You can overdo the auto filter

Cass Brook's 'album cover' reminded me so much of Celine Dion publicity stills and cover art, I went to see if the similarities carried over to other Cassandra/Celine photos.

By "reminded" I don't mean to insult the professionals who create Celine Dion's stuff, but just that in these photos, the women resemble each other. The set of the mouth, pumping up the hair and wearing it like a curtain, accessory, femininity signifier, and then boosting the glow and softening stuff up, and the angles.

I think in all these shots Celine is older than 23. She was in the same Hello magazine edition that recognized Jessica Dube, she's got a great long legged well proportioned skinny body and big eyes, but at the same time, even if she'd been this polished at 23 I don't know if she'd be everyone's first choice for commercial, glamor, fashion or other type of modeling.

If you're 23 and dialing up the filter this hard people tend to wonder what's behind all the hair and blown out lighting. There's photoshop, which is used on almost everything, and there's this.

So I think the photos are on the wrong track, but who knows.

She needs a portfolio for sure. The model mayhem site that Cassandra has recently joined requires 4 photos from anyone who requests membership. Cassandra uploaded five, including this

selfie, which I can't even. I assumed she likes how it's rotated because that's how it's living on the site. The other four are from what appears to be a professional or semi-professional shoot.

So I don't think she's done any modeling she hasn't paid for herself.* And since we've already seen these photos from her on social media months ago and she didn't have any new ones to represent herself with on Model Mayhem, I think Tessa probably owes her a photo session upgrade with someone who can keep their mouse clicker off lens flare, rather than leaving Cassandra to hustle herself with strangers (I actually have a lightbulb moment further down about this).

reviews of model mayhem

She has to get a little help here; Virtue Moir need to be more pro-active, like they and SC were with Jessica. Think of the thousands Virtue Moir saved in air travel last season.

Cassandra was "revealed" as Scott's new honey in m'ovember and she joined Model Mayem in April, so I think anyone who thought she took the sham gig hoping it would be a transition out of dental hygiene-ing and into something more gratifying nailed it.

If you sign up for that purpose (exposure) but it works out to be a now you see it now you don't instagram and twitter situation, and you're way more under the radar than your predecessor, your ambitions might be thwarted. A whole season went by and she's got the same "portfolio" she started with.

There's a comments section on Model Mayhem where members can remark on photos so just FYI Moirville, get somebody in there to exclaim "you and Scott should do a shoot together!" or "great seeing you and Scott in Florida!" There's not much cross-pollination there with skating but we all know fans find stuff. They found this.

(Oh wait a minute - she joined in April. Maybe they're already working this and that's the entire reason she's there. We've got it backwards. People here were all 'she wants to be a model" and it gave Moirville the idea to have Cassandra work a minor but public site like MM (the way the m'ovember page was minor and off the beaten track, but easily found).

That could be why she's using the same photos all the fans have already seen and not bothered with better shots - so they'll recognize her immediately. It's a set up, and then someone will start commenting, mentioning Scott, or she'll put photos there, with comments like "Scott took this!"

What are the odds on that one? The moderators on Model Mayhem are described as absentee Nazis but there's no comment guidelines I've read or rules about leaving links.)

23 is young but it's mature to have only these types of photos representing your nascent modeling career, even if you only aspire locally.

So what was it, a Cinderella complex? Become a dental hygienist, keep investing in good hair conditioner, do the bar circuit and hope somebody great marries you or somebody is struck by your qualifications and offers you modeling opportunities or wants to take your picture? It just seems like a long time to be hanging around aspiring without proactively doing. Maybe she likes short-cuts and thought one would come along sooner than (she hopes) it did.

*Although there's a link to a "portfolio" on her profile page. However, what can be in the portfolio considering the photos she's using as a calling card to look for work and "build" her portfolio. It comes off as if she wants to build "a" portfolio versus one that already exists.

And it could be a placeholder profile page for future backdoor shamming.

Why haven't Scott and Tessa been asked about the rumor?

I'm not touting this blog's horn, but after over two years the blog has become as much a part of the Scott/Tessa fan discussion matrix as any of the skating or Virtue/Moir fan discussion forums. I think the baby "rumor" has now made it onto twitter as often as the David Pelletier rumor did when that was flying.

