#my ship name for them is armando/betty lol

[el-moscorrofio-y-el-mercachifle]

I loove the theory that Mario loved secretly Armando. They are both toxic but I think they would get along great as a couple 😭

What do you think about them?

Hiii! Thanks for the question🥰 but I think you arent going to like my answer at all lmao

Tbh, I don't like the theory or the ship lol I will proceed to explain why so if you don't want to see the ship or theory dragged I apologize but since you asked my opinion ig I'll be honest lmao

1. I don't see the theory that Mario was in love with Armando viable because it goes against my personal interpretation of the character.

I see Mario as a manipulative and nearly machiavellian hedonistic man. I see his actions as coming from a place of mere fun and manipulation. He cares about himself above all else, and if he has to step on top of others to preserve himself, his position, his entertainment and his power, so be it (ex. The plan, ofc. He doesn't care about using Betty). He doesn't care about the harm he causes others: women are toys to be used and discarded, ans men are tools. Women can be controlled by their emotions (Patricia, Betty, Marcela), and men through their fears (Armando). The only person who we ever see Calderón sort of caring about is Armando, and even then it's highly debatable to which degree he truly cared. When Armando is at his lowest points we continually see Calderón further kicking him down, like when Armando is nearly having a crisis about his sexual frustrations due to Betty's refusal and Mario starts taunting him about Nicolás being the one to satisfy Betty and that he's better at sex/bigger than Armando. We see Mario alternate between checking the grounds to see where Armando is at (he's a very observant man and can quickly tell when something is off. Ex. When Betty was injured. Ex.2. Calderón extremly quickly realizes Armando feels different about Betty) making fun of him for his emotional turmoil even after Armando has told him it's very important to him. Mario's body language is very important, too. You see how he processes information much better in his facial expressions than with words. If you're interested in a deep analysis of dkfferent but crucial scenes, I recommend checking out @youwontlikethisblog 's posts. But yeah, Mario is very manipulative and his actions come from looking for his own benefit.

I know that the last paragraph sounded super sinister, but that's who Mario is in my eyes. We just don't see it as plainly because he's funny and handsome, but morally speaking, he's barely a step above Daniel lol. He's funny in the things he says, his mannerisms, and he's super charming, which is why men like him are much more dangerous than men like Daniel lmao with Daniel, at least you know sknce the first hello thay he's a jerk, with Mario, you see a polite smile and a cute laugh and next thing you know you're betraying the person you trusted the most or dragged along in an empty relationship full of empty promises lmao

Anyways, continuing:

His relationship with Armando is based on fun and usefulness. They both start as very cruel men who just use women and discard them, feeling nothing towards them and making fun of them/ their intimacy behind their backs. (Ex. When Betty is showing Mario about how she tranfered Armando's phonebook to the computer, and the name of a woman comes up, and both Mario and Armando start joking about Armando having "voice lessons" with her while they start mockingly moaning in a female voice)

They both lacked morals and that's why Mario had fun with Armando, because they were partners in crime. They could be cruel in front of each other and have fun with it. Whatever attempt Armando made to change and be a better man, Mario knew it was empty (ex. When he says he won'tcheat any more on Marcela right after the engagement, just to end up going with Claudia Bosch as soon as Mario suggested it).

Armando disapproved some of Mario's behaviors (like him going for vulnerable women, which already set the ground for Armando's later moral development) but it wasn't a big deal. Once Armando starts to actually develop a firm moral stance, change, and now cares about the damage he's causing to women (Betty, Marcela, Alejandra), Mario finds it weird and offputting ans boring. Armando is no longer fun to be around, and is, instead, actually being a hinderance to Mario's fun (ex. When Mario wants to be with Alejandra and Armando forbids him), and also a moodkiller (ex. When Mario is reading Betty's diary, he looks interested, relaxed, he's finding it amusing and even says thay Betty writes wrll, then Armando comes in and the whoel fight starts).

Additionally, Mario benefited grratly from that friendship. When Armando was a future President and then President, Mario had his position as VP secured. After everything falls apart, Mario still has skin in the game as he continues being owner of a small percentage of Ecomoda, so it's still in his best interest to save it, but his friendship with Armando is no longer useful as he's now desitute. This is when Mario goes on to full cruel mode. He doesn't even seem to care that much that Armando literally tried to kill himself. His supposed best friend was so down that tried to kill himself in a very brutal and slow way with full intention to feel every last moment of pain trying to pay for what he did, and Mario barely cares. He actively contribjtes further to Armando's emotional pain by casually asking if perhaps the woman thay Armando is fully in love with never actually loved him at all.

