#but the implication of this... isn't great

[cuprohastes]

The reason is that "The Government" tends to be run by Appointment vs. Skill.

Long version under the cut. Short version: You cannot trust these people with your data because they're incompetent and malicious.

So they say "Hey we'd like to be able to track the online usage of all our citizens"

So they get some civil servant who's in line for a promotion and make them the new Head Of That Thing.

This person is usually screamingly incompetent but went to the right school and besides he's the PM's cousin. They have someone to print their emails out because htey don't use a computer because they're cosplaying their idea of an important person from 1950.

They put it to tender and look for the lowest bid, because it's public money and has to be accounted for.

Unless you're the brother in law of a cabinet member, spouse, gold buddy, showed up a lot of the right parties, wrote some nice election support cheques, or promised tehre'd be a seat on the board for retiring MPs. At that point it's amazing how little oversight there is for spending.

The usual suspects all pop up: Fujitsu (Were tweaking post office account payments, which the Post Office then jailed it's own staff over) Atos (Implicated in slavery, coercion, fraud, is currently imploding and going bankrupt. Once marked down a guy in a coma as healthy and able to work.) Siemens (Passport software. Went over budget an failed their deadline so hard the software was obsolete before it was implemented. And when it was implemented it didn't work and had to be replaced. Siemens bid for that contract too).

And despite their history of basically always being way more expensive, shady as fuck and almost never delivering... Because they have the lowest bid, they then get the job.

Great. Fab.

So the Government says "Let's see, the 'Monitor your Internet history so we can run censorship and use it in the future to crush people' act doesn't play well. So let's say it's to protect little children from accidentally typing in 'heaving pumping cock' and then disabling 'Safe Search' and then going to Images and clicking on 42 links' which is a problem I have constantly, and my wife is very annoyed about it but it's just a thing computers do."

So they roll it out: "It's to protect children".

Now they can slowly make visiting any site be logged against your ID: Search terms, links clicked, sites visited, videos watched, what IM services you have. Every AO3 fanfic, every meme you liked about anything... You can bet that they'll do a deal with Microsoft so when you buy a new computer and it fires up Co-Pilot, they get a transcript of every JPEG and file you own.

All under the pretence that it's to stop little Timmy seeing a titty, even if Timmy wants to see a titty. Because somehow that's bad and banning porn has always worked historically which is why there hasn't been any since the Victorian Era.

"Wait!" you say, "Isn't it just for porn?" - Aha, no. Wikipedia and any other site that the Government decides to stick a label on get logged.

Which is all bad enough.

But then you remember that this is one of those governmental minimum bid things, which is why it's being spoofed by using photos of fucking Death Stranding Photo Mode.

So... what's their back end like?

Well if it's anything like other projects like this it's an open forrmat database on a server with the password file in .txt on the server root directory and the access code is letmein123, and everyone is logged in as Root because "it makes it easier".

So there's probably already about 18 state sponsored hacking groups with full access watching people upload their full biometric ID, right now, and just wondering what they can do if they can steal the identities of an entire nation at once.

Or y'know. Blackmailing people for watching gay interracial butt bongo videos.

Worse, the current government are dickheads and cannot be trusted with this data. Day one and they already started using it to block reports of their jackboot squad beating civilians in Leeds.

And of course because they're all running around yipping "AI! AI!" they're definitely going to plug all this data they say they're not collecting into an AI which is just going to shit on everything.

Author's side note, has anyone tried to set up age verification and used the ol' JOHNNY DROP TABLES trick?

And when they inevitably fuck it all up enough that the Tories get back in (The guys who fucked the economy with Brexit, and blew the national budget on their mates get rich quick schemes.) they're all authoritarians.

They'll start using this data for whatever deranged shit they come up with, because they're authoritarian control freaks who rant about morals while being pegged with a dildo dipped in molly, between choke-wank sessions.

Looking at you, Stephen Milligan. And Les Winwood. Not even listing the Anti Gay politicians who got caught snorting coke of a rent boy's cock. Again, highly specific yet there's a weird number of them.

Which is their brand of stupid shit so yeah. I dunno man.

Use a VPN.

Except that's what people are doing and the current crop of illiterate pantysniffers found out that their brilliant plan to data scrape the entire population hadn't accounted for people just pretending to be American.

