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goblinconceivable · 3 years

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oh ffs, i have feels but also head exploded

So basically someone liked a story I wrote a million years ago and mostly forgotten about, and when that happens I often reread the thing. (I can’t be the only one who does that...) Can’t say I’ve thought about Alex/Izzie since I wrote it, couldn’t even tell you when I stopped watching the show, though I think it was before her cancer.

Anyway I infected myself with feels for them again. And I dig the style I was using, 1+1 started a third chapter for funsies and should have stopped there. Because I did some reading and watched some clips and it’s all too much and when that happens I meta.

Usual mishmash, structure desired but no work put into achieving it. Classic brain dump.

Okay, fundamentals first. I am for now ignoring how Izzie/KH left the show. Because they had to exit her somehow and I’m sure Shonda was pissed at her, (or was leaving the door open for her return but I doubt it.) Haven’t seen it, if I needed to I could work it into my conception of their whole arc, but since I’m more critically hung up before that point, not worrying about it.

What’s got me messed up is that RIGHT AFTER Izzie promised to not go crazy, she... went crazy. Like, WTF was that about? I get that GA is all about the soapy drama, that is why I stopped watching. First couple seasons: brilliant. Downhill from there. But two things:

1) We never get to see these two happily together. One hot second and bam.*** Every. Time. Shonda allowed it for Meredith and Derek, but in my brain other couples got it for periods of time at the least. But these two, nope. And know what? THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN FASCINATING TO WATCH. I could delve into this and might swing back around but trying to hit highlights.

2) It set them on two different storylines instead of one. And Izzie got the short stick. Yes I can see how it works on paper, but not on screen. There are limits to the visual medium and limits to how much screen time they were given, which pretty much destroy the ability to nuance something this complex.

a) Izzie’s in her own world dealing with a ghost and is basically in two relationships at once (mental note to look for parallels with Alex’s exit and Jo v Izzie.) Except one’s a dream and the other is a reality that is still developing, yet she can’t give attention to. She has to fight every time to be there for Alex in the real world, and we don’t really get to explore her struggle. It often just looks like distraction and distance and him being second right after she firmly laid out that she cares about him.

b) Alex is in a relationship and is super happy and excited and wants the perfection he’s dreamed about to be real so much he’s overlooking everything that’s off. In his own little dream world I guess, but like, the whole thing skews into this being the story of Alex while Izzie is wandering in circles somewhere over in that direction, all serving the purpose of advancing exploration and development of Alex’s character. When did KH ask to be let out? If it was after this point, Shonda svcks. I mean, it is cool to watch him really blossom, but since he’s doing it under his own steam I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth. Because he’s not really in a real relationship. I want to see him get that, I want to see it for real.

***What IS interesting, I’ll admit, is that when they’re not together, they’re beautiful. Which is most of the time, so they gave me that. I’m a massive fan of the bittersweet, the star crossed, the never-quite-on-the-same-page, the nuance, the “it’s a deeper connection, a deeper love than just romance.” Thank gosh, it is time for excited thoughts. Because there is a strong friendship and mutual reliance and helping each other grow, pushing and giving hard truths and encouragement, and yes romance is woven through this but not the genesis and used more in terms of nudging everything along the path.

I love that Alex basically imprints on Izzie. I love that he loves her the whole time. But he’s willing to step back. He may get jealous and resentful and petty and scared and mean. But those are natural human emotions, Izzie gets them too, and they’re fundamental to his character and through those things he learns and grows. Izzie doesn’t make him. She entices him. Yeah, often directs him, especially at first. But at some point he’s growing on his own, in fits and starts, in reaction to his own emotions.

For example, when Izzie tells him she slept with George, he gets pissed, but also admits why pretty readily. And he tells her the truth, remarkably straightforwards. He reaches out to her a lot. And she turns him aside a lot. And he keeps loving. Even if romance is off the table. He runs after her a lot. Sits next to her when she’s upset a lot. Is understanding a lot. He’s different with her, and look I’m a fangirl, it’s a trope, I swallow bait line and hook. Which should be bait hook and line if my vague understanding of fishing is correct. I fished once, with safety implements, and still cried even as they removed the fish and popped it back into the water. (Okay I just reread to sort out where I’d gotten too and it’s hook line and sinker. Statistically someone will probably read this someday, you have my full permission to laugh at me. Anyway...)

The quintessential moment, the revved to 100, of course being when Izzie is clinging to a dead Denny. They’re all standing around. No one even looks surprised with jilted Alex talks to her. In a really caring way. And this is still fairly early on, wasn’t watching anything but their scenes but this had to be rare sight eh? (Mebbe?) And then he picks her up and sits down holding her and she clings and cries and like symbolism and could essay that but not going to right now because the broad relevant stroke is that Alex loves Izzie selflessly. And this is the pinpoint core of why I can buy his ending, because he can’t NOT love Izzie. I don’t think he even wants to stop. Though he can set it down in his heart and let her go and doesn’t pine. But he never stops loving her and it’s so many kinds of love imperfectly yet perfecly forged.

Forged. But also born. Stars uncrossed. I have emotions without words and if I try I’ll never get out of it to move on, so moving on.

(Oh, George telling Alex to talk to Izzie because she won’t talk to him about whatever it was. Isn’t is crazy that Izzie’s emotional squishy bestie goes to the emotionally stunted bad boy to help her because... it’s an understanding of the two-way Izzie/Alex bond, but also this crazy trust that Alex will show up.)

I love that Izzie isn’t blind to his faults, truly doesn’t like his faults, but has eternal faith for who he is and can be. She always saw him as someone with walls, once she stumbled on a lose stone and got a glimpse inside. She knows. She doesn’t always understand, but she knows.

Slight divergence from that line of thought, but its a great moment when they get together and he’s fairly transparently trying to make sure they’re in a committed relationship by dangling other women in front of her, and she’s a little ticked that he seems to be taking it rudely casually. Probably a bit of insecurity, but I’d say more that she has a long history of not reading him from the perspective of him loving her. Ie, 100% not recognizing that telling him about sleeping with George would hurt him. And doesn’t get it until he comes in and he’s dropped the swagger and it’s a “I know I’m doing something wrong and I don’t know how to do it right so help me” thing.

(Random memories of Sloan/Don from The Newsroom when she’s crying on the floor and Don comes in a sits next to her. I wuvs them too.)

I love that she openly leans on him, when he offers support she takes it. She doesn’t ask why, she accepts it and leans into it and is open to it because she trusts him because she knows him. The bits where she hates him tend to fall out of romantic issues, but when that’s removed from the equation they’re in sync. And the thing is, just as caring is fundamental to Alex’s nature, trust is fundamental to Izzie’s. And those two things weave into each other. Kinda like rats and the food button. When Alex reaches out Izzie she honestly accepts it, a “reward.” So he’s comfortable doing it again, and again. And when she does rebuff him he’s seen rewards come out enough that he doesn’t just scatter. And when Izzie trusts him, he rewards her with gentleness and care. She has the rougher time of it overall, because Alex is more screwed up emotionally, and breaks her trust more often than she rebuffs him, but that’s where Alex’s constant love comes in. But I cannot recall enough critical moments to have a cohesive proof, so I could be a little off base.

