#i want to be creative and i also want people to recognize it. different complaint but it sucks so bad

[yelloworangesoda]

gotta get off the internet and only interact irl with people who were 30 before they got their shit together i cant keep doing it like this

[findmeinthefallair]

It makes me smile when one of your Owl House takes shows up on my dash. You have such a good eye for imagery, symbolism, and character parallels. I’m impressed by how fast you find the connections, and how many different types of parallels you’re able to draw. I suspect you recognize these patterns better than most neurotypicals. I wanted you to know that I appreciate auDHD-you and the talents you share with your online community.

I think those of us who are neurodiverse too often get backhanded compliments for our talents, passions, empathy, and achievements. At best, accomplishments get framed as being impressive for happening “despite” our diagnosis (or suspected diagnosis), when really, they were possible because of everything we are, including our different ways of thinking. It’s as if society is out to rob us of our joy, because in many practical ways, it does. Traits that would be seen as talents in neurotypicals become pathologies for those with ADHD and/or autism. Our pride in our work and creative pursuits is revoked by society as part of a symptom to be treated, an aberration to suppress. And our very real struggles in a world with little-to-no regard for our comfort are too often framed as our problems, not society’s failure to provide viable options.

No one questions providing glasses to the visually impaired to make the world easier to navigate. It doesn’t even occur to most people that glasses are a tool, a form of accommodation, because enough people need them at some point in their lives that society sees value in the investment. It’s rare to hear a complaint at a meeting when someone requests the presenter zoom-in to make the text easier to read, or when a student needs to sit closer to the chalkboard/ whiteboard. Yet a fidget item at work/ school, or a request to listen to our words over our (often misread/ misunderstood) facial expressions is somehow too much. We’re the ones who are weird, and asked to change ourselves in exhausting and often impossible ways to fit into a society that is all too happy to discount us. It’s unfair.

It's unfair that minorities (of any kind) are burdened with making all the concessions in a societal ‘compromise.’ It’s unfair that the examples of success, life fulfillment, and happiness rarely or never include people like us. It’s unfair that the pathways presented to us are strewn with obstacles designed to sabotage certain people, but not others. And it’s outright depressing when a combination of factors seem to be stacked against you (religion, family, culture, gender, health, you name it). It can be easy to forget that joy exists at all.

But there are joys to be had in this existence. What joy looks like for a neurodiverse person might be different than the advertisements say. How we get there is often different than our neurotypical peers. I don’t have all the answers, and the coping strategies that worked for me may or may not work for you. I started enjoying my life more when I measured it against the things I wanted, rather than other people’s measures of success. This was a thoughtful and deliberate exercise, and required a bit of trial and error to figure out what popular pursuits I didn’t enjoy and what unpopular pursuits were exactly right for me.

For me that meant staying in more often than going out (crowds drain me). It meant picking movies, books, and video games based on subjects that appealed to me, even if they weren’t always high-rated (Shadow Hearts has a sanity meter and a main character that turns into a monster – and I would’ve missed out on so much fun if I let its mediocre game review dissuade me!) It meant cutting down on tasks that other people wouldn’t see as an issue, but got to me (I hate making lunches when I’m burned out after work, so I pre-make a week’s worth of lunch every Sunday instead). It also meant reevaluating my work and education goals (I didn’t get into med school. I’m not working on prestigious research. But that’s okay! I like the problem-solving that comes with making research tools. I get to impact lots of different areas of health research and have way more job security.) I had to ditch the narrative that I should achieve more, socialize more, and be someone else’s ideal. I also had to hold onto my self-worth and make an escape-plan to get away from an abusive boss (multiple times, unfortunately).

All the challenges of being different in a neurotypical-preferencing world didn’t go away, but they got easier to handle once I stopped trying to do things the neurotypical way to neurotypical standards. And on the really bad days, knowing there’s still joy to discover helps me through it. Sometimes the joy is as small as sitting outside watching the hummingbirds flit from flower to flower. Sometimes it’s hearing from a friend or coworker that I did something that made their day better.

You make the day better for me and so many people online. I hope you keep giving life a chance to get better, and that you find your own path to experiencing more joy.

So true 🥺🥺

Thank you for taking time to share all this with me 💙❤️💜

[stardust-in-my-mind-blog]

letter to mother in law

I'm writing this shit

in epic poetry

written in my own

fucking writing voice

calligraphy

and it would be

just your luck

if I got famous

just because

you bitches

slay me

like the knights

used to slay dragons

and you fucking know

those dragons were way

more awesome

than any

of those fucking knights

maybe not for humans

or civilizations

but just to take a moment

in collected and concentrated

awe

and imagine

those mythical creatures

in our lives

around our hearts

isn't that where you really

and secretly

and truly

dream?

Oh that's just me

talking about the things

that spin and dance around

in my brain

while all you can do

is listen to the garbage complaints

of the son you obviously

didn't raise to think for himself

just obey

and avoid the consequences

I don't play that way

always had to as a kid

I'll say whatever you need to

slip into whatever role

you think you're

manipulating me

into

see where you take this

wonder where it will go

then stop

change my mind

and do what I please.

It's my life.

I get to.

I am raising three young adhd children.

I say that because it matters.

It's a condition diagnosed by people who

spend years

learning about emotions

document the data

that has been collected

then studied by researchers

over years

with a motivation to

understand the behavior patterns

of humans who seem

to have an issue of extra energy

and a different way of

perceiving the world

and how you can make their lives

and your own life

raising them

more harmonious and enjoyable

for all of you

just by educating yourself a bit more

about how mental health works

it's like you think mental health

is a thing

and not an intentional

maintinannce

of not raging out

when everything and

everyone you care about

seems to see

is how you're failing to be

the kind of human

they want you to be

because you came here to be you

and they want a different version of you

but you're you and

you're me

and all our relationships

are mirrors where we

recognize parts of each other

and have to either

integrate it or

absorb it

or take it into your heart

without any kind of filter

because they are the ones

who teach you how to

write love on your heart

and some of them

choose to brand you with it

and tell you not to

scream when it burns

because that means you're

not tough

and only the strong

survive

some of them buy

brushes and ink

and write it in

permanent color

and the older hearts

get the love

lovingly tattooed on their heart

if they want to

and it's sharp

and it also burns

but not like the brand

and some hearts

carve the names

who branded them

off of themselves

with lightsabers

or talons

and find a way to

make the scar tissue

beautiful mess

a mural of

a journey tapestry

with a tragic beginning

but those were hard lessons

all of us end up learning

along the way

they just got it faster

I guess

because life is nature

and nature is here to

grow stuff

and see what kind of

wild things survive

so we survived

with the names

we love

on our hearts.

To me you are the woman

who taught Ben that

Meet Joe Black

is the right way

to think about love.

I know that he will

watch The Mask Of Zorro

by my side

with Theo

who was a cowboy

for Halloween

and Ben was a cowboy too.

You have a picture of

Fiona wearing

a pink cowboy hat

in your bathroom

and a pegasus on the shelf in there

with so much stuff about horses

I always felt a little at home.

It's okay that I changed your feelings

about me when I

lashed out

with the fourth draft

of hate poetry

raging at your husband

because he's critical as fuck

as a pattern of behavior

and it's annoying

I've mentioned this

politely in prose

hate poetry

is the second warning

I'm just making up

arbitrary rules here

but follow them

or else you get

my creative hobby

of making my

grievences

into poetry

and you can literally

sue me

because I'll never stop

advocating

for myself

in a way

that pleases me.

But only if you ignore my direct communication.

Or try to abuse me with your mean judgements and words.

Also, I respect reasonable boundaries.

I also like to approach conflict and not avoid it.

I also give you the option of having me not come to Ben's stuff at your house. I won't take it personal and I am completely fine staying home alone. I don't need to be a reason of conflict or something that keeps the family separated.

I know what it's like. I am separated from my two of my kids for some holidays. It is what it is.

You don't have to like me. I don't have to be part of things. I just don't want Theo to miss out.

[herrlindemann]

Interview with Richard for METAL HAMMER N°3 - 1997

The tension in the Rammstein camp is increasing: their second album, Sehnsucht, is due to be released in April. Henning Richter wanted to know how the climbers of '96 cope with the pressure that weighs on them.

Is there actually a Rammstein concept? With a few ingenious associations, resourceful critics had created a wonderful concept: with their flamboyant singer, the group wanted to commemorate the burning victims of the Rammstein air show disaster, while the blazing flames symbolized the easily ignited lust of heated bodies in trembling beds... Nothing there : With a short, disillusioning sentence, guitarist Richard Kruspe destroys all these dreams: “There is no Rammstein concept. We started with a sparkler, from which this show gradually developed, which we are also keeping by the way. On our next tour we will employ a pyro company though. During the last concert in the Berlin Arena, our backdrop caught fire, things fell down, there were people who bled a little... But we visited them all, there are no complaints“, at least that's what he hopes.

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. So hit the rewind button again and rewound. The afternoon began with a short audio sample of the upcoming Rammstein album Sehnsucht in a shoebox-sized studio in Prenzlauer Berg. Five titles resounded from slender speakers, although not quite finished yet, they point to the future. One thing is certain, their “Techno-Metal mit Drill-Deutsch” (WOM-Journal) has become more varied. The song 'Du has(s)t' in particular surprises with its rather soft vocals and its harmonious melody. Other numbers like the mercilessly heavy 'Bestrafe mich' are total techno trash. Richard is satisfied, although the expectations of his band, which has sold an impressive 180,000 units of their debut Herzeleid, are of course huge. "You can only lose with the second album," he fears, "either people complain: 'They haven't developed at all' or they complain: 'That doesn't sound like Rammstein anymore'.”

What remains are texts that often deal with "sex and love in extreme forms," ​​says Kruspe, "I'm interested in relationships.” Masochism and sadism are dealt with, frustration and lust are addressed. Incidentally, relationship frustration was a cornerstone of Rammstein. “When we first met in the rehearsal room, we all had stress with women, it went to the point of sheer hatred, which is also reflected in the lyrics. Frustration was a good creative driver, and it also bonded us as a group.” In the meantime the stress seems to have disappeared, almost all Rammstein butchers have wives and children, Richard already has two. “Kids take you out of your world, they give you a new perspective. Get kids,” he recommends, but frankly, he doesn't quite convince me.

In the course of the interview, Richard's will to stand out from the crowd with Rammstein shines through again and again. “I like bands like Metallica or The Prodigy, who see their own way. That's why I'm also into techno, because it's European music that differs from the vast amount of American productions.” He sees America as a real challenge for his combo. Since Kraftwerk and the Scorpions no German band has managed to be recognized there. After all, Rammstein has had two good experiences with American artists so far. On the one hand, cult director David Lynch used two of their songs for the soundtrack of his new film "Lost Highway", on the other hand they toured with the Ramones. “It was certainly an unusual composition, but it worked. The fans accepted us. The Ramones themselves were great, bassist C.J. always wore a Rammstein shirt from day two. Joey used to sing (mimicking a typical American R) in the dressing room, 'Rrrammstein, Rrrammstein'. He has a bar in New York where he constantly plays a live recording of our concert.”

My interviewee reveals that computers played an important role in the creation of the new material. “Up until a year and a half ago, I was also very skeptical about samples and computers. Now they fascinate me. I feel like making modern computer music, after all you can't resist the development of the times. When it comes to composing, I picked up the guitar again after a while. A lot of these techno computer freaks don't play an instrument, that's definitely a disadvantage. I love songs, and they're just easier to write on the guitar.” Several members of the 'Tanz-Metaller' now work with a computer, curiously enough keyboarder Flake doesn't have one, although bits and bytes should actually be closest to him. It is also strange that singer Till Lindemann does not give any interviews, as Kruspe explains in a dry and nebulous manner: "He doesn't say anything because he simply has nothing to say.” Ah.

That is completely natural, as is Lindemann's strongly rolling R, claims Richard, "the man comes from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, people sometimes talk like that there.” When I asked whether Rammstein “Jean Claude Van Damme-Double” is close to East German singers such as Eugen Balanskat from the Skeptics, my counterpart vehemently denied: “Till is more into Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys.” Right from the start, it was important for the sextet to appear as a group and not to single out any member, maybe frontman Lindemann's non-appearance has something to do with it... The effort to always appear together was put to the test when the Prenzelbergers started their career: “We calculated that we were together for 200 to 250 days last year,” groans the muscular guitarist, “that was really hard.” The men even marched together to swim to keep fit on tour. At the moment the musicians are enjoying their freedom, taking care of the kids before they go on an extended tour of Germany again at the end of April.

The disc was recorded in Malta, in the same studio where Braunschweig's Such A Surge recorded their major second division AGORAPHOBIC NOTES. The capital cities again hired Jacob Hellner as the sound coach, and the recordings were again mixed by the mix genius Roland Prent. "It's about time we changed producers, though. At first we still had a lot of respect for him, but now we've noticed that he only cooks with water. That's why we co-produced the album,” says Kruspe with a touch of disappointment. The record company also tried to have a say, which he thinks is only natural. “They invest a lot of money and now want to make money. But we didn't listen to the Company envy, relying more on our instincts.”

Rammstein are sailing their very own course, summarizes Richard, who appropriately wears American sailor pants today. Musicians are like sailors, I say, they're always on the move and there's a bride for everyone in every port. “If you mean groupies, all I can say is I'm not into them. I like equal women, groupies are so submissive. But one thing is true: like sailors, we are rarely at home.”

[bybdolan]

would love to see you rank taylor’s album covers and maybe explain what you like/dislike about each of them one day. :) i’m not creative in the slightest and have almost no preferences about that sort of thing, so it’s interesting to hear what more artistic people have to say about them. but even as someone who’s not creative like that, i have always thought the rep cover was trash. like normally i never notice that kind of thing but it feels like that “graphic design is my passion” meme lol

Disclaimer: I am NOT a trained graphic designer, so this list and all my opinions are based on my personal taste and my “eye” for things, not any actual knowledge on what makes a cover good – though I have taken the recognizability of each cover and how it represents the album into account. Making this list has also instilled a deep loathing of the design of the Taylor’s Version packaging in me – the complete and utter lack of care put into any of it genuinely pisses me off. I wanted to say this before showing you my actual ranking, because cover-wise the albums rank higher than Taylor’s earlier work, however, I really have to say that I think all of her albums up to reputation have a spark in the album packaging design that simply was not there afterwards. I think we can blame the streaming era for this, and it makes me sad.

You can find the ranking under the cut!

1. 1989 – This is the shining star of Taylor album covers to me. I don’t think anybody can deny how easily recognizable and iconic this cover is. The polaroid adds the 80s vibe (and I LOVE how those photos defined the album packaging as a whole), the omitted eyes are mysterious and intriguing, and the handwriting makes this album cover so tactile in the sense that it feels like an actual object. I love when album covers have a sense of physicality to them, for example when the title is written on a surface somewhere in the cover photo (check out HAIMs Women In Music Pt. III), and 1989 really delivers on that. I would go as far as saying that this is one of the most iconic album covers of the 2010s.

2. RED – Going from 1989 to RED feels like a pretty significant drop in quality already, even though the original RED album cover isn’t bad by any means. There is a sense of sensuality and mystique about it and it sells the Blue homage it is attempting. My biggest qualm with this cover is the font; I don’t love Bebas Neue as it feels heavy and clunky to me, more advertisement than album cover. I think a different, more subtle font would have done wonders for this. However, it is worth recognizing that the RED cover is an established image in pop culture as well, and I think the overall design with the diagonal stripes is quite nice; it feels vintage-y and sophisticated and I love how cohesive the booklet is.

3. Folklore – I mean. Yea. This is kind of boring but it fits the album in its subduedness and I do like the imagery of Taylor disappearing in the woods/the world she has created. The folklorecover does what it needs to do and it does it well. Anything more would probably have been too much for this album. I have my complaints about the back cover and the booklet though (yes, I understand it had to be made last minute, but still… could have been better!)

