My Surprisingly Pleasant Chat With an Aisha/Nabu Fan
I’m overusing these “Aisha looking at her phone” screenshots. ?
Anyway…
You read about my bizarre chat with a hardcore Aisha/Roy fan. (Click here if you didn’t.) Now for something totally different!
Consciously or not, Aisha/Nabu fans control the Winx fandom. They decide what’s normal and acceptable to believe about her love interests. Nabu is her “true love”. He’s the best guy for her; in fact, he’s the best guy in Winx Club history. Period. Not up for debate.
If you disagree, you’re not a true Winx fan. Or you hate Aisha. Kill yourself.
Not kidding. I’ve heard stories of Aisha/Nabu fans telling critics of the couple (or Nabu) to commit suicide. One of those cases happened on Tumblr. What a shock.
You can see why Aisha/Nex fans wouldn’t wanna express their thoughts. Why would you if some jerk might send you an anonymous message that says you don’t deserve to live? That’s why when I see posts from Aisha/Nabu fans, I usually sigh and ignore them — not always, but often.
But this time, I didn’t want to.
Looks Can Be Deceiving
A fan praised Aisha and Nabu for being such a perfect couple and bashed Aisha’s season six suitors, Nex and Roy. I’ve seen a gazillion posts like this. Why bother replying? It always gets ugly.
I don’t know why, but I really wanted to tell this fan what I think about the Winx fandom’s sacred couple.
As Aisha said in her speech in “The Light of Gorgol” (Winx season 8, episode 9): “No one is perfect. We all make mistakes.”
So why would her relationship with Nabu be perfect? Think about it. Why would two sheltered teenagers who grew up with hardly any friends (none for Nabu) have a better relationship than couples twice their age, even though neither one had dated before and Aisha suffered from emotional trauma?
Speaking of which, why wouldn’t Nabu have trauma and social awkwardness, too? He conveniently turned out stable and mature despite having the same backstory as Aisha. It’s as if his backstory had nothing to do with his character, except for his role as a love interest.
The moment I sent my message, I regretted it. “This person’s gonna bite my head off,” I thought.
About two hours later, they responded…
…and they were 100 percent okay with what I said. In fact, they thought I made a good point.
Wh-What? An Aisha/Nabu fan didn’t get mad at me for criticizing that couple? And they actually considered what I said? ?
The fan also clarified their thoughts about Nex and Roy. In the fan’s memory, Roy slowly courted Aisha throughout season five, but Nex swooped in and won her heart in the first couple episodes of season six. You know I had to respond to that!
I told them was actually the opposite. Roy only courted Aisha for a few episodes at the beginning of season five — see part II of “Aisha and Roy, The NoTP” — but Nex courted her slowly throughout season six. Also, while most of her interactions with Roy were empty flirting, she and Nex showed more of their merits as a couple: their shared interests, encouraging each other, their ability to challenge each other, their teamwork, etc.
Aisha and Nex’s progression from strangers to a couple was more obvious and better developed. But because of season five, the fandom paid more attention to her and Roy. Thus, the love triangle obscured her blossoming relationship with Nex.
The fan’s response shocked me even more than the last one. They said they used to hate Aisha and Nex, but I convinced them to give the couple another chance! Also, the fan hadn’t seen season eight yet, so I gave them the link I’ve been sharing here.
Color me impressed. I guess not everyone is married to their opinion (or the right to have one). You can challenge what someone believes without getting chewed out, patronized, or told to kill yourself. Heck, this fan was surprised I thought they’d do that to me!
The Winx fandom needs more people like them.
While I was working on that *thing* I told you about (which I’m close to finishing, by the way), I think I might have realized part of why so many fans see Nex as different from how he is. A lot of Nex’s character progression takes place in the first half of season six. However, it’s easy to miss, because a) the guys aren’t in every episode, b) half of Nex’ s screen time has to be devoted to him and Roy trying to out-macho each other, and c) the changes in his character are subtle. (Not to mention season six’ s weird airing schedule in the US would have exacerbated all this.)
Then in the second half of the season, Nex acts a lot different because of these changes. So if you missed or forgot about these changes, you might assume that Nex’s kindness was just an act. This isn’t an excuse for some fans’ behavior, but it is a possible explanation for how they developed these ideas about Nex.
Now that’s nice to not see a toxic Nabu fan for once. I remember when I wasn’t all that enclined about this couple of Aisha and Nex, but the symbolism was what changed my mind from the old post on unadinoi-winx.
Wait, really? You’ve never told me that.
When I was using a different tag, you quoted me on it whether or not Nex was actually another Riven as I first thought…but then again Nex is no Riven. You also quoted me on the Aisha being second in command post.
Wait, were you the one who called Nex “a silver-haired Riven”?
Yes, then I realized the error when i started analyzing the life and death thing more when I noticed something that Nex did for Aisha was often something death is described as doing for life. Change. He changed Aisha’s life for the better.
[…] her slow-burn relationship with Roy is another false memory many Winx fans seem to have. (Read this post for another example.) As I said in the first post, maybe the fandom mentally added scenes to the […]