I am not here to discredit Alyssa here in any way. I'm just checking if people are living in the same reality as me.

I think Alyssa's strength is, in RuPaulian terms, that she's completely owning up to herself, like almost no other RuGirl. She has completely embraced her goofy character, and that is why people love her. But isn't it also true that because of it she is kind of a category of her own.

I feel there is some true to what Michelle and her-we-do-not-speak-of were saying: We love it because it is Alyssa. Apart from her shtick, I feel she is quite limited in what she can do. And sometimes I am getting kind of bored with it: the first Gilamonster is hilarious, the 2nd time it's fun, the 100th it's marketing.

Also, Alyssa, in both S5 and now again AS2, is a competitive bitch and I don't blame her for it. But I can't help but see that whenever that happens Alyssa is indeed using track records of other queens against them. We can all discuss if that is "throwing under the bus" or not, but that is not the point. To me it comes across as, well, unsympathetic. That's OK, but can we at least acknowledge that Alyssa too has a bitchy side? Some people here make her out to be some kind of saint. Maybe Cynthia Lee Fontaine is one, but not Alyssa.

Also the whole "I knew you were that kind of girl" response to her-we-do-not-speak-of to me was very bitchy. Say about her-we-do-not-speak-of-all-you-want, but her problem here was not having a secret agenda, but being very vocal about it. (Personal: IRL I sometimes get critiqued for voicing my opinion to loud and that's OK; the only thing that can make me angry, if people who do not always are Mary Jesus and Joseph themselves question my integrity, in having a secret agenda. In this whole series (not S4) i see Phi Phi trying too hard, and I feel HER secret agenda is edited, is not really there. She's still, well, untactical. )

In moments like that I feel Alyssa is very camera-aware and knows how to play the game, and her-we-do-not-speak-of obviously doesn't.

But to me that is very different from having integrity IRL. For me Alyssa comes of as a person who is very aware of the fact (which is not bad or good) the cameras are rolling. She is just very theatrical in everything she does, in showing emotions. It is great for TV, but I guess a lot of people who love the TV character would judge that behaviour IRL as 'not real'.

I also think there is no way of denying that the editing is heavily in her favour, even if it were just in amount of screen time, and that she gets to react to everything that happens to her, as were her words some kind of conclusion. We are just made to believe her account of events, because that's the version we hear.

I AM NOT saying the game is rigged. I think the editors are just editing the show in the way storylines make sense and try to make the most entertaining show. Personally, I don't need all the conflama. S8 worked pretty well for me which was RuPaul's Best Friend Race. I don't mind when people really clash, but over-crafted storylines kind of tire me. Just show the fucking competion.