#ive thought this for a while but this post was specifically spurred on by all those feelings have to go (the song) lol

[freakinator]

lowkey insane how many ppl keep trying to fix princezam, incredibly magnetic guy but specifically for certain types of ppl ill call helpers, enablers, and hunters

helpers see an idealized version of him and think they can somehow make it come to fruition so they take care of him and make him feel better in order to make it happen but really theyre only shooting themselves in the foot cause zam doesnt take well to ppl who dont see him the way he presents himself as

the enablers accept him for what he is and would sometimes even go out of their way to protect that but if that means he starts spiralling then theyre fine with that cause its still fully himself even if hes getting unwound

and then there are the hunters who just like his reactions, they accept his image but they want to be the ones who bring it out and to test it to its extremes

printham i need to study you how does this keep happening, mental illness begets mental illness is my only guess

heres two charts of where i Think certain members fall on the spectrum, made with the help of a friend

im not sure with all of them ngl but esp spoke and planet bruhs manipulate zam too much i cant tell where theyre actually placed, also vi is so complicated and for what

[moonshynecybin]

Can't decide on a specific scene but i'll take anything you have to say about i'll meet judgement by the hounds bc at this point i have re-read it so many times ...

the thing about ill meet judgement by the hounds is that literally no concrete planning went into writing that thing. i was up against a deadline for a grad school assignment i was procrastinating like NOBODY'S BUSINESS had two panic attacks that week (unrelated to school!!) and then flew to bath with my roommate spur of the moment. posted that ch2 late at night zooted on my anxiety meds and and woke up to some LOVELY messages that i read on a bus when i was pulling away from the airport. insane experience. i didnt even want to give it a chapter two right away i was like IM BUSY. and then i wrote it immediately.

BUT to actually talk about the fic. like you asked <3. i actually had this idea that i wanted to follow marc's pov (at that point i had only written vale) and get inside his insane headspace leading up to his arm surgery and then be like. wouldnt it be crazy if vale was there and wanted to reconcile a bit but he was also kind of avoiding SAYING THAT. wouldnt that make marc feel EVEN CRAZIER. marc marquez saw trap simulator. inside you there are two wounds one is valentino rossi and the other is your fucked up arm. anddddd 2022 seemed like the ideal place for a rosquez reunion to me! like. dramaturgically. marc is on the brink. vale has just retired (easy to get a reason for him to have an epiphany regarding marc, made even easier bc marc pov means i never have to explain it in depth !)

and the thing about this fic is that it was supposed to be. A LOT longer. go race by race until his surgery and have them talk a lot more. change a little more gradually. but uh. ive already said my life was insane at that time and i got excited and fucking SENT that badboy. (again. i was lightly tranquilized.) which i think MOSTLY makes it better but the pacing is still little wacky. anyways i do think of the scene i cut where marc talks to alex all the time but i think i also fully deleted it! dont write fic under the influence! i also cut a BIG scene of them at the french GP where vale brings marc a sandwich and makes him eat it. it should also be noted that i was doing SO much journalism research about this period and i found a bunch of WILD quotes from marc that i compiled into a small insane vision board of them to ground my fic in his crazy way of conceptualizing his life. that i apparently also deleted while zen-ed out. so

more stupid behind the scenes under the cut

actual plot summary (my "outline") that i wrote out at the top of my google doc complete with typo:

Thinking about how absolutely distressing it would be for Marc pre surgery or right after if Vale tried to reconcile. Early 2022 before surgery decision and post Vale retirement

Scenes of Vale like. earnestl y talking to him. Marc represses a panic attack every time. race by race?

and here's what i had written for aragon, which is full of lines i just thought of with NO context or structure like this part would NOT take off the ground. you might notice some of them get repurposed later in the fic:

III. French GP, 2022. P6.

Marc’s still not out of the habit of reaching for him, apparently. He looks— God. Marc’s head hurts just looking at him. He could swear he has defenses from this, from how Marc can feel where he is in every room they’re in together. He guesses somewhere in the last few weeks he’s lost them, again. Just another thing he used to be good at.

despite everything, Marc can feel himself relax, with Vale here. The warm heat of him sharing space. He used to feel like this all the time. Vale to his left. His arm, casual and pain free, on his right. Now he's scarred all the way down both sides.

He remembers when he was a kid and he met Vale. How he had winked at Marc and said, I'll look out for you, cradling the toy car that Marc had brought specifically to give to him in his hands. How Marc had turned it over in his brain for years. I'll look out for you.

Marc bargains with himself

Marc does stupid, stupid things when Vale is in his life. He knows this. Going to the ranch is a bad idea. the press alone, if anyone finds out, would feed the paddock journos for years. It would be stupid— risky

Someone needs to tell him not to race. calm him down. Usually, it’s Álex. 

MORE OUTLINE: Vale brings him a sandwich and Marc wants to cry, terrible race. They watch a movie its very Valentino voice lemme take care of you !!! but no talking about their past lmao. maybe arm

Genuinely terrible race. That one stat about alwasy finishing top 5 or crashing. Vale like actually gets him to talk about his arm which gets no where fast (guest alex?) and riding misery begins to reach a tipping point

[ectonurites]

can anybody please explain the appeal of tim drake because ive been into the batfamily for a while now and tbh im really confused on why people like his character so much compared to the other robins. like they all have their own thing going on and he just... doesnt?

Have you read his Robin solo? Because if not and you want to try to like him but just don’t understand why people do, that’s what I’d recommend. That and like, Young Justice 1998. 

Because Tim definitely... does have his own thing going on. Maybe not in the same way as the others, but like, there’s a reason he has a 183 issue long solo comic that ran for like 16 years: he was fun to read about!

But I will give some more specific thoughts on the subject as a Tim Drake Appreciator™ (this got long im sorry)

The appeal of Tim (especially early on Tim) is kinda the fact that he’s this more normal kid. For a while that is his ‘thing’. He was basically designed to be a self-insert (he definitely became more than that along the way, but from the start he was meant to be relatable) in a different way than how Dick and Jason had been before him. 

Like the role of Robin from the start was this way to create a character young readers could identify with more, could see themselves in more. And Dick and Jason did that, but they still had this element to their lives and stories that was more... unattainable for the average reader. Dick was a circus prodigy, Jason was either also a circus prodigy if we remember pre-crisis or if we go with his post-crisis story he’s this street-wise orphaned kid who had a really tough life but still went on to be a hero anyways. Obviously those lives are relatable for some people, but those’re definitely not as broadly recognized as common upbringings especially not by DC trying to market to the ‘average’ kid/young teen.

But the creation of Tim changed the game a bit. Dick and Jason were these aspirations a kid could look to like ‘wow I want to be cool like that!’ but Tim was a Robin designed for kids to look at and go ‘wow, his problems and civilian life are just like mine AND he’s a hero, I want to be cool like that!’, ya know? Tim was... just a clever kid with an average life who managed to connect some dots and had enough drive to want to fix things he saw were a problem, he didn’t have the same kind of heightened drama backstory the others did. The Robins that came after Tim definitely didn’t have this idea of relatability in mind the same way either. Unfortunately Steph’s time as Robin was much more of a marketing ploy than an actual like... decision to make her Robin, so it’s hard to really fit her into this conversation. But Damian from the start was first of all initially created not to be Robin but just as the son of Talia and Bruce back in the 80’s, but when he was later reimagined into the character that would become Robin he had the whole ‘raised by and is the heir to the league of assassins and is the son of batman’ thing going on still. He just was not supposed to be relatable that same way, he was a character designed with different things in mind.

I really think it was more just DC’s 90′s era younger-audience comics in general that tried to push that relatability thing (like in YJ how Cissie even after quitting the team stays a major character as a civilian throughout, and the civilian aspect that’s super present in Bart’s 90s solo too, etc), but later in the 2000’s that idea was definitely pushed to the side in favor of... putting in even more dramatic superhero-y stuff.

And the other thing that’s... such a more normal thing but it actually made him unique here, was that Tim’s dad was still alive until like 2004 (so 15 years into Tim being around as a character). This gave Tim a lot more typical ‘family school girlfriends normal life etc’ problems on top of/in contrast with his superhero problems. These just manifested in very different ways than they could with the other Robins because of that unique situation with a living civilian parent who doesn’t know about hero stuff (until he did find out which lead to that whole Unmasked thing, but there was only the brief time around War Games & Identity Crisis where Jack knew Tim was actively Robin and he was... still alive) Tim also had his life at school expanded way more than most other Robins, like, he had such an extended supporting cast of civilian friends which is a really interesting thing to read about (and the fact that he hasn’t had that stuff since the New 52 I think really hurts his character)

And then related to that loss of his dad... Personally another thing about Tim that really interests me is how a lot of things were more... his choice. if that makes sense. A lot of characters in the Batfamily were struck with tragedy/extreme trauma before they became heroes and that’s what spurred them into this life of becoming heroes. Tim’s situation wasn’t like that at all! When he first got involved in everything during Lonely Place of Dying, the only tragedy he’d experienced was watching Dick’s tragedy happen. Which sure yes traumatic obviously, but that’s not the same as how pretty much all the other Bats had gone through these very personal losses or other sorts of very first-hand personal traumas that served as motivators. Tim didn’t start to experience those things until after he got involved in the hero life, and aside from his Mom’s death which was more of just an unrelated incident (that technically happened before he was officially Robin but it was during his time training to become Robin), pretty much all these other tragedies and things... would not have happened or been experienced by him had he not become Robin. 

That’s not me placing blame on him or anything like that, because god no that’s not how that works, but it’s very interesting because from his point of view he definitely feels that guilt because he knows him being Robin played a role in a lot of it (Thinking specifically about in Adventure Comics #3 when Kon even says “I know what guilt does to you” to him like it’s... it’s a thing with him!). His dad was murdered because he was Robin. He only met Steph and started dating her through being Robin, and thus he would not have experienced the loss of his girlfriend dying like that had he not been Robin. Tim met both Conner and Bart through being Robin, and would not have had a personal connection to them when they died otherwise. The whole Bruce’s death thing after Final Crisis, like. I could go on honestly, that was only talking about losses not even his own experiences nearly getting killed, but yeah, all these personal tragedies were experienced by him specifically because he chose to bring himself into this life, which I think in turn plays into how throughout his comics you see him go from having this really optimistic view on things and being really hopeful to seeing him at that low point he reaches by the time of Red Robin. (thinking about that one post that points out how Tim started out in the 90′s as an optimist and Steph a cynic and by the time they were Red Robin and Batgirl in 2009 they had switched outlooks...) 

I also think that him having had such a great team book with the original Young Justice can help contribute to people liking him. His friendships with the rest of the core four and that team in general are really compelling. (and that’s something like again when looking at the other Robins, while Dick had the Titans ofc, Jason never really found footing with a team outside of like one mission with the Titans and then We All Know How Damian’s Teen Titans Stuff Went. Steph also only ever really worked with a team outside the batfam on very brief occasions) and even though I’m not as big of a fan of the 2003 Teen Titans run that came after YJ, people who read Young Justice and also that could follow and be attached to those same characters over a pretty decently long period of time. 

Idk man, I don’t really have an ultimate point here i’m just rambling. I can definitely understand not seeing the appeal to him right away (honestly i’ve been into Batfam since like 2013/2014 and Tim did not become one of my faves until 2020) especially if like... idk when you say ‘into the batfamily’ that can mean a lot of different things. If you’re reading more like the bigger events with the batfam sure Tim can kinda fade into the bg a bit, if you’re more talking about fanon the fanon version of him is prettyyyyy uhhhhh not really the same as how he was in pre New 52 canon, if you’re mainly reading New 52 era Batfam stuff then that Tim I also don’t understand the appeal of bc thats Not My Boy, if you’re interested in a different member primarily and only familiar with Tim when he shows up in things focused on that other character then it’s easy to not really understand the appeal right away bc he’s more there to support that character rather than shine in his own right. 

I think it’s also worth mentioning he’s just not everybody’s cup of tea, and that’s totally fine. Like, these are fictional characters and sometimes you just will vibe with a character and sometimes you won’t! idk if this helped at all or even made sense. but yeah. I just think he’s neat 😌

[radiovisual]

(( quick, post the introspective baby thoughts before all the mutuals wake up--

(( honestly like... im gonna try not to get Into it bc this post is abt my Alastor, but to preface, i just gotta say. The way fandom usually tends to approach the concept of canon characters having Babies has always Severely weirded me out, and i only recently figured out Why, and how exactly to put it into words.

(( its by no means a bad thing--its just fictional fun, i know!--but the portrayal of pregnancy and surprise children always being a very "oh no, look at this pregnancy test! Im PrEgNaNt, this is a travesty! I HAVE to keep it though, because everyone else wants me to so we can have a little tiny version of me to dote on a get into shenanigans about heehee haha!" Is... frustrating. To say the least.

(( and its... important to me, that You all know that when i talk about my alastor having kids, or wanting kids, that that's not the way I look at it. Thats not at all the way i envision it, or look at it. In another case of me being Classic Lil Old Me, a lot of these feelings i give Alastor are me projecting my own experiences with the topic on him, and me taking the opportunity to live them vicariously.

(( Alastor looked up to his mother, and by extension, his aunts and grandmother so, so much. Growing up he saw them all go through a lot of hardship, and still doing what they could to take care of their children, to keep them happy and safe, and to help them feel free and boundless--like they could go out in the world and do anything they could dream of. And he also saw mothers who clearly weren't ready to be mothers. Women who resented their children, and often only coasted by giving them the bare minimum, or were downright cruel to them. These experiences in his childhood were very formative for him as a person, and they sculpted his feelings on the prospect of having children quite a bit--in having seen both the best and the worse, he made the conscious choice that when he had children one day (never if--always w h e n), he would take these lessons he learned from watching others, and that he would use them to do his damndest to give his child the best, happiest childhood possible.

(( the main reason he never got around to it was because he was so apprehensive around men--particularly the ones stemmed from how his father was. His primary source of information on how fathers were was in his own--a man who was inexplicably possessive, volatile, and unforgiving, who expected to have total control over the lives of both the mother and child at all times, regardless of marital, living, or financial status. He expected everything to belong to him simply by virtue of having added a single ingredient to the family pot. And while they were less drastic or important in his formation of these feelings, Alastor noticed a watered down version of this mentality in pretty much every adult man he met in his entire life--and it didnt sit well with him in the slightest.

(( an overbearing, abusive father who refuses to back off would throw a major wrench in his plans to give his child a worry-free life, as you can imagine. As would financial troubles--though he would admit, choosing to pursue a career over family was moreso an excuse to keep his mind of his father anxieties--and the fact that he was just too nervous to try to find a solution to that problem.

(( and then he died. And he never got the chance to go through with any of his plans. That lost opportunity, that grief over wasting his chance, was another othe the puzzle pieces in the collage of grievances the spurred his explosive reaction to arriving in hell, and the destruction and ruin that followed.

(( he doesn't know it, but because ive decided to go through with making him half hellborn, ive also decided that he does have the potential to get pregnant still--just to sooth my own aching heart. Even if it never happens on this blog, just the potential being there makes me happy. And should be ever find out--he'd be very happy too. And far more eager to actually pursue that wish of his, likely without much thought to how being in Hell will complicate matters and make his goal that much harder to achieve.

((If it happened, whether or not hed regret it would depend quite a bit on the specifics of the situation--but that regret would always be for failing to think it through, and forcing his innocent child to live a life condemned without any way out. Not for realizing he didnt really want children. He's spent his whole life thinking about it. Hed never expect it to be easy, and he believes that fact is important to the experience--and perhaps indeed even the point. That he should be able to handle all of the bad things, so that his child wont be the one suffering through them.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

9x07: Details

Okay, let's talk about details.

***As always, spoilers abound for 9x07. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!!!***

Rosita/Eugene

I talked yesterday about Rosita running out in the woods alone about how we didn't see where she left Eugene behind. I'll talk about this more tomorrow because I'm going to do a predictions post, but this whole situation is still super suspicious to me.

We also saw her try to drink from empty water bottle. We've seen a lot of water bottles over the seasons that were all similar. I still have been wanting to do a post about all of them, but haven't gotten around to it. But remember that we did see a lot of all-around death. At the very least.

