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bcbdrums · 4 years ago

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Victory

For a fellow Drakgo fan, it’s @dawhitebag‘s birthday tomorrow! Happy birthday!!!

Inspired by three pieces of their art: 1, 2, and 3

Read on other sites: FFn AO3

Enjoy “Victory,” a tiny AU ending to So the Drama.

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On the computer screen: destruction. Outside the building, a timely lightning storm that would have made any super-villain envious. And inside, standing before the screen, the mad scientist's head was thrown back in maniacal laughter.

Shego watched from the back of the room as henchmen seated at rows of computer consoles maintained careful control of the Li'l Diablos—Drakken's (finally) successful robots that had been his means of taking over the world. The big screen was cycling between news feeds from cities of various nations where armed forces were useless against Drakken's—for once—brilliant plan.

Or had they all been brilliant, and she had just never seen it before? In most every one of his previous plans, she had been over his shoulder, mocking him all the way. This time he had kept everything secret from her. He had said it was to make sure Kim Possible wouldn't discover it, but she wondered now... Had he shut her out so he could actually succeed?

She looked at Drakken's back, and the way he stood taller and prouder than she'd ever seen him. Hands on his hips as the well-tailored suit made clear the fact that the person who usually skulked in an over-sized blue lab coat was in fact a man, and one she realized she was spending more and more of her thoughts on. He turned then, and she noticed how the electric blue of the suit seemed to make his skin and eyes less corpse-like and more vibrant.

He was grinning at her, but not with the chaotic abandon she'd expected. Yes, his eyes held fire and glee, but there was also a knowing within the dark depths as he stared at her, and a desire to know. It sent her heart racing, and she instinctively straightened up from where she was leaned back against the wall. Usually when she let her thoughts stray from the professional to the impossible, it was he who fell uncomfortable under her gaze. But there was something different in his eyes; he had never looked at her that way before.

"Go get changed."

"E-Excuse me?" she answered with unexpected fluster.

"You should be on my level when we make our announcement about ruling the world," he said, gesturing broadly to his suit.

Her eyes widened. "We...?"

"Yes of course...unless... You don't want to make the announcement with me?"

He looked worried for the first time in days, and Shego quickly pushed off the wall and turned to go find something less side-kick and more...co-ruler of the world? Was that what he was saying?

"Give me a minute, I'll be right back."

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Drakken replayed the image of Shego's retreating back with unease as his nerve-endings were tingling with a slow build of anxiety. He stared at the images on the computer screen, all revealing his triumph in explosive detail. He had hoped to impress her... He had hoped that taking over the world would show her he was more than he appeared, and certainly more than the losers she kept dating.

Recently she had acted more friendly toward him. She had even taken him up on an offer to get revenge against one of the gorillas who had dumped her. Evil bonding was a good secret first date, he had thought. And while she had certainly enjoyed it, and even seemed to enjoy his company...nothing changed beyond that.

He knew world domination was the only way to be worthy of her. But...he had succeeded, and she had yet to say a word about it. Would she reject the offer he was going to make her, of ruling the world together...? It was extremely risky, he knew, but over the past several months as he plotted and schemed, impressing her always at the front of his mind, he had come to realize... Shego was his world. He didn't want to do it without her.

The soft sound of Shego clearing her throat caused him to whirl around, and then his brow rose. She was dressed in the blouse and skirt set modeled after her costume that she had worn when they'd gone to see Brotherson at the Bermuda Triangle. And...she might have done something to her makeup, because her eyes were somehow more vibrant, and her hair was as luxurious as ever.

"This good?" she asked off-handedly, glancing down at the claws of her glove.

"Yes," he said, swallowing a lump in his throat and then clearing it. He hadn't expected her to wear...that, or anything so alluring and feminine. He tried to put back on his usual airs as he beckoned her forward with a small jerk of his head. "Perfect."

Shego seemed to hold her breath before moving, releasing it only when the clack of her heeled boots started eliminated the distance between them.

"Dunno why you need me for this," she said nonchalantly.

Drakken realized he was holding his breath too.

"I thought...you might enjoy more of a...leading role, now. Now that there's no reason to hide things anymore," he quickly justified his statement.

Shego looked up at him with a raised brow. "You mean...co-ruler?"

Drakken bit the inside of his cheek. He selfishly wanted to rule the world alone, but...this might be his only chance.

"I can think of none better," he said, holding his hand out to her not to shake, but palm up and open. He was glad for his gloves to hide his skin's clamminess.

Shego looked between his face and his hand. There was something unspoken in her eyes that made him nervous, and her too apparently as she glanced away to the brightness of the destruction still displayed on screen.

Her silence was causing his anxiety to rise and he rushed to fill it.

"We can...work out the details later."

Shego looked back at his hand, and then up into his eyes. He held her gaze, despite wanting to look away and make excuses for what he was saying. He was expecting the usual sarcastic quip or question of doubt, but instead she simply stared at him. She had never done that before, and he wanted to escape her verdant gaze as much as he longed to fall into it.

She slowly lifted her hand and set her gloved fingertips in his palm, her cheeks coloring as she did so. His lips parted in a silent gasp as her eyes suddenly filled with uncertainty at the same time she rose up on her toes.

Lightning flashed outside, and the next moment was a blur as her other hand was somehow resting on his shoulder and his other inexplicably on the bare flesh at her waist. He saw the flutter of her eyelashes just before her eyes closed, and then her lips pressed softly against his.

The moment was broken far too quickly as he became aware of more things: the orange reflective glow from the explosions on screen, the sudden silence in the room but for the storm outside as the henchmen all stared at them, and the way Shego's hand tightly gripped his.

When she pulled back from the too-brief glimpse into heaven, her eyes were worried and questioning. But not regretful. Drakken released his breath as he gripped her hand in return, a smile of unbridled joy blooming across his face that he couldn't have held back if he wanted to. Her expression changed to one of relief, hope, and excitement, and as he lifted his other hand from her waist to put behind her head and draw her back to the intimate moment, an answering smile filled her face.

The instant before their lips met they were startled from the moment by a resounding cheer, and they both turned to see the entire room of henchmen on their feet, applauding and shouting and a few even exchanging money over bets won and lost no doubt. Drakken ran his hand over his hair sheepishly, but the feel of Shego's hand looping through his arm drew his focus back to her and where she was smiling up at him, trying to maintain her usual air of confidence through the shy joy that had filled her eyes.

"Shego..." He wasn't sure what else he would have said, but the awed breathing of her name was all he could manage.

She cleared her throat, though it didn't do anything to mask the blush in her cheeks.

"Ruling the world?" she said softly.

Drakken blinked. "Right... Jameson!" he bellowed for the henchman, "Get ready for the broadcast!"

Drakken and Shego turned to face the computer screen that changed to show their image. He was startled by what he saw, as he had only ever seen it in his dreams before: Shego on his arm, her confidence, beauty, and intelligence...devoted to him.

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Shego looked at Drakken's eyes through the video monitor where his assurance suddenly seemed to have faltered. Her heart was still racing from the impulsive kiss, but she couldn't have agreed to rule the world with him without knowing. But suddenly, something seemed to have changed.

"Dr. D.?" she asked softly, her fingers tightening on his arm in what she hoped was reassurance.

He blinked a few times and then looked down, anxiety rapidly joining the happiness in his eyes. His jaw worked for a moment before one word finally slipped out.

"Me...?"

Shego grinned. "Yes. You."

He seemed to calm, but then his brow furrowed. She cut him off before he could continue.

"Why me?" Drakken's brow rose in response. And again, she cut him off. "Probably similar reasons?"

Drakken considered, and Shego decided in a split-second to let her own remaining uncertainty show.

"We can...talk about all of it later. As long as you're sure...?"

Drakken grabbed her hand on his arm and held it tight, nodding firmly.

"Yes. I'm sure."

The laser-focus in his eyes was all the assurance she needed, and as her expression melted back to happiness she watched his shift into the same.

"So..." she sighed as she felt her nerves finally begin to calm, "talk later... But right now, I believe we have a broadcast to make?"

Drakken straightened, and his broad grin of victory returned.

"Yes," he said firmly, "we do."

Shego mirrored his devilish look as they faced the screen again, taking just a moment to survey the image that met them once more. Side by side, and arm in arm... She honestly wondered what had taken them so long.

Drakken turned and nodded at the henchman waiting to begin the live broadcast to the world that they now owned. He turned back and gave Shego that same knowing grin that had spurred her to action. She returned it in kind.

"Let's do it!"

48 notes · View notes

breadclubrising · 4 years ago

Note

Your thoughts on Ibushi feeling mentally weak because of his loss? I feel like he hurts(? If that makes sense like he is not being enough for his idol and that affects his performance in some kind of way, also DT proposing a new partner downplaying Tanahashi's effort and them being pushy in "beg us for the titles! Muahahaha" gives out they want it more than GA since they already decided not to go for a rematch until they win one. In the end just want to hear your thoughts Ibushi's storyline

Ha, Anon. You know not what you ask. I have been working on an essay about this for a while now (aren’t you shocked!), so I’ll excerpt some of it here. And now this is becoming an essay in its own right.

(I made a post about this and...)

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Aw thanks, Anon. I will try to address all of this. It is very long, and I’m sorry.

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I’ll start by saying this: Golden Ace made me stop watching wrestling for a while. It hurt that much. Just to put out there how many feelings I have about this.

First things first:

I do not know that I can convey with human language how much I love Hiroshi Tanahashi. My favorite readings of his character give him a tragic edge; to me the shining superstar is not nearly as interesting without his dark side: his need to control, his unwillingness to admit that he is slowing down, his single-minded view of what is Good and Right. His career arc—where he began as an iconoclast who in-kayfabe single-handedly saved NJPW from ruin and saved its wrestlers from the brutality of Inokiism, and has morphed into a well-meaning but narrow-minded patriarch who Knows Best, in part because of his being so beloved for what he achieved, gracelessly pretending he is not getting slower—is heartbreaking and beautiful. He beat the man only to become the man. He sacrificed so much and tries to impose his way on others as a way of justifying his sacrifices. I have... just so much written about Tana’s career arc. It’s one of my favorites ever.

And honestly, I love the story of Ibushi and Tanahashi as a story. It’s heartbreaking and beautifully performed. On an out-of-kayfabe level, I adore both of them and their ability to share of themselves so deeply while still making a story for public consumption.

