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themostrandomfandom · 7 years

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“Yeah, well, this is a club”: On Brittana, Complicated Dynamics, and the New Directions

So the wonderful @letmerebloginpeace asked

i know you've done a post about what all the ND kids think about brittana but what do brittany and santana think about each of the new directions kids?

Unsurprisingly, my answer got a little unwieldy.

I will warn you up front that just like with my posts on what the New Directions think about Brittana (see here and here), this post comes down a little on the negative side. While there are certainly a handful of their glee teammates that our girls love wholeheartedly and count as true friends, there are also more than a few of them that they straight up can’t stand or with whom they have toxic relationships.

Though Glee tried to sell the idea that all the kids in the New Directions were the dearest of dear chums, they weren’t always successful in doing so, particularly in Brittana’s cases. There was lots of bad blood between Brittany, Santana, and the New Directions, and while Brittana undeniably share in the blame, they’re not the only guilty parties.

As I say in my original post:

Examining the New Directions’ views of Brittana is not an entirely uplifting pursuit. It requires that we as Brittana fans talk about some of Brittana’s worst traits. It also requires that we look at examples of how a group of people who preached acceptance often could not find it in their hearts to accept Brittana, despite Brittana’s best efforts to win them over.

In writing this response, I’ve realized, not for the first time, how Glee mishandled so many potential friendships over the years. Things could have been so much better if the Glee writers knew how to wield their characters better and to allow for true, meaningful character growth, forgiveness, reconciliation, acceptance, etc.

Since they didn’t, this is what we’re stuck with: five and three-fourths seasons worth of bad relations between Brittana and the majority of their glee club peers.

If I haven’t scared you off by now, let’s get on with the analysis.

More discussion after the cut.

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“Oh, please, you guys love me”: On Brittana, Character Development, and How Self-Perception Shapes Their Relationships with the New Directions

The main factors that affect how Brittana’s respective views of their teammates change over time are their individual character development and perceptions of themselves as people.

In the beginning, both Brittany and Santana have bad reputations, Brittany as a “dumb slut” and Santana as a “mean” one. While deep down, the girls don’t like that their classmates view them in these ways, they feel helpless to do anything to change the status quo, particularly as at the time they’re both guarding deep, personal secrets that they feel they cannot reveal without then suffering lasting social consequences.

Brittany’s secret is that despite her reputation as the ultimate easy girl who is too stupid and aloof to care about who she sleeps with, she is actually deeply in love with Santana, and if she had her druthers she would choose to be with Santana exclusively.

Santana’s secret is of course that despite her reputation as a sharp-tongued, hyper-heterosexual bitch who’s screwing half the football team, she is actually secretly a sweetheart with an ooey-gooey center and deep and monogamous love for her female best friend, Brittany.

Brittany can’t stop pretending that she is indiscriminate about her sexual partners for fear of upsetting Santana and causing her gay panic about their relationship, while Santana can’t drop her “mean girl” guard and show her sweet, caring side for fear of making herself socially vulnerable and perhaps even causing her peers to realize the truth about her sexuality (see here).

So they both carry on, not only passively “allowing” their classmates to think poorly of them but oftentimes actively contributing to the perpetuation of their own negative stereotypes (see here).

For as much as Brittana don’t necessarily enjoy being pariahs in glee club and knowing that their teammates distrust and even in some cases dislike them, they’re both too scared to drop their guards and let everyone see who they really are inside. In this early stage in their development, they feel that it is better to be misunderstood and rejected than it is to be understood perfectly and rejected anyway. Sure, it hurts when people don’t like them based on the personas they project, but it would hurt even more if people didn’t like them based on who they really are inside and after knowing the things that are nearest and dearest to their hearts.

So for a long time, Brittana go along playing the bad girls.

Brittany is very much in the business of letting things slide. If someone treats her badly, more likely than not, she’s going to just take it and not do anything to confront the person or stand up for herself. With few exceptions, most people treat her poorly, so she’s just kind of “gotten used to it.” She expects her classmates to call her stupid, disparage her sexuality, and treat her like she is a child, and she’s even convinced herself that if they do these things in a “gentle” way, she can still count them as her friends. She’ll just let their meanness roll off her back.

It isn’t until S2 that she starts to really grow out of her go-along-to-get-along mode of operation.

Part of her learning process involves taking ownership of her own feelings and realizing that she doesn’t have to “settle” when friends or even lovers treat her poorly. Part of it involves quitting Cheerios and refusing to accept Sue’s bullying anymore. Part of it involves joining the Brainiacs and proving that she isn’t dumb like everyone thinks. Part of it involves making a conscious decision to be hopeful about her future (see episode 2x22). Part of it involves recognizing that she is so much happier being herself than she is pretending to be someone else. Part of it involves standing up first to Santana (see episode 2x04) and then to Artie (see episode 2x19), demanding that they treat her with the respect she deserves.

Brittany learns to advocate for herself and starts to actively seek after her own happiness. It takes her a while, but eventually she gets to the point where she is no longer willing to allow anyone to treat her badly, whether that person is her true love, her former cheerleading coach, the boy she’s dating, her glee club instructor, the captain of the football team, the school’s biggest diva, or anyone else. No more passes for people who call her stupid. No more forgiveness to people who do things to hurt her (or Santana) and then fail to sincerely apologize and change their ways. Brittany is all out of fucks to give, and she isn’t about excusing people’s bad behavior anymore. It’s not enough to just be “less mean” to her than others are. If you really want to be her friend, you have to actually be nice.

It is with this attitude in place that in the later seasons, Brittany starts to lose her patience with a lot of the kids in the New Directions, to the point where by S6, most of them are on her shit list.

She has tried to be nice. She has tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But so many of them have been nothing but condescending to her and mean to Santana right from the very start, and she isn’t cool with it anymore.

She gets that when she and Santana first joined glee club, they were far from saints, but she also believes that they should be allowed to change and should be accepted for who they are now, not condemned for who they were in the past (see her Heart Locker speech in episode 2x22).

The problem is that from her perspective, the New Directions aren’t adjusting their perceptions based on the new evidence.

Over the years, she has proven that she’s not stupid or daffy like everyone thinks she is. She’s been an academic decathalon champion---who carried her team to victory at nationals---an SAT high-scorer and a certified MIT math genius, but the glee kids still look at her like she’s nuts whenever she opens her mouth.

But what’s even worse, in Brittany’s view, is how they still regard Santana as a bully despite the fact that Santana has opened up and shown them “all the awesomeoness that [she is.].”

Back in the day, Brittany swore to Santana that if she would just drop her guard and make an effort, the glee kids would welcome her with open arms and recognize her as the brave, sweethearted person she really is inside.

But that’s not what happens. Santana tries to make friends---especially with Hummelberry---but is never unreservedly welcomed by the group. Her acceptance always comes with a caveat and is frequently revoked due to petty reasons. Brittany isn’t present to witness the full rigmarole in person, but she hears enough to understand that no matter what Santana does, the New Directions are never going to fully forgive her for the things that she did when she was a sophomore and junior in high school.

---and knowing that they won’t both breaks Brittany’s heart and infuriates her.

While she refrains from directly confronting the New Directions largely for Santana’s sake, she doesn’t hold back from making passive-aggressive comments about them left and right or from trolling them when the opportunity strikes (see for example her mean comments to Tina in episode 6x03 and the way she teases Kurt about his love life in episodes 6x02, 6x03, and 6x08).

Since most of the kids in glee don’t understand Brittany’s wit and erroneously believe that she is incapable of holding grudges, they just ignore her spitefulness, writing her jabs off as “Brittany being Brittany.”

However, if you watch the later seasons with an eye for it, the truth becomes increasingly clear: Brittany no longer believes in what she told Santana during her Heart Locker speech. With few exceptions, the members of the glee club aren’t her family. They’re just a club, and she’s about done with them and their hypocrisy and exclusivity.

There are a few good apples in the bunch, but the rest of them are a bunch of petty narcissists who don’t deserve the time of day from Santana, let alone her friendship.

Now, with Santana, things are different.

Santana starts out being super aggressive and hostile toward everyone in glee club except for Brittany. Aside from the outside pressure she gets from Sue, her biggest reason for being so truculent is that she is trying to use offense as defense. Simply put, Baby Girl feels vulnerable and like if she lets anyone too close, they’ll hurt her, so she keeps everyone—except for Brittany—at arm’s length for her own emotional safety. Hers is a “strike first or be stricken” mentality.

Of course, the interesting thing is that for as much as Santana purposefully drives everyone in the glee club away from her, at her heart, she just wants them to love and accept her. She builds a high, unbreachable wall around herself in the hopes that maybe someday someone will care enough to climb it.

For the longest time, Brittany is the only one who does, and no one else.

Eventually, Brittany tells Santana that if she wants the glee club to accept her, then she’s going to have to make the first move and show them “all the awesomeness that [she is]” (see episode 2x22). It’s a scary proposition for someone as insecure as Santana, but Santana makes a go of it. She’s still prickly, of course, because that’s just her nature, but she tries to also be sweet and supportive and at times even generous, and she does make many concerted efforts to reach out to the people she has formerly bullied, such as for example when she tries to help Kurt defend his boyfriend from bullies (see episode 3x11).

But the sad thing is that even though Santana really does try to change, most members of the glee club never accept her efforts and still regard her warily all the way up through S5 (see episodes 5x12, 5x13, and 5x18).

For a long time, Santana tries her damnedest to get in their good graces, but eventually—circa the events of episodes 5x12 and 5x13—she seems to realize that no matter what, the New Directions are never going to accept that she’s changed, no matter how many evidences she shows them.

From this point forward, she continues to be her reformed self, but she stops holding her breath waiting for the love and acceptance she is never going to unconditionally win. With few exceptions, she settles for surface-level acquaintanceships at best, which is what we see from her throughout S6.

So onto our discussion of the individual relationships themselves.

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Finn Hudson

Finn’s history with Brittana is complicated at best. They start out in the same social strata---he a football player, they cheerleaders---and come into incidental contact through their respective relationships with Quinn and Puck. However, as Sue starts to target the New Directions, she essentially sics Brittana on Finn and instructs them to run interference in his burgeoning relationship with Rachel.

This mid-S1 development causes Brittana to have more direct interactions with Finn and ultimately starts the three of them down the path that will lead to Santana taking Finn’s virginity, Finn outing Santana to all of Western Ohio, and Finn becoming one of the most troubling figures in Brittana’s collective history.

We’ll start with the Brittany side of things.

Early on, Brittany doesn’t seem to give Finn much thought. He’s a football player and for a time Quinn’s boyfriend but not someone she has a lot of personal interest in herself. She may occasionally cheat off his math assignments, but it is not as if they are friends. He only really comes onto her radar as she notices Santana becoming increasingly fixated on him throughout the school year.

Brittana go on one unsuccessful date with Finn in episode 1x14, and then in episode 1x15, Brittany suggests that Santana make another attempt to get with Finn, this time solo.

From an outside perspective, it is difficult to understand why Brittany would tell the girl she loves to sleep with a boy she knows said girl doesn’t care about.

But Brittany does have her reasons.

While Brittany knows better than anyone that Santana isn’t truly romantically or sexually attracted to Finn---despite what Santana may be trying to tell herself---she also knows that Santana is not one to drop an obsession once she’s gotten it into her mind.

The thing is, Brittany isn’t putting ideas into Santana’s head that weren’t already there to begin with.

Santana has long been interested in possessing Finn for herself, not because she actually has any personal interest in him but because she feels insecure about her ability to make and maintain lasting relationships with guys and she is jealous that Quinn and Rachel have had success in that pursuit when she hasn’t.

Particularly after Sue sics Brittana on Finn but they fail to seduce him, Santana is left wondering why she can’t manage to get Finn into bed with her. Shouldn’t he want to sleep with her when she’s giving him the option to? Is she not sexually attractive to him? Does some part of him know she isn’t really interested in him? Does he realize that there is something “wrong” with her?

Santana feels so conflicted inside. She knows she “should” want Finn, but the fact is that she doesn’t. Her head and her heart are constantly at war, the former telling her that she has to get with boys, the latter not wanting to. The less her heart wants her to be with boys, the more her head tells her that she must do exactly that.

Part of her feels so relieved when her and Brittany’s BreadStix date with Finn ends before it even really begins, but another part of her feels guilty that she feels relieved.

In her mind, she should want Finn, or at least she should want to want him. She clings so hard to that belief, and ultimately she convinces herself that she has to get with Finn even if the mere thought of doing so makes her feel sick.

Brittany knows what’s going on inside Santana’s mind and heart in her intuitive, Brittany way, and she sees that Santana is going to go after Finn regardless of how she really feels about him, so she tries to ameliorate the situation---because that’s her m.o. at the time.

Sure, it breaks her heart to see Santana throwing herself at a boy she doesn’t actually give a damn about, and, yeah, she knows that Santana will walk away from the situation feeling terrible once all is said and done. But Brittany isn’t yet in the habit of calling Santana out on her bullshit. Santana’s gonna do what Santana’s gonna do, and since Brittany can’t stop her, Brittany’s only recourse is to try in advance to minimize the damage.

By essentially giving Santana her blessing to go after Finn, Brittany hopes that maybe Santana will at least not feel guilty where she’s concerned. She’s basically telling Santana, “Go do what you feel like you have to do. I understand. I’ll be here to pick up the pieces when it’s over.”

Now, throughout all this drama with Santana, Brittany’s opinion on Finn himself doesn’t actually change much. She would prefer that Santana not sleep with him, of course, but she also knows he’s not really doing anything wrong. He isn’t the pursuer in this situation, and he also isn’t at fault for not being romantically attracted to Santana even though Santana wants him to be.

He is just an object in Santana’s larger power play, and Brittany knows as much.

So.

Brittany remains mostly ambivalent to Finn throughout S1. But in S2, her opinion of him starts to change.

Here, Finn makes a few missteps that cause Brittany to occasionally side-eye him, the most notable of which occurs right in the season finale, when he kisses Rachel on stage at Nationals, and his actions get the New Directions disqualified from competition. While Brittany isn’t herself overly upset by this turn of events, Santana is, and Brittany takes note that Finn has the propensity to hurt people through his thoughtless behavior. Still, she is willing to allow that everyone makes mistakes from time to time and to both move on from the incident herself and encourage Santana to do the same.

Cut to S3.

No surprises here: Brittany’s true dislike for Finn starts during Santana’s outing arc. First he calls Brittany stupid and offers only the lamest apology afterward (see episode 3x04). Then he has the audacity to not only out Santana to the entire school but act like he is a hero for doing so (see episodes 3x06 and 3x07).

“Lady Music Week” is what changes Finn from acquaintance to enemy in Brittany’s books.

Of course, Glee doesn’t actually allow Brittany to talk for most of S3, so we don’t get a lot of dialogue to confirm Brittany’s feelings in this regard. It’s all in her furious silence, which is something that the genius Marjorie discusses at length in this post.

