#but the narrative contradictions are insane

[poet-to-none]

I might think a single book chapter that overlaps:

Lestat's parasitical psychological evaluation with Tesk, Gremt, and Magnus

Lestat's deep dive into the mechanics of spirits with Gremt, complete with unending intrusive thoughts of loving Amel, verbal and nonverbal

Lestat iron knuckling his chair in a hover half an inch from the carpet as Amel fights to posses him like the abhorrent brain worm he is

Lestat, Gremt, and Magnus in a triangle conversation about the summary of Memnoch, the entire book

Lestat and Magnus unpacking their issues, provoking their worst trauma's, falling into the horniest blood kiss make out and swoon, in front of everyone present

Amel, there the entire time being fucking insufferable, effectively exorcized by Magnus tongue, like nowhere to be found

A vampire choir boy of Notker singing Bach, quoted lyrics and everything

A memory insert to rewrite Magnus becoming immortal featuring Rhosh cursing him and Benedict idgaf-ing

What Marius does at the court, vaguisms about the Talamasca, a lot of thoughts about flying to visit Louis. . .

. . .I might think it's too much but Anne said, I will write it.

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[qualityrain]

hi i am very normal about this. very normal.

[jillvalentine]

this isn't my pinned anymore but i still always have info... on my info page. my 'story' hasn't changed at all since the start, and a lot of people have been around for years up to now. basic searching and/or reading will debunk whatever.

[mybrainproblems]

sometimes (okay, a lot of the times) i think about how a showrunner took 12 years of his combined work, both as a general writer and eventual showrunner, and just lined everything up and blasted it to bits in 40 minutes.

and that takes either a lot of effort or lots of interference bc the thing that dabb has consistently put forward is that dean wants a home, wants a life, wants to retire.

[treesofgreen]

"Izzy wanted it/made him do it/made him feed him his toe/Ed is the real victim look at what Izzy made him do" 🫠

That gentle face touch post is like a matryoshka doll of bad takes.

A face touch like that is reserved for close friends? Like maybe a first mate you've known for years who makes you tea and gets you out of harnesses? Like that?

A touch like that is something villains do to heroines all the time? Are the heroines usually strangling them?

Not to mention how bizarre it is to treat Blackbeard, patricidal sadist nightmare pirate, as the equivalent of a damsel in distress as he strangles his smaller subordinate.

[queerfables]

'Wilson' as an episode fucking slaps. I'm obsessed with Wilson's complete lack of boundaries and I'm obsessed with the way he acts out to express resentment while still being completely incapable of saying no. He gave a patient part of his liver!! The man is in no way hinged.

For all the emphasis that gets placed on Wilson's failed marriages and infidelity, we don't ever actually see it directly on screen. This is a narrative choice I love, for the record. We see Wilson's relationships through House's eyes and it allows us to understand Wilson as a deeply flawed person without ever making him unlikable, because Wilson's flaws and contradictions are what make him irresistible to House. It's so effective, the way these failed relationships say so much about Wilson's character while being constructed largely out of inference.

In this episode, though, we watch his inability to self advocate play out in real time, and I guarantee that this is what every one of his relationship meltdowns looked like from the inside. On some deep fundamental level, James Wilson doesn't believe "I don't want to" is a valid reason not to do something. You know the fantasy trope of an obedience curse, where the victim is inescapably compelled to obey other people's requests? Wilson casts that spell on his own damn self, and he'll hold true to it even to the point of violating his own bodily autonomy. When you lack boundaries like that, it becomes almost impossible to even know what you truly want, let alone to act on it. So Wilson says yes and yes and yes until it breaks him, and then he still can't say no.

When saying yes feels like surrendering to torture and saying no feels like committing murder, the only option left is escape. So Wilson goes out drinking to trash the liver he's going to donate. He gets dinner with the pretty nurse instead of going home to his wife. All of it is him scrabbling at the bars of his cage. And the irony is that the cage is unlocked, he just has to walk through the open door, and that's the last thing he could ever bring himself to do.

I'm pretty sure that when he went to Cuddy and told her his plan to donate, he wanted her to say no. She almost did! And I think she should have, because her first impulse was right, it is insane. Unfortunately this is the Insane Lack of Boundaries Hospital, and she can't actually be expected to guess when her employee's mouth is saying yes but his eyes are saying dear god no. By the rules of universe that House MD operates within, this doesn't even break a 7 on the "unhinged measures to save a patient" scale, and Wilson invoked the power of friendship. What was she supposed to do?