Jesus and Aaron find Rosita and she tells them she left Eugene in the barn. I think this is super-significant guys, but I will talk more about tomorrow in my predictions post. For now, just know that the barn reference and everything about Eugene being there is important.

Hilltop:

Hilltop is thriving under Tara and Jesus’s leadership. I don't know why Tara just doesn't take over as leader. I get that Jesus might be a figurehead for people because he was Maggie's right-hand guy, but Tara is obviously better at logistical aspects and the day-to-day running of things, so she might as well just take over that part of it.

At one point, she said they had a noise complaint from trailer seven. This is a very minor detail, but the noise came from a kazoo which is technically a musical instrument or noisemaker and seven, in terms of biblical numerology, also caught my attention.

Aaron and Jesus training out in the woods together, which I think is kind of cool. I noticed at one point, one of them said "Same boat, my friend." So, another boat reference, but also a call back to episode 6x13, which was called The Same Boat. It was one about Carol and Maggie being kidnapped by the saviors. Not sure what to make of this reference, but it's interesting. (I actually have some theories, but this is such a minor point, I’m gonna wait to see what happens next episode first.)

Tara tells Jesus that Rosita will be okay. She was just dehydrated and on IV. They said almost the exact same thing about Yumiko last episode when she got hurt, and I compared it to Beth. Just feels like more Grady parallels to me. Also in this part, Tara says of Maggie, "She's not here. You are." We could relate that to the “here” symbolism and especially Morgan's Here’s Not Here episode. I won't say too much more about that except that we’ve seen these themes before.

Music/Magna’s Group:

Michonne breaks the violin while guarding Magna's group. I do still think that the musical instrument could represent Beth being shot, and I’ll talk about possible implications of that tomorrow.

The musical discussion the group has is really interesting. It’s kind of a rehash of the discussion Beth and Edwards had at Grady, but more detailed. Edwards says art is transcendent and not about survival, and Beth suggests it’s something they can and should still do. (“I still sing.”) So this was the first suggestion of this idea that, despite needing to put survival first in this world, art and transcendence are still important for the survival of the human race.

Luke says the same thing here. “They came together as an answer to defeat. They sat around a campfire. They shared their stories with each other in the form of music, and paintings. And they created a common identity. And then they, you know, built communities. And then, as thy grew, Neanderthal retreated, and then after a while they just died out…this is the one thing that separates us from the animals. For better or for worse, it brings us together. And if we’re trying to rebuild something, you can’t ignore that.” So we have a major parallel between this and episode and Slabtown.

At one point on the road with Magna’s group, we heard frogs. So just frog symbolism and more callbacks to Them.

Daryl/Carol/Henry

 By far most of the details I saw came from Daryl’s scenes. (Naturally 😉)

Daryl’s camp is pockmarked with walker traps. Many of them are pits in the ground that the walkers step in and get caught. That reminded me a lot of the fire pit the Beth dug in Still.

Carol says, "You haven't fixed the boat since last time?" We’ve ever seen Daryl with a boat before, so I'm thinking this has something to do with the 6 year time jump that we don't entirely understand. But, I also can't help but remember the boats that were so prevalent in 5b at Alexandria. Sam played with one, there was one on the water with a red balloon when Rick stood beside the pond. I always thought that was a Beth thing, having to do with all the water and ship symbolism we seen around her, though we don't quite know what it means yet.

I mean, if nothing else, Daryl is pretty much living on a boat, now. Given all the boat/ocean/sailor/water imagery we’ve seen, that’s super-important.

We also saw a “wrecked” boat in 7x15 near Oceanside. There was definitely some Beth symbolism going on there, so if Daryl’s boat is “broken” it could be the same symbolism.

I said yesterday that pretty much everything I said in my dog post was confirmed here, right? Well, it occurred to me when Carol asked Daryl when he’d eaten last, and Daryl replied, "the dog ate yesterday," that was him associating himself with the dog. She asked when he ate, and he answered by talking about the dog. So, very similar to Buttons, Daryl pretty much named himself the dog. So, everything I said before, (black dog equals Daryl, white dog equals Beth) is definitely true.

Daryl shot a snake! Yep, an actual snake. I thought this was a combination of two things from Still. In Still, he tried to shoot a squirrel on a tree and missed, breaking one of his arrows. Later, he kills the snake slithering on the ground with his knife. In this case, he actually did kill the animal on the tree, but it was the snake. Then he cut its head off with his knife, similar to what he did in Still. So, I'm wondering if we should be reading into the differences as well as the similarities. Maybe Daryl missing squirrel in Still in some way foreshadowed his and Beth's arc. Like that he would lose her in some way, so the squirrel escaped. Something like that. But in this case, he hits it dead on, maybe because things will be better for him this time around. I don’t know. Just throwing out ideas.

I also noticed that Daryl specifically doesn’t bury walkers. He kills one of them and Carol asked if he’s just going to leave it there. He says yes, because it keeps animals away. So this is completely the opposite of what he was in 4B. Remember Beth taught him that it was important to bury people, even walkers and people they didn't know. This started out with the Rich Bitch lady, and he helped Beth cover her. We saw it extended after Lenny was killed by the Claimers. But now, he doesn't care at all. He’s just leaving walkers where they fall.

He also refuses to protect people. At least at the beginning. Carol asks him to go protect Henry and he flat out refuses. In a lot of ways, Henry is very similar to how Beth was when she and Daryl left the prison. He’s strong and can take care of himself, but he's also very young and very new to being outside the walls. So was Beth. So, this would be very similar to if, when the prison went down, Daryl simply refused to watch over Beth. I think that's only important to show that he's sort of in the opposite place he was in S4.

Daryl also skins the snake, just like Still. We haven't seen him do this since 4x12 so this is very significant. Also, kind of a fun reversal of 7x10, when Carol cooked for him. I’m sure they were calling back to that here a little bit as well.

Then we have Carol cutting his hair with a knife. Okay, a couple of important things to recognize here. I thought it was really significant that they specifically did not have her use scissors. We know they had scissors in Alexandria because Jesse used them to cut hair and killed kill a she-wolf. And I'm sure the Kingdom has them as well. Maybe Carol just decided on the spur of the moment to cut Daryl's hair, but even so, they could have her pull out a pair scissors or even had Daryl have one in his camp and it wouldn't have been unrealistic. But they specifically have her use a knife rather than scissors to cut his hair.

Why is that important? I think it's because scissors are Beth symbol. Tptb use them very specifically in the show for stuff about Beth and Grady, and they very specifically did not want to put that symbol in here because it was not applicable to the situation. If we’re totally crazy and reading into the symbolism way too much, Carol would've just used a pair of scissors. She didn't, which means the scissors are important and specifically could not be used in the scene.

@frangipanilove also made an amazing observation about this scene. Certain shippers are freaking out because Carol touched Daryl’s hair and face and their misconstruing that as romantic. But 

1) we talked in our group about how that was very much about his scar. The show is trying to draw attention to it, and Carol playing with the hair right over it gave us an excellent look. 

2) @frangipanilove pointed out that this is a PERFECT parallel to the scene in Them (5x10) where Carol gives Daryl Beth’s knife. Think about it. That was a tender moment between them too. She played his hair. And there was a knife present. That’s awesome! Not only is it a callback to a Beth scene, but I’ll talk in a minute about Henry/Beth parallels, so this works well with those as well. And then there’s my predictions post tomorrow. It works well as evidence for all three. Go @frangipanilove!

 We also found out that Daryl originally went out there to look for Rick's body. That's a super-tragic development because it means that when Daryl walked away at the end of 9x05, he was already going out to look for Rick's body. That makes my heart hurt.

Carol tells him, “You have to let that go.” And I think that’s super-interesting considering he told Rick to let Carl go just before the bridge blew, and now he hasn’t really stopped looking for Rick’s body. He never let it go, any more than he ever let Beth go. Just proves that even though he was preaching that, he doesn’t let things go himself.

It's also super significant in a TD way. We’ve said for years that Daryl looked for Beth's body and couldn't find it, and eventually Rick made the whole group move on. So, it's yet another parallel between Rick and Beth where Daryl looked for the body and never found it. And, you know, Rick's alive so…

Let's talk about Daryl scars. Henry asked about the scar on his face, and Daryl is very standoffish about it. He refuses to answer and then gets up to look for his dog, sending the message that he'd rather hang with his dog than with Henry.

Later, we see Daryl's back and find that he has several new scars, including a prominent X scar on his top right shoulder, two parallel lines further down, and then another X scar in exactly the same place as Michonne’s. Yeah, that’s weird. The top X may have already been there. Back in S3, he has something similar, and they may have just changed it so it looks more prominent now. But he definitely didn’t have the same X as Michonne or the parallel lines. As I said yesterday, these are way too clean and even to be normal battle scars.

Several people have suggested they might be brands. If that's the case, we have no idea what they are, or where they came from. Who the hell could have branded Michonne and Daryl of all people? It's not like the two of them would have sat still for it. So, we really don't know what this is pointing to, but it’s quite bizarre.

Daryl’s dog (Dog) gets caught in one of his walker traps. This had major callbacks to Alone, not only because it was dark, and the dog was barking with walkers around, but because Henry's foot got caught in the trap, too, just like when Beth’s foot got caught in the small game trap.

Henry moved to kill a walker (just like Beth did) and his foot got caught in the trap like her. We even had Daryl helping Henry pull his foot out, getting him unstuck. 

Which is exactly what he did with Beth. Then he asks if he's okay. Henry says yes, it's just a scratch, which parallels to Daryl asking Beth if she can move it in her saying yes.

We also had some missing foot symbolism in this scene because the walker Henry kills is originally caught in the trap and trying to pull itself out. When it does, it pulls it’s own foot off. That’s why Henry had to jump in and help him. Remember that two of the major times we saw the symbolism, specifically an unattached foot, was in Inmates when Beth saw the unattached foot by the train tracks and then with Rick and Michonne in 7x12, which was also a major retelling of Still.

Then of course Daryl says to Henry, "I told you to stay back," which pretty much everyone in the entire fandom picked up on. These parallels are pretty undeniable at this point.

Henry even shows Beth’s sarcasm. Beth said, “Thanks for the help,” while Henry says, “Yeah, you’re welcome.” Again, the fact that they’re strong and get right back in Daryl’s face makes him respect them more.

This is where things get really interesting with Henry and Daryl. Very much like with Beth, once Daryl goes through an experience with Henry, where they survive together, and especially when he can see that Henry strong, he instantly has more respect for him. The dynamic between Daryl and Henry here was very similar to Beth and Daryl’s in Still and Alone. At first, Daryl is very robotic and closed off to Henry, but after Henry helped save his dog, and Daryl himself, Daryl sat down and opened up to Henry without being prompted, telling to him about how the dog checked walker traps and thanking Henry for his help.

Then, also like Beth, Henry kind of calls Daryl on his crap. When Daryl says that if Carol needs him, she knows where to find him, Henry says she shouldn't have to. Daryl then asks if Henry truly wants Daryl looking over his shoulder all the time.

(Oh, I forgot to mention the whole chaperone thing. The Beth razzed Daryl about being her chaperone at the moonshine shack, and they use the same verbology here with Henry asking Carol if she thinks he needs a chaperone. So yet another parallel there.)

 Henry replies that it's not just about him, which seems to impress Daryl. Henry really doesn't want a chaperone, but he'll do it so Carol has peace of mind, and I think Daryl seems impressed by that. 

So, much like Beth, Henry and his goodness and innocence pulls Daryl out of his robotic survival state and kind of guilts him into being a human being again, which brings them back to civilization. Major, MAJOR parallels here. I’ll talk more about where we think this Daryl/Henry arc may be headed tomorrow.

Another thing to note, though it’s not specifically a TD thing, is that Carol allowed Daryl and Henry to interact on their own. She was always in the background, watching, but didn’t tell them she was there. I think that’s significant for a couple of reasons. 

Carol knows both these guys can handle themselves, but she’s still around, being Mama Carol and making sure they’re okay. But I think she knew going into this that she wouldn’t be able to convince Daryl to go to Hilltop on her own. She’s not the one who changes his mind about stuff. (Think Beth: “What changed your mind.”) But Carol was hoping that Henry could change Daryl’s mind, and he did. This might be an indication of the insight Carol has into Beth and Daryl’s relationship, or if not that, into Daryl himself. She knows the effect people like Beth and Henry have on Daryl and was banking on Henry getting through to him. That’s why she didn’t interfere, and also why she was smiling when Daryl agreed to go at the end of the episode: she was right.

So at the end, we get Daryl and Carol finally getting to hilltop and kind of reuniting with some people. Michonne isn’t actually there yet, but she probably will be by the time Daryl, Jesus, and Aaron get back with Eugene, so we'll have a reunion of sorts.

So the structure of this arc is feeling very much like 4b to me. After the prison fell, everybody was divided into little groups, right? We had the same thing here. Michonne in Alexandria, Carol at the Kingdom, Tara at hilltop, Maggie off with the Commonwealth. And, of course, Daryl out on his own.

So this confirms @thegloriouscollectorlady’s 4 Arcs for 4 Communities theory. I’m also thinking about the fact that in 4x15/4x16, all the little groups reunited at Terminus. Now we’re seeing something of a reunion in 9x08 and a further introduction of a bad group (the Whisperers) to mirror the Termites.

So, we might argue that if 9x07/9x08 mirrors 4x15/16, well, we didn’t actually see Beth until four episodes after that in 5x04. So, maybe they’ll give us something in the MSF, or maybe they’ll make us wait until 9b or the finale to see her. As always we will just have to wait and see.

Okay, I’ll stop there. I have a lot more to say but it’s more about where we think these arcs may be going. I’ll talk about that tomorrow. Anything I missed?

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 (2 of 6)

Having a bit of extra time today due to a shorter lie-in than normal and not wanting to risk a walk today in light of the forecast suggesting a lot of ice underfoot, I’ve elected to get the next round of reviews for Star Trek TNG season 1 written and posted now.  Here’s hoping they’re better than the first round of episodes… 

Episode 5: The Last Outpost

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is in pursuit of a Ferengi vessel which has stolen an energy converter from an unmanned Federation outpost. While the Ferengi were known to the Federation, this is the first contact with the species, and the Ferengi are thought to be at a similar technology level as themselves. As the chase passes the planet Delphi Ardu IV, both ships suffer power drains causing them to come to a halt. Each crew initially believe the power drain is caused by the other vessel, but Captain Jean-Luc Picard realizes that the Ferengi are as confused as they are, and orders the crew to investigate the planet. Operations Officer Lt. Commander Data reports that the planet seems to have once been a remote outpost of the "Tkon Empire" that became extinct 600,000 years ago (during the Middle Pleistocene). Picard contacts the Ferengi and gets them to agree to mutually explore the planet below to try to find the source of the energy drain.

On the planet, the away team is momentarily separated due to effects of the planet’s energy field on the transporters. They regroup but are attacked and bound by the Ferengi, who believe the Enterprise crew was planning an ambush of their own. The away team break free, and begin to exchange weapon fire, but the energy expelled is absorbed by nearby crystalline structures. Data investigates the structures and awakens an entity that displays itself as a humanoid and calls itself Portal 63 "a guardian of the Tkon Empire." Portal 63 asks the two groups if they seek to enter the Tkon Empire, and does not comprehend when it is told that the Tkon have long since disappeared.

The Ferengi accuse the Enterprise away team of being a hostile force; Commander William Riker admits that they are hostile to the Ferengi. This prompts Portal 63 to test Riker, and he finds through the commander’s response that the Federation is civilized, allowing the Enterprise to go free. It further offers Riker the opportunity to destroy the Ferengi vessel, but he declines on the grounds that the Ferengi would learn nothing from such an action. Both away teams return to their ships with power restored, and the Ferengi return the stolen energy converter. As a means of ironic thanks, Riker suggests sending the Ferengi a box of Chinese finger traps, a toy that fascinated Data when he became stuck in one earlier in the mission. 

Review:

This episode did a poor job of showcasing the Ferengi, who were a new race in Trek lore at the time, but thankfully later episodes did improve their representation before Deep Space Nine went a bit too far on some of their Ferengi-centric episodes.  This race is a combination of the worst in capitalism and the worst of the misogyny of middle eastern cultures, as it is made clear that not only are the Ferengi profit-mongers of the worst kind, but that they don’t allow the women in their society to wear clothes or work alongside their male counterparts.  As a result, they’re often basic comic relief at the expense of disreputable businessmen and misogynistic cultures in our real-life, modern-day society. 