Note: Marjorie has retired from the Brittana fandom. Please respect her privacy while you enjoy her archived work.

Now. Had Finn properly apologized to Santana for violating her privacy and really seemed to learn from his mistake, then Brittany probably would have forgiven him---because, after all, she has herself made some mistakes in how she has approached Santana’s coming out process (see episodes 1x13 and 2x19), and she’s had to learn from them and do better (see episode 3x04). But from Brittany’s perspective, Finn never acknowledges that he has even committed any errors. He just rationalizes what he has done by saying that he was motivated by his concern for Santana’s welfare. He isn’t sorry. Just smug.

So going forward Brittany gives him no more free passes. She starts holding him accountable for being thoughtless and self-important. As he continually condescends to her during his S4 tenure as the glee club director, she becomes increasingly passive-aggressive toward him, at one point even presenting him a severed Barbie doll head just to mess with his mind.

Ultimately, Brittany thinks that Finn is a bad leader, and she never forgives him for the way he treats Santana.

When he dies, she opts not to attend his funeral because she knows she doesn’t share the same positive opinion of him that most of the other kids in glee club do. To her, Finn Hudson wasn’t a heroic person or great leader. He was just a selfish boy who often hurt other people through his thoughtless words and actions and never really seemed to learn from his mistakes. While she certainly isn’t happy that Finn died, she also isn’t about to pretend he was perfect when she knows for a fact that he wasn’t.

Now for the Santana side of things.

Like we discussed above, early on in her development, Santana fixates on Finn because he represents everything that she thinks she “should” want. He is the popular, handsome stud quarterback, and any would-be prom queen such as Santana would socially benefit from being his girlfriend.

Of course, no matter how much Santana tries to force her feelings for Finn, the truth is that she isn’t ultimately into him, and the fact that she isn’t frustrates her. Eventually, she lashes out at Finn as the object of her frustrations. When she can’t manage to “hold onto him” even after she takes his virginity (see episode 1x15), she switches tacks, trying her best to sabotage his love life as he dates first Rachel and then Quinn.

It is only after Santana comes to terms with her sexuality that her attitude toward Finn shifts and she for the most part gives up on being actively aggressive towards him. While his self-righteousness as the glee club captain and smarminess in his relationship with Rachel still annoy her, she’s no longer interested in either possessing him or destroying him. If left to her own devices, she probably would have mostly ignored him going forward.

But Finn doesn’t leave Santana to her own devices.

Instead, when Santana and Brittany defect to the Troubletones in S3, he takes their departures from the New Directions as a personal affront and starts harrassing them about their choices. In the process, he calls Brittany stupid, and Santana gets riled. She shoots back a litany of insults of her own, until finally her and Finn’s quarreling comes to a head when Finn outs her in a crowded high school hallway.

Santana is understandably furious about what Finn has done to her, but even though he never truly apologizes, she still somehow eventually finds it in herself to forgive him.

Nobody in the New Directions would believe it, but Santana is actually an incredibly forgiving person, perhaps because she so craves forgiveness for herself.

Going forward, Santana and Finn don’t have many more personal interactions. Still, when Finn dies, Santana is deeply affected, largely because she feels guilty for her contentious history with Finn over the years.

In what is more than a little bit of a retcon, she claims that Finn was nice to her as they were having sex. She seems very touched when Kurt tries to give her Finn’s letterman jacket as a memento to remember Finn by.

Rachel Berry

Brittana’s history with Rachel is a fraught one. While Brittany basically dislikes Rachel from start to finish, Santana goes from disdaining her to admiring her to trying (unsuccessfully) to be her friend to realizing that she will never fully extend her acceptance and somewhat moving on.

To be fair: Brittana are really awful to Rachel during S1 and S2, so it’s not as if they are innocent parties in everything that goes down. However, to also be fair: Particularly in the later seasons, Rachel dishes out just as much as she gets, and she is very hard on Santana, even during times when Santana is legitimately trying to be her friend and confidante, so there is blame to be shared all around.

Getting into the details, then:

Brittany hates Rachel.

In the beginning, it is just because Rachel dresses badly, talks down to her, and is full of herself, but as the seasons wear on, Brittany’s big sticking point becomes Rachel’s mistreatment of Santana.

Brittany can’t understand why, but for some reason Santana craves Rachel’s approval and friendship, and after S3, she works damn hard to earn them. Sure, Santana and Rachel get off to a bad start when they are in high school, but Santana changes a lot as she becomes increasingly comfortable with herself, and once she graduates and moves to New York, she makes a real, concerted effort to become a part of Rachel’s inner circle.

Santana scores Rachel a job at the diner, supports her fledgling Broadway career, and, oh yeah, helps her through a pregnancy scare, and yet Rachel still treats her with patent disdain and distrust, kicking her out of the Loft and then getting her kicked out of the band, accusing her of stealing her theatrical glory, and constantly questioning her motivations for doing nice things (R: “Well, I mean, I wanted to see what you wanted in return.” S: “Is that the kind of friend that you think that I am?” R: “Yeah”).

Brittany isn’t present to witness all these slights firsthand, but she hears about them through the grapevine, and she sees how much Rachel has beaten Santana down, particularly after the accusations Rachel makes against Santana in front of the glee club in episode 5x12 (“You’re so cruel, Santana. You’re only doing this to me because I’m the lead of Funny Girl, and you’re just the lowly understudy. You want to make me feel bad because I’m better than you, and you’re an awful person”).

Brittany understands that no one is obligated to forgive their high school bully even once they reach adulthood and even if said bully has reformed, but she doesn’t understand why Rachel keeps stringing Santana along, pretending to be her friend for short stretches of time just to then reject her again immediately afterward. To her, it seems like Rachel is using Santana and wants her friendship only when it is convenient or profittable but never otherwise.

In Brittany’s view, if Rachel isn’t ever going to forgive Santana for what happened between them in high school, then Rachel should just say as much and be done with it. She shouldn’t keep giving Santana hope that they can be close only to then steal that hope out from under her. That’s just shitty behavior, and especially when Santana is being so earnest and contrite.

—and that is why during S4, S5, and S6, you can see just how 1000000% done Brittany is with Rachel and why she takes every opportunity to troll her.

If Rachel is going to disregard Santana’s attempts to be friends with her, then Brittany is going to mess with Rachel’s mind and vague the hell out of her at every opportunity.

She isn’t going to confront Rachel on Santana’s behalf because that’s not her place, but she also isn’t going to make any secret of the fact that she thinks that Rachel sucks.

As for Santana’s own feelings about Rachel, they’re fairly complicated, too.

Early on, Santana fixates on Rachel much in the same way that she does on Finn, mainly because she is jealous of Rachel’s emotional transparency.

When Rachel wants something, everybody in the world knows that she wants it, and Rachel never backs down or apologizes for pursuing her desires. To someone like Santana, who at the time feels trapped by her fears and is repressing a huge part of who she is, Rachel’s unapologetic Rachelness is enviable. Santana wishes she could be as brazenly herself as Rachel is. She wishes she could go after what she wants. But since she feels that she can’t, watching Rachel just frustrates her. It pisses her off that someone as unpopular and obnoxious as Rachel is out there achieving her dreams when she can’t herself do the same.

Among Brittanalysts, there is some debate as to whether or not Santana has an unwilling crush on Rachel. I personally don’t think she does, but regardless:

Throughout high school, Santana behaves aggressively towards Rachel due to her frustration, and it is only in their senior year that they start to make amends.

Following graduation and Santana’s brief stint at Louisville, when Santana ends up moving in at the Loft in NY, she does so knowing that she has been horrible to Rachel in the past and feeling guilty for it (“I think I just have this weird guilt-trip thing about being friends with you because I was so awful to you in high school. Quinn and Britt hated you, too, and that’s mostly just because you sucked so bad and you walked with that weird feet-pointing-out thing. I made Quinn look like the boss, but I was really running the ‘hate on Rachel’ parade”).

She tries her best make amends, but, as described above, Rachel frequently rejects her overtures, deeply hurting her feelings. While there are definitely occasions when Pezberry seem genuinely endeared to each other (see episode 4x15), they never seem to last, with Rachel refusing to believe that Santana is capable of altruism.

Rachel consistently expects the worst from Santana, and confirmation bias causes her to interpret Santana’s behaviors in the least charitable way possible. Santana, unable to win for losing, then lives down to Rachel’s low expectations, causing Rachel to feel justified in her original opinions. The longer this cycle goes on, the more frantic Santana becomes.

The final straw is their fight over Santana’s role as Rachel’s understudy in Funny Girl, the fallout from which I describe at length here and here.

Suffice it to say that in the end Rachel never really gets Santana’s motivations for behaving in the way that she does—hint: Santana doesn’t go after the role because she is in any way trying to undermine Rachel, and she also ultimately doesn’t relinquish the role because she is in any way lazy or unmotivated—but Santana reaches a place where she no longer cares.

Brittany teaches Santana that she can just walk away from Rachel if she’s not getting anything out of their relationship (“You have spent most of your life in the closet because you cared about what people thought about you. Walking away from a dream that you don't actually care about is you winning because it's you saying, ‘This is not who I am, and I don't care who knows it’”), so that is exactly the thing that Santana does.

Though she is still kind to Rachel when they come into contact later in the season, she clearly isn’t desperate for her friendship in the same way that she was before (see episode 5x18). When Rachel misjudges her, she allows it to roll right off her back. She can be the bigger person even if Rachel doesn’t realize that that’s what she’s doing. She can go high when Rachel goes low.

Santana closes out the show comfortable in the knowledge that she will never be Rachel’s bosom friend and that whatever “friendship” they have will always be mostly superficial. Rachel serves as a bridesmaid at her wedding and is someone she probably keeps in contact with throughout her life, but theirs is never really an intimate friendship, and, finally, after so many years, Santana is at peace with the fact that it isn’t.

Quinn Fabray

Brittana’s relationships with Quinn are complicated and presented ambiguously throughout the series.

While the Unholy Trinity often purport that they are best friends, Brittana frequently ostracize Quinn, and Santana frequently fights her. It is also uncertain to what degree Brittany has a personal relationship with Quinn independent of Quinntana’s personal relationships with each other.

Still, despite all the complications and unanswered questions, I do tend to believe that deep down the Unholy Trinity are friends and do care about one another, albeit in their own particular way.

I’ll link you to this post, where I discuss the issues at length.

Noah Puckerman

Brittany’s relationship with Puck is very minimal, at least as it plays out where the audience can see on screen.

While Santana insinuates that Brittany may engage in a casual sexual relationship with Puck sometime prior to the start of S1 (see episode 3x01) and Brittany may participate in a threesome involving Puck and Santana as late as the events of episode 2x06, in general, Brittany has far fewer personal interactions with Puck throughout the course of the series than do either Santana or Quinn.

By her own report, Brittany thinks that Puck is dumb (see episode 2x04). However, despite what fanon tells us, we have no indication that Brittany bears any secret or special animosity toward Puck, even though Puck is Santana’s boyfriend and sexual partner throughout S1 and some of S2.

As I discuss elsewhere,

It is worth noting that, historically, Brittany has always responded to Santana showing romantic attention to persons other than herself with a sort of quiet stoicism sometimes tinged with sadness and reservation, such as we see when she approaches Santana during the Dirt Locker scene (“Wait, you’re still dating Sam?”), in episode 4x13 with her heartbroken look as Santana kisses Elaine in the choir room, and during her speech to Santana in episode 5x12 (“And I’m sure your girlfriend’s great, but you can’t recreate what you and I have”).

As much as fanfiction likes to imagine Brittany being openly hostile toward anyone Santana bats an eye at, we don’t have much canon evidence to say that she would do so. Even when she’s suggesting that Santana should break up with Dani, Brittany is not insulting toward Dani or disparaging of her character. She respects Santana’s choices and attractions, even if she would prefer that Santana not date anyone but herself.

That being the case, I don’t think Brittany hates Puck even though Santana long uses him as a beard—and particularly because Puck, for as crass and rude and opportunistic as he can often be, never does anything in particular to hurt Santana, unlike, say, Finn, whose actions end up hurting Santana a lot in the long run.

Yes, Puck uses Santana for sex, but Santana uses him for sex right back. Moreover, Brittany knows that sex is all there is between Pucktana. There is no emotional connection there and nothing for her to really be jealous of. Ultimately, Santana isn’t even attracted to Puck. She’s just flaunting him for the social benefits, and Brittany knows as much.

While Brittany certainly doesn’t like the arrangement and would prefer that Santana not feel the need to maintain a beard at all, she does understand that Pucktana’s relationship is both reciprocal and consensual and that Pucktana are at liberty to do what they will in regards to each other.

The times when Brittany finds Pucktana’s relationship most hurtful are the times that Santana rubs it in her face (episode 2x04), and in those instances, Puck is just the tool Santana is using to hurt Brittany, not an active participant in bringing hurt to Brittany himself. Brittany’s sense of sadness and frustration in these situations is therefore directed at Santana, not at Puck.

Once Pucktana go their seperate ways in S2, Brittany doesn’t seem to give Puck much thought thereafter. The fact that Puck attends Brittany’s wedding to Santana shows just how much of a nonfactor she considers him to be.

As for how Santana feels about Puck, as I discuss in another post,

Making her private business with Puck public knowledge affords Santana some cover. If she is having sex with the most popular boy in school and everybody knows that she is doing so, then most people won’t give a second thought to her close relationship with Brittany. Consequently, the more Puck brags about sleeping with her to his buddies, the more secure Santana feels in her life.

It also works for Santana that she and Puck are scarcely friends outside of their sexual relationship, as frankly she has no real interest in Puck as a person—he’s just a means to an end for her. Constantly berating Puck, keeping him at arm’s length emotionally, and making him perfectly aware that her relationship with him is entirely contingent upon his ability to service her social needs are all tactics that she uses to keep Puck from getting all needy on her.

In fact, as we see in episode 1x18, when Puck makes an ill-advised attempt to form a deeper emotional bond with Santana, looking to her for comfort in his time of emotional vulnerability, he gets himself burned in so doing—and badly. Not only is Santana totally unsympathetic to his plight, but she cuts off his access to her sexually because he no longer appeals to her after having lost his alpha male status.

Throughout S1 and early S2, Santana’s relationship with Puck fluctuates according to the pattern I describe here.

Basically, she turns to him whenever she is feeling insecure and needs to “reassert her heterosexuality” but then also frequently ignores him in favor of Brittany. Her lack of real attraction to Puck causes her frustration and anxiety and prompts her to occasionally lash out at him, weakening their already tenuous bonds to each other.

By my estimation, the last time Santana and Puck sleep together is circa the events of episode 2x06. Thereafter, Puck completely abandons his sexual relationship with Santana in order to romantically pursue Lauren Zizes, and he even emphatically tells Santana that he’s finished with her come episode 2x12.

