#rnm rant

[pastelwitchling]

Small Announcement/Confession

I don't know how many people are going to be able to stand me after this, but there's something I want and need to get off my chest if I am to go any further in writing malex fics.

The truth is that I feel a great wave of resentment, bitterness, and dissatisfaction about the way malex was handled. Not just in one particular season, but in the whole show. And the travesty is I don't see this feeling going away until I really let out all of my frustrations in a long, cathartic fic similar to Heroes Never Die.

I came out of season 4 with a great sense of numbness and depression, and only now, months later, can I really identify the source of my misery beyond just the show ending, and it's this; there's no longer any hope of Michael Guerin fixing what he'd done or being any better to Alex than how he'd been.

Yes, people. This post will mostly focus on my anger towards Michael. I've spent years saying this, and I will say it now; I love Michael Guerin more than I can say, and for the reason of me loving him and this being a simple critique of his actions and behavior, I will not tag it "anti" because I refuse to mark down any of my posts as Michael Guerin hate. I would never do that, I love that stupid cowboy too much.

That said, I can love and still be frustrated with him. And unfortunately, my frustrations have been keeping me from writing malex beyond the simple little fics every Malex Monday, which is a problem for me because writing malex is my safe space, and I haven't been able to do that at all.

Look, I'm just going to cut to it; Michael, bless his beautiful heart, was a terrible boyfriend. A terrible love interest, in fact, and I put all the blame on the writers. Everything from harshly judging Alex for his fears, to downright mocking him for them, to choosing someone else, to going crazy for a split second after Alex's disappearance only to then apologize to those who hid it from him and sit around his bonfire; they have turned Michael into cruel towards Alex at best, and indifferent at worst. And yes, I do think indifference is worse than cruelty.

I don't think Vlamis really ever understood the impact he had on the fandom. I don't think he ever realized that we only ever made it through so many of those truly unbearable moments because of his words and his promise that Michael Guerin thought of nothing and loved no one but Alex. We only knew as a fandom that Guerin was thinking of Alex because Vlamis told us he was, but I must say, Guerin did a truly crap job of showing it. Respectfully.

I struggle so much with writing malex now because I think it's really hitting me that we have no hope of anything getting better anymore. No hope of Michael really redeeming himself for the awful way he treated Alex. For the fact that every single grand gesture came from Alex. For the fact that Alex was self-sacrificial again and again and again, and Michael, even in season 4, had to be told to trust him. AND ALEX HAD ALREADY TRUSTED HIM BY THE CAULFIELD EPISODE!

Wasn't that the allure of malex in the freaking first place? This one angry cowboy that trusted no one, got close to no one, openly loved no one--trusted and got close to and openly loved and cared for this one guy. Like, was that not what attracted so many people in the freaking first place? Now that same guy, after years of being close to Alex, after everything Alex had done for him (opening his heart to him, encouraging M*ria to give him a chance, joining Deep Sky, nearly losing his sanity to protect the Lockhart Machine from his father's influence, everything else), now he has to be told to trust the man he has a supposed cosmic relationship with?

That's another thing we'll never see fixed; the fact that Michael was so clearly the most important thing to Alex, but it always felt like there were so many things more important to Michael.

I believe with all my heart that Alex loves Michael, values him above all else, but Michael? I know he feels the same way, but only because Vlamis spent years insisting on it. I'm not saying Michael didn't have his moments, but when they are preceded and followed by so much indifference, what do those moments really amount to? It hurts worse because Michael is clearly at the center of Alex's universe, and we see that. Meanwhile, we're told that Alex means everything to Michael, but that's it! It rarely shows, and when it does, it's followed by so much disappointment that it renders the moment kind of meaningless.

