Around this time last year around I wrote a preview for 2020 and while it did have some issues I only realized lateron, many people found it to be helpful. So here we go again. We're nearing the end of 2020 and while that year has been... interesting to say the least, it's time for another preview nontheless. This is all based on our Clairvoyance EX, that is, based on how NA pretty much follows JP just two years behind.
There's a few caveats to go here and before I go to a month-by-month rundown of next year. I feel like I should point out what to expect, in general, from our Clairvoyance - and what not to. As a baseline, you can expect all major events, servant releases, welfares and so on that JP had in 2019 in 2021 on NA in roughly the same order and timeframe. As in, if a major event happened on JP in April 2019, it will, with a high amount of certainty, happen in April 2021 on NA.
However, we do not follow JP to the letter on NA. For one, there's Commemoration Campaigns. Commemoration Campaigns, as the name implies, commemorate things. That means, they're tied to real-life happenings. Things like Expos, Anime releases or similar things. That, of course, means, that they cannot happen in the same way, just two years later. Things like Anime releases are usually held on NA when the anime releases there. KYOMAFS or FGO THE STAGE Campaigns don't apply to NA in the first place. Things like this.
So, as a baseline, whenever a Campaign or Event commemorates something, do necessarily not expect it on NA two years later. Sometimes we get these campaigns repackaged as another thing. Sometimes we get them way earlier, like with the Babylonia release campaigns that happened late 2019 and early 2020, near-simultaneously with JP on NA. Sometimes we don't see them at all. Our Clairvoyance doesn't apply here.
Finally, as a warning, sometimes events happen in slightly different timeslots. The most prominent example of this would be NAs anniversary, which is a month earlier than JPs. So the anniversary events are also a month earlier. This has ramifications during that time for other events as well, which I will try to predict, but take this with a hefty amount of salt. It's uncertain how DW will handle things. Moreover, sometimes DW also just likes to switch things around. Prominent examples of this during 2020 were the Murder at the KOGETSUKAN event, which happened later to sync up with real-life moonphases (yes, really) and the Interlude Campaign VII, which happened later than expected for no reason I know of. It just did.
So, with this out of the way, one last thing remains: What am I doing here? The following: I will not list every single rateup here, duh. Things like the event compendium, grandorder.wiki or this upcoming banner spreadsheet take care of that. What I will focus on os major events, welfares, new releases and "last rateups". With last rateups I refer to limited SSR servants that, as of right now, have not received another rateup on JP after their mentioned ones. This will, of course, change, over time. JP still progresses and many servants will see new banners throughout 2021 as well, including some that might have had their "last rateup". But I will point point out last rateups of limited servants as known of at the time of writing.
So. Let's go.

January

NA will start the year with the New Years Campaign and GSSR and the Enma-Tei Event, together with the release of the delightful Tongue-Cut Sparrow Benienma and with the SSR Assassin Version of Li-Shuwen. Be aware, thie event will require you to have cleared S I N, the third Lostbelt, to participate. So if you haven't done so until then, you really should get going.
Traditionally, the New Years Banner has lots of widely liked servants and this year is no exception. Besides Mainstays like Gilgamesh, Tamamo and Scathach, this is also the last known rateup so far (see above) for all of Hokusai and Caster Nero. While the latter is part of a 2022 Campaign, that one has an unreasonable amount of rateups so your chances to get CasNero there are marginal at best. If you want the Foreigner or Umu in a swimsuit, you better get them now, otherwise your chances look grim until JP puts them on rateup again.
January will also see the Rerun of the Prisma Codes Event and your last chance of getting Chloe (or delicious free 5 RP). The event also releases another Magical Girl (as if we didn't have a ton already) in Miyu Edelfelt, a support Caster that, to this date, hasn't seen another rateup banner, despite being limited. Much like Asagami Fujino had her one and only rateup in 2020, you need to be sure to get Miyu now if you want her, otherwise you run out of options immediatly.
Besides that, January had a lot of Campaigns that we likely won't see on NA - see my caveat about commemoration campaigns above. We might see some of them, if only to fill the time, but the past has shown that often we will not. This includes an FGO THE STAGE banner, the WinFes Campaign and the Heavens Feel Banner that already happened on NA in the past.

February

February will start traditionally with the Valentines Event, this time featuring Murasaki Shikibou and her storyline of cursed books. The banner features a hefty amount of female servants, all on rateup together with Shikibou herself, with Semiramis being the only exception, being granted a rateup banner just for herself. This year, the Valentines scenes will be voiced, so rejoice, masters, for you can hear your servants presenting you with their gifts for the first time! Interestingly enough, the only other rateup Murasaki had outside of her release campaign during the upcoming Valentines was a KYOMAF campaign in September 2019 on JP. As elaborated above, there's a good chance we don't see that on NA. It might happen, in fact, it recently has happened, but that was the first time and we cannot be sure about this one way or another. That said: If you want Murasaki, better get her now, if only for peace of mind.
Later down the month NA will see a new set of Strengthenings in the Part X Campaign, including Strengthenings for Semiramis, Passionlip, Edison, Beowulf, Lancer Li, Kiara and Hans Christian Andersen. Shorty following that will be CCC SE.RA.PH Rerun and our second meeting with the delightful devilish Kouhai BB! SE.RA.PH is, canonically, a main story chapter - it's part of Epic of Remnant and as such, a major part of the games storyline.
It's a bit weird how they implemented it as an event, but they've since rectified that and established it as a Main Interlude on JP. Still, until that happens on NA, more than another year will pass, so better get BB now and, honestly, read through the quite entertaining story. Besides a rateup of Meltlilith, the event also features another Sakuraface in the release of Kingprotea, the most gigantic part of the Sakura Five. Honestly, her battle sprite is ridiculously big and puts even Ivan to shame. And she's sitting down.

March

Early in March Moriarty will get his very own event!. Contrary to Murder at the KOGETSUKAN, this one is a full-fledged event, so Moriarty will be delighted to one-up his eternal nemesis, no doubt. Together with the event, the annual Chaldea Boys Collection Banner should happen. So in case you tend to collect Husbandos moreso than Waifus, this is for you to look forward to! It's also Moriartys last known rateup so far.
Worth mentioning, while this isn't a banner, the Main Quest Clear Aid Campaign should also happen in March. If you ever wondered why the fandom wiki has guaranteed rewards for story missions that you never got on NA, this is the reason: It's a system not implemented yet. It will be. Every story mission will from the on provide you with a guaranteed material drop. Since this is applied retroactively, Masters who have cleared all the story chapters so far will receive a huge amount of materials for free at once, so that's nice.
Edit: Turns out, that came early for NA a few days after writing this post. This goes to show our imprecise clairvoyance to a degree. For QoL updates, this is even more true than otherwise.
March will also see another set of interludes, with the 8th Interlude Campaign, including new stories for Semiramis, Ngihtingale, Hijikata Toshizo, Yagyu Munenori, Consort Yu and Hessian Lobo.
And, as a final treat in a pretty filled up month, the Kokugawa Kaiten Meikyu - Ooku Event should come at the end of March and with it, the long awaited Kama. Besides being possibly the best singletarget Assassin in the game besides maybe Jack, she's also the games prime Alter Ego killer. An all around strong servant and gameplaywise, one of the strongest choices of the year. The event is also a relevant story chapter, much like CCC SE.RA.PH, and it's dubbed "Lostbelt 3.5". So since the next main story chapter is quite far out, this one's there to bridge the gap.

April

The Ooku event will most likely last well into April, yet the month itself also has a lot to offer. Early in April, the 16M Downloads Campaign together with MHXA as a featured servant should take place. Besides the usual amount of goodies and a 1/4 AP Main Quest Campaign up until LB2, Masters will receive 10 SQ per 10 completed Interludes as permanent extra Master Missions in the same vein that we already have the 10 SQ per 10 Strengthenings.
After the freebies (or alongside them, possibly), we will see the GUDAGUDA Rerun. If you haven't gotten the lovely pair of Ryouma and Oryou already, here's your chance! A solid singletarget Rider that, while not rivaling Kintoki, isn't a bad choice at all. The banner features Okita Alter, Hijikata Toshiza and the limited 3* Okada Izou.
And if that wasn't enough for you already or you're desperate for more welfares, rejoice, since there's more to come! Lady Reines Case Files will happen shortly after and with it, we'll be getting one of the most anticipated welfares of the year: Gray. Not only is she an interesting variant of the Saberface, she's also extremely competent at what she does. Decent AoE Assassins are few and far between and between her being NP5 for free and having a 20% battery to boot, she'll be the go-to Assassin Waveclearer for many masters. Look forward to her, she's really strong.
Oh and if Grey isn't enough for you, there's a Waver rateup right before the event and tehe event Summoning Campaign comes with the releases of Reines herself and Astraea. Now that's a great month if I've ever seen one. Keep in mind: Reines will only really begin to shine once she receives her Strengthening in 2022, which also features a rateup shortly after, so it's up to you if you want her now already.

May

With all the action packed into the previous months, May will offer some respite for masters on the brink of burning out and a well-deserved rest before summer will be upon us. If you still need to clear things, there's a 1/4 AP Campaign for the Epic of Remnant Chapters and a 1/2 AP event for all Free Quests during May, but if you've done everything already, you're looking forward for some slow burn for the month.
Besides the (usually) annual Class Based Summoning early in the month and Hunting Quests late in it, the only actual event in the fifth month of the year will be "A Study in the Dubious Meiho-sou" and that mirros Murder at the KOGETSUKAN, so it's a story-focused event without much farming going on. The summoning Campaign features JAlter, Tristant and Salieri.
If you've never played on JP but have listened about JP players talking about "things slowing down", this is part of what they refer to. May will be very calm and you should mentally prepare for that to not be surprised when it happens.

June

June is when things get interesting from a scheduling point of view. As I've mentioned before, NAs anniversary is a month earlier than JPs, so we should see it at the end of June or early July instead of at the end of July into early August. So we might need to accomodate for it in this month and that might see anothe
As such, it might very well be that the 9th Interlude Campaign, featuring Arthur, Osakabehime, Assassin Li, MHXA, Raikou, Emiya Alter and Wu, might or might not happen in early June. Lots of Skill upgrades in it, so it would be kind of sad.
Because, also in June, the 4th Lostbelt will drop. And that definitely will happen before anniversary. It's been a while since LB3 at that point, hasn't it. About time the main story continues, eh? Thinking, as of me writing this, shortly before the arrival of S I N on NA, this is like 8 months out? That's quite a long time, even if Kamas event is kinda like LB 3.5. In any case, together with LB4, Arjuna Alter will appear and boy will he be fun. He's like Spartacus on steroids and if you want to roll for just one servant based on gameplay alone, Godjuna is probably the one you want. He's amazingly strong in both his farming performance, as in his singletarget Buster Crits and while he comes with the usual caveats of being a Berserker, he's just extremely potent. Oh and this is, so far, his first and final rateup. If you want him, plan ahead and get him then.
But Junao isn't the only new servant. LB4 comes with a plethora of new servants and while he might be the most popular one, the others most definitely deserve mentioning: Ganesha, the only Non-BB Mooncancer so far E: I forgot about Summer Kiara!, Lakshmibai, the unluckiest Jeanneface in existence and William Tell a new 3*, are all unlimited, but Ashwatthama and the quite powerful Arts Support Asclepius are both storylocked, so your best chance of getting them is probably now. And since the latter two are on the same banner as Arjuna Alter... I mean you're not going to be disappointed in your rolls here, right?
JP also had the 17M DL Campaign in June though that's another clear candidate to be moved around to later for anniversary. In any case it features Nero Bride for the first - and the last - time in ages. She'll get a Strengthening, possibly together with the Anniversary, which makes her a prime Arts Looping support until Castoria shows up in 2022 and, as mentioned, it's her last known rateup, so if you want her, you have to get her now.
And, as mentioned, either in late June or in early July, the 4th anniversary event will take place and, as usual, bring a huge lot of goodies with it. Besids tons of free quartz for various reasons it comes with the Release of Rider Da Vinci Lily and a plethora of new 1-2*s. Jason, Paris, Gareth, Bartholomew Roberts, Charlotte Corday, Salome and, most notably, Chen Gong, who will feature in lots of future farming setups, I'm sure. These new bronze servants will be availabe in the Friend Gacha and you will have no issue getting them soon. They're not even 3*s, so geting them to NP5 is trivial, no need to worry about it.
For many people, the most important feautre of the 4th anniversary campaigns will be the changes to the summoning system. From then on, Masters will get a free 11th roll for every 10 rolls on one banner. Regardless if you're doing the rolls one by one or in a batch of 10, the 10th roll will come with a free additional roll on top of it. Furthermore, the SSR single rateup chance will be changed from 0.7% to 0.8%. The overall SSR rate per roll remains at 1%, but the chance to get spooked during single rateup rolls is reduced from 0.3 to 0.2%, essentially making it more likely to get the servant you want instead of one from the general pool.
In JP, Strenghtening Quests Part IX happened in conjunction together with the anniversary, so expect that here as well. Besides the aforementioned Strengthening to Bride, it also includes Altera, adds a Battery to Romulus, further Strengthenings to Medusa Lily, Gorgon, Iskander and Alexander, Medea Lily and Kotarou and Boudica, Martha, Maid Alter and Gawain. I'm sure there's something for everyone here.