The marriage and baby rumor has made it into mainstream discussion sites. It's part of the lexicon even as a joke. "Where are they hiding the baby"?

Most online fans, even super fans - especially super fans -  believe Scott and Tessa are platonic - at least that's what fans say publicly. And this doesn't stop some media from claiming that 'dreamers' and 'ubers' insist they're together. (Which is something that Scott and Tessa are making up - it doesn't happen - and that "dreamers and ubers say they're together" shit started before the blog. Dreamers and ubers are the ones most adamant about Scott and Tessa being platonic, and they write fan fic about it.)

The Pelletier story - existing purely on the internet - was finally, albeit obliquely, addressed and dismissed by Virtue Moir.

And 'journalists' continue to invent, so as to allow Virtue Moir to shoot down , "dating" rumors.

How come nobody has asked them about the silly rumor going around the internet that they have a secret baby?

Think about how non-offensive this is if it's a lie/rumor and not the truth. Two completely platonic figure skaters, dear friends, both with good senses of humor, both accustomed to fan fantasy/craziness, partners who made the promotional rounds months on end to discuss how platonic they are, are the targets of a rumor that they're married with a baby. Fans - and we all know fans - especially internet fans - are fantasists, bless them - have now cooked up a story that Scott and Tessa are, not dating, but "secretly" married with a kid. It's kicked around on twitter all the time.

I know that the usual people - Skate Canada, the usual entertainment and figure skating journalists - are aware.

There's nothing offensive in laughing off a rumor that you're married and have a child - if neither is true. It's funny.

"Ha ha, I don't know where we'd hide a baby - maybe in Tessa's luggage!" "I think when my brothers had babies people went overboard and wanted to include me, but nope. Someday though I hope!"

These are the jokes you make when
you don't have a child together.

But they're never asked.

Yet they're asked about stuff that doesn't happen all the time. They're asked about fans insisting they're together when most fans insist they're not. They offer up that people think Carmen was too sexy when fans loved the shit out of that program because of the skating. There was a persistent Pelletier rumor, that went on about a year, but they waited less than a year before shooting it down in their elliptical Virtue Moir way.

Where are their guts? Can't they say the words - not "we're not dating" but "We're not married" and, more to the point "We're not parents." Can't they say that? They use kids all the time to manipulate. They basically outright deny the one they have. Can't they say the words 'We don't have a child together"?

Hell, they could wank it and say we have no "SECRET" baby as the baby is not a secret to anyone who can work their 6 degrees of separation down to a reliable source. That would be just semantics. They can further wank semantics and say they have no "baby" as their little one is no longer a baby.

They have the gall, for sure. Scott can pose with fake gfs in circumstances that a lot of people find extremely sad, considering his actual status, but if inside their bubble they find it heroic, what can you do. They obviously know all about child psychology as well as their child's future personality, and know this won't cause any harm at all. They could seriously throw down just by saying "We're not married" and "we didn't have a baby between Worlds 2010 and 4CCs 2011."

They love to deny shit. Why not this? Again, the actual rumor is just silly - if it weren't the truth. The David Pelletier one was worse - Tessa homewrecked Canadian sweethearts.

A couple of dear, close platonic buddies are rumored to be married and have a child? That's a piece of cake. Laugh it off on the record, Scott and Tessa. Stop exploiting gullible surrogates like Heather to do it for you.

***************

Comment 9:09 pm in the post below this one has linked to Cassandra's profile (thanks) on "modelmayem.com", last activity "today" (a/k/a Tessa's birthday, May 17):



Kind of a later join date.

The second that fans got a look at Cassandra's social media stylings it didn't take a genius to see she harbors modeling dreams. The quasi professional, auto-tuned photos, the security blanket hair, several remarks in the comments indicating that her dream is to cash in on what she thinks are marketable looks.

There's a motive to act the fake girlfriend role. Notoriety is as good as celebrity. Even psycho Rebecca Martinson:

Michael Shannon reads Rebecca Martinson's email

got a job offer after her email went viral. It was from an online porn site, but baby steps.

I think, though, that Cassandra was using Moirville logic. Moirville logic doesn't understand context.

Cassandra is a cute, glamor model prospect in context.

What context? "Scott Moir's girlfriend".

