Posted on

so while I loved that juliantina was is their own bubble separated from the ‘main plot’ (tho for us that’s them) for most of the show, I kinda thought they were eventually going to full on collide with juliantina as a established? Especially post that Camilo scene. Can’t remember who coined it but they said ‘hoping for that scooby doo shit’. Instead we got lips/Sergio. In hindsight I’m not sure anymore, cause that stuff was important. But it was a bit of a bummer to miss out on the former

Also I remember we talked about ek ladki a while ago and it feels like a Similar criticism pattern with the ‘it’s not gay enough’ as opposed to ‘thanks for the gay you gave us’ THO most of my juliantina problems are sorta with the overall writing for the ending (obv I wouldn’t be opposed to more physical thing but not totally what I was missing). There’s a spectrum between wanting more/being happy and then also valid writing analysis! The dead are gone and the gays are hungry

I don’t really consider them separate from the main plot, I would say that’s Guille/Renata. Juliantina were constantly involved with more central plots, they just happened to be written so differently, at least for the first three quarters, that they seemed separate. But their stories constantly involved other central characters. Val was used to bridge Lucia and Leon, Juls was constantly used to reflect the current state of Lupe/Chino and what kind of person Chino was, to balance what we were currently seeing Beltran try to be. They did develop separately, quite a bit, the park, the dancing, the swimming, the party, but I wouldn’t consider that a bubble, simply a separate thread that would then tie back to the main.

And it kind of did, but not really in a very helpful way, you’re right. Juls did discover Chino, they did go to Camilo, and then that all went off the rails. I guess that was too early for them to actually discover it. I think they had a few gay issues they wanted to cross off and Lupe’s homophobia and the mess with Sergio were some of them. But then Juls’s kidnapping was again part of the main plot. In fact, that was probably the one storyline that involved the most main characters. But if we’re talking about simply the transmigration, I do wish they’d had more to do with the actual discoveries instead of a very last minute kind of irrelevant revelation at the very end. They had all the pieces and they were written to be important to it, but not really shown to be in the end.

Lol, as for “it’s not gay enough”, that’s indeed a common refrain, but I don’t really begrudge people it, things can always be gayer. 😛 Though it’s not my own particular criticism for either. I don’t really have one for ELKDTAL but my big problem with the AAM finale was, as you said, the technical writing of it. They failed to deliver on things they set up themselves. After thirty episodes of “I want to be with you but I can’t”, where was the actual scene where we saw them on the same page? I could–and do–forgive most of the other issues but that was the big thing for me.

“There’s a spectrum between wanting more/being happy and then also valid writing analysis!” Definitely agree with this. My own frankly cheery blithe response to the finale also comes with but we didn’t get this or this and that one moment was egregious! And yeah, that’s basically it, I’m happy with so much of it and wanted some bits to be as good as they’ve shown themselves to be. It’s like that sometimes.

Posted on

I’m sad, it’s only Tuesday and the Juliantina tag is already dead.

Aww, anon, it is also just Tuesday. People are’t moving on in just a couple of days. Speaking as someone who was..somewhat active in the fandom, it’s not at all about dropping the ship and moving on as much as it is about taking a breather. That was like non-stop content for months. Right now, fans are voting in the polls, following the actresses in their interviews and movie premieres, and since the HD eps aren’t out past 81, people are still waiting on them to do all the fancy parallels and bookend gifsets. 

Personally, I’m catching up on work now and while I’ve tried to stay caught up on my other shows, there isn’t the same nightly urgency to keep with Juliantina that consumed the majority of my attention that stopped me taking the time to absorb and gif them. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I’ve always advocated trying to balance your interests and not let any one thing consume you. And all right, lol, do as I say and not as I do, because clearly I was terrible at that, but now you might see other shows pop up more. 

That doesn’t mean I’m not all up on Juliantina still, I know we’re slightly leading in the kiss poll, I know we’re doing all right in the TVyNovelas poll, I know Barbara was super cute in the interview last night, I know fans have been overwhelming Maca with gifts and singing and inside jokes and proposals for her birthday and that they’re going to appear together for the Mexico City premiere. People not posting about something doesn’t mean they’ve moved on. And if you’re worried that everyone will leave you behind, that is…the last thing to be worried about, lol. At the least, I’ll still be here with you. 🙂

Posted on

Bitter anon here again. I’m kind of a cynic because I grew up with televisa, watching them put pretty terrible things on tv. Also I get kind of snobbish because I work creating media but not the kind that would ever be on their network. At the end you’re right, the set up was so beautiful and even if I scrutinize the hell out of the script, the bottom line is that they really created a beautiful story and that’s why we all watched. Ty for the analysis and the answer, you’re always so kind.

Aw, I wasn’t thinking of you that way, I didn’t even know who you meant until you mentioned Televisa. And it’s totally fair to form an idea of something based on experience. From all accounts, Mexican viewers are stunned at Juliantina. For us Americans, the treatment is already so unusual, but for people who know the network, it’s mindblowing.

I do also get the snobby part, I had that attitude with my own local media (Pakistani) and then I saw some dramas that were actually really freaking good. And I realized how much of that snobbery, in my own case, was influenced by automatically thinking foreign, especially English-language media, was superior. And that all the little traits of a genre were part of it and not something to be tolerated. For AAM, at the beginning I’d been like, does this music really need to be playing, by the end, I was in love with that OST, lol.