July

Depending on how our June went, we might see a few events and campaigns from then in July instead. As mentioned, the 9th Interlude Campaign and the 17M Downloads Campaign might happen early this month instead. But, depending on schedule, July will see 2 events: 2019s GUDAGUDA and the summer rerun.
GUDAGUDA Final Honnoji will be this years GUDA event and with it, an amazingly strong and fun welfare will be given to masters: Nagao Kagetora. Seriously, her animations and voice lines are some of the best in game and the way her seeming enthusiasm accompanies everything she does is very enjoyable, at least to me. She's an Arts Singletarget Lancer and a master in her role, I've enjoyed playing with her tremendously.
Besides Kagetora, the event also features the releases of Demon King Nobunaga and the limited 3* Berserker Mori Nagayoshi, together in a summoning campaign with Summer Nobu as the featured 4*. All these will feature again a year later in the events rerun, so if you're not in a hurry, you can roll for them then.
Also in July (or maybe in early August, depending on how the schedule might change around annversary), Summer Jeannes Summer Event Rerun will happen, with the usual rateups that we know from her original run. If you haven't gotten her with the original event, this is your last chance to get a very useful Berserker welfare and if you've gotten her and all the costumes already, this rerun has a whooping 11 RP for you, so that's definitely something to look forward to!
This is your last chance (bar the already mentioned Swimsuit Campaign, the biggest bait banner ever) to roll for Summer Jeanne, Summer Ushiwakamaru, Summer Medb and MHXX and has also, so far, been the last rateup for Edmont Dantes, so have an eye out for them then.

August

Since anniversary will have happened at late June / early July, August will, most likely, be a calmer month for NA again. While we might see the Summer rerun in early August instead of in July, there's not much else happening here, but the actual summer event, Las Vegas Official Bout, featuring the lovely and very capabale Saber Hokusai as welfare. Another strong addition to every Masters roster, this Arts Singletarget Servant comes with a plethora of string skills and is, for the most part, a straight upgrade to the other ST Saber welfare so far, Brave Liz. Sorry Eli. Newer Master should definitely get her, just as Kagetora is a strong ST Lancer, Hokusai is a just as strong ST Saber.
Besides that, Masters will see the first Merlin rateup in ages during the Summer Event and the newly released Ruler Artoria, Lancer Melt, the long awaited Swimsuit Okita, Berserker Musashi, Archer Okasabehime and Rider Carmilla. Gameplaywise, especially Lambda and Berserker Musashi are the standouts here, but we all know that nobody rolls on swimsuit servants for gameplay value, right?
Rolling aside, Las Vegas is an excellent opportunity to stack up on large amount of QP and just by playing the event, Masters will easily gain 300M QP or more, without special grind. Swimsuits, QP, Gambling, a strong welfare... what's not to love about this event?

September

Remember when I mentioned that 2020s schedule will be slower than you're used to? September will be another relatively slow month but, as is customary, the one event that does take place will be guaranteed to take up a lot of your attention, but first things first. JP started September with the 10th Interlude Campaign that includes Interludes for Ishtar, Tesla and Enkidu (who all get NP or Skill upgrades with them) and Jack, Amakusa Shirou and Parvati (for whom you'll just see SQ).
Also in September, another Class-based Summoning Campaign should hit Masters, so if you're moreso looking for a whole plethora of different options from one class than for a specific servant, consider giving that a try?
And, as promised, September will feature the recurring Autumn Lottery: Battle in New York Part II, also called IshtarFest because, well, you'll see. :) Obviously at this point you should have your setups ready for heavy grinding, as with every lottery. This years features Snake Jewels, Horeshoes, Proofs and Chains as Materials. Not quite Dust and Bones but eh, can't always have those, right? Obviously, Gilgamesh is on rateup there, because of course he is.
Finally, September did see a KYOMAF Campaign. Now, in the past, Kyomafs weren't a thing on NA because they're neither relevant, nor in the correct time, after all, the according exhibit had happened 2 years earlier. However, in 2020, we did see the Kyomaf campaign on NA rebranded as Shuten Douji Summoning Campaign. So... there's precedence. But who knows if it happens or not, we can't really give any proper prediciton here.

October

For October I need to start with a Disclaimer about the Babylonia Commemoration Campaigns. From October 2019 on, JP had a line of Commemoration Campaigns featuring the Babylonia Anime because that was when it first released. As I've already mentioned in the beginning, Commemoration Campaigns are difficult for NA to predict and these especially so, since they already happened. NA had them in 2019 and 2020 as well, just a very short time after JP had them and very out of schedule.
As such, I believe it's extremely unlikely that we see a repeat of them. However, we might see certain aspects of them transferred to a different event, to Thanksgiving or anything else. This is not really a thing to predict as we have no idea how DW might handle them. As such, I will list the Campaigns here, just for completeness sake, but just once and not refer to them again in the months after. Babylonia I, Babylonia II. The third and fourth Campaign were in early 2020 for JP.
In any case, the thing we'll definitely see is the Halloween Rerun, which, sadly, is the last Halloween Event so far. With no new Halloween themed event either in 2019 or in 2020 on JP, Halloween simply has ended in Chaldea with this rerun, so savor it while it lasts. It's the second and last chance to get Caster Shuten of course and also features the last rateup for Lancer Ibaraki so far.
As a second event during October (or possibly during very early November), Saber Wars II will happen. While not a Halloween Event, it stands very well on it's own two legs and comes with two new limited servants, Space Ishtar and Calamity Jane. Space Ishtar is another servant with three completely different forms for each of her ascensions, much lika Demon Nobu, and will be the Queen of Castoria Looping once she releases in 2022. On her own right, she's a bit like Jeanne just as an AoE Servant, in that, she's always useful with her 50% battery and her NP color-changing shenanigans, she will fit into any Masters roster well, but she'll rarely be the single best choice for anything. With Castoria however, she's a go-to servant for essentially anything the game throws at you and if you plan on going down the Castoria hole in 2022, gettins SIshtar here is most definitely your best bet.
As of the time of this writing, neither SIshtar nor Calamity Jane had another banner, but it's fully expected to see the Saber Wars II Rerun on JP in the near future, as it's still outstanding. Hard to predict, of course, as are all things JP, but it might very well happen. MHXA also has a Banner during SW2 and that has been her last rateup so far just the same. So if you're into Sith Lords with a thing for earthly sweets, better prepare your Quartz! And if you'd like her original Version, the Prerelease Campaign is so far the last time MHX herself is on rateup.

November

We're nearing the end of the year already and besides SW2 that will go well into November, Christmas will soon be upon us. But first, it's time for the 18M Downloads Campaign and Skadis second ever showing. If you missed her during 3rd anniversary, here's your next chance in getting the Queen of Snow and Ice and yes, you need to wait that long for her to come up again. It'll be interesting to see how many people will try to get their Skadi here on NA with our Clairvoyance telling us about Castoria the year after, guess we'll have to wait and see. Besides Skadi, November will also bring another iteration of Hunting Quests.
Now, famously, JP did skip the Christmas rerun in 2019. As such, it's likely that NA doesn't see a second iteration of Quetzmas either. Instead, Christmas itself comes early this year and the End of November will see Nightingales Christmas Carol featuring, of course, Santa Nightingale as a welfare. A pretty decent mixture of support, sustain and AoE Archer, she comes with an Arsenal of Carpet Bombs as NP and an Ishtar-like Crit-Charisma. Together with the Event, Saber Astolfo sees the light of day and if you've ever dreamed of Astolfo in a Bunny Costume wielding a chain-sword, well, here's your chance!
As usual, of course, the Christmas Event is the second lottery of the year and even if it's early for real Christmas, the presents in the FGO version are definitely worth grinding for. Lanterns, Octuplets, Pages and Fangs, together with a Ticket in each box that can be exchanged for either a Claw, a Phoenic Feather or a Ring of Giant means happy grinding indeed. As usual, prepare your setups well in advance and save up on your apples if you want to go hard.
Not to forget, around this time we should also see the NA-exclusive Thanksgiving Event and Banner. I'm not going to go into speculation about this right here as it's not really possible to predict this a year in advance, just keep it in mind: it should happen around here as well.

December

We're in December and Christmas is already out of the way. Weird, huh? Talk about a change in scheduling. 2019 was a strange year on JP and if we continue to follow that schedule in NA as we did in the past, it will be a weird year on NA as well. But things are as they are and DW moves in mysterious ways, as we all know.
In any case: While the early December will still feature the end of the Christmas Event and Masters grinding for presents, it will also feature andother Interlude Campaign with Interludes for Napoleon, Ivan, Anastasia, Lanling, Tomoe, Qin Liangyu and the Valks, with Napo, Ivan and Tomoe all receiving NP upgrages in the process.
And finally, didn't we forget something? Through all of the year, there was only one story Chapter with LB4, so... time for at least a second one, right? Right. Lostbelt 5.1 - Atlantis! We do, after all, get a second story chapter in 2021. The first act to the fifth Lostbelt finally arrives late in the year and concludes it all the same. Together with the chapter, Super Orion amd the unlimited Europa and Mandricardo release and that means, it's time for another powerhouse.
While you might know Orion only as a perverted bear from the hijacked Saint Graph where Artemis is really the Servant in question, this one is on a completely different level. A bear he might be, but he's an insanely strong singletarget Archer which, thanks to his selfbuff on NP, has a super easy time reaching absurd damage numbers with his facecards. I mean it, it's ridiculous how easy Super Orion is able to get to hundreds of thousands of damage per card. If you're into that and need a capable Archer, he's your man... well, maybe not exactly, Artemis wouldn't be happy if he was, but err... he's there for you? Maybe better that way.

Final words

So that's it for 2021 - or that's how 2019 was in JP. Overall it's a bit of a less exciting year than 2018/2020 was. Between just two story chapters, spaced out widely (assuming you don't count the Kama event), the lack of a Halloween Event and the missing Christmas Rerun, people started to feel like things didn't go quite as planned on JP anymore. Still, with several new powerhouses released, capable welfares and upgrades to servant we know and like, the game doesn't really get any worse than it was and there's lots to look forward to in 2021 as well. Even if the beat kind of slowed down a bit.
As with last year, I hope this helps you plan around the next year and maybe you are able to find one or two or five servants worth saving up for. There's potential there, most definitely. If you want to know how much SQ you will have at any given time, you can either use this spreadsheet with event rewards together with this calculator or you can make a copy of this spreadsheet that does the calculation for you. Both methods will give you a pretty decent idea about how things will be looking.

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
• PREVIOUS •
1987
FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82

1-4-1988	1-11-1988	1-18-1988	1-25-1988
2-1-1988	2-8-1988	2-15-1988	2-22-1988
2-29-1988	3-7-1988	3-14-1988	3-21-1988
3-28-1988	4-4-1988	4-11-1988	4-18-1988
4-25-1988	5-2-1988	5-9-1988	5-16-1988
5-23-1988	5-30-1988	6-6-1988	6-13-1988
6-20-1988	6-27-1988	7-4-1988	*

• Some major news to get through before we reach the Great American Bash and Summerslam. WWF has announced their July 31 card in Milwaukee, which will see Hogan return to face Andre. This looks like it’s going to be a tester for a whole series of matches in the fall. Savage vs. DiBiase for the world title, Honkytonk Man vs. Duggan for the IC title, and Demolition vs. the Bulldogs for the tag titles round out the major matches. In what is surely a total coincidence, this show comes one day before the NWA’s debut show in Milwaukee with one of their big Bash shows.
  
• As for the Great American Bash ppv, Dave’s fairly certain it’s on track to be the fourth biggest grossing pro wrestling event in history. No real news on the card, but they have attempted to explain the tower of doom match and it’s pretty confusing, but they also haven’t clarified who’s going to be in it. Dave says they’ve made improvements to their promotion of the event, but he has some critiques. “The Price for Freedom” is a goofy tagline to stick on it. The fact that they haven’t really given a top-to-bottom accounting of the card is a bit more concerning, though. Dave also worries that they might be trying to cram too much into their 3 hours, given that the typical NWA match requires more time to do what it needs to do than the typical WWF match, and that could cut into the Luger Flair match and make them rush it.
  
• Dave noticed a difference in how WWF and NWA promotion in the local Cable Guide works. Cable Guide is sent directly to people with cable, so that’s your potential audience when you’re selling ppv and having direct access to them through advertising in the magazine seems like a no-brainer. When WWF has a ppv, there’s usually a full-page ad with all the matches and photos of the big stars, usually at the front of the issue. Dave found the Bash advertisement on page 30, and it was just a paragraph of text that reads: ‘The Great American Bash ($15) Each year, the National Wrestling Alliance streaks across the country holding grudge matches, settling old rivalries and initiating new ones. This year, you’re invited to watch as the Bash presents for the first time ever the triple-cage “Tower of Doom,” matching Ric Flair and Lex Luger.’ He then found another paragraph on page 164: ‘Gill Cable presents The Great American Bash from Baltimore on Sunday July 10 at 4:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. See Ric Flair, Lex Luger, The Midnight Rider, Tully Blanchard, “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin and Precious, The Midnight Express and other top stars from the NWA.’ Dave’s just baffled. The card’s been set for months, the ads don’t mention any championships or try to hype FlaiLuger at all, and the one time there is mention of a match, you’ve got two matches conflated. So for some viewers, they’re going to see the show and say that they got something they weren’t advertised. This is some real crappy promoting work.
  