"Scott Moir skates on frigid ice during the day but at home it's hot hot hot. Cass Hilborn and the Olympic medalist have been dating almost a year. While fans dream Scott and his cutie pie partner Tessa, are a couple, Cass laughs it off.  Tessa can glide with him across the ice, but Cass heats him up at home."

That's how it works. Cass, as the girlfriend, gets modeling jobs in which her credential is "girlfriend." This type of gig exploits the celebrity bf connection while stoking the ego of the subject by saying her sex appeal is a force in its own right. The girlfriend angle is what would set her apart from every other girl in a bar. Then she leverages that into being a personality.

However, is Scott going to green light Cassandra using his name as her label, as her angle, for modeling gigs? A published angle, a selling point in the headline, byline or caption?

Or, does Cassandra think that among those who find her photos via hunting for Scott stuff will be prospective employers or photographers who go "who's that girl?" and reach out with leads for her, no desire to use the Scott angle at all?

Just like Scott and Tessa aren't asked, in legit media, on the record, about the stories they're married parents, I question if Scott would allow his name to be linked to Cassandra's to help advance her glamor modeling ambitions.

Without Scott, she's got til about age 27 or so to be paid for being at someone's bar or club - social media type promotional gigs that a lot of local girls use post-school/pre-"real" career. She can get that stuff without him.

I know more about real modeling than glamor modeling, and with real modeling, and before a girl is hired, and despite how images are altered once a model has the job, clients and photographers want to know how the girl actually looks - what the raw material is. They don't go for the gauze and filter - that's amateur. "Glamor" modeling - a very flexible category - may be different.

Still Crazy After all These Years

Until the new Cassandra sham elements surface, the blog will mostly stick to DW versus VM til after worlds, but I did want to pause for this post:

I went through the fsu posts from those purporting to see the blog for the first time - and it seemed obvious some were seeing it for the first time and OMG.

The blog is fucking crazy! There's a run on brain bleach, there's people confronted with the limits around which their minds can stretch (not around the topic, but that there exists a person (me, the blogger) so deranged they could make all this up) there's faulty reading comprehension and there's logical fallacies but apart from that it's near unanimous that the blog is, among blogs, a freak. There is, of course, one or two 'there ought to be a law' sorts, but mostly it's get the butterfly net.

And what makes it a freak?

The premise. That Scott and Tessa have been together long since prior to the onset of his sham relationship with Jessica. That they got married in 2009 before the Olympics and yet afterwards, with Tessa pregnant, appeared in different markets touting how very platonic they are. That in every interview they were faking it.

That Scott paraded himself with Jessica and now with Cassandra, that they spoke explicitly to countless media and entertainment outlets that they weren't together and were completely platonic. That Skate Canada was a big participant, that the sainted Ilderton Ontario extols its love and gratitude for Canadian fans out of one side of their mouth while mocking them and ripping them off with the other, and that their practice is to say the exact opposite of whatever is true, and they've got a lot of familiar figure skating faces, family and friends, helping them, while marketing how home grown and unassuming everything is.

And a whole bunch of other stuff that still continues today, and we'll see plenty more of it as it comes to the fore again very soon.

That shit is fucking crazy.

So, in case the blog hasn't said so before - I agree. This shit is fucking batshit crazy. It's certifiable.

Yes it is. Fuck yeah "OMG". "OMFG" in fact.

And it's also true.

That doesn't make it any less crazy but here I am, carrying the label of a nutjob in some quarters all because Scott and Tessa lost their minds with this beyond any mind losing of any celebrity or demi celebrity in the history of celebrity. An epic clusterfuck of imbecility and arrogance.

They're the crazy ones, but they get to front as sane, as victims of a nutty blogger!

Is that fair?

I always thought I had a pretty good grasp of basic law concepts. For example, when starting this blog, I looked over the google blogger TOS very thoroughly, and also checked out a whole bunch of blogs outside the 'pantywaist'* figure skating universe and found plenty of blogs that make this one look circumspect.  I understood, as some people around the web do not, that there's no "figure skating" blog category in which figure skaters and their fans must be treated with kid gloves due to tradition and their conservative sensibilities.

But still, some of the legal talk has made me curious. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I can file a lawsuit under the blogger name (a la a 'John Doe' action) complaining that the name of oycanada has been defamed because the subjects of oc's blog are lying their asses off, being licentious nutjobs, hoax perpetrators and scam artists, and thus making oc appear to be the crazy one.

