#yr season 2 theory

[thehyacinthsgirl]

Wille is the most selfish thing Simon has ever wanted.

Throughout the entire series, Simon is always loyal to a fault, always taking care of everyone else — even when it’s inconvenient. The only time he does something for himself is when he is in pursuit of Wilhelm.

His whole life, Simon has had to sacrifice or share victories. Even his own voice, which should be entirely his own to sing with, is corrupted by the crown. But what Simon has with Wilhelm is purely what he wants, and has nothing to do with what anybody else wants. It isn’t about Linda, or Sara, or August, or the Queen. It’s just about the two of them — and Simon has never had anything in his life like that, something that is completely his. That belongs to him. That no one, other than Wilhelm, truly knows, truly understands how it feels.

And that’s why it is so different. That’s why it is so monumental, and why both Simon and Wille fight so hard to keep it. It is both of their true selves fighting for what they truly want.

[catsplushellhounds]

guys everybody calm down remember that the last scene they shot was in the football field

[binca21]

Okay so I’ve been thinking (like all of us)

I think that in this scene ⬆️ it might be Simon who holds the riffle against Augusts head. Cause although Wille is out doing all sorts of revenge stuff, Omar mentioned in an interview that «people will be like shit, did Simon really do that?». Although we know all three of them (Simon, August and Wilhelm) are there and we see Simons jacket in background of this shot⬇️

And we have seen Simon full on attack August before and if August mentiones some stuff that is triggering to him like Sara or the tape or something he could a 100% do that. And then Wille manages to talk him out of it and he is ashamed and storms off and Wille runs after him, pulling a very upset and crying Simon into his arms

[skeletonbutterflyyy]

soooooo i got bored.... and i find ALMOST all the picture of Wilhelm and Simon in Wilhelm phone bytheway if you can find the missing one pleas tell !!!!!

1:

2:

3:

4:

5 ? can't find it please helppp

6 : S1 ep 1 8:56 he took this picture when he first saw Simon and hear him singing !!!!!!

[sflow-er]

After reading The Magic Trick You Didn't See, the essay by @ariaste, I've got some thoughts on Maggie and Nina (well, mostly Maggie) that I kind of want to write down to make sense of them. I'm putting them under the cut to spare anyone who isn't interested in GO2 or hasn't seen it yet and doesn't want to be spoiled.

[Before I start rambling, I want to stress that I haven't really been active enough in the GO tag to know if a similar theory has already been presented. Also, I realise I could be way off the mark here, this is pure speculation!]

So to recap the basic premise of the essay mentioned above, much of what we see in GO2 could have been altered by the Metatron using the Book of Life, aka. the Chekov's gun that never went off. I'm not sure if I subscribe to every aspect of that theory (for example, I do think that wee Morag really died, and that it's possible Aziraphale only started drinking alcohol in the 1900s, although I'll admit some of the bits where he turns it down are harder to explain than others).

What I do fully agree on is that Maggie often feels more like a character than a real person in this fictional world. Something about her just feels off. The essay cites many great examples, such as her abrupt mood swings and her uncanny valley reactions (especially her line at the ball, about how suddenly knowing the steps is "just what we do", and her zoning out right before the demons attack and then suddenly starting to antagonise them).

Anyway, this got me thinking. If Maggie was a character written by the Metatron, why and when would he have started writing her in the first place?

Well, what if there was cleanup to be done after Adam fixed things at the end of GO1? All the events of that week were altered, but what about everything that happened before? Because that's the thing that jumps out to me about his line to the Devil: "You're not my father, and you never were." Meaning he also altered the past.

Which begs the question, if Adam was never the Antichrist, what became of The Chattering Order of St Beryl? Did it ever exist at all? Did Hastur still destroy the convent and kill most of the nuns? After all, the book says their sole purpose in existing was to deliver the Antichrist - who never was, as of the end of GO1.

Keep in mind that the burning of the convent happened eleven years before the events of GO1. I assume there would be a lot more paperwork involved in bringing to life people who already moved on from the earthly plain over a decade ago. They wouldn't even have a life to come back to, which is where the Book of Life could come in.

