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zombie-eats-world · 6 months

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Crocodad Theory: The not-so-Crack-pot Theory.

Making this post in order to replace my old Crocodad thesis since I think I can do better now. Plus I was still using the old theory name then and I dislike seeing it pinned on my tumblr now. You can find that older post HERE if you desire to!

Crocodad theory, chances are you have heard about this theory if you are even slightly invested in the One Piece fandom. But despite its infamy, and outside its stanch believers like myself, it's mostly considered a crack theory and used for a laugh.

Now let's be clear, Crocodad theory is not a crack theory. A crack or crack-pot theory is more of a headcanon built on vibes, it's a fun idea made up out of thin air and isn't really serious. If the Crocodad theory was a crack theory it would have evaporated into the nether by now. It's over a decade old, after all, and yet it persists to this day! That is because the Crocodad theory has real evidence from the canon, the One Piece offshoots, and maybe even Oda himself.

If you weren't aware of the Crocodad theory, sometimes lovingly called Dadodile, let me summarize it very succinctly. The theory is that Crocodile is a transgender man and gave birth to Luffy. Crocodile is Luffy's other father and his birthing parent. If you think that sounds ridiculous or even hilarious, let me walk you through it because I assure you- that is intentional.

Let us begin where the theory began... Impel Down.

The possibility for this theory was born in 2009 with these panels:

The simple fact that Ivankov exists and that he knows Crocodile, from "when he was just starting out" mind you, makes this not only possible but probable.

What other "secret" could Ivakov be speaking of here? It's definitely not his weakness to water, that would just be bad storytelling. It could be that Crocodile is the child of Rocks which is possible considering we now know Ivankov was at the Gods Valley incident. But if I could speak as a writer for a moment, it would really be a waste for an author to introduce a character that can change genders and then bring back one of the first big villains like Crocodile, AND THEN connect the two with the mention of weakness but not make that secret that Crocodile had once been a woman. Or even at least a part of the reason.

But if that reasoning falls through for you, here is some in-canon evidence for the idea that Crocodile is transgender:

First of all, the agents' code names are so gendered: Every single digit agent is Mr with a Mrs, or Ms partner.

Crocodile’s name. His moniker is different from almost every other powerful pirate the story introduces to us. He isn’t just Desert King Crocodile, he is Desert King Sir Crocodile. Again it is oddly pronoun-centered. As if he is trying to remind people that he’s a guy.

The introduction of Bon Clay. Bon Clay is our first canon queer character in One Piece. He makes mention of being a girl many times and feels like a joke character when we first meet him. But as we know in One Piece, a pirate crew is a reflection of the Captain. Crocodile isn’t prejudiced to queer people like Bon Clay alludes to others being a few times. Crocodile even allowed Bon Clay to be both the male and female of his team!

Next up was the reveal of Baby Crocodile and how it’s deliberating ambiguous what gender Crocodile is. In every other Warlord's childhood look reveal, their gender is obvious, so why was Crocodile left out of that?

Then of course we have Gold Roger's execution, and how almost everyone got a reaction panel. But not Crocodile. No, we only see the back of his head. Oda has shown that he loves to get every single character's reaction to major events, sometimes to a fault. So why is he trying so hard to hide Crocodile from us? It just isn’t Oda’s style to leave someone out unless there is some kind of secret he wants to build up too. Now be sure to keep this in mind for later.

Last but certainly not least is just how much of an absolute troll Oda is. This will not be the last time I bring this up, Oda is a HUGE troll. He loves to play to his favorite fan theories and he decides most everything on how funny it is. And wouldn't it be funny if the first antagonist in the Grandline was secretly the birth parent of Luffy?

I mean just look at this! Oda, you absolute troll.

Bottom line: Trans Crocodile is more likely than not.

But this is where a lot of people decide the rest of this theory is crack, they take Trans!Crocodile and leave Crocodad out for reasons I honestly can't understand. Despite that, Cracodad has just as much if not more evidence than the Transgender part of this theory.

Before I begin I would like everyone reading to keep a few things in mind. All throughout the Impel down arc and the journey to Marineford, and even the first few chapters into Marineford, Crocodile could not have given a shit about Luffy, Ace, or the war at all. He did not care who won the war or if everyone involved died. He came to the battlefield for the sole purpose of killing Whitebeard. PERIOD. He was never once shown reacting with any concern when Luffy began facing down anyone strong. Not even Magellan. Crocodile had been around Luffy, seeing him do inspiring things for a massive amount of chapters by the time we get to Marineford, and yet Crocodile literally didn't care if Luffy lived or died, he just wanted to fight Whitebeard.

With that clear let's move on to what happened after Luffy's father was revealed to the world in Marineford. This moment is where the most obvious evidence first came about:

When Sengoku announces Luffy's father to the world we get many reaction shots, but once again Crocodile is conveniently missing from the lineup. He even disappears for a whole chapter! The young man who took down his decade-long plan to take over Alabasta just got announced to be the most wanted man in the world son, and we get no reaction from Crocodile... its suspicious.

Crocodile stopped Ace’s execution: Now Crocodile explains this by saying he ‘didn’t want to let Sengoku have the pleasure of victory’ but seriously? What kind of petty ass BS reasoning is that?! Crocodile has dreams and ambitions, and yet he gives up trying to be the one to take down Whitebeard to randomly save someone he canonly mocks in Impel Down? Someone he doesn’t care about. Some people will tell you it’s because Luffy inspired him like Luffy does many others, but what exactly is Luffy doing in Marineford that he didn’t in Impel Down or even Alabasta? Nothing. That means Crocodile has an entire about-face for no believable reason while completely off-screen. Which we've already said isn't Oda's style.

Daz and Crocodile face Mihawk to help Luffy: When Daz blocks Mihawk’s strike, Luffy questions it. Daz answers: It’s an order from above! That means Crocodile ordered Daz to specifically protect Luffy. Again, why? What reason did he have to do that? If this was some latent Crocodile has been inspired™️ moment, why wouldn’t Oda show it? Oda loves to hype up those moments, and loves to detail it all to the smallest piece. But Crocodile just randomly decided to have his main man Daz look out for this person that he COULDN’T HAVE GIVEN A CRAP ABOUT JUST TEN EPISODES BEFORE does not fit within the story. Then, right after Daz blocks Mihawk, Crocodile appears out of the woodwork to block another attack.

When Mihawk questions why he’d protect Luffy, Crocodile’s only response is “I’m not in the best mood now, Mihawk, you better watch yourself.” It’s interesting that he has no reason, none, he just comments that he’s in a shit mood. Maybe because he just found out he once stabbed his own child in the gut and left him to die?!

Crocodile vs Akainu: The brother killing Lava Man™️ is probably the most dangerous person in the war. He has no mercy, no morals, no restraint. So the fact that as Luffy is lying comatose and weak, with Jimbe slumped over him, Akainu about to deliver the final blow, Crocodile coming out of nowhere once again is so telling.

The fact is: Crocodile went above and beyond to save Luffy. That final stand against Akainu is so powerful. Crocodile doesn’t just save Luffy, he rushes to Luffy's aid, slicing through Akainu and reassembles to stand protectively between them. He did not need to do this at all. Oda didn’t need to have him do this either!

There were plenty of other characters that could have essentially done the same exact thing, but Oda chose to have Crocodile, someone who shouldn’t have been on Luffy’s side at all, save his life in the final moment.

Lastly, without a word, Crocodile uses Sables to get Luffy to Law’s ship. He risked his life, faced down the one person who could kill him without a second thought, and sweeps Luffy away to safety without any stated reason at all. In fact, everything he says is deliberately vague. Crocodile doesn’t believe in loyalty, he dumps people if they are weak (see; Alabasta Crocodile vs Luffy desert fight) so his line of “you gotta protect the one you wanna protect! Don’t let them have their way!” Feels so out of character. Crocodile has to have a reason for this odd behavior. And no, it doesn’t end there! In the defense of Luffy, Crocodile has an awesome and powerful moment where he stands in unity with all the Whitebeard commanders. HIS ENEMIES. Crocodile stands in unity with the people, he himself stated he hated more than anything, for Luffy!

