#oh and obligatory disclaimer !!

[lu-sn]

Rank the VegasPete kisses 😈

suz i stg this ask is gonna get me super mega cancelled. when you find my mangled body in a decrepit alleyway tell my family i loved them

-

6. i love you, pete.

listen, no okay, LISTEN, put down your pitchforks, this is an s-tier kiss okay, i know!!!!! I KNOW BUT EVERY VEGASPETE KISS IS INSANE!!!! SOMETHING HAS TO BE AT THE BOTTOM

i did and still do think it's a lil cray cray of vegas to say he's in love with pete like ten days after dicking him down, but the blood-streaked mouths and vegas's devastated face as he pushes pete away afterwards sure do make up for it

5. you must suffer until i'm satisfied

the thing that gets me about this one is the total lack of artifice on vegas's part. despite every touch of his before this having been part of a long, cruel, twisted performance, this one is so gentle. so unassuming. a gift, more than anything else.

the conversation after is critical to their relationship, and i'm not sure pete would have wanted to open himself up like that without this kiss as proof of vegas's... sincerity? vegas isn't playing a game anymore — and pete can finally stop playing too.

4. psycho

head in hands!!! i can't believe this isn't in the top 3 someone send me to jail rn

i don't need to talk about this yall Know. third eye opened brain chemistry rewired brainrot permanently acquired "you like me like this" "i know exactly what i want" the way their hands paw at each other the way vegas smiles the way pete's KNEES GO WEAK I'M FOREVER SCREAMING

3. you're the most important person in my life

ugly sobbing in the gutter they trust each other they cherish each other they're going to work so hard to stay together they're coming together as EQUALS in the LIGHT AFTER THE STORM I'M—

it's the way they cradle each other's faces in their hands, okay. it's the unbearable tenderness, and it's the promises they're making to each other!!! that shit just gets me real bad 😭

2. (we only kiss people we like)

their entire sex scene is characterized by an unexpected, intense tenderness, and this last kiss is really the nail in the coffin for me. the way pete is leaning up into this, chasing vegas's mouth — the way vegas is so unbelievably soft as he presses himself into pete — the space they've carved out together in the darkness for this moment of startling intimacy — something has changed here, in both of them. and it's going to be their undoing.

1. i need you, pete.

I DON'T CARE IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME I WILL DIE ON MY LITTLE HILL THIS IS THE BEST KISS IN THE ENTIRE SHOW. SCREENSHOTS DO NOT DO IT JUSTICE. vegas is TREMBLING into this kiss he is TERRIFIED he's made an awful awful mistake and he's about to lose the best thing he's ever had he is CLINGING TO PETE trying to press all of his monstrous love into pete's skin i'm so sorry i didn't mean it i need you i will worship you look at how gentle i can be with you? look at how desperately i want to cherish you please please pete don't leave me MY GOD I AM CHEWING ON THE WALLS IT HURTS SO GOOD

and pete is so vulnerable to this kind of touch. he's shaking too, he's gasping and sobbing and almost can't believe what he's about to do in return. pete intends for this to be their last kiss — and vegas has no idea.

[bookwyrminspiration]

there are so many books out there who ask you to care about a guy named Stephen. or Paul. or Tom. and I simply can’t

[wistfulwatcher]

I don't understand why Jackie's team-mates are envious(jealous) of her, .Jackie is just a normal girl, what is there to envy?

an age-old question about popularity, anon!

jackie being a normal girl is part of it, i'd imagine. from the outside jackie has everything that a teen girl is supposed to want or need: wealthy parents, trendy clothes, a long-term boyfriend (break ups notwithstanding), she's pretty, and athletic, popular (she would have won prom queen), gets decent grades (though good or great grades seems more likely since we know she's not the best athlete on the team), has a loyal best friend, and has a leadership role in her chosen club. from the outside, what isn't there to envy about jackie?

