#it crops up every now and again

[galaxysharks]

Ej was such a big brother to Maddox. Just the pure joy when he saw her having fun, he humors her so much and it means everything.

Imagine Ej's earlier years at the camp:

Jock!Baby!Elton gets sent to Shallow Lake cause camp 'builds character' and Cash can't be bothered to raise his one and only son.

Ej figures he will coast by in the ensemble/security/person who can lift things.

Realizes quickly that all the fun tools and props are locked up to keep unsupervised children away from them, as instructed by the director.

Trys unsuccessfully to charm director because the old man can tell when a kid is helping, and when one just wants access to things that can make fire.

That's when he notices that the weird little tween that only speaks to the director and tinkers with the tech equipment has the only other set of keys.

Que: Operation: get keys to fireworks part 2.

Report: Mission failed because Maddox doesn't understand metaphors for stealing minor explosives and won't break rules anyway. Also never leaves them anywhere, so he can't just take them.

Ej decides to pretend to befriend this girl until she trusts him to have keys, and because he is at this point a proto-Cash, he does this by suggesting she do stereotypical 'camp' behaviors like playing reveille at 7 am, or asking for secrets in the cabins, or any other amount of behaviors that would get her socially eviscerated. He figures most of the camp would follow his lead, so he just needs to play nice for a few days, then they can do whatever while he gets to explode things. Starts calling her Gadget, cause he can't remember her name.

Except Maddox Loves Camp. To her, Ej is rapidly becoming her best friend because he actually wants to be around her, and do the things she loves. Sure Val listens to her, but Maddox's too awkward around pretty girls to have any real conversations, and Ej is even giving her suggestions to make this summer even more like the old movies.

Val pulls Ej aside like: Don't you fucking dare make fun of this child, she's going through things right now..

Ej get 0.001% into this plan and realizes, oh shit she's adorable, I can't let people ruin this for her.

Cue Mr. Elton Jock wholeheartedly throwing himself into every one of these stupid challenges and traditions. Taunting and egging on everyone and generally becoming the helpful kind of menace to society that makes the weird parts of a summer camp seem fun.

The first night the camp serves tacos, and that's awesome, but Maddox tells him it's not usually a great idea to eat twelve of them at once.

Spoiler: she's right. Ej spends a morning dedicated to vomit and pain in the medical cabin. Maddox sits with him and helps him read lines for his different ensemble characters in between laughing at him and dodging Val bringing him more water and crackers.

They are assigned to the same tent in the wooded camp out night, because the director has noticed, and she usually takes a solo tent, which is not a good look for their safety rating.

She's jumping at shadows and hiding as soon as the tale of Susan Fine is over. She knows it's not real, but she's still freaked out by it.

Ej tells her that they're going to make it real, and she won't be scared cause she'll know what 'susan fine' will be doing all night. Maddox is going to be the woman in the woods, he'll be a shrub monster and they can scare people together.

He buys a large pack of twizzlers, some geodes, and candles from the local shop, and they set up the first ever Susan Fine shrine.

They collect a record 11 full screams and 1 full tackle from some kid named Johnny that breaks things alot.

After they've had their fun, Ej and Maddox spend the night making up a dumb camp song. With references to the taco disaster and the scary stories.

They perform at a mid-week talent show, and get a request for an encore at camp prom.

During color wars, Ej notices Maddox was missing, and Val tells him she helps the director set up the fireworks every year, but she'll be back in time for the sing-off.

At this point Ej is having more fun doing the color wars than he would have had stealing the fireworks to begin with.

She saves him a bottle rocket. They launch it later and Ej catches his shorts on fire. once he is put out and in his boxers, Maddox and Val try to find something between them for him to wear. When cleaning Val notices a patch on the inside lining of the burnt shorts 'Elton John Caswell'. Maddox laughs at him and calls him Rocketman.

Most of camp thinks it is because of the bottle rocket, but Val and Maddox know.

Uses his call from winning color wars to tell Cash that he'll take some business courses in school if he gets to come back to camp every year.