But in kayfabe, as an Ibustan? Tana and I are gonna have a problem.

(so, so much more below this cut. you have been warned.)

My slacker genius hero

idk if you’ve noticed this, but Ibushi is consistently depicted as kind of weird. And I confess I’m projecting a bit here, but part of being Weird On Main is that you do it because you cannot be not-weird no matter how hard you try. Maybe sometimes you can contain it, but your default state is weird and whatever it is that normal people do, you do not understand it nor are you capable of doing it.

His entire career has been guided by his heart first and ambition second. That’s how he is, he follows his heart. The dearth of fucks he gives about what he should be doing is truly awe-inspiring. And that was probably for his own survival: when you are that fucking talented, what you should be doing is a weight you carry with you at all times. People constantly wondered why he didn’t try to ��do better’ than DDT. As soon as he got to NJPW, people wondered why he wasn’t bulking up to move up to heavyweight. As soon as he was able to gain enough weight, he was in the G1 (where he promptly got a concussion).

He has always seemed to struggle with the weight of Living Up To His Potential, knowing that talent like his obligated him to answer for it, but also knowing that he doesn’t feel invested in things unless he’s enjoying himself. Career achievements were never much of a motivator for him—he wanted them, of course, but always ran into the wall of having to sacrifice his own happiness or mental health to get them. But like... normal people do that all the time, right? Sacrifice and hate their lives in order to reach some long-wanted goal? And like many Weirds, Kota seemed to spend a long time stuck in the tortuous I SHOULD be able to do this, normal people can do this brainspace.

The best example of this is something that Tanahashi would have admired: at one time, Kota was the first wrestler in a major promotion to have two home promotions. Like literally two full-time jobs as a wrestler; on the full-time roster at both DDT and at NJPW. What kind of wrestler is worth that physical risk and scheduling nightmare? What kind of wrestler is worth sharing as a commodity with one of your competitor promotions? Kota Fucking Ibushi is.

This burned him out quickly—he says, far more emotionally than physically—and he left wrestling altogether for a while, with the official excuse of finally getting surgery on a herniated disc in his neck. He wrestled at WWE for a bit before, shockingly, finding it too constrictive.

Finally, he decided to become a freelancer, which is A Choice when you are one of the most naturally talented people a sport has ever seen. It means you won’t be winning major titles and you won’t get a ton of investment from any one promotion, but it also means you get to control what you do, when you do it, and how much of it you do. Ibushi rejected any career path that would lead to traditionally-defined success, and he did so intentionally, in service of his mental health and ability to love his job.

Because like. He tried to do what a normal person with his level of talent would do, and he couldn’t stand it. It made him hate wrestling and his life. He pushed himself hard and he failed. Not meaning that he did not succeed in terms of his career—he was doing great when he left NJPW, and WWE offered him contract stipulations and money that were unheard of—but meaning his body and mind began failing him. Finally, he’d been forced to accept that the world’s expectations simply did not work for him. And then he had decided to be unashamed of that, and built himself a way of being that fit him, in a culture where obedience is a sign of maturity and poise (you can see it in the word: 大人しい; “quiet, docile, obedient”; literally “like an adult”).

The Ace and the Golden Star

Tanahashi and Ibushi may sort of be coming to a place of understanding now, but they haven’t historically seen each other as equals. Ibushi calls Tana a god, and Tana has always admired Ibushi’s talent, but been disappointed by his work ethic. (Hiroshi “Very Extremely Healthy And Non-Fucked-Up Relationship With Work Ethic” Tanahashi and Kota “Reacts Well To Being Told Not To Do Things” Ibushi.)

When Ibushi came back to NJPW for the G1 in 2017, he was coming back to it on his own terms, as a freelancer. He debuted his finisher Kamigoye (which, in case anyone has never read my blog before, means “go beyond god”) to beat Tanahashi during that same G1.

Ibushi lost his subsequent challenge for Tanahashi’s IWGP Intercontinental Championship, and at the end of the match, he tearfully embraced victorious Tanahashi, who patted his very worthy rival on the head. Ibushi felt humbled, like he hadn’t lived up to his potential. By losing, he felt he’d disappointed Tana.

And maybe Tana didn’t disagree. Tana spent the 2018 G1 (and the theme continued through the latter half of 2018) saying in his backstage comments that Kota Ibushi wasn’t living up to his potential. That he needed to work harder and put his nose to the grindstone to become Great.

Tanahashi genuinely admires Ibushi and is amazed by his talent, so he truly saw it all as coming from a place of love. He’s a big fan! He just wanted to see Ibushi do his best, and Tana has a really strong opinion about what “doing your best” means. In Tana’s mind, Ibushi (who one thousand percent Did Not Ask) needed to get serious and win some titles, needed to commit and work harder, devote more of his time and energy to wrestling, and generally follow exactly the path Tana himself had in order to succeed. And Tana didn’t mind saying so without invitation, and to the press.

Oh, and don’t forget that coincidentally Ibushi was on a tag team with Kenny Omega, whom Tana disliked for reasons he juuuust couldn’t put his finger on. (Later it came out: Kenny’s an immigrant! Ha ha! Great and good! I could do a whole other essay about this storyline. It was REALLY good and they had to abandon it completely.) Ibushi needed to get serious about his life and stop wasting time with that loser (IWGP Heavyweight Champion) Kenny Omega. Kenneth was dragging Ibushi down, said Tana, which—regardless of whether you agree with Tana or not—is uh... probably not an opinion you should just volunteer out loud to the press about someone you purportedly care about.

Tana was offering ‘helpful’ suggestions without realizing that not only was Ibushi happier than he’d ever been, he was happy because he had already tried the things Tana was helpfully suggesting, and had deliberately decided to do the opposite of that, so that he could be happy.

When your entire thing is in my career I do things on my terms, this is who I am and I’m not sorry, and someone is telling you you’re doing your career wrong, it’s gonna sting extra. Because you’re a fucking weirdo, and if you could do things the expected conventional way, you would in a heartbeat. So the thing that you are “doing wrong” is a thing you have fought tooth and nail to do in a way that works for you. If it meant being shamed for it, it didn’t matter, because there was no other way you could have done it.

So, Tana didn’t know it, I don’t think, but his ‘the way you’re managing your career is wrong’, tragically, really meant ‘the way you are is wrong’, when applied to Ibushi.

(And? When you’re doing it wrong and part of what you’re doing right now is being extremely fucking gay? That “get serious about your life” plays into a whole mess of extremely unfortunate tropes about gays. I have no idea if these tropes exist in Japan as well, but western gays are deeply familiar with them. Of course I don’t at all believe Tana meant it that way, but unfortunately, as A Gay, it’s too familiar for me not to hear it there. Feels bad man.)

YOU’RE NOT MY DAD

After all that well-meaning (?) shit talking, Ibushi and Tanahashi faced each other in the 2018 G1 finals. Ibushi lost. Was Tana right about all that untapped potential? Was Ibushi once again humbled because god beat his ass?

Last time Tana beat Ibushi, they hugged, Tanahashi magnanimously recognizing the great effort on Ibushi’s part. This time, he held out his hand for a handshake. They’ve come so far as rivals. Right?

Ibushi looked at it, then held up both hands in front of him, shaking his head and backing away. He said backstage that Kenny would have hit Tanahashi, and Tanahashi clearly wanted a handshake as equals. But, he said, he is not Kenny, nor is he Tanahashi. He does things on his terms.

He didn’t care if it looked disrespectful: Tanahashi’s handshake was a patronizing offer of forgiveness for Ibushi’s failure to live up to Tana’s ideal. Ibushi’s rejection was not disrespect, but demanding respect from someone who had explicitly told him he did not deserve it from them unless he became a different human being than the one he’s fought to be.

Ibushi left with his head high, so defiant in his weirdness that even if God Himself says you need to change who you are to be worthy of my approval and acceptance Ibushi says, actually the way I am is great, thanks, and I will love myself whether you approve or not.

I can’t say how much he means to me, because of that. Him rejecting fucking god telling him to be someone else—someone who did not love himself—was more than I could have ever dreamed I’d get out of wrestling. A man who had found, as I had in my life, that no amount of wanting to be able to do things the way that normal people do them would grant that ability, had then decided to find a way that would work for him, and do that. And so had I, and around the same time (Kota and I are also p much the same age). And then, when defeated, instead of allowing someone to say ‘this is because you did not conform,’ he said ‘I cannot be truly defeated because tomorrow, I will still do things the way that makes me happy and fulfilled.’ I could write so much more but I’ll stop here: it meant everything to me.

I mean... dad?

Fast forward to the 2019 G1. A lot had changed. Ibushi had signed full-time with NJPW, much to Tana’s satisfaction. In the leadup to Wrestle Kingdom that year, Tana had very deliberately and openly used Ibushi as a cudgel against Kenny Omega, saying Omega did not deserve his partner, Ibushi, and did not deserve his home, Japan. He had told Omega, who had dutifully worked his way up the NJPW ranks to become the most beloved gaijin in NJPW’s history, that he should not be the third Musketeer (the big 3 guys in the promotion from each generation; the others of this generation being Naito and Okada). Putting a gaijin in that role is Not Done, and Kenny was already Top Gaijin, which was the highest a gaijin should be allowed to go. Further, Tana believed that Ibushi, a part-time freelancer who was not signed with NJPW, should be the third Musketeer, because he is Japanese and Kenny isn’t.

In kayfabe, Tana had negged Ibushi’s Golden Lover right out of Japan, but NJPW seemed pretty determined to erase the memory of Omega, so Ibushi and Tanahashi were on friendly-ish terms,

“Everything I am begins and ends with Tanahashi,” Ibushi said before the match. Kota won, which almost everyone was expecting, but the real question we all had: how would he treat the Ace once he’d won? Once he embraced him, once he’d pushed him away. Who was Kota Ibushi now, in relation to god? And in relation to the company itself, which Ibushi had recently committed to ‘for the rest of my life’—and which Tanahashi personified? Victorious Ibushi crawled over to Tanahashi and gratefully clasped his hands in fervent appreciation, foreheads together, Tanahashi smiling approvingly, patting his head like ya did good kid. Later backstage, Tana said something like “I sensed a lot of pain in you when we fought, but I can tell you used it to overcome your shortcomings, let go of what was holding you back, and reach your potential.” And at the end of the match, Ibushi had seemed to be in agreement, looking prostrate and humbled, seeking forgiveness for his past sins.