These are the moments that alerted people to what would soon be called the Crocomom theory, now called Crocodad. But just because it began there doesn't mean there wasn't foreshadowing from before Marineford.

Let's go over all of that now:

First to talk about is once again Crocodile's crew. Miss Father's Day debuted in episode 124 of the anime and chapter 205 of the manga. She has a green amphibian theme to her, which is interesting because she is a woman with the moniker Father's Day while also having a theme of an animal that is famous for being able to change its gender. Her debut episode even has her introduced along with the reveal that Luffy's using his blood to fight Crocodile.

The next point is something Oda has never explained. Crocodile has strange relationships with children. From hiring a sixteen-year-old Miss Goldenweek, leaving her out of the Mr. 3 assassination order, and her history of actually sinking Crocodile's ships before getting hired, all the way to how Crocodile lectured Luffy in their fight. It just had the cadence of a parent. Not even Luffy's parent, just a parent. He lectures like someone who has experience with children.

Next, Luffy does not look like Dragon. That is a direct quote from Luffy in the manga. But you know who he does look like?

That's right! Luffy looks a lot like Crocodile. If you need more convincing on this, there is a great post by Dashevacotton that puts together many of the best canon pictures of Luffy dressed up like Crocodile. That post is here!

Crocodile and Luffy are incredibly similar. Not just in looks, but in personality, and in their general life.

These two have so much in common. From having a way with animals, to the amount of unadulterated loyalty they've inspired in their crews, all the way to the cadence of their speech.

Crocodile and Luffy even have a similarly goofy reaction to seeing the underground passage to the Alabasta Poneglyph.

Episode 123, episode time 13:16 Crocodile spots the entrance and laughs, "Ha, now I see secret stairs." Also in episode 123, episode time 20:47 Luffy looks around and spots the secret stairs. "That hole... it looks gator-ish."

Even what we know of Crocodile's backstory is that he had a rapid rise to fame just like Luffy by being a rookie who came in and beat down non-canon characters like Douglas Bullet to the shock of the world.

Next, let's bring up an earlier point: Oda-sensei is a mega troll.

This isn't exactly new information, Oda once deflected to bringing up a dick fight instead of answering if Zoro or Sanji was stronger. He is a Troll. He loves wordplay, and he likes to hint hint nudge nudge us all day long. Just look at Oda having Sanji call himself a prince in Alabasta as a joke, only to realize years later that he actually was a prince.

It's because of Oda's tendency to play around and make knowing jokes we've gotten some pretty compelling evidence for the Crocodad theory.

First would be the wordplay!

-Crocodile is closely linked to a Bananawani-> Monkeys like Banana -> Monkey D. Dragon is a reptilian Monkey attracted to Banana reptile. Fight me - A 'crocodile smile' is a term most often used to mean a fake or ingenuine smile. Crocodile's scar has been liked to look like a 'crocodile smile', which would mean Crocodile is the only character that always has a smile on his face. What a fun bit of wordplay to foreshadow the birth parent of Joyboy!

Then there is this SBS alongside the One Piece School spin-off manga by Sohei Koj.

What a great way to get out of revealing Luffy's parentage without actually revealing it!

And of course, we have the One Piece Mafia Theatre episode of the anime.

Oda would certainly make this canon just because of his troll tendencies. This is a hilarious theory because the story supports it yet only a fringe group believes in it. It's hilarious and therefore it's probably true.

Lastly, the symbolism makes this theory truly great.

I've already mentioned how Crocodile's scar being a 'crocodile smile' and thus giving him a permanent smile on his face would make him the most meaningful candidate for Luffy's birth parent. Joyboy, our Sun God Nika, was born from a man with a permanent fake smile; who is also named after an animal with the world's biggest smile.

It's just such a perfect setup, it makes my writer's heart swell.

Since Oda has stated a mother in One Piece would stop the adventure, it would fit that the first major villain in the Grandline to try and stop Luffy's adventure ended up being the man who gave birth to Luffy.

If we are going to speak of symbolism, I'd be remiss not to mention what a crocodile spiritually symbolizes. I really don't think I need to explain why adaptability, creation, ambiguity, and duality mean so much to this theory.

This theory could die or be confirmed any day now that we've entered a God's Valley flashback. I will love it either way but truly, honestly, I believe this. I hope I convinced a few of you to. If you are interested in the succinct list of Crocodad evidence that post is Here!

So in conclusion...

Crocodad is canon!

#one piece fandom #one piece #sir crocodile #anime #dadodile #monkey d luffy #fan theory #until the oda plops luffys mom in front of me i will believe this theory #theories #there is literally no other explanation for marineford without dadodile #luffy literally looks like crocodile #not a crack theory #long reads #long post

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aemxnd · 1 year

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the fire king | aegon ii targaryen x velaryon wife!reader

Aegon needs to have his own way for once.

Inspired by a filthy anon request for Aegon with absolutely no limits…

WARNINGS: consensual non-consent/dub-con, basically p0rn with very little plot, canon typical incest, v fingering, squirting, physical force, p in v, language, praise, degrading, mention of virginity loss, overstimulation, aegon going from cute to angry to cute again, slightly fluffy if you squint, absolutely not proofread sorry not sorry

WORDS: 5.5k

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used nor do I claim to own them.

Fuck this.

Aegon’s mind rattled through the infinite curses that could spill from his tongue in that moment, yet his immutable standing as King of the realms forbade him, an invisible gag clutching at his lips.

Fuck. This.

The council meeting had dragged on with no tangible progress, supporters whining about Rhaenyra’s uprising from her Dragonstone seat, hapless solutions to an impending battle floating in the stagnant air and looming like a stormcloud in the room. Although he’d resigned himself to his fate as their chosen heir to the Iron Throne, it brought Aegon no joy to bear witness to the endless bickering in his name. No matter how hard he protested, his mother or grandsire would soon interject with an alternative, alluding that they knew best and it would be wise to follow their instruction. A king in nothing but name, Aegon had no true command over his own destiny. Compliance came first, contentment came second.

Fuck all this.

Aegon’s fingers danced over the glass orb perched before him, the pad of his thumb gliding over its cool, smooth surface his only distraction from the banality of his position. Like his idly occupied digits, memories swirled of a more peaceful time spent in the bowels of the Street of Silk, when a simple cloak could conceal his identity yet the mere mention of his name would open doors closed to all but the onetime prince of the realm. Although such heady freedoms had been snatched from him with the placing of the crown upon his silver curls, there was only one thing such halcyon days of his life lacked: his Queen.

Betrothed to the youngest of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen’s heirs since the Driftmark succession, the pairing sought to publicly immortalise the union between High Tide and the Red Keep, or at least in the eyes of the slowly perishing King Viserys who longed for peace between his Targaryen offshoots before he departed his mortal body. Little did the two factions expect the couple forced together for political appearances would fall so deeply in love as Aegon and the Lady Velaryon. From the moment their eyes first met over the grand banquet at the succession, every interaction between them seemed as natural as breathing. From chaste brushes of fingers as they clanked goblets in toasts to Aegon’s uncharacteristic soft giggles as his gaze dropped comfortably to his chest before snapping back to lose himself in her lilac eyes.

The Lady Velaryon brought out the best in the drunken prince in the blink of an eye. He swore off cups and promiscuity that same night, resolving that no amount of bitter wine and fleeting company could rival the ecstasy coursing through his veins when his betrothed looked upon him as if he were the only man in the known world.