The error this episode makes is in making the Ferengi also appear a bit like they have some combat ability which doesn’t quite fit into the rest of their cultural archetype.  The episode doesn’t really have much else going for it outside of the introduction of the Ferengi.  The few bits of Sun Tzu teachings spouted at either end of the episode and Riker’s somewhat condescending attitude about the Ferengi ‘learning to be better’ are hardly enough to make this episode one of the issue-exploring episodes that represent Trek at its best, and there’s little to no development of any of the characters.  That said, it’s still better than the last two.  I’d give it about 4 out of 10. 

Episode 6: When No One Has Gone Before

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise rendezvous with the USS Fearless to bring aboard Mr. Kosinski, a Starfleet propulsion expert who plans to run tests on the warp engines to improve their efficiency. Commander Riker is sceptical of Kosinski's seemingly nonsensical specifications, suggesting his apparent success on other ships was merely addressing inherent design flaws on older engines, whereas the Enterprise's engines are brand new. With Kosinski is his assistant, an alien from Tau Alpha C known as the Traveller. As Kosinski and the Traveller explain the tests to the engineering crew, Wesley Crusher quickly grasps what the tests are designed to accomplish and the Traveller expresses admiration for his problem-solving abilities.

The test quickly goes awry when the Enterprise speeds up, surpassing the known capabilities of warp engines. Captain Picard orders the ship stopped, and the crew finds themselves on the far side of the M33 Galaxy (more than 2.7 million light years from the Milky Way, the Enterprise's home galaxy). Although Kosinski is pleased with the results, Picard reprimands him and asks him to simply redo the process to return home. Wesley attempts to warn Riker that during the warp test, the Traveller appeared to "phase", drifting in and out of reality, but Riker dismisses him without listening. However, after Kosinski begins the second test, Wesley and Riker both observe the Traveller again drifting out, appearing more tired. The Enterprise again experiences a burst of speed, and when it stops, the crew cannot determine their position. Picard demands that Kosinski get the crew home. 

While Kosinski, the Traveller, and the engineering crew work on reversing the process, the rest of the crew begins experiencing lifelike visions of their past. After having a vision of his mother, Picard surmises that they have arrived at the theoretical Outer Rim of the universe, and issues a red alert to awaken the crew from their visions. Riker suggests that Kosinski may have had nothing to do with the warp jumps, which were more likely to be a result of the Traveller’s illness. Picard has the alien moved to sick bay, but Dr Crusher cannot evaluate the Traveller’s alien biology, and is unable to treat him. The Traveller explains that he has the ability to channel thought into reality, and brought the crew of the Enterprise to the Outer Rim by accident. This then triggered a similar effect in the crew. The Traveller confides to Picard that he looks for scientific prodigies such as young Wesley, and suggests that Picard nurture him. When he returns to the engineering section, the Traveller asks Wesley to assist him in returning the Enterprise to known space. As they concentrate, beginning to return the ship home, the Traveller again phases and finally disappears completely.

 The Enterprise suddenly stops, and the crew is relieved to find themselves back in Federation space. After the incident, Picard promotes Wesley to acting ensign (following his own unspoken suggestion in "The Naked Now") on the Enterprise for his performance.

 Review:

This episode is another example of TNG not yet firing on all cylinders, because while we ultimately wind up with the Enterprise crew going through an interesting situation where thoughts become reality, that element isn’t really explored.  It just becomes a spur for them to act to resolve their dilemma, and in turn finally gets the supposedly anti-child Picard to warm up to Wesley slightly.  In essence, this show is just one long excuse to finally give Wesley a chance to live up to the intellectual promise he’s actually shown right from the pilot, but which a lot of people tend to dismiss because he’s something of a token kid character at this stage.  Thankfully, the character does improve as he matures, even though he does ultimately leave the show later on.

 It’s a shame the episode is handled as it is, because if they’ve just gone right into the weird thought realm, this could have become a great episode exploring the question of policing one’s own thoughts. Instead, it’s more “disaster of the week, overcome by technobabble solution x, y or z”, or in other words, Trek writing at its laziest.  Only the development of Wesley into an acting ensign and Picard warming to him slightly by making him an acting officer makes this episode worthwhile.  On balance, I’m inclined to give this episode about 6 out of 10.

 Episode 7: Lonely Among Us

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is en route to the planet "Parliament" with delegates from two warring planets in the Beta Renner system, the reptilian Selay and the canine Antican, when the ship encounters a strange energy cloud. Unseen by the crew, Lt. Worf is hit with a strange energy discharge as the ship passes the cloud, causing him to become violent. Doctor Beverly Crusher sedates Worf and brings him to the sickbay, but is also infused with the energy as she examines his body. Crusher begins to act oddly to those around her and goes to the bridge, asking questions about the ship's navigational functions. When she questions Lt. Commander Data at one of the science stations, the energy sparks between her and the console, leaving her confused as to why she is on the bridge.

 The ship suddenly begins to malfunction and Captain Picard sends Assistant Chief Engineer Singh to investigate the cause. Singh is later found dead near a computer link, and Picard orders a murder investigation, considering the alien delegates to be prime suspects. Data investigates the murder in the manner of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, and determines that the delegates were not responsible. Meanwhile, Counsellor Deanna Troi uses hypnosis on both Worf and Crusher, finding that both recall being invaded by some entity during their blackouts. The ship suddenly drops again out of warp, and as Picard investigates the readouts at a bridge console, the strange energy transfers into him. The bridge crew becomes suspicious of Picard's actions after noting that all Enterprise systems are back to normal and that Picard has ordered them to return to the cloud. 

The senior officers attempt to plead with Picard to undergo a medical examination and to step down from command, but he refuses. When they return to the cloud, Picard announces that they had picked up an entity previously when they passed the cloud, and now Picard and the entity are one. Under its influence, Picard plans to transport his energy back into the cloud, and he shoots energy at the bridge crew when they try to stop him. The crew are unable to prevent Picard from beaming off the ship. The crew spend hours trying to locate Picard to no avail, so they are forced to accept he is beyond recovery and prepare to leave. However, Troi senses the Captain's essence nearby, and Picard manages to signal the crew through the ship's computers. Data is able to reverse the transport, reconstituting Picard without the entity. After determining that Picard is himself again, lacking the memories since he was taken over by the entity, the Enterprise continues on to Parliament.

 Review:

This episode is rife with problems, including some less-than-brilliant dialogue for many characters, especially because this is one of those horrid ‘actors being weird for weirdness sake’ that all entity possession episodes boil down to.  Thrown in a poor sub-plot with some alien delegates and a crew that seems too slow to act against a blatantly possessed and out-of-character Picard, and the episode becomes almost irredeemable.

 Only two things save the episode.  The first is that we finally understand the purpose of La Forge and Worf at this stage of TNG lore.  The bulk of the main cast at this point has key positions on the crew; Picard is the Captain, Riker is second-in-command, Data is next-in-command after Riker and typically works the Operations, or Ops, console.  We then have Troi as counsellor (captain’s advisor and ship’s psychiatrist), Tasha Yar as chief of security and Beverley as the ship’s doctor, with Wesley acting as the token child’s POV character. However, both Worf and La Forge never seem to have a set task at any point, making them almost seem like tack-on characters.

 The answer to the why of these characters from a ship’s roster point-of-view is that they’re junior officers aboard the enterprise, with both needing to learn more and develop experience before earning the key positions they would come to hold later in the series.  The only reason these two even get to be main cast members is because La Forge is a blind man seeing through a piece of tech and Worf is a Klingon, making them both unique and adding to the relative diversity of the cast even before you factor in La Forge being Afro-Caribbean descent and the actors for both characters being the only two Black actors in the main cast. In fact, that fact makes me wonder if there was some behind-the-scenes racism that played into them being the only main cast members whose characters lacked key posts on the Enterprise.

 The second thing that helps redeem this episode is the brilliant bit of roleplay Data does by emulating Sherlock Holmes. This is a key element of Data’s character development that leads to some brilliant episodes later on the series, and Brent Spiner playing Data playing Holmes works wonderfully as both drama and comic relief.  It’s just a shame this episode didn’t do away with the possession and the alien delegations to just do a Holmes-style mystery in space.  Ah well, guess that’s just something to look forward to in later episodes. For this one, I’d say it averages out at 5 out of 10.

 Episode 8: Justice

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The USS Enterprise arrives to make contact with the paradisiacal, newly discovered planet of Rubicun III. A small advance party from the ship are sent down to meet with the Edo, the native people of the planet to determine if it is suitable for shore leave. Captain Jean-Luc Picard sends Wesley Crusher as part of the away team to evaluate the planet on behalf of the young people on board the Enterprise. Upon their arrival, they are greeted by Rivan and Liator in a very comfortable way, causing Lt. Worf to determine it a "nice planet", while Wesley leaves the adults to socialize with native teenagers. On the Enterprise, Lt. Commander Data reports something unusual orbiting the planet, but nothing appears on the viewscreen. He sends out a communications signal which reveals another vessel in orbit. A small ball of light enters the bridge and communicates with Picard in a booming voice, warning him not to interfere with the Edo, calling them his "children". The intruder then incapacitates Data in an attempt to exchange information.

 On Rubicun III, the Edo explain to Lt. Tasha Yar and Worf that capital punishment is used to enforce their laws. The away team rush to warn Wesley, only to discover he has accidentally broken a greenhouse while playing catch with the Edo youths. An Edo mediator, the Edo’s equivalent of law enforcement, attempts to give Wesley a lethal injection for this infraction of the law, but Yar and Worf draw their phasers. On the ship, the sphere leaves Data's body and departs. Picard, upon hearing of the situation with Wesley, transports to the surface. He meets with representatives of the Edo in a council chamber and explains that Earth no longer practices capital punishment. Some Edo interpret this stance as an attempt by the Federation to push their superiority and suggest that Picard should mount a rescue effort for the boy. He says he cannot, quoting the Prime Directive. 

Picard asks about the mysterious vessel in orbit and discovers that the Edo worship it as a god. He returns to his ship with Rivan and Counsellor Deanna Troi. Rivan sees the strange ship from orbit and confirms it is the Edo's god. She is transported back to the surface when the ship threatens the Enterprise for taking her away from the planet. Data reveals from his communication with the entity that it will protect the Edo as if they were its children. After considering their options, Picard returns to the planet's surface and announces that he is willing to risk the wrath of the entity. He orders the transportation of Wesley to the Enterprise, but the entity disables the transporters and threatens to destroy the rest of the ship once again. Picard has had enough, and pleads with the Edo god that laws must allow for exceptions to ensure justice, and after this statement the transporters go back online and allows the away team to return. Upon leaving the planet, Picard communicates with the entity to inform it that they are leaving and that they will remove recently placed colonists at a nearby star system under the entity's claimed jurisdiction, if the entity wishes them to. However, the entity simply disappears, giving no clear indication of its wishes regarding the colonists. Picard is disappointed by the response and the Enterprise departs. 

Review:

This episode is one that had some great potential that just simply isn’t realised in its execution, if you’ll pardon the pun. Here we have a society that has only found peace through absolute laws punished in all cases by death no matter how minor, but then fails to flag this up in time with half the main cast, resulting in someone who is part of the main cast breaking a law through ignorance.  Unfortunately, we don’t then get any kind of courtroom-style debate to plead against such a harsh regime, no effort to brow-beat the Edo into changing their ways.  Instead, we get side-tracked by some phantom apparition in orbit that didn’t really need to be in the episode.

 We also get some discussion on the Prime Directive, and here again, the episode fumbles the ball.  For one thing, the Edo don’t show any signs of being a warp-capable society, and as I understand it, the Prime Directive doesn’t just forbid the Federation to interfere in the natural development of any non-Federation society.  It also forbids making contact with any society that lacks the ability to get into space and travel at warp, so a race like the Edo with no apparent space presence, much less the ability to travel the galaxy at warp, shouldn’t have even been approached by the Enterprise at all.  As such, when Picard makes his decision to violate Star Fleet’s most crucial rule by just taking Wesley back to the Enterprise, it’s actually his second violation of the rule; making contact in the first place would have been the first violation.

 However, this is all assuming the Prime Directive is as I’ve learned it from later episodes and it’s never been amended before that.  In fairness, the lack of exposition up to now on what the Prime Directive is within TNG itself means I could be wrong, and the condition about avoiding non-warp societies could have been something added in after the Edo incident for all I know. Nevertheless, at least this episode shows TNG finally getting some deeper subject matter into its episodes and trying to become a proper Trek show.  At this stage, however, the execution of that Trek tradition remained as woefully flawed as the Edo’s excessive judicial system.  End score for this episode, 6 out of 10.

 Episode 9: The Battle

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise encounters a Ferengi vessel whose commander, DaiMon Bok, requests a meeting with Captain Picard. Picard is suffering from persistent headaches, the cause of which Dr Beverly Crusher is unable to determine. Meanwhile a second vessel approaches and is identified as a Federation Constellation-class starship.

 Bok transports to the bridge of the Enterprise, and announces that the newly arrived ship is a gift for "the hero of Maxia." Data reminds Picard that nine years earlier at Maxia he was attacked by an unidentified aggressor which he destroyed. Bok reveals that the ship in question was Ferengi. Bok's gift is identified as the Stargazer, Picard's former command, which Bok found as a derelict. Picard explains that at Maxia, the crew was forced to abandon ship, despite winning the battle by an action that would come to be known as the "Picard Manoeuvre", a short warp jump that caused the enemy vessel's light-speed limited sensors to detect the Stargazer in two places at once.

 Picard and an away team board the Stargazer, and he orders a chest of his belongings sent to the Enterprise. Hidden in the chest is an orb, apparently under Bok's control, that subjects Picard to a wave of pain. Dr. Crusher orders him back to the Enterprise. Data finds an entry in the Stargazer's logs stating that the Ferengi were attacked under a flag of truce, but he and La Forge determine that this entry was faked. Wesley detects unusual signals from the Ferengi ship, and the Enterprise computer informs Commander Riker that Picard has returned to the Stargazer.

 Picard finds Bok waiting for him with another orb. Bok explains that his son was in command of the Ferengi vessel at Maxia, and that Bok is taking revenge. He sets the orb down and leaves Picard on the Stargazer bridge. The orb lights up, and Picard suddenly believes he is once again at the Battle of Maxia, and that the Enterprise is the attacker. On the Enterprise, Lieutenant Tasha Yar and Lieutenant Worf discover the orb brought over from the Stargazer in Picard's chest. They take it to Riker as the Stargazer powers up its weapon systems. Riker hails the Ferengi vessel and speaks to First Officer Kazago, who reveals that the orb is a banned device, but claims he wants no part in what might be happening.

 Riker subsequently hails the Stargazer, but Picard continues to believe he is being attacked by the Enterprise. Riker asks Data to devise a countermeasure to the Picard Manoeuvre. When Picard takes the Stargazer to warp, Data uses the Enterprise's tractor beam to seize the Stargazer and limit its field of fire. Riker tells Picard about the orb; Picard seems to understand and destroys it with his phaser. After a few moments, Picard hails the Enterprise and requests a transport. Earlier Kazago hailed Riker to inform him that Bok had been relieved of command "for engaging in this unprofitable venture", and Riker relays this to Picard before the captain returns to the Enterprise.

 Review:

Well, the Ferengi are back and getting closer to what they should be going by most later episodes.  However, they’re still poor antagonists, which is probably why episodes like this one are among the worst of what Trek can offer.  The fact that you have to take the Ferengi essentially out of the character of their species to make them an opponent is all the proof you need that they’re no kind of adversary at all.  The psychological plot elements carry no mystery, and as such we’re just stuck watching the crew of the Enterprise move with painful slowness to catch up information the audience could have deduced even without the episode tipping its hand early.

 Because of all these failings, many reviewers apparently feel that the episode is only salvaged through Patrick Stewart’s performance as Picard. Granted, that performance is a good one, but at times it almost feels a little over-acted, as though it was being done more in the style of voice actors working on an animated production than for non-animated television.  Then again, that might just be because the plot itself has all the subtlety and excessive contrivance of a Saturday morning cartoon show.  Ultimately, I’d only give this episode 4 out of 10.