I was saying ‘i-BOO-shi’

Except, like… his “past sins” were: soul-searching and learning what was important to him. Healing physically and emotionally from burnout. Making his way back, on his own terms and no one else’s, to the career he’d had to leave to save himself. Reuniting with a his lost love—not without complication, but undeniably making him happier than he’d been in years, finding the joy in wrestling again, giving himself the emotional energy to invest more and more in his career, but smartly this time, protecting himself. And then telling the Ace of New Japan that he would continue to do things his own way, and no one else’s.

He did all of this against the backdrop of a culture that punishes individualism or makes it a spectacle. He asserted himself nevertheless, because it was either that or a breakdown. And all of those things were what Tanahashi felt he should be apologetic for, what he had wanted Ibushi to excise from his wrestling and his personality in order to Reach His Potential.

And... it worked. Ibushi played by the rules, conformed to expectation, and not only did he win, he was accepted and forgiven for his waywardness. Turns out, Tana was right all along: Ibushi needed to be less himself in order to be truly successful. Not only that, through career success and sacrificing the things that made him happy (because they also made him most himself which, again, was bad), he was finally truly fulfilled.

After an entire career’s worth of refusing for his own sake to do what others expected of him, he finally lived every Weird Person’s wildest fantasy, wherein we sacrifice every strange thing about ourselves that we’ve spent our lives learning to love, in order to Conform, but instead of blowing up in our faces, THIS TIME, FINALLY, it worked, and at long last we found that being Normal truly does bring happiness and success and our parents finally love us. He’s through the looking glass, but he can’t hear us on the Weird side anymore, and doesn’t even remember that there ever were Weirds. And now all the Weirds back home have seen the horrible truth, that changing who you are fundamentally in order to be obedient is… actually the right thing to do, which of course means they were right about us all along. We aren’t good enough just as we are, fundamentally; our parents were justified in withholding unconditional love and everyone else was right to mock us. We throw all our Kurt Vonnegut books into the garbage and we weep.

That was the story.

So at first I kind of half-heartedly tried to convince myself that all of this was that thing where no matter how much sincere emotional work you do, you will never stop secretly craving your parents’ approval; we are practically hard-wired to want it. And then I moved toward seeing the grateful gesture as a sort of forgiveness, a recognition that his pedestal of Tanahashi had finally toppled and shattered. After all, Ibushi is the sort of dude who got all the way down on the ground to bow to both Nagata and Yoshi-Hashi after beating them in G1 matches, and that certainly wasn’t an apology, it was humble gratitude for their work. So maybe this was a true going beyond god—Thank you truly. I don’t need you anymore.

But... it probably wasn’t that, and it was hard to believe my own bullshit. Ibushi is also the sort of dude who, in his first entrance upon his return in 2017, had gotten all the way down on the ground to bow to fans in deep apology for having been gone for two years; ie apologizing for caring for himself. Heh. But uh... maybe this Tana thing was just a heat-of-the-moment thing, like a quasi-kayfabe act of true honesty?

LOLNO! Time for Golden Ace to immediately win the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Championships, thus not only cementing Ibushi’s return to the Well-Behaved fold and certifying Tanahashi as The Guy Who Was Right About You, but also having all of these things be kayfabe events that happened within the span of a little more than two years:

Ibushi gets an emotional gay reunion with his tag team and life partner

Tanahashi uses Ibushi as a weapon against said partner, who is forced to leave the company, vindicating Tana’s opinions about both Ibushi and Omega (I don’t care how much you hate Omega, that is a shitty thing to do even if we only care about Ibushi’s feelings.)

Ibushi and Tanahashi win the tag team belts that the Golden Lovers never even got to challenge for

COOL AND GOOD. LOVE THAT.

That story really hurt. I couldn’t watch them be a team.

Haha unless? This current story really hurts too, honestly. But maybe it’s making the past hurt a little less. MAYBE.

So, Tana has been getting physically stiffer and slower for a while now, and now it’s kinda becoming hard to ignore.

And maybe, hanging out with Tanahashi seemed cool at first but then when Ibushi realized he’d excised every interesting thing about himself in order to conform to what Tana expected of him, it started to wear on him. I’m hoping I can be allowed to have that interpretation.

So Ibushi’s forced to be like ‘hey I need you to step up your game bro,’ which, if Ibushi ever fantasized about turning the rhetorical tables on Tanahashi’s criticism, doesn’t seem to feel nearly as good as he’d hoped it would. It feels bad for both of them.

And Tana seems humbled, because he’s been so embarrassed and stubborn about admitting that maybe, possibly, potentially, he could be slightly perhaps showing signs of failing to be immortal. But maybe he also now sees that his ‘tough love’ criticism of Ibushi didn’t make Ibushi better, ultimately, it just made him care about and value the same stuff Tana does. And oops, now maybe Ibushi has ideas about success that don’t really take into account the limitations Tana has, even if he’s worked very very very hard to try to push through them until he was forced to admit that he needed to find another way. This sounds familiar and I hate it!

Tanahashi is now trying to find his way. And Ibushi, once humbly appreciating Nagata and Yoshi-Hashi after beating them, is now hard-eyed and almost deliberately lacking awareness of others’ need for compassion. Tana got what he wanted—Ibushi in his own image—but now he’d probably be a lot better off with the sparkly-eyed mischief-maker who doesn’t care as much about titles as he cares about loving wrestling.

Of course, Kota very much had his own reasons for doing this too—he felt the pressure to win titles to match his talent at least as much as Tana felt it for him—but it’s still kinda heartbreaking that he became the determined and serious never-getting-too-close-to-anyone company man that Tana envisioned him as, and then it worked. That’s a completely new way of judging his worth as a person, when he’d spent his career before that judging his worth by how happy and fulfilled he was. So when he loses now, he’s even more hard on himself because he’s also letting Tana down, and Tana really believed in him.

But I think he’s also starting to get uncomfortable, because he’s getting dangerously close to re-learning a lesson he has already learned pretty painfully. He’s done all this work and sacrifice only to find that—shockingly— winning and being seen as a Top Guy is still not worth your happiness and mental health.

And it was PRETTY shitty of him to walk away from Tana getting a beatdown! That felt VERY bad. But Tana has been failing to admit that he can’t do the shit he used to do, to his own detriment. IMO that doesn’t justify Ibushi leaving him to deal with shit on his own but also, I kinda don’t blame him if he feels resentful of Tana for asking him to be a different person in order to fit within Tana’s vision of him, all while Tana refuses to admit that he himself does not fit the vision he has for himself, which is ultimately making it harder to do the thing Ibushi now feels more driven to do than ever—partially because of Tana’s influence—which is win. WHEW.

FEELS BAD.

But! Hey! Then Tana did exactly what Ibushi asked and like cut a little fat and got more serious about his hair and tan. And then he got a pin on Dangerous Tekkers and now he deserves a title shot. And he’s like ‘Ibushi in Soviet Russia god stans u’ and Ibushi is like “excellent sir, ready 2 only care about my personal success!” So now they’re friends again? And they’re even, because a person not accepting that they have to conform to others’ expectations, and a person not accepting that they are aging like every human being does, are totally morally equivalent? And all that nuanced storytelling was totally in my head?

Yay?

So where is this going?

Bro idk. I’m so deflated by this storyline it’s hard to think of a scenario that would make me stop being devastated by potentially having THE major reason wrestling means so much to me (Kota Ibushi’s weirdness and perpetual defiance of expectation, for the sake of fiercely and unwaveringly committing to himself and the belief that he deserves to be valued for who he is, his hard-fought path that he carved for himself when he saw that he couldn’t do stuff the way he was Supposed To, succeeding because he is unapologetically honoring that in a world that demands conformity and obedience and punishes deviation; PLUS GAY, which makes everything even more poignant I’M TOTALLY FINE) permanently written out of existence.

If Kota learned that forcing yourself to be normal 1. totally works, 2. brings instant success, and 3. was the right thing to do all along because the way you were was stupid and foolish and the fact that you ever thought you should be accepted, let alone allowed to feel okay about yourself, let alone happy, when you can’t even do the most basic human functions correctly, just goes to highlight how deeply alien and unacceptable you are, fundamentally, as a person LIKE I SAID I’M FINE IT’S FINE, then I should probably stop caring about wrestling and get to figuring how to live a 9-5 existence and how not to care about things to a degree that makes other people laugh at me and not use ten-dollar words and stop making men feel nervous because I’m way smarter than they are, and also i guess have a dog and find a monogamous husband whom will get me pregnant with some kids, and I’ll go to bed at a reasonable hour! Because! If Kota can do it and be successful then goddammit I can too.

I’m fine.

But idk. It’s hard to imagine why they’d do this little rift storyline and have nothing come of it except Golden Ace are better bros than ever before. I don’t even know what I want. Right now it feels like this arc is about Tana’s development, and Kota is kinda a supporting character.

Maybe it felt valuable to in-kayfabe acknowledge the fact that Tana sometimes looks like his knees and hips don’t bend, but ultimately show that the Ace has still got it! And also Kota Ibushi is a selfish asshole who talks down to his elders. I mean, a stern but fair leader? I mean a driven, tough-love champion?

Maybe Tana will fail in the title match despite his cosmetic improvements, because he has still fundamentally failed to earnestly engage with his limitations.

Maybe he really has accepted and learned to work with a new reality and now he’s on fire.

I think the only way to make this feel satisfying would be to turn it into a long-term rivalry of some flavor, where Tana had the Ace Wars with Okada, now he can have a God War with Ibushi. When Tana can no longer be NJPW’s heart and soul, I don’t think anyone can fill those shoes. But he has already in many ways passed on the soul of NJPW to Okada which was cemented with the Ace Wars, so maybe this is how he’ll eventually (hopefully a while from now) pass on the heart of NJPW to Ibushi; make Ibushi earn it the same way Okada had to unequivocally prove he was worthy of Ace, including to Tanahashi himself.

I could see a rivalry where they go their separate ways but are grateful for having learned some things together. They truly both feel like equals now, and they support each other living their best lives. This would be a rivalry where they constantly push each other to be better; Ibushi figuring out a way to be true to himself and still win, and Tanahashi figuring out how to have a glorious, once-in-a-century late career and gaining new vitality as he throws off the weight of pretending he’s still in his prime.