What does it matter that Michael freaked out about Alex being gone if a minute after, he's talked down by every single person not to bother looking for him? What does it matter that they--yes, I'm sorry, I'm going to say it--got married, if it was once again Alex who proposed, Alex who admitted all he wanted was to marry Michael, Alex whose entire storyline revolved around Michael for the seasons while Michael's revolved around just about everything else? Marrying them doesn't automatically make Michael a better love interest.

You see why my problems lie with the writers' way of handling things? I know Tyler couldn't be there, but if people on tumblr could come up with better scenarios with Alex's disappearance that showcase Michael's love for him and their cosmic bond, then supposed professionals who had months to think this through couldn't manage a more intimate storyline?

Oh, and before anyone says this; yes, believe it or not, it is possible to love a character and still be frustrated to high hell with them. Human beings are actually pretty complex, and that's a lot of how my feelings about malex are at the moment. How they've always been, I think. Complex. But it was too late to back out. I was in love with Alex the moment he fought off his father in season 1, I couldn't turn my back. Even when I could see the train's headlights coming in.

At any rate, I had to vent. Another fic will be coming before the vegaspete au, a sort of cathartic work that I hope will rid me of all this anger so that I can write them as I want to see them again.

For now, brace yourselves. Because I'm not pulling any punches.

[letstalkabouttvshows]

This is my rant about RNM 4x06 - Kiss from a rose. Please, join me.

I need to vent about episode 6 and after I do that, I'll go back to my positive bubble. So bear with me for a few minutes.

I've been liking Season 4 so far. Let me start with that.

I think the episodes up to 5 had a good pace, and a good balance between individual plots, and overall, it was giving us the build-up for whatever bigger story arc this season has.

Up to 5, I got that feeling. Like, "ok, they are definitely building the tension and the stories to meet at some point where it will all fit".

Honestly, I still believe that and I still believe Alex (the only character that we don't know anything about plot-wise except he's in Jones's contingency plan) will play an important part in the bigger picture here.

But, episode 6 just overwhelmed me with all the things I dislike in this show's writing, all at once, and just made me annoyed as hell.

The pace 😡

For me, the first episode of the season that felt slow and disconnected as a whole. For five episodes we were having a solid pace and then, episode 6 just hit all the wrong notes.

Guest stars 😡

I love Eduardo, I really do. But all his scenes with his daughter felt overly dramatic and we met her, what? One episode ago? We don't care about her daddy issues, I'm sorry, but we don't.

Will these emotionally charged scenes between them have a place in the bigger story arc that's yet to be revealed?

Odds are, no. But even if it does set some kind of plot, still was too much for too little.

--

Bonnie, as Maria was last year for the first half of the season, it's turning into the main plot. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

The girl has the kiss of death, she did something awful to Michael, she still didn't share all she knows about Tezca, and yet, Max is sheltering her.

Max, the king of trust issues, let me add (I mean, make it make sense). At least she's not crashing at Malex's place.

I know we need guest stars to move the story along, and again, up to episode 5, it was making sense.

But now, we see more of her than we've seen Kyle, or Isobel or yes, ALEX, all season.

Will this have a point? A good resolution? Will all this time we spent with Bonnie be worth the screen time?

---

Tezca, for the first time this season, felt like a badly written villain.

Up to 5, we got the sense she's manipulating everyone. I mean, she took Alex first and nobody knows.

She knew exactly who to hit and what strings to pull.

Again, we had 5 episodes where Tezca was shaping up to be as manipulative as Jones but even edgier. Sinister.

The whole reveal of her true form, with the tattoos and her test to Bonnie (???) felt out of place and underwhelming.

Ok, she can't be stabbed to death but even that twist wasn't good enough to shake the feeling that they might turn Tezca in an all-over-the-place character.

Is it possible her scene at the station was all an act? One more manipulative thing she's pulling to deceive everyone about the plan?

GOD, I HOPE SO. Because this character has potential and would be a tragedy and a waste to not write her well.

Too much information with no real information 🤡

RNM has a way to throw a lot of information at us but when we think about it, there's no real information at all.

