Gemini

Right back at 'cha, kia112, to all of your posts! My pleasure, venusnv80! I'm tired of Bell pulling this "bait and switch" on viewers and luring many of us in with beautiful love stories for couples, and then pretending that we're supposed to just come down with a severe case of amnesia whenever he picks up a shiny new toy. While I’m on the subject of Rick and Maya’s “love story,” I also wanted to mention that I've seen many references to the theory that Maya is a “gold digger” and how she is such a slut for coming on to a married man in a steam room. However, I personally haven’t seen any references to that time Maya changed her mind about being with Rick once before, after Maya had realized that she couldn't get Rick off her mind. That's when Maya decided to swallow her pride and went to Rick's house to tell him she wanted him back Does anyone else remember that? That’s when Maya went to Rick’s house to talk to him, only to find out that Rick had already proposed to Caroline when she saw Rick’s engagement ring on Caroline’s finger. Dayzee had even encouraged Maya to go and talk to Rick once Dayzee realized how much Maya truly loved Rick, even though Dayzee herself had once been one of Caroline’s main accomplices in trying to keep Rick and Maya apart. In other words, this isn't the first time Bell has written Rick and Maya’s love story as coming back “full circle," and I for one won’t just pretend to forget all of their history just because Bell is trying to get as many viewers as he can on board for “CaRidge.” I'm not hating on CaRidge, I just feel like this is one place where Bell is unfair to many of his longtime viewers who do invest in the show's history (across the spectrum, not just in regards to "Raya" fans specifically).

in·ter·lop·er ˈin(t)ərˌlōpər,ˌin(t)ərˈlōpər/ noun 1. a person who becomes involved in a place or situation where they are not wanted or are considered not to belong. synonyms: intruder, encroacher, trespasser, invader, infiltrator; More This is the definition of “interloper” that I just found on Google. I’ve included the definition here simply for clarity, because I’ve never understood how Maya could be considered an “interloper” when it was Rick who pursued Maya and brought her into his life from the very beginning. Wouldn’t Rick be the one to determine whether or not a person is wanted or considered to belong in HIS own life? Rick is the one who pretended to be a waiter so that he could get to know Maya and so that Maya could get to know Rick for himself in return. After Rick met Maya the first time he volunteered at Dayzee’s, he spent time in his office at Forrester Creations simply staring at Maya’s picture. Rick is the one who started breaking dates with Caroline so that he could continue to volunteer at Dayzee’s simply in hopes of running into Maya, while also continuing to pretend to be a waiter so that Maya would continue to let her guard down around him. Rick is the one who pretended to be without shelter or means of transportation so that Maya would feel sorry for him and let him sleep on her couch. Rick is the one who started missing important meetings at Forrester so that he could take Maya "window shopping" on Rodeo Drive and watch Maya try on clothes. Rick is the one who brought Maya to work at Forrester Creations so that he could continue to get to know her and explore a relationship with her right under Caroline’s nose. Also, Rick and Maya didn’t even sleep together the first time until after Rick officially broke up with Caroline. There are many other examples, such as when after “outside efforts” finally succeeded in breaking Maya and Rick up, Rick rebounded back to Caroline, but also told Caroline right to her face that he couldn’t get Maya out of his mind. That’s when Rick went to Maya’s apartment to ask her to take him back, but saw Carter’s engagement ring on Maya’s finger. Once again, Rick is the one who begged Maya to reconsider, but Maya told Rick she had simply had enough of constantly battling with Caroline (and the rest of the world) over him. Though I’m a Maya fan, I’m honestly not invested in her relationship with Rick, but I almost feel as though I have no choice if I want to watch her on this show because that’s who "the show" keeps putting her with. In any case, I certainly understand posts that say that characters on the show seem to be trying to pretend as though Rick and Maya had no previous relationship before their current one. I honestly could have NEVER cared less if Rick and Caroline stayed together and lived “happily ever after,” but Brad Bell is the one who suddenly broke them up “out of the blue” for Maya. When Maya came on the show and Rick immediately took an interest in her, I honestly thought at the time that Bell had specifically written Maya into the show for the purpose of being Rick’s love interest because the pairing with Caroline was such a dud. When Rick finally married Caroline, I assumed Bell had changed his mind and simply gone back to his true and time-honored tradition of making sure that the blond one came out on top. After Bell did yet another 180-degree turn and put Rick and Maya back together again, I assumed that he had simply realized the error of his ways and was trying to rectify it. Now, I simply assume that Bell just put "Raya" back together as the quickest and most effective way to prop his new shiny toy known as “CaRidge.”

