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Part of IF THAT'S LOVE (located at http://manning.dancing-on-air.net)

[ifthatslove]

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I was rewatching the Hell No wedding a while back, and even though I'd seen it a few times before, this was the first time I realized that they broke out music that would play for T&B in the '90s.

My questions for anyone still peeking in at the blog and who pays more attention to the background music than I do...

This music really wasn't happening any time if at all in the 2000s, right? Had they been using this cue for other scenes all along and I just didn't realize?

Back in the '90s, was this music really exclusive to T&B, or did it play for other stories? I'm fairly sure I heard it used for other stories, but I wouldn't know where to go back and look to confirm that that was the case.

I so heavily associate it with '90s T&B that it was a gut-punch when I realized they were using it for this moment of all moments.

[fatimagic]

sorry but this was actually so funny 💀

[ifthatslove]

OP's tags: #almost 20 years of their relationship distilled down into two screenshots #blair: i hate u u did a murder #todd: okay but here is flower #blair: 😑

[fatimagic]

shipping tnb (and problematique soap ships in general) is so weird sometimes. because like. in other realms of fiction, i normally hate villain ships. i hate r*ylo, i hate c*ptain sw*n, i hate d*lena, i hate d*rklina, etc. etc. it's exhausting to see the same big fandoms gravitate toward the same "i can fix him" ships over and over again.

but then with soaps it's like "oh this character is a 🍇ist, this character lied to her husband about having brain cancer, this character literally kills people for a living and it feels like you're on a different plane of reality than if you're just watching a normal primetime show??? do any soap folks get what i'm saying?

for me i think what really makes the suspension of disbelief easier is that soaps are literally about the passage of time. there's so much *history* and underlying emotions between legacy characters. you can literally have the same actors playing the same characters like thirty years apart. the dynamic and the chemistry are so different and each character is constantly changing and being reinvented over the years.

i think for me what makes tnb work is the chemistry and the fact that blair doesn't really have a heroic alternative to todd. like a lot of times if there's a c*ptain sw*n, there's a swanfire, if there's a r*ylo, there's a finnrey, etc. but when you're watching a soap and literally everyone is a different level of trash, it makes it easier to kind of recontextualize the characters' relationships.

and then there's soaps like the bold and the beautiful where every other ship is just straight up inc*st so after you witness a character kissing a woman he at one point thought was his daughter, you either have to stop watching or just shrug and roll with it.

does this make sense to any other soap folks out there?

[ifthatslove]

I think in general you're right that with soaps, viewers have to learn to roll with it...because there is so much history, and there are so many characters who do horrible things and then end up rehabbed -- many of whom soap fans grew up watching over decades -- that process and the idea of loving those characters anyway is normalized.

So then we're primed to recognize that the point of the story isn't the awful thing that one lover has done to the other but rather that we are now going to watch the writers and actors handle the fallout of the thing. And because it plays out over days and days, and it often gets rehashed over and over, with all the nuances explored to full effect -- in the well-written pairings, at least -- our focus stays on the pairing and not on the event.

For T&B, it's definitely chemistry, but I think it's also that they were built in those first few months on a strong foundation of friendship and mutual respect. Neither was there to fix the other. What both were equally in need of, though, was a port in the storm, and they recognized that in each other and freely offered that to each other.

To be clear, I don't think all soap ships have to start with that kind of foundation to be rootworthy -- because some soap ships do start from a toxic place and turn it around -- but, because of Todd's history, T&B needed to start that way. Blair couldn't be Todd's Rebecca-esque saint and/or victim or someone for him to try to drag down to his level. Nor could she be turned into a villain for the sake of propping him up, which is why when she does lie to him about the pregnancy, she's shown to be doing it for sympathetic reasons.

There's also the fact that, as you mention, there are no viable alternatives for Blair. I'd say the same is true for Todd. At a certain point, whether the writers realized they were doing it or not, they made laughable the idea of Todd ever loving someone more than Blair, or of Blair ever loving someone more than Todd. No matter what ugliness surrounds them, they have never stopped wanting to get back to the night of the gold balloon wedding. There's something both beautiful and powerful in that.

[ifthatslove]

Talk about lying on the witness stand....

[ifthatslove]

Soon.

[manningfamilyvalues]

Kassie tweeted this pic earlier: Kassie DePaiva, Nancy Lee Grahn, Maurice Benard & Roger Howarth…more T&B on the way, y'all! CANNOT WAIT!

[laboulaie]

Kassie DePaiva as Blair Cramer in blue

[legacysoapfan]

Kassie DePaiva and James DePaiva OLTL SID 4/24/17 @toddandblair

[laboulaie]

past, present and future

[ifthatslove]

Starr, I'm really sorry that things turned out this way.

[laboulaie]

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS GIFSETS (KDP30)

Blair and her most worthy rival, Marty Saybrooke

[starrylilac]

[laboulaie]

Kassie DePaiva as Blair Cramer in lavender/purple (as requested by “slowtuesdays” on Twitter

[deletedsoons]

I don’t watch soaps anymore but I am actually watching OLTL for the first time in a long time. As long as I get good scenes involving Todd, I’m easy. Sorry, people. Roger’s Todd is the real Todd. I would recommend YT if you haven’t seen Todd as he really is. Todd is not meant to be a romantic lead.

IIRC, that’s one of the reasons why Roger left. They wanted him to play romantic lead to Marty and he refused to play that. I respect him a lot for that. I remember scoffing so much after I heard about the Todd/Marty storyline that OLTL finally did in 2008.

It was like Todd raped Marty all over again and Todd - though never perfect-grew enough as a person that he wouldn’t have done that. He understood the gravity of what he did and he wouldn’t have minimalized rape by air-quoting the word (For some reason, this bit infuriates me more than any other and made me want to punch TSJTodd in the face). TSJ, from what I remember, is a good actor. He just was not and is not Todd Manning. 

[laboulaie]

GODDESS

[ifthatslove]

Most of the website is back up, except for the Gallery and the Press section, which need a lot more work. There's also some new content: Blair Timeline: 1999 -- find out what Blair was up to when Todd was off screen Transcripts: 1995 -- a bunch of new transcripts, including T&B crashing the Gold Star Gala Quotes: 2003 -- a page of T&B quotes from January 2003 If anyone notices any issues with links being broken, please let me know by sending me a Tumblr message. Thank you!

[laboulaie]

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS GIFSETS (KDP30)

Through their ups and downs, Blair and Kelly always had each-others backs when it counted.