The star-crossed lovers were wed the next day, saving their first kiss for the moment they were announced man and wife. Aegon stepped nervously toward her, reaching a hand to cup her cheek and capturing her lips, two jigsaw pieces slotting into place. In the years that followed, his lady wife guided Aegon through his father’s demise, his council’s enforcement of his claim to the Iron Throne against his father’s final wishes, and the ensuing rise of incurable ill will between House Targaryen’s fiery branches. Throughout the rumbles of conflict that would surely melt down the Iron Throne, the only constant in his life would be the Queen at his side, hands clasped at her front and a comforting grin dancing across her lips. Whatever troubled waters he faced in the day, he could always retire to his chambers to the calming brook of his wife’s arms. Although the therapeutic steady stream would soon burst into a fierce waterfall once Aegon’s hands fell upon her irresistible frame, their tidal waves colliding together among the sheets and crafting a devastating tsunami in their wake.

“Your Grace?” The distant voice of the Hand called through Aegon’s dream-like stupor, snapping his consciousness back to the dimly-lit council meeting hall. Vision focusing slowly on the Hand’s figure standing bolt upright across the table, his countenance expectant yet determined all at once. “What do you suggest, your Grace?”

“I… uh…,” Aegon stuttered, gaze darting around the table for a signal of the conversation he missed, meeting only blank faces eagerly awaiting his response. “I… think we should all… uh… retire for the evening. It is late, we have spent hours debating our next move and now the hour of the owl is almost upon us, our judgement is clouded. I order you all to return to your chambers to consider the situation anew on the morrow.”

Aegon slammed his fists on the table insistently, rising to his feet with their aid as the eyes of the room bore into him bewildered.

“Your Grace, I strongly suggest we—.”

“Yes, grandsire, I am certain you have a veritably long-winded suggestion to raise to keep us here until daybreak,” Aegon seethed through gritted teeth, fists tightening beneath him against the ageing wood. “But I, on the other hand, have a wife I must attend to. I trust you remember what that feels like.”

A stony silence fell amongst the present number, Otto’s brows knitted together.

“But your Grace, I must protest—.”

“I dare you to protest against me once more, ser!” Aegon’s tightly coiled temper snapped into a booming roar, his bark still echoing around the chamber seconds after his last syllable left his tongue. “And I will have your head on a spike for defying the King’s orders!”

The tension in the hall was so palpable, Aegon could swear the very air hanging over the council table pulsed and swelled, taking on a deep crimson hue. His own laboured breaths from his outburst burst through the uncomfortable silence, taking deep inhales as he scanned each face to ensure compliance had fell upon them all.

“Good, I can see we have all come to an agreement,” Aegon kicked his chair aside and bounded across to the door, bellowing on his exit: “On the fucking morrow.”

The doors on Aegon’s furious journey back to his chambers bowed out of his path in the same manner he would wish from the council, days wasted trying and failing to persuade his own trusted advisors to acquiesce to his will when he could be laying with his lady wife, or rather hammering her very skeleton into the mattress beneath him. As he meandered around identical flagstoned corridors, Aegon wrung his hands before him, pressing his thumbs into the flesh until it turned a white hot beneath the pressure. His plan of action lay before him as straight as the horizon, arriving at the door to his marital chambers sooner than he expected. A deep sigh escaped him as he laid his hand on the wood that came between him and his final destination, squeezing his eyes shut before plunging through the portal without a care for what he would find on the other side.

Spinning to close the door against his back, Aegon discovered you surrounded by maids clutching at your heavy gown, the weight of its deep green velvet making the fabric plummet to pool at your feet as they disrobed you to your smallclothes. You spun on your heels to face your husband, your maids hurriedly curtsying in their arranged circle around you.

“Good evening, your Grace,” you chimed sweetly, a warm smile spreading across your cheeks as your gaze fell upon the man who held your heart from the moment you first met.

“Leave us, ladies,” he sighed gently, not expecting to be heard.

“Yes, your Grace,” each lady chirped, gathering the fabric from the floor and dutifully scurrying from the room.

Aegon cast a confused glance at the flurry of ladies sweeping past him, heads bowed to avoid his vision. “Well, that was alarmingly easy.”

“Has the council finally set you free, dear husband?” You cooed, pacing gently toward him.

“It would appear so,” he stated matter-of-factly, battling his own better judgement to revive the anger he felt before he opened the door and found the beauty of his lady wife.

“I was just trying on a new gown for Aemond’s return from Storm’s End. Gods be good you just missed the full show, I was hoping to keep it a secret for the grand occasion.”

Upon your arrival before him, you raised the back of your hand to graze against his cheek. His alabaster skin was searing hot with pent-up rage, the young king closing his eyes and dipping gently into the sensation of your cool skin melting his resolve.

When his eyes opened again, however, his lilac gaze darkened to a pitch black.

“Get on the bed,” he demanded through gritted teeth, his jaw tensed as he spat each syllable with a sinister venom. “Now.”

“Y… yes, your Grace?” You half-questioned, scanning his face for confirmation yet finding nothing but a half-shaken resolve before treading tentatively away toward the four-poster. Two half-hearted steps later, Aegon lunged forward and briskly grasped your arms, his nimble fingers blazing a trail downwards to lock your hands behind your back, pulling you flush to his chest.

“Resist me with all your might and I shall reward you with every peak you desire,” Aegon purred into the shell of your ear, planting a kiss where his words left behind goosepimples. “What word will you say to cease my advances should you feel unsafe, issa jorrāelagon?” My love.

You choked lightly as you composed your thoughts, thoughts swirling back to the previous occasion where Aegon insisted on proclaiming a word which would enable each of you an instant escape if either of you had taken your bedroom escapades too far. In the moment those two words hung in the air between you, you were to release one another without question or complaint, untie any restraints and salve any wounds or pain that might be caused.

“S… Sunfyre, ñuha perzys dārys,” you stuttered, hardly able to hear your own words over his deafening quickened breaths behind your ear, every second of holding you to his will driving his restrained fury to the surface. My fire king.

“Good girl,” he hummed into your ear, planting another confirming kiss on your ear before stepping you carefully forward. “Let’s get you on the bed.”

Aegon’s loose clasp of your hands and gentle treads forward betrayed his demands, his careful handling of his delicate wife ensuring your safety. The sole cause of the cold dread flooding through your veins as you approached the edge of the bed was when the kindnesses would cease and the ruthless Aegon would arrive. He had only made a handful of appearances in the bedroom before, but he had always been introduced well in advance. Tonight, you had no preparation, no introduction, only fear of where his limits lay this night.

Your knees nudged to the wooden bed frame and you instinctively swallowed hard, squeezing your eyes together in prayer for your husband’s mercy once he had fucked his frustrations into you.

“Do not be afraid, ñuha embar dāria,” he soothed, planting another reassuring kiss into the nape of your neck. My sea queen. “I do not intend to hurt you.”

Releasing your hands from behind your back, his own traversed your frame to unbutton your smallclothes until the linen pooled at your feet, the cold air of the chamber pricking your skin as you instinctively wrapped your arms around yourself. Aegon gripped your forearm and spun you on your heels to face him, his eyes now blackened and menacing as they consumed the sight of you.

“I only intend to break you.”

With a forceful palm pressed into your chest, Aegon pushed you down to the sheets, tumbling onto the soft mattress beneath you. His reckless silver curls framed his face as he towered at the foot of the bed, your thighs clenching together before him.

“Tell me to stop,” he commanded, frantically battling to decimate his own black clothing from his frame, the three-headed dragon cast to the floor to remove all semblance of ceremony between you. “Order me to cease and I will force you to take what I give you.”

His words alone sent you gently writhing among the sheets as he kneeled on the edge of the mattress, the mere thought of Aegon not taking no for an answer had never really crossed your mind before. His lovemaking was always a level playing field, constant hushed queries of your current state spilling whenever you had fallen too silent for his liking. This new relentless version of your husband intrigued you, but also paralysed you to the spot with anxiety where this new facade would draw the line with you, if indeed such a line existed.

“You look so beautiful like this,” he gloated, groaning hungrily deep in his throat as he consumed the sight before him, your anticipation of his next move utterly palpable. “So fragile, so delicate… so submissive.”