And through all of this, House is the person Wilson lashes out at. I love, love, love that House is the person Wilson lashes out at. Wilson can't even admit to himself that he's angry about the position he's in. How can he be angry when he's the reason the patient needs a new liver? But House sees right to the heart of everything going on with him, and he says all the things Wilson wants to be true and can't afford to believe. Because if he lets himself believe this wasn't his fault then he might not be able to say yes. And he's going to say yes. And he hates that he's going to say yes. And he hates that House knows he's going to say yes.

So he gets angry with House, because it's safe to get angry with House. He lashes out, because with House, he can. He tells House he's wrong about him, and demands House move out, and that's not at all what he really wants but he feels helpless and coerced and he desperately needs to exercise some kind of control over his own life. The fact that he can let go like this with House is in part about knowing House isn't ever going to leave him - the closeness of their relationship is always defined by what Wilson wants, House has never once pushed Wilson away and fights to reconcile when Wilson wants distance. But it's also about knowing that he can't hurt House by setting boundaries with him. Mostly this is because House will walk right over any boundaries he considers unacceptable, but in fairness, the fact that House is kind of a terrible person is part of his appeal. If Wilson had issues around other people violating his stated wishes, House would be the last person in the world that he should have anything to do with. But Wilson's issues lie in the fear that not being compulsively available and accommodating to everyone around him might permanently fuck up the life of someone he loves. House's fucked up life is never going to be Wilson's fault and even if it was House would still kind of deserve it, so Wilson's anxious people pleasing compulsion can chill the fuck out for five minutes at a time.

I don't want to idealise, there are times in their relationship when Wilson absolutely makes fucked up sacrifices for House. I don't think it's the case that he earnestly wanted to every time. But it's also true that House brings out authenticity in Wilson that few other people manage to. House knows him. House allows him to give in to his selfish impulses without guilt and consequences, and for all the people who love the best in him, House knows and loves his worst. While Wilson is caught up in trying to bend himself into whatever shape someone else needs him to be, what House wants more than anything is the truth. For Wilson, who is so out of touch with his own desires, being an object of fascination to someone obsessed with drives and motivations must be a rush. And if we accept the throughline of this episode, it might just be the case that House's boundary pushing and obsession is something Wilson needs.

[litnerdwrites]

“Feyre’s only an unreliable narrator when she’s saying something bad about Nesta,”

Nope. There are two main reasons she’s an unreliable narrator.

1) Her words and actions are inconsistent and contradictory with no reason, making her seem naive and stupid in the best case scenario or outright cruel in the worst. Meanwhile the narrative shifts so that she maintains a moral high ground despite how her actions hurt others and the insane leaps in logic one has to make to conclude that aforementioned actions are even remotely morally sound.

And 2) A first person narrator is always unreliable on principle. One of the first, most obvious disadvantages to writing in the first person is that the writer is limited to sharing information that the character in question has. There is a huge chance that first person narrators miss certain details, blink at the wrong second, or misunderstand characters and events. The reader’s perspective is solely based on the thoughts, experiences and opinions of that character, which could just as easily be bias or misinformed.

If SJM was as good at writing as some people believe, then I’d assume the reason the first three acotar books, along with any Feyre/Rhys chapter in the novella, were first person, in Feyre’s pov with like one or two Rhysand chapters, unlike every other series and even acotar books she’s written, is because we aren’t supposed to trust them entirely. Given the nc’s reputation, it would make sense for their rulers to be unreliable narrators and for it to be a major plot twist later on.

But she’s not. And I sincerely doubt that’s going to happen. She just loves her babies too much, needing them to be held in high regards by the world they live in as opposed to making them interesting and nuanced characters. Instead, my best guess is that she just wanted to test it out to see if she liked it but was stuck keeping it for Feyre’s pov from then in, as though that wasn’t something she should’ve figured out in her drafts and edits, instead of publishing.

It’s times like these I wonder if the antis have any semblance of analytical or even critical thinking skills. Not every point we make is to hate on Feyre or diminish her trauma. We aren’t saying that she isn’t allowed to be hurt or chose her own family. We aren’t saying that being an unreliable narrator makes her feelings or traumas invalid.

Feyre’s always been an unreliable narrator, even if her words, thoughts and actions didn’t actively contradict each other, and if we got a whole book in Nesta’s first person pov, she would be too. So would literally any character. In any book series. Because all first person povs are unreliable, to a certain degree, whether the author intended for them to be or not.

