#how did a show that started so real and revolutionary end with “we all make mistakes we just need to end the violence”

[nyxchipz]

My opinion on Caitlyn Kiramman over the course of the series

I never went from loving a character to despising them so quickly

Bonus: my Discord pfp

[moongothic]

When people talk about there being "evidence" for the theory that Crocodile could be Luffy's other bio-dad, they tend to point out these kind surface-level details, easter eggs and Crocodile's odd behaviour during the Marineford-arc. And while all of that is very important as it lays down the groundwork for explaining the theory to people, unironically I think there's even more to the theory. When you really think about the implications the theory has on Crocodile's character and how that would tie into the long running narrative elements and themes in One Piece as a whole, I think it kind of changes everything

So, in this post I want to analyze and speculate about the theory, going a bit "beyond" the basics we already know. Heavy emphasis on the speculation-part, because I'm not here to provide conclusive evidence to prove that Crocodad is Real, rather, I'm here to speculate about how it could be real in practise, and try to explain how so many things would suddenly add up if the theory was true. I'm here to prove that Crocodad would make sense on a narrative level.

Quickly starting with a brief-ish summary of the Basic Thesis of the Crocodad Theory, just so we're all on the same page:

Naturally, if you already know the basics, feel free to skip this bit

Crocodile has secret beef with Ivankov. Although there is no proof that the beef has anything to do with Crocodile being trans, when you go out of your way to introduce a new character whose power is Magic HRT, it's a natural conclusion for people to assume that if these two know each other, then Crocodile could be a trans man. And naturally, if we're assuming he's Luffy's other dad, then he has to be trans

Dragon, as the leader of the Revolutionary Army, is in canon considdered to be the world's Most Wanted Criminal. He is extremely famous as pretty much everyone (except Luffy) knows who he is

Crocodile knowing the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army doesn't inherently mean he was involved with the Revolutionaries, nor that he has ever met Dragon, but being familiar with Ivankov means it is entirely plausible the two could've met in the past

(Sidenote but I do have a loose theory how Crocodile could've been involved with the Revolutionaries; not relevant here but if you wanted to read it, here you go)

Despite this, when Dragon is revealed to be Luffy's father during the Summit War, although Oda includes the reactions of all the other Shichibukai, he very specifically leaves out Crocodile's reaction to the revelation. This is suspicious as hell, because surely, between his ties with Ivankov and Dragon being world famous, he would've had some thoughts about Luffy being Dragon's son (wrote about this in more depth)

For Crocodad to be real, we are assuming that Crocodile did not know Luffy was Dragon's/his son until Sengoku's announcement during Marineford, this being the reason Oda didn't show that reaction; it would've been too revealing

(We are assuming that Dragon never told Crocodile his name; this is entirely plausible considdering his full name had been a secret to the whole world (as explained post-Enies Lobby), and Dragon had kept the existence of his son a secret even from Ivankov and Kuma. We also need to assume that Crocodile did not name his son, otherwise surely he would have realized Luffy was his son when they met in Alabasta)

This is why Crocodile ends up saving Luffy's life twice in Marineford (as well as Ace's) when until the revelation he had no reason to even care about the idiot

Crocodile choosing to save Luffy's life probably means one of two things; either he really hates the World Government more than the child who foiled his plans to take over Alabasta, or he cares about his son despite knowing Luffy hates his guts

Again, this is just the basic concept, if you want to read more and see all the more easter egg-type hints, I'd reccomend this post, this post and this post (the third one repeats most of the stuff the first two do in but less detail, but also adds a few more notes extra notes). But now that we're generally speaking on the same level, we can delve deeper.

Please, go get yourself a drink and maybe a snack, this is gonna get long and deranged

Going to start with a fairly small thing.

Through out the series Oda has been repeatedly hinting at Crocodile having A Past, some History, A Backstory that lead to him becoming the way he is. But Oda hasn't actually told us what that backstory is. On the surface, this wouldn't be that strange, after all, there's lots of characters whose backstories we haven't seen, for example Mihawk. We know essentially nothing about that man and how he became the way he is. But what's different about Crocodile as opposed to Mihawk and many others, is that Oda hasn't hinted at there being an interesting backstory there that's worth telling. Like I'm sure Mihawk could have an interesting story, but Oda hasn't alluded to that at all. So the fact that he has repeatedly told us that Crocodile does have a backstory, but at most gave us two whole breadcrumbs in an SBS, is a little suspicious. (For clarity, the hints we've gotten so far to Crocodile's backstory were his repeated comments about not trusting people and how he had given up his dreams in Alabasta, while Summit War gave us the Secret Beef with Ivankov and his grudge against Whitebeard. In an SBS in Vol 78, Oda did confirm that Crocodile had his ass kicked by Whitebeard after he became a Warlord in his early 20s, and that he went "quiet for a while" until he started his heroics around his 30s, setting his eyes on Alabasta. Indeed, we have some breadcrumbs of lore, but this hardly paints a full picture. We know nothing abot what he was doing in his late 20s, which would've been the time Luffy was born btw)

What I'm getting at, is that Crocodile clearly has a backstory, but the fact that Oda hasn't spilled the beans yet would indicate to me that it's likely Oda has been saving up that backstory. Which would make sense, Crocodile hasn't been in a role in the story yet where spending time to tell his story would've been appropriate. So really, we're just waiting for the right time for those beans to be finally spilled. But what makes things even more interesting is that One Piece has a very specific track record of not giving its villians extended and dedicated backstories/flashbacks. Villians can cameo in other characters' flashbacks (Moria, Arlong), they can have their own little segments inside the the heroic characters' flashbacks (Orochi, Doflamingo), they might even get their own SHORT dedicated flashbacks (Lucci whose flashback was 6 whole panels long). But villians do not get their OWN, dedicated and EXTENDED flashbacks. Flashbacks are for the heroic characters. There has been a single exception to this rule and that was Big Mom. That's it. And while I'm positive this rule is going to be broken at least one more time before the series ends, really. What do you think is more likely to happen? That Crocodile becomes such an important villian again, this late in the game, that he deserves his own flashback so we can finally find out what his deal is? (When Blackbeard and Imu are also there mind you) Or that Crocodile's role in the story might not be that of a villian anymore, and that Oda had been saving up his backstory all this time because it could reframe his entire character and how we view him?

Oda loves taking inspiration from various mythologies and pop culture alike to bring life into his work.

This is nothing new or surprising, we all know this. For example, Oda did base the original seven Shichibukai on the Seven Heroes from Romancing SaGa 2, each Warlord more or less matching a description of one of the game's villians. Crocodile just happens to match Wagnas, the queer coded leader of the group, who had the noble swordsman Noel (Mihawk) by his side when the group was created to save the world from a great evil. Meanwhile Alabasta as a whole took a lot of inspiration of Egyptian mythology, Crocodile in that arc matching the role of the crocodile-god Sobek. Sobek is a protector god ("Guardian of Alabasta"), associated with military power (literally what Crocodile wanted to obtain) and fertility, carrying the epithet of "he who loves robbery" (man stole a lot of things, from money and lives to rain and nearly a whole dang country). Sobek's name is speculated to come from the words "to impregnate" or "to unite", both being potentially very interesting coincidences (depending on if Crocodad Real and what Cross Guild's purpose in the story is going to be) (if you want more details you can go read the Wikipedia article on Sobek). (Also I'm sure there's something interesting to be said about Sobek's fusion with the sun deity Ra, Sobek-Ra, and how Luffy is our lil Sun God)

The reason I'm pointing this out is that based on Oda's hinting and/or references to mythologies, people have in the past been able to predict certain plot twists and reveals way ahead of time. For example, most recently people were able to predict that Saint Saturn had been the one to give Ginny (and by extension, Bonney) the Sapphire Scale-disease based on a certain legent about ushi-oni, which is what Saturn just happens to be. (Here's one of the many Reddit posts that predicted that reveal) And there is one particular story from Japanese mythology I want to bring up, as it may be relevant to our Crocodad Discussion here. The story of Toyotama Hime. Here's a quick TL:DR;

Princess Toyotama had travelled from the depths of the ocean onto land so she could give birth to her child. When the time to deliver the baby came, Toyotama asked for her husband, Hoori, to not look at her while she gave birth, as she would change into her true form. And while Hoori promised he wouldn't look, he couldn't keep the promise. He peeked in on her wife as she was giving birth, only to discover that she had transformed into a gigantic wani. Horrified by what he had seen, Hoori fled, leaving his wife and child behind. Hurt by what had happened, Toyotama abandoned her son and returned to the ocean. (You can read different summaries of the legend on the Wani-article as well as Toyotama's article on Wikipedia)

Now historically speaking, "wani" in mythology can have referred to serpent dragons, sharks or sea monsters. But in modern Japanese, the word translates to "crocodile". It's what Luffy and a few other characters call Crocodile on numerous occassions. Hell, Crocodile's favorite pets are his gigantic bananawani. Historically speaking it might be more accurate to say that Toyotama had transformed into a sea serpent, but for our intents and purposes, Hoori abandoned Toyotama after she became a crocodile.

I can not tell you what exactly the relationship between Dragon and Crocodile was like, how it began and how it ended. There's no way for us to know when Crocodile transitioned (beyond "after giving birth to Luffy"), nor do we know how Dragon found out about it and how he reacted to it. There's a million options for how things could've gone down, and nothing to truly go off of to even make a guess. All we do really know, is that 1) Dragon does not seem to wear rings at all. 2) Crocodile wears rings, but leaves one out specifically on his ring finger, where one would normally wear their engagement/wedding ring (mind you; for the first half of Alabasta Oda drew Crocodile without a ring on his middle finger, but from the latter half onwards, through Impel Down and Marineford, it's always the ring finger). 3) This suspicious ass comment

"I don't know they have kids or not" YEAH RIGHT

If we wanted to use the story of Toyotama Princess as a jumping off-point though. It's entirely plausible that soon after giving birth Crocodile transitioned thanks to Ivankov's ability, and because Dragon wasn't into it, the two broke up/got divorced. The unfortunate reality is that many couples end up breaking up if/when a partner comes out as trans and chooses to transition. Just like Hoori abandoned his wife because she turned into a crocodile, Dragon could've divorced Crocodile because he transitioned into a man. And Dragon would not be a bad person for it (as long as he was respectful about it). If Dragon is straight and just couldn't see himself being with a man, that's just how it is. At the same time, this would be a gut wrenching, painful thing to go through, and this kind of heartbreak could have devastating concequences for Crocodile's character. Concequences that could play deeply into One Piece's long running narrative elements, which is why a lot of my speculation from here on does end up relying on the Toyotama Myth possibly being inspiration for Crocodile's secret backstory. I acknowledge there's no quarantee that's the case, but I am here to make an argument for why it could be.

QUICK SIDENOTES

As mentioned before, although Ivankov holds the key to a weakness Crocodile has (in their own words), we don't know what that weakness is.

Crocodile joined the Shichibukai in the first half of his 20s (SBS vol 78), and he would've been 27 years old when Luffy was born. This means it's nearly impossible for Crocodile to be stealth trans, as he would've been a public figure for years; which means, Crocodile could be openly trans

A single earring on the right ear can be read as a "gay earring". The man does like his jewelry, so there's no proof he's signaling that he's gay, but if Crocodile's happy to let the world know he's into men, then surely there'd be no issue with him being openly trans either

His transition would've happened 17 years ago pre-timeskip, so in-universe it'd be old ass news and not worth bringing up to the readers if it doesn't add anything to the current plot or his character (which it wouldn't have during Alabasta nor Summit War)

If Crocodile's secret weakness wasn't him being stealth trans, and Ivankov can't detransition him against his will (can't hit Crocodile without Armanent Haki), then what is that secret weakness Ivankov knows about?

As Dragon told Kuma: "A child is a parent's weakness". If Ivakov was anywhere near Crocodile when his child was born (so that Crocodile was able to transition as soon as the kid was out) Ivankov could/should know about the child existing, and would thus be able to blackmail Crocodile by holding the information of his secret child hostage

However, Ivankov did not know about Dragon having a child

Meaning if Crocodile and Dragon were in a relationship, it must have happened in secret, otherwise Ivankov should've realized Crocodile gave birth to Dragon's child

So One Piece has a lot of narrative elements that come up time and time again through out the story,

And some of these have become more and more relevant in the story especially post-timeskip. This is not a comprehensive list of all of them, just the ones that could heavily tie into Crocodile if he were Luffy's other dad, as they could reframe his character. So, let's look at these narrative elements, how they've appeared in the story so far, and speculate how they could reflect in Crocodile.

🐊 People existing in the wrong bodies / bodies that have been altered (and what it means for you to be "you"/how does your body reflect who is on the inside) 🐊 Queerness

Wrote about this more in-depth in this post, but to keep things short; Thriller Bark, Punk Hazard, Dressrosa and Wano all heavily featured characters who have had their bodies either temporarily or permanently altered, sometimes with the person's consent and sometimes without it. Not to mention all the various characters through out the series who have gone through similar things, like Franky, Kuma as well as Brook, among countless others. As well as every Devil Fruit user who can transform their body (including every single Zoan user). People, the way they inhibit their bodies and the freedom to be who you are is very important to One Piece. That is already a very queer-coded narrative, but then we also have explicitly queer characters. Queer characters, who have been deeply important to the story, and whose presence has become more and more prevalent with time. Not to mention how queerness in general has been "escalating" over the course of the story. There's this video from Berry for A Thought on YouTube which explains this more in-depth, but to summarize the most important observation from the video; we have slowly gone from Kuina wishing she had been born a man, to non-binary drag queens (first one being able to temporarily change their own bio-sex by turning into someone else, to the second one being able to change anyone's bio-sex permanently), to two pre-transition transgender characters. All we really need for this escalation to reach its "peak" is if we had a (named, non-background) transgender character who has already transitioned. Unsurprisingly, Crocodile could fill that role really nicely.

🐊 Loneliness

Loneliness is generally speaking a very important theme in One Piece, as it's on the opposite side of coin with friendship on it. So many of our main characters have suffered for years from loneliness, by being ostracized and rejected by their communities, abandoned by their families, sometimes suffering for decades for the sake of their loved ones because they had promises to keep. Luffy himself considders loneliness to be most painful, scary thing imaginable.

Loneliness is something queer people struggle with. A lot. Being rejected by your loved ones for who you are is a painful, common experience for many. It alone can keep many queer people in the closet for years and decades, because the fear of being left alone and abandoned is too much to bear. Some people are accepting of queers but only as long as they stay "over there", pulling a full 180 when a family member comes out. Some people only ""accept"" trans people as long as they don't transition. And while some people may appear to be accepting of you when you come out or are early into your transition, many (trans men especially) lose friends and support the more they start to pass. Crocodile does not trust people. He set up base in Alabasta sometime around the age of 30, meaning he spent around 14 years by himself (until he recruited Robin), unable to trust anyone. That's a long time to be alone. Of course, there may have been a practical side to why Crocodile chose to spend over a decade in utter emotional solitude. If he was scheming to take over a country, then having anybody close who could leak his plans out and foil them would be dangerous. Hell, it's exactly what happened thanks to Robin. But having your significant other destroy your ability to trust people and then isolating yourself to avoid further heartbreak and "betrayal" could be another, potential reasoning as to why Crocodile chose solitude.

🐊 Two failed weddings and one relationship that never was

In Thriller Bark we witnessed Nami almost get married off to Absalom. On Whole Cake Island, we almost saw Sanji get married into Big Mom's family. During Egghead arc, we saw how Kuma never got to have the relationship with Ginny he had yearned for deep inside. I already mentioned Crocodile's missing ring. How his relationship with Dragon might not have worked out because of his transition. How Crocodile's queerness could've lead into solitude, out of distrust. We already have three relationships that never worked out. So how about a fourth one.

🐊 What makes a family (/chosen families) 🐊 Family reunions (with blood-relatives) 🐊 What it's like when your blood-relatives are really horrible people

For the first half of the series, One Piece did very much focus on the concept of chosen families, as most of the Strawhats grew up with non-blood relatives that they all considdered just as much family as their actual blood relatives (if not more-so); Luffy with Ace and Sabo, Sanji and Zeff, Nami, Nojiko and Béllemere, Chopper and Hiruluk, Franky and Tom's Workers. Chosen families are deeply important to this story. At the same time, a lot of post-timeskip OP has actually revolved around (blood) family reunions. Punk Hazard was about sending the kidnapped children back to their families (as well as Momonosuke to ""his father"" Kin'emon), Dressrosa was about reuniting all the broken families Doflamingo (and his family) had torn apart. Whole Cake Island was about Sanji reuniting with his blood family while being forced into a whole new one, and Wano allowed Momonosuke to reunite with his sister (and Kin'emon with his wife). On Egghead we've gotten to see the gutwrenching reunion between Bonney and Kuma, and we are all dying to see Luffy meet Dragon eventually. Not to mention all the other reunions many of us are waiting to see, like Shanks and Buggy, Moria and Perona. Luffy and Garp (currently held hostage by Blackbeard), Mihawk and Zoro. And many others. But indeed, not all the family reunions have been good. Sometimes, the blood relatives have been horrible people. Like Big Mom (to some of her children and husbands), Judge and Kaidou. Sometimes, your blood relatives suck ass.

Needless to say, Sir "I tried to bomb one million people to take over a country" Crocodile is not exactly the greatest guy around. But what might be arguably more important is that... Why is Crocodile a plot-relevant character again, on an emotional level? As I mentioned, characters like Buggy and Mihawk relate to certain characters, so potentially getting to see them reunite with other characters would have emotional weight behind it. Mihawk and Buggy are both relevant characters both to the plot but also on an emotional level, their return to the spotlight makes sense. But then we have Crocodile, a fellow member of Cross Guild. Sure, he's definitely there to help move the plot along, no doubt about that. But emotionally speaking, why the hell is he here again? Is there a character he could "reunite with" that would have that same kind of emotional weight behind it? You could argue Vivi perhaps, but between Vivi hating the man's guts and and Crocodile probably not giving a damn about her, I'm not sure that reunion would have that much emotional weight? Robin on the other hand could be very interesting, considdering she did live under Crocodile's protection for four years until she betrayed him, an action that seemed to have stung Crocodile. That reunion could be deeply interesting.

But you know what this post is about. If Crocodile is Luffy's other dad, then those two coming across each other would suddenly have enormous weight on it even if Luffy himself didn't know about it. Because if Luffy were to find out, Luffy would then have to decide if he'd acknowledge Crocodile as his other dad or disown him. Mind you, Crocodile already knows that Luffy hates his guts for what he did in Alabasta, not to even mention the fact that he tried to kill him three whole times. Luffy has every reason in the world to hate Crocodile. The man surely understands that. But then there's the fact that Crocodile isn't Luffy's mom, but his transgender father. If Dragon rejected Crocodile for being trans, why would his son be any different? Which raises the question, would Crocodile be afraid of that? Of meeting Luffy again? Of Luffy somehow finding out and then getting rejected by him too? How does Crocodile feel about any of this? Now of course, we the readers already know that Luffy canonically loves and respects queer people. Luffy would never look down on Crocodile for him being his dad (the warcrimes are different). But Crocodile doesn't know that. And this is what I mean by there being emotional weight on these two reuniting, as anything that could go down between these two could have massive concequences for Crocodile's character. And please, keep in mind, although Oda hasn't dwelled too deep into the subject in One Piece, there are people who aren't accepting of queers in this world.