RIGHT?!? Holla BACK! ; ) When Brooke said, "You're wearing my lingerie!" Maya responded, "It's from your line." I just presume that Maya can afford to buy her own lingerie, and even if she can't for some reason, I'm sure Rick has no trouble buying some for her. Maya didn't wear lingerie when she had sex with Rick at Brooke's cabin. She arrived to the cabin wearing the same dress she had on at the company meeting where she revealed Caroline and Ridge's betrayal of Rick. Maya went to the main house when she woke up the following morning, and when we saw her again, she had on a blue silk robe. We don't know for sure whether the robe belonged to Maya or Brooke. I'm thinking that if the robe did belong to Brooke, Maya is probably just the type of woman who prefers to shower/wash her ass after sex, as opposed to many soap "sirens" who roll out of bed and put on the same clothes after hours of lovemaking. (Shrugs). But I think the "reel" purpose of that scene was to have Maya "scantily clad in a robe" when Rick answered the door for Caroline.

Thank you very much, Unwarranted! I see you're in my head too, lol. I just feel if they don't go this route with Caroline, leaving her a badass, it would be a wasted opportunity. I want someone to get up in Brooke's face and tell her there's a new sheriff in town when it comes to Ridge. Brooke needs this. Brooke deserves this. She's earned this. She's had it coming for years. And I want to see it now (though I know it's never actually going to happen). It's not as though we haven't seen this type of behavior from Caroline before with Maya. This time Caroline would just be using her powers for "good" instead of evil. And as you said, all these "well-considered responses, perfectly fair all the time, how boring." Well said. That's why I said in an earlier post that it felt like to me they were rewriting Caroline, and the timing of the rewrite seemed to coincide with Hope's exit. We all know how Bell loves his blonds (no offense to any blonds reading this). But Bell just takes his "blonde beauty" worship to a whole other level. And now I fear that after KMatula's exit, instead of writing Caroline into a combined version of "Brooke/Caroline 2.0" (which is where I thought they were going), Bell has decided to go in another direction and write her as "Hope 2.0." I really hope I'm wrong, because I know I don't want to see that.

No, everything's totally cool, St3phForrester! I know I tend to go off on a tangent sometimes, lol. I just wanted to clarify that I also didn't really want to see Ridge and Caroline have an adulterous affair, as I agree that it would have ruined their root-worthiness (though I'm sure the sex scenes would have still been red-hot). See, I agree with you completely about Ridge and Caroline here! This sums up exactly the way I hoped the story would go. You and Joimiaroxeu must be able to translate whatever's going on inside my head. Lol.

Joimiaroxeu, thank you for better explaining what I was trying to say in a nutshell about TK's "hotness" factor. In my post to slayer2, I was providing my own personal "dream scenario" where I think he could have still pulled off what you so adequately described right here in a few words. I respect your opinion that the actor no longer portrays this factor as well as he used to for the reason you outlined, but IMO he definitely still has the potential to pull it off in the right storyline. So waitadamnminute!?! I'm not attacking any of my fellow posters' opinions here, I just wanna ask a question. Are viewers who can't get past TK's "slovenly" appearance telling me that if he came to your bedroom looking the way he did in Caroline's dream, looking at you the way he was looking at her, touching you the way he was touching her, and kissing you the way he was kissing her--are you telling me that you would kick him out of bed and send him away? If so, please be sure to provide him with my address and send him my way. I'm just saying.

