#not sure what the tweet says but i see elite i agree

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

'How can a sane society permit the medicalisation of children who don't fit gender stereotypes?' - Andrew Doyle

Making predictions is always a mug's game but I think I'll give it a shot.

So, I have a strong suspicion that historians of the future will look back at our current period of time in utter bewilderment. How is it, they will say, that a supposedly sane society permitted the medicalization of children who did not conform to gender stereotypes? How is it that figures in authority in the political class and the medical establishment thought it was a good idea to encourage the use of puberty blockers, which almost always lead to the taking of cross-sex hormones, and sometimes irreversible surgery for kids too young to possibly consent to such interventions?

None of this makes sense.

But there are some signs that the tide is turning. So this week, the NHS confirmed that children suffering from gender dysphoria will no longer be put on puberty blockers in the two new clinics being set up to replace the Tavistock pediatric clinic, which will be closing soon, following the report by Dr Hillary Cass which revealed that it was unsafe for children. The NHS has noted the the ominous exception of "clinical tests" which might end up being a loophole. The draft policy still uses language such as "gender affirming," so we probably still have a long way to go. We're going to have to wait to see what happens. But this is definitely a promising development

Things aren't looking so positive in Wales and Scotland where the governments have seemingly been entirely captured by gender identity activism. And the same is true of the US and Canada.

But gradually, reason will prevail. For one thing, the Tavistock is going to close, although that closure does seem to keep being postponed. And one of the reasons why it was considered unsafe was the use of puberty blockers. The Cass review confirmed that there was simply not enough research into the long-term impact of these treatments.

And one would have thought when it comes to doling out drugs to kids, we might want to be sure that we're not putting them in danger.

In fact, studies show that in the vast majority of cases feelings of gender dysphoria in youth are resolved through puberty, so by blocking puberty, you are blocking the remedy. Whose bright idea was that?

And even in those cases where the feelings persist, surely we can all agree that children aren't best placed to make life-changing decisions about their own bodies. And this has all happened very quickly, mostly because discussion on these issues has been stifled. Only today, Dr Ahmad Malik has tweeted out a thread confirming that he is being investigated by the General Medical Council for expressing concerns that there has been an alarming increase in cases of child gender dysphoria and surgery.

But why should this lead to an investigation? Dr Malik is simply asking some legitimate questions. And it's bizarre that a health professional raising the alarm should be treated as some kind of heretic who needs to be silenced.

All of this can be explained with one word: ideology.

I've spoken before about how a small but powerful elite in the western world have succumbed to a kind of hysteria, particularly around the notion of gender identity. The conflation of LGB with TQIA+ has confused a lot of people, because of course, sexual orientation has got nothing to do with gender. And as I argued on the show last week, gender identity ideology promotes anti-gay rhetoric and anti-gay concepts in order to sustain itself.

If you want to understand how self-styled progressives have got it so wrong, consider this example. In 2020, Pink News released the following report on Pakistan.

"Lastly, in a historic move, transgender people in Pakistan will finally get access to free healthcare. The government plans will also include covering all transition-related costs. Pakistan just said 'trans rights!'"

Of course there was a reason why the government of Pakistan was offering to support transitional surgery. It's the same reason the government of Iran does. Because homosexuality is illegal, and there is a widespread belief that it can be corrected through sex reassignments.

So Pakistan, which by the way has since struck down all legal protections for trans people - it wasn't supporting trans rights at all. It was attacking gay people.

The Pink News couldn't see that, because the impact of ideology is that it blinds you to reason and stifles critical thought. And that's why activists continually misinterpret regressive ideas as though they were progressive.

We know that between 80 and 90% of adolescents who were referred to the Tavistock were same-sex attracted. So they were effectively correcting gay kids. The theocrats of Iran and Pakistan would be proud.

And even for those kids who weren't same-sex attracted, surely there needed to be more discussion. Surely we should be telling young people that there is no one way to be a boy or a girl. That being a tomboy doesn't make you less female, and playing with dolls doesn't make you any less male. And certainly being gay doesn't mean you're trapped in the wrong body.

But in recent years, we've been avoiding those conversations, and as a result, we've been regressing. This latest statement from the NHS is a step in the right direction. Admittedly, it's only a small step, and what feels like an impossible journey.

But if I'm right, the historians of the future will be baffled that we ever allowed ourselves to stray from the path of reason in the first place.

==

Congratulations, I guess, on not giving kids endocrine disorders for being gay.

This is where we're at.

[schweiggiemydear]

Regarding the Super League - A Rant

Ok, since the League was more or less officially announced today, I want to talk about it. If you haven't heard about it, you can read the Sky Sports article explaining it here.

I want to add a disclaimer that since I am an Arsenal and Real Madrid fan, my views are biased since both teams have been selected for the league.

However, there are a few things I want to address as a general football fan that are not affected by my club loyalty. I'll include a section at the bottom of this post on my opinion on the new league just because. Editing to add another disclaimer that I do NOT support the Super League. I am just discussing the issues I have seen brought up about it.

Fan Response

A lot of football fans have taken to social media to voice their opposition to the league. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but I haven't actually seen any reason for this hatred towards the new league other than "It will ruin football" and "It's just another way for the clubs to make more money." Again, maybe I just haven't seen it, but these two "reasons" aren't really explained at all:

"It will ruin football": It's another competition that only the "elite" and "best" clubs of Europe will be a part of. This is basically the Champions and Europa leagues already. These two competitions will not be eliminated and you can still see underdogs play European football.

Is the concern here that this elevates top clubs at the expense of smaller clubs? (like Champions League already does?) Is the concern here that mechanisms for fair competition will be dropped for the sake of greed? (like Champions league already does?) (Like FIFA does every time they make a decision?) Is the concern here that it undermines the concept of competition and the idea that any team can win a trophy in Europe? This is the only valid criticism I can understand and support, but when was the last time a big club didn't win the Champions league? When was the last time a small club Leicester or Roma held the trophy? If you can count Olympique de Marseille as a "small club", then the answer is 1993.

"It's just another way for the clubs to make more money.": I hate to break it to you folks, but football is a business. (I have a lot of opinions on this - mainly regarding women's v. men's football and equal pay - but that is not the point of this post.) Clubs are always looking for ways to make more money and this pandemic has killed revenue for every club, even top league clubs, and they are looking for new and more steady sources of revenue.

Is the concern that without a ruling body like FIFA, the money for the competition will not be handled fairly? Is the concern that fans will have limited access to matches? If you take even a cursory glance at what FIFA/UEFA done regarding finance, transparency, match fixing, and fan access, you would know this isn't a valid criticism. Well, it is valid. But only if you also regularly call out FIFA, UEFA, Premier League/FA, Bundesliga, La Liga, League 1, Serie A, etc., for these same infractions. Which people don't.

Now if the criticisms were closer to "I think this brings unnecessary competition to top clubs already vying for European trophies", "This competition will make these clubs think they're better than everyone else", or "This puts a strain on players in these clubs who already play for club and country", I'd understand the concerns and would absolutely agree. But right now, the actual fan backlash seems more guided by a general misunderstanding on how football really works. Which leads to the next issue I want need to address.

FIFA/UEFA Response

Now here's where things get interesting because the backlash from FIFA and UEFA has been swift and aggressive to say the least. They are refusing to allow players who play in the Super League to be eligible for the 2022 World Cup and will likely impose fines or even ban clubs from the leagues that do participate. The Premier League/FA and the other major European leagues have issued a joint statement condemning the league. The statement mentions solidarity, a united front, fair competition, and sporting merit and claims that this new league is greedy and self-serving.

Ironic words come from institutions that are all well-known for their own corruption. Absolutely banger response from institutions that milk fans, players, and leagues every year. In fact, people on twitter made really great points and I'm going to provide the tweets here because they said it better than I could:

(including the last one because of Slavia Prague specifically)

We all know the main reason FIFA and UEFA are against the Super League is because they wouldn't get a cut of the revenue. I don't have any money to bet, but know that if I did, I would bet it all that if the Super League offered FIFA and UEFA each a significant cut of the continued revenue, they would get the green light immediately and that trophy would be physically bigger than the Champions League cup.

I just cannot get over the irony, hypocrisy, lack of awareness, and just BALLS of these organisations to make claims of greed and lack of fair play when they are guilty of these exact things. I think Toni Kroos said it best:

"European Super League? We are just puppets of FIFA and UEFA. If there was a players' union, we would not be playing the Nations League or Supercopa de Espana in Saudi Arabia." (Kroos in a podcast on 11/11/2020)

My Humble Opinion

Now here's what I think. And again, my teams would be involved in this Super League so I do have a stake in the game here.

Firstly, I absolutely agree the Super League is elitist in nature and affects the fair play nature of European football competitions and domestic leagues. No doubt that smaller clubs would be financially hurt by this new league and it puts these "top teams" on a pedestal, especially when the last thing they need is an even more inflated ego (Arsenal included). Every club has been hurt by this pandemic and needs funds. Every club has been hurt by FIFA's practices and there's a good chance this will really mess with smaller teams' chances of earning revenue themselves.

Second, FIFA and UEFA can go fuck themselves.

Third, FIFA plans to ban players and clubs who participate in this Super League and to that I say good fucking luck with that because those clubs are your biggest earners. Absolutely no hate or shade to the Bundesliga or League 1, but they just don't bring in the same revenue as Barca, Real Madrid, or Premier League teams. Bayern Munich did recently overtake Man United as the 3rd richest club in Europe, but they are still vastly out-earned by RM and Barca. PSG is #7 (after 3 english teams) and Juventus is #10 (after 5 english teams) (source). The revenue FIFA and UEFA would lose from banning Super League teams would be astronomical. Not just in the domestic leagues themselves, but the Champions League, Europa League, and the World Cup. I mean, what's a World Cup without Messi? (personally, I'm okay with that but you get my point)

Fourth, and hear me out, I genuinely believe that the Super League is a good TEMPORARY idea. The Super League should be used as an experiment to see how competitions would function outside the influence of FIFA and other regulatory agencies. This would be a League run by clubs and players and is a better representation on how football SHOULD be organised. If these clubs take a stand against FIFA, maybe, just maybe, we can get rid of some of the corruption inherent in football. Don't get me wrong, the Super League is definitely meant to be revenue generating for sure. But it's also a middle finger to FIFA and, if its done well, the rest of Europe might take a harder look at how much they don't actually need FIFA. Do I think this is the right way of doing it? No. But has it clearly stirred things up and now people are talking about the issues? Yes.

Lastly, I want to talk about Kroos' comment above. A players union is a brilliant idea and I think the European Super League is actually a great way for players to argue for it. They can use the leverage of the new league to bargain for better rights and a union that actually tells FIFA to go fuck itself when it decides things like revenue gouging Brazil in 2014 or a Qatar World Cup. Or the many hundred other shitty things FIFA has done. For a full list, please see John Oliver's amazing coverage of FIFA in his series "Last Week Tonight" (found on YouTube or HBOMax).

If you made it to the bottom of this post/rant, thank you! Let me know what you think about this Super League and what would you do if you were one of the teams involved?

[elitegymnastics]

Q: What is this?

A: It’s a flyer for a virtual fundraiser on June 4th that Elite Gymnastics is playing. You can access the show at quietyear.com

Q: Hasn’t Elite Gymnastics been inactive for like, ten years?

A: Yes. This is the first Elite Gymnastics performance of any kind since November 30th 2012, at the Horn Gallery at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. 

Q: Why did Elite Gymnastics stop playing shows?

A: Elite Gymnastics started out as me (Jaime) and a bunch of my friends agreeing to help me play my songs live back in 2009. I made a lot of weird demos in GarageBand and my friend Dominique Davis from the band Dearling Physique got tired of watching me sit on them. So, he booked me to play at a show he was curating as part of a small local music and arts festival called Clapperclaw. For several months that’s mainly what EG was. At some point the focus shifted to making recordings rather than playing shows, to participate in the emergent culture of new music distributed via MP3 file-sharing. The lineup winnowed to just me and Josh Clancy, who began creating digital EPs that we posted on this Tumblr page as ZIP files full of MP3s accompanied by a PDF of artwork. This is the incarnation of the group that most people are familiar with.

This was before Patreon existed. If Bandcamp was around, we’d never heard of it. Though MP3 file-sharing culture and file transfer sites like MediaFire and MegaUpload allowed anyone to distribute music freely across the world via the internet, it was still pretty difficult to get people to pay you for it. I think it was for this reason that a lot of internet music back then featured a lot of sampling. A lot of artists’ first forays into the world of DAWs and production took the form of mash-ups, bootleg remixes, and DJ mixes. Artists like Animal Collective, MIA, Kanye West, and Daft Punk for whom sampling was a pillar of their creative process were extremely influential. Elite Gymnastics was no exception - the first song of ours to gain traction online was “Is This On Me?” which made no attempt to hide the fact that it heavily sampled Faye Wong’s “Eyes On Me.” The fact that it was so difficult to make money off MP3s pushed people to make different creative decisions than they would have otherwise. It was sort of a free-for-all.

Eventually, all of this started to change. The major labels started getting a lot more aggressive about trying to destroy MP3 file-sharing culture. Platforms like MegaUpload were raided and taken offline. The replacements that sprung up to replace them were increasingly infested with ads and malware. Corporate platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud adopted Content ID filters to prevent the proliferation of copyrighted music there. Blogs and private torrent trackers being taken down meant thousands of hours of labor were wiped out in an instant. Some of the best archives of the history of recorded music ever created were destroyed without hesitation. Even the most devoted participants lost the will to keep repairing and re-making the stuff that cops and record companies kept obliterating.