We know Max is the savior and has a lot of power. Liz has a part to play in the Ophiuchus movement. AGAIN, the bad guys movement, which means that's not good. We know Alex is part of a contingency plan created by Jones. We know he's in a hole. Dead or locked up. The options here a slim due to the fact the last time we saw him HE WAS GETTING QUICKSANDED. We know the alighting has begun.

And that's it.

There's no more information. They keep circling back to these huge points and they don't explain anything.

I get the build-up but we need to have some real answers. SOON.

The same arguments over and over again 🤡

Since episode 2, it seems like Echo has been arguing about the same things nonstop.

We get Max has powers he can't control. We get Liz has doubts.

In the same way, Michael's falling for the idea of a home planet seems like a broken record. We know Michael always wanted to go back. We get it. Now, move the story along. Get to the point already.

Get to the complicated part of it all because all the emotional struggle is already set up. Again, we get it.

The lack of simple logic 🤡

For a group that has a bunch of geniuses, they do often overlook the simplest of logic.

Like, if Alex's not reaching out, not checking-in, MAYBE there's something wrong.

Especially when the only mother figure he had growing up has died and the love of his life got sick for the first time. Oh, and yeah, there's a dark triad with a crazy shapeshifter with unstoppable powers.

These are all things Alex would go back to Roswell in a blink of an eye.

Why no one is finding it odd that he's not checked in yet?

There are other examples, fell free to add them in the comments if you want to.

My point is 😡🤡

Episode 6 was a mess when it's supposed to lead the way to midseason.

To set up the revelations, plot twists, story arcs, and all.

They had 5 solid episodes and all for what? For this episode to be the connecting element for the first half and second half of the season?

It didn't deliver. Unfortunately.

My hope is that episode 7 picks up the pace again and give us all we are craving for: ANSWERS.

And the missing piece that will make all these plots happening right now fit each other.

Ok, now I'm done. Back to my positive bubble until proven otherwise.

💜

PS: Feel free to rant in the comments too. It's a safe space. I think we all need it.

[winged-fool]

“For a show about aliens, RNM sure does a shit job with the sci-fi side of things” One of my main complaints about it. More alien stuff! The other one is the plot driving the characters actions when it should be the other way around. They twist the characters into doing things to fit the plot they choose no matter how little sense it makes for them to be doing that. There is also all the things that get brought up and then never addressed properly or sometimes at all.

All of this anon!! I know s1 & 2 didn't have strong sci-fi elements because 🚗 doesn't like sci-fi which is another complaint in and of itself, but I swear to god if s3 fails to have sci-fi I'm going to lose my mind. There is just sooo much potential with world building here. I've read so many good fics that do a better job of exploring alien lore than this show! I just want my dumb alien show to be sci-fi and apparently that is too much to ask!

And oh boy don't even get me started on plot driving characters! It's why s2 was so non-sensical! Michael never would have let Alex stayed chained up while he went to CrashCon and Alex would have never just shown Michael pics of Nora from Caulfield without warning.

I'm trying to be a bit more optimistic for s3 but...Chris was there while 🚗 was making all these terrible decisions. So this man isn't getting my support until I see s3 start making sense (which I realize is a low fucking bar).

[tsumisgarden]

Tell me there’s a lie here.

[mygiftismysong]

I’m sorry that I am making so many posts about it but I can’t stop thinking about it and I have to say/write it somewhere.

I have been following tv series for a long time now, 10 years or something, and I have always considered myself kind of “super partes” when it comes to the writing of a show, in the sense that I might not agree with it or not like it, but I always try to think “they are the creators, and while I can criticise, disagree and dislike what they wrote, I believe that they did it to make the story go a certain way and that they thought it was the best way to handle it, for the purpose of the story and their final goal”

e.g.: Alex and Maria not worrying to much about the fact that what happened between Maria and Michael and the way they treated Alex was not okay, and just solving the situation with a “laugh” and forgiveness and putting their friendship first. It’s a choice, I’m still not entirely convinced by it, but you know, people are different and the react differently to stuff and I can’t sort of get behind it.

