#it makes me want to google all the conspiracy theories

[quietbreeze97]

This is going to be corny as hell, but I've just started binging The X-Files for the first time, and my god, this show is so good??!! Where has it been all my life??

[louderfade]

exene talking about the state of the world. the good stuff starts at eight minutes. or you can just read the transcript complete with the usual errors that accompany robot transcribed speech (the irony of which is not lost on me). maybe it's not about transhumanism and living forever (or maybe it is who knows), but there's definitely an agenda of surveillance and control at work which is designed to keep the powerful in power. cash rules everything around me and you will own nothing etc. the future is worse.

[copperbadge]

What do you mean by digital cleaning?

It's something I've been working on more this year because I had a bit more travel than usual so couldn't do actual home cleaning, but I always take a couple of days in the Month Of Cleaning where I'm focused on my digital life. It's good to make your physical home a comfortable place for yourself, but it's also good to recognize that we have "digital" homes that need attention. And often this is at least less physically demanding, so it's good to keep it in your back pocket for days when you're mentally okay but physically too tired or sore to do more of that kind of work.

In the shortest possible terms, digital cleaning is just making sure that your phone, computer, socials, and other digital "presences" are organized in a way that you find helpful, and that you take a moment to either answer those messages you've been putting off or give yourself amnesty on doing so.

This tends to make a lot of people extremely anxious in a way ordinary physical space cleaning doesn't, so I'm going to put the rest of it behind a cut...

So when I say digital cleaning, I refer to stuff like going through my likes on Tumblr and clearing them out, going through my drafts and turning them into queued posts, answering my asks. I spend time in my email inboxes, either responding to messages or removing them. I am not an "inbox zero" kind of guy, but I like to keep the read-but-not-answered messages to a minimum, and towards the end of the year that usually means a clear-out and amnesty. I clean my Google Drive -- delete old files I uploaded for others, move documents I'm no longer using into an archive, move documents I want to work on into a central work folder. I go through my catch-all folder on my hard drive and organize it; I sort through the year's photos and organize those, partly to archive them and partly because I make a scrapbook from them each year. I don't usually have a ton of tabs open but often have more than I'd like, so I go through them all and either read, bookmark, or get rid of them.

I look in my phone's file tree to make sure I delete files I don't need (mostly menu downloads, Restaurants Stop Making Your Menus PDFs Challenge 2K24) and I sometimes go through each app on my phone, make sure I still use it, and make sure it's set how I want it. If this sounds like a nightmare, bear in mind that I very rarely put apps on my phone to start with -- I think my mother has more apps open at any given time than I have apps on my phone ever.

Everywhere I clean, I look for files named things like "notes" or "deal with" or "random" and move them all into one place so that whatever is in them, I can sort through it and make sure it goes somewhere permanent. Logins go in the login/password spreadsheet I keep, addresses go into my contacts, story notes go into a "fiction scraps" file, random thoughts either get moved into a journal file or put into drafts to become Tumblr posts, etc.

If this sounds like I might have some kind of compulsion disorder, I get that; when I explain my digital hygiene systems a lot of people look at me like I'm spouting a mad but harmless conspiracy theory. But it's something I used to have to do periodically even before I created National Clean Your Home Month, because otherwise I could never find anything, and everything was just...harder. As I once told a boss who admired my organizational skills, "It was this or endless chaos."

Putting addresses into my contacts list means I always know that the addresses I have for my friends are up to date. Putting logins into a spreadsheet means that five minutes spent now will not result in five weeks of procrastination later because I can't find the login and can't do anything else until I do that. Going through my email and archiving old conversations means not only can I find them easily when needed, I don't have to look at them the rest of the time. Sometimes I even go through my various wish lists and remove old/purchased items, or clear out all my "save for later" carts.

There's no doubt this is stressful, but like every part of NaClYoHo, it's broken down into smaller tasks; I don't have to look at my computer and organize everything on it all in one day. I can answer a few asks, then sort photos (something I find very soothing up until the moment I Don't), then read and delete some emails, then I'm done for the day. I can spread "answer or file all your work emails" out over a couple of days. I can maybe empty out my Likes but just turn the ones I actually want to reblog into drafts for now and deal with them later in the "drafts" phase of cleaning. And if I don't manage to empty out my inboxes, at least they're emptier than they were.

I'm struggling this morning with having put a bunch of physical cleaning on the to-do list but not feeling physically up for it, so I did what I felt capable of doing (measuring cabinets for new shelf liners mainly) and later today I might sit down and start building this year's photobook. Or not -- I have to code Radio Free Monday, sort out a prescription and possibly go pick it up, plus a very full day of work and a couple of afternoon appointments I can't shirk, so today may simply be a "get through the day" kind of day. That's okay too; some days the spirit is willing but the schedule is full.

[kookidough]

random rant about tbp tiktok cause i’m actually Sick of it at this point💆‍♀️💆‍♀️ these issues probably exist Outside of tiktok as well but i only ever see them on there so thats the platform i’m gna talk about

before you read i just wanna say warning for mentions of sa!!!!!

first of all i dont want to jump straight into the serious shit so the unoriginality is actually INSANE like ive been seeing the same jokes since 2022, can we Please get something funnier than “griffin does gymnastics / is a ceiling fan” 😭 the amount of times recently i’ll see a tbp tiktok and then get someone copying the idea and making the Same exact post like 3 scrolls later is insane like Pls can we be original Pls this movie is so sad i need something to laugh at

outside of being totally unoriginal some of the jokes tend to be Really Fucking Disgusting like straight up joking about assault, i shouldn’t even have to explain that thats not funny in the slightest?? this one person made a bunch of really gross ones and kept blocking people who called them out in the comment section, my friend had to dm them Several times and all they did was take down one post, the rest are still up with a ton of views :/ i know its like shock humour or dark humour or whatever but i dont see the ‘funny’ side of a grown man forcing himself onto a child and i think if youre laughing at that you should sit down and ask yourself why you think thats so funny.. people in the comments are always like “i shouldn’t laugh” so they Know its wrong as well which just ugh the whole thing just really gets on my nerves

another thing that gets on my nerves is the lack of media literacy and straight up spreading misinformation, maybe on the media literacy part i’m just a hater but i see so many questions being asked or theories being posed when all of the things mentioned were… literally answered in the movie?? “whats up with finney and gwen’s mother” it’s literally said in the movie that she has the same ability as gwen and she killed herself bc of it, next question, “why was max so interested in finding the missing boys” maybe because he was a coked up conspiracy theorist who saw a serious crime happening in his brother’s area so he decided to be a genuine concerned citizen who wanted these boys to be found💀 “why did the grabber kill max” because he had evidence of the highly awful crimes he’d been committing and was about to let his latest victim free?? the list goes on and on but those r the main ones i see all the time