So they decided, "Hey well OK let's just ban VPNs, I dunno what they are but they're fucking with our terrible idea. And because I don't know what a VPN is, it can't be that important."

These are the guys who are always trying to make everyone turn off HTTPS and your phone's security in case they need to go through your shit.

Every couple of year they find out about TOR and have a collective aneurysm.

i feel like we as a digital society have forgotten the important rules of the internet

Don't feed the trolls

Never give out personal information

Anonymity is the best defense

Don't click suspicious links

Don't click popups and ads

Just because it's written doesn't mean it's true

You are responsible for your own experience

There is porn of everything, act accordingly

[cardentist]

I feel like I've seen more and more people who seem to think the theory that sans undertale came from the deltarune universe or having anything to do with gaster (or any of the other oddities of these universes) is complete fanon. and SURE, fan content has been filling in the details for a decade at this point, but that doesn't change that it's built on a healthy foundation in the source material.

a (non-comprehensive) compilation in no particular order

1: shopkeeper dialogue in snowdin

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2: sans's bedroom door in undertale vs the teleportation doors in the dark world

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3a: Sans's workshop

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3b: which you access by walking into sans's bedroom (through a door that resembles one of the dark world's portals) into a room that's seemingly a dark void, until it's revealed sans was "pranking you across time and space."

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3c. and then gets additional context by interacting with clam girl, who foreshadows susie and deltarune

emphasis here is put on fate and coincidences that matter despite having no clear or logical connection, as well as the implication that deltarune potentially leads into undertale (a parallel to toby dreaming of deltarune and working on its concept first, but choosing to finish and publish undertale first).

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4a: Sans's apparent research into timetravel and awareness of the timelines. with his mysterious machine in his shed [as previously mentioned], with sans's role as the judge of your actions in every route in the Last Corridor, and more or less All of his dialogue in his genocide route fight

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4b: which is implied to be connected to gaster through his weapons, the "gaster blasters," which are labeled as such in the files and bare a strong resemblance to the DT extractor in the true lab

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4c: determination being something that gaster (and alphy's) took a great interest in researching, which sans is Definitely familiar with

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5a: yes of course, we can't know For Sure that "what do you two think" is referring to sans and papyrus. but what we CAN say is that sans (and presumably papyrus) have researched the multiverse, travel between time and space. and gaster has been said to have been scattered through time and space after "falling into his own creation" (presumed to be the core through context clues

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5b: gaster, who's directly implied to have come from another world

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6a: and importantly, sans DIRECTLY IMPLIES that the place he's given up returning to ISN'T the same thing as the surface in his fight

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6b. which is supported by his dialogue in the asriel fight, where it's heavily implied that sans was forced to leave people behind. the monsters being forced underground didn't do that, something else did.

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7: THIS MEANS SOMETHING AND I CAN PROVE IT. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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he's aware of resets, he actively studies fluctuation in time and space, he's aware of determination, he has several unanswered connections to gaster, he showed up out of nowhere one day, and there's Another Place that he gave up on returning to that's Separate From the surface. all of this in Addition To his workshop being used to directly hint at deltarune and (presumably) susie, kris, and ralsei specifically.

I'm Certain there's more evidence out there, but this is all just off of the top of my head <3

I'd recommend giving this a watch if you've never seriously considered this theory before (or if you have ! it's really excellent <3)

[daniel-nerd]

past life session 4 spoilers

1.4.3, villagers, are there any trades yet?

DESERT CABIN

both gluten bois and cabincore ransacking the village, i love it!

bdubs ransacking gluten bois while everyone is all over the village

THE FLANNEL

THE HIGH PING GRAVEL BRIDGE

scar boogie again, that's going to end up great! /s

"6 lives no armor" if scar die, he's going to look stunning while doing it!

scar immediately thinking of trying to convince everyone to go up another pillar to kill them is really funny, but even more funny considering he was the only one who wasn't there!

mumbo is joel!

this whole shapeshifting/transferring your brain into another entity.. there are some serious lore implications here with hermitcraft mumbo and the science company thing from his base! they're experimenting on life series mumbo to perfect their brain transplant!!

bdubs just jumping behind mumbo joel, like he's going to crit him, and NO ONE IS REACTING, he's just so unthreatening

bdubs trying to do the etho chest prank and failing it so miserably

1.4.3 is the version you could silk touch ice and let it melt into water in the nether? or is that 1.5.2?

