#hey longtime mutuals it's ya girl rising from the fandom grave 😂

[markcampbells]

I've been rewatching One Tree Hill along with the Drama Queens podcast, and something just occurred to me at the end of 1x15.

I often forget that it's Haley who sets the ball rolling on Nathan getting emancipated. Deb tells Nathan the divorce will likely go to court, Nathan vents to Haley that he doesn't know what his rights are, and Haley responds that they should look them up and that "knowledge is power." (My soul leaves my body every time I have to remember how bare bones the Internet was at this point in time but whatever.) Because of their research, Nathan is later empowered to tell Dan and Deb that since he isn't sure he wants to live with either of them if they're going to continue viciously fighting, all he has to do is make his case to the judge. As we know from later on, he gets emancipated, and that decision shapes the rest of his future. (When you couple this with Haley also having been a factor in his briefly walking away from basketball, you really see how she was a strong advocate for him and always tried to help him make the best decisions possible, even when they were teens.)

But something else occurred to me just now, watching the coda where Haley sings "Elsewhere," the first time she sings on the show. She's already told Nathan that she doesn't sing around other people, and he expressed his interest in hearing her sing sometime. He follows it up by making that his request, since he's had enough talking, when she offers to help him get past the weirdness of the day by talking about it. So she sings, because he wants to hear her, because someone's interested in her that way. And that decision--to sing in front of someone when she never has before, to get comfortable with herself and their relationship that way--shapes the rest of her future. And another thing we know from later on is that that road isn't always easy for them--the first time she goes on tour nearly sinks them--but in the end, their marriage survives it all, and Haley gets her singing career.

Just... god. Rewatching has already shown me why Naley was, and is, so special to me, but realizing because of this episode how integral they each are to the direction the other's future takes is... so beautiful. It's sort of another facet to your art matters. Nathan and Haley care about what the other wants out of life and they help each other get there, to what they want for themselves and what they want out of their chosen passion. I literally almost started crying before thinking about it, so I'm gonna go cry some more. 😛

#naley #nathan scott #haley james scott #hey longtime mutuals it's ya girl rising from the fandom grave 😂 #one tree hill #trai does meta #trai watches one tree hill #otp: a love that will not alter