[tarredion]

1 and 27? :)

thank u for the ask sweetums,, <3

1. What's your favorite kind of fic to write?

i’m having difficulty answering this question right of the bat tbh, bcs i feel like i can find good things in all i’m writing - eg. i really like the concept and style of the dragon au, and thats a chaptered story with looong chapters, while i checked and i think most of my fics are oneshots under 5k words? which isn’t surprising tbh despite how long i sometimes seem to write my descriptions i dont often bite away so many words (i dont prefer either, essentially)

my thing is mostly just to write the concept i enjoy and see how much it ends up as. i did have a lot of fun writing the last two fics of 2020 bcs they were so short and such a fast lil thing to write that surprisingly (for more of a first/second draft) turned out rlly good? 

i guess for this answer i won't give a specific ‘kind’ of fic in terms of length or how it comes to life, but rather which tropes or theme or ‘vibe’ i enjoy lmao

this is a ramble but what im trying to say is that ‘kind of fic’ is up to interpretation :D and therefore i will say i enjoy writing mostly fluffy things n mostly established relationship bcs i dont enjoy uncertainty too much. and always, always, a happy ending (looking at u lil concept over there that follows the ambiguous ending)

27. Easiest part of writing?

easiest?? is anything easy lmao

i did have a writing spur the last couple of days n i was really happy with the results, so then coming up with ideas and putting them down just as i wanted to was very easy. this... doesnt apply all the time though

this isnt the act of writing itself, though i think i have a quite easy time (in my head) to come up with descriptions for everything. but this isnt often benifital (an exception would be the dragon au), and as both english is my second language and i can’t w o r d sometimes,, it can sometimes be really hard to put it down on the page and have it makes sense to anyone that isn’t me - ive ran into the problem multiple times, and ofc i wouldn't notice until...  someone else read it. I’m really glad i have some good buds looking out for me that can tell me if it .. doesnt

went on another rant!! maybe i should apologize to anyone reading oops

i would say that maybe that can be my answer - describing things originally. all i really do after that is saw n cut things down.

but,, i wanna answer a bit more on this one bcs its not clear cut (i need to stop w the puns) -- so read more below?

lol ok so i had random thought-- writing/describing phil. hes cute. i like him. i can describe his lil face n stuff, i guess. maybe that plays into a lil that i find writing characters physical descriptions easy? and i dont mean easy as in incorporating them into the story - that varies,, but more like. i see ur face and i know which adjectives to use yes yes (dont tell me to do it from memory tho visual imagination s u c k s)

maybe that is the moral - i write, describe, good, easy

...and i would say it probably is- still want to answer m o r e though (if this is getting annoying i dont blame u)

the easiest part in terms of the p r o c e s s of writing is not the act of jotting down dialogue or fleshing out thoughts or characters or knowing the space or even coming up with ideas (though they are plenty yet fleeting) but,, the random thought stage - as i call it (now. i came up with it just now. dont be fooled). i use this in dms and (unfortunately) quite a lot in a lot of my wips lmao (ospbb fic im so sorry for u) wayyy before i come up with exactly what i need to write instead of what i want. its literally just sending you random thoughts, ideas, incoherent or coherent, into a place outside ur brain where they can survive. sometimes they become one liner openings to a potential fic, or segments of a story that needs to unravel later on (once again, ospbb fic), or only conceptually strung-together phrases of 7k words of smut (woops. might flesh it out sometimes)

but yeah. long post long answers weird brain,, i think thats just it.. n 27 is ,, descriptions, and random thought stage

[goodmorningawfulbye]

Miel, Part IV.

Something was wrong.

Miel had been seated, staring at her hunter tags and reading her name over and over: Miel Apis Lux. It didn't say "Miel Apis Lux-Argentum," even though she said she'd hyphenate, because no one else knew that was her name. Well, her and Prompto…and Cindy. But no one else. It'd been spur of the moment, the two of them tooling along in the darkness of the desert-like landscape when she'd turned around and said, "Hey, will you marry me?" And after some spluttering, Prompto had agreed. They'd been married the next morning. Even before them being married—or even a couple—she'd had a sense around Prompto. She had felt when he was coming back to her, for example, and she knew when something was wrong with him, no matter how far he was from her.

And something was wrong now.

She jumped into her leggings and skirt (well… technically it was a kilt, but no one else seemed to recognize that) and bolted from her apartment, cursing herself for not living somewhere, as she put it, “closer to those damn battle chickens.” …Her damned battle chicken. She’d raised this one, it was hers, it was just boarded at the Chocobo Post. She fed gil into the machine, waiting for the bird to appear—there she was.

As she clambered up onto the bird, she began tying her hair into the usual style she wore for hunts, twisting and looping it until it sat behind her ears and she secured each with a tie. The sinking feeling in her stomach hadn't left her. But she couldn't get more of a read on it-- was this a "he's dead" dread, or general fear of whatever else she'd find?

She couldn't know until she got there. After all, this wasn't some psychic link. She didn't believe in that kind of thing, anyway, destiny and soulmates. She couldn't—after all, circumstances and cruel gods had ripped pairs of supposed soulmates apart anyway.

She leapt off her bird when she felt she was close enough to walk, leaving the brightly-dyed bird with a suddenly heavy heart. She didn’t want to leave Lavender, but she didn’t want Lavender in immediate danger, either, if there was still danger—she refused to lose her… her husband and her bird in so short a time. What would she have left?

She looked around as she walked, a single arrow in one hand. She hadn’t been near the Citadel, where her parents had worked until Insomnia fell and they lost their lives, in years. Not now, not now, she told herself, boots crunching in the rubble—bits of glass, stone, and metal that once made up her home crushed under her boots in a frenzied dash to seek answers.

She was looking for a specific chunk of metal, to either allay her fears, or give her comfort in the face of them. She scanned the ground with every step, looking for Prompto’s tags.  

She’d told him he had to wear them more now, if he was going to hunt with her; he wasn’t on the road trip with Noctis anymore. She didn’t realize it was going to matter.

She wasn’t finding them. So they were still on him, at least. She didn’t hear gunshots, so either everything was fine, or everything was very wrong.

“Miel!”

She slid and dropped to her knees at the sound of her name, tearing the right knee of her leggings open as she landed.

“Prompto, gods above.” Her forehead was against his chest, so she applied minimal weight to him. “Are you okay?”

He lifted one hand to her. “You’re going to need to tourniquet it, right?”

She looked at the wound and sighed. “No. Tourniquets are for people who want to lose limbs. It’s not even that bad.” She pressed a bandanna, one of many she kept with her for this reason, to his arm, wiping away what she could of the blood. She fished a fresh bandanna from one of the pouches on her hips and put it on the wound, applying much firmer pressure this time to stop the bleeding. “Where else did you get hurt?”

“That’s all I remember,” he told her, his free hand coming over his body to touch her shirt. “You’re not even dressed, Miel.”

She tried not to let tears well in her eyes, but… Well, it was true. She’d started running before she’d even thought to put on hunting gear; she’d been wearing this shirt when he’d left. She swallowed, blinking the tears away. “I wasn’t about to take and waste time to change my shirt when you needed me.” She lifted his hand off her and onto the bandanna. “Hang on tight to that, and keep it above your heart.” She positioned his hand ever so gently.

He looked up at her as she held his hand in place. “I didn’t hear your bike.”

“I didn’t take the bike. I didn’t want to be heard. I rode Lavender.”

“Oh.” They sat in silence for a moment.

“Can you sit up?” She laughed once, a breathy bark. “I’ll hold this arm still.” Using the other to support himself, Prompto sat up. Miel rested Prompto’s forearm over her shoulder and pulled his head against her chest. She took in a long, deep breath. He was okay. Injured, but alright. He was alive; she hadn’t lost him a second time. She lifted her eyes to the sky and—she didn’t whisper, he’d hear her—mouthed a “thank you.”

“Miel.” His voice was still weak.

“Hmm?”

“What about Ignis and Gladio?”

She felt bad, but she shrugged. “I didn’t look for them. Neither of them is my husband.”

“What if they need you?” Prompto was right. She didn’t want to leave him sat there alone, though.

“Then we’ve got to get up. I’ll take you to Lavender.” Slowly, she guided him towards the bird, glad to see that nothing had happened to her while Miel had been gone. She eased Prompto into sitting next to Lavender, then started walking again, shoulders slumping as the rubble crunched.

 With all her fear having been drained from her, Miel wasn’t moving with the same drive she had been on her quest for Prompto.

Too much was swirling in her mind at that point—her parents had died in this city, while she and Acheta had made it out. The last family Acheta had had died here, ending the Apis family line except for the two of them. Miel didn’t even have the last name; she was an Apis on her mother’s side.

Crunch, crunch, the shearing of rock and the cracking of larger shards of glass with each step. Was it worth it to call out? Maybe for Ignis.

“Iggy!” It came out broken, less a friendly call and more like a cry that had gotten trapped.  She tried again, with slightly better luck. “Ignis! Mr. Scientia!”

He was fine. Gladio was fine. They were, on the other hand, apologetic for leaving Prompto behind.

“He’s alright now.” She told them.

Ignis was freakishly formal with his next response to her, falling back on not knowing her well. “Miss Lux, I never would have—”

She shuddered at “Miss Lux.” She’d been Miss Lux the entire ride to Hammerhead, seated across from Acheta, the both of them silent as the grave as they stared out the window at the landscape passing them by. “Mrs. Lux-Argentum.” She corrected him flatly.

“Miel, is Prompto really okay?”

“He’s with my Chocobo, Lavender. I intend to return to where I left them and take my mount and husband home.” If she were in a better mood the possibility of lewdness in her statement would have amused her. But she was not, so it wasn’t funny. She moved to set off again, but Gladio caught her hand. There was no escaping his grip, so she turned around.

“Your husband? He didn’t tell us he was getting married.”

“It was… impulsive.”

Ignis chimed in. “Is it recent?”

She was hesitant. “It wasn’t very long ago.”

Gladio let go of her, but she didn’t take off. She just folded her hands in front of her, feeling the beginnings of another question hang in the air.

“Would you… have another one so we could be there?” Ignis finally said. “He’s like a brother to us.”

“Yeah, an annoying little brother.”

“Gladio! Ignore him, Mrs. Lux-Argentum.” Ignis took her hand as he stressed her new name, making her giggle a little.  “It would be nice to see our brother be wed.”

She wrapped her fingers tighter around Ignis’s. “Come ask him yourselves.”

[xaeneron]

On Path of Fire

I haven’t done one of these in a while (or rather I wrote them and then forgot to post them lel), so maybe I’ll actually post this one for the new GW2 expansion after spending the week running around.

Overall, I found the expansion to be pretty solid; the maps are beautiful, the mounts are hilarious and well-implemented, the story was interesting and decently paced, and I’m still experimenting with the new elite specs.  Massive spoilers below the cut!

Questions on anything I wrote, thoughts of your own?  Feel free to boop me; I know I wrote a lot.  

But really, don’t say I didn’t warn you.  There are a LOT of bullet points beneath that cut.  xD

On the maps

Obligatory: they are huge.  It’s fitting since they were designed against HoT’s verticality and more geared towards the use of mounts, so it’s more of an observation, less of a complaint.  There’s a lot of detail and a lot of little things here and there, and it’s incredibly fun to see what you can get away with using mounts to get around the terrain.

That being said I do miss the verticality of HoT maps.  Maybe a combination of both pls? :3

I kind of wish there were more large obvious meta events, but I haven’t gotten to see all of the sort of meta events that go on in the PoF zones. I do think the large metas add replay value, but again a balance is a good thing.

We spur-of-the-moment yolo’ed the Ruptured Heart meta with 11 people.  It was actually pretty fun.  Also so many cannonades ;-;

Hearts feel like they take just a little bit too long.  Some of them are amusing, but when trekking through zones doing map comp (or redoing hearts to get collection items) they drag on a bit.  Guild chatter about hearts was fantastic though:

“These nobles are useless.  What should I do with the chamber pot, throw it off the side or throw it at one of them?”

“I’m throwing flowers at people and making them happy?”

“Matchmaker heart best heart.”

Bounties are hilariously fun?  Sometimes you get unfortunate bullshit combinations of modifiers (anti-stacking fleas + pls stack in the bubble to actually be able to hit the boss mob, I’m looking at you), but overall they’re quite fun.  We spent a good few hours trekking through all five zones murdering things and getting murdered.

These actually look super promising for replayability; our goal/challenge as a group has always been to optimize and work together, so it should be fun to go track down bounties and see what kind of dumb shenanigans we can get up to.

I actually find these really fun in small groups of 5-10.  Zergs sound...unfun.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The caffeinated skritt is...kind of annoying.  Mostly because it doesn’t operate like the treasure mushroom in HoT and you have to be on the class you want the collection item on, and the maps are so large someone could trigger a chest and no one would be the wiser.

A tip though for people wanting to complete multiple collections: you only need to loot the last bag it drops.  If you’re wandering around with friends and they’re nice enough to chill at the bag, you can reload with other characters and grab the bag again for another collection item (until it despawns).  I have no idea if this was intended, but I burned a few TP to friends on this for the lulz.

I had a lot of GW1 feels running through these maps, especially going down to the Desolation and Vabbi.  I appreciate that these places still exist but have changed with the years, and it’s nice to see what happened.  

Although Vabbi is one weird-ass place now.

BUUUUUUT Zomoros’ lair was hilarious.

I haven’t explored for the sake of exploring in a very long time and it was really, really nice.

CHOYA PINATA.

On the elite specializations

I haven’t actually gotten to try all of them yet, but I’m also not super enthused about all of them (Spellbreaker, I’m looking at you).  Also a gentle reminder that my opinions are mainly based on my background as a PvE player and moreso as a raider.  Also they’re just initial opinions.  Opinions change.  

I started with thief (duh), and proceeded to do the entire story with Daredevil.  I’m not particularly a fan of Deadeye; I appreciate the archetype but I don’t really see rifle having a place with a game designed more around active response in combat.  Also as someone who still can’t shake the seaweed salad dance, rifle just feels really static and dull to me.  But we’ll see.  Maybe I’ll have to make the Predator hue. D/D Deadeye also felt strange, so idk.  But we’ll keep fiddling with it.

Mirage still feels kind of odd but I need to get poor Naois the spec since he’s actually specced for condi, unlike Eet.  It seems like an upgrade to condi mesmer, and the triple blink is hilarious.

I really hope Scourge ends up with some sort of place.  Initial benchmarks look hilarious (but then, so did Soulbeast/Weaver/Firebrand ones), but I took out Richter again for Scourge and I’m actually really happy to play him again.  It’s been so long ;-;

My brother told me, “do yourself a favor and put down a sand shade near some enemies, then press F4.”  I tried it.  I laughed pretty hard.

Weaver is so much button-pressing but it’s really fun?  I’m still getting the hang of it but I do like it a lot.  At least it’s more challenging than condi tempest. *grumbles eternally*

Soulbeast looks promising, although I hope it doesn’t lead to another “let’s use condi ranger/thief on absolutely everything” situation again.  The new pets are also...interesting.  

Although when it comes to ranger I’m a druid at heart, so we’ll see.  Not that I’m usually conscripted for DPS roles anyway

Firebrand looks silly.  And broken.  I’m all for alternative sources of quickness (and alacrity in the case of other specs), but I don’t really want to see raid meta go to 2x PS 2x druid 2x chrono 2x firebrand (or something like that) with only 2 flex spots.  That doesn’t sound fun at all.

Also I’m guessing Firebrand will be the first to get the nerfbat.  The damage numbers people are getting are bonkers.

And hey look, they got the nerfbat.  Down to 33-35k.  At least that’s better than 50k? Ugh.

Renegade feels pretty decent.  Revenant has always been in a weird “built around elite specs” class, and that hasn’t changed.  I’m not sure how I feel about condi rev being more of a thing and less of a meme, but ayyy

Holosmith seems like it would be a lot more relevant if the transform wasn’t currently borked.  Scaling damage to a level 76 fine weapon is...sad.  If it’s fixed power Holosmith could be something legit?  Maybe?  Overall though I like the theme and look of it.  Also lol lightsaber.