The predatory tone in his voice hitched your breaths in your lungs, coming out as ragged exhales as he crawled onto the bed, sharply nudging his knees between yours and forcefully parting your thighs, both hands braced on either side of your head and caging you to the spot. Gazing down at you through tumbling silver waves, Aegon tutted and skewed the corner of his lip in disapproval.

“I don’t see you fighting me, dear wife. Do you perhaps need reminding that I will not continue if you do not obey my orders?”

You gulped so loud, the thrum of your throat could well have echoed around the deathly silence of the chamber. Aegon leaned to hover his lips over yours, towering over you with a menacing grin as he watched you feign a squirm beneath him. His mouth drew nearer, breaths fanning your face and you pressed your eyes closed, jerking your face to one side away from him as if your life depended on swerving his kiss.

“That’s my girl,” Aegon growled, one hand fired to grab your jaw and yanked you to face him, crashing his lips against yours and fervently pressing into you. Your false grunts of resistance vibrated into his mouth and drove him to consume you further, greedily smashing into you and nibbling at your bottom lip. “I knew you could do it.”

His fingertips digging hard into your cheeks, your jaw constricted in his grasp and your soft flesh paled to a searing hot white beneath his grip.

“Get off me,” you snapped through gritted teeth, testing your ability to resist him by squirming and thrashing your head in his hold. “You’re power mad, Aegon, you can’t just take me when you feel like it.”

“You think so?” Aegon half-roared deep in his throat, eyes narrowing to a sinister sneer looming down over you. “I’ve spent all fucking day in that council being told what to do, I have no say in my own destiny so for once, just this once, do as I say.”

Releasing his grip on your face, his seizing hand fired down to your thigh, clutching at the soft flesh spread before him and earning a gentle buck of your hips in response. Your sensitivity prickled all Aegon’s senses, lurching his hand to your center to discover just how much your body truly craved him, only to find your sodden folds aching for his next move.

“How is it your cunt knows you belong to me, but your tongue does not?” Aegon snapped, tracing a light fingertip over the outline of your entrance and fluttering his eyelids as you keened into the sensation. “Look at you, you’ve always wanted me to take you by force, haven’t you sweetling?”

“Fuck off, Aegon,” you scowled through ragged breaths, squirming beneath him in a vain escape attempt. “I’m only wet because I can’t remember the last time you fucked me properly.”

His eyes bulged, a cold wave of shock washing over him as a newfound venom spilled from your acid tongue. This character was so unlike you, he could swear his wife was possessed by an unearthly force. Were you being truthful? Was he not satisfying his wife for your entire marriage? Was this part of the act?

For a brief moment, the King froze to the spot, gathering his thoughts and putting all his bets on the outcome he’d prefer. Settling for the latter result with all the hope he had mustered, he took your cutting words and buried two fingers inside your waiting heat, stealing the breath from your lungs with each knuckle breaching your folds as his finger curled fervently inside your core.

“You’re going to regret that, my insolent little Queen,” he seethed, nestling his fingers deep inside you and filling you to the hilt. He stilled as he reached up to his knuckle, not pumping in and out as he normally would. Instead, his forefinger and little finger rested at the meeting of your thighs, stroking outside your core as he slowly started drawing his hand up and down from the sheets to the sky and plunging his fingertips into your walls, stroking the spongy surface before pulling back and slamming upwards again. Settling at an alarming pace, your body betrayed you as your hips grinded up into his touch, your thighs quaking beneath him.

“S—stop, Aegon,” you ordered half-heartedly, voice cracking with the intensity of the building tension in your cunt. “You repulse me.”

“Tell that to your body, dear wife,” he rasped, ramping up his thrusts so that the rhythmic lewd splashes of pleasure from your core filled the chamber. “I can feel your cunt bowing to its King.”

Your weak efforts to restrain your hips to the sheets waned with every eager plunge of his fingertips into your walls, instead trying to disguise your pathetic writhing underneath him as an attempt to escape his clutches, but the more you struggled the more he chased your approval.

“S… stop,” your feeble plea stuttered on your tongue with the building pressure inside your walls rising to a searing heat, your head sinking back into the pillows with your eyes journeying to the ceiling. The sooner you distracted yourself from watching your silver King claim you in the filthiest manner, the more convincing your rejections would sound and the less it would seem like you were nearing a faux-reluctant climax. “Let me go, Aegon, fuck!”

“Not until you let go for me,” Aegon snarled, perching on his knees and hooking a hand behind your head to force your gaze down to the action between your thighs, his fingers thrumming into your walls with his palm cupping over your bundle of nerves only increasing the pressure inside you. His ragged breaths from his exertion blended into your own stammering rhythm, battling to maintain your guise of composure as Aegon destroyed you from within. “Go on, let go all over my fingers. Soak the sheets I deflowered you on, show me how much you need me.”

His words alone sent you careering over the edge of your peak, screaming out in frustration and lurching your back up to meet him in mid-air as a tight band snapped in your core. A wave of ecstasy suddenly flooded within you and poured free from your cunt in a violent spray, following Aegon’s orders to the letter as warmth pooled into the sheets beneath you, withdrawing his fingers to watch your climax unfold. Your eyelids clenched shut with shame, drawing your bottom lip between gritted teeth and willing the ground to swallow you whole. So caught up in your own embarrassment, you could not see the accomplished grin beaming across Aegon’s plush lips or his pupils blown pitch black with lust, his expression a combination of sultry desire, predatory domination and pride over your staggering obedience.

A silence fell between you as you both calculated the event in very different ways — while you held onto a ridiculous hope that Aegon would forget this ever happened, Aegon was consumed with wonder when, or indeed if, he could make you reach that high again.

“Do that again,” he declared, thrusting his fingers back into your dripping folds and caressing your slippery walls inside, dragging his fingers in the same beckoning manner that made your spine flex both away from and into him simultaneously. “Don’t make me wait, issa jorrāelagon.”

“G… get off me, Aegon,” you whimpered with all the strength you could muster, your mask of protest slowly slipping as you jerked beneath his vice grip on your heat, tension already rising inside you. “Y… you make me sick.”

“Now now, that’s no way to talk to the husband who can make your cunt flow like a waterfall,” his domineering sarcasm dripped like honey from his tongue, concentrating his strength on hammering inside you so hard the muscles on his forearm protruded with exertion. “You can give me another, there’s a good girl.”

“Stop, now!” You cried out with a spurt of faux-disobedient energy, desperately praying to the Seven that he could not draw another humiliating scene from you, obstinately clenching your thighs around his waist to offset the uncomfortably familiar pressure rising inside. “You can’t do this to me, Aegon!”

“Have you forgotten already, little one? I own you, you and this pretty wet cunt that’s already shaking around my fingers.” His filthy sneer accompanied a new move to a punishing pace slamming into your walls, stroking at the spongy interior as if to beckon your peak forward once more. “Just give me what I want and shut that disobedient mouth before I shut it for you.”

“Try me,” you spat without even thinking about the consequences of such a temptation, half-closing your eyes as if you would catch a glimpse of the eye of the storm in your husband’s gaze.

Sure enough, Aegon’s grip on the back of your neck released as he fired his hand to meet the valley of your hips, planting his palm in the plane of your pelvis and pressing down until he could feel his fingers plunging within you. Your strangled gasp in response suggested his new angle was working its charm immediately, your spine curving into mid-air to throw your hips up into his touch.

“That’s it,” he growled lowly, pushing deeper and pistoning his fingers faster to race you to the edge once more. “Can’t come up with a quick insult now, can you?”

“F… fuck you, Aegon!” You screamed out as your second wave consumed you, another clear fountain breaching your entrance and spilling over his waiting fingers, which he chose to run through your folds to spray your release even further over the sheets. Wails of frustration and overstimulation poured from your lips, your thighs quivering and writhing uncontrollably as the aftershocks took hold of your body.