I started out liking the idea of Ridge and Caroline together because of the chemistry between the actors, but now I'm starting not to care one way or another because of the writing. I personally don't feel any investment in them as a couple with the way things stand right now. I guess I'm just waiting to see what happens next, because what I thought was going to happen as outlined in my long, previous posts obviously isn't going to happen, lol. I guess for me the story lost some of the initial buildup that made it exciting, and it's made the initial chemistry between TK and LG suffer because that's been shoved to the backburner. To me, the story lost a lot of its momentum when Eric told Rick unless he reconciled with Caroline, he would be fired from the CEO position. Rick had already told Caroline, "Screw you," and was dating Maya very openly in public. After that, Ridge and Caroline seemed to be around each other almost 24/7, having hushed, close conversations all over the FC building. She even told him she "had fallen" for him after the fashion show. I just think that instead of interjecting Eric into the storyline at that point, Bell should have been using that time to bring Caroline and Ridge closer together until he decided he wanted to leave Katie for her (but not have them sleep together until after that). It wouldn't have taken much more "convincing" by Caroline, Ridge was barely holding out as it was. Then once Ridge told Katie it was over, he and Caroline would have been free and clear to be together back then. In fact, Bell still could kept the EXACT SAME SCENE with Katie being the one to break up with Ridge when she saw that he and Caroline had become too close, so Ridge wouldn't have to be the bad guy for hurting Katie. Katie could have still gone back to Bill. I still don't quite understand why Eric had to be interjected into the storyline at that particular point. Surely Rick could have tried to seize irrevocable control of FC some other way. (May I be honest here? Part of me wonders if this was all just a way to put the brakes on the "Caroline and Ridge" story to give BROOKE enough time to get back)? As for Caroline's "personality change," IMO, she should not have been behaving like Rick was this great "wronged victim." IMO, long before the big reveal this past Friday, she should have told Rick to kiss her ass if he couldn't forgive her and refused to sleep with her. Caroline should have reminded Rick every chance she got that she may have kissed Ridge a few times, but he had actual PIV sex with Maya. And after he turned her down enough times, she should have been packing her bags. That's why it felt to me like she was being rewritten into a (dumb) damsel, because the old Caroline probably would have hired a private investigator to follow Rick when he wasn't coming home late at night. Didn't she suspect even once that he could have still been shagging Maya since she had recently caught them together? Caroline never even once drove by Brooke's house to see if Rick's car was there? Most people have an instinct to know or at least suspect when their partner is cheating, but Caroline was suddenly too "sweet and naive" even for that. Most importantly, Caroline definitely should not have been asking the little bastard to make a baby with her, IMO. I understand she loved Rick and wanted to make things up to him, but to me all of that was way beyond overkill.