4. RED TV – I actually preferred this over the og RED cover when it first came out, and I still love the photograph, but idk how much I love it as an album cover. The RED ring is absolutely FANTASTIC (see my notes on album titles being part of the cover photograph in the 1989 section), and I think this could have been my second favorite Taylor cover, had they just zoomed in on the face and the ring a little bit. I simply don’t like the framing of this photo, and it kind of ruins the whole thing for me. I am intrigued to see what she does for the rest of the recordings, but so far, I have been incredibly underwhelmed at the lack of cohesion and graphic design care put into a project that would be fantastic for collectible editions and is meant as a tribute to Taylor’s legacy. Even though most of her early covers rank below the newer stuff, I do have a soft spot for them because I cannot help but feel like Taylor’s album designs have gotten lazier and lazier over time. If I were to judge the album packaging as a whole, I think this list would look a little different.

5. Speak Now – This was spot 7 on this list but then I typed the last sentence of my RED TV review and was like !!! You know what! Speak Now is very cute and at least she isn’t lazy! This is obviously a rather cheesy album cover, and idk if I like the pretty big section that is just. White. But as I said: This isn’t lazy. The hazy fairy tale vibes are there, the painting effect is a nice touch, and I can’t help but think about how whimsy and cute the back cover and the booklet are. Yes this is not wonderful graphic design, but at least it has heart and ambition, which you cannot really say for Taylor’s album packaging from reputation onwards.

6. Evermore – Again: It does what it needs to do. It’s fine. I cannot complain about it by any means, but I also don’t love it in the slightest.

7. Fearless TV – This should be bottom of the list simply for the abomination that is the back cover, but Taylor looks super pretty in the photo and the whole thing works as an homage to the original Fearless cover. I even have a soft spot for the sepia filter until I discovered that apparently not all rerecordings would have that feature. So now it’s kind of weird. Again, you cannot tell from the cover alone, but the whole packaging just is so boring to me and just feels so churned out. Where is the fucking spark?

8. Fearless – This has spark! I kept swapping og Fearless and Fearless TV around because at least the packaging of og Fearless feels like people had fun making it, but I cannot get over my dislike for the fonts used here (which is why I prefer the European version!) Whyy is the “Fearless” so big and has a shadow around it. I don’t like it, I am sorry. I do LOVE the booklet though, it radiates joy.

9. Taylor Swift – This is a country album released by a teenager from Nashville in 2006. I think I shouldn’t have high expectations. Debut is fine. She is cute! That photo of Taylor kneeling in the pond was part of my bi awakening when I was 14/15, so I have to give it that. The notebook vibes of the booklet are a nice touch. Now that I think about it I do have love for the design of this, but I think it’s mainly nostalgia. I applaud the cohesion of the color scheme and I like the little notebook details :)

10. Reputation – I think this is terribly ugly and the only reason it is not at the bottom of this list is that I can appreciate the idea behind it. She is speaking her truth after the media has tainted her, whatever. I get it. I just think the execution is awfully lackluster (stop with the fucking white backgrounds!) and the most basic take on the “album about the media” idea (I may direct you to Faber’s I Fucking Love My Lifeas an album cover that did it better). Taylor’s face and neck also look a little strange to me. It does have a sense of recognizability, I’ll admit that. But I cannot believe this is the cover one chooses for their “taking back the narrative” album. Have a little fun! But, with all of reputation, we didn’t get what we could have gotten.

11. Lover – I HATE this. The diary theme in the booklet is cute and I don’t hate the back cover at all, but maaan I find the actual album cover to be awful. It’s a shame, really, because the album cover shoot is fantastic, but the coloring of Taylor’s face on the cover is super dull and strange, the weird sky background feels so lazily photoshopped and the font is just. Bleh. Cheesy and ugly. The CD is super super nice though, and, again, the rest of the packaging is honestly fine, but I cannot get over how actually unprofessional the album cover looks. The aforementioned weird color of Taylor’s face is honestly my biggest issue. This is just. Bad. It doesn’t make me as angry as the booklet or back covers of the TVs, but I just think it’s sooo… How does the biggest pop star in the world end up with this album cover?

[soulvomit]

stuff with gender anguish about not fitting in with today’s current gender constructions

From another post I made: I need to talk about 20th century gender norms at some point as a living breathing 20th century fossil and how different it was. To most straight people, being gender non conforming meant gay, trans was on the far end of the gay spectrum, and gay was associated with being socially Not Normal at a time when you had to be Normal to get a white collar job. (The whole Normalhood thing im gonna talk about is VERY connected to mid-late 20th century construction of the white middle class.) Apropos of gender specifically... I’m not sure how 90s/00s genderfluid/genderqueer map to NB, or whether they do. It’s a big reason I am weird about IDing as NB - because it seems to mean something else than my particular understanding of my identity as it was formed in the 1990s. (Another thing is my social world being more people over 45 at this point and also I’m in a hetero relationship.) Part of 90s GQ stuff was that you could identify as a man part time, a woman part time, you could contain multitudes. “Woman-identified person with a male side” was a legit identity within that, so was “man-identified person with a female side.” You could be one person in the streets and another in the sheets. You could be several people in the sheets, especially if you were aligned with kinky culture. (And for a long time... I was.) There was a greater sense in the 90s and early 00s in genderqueerness culture that you could be GQ for no other reason than wanting to be and it wasn’t assumed to be bundled with physical dysphoria or even desire to change your public social identity. Some spaces - like West Coast geek culture and goth culture - had enough flexibility baked in that we didn’t really need to go to LGBTQ culture to explore our identities, and there was a whole geek queer sensibility that was evolving alongside of the broader LGBTQ culture that was definitely its own... thing.  And while people *say* that NB doesn’t mean any one particular thing or any of these things, that’s not always the message I get when visible NBs on TV/in film are almost always at present one very specific image or “type” of person, and that doesn’t resemble me. NB representation on TV amounts to presenting NB as a third gender with very specific codified behaviors (androgynous AFAB person who binds and has body dysphoria).   The message I get is that whatever my experience is, is better described some other way. Also the discourse around relationships with NBs is that a relationship with an NB is necessarily a queer relationship yet having been in relationships in and out of LGBTQ culture, I’m not really sure how to distinguish “a queer relationship.” My relationship is non-traditional in lots of ways and we’re both gender non-conforming in lots of ways though it doesn’t parse to most people because it’s along the lines of stuff that shouldn’t have ever been gendered in the first place. What my partner does not ever question however is his actual gender identity.  The thing is, actually publicly identifying as anything but a woman would create weird problems in my life in terms of social dynamics, and other stuff, and probably an unpredictable series of ripple effects downstream. But - that... just means I’m closeted, right? And closeted doesn’t mean your identity doesn’t exist or isn’t as unreal as someone who isn’t? And what if - as a “shapeshifter” - my relationship to myself within my relationship *is* part of that shapeshifting?  One of the things is that I’m in a heterosexual relationship. My relationship *is* one of my few spots where I’m happy in my skin, let alone happy in the world and I have no complaints with how I’m perceived in this relationship, and part of it is that practically every assumption about my gender is true, or has been true at some point, including the fact that I’m fine with being seen as a woman in the context of my relationship.  It’s in other spaces besides the intimate, that gender stuff makes my skin crawl. My deep interior gender identity is “pixels floating in the ether, which can assume any shape or form.” My gender identity among other people in non sexual friend spaces is “friend.” My partner identifies as a cis het man. I don’t feel like my relationship has any special quality that’s different from queer relationships I’ve been in, other than identities people have. If my partner doesn’t feel our relationship is queer then I don’t feel it is, either... though it’s not exactly *traditional.*  I don’t feel like our relationship is different from our hetero neighbors’ relationships regardless of whatever history I have. I have no way of knowing what my ostensibly-female ostensibly-heterosexual neighbors’ interior identities really are, or what their history is. And because we’re monogamous, it just never ever comes up. Our social world is about half queer and half not so nothing has changed. After decades of only dating people who had LGBTQ identities, and having a particular social world, now I’m with a cis het man from that same social world and nothing really has changed about the shape of my life.   I’ve moved between different spaces my entire life, sometimes I perceived myself as a boy in a girl’s body, but sometimes I didn’t, and don’t. And gender is one of the spaces in which I feel like a chameleon. There seem to be a ton of gender expression based communities that disappeared since the 90s that either disappeared or were erased from discourse and that makes this weirder/harder to talk about.  Another thing is that a lot of the discourse around pronouns (if pushed I’ll say I’m she/they but I am literally comfortable in anything, depending upon context) makes me really uncomfortable. Even in LGBTQ spaces it makes me uncomfortable. There’s the me that my friends know, and some of my family knows, and it’s a big enough world to contain that part of me at this point. I would rather not put my identity under a microscope in any space that matters. It’s weird but I wish I could just be “they” in the work, creative, etc, spaces, without the loading of what “they” means. I wish it meant nothing about the people who love me, or who I love, or how I love, or how I live my life, besides what pronoun I use. But it doesn’t mean nothing. That is why I hope more cis identified people will actually identify as they in the public sphere. There are plenty of spaces in the public sphere that I don’t think should be gendered at ALL. My wanting to be a “they” is in some ways more about wanting public anonymity and having formed my sense of self - at a tender time - online, than about my gender identity. Which means I’d be potentially appropriating “they” from people for whom it IS a deep identity, and yet... haven’t I spent half of my blog talking about how I’m not exactly the gender identity I advertise?? Haven’t I spent a long time up to now advocating for “they?” Isn’t feeling like a they, evidence that I’m a they?  And the thing is, this is such a YMMV issue and the problem is that EVERYONE has competing access needs with EVERYONE ELSE. Anything one queer person wants or needs seems to oppress some other queer person, and it sucks. But sometimes I wonder if I even need to just recognize how cis het passing my life is and acknowledge my privilege. The thing is though at that point... is it how much oppression we’ve experienced or are currently experiencing, that alone makes our identity? That’s as silly an idea as saying I’m less of a Jew because I haven’t personally experienced a hate crime. And yes there’s a lot to shared oppression experiences forming group identities, but I’m not talking about group identity. I’m talking about personal feelings of identity.

[dramaqueeenamby]

𝐑𝐄𝐃 ⧼𝑏. 𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑠⧽

A/N: It’s almost a new year! Figured I’d finish this one off with a bang. Literally. Okay, I’ll shut up. Also, I’ve never written Bucky before, so I apologize in advance for the massacre and disrespect of his characterization. 

Summary: ❝You still remember the first time he walked in, the baseball cap and glasses told a story you knew all too well.❞

Warnings: Smut with a bit of plot. Sorta. Mostly, just smut. Vaginal penetration. Oral (female receiving). Light Dom themes (specifically, choking). Blink and you miss it cockwarming.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 3K

RED

You don’t even know his name.

Don’t know where he’s from, who his people are, where he lays his head at night. None of it. Actually, the last one is a lie. You know it’s not here, in this town of less than 1,000 where the only people of color, including yourself, can be counted on one hand.

It’s not ideal, but when wanting to become consumed by a blanket of invisibility and needing to erase your existence from the greater world, you do what you have to do.

You still remember the first time he walked in, the baseball cap and glasses told a story you knew all too well.

Privacy. It was all he wanted, and you’d give him that, along with any alcoholic beverage he wanted. And, he wanted a lot.

You’d once commented that his liver had to be nonexistent and asked just how long he’d been drinking, because no matter how much he consumed, he remained coherent enough to leave a kind tip and close his tab. He said nothing.

He was a man of few words, when in public, at least.

You liked that as well. Maybe it was because he recognized that you had a job to do, or perhaps he detected that look in your eyes. It was that same look that he had, that plea for solitude.

You had a feeling that you weren’t the only one who could be in a room full of people and still feel all alone. You lived by that. So did he.

Interactions and meetings outside of the shabby bar commenced through the most generic of circumstance. It was a copy and paste situation. A rowdy, drunk customer became too intoxicated to remain inside the establishment. You calmly asked him to leave, security was preoccupied with another violent drunk, and next thing you knew, he’d grabbed you by your forearm. His grip was relentless but so was your dedication to break free. Unfortunately, mental fortitude didn’t outweigh physical capability.

He’d shoved you into the a nearby table, sending you onto the floor, your head and side loud with its throbbing. Your eyes shut as the pain coursed. However, seconds later, your attacker was outside, flat on his ass, unconscious.

That was the first time he saved you, and it was all it took for you two to progress into something more. You couldn’t say intimacy. For you, intimacy meant feelings, and feelings were nonexistent here.

This was an arrangement, a source of release.

It was mutually beneficial.

You both received something from the other, an ironic arrangement considering you had a feeling he, like you, had little else to give.

The first time occurred in your car, in the back seat. He was big—in more ways than one—so it wasn’t ideal, but he’d stated that he received a ride, so he had nowhere to offer. You certainly weren’t bringing him back to your apartment. Stranger danger and the fact that it was rundown.

So, that left your vehicle, which again, wasn’t the best place, but it wasn’t the worst. And at least you got to be on top, one of your favorite positions

The time after that, despite your initial protest, happened in the storage closet in the back of the bar. He’d shifted an old keg to block the door before he promptly placed you up and ate you out.

You’d received head before, but this was something different. You’d never had a man leave you as delirious and feeble with just his mouth alone. Hell, most of the time, you had to instruct more than a professor.

The more you thought about it, the more you regretted not charging tuition.

Especially considering most failed every time.

Not him. No, it was as though he knew exactly what you wanted, and he gave off the impression that he wanted it too.

You’d allowed him to lower you to the ground, hands on your hips as he kept you upright and stabilized. For good reason, your legs were bowling balls, and you needed time to find your equilibrium.

However, when you finally came to and attempted to fall to your knees, he stopped you.

You looked up, not saying a word, your furrowed eyes conveying confusion. What man refused head?

You waited for an explanation. He offered none, bringing you back to your feet as he moved the keg and left you alone, confused and still very much on a high from your orgasm.

And sure, at first, you berated yourself for letting a stranger go down on you. You didn’t know his sexual history, but to be fair, he didn’t know yours either. You were both reckless, but with the mind-blowing pleasure he caused you, you weren’t exactly stressing over longterm implications.

You didn’t see him for a few weeks after that, and as much as you hated to admit that you missed him, you did. Mostly because the sex was addictive, but also because every time he came around, you could just see that something was off.

Something ate at him, but whatever it was, you’d never know. And it was better that way. Converging demons never ended well for anyone. Two fucked up people doing more than just fucking and leaving would benefit no one and harm everything.

That sexual tryst also occurred in your vehicle, but the two of you were more creative that time around. You played around with different positions, testing your both your flexibility and comfortability.

You finally told him your name.

He was mid-stroke when you blurted it out, his pace slowing as his eyes met yours. You swallowed and repeated it, louder. On the second round, he used it, quietly mumbling it into the sheen of sweat on your neck, but you heard it, and he knew it. That was all that mattered.

He didn’t tell you his.

That was a few weeks ago, and no matter how busy you get, your head still turns every time the welcome bell chimes. You know better than to eagerly await for a stranger who you’ve fucked on several occasions and know nothing else about. It’s stupid, but in the litany of stupid decisions you’ve made over the years, this ranks pretty low.

And that’s saying something.

Exactly one month since your last sexual tryst, as you dig in your purse for your keys while walking to your car, you look up, key between your index and middle finger when you jump upon hearing your name.

Spinning around with the key lifted high, ready to be used in a defensive manner, your heart rate settles when you see it’s him. He’s leaning back against the brick, arms tucked in his pocket.

Closing your eyes, you place your hand over your chest and scold him. “Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me—“

“Your place.”

A couple of things cross your mind in that moment, the main one being that this bastard is insane. You don’t know shit about him, except for the fact that his stroke game is impeccable and his tongue is the 8th world wonder. Other than that, he is a complete stranger.

Him knowing where you work is one thing, him knowing and visiting where you lay your head at night is another.

There are some lines that you just cannot cross, and this one is bolded, italicized, underlined, and in red.

You can’t.

—

The door shuts, forcing the cheap wall key holder that you’d picked up from the local goodwill to shudder against the peeling wallpaper. In the distance, you can hear something else fall, no doubt breaking, but none of that pulls you off of him.

You moan into his mouth as he pushes you against the wall, his tongue dancing with yours. His hands move to your ass, tugging you into his crotch. You moan again, eyes fluttering sporadically.

How the hell you went from telling him to fuck off to having him minutes away from fucking you is beyond you. It’s also above you now.

Just how he’ll be in five minutes.

