#cut from the Final Product

[dragons-hoard-of-fandoms]

Me surrounded by good content but irritated that there's officially no Season Two

[kirby-the-gorb]

[holypowell]

maybe joseph kosinski knew i wasn’t his strongest soldier

[kaelidascope]

Beauty and the Beest Deleted Act IX Scene is LIVE!

~Shakes taco bell bag of doggy treats~

Okay for those who aren't on my twitter, I ran a brief poll to see if y'all would be mad if I focused more on Midnight Menagerie for a while instead of Beestfic. For the 19 or so people who really wanted Beestfic this week, this deleted scene is for you. Hopefully this will tide y'all over until my motivation for MM dies out LOL

Enjoy a second helping of filth! And also thank you thank you thank you for being cool with letting me work on my other fic for now I really appreciate it ;w;

[mariocki]

Fat Man on a Beach (HTV, 1974)

"I'm going to read some more poems now. Erm. It may be that if you want to go and have a cup of tea, this would be a good time. I know that's what you masses are like. The mention of poetry and off you go."

[opera-ghost]

it really annoyed me that i couldn't find a hardcover copy of the david coward translation so i did what any sane and normal person would do and decided to rebind it myself

[scepterno]

wait did you animate for carmen sandiego?? asking bc I was on the wiki page and when it said that el topo and le chevre were dating it linked to one of your posts

omg haha yes i did. but it wasnt me who confirmed they were dating... i think it was the show runner in an instagram post?

i did animate a lot of them though and trust me

they are dating!

[holdyourcolour]

This is the first time in YEARS I’ve actually had the drive and capacity to write a whole fucking thing from scratch due the next day

[afamiliarsword]

Ah... How I wish to see an MMORPG/Oblivion-like with good art direction *Gazes longingly*

[partyinthemysterymachine]

me @ me "you're supposed to be editing and making it shorter and more concise and not adding a bunch of new paragraphs and words to the damn thing so shut the fuck UUUUUUPPPPPPP" while working on writing the next chapter of goomt challenge

[chrismcshell]

playing with my new virtual pet norman reedus <3

[sanstropfremir]

wait tell me more about your undergrad thesis play you did

ok i can't actually say too many details because it will doxx me (the play was deeply specific to the city i went to undergrad in) but i have to lay some groundwork first:

i did not actually choose to do this play. if given actual agency i would not have done this play, it was a bad play

hilariously, not every design program grad actually got to do a final/thesis show. our program only did three shows a year, which meant that a maximum of 3 students per discipline (set/costume/lighting) got to do a show. and usually it was less that that bc there were graduate students and occasionally a professor stepped in if the student crop was weak (it usually was). this is how you obtained a final show (for set design):

duking it the fuck out in a no holds barred semester long competition IN the set design class where the prof pits you against each other in every critique to see who can design the best show according to the director's specifications.

no i am not joking

i was not particularly enthused by any of the show selections in my graduating year (the season is picked in advance by a committee of staff+directors) but i sure as hell am ambitious so i decided i was gonna do preliminary designs for every show. and also interview to try and get a costume design slot, but the department literally stepped in and told me i couldn't design two shows in a year.

anyways. i go above and beyond building prelim models for these three shows, but again i get sidestepped by the department and told that i can't design more than one show, so i have to pick which one i want to do, so i went with the show that would become my final show bc the director was very adamant about working with me.

the play is a REWRITE of the government inspector by nikolai gogol, and that rewrite is being done by the director herself. the rewrite is set in the literal city that my university is in, part of it revolves around a very famous historical landmark

all of this happens a year in advance to the actual show (second semester of my third year, the show's run dates are late second semester of my fourth year), so i have the entire summer and all of the first semester to tidy up the prelim design and get it approved etc etc. here are a select few of some of the insane stories than happened over the time it took to make this show:

the director does NOT finish the script until about a week before rehearsals start

the director invites me to a 'design meeting' that actually turns out to be a private meal at a very expensive sushi restaurant and possibly the most expensive meal of my entire life. the director treats me to some extremely expensive fish and two bottles of sake, which i drink all of. i should point out that i am 21 at the time and the director is anywhere between the age of 65 and 85, no one actually knows. also the director IS LITERALLY MY PROFESSOR

the director will not decide on what she wants on the floor (has to function as both indoor and outdoor space, the floor is also a nearly 30ft diameter turntable (not my choice) so any patterns HAVE to match a circle) and when we finally settle on a mandala pattern she makes me draw FORTY DIFFERENT MANDALAS over a three week period before she decides on one.

