#this whole season feels like someone's monkey paw wish. Some fan wished for the show to go on but the paw cursed us with this abomination

[wunderjo]

rant time

I watched season 11 for the first time and I have to get this off my chest. The writers and producers of this show should be fucking embarrassed. I cannot stress this enough, but they should be ashamed of the work they put out. If you don't have the budget and the writing skills to pull something off, then you should simply not do it.

These guys are about to fight GODS sister, a being so powerful she was there at the beginning of creation, and the fight takes place in a random warehouse? God gives a speech to a grand total of 5 people??? 😭😭😭😭Why did you even go down this storyline if you knew it was going to look like shit? The ONLY good episodes/moments this whole season were the monster of the week ones (baby was a great, unique ep, and so was Safe House for the creepy mouth people). WHY not just go back to that?? Why even do all this darkness shit? literally the only people still watching by this point are doing it for the characters you didnt need this dumb fucking storyline. I originally gave up on SPN mid way through season 7. Even back then I was getting annoyed at the fluctuating power levels of angels/demons and saw the story escalating the stakes to the point of ridiculousness. The problem is that when you escalate, you have no choice but to escalate again. And again, and again, and again, until 11 seasons down the road you write yourself into a situation where your HUMAN protagonists are up against GOD and GODS SISTER. In order for the guys to even be in the same room with these powers the writers have to take that massively escalated threat, and nurf it to the point that its embarrassing.

And then the brilliant plan is for Sam to take the mark? Hello? The end of season 10 was these dingbats killing !!!!!!!!!DEATH!!!!!! cuz they cant let each other go. It was Dean overcoming this ancient curse to spare Sam, but now they want to give Sam the mark and Dean says ok??? You can tell that the writers have stopped giving a single shit about writing an interesting show.

[thekimspoblog]

As far as the bowling balls thing? Yeah that was incredibly dangerous... which is why I don't buy it when fans say Kim "didn't think Howard would get killed". Like is Kim just an idiot? Maybe, but "We're talking about a career set back" is very much the kind of rationalization Walter White would do. One of the very first things you learn in law school is how easily pranks (or even things with good intent) can result in massive consequences. Hell even that scene where they're throwing beer bottles off the balcony, that could have brained someone and the show would have been over two seasons sooner. I don't think Kim was actively planning to kill Howard obviously, but I do believe she harbored generic "Hate my boss, fantasize about his head exploding" animosity. And again, maybe she even thought ripping the firm away from him would do him a kindness, make the scales fall from his eyes. She already played a small hand in Chuck's suicide, and clearly internalized her blame, so going after Howard was just doubling down.

Rationally, I'm sure when she says "We're talking about a career setback" she means "I'll be super duper careful. I have everything under control. What are the odds he will get hurt?" But subconsciously, she HAD TO have known... "What are the odds? Pretty good actually. But... damn it it's her money, she earned it. Hasn't she waited long enough for success already? She'd use the money so much better than HHM would; she could change the whole state for the better! Not to mention... she never thought she'd want a family but being around Jimmy makes her feel so safe and like herself. A nonprofit serving for the greater good, a shiny new life to mark a new chapter, those things are more important than one man's career/life right? Cost of doing business; it's what he would do to her!"

I think it's really fascinating how what happened to Howard was one of the only times the plan backfired AFTER working as intended. Jimmy's an idiot who keeps insisting he has everything under control when he clearly doesn't, but at least most of his stuff failed because there was some variable he didn't consider and the plan didn't go as intended. With Howard, the scam was already functionally over; the harm that was inflicted was the harm intended. The only problem was that apparently Step 10 of Kim's plan was that afterwards Howard would bounce back, and because of a freak accident that never came to pass. But come on, Kim had to know Howard wasn't ACTUALLY going to bounce back. And even though Lalo appearing was a freak accident, I'm sure on some level seeing Howard drop dead felt like she had wished on a monkey's paw.

