Doctor Who, S9 Ep1

Doctor Who, S9 Ep1

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's the beginning of the long awaited ninth series of Doctor Who ! Here's the review for the first episode ! Let's get started, shall we ?

The Magician's Apprentice

So, here are the three words I've chosen for this episode :

- Rock and Roll : I found that quite funny to see the Doctor doing a rock concert right in the Middle Ages, so let's talk about that. Actually, this is quite different from the casual "Time Lord ceremonial before death" thingy where they are supposed to be silent and meditate on the absence of their existence and stuff. Also talking with "futuristic" words for this time, like "dude", was very funny. But it's only to show that he's about to die. Maybe it's from his rebel side, he doesn't want to show his emotions so he's making a lot of noise to avoid thinking about it. Even when he says "There's still today !", he's denying the fact that he's about to die. Or so he thinks.

- Shame : As we can see, the Doctor is quite ashamed of something in this episode, and it's letting Davros survive a war against dead hands in the ground with eyes that kill people and stuff (it may sound funny right now but they do NOT look funny in the episode, believe me). And that led Davros to create the Daleks, him to believe that he's going to die, and everything that happened in this episode (like Clara and Missy dying too). So, he decides to go and kill Davros when he was a kid, but will he make it ??? (supposedly not since the Daleks must continue existing, will of the original creator. I think it was just some bluff and then he'll save the day with a miracle and everything will go back to normal !!!)

- Confession : What makes Clara very angry is that the Doctor sent his will to Missy and not to her. Just like in the series 8 finale, when Missy said she's the Doctor's friend, and that despite all the fights they had aginst each other, it was just "friendship stuff" (well I don't know what she means by that but it's not a casual friendship), and Clara, who thought she was the Doctor's best friend as much as he's her best friend, is quite upset about that. Anyways, now we know how the Time Lords prepare themselves to die ! *I wanted to be funny about death but it looks like it's a fail hahaha*

Overall impression : It was a brilliant episode, a great opening and it's bugging me SO MUCH that we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how this story will be concluded ! ARGH !!!

Anyways, that's it for today, I really hope that you enjoyed this post and I'll see you very soon with a new one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Tide High, Tide Low

Tide High, Tide Low | How I can't regulate my emotions

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's another shitty post about my personal problems but I've found something interesting while reading Misery from Stephen King (review coming up as soon as I finished it btw) : the main character, Paul Sheldon, describes his mental state as a « tide high, tide low » situation, and he's alright when it's high because it hides things in the water and he's not when it's low because there are menacing things coming outside of the sand (if I remember correctly, it's a mettalic object that looks like a jaw or something like that).

But I would like to use that image for a personal problem : my emotional regulation.

What I mean by that is that when the tide is high, there are SO MANY emotions going through my mind, joy and sadness, anger and guilt, hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, illusions and delusions, and so on. I am drowning in those emotions because they are represented by the water around me, and I'm suffocating in them. And it feels just like a whirlwind of things that I can't escape. The main consequence is that I care too much when the tide is high, and I tend to have too much empathy and hurt myself to help others during these moments.

But when the tide is low, the only thing left is the dry sand. I am numb, emotionless, I don't feel anything AT ALL. My mind just becomes a blank page where nothing is written. The water has left me, I can breathe and, unlike when the tide is high, actually function in society. But I've lost my empathy and I just don't care anymore. Here, the main consequence is that I put myself first and people notice that my empathy has gone away, so they think I'm just a very whiny self-centered selfish little b*tch and then they leave me behind.

But the main problem isn't my total inability to control my own emotions : the main issue, in my opinion, is that in EVERY case, whatever the tide is high or low, I ALWAYS feel guilty for the state I'm in. If the tide is low, I'll blame myself for not feeling anything at all and being a heartless and emotionless little living corpse. If the tide is high, I'll feel SO MUCH PAIN that I'll just want it to go away and I'll blame myself for being unable to cope with these feelings.

Alright, I think that's it. Oh, and last thing : just like the tides in the ocean, it changes MULTIPLE times everyday. And it doesn't show on my face, so people talking to me NEVER know if the tide is high or low when they come up to me.

Anyone else has this problem ?

Anyways, that's it for today ! I hope that you enjoyed this post and I'll see you very soon with another one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

My song was stolen

My song was stolen

Or “I had a song with my dad but he doesn't know the true meaning of why we were listening to it on repeat in the car”

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here's a little more personal story that I wanted to get out there, because I wanted to vent. I am going to be pretty open about the fact that my parents divorced when I was only two years old and that I had a pretty hectic relationship with my dad until the age of twelve when I stopped seeing him altogether.

