#the john sugden of it all

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Here’s some quick fauxbert nonsense for you. (I’m so rusty 🤣)

[watching-tv]

Let’s see where everyone’s heads at for emmerdale

[damnitiloveyou]

the actor when on corrie was actually fine. he was able to convey love LMAO and was literally pretending to be someone's son when he wasn't but was still able to be likeable and charming and nice. he was killed in a really sad way and i remember being like OH NO! such a weird choice to have him have such negative strong feelings towards robert? makes no sense!

All the people who have now told me that he is capable of decent acting have now given me expectations. Damnit. Make him bad. Make the acting choices make sense. And while they're at it they can have all of this leading to a Robert return and saving Aaron's life. Thanks.

[thelovetheystole]

I couldn't resist highlighting some of what was said in that RadioTimes piece:

There are more parallels to come 👀, that's, wow... Yeah, they're either up to something or plain stupid.

This is what I've been saying for ages! About John, but also about Seb.

This one goes without saying!

Also spot on.

Yeah, remember Victoria back in 2016??

I wonder about the point of him all the time... And we're not the only ones to notice his strangeness, then...

The link to the full story ⬇️

[castielmoriarty]

while all of us in the Robron fandom are obviously biased, the relevant thing is that the only reason we became so biased and obsessed with them in the first place is because of how good it was from the start. but looking at Johnron as objectively as possible, it's obvious that even without Robron making us biased, this ship comes nowhere near all the things that made Robron so appealing. there are countless queer ships out there these days, including in Emmerdale, and there's a reason why Robron (afaik) is the most popular Ed ship ever. so them trying to recreate it like this is just such a terrible idea, while at the same time it being amusing how fucking far off they actually are? it's obvious what they're doing but inconceivable how they are pulling it off so poorly. I'll say it again, they should have gone a new/different route for Aaron where comparisons wouldn't even have been relevant (but that also wasn't as un-fucking-believeably bad as Bearon). the three main issues I have at this point is that they have nowhere near the chemistry Robron had, or even just in general. (Aaron had/have a lot more chemistry with Jackson, Mack and even Adam, imo.) then the fact that there was no build-up, which can work with some ships, but not in this case imo. and thirdly that John and Aaron are too alike, John calls Aaron angry/grumpy, but what the fuck is he? he's hardly shown more than one emotion or facial expression so far. both of them are very much >:|. one of the best things with early Robron was the combo of Aaron's grumpiness with Rob's constant smirks and gleefulness. even this idea that part of the appeal with Robron was them being a Sugden and a Dingle doesn't check out because a lot of us had never watched Ed before getting into it due to Robron, while no one's going to find Emmerdale and start watching it because of Aaron and John. CMV. with that said I'm not saying this ship has no potential, or that it's impossible that I will get more into it given time. just that the fandom's negativity about it is definitely not just due to bias.

[actual-exhusbands]

Regarding the recent spoilers: the Christmas return is a previous character who is linked to the Dingle family and potentially the Sugden family.

I can only think of Robert and Andy. I obviously would love for it to be Robert and with his marriage to Aaron Dingle he does seem to fit into the criteria.

However, considering the interview was with Sarah Sugden's actress I'm guessing it might actually be Andy. With him being Sarah's dad he also matches the description. If it is him then maybe he'll feel similar about John as Robert had originally felt towards him.

Who knows; Andy might end up sending John away on his merry travels with or without a pitchfork shaped wound (with being preferable). That, or, Andy can reflect on his past relationship with Robert. He might finally understand Robert's point-of-view which could potentially encourage him to visit Robert in prison and, furthermore, it may or may not lead to a Robert return after Christmas.

In all honesty, I'm only overthinking Andy's return so I don't build my hopes up too high for Robert coming back. This spoiler sounds too good and certainly too promising for it to actually be about Robert.

