Lol Yeah The Suggestion Is That Now That He's Stepping Down, He's Basically... Good ??? Mental Health-wise

FYI the national park service has removed the T from LGBT on the Stonewall Monument page

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So....

... in the first season we opened with a staff member of the royal court saying "Prince Wilhelm"

In second season we opened with Queen Kristina saying "Wilhelm"

Will we have the third season opening with Simon saying "Wille"?

they chose each other, finally.

but it's so much more than that.

in my opinion the underlying reason simon and wilhelm have always been drawn together, though of course they celebrate each other's strengths, is in the way they gently encourage each other to confront what might be holding them back from happiness and healing.

simon is a thinker - he's a top student, always intellectualising his next step. thinking for himself, thinking about what's best for sara, about his mum, about taking care of his friends. he feels so deeply - we know he does - but this is always secondary to what his brain tells him about a situation. and what his fascination, attraction and love for wilhelm stirs in him is a depth of feeling. he's not thinking when he's leaning in to kiss the prince at movie night! he's not thinking when he stumbles back to school with wille after the football field. he's not thinking when he abandons marcus to find wilhelm at the ball, when he agrees to keep things secret between them, when he tries to toe the line of the royal court so they can be together. and not that these feelings always lead to what's best for simon, but they start to be something he listens to and follows. he shifts from giving second chances because he thinks that's what should be done, to embracing his loved ones in their full selves because he feels a deep love for them and a love for himself that deserves them in his life.

and wilhelm? wilhelm is a feeler - wille does not for one second stop and think in that first season, hardly in the second and nigh on zero in the third, until that very last episode. wilhelm feels it all - anger, frustration, boredom, pride, arrogance, grief grief grief, loneliness, attraction, lust and love. he acts without second guessing why. he screams without caring who he pierces with them. but then ever so slowly, he starts listening to others and his brain zips online. he's taking note of those cleverer and wiser than himself. he's listening to his feelings and decoding them into the language of words, and most importantly, of considered action.

so we have a simon whose patient questions and careful soul encourages wilhelm to begin thinking for himself, and we have a wilhelm whose unyielding heart, affection and devotion encourages simon understand the value of his feelings, his understanding of himself and others.

thus wilhelm's last choice of the series - to consider simon's words, and those of others around him (boris, my man), and come to a considered decision to reject the institution he was raised in because it's harming everyone he loves - displays the enormous growth simon's catalysed in him. he's finally listening to his head.

and of course then simon's last choice of the series - to choose to let wilhelm in, to choose to stop the car, to once again let himself be vulnerable in the face of dizzying emotion - displays the depth of feeling wilhelm has helped him uncover within himself. he's finally listening to his heart.

they both had a choice, and they both chose themselves, and in choosing themselves, they chose each other.

but they never would have chosen themselves if they had not first chosen each other.

What Simon can teach us about boundaries!

Been seeing a lot of Simon hate again lately (mostly on other apps but i’m sure its here too) and it's getting pretty frustrating and honestly a little bit troubling that people think so little of Simon and his needs.

Simon hate feels like some weird connection to the patriarchy/heteronormativity where some people have just decided that it is okay for one person's needs to be ignored in a relationship in order to satisfy the other. Lisa seemed to intentionally try and create a dynamic in their relationship where they see each other as equals. They may struggle to see each others perspectives at times but that is true for literally ANY RELATIONSHIP where two people come together from different walks of life. Both their needs matter and their journey in the relationship is to figure out how to honor the other persons needs while honoring themselves or see if that is even possible.

Sooo I wanted to share some lessons about boundaries that people could learn through Simon instead of talking sh!t about him !!!

1. Boundaries are about what we want and need in a relationship. Sometimes people want different things and thats ok!

People love to say that Simon forced Wilhelm to cone out. I even saw someone say that Simon was asking Wilhelm to "give up his family and the throne". No where does Simon ask him to do any of those things. Notice how Simon says "I don't want to be anyones secret"? This is not just about Wille. This is a boundary that he has for himself and the types of relationships that he wants to have. Everyone is allowed to have expectations or want a certain type of relationship. Saying you don’t want to be in a secret relationship is quite a reasonable request. It is also quite reasonable to say that you don't want to be in a public relationship. Sometimes in relationships, what two people need is incompatible at the time which is why it made sense for them to end things. That is the point- for both people to say what they need to feel comfortable and sometimes other people cannot meet your needs- you have to decide if that is a dealbreaker and for Simon at the time it was.