“Bedroom,” you murmur against his lip, waiting for him to loosen his grip. His shirt is scrunched in your hand as you lead him to your bedroom. It doesn’t take long, your one bedroom, one bathroom apartment can be explored in its entirety in less than five minutes.

You’re thankful that evening approaches and the light dims by the minute. Just as shining a light into your life would ward off any buyers, so would the light into your apartment.

He tosses you on the bed, and in seconds, you’re on your knees, helping him to pull his shirt off. Naturally, your hands roam his chest. As lighting has technically never been in abundance during the sex, you’re only able to feel areas of his skin that are raised. Scars. They tell a story. His story.

One you’ll never be told.

His hands are against your shoulders before you’re flat on your bed. He pulls your legs from underneath you and spreads them. Your fingers grasp at the button of your jeans as you unbutton them. Lifting your hips, you move quickly to slide them off, but he’s already ahead of you. They’re already tossed to the floor.

You sit up and remove your shirt when he once again shoves you back.

Looking down your body, you realize he’s already nude, dick rigid and leaking precum. Stomach coiling with anticipation, you lick your lips and close your eyes when he grabs you by your hips and tugs you down the bed.

“Fuck.” Your back once again arched off the full sized mattress as he grabbed your thighs, holding you against his mouth. Your hands grasped at the wall behind you, nails scraping as his tongue danced against your sensitive bundle of nerves.

Once thing you’d learned was that he was a man of limited patience, when he wanted something, he wanted it now. Immediate gratification was his dominant preference, and you had zero complaints, because right about now, you wanted the same thing.

Your body wormed as a natural reaction towards his tongue exploring every bit of your pussy. Your clit attracted him the most, but he was generous in the regards that nothing was left untouched. He sucked with skill and hunger and something else you couldn’t pinpoint.

Eyes rolling in the back of your head, however, there wasn’t much you could focus on expect for the man between your legs, even if you tried.

At times, you became too frisky for him, and he’d move one hand to your core, holding you steady. His strength was inhuman. You hated when he did that, though, because your stomach would cave as your insides twisted. It was impossible not to shift away from him, especially when he expertly circled his tongue around your nub.

You could have sworn you felt him spelling something, perhaps your name, maybe even his.

Again, questions you’d never receive answers to.

You weren’t certain, but you got the feeling that he was motivated to continue to push you based on how your body responded to him. And every tryst had shown that you responded almost perfectly to the slightest of his touches. Everything he did wound you up, he got off to that. Maybe that’s why he never wanted you to reciprocate what you did for him, no matter how badly you wanted to.

He preferred to please, not be pleased.

Stars filtered the vision of your ceiling, and even those became blurred and grainy as that familiar feeling bubbled from the deepest part of you and exploded in a majestic display of pants, moans, and breathy profanities.

You were barely coherent as he trailed sticky kisses up your body, past your pupa, over your tummy, both breast, and finally, your mouth. Tasting yourself and him, you brought your hands to his cheeks holding him. You wanted to savor every second of this. He returned your passion, never breaking the kiss as he lined himself at your slick entrance.

You knew the question of readiness was nearing, and quite frankly, you weren’t for it. You wanted him, and you wanted him now.

Lifting your hips to speed up his entry, you nearly screamed when he slammed into you. You weren’t expecting it, but holy fuck, you loved it. You weren’t prepared for the rapid and consistent snapping of his hips into yours or the way his hands pinned yours down above your head, but you cherished it.

You felt every inch of him, every ridge of his dick, his balls slapping against the bottom of your ass. All of it. And you loved every second of this. You missed this. You missed him.

The latter realization took you for surprise as your eyes opened, where you were again surprised to find that he was looking directly at you. He was studying you, searching your face for any sign of pain, discomfort, or even dissatisfaction. He would find none.

He never would.

Your thighs tightened around him, and you saw him grit his teeth, his eyes momentarily shutting as he lowered over you. You tugged against his hold on your wrists, thankful when he released you. Your hands immediately went to his back, pulling him against you, your breast against his broad and muscular chest. Every inch of him was chiseled and defined, and you always felt the strength he possessed barely reaching its peak when you two fucked.

This time was no different.

You waited for the moment where his thrusts slowed just enough for you to switch positions, and when it arose, you wasted no time. He was suddenly under you, with you on top of him. Your hands planted on his chest as you rode him. Unlike his rapid pace, you settled for a slow and meticulous pace, gradually working your way up.

You were confident there was no way that you could match his speed, but that didn’t deter you from trying.

Selfishly, you didn’t bother to search his face for any sign of pleasure, too consumed in your own fantasy. Your hands moved from his chest to the wall as you moved to your toes to access a better angle, one that emitted a prolonged mixture of a moan and a groan.

While he was vocal only in the form of occasional profanities and infrequent breathing patterns, you were determined to let the whole building know that you were getting fucked, and you were getting fucked thoroughly.

A letter from your landlord would surely be awaiting for you in the next couple days.

None of that mattered, though.

You’re not sure how long you go at it, but you recognize what’s coming. And so does he. You’re briefly caught off guard when he sits up and holds you against his chest. Both of your mouth are parted, and he never tears his eyes away from you, even as bliss overcompensates will, and your eyes shut. Your teeth bite into your bottom lip, and you close your mouth to quiet your scream when you reach your climax, as you both reach your release.

As his warm seed spreads insides you and yours coats his bottom half, along with your bedding, your heavy breathing and sluggish body alerts you to just how fast and how hard you two were at it. Completely spent and unwilling to move, you fall on top of him, uncaring of the mess that coats you.

Besides, you expect him to carefully peel you off of him. Instead, you receive the opposite, he brings him arms around you, holding you against him.

Your eyes shut. A few minutes of silence fill the void until he fills it with a proclamation.

“I’m not what you need.”

For some reason, his statement causes you to smile. This is the most verbal he’s ever been with you, and you recognize that. You appreciate it.

You appreciate his honesty.

“And I’m not what you need,” you speak into his slick chest while he rubs circles on the small of your back. “But this is what we need.”

He says nothing.

A few minutes go by when you finally gather the courage to ask what you wanted to ask from the minute you saw him standing outside the bar. “You staying the night?”

He takes a few moments to answer, but it’s long enough for you to regret even asking. And then, he speaks.

“I can.”

His answer takes you by surprise. It’s not a no, and it’s technically not a yes, either. However, you recognize the optional aspect in his voice.

You don’t provide a verbal answer. You simply cradle your face into his neck, sighing at the calming feeling of him still being inside you.  

You know he won’t be there when you open your eyes, and that’s okay. He’s here now, and while you don’t know for certain, but you’re confident that he’ll be back.

And that is what allows you to peacefully close your eyes and succumb to slumber.

[blackwoolncrown]

The (Sometimes Unintentional) Subtext of Digital Conversations

 Different people have different ideas about what it means to sign an email “XOXO,” what you should use Facebook for, and how long you can wait before texting back.

By

Deborah Tannen

The meanings we glean in conversation are often, maybe mostly, not found in the words spoken, but in how they’re said, and in the spaces between them. Tone of voice, and cadences created by shifts in speed, volume, and pitch, let listeners know whether “Nice job,” is complimentary or sarcastic, or whether “Wow” shows that you’re impressed or underwhelmed. The literal meaning of words is their message, and everything about how words are said is the metamessage. Metamessages communicate how you mean what you say.

More and more conversations are taking place on screens—via texting, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, email, and myriad other platforms. Some of these written conversations make up for the lack of voicing with conventions that mimic speech, like exclamation points, CAPS, and repetition of words or letters. I can be “so happy!!!!!!!” or “sooooo happy” or “SO happy” or “sosososo happy” or even “SOSOSOSOOOOOO happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Emoticons, emojis, and gifs help, too. But these visual signals are only the tip of the metamessage iceberg.

Human beings are always in the business of making meaning and interpreting meaning. Because there are options to choose from when sending a message, like which platform to use and how to use it, we see meaning in the choice that was made. But because the technologies, and the conventions for using them, are so new and are changing so fast, even close friends and relatives have differing ideas about how they should be used. And because metamessages are implied rather than stated, they can be misinterpreted or missed entirely.

Different generations are particularly apt to perceive different metamessages in the same words or actions. For example, a Sri Lankan woman living in London told me of hosting her sister and her sister’s teenage daughter. When the girl refused to go out after 3:00 p.m., because that’s when her friends back home got active on WhatsApp, the sisters perceived the metamessage, “I’m not really here. My head and my heart are elsewhere.” But I suspect the girl’s perspective was more like: “I’m here with you—that’s a given—but I also want to stay connected to my friends, and I can’t bear the thought of being left out”

I heard a great range of viewpoints on social media while interviewing over 80 women (ranging in age from 9 to 97) for a study of friendship. And my students at Georgetown University have helped me understand how they manage, and sometimes are tripped up by, the metamessages communicated over social media—and how habits and assumptions can differ.

For instance, when Kate Lucey’s sister had not given birth by her due date, she kept family and friends apprised of what was happening with her pregnancy by posting frequently on Facebook. In response, even distant relatives and casual friends posted well wishes and encouraging thoughts. Kate felt that these postings sent her sister a precious metamessage: Many people love her and care about her pregnancy. The posts strengthened her network of support. Kate was stunned to learn that her roommate perceived a negative metamessage in her sister’s use of Facebook. She said she would have been offended to be kept up to date about a pregnancy that way; she would think, “Geez, why didn’t you call?” Kate’s roommate reasoned that posting on Facebook is so easy that it means nothing. A phone conversation reflects and creates a meaningful relationship, whereas Facebook creates a false sense of intimacy, not a real relationship.

The impression that posting on Facebook is insincere because it’s too easy sounds a lot like the explanation a friend gave me (over email) for disliking “THAT DRAT ‘xoxo,’ which means nothing, just keys to hit.” This perspective–if something is too easy it’s meaningless or insincere—makes sense. Taking time sends a metamessage of caring. Yet I like ‘xoxo’ (or my personal variant, ‘xxoo’), and use it, though only with friends who use it first. I think xoxo fills a need: It’s a more affectionate way to close an email than “Best” but not as fervent as “Love,” which, in any case, some people don’t feel comfortable using with friends, though some do. Maybe it strikes some as fake because it’s a substitution, standing for “love and kisses” but not denoting it. Or maybe it seems too cutesy. Whatever the source of these impressions, deciding how to sign off a message becomes a challenge, since any choice you make will send metamessages that you may not intend or suspect.

I was shocked to realize that my students might be perceiving metamessages opposite from what I intend when I reply to their email requests and queries. One of them pointed out that when he emails professors, he begins with a salutation (“Dear Professor Smith”) and a greeting like “I hope you’re enjoying the weekend.” Only then does he explain his request—in detail—followed by a friendly closing, again about the weekend or the weather, before wrapping up with “Sincerely” or “Yours truly” above his name. (I recognized his description: That’s the way most of my students’ emails look.) The student then complained that many of his professors’ responses omit the salutation, greeting, full explanation, friendly closing, signature, and name. All he receives is a naked reply to his question, and usually a cryptic one at that. I realized that I do this, too–or did, before he, and others in class discussion, opened my eyes. I had assumed that dispensing with those formalities sends a metamessage of casual friendliness, more or less the way I use email with close friends and family. But students regard email as formal, so the omission of those niceties often strikes them as disrespectful, even rude. (Now I go back and add the trimmings before pressing SEND.)

It’s not surprising that professors’ and students’ practices would vary, given the difference in power and age. But even best friends can have very different ideas about appropriate ways to use social media. Noelle Miesfeld and Rachel Jacobson had been close friends since college, and they stayed in close touch after graduation, often having long telephone conversations, catching up. After a number of years, however, they began communicating more through texting. This meant more frequent conversations—often daily or even multiple times a day. So Noelle was surprised when Rachel registered a complaint: She’d been telling Noelle about a problem, and she felt that Noelle’s responses seemed too casual and brief to show real concern. Rachel missed her caring, emotionally supportive friend. They traced the trouble to their contrasting assumptions about texting. To Noelle, comforting closeness resided in the frequency of their exchanges. To Rachel, frequency didn’t substitute for the expression of feeling and detailed discussion of her situation that they’d shared in the past—the kinds of conversations that Noelle didn’t feel could or should take place through texting.

When deciding which platform to use and how to use it, as well as how to interpret communications you receive—or don’t receive—you have to know which platforms your friends tend to use and how they use them. Some will answer texts but not emails. Others don’t check their phones regularly, so you can’t rely on texting to reach them. The proliferation of platforms means more options to exploit but also more opportunities for your messages to be misinterpreted. How quickly does a particular friend usually reply to a text or email? What does the lack of an immediate response mean? So firm is some people’s expectation of a quick reply to a text that any lapse carries meaning. A student, telling me about a friend who, in her words, “stopped talking” to her, said, by way of explanation, “She’d text me back two days later.” To her, a two-day delay was tantamount to not talking at all.

Silence can be a deliberate communication. One woman said of a text she received from a friend, “I was so annoyed, I’m just not responding. I just didn’t answer.” Yet in other cases, silence doesn’t mean anything; it results from circumstances. A young woman thought her boyfriend’s delay in responding meant he was angry at her. It turned out his phone battery had run out.

Perceived metamessages of annoyance can snowball, whether or not they were intended. A student recounted in an interview a Facebook message exchange with a friend that, she felt, should have been straightforward but became complicated. She sent a message suggesting they go running later than planned. The friend messaged back, “I guess that’s okay. Fine, see you then.” That little opener, “I guess,” and the unenthusiastic “okay” seemed to imply that she wasn’t thrilled with the change of plans. So the student responded, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be difficult. I’m more flexible than I made it sound. I can actually just do one o’clock like we planned.” That set off a back-and-forth that went four rounds—“No no no let’s do the time you wanna do,” “No no no let’s do the time we said.” Hair-tearing exchanges like these are particularly common among girls and women because, as the student pointed out, they often worry about coming across as too demanding and hurting others’ feelings.

My student Holly DiClemente explained how her peers make creative use of digital features to avoid hurting friends’ feelings. One example is ghost reading—reading a message without opening it, by just reading the preview in the text app, or on your lock screen. If a phone automatically sends “read receipt” notices to let others know their messages have been opened and, presumably, read, ghost reading comes in handy to manage the implied metamessages. If you see from the text notification that a friend is asking if you want to hang out, and you don’t want to but you don’t want to hurt her feelings, you can open the message later and tell her you’re sorry you just got it. The “read receipts” feature can also be used to show you’re mad; it lets someone know you’ve read their message and are intentionally not responding—a visual virtual snub. But there, too, they might think you’re mad when you’re not. Maybe you saw that the message was long, so you put off replying until you’d have more time to read it, or to write a thoughtful response.

Metamessages—intended or not—can reside in just about any aspect of digital communication, even something as minor and automatic as listing recipients’ names when sending email. If you enter the addresses on the “to” or “cc” line, everyone who receives it can see not only who else is getting the message but also what order you put the names in. Two women I interviewed together, Lucy McBride and Annie Finnell, pointed out some of the resulting metamessages: “You feel special when you’re the first one on there,” Lucy said. Annie agreed: “You do. And you feel not special when you’re the last one.” Lucy added, “Because if you’re dead last, it’s like they were thinking, ‘Who am I forgetting?’” To avoid offending those whose names come later or last, you can put recipients’ email addresses on the “bcc” line. But that sends a metamessage, too. It’s what people do when the list of recipients is very long, so “It looks like you’re inviting all of Northwest Washington!”

Anytime there are multiple recipients, metamessages can get complicated. I was part of a group that used email to confer about a joint project. In one such exchange, a member of our group expressed well wishes to another about a medical condition, after which all the others chimed in, echoing the expressions of concern. I was puzzled. I didn’t know whether this flurry of well wishes was related to the ongoing medical challenge I knew this group member had been experiencing, or whether there had been a new and dangerous development I didn’t know about. I asked another group member, who said she was not aware of any new developments either, but wanted to express her general support for our ailing friend. I went ahead and sent my own well wishes, cc’ing only the one who first expressed concern. But then I worried that the others would think me callous and uncaring. I rather regretted having foregone the option of allowing—or forcing--everyone to overhear my well wishes.