Spellbreaker I...idk.  Thematically I like it a lot; I was a big fan of mesmer and shut down mechanics in GW1 and I like the idea of Spellbreaker, but from a mostly PvE perspective, it’s just kind of...eh? WvW and PvP I see it being incredibly useful but with limited boons to nom in PvE it doesn’t really look particularly great (especially with condi berserker getting tuned through the roof).

On mounts

I keep dyeing them funny colors.  Yes Quill’s are all some shade of yellow.

I honestly think they were well done.  I was never a supporter of adding them to the game (not against, but not for them either), but now that they’re here, I’m pretty okay with them.  

I like that each mount is useful in some specific capacity - raptor for flat open stretches, springer for verticality, skimmer for no touchy floor, jackal for portals and evasion through high mob density areas, and griffon for the absolute lulz of flying.  

I keep getting the “mount doesn’t render so your character model is riding away sunk in the ground while your camera remains in place” bug (I think it’s attached to trying to mount up before things are completely loaded), and while it’s funny, it’s kind of frustrating.

Mount swapping is a bit awkward, although binding each mount to its own key helps a lot.

I appreciate that the starting mount (the raptor) is still relevant even when you pick up the other three (four), as it’s definitely the fastest mount on flat ground and it’s improved leap is hilariously long.

Also it’s a giant scaly puppy so I have no problems with this.

The springer is hilarious.  And super terrain-breaking.  High cliff?  No problem, bunny hop.  Core and HoT map comp probably just got much, much simpler.  Also JPs that don’t have mount restrictions.

The skimmer is adorable, and riding it around is strangely...calming?  idk.  Also as one of my guildies put it: “maybe this is Anet’s answer to underwater combat: glide right over it.”  rip.

Of the four core mounts I think the jackal (blink doge) is my favorite.  It has a gorgeous design and the blink/portals are super cool.  Although the blink can get a bit titchy if you’re trigger happy with the jump button.

Of course I have the griffon.

IT’S SO FLUFFY.

I think it handles a little strangely (esp when you can’t dismount quickly, although you can divebomb), but it’s pretty solid.  And adorable.

250g was entirely worth it.

Also that Tahlkora cameo hit me right in the feels.

On the story

I’d get here eventually!  Eventually...;-;

All salad-shaped biases aside, the male sylvari VO is still my favorite and no one can convince me otherwise.  There was a good amount of sass, seriousness, and everything inbetween.  Ive is one to take everything with a “hahahaha you’re kidding what am I doing here help,” so overall the voice acting and dialogue fit him fairly well.

I’m a little disappointed by the lack of race-specific dialogue.  Humans don’t seem to have any special dialogue with or concerning Balthazar, and everyone else doesn’t really have a chance to comment as an outsider.  I know it’s more work and I still enjoyed the story as is, but it would have been a nice touch.

Like Ive would literally not give a shit about half of the things brought up.  Not because he doesn’t care about others, but because he has no clue what anyone is talking about.

This was particularly funny with Joko in the Domain of the Lost, because his whole tirade about the PC not knowing who he is could quickly be shut down with “I’m a salad, I have no idea who the fuck you are.”

The “decisions” were interesting, although unsurprisingly they had very little impact on the game as a whole (maybe in the future?  Doubt it).  I did appreciate that depending on the order the “decide on Amnoon’s independence” steps are done in, the dialogue changes.

I admit that I’ve gotten a little less partial to Taimi as she’s edged closer to Deus Ex Machina territory, but her dialogue and conversations (both with the PC and with others like Phlunt later on) are quite funny.

I wish there were more Vlast/Gleam before he died.  It’s sad that he showed up and just...died, but I can understand why they chose that path as well.  

Although some of that was my own fault; the chapter with the Exalted and Vlast’s upbringing I got supremely distracted by the jumping puzzle and spinning around on my new skimmer.

Still.  More Vlast!

RYTLOCK.  RYTLOCK WHY.  Nice job breaking it hero.  Surely you would know better than to accept help in the Mists from a random shackled man who CONVENIENTLY knows how to relight your magic sword.  Sigh.

I thought a lot about the Herald of Balthazar after finding the notes in Night of Fires.  I went back to it after talking to my brother and came to a very similar conclusion as a theorizer on the GW2 subreddit.  If that theory is true, that makes me very sad.

Pls say it’s true I like gut-punch feels.

Speaking of gut-punch feels, The Departing was amazing.  It was super disorienting not having access to the inventory or the minimap, but it was a very well-done instance and I enjoyed it immensely.  I appreciated that they stuck to the “you lost your name and purpose” thing to the point of replacing your character name (including in the hero panel) with Lost Spirit.

Balthazar murdering the PC was pretty neat. 

Also Aurene showing up exactly on time was both cliche and NO BALTHAZAR BAD STAY AWAY FROM BABY DRAGON. 

This, like a few other story missions later on, is super awkward to do as a group.  It’s supposed to be rather personal, and so the not-instance owners are reduced to buffing wisps (like later on in the thrall party instance, not-instance owners are just awakened thralls), and idk I was lucky I was instance owner but that seems rather :|

Ive had a lot of feels hearing everyone’s voices again.  Also the feels of him not exactly remembering everything and having to follow his purpose through his own memories and not quite remembering everything.  Including Trahearne.  

Also tfw the story mission is essentially Full Circle (as a sub-section of Closure) with a bit of bonus Balthazar.

Joko is being very obviously set up as a “you left me in a cage I swear vengeance rahhhhhh” villain.  Or Anet is going to pull a fast one and he will never show up again, which would be hilarious.

Bonus feels for everyone else surviving and Ive being the only one dead (think Eet).

Backtracking slightly, I’ve never liked Kormir.  I still don’t like Kormir.  And the human gods are miserably terrible people.  At this point there’s not much questioning as to whether or not they exist, but with the extent of their influence, their decision to just kind of peace is...rather appropriately god-like, for better or for worse.

Seriously though, gods pls.  I can see some of the logic of “world will be destroyed anyway if god attempts to fight god,” but surely there are other things that need be maintained.  

Also I like how Kormir notes that Balthazar had been stripped of his powers, and yet he still curbstomps the PC (unless it was entirely the imprisonment in the Mists that just locked his powers away, but Kormir’s dialogue suggests otherwise).

I would kill for a library like that.  Seriously.  So jelly.

The “let’s disguise ourselves as the Archon and go and convince Palawa Joko’s army to fight for us” part was so incredibly stupid that of course it worked.  We spent the entire time laughing at how incredulous it was.

The battle at Kodash Bazaar was actually kind of awesome?  There was stuff everywhere and my only inclination for the first part of the instance was “go hit things.”  

It was incredibly weird to just have Sohothin for the entire instance.  Yes I’m aware I could have dropped it.  But it was hilarious in a Caladbolg sort of way.  With less idiotic knockback, and more 300s cooldown skills.  

AURENE.  Balthazar stop hurting my dragon >:(

Also because he just yolo killed her other brother before she had a chance to meet him in person?  rip.

Although now that I think about it, how would that meeting even go?  Talking to the Exalted indicates that Vlast was isolated and not well-acclimated to the world around him, so by the time they realized he should be interacting with other races it was too late for him to form any empathy for anyone.  His dialogue seems to imply that his motivation was simply the fulfillment of a goal; he seemed far more interested in fulfilling his legacy as Glint’s son than the reason why she needed him and Aurene to do anything in particular.  He doesn’t really have a reason for what he’s doing, he just does.

Aurene is implied to have an empathic link with Vlast similar to her connection to the PC, but idk, it just seems like any actual meeting between the two of them would just be incredibly awkward.

I very much enjoyed both the penultimate and ultimate fight against Balthazar.  Also because if you turned around, you could see Kralkatorrik’s massive face just chilling in the sky because oh shit angry elder dragon.  It was...quite something.

I understand the PC’s current caution about killing elder dragons because of magic imbalance, and I also understand the need to stop Balthazar from being a total moron.  I also understand that there’s not much you can do to stop a mad god besides killing him (since those with the means to imprison him decided to float on).  But uh.  I’m not sure what anyone expected would happen if you kill the god who absorbed two dragons’ worth of magic with another dragon just chilling nearby.  Surely Kralkatorrik absorbing everything and flying off into the sunset while extending the Brand wasn’t a surprise.  

Seriously though what did you think was going to happen.

Baby dragon absorb magik and is not quite so baby anymore.  Aurene come back I miss you already ;-;

I commend you if you actually read all of that.  xD

Overall, a solid expansion with quite a bit of content.  We’ll see how replayable it ends up being as time goes on, but I am still quite amused by it and have plenty to do as it stands.  The story was fairly solid (although sometimes strange with questionable logic, as always), and I’m looking forward to where they take it with LWS4.  

[uniformbravo]

bloop heres a post abt my 3-day trip to san diego B)

this was just gonna be a list of highlights but i ended up talking about a lot so it’s more like a Kind Of The Highlights But I Got A Little Carried Away list

it was a 2 hr drive so i put on some tunes & forced everyone in the car to listen to my thousands of anime ops and piano covers it was *fire emoji* (im not on mobile)

at the end jaelin said she couldn’t hear it the whole time rip

made myself carsick looking at mob psycho memes while we looked for a parking spot at the museum for 20 minutes (it was worth it they were good memes)

the museum we went to had a whole gaming thing going on where they just had a shitload of games out for ppl to play & one of them was just dance projected onto like an entire wall basically & i mean i didnt play but it was fun watching my mom try her best 

she played against two of my sisters who both beat her by more than double her score hgdhgksd bye mom

got a nauseating headache in the science museum & took the opportunity to sit down & look at more mob psycho memes for 35 minutes while the advil kicked in

felt better by the time we went to see this fuckin movie about national parks in the us but idk it was like. the whole reason my mom wanted to go to san diego was to see this movie bc they were getting rid of it soon & after seeing it i can see why they’re taking it out kjgkdjgksd like!!! it would’ve been cool if it told u shit about the parks like fauna and flora shit but it had this dumb little narrative abt these three campers traveling to each park & fucking around & i looked over at jaelin at one point & she was asleep & i was like same

im being too hard on it, it was kind of interesting to watch and had some cool visuals but the acting was pretty embarrassing & unnecessary, i wish it would’ve tried to be a documentary instead of entertaining. that’s my Professional Review of this random movie they’re removing forever soon, hope u enjoyed

realized i had more free time at the hotel than i thought i would & v heavily regretted not bringing my tablet to draw aaaaaahhhhh it was ok tho bc i brought my big sketchbook so i just drew in there B)

i’ve been drawing a lot of terukis i think i accidentally discovered a hidden love for him on the midnight shores of the san diego bay

(what i actually discovered is that he’s v easy to project a rly specific part of myself onto hgkdgksdjkgjsdk)

rented bikes to ride by the bay & it was super fun bc i havent ridden a bike in a long time but like. the second half started getting really hard for me & i thought i was just weak shit bc i literally never exercise but then i realized my back tire had gone flat hfdjghsd my legs were..... so sore

also the seat was shaped weird so my ass was sore for the rest of the trip. it’s still sore tbh. i have a bruised ass

went to a model train museum which was pretty cool bc the little towns had little people & jaelin and i were making up stories for them (my favorite recurring joke was pointing out ppl that had fallen over & calling them dead)

after the trains we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to stay a third day to see more museum shit bc why not so we managed to grab a room at a new hotel and #Locked In our decision

on the way to the second hotel we got a flat tire so i was like convinced i was cursed bc wtf it was literally on the same day???

while we waited for the tire repair i got a pink lemonade from taco bell and it was amazing i can’t believe i ever thought piece of shit sprite was worth even looking at over this

ok so i need to talk about the second hotel we stayed at because it was... literally the fanciest hotel i have ever stayed at in my entire 22 year old life

it was a mariott?? but a fuckin Fancy Mariott ok first of all we were on the 19th floor which just..... what the fuck

floor level was the 6th floor, this bitch went underground (though that might have just been the parking garage idk)

the lobby bathroom was like. jesus christ. to flush the toilet u wave ur hand over a sensor??? what’s wrong with just automatic toilets???? why are these toilets so extra????? i couldn’t even get it to work for so long jgkjdkgsd i hate technology

also there were moist towelettes sitting in a neatly folded pile by the sinks like what even. i thought it was paper towels but then it was wet

the lobby also had this fancy-ass bar/lounge where they served starbucks but u had to have a room key to get in i think

in the elevators to get to the rooms you can’t even enter the floor level until you hold your key card against a sensor like what the fuck..... we had to get some strangers to tell us how to do it gjdks i bet if we hadn’t been able to figure it out the elevator wouldve just dropped us 12 floors to our death like Access Denied, Assholes

the room itself was super fucking cramped tho which makes sense like if im gonna be able to afford anything at a place like this u better believe it’s gonna be the size of a damn peanut. it was the fanciest peanut ive ever seen in my life tho

the view was uhh we were directly across from some tall office building so at night u could like see into all the rooms it was kinda cool but also weird

there was a jar of hershey’s kisses on the coffee table when we got there but it was dark chocolate so like get the fuck outta here with that shit how dare you assault Mine Eyes (i ate like 4)

it rly was a tiny room tho and it didnt help that there were 5 of us rip... like there was a main room and a bedroom and a bathroom and already that’s making it sound bigger than it was hgkdjgskd 

but even tho it was small it had a lot like.. there was a kitchenette that was big enough for like 1 person to stand there but it had a fridge/freezer, sink, dishwasher, toaster, microwave, cupboards & coffeemaker like there was so much shit crammed in there, this wasn’t no minimalist living space it was just. a lot crammed into one tiny floor plan

anyway yeah it was really bizarre for me to be in a place like that & i just constantly felt like i didn’t belong there but that was mostly my anxiety lol i really dont like being in fancy places in general idk. it was still kinda fun tho

the natural history museum was cool, they had a bunch of animal skulls & taxidermy which i thought was pretty neat. all their dinosaur stuff was in the basement tho which u had to pay extra to see which like. bye

they did have some cool movies tho, they were like nature documentaries, one on marine biology around baja california and the other on animals of the galapagos & those were pretty neat, way better than that national parks shit we saw at the science center jgkdjkskdkdjg 

ok so this one’s more of a buildup over the 3 days so im gonna give a lil 3-part summary

day 1: we went to panda express for dinner & i had leftovers so i was like “sweet im saving these for when we get home” (bc the hotel had a fridge right)

day 2: got a rly good burger from a vegan place, my brother got the same one but didnt want his second half so i was like “cool more leftovers im gonna have so much good food when we get home this is perfect”

day 3: fucKIGN LEFT BOTH CONTAINERS IN THE FRIDGE ACCIDENTALLY WHEN WE CHECKED OUT HKDJFLSKDG i was literally so good about it the first two days like when we switched hotels i made sure not to forget them and i held onto them & everything & then halfway through the third day i was like “SHIT”

it’s ok tho bc for dinner that 3rd day we did panda again & i got the same thing so i have the same leftovers again hehehehehe

ok i think that’s basically everything & im not just saying that bc it’s 1:45 am and ive been working on this for like an hour and a half at this point.,.,. overall it was pretty fun, i think i liked the bikes & those animal movies the best... also the drive out bc i got to play my music lmfao (i love sharing my music ok)

anyway the end thank u

[fromthedeskoftheminister]

Rise of a Region

Summary: A Friendly between three Quidditch teams becomes all the more interesting when a mysterious spectator joins the games.

Tags: Mysterious disappearances mentioned, suspected death mentioned, Whitebeard Pirates, Straw Hat Pirates, Revolutionaries, Quidditch AU, College AU, Modern World AU, Gen Fic, mild cursing, Entirely UnBetaed

AN: It is a time when tumblr is dead and Ive been sitting on this ficlit for a while. US Quidditch Cup 10 starts this weekend and Im going to be watching, so I figure its probably a decent time to post this. I’ll reblog it again before games start in the morning, but I want to post before I forget. Before I begin, Yes, Muggle Quidditch is a thing. Yes it is international. Australia won last year’s world cup. Yes, Brooms are used. Yes it is a full contact sport. No, we do not fly. The Snitch is a tennis ball in a sock velcroed to a neutral 3rd parties rear. It is only worth 30 points. Catching it, separating the sock from the person, ends the game. And I think thats all. If you have any sort of question about the story or quidditch, my inbox is open

                                                  Rise of A Region

The field was a nice one, Marco absently thought as he surveyed the grounds from his vantage point on the hill just behind the soccer goalposts.  Turf field, regulation size brooms, plenty of extra balls and a set of what looked like a set Peterson hoops were set up on one half of the soccer field he was overlooking.  Random joyous yelling drifted up to him as people greeted each other and he let the sounds wash over him.  He was going to sit here and enjoy the sunshine in peace and relative quiet before the rest of the team arrived and he had to go manage things, make introductions and generally figure out the plan of action.