[starnana7]

okay but dean doesn’t believe in anything and also doesn’t believe in no one. all the faith he has in people are conditional, specially because he is the one that people puts their faith on, so it’s only one sided. like even sam, whom he loves and trusts so much, still doesn’t have his faith—bc he is the one that “endures” the faith, he’s the one that has the responsibilities, therefore, he can’t actually count on sam yk (btw i’m not saying this is true, dean Could count on sam, but this is how his mind works, he doesn’t think it’s okay for him to actually count on sam since he’s the one that Needs to be the responsible one, he’s the one that sam is counting On).

for dean, it’s only a -> b, not a -> b AND b -> a. the only person he actually had faith in was john, but he died. and eventually even he realized that that faith was misplaced and came (more) from a place of duty than from a genuine one. so we have this character who doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t believe in good things, doesn’t believe that good things could happen to him and that thinks everything is conditional, that people’s loves for him are conditional, mostly based on how useful he is, and that he will be okay as long as he continues this job and responsibility. he literally has the burden of the world on his shoulders and since he was a kid he was the only one that he could count on, the only one that could actually solve things.

And then enters castiel. A faithful Angel. An angel that rebels—for Dean. and that was devoted to dean in such a pure and unconditional way that actually makes him a little bit insane. cas is the only person besides himself that dean could really count on, that dean really puts his faith on. even john, as I said, he did it bc of something like a debt or bc that was what he always knew to be true. but with cas, it was the opposite. he never believed in angels; never even liked them. he was raised to never really trust anyone, let alone a supernatural being. but yet he trusts castiel, so much that it goes against his own basic instincts (to when both bobby and sam thought cas was betraying them and dean was trying so hard to not believe in that—i mean, not cas, he wouldn’t).

crazy that he was the number one faithless boy. he didn’t believed in God, but he did believe in castiel. he prayed to him. every night. he trusted him. so much that he never thought he would betray them. dean, who was raised to never trust anyone and hate all supernatural stuff, believed in an angel so much that it actually contradicted everything he was. he didn’t believe in God. but oh, he believed in castiel. to a point so powerful that it was literally his religion. like both of them were so devoted to each other they changed the narrative, they were the only real thing in chuck’s universes, they pretty much invented free will. Crazy. Insane actually.

[raptorific]

I always see people talk about the contradictions in Doctor Who lore, how sometimes they'll cover the same historical event twice in radically different ways, and them being like "there's no way to reconcile these two stories!" as though this is not a feature of the series.

I don't mean this in a "Doctor Who Has No Set Canon" sort of way, I actually hate that narrative. I mean that it's, like, a very basic part of the canon that time is not static and that everything that has happened is being constantly rewritten and overwritten, that certain things are pretty much always gonna end up happening one way or the other, but that history is continually changing the same way as anything else.

I can't stress enough that "there's been three different First Humans On Mars and seven different First Time Aliens Are Exposed To The Public on the show" is no more insane in this particular setting, where the timeline is in a constant state of flux even setting aside the fact that everybody and their mother has a time machine on this show, than "in one episode they went to a house, and then two seasons later they went back to that same house and it was burned down. Then later they went back and it had been rebuilt"

[nostalgicmiscellaneous]

Lol as someone who actually works in the industry: you guys are very, very naive if you believe a tumblr blog would tell you secrets about the behind the scenes of Bridgerton for a bubble of specific fans, and even less that someone who actually have access to executives would be around telling so many incorrect stuff that can be proven wrong with some clicks. And would tell you about the actors that way, while working for Netflix. It's hilarious because production is segmented, there are different crews as well, and it simply wouldn't have production/executive inside information if it worked close enough to the actors day by day to know them, and they wouldn't work with all of them to know them personally, repeatedly in the way it says, as the teams are the same for a long time and they all have made their opinions on actors very clear. It's so stupid that it made the mistake of telling you all it doesn't work with crew. They really don't know how a production of a show works and it's funny to see anyone believing it. Then again, only Kanthony and Benophy fans do.

Not only that, contradicting not simply Netflix's news of profitability and success of Season 3, but in fact, actual market news and data releases, Investments prospects, and investors reports, plus licensing, that anyone with any inside information would know it's done publicly and show the actual success and profit delivered by Season 3. To even try to say it lost money, Lol. The data is there, if you worked in a exec. position, even management position, you wouldn't say something so ignorant.

