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Let Wilmon be weird!!! The musical on ice
Feb. 17th, 2024 02:18 pmI couldn’t figure out how to say this perfectly, so I’ll try to say it imperfectly. In a way, I feel like it was hard even finding the words to say this, because I was in an environment where I had to talk about Wilmon a certain way, to the point where I almost stopped talking about them at all. And now I feel a little rusty about how I talk about them. Maybe this is more of a venting post in the first place.
Here’s what I want to say: I wish the parts of fandom I’d tried to participate in at first had been more willing to lean into the uncomfortable parts of the Wilmon relationship.
To clarify, I don’t mean I think they have a toxic or abusive relationship. (Although, sometimes it even exhausts me that I have to make this disclaimer. Every relationship has struggles, both everyday ones and longer term ones.) Simon and Wilhelm are good together, and I can see them staying together for the rest of their lives, or having the kind of young love relationship they look back on fondly as adults even if they aren’t still together.
At the same time, there’s… stuff there, that they have to deal with. There’s the part where Wilhelm and his family represent an enduring system of privilege, and that system has made everything more difficult for Simon and his family. Outside the monarchy, there’s Simon growing up in an abusive home, with a parent who struggles with addiction. There’s Wilhelm’s sudden, traumatic loss of his brother and the crushing grief that comes with it. These issues are lifelong, and while I know that Simon and Wille will lend one another strength and lean on one another, they cannot be one another’s entire support system as they grapple with all these things. This is something the show itself highlights when they have Wilhelm visit Boris. Therapy, man. It’s good for all your romances!
Beyond the family situations, there’s the sides of the characters that are perhaps less than 100% perfect or pure. The Simon who goes behind his sister’s back to visit his estranged dad and hides bills for math tutoring from his mother. The Wilhelm who glances at Simon’s texts and leads Felice on a bit at the beginning of season 2. I love these little twists in their characterization, and I like seeing them explained and contextualized by the weird Hillerska hierarchy, but I don’t like seeing Wilhelm and Simon smoothed over or sanded down too much until they are poor little kanelbullar who did nothing wrong. Dare I say, I like seeing when Wilhelm and Simon’s decisions backfire on them. Wilhelm throwing Alexander under the bus and Alexander getting corrupted? Yes, brilliant, would watch again.
To zoom out a little, I’m really drawn to romance plots where magnetically strong interpersonal chemistry (the internal) clashes with weird and often uncomfortable sociological structures (the external.) To be fair, I think that’s… most romance plots, because in order to have plot, you have to have some sort of clash of ideas or circumstances, and the characters usually have to learn something new about themself along the way. But when a writer can get that feedback loop going, like Lisa can, it will absolutely have me hooked.
I also want to emphasize here that the weird/uncomfortable or bits of a romance are something I take as much joy in reading or viewing as are the sweeter bits of a romance. I feel like too often we talk about the “overcoming obstacles/making decisions based on hamartia/dealing with the weird Relationship Sociology Of Ot All” part of a story as if it’s a currency, or the price of admission we pay to see characters hold hands or kiss or be sweet. Maybe this is reinforced by the times when we talk about characters “earning their happy endings.” And like, yeah, it’s bad when there’s a third act breakup in a romance novel just because that’s supposed to happen. And yes, sometimes certain ways of writing relationships hit our personal squicks or traumas, and it’s time for us personally to bow out. Not every ‘ship is for everyone. There are certainly things I don’t ship.
But… why can’t we acknowledge that like… when a story is well-written, and when a breakup or a fight or a character having doubts about their relationship feels motivated by all the internal external stuff an author lays the groundwork for… why can’t we acknowledge that there’s pleasure in watching those things transpire, at least for some readers/viewers? Or in some situations, there’s at least some kind of catharsis. Perhaps pleasure is too strong a word. But also maybe not! It’s certainly pleasurable for me!
