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sepublic · 4 years

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WandaVision Finale!

Okay, that finale was AMAAAAAZING! Everything about it… Particularly, I love that with all of these references to American, black-and-white television shows, we got a bit straight out of what felt like The Twilight Zone! Let me tell you, when Dottie came up to Wanda and started begging to be with her daughter, bargaining, playing with the role and trying to appeal, even offering up her daughter for the antagonistic, demonized role of bully, just to be with her; That was INCREDIBLY messed-up and really shook me up, as did everyone else in that sequence! It was utterly wonderful, and really, the entire premise and set-up DOES seem like a Twilight Zone episode; Perhaps the final homage/allusion by this series?

The Vision battle was great, some much-needed action and usage of Vision’s powers that we needed. I love how Vision manages to talk down the White counterpart with logic and existential thought… The philosophical, almost deconstructive way Vision deals with stuff and life isn’t cold, but rather appreciative, like someone taking apart a clock and marveling in how its put together; They don’t rage at the clock for no longer upholding the undefinable illusion it used to have…

And of course, the idea of ‘illusion’ I feel applies to Westview as well. The difference being that Westview’s mechanisms are inherently immoral, but the way Vision gets down to the basics and fundamentals of things in his almost wondrous, childlike curiosity- It’s great. He’s questioning everything, but in anticipation and acceptance of an answer, he does not view the world with cold disdain the way someone like Ultron would.

The Theseus Ship paradox was a wonderful discussion, as was the suggested answer that either neither of them are the ship, or they both are! As is Vision’s constantly poetic talk of how the ship is more the experience and memories, so if they’re attached to either, then sure- They’re both the same! I love for a hypothetically cold android, this dude is so poetic and marveling at everything. He should be a writer, a poet… But that’s not happening anytime soon; But it doesn’t mean it won’t EVER happen, either! As Vision realized, they’ve said goodbye before, only to say hello again… I love his little way of looking through and exploring loopholes in apparent certainties, both at the end and with White Vision.

Not gonna lie though, I half-expected/anticipated for White Vision to emerge with Ultron’s mind, once Vision reawakened those memories, and I have to wonder where he is. I was kind of hoping both Visions would merge together to complete a true one, given how both acknowledge that the other has something that they don’t. White Vision is still out and about though; And I like the clever usage of color, with blue representing the cold and mechanical Ultron side of him, and yellow being the Mind Stone, but most importantly Vision. And I LOVE the idea that Scarlet Witch has the last remainder of an Infinity Stone within her, preserved like her love for Vision; Some things you can’t truly eradicate, Thanos!

That reference to the Darkhold from Agents of SHIELD was great, and I imagine it’ll come into play now that Wanda’s taken it from Agatha. How Agatha got it, I have to wonder; But that’s a story for another day, I presume. I guess she’s been brainwashed truly as Agnes and is doing her own thing in Westview, without anyone to realize she doesn’t quite belong; Or maybe they will? What a wonderfully poetic, vicious fate for her character- She faked it all, and now she gets to be real! The idea of playing a ‘part’ is just a fascinating motif in this show for me, and I’m sure there’s some philosophical stuff I could dredge up about that term, ‘stories’, from my Philosophy class.

Wish we got some more resolution with Darcy, and Hayward kind of just left; But I do appreciate how we could’ve gotten a bit of an all-out brawl, with the SWORD agents targeting Agatha and how she alludes to the Salem Witch Trials! Also the allusion to the Sorcerer Supreme, AKA Doctor Strange, was great- And things are still complicated with how Wanda more maturely vouches to save those agents, even if they’re also against her… She knows that people’s dislike and hostility is pretty valid. It’ll be interesting how she’ll own up to the ‘role’ of Scarlet Witch now, as a lot of her vilification came from her own actions, admittedly. I imagine she’s going to try and it do it on her own terms, see what loopholes in the requirements she can exploit- Much like her husband Vision would! Also, Tommy and Billy having to dissipate when Vision at least understands and accepts IS messed up, so I can see why Wanda feels the need to rescue her children, who definitely don’t deserve this.

I do have to wonder if that last scene is a hint that Wanda hasn’t fully moved on, or if she HAS, but of course Tommy and Billy don’t deserve to die just for her character development! Really that dilemma and sad ending was handled so well, I half-expected Wanda to isolate the Hex to just her house, or maybe focus all of the energy of the Hex into maintaining JUST Vision, Tommy, and Billy. Maybe she’s consulting her chapter in the Darkhold for info on that? Either way, I like how she’s prepared and kept all of her assets in place in case she ever needs them, such as Agatha, now Agnes! There’s a very spiteful and utilitarian way she handles herself now, reminiscent of a villain who keeps tabs on their friends and enemies; Wanda seems to be doing the typical steps of a villain, but hasn’t exactly committed to it; And maybe never will, again, it’ll be interesting how she exploits her role as Scarlet Witch. I love the callback to those runes, how a scene that could’ve been written off as magical world building foreshadowed and came back into play; Such a simple and obvious trick, but one I always fall for because I’m so invested and IN the world!

Also, I think that lake Wanda lives by, might be the one where Sokovia’s remains landed? If so, then that’s incredibly fitting; A watery grave for her home and memories, huh? I wonder if Pietro, the real one, is buried here- It makes sense, Agatha alludes to Pietro not being buried in North America (nor South America if you want to get into technicalities), so of course their home country, or what’s left of it, is ideal! The site where he died, lowkey; Although that was arguably several miles above, but still. This third-world country that everyone dismissed and ignored has now had a major legacy that is felt across the world… It’s been heard, huh? I’m not sure why Wanda’s maintaining that illusion of herself, is she just practicing, maybe creating a front in case anyone notices activity, checks out, and then assumes it’s ‘just’ some random lady?

I can only imagine how Doctor Strange will tie into this! Probably with the Nexus of All Realities and the Darkhold, and of course the Scarlet Witch’s role as a potential threat to the Sorcerer Supreme; And hopefully with what we’ve seen of Agatha making note of magic belonging to the ‘deserving’ and being able to take it from others… Baron Mordo, perhaps? Maybe he’ll make his return interrogating Agnes as he tries to track down the Scarlet Witch, seeing her as a threat… Dang, now Mordo’s reminding me of Emperor Belos from The Owl House, with the whole belief that after chaos and bloodshed, magic should instead be isolated to only the deserving who prove themselves, and whatnot! Now I’m even in MORE interested and hopeful for Mordo with this comparison!

Likewise, the allusion to the Nexus in that commercial made me wonder if New Jersey would be the location for the Nexus of All Realities in the MCU, but now that Wanda’s left, it’s possible she’ll track down its location to Louisiana, just in the comics! Still hoping for Man-Thing in the MCU, maybe we’ll get a setup for him! I’m telling you Feige, this is your chance to make a Frankenstein/Iron Giant type of film, a misunderstood monster story to incorporate into the MCU, what with your exploration of new genres beginning particularly in Wandavision! Also iirc the Darkhold has a corrupting influence on those who read it… But the last people who did were regular humans, is Scarlet Witch above such things? Or will the Darkhold mess with her, too- An external force that disrupts her character development by corrupting her? I’m just in even more anticipation for Multiverse of Madness to be trippy and horrifying.

Overall, what a WONDERFUL conclusion, and an incredibly satisfying finale to this series, while still paving the way for new stories! It seems Photon’s story has just begun, now that Nick Fury has sent a Skrull to invite her; Maybe for the Captain Marvel sequel? I’d assume the sequel deals with the fall of the Supreme Intelligence, which takes place before 2014; Nine years before Monica gets her powers! Something had to have happened to lead to the Kree’s peace treaties with everyone that angered Ronan…Well, we’ll see!

And White Vision, we’ll see what happens with him, what existential crisis he’ll get into, poor dude; He’s arguably the original Vision, except traumatized and questioning himself! I’m surprised Wanda didn’t go after him, did she assume he was destroyed? Or has she just moved on, focusing on her sons? We’ll have to see… Vision did allude to him reuniting with Wanda, so perhaps Wanda can use her powers to gather the Mind Stone’s scattered atoms within the fragment she holds, and reform an Infinity Stone to truly resurrect Vision, from his white template! Perhaps that’s how the Nexus will come into play, as a place to draw together such cosmic power that was once scattered by the Mad Titan…

Wish we got to see more of Darcy and Woo, as well as Fietro; Him being confirmed as Ralph was great, as was that little hilarious man-cave segment of his, fitting into what would’ve been his time period. I’m a bit disappointed he’s just some dude, but at least there’s the meta gag… I LOOOOVE Scarlet Witch’s new outfit, it’s such a stylish red dress/cape and crown, love how it’s repeatedly invoked as a symbol for her; Wanda finally gets to own her classic costume, her tiara! The bit where her ‘shirt’ meets the pants reminds me of fangs and the points on her tiara, I love that sharp and threatening visual cohesion! And with all that in mind, here’s hoping to The Falcon & Winter Soldier as our next installment into the MCU! And one day, we’ll finally get that Black Widow movie released… One day!