Eventually, Santana replaces Puck with Sam, using him as her beard instead.

From then on, Pucktana have little contact throughout the rest of the series. Like Brittany, Santana doesn’t seem to bear Puck any ill-will going forward, but she also isn’t at all close to him and doesn’t maintain any kind of real friendship with him after they graduate.

My guess is that in adulthood, Santana probably doesn’t like to dwell on her memories of Puck, not because he was necessarily horrible to her but just because she was so deeply unhappy during the time when she was with him. It’s sad to think back on herself at fifteen years old, scared to death, believing that her farce of a relationship with Puck is perhaps the best “romance” that she is ever going to experience. She’s glad that she eventually grew up and grew out of that stage in her life, and she doesn’t want to really revisit that old headspace even now that she’s clear of it.

Kurt Hummel

Both Brittany and Santana have complicated relationships with Kurt over the years, which I have written about at length here.

Mercedes Jones

Though at first they mostly ignore her, Mercedes eventually becomes one of Brittana’s best friends from S3 onwards, and particularly once she hires them as her background singers on her nationwide mall tour between S5 and S6.

Santana is generally closer to Mercedes than is Brittany. However, both girls get along well with Mercedes on an interpersonal level.

I have rambled a lot about their individual dynamics with her here.

Tina Cohen-Chang

Early on in the series, Brittana tend to ignore Tina, having few personal interactions with her on screen.

Though in S2, Brittany participates on the Brainiacs with Tina and Tina serves as Santana’s accompanyist for “Trouty Mouth,” we see no one-on-one conversations between them.

In S3, Tina acts alongside Santana in West Side Story and shows tacit support for Brittana’s relationship, but there are again no definitive exchanges between her and Brittana either individually or as a couple.

It is only in S4 that Tina seems to come onto Brittana’s radar, and only then because she starts to become obnoxious to them. In the S4 premiere, Brittany jockeys with Tina to become “the new Rachel” of the glee club. Then in episode 4x06, Santana returns to Lima and “steals” Tina’s dream role in the school musical, much to Tina’s chagrin.

During this time, Brittana still remain mostly oblivious to Tina, though she starts to resent them, feeling as if she has waited years for it to be her turn to shine only to have them continually steal her opportunities and overshadow her.

Tina gets her revenge on Brittana in episode 4x13, when she springs the news that Brittany is dating Sam on Santana in a surprise phone call.

As I say elsewhere,

In the long run, Santana is more upset by the message than by the messenger who brought it to her and seems not to hold anything against Tina for letting the proverbial cat out of the bag. Their relationship doesn’t much evolve from this point forward.

Brittany, on the other hand, never truly forgets the slight—which is why we see Brittany be downright mean to Tina in S4 through S6 (such as, for example, when she cuts Tina a new one in episode 6x03 when the glee girls go to talk to Becky).

Artie Abrams

While fanon likes to imagine lots of bad blood between Brittana and Artie following S2, I honestly don’t think that such is the case.

For a long time, both Brittany and Santana basically ignore Artie’s existence, to the point where when Brittany approaches him in episode 2x04, professing her supposed sexual interest in him and asking him to be her duet partner, he has reason to question if she even really knows who he is (“Okay. Sorry, I’m just a little confused. You’ve never even made eye contact with me”).

Of course, at this point, Brittany really doesn’t know Artie much at all and she has no actual personal interest in him. She is just using him as a pawn in the emotional chess game she is playing with Santana, trying to get back at Santana for shooting her down and hurting her feelings the night previous.

She chooses to make Artie an accessory in her revenge plot specifically because she knows that he breaks every “rule” Santana has set for her regarding their dating relationships (see here).

Brittana only date boys for the social perks, but Artie isn’t popular, and if anything being with him will hurt Brittany’s reputation. Plus, Brittany is pushing his wheelchair around like he is her boyfriend-boyfriend, and that is a status she and Santana typically don’t afford their male dates. They’re not supposed to treat boys like partners, just objects. Santana wouldn’t be caught dead holding hands with Puck, so what the hell is Brittany doing sitting in Artie’s lap? Everything about the way Brittany approaches Artie is meant to agitate Santana.

---and it does.

Big time.

Brittany seduces Artie, and then Santana confronts Artie, revealing to him that Brittany is using him. Hurt, Artie unloads on Brittany for cheapening his first sexual experience.

Only then does Brittany really even seem to see Artie for the first time and realize that he is not just some object she can use to mess with Santana. He is an actual person with thoughts and feelings and considerations of his own, and she was wrong to assume that sex didn’t mean anything to him.

Though it takes Brittany until episodes 2x06 or 2x08 to really start dating Artie in earnest, the things he says about sex being special really seem to stick with her and make her think in the interim.

For years, Santana has been telling her that sex isn’t dating, but now Artie wants sex to be a part of dating---and a part that conveys real feelings and functions within a larger network of affections. Unlike Santana, Artie is actually proud to be by Brittany’s side. He loves being able to say that the most popular girl in school is his girlfriend. Plus, he is sweet, and unlike every other boy at the school, he hasn’t called Brittany stupid.

Sure, being with him isn’t like being with Santana, and Brittany’s feelings for him, though warm, don’t come close to her true love, which is reserved for Santana alone. Still, if she can’t be Santana’s girlfriend, being Artie’s is maybe the next best thing.

So Brittany dates Artie between episodes 2x06 and 2x19---and during that time, she does really come to care for him. Even though she is in love with Santana, she does come to love Artie and value his feelings, and she learns a lot from being with him about what she wants and needs from a relationship and about how important it is to communicate emotions to one’s partner.

For as unpopular as Bartie is with our fandom, the truth is that Artie is a pretty good boyfriend for Brittany.

His downfall is mostly that he misunderstands her.

Like my dear friend Roch points out,

The problem with most people in the Gleeverse and their understanding of Brittany is that there’s often a failure to balance 1) Brittany’s belief in "magic" and unconventionality, and 2) Brittany’s ability to reason and behave like most other people do. Most often, people rely on the second option too much, which accounts for the raised eyebrows when she speaks in Brittanyisms.

What results is that people fail to respect her nonnormative way of approaching the world. However, when people rely too much on the first option, they tend to infantilize her and treat her like her understanding of “magic” means that she completely disregards any facet of reality. What results is something like Artie’s “magic comb” scheme from “Special Education.”

Note: Roch has retired from the Brittana fandom. Please respect her privacy while you enjoy her archived work.

Like most of the New Directions, Artie believes that Brittany is of below average intelligence. However, whereas most of the New Directions across the board look down on Brittany for being “dumb,” Artie actually finds her “dumbness” somewhat endearing.

To him, Brittany is a whimsical but ultimately simple creature whose joie de vivre and naïveté on the one hand make her attractive but on the other hand cause her to be particularly susceptible to being taken advantage of. Artie likes the idea that Brittany needs him to protect and guide her, but it also scares him that she could so easily be swayed. He is allowed to sometimes trick her when his doing so is “for her own good,” but he doesn’t want anyone else swindling her or exploiting her for their own gain or at her---or really his---expense.

Though Brittany doesn’t actually come from a “magical land,” Artie acts as if she does, and he is the benevolent human man whose job it is to guide her through our harsh and unforgiving reality.

At one point, he literally tells her that her brain "exists in this magical other dimension where anything is possible," and he means what he says in a pretty straightforward way.

It’s all a take on the Born Sexy Yesterday trope.

Of course, in a classic Born Sexy Yesterday relationship, the woman typically has no sexual experience prior to meeting the man. Obviously, such is not the case with Brittany and Artie, as in fact she has much more sexual experience than he does. Nevertheless, the trope still applies inasmuch as while Artie is not Brittany’s first sexual partner, he is very much her first serious boyfriend, and he believes that he possesses greater emotional maturity than she does regarding sex. For all her worldly experience, Artie still can and does conceive of Brittany as an ingénue, believing that she knows nothing about love or being in a committed relationship and that he will therefore be in a position to teach her and mold her to his liking.

The problem (for Artie) is that Brittany wasn’t actually born yesterday.

For as much as Artie thinks that he is doing what is best for Brittany and treating her well, the truth is that it is his very belief that he has a better understanding of her life than she does that ultimately leads her to sever her relationship ties with him.

Brittany will humor Artie when he wrongly assumes that she still believes in Santa Claus and possesses a Dumboesque trust in magical objects (like combs), particularly early on in S2, when her basic m.o. is still to just go along to get along and to not confront people about their bullshit even when remaining silent causes her to look foolish.

But when Artie asserts to Brittany that he knows more about Santana than she does and decries Santana’s actions to her as if he holds greater insight into them than she, that’s Brittany’s line in the sand. Artie says that Brittany is stupid because she can’t see that Santana is manipulating her, and between how much the insult hurts her and how wrong Artie is to disparage her true love’s character, she decides she won’t take it anymore.

She’s done.

Now, even in the aftermath of the Blurt Locker, Brittany doesn’t necessarily hate Artie. Her primary feeling is rather disappointment---in him for so underestimating her and her cognitive abilities and in herself for “allowing him” to persist in treating her like a child for so long. She had known for the entire duration of their relationship that Artie had the wrong idea about her and her intelligence, but she figured that since he was being relatively nice about it, she would let it slide. Only recently has she acquired enough confidence in herself to realize that she deserves better and that even the kindest of condescension is still condescension.

Of course, deep inside, Brittany also knows that she doesn’t get to walk away from this breakup along the moral high ground. She was cheating on Artie, and despite how she tries to rationalize that behavior to him, the fact is that she had always known that what she was doing was wrong. Santana wasn’t fooling anyone---least of all Brittany---by claiming that sex doesn’t count when the plumbing is different. Brittany just hoped that maybe Artie would see things that way so she could have her boyfriend and be with her soulmate, too.

But when Artie calls her out, she knows in her heart that he is right to feel hurt. She has wronged him, and the fact that her affair was with Santana doesn’t somehow make it more excusable. Once again, she has made harmful assumptions about how Artie values sex and monogamy.

She may have never meant to hurt him, but she has.

Going forward from the Blurt Locker experience, Brittany realizes that she has some things she needs to work on in herself before she gets together with anyone, including Santana (see episodes 2x19 and 2x20).

Part of that work involves making active decisions about her love life.

So when Artie tries to woo her back to him in episode 2x20, Brittany doesn’t give in. In S1 or early S2, she may have. But now she tells him, “Artie, that was lovely, but I’m not gonna go to prom with you. You called me stupid, and I really didn’t like that, so, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna go to prom by myself and really work on me and dance with other people’s dates.”

Brittany stands her ground, and Artie says he understands.

---and from that point forward, Brittany never really looks back at Artie.

Like I said before, Brittany doesn’t go away hating the kid, but she also realizes that he was never the one she really wanted and that she isn’t going to settle for him anymore. Brittany wants to be with Santana, so when Santana is ready, that’s what she does, and she soon becomes so absorbed in their relationship that she seems to completely forget about the bizarre, old Bartie days, to the point where, in S4, when Artie mentions that he and Brittany used to date, Brittany can easily pretend she has no idea what he is talking about (see episode 4x03).

Despite Artie’s initial bid to win Brittany back following their breakup, he eventually comes to share in her resignation. They were fundamentally incompatible as a couple, and with time and distance, they both realize as much. There are no regrets on either side that they couldn’t make it last. For as difficult as things were in the moment, they can both agree that everything worked out for the best in the end.

Though Artie serves as Brittany’s campaign manager and running mate in the class election of S4 and her and Santana’s wedding planner during S6, they never resume their former closeness. They are friends but not close ones, and that’s just fine with both of them.

Now.

On the Santana side of things, Baby Girl completely ignores Artie until suddenly he’s dating her one true love. Then, in classic Santana style, she freaks out.

Like I talk about in this post,

Unfortunately, the fact that Brittany has a relationship with Artie is misery for Santana.

Despite her initial jealousy towards him in episode 2x04, Santana never really considers Artie a rival for Brittany’s affections prior to when he and Brittany officially start dating in episode 2x08.

Sure, Brittany had had sex with lots of boys in the past, but she had never had a real boyfriend or even acted like she wanted one before she and Artie became a thing. Both she and Santana had always remained emotionally aloof from the boys they had hooked up with. That was their basic mode of operation. They could fool around with however many football players they liked, but they always went home to each other at the end of the day. In Santana’s mind, that was the way things had always been and the way they would always be.

Consequently, after Santana quashes the early Bartie relationship, she figures that she has made her point and that things will “go back to normal” between her and Brittany thereafter. She never expects that Brittany and Artie will start dating in earnest, let alone that Brittany will develop feelings for Artie. Seeing Bartie not only together but happy comes as a total shock to her. She has no coping mechanisms to deal with losing “her girl” to a male rival, and especially a socially undesirable male rival like Artie Abrams.

Brittany dating Artie breaks all of her and Santana’s rules. Artie isn’t popular, so he doesn’t boost Brittany’s social cred. He also isn’t really a side thing, so Brittany being with him isn’t a corollary function to her and Santana’s relationship. He quickly becomes Brittany’s main partner, supplanting Santana, which is something that has never happened between Brittany and Santana before.

When this great shift occurs, Santana feels jealous and hurt, but she doesn’t know how to express her feelings, not when, by her estimation, she isn’t supposed to even be feeling said feelings to begin with.

During this time, Santana lashes out at various other happy couples in glee club but doesn’t dare go after Bartie or even just Artie for fear that if she does so, Brittany will fully choose him over her once and for all. Instead, she watches from a distance and frets, worrying that even though Artie is infinitely less popular than she is, she still can’t compete with him just because he’s a boy and he can be himself and he and Brittany can have a “normal” relationship in a way that she and Brittany can’t.

Eventually, most likely sometime between episodes 2x11 and 2x14, Brittana recommence their sexual relationship, with Brittany cheating on Artie with Santana. When they do so, Santana tries desperately to justify their actions, telling both herself and Brittany that what they’re doing “doesn’t really count” because they’re both girls and they’re just doing as best friends do.

Of course, in her heart of hearts, Santana knows that what she’s saying is a load of shit, and she knows that Brittany knows that what she’s saying is a load of shit. She’s just so scared to lose Brittany again that she tries to rationalize their bad behavior, giving them an excuse to continue.

The situation is a miserable one because for as much as Santana craves a relationship with Brittany, the kind of relationship they have now---where they’re both cheating on their boyfriends to be together, making excuses for their intimacy, and pretending that their sexual encounters don’t mean anything when clearly they do---isn’t truly fulfilling her needs. Though she has tried for years to deny it, Santana wants/needs to be Brittany’s primary (and really only) partner. Having to share is killing her.