Now, I know Neil has said that Maggie and Nina are not the same people as Sister Theresa and (Sister) Mary in GO1...but that would still hold true even if they were just altered versions of themselves.

I'm not sure about Mary/Nina. It's possible that Adam himself changed her, as she was still alive at the time of the shift. Maybe her parents didn't raise her as Satanist after all (as they did in the book), or they didn't give her a biblical name like Mary, or she changed it. Or perhaps Nina was always her real name, but she became Mary when she took her vows and kept it when she became Mary Hodges. Perhaps this is what her life would have looked like if she never joined the Order.

It's also just as possible that she really is a different person who simply looks the same, much like Beelzebub is the same person who simply looks different. Either way, she remains a real human person.

As for Theresa/Maggie... Well, we don't know how she was raised, or if Theresa was her real name, or anything else really. I don't think that matters as much either, because the main point is that she already died 11 years ago.

It's mentioned time and again that people can't just be resurrected willy-nilly, and it's left quite unclear how Adam's powers worked, exactly. Perhaps God told the Metatron to smooth over the ripples (after all, the whole thing was part of Her plan all along, and She usually leaves it to the angels to implement Her plans). The Metatron then decided it was easier to make up new characters based on the people who died years ago than to truly bring them back to life, much like the angels in the Job minisode figured that giving him seven new children was even better than resurrecting the old three.

And since the Metatron was creating Maggie anyway and had the power to write her a completely different life, why not take the chance to also place her close to Aziraphale? The Metatron plays a much more intricate game than most of the angels, and he's extremely committed to seeing the plans through. Surely it would occur to him to keep tabs on the dangerous rebel who consorted with a demon and played a big part in stopping the first part of Armageddon, in case the two of them tried to meddle in the second part as well.

So, by a few strokes of the Metatron's heavenly pen (or keyboard), Aziraphale is suddenly Maggie's landlord in GO2. Of course, it's normal for shows to introduce new characters by making existing ones act like they were there all along...but if we accept the premise that Maggie isn't actually real, Aziraphale never even mentioning his tenant when the bookshop burned down and the world was about to end in GO1 definitely works in our favour.

Anyway. I'm not sure how serious I even am about this theory - it only just came to me this morning, and I wanted to write it down to get it out of my head. So if you disagree or think it's too farfetched, that's totally fair!

[starboywille]

The transition from golden to blues in this show is so beautiful. Golden warmth that encompasses Wille and Simon when they both know they’re safe and happy to the frigid blues of heartbreak and loneliness that envelopes each of them.

Wille safe in his dream where it’s just him and Simon to the crushing reality of grief and pain. He’s had his whole world turned upside down by the selfish actions of another person and then reinforcing that pain with his mother refusing to back him. That doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the damage he’s done to himself - the grief of losing erik, the grief of losing Simon; one that was out of his control to one that he had full control over and still made the wrong decision - and how internally he’s dealing with it all.

The colors in this show have always had significance, warm and bright colors signifying happiness contrasting the cool and dark colors to signify despair in all forms. The opening shots to both seasons are beautiful mirrors to one another. The cold loneliness of season one to the warmth of the dream in season two. Stunning.

[darlingeames]

i'm sorry to repeat something crowley has said but how can someone as brilliant as aziraphale be so stupid about the things that matter

[brownbitchshit]

Wild theory for S3 :

What if s3 is broken into 2 parts totalling 10+ episodes where we see the present time in pt 1 and circumstances break Wilmon apart and then see a time jump for pt2 and get a happily ever after?

[absent-o-minded]

YR S2 Trailer Analysis - Part 2

In this part, I'll be looking at the second-half of the trailer, as well as putting a little dedicated section on questions that I have about it. Back to the ramblings we go...

Again, a pre-warn that this will contained **SPOILERS**.

The Breaking of the Snow Globe:

Everything revolves around the dialogue - "I'm staying." "That's not up to you."

Albeit, the snow globe stood for a symbol for both the institutional oppression and the social restrictions of Wille, it breaking holds such significance, partly because Wille is not the one to break it. Sure, it's an accident, so he is somewhat involved, however a scene could've easily been written where Wille (Himself) breaks the globe in a fit of despair of frustration, making it a deliberate thing, but the fact that it's an accident holds new meaning - It reflects the final push.

