#life before mari

[mari-vargas]

Hello everyone, I have something I feel the need to talk about.

But first, a question: if you saw someone wearing glasses or someone told you they were wearing contacts would you ask them if they had considered not wearing them anymore?

For the most part the answer to this would be no. Sure there’s surgery but that’s not an option for everyone. Also sometimes your prescription changes and you end up not needing glasses anymore or maybe you need a stronger correction. But most people would not suggest a person permanently stops using what they need to see.

Why then do people, upon learning I take a daily medicine for ADHD (and now more recently also one for anxiety), ask me “Have you considered getting off of the medication?” I’ve also been asked “How do you feel about being on a medication that changes your personality?” and countless other questions along the same veins.

Well, gee, HAVE I considered not needing to be medicated? Here’s the thing: I am fully aware of the state of my self when I am unmedicated—not in the moment of course, that’s sort of the point, but rather due to being able to tell the difference when I AM medicated. My prescription changes sometimes as new demands on my life change my ability to manage my self, and who knows maybe someday the prescription will lower but the fact of the matter is that in the here and now it is in fact DANGEROUS for at least my well-being for me to not be medicated.

Then there’s the suggestion that my medications change my personality. I’ll be honest—I was supremely baffled when I was first asked this. Especially because the person asking hadn’t ever seen me truly unmedicated: he’d essentially seen me medicated or passing out on his couch because I sleep better hearing my friends’ voices. Point being he had never seen me before I had already been diagnosed and being treated for ADHD for years. So how had he drawn that particular conclusion? I’m still not really sure but I decided to set aside my utter confusion and instead consider if there was a difference in my personality. The answer, obviously, is no there’s not. However there might be a difference in my perceived personality maybe but anyone who knew me both before and after I was diagnosed had already gotten past my struggles with expressing my self and had seen my core personality—me finally being able to express myself hadn’t changed it, it was just more visible to the wider world.

My medications help me to function, keep up with, and understand the world around me—just the same as my correctional lenses do. And yet I am heckled for my medications far more often than the fact that I use glasses to see.

[kodaibara]

Just a normal autumn day in the life of Mary, foraging for some mushrooms to put in a nice soup…

There hasn’t been a single day i haven’t missed her

[spatialwave]

simply imagining marie and jordan’s first real argument that doesn’t have to do with anyone else - just their own frustrations with each other. maybe jordan hasn’t been as kind to marie as they should be, course work has filled them with stress and made them snappier than usual.

they’re in jordan’s dorm room, voices snapping at each other back and forth. blaming each other for small things that don’t really need any blame. one forgot to say good morning, while the other gave the cold shoulder.

jordan raises their voice and steps forward towards marie when they were hit with blame, exasperated and tired of this stupid argument. this makes her step back, eyes widening. oh, fuck.

they shift into their female form, regret filling them when they realized how intense they must’ve looked, almost like they were towering over her and radiating anger.

they make up with tears and gentle apologies. promising to each other that they’ll communicate better with each other.

[fitzrove]

Bad dark joke but I feel like cultural representations of crown prince rudolf and the extreme overemphasis/influence of 1888-1889 in discussions of him are kind of like the internet meme thing with blobfish. Like that's his sad corpse you're parading around and showing to people,,,,,

[fictionadventurer]

I didn't realize just how much Little Town on the Prairie meant to me as a book. I've barely started and every bit feels iconic. This one and Little House on the Prairie feel more like home than most of the other books do.

[supergraphicultramoderngirl]

rosamund’s scene was soooo aspec coded it’s insane

[enbysiriusblack]

remus loves folklore books, lily loves fantasy books, regulus loves classical books, peter loves comic books, emmeline loves detective books, dorcas loves poetry books, mary loves romance books, james loves sci-fi books, marlene loves rock magazines, sirius loves play scripts

[foolsocracy]

I really like how you've been developing MJ's character, it really feels like she's a part of the family. It's also nice to think Peters less alone than he thinks he is

thank you!! :,] she really is a part of the family to me. i love MJ too much to sideline her. In the noir comics her and peter really do have absolutely 0 romantic chemistry but thats okay because it gives me the perfect reason to give the two of them more of a sibling dynamic. ive been starting to piece together exactly what their history entails, and i think i might make a little relationship chart of them over the years to post.

