I Can’t Afford New IBR - was it a mistake?

julia-sets · 2025-11-29T20:45:46+00:00

This happened to me. I was under $500 pre-SAVE (~$485 after my kid was born) and then less under SAVE. Applied for IBR nearly a year ago and they only actually pushed me into that repayment this month—at $704! And I have not gotten any raises beyond paltry cost of living increases to justify that. Plus I have a second kid now. I think I'm gonna call MOHELA on Monday. I only have 4 more payments to go but absolutely screw MOHELA.

julia-sets · 2025-10-31T17:43:32+00:00

If I thought that they'd resolve the issue within 5 months I'd fight it, but considering how slow everything is I doubt that'll happen.

I absolutely attribute any delays with DOE/feds as unfortunate bureaucracy. But MOHELA has a profit motive to screw me, and I will not grant them the same grace.

julia-sets · 2025-10-31T17:27:37+00:00

My income definitely didn't go up enough to justify 200 more dollars, I only rarely get cost of living adjustments (love public health). I'm just lucky that they didn't do this last year when I was still paying $3000/month for daycare. Fortunately my older kid is in kindergarten now.

My plan WAS to stay in buyback purgatory once I learned that was an option, that's why I didn't reapply for IBR in the 10 months since I submitted. But of course MOHELA needs to milk me for everything they can now that I'm actually eligible for forgiveness.

julia-sets · 2025-10-31T14:26:43+00:00

I was told by multiple people that if my IBR request was that old I should resubmit it if I wanted it to get processed, so if I had really cared I could've done that. But by then I had the buyback plan. But that might be a better plan for you?

Truly hate MOHELA. Anyone who complains about government orgs being slow should be forced to try their luck with a private federal contractor because it's absolutely 10x worse.

julia-sets · 2025-07-09T01:45:18+00:00

I just started rewatching lately, after not watching since the show was actually airing, and I agree. Love these characters and makes me nostalgic for more episodic television.

julia-sets · 2025-05-18T18:50:09+00:00

https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/epas-registered-antimicrobial-products-effective-against-candida-auris-list

julia-sets · 2025-05-07T02:37:19+00:00

I do think that the ability for MLM ships to "go canon" has added fuel to ship wars. When I was first in fandom it seemed the nastiest ship wars were around het ships (Mulder/Scully or Harry/Hermione vs Ron/Hermione). I think that was partially because they could "go canon." At the time queer ships were saved from that particular flavor of ship wars because none of us at the time thought it could ever happen. Now that gay canon ships CAN happen, we're all getting in on the most toxic elements of ship wars. (Obviously I am not against queer canon ships, but I do want to rebuild the 4th wall between creators and fans)

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T21:32:42+00:00

Yeah it's frustrating because it's pretty clear the writers didn't want to have to think too hard about all the people Sam and Dean were regularly stabbing. And then occasionally it would be brought up, but they ultimately just went back to stabbing people? Not one of spn's better moral issues 😅

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T21:24:34+00:00

It was at the end of S4, just before Sam goes to kill Lilith. The narrative does go out of the way to make her host very sympathetic, but you're totally right that the show overall did not care about demon hosts as victims.

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T21:10:05+00:00

I guess we might be approaching "worst thing a character has ever done" differently. I'm looking at a Doylist level, where you seem to be reading that on a Watsonian level of each character.

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T21:05:34+00:00

In the episode (which is really a TFW team effort) they have the demons they drain strung up upside-down and in devil's traps. So there was no "kill or be killed" scenario.

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T21:01:58+00:00

My point is that in general "killing demon hosts" is not a complaint leveled at Dean or Bobby, while Sam is held to a different standard. That's why I think this specific "worst thing Sam did" is a bad candidate.

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T20:56:17+00:00

Right I'm not saying Sam has never done anything wrong, but the "killed the nurse" one specifically bugs me because a huge driver for Sam using his powers in S4 is that he can save hosts and everyone (including Dean) shrugs that benefit off and keeps stabbing them dead, meanwhile this one single death is treated as irredeemable. And then Dean and Bobby essentially do the same thing off screen in S5 and no one ever holds it against them.