By the events of episode 2x15, the center cannot hold, so Santana approaches Brittany willing to make some huge admissions and at the same time ask for the things she wants. Unfortunately, what she wants isn’t yet tenable, because it’s for Brittany to break up with Artie without telling him the real reason why and then be with her in the same way that they have been together before, secretly and constantly dreading that someday the jig will be up.

It’s not that Brittany needs Santana to come out in order for them to date.

S3 proves that she doesn’t.

What she needs is for Santana to be honest with herself.

The Hurt Locker is a big first step in that direction, but there’s still more work to be done. Brittany understands that. Santana doesn’t.

Like I talk about in my tags on this post,

It takes Santana totally by surprise when Brittany doesn't dump Artie on the spot in response to her Hurt Locker confession.

Going into that moment, Santana never even imagines that Brittany might turn her down because Brittany has never turned her down before.

Brittany’s demurral throws her completely off balance because suddenly all her biggest fears are being realized: Brittany ''doesn't want her.'' She isn't ''good enough.'' Artie does have something that she doesn’t have. She has made her big, brave gesture, and there isn’t going to be any payoff for it.

The thing Santana doesn't realize is that Brittany turns her down not because she is somehow inadequate but because Brittany wants them to have a real chance at being a couple. She doesn’t want them to be this hasty, dishonest, unjust thing anymore. Brittany loves Santana too much to do that to her.

If they’re going to be together, she wants them to be together in a way that’s going to last. Out or not, they need to be able to be honest with each other.

But of course Santana just thinks the worst.

---and that’s why after Brittany turns her down, Santana does start saying mean things about Artie (see episode 2x16).

From her perspective, Brittany clearly chose Artie over her, and the fact that Brittany did lends credence to the notion that Brittany’s heart does perhaps belong to Artie after all. Santana feels second best and frustrated and mostly scared. She put her heart on the line, and Brittany, in her words, ��blew [her] off” (see episode 2x16). She doesn’t know how to handle the rejection except to be vicious about it.

Still, for as much as she rags on Artie, the truth is that she isn’t really angry at him. She’s angry at herself and the situation, and she’s scared about her future and sad because she thinks that she is never going to get the thing she wants most in the world.

But she can’t really even bring herself to hate Artie---not when, deep down, she knows Brittany’s right, and Artie hasn’t really done anything wrong.

So for a while, Santana sulks, and she licks her wounds, and then she comes up with her ridiculous plan to win Brittany away from Artie---as if that is really the issue---only it turns out that her machinations are all for nothing because Brittany and Artie break up without any prompting from her.

When Artie calls Brittany stupid, Santana is pissed at him, sure. But mostly she’s just concerned with helping Brittany to feel better. For the first time in a long time, she is able to forget herself and her own petty problems and just focus on cheering Brittany up.

With Bartie split up, Santana’s focus shifts entirely onto what she needs to do to set things between her and Brittany to rights, and she very quickly forgets about Artie, particularly as the events of episodes 2x19, 2x20, and 2x22 play out.

---and for as much as certain fanon likes to imagine that Santana carries lingering resentment towards Artie into later seasons, I think the truth is that she doesn’t much fuss about him going forward.

As she becomes increasingly comfortable with herself and in her and Brittany’s relationship, all the things about Artie that used to cause her to feel insecure just kind of fade away. She no longer has to worry about whether or not he is better than she is or if Brittany prefers him to her. Once he is no longer Brittany’s boyfriend, he recedes into the background again, and Santana mostly ignores him, to the point where she is fine with Brittany hiring him to plan their wedding.

Santana and Artie never become close friends, but they also aren’t in any way enemies. He’s just one of the glee kids, same as the rest. Both Brittany and Santana are okay with him.

Mike Chang

Mike is a football player when Brittana are cheerleaders, and he is their glee club teammate for three years and Brittany’s Brainiacs teammate for one season. On several occasions, he serves as either Brittany or Santana’s dance partner (see for example episodes 3x09 and 5x12).

That said, despite some subtextual suggestions that Brittana—and particularly Brittany—may have a friendship or even a dating relationship with Mike early on during their sophomore year, the truth is that Brittana never share any conversations with Mike on screen and seldom even refer to him when they are speaking to others, so it is impossible for us to gauge exactly what their feelings about him may be.

Fanon, of course, loves to imagine Bike bonding as the glee club’s two resident dancers, and some fic writers posit that Mike is such a likable person that he is one of the few boys in glee club whom Santana can actually stand, but canon offers no main text confirmation for these ideas.

Even after six years, Brittana’s feelings towards Mike remain a mystery.

Sam Evans

Glee tells us two very contradictory stories regarding Brittana’s feelings towards Sam Evans.

The one story unfolds in S2, S3, S5, and S6, the other only in S4.

The first story is one mostly of ambivalence. The second is one of longstanding jealousy, animosity, and love triangles.

The fact that these two conflicting narratives exist within the same series can be attributed to various retcons and shifting priorities on the parts of the writers.

Unfortunately, their very existence complicates our understanding of the entire Bramtana dynamic.

Throughout S2, it seems that Brittana are mostly ambivalent towards Sam.

To Santana, Sam is a social multitool: something she can steal away from Quinn as payback for Quinn stealing the Cheerios captaincy from her; a new beard to replace Puck now that she has lost him to Lauren Zizes; a boyfriend she can use to perhaps make Brittany jealous; a football player to boost her ailing popularity and help her, as she frames it, “have some buzz at [sic] school.”

Though in her initial attempts to convince Sam to date her, Santana acts as if he is the party who will most benefit from them having a relationship, the truth is that it is her who really stands to gain.

Throughout most of S2, Santana is in a tailspin. At the time when she starts dating Sam, she is off the Cheerios; on the out-and-outs with both Quinn and Brittany; heartbroken and frustrated due to Brittany’s relationship with Artie; confused about her own feelings and sexuality; a social pariah in the glee club; and just generally directionless and flailing. She needs something to help her reassert herself as the HBIC at McKinley, and that something turns out to be the Machiavellian plot she pulls to break up Fabrevans and score Sam as her boyfriend.

To her, their relationship is just smart business.

—but that’s basically all it is.

Obviously, Santana has no real feelings for or attraction to Sam. He is just the only vaguely popular boy she can entice into dating her at the moment. She doesn’t have any real interest in getting to know him or in spending time with him in private. Instead, she needs her classmates—and especially Quinn and Brittany—to see her sitting on Sam’s lap and sucking his trouty lips in public. It’s all a power play, and Sam is just an accessory.

Case in point: Santana gets as much mileage as she can out of Sam between episodes 2x13 and 2x18. Then when she is done with Sam, she immediately moves on to using Dave Karofsky without even dumping Sam first.

Come S3, her attitude toward Sam shifts to reflect her increasing comfort with herself and her sexuality. Since she no longer needs to use Sam to help her pretend to be something that she is not, she can drop her guard around him and show him more of her true character, which is exactly what she does.

When he returns to McKinley in episode 3x08, she greets him with a litany of insults, but the insults are purely affectionate—a fact that Sam actually recognizes himself at the time (“I missed you, too, Santana”), despite what later retcons may say.

Though she and Sam don’t have many other personal interactions throughout S3, Sam does show tacit support for both the Troubletones and Santana’s relationship with Brittany, and Santana seems to appreciate that he does.

Throughout both S2 and S3, there is nothing to suggest that Santana particularly hates Sam or has it out for him. At best, he is an acquaintance she feels somewhat friendly towards. At worst, he is a tool she uses to mess with Quinn and Brittany and maintain the illusion of her own heterosexuality. Even when Santana is mean to Sam, the meanness seems to derive more from her own frustrations with herself rather than from genuine animosity towards him. He is collateral damage, not the real object of her anger.

During all this time, Brittany is only aware of Sam insofar as she is aware that Santana is using Sam as a beard, and she feels sad that Santana is still so uncomfortable in her own skin that she feels the need to pretend to be someone she isn’t (“Wait. You’re still dating Sam?”).

Yes, Brittany and Sam kiss at the Rachel Berry House Party Trainwreck Extravaganza in episode 2x14, but their interaction occurs on a purely physical level, and there is no evidence that either one of them goes away from the encounter yearning for anything more, particularly as they both remain with their respective partners thereafter.

Indeed, Brittany doesn’t even have any one-on-one conversations with Sam in either S2 or S3. The first time that she ever personally addresses him is in episode 4x02.

—which is why what Sam says in S4 about how he has always felt attracted to Brittany and Santana has always known that he did and felt jealous of his interest represents such a major retcon.

Simply put, Sam’s supposed S2-S3 infatuation with Brittany just doesn’t exist, and neither does Santana’s supposed S2-S3 jealousy of and hatred towards him. Prior to S4, Brittany and Sam aren’t even really on each other’s radars, and Santana uses Sam to her own purposes, but she never indicates that she feels any personal animosity to him, and especially not on Brittany’s account.

But the trouble is that at least in the bizarre, self-contained OOC universe that is Glee S4, Sam’s supposed longstanding crush on Brittany and Santana’s supposed animosity towards him are canon—as are the supposed depth of Brittany’s feelings for Sam and the love triangle that exists between Bramtana.

During the days when S4 was originally airing, it was hard to make sense of it all. It’s only now that the rest of the show has played out that we can look back and see what was really going on.

To quote another post at length,

One of the first rules you learn as a writer is “Show, don’t tell.”

The Glee writers really wanted to make Bram fetch happen, but in the end they fell short of their goal because what they were telling us didn’t carry much weight and didn’t match up with what we were shown.

They told us and told us that Bram was the real deal, but their telling seemed quiet in comparison to the louder, more glaring cues we saw—and particularly as we compared Bram to Brittana and watched Bram eventually unravel and disappear into oblivion, never to be mentioned on the show again.

Sure, the writers engineered a Bram “wedding.” Sure, they had Brittany say that she loved Sam and that Sam was the person she was thinking about during the school shooting. Sure, they had Brittany spout nonsense about how Sam’s the one who really gets her.

But that was all telling, and poor telling, at that.

Brittany’s initial reluctance to date Sam spoke louder than much of her eventual dating him did. Her unenthusiastic response to many of Sam’s romantic gestures towards her spoke louder than all the writers’ telling, telling, telling about Bram as a great romance. The fact that she would rather serenade Lord Tubbington than Sam drowned out anything the writers had to say about how she felt about Sam as her boyfriend. The fact that she would kiss Santana while she was dating Sam spoke volumes.

Think: She would have never kissed anyone else when she was exclusively dating Santana. She and Santana would never cheat on each other, even in that small way.

Look to Brittany’s facial expressions throughout S4. Look to how sad she seems and how she appears to just be going along with things to get along. She uses her Brittanyisms as defense mechanisms, and when she’s with Sam she spouts almost nothing but Brittanyisms—baffling statements meant to keep him at arm’s length and confound him. She’s sometimes downright mean to the kid, such as when she talks about how stupid he is when he bombs the SAT and frequently condescends to him after she is proven a math genius.

Her “marriage” to him reads like a huge misunderstanding on her part—and especially because Sam says in his vows to her that they’re soulmates, and she very pointedly does not reciprocate and instead talks about how she honestly never noticed Sam when he first joined glee club (see here and here).

Her fear for and thinking of him during the school shooting scare is genuine, but her statement that he was the only person she thought of in that bathroom stall rings hollow (see here).

When she fears graduation and what might become of her in the future, she blocks Sam completely out and dumps his ass via an incredibly harsh, even vicious text message.

Then, once Bram is over, it is OVER, full stop.

Brittany never regrets ending the relationship. She never pines for Sam or wonders what might have been with him. She never tries to win him back. In fact, eventually, she seems to completely forget they were a couple. By the time she and Santana get back together, it is as if Bram never even happened to begin with.

Bram do, of course, have some coupley moments. They do express affection for each other. They’re certainly physically intimate, and Brittany does choose to remain with Sam throughout S4.

But, like I said, all of that is just quiet, largely unsupported telling—and what it tells isn’t what the writers seemed to have intended to say.

If you look at the big picture with Bram, it is abundantly clear that Sam was never the love of Brittany’s life—and you can especially see that when you compare Bram to Brittana.

Look back to S2, when Brittany wants so much to date Santana and works so hard to make it so that they can be together. Her pining for Santana from afar, her lovelorn expressions as she watches Santana try to come to terms with their feelings for each other, her heartbreak whenever something sets their relationship back, her genuine excitement and gratitude whenever something pulls their relationship forward, her emotional responses to “Landslide” and “Songbird” and her and Santana’s every locker conversation—all of those things speak volumes, and loudly.

Brittany is so enthused by even the smallest romantic gesture coming from Santana.

(Compare, for example, her reaction when Sam sings a song to her to when Santana does. In the first case, she most often looks amused. In the second case, she most often looks as if an angel has just come down from heaven and shown her a miracle.)

She is so open and heartfelt with Santana.

When she and Santana are dating, and she has a problem or experiences self-doubt, Santana is the first person she turns to and the first person she discloses to. She trusts Santana to give her good advice and to help her find her way—and that is even the case when she is dating Sam. It is ultimately Santana who helps her embrace her genius and make the decision to leave Lima to attend MIT.

It is also Santana to whom Brittany returns to time and time again throughout the series. She dates Artie in S2 and completely forgets she dated him come S3. She dates Sam in S4 and completely forgets she has dated him come S5. But Santana she never forgets about, whether they are dating or not, never mind the season or the day or the hour.

Notice how many times Brittany name-drops Santana, even while she’s dating Sam.

Santana is always the object of Brittany’s heart, from S1 when they are in love in the background to S2 when they try so hard to figure out how to navigate their feelings to S3 when they finally date each other to S4 when distance separates them to S5 when Brittany seeks Santana out again to S6 when they finally work out their happily ever after.

Even when Brittany is with Artie and Sam, it is clear that she never falls out of love with Santana.

Her statement that she is Santana’s, proudly so, is never conditional. It is perpetual. No matter who she is with or where she goes or what the official status of her and Santana’s relationship is, her heart is always, always Santana’s—which is something Brittany very much proves in S5 with the speech she makes to Santana in 5x12.

In retrospect, then, the story Glee actually tells about Brittany, Bram, and Brittana is this, regardless of what the writers intended to say: Brittany has been in love with Santana from the start, and Santana is always both her first and last choice. At times, she and Santana can’t be together—first, because Santana isn’t ready for them to be, then because distance and circumstance separate them. Whenever a relationship between them is impossible, Brittany accepts what she can’t change and waits. One of her greatest virtues is her patience. She dates other people and tries to find momentary happiness where she can. But Santana is always her endgame, her end goal. Sam is a stopgap. She cares for him, and she loveds him in a certain way for a time. He makes her laugh. He is, for the most part, kind to her. He throws himself into their relationship and tries very hard to be a good boyfriend to her. But, ultimately, he never fully understands her, and when she pictures her long-term future, it is never with him. She is always waiting for Santana, until suddenly she doesn’t have to wait anymore.