Critically, official certified critics, and audience numbers averaged above Season 2 and on par with Season 1, and you can also check the aggregate of that on RT, IMDB, sites that reunited and average the score. Audience is measured not only by Netflix, but Luminate and Nielsen. Data that is ALSO PUBLIC. And that showed the successful amount of views, specially recovering audience that Season 2 had lost. It was also superior to QC. Netflix also ranks #6 ( above Season 2, again) as their most viewed seasons. Another public information.

It becomes evident you're dealing with a fan of Anthony and Kate and Sophie and Benedict when it spills target hate for particular actors, with nonsense that is so painfully clear from a fandom member, a mere angry fan trying with a insane agenda.

That's the problem when someone has an agenda against some actors and some fictional characters, a TV show, specifically a season. They throw away logic and believe anyone.

There is no insider, you have actual market information and investors/ experts that are not even Netflix connected telling you the success of season 3. Anyone who works for the industry would know that. Lol

There is no inside information of actors from that person. All cast and crew, and connected workers, and adjacents from media, PR and more, have their words and testaments to the cast and crew openly at their socials, dismantling their obsessive nonsense, contradicting them. I contradict them, lol, as i've actually met some of them and know their work ethics and behavior.

And most importantly, the so-called ''insider'' is not even from or in the UK…yes, i know exactly what i am talking about. But for now, i wont publish. For now.

Just be aware of bullshit and propaganda with fanwar nonsense. You're dealing with someone who is simply a discontent Kanthony & Benophy fan, and a Simone fan and hater of other actors in the show ( VERY OBVIOUS THE TARGETED HATE), connected ( lol very much connected) to a blog who has adopted the name of "Anti" since the start, who hates Polin. Some people just want to create a narrative, and while they say that Benedict is the most popular and wanted character for the GA, try to justify an eventual less number say it would be S3 fault, when S3 actually revamped the numbers from S2 and had incredible profitability ( again, public data).

But be aware that we know with 100% certainty, people like that do not work for Netflix. They don't even have a clue what a netflix contract is and how it works.

Also, a warning: People should have their faces and real names on when they say things, responsibility is a must, don't you all agree? Sometimes people think they are protected under the anonymity of a tumblr url to lie their hearts out and become desperate later when they have to own personally, with their actual faces and real names, and social reputation, the stupidity of their words.

And in a more fundamental sense, grow up. Tomorrow, someone else can simply create a blog telling the opposite about your favorites, their work, their seasons, it's a game nobody wins when fans act that desperate and stupid, lying and manipulating.

Or worse: perhaps someone with actual information can start posting, and you wouldn't like what they have to say…reflect on that.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Having thoughts about how Izzy seems to be intentionally turning the narrative against Ed in season 1.

Izzy tells Ed that he "massaged the crew when they were worried about [Ed]'s judgment," and Ed clearly doesn't believe him, but I don't think he even knows how Izzy talks about him. Izzy obviously doesn't "massage the crew," he just straight-up insults Ed. When Fang and Ivan question why they're following Stede's ship, Izzy says "how should I know? The man's half-insane." He's insulting Ed and actively making the crew doubt Ed's ability to make coherent decisions.

And then, when Ed introduces himself to Stede's crew in s1e4, Izzy hangs around for just long enough to let Ed shake hands with most of them, have a very basic conversation, and then he claps his hands and shouts at them that "Blackbeard has business to attend to!" when Frenchie tries deepening the conversation to ask what's going to happen to them, something that might require Ed to respond like a person with feelings. Combined with how we never see Ed interact with Ivan, Fang, or any of his other crew members before they catch up to the Revenge, just Izzy, it seems that Izzy is trying to make sure Ed doesn't have real conversations with anyone who isn't him. This doesn't seem strange to Ed - he looks annoyed but he doesn't try to stop it. He's clearly used to this.

In s1e3 we also see Izzy twist the situation to suit his own purposes, lying to Ed easily and smoothly - it's clearly not the first time he's doing this. He tells him Stede knew it was Blackbeard looking for him and twists the truth to make it seem like Stede is gunning for a fight with Blackbeard, trying to make Ed angry. He is clearly accustomed to providing the sole lens through which Ed gets to see events - it's no wonder he habitually stops others from talking to Ed, too much conversation would make it easier for him to be contradicted.

