Oscar heaved a sigh of defeat, plonking himself at the edge of the bed. “Well, he locked his door again-.. and he’s either ignoring me, or he’s got his headphones in, or both.”
“What the hell happened yesterday?” Courtney asked, rolling toward Oscar sleepily.
Oscar shrugged; he wasn’t entirely sure. The whole evening had been a disaster from start to finish. “I don’t know, he got in a fight with that kid, didn’t he-.. and my old neighbour saw us n’ decided to reminisce about me fucking OD’ing.”
“He didn’t actually say that, did he?” Courtney’s brows knitted together in shock.
Oscar shook his head, “No, he just said some shit about how he thought I was dead in that grotty bathroom at the Mill-.. I thought Ivan n’ Rhys found me but I guess he must’ve been there too, who knows.”
“What an idiot, bringing that up at the school gates.” Courtney tutted.
Oscar nodded in agreement, pausing for a moment before suggesting, “Maybe I should explain what actually happened? He knew I was lying.”
Courtney stiffened, “No, he’s too young!”
“I hated it when my parents blatantly lied to me though, I’m telling you; he fucking knows.”
Courtney hummed, scratching Oscar’s back thoughtfully. “I’m more worried about him fighting.”
Oscar pondered for a moment before replying, “It sounds like he was just standing up for himself. If he makes a habit of it, then we’ll worry.”
“Yeah, okay…”
Oscar and Courtney glanced at one another as Robin unlocked his door and bolted to the bathroom, hastily locking that door behind him too. With a quick shove, Courtney hissed, “Go, go!”
Robin leapt across the landing and threw himself into his room, his sigh of relief swiftly retreated in on itself as he swung his door shut, however; Oscar had outsmarted him, waiting behind the door.
“I’m not going!” Robin yelled, “I’m sick…”
Oscar calmly shook his head from side to side, “That’s not gonna fly, is it? We both know you’re not sick…”
Robin clenched his fists tight enough for his knuckles to turn white, desperately willing himself to vomit on command, faint, have some kind of fit-.. anything would do.
“If you’re worried about-…”
“I don’t give a shit about Levi.” Robin spat.
Oscar frowned worriedly; he knew Robin hadn’t wanted their holiday to end, or to go back to school, but this abrupt fit of anger was highly uncharacteristic. Surely it was still too early to be worried about the dreaded P word? He had the faint beginnings of bags under his little eyes too-.. which were red raw and puffy, as though he’d spent more time crying last night than he had sleeping.
“What’s the matter, buddy?” Oscar asked gently, gesturing toward Robin with an outstretched hand.
Robin shrugged a shoulder as he crawled beside Oscar, suddenly feeling guilty for yelling. What if his father died right after he’d said something awful and mean? He’d never forgive himself.
“Is it something in particular? A bit of everything?”
Robin remained silent, anxiously nibbling at a stray strip of skin on his bottom lip.
“Talk to me…” Oscar pleaded.
Robin wriggled away from the comfort of his father’s arms and curled into a ball. What the hell was he supposed to say? That he couldn’t sleep all night because he kept seeing Oscar’s lifeless body on a bathroom floor, on a stretcher, in a hospital-.. dying in various awful ways again and again until he wasn’t sure what the difference was between someone else’s memories and his own imagination. That he just wanted his brain to stop and for everyone to just shut up-.. just for once, please.
Oscar didn’t know what to do with Robin’s prolonged silence. He desperately wanted to explain what Larry had been talking about, but Courtney was probably right about him being too young. Besides, he didn’t even know if that was the issue. It could’ve been Larry, or the fight with Levi, or the fact that he missed Alex-.. all of the above, something else entirely?
“I know this Levi kid is probably doing your head in, but you can’t just go around hitting people-.. it’s not okay.”
Robin knew full well that violence wasn’t the answer, but he couldn’t deny that it’d felt a little satisfying to take his frustrations out on Levi. Any normal child might’ve asked if their parents were angry with them-.. except Robin wasn’t normal, and he already knew that Oscar wasn’t mad, nor his mother, so he kept his mouth shut.
Grasping at straws, Oscar cast his mind back to when he was a child. Whenever he was in one of his moods, as his mother always put it, he just needed to know that someone would listen, and he certainly didn’t want to be yelled at or mithered-.. but most of all, he just wanted to be left alone, at least for a little while…
“You can have one day, okay? Just one.” Oscar acquiesced.
Robin barely moved, giving the tiniest of nods in response.
“Alright.” Oscar sighed inwardly, tussling Robin’s ginger curls with affection before reluctantly leaving him be.
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always always thinking about your post that was like “normal has a very high threshold for being loved that is nearly impossible to meet and he will do *anything* to feel validated” and then today in the discord during the part where willy reveals it could’ve been either normal or scary, will said “willy fucked up normal would burn the entire world down for the tiniest crumb of validation” and just. screaming screaming forever about this boy’s inability to ever feel loved enough, he is every webweaving post about always devouring and never feeling full from love, this boy is RAVENOUS and it’s hard to understand how the oak good-boy morality can even supersede that, he has every trait imaginable to become a villain and it feels like the only thing preventing that is the desire to be good, bc tbh I don’t think he wants to be good more than he wants to be loved
SORRY FOR TAKING ALMOST TWO FUCKING WEEKS TO ANSWER THIS ANON!
Eheh, firstly *thank you* because this message is very sweet and made me extremely happy. The post you’re talking about took a good while to write and came with a lot of anxiety so it’s very nice to hear that you’ve kept fragments of it with you, I really do appreciate that!!! 💜
I’d debated for a bit on answering this privately to be honest with you, as not every fire I’ve sparked is one whose flames I wish to fan, so to speak, but everything you wrote is just so on-point and well-articulated that I couldn’t resist. Otherwise. *Ahem*. I know it's very very silly to respond to a response about an essay with what is essentially another essay, but you see, in thinking of how to answer your message, I got a little caught amongst many other things that have been on my mind... And I've seen some takes that have annoyed me for one reason or another and couldn't decide how to address those and. Well. Ultimately I decided that the stuff I wanted to talk about was connected *enough* to the stuff brought up in your message (as well as in my original post) that I could put it all together, soooooooo if you'll entertain me rambling once more~
Let's start by saying that, I recently saw a take going around stating that “Scary’s internal issues caused her external issues while Normal’s external issues caused his internal issues” (among a number of other statements that I frankly found pretty questionable), and I must say, for reasons that I hope to explain, I disagree with this assertion on both accounts!
In Scary’s case, this statement completely erases and undermines the trauma of her dad walking out, and what that does not only to her confidence and sense of self-worth, but to her relationship with her mother as well. And the degree of the impact of this external trauma on her internal view towards and treatment of herself is clear as day just by looking at the stark contrast between Terri and Scary. Scary (Terri) is someone who once had confidence in herself and could find validation and motivation internally, most recently evidenced by Terri's words of encouragement to Scary whilst under beacon of hope:
But then her dad leaves, and things get harder at home, and Scary starts to fight with her mom (her mom who she once called her best friend!!!), and she starts to feel worthless and unlovable- something that only gets worse with time as Willy alienates her from the rest of the group, case in point with this revealing exchange:
No one’s told her they’re proud of her in a long time (sound familiar??),
her teachers at school shut her down when she tries to speak her mind or otherwise dismiss her behavior as “acting out” seemingly without any sort of intervention or attempt to actually check in with her,
[the above teen fact is from episode 31]
Only then, in response to her diminished sense of self-worth does she begin to cut herself off from the rest of the world and from her former self, most importantly quitting soccer (which we know matters a lot to her!),
and those things leave her even more vulnerable and supportless and ashamed. Not to mention all the mixed emotions she must feel when Terry walks into the picture, between actually liking him but not being able to see his love as genuine due to her relationship with her bio dad and all the frustration and shame she must feel as a result.
