#And since he made me wholly dependant on him and will say that I'm mentally unfit so he's probably going to get his way

[fiveamandawake]

in the spirit of using this blog as the vent and journal it was created as:

I don't know how to end this friendship. I'd like to do it kindly, while being completely clear that I'd prefer for him not to contact me again.

This is someone who doesn't have other friends, and who depends on me for i) emotional validation, ii) guidance, iii) motivation to get better. We were friends, then briefly in a relationship, then friends again after I moved across the planet into a literal hellscape of grief and terror to which my own depression contributed its own tang.

I haven't been in regular contact with him. I've been ghosting him, more or less, since I got here in 2020. The thing is, I've been ghosting all of my friends and all my family that I don't live in the same building with, without exception. I gave everyone who I'm close to a general explanation of the difficulties of my life at present, and to some of them (him included) I also offered some of the more painful details as explanation for why my mental health didn't allow for consistent contact anymore. I know it's a shoddy way to treat your friends, but I have been doing my best (in therapy and out of it) to get over my weird fear of contacting my own friends, and getting nowhere with it.

So, me: radio silent, mostly. Him: writing letters begging for updates, telling me about how it's too hard to try and overcome his depression without my support, saying that he can't stop thinking about me, saying he's doing badly and needs help, talking about how I was causing him worry and distraction by not "letting him in" and sharing my own problems.

I am going to be fair to him by saying I knew about this aspect of his character from early on in our acquaintance, and at the time I enjoyed how cherished it made me feel. How adored. He was, and is, constant, loyal, in every way wanting to be there to support me through my troubles the way we used to help each other through them before.

However, things have changed. Specifically, years of handling back-to-back problems quite beyond what a person just reaching her twenties ought to deal with have changed me from the person he knew to someone harder and hollower, less prone to kindness. I'm chronically ill now, my mental health is autumn-leaf-trembling-on-a-twig fragile, and I'm unemployed and stranded away from employment opportunities with my money running out mainly because I can't rely on my own body and mind not to let me down in an emigration situation.

These changes in me have led to a much lowered self esteem. With most of my friends, I stuggle to reach out across the months and years and share my troubles because I am ashamed of having done this to myself, sunk so irreparably low and despairing so wholly that words of encouragement or consolation feel inadequate as a response. I don't give them the grace of knowing me as I am now, and still trying to love me. I'd prefer they bear in mind the gentle, whimsical person who I was in university and before that. With him, who knew me and loved me at a low point and who I know would love me still if I gave him the chance, I don't know just what my problem is.

I only know that above all, his persistence and insistence in that I let him in, that I engage with his life and that I tell him about mine, has caused a perverse repulsion in addition to the shame that drives me to hide from those who cared about me. I can't, but with him I also don't want to. I don't want to know him anymore, though he continues to be kind and attentive, with a mind I find delightfully beautiful in its contours, troubles and all.

It's a strange reason for breaking off a friendship: I can't be the support you need, and I refuse to open up to let you support me. Perhaps, later, in less dire times, I will come to regret losing this dark pearl by throwing him back into the open waters. Maybe I will miss him.

Right now, though, his messages continue to dig at me with guilt. I cannot and also will not want to change my actions in the short term. These messages continue to pitch increasingly towards melodramatic "so this is it, then, you're abandoning our friendship", which I can understand to a degree after 4 years of rarely and reluctantly broken silence on my part, but which annoys and exasperates me to a much greater degree. None of my other friends, though I've known most of them much longer than him and been just as close to many of them, are wailing and tearing out their hair in my inbox every few days. They heard "I still care about you, and if you send me messages I'll read them lovingly even if I can't respond. I'll be in touch when I can," and they took it at face value. Why couldn't he?

I am his only friend, this brilliant, high-achieving person, this closed-off, troubled figure who holds a world of consideration and devotion closely guarded in him. I don't want to disappear permanently from his life, not when his messages to me provide at least an unanswered outlet for his feelings, but I am not a door to be knocked on incessantly, and I tire of the emotional appeals which I cannot answer, and which make me feel terrible each time I cannot answer them.

