developed over time via associations with The Weird Sisters in Macbeth, to eventually mean supernatural and out of this world.

[The Latin word for tongue-- lingua-- is also the root of the word language, so this is both sexual innuendo and a nod towards being great with words.] Related to this...

Why do you have to wait a few days to find out if humans are in love?

"Because humans are weird and that's how it works."

Muriel thinks that Crowley is using weird in the sense of strange and he's fine with that being how they take it, as that's how he wanted them to, but the layer underneath it is that "humans are weird" with Aziraphale nodding shows they think, as we can see throughout the story, that the humans are the ones who are supernatural and magical.

Saying in the novel that Crowley can "do weird things with his tongue" is wryly saying that the magical being is supernaturally good at oral human activities, like wording and weather.

[realest-nilou-kinnie]

every single time i'm reading anything about him, fan fiction or not, and someone describes him as lazy, i can't help but blurt out loud to myself, "he's not lazy" and sort of roll my eyes. It's in his character bio in the game for crying out loud: he doesn't see the point in trying anymore because every time he has ever tried in his life, he has been shot down and shown that nothing he does will ever matter.

self-indulgent elaboration under the cut

also, i would argue that it's about as clear as can be that he is "rude" on purpose to push people away...because he knows he was born in a silver spoon in his mouth and thinks he doesn't deserve people being nice to him. of COURSE he is snarky and snappy when he gets the chance, he WANTS people to stay away from him. He does NOT, however, want them to talk behind his back, i dont think. We know it hurts him. He doesn't want them to whisper that he's dangerous and he could probably kill everyone within a 50 foot radius with his UM at a moment's notice. Which is true. I think he's afraid of that possibility (and I believe in the novel it's described as being a volatile spell that other second princes have been effectively cursed with, and that he could accidentally kill people around him. That's why he grew up overhearing the palace servants whispering about the spell as if it was already a known UM.)

I know we don't know how he got his scar yet, other than it being something he clearly doesn't want to remember, but I can't help but wonder how he first "got" his UM. It isn't one he developed like Azul did, for example. He was born with that being the UM he would one day manifest. I definitely have ideas about how he got his scar and how it could relate to the advent of a Unique Magic like his, but I DO NOT think he killed or seriously hurt someone. I think the King's Roar spell has been popping up in previous generations of the Sunset Savanah royal family in second-born sons, and the people know it can lay waste to everything around the user. Even the things the user didn't touch or mean to affect start to turn to sand, like the air. Idk i just think his magic hasn't killed someone but I think he and everyone around him knows it could. From past experience, if you will. So maybe he showed signs of it being his UM and people FREAKED out as if he killed someone. That can be really damaging for a kid.

With this in mind, how could it be any clearer that he is trying to push people away? Now, allow me to be a blatant Leona Kisser on main (joke intended, that's my sideblog @leona-kingscholar-kisser LOL), but....HE'S NOT EVEN DOING THAT GOOD OF A JOB OF PUSHING PEOPLE AWAY. BECAUSE HE ISN'T A NATURAL AT IT!!!!! 😭😭😭😭 I'm not saying he craves connection, yet, because i haven't seen his part in book 7, but he definitely is not just meanspirited. He doesn't enjoy pushing people away, he feels that he has no choice in order to not hurt others. Isn't that the most selfless thing of all?

Knowing how he was treated as a child during his formative years, I'd say every glimpse of kindness and generosity and selflessness and passion for life he shows is indicative of someone who is all of those things even more so than it would be for someone who had no adverse childhood experiences. To me, the fact that he is all these things even in the face of the agony he must feel looking in the mirror every day means he is an even better person than someone who only does the right thing to earn praise and be celebrated. Character is doing the right thing even when no one is watching and all that.

I literally could write 50 paragraphs about him with MLA citations, but here is what i mainly wished to impress upon the part of twstblr whom i think are a wee bit confused about his characterization:

examples of Leona not being a massive sack of shit:

he pretends not to notice when Ruggie steals jewelry from him just about daily, but he doesn't outright give it to him because that would be too philanthropic for his image. He lets Ruggie think he's getting away with it. He doesn't want a "thank you" because he thinks he doesn't deserve it

he lets Ruggie bring his own laundry to be washed together with Leona's, while giving him his credit card to buy the nicest detergent and anything else he might want to buy at the Mystery Shop

the reason he doesn't wear his uniform jacket isn't because he just wants to break the dress code or make a statement, it's probably because he gave it to Ruggie. Hence why Ruggie's jacket is massive on him.

he skips his classes because he already knows everything they're teaching. he always shows up for tests, meaning he does keep track of when they are.