It's not that I hate Howard with a burning passion or anything. It's just that compared to other deaths (of brown people) in Breaking Bad, Howard's death felt like a pretty run of the mill tragedy. I knew even in the early seasons that clearly this hate-sink character had a little more depth to him. But even that depth was pretty shallow, and Howard just played the role of the scapegoat too well NOT to be sacrificed to the plot demons. I just have to wonder how it would affect Kim's sense of guilt to know that no matter what she would have done, the arc of the story probably would have bent towards axing him off. And in fact if she didn't do these awful things herself, there's a good chance she would have been in that fridge instead. When I say "Howard deserved it" I really mean "We all knew someone needed to die for the grand finale; it might as well have been him"

Oh yeah, I’m with you on that while no one was expecting Lalo to show up and shoot Howard Kim (and Jimmy) knew that it was more than “just a career setback” and would have a devastating effect not just on Howard’s career, but also his reputation, social life, mental health, etc… But she was able to justify it to herself like you said with “l’ll use the money for a better cause” and ���he’d do the same to me” (except I don’t think he would and I’m not sure she’s convinced of it either). But yeah, it’s really interesting that the plan technically DID work! And it would all have “been Ok” had Lalo not shown up

I do wonder how Kim would have grappled with the fallout of the plan, had Howard survived, been disbarred and ostracized, etc…

As far as my Kim v. Chuck headcanon? Well we know there were several years where Kim was working her way up as an associate while Jimmy was still working in the mail room. That means that because the story is largely from Jimmy's perspective, there were probably many interactions between Kim and Chuck we didn't see. We know Kim admired Chuck at one point, but by the time he's hospitalized, when Kim is asked if Chuck behaves "irrationally" she just goes quiet. And sure you can say that's just because his mental health has been declining with the EHS stuff, but I think there was an actual point in the timeline where she lost respect for him.

Knowing Kim, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a case - let's call it "State v. Maxim" - that had some sort of heavy precedent on women's rights. And Kim was heavily skeptical of Chuck's strategy, but he dismissed her misgivings as her being a greenhorn. HHM lost the case and set a bad precedent, but that's not why Kim held a grudge. No. She lost respect for Chuck because she saw Chuck would sooner blame the courts than admit he did a bad job. And it set her early on a track of "I need to be at the same level of authority as these old white dudes or higher if possible" but at the time she still thought she could break that glass ceiling just by working hard.

My only evidence this happened - besides just thinking it adds an interesting fucked up layer to her decision to help Jimmy in Season 3 - is a cryptic line from Season 1 where Rich tells Chuck he "always expected him to be arguing in front of the supreme court one day" and Chuck just goes uncomfortably silent. As if Chuck had the chance once upon a time and blew it.

And of course my other headcanon (although State v. Maxim fits into it) is the Blue Iris theory - that Kim was dealing with a pregnancy scare at some point between "Hit and Run" and "Point and Shoot" and that at least CONTRIBUTED to why she was acting like such a freak instead of telling Jimmy that Lalo was alive. She thought she was going get the settlement money, THEN she would be able to pull him out of the cartel and they would either skip town or just hire a shitload of body guards, and they would live happily ever after using the Sandpiper nest egg to finally put the past behind them. Then Howard got popped and she realized if she just kept getting in deeper, she was going to get both Jimmy and herself killed. She felt like having a normal life with him was a pipe dream and she was stupid for thinking she could have it. Besides, I think she was already kind of a tokophobe, and if she didn't view her bond with her own mother as something monstrous before, she certainly did then! She realized she could NOT allow a child to be brought into this mess.

Ooh I love that headcanon with Chuck! I totally envision something like that happening. Chuck may have been correct in the whole switched address chicanery, but his refusal to back down and admit mistakes definitely seems in character, even in situations where he IS wrong and DID make a mistake

I could definitely see him ignoring a woman’s voice in a case concerning women’s rights, because she’s a newer lawyer and not as experienced professionally

The idea of Kim possibly being pregnant during that whole arc and not telling Jimmy about Lalo being alive still because of that is fun

Departing pretty broadly from the established canon now, but I believe in the week she was dealing with that (it was only stress-related amenorrhea, but given Kim's strong sense of independence the possibility sent her spiraling) one night she stayed up late after Jimmy went to bed and happened to catch a midnight broadcast of Dario Argento's "Suspiria" on the classic movies channel. Something about that movie - the feeling it creates, the lighting, the music - it just infected her dreams. Became permanently entangled with the questions that crazy week left her with: "What if she was being watched by something even more dangerous than the cartel? Something invisible. If Howard's death was so statistically unlikely, why is it her gut knew this would happen all along? And if she and Jimmy really were poison together, what would their child have been like?" She ran to the opposite side of the country, but the song wouldn't leave her alone. The dreams/nightmares of those hauntingly beautiful blue eyes wouldn't leave her alone.