Josh and I both dreamed of being able to make a living as musicians. We still do. Back then, we were willing to accept a lot of changes in order to make that possible, which seemed necessary. A lot of the stuff that we were great at just didn’t make any money. Once, we were asked to do a remix of a song called “Sa Sa Samoa” by the band Korallreven. I did the remix by myself, which was normal for us, and Josh was so inspired by it that he spent a week working non-stop to create a video for it. People loved it - the day the video dropped, Pitchfork designated the song as a “Best New Track” and New York Magazine wrote about it in their “Approval Matrix.” The video led to a ton of exposure, but from a financial perspective, it just did not make sense to put that much effort into promoting a remix of someone else’s song. The stuff we were personally excited by just seemed to have less and less to do with what actually makes money.

A lot of internet bands during this era began to palpably shapeshift in an effort to succeed in music as a career. Artists who’d first attracted notice for sample-based bangers they made on a laptop started posing with vintage hardware in their press photos and trading in their laptops for live bands and recording studios. It became harder to distribute DJ mixes or mash-ups that contained copyrighted music in them. Influential bloggers either closed up shop or were absorbed into the traditional music industry in some way. Feeds that once touted bizarre songs by laptop-toting weirdos with no industry connections started to become populated mostly by artists with labels and publicists. The bottom rungs of festival lineups started to consist mostly of new major label signings who have lots of money to spend on stage production but not much in the way of grassroots fan enthusiasm or media buzz. 

Internet music and what people tend to refer to as “indie music” split off into two separate streams. Today, there’s a pretty intense firewall between internet culture and whatever you want to call the culture of vinyl records, mid-sized indie labels with publicists, and positive reviews from the few remaining websites that still pay people to write about music. I call it “publicist indie,” “lifestyle techno,” or “prestige electronica” depending on whether or not the music features guitars and/or vocals. The recent online kerfuffle about NFTs really emphasized this split. The worlds of digital illustration and game development campaigned aggressively against mass adoption of cryptocurrency - if you saw any Medium posts explaining crypto’s environmental issues, chances are they were written by someone from those fields. Every new announcement by an artist that they had minted an NFT was met with a swift and vocal backlash from fans. Though I’ve never really been much of an Aphex Twin fan, it was still pretty startling to look at the replies under his NFT announcement tweet and see hundreds of furious people announcing that he was now dead to them. That’s an artist who has seemed more or less unimpeachable for most of my life up until this point! All of that seemed to change in an instant.

There is a massive disconnect between the insular world of the industry establishment and the cutting edge of online counterculture. We saw this again a couple of weeks ago with the online response to the crisis in Gaza. We saw passionate advocacy for Palestinians from games journalists and developers much more often than we saw it from musicians. This is a very serious problem for music! I do not believe it is possible to please both sides - that is to say, I do not believe it is possible to be part of internet counterculture and the industry establishment simultaneously. The music industry is too conservative, too compromised, too corrupt. If it weren’t for the ocean of valuable copyrights that labels are sitting on, most of them would be bankrupt within a year. If the industry was forced to live or die based on how they handle what’s happening right now in the present, it would most assuredly die. The only people who don’t realize this are those who are being paid to stay ignorant. 

Josh and I did not know this back then. From where we were standing, it looked like internet culture and established media industries were on track to converge. A career in the arts seemed genuinely, tantalizingly possible, right up until the moment that it no longer did. 

In my case, I had really been struggling up until that point. My life had been this ongoing sequence of evictions and hospitalizations, and it seemed to be getting worse, not better. I donated plasma twice a week to pay for groceries and while I was sitting there with a giant needle stuck in my left arm for an hour I would see my picture in The Fader or my songs being recommended by one of the Kings of Leon on Twitter or whatever. Music seemed like the only thing the world thought I was any good at. It felt like my only chance at a peaceful, happy life was somewhere out there in a world I could only perceive through a laptop screen. 

Gender, for me, was a big factor in all of this. The more invested in the craft of songwriting I became, the harder it was to repress or ignore my gender stuff. At that time I’m not sure I even knew what the word “transgender” meant - I just knew that when I showed up at a venue wearing a skirt, no one would talk to me or look me in the eye, and that reading about people like Anohni or Terre Thaemlitz or on the internet made me feel like if I could get out of Minneapolis maybe I could find a place where people would accept me. The internet was like, a pretty toxic place for someone in my position. When I tried to find people to talk to about what I was feeling, nobody tried to tell me to read Judith Butler or ask me what pronouns I preferred. The internet was just like, overrun with predators who just wanted to fetishize me and exploit me. Music seemed like the only way I’d ever have an actual life as myself. I was desperate for that. I was well and truly desperate.

Between all the big changes that were happening to us individually and the music industry moving farther and farther away of the anarchic free-for-all of MP3 file-sharing culture, the strain on us just got to be too much. We stopped trusting each other. We became the unstoppable force and the immovable object, crashing haphazardly against one another’s resolve in a dazzling display of youthful futility. Our partnership ended, and after finishing out the remaining live shows on the calendar by myself, I retired the name “Elite Gymnastics” and started making music on my own under other names. That was that.

Q: Why is Elite Gymnastics coming back now, then?

A: Over the years, Josh and I eventually started talking again. Though there was a lot we did agree on, and potential future projects were discussed, nothing truly felt right. We haven’t been in the same room since Summer 2012, and we’ve both changed a lot since then. We both have other projects and we’ve both developed other ways of working since we stopped working together. It’s a pretty big commitment to put all of that aside in order to join your fortunes together with someone you haven’t seen in a decade.

Recently, Josh decided to leave Elite Gymnastics. His reasons are his own, and I was very surprised by his decision, but after having had time to adjust, I’m really grateful to him. I had kept these songs at a distance for many years, because it seemed foolish to allow myself to get too attached to songs I didn’t feel like I was allowed to think of as mine, if that makes any sense. The songs felt like casualties of a conflict that I had to bury in the ground and try to forget about. Being able to embrace them again felt like re-growing a severed limb or having a loved one come back to life, almost. Feeling like it was safe to love these songs again made me feel whole in a way I didn’t expect to. I became really excited by the prospect of revisiting them, so that’s what I decided to do.

Q: Does this mean you’re going to put RUIN back on Spotify?

A: No. Taking the record off Spotify was the right thing to do. That record was only ever intended to exist during the era of MP3 piracy. I never envisioned a world where the music industry would be so aggressive about policing the way that copyrighted music is allowed to exist online. If we hadn’t opted to take the record down when we did, someone would inevitably have forced us to. If you want to hear those specific recordings again, you’re going to have to do it the way we originally intended: by downloading MP3 files from the internet. Try SoulSeek.

Q: What’s next for Elite Gymnastics, then?

A: Here’s the situation currently. There is no Elite Gymnastics music available to stream or purchase in an official capacity anywhere on the internet. It wouldn’t really be possible for me to put the old stuff on Spotify or Bandcamp now because of all the samples. Like I said before, it was a different time. Those records were created to thrive on a past version of the internet that no longer exists. They weren’t designed to be compatible with the 2021 internet.

Technically, Elite Gymnastics didn’t ever release a debut album. We had EPs, a compilation, and a remix collection. We didn’t make an album, a record that existed as the distillation of all that experimentation that contained all of the songs that fans of the EPs would want to hear, all in one place. It’s like we did Good Fridays but stopped before we made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

So, I am currently working on the first Elite Gymnastics album. If you were following my stuff as Default Genders, you may have noticed me posting demos on my SoundCloud page from 2015-2018 that were all eventually reworked into the album Main Pop Girl 2019. The album I am making is taking that approach to all the old EG songs, including some unreleased stuff. I’m collaborating with others on some songs and I honestly feel like it has resulted in some of the best and most exciting music I have ever been involved with. It is a drastic reinvention, but iteration and reinvention have always been a big part of what I do. I want to make something that feels like the culmination of everything that came before, and so far, I think I’m succeeding.

Q: When will I be able to hear this new music?

At a virtual fundraiser on June 4th, 2021, where there is a suggested donation of $10. You can access it at quietyear.com

[ingek73]

Game, set, and twat: Whether it’s Meghan or Naomi Osaka, Piers Morgan’s MailOnline-enabled bullying has a pattern...

... the mediocre hack’s mediocre hack hates women who don’t dance to his tune.

Mic Wright

11 hr ago

If someone had a blog and Twitter account where they relentlessly attacked a series of high profile women — many of them women of colour — for perceived slights and their refusal to pay the writer attention, we’d usually call that person a bully and a troll, and if they persisted in that behaviour they might even find themselves facing legal consequences.

But Piers Morgan has a TV career and a MailOnline byline so he’s given impunity to mock, abuse, and denigrate women while claiming he’s just a ‘critical voice’. His latest target is Naomi Osaka, the 23-year-old tennis player who is currently ranked number 2 in the world, is the reigning champion of the US Open and Australian Open, and became the first woman to win back-to-back grand slams since Serena Williams in 2015.

By contrast, Piers Morgan is a mediocre hack who owes his controversy-baiting career to Simon Cowell who pulled him out of the dumper of history and plonked him on the America’s Got Talent panel after he was frog-marched out of Fleet Street for slapping faked photos on the front page of a national newspaper. That incident was the last in an ignominious run at The Daily Mirror and, before that, in the Murdoch press, which I have covered extensively in the past.

[image description] Twitter avatar for @Nabilu

Nabil Abdulrashid

@Nabilu

If time machines existed Piers Morgan would go backwards in time to chat shit about Rosa Parks

May 31st 2021

346 Retweets2,456 Likes]

Morgan’s latest creepy obsession was triggered — I use that word deliberately — by Osaka’s decision not to speak to the press during the French Open at Roland Garros because interviews were affecting her mental health. She subsequently withdrew from the tournament altogether after winning her first match, having been fined $15,000 for not speaking to the media and warned she was at risk of being expelled from the event.

In her statement yesterday, Osaka wrote that she had suffered “long bouts of depression” since she defeated Serena Williams in the 2018 US Open Final and received significant media attention. She continued:

I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer. More importantly, I would never trivialise mental health or use the term lightly.

Nothing in either of Osaka’s statements support Morgan’s sneering labelling of the player as “Narcissistic Naomi” or “world sport’s most petulant little madam”. Once again a 56-year-old man is using his vast and undeserved media platform to bully and harass a woman half his age. And — surprise, surprise — it’s actually just a new front in his obsessive one-sided war on the Duchess of Sussex.

Beneath the frankly unhinged headline, Narcissistic Naomi's cynical exploitation of mental health to silence the media is right from the Meghan and Harry playbook of wanting their press cake and eating it, Morgan writes:

Naomi Osaka is a brilliant tennis player…

… She is also the highest-paid female athlete in the world, raking in $55.2 million in the past 12 months, $5.2 million from tennis winnings and $50 million from endorsement deals with the likes of Nike, Beats by Dre, Mastercard and Nissin…

… Unfortunately, Ms Osaka is also an arrogant spoiled brat whose fame and fortune appears to have inflated her ego to gigantic proportions.

How else to explain her extraordinary decision to announce she will no longer participate in media press conferences, supposedly to protect her mental health?

Morgan is pretending that he doesn’t know that money is not an impregnable suit of armour to protect your mental health. Osaka could be the richest woman in the world and still face anxiety and depression. In fact, at just 23, the pressures of her performance-driven, endorsement-laden life are arguably more likely to lead to those feelings than a ‘normal’ one.

But rather than seeing Osaka as a young woman in an extraordinary position who is struggling with those demands and finding the hectoring, hostile, and entitled attitude of the press hard to handle at the moment, Morgan calls her “petulant” and continues:

[She] was fined $15,000 for refusing to appear in front of the media… Of course, given that she earns around $6,000 an hour, Osaka will recoup this fine while she sleeps tonight, rendering the fine utterly meaningless.

What's not meaningless is her frankly contemptible attempt to avoid legitimate media scrutiny by weaponizing mental health to justify her boycott.

Morgan departed Good Morning Britain after the row that followed his comment that he “didn’t believe a word” of the Duchess of Sussex’s statements about her mental health during the Oprah interview. Now, the mental health analyser has logged on again and he has determined that Naomi Osaka does not meet his standard of distress. Sadly, he secured his professional qualifications in this area by scrawling a certificate in crayon on the back of a Pizza Express kids menu.

[image description] Twitter avatar for @PaulbernalUK

Paul Bernal

@PaulbernalUK

What is it about Naomi Osaka and Meghan Markle that gets Piers Morgan so worked up, I wonder. Image

May 31st 2021

1,726 Retweets10,537 Likes

-

He claims that after reading Osaka’s Instagram post about press conferences, which he calls “an orgy of narcissistic twaddle”, “several times” he experienced “mounting fury”. Remember, this is a 56-year-old man contorting his melted waxwork face into an angry rictus over a 23-year-old woman he doesn’t know choosing not to appear at a press conference. I am not convinced that Osaka is the narcissistic one here.

Morgan continues:

One thing’s very clear: This has got nothing to do with mental health.

What Osaka really means is that she doesn’t want to face the media if she hasn’t played well, because the beastly journalists might actually dare to criticise her performance…

… This is straight out of the Meghan and Harry playbook of wanting to have the world’s largest cake and eating it, by exploiting the media for ruthless self-promotion but using mental health to silence any media criticism.