I agree that I liked it better that they did not have a "full-on extramarital sex romp," and I actually said that in my initial post. In my "dream scenario," they would have still waited until after they both left their partners to actually have sex. Perhaps when I said "full-blown affair instead of just kissing," I meant they definitely should be having sex by now. By "affair," I more or less meant that they would start having sex right away before they got married. A "love affair," more or less. And I meant that they definitely should have both told their respective partners by now that they wanted out. After they told their partners they wanted out, why couldn't they go ahead and have sex the next day, or that night for that matter? I don't need them to wait forever to "go there," because to me that gets boring and makes me not care. The writers could have just dragged the emotional affair out a little longer, and then Ridge and Caroline could have kept their honor intact by going to their respective partners and confessing that they had found their true "soulmate" in each other and wanted to be together. That time when Caroline asked Ridge, "What about us?" Ridge then should have grabbed her, kissed her, and told her, "I'm telling Katie tonight. You tell Rick." Like I said, they could have had everyone blame Ridge's head injury as the reason for his sudden "infatuation" with Caroline, his inability to stay away from her and his reason for dumping Katie. Or, just have everyone tell him he was having a midlife crisis, hell. As for Caroline, everyone could have just blamed it on her being young and inexperienced, or needing a "father figure" from never having a daddy. I wish I could think of another soap opera couple as an example for comparison, but I know I've seen this type of storyline before where two people develop such an intense "attraction" they decide to throw all caution to the wind so they can be together, no matter what anyone else thinks about it. I'm guess I was thinking something along the lines of "Brill," but without the all the offensive parts? I just think that type of storyline might have worked better to portray Caroline as "the romantic heroine" type instead of this "damsel in distress" type who is waiting to be rescued from the "evil tyrant"--the same one she married because she just had to have him. That's what is making it difficult for me to view her as a "romantic heroine," because it just doesn't jibe well with the "Caroline" I know who was such a badass. To me, it feels like another rewrite, but that may just be me. I just want the writers to let "sweet Caroline" keep her edge.

slayer2, I am definitely a Raya shipper as well. I have no idea why I included Rick in my fan fiction for Ridge and Caroline, I guess I was just typing fast and didn't want to lose my train of thought. LOL. Of course in my "dream scenario," Rick would quickly move on with Maya with barely a second glance back at Caroline. But I only came up with those Ridge/Caroline scenarios because the whole time I was watching, I could have sworn that it was the direction in which Bell was going to take the story based on the natural chemistry between the actors. Let Caroline and Ridge leave their respective partners for each other and naturally explore this explosive new passionate chemistry that they happened to find, and let Brooke's head naturally explode when she found out. Simple as pie. I am also more than a little annoyed with this attempt to suddenly rewrite Caroline into some sweet, innocent perfect angel, whereas I would have preferred for the character to remain a vixen. I have no idea why Bell changed it. My pure speculation is that perhaps Bell felt that having "sweet, young blonde Caroline" leave her sweet young husband Rick for "dirty ol' man" Ridge would have portrayed her to viewers in a negative light, or scared advertisers off? I'm not sure why, because it certainly wouldn't have been anything worse than what Brooke has ever done. My other pure speculation, or rather fear is that Bell, is now "suddenly" trying to replace one perfect, sweet young blonde heroine as the center of the show with another one. If you'll notice, this latest rewrite of Caroline coincided with Hope's exit from the show, and how they are now all of a sudden trying to "glam" Caroline up more. To me, Bell is trying to portray Caroline as some poor victim of Rick's so Ridge can come rescue her, and I don't particularly care for this "damsel in distress" angle. I worry that Bell can't help himself--that he has an almost pathological obsession with writing the "sweet, angelic perfect blonde" as the "end all, be all" for every man who crosses her path, instead of a normal woman with both qualities and flaws. Bell's bullshit rewrites like this almost has me not wanting Ridge and Caroline together, because I really wanted Caroline to stay a badass and own it. I wanted her to be badass over Ridge too, and be ready to kick Brooke's and anybody else's ass who she had to in order to keep them off her man, the same way she was with Maya. But I'll be patient, and at this point I'll just take Ridge with anyone (except Carter). It is Bell's show with which to do what he wants, so I'll just have to wait and see and hope to be pleasantly surprised. I'll keep watching for TK and Raya if for no other reasons.