[sieben9]

“nothing to fear” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

Today on Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: everything is great and nothing bad happens to anybody, ever. Look, people get engaged and there’s fireworks and everything.

it’s a party!

…look, this episode made me sad, let me have some forty words of denial here.

Cold, hard reality under the cut.

Damnit, show, I liked her.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a bad character death, as these things go. Sometimes, you just gotta kill off that minor character to remind everyone that magic is inherently dangerous, no matter the intention, and that being a genie sucks. Still. Poor Lizard. (And yes, I totally caught that she was planning to magic Will into loving her before hearing that it isn’t possible, but still. Poor woman didn’t deserve that.)

I do love the monkey’s paw of “I wish you would feel something for me” picking grief as the “something”. I mean… it sure is a powerful emotion, and Will certainly felt that one. …also, I have made myself sad now.

To counter that: there was another instance of Wonderland’s really good incidental comedy with the fireworks going off outside when Lizard wished for “all of that”. Sure, it wasn’t the kind of fireworks Will meant, but she definitely got what she asked for.

(Oh, and just because I need to wave my fan-flag for a moment: all I kept thinking about during Will’s speech that he can’t love Lizard and can’t love anybody was the TLK in season 3 that Regina gave Henry without her heart in her chest. Just… holy crap. That one just gets more and more impressive as time goes on.)

So, like I said, being a genie sucks, as Will is rapidly finding out. And he was comparatively lucky, I might add. So far, the only people who found his lamp were ones who had a vested interest in his emotional and physical well-being. Somehow, I doubt that’s always the case.

And while we’re on the topic of Ana… is it wrong of me that I loved the whole kidnapping sequence? Just… the amount of intense introspection this forced on her, and how well it showed on her face (“There’s nobody” almost made me cry and I’m not ashamed to admit it), and the fact that she listened. That’s the big reveal at the end, really. Ana realised what an awful ruler she’s been and deciding to make amends, however small they might be. And what I found interesting as well was the fact that none of the other characters know that. Nobody present, except for her and the audience, knows what that man said to her. And the fact that she decided to stay, and even to tell everyone why she was doing it… well, that’s some good, good character development right there.

…yeah, I’m not going to make you fight Will for the “favourite character” spot, Ana. You’ll just have to both squeeze in there.

Actually, seeing how his newfound “geniedom” has affected Will casts some of Alice’s and Cyrus’s conversations about trust in a new light. The degree to which a genie is bound to their “master” was not entirely clear before this, and it’s actually impressive to see in retrospect how carefully Alice and Cyrus (and the writers, obviously) worked to make sure they were on as equal a footing as they possibly could be.

And speaking of which…

…not only was this second proposal very sweet, but I think it carried an additional meaning now that Cyrus is free of his bottle. With all the world to choose from, the place he wants to be most is still at Alice’s side and yes, I did tear up a tiny bit at the whole scene, shut up.

Another thing I found interesting was the relationship (such as it was) between Ana and Alice in this episode. Alice’s distaste for working with the Red Queen was to be expected, but I found Ana’s comment that Alice only ever cares for herself very interesting. I don’t think she’s right, at least not completely. Alice certainly does care for other people, and deeply so. The easiest example: the fact that she’s willing to stay in Wonderland to help out Cyrus’s brothers

the unofficial motto of this show may be “we don’t leave people behind”

That said, I don’t think Ana is entirely wrong, either. There is a distinct streak of selfishness to Alice, though I think she usually channels it positively. (In a “Do not touch these people, because they are mine” way, mostly) She’s still very set in her world view, and slow to accept someone into that circle of “her” people. And, let’s be honest, she’s got good reason to be angry with Ana, and very little incentive to forgive her, so… yeah, Ana may not be wrong, but I don’t think she’s in a position to judge, is what I’m coming up with, here.

And allll the way over in the B plot (C plot? D plot? Who even knows…), I need to have words with Jafar. Those words being: Never trust a magic sword!

yes, hello, I would like to report a disappointing lack in the “eyes of flame” department

I am dead serious, pal. Do not trust that thing. Do not trust that lady. And most of all, do not trust that wig. I think it’s both sentient and up to no good. I’ve seen enough of this show to know that the best way to deal with magic blades of any and all kinds is to stay as far away from them as humanly possible.