But, it’s a good thing we were open to realizing we wrong to paint everything with the same brush, otherwise we’d never have given quality media a chance and really missed out. And who knows, you may have more on the way. 🙂

Posted on

I gotta be honest, I’ve never seen a good product made by televisa and I find aam just as bad as all of their shows. The thing is, I love Juliantina (I found them thanks to your gifs) and I’m sure that the reason why it feels kind of well done is Maca and Barbara making the best of what was given to them. After the kiss the only conflict the writer introduced steamed from lack of acceptance and indecision, stretching it as long as he could, making them go back and foward between… 1/2

… 2/2 wanting to be together but not being able to. The finale showed the lack of development around their story, their conflict was easy to solve so they didn’t need a lot of time focusing on them and that’s why it feels sort of anticlimactic. Anyway, even with its shortcomings, I’m happy they took a step forward to show inclusion and I feel everyone tried their best with what they had. Also I’m so happy we got Maca and Barbara, they’ve been truly a gift.

I would disagree that the sole reason Juliantina was so good was the actresses, the writing and setup early on was amazing. And at quite a few parts later too. Admittedly, the actresses elevated those scenes, I can’t imagine how some of those lines would have sounded from different people, but they did cast these two, they did let them play off each other as they did, they did let them improvise and then included those takes.

But I do think you’re totally spot on in that their storyline was somewhat limited by having a lack of conflict. Well. This is what we thought would happen that week after the breakup, right, we were like, well, they’re going to be kept separate now because there’s no plot for them while they’re together, they can’t figure out their dads this early. But then they questioned Camilo, they had that great set of scenes at Silvina’s house, we really thought maybe they’d somehow continue the whole series like that. *sigh* They were doing so well. 

BUT then they had to bring in the other conflict. You could see how forced it had to be to even get the Sergio story going, as if Juls would simply turn and leave at seeing Lucho, or Val wouldn’t just chase her down and be like, dunno what you think but it wasn’t that. Although, again, as if Juls would even think that. I mean, it’s possible that she would, all the things that happened can be believed of their characters, but while in the earlier parts of the show they would have gone for the most direct, believable route, here they definitely did not. You always had to stretch characterization a bit to accommodate actions. It was a lot of plot leading the characters, I suppose. The opposite of which was so appealing in the earlier arcs. The writing was unreal before, how much they avoided unnecessary drama when they could just talk. 

A lot at the end was precipitated more by plot, why Val couldn’t just call Juls, a lot of that whole final ep, pretty sure they arrived at the TV confession first, and then were like, how we can we get these two to that place…okay, we’ll make it a media scandal and…we’ll add weight to it by having them stay apart because Juls’s life is under threat (also, wtf, Beltran was threatening her??) Like what was Val really saying in the kitchen scene, what was her reason for staying away? Juls’s safety or her own family? And since when did she care what her family…but anyway, yes, so, the plot needed certain things to happen, and their conflict is really so tame, like, neither is going to willfully hurt the other, they both clearly wanted to be with the other, so just pull out some fake high stakes stuff to include a grand gesture in the finale.

Ultimately, what defined the finale was more what it didn’t have than what it did. But it didn’t wreck the characters, it didn’t ruin their dynamic, it didn’t make it impossible for them to be together, by death or permanent separation. I can blame their planning but I don’t really blame them for a lot of the decisions they took along the way or the motivations behind them. They wanted to keep these two likable and healthy and destined and I can’t dislike that. Maybe if there’s a spinoff or even just a new project by the same team, they’ll have learned what works and what really didn’t and we can look forward to that.

Posted on

Yall can tell me if im deaf or something BUT DID THEY REALLY JUST PLAY ESO ES AMOR IN THAT LAST SCENE TWO YEARS LATER WHERE VALS AND JULS LOOKING EACH OTHER LIKE THAT IM CRYING

They sure did! And honestly, the way they looked at each other and then DIDN’T kiss? Did not compute. It would have been a perfect parallel to the other time Lupe caught them kissing but this time it’d be like, oh, it’s a thing that happens often because they’re gay and in love and they’re all family now. 

Posted on

…but 2 years was a long time… i wanted to see how they did Christmas, Valentines, New year and Halloween together? Like, who believed in Santa? What were their Halloween costumes? Were they dressed as desserts? Where did they spend their new year? Did they kiss? What were their Christmas gifts for each other? Did they fuck on Valentine’s day? Did Val tease Juls or was Juls the one doing the teasing? Did juls cook breakfast or did she serve herself to Val for breakfast? On valentines? ??

Did they celebrate Valentine’s on September 14th??

But anon, forget the holidays (although I like how you just got progressively hornier as you narrowed in, lol), I want to know what happened even before the timeskip happened. I want to know what happened the moment the interview stopped. Hell, I want to know how the interview even happened. What made Val do it? Who did she talk to? Did Guille and Renata reassure that it was going to be okay? Did Leon? How many times did she have to recharge her phone after killing the battery staring at pics of Juls?

But then after, like, you can’t give me those AMAZING reactions of Juls and then not show what happened after. Who went to whose place? Was there a renewal of the pact? 

And then yeah, fill in all that time! What about the major scandal after socialite heiress Valentina Carvajal came out? Did the gossip rags try to track down every Juliana Valdes and were unable to find Juls because of her absolute lack of paper trail only for Nayeli to sell them the story? Did that make Juls trying to become a designer super awkward? How did she become a successful designer in two years? What exactly is Val’s job, that had to be a one-time gig or it would be really freaking weird for Juls to not know her gf wanted to be a model.

Fill in alllll that time.