Randomwilmonfan - Whimsical Longings

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"?

i do think edvin and omar are some variation of soulmates. that they met and instantly felt safe with each other, and four years later are talking about how they can continue to work with each other now that their project is ended. it's beautiful.

My reheated s3 take is that August not getting a scene to apologize to Simon and Wilhelm not getting a scene to build a relationship with Sara (beyond exchanging one line) are letdowns in a way that feel deeply interrelated to me.

To be clear: my intention is not to draw a false equivalence between the harm August does to Simon in releasing the video, and Wilhelm’s failure to build a relationship with his boyfriend’s sibling. Instead, I’m struck by how the show tells us that Wilhelm/Simon and Sara/August are both important, formative first loves. The writers also emphasize Sara and Simon’s bond, especially in terms of how they need one another to navigate Micke’s abandonment of them, and likewise stress the need for Wilhelm and August to grieve Erik’s death together. Therefore, it makes sense to close the loop on the Wilhelm-Sara and August-Simon undercurrents running through the series, especially when Simon and August’s conflicts drove a lot of season one and Sara and Wilhelm’s arcs were so paralleled early on.

Maybe I’m biased? As much as I enjoy characters who will move mountains for their love interests, I fall ten times harder for a character who will engage significantly with a third character who means a lot to their love interest. Jane Austen rocks this trope, honestly. I wish we’d seen it play out a little more in Young Royals.

TANGENT: This trope certainly guided heliza and I’s writing when we started Heart and Homeland. In our fic Wilhelm deliberately tries to make sure he learns things about Sara and wins her over because he cares for Simon so much, and he ends up forming a queerplatonic bond with Sara in the process. I’m so invested in their relationship, honestly! Meanwhile, August’s near-reform followed by a dramatic fall from grace (into villainy, even, because I do write a decent villain August if I say so myself) hinges on a vow he makes to Sara—one where he’ll patch things up with Simon—that he later breaks. And much earlier in the story, August does save Simon’s life while Simon’s in the process of saving Wilhelm’s, something that Sara witnesses and remembers.

Anyway, not everything needs to be like my fic. I know I’m being a little ridiculous here. Cough END TANGENT.

At the same time, it was truly surprising to me that the writers of YRS3 didn’t pull on those Sara-Wilhelm or August-Simon threads more. Especially since the creators are on record as saying they assumed the audience would assume that August would apologize to Simon and attempt to repair his harm someday. And based on Sara’s reaction to Wilhelm in the car, I guess we’re also supposed to assume they’ll be friendly and develop a deeper bond someday.

Sometimes it feels like there was meant to be more on the August-Simon and Sara-Wilhelm fronts though. There’s little hints here and there in earlier seasons. Wilhelm being a former rider when Sara loves horses. The fact that the production team cut a line from Wilhelm to Sara in the s2 field scene (the only line that they’d really exchanged thus far) as if they were saving their interaction for something big in s3. The time when August defends Simon against Vincent after the whole rowing team drama. The fact that August has a father with addiction issues in common with the Eriksson siblings. Like. Were there storylines or sequences of dialogue that got cut? What’s the behind the scenes story there?

I specifically wanted to talk about this as an issue of the choices the writers made, rather than an issue of what good or evil innately lurks in a character’s heart. Again, the writers assumed the audience would know that August has become the kind of person who will apologize to Simon and repair the harm he did. Malte talks about August’s growth in interviews—not overstating it, but being honest about how the character’s changed. And I can see plenty writing choices that support that idea of August’s growth! I think there’s a lot that fanwriters can play with and expand upon! Yet those writing choices are undermined by the writers’ choice to not close the loop on August and Simon’s earlier conflicts, and differentiate those as separate from August and Wilhelm’s conflicts. I personally tend to see this as a reflection of the writers’ failure-to-communicate rather than a reflection of the eternal evil of August’s corrupted soul or whatever, and approach my fanfic accordingly. Yet I still see some analyses argue that he’s “canonically” a villain and… it just doesn’t quite mesh with what I’m seeing from the show.

Meanwhile, maybe it’s just me who has this arbitrary goalpost that Wilhelm should have had more meaningful interaction with Sara beyond the one line they exchange and her car being his getaway. But it still feels like their s3 interaction was meant to be more significant? Sara is the beloved-then-estranged sibling of the guy Wilhelm is in love with, she is the cried-over-and-missed other best friend of Wilhelm’s best friend, she is the girl who turned Wilhelm’s jerkass playboy cousin into a puddle of vulnerable enamored goo. She is Fröken Ramirez’s favorite Lucia FFS! (Okay the last one was me being silly, but you know.) If I were Wilhelm, I might be more curious about Sara, especially after she returns to school again and is ostracized by the school population at large. And maybe Wilhelm isn’t meant to be curious about Sara, but that still feels like a thread that got dropped given how it felt like Sara and Wilhelm were deliberately kept apart in earlier seasons. (Has anyone asked the writers about this? Does anyone know the official response? I’m dying to know, now.)

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a “fuck the writers! fuck season 3 forever!” post because I genuinely did like some of the character arcs and some of the choices and I should probably rewatch season 3 over my upcoming time-away-from-work so I can post about that. But the dropped threads re: Sara-Wilhelm and Simon-August are what I ended up thinking about this morning. I really cared about how those relationships were gonna play out.

There’s a whole other post I could make about Felice but that’s for another day. Perhaps after a rewatch!

USA people! Buy NOTHING Feb 28 2025. Not anything. 24 hours. No spending. Buy the day before or after but nothing. NOTHING. February 28 2025. Not gas. Not milk. Not something on a gaming app. Not a penny spent. (Only option in a crisis is local small mom and pop. Nothing. Else.) Promise me. Commit. 1 day. 1 day to scare the shit out of them that they don't get to follow the bullshit executive orders. They don't get to be cowards. If they do, it costs. It costs.

Then, if you can join me for Phase 2. March 7 2025 thtough March 14 2025? No Amazon. None. 1 week. No orders. Not a single item. Not one ebook. Nothing. 1 week. Just 1.

If you live outside the USA boycott US products on February 28 2025 and stand in solidarity with us and also join us for the week of no Amazon.

Are you with me?

Spread the word.

YOUNG ROYALS 3.06

I don't know about you besties but I personally LOVE it when in fanfics, Wilhelm speaks or is learning spanish. Like, "I love you so much i want to be able to understand you in every single way i can"

Simon wearing the pants with the chain when Wille visited his home for the first time and then wearing them again when visiting Wille’s home for the first time.

From insta

“There are probationary employees who are new in government service and those who are labeled as probationary because of a job switch but who have continuous government service prior to their current job. If you are in that latter category and are fired as a probationary employee in these category terminations taking place now there is a good chance your termination was illegal. And it is illegal in a way that courts will vindicate. Obviously there are details and nuances about how this works. But if this applies to you you should at least speak with an attorney who knows this area of law. There’s a good chance you have a case and can receive compensation and/or reinstatement. Needless to say I am not a lawyer and I am certainly not your lawyer. But I say the above after conferring with someone who has relevant expertise and experience in this area of law.”

—

Important Note for Federal Civil Servants - TPM – Talking Points Memo

Signal boost.