This prince, and his entire kingdom, could not accept his mother for who she was. An entire country crumbled because their queen came out as trans. So just like there are accepting families (including Kaidou strangely enough), there are unaccepting, queerphobic ones too. So the fear of rejection would not be unfounded. (Also, if Crocodile and Dragon are divorced then those two coming across each other, especially after The Shit Crocodile pulled in Alabasta, would have a lot emotional weight on it too.)

🐊 The things you are willing to do and sacrifice to protect your loved ones

Shanks gave up his arm for Luffy. Zeff ate his leg so Sanji could have actual food. Béllemere died for her daughters while Nami sacrificed her freedom in an attempt to save her village. Tom gave up his life to protect Franky and Iceburg. Robin attempted to sacrifice her life so the Strawhats could continue their journey in peace. Sanji gave up his freedom for Baratie and the Strawhats. And so many countless more lives, given up for the sake of others.

So people often give Dragon shit for being a "deadbeat dad". I've discussed this in the past, so to keep it short; the World Government went out of its way to hunt an unborn child, hurting countless pregnant women, mothers and newborns while chasing for Gold Roger's son. A child who had "evil blood" and had to be exterminated from the world. Similarly, the World Government went out of its way to put a massive bounty on an eight year old child for the crime of being able to read ancient texts. Dragon would have known and understood that if he ever had a child, as the leader of the Revolutionary Army, his child would become yet another target for the World Government to hunt, just like Ace and Robin did. This should also apply to Crocodile; if the WG found out about him having been involved with the Revolutionaries they would no doubt strip him of his Shichibukai status and make him a wanted man again. Crocodile's child would thus be in just as much danger, even if the Government didn't realize it was ALSO Dragon's son. If Dragon wanted his son to be free and choose his own path in life, Dragon had to keep his distance from Luffy. The same would apply to Crocodile. Luffy probably ended up in Garp's care, not because his parents didn't want to raise him, but because they wanted Luffy to be free.

But as long as the World Government exists, if they ever found out about Dragon having a son, that child would end up in danger, he could become a target. And the only way to ensure that child's safety would be by eliminating the ultimate threat. The Government.

Now that is the ultimate goal of the Revolutionary Army anyways, something Dragon and co have been working towards for over two decades now. But most of their efforts have gone into freeing small countries by overthrowing corrupt governments and gaining support, little by little. Which is understandable, the WG is impossibly powerful, you can't just walk into Marijoa all willy-nilly, take out the Tenryuubito and free the world, the Government's forces would take you down within seconds. Dragon understands this, which is no doubt why the Revolutionary Army hasn't made a move against Marijoa directly until the latest Reverie. It'd be too risky, and if the Revs were taken down, who would be left to oppose the WG? Their slow approach makes sense. But at the same time, while the Revs did attack Marijoa, destroying the Tenryuubito's food banks and freeing a single slave... as long as the Tenryuubito are allowed to literally stay on top of the world, this attack has done nothing. They're just going to demand more tributes, they're going to enslave more people. It's going to make things worse for those who aren't in power. It's harsh and unreasonable, and I don't agree with them, but I do understand where some fans are coming from when they considder Dragon a "fraud". If you wanted to help free the world from this corrupt rule, then you have to actually strip those in power from their status, otherwise nothing will ever change. You have to actually fight the enemy.

I can not tell you for certain why Crocodile wanted to create "a military nation powerful enough to oppose the World Government", I do not know for sure why he wanted to obtain an Ancient Weapon. But nuking Marijoa out of orbit sure would be a fast way to end the rule of the Tenryuubito, ensure nobody would get hurt by the World Government's corruption and slavery ever again, and make sure your son would never become targetted by them. A line of thought I'm sure Dragon would not have agreed with. But a line of thought Crocodile could believe in.

Remember how we still don't quite know what Cross Guild is up to? How the Shichibukai are based on Romancing SaGa 2's Seven Heroes, a group formed by Wagnas (Crocodile) with the swordsman Noel (Mihawk) by his side to save the world from a great evil? And how Cross Guild has been focusing on hunting down Marines by putting bounties on their heads? Make of that what you will.

🐊 Learning not just to love and trust others but to be loved as well

Robin tried to sacrifice herself not just because she loved the Strawhats, but because she thought she herself was unlovable and did not trust the crew, believing they too would betray her eventually. Sanji tried to sacrifice himself because he thought he was unworthy of being loved. Ace went through most of his life, thinking it would've been better if he had never been born at all. We know Crocodile does not trust people. The logical assumption here is that it's because he was betrayed in the past and had his trust broken. Did he ever have a crew, in his younger pirating days? If so, what happened to them? Did they betray him, leave him? After Whitebeard kicked his ass? Who knows. If Crocodile was in a relationship with Dragon though, it does mean that one point he loved and trusted someone, deeply. So much so they had a child. But if their relationship ended because Crocodile is trans, that would have broken his heart, wouldn't it? Made it hard for him to trust anyone ever again. And what would make you believe you were unlovable more than being rejected by your significant other for being queer. But as I mentioned before; Luffy loves and respects trans people. His affection towards queer characters through out the series is absolutely unmatched (the way he exclusively uses the "-chan" honorific for Bon Kurei, Ivankov and Inazuma, calls Yamato a man, and is far more interested in Okiku's spooky mask than her being trans). What would be a better way for Crocodile to be reminded that he can be loved and that he can trust others than being accepted by his estranged son?

🐊 Inherited Will

In Alabasta we learn Crocodile once had a dream that he gave up upon after learning how strong the most powerful pirates of the Grand Line, the ones standing between him and his dreams, truly were. In Marineford we learn Crocodile lost to Whitebeard in his youth. During Miss Goldenweek's Cover story, we learn Crocodile dreamt of becoming Pirate King.

A dream that he shares with Luffy. An inherited will Luffy carries on.

You know the RPG trope where the final boss is either god or your dad? Yeah. This line really hits different when you shout it at your father.

Now, all of this is fine and dandy, but what does this actually do? How would Crocodile being Luffy's other bio-father add to his character, impact Luffy and the story as a whole?

Now there's no way for me to fully predict how the plot is going to develop through out the Final Saga and what might go down. There's a million moving pieces and a billion potential directions things could go. We could be here forever debating those things. But as I did explain in detail already, if Crocodad Real, it could heavily impact Crocodile's character depending on what does/doesn't happen.

For one, we could have an idea of why Crocodile is a plot relevant character again; if his ultimate goal had always been to destroy the World Government to protect his son at whatever cost, then we might know why he wanted to create Cross Guild to begin with; either create a military force strong enough to fight the WG on their own, or, if nothing else, dwindle down the Government's forces and be a general nuisance that leaves the WG vulnerable (perhaps enough so that the Revolutionaries can do the hard work) and/or unable to spend their resources on hunting down Luffy and the Strawhats. Crocodile could be acting as bait, a distraction to protect his son. There's a few options there. This would also give us an idea of where that Cross Guild plotline could be heading; some people believe CG is there to join the race for One Piece and get defeated by the Strawhats, and that'll be the end of it. But now we would have another option, of Cross Guild joining the expected final war against the World Government together with the Strawhats and the Revolutionary Army. So that's one way Crocodad could impact the story and the general direction its heading.

But then there's the character-side of things, how would Crocodad impact our characters? Now obviously, the three characters that would be most impacted by the theory would be Crocodile, Luffy and Dragon. There's some other characters too, Ivankov (since they didn't know), Robin, potentially some Cross Guild members (could they learn to respect Crocodile more sincerely if they learned that the man did in fact have a heart and something/someone he cared about and wanted to protect?) and maybe even Garp, but realistically, it's the core of the family itself.

Now Dragon already would know about everything so there'd be no Shocking Revelation for him. And based on what we saw him say about Sabo maybe being responsible for Cobra's death at the Reverie, we can make an educated guess that Dragon is Not Happy With What Crocodile Did In Alabasta.

So the two aren't on good terms, probably. Dragon might just be absolutely furious at Crocodile for what he did. Understandable tbh. I guess we're just going to be left wondering if the two could somehow ever reconcile, and whether or not they still love each other deep down, despite all the pain and hurt (and warcrimes) they've gone through.

Then there's Luffy. And I guess everything boils down to two major questions; will Luffy ever find out the truth, and if he does, will that impact how he feels about Crocodile? 'Cause it's entirely plausible the series could end with Crocodad being real and Luffy never finding out. And in that scenario, well, Crocodad could impact those other aspects of the story, just not Luffy. And in some ways that could be fine too. It could still be meaningful for Crocodile (and Dragon) that way. But what if Luffy did find out? Now, mind you, it's already a bit of a mystery how Luffy feels Crocodile as of now in the story; back in Impel Down he still understandably hated the man's guts with a fiery passion, but after Marineford Luffy does kind of owe Crocodile his life after he saved him. And Luffy is generally speaking pretty respectful when it comes to stuff like that. But also Luffy was unconcious when Crocodile yeeted him and Jinbei out of Akainu's reach, so does Luffy even know Crocodile saved him? (Though surely he would remember Croc sparing Ace and getting guarded from Mihawk) Not to mention, when the Cross Guild reveal happened, the only comments we got about it where Luffy calling Buggy an idiot and Zoro being confused about Mihawk being there. They didn't even acknowledge Crocodile. It was almost like Oda seemed to avoid the subject?

We also need to considder how much would Luffy find out? Just the basics, that his other parent is a trans man and just happens to be Crocodile? Or like, everything? From whatever his plans were with taking over Alabasta to however Crocodile might feel about his sweet baby boy? Because if all Crocodile had wanted to do was protect his son, despite knowing he might never see him again, and if Crocodile did still unconditionally love Luffy despite everything that happened, despite knowing (/assuming) that Luffy already hates him... Well first off, Robin nearly assassinated Iceburg and was willing to let the World Government potentially get their hands on an Ancient Weapon just to protect Luffy and co (on top of all the deaths she helped cause while working for Crocodile, all because she wanted to read the Poneglyph herself). If Luffy was willing to forgive Robin for all that, would he not forgive his dad for doing the same? And Luffy isn't one to dismiss kindness, when people express that they genuinely care about him and his well being Luffy does respect that (even if doesn't fully reciprocate the feelings, like with Hancock). And Luffy has deep emotional intelligence too. If Crocodile was convinced he'd be rejected by Luffy for who he was, especially if that had happened to him in the past to begin with, over something Luffy wouldn't bat an eyelash at (like being trans), like. Luffy wouldn't be shitty about that.

We know Crocodile is a broken, traumatized man. We don't know how much shit he has gone through though, beyond getting his ass beat by Whitebeard and The Divorce. Knowing how Oda likes to layer trauma in character backstories*, there definitely could be more to Crocodile than just those two things, but for the sake of this post, let's just focus on The Divorce. *(Like how Robin was alienated by her community long before the Ohara Genocide, and then spent decades of her life fleeing from the Government, hurt and abandoned by people time and time again. Or how Kuma was born into slavery, lost the love of his life and finally gave up everything he had just to save the life of his daughter. Early OP flashbacks may have been a bit simpler, but as time as gone they have definitely gotten more complex and layered, so I would not be surprised if Crocodile's Full Backstory had like 3+ layers to his trauma)

One important part of One Piece has been teaching/reminding certain characters important lessons, to change their view of the world and make them better people as a result.

Here's some of the messages of One Piece, its beating heart and soul

And of course, sometimes some characters can't have their minds changed, at least not that easily. But their ideals and worldview can always be challenged and proven wrong. This is what happens to many of the villians in the story. Like Moria's ideas of how he shouldn't have to do any of the hard lifting himself and how instead of having friends he can just have replacable zombies instead. Moria's worldview was wrong, and is exactly what led to his downfall in Thriller Bark. Or Spandam and the CP9's ideas of justice, how anything they do can be justified as it is for the "good of the world", including killing innocent civilians. They can do that, because they are "heroes of the world", they are "justice". Needless to say, none of the CP9's actions during Enies Lobby could be considdered "heroic", and, well. If "justice always prevails", then their defeat did prove theirs was a false one. Or how Enel isn't a god, how Doflamingo doesn't have a god given right to rule (neither does Wapol for that matter), how Akainu's ideas of "absolute justice" are monstrous at best, how the way Judge and Big Mom treat their families is not how a family should be like at all.

During Alabasta, Crocodile's plans were foiled because of he didn't trust his underlings with his secret identity and refused to communicate properly with them himself. That one conversation between Crocodile and "Mr. 3" (Sanji) is more or less what allowed the Strawhats to reach Alabasta just in time to stop him. But although distrust is what lead to Crocodile's downfall, he still carries that core belief even now; he still doesn't trust others. Which raises the question, what other beliefs might Crocodile still carry deep inside?

That he can't trust anyone because people will betray and leave him sooner or later? That nobody would ever stay by his side, that nobody will ever love him?

Are those not the exact same core messages of One Piece, the false beliefs that we've seen proven wrong, time and time again?

It really wouldn't be right to end the series without Luffy proving Crocodile wrong once and for all, and make him change his worldview, now would it? But hey, the good news is that there might be no better way to prove Crocodile wrong than to have his son unconditionally forgive him and accept him as his father.

All of this to say; yes, I think if Crocodad was real, it would heavily impact Crocodile's character and whatever character arc he might have. Like I'm not arguing for Crocodad in the name of meme'ing. His whole story could suddenly tie into so many of series' core themes and messages, and tie into our main character in a meaningful way. It could impact heavily where the story as a whole is heading.

The other, more likely option is that Crocodad isn't real and that I have lost my marbles thinking I was onto something with this post. In the end, time will be the judge of that. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed my utter derangement.

Minor EDIT (Oct 20th, 2024) but. Because I am still obsessed with Crocodad, I keep on thinking about it and both coming to new conclusions and noticing new things, and I wanted to link a few shorter posts I wrote recently because I think they add to Crocodad, if in minor ways

Crocodile's motif is being a protector

Ivankov's fame as a miracle worker matching the Crocodad Timeline

Whitebeard would not have invited a woman on his crew (side tangent; the actual post is about something else)

[canichangemyblogname]

@trans-buckleyy (this is my main), I got into watching 911 ~September 2022 and looking back through some of my old message/posts about it I was talking about how the gifs I'd seen on tumblr made me think buddie were together. So yeah I definitely got 'baited'/misled by the fans (I didn't start watching for buddie specifically, they just came up on my dash the most) - I commented at the time that a lot of the posts on tumblr about 911 felt like they were only through the lens of buddie shippers so I can see how so many people were misled, fortunately for me the illusion shattered as soon as I actually started watching the show. Though there's been a massive shift in attitude, when I first joined the fandom most people were happy shipping buddie and not believing it would ever become canon, now it seems like everyone has convinced themselves it will. Imo they're kind of setting themselves up for disappointment.

I’m sure I’ve said this before on my blog: capitalism combined with the white supremacist suppression, homogenization, or sterilization of cultures & traditions leads people to make consumption and products part of their identity. Fiction and fandom fill a need to belong that often replace real support systems and community (this is why so many in fandom feel lonely). Rather than a hobby, fandom is part of some people’s identity. So, pushback against popular fan interpretations— or fanon— can feel like a personal attack.

It seems to me that the blogs that just do fandom things to do fandom things—like shipping, that are happy to delineate between canon and fanon, and that understand that fanon is fanon and will likely never go canon are also the same blogs that love things like “rare-pairs” and “multi-shipping.” They seem to approach it from a “it’s never that serious” mentality and really just seem to want to have fun with it. It’s a hobby, not part of how they define themselves. Hobbies and interests are welcome to change, whereas people see identity as fixed and deterministic (it’s not, but that’s a whole other discussion).

There’s been a massive shift in attitude because the landscape has changed. Many of the most hard-core fans have staked their group belonging and (fandom) worldview around buddie. It was *the* singular 9-1-1 fanon relationship (the rest are all canon). It brought them together with people, people who they now see celebrating more on-screen queer representation. They feel spurned. Videos are surfacing of some of the most hard-core sobbing over Buck being confirmed as bi, but not getting buddie. They're telling their audience/followers that if buddie never goes canon, their quality of life will decrease, and they’re repeating many of the same things you (and many other fans) mention: they were led to believe this was a done deal, a foregone conclusion. How does one admit they’re likely wrong about “endgame” when they’ve spent the better part of 6 years supporting this and believing in it? They’re having far more difficulty accepting this than you did. Unlike you, actually watching the show did not set their expectations for what canon will likely be.

I also think there has been a massive shift in the way fandoms approach shipping since the end of Supernatural. A good chunk of the SPN fandom simply stopped watching the show, but continued creating for it. The fandom still dominates on fan-driven sites despite the show now being off-air for 4 years. Many SPN fans had largely given up on canon, preferring fanon, and admitted as such. Until “Destiel” went “canon.” (It didn’t, not really and not technically.) People shifted to this idea that they— the fans— could pressure networks and producers to canonize their ship (they can’t) or make decisions the fandom, a very niche part of an audience, would prefer (they can't). After Buck was confirmed bi, some of the most popular takes were, “This is revolutionary! Just 4 years ago, Supernatural was queerbaiting us all to superhell, and now we have 9-1-1 making a character bi 7 seasons in."

Ultimately, this idea they can pressure shows into making fanon a reality reveals that they have no concept of how television shows are made and produced or how decisions are made at the production and network levels. They are not going to persuade a network plus every writer, every producer, and every showrunner involved to agree to do what they want. But we still see fans in fandom believe they can get all these people to make decisions for the sake of fandom. Just look at the Our Flag Means Death fandom and their billboard fiascos.

Because buddie is part of how this subset of 9-1-1 fans define their sense of belonging, if Buck is in a relationship with anyone other than Eddie, this threatens their community and their relationship with the media itself. Tommy is to these 9-1-1 fans what Eddie was to Buck in 02x01: competition. This is why this same group treated the actresses who played former love interests like shit, too, including death threats and attempts to doxx or "cancel" them. Everything that challenges their (fandom) worldview must be removed. They can't and won't get the network to budge, so maybe they can try to get the actors themselves to quit or the producers to budge. After all, they have "direct" access to these individuals (they don't).

This all seems fantastical just writing about it. The logic doesn't logic, but logic isn't going to logic when social media creates parasocial relationships. Social media makes it seem like we plebians are closer to the patrician class because of how we're exposed to personal aspects of their lives. Repeated exposure to a media persona causes a media user to develop illusions of intimacy, friendship, and identification, and the more prevalent social media is in the media user's life, the more parasocial the online relationship becomes. So if your belonging and part of your sense-of-self identify with being a buddie shipper, then so, too, does the media persona, leading to people like Oliver Stark or Tim Minear being "number one buddie defenders" (they don’t care, y'all, I promise).

Now, add to this the way that m/m shipping has been constructed as inherently subversive (despite the reductive and sometimes regressive tropes that slash-fic uses) and as a form of activism, and you now have people not just identifying with shipping and staking their well-being on a ship, but also believing it is a morally righteous cause to campaign for. To them, they're fighting for representation and the expansion of queer stories. So, when the network and show expand queer representation without them or their ship, they're confronted with the reality that what they're doing doesn't do a damn bit of help. They're forced to ask themselves if their feverish promotion of and support for this ship may not have been about representation. I've seen some of them conclude that 1.) being forced to look critically at shipping is just misogyny because the majority of people in these fandom spaces are women, 2.) they're a queer woman, so, of course, it was about representation, they support and care about queer men and are an m/m ally (yet reblog posts about shooting us if we flirt with men in ways they don't like with the excuse "I'm a woman, I'm allowed to hate men"), 3.) actually, the buddie ship is "superior" representation because it is culturally diverse because Eddie's Latino (yea tokenization!!).