But here's a little story about us that I wanted to share today. When I was a kid, my dad and I used to listen to this song called J'ai demandé à la lune from the French rock band Indochine, when we would go back from his house to my mother's one, in his car. I don't really think my father understood why. Maybe he just thought it was a nice song to listen to. And he must be really dumb to think that way because the song is in French and we are too. Because even if I was just a kid (I think I gave myself the meaning of the lyrics when I was eight or nine so it means a lot), I really wanted to get my message through this song.

(here is the link if you want to watch the clip)

So, this song is the story of a man who's alone, hurt and who is searching for help. The moon, according to him, is laughing at him and telling him that no one will help him. But he says things along the lines of “me and you, we'll get it through, we'll see the end of the tunnel one day, it's just a little adventure, we have to carry on”. And then you see that he has a baby in his hands. That's the first part. The second part is the now-father and his daughter singing together the same verse from the first part... you know what I mean, “it's just a little problem, but we'll see the light one day”.

But the most important part is the bridge when the girl is growing up and here's my translation of the lyrics :

“I don't have much to tell you

Or much to make you laugh

Because I always imagine the worst

And the best makes me suffer”.

(yes it doesn't rhyme anymore now that it's in English but it rhymes in French I can assure you.)

So, to me, the singer was my dad and I was the little girl. I wanted to tell my father that no matter what was happening between us, it was okay and I wanted things to get better in life, as we were having problems and I was seeing a psychologist between the ages of six/eight and fourteen, for that and other problems that were going on in my life at the time. I also wanted to hear that from my father, that he could make everything okay, that he always loved me no matter what and that he would never give up on me. (p.s. : it never happened and that's why I don't see him anymore.)

p.s. : another great lyric is at the beginning of the second verse, where it says “i asked to the moon/if you still wanted me”. Me asking my dad if he still wants me or hearing that from him ? Guess we'll never know...

But I guess my dad never understood that.

And now, not only my two little sisters are the ones singing along with my dad on repeat in his car without even knowing why, but it's also a version where the lyrics in the bridge (so the MOST IMPORTANT LYRICS EVER IN MY OPINION) have been cut. And EVEN MY OWN DAD DOESN'T KNOW why he's still singing that song.

Conclusion : it was my song and I was singing along to it and now you only have people who don't know why they are singing it that are doing it. Seriously, when it happened (my little sisters + my dad singing along to the song), I couldn't even move my lips, but I wanted to turn the radio off, or just cry and yell at them THIS IS MY SONG!!! HOW DARE YOU SING IT!!! IT WAS MINE AND HERE'S THE MEANING!!! SO SHUT THE F*CK UP NOW!!!

But I didn't do any of that stuff. Guess I should tell him about my interpretation of the song... don't you think ?

Okay, that's it for today ! I hope that you enjoyed this post and I will see you very soon with another one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

The Tea Cup

The Tea Cup

Or “how NBC's Hannibal's idea of the 'tea cup' made me understand something about my depression and my recovery”

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, if you don't watch NBC's Hannibal, maybe you won't get it. But in one episode of season two, when ***SPOILER ALERT*** Abigail Hobbes “dies”, Hannibal and Will talk about it in Hannibal's office. ***END OF SPOILER ALERT*** Then, Hannibal tells Will the story of the tea cup. When a tea cup is let down and breaks on the ground, and only pieces are shattered on the floor, you just can't fix it, now that it's broken. You wish that you could turn back time to save it, to prevent it from falling down, but it's too late now.

And how is it related to depression, you might ask ? Well, it's very simple : sometimes, I (and, I think, other people do that too) think about who I was before my depression. You know, sometimes, my mom keeps bugging me with this image of a cheerful, outgoing, full of life, ray of sunhine of a girl that according to her, I used to be. But I've been depressed for the last five years now. The little girl is gone. She's dead, at the age of fourteen, killed by the harsh reality of making something with your life (I am working on that point now, thanks for asking, by the way).

And I am not going to cry about it anymore. I cried enough, you know. And you see, that tea cup ? It was my identity before my depression. It broke. The pieces are on the floor, scattered and it's impossible to reassemble them. People are walking on it and it hurts. It hurts SO BADLY.

But you know what ? You can't fix what has been broken beyond repair. The old tea cup you used to have ? It's unusable right now. You can't glue the pieces and hope that you can drink hot tea in this mess you now have. And even if you could fix this old tea cup, it would be so fragile, so vulnerable, so weak that it wouldn't even survive the first tea drop.

So, what do you do ? You just build another tea cup. I know that it's going to be hard, because the first tea cup, your first identity, you were given it by your family, your parents, your friends. You just had to glue sticks on them to make it more personal, more you. You were never asked to build your own tea cup. And now that it's broken by the events of life, you have to build it. Put your hands in the ceramic, forge the new shape you want to give to it, use brushes to paint it. You don't know how to build a tea cup, there is no guideline to do it. But you just do it, because you really like tea (and drinking it).

