But it’s so interesting, right! Within the show and outside it, the interviews with Devon show that she at least is not necessarily playing this as something romantic, and yettttt. Like, on those rewatches, you can seeee this growing curiosity and interest on her side as well! In the big subtext ships like SC or Faberry where we can point out scenes from, say, Lena or Quinn where there’s some intense gazing and it just feels romantic, but apparently not intentionally, but then you have something like this where it’s still subtext at this stage except for an eventually reciprocated canon ship. Just fun to consider and contrast all these. 😮
Hee, well, okay, what do YOU think of it, anon? I honestly just giggle when I see it, it’s just so surprising and fun with all these layers. Like, on the one hand, they’re these super inexperienced Christian kids, right, doing their little Christian project, closeted, nothing can be put out in the open, but you also have Sterling explicitly so horny for April and it is PALPABLE.
And like, the aim to please, she’s saying it half-joking but it’s literally what she is, this good kid people-pleaser of the highest order but it’s also this proud little acknowledgement of her efforts to win over April since the debate tournament, wear her down with sheer friendliness, and like, yay, progress! Progress because she wants to DATE her.
But god.
I don’t think any of us, Sterling included, expected that drawn out “Noooted”, it’s just April being her bossy, overbearing self, but it’s so unintentionally aligned with the way Sterling has been approaching this convo. I think she’s caught off guard by how much it played into her little fantasies, lol, because MAKE NO MISTAKE. This kid has been fantasizing about April and is not at all opposed to her bossy, overbearing side and it was just this odd little intersection of the two and she sharply looks over and swallows as she realizes that no, April didn’t really mean anything by it beyond their usual dynamic.
In a season filled with a lot of favorite moments for just this ship, this remains in my top few just for its sheer rewatchability value. The first time we’re here, it’s all nerves and anticipation and even worry for Sterling, rooting for her but afraid of how quickly she’s running into this. And there was some relief that there’s obviously some thawing on April’s part and even a BIT of optimism, but god, on rewatching, and knowing Aprli’s this super intense lesbian and that underneath this tentative little interaction they’re both canonically starting to see the other in a new light and developing raging crushes on each other, it’s just SO much fun
Aww, right! Yeah, absolutely, it was this tiny throwaway moment you could easily read as just humor, haha, she’s so kooky she’s saying that about Sterling who is anything but, but given what we know has just recently been going on with her (as much as it absolutely is cause to be even more anxious) there’s something so nice about the thought that something in her’s settled a bit at realizing what, uh, makes her tick. And yeah, I liked that, obviously a lot of it was foreshadowing and callbacks for the plot, but it’s a character-centric enough show that a lot of them were about them, which I’ll always love.
Hey, do you think April already had a secret crush on Sterling? Or she became attracted when Sterling kissed her?
Did April like Sterling when she was being mean to her early on?
Do you think April had a crush on Sterling? I think Sterling might have had one on April (if maybe subconsciously) when they were younger if only because in the scenes where they’re reminiscing on their childhood Sterling seems to remember little details that even April is surprised she remembers
Hmmm. That is the big question, right, was Sterling one of the Adeles, and if so, did it ever go away and if it did, when did it come roaring back?
I don’t know what the show’s version of the timeline would be, I’m not even entirely sure of my own thoughts, but here would be my current feelings:
In the first few eps, there’s a genuine resentment from April toward Sterling, for the reasons I mentioned earlier and obviously the 5th grade thing. Mixed up with all that was probably also a buried attraction, Sterling’s pretty, but she’s also a good enough student to be an actual rival and on some level that’s something April responds to. April also seems strong-minded enough to appreciate how principled Sterling is, except it makes her even more resentful, thinking it’s fake.
So you enter ep 6 with this swirling maelstrom. teen hormones, resentment past and present, having to suppress any gay feelings, probably hiding them from even herself, the recent agitation of her father’s situation and the resulting social humiliation. I don’t think she’d like, been sitting there examining her feelings and being like, omg, I have a crush, damn, I wish I didn’t have this crush on this snake, I think she just had complicated messy feelings about Sterling, former friend and current rival, who can hold her own against her but also keeps reaching out and being nice. And then it all comes to a head at the competition, where she’s actually teaming up with her, having to think of her as an ally (if grudging), and then the 5th Grade Betrayal comes up again and Sterling seems to genuinely have no idea about it and immediately and earnestly wants to apologize. When Sterling refused to use the info against Craig, April was furious in the moment but I think that really was when everything really changed.
She’s yelling at Sterling, right, angry at her and also at herself for trusting her to do this and being hurt again and you can see that moment where she catches herself and pulls back:
As much as we (understandably!) talk about Sterling’s reaction here, April was having a Moment of her own. I mean, don’t think she went home and had a Clueless fountains realization, I’m in love with Sterling Wesley, but I think she did realize she’d been overreacting, over a lot of things, as she said in 1×08, her anger had been “misdirected”, and that might even mean that Sterling had been an Adele. But now the realization gave her a lot of room to think about Sterling’s good qualities without always stopping short because of the bad (or what she thought were bad). Because with everything else, refusing to use that info against Craig was actually super admirable.
I think a lot of Sterling’s flirting over their project actually DID get a response from April, the way she grudgingly admitted she didn’t think Luke was right for Sterling, the whole conversation about Naomi and Ruth with her confused about Sterling’s motives but also curious in so many ways about her thoughts on it. At that stage and with the specific complexity of this situation, it’s hard to really define it, I don’t think she was in a place where she had fully decided her feelings and was just waiting for a sign to act on them, I think even then she was ready to remain alone for the whole of high school, at the very least, buuuut, to answer all your questions, I think she absolutely did have increasingly positive and warm feelings about Sterling at that point, maybe some wistful what-ifs, and then the kiss opened up a whole world of possibilities.
That’s an interesting observation, last anon, about Sterling having a thing for April and that’s why she remembered things like what she’d quoted to Luke. It’s definitely possible, I do think she has a great memory in general and can probably quote all kinds of stories like that, but that was SO specific. i do agree, though, if it was there, it was subconscious.
Can I just say, I love that everyone’s calling it the Doritos scene, that’s literally what I named this clip.
Uh, huh. It looks like it! But I think it was just a little quirk, either she was thinking about saying something to interrupt this tirade (and get April’s attention all back on herrrrr) or she was doing this kind of unconscious mimicking thing with April she seems to do, like touching her hair:
Although, to your point, she’s touching her hair because she’s imagining touching April’s, soooo I guess we’re back to your theory. 😀