[renamusing]

just watched today's hour long ep and im leaving my thoughts below:

putting aside the fact that the current writers can be complete nonsensical idiots most of the time, there is something pretty suspicious about this whole rebecca plot twist.

first, why kill her if ross says they had split up for a while before she died? if this twist was only to serve ross's comeback story, then they had no need to kill rebecca at all. ross said today that after they split, rebecca had already moved to bristol with seb to stay with her aunt so that would have been that. ross would still have been stupid enough to get into illegal fighting and other criminal activities on his own without the added grief of her death.

second, people are panicking because robert apparently signed the papers so seb could stay with this supposed aunt of rebecca. im sorry, but what else did you expect robert to do? since the moment he went to prison, robert made it a priority to sever himself from aaron. he handed himself in so aaron could have a life of his own, and seb a dad he could one day be proud of, instead of a father on the run for the rest of his life. so i don't believe robert would EVER put seb on aaron if he could avoid it. can you imagine, robert thinking aaron has settled somewhere with a guy living a life of his own just how robert wished, only for robert to saddle him with his kid? yes, for us fans, that wouldn't be selfish because we know aaron would be great with seb, however, the prospect brings up so many questions to me personally, like does robert even know liv died? does he know aaron went to live in italy for a time? does he know aaron came back? we can't even trust victoria to have told robert anything because according to ross victoria hasn't been in contact with robert recently! she hasn't even been in contact with bex and seb, for years! even aaron said they didn't get in touch because they thought rebecca, ross and seb were "happy". which brings me to my third point.

according to today's episode, rebecca died around 3 months ago. who also showed up just around that time? john sugden. im not trying to build a conspiracy theory here—could john's army medic past allow him to perform surgeries in liverpool?? lmao im kidding—what i mean is (and correct me if im wrong), this seems like the time the "new stories" overseen by iain macleod started kicking in. which means they had to cover plot holes from past stories in the least limiting way possible, especially considering the show wouldn't want to spoil robert's return (if ryan does come back) or the fact he isn't coming back at all.

so we don't know if rebecca died before or after victoria called robert to tell him about john like she said she would. we don't know if it was robert who decided not to mention bex's death to vic, or if vic even spoke to robert at all after meeting john.

what im more and more certain of, though, is that seb will play a big part in the story going forward. his predicament as an orphan could:

give vic a plot - because why didn't her brother trust her with his son? could it be because robert thought she already had her hands full with her own kid? or did he think seb would be happier and more comfortable with people he already knew and was familiar with? now that vic's dismal plot with jacob is done, i can see her trying to get some offscreen visiting rights with the bristol auntie, or, in the best case scenario, onscreen seb visits.

give aaron a plot - unfortunately another one that involves john, because being a father is something that aaron always wanted and, depending on who writes this sl, it could have him opening up to john about his and robert's surrogacy attempts. i don't mind it at all, because if robert comes back it will be much juicier if aaron and john are as settled as possible (good luck with that nonexistent chemistry lol), yet i refuse to watch those two bring up seb. period.

an emergency exit to ross - michael parr's interviews have been vague at best. he has talked about doing a short stint and not knowing what the future holds for his character, so if seb doesn't return in the foreseeable, he could well be the reason ross goes away again.

speed up robert's release - yes, robert signed the papers for seb to stay with his aunt in bristol, but i don't doubt he has thought about attempting a new appeal so he could be with his son. legal matters take time and with the lee/luke plot loophole from a few years back, it would only be a case of waiting for ryan to be available.

this seems to be the gist of it to me so far. but i have to mention the one thing that stood out to me today and which i really enjoyed was how calm aaron was through everything except the one moment ross threw the 'slept with his brother' comment in his face. i need 10 more of those, ross. keep them coming!

[sugdenlovesdingle]

Fr me there's just too much to not be leading into something

Rebecca dead 3 months ago, not recently.

Ross saying 'as far as he's aware' Robert is still in prison. Suss, as he should know.

Constant mentioning of Seb and Robert. I get it's too do with Ross, but they could just not have mentioned it, or Rebecca be alive.

Vic not really being in contact with Robert even tho she was earlier in the year.

Aaron and john getting closer and actually talking all of a sudden.

I reckon Robert's out already and with Seb,and will be back Christmas to stir things up.

I REALLY hope it's not Nate coming back 🤔😁😂😅😬🤣

Well Katie Hill said the person returning was connected to the dingles AND the sugdens. nate wouldn't be connected to the sugdens...

It all has me 👀 but don't want to get my hopes up AGAIN with the Robert and Seb mentions and have it be another kayak boy before Meena got to him deal - with Aaron telling fauxbert he loves HIM and Robert is in his past blablabla (I dare emmerdale to prove me wrong!)

[veryveryverytemporarily]

An attempt to organize random thoughts regarding yesterday’s episode, including real time reactions… 🤮

The fact is it's hard to say anything new when the issues remain the same.

