Airing the place out a bit

[staranise]

I recently renamed this community--it used to be smh_team, and I've been wanting it to have a tin that says what it does on it for a long time. However, for renames to work, the community can't have any members, so I briefly removed all its members, used a rename token, and then re-added everyone.

I'm glad it's getting more activity! Hopefully soon I can stop running around with my hair on fire and get back to fandom. (Especially since the most recent update, um... made me... ship Nurseydex when it was previously my NOTP? It's complicated.)

Comments

[wellthisisnice]

i... how did... how did this update made you ship them??

[staranise]

OKAY SO LIKE

I previously had no indication that they wanted to be together. Like, if two people just solidly dislike each other and don't want to get along, why force it?

But in this update, they actually want so hard to get along. They're just incredibly bad at it. It's obvious that they each desire each other's respect and good opinion. Nursey is just kind of bemused that Dex doesn't like him, while Dex feels threatened and inferior because he thinks Nursey doesn't like him. So Nursey keeps pushing closer all the time, like coming into Dex's Fortress of Solitude, in a way that frankly only makes sense if he's either a major asshole, or getting an infatuated endorphin rush just being around Dex, such that even negative attention feels good.

A lot of why Dex is so sensitive is that he perceieves Nursey as being fundamentally hostile and judgmental, and he really wants Nursey's approval and affection. Nursey, being a chill bro who doesn't want to open up big scary vulnerable ~feeeeeelings~, hasn't actually been clear about liking Dex a huge squishy lot. So if something happened where Nursey came clean, a lot of Dex's hostility would melt away like cotton candy in the rain.

They remind me a lot of couples I came across while doing my training in couples counselling. "We love each other and want to be together, but can't STAND each other." And so I know the processes--the conversations about specific things--that could happen to give them a lot of clarity about each other's motives, and what ways of communicating with each other could bring them into better accord.

I read Bitty's response as kind of illuminating what I'm imagining--ever seen a dysfunctional relationship where they're SO BAD for each other, but the moment you suggest they break up, you're suggesting the UNTHINKABLE? I think the SMH have tried for ages to separate them, and they refuse to be separated. So now the team has just wearily conceded that for some stupid reason, Dex and Nursey will not be mediated; they're committed to dancing this dance with each other.

I guess... part of it is, I didn't ship them before because I was so thoroughly off-put by their current dynamic, and when they were still mutually apathetic, I didn't see that ever changing. Whereas now, they have a lot of motivation to change, and the mess of their dysfunction is thick with yearning and the seeds of something positive.

[cathyw]

that... kind of makes sense with the pie metaphor? Dex asked for pie. Nursey got pie for Dex, but left it in a place Dex didn't find it. => they are basically into each other but have incompatible communication styles?

[stultiloquentia]

Ha! Well put.

[kaberett]

HELLO THANK YOU FOR THIS ANALYSIS I AM REALLY INTO IT

[wellthisisnice]

ah. thank you so much for your feelings <3

[rarefiednight]

I love and adore this piece of analysis, also the below comment about the pie representing this issue with communication! I was already on the NurseyDex train but was questioning after the update if the NurseyDex dynamic in my head was more fanon than canon - but this puts it back in line with what my existing thoughts/hopes were. Share your ~~feeeeelings~~ with each other, silly boys!

[staranise]

For me, it's kind of like being a Kent Parson fan. I don't want fic where Jack realizes he was 100% in the wrong and comes after Kent confessing his guilt; it's unhealthy and realistic. And I don't want Nurseydex where one of them is declared The Winner Of All Arguments and gets to just keep doing what he's doing without any change. In both cases, I want stories about that transformative thing that happens when you go, "I have legitimate grievances--AND YET--maybe I could handle them better."

[rarefiednight]

Yes! I think that ultimately, the reason I find Check Please so compelling and why I'm still so invested is that to me it's so much of a story about growth. The characters feel very much like real people in the sense that they are trying their best, but they don't always get it right and often even get it majorly wrong. It feels like a story about communication and people fumbling their way through how genuinely difficult it is, but still trying their best anyways? And learning to listen better and try to meet each other in the middle, to all make a better effort. And realizing that their communication will never be perfect, but it's worth working to be better anyways, and how important it is to be self-aware and try to listen and grow, but also not beat yourself up for not being a mind reader, just to work on the things you can control as you move forwards. And also that sometimes neither person is actually doing something that's wrong, just that so often people's needs and desires conflict with each other, and how to navigate that.
I don't know how much sense any of that made, but I think what I mean when I say that it feels like a story about growth is that one of the most important things the characters learn is that they're always going to be learning and growing, and that's okay - that you don't have to be perfect or change who you are, just do your best and try to listen. That you can accept and love yourself while also knowing that you have flaws and aren't going to always do things right.