This all plays a large part in why they aren't taking it well when called out for homophobia and the xenophobic hypersexualization of Latino men because, to them, shipping culturally diverse m/m relationships is inherently "progressive" and "subversive" (again, despite the reductive and regressive tropes they use in their writing). They don't need to look critically at what they're saying or how they're hurting marginalized men because they believe they are putting moral pressure on the networks to be more progressive or subversive. Meanwhile, they're drawing rhetoric and ideas from existing queerphobic worldviews and legal structures (like echoing the rhetoric similar to gay panic, a US legal strategy to excuse crimes such as murder and assault on the grounds that the victim being queer led the perp to violence - a.k.a shooting a man for the way he flirted with another man) to tear down canon queer representation, just as they previously used misogynistic tropes to tear down Ana or Taylor or Ali or Marisol.

TL;DR— Many factors have contributed to the wide meltdown and "fandom schism" we've witnessed, not just the fact that some people explicitly started watching for buddie and have skipped whole swaths of the show to fit a "buddie interpretation."

[roseblog-rog]

She Actually Built a Shrink Ray…

(contains g/t mouthplay, g/t fearplay, and dubcon)

My best friend—Jamie—told me a while ago that she was working on a big project. After some prying from my end, she revealed it was going to be some sort of laser that would…do something with, like, atoms? And it would decrease them…I think? Maybe? When she started using science talk I kinda zoned out.

But she eventually dumbed it down for me, saying it would make whatever object it hits far smaller, which actually kinda made sense.

“So, a shrink ray? Like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?”

“Yeah, something like that…but what the fuck are you talking about? Shrinking kids n’ shit??”

“WHAT??? YOU DON’T KNOW THAT MOVIE???? IT’S A CLASSIC!”

“Nah you made that shit up.”

For someone so smart she’s a complete dumbass. Or maybe it’s just not a popular movie…

Anyways, it’s not that I doubted her ability, per se, but I was highly skeptical about whether that was even possible. I mean sure, the idea of shit from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids being real was very intriguing…but could she do it?

That question was finally answered today when she sent me a text saying ‘HAZELLLLL COME OVER NOWWWW ITS SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT 😱😱😱’, and I arrived to her house only to be dragged to her lab where I found…well…a big laser. It really did look like something out of a movie, appearing very similar to Wayne Szalinski’s own creation.

This is where I am now: staring at the large machine, shock and some slight skepticism evident. “Is–is this…?”

“You bet your ass it is! Here lemme show you.” She ran over to a box containing several big red building blocks, taking one out and putting it on a stool where the laser was aimed. She then moved over to some sort of control panel and fiddled with some switches until the tip of the laser was glowing yellow.

I watched in awe; her genuine scientific prowess never ceases to amaze me. Still, I couldn’t help but make a remark. “Y’know, I honestly expected the beam to be red. Maybe some blue glow mixed in.” I smirk.

She glared at me playfully. “Well sooorryyyy it’s not exactly like your stupid obscure movie.”

We laughed as she finished activating the machine. She beckoned me to her side and we both watched as an actual laser was fired onto the building block, making it glow in a similar shade to the beam itself. My mouth then hung open in complete awe as I watched the once large block slowly shrink until it was about as big as a fingernail. She then turned off the machine, and we both went to look at the results. Sure enough, the block was intact, and I picked it up between my fingers to get a closer look.

Well holy fucking shit. The block was exactly the same aside from the now smaller size, and I could see Jamie grinning out of the corner of my eye.

“This is…this is, well, revolutionary.” I couldn’t believe she built this thing, still caught up in the shock of it all.

“Oh but thats not all! Put the block back on the stool.” She instructed, rushing back to the control panel. I could tell she was just as excited about this as I was, if her happy little bounces and giggles were any indication.

I placed the block back and returned to my position beside her, noticing the tip of the laser was now glowing purple instead of yellow. The process then repeated, only this time I watched the block grow back to its original size. Incredible.

“I still can’t believe you actually managed to pull this off…”

“You saying you doubted me?” She gave me another lighthearted glare. “Aaaaanyways, you ready?”

Ah. Right. Because I love and trust Jamie more than anyone, also seeing her capabilities firsthand, I volunteered to help test her machines as a human subject. Is there an ethical issue with this arrangement? Maybe, but it’s cool.

However…

While nothing bad has ever happened to me as a result of previous tests, Jamie has a tendency to…mess with me during the process. She knows her machines more than I do, therefore knowing exactly how to fuck with me. Like the time she built some sort of emotional amplifier, activating it whenever I laughed until I was quite literally pissing myself and breathless on the ground laughing. Or the time she built that stupid artificial spider drone—Jeffrey, the fucker—and kept making it crawl into my peripherals to scare the shit out of me.

I love her to death but she can be a real pain in the ass during tests, using my misery to fully test the capabilities of her machines. The sadist.

This time though…this time was different. I would be completely at her mercy, too tiny to do anything but accept whatever she does. It was…thrilling, honestly. Will it be scary? Probably. Will I get annoyed? Maybe.

But she wouldn’t hurt me.

“Yeah yeah okay whatever, let’s get this over with.” I sat down at the stool, and Jamie gave me a knowing smirk. I watched the laser—which was now pointed at me—start to glow yellow again, but despite the nerves I could never miss a joke opportunity.

“I am not missing the mall today.” I huffed and rolled my eyes, truly embodying my inner Amy. Jamie just stared at me with the most deadpan stare I’ve ever seen.

“I am so glad I finished building this so I don’t have to deal with your bullshit about this movie you’re so obsessed with.”

“Oh cmonnnnn. Youuuu loveeee meeeeee~” I taunted in my singsong voice. But at that moment she smiled and the machine was activated.

The feeling of the beam hitting me is…hard to describe. The best word I can think of is tingly. An almost soft and fuzzy sensation filled my body as I watched the world around me get bigger and bigger. It was one thing to see an object shrink, but a whole different experience to actually see the world grow while you get smaller. Tables grew taller, tools became gigantic, things that were once so close by slowly felt miles away. Even the stool I was sitting on transformed into more of an open landscape in my eyes.

After some time the world stopped warping around me, and I stood up to take in my surroundings. I was so familiar with Jamie’s lab, and yet it seemed like a completely new room from this perspective. I could notice cracks and rough edges around me with more clarity, notice particles of dust flying through beams of light. I glanced down from the stool and it felt like I was on top of a whole fucking mountain. This was absolutely insane, like h—

“Holy shit!” Jamie’s voice boomed through my ears, and I had to raise my hands to cover them from the vibrations that practically shook my whole body. My ears started ringing. A shadow now loomed over me, and looking up I could see Jamie towering above. From the look on her face, though barely legible due to the distance, she seemed to notice my more sensitive hearing.

“Oops, sorry Hazey.” Her voice fell to a calmer speaking tone, which no longer rattled my eardrums as I slowly lowered my hands. “I can’t believe that actually worked!”

I laugh, smirking. “Oh look who’s doubting herself now.”

She pauses for a moment, then speaks again. “I can barely hear you.” She chuckles. “That’s new.”

“Hey!” I pout, also noticing she’s cupped her hands. She lowers them down to the stool, and it looks like an offer to climb in. I accept, stepping onto her palm and balancing myself.

“Just don’t lift me up too—“ I feel her hands rocket up towards her face, and I fall over from the sheer force of it. Dark spots quickly faded in and out of my vision “…quickly.”

She chuckles softly. “Sorry about all this, you’d think I’d have thought about how to properly treat you with how much preparation I did.” I stood back up and met her eyes. They were huge, and I could really take in the rich shades of brown within her irises. “But speaking of you,” she left me standing on one hand while she moved the other to ruffle my hair with her pointer finger, “you are so fucking cute! You’re like a little speck on my hand!!”

I blush furiously, not used to being the short one. “Hey! I’m not that small!” Being in her hand I could see I was about the size of half her finger.

“Awwww poor wittwle thing~” She continued to coo and rub the top of my head. I hate the fact that it actually felt really good. Is this how she was gonna mess with me this time? Taunting me for being short?

“Stoppppp!” I whined through giggles, starting to melt at the contact but being unable to actually do anything about it. I already know my face is completely red. She knows me too fucking well.

Her finger starts to softly shove me around a bit, rubbing ever so often. I get a bit dizzy from the overwhelming tenderness of it all.

“Hehe! You’re such a fun little toy!”

That comment makes my mind and heart stutter, and I really start to take in just how powerless I am in this situation. I begin feeling a bit of wetness in my panties, but try to keep those thoughts at bay. As far as I know, Jamie isn’t interested in sex or anything of the sort. Besides, we’re friends. I’ll just enjoy the soft shoves and rubs and coos, that’s more than enough.

But then I notice that blush has crept onto her face as well, and she slowly smirks as her finger stops playing with me. She gently pinches the back of my shirt, lifting me up, and now I’m really helpless. I instinctively and slowly start to flail around to free myself from her grip, but to no avail.

I’m in front of her mouth now, and her lips are slightly parted. I can feel how heavy she’s breathing, warm air pushing out and brushing against my skin. Her breath smells nice, it’s honestly kind of soothing.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Sorry in advance.” With that being my only warning, she fully opens her mouth and sticks her tongue out. She’s salivating a lot, and the realization of what she’s doing dawns on me.

“Wait! Wait wait wait wait!” She drops me onto her tongue as I beg and squirm, but no matter how much I try to crawl off of her tongue I cannot get any sort of grip. I keep slipping and falling helplessly as her tongue snakes back into her mouth with me on it.

“No no no no no please! Jamie!” But it’s too late. I’m fully inside her mouth at this point, her tongue now flipping me over to hold me down against the bottom of her mouth. I try to push myself out, but she’s too strong. I feel tears start enter my eyes.

“I don’t mean to scare you. I swear I’m not like…eating you or something. I just…” She trails off, and her mouth fully closes.

I honestly never realized just how dark the mouth is when closed, because it’s open whenever I look into mine. But now I get the real experience. It’s dark. Very dark. The air around me is also very thick and humid, the warmth of her tongue and copious amounts of saliva contributing heavily. It also smells completely like Jamie’s breath in here—I mean, obviously—but overwhelmingly so. I can hear her breathe through her throat from my position under her tongue.

Her throat. Right.

Well, she said she wasn’t gonna eat me…but what the fuck is happening then? Is this just another scare prank? Is she secretly a cannibal and just lied to make me struggle less? I’m at a complete loss.

I feel her moving around now, hear her searching through drawers for something. The vibrations of her footsteps ripple through the mouth, bouncing me between her wet tongue and the floor. As scary as this is, the warmth is comfortable, and the moisture surrounding me is actually pretty arousing.

Fuck, I’m trapped in my now-giant friend’s mouth and all I can do is be a whore. Typical, honestly.

I try to move again but I’m still being held down, and suddenly I hear Jamie stop searching. A breath of relief moves up through her throat and out her lips, giving me a brief glimpse of light before it is snuffed out once again.

I’m not even scared anymore, honestly. I’m just bored. This sucks actually. If you’re gonna scare me like this at least up the stakes.

I feel her move around some more until she sits down on what is either a couch or her bed. Regardless, I felt the bounce.

“Jamieeeeee!” I try to yell out to her, hoping she hears me from in here. “What the fuck is going on?!” I need answers and if nothing else I can try to get them.

“Just—! Please let me have this.” I’ve never heard her like this before, voice so shaky and desperate. I feel some fear creep back in, but this time it’s for her rather than me. “I need you, Hazel.” I’m still confused until I hear the familiar buzz of a vibrator.

Oh.

Oh shit.

She…this…huh????? I can barely process what this actually means before I hear moans reverberating up from her throat, the pool of saliva around me starting to grow. I can feel her body start to shake with arousal, also starting to notice her tongue snaking back.

I’m able to stand up now, but it takes extra effort with how soaked I am in saliva. It’s heavy and slick, almost keeping me down. I can feel my clothes completely stuck to my body, making it very obvious that I’m hard. My heart rate and breathing are also picking up, both from shock and the resurgence of my arousal from before getting put in here.

Then her tongue leaps at me before I can react, pushing me against her gums repeatedly as I squirm to break free. It’s bigger than my entire body, each lick completely drenching me in more gooey spit. As much as I should be disgusted, this sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. It’s so warm and wet and comfortable, sending tingles of pleasure from my crotch throughout my entire body. Her moans pick up with each lick as well, and I truly start to realize just what she meant when saying ‘I need you.’

Her tongue quickly gets more frantic and suggestive, lapping my entire lower body from my feet up to my crotch, and I already feel incredibly sensitive and brainless as the motions continue. I can’t help but join Jamie in moaning. Instinct overtaking me, I remove my clothes as best I can while being bombarded with wet sensations. I manage to get my shirt and bra off first, and Jamie quickly notices what I’m doing as she focuses her tongue movements towards my now exposed upper body instead. This makes her moan even louder, if that’s even possible at this point.

My pants come next, and this takes some effort given how wet and sticky they are, combined with the fact that I’m still being licked mercilessly against a giant row of teeth. When the pants are lowered enough to reveal my panties, Jamie moves her tongue back down to my crotch. With one less cloth barrier, the overwhelming sensations are too much to handle, and I orgasm. I can feel my panties grow even wetter despite how soaked they already are. Jamie stops for a moment, taking in the taste of my leakage as it drips down my thighs and into the pool of saliva below me. Her tongue feeling me up as I continue to leak honestly feels so pathetic, and I can’t help but whimper.

Once Jamie finally realizes just what she’s tasting, she goes feral. Her tongue picks me up and shoves me over to her molars, placing me down carefully only to bite specifically at my pants and panties to rip them off. I’m finally completely naked. I’m then forcefully sent sliding towards her lips, pushed through so that my upper body dangles out of her mouth while my legs stay inside. She has her lips pressed tightly against my crotch, and she begins sucking on me while simultaneously licking relentlessly at my taint. It’s too much, sliding back and forth on her lips like this, grinding against such intense moisture, feeling that giant tongue absolutely lick me clean. I can’t think straight.

My vision is blurry in the light after having been in darkness for so long, but I can see Jamie vibing her clit. She’s shaky and wet, her frantic breaths pushing against my body as I rest my upper half against her lower lip.

I already feel close to a second orgasm, but then Jamie’s vibrator turns off. Her mouth opens wide, tongue licking her lips while I’m dragged along against her skin underneath. I’m then plucked up by my legs, dangling in front of her face. I am completely drenched, drop after drop of saliva falling down and hitting her body. We’re both breathing heavy, faces red. She looks at me, and from my upside down view I can see her smile before I’m sent down between her thighs.

Warm. That’s the first word that comes to mind. I’m shoved against her clit, and I immediately start humping. We’re both completely soaked so the grinding is smooth. Jamie’s moans from high above me reverberate through my ears, and I can feel her get wetter by the second. Her grip doesn’t let up, and she actually starts to rub me against her forcefully. She doesn’t need her vibrator now, she can just use me. I cum again, becoming even more slicked up as I’m slid up and down across her crotch. I can’t tell whether I’m more covered in her saliva or my cum anymore, I’m too brainless and soaked to process. She is in complete control of me; I’ve become nothing but her glorified sex toy.

She starts tensing, squeezing her thighs together tightly, and she quickly shoves me inside her hole. It’s a similar environment to the mouth but far more constrictive. Oppressive. Her walls push against me as I squirm and stimulate her, barely being able to breathe from her scent and moisture completely overpowering me.

Finally, she cums, and I hold my breath as I am once again completely drenched in her. I manage to get pushed out right in between her thighs, stuck pressed there until she unclenches. It’s all so much, so many new and euphoric sensations. I’m breathing heavier than I’ve ever breathed before, feeling like I might pass out at any moment. Yet I cannot stop myself from huffing her scent like my life depends on it, cannot slow my racing heart after everything that just happened to me.

When she unclenches, I do not go sliding down her thigh. Rather, I remain stuck there, practically webbed by the saliva and cum I’ve quickly become accustomed to being drenched in. Strings of fluid connect me to her other leg. I want more. I can get an explanation later, I just need to be back in her mouth again. Back inside her. I already feel myself start to dry up and I whine, trying to squirm out of the adhesive I’m trapped in.

I hear a breathless chuckle from above as I am carefully ripped from my prison, once again left dangling in front of Jamie’s face.

“Wow, so d-desperate for more? I g-g-guess I was right. You are a fun little toy.” She stutters and takes deep breaths as she speaks, likely just as brainless from pleasure as I am.

“P-please put me back in your mouth. I need—I need to feel your tongue again.” I blush furiously at the plea, already feeling myself ready to cum again. This is so fucked.

“Of course, Hazey. Anything for you.” And with that, Jamie opens her mouth and drops me inside once again.

Feeling the warmth of her breath and saliva is a comfort I could never take for granted. Her tongue is gentler this time, hums of approval ringing from her throat as she savors every taste of me. I let myself relax for a bit as she feels me up, catching my breath while still feeling highly aroused from the licking. Once my heart rate is under control, I slowly stand and wrap my body around her tongue as best I can. I then begin to thrust myself into it over and over again, my cock sliding against the impossibly warm and slick surface. It feels amazing.

A chuckle sounds from Jamie’s throat as I hump, and I feel her body rise as she begins to—presumably—clean up. I’ve gone from a sex toy to a simple form of stimulation for her mouth. A thing to mindlessly flick around and play with while she goes around and focuses on other tasks. The thought makes me blush ever so slightly more.

I feel myself get close to a third orgasm, but her tongue quickly goes back to overpowering me, pushing me towards her molars once again. This time, however, she bites down on me. Not enough to injure or kill me, but enough to keep me trapped with just enough pain that I still feel good. My lower body is facing her tongue, but I cannot see what it’s actually doing. From the feel of it, it doesn’t seem like she’s doing anything to me anymore. Is she just going to leave me here? Prevent me from reaching the orgasm I was so close to? My train of thought is interrupted, however, when her tongue suddenly goes to fondle my crotch and taint. The surprise of receiving such overwhelming sensations out of nowhere makes me moan loudly, feeling myself just on the edge of cumming.

But. Then she stops again. Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

She repeats this process multiple times: fondling me by surprise only to stop just before I orgasm. No matter how much I try to squirm out of her teeth, how much I try to maneuver my arms to touch myself, it’s no use. I quickly become brainless and whiny, eventually deciding to cry out pleas for her to let me cum.

After enough begging, she finally relents, licking me once again but this time without stopping. I’m still trapped under her molars, but I thrash around wildly as I’m finally able to let myself go all over her tongue. I all but scream as the feeling fills my body. I don’t care how embarrassing it may sound, all I can focus on is releasing my pent up pleasure all over her. I feel each burst of cum exit me, all of which bringing more and more pangs of overwhelming euphoria. More and more pathetic sounds. I feel elated. Wet, shaky, dizzy, and elated.

As I come down from the climax, her teeth let me go. I look at my body to see massive red teeth marks across my chest. Woah. I try to stand up, but I’m so shaky and filled with pleasure that I immediately fall over. Her tongue takes that as an opportunity to pick me up and bring me towards her lips. Her mouth opens and I am released once again, only this time her tongue slowly angles down so that I slide off into her cupped hands below.

She holds my small and soaked body tenderly as I regain my senses, raising her hands so I’m at eye level. I look at her face and am shocked to see tears falling down rapidly.

“I’m sorry Hazel! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m s—“

“Hey hey hey! I’m okay! I don’t know what that was, but I feel fine. Good, even!” I try to comfort her, sitting up and gently rubbing her palm with my hand. “Although, I would like to ask…why? Why did you do all this?” Sue me, I wanna know.