I think, though it will be painful to him, the healthier thing to do is to stop our association altogether. Maybe in the years to come, if I am ever better myself, I will feel the rupture to be painful myself. But he needs to find new friends, try for new loves, and experience the failures and occasional successes of life's social encounters for himself. My friendship, weak, pale thing that it is nowadays, is not enough to sustain a whole person. I doubt he will let go of it and go out to seek new instances of live or friendship if things remain as they are. I have no wish to string him along, and so it must end here.

[walkuntilthedaylight]

The people have spoken! How can I not give them what they want?

I'm gonna put this all under a cut, since it's a bit long, and also because it's highly interpretative/speculative and not everyone likes those kinds of posts as they can be rather subjective and, I suppose, invasive. I want to give two major caveats to my thoughts below: first is that I tend not to buy the idea that Paul was the "stable/normal" Beatle, mostly b/c I view marijuana dependency and workaholism as addictions and I take them pretty seriously. Second is that I really do love this kind of tabloid/gossip/personal account shit; I think it should be taken with a handful of salt, but I don't think it should be entirely dismissed out of hand either. I read this stuff like I'm piling up sheets of stained glass: I'm intrigued by the places where the colours blend and overlap, and ignore things that fall outside the prism. Anyway, let's dig in:

Okay, so what I found fascinating about 'Body Count' is that it's one of the only sources which observes Paul McCartney's mental health during the period between the India trip and when the band breakup really got rolling. I think it's overall a fairly self-absorbed text that definitely has some lies and exaggerations peppered in there to make things spicier and more dramatic, but its broad characterization - as I mentioned in my first post - isn't exactly libelous or out of left field. Some elements that make me think it's generally if not wholly authentic are: Paul's simultaneously forceful and dorky seduction style, his terrible Liverpool diet and poor housekeeping, the bouts of thrill-seeking recklessness, avoidant adventure crafting, dark moods when drinking non-socially, the occasional hot and cold bouts with the Apple Scuffs camped out at his gate, and the way in which he underplays his drug habit, which is SO "in truthfulness we spent most of the filming of Help! slightly stoned":

These details are so bizarrely specific and have significant overlap with both sympathetic and spurned personal accounts of Paul I've read in the past, so I believe Francie is just telling "Her Version Of The Truth" here rather than crafting a piece of pure fiction. The most important and revealing anecdote in the book is this one.

There's no reason not to believe this is a fairly accurate representation of something that actually happened, imo, since we know that anxious purse strings were an ongoing issue in the unusual turnover rate within the band Wings, and there are plenty of confirmed and rumoured cases alike of extended family members feeling entitled to a "piece of the pie"; this is just like, the kind of thing that happens to working class people who get catapulted into fame and fortune. And Paul in particular already had deep-seated financial anxiety for whatever reasons he'll never fully admit (as is his right, but I think his offhand claim that he "once heard some adults arguing about money and that's why" might actually be alluding to having heard some adults - y'know, like his parents - arguing over money fairly frequently). What esp interests me about the anecdote is the way Paul seems to connect the conflict b/t his dual "identities" with these financial expectations. Perhaps the CAPSLOCK emotional hysteria related in the book is puffed up for drama, but it does bring to mind one of the most revealing comments Linda ever made about their relationship, which is that Paul needed to be told he would still be loved when the cameras weren't rolling. And that's the thing: Francie caught Paul at the exact moment that the pillars of his Smile-For-The-Camera "Beatle" identity were collapsing; the dissolution of his relationships with John and Jane.

Whatever all this could possibly mean re: the breakup of the Lennon-McCartney partnership is a post for another time. What I wanna do instead is apply the level of speculation we usually reserve for that relationship to the endpoint of Paul and Jane's courtship.