So yeah, I think Calderón had good chemistry with Armando (they're super fun and entertaining to see together! God knows I laughed the hardest with Calderón's scenes)x but I don't see love there because love is beautiful, gentle, and selfless. Mario wanted fun and cared not for Armando or anyone else. I truly don't see Mario as capable of feeling true love, lmao

2. I don't like the ship, either. I think it would be just as toxic as Armando/Marcela

Armando is a very wild, emotional, and pretty brutal man. He is a whole ass storm lmao and he needs proper calm to be able to flourish his good side and actually be a good. That's why he fits with Betty so well, because she's calm and calculative and soft and tender and happy.

Mario may seem calm and happy, but he's none of these really. He's calm not because he has great control over himself and is able to handle emotions in a mature way, he's calm because he doesn't care ans has to keep a facade in front of everyone all the time (which is why when Armando hits him in front of everyone Mario doesn't even pay the slightless attention to him and his speech, all his attention is to the cuartel and everyone watching, because thay's the only thing he truly cares about: his image. This is also why after it's lost, he truly leaves.) He's also not happy, he's funny and makes fun of everything and everyone because he doesn't care and probably finds feelings, guilt and empathy a laughable matter (especially if it's towards women). This is seen to infuriate Armando throughout the novela lol in comparison, Betty's true happiness and calmness brings him peace that allows him to reflect and think his actions through instead of just reacting on instinct to put his barriers up (ex. The first collection with the bad fabrics. When everything is calm and Betty offers support, Armando actually allows himself to wonder if he's doing the right thing instead of just aggressively defend his position).

Mario is also very dismissive of Armando's emotions, very similar to how Marcela does it. Neither of them really care about him but rather how his behavior will affect them (Marcela: how it'd affect the engagement/ Mario: how it'd affect Ecomoda, aka his source of income). Some examples of this dismissiveness are like how Mario constantly tells him to suck up his guilt and move on or how he needs to marry Marcela even though they barely stand each other.

Mario is also deeply allergic to commitment lol Armando actually wanted a commited love and a traditional family (marriagex children) while that's what Mario despises the most. There would be lots of cheating and insecurity on that relationship, ans we all know how Armando handles that when he's in love lmao

Anyways I think I already wrote too much lmao I could make a whole essay in this topic fr, but you get the idea lmao

Sorry if this isn't the answer you would have liked! I still loved the question because I've been wanting to talk about those two for ages but couldn't bring myself to do it! ❤️

[mendozasolano]

i made this one for me 😄 that should've been my warning bc now i just think about them and wish i was sedated

[youwontlikethisblog]

The Art of Subtlety in YSBTLF

Now I have yet to really talk about Betty and her development. Currently I'm on the episode where Betty goes to the bank to secure a loan through Terra Moda and it got me thinking.

Slowly we've been seeing the change from Armando's behavior towards her. Now it's been very subtle. One of my favorite scenes that display's the subtlety of his behavior is when Betty and him are being driven around by Don Hermes.

Right as they are leaving the building where they went to sign some documents to start the process of Terra Moda seizing Eco Moda Betty and Armando are talking.

She often jokes about her ugliness and as a person who in society has been outcaste by the mere fact I'm fat, I get that. We don't use it as a way to downplay our worth, better yet to find the humor in something that hurts us deeply. This is something Betty does often. Usually Armando agrees or goes along with it. The scene however caught my attention because after Betty jokes that she didn't get hired due to her ugliness she laughs and walks away and Armando stays behind and nods slightly, as if understanding that her ugliness could cause that BUT we then hear Don Hermes lovingly say "My beautiful daughter, did everything go well?" and Armando's face lights up. He sports a slight smile and stares at Betty as she laughs and tells her dad that everything went well.

The more I watch this show the more I realize that we see a lot of contrast between Betty and Armando's personal lives. While Betty's parents are very present in her life, constantly at the fore front of her ethics and morals as well as there to keep her grounded and realistic, though at times one can assume over baring and over protective, her parents love her deeply and you can tell. They treat her as their most precious possession.

However Armando's parents are a different story. His father always expects the worst of him, his mother coddles him but with conditions. His parents are only ever shown or involved when it comes to the company and/or his relationship with Marcela. Often when they do talk it's always about the company or again the relationship he's in with Marcela. It never goes more than that. We don't see them interact outside of that which causes that parental relationship to seem cold and distant. Kind of like a trophy child. Not really there to celebrate or show love when times are bad. Just there when things are on their terms. They show more interest in Daniel, Marcela, and Beatriz than they do to Armando and even then it's not saying much. In shorter terms, they suck.