Jamie sniffs, the tears not slowing down. “I—I—I’m in love with you, Hazel.”

I freeze, and for a moment my heart stops. I say nothing, and she continues.

“And—and I was too afraid to ask you out or admit my feelings because you’re so…” She looks closely at me now, eyes filled with stars at the sight of me. ME?? “…you. I’ve loved you for a while now; your smile, your voice, your authenticity, your laugh, your jokes, your absolute beauty, even your stupid fucking movie obsession.” I wet chuckle at that, feeling tears falling down my eyes as well. “You are the only person I ever want to love, Hazel…and I ruined it. I got too desperate. I used you. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I stand up now, and gesture for her to move me closer to her face. She complies, and once I’m close enough I rush to hug her cheek. I really start bawling now, so overwhelmed from the affection.

“I—I’ve loved every moment spent with you, Jamie! You’re so fucking smart and funny and sweet and an absolute dumbass. There isn’t a part of you I don’t want to cherish. I…I love you too.” I manage to get out through sobs, feelings I had no idea were there finally coming up to the surface. “To be honest…I didn’t think you’d ever want to be with, well, someone like me.” I step back from her cheek now, wrapping my arms around myself in a pitiful hug.

Jamie bends her head forward, pressing a giant but soft kiss onto my head as I cry. “Oh, Hazel…you know that doesn’t bother me. I mean shit, I watched by your side as you slowly become the person you’ve always wanted to be. It’s admirable! You’ve become so much happier and genuine with yourself. So much prettier. How could I not love you?”

I full on wail at that, and she presses me close to her chest as I sob. The rhythmic beats of her heart slowly calm me down, and my breathing eventually begins to level.

“Do—do you mean that, Jamie?” I clutch her shirt as I brace for the inevitable ‘Just kidding! You’re gross!’

But it never comes.

“Every word, Hazel. I want to love you for the rest of our lives.” She gently takes one of her hands to rub the back of my head as I quietly cry into her shirt.

“So do I.” I manage to get out, and I feel her heart stutter ever so slightly.

“You mean that? Even after…what I did?” Jamie sounds nervous, just as afraid of rejection as I was. But she never has to worry about that. Not with me.

“I do. I really mean it. I could never hate you or leave you. I never want to spend a moment without you in my life.” I press a kiss onto her chest. “Besides, I was into it.” I full on laugh and Jamie can’t help but laugh too.

“Oh and I’m the dumbass?” She holds me even closer to her body, seemingly never letting go any time soon. Good.

When we both stop crying after a while, Jamie is the first to speak again. “So…do you want me to grow you back to normal size?” From a nearby window, I can see it’s dark out now. I am exhausted.

“Can…can I stay like this for the night? Sleep on your chest?” It was an embarrassing request, but I knew she wouldn’t care. She would probably tease me a bit though.

“Awww! You are adorable!” Speak of the devil. “Of course you can stay small tonight…though I think I accidentally swallowed your clothes.” I chuckle at her guilty expression, and resolve to just stay naked to sleep…as long as I can dry off first.

After we both get ready, Jamie lays down in her bed, and I rest in my position next to her heart, her hand serving as a blanket for me. This was an absolutely confusing and…surprising start to our relationship, and I had no idea what the days ahead would bring, but I knew we would figure it out.

I smile as the warmth of her body and pulses of her heart lull me to sleep.

~

Shoutout to my wife @flowers-but-gay for being my smart dumbass and describing how a shrink ray would potentially work only for me to dumb it down 😭

Also shoutout to Eve @specksizedgoddess for brushing the dust off my g/t kink and getting me back into writing

[dudeyuri]

I'm having thoughts and feelings about bad buddy must be a day that ends in y. But like, last episode tomorrow, kind of verklempt, need to word vomit

My first watch of Bad Buddy kind of smacked me upside the head. I know this is not a unique experience. I was left reeling for a bit. Watching Bad Buddy was the first thing I did in 2023 and I watched all 12 episodes in one sitting like a glutton and I stayed up til 1am even though I had to get up at 4am the next day (I haven't done stupid shit like that since college). Then I started my rewatch the next day. Then I put it aside for months because it was actually a physical ache in my chest when I thought about it. I just...never?? encountered such a fulfilling narrative that followed through on all its promises. Even with its deliberate deceptions and twists and uncertainties - I put my trust in Bad Buddy's narrative and was rewarded for doing so like never before.

It got me from the first episode - the first episode did what I think almost every first episode should do: tell you exactly what the story is going to be, without telling you exactly what the story is going to be. Fantastic writing, deliberate pacing, satisfying character development, pitch-perfect acting, all top-notch. It kept the energy up all throughout even as it got heavier, and stuck the landing in such a profound and bittersweet way. This was the first Thai BL I've ever watched, and probably the third BL I've ever watched period. One of my first impressions after finishing it even for the first time was that it was, maybe above all else, self aware.

My initial impression was also not a unique one: so far this is funny, charming, an exciting premise. And by episode 4 I was starting to get hit with it: this story is all those things and a knife in your gut, a lump in your throat. And it's queer, and it's tragic. Like, from the jump we see the two households both alike in dignity, we know what this is: it's Romeo and Juliet (or Kwan and Riam). We know how it ends. Pran knows how it ends. They teased us the whole show with Pran's decor, his doorknob hanger, like this show's version of a comedy and tragedy mask - what's it going to be? How's it going to end? Everyone watching knows how romcoms typically end. But everyone also knows how Romeo and Juliet ends.

In a move that can really only be described as revolutionary, Bad Buddy decided that queering the Romeo and Juliet narrative meant a happy ending. With caveats, but happy and alive and together. It was as simple as two characters finding their agency in a world trying to deprive them of it, seeing every path around them that led to tragedy, and instead trailblazing a new one that led to happiness. (everything that could be said about this has already been said; I look to this essay by @chickenstrangers often!! helped me make sense of pat gets shot lol. MK I hope you're not sick of people linking this left and right). It's a narrative choice that resounds.

I was personally struck by that specific pain Pat and Pran experience, the pain of having to lie to your parents and keep love a secret from them - is there a queer person out there who doesn't relate to that in a bone-achingly deep way? Regardless of your relationship with your family. Having to partition yourself like this is part of the queer experience. And it's exhausting because you just have to live like this. It's exhausting because the people who are supposed to love you have made a liar of you instead. You can be surviving and thriving and happy, but your parents will still ask your siblings about their love lives and ask you about the weather (too real??? oops). There's a hint at a possible thawing in the final episode that gives hope, but Bad Buddy does not magically make the parents realize they were wrong and accept their sons' love - I mean, that just doesn't happen. It would have made for a disingenuous ending, it would have been a disservice to the narrative and to the viewers and to the metaphor. If you're lucky enough to have parents who would, you're lucky. It's a sad truth. "We can't change the world...but the world can't change us either."

At first glance, Bad Buddy plays in the "BL bubble". Upon a slightly closer examination Bad Buddy says there can never really be a bubble--stories aren't crafted in a vacuum, the dominant ideology that is homophobia traumatizes and endangers and oppresses all who do not align with it, still there are happy endings for us here. We find each other and carve them out ourselves. To say all this, and to not veer into heavy-handed "yeah okay we get it" territory is a feat honestly! Seldom accomplished in such a riveting and sexy way! How refreshing! Bad Buddy reminded me of reading a good poem - upon first read, a good poem is about "a thing," and it's evocative as is and you don't even have to read it again to enjoy it. But you can also consider it carefully and unearth "the other thing," a deeper meaning, the answer to "why was this written?". Bad Buddy trusts its viewers to get there. I mean I know it's really not much of a hidden message, but again, they are subtle with it, iykyk etc. BB doesn't hold our hand, but it takes our trust and respects it and doesn't break it (though it shakes the jar, like quite a bit, lol. All good stories should tbh).

I think a lot about the form, too. In a less capable storyteller's hands 12 one-hour-long episodes can drag (I'm thinking of some recent gmmtv BLs lol), or even not be enough (I feel like I personally see that in a lot of western shows whose fanbases are out here begging for second seasons to tie up loose ends). P'Aof (and co.) knew exactly what to do with 12 episodes. Has anyone in the entire history of TeleVision ever known what to do with 12 one-hour-long episodes as undeniably as P'Aof and co in making Bad Buddy??

I know I'm being a little dramatic, excessively lauding good writing like this. Like yeah stories should be good and thoughtful and make sense, of fucking course. But I just have to appreciate it in a genre, in a capitalist reality, where a story does not have to be profound or clever or full of love to be marketable. They truly did not have to go this hard. (Though the writer in me who now considers Aof a personal idol also thinks: yes of course they absolutely did have to go this hard in fact It Is The Only Way). I'm so so grateful for it for so many reasons!! And I didn't even breach the topic of how fun and sexy I think Pat and Pran are together. Didn't even mention the fingersucking, the scent kink, the kissies - all genuinely just as important to me as everything else. It's all in the making of a good story! I am taking notes through my tears and I am so thankful

[on-partiality]

Hi, I’ve been curious about Hercules Mulligan’s inclusion in the Rev Set ever since I have seen posts saying that one of the other aids like Meade and Tilgman or Tallmadge (if Herc was added solely for spy stuff) would have been a better choice. Id love to hear your thoughts on this.

Also, (terribly sorry if this insults any Mullette shippers) but do you know why people ship Mullette? (Correct me if I’m wrong) but these two have had zero historical relations. In addition, I don’t remember from the last time I saw musical but if you do, what was Laf and Herc’s relationship onstage?

So sorry about this super long ask. I just felt like you would be the best person to ask. Tysm and I hope you have a wonderful day!😊

Aw, this is such a cool question! And you're really nice, anon! I wish you the best! I would also like to make it very clear right now to anyone else who wants to send me a long ask. I love long asks. They give me more to ramble about!

When I was first getting into studying the real history behind the musical two years ago, this same thing confused me heaps. Mainly because we have no proof that Lafayette or Laurens ever even met Mulligan, let alone became good friends with him and he wasn't particularly close to Hamilton either for most of the war (I mean, in the continental army, he would've barely seen Hamilton, and the other aides would have been around him all day). Hamilton lived with him when he was in college, and they got along really well, had fun late-night conversations, just overall were great friends who influenced eachother in positive ways and Mulligan's chats with him definitely made young Hamilton more enthusiastic about the revolutionary cause. Additionally, Hercules Mulligan was part of his artillery company, The Hearts Of Oak or the Corsicans - Mulligan's the whole reason why we know the story of 18 year old Hamilton stealing British cannons with his volunteers is because of the recount of that night that Mulligan later wrote - however, for the rest of the war they just didn't interact with one another much.

They had their separate jobs, and they did them well. Hamilton was confined to his own quaters and the aide-de-camp tent, Mulligan was hanging around British camps and the battlefield doing exactly what Hamilton wanted to do. The relationship between the two was completely different from how Hamilton, Laurens, and Lafayette were through most of the war. Working together, seeing each other just about every other day, creating the same drafts and plans; Especially Laurens and Hamilton as Lafayette got some more 'exciting' jobs because of his rank as a Major General. But out of the bunch, Mulligan really sticks out like a sore thumb, historically the group was called the gay trio and for a good 3 quaters of the war it was just them all together. So why on earth would Lin Manuel Miranda add a fourth to the trio? It very well could be that like you said, he wanted everyone in the main group to have a different role that was integral to how the Continental army ran (Lafayette commanding, Hamilton writing, Laurens battling (?) and Mulligan spying) but I ended up reaching the conclusion that because the musical starts in 1776 while Hamilton was still in college - in the musical at least, presumably, but because of the way events are swapped around with eachother and happen at all the wrong times it's a bit difficult to tell what time things happened in the musical like I believe that when it starts Hamilton's meant to be in college and not yet a soldier however Hamilton left college to make his militia thing in 1775 and he stole the cannons in 1775 however the musical shows this happening after Aaron Burr, Sir and at the start if that song they make it very clear that it's meant to be 1776 which also means that Hamilton and Mulligan should've already known each other, I digress, I could ramble about how the way the musical timeline is makes no sense for years - , they wanted to show someone who was really important to him at that age, and they just kept him with the group for the rest of the show to avoid confusion as to why he disappeared or so that they wouldn't have to introduce another character (like why they used Jefferson instead of Monroe for the Reynolds pamphlet).

I don't know about using Tallmadge as a substitute though, given that I haven't read of any interactions between him and Hamilton or him and Laurens historically, I haven't read of any between him and Lafayette either, but it seems more likely that they would've spoken given Lafayette's position as a major general. It's entirely possible that the trio had heard of him but never actually met him given that I believe that I read somewhere that the whole trio knew of the Culper Spy Ring and a lot of what they would've heard to do with the Culper Spy Ring would have related to Benjamin Tallmadge in some way or other because he was the co-founder of the group. Meade and Tilghman would be good to swap Mulligan for, but then it doesn't make sense that he was talking to them in college (although Laurens and Lafayette didn't meet Hamilton when he was 19 either and like I mentioned earlier, Mulligan should have already known him so with the logic of the Hamilton musical they could be in the main group, yes). If my theory is correct then it would make sense why none of the more historically accurate quadrios were chosen, if they wanted someone who was close to Hamilton in his college years who still fought in the revolutionary war; then Mulligan would've been a great fit.

I'm going to guess that Mullette is one of those ships where people went, 'Hmm, I have ships for every other character but these too, and they seem close enough (in the musical that is), so I'll pair them together!'. Y'know, one of those pair-the-spares kind of things that people who are really into shipping do. Additionally. I believe you're correct; it has to have been an 100% musical fandom ship originally because if there was even just a little bit of historical evidence to back it up, then we'd know for a fact that Lafayette and Mulligan knew each other. Oh, and as someone who has seen the musical rather recently (late may last year) in the show, Lafayette and Mulligan didn't interact much, but they did come across as good friends and for some very creative people, those crumbs of interactions are enough to develop whole stories and relationships and I applaud those people, the way they create so much out of so little is amazing. Personally, I don't like any ships that don't have even a semblance of historical backing because I'm definitely an amrev fan before I'm a Hamilton musical fan (I still love the musical, I just value the real history more). People can like what they like though; I won't judge.

I'll always think Mullette's funny because here in Australia recently it's become a trend again for young boys and men to get mullets and I can't read the name without thinking of some crazy looking mullets that I've seen. Thanks for the ask, Anon! It was super fun to answer :D

Sincerely,

O-P/Milly

(I apologise if I come across as rude, I've struggled with tones my whole life)

[nfcv-saltmine]

NetflixVania in Nocturne absolutely sucks at writing women. They don't write humans they write Mary Sues.

Maria is only the revolutionary, other than that barely any personality.

Annette is just the girl who belittles Richter and has some passion.

Drolta is only there for fan service and she doesn't even stay loyal to Castlevanias way of writing succubi. She starts off as a sexual character when the others disguised themselves as innocent/pure women ex. Sara and Lisa

Drolta turning out to be a succubus had no shock as it was just wings, horns and hair. In LoI the succubus was cool, she looked demonic and spoilt, like Walter showered her in love and pretty things. Drolta has barely any personality in her design.

They could have gone more ram/sheep like in a more innocent disguise and then in her true form went more goat like and showed her wealth.

Also, side note, they could have utilized her hair texture to hold rings and jewels to show how she's Erzabeths pet. Make her look spoilt and demonic.

At least in og NetflixVania Sypha did develop some what, we saw her make mistakes and how it impacted her (even though she blamed it on Trevor)

I wouldn't say Mary Sues, as this character archetype describes female characters that are too perfect. They don't struggle, they're always right, they're excessively idealized... that's not the case here, IMO.

Maria loses a bird in battle, she loses to Erzsebet (literally loses consciousness. Oh and a few birds, but who cares, it's not like we ever see her bond with her creatures), she doesn't really accomplish anything significant. She's only defined by her hate for the church and by her revolutionary status, but it doesn't make her a Mary Sue, just an annoying character.

Tera doesn't do enough to fail much, but she literally gets turned into a vampire at the end of s1.

Even Annette with her big powers loses her temper wich results in the death of Edouard, and she struggles during battles, and also fail at getting rid of the devil forging machine. The first time she got her ex-slave owner at her mercy, he managed to fly away.

Drolta is stopped by Maria's father when she hurt her, and doesn't challenge him, going for Annette instead, with HIS permission. She struggles quite a bit in the fight against Richter and Maria, end up having her ass handed to her by Richter and the only reason why she didn't lose the fight right then and there is because her vampire mommy arrived just in time. And then she gets stabbed by Alucard with ridiculous ease.

Maybe Erzsebet would qualify as a Mary Sue...? I don't remember ever seeing her struggle. Because the plot need her to be invicible to be "scary" and a real threat, apparently. Hah, those writers clearly did not learn from Games!Dracula. Or from any good villain out there. But eh, she's bound to lose at some point, she's still the villain, after all. So I don't know.

But see, that's why I prefer to call NFCV female characters Girlbosses, instead. They're all supposed to be those big strong female characters that we should thirst over because Stronk, when in reality, they're just rude, assholes, incredibly annoying, "sassy", disrespectful with the need to give attitude to male characters all the time. They're not allowed to be soft and gentle. They're not allowed to be just normal. They're not even allowed to be a little silly, like game!Maria was! She was cute in the games, she had that childish innocence, she was a bit naive, very joyful... and it didn't stop her from kicking ass. And though SoTn!Maria lost some of those traits as she matured, she still grew to be gentle and nurturing and compassionnate. All the while still kicking ass.

But NFCV, OG show and Nocturne alike, refuses to give any of those traits to their female characters. It thinks that, just because it's a "mature show" for "adults", it can't make a female character nice and gentle, or vulnerable for more than five seconds. I mean, it is SO incapable of making their female characters "strong" in a different way for once, that they gave Annette powers! They got rid of everything that made her her, got rid of any plot point where she would become a prisoner (well, they did make her a slave, but one that has already freed herself by the time we see her), and just. Gave her powers, and an effeminate male friend to become the damsel in distress instead (ironically, they did with him what they could've do with Annette, if they hadn't been cowards. Also how feminist and "woke" do you have to be to turn a "damsel in distress" into a "strong woman", and THEN give her damsel in distress role to a male character... THAT YOU PURPOSEFULLY DESIGNED TO BE EFFEMINATE. LIKE. THE GIANT LMAO. GUYS THAT'S JUST MISOGYNY WITH EXTRA STEPS). When, friendly reminder, in the games, Annette wasn't physically strong nor had any powers. But she was mentally and emotionnally strong. She was strong in the way that, despite being at Dracula's utter mercy, powerless to do shit if he tried anything, she still held her ground in front of him. She still resisted him. That's some queen shit right there. Also she almost killed herself just so Dracula wouldn't get what he wanted. Of course I'm not saying that Nocturne should've kept her as just "the girlfriend that gets kidnapped", but they didn't need to completely overwrite her character to make positive changes (same thing for the entire show, actually, but who cares at this point). But they did, and the fans cheered for it, despite being fed the same archetype of female character over and over again.