I know that the first tea cup you make will break down. And then, the second one, the third one too. Unless you're a genius at making a tea cup, it will take you time, and patience, and efforts, before you finally get the tea cup you've always wanted. You will try thousands of different tea cups, you will change them, have remissions, have relapses. And it will hurt, and you will be tired. Whine whine moan moan.

But you see, one day, when you have just the perfect tea cup, you'll see that your efforts have been worth it. You'll see the beauty of life, while sipping tea with your loved ones, an existence that you thought you would never see again, and the happiness will come at you. I PROMISE.

But until then ? Just do like me : keep making those tea cups. Drink your tea in usable ones that you can dump in the trash bin whenever you want before making a new one. Keep changing. Your life is not going to stay like that forever. Because now, it's time to give yourself the priority. Not to others.

Also, the most important : DON'T USE THE PIECES FROM THE OLD TEA CUP TO MAKE THE NEW ONE. The result will just don't work, be ugly or break. Start from new ! And ONLY new !

Okay, that's it for today ! I hope that you enjoyed this post and I will see you very soon with another one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Am I Heartless ?

Am I Heartless ?

Reflections on aromanticism, amatonormativity and the “couple pressure”.

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, as you guys probably know (and I've made a post about it on this blog already), I am a pan demi-romantic asexual. And I know that sometimes, it's just not easy to remind yourself that being who I am is actually... very normal. For the first eighteen years of my life, I've been SO confused about my sexuality, and my sexual orientation, that I didn't know what to think about it.

And even nowadays that I finally have the label that suits me the best, I still struggle to keep it normal. My sexuality and sexual orientation keep fluctuating and what/who I want keeps changing as well. And I've felt romantic attraction only twice in my life, to the point that I almost can relate to the aromantic people out there. I mean, I am still craving for a romantic relationship, but until then, I feel nothing. Towards no one. EVER.

What used to hurt me the most (and it still does sometimes) is some people telling me things along the lines of :

“But... are you in a relationship ?”

“ Do you even have a boyfriend or not ?”

“ Have you ever been in a relationship ?”

“ But isn't there anyone you're interested in right now ?”

“ Don't you just have a crush out there in the world ?”

And then the question popped up in my head. Am I heartless ? For not feeling anything towards anyone ? For being nineteen and still a virgin who's never been in a relationship ? For not having “a romantic relationship (preferably with a boy to please this heteronormative society I live in)” in my priorities ? For being single and proud ? For putting myself first before a relationship that could hurt me, or even destroy me ?

And then, the question stayed. Am I heartless ?

“ How come you're almost twenty and you've never been in a relationship ?”

“ Ding dong two decades of a lonely life...”

“ You're going to end up alone ! You're going to DIE alone !”

are the nagging thoughts in my head right now. And then won't leave me. They just don't want to.

And then the question didn't want to leave my mind. Am I heartless ?

But you know what ? I don't give a single f*ck anymore. First of all, aromantics (and to a certain extent, people on the aro spectrum) are capable of love. Love is more than the romances that I am FED UP with everyday. Platonic love is as strong as any other love out there. This is how I understood the word amatonormativity. The word just means “the assumption that everyone is looking for a monogamous, centered, exclusive and romantic relationship, and that this kind of relationship is preferred to any other relationship type”.

It's just another word to say “romantic bullsh*t you have to live with everyday”, me says. This “couple pressure” that society has put me in ? I don't want to hear it anymore. So, to answer the question: Am I heartless ?, the answer is no. Obviously. I just see things from a different perspective. Maybe that one day, I'll find the one. I'll get in a romantic relationship and things will be amazing. But until then ? Oh my god, PLEASE spare me your romantic bullsh*t. Thank you very much.

Oh, and little addition : I just wanted to add the fact that aromantics don't necessarily end up alone. You know, they have a little something called a “queer-platonic relationship”. Just look it up, you might learn something today.

Okay, that's it for today ! I hope that you enjoyed this post and I will see you very soon with another one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Hannibal, S3 Ep13

Hannibal, S3 Ep13

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, that's it, sadly. The review for the season finale of Hannibal is right here... and it will HIT YOU IN THE FEELS. Seriously, it was SO Hannigram I was shaking the whole time. Anyways, let's get started for the review, shall we ?

The Wrath Of The Lamb

So, here are the three words I've chosen for this episode :

- Faking : First of all, the Dragon fakes his death to go and get Will and Hannibal. So, Reba was tricked into believing that his body was the one on the floor when she got the key and ran away. I don't think that Francis wanted to hurt Reba (since he said he had shared with her, even just a little), and when he was about to kill Will, he chosed to have a meeting with Hannibal instead because he wants to share with him too. And in the end of the episode, he tried to kill Will and Hannibal. But he was killed, and the blodd spilling from his back made the shape of the wings of the Dragon. Ding Dong the Dragon's dead.