#wandavision #wandavision spoilers #spoilers #marvel #mcu #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #vision #speculation #analysis #review

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nileqt87 · 4 years

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Despair For Castiel: A Review

From a series of posts before and after watching:

Before:

As far as I'm concerned, I'm now imagining the Empty having to deal with Gabriel and Balthazar redecorating the Empty into the angel/demon afterlife (probably with a lot of wacky alternate realities and bad porno) with all the free will angels and redemptive demons invited, Cas finding Meg and eventually Jack again for his true happy ending that he can have and Crowley probably trying to install himself as king again. Then when Rowena finally exits as Queen of Hell, she'll join and Crowley will annoyed, but Gabriel will be happy to see her again. LOL.

Megstielers also got robbed hard with all that setup of Cas still pining for Meg for YEARS, the Empty using her image (not Dean!) to taunt him (the Empty clearly saw Meg in Cas' head when it could have taken the form of anyone, including Cas like last time) and a whole dropped plot thread that Cas made a deal with Ruby to break a demon out of the Empty, which only makes sense with the one and only demon he'd actually want to let out of the Empty. That's dangling one 'ship a whole bunch of carrots (like every single Clarence reference for a decade) to rip the rug out from under them.

I suppose I should've seen it coming when the previously on segment for 15x13 was a Pizza Man and the Babysitter retrospective that shoved Cas out of the Pizza Man role beside Babysitter Nurse Meg to shove Dean into Megstiel's sexy times meme. I guess it turned Cas into just Dean's Baby in a Trench Coat (which was an insult about being useless to Dean's cause without powers, which suggests Cas has no worth to him otherwise), since he got infantilized with the removal of the Pizza Man originally being him.

I still haven't watched the episode. The Tumblr crap is that off-putting.

What should've been an epic moment in Cas' story is now tainted by his love of humanity, found family and free will (his real love story is with all of humanity and finding belonging, in spite of always being on the outside looking in on a life he can't have because he's not human) being reduced to horny girls who just want fetish smut with Dean and don't give a fig about canon Cas outside of a toxic, abusive crack!ship. It's always so immature and vapid!

It was immediately clear when I joined the fandom that shockingly few gave a crap about any character but Dean, even refusing to see what he's become in later seasons. Also numerous examples where they admit having not seen the show in a decade or only knowing the show via manipulative .gif sets. Cas and Sam (if they remember him at all) are just props or prizes to be won. They ignore context of familial/platonic relationships. Canon love interests aren't good enough because they're not the big prize of being a main. I also note the deluge of Wincest girls who hate Cas for existing (he's in their way) in the anti-Destiel tag.

I can't say the .gifs are making me want to watch, even though the dialog is vague enough to still fit Cas' actual character for the general audience who isn't glued to social media.

As for Dean's non-reaction, I had similar problems with Jensen's constipated acting back in 15x03 when Cas finally walked away while Dean looked like he couldn't care less, which the writers coincidentally praised Jensen for (holy crap that interview was up his backside) and completely ignored Misha actually giving a good performance in a scene that actually meant something long coming for Cas. I certainly can't say the same about the quality of this scene, which just looks forced on both ends.

I hope I like the episode more than the sounds of it, but my hopes aren't high. This is not how I wanted Cas' final moments on the show to be.

After:

Well, I got up the stomach to watch it tonight. Thankfully, in context, it definitely got blown way out of proportion by what the Hellers turned it into (as usual). Yeah, even when watching while unfortunately not blind to the wackadoodle fandom discourse, it played out better on screen than the .gifs. And frankly, a whole lot less like creepy Care Bear stare nightmare fuel than the few choice screenshots kept showing (yikes). I still wish Sam and Jack had been there, because they're just as much part of what connected Cas to feeling like part of a family (even more so in the later years), but it's not the total monstrosity it was turned into online.

Average viewers who just take canon as is without trying to read into it what they want to be there instead, IMO, will safely interpret it platonically (even if coming after a particularly hellish few years in Dean's personality rot where the whole friendship was beginning to be questionable) more often than not because that's what the canon has said for a dozen years. Again, I repeat that Cas already told the Winchesters he loved them when he thought he was dying.

It's a crime to have Cas' perfect philia (brotherly), storge (parental) and agape-style (sacrificial and unconditional) loves being immaturely twisted into eros in a way that degrades the whole meaning of the character's journey. People telling each other they love one another when it's not sexual should never be mocked into being afraid to do so because of this insidious, willful misinterpretation. If only somebody had told Cas they love him instead of him always being the one with his heart on his sleeve!

This character went from being tortured into a robotic, emotionless, ancient, not-remotely-humanoid being who couldn't relate to the simplest of human needs to being someone deeply in love with humanity and wanting to find belonging amongst it despite knowing it would always end with him watching them all grow old and die after having families and such experiences angels are forbidden from having (another reason why Jack was so important to Cas' story).

The wording is valid for that philia/agape interpretation, given Cas definitely equated Dean (whom Cas watched sacrificing himself for Sam endlessly, including why he had to be raised from perdition in the first place) with a guide role in his learning to understand humanity and proudly-defiant free will before he could love it. It's valid enough to say that Cas wouldn't have broken his programming permanently without being challenged to question everything he'd ever believed and give up his entire angelic belonging. That much of it did begin with Cas just happening to be the angel who succeeded in the Hell rescue.

Obviously, it's also canon that Cas had a long history of not following orders and getting lobotomized by Naomi, but Cas actually understanding humanity and what free will means did happen only after this particular rebellion. I'm very glad at least that was in the speech, but of course, it's being hopelessly ignored.

I stand by my interpretation that what Cas can't have has always been the tragic version of The Little Mermaid where she turns into sea foam in the end. Cas has always looked in on what everyone else takes for granted from the outsider's perspective. There's a part of him that will always be left out, no matter how well he learns to fit in and how much those around him begin to treat him as a real person. Cas never really got to truly belong with humanity, no matter how much he loves and is loved by it. He's also not getting to stay where he wants to be. There's no Pinocchio ending for Cas that turns him into a real Winchester.

Sadly, Dean's constant othering of him and Jack like they're just more monsters to hunt only alienated them more. Jack was someone Cas could relate to as a supernatural being capable of human emotions, which might also have furthered his draw towards Meg. Sam was also someone Cas could relate to as freaks and abominations amongst their own kinds. Sam always had that same struggle, also with his own family. It goes a long way towards explaining why Sam was always so empathetic to Cas and Jack in a way that Dean couldn't be. All three kept conflicting with that black & white humans = good/other = bad mindset that sometimes creeps in with Dean. When Cas was Dean's "best friend" in the early days, he rationalized it by thinking of Cas as being "like" a human ("You used to be human, or at least like one.").

Yet it still remains true that Cas often found himself looking to Dean to teach him about humanity back when he didn't know enough about it to be inconspicuous amongst them. Dean gave him the crash course in both what humanity is willing to do for each other, but also its flaws and failings at the same time.

Perhaps the saddest scenes in the episode were actually Sam watching everyone poof in front of him. Sam has really been forced to watch a lot of death scenes this season all by himself (as with Rowena), but he looked the most broken by Eileen's. Cas is going to be hard on him, because I genuinely think Sam was far closer to him in the end. Sam was the one who actually was trying to reach out to Cas when Dean repeatedly kept him out of the loop. Sam being left out from the final words with Cas or even hearing first-hand about the deal with the Empty just furthers that tragedy. While Dean has been raging at everything in sight, Sam and Cas have both looked broken, sad and tired all season.

#castiel #anti-destiel #dean critical #anti-dean winchester #megstiel #team free will #dean winchester #sam winchester #meg masters #jack kline #eileen leahy #saileen #spn #supernatural #spn 15x18 #spn s15 #s15 #despair

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mikami · 5 years

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Death Note Audio Drama 01

Disk 1: Pattern Recognition - a summary / partial translation

The Death Note audio drama is a German audiobook production that is officially licensed, but has been written and produced without any further involvement from the Japanese copyright holders. A Japanese release is, as such, not planned. An English release was announced in 2017 and has since never received any more news nor a release date announcement.

The audio drama starts of pretty benign as a retelling of the manga with some changed facts and dialogues.... and eventually full-on diverges from the plot and leads to a completely alternative ending. It’s pretty wild for officially licensed media. Wild enough to absolutely warrant being shared with the English-speaking fandom at large.

Since the whole drama is 12 hours in total in 12 disks (covering roughly one manga volume each), I won’t be able to provide a full translation and instead will summarize the less juicy bits while doing a full translation of anything funny or interesting.

All future episodes will be found in this tag on my blog.

Without further ado, let’s begin.

We open to the sound of someone typing.

LIGHT: Something is rotten. Post-modern. Post-truth. Post-Justice. Day in day out, the same lies in endless repetition. Killers get away with murder. Drug dealers sell poison to children. The world is drowning in its own filth. The world is infected with corruption. I am the cure. I am the--

A knocking sound.

SACHIKO (muffled): Dinner is ready, dear!

LIGHT (groans, but then goes on): I am the surgeon who cuts out the cancer, I am the--

More knocking.

SACHIKO: It’s your favourite dish!

LIGHT: One second, mom!

SACHIKO: Are you talking to your friends online again?

LIGHT: It’s fine, mom, I’m coming!