How, in order to be somewhat free, Wille needed that ignited fire to pursue it. The globe breaking is due to Wille being dragged away and accidentally knocking it over, causing a rupture in the riff as now it's released, emulating once again this idea of 'push and pull', but also the narrative idea of 'cause-and-effect'; The emotional manipulation of the Monarchy is what causes Wille to resent it, the effect is that he starts to distance himself from it.

But, we also have to recognise/consider that it's broken. It's shattered and fragmented, much like Wille is during this pursuit (I believe another person has already mentioned this - I don't know the name but massive credit to them ! <3). Alternatively, maybe this brokeness is not just in the literal sense of the globe being shattered, but also in the sense that the globe reflected Erik, and through maintaining it, Wille also maintained his efforts to emulate his brother. This breakage implies Wille's outright defiance to continue fulfilling this role, and thus makes his memory/connection to his brother all the more human - Instead of idolising him for what he represented and how well he did what he did, Wille now idolises him for who he was at his core. Maybe this realisation/breakage finally allows Wille to grieve on his own terms, in his own way, without the suffocating weight of comparison on his shoulders. He is not his brother. But he loves his brother. And he misses him.

Panic! At The School:

I know that both the cast and creators of the show implied that this season will 'be a lot darker', but I genuinely don't know how I'll be able to take Wille's anxiety/mental health getting so bad. Even looking at these screenshots make me worry.

Because...look at them. We saw Wille suffer and be in pain and bereavement in S1, but this looks so much angrier. Maybe it's because he looks older this season (thanks to costuming and hair), and so we immediately subconsciously attach a sense of 'pushing through' with age. In S1, all reactions with his anxiety seemed to be framed against how young he looked and how young he was, even here, he's still only a teenager, but I suppose it's the idea of maturing way before you have to, and the consequences that has. I just wish that I could hug him. That's all.

Here, we're seeing the detrimental effects of Kristina's actions, and I know that these two scenes could be presented for different reasons, but all of us know that if you push, the opposing side will likely push back. And it looks like they have. We can tell from the text; "Threats will garner strong reactions". We know from the scene released where Wille gets taken out of the class and is informed that he's being taken out of school that he made some sort of threats towards the Monarchy that resulted in consequences (Something like 'You can't make threats against the Crown and expect there not to be consequences), hence why we have him being dragged against his will from his desk, but it makes me wonder - Whilst we're all rooting for Wille to burn everything to the ground, and for a revenge/abdication arc, Wille was made this way. I don't think it comes by nature, and so you can imagine the psychological damage that will do, as it always does, to strive for what you want/what you believe in. I think that this resistance takes every ounce of bravery and energy that this lad has, and he'll give it until one of two things happen:

1.) Things change and a sense of peace/tolerance is restored.

2.) Things don't change, and they lose not only a future King, but a son, too.

'I Could Be Free':

Guess why I am crying. Go on. I-I bet that you can't-can't guess...

How heartbreaking is that line? "I could be free". I think that the concept of freedom is not the worst applicable thing in this line, because that in itself opens a whole scope of what it means to be free in Wille terms, and how for him, freedom is a life away from royal duty, expectation and obligation.

For me, the harrowing word in this line is the verb - 'could'. Could. Not 'want', not 'am', not 'will be'. Just 'could'. Everything is a hypothetical, even the status of being free is uncertain and inconclusive - Wille does not know. It's a possibility, as 'could' implies, but it's so uncertain that to express too much desire for it would be an act of letting yourself in for disappointment. There are still barriers in play, and you can see how desperate Wille is to be free, but it'll take more than time and effort; It'll take convincing, yelling, war, even.

To obtain 'freedom', Wille has to first recognise that it's an impossible feat. Or, rather, a near-impossible feat. He's not free, but he could be, but it's not for 100% sure.

How do you start to navigate the prospect of being mind-numbingly stuck for the rest of your life? And to what extent do you look yourself grieve over the tiny slivers of hope that have just slipped through your fingers? How do you accept that nothing you do will ever change anything, and that freedom appears on a far away horizon, but you're glued behind a wall?