“Soon, my love,” he cooed in a break from his dominant streak, too wrapped up in the power rushing to his head after eliciting two floods from you in quick succession. “Just give me one more.”

“N… no, please,” you begged as his fingers dipped inside your sensitive walls once more, your hips keening frantically into the sheets to desperately avoid another sensory onslaught. Your protests up until then had been false, tempting and almost goading, but that time, your senses could not withstand any more. Your folds puffy and abused, your forehead dripping with sweat, your breaths laboured and jagged. You were sure you could not produce another wave, let alone withstand his fingers punishing your core. “Please, no more…”

“Come on, little one,” his honeyed encouragement came through a softer voice than before, almost registering your overstimulation but craving one more chance at claiming you more than he ever had before. “Just one more for me, I know you can do it.”

His fingers slipped into your dripping heat with ease, gently caressing that sensitive spot inside you for a few moments before returning to his relentless pace hammering back and forth inside you.

“Stop, Aegon, please…,” your pleas far more convincing as you began to mean the words you spilled, your voice cracking weakly as his ministrations inside your cunt stole the air from your lungs.

“Just one more, that’s my good Queen,” he pressed, his one palm stroking the valley of your hips while the other rubbed your mound eagerly in time with his fingers curving inside your pulsing heat. “One more for me, soak the sheets again for your King.”

Your third wave arrived with a scream of his name that made no sound as it left your tongue, too exhausted to produce an audible syllable as you gushed another flood over his fingers still buried inside you, downright explicit splashing sounds echoing through the chamber in place of your voiceless cries.

“Good girl, good girl,” Aegon praised with wonder as he consumed the sight of his digits dripping with your release as he finally withdrew from you, the sheets sodden to translucency beneath you, glimmering droplets of your climax splattered over both your thighs and his own. Your legs refused to still, quaking uncontrollably in the aftermath of the sensory onslaught brought upon you by your husband’s desperate clamour for power in his life.

At last, he had power over one thing. But at what cost?

Brushing a tumbling silver curl from his face with a soaking hand, he reached to pay you the same kindness only for you to whip your face away from his touch. His brows knitted together tightly, a piece of his heart breaking to see you flinch from your husband so eagerly. Had he gone too far?

“Issa jorrāelagon,” he purred softly, a flush of dread cracking his voice. “Are you… are you well?”

You shot a stern gaze back at his terrified countenance, his pallor flushing to a sheer white as if the blood had drained from his face. His fingers ventured to touch your cheek again only to find you wincing away from him once more. Another piece of the King’s heart shattered.

“My Queen, did…,” his fragile stammer signing the validity to his concern. “Did I hurt you? I… I never meant to hurt you.”

He scanned your face for a response, any response that would shatter the glass of suspense between you. Your eyes betrayed nothing, your cheeks gave away no sign, yet as his gaze journeyed to your mouth, Aegon discovered your lips ever so slightly curling into a childlike mocking grin.

It was an act all along.

He let out a sigh of defeat and clicked his tongue in sharp disapproval.

“You have played your hand well, dear wife,” Aegon admitted, running his still-dripping hand through his wavy locks once more before rolling onto his knees, pressing one palm to spread your thighs beneath him while the other gripped his length, palming it lightly and surging the tip toward your swollen entrance. “But you underestimate your opponent.”

In one smooth flick of his hips, his cock slipped into your heat to the hilt, earning her another strangled gasp from the bottom of your lungs. The overwhelmingly full sensation of his length finally fitting inside you like the missing piece of your jigsaw left you battling the urge to throw your arms around his neck and capture his lips with yours. For the sake of the wicked game to which you had committed yourself, your surge of energy was spent on planting your palms on his bare chest and pushing him away from you with all your might. Unsurprisingly, his body weight was immovable and your fight was futile, eliciting a sinister chuckle from your dominant husband as he picked up a rampant pace, drawing his hips back and slamming down into you with a brute force.

“I don’t want this, Aegon,” you lied, your faux-protest delivered through a clenched jaw at the same time your thighs gave up their battle and spread wide for his languid thrusts to reach you easier. “I don’t fucking want you!”

“If you truly don’t want me, why is your cunt singing my name?” Aegon played his hand so eloquently for a man whose eyes were gently roving skyward at the feeling of your walls welcoming him so warmly, wrapping around him and choking his every piston deep into your heat. “Say the word and I will set you free, but until then I will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

You swallowed thickly, his menacing nature such a contrast from the doting husband who only moments before had feared his own strength on your body, the man who had broken before your very eyes at the mere sight of your seemingly authentic rejection. He revelled in your wilful resistance, but each time he doubted whether you truly meant the sentiments behind your actions, Aegon Targaryen crumbled.

“No!” You cried out, gently writhing your hips in a false attempt to escape him but only succeeding in grinding up into Aegon and slipping his cock even deeper inside your heat. “Please, no!”

“As you wish, my sea queen,” Aegon confirmed with an accomplished grin, rearing his hips to deliver a punishing thrust that stole the breath from your lungs. “Think you can give me one more?”

Your gentle shake of your head acted as both truth and a lie at the same time — your resistant facade suggested you didn’t want to reach your peak a fourth time, your overstimulated cunt certainly did not feel as if it could deliver another flood of fluids, yet you somehow craved another chase of that ecstasy with Aegon splitting you open so perfectly.

“Good, I knew you could take it for me,” Aegon growled, curling his hips to plunge inside you so deep that his cockhead nudged impatiently at your cervix, leaving a hollow tension in your stomach in his wake. “Gods, your cunt is still so tight around me, you feel like the heavens.”

You whispered his name like a secret sacrament, inaudible over the wet slapping of skin and Aegon’s eager groans as he impaled you. Unfortunately for you, Aegon had read your lips.

“That’s it, little one,” he gloated gleefully, pouring every inch of his length within you in devastating curled motions. “Your King has you now.”

“F—fuck,” your broken stammer betrayed the tight coil of searing heat building in your core and constricting your walls around his cock in the same way your thighs clamped around his waist. “Fuck, I’m…”

“My dear sweet submissive Queen,” he cooed softly, pummelling into you with a newfound energy and leaving you both gasping for air. “Chase that high again, I know you can give me one more.”

With his next merciless plunge into your cervix, you instinctively flung your arms around his neck and pulled him down to capture his lips, screaming into his mouth you toppled over your peak and flooded over his cock, the clear jet of your ecstasy spilling from your folds and soaking his length until his sack of stones dripped with your release. A hungry growl rumbled on his lips as his hand travelled to where your bodies joined, splashing his fingers through the fountain of your climax feverishly spilling over him as he continued to pummel inside you.

“That’s it,” he drawled lazily into your mouth, his syllables catching on his tongue and rolling slowly onto yours. The veins traversing his length protruded and prickled as his own release neared, jolting and twitching inside you as he continued plunging into you. “Now take everything I give you like a good girl.”

His last sound signalled a stutter of his hips, his own climax flooding inside you and pouring his seed as far in your cunt as he could reach. Aegon deepened your kiss to disguise his own explicit moans, lazy growls echoing into your mouth as he jerked softly into you, his peak flooding your insides with a familiar warmth you knew so well, but this time, the sensation was unrivalled.

“I… I love you,” Aegon’s fragment whisper against your lips sounded fragile once more, his dominant alter ego well and truly buried with his seed inside you. Refusing to withdraw his length as if the action of leaving your folds would draw a close to the moment between you, Aegon continued kissing you as feverishly as the night you first met. “I love you so much.”

“I love you,” you whispered back, hands trailing into his silver waves and tugging gently, clamouring for contact after refusing to touch him ever since he laid you on the sheets, now sodden and cold beneath you. “Always.”

Aegon’s kiss came to a sudden halt, his eyes firing open as a realisation swept over him. Tearing his lips from yours, his eyes frantically searched your lips for a response before his enquiry even left his.