This is not to claim that Scary’s internal struggles do not inform a lot of what happens to her and the people around her over the run of the season- of course they do! (In fact some of the later things mentioned above are examples of that- I guess I got a bit carried away). But Scary’s major internal struggles that affect her throughout the course of the adventure are preceded by a slew of important external events that negatively affect her psyche and are in many cases out of her control. Scary’s internal struggles did not originate in a vacuum, and I absolutely would not say that they “caused” the bulk of what she has been through.
Unlike Scary, Norm’s excessive dependency on external validation to feel like he’s worth anything begins when he is very young. [Emphasis on “excessive” here, since obviously everyone requires validation from others to some degree, the point being just that this trait is so very pronounced in Normal and, as I argued a bit in the post anon is referring to, usually the most important factor informing his courses of action, superseding (but not implying the absence of) any desire to be good and help those around him. Will’s statement (the one which anon quotes) seems to corroborate this.] We know that things go so far back from Sparrow’s account in episode 17:
It’s important that this is about Normal’s kindergarten experiences too, because it tells us that Normal’s predominant internal issues go back farther than this and hence were not caused in and of themselves by his peers- instead being perhaps more fundamental to who he is as a person.
This is not to say that external events do not exacerbate the state of Normal’s psyche. In his youth most notably, we can infer that he interpreted Hero’s treatment (which of course he did not understand at the time to be her training) as favoritism, and I think it’s pretty clear by this point that his resentment of her is tied to the degradation of self-esteem that he experienced as a result.
Then of course there is the dance. Sparrow’s words to Normal during the dance obviously consist of a very pivotal moment for Norm within the context of the season, but I think it’s important to remember and not erase the fact that Normal’s internal issues with validation do not begin at the dance, as established in the kindergarten case but also further exemplified by Norm’s primary motive in becoming the school’s mascot in the first place (to get everybody to like him). I think it’s important to remember this in part since it informs so much of Normal’s reaction to what his father has to say, immediately afterwards but also throughout the whole rest of the season. No kid wants to hear that their parent isn’t proud of them, but the severity of the response to this sort of statement is going to vary drastically depending on the person, and in Norm’s case, given his natural disposition, it’s devastating. [and I swear there’s a teen talk moment where Will says basically this but I can’t find it for the life of me rn damn it lol maybe I’ll edit in the clip later if I do]
Of course in this specific case, one can still mostly say that the problem stems from outside of Normal, and that his preexisting issues exacerbate his response but are definitely not the cause of it. Outside of this instance, however, this is not always true! In fact, Normal’s excessive dependency on external validation and related rejection sensitivity (negatively) inform a large amount of his interactions with those around him, particularly Lincoln and Taylor (imagine me underlining “Taylor” several times as I say this). Truthfully that’s a whole ramble on its own, but with respect to more recent events, I have to admit that I was genuinely quite irked to find a lot of people blaming Taylor and Lincoln for Norm’s response to their uh. mech shenanigans in episode 37, choosing to frame this as an act of moral failing or even malice on their part, rather than a reflection of Normal’s own issues and room for growth. Lincoln and Taylor were simply focused on the mission at hand, and there was no good reason realistically speaking to have expected them to be aware of Normal’s emotional state at that point in time (or in general, to be aware of the jealousy their bonding moments evoke within Norm- particularly when Normal consistently fails to communicate and address those emotions with them in a manner that is direct and not passive-aggressive). Lincoln in particular is very clearly stated as not even having fun in that moment, very understandably being focused instead on the fact that his friend Scary is around his father, who he just witnessed, you know, murder someone. This is not an instance of the world going against Norm for no good reason other than to put him through it, this is a very clear example of Normal’s internal issues affecting the way he perceives external events in a manner that is not actually very reflective of the reality of the situation, and which of course feeds in further to his cycle of self-loathing (and I won’t go into it here since I sort of did in the post anon is responding to- but Normal’s negative reaction to Lincoln breaking the pick to gain Scary’s trust is another important example of this [tbh all the more so now coupled with the hypocrisy of how he handles the anchor in Goofs but that’s a tangent]). As aforementioned, Norm also struggles a good chunk of the time to actually explain his feelings in a manner that is direct and does not rely on blaming others for not picking up on his dejection, as exemplified in how this discussion goes with Lincoln in the most recent episode:
The treatment from fandom of this whole instance being reflective of a reoccurring issue I tend to have with a large chunk of the fandom, wherein the collective memory of canon tends towards getting warped to account for Norm’s mental state. Sometimes that’s hailing him as some morally-perfect, emotional reincarnate of Henry (as though the pride layer didn’t happen, as though Goofs didn’t happen, as though all of Norm’s relationship with Taylor isn’t what it is- …I feel like I should stop implying stuff about the significance Taylor and Norm’s relationship and not elaborating but it really is an essay in and of itself LOL), other times it’s just downright turning everyone around Normal into a villain, a persistent phenomenon which I sort of illustrated in the above example but also touched upon in an earlier essay (arguing that despite the fandom’s quick jump to villainize him- Lincoln breaking the guitar pick would prove to be an act of love). Sparrow also takes a good brunt of the damage from this. Sparrow saying he’s not proud of Normal gets turned into Sparrow not loving Normal (despite an abundance of proof in canon to the contrary), his apology for what he said and the support he shows for Norm in light of his alternative plan on dealing with the Doodler are completely ignored by most of the fandom, as are any other demonstrations of emotional availability and shows of growth that he displays throughout the course of the season, and the true motives behind Sparrow’s insistence on Normal living a “normal” life- to protect him from the childhood that he but also that Hero had to undergo- is somehow framed as Sparrow actually holding some kind of favoritism for Hero. It’s as though there is a complete inability on a larger scale within the fandom to see Sparrow as separate character outside of the filter of Norm’s emotions, and the other teens (including Hermie) get a similar if less pronounced treatment.
[Actually, I would argue that to some degree all of the kiddads except Terry (and Lark since he’s not officially a dad) tend to be perceived and criticized predominantly through the noise of their respective child’s emotions/behavior. In Grant’s case, Lincoln 1. spends a good part of the earlier half of the season asserting that his dads are the best dads in the world despite everything going on and 2. has a very unfortunate tendency to compartmentalize and push down his negative emotions as much as possible- in typical Wilson fashion- so the complexity and severity of Lincoln’s issues with his dad generally go understated, and only now that Lincoln has begun to be more vocal and upfront about his issues has some of Grant’s parenting finally begun to come under fire, and even then mostly only his more recent transgressions. In Taylor’s case, Taylor’s emotional security/stability and general fondness for his dad mean that Nicky is being hailed by many people as “the best dad” where in fact Nicky- while certainly helping the teens out in many ways and perhaps even acting as a friend to them- has done just about jack shit for Taylor as a *father*, and really if Taylor has anyone to thank for being as well-adjusted as he is now, it’s definitely his mom! But I digress.]
Normal and Scary are very similar, but the way fandom treats them is very different. People (mostly) seem to be able to acknowledge that Scary, in spite of her mistakes and flaws, is a scared, tired kid with a good heart who is capable and deserving of love. In Normal’s case, I just can’t seem to shake the impression that the fandom (in general) would rather strip Norm of all the things that make his character complex, and nuanced, and flawed, reducing him to an utterly uninteresting husk of a character before depicting him as anything other than a perfect goody-two-shoes who has never hurt anybody in his entire life or daring to acknowledge the fact that “Normal has been through a lot, is hurt, and deserves a good support system and emotional validation” and “Normal can at many times be his own worst enemy, sometimes makes mistakes that affect those around him, and has room to grow emotionally” are notions that can and should coexist. Or at least, that's my two cents on the matter.
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