There is such a difference between the hedging, well-I-guess-so way Brittany gives into dating Sam in S4 and the determined, bold, triumphant way she wins Santana back in S5. In the one case, she is completely passive. In the other, she is a girl on a mission, out to woo her soulmate and restart their relationship on the way to forever.

Brittany may have loved Sam, but she is in love with Santana—and being with Santana has actually taught her what love is, the full infinity of it.

Really, to discern the difference between Bram and Brittana, one needs look no further than to Brittany’s willingness to fight for those respective relationships.

In Bram, she is a passive entity. She falls into the relationship, moseys along until it runs its course, and then goes her way and never looks back. She never once fights for anything with Sam. She never once initiates anything with him.

Like I indicate above, the really strange thing about Bramtana is that for as much as the writers insist over and over again in S4 that Santana hates Sam and Sam has always loved Brittany and Brittany and Sam are perfect for each other and should be together forever, by S5, it is as if that entire story arc never happened.

Brittana get back together, and they proceed to completely ignore Sam for the entire remainder of the series, to the point where they’re even chill with him attending their wedding despite the fact that they have both dated him in the past. Ultimately, the whole middle part of Bramtana history reads like a complete aberration.

So where does that leave us in terms of understanding Brittany and Santana’s respective feelings towards Sam?

My read is that neither Brittany nor Santana is ever as invested in Sam Evans as the Glee writers would tell it. To Santana, he is first a means to an end, then a rival and representation of the unknown, and then a neutralized threat and complete nonfactor. To Brittany, he is Santana’s beard, then a friend, then a means to some temporary happiness on the way to “happily ever after,” then nothing, really—not even a lasting memory.

Looking forward to the future, they probably only really consider him within the context of his relationship with Mercedes.

Blaine Anderson

Neither Brittany nor Santana has much of a personal relationship with Blaine to really speak of. Their interactions with him occur almost entirely within the context of him being Kurt’s man.

For more discussion on this dynamic, see this post.

__________

Conclusion

While Brittana do make a few good friends in the New Directions, the fact of the matter is that they have always been each other’s best friends, and in the end their relationships with their teammates are never as strong as they perhaps could be.

With all of their other teammates, they get off to a bad start. Though some forgive them and eventually recognize that they’ve changed, the majority never learn to fully accept or even remotely understand them.

To most of the kids in glee club, Brittany is a talking mad-lib and Santana is just plain rude. There’s not a lot of deep disclosure happening between them.

Though Brittana---and particularly Santana---would like to have strong bonds with the in-group, ultimately they come to terms with the fact that most of the glee kids are still a bit wary of and perplexed by them, even after so many years.

While this once-removal between Brittana and the New Directions makes sense within the context of their fictional universe, particularly given their tumultuous historites with one another, it also reflects a larger failure on the part of the Glee writers to create and maintain workable friendships across the whole show.

To be fair, changing characters introduced as antagonists into full-fledged members of the main protagonist group is a difficult writing maneuver to pull off successfully.

It’s just that Glee proved especially ill-equipped to handle such a transition, and Brittana’s friendships from S3 on really suffered for that ineptitude.

Though there are a handful of heartwarming moments between our girls and the New Directions in the canon, the truth is that if we really want to see healthy, mutual, fully developed friendships between Brittana and their glee club teammates, the best place to look is in fanfiction.

#Crazy Brittanalyst answers #letmerebloginpeace #Brittanalyzing #Brittanalysis #Such rambling #Such salt #Sorry kids

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tir-e-d · 4 years

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tuiyla · 2 years

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Don't you find it strange that Santana was so openly handsy with Brittany in s1 but then spent the next two seasons freaking about people suspecting that she was gay? I am to this day very confused by some of their moments, such as caressing arms or legs in front of everybody. No actual couple in the entire show ever acted that way i don't think (some of them did make out during glee club but those moments were part or actual scenes, they weren't just background moments). I'm a Brittana sap and I love their very handsy moments but I just don't get how some of them exist in the first place lol

I thought this was ~only~ a week old ask but turns out it's been two weeks, apologies. Hope you're reading this. In return for your patience, I'm really gonna dive in lol.

I don't find it strange, actually, I think it works out very well in-universe. There are two main reasons why but they intersect. First, PDA between two girls has an entirely social perception and limit than between two men or people of different genders, regardless of their actual relationship status. I think culture is shifting ever so slowly and it's a complex issue, to say the least, but basically Sapphic love is both extremely fetishized and dismissed to a ridiculous degree. We'll get back to the fetishization part with my second reason, but the dismissal has become a meme over the years. It's not unheard of with gay men either that their relationship is dismissed as "brotherly" by those who'd rather pretend queer people don't actually exist, but it's even more true with Sapphic relationships.

It takes a lot for Sapphic relationship to be taken seriously, or at least it can take a lot. Weddings have bene referred to as friendship ceremonies. Gals being pals. Because the limit of what's branded acceptable in a non-romantic/sexual relationship between women is higher than for others, things that'd be considered PDA for actual couples flies with female friends. Some of my friends in high school touched each other in ways and were affectionate enough that, had one of them been a guy, they would have been told off by a teacher. Had they been guys, they would have immediately been labelled gay (but more like a slur version). But girls are allowed to be affectionate in friendships because of the gender norms we have. Brittana didn’t do anything I didn’t also see at my own high school tbh. Well apart from after they actually got together of course lol.

It's a double-edged sword, though. On the one hand, girls can be touchy-feely and no bats an eye, and it's a shame society doesn't allow men to express the same affection within friendships without assuming there must be something more there. But it also comes with a dismissal of when that relationship between two women turns romantic, because Sapphic sexuality is fetishized to the extreme but Sapphic love is brushed off. Girls being affectionate or even making out is treated as hot but not as anything serious. They couldn't possibly actually love each other, right? Not like that.

So reason number one, their affection was just considered to be gals being pals I think. Especially two feminine cheerleaders both known for getting around with guys, people didn't initially bat an eye. That's just Brittany and Santana being Brittany and Santana. From the pinkies to the hugs and everything else, I don't think anyone really stopped to think twice about how they behaved. I get that, with the hindsight that they were in love and also that it's 2022 now and times are changing, it seems now that surely, someone must have been suspicious juts going off on their physical affection. But as someone who was in high school in 2009, I think it's plausible that people didn't consider it to be anything strange.

But then we have reason number 2, that Brittana fully played into the other extreme in this equation, namely the fetishization. As we find out in 1x14, Brittana regularly go on dates with guys together or otherwise play into the male gazey idea of “oh, two hot cheerleaders!” Even taking it as far as two hot cheerleaders making out in front of guys, and who knows exactly what else. In this way, they really neutralized any potential rumours, at least for a while there in season 1. By playing into the idea that they’re only doing this for the pleasure of straight guys, they doubled down on the idea that their friendship is otherwise just that. I certainly don’t think any of the jocks stopped for a second to consider that Brittana’s relationship should be taken more seriously than some fooling around for the boys’ sake. It’s disappointing to see that stereotype be perpetuated but what can ya do.

So by season 1B, Brittana are widely known to be a) best friends who are very casually handsy with each other and b) girls who make out in front of guys and play into the fetishization. They exploit their own exploitation in this sense. I actually just recently wrote a small-ish section on this exact topic in season 1 for my latest Santanalysis; it’s not the main thing I discuss but part of it, and I think one day we should dive even deeper into this aspect of Santana and her relationship with Brittany. Because as I alluded to in my Brettiago post (iirc), the whole reason why Santana was bold enough to explore her sexuality with Brittany in the first place is because of this societal double standard. Because I believe she knew, even if subconsciously, that people would dismiss the idea that she has genuine feelings for Britt, that she could be gay. It’s just gals being pals and them being physical with each other for the sake of men.

I’d also just like to note that what we see of them in the choir room should be treated slightly differently, because ultimately the Glee Club was supposed to be this safe space and the choir room where they’re even more liberal with how they interact. Put aside that the choir room became their place, as they grew more comfortable in Glee and became genuinely attached, not just serving as Sue’s spies, I think even Santana was more relaxed with how she approached things. Brittany was relaxed to begin with, but it’s only at times like the Sectionals sex bomb or the Rumours situation where we see Santana tense up. And that’s a whole other convo, and how Santana’s illusion of heterosexuality falls apart is for another say and for part two of the post I mentioned. Coming to a dashboard near you this May lol. I’m just mentioning all this because I think it’s important to note that they might also have bene even more handsy in the choir room because Glee was supposed to be a safe space where even if people found out they were more than friends, it’s a different scenario than the whole school knowing or suspecting something.

Which also brings me to a point I just have to bring up because I woke up and chose violence against Finn Hudson today. Glee was supposed to be a safe space, so even as the events of season 2 unfolded and most Glee Clubbers found out about or at least suspected Brittana*, that’s not what Santana was terrified of. The whole school already knows, Finn said to try and justify his appalling moment where he betrayed this implicit trust of the choir room’s safe space. But they didn’t. And even if the ridiculous plot of the Congress race and political ads didn’t exist, Finn still outed Santana to a homophobic school where no, most of them hadn’t already known. I guess Santana thought that after Finn had not one but two episodes dedicated to learning not to be a dick with homophobic tendencies, he might have learned to be an ally. Or at least not someone who’d out a lesbian as a cruel attempt at a comeback.

*I think the show could have done a better job of establishing with at least a few key people how they found out about Brittana. That would have been an interesting element but season 3 proved they didn’t care about that. Finn knew and he chose to be a giant asshat with that info.

Anyway that was our anti Finn Hudson side tangent.

To close this off, I think Santana’s journey with her own sexuality and others perception of her is a fascinating and complex story. I think it’s more nuanced than “well if she didn’t want people to know she was gay she shouldn’t have acted gay.” To be clear I don’t think that’s what you’re saying Anon, at all! But I have seen that ~excuse~ for The Outing, which, wow, I wonder how it feels to be heartless. I think what you’re saying is valid, their PDA is curious in light of their true feelings and Santana’s fear, but there are societal aspects to consider and how Brittana played into those. They only began to be clocked as different things piled up and, ultimately, as Finn pushed that final stone and it all came tumbling down. And now I’m sad about Santana’s worst fears coming true and really mad at Finn fucking Hudson. Ah well, jumping over to a different post to write about their season 1 dynamic should be fun, lol.

#this escalated but ah well #lots to consider #glee asks #anon #brittana asks #santanalysis #kinda gonna put it down as because i went off #brittanalysis #anti finn hudson #because he deserves it #brittana pda #any other tags needed i don't think so #santana asks #again kinda #the stroking legs in 2x01 audition was very fruity and makes me feel things #but i can see why they felt chill about doing that

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sohemotional · 2 years

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Brittana Obligatory OTP Asks: 6, 26, 48, 53, 54

6. Who would beg the other not to leave? Who has to leave to protect the other?

This is sad to think about. For one thing, I don't see this scenario ever happening post-canon because these two have a very happy and long marriage. Theoretically, I don't know if either of them would beg each other not to leave but more so Santana out of the two because she gets more passionate about sharing her emotions and is more afraid of being alone. Santana would also be the one who feels she has to protect Britt by leaving her because for one thing she's a dumbass (affectionate) and she ruins good things for herself because she gets scared and another thing is that she's super protective of Britt. I feel like this situation has happened in canon several times tbh and in all cases, neither of them begged each other not to go even though they were clearly longing for the other to stay. They're not the types who would beg anyone to stay if they think it's useless to try.

The first case is the Season 2 confession in Sexy. Santana clearly would have begged Britt to be with her and she basically did but she was too hurt/prideful to actually plead with her more than that. She pushes Britt away as soon as it becomes clear that Britt won't have her the way she wants her. The second case is Season 4, during The Break Up - you can clearly see Britt wants to beg Santana not to do this but she just resigns herself to her fate because she's too depressed and she realizes it's useless. Santana thinks she's "protecting" Britt by leaving her then. Then in Diva, Britt essentially "leaves" Santana (or allows/encourages Santana to leave her) because she thinks she's protecting San by telling her to go to NY. When you think about it, (and I say this lovingly as they're my OTP) Santana's flaw in the Brittana relationship is her fear and Brittany's was her passivity. So that's why neither of them spoke up in many situations when they could/should have spoken up and actively fought for each other (they do finally get much better at that later in the series and they work out in the end).

26. What are their vices?

(Pls keep in mind that this is not in any way meant to bash them as I am a huge fan of them as individuals and a couple. Please keep in mind too that Santana is a villain for most of the story and has grown a lot by the time of Season 6)

Santana as I mentioned before, is a really fearful person. Probably the most fearful Glee character. She's sometimes like a feral animal lashing out, especially in the early seasons. Which is actually very sad and makes me want to hug her. A lot of her meanness comes from her need to control everything around her because she's so afraid. She's afraid that they'll judge her first and say mean things and not like her. She's very sensitive and can't handle being hurt by others so she strikes first. She's so afraid of people not liking her that she gives them a reason to dislike her.

She'll also sabotage things in her life that are genuinely good because she's afraid of losing them. Santana also is very prideful and vain. She hates being made to be vulnerable or having her ego wounded in any way and she'll sometimes do the most ridiculous and/or mean things to save her pride. Santana does have a cruel side to her too. She's also the most jealous character in the series. She hates others taking anything that she perceives belongs to her and she wants what she feels is hers all for herself. At times, she's vengeful and she is selfish in the way she views things (for example, during the Bartie drama in Season 2, Santana only thinks of how it affects her but doesn't try to see things from Brittany's perspective because she's a selfish teenager). As we know, Santana is also materialistic (though I believe she becomes less so by season 6).

Brittany is a more complicated case (and I'd totally love to talk more about Brittany's virtues/flaws in another post if anyone wants to talk about Brittany because she's fascinating to me and literally no one ever talks about her). She is concerned about her popularity too, though she doesn't validate herself solely by her social status/popularity as much as San does. She will insult people that she views as threats to her hierarchy in the social chain, to maintain her position sort of, when she needs to. Fans forget that Brittany was designed to be a mean girl and a villain. That is not meant as bashing her as I find it very interesting that she is very cute and sweet at times but also has that catty mean girl side that arises on occasion. She will also fully support/even enjoy a lot of the mean things Santana does because she's quite catty herself and she likes Santana protecting them. Brittany isn't an evil person, nor is she a completely selfish person but she does mainly care about herself and Santana and she will do whatever to support/protect their little unit they have together. I don't blame her either btw. The entire Glee club is divided into little groups who only/mainly care about each other.

Brittany can also be quite manipulative in a different, less obvious way to Santana, for example with Rory (that is a complex case that I won't get into but of course Rory wasn't fully innocent either) and with other characters because she wants to troll them purposely for the fun of it. Her misdeeds are passive aggressive, petty and shady rather than outright violent. I think particularly in the earlier seasons, Brittany's flaw was that she tended to be very passive and put everyone else's needs ahead of herself but in Seasons 5-6 she starts going after what she wants more assertively. Her speech to Santana in episode 100 is the moment where her character evolved the most imo. Actually to be honest, the moment when she started taking a stand for herself for the first time was season 2 Duets when she started dating Artie.

