Watch This! Reese Rues Rylee's Legality

[dreiser]

I'm feeling less sick today but buzzed from meds. My thoughts are less of this episode, which was good even though it had a severe lack of Annie and Aidan, and more on Bianca's status in her various ships and the fans who support them.



No one respects The Rack.

Granted I wrote that because it sounds funny but it's true. I've watched All My Children for twenty four years now and Bianca has been on for nine of those years under Eden's portrayal and she's been shipped with various characters. Each ship has a fanbase and from the teeny weeny beginnings with Sarah to the more sizeable and crazy BAM then finally the adult relationship with Reese it seems, to me anyway, that fans of the ships always love whoever is paired with Bianca more than Bianca herself. Which always struck me as really fucking insane because, let's face it, all the women Bianca has been with are disposable if not for Bianca's interest in them. This doesn't mean I don't love Reese or even Maggie. I do love them but can they be offed easily and not really have much ramifications on the show? Hell to the yeah. Not the same for Binks.

It bugs me though because it makes me think a lot of people, particularly fanfic writers, see Bianca as a disposable Mary Sue character who is just there to make their beloved Lena/Maggie/Reese happy. I never liked BAM so I haven't read fanfic for them but back in the heyday of Lena and Bianca I've read a few doozies that portray Bianca horribly. Just as this selfish unforgiving person because she didn't instantly trust Lena after learning about her con artist ways and then after the rape and it always bothered me.

Currently there's a lot of annoyance with Bianca for her insecurity and I'll admit, yeah, I find it irritating to watch as it develops and is reinforced over and over because as the viewer we can see it has no basis since Reese loves her like burning. But for Bianca, all the bullshit and crappy treatments of betrayals and lies and cheating she's had to deal with in every single romance she's had, it totally comes from an understandable place.

I'm not sure this had a point. lol. I just felt the need to vent slightly. The reality is without Bianca none of these ships would exist and she is the lesbian of all lesbians on daytime soaps and please, even if you don't love her, at least respect her and don't write her all fucked up wrong in your fanfic and bitch about her constantly in the forums. If Bianca ever leaves the show permanently all your femslash for AMC will be regulated to subtext involving Kendall and Greenlee who might or might not be perishing soon.

Kenlee, nooooo! I miss you. Know what else I miss? Annie and Aidan! I've determined what is their true love Theme Song and it is awesome. Someone make me a music video for them using it. Please? I'll write you porn. lol. Seriously. I will. Porn doesn't bother me in my middle age.

Anyway. Here's the clip for today. For some reason the last scene with Zach being cool and telling Erica to look at how much Bianca and Reese are in love isn't included in this little montage. I like that scene if only for Erica's narrowed all seeing gaze at the end. She rocks so much.

And I decided to post the clip with Zach and Erica. She shows up being her bad ass self at 7:39. This also has a clip of my soap boyfriend JR drunken macking on Amanda who... err, I don't know if people who read my ramblings are spoiler whores like me so I won't say it I guess.

But I will say her storyline coming up that doesn't deal with her being hired by David to take JR down by making him alcoholic again? I find lame. I mean, it will bring drama and it could create really cool future storylines but I'm sick of that sort of confusion. It's very Maury Povich.

Comments

[darth-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

Okay, I generally just lurk and read, but I must say: THIS! I think part of it is non-AMC fans watching just for Bianca and insert-char-here, but c'mon!

My problem with 95% of AMC fic is this kind of OOCness, and I too have read both Lianca and BAM. Some BAMmers were essentially blaming her for Jonathan's abuse because she didn't make Maggie her no. 1 priority while grieving for her "dead" baby, for instance. And I've seen Lianca fans who thought Bianca should be considered a baby stealer because Miranda should have been Lena's too. Those are extreme examples, but in any case Fanon!Bianca often has very little relationship to actual Bianca, and I share your annoyance.

I love Reese to death, and I liked Maggie, but Bianca's been through more than both of them put together and come out stronger, so uh.. haters to the left.

extreme tl;dr I agree.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

The OOC is strong in AMC fanfic.

But it's always Bianca who gets it worst I think. I generally like how Lena, Maggie, and Reese are portrayed. Unless it's a shipper portrayal. BAM writers will never write Lena or Reese well for the most part for they are teh evil interfering with their ship. Same for Lena people and Maggie. I saw her shoot Lena once in a fic which is nuts.

I was on TWOP and Soap.Net and a few other mainstream board and the Bianca hate was fierce, I'm saying. Makes me sad. Love The Rack! lol.