SACHIKO: Hurry up, it’s getting cold.

______

We cut to a scene of the task force entering the school in which Kuroh Otoharada has taken children hostage. The scene is fairly simple. Someone (I think Matsuda?) is pretty violently insistent on shooting Otoharada if necessary. They find Otoharada dead in the bathroom.

______

Ryuk, who has a voice like a friendly fat little man narrating fairytales, tells us the rules of the Death Note. We cut to Light coming home and giving Sachiko his test results. They cut out the whole ‘number one in the nation’ and simply changed it to top grades in a nation-wide test exam. Probably because Germany doesn’t have ranking lists like that at all.

_______

A TV report about Otoharada is playing. A lady named Noriko Takai is trying to interview Matsuda about the incident. Matsuda refers her to the upcoming pref-conference, but admits that Otoharada died of a heart attack.

_______

Typing noises again.

LIGHT: To all those who are interested... If you are reading this text, something went wrong. If you are reading this, I might even be dead. In that case, dear me, dear Light Yagami. This is your younger self. In case you’ve forgotten everything, this story may be hard to believe, yet every word is true. Yeah... You found a notebook on the school grounds. Yeah... It claimed to have the power of bringing death to anyone you name in it. And yeah... you laughed about it. You were thinking of a prank. However... you couldn’t resist, am I right? You wrote the name of this guy from the school hostage taking and he died. But it could have been a coincidence. So you tried again. And what you saw, scared you. But in the same moment, you understood the power you had. So you ran home into your room and the confirmation was already waiting for you. With his claws, and glowing devil’s eyes.

________

Ryuk is indeed in Light’s bedroom. The meeting dialogue is largely very similar to the manga. However, this snippet happens....

LIGHT: I didn’t expect something so---

RYUK: Something so demonic? I’m hurt. I’m quite the catch for a denizen of the netherworld. I could be a sex god, if I wasn’t so good with death.

Ryuk elaborates that the notebook now belongs to Light, that nobody can see him, that he wasn’t chosen, that the shinigami world is boring... yadda yadda, we know this from the anime already. Light says his famous “if someone dies, does that make me a murderer?” line and Ryuk just says “of course it does.” Another funny Ryuk line: “You killed someone else too? Awww, you’re my man.”

________

In a flashback Light walks Shinjuku. Takuo Shibuimaru shows up and Light kills him, hurray.

Back in the present:

RYUK: Fantastic. You killed this guy for flirting with a woman?

LIGHT: She wanted to be left alone.

RYUK: Alllright, social justice warrior. But isn’t that a little... strict?

Light launches into a speech about his ambitions. Ryuk keeps pointing out that he is afraid. Light gets annoyed at being condescended, since Ryuk is the one who gave him the weapon in the first place. However, he also admits to being scared. But still, someone needs to do it. But who else could do it, if not him? Etc, etc, etc. HE WILL MAKE A BETTER WORLD.

_______

A TV segment about the early Kira deaths. The chief prosecutor is under fire for treating prisoners badly, since people assume the prisoners died of bad food in prison. Other people deny that this is how it is, because they assume that bad food would have more than 3 victims. Someone else assumes it is the will of God. Some other guy is praising whoever does the killing in a flippant and humorous tone. The interviewer criticizes him for these views.

________

L: Come in, Watari, come in.

WATARI: I thought you might already be in bed, Mr. L. It’s fairly late.

L: No sleep, no, not sleeping. Can’t sleep.

WATARI: How much coffee did you...

L: There’s a killer on the loose, Watari!

WATARI: That is always the case, Mr. L.

L: No, this time it’s different. Different, you understand? I looked at the data, check it out. Heart attacks going through the roof.

WATARI: The deaths among criminals? Wasn’t that about the food?

L: No, it can’t be the food, when it’s taking place so hand-picked and world-wide. These people can’t all have been poisoned by the same dose. What do the deaths have in common...? The only connection really appears to be that all of them are criminals...

WATARI: You are a master in pattern recognition, L. You’re famous for it.

L (laughs): Famous, yeah. We have to contact interpol. I looked at the data. Someone is killing criminals by the dozens. We need to talk to interpol.

WATARI: They had a conference announced for later today anyway. Well... tomorrow. In their time.

L: Time? Time zones, of course!

WATARI: Mr. L...?

L: Let’s look back at the data for a moment.

_______

Ryuk is impressed by how many people Light killed. Light admits to getting nightmares due to it, but he also is determined about his mission. He explains his idea of heart attacks leading to recognition of the pattern. Ryuk is pretty flippant about Light’s plan, saying he is the only danger to mankind.

_______

Nature noises.

WATARI: Are we working in the park now, Mr. L?

L: I need to stay on the move. Change wifi hotspots.

WATARI: Isn’t that a little... paranoid?

L: In the face of a killer who can kill from a distance? No, it’s only appropriate. Completely appropriate. Watari... You need to create a filter. Something to distort my voice over the phone.

WATARI: That’ll be done in no time, Mr. L.

L now explains his initial idea of how to catch the killer. He asks WHEN someone would use their power to kill and concludes that they’d do it after work before bed, in free time timeframes. L assumes someone would likely kill between 4pm and 2am, but which timezone? 78% of people die in that timeframe, in GMT-10. Thus L narrows it down to countries in that timezone for a start. And he also wants to factor in weekends, holidays, other free time events... for all those countries, to narrow it down with reference to the 32% of killings done at other times.

_______

The interpol meeting is in session. The French representative argues that if the assumption is that this is black magic or something, then it isn’t under their jurisdiction. After all there are no laws about magic or cursing people. The US representative and meeting leader explains that there weren’t any laws about cyber crimes (or even a concept of cyber crimes) either before there were computers. Thus she argues in favor of investigating.

________

RYUK: I mean, I love it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a god of death and you are basically my dedicated intern.

LIGHT: Can’t you just---

RYUK: I will just do what I feel like. You can’t write my name into my own book. I am practically the only living being on this planet that is pretty much safe from you. And that’s exactly why I’m asking: when is it over? I look at you, putting on airs full of significance, how you’re killing the killers, the rapists, the serial killers.... You declared yourself the highest arbiter.

LIGHT: Someone has to do it. Someone has to tidy up!

RYUK: And what happens when you’re done with murderers? Tax evaders? Jaywalkers? Two hairdressers having a brawl at a bar? Where do you draw the line after which the world is cleansed? Let me tell you something. This world has always been a cesspit.

LIGHT: I’ll know it when it happens.

RYUK: Or when someone stops you.

LIGHT: Oh come on, who’s supposed to find me?

______

Back at Interpol, they’re debating the need for an international task force. Soichiro suggests bringing in L. French representative is just like “oooh, you’re calling a mystery to solve a mystery?”. Who L is gets explained.

Watari comes in and explains that L is already on the case. L’s message is played. He wants cooperation from the police.

______

A TV report about further killings. A different channel, a religious speaker claims the final days have come. A different channel again, a stand-up comedian talks about the Kira case and jokes that if all killers gets killed nobody would be left to run the government. Says he’d love to do it, but he smoked weed as a college student, so he’s probably on the list too....

Yet another channel recalls that the most popular theory about the killing has religious qualities and that people online are talking of “Kira, the saviour”.

Light turns off the audio on the TV and Ryuk complains.

RYUK: They assume Kira is male... How sexist.

Light is currently busy googling ‘Kira’. Light complains that people don’t manage to spell ‘Killer’ correctly, if that is what they mean to say. Ryuk is the one who brings up how ‘you Japanese’ swap L and R and thus explains the name.

Then the Lind L. Tailor broadcast happens and Ryuk tells Light to put the audio back on.

______

The Task Force is discussing the broadcast. Matsuda thought L would be more self-assured and less... reading his text off flash cards. He then realizes the name sounds familiar to him and looks it up.

______

Light talks to Ryuk about writing Tailor’s name and does so. He dies.

LIGHT: Oopsiedaisy, heart attack.

L’s voice picks right back up. Light is confused and angry. L explains the scheme. The taunt proceeds as in the manga.

_____

Matsuda is just like ‘I tried to tell you, boss. Tailor was on death row’.

______

There is actually noises of Light breaking things in his room as he gets mad about this. Ryuk tells him to calm down. L disconnects on TV.

RYUK: Mic drop. Rock ‘n’ Roll.

LIGHT: Shut up.

______

Matsuda and Soichiro have their conversation about L’s stunt and also Kira lowering crime rate while Soichiro is rushing to catch the train home.

______

SAYU: Oh no, not curry again....

SACHIKO: Sayu, you love curry, you---

SAYU: That was when I was 6, mom! It makes you fat.

SACHIKO: Don’t be silly, dearie.

LIGHT: Everything makes you fat, if you eat too much of it.

SACHIKO: Thanks, Light. At least one person in this family uses his brain. You get that from your dad.

As if on cue, Soichiro comes home. He is delighted about the curry. Talks about the Kira case. He also brings up the idea of Kira being a teenager. Light chokes on his curry quite lengthily at that.

______

Ryuk expresses his surprise at Soichiro leading the investigation. Light comes up with his plan to change the time of death.

