#the culmination of all of his hurtful and toxic coping mechanisms

[codexbrainhasbrokenfree]

[midnightwerewoolf]

So Fionna and Cake was definitely a show I wasn't expecting to see when it got announced, and even less in the way it got delivered. Originally I thought they would stuck out with what we had seen so far in Adventure Time which is to say classical AT fun loving stories but with female Finn and cat Jake, which I would have been perfectly fine with.

But man, man. What ended up being delivered really was something I wasn't expecting but I'm really happy we got that, specially when it comes to separating Fionna from Finn and making her into her own person instead of a carbon copy of him except female and of course then there's Simon.

Simon has been an important character from the moment of his reveal as the former identity of the Ice King and being a huge plot device for some of the most hard hitting moments of the show, but besides that we have had barely seen anything of Simon as anything separate from the crown.

So being able to see how he's dealing with not just having his sanity back, but also having to adjust to an insane world where even the humans are so different from someone from the 20th century and his loss of Betty who sacrificed herself so he would be back as himself, and needless to say... My man's going through it.

He doesn't fit in, he doesn't have a purpose, his fiance is GONE, and he's constantly being reminded of his time as Ice King. Dude's fucking depressed and his coping mechanisms are destroying him and sending him further to the edge.

If you see him turning his life into a time capsule exhibition for the other humans, it's obvious he keeps idolizing a time that he cannot return to, he's stuck and hasn't been able to MOVE ON. So by the time he meets Fionna and Cake and finally decides to help them, he's pretty much using that as an excuse to sacrifice himself and use the crown and the Ice King by extension as a form of escapism. And the thing is, even with the crown the Ice King was MISSERABLE in what little moments of lucidity he had and we got to see that multiple times throughout the show.

While we got to see Fionna grow more as a person and accepting her world for what it is, we also get a LOT from Simon and the multiple foils het gets throughout the show, with Farmworld Finn who managed to regain his sanity (and being severely traumatized from the experience) doing what he can to move on and live in the moment via tending his own family and cherishing what little he has left of his late wife, even if he's still not okay he's doing his best, to the Winter King who refused to move on and instead decided to ignore the problem, forget about Betty and live through his own selfishness while hurting the Candy Kingdom and Princess Bubblegum (dude created an Ice Marceline who remained a kid, that's not healthy,) culminating in how Simon's influence affected those around him with Marceline from the Vampire World being a completely evil and sadistic person who relishes in the thrill of causing fear to her victims and finally culminating in The Lich whom after achieving his goal of eliminating all life of Ooo became a shell of his own self after finally losing his one goal.

But the thing is, Simon is an incredibly nice man, he just has a problem where he fails to see his own failings unless it's spelled out to him, which is why GolBetty becomes important to the final part of his overall arc.

Simon and Betty had a sincerely loving relationship, they were happy with each and it's so easy to see how much they love each other by the way they mourn, protect, care about one another and even when they talk about their past together you can see that love and while it's beautiful... It's also unhealthy, not toxic, just unhealthy.

They weren't equal to one another and we can see that with Simon being already a researcher whom Betty admires while she's only a student. They were not on the same level from day one and while Betty was brilliant and could have had an amazing future, she sacrificed her dreams for Simon and he was not aware of that. They keep feeding into each other's worst traits without knowing, but it's not like it was a bad relationship it was a good one, a genuinely good relationship with bad sides that neither party was aware of.

And sometimes that's what it is, it's not a bad experience, it was a good experience just not a healthy one.

And that's what Simon needs to realize to let Betty go, sure they loved each other and still do, but their decisions were made and now they have to accept those decisions and move on, and to Betty who by this point is a literal god of chaos, she has lived in a state where time is nonexistent and doesn't move the same for her so to her she has made amends with everything and now all she can do is to finally have a moment of closure with Simon, a moment where they both can give their goodbyes to the other and continue on with life. It's not easy, it's hard and it hurts, but it's the best thing to do for themselves.

In the end it was all experience, a good experience that meant everything and they can look back to with the same amount of love and care.

[spokelseskladden]

Hey, I'm sorry to bother you, I just wanted to ask if you still have ideas about the Time Travel AU (the CK one) cause I've been a little obsessed with it (I really love you art ♥️)

Omg CK time travel AU... I'm so happy people still like it, I haven't thought about it in so long :') sadly I don't have any new art of it, but I can add a few notes

The whole idea was always about Miguel and Robby from the end of season 4 waking up around the start of season 2. Neither one knows the other is in the same boat, and it creates some problems as both try to change events in their own ways, thus making different situations harder to predict. They also go about it the wrong way until they get Demetri on board, like they focus on the wrong things to solve the problems.

I was always imagining Miguel waking up on the day he gets his braces removed, because everything will suck for him for a while but at least he'll get to experience that twice ( my people who wore braces will know what I'm talking about)✌️✌️

Before Robby and Miguel figure out they're time travelling buds they try to sabotage each others non-existent relationships. This makes Sam think Miguel still is a jealous douchebag, Tory thinks Robby is...weird. basically, those relationships are soooo dead. I like Robby/Tory (controversial, I know) but it would be complicated. There's a chance for them being endgame, but I'm on the fence about it, cause the point of this AU was more about friendships, especially for Robby.

This one drawing I made where Robby and Miguel sort of talk about juvie/the paralysis was supposed to take place after this big fight they had. Because they're not friendly towards eachother after finding out they're both from the future. They're forced together due to the circumstances, but there's a lot of tension between them that culminates into this big fight where they nearly repeat the event they're trying to avoid. It shakes them to their core, and they realise they don't want this -> they try to talk about it and figure out that they have more in common than they thought.

This was supposed to be the turning point in the au. Pre them making up, everything just went from bad to worse, every situation they tried to fix ended with something else going straight to hell, but once they become friends? Everything suddenly seems to go smoothly. Until it doesn't. (enter fucking Hawk and the feelings they didn't take into account. Because they were all clueless about it.)

Hawk is in love with Miguel. This is true in all universes, I take no criticism on this lol. The AU was never supposed to be migueli centric, but it makes him extra jealous of Robby. Like, if the guy you like suddenly start sneaking around with someone you both used to talk shit about, keeping secrets, blowing off a potential girlfriend for this person, and now they suddenly seems to get along a bit too well? Yeah he thinks they have something going on. Which sucks for him, cause it's one thing if Miguel can't like him back because he's straight, if he's actually into guys as well? Ouch. It's a total misreading of the situation, but Hawk isn't going to jump to time travelling buddies as the first answer :/ There's a lot of hurt feelings here, and his go to coping mechanism is ofc anger and overreactions. Miguel is so used to Hawk listening to him (especially in his champ era) he didn't ever count on him doing the exact opposite in order to spite him. Cause he kinda...took Hawk for granted I guess 😔

While I made a joke about Hawk hitting on Tory (because she never got with Miguel there's nothing stopping him from doing that) I never planned on them getting together. They would go on one date maximum, Tory would realise they're way better as friends because they would've had a toxic fucking dynamic, and break it off. Which also makes Hawk spiral, but this ain't about him. Tory hangs with Aisha more because she's not with Miguel, and they have their own theories on what's going on with Miguel (and hawk tbh). I think they're the ones who accidentally starts this whole "Miguel and Robby might be...👀👀👀👀" Thing. They also realise what Hawk's deal is.