Now concerning Drolta and her design.... I am a bit ashamed to say it, but I did NOT even register that she was even supposed to be a succubus when I first watched the show. Like, I think I ready smth about her possibly being one, before the show came out... but by the time I watched it, I had completely forgotten about this theory, and even as she transformed, I just thought it was normal vampire transformation stuff. Like, that was part of her unique powers. And the fact she has always been slutty and hot did not help when she turned into her true(?) succubus form and got a new "sexy" outfit. But it's my fault, I'm a game fan, I have come to expect cool unique powers and different forms from my vampires. I should've remembered that they can barely turn into bats in NFCV. I definitely think it would have benefited Drolta to be shown as more innocent-looking and pure at first, clashing her appearance with her dangerous personnality, and THEN being revealed as a slutty succubus. As it is now, it really doesn't change anything whether she's a vampire or not. The only changes are physical features that make her look "cooler". That's all she's there for, to be sexy and cool. That's why they turned her from an old woman to a slutty succubus. Her dynamic with Erzsebet doesn't even make Drolta deserving of looking like her "pet". She's a loyal servant, and that's it. At this point they're nothing more but colleagues, really. (Erzsebet lacks any kind of charisma or beauty anyway, who would wanna be her pet? Without being brainwashed, I mean)

[invisiblegarters]

Micro (or not) BL Reviews

It's that time again. Seeing as how a couple of things have ended recently and I let my obsession with a certain drama sort of take over everything else of late, I dedicated this week to catching up on all the things I've been missing and doing a quick round up (or not so quick, as it's me).

So let's get started, shall we?

Recently Completed

Stay By My Side - Oh Taiwan. I just love you. I think we had like eighteen "fall into you" moments in the first three episodes alone. The premise was fun - it reminded me a lot of Master's Sun, but the execution of course is totally different. The leads were cute. The chemistry was chemistrying. I loved the sister and that basketball boys. It was mostly fluff, which I am not complaining about because I love me some fluff. That said, I don't think it did anything particularly revolutionary and it never really did manage to grab me.  7.5/10

Wedding Plan - A MAME offering, but…not bad? I mean, not great either, although I will put up with a lot for the premise because I eat shit like that up, but I've seen way worse from MAME. However, it's not going to become a guilty pleasure show like LITA or an unexpected comfort show despite myself (at least the AePete parts) like Love by Chance. It was fine.

Things I really did like:  Nuea's family and his workmates (I loved how fiercely both sets of people stood by and supported him through everything from his huge mistake in sleeping with the groom to running back home to deal with it to basically adopting Lom into the group when they worked it out ("we have a new brother in law"). The lesbians - I could have used a bit more heat but I'll take it for now. Let's work on normalizing GL in our BL (frankly I'd love it if we started doing more of that and less of the token straight couple or three)! Was a little annoyed by how they had to fix everything but I won't pretend that the bits with them in episode 6 didn't get to me - I may have teared up a little when Marine was being treated so horribly by Yiwa's mother - that whole thing was so upsetting on a number of levels. And I was happy for them that they could afford to run away to their own happy ending. Also the gag of Lom pretending to be devastated when he was anything but was kinda funny, I will give the show that. And I did like the way that Lom's mom came around - realizing with time that losing her son the same way Yiwa's mother lost her could be a very real result if she kept being rigid. I also liked that she didn't just suddenly become a PFLAG member (or whatever the equivalent would be here) but simply told her son that she would work on it, because that felt more realistic.

The show also got me with how fucking lonely it must have been for both Lom and Yiwa, to know that they were gay and that they could never say anything, and how overwhelming and relieving it must have been to find someone who understood in each other. No fucking wonder they'd do anything for each other. I would have too, if I'd had someone like that growing up.

So yeah. It was fine. I mostly had a good time, even if I got a little bored once or twice. Frankly when it comes to MAME, being a little bored is preferable to feeling like the top of my head is about to come off because I'm so annoyed. Final verdict 7/10

Jun & Jun - Korea keeps making office BLs and I will continue watching them until the end of time. Especially if they keep on serving good kiss while they do it. And this one had bonus scent kink! I honestly don't know what's gotten into Korea lately but I am very much here for it.

This was a fun little office BL.  I liked how flirty it was from the get go, the way that both Juns danced around each other with the full knowledge that they were flirting. The intern group was fun, too. I really enjoyed the boyfriend episode at the end.

Everyone was very cute in this, but Simeon was my utter favorite. He totally stole the show for me. Him and Young. Young especially was a surprise, since she drove me bonkers when she first showed up. But she grew on me. I liked how fast she decided to embrace Lee Jun, and her and Choi Jun's friendship was cute.

I shipped Simeon and Hyung Hyun Jae too. Hard.

All in all this was cute, even if it didn’t manage to grip me as hard as I hoped. Like I said before, I'm not sure what's gotten into Korea lately but I hope it continues. 8/10.

Laws of Attraction - When I first saw the trailer for this, I decided to skip it. The leads were attractive enough but to be honest it seemed kinda poorly made and like it didn't know what it was going to do with itself. And I was feeling surly and judgmental and decided that it just wasn't for me. Also it was on iQIYI and I had no interest in signing up for another subscription.

But then I saw someone had stuck it on youtube and I was bored one Saturday an there were a few eps already out, so I thought, eh, why not?

And I've not regretted it for a moment.  I loved this show so much my god. Even when OF started (and you all know how much I obsess about OF) this was still the thing I looked forward to most on Saturdays. I adored Charn and his shark smile from moment one, and that adoration did not cease throughout the entirety of the show's run. His character development was by far the best on the show, and I loved the slow, stumbling way he regained the person he used to be, while still keeping the ruthlessness of the man he allowed anger and bitterness to let him become (up to a point). I loved that the show began and ended with his shark smile, but for very different reasons. And he and Tinn were adorable.

I appreciated them banging the marriage equality drum, too, and especially Charn's very pragmatic reasons for wanting it to be legal (as a lawyer, he would think like that, and I appreciate that the show kept him in character even when he was sappy). I also loved his wedding jacket I want four.

I also loved Tinn, and I have to give credit to Jam for the way he portrayed him. While Film totally ate as Charn I do think that in some ways a character like Tinn is harder to portray, because it would be very very easy for him to become preachy because of his morality and rigid sense of justice. But Jam played him with enough nuance that he never slid into that for me - he was willing to occasionally be at least slightly underhanded when the situation called for it, and while he expected Charn to be better (and read him to filth when he caught him out lying to and manipulating him), he thankfully also seemed to understand the fine art of compromise. Plus he's really pretty. Both of them are really pretty.

But the thing that I never expected was just how hard I turned around on Thaenthai. He drove me absolutely bonkers for the first few eps, and I was loudly annoyed by the fact that after about ep three (if not sooner), it became clear that he was not the one who had hit Tonkhao but that he was being made to take the blame. It felt to me like the show wanted me to excuse how vile he was (acting like Tonkhao's death was nothing, beating the crap out of Tinn when he was already tied up and helpless, just generally acting like a spoiled, entitled, horrible shitstain of a human being) because his father beat him. And while that was horrifying and I wanted him to get the hell out of there as soon as possible I still felt that a worm is a worm is a worm, even if the worm's father happens to be worse.

But then the show went and did something I did not expect it to do: it didn't just tell us that Thaenthai was lashing out because he was caught in a desperate limbo of wanting to run away from his and wanting to please him, but it went and did the work to show it. I started turning around on him after he found out about the gardener his father used as a scapegoat once things started getting heated, because we finally got to catch him before he had time to put on his mask. And it just kept coming, because now we knew what to look for. He's still an ass for beating the shit out of Tinn when he was tied up though, lol.

Another thing I really loved that this sow did with him was show him loving his dad in spite of everything. This man beat him, nearly drowned him, let him take the blame for a murder he did, tried to kill the only person Thaenthai felt was really on his side (because I do think that the intent was always to kill Thee - I'm just not entirely sure why it didn't happen as soon as Thaenthai got on that plane. I guess because we needed a happier ending. I am not complaining), and told him to his face that he could never love him because he killed his mother, and yet Thaenthai still loved him, still wanted his attention and his respect and his love in return. And it just rang very painfully true to me. You don't stop loving your parents because they're shit, and humans for some reason tend to be wired to try harder for love that is hard to receive (or impossible, in this case).  It did not surprise me that Thaentha tried to visit his father in prison, or that he was sad when he died. But neither did it surprise me that something in him seemed looser in those scenes as well, because even though he loved his dad there's a part of him that's glad he's gone.

I love stuff like this, because it's so complicated and realistic and it hurts in a way that only something that resonates with reality can. I ate it up.

Shout out as well to Not Vorarit, because he really did a good job with Thatthep. The way he slowly unraveled as the show went on was pitch perfect, every little nuance from his first intro as the shady but possibly not *that* shady "concerned" parent right up until that last scene with Charn where he's just a cackling monster. Kudos, you created an excellently detestable character. Watching him get his comeuppance was certainly a highlight of the show for me.

I was also really into the way that Tonkhao was very much a main character despite the fact that she died so early. One of the best strengths of this show was the way that it never let us forget what started this whole thing, it showed Tinn and Grandma grieving for their little girl, talking about her, missing her. Being reminded of her around every corner. They kept her in the forefront of our minds exactly the way that they should have, and I was delighted by it.

Other fun notables are himbo ex Nawin and Rose and Maya, our GL couple that I wish had gotten a little more screen time *as* a couple but either way were fabulous. I will love this show forever for introducing Nawin in the final hour and making him such a great combination of ridiculous and ruthless. And the way they let him breathe as a character - they really just stood back and were like "look at this ridiculous man stealing the show" and it was amazing. And Rose was just - she was such a good friend to Charn the whole way through, and both her and Maya's utter delight for him when he found Tinn (and them welcoming not only him but grandma into their little family so readily) warmed my cynical heart. And I will watch Sylvie Pavida in pretty much anything, I think.

All this raving and yet I still have to go with a final score of 9/10. I recommend this show, it's way better than I thought it would be, but there are some questionable choices made, the CGI and the fight scenes are laughable (the fire at Charn's office made me laugh so hard I had to pause), and they pulled out a guitar and sang not once, but twice. And they don't even have the excuse that one of them is supposed to be a singer. Also frankly nowadays every Thai show I watch I have to ask myself "did I enjoy this more than Moonlight Chicken?" which I only gave a 9.5, and for this one, the answer was no. So 9 it is, but a highly recommended 9. This was so much fun and it will be very missed on Saturdays.

Currently Watching

Be Mine Superstar - I really do  not get why they have decided to give the doom eleventh episode to this drama. It makes such little sense from this couple, who are the least dramatic pairing possible. They should have just left the angst to Muang and the doc.

Speaking of which, I have been disappointed with that storyline. I feel like we went from nothing to boyfriends with no real development, and now that they're not boyfriends again we're supposed to care, and I just don't.

Also Title is really out here doing the most. My dude, can't you just bow the fuck out gracefully? Blergh him and the manger stuff is still really annoying. Kevin was a delight though. Even though that's one too many dudes thirsty for Ashi for my personal taste (although he is very pretty so I totally get it).

Hidden Agenda - I actually kind of loved how ridiculous the conflict between Joke and Zo wound up being. Oh sure, Pat helping Joke along was a betrayal of trust or whatever, but it just felt perfect for the kind of drama this is. I get the idea that it felt like a betrayal of trust, but I also don't really get how it was too much different from what Zo was trying to do with Nita. Whatever, I love my low stakes drama on Sundays, keep it coming Hidden Agenda.

Kiseki: Dear to Me - This show is doing what I wanted from Only Friends and giving me all the cameos. The way I yelled when I saw the two from history: make Our Days Count. I think my favorite is Ai Di - poor little ball of adoration and pettiness and jealousy. I adore him. Oh, and that scene in the spa was great - I loved how everyone was looking at everyone else while the episode's guest stars (HI, Be Loved in House I Do guys! Good to see you) side eyed the lot of 'em. Me too, my friends. Me too. They're all messy and in love with everyone else and I am here for this weird quadrangle.

The main couple has less of a chokehold on me, but I like our uptight, traumatized doctor to be. And okay, yes, it got me with his unwilling return to a solitary life after Ze Rui disappeared on him. My guess is we're gonna speed run to the imprisonment and amnesia in the synopsis, and I'm good with that. I hope the cameos continue, but even if they don't I'm really enjoying this.

Taikan Yoho / My Personal Weatherman - I saw this called live action yaoi and at first didn’t really believe it, but no. No, it really is. And I am *here* for it. I can't say it's my favorite thing airing right now but I'm enjoying it.

The Jungle - (not a BL, so I'm cheating here, ah well) I don't know who thought that what we needed was four entire episodes of Pine's manpain, but they were very wrong. At least for my money. On the bright side, August is gorgeous and Pat is killing it. The series has been uneven for me and I'm a little annoyed they apparently want to wrap up Pine's BS, Nathee and Florence, *and* address Hunter's backstory in just two eps. But eh, whatever, I was only ever really watching for the women and Mix and thankfully Hack and Irin gave me all the mess that was promised (and not really delivered on, unfortunately. Not that I wanted a bunch of assholes womanizing, but aside from freaking Pine everyone's stories wrapped up in a couple of episodes of mostly no mess at all). 

Looking Forward To

23.5 - Come on GMMTV get this thing out already I want it. I have been patient but come oooooon. I had three highly anticipated dramas for this line up and this is the only one that hasn't been released yet and I want it. Gimme my GL.

Absolute Zero (Sep 27, iQiYI)- this is gonna hurt but at least I know it going in?

The Box (Sep 22, not sure about where) - Not a BL, but looks like a good time. Plus I'm interested to see Prem in a thriller - I think he'll do well.

I am also wondering what will replace the Monday/Tuesday hole The Jungle will leave when it stops airing or if they plan to do reruns.

And apparently we're getting the GMMTV 2024 lineup in Oct this year, which seems really early but maybe I'm wrong. I didn’t actually pay attention to the 2023 lineup until way after it came out so I can’t be trusted. *whispers* please let Midnight Museum have a season two, please let Midnight Museum have a season two.

[aphelionsabyss]

What is up everybody? Welcome back to:

APHALLY OBSESSED

Your NEW favorite "Daily Radio Show" in which your host, Aphelion (Me, Of course!), tells you all about music that they're ACTUALLY OBSESSED WITH!

Today's song is:

H.S by Tom Cardy

The title of the song today is H.S which stands for: Hot Shit.

And let me tell you, this song, is Hot Shit. It's The shit. It's great. It's Amazing, 10/10 used to play it on repeat in 2023.

H.S by Tom Cardy holds a special place in my heart.

When I first started "Aphally Obsessed" it was to share music with my friends in a server that no longer exists. To me, sharing music is something that I love to do. Because I feel like music really connects all of us. At the time, tensions were kinda high in the server and some people were feeling down on themselves. Meanwhile, I was jamming to this song and looping it for hours! So I thought to myself "You know what, I should share this!" And I did! Did my silly little intro and talked about how this song was helping me with my sadness. And how I connected to it because I love space and the dwarf planet Pluto.

I hope they listened to it. I hope Aphally Obsessed helped my friends out for the short time they had it.

____________________________________

This is an uplifting song about loving yourself (while using a space metaphor) :)

Onto talking about the song:

Tom Cardy starts the song off talking about how we all get a thought like "Am I living to my full potential or am I holding myself back?" And he says "Stop that shit, you're p-p-perfect!" Heavy on that staccato. I love it. Then he pulls out that talk box sound that gives a robot effect and says " If you need some help to see, take a lesson from space. They say Pluto's not a planet, do you think that Pluto gives a shit?" And the music goes from being this chiller sound to

And he goes on in the chorus to talk about how Pluto doesn't give a shit cause they still know that they're HOT SHIT! And it's full of space references. But he doesn't stop there, no. He talks about how when Pluto was insecure and jealous of Jupiter, who wanted to be like our Sun, and the Sun was unhappy because she wanted to be a big black hole. BUT what the sun didn't know was that a black hole was unsatisfied with herself because she's not supermassive :( BUT THE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE IS AMAZED because Dwarf Planet Pluto is THAT BITCH!!!

And then at the end, he even starts talking about how he gets scared sometimes that he's talking about space too much, but no! He's not! Space is cool (he's right) and people who let him talk about space are cool! The moral of his the story, you're perfect! If someone doesn't like you! It's okay! Cause you're awesome. You don't need to be like anyone else but yourself!!! And I hope Tom Cardy continues to. I also hope he makes another space song.

____________________________________

I wanna bring something up that I think is SUPER cool real quick that I never mentioned though: Tom Cardy never uses pronouns for Pluto. Like, I realized after writing this that I wrote "Them" for Pluto. But in actuality, in place of pronouns, Pluto uses Pluto's name. Kinda like Elmo. And I think that's genuinely super cool :D It's not a revolutionary thing at all but I think it really fits Pluto's vibes.

Uh okay I'm gonna be honest guys, I wrote this for yesterday then fell asleep before posting it. Sorry!!!!

You can find the song on, YOU GUESSED IT, Everywhere you can listen to music!!! :)

[livvyofthelake]

how much did millie bobby brown slay in damsel 2024 with DETAILS please :-)

she was slaying and serving the entireee time for real... she was screaming and yelling and crying and breathing so heavily at times you worried she was gonna pass out due to the fact she was still wearing that damn corset and she was grunting while climbing up ropes and jagged cliffs and then doing more screaming. basically our girl made a lot of noises... which had me very worried in certain scenes and i had to be like girl be quiet the dragon can hear you!! but she literally was not letting up on the letting out shrieks and yells. and that was the weirdest way i could start talking about this movie but i just wanted to set the stage for everyone so we all know this was a screaming movie. and i KNOW we all love it when millie bobby brown screams her fucking head off we all saw stranger things season two...

anyway i don't know if i'd necessarily say this was her best acting but i'm not about to be some asshole who thinks she stopped being talented after she turned 17 and romanticize the "glory days" of early stranger things like what am i a man get serious... she's a great actress in everything she does! but i would say this was probably a very very easy role to play for her so i imagine there was a certain level of phoning in. i say that as a compliment to her talent not a put down of the film's writing... but elodie is not a character she had to put in a lot of work for like she had to be able to scream and yell and run. and she had to be kind and likeable but most of the heavy lifting there is already done via the fact we are already rooting for her because she got thrown into a dragon's lair as a blood sacrifice... what i'm saying is that it's an easy movie both to make and to watch it's not revolutionary but it IS huge massive insane to ME because it's so like, within the confines of it's genre (girlfantasy) because i happen to like it's genre very very much!

OK SO. i simply must talk about the outfits. as we know they put her in a beautiful gorgeous wedding gown and it was progressively torn to shreds as the story went along which was AWESOME. the way they showed her being prepared for the wedding in so much detail and we saw how many layers and how much went into the dress and how much it must have weighed down on her (both literally and metaphorically!!!) and restricted her movement, and it's destruction represents the dismantling of her faith in the system she was essentially sold into... the dress was literally DESIGNED to trap her in the cave with the dragon i was losing my mind at the part where she couldn’t get further into the cave away from the dragon because the hoop skirt was stuck on the rocks like that was crazy… and. now. was it insane that in the end she was essentially wearing a sleeveless minidress with a snatched corseted waist? well a little yeah that was kinda ridiculous. but the larger point was that she escaped the traditional constricting dress they put her in so they could continue on in their comfortable life and she was left in the underdress exposing the wiring and manipulation that exists underneath their society’s beautiful exterior… you understand!

and her character was soooo lovely is the thing... perfect girlfantasy protagonist fr...!! lowkey her guinevere choices realness. um but without the prophetic visions! i loved how the whole movie opened with her and her sister chopping wood to bring back to their town like she's a lord's daughter but she isn't above doing everything she can to help! she didn't want to get married either but she knew it would help her people... when she saw that first bird on fire in the dragon's lair and she gently held it after stamping the fire out but she couldn't save it... almost cried! she just had so much care for all life and so much drive to protect everything and everyone and most especially herself... the way that she was the second sacrifice out of three so she kept going because she knew there was still one girl left she had the power to save... crazy stuff!!! she even saved the dragon...

the way that in the end when she walked into that third wedding and everyone was shocked that she clawed her way out of that mountain and back to their castle for revenge and there was a moment where it was almost implied that they'd spare her and find another sacrifice if she still wanted to be the prince's wife and take part in their family's sick farce... and she was like fuck off actually i think you should all stand here in your golden palace while my new bestie the dragon burns your shit to the ground... and it was cunty!!!!!!! i was clapping and cheering and smiling yayyyy!

in conclusion. a 10/10 slay, we love you millie bobby brown <3

[tickldpnk8]

On Hob and William Caxton

So a stray comment on this meta thread had me adding my thoughts to the end on Hob’s mention of going into printing. But I don’t think my thoughts got seen much because they were fairly off topic. But! The history of printing is a particular pet topic of mine so I wanted to expound on this a bit. Because it’s one of the echoing storylines that Gaiman weaves through the centuries to show how interconnected that time is. And it’s also an echo we see in the larger series about literature, stories and language.

