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ladyluscinia · 1 year

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Well. Extremely post-S2, predominantly archival update in fucking May of 2024 simply because I clicked on this and realized how tonally dissonant it was from my current vibes re: OFMD. I will leave the original pre-S2 optimism below for the historical record.

Note I have mostly checked out from the fandom after burning my last bit of interest on deconstructing how much I hated that S2 finale and the retroactive effects on the entirety of S2, but here's some highlights from that period:

My OFMD S2 Magnum Opus aka my final thoughts on how it failed as a story on multiple levels (featuring Pirates of the Caribbean comparisons)

The S2 Timeline Sucks SO Bad, guys 💀

As part of my Deconstruction Efforts I read WAY too many David Jenkins interviews and compiled them because why the fuck not, and then shared some observations on irony (+ real observations scattered about my in-text links)

Post for the official cancellation news (everyone had one)

Also my immediate finale reactions (everyone had those too)

Formally throwing in the towel with final thoughts on fixing S2

A few related posts/asks on bad writing re: Edward's violence + the concept of fuckeries + lack of follow through

A bit of post-S2 lightness in #ofmd daemon au which kind of trailed off (mobile-friendly tag link at the bottom)

The fandom continued to be a fascinating case study and toxic as fuck about Izzy (classic ofmd) and so fucking bad at important creator boundaries and prone to general ridiculousness

And you know what - sure. For the record. My optimistic, immediately pre-finale meta ramblings where I was brimming with good faith assumption that they had a plan (🤣):

The Edward Focused One

The Izzy Focused One

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Welcome to my OFMD Masterpost. I've been having a great time writing meta about this show and the (frankly concerning at times) fandom around this show. Here's a couple of my highlights:

My First Major Analysis of Edward Teach (April 2022) - If you read any singular post of mine to understand where I'm coming from, pick this one

Izzy Hands, Manipulation, and Why the Navy Plot Rules (September 2023)

Fic Statistics Analysis and Looking at a Different Angle + Updated Stats Pre-S2

Stede Bonnet in 1x02

1x04 Good Cop / Bad Cop is so Compelling

Comparing Drawings of Blackbeard

Sometimes I write meta for Calico Jack, and I fell into a JackHands manifesto because it's hilarious

My elaborate Anne Bonny dreams

More (shorter) Analyzing the Navy Plot (also defending it somewhat)

Summarizing my takes on 1x09 and 1x10

I spent a few days discussing woobification and Edward Teach, and speculating on fandom response

This fandom is weird and pretty toxic btw

Oh, and here's my Izzy Hands Playlists. For fun!

Ships:

#blackhands, #steddyhands, #blackbonnet, #frenchizzy

Characters:

#izzy hands ofmd, #blackbeard ofmd, #stede bonnet ofmd, #calico jack ofmd, #fang ofmd, #ivan ofmd, #spanish jackie ofmd, #mary bonnet ofmd, Post with tags for the whole Revenge crew

Topics of Interest:

#ofmd meta, #give me anne bonny, #ofmd harassment (unfortunately), #genre fuckery, #sea god izzy, #breakup boat, #ofmd daemon au

#our flag means death #masterpost #ladyluscinia

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victorie552onepiecespeedrun · 3 years

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Reading One Piece pt 297: On Fate

Chapter 544

Thoughts:

- Fpos/cs: Sanji in a dress!!! His hair is amazing, his make-up is abysmal and honestly I’m scared. I don’t understand why they put him in a dress if he didn’t want to have one. It makes me remember childhood traumas and I would rather not

…Well Sanji, at least you don’t have fish stockings?