In my head Alex has always loved Izzie more than Izzie loves him, but I think my memory was unfair. There is a real constancy to Izzie’s affection, though I don’t think she imprinted on Alex as he did on her. She’s a different person, loves differently, has different issues. But my longstanding impression is mostly because of Denny. Who she truly did love, though the qualities of that love deserve exploration which I will not at this time attempt. And Denny loved her. The whole “side loves along the way” being a trope. Though usually “it ended in death/deathlike state” is given to the man and so THANK YOU SHONDA. Thinking of classics like Jane Eyre and Rebecca though I think both were actually crazypants first wives. And I do think female character’s side guys have a habit of dying, but it tends to feel more like a plot point to shut the door on continued love, whereas Denny remains a part of Izzie’s life.

At any rate, despite superficial similarities, Alex doesn’t hit the trope because his crazypants relationship wasn’t ever really about the woman: yep Alex got Rebecca, and Rebecca was crazypants, and it was a plot point to get him to the crying. Rebecca wasn’t love. It was never love. BUT

She DID, in every way, highlight what needed to be highlighted. 1) That he desperately wants a family. 2) that caring for someone, not just about them, is fundamental to him, (and ties neatly into him caring for Izzie all those sitting on the floor conversations.) and c) it’s not entirely healthy. Which is ALSO why thrusting his new happy relationship with Izzie into caregiver role is insensitive and undermines the relationship because it only makes sense if we got to see them both happy in the relationship first. And then we can see the quality of his caregiving change. But we didn’t. So bugger it.

I do LOVE how they let almost the whole next season play out he fallout of all that. Something taken slowly! We got to explore it. Did feel a bit drawn out tbh. But it just emphasizes the weight of it, I guess. Especially as it was a subplot amongst 100 others. This was their development for the season. Which was mostly Alex. But Izzie’s reactions revealed some things about her as well. Majorly dancing around laying it out for a close look and I don’t know why.

Favourite moment? Maybe Izzie putting her hand on Alex’s chest when he’s freaking out and telling him to stop, he doesn’t need to say any more. Because he’s trying to convince her of something, and she understands. And the trying to convince is shredding him, and she knows that. It’s a very loving and accepting “stop.” She’d already taken charge of the situation, for the good of the patient. She’d already taken charge because she knew Alex couldn’t handle it, he was too deep in something to see clearly. And she’s still in charge. She doesn’t break down and cry for him, or try to comfort him, he’s been thrown back into childhood and PTSD might literally be at play and what he needs, and she understands, is someone he can trust, who’s calm and gentle but strong and solid, to say it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to carry this on your own. We have it now. Because when we’re little and in over our heads what we want and what we need is an adult to take the burden. And still the physical contact is comforting, her tone of voice reassuring. She creates a space where he can feel safe and heard.

Ugh, rewatching, and we’re watching him literally devolve. Stages of grief ya’ll. He’s using every tactic to try and get what he thinks he needs: being able to take care of Rebecca. He’s in denial that anything is wrong. He gets angry when Izzie grabs him, to the point of threatening to hit her (though it’s fighting words and not real threat, and Izzie totally knows that.) He dives into bargaining. She’ll be okay if he can take care of her. He can do it. He tries to convince her it’s true.

By the time he gets home it’s depression. Not just Rebecca, but about his mom. And Izzie approaches him differently. In the hospital it was immediate and she was “in charge,” and needed to be in all facets, but at home, with the situation taken care of, she’s a friend. An equal. Which is what he needs right now. His sticking point later is the crying, so I kinda wonder how he’d react just to having told her about taking care of his mom as a kid. Right at the start he told that kid about his dad, (dad beating up his mom and him beating up his dad) while Izzie was within listening distance and didn’t seem fussed. But it’s ultimately a story about him being manly and protecting his mom physically. Which would be why it’s several seasons in before this crops up - waaay more intimate information. Probably all lumped into one, with the crying as shorthand. And mostly that his past is a fact, it’s his emotions he wants to keep private and deny.

He clearly did try to drown his emotions with sex. I’m not sure it would have worked with a random girl because he’s way too close to crying to do much of anything. And obviously doesn’t work with Izzie because sex is apparently emotional intimacy and I guess comfort for men moreso than women, but it plays out as a desperate attempt to get comfort in a safer way. Bargaining again, I suppose. “Have sex and will be fine tomorrow.” But, as noted, he doesn’t get that far because it’s too heavy and he rather quickly is just sobbing.

Which is a lovely parallel to holding Izzie while she cried on him after Denny died. Though Izzie had no qualms and no massive emotional recoil because emotions and vulnerability are normalized for females Izzie is a particularly emotional person. And an inverse of all the times Izzie is an emotional wreck and Alex sits down besides her and offers her support and understanding.

Could also argue that Izzie just saying “I’m sorry... About Rebecca. And your mom” - it’s an emotionally intimate moment. Of understanding. She’s acknowledging the two situations, and isn’t trying to do anything about them, explain or push or anything else. Just make him feel understood and not alone and sex is the way he can respond to that. How to process that in a way that feels manly to him? Also notably Izzie does seem to be going with it, and it’s aborted because he starts sobbing. And is still saying “Please” which is amazing, because he totally was never asking Izzie to just sleep with him. He wants to make it stop - the pain, emotions, probably reliving memories. But also... stages of grief. He needs to feel it, so he can accept it. He really just needs to cry, and grieve, and not be alone.

And it’s like... this is where their love story feels epic because it would look so different if they didn’t have all the levels and layers of love. Take out the romantic/sexual aspect. Take out the friendship. The trust. The family. Take out anything and this can’t play out.

Who didn’t love moments like Alex explaining to Bernedette Peters that men sometimes need to protect their manliness in the eyes of the woman they love. And they’ll do shit things to protect that manliness, but it’s because they care. Which is obviously idiotic and while romantic on screen is very much not so in real life, but this is fiction so hey ho. It’s such a wonderful foil. Because the situation here was not that Alex took his pain elsewhere to protect Izzie’s opinion, but that Alex completely and for a long time shut Izzie out to protect his manliness, which is entirely counterproductive but the only option he could see. He minimizes his experience as a “bad night.” (I mean, if you remove all the adjectives, he’s not wrong.) He’s protecting his own sense of manliness to himself. He doesn’t like feeling that vulnerable. He let Izzie get too close. He’s afraid. It’s all a tangle. And it pays off when they come back together and he’s willing to be more vulnerable, almost, and then enthusiastically, happy to be.

*But it does reference when he slept with Olivia when he failed his boards. So yeah, he’s done it literally too.

Backing up a step to revisit season 5. And actually they start out close. They’re all out in the cold waiting to greet patients and Alex grabs a blanket for her. He’s not irritated that Izzie keeps asking how he’s doing, just obviously in a bit of personal denial. And they’re totally messing around and lighthearted and look at each other with their heads really close and it begs some questions about the interim, though I guess they just haven’t talked about it deeper than “are you okay.” And per the Izzie/Meredith convo I guess they didn’t continue having sex (probably didn’t have sex that night either). Though the way Izzie looks at him as he leaves, she’s totally concerned that he’s not dealing with it.