• We finally have an answer to the most-asked question of the past month: Owen Hart is starting with WWF by the time this issue reaches readers. He’ll be under a mask on the third-string tour and will probably make his tv debut along with Terry Taylor on the upcoming tapings on July 13-14. On the one hand, it’s a given that Owen’s match quality will suffer because he won’t be able to work with the same level of worker he had in Japan or Canada. And yet, if they market him well, he could become a big deal for WWF. They don’t have another like him. Dave compares him to Snuka, who was small and yet was one of the most over guys of the past decade all for one move, and Satoru Sayama, who was smaller than Owen but still one of the biggest names in the business in the early part of the 80s. But Sayama needed a Dynamite Kid or a Bret Hart or a Black Tiger to play off of. Hart’s going to look small in WWF, but it’s possible to avoid accentuating that to the point the fans disinvest.
  
• WWF’s ppv records are dust, because Mike Tyson vs. Michael Spinks drew a 15 buyrate and grossed $30 million, demolishing Wrestlemania 3’s ppv numbers. This is mostly boxing stuff and we’re here for wrestling, but really interestingly Dave thinks that if Tyson and Hogan were to do a thing together, it’d be bigger than anything either could do against another opponent (and to think, a decade later the WWF did get Tyson in for an angle with their top guy). Obviously, this will never happen because WWF is in a secure position where they don’t feel the need to put their wrestlers in situations they can’t control. The other lesson from this fight that Dave hopes the Crocketts are paying attention to is that closed circuit is a dead end - this fight got next to nothing in closed-circuit, despite having far more hype than Wrestlemania behind it.
  

Apparently they even had the same venue as Wrestlemania this year. Here’s Spinks vs. Tyson

• The Great American Bash tour has begun, and the early shows have drawn well and that’s as expected. With all the gimmick matches and something like 11 War Games set for the tour, they’ll be drawing well, but not so well that we see multiple shows with gates in excess of $250,000 as we have in the past.
  
• Dave’s not clear on the details, but new developments have emerged in the Turner buyout of the NWA. It looks like the JCP stockholders aren’t all in agreement about selling the company. Jim Crockett wants to sell, David Crockett doesn’t, and Ole Anderson is trying to become a key player and sway wrestlers into leaving to start their own company or maybe partner with Turner themselves, which feels like a bit of a long shot. Anyway, Dave promises updates as he gets them.
  
• Some discontent among the NWA roster as they’ve learned that the payoffs for the Bash ppv won’t be arriving for several months. The date they’ve been told is October 1.
  
• [Memphis] The Lawler vs. Von Erich title for title match on June 27 drew 4,000 fans. The match had interference, and after they ran off the heels, Von Erich requested to continue the match and it ended in a double count out.
  
• Jimmy Valiant is back in Memphis for a bit and seems to have finally left the NWA. It seems the only reason he was in the NWA as long as he was was because he was waiting for that big payday that they’d intended to have happen in May and which will now be in October once the company gets the money from the Bash ppv. Just tired of waiting.
  
• [Stampede] Joshi wrestlers Mika Komatsu and Yumi Ogura are coming in for a three week tour. Unfortunately, they won’t be on tv because their dates coincide with the time frame in which Stampede isn’t doing new tv tapings.
  
• Last week there was that weird finish with the Stampede North American Title match between Chris Benoit and Johnny Smith, and it has finally been clarified. They’ve announced that rather than a reversal of the decision, the belt has been held up, and the two had a match under English rules on June 24 (five minute rounds to a finish), with Smith superplexing Benoit to regain the title. On the same show they did some kind of tournament for the tv title, but rather than having advancing rounds of the tournament, they had a panel of judges award to the winners of the matches, and Steve Blackman got the most points and was awarded the title.
  
• Jerry Lawler still has conflicting bookings for July 16. AWA has him facing Curt Hennig in Las Vegas, while WCCW has him facing Kerry Von Erich in Kansas City with both titles on the line. It’s unclear which he’ll do.
  
• Billy Jack Haynes’ OWF appears to be on the verge of death. Several wrestlers have left and a bunch of shows have been canceled. At some point before the June 24 show, Haynes dropped the title to Kevin Kelly, meaning they’ve had the title hot potato between guys five times in the past month. A young Vince Russo is surely eyeing this promotion closely and taking notes on how to book title changes.
  
• The June 24 issue of Tokyo Sports reported a rumor that Inoki is selling New Japan to Ted Turner to be part of a new international NWA. Dave doesn’t give credence to the story, but he does think it would make a lot of sense for one party to own promotions in both the U.S. and Japan because it would facilitate talent flow very easily to keep things from getting stale. Dave thinks this is just Inoki trying to start some rumors to get attention back on himself. There’s still talk of him wrestling Hogan on August 8, but yet again Dave just doesn’t think this is going to happen (it’s not going to happen).
  
• Speaking of New Japan, Tatsumi Fujinami is getting the rocket strapped to his ass. He pinned Riki Choshu to regain the IWGP title on June 24 and handed Vader his first pinfall loss in Japan in his first title defense two days later. They’re scheduled for another rematch on the next tour, so Dave thinks they might put the belt on Vader since he’s lost to Fujinami three times in a row now, and Vader will drop the belt to Inoki on August 8. Not quite, but we’ll get there. Also on the June 24 show, Owen Hart dropped the jr. title to Shiro Koshinaka.
  
• The June 19 New Japan tv show had a very interesting match. Choshu beat Yoshiaki Fujiwara in a 12-minute match in front of a crowd that was decidedly pro-Fujiwara. It’s highly likely Fujiwara will be joining UWF when his contract expires in April, so no surprise in Choshu winning. What was interesting is that Fujiwara made Choshu work a more mat-based style, which Choshu is really quite good at when you can get him to actually do it. Anyway, the fans seem to have out smart-marked themselves, because as Dave puts it “when Choshu gained the pinfall with the lariat, the place went totally silent because the fans who were there ‘believed’ that Choshu couldn’t legitimately beat Fujiwara and thus the pinfall was for the political reasons we spoke of earlier and the good match became a sham in their eyes.”
  
• In All Japan Women, Bull Nakano earned a title shot against Chigusa Nagayo for the world title on June 26. She won it in a tournament, and the match took place on July 2, though Dave hasn’t got a result yet.
  
• In JWP, they’re going full hype train for Shinobu Kandori vs. Devil Masami, and this report gets kind of weird. Masami is coming out of retirement and has gained some weight, and Dave compares her thighs to those of Doug Furnas, saying she now has the biggest thighs he’s ever seen in wrestling. Really, Dave?
  
• Hulk Hogan will be returning to his WWF tour schedule after he wraps taping for No Holds Barred on July 30. He’s only going to be doing the A-show house shows and tv, so Dave thinks the smart move is not to put the title on him any time soon, especially if he still draws well without the belt. Next Wrestlemania is the earliest Dave would consider putting the belt back on him. Looks like his first major feud is going to be with the Big Bossman.
  
• Dave got a chance to watch the DiBiase vs. Savage cage match from the last Madison Square Garden show and gives it 4.5 stars. He says it’s the best match in the garden in years (the last one of that quality he can remember is Slaughter vs. Sheik in a boot camp match in the summer of 1984). Dave’s not generally a fan of WWF cage matches and thinks they spent too much time trying to escape, but says you can’t deny they went all out. DiBiase and Savage have been tearing it up so much it’s got some people wondering if WWF is going back to a more traditional style, but Dave notes that it only looks that way if you only watch the main events of the MSG shows. The undercard is awful, and the other big matches like Andre/Duggan and Beefcake/Honkytonk aren’t good at all. So no, they’re not putting a renewed emphasis on match quality or workrate.
  

Watch: Savage vs. DiBiase

• USA Network has scheduled a three hour WWF special for July 18. That’s going to be a special Prime Time Wrestling.
  
• Jerry Lawler’s AWA title defense against Austin Idol in Continental had an interesting twist. Paul E. Dangerously came down with an injunction and said that he was allowed at ringside because his previous contract with Idol stated that Dangerously would serve as Idol’s manager should he ever get a world title match. Then Dangerously worked on Lawler’s behalf against Idol, even though Lawler acted like he didn’t want anything to do with Dangerously. The finish had Idol get Lawler in the figure four, but Dangerously pulled the referee out and hit him with his phone. Meanwhile Eddie Gilbert came out and threw fire in Idol’s face (and missed, but they went with it anyway).
  
• GLOW is looking for new investors to film a new season in the fall. That means they’re in pretty bad shape.
  
• Roddy Piper will be filming a sequel to Hell Comes to Frogtown. It’s going to be called Frog Wars. Well, they do eventually put out a sequel (Return to Frogtown), but they recast Piper’s role. So, I guess we’ll see how this doesn’t work out.
  
• In the latest news on Bruno Sammartino and his beef with the WWF, WWF has decided they’re going to call Billy Graham the “Living Legend” now. We’ll see how long that lasts until Billy’s next beef with the company.
  
• AWA still has bookings where Curt Hennig is listed as AWA champion. It’s been two months since he lost the belt. They also still have the Rock & Roll Express listed on some cards. If you’re ever wondering why Dave has such little to say about AWA that’s nice, it’s this stuff.
  
• In the pointless trivia department, Miss Elizabeth’s maiden name is Hewitt. Now you can stump your friends.
  
• Bob Backlund was interviewed by a Japanese magazine and indicated some level of openness to wrestling in Japan. He said the NWA was out because he wouldn’t make the money their top guys get. He said both UWF and New Japan have contacted him, so we’ll see if that goes anywhere (wait until December, we’ve got something).
  
• Bruiser Brody was scheduled to wrestle Otto Wanz for Wanz’s version of the world title later this week. Something seems to have gone down and the deal might not be working out, though.
  
• Back before the Powers of Pain jumped to WWF, the Road Warriors gave an interview published in the July 5 issue of Weekly Pro Wrestling. Let’s read what they said:
  

That’s right. We’re going to work for the WWF. But we can’t say when for sure. New York wants the Road Warriors really bad. It’s not that we don’t like their style. We don’t give a damn about what they do in the ring or how they promote the card. The bottom line is what they can offer. Sure we’ve got a lot to offer, too. We are happy with All Japan. They take care of us really good. If we can’t come back to Japan, we won’t go to the WWF. Nobody can tell us what to do. Nobody and we mean nobody can boss us around. Right now, we are under contract with the NWA. This is the official commitment and we are not about to break it. Thena gain, anything is a gamble to a certain degree. You just have to leave all your options open.

• Koji Kitao was televised doing training with Larry Sharpe and Joe Frazier in wrestling and boxing. This drew an 11.5 rating in Japan, which is more than wrestling currently gets. Unspoken conclusion: whoever gets Kitao will be getting a boost in viewers.
  
• As of the latest show in the Texas Sportatorium, here’s who holds the belts in World Class. Kerry holds the world title. Kevin holds the Texas title. Kevin and Kerry hold the tag titles. Kevin and Kerry and Michael Hayes hold the six man tag titles. Guess that theory that Ken Mantell’s booking wouldn’t be pure Von Erich ego stroking was wrong.
  
• The Crocketts had been heavily plugging July 5 as the first day of ticket sales for the Seattle Bash show on August 3. Well, fans lined up that morning to buy tickets and found there were no tickets on sale. Turns out they hadn’t gotten the Washington State commission to approve the date, nor even gotten their wrestlers to apply for Washington wrestling licenses or any of the other work that goes into actually promoting a show.
  
• The letters section this week is all over the place. One guy talks about how fans seem to pay more attention to the moves themselves rather than the context in which they occur and the stories they serve. He talks about a 15-minute headlock Ray McClarity had Verne Gagne in at some point in the 50s and how exciting it was because it was McClarity trying to hold onto his lead in the second fall of the match. Most of it is without major substance, though. There is one letter that is quite lengthy and basically responds to every letter about Bruno Sammartino from the past two months or so, but nothing really interesting in there either.
  
• Just before press time, Dave got word of the tragic deaths of Adrian Adonis, Canadian Wildman David McKigney, and Pat Kelly. On July 4, they had a gruesome van wreck in Newfoundland. They were traveling with fellow wrestler Mike Kelly, who survived, to a match in Lewisporte, Newfoundland, when they crashed their van and went into a brook. Pat Kelly (real name Victor Arko) and David McKigney were declared dead at the site of the crash, while Adonis died in the hospital. Dave gives brief obituaries for Adonis and McKigney. Adonis was only 34 years old and one of the most talented wrestlers anywhere in the early part of the decade. McKigney was a central figure in Jim Freedman’s book Drawing Heat, and was a wrestler and promoter in Northern Ontario who made his name training wrestling bears in the 60s, which led to the death of his wife when one of the bears escaped and mauled them. Dave promises more information next week.
  

