#Ayub young royals

[love-isthebestthingwedo]

Simon's Month 2024 💜 Day 28: birthday @youngroyals-events

[young-royals-confessions]

obsessed with ayub being a third wheel to wilmon bc he was also a third wheel with marcus and just something about him seeing the contrast of simon with marcus and with wille makes me emotional bc the difference is so clear

[omar-bb]

"The only one who can decide what you wanna do is you."

[waltybrainrot]

first and last appearances

(i am so sorry madison but getting a flattering ss of the last scene was impossible)

(thanks for this idea @zee-has-commitment-issues)

[sflow-er]

Happy Friends' Day!

Today is Valentine's Day in most parts of the world, but in my country, the focus is actually on friends instead of romantic partners. So if you don't vibe with Valentine's Day and even if you do, today is also a good day to celebrate the people who are always there to...

...tease you for getting into some silly new thing...

...welcome your new friends from the thing into their group (and tease you for the one you're very clearly crushing on)...

...and cheer you on when you don't feel cut out for the thing because even if it's silly to them, it's your thing now and they want you to succeed!

[caramelpenguin]

[Simon and Ayub sitting together, with a pile of rocks in front of Ayub] Ayub, gesturing to empty space in front of Simon: Okay, dude, on this side are all the times I've gotten mad at you for having a problem. Zero times. Ayub, gesturing to the rocks: And on THIS side are all the times I was upset because you had a problem and you didn't tell me, so I couldn't help. Ayub: Now. What do we do with problems? Simon: Work harder to hide them so you won't be sad. Ayub: Ayub: I'm getting another rock.

[theaviatorthatcouldnotfly]

from the setup of this shot, it looks a bit like sara and simon are hanging out at the party (seeing as if they weren't simon would probably be on the opposite side of the room) AND ayub is there with them- look at the hair and the side profile- and he's talking to sara. so assuming this party happens towards the end of the season, somewhere around episode 5, I think it's safe to assume that simon and sara are at least amicable again!

(and if ayub is there... maybe rosh will be, too????)

bonus: assuming that really is sara and ayub with simon, they're gonna be direct witnesses of this Wilmon Staring Contest! and if the hallway scene does take place after this, they're likely gonna notice that simon and wille have both disappeared. hmmmmm

[zee-has-commitment-issues]

I want to know how the conversation between Rosh and Ayub went where they decided which one of them was going to risk having the Prince of Sweden on the back of their bike without a helmet on.

[heliza24]

Simon doesn't repress his emotions, actually

There seems to be a widely held fanon understanding of Simon that goes something like this: Simon hides and represses his emotions, and his relationship with Wilhelm is what opens him up. I disagree with this characterization. In fact, I think Simon is actually very in touch with his emotions, and expresses them openly to his family and friends. Wilhelm and August are much better examples of emotional repression than Simon is, and if anything, the show is commenting on how the restrictive class system that raised Wilhelm and August fosters emotional repression. 

I can think of lots of examples where Simon is very open with people he loves and trusts, even when that openness might lead to conflict. I think he is really pretty open with Sara in a lot of ways. Their argument towards the end of season 1 is such a perfect encapsulation of this. He expresses how much he loves Sara and wants a good relationship with her, and also how frustrated he is by how she is pulling away from the family. 

He is also consistently open and unguarded with Rosh and Ayub. He tells them about how he’s feeling about his relationship with Wilhelm in season 1, about how he feels during the fallout from the sex tape, about his changing feelings about Marcus in season 2, and about the prospect of getting back together with Wilhelm.  The scene where Simon falls asleep on the phone with Ayub is one of the most tender, emotionally open scenes I’ve ever seen on television. 

Simon also channels his emotions into his music, which is a healthy and appropriate way to deal with the heartache he’s experiencing. We see him slowly crafting his song over the course of season 2, and returning to the keyboard when he’s feeling especially distraught. Creation of art like this requires self introspection, and I think Simon has that in spades.

What Simon doesn’t do, especially in season 2, is confide in Wilhelm. But this isn’t because Simon is afraid to talk about his feelings at all. He’s making the conscious decision to withdraw from Wilhelm, because Wilhelm deeply hurt Simon and betrayed his confidence at the end of Season 1. Drawing conscious boundaries like that also requires self introspection; working to keep yourself emotionally safe is not the same thing as repressing your emotions.

I think it’s easy to interpret Simon not talking to Wilhelm as Simon squashing his emotions because Wilhelm is the protagonist of the show, so we naturally see the world of Young Royals through his eyes. So when Simon doesn’t share with Wilhelm, it feels like he is also refusing to share with us, the viewer. But that’s why Lisa and the writers chose to create Rosh and Ayub, so that Simon would have confidants that he trusted, that were outside of the hostile class system of Hillerska. They are great characters, but they’re also devices that allow Simon to show the audience how he is truly feeling. 