First off the story itself was so dull. Why was it ALL about John? For the whole angsty lost love scenario to be compelling we'd have to actually care about John as a character and I can't help wondering if anyone really does, and based on what? Also we've never met this Aiden bloke and he's dead now so why do we need to know about him. Sorry but John's big gesture of kissing the dog tags and throwing them away was a real cringe moment.

The script veered from painful peppered with attempts to raise eyebrows.

They got in that John was boring as a meta nod to fans no doubt. The awful thing is it remains true and his whole anti-social outdoorsy camping in December thing only makes him worse. There were lines that should have been flirty but died a death due to John's delivery ( I couldn't help imagining how well Ryan would have handled some of them ) The ILY's were forced and uncomfortable saved only by Aaron turning on his acting skills when they mattered most.

They convinced us that they have nothing in common and they really don't have anything in common.

It's all rather bewildering.

Given that this is where we are, what I would want next is a whole story arc where John finally gets hung up on his Sugden roots. If he's a Sugden, let's make it mean something. Let him go on a journey and develop relationships with Vic, Harry, Sarah, learn stuff and ultimately take ownership of the name. I actually think Aaron would like that.

But they are so unlikely to do that.

After all he was only a Sugden to cynically get our attention .... unless Robert is actually coming back 🤡

[dannymillerfansite]

Spoilers Emmerdale star Danny Miller has confirmed that his character Aaron Dingle will be sharing scenes with the show's new Sugden.

Show bosses recently announced the casting of former Coronation Street actor Oliver Farnworth as newcomer John Sugden, who'll be joining the village later in the summer.

John is a new arrival who'll be shaking up life for Victoria, who's the only remaining Sugden family member still left in the village.

He has also been tipped to "catch the eye of an unsuspecting resident", creating plenty of drama in the Dales.

Speaking to Digital Spy on the red carpet at the Radio Times Soap Awards, Danny teased: "There's a Sugden coming in. With the history that Aaron has with Robert, it'll be interesting to see what happens with them. "It's going to be an interesting few months, which is great."

Off screen, Ryan Hawley – who played Aaron's husband Robert – recently made the switch to BBC One's Casualty. He's currently playing the role of Jamie Cleveland in the long-running medical drama.

Asked about Ryan's new job, Danny joked: "Traitor! He's a great actor and I speak to him all the time.

"Hopefully he does a good job – I'm sure he will, with everything else he's done. I'm excited for him."

Oliver Farnworth was recently pictured filming alongside Jeff Hordley (Cain Dingle) for some dramatic Emmerdale fire scenes, which will air in a few weeks' time.

John Sugden will be involved in the high-stakes rescue scenes when Moira Dingle and Ruby Fox-Miligan get trapped in a burning barn.

via Digital Spy

[isabellaofparma]

omg your comment about john being a dick but not in a fun way is one of my main problems w this storyline, it’s as if the producers/writers were like ‘oh well robert was a dick and aaron fell for him so let’s just do that again’ but robert was playful!!! he was charming!!! also i think robert had a certain vulnerability about him from the start that i think helped draw aaron in, like outright admitting that he faked his car breaking down to get aaron to come and his soft ‘i’m not messing you around’ to stop aaron from leaving. john is literally just a prick to aaron and takes himself too seriously there’s no reason why that would attract aaron to him lmao

Yeah! Plus Aaron thought Robert was struggling with his sexuality (which he was, but not the way Aaron'd thought) so he forgave him a lot for that. I'm sure John has some issues that make him act the way he does but I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't even suspect that, he is just like 'What a dick. I can't not fuck him' which okay, lust exists, being horny exists but you need insane amout of chemistry for that to work and more goddamn screentime! But like I said, they seem to be speedrunning through this whole thing so no time for that. And you know, all of this could still work if they leaned into the Robert angle. If they said 'Aaron misses Robert so much he will take any crumbs that's a reminder of him' and that's why they keep giving them these knock off affair scenes but no, Robert is only present at the bare minimum. I don't understand why the Sugden connection was necessary if they don't really want to use it (regarding Aaron, at least). Someone mentioned John could have been Eric's relative, still have a connection to the village, be a dick and hook up with Aaron. Not much would have changed.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

We're laughing about the absurdity that Aaron would keep going back to John but watching affair era, Robert is just as bad and frankly so is Aaron. Haha.

He's like whatever this is, it's over, it'd done after the Lachlan drugs thing and then like the next day he's walking up to Aaron at the garage all like "so Lachlan's back home and everything is fine wanna meet up later?" And Aaron's all "you don't care about your step son at all" and then five minutes later he's like "kiss and make up? don't mind if I do!" They're so dumb.