Sam v. Tory is waaaay more focused on Aisha, as it always should've been imo. I don't think their rivalry gets as bloody, and I think all three can learn some important lessons way faster. Also Aisha never disappears, because there's no school fight.

The adults are the biggest challenge, because neither Miguel nor Robby knows what the hell they were up to most of the time, and they're the ones who creates the mess. Miguel is from the end of s4, so from his perspective his relationship with Johnny is strained, while Johnny has no clue why their dynamic feels so off now(when he finds out Miguel and Robby are friends now, he assumes it's because of his shit relationship with Robby. Which isn't far off from the truth, once Miguel and Robby start talking they actually bond quite a bit over failed fathers/father figures which in turn puts even more strain on the Johnny-Miguel dynamic)

Originally I was considering Miguel being in a similar accident in the end, but under different circumstances. I'm not sure if it would work, but there's something about doomed narratives that compels me.

At least one character will be disappointed in Robby and Miguel for not even trying to win the lottery once they find out they're from the future. Robby and Miguel say they were a bit preoccupied with stopping the karate-gang-wars. Idk which character this should be but let's be real, it's Bert.

[wolvesofinnistrad]

In my head TK relays all this shit that happened to Buck, his new long distance friend over Skype a few days later and Buck, perennial "it's all my fault I'm used to taking the blame" immediayely has kinship with Carlos and is all "hold up, you pushed your boyfriend cuz you were mad? What?" And its only then TK really *gets* what happened and he cant even defend himself he just starts freaking out and shame spiraling (thankfully this is with another friend and NOT with Carlos himself in which Carlos would have to/feel compelled to defend tk to himself and reassure him). This all culminates in tk and Carlos having a really great talk about why exactly tk reacted with anger and why exactly Carlos reacted with deflection and self blame and how they can both be better at not reproducing toxic coping mechanisms in their lives to not hurt each other or themselves.

[shit-mcu-stans-write]

submission from anon: essay on rhodey

my apologies that this is so long. i had a lot more to say than i realised and this… just kind of happened.

so… lieutenant colonel james “jim” rupert “rhodey” rhodes… i have a lot of feelings about him and his character development and for once… i actually like what i see from the mcu. i love what the mcu has completely unintentionally done for him and i find it absolutely hilarious because i know it’s 100% unintentional, because they’d never purposefully make rhodey’s character development so anti-tony-stark. but that’s what we’ve been presented with. and i love it. hear me out:

in iron man 1 rhodey starts as tony’s babysitter. rhodey says so himself: “you don’t respect yourself so I know you don’t respect me - i’m just your babysitter” but despite the fact he knows tony doesn’t respect him, he’s still there for tony, still supporting him, still showing him as much love as he can no matter how little tony gives back. he puts it down the the fact tony doesn’t respect himself; he’s reckless and childish and doesn’t take responsibility for his actions. rhodey might be being sarcastic and snarky when he’s saying “when you need your diaper changed let me know and I’ll get you a bottle” but there’s some truth to it: he can’t help but mother-hen tony, because someone has to be responsible for the kid (he sure as hell can’t be responsible for himself!), and rhodey has put himself in that position.

i think a lot of that’s to do with the fact they both met really young in mit, with rhodey being a couple (?) years older than tony at the time. they stuck together because they were both in the unique position of being child prodigies, but because rhodey was the older of the two i think he quickly settled into a caregiving role. but by iron man 1, rhodey has emotionally matured, and tony hasn’t. he hasn’t needed to, being a white billionaire boy and all. so rhodey still sees tony as this kid he’s always been there for, always protecting, always giving and giving and giving to, and putting up with. they’ve been friends for so long that he’s used to it.

by iron man 2, rhodey is fed up. tony is being even more reckless than usual because he’s dying but no one knows, so rhodey is being pushed to his breaking point. there’s a deleted scene where rhodey says something which i feel says everything you need about what their relationship has become by now: “hanging out with you is bad for our friendship”. rhodey is starting to realise just how impossible being an actual friend - not just a yes-man and support staff - for tony is. and all that culminates in the fight scene where, upon seeing tony drunk and endangering his party guests in a WMD supersuit, rhodey reaches that breaking point. protects tony from himself one last time by fighting him, then cuts ties.

only, by the end of iron man 2, rhodey learns that taking the suit to the military and letting hammer get his paws on it was a bad idea, and that tony was literally near death the whole time he was being a dick, and then they have to team up to defeat vanko together. so despite having gone through all the shit tony’s put him through and realising how terrible a friend tony actually is, he chalks this all up to a mistake and a misunderstanding on his part. gives tony a second (or, more realistically, hundredth) chance. which is why in iron man 3 they’re best buds again. im3 is probably the healthiest depiction of their relationship tbh, and that’s on im3 tony being the least assholeish depiction of tony in the whole mcu (imo).

but tony’s character begins to sour massively from AOU onwards (not saying he wasn’t an… abrasive character beforehand, to say the least, but clearly all the guilt from causing ultron and inadvertently causing the mess in sokovia is affecting him and his relationships; pepper, another caregiving character that has put up with tony’s entitled, misogynistic bullshit for years, has left him, and i think that’s a massive sign that he’s spiralling in a similar way he did in im2. after all, the writers refuse to develop him as a character, which means he’ll never get help for his mental health and never learn healthy coping mechanisms. i honestly wonder what happened for pepper to leave - we’ve seen the breaking point for rhodey, so what was hers?)

so yeah, anyway, tony is starting to spiral again from AOU. civil war happens - he blames the team and latches onto the accords as a way to absolve himself of the guilt, bla bla bla, you know the plot. and, just like the others, rhodey is given mere days to read, consider, and sign this life-changing document; not only is his best friend vehemently, vocally, and violently in favour these documents, they’re also coming from a position of power that he, as a military man, respects. so it makes sense he’d initially be on the side of the accords.

and then something even more life-changing than the accords happens for rhodey. sam accidentally shoots him down and he injures his legs so bad that he can’t walk without support. and rhodey’s response to that? i know we don’t get to see much of rhodey’s response and recovery, which is a travesty, but what we do get? really sheds some light on the kind of man rhodey is, and how he develops as a person by the end of endgame. 