So like, Paul and Jane: I know people are resistant to this specific POV, but I honestly just don't... think it was that deep? "Not deep", mind you, doesn't mean "not significant". Paul was obviously Jane's first love (u never forget), but the feeling I get from Paul's side (as a subconscious process I mean) is that Jane's importance was primarily as a lynchpin in his London Socialite persona. He loved her family, he loved the friend group, the artistic scene dating her gave him access to, as well as the leg up he got in the class system, etc. He liked to be the kind of guy who was dating Jane Asher. But I don't know that he was the guy who was dating Jane Asher, you get me? When people describe their "great love" they accidentally tell on them (Cynthia innocently describing Paul as being pleased to have her on his arm like a trophy; John: "it was an ordinary love scene"; Alistair Taylor noting that Paul was humiliated by the breakup). Paul's a serial monogamist who U-Hauls like a lesbian, of course, so he definitely took the relationship VERY seriously, but it's telling that all of his love songs to her were either about hitting a brick wall in arguments (certainly not dreamy, fond, yearning of "sunday morning fights about saturday night"; and occasionally expressing hints of class tension too), or completely non-descript Guy With A Guitar Trying To Get Laid shit. I could extrapolate a lot about Linda just from listening to McCartney I/RAM and the Wings discography, but 'And I Love Her' doesn't tell me a single thing about Jane besides that she's pretty. It could be about literally anyone the same way 'My Love' or 'Maybe I'm Amazed' could only be about his dynamic with Linda. Some of this is obviously the natural result of getting older and gaining emotional maturity; what I'm saying is that Paul's behaviour and self-expression in this relationship does not suggest to me that it was one in which his emotional maturity was able to develop or flourish.

I want to stress again that I don't think this belittles the significance of the relationship or makes it "bad" or "fake". Like, sometimes hot people just date for a while in their teens and twenties and love each other without necessarily unlocking their inner emotional cores, usually because they don't know how to. It's, like, fine. You need to experience relationships like that as stepping stones. I simply believe that this sort of front-facing social importance being prime in the romance is a major factor in why it ultimately didn't work (and probably in Linda's reported lingering jealousy of Jane, who wasn't just an ex, but also a symbol of the life Paul ditched to build a new identity w/ her, and sometimes still pined for). With Jane, Paul was dating the "right" kind of girl (didn't put out on the first date, erudite and middle class, as serious about her career as he was, a good "celebrity" match), but the relationship often wasn't doing what he wanted it to do. Francie's observation is that by 1968 it also wasn't doing what he needed it to do either. This is the overwhelming "mood" in her affair with Paul McCartney: that he needed something very badly from a romantic partner that he just was NOT getting, and Francie couldn't figure out what it was either:

(note that she means "queer" as in "mad", not "gay")

This was an EXTREMELY roundabout way of asking: well, what WAS it that Paul needed a relationship to do for him? And I think this is Francie's big, accidental insight. The most scandalous claim in 'Body Count' is that Paul told Francie that he hit Jane and it "turned her on".

I personally think this is p. absurd absent any real proof to back it up, but like, what is Francie actually saying HE'S saying here? If she's exaggerating or lying, she's trying to make it believable within the psychological parameters laid out, right? It's not an expression of some secret desire to dominate women she's accusing him of, but emotional disturbance and confusion at the idea that the woman he was with might like that sort of forceful, masculine violence more than his softer, feminine side, which he was - yeah, we all know it - deeply insecure about.

Regardless of whether specific details are true or false (and I think there's both in this story, all hyper-magnified to make it, y'know, a ~STORY~), I think what might be true is the emotional undertow of the retelling, that this all taken together is actually representative of the side of Paul McCartney she was exposed to, at a time when his public and private facades had both become unbearable to the point of cracking and the drug-fueled optimism of the Summer of Love was getting scrubbed off of everyone and everything. It's the Paul McCartney who eviscerated frogs because he was worried he was too "soft" for compulsory military service. The Paul who modelled his masculine teen behaviour off John Lennon's fake "Marlon Brando" swagger, but was actually more fond of the velvet "Oscar Wilde" interior.

What's SO FASCINATING about all this to me, is I deeply believe that one of the key factors in what makes The Beatles music so unique and compelling is that both the songwriters experienced psychological strain from the tension b/t their parochial socially-defensive "masculine" pride, and their sensitive "feminine" core, the latter of which they were able to express in the unburdened emotionality of their music. The reason I care about doing these totally unhinged psych analyses is because I do think it reveals something about the underpinnings of the music, as well as the reasons why the band was such a hysteria-inducing phenomenon (the rise of psychology, imo, is almost as important as the rise of industrialization as a defining factor of the modern and postmodern eras; mass psychology can be understood and wielded in precise ways, and The Beatles were one of the first empires built on that). The subconscious drives caused by this tension have been ENDLESSLY picked apart re: John's psyche, but Paul's "mirrored" issues are very under-discussed (mostly b/c he's still alive so people are a little more leery about putting him on the "couch" as a historical figure). 'Body Count', intentionally or not, painted a portrait to me of someone who was drowning in their own ill-fitting celebrity "suit", collapsing under the weight of "Being" "Paul McCartney". A guy who desperately needed some sort of space to be vulnerable without feeling emasculated for doing it. By 1968, there was no one in his life anymore - and maybe there hadn't been for a while, or ever - who was giving him this space.