- personal note: he had all the NRC-level material drilled into him from a younger age than most as a prince. That level of focus on academics takes away time in your youth that you feel like your peers are spending having fun and having social lives. If i were him, going to classes where everyone around him got to learn something for the first time that he had been forced to memorize years ago would be really hard. It might be a reminder of how he had to grow up too soon. I personally relate a lot to being faced with the reality that every other student in your class didn't have the same amount of academic pressure put on them that you did and wanting to just curl up and cry at your desk. Being in classes where you already know everything or where other kids clearly have a lot less pressure on them can make you feel even more alone and hopeless and unloved than you already felt. it makes you grieve all the weeks and years of feeling like a workhorse instead of a child that you'll never get back. So i guess in that way I'm biased towards him and I completely support him skipping class :'3

he only got held back because of missed attendance. here are two important notes about that, in my opinion:

- firstly, he obviously doesn't want to go home. he also feels unenthusiastic about the 4th year internships even though he's going to take one in his home country and hopes to make some positive changes using his ideas. Still, he knows it will not come with the recognition and appreciation from his family he wants. Even if his ideas for oil mining fracking 🤮 bring great economic growth and can feed the children starving like Ruggie was, I doubt his older brother would see Leona for what he is or praise him as things stand now. hopefully that will come later in the story

- secondly, he wants to be held back and stay at NRC another year so his dorm can win the Spelldrive tournament against Diasomnia. He literally says that's the reason he is so desperate to for HIS TEAM (not him) to win that he puts himself in the position to be the bad guy and make the hard decisions he thinks he has to in Book 2! With the actual Spelldrive team, it's slightly different because Malleus isn't involved. It's interesting. In his Spelldrive Uniform home screen dialogues, he says winning is more important than doing your best... because he thinks his team wouldn't be happy with coming in second even knowing they did their best. I think he is blinded by self-hatred. I don't think what he seems to think is actually true. I think Epel and Jack and Ace and all the Savanaclaw members who bawled their eyes out when they thought he was turned into a Tsum are just happy to receive guidance from him. That makes him different from Azul or Kalim or Idia as housewardens, for example. They literally cry lollll. He knows all his Spelldrive players and they literally never shut the fuck up about how good of a coach he is and how attentive he is to their strengths and weaknesses. He doesn't even try to change them! He doesn't insult or belittle Epel when he wants to train to aim better, he literally just compliments how he is a great player in other ways and tells him not to change a thing. For no reason, bitch. He's such a fucking softie.

he buys us a drink in one of his chats, saying he "knows how to reward good service 😒". oh come on bro you're not fooling anyone, you probably weren't even thirsty anyway

he only went to Playful Land to keep an eye on the underclassmen because he's always like that. smfh

finally, if you pay close attention, he's really only rude to people who disrespect him first. OR to people who try to drag him into annoying shenanigans he doesn't want to be involved with. if someone did all that to me during a depressive episode i'd bite their head off, too -- which is every day because i have major clinical treatment-resistant depression and i feel like i know how he feels. i get where he's coming from :( and then they all STILL call him lazy. that is so fucking mean and hurtful. he is doing what he can. he's just sick. he is enough.

okay that's all i can think of right now i just really wanted to elaborate because AHHHHHHH. AAUUGHHHHH. EEEEEUEUUUUUUUUUUAUAG HE IS NOT LAZY AND HES NOT A DICK HE JUST HATES HIMSELF AND NONE OF IT IS HIS FAULT

and while i'm on the subject, Leona is actually NOT lazy or arrogant or selfish at all but some of yall are not ready for that conversation lol

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Lackadaisy Enrichment

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[crookedfivefingers]

3.13 | ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʟᴏʀᴅꜱ

link to the post I accidentally wound up prattling endlessly about in the tags 💀

[fallloverfic]

There are two versions of ORV: the original serialized version and the revised version, and the revision is what the manhwa is based on (it's the same for singNsong's other completed novel, The World After The Fall, which was revised after publication, and it's the revision that's being used for the manhwa adaptation of TWATF). One of the ORV arcs that was most heavily edited for the revision was the Peace Land arc. But the manhwa also adds/removes things as it goes because that's kind of the nature of adaptation.

The popular English fan translation of the novel is the unrevised version. As far as I'm aware, no one has fully translated the revised version into English. It's one thing people are wondering about with Yen Press' upcoming English translation: are they translating the revision or the unrevised version? It would make more sense that they'll do the revision because that's what singNsong have apparently said is their ideal version of ORV, and it's what's used for the ebook version of ORV.

Hi! I hope it's okay to ask, but I really want to read ORV and I'm.. a bit confused about something? How or where exactly do I read it, and which version of ORV is the one people usually recommend? Is there even a difference? I'd appreciate any and all help!

no worries! redirecting you here

as far as i know there are two versions? one is translated (the one i am directing you to) and the other is an edited version which may not be translated? and may or may not be the base for the webtoon? with some scenes added and removed? take whatever i say with a grain of salt though, i got handed the file in a dark alley by an ill meaning friend. she was out for my blood apparently.