i make the props department order over a thousand dollars of fake plants. it takes up a third of my budget, but they are most of the set pieces 🤷‍♀️

the head of shop somehow gets the actual city council to lend us real actual city lampposts. like real real ones made of aluminium and glass and shit. they get wired up with portable dimmer packs and put on small platforms so they both actually for real light up AND roll around the stage

there's a fuckup with the scenic painting class + the rehearsal schedule (the rehearsals are running behind and there are not enough scenic painters) so the mandala painting has to happen in only two days AFTER 10pm. i end up painting most of the mandala myself in those two overnight shifts that go until 4am

oh and there's also a fuckup with the new set design prof that's coming in so i'm literally left without a supervisor for an entire semester while the show is in pre production.

[foldingfittedsheets]

The mattress company I worked for the first time no longer exists. It was long ago eaten and assimilated by a bigger company. But when I started it was an incredibly intense five weeks of training. I was told I was extremely lucky to be selected, and I was. From a pool of a hundred applicants only fifteen of us made the cut to entering the training program.

The course covered how to talk to customers, how to ask open ended questions, how to close a sale, and product knowledge. I learned a lot, and truthfully my greatest takeaway was a lot of social scripts that I could use in other areas of my life.

We also had a midterm exam and a final. Both included a roleplay element with a trainer and a written portion. They told us when we started that the course was challenging but it was still a shock to come in after the midterm and realize half the class had failed.

I was named valedictorian of training- a dubious honor as it meant I’d done the best in the class, but popular lore had it that valedictorians struggled the most on the sales floor. Lo, I struggled.

Not because I wasn’t good. I was. But because my manager set out to systematically destroy my self esteem. Every sale, every interaction I had was scrutinized and criticized.

If I sold a bed with protectors, moveable base, and pillows he’d ask why I hadn’t managed to sell pillow protectors too. His first trainee had thrived on being challenged and he’d never bothered to learn a different way to coach.

It was wretched. My performance started strong but nosedived after a few weeks with him. My trainer, a man I loathed for stonewalling me in my interview, came in to inform me I was on new hire probation. If I couldn’t get my sales numbers up I’d be let go.

His actual phrasing was, “When you have a bandaid do you like to rip it off or pull it slowly?”

Since it was eminently obvious why he was visiting and because I thought it was condescending I sweetly informed him that I liked to soak my bandaids in hot water so they come off on their own.

He was briefly startled at this derailing but then got on with the bad news. I signed some forms stating that I understood my job was in peril.

I went home furious. I thought long and hard about why I wasn’t succeeding and how frustrated I was with my manager. I came in the next day and my anger had crystallized into a cold sharp edge.

My manager opened his mouth to address the probation and I snapped, “Just leave me alone. Go in the back if I have a sale. If you must address a serious issue then you will give me praise on two things I did right and present it as a compliment sandwich. Otherwise just say good job and shut up. Your constant nitpicking just makes me anxious and I do worse. Back off.” Belated and begrudging I added, “Please.”

He raised his eyebrows in dim surprise but I’d gauged him well. He backed off. Dutifully he’d meander into the back when I had a sale and praised me when I closed it. I resented knowing it was only because I’d demanded complimented but they still boosted me up. My numbers skyrocketed, I landed my first split king sale, and I exited probation with flying colors.

The trainer came back in to congratulate my manager for turning things around. To my gratification he gave me credit for setting him straight and said I’d taught him a different way to lead. My manager would often genuinely praise that moment when I’d stood up to him, impressed with my stubborn refusal to fail and my insight into what would help.