In other words: the thing he needed to avoid going "stark raving queer and killing himself" was simply someone who would love him 'after the ball'.

EDIT: read the comments for further clarification and discussion! ;)

[estroniaid]

“essay on my desk by noon” well. reversed uno upon the you.

🪤💔🚆for belle | ☄️🖍🎁 bhu | 🌌🌏🎀 iffy | 📎☁️💓 raf

( ơ vơ)b

ily, if you make me write this much again i'm hunting you for sport.

Belle.

🪤 MOUSE TRAP - what will always lure them into certain danger? a loved one in danger? a promise of something they are always searching for?

he has very little regard for his well-being, self-destructive adrenaline junkie, so he’s very easily led into danger. However, he’d go happily if there came to be a time where someone he loved was in peril and he couldn’t shift for whatever reason. otherwise, and not to sound like an edgy mfer, he’s the danger.

💔 BROKEN HEART - what could their partner do that would absolutely break their heart?

betray him; lie, use him. he’d act like he’s used to it, he isn’t.

🚆 TRAIN - what is their answer to the trolley problem?

he’s selfish, he’s human. it would depend. does he know anyone on the tracks? or maybe on the trolley? that would absolutely sway him. but if he knew nobody on either (antagonistically or otherwise), if they were completely innocent, he’d try to keep them all alive. even if it meant running at the trolley himself...hope that made sense.

Bhupendra.

☄️ COMET - what do people assume about them? are they right?

that he’s mean, cruel. that he’s a lapdog who sucks up to whoever is closest, whoever is strongest, to feel better about himself. parasitical. selfish, immature. they’re right.

🖍️ CRAYON - what advice would you give to them?

suck it up, get over it, and be kinder. to yourself, to others. this hate will eat you up and there’s people waiting to love you.

🎁 PRESENT - what types of presents would they be most happy to receive? are they good at gift giving?

i know this isn’t in the question but he’s shit at gift receiving. guy who can’t just say thanks and let it go. otherwise, he’s pretty solid at giving gifts. he spirals a lot, but this just means he latches onto lots of tiny details. while its shit for his mental health, this means some gifts that fuck! something handmade, it doesn't have to be by a skilled hand or even that good, it’s the process that’d get him. he’d say he prefers simple gifts and while he wouldn’t not like it, there would be something that drops in his gut whenever it’s handmade.

Iften.

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

sigh. that he'd be a piece of shit. a right cunt, insane (medically) and insane (titfully). a right weirdo <3

🌏 EARTH - will they give up the world for someone they love? is this decision easy for them?

yes.

🎀 RIBBON - how would they fit into other worlds / aus? what aus would you like to try out? what fictional world would they fit / not fit into?

i've put him into a few au's since he was made, he fits well into modern au's, slasher au (he's a cheerleader, or the killer. or both). i'd definitely like to try him out in a high fantasy, urban fantasy, monsters, etc etc. for not fitting in.....i'm not wholly sure, he's a pretty versatile oc. maybe just one where being a good person is the only way to exist?

Rafael.

📎 PAPERCLIP - a random fact.

he doesn't match his socks, ever. and loves novelty socks (his favourite are doggy themed)

☁️ CLOUD - a soft headcanon

he can’t cook but anytime he’s focusing in the kitchen, or watching someone else cook, he can hear the music his mum would blast whenever he was a baby. something in Darija, he thinks. or maybe Spanish, or neither. he’ll hum it sometimes while helping around the kitchen. it makes him smile.

💓 BEATING HEART - what gets their heart racing?

he wouldn't know. but i say it's laughing at his dry sarcasm, playing with his hands. thumbing his face, right under his eyes where his scar curves. making food with him knowing he won't be as good as you, letting him be excited about plants and flowers and gardening. letting him exist without needing to try to act like he's more lively would melt him through and through.

