William and Catherine 4

[just_ordinary]

People also seemed to make a correlation between „planned surgery“ and minor surgery. That’s why everyone hit crazy about a two week hospital stay. And I doubt she has been bed ridden since she is at home. For comparison- while a shorter hospital stay, you are off work at least for 8 weeks after a hysterectomy. Least invasive procedure. Doesn’t matter if you feel basically fine after 14days. So her being off work for 10-12 weeks and the longer stay to me reads, more invasive than laparoscopy but definitely not that we should suspect anything worrying.
Also, she has beautiful homes and grounds- it’s not as if she gets sick to be bound to her property. But I can absolutely understand that she doesn’t want to be seen biking or shopping while off work. Doesn’t mean she isn’t physically capable. But the backlash would be bad.

[IrishCarrie]

Well, I gotta say guys, the ‘Kate is missing’ twitter discussions during the week have kept me sane 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I’m about 70% through an incredibly challenging project in work, I’m obsessing on it all day every day and the only thing that’s been keeping me going is that in another month or so I’ll be done with it. But it’s been exhausting and stressful and I know I haven’t been myself for weeks now.

Until I glanced at Twitter during the week and spent an hour and a half CRYING with laughter at all the theories and comments. Bring Irish, I normally don’t give two hoots about the royal family and I’m sure in a few weeks time I’ll go back to giving it 0% of my attention again. But in the meantime???…IT’S THE BEST THING EVVVVVAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Better than tv, better than chocolate, better than tossing and turning and trying to sleep. Long live them all! 👑 

[klein_roeschen]

7 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

People also seemed to make a correlation between „planned surgery“ and minor surgery. That’s why everyone hit crazy about a two week hospital stay. And I doubt she has been bed ridden since she is at home. For comparison- while a shorter hospital stay, you are off work at least for 8 weeks after a hysterectomy. Least invasive procedure. Doesn’t matter if you feel basically fine after 14days. So her being off work for 10-12 weeks and the longer stay to me reads, more invasive than laparoscopy but definitely not that we should suspect anything worrying.
Also, she has beautiful homes and grounds- it’s not as if she gets sick to be bound to her property. But I can absolutely understand that she doesn’t want to be seen biking or shopping while off work. Doesn’t mean she isn’t physically capable. But the backlash would be bad.

Most surgeries are somewhat planned in advance, may it be days, weeks or even months depending in reason for the surgery and many other factors. Many things that need surgery can wait a little bit so that hospital and patients can plan for the surgery and the aftermath.
In 2020 I had both a planned surgery (breast reduction) and an unplanned surgery (emergency gallbladder removal). With both came a few days hospital stay and 2 weeks of sick leave. But if you had me seen the day after I was discharged, you wouldn't have suspected I had a surgery or that I was on sick leave. I still walked my dog 3 times a day, cooked daily and did light housework. But that doesn't meant that I was already fit enough to go back to work which included standing all the time. But the reason for the recovery time is not only to give you body time to heal, but also the get you acustomed to the changes and get you back in shape. But my guess is that many people that snark about her medical leave are just peeved that they don't share what kind of surgery and why. They don't understand that it is non of their business and that even working royals have a right for privacy.

[louisa05]

4 minutes ago, klein_roeschen said:

Most surgeries are somewhat planned in advance, may it be days, weeks or even months depending in reason for the surgery and many other factors. Many things that need surgery can wait a little bit so that hospital and patients can plan for the surgery and the aftermath.
In 2020 I had both a planned surgery (breast reduction) and an unplanned surgery (emergency gallbladder removal). With both came a few days hospital stay and 2 weeks of sick leave. But if you had me seen the day after I was discharged, you wouldn't have suspected I had a surgery or that I was on sick leave. I still walked my dog 3 times a day, cooked daily and did light housework. But that doesn't meant that I was already fit enough to go back to work which included standing all the time. But the reason for the recovery time is not only to give you body time to heal, but also the get you acustomed to the changes and get you back in shape. But my guess is that many people that snark about her medical leave are just peeved that they don't share what kind of surgery and why. They don't understand that it is non of their business and that even working royals have a right for privacy.