'What's gonna happen to us?':

THERE IS A POINT I NEED TO MAKE BEFORE I CHEW MY OWN LEG OFF-

There is a crucial word at play again here - 'to'. This preposition-particle, and why it was written that way, is critical, because I had a though; Although this dialogue plays over the final scene where Wille and Simon are hugging...what if Wille isn't posing this hypothetical to Simon? What if he's not asking Simon what he thinks will happen with them? What if, instead, after everything that has happened, Wille's plan succeeds, he abdicates and integrates into the general public, and so he asks his Mother one final question - 'What's gonna happen to us?'

Because then the 'to' holds so much more weight - It implies that there are external forces working against their relationship (those external forces being the press and the public, both the elite and the general). To say 'What's gonna happen with us?' would make it sound more like a conversation, or at least more intimate, but the fact that it's written as 'to us' makes me think there's an anticipation of how their relationship will be received, or how the repercussions of Wille's abdication will effect Wille & Simon.

Because really, after everything has been said and done, and Wille has given up one of the things that belonged to him by right, because he didn't want it, his relationship with Simon is one of the only things he refuses to give up, and it's similarly one of the only things that he can keep as his, as theirs, and no one else's.

There's so much concern and worry that is carried in that singular line, and it puts everything into retrospection. It opens a space for caution, because you can imagine how scared you would be if you, and everyone around you, couldn't give a solid answer. 'What's gonna happen to us?' 'We don't know.'

Closing of the Curtain:

Please ignore the buffering half-circle oml...

But this is a fantastic shot - It seems like all of those memes of 'August is here, you know what that means!' with the closed curtain GIF has actually manifested itself. It's such a strong visual against the pat events of Season 1, because it allows no room for intrusion or betrayal. It's a statement within itself.

I've seen a lot of theories that this scene comes after the picture of Wille and Simon kissing in Wille's room, and I can completely see how that slots in - My hope is that the narrative continues of defying intrusion, and we don't actually see it happening. Much like the Fish Tank scene, we see what happens before, but we (the camera lens and the intrusive eyes of the audience) are cast out of the room, only left with the clear implications. Maybe what would be a strong message is that, after Wille closes the curtains, the audience/camera lens is banished too, as we fall under the same sense of obscurity. We aren't excluded, exceptions aren't made for us as spectators, because it is their moment, and not ours.

This is a little question segment:

Marcus:

What is the relationship between Simon and Marcus?

I know that a lot of people have squandered the idea of a 'love-triangle', and at times I feel like it was blown massively out of proportion, as the trailer really doesn't give me 'Ooo, look, there's competition around...' - To me, it feels more like a fledgling jealousy arc where the prospect of Simon and Marcus as a couple arises, and it might be in the early stages of a potential relationship, but nothing ever actually happens. It works in the sense that Wille is likely hyper-aware of every new presence, or rather any new change to him, given his position both as a royal and a victim of the press, so when Marcus (who as much as people shit on him seems lovely btw) comes onto the scene and presents a perfectly mundane, tangible, less damaging route for Simon (even if it's implied), it still poses a diversion to Wille's goal. Of course, this would spur something. I

It's a little bit reductive because Simon (light of my life) is something to be obtained, but when speaking in terms of it being from the POV of Wille, it's one of his main motivations to keep going.

And that begs the question - How will Simme react? Less damaging doesn't always mean less compelling, and more realistic doesn't always mean that you want it more. So what will happen? How will Simon fair, because he's also said in the trailer that the space has been nice, so maybe he regards Marcus as a fleeting crush? Or just a platonic thing? Or maybe it is a little romantic?

We won't know until we see...

Sweater Sniffing:

Why was the parallelism included of Simon smelling Wille's jumper x Wille hugging Erik's jacket - Is a dimension created where both boys seek comfort in quiet moments of missing? Is one distanced and the other intimate, or is it just showing how the boys are connected on a deeper level - By how they express longing?