[xanjames.livejournal.com]

Right there with both of ya. Love The Rack, love Love LOVE Eden and think she is one of the most underrated actresses in daytime, Emmy notwithstanding. I enjoy the "mature" pairing between Bianca and Reese and yeah, I wish the writers would just get on with it and deal with the insecurity and be done. Although I have to say, for a soap, Breese's plotline has moved remarkably fast. I don't know if that's Chuck Pratt's doing or because ER and TB are only on for a short haul but it definitely seems to whiz by.


Oddly enough, I'm not crazy about TB; I think she and Eden have nice chemistry and do good work together but in terms of emotional tone, everytime Reese has a big explanation/apology/crying session, TB seems to offer the same take. Or maybe it's just that we've been stuck in the 'Reese is keeping secrets/Binks feels insecure' emotional mode for too long. Eh, whatever. Just happy to FINALLY see ER exploring the complete range of a fully realized onscreen romance.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

I never noticed the same take thing with Tamara but I'll be on the look out now. I think I get distracted by how she cries such pretty tears. lol. Shallow, I am.

The plot is whizzing by. I mean, spoiler wise, they're coming full circle with the angst next week. I really want them to extend their contracts so we can get them to slow down a bit and just be coupley and cute again.

I love and respect The Rack but she's making some fucked up decisions as we're going to see later this week. I'm hoping level headed snark Bianca returns soon.

[xanjames.livejournal.com]

The spoiler about Reese packing her bags and Bianca waylaying her and apologizing--oh boy, that better be well-written.

Bianca is going to be up to some insanity that's OOC but I'm more in her corner at this point--as a viewer I can see there's nothing between Reese and Zach but Binks doesn't see it. And Reese not just withholding info about Simon but actively lying about the fallout with her folks seems to be glossed over by most people. Irks me.

However, agree that they need to settle all this and get on with an actual ROMANCE. Personally I think they should attend couples therapy and their doc should prescribe protracted bouts of nookie. But that's me.

PS

[xanjames.livejournal.com]

Keeping Kendall's condition secret: To my mind, deciding to honour the wishes of your new best friend over the best interests of your intended spouse is a most puzzling decision.

Re: PS

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

Bianca's apology has got to be epic. I'm sort of looking forward to seeing Reese actually show backbone though. Tamara is good at those types of scenes. I'm sure she's going to crumble once Bianca brings on the water works and apologizes and goes on about their epic love.

Then the stuff with Josh, oi... if Bianca is threatened I want to see Reese freaking out over that. I mean, I want Reese to freak when she finds out about Bianca's car crash too. It's sort of needed, I think.

Re: PS

[xanjames.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, coming unglued when the loved one is in danger is classic. And required!

Re: PS

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

She needs to cry pretty tears. lol. I demand it!

[murasaki1200.livejournal.com]

I think they should attend couples therapy and their doc should prescribe protracted bouts of nookie. But that's me.

Totally second this! :)

[darth-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

For some reason, probably due to her being treated like the oracle of Pine Valley at times, Binks seems to be held to a higher standard than other soap characters. Especially Maggie, in my experience, which is generally BAM-based and full of Mary Margaret-Sue.

I lurked in TWOP during the glory days of Kinks, but I quit once it became Zendall-ville 'cause I'm ambivalent about Zach, so I haven't kept up. Looks like I made the right choice.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

I loved TWOP back in the Kinks Is Love days. It was the best. Now it's a festering pool of Zendall worship and by default Bianca hatred. They keep referring to Gabrielle as Baby Betrayal or BB over there which irks me because, dude, her origins are lame and yeah she's fictional but she's a baby! lol. Be nice to the kid. Yeesh.

Yeah, but that's the thing also. Bianca is held to this standard that she's so good and forgiving and people bitch about that and how it's one dimensional and why won't she ever mess up? Then she messes up with this pregnancy thing and people pounce all over her.

Granted, it was a BIG mess up but still.

[murasaki1200.livejournal.com]

I'm new to AMC, but I'm definitely all about the Binks love.
Yeah, I've noticed that some folks will get really angry at Bianca when it's the writing that really sucks. For instance, there seems to be a lot of Bianca hate among BAMers for not forgiving Maggie when Babe was forgiven.

Eden does an incredible job of transcending the material. She shines when the writing's good and when it's throwaway, she's still immensely watchable. Some of my favorite scenes with Binks are the tornado scenes right around Gabby's birth, where she hangs out with Zach. Some of the dialog is really strange (e.g.: "look what we did?!?!") given that Zach is married to her sister, and is the sperm donor, not the father. But it didn't seem awkward because she did a great job playing the big brother/baby sister-like bond between the two of them that I wish the writers could remember about right now.

