Red Ranger 1

On a completely different subject, I noticed an earlier post where someone said Ric and Belle were like Geoff and Melody.Which I find interesting because I'd actually been thinking they were like Geoff and Nicole.Belle was someone who seemed to have been a bit rebellious and just hung around with whoever showed an interest, whether she liked them or not.Then she found herself going out with someone who was actually a decent guy and liked her as a person and it seemed to surprise her, as though she wasn't used to being treated with respect.I think it probably helped her grow up a bit.

Ooh, really interesting!I like the way you've played about a bit with the usual pairings.Looking forward to the next chapter.

Red Ranger 1, your contributions to the threads are not attacks at all in my view! I find you're always stating your view in a very constructive way and that's exactly the kind of healthy debate I was talking about. Thanks for saying so.But I'll freely admit there have been times when I've got annoyed about a post and replied with an ill-considered rant which I'll try and keep to a minimum.

Oh my god!They're dead?!And Geoff and Nicole have slept together and she might be pregnant and they've been stuck there for two months and I probably need to breathe now?!?! And Aden and Belle did something, sorry, zoned out during that part... Joking, okay?Joking.

I agree, Belle wasn't the only one at fault.No-one involved behaved particularly responsibly.Geoff, understandably, was more concerned about Melody.Nicole...is Nicole frankly and, certainly at that point, I didn't expect any better of her.The people I was most disappointed in were Tony and Belle. Tony's response to the situation was to give Aden a lecture that he blatantly ignored but not bother to tell Roman or the police.As someone pointed out on another thread(and as someone else just pointed out), he went to see Melody to try and get her to press charges but didn't seem interested in getting Axel to press charges even though what Aden did was just as bad in my opinion. However, Belle was the only person, except maybe Nicole, who actually "forgave" him for what happened.For those who aren't quite on top of the storyline, Annie tells Geoff what happened to Melody and he goes to the Den and tries to attack Axel in front of Aden and Belle, who break things up.Oddly, even though he sticks up for him when Geoff's there, even at that point Aden seems to assume Axel's in the wrong.Later, Annie arrives and tells Aden and Belle what happened.Belle decides to go and find Geoff to stop him doing something stupid but Aden seems more interested in finding Axel.Belle then finds Axel badly beaten and barely conscious on the beach and takes him to hospital(where he refuses to tell the police what happened).Clearly shaken, Belle goes home and tells Annie what happened and when Geoff arrives he neither confirms nor denies being responsible.Belle then realises there's a more likely candidate and goes to confront Aden, who isn't sorry about what he did but is worried that if Roman finds out he'll throw him out.(Which seems a bit odd, especially in retrospect when Aden did a lot worse and Roman didn't seem to particularly care.)Nicole overhears the conversation and promises to keep quiet.Later, at the Den, Belle tells Aden she won't tell anyone.Tony turns up and tries to impress on Aden that he did the wrong thing(having found out what happened when Geoff admitted he saw Aden attacking Axel and did nothing, which he at least had the decency to feel bad about)but Aden just stood there looking smug and Tony gave up and left.Belle was angry and stormed out.Aden follows her and says "Axel's scum.He deserved it.Trust me, I know."And Belle basically just accepts it. Then he starts flirting with her and, I believe for the first time, she doesn't seem to mind.Which seems like a very strange reaction. Maybe I missed some episode/scene but how/when did Aden emotionally blackmail Belle into keeping their ralationship going alongiside her relationship with Angelo? Sorry, I missed out on this discussion.I was referring to the scene at the end of the "reunion episode" where Aden and Belle are down on the pier.Aden tries to put his arm round her and Belle shakes him off, saying she doesn't feel comfortable getting cosey with him while Angelo's in hospital.Then Aden says(and this probably isn't an exact quote but this is the gist of it)"I'm trying to get better.If I don't have you, I won't be able to manage it."Which is a bit pretty extreme guilt trip and seems to be putting an awful lot of pressure on her on at least two levels.

Yeah, the way it's plotted out it's going to be about the same length.I think that's just the length I write to, I can't seem to do really long or really short. Thanks to everyone who's continuing to comment in here and I promise I'll give you something interesting to read soon.

Oh, tonight's episode(well, the first half anyway)was the funniest thing ever.Liz saying Danielle was cheap and an oblivious Michelle noting that that's Lloyd's type, Dev's ridiculous advice to Tyrone which he then proceeded to ignore himself, the cab office scenes with the boys begging Eileen to work and Lloyd's plaintive message to the drivers...Classic.

I have just found this, I have just read it and as possibly the one remaining Lucas/Belle fan I just want to say that I really, really loved it.It was so lovely and sweet and funny and I like how you brought the rest of the Bay into it as well. Merry Christmas two years on!Or should that be Happy New Year now...Twenty minutes to go where I am.