[sage-nebula]

thinking about your interpretation of xy ash and how he kinda ended up feeling like he had to act the mature hero-type because of how the others started looking up to him and now i'm wondering if he ever called up brock or cilan or tracey and asked 'em if this was what it felt like to be the "oldest"/"mentor" figure of the group or something. it's a cute but kinda bittersweet mental image tbh but i wonder what your thoughts would be on this?

My thoughts are that this ask has unbelievably perfect timing, because I was just thinking about this yesterday, I kid you not. Like, I know it might seem like I’m just saying that, but as I was going through the OS episodes for my Sass Ketchum compilations I came across that scene in OS009 (“The School of Hard Knocks”) where Brock pulls out an entire table, chairs, a tablecloth, decorative flower in a vase, plates, silverware, cups, tea seat, coffee pot, et cetera to make snacks and food for Ash and Misty to cure their grumps and get them to stop fighting, which really cemented his role as the Babysitter of the group, and that made me start thinking about the Babysitters Club in general and how the main group (i.e. Ash’s group) in the Kalos saga really didn’t have one.

Now, to begin with, I think it’s important to define what I mean by this, because I realize that referring to one of the characters in the main squad as “the Babysitter” might seem demeaning to the other characters, who are most definitely “the Babysat.” I don’t mean it in a demeaning way, however. I merely mean that one of the characters in the group—the Babysitter—fulfills a certain role within the squad and usually fits certain other pieces of criteria as well. Namely, the Babysitter is usually a teenager (how much older varies, mostly in the case of Tracey) who takes care of various “household” duties, such as cooking, laundry, navigation, et cetera. They can quell fights, give advice, and generally look out for the younger members of the group (i.e. Ash, another companion his age, and sometimes an even younger companion). While specific ages outside of select characters are usually left open to interpretation (e.g. both Ash and Misty are stated to be ten, but Brock’s age is an ambiguous “younger than the adults (and also Team Rocket), but older than Ash and Misty”), the Babysitter character is usually taller than the other two, generally more mature and responsible, and therefore can easily assumed to be a little older, even though they aren’t yet adults themselves. To date, here are our series Babysitters, by region:

Kanto: Brock

Orange Islands: Tracey

Johto: Brock

Hoenn: Brock

Sinnoh: Brock

Unova: Cilan

Brock and Cilan I always imagine to be about fifteen; Tracey I see as a little younger, maybe thirteen or fourteen (like, he really seemed to be the middle ground between Brock and Ash & Misty, but he was still a clearly defined Babysitter in that he a.) was brought in to cover for Brock, b.) sadly had to leave when Brock came back to reprise his role, and c.) was the team navigator and more experienced member of the Orange Islands trio, so even though he seems a bit younger than Brock, he still comes across as a bit older than Ash & Misty, and so I’d consider him a teenager in the 13-14 age range, versus the 15-16 range of Brock). Regardless of ages, though, all three of these characters fulfill the Babysitter role, with Brock having the longest tenure. 

(And again, I know the term Babysitter might sound demeaning, but I really don’t mean it in a negative or derogatory way. The Babysat aren’t lesser because they’re being looked after by a teenager who is better at things like cooking, laundry, taking care of the kids when ill, et cetera. They’re just young and less experienced, and that’s okay. Besides, the Babysitters are like older siblings, tbh. Brock in particular had a lot of experience thanks to his ten younger biological siblings, so he was well equipped to take care of Ash, Misty, May, Max, and Dawn. It’s not a bad thing that these five were taken care of by Brock, and I certainly don’t use the terms “Babysitter” or “Babysat” in a mocking fashion. It’s just sort of how it ended up working out. =P)