Every word we speak is chock-full of metamessages telling others not only how we mean what we say but also who we are. It has always been that way; it’s the only way language can work to communicate ideas and negotiate relationships. With social media, we have ever more ways to do this—and ever more things to worry about, to make sure the self we’re displaying is the one we believe we are—or the one we want to be.

[calciumcryptid]

Hello, it is Galaxy here.

Today I am full of bitterness, so in order to properly get it out of my system I'm going to outline how I would rewrite My Hero Academia season one.

Real quick, I want to say that I'll be keeping any canon ships or romantic interests despite what I personally ship.

Here we go.

The Galactic Season One Rewrite

Episode Four: The Entrance Exam

This is where the changes start as I don't have any problems with the first three episodes. While the first change is minor I feel like it would be an improvement.

For awhile, Aoyama is featured prominently that I would understand if people thought he was going to be a prominent character. While this boils down to lack of foresight (in the beginning you don't really know who you should pay attention to), it will be a small change.

Instead of all those Aoyama scenes, we'll have Uraraka take them over. In these scenes Uraraka should be shown saving others. This is to give the audience a hint at her ambition to become a rescue hero and her selfless nature.

Episode Five: What I Can Do For Now

This is where the changes really begin.

There are no notable changes at first, Iida properly introduces himself to Midoriya and Uraraka shows up excited that Midoriya got in. We have our cute Izuchaco moment.

Aizawa gives his iconic introduction, and everyone is outside ready for the quirk apprehension exam.

Our next change comes to the fact that Aizawa is fully aware of All Might watching. I think this is canon, but I want Aizawa to dwell on why the top hero like All Might is interested in a simple quirk apprehension test.

The next change is minor, but the Aoyama scene here is replaced with an Asui scene. In canon she is partnered with Iida in the fifty meter dash. Asui clears the fifty meter with a single leap. Iida still beats her with his quirk, but he is rather impressed by her display of jumping power.

At the ball throw, Aizawa is surprised when Midoriya recognizes him as despite being well known in the underground he is still an underground hero with no publicity.

Then, I incorporate the trauma Midoriya 100% has from being isolated from his peers and being treated unfairly by his teachers.

Aizawa criticizes him, but this time Midoriya gets a flashback to a faceless teacher criticizing him for antagonizing a star student like Bakugou. Midoriya starts to tremble, and Aizawa instantly stops. He recognizes the signs of a panic attack, and All Might's stressed out body language.

Aizawa, as the experienced teacher he is, changes his tactics instantly. While still blunt, his tone is softer when he explains that Midoriya needs to learn quickly that destroying his body all the time is only going to make him a liability and end his hero career earlier than it should.

Midoriya, now able to refocus with a new hope that if he takes Aizawa's advice he will listen to him in the future regarding other problems. Midoriya does his one finger throw. Aizawa is impressed with the creativity and notes All Might's surprise as well.

Episode Six: Rage You Damn Nerd

Uraraka and Iida are thrilled that Midoriya has seems to have Aizawa's approval. Bakugou then rushes Midoriya like he does in canon. When Aizawa wraps his scarves around Bakugou, he remarks that Bakugou will get detention for unsanctioned quirk use.

Both Midoriya and Bakugou are surprised, which unnerves Aizawa as he pulls Bakugou back. Aizawa then reveals the ranking with Mineta in last place this time. He says Midoriya got ahead with points for creativity. He reveals the logical ruse he employed, then leaves with Yaoyorozu remarking she already knew.

As another minor changes I want the girls in Class 1-A to be amazed with Yaoyorozu's placement. I also want Bakugou to attack Yaoyorozu out of no where because he believes she is another bug he can simply crush. Yaoyorozu disproves this as she quickly makes a shield to protect herself.

Aizawa gives Bakugou another detention leaving Bakugou and Midoriya confused once again.

(Full Admission: I wanted a cool Yaoyorozu moment to cement her as the most powerful student in 1-A).

Aizawa writes Midoriya an absentee note so he can see Recovery Girl about his finger. As Aizawa leaves he is confronted by All Might who calls his bluff on having an expulsion record. Aizawa says that the quick thinking of Midoriya was what kept him in Aizawa's class. Aizawa then criticizes All Might for already having favorites as he noticed the number one hero's interest in Midoriya. All Might panics that Aizawa has figured out the connection already, but Aizawa just tells All Might that playing favorites causes bitterness among other students.

Everything is the same with Iida and Uraraka catching up with Midoriya and the three walking home together. 1-A then goes through the day until fundamental hero lessons. Everyone has their original costumes as the support course hasn't been introduced yet.

Everything goes like normal.

Episode Eight: Bakugou's Start Line

As soon as Midoriya, Uraraka, Iida, and Bakugou come out Aizawa's scarves come out to wrap around Bakugou. 1-A and All Might are surprised at Aizawa's sudden appearance. Aizawa says he is going to expell Bakugou on the grounds of assaulting another classmate with the intention of severely harming them. All Might stops this, admitting that he should have stopped the fight when Bakugou was gearing up his gauntlets.

Aizawa takes a deep breath, and says that Bakugou is able to stay in the hero class for another day but will be suspended, no longer having a seat near Midoriya, and will have his gauntlets revoked until Aizawa says differently. Aizawa drags Bakugou away to fill out the proper paperwork.

The other teams do the exercise as normal, and Yaoyorozu files a formal complaint regarding Mineta. At the end of the day, Midoriya does not tell Bakugou the secret of One for All. Instead, Midoriya watches Bakugou walk away for his first day of suspension surrounded by Iida and Uraraka chatting about the excercise. Midoriya does the ending internal monologue about how he learned the difference between friends and torments.

With these changes, I would rename the title of the episode to The Line Drawn. In a reference to the fact that UA and Aizawa will not put up with Bakugou's bs like his former schools.

Episode Nine: Yeah, Just Do Your Best Iida

Now it is time for our first rapid fire changes.

It is the first day without Bakugou in class, which means the USJ Arc will not include Bakugou at any point in the story.

Todoroki and Bakugou's seats have been switched, so it is time for some awkward conversations between TodoDeku.

Iida tells Uraraka and Midoriya that Aizawa and his brother were school friends so he tries his best to remain professional.

Yaoyorozu is class repersentative, while Midoriya is the class vice repersentative. After Iida calms the school down, Midoriya intends for Iida to take his position. Yaoyorozu is concerned she did not handle the situation as good as Iida, and Iida takes the class repersentative role with Yaoyorozu as his vice. This will start Yaoyorozu's confidence issues.

Since Bakugou is not on the bus, this scene is dedicated to Uraraka who is excited to have Thirteen teaching them. Uraraka says she is a huge fan of Thirteen, and hopes to get an autograph afterwards if she has the time. She also reveals her motivation to become a rescue hero.

Thirteen is agender.

Uraraka fangirls while Thirteen is talking.

Episode Ten: Encounter With the Unknown

Aizawa does not hesitate to leap into action when the villians show up, and shows off his amazing abilities as a pro hero. He shows off the abilities of the capture weapon.

Thirteen is ready to evacuate the students, but Kurogiri warps over like he does in canon, and this time it is Kirishima and Mina who attack him without hesitation. This is to cement Mina as the most muscular of the other girls, and her and Kirishima's role in each other's lives. The attack didn't do anything when Kurogiri warps the other students away from each other.

Everything continues as normal.

In Summary of the Student's Locations:

The Entrance: Uraraka & Sero & Iida & Sato

Ruins Zone: Kirishima & Mina

Flood Zone: Asui & Mineta & Midoriya

Mountain Zone: Kaminari & Jirou & Yaoyorozu

Fire Zone: Ojiro & Hagakure

Landslide Zone: Todoroki

Squall Zone: Tokoyami & Shoji & Koda

As Hagakure joins Ojiro in the Fire Zone, she uses the flames as a source of light to reflect. Once she blinds the villains, Ojiro takes them down.

As Mina joins Kirishima in the Ruins Zone, she uses her acid as a way to trip up villains and uses her reflexes and dance moves to annihilate the chameleon villian Bakugou originally did.

As Shoji joins Tokoyami and Koda in the Squall Zone, he uses his quirk to locate Koda so Tokoyami can protect him.

Everything continues as normal as all the teachers show up to finish off the League of Villains. All the teachers get their moment.

Episode Thirteen: In Each of Their Hearts

After our neighborhood detective reassures all the students and we get the cool still shots with the gold lighting it is time for what I was preparing this whole time for.

Aizawa calls All Might and Midoriya to his hospital room and lays down that he has figured out that the two are connected somehow by their quirks.

All Might and Midoriya are shocked, but considering they are backed into a corner they tell Aizawa about One for All. After Aizawa chews All Might out for not telling him that one of his students only recently got a quirk, he says he'll have to give Midoriya extra lessons so his body is strong enough to handle One for All. Aizawa also puts together that if Midoriya didn't have a quirk before than that means he was quirkless. Suddenly, everything makes sense to Aizawa about the BakuDeku relationship.

The final small change is the next day at lunch, Uraraka brings Asui over to Midoriya and Iida. She wants to thank Midoriya for his quick thinking, and says that she and Uraraka bonded over wanting to be Rescue Heroes.

Summary of the Changes

Bakugou realizes he isn't the best anymore, and starts to face consequences for his actions.

Aizawa knows about One for All, and Midoriya has two father figures in his corner now.

The Girls of 1-A get more screentime to show off their potential to be heroes.

The Background characters get some extra scenes to show off their potential to be heroes.

Uraraka gets prominent character moments.

A good chunk of the class is biracial.

Changes That Didn't Make It

Aizawa Backstory moment where Aizawa would erase Kurogiri's quirk only to be freaked out by a familiar bone structure taking form.

Jeez, that was brutal for my fingers, but that is how I would have wrote the first season of My Hero Academia. I plan on continuing, but I think I'll be splitting posts up into arcs now because doing a whole season was a bit too much at once.

Plus, there are a lot of changes I'll be making with the Sports Festival Arc.

[emerald-studies]

Diverse Perspectives | Discussion 3

I sent some questions to @jasperwhitcock​ for her perspective as a POC woman and daughter of an immigrant.

[ It is required to participate and watch/read these discussions, in order to follow me. Participate or get tf out. We aren’t performative in my lil’ area on Tumblr.

This discussion isn’t representative of an entire population or meant to be super professional. It’s to share different perspectives and also is an opportunity for me to practice what I preach: intersectionality. If you’d like to participate in this series please send me a pm or an ask and I’ll get back to you ASAP. We can do a written, audio, or video interview.]

As a mixed person, do you feel isolated from your community?

J: If you mean community as in the community I currently live in, I’m fortunate enough to live in a very diverse place. Surrounding the city of Houston, there’s a lot of prejudice integrated into a lot of the suburban neighborhoods, but in terms of the city itself, I think the POC communities really uplift and support each other. I’m a concert photographer when there’s not a pandemic, and I’ve always appreciated the way latinos and black artists are respected in the indie community. Houston’s a very rap/hip hop/R&B city, so black artists are especially celebrated. There’s also great latinx bands that I know, latinx venue owners/employees, and latinx brands connected to the indie community. We’re very well represented in this area.

If you mean community as in the latinx community, I wouldn’t say isolated, but depending on the day, I might say that I can feel distanced at times. This isn’t particularly due to the latinx community itself, so much as it may be a distance that I create in my head. As a mixed person, I think there are times where you can feel confused on where you belong. I’ve brought up the quote before from the Selena movie, where Selena’s father Abraham is speaking on the potential difficulty of Selena being accepted in Mexico because of the fact she is Mexican American: “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans, both at the same time! It's exhausting!” It can be difficult at times to navigate your sense of belonging when you are in between two cultures because you want to recognize that you may have privileges someone of full Mexican descent may not have, but at the same time, your life is still very much defined by being Mexican and having Mexican blood while living in America too. You’re definitely not absolved from having latin experiences. Latina stand up comedian Anjelah Johnson made a joke in her stand up about there being a Latinx hierarchy. She said that Spanish speaking latinos are better than the rest of us who are not fluent in Spanish (such as herself), and it was funny because sometimes you do feel that that can be true. My tías will always ask me why I’m not fluent in Spanish, and my mom will be like “yeah, why don’t you?” and I’m always like… because y’all didn’t teach me! My parents speak Spanish to each other at home. My father is not only fluent in Spanish, but his Spanish is oftentimes superior to a lot of Spanish speakers according to my mom and my tíos. He used to teach English in Mexico, so there is no reason that my sister and I shouldn’t have been perfectly bilingual. The reason they didn’t teach us as children is because they didn’t want us to be speaking Spanglish. (Spoiler: it happened anyways). Around white people, I definitely feel that I am not a white person. I feel very much latina in a group of white people. But then around latin people, I sometimes feel white enough to feel a sense of shyness. I definitely feel more at home with latinx people, but overall in both groups, I definitely feel that I am mixed.

It doesn’t happen often, because I think although the majority of latinx people have pride in their background, the hyperawareness of our identities right now is relatively new, but there have been instances of latinx gatekeeping the latin identity. Growing up, I didn’t think about what I was labelled as or think about how my family structure is different to other families. I didn’t consider how in some areas, it is an abnormality to have an immigrant parent or a parent with an accent. I definitely noticed that my family was different, but I didn’t understand why until much later. My mom, her sisters and brothers, and my primos… They don’t live their lives with the awareness of being defined as Mexican immigrants. Of course, they again have pride in where they came from. They live as Mexicans and engage in Mexican culture, but overall, the way the youth today has really grasped onto the labelling of our identity is kind of a new thing. There are some young latinx people who do try to quantify and measure whether or not your experience is valid. I know it comes from a place of protectiveness of their own experience, but it’s ridiculous to gate keep because something that really characterizes latin culture is our warmth, our sense of family, our willingness to embrace other people as part of that. If you’re of latin american descent, you have a place in the latinx community.

Since your parents don’t have college degrees, do you believe college is important and/or necessary?

J: I think it depends! I think a lot of immigrant parents really push for their children to get a college education because they see that as opportunity, particularly when they did not earn college degrees themselves. I think college can be important depending on what you want to accomplish, but I also think it’s not completely necessary. For my career path as a photographer/videographer, I chose not to do college. I do think I would have enjoyed college because I like learning, but because it was something unnecessary for my job, I couldn’t justify the time invested or putting my parents into a difficult financial situation. Especially because my college education would have overlapped with my sister, and I saw how difficult it was to juggle handling my sister’s student loans. For my sister’s career path (she is studying to be a nutritionist/therapist to help teenagers with eating disorders), college was necessary.

Your Mom has been stuck in the US, unable to return to Mexico for awhile, has your Mom’s experience with immigration changed your views in some way?

J: As context, my father lived in Mexico for a decade and married my mom in Mexicali. They hadn’t planned to move to the United States, but when they came to the US to marry here so that she could have citizenship and be able to visit his family, there were complications that made it to where she couldn’t leave the country. Luckily, the time she was unexpectedly stuck in the United States didn’t last super long! Long enough to become comfortable enough to decide to settle down in California, but we have been able to travel to Mexico often. I think it really highlights how unnecessarily complicated a lot of the processes regarding immigration are. The people in the country who are very malicious about undocumented immigrants love to jump to saying, “well, why can’t they just become an American citizen?” when the reality is that every process in place has a lot of complications. Not everyone has access to the resources to be able to make these transitions happen smoothly. Also, the time it takes to acquire your visa is not an overnight thing. People severely underestimate the difficulty involved.

What do you think about the “hard-working immigrant” stereotype?

J: I hate the idea that immigrants work hard because they’re low-skilled, but I do love that there is a lot of pride in how motivated immigrants are. It’s always been a ridiculous claim that immigrants are taking American jobs. Immigrants work the jobs that the majority of Americans have no interest in doing, especially the people that make this complaint. For a country that prides itself on working to make your dreams come true, Americans neglect to recognize that immigrants have a drive that most Americans don’t have.

Which parent do you feel more connected to? Your Mother who’s an immigrant or your Father who was born in America?