It seems that Izzy is creating a very layered situation here: he is the only one Ed gets to talk to and he tries to control the information Ed gets, but he spends his time away from Ed insulting him and planting doubt about Ed's mental abilities, ensuring that the crew are dependant on Izzy for guidance, too.

Izzy's s1 motivations were often about maintaining his own power over others, and a huge part of that was controlling how others see Ed and restricting Ed's ability to communicate with his crew. Ed is clearly desperate in s1e4 for Izzy to actually engage with him and talk with him like a person - he's so starved for real human connection, and I don't think he ever fully realized just how much Izzy was manipulating the situation. Izzy isn't doing anything super tactical here, it's just very basic but extremely thorough control of the information Ed has access to as well as manipulating others around Ed to make Ed seem erratic and not worth seriously listening to.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I will forever hold the opinion that Chat Blanc should’ve been a nightmare, hallucination, or otherwise hypothetical/not real scenario rather than a real event.

I can get behind something happening that causes a rift between Ladybug and Chat Noir, these kind of character plots can be interesting if done right, but they never should’ve given a legitimate reason that Adrien shouldn’t wield the power of Destruction or that Ladybug can’t actually trust him with information (or at all). Because the potential of Chat Noir actually becoming Blanc because he knows her identity (while not the full reason, that’s the big one to Ladybug) makes him way too big of a risk to keep on the team, and therefore almost justifies her distancing him (narratively at least, I don’t actually think that was the right move, even in this context, kinda like how she didn’t tell Chloe she couldn’t be Queen Bee anymore right away).

I will never get why the writers are so intent on making one of their main heroes seem unfit for the job. If he’s not fit for it, then he never should’ve been a hero in the first place! And yet that’s somehow not the story they’re trying to tell here? Oh, he is a good fit for the Miraculous? Then stop trying to make him incompetent or dangerous!!!

I actually don't mind Chat Blanc being a thing. I even have an ideal version of it that I'd love to see play out with pretty visuals for all the big dramatic scenes.

The idea that Chat Noir can be akumatized doesn't make him a bad hero because the message should be that everyone is capable of being akumatized. Rena Rouge, Queen Bee, and Carapace were all akumatized during the season two final, but they kept their roles on the team. I have no problem with that. Marinette has almost been akumatized multiple times and she never considered giving up her miraculous, nor should she. Everyone is going to have dark moments. It's not some massive failing.

The problems with Chat Blanc are:

The way time travel is used, making Bunnyx god

Adrien being able to lose while Marinette is there, which should never happen in a power of love show

The fact that the writers are using Chat Blanc to argue that Adrien can't be trusted with the truth

The fact that the writers present Chat Blanc as Marinette's failing/an identity reveal problem

I think the first two issues are self explanatory, so let's focus on the final two as they're insane writing choices.

Adrien learning the truth during a fight with his father is a great setup for him being akumatized! I don't have any issues with it. Remove Marinette from the scene and Adrien going full Chat Blanc is fine by me! The problem is that this isn't being presented as a warning that Adrien needs to learn the truth outside of the final battle (reasonable and what I thought this episode was doing at first). It's being presented as an argument that Adrien can never be told the truth because he's just too weak and unstable to handle the truth (asinine). If that's really what they're going for, and it does seem to be, then Adrien is completely unqualified to be a hero.

Similarly, past Marinette being the one to stop Chat Blanc doesn't bother me. The problem is that adult Bunnyx does nothing to contradict Marinette's conclusion that this means that Chat Noir can never be told the truth. That's not the right takeaway here, but Bunnyx doesn't contradict it. She actually goes so far as to throw Alya under the bus. Rude, Alix! Rude. And really weird since Marinette will willingly tell Alya her secret identity within a few episodes, which Alix should know? Alix's knowledge of the future is really confusing.

Bunnyx: Do you know how Cat Noir found out about your secret identity? Ladybug: I think so. When I went into Adrien's house as Ladybug, he probably saw me. He figured out that Ladybug is Marinette because of the note written on the gift. But I'm not sure what happened next. Bunnyx: He probably told his friend Nino, who told Alya, who wrote about it on the Ladyblog. Ladybug: Mm.. They would never do that. But Adrien probably told someone, who told someone else, and so on, until it was all over the news! The best-kept secrets are the ones you never share.

That final line from Ladybug should have been met with Bunnyx saying something like,

"There are times when it's good to share a secret! This just happened to not be one of those times, but this outcome isn't guaranteed. It's just what happened in this specific scenario. Another time, not sharing could lead us here. Don't let fear of the future keep you from doing what logic says is right."