So this scene in particular is one of my favorites for that reason. We see Armando, who at first was annoyed and being all pipirs nice to then engaging in conversation, joking, and letting his guard down and that's the thing. Often we see Armando with his guard up but around Betty slowly we begin to see him let his guard down.

Now in particular the reason why I bring this up is because from the get go I've always been interested in the complexities that Armando's character offers, but Betty is this different story. While Armando is complex in dark ways, Betty is complex is light ways. Her complexities aren't a form of harm rather a form of self preservation but still seeing the best in people, while Armando's complexities are in self preservation at the cost of others.

They both struggle in a sense with self worth. While Betty's self worth is rooted in her image and the way society treats her due to her not being societies beauty standers, Armando's self worth struggles are deeply rooted in his person's worth. Meaning that he doesn't find himself worthy as a human if he isn't succeeding, which makes him extremely arrogant. Betty's insecurities make her extremely humble and though being humble isn't a bad thing when there is no balance, her self worth is to the ground and due to this she allows people to step all over her and she often is a people pleaser because of this.

She lets people push her around and doesn't stand her ground when people are rude to her about her appearance. She does when it comes to her work but not as person and because of this she begins to idolize Armando because, unlike everyone before, he sees her as a person, when it comes to work.

This draws the lines, clean and crisp lines.

At work Armando defends her. He defends his decision to hire her. He defends her degrees and her experiences as an economist. This means a lot to her, because as mentioned before, she wasn't getting hired due to her "ugliness" and here comes a man that looks past that and hires her over the pretty one. We understand Betty's crush. We understand why she begins to idolize him even though he shows really crappy behavior at times.

First he constantly yells at her, laughs behind her back, allows his best friend to secretly see her as if she were this attraction in the tent of strange and ugly phenomena at the circus. To then being subtly annoyed when certain people mock her and make fun of her, though this gets him half points because he still allows his best friend to do this.

To end my analysis of Armando's behavior towards Betty up to this point I'll say that as this continues Armando begins to soften up towards her and while no one else picks up on it, Betty does. Which feeds her idolization of him.

Up to this point of the show Betty has been unconditional, even when she has needed to set aside her true feelings for him, she places his before her own. With Claudia, instead of ruining his night she stayed in the room all night long to which later we see Armando feel guilty over it but he gets no gold stars over that. That was a dick move.

Betty constantly shows loyalty, unconditionality, support, and most of all, team work. When he fails she always places herself to take the blame with him. She doesn't let him feel alone in his failures. Betty truly shows to love him. As a friend, as her boss, and as a girl who idolizes him and this moves him because to this point Armando hasn't had that. His parents do not show him unconditionality. His fiancé shows no team work or support and his best friend... he sucks. He is a terrible friend. Here is this girl who gives him all of this and for what? She doesn't ask for anything in return except to work for him. That's why we see the subtle change in him and Betty deserved that and more.

When they went to that cocktail with RagTela, where Armando started to hit on Ms. Colombia, I forgot her name, Betty doesn't seem jealous or hurt by that. In fact she seems unbothered and stayed in her lane, once again the lines being crisp and clean. However later on, when Betty tells Armando that they've got a meeting with Macro Textil and she sees Armando's face light up and ask how he looks, we see a subtle change, jealousy. She showed some of that with Claudia but Armando probably interpreted that as Betty being frustrated that due to that she had to sleep in the office that night. Here he doesn't pick up on it. She laughs dry only to cover her tracks and gets the man his cologne and throughout their meeting with Macro she shows to be a good wing-woman, minding her business of course.

Now let me skip some scenes. They're trying to negotiate a payment plan with Macro Textil. At this point what Armando has said isn't very convincing and Betty steps in, our bright Betty manages to say stuff that makes them think over their offer. At this point Armando has had all eyes on Ms. Colombia but he turns to watch her, with a slight smile on his face, a brief second of staring at her lips and completely absorbed into what Betty is saying and doing.

Now I want to bring us back to the main scene of this post. Betty sitting across her old boss. We have seen two scenes of her old boss and her interact before. Not only to drive the plot, but I believe to show the difference between a boss who was fond of Betty, after all he did say he was happy and pleased to help her with Terra Moda after being her boss for two years and a boss who is... more than fond of her but confused about it(to be fair Armando is so stupid when it comes to feelings the dude isn't even aware he's got them to begin with.) Betty's behavior is respectful and friendly towards her old boss. You can tell she's comfortable talking to him and so on and her old boss is the same. He's respectful and friendly towards her.

Why do I think this is important to the plot of the story?