In 1489, we get this panel where Hob mentions that he’s taken up a new trade called…printing. (Not that there’ll ever be real demand for it)

But it’s not until 1589 that we learn the name of this mysterious friend: William Caxton. (Mentioned by Hob as Billy Caxton)

But who was William Caxton?

Caxton was an Englishman in the mid-1400s who started his career as a cloth maker and merchant. By the 1450s, he was living on the continent in Bruges and by 1465, he had turned to politics. With the War of the Roses underway in 1470, he had turned his attention to bringing printed books to the untapped market in England.

Printing was a new industry in the mid-1400s in Europe. (As opposed to the printing traditions of Asia.) Gutenberg had used his jewelry-making expertise to cast individual letters for printing around 1440, and developed a printing press that revolutionized books, publishing and illustration in Western Europe. Caxton likely traveled to Germany and saw a press in action around 20-30 yrs later before buying his own and setting up shop on the continent. Demand for works in English was low on the continent, so he soon moved his shop back to London.

What Caxton did was revolutionary for the time. No one was printing books in English. Even in England, scholars preferred Latin and French, considering them more beautiful and more expressive. Caxton not only brought a whole new trade/industry back to England…he also played an important part in our linguistic history. By translating works into vernacular English—specifically his London dialect—he was saying that English literature traditions were just as worthy as Latin or French for scholars and the masses. His work helped to standardize spellings at a time of great linguistic change. And his dialect that he was using became more widespread through his publishing. Plus, through his poor translation, English adopted a number of loan words.

The first book he printed once back in England? None other than Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. He later published a second edition containing woodcut illustrations. He mostly published works he thought would be profitable with the gentry and then expanded his market by publishing works of popular fiction. His translation of La Morte D’Arthur helped popularize Arthurian legend.

What did a 15th century print shop look like?

I imagine that when Caxton started out, he might have had to wear many hats. In this woodcut from 1568, two men are setting type into forms in the background while one person inks the form on press and the other pulls the print. Not pictured are separate jobs for folks to carve illustrations like the above out of wood (or use other printing making methods like intaglio, etc) and to bind the books.

Pulling a print could be manually hard work. Once the form is inked and the paper put into place behind a frisket, the whole apparatus is rolled under the platen on the right. Pulling the big level attached to the screw above the platen would apply even weight to the inked form, leaving an impression on the paper. Then, the apparatus would be rolled back out, the paper removed and the process started again. Once all the pages were printed, they would have been bound by bookbinders.

By the 1600s, the print shop could have had multiple presses with even more staff as shown in this engraving. Guilds would have been set up with proper channels for learning the craft. Plus, a whole merchant system was in place to sell all those books, pamphlets and prints.

You can see a press like this in action in this video:

How does this tie into Men of Good Fortune?

Men of Good Fortune is as much a history of England overview as it is a history of English literature/language. By spacing his references out, Gaiman is able to allude to its evolution concisely for the purposes of his story and the limited real estate of his panels.

So here are Gaiman’s key references by date:

In 1389, we see Chaucer out for a drink with a friend in the midst of writing The Canterbury Tales.

In 1489, Hob is working with Caxton to set up his publishing business. Who would then go on to print several editions of Chaucer’s works.

In 1589, Hob refers back to Caxton by name, and we meet Shakespeare.

In 1689, no literature references

In 1789, Hob refers back to Shakespeare’s King Lear having a happy ending and asks after the nature of Morpheus’ deal with him.

In 1889, no literature references

In 1989, up to your imagination!

Hob and printing

For Hob specifically, his involvement could have meant many things. He could have become a typesetter and learned his letters. He could have been pure muscle pulling prints. He could have bound the books or carved the illustrations. And he could have branched out into being a merchant by selling said books. Or…all of the above.

As I’ve been writing this over the past week, @teejaystumbles just posted a printer!hob illustration. Was super excited to see it! Anyways, I’m hoping that this context was interesting for folks and I can’t wait to see if anyone writes/draws more printer!hob, because I can’t wait to read/see it!

[archduchessofnowhere]

With the few adaptations of Sissi and her marriage to Franz they always show a scene where he has to sign off death penalties and seems hesitant to do so. Is this something that is accurate? Or do they add it to make him seem more likeable?

Hello anon! This is an interesting question because I feel that this is something that's never really properly explored - not only in fiction, but also on non-fiction. Let’s start with how fiction handles this:

The latest two series about Empress Elisabeth both introduce the young emperor in a scene in which he orders the execution of rebels - although they handle it quite differently, almost oppossite. In Sisi (2021-), an annoyed Franz Josef smugly complains about how these rebels brought over themselves their deaths “only for a constitution”, and only seems troubled by it when a woman in the crowd curses him (can’t remember if this happens before or after he orders the men to be hanged). In Die Kaiserin (2022-), a very hesitant Franz Josef cannot even bring himself to order the execution and in the end is his mother who orders the rebel men to be hanged (a great example of this series’ writing superb subtlely *sarcasm*). Now these are clearly scenes which have the function of introducing the characters and setting their inner conflicts: Jannik Schümann’s FJ being an arrogant man who almost seems to enjoy his impunity, suddenly being faced with the real consequences of his actions, while Philip Froissant’s FJ is a weak-willed ruler controlled by his mother that most break free from her in order to follow his liberal ideas (yeah he’s Rudolf here). So which of these two portrayals is closer to reality?

Well, probably neither. Because first of all, Franz Josef was not present at the executions (or at least I’ve never came across with any account that places him there), so neither of these situations would have happened. And second, neither fully allign with what we know of him as a young emperor. For Franz Josef the executions and repression were a matter of putting his empire in order, he believed in the dynastic right of the Habsburgs and that it was his duty to rule over his subjects, that's it. Neither of his portrayals are accurate to him, because they're both emotional takes: in one he's a cruel man that must find mercy, in the other he's a merciful man but weak ruler that must find strenght (and in both cases, he must find this through loving his wife). In reality, he was a bureaucrat signing off orders that thought would bring back the power to the dynasty, that was always his only main goal. That's also why years later he was willing to compromise with the Hungarians. Emotions just never played a part in his policies, which is what the series miss in their respective characterizations.

Now on the historical accuracy:

The two people held to be the main responsible of convincing the emperor of following a policy of repression are his mother Archduchess Sophie and the Prime Minister of Austria Prince Felix Schwarzenberg. Sophie indeed thought that the revolution must be crushed, meanwhile Schwarzenberg allegedly said that “Mercy is a good thing, but we must do a little hanging first”. How much did they actually influenced him, however, is all up to speculation. He was very young (only eighteen!!) and deeply respected his mother's opinions, as well as he agreed with Schwarzenberg, but he also wasn't a manipulable person and one of his first goals was to rule alone as an autocrat.

The emperor appointed General Julius Haynau to lead the forces against the revolutionary Hungarians in 1849. Haynau already had earned a reputation as a violent man for the brutal repression he commanded against the Italians during 1848, and was said to have “a meanness not entirely in keeping with military dignity”. About the exact number of people that lost their lives in Hungary during the revolution and the counter revolution, Hungarian historian András Gerő says in his biography of Franz Josef that:

We do not possess detailed information concerning the ensuing terror. We can barely say with certainty how many lost their lives fighting for the rights of their nation in 1848-49. Generally speaking, only the victors draw up statistics. According to  Austrian calculations, some fifty-five thousand Hungarians fell in the fighting. The period of repression, which lasted through the autumn and winter of 1849, saw 120 judicial executions: the number of those executed without due process, “shot while escaping,” as the grim saying goes, remains unknown. Around forty to fifty thousand were forcibly recruited into the army or deported, while 1,200 were imprisoned. Thousands emigrated. The lack of adequate statistics speaks for itself. Similarly expressive was the manner in which the resolution of 20 August was enforced. Haynau had wanted to stage large-scale executions as early as 24 August, but the Russians and the Habsburg court had restrained him.

These executions were all highly unpopular abroad and there was an outcry of indignation from many other countries. Needless to say, this also made the young emperor a hated figure within the empire too. By 26 October of 1849 Franz Josef called the executions to a halt, in part because of the protests against them but also because most of the big figureheads of the revolution who were caught had already been punished. However:

Haynau remained unconcerned: he continued to issue and to carry out death sentences against the emperor’s orders. Despite the embarrassment this caused, for the time being the emperor did not react to Haynau’s brazen insubordination. It seems that he did not lack “‘patience,” “human understanding,” and the “spirit of forgiveness” after all (what is more, Francis Joseph even decided to pardon some, albeit low-ranking, offenders).

I've seen people dismissing the emperor's role in the counter revolution by pinning it to others (which is what Die Kaiserin did by stating that Sophie singlehandedly was the responsible for the rebels executions). Which I don't agree with. I mean, if the EMPEROR isn't responsible for the policies applied in his name with his consent, then who is? To quote Gerő once again:

In hindsight, while Francis Joseph’s responsibility can be shared out among others, it cannot in any way be diminished. Naturally, both Schwarzenberg, the prime mover of events, and Haynau, who had acted under orders, were complicit. But Francis Joseph could have withdrawn his consent at any time. As we have seen, he had demonstrated on a number of occasions his readiness and ability to act as he saw fit when he felt the need to demonstrate his free will and sense of responsibility as a sovereign. He had every opportunity to make up his own mind about the policy of repression, if he had thought differently from his advisors. Furthermore, this would have been a wise course, given that a willingness to be merciful was part of the image of a sovereign, and that there were some who actively urged him in that direction. Had he exercised mercy, his rule over Hungary would not have been undermined. However, showing mercy was not a matter of principle for him, but rather one of tactics.

Now if he ever regretted these executions, I don't know. The only thing that I could find is this that Elisabeth said to Bishop Mihály Horváth: “Believe me, if it were in our power, my husband and I would be the first to bring Luwdig Battyany and the blood witnesses of Arad back to life” (1986, Hamann). Which is an statement that I would take with a grain of salt, to be honest. I don't doubt that Elisabeth was being sincere on the sentiment (in fact she ended up befriending Batthyány's son), but whether the sentiment truly extended to her husband is hard to say (if someone knows of any statement Franz Josef ever made of this please add it!)

Hope you found my answer helpful!

[leaving-fragments]

tbh i think the barbie film had some good material, the whole scene between barbie and ruth with the whole "i don't want to be the idea, i want to do the imagining" bit, like that had potential. because womanhood is an idea someone else came up with and forced women into. but that scene is so disconnected from the rest of the plot, it's the first time in the film that we see barbie struggling with being an idea, so it kinda comes out of nowhere

before that she was struggling with (not) being perfect and then with not being good enough at anything, which are also expectations many women struggle with. but none of these points are really talked about thoroughly, they come up as one-liners or as ironic quips and it's just. so frustrating because the film never really says anything, it just mentions issues in passing

like, there is no feminist statement made in or by the barbie movie. pointing out patriarchy exists isn't a revolutionary message and the film never really shows anything changing, neither the real world nor barbieland... the ending is basically just everything being the same as at the start of the movie

so apart from all the things other people have pointed out with jokes about colonialism, the playing into incel culture etc. the barbie movie isn't even very feminist

i will also say i personally did enjoy the film, it's a fun watch and has great costumes and music, but i find it quite silly how some people want to make it out to be revolutionary... if that's revolutionary to you your worldview must be very narrow

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Nsambu Za Suekama

Study, Solidarity, Spirit, Struggle

The Anarkata Turn, pt. 2

Yesterday, Indigenous People’s Day, was also the one year anniversary since the publishing of Anarkata: A Statement. I reflect on the work of Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas around the Statement. I think about my personal journey from the Black Lives Matter world to the universe of Black Anarchic Radicalism, and what the Anarkata Turn and can offer to BARs during this recent wave of anti-police/anti-cop demonstrations.

Reflection One

During the summer of rebellions, 2020, a group of Anarkatas set a table up on a street corner, hung an RBG/Pan African flag up, pulled out some bats just in case any transphobes wanted to pull up and act funny, then sat a riot shield with the sankofa/''go back and fetch it'' symbol on the sidewalk next to us. We started to plop items on the table to pass out: laundry detergent, tissue, water bottles, some food, and of course masks. We poured libations and played some rhythms on a djembe for the ancestors, and we laid a few reading materials called ''zines'' out, so people could learn about the mutual aid and revolutionary politics we was moving in. Folk started to come through, to grab the resources we were helping to redistribute in our communities. They would dance to the drum with us, chop it up, rap about radicalism with us, and express a shared belief that this was ''a good thing'' to do, and that we had to ''show up'' for ourselves, and that in the end ''we all we got.'' It was real good vibes, real ''kritical kickback'' type antics like my crew often does.

One day, a gentleman approached our distro table, curious to take some of the supplies for himself. Of course, we let him know he totally could because ''these things come from our labor anyway, so we should be sharing them among each other'' (as my comrade always says). The man noticed something on the table as he reached for detergent. ''Anti-capitalism,'' he said, referring to one of our zines. ''What's that?'' he asked.

''It's what we're doing,'' one of my SQuADsiblings said. The man did not respond favorably to that. ''Oh, you're trying to force something,'' he replied, seemingly upset. ''Well, no. You're completely free to take the items without reading our stuff.'' He was told. Which is true. One of our approaches is that we don't pressure folk about our politics. At the same time, we will make it clear how we roll and why and invite others to work through Black Anarchic Radicalism (BAR) with us. We try not to move ''like a Jehovah's witness'' (as one of my fellow cats often jokes), pulling a little ''bait-and-switch'' kind of thing where mutual aid is in forcefully in exchange for either some pamphlet or stated ideological persuasion. Yet, we don't move on a ''trojan horse” radicalism either, where folk are not told from the gate what we are about and why we stand in it.

The man proceeded to still argue with us, however. He compared us to dictators. He started to talk about how anti-capitalists have taken away people's autonomy before. He vibed with what we were doing, but he felt like we should have simply been building from ''love, like Jesus did,'' essentially asking us to remove the Black Anarchic Radical politics from the entire activity. This was not shocking to hear. Our people are often being told that it threatens our ''freedom'' when we move on a political wavelength that consciously and concretely pushes against the dominant system. This is why Black revolutionaries of all stripes often get perceived as people who are angry, vengeful, power-hungry, evil creatures (especially those of us who are disabled or trans). Our politics get called dictatorial, authoritarian, controlling, manipulative, despite all evidence to the contrary, in spite of the fact that it is mainstream ideology/systems which fits all those descriptions. Then, when bourgeois ideals do make room for our politics, they always limit us to abstract or affective, empty concepts like ''love'' or ''treating people fairly,'' to liberalize what we are about (that's what the man did).

Liberalism helps to manage revolution, to scare us from implementing the praxis which we understand helps in our collective journey to self determination. As an idealistic project, additionally, liberal thinking will always reduce things to an very limited version of what ''autonomy'' means. Abstractions like love are inspiring, but you cannot exactly implement a praxis that both challenges the enemy and upholds concrete steps for liberation with just love (especially not when ideas of love are commonly informed by patterns of submission, coercion, abuse, etc.) Unfortunately, there are some iterations of anarchism which also stumble into these same assumptions, so that the work which Black Anarchic Radicals do is re-interpreted as us trying to ''impose'' something on people because we move on revolutionary stuff.

The news media, and religious leadership, and entreprenegroes and celebrity/bag-chasing activists, they also push this same lie about Black (anarchic/autonomist) revolutionaries. We had a summer of rebellions, where Black people of many persuasions and backgrounds went and burned down precincts, attacked police, looted and redistributed the products, and destroyed property that we do not own yet that is the basis of our life at the brink of survival and destitution. All such activity was framed as having come from ''outside agitators'' and anyone who encouraged rebellious activity was accused of speaking about things that were not part of or in the best interests of the average Black person. So, Black radicals got painted as malevolent agents obsessed with "forcing an agenda" onto other Black people. People would even go so far as to recast our politics as ''white,'' like as if real Black politics can only ever be pacifist, boujie-aligned, heterosexist, transphobic, and pro-Amerikkka.

How we speak of Black freedom, autonomy must be taken out of a liberal/idealist narrative. At the end of the day, Black people do have an interest in anti-capitalist struggles. And we have our own deep and ongoing histories of participation therein. Some of us may not be as familiar with the exact details on why we have these radical tendencies, or why we need them based on the history and material conditions—but that does not mean these wavelengths don't exist. And those of us setting the record straight about these facts are not imposing anything, but rather we bring clarity where it is needed or asked for. A revolutionary is no more wrong for sharing the insights of Black radical tradition than a djeli/griot would be wrong for delivering sacred knowledge to their community. Both roles are necessary and should be understood as grounded in the life of our people.

I saw this proven during the demonstrations. A lot of people who even now don't consider themselves organizers felt activated by the economic and other violences they witnessed during the pandemic and from the police this year. They decided to lead rallies, speak outs, protests, and get in touch with mutual aid practice, and more. Some of them became frustrated with integrationist and reformist elements in the ''activist'' world, who seem to want to improve the system and pursue a seat at the master's table rather than burning the master's house and developing a better world in its place. Many people began to appreciate anti-cop/anti-prison struggle and its connections to struggles against colonialism, and sexism, and against transphobia, against ableism, and they even went so far as to call out the hypocrisy of the Left who leaves these questions unaddressed (despite their extreme importance to anti-capitalist struggle).

This did not happen at the same time or same pace or location for all aspects of this year of rebellions, but it did happen for many people, for reasons that Black people have a vested interest in: our liberation struggle. And as people developed in these political orientations, some of them encountered Black Anarchic Radicals, like my crew, who could help folk nurture their appreciation of our struggle. Having spent a bit more time in theoretical study and practical experience with revolutionary activity, BARs could support the age of rebellion by providing a somewhat more consolidated entrypoint to anti-capitalist thinking and practices. For me, ''Anarkata'' is how I help folk focus these political understandings, methods, and understandings, in a way that is:

1) intersectional, centering the most marginal, especially Black trans and disabled folk,

2) anti-hierarchical, confronting all forms of domination, especially the government/State system

3) Pan-African, fighting for all Black lives, throughout the globe

4) truly revolutionary, confronting capitalist and colonial society, practice, institutions through class struggle.

All of these stances have become somewhat relevant or important to Black political discussions in some way shape or form, due to the Black Lives Matter age, from 2014 til now. This is true even in the face of certain things about queerness, hierarchy, Black struggle, capitalism that have gotten watered down by the liberal organization which bears the name Black Lives Matter. I have directly witnessed that Black Anarchic Radicals, and the conscious relationship building, education, and support we bring to our communities, is aiding in the process of heightened revolutionary, in bringing clarity and setting the record straight about the real radicalism. That is why one of my fellow kitties once observed: “the 2020s will be the decade of wild things Man cannot house.”