“Did you mean what you said?” His fearful query came from beneath furrowed brows and puppy-like pleading eyes. “Do I truly not fuck you properly, my sea queen?”

“My fire king,” you sighed contentedly, tightening your thighs around his waist and drawing his softening length deeper inside you. “If that is what I have to say to get you to do that, you can expect to hear it every night.”

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon ii fanfic #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii smut #aegon ii targaryen smut #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon targaryen x yn #tom glynn carney fanfiction #tom glynn carney #tom glynn carney imagines #hotd fanfiction #hotd smut #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fanfiction #aegon ii fic #aegon targaryen smut #aegon ii targaryen fanfiction #hotd

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reasonsforhope · 3 months

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Determined to use her skills to fight inequality, South African computer scientist Raesetje Sefala set to work to build algorithms flagging poverty hotspots - developing datasets she hopes will help target aid, new housing, or clinics.

From crop analysis to medical diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in essential tasks worldwide, but Sefala and a growing number of fellow African developers are pioneering it to tackle their continent's particular challenges.

Local knowledge is vital for designing AI-driven solutions that work, Sefala said.

"If you don't have people with diverse experiences doing the research, it's easy to interpret the data in ways that will marginalise others," the 26-year old said from her home in Johannesburg.

Africa is the world's youngest and fastest-growing continent, and tech experts say young, home-grown AI developers have a vital role to play in designing applications to address local problems.

"For Africa to get out of poverty, it will take innovation and this can be revolutionary, because it's Africans doing things for Africa on their own," said Cina Lawson, Togo's minister of digital economy and transformation.

"We need to use cutting-edge solutions to our problems, because you don't solve problems in 2022 using methods of 20 years ago," Lawson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video interview from the West African country.

Digital rights groups warn about AI's use in surveillance and the risk of discrimination, but Sefala said it can also be used to "serve the people behind the data points". ...

'Delivering Health'

As COVID-19 spread around the world in early 2020, government officials in Togo realized urgent action was needed to support informal workers who account for about 80% of the country's workforce, Lawson said.

"If you decide that everybody stays home, it means that this particular person isn't going to eat that day, it's as simple as that," she said.

In 10 days, the government built a mobile payment platform - called Novissi - to distribute cash to the vulnerable.

The government paired up with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) think tank and the University of California, Berkeley, to build a poverty map of Togo using satellite imagery.

Using algorithms with the support of GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that uses AI to distribute cash transfers, the recipients earning less than $1.25 per day and living in the poorest districts were identified for a direct cash transfer.

"We texted them saying if you need financial help, please register," Lawson said, adding that beneficiaries' consent and data privacy had been prioritized.

The entire program reached 920,000 beneficiaries in need.

"Machine learning has the advantage of reaching so many people in a very short time and delivering help when people need it most," said Caroline Teti, a Kenya-based GiveDirectly director.

'Zero Representation'

Aiming to boost discussion about AI in Africa, computer scientists Benjamin Rosman and Ulrich Paquet co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba - a week-long gathering that started in South Africa - together with other colleagues in 2017.

"You used to get to the top AI conferences and there was zero representation from Africa, both in terms of papers and people, so we're all about finding cost effective ways to build a community," Paquet said in a video call.

In 2019, 27 smaller Indabas - called IndabaX - were rolled out across the continent, with some events hosting as many as 300 participants.

One of these offshoots was IndabaX Uganda, where founder Bruno Ssekiwere said participants shared information on using AI for social issues such as improving agriculture and treating malaria.

Another outcome from the South African Indaba was Masakhane - an organization that uses open-source, machine learning to translate African languages not typically found in online programs such as Google Translate.

On their site, the founders speak about the South African philosophy of "Ubuntu" - a term generally meaning "humanity" - as part of their organization's values.

"This philosophy calls for collaboration and participation and community," reads their site, a philosophy that Ssekiwere, Paquet, and Rosman said has now become the driving value for AI research in Africa.

Inclusion

Now that Sefala has built a dataset of South Africa's suburbs and townships, she plans to collaborate with domain experts and communities to refine it, deepen inequality research and improve the algorithms.

"Making datasets easily available opens the door for new mechanisms and techniques for policy-making around desegregation, housing, and access to economic opportunity," she said.

African AI leaders say building more complete datasets will also help tackle biases baked into algorithms.

"Imagine rolling out Novissi in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast ... then the algorithm will be trained with understanding poverty in West Africa," Lawson said.

"If there are ever ways to fight bias in tech, it's by increasing diverse datasets ... we need to contribute more," she said.

But contributing more will require increased funding for African projects and wider access to computer science education and technology in general, Sefala said.

Despite such obstacles, Lawson said "technology will be Africa's savior".

"Let's use what is cutting edge and apply it straight away or as a continent we will never get out of poverty," she said. "It's really as simple as that."

-via Good Good Good, February 16, 2022

#older news but still relevant and ongoing #africa #south africa #togo #uganda #covid #ai #artificial intelligence #pro ai #at least in some specific cases lol #the thing is that AI has TREMENDOUS potential to help humanity #particularly in medical tech and climate modeling #which is already starting to be realized #but companies keep pouring a ton of time and money into stealing from artists and shit instead #inequality #technology #good news #hope

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jacksgreysays · 5 days

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Extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of the Watcher situation, (2024-04-24)

So this is a relatively belated post — several days after the initial “Goodbye Youtube” and one day after the “An Update” videos — and surely by this point there are more interesting/insightful op-eds (both in written form and video form, especially penguinz0’s fairly objective POV as, essentially, a YouTube expert) but there is something about the Watcher situation that made my brain itch. Thus, I wanted to write about it in order to make sense of it all as well as get into a philosophy that seems to be haunting me in recent years and which I think applies greatly here.

This may seem completely out of left field considering 1) definitely not fanfiction and 2) about Watcher Entertainment, a YouTube channel which—as far as this tumblr is concerned—I’ve not engaged with whatsoever, but I don’t know where else I would put this, and weirdly enough I think the general tumblr response to this whole predicament is maybe the… if not objective… then at least, most thoughtful?—or, perhaps, least immediately reactive?—amongst the various social media platforms, that I think some people might appreciate this anyway.

In terms of my relevant background: I majored in Management Science (which is just a fancy way of saying Economics + Business + Accounting because they are, weirdly enough, separate things) and minored in Film Studies in school, I am currently working in the stage tech industry (which, I know, is obviously different from film/video industry), and I like to think I am a fan/consumer of a wide variety of independent creators, some of whom I am lucky enough to be able to afford being a patron/subscriber. I won’t go into all of them—because it is a lot—but there are four in particular whose business models I want to analyze in comparison to Watcher’s admitted blunder:

A) RocketJump (known for Video Game High School and Anime Crimes Division; the core group which turned into the podcast Story Break, then became Dungeons and Daddies) B) Dropout (formerly College Humor, we’ll get into their discography later) C) Drawfee (previously an offshoot of College Humor, now fully independent) D) Corridor Digital (used to be mostly behind the scenes of how VFX studios work, have since become a mostly original content creator)

I will say, right off the bat, I am a patron of Drawfee as well as Dungeons and Daddies, and I am a subscriber to Dropout. I am not subscribed to Corridor Digital’s streamer, which I will get into why later. I understand that being able to sustain those two patronages and one subscription is a luxury that not everyone can afford and so my point of view is already skewed by being such a person who could theoretically afford another streaming service if I so chose. I also acknowledge that many fans of Watcher are not in similarly financially secure places as I am and that regardless of the business model, any monetization that comes from fans would have been a rough ask. However, I wanted to go into this essay in a way that accepts Watcher’s statement—that they needed more funding—in relatively good faith rather than assuming the worst (although that is another point I’ll get into later, largely related to the philosophy I brought up earlier.)