- how many rings can a person have, calm down Blackbeard

- Blackbeard is making a very important speech. I guess I’ll type all of that

- “After first meeting you, I soon found out that you were the one who defeated that former Warlord of the Sea, Crocodile, over there, Straw Hat Luffy!” *cue annoyed Crocodile*

- I wanted to become one of the Seven Warlords so I figured the best way to show the Government that I was the man for the job was to bring them your head” not a BAD strategy I must admit

- oh, he wanted to attack Luffy at Water 7. Wow, there was disaster after disaster in that place, imagine adding Blackbeard to the mix D: we would have to say goodbye to One Piece, really lucked out on this one, Luffy

- “But Fate… protected you!” …um, no, Ace and dumb luck protected him

- “Ace has been chasing me because I committed a terrible crime aboard Whitebeard’s ship. And by curious coincidence, he was your brother! Because I said I was going to kill you, he was unable to turn back! You see? If he let us go, not only would he defile the name of Whitebeard… his own brother would be killed!” …It kinda sounds like what I just said but it’s said by Blackbeard so I don’t like it. It also seems to me like it was Blackbeard who lucked out – his plan worked, he only just kinda shrugged and traded Luffy for Ace because why not, and if Ace’s already there…

- “There’s no such thing as a coincidence, there’s only Fate.” “You’re a very lucky man.” “Captain doesn’t need your head anymore.” “Your brother fought bravely!” I applaud a loyal crew but they annoy me too. Also, Champion, why would you say that last thing to Luffy, it’s plain stupid

- “You’d better remember to thank Ace at his grave! If he hadn’t shown up then, you’d be dead now.” HOW ABOUT NO and Blackbeard, don’t act like Ace showing up was some divine intervention or something, he was Literary looking for you all over Grand Line

- “THEN WHY DON’T YOU TRY ME NOW!!??” *WHUP* ha! Told you to leave Luffy alone!

- NO WAIT DON’T FIGHT SHIT ABORT MISSION!!! SHIT SHIT SHIT

- “Blood? Isn’t he made of rubber?” He is!!

- “That’s enough! You have to control your temper! Remember what you’re here for!” oh thank God for Jimbei, he’s stopping Luffy!

- “Don’t waste your time and energy fighting him! It’s not going to help you rescue Ace!” yeah!

- why is everyone just looking at that conversation, DO SOMETHING PEOPLE (strong people that is. Prisoners and guards should stay down)

- Crocodile speaks

- (why are they standing and talking. If Blackbeard isn’t here for Luffy, then why is he here. All of this feels very dangerous)

- “You’re Blackbeard, right? I heard some no-name pirate from Whitebeard’s ship had taken my place… but this is strange.” Crocodile’s asking why he’s here, he should be at Navy HQ. Well, YEAH

- “Everything is going according to my plan. Which I’m not telling you” ok then. Smart of him

- “Fine, I don’t care anyway” gee, ok

- Magellan is here! For a moment I was actually really happy about it. But he’s not here to rescue Luffy from Blackbeard of course. I have a very short memory

- and just like that everyone is moving again

- RUN RUN RUN to the higher levels!

- “Awakened zoan types” …didn’t I read about that somewhere. I think that’s important

- guys, I think Shiryu deserted. He wasn’t planning at helping guards at all. Oh, what a betrayal

- (I’m not really surprised, he was a prisoner on LEVEL 6, but I also kind of am - WG indoctrination runs deep after all)

- Cameras are down. Everything is falling apart in this prison. I’m smiling so much my face hurts

- “Nothing is going our way! How could a single intruder spark all this mayhem!?” *maniacal laugher*

- on Level 2, Buggy and Galdino are up and at them again :) Blackbeard sure helped them here

- uh?

- “I’m gonna rescue Ace no matter what!” “Haha… I won’t say you’re wasting your time. Nothing’s impossible in this world.” …? ? ?? ???

- “Sky Island existed, didn’t it? It’s the same with One Piece! It definitely exists!” is he…

- “Ha ha! Just you wait and see!” he’s walking past them

- “In a few short hours we’re going to put on a show that will shake the world!” …he went to do his own thing. Time to move on.

- (I feel very uneasy right now. We should not leave Blackbeard like that. He’ll be trouble in the future)

- Our pirate group feels as uneasy as me but there’s nothing to do about it now. To Level 3!

- …Magellan vs Blackbeard? Is this really happening

- damn, that poison works on them

- “Hannyabal… You did well holding them back for so long. You better not die. You’re the only one… fit to succeed me!” !! What a plot twist. WHY do I have to have feelings about prison wardens and their working relationship???? Is this really necessary???? Oda???

