wait, no scrap that previous one. I’ll send this in a few parts. 😭
take your time to answer this because I feel like it’s one of those heavy questions that can be interpreted in many ways, but to what extent do you think Shauna liked and cared for Melissa, and how much do you think Melissa liked Shauna?
I think it’s obvious Melissa liked Shauna so much more, but that she was mostly infatuated. How much of “true love” there was, was conflated with her subconscious journey for power, validation, and affection, but she desperately wanted them as a couple to be real since she was just poorly-adapted and most likely a loner pre-crash — and they seemed to both play into the roles for 5-6 months pretty well, which is surprising even for Shauna. That might’ve been her “healthiest” relationship up until the breakup.
as for Shauna, there’s a lot of controversy for saying that she did care for Melissa (?), but it confuses me because there’s a lot of complexity to it factoring in dominance, subconsciously enforcing the inverse of jackieshauna, needing affection, etc. I think those are all things that prevent it from being real love, but in a way, some of those are also why she might care for Mel. The thing about Shauna is that she’s so broken and traumatized that she’s not really capable of functional and traditional love. Also, being closer and loved by Shauna on her terms is more likely to get you hurt than not because she clings on so tightly, but her “love” is still real. Even with Jackie, she loved her but still slept with Jeff multiple times, although I’m not sure if that’s comparable. (More)
First of all I'm honored that you would want my insights on this. I took all your q's and answered them all in this post if that's alright; just want it to sound more like a conversation rather than an essay. I'm not great at organizing my thoughts lol I’d argue that a damaged kind of love is still love, just filtered through trauma and ran through other intense emotions. But it is still real love. Perhaps, Mel’s feelings started out as infatuation, but I think we’ve seen in those 5 months how intensely it grew into a genuine bond (how healthy that is is subject to debate)- she has her needs met by Shauna (not just sexual mind you) she gets validation, protection, she has someone to talk to, and I think that’s all she really wanted out of a relationship. Same thing on Shauna's end, yes, I do think it is still real love. Some may argue that Shauna is a sociopath incapable of loving- I won’t get into that because I am not qualified to speak on sociopathic behavior- instead, we can maybe examine how Shauna honors her attachments. Does she love Callie? Arguable, but she does fulfill her role as her Mother to the best of her ability…until she enables her bad behavior. Does she love Jackie? Probably, and the way she honors that is to be accommodating and compliant…until she couldn’t handle it anymore. Does she love Mel? Perhaps; she is protective and intimate like a girlfriend should be…until Mel challenges her social standing. I think Shauna is capable of love, and she performs love with the parameters she learned from society until she realizes that’s not how she operates but she’s dug herself in this hole now and she doesn’t have the endurance for it to last so it all ends up exploding.