[hinamie]

choke you back like fingers

[supreme-leader-stoat]

D'you think the suits at youtube realize that they've created a site so fundamentally hostile to actually watching videos that it's easier to just open videos in private windows than turn off adblock?

[i-really-like-phrogs]

Movie Lydia Re-Draw from Last Year

Here’s an Old Vs. New comparison!

[moe-broey]

Got inspired to revisit this FEH comic redraw I did when it first dropped! Specifically these panels:

Ended up freestyling that second Xane though LMFAOO he is just so impish to me...

If you wanna get Old Art Jumpscared I'll also include the original sketch under cut!

AAAAAAAAA JUMPSACRE AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!

In a way though, I'm glad that I dropped it and picked it up again later... like I feel like this isn't even from that long ago (guy who has no sense of the passage of time voice), but the characterization and even design of Moe is so different. The Scrunch and :< face were game changers for it LMFAOOO (also just making it autisticer 👍)

Beyond that I think everyone looks a lot better and closer to how I envision them, esp Loki!

[dinosaur-mayonnaise]

maybe it’s just the autism talking but i have a weird obsession with reading video game wikis in my spare time. it’s like non fiction fanfic.

[lanliingwang]

on one hand, I genuinely can see why parts of (specifically eng-speaking) mdzs fandom that focus on jgy interpret the "杀父杀兄杀妻杀子杀师杀友" line very literally and speculate on what he means by each one,,,

on the other hand, it's largely through the English translation of the line from what I've seen*, so I...wish that caveat was discussed more tbh,, (also speaking in general too)

[dredshirtroberts]

i have acquired a mystical and powerful ointment (hydrocortisone cream) from the village herbalist (rite aid) to assist with the curse set upon my bloodline from many generations ago (eczema)

[bitchdafuqyousay]

an old friend (maybe older than I thought, but I halfway refuse to believe it)

When I was really little mama would take sissy and I to visit our great grandmother (her dads mom) fairly often at the end of her life. She was bedridden and had in-home care. Everytime we were there she was in one of those hospital beds in the living room. Grandmama wasn't able to make it to her room alone at that point so it was easier for her. More often than not, my papa's sister would be there too while we were.

She lived in an apartment; it was a pretty old one and used to be company housing for the people who worked at the old mill and their families way back a whiles (the mill was built in the 1820s, the apartments cropped up in the 1860s). It was set up like a line; you walked in right into the kitchen which went directly to the living room. You could see straight to the back of it, all the way through to the end of the hallway where the rooms were. As I remember it that hall had five doors: two on the left which were the bathroom and then the master bedroom, then three on the right which were a linen closet, the two bedrooms. The third door on the right was the only one little me cared about. That's the room my friend came out of while we were visiting.

The first fifteen minutes were spent having as many pieces of candy corn mama would allow sissy and I (grandmama always had a full bowl of 'em on the coffee table for some reason) and then sneaking more tiny fistfulls when we thought she wasn't looking and I'd drag out the megablock containers from between the couch and the wall while the adults talked and sissy played on her DS. I'd empty out the containers and start building lil things; towers and cubes and whatnot. I liked mixing up all the colors- didn't care for patterns or monochrome all too much at that age. Then sometime during that, I'd hear that third door creek open then click shut. Followed by fast paced steps. Little clicking heels down the hallway. He was always wearing shoes. I always judged him for that, you ain't supposed to wear shoes in the house, after all. But if grandmama and papa's sister (who I assumed was his mom, she's younger than papa is) didn't say anything then I wasn't gonna say anything, either. Wasn't my house wasn't my house's rules so even though we all took our shoes off I couldn't dictate what my friend did.

Anyways, he'd walk out the hall and make the itty bitty turn to sit next to me and the laid out megablocks. He always looked like he'd just come from church, real fussy, even to me who considered herself something of a princess. Still do, but I digress. It's been a long while since I was at that apartment, since grandmama died and I last saw that boy; but I still remember exactly what he looked like. Skinny, more so than me, with a circle shaped face. Big eyes that were so brown they were almost black and his eyebrows were hidden by thick blunt bangs. His hair was sorta like a bowl cut, but the back didn't hang flat but sorta fluffy. He wore a white button up shirt, light brown shorts that stopped a bit before his knees that were held up by suspenders, knee high white socks, and these brown leather shoes that always let me know when he was coming down the hall even if I'd missed the sound the heavy door made when opening cause of the way they clacked.