One thing’s very clear: This has got nothing to do with Naomi Osaka.

What Morgan really means is that he’s still beetroot red over a perceived slight by Meghan back in 2016, which he only started ranting about after he didn’t get an invite to her wedding and was “ghosted”. That came after two years of him tweeting about her as a “friend”.

Piers Morgan is simply using Naomi Osaka as another way to wage his sad fuck guerilla war against the Sussexes. And Osaka is just the latest in a long string of young women to fall short of his weirdo expectations.

He berated Lady Gaga on social media, attacking her after she spoke about dealing with PTSD after being raped, and goaded her so much that she agreed to an interview clearly in the hope of getting him to stop.

He attacked Arianna Grande after the Manchester Arena attack and kept up his bullying for six months until she agreed to have dinner with him after what he said was a “chance meeting”. After she had conceded to spending time in his fetid presence he shifted tack and started creepily calling her his “soulmate” — she was 26 at the time.

These obsessions with young women are often framed as “feuds” in the press, but they are, in fact, byline-enabled stalking. Morgan has a huge platform and he abuses it to get women to concede to him, to make mollifying noises, to pretend that they are his friends just to get him to stop.

The only difference between Piers Morgan and a street harasser screaming at a woman to smile is that MailOnline and ITV pay him handsomely for the privilege. Tonight, Morgan’s ‘Life Stories’ interview with Keir Starmer goes out on ITV and he’ll once again get a chance to dominate the headlines. His views are given credence by the political elite even as he continues to abuse women for attention and praise.

It’s a tactic he’s used for decades, stretching back to his time on The Sun’s Bizarre column, where he insisted on inserting pictures of himself cuddling up to celebrities. His ‘feud’/obsession with Madonna has run on for decades, beginning in his Fleet Street days when she didn’t give him the exclusive on her first pregnancy and continuing right up until now.

As with Lady Gaga, Morgan has repeatedly mocked and dismissed Madonna for saying she was raped in the past. However, unlike Gaga, Madonna has refused to pay homage to Morgan with an interview. He preemptively ‘banned’ her from his CNN show back in 2011 though she had shown not one scintilla of interest in appearing, and tried to reignite interest in his hatred for her in 2016 by saying he would end “the feud” if she apologised to him. He’s still waiting for that call.

Morgan’s attack on Osaka, which is simply another attempt to get at Meghan, came two days after a Daily Mail interview with Jan Moir in which he grumbled:

[Meghan] thinks she’s beaten me? She might be in for a surprise because I suspect I’ll be back soon. If Meghan thinks she has cancelled me or won the battle, she is in for a big shock. I’ve never been more popular.

It made me think of this moment in Mad Men:

Michael Ginsberg: What do I care? I got a million of them… a million…

Don Draper: Good. I guess I’m lucky you work for me.

Michael Ginsberg: I feel bad for you.

Don Draper: I don’t think about you at all.

Meghan is Draper. Morgan is a total Ginsberg — smug and self-satisfied, convinced that Meghan is as obsessed with him as he is with her, certain that they are having a feud between equals and not the same dynamic as every woman cursed with a sad but sinister stalker.

And while Morgan acts like he’s a brave truth-teller, he only dares pump his horseshit opinions into MailOnline’s open sewer once he’s fairly sure that there are enough other media bullies taking the same line. The Australian’s tennis correspondent Will Swanton filed his misogynist screed a full day before Morgan got round to his.

There’s a clue as to how Morgan expects young women to act around him in the latest instalment of his journals — The Diary of Samuel Creeps — which are published in The Mail on Sunday.

Recounting his visit to what sounds like a truly mind-numbing party (“…drinking cocktails, nibbling canapés and having actual ‘fun’ in the garden of the Notting Hill home of Gabriela Peacock, nutritionist to the stars.”) he describes an encounter with Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie:

Princess Beatrice arrived with her husband Eduardo. They announced her first pregnancy today, and both seemed ecstatically happy.

‘Please thank your mum for her supportive texts when I left GMB,’ I told her. ‘She’s always been very loyal to me, and I greatly appreciate it.’

‘Well, you’ve been very loyal to her,’ Beatrice replied, ‘and she appreciates that too.’

I’ve always had a soft spot for Fergie.

Princess Eugenie, who gave birth to her first child three months ago, joined her sister. ‘If you two need any parenting tips for your expanding Royal creche, I’ve had four kids so am something of an expert,’ I suggested.

Their regal eyebrows shot up in synchronised horror. ‘No, we’re good thanks, Piers,’ came the firm, unified response.

I’ve known both Princesses since they were very young, and they’ve been through a lot of tough times in the media spotlight, especially lately over their father Prince Andrew’s shameful friendship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

But they never complain, or give whining interviews, or publicly trash their family, and they’re always incredibly nice, polite and good fun – which all makes such a refreshing change from their narcissistic, self-pitying, family-abusing, spoiled-brat cousins over in California.

Piers Morgan wants to be treated as famous rather than infamous, and likes women to indulge his antics and act as if they’re amused by his sweaty-handed attention. Fergie — a woman devoid of discernible talent beyond tolerating her ex-husband’s second career as the top Yelp! reviewer at Jeffrey Epstein’s houses — is a-ok with Piers because she sucks up to him. Similarly, her daughters are delightful because they’ll tolerate Morgan’s dad jokes and fetid familiarity.

Morgan is not a journalist, a truth-teller, a maverick, or a commentator in anything but bad faith. He’s nothing more than a misogynist with a MailOnline byline and some big money contracts. Don’t let him pretend to be anything else.

[jambeast]

Hate to be That Guy, but Sean P. McCarthy is one of those dirtbag leftist trolls, so there’s a small but significant chance he’s actually more sympathetic to fascism that he is letting on, particularly the pseudo-socialist parts.

Well, I’d say that in that post, at the very least, the point of me (and, I suppose, @the-grey-tribe​) pointing out the similarity would be what I said, regardless of the initial intention of the tweet.

I skimmed through a few more of their tweets, and some of the sort of ‘anti-SJW’ sentiment I can agree with, though they seem to fall into that trap of seeing affluent white people with left-wing opinions, feeling there’s a hypocrisy there, and then mentally characterising the affluent and powerful of America as being Predominantly left-wing. When, like, it’s not, it’s just that the parts that are left-wing stick out a bit more in contrast because when the bad people making things worse for everyone are conservative it’s kind of a given.

Y’know, it’s the whole thing about “liberal coastal socialist elites” that claim to not be racist but secretly are that conservatives bang on about, which is a bit of a mischaracterisation of the types of rich people making laws, and ignores the much more significant group of conservative elites that make laws and run government, who are both a lot more racist and bad for the poor, and a lot more obviously racist and bad for the poor. It just feels a lot more egregious when a person who claims to be economically left-wing fucks over the poor, as opposed to when a person who everyone already expects to fuck of the poor a lot harder, because with them at least you know where you stand.

Y’know, it felt like a big betrayal when 3 of the 50-so democrats voted no on the stimulus. Moreso than when 0 of the republicans do.

Also lots of things that I guess some people would call ‘class reductionist’?  Like making a point of saying middle-class black people have it better than poor white people. I’ve not seen much I necessarily disagree with in terms of the actual substance of the tweets, though maybe I could complain about where emphasis is put, or where they’re going with that. Charitably it’d be because they’re dealing with lefty people being very very silly, uncharitably it’d be because they want some kind of white class consciousness for white people.

Kinda hits a point where you’re spending more effort advocating against lefties going in the wrong direction than you do advocating anything going in the right direction, or advocating against conservatives going in the complete wrong direction.

...Reading more, he seems to be pretty firm about his broad range of CIA assassination conspiracy theories, which is whacky but I can’t say much about it. I think, and I suppose this is common for all sorts of conspiratorially minded people, that it’s hard to say how much they actually *believe*. Like conspiracy people will just fling ideas left right and centre and, like, do they actually believe what they’re saying? In the moment? don’t know. But I’m pretty sure that they don’t either. I guess human minds are bad with dealing with uncertainty. He’s also pretty firm set on bringing back manufacturing jobs to the rust belt, and that anyone who doesn’t intend on bringing manufacturing back to the rust belt or doesn’t think it’s possible isn’t a real marxist and, like, come on. Really.

...And apparently he’s actually one of those leftists who think that modern China is a worker’s paradise and that anyone that criticises the bad things done in China are The Real Fascists (and also simultaneously naive liberals somehow) and that America does it worse, as if that is relevant or a rebuttal. It’s actually quite impressive how in the span of like a single chain of tweets he goes from 1) The atrocities that people accused China of doing are false, they’re made up lies to discredit them 2) They only committed those atrocities because Western Imperialism forced them to do it and 3) The atrocities are good and the victims deserved it. All at the same time.

There we go, it all clicks in to place, I see now.

[kisilinramblings]

I saw many people tweeted that Chloe is not deserved the threatment she received in the show (i.e being her miraculous taken from her, being bashed, etc), she helps lb selflessly only for lb to take her only way to redeem herself, to show she can be better person and the only reason why she's treated badly is because Thomas hate her, that's why he refused to give her a redemption arc and instead keep calling her a villain. What do you think of it? And what do you think of Chloe as a character?

I’ll come off clean right away. I too believed in Chloé. I too hoped for her to get better and gave her a chance. Was I disappointed by the turn she took? Yes. Just like Ladybug and Chat Noir too were disappointed I’m sure. Was I surprised by this development though? No. 

It all comes down to 3 things that lead Chloé’s development to this result.

Chloé’s traits and motivations. 

What the Bee Miraculous represented to Chloé

Chloé’s trust toward Ladybug

Let’s go back to the beginning of Chloé’s development. Despair Bear. Chloé is forced to make an effort and be nicer otherwise she will lose Adrien’s friendship.

Chloé : How can [Adrien] do this to me, Jean-Michel?

She doesn’t understand why she has this ultimatum. She isn’t reflecting on her actions. She just want Adrien to be her friend again. With the help of her butler though, Chloé works her way through. It’s a bumpy road and she obviously doesn’t like doing this. At. All. She always questions the point of this nice action or that other one, but she forces herself only not to lose Adrien’s friendship which obviously means a lot to her, but she finds this whole experience is annoying.

During the Akuma attack though, she does rescue Ladybug from being Catalysmed by a Chat Noir controlled by Despair Bear, but what does Chloé say immediately after she has realized she had been actually helpful for once?

LB : Thanks, Chloé Chloé : Hey! I was really nice just then! Did you see? No?

She boasts about her actions, wanting people to notice her. The whole audience doing the Anime Fall™ illustrates that boasting about being nice defeat the initial purpose. Doing nice actions should be because it is the right and natural thing to do, not to expect glory and reward afterward, even if Chloé instinctively wanted to protect someone she deeply idolizes.

After helping Ladybug out to defeat Despair Bear, Chloé realizes there are some benefits to being nice, yes, but what does Chloé do after showing she is capable of making an effort and secured back Adrien’s friendship? She sighs of relief, a burden lift out of her shoulders, and reverts back to her usual self.

Now I know people will say “It’s just to maintain the statu quo”. But when you look back at this episode after Miracle Queen or even after Miraculer, you realize Despair Bear had a lesson in it that concerns people like Chloé. That is they can make an effort to be nicer and can sometimes be helpful but if they don’t want to become a better person, to be kinder to others, then they won’t change.

Over S2, we see Chloé under a new light. She isn’t just a spoiled rich bully. She is human too. When she is hurt, she hurts back. Marinette -- and by extension the viewers -- learns to see that side of Chloé and empathizes with her. But while it explains it, her snobbish, mean and entitled attitude still isn’t acceptable. Not when living in society. 

But Chloé does make some some progress through S2. Small. But still, progress. Like during Zombizou, where Chloé admits for the first time her actions has hurt people.

Or the end of Queen Wasp where Chloé finally accepts to give back the Bee Miraculous she had found to Ladybug, admitting she had been irresponsible with how to use that power. 

Or during Malediktator, when Chloé opens up to Ladybug, telling her the truth and how useless she feels.

That was a start. Chloé showed us she was capable of doing that when renouncing or not expecting to have a Miraculous. However, after Queen Bee is officially recognized as one of Ladybug’s allies, something else happened. 

After actually saving Paris during Malediktaor, Chloé got a party celebrating Queen Bee, celebrating her.

Marinette was trying to do some positive reinforcement to encourage Chloé.

Marinette : Well, she did save Paris, so... maybe  she just may be able to save herself too, am I right? [...] If she feels like she can be useful, I’m sure she’ll change her attitude.

“[Chloé] just may be able to save herself”

It isn’t Ladybug’s responsibility to change Chloé so she could become a better person, but Chloé’s. Ladybug can help her a bit, by showing support and guiding her, but it is ultimately Chloé who has to work on herself in order to save herself AKA to begin redeeming herself if she wants to. Like how Chloé desired to save her dad and fix her mistake. However, Chloé’s secret identity being publicly known has jeopardized that process. 

Look at the ending of Malediktator. Chloé has a party but instead of taking pics with her and the crowd, or with people she cherishes or is thankful about, what do we get? 

A selfie of her with her with no one else around her posted on her social media, showing us her self-centred image. 

This behaviour repeats itself during Heroes Day as well. Everyone has prepared a nice action for the day and what was Chloé’s? Accepting to sign autographs since now she is a superhero. 

And at the end of the finale, yes, she is included in the group picnic, but how is she staged on the set?