as for the misinformation. Ough. it annoys me So much this is a hill i will die on😭 i dont know if its people’s half-baked theories or personal headcanons that just got way out of hand but i see so much stuff being spread that just Isnt true, it gets spread so far that when you google these things it appears as true when its not which is annoying !!! i actually was gonna make an entire rant about one theory in particular that pisses me off so bad but i can fit it in here alongside my list of “other theories presented as facts that i Absolutely Despise”

first theory, the one i was gonna make an entire post over, is the theory that vance is the grabber’s son. if i see one more tiktok of those two with that marina and the diamonds song im going to fucking lose it😭 i have no idea where people got this from but its so fucking popular that it comes up on google and i Hate it, i think it comes from the fact that in gwen’s dream sequence, which, might i add, WAS A DREAM, it looks like the police drop vance off outside the grabber’s house and he goes inside there, which… apparently automatically makes them related…?? it takes like one ounce of media literacy to realise that Obviously he’d be getting dropped off at his own house in real life, but as a ghost he’s centred on the place he died and is showing that house to gwen in her dreams, like how every other ghost shows that house to her. awful theory awful take i hate it, if its ur personal headcanon sorry but i do Not fw that

the other theories i have like. not much to say about other than the fact that they’re Not true, i see a lot of stuff about griffin for some reason? the number tends to change but a lot of ppl say “he was kept in the basement for 4 years” like . Huh. where is your proof???? i know the missing posters are insanely unreliable but if you literally read them griffin went missing on april 2nd and billy went missing on may 4th so highly likely griffin was only in the basement for like. a month at most, no idea where ppl are pulling 4 years out of💀 i also see people say griffin has broken legs or a broken back Just because of the first scene where we see him doing a backbend but . if that was the case then he wouldnt be able to stand with the other ghosts when they show gwen the house, i think the backbend was just the position he died in and thats why he first appeared that way to finney but Hey thats just my opinion! last two i have like no rants over but just. firstly people saying robin never made it to the basement for some reason but clearly he did otherwise his ghost would not be down there with the rest of them😭 secondly the theory that vance was kept there the longest “because he’s the most feminine” which. just makes absolutely zero sense to me whatsoever idk whos random headcanon got popularised but i dont like it

okay getting serious again, while this one does not make me angry its like. just really weird to me? i think its common knowledge at this point that both the book and the movie are inspired heavily by the john wayne gacy case, with the grabber literally being inspired by john wayne gacy himself (you Cannot argue with me on this one its literally confirmed and theres a boatload of evidence supporting it). i guess its natural to see people making comparisons between the movie and the case because of the inspiration but i’ve seen Several videos recently of people taking photos of jwg victims and putting them next to tbp characters and saying thats who theyre inspired by and i think thats . Really coming across as insensitive i cant lie😭 we know the grabber was inspired by jwg and its heavily thought that billy was inspired by johnny gosch but theres not much about the others and i think its just really distasteful to compare real life murder victims to fictional horror characters just to get views/likes on tiktok, it comes across as insanely disrespectful to me but idk i havent seen anyone else talking about it so i might just be being sensitive

last thing that really really bothers me is grabber simps. while i do see it on tiktok i see it on here, tumblr, most often and its… so odd to me…. like why are you thirsting over the paedophilic serial killer… so so strange to me… i want to see art and character analysis and silly little posts about all the characters but every time i open the tbp tag i’m jumpscared by someones weird ass grabber x reader oneshot and its SO GROSS get that shit away from me😭😭😭😭 also saw this one girl on tiktok one time whos literal entire account was dedicated to the grabber and she defended this by saying the sa in the movie was “just a theory” which is so victim blamey girl i do not trust you there is so much evidence for it in the movie, again w the media literacy point, just because something isnt directly shown to you doesnt mean it isnt shown in other subtler ways… anyway i get if people like the grabber as a villain but actually like. loving him and thirsting over him is weird as fuck to me

so um ya the fandom is a trainwreck can we go back to there being like 3 of us please and thank u. if you actually read all this then Wow thank you its literally just me being chronically online and ranting about stuff that doesn’t matter in the real world at all

[dhmis-autism]

Also I want to show you my favourite parts of the interview because of my mental illness

Red guy I love you please know this. Duck you are so silly come here let me hug you

So Base Jumping is basically sky diving but off of tall buildings. Zorbing is going into a big clear inflatable ball and rolling down a hill. And he also likes killing whales. Good to know

And Duck WEAVES!

Red likes smash mouth because of course he does. Why wouldn’t he? And Duck likes Douglas the silly train.

Awww yellow my poor little guy! I want to hug him, no matter how scared he may be.

And lastly. Red.. are you ok? Do you need help?

And I will fight Roy. Please let me fight him. How dare you hurt my son. My little guy. I bet he is ableist.

OKAY THIS IS SO FUNNY AND ALSO THIS ASK MADE ME THINK SO HARD ABOUT THESE ANSWERS THAT I DREW A LOT SKDHJKSHJ

First one, the idea that Yellow has brown hair means that shit definitely gets dyed and theres no way he's doing that himself. Anyways, got carried away with that one.

Also oh my god the concept of Red having that many insane hobbies is really fucking funny. I like to think that he is not. good. at any of them. He's a very sedentary guy a very sit all day at home type of guy.

ALSO WHAT THE FUCK IS DUCK WEAVING? I WAS LOOKING IT UP AND WEAVING LOOMS ARE HUGE. WHAT ARE YOU MAKING LITTLE FREAK

Anyways also oh my god the contrast between the fucking answers to the dream question? That shit is so funny. That is so hilarious I had to draw it.

Anyways and lastly, thanks for sending me this! :D I liked readin thru and drawing the ones I thought was funny, but I will be thinking about all the answers here and putting that shit on my conspiracy theory boards/character analysis google docs/ect.

[livwritesstuff]

Absolutely obsessed with your steddie dad’s verse!!! Everything about it is just so good, thanks for sharing!

I love Moe, Robbie and Hazel, and I can’t get this idea out of my head that probably doesn’t fit the vision of this verse at ALL but hear me out. What if one day all the upside down stuff became public knowledge? Somehow documents get leaked, someone talks, idk. And it’s suddenly all over the news. Would be so interesting to see how Steve and Eddie would react to this and how they’d talk to their kids (who just found out about their parents saving the world from the news) about it 👀

So here’s the thing:

Realistically, I don’t think the story would ever get fully leaked, for two reasons (probably more, actually, but two primary reasons).

It makes the U.S. government look terrible, and they do a good enough job of that publically to afford any more hits to their rep so they keep that shit on lock

Nobody would believe it. Maybe there are whispers about the truth of what happened to Hawkins, Indiana in the 80s, but the second the words “monsters” and “superpowers” get thrown in there, nobody buys it. That’s why the cover stories work.