There ought to be a law. Isn't there one? Can't I obtain a restraining order stopping Tessa and Scott from shamming because it's damaging the blog's reputation and the blogger's name  - that if they must continue, they have to admit they are doing it, reimburse everyone who wants a refund from the book, and acknowledge that the blog's premise isn't crazy, but fact?

After all they reached out to US (to me, as it were. A fan).  In the 'who started it' category they lose. 

I think it's downright patriotic in both the US and Canada to resist being made a fool of by a bunch of lunatics, to push back against a large scale attempt to set people up, lead them on so as to play them for fools, use them as stooges and manipulate them for personal advantage. The blog began because this was what Scott and Tessa were doing.

It was practically a David and Goliath scenario!

The poor blog's everything from fundamental sanity to eyesight (no way Tessa could have been pregnant!) has been challenged based on only one thing - that anyone who writes what the blog writes and believes it to be true, must need to be committed.

But it is true. 

I feel like there must be some sort of motion, order or procedural process that can be legally pursued to compel the subjects of this blog to publicly set down the relevant facts about Scott and Tessa, so the judgment of crazy can at least be made on valid grounds.  As it is, the blog is being defamed simply because Scott and Tessa get to maintain their lies.

Maybe I'll pm some of the legal experts that are rife among the figure skating message boards.

_________________
*Downton Abbey era term for pearl-clutching, easily offended wimpiness.

Cassandra will look great in yellow

The Ilderton skating club (and Alma Moir) is using London Worlds 2013 and Scott and Tessa as a fundraiser - hawking Worlds 2013 versions of the 2009-2010 Olympic "Believe" sweatshirts in a flattering shade of yellow at $20.00 per.

The cause is worthy - its bursary fund, which assists the club and young club figure skaters.

But boy, they really work the Scott and Tessa thing for the town, don't they?  Did they want Tessa and Scott to win the Olympics because of love for them, appreciation for their hard work and talent, and home town pride, or because they thought if Tessa and Scott won, Ilderton, and skating enterprises Moir, would hit the jackpot? Don't even mention all the support we gave over the years kids - you'll be paying us back the rest of your lives.

If I came from Mayberry I wouldn't want Mayberry to think it owned me. I don't think I'd want to serve as an exclusive Mayberry fundraising resource that Mayberry gloms onto whenever I'm town for something crucial to the next year of my career, when I'm in town as an elite athlete for the most critical competition of the pre-Olympic cycle (and we know the type of tunnel vision that requires), and I'm a spouse, and I'm a parent to a young child. But sure Mayberry, climb aboard on my back. I'm always ready to hand over the pound of flesh demanded in payment for your support. Where would I be without you? 

Or maybe every time I rolled into Mayberry I'd know it would be a nightmare no matter what, so may as well pile all the agendas on top of me at once and get it done.

I wonder if Ann Arbor has these expectation$ of Charlie and Meryl.

What am I saying. Remember that article during Canadians, how Scott and Tessa flee the insularity of Canton for the refreshingly NON-skating obsessed region of Ilderton and London? Meryl and Charlie probably have it way worse. All of Canton up in their grill, clamoring for their time and attention. Detroit never gets out of their face.

I know there was often a sea of Michelle Kwan support when she competed, but it wasn't organized, and I don't think it was from her dad Danny's various enterprises. Plus she was a California girl and even if when she skated there the stands were filled, people from California go out the exits and have other stuff to do besides figure skating.

It just seems like a crass thing to focus on during these worlds, in particular. At least in this way. But hey, this is the last worlds, so better squeeze the pump.

Yes, children, everyone thinks you're going to lose to Davis White at these Worlds, setting Davis White up to defeat you at the Olympics. Yes if you can't soundly defeat them with Carmen you may be screwed.

But forget that. What have you done for Ilderton lately? This is Ilderton's big chance - while you're still eligible, and they've done so much for you. It's family.

The pitch is - buy the sweatshirts to have a sea of visible support for Scott and Tessa, but at $20.00 a sweatshirt (which won't produce a fortune in that venue, it's true) - the point is to sell those shirts and fill out the bursary coffers.