for once in his life, rhodey is in the position of needing to be cared for - and on top of that, tony is the one offering. we also see that rhodey wants his recovery to be something he does alone as much as he possibly can, because that’s just the kind of person he is; we see the sheer amount of value he places on his ability to handle things on his own, and the skyrocket-high responsibility he holds himself to. and now all of a sudden tony’s actually trying to reciprocate the attention and care he’s shown him without reward for years (and only because of this guilt spiral he’s been on since AOU)… and that must have been fucking jarring for rhodey.

i think the sudden and strange role reversal probably helped him work out a few things about his relationship with tony a lot. which is why, when infinity war rolls around, they don’t interact. rhodey seems closer to and more in alignment with the “rogues”/“nomads” than tony. where once he agreed with the accords, he’s had some time to actually read them and reconsider them, and he’s against them now! he hates ross and greets steve with a warm hug!

and something i love so fucking much about infinity war (dispite all it’s other faults)? sam and rhodey’s relationship. sam shot rhodey down and disabled him for the rest of his life. and rhodey forgives him. first of all, because that’s the kind of person rhodey is (he’s had plenty of practice forgiving all kinds of shit with tony), and rhodey understands it was a mistake (and probably empathises with how horrible it must have been for sam; he’s military too, he understands that specific kind of guilt). interesting to compare rhodey’s response to the mistake with tony’s. and heartwarming to see that, for once, when rhodey forgives someone for what they’ve done, he is given gratitude and a genuine two-way friendship in response. i live for sam and rhodey’s every interaction in iw.

and then we get to endgame. know how many times rhodey interacts with tony in endgame? twice. first interaction: “okay, you made your point - just sit down, okay?” (read: “stop acting like a child before you hurt yourself”). second interaction: *sadly touches his face as he realises he’s dying before moving aside to let peter and pepper say their goodbyes*. what i love about these interactions - and the lack of any other interactions - is what it clearly means for rhodey:

1) tony still means a lot to rhodey. he’ll always mean a lot to him. they were best friends since they were literally just kids at mit. he’ll always, i think, love tony and want to care for and protect him (from himself, mainly). and tony, in his own way, will always love rhodey. but, 2) rhodey has still, nevertheless, cut ties with tony. i think the time away from action caused by the long recovery process he would’ve went through not only let rhodey reconsider his stance on the accords and his superiors in the military such as ross, but it also gave him time (and a wildly new perspective) to realise how toxic his relationship with tony truly is.

and what’s great to compare the way in which and reasons why he cuts ties with tony after civil war compared to the way in which and reasons why he cut ties with tony during im2, is that rhodey hasn’t been pushed to his breaking point this time. he has way more agency in his choice this time. he’s not leaving because he’s been infuriated one time too many; he’s doing it because he’s actually being given the kind of support he himself has been dishing out all these years… and doesn’t want it. not if it’s coming from the place of convenience and guilt that it is with tony. he cannot be guilt-tripped into forgiving tony anymore because he is making his choice this time with clear-mindedness.

and you know what’s so great about him finally genuinely cutting ties with tony this time around? he’s no longer his yes-man. he gets space to breathe as his own character. he jokes around more. he’s not annoyed all the time. he gets involved with the rest of the team. as i’ve said, he interacts with sam and it’s beautiful. he interacts with nebula and it’s heartwarming and they form a bond so quickly. and in all the new interactions he gets you see he is receiving so much more respect and reciprocation than he’s ever experienced with tony. and it makes me so happy.

also i can’t help but think about how it’s also a pretty big deal for him as a black character to go through all of these revelations and developments; black kids are often encouraged/forced to mature mentally/emotionally a lot quicker than white kits, and take on responsibility that shouldn’t be their burden to bear from a young age (which i think was absolutely something rhodey experienced as a highly intelligent black child), and it’s not uncommon for black characters to be portrayed in these caregiving roles to Hurt White Characters. so for him to break out of that box is just beautiful.

tony, on the other hand, is a white billionaire who never learned how to grow up; he’s never had to handle the kind of daily-grind stress that non-billionaire poc like rhodey have handled since they were a kid. not saying tony hasn’t faced other kinds of stress, but for the most part? everything has been given to him on a shiny golden platter. so when responsibility is thrust upon him - when his faults are actually pointed out - he doesn’t know how to handle it. hasn’t learned. it destroys his mental health. he gets destructive in turn. irreparably damages his relationships. spirals and spirals and refuses. to get. help. (you’re a billionaire, tony - you can afford a therapy. and the idealisation/romanticisation of unhealthy guilt spirals and a mindset of powering through despite everything and without asking for help until you crash and burn is not good mental illness/neurodivergent rep, it’s just the only one the mcu knows how to write.) i despair at the loss of opportunity when it comes to tony’s character and what he could have come to represent, but that’s another essay entirely.

when it comes to rhodey, however, the mcu have accidentally created a wonderful character and a wonderful character arc. that’s not to say they deserve any praise though, because this was likely never their intention and it’s purely accidental (again, they’d never purposefully give rhodey such an anti-tony character arc, just like they’d never intentionally make tony a bad role model, but that’s what they did, completely accidentally).

not only is rhodey a character who is unwaveringly kind and forgiving (and is rewarded for these traits later down the line in his new relationships), but we also get to see him learn how his kindness and forgiveness shouldn’t be taken for granted as it has been for years of his life. we see him step away from harmful relationships. we see him take back his life for himself - refuse to be someone else’s nanny. we see his growth and his development, and it’s wonderful, and i love him.

in conclusion: war machine rox. 

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me

I’m gonna miss writing about Amethyst.

As the most sisterly Crystal Gem, a firebrand in the new role of middle child after spending millennia as the baby of the group, Amethyst’s story is about growing from a wild teen to a responsible adult. Like Steven, she feels the need to prove that she’s a Crystal Gem too, but unlike Steven, she already is a Crystal Gem, so she carries a different kind of resentment as she continues to be treated like a child. It’s made even worse by her warrior instincts clashing with her small frame: she lives with the constant anxiety that she’s a mistake, a Gem who came out wrong and doesn’t belong in her family, so she comforts and distracts herself with hedonism and shapeshifting. Her problem goes beyond not feeling respected: deep down, she fears that she doesn’t deserve respect.

But she changes her mind.

“This isn’t normal.”

The Return and Jailbreak culminated the first act of Steven Universe, giving our characters subtle achievements (Amethyst and Pearl casually fuse into Opal, Greg reveals a deeper understanding of the Gems than we once thought, Beach City comes together as a community when Steven is in danger) and huge changes (Steven summons a massive shield, Garnet’s status as a fusion is confirmed, Lapis goes from prisoner to imprisoner). While not an official finale, Beta and Earthlings culminated the second act, narrowing the focus to five characters as they each reach one milestone or another: Lapis and Amethyst find a level of peace, Peridot defends her new home, Jasper succumbs to corruption, and Steven helps his friends but fails to help his enemy.