______

L calls Soichiro and Soichiro gives him the news that Kira now kills hourly. L declares people connected to the investigators to be suspects.

______

The US Interpol representative and Watari are meeting for coffee, though Watari does not get coffee because it messes with his heart-rate. Watari requests the FBI to supervise in Japan. Specifically the FBI because the CIA might include a mole. The FBI meanwhile is meant for inland and thus not yet related to the case and can function as external. The representative is pretty shocked and initially refuses, based on the rules for the FBI.

______

Three detectives leave the case because they don’t want to risk their lives by fighting Kira.

______

Watari informs L that the FBI has agreed to investigate. L has already looked into the suspect pool via social media. Related to investigators, 16-24, only in the Kanto region....

______

Ryuk informs Light of someone tailing him. It’s a lengthy dialogue but very canon-close and not super interesting.

LIGHT: If this is the police....

RYUK: You’ll put up your hands and surrender?

LIGHT: I’m going to have to kill them. All of them.

RYUK: Yeah, that’s what I thought.

#death note #audio drama translations #light yagami #l lawliet

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mischiefiswritten · 5 years

Text

What Otome Has Taught Me About Writing Romance (and Some Other Things)

Alright, time for me to come clean about my love for visual novels and otome games. (Otome, if you're not familiar with it, is a genre of games with female protagonists that tells a love story, allowing the player to choose a suitor and make choices along the way that influence the ending. It's fantastic fun.) Aside from being an excellent little diversion, it's actually proved to be a useful tool when it comes to writing elements of romance into any WIP.

On with the Show

Otome games tend to be relatively short, so they need to pack a lot in to every chapter or episode. The best of them manage to cram in a full range of emotion and a cohesive plot to forge a memorable experience in relatively few words. I'm not suggesting that novels or other fictional formats need to be stripped down to their barest word counts, but there's something extremely valuable about being able to convey important elements of a story with economy. For one thing, your readers are probably busy people, just like you. They don't have unlimited time to read all the things they want to read, and if you spend too much time saying nothing at all (like in exposition), they might drop your story in favor of something else.

Now, there's no perfect formula for when to launch into the action of a story - each one is different and calls for something different! Personally I love to have some time for introduction at the start of a novel, not just so that I know who the characters are, but also so that I have a chance to crawl inside the world and live there before having serious plot to keep up with. That said, I have a 100 page rule - I only require myself to give a book 100 pages to convince me to stay. If I hit page 100 and I'm still saying, "what is this book going to be about? when is something going to happen?" there's a very good chance I'm outta there.

In contrast, if you jump into the deep end of the action immediately, readers may lack a sense of why they're supposed to care. These characters are distressed? That's a bummer, but if the reader never sees who they are and what their lives are like without the drama, they may have less passion for seeing that drama resolved. Like everything else in writing, this is a balancing act. It's all about finding your sweet spot so the progression from opening your book's cover to finding yourself swept into the narrative can seem as natural as possible and get the best emotional and intellectual investment from your readers.

Cheap Drama Feels Cheap

Your readers are intelligent people. Don't try to fool them into thinking there's real drama and suspense somewhere there's not because they'll be able to tell right away. It's annoying to most readers, especially when excellent characters - like yours! - are wasted on it. The otome routes that get dropped somewhere in the middle and receive the absolute worst reviews are the ones that feature the 'easily-resolved misunderstanding' trope. It's. The. Worst.

Terrible misunderstandings happen all the time in real life and in fiction, and the ensuing conflict (or disaster) can be extremely rewarding for the audience. "NO!!" it will make them scream as they clutch the book thinking about how it doesn't have to be this way. If only the characters knew, if only they realized! It's not the unnecessary nature of the issue that makes it cheap - it's how easily it's resolved. If there's an easy answer conveniently within your characters' grasp and no reason for them to not realize it or not take it, it will bug your readers.

One of the most infamous examples is when the female protagonist glimpses her suitor for a total of 20 seconds innocently talking to/hugging/putting a hand on the shoulder of/etc. an unidentified girl, and immediately sprints away, tears streaming from her eyes, despairing that the man she adores does not really love her after all and has been unfaithful. O woe, that this strange woman was chosen over her! Curse the vixen who stole her suitor's heart! The female protagonist then uproots everything good that was happening, abandons it all and runs far away. She ignores his and everyone else's attempts at communication until, in a crescendo of needless drama, the suitor travels a great distance to corner her and say,"yo, that was my sister."

Are you rolling your eyes? You should be rolling your eyes. Think of all the things anyone with any sense could have done in this situation. Stayed for another minute to hear the conversation. Walked up and asked to be introduced. Left after a minute or two, but asked about it later. Answered the phone when he called.

The bottom line is this: don't let your story's conflicts have easy answers. Especially not multiple easy answers. Take away the simple resolutions! Make every option cost your characters something!

Emotion Must Be Earned

I mentioned above that if you dive into the drama of your story too quickly, you risk losing the readers' investment in your characters and plot. That's because emotion must be earned. This goes for both your readers and your characters.

You can't just tell your readers they should care about what's happening to your characters and actually expect them to. Even if you have the cutest, most squee-worthy romantic scenes in store, they'll feel hollow without the proper buildup. This happens all the time in otome (and other forms of fiction) where it seems like the writer was in a hurry to just get to the butterfly-inducing romance already! You read through a scene, and oh my gosh that dialogue nearly made you swoon, but... when that initial "OMG" fades, you're left feeling like something was missing. That thing was the feeling of resolved tension, or a triumph over struggles - something to make you say, "Finally!"

You have to make them work for it. It's not about being super clever, or surprising your reader with the build of emotions or the happily ever after. No one starts an otome game under the impression the main characters may not fall in love, after all. But there has to be something that keeps them apart for a while, some will-they-won't-they limbo, or that "ohohoho they're catching feeeelings!" process that makes the characters coming together feel like a win.

The bottom line is this: When romances are quickly and easily achieved, they feel cheaper.

You Can't Rush Love

The characters need some understandable reasons for feeling as they do about one another, as well. Even if it's some intangible 'it' factor that can't quite be explained, readers want to really feel like these people belong together. Otome routes with multiple seasons can fall into this trap pretty easily. When the writers want to get from the first season story of meeting and falling in love directly to season two getting married and talking about babies, it can feel like something very important was skipped. Like where their relationship naturally progressed and grew from that new, fresh whirlwind romance to serious life plans. (This works the worst when there's no time jump at all, or very little time is supposed to have passed.) The wedding and baby dialogue may be as swoony as Pride & Prejudice, but readers still don't want to have the nagging question "How did these people get to this point in their relationship?" in the back of their minds.

Sometimes this happens without time jumps or milestones, and the couple seems to leap from flirtation and new possibilities to 'I-would-die-for-you-and-without-you' levels of love. Like above, maybe it leads to great scenes, and maybe this part of the story is actually very well written, but if you're left asking "what did I miss?", there's a problem there. Along with earning your readers' emotional investment, you have to earn their belief. As a writer, it's your job to convince readers that this is a relationship worth rooting for - something that can last, or at least burn brightly before its bittersweet ending. If it's real love, your readers have to be able to grasp why: why these people are a couple, why they're meant to be, etc.

Keep 'Em Coming Back

If you've played much otome at all (particularly free-to-play mobile otome), you're familiar with the typical ticketed reading system. In most of these games, you only get to read about half a chapter a day unless you pay for additional tickets, divided up into about five shorter segments. Along the way there are often checkpoints you have to pass by raising scores by completing tasks and mini-games and the like - and sometimes it takes a while (several days or even a week or two) to obtain the resources you need to continue reading!

And what's this got to do with writing? One word: pacing.

In otome, the story has to be good enough and each cut-off tantalizing enough that you 1) cash in all your free tickets each day, 2) want to come back each day to keep reading, and 3) are motivated to take the time to pass checkpoints. This means the game writers have to master their cliffhanger game as well as overall pacing. Not all the cliffhangers are of the type that probably jumped to mind upon first reading this. It doesn't always have to be a sudden and imminent danger, a shocking revelation, or other plot twist. Often it's dangling a sweet, romantic moment in front of players or otherwise developing a character through backstory or some meaningful event. The romance genre is largely about discovering the character of a person, all their dimensions and convolutions, and that journey of discovery can be an extremely useful tool for maintaining interest chapter to chapter and throughout the story.

Usually, if an otome route is going to drag, it's going to be in the middle. Perhaps this is because the writers had few compelling ideas for that portion of the plot, which is another topic for another day, but regardless of the genesis of the problem, it can kill a story. Life is busy, time for games and reading is limited, and content to play and read is plentiful. If a story becomes dull for a long stretch in the middle with no end to the doldrums in sight, it can easily be abandoned and forgotten about. At the same time, things can't be explosions and adrenaline-fueled car chases all the time. The less glamorous, less obviously exciting bits of a story are often where its soul takes shape and future payoffs are set in motion, so the trick is not to eliminate the quiet moments but to intersperse moments that make readers need something new. New questions they need answered, new angles they need explored, new emotions they need to experience again.

Your writing is not likely to be diced up to the extent an otome game is, but it's equally important to keep the middle from sagging and to provide that "just one more chapter!" feeling for your readers. Be careful not to make too many assumptions about the attention spans of readers - they need to be kept wanting more!