Anyway. The Jabberwock, huh? I have to say, this version seems a lot more interesting to me than Yet Another Dragon(/wyvern/whathaveyou). I’d also like to know what kind of Drama Llama decided that yes, the best way to hide this incredibly dangerous scary lady is obviously to pin her to the ceiling in a freely accessible tower. Couldn’t you at least have put a sign outside? “Beware of the Phobophage” or something like that? (Which is pure speculation on my side. I have no idea if she actually eats fear or if she can just cause it.)

no whiffling or burbling, either…

That said, I am immediately suspicious of why she didn’t, you know, just kill Jafar at this point. Obviously, there’s the possibility that she was grateful for her freedom and isn’t interested in randomly murdering people, but the pile of corpses on the ground tells a different story.

All in all, that plot provided some good set-up, but it doesn’t feel like anything else happened, as such. Although Jafar is now forbidden from any further head-related puns. Sorry, but he clearly can’t handle the responsibility.

[itspatsy]

Okay, after much thought, here’s my attempt to explain how I’m generally okay with Trish’s trajectory this season in theory, but why I feel the writers slipped up in execution. 

Addiction is a monster. It takes over your life, every facet of it, mind, body, and soul, and tears it to shreds. It controls you. It consumes you, fully. It leaves you lying to everyone around you, rationalizing, making excuses and justifications. It destroys your relationships. It makes you use, manipulate, and discard people, whether they be total strangers or your closest loved ones, because nothing is more important than getting your fix. It forces you to do things you never thought you would do, awful, immoral, degrading things. It twists you into someone you can’t even recognize. I get that. I get that this is what Trish’s storyline was about. And I get that none of the other characters were really in a position to help her deal with any of it, and how that shows the importance of having a support system to help you through a mental illness like this. 

And it wasn’t a character assassination, because all the pieces were there. The barely contained rage and taste for violence, the self-protectiveness and need to be in control, the fear of vulnerability, the reckless self-destruction and lack of impulse control, the low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness, the undeveloped sense of self, the egocentrism and self-righteousness, the self-defensiveness and difficulty admitting wrongs, the envy of what others have, the obsessiveness, the apathy and trouble understanding others’ feelings, the overwhelming ambition to contribute something meaningful to the world, the desperate need to be someone that matters, really matters, to people. And there were shades of unhealthiness in her relationship with Jessica: codependency, envy, high expectations, the idealization, trying to live vicariously through her, pushing her into things that weren’t always best for her. 

Those were all aspects of Trish, some more negative or harmful than others, and most of them very much a response to severe trauma and abuse. I’ve talked a lot about those aspects of her character in the past. They were part of her in s1, but tempered to manageable levels, because she was in a reasonably stable place in her life and was making an active effort to improve herself and to get better. But then her best friend and only support system disappeared for 6 months, she was almost murdered multiple times despite all her self-defense training, she broke 10 years of being clean with Simpson’s pill to protect Jessica, and her abusive mom found a way to slither back into her life by hanging information about Jessica over her head. That stability and any sense of safety and control she’d been able to develop was gone, all of her resistance was lowered to critical levels, and it opened her up to this relapse, which then ate away at the most positive parts of her personality and amplified the worst ones x1000. I get that.

One quick look through this blog will show that I was not one of those fans that ever thought Trish was some pure precious cinnamon role and moral paragon. I knew that under her put-together facade, she was a walking disaster that was as traumatized and damaged and desperate and conflicted as Jessica. And I did want the show to explore that damage and how trauma presents itself in many different ways. I wanted it to be clear to viewers Trish is actually not okay and is still struggling with her past. I wanted her issues with addiction to be examined. I wanted then to move towards Hellcat. I even wanted her and Malcolm to interact more and develop their own dynamic. So I should be happy, right? They technically did what I wanted. Shit, like 90% of the songs on my Trish playlist just became significantly more relevant. But no, I’m not really feeling happy about it, because I got the wishing on a monkey’s paw version. 