But this to me was a completely different case, I neve felt this level of discomfort watching a scene of a tv show before. And it’s not that I am not okay with threesomes either, because for example when it happened on Sense8 with Kala, Wolfgang and Rajan I was very happy and I thought it was such a refreshing and nice way of ending it, without all the drama of THE CHOICE. That said, their story was handled very diffently.

This scene, to me, and I can speak only for myself, felt SO wrong. I understand people saying that we are close minded for thinking that Alex might not be strictly gay and sexuality is fluid, but said that, I think that you can’t just introduce a character and making him say that he is gay SO many times in the show and making being gay a vey important part of his story and then just erease that by saying that sexuality is fluid. You’re writing a show, you’re having representation in your show matter, you’re not afraid of saying bisexual, so I really feel like making him having sex with a woman, but not only, his best friend, was a really mean move towards any gay person.

Alex is not a teenage boy looking for answers on his sexuality, he is a grown man who struggled to come to terms with who he is and certainly didn’t come to that conclusion lightly. It’s not like he met a girl and he felt attracted to her and he ended up in bed with her, this is Maria, his best friend, this is not about sexuality being fluid. It felt like a manipulation of his feelings, as if the only option left for him to be with Micheal was to accept that Maria would be in it, too. And he tried. And I really despised the choice of having Maria kiss Michael in front of him, I don’t think Maria would ever have done that. I won’t talk about Maria because I feel like the writing of this scene was so wrong for her character that it doesn’t even count.

The only thing I understand is Michael. He is desperate for love and affection, and having the two people he loves at the moment (although I really think he can never love someone the way he loves Alex) being with him, he must have felt so loved and relieved. And he is actually bisexual and IN LOVE with both of them so. But that’s the only thing I’ll condone.

So yeah, for the first time, I am really not okay with it and I really felt distress and discomfort watching that scene. I imagine that they just wanted to be “woke” but there really was no space for that in this relationship.

[pastelwitchling]

Season 4 did Malex so dirty! All that hyping up that Michael was going to go 'feral' when he realized Alex was missing only to have it be two minutes of reacting that was condemned as a 'tantrum'. And Alex just... stopped being allowed to have negative emotions? Couldn't even be afraid of dying, or angry about it? Even the proposal was done as 'marry me because it'll make us happy' instead of 'because I'm scared' which did both of them an injustice. Made Alex difficult to relate to and denied Michael a chance to step up as Alex’s emotional support - he can't support someone who's not allowed to be upset in the first place! (I honestly hated the proposal going down like that - could do an essay on how gross it was for all parties involved, especially Michael not knowing Alex was dying when he was asked)

The perfect way to sum up Alex's storyline (and "arc" according to CAM) is your point exactly, anon; he was deemed too much trouble when he was afraid and angry, so the solution was to just never let him be afraid or angry anymore. And still he was given the consequences to deal with for both of them on his own.

Here's honestly my whole thought on their wedding. The writers saw that Shadowhunters had done the same thing at its end, saw how much people loved it, and thought, Yeah! We could do that!

Never mind the fact that Magnus and Alec spent seasons openly communicating, confessing their fears and anger to one another, dealing with problems together, and trusting each other. Never mind the fact that they had open, adult conversations (AND ALEC IS SUPPOSED TO BE, LIKE, TEN YEARS YOUNGER THAN MALEX) about how Alec doesn't need to date other people to know who he wants and loves. Never mind the fact that Malec's wedding was earned through trials and tribulations that they faced together, with never any doubt that they were allowed to confide in each other and depend on each other.

So you know what that proposal and wedding always was to me?

A copy of malec without the hard work. It worked for Magnus and Alec, it should would work for Alex and Michael.