In a way, Change Your Mind culminates the third act with an even narrower focus. Sure, it gives big moments to a ton of characters (there’s fanservice galore, and we see the three Diamonds in particular take enormous steps), but we zero in on Steven in the same way the entire act has zeroed in on Steven, because this is a story about identity. It isn’t only about who he is, but who he wants to be moving forward, and fusing all the insights he’s learned from his human family, his Crystal Gem family, and his Diamond family into a song that encapsulates his growth over the course of the series.

We start in the most lifelike of the Diamond dreams, so real that Steven still sees himself as Steven rather than embodying Pink. Once again, this connection emerges from sleeping in a location where Pink once dwelled, but while he wasn’t feeling her impatience and rage in Jungle Moon, nor her hardening resolve in Can’t Go Back, nor her whimsy in Familiar, this time they share the same headspace when they’re both locked in a tower.

Considering how bombastic things get in this episode, I love how low-key this final dream remains until White Diamond interferes. We’re as lost as Steven at first, worrying about Connie and baffled at Blue’s recognizable mood but incongruous accusations, but as the truth becomes clear, he transforms into Pink off-screen without any fanfare, both in body and in mind: Steven isn’t questioning Blue’s warning about Pink Pearl, Pink Diamond is apologizing for her own behavior in Zach Callison’s voice. Still, looking down jolts him out of it, and after seeing the Crystal Gems poofed at the ball for a more definitive Steven memory, we cycle in Rose’s horror at her family launching a final attack on Earth. The rapid-fire identity shifts that follow inspired the most haunting piece of promo art for the episode, drawn by Rebecca Sugar herself, but I didn’t wanna display it without a seizure warning.

It’s excellent exposition, hitting the highlights of the Diamonds’ many wrongs and establishing Steven’s fraying sense of self in a way that’s both artful and brief; it’s important to remind younger viewers about the stakes, but Change Your Mind doesn’t pretend that anyone should be watching this episode without context, so it doesn’t prioritize thorough explanation. And despite how frightening the nightmare becomes, Steven gains a new sense of clarity after seeing the pattern laid out in front of him. The Diamonds are hurting him in the same way they hurt his mother, and if he’s going to help everyone, he needs to help himself.

When Blue Diamond returns to the tower in modern day, Steven isn’t afraid, and he isn’t alone. The first of many puns riddling the finale emerges (“Déjà Blue!”) before Connie proves why she’s the perfect partner for our hero, platonic or otherwise. He’s terrible at confronting the people that hurt him—this would require him to acknowledge he’s hurt in the first place, which he’s also terrible at—but if she was comfortable enough with confrontation to call out her best friend when he wrongs her, Blue Diamond doesn’t stand a chance. Connie comes out swinging, loading the bases with candor and sass despite Blue’s confusion over why a human even gets an opinion about this stuff, which makes Steven’s refusal to apologize hit the Diamond like a grand slam.

I love that Steven’s flat “no” takes Connie by surprise as well as Blue, because yeah, it’s uncharacteristically blunt for someone who’s spent his entire trip to Homeworld bending over backwards like he usually does to accommodate others. When he doubles down by explaining that he isn’t sorry about creating a show that celebrates queer characters whoops sorry I mean fusion, Callison makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, and this is what upsets Blue enough to inflict her tears on him. We’ll learn even more about Pink’s temper in Steven Universe Future, but the simple act of not bowing to authority makes Steven “worse than ever” in Blue’s mind: violence is more acceptable than insubordination. (Also, violence in cartoons is more acceptable than queer folks just sorta existing in cartoons, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Change Your Mind is about combating bigotry and cycles of abuse, and Blue is the obvious first test. She’s a bigot who doesn’t think she’s a bigot (compared to Yellow, who doesn’t care that she’s a bigot, and White, who’s quite proud of being a bigot). She passively perpetuates a toxic status quo (compared to Yellow, who actively perpetuates it, and White, who established it in the first place). It makes sense that she’s the first of the remaining Diamonds to change her mind, because all it takes for her to realize that something is wrong is thinking about it a little harder.

This doesn’t let her off the hook, of course: Blue’s sloth—the sin, not the animal—might not look flashy next to Yellow’s wrath or White’s pride or Pink’s envy, but she still chose to do nothing for thousands of years rather than contemplate how her actions and her society might have wronged Pink. If it was this easy for Blue to realize she was hurting Pink, it makes it that much more of an issue that it took her this long to figure it out. Unintentional bigots might be the “best” option by default, but they can be just as harmful as intentional bigots, and there’s a special sort of damage that can come from an oppressor who truly believes themselves an ally.

That said, while it’s important to acknowledge her blame (emphasized here when she only stops attacking Steven when he calls her out rather than the Diamonds in general), Blue is also a victim. She’s one of the most powerful beings on Homeworld, but she’s still trapped by White Diamond, and resorts to putting others down as a means of reclaiming a sense of that power. In the same way oppressed people often turn to sexism and racism and homophobia to make themselves feel bigger, Blue (and Yellow) reinforce White’s sweeping bigotry in the same way they echo her family-specific abuse. It’s not a good coping mechanism, in this show or in the real world, but understanding the problem is key to fixing it.

So it still feels like a victory when Blue turns, even though it should’ve happened ages ago, and even though she’s a tyrant. She isn’t just deciding to help Steven, she’s breaking out of that cycle in a way that allows for growth beyond our hero’s immediate concerns. Lisa Hannigan captures this transformation beautifully, shifting from manipulative whining about Pink’s behavior to a crushing realization that she’s the one who’s wrong. And even as she joins Steven’s side, she remains weighed down by her longstanding prejudice: Hannigan stutters as she refers to the Crystal Gems as his family, and her triumphant defense of Steven’s name to Yellow comes with the caveat that she’s still misgendering him.

But before we get to Yellow, we take a pit stop that grounds us back to Steven and Connie’s hunger. It may seem small, but this is a critical moment in establishing Steven’s humanity in a way the show has quietly done from day one: with food.

The very first scene of Steven Universe establishes our hero’s human half in a donut shop, upset about dessert. From there, the next five episodes drill in that Steven will take a unique approach to his magical Gem heritage, and they all involve food in a major way: Cookie Cats, then his father’s saying about pork chops and hot dogs, then the Cheeseburger Backpack (important enough to be the episode’s name), then the Together Breakfast (ditto), then creating a monster based on fries.

It’s not just Steven, either. The first few Connie episodes involve eating and drinking in ways that show hints of growth (worrying about trans fats, then sneaking food into movie theaters) and mark key moments in her life (sharing a juicebox, taking her parents to dinner). Lars’s development is tied with his love of baking, and on top of him and Sadie working at the Big Donut, the Frymans and the Pizzas are so tied to their food service jobs that it’s in their names. And speaking of names, we’ve got Vidalia calling her sons Sour Cream and Onion. It even extends to the Gems: Amethyst’s connection with Earth means she loves food, and Pearl’s greater distance from humanity means she can’t stomach it.