[fallloverfic]

I love singNsong again reminding people in Side Story that Dokja wanted other people to read TWSA (he wrote reviews and comments! It was his first wish), and he only stopped bothering because people harassed him for it. He didn't gate-keep the story. When he's avoiding talking to Sangah about it at the beginning of ORV, it's because he knows what happens when he tells people about the story, not because he's gate-keeping it from her. He notes he's not proud of his hobby (likely because he's been bullied all through his life, including for reading the thing he loves): he finds it embarrassing to talk about, and better respects her studying Spanish in her free time (learning another language is a generally accepted thing in society). He assumes she won't care or will look at him funny (or worse) for when she learns about the novel he's into.

Basically anyone writing "let's gatekeep ORV" posts because of the anime announcement or because they dislike the manhwa or some other weirdness, y'all are the villains in the scenario.

The literal climax of the story is about sharing ORV with as many people as possible. What story were y'all reading?

[giantkillerjack]

One of the things I love about Glass Onion is the way that the camera and music work together to tell nonverbal jokes.

Like when Benoit basically has to hold Miles' hand to get him to the conclusion that someone reset the puzzle box Benoit lies about receiving:

Benoit asks if it's possible that someone reset the box, and Miles then declares that someone must have reset the box like it is this huge reveal - and the camera zooms out while the music subtly swells as though he really has figured out something smart, when actually he literally restated what Benoit just said.

[bookwyrminspiration]

I found the artists Instagram and I love her art but my gosh what is with the cover

For anyone curious, here's a link to her IG! She is a very talented artist, though there is a big difference between doing a single piece you can put all the thought and detail you want into it, and illustrating a graphic novel.

Between being asked to use a different style than her typical one (as she said on her tumblr), and the simplifying necessary for a graphic novel (though not as much so for a cover), and probably much more, it definitely was not what many of us were expecting.

I don't think it's bad--although I will say I think the layout of Fitz's face is wrong for the angle, a technical critique--it's just very different from the example art we've seen of hers prior. Which makes sense, but is still something to get used to.

There's also what others have said about it not feeling like it embodies keeper, but I'll go into that in another ask about the cover :)

Anyway! I want to very clearly emphasize my support for the artist, she has a massive task in front of her and a fandom with high expectations. I don't think she's paying attention to us or what we say, but either way. Even if the cover isn't what we thought or expected (honestly I forgot it needed a cover), she clearly has skill and artistic knowledge I'm curious to see in the rest of the novel--which I think will be a better judge. Covers are all played up, but the book is the real meat of it and, I think, more important.

[debleb]

americans try not to immediately turn anything irish into magical mystical uwu pagan faeries challenge (100% IMPOSSIBLE)

[aroace-number-eight]

One of my worse fears when I do rereads of the series is that I look at moments where the characters are obscenely rude and/or make offhanded comments and gestures, and they're actually not OOC moments or contradict previous establishing character traits, because the reality is that they're total assholes and we just choose to believe they're nicer than that

[darlingofdots]

the vast majority of fanworks are bad, and that's fine, actually. they are bad for the same reason that the average number of legs for a human person to have is less than two: statistics. like with all endeavours and especially creative ones, most people who write fanfiction or draw art of their favourite characters are bad at it. if you line up all the crochet projects in the world, most of them will be, well, bad. some are bad because they're the first thing a person ever made, or the second or third or tenth, and this kind of thing takes practice. others are bad because the person who made them is just not very good at it. maybe they just learned how to make granny squares and they're perfectly happy to never expand or improve on that. most people who dance or bake or garden or braid hair are not amazing at it! and you'd never go to your kid's dance recital or eat your friend's homemade carrot cake and expect the same experience as you'd have at a professional ballet performance or award-winning bakery. And that's if we assume there is an objective measure of Good Art, which there isn't! Some art is just "bad" because you don't like it!

I think though that specifically with fanfiction, we sometimes forget that when we read a book or watch a movie, dozens of people have looked at it and given feedback and made changes and done quality control before the final product reaches our shelves or screens, and that's not counting the original writer's learning process and past experience. A published book is not anyone's first crochet project, even if it is their debut novel. But with fanfiction, the barrier to entry is so low (on purpose! this is a good thing!) that we do get to see a lot of wonky granny squares, and on sites like AO3 they're sitting on the same shelf as the hand-made silk lace wedding dress and you can't always tell just by looking at it which is which. The consequence of this is that we encounter fic that we think is unpolished, has bad punctuation, is out of character, and we are tempted to think "well, this is awful! how dare this person put this wonky granny square on the same shelf as the lace wedding dress!" But that's not how fandom is supposed to work! That wonky granny square is somebody who is really excited about this TV show they just watched and they are reaching out into the void to share their excitement with you. To scoff at them for not making a lace wedding dress is really, really rude. Even if they did make a lace wedding dress, maybe it's just really not your style, or you think they should have used a different pattern, and it's still their wedding dress. You don't have to wear the dress and you don't have to read the fic.

