Pinnedbyacat

I have aphantasia. The other day I was describing it to my wife and she was like "wdym see images in your head it's just a metaphor you dum dum". Well, this is how she learned she has aphantasia as well. It's been three days and she's interrogating all our friends and extended family and still can't get over the fact that people are able to just close their eyes and see images. She's an artist an a graphic designer btw

This year has been heartbreaking 🕊️

What do men even see in her😭

You have to name him the last thing you ate

Charles Spencer waited twenty-nine years, three divorces, and a publishing contract before deciding that a fifteen-year-old boy’s composure on the worst day of his life was a reason to treat him as the secondary concern. I am seething. In Swan Song, Spencer writes that William “looked more self-possessed.” Tall. Handsome. Dignified. The image of his mother. And because the child did not collapse in public, because he held himself together while the world watched, his uncle decided Harry was the one who needed the fuss. William’s maturity, in other words, became the justification for ranking him second. That is not grief talking. That is a man who has spent decades polishing a narrative in which one nephew is the wounded prince and the other is the inconveniently functional one. Spencer’s own words give him away. He admits he “cared deeply” about what William was going through, then immediately explains why that care was deprioritized. The greater composure made him secondary. For a relative who claims to care, how completely insensitive. The uncle who delivered the funeral eulogy about blood family and duty decided, on the train to Althorp, that the boy who most resembled Diana was the one who could wait. Twenty-nine years later he puts it in a book timed for the 30th anniversary market. Convenient. Financially convenient — it’s sickening. Spencer now presenting William’s dignity as a reason to look away first is not brotherly concern. It is narrative management. Harry gets the “lack of obvious care” chapter. William gets the “he seemed fine, so I moved on” footnote. That is not how you protect a sister’s sons. That is how you pick a favorite and call it memory. William’s composure was not a luxury. It was the only armor a fifteen-year-old had left. Treating it as the reason he came second is one of the colder lines in a book already dripping with score-settling. Some of us still notice when a man waits almost three decades to tell the world that the boy who held it together was, therefore, less urgent. That boy grew up. He is still holding it together. While the uncle is dining on the tragic death of his sister.

I have a theory about why King Charles felt the need to send that letter clarifying Harry and Meghan’s status. Because surely he didn’t just wake up one morning and think, “Let me remind everyone what Harry and Meghan’s position is.” The letter says it followed a number of requests for guidance because there was a need to avoid “doubt or confusion.” And that is the part I find fascinating. Why was there confusion in the first place? Harry and Meghan have spent years presenting their own version of the Royal Family and their place within it to the world. We have seen it repeatedly - their version of events, their version of their relationship with the institution, their version of what happened and their version of what they believe their status should mean. So forgive me for wondering whether they are still doing exactly the same thing behind the scenes. Because if organisations are now approaching the Palace asking for guidance about their position, what exactly are Harry and Meghan telling people about where they stand? Are they presenting themselves in a way that gives others the impression that they have a standing, recognition or connection that the Palace does not actually recognise? I obviously don’t know what has been said behind closed doors. But as an opinion, I find that possibility extremely hard to ignore given their history of controlling and presenting their own narrative. And if that is what is happening, it would explain a lot. It would mean that even after leaving the institution, they are still relying on the Royal Family’s name and association to create a certain impression - and when that impression starts causing enough confusion for organisations to ask the Palace for clarification, the Crown has to step in and say: this is the actual position. Think about that. Six years after leaving because they supposedly wanted independence, the Palace may now be having to clarify their position because the story they are presenting about themselves is apparently confusing other people. That, to me, is the real significance of Charles’s letter. And it says an awful lot about just how determined Harry and Meghan may still be to control the narrative - and how far they might be prepared to go to do it.

A message from the family of Dolly Parton.