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“the problem is its never gonna be what all the fans want” imo the problem is the majority of fans have bad fucking taste like. if you write a story with the intent to keep editing it in line with what fans want you’re gonna end up with a shitty story. obviously you can take in criticism from early access but once you publish the thing you shouldn’t constantly be retconning characterization wtf. good god

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Incoming Call… Mom

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Sketches baby 🖤

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sorry I liked your post a second after you posted it I don’t have a life

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In an interview of LA Times Lisa says “For me, the ultimate conclusion is Wilhelm understanding his position, saying no to it, choosing freedom, and then having this moment with Simon."

Sorry, what? I must have missed the part where Wille understood his position. In the show Wille knows ridiculously little about the monarchy or about being the Crown Prince. Let me do a recap:

~In season one Kristina says that she and Erik had time to be prepared for their role and Wilhelm did not.

~After Erik dies Kristins suggests that Wille should sit in the morning meeting to learn how they work.

~Wille didn't have any idea how to date as a prince and had to ask Nils for advice.

~In season three the court planned a Prince school for him because he hadn't had a chance to grasp what being the Crown Prince entails.

~When Simon asks Wille what he likes about monarchy, Wille gives a very lame school book answer, like he has no personal connection to the monarchy.

It's hard to believe that Wilhelm grew up in this system but was touched by it so very little. Being royal is his family and culture.

At least there is consistency in how out of it Wilhelm is and how little he cares about his duties. And that's fair, Young Royals is a story about a prince who doesn't want to be a prince. But don't try to tell me Wille understood his position.

What's the choise between love and duty if Wille never wanted the duty and didn't even understand what it was?

I can't help but to feel that it made the supposed central conflict of the show quite boring.

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Edvin Ryding by Jasper Rens Van Es

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her chasing a high/attempting to revoke/rectify/address every tangent twitter was going in and running away from her originality is so right. she became too obsessed with parallels and all the cherry on top things from "the fandom culture" and put all the effort into that and abandoned "the cake".

I am not on Twitter, but I remember people sharing her tweets here.

A writer should just create the universe and leave it to the fandom to discuss for a while. Of course, it is nice to have deep talks but I remember her extreme defense of Marcus. Why? Let the people decide if he is nice or toxic. You do not need to keep saying there will be a Team Marcus! And then you ate your words and made him speak to the journalists. See, you can use a character for further plots, so let the fandom talk, and do not reveal much about the story. If it was not renewed, sure go and talk about your intentions and thoughts, but when there might have been a new season on the way, why try to convince the fandom about some things? Her style was always very, how can I say, "I know the best" kinda way.

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I've been so happy with queer representation in Young Royals. I also have notes. Here are some musings about season three.

We didn't get to see many ripple effects of Wille coming out in the show, but trust me, the world changed the moment he held that speech at the end of season two.

Nils and Stedrica

Nils found the courage to come out to his best friends. We don't know how much he was directly affected by Wilhelm. The common struggle with restrictions and the the graduation seemed to tighten the bond between August, Vincent and Nils. Honesty was a strong thread of the season. Wille's confession inspired students to come forward about iniations, later even August yelled at people to stop arguing and to just be sad about Hillerska closing—to be honest about their feelings.

We can make a mental leap and say that Nils was affected by these events and found his courage to be more honest. He also complimented Wille on his bravery and asked the prince if he regretted coming out and Wille answered with a firm no.

I liked how Nils said that he 'sleeps with guys'. You could see how hard it was for him to tell him friends. In season two Nils uses the word 'gay' about himself to Wille. I like how YR shows how people can use different definitions of themselves in different situations or choose to be unlabeled. I got a feeling that this was a huge first step on Nils' journey to accept that part of himself.

Stella and Fredrika are minor characters so they didn't get much screentime regarding their romance. Them ending up together was motivated by something the show explored in season two with Simon, Marcus and Wilhelm—jealousy. While I enjoyed Rosh being frustrated with her gaydar, Stedrica's arc left me wanting. In season two, Stella told Sara that she hesitates to make a move on Fredrica in fear of losing her beast friend if they break up later and things get awkward.

