Alright alright alright im ready for the amazing fic writers to do their magic and churn out these shelby and toni fics, im so ready and excited
Ooh, yes, I hope there are some good ones. I was thinking, as a complete non-writer, lol, how much fun it must be to play with characters who’re so well-defined and characterized. Each of them is such a specific and almost literal archetype, gifted and rebellious desi girl, angry jock lesbian, closeted religious girl, etc, but is so fleshed out, not in a way to even necessarily subvert them, often the only subversion is that there is no subversion, like Fatin and Shelby not being secretly vicious mean girls, they’re all just exactly what it said on the wrapper, but people. They react so consistently within their characterizations, not always in the right way or the best way, but in very believable natural ways.
In fact, the literal premise of the show is that what if you take these characters to this place and do this thing to them, how will they react? And then it backs that up by exploring the characters and dynamics more than anything, I love that. There are some shows which are soooo character serving plot and this is the total opposite. Obviously there’s stuff to cover in terms of the experiment and what happened after the shark, but there can be so much in between.
i always like to read your opinions so what you think about shelby x toni, we can see very clear that writers used every fucking romantic trope with them, and they are THE romantic couple, but when you think their feelings change or start? you think both were sexually attracted since minute 1? that despite allthat “hate” toni feel one of the reasons was because she cant handle to be attracted to a girl like shelby who is all the opposite of her? can not wait to see how their rel grows in s2.
Aw, thank you! Um, hmm. I’m actually so bad at these because, as I’ve said, after so many years of seeing subtext where it wasn’t written, I always underestimate when it canonically is there (and not wishful thinking) until it’s completely unavoidable. So normally I’d be like, oh, ep 7, but tbh, the way it was written…well, hmm.
First, it’s so different, right, from m/f crushes when your very approach to a dynamic is always knowing the possibility’s there (even when it turns out not to be, heh). So I think for Toni, an appreciation for Shelby’s objective hotness (because…come on) was completely drowned out by her dislike of what she saw Shelby as, as you said, a girl like that, and then that was just exacerbated by her jealousy over Martha. Anything more was never on the cards for her so she didn’t have to think deeper on it. And yeah, people can crush on their straight friends and popular kids and celebrities but that’s pretty different from a random stranger you’ve literally just met. I do think you’re not wrong, in that one of the things Toni resented Shelby for was that she found her so attractive, but at that point, that’d have been minor compared to her overall resentment.
For Shelby, despite her own conflicted feelings about sexuality and religion, the possibility was there from the start. She harbored no dislike of what Toni represented, and in fact, her resentment or jealousy would have been of Toni’s freedom and bravery, so she was freer to just…like her. She was of course irritated by Toni’s attitude once it manifested so aggressively against her but I think she was still curious and intrigued and the kind of person who, attraction or not, would have still wanted to win her over. A people-pleaser, compared to Toni’s very defensive hurt-people-before-they-hurt-you vibe.
And then as the days went on and Shelby kept on being so upbeat, I think Toni was impressed but it also made her angrier? As if it just confirmed everything she was thinking. But you know, it’s interesting, we all–me included–have talked and joked about the change in Toni’s attitude once the kiss happened, but rewatching, it was actually a little before, no? Like we were saying, Toni thought of Shelby more as an idea, the kind of person she seemed like, this privileged religious pretty Southern girl, who could afford to be positive about everything because why not, everything went her way. But when Leah publicly accused Shelby of being a mole, after days of Shelby silently sucking up not just Toni’s ire but everyone’s, because of the homophobia, Shelby pretty understandably snapped and then left with that parting remark directly at Toni, you could see the shock and shame and concern:
It’s like…you know how you could vent at parents or maybe other adults or people online because you thought it didn’t really affect them and then once they reacted, not in anger but in hurt, it was like, oh shit, they’re an actual person? I feel like this is that moment for Toni. Where she realizes that, fine, as justified as her reaction about the homophobia may have been, she’s been hating on Shelby for a while for a bunch of things that aren’t her fault.
And then you can see, when she goes off to collect wood, I’m not even entirely surely it’s a coincidence that she finds Shelby, but she’s a lot nicer then than at any point before, making her own overtures and small talk. Enough for Shelby to reach out about the homophobia which Toni of course still firmly shut down, but not nearly as angrily as she might have on any other day. Seeing Shelby like that probably made her easier for a person like Toni to actually like, it changed the perceived perfection, that she had it all put together and felt nothing negative about herself. Toni was just so angry at all the various injustices committed against her and people like her, that a bit childishly, she was like, if you’re not outwardly suffering, you must have none of your own and are thus are someone who perpetuates them. And that mindset started to fall apart, more so when Shelby kissed her and she realized even the homophobia issue was soooo much more complex than she’d been thinking.
And of course her relatively mellow mood made Shelby all that much more talkative, rush to explain and defend herself. I think the arcs they went through, the pacing and how much they individually grew, and their place in the the plot, it was pretty perfect, that it had to culminate in that argument and desperate kiss in ep 7. I really like how the show handled them for the whole season and for sure, if they can continue to write for the characters as they have, I’m pretty excited to see what they’ll do in s2.