The Moirs get right in there promoting. I certainly hope they're aiming this initiative at family/friends they already know have secured their tickets and will be attending or rooting. I hope they're not doing fan outreach, prompting fans to dig into their pockets for the Ilderton skating club.

Because the gall.

Thoughts:

• are Virtue Moir supporters having an easier time with Worlds tickets than other fans? The Ilderton club's goal is for the venue to be a "sea of yellow".
• When is it going to be the Virtues' turn to capitalize on their famous kids/relatives? One of Tessa's brothers teaches school - doesn't that school have fund raising drives it can piggyback onto something Scott and Tessa are doing? Are no Virtues opening restaurants in London? I believe the Virtues supported Scott and Tessa coming up every bit as much as Moirville did.

Maybe the Virtues have their hands out in private.

Ilderton as ever proceeds on the notion that everybody is an extrovert, no less the people competing. Everything's about group, group, group. God forbid you're the personal space type of person, or a breathing room believer. You'll suffocate.

• Are these people gonna buy the sweatshirts, cheer their lungs out, then head off home, or are they going to be working their contacts and burning up email trying to see if Scott and Tessa have any time to spend or if Scott and/or Tessa could spare some time cause it would thrill Kelly, Grandpa, Suzie, Uncle Phil or little Emma and make their life?

I haven't worked it out entirely why I think this if off-putting - it's just a gut feeling. An extremely tension filled Worlds at home. And mom and aunts and everybody are whipping up the town to be all up in your grill, and they are also whipping up the town to purchase some sweatshirts and do some fundraising in your name.

Maybe competitive athletes can think of nothing more exciting and there's nothing they appreciate more.

It's family, so no matter what other pressures are on them at this Worlds, THIS is something they have to support.

There's something about it though. It feels inconsiderate. But that's me. I don't come from a small town that's about nothing but figure skating. If I were an Olympic figure skater about to take the ice at home, maybe I'd want everybody I know to shell out $20.00 for my mom and aunt's club bursary fund and fill the arena cheering, because I certainly want to be even more in their debt. No better time to get that done than an athletic competition where the pressure is excruciating.

Whatever - if you're a Virtue and Moir fan - a real fan - you'll dig into your wallet and get one of these fabulous yellow sweatshirts. $20.00 is the least you can spend after all Virtue and Moir have done for their fans.

Whatever else is planned in addition to aggressive sweatshirt hawking, you know it's going to be a sham-palooza. I fully expect Cassandra in the yellow Believe shirt to turn up in instagrams and profile pictures and mobile uploads - if not parked mid-Moirs.

ETA: Another thing - the self-appointed fan police - those who claim ties to the Moirs or knowledge a couple of steps removed - need to check themselves, IMO. Bear in mind that if we are meant to take Scott and Tessa's platonic status for real, anyone who suspects they have a baby is nuts, and should be treated as nuts, just as it would be if a bunch of fans got together and speculated that Meryl and Charlie had a secret baby.

You do not take it upon yourself to thrust yourself into a fan conversation somewhere and proclaim them wrong by virtue of your superior insider status.

What would be the point? The blog has been talking about it for 2 years. Why is it so important to put in check about half a dozen fans chatting on a fan site somewhere? That accomplishes what? Virtue and Moir have already made it clear that what fans say and think has no bearing on what they're going to claim fans say and think, and the media is going to go with Virtue and Moir's version. Fan speculation or even outright assertions don't affect the Moirs at all. They're undeterred.

So the purpose of interfering is -- what?

Something to do?

That would be it. It accomplishes nothing but to satisfy the ego of the person butting in.

Scott and Tessa, and any fans who speculate or reason out about them - are none of these people's business. They tried it with the blog and with fan discussions that took place prior to the blog. But now they've decided well, we can't control the blog types, but we better set the "safe" group straight.

They need to back off.

It's not their business, and furthermore, it only fuels the speculation because no other figure skater has self-appointed family friends or acquaintances or connections running around policing what fans say, while the subjects themselves keep their mouths shut. When some people thought Charlie was Jewish, Jacquie White went somewhere (wikipedia?) to say he wasn't and actually almost overshared about where the idea originated. When people fretted that Kristen Moore-Towers' news was a split with Dylan, SHE went to facebook to say that wasn't the news.  But every busybody in Ontario thinks it's their business to check fans when it comes to Scott and Tessa.