Ah yes, forgot - so they just kept his breakdown unremarked upon, the superficial checking in is situational because Rebecca is a fact. They don’t talk about it, it’s fine. Pretending it did not happen. But it’s as soon as Alex thinks Izzie told Meredith about it that it goes pear shaped. It’s funny that his issue is the crying and he’s the one that told Meredith, but thematically Izzie saying “he’s opening up to me” is sorta the same. Also awww that even as she labels them friends, there’s this little glow inside her that they got closer. Emotional intimacy, what’s life without it eh?

So also 100% it’s high on Alex’s mind. That he did it, and so too that Izzie could betray him and tell others. Their relationship is so beautifully fragile in that short interim. It’s this little bubble where he’s okay that he was vulnerable with Izzie because she accepted it and isn’t making a big deal about it. And he does feel super close to her. But he can’t take anyone else seeing him in a non-manly light. For himself, and it works in terms of Izzie too if it’s an inside/outside situation. I’m a bit stuck and going in circles. If Izzie tells, then Izzie isn’t taking it seriously? Doesn’t understand him? I don’t think he’s even angry at her, if he looks weak to others then she’ll come to see him as weak? Halp, stuck.

Also so, I’ve seen it remarked upon that Izzie tends to forgive Alex when she maybe shouldn’t. But part of forgiveness can come from understanding the other person. Doesn’t have to be, especially for little stuff. But for big stuff?

Oh, and so weird but kinda cool that right after that rather self-aware conversation with Peters, he specifically lets Izzy see him with another woman. Were those scenes meant to be inverted? Or is he going into this eyes wide open? Trying to prove something? He’s hurting her though, is it intentional? Because cheating, by nature, is secretive, your person doesn’t know so you’re not hurting them directly, though of course when they find out it blows up. But the intention to wound is not there, it’s an escape. Proving that he’s really fine and back to his old self? They are not sleeping together so this isn’t cheating.

And even after that Izzy just shrugged it off. Popped in to tell him they maybe are getting kicked out, tries to get an apartment with him. She’s holding on to their closeness and friendship, despite him being prickly. And then... he smacks her or whatever they were doing which is back to flirty, and not meaningful but notably guides her out of the elevator before him. Though her barb about STD did hit him. Maybe he was trying to figure out how to stop being rude at her, and her continued friendliness was bufffer space until he could? He does say hello at the end, but who was she talking to about having no one?

It does bring up an interesting insight. It is true bout not something I thought about, that Izzie could be lonely, and actually does get as much out of their relationship as Alex ever did. They are incredibly close. And I think George might be married at this point, and thus no longer her “person”?

And then into the cryptic speak about them, while the father/son organ musical chair thing was happening. He’s looking over his shoulder at her, glances up, unspoken words yadda yadda. Follows her out into the hall when she leaves. The freeze out is shorter than I remember, but look, they kinda always keep communicating because freeze outs do not feel right. And I’ve moved to a blow by blow but Alex is trying to talk profession, and Izzie doublespeaks the “emotionally stunted” and he physically recoils and stutters like “yeah but no, that’s not what we’re talking about” and yet is now there and talking about them too. “Okay, ... I”m trying to be- I am, but this” WHAT is he trying to be/is??? Trying to not be emotionally stunted. Is emotionally stunted (or doubling down on trying?)

This is just such a beautiful conversation. Because Izzie IS emotional and caring but she has a mean backhand. Pettiness, ultimatum, she can smack back as hard as anyone smacks her. And she’s coming from a totally reasonable place, because he’s going hot and cold on her. And you can see that it affects him, and that falls out from that same pattern where he’s trying to tell her somehing and she’s not putting in a ton of effort to figure out what he’s saying, but is focused on her own needs and thoughts. ‘Cuz she’s hearing something like “give it up, you’re not going to get what you want out of me.” And he’s trying to say “I’m afraid I can’t be what you need, because I svck, please don’t make me try and fail.”

And they’re convo through parallels continues, Izzie calls Alex broken and is like “okay I do it your way my caring for you is pointless and it’s all fine.” Dad calls for son while kinda dying. I know they claimed different thought process but didn’t Alex call for Izzie when he was shot? And the payout from the series of exchanges: Alex is yelling at his standin to just step up and show he cares. With a hefty does of potential regret. It’s a 180, hoping that the kid does love his day, as well as getting emotionally invested. His relationship with his father isn’t mentioned, not sure if it’s meant to play into this, because he has previously acknowledged that he regrets losing his father completely.

(But then 10 seconds later she’s going to go crazy and by avoiding treatment it’s kinda like trying to kill herself and just... poor taste writers, poor taste.)

Cue a moment where Izzie knows what he’s trying to say and rewards it.

Enter Izzie being a little obtuse, I know I covered this but ending my personal cannon with them getting together - Alex literally says “are we going steady.” He’s literally saying “you tell me yes or no, and I will do that.” Of course he’s trying to say “I don’t know if you’re serious and I want to be please clarify and reassure” but one of those literal ones should have been enough. But then Izzie does always push him, not always intentionally, to be a little more direct, a little more vulnerable, trust her a little more. And the result is sooooo adorable!

And brings to mind when Izzie was trying to ask him out for the first time. And it went a tiny bit screwy and Alex flips it and asks her out.

There’s just so much awesome. *sobs* And there’s probably awesome in the cancer storyline too but I do not feel I can trust it and also it’s going to run full into Izzie being lame and leaving and all character development out the window? And I DO NOT want to see her trying to come back and Alex saying No. Because what will I see in the middle that gets them there? They always say yes. Eventually. And season 16 when JC is leaving the show is a bit on the long side, even if I ignore the details of the intervening years.

Throwing everything at the wall and maybe I’ll be done with dumping or can at least refine things. It’s the little speech I’ve only read and don’t want to hear bcause not sure how he did his line-read, but when he describes how he imagines Izzie’s life. In how much detail, how much he wants for her, what he knows she’s capable of building. He’s saying it to Jo and I’m uncomfortable with the idea he loves her, even if the letter to her does leak a “love you, in love with Izzie,” and I’m fine with Izzie loving Denny and don’t find it a problem Jo is still alive because I don’t see Alex going back but the thing where if he looks her in the eye he won’t return to Izzie and the kids is upsetting. And it’s just the kids and insta-family which is enticing. I mean, he’s not going to tell wife he’s leaving that he’s always loved his ex in a different way or anything. But he’s also not lying. He does mention to Meredith that he can’t go back to Seattle. He’d stay with Jo then out of... ? Halp. The best I got is he’s currently in a dream and if he goes back to his life, where he was happy, then he’ll lose the dream and it will disappear on him?

Slightly nicer is the elsewhere expressed (Meredith) idea that he’d set Izzie as unreachable. Thus, in line with what he told Jo, he didn’t want to contact her because he didn’t want to make it worse for himself, and his happiness comparison was completely excluding himself from the possibility of being part of Izzie’s life. It’s all happiness of them individually, not together. But yes, he always wanted to reach out, wanted to hear her voice and he never had an excuse? No excuse but curiousity, and that wasn’t enough to take a chance, but this was an excuse and he took it.

