[bigs my eyes at u] tell me about ur Mama Mutou. specifically her relationship w alcohol + partying, your tags on that last piece intrigue me
In her own childhood she got to visit family a lot as Solomon brought her along as he visited various game shops to take notes on how they set things up and what where the games the typically sold for inspiration for his own shop (it was always an odd space of the house. Mari-da never quite saw it as apart of the home until Solomon truly began to transform it into the Kame Game Shop). Because of the amount of times she got to see her family members she was often exposed to alcohol as at the time a majority of the adults drink to varying degrees. Because Solomon never drank in front of her and happened to never see her aunts and uncles drink in front of their children (though they did on occasion) she had figured that was the rule. That was how alcohol worked. A parent was never to drink in the presence of their own child (while they were still a kid because her grandfather drank in front of her dad plenty of times!) This became a indisputable fact to her, she's always hated when movies or comics include a moment of a parent so much as sipping a drop of liquor in front of their child. She found it disgusting. She never stopped finding it to be disgusting. It had also taken her until adulthood, around when Yugi started middle school, to find out her father was a light drinker. He never liked the idea of drinking in front of her, knowing it was a problem in the family and didn't want to add anymore fuel to the fire.
Unfortunately, those efforts had been in vain and she started drinking in between her high school graduation and entering college. At least thats what Solomon believes. She had started going to house parties (read: ragers in some randoms basement and/or living room) at around seventeen and when offered a drink she took it. She never thought anything of it, really. Alcohol had been so normalized in her life that she drank without a care
She considered parties to be her "reward" for being such a good student. Always getting her work done on time, always getting high scores and being well enough liked by her teachers (her idolization of the worst students in class wasn't a secret by any means. She always gave the 'pretty blonde girls' notes for the classes they missed ((skipped)) which had, unbeknownst to her, kept her from getting targeted by any of the surrounding gangs ((Domino city has just ALWAYS been crawling with criminals and gang members, especially around the school she had went too-- Rintama. She went because she liked the long walk ((and never transferred out because the area had the best parties)).)
By the time she got to college parties and clubs became less her reward and more of her given right. She was a highly functioning alcoholic (do not call her a recovered alcoholic, she deeply refutes that she ever was one. She just liked to have fun, okay?!) and kept her grades up. Her study groups would often include people who were actually just in need for a tutor rather than a partner, they quickly found out that she'd help them even on the night before exams so long as they invited her to the clubs they occasionally hung around. It was all in good fun for Mari-da. Plus she was helping people! There was nothing wrong with it.
And sure, she wanted a kid. She loved the idea of being able to raise a kind, genuine person. She loved the thought of helping them with their homework (especially math, she was always good at math. It wasn't a surprise to anyone that Solomon gifted her a jumbo sudoku book when she was thirteen made her lose her shit. The man had taught her the game three years prior, figuring it would be a good thing for her as she had outgrown her puzzles, finding them just as uninteresting as the other games around her.) and just watching them grow into themselves. She was so different from her father that she wanted to see how her own child would differ from her. But that was years away! She had all the time in the world to take her time slowing down her drinking. You can't drink in front of your child after all. Its a revolting thing to do, even just smelling like booze around your darling little boy or girl was vile. And then she got pregnant.
Some one night stand with a dude she didn't know and probably didn't even go to the same campus as her was the father she never bothered to look for. She was going to be a mother (Mari-da never actually questioned why she wanted to be a mother so badly, perhaps it was because she saw that she was one of the few amongst her peers with only a father in specific. She never cared that she didn't have a mother of her own, she liked that it was her and her father. She often wanted things she didn't actually care much about. She's gotten better at hiding her jealous tendencies but never actually broke away.) The years she thought she'd have were suddenly gone and she had to put her 'social life' on hold (Mari-da didn't exactly have close friends, just people she hung around with. It wasn't that people didn't like her, she was just a floater and her social life consisted of going to bars and getting shitfaced drunk on a friday night and crashing outside a library). Solomon was probably the only reason she managed to stick with her plan of going cold turkey, even when screamed and yelled that he didn't love her because he wouldn't let her go have fun. She'd threaten to just pack her bags and leave Domino all together yet was always found sitting alone in a park drinking the soda that Solomon had put in her bag the night prior. (It was always in that weird not warm but not exactly cold either state.) Mari-da was a functioning alcoholic but an utter mess as a recovering one. By the time Yugi was around four she began smoking both as a way to cope without liquor and a way she could cling onto her 'fun'. Much like how she paid no mind to the sneers she got for her loud makeup and revealing clothes before Yugi was born, she didn't care about the disgusted side-eyes she got while smoking outside. Now she tends to follow the social rules a bit closer, smoking in the designated areas or around the phone booth by the Muto home (it was far enough from the house that Yugi wouldn't have to smell it if a window was open).
Mari-da isn't home very often due to the profession she ends up taking, that being a flight attendant. She always wanted to travel in some sort of way, a lingering effect of the constant little trips Solomon took her on. And it's a very conflicting thing for her. She loves her job, she loves what she does and the people she meets and the places she goes. But it means not actually getting to be the mother she always wanted to be. It means leaving her father to raise her precious little boy, Yugi. But at the same time, she hates being in that house. It isn't the same as the one she was raise in somehow, despite them never moving. (Puzzle fucking with the house bullshit).
I think Mari-da would like Karuta but I cannot, with any levels of confidence, say Karuta would even...tolerate her. I don't think she'd be particularly thrilled with Mari-da's purposeful absence (no matter the fact that it eats up at her every day--that she hates what she's doing but can't bring herself to stay)
