#most celebs are celebs because they are attention seekers and understand publicity and PR are part of the job

[taylorrepdetective]

We went from “still just getting to know each other” to full on fanfic courtesy people mag in exactly 14 days. Do you think this could mean it will be short lived? Seems to be moving fast.

I don’t know what is going to happen because I don’t know what her goal is beyond simple publicity for the movie and 1989 tv (and just in general being seen dating a man which is important for her image and for selling music) and we’ll have to wait to see how it goes. I still stand by it likely to be short lived but whether that means November or March, your guess is good as mine. I think I’m currently leaning more in the March direction as being most likely, but it could be tomorrow or it could be forever or whatever she said in Blank Space.

In case anyone’s keeping count, I also have pretty much settled on all of this being well planned out in advance, including his appearance at the July KC tour in the first place. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been planned for a very long time, just like Matty was.

1) have them linked publicly (for Travis it was the concert and friendship bracelet digits story). Sit back and watch the reaction, and give it a bit of a push in the right direction. With joe this was all done retroactively, after their relationship was “accidentally” leaked we found out they hung out in Oct. With Matty this was done over the course of late 2022-early 2023.

2) soft launch it by announcing an appearance ahead of time to get all eyes on it, while planting stories that they’ve hung out a few times, to establish a timeline back into the summer (august 1ish). Have her publicly meet his mom and get her approval. Again, with joe this was done retroactively, where we found out she had pined over him all summer and their anniversary was sept 28, and we’ve even now got a hook up on Aril 29. For Matty, she met his mom in stage 1), then this stage was her announcing the break up on Matty’s bday, and then planting stories that they were dating, that he’d go to Nash and there’d be PDA, and then stories that she thought maybe he was the one who got away, and had quietly been in love with him for almost a decade.

3) launch, but keep it casual. There’s still time to back out if things go poorly. People have time to get used to it and talk about “are they or aren’t they” serious, and you can control the narrative via media outlets and inside sources to set people up the way you want them to lean, all without even having them seen together more than once or twice. Set up a casual photo of them that seems to taken without their knowledge in a private moment. (Balcony with joe, private club with Matty, after party in KC with Travis.) This is far as she got with Matty then she cut her losses. Or I guess you could argue they had spilled into step 4). It’s a spectrum. With joe, again this was done retroactively but also the summer of 2017, no one knew how serious they were until secret sessions/rep came out.

4) hard launch during movie opening weekend. WE ARE HERE. For Matty this was probably supposed to happen during speak now release. But who knows. For joe it was reputation’s release.

5) Optional: push things hard until enough people seem to be generally getting tired of it. I assume this is next with Travlor. No idea how long this will last. Days or weeks I think. With joe this wasn’t a big deal because of the privacy narrative. No one could get tired of something they never saw (though they could get bored of it which was ok at that stage but boredom is the opposite of what she wants now.) With Travis I think this stage will be more of an important thing. If you go back to Calvin, this stage was most of their relationship.

6) cool things down so then people talk about “are they or aren’t they still together?” This was a constant with joe. I think this was just at the end for Calvin and the answer was they weren’t still together.

7) relaunch so everyone is excited to see them again. Steps 6-7 happened a lot with Joe naturally because of the privacy narrative. Will travlor get to this stage? I think so but it will be much accelerated. Like nothing for a week and people will wonder. Then, bang, she’s there again. Something like that.

8) ongoing: periodically lightly escalate the seriousness of the relationship. We’re already in this stage and it will continue. There is current chatter about her house shopping in KC. The usual (she actually BOUGHT a house one time for a man. And remember her Scottish castle, and how she and joe were constantly buying a London house for 6 years including furniture shopping right before they broke up?) And there will be constant talk of settling down and getting engaged.

9) and on and on until it ends. We could zoom through these stage over the next 2 weeks, or in seemingly endless loop of stages 6-9 for two years. No way to know until it ends or they get married, have 10 kids and teach them how to dream.

10) optional: black swan event. All bets are off.

I think it’s likely she’ll go to a couple of more games, and be seen spending as much time with him as reasonably possible before her next tour date. They need to “get to know each other” and “enjoy this fun honeymoon stage while they’re both smitten” while she can. Keep in mind her SA tour section is only 3 weeks long, and he could even potentially go to Argentina on his off week, so that’s not really enough time for the “their busy schedules were too much” excuse. Possible but you know not as likely. Then she’s off for for a couple of months again. Imagine the fun they can have over Christmas. We’ll skip the island vacation around new years or star-studded New Year’s party this time because he’ll still be playing football, so imagine her at playoff games. She’s getting literal millions of dollars in almost free publicity from this, and no matter how many people want to say she’s getting negative attention or being over-exposed or whatever, I don’t see it that way at all. It’s going very very well. All for the price of a few hours of her time and some jet fuel. So, like I didn’t see any reason for her to end it with joe because he was serving his purpose, I see no reason for this to end. Until she has reached her unknown-to-us goal.

