I feel bad for Toddler Moir

 .
 ^Cassandra Hilborn kissing a little kid's married daddy on the lips, pretending to be his girlfriend and bed buddy. How does it scan in your world, Cass? You're doing it FOR the kid? If SCOTT doesn't mind, it doesn't matter? You have no non-narcissistic values of your own?

What kicks it over the top is the comment. "Hot couple" and "tailgates and tanlines."

Scott will be twenty-six in two weeks. He's the father of a toddler, and here he is.

Toddler Moir doesn't have a chance of growing up to be a mature human being. I don't believe that Toddler Moir will be scarred in the particular way some fans fear the child will - I don't believe Toddler Moir will grow up believing that daddy cheated on mommy with Jessica Dube and Cassandra Hilborn.

Toddler Moir will just grow up without any official acknowledgment of TM's existence during the entire Sochi Olympic cycle, while the relatives in Ilderton elbow their way into the spotlight, and daddy's fake sex life gets its own cheering section. I know these are important distinctions. At least they didn't cheat, Toddler Moir! It was actually all about their love!

Everything was the opposite! No, seriously!

While I don't subscribe to "It was like this for me, ergo it must be like this for everyone" type thinking, I will nevertheless mention that I don't think I would have given a flying fuck that my daddy wasn't sleeping with these ladies, and it was all a con job to protect our privacy as a family. I would still be repulsed by somebody calling him and another lady a "hot couple" and all the rest of it, and I would have been and would remain extremely unexcited by some ladies putting a fantasy romantic life with daddy out on social media using his actual name, and knowing that there are members of the public that think this was daddy and mommy's reality.

Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that even as a child I would know the difference between - we did this for the sham, and we overdid this for the sham. I might wonder how come some of the extra flourishes. #hotcouple, #sleepskyping. #Cass 0 - Tour 1, #definitely sobbed. #someones enjoying this #bad stomach ache #weird feeling.

This is elementary for most people, but as Moirville apparently does not believe in any sort of boundaries, including virtually crawling in between the sheets with their own children, they not only don't recognize that this is going to be uncomfortable for any child who remotely has their head on straight, but it seems to indicate that the sham is actually the least of all possible evils in terms of effective boundaries between Scott and Tessa's private life and the expectations of their nearest and dearest.

Everybody can see what the situation is here, not just the fans. That's what's so uncomfortable.

Everyone outside of Moirville of course, where the zamboni fumes have arrested a lot of people's personalities.

This is about intentionally alienating the public. When we're alienated, it seems to me they think Scott and Tessa belong to them even more.

I say the kid has no chance at growing up to be a mature person because look at the role models. TM may still be in diapers and is already living in a bubble.

This is not a performance by Daddy. This is a con by Daddy. A performance requires willing suspension of disbelief by the audience. The audience knows it is an audience. Here, we have Scott, as Scott, pretending to be in a relationship with someone other than Tessa. This is Daddy, not Daddy pretending to be a character. This is daddy pretending to BE with someone else.

Moirville is so good at understanding context and conveying critical distinctions that I'm sure Daddy's social media lip locking in all its permutations on the web will be explained with no problems, and the kid won't be upset.

They can't possibly anticipate that the kid WILL be upset but have gone ahead and done it anyway, figuring that's the price of dinner. Not when the only agenda at stake is the need to one up a fucking blog, save face to themselves, enable over-involved family members, and put some outspoken internet fans in their place.

If they thought it would upset Toddler Moir down the line, Scott would never do this. Right Scott? You've must have nailed this one down after Tessa studied it in psychology class. You must figure you're on solid child development footing here.

I wonder if they took a hot iron and branded "Property of Ilderton" on Toddler Moir's behind before putting on the first diaper.

For me this is sad, although I haven't articulated all of it for myself. I think this photo is there to provoke. I think it's there to flip the finger at fans. Scott as ever checks his balls at the Arctic Edge arena exit - or at the entrance to the Detroit/Windsor tunnel. I don't mean check them into Tessa's bag, I mean fork them over to the fam.