What I absolutely think would happen is ✨conspiracy theories✨

Like, come 2014 there’s a rising interest in true crime and conspiracy theories and some enthusiasts stumble upon the story. A few devoted folks pull a Murray and start building a timeline and they quickly realize that there are some pretty serious holes in the narrative. It kind of takes off from there.

Robbie is Eddie’s daughter through and through, so she’s totally into that kind of stuff. Steve and Eddie have always been relatively upfront about what happened to them in Hawkins (relatively, in that they have the “here’s what you’ll find if you google your dads” conversation with an extensive Q+A, but to avoid dumping trauma on their kids they stay light on the details), so she’s more intrigued than surprised when not only is she suggested a YouTube video about her dads’ hometown, but the video also mentions both of them by name.

Here’s the problem – like most conspiracy theories, it's true that some pretty damning evidence has been uncovered that the government probably didn’t want circulating. However the story is still missing key details in a way that makes the resounding conclusion this close to the truth, but not quite there.

Hence, this conversation Robbie has with her dads after she watches the video:

“So is it true that Uncle Will was abducted by aliens?”

Steve’s eyebrows fly up.

“Are people saying it’s aliens? It wasn’t aliens.”

“Was he though?”

“Uh…kind of. I guess.”

“Is it true the government put a fake body in the lake and pretended it was him and then when Will came back they had to pretend it was another kid?”

“Yep.”

“That’s fucked up. Is it true that Russia used a mall in Hawkins to build a secret lab?” Robbie asks.

“Yes.”

“Is it true they were doing research on the aliens and then one of them escaped and that’s why the mall got destroyed.”

“Not even close.”

“How did the mall get destroyed then?”

“Bunch of people got possessed by a shadow monster and he made them eat chemicals until they exploded and reformed as this giant mass thing that cornered us in the mall. We attacked it with fireworks. I wasn’t there for most of that, though. Just the end.”

“Whatever,” Robbie rolls her eyes, fully convinced that her dad is bullshitting her, “Is it true the Hawkins earthquakes were actually the aliens invading.”

“No – yes…kind of? Not earthquakes. Not aliens.”

“I mean…technically they kind of were aliens ,” Eddie jumps in, “Technically anything from a land foreign to yours is an alien.”

“They weren’t aliens,” Steve insists, “They were monsters. They were big and gray and their faces opened up and they had all these rows of teeth like sharks.”

“Sounds like an alien to me,” Robbie replies.

“Monsters.”

“Is it true Dad was attacked by them and he almost died and you saved him, Pop?”

“Yes, indeed,” Eddie says proudly before Steve can respond, “He’s quite the hero, don’t you think?”

“In space?”

“Nope. In an evil alternate dimension, and he dragged me all the way out through the portal and everything.”

Robbie rolls her eyes again, “Nevermind, you guys are useless. You’d think you weren’t even there.”

Steve sighs, “God, I wish that were true.”

In terms of how Steve and Eddie respond to the story gaining some attention from the general public, they do family viewings of the conspiracy videos made about the situation and make fun of the incorrect narratives. Their daughters fully do not grasp that their dads are telling the truth because, again, the truth does not seem real.

[centrally-unplanned]

I played Needy Streamer Overload, which was a lot of fun, with an asterisk. NSO is a Lifesim Management game for a batshit up-and-coming streamer, where you as her 'boyfriend' allocate her time between streaming, resting, and content inspiration/development to hit 1 million followers. The writing is very on point for actual streams culture;the topics and comments and all that are very true-to-life, while its zany edgecore presentation is hilarious. And the UI is full kino:

Vibes - and also, spoilers, not just a cutesy aesthetic, as the player is not in fact a real person so the digital viewport is ludonarratively cohesive, +1 point.

However, it also pissed me off for specific me reasons!

So, these games tend to go into two buckets. One is the engine builder - managing the lifesim is both involved and The Point of the game. You work hard to optimize and achieve the goal. The second is narrative device - the lifesim elements are more about narrative choice than challenge, and either can't be failed or are trivially cleared. You approach playing those 2 game types differently.

NSO presents itself like the former - its mechanics are pretty involved. Managing Followers, Stress, Affection, & Mental Darkness, all on a clock, while unlocking ~10 different streaming content topic progression trees, its a lot to track. Not saying its crazy hard or anything, but its what you spend your time doing. You will be asking yourself questions like "yes I could have sex with her for the third time this week to lower stress and boost affection so I can burn that affect buildup on the Sexy Stream lvl 2 to sync my highest topic bonus with my streaming streak bonus before I need to end it for a rest cycle, but I can only play that card so many times, is day 13 too early?". That is fun, and where your focus lies. On my first playthrough I tried to hit the 1 million target, barely succeeded, but burned out Ame's stats so much I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

So on my second playthrough I tinkered around and stumbled on a soft infinity engine, where I could push Ame's stress to the limit in the opening days to get her follower count to the point where she would unlock "follower milestone celebration" streams that I could bank, that did not increase stress but would count towards a streaming-every-day streak bonus, and never take a rest day to get that bonus insanely high. I got several million followers with low stress, low darkness, I thought I did a good job.

And I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

Turns out this game has 30 endings, and the lions share of the long, involved ones are from you completely fucking up. You will get a way more interesting ending if you make Ame-chan overdose on LSD and she trips her way into breaking though the illusion of the internet. You want to raise her darkness high as hell for half of them. You can found a cult, you can induce all sorts of violence against her or others, whatever you want. But the game didn't tell me!!

It instead presented me with a solid optimization puzzle, which I spent like 10 hours doing. I shouldn't have bothered! It doesn't really tell this partially for surprise, but if we are being honest its because they expect you to google it, and they expect you to watch streamers unlock 25 of them after you do 5. Which is how modern games are made, but personally I don't love relying on that. I do think games are at their best when they self-teach a player the right way to engage with it.

But I respect that some people would see the discarded scraps of a tryhard faildaughter that is Ame-chan and immediately push her into doing conspiracy theory streams while smoking weed. I am just not someone you can plunk an engine in front of and expect me not to try to tinker with it. This is 50% on me.

[dinosaursgowoof]

CHAOS THEORY SPOILERS BELOW THE DOTS

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Okay but what if, and hear me out it’s all down to Ben AKA welcome to my ted talk conspiracy theory AKA I just finished chaos theory it’s 1am and I have wild thoughts:

-the handler was a clone of Ben

-Ben got onto the island because his mum worked for Simon Masrani (according to google) so theoretically she has access to that sort of technology

-So when Ben got back from the island and was like “I completely bonded with a dinosaur” the science people were like ‘ah right. Here’s a boy Compatible with dinos. How can we use this but make it more messed up’.

- Ben and Brooklyn shared a joke about clones on the rooftop. Foreshadowing?

- The handler looks very similar to Ben when he was younger and they share a similar eye colour now even though ben’s eye colour was a brownish colour at one point (I think)?