We all know that there is some fanfic out there that is incredible. I think it's important to talk about that! But the vast majority of people who post their writing online are just sharing their little hobby projects that they make for fun and I also think it's important to remember that.

[batboyblog]

Copy Right and Public Domain in 2025!

It's January 1st 2025 which means it's my favorite unsung holiday! Public Domain Day! This is the day once a year when, in the US, copyrights expire and things enter the public domain, meaning they belong to everyone! even you, Steve!

American copyright for books, movies, art work, and musical compositions (but not recordings, more on that later) runs for 95 years (way too long!) so today works published in 1929 join us in the public domain.

So whats free? so glad you asked.

Popeye the Sailor Man

Many people assume Popeye originated as a cartoon character but thats not true, he comes from a comic strip. The strip was called Thimble Theatre and Popeye was something of a late addition. Thimble Theatre was first published in 1919, so Popeye's girlfriend Olive Oyl has been in the public domain since before the big 20 year copyright freeze of 1998-2019. Popeye first appeared as a minor character 10 years into the strip's run but was so popular he soon took over and the strip would be renamed Popeye less than 5 years later. Now as always whats public is only what appears in 1929, later developments, remain copyrighted. Such as, while Popeye always had super strength its not till 1932 his superpowers were tied to eating spinach, and Olive Oyl originally had a different boyfriend named Ham Gravy, who she dumped for Popeye when he became the main character. It looks like Popeye is following tradition for famous now public domain characters and getting a quicky horror movie this year.

Tintin!

This is personally very exciting as someone who grew up with the Belgian boy detective. Like Popeye I expect a lot of people don't know that Tintin started off as a weekly comic strip. Indeed Tintin appeared as a part of a weekly youth supplement in the Catholic newspaper The Twentieth Century. Any ways, Tintin was first published in there in January 1929, and soon would start what would become the first Tintin story, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Now only part of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was published in 1929, the story line wrapped up in May 1930, so only those 1929 stories and what appears in them is free and clear and Tintin was published in black and white not color. Tintin's author Hergé had no idea what he was doing and was really learning on the job so In The Land of the Soviets is generally seen as his weakest outing and the only one he never opted to redraw in later years. Even so it's nice to see the character free in the world. No word on if Tintin will star in a horror movie.

Buck Rogers (but not really)

The original futuristic space man was published, again a comic strip, in 1929 which means he should enter the public domain today, but he won't. That's because he already is public domain! Before the Copyright Act of 1976 copyright was 28 years with the option to renew for another 28 years. The copyright on the original comic strips was not renewed so ran out at the end of 28 years, 1958. So Buck Rogers has been free and clear for close to 70 years now, whatever you hear about him today.

What else?

Famously last year Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, but all the entered public domain was one (maybe two) animated short, Steamboat Willie. Well this year a dozen Mickey Mouse animated shorts enter the public domain, including the first time Mickey has his iconic white gloves, and the first time Mickey speaks (the first thing Mickey Mouse ever says, voiced by Walt Disney himself, is "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" in case you were wondering) This will give creators much more to work with if they want to use Mickey in their works which is exciting.

Speaking of Walt Disney, The Skeleton Dance is entering public domain, you likely don't know the title but I suspect you've seen at least part of it at some point

so look for this showing up on TVs in the backgrounds of films and TV shows in the next year or so

Books

The iconic novels of World War I, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front enter public domain. In fact All Quiet on the Western Front entered public domain last year, but only in the original German, the 1929 translation by Arthur Wesley Wheen is whats entered the public domain now. John Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Mystery (always get an Agatha Christie novel on this list for the rest of our lives). Dashiell Hammett published both Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon, later made into one of the greatest films of all time, in 1929. Future children's book author E. B. White (who's go on to write Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little) and future New Yorker cartoonist and humorist James Thurber teamed up to write the delightfully titled Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do a book of spoof essays making fun of popular books on Freudian sexual theories at the time. The Roman Hat Mystery the first of the long running Ellery Queen mysteries was published, Queen would keep publishing mysteries into the 1970s (and Ellery Queen was a pen name for two people). Richard Hughes' A High Wind in Jamaica and Oliver La Farge's Laughing Boy also came out in 1929 and are in the public domain now. There's much else but those are the highlights sorry if I missed your favorite 1929 novel.