A family and community that chooses immaturity over respect for their own innocent family member. They choose a pissant fan war that they need to make themselves feel smart.

The photo itself is not a scandal. Scott's kissed a dolphin on the lips. Scott and Tessa are both in show business, which is what figure skating is, essentially, where you fish kiss every other person you meet at certain times of the year, even people you dislike. Cassandra has littered her facebook with photos of herself smooching friends similar to this photo and even more cozily than this photo, so for those who are interested in Cassandra context, it's there, but of course, she's not the point.

Scott's context is he's 26 years old, he's married and he's a father, and there he is.

He'd rather humiliate himself than actually deal with the crux of the problem, and IMO the crux of the problem is selfishness masquerading as support, requiring more time and energy to deal with than he can afford to spend at this time in his life.

There's this, too:

Hear that Toddler Moir? Mommy isn't married to that "Moir dick" and she hooked up with Sidney Crosby in Vancouver.

What do we have here, Toddler Moir-wise? The choice is either that Toddler Moir's nearest and dearest are a bunch of unfiltered, petty, needy, entitled, boundary breaching, overbearing, chip-on-shoulder, narcissistic cases of stubbornly arrested development that Toddler Moir's parents cope with by cravenly enabling left and right, OR the public supporters of Toddler Moir's parents' skating are such incredible assholes Toddler Moir's existence had to be edited out for almost four years. The latter scenario is intriguing - the idea that the fan intrusiveness they experience is dire enough to edit out their kid's existence from the record, while simultaneously fan intrusiveness was never actually serious enough to warrant the employment of a competent sports management agency.

Both scenarios are a wonderful reason to bring a child into the world at ages 21 and 23. Why wait til you can function like a freaking human.

Moirville wants the public to have all kinds of misconceptions and wrong ideas about Scott and Tessa, but especially Scott. That proves our inferiority, and it asserts their ownership.

I tell you what this is - it's humiliating. Not for US, but to see Scott. Where to even start - a twenty six year old man, a father, a husband, a man who as an athlete, a skater, a competitor - is ferociously smart and plain ferocious. He doesn't give a fuck what you, me or anyone else thinks or says in that arena. Fuck us. He knows himself, he knows what kind of skater he is.

Even if we don't know him, we know that about him.

So when we see that guy do this, it mortifies. We're in on something we shouldn't be seeing. Not the kiss. The family dynamics and agendas and how it works on Scott. We shouldn't be seeing it and that's one thing I don't think they know they're showing us. What we see is an Olympic champion and a husband and a father whose original family has no respect for him as a man, compared to what they expect from him. We can all see it. He's not a man to them. He's Scotty. The sham diminishes him, as do they.

I believe the intent of this photo is not sham. I think it's posted to alienate the fans on the web; it's to flip us off, and of course Scott throws himself on the sword, as usual.

I'm not saying he doesn't have a choice - he has a choice, but weighing the hierarchy of priorities and all of the other stuff he's got going on, the personalities, the histories - this is path of least resistance. Just chew on that one. THIS is the path of least resistance. Think about what the alternatives must entail.

It's uppity as shit of me, and very fanlike, but I'm humiliated for the guy. Somebody should be, so I'll do it! I'm mortified for him.

Scott and Tessa are connected to and part of larger communities (internationally, in Detroit, in the larger elite athletic performance community, in the USA, and others) that have nothing to do with Moirville. And so Moirville defaults to competing with the public for ownership. One-sided competition, but they need to feel better than, and we're all they've got.

They portray the public as wanting ownership of Scott and Tessa, so Moirville can assert their superior claim, and win. Ego-wise, it's as lowest common denominator as it gets, and weird. But if it walks like a duck ...

It's pitiful. Even if Virtue Moir's true status was public domain, we in the public wouldn't know Scott and Tessa, we wouldn't have a relationship with Scott and Tessa.