And the idea that he knows the right thing is to stay in Seattle, and being with Izzie and the kids is crazy, but it’s what makes him happiest, where he belongs. Meredith’s letter read first, so in that light, he’s overexplaining to Jo. Also exposition. References that conversation about his mental picture of Izzie, which I think was in the context of Jo questioning his feelings for Izzie. It scared him because... ? He focuses on the kids. It’s a little at odds with doing this for him, and a little suddenly ignoring the fact that he’s In Love with Izzie and I guess his mental image for Izzie was also his dream life and he gave it to her. Though where he thought her kids came from is possibly an oversight. Adoption?

Because it makes it sound like he’s torn between new and old love but the old love has is kids and wins. It’s a free pass to perfection. But he imagined a “whole life” for her, which is a massive investment opf time and emotional energy on someone he hasn’t seen in forever. I mean thinking well for an ex is al well and good but this sounds a bit beyond that, where she’s not a part of his life but a part of HIS life, believing she’s okay makes everything okay.

I am also willing to take up arms and claim that “I can’t look you in the eye because I wouldt be able to walk away...” doesn’t mean walk away from Jo, but walk away from Izzie. But that’s kinda tenuous. It just... it sounds like if he sees Jo he won’t be able to leave her, which puts her above Izzie (and even the kids, though he can still be in their lives) and that contradicts other statements, or at least their implications .

Though fair point that there’s a metric of who you’ll give up everything for. Izzie would for Denny. In a sense, I hear Meredith got her back in the Seattle hospital and she declined out of respect for Alex’s feelings. So in a way she gave up her life for Alex. And never reached out to him but did respond when he did. She picked up the phone. Maybe not knowing who it was, or they all kept their own phones. And Alex gave it all up for Izzie+kids. I want to know he’d give it all up for Izzie alone, and the life they could have had.

Or is it that he wouldn’t be able to leave Jo because, as noted to Meredith, it’s the right thing to stay in Seattle. And he’s become a man who does the right thing. And sometimes the right thing isn’t what we truly want, and to get that we have to be selfish. He one perfect thing is in Kansas. And it’s the family. It’s a family with Izzie. And his kids. It’s the whole package. If it wasn’t Izzie, the kids wouldn’t be enough? Also indicates that even with Jo was not exactly where he should be.

I’m also going with “some clues in various directions to satisfy various viewers but really offending most of them because this is all 10 years ago and people are newer viewers or forgot or hated Izzie when she left etc.” But preponderance of evidence leans in favour of this choosing what makes him happiest over what makes him happy.

ETA: he has a life for Izzie in his head because if she’s not happy, he can’t leave her where she is. He sees her as an optimist, the opposite of him and good things happen when you lean in that direction. He imagines her somewhere woody because that’s where they lived when they were married.

ETA2: Izzie didn’t notice Alex wanted to be exclusive. Because Izzie sees the good in him, but she doesn’t try to justify or explain things. She takes him at face value (mostly, she knows superficial crabbiness is just an unpleasant personality trait.) Until/unless she has very good evidence to he contrary. And THAT is why he has to take an active role and go to her. He does have to work for the relationship.

(Briefly skipped to a scene in season 6 (avoiding that season) and he actually says “I can’t be your nurse” which is so much character growth. Because I was afraid he’d gone full out into caregiver mode, which is not healthy for either of them. He’s protecting himself, but also pushing her to face up.)

CODAS

Watched Alex calling for/hallucinating Izzie when shot. Maybe it’s a Miranda thing? After freaking out right after she died, about how he can’t live without her, his breakup speech was essentially about how he realized he could survive without her. He doesn’t need her like that. And he was really hurt by the really shitty thing she did, leaving him. Thus valid conclusion that they should part ways and he’s not caught in the love/hate. But at some point after that, per hallucination conversation, he really wants her to... come back for him. To love him enough to not be able to stay away and come back for him it’s funny because the best way for her to love him was the respect his wishes and not come back. I mean she doesn’t even say anything after he asks that.

Interesting point “we married...” It’s a promise. He starts with “I’m sorry.” His breakup speech to her - rehearsed? He’s speaking from love and hate all blended and I think he’s a lot more honest and self aware, and he’s almost always been honest with Izzie. So his dying speech was also fear based? He’s scared, he’s in shock, like, physical shock. To when is his mind taking him? It’s natural to have regrets after a painful but necessary breakup. It’s been months but that’s still recent enough. So on the whole, inconclusive except yeah, he isn’t over her, but he admits during their breakup that he loves her “so much.”

Also love his “frozen together in time... and now we’re not.” They’ve both grown and changed, and so has their relationship, but there connection hasn’t. That hasn’t changed.

So back to his Izzie speech, which is meaningful intentionally as in 300th episode, where years later he was wondering still about her, enough to create a good life for her. A happy, rich and full life. He imagines it clearly and deeply enough to add smell to it. Smell is heavily linked to memory and emotion.

As happy as he is with Jo. Maybe it’s contentment? Something missing for each of them but not something he consciously knows? Meh. Back to frozen. He has an image, a full rich image of her and her life. It’s immersive but static, a snapshot. And the him who looks at that snapshot is the same him over time.

Letter to Meredith. “It’s about me.” Which is sorta back to breakup speech. It was about him, ending the relationship. He didn’t deserve to be left. And this is about him, not leaving Izzie+kids. There’s movement and beauty in this.

Meredith/Alex talking true love. So I’m torn. Jo refused his proposal, and the question is if you only get one true love. Did he think Jo was a true love, and if she refuses him it’s not? Or is he hoping that true love happens after they’re married? Given the constancy of his love for Izzie, from fairly early on, even if he didn’t call it that at the time I’m pretty sure it’s indisputedly much earlier than marriage, and she turned him down all the time, which would forestall true love worse, right? Can’t say as I’m not watching any Jo/Alex, cannot will not no need don’t gotta.

#alex x izzie #grey's anatomy #brain dump #meta #why couldn't i just leave well enough alone #and mess around with a vignette for funsies and a writing exercise #and not actually look at canon #because now i have feels #and am confused #and there are barriers to my feels #but it's okay i will live in my own little AU #and remember and know more than i did #given it was many many many years ago #i mean over 13 #right after season 4 started #izzex

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fortheloveoflizards · 4 years

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Headcanons

Wings of Fire Dragon Culture - Mating and Bonding

Skywings: As Skywings are quite gifted in the vocal area, many like to woo their beloved with sonnets, poems and serenades, in addition to the expected aerial displays. Most Skywings don’t choose to mate for life, though, so rather than going through that whole complex ritual just to lay eggs (this is also partly thanks to the war), the tribe took to holding a monthly mating ceremony, absent of all that romantic fluff. Queen Ruby is working towards reintegrating the older Skywing customs in the hopes of cementing to her subjects that the war is truly over. Skywing couples tend to enjoy shared caves and often hunt together, however the task of raising dragonets lies primarily with the mother.

