#if anyone ever wants to bitch about callum highway (or ben) my messages are always open

[burgundy-and-navy]

rant.

NOT AN ANTI- BUT NOT COMPLETELY CALLUM POSTIVE, (or not postive about his dialogue tonight) SO IF THAT'S NOT YOUR THING MAYBE DON'T READ

also just TW: ben's sl

I am like genuinely annoyed from watching today's ballum scenes and have major reservations about the continuation of ben's sl.

I'm trying to be hopeful but I'm started to think it's going to be another ben is magically fixed scenario, which is just wildly inappropriate given the storyline. It seems like Clenshaw just can't be bothered dealing with a the fact that ben was assaulted so is now just doing the bare minimum. Like yeah we'll mention Lewis getting bail but we won't dedicate time to actually having any characters actually talk about what happened. All those months of therapy mentions, actually turns out they're meaningless. I was optimistic during wedding week and but now I'm wondering if the idea that Ben was still a bit shaky was just part of max's (very good) performance and not the writing.

The whole lola, vi and jay trying to set them up is good in theory and its nice to see ben in lighthearted scenes, but it just seems like the show is treating this like a normal break up. Why is Jay just going along with it, not at least checking that ben's okay with this, when he knows the truth. Surely in that situation he would have some sort of reservation about forcing ben into a situation he may not be comfortable with. Why doesn't Lola know. From an in world character point of view its good that the people knowing about what happened is limited to ben's inner circle, but also this is the soap and usually in soaps secrets come out (not that this is the same as the secret but still) so I'm worried so few people knowing is indication that again Clenshaw can't be bothered dealing with the storyline properly.

And then there's callum and I am so sick of being pissed off at callum in scenes this year, but like what was that. Maybe its just because i've been so annoyed with callum that i'm less likely to give dodgy lines leniency, but i don't care this is my blog I'll rant if I want to. I don't why the writing seems to be framing it like Callum is the hard done by party who ben needs to reassure. After a year of get over your ptsd or i'll divorce you and you're a slut incapable of proper love (i know he thought ben cheated but he still said it and ben still had to hear it) we get lines like maybe if i lived somewhere else. Put some effort in. Show some commitment to your traumatized husband. He knows why they're not together, ben told him that he didn't want to be like lewis, ergo its not a lack of love keeping them apart. It's is an okay line it just feels weird in this context. Any other time I would probably quite like it, but not in this circumstance which again goes back to the fact the show seems to be side stepping the fact ben was raped. I don't want it to be mentioned every other line but some contextual awareness would be nice. What really made me mad though was callum thinking ben just turned his feelings off. Ben didn't get back together with him because he still loves him and thinks he's doing the right thing, you dickhead. When the fuck did it seem like ben stopped loving callum after the break up. The parties don't count because callum knows they were a trauma response now. Why is every character acting like they don't know ben was raped!!

If anything that should have been a ben line. I wouldn't have liked it but at least it would have made sense. Callum's the one who first took love away. He's the one who seemingly turned his feelings off and again HE KNOWs why they are not together. Love is not the problem. (I know i'm making no attempt to see things from callum's pov I don't care, write better dialogue). Also callum annoyed me by acting like ben was being irrational about Lewis getting bail. Let the man be upset about the very obviously upsetting news.

I just want one scene where they talk about the actual reason they are not together. Actually address what ben's state of mind is, have callum acknowledge why their relationship fell apart and realise the reason they're not together isn't from ben's lack of feeling -if anything its from having too many feelings- and come up with a plan to address that (you know the actual problem) I want them to start writing callum better cause it seemed like they were, but not today.