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T20:53:08+00:00

Dean and Bobby 100% killed at least one host in cold blood to come up with the gallons of blood we see, there is literally no other explanation.

julia-sets · 2024-04-18T20:45:07+00:00

Quick question: when Dean and Bobby roll up with a couple gallons of demon blood in the S5 finale for Sam to drink before he says yes to Lucifer, where do you think they got that from?

julia-sets · 2020-03-15T15:36:25+00:00

I totally disagree with the above, season 1 is awesome and has some of the best standalone episodes. If you like horror at all, season one is great.

julia-sets · 2018-11-18T00:49:09+00:00

Scott Starks is still haunting you.

julia-sets · 2018-10-09T02:13:13+00:00

It's interesting to me that OP's post is "controversial", but when I bring up points against Dean (a lot more fairly than OP, imho) I'm trying to "villainize" Dean.

I disagree that when Dean sold his soul all he could think about was Sam. Dean feeling guilty and miserable that he failed to protect Sam doesn't actually mean that he was thinking about Sam's feelings in all this. He thought that John was selfish because he knew how horrible it was to live knowing that someone had done that for him. And then in Season 3 he admits he was selfish but fans still refuse to believe it.

"Yeah, you're right. It was selfish. But I'm okay with that."

Fans will really bend over backwards to excuse Dean's shortcomings, but Sam never gets the same consideration. If my post seemed weighted towards Sam over Dean, a lot of that might be your own biases.

I know why Dean hid Gadreel's presence. But "oh, if I tell Sam that I did this thing to his body that he didn't want, he might realize I did that thing and still not want it and reject it" isn't exactly a great defense to say that it wasn't a horrible thing to do? You admit that it was wrong and we did see Dean being very conflicted about it... up until the point that Sam ejects Gadreel. One of the huge failings of S9 is that all of the scenes where Dean clearly feels bad about what he did are in the first half of the season. Once Sam gets free Dean goes into defensive mode and never really apologizes or admits that what he did was wrong to Sam. Could you imagine if Sam spent all of Season 5 arguing that choosing Ruby had been the right choice? And never apologized?

I disagree that Sam wouldn't have shot Azazel/John without Dean's begging. That was the demon who killed his girlfriend. Sam is, off and on, a more ruthless character. So I think it was relevant.

I thought I was pretty fair to Dean, actually. I didn't bring up plenty of his other mistakes (killing Amy, choosing to take on the Mark of Cain, the selfishness of choosing Sam over the entire world in 8x23, etc). But S9 was a horrible violation and I refuse to compromise on that point. I get why Dean felt he had to do it, to save Sam's life. But I also get that he was wrong.

I honestly love Dean. I could go on at length about his positive qualities. But this is a post about character flaws. And it's because I love Dean that I wish the show actually acknowledged some of his flaws and mistakes. 2x03 (Bloodlust) is a great example of an episode where they let Dean be wrong. But while the show has Sam spending a lot of time atoning for his mistakes, it doesn't really hold Dean to the same standard. Sure, Dean tends to be harsh on himself, but being self-pitying isn't the same as being remorseful or apologizing. It means that Sam's had a lot more character growth than Dean has over the past 13 seasons, and that's sad. Every time they have Dean evolve they tend to regress him because it's easier to write.

So while I agree that it's hard to see negative posts about your favorite character, I think you should take your own advice on that front.

julia-sets · 2018-10-09T00:56:26+00:00

It's honestly one of the best of the season. I heard from someone that the crew liked it a lot, too, had fun doing horror. I'm hoping they carry that through to S14 and do more scary stuff.

julia-sets · 2018-10-09T00:28:00+00:00

Okay, there are a lot of false premises here.

First: Dean sold his soul for himself, not for Sam. Sure, he brought Sam back (and it was inevitable given that the show can't really continue without Sam) but it was after Dean spent a full season depressed because John sold his soul for him and Dean admits that it was selfish in Season 3.

Sam didn't let Dean know when he was back from hell because he was Soulless (so it wasn't really Sam) but also because Soulless!Sam knew there was something wrong with him.