RACHEL ARE WE GETTING A HEEL TURN OR NO

ORRRR I guess one of them could turn heel, because they’re both the shiniest babyfaces and that would rule. While they both know how to heel when needed and take up the mantle gleefully, neither has had a proper heel run really.

In normal times I’d say ‘but I don’t really think it’s likely that either of them will turn heel’, but these are not normal times. I truly don’t know what to think or expect. Bullet Club is missing its heavy hitters and may be for a while (can it be Yujiro’s time to shine at last??), which is why EVIL and Dick Togo are there now. In a way I could see a heel Tanahashi take advantage of that power vacuum and it would be incredibly badd ass.

I could see Tanahashi resenting Ibushi and getting real mean about it, doing that thing where someone provokes Ibushi until they go too far and get rekt. Like going back and using all that ‘i’m your father and i disapprove’ bullshit he did. Ibushi wins the HW title, Tana challenges and loses bc he makes the same old ‘but i’m actually 27 years old still’ miscalculations that have been a problem for Golden Ace. But he gets his groove back and eventually beats Ibushi for the HW title, and gets a later-career run he deserves (i lov u tana).

But... it actually would NOT rule at all to see Ibushi turn heel.

Which is a major shame, because you have no idea how on board I am, in theory, with him donning the black and gold, dyeing his hair back to black, being sadistic all of the time, thinking up tag team moves for him and ZSJ, getting evil smiles of approval from The King, and somehow becoming good at not only talking but saying mean things, which he never ever does even when people are mean to him. In a just world, I could be very down with Suzuki-gun Ibushi.

But we do not live in a just world, we live on Earth in the system Sol in the year 2020 AD. If Ibushi did a heel turn now, it would most likely be in further service of the narrative that his desire for independence and happiness was selfish and bad, his individualism and unapologetic strangeness were embarrassing, and Tana was right to tell him to stop being gay and start destroying his body more. Because a dude that disrespects his elders and role models is Not A Good Dude. Because rebellious people whose biggest act of rebellion is loving themselves when everything around them tells them they shouldn’t are Wrong, Actually.

So as much as in theory I’d love to see him in Suzuki-gun, in practice I would probably never be able to watch wrestling again because it validated the worst fears I have about how I move through the world. If Kota Ibushi is Wrong for being weird then perhaps truly nothing is salvageable for me about this horror show of a planet. (Also, practically speaking, the Bullet Club being down so many folks might mean that the other true heel faction is less likely to get new members.)

Like, in-kayfabe, yeah, this story already feels like a betrayal. But also out of kayfabe, if it turned out that the Lesson was ‘if you conform you will be successful and loved’? And Kota took part in that story? I know it sounds extremely well-adjusted of me to say, but I’d feel a little like he betrayed me; showing me it was okay to be weird so convincingly and then going ‘actually I always hated being weird, I don’t regret giving up everything I thought I loved about myself, in order to be normal. which means not only is it possible to overcome being the off-putting freak you are, but you are failing at doing it every single day.’ Or—perhaps even worse—the story I thought I saw, that made me feel seen (like, actually), was never there to begin with. Which... would mean that the story I saw was actually just what actually happened in real life to a person I admire so much, who has brought me so much joy. I don’t think I could take any of those outcomes and still enjoy wrestling.

That’s totally a normal thing to feel, right?

Epilogue in which ya girl has been exposed to too many harmful chemicals recently

In order to soothe my faltering ability to find joy in wrestling, I shall note a very cracky theory, which is The Middle Path:

Ibushi’s a strange dude, and he plays by his own rules. He does not like factions; he’s in Hontai more or less by default... but NJPW’s resident Island of Misfit Toys faction is down one heavyweight, and was already very small.

Perhaps Ibushi and Tanahashi will agree to disagree about whether you should be weird and happy or drill your body into a fine pulp until you die, and their rivalry will take a more official form when Ibushi’s arc comes full circle: where he once graciously tried to accept his old friend back into the fold so many years ago, his old friend is now well and truly the Shuyaku, and welcomes him, fist raised, to the loving arms of the Weirds. Milano Collection AT weeps because he can now stan more fervently. La Estrella Dorada Ingobernable has, after all, always been the very definition of ungovernable. (This seems unlikely because of Ibushi’s gr9 rivalries with SANADA and Naito, but in a world where EVIL joined Bullet Club, do we really know what’s real anymore?)

---------

WHEW! Anon, if somehow there is anything you feel I did not address sufficiently, please let me know. Otherwise, as always, thank you for giving me an opportunity to write about something that interests me, and I am sorry for who I am as a person.

#kota ibushi #hiroshi tanahashi #njpw #well you asked #and i didn't even get into tana's history with nakamura and the ibushi and nakamura parallels and tana's attempts to be Aloof aaaaaaa #i have long been wanting to write a book or something about the little constellation of tanahashi - nakamura - ibushi #featuring kenny omega with important appearances by okada - shibata - naito #this is 5.5k words #why do you guys put up with me honestly #who am i even writing for?#(me. always me.)#it's true about the harmful chemicals #hahahahaha acab #the lowkey anti-immigrant storyline they were doing w/ tana and kenny was SO good but they had to stop bc kenny was leaving #immigrants: we do not complete the job #anyway i love you tell me if you guys read or liked this

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ingek73 · 4 years ago

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The Simon CASE: Throw Your Brother Under The Bus!

By Kristine Welby June 16, 2020 19 Comments

The Simon Case

Pool/Samir Hussein

The Simon CASE: Simon Says…Throw Your Brother Under The Bus!

“When Someone betrays you, it is a reflection of their character not yours.”

Last summer as Harry and Meghan were being slammed by the press literally for every breath they took, came word that they had flown to France on a private jet. They were dubbed hypocrites for taking a private jet after talking about the environment. Harry never told anyone not to fly, and Meghan never spoke about the environment. But they were both excoriated in the press and on social media. Of course, no fake outrage would be complete without fake pundits on various talk shows lambasting Harry and Meghan for the destruction of the environment.

When it was revealed that Sir Elton John had paid for the flight and paid to offset the carbon footprint, the conversation switched to “debunking the myth” of carbon offsets. Harry and Meghan were declared eco-hypocrites, despite the fact that William, in his efforts to outdo Harry, has spoken of the environment as much as Harry, and had even flown by private jet to Davos climate change forum. His attendance seemed nothing but grandstanding, since all he did was interview Sir David Attenborough. An interview which could have been done remotely, since environmental degradation is such a concern for him. This might sound trivial, but underscores the fundamental unfairness of the media’s attitude towards Harry. There is no shortage of perceived “hypocrisy” if one is determined to find it. But I guess it depends on where said hypocrisy needs to be found.

There was also the fact that William and his family had only just returned from their vacation on an exclusive private island, accessible only by private jet. And if that were not enough, we had the Queen’s favorite son flying hither and yon in private jets, in the midst of renewed outcry about his connection to convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew’s alleged sexual abuse of a trafficked minor. No private jet outrage there. Instead, when they were not attempting to equate Prince Andrew’s amoral actions to Harry and Meghan flying by private jet, they were ignoring Prince Andrew in favor of berating Harry and Meghan.

Then, just as it seemed the squall was reduced to a drizzle, along came pictures of the Cambridge clan boarding a commercial flight to Balmoral. £73 flight they declared, with pictures of the Cambridge family cosplaying ‘regular’ folks, with father and children carrying their own bags. It was a double whammy! William and Kate were not only heralded as frugal but of course environmentally conscious for flying commercial. That of course ignores the fact that Meghan and Harry’s personal travel is always privately funded and Sir Elton had paid for their trip; you can’t get more frugal than free.

Rebecca English tweet

“Stunt, stunt, stunt,” cried the people. “Obvious,” said the blue check.

William and Kate flight stunt

And it was, but wait there’s more. In the fanfare of the tabloids erecting a statue in honor of William the conqueror of duffel bags, came word from a real reporter with the Scotsman – There were two empty jets. The now defunct airline, Flybe had flown two empty planes, 500 hundred miles so they would be sure to have a commercial jet befitting the man waiting for his father and grandmother to pass…on the scepter. If Harry and Meghan’s small private jet was going to destroy the planet, then two empty commercial jets should spell the end of our galaxy. Harry clarified that flying private was for security reasons, which also apply to the rest of the royal family. Remember, this was not long after two men went to prison for plotting to kill Harry, because according to them, he was a “race traitor”, not to talk about the threats to his wife.

Of course, the people who seem to embrace their role as mouthpiece for KP, came out. Fully recovered from directing their fake outrage at Harry and Meghan taking a private jet, they were ready to switch to fake outrage in defense of William and his obvious stunt.

Emily Andrews and Chris Ship flight pr stunt

As with the jet stunt, we saw the denials for what they were, “fake”.

And then nearly a year later, this happened. An article about Simon Case of Kensington Palace who is now off to support the non-elected ruler of Britain – Dominic Cummings.

The Spectator’s tweet of the article about his departure proudly proclaimed:

“Boris’s new man in No. 10 was behind Will and Kate’s budget flight to Balmoral – when Harry and Meghan were criticised for flying by private jet says Camilla Tominey”

Simon behind Will and Kate’s budget flight

What the tweet should have said was: “It was a stunt.”

And a poorly thought out and executed stunt. By any objective measure, it was a failure. People immediately knew it was a stunt, and treated it with the ridicule it deserved. It did not affect change, except with the people desperate for any excuse to think William and Kate worthy of their privileged position. For those of us who think privilege should be earned not gifted, we saw William as a backstabbing, entitled, duplicitous craven bully. In the middle of a propaganda campaign against his brother and (post-partum) sister-in-law, William decided (or agreed) that it would be an excellent idea to do that, to attempt to embiggen himself.

If, as KP’s press minions originally claimed, the flight had been arranged months in advance, why did Flybe have to scramble( moving empty jets hundreds of miles) at the last minute to position a Flybe-branded plane on a route that was operated by their codeshare partner Loganair (eastern airways) in order to “maximize press coverage for the airline”? Was there a prior expectation that their royal passengers will be pictured on the flight and hence the need to “maximize press coverage”? Had the flights been arranged far in advance as the press mouthpieces insisted it was, the airline could have positioned the planes without costing themselves money by way of 2 EMPTY flights. And why is Camilla Tominey now making special mention of Case’s role in that fiasco? Was he in his role, KP’s reservation specialist? If not normally, why did he take interest in that particular flight?