Given that she had a pretty full calendar already set, I'm guessing this was one planned in a matter of days. It had been announced in late December that she and William would be touring Italy "early in 2024". 

 

[SoSoNosy]

My thoughts all along have been that something needed to be "put  back in place".  She had three babies, and from what attention I paid, her labors were fairly short, then she was fully made up and out of the hospital within hours.  She leads a very athletic, active life.   I only had two babies six years apart and my uterus needed to be put back in place; I chose removal because I was through with it, but that was back in the day that a hysterectomy was fairly common.  If a few of her organs had gone askew and needed reattaching that would preclude a lot of activity to give all those internal stitches time to heal.  

Again, that's just where my train of thought went.

[viii]

48 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

Given that she had a pretty full calendar already set, I'm guessing this was one planned in a matter of days. It had been announced in late December that she and William would be touring Italy "early in 2024". 

Yes, I think this is a case where planned doesn't mean months in advance. Even a doctor saying, "You need surgery tomorrow", would be considered planned because it's at a booked time. I think whatever it was, was something they were not prepared for. 

[Ozlsn]

12 hours ago, IrishCarrie said:

Until I glanced at Twitter during the week and spent an hour and a half CRYING with laughter at all the theories and comments.

Oh yeah, me too. I had missed the whole discussion till someone at work brought it up in a planning day break and then I looked at twitter. My absolute favourite piece of evidence was a tabloid report that "rumours are at an all time high about William and Kate's relationship" which was being produced as "proof" because it was published in mainstream media. It enlivened a particularly... droning planning session immeasurably.

[IrishCarrie]

Well dammit! - they’ve released a photo of Kate and the three kids taken this week. The fun is now officially over. Unless of course it wasn’t taken this week as alleged……… 🤨🤨🤨

Edited March 10 by IrishCarrie

[prayawaythefundie]

17 minutes ago, IrishCarrie said:

Well dammit! - they’ve release a photo of Kate and the three kids taken this week. The fun is now officially over. Unless of course it wasn’t taken this week as alleged……… 🤨🤨🤨

You must have overlooked that she is not wearing her engagement or wedding ring!!!111!! That should be good for at least one more week of conspiracy fun. 🥳 

[Womble]

And the kids are all crossing their fingers - is that something the photographer would ask them to do?

[viii]

William is not in the picture. They’re clearly getting a divorce!

[FluffySnowball]

2 hours ago, Womble said:

And the kids are all crossing their fingers - is that something the photographer would ask them to do?

No, it's all a conspiracy... or a cry for help by the children because William is holding them all hostage  /s

[hoipolloi]

Not so fast. How do we know that isn't a group of body doubles? And is that really in Windsor or even UK?

Clearly, there are many more conspiracy theories to go through.

[viii]

In all seriousness though, why do they release photoshopped photos?

[prayawaythefundie]

William took the photo.

[FluffySnowball]

1 hour ago, viii said:

In all seriousness though, why do they release photoshopped photos?

Considering all the scrutiny they’re constantly under, I kinda understand they might want to change and twerk some aspects of their photos (brightness, etc.) Also, we gotta keep in mind their main purpose is to represent themselves and by that the royal family in as positive a light as possible so almost every public appearance, picture, and message is planned and curated to appear appealing. 

[sndral]

AP & Reuters have pulled/killed the photo because it was manipulated by the submitter https://uk.news.yahoo.com/picture-agencies-pull-kate-photo-214600346.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jLm5ld3Nub3cuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAzPt2qoumMb_YWkIqgGhQOTFUN_bW5_IW9jnOsTjAf2vSNBdtiDKZ0khsKsCIoQ0M6jJjZ8V2fBYpva2QA8d99C3gLBhGFikS66BoYTSMwOz8an_rDqYTq3r-C3UtZm0V_M1OvRSveAyD2_gioVeyJDDxPtIMtvhs1a1ohHQXBf

It did sort of look to me like Kate’s head had been inserted in front of George’s chest, but sometimes photos just look funny, so I’m wondering whether reputable news agencies have more sophisticated methods of detecting manipulated photos, I assume that w/ increasing concerns about AI news agencies are focused on vetting their source material.

