Shut Up, and Let Me See Your Jazz Hands

I find Julia grating and obnoxious.. Also, she reminds me strangely of a Mary Sue. She pops into town, with a tragic past, rescuing main characters right and left, becoming bosom buddies with others...

And oh my GOD, JR is the playin'est player to ever play. It's impossible to tell what's really going on with that boy. Is he deceiving Babe? Or is he tricking himself into thinking he's deceiving Babe when he really is falling back in love with her? I don't know!

I don't care what you bitches say, soap operas rock.

The soap is a genre that embraces what it is, dammit. People coming back from the dead! Stolen babies! Amnesia! Dead babies! Interrupted weddings! Switched babies! Marriages of convenience! Babies being stolen and sekritly switched for other, dead babies!

Yeah, there really are that many baby stories.

Also, something like one out of every twenty criminals is ever punished.

And yeah, you can complain about their dialogue, but they put out an hour of television, five days a week, 52 weeks a year. Only soaps do that.

Soap stars are fucking rock stars, people. I respect Susan Lucci more than any other actress ever, because she's a fucking original cast member on All My Children. You know how many original cast members AMC has left? Two. And Joe Martin hardly gets any screentime. Susan Lucci has been playing a frontburner character for 35 years.

Rock. Star.

And a lot of people bitch about soaps' seemingly fragile grasp of continuity, but how do you not love a show that writes a character off and then brings them back a decade or more later, blithely assuming that their fanbase will know exactly who they are and why everyone hates them?

Anyway, I love soaps as a genre. I stumbled onto them accidentally, flipping through the channels one summer day at my Grandmas'. I found One Life to Live, during Colin's murder trial (specifically, Nora's testimony). Then came General Hospital, where I fell desperately in love with Tamara Braun's Carly.

GH was my favorite for a long time, just because they had so damn many charismatically screwed up characters. Carly and Sonny and their desperately fucked-up true love. Jason and his brain-damaged loyalty. Skye and her daddy issues. Spoiled Gia, gentle Elizabeth, the whole crazy Cassadine clan. Oh! Kristina, how much did I love Kristina and her insecurities and her love for her sister's ex? And how much do I love her now, as SGA's Lt. Cadman?

And then I started watching Port Charles, around the Tainted Love arc. Come on! Soap opera! With vampires! Who could resist that? And then they got angels and a crazy Shadow-knock off and, at the very end, werewolves. Best. Soap. Ever.

I desperately hearted the whole fucked-up Alison/Livvie/Caleb/Rafe foursome, and the creepy, tangled double wedding was the perfect finale.

And finally, All My Children. Oh, Kendall. She is, and has always been, my favorite. Don't get me wrong, I totally loved Bianca and Maggie, as they were blatantly MFEO. And yay, they ran off to Paris, where they will help each other over their issues and grow comfortable with their newly mutual love and raise Miranda and possibly have a gorgeous Parisian wedding (AMC would totally go there once same-sex marriage was legal across the board; they had daytime's first legal abortion and daytime's first out lesbian and daytime's first girl/girl kiss and daytime's first gay core character...they're not afraid of controversy, is what I'm saying). Seriously, I've been waiting for those two to get it together forever (I was never really fond of Lena, which is why it makes me so sad that all the fic I can find is Bianca/Lena; sure they were canon, but so were Bianca/Frankie and eventually, kind of, Bianca/Maggie).

Anyway, Kendall. Kendall, who's so blatantly broken and so angry and self-destructive and at the same time, she's so loyal and loving and sarcastic. She faked a marriage and a pregnancy that made her (once again) town pariah, and then was willing to take a murder rap, all to protect her little sister. And she got herself pregnant for her suicidally grief-stricken best friend which, admittedly, has blown up in her face (and, yet again, made her town pariah). I love her madly, as much as I used to love Carly, before they recast her and made her crazy.

I also love Kendall's husband-of-convenience, Zach Slater (who I used to love as Eve's Scottish husband Ian on Port Charles). And I love the indestructible Erica Kane. And dastardly doctor David (and his UST-y rivalry with P.I. Tad "the Cad", who I also love). And JR. And Adam. And Lily. And Jackson. And Brooke. And (when she's not stealing Bianca's baby) Babe. And Aiden. And Simone. And Ethan. And (when he's not being a giant, giant, death-faking ASS) Ryan.

All My Children is the show where I settled in. It's my soap.