Thinking About How Wille Has Made Loving Simon His Whole Personality, And How It’s A Little Bit Hilarious,

Thinking about how Wille has made loving Simon his whole personality, and how it’s a little bit hilarious, extraordinarily sweet, yet heartbreaking and predictable at the same time. 

The scene where he puts up their selfie in ep1 is so endearing and lovely and really triggers my cuteness aggression. But although it’s a quick scene, it really distills how this can also be a lonely and isolating thing; he’s at a complete loss for what to do with himself when Simon doesn’t pick up his call immediately. 

I mean boy literally has three hobbies:

Love Simon

Throw Ball

Grieve Dead Brother

So when Simon suggests Wille quit rowing and do something he actually enjoys, he’s originally completely stumped. No one has ever told him that he’s allowed to do things because he actually likes them, but rather that everything he does must fit the narrative, as Wille says himself, of being a ‘serious, traditional, smart, strong, young man’ - the model of (white, heteronormative) masculinity. He’s hyperaware of this happening, yet he’s still not bothered to try to figure out for himself what he likes, because it’s just not worth the fight with the Court. What a revelation it is for Simon to say that he can actually allow himself to do things just because he likes them - and stop doing things he doesn’t.

But Wille has spent the last several months alternating between pining for Simon, and grieving his brother, hemmed in by the expectations from the Royal Court and his parents. When has he had the opportunity to do soul searching on top of that? Where does all this pent up energy go except to focus even more on Simon? 

So of course the new hobby he chooses is ‘Listen to Simon Sing’. Look, I don’t blame the boy, I would do the same. And my god the way Simon pounces on him right after, we can see just how much it means to him too. I would personally have melted into a puddle next to the lockers at such a gesture (I mean I do kind of melt anyway when I watch this scene). 

It’s so romantic, it’s so beautiful. Yet it’s absolutely not tenable for the future of their relationship - it’s A Lot to for Simon to shoulder on his own, in fact it’s too much. ‘I can be your revolution/ Protect you from the others/ Let’s be a revolution/ We who have each other’ - a beautiful sentiment, and yes it’s great and wonderful that they can offer each other support, that they understand each other in ways no one else does. But that is too much pressure to put on Simon, on a boy who already sacrifices so much of himself for the comfort of his loved ones. A boy who is now losing himself entirely to this pressure. He just can’t be the Only Thing in Wille’s life, particularly when Wille is incapable of seeing past his own monumental pain. Which is why the breaking point in ep 5 absolutely needs to happen.

But I strongly believe that Wille and Simon are in a position to turn this around. Wille has his tunnel vision Simon goggles on most of this season, but he needs to be able to take them off from time to time - only then can he appreciate the bigger picture. He needs (among other things) to invest more time in his own hopes and wishes and desires beyond Simon, to be able to help rebuild their relationship on much stronger and equal foundations. Something he realistically can only do by stepping away from the monarchy, by disrupting this all-encompassing narrative they’ve driven for him his whole life. And I have to believe that he can 💜