I grew up poor in a fairly cosmopolitan city, and I still felt like I was going to crawl out of my own skin the first time I went to a slightly dressy business event. I have no fucks to give anymore, but back in the day, this would have probably been a fairly reasonable disaster preparedness plan if I had to be invited to something formal with a lot of social expectations that I was not familiar with.

It’s walking into a different culture, and while the hosts should be understanding, it can be reasonable to prepare someone who isn’t familiar with the culture before sending them in. Still, no need to be a dick about it.

Reminds me of my cousin. Her parents are lovely people, but they are not exactly… refined. Her dad in particular makes a first impression that I’d describe as a somewhat toned down Earnest P Worrell. And while he isn’t stupid he never learned a lot of important life skills and his past mistakes have have caused a fair amount of hardship, and that only fuels the resentment.

By the time she was in high school it was clear my cousin was ashamed to be associated with her family. She kept her home life and social life as far apart as possible, and she was always excited to spend time with members of our extended family that she saw as much more normal. (Especially funny to me since my mom made that list and I’ve seen that woman scratch herself with the cutlery while dining out). She was also pretty fucking rude to her parents, openly talking crap about them while they were in the room. Very shitty, but not exactly shocking for a teenager in her position.

Fast forward to today when my aunt and uncle own a hipstery restaurant, while my cousin got knocked up ended marrying a contractor / meth head.

If there’s one thing that should be clear from Trump’s reelection it’s that there is no limit to what the Republican voters will support.

Anyone who was going to leave the Republicans has probably done so by now. All that’s left are the MAGA true believers, single issue voters, the echo chamber dwellers who would be outraged if they were aware of news from the real world, and compartmentalists who block out all warning signs coming from their own side as no true Scotsman conservative supports that stuff and even if they did it’s still better than the other side.

And of course, there’s also the low information voters who don’t know about any of this stuff and just want egg prices to go down or something.

Robert Jordan spent a lot of time writing about women dominating other women.

When a man marries his mistress he creates a job opening.

The Lion King is an experiment being run by the aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The music is diegetic and is used to modify behavior.

We know they can implant images and subconscious commands, and that this is perceived through music. That’s why they can coordinate musical numbers on the spot, and why sudden changes in behavior and attitude are accompanied by music.

In particular, the most critical character change comes when Simba wanders off to be alone, sees a vision in the sky, and the soundtrack kicks in with an extended version of the alien music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Suddenly he’s doing a 180 and running back towards his assigned role in the story.