It feels like the last decade or so of fandom discourse has lent itself to the idea that fictional relationships can either be Perfect Pure Tender Amazing With Great Communication And Sex, or OMG Toxic, and if something isn’t one it’s the other. Strict binaries, y’all! And if you ‘ship a wholesome ship, you’re supposed to enjoy their wholesomeness specifically and lament every time bad things happen to them, and if you ‘ship a toxic one, you’re supposed to be constantly alluding to its toxicity just so people are aware you’re aware. And like, who has the time to constantly be issuing disclaimers about their Known Toxic Ships?
I’m off topic. Let me bring it back to YR. At some point in season three, Wilhelm and Simon are going to be at the palace. And maybe they’ll make out in Wilhelm’s massive historic bedroom like they made out in Simon’s teeny-tiny one. But maybe it won’t be romantic and idealized. Maybe it will be weird and uncomfortable, because they’re aware of the oceanic gap in their wealth and privilege, and everything they’re up against. Maybe Wilhelm’s colonizer ancestors are watching them from portraits on the wall the whole time. Maybe it will be weird and uncomfortable and funny, or maybe it won’t be. Maybe in another episode Simon will fight with Rosh and Ayub because they’ll feel like he’s forgotten his true self now that he’s hanging out with Wille more often, and because Simon has to present himself a certain way to the press. Maybe Wilhelm will make a grandiose romantic gesture at some point (like the time he ordered Felice poke but ten times over, and for Simon this time) and it will go too far. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m just throwing ideas around.
I wrote sargust even before season 2 (a lot of it unpublished on AO3) just trying to figure out how it would go, because instinctually I knew August was going to fall in love with Sara. And in one fic, I had August thinking this: He loves the few times they’ve shown one another childhood memories, like rough unfinished rocks, and the way they found beauty in the roughness without trying to polish everything over into meaningless crystal platitudes. And while I saw that sentence as something that had meaning in the context of sargust, I also want to apply it to how I think about Wilmon. The people in fandom who could go on this journey with me, who would talk to me about this stuff and explore the ups and downs of the love story, are my favorite people in fandom (I hope they know who they are, if they’re reading this) and they’re what I miss about being on the other site.
What I’m saying is, maybe certain things will happen between Simon and Wilhelm in season 3, and there won’t be a way to make them idealized and romantic at all. And maybe that will still fucking slap, narratively speaking.
Rocks don’t need to be perfect to be interesting.
Here’s what I want to say: I wish the parts of fandom I’d tried to participate in at first had been more willing to lean into the uncomfortable parts of the Wilmon relationship.
To clarify, I don’t mean I think they have a toxic or abusive relationship. (Although, sometimes it even exhausts me that I have to make this disclaimer. Every relationship has struggles, both everyday ones and longer term ones.) Simon and Wilhelm are good together, and I can see them staying together for the rest of their lives, or having the kind of young love relationship they look back on fondly as adults even if they aren’t still together.
At the same time, there’s… stuff there, that they have to deal with. There’s the part where Wilhelm and his family represent an enduring system of privilege, and that system has made everything more difficult for Simon and his family. Outside the monarchy, there’s Simon growing up in an abusive home, with a parent who struggles with addiction. There’s Wilhelm’s sudden, traumatic loss of his brother and the crushing grief that comes with it. These issues are lifelong, and while I know that Simon and Wille will lend one another strength and lean on one another, they cannot be one another’s entire support system as they grapple with all these things. This is something the show itself highlights when they have Wilhelm visit Boris. Therapy, man. It’s good for all your romances!
Beyond the family situations, there’s the sides of the characters that are perhaps less than 100% perfect or pure. The Simon who goes behind his sister’s back to visit his estranged dad and hides bills for math tutoring from his mother. The Wilhelm who glances at Simon’s texts and leads Felice on a bit at the beginning of season 2. I love these little twists in their characterization, and I like seeing them explained and contextualized by the weird Hillerska hierarchy, but I don’t like seeing Wilhelm and Simon smoothed over or sanded down too much until they are poor little kanelbullar who did nothing wrong. Dare I say, I like seeing when Wilhelm and Simon’s decisions backfire on them. Wilhelm throwing Alexander under the bus and Alexander getting corrupted? Yes, brilliant, would watch again.
To zoom out a little, I’m really drawn to romance plots where magnetically strong interpersonal chemistry (the internal) clashes with weird and often uncomfortable sociological structures (the external.) To be fair, I think that’s… most romance plots, because in order to have plot, you have to have some sort of clash of ideas or circumstances, and the characters usually have to learn something new about themself along the way. But when a writer can get that feedback loop going, like Lisa can, it will absolutely have me hooked.
I also want to emphasize here that the weird/uncomfortable or bits of a romance are something I take as much joy in reading or viewing as are the sweeter bits of a romance. I feel like too often we talk about the “overcoming obstacles/making decisions based on hamartia/dealing with the weird Relationship Sociology Of Ot All” part of a story as if it’s a currency, or the price of admission we pay to see characters hold hands or kiss or be sweet. Maybe this is reinforced by the times when we talk about characters “earning their happy endings.” And like, yeah, it’s bad when there’s a third act breakup in a romance novel just because that’s supposed to happen. And yes, sometimes certain ways of writing relationships hit our personal squicks or traumas, and it’s time for us personally to bow out. Not every ‘ship is for everyone. There are certainly things I don’t ship.
But… why can’t we acknowledge that like… when a story is well-written, and when a breakup or a fight or a character having doubts about their relationship feels motivated by all the internal external stuff an author lays the groundwork for… why can’t we acknowledge that there’s pleasure in watching those things transpire, at least for some readers/viewers? Or in some situations, there’s at least some kind of catharsis. Perhaps pleasure is too strong a word. But also maybe not! It’s certainly pleasurable for me!
It feels like the last decade or so of fandom discourse has lent itself to the idea that fictional relationships can either be Perfect Pure Tender Amazing With Great Communication And Sex, or OMG Toxic, and if something isn’t one it’s the other. Strict binaries, y’all! And if you ‘ship a wholesome ship, you’re supposed to enjoy their wholesomeness specifically and lament every time bad things happen to them, and if you ‘ship a toxic one, you’re supposed to be constantly alluding to its toxicity just so people are aware you’re aware. And like, who has the time to constantly be issuing disclaimers about their Known Toxic Ships?
I’m off topic. Let me bring it back to YR. At some point in season three, Wilhelm and Simon are going to be at the palace. And maybe they’ll make out in Wilhelm’s massive historic bedroom like they made out in Simon’s teeny-tiny one. But maybe it won’t be romantic and idealized. Maybe it will be weird and uncomfortable, because they’re aware of the oceanic gap in their wealth and privilege, and everything they’re up against. Maybe Wilhelm’s colonizer ancestors are watching them from portraits on the wall the whole time. Maybe it will be weird and uncomfortable and funny, or maybe it won’t be. Maybe in another episode Simon will fight with Rosh and Ayub because they’ll feel like he’s forgotten his true self now that he’s hanging out with Wille more often, and because Simon has to present himself a certain way to the press. Maybe Wilhelm will make a grandiose romantic gesture at some point (like the time he ordered Felice poke but ten times over, and for Simon this time) and it will go too far. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m just throwing ideas around.
I wrote sargust even before season 2 (a lot of it unpublished on AO3) just trying to figure out how it would go, because instinctually I knew August was going to fall in love with Sara. And in one fic, I had August thinking this: He loves the few times they’ve shown one another childhood memories, like rough unfinished rocks, and the way they found beauty in the roughness without trying to polish everything over into meaningless crystal platitudes. And while I saw that sentence as something that had meaning in the context of sargust, I also want to apply it to how I think about Wilmon. The people in fandom who could go on this journey with me, who would talk to me about this stuff and explore the ups and downs of the love story, are my favorite people in fandom (I hope they know who they are, if they’re reading this) and they’re what I miss about being on the other site.
What I’m saying is, maybe certain things will happen between Simon and Wilhelm in season 3, and there won’t be a way to make them idealized and romantic at all. And maybe that will still fucking slap, narratively speaking.
Rocks don’t need to be perfect to be interesting.