We do know that the flights arrangements were made on the eve of their departure per the Scotsman. A flight that was obviously positioned to portray William and Kate as “better” and more “responsible” than Harry and Meghan. And why are we now receiving confirmation of what we suspected from the beginning? Is it a coincidence, that revised versions of old rumors (tights-gate, private jet, KP leak) are being trotted out now? Revisions we suspect are closer to, (but still not) the truth. All these revisions still manage to position William and Kate as the victims. Apparently, Kate was justified in claiming to have a temper tantrum because the bride got the final say for her own wedding party; or that the backstabbing of Harry and Meghan via media propaganda was engineered by someone else and William and Kate merely went along? I don’t know why they think either proposition makes them look good.

If Simon Case was the ‘mastermind’ behind the media war waged by the future-future King against his brother and sister-in-law, then Mr. Case is an unfeeling, amoral manipulator. After all it was under his watch that the (pregnant) Duchess of Sussex was subjected to a coordinated campaign of harassment by the British Media. It was under his watch, that Tim Shipman of the times wrote in his famous article, excerpts below.

“This sense of embattlement has been entrenched by William’s decision to reach out to senior figures in the media as he prepares for kingship and by the apparent decision of those same newspapers to side with the palace over Meghan and Harry by peddling the most negative coverage of the duchess’s relationship with her father, Thomas Markle. “Harry sees that as part of the headwinds against him,” a friend said.”

It is Case who was credited with encouraging William to attempt to sideline Harry and his popular wife, which led to rumors of exiling them to Africa.

“…the Duke of Cambridge has been encouraged by his private secretary, Simon Case, who says he believed that a period of separation between the two brothers would help them to define themselves better and also improve relations between them.”

“In some ways it would suit William to get his brother out of the country for a few years and Meghan as far away as possible,” said one friend of the brothers.

Sending the couple to Canada was “mooted, then booted” given that Meghan spent seven years living there and for some it was “too close to the US” and the inevitable tabloid magazine coverage that would ensue. Making Harry governor-general of Australia was discussed and dismissed. The problems were obvious. “The trouble is that you effectively set them up as king and queen of a whole separate country,” according to one source. “And 24-hour media means that Australia is not as far away as it used to be.”

Here we are today, Harry and Meghan have stepped down as working royals, and moved to the United States of America, home to the media capital of the world. The public knew the economy plane trip was a stunt. We knew the leaks were coming from inside the Palace. No one but trolls believed the tights (or is it skirt length?) story. William will be remembered as a twat who on a state visit told the world that the media was hyping up COVID-19, even though at the time, hundreds were dying daily. Yet the apparent architect of the clusterf*ck, Simon Case, is credited with turning William into a statesman(yes) and it was his “success” at KP that lead Britain’s bumbling prime minister to invite him back to No. 10 Downing St.

As it were, the latest Spectator article only seeks to confirm what every rational and logically thinking person suspected was a calculated move by William’s court to hurt is brother. One has to wonder when all these facts became known to Camilla Tominey. Also is she the only reporter who is privy to these facts? Why were some in the royal rota adamant that flight arrangements were made far in advance? Did they question the seeming improbable coincidence(ahem) of the Cambridges and their brood being pictured boarding a domestic flight, whose exact price(£73) they seemed to know even after the fact? Or were they just willing to give William & Kate the benefit of the doubt, which they never extend to Harry and Meghan? So many questions still to be answered. If I were a betting woman, I will bet my last penny that there are more Cases to be unveiled. Stay tuned.

#royals #prince william #kate middleton #prince harry #meghan markle #duke of cambridge #duke of sussex #pr stunt #royal reporters #duke and duchess of cambridge #duke and duchess of sussex

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covingtoncabrera20-blog · 6 years ago

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concerningglengarriff · 8 years ago

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A few thoughts on the proposed Maureen O’Hara statue in Glengarriff

Preface

Before we being we would like to state what this post is about; things we agree with, things we disagree with and a few questions that we believe need to be answered.

In short...

We seek to ask questions, give opinions, but make no assertions

We supports the efforts of the community to memorialise Maureen O’Hara in Glengarriff

We commend the collaboration of Maureen O’Hara’s fans and the community in coming together to pay homage to probably Glengarriff’s most famous resident

Finally, we do not wish to belittle or diminish Maureen O’Hara, her legacy, her family or the people / groups involved in this project

With that said, we believe there are some questions and issues that need to be taken into consideration...

1. Should Maureen O’Hara be memorialised in Glengarriff?

To us, this is an obvious “YES”! Maureen O’Hara, the hugely famous actress from Dublin spent a great many years living in Glengarriff, locals would boast to anyone listening, of their celebrity neighbour, garnish Island boatmen would point out her “house with the tall chimneys” to seagoing visitors, fans would be ecstatic to hear of their chances of seeing her casually dining in certain local establishments and of course golfers travelled from all over the world to take part in the annual Maureen O’Hara / Charles Blair Golf Classic. In later years, the Maureen O’Hara Film Festival, succeeded in drawing fans and visitors from all over, to celebrate and enjoy the filmography of Maureen O’Hara.

Her impact on Glengarriff has been unquestionably positive, one which we have all benefited from - directly or otherwise.

Surely only the worst begrudger would oppose efforts to celebrate the connection of Maureen O’Hara to our wonderful village. We fully and whole-heartedly support these endeavors and hope they succeed!

We do however feel they must be completed in an appropriate fashion and without excess.

2. Is a statue the most appropriate option?

We feel this question is very much tied to the other questions raised in this post. Who is going to pay and where will it be placed?

However for our argument we will approach this as the plan stands currently - to place a life size bronze statue of Maureen O’Hara in the “Amenity Area” which will in turn be renamed the “Maureen O’Hara Garden”. This €85,000 undertaking is to be funded from €39k already raised and an additional €46K being sought on the website “gofundme”.

€85K is a lot of money for a small village. Ironically €85K probably wasn’t a lot of money for the late film star or even for her estate now. If Glengarriff is now expected to spend this small fortune on Maureen O’Hara we would like to ask the question, what did Maureen O’Hara spend on the small village of Glengarriff? Were there any €85K donations to the local schools? Local sports clubs? The Hall? Or even the Church? Of course she was not obligated to do so but one begins to wonder was Glengarriff’s love affair with Maureen O’Hara reciprocated? Beyond her beautiful, peaceful home with a view, was Maureen O’Hara as invested in Glengarriff as we are being asked to invest into her?

If this truly was a reciprocated love one might expect to already see elements of Maureen O’Hara’s legacy in the village from her efforts when she was alive? We do of course still have the Maureen O’Hara Golf Classic and perhaps this is where we find a more appropriate level of commitment to her memory.

We might find answers not so far away, in the town of Bandon. There a story with striking parallels has already played out. Back in 2013, to celebrate “The Gathering”, organisers from “Cork Rebel Week” commissioned a statue of BBC presenter Graham Norton. Understandable, Graham Norton pooh-poohed the idea saying:

“They haven’t made one yet thank God. Thank you for reminding me - I must write to them and beg them not to. It’s such a waste of money and it would look hideous.”

The last sentence standing out the most - “It’s such a waste of money and it would look hideous.”

Eventually the plan was scrapped and more importantly, Bandon does not seem to have suffered.

If this plan goes ahead as-is we may very will end up with our own hideous creation, akin to the “Scary Lucy” statue of Lucille Ball.

Picture this, a couple, a few drinks worse for wear make their way back from the village late one night. Walking towards the Eccles the noises of the village are now faint behind them. Only her high heel shoes clack along the road. As they get to the entrance of the “Amenity Area” they stop to light a cigarette. As the man leans into the tiny flame of his lighter his eyes catch something beyond the wall. Looking out at them from the darkness is the silhouette of woman, standing, staring right at them. They call out. No one answers. Horror engulfs them. Glued to the spot they observe the motionless monster in the dark. The man grabs his partners arm and they walk with haste back to their hotel. And so is born the legend of the Glengarriff Ghoul...

Ghouls aside, perhaps there is a more suitable option. Perhaps a tasteful commemoration can be made to Maureen O’Hara, something perhaps not as kitsch as a life size bronze statue.

One option, not so far removed from the idea of a statue would be that of a bust. A head and shoulders only recreation of the actress. As well as being a more modest option this would or could surely be completed for a fraction of the cost? Many late and greats have been commemorated this way. She can still be memorialised and honoured this way without the need for an over the top life size statue.

While a significant step down from a statue, a commemorative plaque should be considered as an affordable, yet tasteful memorialisation of the late actress.

3. Where should the proposed statue be placed?

It is our opinion that the converting of the “Amenity Area” into the “Maureen O’Hara Garden” is a misguided step. Taking a communities primary green space and converting it into a shrine for celebrity worship is not appropriate - no matter the celebrity or their social status.

If the estate of Maureen O’Hara were so concerned about her legacy in Glengarriff then her house could have been turned into a museum and visitor attraction. Instead this asset was liquified.

Glengarriff Golf Club, which probably enjoyed the most benefits of Maureen O’Hara’s tenure in Glengarriff may just be the perfect place for any memorialisation. Why not name a hole or even the entire golf club after the actress and then, through private funding or in conjunction with her estate, build a statue / bust or plaque to whatever size is desired / can be afforded. This way the actress is appropriately honoured in a part of the community she supported while leaving the village of Glengarriff its primary green space.

4. Who should pay for the proposed statue?

Let us first pose the question how far could €85K go if spent on more worthy, less vain projects?

What would €85K mean to Scoil Fhiachna or Derrycreha N.S?

How would Glengarriff G.A.A. or other local sports clubs benefit from €85K?

How might we be able to develop our existing attractions such as the Glengarriff Nature Reserve or Garnish Island with €85K?

How many jobs could be created if €85K was put towards helping local businesses expand or develop?

More directly, does the Glengarriff Tourism and Development Association have the mandate to raise and spend eighty-five thousand Euros on a project with arguable value and benefit?

