Truffles

I'm still on vacation and my relatives don't have DFC here, so I won't get to see the episode again until next Saturday when I'll be home again. (Also was doing touristy stuff while the episode aired.) But having read all of the comments on EqD and here, I'm coming around a bit to liking it rather than loving it. It's a good episode but not great. But maybe I'll change my mind again when I actually do see it, lol.

(Squeezing in a another review of this episode along with the finale could be....challenging. )

I still stand firmly in my belief that the biggest revelation of this episode is that Spike has a very personal and private pain knowing he's an orphan and wishes he had at least his dad to share his experiences of growing up with. I'm hoping he doesn't destroy that list - my heart says he won't but we may never see him pull that list of activities out again. Like I said earlier this morning on EqD, how this episode is viewed historically depends on whether the subject matter of his origins is visited again next season. If they are, then this episode probably won't be hated so much by the fans who saw an opportunity to answers some very big questions wasted.

I avoided this subject until now because I feared reading about it would undo all of the work I had done to deal with my dad's death due to cancer in 2016. And yes, reading about Jess walloped me like a two-by-four to the back of the spine, but I'm glad I read your inspiring message and got to know about her a little bit at least.

The part about the selfishness of grief struck a chord with me - though in my case it's not so much about feeling slighted for having a loved one taken away (though that is also an issue) but that I want to keep the grief all to myself. It's like that one unique thing I can hold onto and not share it with others, though I'm not sure why. I thought about making a post when he passed away, but in the end I just didn't feel it was something I wanted to share, and honestly the thought of bringing the mood of others down with a sad story is not something I'm fond of doing.

The hardest part of grieving it how it never really goes away completely. I liken it to having a part of your soul ripped out when it happens - whether it be an immediate family member, relative, or a pet. Depending on how interwoven their life was with your own, it can be just a little chunk taken or a devastatingly large portion and is going to affect everyone a little differently. The problem is even when one fills those voids with new experiences and new love, it never really quite fills the hole in the same way. The result is after many losses with all those little missing parts, you being to feel a little like Swiss cheese and there's something a bit broken inside that manifests itself as crassness or not giving a crap to life in general. (At least for me. =/ )

It's feelings like that that make me wonder how characters like Celestia or Luna could go on living if it really were possible to live for thousands of years while everyone around you died after several decades. It seems like having that as a reality, as opposed to having it occur in a fictional setting, would break the person down eventually - no matter how strong they are.