J: I really do feel that I am a coalescence of both my parents, so I think I feel equally connected to each of them. I feel a very strong emotional connection and concern for my dad because his mental health suffers a lot. His mother had bipolar depression at a time where mental health was even more stigmatized, and she endured a lot of ridiculous, merciless treatments that are no longer utilized today. When he was nine years old, his mom committed suicide, and this was an event that really defined his life forever. I think that kind of heaviness passes down through your family. When my dad is not doing well, I feel really imbalanced and emotionally impacted even if I’m not home to witness it. It’s kind of like that idea of an invisible string tethering you to someone, and it’s a weight that I carry always. However, overall, he’s a very positive person. When he is going through his kind of manic highs, he’s a lot more of what I recognize of who my dad is. He’s creative, a musician, and deeply caring for other people. His mother’s death has empowered him to really try to make a difference and “paint a picture of a better tomorrow.” I’m a lot like my dad in personality, but in disposition, I’m so much like my mom. She’s tough and outspoken at home, but in public, it takes awhile for her to open up. My mom’s very selfless, kind, and very much shy and quiet. She definitely exemplifies a lot of the sacrifice that you see many immigrants make. I do like both sides of my family, but I definitely feel more at home with the Mexican side. My dad’s side is loud, vivacious, and very much funny, but I feel extremely shy around them. My sister and I have always felt a tiny bit left out. I think they’d be hurt to know we feel this way, but I definitely don’t think they do anything to intentionally enforce this division. But I think it developed because there is a bit of a cultural disconnect between my aunts and my mom. It’s also very interesting to me that when they first met my mom, my mom didn’t speak any English. It’s fascinating to consider how it might change your perception of someone to go from not being able to communicate with them to watching them learn your language. My mom enjoys the time that we do spend with my dad’s family, but she’s kind of the odd one out in that her humor isn’t the same and her experiences are so different. I think that my dad’s sister and brother’s families were able to connect in a stronger way, so sometimes my mom, my sister, and I feel just a little isolated. In those moments, I feel the most aware of my Mexican background. With my mom’s side of the family, it’s a lot more comfortable. My dad’s able to develop his humor in a way that translates well into Spanish, so he fits in very easily.

You’ve lived in a “Blue/more liberal” state and a “Red/more conservative” state, which state has affected you more?

J: Definitely the red state. Seeing how intensely and ridiculously conservative some southern people are has really radicalized me in a way. I feel overwhelmingly liberal because there’s a defensiveness that develops when you’re in a space like this where you have this intense disbelief that people hold the ideas that they do. Especially because in Texas, black and latinx culture is a major contributor to southern culture. There’s a lot to be said about how black culture shapes the south, but because I’m latina, I’m focusing on latinx culture with this question. White conservatives want our food, they want our work, but they don’t want us. I don’t understand how anyone can be all #TacoTuesday one day, and then the next, be anti-immigrant. If you really want Mexicans out of your country, then maybe you should start living your life without any Mexican influence. Stop eating Mexican food. Clean your own pool and mow your own lawn. It’s ignorant to speak down on immigrants when their life would be so altered to be rid of immigrants. They rely on immigrants. Their lives are shaped by immigrants and built by immigrants.

(I had to chime in here: )

 Are you proud of your parents?

J: Absolutely. As a young teenager, I had a lot of problems with my parents. I think I still have issues I’m working through as a result, but now that I’m older, I really do feel a deep sense of admiration and respect for them. Growing up really makes you view your parents differently and understand them as people rather than just as parents. I held onto a lot of anger and resentment, but I’ve come to truly see how they really did do their best. They’ve worked very hard, and I think not having everything that kids around me did really helped me grow into a more grateful person.

Have you faced discrimination for your race?

J: Of course, but in all honesty, it really rolls off my back. I think hate that is personally directed at me doesn’t bother me, but the discrimination that does affect me is anything directed or related to my mom. I remember my parents had a customer who made a really ugly complaint to my father about my mom’s english. My mom essentially handles most of the written communication with their business, and she still speaks and types in broken english often. The majority of my parents’ clients are latinx, so it’s typically not an issue, but it’s unbelievably offensive and ridiculous the assumptions people will make about your intelligence based on your english. The customer had no idea that the woman she’d been communicating with was my father’s wife rather than just an employee. It’s really sad how someone can see someone as unworthy of respect until they’re tied to a white man, and then they’re suddenly apologetic. This is another extremely mild example, but I’ll get a few laughs when I mispronounce something or don’t know how to say certain words. People always find it funny as though it’s embarrassing –– and it definitely can be –– but people forget I learned english from a woman who speaks two languages.

As the child of an immigrant, how has the anti immigrant talking point affected your mental health?

J: I think the toll the anti-immigrant bias in the United States has on immigrant children is a relevant conversation to have, but I think I’m very lucky in that I feel very tough in the face of that ignorance (which is not to say anyone whose mental health suffers as a result is not tough!) If anything, I feel pity for the people who are so hateful that they see other human beings in such a derogatory and entitled way. Similar to what I said before, my outrage really comes from a place of defensiveness for others. The talking point doesn’t hurt me, but it hurts me that people can speak about my family and my community the way they do. It hurts me that there are other immigrant children who have to work as hard as their parents to make their sacrifices worth it, and people are so insensitive as to not respect that. I’m pretty strong, but it does break my heart when my people are disrespected. If someone were to say something to me, that’s fine, but if i saw someone mistreating a little mexican lady in the store… I may be 5’3 but that don’t mean I won’t come for your ass. Okay, in all honesty, I’m really not a violent person. I’m more of a rise above kind of person because the hate someone has in their heart is not worth our time, but some people do need a chancla thrown at them to learn some respect.

In your opinion, in what ways does the Latinx community need more support?

J: I think because the latinx community is so much so composed of hard workers, people really need to support latin businesses more. That’s a direct way to impact latin lives. There’s an abundance of latin small business owners in every category. So many white kids love going to Cozumel for Spring Break and love wearing sombreros on Cinco De Mayo, but then the rest of the year, they have no care or respect for the authentic culture. For every dollar a white man makes, hispanic women still make statistically less than white women, asian women, black women, and native women. We gotta back up these businesses. Choose local taco shops or restaurants over chains. Choose online shops and Mexican boutiques over fast fashion. And this applies to everybody. We can always support black business or asian businesses over large competitors. It really does make an impact. I also think a lot of latinx children need access to better mental health resources. I’m lucky in that because my father struggles with mental health issues, mental health in my family wasn’t exactly a taboo, but in a lot of latin families, mental health is something that is hard for older parents to validate. Latin children need those resources. A simple google search of “latin mental health resources,” bring up a bunch of organizations that you can support. I think every POC community needs to be boosted right now because although we’ve been under attack, conversations about minority communities are being had by white people right now. We have their attention, and we do need their support to enact change because they have the power as the oppressor. We need to be going to bat protecting black people right now because of the insane damage the community has been enduring at the hands of police, and we need to be protecting immigrant children from what’s happening to them at the border. I know the election is extremely controversial right now, but I would urge anyone who has the ability to vote to really consider the importance of doing so. People love to be cynical about how our votes don’t matter, and I understand that cynicism, but a lot of immigrants don’t have the luxury of voting when the results of the election will directly impact their lives. I hate that there is no option of a president that will perfectly support POC communities, but there are options whose party is far more aligned with supporting and protecting POC communities than Trump is. Trump spews hate and fuels racism and prejudice. He calls Mexicans rapists and black protestors thugs. He encourages the blaming of the coronavirus on the asians in our country. He does not need any help winning the election. We need to get this hateful man out, and I strongly encourage anyone who can vote to do so.

--

Let’s have a discussion! Did you learn anything new from this conversation?

Let me know here.

-

To close out each post, I’d like to write a lil’ paragraph about the person I talk with:

I’m so lucky to have you as a friend darling. You always bring a smile to my face when we chat. You’re funny and so smart. I admire you deeply for being able to share your perspective in a clear way. Thank you for putting up with my 2 am messages lol 🖤🖤🖤🖤Your continued support makes me feel safe and very, very, loved. I hope I encourage the same feeling with you. 

You’re the best babe,

-Faithxx

[mostlysignssomeportents]

RIAA kills youtube-dl

In 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law. At the time, most of the attention was on Section 512 - AKA "notice and takedown," which absolves platforms from liability for users' infringement provided they respond quickly to removal demands.

Over the years, this has been horrifically abused, with everyone from post-Soviet dictators to sexual predators to cults and literal Nazis using spurious copyright claims to censor their critics, often without consequence.

But the real ticking time-bomb in the DMCA is Section 1201, the "anti-circumvention" rule, which makes it a felony (punishing by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine) to help people tamper with "access controls" that restrict copyrighted works.

This rule means that if a company designs its products so that you have to remove DRM to use them in legal ways, those uses become felonies. DMCA 1201 is how Apple and John Deere make it a felony for anyone except them to fix their products.

They just design their devices so that after the repair is complete, you need an unlock code to get the system to recognize new parts. Bypassing the unlock code defeats an "access control" and is thus a literal crime.

But there's no copyright infringement here! Swapping a new part into a phone, a tractor or a ventilator is not a copyright infringement. And yet, it is still a (criminal) copyright VIOLATION. DMCA 1201 lets companies felonize ANY conduct that is adverse to their shareholders.

It's "felony contempt of business model" and you can go to prison for it.

Thing is, it would be easy to fix this law. If you thought that DRM deserved its own legal protection, you could get there just by adding "this only applies when copyright infringement takes place."

But from the very first days, it was clear that DMCA1201 was NOT about preventing copyright infringement, it was about enforcing business models. The first users of this law were DVD manufacturers who wanted to stop the public from "de-regionalizing" their DVD players.

The manufacturers and studios had cooked up a racket where they would sell DVDs at different prices in different countries, and they didn't want Americans shopping for cheap DVDs in India.

But going into a store in Mumbai and paying the asking price for a licensed DVD and watching it in NYC is NOT infringement. It is how copyright is supposed to work: a rightsholder names a price, an audience member pays it, then they get to enjoy the work they've bought.

Likewise the early consoles that also took advantage of DMCA 1201. If you own a Sega Dreamcast and I write a game for your Sega Dreamcast and sell it to you, we are doing copyright right: a creator and an audience member exchanging creative works for money.

But Sega - and the App Store businesses it spawned up to and including Apple - used DMCA 1201 to make it a felony for creators to sell their works to audiences without cutting the device manufacturer in for a commission.

Now that everything has software in it, DMCA 1201 can be brought to bear on an ever-widening constellation of devices, from medical implants to kitchen appliances, from printer ink to insulin pumps.

My novella Unauthorized Bread is fiction, but the DRM abuses in it are deadass real:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

The metastasis of DRM is a gift to monopolists, who can corral customers, independent competitors and toolsmiths into arrangements of their design.

When the Napster Wars began, the RIAA represented the Big Six record labels. Today, it represents the Big THREE labels, as an entire realm of human endeavor stretching back to a time before language itself is now the near-exclusive purview of three giant corporations.

They are tightening the noose. Yesterday, the RIAA sent a DMCA 1201 takedown notice to Github demanding the removal of youtube-dl, a venerable and popular tool for format-shifting Youtube videos.

https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md

As Parker Higgins documents in a brilliant, scathing thread, the complaint is a masterwork of legal shenanigans, claiming that because someone COULD infringe an RIAA member's copyright by saving a Youtube video, Github MUST remove tools that permit this.

https://twitter.com/xor/status/1319738279772770308

The RIAA's lawyers don't mention the millions of hours of public domain Youtube videos that archivists have preserved using youtube-dl, nor the Creative Commons licensed videos that are unambiguously lawful to download with youtube-dl.

Nor do they mentions the limitations to copyright that sometimes make it lawful to download ANY video from Youtube.

DMCA 1201 isn't just a charter to transform your commercial desires into legal obligations, it is also a powerful censorship tool.

I started this essay talking about DMCA 512, the "notice and takedown" rule. That says that if you believe your copyright is being infringed, you can fire off a notice to the host and demand its immediate removal. If they comply, you can sue their user, but not them.

In 1998, Congress recognized that this was ripe for abuse, and created a "counternotice": if your material is taken down and you think you are in the right, you can counternotify the host and they can put your stuff back up, again, without being liable if you're wrong.

If the rightsholder complains again, the host either removes the content (the rightsholder and user can go to court), or they can leave it up if they think the complaint is BS. This system has been wildly inadequate at protecting legit speech, but it's better than nothing.

And "nothing" is what you get under 1201. When the RIAA complains about youtube-dl to Github, Github pulls it down, but if the developers counternotify them, Github can't restore the files without facing CRIMINAL liability (5  years/$500k).

Copyright trolls have long figured this out: DMCA 1201 is a superweapon for getting content removed from Google and elsewhere: if you assert that someone who recorded you doing something abusive is violating 1201, that video goes down and STAYS down, with no counternotice.

DMCA 1201 is a goddamned dumpster fire, a surefire recipe for techno-corporate dystopia. EFF is suing to overturn it. That trial can't come fast enough:

https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice

[princeasimdiya12]

My Problem with Akudama Drive

So the new anime by Kazutaka Kodaka called Akudama Drive has been out for awhile now. For the most part, I do enjoy it. The animation and backgrounds are beautifully drawn, I like the abilities and personalities of the characters, and I’m excited to see what will happen in the story. That said, I do have one problem with the show.

Brawler’s characterization and story role is filled with colorist writing.

As it stands, Brawler is the only main character in the cast with dark skin. Mixed with his dreadlocks, he is meant to be an Afro-Japanese coded character. I personally love Brawler and consider him to be one of my favorite characters on the show because of his cool design and boisterous personality. That said, I have noticed several points in each episode that often paint Brawler in a negative light. And considering how Kodaka is heavily involved in this project and Brawler’s creation, it stands within reason that Brawler was written with colorist tropes. I bring this up since this technically isn’t the first time he’s used colorist writing in one of his works. So this post will be mainly me discussing issues I have with Brawler’s character and his relations with the other protagonists.

For starters, his character is based on The Dumb Muscle Stereotype.

Given how his primary talents lie in his super strength and fighting abilities, his apparent drawback is that he’s an idiot. Kodaka even mentioned in an interview that he was written as a built idiot. It’s technically an issue that the one dark skinned character in the show is recognized primarily for his physical strengths and lack of intelligence while his light skinned colleagues are recognized for their intellectual themed talents (Hacker is technologically savvy, Doctor is a professional medical expert, even Hoodlum is smart when it comes to money-laundering and smooth talking to people).

Another issue I have is that every episode often features Brawler being ridiculed or insulted by his light skinned coworkers for his stupidity. Most of the Akudamas are portrayed as more level-headed, mature or reasonable compared to Brawler. This has the implications that dark skinned people are considered to be more stupid, reckless and impulsive compared to their light skinned counterparts. Literally, every episode has the Akudamas taking jabs at Brawler whenever he does something they consider to be stupid.

And this only happens to Brawler. He’s the main one out of the group who gets insulted and ripped on for being an idiot. The only other Akudama that matches Brawler’s idiotic tendencies would be Cutthroat. When he’s not in attack mode or fawning over Swindler, Cutthroat is shown to be just as childish and carefree about his life. Yet none of the other criminals take jabs at him when he does something reckless. Like in Episode 2 when he crashed the blimp bus because he wanted to touch the red button.      

Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is how gullible and easily swayed he is. Brawler eagerly believes anything that is told to him and he doesn’t question it or show reasonable logic. Hoodlum of course uses his stupidity to his advantage in order to use his muscle for protection or to proceed with the heist. It’s roughly the equivalent of convincing a child to do something for you by playing onto their interests.

So it looks preeeeetty messed up that a 35 year old man like Brawler can be easily manipulated in order to use his strength.

The next big issue I have with Brawler is how his fighting talent is lackluster.

As I mentioned before, Brawler’s main contribution to the group is his fighting spirit and his super strength. For me, it feels like he got the short end of the stick when you compare his talent with the others.

Courier owns a futuristic bike and is skilled enough to navigate cities using alternative routes and high speeds.

Hacker is capable of breaking into any computer or security system in seconds.

Doctor has the medical expertise of a regular doctor and knows how to use regeneration technology to heal herself and her coworkers.

Cutthroat has a variety of knives in their person and is efficient when it comes to killing people.

All of them have expanded abilities and tools that make them more impressive and valuable to the grand heist. Whereas Brawler is only able to use his fists and strength when needed. He doesn’t even have expansive knowledge in regards to his fighting techniques or what he uses to maintain perfect physical endurance. If he actually explained what he has that makes him so durable or if he was shown practicing unique fighting techniques, then maybe he would be on the same level as the other Akudamas. But as it stands, his fighting is all just free form.