48. Who's the better driver?

Santana. They're both...weird drivers. No one else would want to be in a car with either of them. Santana has serious road rage and drives super fast while cursing out anyone she dislikes meanwhile Brittany is the most scatterbrained driver ever and she's crazy on the roads. So they've decided that Santana drives most of the time because it's the lesser of two evils and Santana is the more responsible one about getting them to wherever they're going. Santana is the default driver and Brittany rarely drives. She prefers to give instructions to San on how to find places. Which gets them lost.

53. Would they ever go skinny dipping?

Would they? Is that a question? Oh they absolutely have. Several times and done more than that too ;) Santana's parents took her on a trip with Britt to Puerto Rico in the summer after junior year and things definitely got steamy between Brittana for a few nights, let's just say. Ocean sex is something Brittany always wanted to try.

54. Who’s more likely to carry the other to bed?

Brittany is more likely to carry San on her back sometimes because she's taller and it's just easier but San will totally try to carry Britt too even though she struggles. Britt finds it adorable when she finds out San actually carried her across the room.

#Brittana #Santana Lopez #Brittany Pierce #I love them as villains and I love their flaws and virtues #I also love how they matured #Brittanalysis

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chooseyouovereveryone · 3 years

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Brittana Analysis Part 1: Musical Choices (Main Songs)

So anyone who knows me will know I love Brittana a crazy amount, and I spend way too much time breaking down every tiny detail about them. I’ve written a fair few analyses about them on Reddit which people seem to enjoy, and the lovely @hopefulobjectmiracle suggested I posted them on here for people to read. I’ll no doubt add more as time goes on, but going to post up what I have for now. If anyone has any requests for analysis, my ask box is always open because I love doing these :) Happy reading! & congrats for making it through my essays.

Part 1 covers a music analysis of all their main songs and the meaning behind them. Part 2 will cover their smaller parts in group songs etc.

Me Against The Music

This one is less a lyrical analysis, because I don't think the song explicitly relates so much, more a contextual one. The Me Against The Music scene is a shared fantasy that Brittany and Santana have while under anaesthesia. What's telling is that the fantasy they have is an exact replica of the original music video between Madonna and Britney Spears, which is well known for it's heavy undertones of a same-sex relationship. The plot shows Britney chasing Madonna, with Madonna becoming increasingly more susceptible as the video goes on, until right at the end when Britney catches her and goes to kiss Madonna, who then disappears. It's a cat and mouse chase, a fight for power. With Brittany playing Britney, and Santana Madonna, this fantasy represents to me the way that Brittany is chasing Santana trying to break down her walls, and she gets close but just as she does so, Santana pulls back. In the original video Madonna disappears into thin air when Britney tries to kiss her, in the Glee version Santana is switched out for Britney, but the symbolism is the same and foreshadows the Brittana arc that we get in S2. Brittany always gets close to having Santana, but then Santana pulls away and at times she loses her. So for me, the significance in this is 1) the fact they both have a same-sex fantasy about each other and 2) how Brittany's subconscious is filled with the idea of feeling like she is chasing Santana but that every time she gets close, Santana is ripped away.

Landslide

This was a song chosen by Santana to tell Brittany how she feels about her. It may not be the most "obvious love song" choice to everyone but that works for two reasons. The first being that Santana was scared. This was a big move for her, so she certainly wasn't going to go all out and sing an obvious love song. She wanted something with subtlety, something with meaning for her and Brittany rather than for the whole Glee Club to pick up on. The second being that Santana "has the perfect song" instantaneously. From the way she doesn't need to think about it, it's clear that Landslide is already a song she associates with Brittany, and it's probably something she laid alone in her room listening to. Now she's ready to share that. It was a song that had meaning for them, but I do think lyrically it makes sense also. For me it's about Santana realising life is passing her by and that she needs to just be herself. Time makes you bolder is one of the most poignant statements in the song. The whole bit about "building my life around you" could be a double meaning. The first being she's built her life around this friendship she has with Brittany and she's afraid to tap into the relationship dynamic because doing so would inevitably alter the platonic side of things. The second being that she's built her life around this idea that she's straight and she's "normal" but she's now realising as time goes by she needs to be true to herself. I tend to think it's the latter, and that the meaning is around Santana realising she needs to let go now and just be true to herself and to Brittany before she wastes any more time. It's ironic that the next scene shows Brittany choosing Artie, which shows that Santana was already too late and the time had already passed her by. (thankfully that all worked out tho)

Songbird

In contrast to Landslide, Songbird is a very obvious love song. The song explicitly says "I love you" and you can tell by Santana's delivery how much she genuinely means that. Since this is a private performance for only Brittany, Santana is able to choose a song that overtly expresses her feelings. She doesn't have to mask it with subtlety because of the Glee Club, like she did with Landslide. While Landslide was about Santana to giving into her feelings and accepting a change within her, Songbird was the next step from that in freely expressing her love to Brittany. Santana says this in her own words before singing it. Some key lyrics beside the obvious "I love you's" that stick out are "for you, there'll be no more crying" which could relate to all the backwards and forwards Santana has done over the years (telling Britt she loves her, taking it back etc.) and times she possibly made Brittany cry, as well as the fact she has probably spent many years crying over this herself and wishing these feelings could go away, but now she's putting a stop to all of that. Following on from that "I feel that when I'm with you, it's alright, I know it's right" relates to Santana giving into all of those feelings that she's spent years pushing down about the love she has for Brittany being wrong, and really taking hold of her own self acceptance. "To you, I'll give the world. To you, I'll never be cold" is also very fitting for Brittana because it's well noted in the fandom how soft Santana is for Brittany, and how she's the one person she's not cold around. Lastly "I wish you all the love in the world, but most of all I wish it from myself" could relate to Artie in that she wants Brittany to be happy but mostly, she wants to be the one that gets to love her. I think we can all agree the lyrics, the meaning, the performance itself, the delivery from Naya were all *chefs kiss* in this song.

Cherish/Cherish

The song that Santana pays the God Squad to sing for Brittany. We don't actually see Santana choosing the song, but I think it's more likely that Santana picked it since she was paying for it, rather than the God Squad randomly picking one. If it was that kind of scenario where they picked for her, I feel Quinn would have picked the song, on the basis that it was meaningful for Brittany and Santana's relationship. I also imagine this is a song that Santana listened to back in the dark days when she was too afraid to be with Brittany in the way she desired. The lyrics talk a lot about wishing in the past tense. "you don't know how many times I've wished that I had told you, you don't know how many times I've wished that I could hold you" etc. These are likely all the kind of thoughts that Santana had back in the past, and there are also a lot of references to hidden love and hidden feelings within the song.

If I Can't Have You

Okay so Santana might say that this song was about her love for fame, but I'm sorry, I don't believe her. I'm not discounting her wanting fame, but there's no way at least some of that song wasn't aimed at Brittany, just by the way she kept turning to her and gesturing at her. She was pretty much transfixed on her throughout the majority of the performance. But Brittana (Santana in particular) are generally very private with their relationship and in their declarations, so my theory? It was predominantly for Brittany but Santana got embarrassed around all the focus on them, so she gave the excuse about fame and told Brittany later who it was really for. No deeper analysis needed. If that song was Brittany, the lyrics apply to them easily, as they could with most relationships.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody

This one is simple. It's all in the lyrics. Mr Schue sets the assignment not only as a tribute to Whitney, but for the New Directions to express and explore what's going on with them. For Brittany, she just wants to dance with somebody who loves her, that person obviously being Santana. It's highlighted in the performance and how she pulls everyone up before Santana, and finally gets to Santana for the "with somebody who loves me" line, then at the end where she says Santana is her favourite to dance with. It could be that dancing and being happy with Santana is really her only concern at the moment, or it could be deeper than that. It could be that she is deflecting her deeper issues (the fact she is failing which she'd surely know by now) and as a result only wants to focus on dancing with Santana. The two loves in her life (the third being LT) meshed together and combined.

Mine

I did a whole deep analysis on the meaning behind this, because unlike the other songs this really doesn't fit contextually at all. It's a love song based around staying and holding on, and Santana chooses to sing this right before breaking up with Brittany. I never really understood that song choice, until I looked deeper into it. You can read that here if anyone wants to read it in more detail. If you don't want to read that though, in short, I think that Santana chose that song because when she made that choice to break up with Brittany, I think she can almost picture the future ahead of them and how eventually they are going to make it, they are going to be together, but right now she needs to break up with Brittany so that they actually get that happy ending that she can see. And that fits the whole last verse of the song where she's like "we're gonna make it now, I can see it now" etc, which otherwise doesn't make sense contextually when you're about to break up with someone. It's similar to what happens in the original video for Mine, where Taylor meets the love of her life in a cafe and she "sees" the whole future ahead of them (arguments included) as soon as they meet.

Make No Mistake (She's Mine)

Pretty self explanatory with this one because it's all in the lyrics (and the amazing delivery from Naya). She still loves Brittany and in her eyes Brittany belongs with her. It kind of links back to what I just said about Mine, in that I don't think Santana truly expected Brittany to move on. She told her she could because essentially she had to say that, but did she actually think Brittany would move on? I don't think so. I think she always thought breaking up with Brittany was needed to cement their future and that they'd end up better because of it, but then Sam put a spanner in the works which sent her straight back to Lima to fight for Brittany and stake her claim. Of course saying someone can move on and seeing it are two very different things. I really wish they would have kept the parallel version of that with Brittany/Santana/Elaine and that they kept Dancing On My Own in.

Valerie

This one is definitely more contextual than lyrical. Santana picked this number because it was meaningful to Brittany. It was the first number she choreographed, and so Santana learning Brittany's part of that routine and dancing it with Mike, was a way for her to spark something in Brittany that she was currently lacking and reignite her love for dance to remind her of herself. Clearly she chose to do a dance duet because it's Brittany, but it's poignant that she picked the first song that Brittany choreographed, and it was obviously meaningful to Santana too as her first solo. Although more contextual, the lyrics do carry meaning too. "Stop making a fool out of me, why don't you come on over Valerie" could refer to Santana wanting Brittany to get up and dance with her, while "I miss your ginger hair, and the way you like to dress" could relate to A) Santana missing Brittany in general and B) Santana missing the old care-free Brittany who loved to dance and wasn't consumed by MIT and math equations.

Hand In My Pocket/I Feel The Earth Move

Obviously this song was chosen for mash up purposes in line with artists they had to stick to, but I do think the song choice (chosen by Santana) were relevant to her proposal. The lyric "one hand in my pocket" is indicative of her hiding a ring. I really liked how Santana kept getting down on one knee mid performance (I feel like she was doing this teasingly to foreshadow what was to come rather than she was gonna propose mid song since clearly she had a big speech planned- but I love how every time she did it Brittany would get down as well ) and then all the further foreshadowing with the dragging of the chair that she wanted Brittany to sit in. It's not the most "romantic" of duets, but Brittany and Santana are very private so I feel like it made more sense for them to do a fun duet when it was in front of everyone. I do adore the bit where they're singing the "ooh baby when I see your face" etc. and they only have eyes for each other and look so utterly and adorably in love and happy. That bit really has my heart.

Wishin' and Hoping'

A song about Santana from Brittany's perspective which makes a welcome change. The performance itself is obviously a dream sequence when Brittany is thinking about heaven (because being with Santana makes her feel like she's in heaven and angel wings remind her of her ), but I think the lyrics fit well with the whole narrative we see in S6 of Brittany doing a heavy bulk of the wedding planning and trying to make sure everything is perfect for Santana. This is something we later see as causing her stress in the wedding episode, when she is so nervous and obsessed with it being perfect that she becomes a bit of a bridezilla obsessed with superstition. There were also cut lines from Brittany about everything having to be perfect, and though they weren't canon in the end, it's clearly the angle they were going with. This song links to that because it's all about how ultimately just being yourself and showing the person you love that you care is enough, and it almost foreshadows the conversation that Santana later has with Brittany where she says they don't need any of the traditions or the perfect planning because they create their own luck. They love each other, and that's enough. The performance has Brittany singing about wishing and hoping and planning, but it's Blaine, Artie and Sam who sing "all you gotta do is hold her and kiss her and love her and show her that you care", so it's almost as if they are assuring Brittany. Also pointing out the part of the performance where they sing about planning, and Brittany points at her stomach, one of many S6 clues put in there to hint that Brittana will have a family together in the future ❤️

Our Day Will Come

It's another straight forward one that doesn't really take much analysis. It symbolises how the day has finally come for them to get married and start the rest of their lives together, after such a long, hard journey getting there. One of the key lyrics is "no one can tell me that I'm too young to know", which indicates that someone has tried to tell them they're too young to get married. We know that Kurt said this to them, but since Kurt is singing in this duet with them and he apologised, it may be someone else. Santana's dad maybe? Either way, whoever said it to them, they show in this duet that they are certain about their commitment and the future ahead of them. The song also has the lyrics "I love you so, and you love me" which is repetitive of what Santana said to Brittany earlier in the day before they got married when she saw Brittany in her wedding dress. It symbolises what the ending of their whole arc is about. That after a whole lot of doubt, pain and a long road to get there, they are both finally happy together and content in the love they have in each other, and very proud of that love. Santana in particular I feel always doubted Brittany's love for her. Even when Brittany said yes to marrying her, Santana couldn't believe it. On their wedding day, all those doubts are finally gone, and it's actually Brittany who's doing the worrying. The worrying that Brittany does takes us right back to the beginning of Brittana, when Brittany had her own doubts and fears in the relationship because Santana just seemed like something out of reach for her, that she'd never fully get to have. It's like she has a moment of panic, that something could mess this up the way it used to get messed up all those years ago. Our Day Will Come symbolises the end of all of those doubts, and the start of their new lives together.

#brittana #brittany and santana #brittanalysis #brittana analysis #glee analysis #santana and brittany #santana lopez #brittany pierce #glee santana #glee brittana #glee brittany #brittanypierce #santanalopez #brittany s. pierce #glee songs #brittana songs

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themostrandomfandom · 7 years

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Hi JJ! First things first I want to thank you for your fabulous blog, it has really made rewatching glee much more interesting! I also have a question, I just watched 2x14 "Blame It On The Alcohol" and I noticed that 1. Brittana seem a lot closer in this episode than in the previous ones, and, 2. that Santana doesn't participate in the game of spin the bottle. I was wondering what you thing the reasons for both of these things are. Thanks!

Hey, @tryingtoohardddd!

First off, thank you! I’m glad you enjoy my blog.