Don't Drag Out the Dark

Most people like a solid infusion of angst into their media. There's nothing wrong with a dark night of the soul your characters and readers can experience together, but you have to make sure there's some promise of dawn. If things get too abysmal for too long, people may be tempted to put the story down. I myself have been on hiatus with an otome game I absolutely love for more than too years because the route I was playing was simply too depressing! Life has a lot of challenges in store for all of us, and seeing fictional characters triumph over their own hardships can make even the darkest times more bearable. It's important to remember, however, that readers invest heavily in your characters - their burdens become the readers' burdens. Even when life isn't putting you through your paces, you can have a long day, and at the end of a long day, you may not have the energy to plunge headlong into the enduring agony of a novel. If readers feel like the terrible things happening to your characters are never going to end, they may simply lose the will to keep reading, despite loving what you've set up.

Like anything else, it's about balance. As readers, we tend to like being strung along by glimpses of better times ahead, or at least something to make the struggles worthwhile. Happiness makes pain more meaningful. Peace makes strife more striking. There has to be substance to the sadness. A reason for it, and an end to it - even if the ending is tragic. Be creative about what constitutes a good reason (a lesson learned, a sacrifice made, etc.) and also take into account what you advertise vs. what you deliver. (i.e. readers will be much more amenable to a sorrowful tale if they knew that's what they were getting into than if they were sold a happy-go-lucky romcom.)

At the end of the day, what's most important is how the story makes you feel.

I never pay for otome games. I opt for free-to-play offerings instead, and this has in no way impacted the quality of games I've had access to. Most of my favorites are not those with all the bells and whistles like animation and voice acting, those with the highest art budgets, or those from the most popular companies. They're the ones that people poured their hearts into and created earnestly and lovingly, starting where they were and using what they had.

And that is the bottom line of every piece of writing advice I could ever give. A lot of flaws can be overlooked in favor of the emotions a story evokes. Who cares if it was not told as artfully as another so long as it made you feel something real? Storytelling skills are marvelous, but when all is said and done, it's not the telling that matters most. The story itself is what counts.

I hope you believe in the story you have inside of you. I do! Thanks for making it to the end of this super long post (sorry but only kind of) and please feel free to share your thoughts on this topic with me.

#super long post #writeblr #writing #writing advice #strategies & tips #mischiefiswritten #this has been in my drafts for so long

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sheminecrafts · 5 years

Text

Brittany Kaiser dumps more evidence of Brexit’s democratic trainwreck

A UK parliamentary committee has published new evidence fleshing out how membership data was passed from UKIP, a pro-Brexit political party, to Leave.EU, a Brexit supporting campaign active in the 2016 EU referendum — via the disgraced and now defunct data company, Cambridge Analytica.

In evidence sessions last year, during the DCMS committee’s enquiry into online disinformation, it was told by both the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, and the main financial backer of the Leave.EU campaign, the businessman Arron Banks, that Cambridge Analytica did no work for the Leave.EU campaign.

Documents published today by the committee clearly contradict that narrative — revealing internal correspondence about the use of a UKIP dataset to create voter profiles to carry out “national microtargeting” for Leave.EU.

They also show CA staff raising concerns about the legality of the plan to model UKIP data to enable Leave.EU to identify and target receptive voters with pro-Brexit messaging.

The UK’s 2016 in-out EU referendum saw the voting public narrowing voting to leave — by 52:48.

New evidence from Brittany Kaiser

The evidence, which includes emails between key Cambridge Analytica, employees of Leave.EU and UKIP, has been submitted to the DCMS committee by Brittany Kaiser — a former director of CA (who you may just have seen occupying a central role in Netflix’s The Great Hack documentary, which digs into links between the Trump campaign and the Brexit campaign).

We have just published new evidence from Brittany Kaiser relating to Cambridge Analytica, UKIP and Leave EU – you can read them all here @CommonsCMS https://t.co/2LjfJiozO6 #TheGreatHack

— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) July 30, 2019

“As you can see with the evidence… chargeable work was completed for UKIP and Leave.EU, and I have strong reasons to believe that those datasets and analysed data processed by Cambridge Analytica as part of a Phase 1 payable work engagement… were later used by the Leave.EU campaign without Cambridge Analytica’s further assistance,” writes Kaiser in a covering letter to committee chair, Damian Collins, summarizing the submissions.

Kaiser gave oral evidence to the committee at a public hearing in April last year.

At the time she said CA had been undertaking parallel pitches for Leave.EU and UKIP — as well as for two insurance brands owned by Banks — and had used membership survey data provided by UKIP to built a model for pro-brexit voter personality types, with the intention of it being used “to benefit Leave.EU”.

“We never had a contract with Leave.EU. The contract was with the UK Independence party for the analysis of this data, but it was meant to benefit Leave.EU,” she said then.

The new emails submitted by Kaiser back up her earlier evidence. They also show there was discussion of drawing up a contract between CA, UKIP and Leave.EU in the fall before the referendum vote.

In one email — dated November 10, 2015 — CA’s COO & CFO, Julian Wheatland, writes that: “I had a call with [Leave.EU’s] Andy Wigmore today (Arron’s right hand man) and he confirmed that, even though we haven’t got the contract with the Leave written up, it’s all under control and it will happen just as soon as [UKIP-linked lawyer] Matthew Richardson has finished working out the correct contract structure between UKIP, CA and Leave.”

Another item Kaiser has submitted to the committee is a separate November email from Wigmore, inviting press to a briefing by Leave.EU — entitled “how to win the EU referendum” — an event at which Kaiser gave a pitch on CA’s work. In this email Wigmore describes the firm as “the worlds leading target voter messaging campaigners”.

In another document, CA’s Wheatland is shown in an email thread ahead of that presentation telling Wigmore and Richardson “we need to agree the line in the presentations next week with regards the origin of the data we have analysed”.

“We have generated some interesting findings that we can share in the presentation, but we are certain to be asked where the data came from. Can we declare that we have analysed UKIP membership and survey data?” he then asks.

UKIP’s Richardson replies with a negative, saying: “I would rather we didn’t, to be honest” — adding that he has a meeting with Wigmore to discuss “all of this”, and ending with: “We will have a plan by the end of that lunch, I think”.

In another email, dated November 10, sent to multiple recipients ahead of the presentation, Wheatland writes: “We need to start preparing Brittany’s presentation, which will involve working with some of the insights David [Wilkinson, CA’s chief data scientist] has been able to glean from the UKIP membership data.”

He also asks Wilkinson if he can start to “share insights from the UKIP data” — as well as asking “when are we getting the rest of the data?”. (In a later email, dated November 16, Wilkinson shares plots of modelled data with Kaiser — apparently showing the UKIP data now segmented into four blocks of brexit supporters, which have been named: ‘Eager activist’; ‘Young reformer’; ‘Disaffected Tories’; and ‘Left behinds’.)

In the same email Wheatland instructs Jordanna Zetter, an employee of CA’s parent company SCL, to brief Kaiser on “how to field a variety of questions about CA and our methodology, but also SCL. Rest of the world, SCL Defence etc” — asking her to liaise with other key SCL/CA staff to “produce some ‘line to take’ notes”.

Another document in the bundle appears to show Kaiser’s talking points for the briefing. These make no mention of CA’s intention to carry out “national microtargeting” for Leave.EU — merely saying it will conduct “message testing and audience segmentation”.

“We will be working with the campaign’s pollsters and other vendors to compile all the data we have available to us,” is another of the bland talking points Kaiser was instructed to feed to the press.

“Our team of data scientists will conduct deep-dive analysis that will enable us to understand the electorate better than the rival campaigns,” is one more unenlightening line intended for public consumption.

But while CA was preparing to present the UK media with a sanitized false narrative to gloss over the individual voter targeting work it actually intended to carry out for Leave.EU, behind the scenes concerns were being raised about how “national microtargeting” would conflict with UK data protection law.

Another email thread, started November 19, highlights internal discussion about the legality of the plan — with Wheatland sharing “written advice from Queen’s Counsel on the question of how we can legally process data in the UK, specifically UKIP’s data for Leave.eu and also more generally”. (Although Kaiser has not shared the legal advice itself.)

Wilkinson replies to this email with what he couches as “some concerns” regarding shortfalls in the advice, before going into detail on how CA is intending to further process the modelled UKIP data in order to individually microtarget brexit voters — which he suggests would not be legal under UK data protection law “as the identification of these people would constitute personal data”.

He writes:

I have some concerns about what this document says is our “output” – points 22 to 24. Whilst it includes what we have already done on their data (clustering and initial profiling of their members, and providing this to them as summary information), it does not say anything about using the models of the clusters that we create to extrapolate to new individuals and infer their profile. In fact it says that our output does not identify individuals. Thus it says nothing about our microtargeting approach typical in the US, which I believe was something that we wanted to do with leave eu data to identify how each their supporters should be contacted according to their inferred profile.

For example, we wouldn’t be able to show which members are likely to belong to group A and thus should be messaged in this particular way – as the identification of these people would constitute personal data. We could only say “group A typically looks like this summary profile”.