Watch: an interview with Adrian Adonis’s daughter about her father
NEXT WEEK: More on the Adonis, Kelly, and McKigney deaths; UWF’s June show; The Great American Bash ppv, and more

Hi everyone,
Thanks in advance for your support and advice. I am really lost and I'm hoping engaging with the gambling community may give me a different perspective on the issue.
My partner and I have been together for two years. When we met, he was in a dark place dealing with the loss of his grandmother, a guiding figure in his life. Our budding relationship really turned things around for the both of us, and before long we were happily meeting each other's families and making plans for the future together.
It was around that time that I started noticing strange transactions in my bank statements, I'll call them "repeat transactions" - money I had transferred to him for say a dinner out or payback for a joint purchase was going to him over and over again. At the time I wasn't really concerned, just annoyed and blamed my bank. While at work one day, he told me he called them and that it was a "known issue" and that it would come into his account in around twenty days then he would transfer it straight back to me. I now know that it was all a ruse, however at the time I was foolish enough to believe him. Money continued to funnel out of my account and I constantly asked him if he had received it yet, to which he said no. He never offered to show me his own bank account as proof, and I regret not asking at that time.
From the beginning, I noticed strange behaviours around technology. He was very secretive with his phone and laptop use. In past relationships, my ex and I had unbridled access to each other's devices and it was no issue, in fact I thought it was very healthy and trusting. In my current relationship, my partner will never leave his phone unattended, even if he is going to the bathroom in the middle of the night he will unplug it and take it with him. When he uses his phone in front of me, he angles the screen and his body away from me so I cannot see what he is doing. When questioned about this, he told me it wasn't on purpose and is "just the way he holds his phone" but never offered any more access or transparency... Some nights at home on the couch he will be on his phone literally all night, saying he is doing work. Even when we play board games or cook dinner, he has his phone in one hand, never giving me his full attention unless I get angry with him (which I don't like to do). At this stage of our relationship, I put it down to him being a private person.
Eventually he paid a lump sum back to me a couple of months later which covered most of the payments. It was around that time that he travelled to America for two months with a friend, whom also had a gambling problem (however I didn't know either of them were gamblers at the time!). Being in this environment was not good for my partner who I later learnt relapsed there due to the constant exposure to sporting games / bars etc. During this time I lent him money when he asked for various reasons, such as his travel card getting locked and other elaborate lies that I didn't identify at the time.
When he returned, things felt different in our relationship but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. We continued with our plans to move our careers and lives together to a different city. His parents came to help us move in and things were extremely tense. I still did not know about my partner's issues, but obviously his parents did and my theory is that they were very cold around me as their strange way of protecting me and "telling me without telling me" that I shouldn't be encouraged into continuing this relationship. For the first few months, my partner's brother who suffers with drug and alcohol dependency, and also is in a great amount of debt from gambling, lived with us. This put strain on our new relationship and we were constantly concerned with his wellbeing. He never paid a cent of rent or contribution towards food or bills which really upset me, however my partner as the "big brother" (and also I now realise, suffering the same addiction as his brother) let it slide.
One day while at work, I logged into my internet banking app and saw that my savings had been depleted by $10,000 since I had last checked. At this point I was sick of seeing my money siphoned out of my account, and decided to call my bank during my break to confront them. They told me that there was no "known issue" about repeat transactions, and I was transferred from employee to employee until I was put on the phone with a manager. She gently told me that these transactions were made from my phone during strange times of the night, and asked who else had access to my phone. My heart started to race. Despite all of the signs I still had absolutely no idea of the situation my partner had unwittingly involved me in. I told her that of course my partner had access, however we also lived with his brother who had a known gambling issue but there would be no way he could access my phone during the night as the door to my bedroom is always locked. She asked if I would like to report it to their financial crimes unit to launch an investigation, to which I agreed to because I simply couldn't fathom the fact that my partner could have done this to me.
As soon as the phone call ended, I texted my partner to tell him how strange the whole situation was. He immediately panicked, and it was in that moment that I finally knew that he was responsible for all of the money being, what I now know, stolen from my account. We both left work and met in a park near our house as his brother was home and I didn't want us to have a scene in front of him. He handed me a letter which explained that he had been suffering a gambling addiction for four to five years, and was in a total of approximately $40,000 debt. I was in complete shock, but went straight into "fix it" mode. By that afternoon, we had opened a joint account for him to get paid into and for me to oversee his finances. We had purchased an alarm clock so our phones would not be kept in the bedroom overnight. I told him that he had to tell his brother to move out as it was negatively impacting our relationship. I felt devastated but hopeful.
That night I flew home to be with my parents so I could seek their support and take stock of the situation. I did not tell them the fact that he had stolen money from me as I knew that if they knew that, they would never be able to forgive him. My parents were sad for me and disappointed in him that he hadn't told me the full story before moving to a new city with him. We all reasoned that $40,000 of debt on a doctor's salary should not be too difficult to settle, and that I would be there to support him through it.
When I returned home, sure enough, his brother had moved out. My partner told me that he had sat his brother down and told him the truth. His brother was so angry that he had hurt and manipulated me and dragged me into his gambling problem that he swore to never speak to him again. Sure enough, 8 months later they haven't spoken a word. The alarm clock strategy went well initially, however a few weeks later my partner made excuses like "I don't trust the alarm" or "it is too bright" and eventually, over time, our phones ended up back in the bedroom. He also made excuses for why he couldn't get his salary paid into our newly set up joint bank account, and sure enough it never happened.
Over time I became fearful of discussing financial issues with him because I was afraid of the truth and the impact it would have on our relationship. As a naturally shy, introverted person who avoids confrontation at all costs, it was easier for me just to keep my head down and focus on other areas of our relationship that were thriving. I avoided checking my own bank account out of fear that it would happen again. Every now and then, I couldn't hold it in anymore and I would express my feelings to him about the broken trust between us and how I felt he was not taking any actions to repair it. Each time I did this would take much courage and emotional strength, however he had a range of responses prepared from "I'm so tired and have surgery early in the morning, can we talk about this another time?" to "I don't know how you're ever going to get over these feelings except with time". Somehow it was always avoided or put back on me. Following these conversations, he would "love bomb" me - showering me with love and affection, making me feel once again like I would never want to leave him despite his issues.
This cycle has taken place around five times this year. I feel ashamed and embarrassed looking back on this retrospectively. My love for him and belief in him is so great that I would rather turn a blind eye then step back and force him to face his issues alone. Love truly is blind in my case! Last week while he was at work, I decided to go through all of my bank statements from the year and calculate an exact cost that he owes me. What I discovered was much worse than expected. Overall, throughout the year, I have lent him almost $60,000. He had paid back half, leaving me with a $30,000 debt. This begs the question, how are his debts not completely paid off?
When I confronted him with this question and all of the evidence I collated, he explained to me (however I do not know if this is the truth) that he was actually in around $80,000 of debt as he had other loans to banks and family members which he had not mentioned to me at the beginning of the year when he first confessed. I reacted with confusion, despair and even anger which is unusual for me. The numbers didn't add up! There was no way that he could still be in this type of debt unless he was still borrowing more money to gamble. When confronted with that allegation, he outright denied it. I asked him to prove it to me, through bank statements and his phone. He told me that there was no way he could prove it to me, and that he was really tired and needed to sleep for work the next day.
A few days later I raised these issues again. I explained that I would not sign another lease with him (ours is coming up in the next month) until he came clean about his financial situation, showed me evidence and took actions towards fixing it. He told me that he couldn't do that as he had closed bank accounts and he wouldn't be able to get the statements (which is absolute rubbish). He also told me that if he really focused and worked hard, he could be debt free in two years. This devastated me. Not only was he unwilling to be completely honest and transparent with me, but also it was going to take a long amount of time to even get over this part of the situation. This certainly did not align with my hopes of getting engaged, purchasing a house together or even going on holidays together. My heart was broken. He assured me that it wouldn't effect our lives in a negative way, and that I would hardly even notice it.
What he doesn't understand is that he has taken my power away. By emotionally and financially manipulating me throughout the entirety of our relationship, through lying, misleading and stealing, I am left feeling extremely low. I am clinging onto my love for him and the person I fell in love with, because with that side of him I can have the future that we dreamed of. However, I need to accept the reality of the other side of him who has exploited my trust, generosity and kindness. The prospect of giving up my new job for next year, surrendering the puppy we had arranged to adopt together next year, and giving up a romantic relationship to return to my parent's house in my old town to my old job is very upsetting. In a strange way, it seems easier to go along with this relationship and hope for the best.