Second, I find that Brittana’s apparent closeness during thisepisode and Santana’s unwillingness to participate in the Spin the Bottle gameare interrelated phenomena, both having to do with the fact that, at the timeepisode 2x14 takes place, Brittana are essentially in uncharted waters when itcomes to the status quo in their relationship.

If you care to join me for some rambling, it’s all under thecut.

_______________

First, let’s recap some Brittana history up to this point:

I promise we’ll eventually circle back to your questions.

Sometime prior to the start of S1, Brittana commence asecret sexual relationship.

Within the confines of said relationship, the girls aresweet, affectionate, and doting with each other. Brittany, who is a highlykinesthetic person, interprets this physical intimacy, demonstrative as it is,to mean that she and Santana are in love. However, whenever she tries to broachthis subject with Santana, Santana verbally shuts her down, claiming that theirsexual encounters are emotionally meaningless and that she and Brittany are platonicbest friends, not girlfriends.

Though Santana is adamant about the supposed insignificanceof her and Brittany’s sexual encounters, Brittany can’t help but feel in her heartthat Santana is wrong. She can tell by the way that Santana treats her whenthey’re alone together that Santana is in love with her—the same as she knowsthat she is definitely in love with Santana.

Unfortunately, at this point in her development, Brittany isstill highly submissive to Santana, and she fears that if she pushes the issue,she will scare Santana off, losing her entirely. She knows she has to play bythe unwritten but binding set of rules Santana has imposed on theirrelationship and that, if she steps out of line, Santana will freak out.

Santana’s rules for their relationship are perhaps equallyconvoluted and simple:

Sex is not dating, and they are not girlfriends, just bestfriends who like to have sex.

The sex doesn’t mean anything.

Still, no one should know that they have sex.

If anyone does know that they have sex, then they should derive some socialbenefit from their secret being out: girls should be intimidated, guys shouldbe titillated, and everything should add to their cool “slutty, popularcheerleaders” mystique.

Sex with each other is allowable as long as they both also have sex with malesexual partners on the side.

Said male sexual partners should be superior or equal to them in popularity.

Everyone should know that they are having sex with these male sexual partners.

Everyone should know that these male sexual partners are completelyreplaceable.

They’re not to be monogamous with any one boy.

All dating needs to stay casual—nothing steady or committed.

They’re not to allow their relationships with boys to interfere with theirrelationship with each other.

Don’t get pregnant.

Don’t fall in love.

Take down female rivals for boys not from jealousy but because boys are socialcapital and robbery is a crime.

Don’t give socially inferior boys the time of day.

Remember that appearances are paramount.

Brittany spends S1 acquiescing to Santana’s demands.

Santanasays sex isn’t dating, so Brittany agrees that sex isn’t dating. Santana says thatin order for them to sleep together, they also have to date boys on the side,so Brittany dates boys on the side. When Santana wants herself and Brittany tobe close, then they’re close. When Santana panics and wants distance betweenthem, then Brittany backs off and watches Santana flail, throwing herself atNoah Puckerman and Finn Hudson in a desperate attempt to reassert her“heterosexuality.”

The same cycle repeats over and over again ad nauseum:

Santana fights against her true nature, forcingherself to have sex with boys, even though she isn’t really interested in them.

Brittany follows Santana’s lead because that is whatSantana encourages her to do.

Because she is generally uncomfortable in herrelationships with men, Santana tends to treat her male sexual partners with baselinehostility.

This stonewalling between Santana and her malesexual partners complicates and eventually destroys her relationships withthem.

Santana, in her frustration and upset with boys,eventually turns to Brittany for comfort.

Because the girls aren’t in the habit ofdiscussing their feelings openly, the only means by which Brittany can comfortSantana are physical.

The girls have sex.

Sex with each other proves much more satisfyingfor them than does sex with random boys to whom they are not emotionallyattached.

For a time, Santana forgets herself and happilyfalls into her relationship with Brittany.

The girls secret themselves away, becomingincreasingly affectionate with each other in private.

Inevitably, something happens to remind Santanathat “straight girls like her” shouldn’t prefer sweet lady kisses with theirfemale best friends to sex with male partners.

Santana panics and attempts to prove toherself—and, by extension, to Brittany—that she doesn’t value her sexualrelationship with Brittany over her sexual relationships with boys.

In her panic, she verbally downplays herrelationship with Brittany and attaches herself to whatever socially acceptableboy will have her.

Santana fights against her true nature, forcingherself to have sex with boys, even though she isn’t really interested in them.

The cycle continues, as before.

Because we don’t know when exactly Brittana start sleepingtogether, we can’t say for certain how many times this cycle plays out betweenthem in total. However, we see it unfold at least a couple of times during S1,notably in microcosm between episodes 1x13 and 1x15.

The cycle starts anew in episode 1x15 but interestingly doesnot progress as it has previously.

Instead, between the end of S1 and beginning of S2, Brittanaget hung up on steps #9 and #10, going for a very long time without datingboys.

In fact, we have no evidence to suggest that Brittany sleepswith anyone other than Santana between episodes 1x10 and 2x03, and the onlyboys she “dates” during this time are ones with whom her relationships areinherently nonsexual (i.e., Wes Brody, a child, and Kurt Hummel, a gay man).

In the meantime, Santana’s sexual relationship with NoahPuckerman cools off circa episode 1x13, and after her one-and-done sexualencounter with Finn Hudson in episode 1x15, she has no other male sexualpartners that we know of throughout the remainder of S1 or beginning of S2,meaning that between episodes 1x16 and 2x06, Brittany is most likely also Santana’sonly sexual partner.

If we overlap those two windows, then it would appear thatBrittana are most likely sexually monogamous with each other between episodes1x16 and 2x04, a timeframe which encompasses the end of their sophomore year,entire summer vacation, and the beginning of their junior year, over the courseof several months.

Because the girls are monogamous with each other for solong, Brittany starts to feel as if maybe Santana is coming around to the ideaof them being girlfriends. She has been burned for getting her hopes up in thepast, but she can’t help but wonder if this time won’t be different, given thattheir patterns have shifted.

In episode 2x04, Brittany musters her courage and suggeststo Santana that they make their relationship more official, albeit in aroundabout way (“We should do a duet together”). She is cautious about askingfor what she really wants, but she also believes that she has good grounds onwhich to ask, Santana’s recent affections considered.

Of course, she is devastated when Santana shoots her down inthe harshest way possible (“I’mnot making out with you because I’m in love with you and want to sing aboutmaking lady babies. I’m only here because Puck’s been in the slammer for about twelvehours now, and I’m like a lizard: I need something warm beneath me or I can’tdigest my food”).

In that moment of rejection, Brittany’s heart breaks, andshe realizes that she can’t keep going on in the same way that she had gone onbefore.

For the first time, Brittany takes Santana at her word.

If Santana doesn’t want them to be dating, then they’re notdating, and that means that Brittany is free to date somebody else—in thiscase, Artie Abrams, whom she seduces, has sex with, and subsequently breaksup with, all in episode 2x04.

Note that when Brittany starts dating Artie, it representsthe first time in Brittana development that Brittany has initiated anattachment to a male sexual partner sans Santana’s prompting, another deviationfrom her and Santana’s typical cycle.

Brittany’s original motivations for dating Artie have moreto do with getting a rise out of Santana than they do any genuine attraction orinterest in Artie on her part. However, after Brittany learns that sex ismeaningful to Artie, she starts to reconsider her whole approach torelationships and realizes for the first time that there could be other peopleout there willing to meet her needs if Santana can’t or won’t.

That said, at this point, Brittany is still deeply in lovewith Santana and relatively emotionally unattached to Artie, so when herinitial relationship with Artie crumbles, she is more embarrassed than she isupset or regretful, and she happily returns to Santana for the next severalepisodes, scarcely giving Artie another thought.

But for as easily as Brittany gives up on Artie, Artiedoesn’t give up on her, and as her relationship with Santana takes a dip backinto steps #11-15 on the cycle (circa episode 2x06), Brittany becomes more opento the idea that she might like to be Artie’s girlfriend if she can’t beSantana’s.

Even though Brittany doesn’t feel the same way about Artiethat she does about Santana, in episode 2x08, she starts dating him in earnest.

Honestly, though he is by no means her first male sexualpartner, he is very much her first real boyfriend, and her relationship withhim differs from any relationship she has ever had before. In time, she growsto value the transparency she has with him. That she and Artie can beopenly affectionate with each other, talk about feelings, and acknowledge thesignificance of their sexual encounters means the world to Brittany. UnlikeSantana, Artie actually seems proud to have Brittany as his girlfriend, and hedoesn’t try to foist her off on other people no matter how real things getbetween them.

To Brittany, their relationship comes as a breath of freshair.

Unfortunately, the fact that Brittany even has arelationship with Artie is misery for Santana.

Despite her initial jealousytowards him in episode 2x04, Santana never really considers Artie a rival forBrittany’s affections prior to when he and Brittany officially start dating inepisode 2x08.

Sure, Brittany had had sex with lots of boys in the past, butshe had never had a real boyfriend or even acted like she wanted one before sheand Artie became a thing. Both she and Santana had always remained emotionallyaloof from the boys they had hooked up with. That was their basic mode ofoperation. They could fool around with however many football players theyliked, but they always went home to each other at the end of the day. InSantana’s mind, that was the way things had always been and the way they wouldalways be.

Consequently, after Santana quashes the early Bartierelationship, she figures that she has made her point and that things will “goback to normal” between her and Brittany thereafter. She never expects thatBrittany and Artie will start dating in earnest, let alone that Brittany willdevelop feelings for Artie. Seeing Bartie not only together but happy comes asa total shock to her. She has no coping mechanisms to deal with losing “her girl”to a male rival, and especially a socially undesirable male rival like ArtieAbrams.

Brittany dating Artie breaks all of her and Santana’s rules.Artie isn’t popular, so he doesn’t boost Brittany’s social cred. He also isn’treally a side thing, so Brittany being with him isn’t a corollary function toher and Santana’s relationship. He quickly becomes Brittany’s main partner,supplanting Santana, which is something that has never happened betweenBrittany and Santana before.

When this great shift occurs, Santana feels jealous andhurt, but she doesn’t know how to express her feelings, not when, by herestimation, she isn’t supposed to even be feeling said feelings to begin with.

Her inability to process her frustration and griefconcerning Bartie eventually translates into her displacing her negativefeelings about them onto other happy couples.

Since she can’t lash out at Bartie in the way she longs to, Santanagoes after Finchel, Fuinn, Fabrevans, and Pizes instead. Between episodes 2x08and 2x12, she acts as a force of relational devastation, waging physical,emotional, and even biological warfare against various couples in the glee club,cutting down egos and hearts left and right, exposing infidelities, and sewing distrustand discord wherever she goes.

While to everyone else, and even the general viewingaudience, Santana’s actions look like haphazard villainy perpetrated for noother reason than that she is a bully with a mean streak a mile wide, Brittanyknows what really underlies her destructive tendencies.

Santana is hurting, and because she’s hurting, she wantsothers to hurt, too. She thinks she is going to be alone forever, so she can’tstand to see other people paired off in romantic relationships. She feelstrapped inside an iron closet, frustrated by the fact that she can’t be withthe girl she loves, and convinced that if she tries to come out, she’ll loseeverything she needs to survive, from her popularity to her fierce reputationto the love and acceptance she gets from her family. She is sixteen years old,and she is already certain that she will never know what it is to be happy—thather life is essentially over before it has even really begun. Underneath allthe anger, what she really is is heartbroken. In her mind, her true love is lostto her, and, at the end of the day, she feels she has no one to blame butherself.

Seeing Santana suffering in that way does a number onBrittany’s heart. For as rewarding as Brittany finds her new relationship withArtie, Santana is still the love of her life, and Brittany’s impulse is alwaysto uplift Santana in whatever way she can.

—and, at this point in their relationship, the only way shecan is through physical intimacy.

Brittany and Santana are not yet to the place where they cantalk about their feelings, so the only way that Brittany can think to showSantana that she still cares about her and that she’ll never leave hercompletely alone is through making love to her.

By my best estimate, the cheating probably starts sometime circaepisodes 2x11 and 2x12.

While both episodes see Santana in stressful situations, episode2x12 in particular represents a true emotional low point for her, a day whenshe is surrounded by happy heterosexual couples doing cutesy things witheach other while she is alone, and the people in her social circle repeatedlytell her that she is both unwanted and unlovable.

Under this emotional duress, Santana lashes out, not onlyattacking Lauren Zizes and sabotaging the Fabrevans relationship but going on atirade against the whole glee club, making herself wildly unpopular with theNew Directions.

She is in a downward spiral, and no one seems to noticeexcept for Brittany, who rushes to her side to comfort her (“Maybe try rockingback and forth. People do that in movies”).

It doesn’t require a stretch of the imagination to supposethat this scene segues into more intimate encounters between the girls, andespecially as we know that they are already back in the habit of sleepingtogether by the time episode 2x15 takes place.

Now.

Recall that circa episode 2x06, Brittana complete yetanother one of their cycles, returning from step #15 to step #1, with Santanarunning back to Puck in response to the gay panic she felt following the eventsof episodes 2x04 and 2x05.

Brittany starting to date Artie then seemingly fits as step #2.

However, as discussed above, as the Bartie relationshipprogresses and develops beyond any of Brittany’s previous hookups with boys,for the first time in their history, Brittana start fully deviating from theircyclic patterns.

Not only does Santana fail to maintain even a superficialrelationship with Puck or any other boy beyond episode 2x06, but Brittany doesn’tdrop everything to be with Santana once Santana makes herself sexuallyavailable to Brittany again.

From episode 2x08 forward, Brittana move “off script,” nolonger following their former steps.

This move occurs early on in the season, meaning that by thetime episodes 2x12 to 2x14 take place, Brittany and Santana have completelylost their bearings.

By this point, Santana is scrambling, frantically trying toget back to the way things used to be.

While Brittany was dating Artie and she was single, Santanadidn’t know how to cope. In general, she was standoffish with Brittany, unableto even maintain a friendship with her while their sexual relationship was nolonger viable. Now that she is back to sleeping with Brittany again, Santanareturns to what she knows. She is “allowed” to be with Brittany if she alsomaintains a sexual relationship with a boy, and maybe if she maintains a sexualrelationship with a boy, her relationship with said boy will offset Brittany’s relationship with Artie, and she and Brittany will once again becomeeach other’s primary partners.

Santana wants to get her and Brittany to get back to steps#1 and 2 because that’s what she knows and that’s something she can live with,so in episode 2x13, she starts dating Sam Evans.

Sam is not necessarily the most popular boy in school, buthe is the most popular boy Santana can get at the moment, and he’ll do in apinch. He’ll allow Santana to sit in his lap and make out with him in public,so even if they aren’t having sex, the madding crowds will mistakenly believethat they are, a misconception that Santana can work with from a PR standpoint.Sam is also fairly submissive, so Santana can push him around when she needsto. Since he is on the out and outs with Quinn and Brittany is off the market,Santana is the most popular girl he can hope to land—and he does care aboutpopularity at least on a superficial level—so he’ll have to put up with hershenanigans or else be single, which is an unattractive option to him.