All four of the above listed content creators started or, at least, hit their stride on YouTube:

RocketJump and College Humor were, if not household names, then the digital equivalent of it in the “early days of YouTube.” They were part of the wave of content creators that made YouTube seem less like a bunch of eccentrics with cameras making videos on the side and more like a viable way to support yourself/your team with the art you create.

RocketJump’s Video Game High School went from short (less than 10 minutes) minimal location episodes in season one, to 30 minute plus episodes with full on fight scenes and car explosions by season three thanks to a Monster Energy brand deal. They also had two seasons of Anime Crimes Division, a literal TV quality show, thanks to a Crunchy Roll sponsorship. Unfortunately, RocketJump shut down not long after (their videos are still up on YouTube but they obviously don’t add anything new) but the core creative team behind that have been involved in several projects outside of YouTube (Dimension 404 on Hulu being one of the biggest ones so far) including the podcast Story Break (part of the Maximum Fun network) and now the independent podcast Dungeons and Daddies, the episodes of the main campaigns which are free with ads or, for patrons, ad-less along with additional mini-campaigns and other benefits.

I will say, during RocketJump’s decline, they did try their best to keep going. The partnerships with Monster Energy and Crunchy Roll were the big swings to get the funding to make those TV quality shows they wanted. I believe they lucked out with those brands in particular, or, at least, those brands didn’t seem to inhibit the creative process or ask too much of them that it felt like “selling out” but I also don’t have insight into why they didn’t pursue this model of, essentially, very weird but interesting season long commercials. Maybe they just couldn't find the right brands or maybe they did feel like it was too stifling. Regardless, before they shut down completely, they did also downsize—moving out of the actual city of Los Angeles over to Buena Park. Which is in Los Angeles county, and basically counts as LA still, but is way cheaper than literal Hollywood real estate. (I should have added to my relevant background that I’m born and raised LA county, and have relatives and friends in the film/movie industry, so trust me when I say literal Hollywood/city of Los Angeles is so overrated and unnecessarily expensive. There is a reason why LA traffic is the worst and it’s because everyone is commuting INTO the city. Respectfully and with affection, no one should live there. No one’s start up should be located there.) Obviously the downsizing didn’t necessarily work for RocketJump, but they also didn’t have multiple successful revenue streams the way that Watcher currently does.

In contrast, College Humor was acquired by InterActiveCorp and was turned into CH Media which was three pronged: College Humor, Drawfee, and Dorkly. In 2018 they made Dropout, which had exclusive content separate from their YouTube videos which involved all three prongs. Then some financial shenanigans happened early 2020—IAC withdrew their funding—and there were a bunch of layoffs right before the pandemic which extremely sucked. It has been stated by multiple people involved that it was basically a miracle that Dropout survived through all of that, but there were definitely some sacrifices along the way to make that happen. Currently, Dropout seems to be thriving with mostly exclusive content with the occasional “first episode of a season” posted to YouTube, OR if Dimension 20 is doing a “sequel season” in an already established campaign they will put the entirety of the previous season on YouTube.

IAC withdrawing their funding did put CH Media in a bind. They had to layoff a lot of people right before pandemic and, understandably, a lot of trauma was had. There were also weird issues with who controlled certain IPs/brands/digital assets (I mostly come at this from a Drawfee POV, it took several years for them to own the Drawga series and be allowed to host all of the episodes on their YouTube, and there was also something about the sound file for their opening animation?) but mainly the difference is what kind of content they generate. Originally Dropout had multiple scripted shows with high budgets and pretty cool effects/animations/stunts (Troopers, Kingpin Katie, Gods of Food, Ultramechatron Team Go!, Cartoon Hell, and WTF 101) whereas now almost all of their shows are variations of improv comedians being put into different scenarios or given different prompts. I’m not just talking about Game Changer and Make Some Noise, because Dimension 20 and Um, Actually also technically fall under that description as well. Which is not to say that these shows are worse than the scripted shows—I subscribe to Dropout, so clearly I’m a fan of their current shows—and the budgets for them have since increased to resemble, if not match, those early shows, but it is a noticeable shift in their content creation strategy as a response to the lack of IAC funding. And I will say: Dropout releases at least three videos a week if not more and at least two of those are long form at 30 minutes plus (Dimension 20 being the longest, of course.)

So, these first two business models are not really the most applicable to Watcher Entertainment considering their origin was to get away from Buzzfeed—they’re probably not keen to be partnered with or purchased by a larger company—but there are some aspects to both that I believe are valuable in at least showing the strategy in how these former YouTube creators could successfully extract themselves from YouTube or how they still utilize YouTube even if it is not their main hosting platform or revenue stream.

Then there is Drawfee and Corridor Digital, both of whom are currently—if not primarily—on YouTube, whose situations are more comparable to what I believe are Watcher’s goals.

Drawfee had to rebuild themselves like a phoenix from the ashes of the CH Media layoff during the beginning/worst of the pandemic. Side note: I’m happy that Nathan (one of the four main artists of the current Drawfee team) at least has forgiven(? or let bygones be bygones) Dropout enough to be on an episode of Game Changer (although I will say that this happened after Drawga was “returned” to Drawfee, and after Dropout officially split from College Humor as a brand.) All that being said, Drawfee was a team of four artists plus their editor who wanted to stick together but basically had all of their support system taken away from them. They took a bit of a break to assess their goals and options, announced a patreon with several tiers with great perks, and stuck to their upload schedule. In addition to two videos a week, they also stream on Twitch weekly, have a patron only stream once a month, and a draw class (for one of the higher tiers) once month. After asking their patrons on the relevant tiers if they were okay with it, they began releasing the patron only stream and the draw class to the general public for free after a month. The patreon perks also include things like merch discount codes, high quality PNGs of the final rendered art, access to the draw class with live interaction/critique, and a commission from the artist of your choice. The only “ads” they run are for their own patreon and merch store and, even then, they’re usually at the end of the videos with a credit scroll of the patron names during their exit banter.

Admittedly, they only have MAYBE eight employees—that’s including their video editor(s?) and their discord mod(s?)—with the main four artists doubling/tripling up duties as additional video editors, CFO, and marketing/merch leads. It’s a very streamlined crew and their production costs are not very high since it’s mostly screen recording of their drawings with their audio recording overlayed onto that footage. Although the video editors do sometimes have clever cuts to relevant images depending on their vamping. Sometimes they will have a guest artist but, again, since it’s screen and audio recordings, there’s no travel/housing costs. So, very minimal expenses due to low production costs and small crew but, again, their only revenue source is the patreon/merch, they don’t do outside ads and they very rarely do live shows.

Corridor Digital is, I think, the most applicable to what Watcher would ideally do, which I suppose is somewhat ironic for this essay in particular considering they’re the only one of the four that I don’t financially support. They have two YouTube channels: their main one being where they show the “final product” videos, but I believe their Corridor Crew channel which started primarily as behind the scenes type of videos is where most of their views come from. Especially their React series (VFX artists, Stuntmen, and Animators React etc.) On Corridor Crew they usually upload two videos a week — one which is a React and the other which goes into fun projects/challenges (involving VFX or not) or using VFX to explain scientific concepts — as well as the first episodes of their exclusive content on their streamer. Also behind that paywall are longer and ad-less versions of the videos on YouTube. They also have merch. All of them have merch, I don’t know why I’m stating that. They don’t have a patreon as far as I know, but I also don’t know if their subscription to their website comes with similar perks like discounted merch or something similar.

Anyway, their studio seems to be about 15 to 20 people — not all of them are VFX artists, of course. I believe they have higher equipment costs than Watcher since, understandably, Corridor has to be on the cutting edge of video editing technology. They do occasionally travel for shoots, but it doesn’t require big teams, and that’s only when the local locations available to them don’t match the requirements for the “final product” videos. Otherwise most of their videos are set in the studio or in the alleyway outside their studio in Los Angeles (the city itself, not just the greater county, though they are in a rougher and thus probably cheaper part of Los Angeles). I personally don’t subscribe to their website primarily because their exclusive shows don’t appeal to me—either they’re too technical or a little too dry; to be fair, most of them are VFX artists first before they are performers—and I don’t particularly feel the need to see the extended cuts of the videos uploaded on YouTube. Also I sometimes get a little bummed out by their lack of diversity.