Also, you can’t even consider Brawler as the only valuable fighter of the group. Three of the Akudamas (Courier, Doctor, Cutthroat) are shown to be just as competent and dangerous when placed in a situation that requires them to fight back.

Courier has his gun and bike to attack enemies.

Doctor is skilled with surgical knives and uses a variety of chemicals during combat.

Cutthroat is a professional serial killer who can use different knives at a fast speed.

So unfortunately, Brawler really isn’t special when it comes to fighting.

Another issue, albeit minor, is the not-so subtle racism from Doctor.

In episodes 4 and 5, Doctor refers to Brawler as a dreadlocked gorilla as a way of insulting him.

I unfortunately am not familiar with how Afro-Japanese people take to being referred to as gorillas or apes. But from an American perspective, this comes off as pretty offensive that Doctor, a light skinned woman, would refer to her coworker, a Afro-Japanese coded man, as a gorilla. Everyone and their mothers know about the racist history with black/African people being referred to as anything related to the primate family. It’s uncalled for and rather distasteful. And of all the animals or insults she could have used against him, why would she use gorilla?

And while Brawler does find the insult to be “cool” since it associates him with being strong, I can guarantee you that no person of African descent in the real world would take kindly to being called a gorilla by their white/light skinned colleague.

And my last issue is the lack of variation in this show.

As I stated before, Brawler stands out as the only main character with dark skin. Because the cast is predominantly made of light skinned characters, they can range in having diverse personalities, abilities and roles as nothing would be lost on him. But because Brawler is the only dark skinned character, his role as a dumb muscle character can promote negative stereotypes and ideas on what dark skinned Japanese people are like and how they are treated by their peers. If there were more dark skinned characters who were shown to be effectively intelligent or had creative talents, then this wouldn’t be too much of an issue. But as we’re already 5 episodes into the series, Brawler is the looking like the only dark skinned person right now.

 Given how we still have 7 episodes left, I can only hope that Brawler will get positive character development or can contribute something more to the group’s agenda/plot that can make him more than just a dumb muscle stereotype. Or at the very least, it would be nice if we had more positive/complex dark skinned characters can be introduced into the plot later on.

And that is my complaint with Akudama Drive. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. If there was anything here that you agree with or disagree with for any reason, feel free to reblog this with your thoughts. I’d love to hear them and I’m always up for friendly discussions.

Thank you and may you have a pleasant evening.

[pinkflamingcreatures]

“King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1962) vs. “Godzilla vs. Kong” (2021)

One of the top reviews on Letterboxd for the new Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) movie reads “I think this movie is good but also I saw it in Imax after not setting foot in a movie theater since March 2020 so honestly ANYTHING would have made me indescribably happy.” Peter: I’m glad you had a good time. Unfortunately, I also saw Godzilla vs. Kong in IMAX after not setting foot in a theater for a year, and the film did not make me indescribably happy. In fact, it did the opposite. What could’ve possibly gone wrong?

For one thing, I was upset that my friend made the decision for me to see the movie in IMAX instead of the regular theater - the screen didn’t look any better to me, and the seats were less comfortable. What did I pay six dollars extra for? The extra loud sound? Petty complaints aside, I had just seen the 1962 version of the film which I had a lot more fun watching. Tastes differ; here is why I liked the original more.

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) was directed by Ishirō Honda who also directed the original Godzilla film in 1954. Honda’s version of the battle between these two monsters recognizes that what the viewers want to see is a fight, but also jumps on the opportunity to make a mockery of its human characters. The framing of the fight between King Kong and Godzilla is an ad campaign by a pharmaceutical company, who found some berries on the island where King Kong lives that have a “non-habit forming narcotic effect.” Discovering King Kong, and dissatisfied with his current television ratings, the head of the pharmaceutical company kidnaps Kong from his island and brings him back to the mainland. Coincidentally, American submarines have just accidentally unleashed Godzilla from an iceberg, and he’s also headed for the mainland! 

Indisputably, King Kong and Godzilla are natural enemies, although no one really understands why. One commentator gives “the best explanation” for this, saying, “It appears that King Kong … is determined to destroy Godzilla. Thus: a battle of the giants which may or may not have taken place millions of years ago, may be recreated soon.” The human characters in this movie are dull, greedy businessmen who basically just take up runtime until we get to see the monsters. This is a classic formula for kaiju movies (taken to its mind-numbing extreme in Hideaki Anno’s 2016 Shin Godzilla): the audience isn’t really meant to care about the human characters, and, if anything, the monsters are there to reveal something unlikable within humanity. 

The best part of King Kong vs. Godzilla is, unsurprisingly, the fights. Yes - it is just two men in suits, and the use of miniatures is obvious, but, for me, there is undeniable charm in those aspects of old monster movies. The focus cannot be on the special effects so the filmmakers have to make these scenes entertaining in other ways. Cuts to the television producers with binoculars - shamelessly enjoying the interactions between Kong and Zilla, trying to predict the outcome and rooting for their favorite fighter - inform (and mirror) the audience’s reactions. This isn’t scary stuff; it’s fun! King Kong beats his chest and Godzilla does some weird stuff with his arms in intimidation: it’s cheesy, but it successfully builds tension. 

Fast-forward to 2021: King Kong and Godzilla are no longer played by men in suits, they are computer generated. We can see every individual hair on King Kong’s body blowing in the wind. We’re not afraid to zoom in really close on these monsters. We have the technology to make them look really cool, and they sound cool, too. Shouldn’t that be enough to make the fights cool? It’s been nearly sixty years since the original King Kong vs. Godzilla movie came out, and you can tell. But does all this new technology necessarily make for a better movie? I’m not so sure. 

All of my criticisms of this movie are inherently personal, but one of my biggest ones comes down to unabashed preference: I love Godzilla. I think Godzilla is really awesome. To my disappointment, the new Godzilla vs. Kong doesn’t seem to share this opinion. The opening scene shows us King Kong lounging around, swinging on branches and being cool and likable. This movie doesn’t want you to forget that King Kong is a monkey, and monkeys are a lot like humans. Now, I’m not opposed to some King Kong humanizing! I’m not immune to his charms. But for god’s sake - show me Godzilla every once and a while!

Godzilla vs. Kong also features a television crew who films King Kong in some sort of Truman Show situation(?). I didn’t really get it, but the important distinction between this movie and the 1962 version is that the newer one tries to make human characters that the audience is supposed to like. This was annoying. Not one, but two storylines followed different groups of people - one of them featuring Millie Bobby Brown, of Stranger Things fame. Unfortunately, I found all of these characters to be uninteresting, and even the best of these characters, Jia - a young girl, native to Kong’s island - felt like a tired cliché.

And then there were the fights. This is, of course, the most important part of the film - all you know, going into either of these movies, is that King Kong and Godzilla are going to fight - and where, I think, the 2021 version failed miserably in comparison to its predecessor. Maybe they looked more epic or more “real” (they were certainly flashier and louder), but it was, at times, hard for me to tell what was going on. These fights were so focused on the special effects - how cool CGI King Kong and Godzilla looked (not that cool, really) - that the actual choreography of the fights were lacking. The zooms were so frequent that I couldn’t get oriented in the scene, and, sadly, Godzilla and Kong mostly just punched each other in the face. 

Contrast this with the second and last fight scene in the 1962 film: King Kong is transported to Godzilla’s location using balloons, and dropped from the sky - he falls down a hill and takes out Godzilla while he tumbles. Kong knows that hurling rocks at Zilla do absolutely no damage, so he hides under a ledge and waits. When Zilla shows up, he can’t see Kong (he’s right behind you, silly!), and Kong takes a chance at grabbing Zilla’s swinging tail. It’s a failure! Kong gets swung around by its pendulum-ic power. In a desperate stupor, Kong forgets that hurling rocks is no good, and starts throwing, but Zilla turns around and uses his tail to launch a boulder back at Kong!

Okay, so I won’t detail the entirety of this fight, but needless to say: it’s creative. Coming off of the high of this epic battle, I was majorly disappointed to see Kong and Godzilla’s lacklustre brawls, even in IMAX. The creators of Godzilla vs. Kong knew that the technology had improved majorly since the last Honda version, and relied on that fact to make an exciting monster movie, but there is more to a film like this than special effects. The popularity of the kaiju movies of the 50’s and 60’s are a testament to that: sometimes, less is more. 

[tiredcowpoke]

TITLE: Blank Spots [5] PAIRING: (Somewhat pre-established) Arthur Morgan/Fem!Reader, could be seen as an OC. REQUEST: Unprompted. BLURB: After waking up at the base of a steep incline and nearly freezing to death, you stumble upon a group of strangers who swear up and down that they know you. WARNINGS: Some creative license for amnesia. Head injury. Mentions of illness. NOTE: Here is part 5! I hope you all enjoy. TAG LIST: @on-my-way-to-erebor / @otherthingstoreid@ireallyhonestlydontcare​ @elanisha @darlingsdevil @cirillamylove@bunnyreese12 @rollyjogerjones

You couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

It had been a hard feeling to shake, knowing you had family and an outside perspective from who you were with the gang just sitting so close by. Even while you had let the local doctor examine your bruises and injury to your head, you still managed to feel somewhat out of place as you took the tonics he had given you for the pain and left the practice. If Arthur had picked up on the oddness, you were thankful he didn’t comment on it much. The ride back to camp was quieter than before outside of you explaining that there wasn’t much the doctor could do outside of give you something for the headaches. Really, the man had seemed fairly nonchalant as he examined your wound and eyes, the memory issue giving him some pause but ultimately you figured there wasn’t much that could be done. So, you had taken the tonics and left. You really had wished you had actually talked to your uncle instead of just going along, but...well, a part of you wasn’t sure if you wanted Arthur hovering over your shoulder while you did it. 

He had been nice enough to you, more than that really, but that was something you felt maybe you should deal with on your own. 

Still, it was hard not to allow some sort of distance between you and the members of the gang to slip into place as the days went along. For the most part you had kept to yourself, outside of when people approached you for conversation, and the odd bit you instigated when Arthur had returned disgruntled, talking about some debtors Strauss had sent him out on. He had seemed to hate it, but, well, you didn’t know if you could really tell his motives behind much of anything at the moment. Regardless, you had taken up whatever chore was asked of you without much complaint, if only to avoid argument and tension, taking the time doing the tasks to let you sort your head out a bit. Hosea’s words circled at points. You could leave. You knew there was a solid argument there that you could pose to Dutch, that you didn’t remember living this life and it’s becoming too much. However...well, it wasn’t. Not really. You weren’t unfamiliar to crime and outlaws, your father and the uncle that lived with you both were ones. Are ones? You didn’t know what happened to them, if they were still around, and that was what pulled you all the more toward the idea of going into Valentine to talk with your uncle. 

So, once Arthur and Hosea had left camp for a day or so, it had you putting a spare saddle on one of the horses you recognized from the wagon. However, you weren’t as unseen as you wished you were, considering you had to pause at the sound of footfalls coming up behind you. 

“Where’re you goin’?” It was an unfamiliar voice, a woman’s. 

She stood before you, holding a cup of coffee. She wore a heavy looking wool coat, her gaze not leaving yours as you turned to face her. It took you a moment before you recognized her as the woman who had been hanging around John--his wife? 

“I’m going into Valentine.” You decided to tell her. It wasn’t a crime. 

“You sure that’s wise? With your condition?”

“What condition? That I bumped my head?” you returned, furrowing your brow. You still wore the bandage around your head, but at least the bruising around your face wasn’t as obvious anymore. 

“You remember who I am?” she asked, tilting her head. It was asked in a somewhat pointed way, like she had a different meaning behind the question, but...well, you almost had to take it as a genuine question from anybody in camp at this point. 

“No…” you admitted, “I don’t remember most anybody.” 

“Abigail,” she introduced, “and it’s all the more reason to be careful.” 

“I will be,” you said, letting out a small sigh. “I’ve been doubling up on chores over the last couple days, I just…” 

“I ain’t gonna keep you from goin’,” Abigail replied, “Just be careful. Folk’s worried, much as you might not remember most ‘f us.” 

“...I know,” you said with a small nod. Oh, you knew. It was a hard fact to grapple with. You had all the intention to be careful not to draw attention to yourself, to the gang. It was the last thing you needed, especially if...well, if you ended up feeling more inclined to leave. 

You didn’t really want to sort through the time at the moment, leading the horse out toward the edge of camp before getting into the saddle and following the trail you and Arthur had taken into town the other day. Really, it felt nice to be out on your own for a while. Much as you tried to allow yourself some space in camp, you really weren’t out of earshot or eyesight of the rest of camp. The exchange with Abigail seemed to highlight that. Really, you almost felt like you needed it to sort through your thoughts. 

Talking helped, but you couldn’t help the small, doubtful voice in the back of your head that was concerned if you were actually remembering things or if other people were putting them in your head. 

It didn’t feel malicious, asking questions of Hosea or Arthur, sometimes Dutch if you could catch his ear, but it was hard to shake that question. 

You let out a small sigh, looking around yourself at the scenery that seemed familiar enough from the other day. It really was some pretty country out this way, but with how unfamiliar almost everything was, it was hard not to feel like you were grasping at anything that could be familiar enough to help you fill in some gaps in your memory. Which was what almost had you chomping at the bit to talk with your uncle in town, much as you weren’t sure if he would recognize you. You certainly recognized him, even if that memory was from...quite some time ago, almost a decade. You had still been young enough to have to be living with some sort of parental figure. 

Your father had certainly seemed upset about them being there, wanting to take you from him. Why? Well, you could take a wild guess, considering you could remember the bullet wounds, the wanted posters--though you couldn’t remember what had separated you from that point in time, just that you had. Living alone for a while, you couldn’t pinpoint a ton of memories from that point, other than...well, maybe that’s what got you in with the group you were with currently?

You had no idea. 

It was those types of thoughts that filled the space in time between riding away from camp and turning down toward the main part of Valentine, following along the road until you were approaching the butcher and the hotel. Sure enough, you could see that familiar figure by the table on the corner of the street near the stable. Letting out a slow breath, you rode your horse toward one of the hitching posts outside of the stable before dismounting. 

What do I say? 

Are you even sure about this? 

“Are you willin’ to give to the poor today?”

In your thoughts, you had wandered up to the table to where he was standing. You could see the same roughness to his features that you had noted the other day, the sunken eyes and gaunt features. You couldn’t help but feel strangely out of place under his gaze, which had turned from questioning to something out, like he was waiting for you to say something. 

“Um, I don’t...I don’t have a lot on me at the moment, but I just...are you married to Edith Downes?” 

“...Y-Yes? Do I know you?” 

“Possibly,” you stated, shifting awkwardly in front of him, “She is my aunt, which would make you my uncle…” 

Thomas seemed to stare at you for a few moments, taking in your expression before the confusion on his expression lifted, leaning somewhat against the table somewhat as he seemed to hold back some coughing from his chest. 

“--Sorry,” he said around a short clearing of his throat, “I...well, her family’s been estranged…” 

“I know, my father and uncle weren’t fond of her,” you said with a soft nod, watching as the statement seemed to pull some recognition to his expression. 

“We’d thought you disappeared,” he stated, letting out a short huff that might have been a laugh, “I...huh, well. You really do look like that kid.” 

“I remember you two as well,” you said with a soft nod, a small smile crossing your face. 

“How did you end up out here? We had assumed you were somewhere out west or…?”

You paused a moment, feeling a soft twist in your gut. Really, you wished you knew yourself, but...well, you also knew you couldn’t outright tell him exactly what you were doing. There was some sort of story that Dutch had mentioned when you had all first arrived at Horseshoe. 

“I got hired on with a company a couple years ago, we’ve been displaced and ended up coming down here,” you explained. 

“...I don’t believe it,” he stated in a way that suggested that he actually very much did, putting some further relief into you. “I was actually wrappin’ up here, I’m sure Edith would love to see you.” 

“Yeah, I’d be willing to come along if you’ll have me.” 

“‘Course.” 

                                                          ***

Thomas was very ill. 