especially when you look at her teammates, most of whom have something "wrong" with them compared to the above list. natalie has abusive and neglectful parents and does drugs to cope with her trauma, while jackie barely seems to drink. misty is an outsider who can't connect with anyone, but jackie is popular and a leader and so good at it that she even makes misty feel welcome. shauna struggles to assert herself and go after what she wants, but jackie tells her what to wear and drink and who to date without a second thought. taissa and van are gay women in the 90s, who either weren't out pre-crash (implied) or at the very least weren't dating anyone, and so the ease with which jackie and jeff got together and broke up on repeat must have been so frustrating to watch. lottie falls into many of the same categories as jackie, but while jackie's parents fawn over everything she says and does, lottie eats her meals alone at home and her father "shows love" with jets that take her miles away from him.

we talk about jackie being doomed by the narrative, and she totally is. but she's not just doomed to death; she's doomed to be two-dimensional. yellowjackets is a story about the relationship between a girl and her trauma, and you can't have a relationship when you're dead. like nat says, she's the "lucky one" because she gets to become a symbol (of rules, or social mores, of normalcy and safety) for the rest, instead of struggling alongside them. and what need does a symbol have of complexity? my first paragraph makes a series of assumptions about jackie, any of which could be false. we get glimpses here and there of jackie having feelings and thoughts and concerns that don't align with the things that make her someone to envy, but we don't know. we won't ever know in a way that matters to jackie. anything we learn now will be used to tell us something about the girls who are still alive, because jackie's only real function is to be fodder for them.

[unironicallycringe]

immersion be damned that twink can drive a truck

[rowan-guerrins]

people on tiktok well on all social media sites actually will loudly critique the fact some people (especially those who only watched the movies) “didn’t get the point of the hunger games” and then turn around and say gale is the worst person in the universe and treat him like he’s a monster, and that all these traits are innate characteristics completely isolated from the circumstances in which he lived and the people around him. like girlie i think maybe YOU didn’t get the point here either.

[ghostdnfie]

oh

[headless-horsepossum]

one thing that becomes clearer the older i get is that of the many bad things of varying degrees that have happened to me, both internally and externally, nothing has had as profound and persistent a traumatic effect as *checks notes* Going To School In America

[justworthlessreblogs]

i'm going insane about ciel kirahoshi again

[sillyfreakx5]

it's so annoying how abbreviations repeat in psychiatry. like when i see "ASD", my first thought is autism spectrum disorder. but noo, in this article it's acute stress disorder

WHYYYY

/lh

[mothbeasts]

okay. feeling the need to ramble about fabby again so here we go. under the cut as usual, this is my specific interpretation, you know the drill. without further ado...

The Fabricator and Love

The Fabricator, at least my version of her, has incredibly complicated feelings about most kinds of love. This can be broken down into the standard familial, platonic, and romantic categories. So I'll be doing that and going through them one by one.

Familial: She isn't close with her family for many reasons. Beyond the typical need to cut them off in the present because of her Zoraxis affiliations, she stopped all contact with her family long before that would even be a necessity. As soon as she could, even- She left home for university and never looked back. She doesn't regret it, though she does miss home sometimes. Not that she was happy there.

Platonic: The Fabricator doesn't have friends. She doesn't need them. Besides Solaris, that is. She doesn't trust others easily between her paranoia and the typical risks of being involved with the types of people she's involved with. And she never has had friends, either- She's always been one to isolate and withdraw. Meeting Solaris changed that somewhat, though, and she's glad she gave her a chance. It's nice, having a friend.

Romantic: This one is a lot. The Fabricator idealizes the idea of romance, really. It's always been something out of fantasy to her, and she's never been good at figuring out if she truly loves someone because of it. While she was in university she dated quite a bit, and it never went well - For a variety of reasons. When she started at Zoraxis... This didn't change. Zor saw that she was infatuated with them, and they knew they could use that to their advantage. And on some level she knows they're just stringing her along... But she loves the idea of it all too much to care. And she wants so badly to be loved, to be wanted... This has given Zor room to mold her into what they want her to be: a tool to be used, a weapon to be wielded. And now that's all she feels she can be- Even if she did get away and find love elsewhere, she would carry these ideas with her.