Additionally we would like to see clarification on where the €39k already raised is coming from? We make no accusations but do ask, were these funds raised from the public specifically for this purpose or are they left over from another fund raising effort?

This question is important as anyone with a feeling of déjà vu is justified in thinking they have been here before. A group associated with Maureen O’Hara seeking funding for a grand project; remember the Maureen O’Hara legacy centre, museum and film school in Glengarriff? As we all know that has turned out to be a great success!

Again we make no accusations but we would be curious to see what percentage of the money raised for that previous project remains and how much if any can be put towards this new ambition. Was the fiduciary duty of care met then? Will it be met this time around?

Why should the costs, or so much of the costs of this statue be sought from the Glengarriff community?

It is our strong conviction that the most appropriate source of the funding for this vanity project is the estate of Maureen O’Hara. Anyone who pays any attention to local news will from time to time see articles referring to the sale of her house or memorabilia. The house alone, never mind the value of the rest of the estate reportedly sold for €1.6 million.

youtube

Surely the estate of this Oscar (Honorary) winning Actress can afford to gift Glengarriff the money for her own life size, metallic effigy.

Before the question is asked, “What difference does it make if this money is donated by the community of their own free choice?”, we would counter, surely if official Glengarriff bodies can raise such money then a more community focused and beneficial project should take precedence over this exaggerated tribute to a celebrity?

5. Should the “Amenity Area” be renamed?

Good gracious yes! “Amenity Area” is such a horrendous title. It sounds Orwellian, designated for the Two Minutes Hate.

In a town so reliant on Tourism calling our primary green space the “Amenity Area” is an even more egregious offense. No tourist is going to be drawn to such a functionally named “attraction”.

It can only be imagined that the itinerary which includes “Amenity Area” was compiled from an ordinance survey map and includes other hotspots such as:

Public W.C

Three Ireland Mobile Telecommunications Mast

Dromgarriff Water Tank

Agreement on the fact that the “Amenity Area”should be renamed aside, we come to the question - Should the “Amenity Area” be renamed the “Maureen O'Hara Garden” (as indicted on the gofundme page set up for this project)?

It certainly is better than “Amenity Area”, and the name would stand out on a map or list of things to do in Glengarriff. But is this name change appropriate or warranted? Was Maureen O’Hara a frequent visitor? Did she regularly stroll around the “Amenity Area” and its connecting trails? Did she know the stench that lingered where the sewer meets the ocean? Or is it possible that we are just cashing-in on the brand of a local celebrity and loosely pinning her name to the primary green space in the village of Glengarriff?

Surely we can come up with something better that embodies the spirit, beauty or history of our little town and doesn’t scream American-like celebrity worship in its most pitiful!

There is of course an entirely reasonable route to renaming the “Amenity Area” after Maureen O’Hara. In our opinion this has to involve a large investment, from the estate of Maureen O’Hara, towards a beautification project for the “Amenity Area” itself or the village of Glengarriff.

If, because of this investment, paved looped trails were created, flowers planted, a plethora of visitor information signs erected and the space was truly turned into a public garden attraction, then bestowing the “Amenity Area” to the memory of Maureen O’Hara would be a fitting, apt and well-deserved thank you.

We feel that the current plan is an overstepping by a few fans onto the identity of our village. An identity we should be proud of, an identity which should be bigger than any celebrity who happens to take up residence.

Conclusion

So diatribe over, what is the right answer? How would we proceed form here? This is a question for the community as a whole.

In essence we do not feel that Maureen O’Hara did enough or was connected to the wider community enough to warrant the village of Glengarriff dedicating the “Amenity Area” to her along with funding her life size bronze statue.

Our feeling is that the only appropriate way for the project to go ahead as planned is if the estate of Maureen O’Hara takes the financial responsibility for the majority of the costs associated with the building of the statue and the converting of the “Amenity Area” into the “Maureen O’Hara Garden”. Name change of this area is simply not enough, this garden park would need to offer something real for visitors. Not just a footpath leading to a plinth with a statue of “some auld one” who used to live up the road.

Short of this we feel a kitschy life size statue of Maureen O’Hara has no place in the public areas of the village.

A plaque, bust or portrait would be a more appropriate ask for the community to sponsor and could be placed publicly without being obstructive and obnoxious. If one of the local businesses want to dedicate an area of their premises to the full size effigy, that would be perfectly fine.

The project in its current state can be described as nothing other than egregious celebrity worship. By all means, worship any idols you see fit - but please don’t ask that our community fund their construction and please don’t rob Glengarriff of real and meaningful development with the building of this Golden Calf.

#maureen o'hara #glengarriff #garnish island

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actutrends · 5 years ago

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Week 14 observations you can steal to impress your friends

Another week of NFL action is in the books, but what did we learn and what takes can you steal to impress your friends and co-workers?

With just three games left this year, we only have two teams officially in the playoffs. That means these final weeks will feel less like molding something out of clay and more like forging the playoff picture out of cold steel.

It’s going to be fun.

But beyond just the playoff picture, a lot of things are happening between the lines that are absolutely fascinating. Huge plays, bad calls, and loyal fans all defined this past week in the NFL and we have a lot to unpack.

So before we get too ahead of ourselves, let’s ponder what we saw and come up with some observations you can use around the water cooler to sound like the Lamar Jackson of your friend group.

Jimmy G answered the haters

For as bone-rattling as the San Francisco 49ers defense has been all year, the biggest question we had about their Super Bowl chances was Jimmy Garoppolo. Was he capable, when called upon, of getting into a shootout with Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers and winning?

He proved as much on Sunday.

Robert Saleh’s vaunted defense gave up a season-high 46-points and allowed Drew Brees to score 5 touchdowns, but it was Garoppolo who executed the game-winning drive. San Francisco won on the road in the Superdome in a shootout specifically because of their quarterback.

Of course, with a huge assist from George Kittle.

Kittle optically put the team on his back, but Garoppolo did so in every other way. That throw to Kittle was a fourth-and-two play; the game — and any shot at the No. 1 seed in the NFC — was on the line. When Garoppolo threw that ball to Kittle the Niners were the fifth-seed in the NFC playoffs. Less than a minute later they owned home field advantage.

Garoppolo delivered that.

This was the type of game he needed to have in order to prove to everyone he wasn’t the weak link some may have thought he was. Maybe it doesn’t happen again, maybe the Niners lose in the playoffs because Garoppolo makes a mistake. Maybe they lose the top seed between now and the end of the season — who knows. What we do know is that until proven otherwise we have to operate under the assumption that if the Niners need him to, Garoppolo is absolutely capable of playing Big Boy football when it counts.

Mitchell Trubusky will be the Bears QB in 2020

Let’s just cut right to it: Mitchell Trubusky will be back as the Bears quarterback in 2020.

While everyone else in the NFL is spending their time slamming Jason Garrett and discussing his future, the Trubisky narrative quietly slipped out the back door and into the night. Now fans in Chicago are left with whatever the ramifications from this are.

For as bad as he’s been this year, it was going to take a lot for Ryan Pace and the front office to move on from Trubisky and very little to justify keeping him. Fans can throw themselves against a padded wall as much as they want but they weren’t the ones who traded up in the draft to take Trubisky.

Their legacy isn’t tethered to the success of Trubisky.

Even Pace outlasts Trubisky in Chicago, he needs him to play well enough now to keep the heat off until one of two things happen:

A) Trubisky improves and develops into a franchise quarterback B) Pace finds a replacement that is good enough to erase the bitter taste Trubisky is leaving

Option A is the best because it means Pace was right. It’s also the most dangerous because it means the pursuit of being right, something that has felled many general managers throughout the history of football.

Bears fans might not want to hear it but Trubisky is Pace’s guy, and it’s going to take more than one lost season to change that. How much long term damage this does or doesn’t cause is yet to be seen.

Patriots fans got a taste of their own medicine

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but there was some fishy officiating in a Patriots game. The plot twist was that, for the first time in human history, the calls went against New England.

Usually, around this time of the year when the Patriots play an AFC team with something involving the playoffs on the line, a call happens that affects the outcome of the game. But it usually benefits New England, where on Sunday the calls helped Kansas City get hand Bill Belichick and Tom Brady their first home loss since 2017.

The worst call was N’Keal Harry being ruled out of bounds short of the goal line when he absolutely was not:

Officials also missed a blatant pass interference call the drive after that:

There was also play earlier in the game where the Patriots clearly recovered a fumble and returned it for a touchdown, but the play was blown dead.

Three missed calls, all of which would have changed the course of the game.

Some of this is on Belichick, which is also incredibly shocking. Because the Patriots had lost two challenges before the fourth quarter even started, there was no way to review the Harry play or the missed pass interference.

No one is crying any tears for calls not going the Patriots way, but it was a stunning dose of reality that fans in New England aren’t often forced to swallow.

Lamar Jackson’s white glove troll is G.O.A.T.-worthy

Earlier this week San Francisco 49ers radio color commentator Tim Ryan was suspended for making comments about how the color of Lamar Jackson’s skin helps him disguise the ball on RPOs.

Richard Sherman said he wasn’t offended but thought there was a better way to have said it. Depending on what part of Twitter you wade into, it was either the worst thing ever said or the libs getting triggered. It was a deeply stupid thing to say, but Lamar Jackson had the final word.

Jackson started Sunday’s game in Buffalo with white sleeves and gloves and proceeded to do exactly what he always does — juke defenders out of their souls.

This isn’t the first time Jackson has quietly thrown u both middle fingers at his haters and it won’t be the last. Some folks still cling to the idea that he’s “athletic” but not a good quarterback — which is coded and thinly veiled racism — something that Jackson, the Ravens, and Ravens fans happily continue to throw back at everyone.

Meanwhile, here’s Marcus Peters maybe shotgunning a beer with fans after the game to serve as the latest exhibit in why you should be in love with this Ravens team.

Perhaps he was just letting out a joyous yell at the same time a beer was being poured near his face. The mere fact that we have to ask that but also don’t really care is why we should cherish this run Baltimore is on.

Cleveland needs Ron Rivera

Before Sunday’s game, there were rampant reports that Odell Beckham Jr wants out of Cleveland. After the game, Baker Mayfield attacked his own franchise by saying the medical team purposefully didn’t handle Beckham’s sports hernia and therefore derailed his season.

The Browns won on Sunday, for what it’s worth.