Message received and understood.I try to steer clear of personal attacks but I have been known to generalise or react in an overly emotional manner so I'll try and do better in future.

Gosh, I can't believe I've never looked in here before.It's really intense, isn't it? Up until recently, I'd always been very fond of Belle.But the last few months I've just gone right off her. I remember her when she first came in and some people didn't seem to like her because she'd split up two popular couples(Ric and Cassie and Lucas and Mattie).And having her possibly indirectly accidentally cause Flynn to die a bit earlier probably didn't get many people onside.But I really liked her and I wished Sal had let her stay.She seemed so feisty and independent but you could tell how vulnerable she was underneath.She seemed genuinely surprised to realise Irene and Ric cared for her and she was probably more affected by some of Cassie and Mattie's comments than she'd have liked to admit so I was glad they eventually became friends.(I liked it when the boys left her and Mattie alone so they could thrash it out and they pretended to be fighting when they came back...which, of course, meant job done.)And remember when she'd been needling Ric about Cassie cheating on him and then Drew did the same to her, so she went round to his house and got drunk so they all had to cover for her? But this last six months or so I've just started to like her less and less.The famous "scene on the rocks" with Aden was, in my opinion, one of Belle's worst moments.I've banged on a lot about Aden's behaviour during the Axel incident but it was hardly Belle's finest hour either.Aden's just put someone in hospital so she starts flirting with him?At the start of the episode she was visibly shaken but then she covered up the fact that Aden had arguably committed a serious crime.And just prior to that scene she made a rather ambiguous comment.After Tony's given Aden a lecture and he's ignored it, Belle said (and I apologise if I'm paraphrasing)"One minute you're defending Melody and I think you're all right, then you go and spoil it by acting like a loser."Now most people would assume she meant "You seemed really worried about Melody and I thought you were all right but then you just used it as an excuse to beat up Axel."But although he seemed angry on her behalf in the Den, it's hard to call that Aden "defending Melody".Worryingly, a more likely interpretation of the comment is "I liked that you beat up Axel for what he did to Melody but then you spoilt it by acting like a jerk to Tony."It quickly became obvious that, as with Drew, she was going to stand by Aden whatever he did.Whether that's strength or weakness is a matter of opinion but I know what I think. Then there was the cheating on Angelo.Okay, Aden was the one that pressured her into sleeping with him and emotionally blackmailed her into keeping it going but at least he wanted to be straight with everyone.Belle actually seemed to be stringing them both along, telling Aden she was going to break up with Angelo and constantly coming up with excuses to keep Angelo onside.Anything Angelo did afterwards is irrelevant in my opinion because it didn't affect Belle's behaviour.The frustrating thing is that after the trial, when Belle was ignoring Angelo's calls, Irene told her to be honest with him and if she had been she'd have saved everyone a lot of heartache.But instead she slept with him in a moment of weakness and made everything a hundred times worse. And as for the development storyline...I'm probably missing the point but I couldn't care less about the whole thing.Toxic waste had been there for years, the developers were removing it anyway, yet Belle kept acting as though it was something really urgent and instead of waiting for a thorough investigation she wanted everything done now, this very minute.It just made her seem immature and annoying. Maybe they make it clear in the episodes I haven't seen but half the time I couldn't even work out what she wanted:Was it about saving lives, exposing those responsible or just proving she was right? She seemed to spend the whole incident treating everyone really badly.She blew up at Angelo for doing his job and breaking up a violent protest, even though he'd repeatedly warned her to leave before things got nasty, and continued to treat him as the enemy after he stuck his neck out to keep her out of trouble.She wanted Aden to steal for her and help her break into the place when he was either facing trial or on a good behaviour bond and would have been in serious trouble if he'd been caught.She had a go at Rachel for doing the right thing and respecting her patient's privacy and then had the audacity to claim she wouldn't have minded Rachel handing out her details to some random girl on a crusade.The only way she could get the police to help her was by sleeping with one of them. She didn't have the sense to use Annie's soil analysis as evidence and half the time she just seemed to use it as an excuse to hang around Aden.(Why exactly did she go round to his place just so he could watch her look stuff on the computer, take him to the hospital with her and then ask Annie to lie to Angelo about it?)And all because Belle was apparently the only person who could save Summer Bay from, er, being exactly the same as it had been for at least ten years, possibly more. It's interesting that I haven't liked any of her relationships since she split up with Lucas.I liked her with Ric and I liked her with Drew the first time round but there was no way they should have got back together after he slept with Amanda.The fact they never seemed to be happy afterwards just made the fact they trampled over Lucas to be together all the more annoying.My views on her and Aden are on record in several places but let's just say I don't think they're any better.Ironically, her and Angelo had promise but she ruined it by pining for Aden the whole time.Can I put in a vote for her and Geoff?I first suggested it on a thread on which couples you'd like to see together, when she was breaking up with Drew and before Nic and Mel when he'd never had a girlfriend.And then they had their first proper scene together since he was first living there and she was embarassing him into leaving(bar him shouting at her in a corridor for arguing with Don)and I suddenly thought "My god, they've actually got chemistry!"And on the rare occasion they have a scene together, I just think how sweet they are.It could happen. It's never going to happen, is it?