Something, anything, to imply that Marinette wasn't at fault and that secrets are complex things. Instead we get yet another wacky implication that an identity reveal will destroy Ladybug and Chat Noir, so they have to keep their secrets or give up their miraculous. Yay!

All that being said, my ideal Chat Blanc would not work in canon's padded-to-shit writing, so I do agree that it was a bad call. Chat Blanc only makes sense if the end goal is plot progression. Instead, it's used for plot stagnation and I hate it!

[canonizzyhours]

What nobody wants to admit is there’s a reason OFMD fandom has a big divide over how to interpret Izzy and it’s simply that Con is playing against the scripts.

Con DOES play Izzy like he and Ed have a profound warrior’s bond and their relationship was actually a positive thing up until Stede appeared and Izzy’s jealousy made him briefly go a little bit insane, but once he recognized that Ed truly needed to be with Stede to be happy Izzy was able to let go because his love for Ed is genuinely selfless. People who see that in Con’s performance aren’t wrong.

However this makes no sense as an interpretation of the actual STORY. The scripts write Izzy as someone whose “love” for Ed has been selfish and controlling and abusive (in ways that, yes, echo Ed’s relationship with his father) since long before Stede was in the picture, and is mostly based in the fact that he craves power and manipulating Ed is how he achieves and maintains a position of power – plus the whole deal has this creepy undercurrent of psychosexual obsession. This was obvious back in season one but there’s zero remaining ambiguity about it at this point now that the show literally had Izzy tell Ed “I’ve been terrible to you for years” and “it was me who needed Blackbeard.” 

The way he’s written, Izzy has to let go of both his ambition for power AND his fucked up crush entirely before he can stop obsessively trying to control Ed’s life and be normal enough about him to start building an even remotely healthy relationship, which the two of them never had before. Both djenks and other writers have said this in interviews - what Izzy needed was not to realize Stede was good for Ed, it was to let go of his obsession with controlling his boss’ love life entirely before he even COULD realize that.

This contradiction isn’t Con’s fault, or really anyone’s. If you’re an actor it’s your job to come up with headcanons that make sense of your character’s motivations even if they’re not super clear in the scripts, and the scripts do not focus all that much on Izzy’s internal motivations. (It’s clear from his interviews that he got only vague high-level overviews from the writing team about their intentions for Izzy’s overall arc too, which is normal for a supporting character - not only has he mentioned scenes where he struggled to figure out the motivation on his own, he didn’t even know the show was gay for four episodes, meaning the writers and directors didn’t tell him about Izzy’s gay crush on Ed, the thing he plays as Izzy’s core motivation!) And it’s usually a good idea as an actor to come up with an interpretation that lets you sympathize with your character. So Con went with the most sympathetic read of Izzy he could come up with. It doesn’t make sense of the overall narrative arc of the show, but that’s not his job, his job is figuring out a motivation that gives him a foundation for feeling like he understands Izzy’s perspective in the scenes he’s playing.

So if you pay the most attention to Con’s performances and ignore the narrative framing of the scripts, you end up with basically the canyon read on Izzy’s character. If you pay the most attention to the story the scripts suggest and mostly ignore the performance, you end up with the non-canyon one where Izzy’s a really really bad guy up till s2e5 and he’s manipulative and emotionally abusive toward Ed. Neither one of those is really “canon Izzy.” They’re both present in canon and they directly contradict each other.

This is what led to the fandom getting incredibly weird. Because people most interested in Con’s performance take it as the primary lens through which they interpret the whole show - but it’s an interpretation that fundamentally cannot make sense of the story as a cohesive whole, so they keep running into cognitive dissonance, and they try to resolve it by coming up with increasingly contorted interpretations of the entire narrative arc of the show (including parts that aren’t even directly about Izzy) and getting angry when other people bring back the cognitive dissonance by pointing out how nonsensical those interpretations are. 

People who prioritize the scripts as their main interpretive lens don’t have quite the same problem, because if they notice what’s going on in Con’s performance there’s an easy way to integrate it: assume that the way Con acts is expressing Izzy’s own point of view, BUT IZZY IS WRONG ABOUT ALL THAT. Izzy THINKS he really understands Ed but he doesn’t. Izzy THINKS his feelings for Ed are selfless love but a lot of abusers think that, it’s him lying to himself about his motives being benevolent. And the thing is, this angle makes Izzy look REALLY FASCINATING but also WAY WORSE than the basic read where he’s just being selfish, it turns him from an ambitious manipulative schemer with a weird little crush into a horrific obsessed stalker with a creepy daddy-knows-what’s-best-for-you complex about Ed, a grown-ass indigenous man who never asked his white employee to control his life “for his own good.”