For all the hype the Browns had this offseason — all the Baker commercials and trash talk, the flashy trades and high-priced moves — this year has been a total wash. Bad decisions, drama, and losing have defined what we all thought would be a watershed season for a habitually horrible franchise.

What Cleveland needs is a culture change. Ron Rivera is the man for the job, and he happens to be looking for one at the moment.

To hire Rivera, the Browns would need to fire Freddie Kitchens which it doesn’t seem like they’re going to do right now. But if the Haslam’s are serious about getting something out of this Baker era, something drastic is needed. Rivera isn’t a flashy hire like Lincoln Riley would be, but he’s a culture guy who would instantly come in and change everything. People would point to his mediocre record in Carolina but what those people would be saying is they don’t watch football. Rivera took the Panthers from a middling franchise to one that was always in the playoffs — sometimes with a losing record. Oh yeah, he also helped develop the franchise’s star quarterback into a star while leading the Panthers to a Super Bowl less than a half-decade ago.

Cleveland has a ton of talent but has no rudder. Riverboat Ron is the perfect man to take the Browns and finally help them become something better than they are.

Raiders fans deserve better than this

Oakland lost by more than 20-points on Sunday, but that wasn’t the saddest thing that happened.

The saddest thing happened when Raiders receiver Rico Gafford scored a 49-yard touchdown and then leaped into a sea of black and silver behind the endzone.

That doesn’t look like a fanbase that has abandoned a franchise so badly that it needs to leave town — but that’s what’s happening. The Raiders will play one more home game in Oakland before leaving for Las Vegas next season, leaving behind the sort of atmosphere that Gafford launched himself into after scoring.

Whenever a franchise has packed up and left a city, the games are usually played in front of mostly empty stadiums and without much fanfare. But the Raiders were in the playoff hunt a week ago and played in front of sold-out crowds all season long.

If you’ve ever been to the Coliseum, it’s not the type of place you want to breathe through your mouth while you’re at let alone pay money to spend an entire afternoon there. Yet Raiders fans have filled a crappy stadium to cheer on a team that won’t be there next year. It was mentioned during the broadcast that Jon Gruden recognized faces in the crowd who were there during his first tenure with the Raiders all the way back in the 90s.

That’s not a fanbase that deserves to lose its team.

Meanwhile, amid the recognition of how loyal and hardcore Raiders fans are, there was a shot of Mark Davis, the man who so badly managed his money that he couldn’t afford to sign Khalil Mack, sitting in his owner’s box shit-eatingly laughing the afternoon away.

You don’t have to be a Raiders fan for that to make you angry.

The post Week 14 observations you can steal to impress your friends appeared first on Actu Trends.

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aboutelan-blog · 6 years ago

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6/8/17 11:28 a.m.

I realized I feel angry or anxious when I think of the future or things coming up that I'll have to face later in the day, or week even.

My stomach tightens, my shoulders hunch, muscles in my legs and feet tense.

When I focus on the now however, the tension fades away.I relax. I take each moment breath by breath.

The thought causing me anxiety, normally never comes to pass. Instead, I deal with building an entire reality in my mind, which affects my physiology. Sometimes the damage to my body is already done, and this is all based on the thoughts and reality I've created internally and doesn't exist externally.

Another downfall to my thinking about the future is trying to recreate the internal reality I’m having, externally. I'm trying to control what happens next based on the story I created, not taking into consideration that I cannot control the realities or actions of other people I'm in relation to.

I'm trying to exert control over something I have no control over: others’ realities. Naturally, I only have control over my reality and part of this awareness acknowledges that everything else I must surrender to. I am not in control of everything, and that's okay.

What would I gain from being in control of everything?

1) I could make people like me.

2) I could establish authority by proving myself.

3) I could be loved.

4) I could be successful when I want to be.

These things are in some ways maniacal and egotistical, and I’m now moving past them because external validation always leads to unhappiness. Internal acceptance and love is key.

-----

I can’t be a fearful risk-taker. Fear-triggered paralysis and courageous risk-taking are mutually exclusive. Failure is inherent to risks and risk-taking. They're intertwined. You cannot have one without the other. Life only becomes difficult and in some ways dangerous when the fear to grow and evolve creeps in. Fear of growing and fear of the unknown are not allowed to settle in my heart, like dust landing on dormant objects. I am not dormant, and neither is my heart. I'm awake and fighting for every last part of me.

Today, I experienced failure outside of my comfort zone. I invited my improv teacher who teaches at my company to help with an extracurricular project for the company, as the project involved his expertise.

The coordinator for the project was disappointed and upset, stating loose lips sink ships. I got a slap on the wrist via email and was worried I would be kicked off the entire taskforce. This type of failure was humiliating to deal with. However, I was able to apply principles I learned over the past few weeks to help get me through:

1) Failure is a part of life.

2) If I'm kicked off of this extracurricular project, then what? What's the absolute worst case scenario? Embarrassment, and shame, as my boss was rooting for me and I don't want to let her down? Unpacking this, why is it important to impress my boss? I want her to see me as someone who has value. That's why I’m still hurt when I think of my former boss from a digital marketing agency. He never saw me as a person of value. Why is this important? Because people of value are treated better and accepted. I still have residual pain from my dad, as he didn't treat me well all of the time, nor did I feel accepted in his world. I wanted to be a value to my dad. I wanted to have some worth to him. When he rejected me, I turned that search outward, instead of inward. I looked for acceptance, value, and worthiness in other people, instead of accepting, valuing, and loving myself.

After today's event, I experienced fleeting moments of pain and doubt. The neuronal pathways are all linked. Failure, pain, and doubt.

Momentarily I thought about Zach, but was able to pull out of it and recover. I even started thinking about the failure of my project , The Black Spoon, and questioned my faith in both Jehovah's integrity and loyalty to helping me with the project.

I'm sorry, God, and I simply pray for patience and grace.

Now that we're on the subject, I'll reveal my fears to you, though you already know them.

Fear #1: My mind will loop back to Zach.

Fear #2: I’ve sunk so much money, time, and effort into marketing and distributing my first two books, and I didn’t gain much traction. I’m worried that this will be the same story with my short production.

My idea of success is virality and also acclaim and recognition as a content creator, because I feel as though people don’t take me seriously. How can I change that? And how can I have impact and make an impact?

I have to surrender it all to you Jehovah, but your version of success may look much different than mine. Will you help me? Will you help me succeed with this project?

Will you continue to have patience with me and forgive me when I doubt?

I’m working on this: surrendering night and day. I just need your support to make it through to those moments of peace and clarity.

I don’t know what you have in store; I only know that it’ll be good, and I can’t wait.

I’m going to move through life knowing that you’re handling my writing career and everything else, and that you’ve actually already handled it all along.

You are my savior, the hero of everything. My Olivia Pope, my fixer.

You are making me whole again in a way that no man can, not dad, Zach, or anyone at work. Only You, and without You I’m incomplete, nothing’s completed, and I slide through life with nowhere to go.

Thank You for being here and thank you for comforting me and pulling me out of the icy depths of despair. I was lonely without You Jehovah.

Please also keep reminding me that Satan is the father of all lies, especially when I’m most vulnerable. The attacks feel strongest when I’m weakest, and I’ll need you to keep me company on those battlefields. Thank you again for everything Jehovah.

Your faithful servant,

Elan

------

I failed today dad, and you what, that failure wasn’t the end of the world. Sometimes, succeeding isn’t the most impressive, but failing and recovering is. And that’s what I did today with Jehovah’s help.

I’ve learned so much under Him. Failing is OK. My perfection wouldn’t impress anyone. Not me, not you. From here on out, I only have to justify what I’m doing to me and Jehovah.

I’m not doing anything to try to impress you anymore, to try to get you to love me, to try to prove you wrong.

I already know I’m worthy and I’m of value, and that this doesn’t come from you. It comes from me.

I know you're in a different headspace right now.

It may seem like you don't have a person advocating for your best interests. But I am and Jehovah is. We love you, and I forgive you for hurting me.

You never wanted to see me fail and I know that was rooted in good intentions, or maybe you didn't want me to face the same disappointments you did.

Those were your fears that latched onto me and became mine.

Now, I suffer with not wanting to become a disappointment to others or to let others down. But I’m realizing that even if I do let someone down, I’m going to be OK.

And all of that fear – the fears that we both share – I’m realizing they’re just a trap to keep me from loving myself fully and question-free. Now I’m learning to love myself without the fear. I hope one day you can make it to this place as well. I'll be waiting for you.

Xoxo,

Elan

#Journal #healing #mental health #depression #emotional health #God #Faith #Love #Forgiveness

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cryptswahili · 6 years ago

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Bitcoin (BTC) To $50,000 – Hayes, Bernstein And Tampax Validation

Arthur Hayes says bitcoin will go to $50,000.

That’s actually a fairly conservative target, as Hayes himself suggests, if he takes to the logical conclusion the arguments he employs to justify his bullish pronouncement.

At the root of BitMEX chief executive Hayes’s thinking is a much-noted investment super theme, found to be in use by many a mutual fund manager: demographics

For instance, from China to India, where the middle class is on the rise, a common investment theme – the growing middle class in emerging markets – sees savvy investors focus on companies producing those products and services that a growing middle class could be expected to make increasing use of, from eating more red meat to spending more on education or using brokerage services, to name just three.

When it comes to the future of crypto, the adoption story is similarly rooted in a demographic imperative, and Hayes is by no means the first to take notice. The millennials are coming!

Incidentally, China and India are the places where Hayes expects crypto digital money to take hold first.

Not enough of the right sort of money – Gresham’s Law, MMT and Bitcoin (BTC)

In an interview with Venture Coinist Hayes lays out the now familiar assumptions of many in the crypto world, which it might be said is basically a reworking of the Gresham’s Law maxim that bad money drives out good.

There are lots of issues that arise from Gresham’s law’s application to crypto vis a vis fiat money, chief among them being that the money Gresham had in mind was the commodity form, where the one with the lower metallic value but same nominal face value of another, would drive the latter out of circulation and into hoardes.

Of course, fiat isn’t commodity money and some would say crypto isn’t either, so the theory should break down. But, for crypto believers it does not.