My biggest takeaway from the whole thing was just that people need positive reinforcement to succeed. Praise people for doing a good job. If you’re ever in a position where you need to criticize someone put it in a compliment sandwich instead of just saying the negative.

[thymewayster]

Really good Twitter thread originally about Elon Musk and Twitter, but also applies to Netflix and a lot of other corporations.

Full thread. Text transcription under cut.

John Bull @garius

One of the things I occasionally get paid to do by companies/execs is to tell them why everything seemed to SUDDENLY go wrong, and subs/readers dropped like a stone. So, with everything going on at Twitter rn, time for a thread about the Trust Thermocline /1

So: what's a thermocline?

Well large bodies of water are made of layers of differing temperatures. Like a layer cake. The top bit is where all the the waves happen and has a gradually decreasing temperature. Then SUDDENLY there's a point where it gets super-cold.

That suddenly is important. There's reasons for it (Science!) but it's just a good metaphor. Indeed you may also be interested in the "Thermocline of Truth" which a project management term for how things on a RAG board all suddenly go from amber to red.

But I digress. The Trust Thermocline is something that, over (many) years of digital, I have seen both digital and regular content publishers hit time and time again. Despite warnings (at least when I've worked there). And it has a similar effect. You have lots of users then suddenly... nope. And this does effect print publications as much as trendy digital media companies. They'll be flying along making loads of money, with lots of users/readers, rolling out new products that get bought. Or events. Or Sub-brands.

And then SUDDENLY those people just abandon them. Often it's not even to "new" competitor products, but stuff they thought were already not a threat. Nor is there lots of obvious dissatisfaction reported from sales and marketing (other than general grumbling). Nor is it a general drift away, it's just a sudden big slide. So why does this happen? As I explain to these people and places, it's because they breached the Trust Thermocline.

I ask them if they'd been increasing prices. Changed service offerings. Modified the product.

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid" Then I ask if they did that the year before. Did they increase prices last year? Change the offering? Modify the product?

Again: "yes, but not much."

The answer is normally: "yes, but not much. And everyone still paid." "And the year before?"

"Yes but not much. And everyone still paid."

Well, you get the idea. And here is where the Trust Thermocline kicks in. Because too many people see service use as always following an arc. They think that as long as usage is ticking up, they can do what they like to cost and product.

And (critically) that they can just react when the curve flattens But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.

Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that. But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it. At this point, I normally get asked something like:

"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"

And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.

Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.

[aemondfairy]

The Albatross

summary: Originally an unlikely match, you give birth to Aegon’s first child and his entire world changes.

pairing: Aegon x Strong!Reader

word count: 767

warnings: Description of pain & childbirth, brief mention of blood, guilt.

note: “Albatross” is used metaphorically as a psychological burden dealing with shame or guilt! (and shout out to Taylor Swift)

Aegon wanted to hate you. He wanted to hate your hair and your eyes. Your thick eyelashes, the freckles that dusted your cheeks, the way your nose scrunched when you laughed. Despite wanting to hate you in your entirety, he found himself physically incapable of doing so. As a young boy he refused to admit it, even going so far as to tease you for your features — but he thought you were beautiful. If anything, you could’ve resembled his mother more than a Targaryen.

It wasn’t your features that were wrong, but who you inherited them from; you and your brother’s served as living, breathing reminders of Rhaenyra’s infidelity.

Alicent Hightower had been sure to remind him and his siblings that you and your brothers were a product of their older sister's infidelity. An embarrassment to the family. An insult to the crown, to the realm. Abominations. Bastards.

Screams of pain shook the walls of the Red Keep.

“I can’t do this anymore, Aegon! Please make it stop, it hurts!” you rasped, clawing at the blood-soaked bedsheets. It had been almost 24 hours since your labors had begun. To everyone's surprise, Aegon had yet to leave your side.

“We’re almost there, my love. You’re doing a great job,” your husband encouraged as he placed a chaste kiss to your sweat-drenched forehead, which you only returned with a death glare.