She sits on a lounge chair, not directly touching the ground where everybody else is sitting. She refuses to eat home-made meals, preferring fancy sushis. And finally, she has her butler break apart her chopsticks for her, without even politely asking him by looking him in the eyes.

What does this scene tells the audience compare to the scene where Chloé is dismantling her Bee “Lair” without any help at the end of Malediktator, telling her butler she’ll do it because she has to do this herself. (Translation : I have to fix that error of mine myself”).

As S2 concluded, since Queen Bee is now officially one’s of Ladybug superhero teammates and that everyone knows QB is Chloé, she feels above everyone else, refusing to sit at the same level as them. She still doesn’t care about others’ feelings. She expects people to serve her. Even her “benevolent” action of signing autographs for Heroes Day revolved more around herself than acutally helping others. 

This is where Chloé’s character stands. This is what she values. Herself. Her needs. She feels morally superior. She has ascended to greater heights. She acts entitled because Ladybug has trusted her with a Miraculous once or twice. And it is this attitude Chloé never tries to fix and that has lead her to her descent. 

The people who are mad about Chloé’s development throughout S3 often misinterpret the real reason why Chloé constantly wanted to be Queen Bee to begin with. What the Bee Miraculous truly represented to her. 

Chloé didn’t want to be a superhero because she wanted to help people nor was it because she felt bad about how awful she had been to everyone in general and wanted to make amends. Chloé didn’t need a Miraculous for that. She could have accomplished that progress simply as a civilian if she had wanted to. 

It wasn’t because Chloé still had something to prove to her mother either. That was settled at the end of Queen Wasp. Her mother had acknowledged her and was staying in Paris, with her. Audrey finally gave the recognition Chloé longed for. (Though I admit “you are exceptionally mean like your mother” is a shitty reason, but hey! At least Chloé got her mother’s attention and love now, so little yeah...?) And in Malediktator, we see Audrey taking Chloé’s side, agreeing they should leave for New York together.

As for wanting to be loved by others, Chloé has already the affection and attention from other people such as her butler, Sabrina, Ms Bustier, and even her father who overly spoils her, satisfying every of Chloé’s desires. They were there for her even before she got her hand on a Miraculous. And it wasn’t because Chloé wanted the power to protect the people she cared about either nor was it her symbol for a second chance.

No, Chloé only cared about herself and the reason why she wanted to be Queen Bee everytime she could is because, to her, having a Miraculous means you are part of the elites. 

Miraculous Holders are chosen ones. Litterally! There are only a few select of them. They get to be famous, glorified, celebrated (Heroes Day). They get movies made about them (Animaestro). They get to be on the news, interviewed. To have their image show everywhere. To have fans. To be adulated, respected, listened to. They are exceptional. Superior. 

And this isn’t new with Chloé. Ever since S1, fame and status has always been a motivator for her to do things. To be exceptional. Not just to be seen by her mother (though it started it like that), but for everyone to see it. 

In fact, when there is an Akuma attack, is Chloé helping others around her or is she abandoning everyone and heading straight to light her bee signal while buzzing with excitement? Does she stay steady just in case Ladybug needs her or is she expecting Ladybug to ask for QB’s help every time? Is Chloé resilient about QB not being needed all the time or frustrated to sit on the bench? What does Chloé do to fix this? Does she give herself a purpose as a civilian or does she cling even more to Ladybug to bring her the Bee Miraculous?

Basically when Chloé is offering her help, in reality, she just want to be a superhero for the glory of it rather than actually caring for or helping people around her. 

When Chloé asks for “her” Miraculous and constantly clinging for Ladybug to give it to her, it means she only sees value when she is Queen Bee. And when Queen Bee wants to be reliable to Ladybug or fears to disappoint her idol, ultimately, Chloé wants to not screw her chances to be Queen Bee again. 

Thus, yes, Queen Bee does her part when battling Akumas, but does Chloé actually grow as a person after Malediktator events? Did Chloé work on herself? Does she continue reflecting on her actions? Does Chloé even sometimes try to help her classmates with their normal problems or is she resting on her laurels? How does she treat others in general? Did Chloé truly become kinder or humbler or did she instead got the big head and still is rude to them? Does she views herself as a normal person or as a superior being? If you are unsure about any of the answers, just rewatch Startrain.

Chloé just stops improving because she took her Miraculous for granted. She is an hero recognized by Paris and therefore deserve the hero treatment and doesn’t need to continue to work on herself. 

Sure, Chloé isn’t provoking as much akumatization as in S1 and S2, but she didn’t become better either by receiving a Miraculous. In fact, she is even more condescending. She is Queen Bee, she is a superhero thus she is better than you, peasants!

Chloé : In this world, there are those who work and those who shine. Forever there would be this division between us, Dupain-Cheng.

And this mentality contributed to Chloé’s sense of entitlement to the Bee Miraculous, calling it hers and expecting to have it back as if it was her rightful right. Except Miraculouses belong to no one as illustrated by the Turtle Miraculous who gets shared between Master Fu and Nino. And initially, LB wanted to hand over the Bee Miraculous to Alya because LB needed help and Alya had already been trusted with another Miraculous before. 

Anyway, during Heroes Day, it was part of Scarlet Moth’s plan to use the Bourgeois against Queen Bee. To destabilize her and it worked. And if he could do it once, he could attempt something again.

And this is what motivated Ladybug to be careful and ideally not give back a Miraculous to anyone who’s secret identity is known by Hawkmoth. And for the record, yes, Chloé is the first one truly affected by that rule, but she isn’t the only one through S3.

This decision is made by LB with CN’s approval because they wanted to protect Chloé and her loved ones from HM. And unbestknown to them, their doubts were found as Chloé was being watched over by HM and Mayura.

So it wasn’t because Queen Bee was doing a poor job, nor because Chloé's attitude was getting worse. This was done to protect her. Except they couldn’t protect Chloé from herself. 

Yes, Ladybug did a mistake which is to not inform Chloé of this decision earlier. As a result, in Miraculer, Chloé felt ignored. Rena Rouge and Carapace were often called to help while Chloé was standing there waiting next to her bee signal. 

But even if LB had told Chloé sooner, chances are the result would have been mostly the same. Because Chloé has an inaptitude to let go of things she desires.

After learning the truth, Chloé was clearly not satisfied by this decision. And while Chloé cooperates and hands back the Bee Miraculous, she is in denial.

Chloé : I understand, but I’m sure you will need me again, Ladybug. I know that I will be Queen Bee again someday. I’ll always be Queen Bee.

What allowed Chloé to not be akumatized during Miraculer was precisely because she still had faith in Ladybug then, despite being mad at her. She is still convinced LB would come ask for Queen Bee’s help again. But after that revelation, once Ladybug has left, Chloé tears apart the picture she had hold on to the entire episode. 

By S3 finale, we see Chloé never accepted the reality of ever be Queen Bee again. And since the finale theme revolved about loss, well, it was time for her to be confronted to it.

We all agree that Hawkmoth exploited the situation during Heart Hunter. He planned the Akumatization of André and Audrey Bourgeois. Nathalie was on place to sabotage of the Bee Signal. And finally, they planned to find the Guardian to get the Miracle Box and offer the Bee Miraculous to have Chloé on their side. 

Everything was there to manipulate Chloé, play with her emotions in order to turn her against Ladybug. But keep in mind that during that scene where HM is meeting Chloé, everything he says rings true to Chloé because this is what she internally feels. What he did was only amplifying the feelings Chloé already has since Miraculer and even a bit before that.

Chloé felt ignored, rejected, not allowed to be a superhero, to be a Queen. When Chloé answers Ladybug has done nothing for her, we know it’s not true. Ladybug gave her a second chance. We also know Ladybug is avoiding to give Chloé a Miraculous because she is trying to protect her and her loved ones from HM. Chloé knows that since the end of Miraculers events, however when her loved ones are indeed in danger during Heart Hunter, Chloé expected this would be THE occasion to be Queen Bee again and prove Ladybug wrong by helping Ladybug save her parents. 

Now, Ladybug has been distracted and didn’t think of things clearly and yes, there is a chance that on other circumstances she might have picked the Bee Miraculous to give it to Chloé, but there is also the fact Chloé kept repeating the same mistake. 

We have seen through S3 Chloé is constantly building her expectations up, only to set herself for disappointement. And instead of realizing that about herself, especially after Miraculer, she continues doing that and gets angry and put the blame on others. The only one making Chloé wait is Chloé herself. All the other temporary Holders have other things to occupy themselves and they do what they can as civilians, not expecting LB to come and give them a Miraculous. 

But Chloé’s entitlement to the Bee Miraculous clouds her judgment there and now, HM is there is offering Chloé something Ladybug has denied to give her again.

So, Chloé prefered being Queen Bee over doing the right thing. She had the chance to double cross HM, but she didn’t because of how hurt and furious she was at Ladybug. And even after being deakumatized, that angers and feeling of betrayal persist.

And this is where Chloé’s action matters the most here. Chloé not only tries to be reakumatized by choice again, she blantantly explains she isn’t on Ladybug’s side anymore, doesn’t care if HM who terrorizes Paris is the ennemy, that she will keep the Miracle Box for herself. Chloé also rudly orders the Kwamis around without knowing how it works. She even tries to run away with the new Miracle Box and finally, when everything is falling appart and doesn’t go her own way, Chloé throws at tantrum at Ladybug, insulting her and the other temporary Holders and affirm she will leave with the Bee Miraculous to New York.

Even HM who laughs at this at first, commenting he doesn’t need to do anything, that Chloé is one of the bad guys, eventually is disappointed before leaving her behind.

Ladybug? She tries to reason with Chloé, giving her another chance to fix her mistake like at the end of Queen Wasp. When Chloé is putting all the remaining Miraculous of the Box on her, LB asks to stop because she knows how dangerous it is to combine their powers and still doesn’t want Chloé to get hurt. It’s only after Chloé tries to run off with the new Miracle Box that Ladybug stops her. And when Chloé is done talking, LB has no choice to stop this and take back herself the Bee Miraculous from her, even apologizing for doing this.

Ladybug has been very patient. She knows Chloé. She knows she is hurt and is hurting other because that’s how she copes, but Ladybug cannot let Chloé keep that Miraculous. Heck, she even feel sorry for Chloé when she finally leaves. 

Is that truly the face someone who is satisfied with this result? This wasn’t what Ladybug had hoped for Chloé either.

If, through S3, it was no one’s fault for the Bee Miraculous to not be given to Chloé, her being destituted of the Bee Miraculous at the end of S3 was the consequences of Chloé’s own actions and her refusal to change. And all of this could have been prevented if Chloé didn’t become entitled to the Bee Miraculous, if Chloé had found another purpose AS A CIVILIAN rather than to depend on the prestige of her Queen Bee persona

This isn’t the end though. It only means Chloé has more work to do about herself. And that giving Chloé a Miraculous isn’t the solution to improve her. 

[n1ghtcrwler]

So there is a post that I recently saw that I just don’t want to add notes to for a number of reasons, not least of which being that I’m about to go on a significant tangent, so I’ll just say what I needed to say about it here.

The post is screenshots of a tweet thread about how bad “Cuties” actually is, from someone who claims to have watched it, and that’s fine. I haven’t seen the movie, I have no input to give on that matter. My concern arises in a reply offered by one user, who goes into more detail about how disturbing it is to consider that someone had to, at minimum, be comfortable putting the underage actresses in the situations depicted for the sake of filming them for the movie, and again, that is probably a valid point. But they ended their tirade with this:

“If you didn’t believe it before, the fact that this movie was even released and is being defended by the elite is proof that there is a deliberate plan to normalize and eventually legalize pedophilia and child porn.”

And that, my friends, is some QAnon bullshit.

See, this is a great example of how conspiracy theories work. We tend to only think of them in terms of their major propositions and the implications of those propositions--that the Earth is hollow, your average garden-variety antisemitic caricature of a shadowy society controlling you, that sort of thing--instead of talking much about how people fall into that hole in the first place. And, in our day-to-day lives, it’s really where the theories start that we need to be vigilant about more than where they end. Where they end is important, obviously, but no one buys the end product immediately. They get there through a process. And the user who posted the above quote is playing into that process.

Here’s the process that I want you to see in that paragraph, and to look out for elsewhere:

0: ‘Facts’ that are viable, and possibly even true

Step Zero is not to lie or even to introduce new information. I call it Step Zero because it isn’t automatically part of a conspiracy theory; obviously, if we’re going to talk about the impact of anything on the world, we have to talk about what is actually happening. But I point it out because conspiracy theories always start with a premise that you can accept. Always. Every time. You cannot assume that you will recognize a nonsense theory based on immediate nonsense. No one starts there. They start in the real world. As above, where they are describing very real or at least realistic consideration for the ways filming such a movie can groom young actresses and audiences.

1: Framing facts through key concepts

A good conspiracy theory begins not in the facts provided, but in the way they are provided.

Consider the bit of the paragraph I copied where it said, “the fact that this movie was even released and is being defended by the elite.” Who are the ‘elite?’ See, the use of that wording is intentional. What the user has done is frame the delivery of the fact or near-fact (that the movie and its mode of production are abhorrent) in a way that an elusive enemy is embedded in the fact or near-fact itself (that the elite are defending the abhorrent thing, making ‘them,’ whoever they are, also abhorrent) such that it is difficult to separate that idea from the rest of the fact or near-fact. In fact, I expect that if anyone wishes to argue with me about this post, they will do so by framing my dismissal of a mythical elite with being part of their work; that is, the primary means of arguing against this post, based on the way people have argued with me about similar things in the past, will be to hold that if I doubt that part of the sentence I must doubt the whole sentence and doubting the whole sentence means not finding pedophilia abhorrent and that, by extension, must make me either a pedophile myself or a man comfortable with pedophiles.