In my post about Simon and radical acceptance, I talked about how I see Simon’s arc in season 2 being about accepting that he is still in love with Wilhelm. I should maybe make it clear that I don’t think that he doesn’t understand or express how he’s feeling at the beginning of season 2. He tells Rosh and Ayub that he is still stuck on Wilhelm, and he starts writing his song to express his heartbreak. But at the beginning of season 2 he is trying to move on from those feelings, and leave the drama with Wilhelm behind.  The change comes in the way that he accepts that he is in love with Wilhelm by the end of season 2, and decides that it is worth walking towards their relationship, even if it could lead to him getting hurt.  I think as a fandom we need to be careful not to reduce all of Simon’s emotions to whether or not he is actively pursuing Wilhelm. He is a complete character who expresses his emotions whether or not he’s with Wilhelm.

It kind of baffles me that Simon gets brought up when we talk about emotional repression, but Wilhelm and August are never mentioned. Both were raised in families where stoicism is valued above all else. (This is especially true in the Royal Family). Both are grieving (Wilhelm for Erik, and August for Erik and his dad), but we hardly hear them talk about this after the initial loss, even as it continues to motivate their actions. Both have physical manifestations of the emotions they are trying to repress (Wilhelm has physical symptoms of anxiety; August punishes his body through disordered eating in an attempt to maintain control of his emotions.)  Wilhelm is eventually able to open up to Boris, but it takes a lot of coaxing over several sessions. August flat out refuses to be honest with Boris at all.  

When @bluedalahorse and I were discussing this idea of emotional repression, the male characters’ relationship to anger came up a lot. I think the stereotype of emotional repression in men is that they are pressured to appear perfectly still and stoic at all times. But in reality, anger in men is often viewed as neutral or logical, and is therefore the socially acceptable method for engaging with any and all emotions. 

I think a large part of Simon’s character is a sense of righteous anger. We see this come up in different ways for him. He gets angry at the class system of Hillerska, at his dad, at August, at Marcus, and at Wilhelm. He often manages to translate that anger into an assertion of boundaries, which is a healthy way to use those feelings. He manages to set up boundaries with Wilhelm and with Marcus, for instance. And even when he does explode in a way that is unhelpful or dangerous, he has Rosh and Ayub to call him out and reel him back in, like when he jumps on August in season 1. I’m not saying Simon has a perfect relationship with anger; he definitely doesn’t. But I think he has a much healthier relationship with it than August or even Wilhelm, who uses anger as a substitute for sadness and grief.

August spends most of season 1 translating his distress into being a bully to the boys in Forest Ridge and shitty boyfriend to Felice. Shooting and posting the video also feels like a way to channel his sadness through anger to me. He records Wilhelm the same night that he admits that his dad’s suicide made him feel guilty. This is the only time that we hear him talk about his dad at all, and he immediately covers up this moment of emotional vulnerability with an act of aggression against the person he shared it with.

Wilhelm has a really hard time dealing with the sadness he feels at the loss of Simon in season 2. Wilhelm spent so long repressing his emotions, and finally felt like he could confide in someone when he met Simon. But in season 2, that one emotional outlet is taken away from him (with good reason from Simon’s point of view), so instead he lashes out, first at his mom and then at August, neither of whom are directly responsible for the breakup in the same way that Wilhelm is. 

So if we’re going to talk about emotional repression and growth towards openness and vulnerability in Young Royals, I think we should be talking mainly about Wilhelm and August. A big question of the show is if these two characters are going to arrive at a place where they no longer repress their emotions. Right now Wilhelm is moving in the right direction, and August is backsliding. But it will be really interesting to track how they evolve in season 3. 

[young-royals-confessions]

One of my absolute favorite scenes of the show isn't a Wilmon scene. It's the one where Simon comes home late from rowing practice and Ayub and Rosh are sitting in his room.

There is so fucking much going on there and most of it non-verbally. I cannot believe how good that scene is and how superbly acted by all three of them (Rosh especially).

Are we loosing you? Are you becoming one of them? Are we not good enough for you anymore? Do you think less of us because we'll probably be staying in Bjärstad for all our lives?

Do you think less of me because I don't want to stay? I'm experiencing new things that you are not part of - does this mean we're drifting apart? Do you think less of me when I befriend any of the rich kids? What if I like parts of that other world? Will you hate me for that? Will we stay friends when I get out of here and leave you behind?

[springjjjj]

What makes this declaration scene even more prettier (for me) is it's because Ayub got to say this lines:

On the earlier episode he stated Wilhelm was toxic so it was a feel good kind of thing for him (and Rosh) to witness what kind of person Simon is to Wilhelm. And how serious their relationship is to the point abdication is part of the vocabulary between them.

