#fl0w3rf3mm3

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the pitt is real asf for showing autism with high empathy. and the way you get kinda gaslit by the world into believing you’re being dramatic

every time mel apologizes for being emotional, the thing she’s apologizing for is always incredibly valid and understandable. “sometimes i have a reaction to death” i feel like most people do babe!! “my patient hasn’t seen her daughter” a lot of people would be moved by that, regardless of their relationship with their parents

going from “emotionless” (not actually, but people like to say that) to crying at seemingly the drop of a hat is never framed as crazy or a sign of mental issues. that’s just how she is, and it can be both useful and obstructive in the same way every personality trait can be

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ik it was such a small line but i think the funding for samira’s study getting cut under trump’s administration is ESSENTIAL to understanding her this season.

(especially in conjunction with santos’ line last episode about how the cdc is a joke now) we need to acknowledge how hard she’s taking it. she has been shown to be an extremely empathetic doctor, ready to advocate for her patients tooth and nail. she want to do good on both a micro and macro level—through being a good doctor to the poc who come through the er, through researching and studying, she can make bigger changes in the system (see “i’m trying to change that” w/ her sickle cell patient)

the exhaustion she’s dealing with this season is not just robby’s pressure, or her mother’s, or her love life. it’s the realization that she’s fighting an uphill battle. at every turn, she’s losing. at every turn, she has no one supporting her dreams. she did have a purpose. she did have a goal. but then the rug got pulled out from under her with no fanfare, and she’s fighting to keep afloat in an environment (under an attending) which continually punishes her for dreaming of more.

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i’ve mentioned it very briefly before, but i have such specific headcanons on caitvi and parenthood

first of all, i think they’d wait multiple years post canon, at least five, possibly more. both would (initially) not want kids. then, vi would want them, and caitlyn would be against it. then, caitlyn would come around.

vi needs to heal from her lifelong role as a protector before any kids gets involved—she needs to learn how to be herself again. plus, i think she’d have a HUGE fear of leaving her child orphaned (which, valid, somehow this girl ended up triple orphaned) (orphan cubed), so she would want to wait to have children until the piltover was more stable. (i think eventually that’d lead to a bit of frustration within herself, bc she’d keep delaying having children until she finally admitted to herself that there is no objectively “right” time. she cannot guarantee her child’s safety, and while that’s deeply upsetting, it’s a reality she will have to accept before having children.)

caitlyn would not want children at first. she’s not against it, its just never been something that interested her. it was sort of expected her entire life, but she’s never put thought into parenthood on an emotional level, just the general understanding that she needs an heir to continue the family name. right now, though, she has a country to run, she has wrongs to right, she was so many amends she needs to make. a child simply doesn’t fit. and, i think she would have a really bad paranoia that if they were to have a daughter, their relationship would be similar to her relationship with her own mother. i think she also would be worried about putting the pressure of the kiramman name on a child, knowing how much she herself struggled. in general, i think the thing she’d be against isn’t children, its motherhood. she’s scared of being a bad mom.

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the reason teen pregnancy is so taboo in our world is bc teenagers have a lot of expectations of them, like college, buying a house, entering the work force, etc.

however, in the world of jackson, ellie and dina both basically function as adults already. there is no secondary education for them to pursue, or job market to enter, or economic ladder to climb. ellie (practically) lives on her own, and while dina’s living situation is never clarified, i would assume she does as well.

seeing as they were both born post outbreak day, it makes perfect sense that neither of them would hold any sort of shame about the pregnancy (which is partially why i like the hbo series’ handling better than the og game. it feels more like they bothered to take that important different into consideration.)

i just love when stories bother to think about what social biases would/wouldn’t exist in foreign settings that we just take for granted and assume are natural

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can we talk about how genuinely sinister joel roping ellie into the lie is?? outside of analysis on how it plays into ellie’s anger or joel’s violation on her autonomy, just on an emotional level, that’s FUCKING insane LMAO.

can you imagine the weight it would be on her mind to keep that secret?? to wake up everyday, to see gale around town, knowing she lied to a grieving wife?? THAT SUCH AN INSANE THING FOR HIM TO JUST. EXPECT ELLIE TO SHOULDER NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

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i LOVE that joel was kind of thrown by ellie “experimenting” with girls at first. i’ll probably elaborate more later, but as a southern lesbian, it felt so real and authentic.

the overwhelming majority of people i know with supportive parents (myself included) were still caught off guard by their kid’s queerness. for me, it always feels a little disingenuous anytime fictional parents are immediately with the program, and say all the perfect things, bc that simply wasn’t my experience, nor the experience of anyone around me. ellie has always known she’s a lesbian, but joel is COMPLETELY new to the idea. it makes sense that he’s caught off guard.

joel isn’t reacting negatively to ellie’s sexuality. joel is reacting negatively to ellie’s individuality. the fact that she has life separate from him, full of girls and sex and drugs and tattoos, meanwhile joel’s ENTIRE world is just ellie.

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one time i had a therapist describe growing up in an abusive household as being similar to living in a war zone.

when you hear a loud boom at night, it’s probably an attack, and the smartest thing to do is to get your armor on and get ready for battle. this is logical, and rational, and it keeps you alive.

but, just as with veterans, if you once you leave the war zone and return to civilian life, you have trouble adjusting. what was once useful, smart, and essential to your survival, is now irrational and destructive. now, a loud boom is most likely something unimportant off in the distance, or it’s your dumbass cats knocking something off the counter.

these aren’t easy to unlearn, though. it’s not easy to abandon what kept you alive. it doesn’t feels like the right thing to do, either. it feels stupid, it feels naive, and if something were to happen to you, it feels like that would be your fault be you should know better, you should have been smart enough to protect yourself.

anyways, this is a post about dr trinity santos

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and actually the choice to delay ellie and dina getting together in the show is super cool (for many reasons, but one of them is) because it more clearly draws a direct connection between ellie’s pursuit of revenge and her urge to self sabotage.

the relationship JUST started, and she ALREADY cannot stop herself from fucking it up (by going after nora instead of straight back to the theatre and her injured girlfriend like she said she would). it just really shows the fervor with which she hates herself