YOUNG ROYALS (2021) | 1.01

Shoutout to fashion icon Omar for putting up with Simon’s horrendous wardrobe

Happy international workers day

As a Spanish speaker, it stresses me out when I'm reading a yr fic and there are scenes of Simón speaking bad Spanish or speaking the language but with slang from other countries that are not Venezuela.

Please, if you don't speak Spanish but you want to add scenes in your fic of him speaking the language, ask a Spanish speaker to read them and correct them if necessary.

Here your local native Spanish speaker more than willing to lend a hand to any fic writer who wants to include Spanish speaking scenes. Just DM me 🩷

Everyone: you’d really give up the crown for Simon?

Wilhelm: I’d give up the crown for two jellybeans and a butter sandwich, but sure blame Simon.

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 💜

This is a brilliant analysis! It made me think that what makes Wilhelm's obsession with Simon even more heartbreaking is that while he is entirely focused on Simon with "Simon googles", he still can't actually*see* Simon only his ideal of him and how much he needs Simon. The overt, physical threats get through but not all the other little cuts and barbs. I'm not blaming Wille! His grief, the joy in having finally won Simon back, and the way Simon hides all contribute. In e5 he is finally confronted with Simon's pain fully on display and knows the part he's played in that. That can be the catalyst for Wille to find himself, a person both he and Simon can recognize, and Wille can finally look himself in the mirror without shame.

Wilhelm and Simon l 3.06

So is in Spanish lmao I always found it funny

Bad Young Royals spinoff ideas:

Idk what yall are talking about, these are all GREAT spin off ideas.

Same energy.

May I add:

the urge to protect him at all and any costs

SIMÓN GET BEHIND ME SWEETY

BASTA LOCO ALÉJENSE DEL CUARTO ESE DE MIERDA ME TIENEN HARTA

Picture me in the trees, before I learned civility

Wilmon + Monet because it's the first thing I thought when I looked at this picture 🖼️

From Simon's perspective, this scene had to be incredibly eye-opening. Wille is fully surrounded with the choir behind him, the press to his right, classmates and alumni to his left, his parents and the royal court straight ahead. Guards and faculty are lurking. He's fully exposed with nowhere left to hide.

And Simon, standing in the choir right behind the podium, can finally see from Wille’s perspective. He can feel the eyes of the queen and the royal court.  The principal. And it’s terrifying. The frame switches from a shot of the Queen and the royal court looking at Wille expectantly to a nervous Simon, who is absorbing the gaze. All of their classmates are looking and the press are preparing for their shots. He understands the pressure that Wille has been under.

Somewhere inside, Simon feels like he was incredibly foolish to ever expect Wille to face up to all of this for him.  He eyes queen’s teary-eyed smile at the mention of Erik. Feels more than sees the levers on which the Queen could pull to change Wille's mind. And then Simon sees the Queen and August exchange a look when Wille goes off script.

When Wille is finally honest, the gestures coming from the Royal court, together with all of the camera flashes, startle Simon. Their friends, even, are staring. Simon freezes. There are so many cameraphones—is the entirety of the third year class filming?

And Wille just did that for him.  Simon finally understands the weight of what he's been asking Wille to do this entire time—understands that Wille didn’t do what he did because he didn’t love Simon, but because he was in an impossible position. Which he just made impossible for himself for Simon. Even though Simon didn't even ask him to; Simon just told Wille that he's wiling to be a secret.

Wille does this because he knew that’s what Simon needs. He faces up to all of this horrifying pressure and attention and relentless examination for Simon.  Because he can't let Simon sacrifice himself—his unflappable self-worth, his honesty, his integrity—to go into hiding with Wille. As much as that's exactly what Wille thought he wanted. And he does this right in the moment where it becomes obvious to Simon why Wille did things the way he had. Simon understands exactly what it means that Wille is willing to face up all of this for him.

Then the song comes in with, "And you loved me; I could feel it." Because Simon realizes just how fucking much Wille loves him to go through with this in the face of the monarchy, the press, their peers, the fucking world. Even after Simon takes off all of the pressure on his side and agrees to remain a secret, Wille chooses the parts of Simon that Simon himself was willing to give up over the easy choice. Wille isn't choosing himself in this decision—he's not even choosing himself and Simon, who will inevitably face blowback in the aftermath—he's just choosing Simon. The truest version of Simon who he fell in love with.

I'm very new to this fandom, so this has probably been pointed out before. I just can't stop watching the show....