“Straw Hat!! You will not set one foot outside of this prison!”

rOP 296 rOP 298

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triflesandparsnips · 2 years

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I, like so many of us, have Theories about why Ed kept Jim of all people on his ship. My three personal frontrunners are:

Jim is the only other crewmember we know can canonically read and write. With Lucius gone, someone needs to write Blackbeard's epic "I'm very into murder now" manifesto.

So far as we know, Jim is the only trained assassin among the crew. Considering his overall emotional state, Blackbeard may be loading the dice and planning his own suicide by cop justifiably angry NB with zero fucks to give.

Stede abandoned Ed -- Ed killed Lucius -- and all together that meant there was only one couple left on the Revenge. Edward "I Will Destroy All Love" Teach decided to... correct that.

#our flag means death #ofmd #jim jimenez #oluwande boodhari #edward teach #edward I Can't Believe Other People Get To Be Happy Fuck That Noise teach #suicide cw #cop cw

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qqueenofhades · 7 years

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Historical People of Color in Europe (and America): “It’s Not Historically Accurate!!” and Other Nonsense

Right, so. Rather than hijacking the Black Victorians post with a lengthy addition, I decided to make a separate one to talk about something I have wanted to have a good rant on, especially given the current state of racial rhetoric, concerns about whitewashing and the representation of non-white folks in a fictional (particularly fictional historical and/or fictional historical-fantasy) setting, and all the other time-worn “I’m Not A Racist (tm) But There Weren’t Any People of Color In [Insert Your Setting of Choice Here]” arguments that appear.

If you would like to save yourself some time and get on with your day, spoiler alert: It’s bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit, and moreover, these arguments are made for a specific political reason. Narratives of past “nonexistence” are always used to try to justify present repression (or rather, these arguments represent a thinly-veiled desire for an imagined time when racial and ethnic diversity presumably did not exist, or that said racial and ethnic diversity was acceptable to discriminate against without consequences, or that a monolithic “white default” population was the only existing paradigm). Claims of a past “white Europe” (which is supposed to be superior to multicultural Europe) are always, ALWAYS right-wing, nationalist, and racially charged. The underlying assumption is that multiculturalism is modern liberal PC rubbish, that people of color are the “invaders” disrupting an imagined timeless “Aryan” ideal, and that somehow, much like gay people, they only started to exist in the 20th century when the establishment admitted they did.

(Let me just put right at the top here that the Nazi project of applied racial and religious genocide was thoroughly based in the work of the American eugenics movement, and that Hitler wrote a fan letter to one of its creators.)

You may have heard of the recent kerfuffle when Mary Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge University, endorsed a cartoon depicting a multi-racial Roman family with a black father as accurate to the diversity of Roman Britain. The alt-right trolls went all in with their determination to prove that Roman Britain (and the Roman empire in general) was white, which, if you know anything about the borders and demographics of ancient Rome at all, was completely ludicrous. (Many of the trolls freely admitted to never having studied a damn thing about actual history, but they were still convinced they knew more than, you know, a distinguished professor at Cambridge.) But as Beard pointed out in a response to her critics, this reflects the fact that any claim to historical diversity (or more specifically, the purported lack thereof) has become the realm of people who are insistent on their interpretation, don’t care about facts, and are using them for a specific and damaging political project.

So.

Let’s make some racists angry, shall we?

The idea of “Europe against the barbarians” as a political project goes back at least to the crusades and their inception in 1095, but it was conceived in its quasi-modern form by the Duke of Sully, minister to Henry IV of France, in the seventeenth century, as the “Grand Design.” It proposed keeping the peace in fractious Europe by fighting the “infidels” -- the same argument that had often been used to justify the crusades. (For a very good discussion on all this, see Anouar Majid, Freedom and Orthodoxy: Islam and Difference in the Post-Andalusian Age, esp. page 211-13.) The crusades remained a potent metaphor throughout all of Europe long after their official “end” in 1291, and were used to justify racial, colonial, and imperial projects of all kinds. Sir Winston Churchill praised the wisdom of the Grand Design in a 1948 post-war speech for the reunification of Europe -- i.e., this racial violence was exactly how they intended to move Europe forward into the modern age after so destructively fighting each other, by giving it back its old enemies. I have literally written a master’s thesis on the post-1291 intellectual and legal inheritance of the crusades and the racial construction of the Euro-American historical narrative, so I could go on for a long time here, but this is the takeaway point: the academic (and elite) practice of history, especially Western history, has always been used to justify the erasure, destruction, elimination, and removal of agency from non-white individuals and civilizations alike. So even if you’re claiming “history” as a legitimating tool for your racial fantasia of lily-white Europe, this history is an intentional and actively tailored instrument of racial prejudice that does not reflect reality.

