what about a shapeshifter who’s bad at it. shapeshifter who can never quite get the nose right. shapeshifter who always makes flipped faces because they’re doing adjustments in the mirror. shapeshifter with same face syndrome. shapeshifter who always dips further into the uncanny valley than they want. shapeshifter who can mimic a single celebrity completely perfectly but struggles to recreate anyone else.
I wonder if it's a self-protective instinct too? They're not going to like me anyway, but at least this is because of something I've deliberately done. It gives him a feeling of control. He might not even be consciously aware that's part of the reason he's doing it.
No, not this time friend! This is Parents and Family. That self awareness is a defense mechanism that he learned as a child and will never fully let go of! 🎉
People noting this anniversary reminding me again that it is such an insane failure of the pro-choice movement that we do not as a nation think of George Tiller as a civil rights hero and additionally a martyr at the level of MLK Jr. or a Kennedy. So, you know, do your part, etc.
“It is my fundamental philosophy that patients are emotionally, mentally, morally, spiritually and physically competent to struggle with complex health issues and come to decisions that are appropriate for them.” – George Tiller, MD
“It is my fundamental philosophy that patients are emotionally, mentally, morally, spiritually and physically competent to struggle with com
Copyright governs who has the "right" to produce and distribute "copies" of books/music/movies/creative works. This is where fair use doctrine applies, because most creative works are referential by nature.
Weird Al is allowed to parody everything because he's operating under copyright law, not trademark law.
Trademark governs who can "trade" under what "mark" i.e. the brand identity of a company. Companies don't own their trademarked word forever, but they maintain the exclusive right to sell things under that brand in their specific market sector. Patagonia doesn't own the name of a geographical region, they just own the right to be the only company using that name to sell clothing and outdoor gear.
A drag queen name can be a parody of a clothing and outdoor gear company.
A company's trademarked logo can be used in parody creative works, with more leeway if it's not for commercial purposes. Trademark parody is allowed! Patagonia has been aware of and allowed Pattie Gonia's trademark parody for years.
Trademarks are specific to market sector. Actress Chase Infiniti could start a makeup line named after herself and her trademark would not infringe on the Infiniti car brand because they are different markets and there is no risk of confusion. Pattie Gonia could probably trademark her name to sell frozen veggie burgers and Patagonia would not care.
Drag queen Jan Sport did a collab with JanSport bags. What Jan Sport almost certainly did not do is independently apply to register "Jan Sport" as a trademark in order to sell bags on her own, because that would infringe on JanSport's own trademark in the bag market sector.
What Pattie Gonia is not allowed to do -- the thing that Pattie Gonia actually did do and is being sued for -- is apply to register "Pattie Gonia" as a trademark to sell clothing, because apparently Pattie is in talks with North Face and HydroFlask to sell "Pattie Gonia"-branded gear. These companies probably won't finalize anything unless Pattie shows that she actually owns the trademark. Unfortunately, "Patagonia" is already a registered trademark in the clothing market sector, and these two names are too similar to exist in the same sector (see: "likelihood of confusion" legal standard).
Your drag queen name can parody a clothing company. You can parody the trademarked logo of a clothing company. But you cannot use the same name to then go on to also become a clothing company.
In order to maintain their own trademark, Patagonia must sue for trademark infringement. If they don't sue, and Pattie Gonia gets her own trademark, Pattie could sue Patagonia for infringement on her trademark. You can see why Patagonia won't be dropping this suit no matter how much you harass them.
Yes, Pattie's legal fees to fight this will cost more than the $1 she's being sued for. Pattie could also not fight this, withdraw her trademark application, not spend any money, and carry on being an environmental activist drag queen named Pattie Gonia. She would probably be better off making nice with Patagonia in the hopes of a Jan Sport-esque deal where Pattie designs an exclusive fabric and Patagonia maintains the trademark, but apparently Pattie's legal team has been sassing off to Patagonia in their communications for years, has applied for a trademark they should 100% know they'll never get, and has now decided to play the victim on social media just in time for Pride month, so I don't know how likely that is. I guess we'll see!