A quick personal note: Trish means a lot to me, and her relationship with Jessica means a lot to me, and that’s something I can’t really put into words. My initial reaction to the season was just… an overwhelming sadness. And I don’t feel as bad now, but I keep bouncing between “sure, it does make sense” to “this is so awful, oh god, why would they do this???” Sometimes I feel this inspiration to write thousands of words of meta, but then it just as easily turns and suddenly I can’t stand thinking about it because it makes me nauseous. For the last year, I’ve thought about Trish every day in at least some capacity. I thought about her as I went to bed, when I drove, when I went for walks, when I had any short moment of time to myself. I’m not here to talk about whether using fictional characters like that is a particularly healthy coping mechanism, because that’s not the point right now. The point is, it was a pleasant distraction for me that helped me cope with other life things, but now it’s something that causes me pain and anxiety, and I’m stuck feeling like I have to detach from the thing that was helping me detach if I ever want to feel better. 

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is about all of this that’s making me feel that way. Why do I feel like someone literally died? I don’t think my problem is with the characterization in and of itself because I knew those things were sitting under the surface, and it’s not with telling this story of trauma and addiction and putting the full ugly reality of it on display. It definitely isn’t a problem with the acting: Rachael Taylor was amazing and knocked it out of the park. So what’s the problem? Why isn’t this sitting okay with me? I’m generally pretty rational, but I think most of my issues here are very perception and emotion based rather than anything obviously intellectual, and it’s hard to verbalize. I’ll try my best. And I don’t know, maybe my feelings will change if I watch again, but right now, the idea of that still hurts too much. 

So. The writers deconstructed Trish, which is fascinating in theory, but I just feel like they did it without… kindness? It felt like pure merciless brutality. Even mean-spirited sometimes. They debased every part of her life and her accomplishments, cheapened them, and put her in publicly humiliating situations at every opportunity. They left her without a shred of dignity, without her heart, without one positive relationship. And, no, addiction isn’t at all kind, it is cruel and demeaning and heartless, but I didn’t feel a sense of compassion from the writers themselves in how they handled her and her trauma and mental illness. That so many viewers are reacting so negatively to Trish doesn’t strike me as purely a failure to understand the impact of addiction, but that there was a failure on the writers’ part to show it in an empathetic, understanding way. Even I, someone that loves Trish so much and spends a lot of time in her head, feel like I have to do extra legwork. 

It felt as though they were prioritizing and emphasizing her motivations in a way that was intended to put her in the absolute worst light possible. Her most selfish motivations (”unholy” ambition, jealousy, wanting to be the special one) were on full display and consistently pointed out by other characters, but they often underplayed her more sympathetic, obviously trauma based motivations or the motivations that were sincerely about helping other people. She talked the talked about doing good, but there was no point where it was shown in action. It was almost always a manipulative ploy to help herself or get her fix. I know Trish does sincerely care about people, wants to make sure they never have to feel as small and helpless and voiceless as she’s been made to feel, and I think probably the writers do think of that as one of her many conflicting motivations, but they didn’t show it, they only told it and then contradicted it. It also definitely didn’t help that it felt like they were villainizing ambition, and as a result, villainizing her for daring to have it. I don’t think I need to explain why the implication that women having ambition will lead them down a road of power-hungry obsession and selfish callousness is… not great. 

And I feel like they just didn’t carry over what should have been obvious threads that would’ve helped make more sense of this downward spiral. What I said above about how her behavior here connects to the events of s1? That’s all headcanoning from me. The show didn’t actually draw those lines. It wasn’t clear that she was still reacting to having her vulnerability shoved so brutality back in her face by Simpson and Kilgrave. That she’d opened herself up to relapse after taking Simpson’s pill. That Kilgrave fractured her relationship with Jessica and the cracks still hadn’t been patched up. Or even that letting her mom near her again was reviving old traumas and pressures and expectations and unhealthy coping mechanisms. I think the whole thing moved too quickly, and they decided to give us the Darkest Timeline Trish without fully adding up the elements and explaining when and how we crossed the veil and dipped into that timeline. When I was plotting out an AU where she never met Jessica, s2 Trish is actually what I pictured. But that’s kind of the key point: it was a Trish that never had anyone’s love and support. That wasn’t true here. And I think at least pulling threads from s1 would’ve added more depth to it, instead of making it seem like she was only being driven by some desperation for MORE MORE MORE. 