[staranise]

*flails* YES THIS EXACTLY

And also about how much you CHANGE during college, how you can leave it a person you barely would have recognized at the beginning. You don't just learn, you grow.

[rarefiednight]

Oh my GOD, for reals. It's such an intense period of change and personal development that... isn't really replicated in many other situations. In the (paraphrased) words of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, "Yeah, but freshman months are equal to like, six real months." Or something.

Also, I'm not gonna claim I'm not particularly attached because Bitty would have graduated the same year I did - we're just starting his senior year, but in realtime I've gotten my Master's and a real job and am like, figuring out how to be an adult?? I think sometimes about how he'd be doing now, trying to figure out the stuff I'm trying to figure out, and all the weird stuff that goes with it. How fast the time goes past, but also how slowly? I'm rambling, but - it's comforting, for me, I think. Because, again, growth. It being okay to not know everything, and just take things a day at a time, and do the best I can today, right now, with what I have in front of me.

[not_overjoyed]

Well this is some nice thought. I had honestly forgotten I joined this community since I used dw so infrequently, and I'm glad I decided to dust off my account. I think I've seen a lot relationship dynamics like what you describe here in nurseydex fic already, and that's a big part of why I kinda sorta ship it myself.

[onlysmallwings]

That's why I got re-added! I was very confused.

I would be very interested to hear your hot take on NurseyDex because this latest update pushed me from 'neutral' to 'no thanks' and I am really curious to hear what would prompt the opposite shift.

[staranise]

I'm a little bit on tenterhooks to see if my thought process makes sense to anyone else. >.>

[onlysmallwings]

It does make sense!

"So now the team has just wearily conceded that for some stupid reason, Dex and Nursey will not be mediated; they're committed to dancing this dance with each other."

That's what I was missing. Their friends would, of course, have tried to mediate in all the ways. Obviously it didn't work, so they've accepted the NurseyDex dance. But if they were like that with everyone else, they would have a different dynamic with the team.

Dumb hockey boys with too many feelings.

[cathyw]

Chowder tried to mediate right from the start! But even Bitty couldn't get them on the same page.

[onlysmallwings]

And Dex and Nursey have been really bad at communicating with each other from the beginning; they're just constantly misreading each other or making snap judgments that may or may not be true.

But they wouldn't work on the team with Bitty and Chowder and the rest if they were fundamentally assholes. Poor communication does a fair imitation of assholery but isn't quite the same thing.

[staranise]

OH MY GOD, I totally missed that! Yeah, it's such a perfect metaphor.

Communication styles can be changed, but it requires things toxic masculinity often prohibits, like self-reflection, a willingness to question your first assumptions, and access to tenderer emotions than anger and dominance games. You have to try to level and express yourself, instead of trying to "win".

Will Dex and Nursey be able to pull it off? Good question! In Bitty's soft bro world, it seems a little more possible than usual.

[kaberett]

Wait you mean the way that JACK was a GRUMPY ARSEHOLE and then started Getting Over Himself and Talking More???

(are NurseyDex... Pimms?)

[kaberett]

expanding on this a bit: ARE NURSEY AND DEX a JACK AND KENT DYNAMIC only GIVEN THE CHANCE TO DO BETTER, in that instead of being in the shitshow that is the NHL they're in SMH, and they've got social support and an even vaguely healthy environment? So many of the ways in which Jack & Kent went wrong are plausibly to do with the toxicity they were drowning in, of wanting to be good to each other and not knowing how and not having any opportunity to learn -- but here, in the Haus, are some other boys, with other-but-similar issues, who get the chance to do better.

[rhysiana]

I think a lot of us (ie, N/D shippers who've been with it since it was crack on par with early Patater) arrived at that "they're committed to this dance and refused to be mediated" conclusion when Bitty tweeted about them having to sit next to each other on the bus, so this vibe has been explored in N/D fics for a while, we just all assumed they'd get over the screaming at each other stage earlier than canon seems to have let them. I'm looking forward to your take on it! (And cautiously to canon's take now, maybe? We'll see.)

[cesy]

Hi! Suddenly it makes sense.

[swingandswirl]

Lis I don't even LIKE nursedex why are you making me ship theeeeeem.