The spring sun was bright, warming the day to a rather comfortable temperature that was just shy of being too hot.  It was negated by a very gentle breeze pushing the barest wisp of a cloud lazily across the brilliant blue sky.  Marco set his hands behind him and returned his lazy gaze to the people on the field below.  They had just started to set up their equipment and Marco checked the time.  He had an hour or so before the friendlies were supposed to start but if he knew his team, it would in reality be more like 2.  So what was he going to do to pass the time?  Marco was half temped to copy the guy he had spotted while searching for a dry spot to sit and just take a nap.

While it sounded nice in theory, he knew it would be a bad idea.  He wanted to be at his best for these matches.  Their region was new as were the two teams that had invited them here today, but they had already gained something of a rep.  Frankly, Marco decided, readjusting how he was sitting to see the field a bit more clearly he would be better served watching their practice and warm up in an attempt to figure out the team’s strengths and weaknesses.

He wasn’t entirely sure how long he was watching for before the squishing sound of a canvas shoe stepping into a particularly viscous muddy patch alerted him to the fact that he had company.  The arm that draped itself over his shoulder accompanied by a rather ridiculous red pompadour alerted him to the fact that Thatch had finally woken up and realized that they had arrived at their location.  Due to their prolonged friendship he was probably one of the only people that would take such liberties.  They watched in silence as the group of people below, which had only grown in size since Marco had started watching, completed a rather complex scoring drill.

“You’ve got maybe 5 minutes before the rest of the group starts arriving. ” he said with a yawn.

Marco raised an eyebrow at that. “You mean they’re actually going to be on time today?”

Thatch managed to look offended “Hey!  We totally get places on time!”

Marco snorted, clearly amused. “Only because I’ve been purposely telling the group the wrong start time of tournaments for at least a year or so.  Today’s the first time since that disaster that was our first tournament that I didn’t.”

Thatch gaped at him then rolled his eyes. “Of course you have.  I can’t believe I forgot how devious you can be.”

“So, how late?” Marco chuckled.

Thatch grinned as well. “Last car should be here in 30 minutes at the latest.”

“Right.” Marco said shrugging Thatch’s arm from his shoulders as he smoothly rose from his seat.  “I should probably go let them know then.  And introduce myself while I’m at it.  I don’t think I’ve actually ever met Sabo in person.”  He turned to offer Thatch a hand up, but his friend had already hoisted himself to his feet.

“Might want to hold up a second.  I see Haruta’s car.” Thatch said and Marco nodded in acquiescence.  They didn’t have to wait long.  The car had scarcely come to a stop before Haruta tumbled out full of their usual boundless energy and scampered over.

“Hey guys!” They cried out cheerfully as they attempted to scramble up Thatch’s back, clearly attempting to get a piggyback.  “Where are the others?”

“Not here yet.” Thatch said

“Whoohoo!” Haruta yelled “Its not us who’s last this time!”

“Impossible things have been known to happen.” Marco said dryly as Jiru, Izou, and Jozu joined them on the hill.  Haruta made a face when they caught the teasing tone directed their way.

“Yeah yeah.  Get lost one time…” They grumbled good-naturedly and Thatch snorted from beneath them as they settled themselves on his back.

“Once?  Try like ten or fifteen and then you might, just might be in the ball park” Marco teased.

Haruta stuck out their tongue in response before exclaiming, “Lets go!”  Apparently spurred on by the other’s enthusiasm, Thatch took off down the hill like a shot with Haruta whooping like a maniac on his back.  Jiru, the only certified EMT of their group took off a second later yelling semi-jokingly at the pair that they’d better not hurt themselves.  Marco rolled his eyes at the antics of his teammates before heading down towards the pitch himself at a much more sedate pace.

Izou matched his stride and after a moment inquired “So?”

Marco shrugged. He knew exactly what the other was asking.  “Not sure yet.  I’ve heard that The Strawhats have a stronger chaser lineup with fast breaks while the Revolutionaries tend to favor gaining bludger control and taking their time.  We should be able to beat them with ease but seeing as the two teams have been practicing together the entire time, I don’t exactly know who’s on which team.  This would also be a bit easier if I actually knew what Sabo looked like as well.”

“You still don’t know?” Izou asked incredulously.

Marco simply shrugged.  How was he supposed to know what the other man looked like?  He wasn’t on Facebook all that much and Sabo’s profile picture there was simply an icon of a Tophat.  The other captain had emailed him instead of using a chat feature and in doing the set up for this friendly they simply had never gotten around to meeting one another face to face.

“Ah, I can help with that.”  A new voice said cutting into the conversation. The source was somewhere near their feet and Marco looked down to meet a pair of curious silver eyes peering up at him from underneath a vibrantly orange cowboy hat.

“Really?” Izou asked, sounding skeptical. Despite the warmth of the day, the other man was bundled up rather seriously.

“Yeah.  You said you were looking for Sabo right?” The stranger said as they pulled themselves to their feet.  He adjusted his hat to get a better view of the field revealing a face full of freckles atop a deep tan. Without bothering to wait for an answer the other man continued.  “Ah, found him.  He’s the blonde one over there,” the stranger said making a vague gesture as he stooped down to grab a green zebra stripped bag with a rather intricately designed spade over one pocket.

“Well, that’s not terribly helpful,” Marco said, glancing in the direction that the stranger had gestured to before turning back to the other man.  “There are currently several blonds ‘over there.’  Can you be a bit more specific?”

“Sure.” The stranger said. “He’s the only blond with facial scars.  Here, why don’t I just introduce you?

Marco shrugged then offered out a hand. “Sounds good to me.  I’m Marco by the way.”

“Izou.” Izou offered with a wave of his hand.  The creased brow between his friend’s eyebrows was rather telling.  It meant that Izou was trying to remember something, though at the moment it probably came off as unfriendly.  It didn’t seem to bother the cheerful stranger who returned the introductions with a smirk.

“Nice t’ meetcha.  I’m Ace.” Ace said shaking Marco’s hand before the trio resumed their walk to the pitch. “Who do you play for?”

“Eh?  Oh, the Whitebeards.”

Ace looked rather impressed by that statement. “For real?  That’s the shit man. Thought you guys weren’t a part of this region though?”

“We are now.” Marco said with a smile. “With the Strawhats and the Revolutionaries joining up, the board finally decided there were enough teams in the area to qualify for a region of our own.”

“Sweet.” Ace said. “Though I hope you don’t think you guys’ll be able to just walk all over these two teams, Mr. Quidditch World Cup Champions.”

Marco simply shrugged and Ace laughed loudly, drawing stares from all over the pitch with rather amusing effects as a couple of people suddenly became recipients of bludgers to the face.  Another person, apparently startled by the laughter threw a quaffle a little too high and it sailed over the edge of the passing circle headed right towards them.  Ace snatched it out of the air and had returned the pass to another person in the circle.  That seemed to break whatever spell had come over the majority of the players except for two people in particular.  A small tan lanky boy wearing a strawhat exchanged some sort of look with a blond young man with a series of scars scattered over his left side, the most prominent one over his left eye. Ace gave a small wave and apparently that was all that was needed to cause the pair to run towards them, no at Ace, full tilt.

Ace’s eyes widened and he quickly took the bag off of his shoulder and held it out to Marco who looked at him with undisguised curiosity. “Can you do me a favor and hold this?” Ace asked, the words coming out in a rush.

“Sure.” Marco had scarcely taken the bag before Ace continued

“You might also want to take a couple of steps to the side.”

“Why?” Marco asked but the question was rendered moot as the answer came barreling past as twin blond and black blurs tackled Ace bringing him down with a lot of noise. Marco turned to Izou who was still standing beside him. “Are you as confused as I am?”

“Yes.” Izou said. “Though I finally figured out why the kid seems familiar.”

“Oh?”

“That’s Ace.”

“Im aware that’s Ace. He told us his name Izou.”

“I wasn’t done thank you. That’s Ace of Spades.”

Marco blinked. “As in the Merc team that made it to the final four of the Quidditch World Cup Championships 3 years ago? The team that was rumored to be able to give us a run for our money but ended up withdrawing due to injuries?”

“Exactly.” Izou said. “I wonder what he’s doing here. I thought all of the Spades had retired from Quidditch after that.”

“Most of us did.  The Spades as a Quidditch team no longer exists.” Ace said rejoining the pair, arms over the shoulders of the two people who had just tackled him. Strangely enough, the younger of the two the kid with the straw hat had tears running down his face while beaming like Christmas had come early.  The blond under Ace’s other arm didn’t have any tears but had a rather similar smile on his face. Marco’s curiosity was driving him crazy but he pushed it away.  He didn’t know any of these people well enough to ask about the strange series of events he had just witnessed. “And to answer your question, Im just here to visit these weirdo and play some Quidditch. Sabo, Luffy, meet Marco and Izou of the Whitebeards.”

“Nice to finally put a faces to the names.” Marco commented, hands in his pockets.

“Indeed.” Sabo said, ducking out of Ace’s hold. “Ya ready to get these games started?”

Marco looked around, and his eyes lit upon a familiar group of people that were just standing atop the hill he and Izou had just walked down. “Seeing as the rest of my team just arrived, I’ll have to say yes.”

“Great.” Sabo said. “Lets get this show on the road then.”

[postolo]

Hashtag Trade Marks—An Unpleasant Reality of IP Protection

“Property is not the bastion of egoism but rather the vehicle of social exchange.”

— Joseph Kohler, German scholar[1]

One cannot negate the steady escalation of technology or dispute its benefits, but the recent trend of protection sought under intellectual property rights, spurred by this monstrous growth is a distress signal. The trend can be labelled in just one term-hashtags. For those who are fortunately (or not) unaware of the hashtag culture, it is a tool to characterise content into groups; by placing a “#” character, also known as the hash symbol, in front of a word or a phrase, the author makes it easier for the reader to locate a work when searched by the specific word or phrase.

Hashtags are all around us. They are online, offline and the term was also announced by Oxford University Press as “Children’s Word of the Year” in 2015.[2] No more a mere symbol on the keypad of a phone, hashtags are serving as investment points for companies wanting to carve a brand niche. It is interesting to learn that popular brand campaigns #HowDoYouKFC and #McDstories, belonging to food giants KFC and McDonald, respectively, the soft drink specialist Coca-Cola company’s #smilewithacoke, the viral fundraiser #IceBucketChallenge and the global phenomenon of #TBT popularised by Instagram, are protected as trade marks. Surprisingly so, by the end of 2015 more than two hundred hashtags were registered as trade marks in the United States of America, while thousands more awaited their chance. An article published in WIPO Magazine last year[3], cites a survey establishing 64% hike in hashtag trade mark applications in 2016 as compared to previous year. Is this not a cause for concern? By according such protection, we may have diluted the concept of IPR rather than expanding it.

In 2013, the United States Patent and Trade marks Office (USPTO) addressed “Hashtag Trade marks” in the Trade mark Manual of Examining Procedure.[4] It recognised that a term containing the hash symbol or the term hashtag may be registered as a trade mark, but “only if it functions as an identifier of the source of the applicant’s goods or services”. It states further, “Generally, the hash symbol and the wording Hashtag do not provide any source-indicating function because they merely facilitate categorisation and searching within online social media … if a mark consists of the hash symbol or the term Hashtag combined with wording that is merely descriptive or generic for the goods or services, the entire mark must be refused as merely descriptive or generic.”

What was a modest beginning in the year 2007, a decade later, hashtag has earned a remarkable status. And with an unprecedented growth in social media, hashtags have managed a mind boggling feat. Safe to say, hashtags have engulfed humanity, with not a life remaining untouched (except of course, lives in the remotest parts of the earth). Addressing the concern mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is worrisome to imply gullibility in the IPR regime and the regime needs to be strengthened at a faster pace in order to maintain its sanctity.

Intellectual property rights—A social contract

IPR protection is commonly placed under two major theories—(i) Utilitarian (ii) Natural; the former recognising a creation or an invention thereby incentivising to create or invent further, the latter backing the idea that an individual must be able to protect the result of their creative, inventive or commercial labour. Society has a need for intellectual productions in order to ensure its development and cultural, economic, technological and social progress and therefore grants the creator a reward in the form of an intellectual property right, which enables him to exploit his work and to draw benefits from it. In return, the creator, by rendering his creation accessible to the public, enriches the community. Intellectual property law is thus the product of a type of “social contract” between the author and society.[5]

Apart from the justifications, intellectual property rights too are attached with a social function. The social function which is inherent to any legal rule allows for the rights of the individuals to be weighed against competing rights.[6] Being part of a broader legal system, these rights must always be put in context with other rights of equal value and with collective interests. Thus, works protected as intellectual property are equally important for the society as for the creator and both parties must benefit from works of the intellect. However, looking into the recent trend of according trade mark protection to hashtags, it must occur to the legal minds, to shape the social function of IP in moderation. Where necessary, checks and balances must to be placed on the human expansionist behaviour, under which law is being subjected to unnecessary widening in accordance with technology.

Globally, economies are advancing at a swift rate based on “knowledge products and intangibles”, resulting in rapid expansion of IPRs. Author Christophe Geiger[7] cites the implications of widening the ambit of IPRs, in it that such multiplication is mindless, the consequences of which are not “thought through in advance”.

The ever-growing trade mark unit

Putting in perspective a wide understanding, a trade mark may be one or more words, devices or symbols—or composite of both-that is used to distinguish goods or services of one from others. Most scholars and courts agree that trade marks serve two purposes: to protect consumers from deception and confusion, and to protect the infringed mark as property. Traditionally, courts while deciding whether a trade mark is distinctive or not, will usually place a mark under any of the four categories:

(i) Generic,

(ii) Descriptive,

(iii) Suggestive, or

(iv) Arbitrary/Fanciful.

Such adjudication is based on the relationship between the mark and the good/service it is associated with. Moving further, the trade mark regime was widened to include unconventional categories such as shapes, smells, colours, sounds and so on. Currently, companies also seek to register slogans as trade mark, however, the spectrum of generic-to-arbitrary/fanciful is applicable in this case as to the usual marks.

With reference to the given background, the question that arises is whether hashtags fit in the traditional legal framework for trade mark? When companies can register words, phrases or slogans as trade marks, what difference does a hashtag make?

Outlook at trials

History is witness to the fact that a major shift in provisions of a law calls for the judiciary to decide the fate for the same. So has been the case with hashtag trade marks, however, the judiciary has been divided on whether trade mark protection granted to hashtags is valid. The outcomes have been inconsistent.

In Vahan Eksouzian v. Brett Albanese[8], the Court was to analyse whether the use of a hashtag (#cloudpen) was a violation of a settlement agreement clause that prohibited the use of the terms “cloud” and “pen” in close proximity as a unitary trade mark. The defendant owned the trade marks “Cloud PENS” and “Cloud PENZ” and the agreement prohibited the plaintiff from using “the words Cloud, Cloud V, and/or Cloud Vapes in close association with the words “pen”, “penz”, “fuel”, “pad”… in association with the plaintiff’s products as a unitary trade mark.” The Court held that there was no breach “because hashtags are merely descriptive devices, not trade marks, unitary or otherwise, in and of themselves”. It found that even though the hashtag used the registered mark, “using the hashtag in this manner was not an infringing act likely to cause confusion”.

This decision was further supported in AOP Ventures Inc. v. Steam Distribution LLC[9], where the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants caused infringement of its registered mark DRIP CLUB by using the hashtag #Dripclub in atleast five social media posts. The Court stated that merely using a trade mark as a hashtag does not cause infringement of that mark.[10]

Despite these two cases, there are courts that have looked at hashtag use as supporting a trade mark infringement claim. In TWTB Inc. v. Rampick[11], the Court found the use of hashtags to be relevant to a trade mark claim and considered the use of the hashtags as evidence of a former licensee holding itself out to be the same business as a current licensee. Interestingly, in Fraternity Collection LLC v. Fargnoli[12], the Court refused to dismiss a trade mark claim against a competitor’s use of a trade mark as a hashtag and noted that the use of a competitor’s name or product as a hashtag “could, in certain circumstances, deceive consumers.”