-the handler is tweaked so is telepathic or part raptor? We know that the science people weren’t shy from playing with DNA

-what if ben’s mum is now working with Dr Wu and she’s running things now?

-it would kind of make sense to me why Brooklyn faked her own death. She wanted to uncover the truth but found out it was ben’s mum and she saw what happened to kenji when his dad was revealed as evil so didn’t want that for Ben and wanted to be sure before pulling that out of the bag.

-the handler is going rogue chasing down the campfam especially Ben. We know the Boss doesn’t like loose ends but what if the handler sees Ben as a loose end (like emotionally) and by killing Ben ends are tied.

-Ben spoke in Italian when his van sunk. What if his European “girlfriend” was from Italy? What if they met on dark Jurassic but have never met in person? What if he was being catfished by the handler?

What other wild theories does everyone have? I want to hear them!

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Kate Andrews

Has Kate Middleton united America? For the past few days, we have been one nation under her spell.

The Princess of Wales has dominated Google searches in the United States ever since Kensington Palace released that now-notorious doctored photo of her with her children for Mother’s Day.

Her name search beat that of both ‘Donald Trump’ and ‘Joe Biden’ over the past week.

To say she has broken the internet would be only the start of it: rumours of her well-being are making their way into every newsroom, dive bar, and church fellowship hour across America.

My friends from all over the country text and call me to ask the same question: What’s happened to Kate?

They know I’m as removed from the royal family as anyone could be, but I’m in London and I work in Westminster, so they hope I’ve heard a theory that hasn’t made its way across the pond just yet.

Left-liberal pals who usually text me when Trump says something obscene now want to know when I last walked by Buckingham Palace.

Did anything seem strange? More right-leaning friends, who tend to send videos of Biden jumbling his words, want to know if it’s unusual in Britain to not wear your wedding ring.

Or did someone photoshop her ring out of the Mother’s Day photo, too? Is that even her hand in the picture?

I wonder if Kate knows she has achieved the impossible in bringing America together in this way.

I suppose that depends on where she’s been, how she’s been faring, and how much she’s checking the news – all questions that largely remain unanswered.

Either way, it’s an impressive feat and a wonderful service she has performed.

Sure, it would be nice if existential threats to the United States and its citizens were cause enough for us to find common ground. But I’m not going to be picky.

I will forever be grateful for this smidgen of evidence that, if the cause is compelling enough, America can pull itself back from the brink.

How did ‘Kate-gate’ go viral in a nation that isn’t even her own? The princess’s prolonged absence from public life has the right components to capture America’s imagination.

We are a country obsessed with The Crown and true crime. Since we rejected the British monarchy almost 250 years ago, we have rarely had the opportunity to combine the two.

The mystery of Kate’s movements and the online sleuthing required to discredit that photograph proved to be a golden moment.

But it’s the cover-up elements, which made the story stratospheric.

Like everything else in the States, conspiracy theories tend to be big – the more far-fetched, the more viral they go.

Trumpist QAnon talk has never appealed to non-partisan Instagram girlies, but speculation around a princess’s whereabouts make for perfect 20-part video series to add to your highlights reel.

That’s because Kate-gate is not your traditional conspiracy fare.

The big questions – what’s happened to Kate, where has she been – have not been whipped up from nothing.

Suspicion has been fed by a number of public-relations mishandlings from the Palace.

Stories have changed, a photo has been botched and is still being censored on social media.

This is particularly strange given the normal PR slickness of the Firm: a protective, ruthless operation that presidents and popstars envy.

Some of the rumours have taken absurd and dangerous turns. But it’s not only fantasists who have questions. Something seems to be happening; we just don’t know what.

We may never find out what Kate has been up to these past months. And perhaps we shouldn’t. Her medical issues aren’t our business, after all.

But we know what’s happened to her in the eyes of the public: Brand Kate has skyrocketed.

She and her family have become even more intriguing – the Prince and Princess of Wales’s Instagram and X accounts gained more than 200,000 followers combined in the days after the doctored photo was posted.

That intrigue has made the princess all the more sensational.

Kate is now a mega-celebrity. She has the kind of fame her sister-in-law craves so badly.

Markle’s tactic was to shout from the rooftops: to make herself and her point of view heard through every media platform and streaming service that showed any interest. It worked for a while.

Had a pandemic not scuppered her big moment, ‘Megxit’ would have been the story of 2020.

She and Harry still got to sit down with Oprah. Netflix charted their journey from the Palace to the Hollywood Hills. But attention quickly waned.

This week, the duchess finds herself doing what every fame-hustler must do in the fight for survival: launching a lifestyle brand.

Her Californian-inspired venture, called American Riviera Orchard, will be offering us fashion advice and gardening tips, along with another outlet selling artisan jams and yoga gear.

Yet as she pushes the cutlery and cookbooks, it’s absent Kate whose face is projected all over the world: a testament, if there ever was one, to the power of silence.

Given the long line of mess-ups from the Palace, this boost for Kate is a fairly good outcome.

The princess disappeared for a few months, and the world made its message clear: we simply can’t bear to be without her.

When she returns to public life, she will be more adored and loved than ever.

The rumours and theories will die down. The outpouring of support for the Princess of Wales will continue.

It seems likely that she will, as promised, resume public duty in the spring.

The future queen of England will return, radiant as ever, to stand next to her future king and her family, as if nothing ever happened.

We’ll watch on, always with the niggling feeling that there was something we weren’t told and that not knowing is the key to the charm.

As Walter Bagehot said:

‘We must not let in daylight upon magic’ – or photoshop, for that matter.

NOTE: Additional photos have been included in this article.

[theforesteldritch]

It's really fucked that when I google 'intersex' the news articles that come out are all mocking the US gov recognizing intersex awareness day. Calling us 'frankensteins' 'sick in the head' 'defective genetic fuck ups'. I saw a completely batshit conspiracy theory that the US government 'created' intersex people a few decades ago to 'attack traditional values' or something. Forget about all of us who don't live in the US, forget about the historical records of intersex people, to the point where we could test DNA from prehistoric skeletons preserved a certain way and could find that they're intersex. They keep going. They say, someone 'needs to step in and study how these get passed down so these people don't reproduce'. Just literal fucking eugenics. Even beyond their hatred, their intersexism, their transphobia, it makes me even more sick to my stomach is that none of the facts, none of our history matters. They're not just uninformed, they don't give a shit. And the reason, the fucking reason people were losing their shit over the fact that the US state department recognized that we exist, is that they they think that all of the US government's attention should apparently be to supporting Isreal bombing and killing thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians. They want nothing but killing and bloodshed and violence and death and apparently the acknowledgement of intersex existence is too much of a fucking distraction for them from their fucking need for violence. And even if they wanted something else, something harmless, a government agency puts out a TWO PARAGRAPH STATEMENT and they think it will fucking shut other things down. And while recognition is nice, the bar is so fucking low that saying 'hey these people exist. they deserve rights' about intersex people is a FIRST, and people think that two fucking paragraphs is too much. I feel sick and angry. People want death and killing and violence and to fucking cheer over the killing of innocent people over TWO FUCKING PARAGRAPHS that say I exist and am a person.