It wasn’t too hard to notice just from looking at him, but riding alongside him had you noticing how he carried himself. Tired--exhausted, even, and coughing more times than you could count as he tried to keep conversation with you throughout the ride. He had been trying to explain his cause in trying to raise some money for the poor in Valentine, which you couldn’t help but note that it was a noble cause for someone in his condition. You weren’t too sure just what he was sick with, if you would know. There was no way for you to be able to tell just how this reunion would go. Still, well, you hadn’t even thought that meeting extended family out this far would go in such a way. 

If at all. 

However, he seemed to believe that you were who you said you were, which put some ease in your while he led the way back to his ranch. It was a nice homestead based near a cliffside, a somewhat small home with what appeared to be a small stable and a fenced in garden. There was a woman heading back into the house when you and Thomas had shown back up, pausing in her task to watch as you rode in behind her husband. You could almost feel the suspicion from her, Edith tilting her head somewhat as you slowed your horse to a stop. 

“Who’s this?” she asked as Thomas lowered himself down from his own horse, causing you to do the same. 

“Our niece,” he explained, letting out a steadying breath as he turned to face you as Edith casted him a look like he had grown a second head. 

“What?”

“I grew up with my father and uncle…” you started, “In Tumbleweed. You and Thomas had visited once while I was small…” 

She seemed to take that in for a moment, looking you over with that suspicion still lingering in her gaze. However, she did take a step toward you, looking over your face a moment before her expression shifted, glancing back toward Thomas for a moment before back at you. 

“Well, I had...given up on ever seein’ your face again after that…” she said around a small exhale, “Wh-What happened to your face?”

Admittedly, you had almost completely forgotten the somewhat dirtying bandage across your head and the fading bruises on your face, eyebrows rising softly before you took in a small breath. How were you going to even begin to explain that to them?

“I had an accident,” you replied, “I hit my head real hard. I suppose it’s fine, doctor in Valentine said there’s not much he can do at the moment anyway.” 

“Did that happen while you were working?” Thomas asked. 

“Yeah, in a way…” It wasn’t exactly a lie. 

“It looks like some nasty business…” Edith stated, “This is...quite a turn of events. After your father died and your uncle was murdered a couple years after, you had just...disappeared. The sheriff in Tumbleweed had said you had taken off, couldn’t find you anywhere.” 

They were dead? You...don’t remember that at all. Well...the last memory you had before that mountain, it had just seemed like it was you and your uncle at that house, but…

“I-I…” you started, swallowing after a moment as you debated on telling them the truth. Though, with the injury, well… “I am...having a hard time remembering things after I hit my head. I had no idea that they…” 

“I’m sorry…” Edith replied, “That’s…” 

“It’s a hell of a situation,” you replied with a soft chuckle, “Doesn’t sound real, but…” 

“Well, it explains the lost look on your face…” she replied, “It’s not somethin’ we need to talk about right now, and it’s not exactly light conversation. Though, it’s quite the happenstance that you two have managed to find each other. That you remember us at all.” 

“It surprised me as much as you,” you replied with a small nod, offering a tight smile. Were these people the only family you had left? With no knowledge of what happened to your father and uncle up until this point, it now seemed like that might be the situation. 

Then there was the gang. You knew you couldn’t just run off, and a part of you would feel bad to just take off and leave them hanging. Dutch and Hosea had been nothing but accommodating to your situation, and Arthur even more so, much as you could see the struggle in him sometimes. Again, you weren’t sure what was fair in your situation, but...well, this new development just made things all the more difficult. Even if you left at this point, having them so close by? It would be a risk. You felt bad for doubting such, but you really didn’t know how Dutch would take you leaving with how you didn’t have the memories and experiences with them in your head. 

Somehow, despite not really being able to explain it fully in the moment, there was a part of you that felt some sort of loyalty to them. Edith and Thomas were your direct family, but…

“If the last time we saw you was when you were a child, I guess you’ve never met your cousin,” Edith stated after a moment, “I don’t think we have anythin’ too important to do tonight if you wanted to join us for the evenin’...” 

“That would, uh,” you shook your head a moment in an attempt to clear the wandering thoughts, “I would like that, sure.” 

                                                          ***

Hosea had rode in a day or so after you had visited the Downes Ranch, Arthur following in behind. It didn’t appear like they had brought anything back with them, but you had held back the comment as you continued to set about your current task for the day. Really, your mind had started to circle, to an annoying amount at points, about what you were to do. You knew you would have to say something soon, to Dutch or Arthur. Though, with Dutch...well, you figured that would be a conversation about leaving the gang and it was something you were uncertain about. 

Edith and Thomas had been welcoming, their son Archie too in a distant way, but it was hard to feel like you wouldn’t be a burden on them to show up asking for the place to stay. They had bought into the story that you were with a travelling camp that had formed after you had been laid off from your former job, so it wasn’t like you couldn’t stay for the time being but…

Well, what did you want? Did you want to leave? Did you want to stay? 

It was hard to answer. A strange hesitation, too, despite everything. You didn’t really remember most of what you had with these people, but just leaving them behind sat wrong with you. Not without some sort of conversation, not without sorting a couple things out. The realization pulled a small sigh from you as you had stepped away from a washing board. You had to talk with Arthur about things. Let him know what was going on at the very least, because…

Well, you weren’t sure why. You weren’t sure why you felt that he had to know, just that you wanted to talk with him. 

So, once evening had rolled around, you spotted him by one of the campfires in camp. It looked like he had just finished up with the stew for the day, deciding to take the time, much as there was a strange twisting in your gut. There was still some uncertainty in what you wanted, how you should approach what you had with him, and it had you wanting to pull away and leave it for another time. Yet, you could admit to starting to see how your view on that was starting to feel more like avoiding because it would be an awkward conversation. 

Have you had issues like that before? 

Doesn’t matter, a voice in the back of your head stated, this is now. 

“Hey, Arthur, you got a minute?” 

His head lifted at the sound of your voice, meeting your gaze a moment before he dropped it a moment before rising to his feet. 

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Just a talk somewhere without an audience,” you explained, offering a small smile before you were turning to head out toward the edge of camp overlooking the river near camp. Arthur’s footfalls told you that he was following along, much as you could feel some discomfort situating. The area wasn’t completely secluded, but at the time of night it was enough. 

“What’s happenin’?”

His voice pulled you a little further back into the moment, causing you to pause as you looked out toward the mountains in the distance, the trees. 

“I’ve been thinking, I guess…” you started, “Back in the mountains, Hosea had mentioned to me about what I wanted to do. That if I wanted to leave, he would help with Dutch.” 

“Is that what you’re doin’?” he asked. You couldn’t help but notice some tightness to his tone--if it was about the issue of knowing where they were that you worried about, or something else, you weren’t too sure. 

“I don’t know…” you said around a sigh, shifting to glance back toward him, “Part of me has to wonder if I should. I was part of this life, but...well, if I can’t remember it…” 

You trailed off a moment, biting at the inside of your lip. That guarded part of you was kicking yourself at the feeling that this wasn’t going the way you wanted, that what was coming out of your mouth was worded right. 

“Guess I understand what you’re gettin’ at…” Arthur returned after a moment, causing you to glance back toward him as you crossed your arms. 

“A part of me is saying that I don’t think I will, yet I keep wondering about it,” you admitted, letting out a slow breath, “I also can’t stop thinking about what’s fair for you in this situation. I know that we have something, but I--”

“Don’t stay outta some guilt for me,” he snapped, his tone tight, “That ain’t...that’s not what I’d want.” 

“I wouldn’t…” you replied, dropping your arms back to your sides, “However, I can’t pretend, Arthur. It’s hard to be with someone when I have no idea on how I got there. I really do wish it was different, it’s not an easy situation for both of us. Now, there’s…” 

“If you want to leave, and Dutch’s given his approval, I won’t stop you,” Arthur replied, letting out a small sigh through his nose, “It makes sense. I can’t expect things to be what they was before you got hurt.” 

“...I appreciate that,” you said around a sigh, “It’s just a difficult situation. You remember that man in Valentine? The one asking for donations?”

“Sure…” he replied, his brow tightening in confusion as he looked to meet your gaze again. 

“It’s going to sound like a lot, but that man is my uncle,” you explained, looking over his face a moment before you continued, “The reason I locked up in town was because I remembered him from my childhood, felt like I needed to talk to him then and there. So, I went when you and Hosea had left. He’s got a wife, a kid--my aunt and cousin.” 

“You sure they’re who you think they are?” he asked, causing you to nod lightly. 

“They recognize me,” you replied, shrugging. 

“So you’re gonna leave to live with them?”

“I don’t know.” 

He let out a soft sound, almost a laugh as he glanced away toward the outside of camp a moment. “You’re not exactly givin’ me clear ideas on what you’re wantin’.” 

“I know,” you said, pressing a hand against your mouth a moment, “Hell, I don’t think I’m giving myself a clear idea. Though, I just...I don’t think I’m leaving. My uncle’s real sick, they don’t have much. Doesn’t make sense to impose when I have a place here. I just...I’m not sure if I should leave the idea behind.” 

Arthur let out a sound close to agreement at your words, letting out a slow breath. “...That frail lookin’ do-gooder in town is your uncle. The chances of that.” 

“Believe me, I know,” you said, letting out a humorless huff, “I just...on top of Hosea mentioning me leaving, we also talked a bit about...us.”

“Us?”

“Yeah, just about starting over,” you replied, “I just wasn’t sure...well, I know you know me from a time I can’t remember. There’s this expectation there, but…” 

“You wanna start over? With me? You don’t even remember anythin’ ‘bout me.”

“Which is why I feel it would be required,” you said, meeting his gaze, “As I said, I can’t pretend. However...there’s something. I can feel it sometimes. I just...I would need to get to know you again.”

You weren’t too sure what that feeling was exactly. If it was sympathy for his side of the situation or if it was something poking through from what lingered in your forgotten memories. If it was the former, you had to wonder if even that was fair to build a relationship off. Still, you weren’t completely devoid of feeling anything for the people around you, some faces striking you as more familiar than others, certain objects, horses…

“Makes sense,” Arthur replied after a moment, shaking his head, “Hosea’s always gotta make such damn sense sometimes…” 

“He’s certainly observant.” 

“I’d be willin’ to try that, I guess. Startin’ over,” Arthur continued, causing you to raise your eyebrows slightly, “It’ll be...strange, but if that’s what you want to do…” 

“I would be willing, too,” you said with a soft nod, letting out a soft huff, “I already enjoy your company.” 

“Guess that’s a place to start…” he replied, meeting your gaze again as you felt a small smile touch your lips. 

“Yeah, I suppose so.” 

[arfox158]

Wireless External Hard Drive For Mac

Wireless External Hard Drive For Macbook Pro

What’s the best portable external hard drive with 10 terabytes of storage space?

This Seagate Wireless Plus 1TB hard drive is everything you could need and offers an incredible performance. On average, you can expect to receive 2MB sequential speeds using the Seagate wireless hard drive. It measures 115.50MB/s for reading and 114/42MB/s for writing, while its previous version, Seagate GoFlex, has a much worse overall performance. The WD My Passport Pro won out as the best wireless external hard drive for Mac. Because it’s a cost effective and flexible wireless hard drive. The WD My Wireless Pro drive comes with an SD card reader slot. Perfect when you want to offload photos and videos from your camera, drone or GoPro. This hard drive is entirely compatible with Xbox One, Macintosh, and PC. Providing 7200 RPM, it’s impressively fast which saves you precious time. It’s 2.2 pounds and only 7.75 inches tall, 4.75 inches wide, and 1.4 inches deep. We primarily recommend it for anyone looking for a faster than normal 10TB external hard drive!

An external hard drive is a data holding storage device that plugs into your computer. Not only is it an efficient way to hold much more space for your computer or gaming system, but it’s also fantastic for physically transferring storage data to different locations. On top of that, they’re an outstanding way to backup files, as well.

Each terabyte of storage is 1000 gigabytes. Therefore, each 10TB external hard drive carries 10000 gigabytes of data. In most cases, 10TB of storage is enough space to efficiently hold an adequate amount of high-quality videos, pictures, backup files, audio files, etc. Unfortunately, not all external hard drives were made equal. Some can be very slow at file transfers, break easily which can result in loss of files, compatibility with different software, and overpriced.

After extensive research, testing, and reviews; We formulated a list of the 9 best portable external hard drives with 10 terabytes of storage. Each one of these is very reliable and provides the best value.

In Short, Here Are The Best External Hard Drives With 10 Terabytes Of Storage

WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN

LaCie STHA10000800

Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP

Seagate Expansion STEB10000400

G-Technology 0G05678

WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN

Oyen Digital

Seagate (STEL10000400)

G-Technology 10TB with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

1. WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN

First up, the WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN is an exceptional external hard drive with 10 terabytes of storage space. Not only can it easily hold all the data you need, but it’s also very dependable. User’s give it outstanding ratings across the board for its reliability. On top of that, you’ll have peace of mind with its 3-year limited warranty.

This is one of the few hard drives on the market which provides hardware encryption password protection. With its compatibility with Time Machine and WD backup software coming with the purchase, you’ll love its auto-backup ability. Overall, it’s an amazing choice!

Users Say: “I purchased two of these. One as a media storage drive, and another as a backup. They arrived in great shape, and are working as intended. By default, they come with EXFAT formatting (likely for compatibility with Windows, Apple, and Linux OSes including USB plugs for home routers/clouds. I reformatted to NTFS for my needs, and I used the WD tool to set the sleep timer to 90 minutes to better suit my media-playing/storing needs. I think the default is only 30 minutes to drive spin-down/sleep.”

Tech Specs & Details

Universal connection

Compatible with Time machine

USB 3.0 port

3-year limited warranty

10 terabytes of storage

Hardware encryption password protection

Auto backup

2. LaCie STHA10000800

Next up, the LaCie STHA10000800 is an exceptional 10TB external hard drive. Coming with the purchase, it includes a 5-year limited warranty. One of its essential attributes is its quick 240MB/s transfer rate speed. You’ll also appreciate the 1-month complimentary Adobe creative cloud membership.

The primary downside with this external drive is it’s a bit faulty. Many people complain about it prematurely breaking or their compatible computer doesn’t recognize it. However, a far greater amount of users are extremely happy with it. Be sure to check out the reviews below.

Users Say: “I have several of LaCie’s products and they always prove trustworthy and this unit did not disappoint. I have a large number of photos and videos that I need to back up and store and all I need to do is plug this into my computer and drag the files onto it. Easy to organize files, view, and retrieve.”

Tech Specs & Details

Compatible with 3 USB-C and USB 3.0

10 Terabytes of space

Max Speed: 240MB/s

5 year limited warranty

Compatible with PC and Mac

3. Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP

Not only is the Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP one of the faster 10TB external hard drives on the market, but it’s also currently on a 7% discount. This hard drive is entirely compatible with Xbox One, Macintosh, and PC. Providing 7200 RPM, it’s impressively fast which saves you precious time. It’s 2.2 pounds and only 7.75 inches tall, 4.75 inches wide, and 1.4 inches deep. We primarily recommend it for anyone looking for a faster than normal 10TB external hard drive!

Users Say: “I use this with an XBox One and had no problems installing it or using it. It’s set as the default memory for installed games and I notice no lag or other issues when loading or playing when compared to the internal HDD for the Xbox. I’ve had no problems with a rattling noise as some complained of so it might depend on how you have it resting – I just put it down flat on top of the XBox unit (not using the stand it came with). I recommended the same unit to my brother who picked one up and has also had no complaints. Lots of memory and fast access times at a very reasonable price. I’d buy it again.”

Tech Specs & Details

10 terabytes of storage

1-year manufacturer’s warranty

Compatible with Xbox One, Macintosh, and PC

7200RPM

USB 3.0

Construction: Aluminum

Software compatibility: Windows 7 or later and Mac OS x 10.6 or later

4. Seagate Expansion STEB10000400

Next in line, the Seagate Expansion STEB10000400 is another wildly popular 10TB external hard drive with great customer reviews. Coming with the purchase is an 18-inch USB 3.0 cable and peace of mind with a 1-year limited warranty. Upon connection to your Windows software, the hard drive is automatically recognizable. With a 6.93 length and 4.75 width, its easy for travel. Overall, it’s an excellent choice for windows!