Movies

Alfred Hitchcock and Cecil B. DeMille's first movies with sound, Blackmail and Dynamite respectively, came out in 1929. Marx Brothers' first feature film The Cocoanuts joins the public domain. Other comedy land marks are Harold Lloyd's first sound film, Welcome Danger and Buster Keaton's last silent film, Spite Marriage (which Keaton also directed). John Ford's first sound film, The Black Watch, which also is 21 year old John Wayne's first appearance in a film, as an uncredited extra, he worked in the art department. Hallelujah the first studio film to have an all black cast came out that year. Also worth noting is The Hollywood Revue of 1929 a singing and dancing review, one of the earliest and the movie that popularized the song Singin’ in the Rain, maybe the first time a movie made a song a hit.

Musical compositions

musical compositions, ie the lyrics and musical notations you might see on sheet music are governed by the 1976 Copyright Act, and music written in 1929 is public domain. Music recordings are governed by a whole different law (we'll get there). Songs written in 1929 include Singin’ in the Rain by Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Black and Blue by the legendary Fats Waller, What Is This Thing Called Love? by Cole Porter, Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Alfred Dubin, You Were Meant for Me by Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown, and also Happy Days Are Here Again by Jack Yellen which would become FDR's campaign theme song in 1932.

Art!

a number of pieces by Salvador Dalí including:

Illumined Pleasures

The Accommodations of Desire

The Great Masturbator

are entering the public domain as is René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images.

Art is hard because while movies and books are clearly "published" and put on sale, what counts as "published" for a piece of art? the law is not totally sure.

Musical Recordings

as I promised, we got here. Till 2017 there were no federal laws governing the copyright of music recordings before the 1970s, it was governed by a confusing patchwork of state laws and it was not totally clear what was or was not free and clear even from the very earliest recordings ever. Now the term of a music recording's copyright is set at 100 years (way too long) so music recorded in 1924 is now public domain such as. Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen by Marian Anderson, Everybody Loves My Baby (But My Baby Don’t Love Nobody But Me) by Louis Armstrong, California Here I Come by Al Jolson, Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, Shreveport Stomp by Jelly Roll Morton, Mama’s Gone, Good Bye by Ray Miller, and It Had To Be You by Marion Harris. Now many recordings a lot less famous can finally be preserved and digitized to save them for the next 100 years. Many abandoned works are literally rotting away since without the copyright holder's permission digitizing a work isn't legal.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

remembering a fun marble hornets trans wrights element throwback where i managed to show up for one of their first convention features & while this was ofc already [serious "hmm...Not Cis: me??"] occasions i wasn't yet out or anything like well time to suffer being known & perceived thusly....while i Was out by the same occasion the next year like well here i am again, different name, binder, no plans to give anyone any rundown about this thing, hope it goes smoothly anyways and/or i'm effectively giving a reintroduction anyhow even though i May have been up to more memorable things that last time....no conversations needed to be had, i think i had the impression i was recalled as the same person but it was an entirely chill time, just this as like an early and pretty unique Occasion of like, here's people who know me from In Person (and ig Kind of online, i also don't recall ever like distinctly linking said in person appearance to onlineness lol. it just may also have not been an unsolveable mystery or a mystery at all. but mostly in person, and that's the element i was focusing on anyways) and my showing up transly in person with a whole other name this time as the major difference really lol. like well hope this goes swimmingly....And It Did. and at some point not eons later ya boy tim with some cringe comp sincerety like oh let me make this post somewhere about how an epic element of being a known internet creator is meeting new & various people including explicitly the [mh fans are like exclusively The Gays. and then some unfiction posters] factor & i'm like lol well you're welcome. just doing my part. but fr that was neat like i'm glad to get chill indirect & direct trans validation from internet horror series contributors in that immediate period of coming out & having to sweat it like damn wasn't at this point last time around

[slytherinslut0]

SLYTHERINSLUT0’S RIDDLEMAS

dec 10th. tom riddle — oral sex, experienced!tom.

RIDDLEMAS MASTERLIST. I 2024

summary: your ex couldn’t make you orgasm, so you were certain you were broken. tom shows you just how wrong you are.

warnings: 18+, SMUTTT MDNI, tom riddle can eat me aliv—sorry who tf said that?, tom riddle is such a realist; he sees a problem and he finds a solution, tom is a munch, praise kink, oral f!receiving, experienced tom, hufflepuff!reader.

Months pass, and your project remains the only thing Tom ever prioritizes when it's you asking.

Progress is slow—slow because you're usually far too busy talking to actually focus—yet, he always stays. He listens, even when the things you say should bore him, even when they mean nothing at all. He sits there—giving you hardly the barest scraps of himself in return as you fill the space between you with everything that crosses your mind.

Things he'd never waste a second hearing from anyone else.

And tonight, to no-one's surprise, you're doing it again—rambling on about nothing and everything all at once. You've got this way of talking—weaving tangents into something almost poetic, and usually, he lets it fade into the background as he works. You're saying something about the differences between the seasons, or maybe it's just some other kind of sentimental nonsense—at this point, he's not entirely sure.

It's easy to tune out. He tells himself he's not really listening.