In season three we weren't shown what made Stella feel like she and Fredrica have a good enough chance to succeed in their relationship to put their friendship on the line. It's a shame. I would have loved to see some character development.

The audience is introduced to the sexual side of Stedrica straight after the white party when emotions ran high, Rosh was there to hit more on Stella and the teens were drinking and partying their hearts out. At the time of Stedrica's hook-up Wilmon were broken up, demonstrating exactly what Stella was afraid of—losing the other person completely. We can say that Wilmon didn't set up an encouraging example for them.

Even though Frederica's face looks blissful with Stella, I'm left wondering, am I supposed to read their kissing as a passing fancy that they can play down as part of their friendship again. ("every girl makes out with her best friend while drunk")

I was hoping for some connection to the main story with their arc. It could have been something with honesty, one remark from Stella to Madison for example: "I can't keep lying to my best friend."

Choosing the foundation

Queer matters were lifted to the table and discussed in the scene where Wille needs to pick his charity. Good for Simon for encouraging Wille to use his platform. I especially loved hearing that Wille knows how his love for Simon is changing the world. Not bad for a sixteen year old who's been out of the closet for five seconds.

Let me say this clearly: Queer people don't have to represent a group they identify with, not even Crown Prince Wilhelm. A young person's identity is rarely so strong yet, that they have the strength to carry the public's negative reactions. We saw how much online hate hurt Simon. He and Wille both have the right to protect their identities and relationship. Simon deserved better help with his social media.

Wille told Simon in season one that he doesn't want to say anything (referring to the sex video). At the end of season two, Wille took it back in his speech, but his attitude didn't change. It was a part Wille wanted to keep as private as he could. Over time, Wille could talk about both his mental health and his queerness more openly and in a way that would affect change. He has time to do so when he grows up.

I thought that the pressure for Wille to use his queer identity for good press would have come from the monarchy. It was mentioned once when Farima talked about new royalists and then dropped altogether.

I don't know why YR wanted to differ from the real Swedish monarchy in this instant and rule out LGBTQIA topics as political, when in real life the Crown Princess has taken a stand for them. (Plot reasons, duh, but it's irritating. I was under the impression that for example the amount of LGBTQIA rights and the discrimination LGBTQIA people face are on the same level in real life Sweden and in the YR universe. When one detail doesn't match, it makes the whole foundation wobbly).

That said, LGBTQIA rights don't exist in a vacuum. Sport and health foundation is a brilliant and super topical place to advance non-discrimination and inclusion in sport. Wille could advance LGBTQIA rights without drawing attention to himself when he's underage, perhaps still figuring out his identity and in his first relationship with a boy.

I can't stress enough how impactful it would be to have a queer Crown Prince (or King!) patronage a sport foundation. We can see that the pictures in the launch event of the foundation are taken with diversity in mind. Even if this is a PR strategy on the Court's part, people far removed from the court are going to work in those charities every day. And what do people think about when they see Wille's name and title associated with the foundation? The answer is not a straight boy playing football.

I hoped that YR would have shown in more concrete way that Wille understood the positive impact his queerness brings to people. We got a moment like that with Simon on the First of May when he was asked to take a picture. He got to feel like a role model. Wille could have had a similar encounter at his birthday or even at Hillerska. I feel like the show very carefully avoided to give Wille any good experiences related to the monarchy.

Is there homophobia at Hillerska?

There is a disconnect in how much hate we see Simon get, how Wille is not allowed to support queer rights versus how casual and obvious being queer is to Hillerska students. We saw girls at Hillerska openly kissing next to August in season two. Nobody batted an eye. The students of Hillerska knew it was Wille in the video and there was gossip but no negative reactions.

Young Royals seemingly treats queerness as a neutral or positive thing—even the biggest bully Vincent is not a homophobe and supports Nils when he comes out. Simon's parents are cool with their son being gay. Wille gets personally no backlash after his speech (or at least we don't see him be affected by it as Simon is).