If W&K released the photo to counterbalance the rampant speculation, having reputable news agencies pull it because it was ‘manipulated’ won’t help, it’ll fuel the fire.

I personally believe W&K & their staff at KP released the photo because it’s what they do, release a staged photo usually taken months before for things like birthdays & their Christmas cards & I personally find the photos to be…boring color coordinated family poses in front of some rustic background, but I find the results of most photo shoots to be boring. Here’s an example of their 2023 Mother’s Day release which came from a photo shoot for their 2022 Christmas card which was itself staged earlier in the fall https://www.glamour.com/story/kate-middleton-shares-unseen-photos-with-george-charlotte-and-louis-to-celebrate-uk-mothers-day .

[viii]

I think KP needs an overhaul of their staff. This mess has gone on long enough. 

[anjulibai]

4 hours ago, FluffySnowball said:

Considering all the scrutiny they’re constantly under, I kinda understand they might want to change and twerk some aspects of their photos (brightness, etc.) Also, we gotta keep in mind their main purpose is to represent themselves and by that the royal family in as positive a light as possible so almost every public appearance, picture, and message is planned and curated to appear appealing. 

Tweeking photos when it comes to brightness or color balance, is par for the course. And I even understand tweeking themselves to look a bit thinner or have less puffy eyes, or something like that. 

But the tweeks to this photo are odd. For example, look at Charlottes right forearm and hand. What was the point of that tweek? What were they adding or subtracting. It makes no sense. And how was that not spotted before it was released? 

1 hour ago, viii said:

I think KP needs an overhaul of their staff. This mess has gone on long enough. 

I agree, they are making things worse for Kate and William, not better. 

[anjulibai]

This is an interesting interview with a former royal reporter for Buzzfeed on what's happening with the William and Kate's PR and the press response.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/this-is-just-weird-buzzfeed-news-former-royals-reporter-on-kate-middleton-palace-press-and-distrust-in-the-media/

[hoipolloi]

You'd think after the terrible Xmas photo last December that either W & K or their staff would make sure that the photoshop work was professionally acceptable for any images they release. So stupid of them.

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, anjulibai said:

This is an interesting interview with a former royal reporter for Buzzfeed on what's happening with the William and Kate's PR and the press response.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/this-is-just-weird-buzzfeed-news-former-royals-reporter-on-kate-middleton-palace-press-and-distrust-in-the-media/

The big thing I get out of that is that the Royal Family need a coordinated professional press office. Seriously that set up sounds like a shambles - it probably worked OK pre-internet but definitely needs updating.

[just_ordinary]

It’s clearly some Kardashian level of photoshop which is just embarrassing at this point. Of course it was flagged by the software agencies use. 
I also think it is not necessarily a new photo taken yesterday (even though the botched editing suggests this) but rather from December. Which is still pretty current if you remember that they put summer holiday photos on their Christmas cards.

The Walses either need to employ someone that knows how to properly handle photoshop or find a professional photographer for 4 days (1 per season) to get some nice and perfectly edited photos to release over the course of the year. It shouldn’t be that hard.

[anjulibai]

KP put out a release that's supposed to be from Kate saying she edited the pic. 

Hmmm....

[viii]

7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

You'd think after the terrible Xmas photo last December that either W & K or their staff would make sure that the photoshop work was professionally acceptable for any images they release. So stupid of them.

Exactly this. Their photos have been criticized in the past for photoshop (not just the 2023 Christmas one) and at a time where the whole world is scrutinizing them, you’d think they would be as careful as possible. 

But I have always thought that William in particular thinks he has more public good will than he actually does.