Until—

"Actually, I guess I should clarify that—it's all hypothetical. I don't date," he doesn't know what you said before this, but he's certainly intrigued by it now. "And really, it has nothing to do with like, self esteem or anything, I'm just broken. Best to save someone the trouble."

That stops him cold. It's not so much the declaration that you don't date—he could have guessed that himself—but more so the way you've just called yourself broken.

It's not a word he's ever heard you use before.

"What do you mean, broken?" He asks, the question coming out far more blunt than he probably intended.

It just seems so out of character for you—you've always been an optimist, far too annoyingly positive to speak of anything this way. He blinks when you freeze, and blinks again when a moment of self consciousness seems to pass over your face—and he notes how that's a first for you, too.

"Broken...as in, uh, not normal," your eyes flit down to your lap, tracing the wood beneath where you're seated on the floor in his dorm. "My ex made that very clear in his assessment of me."

The mention of an ex is something he'd been anticipating—you're in your twenties, after all—but it's the idea that your ex is the source of you calling yourself broken, that he can't quite swallow.

"You're 'broken' because of one ex?" He says, and he can't stop how derisive and skeptical his voice sounds. He doesn't care to try. "I'm not following."

"I'm what you'd call, damaged goods, I think," you murmur, and there's an almost self-deprecating smirk on your face. He can't help but think how he's never seen that look on you, either. "I've got a slew of unhealthy baggage that comes along with me. You know, childhood traumas, abandonment issues, daddy issues—"

He snorts at that—daddy issues—and your head snaps up, smirk deepening despite yourself.

"Don't snort at my daddy issues," you huff, and there's a familiar annoyance in your voice that puts him at ease. "They're valid and real."

"I'm not denying their validity," he counters, his own smirk beginning to surface. "But daddy issues? Come on. You're not some tired cliché ripped out of a teenage romance novel. I refuse to accept your declaration of brokenness until you give me factual reasoning."

You laugh at that—alive and genuine—and for a moment, he's reminded of why he even tolerates you in his space at all.

"Fine," you cross your arms over your chest. "What do you want to know then?"

He makes a low, contemplative sound at that—because there's a million questions that come to mind with the words damaged goods—and after a moment, he settles on the one that falls out first.

"What is it, precisely, that makes you broken?"

You sigh, a bit theatrically—he knows you're just putting on a show and he wants to laugh at you for it—but he reigns that in, for now, while you figure out how you're going to respond to that.

The truth is, you don't know how to tell him the real reason you're broken—the part that has nothing to do with the laundry list of emotional baggage you could rattle off with ease. It's something...different.

Something more physical.

"I don't know, okay?" You're getting defensive. You're not sure why but you are. "Just—forget I said anything. We have this assignment to—"

"You dodging the question tells me it's more than just psychological," he cuts you off, leaning back into the couch. The way he's looking at you makes it clear—there's no way he's letting this go. "You getting defensive tells me you're embarrassed by it."

You sigh again, leaning back on your palms to mirror his body language, though it doesn't feel half as natural on you as it does on him.

"And you, being an insufferable arse, is telling me I never should have mentioned it in the first place."

His smirk at that makes you want to glare at him.

"Stop dodging," he says. "You brought it up. You don't get to take it back."

It's a challenge—the gleam in his eyes is practically screaming so. You're not sure why the sight of it makes something low in your stomach clench, and you're even less sure of why you want to tell him something like this—something you haven't told anyone else—not friends, certainly not family.

Whatever the reasoning, you can feel yourself relent.

"Maybe," you pause, the look on his face makes you second guess yourself. "...maybe I don't want to tell you because I'm afraid you'll look at me differently." You glance down at your lap, fingers twitching against the yellow pleats of your skirt before finally meeting his eyes again. "And I kind of like the way you look at me now."

Something like curiosity passes over his expression at that—but it's quickly hidden by the type of skepticism that tells you he still doesn't believe you're being serious.

"You're overthinking it," he replies, unmoving. "Whatever it is you think you're going to tell me, I'm not going to look at you differently. You're still you—no filter, unabashedly verbal—"

"Too verbal. Too positive, too loud," you finish his sentence for him—because you know that's how he thinks of you. "Too annoyingly optimistic. Far too hufflepuff for your cold snake skin. I know."

"Exactly," he says, tongue running over his bottom lip in attempt to quell his smirk. "So I reiterate. There's nothing you could tell me that would change that."

"Fine," you relent, giving in begrudgingly because you know there's no other option. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

He just lifts a hand at that, as if to say; whatever you think it is, I can handle it. The action makes you suck a breath into your lungs, trapping it there.

"You're right," you say after a long exhale. "I have a slew of psychological bullshit that would take the span of a year for me to fully go over in one sitting—but, I'm fine with it. That's...that's not the thing that made me call myself broken."

He says nothing, just makes a motion with his eyes for you to keep going.