Now, when I started thinking about what I’ve affectionately nicknamed The Babysitters Club last night (as a play on that old book series—though, notably, all of our PokéAni series babysitters are male!), I came to the realization that the main Kalos squad doesn’t have one. That isn’t to say there isn’t one in Kalos at all, of course; in The Strongest Mega Evolution, Alan (age 15) acts as the Babysitter for Manon (age 10) since she has just started out on her journey, and—much like Ash at the start of the OS—has absolutely no clue what she’s doing (thus he watched out for and protected her). Of course, this set-up is inverted in a few ways; to start with, while the main series usually has it so that the protagonist is one of the Babysat (Ash), in The Strongest Mega Evolution, our protagonist is the Babysitter, Alan. Secondly, Alan didn’t join Manon on her journey; rather, Manon kept following him around, inviting herself on his journey, basically making him babysit her against his will (at least at first; he warmed up to her over time). Lastly, Manon ended up too dependent on Alan, something he calls her on in TSME 4 (“You need to stop depending on me all the time”), which ended up hurting her journey rather than helping it, which is honestly part of why I disregard the XY saga’s ending for the two of them and fix it by having her resume her journey independently (as I feel he would gently push her to do, so she can build her confidence and independence as a trainer). Typically the Babysat don’t end up wholly depending on their Babysitter, but that’s what happened here. Regardless of these inversions, however, Alan definitely qualifies as a member of The Babysitters Club given that he is a teenager who, for at least part of the time, looks after a child who just started on her journey. (They both also fulfill the Badass and Child Duo trope, with Alan as the Badass and Manon as the Child. Granted, Alan is younger than the standard Badass given that he’s still a teenager rather than adult, but they fit the bill nonetheless.)

But while Alan is definitely a Babysitter in Kalos, the fact remains that he’s not part of the main group because he doesn’t travel with Ash. (And in fact, his relationship with Ash is not akin to the typical Babysitter - Babysat relationship; Alan and Ash treat each other as equals, whereas Brock took care of Ash and Ash looked to Brock for advice, and Alan protects Manon and Manon depends on him for that protection and strength.) And while Alan is not the Babysitter in Ash’s Kalosean group, the truth is that Ash’s Kalosean group doesn’t have a marked Babysitter. If anything, Ash, Serena, and Clemont all share the role of Babysitter for Bonnie, which is another thing that makes me feel like the ages for those three are more than a little borked / unbelievable.

What I mean by that is … I know that Ash is ten in the XY(&Z) series. I know this. But he doesn’t act ten, and this is one of the ways in which he doesn’t. The fact that, for the first time ever, he didn’t need a Babysitter in the group speaks to the fact that he should be a couple years older (that he, like Tracey, should be ~13/14). The fact that he, Serena, and Clemont share the typical Babysitter responsibilities speaks to this. Ash handles the protection, the heroism, the strength, the advice; he has to be the Hero™ for them because they all expect it, as do so many others in Kalos (e.g. Shouta, Tierno, Trevor, and Shauna all see him this way, too). While Ash never hero worshiped any of the Babysitters he traveled with, as I said, he did look to Brock for advice at times. The Babysitter is typically seen as more experienced and mature and reliable in this sense. They know what they’re doing, and in the Kalos saga, everyone assumed that Ash knew what he was doing, since he was The Ace. He tried to be that for them because they expected it of him, and in this way he graduated to The Babysitters Club. (Also, remember XYZ044, when he was able to help out with the cooking? Yeah, he was just helping rather than being the main cook, but still. There’s a marked difference there between how he and Misty flailed around in Johto when Brock was sick, or how he made poison in the SM saga. It makes you think he grew some, that he has learned some, that Brock would have wiped away tears of pride if he saw his baby brother helping make the food.)

Meanwhile, while I may be forgetting certain episodes or certain things, I seem to remember both Serena and Clemont handling things like cooking or laundry at different points. In fact, I specifically remember a lot of Discourse™ surrounding Serena making cookies for Ash, and I also seem to remember Clemont inventing something to make laundry easier (though it, like his other inventions, might have exploded at some point—but look, he tried, and therefore no one should criticize him!). Rather than having one character handle everything, as Brock did, I feel like the chores were shared between Ash, Serena, and Clemont whenever they were shown at all. The only one who didn’t really participate independently was Bonnie, since she was so little, meaning that in a way Ash, Serena, and Clemont were all the Babysitter at different points, whereas Bonnie was indisputably the Babysat. (Which, it might seem ridiculous to say that one little girl needs three Babysitters, but it’s not because she’s a problem child. She’s not. It’s that her three Babysitters needed help, hahaha.)