"its also nice to think peter's less alone than he thinks he is" SO REAL. MJ's noir character is really needed. Her and May both have lessons Peter needs to learn if he's ever going to be okay in any semblance of the word. Its set up in vol 1 issue 1 of the comic that Peter is so angry he's going to burn himself down to the ground. I think MJ wanting to be an actress/interested in the arts is a perfect way to start to curb Peter a bit.

there is soo much poetry and writing and art about how its the little things that make you a person & get u through the day. Something about how people have been making art for as long as people have been people, and how thats a way to connect to the world around u despite feeling alone. Or that one quote "in the dark times, will there also be singing? yes, there will be singing about the dark times."

Noir peter is on a slippery slope because he's fighting to make the world a better place, but because he can't see past the corruption that makes up the world, he sees the bad in everything and everyone before anything else. At some point there'll a point where he wont see a city worth saving anymore. Like at the end of Eyes w out a Face, the world is full of decent people, not good. He's approaching that point. But then again, there's MJ sitting right next to him, saying things are going to get better. in his universe, you really have to actively look for good things, but that doesn't mean they're not there.

this is an incredibly longwinded way of saying yeah, MJ is a part of his family and could very well be an integral part of not losing himself as he continues on as the spider man

[ryuvnosuke]

i'm thinking about what if gin didn't change her whole appearance to work. what if she was soft and delicate and beautiful all the time. what if she wore her white dress and left her long, black hair down all the time. what if the last thing you see before you die is an angel

[sisterdivinium]

"We can't kill this woman, she's astounding" -- I couldn't agree more with what was said of Sylvia by Mr Hayter himself after the revelation that they were going to kill Superion off. Wow.

Then again, this ties in with one of the many things I eventually want to talk about concerning what the show did or didn't do with its older cast and it's very interesting to see that... The older characters really were in peril and escaped death thanks to decisions made in the writers' room later on, mostly because they liked the actors so much. Narratively speaking, within the genre, it was very likely we'd see them go and these comments by one of the writers confirm it.

Good thing the show really didn't care about sticking to the conventional!

[shurington]

MARIE MOREAU THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE, HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS WILL BE!!!

[scoobydoodean]

I see this held up as major proof of Dean's badness, but couldn't it also be proof of Cas having faith Dean can get past anything without Cas having to change his behavior? The way it's structured the onus is on DEAN to work through it, not others to change or make amends. ---- CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on.

I see what you mean in a general sense, and it's extremely possible that Cas is thinking about his own past fights with Dean and Dean forgiving him, and from the perspective of the critique you have in mind that you're refuting, I agree. But of course deancrit casgirls will forever insist that Cas has never in his life done anything harmful to Dean either accidentally or on purpose, so any time Dean might dare try to hold him accountable for anything, he's actually just making shit up and being toxic and controlling, so here Cas is just apologizing for his own abusive relationship. You can only get their take by being deliberately obtuse/disingenuous.

That said, the context of that line (from 15.13 "Destinty's Child") is Cas answering soulless Jack's question about whether Dean will eventually forgive him for murdering Mary.

CASTIEL: Hey, Jack. JACK: Cas, you know what's good about being dead? CASTIEL: Uh, as I recall, very little. JACK: Well, when you come back, you – you really get into all that life is. Hot, cold, sweet, spicy, funny, scary. CASTIEL: And are you? "Into it"? JACK: I want to be. But I don't... feel things the way I used to. Before I lost my... CASTIEL: Your soul. JACK: I used to feel things. In my bones. It was glorious, and sometimes unbearable. But I felt them. Now, I understand joy or sadness, but... I know those things aren't in me. I understand why Sam and Dean were angered by what happened to Mary... CASTIEL: By what you did to Mary. JACK: Yes. I see that I've caused them pain. And it's clear that things have changed. Especially with – with Dean. Will he ever forgive me? CASTIEL: You know, Dean, he – he feels things more acutely than any human I've ever known. So it's possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode and let it all out and breathe deeply and move on. JACK: How long will that take? CASTIEL: I don't know.