Now that the theoretical stuff is over, let’s get into specifics.

Medieval Spain (Iberia) and medieval Sicily in particular were richly diverse societies that supported numerous distinct racial, religious, and ethnic groups, including Jews, Muslims, Greek/Eastern Christians, Latin/Western Christians, Normans, Africans, and other communities from around the Mediterranean. I have linked only a quick/initial source for each, but there is tons out there. These communities had episodes of strife and tension, of course, but also lived together for extended periods of time in essential cooperation. Spain in particular produced an incredibly rich intellectual climate in the early medieval era, such as the golden age of Toledo.

While the crusades were a project of warfare against non-Christian, non-Europeans (and sometimes also against Europeans, such as the Albigensian and Northern Crusades), they were also the first time many of the Northern European crusaders had met Arab Muslims and Africans -- encounters which were not always uniformly hostile, and which were shaped by recognizable diplomatic customs. One of my favorite examples is in the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi, a Latin prose narrative of the Third Crusade otherwise hostile to the Muslims. See especially pages 276-283 above, where the author cannot help but be impressed by the graciousness and generosity of Saladin and his Muslim forces hosting Christian visitors in Jerusalem (after a treaty was made to end the crusade) and which includes Saladin inviting Bishop Hubert Walter of Salisbury to dinner, where they have a long and friendly chat and are both impressed. My feelings on the genuine respect and admiration that existed between Saladin, his brother, and several of his generals, on the one hand, and Richard the Lionheart, on the other, are probably well-known. (See also Thomas Asbridge, Talking to the enemy: the role and purpose of negotiations between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart during the Third Crusade.)

Even after the crusades, Elizabethan England was deeply connected to the Islamic world and its empires: Ottoman, Persian, and Moroccan. Trade between them was frequent, so many Englishmen settled in Arabic Muslim societies that there were attempted royal proclamations and incentives to lure back expatriates (see Majid, 55), and a proposed Anglo-Moroccan alliance against Spain was a key feature of the foreign policy of the later years of Elizabeth I’s reign. (It should be noted that early modern England’s fairly friendly relationship with the Islamic world, so unlike Spain’s driving hatred of the Moors, had to be jettisoned as they moved into the realm of competing colonial conquests.) Abd el-Ouahed ben Massoud was the Moroccan ambassador to England during this time, and may have been part of the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Othello. “Cinthio’s Tale,” published in 1565, purported to tell the true story of a Muslim/Moorish captain serving in the Venetian army and deceived by a treacherous ensign, which was also drawn upon by Shakespeare.

The Golden Age of Piracy was strongly black, Indian, and Native American. Famous pirates like Blackbeard, Edward England, Samuel Bellamy, William Kidd, and others had up to one-third black/Native crews, who were treated equally (this was not universal among pirates, but attacking slave ships and disrupting the slave trade was one thing for which they were principally known). John Julian, the sixteen-year-old Mesquito Indian who was the pilot of the Whydah, a former slave ship captured by “Black Sam” Bellamy, was later one of the only two survivors of its wreck in 1717. Bellamy’s crew of 150 men had between 30-50 free blacks; Blackbeard’s crew was over half black; Edward England’s nearly 300-strong cohort had over 70 black men.