"It's, uhm...physical." You whisper, and your brain is moving too much and too fast and you're not even completely sure how to say it without sounding insane. "And...I don't know, I just...I can't orgasm. No matter what. I just can't—it's frustrating and embarrassing and it's the reason my ex ended things."

There's a silence that follows, and he knows if it were anyone else, they'd probably find a way to comfort you. Reassure you. Tom, however, isn't anyone else—

"You're joking," he says, and his tone is incredulous again.

A self-depreciating laugh leaves your lips involuntarily, the sound of it making you almost want to cringe.

"Would it be less embarrassing if I was?"

He's still just watching you, dissecting your words as if waiting for you to crack a smile and confess this was all some stupid joke—and the vulnerability of it aches like a stab to the gut.

"This is the reason you think you're broken?" Is what he goes with when he finally realizes you're being serious. "Because you haven’t orgasmed?"

The bluntness of it makes you flush, makes you wish you could sink into the floor. "I know it's not normal, okay—"

"It's not an abnormality, either," he asserts, with casualty. "You might just have a disconnect."

You blink, caught off guard—not just by his choice of words, but by how matter-of-fact he sounds, like this isn't the mortifying confession it feels like.

"A disconnect?"

"A disconnect," he repeats, looking you over, something clinical slipping into his eyes. "Between mind and body. And considering how loud your thoughts are—"

"Hey—" you snap, suddenly feeling a bit indignant, but he just continues on.

"—it's not surprising that you can't get out of your own head."

You open your mouth to argue, to tell him he's not a therapist, so what the hell does he know? But the certainty in his expression makes you pause. He doesn't look patronizing or condescending, just...assured. Like he knows exactly what he's talking about.

You hesitate, lips parting, a protest forming on your tongue. Before you can say anything, though, he raises a hand to stop you.

"Come here," he says, standing up from the couch.

You blink, trying to decipher what the hell he's implying—because if anything, the last thing that's going to make you less paranoid about intimacy is proximity.

"What?"

He just looks at you, making a motion with two fingers, beckoning you to stand.

"Don't ask questions. Just come here."

It's an order, and it makes your spine tingle in a way that's definitely not comfortable—but you get up from the floor, and move closer to him anyway, closing the distance between you with only a few steps until you're close enough to him that you can practically feel the heat that seems to come off him in waves.

It's weird—he's suddenly too much all at once—you're so much more aware of him being in front of you than you think you've ever been before and it does not help that he's just looking at you—as if studying you—blinking only once as he raises those same two fingers to your neck, resting them against the pulse point at your throat.

Your entire body tenses. His touch is far more gentle than you ever imagined it being, something disarming that makes your pulse beat faster against his fingers as a result—and because this is Tom, with all his smug and certainty—he gives you a look that tells you he can feel it before he slides his fingers up to rest on your forehead.

You scowl at the motion, but he clicks his tongue, the sound as condescending as it is amused.

"I told you, you're an overthinker." He murmurs, eyes dipping to your lips. "Too much noise."

You want to refute that—mostly because you're not overthinking, you can't be—he's just so unequivocally overwhelming—

"I'm not—"

You start, but he moves his fingers from your forehead and places them against your lips—

"Quiet." He scolds, and that makes something low in your stomach clench. "Your body knows what to do. You're just letting your thoughts get in the way."

You long to protest again, just for the sake of defiance—but then his fingers are against your collarbone, and that motion in your stomach becomes a bit more of a squirm—

"Your body is trying to tell you something," he whispers, watching each little hitch in your breath. "But you're too busy talking over it to hear what it's saying."

You realize—with a sort of horror that's laced with something a little more uncomfortable—that he's right. Your body is trying to say something. It's communicating through the unsteady force of your breaths, through the clench of your fists against your skirt—

Of course, he notices. He's noticing far too much.

"Relax," he murmurs, and now he's trailing those same two fingers in an unhurried path down your shoulder. You suddenly regret every decision that led to you wearing a T-shirt. "I'm not going to bite you."

Something about the way he says it makes you wish he wasn't quite so convincing—the familiar banter you long for gone with the sharp exhale that comes out of your mouth as his fingers encircle your wrist—

"Your pulse is racing," he says casually, far too casually for how much effort it's taking you not to scream. "Does that seem broken to you?"

Gods—you want to respond—you really, really do— but your thoughts flatline when you realize his touch has shifted. He's no longer just holding your wrist; he's guiding your hands to rest against his chest, and—

"There you go," he whispers, and the tone of it tells you he knows exactly what it is he's doing to you. "See? Your body's doing exactly what it's meant to do. You—" his fingers trail up your arms, and his voice gets lower. "—are not broken."

You swallow hard, acutely aware of your hands on his chest and the way your palms are clammy against the fabric of his shirt. He's shifting you now, deliberately crowding you, and it's only when you feel the edge of the couch press against the back of your calves that you realize—perhaps a second too late—exactly what it is he's doing.

