monagatuna

I love fitness related things and appreciate every exercise-related gift I've ever been given (though in fairness those are things I'd directly ask for), but I'd be SO mad if someone spent money on THIS mess on my behalf. Any other app, even beachbody, which is a terrible MLM but with a great product, but this one. My spouse and I actually received All Trails Pro this year, and we were thrilled about it. THAT is a good fitness related gift. This would not be.

She was written that way, though--she wanted fried chicken and no waterfowl at her baby shower (which she didn't even want but Charlotte thoughtfully put together for her, still raw from losing her husband and struggling with her own fertility, but knowing her dear friend needed baby stuff and had no time to get it all), waved hello to the kid at its birth, and firmly put her foot down on any tears or sentimentality in the delivery room. She didn't even connect with the fetus until she was clearly showing and it kicked her. When everyone expected her to be excited that she was having a boy, she faked enthusiasm (I sympathize--who cares?!). She was always a reluctant, if loving, mom. As a non-maternal person myself, I always appreciated how honestly they presented her pregnancy in the original series. It's not the portrayal the mommy bloggers would want, but I'd be willing to bet plenty of women feel this way about getting shoehorned into parenthood.

What a terribly cruel thing for her to say. I know she believes it because she's indoctrinated, but it's still horrible to say about victims of her scam. (Yes, I think she and people like her are complicit. There is no ethical way to make money from an MLM. You're either the scammer or the scammed.)

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Boys are a threat to creepy old dudes who marry young girls. No one expects them to stay in the community past adulthood. That'd be my guess.

This is the most apt description I've seen and definitely the reason I'm watching (that and the clothes--some of them are ridiculous but I still enjoy them).

I couldn't watch Californication because it ruined Evan Handler for me. That's....kind of sd to admit, I think.

I always thought he was the cutest one. Big was creepy (I know some people liked Chris Noth before the recent allegations came to light, but I always thought he was smarmy), Smith was hot in a very basic, curated sort of way, and Steve's adorable, but something about Harry is just so cute. It's his attitude and his bright eyes for me. He also seems to have aged the best out of all of the men.

Hmm, yes, I do see your point, and the writers are indeed using them as plot points--but given that we are focusing on the lives of these four women, I'm going to have to shelve my umbrage on this one. For that matter, we are not currently exploring any real storylines for any of the POC in this series, either--we have Miranda stumbling over her own tongue when met with a Black professor, and "Black Charlotte" (ew), but I don't anticipate learning anything real about any of them. The writers are definitely using these individuals as a vehicle, but what I was referring to was comments like how Stanford was Carrie's gay accessory and gay men existed to be straight women's dates for weddings. I can't remember the exact quote, but she said something to that effect during the original series. I'm sure I'm muddling it, but it was pretty overt and honestly really shocking and dehumanizing. You make a very valid point; I was just referring to the characters themselves overtly describing their gay friends as accessories.

Oh my god, you're right, it's this. Buddy is freeing himself from her clutches so she needs a new boo bear.

I think this just shows how individual everyone's journey is. I didn't know till my early 20s--if you'd asked me in my teens I'd have sworn I was only into men, despite now being married to a woman, and finding Che incredibly hot (despite, oddly, not being super attracted to the lovely Sara Ramirez?) I get that this exposition to queerness is clunky and heavy handed, and I don't love it, but it's got us talking, and honestly so. I've read through three threads about this show and only seen Che misgendered once. It's awkward and uncomfortable and honestly written really poorly, but it also exemplifies the journey of extremely privileged white boomer older women navigating a world that changed while they stayed the same. This from a show that explicitly and overtly described gay men as accessories for straight women. I won't praise the show. They did Samantha dirty, they're destroying decades of Miranda's character development, Carrie and Big were always terrible (imagine marrying someone you call "kid"!)--this show is awful and I'm hate-watching, but at least we're not describing queer people as curiosities, experiments and accessories anymore. Edit: sorry, they're not boomers--the way they describe themselves as near death's door my brain decided they were older than they are. Corrected.

Ysabel (it kills me to spell it that way, but it's not her fault her parents misspelled her name) is such a pretty young woman and she looks like she's feeling great. I am so happy for her and hope her recovery was quick and as painless as possible. And of course it's hilarious that she outgrew her dad. He jokes about it but I'm sure he's seething inside, just as he is when his sons are more successful or stronger than he is. It's completely reminiscent of FLDS patriarchs past, he's threatened by the younger men now that they're stronger and more manly than he is. It's so pathetic and so obvious.

You guys have got it all wrong. Kody should only be allowed to listen to Nickelback. ...actually, he probably would enjoy that.

"WE CROSSED THE FLESHOLD THAT ONE TIME! DID HE TELL YOU THAT?!?!"