Mudwings: Displays of strength and power are the most common courting technique for Mudwings, as well as showing the ability to work well as a team. Mudwing couples looking to mate permanently may even take each other’s place within their troop for a short time, both to prove to their intended and their intended’s sibs that they are a capable mate. Mated couples are known to share mudbaths, helping lather mud on to each other and massaging scales etc (the scene in The Dragonet Prophecy where Peril helps Clay with his wounds by pouring mud on him would be considered very intimate by Mudwing standards). The siblings of dragons that do mate for life tend to combine to form one big troop as a show of support.

Sandwings: Despite the common belief among most dragons, Sandwings actually mate for life nine times out of ten, and courting can be anything from gifts of treasure, music or food to den building to scavenger hunts - and by that I mean a set of tasks chosen by the dragon being courted, not hunting down scavengers). Sandwing parents are generally pretty protective of their dragonets until around the age of three, at which point the dragonet can either choose to strike out on their own or stay with their parents, essentially paying rent through helping care for any other dragonets, hunting and other manual labour.

Seawings: Another tribe that mates for life, with colourful and intense courting rituals comprised of underwater displays, reef arrangements and jewellery making(typically a shared activity). Many mated couples try to lay as many eggs as passible, as Seawing eggs are among the least likely out of all the tribes to survive hatching; eggs go into shared hatcheries set up predominantly on reefs near heat vents, and neither parent typically has anything to do with the egg until it hatches. At which point one parent is present in order to visually imprint upon the dragonet. Things obviously work differently with the royal family, as the parents are usually away performing their duties. Therefore, each hatching is assigned an attendant, to be present during the birth and to act as a pseudo-parent for the dragonets.

Rainwings: This tribe doesn’t typically mate for life, but when they do they demonstrate undying respect and loyalty(as seen with Mangrove and Orchid). Rainwings also don’t put much effort into impressing potential mates, mostly food, flowers and lots of compliments. As seen in the books, Rainwings shared one big hatchery until very recently, and the whole tribe would care for dragonets as a whole; this is still mostly true - the tribe does share responsibility for all dragonets - but the hatchery is guarded far more carefully and Queen Glory has started construction of both a second hatchery for the Nightwing tribe and a royal hatchery(much smaller than both previously mentioned).

Nightwings: Nightwings place high value on the decision to mate for life, with intricate handcrafted jewellery and most dragons even bothering to wrap gifts if they want a good reception. There is a considerable amount of courting to be had before any mating, for life or otherwise, as a Nightwing wants to be sure of the competence of her mate before having eggs with him. Exchanging romantic letters and poems is not common among the older members of the tribe, although younger dragons may indulge in light wooing whilst caught in the flutters of new love.

Icewings: They have the most complicated courting rituals of all the tribes, as all Icewings mate for life and place VERY high expectations on mated couples to remain loyal and present a united front. Extravagant gifts, complex aerial displays and many handcrafted goods are to be expected of prospective mates, as well as participation in a strange game of cat and mouse, in which the Icewing hoping to woo another is expected to pursue her avidly, and to put up with intense animosity, as she will not make it easy for him; this courting method can take anywhere from a several weeks to years, and the responsibility is typically upon the male(or otherwise socially weaker of the two) to initiate this process, though the female(or more socially powerful) can elude to wanting the game to start. Icewing parents raise their own dragonets until their seventh birthday, at which point they cut off almost all contact unless it’s official or otherwise rank dictated. Adult Icewings act as mentors to all dragonets, regardless of rank or relation.

Silkwings: The basic template for a Silkwing courting ritual is for the would-be mate to construct as elaborate of a cocoon like nest as they can and decorate it with sweet flowers and line it with other soft things. Wing displays akin to that of a peacock are also common. Silkwings usually mated for life, choosing their potential mate before metamorphosis, however under Hivewing rule, more and more Silkwings have been opting for simply laying as many eggs as possible.

Hivewings: Whether more dragons prefer mating for life over for the purpose of laying eggs within the Hivewing tribe changes from hive to hive, but the majority prefer to simply breed rather than going through some complicated maze of flirting and gift giving. Those who do mate for life generally choose to exchange sweets and flowers if anything, and spend as much time together as possible.

Leafwings: Another divided statistic, as the two halves of the tribe share very different view; “Sapwings” like to mate for life, sharing gardening tips and designing elaborate plant arrangements for prospective partners, while “Poisonwings” prefer to just lay eggs and move on, as their focus is primarily on the resistance and defending their forests.

This is another of those ideas my brain couldn’t let go of, so I had no trouble deciding what should be next. I’m also planning to make a follow up for this regarding life mating ceremonies, because a good friend of my family just got married and I’m in the mood for luuuurve! I’ll also probably make a post regarding my ideas about how Mudwing troops go about combining following their sibs’ decision. Probably. Maybe. I dunno, depends on if people show interest in this.

#Wings of Fire #Headcanons #Pyrrhia #Pantala #Skywings #Mudwings #Sandwings #Seawings #Rainwings #Nightwings #Icewings #Silkwings #Hivewings #Leafwings #dragon culture #mating #bonding #big oof y'all

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oldjackivy · 7 years

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Death Stranding Theories From the Outside...