Though I cannot blame Ayub for thinking this way, he is a friend who could only get to hear one side, what would he know? Of course he'd defend his friend and curse whoever hurts them. So in the final season, I do hope we get an interaction again where they could have proper conversation.

[kruemel8]

Where are they?

[sflow-er]

Hi! 3 and 7 for the ask game?

Hello! Thank you so much for the numbers!

3. Favorite platonic friendship

I hope you don't mind me giving several answers here!

My number one is Sara and Felice. It's not only an amazingly written, genuinely character-driven friendship that evolves through the seasons and fuels both of their own story arcs and individual growth...but also something kind of subversive to see in a story about teenage girls. In so many stories, the popular girl would have also been a mean girl, and Sara would have got the blame for August kissing her in S1, but instead, they made Felice a sweetheart and the girls stick together. In so many stories, their falling out would have been treated as lesser than a romantic breakup, but instead, it was explicitly confirmed as equal or even more substantial in S3. There's just something really beautiful, relatable, and validating about how Sara and Felice's friendship is written throughout the show.

My runner-up is Simon and Ayub, who as you said are just so soft and funny together. Love to see such a sweet, non-toxic, emotionally intimate portrayal of friendship between teenage guys!

And I can't resist adding that I'm partial to the dynamic between Henry and Simon, which started out as starkly antagonistic in S1 (controversial opinion maybe, but Simon did attack Henry's family first) and softened from S2 on. As a politically active leftist who has seen the divisions deepen in real life, I'm nostalgic for a world where those on the opposite ends of the political spectrum could still come together as people. I get that it wasn't necessarily the message the show wanted to leave us with, but even in S3, I did read Henry as having accepted Simon as "their very own soap-box socialist." He seemed sincere asking how the labour movement celebrated on 1 May, and he included Simon in "we're brothers" when interrupting Wilmon in the library. I love that Simon had won him over.

To some extent, Henry seemed to have grown on Simon as well. I would've liked to see an explicit reconciliation between them (and I also wrote one in my post-S1 fic), but Simon didn't seem to need it. I do think there were too many differences for him to see Henry even as a casual friend, but their interactions were amiable towards the end. Hell, he was nowhere near as snarky as he could have been about Henry offering money for the half-eaten lollipop!

So yeah, I think their dynamic is intriguing and something that can definitely be explored further in fic.

7. Character you didn’t initially like/love but have now warmed up to

Stella! I strongly disliked her mean girl ways in S1 - her dig about welfare scammers with a totally unprovoked glare at Simon and Sara, and the meaningful look between her and Fredrika when Sara said she might have to leave Hillerska. In S2, I found myself just waiting for her to turn against Sara, which she very quickly did at the end. Despite putting on a thin veil of female solidarity earlier in the season, she was immediately ready to cast Sara out for (she assumed) getting with Felice's ex, and she even said that thing about secrets when Sara had kept hers. In S3, I liked her little flirtation with Rosh, but then she went and acted like a total asshole at the neon party so...yeah, I did not come out of the final season liking her.

But then. Then there was some discussion on here about the disproportionate amount of hate that Stedrika and Felicia got after S2, which I always found disgraceful even though I didn't much care for Stella or Stedrika. After answering a couple of anons about it and defending the point of having them in the show and even shipping them, I had a sort of epiphany. I realised my own past experiences with mean girls were seriously clouding my view and making me withhold the same grace from her that I readily gave to the male characters. At the end of the day, I still think she is objectively meaner than Henry, but she is a compelling character all the same. I'm even writing her into a fic now!

(Also, it definitely helped that someone on here managed to catch a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of her and Fredrika kissing at the party before Rosh even gets there. That doesn't excuse her behaviour but does explain it.)

Wow this really turned into a ramble...! Thank you again for enabling it haha.

I'm still open to more asks if anyone wants to send them! (Already answered: 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21)

[kwonzoshi]

Wille: I could be free, with you.... That was it. *walks away* Ayub: Did he say he would give up the crown for you?!

[books-books-smolderinglooks]

I just.. really really love The Gang. The way they both listen and are just there for Simon and no judgement and even though they gave terrible advice (rebound?!), it was to help their heartbroken friend. 🥺 But just the way Rosh doesn't judge him, criticize, push him but just listens (and that look!) when he states - why can't I fall in love with him and just knows what's up with Simon (he's not Wille and clearly he's something special to you). The way Ayub just listens, offers genuine advice and ultimately states, well this is happening to you and only you know truly what's up and I support you wholeheartedly because both of them do. They dooooo! 😭 No matter it's a prince because they love their friend and whatever happens they'll support him. Because that's what growing up is about.. living and learning and experiences but if you have friends like that, man oh man, does it make things easier. I just really, really love The Gang. 🧡

[young-royals-confessions]

My Ayub headcanon is he makes video games! I could see him making RPG video games like Undertale or Stardew