That's awesome, I'm stoked for Buddy. His gf is super cute and way to go on a lab-grown ring! And the fact that it was crafted from an heirloom--that's so special and meaningful. I am certain Whitney will be front and center cooing over them, while taking potshots at them here and there between whining "why not me?" and trying to plot ways to destroy their happy time. I hope Buddy has the distance he needs and I hope he is doing well in his recovery.

Ah, okay, I thought it was something like he called the prosecutor and pretended to be the judge to give instructions or something, which would be egregious even for him, but yeah, this sort of thing seems in line with this smug fuck's M.O.

I'm sorry....what?! Thread moves fast and I only just started paying attention to this mess, but did he seriously do this?

I read this like Eleanor Shellstrop saying "YA BASIC!" In my head that's how they deliver the verdict to this creep.

From what I read on a separate forum, in serious federal cases like this one, the def is immediately placed in custody.

Thread moves fast, but I don't know if this got an actual answer. But no, if there is "unreasonable doubt," the defendant can still be found guilty. "Reasonable doubt" could be like, well, we don't KNOW where his coworkers were at the time of the Linux installation or access to these materials happened, they said they were at a Wal Mart in a different state, but there's no evidence that they were actually there, AND a cell tower pinged them in a different county in the same state half an hour later." UNreasonable doubt could be anything from "well Josh says he wasn't there and I believe him despite all the evidence" to "dragons came down, swept Josh away from his computer and installed the OS splitter and DLd the CSAM, them wrenched his eyes open to make him watch it against his will." Most of the legal world operates on a "reasonable person" standard, so the jury has to put themselves in the shoes of the average American and rational thinking. So even if a person's thinking is unreasonable and irrational, they have to use the standards of a reasonable and rational person. If the standard were "beyond an unreasonable doubt," you could make up any old scenario your mind could dream up and the prosecution would have to disprove such scenario before a jury could convict. I hope this makes sense. I'm not a criminal lawyer so my experience on this is limited, but the reasonableness standard stretches across the legal field and the principles are similar.

I'm not sure I get how this fits with Meri (and not sure I want to know!) but I can't help but comment. I was hanging out with a guy I was seeing years ago and he suggested that. I thought it was a children's movie so I thought he was going a bit insane but I indulged him. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

xe/xir didn't go over too well, unfortunately, although some people still use those. I think most people can just understand they/them better, as we've been using they as a singular noun for ages already when describing someone whose gender we don't know. And replacing s/he pronouns with other words that sound similar to male-female pronouns doesn't help a person who's NB/fluid. I get that some people think of they/them as plural only and it's hard to come away from that, but language is fluid and we've been using these pronouns in this way long before they were adopted by the trans community. You may get used to it if you try it a bit. I do understand--I have a number of trans people among my friends and family and it takes some practice to use their correct name and pronouns, but you do get used to it. Edit: Also, I've really enjoyed this conversation. I have to thank everyone for being polite and kind to each other. These conversations are so gratifying and help us understand each other as humans better.

That IS a very interesting point. I didn't even notice that they didn't mention Mariah. It reminds me of the short-lived TLC program "Lost in Transition" about people who came out as trans later in life and had married cis-hetero partners, and worked through their trials and triumphs as a married trans person navigating their jobs and relationships in places where coming out as trans is not necessarily met with joy and pride. It's a shame it was only one season; it was a beautiful program that treated people with dignity while not holding back on showing the hardships they faced. I wish that had caught on, but maybe it wasn't enough of a trainwreck to attract TLC's target audience (pointing at myself here TBH).

It's so common and honestly I've done it myself, for many years. Thank you for being so gracious!

It's not clear if Audrey is transitioning to a man. They have said they're masc-presenting, but they may identify as NB or fluid. Plenty of lesbians and gay men are in loving relationships with fluid-NB people and it's not an issue for them. It can be hard to understand if you've lived your whole life in a binary, and to many people the knee-jerk thought is that Audrey is a man, thus this is a straight relationship now, but it rarely works that way. A trans person is still under the umbrella and typically doesn't consider themselves straight even if they appear to be in a hetero relationship. It's different for everyone but my understanding is they still consider themselves queer. Of course, I can't speak for everyone. At any rate, they have said they are going to continue going by Audrey and there's no word on whether they will have any surgery nor what gender they are transitioning TO, so there's no way for us to know yet whether they identify as a man. My guess would be masc-presenting non-binary, but that's just a guess. And it may not be a deal-breaker for Mariah. Edit: I hope I'm not coming off as a know-it-all, I don't intend to be condescending. I just had a lot of soul-searching and many of my own questions coming to terms with my own queerness so I had to educate myself on gender identity--so a lot of these questions are ones I've asked myself. If I came off snarky, I apologize.

Good for them! Despite their parents, a lot of Kody's kids seem to be doing just fine. (I know we're not talking about one of Kody's bio kids, but I am including them as part of a general statement.) Are they still going by Audrey, or another name? Edit: Just checked--still going by Audrey.