#Carlie became a big thing near the end of my time in comics fandom but it's rare to see a fandom hate a love interest that much

[cookinguptales]

I will preface this by saying that of course I’m a nandermo shipper so I’m biased but like

as a writer

I’m looking at this whole Freddie thing with like... increasing confusion. Like... the way to get your audience invested in a romance is to, y’know, show it? They’re hinting at it, but we’re not really getting to see any of the things that usually get fans into a romance. Not how they met, not how they got together, not how they actually interact, not their ship dynamic... It’s mostly been some generic phone endearments and Guillermo hanging up on him mid-sentence. Hard to get a handle on, y’know?

At this point, I’m guessing that there’s a very high likelihood that we really won’t even see the guy until the end of the season. And while hinting at a mysterious lover is great for a fuckin murder mystery or something, it’s not an effective way to get an audience invested in what a romance is rather than what it could be.

So at this point, I can’t help but wonder if we’re not supposed to be getting invested in it...?

Maybe I just spent too long in Big 2 comics fandom, but I know that a good way to get your fans annoyed at a new love interest is to have an established main character go from 0 to 60 about them with no build-up that the fans are actually privy to. Like, we know that the character has feelings for them, and that’s fine. But in order for the fans to have feelings about them, we also need to kind of fall in love with them, y’know? It’s easy to feel cheated and irritated with a character if the writers neglect that very important step.

When it comes to writing a romance, it’s just... not good writing... And I think these are not bad writers! So the only other thing I can think of is that they’re not writing a romance. Either what they’re actually building to is a storyline about Guillermo’s fucked up interpersonal skills and inability to ever actually be “normal” (highly likely, I think) or one where Freddie causes trouble (less likely, I think, though this show doesn’t really have normal people in it) or it’s going to be a story about Guillermo and Nandor in the end (which feels... pointed in the show itself, but seems unlikely from interviews?) or... I don’t know.

I’ve been trying to give both of these new relationships absolute benefit of the doubt (despite obviously not really wanting them to go well, lmao) because I mean! I’ve changed my mind on pairings that split up my ships if they’re well-written enough! I’ve actually spun dozens of scenarios for how these two relationships could work in my head. But yeah, it’s getting harder and harder with each passing episode. Both Marwa and Freddie feel more like plot devices in someone else’s story than actual characters at this point, and we are swiftly running out of episodes. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to see ways that each of these could become well-written romances. (Nandor/Marwa especially is dead in the water, I think.)

And I mean... These writers are so fucking good at writing romance when it comes to Laszlo and Nadja! That’s a pairing that we were also introduced to well after they got together, but they managed to show their ship dynamic so charmingly so quickly that you kind of feel like you’ve known them forever. So the fact that they’re just... not doing that... has me like ??? what are you planning??? because it sure as shit doesn’t feel like a well-developed romantic storyline! lmao

At this point, even if Freddie does stick around for s5 (not a thing I’m hoping for, mostly bc of narrative cohesion reasons which I went into with one of my last answered asks) his introduction has just been so damn strange that I don’t know if this can ever feel like an organic relationship...? I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I realized at a certain point that it was because, based on how this is being used in the narrative, it’s starting to feel more like foreshadowing for a bad thing than a good one. Or if not a bad thing, then at least an explosive one?

I mentioned it in one of my last posts, but this is starting to give “Colin’s 100th Birthday” vibes. The way they keep bringing it up, but too quickly for any real information? The way that “Freddie” has been announced as the penultimate episode of the season, the same spot where Colin “died”...? This is starting to make me uneasy!

I guess I’ll just end with saying personally, I kind of hope that the thing with Freddie ends catastrophically just because I like seeing my blorbos Suffer but I acknowledge that’s probably less likely lmao. At this point, I’m just going to be happy if they have a greater plan here that isn’t just “dump an unintroduced love interest on viewers near the end of the season” because again, I just don’t find that narratively satisfying.

but damn, if we aren’t building up a romance, what are we building?? I keep trying to figure it out! ;A;