#ons talk

[jonny-versace]

ok so i was thinking about how no one shouting bad bi rep when robert started having an affair with aaron whilst with chrissie and was shown like literally having sex with chrissie and then going straight to sleeping with aaron but when he was aaron and slept with rebecca it was suddenly bad bi rep that obvs he would cheat. idk if i'm wrong but it seems hypocritical. i wondered what you thought?

Right so to be clear I'm not bi so obviously people who are get the say but PERSONALLY

I don't think it in and of itself was bad rep, but it coming off the back of the show repeatedly having characters say biphobic things without consequence, and having Robert repeatedly say he wouldn't, and then for the incident to happen was incredibly misjudged and I 1000% get why people were mad on a larger level than the ship.

[sshikigami]

Goshi: *says something vulgar and totally pervert*

Mito: GOSHI *shocked face*

[jonny-versace]

And what about Rebecca never apologized to Aaron but Aaron do apologized to her and endured her on several occasions?

Because the drama was never between him and her or even Robert and her, the drama was between robron. It just backs up the point that she was nothing but a prop for so much of her time.

And really, technically, what did she have to apologise for? I'll agree that she should've walked away from Robert seeing the state he was in but she was the third party brought into it. And Aaron's beef obviously was with his Rob, his focus was on Robert.

I dunno. To me, the story they told was one of how little Robert regarded her on a personal level which is proved by how basic her involvement in it all was. It was all about Aaron/robron, which is Robert summed up

[jonny-versace]

What made you uncomfortable? If you wanna answer this of course..

I just think they were largely careless in how they linked his sexuality to what happened, which they undoubtedly did. If the crux of the issue had been Aaron's doubts over Robert's fidelity history/their own start/people around him gaslighting him wrt to that, that's one thing. But they often made choices to link Aaron's insecurity to Robert's sexuality, and so when the incident happened, of course it was a bit of a clusterfuck that they scrambled to walk back. And then there's just a whole mess of stuff post reveal that I find unpleasant generally, but it's the past for me and I don't plan on rewatching the stuff that annoyed me any time soon so there's no point dwelling, haha

[jonny-versace]

+ i watch soap couples so im familiar with cheating. And robrons imo was very well crafted and understandable. I have to say Ian tried to make it all about robron. All about love. And even character development. He liked Coira but i also liked Coira and let me tell you i was not happy. Bc Cain spent the best part of those years with Charity and Harriet. And i wanted more from Coiras reunion. Thats were my only complains about them

Yeah I mean, I don't want to get too much into this because well you can guess, but this is me also. It could have been so so much worse, it so often is and we got off very lightly imo. And I think the idea that they were or should've been above it is a touch naive, it's a staple. But shipping is a subjective, emotional thing that often overrides objectivity and what happened really hurt a lot of people, to the point that knowing and understanding doesn't help, or didn't help for a long time etc. And that's absolutely understandable for me.

[jonny-versace]

Apologies if this is unpleasant. Ive noticed u re patient & insightful w the asks ure getting. I will take advantage of that. If u erase Maxines eps especially the reveal i dont think the show did a very good job showing Roberts feelings/intentions regarding Rebecca. He ignored & belittled Aarons concerns & feelings when he did kiss her twice & then asked her 2 stay bc they were *pause* "friends" & they were good together (his words) the part where he felt nothin came after he cheated properly

Okay so, I more or less feel the opposite. Maybe this is hindsight talking, or maybe because I wasn't here, but I don't remember ever really feeling too threatened by her from her arrival leading up to the ons, even when Robert was laying it on thickest with her. I might be misremembering the details but the only time I ever thought that he was given genuine pause for thought by her (and thus I was too) was shortly after her arrival. There's a scene, I think, where they kiss at home farm, and Robert's instantly like "HUH. Well, thanks for clearing that up lol", and leaves. After that it I thought the show was crystal clear with what he was doing with her, and they very much made it clear (again to me) that HE was crystal clear in what he was doing with/to her.

Because for me, looking back on that whole time, it was very much an execution of Robert's "when something matters to me" speech, only in this case it was Andy, not Aaron, he was fighting for. Because his compass his *cough* slightly more off than most people's, he didn't see what he was doing was wrong or hurtful, and he couldn't understand the fuss. Because to him, it (as in they) were NEVER going to happen.

As far as Aaron goes, he wasn't particularly communicative of how the whole situation was making him feel at all, really. Not to the extent it was getting him down and feeding the mistrust he was already carrying, and he def didn't communicate it to Robert, not 'properly'. And he was getting gaslit left right and centre, which was just magnifying everything. And looking back on that era of them, when it was good between them, it was GREAT. Like, you/we could see that nobody was touching what he felt for Aaron, not even close. The person who couldn't always see it was Aaron.

As far as the reveal goes, as excellent as it mostly did, I don't think it added anything new to Robert's motives re her or why the incident happened. It was more letting Aaron know than the audience, imo. And as I've said before, when they did add to or try to clarify the narrative, it was clunky as hell (the biphobia response for example).

Does this help?

[jonny-versace]

I rmbr IanMcleod saying that they changed the direction of their story after the ONS bc of the fans dissapointment. I dunno how it works but is it possible they didnt write the reveal episode and they only wrote it afterwards to make the situation better or maybe they were planning robert seducing rebecca not lawrence? You know soaps and you watch Emmerdale so do you think that were their original plans?

I really dunno honestly, though I think your scenario about the reveal is very unlikely, it was always always going to come out like that (I personally think maybe some of the dialogue was added later to try and quell the anger around the circumstances of that night, purely because some parts of the reveal are oddly clunky). There used to be a brilliant post theorising how the plans for 2017 might've changed but I can't remember who wrote it or when or where it is, but I think it's also unlikely that any original plan was for Robert to go there. If they had wanted to do it they would have, I have no doubt about that. But it was never the story they had ever been telling, I've said before but I don't think Iain had any interest in Robert/Rebecca as a romantic pairing at all, certainly not mutually. That dynamic from Robert's side was purely exploitative literally until she got put in a coma.