There is a lot I can’t see or know, so these are just my best guesses based on what we’ve seen so far and what I see on their schedule for the next few months, and of course, my belief that this relationship not real.

#I also want to note that most of this is what’s done for more ‘real’ relationships #two celebs start dating and decide to go full PR power couple while they’re at it. #most celebs are celebs because they are attention seekers and understand publicity and PR are part of the job #a lot of people accept this which makes Travlor seem plausible. even if they are using it for publicity #it could still be real

[annashipper]

Sojourner Anon Submission

I’m in a similar situation to the Confused Anon - I’ve known about Benedict Cumberbatch since 2007 (Atonement), and had seen him in a bunch of stuff over the years prior to Sherlock, but wasn’t impressed enough with his acting to take an interest in him until Doctor Strange and TLD (it helped that he was smoking hot in both of these - scruff really does wonders for his face). Naturally my first course of action was to go on a bender through Tumblr for a couple of months, which is how I wound up on skeptic blogs. I’d seen pictures of Benedict with his wife in the past (mostly from the 2015 awards season) and I was aware that there existed a faction of fans that didn’t like her - mostly because of something that had happened to a friend of mine about two years ago.

I don’t wanna go into too many details, since I don’t want to expose her to more hate, so I’ll keep it simple: she’s a huge Benedict fan, not a UK resident but got to stay there for a while back in 2015, during which time she saw Sophie and the baby at some kind of event she (my friend, that is) attended - something that got her torn apart by the skeptics. Now, I’ve known this woman for ages. I’ll grant you that she’s a nanny, but most of her friends are, at best, very casual fans. She’s not a BNF, nor an attention-seeker or a consummate liar, so I find it truly hard to believe she’d make up something like that. There was literally nothing for her to be gained by saying she’d seen Benedict’s wife and baby (I doubt she’s on his PR’s payroll, considering she’s not someone followed by a ton of fans or anything remotely close).

I’ve seen the uncensored pap pics where you can see the face of the child being carried. His resemblance to Benedict is almost uncanny, which is saying something because Benedict doesn’t exactly have a very common face. If they really did hire someone, they did one hell of a job finding a kid who looked like the biological son of both parents.

Furthermore, I agree with what Confused Anon had to say. It’s one thing to get your friends and family to cover for you, but this is a man who’s constantly surrounded by virtual strangers that don’t owe him shit. There’s nothing stopping them from going to the press, and yet not even CDAN will publish a blind contending Benedict’s children are a lie (when it had no problems publishing such things about other celebs).

And what happens down the line, if he did create a fake family? They’re too young right now, but in a few years Benedict’s gonna be expected to discuss funny anecdotes about his children on talk shows - like that cute gifset you recently shared, with all the Marvel actors saying how their kids were embarrassed by them. You can bet your ass someone’s gonna ask Benedict what his sons think about him being Doctor Strange, and people will wonder why he’s not bringing them on set like other Marvel actors… and later, he’ll have to start regularly showing up in public with them, or gossip rags are gonna wonder aloud how come he never brings his children to any public events, like others do with theirs.

I don’t pretend to know what spurred this relationship, although I do have a theory that he panicked as he was nearing 40 with no kids and just jumped at the first opportunity to be a father, maybe hoping he’d learn to love Sophie along the way. Sadly, I’ve met couples like that IRL… but I digress. Whatever the real reason, it can’t have involved a fake pregnancy, or he would’ve said “not mine” a long time ago and jumped ship. At this point, that kind of admission would destroy his public image and career for a very long time, possibly even for good, so unless Benedict is EXTREMELY stupid - and he doesn’t come off that way to me - there’d have to be at least one child.

And yes, I’ve seen the photo collages of her pregnancy. I too have been pregnant and given birth, but unlike the rest of your mom anons, I don’t think that makes me an authority on either pregnancies or babies. No self-respecting medical professional would opine on a stranger’s pregnancy by just looking at photos, and neither should laymen who only have anecdotal evidence at their disposal. In other words, sorry, but drawing outlines on pictures isn’t how gynecologists determine pregnancy.

I’ve seen how you react to people who disagree with you, so I just wanted to say upfront that I’m not really expecting a serious answer beyond a sarcastic gif or sending me to those archives that don’t actually answer anything. My infatuation with Benedict has already begun to subside (I mean, it’s been almost six months, there’s only so long I can fangirl). I had five minutes to burn on my daily commute and that Confused Anon was something of a catalyst, so I dropped you a line. Have a great day, Anna, I hope both you and Benedict find happiness in your lives. (Please accept my apologies if this comes out too long, incoherent or misspelled; English isn’t my first or even second language).

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Hi Sojourner Anon!