There is another brief clip in the trailer where Simon is smelling Wille's sweater again, and I think the general theory is that Wille takes it off during class before unknowingly getting called out and told that he is leaving School, and so Simon takes it to return to Wille once he gets back, but Wille never actually comes back to Hillerska.

So, is this our insight into Simon's feelings? Does this serve as an inkling or as confirmation? It's certainly a rupture to Wille's absence as Simon keeps a constant presence of him anyway, through having the sweater? How does this fair for him? How does he react to Wille not being at school?

Maybe this is what binds them. How they show what it's like to miss someone.

The Party Lead:

How come Marcus and Simon are dressed differently to everyone else?

I had a thought - What if the theme for the party was something like 'Your poshest get-up' or 'High Society' and so Simon and Marcus decide to wear the only suits they have? Not only does this object to the ignorance of the other students who are dramatising their class, but it also reinforces the differences between Simon (and accompanying Marcus) and the rest of the Hillerska environment.

I also think it relates to how Simon is not one to pretend, and that's one of the qualities that I love about him - He's uniquely himself, and he won't tailor it just to cater to a certain group of people. Being of a lower class is not a sense of insecurity for Simme, it's a sense of pride. He wears it like a badge. His humanity speaks for thousands of people in a community that never bothers to listen to them.

Either that or he literally just couldn't be fucked to fork out for a costume and I'm reading too much into it, hehe.

___________

And so concludes the Trailer analysis ! It's been a joy to write this (eventhough I am ignoring my unstarted Uni essay that is due in on Friday), and I can't begin to describe how much I am looking forward to Season 2 <3

[jujianjes]

There was a deleted scene of Simon giving the sweater back to Wille!!!

[catsplushellhounds]

wille's birthday will be on season 3 and its gonna be a angsty one (theory)

this is me btw:

so i was watching (again) the trailer and one thing that is bothering me very much is how wille is NEVER staring at simon, which, IS WEIRD because that boy literally DROOLS over him and it doesnt sit right with me, right?

and so to me, is weird that in this scene 👇🏻 they are that far apart and they seem tense

i think it paralells a lot to wille in the car with his mom in s1 and IT IS SCARING ME

especially because we have that quote in the trailer of wille saying "everything you do now affects me and the royal family"

but my point here is, the first photo, they are in suits, probably going to the castle, and i know there's rumours about a possible birthday, and since we have this scene of wille throwing presents on the floor, i assume its his

and the reason i think it might be angsty is because we have this quote of kristina saying she cant have more of "these" scandals

by "these" scandals she definitely means wille and simon and/or the hatred between wille and august.

so maybe its wille's birthday, and his mom sets something up for him at the palace, and since simon is officially his boyfriend, maybe he's expected there but kristina doesnt want him there, and makes wille sort of "control" simon in order for him to act like he's supposed to or something

and wille hates being controlled like this, so he probably snaps and thats when he throws the presents on the floor.

but later i assume he and simon are okay, because this photo kinda looks like they're in suits and probably they talked it out or something (although it also kinda looks like hilleskra so idk)

[moccawithsugar]

OKAY SO…

There’s this theory/thing about a bigger threat in season 2 (the user above is just one of many with the same train of thought). It’s supposedly said that there’s a group anti-monarchy that wants the royal family eliminated. They were the ones who caused Erik’s car crash and now they’re going for the Queen and the crown prince.

They’ve been doing things in Hillerska to damage Wille and make the Queen’s airplane to “crash” or at least to malfunction and that’s why she’s in the hospital and Wille goes to see her.

The apparent hospital frame is this one:

SO, NOW…. I want to say why I think this theory won’t be true.

First a think the “dangers” or threats that Wille talks about are things that August and/or Sara do to (I suppose) getting him out of Hillerska so August can be in peace (before he realizes he can be his backup). Like the fire Sara causes, for example.

Second. There’s already too much plots. There’s Wilmon drama, Wille vs August, Sara with her secret relationship, Simon and Marcus, the queen and her stupid backup plan… etc etc. A plot like this one should be more important, or at least more obvious in trailers or something like that. Maybe they could put clues, very little along the season to reveal it at the end like “surprise! You didn’t see it coming!”, but idk I don’t see it possible.