I loved them.Absolutely loved them.I was surprised when they got together, seeing as how they didn't get off to the best start and it looked like they were just going to be friends, but they worked really well together.They had such an innocence about them that I didn't even care about the age difference. I loved when they both really wanted to kiss each other but weren't quite brave enough to do it and when he told her she was beautiful.It's no wonder she fell for him, he was probably the first person to love her for who she really was.Hated Christine when she stuck her oar in and ruined it. It's a shame it went a bit wrong towards the end.I didn't like Geoff splitting up with her at the party.He said he was doing it to save her trouble but it was hard to follow his reasoning:Christine wouldn't have a personality transplant just because they weren't seeing each other and all he was doing was taking away the one good thing in her life.I could understand Melody not wanting to just go back to being Geoff's girlfriend after what happened with Axel but having her disappear from the show as a result was a mistake.Even if she wasn't seeing Geoff anymore, she was supposed to be Annie's best friend but she just replaced her with Ruby.We didn't get any proper resolution to the Axel storyline because by the time we saw her again he was dead and the fact no-one thought about how it would affect her just underlined the fact no-one in the Bay really seemed to care what happened to her.And by the time she did finally reappear, Geoff had forgotten about her and they didn't seem to know what to do with her. I wouldn't actually mind them getting back together.I'm not suggesting it happens in the premiere or anything but further down the line, if things don't work out between him and Nicole...But I think they need to give Melody someone else in the meantime, rather than just having her pining over Geoff. Someone nice and normal, preferably without any psychological problems, who'll bring her out of herself a bit, like a Will/Peta relationship.

^No, I'm not actually familiar with that example of the genre.Maybe I'll look it up some time.When I'm not busy writing this, of course...

Oh, I'm rather enjoying this, it's different.Looking forward to more.

I agree, that was the perfect ending.A moment of honesty that allows them to move forwards to whatever the future brings.It was well worth waiting for.

Ha-hah!Belle kissed Geoff!Oh-and then she kissed Aden. Looking forward to the next chapter.

At a time when all the couples I like seem to be splitting up or leaving and the ones that I'm not keen on seem to be getting all the screentime, these two are a breath of fresh air:A pair that I enjoy watching, that actually seem to like being with each other and who I really want to stay together. It's just a pity that after all the drama of them getting together, they've been pretty much disappeared into the background, aside from those few episodes where they were worrying about taking it further. For a while, the writers seemed to have forgotten they were meant to be going out and just written them as friend:This is, after all, the couple who had three months between their first and second screen kisses.Hope they do a bit more with them next year.

As an aside, has it ever been established what happened to Aden's mother or indeed when it happened?There seems to be a general assumption that she's dead but I'm not sure if they've ever said it.The only time I can ever remember her being mentioned is when Belle found Larry drinking and he said something like "I fell apart a bit when I lost Aden's mother", which probably means she's dead but could possibly mean she walked out on them.

Yes, Geoff's attempts to chat up Belle were just hopelessly desperate.Or desperately hopeless.Really looking forward to the next update.

^Oh yeah, the 45th anniversary bash.And my brother who lives in Boston.You remember what I say better than I do. Try and get the next chapter up today.

Oh, good update.You're writing everyone's reactions really well.

Ooh, I quite like this one.Keep going. You're never going to let Geoff get Belle, are you..?Thought not.

Slade, I am beginning to think you know me far too well and I'm now wracking my brains trying to remember when I mentioned going to a Doctor Who convention.Let's just hope I never go mad and post one of my Home and Away/Survivors crossovers on here.(Isn't it strange that we now live in a world where people might understand what that means?) Hopefully the next chapter will be up some time today.

I had a feeling when they said Tony was going to get a surprise that Jed wouldn't be dead.Glad they didn't bring him back just so they could kill him and hope we see him again. Given that this is Coronation Street, we can be reasonably sure Tony's going to get his comeuppance. I'm hoping it'll be soon but I've a worrying feeling they might leave it dangling until Carla comes back from maternity leave. Not really liking Steve and Becky as a couple because I liked him and Michelle and I don't like him cheating.Mind you, given that JD was giving her interested looks the other day I wonder if they're going to end up together.

I'm surprised given that I like him and Scarlett that I think Daz and Victoria would be quite cute together.I wish she was a bit older though because it is faintly dodgy. I think the reason Debbie's staying away from Sarah is because she's worried it'll disrupt both their lives if she's sent to jail because of Shane.

Very amusing, good work. Geoff and Aden are terrible liars.And now you're going to have me spending all day trying to remember who's taller than who...