He'd scoot closer to look at what I was making, and usually grimace at the lack of organization and start building his own tiny towers- carefully selected blocks and well considered patterns. But no matter what, he always had to have one tower that was completely red. Every block in that six stack tower had to be red; no ifs ands or buts. Sometimes he'd even take blocks from me (brat) if there weren't any free red ones so he could make his tower. Never asked, or spoke at all really, closest he'd get to vocalizing anything were these real small, breathy giggles he'd let out when I'd playfully nudge one of his building, pretending I was gonna knock it over, or when I'd poke him in the side as retribution for taking a red block from me. I didn't care though, that he never spoke, I mean. I didn't either. We never even introduced ourselves, he just sorta started creeping out his (?) room, down the hall, to then come play with me in the living room. I'd just accepted it, I mean hey why not? To little me, the visits were boring. I wasn't quite old enough to really understand what was up. I knew grandmama was sick, I knew that's why we visited her. But beyond that I didn't quite get it. I also knew I was bored, and I felt awkward and shy with my great aunt, my papa's sister, and watching sissy play on her DS was only entertaining for so long. So my new found, small fellow was a very welcome addition to the visits.

So, we sat together, took blocks from the other, and I'd sneak candy corn that he never took when I offered. Guess he didn't like it. Lotta people don't. I ate it mostly cause it was there and also mama didn't let us have sugar super often so it felt exciting to have it.

Couple minutes before we left, before mama even announced we were gonna be heading out, he'd push all the blocks back to me, smiling with pink cheeks. Then he'd get up and walk back down the hallway where'd he'd open that third door and shut it behind him. Mama would tell sissy and I to tell everyone bye and put our shoes on so we could go home. Visit done, see you all later.

Grandmama died, we never went back to the old mill apartments. No reason to, and I haven't seen my great aunt since, obviously haven't seen that boy either. Bit ago mama and I were talking about those visits for some reason or another, don't remember why, and I remembered my playmate again. So I asked her about him. She didn't know who I was talking about. I described him and got a confused stare in return. Explained he'd always hang out in that third room, the last one at the end of hall. The one on the right. A guest bedroom probably, I didn't know. Never went in there. The one with the creaky wooden door.

"There wasn't a third room on that side." She described the apartment layout to me; small, skinny, you could straightshot it. See all the way through it soon as you stepped in. The hall had four rooms off it. Bathroom and master bedroom on the left, linen closet and second bedroom on the right.

And the third, I insist.

"No third. There was four, not five."

My great aunts kid, I stress.

"She didn't have any kids. And the only kids that were there when we visited were you and your sister."

No third room on the right. She didn't have a kid, much less a son my age. Mama says there were never any other kids there while we were there. There weren't even any kids that young on her side of the family at that time. At least none that lived near, none she'd met. None that were at the old mill workers' accommodations while we were. But I played with him, he took stuff right out my hand, he giggled wheezily when I poked him and his shoes went clack clack clack when he walked.

"It was only ever us." Sissy agrees with mama, papa had no idea who I'm talking about. He says there were never any lil boys about when he visited his mother, his sister didn't have kids. He didn't remember me playing with one, only playing by myself.

But he physically took stuff from me. I touched him. I felt him. He'd sit right next to me and scoot real close to lean over and look at what I was making to judge my lack of color coordination. He would breathe on my shoulder. And sometimes we'd hold hands- hands linked between us while our free ones would make little structures. He'd make six stack red towers.

No other kid, everyone still tells me, certainly no boy they all say. No third door on the right. No little shoes clack clack clacking up the hall to play and then back down when it was almost time for me to leave, everyone else who was there insists.

[elsolaer]

i have many thoughts in general but this tidbit from tingyun's voice lines is one of the things i wanna elaborate some more on at some point...