“I cannot take it anymore! Just get it out! Cut it out if you have to!”

One of your handmaids tried to dab at your forehead with a cloth, but you gripped her hand forcefully.

Aegon gave her a sympathetic look as he got her out of your grasp, locking his fingers with yours.

“You know we can’t do that, my love. I will not risk losing you.”

You winced as your midwife slid a finger around the base of your opening. All day long you had been violated against your will. Childbirth was not only painful, but humiliating. For Aegon’s sake, you silently prayed the babe was a boy. You weren’t sure if you would be willing to go through this again.

“I can feel the head, your grace. Just a few more big pushes for me and the babe will be here.”

You groaned loudly, your teeth grinding together as another contraction wracked your frame. Pain radiated down your spine and into your groin. You felt like you were being ripped apart at the seams. Being eaten by Sunfyre seemed to be a more pleasant fate than this.

“You hear that? You’re almost done. You’re doing so good.”

You squeezed onto Aegon’s hand as hard as you could, pushing with all the strength in your body. The harder you pushed, the sooner it would be over. You needed it to be over. With a final push, your vision began to blur and your mind went blank.

Before you knew it, loud cries pulled you back to Earth, and coo’s from your handmaidens filled the room. You laid back with a sigh of relief.

Finally.

The handmaids quickly handed the babe to Aegon so you could get cleaned up.

“A girl,” she stated proudly, “and she looks just like you, my queen.”

“Like me?” You shot up.

“Lay back your grace, you need to relax,” she scolded you.

Throughout your pregnancy there was a fear in the back of your mind, that if the babe inherited your features that Aegon would be disappointed. Turns out, you couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Yes,” he chuckled, tears swelling in his eyes, “like you. She is absolutely beautiful.”

He placed the baby in your arms, smiling down at the two of you.

A wave of guilt had crashed over Aegon at the sight of his newborn daughter. As well as your initial reaction to her looks. Thinking about the torment you endured for those same features in a world full of violet eyes and snow-white hair. How could he have been so cruel to you for something so fickle?

He couldn’t help but think about Ser Harwin Strong. And the fact that he probably shared the same thoughts as him the first time he laid eyes on you as a babe. This baby was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and the thought of anyone making her believe anything else made his blood boil. He would simply not allow it. Anyone who even dare whisper a word regarding your daughters features would lose their tongue for it.

Although the responsibility of sitting the Iron Throne loomed heavy over Aegon’s head it wasn’t until this very moment that he had true reason to be motivated to rule: his new family

[batboyblog]

Copy Right and Public Domain in 2024

Happy 2024 all! its also Public Domain Day! a magical holiday here in America where things enter the public domain. Works published in the year 1928 (or 95 years ago!) have entered the public domain, which means they belong to us, all of us, the public!

Mickey's Back!

Yes! I'm sure you've heard, but Mickey Mouse (and Minnie Mouse too) is entering the Public Domain today. This has been news for a few years and indeed Disney's lobbying in the late 1990s is why our copy right term is SO long. So what exactly is now public domain?

Most people know about Mickey's first appearance Steamboat Willie, but a second short film, Plane Crazy was also released in 1928 so will also be public domain. So what's public? well these two films first of all, you're allowed to play them, upload them to YouTube or whatever without paying Disney. In theory you'll be allowed to cut and sample them, have them playing in the background of your movie etc. Likewise in theory the image of Mickey and Minnie as they appear (thats important) in these films will be free to use as well as Mickey's character as he appears in these works will be free to use. Now Mickey's later and more famous appearance

will still be protected. Famously the Conan Doyle Estate claimed that Sherlock Holmes couldn't be nice, smile, or not hate women in works because they still held the copyright on the short stories where he first did those things even though 90% of Sherlock Holmes stories were public domain. It's very likely Disney will assert similar claims over Mickey, claiming much of his personality first appeared in works still copyrighted.