Food is fundamentally something that humans require and Gems don’t, and just like we saw in Lars’s Head, Steven’s physical body forces him to think about his own needs despite his usual focus on others. Both his humanity and his ability to stand up for himself are key to his eventual victory, and what could’ve been a generic transition between Blue and Yellow’s big scenes instead becomes a quiet Steven scene. Steven changing into his usual clothes (including his mom’s star) and Connie changing into her own outfit (including her dad’s jacket) is the perfect finishing touch before we dive back into the drama.

True to their natures, Yellow Diamond gets a starker introduction than Blue’s dream sequence: as the lights burst on, we get two shots focusing on a horrifying number of mutated Gem Shards floating around in the room, then the Crystal Gems’ thankfully intact gems in one big bubble, before panning down to the villain who caused all this pain. The menace is palpable before she even opens her mouth, but Patti LuPone’s low tone keeps the mood from boiling over just long enough that when she loses her cool, it hits like a freight train.

Blue’s passive bigotry endured because she lacked introspection, but Yellow’s active bigotry requires constantly justifying actions she knows are cruel by presenting it as a matter of superior reasoning. We’ve known from her first appearance that Yellow’s seething fury undermines her reputation for cold logic, and now more than ever the connection between her behavior and that of “sophisticated” bigots is clear. You know the type: openly, smugly hateful, but couching their hate as something derived from some deep knowledge about the subject, whether in religious convictions or whatever “science” they can scrape together to confirm their worldview.

Sure enough, even in her rage, Yellow lays down what she sees as a rational explanation for why it was okay to mistreat Pink, and why it’s okay that they themselves are mistreated: if they make exceptions for anyone, even other Diamonds, they must make exceptions for everyone, and chaos reigns. Besides the slippery slope being a fallacy, her argument is punctured by Connie’s second big retort of the night, pointing out that this extreme conclusion of Homeworld Gems living free actually sounds pretty nice. But you can’t force this type of bigot to change their mind through reason; if such a person was actually interested in logical worldviews, they wouldn’t have become a bigot in the first place. You need to change their heart.

Fortunately, emotions are Blue’s domain, so she’s just the person to help. Unfortunately, in the same way she still can’t get Steven’s pronouns right, Blue lacks experience with healthy communication, and strikes a first blow against Yellow on instinct. The ensuing brawl is brutal, switching between the massive scale of two warring titans and the smaller scale of Steven and Connie scrambling to save the Crystal Gems as Blue and Yellow unload millennia of baggage on each other. It’s so important that Blue is the physical instigator here, as it fuels Yellow’s white-hot self-righteous streak like nothing else, and it keeps the fight from being one-sided all the way through: Yellow pretty much needs to be the one dealing the final blow for the scene to stick, so it gets balanced out by Blue’s opening punch.

Blue uses her powers on Yellow, and Yellow uses her powers on Blue, but Steven’s power is talking. So just like with Blue’s conversion, Connie gets the opening words while Steven gets the finisher. When he finally gets her attention after being ignored throughout the scene, he makes Yellow listen to him by using the same food-based expression I mentioned from all the way back in Laser Light Cannon. It’d pack a bigger punch if Greg said “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs” at literally any other point in the show, but it still does the trick.

Blue was emotionally ready to accept that Pink was suffering, but hadn’t considered the Diamonds’ role in that suffering. Yellow knew that Pink suffered thanks to the Diamonds, but suppressed her emotions to the point where she couldn’t empathize with her sister’s plight. Blue needed to be more thoughtful to change, and Yellow needed to be more in touch with her emotions to change, and thus the stage is set for the Battle of Heart and Mind against White Diamond.

Except that this isn’t the lesson of Change Your Mind. Blue and Yellow show that some bigots can be reached, which is great! But despite their differences, Steven uses the same basic strategy in both: he doesn’t let them belittle his identity, he confidently dispels their wrongheaded assumptions, and he gets help from allies instead of shouldering the burden himself. We spend the beginning of the episode seeing that in the right circumstances this approach can work, but from here we’ll see that with some bigots, it’s a non-starter.

So long as you can engage with bigots while maintaining your self-respect, it can be good work to try and help them see the light. It’s not an obligation, but if you want to change hearts and minds, Steven provides a good template for how to do it. Now the rest of the episode can focus on the bigger lesson: if someone refuses to respect your humanity when you’re steadfast and forthright, it isn’t your job to breathe in their poison, or to hold your breath until you asphyxiate waiting for change.

But more on that after the break!

I Can’t Believe We’ve Come So Far

As we reach the end of the original series, it would be criminal not to acknowledge three long-time storyboarders who are on their way out. This isn’t their final contribution to the series, as only one of Change Your Mind’s twelve credited writer/boarders didn’t go on to work on The Movie in some way (Christine Liu, whose tenure was brief but great), and Hilary Florido stayed on as a supervisor for Future. But I wanted to write the big sendoffs here, as this is the last proper “episode” that these three worked on as regular boarders. So it’s time to say goodbye to Katie Mitroff, Hilary Florido, and Jeff Liu.

First up is Katie Mitroff, who clocked two early knockouts with Alone Together and The Test alongside Florido. Mitroff’n’Florido went on to make other classics like Maximum Capacity and Joy Ride before the former teamed up with Lamar Abrams and the latter teamed up with Jesse Zuke for their next batch of episodes.

With Abrams, Mitroff deepened the lore of the show with We Need to Talk, Steven’s Birthday, Bismuth, Buddy’s Book, Three Gems and a Baby, and especially The Answer. She gave us the harrowing revelation of Back to the Moon, and the most ridiculous episode of the series, Restaurant Wars. Her final partner was Paul Villeco, finishing strong with The Trial, Back to the Kindergarten, Your Mother and Mine, Pool Hopping, What’s Your Problem?, Reunited, and Change Your Mind, 100% of which are either in my Love ‘em ranking or my Top Episodes. (Oh, sorry, spoiler alert I love Change Your Mind.)

It’s strange, because she didn’t work on any of the major episodes of Amethyst’s big arc at the end of Season 3, but Mitroff is one of my favorite Amethyst boarders: she’s the consistent thread between Maximum Capacity, Back to the Moon, and What’s Your Problem?, three cornerstones of the character. She excelled at going outside the show’s usual style, as seen in The Answer and Your Mother and Mine, and it’s no coincidence she helped animate Isn’t It Love? to bring Cotton Candy Garnet back for one last ride.

Katie Mitroff is an absolute rock star, I wish her well and you should too.