I think it's more than the type of competition involved in "being right" or "not giving in". It's more than pretending Scott/Tessa's marriage is a secret and insisting on the sham against all evidence that not many people even buy it.

As the sham has morphed over time, I think it's now morphed into an alienation device. The more we're alienated, the more Scott and Tessa belong to Moirville.

This will be one of those posts that gets a lot of editing because it's one of those posts where I'm processing my reaction while posting.

P.S., while this next remark may be egocentric of me, I don't care. I suspect that because the blog banner mocked the Cassandra sham's recent use of poorly lit long shots, they decided to one up with a clearly focused lip kiss. That's the level here.

And I may owe Meagan Duhamel an apology. I may call her out for being a poor sport, for taking potshots at her teammates on social media, but at least she signs her name to that activity. That's unlike Scott and Tessa who pretend to be completely above it but engage on a pettier level than Meagan. Meagan may be breaking athlete/fan protocol by directly engaging a fan (you should never EVER break that fourth wall). But Moirville is actually mud wrestling with the fucking blog and other fans on social media while posing as too good for any of it. Meagan, I apologize to you.

And btw, Scott is choosing his original family over his child. I understand how everything can be wanked to rationalize that this is all for his kid, but it isn't. Erasing this child for the entirety of the Sochi cycle while his brothers make sure their own kids get their moment in the spotlight is not for the sake of his child with Tessa. It's because he's chosen to enable his original family, which means he's chosen them over his new family. If a kid comes into the world and for the first three years - and who knows how long it will continue - daddy is smooching it up on social media with other women (in photos that will be there forever with gifs, commentary, tumblr, fan wars, etc. in public) while denying he's even dated mommy, let alone admitting you're alive, while the kid's relatives are out there in public with their hands out, hustling their skating club, there is something wrong, and it's not fans.

I wonder this: if who you are or pretend to be for the public doesn't matter, and won't matter to Toddler Moir (who at some point we may see competing in novice claiming to have been cloned in a petri dish) - why did Jeff Buttle use an article on his hockey playing to unofficially come out? Why does Jeff care how real he presents himself to the public.

And why did Scott give a fuck that someone was faking as Tessa Virtue on facebook? That's just social media, Scott, why did you care?

Scott appears far more sensitive about his wife than he is about his child. But that's just a public impression.

Why is Scott completely unable to pretend he's anything but in love with Tessa, even in public? He can't say anything about her that doesn't adore her. As that is something that undermines the whole sham, why doesn't he put that in check? When he was Jessica-Dube-ing, he could have done a whole lot better, quote-wise, than to say "My girlfriend is sometimes bugged by it all, but you know, fuck her if she can't deal with it. Tessa is part of me."

That was his tone.

Everything he does with Tessa appears to be in his DNA - it doesn't matter if he's in public. It's DNA.

It's odd that it doesn't seem to extend to his child.

(P.S. - all that said, and as embarrassed for Scott as I am, I completely believe that if money were involved he'd suddenly grow a pair. They're wonderful like that.)

Another question about Toddler Moir to throw out there - Scott adores Tessa; she adores him. She's locked down. But Tessa never kissed Fedor for the sham. She never kissed Ryan Semple for the sham. Scott's a little sensitive, so you know, let's respect that.

Yet Scott has placed his lips on women who are not Tessa, while his child is growing up, a sitting duck to see these photos. As sensitive as Scott is about Tessa and even freaking gay guys who have no interest in getting into her pants, as sensitive as he can be about sham matters on her end when he knows everything's platonic, and as sensitive as he is when she's interacting with guys for work, his child is expected to just take what he does for the sham in stride. He can't handle it with Tessa even when it's nothing, but apparently his kid is a lot tougher and less sensitive, and will process all of the stuff he does in photos with women not mommy just fine. It will make perfect sense to TM.

Are these photos wish fulfillment for Moirville - look, what if he were married to a narcissistic idiot we could manipulate instead of Tessa?

Can't blame us if we wonder, but us wondering shit just serves their purpose. Alienation. That's what they want.