SadMusicPhile

so all of this wasn't him trying to look innocent. this was him actually being innocent.

Do you hear me?

DISABILITY BENEFITS SHOULDN’T BE TIED TO THE INCOME OF A DISABLED PERSON’S PARTNER/SPOUSE/PARENT.

If we had walked inside holding hands

Pressed into each other laughing and smiling

And wearing our rings

I wonder if one of us had been a man

They want you to say you were in a horrific accident or that you have a well known and treatable disease because they think they can stop it happening to them.

They think their health is a given because they aren't a dangerous driver/ an alcoholic/a drug user/obese/an unhealthy eater etc. Obviously this isn't true but it's easier for them to think of it like that.

Until one day they meet someone who did nothing. They're not really asking "what's wrong with you". They're asking "what went wrong" because they think they can avoid it.

So when they meet someone who made all the right choices, who was healthy, who was safe and one day woke up sick and never got better, it scares them because some part of them realises that it could happen to them.

They can exercise and eat a balanced diet and be as careful as possible and it doesn't do a thing and they can't do a thing about it. That terrifies able bodied people.

Back in my thoughts again, you know the drill. A bit lengthy!!

I cannot stop thinking about this scene—how Steven clearly remembers that this was his room,

And how he remembers the exact thing he said during this part of the scene, which proves that he was, in fact, in control for at least a couple seconds.

BUT. He doesn’t remember anything from this moment forward. That’s why he wanted to see what their mother did to them, and that’s why Marc was set on getting him out of the room before he saw something that would severely taint his memories and what he knew of their childhood. At the same time, Marc knows EXACTLY what happened.

I’m positive that Steven dissociated at that moment and Marc took over. In general, he didn’t want Steven to remember what truly happened. It’s his way of making up to Randall/RoRo, I would like to believe. He treats Steven like the younger brother that he lost when he was a child. The one who loved drawing the one finned fish. The one who was always eager for adventure. The one who was screaming for help back in the cave.

Remember? His mother explicitly stated:

“Marc, what do you do? Keep an eye on your brother, okay?” And Marc is set on fulfilling that promise to Steven.

Marc let Steven keep all the good memories, while he himself lived through all of the bad ones, just so that he could protect him from getting hurt and feeling pain. Steven, his alter, who he considers to be his little brother.

That’s the reason why Marc was so adamant about simply telling Steven what had happened in that room at the top of the flight of stairs, so Steven wouldn’t have to watch the memory play out in front of him. Seeing what happened would definitely hurt more than just knowing what happened. By telling Steven himself, he would have control over what he would reveal to him, and how he would tell him.

That’s why Marc’s first thought when waking up in the Asylum was Steven. That’s why Marc never complained about fronting right after Steven was pierced by the weapons back in Mogart’s. That’s why Marc probably set up a line for Steven to contact “his mother”, and why Marc replaced Gus with another fish. That’s why Marc didn’t want Steven finding out about him in the first place.

Marc spent most of his life protecting and saving Steven the way he wished he could’ve protected and saved Randall. I am literally bawling over this.

But the answer, it turns out, is I was doing something. Riding in a car jars your body in many directions and requires constant microadjustments of your muscles just to stay in place and hold your normal posture. Because you're inside the car, inside the situation, it's easy not to notice all the extra work you're doing just to maintain the status quo.

There's all sorts of work that we think of as "free" that require spending energy: concentrating, making decisions, managing anxiety, maintaining hypervigilance in an unfriendly environment, dealing with stereotype threat, processing a lot of sensory input, repairing skin cells damaged by sun exposure, trying to stay warm in a cold room.