This is mostly correct, but I’d like to offer a small correction. The product deal with Hydroflask and North Face apparently occurred in 2022, and HydroFlask got Patagonia involved to make sure everything was in the clear. It seems like Patagonia was very agreeable about everything at the time, and only asked that Pattie Gonia and her partners avoid using the Patagonia logo and font or similar images, and to avoid putting the words “Pattie Gonia” on any products. This is the email exchange from 2022, from the recent Patagonia trademark complaint, including Pattie Gonia apparently agreeing to the limitations.
The new conflict is from Pattie Gonia using the Patagonia imagery and the Pattie Gonia name on her own merchandise. This is the email Patagonia sent, with the images they feel conflict with the 2022 agreement.
Pattie responded to that by disagreeing that she had broken any agreement, and also obliquely threatening to expose Patagonia for making tactical gear for the US military?
It’s possible that Patagonia understood the terms from 2022 to be a good-faith ongoing agreement about keeping the brands separate, and Pattie interpreted it as an agreement limited to the now-ended North Face and Hydroflask collaboration. It’s also possible that Pattie Gonia didn’t believe she was actually agreeing to anything at all, since her responses were very neutral, though positive in tone, up until 2025. The email chain does, however, show what I think is a very clear effort on Patagonia’s part to protect their trademark while also showing support and goodwill towards Pattie in her use of the Pattie Gonia stage persona.
I love grabbing a power drill and a circular saw and just building shit. If I had an unlimited wood budget I would never stop making stuff. I should've gone into the trades.
You can just be like "I want some shelves" and measure all the different parts of your shelves and then screw them all together at the correct angles and bam. You've got shelves now. You can make cupboards, too. Walls. Tables. Stairs. If you want something in your house you just out the materials in the right place and you have that thing now.
Unfortunately, the materials are very expensive, but you can't have everything.
You don't have to reason with the sewing machine. Just keep your hands out from under the needle. I've never even heard of anyone who was harmed by a sewing machine. If I, who literally cannot see in straight lines, can sew safely, anyone can.
Whatever scares you about a craft will stop scaring you once you learn the basics.
I don't hurt myself on sewing machines I just end up with a nest of tangled threads and broken dreams. I don't think I have ever correctly threaded the bottom part first go. Diagrams do not help. A sewing machine is a beast of broken needles and tangled fragments of cotton snapping under mysterious and seemingly unsolvable tension problems.
If the nest of tangled thread is underneath the fabric, it’s probably the top thread that was threaded incorrectly. Or the bottom was threaded correctly but on the wrong class bobbin. If you’ve got the right top thread and the right bobbin type, you might have a ghost in the machine. Ghosts love tangling threads.
I’ve been rereading Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor the last couple of days, and I adore this book so much. I love Maia. I love Csevet. I love Csethiro (you have got to love a girl whose kneejerk first response to both coup attempts against her unwanted husband was a fervent desire to swordfight the perpetrators, because how dare they). I deeply love Vedero, too. And poor Idra.
On rereading, though, I came across the section near the end where Maia, on his first birthday as Emperor, comes downstairs to the absolutely titanic pile of presents and letters:
---
Maia barely noticed the note of reproach. “But who— who are they all from?”
Thy grammar is atrocious, said that dry, rebarbative voice that was no longer Setheris.
“From everyone, Serenity,” said Isheian.
“We expected the messages from the princes, the Corazhas, Lord Berenar, and the members of Parliament,” said Csevet. “The Marquess Lanthevel has sent you a scholarly book about embroidery. We even expected the emperor-clock from the Clocksmith’s Guild of Zhaö.” He paused, then corrected himself primly: “We should say, we were not surprised they sent a gift. The clock itself is …”
“Surprising,” Esaran said, and Maia was startled to realise that she and Csevet were friends.
“Yes,” Csevet agreed. “But, Serenity, you also have gifts from a number of Barizheisei merchants in Cetho, and from the Trade Association of the Western Ethuveraz. There are messages from mayors and hierophants in every principality. The people of Nelozho have sent you a letter with nearly five hundred signatures, which must be the entire population. The crew of the Radiance of Cairado have sent you a model airship. The families of the crew of the Wisdom of Choharo have sent you message after message. And that doesn’t even begin to account for— Serenity?”
“We don’t understand,” Maia said helplessly, sinking into a chair. “What do they want?”