So, here's the thing: I'm not a gamer. My wife, she's a gamer. She'll play mass effect all day. Me? The most recent games I've played are the Batman "Arkham" series, and Ghostbusters. Not the new one tied to the new film, but the 2009 one, with the original cast. Those are my most recent not because I'm a gamer, but because I love batman, and I LOVE Ghostbusters. That said, I also love creativity, and I love seeing/hearing/watching other people be creative. Hideo Kojima is a creative man. You don't even need to be a gamer to see that. So is Guillermo Del Toro. I have long loved his films, and felt like a kid in a candy store as I walked through his "At Home With Monsters" exhibit with a friend back in November. His creativity was on full display, and I relished it, seeing not only his own creations, but the things that influenced him. The things that made such an imprint on him that you can see how it drove him to become the creator he is today. It was like seeing the formula or the equation behind his works. If A= Classic monster movies and B= a love of old fairy tales, then A+B= Pan's Labyrinth... Or something like that anyway. I love art and writing and coming up with my own stories, and for me part of that involves taking the things I have experienced or learned about and finding ways to connect them and make something new or unique, then taking that new thing and again seeing how I can connect it back to this world. I really enjoy seeing other creative who seem to think along these lines too. When I saw Del Toro's name attached to Silent Hills, I got excited, and I vaguely knew Kojima was a big name in video games because of Metal Gear Solid, so I was pretty excited to see what would come out of the game. Norman Reeds as the lead character was a win to me too. Something about having an actor involved to the degree that they use their likeness in a game feels like it gives the project a little more "umph" to me, but, that's just me. And of course I was bummed to see the project get canceled... But it was what came out of all of this that had me hooked. 2 brilliant creative minds and a good actor deciding to carry on after what seemed like a pretty severe brush off, and the cancelation of a high profile project. Something good felt like it was gonna come out of it. And know, we see what that was: Death Stranding. Between cryptic words, a couple trailers, and the mysterious "Homo Ludens" mascot of Kojima's new company, there's a lot to process, and a lot to guess about. But there's also the overwhelming invitation to try. To find the pieces if that formula. The elements of the equation that Kojima built Death Stranding from. I saw a video recently (I believe from YouTube user YongYea) talking about comparisons between the first Death Stranding trailer and the first Terminator film. Now, at first I thought "OK, big whoop, here's 2 naked guys who start out on the ground and then stand up. It really evidence of anything, right?" But then I saw his side by side comparison of the two scenes... And my mind was blown. It was clear that Kojima purposefully built the Death Stranding scene to mirror the Terminator scene. Do I think it's some link between the two stories that is significant? No, at least not right now, but I do think it's a piece of formula. I think it's one of the things that was swirling around Kojima's head that inspired him. By no stretch of the imagination do I think I am any sort of equal to Kojima. He clearly knows a ton more about video games and making money than I do. But, I do think I sense something about him and the way he thinks that I can relate to... That I vibe with. He's a connector. He's constantly absorbing and analyzing the world around him. Facts, theories, history, legends, technology, advancements, people, all of it. Observing things and storing them away, noting how it all connects to the world around him, and then allowing his brain to connect those different concepts into something new. Taking things that haven't been put together before and seeing how they fit. Coming up with new meanings and interpretations of things. I read about how one of the Metal Gear games involves unplugging a controller and plugging it into the other controller port to confuse an enemy who up til then has been predicting your moves. That takes someone who is constantly thinking about how to reinterpret the world around him. The idea that he would be the 3rd person in the hospital, in his own creation, witnessing his creation, and then having it interact with him, and allowing the player to experience that too? That's someone who cares deeply about not creating a game, but an experience. A world. It totally falls in line with the "Homo Ludens" character from the Kojima logo. The Playing Man. An evolution. A character that represents all of us as we engage in his games. His name isn't Carl or Steve or NORMAN. He is... Kojima. He's you. He's me. He's anyone playing a Kojima game (or a game in general, I suppose). He's us. That said, he happens to look like Norman Reedus. BUT, this isn't Norman Reedus playing a certain character. Hell, it isn't even Norman Reedus as Norman Reedus. It's just... His shell? His body? It's the figure that represents this new man. This Playing Man. It's his likeness in the suit, but that likeness can be Kojima, it can be anyone. So when Kojima says "It's me in the suit" he's not lying. And when he says "it can be anybody" he's not lying. He's just being clever... He's also not lying when he says that Ludens is not Norman, and Ludens is not the main character Death Stranding. However, the main character of Death Stranding could very well be another example of Norman representing this Playing Man. Separate, but the same. Homo Ludens is the poster child, but game Norman is the concept in action. Now, as for the game itself... ... What if it's a meta examination of gaming itself? Think about it. When you game, you play, your character dies, you respect, you move on. But what if every playable character that dies becomes... Stranded? Every time you respawn, that old, shot up body that you just shed so you could take a new one out to battle is stranded. Every element t of the game, person, place, thing, etc, that gets broken or killed carelessly and thoughtlessly becomes "stranded", left to drift, winding up in some sort of game world graveyard. This explains why it's not just lifeforms that have the disconnect Ted umbilical cords dangling about, but stuff like the planes as well. It's a haunting place. One that looks like it's starting to become its own gnarly assemblage of weird biological matter and parts, if that creepy tank on the bridge is any indicator. And what if, in the midst of this madness and decay, there was life. A new form of life. A life to be protected, of fought over. What if this "playing man" is that life? Life that has evolved to care and understand "death" in a new way, and that death in any form is to be revered and deserves compassion, and that life is to be protected? Life that has evolved to be a product of this game world... Homo Ludens. Maybe that is what the baby in the pod is. Another video I saw, and forgive me, I can't find it again, and I can't remember who said it, but they put forth that the way things suddenly appear and disappear and change, sometimes off screen and sometimes in a burst of embers and light... Maybe that's the in game equivalent of having an invisible cache of gear and equipping it seemingly out of nowhere. Mads Mikkelsen is seen using his goggles, but as he flips them up, they disappear. In the first trailer, as Norman is holding the baby, connecting Ted to him via the cord, the shot is tight on him. We can't see the child, but suddenly, he reacts, and we pull out to see its gone, and later on, that a scar has taken the place of where the cord would have connected. Maybe it disappeared in much the same way Mads' goggles disappeared, just off screen. Was it because Guillermo "equipped" the baby from where he was? YongYea also made a video that showed by altering the speed of one of the trailers, the 2 trailers sync up in a way that makes it seem like as soon as Guillermo connects his cord to the pod carrying the baby, that is the moment when Norman loses the baby in his world. He pondered that maybe the fact that the "dogtags" on Norman's neck and the equations etched onto them, which pertain to quantum physics and black holes, possibly meant that the game would touch on those elements. He sort of dismissed the idea that speeding up the video played into the black hole theory, but I think he was on the right track. I think that is because these are 2 characters in different worlds/levels of the same game, but Kojima is taking this concept to new depths. These worlds/levels in the game might actually relate to each other in a way similar to the scene in Interstellar when some of the characters go down to the surface of a planet, only to find that an hour there was years on the ship in orbit. Maybe that's consistent between the worlds of this game. Clearly they are all suffering from the same affliction of being a place where dead things are stranded, but maybe those equations are the key to Norman moving throughout the levels, and maybe moving the baby back and forth through time is part of the game's mechanics to protect it. Maybe it's ability to relate to and move through time and space differently and still survive is a part of its evolution... From Homo sapiens into Homo Ludens. And what if Mads, as the villain, is able to manipulate all the death and decay and abuse it to his will? People have wondered if the oil is a sign that the game has something to do with an actual oil crisis, but I think it's not so much a firm in game literal element as much as just visual symbolism for the abuse of life. It leaks from Mads as he is connected to the world war 2 era soldiers in the tunnel. He's using all those discarded soldiers and warriors so carelessly "stranded" after their job is over, as his army, out to stop this Homo Ludens. To crush it before it becomes a threat. I think the five floating beings in the first trailer are that world/level's incarnation of Mads and his death soldiers. I think each level dictates their appearance. In the more war oriented world, they are soldiers. In the, literally, stripped down world Norman is in, the take the threatening appearance of some all knowing beings above him. They will follow you from world to world in pursuit of Ludens... I have more thoughts, but they're not completely fleshed out. I'll probably post them eventually. I've definitely been sucked down this rabbit hole. For me the fun isn't in trying to figure out every detail of the game's plot. It's in putting together the equation. Deciphering the pieces and influences and what they could mean when connected together, in the equation that will ultimately equal Death Stranding.

#Deathstranding #Death #Stranding #hideo kojima #Death stranding #video games #guillermo del toro #norman reedus #theories

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metng · 7 years

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Mass Effect: The Next Generation

Episode 1: Remnant of a Dead God

This is an extensive crossover that draws characters and concepts from multiple sci-fi and even fantasy franchises and integrates them into the Mass Effect universe. No prior knowledge of anything but ME should be necessary to follow the story. This is absolutely a sequel story about the galaxy after the end of Mass Effect 3. New characters, new conflicts. I hope you can fall in love with them as much as I have.

