Jay

chained up to the mountain, straight up "losing it" and by "it" , haha, well, let's justr say, my liver

a crucial part of torksmith is of course mike’s blistering jealously regarding so much of peter’s life. like he had a very comfortable upbringing and a peaceful relationship with his family and the facilities to not only go to college twice but flunk out both times to little consequence and lived largely as a unbothered drifter, where mike lived in relative poverty with his religious mother with whom he had a strained relationship and was forced into air force service and struggled through a college education and spent much of his early adulthood working to provide for his wife and child. i think mike perceived peter as ‘having things easy’ and so his opinions about social inequalities et cetera (despite being takes mike largely agreed with) had to have been informed by the inaccurate experiences of someone mike perceived to be sheltered. so nothing peter ever said to him and no advice peter ever gave to him encouraging him to loosen up and not grasp so desperately for control and let himself have and be these things that would obviously make him happy would ever be considered by mike as valuable or worth hearing out. so the one person in the same utterly horrific utterly unique situation as him with similar interests and feelings and takes about the world who was equipped perfectly to be able to understand and relate to mike was constantly turned away, not just for the unforgivable vulnerability he invited in mike but also because he just like everyone else mike has ever known was considered imperfect and unworthy by mike’s standards, so any attempt mike could’ve made to level with him would be in his eyes lowering himself, which mike refused to do.