Reflection Two

Now, Black Anarchic Radicals do not lord ourselves over anyone, by the way. We do not elevate ourselves above people, as if we are superior. Like Kwame Ture said, ''the job of the conscious is to make [people]... conscious of their unconscious behavior.'' When he said this, it was because he was acknowledging that the so-called ''unconscious'' (those who aren't considered ''woke'' or who don't see themselves as such) will strive for freedom. Our people will quickly mobilize against our oppression, like we have seen with these protests and uprisings. A cop kills a person and boom, folk are out in the streets, and social media really helps get that process going pretty quick. The role of a revolutionary, however, based on Ture's reminder, was to simply help those mobilized cultures of opposition get organized as revolutionary propositions. We are not imposing, but there is some coordination brought to the constellation of organic subversive activity. The Black radical traditions passed down by our revolutionary ancestors helps us to provide that, and it is important for no other reason than the fact that we have to somehow guard the lane against cooption. Our people's everyday anti-establishment tendencies are like fire within Black life; and bourgeois/colonial interests are constantly working to douse the flames. Soon as the master sees that the enslaved is ready for smoke, Man will do everything to keep his power, and the main way this happens is by preying on ignorance to our history, the mistakes and victories of the past, or our ignorance to what is really at the basis of our oppression. Distractions and promises for crumbs from the table can get real enticing unless we have a boundary drawn that helps us keep the radical energy, and consolidate toward autonomy instead of toward integration/assimilation. In short, there is nothing coercive or authoritarian or brainwashing or evil about certain folk helping to nurture the fires being used to burn the plantation; facilitating a more cohesive understanding of our struggle and what it takes to get free is extremely necessary and completely in line with – essential to – what real Black autonomy is about.

Throughout the BLM age, both within and against the BLM circuit, there was small-scale/localized community building that happened with this in mind. Many dedicated, loving people held ourselves and those around us to a truly revolutionary narrative and called us to a truly revolutionary practice. I remember how I got pulled into this journey.

I was a young, Christian pacifist. I was doing a lot of arts-based advocacy around educational inequity and environmental issues. It was my high school years. And then, one day, I saw a young man named Dorian Johnson crying out for the life of his friend Michael Brown, who the cops killed and left for dead in the streets. Something shifted for me, and I realized that I needed to look more to Black-centered politics outside of the advocacy world. There had long been a separatist bent in my spirit, but it was Ferguson, it was summer 2014, that moved me to listen to it more. I got involved in a Black nationalist organization not too long afterward, and I started to seriously move through the prison/police struggle in a newer, more focused way.

I wasn't necessarily abolitionist at the time, but I certainly understood that the carceral system and the courts were about “keeping poor Black people “in our place” (as my parents put it) — and not about solving crime.

I wasn’t necessarily a communist, but I understood that the capitalist economy was environmentally destructive at its root because of its focus on profits, and that it was the basis of Black people’s poverty (and wars and violence) all across the globe.

I wasn’t necessarily a feminist, but I understood that all kinds of labor in our community was unfairly being pushed onto women and other marginalized genders by cis/het men in our community, often without pay, all while respect and full leadership was being denied to these populations in order to help straight men feel better about their own suffering on the plantation.

I wasn’t necessarily an anarchist, but I understood that the government system was not a universal arrangement, that other systems existed outside of it, and that this current system was founded in Europe, on the bones of Indigenous people, and the backs of struggling enslaved African people in particular.

I had a loose, not fully formed constellation of understandings. I still carried it with me into my Black nationalist experience, as we organized phone zaps to yell demands at politicians, as we wrote letters, as we held conference calls, as we snitched on racists to their bosses to get them fired, as we organized relief campaigns in the wake of natural disasters, as we developed educational experiences about food justice and other topics. I have met plenty of Black nationalists who made a lot happen on limited political understanding too. As my understandings began to get informed by the practical work, I realized that I had some studies to do. The organization called itself Black nationalist, but none of us knew what that meant, really. I had to learn. During that time I encountered feminist insights and literature, socialist insights and literature, anti-colonial insights and literature, anarchist insights and literature, abolitionist insights and literature. Practical experience along with study helped my understandings consolidate into principles, and principles began to turn into methods and frameworks.

Eventually, I was being considered for leadership in the organization I was part of, most specifically as someone who could engage in political education. I was bringing Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton into the equation, because I started to notice that, while the organization claimed to be Black nationalist, we needed to get to a cohesive basis on what that was supposed to mean. I wasn’t trying to force homogeneity, but I knew that we needed ideological unity to address all of the transphobia and misogyny and the liberalism/reformism that was present in the organization. I could relate to those people who didn’t show up with a fleshed out set of principles, methods, understandings about Black radical traditions — because I had not either — but it was also apparent that leadership in this organization wasn’t doing a good job helping facilitate that growth for people. I had matured into that process somewhat independently (with help from a few sibs); but a complementary process, an actual implementation of clear revolutionary ideas was missing overall.

This became apparent to me once the organization had to discuss whether we should distance ourselves from the BLM organization or continue to organize through that banner. Some felt like it would be a strategic mistake as BLM’s name had a lot of visibility we could use; other people in the organization thought we should because the organization had donations from white rich folk. Disagreement in activism is healthy and vital, but in our formation, the lack of ideological basis meant our disagreement was all over the place and got nowhere, so that some people (mostly straight men) began to identify BLM with right-wing narratives about George Soros and a “gay agenda,” while others (mostly straight women) began to link it to politicians and hopes for legislative or electoral gains for us. I realized then that Black nationalism could be simultaneously conservative and progressive, but still not revolutionary, and that gender issues were a central conflict in why that was a problem on either side. I tried to infuse our organization with more political education around both feminism and Pantherism, to address these issues and move us toward a more radical orientation, but ultimately I got burnt out by the cisgenderism/binarism of the organization and the role that played in its bourgeois ideological inertia.

While I had hoped that I could guard the lane against bourgeois tendencies, I could not effectively do so when I also lacked a thorough basis in revolutionary politics. Yes, I had been studying, and held certain leanings (feminist, anti-capitalist, anarchic, anti-prison), but as yet I had not grown into a materialist proposition to ground these oppositional modes of organizing. I might have been trying to educate about Black radical traditions in the organization, but I also lacked a firmer grasp of what they had to offer, and I lacked a community of folks to study with and arrive at those conclusions with. I also had my own contradictory willingness to build with other bourgeois institutions to some degree (such as nonprofits). This limited my capacity to explain and effectively challenge some of what I was seeing wrong in the Black nationalist organization I was part of.

When I left Black nationalism and moved into Black Anarchic Radicalism, I gained that community of revolutionaries, and it was this move out of political isolation that helped me grow in my principles, methods, understandings. It was Anarcho-Pantherists, Insurrectionists, Pan-Africanists, and Fourth Worldists who taught me, who I learned with and from, who I also began teaching. They introduced me to transfeminism and mutual aid and militancy. We learned about Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Marsha P. Johnson, Claudia Jones, and Lucy Parsons.

Studying with these revolutionaries helped to clarify why an abolitionist politic made the most sense for Black liberation. It moves us toward autonomy and self-determination when we take charge of our safety from the prisons/police who only exist to suppress us.

Studying with revolutionaries helped to clarify why womanism makes sense for Black liberation. It moves us closer to autonomy and self-determination when we center the overlooked, the vulnerable, the most disrespected, those at the bottom of hierarchy.

Studying with revolutionaries helped to clarify why disability justice makes sense for Black liberation. It moves us closer to autonomy and self-determination when we remember that all our bodies and brains are valid, that it is institutions which exclude us, that we are not failures deserving to be warehoused or killed, but people who get to take the resources we need to live our best lives.

Studying with revolutionaries helped to clarify why trans/queer struggle makes sense for Black liberation. It moves us closer to autonomy and self-determination when we understand that the basis of a community's power is not (hyper)sexual reductions, not making love nor romance either, or any visions of anatomy and biology taught to us by colonizers, but the material organization of society.

Studying with revolutionaries helped to clarify why Pan Africanism makes sense for Black liberation. It moves us to autonomy and self-determination when we remember that our bodily captivity would not be possible without the earthly captivity of our Homeland, and that liberation of both from military rule through communism is essential to the life of our people and our planet.

And studying with revolutionaries helped to clarify why communism makes sense for Black liberation. It moves us to autonomy and self-determination when we make sure that the means of production, how we use and move around the earth's resources, are not in the hands of a ruling few who can force us on a hamster wheel just to survive, all for some market and money that don't really exist.

Finally studying with revolutionaries helped to clarify why anarchism in particular makes sense for Black liberation. Because it moves us to autonomy and self-determination when, as Kuwasi Balagoon said it best, "the society as a whole not only maintains itself at an equal expense to all, but progresses in a creative process unhindered by any class, caste or party.''

Now I could integrate my experiential knowledge, and the principles, methods, understandings I already had and had gained – and merge with a vision of where our power lies, how to take it back. Understanding how oppression contradicts the root of our empowerment, and what would ensure our empowerment in its place, is what it means to harness a revolutionary proposition around our cultures of opposition. To know both what we are fighting against and what we fight for.

Reflection Three

Looking back, I am sure that if I had had a contingent of Black Anarchic Radicals with me, as I was rolling through the Black Lives Matter world, we could have shook things up in my old Black nationalist organization. We would have been able to struggle together with our kin about important ideological questions, and guard the lane against integrationist (both conservative and liberal) practices and thinking. Regardless of my own experience, however, I know for a certain that there were many Black Anarchic Radicals who did shake things up in the BLM world. I can tell from the events I witnessed in this uprising that many Black Anarchic Radicals have been helping make it clear that just because BLM called themselves “leaderful” and “decentralized” didn’t make them anarchist, or just because they had queer women leaders did not make them feminist or queer liberationists, and just because they were critical of socialism did not mean they weren’t actually bourgeois agents.

Even as Black Anarchic Radicals spend time setting the record straight like this, other Black Anarchic Radicals feel that an additional element is needed to further build the movement work we are nurturing. A complementary approach, something that augments, supports, elevates these necessary smaller-scale struggles and upheavals. This approach would add some more popular education and mass level activity to the equation. It would hold a mosaic of genuinely Black, anarchistic, and radical understandings, principles, methods in the air for interested people to look to, learn from, adapt, implement, challenge while they are building from/within/against the BLM age. This approach would help with making clear what anti-hierarchical, intersectional, material approaches to anti-colonial/anti-capitalist struggle looks like. More people will be thirsty to get that clarity anyway, and have been thirsty for it. Because Black people will be trying to take up anarchistic politics for themselves and on their own terms due to the material conditions of today:

''Surface level changes in the laws/politics and even cultural consciousness of global society have failed to fully guarantee us freedom, even if we have a few measures of safety. Over the last few decades, we have begun to experience a wider and wider gap between rich and poor all over the world, and mass environmental destruction, as well as steady genocides against our people through the corporations, prisons, police, hospitals, schools, and the military. Representation of our people within white systems/media has not promised us anything worthwhile at all, and often times our representatives betray the interests of the collective for their own benefit. And xenophobic narratives continue to be sown in our communities in order to divide us so we can throw our most vulnerable siblings under the bus and betray each other. Many legal protections are often denied anyway and even being rapidly taken away. All of this has left our people and the entire planet vulnerable to death and destitution. And meanwhile, the liberatory traditions that were so impactful in the 60s/70s, are still being suppressed and marginalized — labelled ‘terroristic’ and suffering widespread repression.''

That augmenting force, as I understand it, is what the Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas have been calling ''Anarkata.'' But it goes by other names, and could shift and change moving forward as the struggle continues. The Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas helped put out Anarkata: A Statement to give us a taste of that approach. As we read in the Statement: "The following document is ... intended to be a jumping off point for anarchic Black radicals to cohere our diverse thoughts together... We hope that [the Statement] is used to better inform and enrich the local Black anarchist work already taking place.''

Anarkata is not meant to be a label all Black Anarchic Radicals claim; and the Statement is not a sacred text speaking for all our experiences as revolutionaries. But both the term ''anarkata'' and the Statement are a launching pad for helping people begin to lean into a Black Anarchic Radical consciousness they may or may not have already been considering, but without the liberal/whitewashed confusion that the word ''anarchism'' has historically run into. This confusion is what we see, again, when the ''outside agitator'' narrative is thrown around to discredit Black unrest or when BLM uses the term ''decentralized'' while still being part of the nonprofit industry and holding onto a de facto hierarchy.

The ''Anarkata Turn'' is here to play a strategic and popular/mass-oriented role, to help Black Anarchic Radicals already doing the necessary work in our local/organic contexts of distinguishing fake anarchisms from the real deal. This fact is proven not just in my own experience, but in accounts that I have heard from individuals who are not part of the Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas and do not build in our immediate circuits. Most specifically, it is kitties from the rust belt regions of the country who have reported being looked to for some sort of guidance or more clear insights about Black autonomy. Folk are coming to them for support in building radicalism away from the snares of nonprofits, historical ''Left'' organizations, and other institutions which claim to be Black-centered, or anti-hierarchical, or revolutionary but then end up failing the most marginal of Black, especially trans, disabled, incarcerated, immigrant,working/lumpen class individuals. This happened for my crew all throughout the summer of rebellion and it is a process I foresee happening again as more unrest and upheavals overtake this kkkountry at the hands of the Black masses.

I believe there were more organized and radical as well as intersectional (margin-centering) upheavals in this 2020 wave of BLM protests than the earlier wave precisely because of the sustained relationship building that Black Anarchic Radicals have continued to do. I also believe that if we merge that necessary local work with some degree of popular education and attempts to build some kind of mass-level autonomist culture, we can really push the struggle forward even more. That is what Anarkata means for me, in an age when anarchism is becoming increasingly relevant to Black rebellion and revolution, but is mystified in the popular imagination.

Reflection Four

When I'm out doin street work, and I'm building with folk in the shelters or who are housing insecure, and we are chilling and laughing, and we are learning together and thinking about our struggles with property, police, prisons. And we real and serious about some of the ways we can imagine addressing these contradictions. Where there is talks about riots, talks about taking over stuff — about re-appropriating spaces for ourselves. Talks about growing food, talks about educating our kids by our own authority. And talks about fighting rapists rather than bringing sexual assault narratives to police who do nothing about it anyway. Talks about developing safe houses and escape plans for domestic abuse victims. Talks about using susu practice specifically to orient resources toward our disabled and elderly community members who often get overlooked. Or talks about forming cooperatives to meet our material needs outside the boujie boss-worker relationship. When we rap about these things, an ''Anarkata'' wavelength, even if it doesn't speak to all aspects of my Black Anarchic Radical thinking and experience (for example, I am heavily influenced by Third Worldism and Wynterian counterhumanism), it helps me tie together helpful reminders about radical action in one place. So when we rap about these things, an ''Anarkata'' wavelength, even if it doesn't speak to all aspects of my Black Anarchic Radical thinking and experience, helps me push conversation towards Black autonomy and self determination. Especially for folk who might be completely unfamiliar with Black radical traditions altogether, an ''anarkata'' wavelength can help me say to folk that I'm connecting with that in whatever we do, however it looks, if we are wishing to move toward autonomy and guard the lane against integrationist failures, we will need a basis in four things: study, solidarity, spirit, and struggle.

We will need to actively develop cultures of learning that strive both to develop revolutionary consciousness while also striving to undermine hierarchy within us at every step. Study.

And our community work must be grounded in concrete, material support for the most marginal, from our own authority, by us, for us, from below. Solidarity.

Third, we will need to get somewhat consistent with routines and rituals for rest, recuperation, healing, and wellness because this allows for sustainability and nurturance as we participate in revolutionary activity. Spirit.

Finally, we must train for and practice various approaches to personal and community defense, striving to integrate militancy with care work and Black feminist/Disability justice as well as transformative frameworks. Struggle.

A taste of how to implement these four pathways (study, solidarity, spirit, struggle) can be seen in the Anarkata Praxis section of the Statement. It starts by first naming the organic, autonomist activity already happening among houseless Black trans and queer folk. It suggests that we ground ourselves in what communities are already doing, and it asks us to begin ''consolidating'' these ''cultures of opposition'' into a ''revolutionary proposition.'' This implies relationship building and ideological struggle, from below, but starting with those on the margins. The free initiative and leadership capacity already being catalyzed by Black trans women and other maGes in particular is highlighted first, from radicals or non-radicals, and it is suggested we support and unite there.

While doing this, making accommodations for disability, and helping to grow access and accessibility — these become foundational, essential. It is suggested that any spheres of activity that we move on as Black Anarchic Radicals be those affecting disabled Black folk, and that in all our revolutionary movement building, Disabled leadership, care work, and working to meet one another's needs is grounds for our radicalism. Mutual aid, which is now a buzzword, unfortunately, is brought into the equation. Rather than just being a crisis intervention tool, or just a replacement for charity, mutual aid is used in the same vein as ''survival pending revolution'' programs. With STAR and the Panthers as inspirations, mutual aid suggestions in the Statement has a focus on both solidarity economics and political education. Importantly, mutual aid arises from an understanding that the government's welfare programs are part of, as the BLA noted, the same ''protracted war'' (with the cops, prisons, hospitals, schools) against our people. Mutual aid in that sense is about demonstrating what we can/need to do in real time, helping us raise our understanding of why we need aid, and showing up for each other concretely (especially those being failed by the system the most).

It is while doing the above – engaging marginal cultures of intervention, community work, self-activity, accommodation, accessibility, and implementing mutual aid practice – that we then begin to talk about militant self defense. Self defense here is framed as guarding against both internal and external threats. The internal threats: bag chasers, entreprenegroes, clout chasers, boujie niggas, neocolonial puppets, sellouts, ''Black faces in high places,'' and all the abusers, the transphobes and homophobes, violence against children and in the home, predatory gang cultures that betray the proto-revolutionary roots of many Black street organizations. The external threats: of course, the nazis, KKK, neofascists, and related groups, but also the cops and all law enforcement, the military included. Each has to be addressed concretely and through frameworks and strategies, and the Praxis section names a few suggestions:

"... “keep the peace” brigades, domestic violence intervention, communal foster care, emergency shelter for abuse victims, localized emergency response crews, martial arts classes, armed QTGNC brigades, freedom schools that protect our kids from the school-to-prison pipeline, modern underground railroads, and communal arms training... police watch groups, self-defense brigades, martial arts classes, and community arms trainings... [s]ubterfuge...''

Clearly this is a holistic vision of defense, that can be expanded upon to address medicine and food concerns, childcare, and others. In this way, the Praxis section shifts away from the tendency toward fetishizing gun violence in revolutionary circles. But, the Praxis section of the Statement does not shy away from the question of armed struggle: it suggests the need to prioritize giving arms to non-cis men and marginalized genders over cis men. It also affirms the history of blaqillegalism, where Black folk have turned to means outside the law to pursue liberation, including theft and expropriation of resources from bourgeois institutions to return to the people (on some robin hood type antics), and riots, sabotage. The Statement speaks on armed struggle from a decentralized perspective, rather than a centralized and hierarchical approach; it also highlights why revolutionary leadership has to spread the capacity thereof to others, especially through political education.

Political education encompasses practical, theoretical, and experiential knowledge and can be gained through strategic mobilization or other direct action as well as study. In this decentralized complex, the Praxis section suggests free association, local approaches, horizontalism, direct democracy, cross-regional collaboration,integrated with flexibility to discern when more or less rigid formations have to be erected or disbanded based on material conditions.

