say what you will about seth and alli but they have the kind of messed up college love a lot of mainstream books and movies try to romanticize and just dont fully get right. like the After saga kind of love, that is meant to be toxic, but sethallison is the only time I’ve seen it work in a way that makes sense.
they crash against each other, yes, they’re both stubborn and they argue and they sometimes refuse to be helped or even acknowledge they need the help at all, and yes they come from completely different backgrounds and the could have every reason to hate each other. but there’s so much love and understanding and respect there that comes from a genuine place.
there’s seth admiring the strength it takes allison to step away from her family, to not go the easy route for the sake of being her own person. there’s allison’s recognizing that Seth is trying to stay clean, that he wants to, that he’s had all odds stacked against him but he still tries. there’s so much want from both of them to see the other be better, they have so much care for each other. that’s where i think all the average hetero romances go wrong, they never have something real to fight for, nothing that makes the toxicity worth staying in spite of.
im not even a seth fan but you have to love the relationship if you love the books. because it represents everything we love about the trilogy, its two people who are broken in very different ways, and its those jagged edges that allow them to slot together well. maybe not as perfectly as other couples in the books but god are they willing to yet cut a little to make it fit