" Every time I head out, I leave a letter behind and lock it in the drawers of my shop. If I come back, then I'll burn it later. If I don't... then it'll be something for others to remember me by."

[sagemoderocklee]

sometimes i think the gaalee fandom has gotten better about gross fetishizing behavior and then other times im like… maybe not

[maskedbyghost]

it’s late, and you’re both curled up in bed, the room completely dark except for the soft glow of the moon peeking through the blinds. you’re lying with your back to simon, his arm draped lazily over your waist, fingers lightly tracing patterns on your skin.

"you ever think about what you’d do if you weren’t a soldier?" you ask, your voice soft in the quiet.

simon doesn’t answer right away, his hand stopping for a moment before continuing its slow, comforting motion. "no," he says finally, his voice a deep rumble in the darkness. "never thought that far ahead."

you smile to yourself, knowing that’s so typically him—always focused on the present, on the mission, never on what comes after. "okay, but what if you had to choose something else? anything at all."

he’s quiet again, like he’s actually considering it, and then he mutters, "maybe a mechanic. or a farmer."

"a farmer?" you ask, trying to hold back a laugh at the thought of simon, the terrifying ghost, tending to crops and chickens.

"yeah," he says, completely serious. "quiet life. away from everything. i’d like that."

you turn to face him now, grinning in the dark. "you? a farmer? with overalls and everything?"

"don’t push it," he grumbles, but you can hear the faint amusement in his tone.

you laugh softly, reaching up to brush your hand across his stubbled jaw. "i think you’d look cute. you’d be grumpy, but in a charming, farmer simon way."

he huffs, but you can feel his body relaxing next to you, the faintest of smiles tugging at his lips. "you’d get bored with me in a week."

"never," you say, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "i’d help you with the chickens. we’d live on a cute little farm with a big garden, and we’d sit on the porch every evening and watch the sunset."

"that sounds nice," he admits, his voice softer now, almost wistful.

you snuggle closer to him, feeling the warmth of his body as he pulls you tighter against him. "see? i think you’ve got the right idea. farmer simon. i’d take that over ghost any day."

he chuckles quietly, the sound vibrating against your skin. "you say that now."

you smile, closing your eyes as his hand moves gently through your hair. "yeah, well, i think i’d like you no matter what."

the silence settles again, but this time, it’s filled with a warmth that makes you feel like you could drift off to sleep any second, wrapped in simon’s arms and the thought of a peaceful life somewhere far away.

and just before you drift off, you hear him murmur, "i’d like that too."

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

something short and sweet before i finish this longer fic i've been working on for a few days :) hope you like ittt

@daydreamerwoah @spicyspicyliving

[dartlekey]

Life update: if things do not go as planned but it's technically still fine, I just have to do a bunch of rescheduling, am I allowed to be grumpy about it? (I know the answer is yes, as long as I don't make it someone else's problem; I'm just being dramatic. Nevertheless - )

[exopelagic]

fun new cold symptom: hallucinating a plant breeding experiment in bed while trying to sleep

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It all started with a mouse

For the public domain, time stopped in 1998, when the Sonny Bono Copyright Act froze copyright expirations for 20 years. In 2019, time started again, with a massive crop of works from 1923 returning to the public domain, free for all to use and adapt:

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

No one is better at conveying the power of the public domain than Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, who run the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain. For years leading up to 2019, the pair published an annual roundup of what we would have gotten from the public domain in a universe where the 1998 Act never passed. Since 2019, they've switched to celebrating what we're actually getting each year. Last year's was a banger:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/20/free-for-2023/#oy-canada

But while there's been moderate excitement at the publicdomainification of "Yes, We Have No Bananas," AA Milne's "Now We Are Six," and Sherlock Holmes, the main event that everyone's anticipated arrives on January 1, 2024, when Mickey Mouse enters the public domain.