A "cure-all" for all the damage that was done with malex in the past. Instead of, oh I don't know, having Michael or M*ria face any consequences for their actions and betrayals, eh! We'll just have them get married and let M*ria walk Alex down the aisle without anyone having learned anything or faced any guilt or hard self-reflections! That immediately erases all the harm of the past!

A dried up well of imagination. We have no idea how to properly end the series with these two because we never actually gave much of a crap about them. What is at the center of Alex's universe? Michael! We'll just marry them then, that ought to make the gays happy! Look at how tolerant and diverse we are! We give so much screen time to a woc who is essentially the worst of the villains because unlike them she never faced the consequences of her own actions or acknowledged having done anything wrong, while Alex gets what he's always wanted; Michael Guerin! How lucky is he? Sure, he's a complex character with a rich history, story, and personality, but more important than all of that; he's queer. So let's focus on that and ignore everything else about him because seeing him married is surely more respectful to him as a character than seeing him get the acknowledgment, friendship, apologies, and love he's owed, right?

Golly gee, how the CW just gets the little guy, huh?

That proposal was done as a way to weasel out of the fact that Michael treated Alex like crap. But having them marry automatically makes everything better and totally evens out everything he's done. Because that's all queer people want, really. Seeing two guys marry instead of seeing two guys genuinely love and respect one another. And unfortunately, it seems the writers on that show never really understood that difference.

[pastelwitchling]

Your last post is so sad but so true. We know Alex loves Michael immensely but how can the writers, after everything that happened in season 2, not let Michael even say a word? Not even an apology? Love is unconditional but they should portray Alex's character as a real man, not a puppet who feels no pain in the face of betrayal. Thanks to all the fic creators for filling in the immense gaps left and representing the true feelings that the writers don’t want to show

You know, the whole tragedy about it is that I don't take pleasure in being one of the writers to do this, you know? I mean, it's cathartic, but I hate that it's necessary. I hate that the only way any mistreatment is addressed is if a fic writer points it out. I hate that the show does such a poor job of defending its most heroic characters that I can write SO MANY FREAKING fics that address it, and still have more to say.

I get messages all the time from people telling me that I'm addressing things canon doesn't, and I'm not talking about that "holding authors accountable" crap, because most often that's so misplaced and entitled, but I'm talking about BLATANTLY OBVIOUS narratives that should be addressed in the show (a woman dating her best friend's boyfriend when she KNEW how he felt about him, for ONE example), and yet never are. It makes me sad to have to address it at all, and I can't wait for the day when the show does it so that I don't feel the need to.

[pastelwitchling]

I'm just hoping he just randomly hasn't been seen on other people's social media cause for THE LONGEST time until Tyler himself talked about being on set in that live with vlamis I legit thought they were like, writing him out and didn't tell anyone. But I do hope they know people won't keep coming back and they will lose a big chunk of their audience if he is reduced again this season.

Dude. He wasn't in the season 3 gag reel, he wasn't in the 50th episode pictures (not one, not even one taken earlier and saved for the occasion), and he hasn't been in 90% of the bts photos and videos. The only way we know he's in Santa Fe is if he posts a picture or short video proving he's there, and in one or two occasions with Vlamis posting something with them both.

To be honest, I'm fully expecting another separate storyline for Alex in which he will not react with the core group almost at all (again), and then will not be present for most of the last two episodes (again). I hope I'm wrong, but I'm keeping my expectations on the ground, as best I can.

And yes. The fandom's already nothing like it was on tumblr, no one's reacting to anything (and the hiatus is not the reason; the reason is that there's simply not much to react to). The lack of response has honestly discouraged me from wanting to post on tumblr anymore, and I don't blame the fandom at all. I blame the poor writing on the show, I blame the lack of attention writers give to fans. I'm of the full belief that writers should be allowed to write whatever they want, but if they want to focus on the uninteresting (and in some cases, simply despicable) characters, then they better be deal with the consequences.