And yeah—I have seen people refer to Cas's little speech here as "condoning child abuse" and other bullshit. Because how DARE Dean not forgive soulless Jack for murdering his mother (something soulless Jack is unable to actually really acknowledge he did). I mean clearly any time someone murders your mom because she made them mad and threatened their sense of security by asking if they're okay and saying their concerning actions can’t stay a secret… That’s just natural understandable stuff! You need to forgive the person who murdered her instantly and if you don’t idk you’re kinda overreacting don’t you think? :/ I mean your mom probably deserved it kind of anyway for reading the room so wrong and talking about getting a person help. And I mean if you don't forgive the person who killed your mom or do anything trying to stop them from hurting more people you're really a child abuser... toward an adult... who murdered your mother in cold blood and is unable to even understand why it was wrong in any sense other than an intellectual one like he read it from a book... preferring to refer to it as "What happened to Mary" instead of acknowledge it as something he himself did because he was mad and felt threatened—which is what he circled back to in "Jack In The Box" too. It's only when Jack gets his soul back that he's able to actually feel true empathy, acknowledge his real actions and the gravity of them, and give an actual sincere apology. Because his soul is actually important—something this fandom refuses, by and large, to notice.

Anyway, this fandom's take on Mary's murder and soulless Jack vs. regular Jack is overwhelmingly a bag of wet third grader vomit and feces so what can one expect?

[yergink]

so i was thinking about the anniversary flashback and there’s something interesting about the way stede and mary’s gifts are really just them misguidedly presenting each other with what they think will be the solution to the problem that is their marriage. 

mary gifts stede the lighthouse painting and specifically calls back to what they were told at their wedding. she’s saying “let’s remember what is expected of us.” she’s sort of. tethered, i suppose, to complacency here, and i feel like that’s reflected in what she says later, too. “we’ve only got this one life. we have to try, don’t we?” in this context, it’s kind of admittance that she doesn’t expect to ever have anything more.

then stede attempts to gift mary the revenge--by extension, a life away from society--and he’s really just begging her for an escape. like, he doesn’t know what the problem really is, but it’s like he knows it’s here on land and maybe, just maybe, if they got away, things would be better. 

and... neither of them are right in these solutions. on mary’s end--it’s never going to matter how much they try to be together, they’re never going to love each other, they’re never going to be happy in the life they have.

and for stede, he’s never going to have room for his self discovery if his family join him at sea. he needs to disconnect entirely from the societal pressures that have traumatized him. 

and it hurts so much more because they are both offering solutions. you could consider that they’re simply in denial about how broken their relationship is, but mary seems genuine when she says she doesn’t hate their lives enough to so completely upend them, and stede does seem excited at the prospect of his family joining him at sea. but at the same time they’re both just so horribly wrong here, and it’s because neither of them understand what the other really needs. staying on land and trying to make their marriage work will only drive stede further into his depression, and them going to sea would sever mary’s chance at getting what she needs (support, community, freedom). 

this is all what makes their conversation in ep 10 so much more meaningful. them sitting down together, finally and for once having an actual honest discussion is like a sigh of relief. they finally get the chance to see each other clearly for the first time and it’s. just so wonderful in comparison. 

[cassmouse]

My friends can no longer watch Final Destination 3 with me because I will not shut the fuck up about how big of a crush I have on Mary Elizabeth Winstead

[binch-i-might-be]

not to be a homosexual on main but the early seasons supernatural could have been improved 110% by switching John and Mary's roles within the narrative. let's fridge the loving husband and father for once and let the wife and mother spiral down a character devolvement that makes her hellbent on nothing but revenging her lost love, estranging & fucking up her young sons in the process. that would have been soooo hot and sexy. also consider a weathered middle aged woman carrying so many weapons. I would let her stake my heart no questions asked. no my mommy issues do not play into this in any way

[onefey]

don't talk to me rn i'm thinking about drawn to life for the nintendo ds (and its sequels)