She does also love Solaris, to an extent. It's tempered by the fact that she's too loyal to Zor to pursue anything while they're in her life. That doesn't stop her from staring longingly from across the workshop though. Or writing about Solaris in her diary. She was devastated after the Death Engine, and sat by her side during her hospital stay.

I do love thinking about her in different romantic scenarios, but typically she would need a lot of introspection and growth before it would be a good idea for her to even attempt another relationship. Zor really twisted her perception on a lot of things.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

i'm cry laughing some people on twitter are now saying "izzy bashing" needs to be tagged in fics. how did these people ever survive watching this show where izzy is the CANON ANTAGONIST i'll never know

benefit of the doubt but i think most of them have gotten to this point gradually. when they first watched the show they were not attached to izzy the way they are now. i know for a lot of people it was blorbo at first sight with izzy but i've also seen izzy enjoyers say they didn't like him at first, and then fandom made them care about him.

like i'm pretty sure for a lot of ppl it started off with isolating themselves from ppl who made posts that they didnt like, like ppl who criticized ofmd for being based on two real people with direct connections to actual real-world slave trade (which is an incredibly valid thing to criticize abt ofmd).

another one that i think funneled a lot of fans towards being so delusionally attached to izzy was people pointing out or complaining about the disproportionate amount of fan content for izzy compared to prominent characters of color—which is a consistent issue in fandom no matter what the media, and is also a very easy one for people to be uncomfortable with whenever they see it get pointed out. people venting that "fans care too much abt this white man" often make fans who care abt that white man very defensive right off the bat, and then rather than engage with why they feel defensive or question if maybe their enjoyment of this character is fueled by implicit bias (which it might not be, to be clear! im not saying—and i have never said—that everyone who enjoyes izzy likes him for racist reasons), they stop listening to the conversation abt white favoritism and continue blorboposting as much as they want. it's incredibly easy for fans to brush off this convo as "just starting drama" and avoid the topic altogether because "fandom is for fun!" and they dont want to think abt difficult topics like racism and implicit bias, they just want to enjoy their blorbos in peace.

so they kept narrowing the takes they were seeing until they were in an echo chamber that kept moving more and more towards complete woobification of izzy hands. these people are now looking at the show entirely through izzy's pov, making posts abt how sad it is that none of the other characters are ever nice to him, how frustrating the show is from his perspective, how it feels to be deeply in love with someone who doesn't love you back. they've stared at gifs of con's micro-expressions and read angsty fanfiction and looked at endless izzy fanart and their entire ofmd fandom experience revolves around empathizing with this one character even tho the show itself continually makes him the butt of the joke.

at this point, telling these people to rewatch the show doesn't even matter. they've spent so much time over-analyzing every single one of izzy's scenes to the point where the emotional responses they get from these scenes are not the emotional responses anyone would have watching the show for the first time. they've warped the entire first season to fit their version of the show and are forgetting how often the show itself bashes izzy.

and the icing on the cake is the trolling. there's like, one or two people on here who go around sending anon hate and leaving nasty comments on instagram posts and harassing people on twitter for... like, i would say "for liking izzy" or even "for saying positive things about izzy" but like. i've gotten these messages, and the most sympathetic i've ever been to izzy was the post i made like "maybe he's mean bc he has chronic IBS. i'd actually understand him more if that were the case." so when i get these messages it's easier for me to just laugh them off bc it's so obviously just someone trying to make me upset, but people who do care about izzy (a lot of them being the same people who avoided engaging with the "why does fandom care so much abt white characters" convo) get these absolutely horrible messages about how they deserve to get hate crimed and they should kill themselves. and these fans who didn't want to even see vaguely negative posts abt izzy bc they just want to enjoy fandom in peace are now like "im targeted for just liking a character!"

so that's how we get to people saying that "izzy bashing" needs to be tagged. never mind that their definition of "bashing" almost certainly includes things that are not bashing but are just things that contradict the way they headcannnon him.