Wilkinson ends by asking for clarification ahead of a looming meeting with Leave.EU, saying: “It would be really useful to have this clarified early on tomorrow, because I was under the impression it would be a large part of our product offering to our UK clients.” [emphasis ours]

Wheatland follows up with a one line email, asking Richardson to “comment on David’s concern” — who then chips into the discussion, saying there’s “some confusion at our end about where this data is coming from and going to”.

He goes on to summarize the “premises” of the advice he says UKIP was given regarding sharing the data with CA (and afterwards the modelled data with Leave.EU, as he implies is the plan) — writing that his understanding is that CA will return: “Analysed Data to UKIP”, and then: “As the Analysed Dataset contains no personal data UKIP are free to give that Analysed Dataset to anyone else to do with what they wish. UKIP will give the Analysed Dataset to Leave.EU”.

“Could you please confirm that the above is correct?” Richardson goes on. “Do I also understand correctly that CA then intend to use the Analysed Dataset and overlay it on Leave.EU’s legitimately acquired data to infer (interpolate) profiles for each of their supporters so as to better control the messaging that leave.eu sends out to those supporters?

“Is it also correct that CA then intend to use the Analysed Dataset and overlay it on publicly available data to infer (interpolate) which members of the public are most likely to become Leave.EU supporters and what messages would encourage them to do so?

“If these understandings are not correct please let me know and I will give you a call to discuss this.”

About half an hour later another SCL Group employee, Peregrine Willoughby-Brown, joins the discussion to back up Wilkinson’s legal concerns.

“The [Queen’s Counsel] opinion only seems to be an analysis of the legality of the work we have already done for UKIP, rather than any judgement on whether or not we can do microtargeting. As such, whilst it is helpful to know that we haven’t already broken the law, it doesn’t offer clear guidance on how we can proceed with reference to a larger scope of work,” she writes without apparent alarm at the possibility that the entire campaign plan might be illegal under UK privacy law.

“I haven’t read it in sufficient depth to know whether or not it offers indirect insight into how we could proceed with national microtargeting, which it may do,” she adds — ending by saying she and a colleague will discuss it further “later today”.

It’s not clear whether concerns about the legality of the microtargeting plan derailed the signing of any formal contract between Leave.EU and CA — even though the documents imply data was shared, even if only during the scoping stage of the work.

“The fact remains that chargeable work was done by Cambridge Analytica, at the direction of Leave.EU and UKIP executives, despite a contract never being signed,” writes Kaiser in her cover letter to the committee on this. “Despite having no signed contract, the invoice was still paid, not to Cambridge Analytica but instead paid by Arron Banks to UKIP directly. This payment was then not passed onto Cambridge Analytica for the work completed, as an internal decision in UKIP, as their party was not the beneficiary of the work, but Leave.EU was.”

Kaiser has also shared a presentation of the UKIP survey data, which bears the names of three academics: Harold Clarke, University of Texas at Dallas & University of Essex; Matthew Goodwin, University of Kent; and Paul Whiteley, University of Essex, which details results from the online portion of the membership survey — aka the core dataset CA modelled for targeting Brexit voters with the intention of helping the Leave.EU campaign.

(At a glance, this survey suggests there’s an interesting analysis waiting to be done of the choice of target demographics for the current blitz of campaign message testing ads being run on Facebook by the new (pro-brexit) UK prime minister Boris Johnson and the core UKIP demographic, as revealed by the survey data… )

[gallery ids="1862050,1862051,1862052"]

Call for Leave.EU probe to be reopened

Ian Lucas, MP, a member of the DCMS committee has called for the UK’s Electoral Commission to re-open its investigation into Leave.EU in view of “additional evidence” from Kaiser.

The EC should re-open their investigation into LeaveEU in view of the additional evidence from Brittany Kaiser via @CommonsCMS

— Ian Lucas MP (@IanCLucas) July 30, 2019

We reached out to the Electoral Commission to ask if it will be revisiting the matter.

An Electoral Commission spokesperson told us: “We are considering this new information in relation to our role regulating campaigner activity at the EU referendum. This relates to the 10 week period leading up to the referendum and to campaigning activity specifically aimed at persuading people to vote for a particular outcome.

“Last July we did impose significant penalties on Leave.EU for committing multiple offences under electoral law at the EU Referendum, including for submitting an incomplete spending return.”

Last year the Electoral Commission also found that the official Vote Leave Brexit campaign broke the law by breaching election campaign spending limits. It channelled money to a Canadian data firm linked to Cambridge Analytica to target political ads on Facebook’s platform, via undeclared joint working with a youth-focused Brexit campaign, BeLeave.

Six months ago the UK’s data watchdog also issued fines against Leave.EU and Banks’ insurance company, Eldon Insurance — having found what it dubbed as “serious” breaches of electronic marketing laws, including the campaign using insurance customers’ details to unlawfully to send almost 300,000 political marketing messages.

A spokeswoman for the ICO told us it does not have a statement on Kaiser’s latest evidence but added that its enforcement team “will be reviewing the documents released by DCMS”.

The regulator has been running a wider enquiry into use of personal data for social media political campaigning. And last year the information commissioner called for an ethical pause on its use — warning that trust in democracy risked being undermined.

And while Facebook has since applied a thin film of ‘political ads’ transparency to its platform (which researches continue to warn is not nearly transparent enough to quantify political use of its ads platform), UK election campaign laws have yet to be updated to take account of the digital firehoses now (il)liberally shaping political debate and public opinion at scale.

It’s now more than three years since the UK’s shock vote to leave the European Union — a vote that has so far delivered three years of divisive political chaos, despatching two prime ministers and derailing politics and policymaking as usual.

Many questions remain over a referendum that continues to be dogged by scandals — from breaches of campaign spending; to breaches of data protection and privacy law; and indeed the use of unregulated social media — principally Facebook’s ad platform — as the willing conduit for distributing racist dogwhistle attack ads and political misinformation to whip up anti-EU sentiment among UK voters.

Dark money, dark ads — and the importing of US style campaign tactics into UK, circumventing election and data protection laws by the digital platform backdoor.

This is why the DCMS committee’s preliminary report last year called on the government to take “urgent action” to “build resilience against misinformation and disinformation into our democratic system”.

The very same minority government, struggling to hold itself together in the face of Brexit chaos, failed to respond to the committee’s concerns — and has now been replaced by a cadre of the most militant Brexit backers, who are applying their hands to the cheap and plentiful digital campaign levers.

The UK’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, is demonstrably doubling down on political microtargeting: Appointing no less than Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of the official Vote Leave campaign, as a special advisor.

At the same time Johnson’s team is firing out a flotilla of Facebook ads — including ads that appear intended to gather voter sentiment for the purpose of crafting individually targeted political messages for any future election campaign.

So it’s full steam ahead with the Facebook ads…

Yet this ‘democratic reset’ is laid right atop the Brexit trainwreck. It’s coupled to it, in fact.

Cummings worked for the self same Vote Leave campaign that the Electoral Commission found illegally funnelled money — via Cambridge Analytica-linked Canadian data firm AggregateIQ — into a blitz of microtargeted Facebook ads intended to sway voter opinion.

Vote Leave also faced questions over its use of Facebook-run football competition promising a £50M prize-pot to fans in exchange for handing over a bunch of personal data ahead of the referendum, including how they planned to vote. Another data grab wrapped in fancy dress — much like GSR’s thisisyourlife quiz app that provided the foundational dataset for CA’s psychological voter profiling work on the Trump campaign.

The elevating of Cummings to be special adviser to the UK PM represents the polar opposite of an ‘ethical pause’ in political microtargeting.

Make no mistake, this is the Brexit campaign playbook — back in operation, now with full-bore pedal to the metal. (With his hands now on the public purse, Johnson has pledged to spend £100M on marketing to sell a ‘no deal Brexit’ to the UK public.)

Kaiser’s latest evidence may not contain a smoking bomb big enough to blast the issue of data-driven and tech giant-enabled voter manipulation into a mainstream consciousness, where it might have the chance to reset the political conscience of a nation — but it puts more flesh on the bones of how the self-styled ‘bad boys of Brexit’ pulled off their shock win.

In The Great Hack the Brexit campaign is couched as the ‘petri dish’ for the data-fuelled targeting deployed by the firm in the 2016 US presidential election — which delivered a similarly shock victory for Trump.

If that’s so, these latest pieces of evidence imply a suggestively close link between CA’s experimental modelling of UKIP supporter data, as it shifted gears to apply its dark arts closer to home than usual, and the models it subsequently built off of US citizens’ data sucked out of Facebook. And that in turn goes some way to explaining the cosiness between Trump and UKIP founder Nigel Farage…

So Donald Trump wants Nigel Farage on any trade negotiating team?

Maybe this is how #Brexit will end? Not with a bang, not with a cliff edge, but with a great Tory shriek of revulsion?#nodealbrexit #ridge #marr #bbcbh #farage pic.twitter.com/iCn6hd9eka

— carol hedges (@carolJhedges) July 28, 2019

Kaiser ends her letter to DCMS writing: “Given the enormity of the implications of earlier inaccurate conclusions by different investigations, I would hope that Parliament reconsiders the evidence submitted here in good faith. I hope that these ten documents are helpful to your research and furthering the transparency and truth that your investigations are seeking, and that the people of the UK and EU deserve”.