Season three paints a very gloomy picture in contrast. 1. Simon gets mostly negative comments online. These comments hit to where it hurts, into the intersection of Simon's identities (latino lover) and his aspirations with music (chacing clout). 2. Queen Kristina falls sick straight after her son comes out. 3. Erik took part in homophobic hazings that were a tradition at Hillerska.

We don't get to see instances of this homophobia in the school or in the interactions between students except in s2e4 in 'Wille to the table' scene when the Forest Ridge boys celebrate Wille kissing Felice (and conforming to the heteronormativity). It tells us that being straight is the preferred option.

Young Royals claims that homophobia is in the walls, it lives in traditions and institutions. I partly agree. Homophobia needs also people to survive and everyone at Hillerska was shocked and appalled by the hazings. That made it kinda feel like YR put homophobia on-call for plot reasons.

Where is my big scandal about homophobic monarchy?

The journalist in Sweden might have had a keen interest about the disappearance of their Queen from active duties especially when it coincided with Wilhelm's historical coming out speech. Any accusation about the Queen's homophobia would have been devastating for the Monarchy in a country where support for same sex marriages is over ninety percent. (Go Sweden!)

Media would also have a field day about the hazings and their connection to Erik. It's very recent history. The media would wonder if Erik was a victim and/or the perpetrator. No way there would be radio silence. The burning question would be if the freshly out-of-the-closet Crown Prince suffered from homophobic hazing as well.

In season one, Wilhelm had to give a statement about a video he denied being in. In season three Wille has just come out and it turns out that his school has messed up homophobic traditions, the Queen is unable to perform her duties and it's confirmed that somebody filmed the Crown Prince with another boy and uploaded the video. There is nothing 👀

Queer up!

Wille's character is not only queer for loving Simon but queer in the broader (queer theory) meaning of questioning the prevailing conditions by bringing in new ideas, like in season one: 'What if I just want to be with him and not say anything?'

Wille never had the tools to question his position morally or academicly. At the same time he always knew what he wanted at the emotional level. Simon helped Wille with these questions. They had talks about the monarchy and Wille said he was learning from Simon.

Simon was the catalyst for Wille to find his voice and to figure out what he wants his life to look like. More than that, Simon's character allowed the viewers to look into the life of the rich and powerful through queer theory's lens: questioning, revealing, challenging status quo.

Whatever direction their ways ago after the ending, Wille's and Simon's love will continue to make a difference.

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YOUNG ROYALS 3.03

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feels like a trap

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From Omar's IG

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Thing is, she might have done lots of fanservice but at the same time she added too much angst that did not make their relationship develop and in fact it just served to make them fight and fight and fight and they completely forgot about the book scene from s2 that served the purpose of making the audience see that they finally understood each other’s point of view only for them to completely erase it and make the have useless fights instead of communicating. She used fanservice just to then justify the fact that she found a billion ways not to let them grow together and talk properly.

The fact that she thought it would be a good writing idea to make ANOTHER parallel with Henry interrupting them while they were having a honest conversation blows my mind fr. I’m so mad she chose to do that and then also to cut the lake scene.

Not to mention making Simon break up with Wille at the end of ep5, when if that was her plan all along, she could have made it happen in ep4 and have 2 episodes to make Wille actually grow a bit and then make wilmon get back together by mid episode 6 at best. She just copied and pasted s2 finale with the last minute endgame and it’s maddening. Also absurd to think a boy could have this massive growth in just 4 days be for real.

Yes to all these.

The Wille we know can send an SMS or whatever to Simon for apologizing, but cannot write what has been left hanging in the air when Henry interrupted them? He just did not do anything about it? Yeah, but NO NO NO. Before they were not properly boyfriends, but after at least sucking each others' faces off everywhere at Hillerska and not caring about if others can see them, Wille SHOULD HAVE SENT a message at the least.

S3 has many many many flaws, and I cannot even have the motive to write a LONG post about each scene that did not make sense, etc etc