All of this to say, from these four different business models, a bespoke Frankenstein business model for Watcher could be cobbled together. But also, even with that bespoke Frankenstein, there are some changes that Watcher would have to make: primarily their upload schedule. As of right now, I think they do MAYBE one video a week if not, perhaps, one video every TWO weeks. If they want a monthly subscription model, their rate of content generation would ideally be higher to double/quadruple their current upload rate. Obviously they want to create videos with higher production value, but at that rate of generation, something’s got to give: supplement their TV quality shows with either a behind the scenes type series or an increase of “we get four episodes out of Shane and Ryan get increasingly drunk in someone’s backyard” or something similar. Leaning into shows like Worth A Shot (the first season in which Ricky Wang makes cocktails based on a random ingredient, the second season threw in some competitive aspects which I didn’t really find necessary) or the Beatdown which has relatively low production costs (no travel, one location, maybe two cameras at most therefore smaller crew requirements) but a higher polished look. Otherwise, for a separate streaming subscription service, 2-4 videos a month is not going to cut it.

As of right now they probably can’t back out of the separate streaming subscription service because those set ups usually require some level of contract/paying for servers for the website and whatever is hosting their videos for a set amount of time. However, what really strikes me is that I literally didn’t know they had a patreon until I scrolled through the comments of the first Goodbye Youtube video. Maybe it’s been linked "tactfully" in the descriptions of videos, but considering they claim to be lacking in funds, the fact that they weren’t plugging their patreon at the end of every video is not just strange, but also irresponsible considering they do have 25 employees that they don’t want to layoff.

Additionally, I understand artists needing to be in a space that promotes creativity, but there are cheaper places that must be comparable that aren’t in literal Hollywood. It’s an unnecessary expense. On top of that, other people have already brought up that it was fairly crass to introduce this paywall, attributing it to the increased production costs, when the next planned “new series” is a reboot of an old Buzzfeed series in which people travel and eat expensive food. I’m not even talking about the personal expenses of Steven, Shane, and Ryan; what kind of car they drive or the cost of their wedding venue doesn’t matter on a business model basis.

But getting back to the patreon: again, I literally didn’t know they had one. I’m looking over their tiers— they have $5, $10, $25, and $100 — and for the most part they seem okay, although I think they have more to offer that wouldn’t necessarily cost them more. Ie, something that has baffled me for a while: the fact they don’t sell the mp3s of the Puppet History songs; they already exist and it doesn’t cost them anything additional because they don’t need to put it on physical media. Or maybe they do and they’re not marketing it similarly to how they weren’t overtly marketing their patreon?

And, okay, maybe they didn’t want to seem desperate — in the early days of Dropout and independent Drawfee, they both were very blatant in getting people to subscribe/join their patreon. As they should be. Desperation maybe doesn’t look cool and sexy, but it is earnest in a way that conveys equal effort that fans who can afford it would want to see. The fact that we weren’t getting rotating ten second clips of Steven, Shane, and Ryan asking people to join the patreon at the end of every video — even if its the same clip every three videos — is wild. And yes, the $25 tier includes a shoutout every 3 months on Watcher Weekly+ (which I don't quite understand what that is,) but the fact that they weren’t doing a quick post movie credits scroll of all the patreon names is, again, wild. Once you have that initial list, it’s not too difficult to add any new names that join and put that title overlay on top of, again, those nonexistent ten second clips of the three.

As others have already stated, it seems like an extreme mismanagement of their existing successful revenue streams, if they are actually struggling to pay all of their employees. Which goes into the philosophy part of this essay: don’t assume malice when it might just be incompetence. It’s something that I have to remind myself of often because I do get paranoid about people’s intentions sometimes and I have to check myself. Am I being overly suspicious of what might be just an honest mistake? Am I assigning ill will to an action just because it inconvenienced me?

Yes, of course, a lot of this situation could be misconstrued as straight up greed. But, also, Watcher is a relatively young company, helmed by three people who certainly don’t have experience running their own company:

They like to travel. They like to bring a full crew around with them. They’re renting out a shiny office in the heart of Hollywood where everyone knows is where real show biz happens. They’re adding more employees to the team because surely more people means better. And they want better productions values because the prettier the videos the more people will like them right?

It’s naive. It’s a level of inexperience combined with giving responsibility to officers whose main priority is to entertain. And if that means entertaining themselves and their staff, then they might not know the difference. It’s the kind of mistake that first time managers make—trying to prioritize fun over getting the job done. Prioritizing making friends with their employees rather than making sure the work the employees put in is equal to (or greater than) what you spend on them whether that is in paycheck or bringing them to cool locations for fun shoots. It’s a mistake anyone can make, it's just unfortunate that they made this mistake in front of millions of people. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solely a greed induced cash grab.

But then comes the catch-22 of the philosophy—is it worse to assume incompetence than it is to assume malice? Or, in this case, greed. Especially for the heads of a company that holds the livelihoods of 25 employees in their hands. At what point does it not matter if it’s incompetence or greed if the end result is the same?

Is it better to think that Watcher knew about the various other business models of independent creators and just ignored the efforts put into achieving those successes or is it better to think that they didn’t know and just stumbled into one of the worst moves they could have done. Again, other people have mentioned that Great Mythical Morning—which Watcher has had multiple collaborations with—has managed to make the YouTube subscription/tier system work to the point that they can sustain themselves as well as spinoff channels. Is it incompetence or greed that led to Watcher thinking they could bypass that completely in less time and with less content?

I’ve been at this mess of an essay for several hours when I should have been asleep. Ultimately I want to say, regardless of incompetence or greed… yes, Steven is CEO and yes he is ultimately the one who makes the final call but it is disheartening to see the pointed vitriol at Steven specifically and the infantilizing of Shane and Ryan in comparison. Either they’re all silly uwu boys who are messing around not knowing how to run a company, or they’re all complicit in a crass cash grab in an extremely busted economy.

I think what’s most frustrating to me in all this is that there were so many other channels and creators who have literally walked this path before them and, again, whether through incompetence or greed or arrogance, for them to just ignore it… It’s not betrayal because I don’t know them and so there’s no relationship to betray, it’s just so inefficient and convoluted that I don’t understand. Or, no, even if it was greed, it’s an incompetent greed because at least pure greed would have been pushing that patreon every second they could. Their ratio of YouTube subscribers to patreon members is less than 1% and I bet that’s because a lot of their audience, like me, literally didn’t know they had a patreon. I probably would have become a patreon member of theirs had I known earlier, ESPECIALLY if it included access to those Puppet History songs. Drawfee has half as many YouTube subscribers and nearly double the patreon members as Watcher. I’m just baffled, is all, and maybe by this point sleep deprived.

Anyway. That’s my extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of this situation.

Edit (several hours later after some sleep): I forgot to mention, because they did walk this back almost immediately, even before their "An Update" video, but I believe the original plan was to put EVERYTHING behind that paywall and pull their content from YouTube entirely. Which is, again, extremely baffling, because if ALL of their content is behind a paywall, how would they possibly gain new fans? Even if all of their current fans were able and willing to pay for their separate subscription streaming service, how would a brand new person even stumble on their content enough to want to subscribe if there wasn't a significant amount of "proof of value" free content on YouTube? Again, extremely baffling, and a level of incompetence that overshadows a "cunning" greed. But, like I said earlier, they did walk this decision back almost immediately. If I've misunderstood this and that was never their plan, please let me know, I don't want to be spreading misinformation in a situation that is already so convoluted.

#jacksgreyson #writing #nonfiction #essay #watcher #op-ed #youtube #drawfee #corridor digital #dropout #rocketjump #dungeons and daddies

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