[larentsbabie]

Okay, so I have a lot to say about Louis’ little “chat” and I'll start with a bit of a recap.

A few weeks ago, there have been articles that said Louis is single and doesn't have children. Granted, the articles were not credible enough as it is an obvious lack of basic information since Louis Tomlinson has a son named Freddie and it's all over Wikipedia just a click away. But that just means that the general public has no idea that Louis Tomlinson has a son without googling about the information.

Then the LATAM tour was announced. Louis said it himself that he was offered the rooms of same size as the last tour but he wanted to go big and bold so he chose stadiums. To get the general public interested in an artist, the very common thing to do is to bring them into news, and negative publicity gets more clicks. People will click away to see a celebrity be ‘rude' or 'fight' someone for not respecting their space cause tell me how many of y all not love drama. It's tea, right?

Another way to get into public's eye is by getting into a new relationship. Which is what I've been predicting for Louis for a month now. So, imagine my shock when he went and said "NO" to a "stunt" and instead just took a simple path of bashing fans.

This is not the first time Louis has done this.

I've more to say, so read it all before you come after me for disagreeing on something.

I'll spell it out for y'all!

We should all be very thankful that Louis just got the stunt done with a simple foolish reply to a tweet that was totally unrelated rather than going out hand in hand smooching the face off of another girlie.

Because if that had happened, the media would've been out like crazy about that and it'd have gone on for we don't even know how long.

To me, even a 2 month stunt sounds long ass at this moment cause I can't deal with that shit!

Secondly, remind me of all of those times when Louis intimated us prior of a "chat", like proper

"announced" and "invited" us to chat with him with an hour of replies to our tweets. But he did that on Monday. He wanted all of our attention on his replies yesterday cause he wanted the attention to his stunt. If that doesn't tell you something's fishy- there's more.

Half the tweets Louis replied to yesterday seemed hand-picked. Call me a conspiracy theorist but the conspiracy theories aren't just born out of no where. Where there's smoke, there's fire. If he hadn't given us something to build our theories on, there would've been no theories at all. But ALAS!

If he wanted to deny the conspiracy theories of conspiracy theorists as he names it, he would've found hell of a lot of tweets. There's never any scarcity of Larry tweets or posts on any platforms. But no, he went and made a fool out of himself by denying Larry on one tweet where there was no relation to Larry at all.

And if you think he was actually foolish in doing that, you're absolutely out of your mind. That man is a bloody mastermind who destroyed a man like Simon Cowell one step at a time.

Louis would NOT go so unrelatable on replies for no reason at all. He HAD to deny Larry one way or the other. If it hadn't been over "chicken parmesan", it'd have been over something more serious that would've actually hurt us all. So, y'all should be thankful that THAT man was willing to make himself look "confused" while he denied it rather than make us all question ourselves over other sensitive topics.

Now, about "chicken parmesan". My man Louis William Tomlinson got so off the track- it gave me major second hand embarrassment. Like, babe, Louis, I love you.

We will hand craft tweets for you to deny Larry the next time, just let us know beforehand. We'll hand craft tweets in a way that none of us look foolish and the public gets the message, too! What you did yesterday was hysterically funny!

Like, sir, think about it a minute.

You mentioned all through your career of that ONLY DISH you've ever cooked driven by pure romance for the love of your life. The infamous, chicken stuffed with mozzarella cheese wrapped in Parma ham with a side of home made mash.

Not to mention that you used to bring it up every chance you got ALONG WITH the crazy hand gestures. Ooofff!!! And you'd think it's an old story, one he used to tell 8 years ago while in ID. But oh, may I tell you how wrong you are? The latest he mentioned that was in 2019. One would think he'd forget it after all those years but my man always bragged about his one time in kitchen every chance he got even almost a decade later. He even mentioned that he cooked it out of love for his girlfriend. Sure, sir. I mean why not a girlfriend who at the time was vegan? But I'm not gonna question it at the risk of looking like a conspiracy theorist. Absolutely not. Can't afford that.

But when a fan asks for the recipe of a dish WHICH IS NOT EVEN THE SAME ONE HE COOKED AND BRAGGED about every chance he got for a decade, he flips it over and calls them a conspiracy theorist. Sit your ass down, sir. This is a pr nightmare as it is. Like look at that!

If y'all ever need a reason to laugh in life, this should be it.

I have many serious questions but I'll only ask one.

When the fuck did we let you in on our conspiracy theories about your beloved dish? If you know about the fandoms deepest darkest theories, that only means that you go lurking to dig them up for yourself.

And if you're so interested in the theories themselves, that only means that you care about them all cause they are not just theories but the truth of your life.

For someone who says, "I've never been asked about it directly. It's funny. I mean, PEOPLE CAN BELIEVE WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE but it's comes across SOMETIMES a little bit disrespectful to not me but) my girlfriend. Like genuinely, if you google a conspiracy on iPhones, you'll get a conspiracy you know what I mean?" when asked to make a comment to deny Larry, it sounds an awful lot like you know every thing we talk about cause you are interested to know. And to be fair, we know that you care and we know that you know. And we know that you want us to understand and not give up. And we know that you trust us to not give up. So, we'll be here.

And can I take this moment to remind you all of the fact that Louis, when Dan Wootton put him on the spot to deny Larry, has not once made proper eye contact with the camera and fidgeted like crazy while talking about google, iPhone conspiracies and saying obviously, genuinely? And may I also remind y'all that he made Dan fucking Wootton take that interview down very soon after it was released? They LEGIT had to take that interview down cause Louis couldn't handle denying Larry in front of the camera like that!

So, if he had to put a rock on his heart all those times he had to deny Larry through tweets, I'll fucking understand his struggle and be happy with the outcome, no matter what!

In conclusion, I know that was a lot to read so for those who skipped. What Louis did was for the best.

Him denying Larry specially through that one tweet that's totally unrelated was very much his plan.

He wanted to get his job done as his management wanted him to but he simultaneously failed them very willingly and made a mess for them to pick up after him.

That man is a genius and doesn't do things for no reason. It is what it is. Laugh at it while you can and move on!!

[hindulivesmatter]

You literally called "love jihad" a crime against Hindus. So, people electing to have interfaith marriages are somehow committing a crime against Hinduism by doing so. Muslim men who marry Hindu women are doing it to carry out some type of Great Replacement by converting them to Islam to make India more Muslim.