It isn't. Fans are allowed to think for themselves and see for themselves. If Scott or Tessa or any actual Moir or Virtue wanted to set the record straight, they've had ample opportunity. God knows they talk about a whole bunch of other stuff.

And furthermore, I think some busybody going the extra mile to make sure fans think something that was for Scott and Tessa's kid wasn't for their kid is absolutely grotesque. That kid is going to grow up.

P.S. Obviously, the motivation for a lot of the fan police is to protect the insider status. They enjoy being the ones who know something others don't. The "don't like to share" might also explain some of the home town enthusiasm for the sham as well.

Stop the presses. Carmen is difficult. (And a round up of other stuff)

http://www.lfpress.com/2013/02/05/local-pairs-new-routine-is-extremely-difficult

Latest gem from Ryan Pyette of lfpress. Carmen is HARD.

Better late than never, I guess.

The article doesn't spell out WHY Carmen is difficult, however. Suppose Ryan doesn't know?

How can that be? He's a figure skating journalist!

Apparently in an early iteration of this article he wrote that Davis White and Virtue Moir each have two world titles.

The article headline also calls Virtue Moir a "pair". I know they meant it as in "couple",  but "pair" has a specific figure skating meeting, especially if the topic is a team's competitive program.

What does it matter? It's figure skating!

I can't blame him for believing Davis & White already have two world titles - all of the press this season for Davis White have positioned them as without flaw and completely unbeatable and Virtue Moir more or less chasing futility. Scott Hamilton called Davis White the "Best in the world". You'd think they were defending World champs and reigning Olympic champions. But that's the memo. Davis and White are IT.

Pyette points out that Virtue and Moir haven't been able to beat Davis and White so far this year.

Does he know Virtue and Moir have competed against Davis and White only once this year?

He also brilliantly says that the difference will come down to who doesn't make mistakes.

I don't think so. I think Davis and White can make a couple of non-element mistakes or even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it twizzle error and still come away with 10s in pcs and +2 and +3 GOES and all their levels, but Virtue Moir will be held to the fire. Davis and White will get credit for apparent speed (to me it's hectic,  and Virtue Moir cover more ice per stroke and are actually just as fast) and Virtue and Moir will not get pc credit for the extreme difficulty of their program, nor will they get credit for their unison, extended blade drive, and control - or their own speed. The stunning twizzle sequence will be eh and meh - at least compared to Davis & White.

It's not that Davis & White aren't good - they are. It's that they are judged by a different standard. From many accounts by those who have seen both teams in the same competition, there's not much of a speed differential, and it's claimed by some who were at Worlds 2011 that Virtue Moir were faster. Davis & White are "busier" though. They're nonstop, they're hectic, frantic, breathless - and of course none of this says anything whatsoever about control. Varying tempo and pace (which is not the same as speed) elongating and holding some moves while demonstrating exquisite blade control says nothing about your skating skills. You know what says a lot about your skating skills? Churning through the program at a breakneck, one-note pace.

Oh well, the writing is on the wall and the momentum is on their side.

Now I'm going to once again bring up something I put in the comments section in the post below this.

Scott proclaims the greatness of Canada and Canadians while treating Canadian fans like dirt. But if fans were really the reason the sham exists, why would it be so sloppy, so schizophrenic, so unprofessional, smirking and inconsistent? Why would the amount of sham and the numbers involved consistently exceed what would be required if privacy were the purpose?

Why would Scott and Tessa stir the pot just when fans were doing what Scott and Tessa presumably want them to do - back off? And how is it that the interest of the community and the family and friends has not waned? They're always available!

You'd think they were all still in high school. Maybe they wish they still were.

It's not fans whom Scott and Tessa are managing and keeping at bay with the sham. Fans are just pretext. The ones being managed are the other hangers-on, old school friends, old family friends, skating friends, family members, the needy at Skate Canda (are any more needy than some Skate Canada directors) and the needy at home - for whom Scott and Tessa's gold medal is the validation of a lifetime or for whom their reflected glory feels like opportunity.

The sham might be easier to get your arms around when considered as a home town community expedience. It redirects the home town community's focus away from Scott and Tessa themselves, personally, while giving the community an ongoing role to play in their lives, a role that proves Scott and Tessa haven't grown beyond the community. They still need the community, and the community wants the reassurance that it's still needed.