“Are you absolutely sure about this, sir?” Aida, the Fluffy Mart attendant, paused for an answer. One click of a button would be all it took to bring an end to this mess.
I looked down at the crate in my hands. A pair of large, light-green orbs peeked from within the shadows. Eyes welled with tears, brought on by fear, shame, regret. My brow furrowed, and I buried my face in my hand.
“You know what? I’m--”
Five years, Three months, and One week ago…
I walked my usual route. A chill wind froze all moisture in my nose. The hairs became stiff, and created an uncomfortable sensation. Like, wanting to sneeze, or an itch that couldn’t be scratched. I inhaled deeply to distract myself from the irritation.
Life felt lonelier now that I was away from home. I’d moved out a half a year back, got a place of my own. Paid for by a job that sucked all the cheer and motivation out of me. I thought becoming independent would be easier than living with mom and dad.
Instead I was in a stranger’s basement, feeling alone and unloved.
Maybe that’s why I found myself drawn to that place, that machine. I stared hard at the refurbished vending machine in front of me. It was neatly placed right outside a local variety shop. The thing dimly glowed with colourful lights. Each button nestled below a thick plastic window.
Inside the machine were dozens of little, fuzzy critters. No bigger than a hamster, with teeny tiny little tubes in their butts. Some slept on a warm pad, others suckled from a rubber nipple. And others peeped and cheeped as they crawled along their tiny compartment.
My eyes settled on one with deep black fluff. The microscopic, equine-like baby was sleeping softly. With every breath his little body inflated. Slowly, he deflated as he exhaled. He looked like a fuzzy black bean.
I chuckled at the thought.
His button read $15 dollars. A bit high for a Foal-In-A-Can, but not out of the ordinary. Black foals were a rare find, and though their kind found them to be repugnant, humans adored their shades. In the wild, they would never live a very good life amongst the herd but they had a natural advantage that their pastel and neon coloured companions lacked. By the virtue of their very fluff, brown, dark and grey foals had an easier time of remaining hidden.
I debated with buying the little guy for a moment. There was no rule against pets set by my landlord. And as far as I could tell, he didn’t detest fluffies. Actually, he had a mated pair of his own. Still, a fluffy, if not properly trained, could be a hassle. If I pressed this button, I was taking a gamble for my future, based on the fluffy’s personality. Could I handle this?
The machine dinged and beeped when I tapped my debit card to the payment module. I reached for, and pressed on the black foal’s button. With nary a sound, the machine transferred the foal to the delivery slot. The Foal didn’t hear, or feel, a thing until I plucked out his can.
He began to squirm as I carried him home. The sudden movement scared him, he began to cheep loudly.
“Hey, now. It’s OK buddy. Daddy’s going to take you home.” Those magic words instantly calmed the foal. Suddenly, the most terrifying moment of his little life- after being delivered to the machine for the first time, had become his happiest.
I set the Foal’s can on the table. My only table. At times the place I ate dinner, other times my work desk. I was careful to draw out the can’s built-in legs. With them in place the Foal’s capsule would not roll away. Instead it remained stationary, effectively transforming the can into a cradle with minimal effort.
I’d been smiling the entire time since returning home. The foal hadn’t cheeped or peeped since the previous incident. Something about bringing him home, and the formative developments to come brought out a side of me I’d never known was there.
The next four days were spent closely monitoring the foal, and ordering all the items and tools we’d need when he was out. I did some research into Fluffy growth and development. Canned Foals were easier to train in comparison to previous generations of fluffies. As his owner, the foal would recognize me as his parent. No competing with Mummahs or siblings.
And without any predisposition to other fluffies, I was effectively his whole world. The only authoritative figure in his life. In any other situation, that would be predatory or even abusive. But in this case it meant that training would be easier.
Introducing him to new stimuli, people, and stressors could be done at my discretion. Maybe it’s because I had such a controlling personality that this felt so easy. I had always been like that. I needed to control everything. Maybe that’s why I was always so lonely. I couldn’t let anyone else take the reins of control.
By the second day, the foal had doubled in size, and by the third, he was about ready to exit his Can. On the fourth day, the long awaited event came. A small, red light on the can flicked to life. The Milk was fully depleted, and the foal was ready for extraction.
I followed the release instructions to the letter, and gently encouraged the foal to slide out of the Can. He wiggled and squirmed as he vacated his home. The Tube in his butt hole naturally slid out, while a small catheter remained attached. A pseudo-umbilical cord.
The Foal crawled into my hand. He let out precious cheeps and peeps, happy to finally feel daddy’s warmth for himself. I sang to him, nuzzled him, and caressed him. All the while my other hand gently massaged the remaining tube out of his penis. He barely felt a thing, just barely.
Caught up in all the excitement, he would have cried if he wasn’t feeling happy to be held by daddy. If only he could know more about his daddy. If only he could see his daddy. And that’s exactly when it happened.
The black foal’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked, blinded by the sudden introduction of light, and colour, and shapes, and blurs. In one magical moment, everything came into being. The miracle blinded him, but only momentarily.
I felt my own heart begin to race, just as the foal’s did. Our heartbeats synchronized, this was the real moment I’d been waiting for. Almost immediately, the foal, who had known only my voice, looked up at my face and imprinted upon me. The vision of his father would be forever recorded into his mind.
“Hey there, little guy. It’s me! I’m your daddy.” The Foal’s green eyes grew wide for the first time. It was expected, Fluffies were made to love humans.
“Daddeh! Babbeh wub daddeh!” The foal squeezed my nearest finger, hugging me with all the love he could give.
We were both so happy in that moment. And in the months, years to come, we’d continue to be happy.
We’d be happy together for 5 years, 2 months, and 3 weeks. Jack, as I would eventually name him, would see me through my happiest, saddest, and darkest moments. With every anniversary, new partner, and countless jobs, Jack would be my rock. My dearest companion, best friend, and treasured confidant. Jack was, and continues to be, the keystone in the foundations of my adult life.
So, last week, when the doctor told us there were unusual growths within his legs, it nearly broke us. Jack had grown tired, unable to stay standing for longer than ten minutes, at most. Which is to say nothing of walking.
My current job required me to be out of the house for most daylight hours. Hours which Jack would spend alone, suffering without complaint. He’d lay next to the litter box, passively watching his favourite TV shows until it was time to poop or pee.
The Kibble bowl and a fluffy-safe water bottle had been uprooted from their place, next to the dining table, to Jack’s new spot. His basic needs were met and accounted for.
In the mornings, I’d place Jack in his “nest” and fill his food & water for the day. I’d feed him a sketti treat as I left for work, and turned the TV on.
When I got home, I would always find Jack resting, eyes puffy from crying. But he’d always tell me he was happy to see me. He’d lie, and say he wasn’t sad. The signs were obvious.
We’d spend the rest of the evening eating dinner together, and then putting a movie on, or reading a story together. Jack loved action movies. He said he liked how the people in them were always running to save the day.
I’d clean out his litter box, always taking time to praise Jack for being such a good boy and brave little fluffy. Finally, we’d go to bed together, sleeping until the alarm rang.
Today was a little different though. Today was a Saturday. No work, no obligations.
I set Jack in his nest, he assumed the usual position, and waved me off.
“I’ll be back soon buddy. I’m going to the store to get you something.”
“Otay Daddeh. Pwease be safe!”
I drove to the local fluffy mart. It had been a long time since I’d been to one. The last time I was here, it was to pick up a special order of Sketti-flavoured kibble. That was almost a year ago now. Jack had begged me for some when he heard about it from my Ex.
He’d always been a good boy, so I made him a deal. If he could find the six things I hid around the apartment, I’d buy him the sketti kibble. It was a long hunt for those things. I can’t even remember what they were now. Painted rocks, maybe?
I do know that it took Jack about three days to find them all. I’d hidden them all over, and in out-of-the-way places. It was a routine of ours, a test to keep his mind sharp. For an Earthy fluffy, Jack had become fairly smart.
He could read a little, at a first grade level. And I’d taught him how to read the clock. It was digital, so that was easy. He even learned the basics of addition and subtraction. Though any numbers bigger than nine always made his brain melt.
Jack was my everything. He was my son. To see him suffer, alone, and in silence, cut deeper than a knife.
I walked with purpose, my eyes scanning the aisle numbers, looking for exactly the right place. Four, Five, Six… All things a fluffy could need or want. Toys, leashes, collars, food, fixtures, etc.
At last, my eyes found the aisle I sought. The In-Store Adoption Centre.
It was a large area, filled with Fluffies in cages and pens. Newborns were kept with their mothers, in special shelves. Seeing Foals and Talky foals were kept in conjoined pens, fed by rubber milking nipples that aligned the walls. Walking foals all played in their own specialized pen. It was larger than the others.
Inside, the parade of technicolor fluffy foals played games like Huggy Tag, or Hide and Hug. Others pushed balls around, and some were stacking blocks. The bad eggs, the bullies and misbehaving foals would be forcibly removed and placed into a sorry box. Said box would be placed on a special “Bad Baby” shelf. Eventually, they’d either behave well enough to be reunited with the others, left up there permanently, or bought by someone who had bigger things in mind for them.
But Mummahs and Foals weren’t what I was looking for. Jack had a special friend once, I’d introduced him to a friend who had a mare that desperately wanted babies. She’d taken to Jack quickly, eagerly courting, and seducing him. Jack, who had seen all the men, women, and other folk I’d brought home had learned a very important lesson from all my mistakes. If someone came on too strongly, they were either desperate, or in desperate need of a visit to a therapist.
It was only after he and I had a long talk about his “special friend” that we all agreed it was safe for him to breed with her. He was actually really mature about it. He knew what he wanted, recognized the warning signs, and expressed his wants and fears to me.
When he learned the full scope of the relationship, to give my friend’s mare some foals, he happily agreed to give her special huggies. They actually sired around three broods in all their time together. Every time it was a transactional exchange. She’d want his babies, He’d impregnate her, and then he’d help her raise them for a while until they were weaned.
After Jack’s last brood, I asked him if he wanted any more kids. He said to me, “Nu, Daddeh, das enuff. Jak nu wan mowe babbehs.”
With that, I explained to Jack the concept of neutering. At first he thought I was punishing him by taking away his “speshul wumps”, but after the fourth time, he began to understand. I wasn’t punishing him. I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t have to suffer after choosing to stop making babies. Without them, he’d still be able to be a regular fluffy, it just meant no more babies. And for me, it meant not having him suffer from possible testicular cancer.
I wandered toward the stallion pens. They were organized by Breeders, and Steers, and further sub-categorized by Fluffy type, colour, and “smarty potential”. The sheer number of unicorns in that last column was staggering. Out of the six “smarties” five were unicorns. The last was a Pegasus.
The one and only Alicorn in the store was in the Breeders pen, and had a price tag to match. He was beautiful. A light blue coat, with a white mane. When I approached, he was as eager to play as the rest of them, but he had this tempered calmness to him. Like he’d learned to hold back, just enough to stand out amongst his peers. If I was looking to breed some fluffies, I would have bought him right then and there.
I settled on another Earthy, like Jack. This one was a steer. Chemically castrated, so that he’d retain his testes, but would never be able to use them. He’d probably been too old to safely neuter before coming here. Maybe he’d been a poor quality breeder, or was a feral taken in and cared for by the store.
“Roger” read his name tag. The stallion wasn’t very impressive in the looks department. A very basic yellow, with jade-coloured eyes. His mane was orange, making him stand out just enough. When I picked him up, he examined my face. It was like being evaluated for a job interview. Cold, distant, and full of judgment. I had half a mind to drop him then and there.
Eventually, a smile grew across Roger’s muzzle.
“Nyu daddeh? Take Wogew tu nyu housie, an gib nummies? An toysies, an wub?” The stallion machine-gunned me with all the usual questions. If I’d ever adopted a fluffy before, maybe I would have developed a sense for this sort of thing. But all I could think about was Jack, and how happy he’d be to have a new friend.
I brought Roger to the checkout register, along with a new bag of kibble. The cashier went through the whole checklist with me. Did I have the right amount of food? And bowls? And Toys, and a safe room, and this and that? Was I ready to take a fluffy at home?
I squinted at her name tag. She was about my height, short dark hair, with tattoos on her arms. One of them looked like a Spider, another had a big heart with the word “Fluffies” in the middle.
“I have it all. Thanks for the help, uhh, Aida.”
The drive home was with filled with scared cries from Roger. He was in a carrier box, probably for the first time in his life. The movement of the car, combined with the unfamiliar sound of the engine spooked him mightily.
“Wogew nu wike sowwy boxie! Nu wike meanie munstah tingy! Daddeh, hewp fwuffy! Wan out.”
I did my best to reassure him, to calm him down. The effort fell on deaf ears. He was scared, and that’s all that mattered. Apparently, he was so scared he shat and pissed in the carrier. I groaned. That was going to take a while to clean up, and the smell would linger in the car if I didn’t perform an adequate job of it.
The eventual arrival home felt like an eternity had passed. I swore it must have taken half the day to get back. In truth, it was only Noon.
Jack nearly leapt out of his nest to greet me, if he could have. Instead he stood on his hooves, and slowly waddled over to me. Each step was carefully taken to minimize pain from the growths.
“Daddeh came back! Su happies. Jak was gud fwuffy, daddeh!”
I knelt down and stroked Jack’s fluff. He nuzzled his head into my hand almost immediately. He let out a satisfied coo when I started to scritch behind his ears.
“I have something for you, Jack. Or, should I say, someone!” I set the crate down next to Jack. I’d taken the time to clean up while I was outside, using some wet-wipes on Roger, and some handy emergency towels to get rid of his mess.
Roger felt the carrier set down on the floor. He could smell his new daddy’s scent all over his new housie. But he also smelled another fluffy! Unfortunately, it didn’t smell like a mare, but another stallion. Well, at least he wouldn’t be too bored.
The gate to the carrier opened, and Roger surged forth, escaping its confines. He took in the sight around him. He was finally in a human housie! It had a couch, where his new daddy would watch TV with him, and a table where his daddy would feed him sketties every day, and even another fluffy for Roger to play with. Except, the fluffy looked older, tired.
“Hewwo, nyu fwend,” Jack waddled over to the young, yellow stallion. “Fwuffy namsie am Jak, wut ‘ou namsies?”
“Fwuffy am Wogew! ‘Ou be nyu fwend? Wan pway? Wets pway!” Almost immediately, Jack’s face lit up. Roger hopped and skipped around him, eager to start playing.
I stood back up and watched the two fluffies take off. Jack moved cautiously, with practised steps. Roger, meanwhile, galloped across the room, and back again in the time it took Jack to catch up.
Jack gave Roger a tour of the apartment. The older fluffy showed Roger where it was safe to play, and which places to avoid. Jack had the wisdom of five years on his side, and an authoritative tone to match. But as Roger took in every word, he began to question Jack.
“Wai nu can go dewe?” Roger pointed to a closet.
“Coz, Daddeh keep shuuz dewe.” Jack replied.
“Wai nu can pway in dewe?” Roger pointed to the washroom this time.
“Baffwoom onwy for baff times, Wogew. Daddeh say nu pway in dere. Onwy when baff time.” Jack stated.
I backed him up every time he answered correctly, and offered an explanation when Jack fell short. Roger began to understand how things worked in this housie.
And he didn’t like it.
Daddeh was daddeh, so he made the rules. But Jack is only a little, itty bitty, teeny tiny, bit older than Roger. He couldn’t know better than him, right? They were both fluffies, and Roger wasn’t going to let another fluffy boss him around. Not anymore, never again.
// AN: This came out a lot longer than intended, so I split it into two chapters. Translating "Roger" into Fluffy Speak was more annoying than expected. To be honest, I'm not fully satisfied with it either.
See you in Part 2!

