Such a weird feeling logging back in on a morning and having posts to read through! There were some great ones from all last night!

Thanks for the quiz Jenn. Another Syed to add to the mix - thoroughly shocked. :sleep:


SO lovely to hear from you Elphie. Hope you're doing good, lots of hugs and good wishes being sent your way. x

Good Morning Chryedville

I had a lovely surprise this morning, photobucket has decided to play nicely and let me into my main Chryed pics account.

So, because it's not been posted yet..........

I'm here with you, in all your bonkerness

In the end, they always found their way back to each other.

Really looking forward to today!

Hello and welcome to day two of our Chryed Cyber Celebration!

Yesterday saw 28 posters from 11 different nations taking part in discussions, solving puzzles, watching classic Chryed scenes, posting fanfiction, bidding in auctions and reminiscing about good times on the thread. It all starts on page 79 if you want to go back and have a catch-up.

If you’re lurking, please raise a hand, however briefly, just so we know you’re there.

And, lurkers and posters alike, please mark the occasion by donating to charity, however small an amount. Details HERE.

And if you want to see what's planned for today, the schedule is HERE. We did manage to stay vaguely on track yesterday - let's see what today has in store!

Well, it's quiet this morning......I guess most people are having a lie in.....

Understandable after yesterday's excitement.

Thanks for the schedule Alex! x Yesterday was brilliant.

We talked a lot yesterday about what did happen - good and bad. But what direction COULD they have taken?
What would you have liked to be explored or addressed in relation to Chryed that wasn't?

I would like it on record that I very much appreciate your getting back into your old photobucket account. :sleep:

Good evening Chryedians

Time to get up as I will be going to bed myself soon

Good MORNING Chryedians.

I'm on such a high this morning. Totally caught up on DTC awesomeness! (thanks Kathy!)

Yesterday was a blast and so much nostalgia, not just for Chryed but this thread too.

Let the celebrations continue.....

Good morning.
Lots of mixed emotions for me yesterday

But I couldn't not come back this morning could I?

Sorry have not posted my fic yet - as I said, caught up in mixed emotions. It's coming up later today, promise.

In the meantime, I dug up my photobucket password, so I can post my all time favourite Syed pic.

Drawing a bit of a blank on what direction I would have liked the storyline to have gone... It happened the way it happened, this is their story now, the good ànd the bad. Looking to the future is easier than trying to re-think the past....

Hello guys!
I think, for me, the biggest missed opportunity of the whole storyline was the baby/adoption stuff. It's particularly frustrating seeing it done SOOOOO much better with Chrolli, who are a gay couple in a much more low budget, daytime soap. But their adoption storyline was done in much more depth - researching online and dealing with the difficulties faced in reality by gay couples who want to adopt; finding and getting to know a lesbian couple who were offering the opportunity for surrogacy, but then realising that it wasn't for them; deciding to foster, and having to adapt to life as parents; the trauma of having to hand the child back; serious aftermath repercussions for their relationship as Olli wanted to foster again but Christian didn't.
I would have loved to have seen Chryed explore all this, in the context of UK laws, the hoops you have to jump through, meeting with potential surrogacy partners, etc. It COULD have been really good.

Thanks for the gorgeous gallery. I'm having a hard time too what direction they could have taken?

Morning lovelies


I was always really interested in the cultural differences between them and the issues this may have potentially caused. It's one of the reasons i adore DC week so much because this was touched upon. It wasn't necessarily going to produce the most dramatic material, but there was definitely scope and a relevance to today's society for it to be really interesting and a bit different to normal soap drivel.

Morning All. I'm here again.

What direction? Well I would have liked proper couple them v the world storylines, absolutely no cheating or temptations. I'd have really liked them to stick with the faith aspect of the storyline and go way more into Syed's resolution of himself as a gay Muslim, wanting to marry (or not) and equally explore more the reconciliation with the Masoods. Sorry Yasmin but I would have preferred no Amira return and no baby there, but I would have liked proper discussions on starting a family. They threw a couple of lines (2 men raising a child, its not a proper marriage etc) out there but never did any more just went for the draaaaaaaaaaaaaama over the top angle.

And I know it divided the thread and I may get in trouble for bringing it up, but I was always Team Illness/hurt, I think as we discussed endlessly there could have been some great stuff in a storyline where one of them was hurt/ill etc and the other had to cope as a partner, with no rights and little outside support (it would be before the reconciliation).

Very true and also being parents and what was Christian's input regarding religion regarding Yasmin.

I completely agree. After DC week TPTB seemed to forget that Syed (in fact the whole Masood family) were Muslim. I guess 'Christian and Syed have a discussion about religion' isn't exactly the high octane drama that EE is made of, but perhaps some kind of storyline involving a friend Syed made at the mosque maybe? Or even more of a slow burn, underlying storyline about Syed feeling unsure about whether to pray in front of Christian, or teaching Christian about the prayer names and times and then him casually dropping it into convo within Zainab's hearing and it being part of the reconciliation process?

ETA - and definitely with regards to Yasmin. That could have been a real area of tension in their relationship, and a new story for EE - mixed faith couple dealing with the implications for their young child.