[amwritingmeta]

14x14: Noah as Representative of Suppression/Repression

Dean, Sam, Cas and Jack are all at a crossroads. How huge that crossroads is and how long they’ll be stood at it, weighing their options, remains to be seen, but Yockey firmly placed them there in this episode and he did it, to my mind, through using Noah as the needed tool to up the stakes, as it were.

I wrote in an ask response about one side to Noah’s representative qualities in the narrative, where I can see his boredom with the same old routine (his fate, as he calls it) to be a reflection of Dean’s boredom with casual sex and subtle exposition of exactly why Dean hasn’t been engaging with it for so long: he craves something more satisfying. (because he’s in love) 

And though Noah is violent, he’s not violent for the sake of violence, the way Michael is shown to be at the end of this very same episode, and as such Noah isn’t, for me, a representative of toxic masculinity. Mostly because Michael so firmly holds onto that title, but also because of Noah’s distaste for having to cook humans for supper. He’d rather not, but nature left him the choice of this or death. And he’s not going to sacrifice himself, which, as far as the natural order goes, is fairly understandable.

(he’s not a human eating other humans) (he’s a demigod requiring humans for sustenance) (there’s a crude but real difference to the two concepts)

The fact that Noah isn’t a toxic masculinity representative, though, is extremely significant to me.

So, in this post I’d like to outline my thoughts on the second side to Noah’s representative qualities, as I see them, and talk a bit about the deeply ingrained patterns of suppression/repression that exists in each of our main characters.

Definitions -->

Suppression is a psychological term for when we consciously push down unwanted thoughts or urges. Used healthily this is where self-control lies, but when an unwanted emotion or urge is ignored out of fear, this suppression tactic can turn into a pattern of behaviour that may lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms (like drinking, casual sex, violent outbursts, addiction to danger etc) *side eye Dean Winchester* and irrational behaviour and lack of self-control due to lack of self-awareness.

Repression is a psychological term for when we push down unwanted thoughts, urges or very often memories into our unconscious, where our conscious mind is protected from having to deal with these particulars, because our conscious mind is kept wholly unaware that these particulars are a part of us. However, these repressed thoughts, urges or memories will push to be recognised, because anything we try to simply forget, that is deeply affecting, will never stay forgotten, and being unable to confront these buried thoughts, urges or memories may result in unhealthy outlets, such as the coping mechanisms and irrational behaviour mentioned above.

Noah

Though what exactly the gorgon represents truly is up for interpretation, the simple facts are:

Noah the gorgon in and of himself is a snake symbol, and per the ouroboros of the title, the snake symbolism in 14x14 might be leaning towards renewal, rebirth and a conjoining of opposites rather than, you know, the snake that brought knowledge to mankind and helped us rebel........ Yeah, kinda good either way you look at it, no?

Noah also Biblically brought the flood, which is a mighty symbol of rebirth, so he’s this double-edged sword where both edges spell renewal

Noah looks at you, assesses you and sees the truth of you, established with the truck driver, his note to Dean and with Jack - a bit of a narrative tie to Michael in 14x01, who blasted onto the scene reading the truth of people’s motivations left and right, and subtle foreshadowing of how Michael will shed Dean, and go looking for a new skin *shudder’

Noah enjoys both men and women (yes indeed bisexual symbol and nope I am not the first to point this out of course)

That’s the basic makeup of Noah’s demigod character, yeah?

Now, there’s a lot of moments in this episode that, to me, highlight the suppression/repression tendencies in TFW 2.0 and push for the much needed confrontation these moments lead into with Noah, as well as the repercussions that follow this very confrontation, culminating in the deaths at the bunker and Jack’s standoff with Michael.

Self-deception, thy collective face is Three Men and I’m Not a Baby -->

Sam

Darling Sam. He is so deep in his suppression of his superficial fear of how everything is not at all fine or okay, as well as in his deeply repressed fears that go back years and are a part of his identity makeup, that he can’t even stand a fair questioning from someone who knows a great deal about exactly the situation he’s putting himself in, as she later even points out in dialogue.

Sam leans heavily on the belief that everything will work out in the end, as long as they think it will, and his behaviour is, to me, a very sharp critique of the blinding power of the codependency, because the innate fears (repressed fear of failure and loss of identity) that has kept the codependency at the heart of how Sam and Dean relate themselves to each other is what is making Sam incapable of taking a step back and assessing their situation with any clarity. 

Instead, he recites the age old belief system and shuts himself off from questioning it in any way:

Dean will be okay, because Dean has to be okay. 

Jack is fine, because Jack has to be fine.

Sam’s loyalty to Dean is what makes Sam insist on Dean coming home after Sam talks Dean out of getting in that box, and then that same loyalty makes Sam insist on them acting as though everything is normal, thinking this is the only way he can support Dean, because this is how Dean has always handled every situation. 

But Sam in a leader position should think of the safety of those following him, he should see the very real threat of Michael getting free, and should take steps to protect the innocent people who end up dying at the hands of Michael.

I’m not saying their deaths are Sam’s fault, because Sam didn’t tell Michael to kill them, but their deaths are a narrative punishment for Sam’s inability to see past old patterns and learn from old mistakes.

Sam takes a huge risk bringing Dean back to the bunker, especially after he’s knocked out cold in this episode and even Cas can’t see what the hell is going on in his head, and if Sam wasn’t blinded by the patterns of the codependency, he might not have made that executive decision to begin with.

Btw, I’m also not prescribing the brothers shouldn’t have each other’s backs or should look at every dangerous situation with cold calculation, but when the lives of a group of innocent people are at stake, taking that step back and seeing the bigger picture might be preferable for everyone involved. 

Sam’s suppression/repression of his fears, and his inability to confront the fact that his fear of failure is keeping him tethered to his brother (because he’s using Dean’s presence as a security blanket, even when Sam’s the one in the leader position) is manifested through the fact that Sam can’t stop Noah, representative of suppression/repression.

Noah tosses Sam across the room like he’s made out of tissue paper because Noah represents all those things that are continually kicking Sam’s ass and making him run from taking real responsibility. 

And the way for Sam to shoulder individual responsibility and move towards his true identity, an identity that in no way is defined by his relationship to Dean? 

Well, to my mind, Sam needs to dare to believe that he’s a good and strong leader in his own right.

Sam has a default attitude of We Can Fix This Together, which is good, but that attitude without sound leadership and realistic risk assessment is bad. 

He’s the born leader. Once he’s balanced and begins to realise that teamwork still requires a strong team leader, he’ll be fucking golden.

*so Sam stating in 14x15 that he has to stop running made my heart sing* *hoping it sticks*

Dean

Dean, Dean, Dean. This episode made it very clear that he’s still very much not believing at all that there’s any way Sam and Cas can find a way to defeat Michael. He says to Cas that he promised to give them time, meaning Dean’s not part of this taking time deal. This is weighty af, because of course he’s the only one who can actually find another way, if he only dared try.