And I don’t know, maybe it’s all just in my head, but I perceived a kind of near softening of Dorothy (not completely, obviously) that almost felt designed to pull even more sympathy away from Trish. It just felt like they were pulling back on her. There were a few points where it seemed they were trying to veer her closer to lovable asshole territory and trying to gloss over things we know she did from s1. I think viewers do need reminders sometimes, especially if you’ve been off the air for over two years, and it doesn’t help to have things completely vital to a character’s identity and formation mentioned offhandedly in a quick conversation. That Dorothy literally pimped her daughter out was sort of brushed over and the repercussions of her role in it weren’t examined. Even their body language shifted compared to the defensiveness of s1. Trish just let Dorothy into her personal space, let her casually touch her, like it didn’t mean anything, like there wasn’t years of physical abuse. And then to put Dorothy in a position to be the voice of reason was just… wow. To leave viewers with the ability to say, “damn, Trish is a selfish prick, and Dorothy is just telling it like it is,” it felt gross. 

By the end, the execution of all this felt more like a grueling punishment of the character than a complex, human story told with careful thoughtfulness and compassion. It felt villainizing. It felt like darkness for the sake of darkness. And listen, I love angst. I love complicated, difficult characters sometimes doing the wrong things. I love characters failing and falling and learning and building themselves back up. But I’m just so tired of hopelessly grimdark stories. I’m tired of shows destroying their light in a quest to compete for the title of sickest, saddest world. 

And yes, this show was already harsh in its first season, and it didn’t back away from cruel reality, but it wasn’t hopeless. It had its heart. And that beating, bleeding heart was the relationship between Jessica and Trish. But they chose to rip that heart out. And that’s the thing that bothers me the most. They took away the most positive thing in these women’s lives, and the most positive thing in the show and something the fandom loved, and for what purpose exactly? In s1, they gave us these broken, codependent women that could be messy and wrong, that could cause each other pain, but still shared a love that was powerful and supportive and uplifting. That’s an infinitely more valuable and meaningful thing to put on the screen than another common, cliched story about petty jealousy tearing women apart. 

And I’m aware it wasn’t as simple as a petty need to be the special-est person in the room driving Trish, that this envy stems from her knowing if she’d had Jessica’s power she’d have been able to protect herself from the things that still leave her feeling empty and small, how it continues to feed into her feelings of worthlessness and lack of control, that she’s been conditioned to believe nothing is good enough and she needs to be better and more than herself and have more than what she has if anyone is ever going to love her, but I also spend a lot of time in Trish’s head, thinking about her motivations and traumas. I doubt most viewers are going to take the time to dig deeper. And I don’t know, I can’t entirely blame the fandom for failing to afford Trish the same sympathy and understanding they’re willing to offer Jessica and her fuck ups when it feels like the show itself didn’t seem to want to give it to Trish or didn’t try to paint the fullest picture of where she was coming from. So the takeaway for a lot of people is going to be that the writers took this special, well-loved relationship and ripped it apart by making one of them a jealous, resentful, toxic creep. I can’t blame anyone for feeling upset or betrayed.

I can tell myself there was a point to all of this. I can tell myself they’ll pull Trish back from the edge, that she slipped, lost the plot, but that recovery is on the way, and she will make an honest effort to get better and be better and work to become her best self, which is the thing that makes a true hero. I can tell myself they’ll repair her relationship with Jessica, and the two of them will come out of this with a stronger, more healthy dynamic because they’ll finally openly address the ugly things that were festering. I can tell myself that, but I can’t trust it. 

I trusted the writers once already. I trusted them to treat Trish with compassion and kindness, even as they broke her down and took her to dark places. I trusted them to show a difficult, complicated but still ultimately affirming and unconditional love between her and Jessica. But they broke my trust. How can I have faith about what they’ll do next season? How can I believe they’ll lift Trish back up and mend things with Jessica instead of taking her down a path of outright villainy? Honestly, making her a villain seems about as likely as anything else at this point. So I can’t trust them, and because this show doesn’t follow a typical schedule, I also won’t even get to know what direction they’ll take for at least another two years. And it’s just not a good feeling to have to sit with. It sucks when you invest so much of yourself into something, and then the things that meant the most to you about it get pulled out from under you, and you can’t even trust that it’ll actually get better.