And third: idk if that pic is actually from a hospital. It definitely looks like one, but there’s nothing that gives me certainty. Also someone commented that Edvin could be wearing a bathrobe between takes, it doesn’t have to be Wille per se. And I can’t see how the airplane can crash without the queen dying.

Just saying that it would be very interesting to see, but there’s a lot of blanks and things that I can’t fit for this season.

[prncewilhelm]

what if marcus overhears sara and august arguing at the stables about his drug problem and the sextape info slips out of his mouth from anger and Marus tries to tell simon about it but can't find the right time (assuming they already know e/o) and Wilhelm notices this "new boy" lingering around simon gets him in his jealous phase?

adlajfaslk you know what anon, i could get behind this. i'm really, really interested in how they're going to approach simon finding out about august/sara knowing it and not telling him – throwing marcus into it would be a perfect level of drama. whatever his purpose is on the show, i do have a feeling we'll probably get some jealous wille –especially because he's obviously so determined to get simon back.

[skeletonbutterflyyy]

my theory for Markus

1. Marcus gonna be super sweet at firts and turn out to by a control frick

2. Marcus gonna use Simon to get closse to Wilhelm and hurt the monarchy by hurting Wilhelm or gonna sai to the Queen that he know what she did to wilhelm and he gonna tell everyone

3. Marcus gonna be a dieus ex machina which is a character or unexpected event coming opportunely to resolve a dramatic situation.

Bonus : maybe Marcus gonna say to Wilhelm tha he also have a duty to the queer people of the contry as a représentations

[yezzyyae]

“Criminal Minds:Evolution” needs to be fu*king CANCELLED! Enough is enough wtfffff is a “gold star” smh it’s annoying them writers trying to add in the conspiracy theories & the AI movement & MAGA twists is soo corny!

It needs to end this season smh Elias Voit is a boring ASS villain he been in my face for too long! I don’t like his hair, voice, & facial expressions seriously go away! “Gold Star” is very corny I am confused. Now they been framing Emily Prentiss since the beginning 🤔so who is running this conspiracy theory if Damien was on the run & Voit is in jail? Ooh wait it was the brother of the Deputy FBI Director Bailey ?? I am CONFUSED 😕 PLEASE GO OFF CRIMINAL MINDS:EVOLUTION SMH OR BRING AARON HOTCHER & DR.SPENCER REID BACK!!

David Rossi & Jill Gideon was so corny & cringey wtf who thought that up!? Because Jason Gideon was dating a whole other woman in season 1 & 2 I never heard of this Jill(ex-wife) smh so for her to come to the FBI Headquarters and start crying in Jason old old office was so cringey! Jason Gideon left the FBI BAU & never came back for years so her claiming that it was Jason’s office was so weird, imagine how many people used that office after Jason Gideon! Go off & go away Criminal Minds:Evolution its giving corny Tara & that lady’s relationship is cringey & weird plus Penelope Garcia acting like her & Tyler had a years long love affair & in reality they only knew each other for 2 weeks is FUCKING ANNOYING!! Plus that corny ass Voit whispering in Luke Alves’ ear about the “porn website” & he being so upset which is weird because Luke only been there for 3 yrs & then he acting like Prentiss was in the wrong for not telling the team smh like wtf 🤦🏾‍♀️then saying the website is only JJ naked ass body! WHYYYYYY IS IT ONLY HER COME ON SOOO CORNY Plus Luke why would you GO LOOK AT THE PORN WEBSITE SMH! I can’t deal with this season it’s cringe the writers just had to add the AI bullshit! Why would they target JJ but was framing Prentiss from the so called beginning!

Okay I’m not done my rant but I had to let that 1st half out! 😂😩I just hate these greedy & stupid fans making shows come back & it’s unnecessary!

[bluedalahorse]

Okay, I’ll bite. Posts like this one on the confessions blog kind of make me wonder/worry about how I come across on tumblr. I’m one of those people who’s 200% down for the secondary characters in YR, particularly the controversial ones. I’m also someone who’d been lurking for a while prior to season 2 airing, but joined tumblr a little bit after season 2 to finally start discussing with people.