Some of the writing is so off-base that even Eden can't save it though. One of the Breese clips had a scene of Bianca and Greenlee arguing about Binks getting involved with Fusion when Erica's out due to getting stabbed. So painful. Who writes these things?

Overall I'm very happy with TB. She does a great job of her scenes with Bianca and she's clearly super invested in the concept of being Bianca's girlfriend and soon spouse.
I'm not 100% happy with how consistent Reese's character is though: she goes from being carefree, warm and open, to someone who holds back important stuff from the love of her life and back again. Something doesn't quite add up there even if I can't quite articulate it. Again, not TB's fault. She does do a wonderful job of her scenes with Binks when the writing allows her to do it. She's also done a great job of sending friendly but asexual vibes to Zach vs how loving she is with Binks. She's done a nice job with her Erica confrontation too.
That said, my sense is that she hasn't quite made that role her own as much as Eden has with Bianca, but she and the writers only had a few weeks with it.

BTW, your Kenlee fic was made of win.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

I think if Tamara was allowed to stay around longer Reese could become more consistent. At least that's my hope. The way I deal with the Reese is open and carefree then her keeping secrets is by thinking about her severely closeted history that went on for most of her life. It's hard to forget old habits and she falls back on them when stressed. At least, that's how I explain it in my fic writing mind. I could be off.

Which fic? The sex one? lol. I love Kenlee so. I'm tempted to write them again. Their love is lotion fights. Way back when during the surrogate storyline with Spike I wanted to write fic for them because that was such a gay story. Kendall having Greenlee's baby for her. I loved it immensely.

[murasaki1200.livejournal.com]

Which fic? The sex one? lol

Wait, you have a Kenlee sex fic? How did I miss that?
Oops. I'm so confused. Actually, the one I read was the Kendall/Maggie fic which was super fun and PG at most.

Kendall having Greenlee's baby for her.

Srsly? Kendall was Greenlee's baby surrogate mother? But Spike is with her now. What happened?

Any Kendall is gay fic is goodness in my book. Kendall seems like a fun character.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wrote three Kenlee fics. The one titled Silent Need is the one with sex and is the only one that's remotely serious. The other two are just jokey fun.

The surrogate thing... it's complex. I'll try to sum it up the best I can remember. Ryan fakes his death and Greenlee is married to him at the time. She's crushed he's dead but somehow she has some of his sperm stored and she wants to have his kid so part of Ryan can live on because the general show belief is Ryan is made of win.

Greenlee can't carry a baby to term so Kendall offers to be the surrogate. She has her eggs removed but when Kendall is about to be inseminated she finds out from the Doctor, Greg Madden who is responsible for the whole Josh is Erica's unaborted baby fiasco, that due to a black out Greenlee's eggs aren't usable.

I'm not sure why, maybe they couldn't get more eggs from Greenlee but Kendall decides to just use her own. She doesn't tell Greenlee about this. When Greenlee finds out she freaks and leaves town. This is after Ryan is revealed not to be dead also and is back in town.

Kendall really did get pregnant with Spike with the honest intention of giving him over to Greenlee. She didn't really get attached to him until after he was born because of this. After Greenlee left, she was torn about whether to keep the baby because she only got pregnant to give him to Greenlee.

In the end, obviously, she decides to have him and she loves him to pieces. Ryan was also supportive of her decision to keep the baby and they have a really cordial not together parenting situation with Spike.

[murasaki1200.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the summary. Wow! AMC really likes to have complicated baby related plotlines. That's um...out there to say the least.

If I remember correctly, you also had a really cute and sort of cracky Binks/Greenlee fic. I liked it quite a bit too :D. These two should totally have hooked up.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

The Bianca/Greenlee fic I wrote long before it was revealed they're cousins. Greenlee is the long lost daughter of Uncle Jack and Bianca's dad is Travis, his brother. Back then it seemed feasible to me since Greenlee was always picking on Bianca. Thin line between love and hate and all that.

Any current Bianca/Greenlee hook up would be squicky due to the cousins thing. Though I have actually read romantic Kinks fanfic back during their epic love days of Bianca being pregnant with Mimo.

The Red Dress

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, did ER look absolutely stunning or what?! I kept waiting and waiting for a full body shot from head to toe and especially from behind but was sorely disappointed!! Boo hoo. I suppose that's rather shallow to be so obsessed with the dress while Breese are going through such angst but, hey, like the wait staff, I got very very distracted.