I wanted to put that plainly because you're clearly banking on that your non-Indian followers don't know what that means. You are saying that people choosing to marry who they love are somehow against Hinduism because those people are not Hindus. You are claiming that Muslim men who fall for Hindu women are actually part of some great conspiracy.

I want people to understand how crazy and conspiracist this logic is so they understand why to take every claim you have of "hindus are still oppressed in India" with a massive grain of salt. You are literally promoting the Hindu version of The Great Replacement Theory and of white people panicking over white women having mixed race babies.

You do not care about Muslims. It is a smokescreen. You think they are lesser and you support people oppressing them.

Yes, love jihad is extremely dangerous to Hindus. Luring a girl under false pretenses and then converting her without her consent is called love jihad. That is not the same as interfaith marriage.

Do you want me to deny the alarming number of cases of women being murdered by their Muslim partners? Or the fact that if a couple is entering an interfaith marriage, always have to convert to Islam. By that logic then, why can't the Muslim person convert to Hinduism?

I'm banking on my non-Indian followers? If they don't know what it means, they can either ask or do a Google search.

"You are saying that people choosing to marry who they love are somehow against Hinduism because those people are not Hindus."

When the fuck did I ever say that? Stop putting words in my mouth holy fucking shit.

"You are claiming that Muslim men who fall for Hindu women are actually part of some great conspiracy."

Again, NO. I am saying that there are cases of Muslim men, CHANGING THEIR NAMES TO HINDU NAMES, WEARING HINDU SYMBOLS, and courting Hindu women. They then reveal themselves after they are married. Do you even hear how insane you sound?

"I want people to understand how crazy and conspiracist this logic is so they understand why to take every claim you have of "Hindus are still oppressed in India" with a massive grain of salt. You are literally promoting the Hindu version of The Great Replacement Theory and of white people panicking over white women having mixed-race babies."

I'm sorry, I had to laugh here. What the fuck is wrong with you. Did you even go through my blog before sending me this? I literally reblog cases of actual Hinduphobia and violence against Hindus. That's literally it.

"You do not care about Muslims. It is a smokescreen. You think they are lesser and you support people oppressing them."

Bro. I'm sorry, so just speaking up about Hinduphobia means I do not care about Muslims? I promise it isn't that deep. We don't have an agenda like the one you've made up in your head. All we want is to co-exist in PEACE. I will never understand you people. Violence against Muslims is a real thing, and I 100% condemn it. You make up shit about us in your head, and pretend we're foaming at the mouth, ready to murder all the Muslims. You lunatic.

[spectres-fulcrum]

Now I have to jump from 1777 to ca. 333 BC cause apparently Netflix has an Alexander The Great half seriously acted/half docu series coming out Wednesday and Alexander the Great was my Thing sophomore year of high school(The trailer is EVERYTHING). They better do his relationship with Hephaestion right(queerly)

They were VERY in love and very obviously. Idk why it's a debate after anyone reads how Alexander reacted to Hephaestion's death(There's more but I can't remember atm)

We had an unit on ATG in World History and I wanted to google something in whatever documentary we were watching(I think it was Alexander and Hephaestion making an offering to Achilles and Patroclus) and it led me to finding out there was speculations Alex and Phai were queer and a thing and me just recently realizing I liked girls along with boys was really like. Obsessed.

That's me though. I find out things are queer and I get obsessed. I love non queer stuff too and get obsessed but. It's just like my new AmRev phase was ignited by the Hamilton-Laurens letters that are sus as fuck. Sus as fuck as I'm like yet to find a reasonable het explanation as to why Laurens was encouraging Hammie to find a wife as a cure for his devotion to Laurens.

Under the cut is more me unlocking more memories

Of course, I watched the 2004 Alexander, with Colin Farrell and Jared Leto. They are still my celebrity conspiracy theory of they fell in love during filming and had an on and off thing for a few years and it crashed and burned(That's a very very very long essay spanning several albums because Jared Leto is still clearly extremely fucked up by it see: Never Not Love You but also Love These Days). The Babylon balcony scene was gorgeous! And I loved the flashback to Aristotle teaching all the boys. And we at least got Princess Barsine-Stateira even if we didn't get the rest of the family. For books I think The Conqueror's Wife was my favorite as I loved writing from Drypetis' pov(Hephaestion's wife, Darius' daughter. I headcanoned Bagoas as her best friend though and they were all very poly and friends besides Roxana. I was probably too mean to Roxana looking back) and she was a narrator for that book. I remember reading it on a trip down to the German Christmas market. My teacher always splurged for coach buses so it was an extra nice bus ride read. That was senior year though, when it came out. I still had nook back then, not kindle.

I think our ATG unit coincided with state testing week which is part of why we watched a documentary because my history teacher knew we'd be frazzled and classes were all messed up with that week. not that it matters but it's also is like. Placing things.

Looking at the character list on IMDB(assuming it's legit) I'm like some of these people I need reminders but I'm also like Memnon! (There was an AlexPhai fic where Memnon kidnapped Phai and they grew fond of each other) Ptolemy! Queen Stateira! Hephaestion! And once I gave it some thought I was like X and Y were Phillip's generation and didn't Z kill Darius?

Yep. I need to do some review tomorrow though. God it's gonna feel good. Honestly the trailer was so exciting I was like Alexander! Phillip's death! Darius! Darius with Stateira! IS THAT SISYGAMBIS!?!?!?!?!? (IDK but I'm gonna freak if we get Sisygambis. What if we get precious little Ochus? Drypetis? Bagoas? Please at least give us the canon queer kiss with Bagoas)

[showyoumyfavoriteobsession]

Finished my Mr. Robot rewatch the other night... thoughts

First of all like. God this show fucking rules. It may not be my most favorite show or the show I have the most to say about, but I think it may be the most consistently high-quality show I've ever watched. They had a vision, they knew the story they wanted to tell, and they executed on it and barely ever dropped the ball.

The only thing that I liked significantly less this time was honestly some of the political commentary, and that's more due to the ~changing times~ than the show itself. The grand conspiracy stuff, all the parts about how a shadowy group (led by a Chinese government official) controlled the world and installed autocrats and owned governments, it all just reads very differently post-COVID. Obviously there were conspiracy theories in 2015-2019, but it feels like the show validates them in a way that's kind of uncomfortable now that they're so much more mainstream.

I also am a lot more familiar with DID than I was the first time I watched, so I had a better handle on what exactly was happening between all of Elliot's personalities. The finale, which I remembered being good but somewhat confusing, was much more clear - Mr Robot and Krista pretty much sit down and Explain It All To You, and while the show doesn't use terms like "fronting" and "integration," having that general knowledge made things very understandable. This is a show that learned from the mistakes of Lost (a show that I love deeply) - they make it VERY clear in the last episode which parts are real and which aren't, that what happened in the show actually happened and while there's room for a little ambiguity, it doesn't affect what was real and what wasn't.