So yeah, what I’m driving at here is—the Kalos saga really didn’t have a defined Babysitter, which forced Ash to step up and Babysit himself, + his companions at various points, while his other two companions at least did help out when it came to the “household” chores. (I mean, of course they didn’t really have a house, but you know what I mean.) It was basically a situation where, they didn’t have an older teenager with them this time, they realized this belatedly, and thus had to make due on their own. Thankfully, they didn’t die. But I do think it’s yet another thing that makes Kalos!Ash feel a bit older to me. He’s still not as old as Alan, but I can’t help but see Kalos!Ash as ~13/14, particularly when you compare him (and Serena and Clemont, tbh) to characters like Manon, who we know just started out and who acts like the ten-year-old child she is. Ash (and Serena and Clemont) act like young teenagers, versus kids, and the fact that they didn’t have a traditional Babysitter among the party contributes to this feeling.

So, uh, to get back to your original question—I definitely think that what you’ve described is very fitting. In my personal view, I feel like part of the reason why Ash decided to up and leave Kalos on his own (before his companions announced their own plans) was that he was just so exhausted after everything. He did a good job of keeping it together and trying to hide it, but as we see after his loss to Wulfric and subsequent fight with Serena he got really, really tired of having to be the Hero™ all the time, of having to be strong and upbeat all the time. (Which, again, is part of why Alan was so good for him; Alan was so strong that it was acceptable in the eyes of everyone else if Ash lost against him, so Ash could battle his hardest and just have fun with the match rather than having pressure on his shoulders. Additionally, while he does offer Alan emotional support, Alan doesn’t look to him for that; rather, Ash can go after him and offer it of his own volition, and just be honest about it, admitting that he doesn’t know what to say but offering what he can anyway. He doesn’t have to feel like he’s going to be judged if he admits he doesn’t know what to say, and it’s not expected of him to offer support to Alan. It’s a much more freeing and emotionally healthy relationship for Ash, as we’ve discussed before.) I think he was pretty eager to go back home to Kanto because of how tiring that all was, and I also think this played a part in how he stayed in Kanto for a while, seemingly chilling with Delia before they won that lottery, and even then originally going to Alola on vacation. It’s telling, I feel, that Ash didn’t feel compelled to go on a journey again right away. (Er, at least, telling if we want to pretend there’s still some continuity. We all know how the writers are nowadays, but I like to dream.)

With all of that said, I feel like Ash might still be in kind of a mindset where he doesn’t necessarily talk about this right away, especially if he’s trying to take a break from everything in Kalos—but I feel like his friends could tell. Brock in particular, being the nurturing guy he is (and having traveled with Ash for four regions), would probably pick up on it immediately if he traveled to Pallet to visit Ash while he was in town, and would be like, “What’s on your mind?” but also, “Here, let me get you a cup of cocoa. You still take it with six marshmallows, right? And Pikachu, I’ve got a fresh batch of those treats you like with me, let me get them out of my bag.” And Ash would get to enjoy what it feels like to be taken care of for the first time in a long time, and would no doubt relish in it. (Meanwhile, Pikachu’s like, “MY FAVORITE TREATS, FUCK YEAH!!” … well, maybe a little less profane than that, but it’s all Pikaspeak, so who can tell. :P)

Anyway, to wrap up this super long answer: I do think that Ash had to be the Babysitter (or at least share Babysitting responsibilities) for Kalos, and I do think that wore on him to a degree, at least by the time of the journey’s end—not so much because he had to Babysit per se (because he also acted as a coach to May in some ways), but more so because it was that plus having to be The Ace and The Hero™ with everyone acting like the world was ending if he lost or showed any weakness. And I do think he would think, sometimes, about how this must have been how Brock, Tracey, and Cilan felt to some degree, and so when Brock was making his cocoa would probably try to help, until Brock told him, no no, sit down, it’s just cocoa! He doesn’t mind making it. (Ash would, after some time of the two of them talking, probably say, like, “Hey, by the way—thanks for always looking out for me when we traveled together. And now. This, too.” And Brock would smile and shrug and say:

“No problem. I’m always happy to be here for you.”

Ash would probably drop by Oak’s lab to thank Tracey for not letting him and Misty die in the Orange Islands, too, and then call Cilan to thank him for helping him and Iris. You know. He knows how it feels now so he really feels compelled to thank them all.)

So yeah, absurdly long answer aside, I really do feel that this is the case! And your timing is perfect since I was just thinking about it, haha. Thanks for sending this in!!