#and ofc we can trace all of this back to granpappy theerapanyakul 🙃

[lu-sn]

so i've been thinking about vegaspete, and kinnporsche, and the parallels of abusive behavior for these two pairings.

cw: discussions of emotional, physical and generational abuse

both pairs start with one person in significant power over the other. kinn has just strongarmed porsche into becoming his employee, and vegas has imprisoned pete. they both then follow a remarkably similar set of events.

kinn and vegas force porsche (ep2-3) and pete (ep10-11) respectively through a combination of both physical and emotional abuse. this abuse is expected given the power dynamic.

kinn and vegas start to treat porsche (ep3-4) and pete (ep11-12) differently than they should be treating them. nicer, if you will.

kinn and vegas have a sexual encounter with porsche (ep4) and pete (ep12) respectively.

kinn and vegas enact physical and emotional abuse on porsche (ep5) and pete (ep13) again, after an ill-fated encounter with each of their fathers. however, the abuse hurts porsche and pete much deeper than before, not just because of the sexual encounter, but because of the emotional bond that served as a foundation for said encounter.

porsche and pete cannot bear it, and they leave kinn (ep5) and vegas (ep13).

kinn and vegas go looking for porsche (ep5) and pete (ep13) to apologize.

kinn (ep6) and vegas (ep14) apologize again, with more gravity.

kinn and vegas tell porsche (ep6) and pete (ep14) that they can and should leave.

the details vary. kinn tends more towards direct emotional abuse (telling porsche he's being treated just like everyone else / like nothing, demoting him and trading him away) and indirect physical abuse (punishing him via the bodyguard system). vegas is inflicting all kinds of abuse on pete, all by his own hands. but at their cores, the journeys look EXTREMELY similar.

and then, of course, they diverge.

at its heart, the vegaspete storyline in s1 is about the cycles of abuse, and what it means to break free of them. gun inflicts abuse on vegas, vegas turns around and inflicts it on pete. pete does not stand for this and leaves, which leads to vegas refusing to perpetuate his part of the cycle, thereby allowing pete to stay free -- but vegas is still trapped in the cycle by gun.

then gun gets killed.

through almost no action of his own, vegas is free. pete sees this, and understands what it means, whether consciously or subconsciously: pete can return to vegas. and pete can now trust fully that vegas will treat him well, since vegas is not trapped himself. pete won't have to be constantly looking over his shoulder for the next time gun sets vegas off.

vegas is so fucking lucky that he didn't have to break out of the cycle himself. if gun had continued to live, perhaps in a world where there was no coup, vegas could not have had both gun and pete. he would have had to choose, and choosing pete would have meant dethroning his father. fighting back against your abuser, when they are also your parent? an insurmountable task. suffice to say, it would have been terrible for vegas.

but, for better or for worse, korn took care of that for him. and now the vegaspete arc has reached its resolution. they've broken free. they can start healing.

kinn... kinn is very much not free.

and we kind of see the consequences of that through the latter half of the show. kinn loves porsche. i don't think there's any doubt about that. but that love doesn't stop kinn from occasionally treating porsche very poorly. he doesn't tell porsche anything about tawan, and porsche tries to do his best with the information he has -- and when it backfires horrendously, kinn asks porsche to apologize without taking any blame for himself.

i would consider this emotional abuse. and maybe you would disagree, but there's another very similar incident in the show that i think firmly counts as emotional abuse: korn lying to kinn about his death.

kinn thinks his dad is dead, and then days later his uncle comes to attack. kinn tries his level best to push through his grief and defend his household with little to no help. and after a terrifyingly high body count, kinn runs into a hidden room, and his dad is there, and his dad is alive, and his dad says nothing to him.

not a single acknowledgement of the fake death, let alone an apology. no blame assigned to korn. just kinn, alone, reeling from the fallout of his dad having lied to him in the most cruel way possible.

and why doesn't kinn protest this? well, for one, it's his dad. see previous statement about that kind of thing being extremely difficult. but two, and this is much worse, kinn probably believes that his dad was in the right. he's fallen for it, hook line and sinker. it was okay for korn to not trust him, to use him as a means to an end -- because korn is in charge, and korn knows what's right.

and this is the exact abuse kinn perpetuates to porsche for the tawan incident. he expects porsche to step in line. he doesn't think porsche is in the right to ask for mutual trust, because misplaced trust ruins plans. kinn is in charge, and kinn knows what's right.

cycles of abuse. over and over. and again, if gun had stayed alive, vegas may very well have been stuck in a similar position.

but here's another difference between the two couples, and i think it matters tremendously. pete left, and pete didn't come back until gun was dead. vegas might not have been free, but at least pete had escaped from the line of fire.

porsche left, and came back, and put himself right back into the cycle he had originally tried to run away from.

this is very much not good for porsche. kinn will continue to perpetuate the abuse korn inflicts on him, in between showering porsche with love. and it's going to really fuck with porsche, just like it did in ep5. the only options that could make porsche's life abuse-free are if he decides to walk away, or if korn dies. and korn is much, much harder to kill.

i don't think the kinnporsche storyline in s1 is necessarily about the cycles of abuse the same way it is for vegaspete. both kinn and porsche start the season ensnared separately, and they end it ensnared together. the kinnporsche arc in s1 is more about love and corruption.

but in order for porsche to be happy -- truly happy, he's going to have to break the cycle he's trapped in. and if he tries it, he'll be forcing kinn's hand. kinn will have to choose between korn and porsche.

and it's a choice kinn's not going to want to make.

#and ofc we can trace all of this back to granpappy theerapanyakul 🙃 #cycles on cycles on cycles #kinnporsche #vegaspete #kinn theerapanyakul #porsche kittisawasd #vegas theerapanyakul #pete saengtham #cw: abuse