[1794]

it's funny that I've been waffling back and forth on like threeeeee? pd labels in the last decade? to "explain" why I feel the way I do about interpersonal interactions & connections. in the end I'm definitely not avoidant and I'm probably not actually schizoid which means it comes back around to my dear friend antisocial. which I already knew.

[hurlumerlu]

but also like. i feel like that's the kind of things you should expect when you go see a play in stuttgart. like. tbqh.

[bookishfeylin]

have you ever talked about the inherent tragedy of feylin's ending in acomaf

No but NOW I AM.

Ok ok ok

SOOOOOOOO

ACOMAF begins with them both being incredibly traumatized. Neither can sleep, neither are doing good, they both know the other is struggling, but they have a "silent agreement" not to talk about it and acknowledge Amarantha's still affecting them. They both use sex as a relief and as a coping mechanism because again they are both traumatized, and it likely grounds them both. But it's not enough, and sex can't save a relationship wherein the parties refuse to communicate with each other.

And this all comes to a head when Feyre eventually realizes what she needs to get better: freedom. Being coddled and protected stifles her, leaves her with nothing to do but wallow in trauma, and she wants to keep busy. Needs to. again i take issue with acomaf saying she wants to throw herself into danger because that's not realistic for ptsd and realistically she should WANT to be coddled post acotar and avoid danger at all costs. i personally feel like it'd be more powerful from a trauma-discussing perspective if she clung to being coddled as she wasted away and her journey in acomaf was about finding the joy in life and LIVING again and learning to not be afraid of danger and death but alas we got what we got, but the need to keep busy thing does make sense.

So after months of no communication or discussion about their trauma, as they're both sinking deeper and deeper into it, Feyre has realized what she needs, and she finally voices what she wants. But it's different than everything she's said and done before. The people themselves didn't want Feyre's help rebuilding and pushed her away. And Feyre didn't want a title previously, didn't want to meet his courtiers and begin learning the intricate court politics during the parties, and refused to engage with people during the tithe. But now she wants something different. She doesn't want to sit around anymore, suddenly wants to be involved, she wants to do THINGS but not in the careful safe environment where Tamlin initially tried to get her involved in politics. And Tamlin panics, and we get the study scene. Because he's also realized what he needs to get better, and that's assurance of her safety. Which he has when she's at home doing nothing, or when she's learning the ins and outs of court politics, or is followed around by a dozen guards, but cannot guarantee if she trains or is helping out around the court. Especially if she trains. Because Hybern is hunting her, and the other High Lords will kill her if they learn she has their magic, and he has no super-secret-hidden city to train her safely, no mind-reading powers to check on her in a moment's notice. She could die and he wouldn't know; would be powerless to help her. But Feyre does not know this. Feyre does not know of being hunting by the attor, or the likelihood that the High Lords will want the return of their power. She needs freedom. He needs her safety.

So Tamlin puts his needs, his PTSD, and his trauma before her own, the exact opposite of what he did a mere book before when he sent her home before she freed him, taking away her choices, her autonomy, and morphing him into her abuser.

So their relationship crashes and burns, defined and destroyed by trauma, as the expressions of their PTSD as written in canon--with Tamlin needing Feyre to be safe, and Feyre needing freedom and danger to truly live again--doom and damn their relationship, because their individual traumas warp them so the paths of healing for each mean they cannot heal together.

[coridallasmultipass]

*taps mic* Dirk seeing Jake in person for the first time and being like, "Yeah, I'm gonna put a collar on that."

[jendoe]

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