In such a view, the circulating paper money issued at the whim (fiat) of governments has no intrinsic value. In truth though it does if we think more imaginatively. Ultimately paper money (and coins containing less metallic value than their face value) is backed by the tax base and assets (land, state-owned industries and services) of the nation state that issues it.

So what happens when the government starts issuing money willy-nilly, out of all proportion to the commerce it is required to set in motion and the ability of its tax base to sustain?

A debate is raging in economics (and politics) about so-called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) which has is that a government with a monopoly over its currency – which in the US case means a monopoly over the world’s reserve currency – does not need to overly worry about money issuance, except to make sure there’s enough of it for the economy’s needs and not too much (reduced by fiscal measures such as increasing taxes) that it stunts growth and creates unemployment.

The implications of this theory for crypto haven’t been fully explored and its post-Keynesian roots seem to borrow from those who see monetary policy as the crucial economic lever. But MMT or not, the perceived weaknesses or otherwise of the financial system is crypto’s l’overture – for crypto people there is not enough money of the right type.

It’s obviously where bitcoin comes in. But before it does, the breakdown of the existing money system begins or, more correctly, continues and deepens.

Central bank policy of inflating the money supply to protect and arguably inflate the value of assets continues apace, despite fears last year of a sharp turn in policy.

This is most clearly seen in the policy U-turn of the US Federal Reserve. Weaning off the morphine had begun but as weak global growth pressed in on policymakers’ room for manoeuvre in the US and elsewhere, the tap of cheap money was left running.

This is what Hayes derides as the “silliness” of central bank policy.

He believes it will keep the equities party going a little longer, which he sees as evident in tech companies such as Lyft and Uber grabbing their last chance to go public and the VCs of getting their fat exits. That will stall the price appreciation of bitcoin but not for long he claims.

Returning to Gresham’s law, if the good money is withdrawn from circulation what does that mean for bitcoin as digital cash?

Well it implies it is set to increasingly become a store of value that is not used very much in the realm of circulation. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as it leaves intact its putative role as the digital gold of the 21st century.

And for those that doubt that, it is the proof-of-work consensus that makes bitcoin akin to a commodity form of money, with its value derived from the computing power devoted to is network.

In this scenario, a crypto(s) other than bitcoin can still circulate as an everyday means of payment, state-issued and private.

Millennials are at the heart of the digital money investment theme

This bring us to the second part of Hayes’s musings that’s worthy of dwelling on: demographics, which, for our purposes, can be boiled down to its constituent parts as a mixture of behavioural and thematic investing.

Hayes hitches bitcoin’s prospects to the future, the millennials – those reaching adulthood at the beginning of the the 21st century.

Certainly, the baby-boomers who drove the post-war economic boom still find it difficult to get their head round money made from code, but for the millennials used to music and films that ultimately are stored and downloaded as code, nothing could be more obvious.

Besides, as Hayes points out, the baby boomers are running down their assets, or handing them down, while the millennials are just starting to build there’s up.

Here’s Hayes take on the digital natives:

“Now that we’ve come to this time period where the baby booming generation and the older Gen Xers are entering the years when they are disposing of assets, their tastes and preferences are less relevant than the younger generation, Millennials, who are entering their prime asset earning years. And so what do we know about Millennials?”

Hayes tell us what we know: “Some of them, on the younger end of the spectrum, are digital natives, mobile first. They’ve had a screen in their hand since they were a young child. They’re very comfortable using a service which has very little human interaction.”

And it might be added at this juncture that millennials are also presumably happy (or ignorant of) with the enormous computing power that goes into making artificial intelligence possible, and will continue to do so at an exponential rate.

Hayes continues: “So, if you take this sort of change in how we deal with services, and we bring it to the financial services ecosystem, you can see that analogue ways of dealing with money and trading are not going to be successful in the next 10 to 20 years. It’s going to be mobile-first platforms. It’s going to be platforms that deal only on the internet.”

And with cash being squeezed out of the system or otherwise falling into abeyance, with digital payments taking its place, cryptographically secured digital cash comes into play.

Hayes again: “And that’s where I see the value proposition of Bitcoin finally clicking in everyone’s head, when they realize, ‘Oh shit. I used to be able to take out a $10 bill and go buy a dime bag of weed. But I can’t do that anymore. There’s no more cash. I have to use this app’…”

By the way, we return to marijuana a little later, but so as not to be distracted let’s take note here that Hayes is outlining what may probably turn out to be one of the greatest investment opportunities of the millennium.

Follow Bernstein – Make Bitcoin (BTC) part of your survival plan

Which brings us to investment legend Peter L Bernstein, the author of the seminal work on finance and risk Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street.

The book, published in 1991, is currently the subject of a series by John Authers, formerly of the Financial Times and now with Bloomberg and tells the story of how the ideas of the academe infiltrated and came to dominate on Wall Street.

Bernstein explains how the advent of tax-free pension investments began to transform the investment landscape in the US in the 50s and 60s and how by the early 70s risk management was rising up the agenda. These changes meant new techniques and strategies for managing wealth came to the fore, from the Black Scholes Model to efficient market hypothesis, the latter of which Bernstein was a key populariser and refiner.

For Bernstein the key was not to lose money, to stay safe, mitigate risk. Despite the advances Bernstein outlines, off-the-charts risk-taking has in fact been fuelled by the policies of central bankers spurred on, perversely, by worries about the risks facing the financial system.

Crypto critics such as economist Nouriel Roubini will be quick to jump in here to remind the reader that bitcoin is indicative of the extreme extent to which that risk-taking has gone, but this won’t concern us here, as this article can be read as a rebuttal of Dr Doom’s underlying thesis concerning bitcoin’s supposed irrelevance.

In an interview conducted before Lehman Brothers disappeared from the face of the Earth in September 2008 at the height of the financial crisis, Bernstein commented: “Understanding that we do not know the future is such a simple statement, but it’s so important… survival is the only road to riches”.

He went on: “You should try to maximise return only if losses would threaten your survival and if you have a compelling future need for the extra gains you might earn.”

That sounds like an argument for keeping well away from bitcoin but bear with me because what it does, by inference, reveal underneath the portfolio management advice the fragility of the current financial system.

In a second interview, also before the collapse of Lehman Brothers but after having seen enough to be able to pass judgement on a future that had not fully come into view, Bernstein’s observations are more explicit in regard to the general health of the system.

“It took a very long time to get the memory of the Depression out of business decisions. I think this is going to be the same. The Fed, too, is going to be less decisive and is going to feel that what it should do is less clear.

“One of the things that gave people a sense that they could afford to take risks was the sense that the central bankers more or less know what they are doing. But I don’t think we are going to feel that way going forward…”

You betcha!

The world into which bitcoin was born – from Gillette and Tampax to crypto

We quote Bernstein at length because he puts into a nutshell where the economy is at today with stunning prescience. There will be no more V-shaped recovery. L-shaped is more likely or a flat U, says Bernstein.

This is the world into which bitcoin was borne. Indeed, it is why it was born. It is not just an economic reaction but a profound social one.

Paradoxically however, the world in which risks are successfully, for now, mitigated by central bankers may be coming to an end if a global recession appears on the horizon in a year or so. Then we might find those masters of the universe at the Fed and elsewhere have empty medicine bags and nothing to treat the patient.

Authers returns to Capital Ideas for some advice on what a worried investor should do.

There was a time, in the early 1960s, when two brands were bringing in cash but were nevertheless out-of-favour with investors. They were Gillette and Tampax, companies long since consumed by the Proctor & Gamble.

If you had been a contrarian investor who eschewed following the crowd, you would have done well in the 1960s by investing in those two companies.

That’s what Bernstein-Macaulay did for its clients when Peter Bernstein was working for the family firm in 1961.

These undervalued companies were shunned for two reasons. One, they didn’t pay a dividend and two, being consumer staples they were just not very sexy. In the case of Tampax the stock was just downright embarrassing to talk about because of the ridiculous taboo that was/is menstruation.

Investment managers didn’t want to have a conversation with clients about tampons. And razors, although not the arena of taboos, was not exactly sexy either, added to which no one in 1961 thought buying the disposal variant would catch on in the way that it did.

Bernstein explained his demographic theme investing strategy thus: “We called it ‘investing in the puberty boom’. We bought heavy positions in Gillette and Tampax (then a highly controversial stock to own, and awkward even to suggest to a client of either sex).”

Incidentally, as Authers reminds us, things have improved in terms of talking about menstruation (there are ads that actually mention the subject at hand) but not as much as we might like to think (it’s the patriarchy).

However, the important point was that the prevalence of such attitudes and the coincident rise of the baby boomers meant that Tampax (and Gillette, because the baby boomers took to disposable razors in their millions) was undervalued.

“If you can find something that makes people today as squeamish as Tampax apparently did in 1961 (I hate to suggest it, but maybe marijuana?) that could be a good idea,” Authers advises.

Ok, so crypto doesn’t make the mainstream squeamish and for Authers probably has other features that keep if off his buy list. But actually, its mere mention is likely to be heart attack-inducing, as opposed to merely bring on nausea, because of its supposed valuelessness and proven ability to attract speculators and charlatans.

Notwithstanding any of that though, if bitcoin is in some way part of the answer as far digital money goes – although perhaps not most of the 2,000 other crypto, then we should definitely place it among Authers’s bracketed undervalued plays alongside marijuana.

Having said that, bitcoin’s economic and social impact may be much greater than that of the weed whose family name Authers is somewhat shame-faced to mention.

If we are not at the bottom of the crypto bear market it looks like we are pretty near. That could make today a good time to start investing in bitcoin.

But timing the market is not a great look as it is extremely difficult to do successfully.

A far better approach, one with which Bernstein would no doubt have agreed (he died on 2009), is to do the bottom-up research to find undervalued stocks, or an instrument in another asset class and then drip-feed into the market. But to be fair he would probably have put crypto in the way too risky bag although may not have been quite as quick to dismiss it out of hand.

As for BitMEX’s Hayes, he says bitcoin at $10,000 is easily achievable before year’s end, and sees it even higher over the next few years.

“In terms of a price target, I don’t know, say $50,000 in the next two to five years. But it could go materially higher if the world plays out the way I think it’s going to play out.”

You can watch the full interview with Hayes here:

youtube

The post Bitcoin (BTC) To $50,000 – Hayes, Bernstein And Tampax Validation appeared first on Ethereum World News.

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cryptobrief · 6 years ago

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