Tumblr used to be a physical place. It was a large theater built inside of a cliff. The cliff was by a stormy seaside town where all of life began. One night, there was a hurricane, and the Tumblr theater collapsed. This unleashed the Tumblr people upon the town, and thus began the world.
The Great Dionysia, also known as the Festival of Dionysus, was an ancient Greek dramatic festival held in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine, festivity and theatre, amongst other things. During the festival, playwrights would compete to entertain the Athenian masses. Many famous playwrights, as well as famous plays, have won the contests in the festival. For example, Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes won in 467 BC and Sophocles' Oedipus Rex took second place in 427 BC.
Bonus: A flyer I made for the festival with some added information about the events!
I can’t stop thinking about the way that when Robin hears Nancy’s name in Season 3 she rolls her eyes and calls her a priss, but then not five minutes later she runs into Nancy in the flesh who’s apparently in the thick of the insane situation Robin has become unwittingly wrapped up in. Her makeup is smudged and her hair is messy and she’s terse with Robin and all Robin can do is utter a flustered reply while giving her this look:
And then shortly afterwards Robin watches as Nancy plants herself in front of a station wagon full of kids and shoots at an oncoming speeding car with a pistol, fully ready to sacrifice herself to protect them. That night at the Star Court Mall changes everything Robin thought about this dainty, pretty, prissy girl who turns out to be a certified badass with nerves of steel.
After this, Robin is smitten. She volunteers to go with Nancy the moment an opportunity presents itself. When they’re waiting in the library, she assumes that Nancy has some genius trick up her sleeve because since Star Court she’s built up an idea of who she is in her mind: brilliant and brave and tenacious. Robin is so desperate for Nancy to like her that she loses all pretense of sardonic aloofness that we see around other characters and the words start spilling out, exactly as she described when venting to Steve about how she behaves around girls she’s crushing on.
Robin is self-conscious and apologetic about how she comes across to Nancy, she repeatedly tries to diffuse the underlying tension between them in any way that she can, and is particularly keen to emphasise the platonic nature of her friendship with Steve. Despite barely knowing Nancy, she starts using the nickname “Nance” right away. There’s a sincere and earnest effort to win Nancy’s approval and affection; Robin needs it more than she even realises.
And the thing is, it works. Nancy starts off cool and irritable and exasperated (which, one should point out, may be in no small part because she’d been up all night looking for her friend who she just found brutally murdered - cut her some slack folks!), but after those two hours with Robin in the library, she realises that she’s remarkably bright and creatively minded and complements her own logical way of thinking so well. You can see the journey she undergoes in that short period of time written on her face: bemusement and impatience soon give way to respect and the dawning realisation that she’s met her intellectual match, someone with the same insatiable curiosity and a whole new way of seeing the world to show her.
Nancy has so many emotional walls built up from years of repression and trauma, especially surrounding having and losing friends (not to mention, potentially, her own repressed queerness), but Robin despite her insecurities over her lack of filter and tendency to ramble and her other personal quirks manages to steal in past those defences. After that first encounter together, Nancy wants Robin by her side at all times. Even though she knows Steve, Dustin, Lucas and Max so much better, she picks Robin to come with her to Pennhurst, she asks Robin to explore the Creel House with her, she has Robin ride shotgun with her in her car. They stick together as a pair at every turn.
This is so, so important: Nancy grows to like and care about Robin because of her being totally and utterly herself. The Robin whose mouth moves faster than her brain, the Robin who is relentlessly inquisitive and goofy and clumsy, the Robin who is at her most overtly neurodivergent around her. And Robin is slowly but surely finding confidence in herself and courage through that relationship, she’s taking risks she never would have before, and learning that her perceived flaws are actually strengths. When talking to Warden Hatch at Pennhurst with Nancy, it’s her runaway way with words that saves them and leaves Nancy incredibly impressed. The unmasked, unfiltered, beautiful gay disaster Robin Buckley is the person Nancy comes to admire and develops a deep fondness for.
It’s been said many times before, but Robin and Nancy complete each other. As we’ve just established, Nancy quickly becomes a source of reassurance, inspiration and affirmation for Robin. And Robin is someone who can keep up with Nancy’s laser-focused fixations and faced-paced thinking, who can challenge her to consider things she never would have otherwise. She also encourages Nancy to be more honest with herself and makes her feel at ease at a time when she’s more lost than ever. Robin is always carefully reading Nancy and respects her opinions and feelings; she’s the friend and confidant Nancy has been missing in her life all this time since losing Barb.
When they’re talking in the woods, it’s not what Robin says about Steve or Jonathan that Nancy latches onto. What truly takes her aback is the realisation that Robin considers them to be friends, and both quietly, bashfully blush and smile to themselves at that confirmation. However adrift Nancy might be from her complex feelings over Jonathan and Steve or her unhealed emotional scars, she’s found an anchor in someone. However insecure Robin might feel about herself, she’s found a girl who she doesn’t have to pretend with.
And then we come to perhaps the most revealing scene of the season so far: when Eddie, Steve, Nancy and Robin are on the boat over Lover’s Lake. The parallels to Tammy Thompson are evident as Robin stares at Nancy who can’t pull her eyes away from Steve, and the way in which the camera focuses on the two characters in the frame imparts so much more than Robin simply being happy for the rekindled feelings of her friends. Her longing expression breaking into a soft smile and the bowing of her head feels like the sad acceptance of something she believes to be unattainable for her.
Nancy demonstrates her trademark reckless abandon to protect the people she loves when she dives in to rescue Steve without hesitation after he’s pulled under, but Robin’s reaction is gut-wrenching as she cries out Nancy’s name and reaches for her. And then Robin, who beneath her snarky facade is far more scared than she likes to let on, pushes down those fears and without wasting a second moves to go after her with a sense of resigned determination. The framing of this scene, the dialogue and Maya Hawke’s performance make it clear that Robin is willingly following Nancy Wheeler into hell. As Eddie says, that’s as sure a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen.
Regardless of whether the romantic subtext is intentional or this relationship is supposed to remain strictly platonic, Nancy and Robin’s blossoming friendship is a very special one. Having swiftly dismantled their presumptions about one another, they’ve found true synergy, inspiring and pushing each other to be the best versions of themselves. In spite, or rather because of their differences, the two are slowly but surely forging a profound bond that is already one of the most charming and memorable on the show to date, and with any luck, we’ll get some meaningful and moving payoffs to their arcs together in Vol 2. Perhaps, through each other, Nancy and Robin will finally find the closure, catharsis and connection they’ve been yearning for.
Thanks so much to @meanlesbianrobin for providing the accompanying screenshots!
If I had a nickel for every time I fell in love with a horror show about a brunette lesbian who tries to save her blonde girlfriend from being possessed by a ghost who also happens to be a lesbian I'd have two nickels, but it's weird that it happened twice.