I’m sure you’ve seen that play out before in some context or another. This is why it plays out that way: the fact or near-fact has been married, unsuitably, to a claim that sets up Step Two.

2: Using the altered fact or near-fact to demand a pre-determined conclusion

Here’s the thing. If there is an elite who are actively trying to make and promote and defend “Cuties” (which is a highly suspect claim already), then the logical question is why they are doing so. Well, by golly, our friendly neighborhood conspiracy theorist has an answer! See, it’s “proof that there is a deliberate plan to normalize and eventually legalize pedophilia and child porn.”

That conclusion is not demanded by the agreed-upon facts. That is, if I agree with the theorist that the movie is, indeed, a work that grooms actresses and audiences, there are actually a variety of conclusions we can draw about why the movie was made. Maybe it was filmed with entirely different intentions and the end result is because of editing, or license taken by questionable cameramen. Maybe the version shown at Sundance or whatever was not actually the version currently on Netflix, so the people defending it were defending something other than what the twitter thread author saw. Maybe the producer really did have terrible motives but managed to convince someone at Netflix that that was not what was happening. Some or all of these may be false. I have no idea. But here’s the thing: neither does the person who posted the paragraph in question. The facts given in the post are actually pretty sparse as far as coming to a certain conclusion about intent are concerned. You need more information to know what is really going on here.

But see, that’s why they added information in Step One. By making it a behavior of that conspiracy’s boogeyman, they can easily come to a conclusion. The facts or fact-adjacent statements made in the body of the post, paired with a conspiracy-based understanding of who the elite are and what they want, is enough information to come to a conclusion. And it’s a conclusion that is only reasonable if the elite are real and are who the conspiracy says they are. See, the goal of getting you to believe the bigger conspiracy isn’t by telling you who the elite are, but by getting you to accept something that requires them. Which is why

3. Frame the delivery in a way that hides the conspiracy

The post leading up to the quoted paragraph is actually fairly long (admittedly, not as long as this post), and every part of it fits the conversation that has been had about the movie and is presented in a way that makes sense. So while the average tumblr user is scrolling along, if they read through, they’re being hit with a lot of sensible discourse about a movie they probably haven’t seen but have seen more discourse about, and then that bit of QAnon is just kinda slipped in without any major change to wording and presentation. It’s bolded for effect, but the content itself seems to flow naturally from the rest of the post. It’s only in stopping and thinking seriously about what has been said that the diversion away from a discussion of facts gets noticed.

The point is to be distinct enough to set up the conspiracy theory, but subtle enough that you accept it as part of the rest of the post’s claims. See, because, what happens there is that if the rest of the post makes sense to you, and you aren’t thinking about the fact that the post has taken a left turn, you accept the conclusion being given as a natural part of the post. And accepting the conclusion requires that you have, maybe without realizing it, accepted the claims about the ‘elite.’ And that sets you up.

4. Go Deeper

Because once you have accepted the conspiracy’s claims about the elite, preferably without recognizing that there was a claim about the elite, you are ready to accept other things that connect to that. Someone comes along and says something that also sounds plausible, and also ties into the conclusion that the elite are trying to legalize pedophilia. Well, because you’ve already accepted that this was a reasonable conclusion elsewhere, and it seems reasonable enough here, you accept it here as well. And this is solidifying in your mind the idea that it is known that there is an elite working toward that goal. But the questions remains of who the elite are. So, when someone finally comes along and ties the ‘elite’ to a specific person or group of people that you do recognize (usually Jewish people or some caricature thereof), and offers some evidence that is pretty flimsy but plays very nicely with claims you’ve already accepted, you buy it. Or you don’t, but you’re so deep now that you have to provide an alternative if you want to reject the answer you’ve been given, and so you start to spin your own theory.

Either way, the end result is the same: you are convinced of a claim that would have sounded crazy to you a year ago, and your family is trying to tell you how crazy it sounds to them now, but they just don’t know! They haven’t seen all the facts! You should probably show them the facts. Ideally, by starting with something they already know to be true. And the cycle continues.

Please. Be careful out there, folks. Don’t be that guy.

[cjwallflower]

Marvel Gender Headcanons

because i doubt some of these people are cis

Peter: 

i claim this man for the trans community

he realised he was trans at around present time (15-16 years old)

he knows his family and friends will accept him

he’s still N E R V O U S

but he still wants to be true to his identity

so he wears the trans flag colours!!

Ned obvs catches on, but doesn’t say anything

Tony’s the first one Peter comes out to, bc i’m soft and irondad owns my heart

Tony gets him a spider suit with a binder built in

Peter is absolutely the kind of trans guy who forgets to take off his binder (i’m not projecting what do you mean)

he comes out to his aunt May next, and she breaks out the scissors

the other eventually figure it out, and they accept him immediately

Peter: Hey Clint?

Clint: Yo

Peter: I’m trans

Clint: *takes a gulp of his soda* wig

Peter: ???

they love him though let’s be real

Natasha Punches A Transphobe

someone calls Peter a tr*nny 

Natasha sends them on a one way trip to space :)

Peter absolutely decides to go on T

and he is a handsome!! boy!!

he eventually tells Ned and MJ, and they accept him too

Ned buys him a trans flag

NED BUYS HIM A TRANS FLAG

by the time they’re graduating high school, Peter passes as cis very well

Tony:

i’m claiming Tony as trans too

i promise there’s other gender identities here jdsfhkhsdfkjh

Tony came out in the 80s of all times

we know Howard

it didn’t go over well

Maria didn’t say much about it, but Howard was actively against it

Tony didn’t care at all

he literally snuck out and got a fake ID so he could start on T

Tony was almost 18 at that point, but he still used Howard’s money

just to piss him off

well Howard ended up dying like 3 years later

Maria survived because fuck you

but Tony never ended up getting any surgeries because he ended up getting busy with the company

he just didn’t have time, with all the recovery that goes into it

he’s still on T though!!

mans has tiddies and a beard, the boomers get confused

he tends to keep it more private though

Pepper knows, how could she not?

Pepper is the sole reason Tony survived to adulthood lbr

Peter found out accidentally

Tony got oil on a shirt while fixing one of his machines, and Peter walked in while he had it off

he saw the binder and boyyy was that a surprise

but it totally explained how Tony already knew so much about supporting Peter in his transition

the problem with being an ADHD workaholic?? 

hyperfocusing

when Tony hyperfocuses, he forgets to take off his binder

Jarvis: Sir, you need to take off your binder

Tony: Gimme like five more minutes, I need to finish this

Jarvis: Sir, it’s been 38 hours??

Tony: *already moving onto the next task* What’s your point?

his ribs are so fucked

Pepper and Peter remind him too

my boy is a mess

Thor:

this is solely because my nb loml claimed thor as nb and it’s super fucking valid

i love you babe 🥺

so Thor learned about different genders from Loki

and also from Peter tbh

but Thor LOVED the idea of being in between

it just made him really happy!!

he started using those labels a lot, even though he didn’t know much about what they meant

being on Earth more, he started to learn more about them

mostly because they replaced cops at pride (Peter’s idea)

so Thor decided to learn more

he knew he liked boys, that wasn’t uncommon on Asgard

gender expression was very open, but that blurred the lines a lot for him

when he got to non-binary, it clicked

“oh that sounds like me”

“THATS ME”

he was excited he’d figured it out

his immediate instinct?

he went to tell Loki

the only problem was Loki was asleep

“LOKI LOKI LOKI-”

“what do you wANT-”

“I’M NON-LIBRARY!!”

“WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN-”

it took like ten minutes for Loki to figure out what he meant

Loki was tired give him a break

he just kinda pushed Thor’s face away and went back to sleep

they talked about it again in the morning

after Loki got some coffee he was more receptive

“I accept you, just please stop waking me up at 2 am”

Thor’s just trying his best

he doesn’t know how to be non-binary though

(there is no right way to be enby though)

so Loki tried a few example sentences using they/them pronouns

Thor LOVED it

so now Thor wanted to use they/them pronouns

Loki isn’t a brain cell by any means

but he sure feels like one sometimes

and he’s tired of it

ANYWAYS

Thor announced it to everyone they saw

some people heard it multiple times

“GUYS I’M NON-BINARY!! :D”

they were happy for their thude

and Thor wore an enby flag to their first pride!!

now the protector of the lesbians says non-library rights

Loki:

Loki basically always knew he was genderfluid

it just seemed really obvious to him?

he realised he wasn’t cis when he was 7

he transformed into a girl for fun 

and she was like “oh i like this-”

so she experimented with that

and she fucking loved all of them

so she turned back into a boy and went to Frigga

that’s how he found out about the word genderfluid

so he basically just grew up shapeshifting as much as he wanted

when they eventually went to earth, Loki couldn’t shapeshift as much

after he was redeemed, he still needed to be recognisable so they wouldn’t think he was to pull a fast one on them

he was uncomfy 

Loki stays in his room a lot

he just really doesn’t wanna deal with it

he still shapeshifts in private!

Thor ends up being the one to catch on

but he kinda knows that Loki won’t talk to him

so he sends in the spider child!

Loki and Peter have a pretty close bond

so on one of the nights they hang out, it’s a she/her day

and Loki just kinda snapped and went on a bit of a rant

and she ended up coming out to Peter

Loki totally didn’t end up crying what do you mean

she just needs a hug

obvs Peter was accepting

he gave her that hug don’t worry

this was all on a rooftop eating bad street food jhshkfhjfkhkd

he did ask if he could tell the others, and Loki reluctantly agreed

yeah, the others felt kinda bad

so they ended up compromising!!

Loki could shapeshift, but not into other people 

and she could wear whatever she wanted

they also gave her bracelets so she could express her pronouns

its a long road

and it takes a long time to build trust

but Loki really does appreciate Thor and Peter’s efforts

Bucky:

trans enby rights. send tweet

let’s jump back to 1930s

Bucky was transitioning before the war

he had the surgeries and was on T

Steve was the only one who really knew 

it was right when HRT was starting to become a thing

he was one of the first people to try it

and it worked pretty well!

Bucky passed easily after ~2 years on T

but then he died

RIP Bucky :(

when he comes back as a Hydra agent, they use T supplements to make his body stronger

“Jokes on you, I like that shit”

yeah no the others end up rescuing him from there

but Bucky still takes T

everyone is a bit worried about it

they think he’s still under Hydra’s control

Steve has to explain it (with Bucky’s permission)

but Bucky really starts feeling a disconnect with being a male

it’s mostly due to the trauma from Hydra

he knows he’s not a girl anymore

but he hates the idea of being a boy now

so he has no idea what he is

he ends up drawing the parallel between himself and Thor

but Bucky still sees some masculinity in Thor, which confuses him a LOT

Bucky’s always confused lbr

so he ends up finding the term Agender

and he understands it!! and likes it!!

he’s too nervous to tell the others, so he writes sentences using they/them pronouns

“Their name is Bucky Barnes”

“Bucky is tired, they need a nap”

“Bucky’s best friend is Steve. They’ve known Steve since the beginning”

Bucky is WAY happier with they/them pronouns

the problem is they don’t know how to communicate that

even to Steve, they’re just nervous

Steve ends up finding the paper, which now has over 100 sentences

so the next time they’re alone, Steve brings it up, and after a little bit of avoiding answering, Bucky tells him about it

Steve is super accepting 🥺

“Do you want me to tell the others for you?”

“Yes please, I have no idea what I’m doing-”

“I don’t think any of us do”

so Steve lets the others know, and they start using they/them pronouns

Bucky’s IMMEDIATELY so much happier

i just think they’re neat-

MJ:

MJ isn’t cis, fuck you

MJ is a demigirl

and no one even figured it out for the longest time

she kinda groups herself on the more non-binary side

Peter finds out because someone calls her by they/them pronouns

“MJ?? Are you?? Non-binary??”

“Nope”

“Are you still a girl??” 

“Nope”

after like 20 mins Peter figures it out

and boy is he confused

“Why didn’t you just say it?”

“I couldn’t. Gotta keep ‘em on their toes”

“Who??”

“:)”

the M in MJ stands for mystery

anyways!!

she switches from lesbian to the term Trixic (NBLW)

MJ goes to pride with Peter and Ned that year

MJ gets a girlfriend there!!

she comes out to her girlfriend upfront. she doesn’t feel like waiting

yeah she gets intense

she gets it from her moms

who can blame her

MJ sometimes wears a binder

she wore one on the first day of school, because Peter was nervous about being out (he’d come out over the summer)

MJ will punch transphobes and homophobes

even just for fun tbh

but she won’t do it immediately

she heard someone make a comment about Ned and his boyfriend and waited a few days

and then came out of nowhere

B O N K

the douchebag kinda knew why though 

in conclusion, MJ is elite

[kegareki]

dameamaryllis replied to your post “The video opens to the Five Nights At Freddy’s title screen and a...”

Oh, I love this! May we know more about Jaz, pretty pretty please? (Does Jason still dies? Please say no!)

it’s ME, do you think that i could let jason die if i could help it??

jason has a much larger weakness to mother figures than jaz does. jaz is a lot less willing to extend any amount of trust towards possible bio mom sheila--which is good, considering that if they went along with it with their guard down, they would’ve been lured into a trap and brutally murdered by the joker. no thanks!

as you can imagine, jason is more well-adjusted than in other canons because he was not killed or almost killed by the joker at 16.

jaz and jason are robin at the same time. it was suggested that they have separate codenames, but this was shot down because they both want to be robin.

(”do you want one of us to be batboy?” jason demands. “i’m not gonna be batboy.”

“i don’t wanna be batboy, either,” jaz says. “that’s the name of a reject robin.”

“the name of a shitty bargain-bin robin.”

“technically, i am getting a deal on robins,” bruce says.

“you can be batboy then!”)

because no one has an untimely death, the role of robin does not pass over to tim during a time of desperate need for a stabilizing influence on batman, and therefore jason doesn’t resent bruce for replacing him or tim for being his replacement. tim becomes robin in the same way that everyone else does: bruce sees a tiny child in need, sees that he is in a position to help them, and goes “oh, no.”

jason and jaz respectfully retire from the position of robin and move cities entirely to help dick over in bludhaven.

(”WHAT IS A GOTHAM GOLDEN CHILD DOING IN BLUDHAVEN,” someone tweets in distress. accompanying their tweet is a photo of jaz, who is sitting on the other side of their classroom.

someone else responds with: “grayson went to bludhaven around the time bruce wayne picked up the todds & bruce wayne is apparently in the process of adopting another kid rn. bludhaven might just b where gotham kids go to escape their adopted sibs”

the original poster replies to this, shaken, “are you telling me that gothamites view bludhaven as a vacation spot? this is the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said to me”)

more under the cut because this answer is getting Very Long

jaz’s vigilante name is nightingale, which immediately pegs them as a double-act with nightwing, but i wanted a bird name and if leliana could use the name nightingale, so can i

they’ve got the same sort of blue stripe that nightwing’s got going on, as well as the domino mask, but their outfit as a whole is more reminiscent of red hood’s--suit beneath a jacket and trousers, belt, boots, etc. they use escrima sticks like nightwing does, but they transition comfortably between impact and edged weapons, with the same sort of “if they don’t go down when beaten, they’ll go down when bleeding” mindset that jason has

jaz, dick, and bruce are all similar in that they all go where the need is. sometimes you have to make a choice on what thing or person needs you more, because you can’t take care of everyone and everything at the same time. you can’t. something will always be your priority.

in ‘verses where it’s just dick who’s trying to meet people’s needs, he gets so strained, because he can’t give all of himself to everyone who needs something from him. jaz helps, though. they can go where he can’t. like--between damian and tim, dick’s gonna go after damian. damian’s a kid and dick’s responsible for him. and jaz can go after tim in his stead

in one of my aus, where jaz lands in an alternate universe where there’s no native jaz and therefore everything went predictably to shit:

"Dick is the only Robin who made it to eighteen," Jaz says. "Have you thought about what you'll be after?"

Tim pauses, expression shifting. "Not really," he admits. "I haven't needed to. Until now, I guess."

Jaz puts a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Even if Damian does become Robin, that doesn't mean you're being kicked out. Damian is a ten-year-old who's been trained by the League of Assassins. He needs to be supervised, and you don't anymore. And besides," they add, "you're not the only one whose partner is being stolen. We could team up."

He smiles hesitantly. "I haven't patrolled with you yet. Let's start there."

(i gave up on understanding the dc timeline so the ages i go by are “if damian is 10, tim is 18, jason is 22, and dick is 25″ since i think that dick is 28ish when damian is 13?)

dick, jason, and jaz are all pretty tight-knit with each other, but their next favorite batkids are all different? dick is close with babs and damian, jason is close with cass, jaz is close with tim...

ALSO if it was not obvious, jaz/dick is a thing. generally i do not write romantic relationships involving si/ocs, because i am aromantic, but i make an exception for dick grayson. (”you are my only exception” by paramore plays in the distance) they’re very cute together and playful and fun and sweet. i have a soulbond au where they’re soulmates. i almost never write soulmate aus. that is how much i love them

more things i want to say but that i’ve run out of steam for paragraphs about:

jaz adopts a black cat and names him catman. they take snaps of him zooming around their apartment with the caption “nya nya nya nya catman”

they are the singular robin whose favorite hero/vigilante is batman. however it should be noted that bruce wayne is not their favorite; batman is. the absurdity of a growling man of the night accompanied by a brightly-colored acrobatic child is so utterly charming

in jazverse canon, jaz is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns and tim is trans and uses he/him pronouns. bruce wayne has not messed up their pronouns Once and, when other people misgender his kids, he always makes sure to say The Correct Pronouns Or Terminology in his response. #BruceWayneSaysTransRights is a real hashtag

jason and jaz are protective of each other. i’m not saying that jaz would’ve decked sheila in the face, but i’m also not saying that they wouldn’t

the imagery of jason and jaz attending gotham academy is so funny. like. they’re from fuckin crime alley and then they get adopted by bruce wayne and now they go to the Elite Private Academy of gotham where everyone is rich and snobby. they read the lord of the flies for english class and agree that the events of the novel are made possible only by virtue of being populated entirely by rich white cis boys. their discussion immediately goes to “so if that happened with our class, who would die first” because, to quote jason todd, “even if no one tried asserting dominance, these kids have the survival instincts of a toddler”

jaz’s full name is jasmine and their nicknames are jaz and jazzy. dick calls them hummingbird sometimes because they’re short and have adhd. also because they looked Utterly Betrayed by dick and jason both having -bird nicknames but not them

[ballplayersxo]

Did yall see what Kendall tweeted about herself saying they acting as if she not in control throwing certain things around at? Someone is about to be big mad in a min.

yeah and i agree with her. people are acting like someone is forcing her to be with nba players. she’s dating people who are attractive and rich and ion see the problem with that. look at the hollywood elites, they date people on their level all the time. sure is there probably a curse surrounding that family, but honestly who cares 😩 it’s like lori harvey, she knows she rich, young, and beautiful so she’s just having her fun. lets let these girls live!

[robdaltonpoetry]

Orange Stain on American History

Act I: I am born and excel immediately.   A silver spoon in my tiny pink hand is how I was born—you don’t understand because you’re illegal, dark-skinned, or poor, or liberal elite, righteous to the core.   Fresh out of the womb I couldn’t help myself, I reached back to grab that heavenly stuff. My mom didn’t mind, or didn’t say so, my dad was off playing 36 holes.   But what’s best about my impressive birth was coming out knowing my huge net worth. (I wish I’d invested that in a fund— any would do, outperforming my run.)     Act II: I discriminate against black people.   When my old man finally came ’round to see what he gave the world (magnificent me), he offered advice I’ll never forget: “Just grab what you want with zero regrets.”   I’ve followed that flag for seventy years, spending dad’s money to thwart blacks and queers. When the war showed up I was glad, for sure, that underclass folks don’t have my bone spurs.   All those who claimed I was racist or worse are just jealous of the weight of my purse. I’m the least racist guy you’ll ever meet! And if you need proof, just check my last tweet.

Act III: I rule the 80’s and prove I’m the best.   The 80’s rolled ’round, as did my first mate, whom I cheated on and soon learned to hate. I got re-married, I got re-divorced, trashed Atlantic City with hurricane force.   I made bankruptcy cool, bilked worker fees, burned every bridge as my assets got seized. But when you’re as special and awesome as me you grab every pussy, do what you please.   The one downside to my 80’s rampage was when I discovered, to my blind rage, that no one would lend me money to burn except foreigners (against whom I’ll turn).     Act IV: I become POTUS and couldn’t be more great.   Now, at the top of the human food chain, the best president ever—that’s so plain— I stand for nothing, as I’ve often said, and feed off liberal feelings of dread.   If America ain’t great like I vowed, it’s the fault of fake news; even while cowed by twitter typhoons of gibberish lies they try to use reason (which I despise).   But lucky for me most humans are dumb— it’s easy to keep them under my thumb. I just have to bellow, gesture, and troll to keep them enraged, my only real goal.   Act V: I’m universally hailed as Best Ever.   For all those who waited for Mueller’s reveal, like him you’re all losers—I just appeal to the bottomless hatred of my base. I get off scot free and laugh in your face.   By now you should know that I’ll always win, wreaking havoc with a leer and a grin. All the deplorables screaming my name will cheer as the world goes up in black flame.   I’m sure that history books will agree no one has ever been better than me. This chat has been great, you won’t be the same. I’m pleased to meet you—won’t you guess my name?

[wrestlingisfake]

Best of the Super Jr. finals preview

This show features the New Japan debut of Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose, so everybody is expecting a lot of first-time NJPW viewers to watch.  The show airs live on NJPW World at 5:30am Eastern time Wednesday morning.  If you can’t stay up that late or wake up that early, you can always catch it on-demand like you would on WWE Network.  (If you need help, ask around.  New Japan Tumblr has been pretty active about offering help for newbies.)

Shingo Takagi vs. Will Ospreay - This is the final match in the Best of the Super Jr. tournament, between the winner of A Block (Shingo) and the winner of B Block (Ospreay).  There is no time limit; there must be a winner.  The victor wins the tournament, a cool trophy, and the right to challenge IWGP junior heavyweight champion Dragon Lee at Dominion on June 9.

Shingo debuted in New Japan back in October, filling the void in the LIJ stable when Hiromu Takahashi was injured.  Since then he has never lost a fall.  Admittedly, for much of his run he’s been in tag matches with BUSHI, who could get pinned or tap out when they needed to lose.  But then he entered this tournament--the pinnacle of singles competition for New Japan junior heavyweights--and went on an impressive 9-0 streak.  Someone has probably advanced to the finals of this type of tournament without losing even one match, but it’s rare enough that it’d take some work to find out.  If Takagi wins this match, and closes the entire tournament at 10-0, he’ll be a frigging legend.

One year ago, as Ospreay was preparing to defend the junior heavyweight title against the 2018 BOSJ winner Hiromu Takahashi, he discussed some chilling comments from Dave Meltzer about his high-risk style.  Shortly thereafter, Ospreay began adjusting to a more grounded style, adding muscle and entering openweight competition.  The changes have paid off with a NEVER openweight title reign and big wins over Taichi, Kota Ibushi, Bad Luck Fale, and Lance Archer.  It looked as if his ex-buddy El Phantasmo was going to overshadow him in B Block, but ELP collapsed near the end to allow Ospreay to win the block with a 7-2 record.

What should make this interesting is that Shingo is controversially on the edge of the weight limit, giving him a size and strength advantage, but Ospreay’s openweight run proved he can beat far bigger men.  It’s as if Ospreay’s shift in tactics has been designed to find the solution for Shingo where luchadors, technicians, and cheaters could not.

A win for Shingo here will probably lead to a long title run and extend the “who will beat him?” angle for months.  If Ospreay snaps the streak here and now, it’s already been built up enough that I think it signals big things for Will.  I could easily see Ospreay winning the junior title from Dragon Lee and taking it into the G1 Climax heavyweight tournament, to fulfill his goal of competing in both weight classes.  But for any of that to happen, he has to beat Shingo, and no one has in New Japan.  I just can’t pick a winner.

Juice Robinson vs. Jon Moxley - Robinson, best known to WWE fans as CJ Parker from NXT, is defending the IWGP United States championship.  Back on May 3, Juice was celebrating a victory when the lights went out and a video package appeared on the big screen.  The video showed a man carving an hourglass shape while watching Juice wrestle, ending with the messages “Time’s up” and “June 5.”  The “Time’s Up” videos continued to follow Juice to every show he appeared on, until Jon Moxley tweeted a version revealing that the hourglass symbol represents “MOX.”

Moxley, who once held the WWE world championship as Dean Ambrose, left WWE in April and dramatically debuted for AEW on May 25.  He’s all over the place lately and this will be his first post-WWE match.  It hasn’t yet been explained why he would target Juice, and I don’t buy Juice’s narrative that Moxley expects Juice to still be the rookie he knew in FCW years ago.  We probably won’t learn Moxley’s agenda in New Japan until his post-match interview.

This should be a wild brawl.  Juice is primarily known for his striking and big impact moves, not for technical finesse or flips.  And Mox is Mox.  They both lead with their hearts, although Juice’s heart is pure and dedicated to Shin Nihon Puroresu, and Moxley’s heart is filled with whiskey and cigarettes.

Everybody’s counting on Moxley to straight up murder Juice, and that’s a safe bet.  But listening to Juice talk about this match, I sure want him to prove himself to all the people who are gonna wonder who this goofy weirdo is.  The one thing that puzzles me is why this match was made for this show, and not Dominion four days later.  That makes me think they want to quickly get the US title on Moxley to move him onto something else for the #2 show of the year...but what could it be?

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White - This is a rematch from February 11, where Tana lost the IWGP heavyweight title to White.  Later, at the Madison Square Garden show on April 6, Tana wrestled his last match before taking time off for elbow surgery, while White lost the championship in the main event.  Then on May 4, Tanahashi announced he’d be returning at this show to start pursuing the title again, but White didn’t like the sound of that and attacked him.  So both guys are trying to recover from their big title losses earlier this year, and they have to go through one another.