It got me thinking. When I was working I got pretty close to my manager. He was married and older than me and we got along great. We talked, we joked, we had work discussions and we'd talk about life and stuff. However it was always very respectful and friendly, like a boss and their employee. My manager was very gentleman like. He didn't let me carry heavy stuff(As a fat woman I'm not used to that lol) however the line was there, Boundaries were there. Obviously we didn't have conversations that were too personal or even that personal at all. I could see Betty and her ex-boss being the same. A simple boss to employee friendship but if I had a... ship of sorts with my boss like Betty does with Armando my sensors of red flags would be blaring.

Think about your greatest friendship with one of your bosses. It's respectful and friendly but you don't cross lines, right?

Now I keep comparing their behavior to my manager's and mine.

That is why they show us, unlike with all the other Banks Betty has talked to, their interactions. To show a clear and distinct line of work related ships. Her ex-boss is truly fond of her but he doesn't cross boundaries and neither does Betty.

My ex-manager was respectful and we talked like an older brother and younger sister would. That was our work dynamic.

Betty's behavior has always been respectful and friendly towards Armando. Their work dynamic has been that she's the smart one and he's the pretty one and it works for them.

Betty's emotions start to blur when Armando's behavior towards her starts to blur. We go from seeing back to back scenes that show separate life styles and personal lives to having them blend in and once their personal lives begin to blend in so do their work lives.

During this day, before Betty goes to talk to her old boss, we are shown the scene when she tells him that Macro Textil was on their way to sign a contract with them that very day. Armando is between Betty and Mario and he talks to Betty. Constantly saying "Betty we did it!" and things along those lines but after each sentence he goes to Mario and repeats the same thing up until he goes to hug Betty.

[EDIT: This allows us to view Armando's personal dilema. Your brain often blurts the first thing that comes to mind and seeing as Armando isn't that bright when emotions are involved, he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind and that is Betty. His first thought is to talk to Betty, to celebrate with her (since she is the reason why that business deal is even happening) but he is prioritizing her, picking up on it and then going to his best friend to celebrate it as well. It shows us subtly the change in him.]

He doesn't even do that to his best friend. Once again, the lines blur. Armando is the first person in this work related relationship to blur the lines and Betty follows suit.

Yes, the hug was work related. Yes he was excited over the fact they could release the new fashion collection they'd been working on BUT he hadn't done that for other deals that they had managed. He didn't do that with the first collection he launched. He's hugged her, up to this point, two other times. Once after the meeting with Daniel where Betty gave him lessons on economics and later when Betty was crying.

This is their third hug. I'm not reading into that hug but what follows before and after.

As I said when writing we're told to keep what drives the plot, character development, and overall story; everything else is thrown out the window. So these subtle changes, behaviors, and quirks we begin to see coming from Betty's interactions with Armando explain why it was so easy for her to be manipulated by this man. They are important because they are meant to show us what is okay and what is not. What is normal and what is not and in small ways their work dynamic begins to shift and the first person to do that is Armando.

because he didn't feed the illusion of love when that sinister plan was created, he fed it when he started to get confused about her. When he started to blur the lines.

Betty didn't just idolatrized him because he defended her work. She did it because he fed her feelings towards him. When Betty showed loyalty he showed to be more fond of her. He went from constantly yelling at her, being indifferent towards her, to trying to watch his tone and temper. When Betty showed unconditionality he showed kindness. When Betty showed support he showed loyalty and little by little we begin to see these two blur the line between personal and work.

The changes are really subtle that they fly over your head but when you pay attention to the actual story and not the romance you can tell when they start and that is one reason why I love this novela because very much like real life these changes are subtle.

Betty's love was really subtle and you can pick up on when she starts to fall in love, whereas with Armando his change goes from being so subtle that you're confused yourself to it being so bam in your face you can't deny it.

In any aspect their relationship begins to blur during these episodes and the clear contrast of that is with seeing Betty interact with her old Boss at the bank.

In the future episodes this theory is proven right when we no longer get clear cuts of scenes that show the difference between their personal lives better yet we get a very muddy and blurry view of their personal and work lives.

Betty's moral, ethics, and emotions begin to change when Armando begins to change. Up to this point Betty has been consistent with her morality, though close to stumbling her father has been there to keep her on the right path. She has been the sweet and loving person she's always been but her character has been consistent up to this point and it's important to note that and why everything that happens after this is the way it is because as an audience we have been warn over and over again and so have these characters but just like in real life we don't always pay attention to the subtle changes until their domino effect starts to make too much impact.

also sorry if this doesn't make any sense it's currently 6:40 am and I've been writing this since like four lol.