Also supporting the enforceability of trade mark rights against hashtag use is Coca-Cola Co. v. Whois Privacy Protection Service Inc./Thien Le Trieu, Le Trieu Thien[13], where WIPO noted that once a mark was determined to be protectable (or by extension, not protectable) there was no reason to analyse the hashtag version of that same term or mark. It stated, however, that a hashtag mark not based on an existing mark would be treated the same as a non-hashtag mark in analysis, and whether the mark had acquired secondary meaning would determine if it were protectable.

Conclusion

The debate goes on with equal amount of support and dissent for hashtags as trade marks. Not leaning towards procedural aspects, my argument sticks to a singular reservation i.e. the social function of IPR, which is to be beneficial to the individual creator and serve the community, at the same time. A single person or company’s rights must be weighed in harmony with the rights of the society as a whole. If the right is to be used in accordance with its function, it must not be used “anti-socially” i.e. disregarding certain fundamental values and competing rights.[14] To insist on the social functions of IPRs is thus to identify a need for moderation and balance in the conception and implementation of these rights.[15]

With the meteoric percolation of social media into daily lives of people, it becomes increasingly important to limit the philosophical basis of IPR, to not bring in any and everything under the sun within an overcrowded umbrella of IP protection. In doing so, it is necessary that the underline idea behind IP protection is remembered, to give necessary protection to the creator, not a monopoly, thus giving others a chance to create further basing on what is already present. Thus, it is the need of the hour to restrict the tendency of excessiveness and harness the IPR regime to its function in order to maintain the flow of creativity in its purest sense.

The foundational philosophy of intellectual property is not to provide monopoly but competitive property rights; to promote healthy competition and lend help to creativity. However, the flurry with which private corporations take over social media with tools like hashtags, can have a cascading effect on rise in litigations. While lawmakers and judiciary must look into easing the chaos on trade mark registers, to restore strength in the IPR regime, a unanimous global decision on the parameters of IPR protection will certainly aid the situation.

  *Hetvi Trivedi is Research Associate, GNLU-GUJCOST Research Centre of Excellence in IP Laws, Policies & Practices

[1]  Christophe Geiger, The Social Function of Intellectual Property Rights, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law Research Paper No. 13-06 (2013).

[2]  David Sillito, Hashtag is “children’s word of year”, available at <http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32902170>.

[3] Claire Jones, Hashtag Trademarks: what can be protected? WIPO Magazine, October 2017 available at <http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2017/05/article_0009.html>.

[4]USPTO, TMEP §1202.18, available at <https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/print?version=Jan2015&href=ch1200_d1ff5e_1b5ad_3bc.html>.

[5] Christophe Geiger, The Social Function of Intellectual Property Rights, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law Research Paper No. 13-06 (2013).

[6]  Ibid.

[7]  Id., at 5.

[8]  2015 WL 4720478 (CD Cal 7-8-2015).

[9]  2016 WL 7336730 (CD Cal 11-10-2016).

[10] Prashant Dayal, #Trade marked: Why Hashtag Trade marks should stay, available at <https://www.wisbar.org/aboutus/forlawstudents/Documents/Prashant%20Dayal%20-%20Submission.pdf>.

[11]  152 F Supp 3d 549 (ED La 2016).

[12]  2015 WL 1486375 (SD Miss 31-3-2015).

[13]  2016 WL 692866, Case No. D2015-2078.

[14]  Christophe Geiger, The Social Function of Intellectual Property Rights, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law Research Paper No. 13-06 (2013).

[15]  Ibid.

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[sherristockman]

Is PetMed Selling Opiates for People, Not Pets? Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Every day, 91 Americans die from an opioid overdose, including those obtained via a prescription. Intended to be reserved for only the most serious cases of pain, opioids are being vastly overprescribed, including for noncancer chronic pain, such as back pain or that from osteoarthritis. With overdose deaths on the rise, public health agencies are urging doctors to cut back on inappropriate prescribing of these powerful drugs — which could be spurring more people to look for them elsewhere. PetMed Express, an online store selling pet medications, may be exploiting this epidemic by selling pet opioids for use in people, although they’ve denied all accusations. An investigation suggests the company specifically targeted humans looking to buy opioids online using Google advertisements. According to research firm Aurelius Value, which conducted the investigation:1 "Using Google, which drives over 55% of the traffic to 1800petmeds.com, PetMed has deployed a vast predatory campaign that dangles ads featuring pictures of Tramadol to drug users searching for how to get high or quickly score a variety of different opiates, narcotics, and street drugs without a prescription. Egregiously, PetMed's ads even specifically bait opiate addicts searching for remedies for their withdrawal symptoms." Opioid Epidemic May Be Driving People to Seek Opioids Online Even as pain levels have remained largely stable in the U.S., prescriptions for opioids nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2010. Deaths from such drugs, including oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone, have also quadrupled since 1999.2 It's easy to become addicted to opioids because your body can develop a tolerance, which means you need an increasingly stronger dose to get the pain-relieving effects. Physical dependence can also develop, which means you develop withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking the drugs. If you take too many prescription opioids, it can stop your breathing, leading to death. It's estimated that 1 in 4 patients on long-term opioid therapy struggle with addiction.3 According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most people who abuse prescription opioids get them from a friend or relative or using their own prescription, but those most at risk of overdosing are more likely to buy them from a drug dealer or other stranger.4 In 2016, new federal guidelines were released urging doctors to try other options, including physical therapy, exercise and over-the-counter medications, before resorting to opioids for pain. The guidelines also recommended prescribing the lowest dose possible and limiting them to three days of treatment for short-term pain.5 The guidelines may have made it harder for some opioid abusers or addicts to get the drugs from their doctors, causing them to seek opioids elsewhere, including online. Did Selling Opioids to Humans Make PetMed's Business Boom? According to Aurelius, PetMed, a distributor of pet medications, has seen fairly stagnant business levels for the last seven years. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, their business began to grow, with the company enjoying the most profitable quarters in their career in 2017. Meanwhile, PetMed shares more than doubled. To explain the unprecedented growth, PetMed's CEO Menderes Akdag cited a shift to "new generation medications." But, according to Aurelius, "Mr. Akdag must have thought no one would scrutinize his claims. It is our belief that the actual 'secret sauce' lies in PetMed's efforts to aggressively market dangerous painkillers to human opiate addicts and drug users."6 Among their products is tramadol, a synthetic opioid prescribed by both veterinarians and physicians. A CDC report ranked tramadol as among the drugs most highly associated with chronic use, with 64 percent of patients still taking the drugs after one year.7 It's worth noting that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) named tramadol a class IV substance in 2014, at which time other major online pet pharmacies stopped selling it. PetMed, however, obtained the necessary approvals to sell class IV substances in 2015, Aurelius reported. Aurelius: 'Aggressive Ad Campaign … Preyed on Opioid Addicts' PetMed uses online advertising to drive customers to their site. This isn’t surprising, and using an analytics platform that archives Google advertisements based on keywords, Aurelius found that prior to 2017, PetMed emphasized predictable keywords in its advertisements, such as the flea medication “comfortis” and its website “1800petmeds.” This changed in 2017, when tramadol became their most effective advertising term, driving about 25 percent of the total paid search traffic to their site. Aurelius enlisted the help of an online marketing expert to home in on PetMed’s ad campaign, which revealed that the ads offer discounts for the drug and do not mention the medication is for pets. Aurelius further reported:8 "PetMed displays ads that target people looking to get high or purchase a wide variety of dangerous drugs. Petmed's Tramadol pills are flashed alongside searches for drugs including Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Vicodin, Hydrocodone, Conzepam, and even "Pink Pills" (Synthetic Heroin). Ads have also been displayed on searches for Ultram (Human Tramadol), "Trammies" (the street name) and Tramadol formulations not recommended for pets. PetMed also targets non-recreational users by marketing its drugs to people merely searching for remedies for their back pain, tooth ache, joint paint, or arthritis." Even people searching for "pills to fight my tramadol addiction" or "opiate withdrawal remedies" could be met with an ad for PetMed's tramadol, according to the report. Their ads also appeared for search terms like "opiate pills online no prescription easy" and "need cheap narcotics online no prescription." Aurelius also dug up some past information about PetMed's co-founders, who were reportedly imprisoned for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Further, in 2002 PetMed was charged (and later settled) with creating a program to sell prescriptions for animals who had not seen the veterinarians who wrote the prescriptions. A prosecutor in the case stated, “Petmed was engaged in an enterprise whereby a customer could log on to their website, fill out a questionnaire regarding their animal’s health complaints, and that information would then be forwarded to a veterinarian who was either employed by, or under contract with, Petmed.”9 Is Aurelius Interested in Exploiting the Stock Market? Aurelius' allegations are serious, but there's still a lot we don't know. PetMed has denied Aurelius' allegations, calling them "false and defamatory," and even going so far as to say it was a major manipulation to drive their stock price lower in order to support short sellers (including Aurelius). They also claimed that tramadol and another drug, gabapentin, make up only 0.4 percent of their total sales. Speaking to Forbes, Mark Henry of Midwood Capital Management said, “Taking this statement at face value, it would then not be fair to primarily attribute the recent surge in sales and earnings to Tramadol sales.” When asked whether he agrees with the substance of the Aurelius report, he noted, “We find it suspicious that PETS’ CEO has been so close-lipped about the shift to ‘new generation medications.’”10 Another layer to the story is Google removed ads for PetMed's tramadol following the allegations. It's unclear, however, whether the ads were pulled by Google or asked to be pulled by PetMed. Google wouldn't comment on the case, but according to Benzinga:11 "[PetMed CFO Bruce] Rosenbloom told Benzinga he was 'sure some things were done' with the Tramadol ads beyond Petmed's control, as the company had never paid for term searches referenced in the condemning report and 'weren't targeting those [consumers] at all.' Google algorithms were to blame for inappropriate ad placement, he said. An Aurelius Value spokesperson rejected the defense and said that, at a minimum, Petmed was 'turning a blind eye' to Google ad data. '[You] can't claim to be a good online marketer and not know what was going on' with Tramadol ads, the spokesperson said." Opioid Addicts Increasingly Turning to Pet Meds At this point, there are still a lot of question marks regarding Aurelius’ accusations against PetMed, but what is clear is that pet owners are increasingly taking medications from their pets to support their own addictions. In Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, for instance, veterinarians report a list of “blacklisted” clients who go from vet to vet, seeking pain medications like tramadol. Other popular requests include anxiety medications like Xanax and Valium. While some owners try to make up excuses for why they need another refill of pills, such as spilling them on the floor, others have gone so far as to physically harm their pets to get a new prescription. In some veterinary schools, classes even exist to teach new veterinarians how to deal with addicts trying to game the system.12 In one of the biggest dog-related cases to date, 100,000 tramadol pills were seized near Portland, Oregon, and 17 dogs living at the site were rescued from filthy living conditions. Four people were arrested who claimed to be breeding puppies but who police suspect were actually distributing opioids.13 Meanwhile, online vet-specific forums are lighting up with stories of pet owners trying to get tramadol from their dog's vet. Jim Arnold, chief of policy and liaison for the diversion control division at the DEA, told the New York Post, "They've gotten very sophisticated in how they obtain drugs and go about their activities … It's an area that allows drug seekers to fly under the radar. We know it's happening, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more activity than we're aware of." 14 Nondrug Solutions for Pain Relief The health risks associated with prescription opioids are great and addiction and overdose happen far more often than you might think. So if you have chronic pain of any kind, please understand that there are many safe and effective alternatives to prescription and even over-the-counter painkillers — alternatives that do not carry these steep risks. The pain remedies that follow are natural, providing excellent pain relief without any of the health hazards that pain medications often carry. Prescription pain medications like opioids do have their place in cases of severe pain for which there are no other options for relief, but for moderate or mild chronic pain, try these instead: ✓ Astaxanthin: One of the most effective oil-soluble antioxidants known, astaxanthin has very potent anti-inflammatory properties. Higher doses are typically required and one may need 8 milligrams or more per day to achieve this benefit. ✓ Ginger: This herb is anti-inflammatory and offers pain relief and stomach-settling properties. Fresh ginger works well steeped in boiling water as a tea or grated into vegetable juice. ✓ Curcumin: Curcumin is the primary therapeutic compound identified in the spice turmeric. In a study of osteoarthritis patients, those who added only 200 milligrams of curcumin a day to their treatment plan had reduced pain and increased mobility.15 In fact, curcumin has been shown in over 50 clinical studies to have potent anti-inflammatory activity, as well as demonstrating the ability in four studies to reduce Tylenol-associated adverse health effects. ✓ Boswellia: Also known as boswellin or "Indian frankincense," this herb contains powerful anti-inflammatory properties, which have been prized for thousands of years. This is one of my personal favorites, as I have seen it work well with many rheumatoid arthritis patients. ✓ Bromelain: This protein-digesting enzyme, found in pineapples, is a natural anti-inflammatory. It can be taken in supplement form, but eating fresh pineapple may also be helpful. Keep in mind that most of the bromelain is found within the core of the pineapple, so consider leaving a little of the pulpy core intact when you consume the fruit. ✓ Cetyl Myristoleate (CMO): This oil, found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a "joint lubricant" and an anti-inflammatory. I have used a topical preparation for myself to relieve ganglion cysts and a mild annoying carpal tunnel syndrome that pops up when I type too much on non-ergonomic keyboards. ✓ Evening Primrose, Black Currant and Borage Oils: These contain the fatty acid gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), which is useful for treating arthritic pain. ✓ Cayenne Cream: Also called capsaicin cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It alleviates pain by depleting the body's supply of substance P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmit pain signals to your brain. Dietary Changes and Additional Pain Relief Options When treating chronic pain, you need to look at the underlying causes of the pain. Toward that end, there's a good chance you need to tweak your diet as follows (all tips that can be used alongside chiropractic and other forms of complementary care): Start taking a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat like krill oil. Omega-3 fats are precursors to mediators of inflammation called prostaglandins. (In fact, that is how anti-inflammatory painkillers work, they positively influence prostaglandins.) The omega-3 fats EPA and DHA contained in krill oil have been found in many animal and clinical studies to have anti-inflammatory properties, which are beneficial for pain relief. Reduce your intake of most processed foods as not only do they contain sugar and additives, but also most are loaded with omega-6 fats that upset your delicate omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. This, in turn, will contribute to inflammation, a key factor in most pain. Eliminate or radically reduce most grains and sugars (especially fructose) from your diet. Avoiding grains and sugars will lower your insulin and leptin levels. Elevated insulin and leptin levels are one of the most profound stimulators of inflammatory prostaglandin production. That is why eliminating sugar and grains is so important to controlling your pain. Optimize your production of vitamin D by getting regular, appropriate sun exposure, which will work through a variety of different mechanisms to reduce your pain. This satisfies your body's appetite for regular sun exposure.

[gossipnetwork-blog]

Hurricane Harvey: What Happens to Drug Users During a Storm?

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/hurricane-harvey-what-happens-to-drug-users-during-a-storm/

Hurricane Harvey: What Happens to Drug Users During a Storm?

Johnny Durst headed into the streets of Houston equipped with toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap and water on the evening of August 30th, just days after Hurricane Harvey had ravaged the city. He went straight for the parking lot of the Fiesta Mart south of downtown, just to to north of the Highway 59 bridge where a large number of homeless folks, many of them active drug users, rode out the storm in tents. Durst, an outreach worker with the Montrose Counseling Center, had other important supplies to give out to people who needed them – bleach kits for IV drug users to sterilize their syringes. Clean water, intended for drinking purposes, also becomes an important item for people who need to prepare their injection equipment.

In his syrupy Texas drawl, Durst explains over the phone that people told him they “did what they had to do to get what they needed.” That meant that, while other people may have been seeking out small amounts of food or water during breaks in the storm, these people were out looking for drug dealers when the rain let up, hoping to score enough to hold them over until the next lull. For people who are physically dependent on a substance, their need to avoid withdrawal symptoms could trump their ability to tend to other crises happening around them.