slayer2, I enjoyed reading your post. I guess then I belong to a third camp: I don't think Caroline is a romantic heroine, and I do think that TK is devastatingly attractive. I will give you that he is an acquired TASTE (there I go again, I swear I just can't help myself), but I think he definitely knows how to bring the sexy and the heat in his scenes, no matter whether you think he's "conventionally" handsome or not, but that's JMO. I think the reason many viewers like the pairing with Caroline is because it was the first storyline where TK was naturally allowed to generate his own heat with a co-star, as opposed to some contrived pairing they put him in with one of the show's "older" co-stars because "that's just the way it's always been" or some other bullshit, or the other contrived pairing with the five-time Emmy winner. Now, I'm not dissing KKL, but she was RM's Brooke, not TK's Brooke. And I'm not dissing HT, but I've never really seen her generate that much heat with anyone on this show, especially since she had her baby. Also, IMO, the pairing between Katie and Ridge was never meant to be long-term, but some type of "revenge pairing" that perhaps Bell thought would make it more palatable for viewers to tolerate the vomitfest known as "Brill." But anyway, back to Caroline being a romantic heroine. I agree with the poster up here who said that Bell should have let Ridge and Caroline have a full-blown affair instead of just kissing, which I agree was completely lame. And I don't think that they should have had an illicit affair behind everyone's back, either (though that could have possibly worked too). But what I was hoping for was for the same scenario, where Ridge needed Caroline's help due to his head injury, and the two of them falling in love and deciding that they couldn't live without each other. Caroline was down--as viewers saw, she was pretty much ready to leave Rick, but Ridge kept telling her that he wasn't going to leave Katie. I believe Bell should have let Caroline win Ridge over, and get him to leave Katie for her. Now that would have been hot. Caroline would have then left Rick, and told everyone at FC that she was throwing her total support behind her new love, Ridge. Caroline and Ridge would announce that they would remain a design team, and she would announce that she was now supporting him for CEO. All this time, everyone in Ridge's life--Eric, his siblings, and best of all Brooke, would be having fits trying to get Ridge to realize that his sudden "infatuation" for Caroline was simply another effect of his head injury from being dumped in the Persian Gulf, but Ridge and Caroline would be insisting to everyone that they were indeed very much in love--in fact, the first real time for both of them. It could have given Katie something to do--crying about how she had been deserted for another love of her life for another woman. She could have even still sent Bill after Ridge, both for breaking Katie's heart and for "taking advantage"of his precious niece, Caroline. Perhaps Caroline and Ridge could have spent years fighting Brooke to stay out of Ridge's life, and Rick out of Caroline's. Down the road, who knows? Ridge and Caroline could have even had a baby. All the while with the viewers wondering, "When will Ridge finally 'come to his senses' and go back to Brooke, or is he really, truly in love with Caroline?" Now this is the way I would have written it, but for whatever reason Brad Bell didn't ask me, lol. I just think this way they could have told the same story, and still had their blonde Caroline as the show's new "romantic heroine." I don't know the textbook definition, but I think at least one quality is a woman who is willing to fight at all costs to be with her "true love."

Shira, like this x 1000! Lust in a bottle, LOVE. it! I could just drink him UP! Let's just say that when it comes to "Ridge 2.0," I have an "INSATIABLE THIRST." I'm just saying.

Actually, I don't mind him looking "dirty," because as far as I'm concerned I could just lick him clean. I'm just saying.

First time poster here, and I just wanted to say I love your board and please, please, PLEASE sign me up for TK island too! The man has made me go from "meh" about B&B to not wanting to miss a show! I understand why he's not everyone's cup of tea, and I didn't even see *it* myself at first. But now I'm just like, WHOA! All I can say is he is incredibly, devastatingly sexy. I'm SO glad that Brad Bell hired him for this soap. And it's not just his looks, it's his entire demeanor, and especially his acting style. That's actually what really won me over. For the first time since I have been watching this show (off and on) since it premiered, I actually ROOT for Ridge. Don't get me wrong, I liked RM's Ridge, and he had his moments in the role. But this new guy?!? I want him to take FC and LA by STORM. Take down Rick, Bill and whoever else is in his way. And I agree that Ridge and Caroline are on FIRE. I never wanted TK's Ridge with Brooke, and I was lukewarm to him and Katie (I liked it mostly because it burned Brooke down deep in her soul). But he and Caroline burn up the screen. I don't have any faith that the writers won't blow it, however. Anyway, Team Ridge all the way!