Banks and Wigmore have responded to the publication in their usual style, with a pair of dismissive tweets — questioning Kaiser’s motives for wanting the data to be published and throwing shade on how the evidence was obtained in the first place.

You mean the professional whistleblower who’s making a career of making stuff up with a book deal and failed Netflix film! The witch-hunt so last season !! https://t.co/f2rsPfoDdT

— Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) July 30, 2019

Desperate stuff @DamianCollins lol

know one cares – oh and are those emails obtained illegally – computer misuse act – tut tut stolen data, oh the irony https://t.co/BNWxUJmwoQ

— Andy Wigmore (@andywigmore) July 30, 2019

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/315tAbu via IFTTT

#IFTTT #iraidajzsmmwtv

0 notes

endenogatai · 5 years

Text

Brittany Kaiser dumps more evidence of Brexit’s democratic trainwreck

They also show CA staff raising concerns about the legality of the plan to model UKIP data to enable Leave.EU to identify and target receptive voters with pro-Brexit messaging.

The UK’s 2016 in-out EU referendum saw the voting public narrowing voting to leave — by 52:48.

New evidence from Brittany Kaiser

We have just published new evidence from Brittany Kaiser relating to Cambridge Analytica, UKIP and Leave EU – you can read them all here @CommonsCMS https://t.co/2LjfJiozO6 #TheGreatHack

— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) July 30, 2019

Kaiser gave oral evidence to the committee at a public hearing in April last year.

“We never had a contract with Leave.EU. The contract was with the UK Independence party for the analysis of this data, but it was meant to benefit Leave.EU,” she said then.

The new emails submitted by Kaiser back up her earlier evidence. They also show there was discussion of drawing up a contract between CA, UKIP and Leave.EU in the fall before the referendum vote.

He writes:

“If these understandings are not correct please let me know and I will give you a call to discuss this.”

About half an hour later another SCL Group employee, Peregrine Willoughby-Brown, joins the discussion to back up Wilkinson’s legal concerns.

[gallery ids="1862050,1862051,1862052"]

Call for Leave.EU probe to be reopened

Ian Lucas, MP, a member of the DCMS committee has called for the UK’s Electoral Commission to re-open its investigation into Leave.EU in view of “additional evidence” from Kaiser.

The EC should re-open their investigation into LeaveEU in view of the additional evidence from Brittany Kaiser via @CommonsCMS

— Ian Lucas MP (@IanCLucas) July 30, 2019

We reached out to the Electoral Commission to ask if it will be revisiting the matter.

“Last July we did impose significant penalties on Leave.EU for committing multiple offences under electoral law at the EU Referendum, including for submitting an incomplete spending return.”

A spokeswoman for the ICO told us it does not have a statement on Kaiser’s latest evidence but added that its enforcement team “will be reviewing the documents released by DCMS”.

Dark money, dark ads — and the importing of US style campaign tactics into UK, circumventing election and data protection laws by the digital platform backdoor.

So it’s full steam ahead with the Facebook ads…

Yet this ‘democratic reset’ is laid right atop the Brexit trainwreck. It’s coupled to it, in fact.

The elevating of Cummings to be special adviser to the UK PM represents the polar opposite of an ‘ethical pause’ in political microtargeting.

So Donald Trump wants Nigel Farage on any trade negotiating team?

Maybe this is how #Brexit will end? Not with a bang, not with a cliff edge, but with a great Tory shriek of revulsion?#nodealbrexit #ridge #marr #bbcbh #farage pic.twitter.com/iCn6hd9eka

— carol hedges (@carolJhedges) July 28, 2019

You mean the professional whistleblower who’s making a career of making stuff up with a book deal and failed Netflix film! The witch-hunt so last season !! https://t.co/f2rsPfoDdT

— Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) July 30, 2019

Desperate stuff @DamianCollins lol

know one cares – oh and are those emails obtained illegally – computer misuse act – tut tut stolen data, oh the irony https://t.co/BNWxUJmwoQ

— Andy Wigmore (@andywigmore) July 30, 2019

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/315tAbu via IFTTT

#IFTTT #RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425

0 notes

fedorasaurus · 7 years

Text

Pokémon Character Analysis: Aether President Lusamine

I haven’t yet finished playing Pokémon Moon (between my 3DS’s poor battery life and having to level up my party considerably to stand a chance against these last couple of battles, I haven’t felt super motivated lately), but I recently got through the climax of the story, and I have a couple of thoughts.

Obviously, this involves discussing some major spoilers, so I’ll see you guys below the pagebreak!

—

Let’s jump right into it: I love that Lusamine was the real villain. I love it even if I did see the twist coming early on (Guzma and his Team Skull goons are just ridiculous thugs; if anything, it just shows that Alola is such a peaceful country that even common street punks are enough to stress locals out). Sure, Guzma is a bully who has a lot of emotional hurt and an aggressive idea about how to help the kids in his community, but it was Lusamine who had the wealth and the power and the oh-so-offputting motherliness to make an evil scheme become a reality.

Here’s what I love about her as a villain: she isn’t in this for money and power like Giovanni, or for manipulative control/domination like Ghetsis, or even for anything as grandiose as changing the structure of the planet/reality as we know it (in the case of Teams Aqua, Magma, and Galactic). Lusamine as a villain is more of… a self-help book’s suggestion to “surround yourself with people and things that make you happy,” to an extreme and therefore toxic degree. She doesn’t want to outright change the world or control and steal from its people for personal gain, but she IS willing to abandon her children for creatures that she perceives as “more beautiful,” and in a way, that is far more villainous. She is motivated by love for the Ultra Beasts and a lack of love for her own family.

Skull Boss Guzma becomes nothing more than hired muscle to help Lusamine further her plans, and she doesn’t give a damn how much the already-troubled guy suffers in the Ultra Dimension as a result.

Combine that with the shady experiments that the Aether Foundation was involved with (Type: Null comes to mind, which is not only a creepy non-name for a pokémon, but the jarring chimera-like appearance of the thing looks like it doesn’t even belong in this series–or anywhere), and it’s a wonder that Lillie had the heart to… maybe not forgive her mother’s actions, but at least be willing/determined to help Lusamine and give her another chance.

While I strongly connect with this theme of giving bad people an opportunity to redeem themselves, I have to say that Gladion’s anger is ENTIRELY justified. How DARE their mother treat them like her pretty little possessions? How DARE his sister leave him behind to face the full force of Lusamine’s anger and disgust over Lillie disobeying and stealing from the Aether Foundation? And how, after all that, does Lillie have the guts to come back with the intention of HELPING their mother? Screw Lusamine, let her live in her alternate dimension with her weird alien monsters that make her happy, where she can’t do anything to hurt anyone on our plane of existence.

It’s a valid thought born from valid emotions, and it’s why I respect Lillie so much for being able to not only overcome her pain, but to turn it into something good, for herself, for her brother, and for her mother. I don’t see so much an anger from Lillie as I do a confidence to stand her ground and speak her mind, to basically tell her parent that “despite your authority over me, what you are doing is wrong. I want you to understand that and I want you to do better. I have changed and I know you can too.”

I don’t know if I’m reading into it too much, but I have so many emotions about this family.

That said, I think the execution of the climactic scene could have been a little more involved. This whole end part of the game feels less complete than the rest of it, as though they were approaching a deadline and just threw together whatever they had by the last minute. Alola’s “Victory Road” is small and easy to traverse, and similarly, the Ultra Dimension that the story spent so much time hyping ended up just being a long creepy tunnel as a means to a final battle with Lusamine (who sports a freaky eldritch-horror-like design––a nice touch!). I think they could have included a bit more content to make the payoff satisfying, is all.

Don’t just have Lusamine tell us that she came here to be surrounded by beautiful things, show us an otherworldly fortress guarded by monsters that defy explanation. Give us a taste of the terror that Guzma experienced when the creatures entered his body. Give us a chance to really explore the Ultra Beast homeworld. Giratina’s Reverse World from Platinum Version comes to mind, and while I also thought that segment was disappointingly brief, it at least gave the player a chance to solve a few puzzles and navigate through phantom plants and upside-down waterfalls before the final showdown. I guess I had hoped that Lusamine’s little pocket of alternate-dimension weirdness would be like that but longer.

I should reiterate now that my criticism about the final encounter with Lusamine doesn’t take away from my feelings about her as a character. GameFreak did an amazing job with this one. Plus, how cool is it to finally have a female pokèvillain!

#thoughts #character analysis #Lusamine #Pokemon Sun and Moon #Pokemon Gen 7 #spoiler #video games #long post #pokemon #GameFreak #spoilers #what a lady

9 notes · View notes

nbntv-blog · 5 years

Text

[ad_1]

They also show CA staff raising concerns about the legality of the plan to model UKIP data to enable Leave.EU to identify and target receptive voters with pro-Brexit messaging.

The UK’s 2016 in-out EU referendum saw the voting public narrowing voting to leave — by 52:48.