2. Boundaries ≠ manipulation

He tells Wilhelm he take as much time as he needs but you have to do it alone. That is a boundary it is NOT manipulation. He does not try to control Wilhelm or tell Wilhelm what to do. Saying a relationship wont work for you unless certain needs are met or that you dont want to do tons of emotional labor for another person is not manipulation. He is saying I am not okay with being a secret, I am not okay with having my trust broken, i’m not okay with being in a relationship where you say one thing and do another (Wilhelm made a promise he could not keep and even he has owned up to that to Nils). Simon is not saying YOU HAVE TO COME OUT RIGHT NOW OR ELSE. He is not playing mind games or trying to get Wilhelm to change his mind in order to be with him. He is willing to walk away to because he knows it is not possible at that point for Wille and him to get on the same page.

Boundaries have become part of social media language lately thanks to instagram therapists and the like but a lot of people have misconstrued the meaning. Some people call something a boundary when they are actually being controlling. However the purpose of a boundary is about what you yourself are comfortable with, not what other people can/cannot do. Ex: “i am okay with holding hands in public but otherwise I don’t feel comfortable with PDA” (healthy boundary). Vs “you can’t have guy friends because I get jealous” (unhealthy boundary). Boundaries are healthy and necessary for a relationship to be healthy- they are not the same as manipulation or trying to control someone else.

3. What is okay for you does not have to be okay for someone else. Everyone’s boundaries are different because we are all different people with different traumas, needs, experiences, relationships, and limits. I have seen people compare the Wilmon to Narlie where Charlie is okay with Nick wanting to keep things “secret”. Besides the fact that this is a completely different relationship and context, the fun thing about boundaries is that what is okay for you does not have to be okay for someone else! Just because you would have been willing to be Wilhelm’s secret if he asked does not mean that Simon has to. Just because Charlie was willing to to do that for Nick does not mean that Simon has to. Not to mention !!! Nick also acknowledged that is not not fair to Charlie and outside of not telling people they had a very loving smooth sailing relationship - people expect Simon to be like Charlie without acknowledging that Wilhelm is not giving the level of trust and security that Nick is. If you want to go there, I'm sure if Wille was acting like Nick being consistent not saying "i'm not like that", "delete my number" etc (regardless of the reason) then maybe Simon would have been more okay with it. This is not Wille hate bc i get it, but sometimes in empathizing with Wille people forget that Simon is a whole human with wants and needs. Simon needs to protect himself and his heart. We all do. Relationships should not require you to subject yourself to pain for someone else. It is healthy to have boundaries and know your needs and what you deserve. And at that point in time Wille could not give him that. Most people watching were quite proud of Simon for that so idk how the narrative got turned to him being selfish.

4. Boundaries can change

It is normal to reassess your boundaries, that does not make them any less valid. Clearly for Simon, once Wilhelm proved his trust more and and Simon reevaluated what he wanted, he decided that he was willing to be a secret if that meant having each other. If he never decided that, it still would have been totally valid. Also noting, there was no compromise/meet in the middle there in Simon deciding that he was willing to be a secret for Wille. It's just funny that Simon is getting the flack for not wanting to "compromise" or meet in the middle when in the end, Simon was willing to do exactly what Wille wanted and he gets ZERO credit from some people for that. Luckily Wilhelm sees what a sacrifice this is for Simon and does not leave Simon to sacrifice alone.

4. Boundaries protect the relationship, build trust and help relationships grow

If Simon had never stood his ground both in s1e6 and throughout s2 Wille would have continued they way he was going, they probably would have gotten in even more arguments and honestly i do not think Wille would have been forced to mature and consider Simons feelings in the way he eventually did. I know people resist Edvin calling Wille selfish but Simon has to constantly keep telling Wille “what about me? What about my family? Do you see how hard this is for me?” For some reason viewers are interpreting that as selfish ?? In a relationship you really should not have to be constantly reminding someone to consider you and your feelings.

Simon setting boundaries and saying what he wanted only made their relationship stronger even tho they had to take some time apart. Protecting yourself and wanting a healthy balanced relationship where your needs are considered as much as the other person’s is not selfish. And anyone who tells you that it is does not have your best intentions at heart. Simon is not saying his needs are MORE important than Wille’s he is saying that his needs matter TOO and are EQUALLY IMPORTANT to Wille’s. Which was the journey he needed to go on (as stated by his sister) and the journey that Wille needed to go on as well in order to create a healthy dynamic together.

So yeah i hope you all set some boundaries today or use this info to argue with simon antis 💖

—————-

Disclaimer// I am not a therapist i just do workshops with teens about healthy relationships and it is a passion of mine.

Thank you for writing this.

Naturally we all know that this in no way excuses August's literal crimes he's committed against other children, and simultaneously I do think the context is important. Abusers don't just *poof* materialize out of nowhere -- they're created and made by the influences / forces around them. (And then the newly-created abuser is responsible for the choices they make and actions they take afterwards, of course).