tango is so terrible at hiding the fact he is the boogie

cleo just coming over yelling boogie and hitting people while not being boogie is exactly the chaotic energy i expect from them

ohhhhh the lighthouse look sooo niceeee

etho is trying to play mind games with gem only for her to open the door and go outside

NEW SQUARE HOLE

"ohhh here comes my teammate;-;"

etho is such an enabler, he would just give kid scar a firework and lighter for school to show off, kid scar will absolutely fumble the shit out of it harming him and like 7 more people in the process

scott stealing gold from day one in preparation for the gold nugget golden apple recipe

i love the retextured bedrock to look like the border, it reminds me of this really old antfarm map that was very thin and long with giant glass walls that were retextured bedrock and a cool bedroom on the outside, i LOVED that map, god, who's series was it about that map? I'll have to look it up later

anyway, meanwhile, cabin cores all trying to say one word and all failing in different ways, martyn have no idea what they're trying to say

THE POKEBALL EXPLODEDDDDD

I LOVE IT

THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A CODEWORD

gem trying to recruit etho to the villies!!! i love to see etho being a villain! he even has his own bedroom and all!!

this session was really calm so far, except for the pokeball blowing up

"scar you know you only have to kill 1 person right?"

he was blamed for the octokill he knew he had to at least TRY to one up it

SCOTT BLEW UP BEFORE THE FIGHT EVEN BEGAN???? disappointing, i was expecting a round hole..

at least we get a duel

its no etho v gem duel but its something

and the arena blew up AFTER the duel, tango is so good at redstone yet so bad at making a redstone trap work

etho with the interesting deal, unfortunately it won't help tango so no deal..

etho stealing joel's stuff, he is a better villain than the entire villies!

that's it isn't it? the bioms will change but i don't think the blocks themselves will, i think it will still look like a desert, right? or am i misremembering?

[giritina]

I don't have any real judgments towards Rober Ebert for saying this a decade plus ago, but I do think it's mean spirited in the wrong direction. I do think many of these critiques of the "socially inept" are transparently ableist in how they portray struggling with a social script and finding a very autistic solution to that problem as a bad thing. There's an implication here that people who don't learn to "ad lib" or develop normal social skills do so only because of their own refusal to put in the work. If they stopped doing Star Wars stuff so much, they would have the time to learn to be more Normal. Some people in the notes defend this framing by saying that, sure, yeah, those traits are autistic, but you have to learn not to be irritating. I think many of us instead should learn not to be irritated by perceived social ineptitude. I don't think social ineptitude was the key to what makes fandom so frustrating for a film critic at this time or now. I would say it has a lot more to do with an anti-intellectual, literalist view of media that values whatever can fit into a fandom wiki over artistry. The kind of mindset that appeared in early 2010s amateur internet critique and is still loved by people who hate critical theory and challenging art. That mindset might overlap with the type of person described, but it isn't inherent to them in the way some of the traits Ebert lampoons are.

Besides that, I think that it's obviously true that people get into fandom more as a social activity than out of a pure devotion to the source material, but that seems like a perfectly harmless thing to me. It seems like we would all benefit from understanding fandom this way and taking it as neutral to positive. Most hobbies are, in some part, social and performative. That's fine. It's fun to be the guy who shows up two days before the tickets go on sale to hang out with the other nerds. It's fine to be self-indulgent and use the text as a jumping off point to process your own feelings. It's just not great to apply that mindset to all forms of art and judge all things by how well they function as a reason to hold a meet-up or run a wiki or write a fanfic. Media literacy and all that.

Even if you don't think there's any ableism at play, it seems like this framing just starts the wrong conversations. It becomes an issue of critiquing "such people" and not a spectrum of behavior across various types of people. It becomes about social ineptitude and obsession rather than the lens you apply to media.

Saw people posting this on Twitter. Love his take on things

[shallowseeker]

6x01

///

So, he HAS thought about this.

///

6x21

The only way for them not to be in danger, logically, is if the two of them not viscerally attached to Dean's head/memories. So, you'd think he'd have asked Cas to remove them from his own memories, too.

(And even that might not be fool-proof.)

But that's clearly not the case because...