I mentioned in another post that I love how every character is a freak, and I stand by that analysis, but I have to emphasize it in particular for the women on this show. The women are so interesting and well-written and fully-realized, and a lot of that comes from the contrast between their strengths and their weaknesses. I love that Darlene puts up a cold front and pushes people away because she's insecure but she's desperately looking for someone to trust. I love that Angela is her foil, someone who's trusting to the point of constantly people-pleasing and being manipulated and tries to make space for her own needs. I love that Dom is a relentless investigator whose brain is always working in overdrive, to the point where she's an absolute train wreck in private, who can't sleep and can't make friends and barely has time to eat or clean. I could go on for every character in the whole show, of all genders, but women are so often neglected in shows like this that it's great to see them full-fledged.

Elliot's closing monologue really got me this time; I've been having a bit of a rough time brain-wise so a good dose of "even when you mess up and make bad decisions and push people away, you are still worthy of love and happiness and the world is changed just by having you in it" was something I really needed to hear tbh. I really love Elliot's character, and especially that he has this optimistic streak that feels so rare for a generally very dark show. Even when his more proximate motivation is revenge or anger, he does everything while believing that he can improve the world, that everyone deserves to be happy and free.

Anyway! I don't have a good way to wrap this up lol, long rambly meta over. I feel like I've drifted away from actually posting meta/general analysis/personal thoughts here because I'm pretty uninterested in engaging in The Discourse, but that just means I end up writing in my Google docs and no one ever sees it, so I might try to start posting more of this stuff again.

[sarasa-cat]

I am reading (technically listening) to:

You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape by Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner. MIT Press, 2021.

Only in chapter 2. But hoooooboy do I want to hold a reading group that reads this book and discusses it.

Chapter 2 includes a big bit on how millennials who were internet researchers in PhD programs (such as these two authors) during the early 2010s actually PERPETUATED the problems of online racism, sexism, protecting the privacy of minors and other vulnerable classes of people.

Including the outrage that some of these young researchers felt when they were told HOW FUCKED UP THEIR RESEARCH WAS (often by peer-reviews my age, which definitely did in fact include me for those attempting to publish in ACM venues) .

I eventually left academia and the tech world because of so many things in this book --- the tide of move fast and break things --- the overwhelming onslaught of smug young idiots with freshly minted Harvard (etc) degrees who had bizarre notions of what "free speech" actually means even in a US legal context. There was far too much of a revolving door between research academia and Facebook, Google, Twitter, Etc.

Well. This chapter attempts to apologize for the idiocy that swept through that group of people.

...

But before that, lots of discussion about other idiots far older than them (and many far older than me too). So, they have words for everyone.

My problem is that I'm just extra salty at a specific group for reasons personal. Sorry. But I am salty and I will remain salty and so will every single damn person (generally in my age group) who warned and warned and warned and warned about how the information ecosystem was being taken over by bigots and by political-ideological agents with dangerous goals.

Anyhow. (Still salty. Salty since 2008. Actually, no. Salty since 1998.)

I think I need to get my hands on a text version of this book because audiobook while cleaning is sort of brain tuning in and out.

The whole section on the rise of Christian media (in the 70s-90s) and how that walked hand in hand with the so-called Satanic Panic (!!!) of the 1980s was really very well spelled out.

If anyone wants to read this book with me, please let me know.

Here is a preview: https://www.google.com/books/edition/You_Are_Here/-ScZEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

The chapters are:

Introduction: Mapping Network Pollution

The Devil's in the Deep Frames

The Root of All Memes

Tilling Bigoted Lands, Sowing Bigoted Seeds

The Gathering Storm

Cultivating Ecological Literacy

Choose Your Own Ethics Adventure

(The intro does something clever -- it looks at information networks as ecological networks)

(Ch 1 was basically Lakoff & Johnson's linguistic frame theory crossed with the rise of Evangelical media networks that sucked in conspiracy theories in order to push back against fears of modern secular society which was rapidly changing in the 70s and 80s).

(I'm currently in Ch 2 which is about meme culture -- and also WHY these two people - millennials of a certain vintage - had trouble seeing the forest for the trees because they grew up immersed in internet culture and didn't realize (lacked the wisdom and perspective) to see what was wrong with even the things they were doing as researchers)

okay. back to cleaning --- ping me if you are fascinated. I'm gonna keep listening but I also need to find a print or ebook copy bc audiobook isn't the best for close reading.

[uptoolateart]

Elite Symbolism in MLB

So, @raspberrycatapult was talking to me about all the recurrent butterfly symbolism in MLB - and the fact that all the buses in the show are the number 33 route when there is no such route in Paris - and both of us had noticed the giant 33 behind Kagami in the art room in ‘Lies’. She was pointing out all the single eye imagery in the show, too, which I’ll get to later - among many other motifs.

It was a fascinating conversation that I shared with my husband, who then brought up MKUltra, which I’d heard plenty about but I never really took in the finer details and certainly hadn’t applied them to my beloved cartoon.

As soon as I was thinking on this track, a zillion other things leapt out at me. They are so obvious once you get going, and I’m going to share some of them here. I bet more pops out as I watch the show, from here on out, but this is a quick starter guide.

Caveat

I am not in any way trying to sell you on a belief. Feel free to think everything I discuss here is ‘just conspiracy theory’. My sole point is that a) the creators of Miraculous are at least aware of the theory and b) they have very purposely integrated it into the show in order to propel their story and give weight to the characters. When we examine all these elements that have been embedded into this ‘children’s cartoon’, we see just how dark Adrien’s story, in particular, really is.

Gabriel

Let’s start with Gabriel’s name. It has always stood out to me, because it’s one of the archangels and a definite name of power. This archangel also happens to be held in high esteem in Freemasonry and other similar organisations.

Gabriel’s brand is just a giant G. ‘Oh, it looks like Gucci!’ Yeah. That, and the G of Freemasonry.

And you know that enormous essay I wrote about the symbolism of Gabriel dressing all in white now?? I left out the Masonic uniform of white - like their white apron. Think of Gabriel in the kitchen making those banana pancakes, in that white apron...or how about how the gloves, which simply are Masonic regalia gloves. You can buy them on Amazon, even.

This is without even getting into the recurrence of the number 33, as mentioned at the start of this post. @raspberrycatapult​ even pointed out that in the original animatic of ‘Stormy Weather’, the bus was number 34, but it got changed in the final animation. You have to ask why a detail like that matters...and then a quick google search will tell you there are 33 degrees / levels in Masonry. And why put that number all big behind Kagami in ‘Lies’? Because she’s a subjugate just like Adrien.