There were also mixed-race captains in the Royal Navy, such as John Perkins. In his long and vastly adventurous career, he commanded half a dozen ships of the line in at least four wars, served as a spy, and nearly got sentenced to death for smuggling weapons to revolting slaves. His obituary in 1812 records, “he annoyed the enemy more than any other officer, by his repeated feats of gallantry, and the immense number of prizes he took.” (See page 373 of the pdf.) By this time, there were a considerable number of free blacks in England, who had founded the learned abolitionist society known as the Sons of Africa. The late eighteenth century saw men like Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano, and Ottobah Cuguano. All of them were literate, accomplished men who wrote letters and memoirs, including passionate manifestos against slavery, corresponded with high society, were internationally best-selling authors, and, in Sancho’s case, is the first black man known to have voted in Britain (around 1780). There were also women like Dido Elizabeth Belle (great niece of William Mansfield, author of the deciding opinion in the landmark 1772 Somersett case against slavery and subject of the 2013 film starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and the American poet Phillis Wheatley. There were important figures in the American Revolution like Agrippa Hull, and political radicals like William Davidson, who was part of the “Cato Street Conspiracy” in 1820.

There was Alexander Crummell, the Episcopalian preacher, theologian, and African activist who graduated from Cambridge in the 1840s. How about you check out Black Oxford: The Untold Stories of Oxford University’s Black Scholars? Or Alain LeRoy Locke, the first African-American recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship in 1907, after it was founded in 1903 (something that would doubtless terribly annoy noted white supremacist Cecil Rhodes) and who also studied at Harvard University? Oh yeah, Locke was the intellectual father of the Harlem Renaissance and was also gay.) Speaking of biopics, about Victoria and Abdul, which tells the story of an aging Queen Victoria and her deep friendship with Abdul Karim or the “Munshi,” who taught her Urdu and Hindustani, and who, yes, faced incredible prejudice from the deeply starchy and racist British court?

We can definitely mention how a majority of cowboys were black or Native American (it was a grueling, dangerous, unforgiving job with low pay and no glamour, of course they made the people of color do it -- don’t believe everything the heroic, rugged-white-man-Americana John Wayne myth tells you). The inspiration for the Lone Ranger, Bass Reeves, was black. Ira Aldridge was a world-famous black Shakespearean actor and anti-slavery activist in the 19th century. I could go on, but this post is already long enough.

(Lastly: Read Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas In America, by Ibram X. Kendi, an award-winning young African-American historian and director of the Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University.)

So yes. If you’re invoking “historical accuracy” for the convenient nonexistence of people of color in a historical/historical fantasy/fictional narrative:

a) You’re wrong.

b) You’re super wrong, please stop.

c) If you don’t stop, You Are A Racist. Time to work on that.

The point is: imagine, create, and write black/POC Roman centurions, medieval scholars, soldiers, pirates, Royal Navy captains, spies, political activists, best-selling authors, public intellectuals, famous actors, talented lawmen, etc, and write them existing in Europe and the Americas at pretty much any time you like. Not only will you make a racist mad, you will be hella historically accurate, can flip the bird with both fingers, and moonwalk out of the room. Remember: denying the existence or agency of historical people of color is always tied to a desire that they didn’t exist or have agency in the present, and that isn’t how things “used to be done,” ergo they must be wrong. This is the appeal of a certain kind of history as an imagined “legitimate space” for racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc, where these attitudes used to be accepted and promoted without challenge. The people who hold them now want those views to enjoy the same kind of hegemony. And if you’ve paid any attention to the world recently, you’ll realize how dangerous and pervasive those narratives are, and how badly they need to be challenged and upended.

#history #medieval history #black history #historical poc #history of racism #long post

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ainadesigncompetition · 6 years

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Article

They also have produced an article that talks all about the book and what Sam Conniff Allende message is to the society.

The link to the article

Be More Pirate

Work / Opinion

Be More Pirate: Sam Conniff Allende on how, by breaking rules, we can rebuild the creative landscape

Words by Sam Conniff Allende, Friday 11 May 2018

The founder of Don’t Panic and multi-award-winning youth marketing agency Livity Sam Conniff Allende has always believed in doing business a bit differently. Here, in the run up to his talk at Nicer Tuesdays later this month, he tells us why, as inequality rises, we all need to re-learn how to break the rules.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a pirate.

A pirate state of mind has been the underlying ethos of the last twenty years of my creative career founding and running Don’t Panic and then Livity. And now it’s informing my message to creatives everywhere. It also partly explains the fact that I’ve just published a book called Be More Pirate.