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Emilie's status is a great example of what I can only call Miraculous' gaslighting problem. There have been multiple plots and plot elements where the writers gave the audience information that clearly implied or even established something only for the writers to then change their minds and ignore what they said in the past, leaving fans deeply confused and questioning reality. It's a really unique type of retcon that I can't remember seeing before. They're not changing minor stuff that doesn't matter or owning that reality changed in major ways due to things like the series getting renewed. Instead, the writers are changing major elements of the story - or writing episodes without considering the plan for the story as a whole - and labeling fans as the problem if they get confused or point out that the puzzle pieces don't fit. It's both fascinating and frustrating.

Let's walk through the retcon/inconsistences/bad writing. Whatever you want to call it, it's not good!

In season one, Emilie was a figure of mystery. We knew that she existed and that she wasn't around, but - as far as I can remember - the specific details of what happened to her were never addressed. At best, there was a vague implication that she'd been gone for a while since Adrien had a framed picture of Emilie when she was much younger, an odd choice for a teenage boy that implies that more recent pictures possibly weren't available. After all, this is a story. Why pick this older picture if its age didn't matter:

Adrien: My mother on her 17th birthday. She was pretty, huh?

The above quote is from Simon Says which was also gave us this line:

Gabriel: I have to apologize for my son, Ladybug. He's like his mother. Way too overly dramatic.

Further adding to the mystery and spawning the idea that Gabriel might have had something to do with why Emilie isn't here today.

During this time, the head writer openly fed into the idea that mystery was afoot with tweets like this one from November 2015:

[Image transcript: a tweet reading "Sooo... Final #MiraculousLadybug glimpse before broadcasting: where is she?" below the tweet is a picture of Adrien being held by someone whose face we cannot see.]

All of this lead to the popular - and logical - fan assumption that Emilie was a mystery in the world of Miraculous, too. That's why there are multiple season one fanfics written with the assumption that Emilie's status and whereabouts were going to be a big part of the story. Some thought she'd been kidnapped, some thought that she'd run away, some even though that Gabriel had secretly killed her, but there was a clear large-scale assumption that Adrien and the general public had no idea what happened to Emilie and that the story would see Adrien get those answers.

Season two revealed the basement capsule, giving a more concrete answer to Emilie's whereabouts while still adding to the mystery. It also played into the narrative that the public thought that Emilie was missing via lines like this one from The Collector:

Gabriel: That book...was the very last gift your mother gave to me before...before she disappeared. All I have left of her is this book...and you. But I know I can't keep the book or you locked up in this house forever.

And this one from Queen Wasp:

Nadja: This was Gabriel Agreste's first public appearance since his wife disappeared. This fashion week is full of surprises and shockers.

All of this fed the popular fan assumption that Adrien and the public thought that Emilie had vanished, but in actuality something sudden and bad had happened that lead her to go into this capsule or be placed in the capsule by Gabriel.

In the season three episode Félix, that narrative suddenly changed:

Adrien: Father? Gabriel:(sits down beside him) There is something important I have to talk to you about. I think about telling you every day, but I don't know how to find the right words. Adrien: I think I already know, father. Gabriel: But, how? Adrien: I've noticed how close you and Nathalie have become. If she can make you happy again, then... as far as I'm concerned, she's already part of our family. Gabriel: How could you possibly think such a thing?! Nobody could ever replace your mother, (stands) as long as she is still in our hearts she lives on! We're expecting guests. Be ready. (leaves back to his atelier) Plagg:(comes out) Wow! Your father's like a piece of tomme cheese: where the rind's so thick it's almost impossible to get inside the center. Adrien: Don't be so hard on him, Plagg. It's been a year today since Mom... went away forever.

This wasn't explicit confirmation the Emilie was dead, but it was the first time she was discussed as if she was dead, not missing. This was also the first time we learned that she'd only been gone a year, further confusing fans as Adrien had never been written like someone grieving a recent loss. Between things like the picture in Simon Says and Adrien's behavior, I think most of us assumed that Emilie had been missing for years.

Then, in season four, we got this moment in Ephemeral:

Clara: The one-hundredth collection of the brand Gabriel is dedicated to your recently departed mother. How do you feel about this dedication?

Which I believe was the first and only time the word "departed" was used when describing Emilie. It was also around this time - April 2021 - that the head writer explicitly confirmed that Emilie had a public funeral and her death was public knowledge:

[Image description: a tweet reading "I have one question for [head writer] Is Emily's "death" public knowledge? Was there a funeral?" In response, the head writer simply tweets, "Yes."]