First off, since you’ve seen how I react to people who disagree with me, you probably already know enough to expect a serious answer from me when you’re being as cordial as you have been.  I reserve sarcasm and snark for the obviously baity Anons who’re just looking for trouble.

Anyway, as your submission has indeed come out a bit long, I’m going to try to keep this as short as possible and simply address the points you’re making in the order that you made them:

Regarding your friend and her being torn apart by Skeptics, I don’t expect you to be aware of this since you’ve only just recently discovered the Skeptical community for yourself, but we have a long standing rule about sightings.  They have to make sense (to at least be taken seriously) and they have to come with photographic evidence attached (to be believed and included in confirmed sightings).  As I don’t know what your friend saw and where, it is impossible for me to argue whether what she saw was legitimate or not.  The one sighting of Weirdo and Pilo at an event I can remember, is the one where Weirdo supposedly took (a very young) Pilo (at the time) to an Ian Mc Kellen reading, and that’s simply because there was a lot of back and forth about it being legit.  Skeptics who are much more social media savvy than I am and have far higher powers of Google Fu than I do were able to find multiple pictures from the inside of the venue and ... guess what:  No matter how many brunette women the Nans pointed to as being Weirdo, it turned out she wasn’t in the audience.  If this is not the sighting you’re alluding to, I would be more than happy to discuss this with you privately in case you’re inclined to provide me with more details.  

On the matter of your friend being torn apart by Skeptics, let me also add that I personally have never ventured outside of Tumblr for any reason whatsoever and have made it a point to try to deter my fellow Skeptics from doing so as well.  For the record, all real Skeptics know how to stay in our lane.  The ones who don’t are not considered real Skeptics (and yes, there are a number of trolls who have infiltrated the community since the beginning of this showmance and are posing as Skeptics just to make us look bad).

I’ve seen the unblurred pics of Rent-A-Pilo’s face too.  At first I had the same reaction as you did.  I thought Rent-A-Pilo looked remarkably similar to Ben and went on record saying so (on a post which I haven’t deleted, because I don’t delete posts).  Here is the LINK.  Notice how even immediately after seeing Rent-A-Pilo’s face for the first time and posting under shock I still didn’t believe Weirdo had gestated a real human baby?  I still don’t.  

Seeing how the pillows are only ever mentioned / trotted out when Daddy needs to sell a new project or Mommy throws a tantrum to get a new pap walk, I don’t believe they’re surrogate children either.  I just think they’re imaginary.  It goes hand in hand with the fact that Ben knows next to nothing about babies.  2 hour skyping sessions with a 5 month old, filthy props from a movie set being used as teethers by a 10 month old and babies eating sliced apples are only some of the things Ben doesn’t seem to understand are not the norm for children of Pilo’s age.  I won’t even mention the lack of bathtime.

I don’t think Ben is extremely stupid.  I think Ben is extremely desperate not to come off as a man who faked a relationship / engagement / wedding / pregnancy / fatherhood for an Oscar he didn’t even come close to winning because he simply chose an unstable famewhore to play the part of his red carpet girlfriend.

I have to say I’m disappointed you don’t see fit to counter any of the arguments we pose via the bump comparisons you mentioned seeing as you’ve obviously studied them.  I have been posting / reblogging / arguing using these bump comparisons as evidence that Weirdo faked the first pregnancy for the better part of the past two years and not a single Anon has ever offered a convincing counter-argument regarding how ridiculous Weirdo looked with a bump that kept inflating / deflating / changing shapes / inflating again / folding over / disappearing altogether / inflating again / staying the same size during the last trimester of that weird pregnancy.  I would really like to hear your thoughts on that if you feel inclined to have a mature back and forth about it.  Be forewarned:  arguments such as “I can’t accept anyone would be crazy enough to fake a pregnancy like that while being papped left and right” and anecdotal evidence such as “my sister’s friend’s mother’s cousin’s (twice removed) never developed breasts / never got swollen ankles / belly kept deflating / bellybutton kept popping out and in and out again, etc” won’t be taken seriously.  For obvious reasons.

I hope the above answers some of your questions about my take on this showmance and I apologise for getting a bit snarky regarding the pregnancy that never was on my last paragraph, but faking that pregnancy is a very sensitive subject for me personally.

I have a couple of very close friends who have been trying to conceive and I know how taxing it’s been on them.  Let’s just say a famewhore faking a pregnancy just to establish herself in the public eye rubs me the wrong way.  

It’s why I keep coming back to the first pregnancy (which we got to document through numerous pap walks unlike the second one), it’s why I’ll keep calling Weirdo ... weirdo and it’s why I intend on remaining an active Skeptic for the foreseeable future.

Apologies to everyone reading this blog as I think my answer to Sojourner Anon may actually be longer than her submission was.  What can I say?  I’m a rambler...

#sojourner anon #submission