Finally there's copyright vs trademark. Copyright is total ownership of a piece of media and all the ideas that appear in it, copyright has a limited set term and expires. Trademark is more limited and only applies to things used to market and sell a product. You can have a Coke branded vending machine in your movie if you want, but it couldn't appear anywhere in the trailer for your movie as thats you marketing your movie.

Where trademark ends and copyright begins and how trademarked something in the public domain is allowed to be are all unsettled areas of law and clearly Disney in the last few years as been aggressively pushing its trademark not just to Mickey in general but Steamboat Willie Mickey in particular

Ultimately the legal rights and wrongs of this might not matter so much since few people have the money and legal resources of the Walt Disney corporation so they might manage to maintain a de facto copyright on Mickey through legal intimidation, but maybe not?

And Tigger Too!

All the talk about Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie has sadly overshadowed other MAJOR things entering the public domain today. Most people are aware Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, but they might not realize his beloved friend Tigger didn't. Thats because Tigger didn't appear till A. A. Milne's second (and last) book of Pooh short stories, The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.

Much like Mickey Mouse only what appears in The House at Pooh Corner is public domain so the orange bouncy boy from the 1960s Disney cartoon is still on lock down. But the A. A. Milne original as illustrated by E. H. Shepard is free for you to use in fiction or art. His friend Winnie the Pooh has made a number of appearances since being freed, most notably in a horror movie, but also a Mint Mobile commercial so maybe Tigger too will have a lot of luck in the public domain.

Other works:

Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

Peter Pan is a strange case, even though the play was first mounted in 1904, and the novelization (Peter and Wendy) was published in 1911, The script for the play was not published till 1928 (confusing!) meaning while the novel as been public domain for years the play (which came first) hasn't been, but now it is and people are welcome to mount productions of it.

Millions of Cats

The oldest picture book still in print, did you own a copy growing up? (I did)

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The iconic porn novel that was at the center of a number of groundbreaking obscenity cases in the 1960s and helped establish your right to free speech.

All Quiet on the Western Front and The Threepenny Opera in their original German (but you can translate them if you want), The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, and Orlando by Virginia Woolf will also be joining us in the public domain along with any and all plays, novels, and books published in 1928

for Films we have The Man Who Laughs who's iconic image inspired the Joker

Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, Should Married Men Go Home? the first Laurel and Hardy movie, Lights of New York the first "all talking" movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Wind, as well as The Last Command and Street Angel the first films to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively will all be entering public domain

For Musical Compositions (more on that in a moment) we've got

Mack the Knife by Bertolt Brecht, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) by Cole Porter, Sonny Boy by George Gard DeSylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, Empty Bed Blues by J. C. Johnson, and Makin’ Whoopee! by Gus Khan are some of the notables but any piece of music published in 1928 is covered

Any art work published in 1928, which might include works by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexej von Jawlensky, Edward Hopper, and André Kertész will enter the public domain, we are sure those that M. C. Escher's Tower of Babel will be in the public domain

Swan Song, Public Domain and recorded music

While most things are covered by the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, none of the copyright acts covered recordings you see when American copyright law was first written recordings did not exist and so through its many amendings no one fixed this problem, movies were treated like plays and artwork, but recorded sound wasn't covered by any federal law. So all sound recordings from before 1972 were governed by a confusing mess of state level laws making it basically impossible to say what was public and what was under copyright. In 2017 Congress managed to do something right and passed the Music Modernization Act. Under the act all recordings from 1922 and before would enter the public domain in 2022. After taking a break for 2023, all sound recordings made in 1923 have entered the public domain today on January 1st 2024, these include.

Charleston by James P. Johnson

Yes! We Have No Bananas (recorded by a lot artists that year)

Who’s Sorry Now by Lewis James

Down Hearted Blues by Bessie Smith

Lawdy, Lawdy Blues by Ida Cox

Southern Blues and Moonshine Blues by Ma Rainey

That American Boy of Mine and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra

Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring Louis Armstrong

Bambalina by Ray Miller Orchestra

Swingin’ Down the Lane by Isham Jones Orchestra

Enjoy your public domain works!