The first appearance of Mickey Mouse was in 1928's Steamboat Willie. Disney was critical to the lobbying efforts that extended copyright in 1976 and again in 1998, so much so that the 1998 Act is sometimes called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Disney and its allies were so effective at securing these regulatory gifts that many people doubted that this day would ever come. Surely Disney would secure another retrospective copyright term extension before Jan 1, 2024. I had long arguments with comrades about this – people like Project Gutenberg founder Michael S Hart (RIP) were fatalistically certain the public domain would never come back.

But they were wrong. The public outrage over copyright term extensions came too late to stave off the slow-motion arson of the 1976 and 1998 Acts, but it was sufficient to keep a third extension away from the USA. Canada wasn't so lucky: Justin Trudeau let Trump bully him into taking 20 years' worth of works out of Canada's public domain in the revised NAFTA agreement, making swathes of works by living Canadian authors illegal at the stroke of a pen, in a gift to the distant descendants of long-dead foreign authors.

Now, with Mickey's liberation bare days away, there's a mounting sense of excitement and unease. Will Mickey actually be free? The answer is a resounding YES! (albeit with a few caveats). In a prelude to this year's public domain roundup, Jennifer Jenkins has published a full and delightful guide to The Mouse and IP from Jan 1 on:

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

Disney loves the public domain. Its best-loved works, from The Sorcerer's Apprentice to Sleeping Beauty, Pinnocchio to The Little Mermaid, are gorgeous, thoughtful, and lively reworkings of material from the public domain. Disney loves the public domain – we just wish it would share.

Disney loves copyright's other flexibilities, too, like fair use. Walt told the papers that he took his inspiration for Steamboat Willie from Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, making fair use of their performances to imbue Mickey with his mischief and derring do. Disney loves fair use – we just wish it would share.

Disney loves copyright's limitations. Steamboat Willie was inspired by Buster Keaton's silent film Steamboat Bill (titles aren't copyrightable). Disney loves copyright's limitations – we just wish it would share.

As Jenkins writes, Disney's relationship to copyright is wildly contradictory. It's the poster child for the public domain's power as a source of inspiration for worthy (and profitable) new works. It's also the chief villain in the impoverishment and near-extinction of the public domain. Truly, every pirate wants to be an admiral.

Disney's reliance on – and sabotage of – the public domain is ironic. Jenkins compares it to "an oil company relying on solar power to run its rigs." Come January 1, Disney will have to share.

Now, if you've heard anything about this, you've probably been told that Mickey isn't really entering the public domain. Between trademark claims and later copyrightable elements of Mickey's design, Mickey's status will be too complex to understand. That's totally wrong.

Jenkins illustrates the relationship between these three elements in (what else) a Mickey-shaped Venn diagram. Topline: you can use all the elements of Mickey that are present in Steamboat Willie, along with some elements that were added later, provided that you make it clear that your work isn't affiliated with Disney.

Let's unpack that. The copyrightable status of a character used to be vague and complex, but several high-profile cases have brought clarity to the question. The big one is Les Klinger's case against the Arthur Conan Doyle estate over Sherlock Holmes. That case established that when a character appears in both public domain and copyrighted works, the character is in the public domain, and you are "free to copy story elements from the public domain works":

https://freesherlock.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/klinger-order-on-motion-for-summary-judgment-c.pdf

This case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, who declined to hear it. It's settled law.

So, which parts of Mickey aren't going into the public domain? Elements that came later: white gloves, color. But that doesn't mean you can't add different gloves, or different colorways. The idea of a eyes with pupils is not copyrightable – only the specific eyes that Disney added.

Other later elements that don't qualify for copyright: a squeaky mouse voice, being adorable, doing jaunty dances, etc. These are all generic characteristics of cartoon mice, and they're free for you to use. Jenkins is more cautious on whether you can give your Mickey red shorts. She judges that "a single, bright, primary color for an article of clothing does not meet the copyrightability threshold" but without settled law, you might wanna change the colors.

But what about trademark? For years, Disney has included a clip from Steamboat Willie at the start of each of its films. Many observers characterized this as a bid to create a de facto perpetual copyright, by making Steamboat Willie inescapably associated with products from Disney, weaving an impassable web of trademark tripwires around it.