I've actually been thinking about the trauma August has experienced (at Hillerska + pre-Hillerska) a lot, ever since Young Royals season 1. We had two striking examples there of times August was about to try and open up (strangely to Wille, of all people) before being immediately cut off and ignored.

First example, S1E4: After the Society initiation for Wilhelm, before he ends up on the football field. August and Wille are outside peeing, and Wille is intoxicatedly expressing his guilt, grief, and conflicted feelings to August after his brother's death. August begins to open up as well, saying he *too* felt guilty after his father's death (suicide) and that he was somehow to blame. He doesn't even get to finish that sentence before drunken Wille cuts him off mid-thought. The look on August's face at that point is one that always cuts me to my core & brings me sorrow.

The second time was in S1E6, after August had already uploaded the video. Wille knew about it, but didn't know it was August's doing. In either a show of remorse, or as a kind of play-acting fakeness, August shows up to Wilhelm's room to offer him (fake or genuine?) consolation and advice. He begins to thank Wille for helping him with he tuition fees before Wilhelm cuts him off and says (essentially) that no one will ever be as helpful as Erik and he'd rather be talking to him, hearing Erik's advice. This isn't technically a "rehashing of trauma" moment at all -- but it is a moment where August was about to show vulnerability to someone who helped him, and August isn't used to being helped. Both of his parents abandoned him: his father to death, and his mother to Hillerska. Now this little cousin he's been hazing and betraying actually does something kind for him -- and he isn't able to access sufficient airspace to acknowledge it and share a moment of gratitude. Wilhelm never acknowledges that he heard August at all. His face, again, seems to communicate something really complicated and dejected then.

All this is to say -- I've just been spending a lot of time trying to understand August and meditating on the complicated, conflicting ways he shows up, and especially about his relationship to vulnerability. Not in order to forgive him! The crime he committed was truly evil and inexcusable. But I do want to understand. I want to know. How did he come to be this way? Where did all of this evolve from? And he always really fascinates me for these reasons.

August's story is not "good boy turned bad at Hillerska" but something so much more complicated.

I've been thinking a lot about August and the revelations in S3. About how Erik and co played an even bigger role in his indoctrination and development into a toxic mess of a young man than I had imagined - but how it's also important to remember that didn't happen in a vacuum.

The new information doesn't cancel out the old, it just completes it.

August will have still grown up in the highly patriarchal, misogynist, elitist system of the aristocracy, with a very specific view of the world and his place in it. Idolising his father, whose tux he is fittingly wearing when he gets "awarded" the bad boy trophy. A man who taught him by example that death was preferable to failure - and seemingly turned him against his mother, as we could infer from S1E3. A mother who then essentially dumped him off at Hillerska after his father's death and left him feeling like the only woman in his life failed to support them both.

It's precisely these kinds of views, values and experiences from his early life that will have primed him for the culture of abuse at Hillerska (which his father will have also attended back in the day). Made him so desperate for the older boys' approval, vulnerable to their abuse, and susceptible to the awful patterns they impressed upon him. Erik and the others' part in messing him up is horrible and bigger than we thought, but that doesn't cancel out his parents' part any more than his own victimhood excuses his victimisation of others. He's got many intersecting and partially overlapping cycles to break, and I really hope we see him take more steps down that road on Monday.

I may write a longer meta post on him after the finale. For now, though, I'm just going to engage in some shameless self-promo and point to my old analysis post with more thoughts on his upbringing and worldview as well as the backstory one-shot I wrote in the run-up to S3. (It's set two and a half years before his arrival at Hillerska and focuses on his father's horrible influence, as well as his parents' marriage as a possible model for his seemingly contradicting views of women and romance. It remains compatible with canon apart from a few details - please check the tags for content warnings, though).

YOUNG ROYALS Simon's hands on Wille • for @skibasyndrome <3

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Aight, so a suspect has been caught. In the next couple of days we’re going to be bombarded with a cavalcade of information about Luigi Mangione. As we start this period I want everyone to remember:

Luigi Mangione is a living, breathing, human being. He has followed people you don’t like, held beliefs you disagree with, and possibly voting for politicians you think suck.

He still shot a man with the blood of millions on his hands. He still caused an outpouring of rage that caused BCBS to roll back its ghoulish anesthesia policy.

Carve that into your fucking minds. Mass media is about to do its damnedest to remind us to hate each other, not the top .001%. Do not let them do this. Y’all understand what I’m saying? Here, lemme spell it out more clearly:

DO NOT FUCKING PURITY TEST THIS GUY, ASSHOLES!!

And if you see people fixating on his purity over the message he sent, call them out on it.

We have lost again and again and again on healthcare because we keep letting the rich divide us. Remember: the people united will never be defeated.