Rating: M - language, violence, sexuality

Summary: 100 years after the Reaping and the Crucible Event, the galaxy is rebuilding into a new golden age. As optimistic as times seem, the darkness between stars threatens to return in the form of infighting between the remaining Reapers. The Shadow Broker silently pulls strings across the galaxy to guard against the Reapers’ infighting, but even she can’t end this alone. When bounty hunter and synthetic-organic symbiote Samus Aran is called on to investigate a Reaper’s mysterious death, she discovers truths about the Reapers’ motivations and the century-old Crucible that could end the civil war–or ignite it into another Harvest.

Scene 1: The Shadow Broker’s Warning

It has been one century since the Crucible Event ended the Reaping. Commander Shepard entered the Citadel and never returned; our only knowledge of what happened in the Crucible comes from her final transmission, and from the Reaper that burst through the Citadel’s mass relay, just before the Event. This Reaper, of a unique design and incredible power, attacked Harbinger, the leader of the Reapers, and bought Shepard enough time to trigger the Event.

In the century since the Event, the civilizations of the galaxy have rebuilt. We have not only survived; we have thrived. The alliances and friendships forged in the fires of war remain strong. The krogan, quarians, and geth have rejoined the Citadel community, as have the batarians of the Khar’shan Republic, which rose from the ashes of the Hegemony. The Citadel Defense Fleet of the Reaping has become the new right hand of the Council, Starfleet. It is an interstellar, multispecies peacekeeping armada, and it is the pride of the galaxy. The Spectres are the left hand, a shadow organization that goes where Starfleet cannot. Synthetic life is easier than ever before to create, and the precedent set by EDI of the Normandy carries through in Starfleet and the Spectres. Many ships now have their own minds and wills, and are as much part of the crew as any organic. The Reapers have vanished from the sight of the galaxy, and many believe they simply retreated back to dark space, defeated.

But I know the truth. The peace we fought so hard for is not so easily held. The Reapers are not gone, but they are no longer Reapers. They are fractured, fighting among themselves for direction and purpose. My Shadow Network watches this civil war and, when we can, we strike to turn the tide in our favor. From the void of space, my beloved and I pull the strings of the galaxy and weave the future we never stopped fighting for.

Even the Shadow Broker is not omniscient, however … and some strings tangle so easily.

Scene 2: The Dead God’s Dream

Khar’shan, like Earth, only has one moon. It’s not the only way in which the two planets are similar; indeed, they’re nearly twins, despite the Sol system and Earth being a fair distance further into the galaxy. According to Varia’s historical codex, that’s why the batarians and humans used to fight over planetary territory--both sides wanted to colonize the same planets. Now, however, the two species are firm allies. In the aftermath of the Reaping, they realized they actually could colonize the same planets and coexist peacefully.

Samus Aran thinks it’s a little ridiculous that a near-total genocide of the batarian species was required for that realization to occur. Why didn’t they co-colonize before?

The Hegemony believed all non-batarians were inferior and only good for enslaving. The humans did not react well, Varia tells her.

Varia is a living starship. That’s the common term for the ships that contain quantum artificial intelligences, at least; to Samus, she is far more than simply a ship. She is an entity on her own terms. She’s not large, just barely smaller than a military frigate, but she has a powerful drive core, three different gun types and a cyberwarfare system, and a stealth drive--and she can use them all without her pilot. With Samus, locked into the piloting pod, they react faster and with more creativity than any single ship. Even the Starfleet helmsmen, who all pilot living ships, couldn’t hope to match them.

Helmsmen have to tell the ship to move; Samus and Varia move together.

They can converse while flying, but that is only one level of the mind. On all others, they think as one, combining Varia’s formidable processing power and Samus’s nimble, inventive turian brain. Greater than the sum of their parts.

The moon of Khar’shan is a barren rock, devoid of life and even an atmosphere. The old Batarian Hegemony, over a hundred years ago, once had a military base here. Now the base is a hollow ruin on the other side of the moon. It’s not why they’re here. There’s something else far more interesting. So far it hasn’t shown up on the scanners as the ship skims over the rock, but they’ll find it. Something this big can’t hide for long.

Have the batarians sent anything up yet? Samus asks. We don’t want to be here if they start sniffing around.

Nothing yet, Varia informs her. Her scan of batarian extranet conversations and military communication takes but fractions of a second, almost instantaneous. They’re talking about the light show around the moon last night, but nothing in the military is considering it enough of a threat.

Hardly surprising. The Khar’shan People’s Republic is barely spacefaring right now; a few unscheduled fireworks aren’t going to rate as much of a concern. According to Watcher 21, the Shadow Net agent who gave them the job, at around 0100 Khar’shan time, there was a sudden explosion of red and green light in the sky, centered around the moon. Twelve hours later, the batarians are discussing the phenomenon with great interest. The Shadow Broker, who heads up the Net, shares their interest.

“According to the Broker,” Watcher 21 had told them in his funny Earth-human accent, “those lights had unique energy signatures. Only one group of creatures is known to have those signatures--Reapers. That’s why we’re hiring you. If there’s a destroyed Reaper around the moon, we need to know why it was there and what it was doing. Any organic around a Reaper risks indoctrination. Yes, even when the Reaper is dead,” he added, anticipating the question. “A synthetic-organic symbiote like you and Varia, however, is immune. And you’re used to, you know, dangerous situations.”

Dangerous situations are landing on a rachni planet to obtain a queen egg, being attacked by pirates on that planet, and having to storm a pirate dreadnought alone to regain the egg. Dangerous situations are leaving the rachni egg on another toxic planet, having the egg hatch and imprint, and wind up with a baby rachni follower for a while. That was a weird few days. None of those dangerous situations involved dead starship gods.

The short-range scanner’s visual flashes red. Focusing on the red reveals a large mechanical strut--no, not a strut. A leg. It looks like a giant finger, half-buried in the rock, cut cleanly from its hand. Samus leans forward in her seat, even though she can zoom by thought alone. “Spirits,” she breathes aloud.

More red fingers appear on the scanner visual. One is sticking straight up from the ground, as if to point at the sky above. Surrounding the fingers are scorch marks and, more impressively, small canyons and large craters. “There was a fight here,” says Samus, flicking the visual from highlight to highlight. “But if these are the legs…”

“The body must be nearby,” finishes Varia. “The extent of the damage indicates at least two Reapers were involved in the struggle. Likely more.”

“Reapers right above Khar’shan, and nothing’s happened on the planet surface. I do not like this.”

Continue on AO3

#mass effect #mass effect fanfiction #me fanfic #metng #episode 1

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biofunmy · 4 years

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Inside ‘The Circle,’ Reality TV Gets a Social Media Filter

LONDON — “Message: ‘Hey girls, hey. I want to start this chat just to get to know all of you. Girls who stick together are pretty girls.’ Emoji heart. …”

Alana Duval, 25, from Brownsville, Tex., begins a group chat with three of her seven fellow contestants. They are sitting in separate apartments, never meet in person, and they bond and back-stab only through online profiles and a voice-activated social media platform.