Users Say: “I’m a huge fan of these for backup drives. Small, cheap, portable. I can buy two and have redundant backups in case one fails and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. They’re super quiet (no noise at all really) and don’t vibrate like some drives. They also do NOT require external power, just the included USB cable (which is normal USB on one end but not the other so if you need a longer cable you need to buy a USB extension cable).”

Tech Specs & Details

Dimensions: 6.93 x 4.75 x 1.44 inches

10 Terabytes of storage space

Compatible with USB 3.0

Transfer speed: 160 MB/s

5. G-Technology 0G05678

The G-Technology 0G05678 is another fantastic external hard drive with a massive 10TB of storage space. Uniquely, it has a modern sleek design which is much more attractive than the standard hard drive. Along with that, it’s currently on a large 23% discount, as well.

For added durability, it’s made with an all-aluminum enclosure. You’ll also enjoy the extended 3-year manufacturer’s limited warranty. It’s compatible with USB-C. Overall, it’s a great choice and we highly recommend it. Be sure to check out the reviews below!

Users Say: “Excellent device. Works great. Simple to setup. Great for storage and backup of iMac In case anything should happen to it. Highly recommend this to others.”

Tech Specs & Details

USB C connector

Apple Time Machine

All-aluminum enclosure

3-year manufacturer’s limited warranty

10 terabytes of storage

6. WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN

For many reasons, the WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN is the most famous 10TB hard drive on the market with near-flawless reviews. This external hard drive is compatible with USB 3.0. You’ll also be very impressed with the amount of storage its compact design is able to handle. Coming in at 5.31 x 1.89 x 6.53 and weighing 2 pounds, you’ll have no issues fitting in a travel bag.

Another tremendous benefit is its 2-year manufacturer’s limited warranty providing peace of mind. It’s compatible with both Mac and Windows. Whether you’re gaming or need it for PC storage, it’s a fantastic bang for the buck portable external hard drive. Be sure to check out the reviews below!

Users Say: “This worked out great for my iMac. Great price value. Only a small delay in getting it formatted for the Mac. There’s an insert in the package that gives a link to the WD site showing you how to do it. Once you go to their site, the instructions are very simple and the drive works great. I have 8 WD Passport drives I’ve been using for 6 years and they have served me well.”

Tech Specs & Details

Formatted NTFS for Windows and Mac

10 Terabytes of storage

Compatible with USB 3.0

2-year manufacturer’s limited warranty

7. Oyen Digital

Although it hasn’t quite been discovered yet, the Oyen Digital is an incredible choice. This 10TB external hard drive has a USB 3.2 Gen II interface and it’s compatible with USB-C. Not only does it have a tough build quality, but it’s also shockproof with its aluminum body and silicone sleeve. Overall, it’s an amazing choice and it’s highly dependable!

Users Say: “This drive was easy to install and to use. Great investment to protect my photographs. 8TB of storage for a reasonable price and the product is very sturdy. Now I can free up space on my computer.”

Tech Specs & Details

10 terabytes of storage

USB-C

Dimensions: 7.00 x 5.70 x 1.40

USB 3. 1 Gen II Interface

Compatible with Thunderbolt 3

8. Seagate (STEL10000400)

Just recently, the Seagate (STEL10000400) had a drastic reduction in price 36% off the original amount. Although we’re unsure if this discount is permanent or temporary, we believe it’s a remarkable 10TB external hard drive. It provides two USB 3.0 ports and a 2-year limited warranty.

With the purchase, you also get a 2-month Adobe Creative Cloud Photography membership. Not only is it fantastic for backing up your data, but the added USB port can charge your phone, as well. Overall, it’s a great choice and we highly recommend it. Be sure to check out the reviews below!

Users Say: “I only have the Mediasonic 4 bay units to compare this to and I am very happy. The list of troubles I don’t have any longer is long. The front plate of my old units would not stay on, copying between drives would constantly fail, no more excessive wires from the power bricks, no more loud fan noise, no more constantly running drives 24/7, no more shutting down when the USB wire was disconnected. Plus these were half the price. This 8 drive unit replaced 2 of the 4 bay units by Mediasonic. Anytime I tried to copy multiple files from multiple drives, it would never complete the job. I would come back later and it would have failed. I have never used customer with this company but with the other company, it was non-existent. There were firmware upgrades that were unobtainable. I am very happy with this unit. It works with 4 10 TB drives and 4 8 TB drives installed and everything is snap-in and auto recognized.”

Tech Specs & Details

2-year limited warranty

10-terabytes of space

2 Months Adobe CC Photography

2 USB Ports 3.0

9. G-Technology 10TB with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

Last but not least, the G-Technology 10TB is a phenomenal 10TB external hard drive with both USB-C and Thunderbolt 3. There are a plethora of reasons why we love it. It has a robust aluminum case build, a stylish design, it has a high-speed transfer rate and an impressive 5-year limited warranty. Overall, it’s a pricey, but exceptional hard drive!

Users Say: “One week review. Have additional GRaid drives with no problems over the years which made me go to Drives. Decided I would add non-raid drives to another system. Doing still photography about 1Tb+ per year and using LR and PS. Use for photo storage only. Purchased Thunderbolt for enterprise quality and daisy chain capability. Speed is adequate and can process from the drive with “maybe” minimal lag – so far not enough to move a current process file to SSD internal which is an option on my system. No noise issue and does not run too hot. Noise is less than my raid drives. Purchased a cheaper USB C same size Drive for direct clone backup of TB drive. This drive is less speed-dependent and I connect to a USB port saving my other TB port. Very pleased with the system. Non-TB same width and height but length less nevertheless stacks well.”

Tech Specs & Details

Construction: Aluminum case

7200 RPM

Dual Thunderbolt 3 ports

USB C port

USB 3.1 Gen 1

250MB/s transfer rate

10 terabytes of storage

Quick Recap

Here Are The Best 10TB External Hard Drives

WDBBGB0100HBK-NESN

LaCie STHA10000800

Fantom Drives GF3B10000UP

Seagate Expansion STEB10000400

G-Technology 0G05678

WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN

Oyen Digital

Seagate (STEL10000400)

G-Technology 10TB with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

Looking for a shock-resistant hard drive? See our top choices here.

Need maximum space? See our most recommended 12TB hard drives here.

Wireless External Hard Drive For Macbook Pro

If you’re interested in a super-wide monitor, see our top 8 here.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 32 of 26

Title: The Siren Depths (2012) (The Books of the Raksura #3)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 11/09/2020

Date Finished: 11/21/2020

Moon's past has always been obscure. A winged shapeshifter, he has spent most of his life as a solitary wanderer. He has few memories of his childhood, and only recently found others of his kind-- the Raksura. Now Moon has found a home as first consort to the queen Jade in the Raksuran court of Indigo Cloud.

However, when a neighboring queen recognizes his bloodline, Moon's new life is upended as he's forced to return to a family he doesn't even remember. Seemingly abandoned by Jade and overcome with doubt, Moon has to navigate the complex politics and grave secrets in the court of Opal Night alone. But an old enemy is about to return, threatening every Raksuran court in the Reaches.  

The one thing he hadn’t expected to do was miss Indigo Cloud so much. He had been leaving people all his life, to the point where all the turns seemed like an uninterrupted progression of departures, and there had been people he had missed terribly. But this was a never-ending ache in his chest... You’ll get over it, he told himself. You always get over it. 

But somehow, this time was different. 

Some major spoilers and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book:  As always, graphic violence and action. There is a disturbing scene that's... kind of forced cannibalism I guess (I'm not sure how else to describe it). Some sexual content is implied but not graphic. The r*pe plot point from The Cloud Roads is relevant, but is not depicted or described in detail. A romantic relationship with a significant age gap is briefly mentioned (both are consenting adults but it may make some readers uncomfortable).

For the most part, I enjoyed The Siren Depths more than the previous entries. I connected much more strongly to the central conflict, and was pleased to see some deeper character development than in the last two books. This entry also introduces fascinating new settings and characters while exploring some genuinely interesting ideas. It serves as a good parallel to The Cloud Roads, with similar plot beats explored in different ways. I did have one big problem which I will detail further in the review, but let's talk about the good parts first. Moon's conflict in this story, like the rest of the series, has to do with belonging. But The Siren Depths has the advantage of two books of development. From what we know of Moon's past, he sees any home as temporary, and when he's suddenly forced to leave Indigo Cloud (presumably for good), his new attachments and way of life come into question. To some degree, Moon sees this as an inevitable part of his life. Sooner or later, something out of his control will happen and he'll be abandoned. What I found relatable is there's several times Moon knows he is being irrational but still can't stop the negative downward spiral. Like... jeez, just call me out specifically next time! While a depressed protagonist can be a drag to read, I think it really works here because we've grown attached to Moon and know how far he's come. And sure enough, he does get his ass in gear when he realizes this ISN'T like before, and lots of people do care about him. The found vs biological family conflict is interesting as well. I think The Siren Depths does great here because you can see both points of view. Moon always assumed his biological family died, and they assumed the same thing about him. This should be a happy homecoming, but under the circumstances simply isn't. Moon resents being torn from Indigo Cloud because a group of people he barely remembers have a legal claim on him. Opal Night seems strangely hostile until you learn more about its politics and secrets. Even though they're early antagonists, they're not really villains; just a traumatized group of people who see Moon as a missing link from their past. When he's not what the others are expecting, obvious issues ensue, but Moon finds he does care about some of these people, even if it's not really his home. Outside of Moon, several other characters have arcs in this book. While the previous books feature a likeable enough cast, the characters are mostly one dimensional. Not so here; we explore the insecurities and struggles of some of the supporting cast. Jade isn't nearly as self-confident as she appears to be, and grapples with this throughout the book-- for example, wanting to prove to Moon that she is willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Similarly, Chime's struggle with his involuntary transformation comes to a head here as his strange new powers become relevant again. We see just how bitter he is that he's cut off from his old magical gifts and still holds out hope that they'll return. We even get some indication that while this HAS happened before in Raksuran history, it's incredibly rare. There’s also an interesting hint on what the powers really are, which has some pretty big implications. This is potentially a future plot point, so I’m hoping it gets explored. (Also, I was totally right about Moon/Chime, do I get a prize?)  

There are several new characters I found really interesting, namely Malachite and Shade.  Malachite (spoiler: Moon's biological mother) is initially presented as the antagonist, and her behavior seems inscrutable. She's a powerful queen who commands respect, yet seems unpredictable and standoffish. All of this starts to make sense as one learns more about her. Turns out unbelievable, extended trauma really fucks with a person. The Fell destroyed her colony, killed her consort and most of her children, and she spent almost a year in full guerilla warfare against them. Yet she adopted the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds and raised them as her own children, demonstrating nothing but indulgent love and kindness towards them. I'm not sure I would be able to do that in her place. In general she's just a huge badass; totally decked out in scars and the first to leap into battle. At least we know where Moon gets it from.  Did I say Fell/Raksura crossbreeds? Yup, that plot point is back. Only, it's explored in a different way here. The crossbreeds in The Cloud Roads are terrifying weapons deployed by the Fell. The ones in The Siren Depths, raised in a loving home, are just kind of weirdly pale Raksura. I liked Shade in particular, who we learn is Moon's half brother and serves as an interesting foil. Moon would probably be much more like Shade if the Fell attack on Opal Night never happened. Shade is an earnest and kind (if naïve) man and behaves like none of the Fell we’ve met in the series. I hope we see more of him (and Lithe, the other crossbreed) in future volumes, because I think they're an interesting take on nature vs nurture with the "inherently" evil Fell.  Speaking of the Fell, while they themselves haven't changed much, I thought they were more effective villains than in The Cloud Roads. We see their manipulations and twisted views of the world in much more detail. There's a long sequence where much of the main cast is captured by The Fell, and their struggle to survive and potentially escape is harrowing. I also like that Moon isn't their main focus this time, which adds some nuance and perspective to their behavior. They’re also just... creepy as shit. While I do have some issues with the ending of the book, I think the Fell are handled pretty well beforehand.

I'd be remiss to ignore the always excellent worldbuilding in this series. Like in The Serpent Sea, we get to see more Raksuran courts, all of which feel distinct. It’s cool and impressive for a singular fantasy race to have multiple believable factions and societies. The settings in this book are also creative, including a giant half-dead mountain tree, a city carved into a giant statue, and what I can only describe as "Rapture, but make it a solarpunk prison". Wells goes into vivid, loving detail when it comes to the world. That being said, I would like to see more of the sea/sky realms, since this series has largely focused on the earth. The Three Worlds is kind of a misnomer if two of them don't really show up much. Oh well, maybe in future books/stories.  

My main complaint, and what drags down the rating, is the ending. It's... underwhelming, confusing, and seems pretty rushed. I'll go into more detail below. *major spoilers for the ending* So... one of the big plot points in both The Cloud Roads and The Siren Depths is that the Fell are crossbreeding with captured Raksura. In The Cloud Roads, this is explained as a ploy to strengthen the Fell with some unique Raksuran abilities; queens can prevent others from shifting, mentors can scry future events, and so on. In The Siren Depths, however, we learn it's not that simple. There's some third party manipulating the Fell and encouraging their actions. The goal is to produce a crossbreed that physically resembles the (unnamed) Fell/Raksura common ancestor for... reasons. We are led to believe the being orchestrating this is in fact an ancient ancestor, though its motives are unknown.

While this feels like a retcon, the discrepancy is acknowledged in the story, and it is explained that the Fell in The Cloud Roads were either lying or those specific ones decided to pursue their own agenda. Which... fine, makes sense based on what we know about them. I'll let it slide. Perhaps it was hinted at earlier and I just don’t remember. 

So Moon and the others follow the Fell to the mysterious source, a vast and abandoned underwater city. Soon they find the creature that's been imprisoned there. Turns out it's not the Fell/Raksura ancestor, but something different. I can only describe it as sort of eldritchy, with a vaguely creepy physical form, and the abilities to speak through dead/dying Fell and to create disturbingly realistic illusions. The Fell/Raksuran ancestors trapped it there eons ago, and the only way to free it is the physical presence of a member of the ancestor species (for some reason). Which explains why it has been encouraging the crossbreeding, since their common ancestor is presumably extinct. It's freed from its prison since Shade fits the "ancestor" criteria based on his physical appearance. Then,  in the span of literally one chapter, it attacks everyone, chases the characters through the underwater city, gets hit by some water, then promptly melts like the Wicked Witch of the West and dies.

I had a couple problems with this ending. First, the whole Fell crossbreeding conflict with the Raksura is a huge generational trauma thing. Moon has his own horrible experience with them, of course, but it's also a big issue with both Indigo Cloud and Opal Night. Hell, it's the whole reason Moon was separated from his family and lived thirty-some years in exile without knowing what he was. The series literally wouldn't have happened without this conflict. To have everything explained away by "an eldritch wizard did it" is very anticlimactic. I vastly prefer the original explanation.

Second, we know basically nothing about this creature. How was it able to communicate with the Fell (and Chime)? Why was it imprisoned other than being super evil and stuff? Who knows. And yeah, it's possible this will be expanded on later. Except I'm pretty sure that when this book came out, it was the last one planned for the series. The next two books follow a different storyline and came out four years later. So this was probably the only explanation we were ever going to get. 

I'm not totally against the concept, but it needed more time and a more interesting/memorable villain for it to work. Introducing all of this in the second to last chapter of (presumably) not only the book but the series, then defeating it with little effort, feels unsatisfying. Hell, there’s more time dedicated to discovering and exploring its prison than anything involving the creature itself! As it stands, the Fell were much creepier and more memorable bad guys in this book, yet narratively serve as bit players in the end. It just feels off.

Also, a nitpick, but the title of the book is weird. The Siren Depths is obviously referring to this imprisoned being. It's trapped underwater and is calling the Fell to it. But it's never referred to as a siren; I'm not sure that word is used at all in the book. It just seems like an odd choice of title that doesn't really fit the vernacular of the world. Siren has some very specific meanings/connotations in our world that don't translate to The Three Worlds. Not a huge deal, just something I noticed.

*ending spoilers end here*

Despite my issues with the ending, I really enjoyed everything else about the book. It does everything the other books do well while featuring serious improvements. I've heard mixed things about the next two books but plan to go in with an open mind.