It’s not just people whose addiction has led them to homelessness who prioritize drugs during storm prep. Posts on the subreddit r/opiates show people trying to figure out how to stock up on drugs before Harvey hit Texas, or wondering whether dealers will serve them during a hurricane. One commenter wrote: “Before a storm everyone was buying out all the water and bread and I was buying all the dope to last through the floods.” Another poster said he was planning for two to three days of “a ghost town,” while commenters offer suggestions like trying to get ahold of Suboxone, an opiate blocker that can be used to stave off withdrawal symptoms.

“If a person in active addiction is seeking a drug of use, they usually know where they can go to get something,” says Matt Feehery, CEO of Memorial Hermann Prevention and Recovery Center (PaRC), an alcohol and drug treatment center in Houston. “If there is a disruption to that, where the people they usually see or access drugs from leave or are displaced, they will be left trying to find someone who has it and can provide that.” On another post in r/opiates, a commenter wrote: “[Hurricane] Matthew fucked our shit up. The entire town was in ruins, yet the day after, there I was driving through down trees, debris, live power lines, no traffic lights, cops everywhere, but I still got my shit.”

A 2011 study following Hurricane Katrina found that many active drug users chose not to evacuate before the storm. As Eliza Player, who was addicted to heroin in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, wrote in an essay for The Fix, “I stayed behind because I didn’t have enough heroin to last more than a day. I never even thought about leaving my beloved home city. Why would I venture to some unknown place where I had no idea where to score?” Not only that, but many navigated the flooded, debris-strewn streets, choosing to expose themselves to danger in order to try to get what they needed, much like the people who stayed under the Highway 59 bridge in Houston instead of seeking shelter.

Research looking at IV drug users who experienced Hurricane Sandy in New York found similar results. They often had to make risky decisions regarding their use, like sharing injection or preparation equipment with people they normally would not have. The study also showed that 60 percent experienced withdrawal and 70 percent on medication assisted treatment could not obtain sufficient doses of their maintenance medications. Researchers concluded that “though relatively brief, a hurricane can be viewed as a Big Event that can alter drug environments and behaviors, and may have lasting impact.”

This impact, which is often traumatic for those who experience devastation, loss, or displacement as a result of these storms, can lead people to self-medicate with substances. “I numbed the flashing images from those days of Katrina with alcohol and pills, trying to drown out the anxiety and depression just like the floodwater drowned New Orleans,” wrote Player. The Centers For Disease Control found that rates of hospitalizations for substance use disorders increased in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, more so in the areas that experienced the most flooding. Even among people who had evacuated to Texas, they saw a spike in treatment numbers. Similar results were found after Sandy, too.

Feehery says that makes sense, and that research shows a direct link between people who suffer traumatic loss and reach for substances as a way of coping. “When people go through a lot of stress, anxiety, depression and loss, there’s a grieving process that goes with it, an emotional response,” he says. “Many people may turn to self-medication to manage those feelings of grief or loss.”

Jemma Dinsmoor, 34, says that the fallout from the severe storms she experienced as a child in North Central Florida led to the beginning of her substance use problems. She says her family was poor and isolated and lived in a small trailer outside the town of Citra, where they stayed during hurricanes, tropical storms and thunderstorms that ravaged their home. “We would wait out storms with no supplies, no way to evacuate,” she says. “Our pets would be gone or worse in their pens outside. You never knew what you would wake up to.” In fifth grade, Dinsmoor began drinking when her parents would go outside to clean up the wreckage of the storms. “I couldn’t deal with the anxiety and sadness of what came when they came back inside.”

Dinsmoor says that the experience has caused her immense anxiety, even today. She has struggled with addiction to alcohol and drugs for most of her life, though she is currently sober. “Even tropical storms make me panic now,” she says. “I over-prepare to the point of breaking the bank… I make sure my animals are over tagged with identification, I make sure we have an exit plan, I make sure that we have batteries and lamps and technology so that we know exactly where everyone is and where to go and we have evacuation routes and we have plans if there’s flooding and we have a high place to go.”

The Right Step, a drug and alcohol treatment program with multiple locations throughout the Houston area, said they evacuated the patients in their residential treatment program last week, prior to Harvey making landfall. Because they have many locations, they had the ability to move patients with relative ease, says Chris Karkenny, the chief executive officer of Elements Behavioral Health, The Right Step’s parent company. Karkenny says that many of their outpatient locations have been closed at some point over the past week, but that they’re in the process of opening them all back up again, and as far as he knows, no one has called seeking a detox bed specifically because of displacement or withdrawal as a result of Harvey.

According to Feehery, PaRC never stopped admitting patients and they currently have open detox beds available. He also says it’s too early to tell whether Harvey will result in a spike of people seeking treatment. “If you’re in the middle of a different kind of crisis, people know how to self-medicate and manage through it. It’s part of a survival technique and, being someone with addiction, you know how to manage and maintain and hold it together until you can’t anymore,” he says.

PaRC has deployed social workers and mental health professionals to serve at evacuation shelters to help identify people struggling with mental health and substance use issues. Mental health professionals at the shelters should also be able to provide drugs like buprenorphine and naloxone, opiate blockers that can prevent withdrawal symptoms in someone with a physical dependence, or be prescribed as medication assisted treatment for people with opiate addictions.

As the clouds clear and the sun shines over the city of Houston, many people are stepping out into the light to survey the damage. Durst says that activity near the Fiesta Mart is picking up, too. “There were so many people out [on Wednesday] and it was like everyone was trying to catch up, making [drug] deals and trying to get money,” he says.

But for Plaza, Katrina was the catalyst that spurred her to eventually get sober, though it wouldn’t happen for several more years. “Although I’d escaped New Orleans, I hadn’t escaped the confusion, fear and regret in my head,” she wrote. “For years to come, I would struggle with the bloated images that rolled like a movie reel through my thoughts.” But drug users in Houston are still too close to the storm, still in the thick of the trauma, to know how this event will shape their lives and their addiction.

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[postolo]

Hashtag Trade Marks—An Unpleasant Reality of IP Protection

“Property is not the bastion of egoism but rather the vehicle of social exchange.”

— Joseph Kohler, German scholar[1]

One cannot negate the steady escalation of technology or dispute its benefits, but the recent trend of protection sought under intellectual property rights, spurred by this monstrous growth is a distress signal. The trend can be labelled in just one term-hashtags. For those who are fortunately (or not) unaware of the hashtag culture, it is a tool to characterise content into groups; by placing a “#” character, also known as the hash symbol, in front of a word or a phrase, the author makes it easier for the reader to locate a work when searched by the specific word or phrase.

Hashtags are all around us. They are online, offline and the term was also announced by Oxford University Press as “Children’s Word of the Year” in 2015.[2] No more a mere symbol on the keypad of a phone, hashtags are serving as investment points for companies wanting to carve a brand niche. It is interesting to learn that popular brand campaigns #HowDoYouKFC and #McDstories, belonging to food giants KFC and McDonald, respectively, the soft drink specialist Coca-Cola company’s #smilewithacoke, the viral fundraiser #IceBucketChallenge and the global phenomenon of #TBT popularised by Instagram, are protected as trade marks. Surprisingly so, by the end of 2015 more than two hundred hashtags were registered as trade marks in the United States of America, while thousands more awaited their chance. An article published in WIPO Magazine last year[3], cites a survey establishing 64% hike in hashtag trade mark applications in 2016 as compared to previous year. Is this not a cause for concern? By according such protection, we may have diluted the concept of IPR rather than expanding it.

In 2013, the United States Patent and Trade marks Office (USPTO) addressed “Hashtag Trade marks” in the Trade mark Manual of Examining Procedure.[4] It recognised that a term containing the hash symbol or the term hashtag may be registered as a trade mark, but “only if it functions as an identifier of the source of the applicant’s goods or services”. It states further, “Generally, the hash symbol and the wording Hashtag do not provide any source-indicating function because they merely facilitate categorisation and searching within online social media … if a mark consists of the hash symbol or the term Hashtag combined with wording that is merely descriptive or generic for the goods or services, the entire mark must be refused as merely descriptive or generic.”

What was a modest beginning in the year 2007, a decade later, hashtag has earned a remarkable status. And with an unprecedented growth in social media, hashtags have managed a mind boggling feat. Safe to say, hashtags have engulfed humanity, with not a life remaining untouched (except of course, lives in the remotest parts of the earth). Addressing the concern mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is worrisome to imply gullibility in the IPR regime and the regime needs to be strengthened at a faster pace in order to maintain its sanctity.

Intellectual property rights—A social contract

IPR protection is commonly placed under two major theories—(i) Utilitarian (ii) Natural; the former recognising a creation or an invention thereby incentivising to create or invent further, the latter backing the idea that an individual must be able to protect the result of their creative, inventive or commercial labour. Society has a need for intellectual productions in order to ensure its development and cultural, economic, technological and social progress and therefore grants the creator a reward in the form of an intellectual property right, which enables him to exploit his work and to draw benefits from it. In return, the creator, by rendering his creation accessible to the public, enriches the community. Intellectual property law is thus the product of a type of “social contract” between the author and society.[5]

Apart from the justifications, intellectual property rights too are attached with a social function. The social function which is inherent to any legal rule allows for the rights of the individuals to be weighed against competing rights.[6] Being part of a broader legal system, these rights must always be put in context with other rights of equal value and with collective interests. Thus, works protected as intellectual property are equally important for the society as for the creator and both parties must benefit from works of the intellect. However, looking into the recent trend of according trade mark protection to hashtags, it must occur to the legal minds, to shape the social function of IP in moderation. Where necessary, checks and balances must to be placed on the human expansionist behaviour, under which law is being subjected to unnecessary widening in accordance with technology.

Globally, economies are advancing at a swift rate based on “knowledge products and intangibles”, resulting in rapid expansion of IPRs. Author Christophe Geiger[7] cites the implications of widening the ambit of IPRs, in it that such multiplication is mindless, the consequences of which are not “thought through in advance”.

The ever-growing trade mark unit

Putting in perspective a wide understanding, a trade mark may be one or more words, devices or symbols—or composite of both-that is used to distinguish goods or services of one from others. Most scholars and courts agree that trade marks serve two purposes: to protect consumers from deception and confusion, and to protect the infringed mark as property. Traditionally, courts while deciding whether a trade mark is distinctive or not, will usually place a mark under any of the four categories:

(i) Generic,

(ii) Descriptive,

(iii) Suggestive, or

(iv) Arbitrary/Fanciful.

Such adjudication is based on the relationship between the mark and the good/service it is associated with. Moving further, the trade mark regime was widened to include unconventional categories such as shapes, smells, colours, sounds and so on. Currently, companies also seek to register slogans as trade mark, however, the spectrum of generic-to-arbitrary/fanciful is applicable in this case as to the usual marks.

With reference to the given background, the question that arises is whether hashtags fit in the traditional legal framework for trade mark? When companies can register words, phrases or slogans as trade marks, what difference does a hashtag make?

Outlook at trials

History is witness to the fact that a major shift in provisions of a law calls for the judiciary to decide the fate for the same. So has been the case with hashtag trade marks, however, the judiciary has been divided on whether trade mark protection granted to hashtags is valid. The outcomes have been inconsistent.

In Vahan Eksouzian v. Brett Albanese[8], the Court was to analyse whether the use of a hashtag (#cloudpen) was a violation of a settlement agreement clause that prohibited the use of the terms “cloud” and “pen” in close proximity as a unitary trade mark. The defendant owned the trade marks “Cloud PENS” and “Cloud PENZ” and the agreement prohibited the plaintiff from using “the words Cloud, Cloud V, and/or Cloud Vapes in close association with the words “pen”, “penz”, “fuel”, “pad”… in association with the plaintiff’s products as a unitary trade mark.” The Court held that there was no breach “because hashtags are merely descriptive devices, not trade marks, unitary or otherwise, in and of themselves”. It found that even though the hashtag used the registered mark, “using the hashtag in this manner was not an infringing act likely to cause confusion”.

This decision was further supported in AOP Ventures Inc. v. Steam Distribution LLC[9], where the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants caused infringement of its registered mark DRIP CLUB by using the hashtag #Dripclub in atleast five social media posts. The Court stated that merely using a trade mark as a hashtag does not cause infringement of that mark.[10]

Despite these two cases, there are courts that have looked at hashtag use as supporting a trade mark infringement claim. In TWTB Inc. v. Rampick[11], the Court found the use of hashtags to be relevant to a trade mark claim and considered the use of the hashtags as evidence of a former licensee holding itself out to be the same business as a current licensee. Interestingly, in Fraternity Collection LLC v. Fargnoli[12], the Court refused to dismiss a trade mark claim against a competitor’s use of a trade mark as a hashtag and noted that the use of a competitor’s name or product as a hashtag “could, in certain circumstances, deceive consumers.”

Also supporting the enforceability of trade mark rights against hashtag use is Coca-Cola Co. v. Whois Privacy Protection Service Inc./Thien Le Trieu, Le Trieu Thien[13], where WIPO noted that once a mark was determined to be protectable (or by extension, not protectable) there was no reason to analyse the hashtag version of that same term or mark. It stated, however, that a hashtag mark not based on an existing mark would be treated the same as a non-hashtag mark in analysis, and whether the mark had acquired secondary meaning would determine if it were protectable.

Conclusion

The debate goes on with equal amount of support and dissent for hashtags as trade marks. Not leaning towards procedural aspects, my argument sticks to a singular reservation i.e. the social function of IPR, which is to be beneficial to the individual creator and serve the community, at the same time. A single person or company’s rights must be weighed in harmony with the rights of the society as a whole. If the right is to be used in accordance with its function, it must not be used “anti-socially” i.e. disregarding certain fundamental values and competing rights.[14] To insist on the social functions of IPRs is thus to identify a need for moderation and balance in the conception and implementation of these rights.[15]

With the meteoric percolation of social media into daily lives of people, it becomes increasingly important to limit the philosophical basis of IPR, to not bring in any and everything under the sun within an overcrowded umbrella of IP protection. In doing so, it is necessary that the underline idea behind IP protection is remembered, to give necessary protection to the creator, not a monopoly, thus giving others a chance to create further basing on what is already present. Thus, it is the need of the hour to restrict the tendency of excessiveness and harness the IPR regime to its function in order to maintain the flow of creativity in its purest sense.

The foundational philosophy of intellectual property is not to provide monopoly but competitive property rights; to promote healthy competition and lend help to creativity. However, the flurry with which private corporations take over social media with tools like hashtags, can have a cascading effect on rise in litigations. While lawmakers and judiciary must look into easing the chaos on trade mark registers, to restore strength in the IPR regime, a unanimous global decision on the parameters of IPR protection will certainly aid the situation.

  *Hetvi Trivedi is Research Associate, GNLU-GUJCOST Research Centre of Excellence in IP Laws, Policies & Practices

[1]  Christophe Geiger, The Social Function of Intellectual Property Rights, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law Research Paper No. 13-06 (2013).

[2]  David Sillito, Hashtag is “children’s word of year”, available at <http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32902170>.

[3] Claire Jones, Hashtag Trademarks: what can be protected? WIPO Magazine, October 2017 available at <http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2017/05/article_0009.html>.

[4]USPTO, TMEP §1202.18, available at <https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/print?version=Jan2015&href=ch1200_d1ff5e_1b5ad_3bc.html>.

[5] Christophe Geiger, The Social Function of Intellectual Property Rights, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law Research Paper No. 13-06 (2013).

[6]  Ibid.

[7]  Id., at 5.

[8]  2015 WL 4720478 (CD Cal 7-8-2015).

[9]  2016 WL 7336730 (CD Cal 11-10-2016).

[10] Prashant Dayal, #Trade marked: Why Hashtag Trade marks should stay, available at <https://www.wisbar.org/aboutus/forlawstudents/Documents/Prashant%20Dayal%20-%20Submission.pdf>.

[11]  152 F Supp 3d 549 (ED La 2016).

[12]  2015 WL 1486375 (SD Miss 31-3-2015).

[13]  2016 WL 692866, Case No. D2015-2078.

[14]  Christophe Geiger, The Social Function of Intellectual Property Rights, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law Research Paper No. 13-06 (2013).

[15]  Ibid.

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