Surviving a BPD breakup: one dude’s journey
Disclaimer: BPD is a spectrum of traits. Not everyone who holds these traits has BPD. Moreover, everyone’s experience with a pwBPD is different. My ex most likely was what one would call a quiet pwBPD, and what has helped me may not be helpful for you. However, if you find my story is helpful, then awesome. Thank you for reading.
So if your experience is anything like mine, you may find yourself sitting in your car staring out into space dumbfounded after getting an abrupt call from who you thought was your girlfriend. You are shocked because after almost two years she has just broken up with you in the most robotic and unempathetic way possible. You may be feeling empty or devastated or numb. This is totally understandable. What’s hard to understand at this moment is how someone who showered you with so much love could be so cold and cruel to you.
For me, this is where my journey started - sitting in my car staring out into space. Everyone’s experience is different, but I wanted to share the process that I went through to start my recovery. I am by no means through the thicket of a BPD breakup, but I have started to see the light. From one person to another, I want to sincerely say that I’m sorry this is happening to you. You didn’t deserve this, and in time I think you will come to understand it largely had nothing to do with you, your looks, your financial means, your personality, or your job. I now look at this experience like a natural disaster - it just happens. The tornado didn’t hit your house because you were a few pounds overweight - it is so far out of your control it is more akin to an act of god.
Step One: Triage
If you are like me, you had become quite attached to this person. This is by design. What looked like falling in love to you was actually falling for a calculated, constructed persona that mirrored your own. My ex wrote down everything I said on our first date into a notebook. I realized later she used this to construct a persona that I would become hopelessly attached to. Needless to say, it worked. I fell head over heels for this person and thought that I had found my soulmate. I was wrong. I was being idealized and manipulated into attaching to someone who at best has an avoidant attachment style. They put together this persona and play this role, but this is not their true self. They have a cycle of attachment and breakups that will continue throughout their lives until they choose to seek help. Some are aware of their tendencies, and some are strangers to themselves. Either way, the act of creating this persona takes a lot of energy. They have only so much gas in their tank, and once it begins to run low the relationship will hit the rocks.
A person with BPD (pwBPD) sees romantic partners as either all good or all bad. When they decide that you have switched from all good to all bad, this is called splitting. In a moment of clarity, my ex referred to this as “my lens just changed”, like at the eye doctor. In a split second, you move from the soulmate category to the existential threat category in their brain. Even if you get back together with them and move back into an idealization cycle, the clock is ticking on your relationship. You will be devalued and discarded, it is only a matter of time. What will ensue between these moments will most likely be quite an emotional roller coaster.
So when a pwBPD finally discards you, they will treat you like you have zero worth to them (because that’s how they view you). My ex told me that “I believe that every next relationship will be better than this one.” She also said, “I hope one day you and I can both agree that this is the best thing for me.” Ouch. Keep in mind, this is only days after inviting me on a vacation to the beach next summer and sending me romantic good morning text messages. They split because they need you to be out of their lives immediately. They have decided that you are going to abandon them which would destroy them. You are going to knock down their house of cards and you need to disappear post haste. It’s also important to understand that by the time you are finally discarded they are most likely already setting up their next “favorite person”. Online dating is an incredibly fertile hunting ground for pwBPD, and they use it deftly.
So, back to triage. You have just experienced an emotional trauma that can be hard to deal with. I still remember the feeling of sitting in my car staring out the window feeling numb. This is what I call the great “rug pull”. You just found out that your trust, love, and loyalty meant very little to this person, and they will leave you with zero closure. It can feel like a car hitting a wall at 60 miles per hour. With most relationships, you know when things are going badly. To go back to the car analogy, you hear something in the engine that doesn’t sound right or the car breaks down from time to time. When a relationship with a pwBPD goes bad, it goes bad abruptly.
Over the next few weeks, your own brain will be at war with your reality. You will need to find your people and lean on your support system. Family, friends, therapists, and even pets will be crucial for supporting you through these first weeks. Call them up. Talk through your feelings and your confusion. Lean on those people that love you. I had multiple people on both coasts talking to me for the first week at all hours of the day. I can’t thank these people enough now. They were crucial to my recovery. Remember to eat, brush your teeth, and feed the fish. Just being quasi-functional for the first few weeks should be considered a win. Do what you need to do to make it through the first weeks, but there is only one hard and fast rule in this stage: No Contact! Do not initiate any contact whatsoever with your ex. They may reach out to you trying to “be friends” during this stage. Block them if they do. The person who is causing your pain cannot be the source of your comfort. Say that to yourself everyday all day.
Step Two: Acceptance
Your brain has gotten used to being in love or attached to this person. If you have tendencies toward codependency, the feelings you had may have even bordered on an addiction. This is a tough stage to manage. If you are like me, your brain will fight tooth and nail against accepting reality. This is totally understandable as the reality is quite harsh. You were merely an attachment placeholder for this person, and when you had no more use for them you were discarded and replaced immediately. Again, ouch.
The next waypoint on this journey is radical acceptance of the facts. Ironically, the pwBPD will be helping you with your radical acceptance stage with their cruelty, their silence, their heartlessness, or through flaunting their new life on social media. My ex was not overly cruel to me, but it was very important to her that I had all my stuff out of her place and I returned her key to her quickly. Again, you need to cease to exist as fast as possible.
Watch any videos online you need to about radical acceptance. Call up a friend and tell them how unfair all this is. Go out into the woods and yell up into the trees. Write letter after letter to them and burn them (under no circumstances send them). Do whatever you need to do, but you cannot move on to the next step until you can accept these two facts: 1) This person is gone forever, and 2) The person you fell in love with no longer exists. Super harsh, I know, but those are the facts. You will need to find a way to accept them.
Step Three: Agency
Once you begin to accept some of the harsher truths of a breakup with a pwBPD, you are ready to begin to process the trauma through agency. My first act of agency was to begin walking. I processed my feelings through walking around parks and neighborhoods in my town - sometimes up to 20,000 steps a day. Exercise is a great pastime for heartbreak. You get a slight reprieve from your pain, and you get to possibly lose a little weight or feel more in shape. Other really great activities during this stage are journaling, deleting photos, burning any love letters or cards, removing any reminders lying around your house, or blocking the person on social media. If you are having trouble with any of these cathartic “screw them” activities, chances are you are still stuck in step two. If this is you, take a step back, call up some friends, and process the finality of the situation.
Ideally, this agency step has the potential to be a great catalyst for change in your life. However, steer clear of any negative coping strategies like black out drinking, sleeping around, or drugs. It is important to realize that this self-destructive thinking is motivated by the part of you that identified with your ex. If you were in an enmeshed relationship, its very easy for her harsh judgement of you to become your own harsh judgement of yourself. You need to reject this concept. Her actions towards you were aggressive and primitive. You are under attack, and you were abused. Begin to fight back. Fight like hell. The way you do this is through positive agency. Get on a bike and ride. Volunteer at a women’s shelter. Bake a billion cookies and give them out for free. Knit scarves for every homeless vet in your town. I know the pain you feel, and I know how it can twist your thinking. Positive outlets are your way through this dark moment in your life. Cherish them.
Step Four: Education
This stage can be concurrent with any of the stages listed above, but it is no less important. In fact, learning about Borderline Personality Disorder and the many ways it can manifest is essential for your healing. The BPDlovedones subreddit and the Nicola Method website were indispensable for my education about the disorder. I had no idea what BPD even was until I googled “Why does it feel like my ex died”. The next few hours were consumed with a crash course in Cluster B Personality Disorders. I was shocked that each new website was able to describe my relationship and my breakup so accurately. It amazed me to learn that many pwBPD use similar language during splitting and breakups. They talk excessively and have mothers with psychosis. I was dumbfounded to realize that my experience was in no way unique, and that many other people have been fooled and manipulated by pwBPD.
Read it all, and read everything you can. However, there is one big caveat here: find your stopping point. I realized my stopping point was when the heaviness of the situation started affecting my sleep. I had trouble letting it all go in my mind. I felt a strong feeling of compassion for my ex and the harsh emotional world she endures day in and day out. She was abandoned and abused as a child. These feelings for someone who had treated me so harshly were confusing, and I started to feel myself slipping back into the triage phase. So, I just stopped. I closed all the tabs. I stopped reading about other people’s experiences. I had learned all I needed to know and I was ready to move on.
It is important to say that during this education phase you may feel the great White Knight rising up in you. You may feel the great tidal pull towards helping this person who suffers so greatly. Do not fall prey to this thinking. I don’t want to speak for all people with BPD, but I spoke with a psychologist about the tendencies of pwBPD. They rarely seek treatment on their own. They most likely know their interpersonal relationships are messed up. You are not the first person that she will do this to, and you won’t be the last. pwBPD like many people with major problems in their lives (addiction, gambling, etc) don’t seek help until they hit rock bottom. As long as there is a steady supply of people out there willing to enter into this dysfunctional dance with them, they will most likely not seek treatment. It takes the PROLONGED dedication and sacrifice of a parent, a spouse, or a child to get someone into treatment. Unless you are one of the aforementioned, the purpose of educating yourself is to free you from their blame and to walk away with your head held high. Read that last sentence again (or as many times as you need).
Step Five: Introspection
Once you have learned all you care to know about pwBPD, it is time to look inward for answers as well. If your relationship was intense and you had difficulty setting boundaries with or disentangling from the pwBPD, you may have codependent tendencies. This was another harsh reality that I had to accept about myself. I had my own unresolved childhood trauma that made me lose myself and become enmeshed in relationships. This can be problematic in any relationship, but with a pwBPD codependency can cause a tragic whirlpool of events that leaves the codependent heartbroken, confused, and rejected at the end.
Once this realization bubbled to the surface for me, I began to focus my agency on the task of healing some of these wounds and restoring self-love into my life. I created a self-love walking group, read some great posts on reddit, and watched some great videos about codependency. I will post some of what I found in the resources list below. Working with a therapist, I set up appointments to practice EMDR therapy to tackle early childhood trauma. I made therapy goals and a healing road map. I doubled my efforts and redoubled them again.
While all this agency seemed really great at the time, I had another realization that stopped me in my tracks yet again one day. My investigation of codependence was bordering on obsession. I was really motivated to change, but I felt I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was still feeling the blame and judgement from my ex and accepting their shame as my own shame. I was not being compassionate to my pain; I was being judgmental and harsh towards myself. This realization led me to search for how to finally end the enmeshment and exit this trance of unworthiness.
Step Six: Individuation
One book recommended to me by a friend was the book Inner Engineering by Sadhguru. While I was a bit skeptical going into the book, some of the quotes early in the book kept me reading. I liked the idea that “The only way out is by going in.” I liked the focus on meditation and accessing the joy inherent in the present moment.
While the first chapters are more autobiographical, there is a section in the introduction where Sadhguru explains the essence of his philosophy. For me, this was the game changer. His philosophy all boils down to this one phrase: “I am responsible.” Just reading these words already had an affect on my outlook. He continues, “My responsibility is limitless. If I am willing I can respond to everything. I am 100% responsible for everything I am and everything I am not. For my capacities and my incapacities, for my joys and my miseries. I am the one who determines the nature of my experience in this life and beyond. I am the maker of my life.” Sadhguru is using the word responsible to mean response-able here. What he is saying is that if you are able to look inside yourself, you have limitless power to respond to anything. He is also using the other meaning of responsible here too. You and you alone are responsible for your life.
I began saying this phrase to myself over and over again. I thought it to myself as I lay down to go to sleep and when I woke up in the morning. I did some mindfulness meditation and processed this idea, “I am the one who determines the nature of my experience. I am the maker of my life.” Through this process I realized that the person who had both lifted me up and then dropped me so abruptly no longer had any power in my mind. I have the power to control my thoughts and respond to life events.
Another way that I heard it put is that, “Between stimulus and response is space. In this space is your power.” I began to take control of that space and to tend to my own mind like someone might tend to a garden - pruning and weeding as necessary. If I feel self-damaging thoughts rising, I remember that I am responsible for those thoughts, and I have a choice to think differently. In my journal I began to keep track of this positive thinking. I wrote down achievements and goals, and I began noticing with fresh eyes the wonderful aspects to my self.
The goal during this phase is to shift something called "internal locus of control." Your internal locus of control is your inner philosophy about your interactions with the world. This locus is largely formed in childhood and adverse experiences can cause a child to hold an external locus of control. This is the belief that your life is governed by external forces: luck, fate, circumstance, other people. This can cause many problems, but for me it caused an overdependence on other people for happiness and fulfillment. In relationships, this can cause a codependency and neediness that can be toxic.
What I have found is that shifting your perspective to an internal locus of control takes a dedication not only to controlling the present, but also to revisiting the past traumas that keep you stuck. In therapy, I have learned that these traumas are caused by a lack of agency when they happen. One of my experiences was that I was relentlessly bullied by much older boys when I was younger. In the moment, I responded not by fighting back, but freezing. My fight or flight response in that moment lacked agency and as a result, I developed a more external locus of control. I believed that my life (trauma, success, emotions, etc) happens to me, and that I had limited control over that.
By practicing some inner child meditation and visualizations, I was able to revisit these moments and regain that lost agency. For instance, I revisited one particularly terrifying moment and comforted and coached myself through saying no and setting boundaries with the bullies. This was really helpful in rebalancing my locus of control and taking ownership of my thoughts, my actions, and my goals. This was an intensely liberating realization overall, and I found my recovery from depression, anxiety, and heartbreak began to happen once I began the process of unlocking agency in my past.
Step Seven: Goal-Oriented Therapy
At this point in your recovery you may be feeling stronger and more confident. You may think about your ex only rarely and the No Contact has helped give you the space to heal. One activity that helped me to continue the process of moving forward was goal setting. For someone who had codependency and locus of control issues, goals can be fluid when they should be absolute. If my girlfriend needed to complete x on a given day while I had to complete y, more often than not I would abandon my goal and focus on hers. This is a clear symptom of a codependent relationship and ultimately very unhealthy.
The antidote to this is to begin the process of setting and achieving your own goals. Starting small is a good idea. Write down three goals for a Saturday in your journal and complete them. Set a weekly goal or a monthly goal. As you begin to be more reliable about meeting your goals, more seem to appear out of the woodwork. Maybe new hobbies or friendships appear. Maybe you start to set financial goals and meet them. Maybe your goals become longer term goals. No matter what the goal, the important thing for this stage is this: show up for yourself. You again are limitlessly responsible, and you alone are the maker of your life. Show Up For Yourself. You are worthy of love, and if you don't show up for yourself then no one else will.
Step Eight: Boundaries and Values
After working on being more goal oriented, I began to consider another relationship again. It was pretty evident to me, however, that I should probably only enter into a relationship when I was again stable and recovered from my breakup. I began to think about what I would need to feel that I was out of the woods (or at least well on my way).
My first need was to identify and name my personal values. I realized that these values are the unshakeable foundation of my personality, and they should not be subject to outside forces. When you are codependent and dating someone who has a constantly changing sense of self, you can sometimes unconsciously mirror their tendencies. I found I was unmoored from my own values in this relationship and really lost my sense of self. So, cementing those values was a really important step towards healing. You have to honor what makes you you.
Some of the areas where I defined one or more values were family, my children, friends, my character, work, health, food, alone time, wants, preferences, needs etc. This process is an important one and should take some time. Be very deliberate about each area of your life. I found that taking a day or two to think about each one yielded the best responses.
Secondly, I used these values to generate a list of unshakeable boundaries that I will have moving forwards. For each value, I identified the boundaries I would need to maintain this value while being in a relationship with another person. To give you an example, one value I have is that time with my friends from high school is sacred to me. I set a goal of seeing them at a minimum twice a month - no matter what my relationship status might be. After it was all said and done, I had around forty boundaries that will serve as my terms and conditions for any relationship moving forward. While defining these boundaries was a good first step, boundaries are useless without accountability. This led me to the final step of my process.
Step Nine: Accountability
Boundaries and goal setting are great ways to practice an internal locus of control, but these will only work if you honor them. I see my therapist around once a month. I decided to make the beginning of every session about accountability. Each month I plan to fill out a relationship health worksheet and share that with my therapist. I also will share the progress I've made on my goals in the past month. The aim here is not to have someone else babysit your progress, but to be accountable to yourself. Again, the best thing you can do is to Show Up for Yourself!
So, this is where you’ll find me present day. I am still rebuilding after what felt like a relationship hurricane, but the good news is that you have an opportunity to rebuild your house to be stronger and more resilient than before. You’ll also have a good eye for spotting Cluster B narcissists and pwBPD by their tendencies towards idealization and manipulation.
Resources
The Nicola Method Inner Engineering Hardwiring Happiness Waking up from the trance of unworthiness - Tara Brach The Body Keeps the Score Future Self Journaling
Edit: Added more resources

On this day (November 22) in Nintendo history...