Now, let’s look at Gabriel’s office, where he stands at a dais-like podium on an elevated platform, with his ‘subjects’ on sunken in seats that look like pews in a church or temple. The whole floor is checkerboard. We could also get into the sun imagery on the doors, but...honestly, we could go into a whole bunch of things and I’m finding it hard to know where to stop before this post turns into a novel.

Here’s the image...and below it, a Masonic lodge, for comparison. The image has been tinted blue for effect, but in reality, the checkboard would always be black and white, to signify the balance between opposite energies. And um...isn’t that the whole idea behind kwami energies and yin-yang pairs?

I also want to note that Gabriel is positioned in a way that gives the impression of him being at the centre of two pillars. There are literally thousands of books written on the western / hermetic magical concept of ‘the middle pillar’, being the balancing way between two extremes. It also comes up in eastern beliefs, e.g. Buddhism.

In hermeticism, this is connected to the practice of cabala and therefore the Tree of Life, a structure built into just about every important building and painting all over Europe, America, and more. No, really. Remember they are called Masons for a reason - it began with builders, and they integrated their spiritual concepts into their work.

As a tarot enthusiast, this structure is also embedded into almost every single card in any traditional deck. It’s a subject I could spend a lot of time on, but let’s move on.

Eyes

Getting back to the single eye imagery in the show, @raspberrycatapult was pointing out, for example, the eyes on Emilie’s painting, and even pyramids in the design they took from the original inspiration.

I'm getting at this classic image of the Eye of Providence, of course:

@raspberrycatapult pointed out Marinette’s single eye peeking through the box when she looked into the room where everyone was dancing in masks, in ‘Gabriel Agreste’.

And like...we all agree that whole party was creepy as hell...right?? As soon as I saw it, I thought ‘rich weirdo cult!’ It was so obvious that Ms Tsurugi must be in on Gabriel’s plans. I was excited to see this proven in season 5. I’m still waiting to be proven right that the Bourgeois are in on it, too, at least to some degree. And come on. The Bourgeois?? It’s a reference to an entire class of society.

I then got to thinking: peacock feathers are known for looking like they have one eye. And whoever uses the peacock miraculous to transform ends up having one eye covered, in their costume, e.g. with a veil. And thinking of Ms Tsurugi again...she’s blind and then can see, when akumatised.

It also helps to remember that we’re all waiting for unveilings / unmaskings in this show, from all directions. We’re waiting for people to see the truth. Makes you think of the names of the first two episodes of Season 4....

Monarch

And now we get super dark.

MKUltra was an illegal CIA experiment begun in 1958 and supposedly concluded, although there are plenty of people who believe it continues to this day. Again - I’m not saying it does or doesn’t. I’m only stating that there is a definite record of it happening in the 1950s and that there are people out there who don’t think it stopped.

MKUltra was a series of experiments in human mind control, a summary of which can be read about here. There’s also this video from the BBC and a zillion other things. Be warned - this is a rabbit hole you can easily fall into for hours.

Very briefly: ‘In the early days of the Cold War, the CIA ordered the creation of a secret programme intended to find ways of mind control. They funded an army of psychiatric institutions across the United States and Canada to perform experiments on patients using psychedelic drugs, sensory deprivation, electroshock treatment and more.’

The point my husband made, which I was not aware of, was that part of MKUltra was something called ‘the Monarch Project’. Again, a mind control and subjugation experiment.

Now, without stating the obvious, let’s think about things like the akumas. Adrien and those rings. Sentimonsters. Every single thing Gabriel does, in or out of costume, is a form of mind control, and he has programmed it into Adrien via his home and even the clothes he wears. This is what gets Marinette thinking perhaps Gabriel is the villain. Adrien doesn’t want to believe it because he wants to trust. Everyone wants to trust the adults / authority figures in their lives. But for the heroes of Miraculous, this trust will be broken.

I’m also brought back to ‘Mega Leech’, when the miniature copies of Mayor Bourgeois crawled into people’s heads and controlled what they said. It has always stuck out at me as allegory for brainwashing - grooming people so much that you get them to preach your propaganda for you. This is what Gabriel does with all his victims, too. He’s not the one out there, doing the damage. He gets in other people’s heads and has them do it for him.

We’ve also seen other instances of this with villains like Despair Bear and Puppeteer. This is...a subject that could take up thousands of words. You get what I’m saying.

Adrien / Cat Noir

If you look into this stuff, you come across a lot of detail about something called ‘the beta kitten’, which is a form of sexual programming. In fact, it literally involves grooming someone into having a ‘cat alter’.

Honestly...you could read so much about it and all the ways it gets applied to celebrities such as Britney Spears. Don’t even get me started on the Britney thing. If that kind of thing can happen in the 21st century, we really need to re-think how ‘far we’ve come’.

Anyway. Part of this involves a lot of repeating imagery and symbols, the way hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming work. Symbols that appear in tons of promotional photographs, music videos, etc. Symbols like...collars and bells, mirrors and reflections.

Again, I’m not selling you the theory - you’re free to make up your own mind about it. But I’ve said so many times that Cat Noir is fully decked out in bondage gear, right down to his collar and bell. And this is for a reason - he is in bondage. He is enslaved.

I also said in a previous post that Kagami’s name is Japanese for ‘mirror’. There’s all the doubling between Adrien and Felix, Chloe and Zoe, Adrien and his AI replica, each character and their superhero or supervillain alter(s), etc. Again...we could be here all day, listing examples.

What does it all mean??

That’s a good question! I’ll leave it to you to decide. At the very least, it means that Gabriel and his cronies have been designed to represent something darker than we usually discuss. They are authority figures who abuse their fame and power to the highest degree, bringing to mind all the news stories we keep hearing about, for instance, people in Hollywood being accused of years of sexual assault.

Adrien being a model...again, I just think of child stars like Britney Spears, who, like Adrien, was completely owned by her own father. He controlled everything she did, using her to make his millions and having her declared insane so he could continue to control her after she turned 18. Let’s not get into just how disgusting her story is. My heart bleeds for her and others like her, and I’ll leave it at that.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Miraculous is all about breaking free of mind control and programming. Alya, Nino and Chloe all managed to reject the akumatisation. Marinette did it, too, with the help of Cat Noir. I suppose you could say that in most cases, love broke the spell. That’s what we need to hold onto.

There’s a lot about throwing off the masks and revealing the truth. Adrien’s definitely on his way to breaking free of the ring and overthrowing his father, which will be him overthrowing the mind control and being his own person.

So, I suppose you could take a positive message from all of this and say it speaks of hope. We live in a world where it’s hard to know who is selling us truth and who is selling lies - where we live our lives in public and are often on camera, from CCTV to selfies - where the Internet is teeming with ‘influencers’ and targeted advertising, and ‘smart’ devices really can track us and collect data the way the Alliance can. (The Alliance. Even that name...!)

But every one of us has the power to make up our own minds about things and be our own person. Every one of us has the power to throw off the collar and bell and simply be.