Tanahashi is basically the John Cena of New Japan, the biggest/winningest babyface in the promotion, who carried the company on his back for years, but now he’s getting older and seeing new stars slowly overtake him and talk about putting him out to pasture.  White was a jobber three years ago, but a huge push in 2018 elevated him to be the top heel and leader of Bullet Club.  You hate White for getting too much too soon, and then you realize he’s talented enough to thrive at that level and you hate him even more.  He’s really great.

There is a strong chance the winner of this match will receive an IWGP heavyweight title shot later this year, but it’s not clear when.  New Japan has big shows in Melbourne on June 29 and in London on August 31, so those are likely candidates.  I’m kinda thinking Tanahashi needs the win, but I can’t really imagine them hotshotting Okada vs. Tanahashi for one of those shows.  (Then again, Okada might lose the title beforehand, but I wouldn’t count on that.)  So my guess is that White beats Tana again to renew his unstoppable mega-push.

Kazuchika Okada & Rocky Romero vs. Marty Scurll & Brody King - Okada is the IWGP heavyweight champion and Rocky is his little buddy.  Scurll is the last guy left from The Elite following their exodus to AEW; he has since recruited King and PCO to form Villain Enterprises, which currently holds the ROH trios title.  The BOSJ tournament has been Brody’s first tour with New Japan, but since he’s a heavyweight this will be his first significant match on the tour.  This will be a good chance for King to turn some heads and leave a good impression, so that NJPW will want to bring him back soon.  But Okada has a big title match in a few days, and I expect he’ll win this one.

Kota Ibushi & Togi Makabe & Toa Henare & Tomoaki Honma vs. Tetsuya Naito & EVIL & SANDA & BUSHI - Naito’s team represents Los Ingobernables de Japon, the Japanese offshoot of the famous Mexican stable.  Naito will be challenging Ibushi for the IWGP intercontinental title on June 9, as part of his quest to hold both that title and the heavyweight championship.  Ibushi’s team features three of the midcard babyfaces--former top guy and current minor mainstream celebrity Makabe, up-and-coming rookie Henare, and recent neck injury survivor Honma.  LIJ is putting up a much stronger lineup for this one, so I expect them to win and for Naito to taunt Ibushi heading into their match.

Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & Zack Sabre, Jr. & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Jushin Thunder Liger & YOSHI-HASHI & Toru Yano & Tiger Mask - Suzuki’s team represents Suzuki-gun, and they’re basically the assholes too cruel and unlikable for Bullet Club.  Taichi has a title defense scheduled against Ishii on June 9, and there are Suzuki vs. Liger and Sabre vs. Yoshi feuds that may get settled at that show as well.  Interestingly, Douki is not a member of Suzuki-gun, having been brought in as a substitute for the injured El Desperado; the ending of this match could help us learn if he’ll be officially added to the group or turfed out once they have no further use for him.  Douki’s score in the BOSJ tournament was disappointing to say the least, and it’s fairly clear New Japan wanted to tell a story about an outsider being outclassed by the talent they have under contract.  With that in mind, I think he’ll lose the fall in this match.

SHO & YOH & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori & Robbie Eagles - Sho and Yoh are Roppongi 3K, the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team champions.  Normally Rocky Romero would team with them as their coach, but Romero and Taguchi have both been doing the coach gimmick and recently agreed to share those “duties” among the babyfaces.  Phantasmo’s team represents Bullet Club, and if they can score a fall over either Yoh or Sho that would set up a fresh junior tag title program, which would be very overdue.  There’s been a slow burning story with Eagles questioning his allegiance to Bullet Club, particularly as it relates to ELP, so I’m betting on Eagles getting the win here and Eagles/ELP pursuing the title shot.

Dragon Lee & Titan & Shota Umino vs. Bandido & Jonathan Gresham & Ren Narita - Lee is the IWGP junior heavyweight champion, so it’s a little odd that he’s in the opener when the main event is to determine his next challenger.  Lee and Titan are imports from Mexico’s CMLL, while Gresham and Bandido are imports from ROH in the US.  Umino and Narita are two of the “young lions” in New Japan’s developmental system, which means they they’re here to learn and do jobs.  I’d think Dragon Lee’s team should get the win here.

[arcticdementor]

No, Nancy Pelosi is not the leader of the Democrat Party, nor are any of the 723 goofs running for its 2020 nomination. It’s a triumvirate that rules, but not a cool one like Caesar, Pompey and Crassus. Those dead white males actually had a track record of success. This triumvirate is composed of that adolescent who tweets a lot, that one CAIR fan from Michigan who didn’t marry her brother, and the one CAIR fan from Minnesota who allegedly did. That is their complete list of achievements, all of them: Tweeting and cheerleading Islamic militants. Oh, and whining. Lots of whining.

…

And yet, they run the whole Democrat show. They are the voice of their party. Their agenda is its agenda. Nancy ought to just stay home.

And we should celebrate this. Not because one of the two major American parties have fallen into these people’s hands. That’s a bad thing, and indicative of the utter moral and intellectual bankruptcy at the core of modern liberalism. We should celebrate it because the 2020 election is coming and it will be really hard for the Democrats keep a hold on the few remaining normal Americans who support the party out of habit when the collective face of the party is these three banshees cruising around cable TV and the Internet always screaming nonsense.

Can you see their planning session for last week? “I have an idea about how to appeal to normal Americans! Let’s minimize 9/11, diss a Navy SEAL who got his eye blown up by a jihadi bomb, and then pretend criticizing our idiocy is encouraging people to murder us. Oh, and let’s hate on the Jews!”

Of course, that never happened. Their plan never was, never has been, and never will be, to appeal to normal Americans. They have no interest in us, except as slaves or, more likely, as a vaguely troubling memory of a problem solved long ago. Guess how they would solve us? Not sure? Well, there’s this thing called “history,” and you can look up leftism’s track record regarding unapproved people like us unless Google is hiding the results for that too.

…

Now, most of the zillion Dems running for the chance to get shellacked by Trump in two years are not particularly bright, but they do have some level of animal cunning and they have got to see that the stupidity that gets the goatee gang slapping their paws in Brooklyn is going to play poorly in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the parts of Minnesota that aren’t Mogadishu. But the candidates have a problem, because they don’t dare go against the real party leadership. Cross one of them and you’ll draw down the shrill, up-talking wrath of Rep. Shemp or Congresswoman Curley.

Free Spirit Dancing Girl pretty much said that not agreeing with her pal was like the Holocaust; oddly, she was not roundly laughed at by our awesome elite. Chris Hayes nearly soiled himself over the threat posed by criticizing his allies. Bernie the Jolly Stalinist, sucked up. Big Chief Spewing Bull tried to get on the Commie Bachelorette Party’s good side and jumped in to chide President Trump for pointing out that maybe it’s not cool to mock 9/11. Perfectly Normal Beer-Liking Liz says that by criticizing the Democrat leadership Trump is encouraging violence against these endlessly yakking pinkos, which is weird because he didn’t send anyone to a softball field.

This “criticizing me puts me at risk” ploy is imported from colleges where SJWs literally shake at the threat posed by ideas they dislike. The answer is, of course, for us to exponentially increase the criticism they object to. Unlike the terrified Democrats who see these knuckleheads ruining the 2020 ruse by spilling the beans and telling everyone what the party really thinks, we will continue to say whatever we please. We’ll roll the dice and take the risk.

…

Of course, Rep. One Who May Have Married Her Bro considers the NRA the real terrorist gang. Not Hamas, not Hezbollah – why, those are just caring folk working together for a better tomorrow. No, the terrorists are you – you just happen to be really bad at it since NRA members haven’t actually committed any terrorist acts. Whatever. Anyway, the bottom line, as if you couldn’t guess, is that she thinks that you need to be disarmed, which would probably not work out so well for you considering who she thinks should still have guns. Expect the Democrats to follow their leaders on this idea too.

[littlecatlost1]

Why can’t I be happy for Mark and Sean?

That title isn’t meant to be any kind of statement. I’m genuinely wondering. Why can’t I be happy?

I’ve been feeling pretty bad ever since the two of them announced Cloak Brand yesterday. I think it’s great that @markiplier and @therealjacksepticeye have made something they can be so proud of and so passionate about. And I hope that they’re successful and I wish them luck in this venture.

But, I don’t know, the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

When the announcement came out yesterday, my emotions went on a downward slope which started with just some mild disappointment when it turned out that it wasn’t some kind of fun, entertainment related project like I was expecting. It comes out and it’s like, “Oh. It’s just some overpriced premium clothing brand.” I don’t really care about fashion, so, whatever.

I clicked the link to the Cloak Brand website and it’s there that my mood went down that sharp slope from being mildly disappointed to highly disappointed to even feeling angry and slightly insulted.

Okay, I’m going to step away from Mark and Sean for a second because this really doesn’t relate to them. I have never been a fan of these big name super expensive clothing brands. It just reeks of elitism. And status symbols. “Look at me! I’m better than you because I can wear [Insert brand name here]! Where’s your [Insert brand name here]? Aw, too poor? HA HA! Loser!”

Oh, my god! Who fucking cares!? It’s just clothes!!

I am not calling Mark and Sean elitists. Because they’re not. I know that that isn’t what they’re about and I know they only have good intentions. I just never expected them to do something like this. It feels so weird and out of character to me. I guess that’s part of why it’s bothering me.

I’m a little worried that this will create a similar mindset of “You’re not a real Markiplier/Jacksepticeye fan unless you wear Cloak Brand!” I’ve already seen little signs of it in the replies to their tweets. Someone brings up the high prices and someone else will reply with something along the lines of “You’re just mad because you can’t afford it.”

And this isn’t even about the prices, which I agree are kinda outrageous. Because I get it. I understand that these clothes are made of high quality materials and are custom cut, custom fit and that all of this costs a lot of time, effort, and most importantly, money, to produce. So, yeah, I get that they have to charge these kinds of prices. I get that it’s not the same as the other merch they usually do.

I think the problem for me is the marketing, the way they’re selling it. It really pisses me off. “This is YOUR brand!” is the big slogan at the top of the website. I go into the Our Story page and I watch the video and I read this message from Mark and Sean which contains phrases like:

Mark: “What’s best for you, specifically.”

Sean: “Because there has never really been a brand out there for people like us. People who game all day.”

Mark: “A real, honest clothing brand that gave you guys a voice.”

Sean: “We want to see you guys wear it. We want to represent you.”

The whole claim that this is “for our community.” Yeah, right! You mean the RICH SIDE of your community. These clothes are not for everyone, no matter how much they try to spin it otherwise. It sounds like they’re trying to say that these clothes were designed with the people in their community, their fans, in mind. It also sounds like they’re trying to sell it to gamers in general. “A brand for people like us.” But that’s the issue. Most of us are not like you. I’m pretty sure the majority of the people in your community don’t live as well as you, and can’t afford to simply throw down $80-$85 for one hoodie or $35 for one t-shirt.

Another sad thing is that a lot of people will do it anyway just because Mark and Sean’s names are attached to it. Many of which are probably kids and teens.

I don’t know. I can’t and won’t speak for everyone. ‘Cause maybe I’m wrong. I’m probably wrong. I’m stupid.

I’ve been watching both Mark and Sean since 2014. They’ve been a good distraction and a comfort as I suffer with severe depression and anxiety. I like that they’re both such humble and genuine people. It kinda feels like I’m sitting right there next to them, having fun like just another friend. I can at least pretend to know what that feels like when I watch them.

They’ve both been so great about interacting with their fans and making everyone feel included and that everyone matters. Generally just making the fans feel like they care. Sean, especially, who’s become such a wonderful advocate for mental health.

Which is why this whole idea that these clothes are for us or for the community rubs me the wrong way and makes me sick. Like all those great ideals they’ve built up over the years which came out the goodness in their hearts are almost being used as a sales pitch. I know they aren’t lying and I know there are zero ill intentions here. I believe in both of them. It just feels disingenuous, is all I’m saying.

I’ve seen people say some harsh things. Some people are saying that they’re treating their fans like gullible cash dispensers. I don’t agree with statements like that. I just don’t like this.

At least with the other merch it actually sorta meant something. Whether it was supporting a charity or supporting these awesome people. And right here, I have to give a highlight to Sean’s message of PMA. Ever since the start of 2018, Sean has done an absolutely beautiful thing with his Positive Mental Attitude movement. It’s so great. When I wear this, I feel like I’m promoting something that feels good instead of just wearing his brand. It felt like it was worth the slightly higher price tag.

This just feels like business. And icky.

I like the slick, clean design of the logo. I’ll give them that much. But even if I could afford to burn $85 for a hoodie, I still wouldn’t pay it. Because it is NOT worth it!

I don’t know. Why is Cloak Brand even a thing? Did we really need this? I imagine the average gamer wears clothes that are a fraction of the cost and are just as comfortable.

I don’t know what to think. I feel let down. I feel like this belief I have of Mark and Sean being just regular people who just want to make people happy and don’t care about money has been stained, just a little bit. There’s a small disconnect there that wasn’t there before. I don’t know why I’m so bent out of shape. I’m a fucking idiot!

I still love these boys and I will continue to enjoy their content. I’ll say one more time that I wish Mark and Sean luck with their new clothing line, but I can’t support it.

I’m scared that I’m going to get burned for pouring out my thoughts. I just hope people will realize that’s all this is. Thoughts. I’m not a hater. This is not an attack against Mark and Sean. So, please, don’t attack me back.