• Fusajiro Yamauchi was born in 1859. A Japanese entrepreneur who founded the company that is now known as Nintendo. Yamauchi lived in Kyoto, Japan and had a wife and a daughter, Tei Yamauchi (who later married future Nintendo president and Fusajiro Yamauchi's successor, Sekiryo Kaneda). On November 6, 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi opened the first "Hanafuda" (flower cards) card shop called "Nintendo Koppai" during a time when the Japanese government was banning playing cards from the hands of the public, due to them being tied to gambling, with the exception of Yamauchi's playing cards. With the huge success he had in selling these cards, he rapidly began expanding and opened another card shop in Osaka. He later went on to create more cards. Fusajiro departed from the company in 1929, leaving his son-in-law Sekiryo Kaneda (whose name had changed to Sekiryo Yamauchi) in charge of the company. In the next eleven years Fusajiro remained out of the business until he had a stroke, which led to his death on January 1, 1940.
  
• Popeye no Eigo Asobi was released in 1983 for the Family Computer in Japan. In this edutainment/arcade game, developed by Nintendo, Word Puzzle is a version of the classic word game Hangman, where you have to guess the word in the category by choosing letters with a limited number of attempts. In Word Puzzle A, you receive a clue in Japanese while World Puzzle B offers no clues other than the category.
  
• Clu Clu Land was released in 1984 for the Family Computer in Japan. In this puzzle game, developed by Nintendo, take a deep breath, and venture through the mazes of the underwater kingdom of Clu Clu Land! The greedy Sea Urchins have stolen all of Clu Clu Land's gold bars and buried them in a series of maze. As Bubbles, a brave bubble fish, you'll have to set out to uncover all of the gold bars in each maze.
  
• Mickey's Racing Adventure was released in 1999 for the Game Boy Color in North America. In this racing/adventure game, developed by Rare, this jam-packed Pak brilliantly blends Rare's world-renowned gameplay with Disney's most beloved characters. Micky, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto put the pedal to the metal through five sprawling stages packed with 20 tracks and loads of puzzles.
  

What are you favourite memories of these games? How do you think they hold up today? Hash it out in the comments.
(I am a bot. I think that I'm posting Nintendo events from this day in history, but if I've made a mistake or omission please leave a comment tagging KetchupTheDuck).