I believe in pirates, I believe in their principles, I believe in their manifesto, and I believe that now more than ever, you and me both need some new rules when it comes to doing things differently.

Are you, like me, beginning to realise that the idea that Technology Will Save Us is looking like an increasingly undercooked and oversold promise?

As incomes fall and inequality rises. As the march of the machines threatens mass redundancy, and a backdrop of almost guaranteed ecological disaster can’t seem to wean us off our addiction to consumerism, the hard truth is that no one is coming to save you. Except maybe you.

Take one look at our current leadership, and the alternative, and tell me you disagree. The leadership we need now is within. We have to decide whether we’re part of the problem or part of the solution. And when I say we, I mean you. The creative industries, and advertising and marketing in particular has to choose whether it wants to be the signature on humanity’s suicide note, or part of its wake-up call.

That’s why I want to talk about rule-breaking. History tells us time and again that yesterday’s rebels and rule-breakers become today’s heroes and tomorrow’s legends. At the same time, history often judges badly those who followed orders and played by the rules.

So, for people living in historic times, do you feel confident that you will do what’s required when it’s your time right to not do what you’re told? Will you flinch when it’s the responsible thing to break the rules and risk everything?

Be More Pirate is my first book and it was published last week, the same week Livity turned 17, and like Don’t Panic before it, I’ve left the agency in far better hands than mine to manage, as I embark on an even more radical adventure, than those to pretty radical endeavours.

And here I am, back once again (like the reengage master) and one-man-band trying to take on the world, and win. Because after nearly two decades at the helm of two influential youth-led marketing agencies, I am tired of witnessing young people being patronised by creative businesses, brands and society and not offered what they increasingly seem ready for: a more decisive stake in determining their own future.

That’s why I want to talk about pirates. What’s so profound and potent about the 18th Century millennials aka the Golden Age Pirates who outwitted the Navy from approximately 1690 to 1725, is that they didn’t just break rules in purposeless anarchy, they fundamentally rewrote them. They didn’t just reject a society, they re-imagined it; and they didn’t just challenge the status quo, they changed everyfuckingthing.

I know most of us have a mental image of pirates and more often than not it’s informed by Hollywood, but I’d argue that the troublesome true history of pirates, suppressed at the time by the establishment they threatened, puts them alongside the working class heroes like the Levellers or perhaps even pioneers of civil rights like the Suffragettes in their fight for fairness and equality. Bold claims I know, but I think it’s time to look further back for our lessons. We’re increasingly too wedded to unproven short-term models. For all the unicorns galloping out of Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of horse shit behind the scenes. And I for one, think we need more than the uberisation of everything as the proposed future model of anything. Dropping a vowel from your name, doesn’t make you fit for the future, but knowing your history could.

So come on an adventure with me, and 300 years ago you find a a discontented Gen Z of the early 1700’s who were fed up with the inability of a self-serving establishment to provide a decent wage, decent working conditions, or any sense of hope in the future. Their response was to take power into their own hands.

The lessons for everyone facing disruption are pretty profound, but they come into especially sharp focus for our industry, as these were, after all the great-great-grandfathers of global branding. Not Coca-Cola as many think, but the Skull and Crossbones 150 years earlier, a deliberate meme designed go viral and maximise profit and contrary to popular opinion, to reduce violence. There’s much more of Blackbeards rules of branding in the book, but now word counts and deadlines loom.

Talking of deadlines, this piece is due to be published one week on from the books launch and as things stand, the rebellion is in full flight. Be More Pirate launched as a Best Seller on Amazon in multiple business categories and is rising slowly, with no mainstream media recognition but a growing (and humbling) amount of support on social.

But far, far more important than sales, is the rebellion rate. I’ve lost track of the number of the rebellious responses I’ve received so far, from the resignations it’s triggered to a young woman who is using pirate principles to run a massive campaign to get her friend released from illegal detention by the Home Office.

This book has touched a nerve, across all walks of life, but it’s most precise message is for the audience it’s inspiration is drawn from, young creatives with world changing ambitions, so I sincerely hope this has found you. Because deep down I think you know as well as I do the biggest mistake we could both make is assuming that the way things have always been is the way they still have to be.

www.bemorepirate.com

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