It especially gives Tessa that buffer.

Not that I think Tessa wouldn't and doesn't adore having hundreds of people consider her family, and entitled to know and speculate on all the intimate details of her personal life and decisions with Scott, to her face or behind her back or both, regardless of their actual relationship with her.

This isn't corruption. This is an honor.
In Moirville, there is nothing more important Quinn Moir
could be doing with her first breaths. Her uncle
won a GOLD MEDAL.

(^The above photo made perfect sense. When a woman in my family gives birth, one of the first in line to hold the baby immediately after delivery is always the long-distance girlfriend of the mother's brother-in-law. Everybody wants her to display it as her profile photo immediately. There's nobody more appropriate.

^This kind of shit illustrates how grandiose the position Scott and Tessa's fame holds in the eyes and minds of Moirville. Their accomplishment is felt personally, sustaining the connection is important for the ego and personally validating; Scott and Tessa must never outgrow it. They're still the same - and as so many Ildertonians are still the same - what's more validating than the belief that the hometown heroes are as well?.

It seems very important to these Ilderton people. Who Scott and Tessa are, personally, and what they become - and who they validate -  has an importance that is disproportionate to the place it should occupy in the real lives of anyone not Scott and Tessa themselves.

To too many of them, it's about them. To quote John Lennon, it's bigger than Jesus for them. And as such, they're making themselves ridiculous.)

No doubt Scott and Tessa's little one will grow up to be as uninterested in the lives of their parents as most little kids are in the lives of their parents. I believe Michael J. Scott and his wife, Tracy Pollan, have said that their children are bored by Family Ties reruns from the time their parents first met.

It will be a thrill for neices Charlotte and Quinn to hear their names in the Kiss'n'Cry in public archival video of Scott and Tessa's competitive career, but Scott and Tessa's own little one isn't going to care that they were completely erased from the historical record of Scott and Tessa's exciting competitive career  - a history that everyone else in Ilderton has tried to put their public fingerprints on in one way or the other.

And Scott and Tessa's grandchildren won't care either.

What's really important is that the grown Moirs, the Medway and Fanshawe alumni and associations, and other connections in Ilderton and London feel validated and elevated NOW. Everybody, no matter what they're doing with their lives, is reassured that Scott and Tessa didn't become "better than". They still belong to home.

Scott and Tessa have helped them think and believe this way by giving them a role "manipulating" one of the categories of people the home crowd feels comfortably superior to - a bunch of women, a bunch of outsiders  - many of them GRAY HAIRED - who can afford to attend figure skating events or follow it on the internet.

As much as I've read from this London/Ilderton group, as congenial as they are - self-questioning they're not. Self-examination isn't their strong suit and maturity isn't either.

They walked into this with big heavy boots without ever examining some of its dubious premises and assumptions. They dug a crater sized hole with this thing that says more about their near insatiable need for validation and importance-by-association, that says more about the outsize, oversize role figure skating plays in their world, than it does about the reality of Scott and Tessa's "relationship" with fans or the role figure skating celebrities play in the world of figure skating fans.

What sets Scott and Tessa apart from other famous skaters? Their community. And who are the only ones with the outsized, ridiculous, absurdist, egocentric and puerile fan relationship schemes that have no link whatsoever to either privacy needs or basic logic? Scott and Tessa. This is all emotion and ego-based. It's neediness.

There's a connection. The sham does reflect the community.

Even though Ilderton's got farming roots, I think that community could use a little fresh air and its denizens could do with getting out more. Out of the skating world, out of a complacent mindset. At least before they decide it's perfectly fine to fuck over people who've done nothing to them, when there's no need for it. All to gratify their personal need to feel important by proxy.

If any of these people actually do hold a low opinion of fans, fan expectations and fan behavior, all we have to do is look at THEIR expectations and behavior, and their need to be included and involved, and wonder how much they're projecting onto fans. They're needy enough themselves. But of course, in their own estimation, they're a lot better than fans. Fans must be WORSE.

I bet fans are not. I bet what fans want from Tessa and Scott - Scott, especially - is a whole lot more reasonable than what these people expect from him. It must a nightmare - people who actually know you, equipped with a fan's greediness for validation, entitlement to access and a belief that they're due the details.