Which is really funny if you remember that promo tweet from 2015. What happened to her? She died and had a public funeral. Ooooh, mysterious!!!

I've seen some people say that the official word was always that Emilie was dead and that the early seasons used "disappeared" as a euphemism for death because that's a common euphemism for death in France which is possible, but I think it's still being too kind to the writers. They made Emilie a mystery to the audience and so the audience expected her to be a mystery in the actual show. Instead, in the world of Miraculous, everyone and their brother knows that Emilie died and the closet thing we get to a mystery is the mystery of what killed her which is only a mystery to the audience. No one in the show is asking that question which is not how most good mysteries work.

That mystery also doesn't fit the way the show was written. Emilie is in a statis chamber in a hidden basement! Who the hell sees that and assumes that she's dead and that there was a public funeral? If she's dead, why is Gabriel keeping her body down there? How did he even get it? The official narrative actually makes way less sense than the fan assumption that she was officially missing - possibly declared dead - and secretly both alive AND hidden in the basement.

This confusion is not helped by lines like this one from Stormy Weather 2:

Nathalie: As I've watched Émilie falling deeper into an endless sleep, my sadness for her has deepened, too.

Or by Gabriel freaking out when Emilie's chamber lost power in Party Crasher:

Scene: Gabriel's repository. Gabriel continues collecting butterflies until he notices the power go out. Frantic, he rushes to the elevator and goes up until it stops working. Gabriel: The system is down? (sees Émilie's capsule lose power) Émilie!

Gabriel: Nooroo, dark wings rise! (transforms into Hawk Moth, breaks elevator glass, and rushes to Émilie) Hawk Moth: I need someone to restore power from the outside. (searches for negative emotions) I don't feel any negative emotion. There's only... joy. What's going on in my house!?

Is she dead or sleeping? If she's sleeping, why does everyone think she died? If she's dead, why is Gabriel acting like the power needs to be restored within seconds or else something terrible will happen? He'd obviously need it back to keep her body stable, but he wouldn't need to panic as soon as the power goes out. This is a story. His frantic reaction implies things to the audience. Good writers know that. In fact, why even add this scene if Emilie is dead? Why not just have Gabriel make an akuma because he's annoyed by the party?

There's also the question of why Gabriel even has Emilie's body if she's dead. He wouldn't need it for the wish and getting it then hiding it makes his chances of being discovered pointlessly higher, so why is it there? It being there doesn't fit the dead narrative. It's also so much more creepy if she's dead. If she's dead, why not just use her picture? As we saw in Origins, Gabriel has one in butterfly locket! Wouldn't it be more interesting if the miraculous itself became the symbol of Emilie?

[Image description: butterfly miraculously opened to reveal that it's a locket with Emilie's picture on the inside]

This is not a complicated plot. It should not be this confusing yet here we are! It is not shocking that multiple fans don't understand the story because it's been told horribly!

In the end, that mystery we were sold back in season one was a lie. There was no mystery. Nothing about Emilie was an unknown in the world of Miraculous. Adrien never wondered how she died or even if she was actually dead. He always knew she was dead and he never questioned what killed her because - as of season six - the official word is that she was openly sick and declining for years. If Adrien ever learns about the peacock, the shock will be what it means for him, not what it meant for his mother's story because she never mattered as a person. She only existed to be her husband's motivation and her son's incubator. As far as I'm concerned, that's terrible writing.

Random side notes: A year or so ago, there was a poll that went around the fandom asking what people thought Emilie's official status was and the options were something like dead, in a coma, and magical stasis. A lot of people voted and every option got a significant number of votes which perfectly sums up the problem with the way this plot was written. I really wish I had a link to the poll because I found it hilarious. If anyone has it, please send it my way! Also let me know if the early French dub really did make Emilie's status clearer earlier than the English dub. Is "disappeared" = dead really a common thing in French to the point where any French speaker would know that she was publicly known to be dead? Doesn't remove all the problems but it may shift when I think certain choices were made.

Remember how I said the reason they weren’t changing Adrien’s design in S6 was bc they wanted to insert some dramatic daddy grief? And how that was going to make the way they handled him grieving his mother look all the more atrocious bc of how they clearly prioritize fathers over mothers? Lmao I’m right all the time always (except when I’m not but this is not one such case)