None of these offerings are exhaustive but they are surely a wide-ranging account of multiple different Black Anarchic Radical methods, principles, understandings being put in conversation with each other. The point of suggesting these forms of praxis is so that, working together, we might catalyze revolutionary activity in the cohesive (rather than atomized) fashion that the simple reminders ''study, solidarity, spirit, struggle'' signifies. Too much revolutionary community work of today has fallen victim to the capitalist habit of isolating certain variables from the totality they operate in, reducing one factor to a consequential or inconsequential factor they may or may not play. Sometimes this is because people might take a preferred from of praxis they are more skilled for, comfortable with, etc. yet participate in it without linking or coordinating as part of a larger holism. The Anarkata Statement is therefore also asking Black Anarchic Radicals to correct some of our own subjective errors, idealist approaches we might be taking in our immediate work, because none of us have everything , and the atomized, isolated approach hinders our growth.

There are, of course, more ways to catalyze Black Anarchic Radical activity than have been pulled together in the Statement. The Statement is simply an offering. And it has proven useful during the summer of rebellions. When abusers got outed in movements, when Black cis men got called out for jumping a Black trans woman at a demonstration, when other Black trans women continued to be to be attacked during the uprisings, when the blue check and blavity blacks pulled up to shame rioters and push their opporcoonist bs, when Trump declared illegality of anti-fascism and anarchism, when militias began to invade protests to hurt and let out gunfire on our people, when the liberals came thru to push their Vote Biden and Kamala nonsense, when demonstrators throughout Africa and the Carribbean took to the streets against police brutality, ecocide, and other struggles abroad and in solidarity with us — the Statement and the Anarkata Turn in general helped provide a space to think about diverse Black Anarchic Radical perspectives on these issues.

Black Radical Traditions as a whole have enough responses to these things, to push us toward Black autonomy. People should ground themselves in these various Black revolutionary tendencies, getting familiar with them. And also, if you are looking for a certain political frequency that helps you pull Black revolutionary alternatives into conversation with each other, for the modern context of struggle, in a way that supports the local/on the ground struggle of Black anarchic radicals — that’s what Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas’ work around ''Anarkata'' is here to help us do,

And we do it for nobody but the ancestors, the nomads, the priests, the pirates, and for the gworls, the street queens, the maGes, the rioters, the hood niggas, the single mamas, and all the wild Things that Man cannot house.

And for all those forgotten and unprotected

for all those who cannot love or live as themselves freely

all those who fought and died for our freedom,

for all our people, wherever we are, and our homeland, and our planet

and all beings, even those who aren’t human, and all those treated as less than human

for all those whose brains work different and whose bodies work different

and all those in prison or on the street

and for all power to all the people.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/nsambu-za-suekama-study-solidarity-spirit-struggle

[lepartidelamort]

Russia and Iran Couldn’t Have Saved Syria.

What was Russia supposed to do ? Airdrop in like Cobra Commander ?

Putin has his own problems and can’t possibly micro-manage Syria if Assad is incapable of the most basic competence.

As with any big event, there is a lot of nonsense swirling in the narrative around the fall of Syria.

Some people are going around claiming that this is a failure of Russia and Iran, that these allies should have swooped in and saved Assad.

People are so gay and retarded.

Russia was already bombing the terrorists. Iran was trying to send in troops.

What happened happened so quickly that it would have been completely impossible for Russia and Iran to send more reinforcements. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) stood down, completely, and so this “revolution” only took as long as it takes to drive Toyotas from Aleppo to Damascus. When the media says “lightning fast,” they are understating the matter. A more accurate axiom would be “like a warp portal.”

We know now as a factual matter that this is because the SAA leadership was entirely bought off by the Turks and opened the doors for the Islamist and Kurd terrorists. If the SAA would have put up a fight, the Russians and Iranians – as well as Hezbollah, for that matter – could have come in and backed them up. But when the military simply stands down, what are the allies supposed to do? You can’t just fly in a fleet of jets and drop off troops on the frontlines. That is not how these things work, something I assume we’ve all watched enough war to understand.

In real life, you can’t just airdrop in and start shooting at the enemy like Cobra Commander.

That was a cartoon show for children and not especially similar to real life war situations.

The Jewish media is spinning this as “looking bad for Russia,” and on a basic level, because most people won’t ever understand what happened, it does look bad for Russia. But there was nothing Russia could have done.

Frankly, if the SAA would have fought, Russia would not have needed to send troops, as the air support would have been enough to hold off this movement indefinitely. The whole horrible scene was entirely defined by the military stand-down.

Assad was not only not in control of his own military, he had no intelligence about what was happening beforehand, so other than the enemies and the traitors, Assad is the only person who can be blamed here.

Also, No, The Refugees are Not Going Back and You’re Getting Millions More

A lot of people are joking about “so I guess the refugees can go back now,” but I’ve also seen people seriously suggesting this will happen.

That’s a laugh.

This is going to result in many, many more refugees, and a whole debauched scene with Turkey. It will be like 2015 all over again.

The media obviously claimed that the reason the refugees couldn’t return is that there is no democracy in Syria, but if you believed that, then I’m sorry, you are a gay retard. Some wealthy Syrian exiles might return as the country is being auctioned off by the revolutionary authorities, but the poor people who flooded Europe are not going back.

This coalition that overthrew the Syrian government, the Turks, Kurds, and Islamists, all hate each other, and the only thing unifying them was hatred for Assad. Really more than hatred for the man, they wanted his power. Now they’re going to have to figure out a way to divide that power, and it’s going to be very complicated.

Israel invading and making the country look like a little pussy bitch while the revolutionary refuse to even comment makes it all the more volatile, and Israel will no doubt be bombing various people in the country for a long time.

This is to say: the “Syrian Civil War™” did not end. It did not come close to ending. This is going to enter into a new hot period, where everyone is going to be trying to take as much as they can get. They’re all already militarized, so it is going to take 2 seconds for any conflict they have to be militarized. They’re not going to be talking things out in a parliament or whatever.

It’s an unmitigated disaster.

Andrew Anglin for the DailyStormer

[tastydregs]

Replacing Humans “Is the Furthest Thing From Our Mindset,” Says the Company Selling an A.I. Radio Host

The humble broadcast-radio host, whether a disc jockey or interviewer or reporter, has been going through it for decades now. The 1996 Telecommunications Act fueled the consolidation of local stations, decimating their staffs. The explosion of online radio, music and video streaming, and podcasting have upended ratings for shows on public airwaves. Phones and computers and smart speakers increasingly supplant radio sets. Funding for public radio is notoriously unreliable. It isn’t the best time for your modern-day Wolfman Jacks, or for any media profession.

On top of all that, your local DJ was already on the losing end of the artificial-intelligence revolution. Before the A.I. hype from last year, and even before the COVID recession demolished media ad markets, broadcast networks were gutting on-air talent at the both the national and collegiate level to trim budgets and automate programming: syndicating well-known shows and brands, prerecording and prearranging late-night broadcasts, training a roboticized voice to fill in the space when needed. Coupled with major streaming services’ dependence on algorithms and automation to curate playlists and make user recommendations—often with bizarre side effects—these developments make clear that the music industry anticipates the need for fewer humans down the line.

A.I. hasn’t yet finished killing the radio star, nor is it truly likely to anytime soon. But there’s a new digital buddy out there that might give hosts additional pause: RadioGPT, a new tool from the Ohio-based software company Futuri Media that fully digitizes the broadcast host as you know it. According to Futuri, which has worked with large corporations like iHeartMedia and Tribune Publishing, its “new and revolutionary product” combines a few tools: TopicPulse, a Futuri app that provides an automated way to scan media sources and pull out relevant topics for coverage; GPT-3, the large language model that powers the hit chatbot ChatGPT; and A.I.-voice “personalities” made by Futuri that can learn the info scraped by TopicPulse and aggregated by GPT-3 to read readymade copy live on air. Oh, and it’s trained to know all available facts about the music played by your station, so it can even intro upcoming tracks and provide trivia as needed. The RadioGPT beta is currently being tested by large radio owners in the United States and Canada, and to gauge from preliminary reviews, it seems pretty good. Accomplished enough, at the very least, to reawaken worst-case fears regarding the future of human radio jobs, no matter what you actually make of RadioGPT’s humanoid talent.

I recently spoke with two Futuri Media executives—CEO and co-founder Daniel Anstandig, and CFO Marty Shagrin—to discuss the reasons for creating RadioGPT, the potential use cases for the tech, and how to square radio-industry automation with the Futuri team’s “passion for entertainment and pop culture,” as Anstandig characterized it. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Nitish Pahwa: When did you come up with the idea for RadioGPT?

Daniel Anstandig: The idea for RadioGPT started before GPT was a mainstream concept. About three years ago, we started working on an A.I. voice project to help augment on-air personalities and bring voices to air shifts for radio and TV programming that are typically unmanned—when there aren’t people in the studio and there’s no live and local content available. Along the way, there’ve been limitations around the realness versus the synthetic quality of the voices, and there’ve been challenges we’ve faced around making the on-air hosts more humanistic.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve developed automation systems that directly interface with radio and TV stations and the automation systems that run what’s happening on the air. We had TopicPulse, which scans information from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and over 250,000 news sources so we can see what’s trending in a local market as big as New York or as small as Medicine Hat, Alberta. We’ve also been able to integrate GPT-3, which has made our scripts more conversational. That was a big breakthrough. At the same time, we had a breakthrough around our A.I. voices becoming more humanlike and more, I would say, interesting to listen to over long-form programming.

Marty Shagrin: We’ve built our company around helping broadcasters focus on local content that is engaging, that brings people of a community together. A.I. has been in development for a long time, so itself, it’s not magical. It’s about the way that it’s used to deliver against the promise of broadcast content, whose 90 percent national reach has been built on local and live content.

Something you mentioned, Daniel, is that there’s so much radio at this point that’s been automated, especially late-night programming. So from your view, RadioGPT is a way to bring back personality to those humanless shifts?

Anstandig: I do think there’s an advantage to being more current, and we have technology that helps personalities or talent to be timely. As an example, inside TopicPulse, we use A.I. to predict what’s going to go viral in a local market. So if a station is voice-tracking—that’s the industry term for what you’re describing—or prerecording their content with a personality, they could conceivably look ahead in that market to see what’s currently trending with their audience and what’s predicted to go viral, or determine what will be interesting at that time.

One of the advantages of RadioGPT is that it knows about an artist or a song or about a current event, so it can speak to a broad range of topics concisely and in an entertaining way. When we set up RadioGPT voices, this is not text-to-speech. This is setting up character and personality in A.I., with a perspective, with character traits, with a viewpoint that is presenting a certain view or idea to the audience. That’s a tremendous upgrade from listening to prerecorded content.

It’s interesting to hear that angle, because I think when it comes to DJs or radio workers who’ve seen the industry contract—especially in terms of headcount—some might be inclined to say: “It’s A.I. that’s pushing us out of our jobs to begin with. And now there’s this new A.I. gizmo to fill in for people who’ve been displaced.” I’m curious if you’ve heard from local DJs about what they make of an advanced tool like this.

Anstandig: We have heard from a lot of air personalities as well as station owners and managers. We’ve heard from virtually every major streaming service, as well. In general, everyone is leaning in to the opportunity to dream up innovative, creative ways to augment talent, or to help talent do what they do best and create more companionship on the air. As an example, if you have a show that is carried in multiple markets, imagine that show is able to use the same station host or that same host’s voice to narrate local weather, news, traffic, or to talk about an event that’s happening, even though the show is on a national platform. That’s tremendous. Imagine that you could take a show that’s presented in English but then, in near real time, translate it into Spanish and have that read by an A.I. voice. You could also look at situations where hosts want to add RadioGPT or A.I. as a co-host and interact with it.

We have heard from personalities that are concerned that somehow there’s a mission here to replace them. But that is the furthest thing from our mindset. Local is the key to attracting audiences, and you can bet every streaming service is going to innovate in this way. We’re talking to every major service about ways to use our system. Why shouldn’t radio do the same thing? Radio shouldn’t have unmanned air shifts without live and local content.

A.I. systems—whether for voice imitation or LLMs or aggregation—run on big datasets, and there are all sorts of energy and computing costs. What’s the financial burden of making a product like this and distributing it?

Anstandig: The cost of doing this well is tremendous because you are stacking on different technologies, some that are proprietary and patented by Futuri and created over many years, along with services like GPT-3. So there is an innovation cost upfront. We think, in the long run, that for companies to do this well, there will be continued investment, but obviously technology cost scales over time.

Shagrin: We think about the financial impact all the time. But that was probably seventh or eighth on the priority list. First and foremost for us is, will the audience like this? Is this going to be an engaging solution for our partners to deliver great content to their audience? If this can help them do that, then it’s something that we owe it to them to explore.

I’ve spoken with musicians over the years who are miffed at the algorithmification of playlists, which fuels this situation where a lot of the same big artists get picked by the same big playlists over and over again. And if you’re not on there, or unless your label’s doing payola, you’re not going to gain that distribution. With more systems like this in the radiosphere—which is still important to artists—what you would say to concerns about automated systems highlighting the same artists time and again?

Anstandig: There’s this sense that technology tends to amplify what it thinks is already popular. However, that all comes down to the complexity of the algorithm and the way the algo is built to serve a certain listener. I personally have been involved in it, not only at Futuri but in the music industry; I’ve published and written hundreds of songs. So I’m always concerned about how the algos are prioritizing or exposing different songs and artists to new audiences. What I can tell you is that I believe today there’s more opportunity for independent artists and non-label acts to find an audience than ever before. I think there used to be a paradigm that familiarity was the most important thing when it came to prioritizing what shows up in a playlist or in an algo. Now, there’s more nuance around what the audience really wants: Are there certain types of music and entertainment that are more appealing when they’re new or more novel?

Shagrin: Remember, the way RadioGPT works is that it’s hooked up to and synced with a radio station’s automation system. We can offer ideas, but they’re still dictating what is played when, and what that looks like. Local markets know more about their audience, and so they still dictate that, and they can still drive that.

Local news has been decimated in all markets, whether newspapers or radio shows or TV. There are all these attempts to try to revitalize it, including yours, it sounds like, where you scan social networks and news outlets for reports you can broadcast over the radio. But there can be a lot of misinformation or misleading news that spreads quickly, and that in turn can be picked up; I’m thinking about, say, the false reports that often surround a mass shooting. I’d love to hear what sorts of guardrails you have in mind to stanch that effect.

Anstandig: It’s always best to have a human in the studio when there’s a crisis. We’ve seen that in recent years with active shooter situations, local weather disasters. That being said, there are ways to surface information faster: looking at location-based data and combining that with niche publications, blogs, or traditional news outlets for verification. In the case of TopicPulse, even though we have over a decade of experience in social media monitoring and predictions and A.I.-powered discovery of stories, we still have a small human moderation team that observes what’s trending in the system, that looks into trends as they’re emerging in markets. Because we do recognize there’s a certain amount of assurance or accountability that comes with being on this side of media.

Shagrin: The active shooter situation is near to me. I have a daughter who goes to Michigan State, where I know you went to school. So I was living that shooting situation in real time through my phone, as she was texting me and seeing how the news was covering it.

One of the things we focus on is that what’s relevant in a local market and to an audience is not always breaking. Breaking news is a bit of a different business than we are in. We are trying to identify those stories that are trending, relevant, most engaging to an audience. By doing that, we reduce the risk of reporting something that was first put out there and was incorrect. I know there were lots of incorrect stories being reported as that was going on at Michigan State.

I did have MSU on the mind when asking that—I’m really glad your daughter’s OK.

Changing the subject: Since the late ’90s, a lot of local radio stations have been consolidated or shuttered. How can A.I. revitalize local news and targeted music curation even when the corporate structures of radio markets may not be best suited for local regions?

Anstandig: First, I’ll just say that A.I. is not inherently biased or dishonest. It’s trained by humans. So when we think about RadioGPT and TopicPulse and our technology, we are training it with a media mindset. We’re ensuring that it’s trained on diverse, high-quality data sources, that the information generated can ultimately stand up to the trade winds of media, and that we don’t expect that we’re the last stop when we deliver content or information to a newsroom or to a broadcaster. That we know there are humans to verify and fact-check and think about regulation and ethical guidelines.

I think A.I. is part of the future recipe for media growth. It is certainly a way that costs can be reduced in certain parts of the industry, but it’s also an incredible growth mechanism. Information can be personalized and localized at a level that very few newsrooms have the capacity for right now. As an example, if you’re covering the Los Angeles DMA, you have such a wide range of cultures and pockets of community to cover—from Orange County to West Hollywood to Long Beach to Downtown L.A. There are all very different groups of people with differing lifestyles, and news that matters in one area doesn’t necessarily matter in another. There are ways, using stream-stitching technology and other tools, to personalize and localize news in a way that matches the interests and the needs of a hyperlocal audience. There’s data analysis that can go into the formation of that content, prioritizing which types of topics or stories should be covered by different types of people on the team. There’s a lot of efficiency built in that elevates humans working in news to do what they do best, knowing that discovery and being able to surface content and information and emerging trends is more efficient for them.

When it comes to investigative reporting, I believe that that’s boots on the ground. Humans are still going to accomplish investigative reporting better than A.I., but A.I. is a heck of an assistant.

To take it back to music, when you look back at the history of radio, there’s often some quirky DJ personality taking out obscure records for listeners. With all these A.I. systems where you can personalize things—text and images and even music—is human curation dead?

Anstandig: No. I know there’s still a tremendous passion in broadcast radio to elevate new and local artists. There’s more of that in some markets than in others because the risk tolerance of placing emerging artists that are unfamiliar or unknown is just different in different-size markets.

But I think—between social media influencers who specialize in music, bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers—there are more creative pathways for a new artist or track to find the right platform and audience. I think that’s only going to continue to grow.

In that vein, do you think radio stations should look into hiring A.I.-attuned people, like prompt engineers or coders or basic fact-checkers/editors?

Anstandig: I believe that radio and TV, and media in general, should do what they do best and bring the human element and local influence to what, partnering with technologists who can provide the platforms and systems that help them to elevate their creativity, intuition, expertise. We’re not attempting to replace the human element that makes the sales process or the creative marketing process special, unique, effective. We’re simply providing data-driven insights to help an account or marketing executive be more effective about creating powerful campaigns.

I think that’s a perfect example of partnering the unique spark of a human with a unique spark of A.I. And I think there will be more of a combination. I don’t think broadcast radio companies necessarily need to suddenly turn into computer or data science hives and start building the next megamachine

Shagrin: There’s nothing magical about A.I. in itself. It’s only magical if it delivers something that the people want. Media companies—most businesses, frankly—should find a way to put the technology to use as a utility to deliver the results that they want. It doesn’t mean you have to be an expert in the guts of A.I.

In your respective views, what do you think is the best use case for RadioGPT, and what is the worst?

Anstandig: I think the best case is creating more entertaining, informative, live and local content for every radio station in the world, and attracting and retaining and entertaining audiences. The worst is completely replacing humans who mean so much to their communities and to their advertisers. But I think there’s so much more upside here than there is downside for everyone, especially the audience.

Shagrin: You know, I’m the CFO. Cutting costs is not where this is the best use case. This is about delivering great content.

Anstandig: I look forward to the day that A.I. and human shows are in real, direct competition with each other. I think it’ll raise the bar for broadcasters and air talent. It’ll be entertaining, and the listeners will win.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.