But he doesn’t dare to, because he’s completely ruled by his fear of failure, just like Sam is, only for Dean, it’s always all on him. 

If Michael gets free on his watch, it’s his fault, and he’d rather just go drop himself in the ocean than work as a team with people who might, and to his mind most likely will, get hurt in the process.

Dean’s risk assessment is always on red alert and there’s rarely any hope or trust in him - at least not on an unconscious, deeper level - that the outcome won’t be the worst case scenario, especially not now, with Michael pounding against his frontal lobe. 

Dean walks around not with a death wish, but with an acknowledgement that he’ll die on the job and with the conviction that what he wants is to go down swinging, and this conscious, defeatist attitude goes against his unconscious, true wish: to live a long and happy life.

His suppressed/repressed fears make even the thought of an actual future impossible.

His suppressed/repressed fears that are tied to his toxic masculinity armour and manifested in the toxic masculinity representative of Michael, ie Dean’s shadow-self.

And in this episode we have Dean incapable of facing his shadow-self for fear of what facing his shadow-self will mean for his ego, ie his conscious view of himself and his understanding of his own identity. 

So instead of facing his shadow-self and engaging in what Carl Jung calls shadow work, Dean has locked his shadow-self away and is, basically, holding onto Plan B, which is the equivalent of him running from the need to own up to fears that have been informing his way of relating himself to the world for far too long, and they’ve done so because rather than risk his long-held idea of who he is and who he’s been taught he needs to be (in order to keep Sam and the world safe), he’s going to put himself in a (societal) box and symbolically drown even the hope of finding internal balance.

This absolute and continued refusal to commit to change, to let go of his suppression as well as his repression of fears that have ruled him from much too young an age, lands him in a moment when facing off with the representative for that suppression/repression - Noah - brings about the narrative punishment of Dean’s worst fears coming to pass: losing his control and Michael breaking free because of it.

This punishment comes about because of the fact that Dean hasn’t been able to internally engage in shadow work, and the suppression/repression he’s engaged with instead now doing what it’s always done, which is take away Dean’s control and allow for his shadow-self to not only break free, but to actually manifest externally and wreak havoc.

But that’s not all. Oh, no.

I’ll talk about Jack a little further down.

Cas

Oh, Cas. At this point his identity confusion reaches a never before seen peak.

I mean, holy fuck, this moment is the moment when his rejection of his angel heritage is put in proper dialogue, but this rejection combined with the impossibility for him to explore what would make him truly happy means that he is stuck in identity limbo.

Not angel, not man, but a thing.

*it’s heartbreaking and stupidly exciting*

Cas is suppressing his longing for more because of his repressed fear of failure (among other fears), and this because his fear of failure is what’s crept up on him over the course of his individual arc, where he’s kept trying to help, and at every turn has faced a bigger and bigger failure, until it became impossible for him to see himself having any other use than to act the sacrificial lamb and constantly throw himself in the path of danger, without even thinking to ask himself if it was what he truly wanted for himself. 

In S4 Cas stated to Dean that he wasn’t just a hammer, but over the course of his individual arc, Cas has slowly made himself into the weapon, this when deep down he’s always been the shield, and he is innately the protector. 

Moving away from Heaven’s doctrine is essential for Cas’ character progression, and the slow nudging over the course of the last two seasons has been rather fantastic to behold, but for all his progress, Cas is now giving into his repressed fear of failure and allowing it to rule him.

Cas is choosing to maintain the status quo, and it’s gloriously frustrating to watch him simply accept the fact that he can’t ever be happy, when what he should be doing is engage in shadow work and question the validity of his shadow-self running the show.

Questioning his shadow-self and facing all those suppressed and deeply repressed fears, though, means the same as it does for Dean: answering the questions Who am I? and Who do I want to be? honestly, and for himself, and the prospect of his idea of himself having to evolve is a scary one, so no wonder he allows his shadow-self to dictate the terms.

Cas comes face to face with Noah and lo and behold, what happens is quite intriguing as Noah slaps Cas twice on each cheek, almost as if to chastise him for sleepwalking through his life, and then Noah kisses Cas on the cheek, effectively paralysing him.

It comes across as a rather marvellous visual manifestation of how Cas’ suppression/repression of his own true wants and needs is paralysing him, leaving him complacent to a fate that he believes is inevitable.

But...

Jack

So then. Jack. This formidable knitting point. This gorgeous narrative tool. This amazing mirror for all of TFW, full of expositional prowess and symbolic value.

Aw Jack.

His fear has always been reflective of Sam, Dean and Cas, because even though he’s his own brand of innocent, he is meant to be a combination of the character traits of TFW, allowing him that expositional prowess, because his character evolution sheds light on the needed evolution of TFW.

*mh mh good*

Jack’s greatest fear is to bring suffering, but in this fear is the fear of failure, yes, that old fear, that’s so overwhelming in all of TFW. Jack wants to do good, and he tries so hard that we’ve seen how it’s sometimes difficult for him to separate good choices from bad ones.

In 12x19 he rejected Dagon and he rejected his father, choosing Cas as his protector and doing everything in his baby Nephi powers to protect his mother. Kelly’s motherly love shaped Jack into the caring and innocent being that he came into the world as, where that moment of his father reaching out to him, at the beginning of S13, frightened him, and where he continuously rejected Lucifer’s influence. 

What 14x14 so gorgeously sets up for us is underlining what Jack’s weakness at this point in his individual arc is: his refusal to acknowledge how he doesn’t know who he is yet. 

I’m not a child. I’m the son of Lucifer. I’m a hunter. I’m a Winchester.

The identity confusion in this statement is pretty amazing, to my mind, because where he’s spent so much time rejecting his father and the heritage of Lucifer, he’s now suddenly embracing it in dialogue and, even more than that, he’s using it as his first identity marker. Clearly he’s seeing himself moving into adulthood, his identity statement after all beginning with him telling us how he considers his childhood over.

And let’s note that his last identity marker is that he’s a Winchester.

Yeah, as 14x15 is already telling us, this probably doesn’t bode well, but I also believe it doesn’t bode well for now. 

The fact that he claims the Winchester name for his is also a very good thing for later, obviously, and one that will most likely be crucial when it comes to the resolution of what is most likely going to be his dark arc. It may last a few episodes or it may build to the end of the season, we shall see, but it seems fairly evident that it’s rapidly approaching.

In a sense, him taking Michael’s grace into himself is him moving from child to teenager, in another sense Jack declaring that he’s not a child is ironic, seeing how he truly needs guidance, now more than ever before.

I mean, he’s literally swallowed down the essence of the thing that’s tripped Dean up his whole life and, by proxy, Sam and ultimately Cas as well: toxic masculinity. 