The whole adoption thing felt like they were just ticking a box - it didn't feel like there was any research and particular want to explore the issue truthfully or in any depth. I guess that's the frustrating thing; there were SO many good opportunities that Chryed presented as a same sex, multicultural couple but ultimately nothing really was explored. Like you said, it could have been really good and very culturally relevant.


I was always in favour of Team illness, the more angst the better! Syed's isolation from his family could have played a really interesting part in this as well and ultimately could have started the path to reconciliation.

LOL!


Morning hun. xx Thank you for the gorgeous pic - love that one! Such a great Syed & Masood scene, and there were too few of them.

BIB 2 - this is me really. I seem to have accepted what it was, and can't really think of what directions I'd prefer. I can really enjoyed imagining where they are now, and America, but apart from that drawn a blank.

I know my opinion wasn't always popular, but really I don't have any major objections to anything, I think the order of things being changed would help, i.e. if Syed had to cheat, he had the best motivation and justification after Black Friday, (perfect timing) and that would have all been much more plausible. It would have been good drama because there would be sufficient motivation, unlike when it did happen, which felt very forced and drama for the sake of it.

I'd have preferred the obligitory draaaaama surrounding the wedding to have come from whether Zainab and Masood would attend or not. So, I guess I would have had them marry a lot earlier.

I think now in retrospect, I could have coped with an illness storyline, especially if the ending was still going to be happy.

With everything that we had from Autumn 2010 onwards, I think we just needed triple screentime, more thought, a different running order and dialogue of the MQ Kitchen Fight standard, and it would all have been so much better.

But I still enjoyed a tremendous amount. I must admit I don't really watch many clips from before Reunion of July 2010 and most of my clip viewing is Gay Bar week, ABRC, DC week, and I've watched the Wedding episode and the last episode countless times now, love them so much!

So, those are my feelings and they can't seem to change, I count myself lucky though.


Good point, and yes this should have been retained a bit more.

Something else I just thought of - was always disappointed that EE bottled it over the CAG stuff, that should have been better done.

If I had to drop anything I'd drop 'that' particular episode of surrogacy (fridge sample) LOL as that was just awful, and tacky, and all a bit non-sensical. And have Syed speak a lot more. A LOT.

That's my little ramble on all of this!

I was on Team Illness too!
For two main reasons - 1) it wasn't cheating and 2) it would have been painful to watch, but Johnny and Marc doing a scene where one of Chryed was terrified of losing the other and saying 'after all we've been through to get here I'm not going to lose you now'. Like Christian after ABRC but even worse. (But of course it would all have been alright in the end.)

Agreeing with everyone. They had a lot of potential to do slower, subtler SLs with Chryed and the whole gay couple in modern society and/or gay Muslim angle but like NHB said, these days it needs to be headline grabbing immediate drama, those no time for 'talky' SLs and they also misjudge the intelligence of viewers.

Surrogacy and adoption has great potential but they handled them all wrong and wasted the potential. I still wonder how much of those possible arcs was changed coz of the babyswap fiasco.

Yep, I agree, and can just picture it all. I used to have an entire illness storyline in my head, for me I would have chosen Christian, as I feel Syed had been though enough at that point. I'd have kept ABRC week too though.

I think the fact I watch those clips a lot shows that for me that might have been a good direction, although of course I'd have been a total wimp all the way through and in a terrible state.

My biggest regrets are simply Johnny & Marc not getting to show off their amazing acting prowess and chemistry more....felt sad about that, and incredibly frustrated with the blackholes. Mind you, we had fun on here, somehow we got through them, BK couldn't kill us off!

I'm looking forward to 12.00 - eeeek, exciting....

I have unlocked Part Two of our interview with Nick Hicks-Beach!
In this part he talks about what it was like to write for Chryed. Enjoy.

I can understand why people were 'hoping' for an illness storyline, esp for the reason you give, Alex. My rational side agrees with you, but it's easy to say this now in hindsight, with our happy ending under our belt. There was no way we could have known then that it was going to end well. I can just imagine us findinng out eventually that Marc wanted to leave, and we would have drawn the inevitable conclusion. And chances are, knowing TPTB and their quest for draaaaaaama, we wouldn't have been far off... So no, no no no

And most of all, for selfish reasons, I couldn't have coped, as I was dealing with someone close to me going through a serious illness. Chryed were my lifeline (or one of them) throughout that, and having the boys going through exactly that would have made me switch off with a great deal of heartache....

NHB isn't gay or a Muslim. Shocker! Half way through, part 2 is great. Love how he says the best thing was knowing Johnny and Marc would always deliver (paraphrasing).

Gosh, this is SO interesting, thank you! The stuff about the reunion answers a lot of questions as to why that episode isn't a firm favourtie in terms of flow of scenes etc. Really surprised that it came from the exec!

Love the stuff about Johnny and Marc bringing a sense of history, and their compatibility as actors to form such a successful partnership. It geuinely reminds me that EE were so lucky to have them and their talents (and then i kind of get resentful as to the way they were treated, but we won't go there ).

Ha, the blackhole in the middle of the reunion ep. Didnt work for him either. You are wise NHB, wise wise wise.