Right after Winners at War, we are kicking off the endgame with our last newbie season, which takes place in Greece, just like the first season. 18 new castaways will face off, and there will be a returning twist, the Edge of Extinction, but this time, there will be no returnees. It will be just 18 castaways forced to battle the elements and each other, with minimal twists other than the EOE, and the fire making challenge. Without further ado, we will see who will be competing on this season!
Fotia (Greek for Fire) Tribe:
Ava Vasquez, 59, Kindergarten Teacher, u/TDSwaggyBoy
Mother of two, grandmother of seven, Ava is a very kind individual. She made it her goal to help her children in any way, shape or form she could, wanting to give those she loves the best life possible. Even to the point of prioritizing their well being over her own. She always wanted to make a difference, and eventually became a kindergarten teacher in order to help make the years of said toddlers the best she could. Ava still remembers her kindergarten teacher, a kind and warm individual, and she hopes to be seen the same way as her.
Darleen Rojas, 38, Retail Manager, u/Ripecornball60
Darleen was the popular girl in school when she was young. She was a pageant queen, and planned to be a model when she was older. She got through the rigorous casting process to become a model, but sadly fell short at the final call, where she found out she had breast cancer. Going through Chemotherapy was a life changing experience. She lost her hair, her passion, and her job opportunity. She worked at a Retail store for 3 years, until she had a flirt with the manager. He promised her the store in exchange for her "assets". She accepted the offer, and Darleen became the store manager. The previous manager and her dated for 3 more months, until the worst happened. She found him cheating on her. This caused her to break up with him, and kick him out of working for her. Trying to fill his hole in her heart, Darleen used an abandoned break room in her store, and transformed it into a nightclub club she calls the "Hidey Hole". There, she has 1 night stands with women and men alike. She is out here due to one of her "clients" saying someone as manipulative as her could win.
Ellie Ruchkin, 24, Bowling Alley Worker, u/Jckboy100
Ellie is a super nice girl, to almost everyone... however, if you do anything to cross her, she won't forget it. Growing up as an only child made her learn how to entertain herself, and learn how to take care of herself when her parents weren't around. She wants to play this game to see if she has what it takes to win the title and check that comes along with it.
Erik LeFort, 34, Writer, u/Gemini_B
Erik grew up in a typical family. At a fairly young age he realized he was gay, but was luck that his family supported him. That, alongside with supportive friends helping him overcome the few bullies he faced, he wants to be a beacon of hope for gay people everywhere and want's to show what a loving family can do. Despite his want to help others though, he's not afraid to play dirty if it get's him further in the game.
Ethan "EJ" James, 20, College Student, u/JTsidol
Ethan was always struggling In life, that never allowed him to do anything, his dad was extremely angry at him, after his mother died at birth, blaming the death on him, when he was 7 he began abusing him, until at 17 he ran away, now he‘s studying hard to finish college, and he hopes he can get the money to help him study and have a better life.
Kim Juri, 35, Poker Dealer, u/Gemini_B
Kim Juri grew up with a fairly poor family and at a young age secretly turned to gambling to support her family. She got very good and became a poker dealer at a casino. She wants to destroy this game because she knows how to lie, cheat and play dirty. She's here to win, and nothing will stop her.
Krista Ayers, 34, Unemployed, u/breadon17
Krista is a single mom of four, so life isn't very easy for her. She can't find a job and she has an abusive boyfriend who is trying to take everything she knows and loves. She applied for Survivor so that she could get the money she needs to survive and feed her kids.
Kyle Simmonds, 26, Poker Player, u/asiansurvivorfan
Kyle was raised in a very divided home with his parents constantly fighting, and his Dad being an alcoholic. This caused him to start taking part in things he shouldn’t be taking part in like gangs, drug, theft, etc. When he was 20, everything changed for him when his friend signed him up for a local poker tournament. He was reluctant at first, but decided to give it a shot. He surprised everyone including himself at that tournament, as he completely dominated and won. This really gave him the boost he needed in life as he proceeded to continue his success by winning more tournaments and at a higher level too. He plans on handling the game like a poker match and wants to bring all his cards to the table.
Vaso Dragovic, 45, Journalist/Former Yugoslav Soldier, u/Twig7665
Vaso was born in Serbia, which was in the once prosperous country of Yugoslavia in the mid 1970s. He lived a normal life up until his teen years, where he watched the country he once knew as a dream turn into a nightmare. The country became a war-torn hellscape, and he was forced to join the military at the young age of 16. He witnessed countless atrocities, and to escape the war, he had to smuggle himself onto a boat bound for the United States in 1996. With no food, no money, and no shelter, he joined a gang to get himself what he needed to survive. After over a year of selling drugs and being in a gang, he left it and went to go live in a rehab facility until he was was 29, in 2004. He then began work to try and fit back into society. He now works as a journalist for a news company. He signed up for the show to see if he has the skills to win it.
Pouli (Greek for Bird) Tribe:
Alfred "Void" Vallentino, 28, Magician, u/swoldow
Alfred grew up on the streets of Las Vegas in poverty, with both of his parents as struggling actors. To make a few extra dimes, he started to teach himself basic magic to perform on the streets and sometimes skipped school to make more money. He was extremely bullied at school for his passion and lack of money, which led him to be socially isolated from everyone else. He grew more attached to his magic, as he kept working harder and harder until a famous magician with a Vegas show caught wind of his act, and let Alfred open for him. Since then, Alfred has rose to the top of the food chain, and began to experiment with his suspenseful acts to make the audience feel all sorts of emotion.
Katrina MacQuoid, 58, Prosthodontist, u/Gemini_B
Katrina’s parents we’re performers in Kentucky. They lived and breathed theater and expected their daughter to be the same. Though Katrina loved being the center of attention, and still does, she never loved the stage the way her parents did. Her parents wanted her to continue to pursue something arts related, and she became an advertising adjective, but never felt satisfied. When she learned that Kentucky was looking for jobs in the dental field, she felt it would be a perfect field to enter. She always found teeth interesting, I mean, are they bones? But they fall out? So weird. She returned to school at age 35 and became a Prosthodontist at age 43. She’s worked as a Prosthodontist since then and (While not at the level of Peter) has a firm understanding of the most important hole in the human body, the mouth. While she’s liked by many people because of her fun personality, she has trouble forming 1 on 1 bonds and has never found the special one. As a child she often got in trouble for anger issues with her parents, so she began to hold in her anger and let it out in huge, uncontrollable fits when her parents weren't around. This holding in of anger until she can’t contain it is a habit she continues to have, blaming her rages on “Hurricane Katrina” as a sort of justification of her actions. She’s never left Kentucky and while she’s very book smart, she can often be very ignorant on other subjects.
Lila Herring, 21, Secretary, u/AngolanDesert
Lila is a very competitive spirit. She always wants to challenge herself and see how far can she can make it. When she saw that survivor auditions were going out, she knew she could win and provide for her poor family.
Lukas Reed, 24, College Student, u/Jck100
Lukas Reed is a shy, humble young man. Coming from a devastating childhood with the loss of his young sister, him and his dad suffered hard. This shaped him into the man he is today, coasting through college, now he wanted something to step out of his comfort zone and try out this highly social game, and see how he can do.
Luther Dane, 32, Fisherman, u/Twig7665
No one knows much about Luther, due to his tendency to keep everything he knows a secret, and it causes people to see him as a strange loner, a title he does not mind. He was in a car accident in his teen years that killed everyone in the car but him, and he began to think of himself as an untouchable person, someone who could survive almost anything. This caused him to grow reckless when he's not fishing, and made several poor choices in his twenties, including messing with police, which caused him to be sent to jail for several months for interfering with a cop's duty. Now out of prison, he continues to be reckless, but stayed away from police this time. Will his reckless personality help or hinder his journey on Survivor? Only time will tell.
Madyson "Maddie" Anderson, 25, Nurse, u/JTsidol
She’s lived a normal life, she wants some fun, she’s single, hoping that she can get a showmance to lower her target, then strike at the right time.
Marshall Keaton, 28, Marine Biologist, u/TDSwaggyBoy
Marshall was born to a loving family of five, being the oldest of three kids. His father, Dominic, always expected Marshall to follow in the family's footsteps and become a lawyer, just like his old pops. At a young age, Marshall never seemed to agree with his father's plan - being a lawyer is so boring, bro! He went through the entire process, getting accepted to law school, only to then drop out.
Marshall and his father got into a massive argument about it, and Marshall ended up leaving his home afterwards. They are still not on speaking terms.
Marshall then studied to become a marine biologist, as he always found sea creatures to be fascinating.
Now with a girlfriend of 2 years, Marshall hopes to win the money for the both of them. He's got this, yo!
Nolan "NK" Kristoffson, 19, Drummer, u/Twig7665
Nolan was born the younger of twins to a large, fairly poor farming family. He was the youngest, and he resented most of his family. He saw his twin Matt as the antithesis of himself, and while he was able to go to college because of a football scholarship, Nolan had to drop out and help out at the farm. He finally had enough at the age of 18, and told his parents about him wanting to become a drummer, and his parents kicked him out, so he lived at his friend's house for the past year. They were able to get him a drumkit, and they formed a garage band. Inspired by his hard life being constantly outshined by his brother, he wrote angry, edgy lyrics, and they started performing gigs. He shortened his name to just his initials, and now drums for a living. He is playing King's Survivor to finally outshine his perfect twin brother.
Ximena Verez, 22, Fencer, u/asiansurvivorfan
Ximena grew up poor and therefore had to start earning money at an early age by delivering stock. On one of her trips, she was kidnapped and abducted by a group of men that worked for a wanted druglord and rapist. She along with her 3 fellow captives were beaten, abused, and raped for 4 years missing and undetected. After years of mistreatment, Ximena and the other captives were finally found and released. Although it was reliving to be free again, she was deeply traumatized by everything her captor did to her and had an extremely tough time trying to adapt to the real world again. She decided to seek help and was sent to a rehab facility where she got help relieve her trauma. One of the things she picked up was the martial arts which eventually developed into an interest in fencing. Despite it being a male dominated sport, Ximena was adamant on showing young girls they can accomplish anything no matter the hardships they’ve gone through. After her time in rehab, she managed to recover and now spends her time competing in championships all around the world. She came to be a voice for domestic abuse victims.
Link to Season
Episode 1: The eighteen new contestants are shipped into Greece, where they learn of the return of the Edge of Extinction, from the season of the same name. They are then split into their two tribes: the green Fotia tribe, which means "Fire" in Greek, and the orange Pouli tribe, which means "Bird". Ava, Darleen, Ellie, Erik, EJ, Kim, Krista, Kyle, and Vaso draw green buffs, and Void, Katrina, Lila, Lukas, Luther, Maddie, Marshall, NK, and Ximena's buffs are orange. They are then instructed to get as much stuff off the boat as they can, and Krista finds the advantage menu, which can give the user either a reward steal, an extra vote, or an idol. At Fotia, EJ tries to be a mafioso, so he bonds with Ava, and forms an alliance with Darleen and Kim. At Pouli, NK and Void bond very well over being outcasts, and they pull in Lila, Luther, Maddie, Marshall, and Ximena to form "The Outcast Alliance". The Fotia tribe wins the first immunity challenge of the season, forcing the Pouli tribe to vote someone off. Wanting to cut off the weak links as quickly as possible, NK suggests to get rid of Katrina, but Ximena gets the idea to split the votes in case one of them had the idol, and Void individually talks to both Katrina and Lukas to get them to vote each other, and also try to get one of them to play their idol, but neither of them have the idol, so at tribal council, Katrina becomes the first person sent to the Edge in a 5-4 vote.
Episode 2: Lukas tries to figure out who voted for him, so he tries to ask around his tribe, but does not get an answer and likely only angers his tribe. Void finds the hidden immunity idol so Lukas wouldn't, and he shows it to Maddie to make sure she's loyal to him. At Fotia, Ava and Ellie get into a bit of an argument, and EJ tries to get Ellie onto his side by talking to her. Vaso tries doing the same thing with Ava. Ava and Darleen form an alliance, as Darleen wanted to get her own numbers so she could topple EJ sooner rather than later. Once again, the Fotia tribe wins immunity, and the whole Pouli tribe is ready to vote out Lukas, since he's the only outsider and he has already proven himself to want to play way too hard, so Lukas is voted out 7-1.
Episode 3: After Lukas' vote out, the Outcasts must turn on one another, and the lowest in the pecking order was Maddie. At Fotia, people start to see Krista as an easy target, so both Erik and Ellie form fake alliances with her. Kim also leaves her alliance with Darleen and EJ after having a fight with the latter. Vaso, not trusting anyone, looks for and finds the idol. Pouli wins their first challenge of the season, winning the reward, but their winning streak is cut short before it even began, as the Fotia tribe wins immunity for the third time in a row. Maddie tries to manipulate Marshall into flipping from his side, to hopefully bring a few others with him, but Marshall stays loyal to the majority. Maddie becomes the third person voted out in a 6-1 vote, getting sent to the Edge.
Episode 4: When the tribes meet up again, a tribe swap is announced, and the purple Telikos tribe, which means "final" in Greek, is introduced. The Fotia tribe consists of four former Fotias- Ava, Ellie, Erik, and Kyle, and one Pouli- Marshall. On Pouli is three Fotias- EJ, Krista, and Vaso, and two Poulis- Lila and Luther. Finally, on Telikos is two Fotias- Darleen and Kim, and three Poulis- Void, NK, and Ximena. At Fotia, both Ellie and Kyle bond, and the two of them decide to form an alliance and pull in Erik. At Pouli, Krista makes it clear to Lila that she's going to flip, given how EJ had been controlling the Fotia tribe since the start of the game. This causes Lila to see Krista as a bit of a loose cannon, so she keeps an eye on her. At Telikos, Darleen finds the idol, and she keeps down about it, knowing that she's in the minority. NK impresses his team with his leadership, and he also bonds with Ximena. Pouli loses the immunity challenge again, which lowers morale significantly for them. When they get back to camp, Vaso decides on a whim to flip from his old alliance, seeing as he's not gonna vote in the majority if he doesn't. The new target is the mafioso himself, EJ. He tries talking to each of the tribe members individually to try and get them to vote Lila out, who has kind of became the punching bag of the season, but it doesn't succeed, and EJ becomes the fourth person voted out in a 4-1 vote.
Episode 5: Knowing that they are unified, the Pouli tribe are at peace-for now. At the Edge, Lukas finds a way to practice for the Edge challenge, which he finds very useful. Maddie also finds an extra vote that she could give to someone, but they won't be able to use it because reasons. At Telikos, Void and Kim bond over being from Vegas, and a new alliance is formed, with Darleen and Ximena, leaving NK on the outs of the tribe. At Fotia, Erik and Kyle bond strongly, and Ellie tries to get Marshall on her side to take out Ava if they were to lose, since she was the weakest in the tribe. Pouli loses the reward challenge, but Fotia loses the immunity challenge for the first time in the season. Marshall becomes torn between going with the majority and putting himself on the bottom or voting against the majority and still being on the bottom. Ultimately, he decides to go with the majority, thinking Ava didn't have the idol, which is true, she didn't. She becomes the fifth person voted out in a 4-1 vote. Back at camp, Ellie and Erik solidify their alliance by forming a final two deal. They think that since the last season they saw before they left was Blood Vs Water 3, which had a final two. On the Edge, Katrina finds an advantage to penalize who she thinks has the best chance at returning to the game. At Pouli, Vaso and Krista decide they need to stick together because they two Poulis were gonna get them one after the other if they didn't stick together. Lila becomes seen as an even bigger threat than she used to be, and Krista and Vaso try to pull Luther aside to try to convince him to flip on his alliance. He refuses to in secret. Fotia continues their losing streak by losing the reward challenge, but since the host announced that two tribes will be going to tribal council in a joint tribal council, Fotia fights tooth and nail to win the challenge, and they are able to succeed. The whole Telikos tribe decides that Krista is too much of a loose cannon to make it to the merge. Vaso and Krista target Lila, and Luther and Lila target Krista for being weaker than Vaso, as they don't know when the merge will occur. At tribal council, Krista is blindsided 7-2 and is sent to the edge.
Episode 6: The merge is announced. The 12 remaining contestants watch the first six castaways to be voted out compete in a challenge to return to the game, which Maddie wins despite being penalized by Katrina. Krista then raises her flag to leave the game, leaving the game first. The people who formed the Thymamai tribe, which means "remember" in Greek, are Void, Darleen, Ellie, Erik, Kim, Kyle, Lila, Luther, Maddie, Marshall, NK, Vaso, and Ximena. Luther decides to go rogue from his six person alliance, leaving them in a severe minority. Maddie tries to get a good relationship with Marshall again, and it works, but it causes most of the tribe to turn on her again. Lila finds the merge tribe idol, and like many before her, she keeps quiet because she does not want to attract more attention. Erik wins the immunity challenge, and when talking to others about the vote, he finds most people are content with just sending Maddie right back to the Edge. Maddie tries to target Kim, but does not succeed as she is voted out 12-1 and is sent back to the Edge.
Episode 7: After Maddie's blindside, cracks begin to form in the final twelve. While Erik tries to remain humble after his immunity win, which he succeeds in doing, soon people start to throw out names like there's no tomorrow. NK throws out Kim's name, Ximena throws out Kyle's, Darleen does the same with NK, and Kyle throws Marshall under the bus. At the first post-merge reward challenge of the season, a group of Void, Erik, Kim, Luther, Marshall, and Ximena win, and they get Chinese takeout. Darleen wins immunity, saving her from going to the edge for one more vote. The two biggest threats at the moment for the people still in the game were Kim and Kyle, because most people believed there was some sort of poker alliance going on between the two. As it turns out, there was a sort of alliance going on there, so the ten people who weren't in it decided to split the votes between Kyle and Kim, with seven votes on Kyle, who was much more physically strong than Kim, and three votes on Kim. Kim figures out this plan, and tells Kyle to play his idol if he has one, which he does not. Kyle votes for Marshall, and Kim votes for NK, leading to Kyle getting voted out 7-3-1-1. He chooses to stick around at the Edge.
Episode 8:Erik and Ellie get into a fight for whatever reason, and their alliance becomes no more. Ximena and Vaso both decide to help out with the tribe, causing their standing within the tribe to get better. Darleen tries making her relationship closer with Luther, wanting to have a good social game so she doesn't end up as a goat. Erik wins immunity for a second time, cementing his status as a challenge threat (which is really odd, since his challenge stats are on the lower side). People finally begin to catch on to how physically strong Vaso is, so a group of four, led by Void, consisting of him, Darleen, Kim, and Ximena, while another group of four, Vaso, Erik, Ellie, and Luther, vote for Lila, seeing her as an easy target. The rest, deciding that Kim would be better off on the Edge, vote for her. Both Vaso and Lila play their idols, and Kim is the ninth person sent packing in a 3-0-0 vote.
Episode 9: After Kim's vote out, Void, Ximena, and Darleen strengthen their trio to try and have a better shot at making it to the end. Void and Darleen also form a new alliance with Ellie, Erik, and Luther to give themselves the majority of the tribe. Marshall and NK start to form a bromance, and Darleen wins immunity again. Erik and his alliance plot to get rid of Lila, due to her status as an all-around threat and the fact that she could easily win with her story in the game. Void also tries unsuccessfully to get Vaso on board, he instead gets into a fight with Ximena and really hurts his standing in the tribe, causing him to gain enemies in Ximena, Lila, Marshall, and NK. He is saved when the majority, thinking that Lila happened to be the bigger threat, vote her out instead in a 5-4-1 vote. Back at camp, Darleen bonds with Ximena, and it causes Ximena to make the reckless decision to flip from her alliance and try to join Void and Darleen's. Still, she had a dislike for Luther that she could not shake. When Vaso wins immunity, she becomes the main target. Still not giving up, she talks to her rival Vaso to try and get him to help her vote out Marshall, which he agrees to do. Still, it is not enough, and Ximena becomes the eleventh person voted out in a 7-2 vote.
Episode 10: After Ximena's vote out, only eight remain in the game. They compete in a reward challenge, which Void, Darleen, Erik, and NK win. Seeing as Vaso and Marshall were more physically threatening than NK was, despite NK winning a reward challenge. After Erik wins immunity for the third time, he tries to get everyone to vote Marshall out. When Luther later bonds with Marshall, he feels remorse for doing so, but knows it must be done. Void is not told about the plan to blindside Marshall, and he thinks that Vaso is the person being voted out, as does NK. Nk also finds the idol. At tribal council, Marshall is voted out in a 5-3 vote, and for the first time in the season, Void was on the wrong side of the vote.
Episode 11: Luther shows everyone he can win challenges and wins the reward challenge. Then, Luther brings along Void and Darleen as to show that he is playing a loyal game and he can be trusted. When they get back, Luther does some damage control with Erik for not picking him, and they get back on good terms, and also have a stronger bond than before. Vaso tries to get people on his side to blindside someone that he didn't like, so he talks to NK first, and when it didn't work, he starts targeting him, but also talks to Erik. This conversation goes down a lot better, and it helps him convince Erik to go after NK. Erik then talks to Luther and Darleen about the plan to similar success. Void, Ellie, and NK himself decide that Vaso needs to go, and NK reveals to Void his idol. Erik wins immunity for the fourth time. At tribal council, NK plays his idol, and Vaso is sent to the Edge in a 3-0 vote.
Episode 12: After Vaso arrives at the Edge of Extinction, they receive letters they wrote to themselves before the game. Back in the actual game, NK wins a reward challenge, and he chooses too bring along Void and Erik, to try and get some allies, since he was almost voted out at the last tribal council. Unfortunately, only Void is willing to help NK, as Erik was closer to Ellie and Darleen. The Ellie/NK alliance dissolves after NK gets into an argument with her, and he loses another ally. Things get dire when he loses the immunity challenge to Void, leaving his only option, to find an idol. He does not find one, and he knows that he's most likely going at that point. NK tries to vote for Darleen, and Void throws a vote onto Ellie due to being too close to Darleen. In the end, NK becomes the final person sent to the Edge of Extinction in a 4-1-1 vote.
Finale: Void, Darleen, Ellie, Erik, and Luther await the return of the player from the Edge. Lila wins, and she becomes a target the instant she arrives back into the game. Luckily for her, she wins immunity, and she shares the reward with Void and Erik, intending to do what NK did in the previous episode. This time, it succeeds, and she gets both Void and Erik on her side. Luther joins their side as well. Darleen and Ellie vote for Void and Luther, respectively. The other people still in the game voted for Ellie, but Darleen plays her idol for Ellie, and a tie between Void and Luther occurs. Erik decides Void is the bigger target of the two, while Lila votes for Luther. It results in another tie, causing Darleen and Erik to draw rocks, and ultimately, Darleen becomes the twelfth member of the jury. After Darleen's shocking rock draw, the four of Void, Ellie, Erik, and Luther decide to stick together to take out Lila if she loses immunity, which she does, to Void. At tribal council, not wanting anyone to flip on his closest ally in Erik, Void plays his idol for him, causing no votes to be negated, and for Lila to be voted out in a 4-1 vote over Ellie. In the final immunity challenge, Erik makes a desperate deal to Void to take him to the final two, trying to downplay his great all-around gameplay as similar to Bao's from Cook Islands- someone who has a great physical and strategic game, but their social game has a lot to be desired, and Void agrees to the plan. Void then is able to beat out Erik in the final immunity challenge, and he keeps his word, sending Luther and Ellie to fire. Luther's survival skills aided him immensely in this final challenge, and he wins the fire making challenge with a handy lead. Ellie becomes the 14th and final member of the jury. Our third all male final three consists of Void, Erik, and Luther. Void is called out for trying to be seen as trustworthy, while being caught in multiple lies during the game. Luther's game is seen as weak all-around, since he followed Void and Erik and didn't really do much in the game. He does get some votes due to how bitter the jury is towards Void and Erik, and he gets Ava, EJ, Maddie, and Marshall's votes. Kim, NK, and Vaso all respected Void's game, so they voted him to win. Ultimately, Erik is voted the winner of the final newbie season of King's Survivor due to having a great social and physical game, and never receiving a vote throughout the entire game. He may not have had the best strategic game, but he didn't need it to win the game. Void wins the Fan Favorite for being the biggest personality of the season and for his robbery.
Winner: Erik LeFort, u/Gemini_B Fan Favorite: Alfred "Void" Vallentino, u/swoldow
For King's Survivor's last season, we will be going out with a bang. 20 memorable contestants who never won before will compete for one last chance at the million, and one will win. Who will be on this season? We will find out soon enough.