This is no way to grow up, Jack.

And, of course -->

Jack losing his soul - even though it’s not all of it yet - is a callback to Sam being soulless in S6, where Sam had to confront the side to him that is able to distance itself and look at a situation through a wholly mercenary perspective, fuelling his sense of dependency as he suddenly had to question his own judgement, something that hampers him as a leader as well, hollowing out his sense of self-worth, making it wholly easier to follow than to lead

the possible setting up for Jack trying to help and managing to do the opposite, his growing powers possible sending him off the beaten track, might prove a strong callback to Cas for most of his arc, where his first mistake of becoming Godstiel paved the way for choices that led hollowed out Cas sense of self-worth, leading him into depression

the possible setting up for Jack’s shadow-self to rule him because of Jack swallowing down toxic masculinity is a callback to the MoC arc for Dean, where his lack of self-worth led him to become a demon, the scenario being his shadow-self manifesting his worst nightmare as Dean lost himself in careless, selfish, mindless coping behaviours, dominated by violence

As ever, we shall see how the writers choose to go, but I’m damned stoked.

This whole season has been saturated with the MoC arc of S10 and the MoC arc was all about pushing Dean to change and to evolve out of old, worn patterns. It was all about forcing a new perspective of himself on him, and a new understanding of what he wants for himself. (a long and happy life with the man he loves) And here we now are, with all of these characters facing their suppression/repression as well as the narrative consequences for none of them having properly grown up and grown into their true identities. 

The fact that they can still deceive themselves like this is shown to not be okay, as they’re all hit with equal punishment, all of which now rather neatly knots itself into the fate of Jack.

My hope?

That Jack’s choice to burn off his soul to protect the people he loves and swallowing Michael’s grace and beginning to feel different and possibly starting to go off the rails is the awaited push necessary for Sam, Dean and Cas to reach the point in their progression that it’s necessary they reach if they’re going to be able to get through to Jack, and ultimately guide him or, at the very least, be the role models he truly needs.

Because right now, not a single one of them is anywhere near that point. Well, possibly Sam, as per 14x15, if he’s the first one of them to stop running.

Let’s remember that Jack was the one to chop off Noah’s head as well as put an end to Michael’s new world order: symbolically pretty heavy duty on the probable importance to the actual internal balance being reached for our three main characters, right?

Jack cut the head off two symbolical snakes in one episode.

Both of which were tied to the unhealthy habits of Sam, Dean and Cas.

It’s beautifully setup, whatever happens, and I can’t wait to see what we get!

[thepassivewitness]

It’s been a long while.

I have been keeping my thoughts to myself, my feelings contained and my self focused on the needs of the immediate things around me.

Unfortunately, there have been some very painful developments over the past while culminating with the end of a relationship just a few days ago ... or at least the official end to it.

And not just a relationship ... an engagement ... and a partnership.

Lost to the limitations put on us by parents, effects of drugs, demons of mental illness and my gross inadequacy to take care of my partner and to have the unlimited resources of self that would be essential to making things work forever.

I have finally arrived back home ... I am tired .. exhausted, really, and I am in an empty house void of all the things that were hers ... and it is colder.

No doubt about it, it is colder.

I, myself, made the decision to end the engagement. Her repeated trips and her staying every longer times with her drug dealing ex became far too much for me to handle, and her attacks on me ... not because she is a horrible, evil woman .. rather because of the toxic cesspool she is in has taken its toll on her, was a combination that just became too great a load for me to manage.

I stepped into 2017 with the one New Year’s Resolution ... to remove those around me or remove myself FROM those around me who are toxic, disrespectful or who have and/or who have no real interest in my well-being.

This is being applied across the board.

It has already been applied to my father, step mother and half brother. I have reached tolerances with their treatment of me, and so I am working especially hard to keep to myself and manage the crisis’ that are presenting themselves to me.

I have learned a lot from my time with L. in her one lesson that was thrown in my face, hurtfully ... for any and every small failure I ever had with her.

“You can’t count on anyone except for one person .... yourself”.

I have found that to be the way I am living my life now.

As to the relationship, my fiance was not able to have her son up here with us because her parents had not allowed for any kind of passport to even allow visitations, let alone building a life up here.

We had the house, the home, the medical care and support systems ... but it was for nothing. He can’t be up here, so the demand and ultimatum came back in my face ... move down there to the States ... or else.

To move to the States would mean total and complete financial ruin, no safety of any kind, 3 - 6 months of not being able to work and NOT being able to leave the States once an application is in, followed by the potential opportunity to work front line EMS again at around $35,000/year .... not that I could get that far with either a bankruptcy or around $90,000 in debt over my head.

So she was trapped down there in a house and a childhood room where she had been sexually taken advantage of repeatedly while underage .... and so in order to just stop the toxic feelings and fight off the demons she fell back into the routines and coping mechanisms that were easiest for her to survive ..... drugs and the ex.

The weekend that she went off with him and his daughter, taking her son with her to a hotel ... that was the end for me. That was the very last hit.

Even when I drove down and dropped her things off, she was parked at his house and was staying there.

As much as it was a step that I took with good reasons .... right now, there is a void and an emptiness that is extremely painful to my soul and to my heart.

I am .... alone.

By my own choice and my own hand .... but the result is still the same.

I am ...

... alone.

And tired, right now ... very ... very .... tired.

The ambulance has yet more repairs being demanded and the repair people managed to drag things out to the point where the recovery and repairs for the next two groups are stalled .. and this has turned out to be a short week as well with a holiday on Friday.

This job has it so that I lose track of those types of days and things.

I swear ... they probably just did a half hours work every second day on the unit to make this as ugly as it has turned out to be.

Not only that, but broken lights, broken light clamps, leaks, a budget of $25,000 that turned into $35,000 for an engine replacement .... and still they are taking more time and money PLUS holding an additional $14,000 ... 

... my internal self is having a few .... issues .. shall we say.

I am angry ... I am sad .... I am hurt .... I am deeply hurt .... and I a bit scared ... and I am staring down yet another barrel of another shotgun with only a months worth of pay coming up as of the 17th .. then? ... well then indeed.

The 3 weeks I had off have disappeared quickly. Between the drive to the States, packing up my partner’s belongings, .. there’s not much left, really.

I have one week left of which 4 days are lost to a silly long weekend that I can easily live without.

And the payments for the Ambulance are about to kick into full amounts owed rather than just interest only payments.

It’s a bit spooky ... so the next step is to get a direct contract again ... IF I can.

One step at a time.

For now ... just trying to breathe ... and work through the pain of this loss, the emptiness of a partner and relationship I terminated ... and the sense of missing her and life with her.

It may not have been a fit, but the investment was ‘all in’ ... option 3. Here comes the payment demanded ... and it’s going to be a bitch.