Going after a boy in order to establish equilibrium in herrelationship with Brittany is a familiar move on Santana’s part and somethingshe has done many times in the past.

However, in this case, the formation of Samtana doesn’tactually reset the Brittana cycle as Santana supposes that it ought to. Eventhough she and Brittany have resumed sleeping together and both of them haveboys on the side, their relationship still isn’t exactly how it used to be,largely because both of them are still breaking their old rules.

For one thing, Santana isn’t actually sleeping with Sam.

In later seasons, Sam claims that he lost his virginitywhile working as a stripper in S3, which means that he most likely didn’t havesex with Santana in S2.

For another thing, Brittany is still dating Artie, not justfooling around with him.

Furthermore, neither girl is deriving much social profittheir respective relationships with their male sexual partners.

In the past, the girls only associated with boys who wereequally as popular as they. Now, they’re both dating boys who are inferior tothem in popularity.

Moreover, for the first time, their male partners have theexpectation of monogamy within their respective relationships.

Brittana are also not weaponizing their sexual relationshipwith each other for social gain. Instead, they’re keeping their sexual encounterswith each other a secret for fear of upsetting their boyfriends.

Again, the whole situation is “off script,” which makes thisperiod of time a particularly volatile and transformative one in Brittanahistory.

Between episodes 2x12 and 2x15, the girls are playing anentirely new ballgame.

Never before have they both had actual boyfriends, andespecially not at the same time. They have also never been each other’s “sidedishes.” Previously, they were always each other’s main relationship, with anyand all relationships with boys functioning as secondary to their own. It’sstrange to them to have to negotiate their relationship around therelationships they have with boys, as opposed to the other way around.

Consequently, they have never felt their friendship asstrained as it currently is. Even though they’re back to having sex, it isstill difficult for them to figure where they stand in terms of their bestfriendship.

Santana, in particular, isn’t sure that Brittany valuestheir bond as much as she does, and she fears that if she asks Brittany torecommit to her, she risks Brittany choosing Artie over her. Her sense thatArtie may be more important to Brittany than she is causes her to feel nervousin Brittany’s presence, and especially as she becomes increasingly aware of atruth she has long attempted to suppress in herself—namely, that she is deeply inlove with Brittany and doesn’t know how to be happy without her.

The situation compounds itself.

The more Santana feels she needs Brittany but can’t fullyhave her, the more miserable Santana becomes. The more miserable Santanabecomes, the more Brittany attempts to comfort her. However, since the comfortBrittany offers always has to be maneuvered around the Bartie and Samtanarelationships, it ultimately contributes to Santana’s sense that she can’tfully have Brittany and is “losing Brittany to a boy.” That sense causesSantana to feel miserable, perpetuating the pattern again.

This stress and misery come to a head for Santana in episode2x14, which brings us up to the limens leading into the Hurt Locker, and,finally, to a place where we can answer your questions.

Let’s start with the second question first, as its answer ismost straightforward.

Why doesn’t Santanaparticipate in the Spin the Bottle game at the Rachel Berry House Party Train WreckExtravaganza?

Santana’s unwillingness to play this game very much relatesto the fact that she is currently operating “off script.”

At this point in her development, Santana looks at allsituations in terms of potential gains and losses. When faced with the choiceto take action, she considers if she will win, lose, or draw, and she typicallyonly proceeds if she feels that she can win or at least come out even.

In her mind, the purpose of party games is to accrue socialcapital. In order to maintain or advance their social statuses, popular kidshave to show off their ability to hold their liquor. They also have to make outwith the right people where others can see them doing so and exude a certainnonchalant vibe, demonstrating a willingness to break rules and hang loose. Theway they behave at drinking parties is all highly calculated, a balancing actinvolving well-measured risks and payoffs.

As Santana sees things, this particular game of Spin theBottle provides her with no opportunities for social advancement, mostly due towho is involved.

Barring Quinn and Brittany, she is the most popular girl atthe party, and she is already dating the most popular boy available to her, soit is not as if kissing anyone in the circle will help her to climb the socialladder. The glee kids already view her as a rule-breaker, and they know thatshe is willing to make out with both boys and girls, so there would be no shockfactor involved in her playing.

Best case scenario, she would end up having to kiss someonewhose popularity was on par with her own, like Finn Hudson, Quinn Fabray, or NoahPuckerman. Worst case scenario, she would end up having to kiss someone shefound abhorrent and/or who was infinitely less popular than she, like LaurenZizes or Artie Abrams. More likely, she would end up having to kiss a “nobody”somewhere in the middle, like Mike Chang or Mercedes Jones, whose popularity pHbalance runs neutral. Popular, unpopular, or neutral, none of thosepossibilities would help to boost Santana’s street cred in the way she’d like,so why risk having to kiss a loser—and especially when, if she were to join thecircle, she might also end up having to kiss Brittany in public, which, at themoment, is something she is emotionally unprepared to do?

Back in the day, prior to their early S2 shakeup, Brittanawere willing to make out with each other in front of an audience, insofar asthem doing so would benefit them socially (see episode 1x15). They probablyattended at least a few bashes where they kissed each other to titillate otherpartygoers. In those situations, the kissing was all part of their PR campaign—somethingthey did to prove that they were sexually adventuresome, rebellious, cool, andfun. The kisses they shared then were undoubtedly different than the sweet ladykisses they shared in private, all about the sex and not about the feelings.They were engineered for the male gaze, and both Brittany and Santana knew howto use them to achieve maximum social profits.

That kind of kissing was “on script.” It fit within Santana’srules. Both Brittany and Santana understood what it meant and didn’t get ittwisted.

But now they’re “off script,” and Santana isn’t sure thatkissing-for-an-audience is something they can still do. For one thing, they bothhave boyfriends now, so they don’t really have a reason to titillate randomboys. For another thing, Santana has been finding it harder and harder tocontrol her emotions around Brittany lately, and especially in situations wherethey are being physically intimate, so she isn’t sure that she could “be cool”kissing Brittany, even in front of a crowd. If she kissed her too passionately,people might take notice. Then again, if she kissed her too weakly, peoplemight also notice, and Brittany might confront her about it (“What gives?”),and things could get weird. She’d be damned if she did and damned if she didn’t,and all because she can’t obfuscate or suppress or ignore her feelings in theway she once tried to.

As I discuss elsewhere,

Before the events of episode 2x08 or even episode 2x04, Santanacould make out with Brittany at parties and not have to worry about what itmeant that they did so. They could just be them—friends who occasionally fuckedeach other—without Santana having to wonder about feelings and futures.

But after episode2x08, when Brittany gets a boyfriend?

Santana does haveto wonder and she does have to worry about what public kisses between themmean. Yes, Brittana have a private sexual relationship going again by the time episode2x14 rolls around, but “dancing in the dark” is one thing, while putting theirinteractions with each other on display in front of a crowd is something elseentirely.

Whereas before, Santana knew the exact meaning of Brittana making outin public—i.e., that it was a social gesture which functioned to accrue themsocial capital—now she has no way to categorize such an interaction.

While Santanafeels comfortable taking body shots off Brittany’s abs in this situation, shedoesn’t feel comfortable with the prospect of kissing her. She can know for certainthat body shots are a purely sexual thing, whereas a kiss would mean somethingmore, and, moreover, something more infinitely unmeasurable.

Perhaps ironically, when Santana felt assured that her sexualrelationship with Brittany did mean something but wasn’t yet ready to admit asmuch, she could pretend it meant nothing. But now that Santana isn’t sure whather sexual relationship with Brittany means and she stands on the verge offinally admitting that she wants it to mean something, she durst not pretendthat it means nothing, for fear that that might actually be true, in Brittany’scase.

In the past, Santana always maintained that theirbest friendship and their sexual relationship were two completely separatethings, and that neither one of them had anything to do with romantic love(“I’m not making out with you because I’m in love with you and want to singabout making lady babies”); however, the fact that Santana could not maintain abasic friendship with Brittany once Brittany started dating Artie speaks to thefact that, for Santana, a link exists between sex and friendship with Brittany—essentially,at this point, she cannot have one without the other.

So.

Given that she stands to make no social gains by playing the gameAND that playing the game could lead her to have an awkward and emotional publicencounter with Brittany, Santana decides to abstain.

Her goal is to hang back,acting too cool for school until the activity shifts.

Unfortunately for Santana, even though she’s not playing, the gamestill takes a troubling twist when Brittany and Sam end up kissing.

Santana’s reactionto their kiss is kneejerk, and it reveals just who it is that Santana is reallypossessive of between the two blondes.

Hint: It’s not Sam.

Watching Brittany and Sam kiss upsets Santana on multiple levels,not only because it draws attention to the fact that the old rules for theBrittana relationship aren’t being adhered to but also because it causesSantana to feel deeply insecure. Brittany obviously likes kissing boys, and shecan—in Santana’s view—be happy bouncing from partner to partner. But Santanaisn’t like that. She is miserable kissing boys, and she languishes being apartfrom Brittany. Seeing Brittany smile into a kiss with Sam “Trouty Mouth” Evansis agony for her. Despite her protests, when she slaps at Sam’s head to breakup the kiss, it isn’t him she’s jealously protecting.

It’s Brittany.

So cut to our next—your first—question.

To what can weattribute Brittana’s increased closeness during episode 2x14?

Back when S2 was originally airing, fans viewed episodes2x08 to 2x11 as a “Brittana drought,” with the girls having so few interactionsduring that time. Eventually, episode 2x12 brought a single but poignant Brittanainteraction, though episode 2x13 saw things cool off again. Finally, episode2x14 marked the full end to the drought, with the proverbial floodgatesopening, and Brittana everywhere.

Not only were Brittany and Santana back in their two-shot,but Santana was taking shots off Brittany’s abs and Brittany was comfortingSantana on stage after the “Blame It on the Alcohol” performance. Fans wereoverjoyed to see the ship back together, but we also wondered how to accountfor Brittana’s sudden new-old closeness, which had been so noticeably lackingfor most of the season to date.

The answer lies in the emotional patterns behind Brittana’scheating behavior, which we have previously discussed.

By episode 2x14, Brittana have resumed their sexualrelationship—only this time on the DL, behind the backs of their respective boyfriends.

The cheating is a poor fix to their problems.

Santana is miserable because she wants Brittany all toherself but can’t have her, and she can’t bring herself to acknowledge herwant, not when the implications of her doing so would be so staggering.

Of course, Brittany is equally distraught because she isaware that Santana is miserable and has a good idea as to why, but she feelsthat she is stuck in a holding pattern, unable to change the situation, one wayor another.

Brittany can only offer Santana physical comfort, knowingthat what she is offering is ultimately not what either one of them reallywants. This physical comfort then complicates the Bartie, Samtana, and Brittanadynamics, all in different ways.

Santana encourages Brittany to rationalize their cheating,so Brittany does, even though, in her heart of hearts, Brittany knows that what they’redoing is wrong. She just can’t bring herself to pull away from Santana, notwhen they’re still in love with each other, never mind that, at this point, shealso has feelings for Artie (albeit different from those she has for Santana).

The worse both girls feel, the more they turn into eachother, convinced that it is better to not have enough rather than to have nothingat all.

In short, everything between them is messy.

—and alcohol only compounds that messiness.

The Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza istruly a watershed moment in Brittana history, as it brings so many feelings tothe surface for the girls.

Brittany sees weepy, drunk Santana socially flailing,throwing herself at Sam even though she doesn’t really want him, sobbing abouta “blonde and awesome and so smart” girl who is eclipsing her. Brittanywants to be able to say, “Santana, I’ve always been yours, and I’ll be yourgirlfriend if you’ll let me,” but, honestly, she has had her heart broken alot, and now Artie’s in the picture, and she isn’t sure what she should do.

In the meantime, Santana watches helplessly as Brittanykisses first Artie and then Sam, seemingly flaunting an attraction to boys thatSantana is all too aware that she has never herself felt. The drunker she gets,the more she realizes that she is destined to end up alone with no boyfriendbecause she can’t keep a man and no girlfriend because she is too scared to admitthat she wants one.

By last call at the Berry’s minibar, Santana is thoroughlyin crisis. She just wants Brittany back, but she is so scared, not only of thepotential social consequences for coming out but also that Brittany will rejecther.

Deep down, Santana fears that she is unlovable, just likeeveryone has always said she is.

Cut to the next day and the “Blame It on the Alcohol”performance, when we see Brittana at peak closeness—and, by no coincidence,also at their peak distress.

As I describe elsewhere,following their routine, the glee club assembles onstage to face Mr. Schue. Ashe talks to the kids about their performance, Santana starts to break down, andhere’s the play-by-play of why and how she does so:

Phase 1: Santana notices thateveryone else on stage seems to be paired up with each other while she isalone.

Phase 2: Santana notices that Brittany and Artie are paired together inparticular.

Phase 3: Santana tries not to think of how she’s so lonely and nobodywants her and she’s going to be alone forever. She fails.

Phase 4: Santana starts to cry.

Phase 5: Mr. Schue says something about death rates, causing Santana tocry harder.

Phase 6: Brittany runs her fingers through Artie’s hair, and Santanasees her do so. Everything gets worse.

Phase 7: Santana’s crying becomes uncomfortably visible. Mr. Schue asksif she is okay.

Phase 8: Santana is not okay.

Phase 9: But Santanaclaims she is okay because what else can she do?

Phase 10: Brittany knows that Santana needs her, so she pulls Santana infor a hug and kisses Santana’s cheek, never mind that they are in public withboth of their boyfriends watching.

Phase 11: Brittany tries to impart to Santana that she wants Santana andthat Santana isn’t going to be alone forever because Brittany will always be there for her.

Phase 12: Some part of Santana gets it. Kind of. She relaxesinto Brittany’s arms. It is a temporary placation but still highly significant,as Santana is starting to realize that she can’t live without Brittany and thatmaybe it is time to face her fears so that she can have a chance at beinghappy.

So that’s the closeness that we see in this episode: BothBrittany and Santana are arriving at their breaking points. The center cannothold in their relationship. They can’t keep being each other’sgirls on the side. They have to address the feelings that they have for eachother. They can’t keep pretending that everything is okay when it’s not.

They’re both scared, so they cling to each other.

It will take until the next episode—none other than episode2x15—for Brittany to summon her courage and ask Santana to talk to an adultabout their situation, and, by that point, Santana will finally be ready to sayyes.

Anyway, I’ve talked a lot now. Thanks for the question! Hope this helps.

#Crazy Brittanalyst answers #tryingtoohardddd #Brittanalysis #Brittanalyzing #2x14 #BIOTA #This is one long jabber kids

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