And that certainly does put Scott in a unique position among currently competing figure skaters, particularly his training mates who hail from slightly more diversified home towns such as Ann Arbor and New York.

The Cassandra/Scott photos have all been sitting (or one sitting, the other standing).
Or the "party pictures" - cut off at the waist and in at least one Hilborn bent at the waist.
Was Scott standing on a crate? Is Cassandra sitting higher up on something or standing
on a box up there? Let's see full body Scott and Cassandra side by side.

P.S. - down below in the comments someone mentioned how profilic a girlfriend Cassandra is being on twitter - she's giving Jessica a run for her money with the swoony chatter about Scott and vacations after worlds and missing him and how she loves and adores him  - all stuff most people twitter about to their besties. Especially when your pals live in the same city. Why text when you can twitter in front of strangers? Scott likes the type - Jessica had the same habits.

The comments also mention that Tessa's presumed boyfriends are less prolific. Well, yeah. They shoot out an instagram or one of their pals feeds them an easy one about Tessa, and then they're out of material. And why is that? They lack an audience. If Tessa decided to annoint one of those Medway boys as her new boyfriend, twitter would see a whole lot more activity, because none of it is really for us. It's to give the folks at home something to do.

I remember with Jessica. She'd have up a profile picture of just herself. She'd be posting deathless status updates about Starbucks or Cafe Presse. Facebook would languish like this weeks on end. Scott has dinner with the Queen of England - not a peep from Jessica or any of her pals. Scott who?

Suddenly - the bell rings and she'd bolt from the gate. She'd start posting all over the place - most of all on Ildertonian & Co. facebooks. At times you'd see her losing focus - substituting exclamation points for content, but it was all happening in one manic spurt. She'd be here, there and everywhere. Someone in Ilderton would sneeze and Jessica God bless you'd.

And why was she all over Moirville? Because they were waiting. It was to.give.them.something.to.do.

When you're trying to give people MATERIAL, quantity matters. You can't have half of Medway descending on the same status update or comment. You've got to post something on your own wall for Carol, Cara and/or Alma and maybe a couple of others, then you have to go running around all over Facebookland planting opportunities for everyone else to weigh in. If she slacked off, she'd hear from the Moir Matriarchs, you can be sure, so she ran it like her hair was on fire. Then,  just as abruptly as it all started  - silence.

Tessa - she had Fedor. I don't think the people around Fedor really gave a shit about using Fedor's sham connection with Tessa to claim some turf for themselves alongside the exciting Moir Virtue ascension road to figure skating royalty. Fedor had friends in US skating mostly, he had friends in Europe, he had peer friends and not as many older people up in his business, and he had car friends. So a twitpic and a passing mention of Tessa sufficed. He was just lip servicing with his end of the sham. He wasn't trying to feed multitudes. Unlike Scott. And the Virtue side of the family wasn't looking to get in on Tessa's sham action. Her stuff was just to balance out Scott's end, and Scott's end created activities for those from his community who felt proprietary. Tessa's end of things didn't have that mandate.

Same with Ryan Semple. Clearly a little personal publicity and a slightly heightened public profile was all he was seeking. He wasn't trying to serve all of the Semples plus the Canadian alpine skiing community with his Tessa sham.

P.S. it's fascinating how Scott, who takes every opportunity to remind us all that he's not on the internet, has had two girlfriends who, once involved with him, break with all their past practices and loudly proclaim their love for him and plans with him in front of strangers on social media, while ostensibly just chatting it up with friends. But their friends never return the favor and chat up their love lives on facebook or twitter. When it was Jessica, her friends Julie, Sarah, Adrienne and Vanessa, and her sister Veronique didn't use facebook to blast Jtaimes to their boyfriend, talk about how they missed their man, or run around tagging their boyfriend with hearts and winks, even though their boyfriends were on facebook. They all chatted it up with Jessica though, about Scott.  Hell, Jessica gabbed more about Scott than Anabelle did about Cody.

And now Cassandra and her friends and family. Are the girls responding in kind, sharing their love for their boyfriends incessently by name on twitter, in front of strangers? Sharing plans? Or is it all Scott's girlfriend? Cause that's how it goes with private, internet-shunning guys like Scott who are famous in their field. They always want their private lives and lovey dovey chit chat regularly paraded on the web.