But at least they've been at this for a month already and they've had like...actual conversations. And Robert is investing in his business. And they seem to genuinely enjoy spending time together. And Robert's been having problems with Chrissie this whole time so it's believable that he'd miss being with someone he can be more of himself with.

I mean look at that...character motivations! Haha.

But no really...the John and Aaron stuff is so baffling to me because they still haven't even had a proper conversation yet. They badly flirted over Aaron fixing the van. Had a stilted chat after they hooked up. Aaron accused him of knowing he was Robert's brother and they shoved and punched each other. The van stuff was more Mack and John. And they had that horrendous exchange where John was all "i know you want me" at Aaron so he'd try and kiss him and that's literally it.

The fact that they've never just had a normal chat or tried to get to know each other at all or even talked about the Robert of it all is just...

I truly don't understand how there could possibly be any feelings there from this. It's ridiculous.

[damnitiloveyou]

it’s baffling to me that robert’s barely been mentioned throughout all of this. like the story would still suck regardless but you would assume that the reason they made john robert’s brother and paired him with aaron would be to create a sense of conflict for aaron??? we had literally maybe 2 minutes of that and now aaron’s carrying on as if robert never existed. what was the point!!!!!

The lack of Robert mentions is absurd. But clearly they only made him a Sugden so they could attempt a half-ass speed run Robron do over. It's blatantly obvious that was the plan and that they didn't bother to actually have any kind of plan outside of making him a Sugden. It's why anyone attempting to understand it is wasting their time. We cannot make sense out of something that never had a purpose or point to begin with.

[thelovetheystole]

According to an article I read, Emmerdale has like 60 characters. Today, I want to take a moment to talk about the silent 61st character. Gone 5 years from the show, but still on everyone's mind, especially if you've been reading soap media in 2024...

Below, a little compilation I've made from just a couple of outlets, all this year (if I have made a mistake and included an older one, I apologise.)

These are far from all of it, and I've not even touched on the online click-bait stories. Here we have everything from blatant baiting (putting Robron on the cover of a magazine with Emmerdale previews and captioning it 'love conquers all!') to alluding (implying John is only the start of Sugden additions to the show) and even a cheeky suggestion that the show hand Ryan a black cheque 😂 Danny was flying the Robron flag proudly at the start of the year, and even Mike P wants Ryan to return...

Add to this that his name has been mentioned on screen 20-ish times, the show has recreated several Robron sceanrios with Aaron and the new Sugden and even had a keychain made with Robert's photo, as seen in the last collage...

Find me another past character that can match this 5 or even 2 years later! I bet there are even current characters or couples that haven't been alluded to this much in the media this year.

And clearly, the 'Is Steph a Sugden?' one takes the cake, as Robert is only 7 years older than her 😆

[smittenkitteninbrittain]

listen. I have not posted anything on robron in the last five years. I follow emmerdale by checking spoilers now and then. But I had to bring this blog out of retirement because I can't decide whether I am shocked that emmerdale would sacrifice a piece of robron lore like this or very entertained by the thought of Aaron finding out that John is Robert's brother and Victoria figuring out that Aaron did 3/4 Sugden siblings.

and I need all of you on tumblr to know that.

[sharonccrter]

I feel like Aaron would have more conflict in pursuing something with John. one min like he would never gone there if knew his Robert's brother, the next is leaning into kiss John like wtf. and then no conflict when hooks up with John again. when his aware of Robert long issues feeling replaced by Andy. Not to mention they also copying Robron scenes with Aaron and John ugh.

At this point, it's blatantly obvious they wanted Ryan back he said no so they introduced John. I still personally think they should have recast. I also still can't understand the weird choice of killing Rebecca off screen - why wasn't Ross and Rebecca breaking up enough. Now Seb is with this random relative - do Vic and Robert even know? I saw alot of people say this was opening the door for a Robert return. I can see where they're coming from - because it is a weird choice if it's not, but I don't personally see that happening.

As for John. I think it's OOC for Aaron to just jump into bed with Robert's brother and for there to be no conflict surrounding it. Furthermore, I just can't see Aaron doing it at all, it doesn't feel like his character. I also cannot understand why they couldn't just introduce someone new for him and why it needed to be connected to the Sugden's. It's lazy writing, and I'm assuming they're trying to recreate what they had with robron. But I don't think the fanbase will ever be that strong again.