But trademark doesn't prevent you from using Steamboat Willie. It only prevents you from misleading consumers "into thinking your work is produced or sponsored by Disney." Trademarks don't expire so long as they're in use, but uses that don't create confusion are fair game under trademark.

Copyrights and trademarks can overlap. Mickey Mouse is a copyrighted character, but he's also an indicator that a product or service is associated with Disney. While Mickey's copyright expires in a couple weeks, his trademark doesn't. What happens to an out-of-copyright work that is still a trademark?

Luckily for us, this is also a thoroughly settled case. As in, this question was resolved in a unanimous 2000 Supreme Court ruling, Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox. A live trademark does not extend an expired copyright. As the Supremes said:

[This would] create a species of mutant copyright law that limits the public’s federal right to copy and to use expired copyrights.

This elaborates on the Ninth Circuit's 1996 Maljack Prods v Goodtimes Home Video Corp:

[Trademark][ cannot be used to circumvent copyright law. If material covered by copyright law has passed into the public domain, it cannot then be protected by the Lanham Act without rendering the Copyright Act a nullity.

Despite what you might have heard, there is no ambiguity here. Copyrights can't be extended through trademark. Period. Unanimous Supreme Court Decision. Boom. End of story. Done.

But even so, there are trademark considerations in how you use Steamboat Willie after Jan 1, but these considerations are about protecting the public, not Disney shareholders. Your uses can't be misleading. People who buy or view your Steamboat Willie media or products have to be totally clear that your work comes from you, not Disney.

Avoiding confusion will be very hard for some uses, like plush toys, or short idents at the beginning of feature films. For most uses, though, a prominent disclaimer will suffice. The copyright page for my 2003 debut novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom contains this disclaimer:

This novel is a work of fiction, set in an imagined future. All the characters and events portrayed in this book, including the imagined future of the Magic Kingdom, are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. The Walt Disney Company has not authorized or endorsed this novel.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250196385/downandoutinthemagickingdom

Here's the Ninth Circuit again:

When a public domain work is copied, along with its title, there is little likelihood of confusion when even the most minimal steps are taken to distinguish the publisher of the original from that of the copy. The public is receiving just what it believes it is receiving—the work with which the title has become associated. The public is not only unharmed, it is unconfused.

Trademark has many exceptions. The First Amendment protects your right to use trademarks in expressive ways, for example, to recreate famous paintings with Barbie dolls:

https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/summaries/mattel-walkingmountain-9thcir2003.pdf

And then there's "nominative use": it's not a trademark violation to use a trademark to accurately describe a trademarked thing. "We fix iPhones" is not a trademark violation. Neither is 'Works with HP printers.' This goes double for "expressive" uses of trademarks in new works of art:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_v._Grimaldi

What about "dilution"? Trademark protects a small number of superbrands from uses that "impair the distinctiveness or harm the reputation of the famous mark, even when there is no consumer confusion." Jenkins says that the Mickey silhouette and the current Mickey character designs might be entitled to protection from dilution, but Steamboat Willie doesn't make the cut.

Jenkins closes with a celebration of the public domain's ability to inspire new works, like Disney's Three Musketeers, Disney's Christmas Carol, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Disney's Around the World in 80 Days, Disney's Alice in Wonderland, Disney's Snow White, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Disney's Cinderella, Disney's Little Mermaid, Disney's Pinocchio, Disney's Huck Finn, Disney's Robin Hood, and Disney's Aladdin. These are some of the best-loved films of the past century, and made Disney a leading example of what talented, creative people can do with the public domain.

As of January 1, Disney will start to be an example of what talented, creative people give back to the public domain, joining Dickens, Dumas, Carroll, Verne, de Villeneuve, the Brothers Grimm, Twain, Hugo, Perrault and Collodi.

Public domain day is 17 days away. Creators of all kinds: start your engines!

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/2023/12/15/mouse-liberation-front/#free-mickey

Image: Doo Lee (modified) https://web.law.duke.edu/sites/default/files/images/centers/cspd/pdd2024/mickey/Steamboat-WIllie-Enters-Public-Domain.jpeg

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en