#i wish more people that recognise how entrenched the idea of love and friendship is in st would apply that thinking the other way as well

[verdantmoontruther]

i think the entire point of billy’s character was to show the results of what it’s like to go without affectionate love. like, every other character - every single other character, apart from, like, vecna, which is sort of telling - has someone that loves them for more than what they can give them. the kids have each other, and they have at least one parent, and they have siblings, and they have steve, and steve has robin and nancy and jonathan. they have people whose love for them isn’t conditional on something, on time or good behaviour or something transactional.

apart from his memories as a really young child, billy doesn’t have anything like that. he is exposed to only two kind of love: abusive love, the kind that comes with curses and slaps and fear but is “for his own good” and done “because i love you”; and sexual love, lust. to me this means that he has trouble viewing himself as a real human person: outside of what he can give (or not give) to other people, he essentially ceases to exist. no-one is there to care or worry for him just because he is there to be cared and worried about. it’s why he’s so sensitive; not empathetic, maybe, not even sympathetic, but sensitive, touchy. anything happens that feels to raw and personal and he’s in tears because he’s literally got no strength built up for that kind of thing.

that’s what made el’s little “she was really pretty” moment so pivotal; when you are starved of that essential form of love, affection, being shown even the smallest fraction of it feels like salvation, like the quenching of thirst. euphoric. someone that didn’t want anything from him seeing things from his perspective just once was enough for him to lay down his life for her. it was a moment when love was about him, rather than anybody else.

it’s very important that, when we talk about abuse, we also talk about love, because they are two sides of the same warped coin. the way that jonathan and will, despite growing up in an abusive household, are still kind and gentle, because they knew they always had someone in their corner, someone that would stand up for them and never give up, someone that kicked their piece of shit dad out of the house and could recognise her son just by his heartbeat; the way that el still gets so so angry sometimes and lashes out and attacks when she feels cornered, doesn’t know right from wrong sometimes because she was hardly taught the difference, but then suddenly there was someone there to pick her up when she was at her worst, house her and clothe her and teach her and protect her, and people who thought about her when she wasn’t there and missed her and it made her better, more perceptive, more clear headed; and the way that henry and billy never really got any of that and its absence tortured them into self destruction.

it’s like whatever but, also. food for thought