You stumble back onto the leather, and he follows—crushing his lips to yours.

You gasp, startled, because despite everything you truly hadn't seen this coming. The kiss is messy, clumsy, and his hand finds the nape of your neck, tugging at your hair with just enough force to make it sting. And inevitably, when you gasp again, he takes it as an invitation to work his tongue into your mouth, other hand slipping under your shirt—trailing up your stomach.

You're trembling now, and he makes a low sound at the realization. Your brain is racing to catch up, and the irony of this isn't lost on you—he'd just claimed you weren't broken, but he might as well be destroying you himself.

He parts from your lips only to trail his own across your jaw—

"You're shaking," he murmurs with a smirk against your throat—as if he's taking immense pleasure in the fact—you hate how smug it makes him sound. "Do you want me to stop?"

You want to tell him he's being a bastard, but then his lips press to that spot on your neck—the one that makes your breath hitch and your pulse stutter—and you find yourself whimpering at the sensation.

"No," you breathe, and you'd be embarrassed by the pleading tone in your voice if you weren't so lost in the moment. "Don't stop."

He makes another low, satisfied noise at that.

"Good," he whispers. "No thinking. Just feel."

You swallow—throat dry. It's unfair how easily he's dismantling you with nothing but his mouth and hands. Unfair how he's leaving you breathless and unraveling while somehow making you feel seen in a way you can't explain, even with your eyes shut.

"Tom," you find yourself whimpering, and you aren't even sure what you're asking for—you just know you want more as his lips trail lower—as his fingers work to tug down your skirt. "Gods."

"Shh. Feel me," he murmurs, almost possessively, his lips brushing lower, grazing over your stomach, then your pelvis. "Let your body do the talking."

You've got your hands tangled in his hair before you even know what you're doing, and you hate the fact that you're pretty sure you'd melt into a puddle if he weren't holding you together.

"I feel you," you whimper as he kisses lower. "You're all I feel."

He makes another low sound at that, and you just know it's the response of ‘yeah, that’s right’—but then he's between your legs, panties shifted out of the way, and the first sweep of his tongue against your clit makes all coherent thought shift to static.

"Oh! God," you gasp, the word barely escaping before dissolving into a whimper when he does something with his tongue that makes your vision blur. "Tom—oh, fuck."

He just makes that smug, satisfied noise against you again before his tongue swirls over your clit and you find yourself almost cursing whatever deity made him so good at this, because it's not fair how quickly he reduced you to a whimpering, shaking mess beneath him and—

"Don't stop," you find yourself babbling, digging your nails into his scalp and knowing you look like a goddamn wreck as he makes a meal out of you—tongue lapping up your slick and swirling your clit before sealing his lips around it and forcing your back off the leather beneath it. "Please, don't stop, please—"

It's all you can manage to say. Your thighs are shaking now, and you're sure he's got you dripping all over his face with how soaked you are. He knows you're falling apart and he just keeps going— your brain ceasing function in favour of just focusing on how fucking close you are—how close you are to something you've never felt before in your life—and you're not even sure what you're begging for anymore but it's incoherent and loud—

"I need—" you whimper, your hands tightening in his hair, pulling just enough to make him groan against you. You don't know what you're asking for, but you know he has it. "I need—I need—“

"Let go," he murmurs against you, the roughness in it vibrating up into your belly. "I dare you."

There's still a little bit of you functioning on autopilot, just enough to tell you that when he murmurs those words—vibrations rattling up your cunt and into your chest—you're completely done for.

It’s merely a few seconds later that your high reaches its peak and he just keeps lapping as you shake apart beneath him with an intensity you've never felt before in your life—orgasm shredding you apart at the seams. Your thighs clamp around his face, your eyes squeezed shut, ears ringing so loud you barely register his low, muttered praises: "good girl," "so good," "there you go."

You’re fairly positive your legs will never be able to support you again when you finally come back down, feeling entirely like jelly as he pulls back, tongue flicking over his lips to clean off whatever's left of you.

And without thinking, you grab him and pull him up, crashing your lips against his in a messy, desperate kiss. He tastes like you, like him, like something you can't quite describe—and it makes everything feel intense and unbearably real all at once.

He gives you a moment, as if letting you recover, just languidly kissing you back—and you have to be honest with yourself and admit that this kind of makes you want to scream.

"A disconnect," he smirks against your mouth, the tone still smug. You manage a weak smack to his shoulder, though it does nothing to wipe the satisfaction off his face. "Still sure you're broken?"

You hate that he's right. Hate that he's managed to pull a reaction from you that you didn't think was possible. But as you sit there, shaky and spent, you know you can't deny the truth: no, you're not broken.

"Not broken." You whisper back. "You will be though, if you don't stop smirking at me like that."