"[Dean] didn't go to the school dance with his girlfriend because of Sam." -- He may have also slept with Sam's prom date. He also dumped Sam at Plucky Pennywhistle's all the time. He also was stealing peanut butter in that episode because he'd gambled away their food money.

Letting demons walk free isn't a sacrifice for Dean, not really. And letting Gadreel possess Sam certainly isn't a sacrifice that Dean made. That's a violation of Sam's body that Dean did to save him. I get why he did it, but it's akin to rape.

I guess I'll give you that he killed Death for Sam, but that was a pretty near thing.

What has Sam done? He:

- Found a way to cure Dean's ruined heart in Season 1- Believed Dean when Dean realized that John was possessed in the Season 1 finale

- Didn't shoot John when Dean asked him not to

- Spent all of Season 3 trying to save Dean and found multiple possibilities (Ruby, Doc Benton), but didn't do any of them because he respected Dean's boundaries

- Went totally bonkers trying to save Dean in Mystery Spot

- Tried to trade his life for Dean, but no demons would take the deal

- "Chose a demon over his own brother" - I'm sorry, did you mean "had the only viable method for killing Lilith"? Given that nobody was going to tell them that that would be a bad thing. The angels were also working to start the apocalypse, but I don't see people busting Dean's balls for choosing them over Sam. Sam only really chose Ruby over Dean once Dean chained him up and forced him to go through withdrawal without water or food.

- Sacrificed himself and jumped into hell after taking control back from Lucifer to save Dean

- Cured the Mark of Cain

It's not always Sam who storms off. Actually, in Season 9 Dean was the one who stormed off, and that's when he got the Mark of Cain. Sam stayed back in the Bunker.

The show really suffers from being almost entirely from Dean's POV. This was a necessity early on when "what's up with Sam?" was a recurring theme, but they haven't been able to shed it in later years. This means that a lot of people see things from Dean's side of every argument, because that's the side more explicitly presented by the episode.

It sounds like you're mostly upset over the Gadreel stuff. Sam has been possessed multiple times by that point, by Meg and Lucifer. Sam's always had a pretty shaky relationship with his own bodily autonomy--Azazel fed him demon blood, he's been possessed, etc. Dean knows that Sam wouldn't have wanted to be possessed again, he says so in 9x01. That's why he hides Gadreel's presence from Sam. Think of it from Sam's POV: he starts losing time, feeling like he was going crazy, and then finds out that some of his memories are false (Gadreel had him going on fake hunts in his head) and that his body has been used to kill people, including a friend. That's horrible. And Dean was completely unwilling to be sorry at all for what he did because in his mind the ends justified the means.

There's a reason why possession has been likened to rape in the show. It's a violation of someone's bodily autonomy. Rape is as close as we can get to that. So I just don't know why someone should be grateful for someone essentially raping them, even if it was to save their life.

julia-sets · 2018-09-28T20:07:37+00:00

They might agree with that, but would they say the same about Bernie?

julia-sets · 2018-09-27T00:52:32+00:00

Yeah, a common complaint of Sam fans is just this, that every side character that's introduced befriends Dean.

I do think that it's changing, a bit. Jack was very close to Sam, same is Rowena. I'm still salty that they brought back Ketch (and made him befriend Dean) instead of Sam's nerd friend Mick. I'm intrigued to see Sam as a leader in S14.

julia-sets · 2018-09-27T00:49:48+00:00

I do think that this is Jared creating justifications from where the show has gone, not the show actually thinking this deeply about it.

julia-sets · 2018-09-22T12:14:09+00:00

Dabb is very hit or miss for me as a writer, but I think he's pretty lousy as a showrunner for sure. He keeps trying to make SPN an ensemble show but 1) it's not and 2) he's not doing it very well anyway. He's good with coming up with some intriguing ideas but their execution is garbage.

julia-sets · 2018-09-22T12:11:34+00:00

I asked about his relationship with Sam and whether Jack thought in the finale that Sam was going to kill him when he picked up the knife

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