It may not immediately strike you as a killer television format. But the drama had already begun.

“How old is Alana again?” wondered another contestant, Samantha Cimarelli. “Because she’s acting like she’s in high school.”

When “The Circle” debuted in Britain in 2018, cultural commentators were skeptical, to say the least. The Guardian predicted “fame-hungry nitwits sitting alone in their pants spewing small talk online,” and asked if the concept heralded “the coming of the apocalypse.”

But the series, a reality competition show in which “anyone can be anyone,” soon became a cult hit. Within a month, that same newspaper was hailing it as “one of the standout TV shows this year,” and Netflix snapped up the global rights. A 12-episode American version debuts on Netflix Jan. 1, and Brazilian and French versions are in the pipeline.

Contestants craft their online profiles with the focus and precision of a brain surgeon. While some opt for full-frontal honesty, others exploit the artifice of social media to experiment with their identities — or purely to help win the $100,000 prize. Past impostors, known as catfish in social media parlance, have switched gender or sexual orientation, pretended to be their sons or girlfriends, and even invented babies and dead pets.

But how did producers turn this flurry of emojis and hashtags into binge-worthy entertainment? (Ultimately, the show is mostly scenes of solitary people talking to themselves and their screens.) Is it an ennobling social experiment, as its producers — and many of its contestants — suggest? Or is it a descent into the worst inanities of contemporary online discourse? In 2020, does it matter?

“We’re in a social media era — that’s how we’re going to be defined 1,000 years from now,” said Shubham Goel, a virtual-reality designer from Danville, Calif., who is a contestant on the American version. “I think the show really encapsulates the world more than any other thing at this time.”

Producers clearly hope they have distilled the essence of our times. Ratings for the British “Circle” have been modest (1.2 million viewers on average), but the series has been catnip among 16-to-34-year-olds: The first season was Channel 4’s “youngest profiling” show in six years, according to the British TV industry magazine Broadcast, drawing half its viewers from that sought-after demographic.

“The starting point I’d had is: What would a reality show look like where people never met face to face?” said Tim Harcourt, the creative director of Studio Lambert, which produces the original British series and the international versions for Netflix. “At the same time, I had also been toying with a ‘Rear Window’-style documentary where you could visually see all these people in their apartments, living out their lives, but they were atomized.”

The two strands came together when Harcourt heard that Channel 4 was searching for a reality-show format centered on social media.

“Quite quickly I realized I had a much more simple game of communication and of masks,” he said.

Sometimes those masks can help a contestant’s efforts; other times, not so much. In the British version, James Doran, a 26-year-old recruitment consultant, morphed into Sammie, a single mother with an angelic baby — the guise he felt would be most likely to prevent his competitors from voting him out. He reached the final.

Busayo Twins, meanwhile, a 24-year-old black woman, became Josh, a trust-fund kid “with a white savior complex” pictured on his snowboarding holidays. She said she had wanted to subvert “the stereotypes attached to black confident women that they may be angry or aggressive.” After a cake she decorated appeared to show the imprint of long fingernails, she was suspected of being a catfish and “blocked.”

Other players’ experiences complicate the very idea of authenticity. Duval, a white, blonde model with more than 80,000 Instagram followers, used her real identity in her profile, which featured a professional-looking portrait and declared, “Tacos all day every day.” Her status was immediately in jeopardy.

One of the series’s hallmarks is its diversity, and not only in demographic terms — not every player is as practiced as Duval in social media. Goel, 23, described by Harcourt as “probably one of my favorite all-time reality characters in any show,” is an earnest Indian-American techie who described social media as “our modern-day bubonic plague.” But “The Circle” eventually won him over.

“I brought a Shakespeare book, and I was playing a lot of Ping-Pong against the wall,” he said in a phone interview. “As the game went along, I kept losing my hobbies because I was so enrapt in my connections with these people.” He said he still communicates with his fellow contestants on a private Instagram group. (Their season completed filming earlier this year in Manchester, England, where every version is filmed.)

Amid the naked gamesmanship engendered by “The Circle,” beautiful human stories emerge. In the second British season, Georgina Elliott, 22, uploaded a photo of herself wearing a bikini and an ileostomy bag — to raise awareness of Crohn’s disease. It helped cement a friendship with Paddy Smyth, 31, who had started by uploading only pictures of himself without his crutches. (He calls them “glam sticks.”) He had wanted to hide his cerebral palsy.

“It’s not that I’m ashamed or scared,” he later told Elliott by dictating to his TV screen. “It’s that I wanted to feel what it would be like for once to just be me and not be that disabled guy.”

Elliott responded with the hashtag #ProudOfYouProudGayDisabledMan. Both ended the virtual conversation in real tears, and Smyth soon opened up about his disability to the rest of the group.

Not everyone is quite so smitten. Helen Piper, a professor of television and film studies at the University of Bristol, believes that the “obligation to perform,” which has been at the heart of reality TV for decades, has been “turbocharged” by the pretense encouraged by social media.

“I think the whole moral, touchy-feely thing that they’re talking about is a bit of a facade,” she said. “It’s substituting for a kind of more robust moral framework, in which people could really be themselves. They can’t just be a single parent, they have to be a single parent who’s ‘struggled’, who has to narrativize that process.”

The fact that a catfish won the first British season, she added, shows how hollow all the talk of “authenticity” is.

“But we’re all spinning narratives of ourselves now, that’s the world we’re in,” she said. “The personality is everything. The performance is all.”

Few have been as central to TV’s transformation in that regard as Peter Bazalgette, who as a British TV executive at the turn of the millennium helped take the Dutch reality series “Big Brother” global. At the time, he received no shortage of easy criticism, but he believes reality TV has played a part in fostering open-mindedness, citing winners of “Big Brother” who were gay, transgender, or had Tourette’s syndrome.

At its best, he argued, reality TV showed the “humanity behind the stereotype.”

“It’s a very clever format,” he said of “The Circle,” “and it touches a very contemporary nerve — the uncertainty we feel in what I like to think of as the digital dystopia. Are people what they seem online?”

Eventually, that format ensures that all players, regardless of strategy, must confront such tricky questions unfiltered: When a contestant is voted out, he or she is allowed to meet one other player in person. Those exits can be complicated, but the five contestants interviewed for this article expressed overwhelmingly positive feelings about their time on the show.

Karyn Blanco was one of them. After a straight male contestant is eliminated from the American version early, Blanco must reveal her true identity to him. She had posed as a willowy 27-year-old named Mercedeze, who is intentionally vague about her sexuality, using photos donated by a stranger. In reality, she is a 37-year-old lesbian from the Bronx.

In an unguarded moment, she confessed: “I did a catfish because all my life I’ve been judged. I’m not ugly, but I’m not feminine. So it’s really the fact of just showing the world you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Still, the acceptance she received after unveiling her true self “pretty much revived my faith in humanity,” she said in a phone interview.

“I feel as though it made me just look a little bit differently towards men as far as why they’re so protective of their ego when it comes to me being around,” she said. “I just learned a little bit more about myself and the power of perception.”

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