It’s no wonder everyone’s fighting all the time.

#88.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

If it is exposed that surrogates were used - still not convinced either way- how do you think M and H will spin this? Also, the BRF? Maybe for both parties if there were surrogates, it best the secret be kept because the level of outrage from the public would be beyond insane. However, I think whoever breaks the news first, does have a better chance of controlling narrative.

It's not going to make sense, but Harry and Meghan will say they had no choice, the big bad BRF made her because of antiquated "heir and spare" rules and maybe throw the race card in for good measure ("we had to have our own children because Harry's family needed the optics even though we told them we were happy to adopt instead"). If they're still together, that is.

If they're divorced, then Harry and Meghan will blame each other. Harry will say he had no idea because Meghan never talked to him or let him accompany her to her doctor appointments (which would validate some tea from their Australia trip). (This would also contradict the stories in Spare but that's a separate issue.) Meghan will say Harry forced her to lie because he was so desperate to be a father and she was too scared of his anger/temper to say no.

The BRF will claim that they had no idea because Harry and Meghan did everything themselves. There's enough evidence that they have plausible deniability - admissions in Spare of not communicating updates, the second pregnancy happening in the US, The Queen's doctors not signing the birth announcement.

Where the BRF gets into trouble is over how complicit they are. If Harry and Meghan have hard, solid proof showing that the BRF was fully aware - like emails or letters from Charles or Jason Knauf or Edward Young specifically discussing it - then Charles's goose is cooked. There's a lot of speculation that this is the case: someone at Buckingham Palace and/or Clarence House knows there was a surrogacy, and if this is the case, then it's mutually-assured destruction so it's in everyone's favor to keep it a secret: the Sussexes have their children in the line of succession and they get to use titles for the children and Charles doesn't get crucified by the public for tampering with the line of succession.

(William might see some blowback but ultimately he's safe from any fallout because he acted pretty quickly to get the Sussexes away from Kensington Palace and his staff. That it was announced in October/November 2018 the Sussexes were going out on their own means William was working on it since before the wedding, most likely.)

As for who announces, I don't think it's a case of "he who announces first controls the narrative." For me, it's a case of "he who holds the names controls the narrative." In other words, the "team" who has the proof naming someone who knows about the surrogate(s) and publishes it is the one who controls the narrative.

So if Meghan and Harry have proof naming someone in the BRF as having knowledge of any surrogate(s), then they control the narrative. But if they don't, then it's in the BRF's favor because the BRF doesn't have anything to lose. They have enough plausible deniability (plus Meghan and Harry being known liars) to keep the hot seat exclusively on the Sussexes. And I think that's where we are - if there are palace names named, they aren't senior enough and can easily be thrown under the bus but revealing surrogacy hurts Harry and that's why the BRF is keeping the secret.

I suspect that under King Charles, the BRF will keep the secret as long as Harry remains married to Meghan and/or as long as they maintain this detente in Sussex-BRF relations. If the Sussexes launch new attacks on the BRF (to include further Nigeria-like problems where they acted as royals without authorization) or if Harry leaves Meghan, then I can see the BRF nuclearizing them/her once and for all by revealing surrogate(s). (I feel like King William wouldn't hide it, but he also wouldn't reveal it either.)

On the flip side, I see Meghan keeping the secret as long as it remains more profitable for her to do so. So she will keep it until it's more advantageous to talk about it post-divorce in a memoir or revenge tour. And I suspect Meghan may try to use this for leverage in a divorce settlement to get more money.

All allegedly, of course. After all, surrogacy is only just a rumor.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Sometimes I feel like an insane conspiracy theorist, and I worry about saying things like "you can't trust the mainstream media", but the problem is you can't. It's run (in most cases) for shareholders and profit.

People on social media do likely have an agenda, but there's only so much you can do with an unedited video. And when there's lots of different videos coming from lots of different sources showing the same thing...and it contradicts the main media narrative...

I don't really want to tell anyone what to believe or who to trust, I'm just saying, sometimes you need to look at the primary sources out there and decide for yourself...