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i sent one of the asks about THOBM and it truly was just to help you decide, i didn’t mean to make you feel pressured to watch it or anything! Because I do understand not wanting to go through that pain or not liking stories like that! Wev’e already suffered too much, there is no need to do that with fictional characters if we can avoid it. For me, though, I love suffering hahahah have a great week! xo

Oh, no worries, I just didn’t want it to seem like I didn’t appreciate people offering their input, I did. And yeah, I think…just not for me.

And another anon:

Just like you the f/f in Hill House didn’t really do much for me. Nell is what got me and the mom too. I LOVED it. I was watching with friends and sped through without them in the end. Season 2 though… Meh. It picks up after episode 5 but it’s less scary which I didn’t like and I also just didn’t… I don’t know, BELIEVE it about Dani/Jamie? Great actresses but together no spark. To me. Especially since they’re this years long love story it felt hollow? As a whole though S2 was just ok to me.

Ah, but see, I even find my memories of season 1 tainted by how sad Olivia and Nell’s endings were! I don’t just dislike BYGs for meta reasons, because of–well, all the reasons we already know, what it reflects of the creators and society, how it’s a rare glimpse of others like us, etc, but I also just dislike sad endings in general, for every other kind of story. 

I don’t actually mind it being less scary and I’ve only seen gifs and clips of Dani/Jamie, they seem cute, I don’t think that would be my objection to it. I would almost prefer not loving them, so the ending wouldn’t be so crushing.

And another anon:

You don’t have to reply to this, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents about bly manor. I absolutely found the ending tragic and sad. I’m still sad and I finished it two days ago! Yes, their relationship is beautifully done and they get a good 10 years of being together, but you know the whole time it’s only going to end in heartache. You watch it waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for me that makes it so much worse than them not getting a future at all. I get not wanting to watch it.

Right, right, I get that! I mean, I wouldn’t say no future is worse, lol, but sad endings definitely linger for me, and I don’t find them cathartic or beautiful, just sad. So I think that does decide for me, thanks for writing in!

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I have the same thing about endings as you. I loved bly manor and didn’t find the ending tragic or sad, but beautiful and transcendent, esp the last shot. And their love is portrayed as beautiful and selfless, even in death

And other spoilery asks:

the w|w couple on bly manor gets a lot of good years in between and while there isn’t exactly a happily ever after, the final scene actually has a really bittersweet moment

OK, I want to try to help you decide if you will watch Bly or not with a few spoilers! So, even though it was supposed to be a m/f pairing, it is clear they changed a bunch of things once they decided to make it f/f. Dani being gay is part of her arc and they talk about being gay. Also, Idk but to me their ending wasn’t sad? Bly kinda let’s you decide because we see them together at the end. It is the last shot! And you can decide what to take from it I think. And they do get at least a (½)

And they do get at least a decade together and we get to see this and it s very sweet. Their whole relationship is very Gothic romance, as promised, and cute and sweet. But yeah, I think you can view it as a sad ending because Dani does dies (sorta??) and Jaime is alone for a few years. But I’d argue that is nowhere near devasting as Nellie and Olivia’s fate because they were happy for so long and maybe will still be happy now (if you want to view it that way) (2/2)

I do appreciate you all giving me your input! And it did help me decide, I just…decided the other way. D: Sorry! But reading through these was like the equivalent of that coin toss method where you assign your options and as it’s up in the air, you’re hit with the clarity of knowing which option you want and in my case, don’t want. I don’t think I want to watch this. 

The vast majority of the viewer impressions have been that this is beautiful but also very sad. And I just don’t disagree with what the writer wants me to think and feel. So I will, at best, think oh, this is very beautiful AND very sad. I can’t compartmentalize and be like, well, actually, I’m going to interpret it this different way. I did that with subtext ships but what helped me suspend disbelief was knowing that we were working with a homophobic environment, that possibly they could have gone there but never would. Here…that doesn’t work.

And second, I FULLY believe you all that this IS extremely a beautiful and selfless and moving love, but that just makes it worse? What’s coming? What they had to give up? :/ The more they lost, the worse I feel for them. 😡 

I might still watch it at some point in the future, when I’m trying to build my emotional muscles, because they’re weak af, but I’m definitely putting it aside for now.

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hey, you should check out the haunting of bly manor, its good, not scary at all and super gay!

And another anon:

Are you going to watch the haunting of bly manor?

Spoilers below:

I’m not suuuure yet. I was pretty settled on not watching but then I learned something and am measuring what it means to me.

Like, okay, so ordinarily I would have just watched the show from the start, but like everyone else, even before it dropped I heard that it was going to have f/f so when it did, I immediately sought out spoilers for the end. And you know how I am about endings! I do love f/f and I love main character f/f most but even in TV form, I don’t like BAD endings, especially when they’re built to be tragic and evoke that kind of emotion from you, like, grief, loss, it’s all worth it for who you love and no! It’s not for me!

To add to that, in the first one, as much as I did love Theo, which was a lot, I didn’t really care that much about the f/f arc and my lasting impression of the show was being utterly devastated for Nell and Olivia most of all. I didn’t care about the other siblings getting their happy endings (though, again, I DID love the other two sisters especially). They just…Olivia loved her family so much and they loved her and then they all lost each other like that. And Nell, god, she just suffered her whole life, never being free from the haunting, her siblings treating her like that, and then she dies early, realizing she was the cause of her own suffering. 

So…that was actually what I was looking to be “fixed” in this one. Seeing that the Nell actress would be the lead and even Carla Gugino was returning gave me some hope, given my particular attachment to them, BUT, aside from the news that this would have f/f, we also heard that the people who weren’t happy with the first one would be happy with this one. …There are only so many ways to interpret that and I guess that’s what they decided to fix, that the generally happy ending overall was now gonna be sad.

And you know, I’ve gone back and forth on the BYG, like, apparently Jamie was first gonna be a guy, the actor who played Luke, even!, but was changed for honestly, understandable reasons, they did play twins in literally the first season of this very show. This wasn’t a case where the f/f ship got the bad end because they didn’t prioritize it enough or couldn’t think of anything else to do with them. To the writers, this was the best version of this story, what they were going to give to a m/f couple anyway. They like bittersweet gothic romance, okay. But I don’t, heh. I wouldn’t have liked it for m/f! And then I’m not sure we ARE at the point where we can just translate m/f stories directly into f/f, they’re NOT the same thing. 

I’m not like, gonna complain in general or campaign or anything, just, it all affects how I think about it. So yeah, I was deciding I wouldn’t watch but then I learned that they did actually get a good few happy years in there and now I’m considering that. That does kind of undo some of my objection, where it was like, dammit, this kid just suffers and then dies. But I’m still not sure, I just don’t liiiiike sad things. And that’s the final message they want to end on, right, the self-sacrifice, the grief, the separation, the loneliness. The Beauty in it. And I don’t really appreciate or enjoy that. Not that I can’t see it, if you’re into that sort of thing it seems just as emotional and evocative as the first. Just…not my thing.