Given the way the post I linked above resonates with some of the themes I made a post about few days ago, it seems like the anon and I might both be struggling with some of the patterns of conversation in fandom. That said, we’re coming from very different places. And given the way I engage with this fandom, I sometimes wonder if I’m the antagonist in someone’s fandom story.

I do recognize that some of my posts come from a place where I could come across as pretentious, lecturing, or overbearing in some way. When I first de-lurked this fandom, I talked about a lot of the show in terms of craft and literary theory and such, in part because I’m in grad school for just that and in part because I hang out with a friends group IRL who uses that existing vocabulary to discuss things we love. I was also using the academic voice with a dose of sarcasm thrown in as a sort of armor, because I knew my favorite characters in the show (Sara and August) were so widely beloathed by so many people. I was worried that if my first post was “wow they sure are cute even if they’re messy; where do I find the fanfic?” I wouldn’t make friends, or possibly would even get chased off of tumblr. I figured it was much safer to come in and say things like “I find it really interesting to see how their relationship is a narrative foil to Wilmon’s, and them being together really raises the stakes of the drama” and keep my Big Feelings to myself. (Especially since some posters can be pretty nasty about my faves, and make assumptions about what I’m an “apologist” for when I talk about them.) I still lean into academic speak to some extent—like I said, it’s part of who I am even outside of YR, so it’s hard to shake. But rest assured there is fannish passion behind it, and also know I don’t think academic speak should be a requirement for participating in fandom.

I’m also wondering… what role should making the case for the characters and plotlines one loves play in establishing one’s fandom presence? Like, in general? Ultimately my motive when I make my posts, analysis or otherwise, is to invite people to play in my weird little sandbox with me. (If they want to, of course!) I recognize that some of my fandom opinions/hills I will die on are what they are, so I imagine some folks don’t want to change their opinions any more than I do. But I also recognize that in more than two decades of being in fandom, there are times when someone else’s passion for a character or a take on some aspect of a show or book really led me to see something new and interesting, or hook on to particular rarepairs or whatever else. That’s the beauty of fandom as a community—we all get more excited about things together and share our love of things. Since some of my favorite aspects of YR are much much more rarely represented in fanworks, I’m usually talking about how I adore them in hopes that I’ll continue to find the people who like the things I like, and in hopes that maybe I’ll spark something in someone’s brain and they’ll write a cool fic or draw cool art or something. Talking to people here has made me more interested in pairings like Walty and Stedrika, which I didn’t think about as much before on my first watchthroughs of the show. So anyway… I do know there’s some folks out there who are never gonna be interested in what I’m interested in. I also know there are folks, myself included, who’ve learned things from what other people are passionate about. I also know there are some opinions that seem a lot more unpopular than they are until someone voices them.

I recognize that the two factors above—a tendency toward academic speak, and another tendency to make the case for the less popular things I love about the show in hopes that people will join me, combined with maybe me not having the best day or not choosing my words well—all that together and I could I see how I could come across as pretentious or holier-than-thou or looking down on people. (And admittedly there are times where my posts come from a place of frustration about the way certain characters are talked about. I think we’ve all been there at one time or another.) It really isn’t my intention to come across in a negative way, but I can see how it would happen. It’s also possible I’m doing something that completely doesn’t register with me at all, but it’s super hurtful to others. I may not know the full extent to how I’ve bothered someone, because ultimately I am just in my own head.

If I’ve hurt you or made you feel crappy in your time being a fan on tumblr, I am truly sorry. I’m open to talking about it if you want to talk about it, but also, zero pressure if you just kind of want to hang out in your own space and do your own thing.

To sum up… it seems like on one hand there’s a portion of fandom that seems to want to embrace the YR world in its entirety, and another portion of fandom that would like to lean into a focus on Wilmon. And there’s probably people all across a spectrum there, because nothing is a strict binary. All are valid approaches! I don’t think we all need to be best friends, but I do think we need to figure out how to coexist and assume positive intent in each other’s approaches to the work. Does anyone have ideas about that? Are there hashtags we could be using a little more carefully? I don’t have answers yet, but it is something I’m thinking about.