Csevet frowned. “They want you to have a happy birthday.”
---
And. Leaving aside for a second Maia’s heartbreaking lack of comprehension of the concept of presents and people wanting him to be happy that years in isolation under Setheris has left him. I just want to talk for a second about the gifts themselves?
Because they are, of course, a legacy of Maia’s first few months as Emperor, the people he’s touched and the lives he’s changed. Some of them are political, like the gifts from the Trade Association and the Clocksmith’s Guild, who have been given hope for the first time in decades, if not longer, by Maia’s willingness to listen to them, even if it was partly won by manipulation of a young and uncertain emperor. But Maia did honestly champion them, because he did honestly believe in their ideas and causes, and I think that lends an honesty to the gifts in return as well. Because it’s not empty political posturing, they actually do appreciate Maia.
And it’s such a theme to his gifts. There’s a thread of honesty to them, to how people react to him, and kindness too. That they’re giving back to him what he gave to them.
The rote, dutiful gifts from the various political players to the Emperor were expected. The others, the more honest ones from the people he’s helped, weren’t.
The town of Nelozho, which was mentioned mostly in passing from that first hearing where Maia found his feet as an emperor and fought off his abuse and training under Setheris to realise that he didn’t have to make decisions that would please everyone, he could choose to make decisions that would please no one but would be right. He cut through generations of grudges in that meeting to try and reach a solution for the town, and here we see that his efforts and his willingness to step up to the plate despite years of training otherwise are appreciated. The entire town wrote to him in gratitude.
To say nothing of the families of the crew of the Wisdom of Cairado, who received more care from Maia in the wake of all their losses than any common person has ever personally received from an elvish emperor in … basically ever, I think. He came to the funeral of those who’d died alongside his father and family. It was the first thing he did as emperor. He honoured their grief alongside his own (or ahead of his own, given his complicated relationship with his father, but still). The one single decision has reverberated through his entire reign so far, both happily and more darkly, given the reaction of those who murdered his father.
And they’re all … See, the gifts aren’t just letters of thank you, either. Some of them are more personal.
I love that the crew of the Radiance sent him a model ship. Because that’s not an official present, that’s the crew banding together to send him something. He met them for two hours, when he was still more a shabby exile than an emperor, under truly dreadful circumstances, but he still took time in the middle of that to thank them for the gift of seeing the sunrise from the bridge, and to honour them. “We will remember this always as the beginning of our reign.” It’s not an official present, it’s that crew, those people, being so tickled and delighted that they wanted to send him something personal. A little model ship. Just because he took the time to acknowledge them.
And even the official presents. Marquess Lanthevel sent him a scholarly book on embroidery. Which … is an incredibly astute political gift, so carefully judged, yes, but the message is so kind. Because the first and only thing Maia has ever really showed interest in before his courtiers was that tapestry at the dinner in Lanthevel’s house, because of his mother’s embroidery, and also that conversation revealed how much education and socialisation Maia had been denied due to his father’s absent-minded cruelty. One of the things Maia feels most deeply ashamed of before his court is his lack of education, his ‘stupidity’. So Lanthevel sends him a book, on a subject that Lanthevel knows personally interests him, a subject that’s warm and personal and dear to the heart of the mother he was never allowed to talk about, and it’s a scholarly book. Showing that Lanthevel has trust in his emperor’s intelligence.
These aren’t dutiful gifts. They’re so warm and honest and real, even the ones that are politically expected or that have partly political motivations. They genuinely are …
They’re sent in hopes that he’ll have a happy birthday. Because the people he’s met and touched and championed want him to have one. They like him. They appreciate what he’s done for them. They want to help him and show they appreciate him.
It’s such a tiny little scene that truly shows how much Maia, even in these few months of shame and panic and violence and perceived inadequacy, has done for his people, and how much they saw it and appreciated it. How much it matters to people to even be acknowledged, even if his ability to concretely help them has been limited. How much it matters to know … to just know that the Emperor saw them, and took the time to acknowledge them.
You get back what you give. Hopefully. And he’s given a lot, and people have seen it, and want to do what little they can to give it back. And I love it so much.
This is such a good book. One of my best impulse purchases ever. Heh.