[greyspatient]

Aruna khilanani reviews

#Aruna khilanani reviews series#

It's interesting because from a CT perspective, how do we evaluate or problematize internalized oppression? Because "internalized oppression" is very much is popular and felt to be valid among liberals (e.g., elite, politically correct Democrats) as well as woke liberals, and conservatives reject it totally, whereas leftist critical theoretic might be more ambivalent about it as a concept (due to contentious debates about class reductionism). Until now, she has gained 656 followers on. She posts pictures and tweets under the username arunakhilanani. Khilanani came upfront and mentioned that the talk’s title was ‘white minds’ and Yale did not review it before she delivered. (E.g., assuming this is her formulation, then can we state where/how do the rest of her ideas go wrong? And obviously why Yale censored her talk, etc.) Read About Dr Aruna Khilnani Wikipedia Age, Husband. I would summarize her overall problem formulation as exactly that notion, the phenomena of internalized racism in an (post-)colonial American society. What you call "depraved racist", she does admit to in the interview as her "internalized oppression". Not going to go into whether it's because I'm also an Asian American with an academic background, so is that my racialized experience or just my classist indoctrination that I find myself agreeing with here, etc.! … All are welcome at the meetpoint.Not sure if you are actually asking me, or are simply expressing strong disagree with the interviewee, but while reading the piece I could empathize with her frustrations very well. In this generous collection of book reviews and literary essays, legendary Village Voice rock critic. ‘Conservative, Liberal, Old, Young, Blue, Black, CIS, Trans, Asian, Fat, Skinny, rural, urban, B-baller, international, ex-pat, Rapper, Queer, White, Muslim, Biker, Rocker, Lax player, Atheist, Trump Supporter, Darwinist, Trump Hater. ‘Whoever you are, and wherever you come from, our world is better because of you,’ she states on the site. The forensic psychiatrist and psychoanalyst’s lecture seem to contradict statements on her website where she invites people of all backgrounds to her office that she refers to as a a ‘meetpoint’ Unnamed and untitled like the privilege it protects.’

#Aruna khilanani reviews series#

The doctor has posted a series of TikToks in the last week claiming the school hasn’t included the name of the talk or that she delivered it.Ī caption on one of her TikTok’s reads: ‘My talk at Yale Child Study Center was just released internally. She is now arguing, however, that Yale is trying to suppress her by not releasing the footage of her talk publicly. Khilanani says it was only released internally after facing calls from some to release it. Khilanani graduated from the University of Illinois At Chicago College of Medicine in 2006. Search doctors, conditions, or procedures. It’s just like sort of not a good idea.’Īfter Khilanani delivered the talk, Yale only made it available to students and faculty with a warning that said it contained ‘profanity and imagery for violence’. See Reviews & Make an Appointment LIST YOUR PRACTICE Dentist Pharmacy Search. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall. Aruna Khilanani a Forensic Psychiatrist & Psychoanalyst, and author of the speech The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind discussed her recent speech at Yale on Black News Tonight.During the interview, she claimed Racism is something that is unconscious racism is everywhere and it is actually in everyone. Aruna Khilanani at the Yale School of Medicines Child Study Center. 35 reviews New York-Presbyterian Hospital. by a supervening law that subjected those activities to review by a censor. Aruna Khilanani reviews, contact info, practice history, affiliated hospitals & more. ‘We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. Aruna Khilanani has a 1.5/5 rating from patients. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath,’ she said. ‘They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. She also explains her claim that White people are psychopathic. She went on to say that white people feel they are being bullied when people of color bring up race and described it as a ‘psychological predicament’. Aruna Khilanani explains why she said there were no good apples among White people. Like I did the world a f**king favor,’ Khilanani said during the talk. ‘I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Khilanani, who has previously taught at Cornell, Columbia and New York universities, made the stunning statements during her talk that was largely based on the psychology behind ‘whiteness’.

[therewatcher-blog]

Introduction to The Re-Watcher: First Up, Gilmore Girls

Recently, I’ve accepted something about myself. I love re-watching television. I don’t think this is unique. In fact a good chunk of the streaming business model is predicated on the fact that most of us like what we already know. I started my third? fourth? rewatch of Gilmore Girls at the beginning of the month, and decided that rather than just mindlessly blazing through these rewatches of shows with the random tweet reinforcing the viewpoints I’ve always had, I thought I’d try to be a more active viewer. It will never be the first time again. I will always know what is going to happen to the characters in my beloved shows that merit this amount of hours devoted. So instead, I decided that each time I rewatch a show, I will choose a topic and focus on it in a mini-write up for each episode. Not only will this stop me from watching too quickly, I hope it will help me in forming skills writing about TV and maybe I’ll learn something new about the shows I love as I watch with a specific goal in mind.

 We’ll start with Gilmore Girls. The topic I’ve chosen is, The Best Underrated Scene. I want to focus on the scenes that don’t get necessarily quoted as much or that catch me off guard in my rewatch with their depth, brilliance, and significance. Amy Sherman-Palladino has finally gotten some awards and recognition with her newest show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but her talent was evident from the beginning and her cast in Gilmore Girls certainly did everything they could to take it to the next level. I want to look beyond the big fights and big cries and find those nuggets that offer depth to even the more cartoonish of Stars Hollow characters or reveal an important character trait and dynamic in a subtle way. Let’s see how this goes!

 1x01 – Pilot

 Pilots are difficult. I know this from watching many and from hearing screenwriters talk about it. Comedy is particularly difficult, it seems. With the exception of Veep, Cheers, and maybe Arrested Development, I have a hard time thinking of comedy pilots that operate at the same level of the show in its prime. Gilmore Girls was marketed as a typical WB teen drama, but also, it’s really a smart show about family and class. It’s a comedy, a family drama, a small town fantasy. It’s so many things and the pilot has a LOT of exposition to get through in as smooth a way as possible for a show whose premise is deceptively simple. As such, finding a truly great and understated scene that isn’t bogged down by introducing our big dynamics and long arcs for the season and series (Lorelai and Rory, Lorelai and her parents, Lorelai and Luke, Rory and Dean, the Inn, Stars Hollow, etc, etc, etc.) is difficult.

 With all of this in mind, my first pick for Best Underrated Scene is maybe a bit of cheat since all the scenes in this that are really worth talking about are all a bit iconic.

Lorelai Asks Her Parents for Money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njZo0lvgCsY

This is almost halfway through the episode. It’s the turning point and the whole premise for the show. While Lorelai and Rory are interesting and fun and I enjoy their dynamic, Lorelai and her parents (Emily and Richard) will always steal the episode away with their interplay. The strain between these two generations is painted so beautifully and delicately from the beginning. The transition to this sequence comes from a picture that Lorelai keeps on her mantelpiece of herself as a young child in front of her parent’s mansion that seems dark and cold compared to the warm, tchotchke–riddled home that Lorelai has built for herself. Lorelai is looking at this picture as she realizes her only option to pay for Rory’s new fancy school is to borrow money from her parents. We cross-fade from this small token of Lorelai’s childhood to the present-day real deal. But even the fact that Lorelai has this picture is telling. For every bad thing she has to say about her upbringing and her parents, a part of her still holds ties. As the series continues we will see in which ways Lorelai is really a lot like her parents, but for now this maybe is just a slight hint that nothing has ever been as black and white as Lorelai likes to act like it was.

Lorelai waits with her coffee, next to her Jeep (which obviously stands out against the backdrop of her parents house…”HELLO! I’m different from you!” Lorelai loves to scream with all of her purchases). She is gulping down her pride, finding the courage to go in and do what she never in her lifetime wanted to do. Cut to Emily opening the door, clearly surprised to see her daughter who only lives forty minutes away. “Is it Easter already?” she jokes. While we constantly have instances throughout the show of Emily and Richard not understanding Lorelai’s jokes, we can see from this first interaction that she probably got much of her wit from them. Emily is hilarious. She is maybe a bit harsher in her sarcasm, a bit drier than Lorelai’s hyper-joking mannerisms, but it is there and we see it right away. I love even more so that Richard makes the same joke when he first discovers Lorelai there unexpectedly (“What is it, Christmas already?”). Emily and Richard’s marriage has it’s ups and downs in the show, but they are solidly made for each other in many ways. They have a partnership that has lasted for decades and it shows in the way they at times seem to have one mind.

 As Lorelai and Emily make their way to the living room, making awkward chitchat we are greeted with maybe the longest pause in the episode yet. Pauses are a big deal in the famously wordy Palladino scripts.  It speaks volumes how little these women seem to be able to say to each other. “I’m sure I told you,” Lorelai tells her mother answering in a bit more detail about her business class. “Well if you’re sure, than you must have,” Emily bites back sarcastically. We get no answer to whether Lorelai did or not (my guess is that she didn’t), but either way we see so clearly the miscommunications that bubble up between these two who have so little faith in the other’s ability to understand the other. They don’t make this one a big fight, but it is part of the fight we will see later in the episode. Emily resents that Lorelai shuts her out of her life. Lorelai resents her mother’s controlling nature which causes her to avoid telling Emily anything rather than risk criticism or involvement in her choices. It’s a vicious cycle. Every bit of Emily’s dialogue is dripping with sardonic disbelief as she explains to Richard that Lorelai decided to just “drop in to see us” after her “business class” that “she told us about it, dear, remember?” “No.” Richard demures. He doesn’t play the same games that Emily and Lorelai do with each other. No, he doesn’t remember. This could be because he doesn’t listen, but it could also be a point in the column for the theory that Lorelai never told them.

 Just this small part is enough to make this scene practically perfect. We got the back story before this for the most part in a scene between Lorelai and Sookie, but so far this has given us so much of the relationship between Lorelai and her parents (and a bit into the relationship between Richard and Emily). It soars in it’s ability to shed exposition and get to the root of what this dynamic has been for the last 16 years. It’s even better than the first Friday Night Dinner that happens towards the end of this episode, in my opinion. But now we have the discussion of money and the loan. Gilmore Girls at times handles the class dynamics between Lorelai and her parents so well it approaches Mad Men in what it is saying about whiteness and power and inherited wealth and those that reject it. Other times it is a magical place where money and finances make no sense. But that’s down the line. Here we have the simple act of a child asking their parents for money. Something many people have done with various degrees of injured pride. For some it’s easy, for Lorelai it is immensely difficult. Her saving grace is that it is for Rory, not for her, that she asks. It is interesting to note, that while Lorelai is adverse to the moneyed class her parents are in and the trappings of the white, wealthy elite she still wants her kid to have those advantages that she turned down by having Rory and leaving her parents. She still wants Harvard. She still wants Chilton. She is asking her parents for the money to buy her and Rory’s way back into the world she left behind. Of course she believes that it won’t have to affect their quaint little life in Stars Hollow, but it is interesting nonetheless that this is what she wants for her child and what she believes Rory deserves and needs in order to be what Rory wants to be.

 Before Lorelai can even ask, Richard repeats two times “You need money.” Again, Richard doesn’t mess around and he doesn’t play games (at least not when it comes to calling his daughter out). He doesn’t need to hear her explanation, but Lorelai won’t leave until she gives it and says what she came to say in the way she wants to say it. It’s for Rory, for Chilton, she explains. Emily’s eyes brighten and she notes how close the school is to her house. “So…you need money,” Richard again chimes in, cutting through the bullshit. “Yes,” Lorelai has to admit. But it’s Rory, she repeats, and she will pay them back. “I don’t ask for favors, you know that.” (Lorelai’s anthem) “Oh yes, we know,” Emily admits.  Emily’s voice is rife with bitterness and sadness. She wants to help her daughter, but she’s not allowed to. “I’ll get the check book,” Richard says. It is a sweet moment that is cut short by Emily’s proposal, but sweet regardless. Despite their past and hurt feelings, there is love between these people. Richard does not hesitate and he knows that Emily agrees. Rory binds them all together and certainly they are willing to do this for her, but they are obviously just as willing to do this for Lorelai. 

 And here we have Emily’s proposal that sets up the backbone for this generational family drama. Emily wants to be actively involved in Lorelai and Rory’s lives. She wants dinner once a week and a weekly phone call in exchange for the loan. Kelly Bishop is honestly so pitch perfect in everything in this show. She has that pose and demeanor here that seems almost villainous. It’s why on first watch you might want to always side with Lorelai. Emily is controlling and privileged and she has many faults, but honestly she just loves her daughter and granddaughter and sees an opportunity to force a connection that Lorelai would have denied her for eternity if she had not jumped on it. There is a softness in this. She doesn’t comment on Lorelai’s inability to provide this schooling for Rory herself, or honestly do anything to make her feel bad (in this moment) about her life’s choices. She just wants to be a part of that life now.  Of course it gets messier the more we go into this episode and the series, but for now that’s all there is. We see again Lorelai’s pride, “I don’t want her [Rory] to know that I borrowed money from you.” But that’s not the only fault of Lorelai’s we see in this scene. We see also her stubbornness when it comes to her parents and her oftentimes inability and unwillingness to see the ways they demonstrate their love and their longing for her. She brushes past her mom’s request and agrees to the weekly dinners, but she is annoyed by it. She seems to see it only as her mother controlling her (of course it is this too, but as is often the case with the best scenes in this show people’s motives are both-and. Emily is controlling and vulnerable in this one). She doesn’t see that longing to connect as the simple love of a mother for her daughter that it is.

 And that’s that. So much is revealed besides the plot in this elegantly written and brilliantly acted scene. It is simple and yet I could probably go on about how much this one scene says about this show as a whole. So much is revealed and set up for the series. Of all the iconic scenes in this episode, this one stands above the others and for that reason I think it is underrated.