New evidence from Brittany Kaiser

Kaiser gave oral evidence to the committee at a public hearing in April last year.

“We never had a contract with Leave.EU. The contract was with the UK Independence party for the analysis of this data, but it was meant to benefit Leave.EU,” she said then.

The new emails submitted by Kaiser back up her earlier evidence. They also show there was discussion of drawing up a contract between CA, UKIP and Leave.EU in the fall before the referendum vote.

He writes:

“If these understandings are not correct please let me know and I will give you a call to discuss this.”

About half an hour later another SCL Group employee, Peregrine Willoughby-Brown, joins the discussion to back up Wilkinson’s legal concerns.

Call for Leave.EU probe to be reopened

Ian Lucas, MP, a member of the DCMS committee has called for the UK’s Electoral Commission to re-open its investigation into Leave.EU in view of “additional evidence” from Kaiser.

The EC should re-open their investigation into LeaveEU in view of the additional evidence from Brittany Kaiser via @CommonsCMS

— Ian Lucas MP (@IanCLucas) July 30, 2019

We reached out to the Electoral Commission to ask if it will be revisiting the matter.

“Last July we did impose significant penalties on Leave.EU for committing multiple offences under electoral law at the EU Referendum, including for submitting an incomplete spending return.”

A spokeswoman for the ICO told us it does not have a statement on Kaiser’s latest evidence but added that its enforcement team “will be reviewing the documents released by DCMS”.

Dark money, dark ads — and the importing of US style campaign tactics into UK, circumventing election and data protection laws by the digital platform backdoor.

So it’s full steam ahead with the Facebook ads…

Yet this ‘democratic reset’ is laid right atop the Brexit trainwreck. It’s coupled to it, in fact.

The elevating of Cummings to be special adviser to the UK PM represents the polar opposite of an ‘ethical pause’ in political microtargeting.

You mean the professional whistleblower who’s making a career of making stuff up with a book deal and failed Netflix film! The witch-hunt so last season !! https://t.co/f2rsPfoDdT

— Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) July 30, 2019

[ad_2] Source link

Former Cambridge Analytica director, Brittany Kaiser, dumps more evidence of Brexit’s democratic trainwreck – TechCrunch A UK parliamentary committee has published new evidence fleshing out how membership data was passed from UKIP, a pro-Brexit political party, to Leave.EU, a Brexit supporting campaign active in the 2016 EU referendum — via the disgraced and now defunct data company, Cambridge Analytica.

0 notes

technicalsolutions88 · 5 years

Link

They also show CA staff raising concerns about the legality of the plan to model UKIP data to enable Leave.EU to identify and target receptive voters with pro-Brexit messaging.

The UK’s 2016 in-out EU referendum saw the voting public narrowing voting to leave — by 52:48.

New evidence from Brittany Kaiser

We have just published new evidence from Brittany Kaiser relating to Cambridge Analytica, UKIP and Leave EU – you can read them all here @CommonsCMS https://t.co/2LjfJiozO6 #TheGreatHack

— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) July 30, 2019

Kaiser gave oral evidence to the committee at a public hearing in April last year.

“We never had a contract with Leave.EU. The contract was with the UK Independence party for the analysis of this data, but it was meant to benefit Leave.EU,” she said then.

The new emails submitted by Kaiser back up her earlier evidence. They also show there was discussion of drawing up a contract between CA, UKIP and Leave.EU in the fall before the referendum vote.

He writes:

“If these understandings are not correct please let me know and I will give you a call to discuss this.”

About half an hour later another SCL Group employee, Peregrine Willoughby-Brown, joins the discussion to back up Wilkinson’s legal concerns.

[gallery ids="1862050,1862051,1862052"]

Call for Leave.EU probe to be reopened

Ian Lucas, MP, a member of the DCMS committee has called for the UK’s Electoral Commission to re-open its investigation into Leave.EU in view of “additional evidence” from Kaiser.

The EC should re-open their investigation into LeaveEU in view of the additional evidence from Brittany Kaiser via @CommonsCMS

— Ian Lucas MP (@IanCLucas) July 30, 2019

We reached out to the Electoral Commission to ask if it will be revisiting the matter.

“Last July we did impose significant penalties on Leave.EU for committing multiple offences under electoral law at the EU Referendum, including for submitting an incomplete spending return.”

A spokeswoman for the ICO told us it does not have a statement on Kaiser’s latest evidence but added that its enforcement team “will be reviewing the documents released by DCMS”.

Dark money, dark ads — and the importing of US style campaign tactics into UK, circumventing election and data protection laws by the digital platform backdoor.

So it’s full steam ahead with the Facebook ads…

Yet this ‘democratic reset’ is laid right atop the Brexit trainwreck. It’s coupled to it, in fact.

The elevating of Cummings to be special adviser to the UK PM represents the polar opposite of an ‘ethical pause’ in political microtargeting.

So Donald Trump wants Nigel Farage on any trade negotiating team?

Maybe this is how #Brexit will end? Not with a bang, not with a cliff edge, but with a great Tory shriek of revulsion?#nodealbrexit #ridge #marr #bbcbh #farage pic.twitter.com/iCn6hd9eka

— carol hedges (@carolJhedges) July 28, 2019

You mean the professional whistleblower who’s making a career of making stuff up with a book deal and failed Netflix film! The witch-hunt so last season !! https://t.co/f2rsPfoDdT

— Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) July 30, 2019

Desperate stuff @DamianCollins lol

know one cares – oh and are those emails obtained illegally – computer misuse act – tut tut stolen data, oh the irony https://t.co/BNWxUJmwoQ

— Andy Wigmore (@andywigmore) July 30, 2019

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/315tAbu Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com

#Technical Solutions #SEO #Online Earning #Youtube Marketing #Android Developer

0 notes

dizzedcom · 5 years

Text

They also show CA staff raising concerns about the legality of the plan to model UKIP data to enable Leave.EU to identify and target receptive voters with pro-Brexit messaging.

The UK’s 2016 in-out EU referendum saw the voting public narrowing voting to leave — by 52:48.

New evidence from Brittany Kaiser

We have just published new evidence from Brittany Kaiser relating to Cambridge Analytica, UKIP and Leave EU – you can read them all here @CommonsCMS https://t.co/2LjfJiozO6 #TheGreatHack

— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) July 30, 2019

Kaiser gave oral evidence to the committee at a public hearing in April last year.

“We never had a contract with Leave.EU. The contract was with the UK Independence party for the analysis of this data, but it was meant to benefit Leave.EU,” she said then.

The new emails submitted by Kaiser back up her earlier evidence. They also show there was discussion of drawing up a contract between CA, UKIP and Leave.EU in the fall before the referendum vote.

He writes:

“If these understandings are not correct please let me know and I will give you a call to discuss this.”

About half an hour later another SCL Group employee, Peregrine Willoughby-Brown, joins the discussion to back up Wilkinson’s legal concerns.

Call for Leave.EU probe to be reopened

Ian Lucas, MP, a member of the DCMS committee has called for the UK’s Electoral Commission to re-open its investigation into Leave.EU in view of “additional evidence” from Kaiser.

The EC should re-open their investigation into LeaveEU in view of the additional evidence from Brittany Kaiser via @CommonsCMS

— Ian Lucas MP (@IanCLucas) July 30, 2019

We reached out to the Electoral Commission to ask if it will be revisiting the matter.

“Last July we did impose significant penalties on Leave.EU for committing multiple offences under electoral law at the EU Referendum, including for submitting an incomplete spending return.”

A spokeswoman for the ICO told us it does not have a statement on Kaiser’s latest evidence but added that its enforcement team “will be reviewing the documents released by DCMS”.

Dark money, dark ads — and the importing of US style campaign tactics into UK, circumventing election and data protection laws by the digital platform backdoor.

So it’s full steam ahead with the Facebook ads…

Yet this ‘democratic reset’ is laid right atop the Brexit trainwreck. It’s coupled to it, in fact.

The elevating of Cummings to be special adviser to the UK PM represents the polar opposite of an ‘ethical pause’ in political microtargeting.

So Donald Trump wants Nigel Farage on any trade negotiating team?

Maybe this is how #Brexit will end? Not with a bang, not with a cliff edge, but with a great Tory shriek of revulsion?#nodealbrexit #ridge #marr #bbcbh #farage pic.twitter.com/iCn6hd9eka

— carol hedges (@carolJhedges) July 28, 2019

You mean the professional whistleblower who’s making a career of making stuff up with a book deal and failed Netflix film! The witch-hunt so last season !! https://t.co/f2rsPfoDdT

— Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) July 30, 2019

Desperate stuff @DamianCollins lol know one cares – oh and are those emails obtained illegally – computer misuse act – tut tut stolen data, oh the irony https://t.co/BNWxUJmwoQ

— Andy Wigmore (@andywigmore) July 30, 2019

Brittany Kaiser dumps more evidence of Brexit’s democratic trainwreck A UK parliamentary committee has published new evidence fleshing out how membership data was passed from UKIP, a pro-Brexit political party, to Leave.EU, a Brexit supporting campaign active in the 2016 EU referendum — via the disgraced and now defunct data company, Cambridge Analytica.

0 notes