- Deal : In this episode, Francis makes a deal with the FBI and wants to see Hannibal. But as Hannibal himself only wants Will to ask him, he has to go and ask him and he even said pretty please to convince him, in the end. So, Hannibal running away (he even told Alana he would try to do it) with Will was a little bit predictable. The FBI's intention as to kill Francis, Francis' intention was to kill Hannibal, Will's intention was to run away with Hannibal, and Hannibal's intention was to run away in the end. We don't see much of Jack after that and Alana and Margot end up leaving with their child to run away from Hannibal, and the only information we have from Bedelia is the end scene after the credits.

- Hannigram : Obviously, we can't talk about this episode without talking about Hannigram. Well, sounds like it's canon now, right ? I mean, Bryan Fuller always said it would happen, and indeed, it did. We saw them run together. As Will told Hannibal (and I already talked about that previously, so I was right), Hannibal had decided to surrender to let Will know where he is and how he can find him, always. The conclusion of their story (for this season) is that they both jump off a cliff (seriously, this is a serious cliffhanger). But, after the credits, we see Bedelia eating her own leg, while she's scared and trying to hide a fork, and two other plates are dressed up. So... Is she waiting for someone ? Probably Will and Hannibal being the most adorable murder husbands out there.

Overall impression : A BRILLIANT finale ! It was perfect (even if the cliffhanger will probably stay FOR FOREVER on my stomach if it REALLY ends like that). SO HANNIGRAM. Couldn't be better !

Okay, that's it for today ! I hope that you enjoyed this post and I will see you very soon with another one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !

Childhood Story #4

Childhood Story #4

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here it comes ! Another Childhood Story ! As September comes to a beginning tommorow, I wanted to send some good luck to all of those going back to school even if they do not want to go back for some reason, or even for no reason at all, and, since I actually liked September, at times, here is the reason why September should be the month for new starts, new opportunities, and new experiences for your entire life.

Those Times When I Actually Liked September

Actually, this reason is not even related to work, or to Pumpkin Spice Lattes that you can buy at your local Starbucks. It's not because of Halloween because it's in October, and not for winter because it's not cold enough yet. So, what is the reason, you may ask ? Well, it's because of...

MOTHERF*CKING. ALMONDS. Nothing else, really.

Every year, since I was a child, a couple of days before going back to school, we used to go, my mom, my little brother and I, to my uncle's house, to say hello before we would go back to school. My uncle lives in the countryside with his now wife and kids, and he has a big almond tree next to the porch of the house. So, as we would be hungry all the time, my brother and I would climb that tree, pick up some almonds, break the shells with two rocks and eat the almonds. In the end, our mother told us that we should always ask our uncle before taking them as we would sometimes take them every time we went to the countryside, whether he was there or not.

Sometimes, we would be invited in my uncle's house, and with his wife, we would make some cakes with these almonds. We would put them in boxes, leave some for my uncle and his wife, and take the rest with us back home where we would eat them for a snack, and they were delicious. Now, I don't even remember the recipe and I am vegan, so I have to find another recipe (and an oven, since I live alone without one now), but other than that, yes, there were MARVELLOUS. AMAZING. YUM-YUM, me says.

And there would be years when we wouldn't have the time to go there before going back to school, or we would go later than expected because we were busy with life... so I would be a motherf*cking b*tch and keep whining until my mom would tell me if we were going, and if so, when we would go, because these almonds are delicious. Even now, I eat almonds that I buy at the grocery store, but believe me, they are nothing compared to my uncle's almonds. And when we wouldn't go and miss the almond season, and my uncle would tell me that all the almonds are either gone or eaten, I would cry a lot. And now that the tree is sick, I am very worried about it dying, because there would be no almonds. Very sad, me thinks.

So, yes. I ACTUALLY liked September. When all the kids would be stressed to go back to school and have to work again, I would just be patiently waiting for my delicious almonds. Of course I was as stressed as all the other kids to go back to school, if not more than them ; but I would focus on the positive, the almonds, and I was happy to know that there was something good to wait for in September. Even such a little thing as almonds.

In the end, the moral of the story is that if you're stressed about September, going back to school, thinking about it all the time will not solve the problem. What can help you, however, is thinking about something good, even a little thing, that will make September easier for all of you.

And remember : I've read somewhere that the stress and anxiety level of high-school students nowadays is equal to the one experienced by mental asylum patient in the 1950's. So stay healthy, stay motivated, little students out there, because it won't last. I promise.

Okay, that's it for today ! I hope that you enjoyed this little story and I will see you very soon with another one !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !